E went go to check on his little rat, noticing that there was something glowing in the cell. He whipped open the cell's door, and walked over to Tina who was still passed out, before picking up the glowing subject. He couldn't tell what it was from the dark, but once the lights turned on, he knew exactly what it was. He walked out for just a moment, just to walk back in with a bucket of water, dumping it on her.
Tina quickly woke up as the ice cold water hit her face, and looked up at E, holding the tracking device, with wide eyes. "You should had known bet-" She got caught off, once he slapped her across the face.
"You not only doomed yourself, you little bitch, but now I will just have to eliminate those foolish idiots as well. Its a pity though, I guess they will have to watch you die, before they do as well…" E said darkly, slapping her twice as hard causing her lip to bust open, as she fell down onto the hard ground, before walking out, as she stood up.
"You're the weaker one here, having me chained up just so you can slap me around like a doll.." She yelled out, before the next level of the electric shocks made her throw herself on the floor, screaming out.
"And you had just sealed your fate, my little rat. I was going to let you live, and be a human test subject, but now once I powered up my machine, I'm going to make sure you won't survive the experiment this time, cause it will be the deadliest one I had planned.." E walked out of the cell, without any disruption this time, before smashing the device in his hand.
Now E had to make sure that he had his army of pet robots ready to be operational, sending the most deadliest ones out first, and had the rest of them guard his lab, along with some attack bots with attached lasers.
"Even if they do make it into the cave, they won't be making it out of here alive.." He chuckled darkly, before turning on his masterpiece of a machine. "Today, my beauty is the day I have been waiting for, for five long years."
The tracking device stopping working several minutes before arriving.
"They know we're on our way." Cyke announced to the team, after noticing the tracking cornets shut off. "We don't have stealth anymore, so we'll have to go in full combat mode."
Cyke landed the blackbird in a clearing not far from the cave. Apparently whomever was using it, managed to make room for supplies and other things to be delivered to the cave. He looked at the team and gave his orders..
He paired everyone up, Gambit and Wolverine were to lead the way being the two most lethal members of the team. Jean and Storm would back them up and cover them. Cyclops and Beast would bring up the rear. Depending on the layout, they could split off and cover as much ground as possible. Each pairing complimented each other and he felt confident in their success.
"Jean, while we have communication pieces, I don't want to use them. Manage a connection between all of us. We lost our element of surprise, but we can try not to alert them we're here if we can help it" Jean nodded.
Wolverine and Gambit entered the cave first, Wolverine forcing Gambit to lag behind him. While Gambit gave him a dirty look, he relented as he watch Wolverine sniff the air. He got it, Logan didn't need Remy's scent mixing in with whatever it was he was trying to smell. Wolverine found the scent he was looking for and point toward a forked part of the cave. He and Gambit would go to the right.
Logan tilted his head toward the left and with a slight jerk, he wanted Jean and Storm to go in that direction. The ladies entered that pathway.
Storm began to feel uneasy the further the walked, Jean sent her a calming feeling to offset the claustrophobia that she knew Ororo was feeling. Storm shook her saying telling she was fine and the ladies continued down the passage.
Soon once both groups got to a certain points, little robotic movements could had been heard. They were still faint enough that they would unnoticed, but anyone with sensitive hearing could have picked it up.
Storm and Jean come up to the robots defending a section of the cave that they could tell went wider. Jean held them in place and Storm light them up with her lighting.
Wolverine smelled the robots well before he and Gambit got to them. He motioned to Gambit to blow up the ones on his right and he would claw up the left side.
Both teams ended up in the same area, only this part of the cave was wide and there was only one passage in front of them. Wolverine was about to enter when Cyke and Beast caught up to them. No one said anything. They followed Wolverine for a short while when the cave system started to become wider, with rooms lining the walls. It was a research lab with storage rooms, equipment rooms and cells running up and down the entire.
There were more robots standing around waiting for them, they hung back. Wolverine told Gambit where Nightmare was, he would let him get her out of there. He looked at Cyke and they devised a plan to rip into the rest of the lab. Storm and Jean would take out the bots. Wolverine and Cyke would rip through the equipment and Beast was rescue anyone else that was in this lab.
"On a count of three" Wolverine whispered. And on three they rushed the room. The all out attack created chaos. While the robots kept coming, Storm and Jean destroyed them. Wolverine and Cyclops were piling up their fair share.
Gambit entered the room Tina was in, it was dark. That wasn't a problem for him. He looked around and there weren't any targets or robots in the room. He grabbed his bo-staff and pulled out a handful of cards. He saw her in the cell. After noting everything in the room, he made his way to the cell, after he blew the lock with his powers. He noticed once inside the cell, his powers were dampened. He reached for Tina, checked her pulse and gave her a general once over. She was out but she was breathing and alive and didn't appear to be badly hurt. He looked around again and then carefully pulled his tools out. as he leaned down to work on the shackles.
As soon as he gotten into the cell, and small robotic arm slowly came down from the ceiling, and started blinking a light slowly at first before it started getting faster, like if it was charging, and getting ready to strike. Once it completed its charging, the robot started firing laser blasts at him.
Gambit quickly jumped out of the way of the lasers, the lasers followed him and he felt like he was in the most acrobatic practice session of his life. All the while throwing cards. While he hit a few of the robot arms, he was kept busy.
Another pair of robotic arms, with claws attached to them, quickly came down from the ceiling while he was busy and carried Tina away to the cell's door as one of laser blasts hit her leg shackles.
"Well well well, what have I got in my grasps now? Why if it isnt the cajun loud ass rat…" E appeared in front of the cell's door, as the robotic arms, slowly carried Tina to him before putting her on the ground. E then bending down before grabbing her by the arm. "Should had known you would be the first to get your way into the cell's ward, I would had killed her by now, and left the carcass in here to rot. But I couldn't let my prized little test dummy go to waste now could I?"
Gambit took out the rest of the laser bots and leaped easily to the ground, with cards in one hand and his bo-staff extended in his other. "You won't live long enough to do anything with her." Gambit's eyes glowed. He heard his team behind him wrapping up the robot enemies. "It won't be long before you'll have Xmen to deal with."
"Oh you are quite the idiot, cause if you don't stay back, I'll shock her to death right here and now, but I don't think you would enjoy that, now would you?" E picked her up, and threw her over his shoulder, before a few much much larger attack bots rolled up behind him, as he made his way to his lab.
As the larger robot began to fire, Wolverine flanked Gambit and the two of them began a coordinated assault on the robots. Storm flew in and electrocuted the remaining ones that Gambit and Wolverine had not engaged. Wolverine sniffed the air for Tina's scent and waved them all along to follow him. "Keep an eye out for more bots, let's go."
"Wait, be on alert team. The bots are the least of our problems with the lasers and our powers we'll need to make sure we don't collapse the cave. Take 'em out but try not to damage the cave." Then he motioned for Wolverine to lead the way.
The team followed Wolverine and while they were forced to stay close they took out every bot and laser arm that was in their way. While Storm felt a bout of claustrophobia as they continued, Jean helped her control her anxiety. Gambit and Wolverine worked like a well oiled machine as they found another chamber. Wolverine sniffed the air, and pointed in the direction of the new chamber. He whispered that he smelled machines but also Tina and E.
Once inside of his lab, E quickly put Tina on the table slab, and was about to keep her tied down to it, when a bright blast of purple light blinded him, as Tina kicked him into the computers that were near by. "Yet again E, one thing still have not gotten through that thick skull of yours. I am not one to be trusted." She kicked him again, as he tried to get up.
"And you should know by now my dear, I had some retouching done to myself since the last time we had met." E's finger tips were starting to sprout out long needles, as his "skin" started to split open, showing bits of metal, as he took a swing at her.
"Holy shit..." Tina quickly dodge his hand, before running to the other side of the room. "I should had known you were a fucking human robot hybrid.."
Considering that she had no clue, but E didnt even age all that much in five years, and he was a lot stronger then kept moving around the room, as he kept coming at her, even cutting her right arm while she tried getting out of the way.
While E was preoccupied with Tina, Gambit gave a quick nod to her. He hoped she would know to keep him distracted. Jean sensed what he wanted and quickly told her that telepathically. Tina taunted and then Wolverine jumped on to E's back, and dug his claws in.
Storm took out all the surrounding bots that were throughout the top of the room. She waited for Wolverine to get out of the way before frying E herself. While she knew Wolverine could handle her lightning, she didn't want to electrocute him.
Wolverine managed to get E facing away from Tina, and that is when Gambit pounced. He put a charged card deep in the chest area of E. Wolverine and Gambit lept back and Storm added to Gambit's charge by tossing lightning at E.
Jean put a telepathic bubble around Tina since she was the closest to E and could be hurt from the fall out. Cyke stood at the read to blow E's head off if this full assault didn't take him out. E felt to ground, he was still breathing despite the assault.
"Damn, he's tough," Wolverine commented.
"Alright, stand back, I have him," Cyke was ready to blast him.
Tina was about to let Cyclops have him, until she noticed that something was wrong, before seeing that the head had a timer attached to it. "Wait, Cyclops! His body have a fucking denator in it, if we don't get out of here within the next two mins and 30 seconds, we are fucked."
"Team pull back and get out the cave," he waited to watch off his team go out of the room before leaving himself. He sent small blasts around the room to block E from escaping and then followed the team out of the cave.
Gambit held his hand out to Tina for her to grab it, and they took off down the cave passage.
They ran unmolested by bots since they took them all out prior. Once they exited the cave and saw the blackbird in the distance, they kept running. They only got a few feet from the cave when they heard an explosion and the mountain started to quake.
"Move, move!" shouted Cyclops, we gotta get on the bird and get outta here. They ran up the ramp of the blackbird. Jean put a protective telekinetic bubble around the bird knowing Scott needed time to fire it up. Storm hopped in the pilot seat next to Scott to help him get the flight check down.
Gambit took Tina to the med part of the blackbird, Beast was already there and waiting for her. He motioned for her to sit on the bed so he could check her vitals.
The blackbird began to descend into the air, and once it was over the tree tops, they took off like a bat out of hell.
"I'm telling ya, I'm fine. I'm just a little banged up is all…" Tina wiped off the blood from her swollen lip. "Its not like its my first time getting beat up…" Her face had about two huge bruises, and her arm did have a good set of cuts on it.
"Christina," Beast cajoled, "every Xman needs to be checked over after a situation like this, there might internal injuries. It will not take that long, I promise. Besides, I wouldn't hear the end of it from Gambit, if you were not in perfect health." Beast gave her a warm smile, he knew he was being unfair throwing Gambit's name to make her allow him to do his job. He noted Gambit didn't protest, which was all the assurance he needed that Remy agreed with Beast. Gambit would insist and making sure there was nothing wrong with his lady love.
"Oh fine…" Tina gave in, and sat down on the bed, while rubbing her wrists. They felt like they were on fire, which they might as well be on fire, since she guessed that thanks to the heat from the shocks must had burn her wrists, along with her legs. During the whole time, she did not dare to look at Remy, knowing that he must had been upset with her for going after E alone.
Remy was pissed off and relieved at the same time, he couldn't decide which to be and alternated between the two while Beast worked on Tina. He was pissed she went off without saying a word to him. She knew the dangers. He was relieved that overall Beast didn't think much was wrong with her and would be healed after a couple of days of rest and meds. In the end, he went with relieved she was alright. He smiled faintly at Tina to let her know he wasn't angry but he wasn't all that happy with events of today either.
Once they got back to the mansion, Tina decided to give Remy a little bit of alone time. But after a few hours of staying in her room, she decided to go join him as he worked on the security system. "Lets get the yelling match done and over with.." As she walked into the room and brought over a chair, before sitting next to him.
Remy had decided to look over the security tapes, he needed to know that his system wasn't breached. He planned on checking his system over and making any minor adjustments he deemed fit for the Mansion. Communications was another issue and Beast was already working on that. He had finished the tapes which showed nothing, other than Tina leaving on her own. This made him frown because she didn't tell him she was going anywhere. He shook his head to let it go for now. He started the diagnostic check on his system and waited for the computer to give him the results. He sat back in his chair when the door to the security room opened up and Tina walked in, seeing her sitting next to him.
"Hi Chere," he tried to give her his best smile but he wasn't feeling it. He could have lost her tonight and it was weighing heavily on his mind.
"Thats it? I thought I was going to get the whole 'You shouldn't had left, what were you thinking' scream match." Tina sighed noticing how upset he really was. "Look I didn't know I would run into him, okay? I was just trying to see if maybe I could follow him to wherever the fucking lunatic was hiding out in. I just thought that, maybe if he saw me alone, he would at least….." She let out another loud sigh. "I dont know…"
He thought about railing on her for her stupidity, for not using all the things he had taught her. His only solace was she knew enough to take a tracing device. What really hurt, is she didn't even trust him enough to tell him what she was planning. He wasn't sure if she knew how much it cut him.
"Did Xavier know what you were up to?" He gave her another faint smile to encourage her to talk to him. He didn't know if she could see the hurt in his eyes.
"No, he did not know, none knew. I didn't want anyone to worry about me. I was going to contact you if I had found the fucker, but after you guys left the communication system went down, and well we all know what happened next.." Tina looked down at her hands before losing her eyes. "I just did not want to risk anything happening to you, or anyone else.."
Remy spoke In an even tone voice, "then ya missing the whole point of being here. You didn't consider what your actions woulda had on anyone else. What Jubilee would feel if you were hurt or worse died or what it would have done to me? You didn't even consider how I'd feel. And what's worse chere, ya didn't even trust me enough to tell me. I woulda had your back. I woulda been there for ya. You didn't need to handle this on your own, I thought I made that clear." He shook his head and muttered, "well, I guess not, another thing that I failed." He paused for a moment, "If you don't mind chere, I need to finish this systems check. And I'd like to be alone for a bit." He turned back around to stare at the computer program running, while looking for any other systems update.
His words were like a bullet going through her, but she understood why he was so upset with her. "I'm sorry…" Was all she could mutter out, before slowly getting up, leaving the room. She stopped and lean outside of the door, as she broke down into tears. "I d-didn't mean to, I j-just thought it was…"
He heard her crying, and felt bad. He didn't know what to do, let her cry or comfort her. He sighed, he could sympathize with doing stupid things. Hell knows, he's done plenty of stupid things. He just couldn't leave things this way. He checked the computer diagnostic one more time. Then he went out of the room and sat down beside Tina. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his arms and let her cry. He started to rock her and rubbed her arms in hopes she would stop crying so that they could make things right between them. He kissed her hair and said softly, "its al'right Chere, it will be al'right."
"But you w-were right, I wasn't thinking. I j-just wanted to be h-helpful for once.." Tina kept crying, into his chest "I just wanted get rid of him, and I didn't think everything through. And, I'm sorry about that, Remy, I really truly am.."
"I know chere, I know." He held her tight to him. "Ya scared me today, I hadn't felt that kind of fear in a long time. I thought I was gonna lose ya. Promise me, you won't do that to me again." He gripped her chin and forced to look at him and he softly kissed her, then he pulled her head back to his shoulder. He chuckled, "ya'll have to make it up ta me." He gently smiled at her, knowing she'd need time to unwind from their discussion. "I really do have ta finish my security work, wanna meet up later?" He gave her a sincere smile. He didn't want her to think anything other than how much he cared for her.
"I promise, I wont do anything that fucking stupid ever again…" Tina wiped away the last remaining tears from her eyes, as she got up. "And I guess I really owe it to you, so fine. I'll make it up to you…" She lightly pressed her swollen lips against his cheek, and right when she was about to walk away, she stopped and turn to him.
"Despite you being mad at me, and nor do I blame you being so, I just want to let you know that I do love you Remy…" Tina lightly pulled her lower lip in, as she slowly started walking away
Remy was going to tease her with her choice of words, so fine, like making it up to him would be a hardship. He thought of all sorts of things he could have said but her sincerity and her honesty with her feelings for him, made him change his mind. He reached out and grabbed her hand turning her back around, kissed the back of it, and captured her eyes with his.
"I love you too, Tina." He smiled at her and then walked into the security room. This girl was the first one in a long time that he said those words too. But now since she had nothing to hide behind or from, he had hope that now they can strengthen their relationship.
Tina watched as the door shut, as a sigh of relief came out of her mouth. Hopefully now they can put everything behind them, and with nothing to keep her back now, there was now a glimmer of hope for the future, not just their own future but the future of her being a permanent member of the x-men.