Rogue started. There was someone – No, there wasn't. Just her and Bobby. She couldn't see anyone else.
"Rogue!" She jumped round at the voice.
"Rogue?" Bobby said quietly, looking over her shoulder.
"I thought I heard-"
"Rogue, I have you, but only weakly. Stand still and close your eyes. Listen only to my voice and imagine me where I am, in Cerebro." It was The Professor. The Professor's voice in her head. He'd found them. Oh thank God, he'd found them. Rogue did as she was told, then she could hear him as though she was sitting right beside him.
"Help us." She said. "They're gonna be after us, you have to help us."
"I will, Rogue, I will. I just need to…" It was as though she felt him look away.
"Rogue?"
"It's The-" Then she felt Xavier find Bobby.
"That's all three of us then." He said. "Turn to Rogue's right, Bobby's left. That's your bearing. Keep running that way. There is something due north of you that's interfering with Cerebro. Is that the direction you came from?"
Rogue looked up. The Great Bear was behind them. "Yes."
"That's probably why I couldn't find you. Run south and keep running south. You're not so far away from us. I'm going to leave you and rouse The X-Men. Just keep running until they get to you."
,
Scott pushed the door of the infirmary open. "Jean." She looked up at him, she'd been doing something to one of the bits of the blood lab. "We found them. Be on the jet in ten." She looked down. She drew a breath slowly, as though she was thinking of saying she wasn't strong enough, or maybe in-control enough, to fly with them. "I don't need a telekinetic, but I want a third pilot and I need an MD. Go change." He turned and walked away, hoping against hope she'd follow him. She'd tried to hint to him in the past few days that she wanted out of being an X-man. He didn't have time for that right now.
,
Rogue was really, really cold. Her feet were bleeding, she was pretty sure, but there was nothing she could do about it. The soldiers would be after them. The X-Men were coming. They had to keep going.
"Where do you figure we are?" She asked Bobby
"Xavier said we weren't too far from Westchester County, so we've gotta be USA or Canada somewhere. I thing these are spruce, so…?"
"It's too cold to be anywhere south of Virginia."
"And we can't be that far north because we've got trees."
"But we could be anywhere from there to Alaska."
"We just have to keep going."
Rogue shivered and reached for Bobby's hand again.
"One, two, three, four, five, six."
,
Storm jogged round to the back of the jet and started up the ramp.
"We're all clear." She called to Scott. "How much fuel do you read?"
"Enough to get us to Orlando and back." Scott said. "You're up. I'll fly the way back." Storm looked around. Logan and Kurt were belted in already, Logan looked as tense as he always did when faced with the prospect of flying. And Jean, thankfully, was at the back, stashing her medical kit, geared up to fight. Storm flashed a smile at Jean, who was too busy with her kit to notice.
"Where are they?" Kurt asked.
"Middle of absolutely nowhere," Scott replied. "five hundred clicks north of Montreal. Storm, Jean, you're flying. The difficult thing is going to be landing a jet in the middle of nowhere in southern Quebec. I'll have an answer for you by the time we get there. Logan, Kurt, if you can sleep, do. We've got a couple of hours."
,
It was fully dark now. Rogue had no idea how long they'd been outside. Her feet hurt really bad. From the way Bobby was walking, his did too. She kept having to draw his power to stop the cold from overwhelming her. She was so cold and so, so tired. They weren't even talking now, just struggling on, keeping the Great Bear behind them in the sky. Now and then, Rogue thought she could hear voices behind them. They had to keep moving.
Air rushed above them, trees were moving. Something had just flown over them, low and fast. Rogue looked up. Bobby did too.
"They're here."
,
"We're not going to see them like this." Storm said. "There's too much tree cover."
"I know." Scott said. "Just get her down somewhere there's clear ground. We can't be far from them."
"You're not." Storm heard The Professor's voice as though he was sitting behind her. "You flew right over them. Quickly! There are men pursuing them."
"There's a limit to how slow and how low we can take the Blackbird." Scott said. He'd obviously heard too. "Kurt, can you get out of a moving jet safely?"
Kurt hesitated. "If I were to look out of the window and… It would not be comfortable, but I think I could do it just myself safely enough."
Scott hesitated. "Take Logan." Storm heard Logan draw breath as though to protest. "You heard him. They're under pressure. If Kurt lands the jump badly, you'll be up the fastest. Take us around again, low and slow as you can."
Storm heard Kurt get out of his seat, muttering, as she brought the plane as low over the trees as she dared.
"Denn ich bin gewiß, daß weder Tod noch Leben, weder Engel noch Fürstentümer noch Gewalten…"
If she created a little high pressure bubble under her belly… yes, that'd stop her hitting a downdraft and spinning. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kurt grab Logan with both hands.
,
Logan closed his eyes. One-eye was right, Kurt would have a job doing him serious damage, just this might hurt. A lot.
He felt the jolt of Kurt's power, they were falling! Logan yelled in shock as the air tore at him, then he felt Kurt's power again.
They hit the ground hard and rolled. The impact knocked the breath out of Logan, where had Kurt gone? He thudded in to a tree root and stopped dead. Ouch.
He could feel everything. That way was up. He rolled on to his chest and picked his head up. Everything was moving okay. Good.
Where the hell was he? Where the hell was Kurt? And where the hell were Bobby and Rogue?
"Logan, are you alright?" Well, that was Kurt.
"I'm fine." Logan staggered upright. Kurt was standing ten feet to his right. Logan looked around. He could hear the jet behind him and not much else.
"Rogue!" He bellowed. "Bobby!"
"They're just north of you." Xavier said, inside Logan's head. "A few hundred yards."
Kurt offered Logan his hand.
"Nah, bub. I'm good walking." Logan glanced up at the sky to orient himself and set off at a run. He had to find them. He had to find them fast.
,
It wasn't a good landing, not by anyone's standards, but they were on the ground and apparently undamaged, so Storm supposed it was good enough. Scott was already on his feet.
"Jean, stay here, guard the jet. Storm, get in the air. Give us cover and get eyes on Bobby and Rogue, and any pursuit."
"What are you doing?" Storm asked.
"I'm going to call Kurt back for me."
Storm followed Scott out of the jet. The air pressure was high, she'd need to pull very hard to bring her power to bear and ride on the wind, but she could do it. She stepped out from under the jet and tipped her head back.
"Rogue!" Logan roared. "Bobby!" He kept on running, catching his feet on roots now and then, pushing through brush. "Rogue! Bobby!"
"Logan!"
Logan stopped dead. Rogue. He bolted towards the sound again, shouting for her.
"We're here!"
And they were, her and Bobby, stumbling across the forest floor towards him.
"Logan!"
"Logan!"
"Are you guys okay?" They had them. After all this time, they'd done it. They had them.
"Yeah." Bobby said.
"Cold." Rogue added.
"Right, come on. Jet's this way. Move."
They were both stumbling and limping. Hell, they were barefoot in this, and they were wet. No wonder they were cold.
Kurt appeared to the left. "You have them!" He cried.
"Yeah." Logan replied. "You take Bobby, come back for us."
"Hey-" Bobby started.
"I can carry her easier than I can carry you, Bub." Logan said. "You'll be slow trying to do this barefoot so-" He stopped. Even with the wind from the south, and getting stronger by the second, he could hear it. Movement behind him. "Wait."
He took a pace forward, towards the sound. He sniffed. Men. Not deer, not a bear. Men.
"Run." He said to Bobby and Rogue. "All three of you, run. Go!" He heard them start to move. He could hear a few things moving ahead of him, five at least, coming after Bobby and Rogue.
A low growl started in Logan's throat. They'd have to get through him. It was maybe ten seconds before he saw them.
"You want them?" Logan shouted. Four guns. He could hear more coming. He set his jaw and pushed his claws out. "You gotta come through me!"
,
Scott kept running. There was no space to be careful of his ribs now. He just had to bear it. He could hear shots. He had to keep running.
"Scott!" Kurt had appeared beside him. Scott skidded to a halt and held out a hand, too winded to speak. Kurt seemed to have the same thought. He took Scott's hand firmly.
They landed. The shots were closer now, and screams. Scott looked around. Logan was ahead of him, drawing fire and running from man to man, screaming like a demon. Pain or rage, Scott couldn't tell. Bobby was off on one flank, keeping Logan from being shot in the back by throwing up ice barriers. Rogue was with him. They were both on their feet, they had no casualties yet.
"Rogue!" Scott shouted, pulling his left glove off and stashing it in his belt. She looked back at him, then started towards him. She was limping badly, she was barefoot. Scott turned his eyes back towards the men with guns. They were all still looking at Logan. Good. He had a window here.
He gritted his teeth against the pain and lifted his right hand to his visor. Moderate power. This had to be one hit, one kill. But he didn't want to risk knocking trees over on to other X-men. It sounded like live rounds that they were using against Logan. Lethal force was justified.
He picked a man far on the right flank first, took him high in the chest. The force of the blast threw him back. He didn't move on the ground. Scott couldn't tell whose screams were whose.
Lightening struck downwards between the trees. Storm. They had this now. They were still coming, still trying to position themselves to get clear shots of Logan, ignoring everyone else.
Something cold touched his left hand. Rogue. He felt the odd prickle on his skin of her drawing from him. She knew how to stop herself from hurting him.
"Keep your shots away from Logan. He can deal with the ones that get close to him."
,
Logan stumbled as a bullet hit him in the knee. He flailed. He still got the bastard right in front of him. He felt his claws sink in to soft flesh. The man screamed as Logan's weight dragged him down. Logan stabbed him again to silence him and pushed himself back up. That leg was okay again. It still hurt, but it worked. He shouted as he regained his feet, looking around. They were nearly there. Lightening struck to his left, Scott's blasts were everywhere. Where were the last few?
Edited to fix a geography error. Thanks to Jackie Human for pointing it out