I've got my cord, and you've got another chapter, so congrats to us both, right? Right.

- - - - -

Chapter 4

Lexiss' bedroom door banged open. She groaned.

"Lex. Lex, Piotr said Rogue left. Do you know where she is?" said a frantic-sounding Bobby. With her back to him, she put a hand over her shoulder, controlling the air so it thickened around Bobby's legs and started to pull him out of her room.

She suddenly heard the distinct sound of ice crackling. Remotely curious, she rolled over to look at Bobby. He had frozen his own legs to the floor to keep from being unceremoniously tossed from her bedroom. Clearly, he wasn't leaving without a few of her guarded answers.

"What do you want, Popsicle?" she asked tiredly, focusing all of her energy to keeping her eyes opened and trained on Bobby so she would at least look like she was paying attention. She was seriously exhausted today.

"Where's Rogue?" he asked forcefully. "I know you know where she is. She doesn't do anything without consulting you first." Lexiss yawned, and waved a hand.

"What, you just noticed she was gone? Huh. You must've been too busy making Kitty feel better," she said disdainfully, closing her eyes. Rogue had told her about the ice skating incident in the car. "Now, unstick yourself from my floor and get out."

Bobby snarled – actually snarled – and then Lexiss heard a sssshthunk kind of sound. Opening an eye, she saw Bobby had launched several 'ice daggers', as he called them, at her, all of them about six inches in length. Two had stuck in her mattress near her stomach, and three more quivered in her headboard.

Lexiss sighed. Rogue hadn't technically sworn her to secrecy, and she wasn't stupid enough to deal with the Iceman when he was in a mood. On these kinds of days, when his life was far from Abercrombie-perfect, he could be as unpredictable as John.

With a sudden sharp intake of breath at the analogy she had just made, she sat up, rubbing her temples. "She went to get the cure," she said.

"How do you know?" Bobby demanded.

"Because I drove her!" Lexiss shouted, standing angrily. Just who the hell did he think he was, storming into her room and giving her the third degree like this?! "I was going out at the same time, I offered, she accepted, and I drove her!"

Bobby suddenly freed his legs, and in two short strides, had her upper arms in two simultaneous circulation-cutting grips. "Where?" he asked, his voice thin, cold, and steely.

"I don't know, I just drove her to the bus depot!" Lexiss shouted in his face. They glared each other down for a moment, and then Bobby turned, roughly dragging her with him. "Let go of me!" she said, trying to pull her arm free.

"No. We're going to go get her," Bobby said, more to himself than her, she thought.

"What if I don't want to go?" she asked, probably with more cockiness than the situation warranted.

Bobby's iron grip tightened. "You drove her; now you're going to help me find her, and bring her home."

- - - - -

This was one of the many situations in which Bobby was glad he was taller than average. It meant he was able to see around people.

He had stopped shouting Rogue's name fifteen minutes ago; nothing could be heard over the crowd's chants of, "We don't need a cure! We don't need a cure!" He hoped Lex was having a better go of it than he was.

He knew this wasn't her fault, but he had needed a release for his emotions, and she had proved the perfect outlet two hours ago. He made a mental note to apologize to her later, after he had taken Rogue home.

God, how could Rogue be so stupid?! She didn't need this, what was she thinking?! The only thing he had been able to pry out of Lexiss on the way to the nearest clinic was 'Kitty' and 'home wrecker', and after that, Rogue's slam from earlier that week about him only having only one thing on his mind kept playing itself over and over in his head.

He thought he might be sick.

Instead, he nearly crashed into the person he had least expected to see at a cure clinic, or ever again.

"Gettin' the cure so you can go back home to Mommy and Daddy?" Pyro said over the crowd. Pyro was who he was, now; he had no other name. The way he had hurt everyone when he just up and left, him and Rogue, and especially Lex, he didn't deserve a name. Bobby wanted punched him. He wanted to freeze him to the spot. There were a million things he wanted do. Instead, he answered him.

"I'm lookin' for someone," he said, eyes sweeping back over the mass. Perhaps he told him because maybe, by some stroke of luck or fate or whatever, Pyro might've seen Rogue and might tell him where she was.

He was also aware that he was immensely glad he and Lexiss had split up. Pyro seemed to have turned her bipolar, and Bobby wasn't sure how she'd react to seeing him again after San Francisco.

"Oh, I get it," Pyro replied. "Your girlfriend." Apparently, he wasn't using names from the past anymore either. Just as well. "Figures she'd want the cure," Pyro went on to say. "She's pathetic."

Punching him was starting to look really good. But, Bobby decided to play his game, and throw it back in his face.

"Who says it's Rogue?" Bobby asked. "Maybe it's Lexiss."

Pyro's jaw tightened. "She wouldn't. She's better than that," he said through clenched teeth. Bobby shrugged.

"How would you know? You abandoned her two months ago," he replied casually. "Stuff like that changes a person, and two months is plenty of time to change."

He watched Pyro's hand open at his side, a flame appearing there. His own fist clenched, hardening until it was as solid as a block of ice. Pyro chuckled dryly, but no amusement reached his eyes. "Come on, Iceman," he egged. "Make a move."

Someone called Bobby's name, and his stomach plummeted. He forced his hand back to normalcy, and noticed, as he turned, Pyro's own flame disappeared. He knew Lex's voice had registered in his head.

"Bobby," she said, stopping in front of him. "I can't find her any… What's wrong, did you find her? Is she OK?" Bobby tried to make himself answer, but before he could string a coherent sentence together, Pyro opened his mouth, drawing Lexiss' attention to him.

"So it is your girlfriend," he said. Bobby turned halfway back to him, leaving a doorway for the shorter girl to see Pyro. Staring, she swayed, and Bobby grabbed her coat sleeve to make sure she wasn't going to attack Pyro or faint. A sidewalk brawl was the last thing this crowd needed to get them started. He ignored the little voice that told him he had been thinking about laying Pyro out.

"You… what're you…" Lexiss said faintly. Pyro put up the arrogant wall Bobby knew all too well was to hide the fact that he had been thrown for a loop.

"Hey, Lex," he managed to croak. "Miss me?"

Lex looked as sick as he had felt a few minutes earlier, and on top of that had a facial expression that looked like she had just been pushed to the ground and was now being pummeled repeatedly in the stomach.

"We're done here. Let's go, Lex," Bobby said. Surprisingly, she let him guide her in front of him and away from Pyro.

"Same old Bobby," Pyro called to his back. Lex stiffened, but he made her keep walking. "Still afraid of a fight!"

Only a few seconds later, there was a bright orange, fiery expression that made the crowd pulse back as one. Bobby and Lex whipped around to stare in horror at the burning clinic. Rogue could've been in there.

"John… All those people… Bobby, Bobby, what if Rogue-" Lexiss whispered. He turned farther, to look for Pyro, but he was gone.

"Ssh," Bobby said, rubbing her arms in an attempt to comfort her. "She wasn't in there, she'll be alright… Just trust me…"

- - - - -

Bobby drove back to the mansion. When they got back, it was dark. It was hard for Lexiss to believe the day was already over. She felt numb, like an emotionless shell of a human. A ghost of what she used to be.

"I'm going to bed," she whispered. Bobby watched her as she went upstairs.

Instead of going to her room, though, she went up an extra floor and knocked on Logan's door.

"Logan?" she asked.

There was no answer, so she went in. What she saw was an empty room, and that finally broke her completely. Too much, just too much had happened. "They're all gone…" she began murmuring hopelessly to herself. "They're all… gone…"

Lexiss found herself wandering out of Logan's room, and down the hall to the one person who was left, the one person who had tried to be there all along. The one person she had shoved away for something that now seemed so… trivial. Lexiss raised a heavy hand and knocked on her door. It opened almost immediately. She fell to her knees, suddenly sobbing fiercely.

"There'll all gone, Ororo, all of them!" she cried.

Ororo crouched down in front of her, taking her hands. "Oh, Lex…" she crooned.

"John, the professor, Rogue, Jean, Logan… There're all gone!" she wailed. Ororo helped Lexiss to her feet, slowly coercing her into her room and out of the hall, away from any prying eyes. Ororo sat her on the end of her bed, and knelt down in front of her so she could look her in the eyes. Lexiss came to a startling realization as she continued to weep.

"It's my fault," she said thickly. "If I had never come here-"

"No!" Ororo cut in suddenly. "Even if you had never come here, John still would've joined Magneto, Rogue would've gotten the cure, Jean still would've killed the professor, and Logan would have still gone after Jean. None of what's happened here is any fault of yours," she said firmly, taking her chin in her hand and forcing her to look up at her. Lexiss sniffed, and wiped her eyes with her fingertips.

"Yes it-"

"No, it's not! Don't you think like that!!" she said. "If anything, it's better you're here because everyone else has an extra person to turn to, although you're not much of a shoulder to cry on lately," she said with a small smile. Despite herself, Lexiss let out a little sputter of laughter. Ororo's smile grew a little wider.

"There, you see?" she said, fixing her hair. She nodded a little, and when Ororo hugged her, Lexiss hugged her back with barely any hesitation.

"Thank you," she whispered.

- - - - -

Warren was having trouble sleeping. Lying on his back in his new bed, arms crossed behind his head, he contemplated his situation.

He had spent the day exploring the school; it was massive, well-built, and had a very comfortable atmosphere. And yet, he hadn't been… satisfied. Something had been missing, and he was sure it wasn't just because of the general depressed mood of the student body because the founder of the school had passed away. No, that was too obvious. It was something a bit more subtle… he just weren't sure what. On top of that, he wasn't exactly happy with the way he had left things with his father, either.

Suddenly, he heard muffled sounds out in the hall, sort of like shuffling. He glanced at the clock, which read 10:58, past curfew for most of the school's inhabitants. Curious, he silently pushed back the covers, and crept to the door. Slowly turning the handle and pulling it open, he stuck his head out into the hall.

The girl he had met on his first day here, Lexiss, was sobbing in the middle of the hall, in the arms of the person who now seemed to be the leader of this estate, a dark-skinned, white-haired woman they called Storm. Warren half-hid his face behind his doorframe, silently watching.

"Oh, Lex…" Storm said comfortingly, holding Lexiss' hands in her own.

"John, the professor, Rogue, Jean, Logan… They're all gone!" Lexiss cried. He felt his face soften watching her, and his own heart was suddenly filled with incredible sorrow for her. He also now partially understood Lexiss' strange behavior the day before when she had come upon the boxes in his new room. They must have been filled with the contents of one of the people she was missing so deeply.

Storm suddenly looked up the hall, and her eyes met his, causing him to recoil a little from the surprise of being seen. He felt like a little boy who had been caught doing something wrong. Well, technically, he was spying and eavesdropping, but…

Storm shook her head just slightly, which he took as an indication that he was to tell no one what he had just seen, as he watched her escort Lex into her room. He nodded just as slightly in return to tell her he would obey. Even if he hadn't been warned by this formidable woman, he wouldn't have told anyone anyway.

As Storm's door closed, Warren backed into his room. All the emotional strain those five missing people seemed to have left for Lexiss to deal with when they had gone must have finally worn her down. As he returned to his now cold bed, he decided he would make an effort to reach out to Lexiss in the days ahead in which he would be residing here. Warren had never seen anyone look so broken since the day his father had found out he was a mutant. He wanted to see her happy.

- - - - -

Ororo awoke Lexiss the next morning, shaking her rather abruptly, which was a change in demeanor from the night before, as she remembered it. "Lexiss, Lexiss!" she said in a rushed and harried way. Lexiss sat up, realizing she must have slept in Ororo's bed last night. Idly, she wondered where the other woman had slept. She rubbed sleep out of her face.

"What? What's going on?" she mumbled groggily. The clock on the nightstand had red digital numbers that red 11:54 a.m. This was the first time, she realized, she had awoken without a thousand pounds of guilt and sorrow. The realization didn't make that statement any less true. It was… nice.

"Logan found Jean," Ororo said. "She's with Magneto. They're moving on Alcatraz." Lexiss bolted out from under the blankets.

"They want control of the cure?" she asked, untangling her foot from the bed sheets. Ororo shook her head.

"They want to destroy it."

Lexiss stared at her. "But isn't the cure a mutant boy? A kid?!" she exclaimed.

"That's why we need to move, now. Get your suit," Ororo replied. Lexiss ran to the door, not needing to hear Ororo's next instructions to, "Run!"

- - - - -

Lexiss quickly pulled on her red-lined X-Man suit, glad to be feeling well enough to put it on again. She hadn't gone to another Danger Room session since the John incident.

John.

She pulled her hand away from the back of her head after putting her hair up in a messy bun, staring straight into her mirror.

She was an X-Man. That's who she was. John was a member of Magneto's Brotherhood. That's who he was. They were on opposite sides, and that's how it was going to have to be from now on. That's how they were going to meet. And odds were that somebody on her side was going to end up fighting him, maybe even Lexiss herself. He might end up hurt. But he might end up hurting one of her own, again, maybe even her, and that's how she had to look at it now. Her team – her family – was her first and utmost priority.

Lexiss looked over at her shoulder at her nightstand. With sudden determination, she took the four steps to get there, picked up the facedown frame, and carefully pulled out the back. She removed John's picture from it, and looked at it one last time. She smiled slightly.

"So, I guess this is goodbye," she said to herself. Turning toward the door, she let the picture fall from her hand into the wastepaper basket.

- - - - -

Lexiss met the rest of the group down in the lower levels, outside of the jet's garage. Logan and Mr. McCoy were talking as they came up the hallway.

"I don't believe this once fit me," Mr. McCoy was saying, tugging on small, short-sleeve X-Man coat with yellow stripes on the short sleeves. Logan wasn't listening.

"If Magneto gets a-hold of that cure, there will be no stopping him," he said. Mr. McCoy became all business, letting his arm swing at his sides and allowing the short coat to bare his blue-haired torso.

"Can you estimate how many he has?" he asked.

"An army," Logan replied forebodingly. "And Jean."

Mr. McCoy sighed. "His powers have limits; hers… do not."

Bobby spoke up. "There's only seven of us, Logan." Lexiss glanced over at Kitty, who was shifting her feet nervously. Logan zipped his gloves, and glanced at Ororo. His eyes passed over Bobby, Piotr, Kitty, and Lexiss in turn.

"Yea," Logan replied in a sinister-sounding tone. "We're outnumbered. I'm not gonna lie to you." He stepped up in front of the group. "But we lost Scott. We lost the professor. If we don't fight now, everything they stood for will die with them." Lexiss' hand tightened into a fist, and she felt her face harden. That couldn't happen; their beliefs were hers as well. Logan shook his head slightly. "I'm not gonna let that happen."

Lexiss shook her head as well. "We can't," she said firmly. Ororo looked at her with a small smile.

Logan looked from her to Bobby. "Are you?"

Bobby's lips pressed into a thin line, and he shook his head as well.

"Then we stand together," Logan went on, "X-Men." He turned to make eye contact with Ororo; Lexiss knew he was telling her they would be there as a team. "All of us." Bobby twisted his head around to look at Piotr and Kitty, and then down at Lexiss. She nodded just slightly, encouraging him. She knew he was thinking of Rogue, who still had not returned, and John. And probably her as well. He was worried. Everyone was. But worry didn't dissolve his morals.

"We're in," he said, looking at Logan.

"Let's go," Logan replied, approving of Bobby's answer. Everyone turned as Ororo opened the garage door. Logan stopped Lexiss, stopping her as everyone passed and went on.

"Can you handle this?" he asked. She inhaled, and nodded.

"I have to. There's no other way," she replied. Logan shook his head.

"That's not what I mean. Pyro's going to be there, and he's going to be fighting against us."

Lexiss looked Logan squarely in the eye. "Then we'll have to fight back."

Logan nodded once. "Alright. Get on board."

- - - - -

As the jet settled into its course to San Francisco, it did so silently. No one on board was speaking; all of them, including Lexiss, were wrapped up in their own thoughts. Personally, she was mentally preparing herself for what the seven of them were going to fall into on Alcatraz.

She looked out the plane window, putting a hand to her queasy stomach; she hated flying.

Something outside the jet caught her attention. Sitting up a little, she turned her head further to see back out the window. There was a large white bird flying fairly close to the jet. She squinted, frowning a little. That wasn't a bird, that was…

Warren?

She leaned so close to the window her face was nearly pressed up against the glass. She gasped softly as he looked up at the jet, at her, and raised his arm in greeting. Those long, white wings must be his mutation.

Lexiss smiled, and hesitantly waved in return. Warren started falling back. After all, there's no way wings could compete with an engine. She sat back against her seat with the smallest of smiles.

With the setting sun, he had sort of looked like a guardian angel following the plane.

- - - - -

Darkness had fallen over San Francisco Bay by the time the jet arrived.

"Oh, my stars and garters…" Mr. McCoy murmured from the front of the plane as he leaned over the controls, gazing out the windshield.

Piotr looked across the aisle at Lexiss and Bobby, who was sitting in front of her. "You're gonna want to see this," he said.

Lexiss felt the jet slow, and felt safe enough to unclasp her seatbelt. She crossed the aisle, and leaned over Kitty's legs to look out the window beside her. Now she understood why Kitty was murmuring a prayer under her breath. The Golden Gate Bridge had seemingly been… moved, for lack of a better word. Instead of running from one side of the bay to the other, the bridge began on one side of the bay, and curved around to end on Alcatraz Island's rocky shoreline.

"Goin' to stealth mode," Ororo said, flipping a few switches on the ceiling of the jet. Although nothing changed on the inside of the plane, Lexiss knew the jet was now invisible to anyone outside. Her stomach fluttered a little, and not from the flight.

Ororo set the jet down, and cut the engine. Logan turned to look at the rest of them.

"We've got a job to do."

- - - - -

The seven of them did make a grand entrance, if Lexiss did say so herself. Amidst the living hell Alcatraz Island had turned into, Ororo landed in a blaze of lightning bolts, Mr. McCoy, or Beast, rather, leaped off the top of the remodeled prison, Bobby and Kitty fell through the ground and leeched back up again, Piotr, with his skin turned to metal, landed waist deep in gravel and immediately trudged forward, Logan, claws extended, slid down the side of the cure facility with a shower of yellow sparks, and Lexiss floated down as gracefully as she could muster, arms extended and one knee bent, wind pushing her short hair back from her face. She touched ground between Ororo and Beast, jaw set in determination.

- - - - -

John saw her enter from where he stood beside Magneto. The three steps forward were subconscious; Magneto's firm grip on his forearm was the only thing that stopped him from taking more. Displeasure was etched so clearly across his face, there was no need for words. Instead, John turned to Callisto.

"You see them?" he asked her lowly. She nodded. "You remember that girl from the night we met?" She nodded again. "They're all fair game, except for her. Tell the others."

- - - - -

Logan began shouting orders to the ground troops and to the X-Men. "You men, cover the doors! Everybody, get together, and hold this line!" The battle seemed to have come to a standstill for a few seconds. Magneto's hordes of mutants stood in front of them, the government's soldiers stood behind them, and Lexiss and her six comrades held steady in the middle.

Breathing slightly labored from the adrenaline coursing through her body, she waited, and scanned the crowds in front of her. She didn't recognize anyone; that was good. No distractions. Those closer to the top must be behind with the big man himself.

Only cowards fight from behind, she thought.

Suddenly, Magneto's voice rang out in the silence. "FINISH THEM!!"

With shouts, his Brotherhood surged forward. Beast roared like a lion, and everyone else took battle positions. Logan lashed out with his adamantium claws, slicing down a light pole, and then they were swamped with enemies.

Lexiss didn't realize, as she started into the oncoming forces, but her mind had practically shut itself off to everything other than keeping herself alive and helping out her friends, when they were near and she was able. This must be what Logan called 'survival instinct'. She only wished the damn headache that had swelled behind her eyes would go away.

As she finished off a facially disfigured mutant with a ball of compressed, molten air, a massive man ran past Lexiss, nearly knocking her down.

"He's going for the boy!" she heard Beast yell from somewhere in the din nearby.

Kitty, to Lexiss' right, shouted in reply, "Not if I get there first!" and started off.

Logan, who was also close, turned and yelled, "Kitty!" Lexiss looked at him.

"I've got her covered!" Catching up with her and ignoring Logan shouting her name now as well, Lexiss caught Kitty's shoulder just in time for her to pull her into the building. Kitty glanced over her shoulder at Lexiss, smiled, and then they started following the monstrosity of a man down the hall. Together, the two girls leaped at him, and Kitty's power pulled him halfway down through the floor.

They hit the tile of the first level, looking up at his feet, when Lexiss saw a few mutants pass down the hallway perpendicular to the end of the one she and Kitty were standing in. "Go get the kid!" Lexiss told her, turning and running in the direction she had seen the mutants.

"Right!" Kitty called to her back. Lexiss had already turned the corner, and had muffled her footsteps so the three mutants in front of her wouldn't hear her following them. If they had sent that helmeted bozo after the mutant boy radiating the cure, there could only be one other thing these guys were after; the cure's inventor, Mr. President of Worthington Labs.

- - - - -

I hope you guys enjoyed the new chapter. One more until the end of the installment! I wonder, is that good or bad?

Also, I've been receiving a record low number of reviews, lately, which is disconcerting. Now, I don't want to turn into one of those nagging author or anything, but I'm only asking because I truly enjoy reading what you guys write. So, please?

Thanks.