6 am came way too early, and I wasn't the only one who felt this way. By some miracle, which in truth was probably the united fear of Logan being the one to come get us out of bed, we all showed up on time in the entry way with our bags. We were all loaded into the x-jet, where some of us, myself included, promptly passed out again. I didn't wake up again until the jet was landed an at least half of the students had already deplaned.
"Toad," I heard a soft voice whisper in my ear. "Toad, wake up. We gotta go." My eyes slowly cracked open to see Wanda standing over me.
"'M-up, I'm up," I mumbled and dragged myself to my feet. Who got up this early anyways? It's just not right. When we all were gathered around Logan he started debriefing us. We were to move together as one unit, we were to stay together at all time, we were to do some other stuff, but I must have mentally checked out because I don't remember hearing the rest. Finally right before he left, Wolverine told us that the only way we would get back to the mansion was if we convinced him thoroughly that we were, indeed, a united group. He gave a wicked smile to us as the door to the jet stated to close.
"No matter what happens, you're on your own out here. I won't be flying in to save your sorry asses from anything you might…encounter. The only way you're getting home is together, or not at all. 'N I can smell bullshit from miles away, so don't think that will work either. You start as of now. Good luck." And just like that, he was gone. The jet took off and we were all standing there looking at one another.
"What did he mean by stuff we would 'encounter'?" asked Bobby.
"Ah dunno, but ah don' like the sound of that," drawled Rogue.
"Like, whatever, I don't care right now. I'm setting my tent up, and going back to sleep." There were mumbles of agreement. I didn't see any problem with that, so I joined in with the ones who were starting to make camp.
"Guys, I don't think that's what Logan had in mind," Jean was telling us.
"Well you'd be the only one who would know, so let the rest of us assume what we want," said Jubilee. Scott was about to say something to her when he was silenced by a gigantic roar not far to our right.
"What was that?" asked a terrified-sounding Amara.
"You think is was Beast?" asked Bobby.
"It didn't sound like Dr. McCoc," ventured Wolfsbane. The roar ripped through the crisp morning air again, only this time much closer.
"Well I'm not stickin' around ta find out, yo," I told them. I grabbed my bag and Wanda's hand and started heading in the opposite direction. Several others started to follow me.
"Ok, I agree that we should move out, but we don't even know where we are, how do we know that we're going in the right direction?" asked Scott, which brought us to a stop. He sighed and looked at all of us. "Look, we know Logan's objective; we need to work as a team. The sooner we do that, the sooner we go home. So let's start acting like one. Jean, you and Bobby get as high as you can and try to direct us to the nearest body of water. Bobby, take Jubilee with you so that you can signal us if you find something. The rest of us can fan out here and wait for their signal. If anything comes at us, we can work out how to take it on, just like we would in the danger room. Ok?" he asked. I didn't see a problem with the plan as it was, and apparently no one else did either. Jean took off in one direction while Bobby and Jubilee went the other way. We formed a circle to wait for them, and whatever was coming our way. We didn't have to wait long. Within five minutes, Jubilee's fireworks could be seen off in the distance. "Ok, now stay together as a group. Nightcrawler, you take the trees and watch out backs to make sure nothing is stalking us. Wolfsbane, keep your nose to the wind to let us know if something's ahead of us." In an instant she transformed into a wolf and she took the lead.
"Wow, working like this, we'll get home in no time," Amara said cheerily. If only it had been that easy.
This first day went as fine as could be. Scott continued to conduct us, and we let him simply because no one had any better ideas and we all just wanted to go home. He and Jean took lead on almost everything, and with them to guide us we got through the next two days with only few mishaps. Wolfsbane got a stick jammed into her front paw, thus wouldn't shift back to wolf form because she didn't want to be stepping on it any more. Rogue accidentally brushed Sunspot when they were attempting to make food, and he was convinced she did it on purpose so he refused to talk to her for the remainder of the trip. Tabby got into a fight with Kitty over Wanda and I being part of the group which almost ended with a fight before Scott stepped in and gave them separate chores to focus on. By day four, everyone's nerves were friend and we all were just about ready to kill one another. That's when the snow storm hit.
It was bright and sunny noon one second, and the next ice was falling from the sky which forced us out of the clearing we had set up camp in with our gear hastily stowed. Scott tried to get another perimeter out so that we could see where to go, but no one could even see a foot in front of their own face, let alone vast distances. He resigned to go towards the direction he had thought Jean had seen a cliff side earlier, which might result in a cave of some kind. Within minutes we were all frozen solid and totally miserable with our trek through the mounting snow.
"Scott, are you sure it was this way?" Amara asked.
"Yes, I'm sure. We just haven't gone far enough yet," he replied.
"What if we're going the wrong way?" Tabby asked him.
"We're not. Just keep moving," he assured her. Conversations like this continued until I could tell that Scott was at his wit's end. "Look, I know what I'm doing, ok? You just have to trust me!" he finally yelled.
"And why exactly would we do that, when it was you who ran Multiple through the poison ivy path?" asked Wanda acidly. Uh oh. Wanda and I had mostly been keeping our silence since the fight between Kitty and Tabby. It was clear no one wanted our input, and we especially didn't want to be heard when we were countering anyone else of the original x-man team. Wanda blatantly challenging Scott like this was risky. He turned to look at her with a frown on his face.
"Look, that was a small mishap that we got cleaned up right away. It isn't even effecting him anymore, is it Jamie?" he asked.
"I…I can't really feel my arms anymore…so no," Jamie replied. Cyclops sighed and continued walking, trying to tell Wanda off as he did so, which meant he didn't see his last step until it was too late. He stepped right off the edge of what we now realized was a cliff.
"Scott!" cried Jean and threw her hands out, catching him in mid-air and bringing him back onto solid ground.
"Whoa. Thanks Jean," he said in a shaky voice. "Well, looks like we found that cliff. We have to be on the other side of it, the lower side. That means this is just a short ravine with probably a cave on the other side."
"Probably?" Wanda asked him. He ignored her.
"If we can make a way across here, it shouldn't be far before we can find some kind of shelter from this storm. Jean, can you take us across?" he asked. She looked doubtful.
"I don't know how far it is. And even if I did, I couldn't take everyone, it's too much." Scott nodded his understanding.
"Ok, Bobby. Can you make an ice bridge to the other side, and tell us how far it is?" he asked. Bobby nodded and took off.
"It's not far!" he called from somewhere in the snow. "I can make a bridge for people to cross," he offered, and Scott told him to do it. Seconds later the bridge was made, and Scott was attempting to lead all of us across it. I heard the first crack.
"Uh oh," I said and froze where I was.
"What? What is it?" Wanda asked.
"The bridge isn't gonna hold all of us," I said which had those closest to me turning to look at me in alarm.
"Wadda you mean it won't hold us?" Tabby asked. That's when the cracks became loud enough for all of them to hear. Scott stopped us all, which made the cracking stop, but we were now only a quarter across the bridge and stuck.
"I think if we send one person over at a time, the bridge will hold. It will just be slower going, but it will still be ok. Wait until the person in front of you tells you that they're on the other side before starting to move again."
"That's convenient," Wanda remarked. She and I were in the back, and Scott was at the front. Again, he ignored her. His plan seemed to be working fine as he and all the others slowly made it to safety. Finally it was just Wanda and I, with Wanda up next. "You think they'll leave us?" she asked me quietly.
"Na. Rogue, Tabby, Amara and Jubilee're over there. Plus, Logan would kill 'em if they did, 'n they know it." She nodded her head at my logic, but still seemed skeptical. "Still, you should hurry." She started her first steps slowly, trying to keep her footing and her balance while fighting the wind and the snow. She was going great, and almost out of sight when it happened. Had my eyes not been totally trained on her, straining to watch her every move, I would have missed it and believed like everyone else did. When her left foot was still a solid inch and a half from touching the bridge with her next step, it skated off the edge which had Wanda thrown off balance. For a second she teetered, then she plummeted off the side. "Wanda!" I shouted, and before I could think about it I launched myself after her. With the extra push I gave myself from the bridge I was able to collide with her and wrap my arms around her, but it also shattered the ice bridge which left as falling with nothing to reach out to grab.
I thought we were goners for good, but then Wanda's hands were glowing blue and she pulled both her hands up above her head. This caused us to slow down in our fall, but we didn't stop completely. Out of nowhere, an idea hit me. If she could manipulate the entire danger room without looking at it, why not the cliffside?
"Pull out a shelf from the cliff to land on!" I told her. She didn't stop to think about it or tell me she couldn't do it. For a second her hands glowed blue. Like lightning a blue comet-looking hex shot out to our right, where the cliffside had been, and two seconds later we landed hard on something solid. I felt the air rush out of my lungs and knew I would be bruised, but we were alive. "You ok?" I asked her as she stood up, then helped me up.
"Yeah," she said as she winced. I knew she had to be bruised as well, even though I did my best to cushion her fall. "I'll live." We both looked up the way we had come, but all we could see was thick ass snow continuing to cascade down around us.
"There's no way we're getting' back up. Not right now any way," I told her and she agreed. "Think you could make some kinds dent in the rock we could hide in 'til this clears up?" I asked. She turned to look at the rock we were standing on, and the cliff it was jutting out of. We were only about three yards from it, so we made our way there. She put her hands up against it, feeling the texture of it.
"I'll try," she said with a shrug. Her hands started glowing blue with hex magic, and she pushed her hands into the rock as hard as she could. The first attempt made the rock dent in, and each one after that made it bend farther and farther in until eventually we had a hole deep enough in to shelter us from the weather.
"Wow, I gotta say, I'm impressed," I told her as we walked in and I looked around. It was big enough that I didn't even feel claustrophobic in it.
" Me too," she admitted to me with a small smile. She shivered then, and I moved close to her to rub my hands on her arm in an attempt to keep her warm.
"How long do you think it'll last?" I asked her, meaning the snow. She shrugged and sat down, bringing me with her.
"Long enough for us to get comfortable. Even after it's gone, the others still don't know what happened to us." I was quiet for a minute, remembering what I had seen.
"Wanda, what did happen?" I asked her. My tone implied that I knew she hadn't fallen my accident. She looked at me in surprise.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean, I know you didn't fall on accident. Your foot never touched the bridge. It was a good inch 'n a half off. What happened?" I asked again.
"How do you know that? It was way too snowy for you to see that clearly." I shrugged again.
"Let's jus' say that I'm really really good at judging distances." I smirked at her. "How else d'ya think I can be so acrobatic? I don't guess when I go swinging or jumping around. I can see exactly where everything is." Wanda watched me for a minute then shook her head.
"Any more surprises you want to tell me about? We definitely have the time."
"Uh, well. I guess I have pretty good senses. Well, some of 'em. I can't see any better 'n you can. But my sense of smell is mutantly enhanced. 'N probably my hearing too." I shrugged when she gave me a strange look. "What? So what if I didn't tell the Brotherhood everything. Who says they need to know everything?" Finally she let out a quiet laugh and shook her head.
"You really are a something else, Toad. There's so much more to you than I could have ever imagined." I blushed at her compliment and brought her closer to me.
"You're avoiding my original question, yo," I pointed out. "What happened to you, on the bridge?" She furrowed her brow for a few minutes.
"My only guess doesn't make sense," she told me. I assumed that meant she and I came to the same conclusion.
"I thought Jean had told us she had chosen to 'reserve judgment' or some shit like that," I said bitterly.
"I guess we just don't fit into her perfect idea of what an x-man should really be." She paused and laid her head on my chest just beneath my chin. "You know no one will believe us," she remarked.
"I know," I told her quietly. Even if we went to the professor with this, who would he believe? The new recruits that used to be 'evil', one of which was the daughter of his main adversary, or the do-gooder Jean Grey who had always been his lap dog and the perfect student? I didn't have to be a mathematician to know that it wouldn't turn out great. Wanda sighed, and I gave her a gentle embrace. "We'll figure something out," I told her. I looked out at the mouth of the cave, watching the snow as the fell. I may have sounded like I had an answer, but what would happen, really? Would the others move on without us? Would they assume we were dead? And did Jean really have the killer instinct we thought she did? Eventually exhaustion caught up with me and I had to put these questions aside and allow myself to drift off to sleep.