Rogue huffed with annoyance, sitting down in the middle of her room surrounded by clothes.
I'm still voting for the slinky black dress. John piped up.
"You're just sayin' that because it's tighter than a second skin." Rogue snorted.
Well do you want to look hot for the dude that kicked Bobby's ass at dinner? John asked skeptically.
Rogue blushed. "Maybe…"
Then put on the damn black dress, woman! He shouted in her ear with laughter in his tone.
"You're lucky I can't get my hands on you," Rogue commented as she sifted through the clothes again. "Or I'd strangle you."
Currently she was wearing one of Logan's Canada sweat shirts that she had stolen that nearly brushed her knees it was so large and a pair of tight black leggings that were also partially covered by a pair of black combat boots. And gloves. As always.
No you wouldn't! John protested. You love me-.
Crack.
"Shut up." She snapped, turning her head when she heard a faint noise from the hall. "What was that?"
She honed her senses on the hallway outside of her door for the next few moments.
"I guess it was nothing…" She started to shrug.
Crack.
She sighed heavily and pulled herself out of the clothing mountain and stalked out of the door into the hall.
"Jamie, what did I tell you about stealing Pete's camera?" She shouted, looking around wildly for the young child she suspected to be at the bottom of this. But the hallway was dark. Unnaturally so.
"Sorry to disappoint." A cold voice crawled its way to her ears and she shivered.
Rogue gasped and stumbled back in fear, turning around to face her antagonist. .
Riptide cocked his head to the side and put his hand on the last working light in the hall. It died out of existence with another fizzling sound as the glass crushed between his fingers with a sharp crack.
The hall was drenched in blackness.
-
"Can't catch me!" Jamie laughed as he raced down the hall.
"You're cheating!" Rahne shouted after him.
"Am not!" Jamie protested.
"Are too!" Rahne shot back.
"Betcha can't prove it!" He cackled as he tore around a corner.
Jamie skidded to a stop.
Rahne turned the corner and nearly collided with him.
"What's wrong?" A concerned tone took into her voice as she looked him over.
She followed his frozen gaze to a hulking figure at the other end of the hall with a shaved bald head and terrifying eyes.
"Hello kiddies." Blockbuster smirked.
His mammoth hands reached out for them.
-
Jubilee hummed to herself as she dragged Warren down one of the halls.
"Jubilee!" He moaned in complaint. "I don't like Betsy! Lemme go!"
"You, sir, are a liar and a cheat." Jubilee declared. "You like her! Admit it right now ad I'll let you go!"
"No!" He shouted vehemently.
"We're getting closer to Betsy's room." Jubilee sang out as she continued to drag him.
"Get this crazy woman off of me!" Warren shouted, doing his best to claw his way out of her grip. "Somebody get me outta here!"
"Well," A unfamiliar female voice called to them. They both looked up to see an Amazonian woman with dark hair and crazy muscles leaning coolly against a wall. "If you insist."
She peeled away from the wall.
-
"No, I haven't seen your pastel set, Peter, I'm sorry." Ororo walked out of the elevator, dwarfed by Piotr standing next to her.
"I do not know where they could have gone to." Piotr scratched his head.
A cloaked figure leaning next to an open window caught Ororo's attention because of the smoke billowing from the cigarette in their hands.
"Hey!" She shouted. "You can't smoke in here! You know better than that." She stomped up to the woman and snatched the cigarette out of her lips before stomping it out on the ground, Piotr close at her heels.
"Maybe I don't." The woman stared down at her crushed cigarette, thoroughly vexed.
"I do not recall having ever seen you around here before." Piotr turned his head to the side to try and get a better look at the woman, but only catching sight of her green hair and eyes.
"Oh," Vertigo shrugged off her jacket. "I don't go here." She smile broadly and set up her fighting stance. "I'm just here to pick a few things up."
-
"Look, Gumbo," Logan growled at Remy. "This doesn't count as clean!" He pointed to the kitchen, which practically sparkled.
"What d' y' want me t' do?" Remy shouted. "I've been cleaning up dis shit all day!"
"And it won't be good enough until I can't smell the burnt chicken anymore." Logan said simply.
Remy snorted with fury and contemplated blowing up the kitchen and then blowing up Wolverine.
Logan guessed his train of thought.
"You wanna start something, Gumbo?" He quirked an eyebrow.
"If he doesn't," Remy and Logan whipped around at the sound of a new voice. "I certainly do." Harpoon stepped out of the shadows that had concealed him and spun his two favorite weapons around in his fingers.*
Remy's breath caught up in his throat and the scar on his chest seemed to give off a dull throb. He was momentarily speechless.
Logan, on the other hand…
Snikt.
"Who are you, bub?" Wolverine snarled, curling his fingers into fists underneath the adamantium blades extending beyond his knuckles. "What are you doing here?"
"Ask him," Harpoon jabbed his chin out at Remy. "He knows the answer to both questions."
Realization dawned on Remy like an icy stab in the heart.
"I'm not going back!" He shouted, grabbing a knife off of the cutting board beside him, charging it, and hurling at Harpoon with a deadly accuracy.
Harpoon ducked under the blade and then rolled out of the way as it exploded.
"You don't really have a choice in the matter, Gambit." His eyes narrowed.
-
Riptide caught the brunt of Rogue's fist directly in his stomach, which had probably been just a lucky shot considering it was pitch black."You're dead!" She accused to the darkness.
"Ah-ah-ah, little girl," Riptide tutted, seemingly unfazed by the hit he had just received. "You wouldn't want to make me hurt you, now would you?"
She slammed her other fist into his jaw before twisting around and hitting his side with a rib-cracking kick.
"Last warning, little girl." Riptide sang. "Don't make me break my word to deliver you in one piece."
Rogue screamed out in fury as she struck out again, fist connecting with the hard wood of the wall in the darkness.
"Come out and fight me you coward!" She shrilled into the depths of darkness in front of her as she yanked off her gloves roughly.
"Can't we solve this peacefully?" He wondered out loud from behind her.
Rogue whipped around and kicked out, connecting right in the place where no man wants to be kicked.
"Alright," He grunted. "I'm done being nice."
She thrust out her fist at him again blindly, and he caught her wrist deftly before kicking her feet out from underneath of her and slamming her down into the ground.
Rogue grunted in pain before kicking him off of her and rolling across broken glass to get out of his way as he lashed out and shattered one of the side tables that decorated every hall in the Institute. Cuts opened up on her skin as the glass cut through her thin layers and jabbed at her vulnerable flesh, leaving streaks of bloody pain in their wake.
She cried out in equal parts shock and pain and he was on her once again, kicking her repeatedly in the side so that the sounds of her ribs crunching was audible above her shouts, causing blinding amounts of searing, shooting, throbbing pain.
Gritting her teeth and clenching her fists Rogue caught his ankle with one of her hands in a moment of pure luck and twisted it until he was thrown back down to the floor. Her fingers coiled around a shard of glass left abandoned on the ground, opening gashes on her hands as well as she reached up over her head and brought the edge of it down on his leg.
"Bitch!" He howled in pain.
"Shit, shit, shit…" Rogue muttered, crawling towards the closest source of light at the other end of the hall, attempting to stand up twice before falling back to the ground as her compromised body couldn't support her.
Tears spilled over her eyes as she continued to drag herself, hoping that Riptide hadn't already rebounded from her blow.
"Help!" She shouted. "Somebody help-." She started coughing up blood as pain stabbed throughout her sides. "Help…" She rasped.
A hand wrapped around her throat. Rogue's eyes went doe.
"I am helping." Riptide assured her with a maniac grin just before slamming her head into the wall, sending her into a more effective darkness.
-
Rahne and Jamie both screamed and tried to scramble away as Blockbuster reached out from them.
"Can't let you do that." Blockbuster boomed, reaching over their heads and shutting the door, sealing off their escape.
"You big butthead!" Rahne shouted after running into the door and hitting her nose.
"Sorry, kid," Blockbuster sympathized with the small child. "But you and your boyfriend have to come with me."
Rahne turned red.
"He's not my boyfriend!" She snarled, morphing into a wolf and aiming for his throat.
Blockbuster batted her away like a fly and she hit the wall hard.
"Don't touch her!" Jamie shouted, slapping himself so that three more Jamies sprung to life around him. He charged at Blockbuster, only producing more and more Jamies as his hits and strikes bounced off of the mammoth man.
Blockbuster sighed dramatically before reaching down and knocking them all unconscious in one sweep of his giant hand.
All of the Jamies but one faded from existence on the ground next to Rahne.
-
Arclight simply reached out and plucked Warren from Jubilee's grip and held on tight even as he struggled against her.
"W-who are you?" Jubilee stuttered, taking a shocked step backwards.
"Doesn't matter." Arclight shrugged. "All you need to know is that I'll be the last thing you see in this world before I kill you."
"Try it!" Jubilee shouted, suddenly furious. She clenched her fists as she momentarily built up as much power as she could control before letting loose an explosion of fireworks from her finger tips that sent Arclight stumbling backwards, blinded.
Warren took the opportunity to strech out his wings, hitting the woman that held him captive in the chest and legs, sending her to the ground as he moved away from her grip.
"Go get Mr. Logan-." Jubilee started to instruct, building up more power in her hands.
"Cute tricks." Arclight interrupted, dragging herself back into a standing position. "Let me show you mine." She smiled wickedly as she brought her hands apart and then clapped them together, releasing waves of seismic energy that caused shock waves that possessed enough force to send Warren and Jubilee colliding with walls.
"Ow…" Jubilee moaned, clutching her head where she had struck the wood hardest.
Warren quickly recovered and tried to stand on his shaky legs.
"Still trying to fight me?" Arclight rolled her eyes and brought her hands together again with so much force they both screamed out in pain just having been exposed to it before finally surrendering to the vastness of unconsciousness.
-
"I do not understand." Piotr fell back into his own aggressive stance in response to Vertigo's.
"I guess looks aren't everything." She winked at him, striking out viciously, catching his chin with one of her heeled boots.
"Stop this immediately!" Storm shouted, eyes snowing over as weather stirred outside.
"I'm going to go with 'no'." Vertigo giggled before crouching down suddenly and kicking Storm's feet out from underneath her.
"That was not request." Colossus stood up, metallic skin reflecting the lights in an intimidating fashion.
"This is so boring!" Vertigo pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. "I wanted to see blood, but noooo. Apparently I'm on a schedule, so forgive me if I don't drag this out." She sighed heavily and extended her arms in their direction.
Storm tried to drag herself up into an upright position, but the ground pitched underneath her. Piotr stumbled backward as the floor tilted and logic lost it's meaning. They both crumpled to the ground with spinning heads and disarming nausea.
"W-what are you doing?" Storm asked between gritted teeth, squeezing her eyes shut so that she would have to look at the world spinning.
"Did you know that there's a fluid in your inner ear that accounts for balance?" Vertigo wondered out loud. "It's true! Mess with one, itty bitty little piece of the body and even the biggest, strongest of men will come down to their knees." She patted Piotr on the head as he clenched his jaw and tried not to vomit. "But again folks, I'm on a schedule, so I don't really have time to explain everything. It's been fun!"
She aimed a solid kick right across both of their temples.
-
Logan, needing no more provocation than a few threatening words, hurled himself at the intruder claws first with a feral yell.
Harpoon smiled, bringing up his weapon to block Logan's advance. The harpoon turned a static blue under his fingers and Logan felt as though a jolt of lightning had gone through him. Harpoon's smile widened and he upped the charge.
The Ace of Spades exploded against his temple.
"Your problem's wit' me." Gambit growled deep in his throat, eye's shadowed. "Leave dem out 'a it."
"Can't." Harpoon grinned, pinning Wolverine against a wall and stabbing him into place there with an uncharged harpoon. Logan grunted with pain, but got over it quickly and set about trying the yank the weapon out of his chest to no avail.
"What d' y' mean 'can't'?" Gambit demanded, the next card clutched between his fingers started to spastically emit the pink light that was always followed by destruction.
"It's too late for them not to be involved."
Vertigo stepped out of the shadows and threw the bodies of Piotr Rasputin and Ororo Munroe that she had been dragging to the ground. Blockbuster stepped up and wordlessly tossed the prone forms of Rahne Sinclair and Jamie Maddox next to them. Arclight dragged in Jubilation Lee and Warren Worthington the Third.
"Bastard!" Wolverine tried to pry himself off of the wall more ferociously.
He went ignored as all of the Marauders stood back and smiled at a stunned Remy LeBeau whose heart was starting to shatter.
"Is this what you want?" Harpoon wondered out loud. "Do you want us to hurt them to get to you?"
Remy's eyes wandered over their bodies and he felt trapped like a rat in a cage.
"Do you need more innocent people to die, Gambit?" Arclight asked.
"Are you that selfish?" Blockbuster sneered.
"You remember what happened last time we had to kill innocent people. I'm sure you still have a lovely scar." Vertigo leaned against the wall and lit up another cigarette.
"I ain't gonna let y' hurt dem!" Remy snarled, setting his resolve and charging the entire deck. "Let dem go!"
"I can't do that, Gambit." Harpoon said.
"You have four seconds befo' bodies start hittin' de floor!" The cards started to frazzle with so much energy being ignited within them.
"They won't all be ours." Harpoon warned.
"And maybe one 'a dem will be mine." Remy snorted, fully prepared to go down if it meant he could remove one of them from the world as well.
"And what about her?" A new voice asked.
Remy turned sharply.
"You'd risk everyone else…" Riptide lazily held a knife against Rogue's throat. Her eyes were closed and her clothes were bloody. Her skin was littered with cuts and bruises. Her beautifully unique hair was tainted with blood. "But what about the girl, Gambit?"
Remy faltered.
"I'll give you the choice right now." Riptide stated. "Everyone else is let go- All of the children we've locked in their rooms. All of the roughed up ones you've grown fond of. The one stabbed through the chest pinned to the wall. So, now it's down to this choice- you," Riptide locked eyes with him. "Or her." He brought the knife up closer against her pale skin.
There was no hesitation.
"Me."
Remy cut the charge on the cards and let them fall to the ground before peeling off his trench coat and casting that to the ground as well. He removed his bo staff from his pocket and tossed down another two packs of cards he had on his person, never removing his eyes from Rogue.
Just to keep her safe, he'd go back.
Blockbuster and Arclight wrapped their hands around his arms, immobilizing him.
"You see," Riptide threw the knife into the wall. "This didn't have to be so hard. Hell, if the boss hadn't said he didn't want a hair on your head touched, I wouldn't have even bothered with this whole 'blackmail into submission' plan. But that would have probably included a lot more blood." Riptide wiped imaginary sweat from his brow as he tossed Rogue over his shoulder.
"Let her go." Remy demanded, keeping the danger in his voice despite the fact he was no longer a threat.
"Oh…" Riptide seemed to look confused for a second. "I didn't tell you, did I?"
"Tell me what?" He growled, the red of his eyes burned.
"You only bargained for her life." Riptide patted him on the head. "Not her freedom. The boss has decided to start a new little project with this one."
Remy started thrashing against Arclight and Blockbuster, charging anything and everything he could get his hands on. "If he touches her I'll kill him!" He swore through the curses.
"Don't worry, Gambit." Riptide motioned for Blockbuster to subdue him. "You'll see the man soon enough," Remy was clubbed over the head by a giant fist. "And he's just been dying to see you again."
Remy's world went dark.
-
* I was thiiiis close to ending the chapter right there.
Woof, I'm tired. No, I didn't kill anyone :C I love killing people. And I love you guys! Fudge muffins for everyone for putting up with me!
Next chapter- Time for something Sinister. (Heh. You see… You see what I did there? Hee.)