AN: Alright, first new chapter of the year! I am having a blast writing these, but it's difficult not to go of an tangents about backgrounds I've made up for characters. But I am trying. I also tried to type out a Cajun accent, like Gambit had in the cartoons, and well, I think you're going to use a little imagination there. I sprinkled in some Cajun words and expressions, but I felt like typing it out completely would just look and sound weird.
Warning: Some minor reference to medical experiments.
Chapter 5: Debts.
Rogue had obviously seen her fair share of impossible things, living with mutants that had powers beyond even her wildest dreams. But that didn't mean there weren't still things that shocked her, rattled her to her very core. And people coming back from the dead, no matter how often she had seen it happen, was definitely still one of those.
She nearly jumped a foot in the air as the girl sat up, the bullet that had been lodged into her brain clanging harmlessly to the ground.
The girl got to her feet as Rogue tried to pull herself together, to get her brain to believe what her eyes were seeing. The girl was alive and she was healing in an all too familiar way. Maybe that was what made her stall just for a moment longer, the fact that the girl healed in the exact same way that Logan did.
But the sirens she had been worrying about only a moment ago pulled her out of her haze and Rogue knew she had to move fast. So she jumped forward and grabbed the girl by her skinny arm.
"Come on. We gotta move." She practically yelled, adrenaline still coarsing through her body. Getting caught by the police, even though they did nothing wrong, was not an option.
The girl face her a weird look and for a moment Rogue was sure she was going to kick her ass. But the girl didn't yank her arm away and she nodded, allowing Rogue to guide her to the car.
Kitty was already sitting in the driving seat, thankfully, the car already started and ready to go. Jubilee sat beside her and she let out a strangled sort of noise as Rogue pushed the girl into the backseat and closed the door behind her.
"Oh my God! But she was .. I felt her pulse!" Jubilee exclaimed almost tripping over her words.
"She pulled a Wolverine. It's okay. Now. Drive!" Rogue barked at Kitty, since there really was no time for explanations.
Kitty nodded once and got them out of the parking lot and they were lost in the crowd on the road in no time. Only then did Rogue sit back, slumming in her seat. She was sweating like a sinner in church and her breaths were still shallow.
"Dang." She sighed.
The girl sat quietly beside her, her eyes darting between all of them. There was something methodical about it. As if she was trying to survey all of them, calculating the risk. But there was no emotion behind it, no fear of getting into a car with three strange mutants, no anger for having gotten shot on their behalf. No nothing.
Jubilee hung over her seat, staring back at them with big eyes while Kitty glanced back in the rear view mirror from time to time, her face set grimly. They sat in silence like that, till finally Jubilee seemed not to be able to take it any longer.
"So, she pulled a Wolverine? I didn't know other people could do that." Jubilee said, in awe.
Rogue saw the girl tense at that comment and she wondered why.
"Yeah, she did. I don't know how." She replied even though it wasn't the truth. Mutations repeated themselves frequently and she could name two other mutants with similar healing factors. But that probably wasn't a conversation to have now and Rogue felt too worn out to bring it up. So she turned to the girl and she was once again struck by just how vulnerable she looked. She was all skin and bones and the rags she wore were now covered in blood as well as dirt. It reminded her of ghost from one of those Japanese movies.
"Thank you, for saving me." She said, not really sure on what else she could say. This girl jumped into a fight for her, got shot, lived and seemed to be perfectly alright with that. "I'm Rogue. This is Kitty and that's Jubilee."
The girl only replied with silence, looking them all over once, before glancing back at her again.
"Is there somewhere we can take you. Home, maybe?" Kitty asked from the front. Rogue could see she was concerned and maybe even a little rattled by the girls behavior. It didn't actually comfort her either.
When she didn't respond again, Jubilee cut in. "Maybe she doesn't talk."
"I talk." The girl finally said and Rogue was surprised by how soft spoken and young she sounded. She couldn't be older then, fourteen, fifteen maybe. "I just ..." The girl looked around the car again. "I don't have a home."
Rogue wasn't surprised by that. This girl had drifter written all over her. They'd run into many mutants like her over the years. Kids, who like herself, had run away from home or got kicked out when their mutation surfaced. But with the Professor gone, it was harder to find them. To take them in and take care of them.
"There's this place. Where we live. It's a place for mutants. If you want, you can come with us." Rogue said, knowing it was the right thing to do.
The girl seemed skeptical though.
"You don't have to stay if you don't want to. But we can get you something to eat, some new clothes maybe."
"A shower." Jubilee added and Rogue gave her a stern look in reply.
"Why?" The girl asked and she looked at her in a curious way, as if she had been the first person ever to offer her a kindness. Maybe she was.
"Because ... you saved me. I owe you. And I want to help you." Rogue explained.
The girl seemed to mull that over, then she nodded.
"Good, now what's your name sugar?" Rogue asked, relieved that she could do something to help this girl.
"I don't have a name." She replied with a blank look on her face.
Jubilee said, what Rogue was sure everyone was thinking. "Who the hell doesn't have a name?"
Every time Gambit walked into Sinister's little sanctuary, he had to stop himself from shivering. The tables and machines were empty for the moment, but he had seen them filled with people one too many times. He briskly walked over to his desk and lay the reports he was delivering down on it.
Sinister looked up from studying some file, his face a blank emotionless mask. Or maybe Gambit just couldn't read that chalk white face or those red eyes, which unlike his own, were devoid of anything even resembling an emotion. He always wondered why, since Sinister had the ability to change his form, he choice this one, which looked part demon part vampire.
"Malice and Scrambler, dey are back. Your presence at the Weapon X program is completely erased." Gambit drawled, not going into the the details which were in the rapport.
"And the weapon?" He asked with a voice that surely belonged in a Hammer Horror movie and not real life.
"The girl." Gambit emphasized just to spite him. "Made contact. Dey are on route to the mansion. Your mind tricks worked."
Sinister smiled at that. "It's harder work then you think, my friend, to condition someone into doing something without them even knowing it. Especially with a mind as focused as that."
And yet it hadn't seemed to take any effort at all. It made Gambit weary of his own thoughts and impulses sometimes, wondering if they were even his own.
"We'll be ready for phase two soon enough." Sinister went on.
"Mais, I still disagree. The school, attackin' it is wrong. Too many mutants, no?" Gambit knew that addressing this again was foolish, but he ain't never been a man driven by his reason and he wasn't gonna start then.
"Too many children, you mean?" Sinister said, his face still unmoving as he spoke. "It is precious of you, Remy, to care for collateral damage."
His red eyes were locked on him now and there was no humanity in them whatsoever and Gambit doubted that there ever had been.
"The children are good." Sinister went on. "They are the weak point of these X-men. They will not risk them getting hurt. No harm will come to them." He said dismissing his concerns.
"Just like no harm would come the Morlock children." Gambit uttered before he could think it through. He immediately regretted it. Questing Sinister was one thing, showing subordination was another.
"Unfortunate, but necessary." Sinister smiled at that, as if it was some happy memory he had.
They were anything but happy for him. He would remember what happened in those tunnels for the rest of his life. There was no absolution that could clear away that.
"Do you doubt me, Remy, after all these years? After I helped you. I saved you and in return you promised to repay that debt."
"An' I have been. Fifty years, Sinister. Fifty years. I have been a good soldier, no?"
"And you are almost done. We cannot falter now, my friend, not when we are so close."
Close to what? Gambit didn't know and Sinister would not share it with anyone, even Malice, his right hand woman was in the dark for as far as their master plan was concerned.
"But if you wish to leave, be my guest. I will not hold it against you."
Gambit doubted that very much. He was stuck, he knew that. He sold his soul to the devil a long long time ago and there was no turning back.
"Fascinating. I have never seen a mutants powers grow so, exponentially. Very soon my friend, you'd burn even brighter then the very sun itself."
"Dey said you could help. Can you? I can pay you, no? Handsomely."
"Handsomely, yes. I can help. There will be side effects of course. I can control the energy, but it will need to go somewhere."
"Where?
"Into yourself. The energy will sustain you though. Slow aging, speed up healing."
"And dis is suppose' to be bad? Mon amis, c'est tres bien! Young and strong forever? I would sell ma mère for that."
"Alors pas. Dey would crash and burn withou' me." Gambit said, playing off his doubts as charmingly as he could. "Malice reports the guards were armed wit' the cure. We should take precautions." He went on, changing the subject back to the reports.
"The cure? We do not need to worry about that. As a weapon against us it is ineffective."
"I have seen the results with mine own eyes. The cure works." Gambit protested.
Sinister smiled at that, as if his concerns were nothing short of adorable. "Let me show you otherwise." He buzzed his intercom. "Send her in now."
Gambit glanced over his shoulder as the door behind him opened. A woman stepped into the room. And what a woman, she appeared to be entirely naked, but for her skin which was a deep hue of blue, scaled at parts to make her look like some sort of exotic animal. In contrast her hair was a fiery red and her eyes a catlike yellow. Gambit shot a questioning look back at Sinister, not knowing what this woman had to do with the cure.
"Mystique here was 'cured' some time ago. A mutant of her level she would have healed over time herself anyway. I simply sped up the progress." Sinister explained.
"Of which I am extremely thankful." The woman replied.
You say that now, ma chère. Gambit thought.
"You my friend, would burn through it in a week." Sinister said, turning his attention back to him. "The others less so, but there is nothing I can't fix. So you see, this cure is not our problem. These X-men are. And luckily Mystique knows a great about them and their mansion."
"Den I would love for her to share with the class." Gambit said, glancing over at the woman once more, trying and failing not to stare at certain parts.
"She will, but she has an assignment first. After that you can interrogate her. Thoroughly." Sinister chuckled emotionally at that and the woman raised an eyebrow suggestively.
"I cannot wait." Gambit drawled before taking his leave.