Disclaimer: I don't own a thing

Title: Born for Bad Luck

By: Peanutbutter

"Boys I'm most done travellin', Lord I'm at my journey's end

B'lieve I'm most done travellin', Lord at my journey's end

Well I been lookin' for me a good partner, bad luck is my best friend..."

(Born for Bad Luck song by Brownie McGhee)

Chapter 14: Big City

"Sun sinking deep, fires burning down

Hard to see the moon, when the smoke is all around

I live in a big city...

I hear babies cryin'

There'll be killing in these streets..."

(Big City Song by Allison and Solberg)

Note: It's beyond late, but it's here, finally.

It took too long to get there, rushing deeper and deeper into the under belly of the city, splashing through puddled tunnels, Remy held his side and wheezed with each footfall. He wondered if he would make it. His lungs insisted that he would not, and he wondered how close to laying on the precious organ those broken ribs were. His body ached like the flu was racing through his veins, zapping his energy and making his joints ache.

The noise reached them before they saw a thing, loud clanging, cries, and the explosions of various powers echoing throughout the corridors. The tunnels widened; their step slowed to a mere jog, and in an instant the battle was before them.

The tunnel ended before a large open space, a huge ceiling sloping and covered with a cobweb of meshed pipes of varying sizes. Somewhere, too high to see, was a grate casting brief glances of real light across the artificially lit space. There were houses, built into the walls across the tunnels, old shelters forgotten and dismissed over the years, new additions built onto them. They gaped like skeletons poor representations of what they used to be. The walls were gone, fires burning in the centers of them and leaping out the windows.

His eyes strayed over the mayhem to the woman flying by the meshed web of pipes. Her gaze, white and stormy, was fixed on the barely visible sewer grate. Lightening flashed though the opening illuminating the tunnels for an instant and making Remy cover his eyes in a clumsy shield. Sabertooth just missed the blast jumping against the wall and rebounding across a nearby tunnel entrance, mixing into the mass of mutant bodies. He torn them down, throwing the causalities over his shoulder with surprising apathy. The others were not to be out done, Arlight, and Scrambler were causing similar damage. The Morlocks were falling at an alarming rate.

The X-Men jumped into the fight dancing around each other and trying to stop what the Mauraders had started. Wolverine made his way toward Sabertooth claws extended. It didn't take them long to meet, teeth, snarls and bloody fist marked the start of a long fight. The others ganged up on the other two, though he was sure the odds wouldn't be tipped for long. Scalphunter was on the way and Vertigo was sure to follow. There was only a question of whether or not Essex would show up. The fact that they were still fighting proved that John hadn't finished their former boss.

He didn't know that John was standing next to him until his voice, low and distant rang in his ears. "I thought they were warned. We told them that it was coming."

Remy didn't want to think about the guilty edge to John's voice or how he was afraid to look at his friend, to read his unmistakable body language. Remy swallowed his eyes catching on the flaming homes.

"Dese people dey, dey not the fighters, dese de ones supposed ta be in hidin'." His fist clenched at his side.

Before he could say more or take action John was gone. He was silent as he jumped the short distance from the tunnel to the ground. His first fireball hit the back of Sabertooth's head making him howl backward his pummeling fist leaving Wolverine's face. Wolverine had the upper hand in an instant, pushing the growling man to the ground.

Remy jumped from his perch and pulled the deck of cards John had given him out of his pocket. He charged the first couple and jumped into the fight.

She felt like she had been in the darkness for too long before she came awake again. She expected the soft grass of Cody's spot and the soft breeze of a cool summer, but when she opened her eyes there was no color, not light, nobody, but she floated; somehow, solid on nothing in the middle of nothing.

"Cody?"

Her voice was empty, short, and barely reached the depths of her own hearing. She tried again but it was no use. She could barely hear her own voice and no matter how much she longed for it the Cody's soft southern accent didn't answer her calls. She knew, vaguely, that she was in her own mind. Why was it there were so many places she didn't recognize? She thought of Cody's domain perfected for him by the professor, his own little world inside her mind. Could this be someone else's? She doubted that, white, stark and empty she wouldn't want to live there.

"Carol?" She spoke the name with out really thinking about it. The name was foreign on her lips but the sound vibrated through the space rushed over her body and forced her eyes shut.

"Who are you?"

Rogue opened her eyes. There was a woman standing in front of her, long legged, blond, hand perched on a cocked hip, eyes narrowed angry, and a sizzling ice blue. She removed the hand from her hip and crossed her arms over her chest, defensive, and answered the question before Rogue could.

"It's you, that girl from the table."

Her voice was smooth devoid of any accent and would have been sweet, if it weren't for the bitter edge to her words and the sharp look in her eyes. Rogue swallowed and nodded. She still remembered her hand one the girls, how she had tried to stop.

"Stop doing that!"

"What..."

"Thinking about it, every time you think about it I get flooded with things I shouldn't be seeing." Carol put her hand on her head and closed her eyes. Her palm rubbed rhythmically across her temple.

"Sorry."

"Yeah," she removed her hand and looked up her eyes a little glassy, "sure."

"Ah am," she said tears welling in her eyes. "Ah didn't mean ta do this to you."

"Kill me?" She asked callously.

"Ah'm sorry," she whispered pushing the tears back, holding them in while she spoke. "Just, just let me explain." Cody said he had been mad, but only because he hadn't understood, maybe if she explained...

"Explain what, the ugly details?"

"The way my powers work."

John was flying through the air and dammit it was going to hurt when he landed. He'd tried to roll after the toss, calculate his landing, but it was near impossible. It was either hit the bottom of the approaching sewer pipe with his back or his head. There was nothing he could do to stop the momentum. He curled himself into a ball, forcing his legs to his chest.

BAM!

His back hit the pipe forcing him out of his roll his head flinging backward his legs uncurling. He hit the ground with a splash, his eyes rolling back in his head and his ears ringing. The igniter pack on his back was smashed, somewhere between the initial hit and his fall. A chuckle settled over him as he tried to get up.

"So, not so tough."

John opened his blurry eyes and focused on the snarling mass, more beast than man, leaning over him. His teeth gleamed in the dim light his eyes glinting savagely. John flexed his wrist hopefully, the igniter fizzled but there wasn't enough power for him to call on the fire.

"Shouldn't have switched sides," Sabertooth grinned, fangs and inhuman lips curling upward, all in all a pretty horrific sight. "Essex doesn't even want you alive." His clawed hand reached down fisting in his uniform. "If you're an X-Man now you'll die like the rest."

"Not an X-Man," John mouthed uselessly as Sabertooth pulled him off the ground gagging him with the collar of his own uniform.

Sabertooth laughed, "Switching sides again? Always thought you were untrustworthy. Told Magneto, told Essex, you going to help me kill you little buddies? Melt the iceboy, while I crush the girl, and lets not forget the Cajun. He's near finished as it is, Arclight's taking care of the traitor."

John let him talk, keeping his mouth shut as he reached, his fingers brushing over the pocket on his uniform. He felt the inside of the pocket and let a suppressed grin rush across his face.

"You got it wrong furball." John spat.

Sabertooth's grip tightened and John suppressed a wince as a growl reached his ears. His free hand flicked the lighter into action. Fire burst across his hand racing up his arm. Before Sabertooth could pull back he shot the flames right into the cat's face. Sabertooh rolled backward, dropping John, and swatting ineffectively at the burning hairs on his face.

John immediately rolled to his feet. Forcing air into his his bruised throat and deprived lungs, he suppressed the urge to cough. His lip curled in satisfaction as he watched Sabertooth fight the flames. "I'm on my own side."

Sabertooth roared his face black and red, blisters appearing where the hair was burned away, skin blackening around the open wounds. He charged.

"So I'm stuck here?"

Rogue swallowed. She expected the question, dreaded it because there was only one answer.

"Yes."

"So he didn't lie, I'm dead, at least my body, my body is dead."

The word was thick, hard to say. "Yes. Ah'm sorry," Empty, hollow, and worthless the apology passed her lips for the thousandth time.

"And you, you have my powers, the strength, the flight, my every memory." She whispered it pained and chocked as she paced the room.

"If, if that's what your powers are, Ah mean Ah used the super strength to save Remy. Ah don't know how Ah knew, how Cody did, but..." she trailed off.

"He kidnapped you."

"Remy? Yeah, he did, Ah just, Ah don't know, he tried to save meh." She shook her head. "Things got a little confused."

"So everyone else you touched it here too?"

"Yes."

"Where, I mean I've only met you, though I've seen some things I don't exactly understand."

Rogue didn't really want to tell her that she had them locked away. That the Professor had taught her how to lock away each psyche, each memory, until there was nothing left.

"You lock them up?" She was horrified her soft face contorting again. "You lock them away."

"No!" she waved her arms for a moment. "Ah did to some, the dangerous, the ones that won't leave meh alone, but..."

"You're going to do it to me. You're planning on it, aren't you?"

"No, Ah wouldn't. Ah'd share, Ah won't lock you away." She backed away from the advancing girl, though she wasn't really sure why.

Carol's brow was crinkling angrily. "I've gotten control you know. I've gotten control of you body without even trying."

Rogue was silent.

"I had a life you, a good one. I was finally writing the articles I wanted, finally got the gorgeous place in upstate...," she trailed off. "I know it's not really your fault, but," she paused for a moment, "but it's not mine either."

Rogue was frozen as she stepped closer. She stopped inches from Rogue's face her hands reaching up to touch Rogue's cheek. She flinched away from the touch, but Carol closed her ghosting fingers over Rogue's chin and squeezed.

"I had a life, a good one," she repeated, "and I'm not ready to give it up yet." Her voice was surprisingly calm as she lifted Rogue off the ground, her fingers tightening, bruising; Rogue's feet barely brushed the floor. "I'm sorry."

The words echoed in Rogue's ears as she started to struggle, but the hold tightened and before she knew it she was flying through the air, but her back didn't hit anything. She watched the white empty room fade taking the image of Carol with it.

She was crying hands flung out eyes squeezed shut, her voice drifting through the battlefield but deaf to the bodies lying in front of her. Her screams were a beacon. Remy heard her first. He had thought all the children where gone, cleared out when a winged man and a woman wearing an eye patch arrived to fight. She brought reinforcements, fighters, and the winged man tried to herd the helpless, defenseless, and wounded out of the fray.

It had started to turn for the best, but Vertigo and Scalphunter, sporting a deadly self made gun, had arrived fresh and ready to fight. The battle had reawakened. The little girl continued to scream.

Remy pulled himself up, ignoring the protesting rib, the shortness of breath and ran for her. His legs were slow, more sluggish with each step. She was crying louder hands clutching at body of the woman in front of her. Remy settled in front of her his knees brushing the prone body, his fingers pressing against the pulse point on her neck.

The little girl quieted, like his presence was something she hadn't expected. Remy tried to smile and catch her eye, but her large watery eyes were fixed on his dirt smudged fingers. There was no beat beneath his tips and he pulled his hand away regretfully. The girl started to whimper.

"Come on petite, it time ta get outta here, heh?" He reached for her, pulling her cherub fingers from the woman's shirts. She wailed louder, lids opening to deep green eyes blurred by tears.

"Momma," she whimpered curling brown locks falling into eyes. Her skin was peppered with bumps, spikes barely breaking the surface of her skin.

He shook his head unable to form the words to comfort her and gathered her into his arms. She struggled, pulling, screaming, and crying louder, the spikes becoming more prominent with her panic. His good arm underneath her he pushed her to his shoulder with his bad arm, hoping she would calm, so he could get her out.

"My name, petite, is Gambit, but you can call me Remy. I'm gonna get you out o' here, I promise." She snuffled against his shoulder fingers wrapping in the shoulder of his duster.

"Sarah," her voice barely reached his ears over the battle.

"Sarah," he repeated, "dat a pretty name." The spikes pressing into him seemed to reseed a bit and she held him tighter.

"Remy," she whispered fingers fisting in his jacket, "I want my mom."

Remy didn't know how to answer but held her as tight as he dared, with the dull spikes pressing into his arms.

"Think you're getting away LeBeau?"

Remy slid to a stop as Scalphunter, the large gun wielding mutant stepped in front of him. Moments ago he had been fighting Wolverine. Sarah started to shake a sob escaping her throat. Her spikes dug into Remy's arms echoing his own panic.

"Give me the inferior."

Remy tightened his hold and dropped to his knees as Scalphunter fired the first shot. Sarah screamed the spikes in her back breaking the skin on his arms as he rolled away. He suppressed the groan and forced himself to hold her closer. He was bleeding, he could feel it rushing down his arm and soaking his sleeve. He forced himself to roll. His good hand dug into the ground, grasping, pleading, desperate, for something. His fingers closed over a few stones and he rolled to his feet, out of breath his ribs screaming and his vision blackening.

Scalphunter fired again, bullets flying past Remy's head as he forced his body to dodge. He tossed the stones, bright with charge, at Scalphunter. They exploded near his face, making him fall to his knees the gun dropping from his grasp as he swatted at the still burning embers of rock.

Remy broke into a run ignoring the yells and waves of powers. Something hit him, sharp and painful. It raced up his leg making his knee buckle for an instant. His bad hand flew out to catch his fall, cracking again as it made contact with the hard ground. Forcing a roar past his throat, he maneuvered his body into a roll and sprung to his feet only seconds later. The wound burned, his lungs ached, and Sarah was screaming again.

He could see it. The exit, the place where the winged man had taken the innocents was still open and he was sure he saw bright white feathers hidden around a sharp turn. Remy pushed himself through the tunnel nearly colliding with Angel as he rushed through.

"De girl," he explained, "her mother's dead."

Angel reached for her, but she clutched him harder.

"No," she whispered, "don't leave me, please don't leave me."

Remy could barely hear Angel's instructions. His head was swimming. Was he telling him how to get out, where to take the girl? He was having a hard time breathing.

"They're leaving."

Remy turned. The Mauraders were running. So the X-Men had won. Before he could celebrate his eyes scanned the battlefield. The ground was littered with bodies. The X-Men were injured, limping; quiet despite the victory. The remaining Morlocks stared silently at their burning homes, their fallen friends. The girl slipped from his arms, grabbed by a woman, blue skinned and glassy eyed, and pulled into the shadows. Suddenly he didn't feel so victorious.

John's face was on fire. The gauze pressed against his cheek and over his left eye was soaked through, saturated with blood. It ran across his fingers hot, boiling red liquid that ran over his rapidly cooling skin. It was funny that after being so hot, shooting fire from his fingers, his entire body could feel like a block of ice. He assumed it was what Bobby felt like when he was powered up.

"Let's see it kid."

John blinked, or at least blinked his right eye, hey it had always been the better of the two, and turned toward Wolverine. He was flawless, splattered with blood but fully intact. The bastard had been slashed by Sabertooth as well. John pulled the cloth off his face in too much pain to complain. Wolverine winced, the corners of his mouth moving impossibly lower, his eyes narrowing a bit. It had to be bad if Wolverine was frowning over it.

"That's gonna need stitches."

"No, shit," He grumbled and started to put the cloth, though wet, back on his face.

Wolverine grabbed his arm stopping him from mopping up the running blood. John could feel it pooling in the crevices of his face and running into the corner of his mouth. Maybe he shouldn't have said that. Before he could think about it anymore Wolverine's fingers were digging into the cut prying his eye lids apart.

"Shit, asshole, le' go!" John tried to pull away but the hand around his head was too strong to fight against and his lighter was secure in his pocket. Light hit his eye and he forced a whimper out of his throat. His vision blurred for a second before Wolverine swam into view, clear despite the stinging.

"You're lucky you still have you eye."

"No thanks to you!" John spat and pulled away from Wolverine. He wasn't prepared for Wolverine to let go so easily so his head hit the table as he feel backward. He groaned and tried to pushed the wave of dizziness away.

"You're too cold, lost too much blood."

John was still fighting darkness when the gauze landed on his chest.

"Keep a clean bandage on that until we get back to the mansion. We'll get Hank to check you out."

John dropped the soaked gauze on the floor and pressed the new cloth over the slashes on his face. He hadn't really expected to go back to the mansion. Then again he hadn't planned on being the cause of a massacre or working for the X-men. He didn't really want to think about that. He felt guilty, he did, but he didn't want to be subject to their punishment, who was to say the two of them wouldn't be given to the police. He couldn't imagine the prison he'd be sent to, or how long he would be kept in those power inhibiting coffins.

John pulled himself into a sitting position eyes falling on Remy. He was hunched in his chair, twirling an unlit cigarette around his thumb and forefinger. His other hand was resting over his injured ribs. He'd wrapped a white bandage around the bleeding wound on his calf.

Scalphunter had hit him with a bullet from one of his handmade guns. He rarely missed and this case was no different, but thankfully the bullet had gone straight through. Remy insisted that he was fine, but he was was overly silent, thinking, something John had always dreaded about the Cajun. Then again Remy wasn't the only silent one. The entire plane was dead silent, except for Wolverine's grumbling.

Bobby was nursing a few scraps, talking to Kitty, Pete was okay, but his face gave away more injury than he appeared to have physically. Wolverine was checking everyone over with a oddly father like concern that grated on John's nerves and immediately set him on the defensive. Storm was flying the jet, Angel had stayed with the Morlocks.

He thought about talking to Remy, but what was he going to say. Remy was cut, bloody, bleeding still, and as guilt ridden as John was. Rogue was unconscious in the back. Too many of the Morlocks had died. The enemy had gotten away, and apparently they had won. If this was what victory felt like John didn't know how the "good guys" managed to keep it up.

We're coming to the end...