It's been a while, huh? I don't have much excuse for not posting for a few months *winces* other than working. You'd think working at a toy store would be all fun all the time, but people get downright vicious when the LeapPads are sold out or we don't carry the rarest Monster High doll!
I'm sure you care very deeply about that (not). Anyway, enjoy the chapter, and I'll try not to take so long with the next one! SuniGyrl, thank you once again for putting up with my laziness!
Wolverine dismounted his motorcycle at the daycare, already in full predator mode. Though his vision was tinted blood-red by his extreme rage, it gave him an advantage; despite driving nearly ninety miles per hour, he had seen any and everything in sight with sharp clarity. His anger fueled his quick thinking, making his thoughts as sharp as any of his other drastically heightened senses.
He tore into the playground and found only the blonde telepath and her miniature. The former immediately pointed towards a slide and Wolverine's eyes zeroed in on what didn't belong – the needle from the vision she'd sent him.
He didn't bother circling the area for any other clues, only because he could already see damn near everything. He also trusted that the blonde had scanned the area for relevant clues already. She loved his offspring almost as much as he did.
After staring at the needle for a long moment he picked it up, wincing slightly. It was almost too much for his hypersensitive senses – the needle was saturated with the scent of his missing offspring, so much that he could nearly taste her scent though his fingertips. But beneath that familiar and overwhelming smell were the faint scents of the males that had taken her.
Some emotion that Wolverine didn't have an immediate name for swelled in his chest, so powerful that he had difficulty breathing and was momentarily dizzy. In the very back of his mind – where Logan lay dormant in darkness – he recognized the emotion, but didn't want to name it. If he gave it a name, he'd give it life and it would consume him.
Not that it would've mattered much if he did want to label it… Wolverine was too focused on his task to notice anything more than the scent of the males leading him to the fence. He impatiently cut through it, ignoring the fear that rolled off of his other pup, the miniature blonde that wasn't exactly his offspring but that he loved just the same.
He paused for all of five seconds to inhale deeply before he took off running, noting in the back of his mind that the bushes smelled strongly of the males. Even on the run, his nose was sharp enough to catch it and burn it into his memory.
Now he had something more tangible, scents that better identified the soon-to-be-dead men that had dared to think of touching his daughter. Now he was sure he'd be able to pick out their scents in the heat of New Year's in Times Square.
He let his feet carry him wherever his nose pointed him. He ignored the glances of people stopping to stare at him, ignored the multitude of scents that they all reeked of that had nothing to do with his daughter or her captors. If he caught them and he met no resistance in retrieving her, he might feel charitable enough to let them die quickly.
The second that Logan was out of sight, Emma decided that she was no longer needed. The teachers were in the process of calling parents and the police sirens were getting closer with every second that passed. She was honestly too fatigued to contribute anything more than her presence and she doubted it would do any good here. But someone would need to inform the X-Men, as Logan likely wouldn't be coming back until he had Kendall. Ororo still didn't know anything, nor would she unless Emma could get back to the mansion.
Still unable to see well, the blonde risked looking through Ruby's eyes and managed to get to the car without hiccup. Blessedly, the toddler stayed silent despite all of her confusion and anxiety. It allowed Emma to weigh the pros and cons of trying to navigate the roads back to the mansion through her daughter's eyes. She'd forgotten her phone in her haste to get to the daycare, and had (of course) taken one of the only three cars that didn't have a link to the mansion.
There was no way in hell she'd survive telepathically calling from such a great distance again, and she doubted anyone would be in the mansion's office to hear the phone if she tried calling from inside the daycare.
"I wanna help, Mommy!" Ruby declared eagerly. "I can help tell Auntie 'Roro!"
Emma managed to shield her expletives from Ruby's prying mind, but couldn't help berating herself for allowing Ruby to listen in on her thoughts. Or rather, for projecting her thoughts to Ruby. She couldn't let anyone, especially her daughter, see such weakness.
"I would need to link our minds so that I can get us home okay," she said uncertainly, more to herself than to Ruby. The fact that Emma had to fight to keep the strain out of her voice was probably evidence enough that this was a bad idea. She wasn't sure she'd have the strength for yet another link. And one that she'd have to maintain while navigating traffic all the way home.
"You barely have the strength to stand!"
Emma nearly sagged against the car with relief at the sound of Betsy's harsh and unforgiving tone. "You must've Seen," Emma said as she used Ruby's eyes to take in Betsy's slightly disheveled hair and clothes. Sometimes she forgot that the Asian had inherited Jean's telekinesis. "Did you fly here?"
"It was the fastest way to get here and prevent you from killing yourself and your child," Betsy told her. "I Saw you driving home using Ruby's eyes and a flimsy telepathic link. I Saw you trying to call Ororo when you were five miles out of range while trying to maintain the aforementioned flimsy link that allowed you to drive. And I Saw you nearly slip into a coma behind the wheel because I chose to drive and missed you by three minutes."
The passenger's seat of the car was telekinetically unlocked and opened for Emma by the end of Betsy's rant. The blonde was about to situate Ruby in the backseat when Betsy impatiently pushed Emma into her seat and did it herself. Emma's vision – what little of it was left – brightened and spun and she honestly didn't know if she'd passed out or if time had simply stopped for a moment.
Despite her exhaustion, Emma still had her pride. "I did – and would've done – what was necessary. And I hope Logan and Ororo would've done the same for me if it had been Ruby!"
The Asian ignored that statement, instead muttering heatedly about Emma being little to no help if she killed herself. But Emma believed that she had done the right thing – the only thing – despite what it cost her. Wolverine was on the hunt now, rather than later.
Although, Emma had to briefly wonder at his decision to track them on foot rather than on his motorcycle. Perhaps Wolverine hadn't stopped to calculate that he wouldn't catch the kidnappers if they were in a car, but perhaps he was unable to track them at all if he was riding fast enough on a motorcycle. It puzzled her that Wolverine would be able to smell them at all if they were driving in a car, but her head hurt too much to truly ponder that. Maybe Jean had passed some sixth sense off to him as well.
What she knew with absolute certainty was that Ororo needed to be told of the situation as soon as possible so that she could catch up with Logan. Ororo certainly didn't have Logan's sense of smell, but she recognized the neurological activity that made everyone unique. While Logan was on foot following the scent, Ororo would likely be in the skies scanning for Kendall's brainwaves.
Betsy seemed to hear those thoughts and hit the accelerator. "We just need to get within range," she said, her voice hard. "I'll make the connection between your minds and you can tell her what she needs to know."
Kitty entered Ororo's classroom calmly enough, though didn't bother with the door. She didn't want to alarm the other students but, at the same time, this was possibly an emergency. Ororo looked up immediately, and seemed to pick up on Kitty's urgency. Whether she was reading her rapid pulse or perhaps the activity in her mind, it seemed that she understood that what Kitty had to say couldn't wait.
"Keep reading, everyone," she called over her shoulder as she walked out into the hall, Kitty right behind her.
"Something's up," she declared the second Ororo shut the door. "With Logan and with Emma. Betsy too, actually. Probably. Maybe not. She might just be… aware…" Kitty rolled her eyes at her own stumbling.
Ororo looked off into space for a moment, possibly using her powers to feel for them. "Logan's not on the grounds." She frowned. "None of them are."
"Betsy said Emma left in a hurry and I actually saw Logan tear out of here like a bat out of hell. Betsy followed them, as far as I know. Emma left first."
Ororo frowned and shook her head, possibly trying to put it all together. "Define 'something'," she said with a perplexed frown. "And slow down a little."
Kitty raked her fingers through her hair. "I…" She shrugged. "I don't know. He was teaching class… all the sudden he shouted and was on his knees and holding his head like it was splitting him apart. He was like that for maybe a minute or so and when I touched him to ask if he was okay…"
Ororo's blue eyes darkened. "You touched him?"
"I'm okay," Kitty insisted, hoping that her voice didn't waver too much. The relief on Ororo's face was enough to assure Kitty that she should never again touch him if he was acting strangely. "He only growled at me," she continued. "But his eyes were different…"
"Dilated?" Ororo asked with a worried expression. "Almost black?"
The younger woman nodded. "Yeah. He said something about 'not the target' and then he high tailed it out of here. I got the students inside because I don't know if he saw some kind of threat or something but…"
"Wolverine," she muttered, her frown deepening.
Kitty nodded. "And Betsy told me that Emma had left before him and had been just as frantic. She told me to get all the students to their rooms and to alert the teachers after you left."
"I don't know where I'd go," she muttered to herself. "And other than that, she didn't say anythi – " Ororo flinched, then staggered back, almost like she'd been punched. She grabbed at her temples and frowned, her eyes fluttering rapidly, just as Logan's had.
"What the hell…" Kitty hissed, but then she saw… something. Blurs of nearly transparent shadows danced across her vision, none of them clear enough for her to focus on. She leaned just a little bit closer to Ororo and made her mind intangible, opening it up to whatever psychic activity was nearby. The shadows became only a little bit clearer, but she could've sworn that one of the shadows was Logan standing in a playground, examining a needle of some kind.
Before Kitty could see much more than that, the ground beneath her began shaking. She made her entire body intangible and weightless so she wouldn't trip and fall through the wall. Ororo's eyes were neon blue, streaks of static dancing around her face almost like a mask. In fact, it seemed like licks of static were climbing up her entire form. Her snow white hair began to stand up, and Kitty was standing so close that her hair began to do the same. Seeing Ororo tap into her omega powers was something to behold, but Kitty had seen it happen enough times to know to step back when Storm was wearing such a lethal expression.
The temperature in the hall dropped so sharply that the glass on the door frosted over and Kitty could see her breath. A few of the vases with plants in them shattered from the water freezing rapidly inside, and she even heard the wood groaning in protest to the temperature.
The tremors stopped as quickly as they'd started, and Ororo walked back into the classroom. Kitty peered in to see that it was as bitter cold in the classroom as it was in the hall. All of the windows had frosted over, and a few even looked like they might've cracked from the cold. Without a word to anyone, Ororo kept walking to the window. She waved a hand and a gust of wind blew it open gently, her precision and obvious fury making Kitty shiver from more than the cold. Outside it was much windier than it had been only minutes ago. Branches bent slightly from the light force and leaves whipped at each other enthusiastically, though not violently.
Without a pause in her step, Ororo walked out the window and flew off so fast that Kitty thought she heard the goddess break the sound barrier. The wind died down after a few moments, almost as though it was following her, and everything was deathly still and quiet. Kitty sighed heavily, more confused than ever. Although, that cleared up the mystery of Betsy's remark about Ororo leaving.
"… the hell was that?" someone asked.
"Everyone to your rooms," Kitty told them, feeling like a broken record. "Something is happening." She felt at a loss, but really the only thing she could do was get the other teachers to stop their classes as well, and hope that if anyone else had a similar episode they might pause to at least tell her what was going on.
But she had the feeling that it won't happen to anyone else.
She stared at the frosted windows, thought back to those endless black eyes that had actually paralyzed her. Warning growls and snapping static echoed in her ears. Whatever was happening, it obviously had something to do with Logan and Ororo. The slight panic that both had radiated before leaving hadn't been lost on Kitty either, but that didn't make them look any less like avenging angels off to battle.
"What's happening," someone asked.
"Hell if I know…" Kitty said finally, then turned to the students. Not one of them had moved. She could see how repeating herself could get old really fast. "Rooms. Now."
Betsy didn't slow the car to the speed limit when she was sure that Ororo had gotten the message. Emma's consciousness was beginning to waver from the mental strain of showing Ororo what was happening, despite Betsy easing together the link between their minds.
But, to her credit, the only outward sign of her weakened state was the sweat forming on her face and neck and her slightly labored breathing. She probably thought she'd be expected to take on the role of leader when she got back to the mansion.
"I'm taking you to the infirmary when we get back," she informed the blonde quietly, not daring to touch her mind and strain her further. Betsy was sure she'd be the only one on Cerebro for a while, and Emma would probably try to help in some other way, further straining herself and probably hurting herself more than she was helping Kendall.
She heard a loud explosion overhead and rightly guessed that Ororo had broken the sound barrier in her haste. It would likely be a matter of a few minutes before she caught up with Logan and began her own search. She could only hope that their haste didn't make them sloppy or too rushed. Not having a child herself, Betsy couldn't accurately judge if panic would overwhelm logic in such a situation.
"Mommy?"
Emma turned her head a little and Betsy glanced briefly in the rearview mirror at Ruby. The young girl was staring at her hands and looked on the verge of tears. Emma seemed to sense her distress and reached back to grab Ruby's hand. "What's the matter, honey," she asked softly.
"Mommy, can I stay with you so I won't get stolen too?"
A foreign pressure formed in Betsy's throat that she swallowed back down with some effort. If Ruby was so scared about the thought of being taken, poor Kendall was likely terrified out of her mind. But showing her feelings would only upset Emma and Ruby, and that wasn't going to help anyone.
"Of course you can," Emma told her, glaring in Betsy's general direction in clear challenge. The blonde would hear no complaints from her unless having Ruby near put a strain on her recovery. When Betsy said nothing to contradict her, Emma continued in a softer tone, "You can stay right at my heels. I won't let anyone get you, okay Ruby?"
The toddler sniffled and nodded, but refused to let go of her mother's hand.
Close enough to the mansion that it didn't strain her, Betsy called out to Remy and told him to gather everyone in the War Room to wait for her. Using his empathy, he pushed his confusion at her and she flashed an image of a fatigued Emma in his mind. She heard him decide to meet her there after he called the others, and Betsy didn't bother trying to tell him not to.
Four hours later, all the X-Men – minus Logan, Ororo and Emma – were gathered in the War Room, tense for any scrap of information about what had happened to Kendall. Information that only Logan or Ororo would have. They hoped.
Emma was recovering in the infirmary, and an emotionally exhausted Ruby had been gently put to sleep by Betsy's telepathy and Remy's empathy. Betsy and Remy had just returned from interrogating the school teachers and looking into the minds of a few of the children. It had been a dead end, just as Betsy had expected, but she couldn't do nothing.
Neither, it seemed, could anyone else. They had returned to find that Kitty, Kurt, and Marie were furiously scanning the news, radio and internet for any mention of Kendall or ransom or enemies that might want something from them, and Bobby, Lee, and Peter had been patrolling the halls, keeping the students in line and comforting those that were scared. For the moment, they didn't know if only Kendall was a target, or if Ruby and the other children in the mansion were potentially at risk.
Guessing that such a thing was the last thing on their frazzled minds at the moment, Betsy put out an Amber Alert for Kendall. Arguing with Tony Stark about the situation nearly brought Betsy's already hot temper to a boiling point, but she finally convinced the billionaire that there was really nothing he could do at the mansion but take up space. Any help he could provide in New York, he could provide in Malibu. It seemed to pacify him a little, though he continued to offer to fly to New York for at least ten minutes.
Betsy wanted to snap at the person responsible for telling him when he was on the other side of the country and unable to help, but she lost that desire when she found out that Kitty was the one to tell Tony.
In all honesty, it wasn't so bad. Every extra pair of eyes and ears could only help them out, right? Especially since Tony could hack into any street camera in the world to search for her and could keep tabs on the Amber Alert. But it was exhausting enough to keep everyone in the mansion up to date, let alone someone who wasn't in the house that Betsy hardly got along with on the best of days.
So instead of snapping, Betsy made sure Kitty knew that she would be the one responsible for keeping Tony up to date. She agreed without hesitation, though Betsy didn't miss the residual anger in Kitty's mind about Tony being left out of the loop when she had been taken a year ago. True enough, Tony had been the one to rescue Kitty, and he might have found her sooner if any of the X-Men had thought to contact him before Kitty had managed to do it herself. Betsy still felt badly about that, since she had been the mission leader when Kitty had been captured. They'd all had so much on their minds with trying to get Kitty back that contacting a non-X-Man just hadn't occurred to them.
Betsy shook her head to draw herself out of those depressing thoughts. This wasn't going to be a repeat of Kitty's kidnapping. They weren't an entire two weeks without a word. Finding her won't be dumb luck and, damn it all, that little girl would NOT come home as a nearly broken mess that was afraid of her own shadow.
My daughter is missing.
The thought repeated itself a thousand times, increasing in volume with every step that Logan took.
My daughter is missing!
The advantage to traveling by foot was that he could catch the scent in the air much better than if he was on a motorcycle. The disadvantage was that he got tired much faster. True, his rage had fueled his adrenaline and had taken him a good ten miles nearly at top speed, but he'd had to slow considerably after that. Five more miles at a jog and he'd had to slow again. He had no energy left. No energy to run, no energy to be angry.
But it seemed that he had just enough to be afraid. Logan wasn't sure he'd ever felt fear this powerful. His insides felt like ice, he couldn't stop trembling, he felt like he was going to be sick. Every time he was sure he was going to throw up, he bent over, but only choked on tears.
Taken! By two men, for Lord only knew what sick and twisted purpose! Was Kendall scared? Was she wondering why her father hadn't prevented such a thing from happening? Would he ever bring her back home? Would he ever find her? If he did, would she be sick? Hurt? Alive?
Logan's body called it quits and he fell face first in the dirt. His nose had led him to a lonely one-lane road that twisted and turned more than a snake. He'd lost the scent miles ago, but there wasn't anywhere else to go but forward, so he'd kept going. The trees and bushes were much too dense to allow for a hidden dirt road. He'd checked.
His will was all that had kept him going for the past mile and a half, but even that had dissipated into cold hopelessness.
My daughter is missing!
He tried to move, even just to sit up, but couldn't. His tears flowed freely, refusing to be suppressed. He didn't know how to deal with such a powerful and crippling emotion. He got mad, furious, enraged. He could handle all of those emotions and all the intensity that came with them. But fear? Despair? What fears had he dealt with? When had he truly been at a loss as to what he could do?
Fear of heights. Fear for Marie when Magneto had taken her. Fear for Ororo in the heat of battle. Fear for Kitty when she had been kidnapped.
And still this black terror dwarfed them all in comparison. He was afraid of falling, but it was a fear that he was used to, and something that could be avoided more often than not. He'd been afraid for Marie, but she hadn't been defenseless. Neither was Ororo, for that matter. And Kitty… well, she'd endured a lot. Only Kurt and maybe Tony knew the full story, but at least in Kitty's case they'd known who had taken her and why. Though they fought to protect each other, the X-Men knew the risks when they put on their suits and went out on a mission.
And helplessness? He'd been in plenty of situations where the outcome had seemed bleak, but he'd always known his role and what he could and couldn't do to help the situation.
But this was different.
Kendall…
She was only three years old. She hadn't been caught during a dangerous mission wherein she knew the risks. What could she do in her defense if her kidnappers wanted anything from her?
My daughter is FUCKING missing!
And the last words she had heard from him? Not that he loved her or that he'd move heaven and earth if she asked him to. No, it had been a casual, "See you later, pup."
He hardly noticed that he was gathering air into his lungs, but a few seconds later he let it all out. His desperation, his fear, his sorrow, his frustration, his exhaustion; it all came out in a long, piercing roar that evacuated a few frightened birds from the trees.
He didn't care. He didn't know what else to do. He was tired. Wolverine was tired. His rage had only taken him this far, and now he was left with the dark truth that his daughter – his little girl – was gone. And he, her father, couldn't find her!
His child had been stolen from him, and he didn't know why. He couldn't even think clearly, couldn't understand why anyone might want her.
Unless they have a death wish, a darker part of his mind growled. He was able to sustain his anger only long enough for that thought to cross his mind before it was again replaced with fear and exhaustion.
He didn't notice when it started to rain, but when it increased at an exponential rate and had him soaked to the bone, Logan finally pulled himself upright to at least avoid drowning, though he made no attempt to find cover. He had trouble recalling almost a hundred and fifty years of his life, but he felt like he'd lived every single long year in the span of the past four hours.
He wasn't looking at anything at all, but suddenly he saw Ororo towering over him, somehow arching the rain around him so that he wasn't getting bombarded any longer. Her eyes were glowing blue, and only because she was perfectly dry could he tell that tears were spilling down her cheeks every time she blinked. She didn't tremble, didn't make a sound. She was like stone. Logan had a fleeting thought that she might be suppressing her emotions, but right now he really didn't care. He needed her rigidity.
He was so weighted down by grief that he couldn't even stand. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her legs, trying desperately to absorb some of her calm strength. She tangled her fingers in his limp wet hair, running her hands through in what she probably hoped was a soothing manner. He barely heard her saying a prayer in her native tongue over the sound of the pounding rain around them. He knew the words and what they meant, but they brought him no comfort whatsoever.
"You didn't find her either," he muttered.
He felt her in his mind, and she flashed images of her taking off from the mansion, pushing herself too far in scanning for her brainwaves. She'd put almost a dozen humans in the hospital and she'd given herself a vicious migraine that had slowed her down. She'd continued scanning, but she obviously hadn't been fast enough. Neither had he.
Kendall was gone.
We have to find her, he thought, tightening his bruising hold on her.
"We will find her," she said after a long moment, her voice darkened by Storm's power. She lifted his head, her solid neon blue eyes burning straight into his. "I promise I will find her if I have to tear this entire planet apart."
Logan took a shuddering breath. Her promise wasn't quite enough to soothe his anxiety, but it was enough to curb it so it didn't overwhelm him. They would find her – that was what mattered most. If for any reason he failed to find her, Storm wouldn't.
He struggled to pull himself to his feet and when Storm offered a steadying arm, his lips pulled back in a silent snarl without his permission. She stared at him before letting her arm drop, her glacial gaze unsympathetic as his first two attempts at standing failed.
"Sorry," he muttered when she continued staring at him. His nerves were frayed by this experience, but that was no reason to lash out at Storm for trying to help. Just because she appeared to be more in control of her emotions, that didn't meant that she wasn't feeling just as emotionally fried as he was.
She gave no indication that she forgave him, or even that she'd heard his apology. "I only have enough strength to fly us back to your motorcycle," she told him, her tone leaving no room for debate. Logan made a noncommittal noise. At the moment, heights were the last thing he was concerned about, though he did flinch when a strong gust separated him from solid ground. Storm didn't take him too high, but Logan was too occupied with thoughts of Kendall to appreciate her thoughtfulness.