Disclaimer: Still nothing on the report side… I keep failing in my attempts at hacking into those damn lawyer's hard drives…
A/N: – Double-checks calendar – Oh my god, this is amazing! I'm updating this story for a second time this month! I swear, this is a record! I would help that this helps you guys to begin to reconcile my long updates. I've really been trying this summer, and it's paid off. I really appreciate everyone who has stuck with me, so I dedicate this chapter to each and every one of you. Enjoy!
"…"- conversation
'…'- thoughts
(…)- extra facts/actions (some)
'blah…' -telepathy/what people say mentally
Chapter 55: Remy's Chronicles: Rescues, Part 3
Hallway #6, Asteroid Evolution, Orbit of the Moon, Milky Way Galaxy – May 17, 1:50 AM
Remy and the group reached hallway #6 where Façade saw Evan and Callisto screaming in agony. He rushed towards Callisto's cage and reached for the bars, but Remy beat him to it and grabbed his arms. He shook his head and pointed to the bars, which, upon closer inspection were crackling with electricity. Remy motioned Bobby and Jubilee to come over and, as they had done with Forge's cell, they fried the bars. This allowed Façade to run in and hold Callisto still; Callisto still struggled, but not as much as she might have if anyone but a Morlock had tried to touch her.
After a few minutes, Façade nodded to Remy and the Cajun came in and, accessing Scott's power carefully sliced the collar in two, and as the metal hit the ground Callisto opened her eyes. The first thing the Morlocks' leader saw was Façade, who was looking at her, concern evident in his eyes.
"Façade?" Callisto croaked her voice hoarse from screaming. When Façade nodded, Callisto grinned and, getting to her feet – to the amazement of Remy – hugged her fellow Morlock. Callisto, though she'd never admit it verbally, was glad to see that a member of her family was alive and healthy and not dead, as she had originally imagined.
Remy cleared his throat and asked Callisto if he could heal her, a question that had become part of his arsenal. Callisto eyed Remy warily not sure if she should trust a surface-dweller, especially one with demonic-looking eyes. However, as Callisto listened as Façade explained what was going on, and how they needed to be at full strength to take on Apocalypse; when she heard the Egyptian's name she snarled.
"That bastard is here?! He's the one who sent that son-of-a-bitch Sabretooth to come and took all of us captive! Where is he?! I'm going to slice his neck!" Callisto moved to leave the cell but Bobby and Jubilee blocked her way. The three glared at each other until Callisto sighed and muttered, "Fine, Gambit; heal me, oh mighty one."
Remy, grinning, healed the Morlock leader who gave him a look that said she would've been fine without Remy's help. She then left the cell and, looking around saw that across from her Evan was just waking up from his collar-induced stupor. "Spyke?" Callisto called out and Evan looked up at his leader.
"Callisto! Man, am I glad to see you!" Evan exclaimed, glad to see his leader was fine. Evan tried to get to his feet while trying to cover his body in the protective spikes that he had come to rely on in the past few years. However, not realizing how weak he really was Evan stumbled and would have hit the hard metal floor face-first if he Logan and hadn't caught him.
"Whoa, slow down there, Porcupine," Logan said, making sure to use the nickname he had given Evan years ago to catch his attention. "You're weak from the battle that got you here in the first place along with the barrage of mental images you were experiencing; believe me, I know," Logan said, thinking back to the nightmares that he had been forced to endure for what seemed ages.
Evan glared up at Logan, knowing that the Canadian knew how much the Morlock hated the nickname Porcupine. However, when Logan glared back at him and Hank agreed with Logan, Evan sighed and said, "Fine. I'll 'slow down', as you put it." Evan then stood up again, this time leaning onto Logan for support. Logan and Evan walked out of the cell, Amara, Hank, and Forge following. Evan saw Remy and snarled, demanding, "What's he doing here?!"
Façade stepped forward and told Evan what he had been told and Evan, not sure if he heard correctly asked, "Apocalypse's back?!" Remy nodded yes and Evan saw his memories of the horrific battle return, especially the images of seeing his aunt possessed by Apocalypse; those ones he had definitely tried not to remember. "Damn… now what?" Evan asked, not really expecting an answer.
Callisto, however, gave her second-in-command an answer. "Spyke, here's what you do: let Gambit heal you, come with us so we can rescue all of the other Morlocks and other mutants, then we take down Sabretooth and Apocalypse. Got it?" Evan nodded but Logan tensed.
"Sabretooth's alive?!" he snarled, not believing his ears. Lance had killed him; hell, the kid had confirmed it himself, with input from Forge! On getting nods from the Morlocks, Logan snarled, "Fine; this time I'll make sure he stays dead!" Evan slowly moved away from Logan and towards Remy, allowing the Cajun to heal him. Evan felt his energy returning to him, and he could feel his vengeful streak emerge; he was going to take down not only Sabretooth for capturing the Morlocks, but that damn Apocalypse as well, for what he had done to his aunt. At that thought, he looked around and noticed that the one person he wanted to see and assure himself that she was okay wasn't with them.
"Where's Auntie O?" Evan asked Logan, who looked away guiltily, telling Evan that he wished he knew where Ororo was, but also vowing that he would find her. The group, after hearing from Hank how to travel in the hallways, along with it taking both Evan and Façade calming Callisto down enough for her to agree to take orders for a while instead of giving them, the group left for the next hall.
Hallway #8, Asteroid Evolution, Orbit of the Moon, Milky Way Galaxy – May 17, 2:10 AM
The next hallway was #8, where Hank, Logan, Amara, Forge, and Jubilee rescued Jaime from his cell, albeit while dealing with the young man's barrage of questions that got on all of their nerves for at least five minutes, except for Hank. The scientist was used to hearing much larger barrages of questions from Jaime, and found it amusing to no end that the youngest member of the X-Factor team was able to get under Logan's skin so easily. Jaime's questions kept coming until Logan lost his temper and threatened to skewer Jaime on his claws after they had returned to the mansion. Jaime laughed weakly, and agreed to stop his endless amount of questions, offering in return to use his clones to go and scout the rest of the territory that Remy had yet to cover.
"Come on, me and my clones can go and scout out the other hallways so we can find everyone else more quickly," Jaime argued, set on making himself more useful than he had been in their last battle.
Remy nodded his head no and replied, "Dat can' be done, homme; too dangerous. If de other Horsemen or Apocalypse catch tu out dere den you'll be killed… and Rogue'd have moi head." Jaime stared at Remy for a moment, trying to wrap his mind around the comment he'd made about Rogue until he got it and, looking to Jubilee to make sure he was on the right track grinned.
"So Remy; you and Rogue, huh?" Jaime innocently asked, hoping to get Remy to answer without thinking but Remy, having been told by Lance how Jaime had gotten him to admit that he was dating Kitty (again) in Logan's hearing range two years ago didn't answer Jaime's question; he merely asked Jaime if he could heal him, to which Jaime agreed instantly. If Jaime was honest with himself, he had always thought that Gambit and Avalanche were cool; hey, if they could tolerate Rogue and Kitty for long periods of time then they were good in his book.
Meanwhile, Bobby, Callisto, Evan, Façade, and Remy had freed Dorian, who, at first, had accidentally used his powers as soon as his collar off was off. However, once Evan had reassured his friend that Remy and Bobby were there to help, Dorian had allowed Remy to heal him, which said mutant had done quickly, not appreciating the feeling of not being in touch with his mutant powers.
Dorian walked out of his cell behind Evan and, on seeing Jaime grinned. Dorian walked over to Jaime and said, "You are able to create clones, right?" When Jaime nodded Dorian continued, "Then why not just use them to stop our enemy?" Jaime grinned at this, shooting a look at Remy, who shrugged, and shook his head in the negative to Jaime's unspoken question.
"I think that this is the start of a beautiful friendship," Jaime commented, reaching out to shake Dorian's hand, to which Dorian did the same. They then began talking up a storm and all those watching were shocked at how quickly they got along.
Evan groaned and, slapping a hand to his head commented, "This was a bad idea; now Dorian and Jaime are going to be plotting more than he does alone with Torpid and Artie."
After Hank had once more explained that Apocalypse was back, the group moved on to the next hallway, Dorian and Jaime still talking, except now through telepathy.
Hallway #9, Asteroid Evolution, Orbit of the Moon, Milky Way Galaxy – May 17, 2:25 AM
In hallway #9, Artie and Kurt were on the brink of implosion; the images that moved their minds had been moving faster and faster recently, causing their minds to start to burn; literally. Remy's group entered the hallway and, upon hearing their screams of pain all of them winced, remembering what it'd felt like. Logan sniffed the air and cursed.
"Damn it! Their minds are overloading; we've gotta free 'em fast!" Without thinking about how he could smell burning minds (something that would later cause him to ask Professor Xavier for help), he ran over to Kurt's door and, despite the pain he felt from the electricity, managed to get the bars open. Logan entered and shook his head to clear his mind of the pain from the electricity that had attacked him after he touched the bars.
"Popsicle, Porcupine; get in here!" Logan yelled, kneeling down in front of Kurt, who was screaming and cursing in German at the images in his mind.
"Calm down, Elf; I'm not going to hurt you," Logan murmured, trying to get Kurt to hear him. However, Kurt didn't respond. Logan tried again and on getting no response, growled, trying to think of a method he could use. Then, it came to him.
"Elf, listen to me; you have to be strong and stay still so we can free you so we can go and rescue Amanda. Remember I told you that her mother had called and asked where she was because she didn't come home the night before we were captured? I think she's here, Elf; you have to be strong for her."
This time Kurt stopped thrashing and listened to Logan, who grinned on seeing Kurt stop moving. He motioned to Bobby and Evan, who had been waiting for the okay to come in. Evan moved behind Kurt, and, making sure he had a firm grip on him to keep the blue elf from moving, exposed the collar to Bobby. Bobby, armoring up, shot a stream of ice at the collar and Evan watched as it froze solid, causing Kurt to stop cursing, which he had started to do again once Evan had held him still. Bobby nodded to Logan, who, releasing one claw, carefully slipped it underneath the collar and neatly cut it off of Kurt. Logan then threw the collar in the air and Evan launched a flame-tipped spike at it and relished in hearing it explode in mid-air.
"Mein Gott…" Kurt muttered as he put a hand to his hand to try to stop the headache that was threatening to take over. He opened his yellow eyes and saw Logan and Bobby in front of him. "Logan, Bobby? You're all right… vait, vhere's Amanda?!" Kurt exclaimed as he realized that he didn't see his girlfriend.
"Calm down, Kurt; we haven't found her yet but we're going to. Don't worry," Evan said as he offered a hand to Kurt to help him to his feet. Kurt was shocked to see Evan in front of him, but took the proffered hand and got to his feet, clutching his head when he began to feel dizzy.
"Cajun! Get your ass in here!" Logan demanded and Remy stepped into the cell and smirked when he saw the adopted brother of his girlfriend. "Heal the Elf!" Logan ordered as he stepped out of the cell and went over to where the others were trying to free Artie.
"Gambit? Vhat are you doing here?" Kurt demanded, not believing his eyes.
"Remy's here to help, Kurt," Remy replied, removing a glove and moving towards the transporter, who backed away. "Don' worry, Kurt; Remy's just going ta heal tu; bon?"
Kurt continued to back away and replied, "No, it's not good. You can't heal me, Gambit!"
Remy nodded that he could and when Evan nodded at him that he'd tell Kurt, Remy stepped back and watched as the spiked mutant talked to the transporter. Finally, Kurt stepped forward and, hesitatingly holding out a hand said, "Vell, I guess that I could give you a chance, Gambit. I trust you." Remy, smirking, took Kurt's hand and shook it, watching as Kurt grinned on feeling his energy come back to him. Once Remy had finished he motioned with his head for Kurt to follow him out of the cell. When Kurt did he saw Callisto, Façade, Dorian, and Evan talking adamantly with a mutant whom Kurt remembered reading about. Artie was his name and poison was his game.
Remy walked over to Artie and, kneeling, asked, "Callisto, could tu ask Artie if he is okay avec moi healing him?" Callisto nodded and after speaking with Artie nodded yes. Remy carefully touched Artie's face and transferred his energy, making sure to keep a small shield around his hand so the poison didn't touch him. Once he'd finished Artie, grinning, hugged Remy around the waist (as Remy was still kneeling), being careful to not let any exposed skin touch Remy. He then backed up and signaled to Remy that he was grateful for Remy's help. Dorian translated and Remy grinned at Artie once again.
Remy stood up and this time he let Evan explain what was going on, and then the group moved on to the next hallway.