Chapter 7: Betrayed, Betrayer

The X-Men jogged down the gray industrial hallway, seeing signs of Kitty's handiwork everywhere. Cameras fizzed and sparked from where she had passed through them, wrecking their circuits. Sabere waved the door open – use the Force, Luke passed irreverently through her mind – and found the other four waiting on the other side, on a landing of a huge staircase against the wall of an equally huge room.

"Good party?" Kurt asked with a casual grin. Sabere rolled her eyes and Storm laughed.

"I guess everything's under control, since we're just chatting," Logan insinuated. Scott nodded.

"Everything is. Kurt and Rogue took care of the laboratory, and Kitty just finished wiping their computers. We need to trash a few specimens and shred some files, but other than that – "

Sabere and Jean sensed it before it came, but too late to stop it.

"All of you, hands in the air!" Suddenly the hallway behind them and the stairs on either side were swarming with security officers, all heavily armed, all angry. Before the X-Men could even communicate a strategy, a woman in a white lab coat pushed to the front.

"Dr. Rao, you shouldn't be here," one of the officers said, but she waved a hand and cut him off.

"This is my lab and I don't trust you to secure it." Her brown eyes flashed under slender glasses. "I want to know what these people are doing in my building."
"Take a guess," Logan replied, brow furrowed. "You've got something you shouldn't be messing with." His claws were still popped, hands still exactly where the guards wouldn't want them to be – ready to slice.

"And as soon as I heard Jean Grey was attending Bishop's party, I sent for more security. There are a few more of you than I was expecting," she added, frowning at the newer members.

Scott unexpectedly took the diplomatic approach. "We intended to destroy this research over two years ago, with SHIELD's help."

Dr. Rao frowned more. "SHIELD gave me most of the materials I've been using since I started this project."

Sabere was taken aback and she glanced at Scott. As a newer member, she didn't know exactly how the alliance between the X-Men and SHIELD worked, but according to the looks on Scott's and Logan's faces, this was an unprecedented betrayal.

"Then," Scott said slowly, "I guess we're not meeting on equal terms here."

"I suppose not," Rao replied calmly. The guards waited for an order, and Sabere felt the inklings of a plan trickle from Jean into her mind. She had her task.

Logan lunged, Kitty phased Dr. Rao through the floor to safety, and Sabere and Jean threw out a telekinetic shield with enough force to throw most of the guards off the landing. Logan slashed the door closed behind them and rounded on Kurt. "Hope you found another way out of here, elf!"

Sabere saw Rogue leap off the landing after Kitty and Rao, but there was gunfire everywhere and oh God it felt like two years ago when Kurt was – focus! She didn't have her knives, but she had her powers, and she gathered her energy and shoved one, two, three guards off the stairs. Kurt 'ported up next to her, and suddenly she did have her knives, and suddenly the guards upstairs were arranged in a cluster and spitting bullets down at the X-Men. Sabere wrapped herself in a shield, feeling every bullet echo against her skin as her energy drained, and suddenly she was among the guards, knives in hand, slashing apart guns, and when they reached for more, slashing arms too. At last she found herself standing over four kneeling guards, all clutching at least one bleeding arm. She couldn't see their faces under the visors of their helmets, but whatever they saw must have taken the fight out of them, because they ran through the next door. Looking back downstairs, Sabere saw the last guard fall to Wolverine's claws.

"That's it?" she called down.

"Find Dr. Rao," was Scott's order. Sabere jumped off the stairs and floated herself down to the next level. Kitty lay against a doorframe, holding her head. She was bleeding between her fingers.

"What happened?" Sabere asked, dropping to her knees next to the girl, gently pulling her fingers away to heal the wound. Kitty squeezed her eyes shut. "It was…no, it couldn't have been Rogue…but Dr. Rao ran ahead of me…"

"Rogue?" Sabere asked in alarm. The wound was healed, and Sabere left Kitty to wait for the others while she sprinted down the hall. How far could Rogue have gotten? What the hell was she doing?

She caught up to her standing in an open door, the cold night breeze blowing in past her. Rogue turned around, tears spilling down her cheeks. Sabere couldn't even think what to ask – where was Dr. Rao, what happened to Kitty, why was she crying…

But Rogue spoke for herself. "I saved the master disk from the lab," she confessed. "Kurt gave it to me, told me to destroy it, but I couldn't, I couldn't rob the world of the chance to make that choice…" She brushed tears away but looked steadily at Sabere. "I gave the disk to Dr. Rao as she was running. I let her go."

Sabere slumped against the wall, overwhelmed. After all their attempts to make sure the mutant community could live in safety, with no fear of an unapproved drug being slipped into their meals, now a geneticist had all that information and all the drive to make sure it was completed. SHIELD had betrayed them, one of their own had attacked another and disobeyed orders…and all for nothing.

"Sabere, I had to." Rogue's cheeks were still shining with tears, but Sabere couldn't bring herself to lay any more blame. After all, Rogue was right – the X-Men alone couldn't decide for the world who had to remain a mutant and who got to live free and human.

"Scott won't be happy," she told her gently.

"I did what I thought was right. That's what Xavier always tells us – do what we think is right for the world, not just for our own agendas."

Sabere nodded. "Okay."

Kurt led the rest of the X-Men down the hall. He kept his face carefully blank, but Scott slid past him and his face was not so passive. Sabere dropped out of the way as Scott asked as calmly as could be expected what had happened. Rogue explained everything with more and more confidence. Scott shook his head, either too angry for words or unable to argue with her logic.

"I am also to blame," Kurt interrupted quietly. "I knew Rogue's concerns about this mission, and I gave her the disk knowing that she would make sure it escaped destruction." Scott folded his arms.

Kurt continued calmly. "I think she is right. We are not the only ones who can dictate the world's decisions. We must have some faith in the rest of the country, in other mutants, that this drug will be implemented wisely."

Scott finally nodded in assent.

"So this whole mission was for nothing?" Kitty asked quietly.

"They're like that sometimes," Scott answered glumly. "But we need to watch out for the consequences of this one. This is going to get worse before it gets better."

The rest of the X-Men nodded in agreement. Storm patted Scott's back and let the way outside.

"Come on, team," she called over her shoulder. "My feet hurt."

Sabere felt herself smile and followed the X-Men out into the night.

A/N: The end! I hope it was tolerable, if not enjoyable…review if you haven't, because we loves reviews, yes precious, we does. Now keep your eyes peeled for the real sequel. Thanks, everyone!

-LA