Chapter 2: My mistake
I screwed up big time.
It was supposed to have been a simple mission. A routine check. But it has turned out to be a full-out war.
And it is my entire fault that she was hurt.
Professor X had sent us to check on Arcade, the psychotic playground builder. He had been unusually quiet lately, and the Professor was worried that he was deliberately laying low to throw us off his scent while he cooked up some evil scheme. The Professor believed that he was still in his liar, although as far has I could tell, it had been abandoned.
I weren't really worried, mostly because this will be the third time that we checked up on him.
I was cocky, I was sure that it was just under false alarm.
I underestimated my opponent.
It was the biggest mistake I would ever make.
We arrived at his liar. Me, Bobby, Neal, Kitty, Nightcrawler…
And Ororo.
It was an ugly, modern building that jutted out from a sheer rock wall. It stretched far into the rock wall and was made out of bulletproof metal. It faced a dazzling blue ocean that seemed to stretch out forever and a sandy white beach where tourists were playing and perverts were checking out chicks in bikinis. It was like an alien, it had no place in this tropical paradise. It was like a giant zit on an otherwise perfect face.
We went in, not expecting anything to be out of the ordinary.
It still looked the same as the last time. A thick layer of dust covered everything inside. Cobwebs had formed and the place was dead quiet.
We paired up. Kitty and Neal, Nightcrawler and Bobby, me and Ororo. We walked around his liar, checked out every spot we knew.
Now, before you start judging me, I didn't deliberately pair myself with her; I am a fair leader…
Okay, maybe I did, but only because I was worried about her. It was her first time here and she was claustrophobic. I had told her not to come but she had insisted on doing so. I had tried to get Professor X to persuade her but he had said there was nothing he could do to stop her.
So we searched the rooms together.
"Hey, are you okay?" I asked her a few minutes later. We were in a fairly narrow tunnel about 3 meters wide. She was walking right next to me and she was trembling slightly.
"I'll be fine," she said softly, walking a little faster.
The tunnel started to get narrower after about twenty meters. I glanced at Ororo. Her face was pale and she was biting her lower lip. I was really starting to worry about her.
"We could turn back if you want to," I told her.
"I'll be fine," she said, not looking fine at all.
I put my arm, rather awkwardly, around her shoulder. I was afraid that she was going to push me away or blast me with a lightning bolt.
I am happy to report that she didn't do the above two. Quite the opposite, she held onto my other hand.
We walked for about fifty more meters when suddenly, without any warning, the ground underneath us opened up.
We were sliding down a metal tube, with no way to stop…
Heading for whatever horrors that awaited us…