Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made from this work.
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Parked a block down from the bar with a clear view of the different breed of suvs parked out in front of it, the utility gone replaced instead with luxury and fashion, she didn't even want to know how much just one cost watching another trio pull up with a company of people spilling out. There were bikes a plenty, the names coming as she looked at them, picking out the posers from the men that lived and breathed the lifestyle just by the work done to each. Behind her she could hear John getting ready, a breath all it took to pick out a cocktail of chemicals from lighter fluid, gasoline and even some vodka that had her licking her lips suddenly thirsty.
"You ready Chere?" Remy asked, his hands in his pockets but his shoulders tense.
Giving a nod, she let him know she was ready, the slamming of the tailgate setting her stalking across the street. The place looked different, but all it took was a sniff to tell it was the same dive she felt like she hadn't been to in years longer than she had been alive. That was him, those were his memories, but tonight she'd turn them against him.
"Hold it, just where do you think y..."
Lashing out with a strike that had the bouncer falling to his knees choking, she walked past with Remy and John ignoring the looks they got from everyone else. Part of her was screaming in terror, but another part had her smiling as she stepped in to look around the bar turned club and think just where the pool tables used to, now lined with speakers playing bass thumping beats.
"Remember why we're here Rogue."
Feeling his hand on her shoulder and his voice in her ear, a vision of just why they were there flickered in her mind's eye, recalling Jubilee tearing it up out at the pool party nothing but smiles and laughs. A dark flash of Remy's apartment tempered her resolve, remembering the hour old blood the message had been written in. She knew just why she was there, to get her friend back and make one man regret ever hurting her.
"I know just why we're here." Rogue growled, a low rumble rolling from her chest.
This was the third one they had been to, leaving a message at every one of them, breadcrumbs for him to find. People would be making calls, running their mouths, and trumping up everything they had done. She watched John walk up to the bar and order up a line of shots, growing more cocky the more he got to cut loose. From the corner of her eye she saw him snap open his zippo, the spark and his gift just enough to light the row as he down the first. The rest were offered to the crowd around him, questions asked of just how he did it.
"He's got style." Remy conceded, walking with his hand at her back through the crowd.
"He's a good distraction." Rogue agreed, scanning the crowd and sniffing.
Lust, full of musk and sweat, was heavy out on the dance floor as people grinded against another to the primal beats of the music speaking to the dark heart of humanity. She could see them out there in the crowd, the men eyeing her as something out of place and exotic, prowling around sniffing and looking for their chance. She saw it in their eyes the way they looked at Remy, seeing him as a challenge to be overcome, a flash of daggers and the scent of blood coming to her from those memories that weren't hers telling just how hard that would be.
Let them come, he'd send them yelping off into the night with their tail between their legs to lick their wounds, she wasn't something to be claimed, she was something to be earned and down in her heart she knew Remy was up to that particular challenge. Visions of just what he prize would be assaulted her, a shirt torn and her body hefted and slammed against the wall, her neck bitten hard with the tang of blood. Claws raking flesh...
"Oh shit!" Rogue gasped, clenching her fists to bring her back.
"Chere?" Remy asked, catching her as she stumbled.
"I'm fine, just..." Rogue whispered, forcing her strength into her grip and suffering the pain that cleared her mind.
"This be all over soon enough, then we put him in a cage, deep and dark and never to see the light again, I promise you that." Remy whispered, easing her clenched fists free to slip his fingers between hers.
Blood between palms, an oath sworn, staring into his eyes she believed it and it helped strengthen her will. She didn't know if he meant Victor himself or that thing that lurked in the corners of her mind. Regardless it would all be over tonight, it was her mantra and a ward against the darkness she carried. She'd use it all against him, paying back in kind all the suffering she had endured. She'd be expecting him this time, no babe lost out on a beach to be attacked helpless and alone.
Finding a dark corner of the club to watch the doors, John was standing on the bar now playing for a crowd swigging from a bottle of Grey Goose and spitting flames to their astonishment. If they knew the truth they'd be screaming out into the night, but thinking it a trick they let themselves be entertained, sheep not even knowing they had wolves in their midst. The kiss to the top of her head as she was held in his arms had her soothed, feeling Remy rubbing her sides.
"You were growling." Remy whispered.
"Sorry." Rogue whispered.
"We have time, the evening, it still be young. In this line of work, you have to learn to enjoy yourself while you can." Remy whispered, guiding her off to the bar.
The press of bodies so close as they forced their way in had her feeling caged, but with Remy at her back she trusted him to keep her safe. Drinks were ordered, beer to keep their senses, and a shot that found it's way before her. Bourbon at a whiff, she threw it back and raised it for another, the second doing her good as she started to work on her beer.
"That tasted god awful but at the same time it was fucking amazing." Rogue whispered, laughing at how silly it all sounded.
"Few times we work together, he be a man that like his bourbon." Remy said, having a sip of his beer after with a press of lips she longed to know intimately.
She left it at that, something in his eyes spoke of a pain that still ached, they all had their mistakes and regrets right down to a boy looking for nothing more than a kiss. Forcing down the images that came unwanted, she turned her eye to the crowd again looking for eyes she feared she would see reflected in the mirror behind the bar, eyes of a beast looking for easy prey. A chill bottle pressed to the base of her neck had her gasp, Remy smiling there drawing her back once more.
"Where the fuck is he?" Rogue snarled.
"I think I see a man who know." Remy whispered, turning her gaze to the door.
Picking him out of the crowd, she blinked away the vison of a man dressed for a Disco, weathered like granite with silver hair and armed men behind him and ladies on his arm. Laughter echoed in her ear only to realize it was her own, a smile splitting her lips as she slipped from her stool knowing Remy was slinking through the shadows like a ghost. The Victor she had within her was telling her all about him, right down to how he had worked his way up from a drug smuggler to a more honest trade of arms dealing.
"Was a time you'd be the man to go to for some blow or a little something to keep the party going." Rogue said in a low drawl that hadn't a bit of her southern accent in it.
The women on his arm looked on her as if she were trash at worst, competition at best, their patron looking at her confused with the merest hint something wasn't right. The men at his back tensed, still keeping their hands were they could be see as their employer raised a hand.
"I have the feeling you have me confused for someone else, but if you'd like we could clear it up over a drink."
"Oh, I know just who you are Gregory." Rogue replied, a grin on her lips full of teeth that had him flinch.
"You're mistaken." Gregory said, visibly shaken.
"What, and miss the reunion, mon ami."
A flash of daggers without blood, a glow on them the unspoken threat of just how things could and would go, the bodyguards frozen with their hands reaching into their off the rack sports coats. From the shadows she could see the red of his eyes glowing with violent intent she knew her own emerald depths matched.
"Fuck me, LeBeau. The little gutter rat grew up, and what's this? Did Creed finally keep one?" Gregory spat, glaring down at Rogue.
Snarling in rage at the accusation of any shared blood between her at that monster, she had her hand at his throat and face pressed so close to his she could taste what he had for dinner. Fangs bared and eyes wild, the dribbling on the floor was almost missed in the cacophony of hedonistic release going on in the club.
"You got no fucking idea Gregory, I know just enough about you to know the world won't miss you, so you got one fucking chance..." Rogue growled between clenched teeth.
"Anything!" Gregory cried, his voice choked and full of fear.
"Call up Uncle Vic, tell him his little Kitten wants ta see him." Rogue purred, feeling the long night was almost over.
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"This sucks." Kitty sighed, flopping back on the steps in the warm night to stare up at the stars.
"He wouldn't have asked us to stay without having a good reason." Bobby argued, holding Lorna's hand.
Even still it couldn't help quell his worry and irritation, asked by the Professor himself to take Kitty and ghost after the newcomers and St. John. He was always having to keep his best friend out of trouble, and now he was out there in the thick of it. Feeling her hand on his shoulder, her looked up from his brooding to see her sharing just the same worry and dread.
"I'm sorry, you don't know St. John like I do." Bobby whispered.
"I'm more worried about her, out there all alone. Everything she said, I, I can't blame her." Lorna whispered.
"Well it's their own fault, they just better not drag the school right into it with them." Kitty interrupted, playing connect the dot with the constellations she could see.
"Did he say why?" Lorna asked, looking from Kitty in irritation to Bobby in sympathy.
"He just said he got a call and to expect company." Bobby explained, pulling her up into a hug and staring out into the dark woodlands that surrounded the school.
"I'll laugh if it's John and them, busted for speeding or something." Kitty snickered, throwing her legs up to vault into a sitting position.
"I'd be happy if it was that simple." Bobby admitted, something in his gut telling him otherwise when the Professor reached out to tell him to stand down.
"Car coming." Lorna announced as the glow of headlights brightened a hill until they pierced the darkness cresting it.
They watched in silence as it neared, catching the first real glimpse as it drove past the lamps along the fence line down near the road, a State Trooper. Kitty laughed hard, feeling vindicated, waiting for the car to near. Thinking maybe somehow they had lucked out, Bobby waited and felt that little bit of hope die as the car came to a stop. The trooper stayed in the car, yet climbing out from the back a lady in NYPD blues helped a slip of a girl out after some coaxing.
Feeling his stomach twist in knots and his heart climb into his throat, he found Lorna squeezing his hand tight with a gasp. Kitty scooted up, any of her jest and jibes from before vanished at the sobering sight, the lady cop urging the girl years young then them on up to the steps as the doors open. Throwing a collective look over their shoulders, they found the Professor there with Pete at his back.
The sound of doors closing drew their attention back, the trooper and officer leaving without saying a word, the girl just left standing there with her arms wrapped up about herself shivering.
"Did he just...?" Kitty asked, motioning to the departing officers of the peace with her eyebrows.
"I think he did." Bobby said slowly, astonished to see the Professor use his gift like that.
It was rare to see the Professor act so openly with his telepathy, but that was his only explanation for what he'd just seen. Starting to rise to his feet, he saw the girl jump back a few steps and throw her hands out before her, sparks snapping off them to pop and crack.
"My bad." Bobby cried, holding his hands in front of him daring to placate her as he took his seat with Kitty and Lorna.
"CynJenn said you phoned her, said Remy and Rogue were here, I want to see them." Jubilee snapped.
"They left..." Kitty started, gulping hard as she saw the girl across from her openly start to cry.
"To find you! You're the one that helped her? She said you were the first to offer her any bit of kindness..." Lorna cut in.
"They came all the way for me?" Jubilee whimpered, the words she had told her self again and again suddenly made real.
"Yep, never caught where you were all from." Bobby said, getting to his feet again.
"So Cal, LA." Jubilee mumbled, the sparks alighting off her hands dying.
"Seriously? Holy crap, far from home to the nth." Kitty whispered.
"I think you all have this well enough in hand, I'll leave you all to getting her settled in. I'm going to see if I can't track down her wayward friends to let them know the good news." Charles said kindly.
Taking his leave with one last look on them with a mix of pain and pride having burdened his students with a different mission but knowing they would handle it. Patting Pete in passing, he started back to the school, needing a moment with Cerebro.
Left alone and just wondering what the poor girl had been through, Bobby crouched in front of her with the rest giving them just enough space. Noticing the bags under her eyes and bruises hidden by makeup, her split lip that had him touching his own in sympathy, he felt his heart ache for everything she must have been through. But it was Lorna reaching out to touch the necklace about her throat that had his heart skip a beat as she jerked back from the touch.
"He did this to you." Lorna said with no question implied.
Nodding her head with a fresh wave of tears, Jubilee tugged at it futilely with no purchase or give offered. Joining the rest in an asking look to Lorna, he saw how shaken she looked but still found the strength to smile.
"I don't know why, but he wants me. Because I can do what he can, or that's what the Professor told me after they saved me all because your friend phoned to warn them. I can...take that off, I think." Lorna said softly, staring at the strip of metal that had her feeling her blood running cold out of disgust.
Looking so hopeful and sad at the same time, Jubilee forced her hands to her lap and just sat still giving the tiniest nod of ascent. Remembering back when she found out about her power, or her gift as the Professor had called it, Lorna thought back to idly toying with a spoon one breakfast to find it putty in her hand. Levitation and attraction came later, practised in secret, but bending spoons had been her trick she had showed openly at school letting her classmates wonder how she did it.
Gently taking the band of metal in her fingers, she worked at it just like she would a spoon, rubbing it and feeling the metal yield and twist at her touch. Snapping it first, she eased it until it was a crescent that could easily be lifted free and tossed away like the vile thing it was. On the first clattering echo down the drive she found herself tackled and thrown to the ground, the girl she had just freed hugging her and crying openly.
"It's okay, you're free, you're safe. They, we won't let anyone hurt you." Lorna whispered, surprised at the turn about of events.
"Lets go inside, get your scrawny butt into a blanket and then we can get you something to eat. Sound good?" Kitty announced.
Too shaken to answer, she didn't fight as Pete easily picked her up and lead her off to the school. Hanging back to compose herself, Lorna looked to Bobby and saw something in his eyes that had her leaning in close for a kiss, a new resolve in his eyes.
"You're going to be my Hero, aren't you?" Lorna asked.
"Soon as this is all over with, I'm going to become an X-man." Bobby swore, taking her hand lightly in his own to join the rest.
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"The girl's escaped." Mystique announced, the preparations nearly complete with the device.
Standing at the window and looking out to the skyline filled with all the lights of Manhattan, Erik had a sip of his drink and found the taste of the Scotch sullied by the announcement. The call from Charles had been foreboding enough, let alone signs that his X-men were out looking to stop him. Now the lure for the final piece to his victory had escaped.
"How?" Erik asked, having another sip.
"Toad's appetite apparently got the better of him, that and three packs of wasabi and a face full of sparklers that I know exactly how bad they hurt." Mystique hissed.
Smirking despite the outcome, he had to give the child credit for her resourcefulness. Finishing his drink and swirling the ice about the glass, he thought of a way to salvage the whole mess. Already the UN ambassadors were filing in on Ellis Island, the television playing silently in the corner broadcast that much.
"Call Victor, have him earn his pay and track her down, both her and our wayward Rogue I've yet to receive. I believe I am going to have to pay an old friend a visit as my hand has been forced. Have Toad prep the chopper, I'll be there shortly." Erik explained.
Leaving her to make the necessary calls, one way or another he would usher in a new age for his people with the world as his audience. Wars were fought by men and women inspired by words and political rhetoric, but to change the world you had to change the people. Tonight the Isle of Manhattan would be changed forever, the million and more souls finding out just what it meant to be a Mutant, a voice strong enough to be heard by the whole of the world. If the world didn't listen, he had his speeches prepared and his soul ready to bear his sins.
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He'd been getting calls enough all night, just the kind of calls he wanted to hear, that Remy was in town right along with his Kitten. Erik might have paid for her for a night, but hearing that snarl through the phone it woke something up in him he hadn't felt for a good long time. It'd been years since a woman had come off as more than some frail thing to be played with, come off as something he could let himself loose with. The last one he met had wanted to be hurt and he'd obliged her, listening to all her confessions about everything she had done to deserve it, choosing 'Him' instead of her brother.
His little Kitten would take some nurturing before then, following her trail and stopping for drinks, catching her scent right along with a new little playmate that smelt of lighter fluid and gasoline, a little fire bug. That Remy was all over her was just perfect, every little girl needed their first. If there was one thing he had it was time, putting another bill on his tab to head to the next. By the time Gregory called him he was ready to meet them, everything he needed to know told by just how wild she was becoming with every little stop along the way.
Pulling up out front of a club that was strangely deserted, he stopped to stare down at his phone and grinned. It was Mystique, speak of the devil herself, letting it go to his voice mail figuring he'd call her back after his fun. He'd follow through with the arrangement, but first he had to get down to a little pleasure before business. Life was just too boring if he didn't cultivate the right kind of enemies, put the hate in their heart that he'd harvest someday full of blood and rage and anger.
"Last call for alcohol, ya don't gotta go home but ya can't stay here." Victor sang walking into the club, a glance to take in the players.
The dance floor was empty though the music played on quietly in the background, the tables still standing with bottles and glasses of expensive liquor of the partygoers. Up at the bar some punk sat pouring a line of shots with some Grey Goose, lighting the row with his zippo to take the first and blow it out. Alcohol abuse in his opinion, but to each their own, turning his eyes on the booth where just the few people he wanted to see were.
Kitten sat on Remy's lap, her arms thrown around him and drinking a bottle of champagne straight. LeBeau had his staff out in one hand, idly tossing a blade in the other, looking as cocksure as ever. Beneath it all was a simmering rage he had sparked writing a message in blood back across the country, just the little bit of luck he had in the whole mess of what would have otherwise been a run of the mill job.
"Ya here ta tell me yer mad I broke yer little toy LeBeau, what were ya waitin' fer, her ta grow up a bit ta be your little beach bunny?" Victor asked with a low laugh, the blade caught between fingers and taking on that purple glow of potential violence.
"Where is he?" Remy asked.
Kitten was sliding off his lap and prowling around the bar, picking up a drink here to pound back and move onto the next table all the while staring at him. Gloves were torn free and claws unsheathed without a wince of pain in her eyes, it was enough to drive him mad staring at her thinking of just everything he wanted to do with those lips that set a grim line all the while longing to see them ripple back in a snarl. He wanted to hear it first hand, to see the rage in her eyes and throw himself at it.
"The babysitter I left yer little beach bunny with?" Victor laughed mockingly, his eyes locked to Rogue's to see everything he needed, the twist of lips that showed fangs as her snarl danced in his ears and sent shivers down his spine.
Joining him on the dance floor and looking to cut on in with his Kitten, one dagger became five with all the flair of the street hustler he had been back in the day cheating at Five Card Monty. Catching the little fire bug in the corner of his eye picking up a shot looking to blow out the flaming shot, that dangerous element of the unknown tipped its hand as a burst of hellfire straight out of Vietnam engulfed him, snarling in rage and twisting to attack.
Kinetically charged knives dug into his side, exploding seconds later and knocking the wind straight out of his ruptured lung. But the outright roar of his Kitten proving herself a real Wildcat gave him seconds to prepare for the attack that came with claws dragging down his back and digging into flesh to grip his spine just as he would when playtime was over. Having tasted her gift first hand, he didn't have time play nice feeling his strength flattering, twisting to claw out her throat in a spray of blood across the dance floor.
"Oh," Victor said, coughing blood as he backed away grinning despite everything they expected, "This is just fucking perfect."
Remy was by his little loves side, the fear of god in him until that torn flesh mended as she hacked and wheezed. Meeting the gaze of the little fire bug, the kid proved he wasn't that much push over throwing a flaming shot at a table to set it ablaze, the rest soon joining it as the flames danced to his whim. Breathing in the scent of the burning bar and catching his amongst it all, he'd remember his face for another day as the inferno struck him.
"S'fraid I'm still on the clock kiddies, but if'in yer lookin' fer your little friend and ol' Erik himself," Victor began, suffering the burning of his flesh to prove a point to the little Pyro, "He's lookin' fer you too."
Glad to see his little Wildcat had just the same undiluted healing he did, she was lunging at him before he could even turn to the door, catching her by the throat and holding her there as she clawed at him and dug for his eyes. Thinking just where to find Erik and their little Firecracker, he added everything about the night in the apartment and forced it right down her as he hurled her at Pryo. LeBeau wasn't far behind in his attack, his bo staff lashing out and easily dodged with more than a century of fighting for his life under his belt, an opening coming to throw the gutter rat right where he belonged out in the street with the door shattered in his passing.
Finding everything he wanted out of the night, just shy of a frail for his kind of intimacy, he left to the distant sound of fire engines sirens knowing just where they were headed. Erik could have his money back for all he cared, he'd just laid seed to enough hate he longed to reap once it had a chance to grow. Picking up the phone and giving it a look to more messages piling up from Mystique, he threw it out the window and thought ahead to just where he could go to kill some time until the harvest.
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The only warning they had was the sudden power failure and the sound of a chopper landing out on the lawn. Striding towards the school, gone was Erik and his Fedora, in his place was Magneto and a helmet worn in battle. The irony wasn't lost on him, remembering a time years before when both he and Charles had been off hunting down a man that sought to bring about a new world born in the ashes of the old. With only children left behind, the fight was over quickly.
Two joined him in the chopper, buckling them up and binding them, running his finger over the bare neck of the one. Just on the edge of his perception he thought he could hear the cries of his old friend reaching out to him, the temptation to take off his helm and beg forgiveness overcome with the slamming of a door as Mortimer climbed in to take the helm.
As the helicopter climbed into the night sky he looked in those windows to the children that had no idea of everything he sacrificed for them, hoping one day in his new world they might if not forgive him, at the very least understand him.
"Hurry along now Toad."
Seeing the hands of his pilot hesitate, his head slowly twist to face him with a look of anguish, he gave the man a moment to say his piece.
"It doesn't have to be this way Erik."
"How long are you going to hold that line Charles? Until we're left alone on a beach again, too tired and weak to stop their missiles again?"
A rustling at the back had him know the slumbering girl was awakening, hoping she'd sleep deep and wake into a world she wouldn't have to hide in. Her shock was expected, struggling against her bindings until she noticed Toad look back on her with the eyes of another.
"King Kong! He liked the view!"
Flexing his might and shielding the feeble mind of his pilot, where Charles had looked through the eyes Mortimer blinked off the last vestiges of his thrall. Hearing the screaming coming from the back, he made a horking noise and spat, silencing it with a mucus hardening over her mouth.
"Remind me I owe Raven an apology, goodness, this child is a handful now isn't she?" Erik said, the helicopter tearing off to leave Westchester behind.
"Don't hafta tell me." Mortimer grumbled, sporting bandages and balms on his face and still feeling his tongue burning.
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