Carlie followed Northstar as he dashed down a corridor. She could hear distant shouts and running footsteps behind them.
"Which way?" She demanded when they came to a point where the corridors forked.
Northstar glanced back and forth between them. "Left," he said calmly.
They continued running, down the white halls that seemed to stretch on forever, before they finally reached a door marked with a glowing red "Exit" sign.
"Thank God," gasped Carlie. But as Northstar pushed open the door, she crashed into him, the momentum sending them both flying out of the building.
The sensation of falling through empty space panicked Carlie, but before she could open her mouth to scream, they hit the ground.
Though the impact knocked the air from Carlie's lungs, Northstar instantly stood, an uncommon expression of disquiet on his unearthly face. Carlie noticed a pendant hanging from a silver chain on his neck.
"I was wrong," he admitted. "This wasn't way out. This is Dr. Warren's Containment Zone."
A pang of foreboding struck Carlie. "What's it for?"
"It's a special area that neutralizes most superhuman abilities," Northstar informed her. "Warren sent some of his test subjects out here sometimes for study."
An idea occurred to Carlie. "Is this where they're keeping Professor Xavier?"
Northstar stared at her. "Who's Professor Xavier?"
Carlie looked at him for a moment to ascertain that his query was not formed in jest, and then glanced at her surroundings to dispel the awkwardness of Northstar's ignorance.
Behind them was a sheer cliff expanding endlessly from side to side as far she could see, with a doorway built high into the rock; presumably, the exit from which they had fallen. The landscape was an odd mixture of nature with metropolitan elements: towering streetlight created pools of light in the dim clearing in which they stood, marking a path into the gloomy forest about a hundred yards away.
"We should follow the cliff side," Carlie said. "That might take us to a way out of here."
"I've been in here dozens of times," Northstar returned. "I never remember finding my way out."
His words washed over her for a moment, and Carlie stood very still. The evening's events replayed in her mind, and her eyes welled with tears of anger and despair.
She was no hero. She was a lonely, deluded girl who had been brought to life by a scientist to live as his avatar.
Warm tears slid down her cheeks, and Carlie made an impatient gesture to brush them aside, but Northstar halted her.
"Be still," he told her in an undertone.
They waited for what seemed like an eternity, but Carlie knew it to be only a few seconds.
"We need to move." A note of urgency had slipped into Northstar's usually toneless voice.
The two took off running at a steady pace, remaining along the ciff side. They didn't slow their pace until they reached an end: the rock turned at an angle to form a corner, jutting off into another long, hulking wall.
"This is useless," Carlie cried. "We're not making any sort of progress."
Northstar's attention, however, was directed at the forest that was still lurking slightly beyond the streetlights, of which there were fewer now.
"We should go into the woods," he stated flatly. "We can climb down the cliffs on the other side."
Carlie ignored the growing sense that they were prolonging a losing battle and chased after him.
Unable to maintain a clear focus on Northstar's mind, Jean had to attempt to grasp onto Carlie's thoughts. However, only flashes of sensation reached her, and she scowled in frustration. Through Jean's efforts, the X-Men had been able to find this facility, but now all of her endeavors produced no more results. She was also still not capable of detecting Professor Xavier, either. Something was very wrong.
She wished that she had accepted Rogue's offer of help instead of telling her to join Scott and Kitty in the search for Professor Xavier. At the moment, she found herself in some sort of outdoor training area, her mental connections to the others unexpectedly, completely severed.
Luckily, she had managed to land in a crouch after the fall from the door. All of that extra training, working alongside Rogue in various none-too-productive attempts to build camaraderie had finally paid off.
Concentrating, Jean closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, imagining enveloping the entire earth in a direct feed to her brain. She needed to find Northstar and the strange girl named Carlie, whom she only remembered vaguely, as though a fixture from a half-forgotten dream. And yet the fleeting thoughts and emotions she briefly glimpsed suggested that Jean had been close to both of them.
Just for a split second, Jean achieved her goal and gained a spark of insight into Carlie's mind. The girl was a machine on overload, hissing and unwinding, breaking down. There was the gloom of despair, the sharp blade of fear, a markedly unhinged frustration at life.
The cliffs.
Jean opened her eyes and set out determinedly, sprinting into the forest.
Carlie stared at the gleaming metal gun in the man's hand. He coldly looked back at her.
He stood with his back to the edge of the cliff, blocking off Northstar and Carlie's escape route. They had hoped to climb down the steep cliffs and navigate the sharp rocks below, but judging from the revolver he held, he wasn't in the mood to negotiate.
"So, you two are the experiments Warren is so proud of," he said, teeth bared in a smile that resembled a shark about to devour its prey. "The ones he was planning to use to ruin me."
Carlie gazed at the man, desperately studying him. His smile, his black designer suit, his hard eyes . . . this was the man who had killed Gwen. Her best friend. Her other self.
"Norman Osborn," she said aloud.
He glanced at her coolly. "What of it?"
"You killed Gwen Stacey," Carlie breathed.
Irked, he sent a sharp glance at her. "You know that as well?" He frowned. "You do look like her."
"I am her," Carlie whispered.
Jean burst from the forest to find the cliff's brink not fifty feet away- and it was just where Carlie and Northstar stood, held away from the cliffs by man standing with his back to the edge, a gun trained on both of them.
He spotted her. "Get over here," he warned her, his tone level but gelid. "Or I'll kill all three of you where you stand."
Jean followed his orders, head held high and eyes narrowed as she worked unsuccessfully to gain insight to his mind. "Aren't you planning on doing that anyway?"
"Not necessarily," the man replied, unconcerned. "We can negotiate. If you agree to work for me, I'll spare your lives."
"What makes you think you could ever trust us?" Jean asked skeptically.
He smiled, and the expression looked as if someone had slashed his lips apart with a knife. "My dear girl, have you ever heard of the wonderful little devices known as 'nanites'?" He glanced slyly at Northstar. "I believe that this young man may be familiar with the term."
In the corner of her eye, Jean noticed Northstar tense. Then he charged at Osborn.
The event occurred so quickly that even a trained combatant like Jean had trouble registering the rapid succession of the actions.
Osborn fired off all six of his bullets at Northstar, who managed to dodge four of them despite the loss of his mutation. Never faltering, he reached out and grabbed Osborn, hauled him to the cliff's edge, and threw him out into the open air. Osborn never had time to defend himself against Northstar's impact, let alone scream as he fell to the rocks hundreds of feet below.
Northstar wavered once returning from the fringe, and Jean moved fast, rushing to support him and carry him back to safety. At solid ground, she knelt down and pulled Northstar into her lap, supporting his bloodied body. In the back of her mind, she could feel Scott and the other X-Men coming closer.
"Carlie," she said urgently to the blonde girl, who was standing and staring in shock. "Go meet the others. Show them where to find us."
Nodding hurriedly, Carlie ran off, and Jean returned her attention to Northstar, placing her hands over the wound in his chest in an attempt to prevent the gushing stream of blood. "Don't worry, we'll get help."
His bright eyes flickered. "I'm not sure that will do much good at this point." The other bullet had grazed his lower forehead, splattering red blood across his uncannily beautiful face.
With horror, Jean remembered the one of other time she had held the broken body of a peer in her arms, blooding marring once perfect features. Her childhood friend had been killed in a hit and run while playing outside with her. There one moment and gone the next . . . that was when she gained her mutation: entering the dying mind of her best friend.
Jean felt hot tears drip down her face, landing on Northstar's neck.
He chuckled slightly. "Are you mourning for me, Jean Grey?"
"No," Jean told him determinedly. "I'm not mourning. I promise, you'll get through this."
Northstar gave a small but genuine smile. "Could you make me a different promise?"
"Anything." Jean's voice broke.
"The religious medal I'm wearing," he said, his voice growing lower. "It's for St. Jude, patron saint of impossible situations. I never had the chance to say goodbye to my grandfather before . . ." he trailed off. "Please find him and give him this medal."
"Of course," Jean said, holding back a choking sob.
"Tell him that it's from Jean-Paul," Northstar managed, as his body shuddered violently.
When the X-Men found the two of them moments later, Jean's perfectly manicured hands were covered in blood, evidence of her attempts to stop the life from escaping Jean-Paul, even as he died in her arms.
A/N: So, are there any thoughts on this chapter?