Sorry for the long wait, guys. This story and all the other ones I'm writing are harder to get uploaded than I thought. This should be over before summer is over, though. :)

Chapter 16: The Grounds

Kitty awaited the chance to jump. Alison stood next to her, shaking with fear. Kitty couldn't blame her, as the same thing was happening to her. She looked over to Rogue. She and Bobby were hugging each other. Then she looked to Piotr and Logan. Piotr put his hand on her shoulder. Both he and Logan smiled at her.

"Don't be afraid, Kitty," Logan told her. "Fear is nothing after a while. Life may be hard, but there's a reason for that. You can keep learning. Mistakes help you to learn, as well, and I won't judge you if you make one." He smiled at her. "You've done well, and now it's time to put your abilities to the test."

Kitty nodded, still feeling the terrible apprehension in her stomach. But she felt she was ready for what was about to come. She felt it was time for her to prove herself, to let the Brotherhood know the X-Men wouldn't go down without a fight.

"Oh God, this is going to be scary," Alison said, placing her hand on Kitty's shoulder. "Please, don't make this so scary, Kitty."

"Don't worry," Kitty told her. "It's not so bad. You'll get used to it quickly."

The Blackbird passed over a stretch of land, and Kitty looked to Logan. He nodded at them. "It's time," he said. "I'll go first." He went to the open hatch and prepared to jump. "This is going to be fun."

And then he jumped.

Kitty watched him hit the ground, and it seemed all his bones were broken. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but then, Logan got back to his feet, and she realized all his bones were snapping back together. Kitty finally released a sigh of relief, and then looked to Alison. "You ready for this?" she asked. Alison nodded. "Then it's time." She took Alison's hand. Looking back at Rogue, she smiled, and then she jumped. Kitty concentrated, trying to block out everything else, though Alison's screams penetrated her ears. But her concentration did not fail, and just when it seemed they would hit the ground and die, like all normal humans, they passed right through, and at first everything was black. But Kitty began passing back up through the ground. When she was finished, she looked at Alison. "Are you okay?" she asked.

Alison looked at her and said, "Never do that again, okay?"

Kitty smiled and nodded. She saw Logan standing behind Alison. He was smiling at her. Then she looked up at the Blackbird, but all she could see instead was Rogue coming down with Bobby on the ice bridge he was creating with his bare hands. Piotr came down, in his metal form, and although he hit the ground hard, he was unharmed. Jean was coming down with Scott, levitating both she and he with her mind. Storm was flying down. When they'd all reached the ground, they regrouped.

"What should we do now?" asked Rogue.

"We need to see if there's anyone on this island that can help us," Logan said. "There's the possibility that one of the students could have escaped. We need to make sure if this happened. For all we know, we could have an ally here."

Xavier felt deep and terrible pain. Flashes of old memories were stuck in his mind, and he couldn't get them out of there. It was a terrible, to see all of his past failures in front of his face.

And then it all stopped.

He found himself once more there in the pseudo-Cerebro room. Emma was still on the ground, staring at him balefully.

"I am so sorry, Charles," she told him. "It's because of me that this is happening, and if it weren't for me, this terrible crap wouldn't be happening."

"You shouldn't blame yourself, Emma," he said, despite one part of his mind telling him that he was wrong. "Everyone had made at least one mistake during their lifetime, and none of us are any different. I am sure this will all be over soon enough, believe me. I sense something is changing."

"Like what?" she asked.

"I believe some of the X-Men are on their way to find us," he replied. He looked at her again and smiled. "We will be saved soon, Emma, trust me."

Kitty stood by Rogue, watching Logan, who was sniffing the air. After saying they could possibly have an ally there on the island with them, he'd begun doing so, and so far, after about a minute, he hadn't found anything.

"I can't smell anything," he said. "I'm not sure why. Unless there's something that can stop me from sniffing something out, then I don't know what's happening."

"Do you smell anything?" Rogue asked.

"I smell…brimstone," he said. "But I'm not sure what that has to do with the Professor."

Storm gasped. Logan, the girls, Scott, Jean, Bobby, and Piotr looked over at her in surprise.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But there's a student in the school. He has been using a human disguise for a long time, but his normal mutant form is an almost-demonic creature. He gives off the smell of brimstone when he is in his normal form. His name is Kurt Wagner, though we were going to name him Nightcrawler once we put him into the X-Men. He was showing much progress with his abilities. Since he had some problems with controlling his abilities, we kept him from the rest of you for a while."

"So you're saying that he's here on the island?" asked Kitty. "We need to find him, then. He's obviously hiding from William Stryker. He must've escaped, and Stryker is probably trying to find him. We need to hurry, that means."

She began looking for the young man Wolverine had mentioned. Rogue, Alison, Bobby, and Piotr were right behind her, and soon the others followed.

"Can you smell anything, Logan?" Jean asked.

"No," he replied. "I smell your perfume, which has a very pleasant smell, by the way, but otherwise, no. The brimstone seems to have become a little more distant."

"Why would it become a little more distant?" asked Scott, who was not as happy now, as Logan had obviously just made a move on his girlfriend.

"Well, there's something else that comes in the air suddenly," Logan told him, not caring about the move any longer. "It smells like fear."

"His fear is masking the scent of brimstone, that means," Storm told them. "That's happened before, when we were testing his abilities. Follow wherever the fear or the brimstone takes you, and then we will find him."

Kitty searched for at least five minutes before she found some sort of a sign. By now the other X-Men had slipped away from her, with the exception of Rogue. Staying by her sister made Kitty feel very safe, even on an island such as this.

Kitty suddenly heard the sounds of shouting, and she wondered where exactly it was coming from, and who the voices belonged to. It made her wonder.

"Kitty?" asked Alison. "Did you hear that?"

"I did," Kitty replied.

She slowly made her way to an outcropping surveying a lower part of the grounds, and she found a group of men talking to one another. They all possessed flashlights, and some were even brandishing guns around. It made Kitty very scared.

"Could they be looking for Kurt?" asked Alison.

"They must be," said Rogue, who they realized was now right next to Alison. "We have to do something. I don't want Kurt to be found. Who knows what they'll do to him? I mean, I know we've never met him, but that doesn't mean we can't help him out at least a little bit."

"I agree," Kitty said. "I'm going down there."

"You're what?" Alison said, nearly exclaiming it before she realized they had to be quiet.

"Kitty, that's suicide!" Rogue told her.

"I can phase through the bullets," Kitty reminded them. "It wouldn't be hard for me to take them all out."

"Well, you have a good idea," came Logan's voice from behind them, "but it won't be you going down there, Kitty."

"Then who will be?" Storm asked.

"Tin Man and I," Logan replied. At the mystified expressions, he explained, "Piotr and I."

"But that's still real dangerous, Logan," said Scott.

"Surprising that you would be the one telling me that. Concerned for my safety?"

"Yes, somewhat," Scott told him begrudgingly. "But you're still my teammate, and I have to show you some respect. You've helped us out before, and we need your help again, it seems."

"I'm ready for this," came Piotr's voice.

"It's too dangerous, Piotr," said Jean. "You'll get yourself killed if you do that."

"It's not like it's going to matter," said Logan.

Kitty wanted to get into the conversation, but before she could, a voice came from behind them.

"You're right," they said. "It won't matter. Because all of you will die tonight."

Kitty saw the soldier, and she was all of a sudden scared. He had a real gun in his hands, and she wondered who he was going to shoot. It scared her all too much, and she didn't even know if she could phase at all anymore.

The soldier saw her fear. He smiled when he did so. Kitty observed his features, seeing his green eyes, a little bit of his blond hair, and his face, which seemed to be scarred, as if he had been badly burnt by fire. It made her wonder.

"See my face, do you?" asked the soldier to Kitty. "Yeah, a mutant burned it, and so now I'm a little deformed. It's because of him that I can't get a girlfriend, or a wife, or have kids, or anything like that. I hate all you mutants for the crap you've caused. And now I'll kill you, here and now."

He aimed the gun right at Kitty, who couldn't move. She knew she couldn't phase out of the way, or she would have done it already. She would have gone right through the rock and attacked him from behind already. But her ability wouldn't work, not now.

"Sayonara, you little dog," the soldier said, and pulled the trigger. Just as the bullet whizzed toward her, she heard Logan roar at her. Kitty saw a flash of brown hair with a touch of white come in front of her, and she realized it was Rogue.

Rogue gasped, and Kitty realized the bullet had hit her. Tears came to Kitty's eyes as she realized her friend had been shot. Not just her friend. Her sister.

Logan ran to the soldier, who wasn't expecting him, and the soldier was suddenly decapitated.

Rogue sighed, and turned to Kitty. Looking at the spot where Rogue had been shot, Kitty realized there was no sign it had happened at all. Looking down at the ground, Kitty found the bullet there. She realized Rogue had healed.

"What the—?" said Alison.

"Back when I healed Kitty after the raid, I took some of Logan's power, and there was some left over," Rogue explained. "I could feel it, and I just used the last of it to take the bullet and let the wound heal."

Kitty hugged her hard. "I'm so sorry," she cried. "I wanted to let the bullet phase through me, but I couldn't do it. I'm so sorry."

Rogue hugged her back. "It's not your fault," she replied. "You were just scared. I understand. It's nothing now. It's all over, and we don't have to worry about the soldier any longer."

"That was very brave of you, Rogue," said Jean. "But let's hope we never have to see one of our X-Men do another thing such as that ever again. We can't afford to lose one of our greatest team members." She smiled at Rogue. "You girls, as well as Piotr and Bobby, are definitely some of the bravest recruits I've ever known."

"Hey, no offense," said Logan, "but we need to move. That gunshot just echoed through the whole place, and now the other soldiers are coming for us."

"Right, then," said Storm, "let's move."

"What do you mean?" asked Stryker to Mystique. "What are you trying to tell me?"

"I'm saying that there are some pretty easy ways to end these X-Men that are coming here," she explained. "When it comes to Storm, you need something like a machine gun. I don't think that even someone that controls the weather can survive something such as that. A few Sentinels might help as well. When it comes to the boy that controls ice, I have someone that can help. The Sentinels will help with the metal boy, as well as the blond girl I saw. There are five others you must know about, however."

Before she could speak to him about the five remaining X-Men, a call came in over Stryker's radio.

"What is it?" Stryker called into the receiver.

"Sir, this is James Tryan," the voice said. "We've just found the body of one of the soldiers. It's Troy Johnson. He's been decapitated, and I think you know who decapitated him quite possibly."

Stryker didn't even have to think about who the soldier was mentioning. A smile crossed his face, and Mystique could tell he was very happy. She understood why.

"Well, it seems like the sparrow has finally returned to the nest," Stryker said. He hung up the radio and looked at Mystique. "I need you to get down there and find them. You know how to end them. I've programmed a few Sentinels, by the way, so just take them out, and kill all the X-Men. But leave Wolverine for me."

Mystique smiled, got up from her seat, and seductively walked away from the room, exiting into the armory, which held the Sentinels. Not far from it was the makeshift Cerebro.

And that reminded him.

Stryker took another route and walked all the way to the makeshift Cerebro.

When he entered, he found his son sitting in his wheelchair behind Xavier. The old bald man was holding the hand of Emma Frost, who still lay on the ground. She seemed to have recovered a small amount, but she was still alive.

Looking over at Jason, William wondered why he had not forced Xavier to kill the mutants yet! It was supposed to be all over. It seemed it would not be happening, however.

"Your son is no murderer," said Xavier. "He is a good young man."

"Is that so?" William Stryker said. He turned to his son. "So you won't kill the mutants? Is it because you are one? Or is it because you want to save your disgraceful kind? Well, actually, don't even answer! Because I have something to tell you." Stryker pulled out a gun and aimed it at Jason's head. Despite Xavier's "NO!" Stryker did so anyway, and it was all over as soon as the trigger was pulled, it was all over.

Jason Stryker was dead. He was dead at the hands of his own father.

"Well, that's over," Stryker said. "And now we can move on to the next phase of the plan."

He walked out of the room, and Xavier and Emma wondered what that phase was.

"Where are we?" asked Kitty, now becoming more tired by the moment.

"We're near where Kurt is hiding," said Logan. "I can smell him, but I'm not sure exactly where he is."

Kitty looked behind a rock to see if the boy they were talking about was somewhere around here, but she saw nothing behind the rock. She saw a bush nearby and hurried over to it, quickly but silently, to check behind it.

And when she looked behind it, she nearly cried out.

A demonic blue creature with yellow eyes was staring back at her. She was frozen in place.

"Please, don't give me avay," he pleaded in a Russian accent. "My name is Kurt Vagner. I am not harmful, so please, don't give me avay!" He shielded himself with his hands.

Kitty listened to what he'd told her, and she gasped. She looked over to the other X-Men, who were all staring at her. She motioned to them, and when Rogue came closer, she said softly, "I've found Kurt."

Rogue nodded, and hurried back to where the other X-Men stood. She relayed the information to them, and they all came running over.

"Please, don't hurt me!" Kurt cried, shielding himself with his hands. By now, Kitty saw he was wearing a brown jacket and faded, torn and dirty jeans.

"Kurt," said Storm. "Do you not remember me?"

Kurt slowly looked up. He hugged Storm hard and began sobbing. But then he jumped away and said, "How do I know you are not the blue voman?"

"Blue woman?" asked Alison. "You mean Mystique?"

Kurt nodded. "Yes. How do I know none of you are that monster?"

"Kurt, it is me," Storm said, but Kurt backed away a little more. And then Jean stepped forward.

"You remember me," she said to Kurt. "Jean, remember? Here, let me help you. This will allow you to know we are not…none of us are…Mystique or a member of the Brotherhood of Mutants." She projected images and information into Kurt's mind, and suddenly his face softened toward them.

"I know none of you are the blue voman now," he said. "I am sorry, but I cannot be too sure."

"None of us can," said Logan.

"Why have you taken that form, Kurt?" asked Rogue. "It's a different sort of form."

"It is a form I vas forced to take against my vill. My mother and father…" Kurt's voice trailed off. When he did not speak again, Storm turned to everyone.

"Unfortunately, we do not know Kurt's mother, but we know who his father is," she explained. "His father was once a member of the Brotherhood of Mutants, a demonic creature who took a similar form to Kurt, known as Azazel. He died many years ago, when Kurt was very, very young."

"That's so sad," Kitty said. She made her way closer to Kurt and held out her right hand. "Kurt…I'm sorry I was startled when I saw you. My name is Katherine. Katherine Pryde. But you can call me Kitty if you wish."

Kurt looked at her. "I am sorry I scared you," he said. "I know, my form is evil, and I vish I could change it. But I am not sure I can. Maybe there is someone who could do it for me, one of these days."

"There is someone," said Cyclops. "You remember me, Kurt, right? Professor Summers?"

Though Logan snickered, and Scott looked angrily over to him, Kurt nodded. "Yes, I remember you, Professor."

"We're on our way to rescue Professor Xavier," Jean explained. "We might need your help, though. Would you mind helping us, Kurt? Your teleportation ability would make it very helpful."

"I vould love to help you," Kurt said. "I've vanted more friends to come, but since I escaped, I've not had many around like I do at the school."

"How did you escape?" Kitty asked.

"They did not realize I can teleport," he said.

"That's because we have no files on your abilities, or on you, for that matter," Jean said. "We've been trying to keep you a secret for a while. I am sorry about that, Kurt."

"Do not be sorry," he said. "I know vhy you did that. It is because my father vas a hated man, and some would love to hunt me and him. Of course, he is dead, but his legacy lives on, unfortunately."

"Well, the good news is, you have more friends now," Alison said. "My name is Alison, although my codename is Dazzler. You've met Kitty, of course. Her codename is one I envy somewhat. She's called Shadowcat, because she can phase through almost anything. And then this here's Rogue. That's her codename, actually, but it's also her real name, too."

"It's good to meet you, Kurt," she said. "What was your given codename?"

"It vas Nightcrawler," he explained. Rogue suddenly remembered that had already been explained, and she felt a little embarassed that she'd forgotten.

"This is definitely a fun time right now," Logan said. "All of us here on the grounds of the island raised from the sea, with the possibility of us all dying here because both Stryker and the Brotherhood are waiting for us, and want to kill us."

"Logan, be quiet!" Scott said. "Look, I know I've not said this before, but I respect you. But please don't try to alarm the kids, okay? It's not good."

"I know," he admitted. "But it's hard sometimes." Then he comprehended something else spoken by Scott and stared at him in a strange way. "You respect me?"

But before they could say anything else, Jean shushed them, then told everyone to get down to the ground.

"There are some of Stryker's soldiers over there," she explained once they'd listened. "We have to make sure they do not see us, all right?" Everyone nodded. "Okay, good. Now, does anyone have a plan?"

"No, not at the moment," Logan said. "I think you might have scared the kids when you said there are soldiers."

"Well, I couldn't help it, because I was only speaking the truth," Jean said. "But I have a plan. We need to split up."

"Split up?" said Rogue. "I'd rather not! We're all good here together, are we not?"

"It's the only way to get inside and save the Professor," Jean told her. "You need to find out who you're going with. There are four professors here, including Logan. That means there need to be two groups of one professor and one student, and two groups of one professor and two students."

Kitty and Rogue looked at each other. They didn't want to leave each other's sides, but they decided that for the time being, it was best they did so.

"I'll go with Logan," Kitty volunteered. "Piotr, would you mind coming with me?"

He nodded, allowing her to know that he wouldn't mind.

"I'll go with Jean. Bobby, would you mind?" Rogue asked.

"No, not at all," he said.

That left Storm and Scott.

"Kurt, I want you with me," said Storm. "You worked best under me, it seemed."

"Yes, Professor," said Kurt.

"And that means you're with me, Alison," Scott said.

"All right," she said solemnly. "I just wish I could be with one of you guys," she said to Rogue and Kitty. "But, oh well."

"Well, you'll see each other soon," Jean told her. "We just need to find ways of getting in."

"Well, this is going to be eventful," said Kitty.

The four groups set off. Kitty, Rogue, and Alison looked at one another as they left, hoping they would be reunited soon.