All characters owned by Marvel Comics.

Author's note: Things will start to move pretty quickly from here. Enjoy the ride!

Sam

"I'm ready! I didn't even throw up last time!"

Lila stood defiantly, hands on her hips, getting right in Ororo's face. Damn right she was ready, we were ready. The weather goddess was just pissed we didn't want her along.

"That is hardly reassuring, Lila." Storm crossed her arms and brought her fully impressive height to bear on the smaller, scrappier Lila. We were at an impasse again, seemed like emotions had been running too high at the Jean Grey School for anybody to budge or compromise when it came to this proposed rescue mission. The assembled X-Men were crammed in Storm's office again, butting heads for what seemed like the tenth time in a week concerning our long lost friends. I tapped my foot impatiently. This was getting ridiculous. We needed to go after them, we had a goddamn plan, a good one, they just wouldn't let us get on with it.

Using her teleportation powers had unlocked the final mental barrier that Lila had erected around her mind, allowing her and Rachel access to the destination of the portal she had created on the night the Purifiers attacked, the portal that had whisked Anna and Logan to a galaxy so far away we were lucky it hadn't come up and bit us from behind. It was, well, that final destination was damn far away, beyond Lila's normal range by at least double. Jesus, infinity could be a bitch. Sure, it was a longshot that the original destination of the portal was where they had finally landed, but Lila's powers had been the subject of ruthless study these last few months. Hank, Rachel, and Lila were fairly confident the portal hadn't changed course, and had calculated that it would take two huge jumps, Lila pushing herself to her absolute limit on each, in order to reach our friends. This was what had started the arguments, and it had become 'us' versus 'them', the X-Men divided right down the middle.

No denying it, Lila was still rocky after she teleported. We had been practicing, travelling to friendly and familiar star systems, but every time she jumped, she would get crazy dizzy, so wiped out all she could do was sleep, a deep sleep you couldn't wake her from until she woke herself and recovered enough to jump again. The 'us', the team I had figured on: Me, Hank, Lila, Rachel and Gambit, had found a way to work around this little snafu, and had it all ready and waiting. Rachel had contacted a friend of hers that had recently made it back to Shi'ar space, one Captain Korvus. Just so happened he and his crew owed a debt to Rogue, and apparently Korvus couldn't resist those big green eyes of Rachel's. She relayed our expected coordinates to their ship with his promise they'd be ready when we were. Their ship in position was our planned halfway point. Using their vessel as our stepping stone into the galaxy, Lila could perform one teleportation, recover onboard ship, then jump to our final destination, then do the same on the return trip.

Storm looked around the room, the 'them', those who were vetoing our plan, were her, Bobby Drake, and the rest of the X-Men, currently represented by Northstar, Colossus, and Psylocke. I tried not to be resentful of the others' position. Believe me, part of me understood it. It was a dangerous hare-brained idea, flying off into the galaxy with Lila's rickety powers was like driving a car cross country with the check engine light on and no spare tire. With so many unknowns, taking half the team to the other side of the universe to rescue two X-Men could be viewed by some as reckless. Like I said, I didn't resent the rest of them. Most of them, anyway. Bobby Drake being one of 'them'? That one sure stung.

Ororo continued in her deep, regal voice. "There is not a soul here who does not wish to see our friends returned home, but I will not endanger more of us on a mission that is very unlikely to succeed."

"You act like there isn't even a chance!" Rachel cried. "We have to at least try!"

Peter Rasputin, the big shiny Russian Colossus, laid a mammoth hand on my shoulder. "Rogue and Wolverine would not want you to risk your lives in such a manner, my friends." I swallowed my anger and shrugged his hand off.

"That's garbage and you know it, Pete!" I jumped to my feet, coming to stand behind Lila. "If anyone else had been missing, those two would have been the first to sign up for their rescue! Hell, Psylocke, Logan pulled your fat out of the fryer all those years ago in Japan when he wasn't even sure you were you!" Elizabeth Braddock, the ninja telepath/telekinetic Psylocke suddenly found the floor more interesting than meeting my eyes. "If it had been me trapped halfway round the galaxy, and they were the ones here? I'd 'a been rescued six months ago, because neither of them would have put up with this pussy footing around!"

"Guthrie," Northstar levelled a stern look at me and crossed his arms. "We know how passionate you all feel about this, but the fact remains that this mission is a greater exposure than the X-Men can currently afford." I was ready to spit nails at Jean-Paul, but my intended tirade was interrupted.

"I understand everyone's well-meaning, if frankly misplaced, concern," Hank was hanging upside down from the ceiling in the corner of the office, his fingertips tented in front of him. "As discussed in previous meetings of the minds, our team is well prepared, as prepared as the X-Men ever are before gallantly charging to the rescue. Captain Korvus and his misfit crew are patiently awaiting word from Rachel, and will be at the designated coordinates, ready to accommodate five travel weary mutants while Ms. Cheney recharges her teleportation batteries. When she is rested and revived, she will make the second jump. We will locate our long missing friends through whatever means are required to accomplish the mission, and we will return home, two X-Men, or Avengers if you prefer, heavier."

"You make it sound so goddamned easy, Blue," Bobby Drake, who had remained oddly silent up to that point, sounded uncharacteristically bitter from where he sat on one of the sprawling brown leather sofas positioned in front of the bookshelves lining the walls. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "Yeah, Lila and Rachel figured out what planet they're on, but you guys don't know what to freaking expect, you can't know! It could go to hell in the blink of an eye! What if there's dinosaurs or the planet's crawling with cannibal ax-wielding alien maniac zombies? You have no fucking clue what you're getting yourselves into! This mystery world could be covered in fire or ice or Ewoks or marshmallows…and, what nobody wants to admit, is that this could all be for god damned nothing! Rogue and Wolverine could be…could be…" he choked and put a hand over his mouth to cover the sound.

"Rogue and Wolverine could be dead."

Ororo spoke the words Bobby couldn't, her simple statement silencing the room. She stepped to the window behind her desk and turned away, facing the grounds of the school that were just coming back to life after the long winter. Lila leaned back on me, her body heavy with guilt. Gambit uncurled his long frame from where he had quietly perched on the arm of a sofa next to Rachel. He walked forward with his usual feline grace, the burns he had received from the Purifier's mystery weapons now just a memory, and touched Ororo's shoulder. My stomach still twisted to see them together, but most of the others had come to accept it. Life went on when you lived like we did. Rachel's glare at his backside, caught over my shoulder, told me I wasn't the only one who still felt the betrayal.

"Stormy…Ororo," he said gently, and the room held its collective breath. Despite he and Storm's relationship, which had become pretty serious according to school gossip, Remy had still been one of 'us', staunchly pushing the rescue mission forward, working just as hard at our intergalactic preparations as he had in working to bring down the Purifiers. I was still honked off at him, but would always be grateful for his invaluable perspective. No wonder the man was a world class thief. He had thought of things, contingencies, that none of the rest of us had even dreamed of. We were in the position we were in because of him.

"If that's truly the case, if Logan and…and Anna… are dead? I need to know, chere. I won't live the rest of my life without knowing what happened to them." Ororo turned her head towards him and I caught the whisper of a sad smile on her lips.

"To her, you mean." He touched her cheek softly and nodded. "Still?" she asked, the bald passion in that one word shockingly intimate in front of so many people.

He ducked his head solemnly, but when he raised it again, the earnestness was gone, replaced by that Cheshire-cat grin he gave all the ladies. It hadn't been quite fast enough to cover the rawness etched on his face. He did love Anna. Maybe he wasn't a big fat liar after all, just a dirty cheat. "Trust us, Stormy. Trust me." She smiled wryly. The seriously heavy emotions shattered for the moment, she turned to face us.

"You are determined to do this? The five of you, charging off into the universe?" I squared my shoulders.

"Yes, ma'am." She nodded, resigned. The others began to move restlessly, their cause lost.

"Very well. I agree with the division of the team. The powers and personalities seem appropriate, though I wish it was not necessary to include Lila. Unfortunately…" She waved a graceful long-fingered hand airily, dismissing the thought. "I want mission specifications on my desk tomorrow. We shall go over your preparations with a fine-toothed comb, and if there is anything I find not to my liking, if there is any discord amongst the five of you…" her rock hard blue eyes found each and every one of us, reminding me why she had been chosen as the X-Men's leader. "Find our friends, bring them home. Trust in each other, we cannot afford mistakes." Bobby Drake jumped to his feet.

"Just like that? The Cajun charms your panties off, and you're good to go? This is bullshit!" An angry Remy stepped murderously towards Bobby, but I jumped around Lila and shoved myself between them.

"Whoa boys, settle down now!" I thumped each of them in the chest. "Everybody's a little excited here, why don't we just take one big step back?" Gambit muttered some insult in French, and it riled Bobby up even more. I had to turn and hold him back, Peter finally getting off his big metal behind to back me up. "What the hell, Bobby? Don't you want her rescued?" I really didn't get it. Rogue was his friend, there had been a time they had been best friends. Where was this anger coming from? Didn't take long for me to get my answer.

"Not by him," he spat at Gambit. "He doesn't deserve to be her hero." He shrugged off my arms and slammed the office door on his way out.

Logan

I saw 'em first, and clamped my hand over her big mouth before she had a chance to scream, yanked her down in a crouch between my legs. Her growl was muffled behind my hand, and I hissed in her ear, duck-walking us backwards into the shadows of the trees.

"Shhh!" She struggled and ground her little ass against me to get free. Any other time, I would have been bouncing her on my lap after moves like that, but I shook her slightly. "In the river," My voice was just a breath in her ear, and she stiffened. I felt her swallow a scream. The tracks we had been following for two days had doubled a couple miles back, two briny-smelling bastards walking side-by-side through the barely frozen muck along the bluff tops that hovered over the river bank. Coming around that last bend we had eyes on the river below, a clear view of a bit further downstream. Two creatures, the humanoids we had been tracking, were in the water, moving around what looked like an upside down canoe striped in graphic yellow and orange. Even with my enhanced senses we were too far away to get a real good look, but they were tall, taller than us, and just as solidly built. We needed to get closer, figure out what we were dealing with.

"Y' all right?" I whispered in Anna's ear. She nodded sharply, once, and I released her mouth. I caught her eyes and nodded us forward. We moved, kept low through the trees, looking for a better vantage point. I cringed at every snap of a branch, every pull of dried leaves across her leather jacket. All this time rolling with me, and she was still so goddamned noisy. I should have just picked her ass up and carried her, would have been quieter even if she had been squirming against me. That thought brought a fresh hard-on that I had to will away as we kept going. What was wrong with me? We were charging into a potentially dangerous situation, and couldn't afford me being distracted. But right now? Looking at Anna? All I wanted do was to forget everything but her, to wrap her legs around my waist and pound that ass against the trunk of a tree, get her hot and wet and moaning…Shit, I was gonna get us killed if I didn't focus.

The bluff cut down in a sharp hill, decreasing the distance between the briny-bastards in the river and us. We stopped in the shadows, Anna craning her neck over my shoulder. I held my breath as for a horrible moment there wasn't two of them, only one. Her mouth found my ear when the other reappeared.

"They're diving for an awful long time," she murmured. Damn, she was right. They were circling their craft where it floated in the water, then one of them would disappear beneath the surface. I counted the seconds when the next one bobbed below the water, gave up when I hit seven agonizing minutes. "What are they, part fish?" She was joking, but I turned and looked at her, the smirk on her face shifting when her thoughts went the same direction as mine. We were still too far away to see details on their bodies, but why not? Humans descended from apes, the Shi'ar from birds, why couldn't another planet's species have mackerel for their great-great grandparents? It would sure as hell explain their smell, maybe even explain why we hadn't seen cities or pollution or any other vehicles. If they were fish, maybe they lived underwater? We had only been in the one river so far, the water not deep enough to travel by boat. If these guys had traveled upstream from the ocean or another larger body of water…

I motioned for her to stay put. Her face twisted and she bared her teeth angrily, shaking her head. The auburn and white curls that had dislodged from the thick braid trailing over her shoulder bounced and caught traces of the sunlight. Stubborn ass! Of all the times for her to dig her heels in! I returned her furious glare, and our eyes locked in silent argument. She didn't back down, but I finally gave in. Getting soft in my old age, I guess. We crept along the downward slope together, coming dangerously close to compromising our position for the chance at a better look at our quarry. If we were going to try and communicate with them, we needed to observe them. Asking for their assistance still looked to be our best chance for a rescue, though the cold fear in my gut told me we were chasing rainbows.

One of them stood on the top of their vessel, the boat reminding me of the top of an ornate submarine. Bands of yellows and oranges were painted on its surface, zig-zagging along its shiny curves. The creature balanced easily, almost gracefully, on the craft's hull. It was tall, 'bout six foot, but sleek, wiry. Its body was slim, but heavily muscled. Its head was a wet greenish color the shade of day old seaweed, and it looked to be wearing a clear mask of sorts around the lower part of its face. No hair, but wide eyes under a heavily jutting brow bone. Its body was covered in what looked to be a wetsuit, colored a deep, dark brownish red, the color of clotted blood. Anna's cold fingers dug painfully into my arm, and her green eyes were wide as she watched the humanoid raise its hand, five webbed fingers ending in inch long curved claws, to its face. It removed the mask that had been obscuring its mouth. She had been right. Beneath the mask its resemblance to its aquatic ancestors was real fucking apparent. Wide fishy lips, no nose, hooded wide eyes the size of golf balls. Small fins fanned out where ears would have been on a human. Not scaly, but ridged like a crocodile, its mouth gulped for air for a heartbeat before it dove into the water, its sleek body barely making a ripple.

Anna tugged insistently on my arm, and I whipped my face towards her, ready to snarl at her. She grabbed my face wildly and yanked me into her. "Where the fuck is the other one? Did you see it go into the water?" She hissed frantically. Fuck. I hadn't. It had surfaced after my seven minute count to join its friend, and then I had been so busy checking out the one on top of the craft that I had lost sight of its buddy.

I felt it before I smelled it, a burning push that cut its way through the air. I shoved Anna's body hard away from me, sending her tumbling ass over head before the blaster bolt fried the ground where she had been sitting. I rolled and jumped into a fighting stance, saw her do the same. I sniffed, my eyes trailing over the trees, that salty smell rolling over us from the deep of the woods, but I couldn't see where, couldn't find him! The dead leaves rustled over my head in the second Anna screamed my name. I popped my claws and turned in the same motion, catching ahold of the business end of a mean looking staff before it connected with my skull. I fell back, the briny-bastard landing on my stomach, heavier than he looked, knocking the breath out of me. It stood quickly, faster than I anticipated. Dislodging its weapon from my claws, he swung it around for another blow. The weapon was the length and heft of a quarter staff, but the ends fanned out into sharp blades surrounding an ugly blaster chamber. It shot laser rounds the size of volleyballs, the grips and triggers splitting the length of the staff into thirds. Whatever the weapon was made of, some sort of black armor plating wrapped the surface from tip to tip. My claws hadn't even scratched the damn thing. Luckily the six of them held fast on the next chopping blow, kept him from slicing my neck open with those blades that looked to be honed out of the same slick black material that plated the staff. The briny-bastard's mouth contorted in rage behind its breather, a gurgling sound causing its gills to fan out along the sides of its neck. It pushed the staff hard against my claws, inching it and them towards my face.

"Not real neighborly of you, sugar," Anna's slender hands curled around the creature's face from behind, and its eyes bulged even further from its head, her power pouring over him in painful waves. He convulsed, gurgled and dropped like a stone onto my chest. She let go of him and flicked her fingers. "Slimy little fella," she scowled and helped me roll him and his blaster staff off me, sat me up.

"Good move. Nice. Didn't even hear you come up." I rubbed her back as she helped me get to my feet. Anna ran her fingers lightly along the cuts my own claws had made on my throat, but they were already closing.

"Close shave?" she smirked, our back and forth banter reminding me for one sweet second of the Blue Team, and the unstoppable force that had been Rogue and Wolverine, barreling in when the job needed doing. She caught my eyes but hers weren't hers, not their usual emerald green. Instead the color had faded to the pale sickly cabbage green of the creature she had absorbed.

"Did you get anything from it?" She grimaced.

"I pulled pretty hard, but didn't get a lot of his memories. Wasn't sure what it would do to me…" I knew she was still squeamish with what her absorption powers could do. At its best, her power allowed her a connection, a oneness with another being that even the best telepaths couldn't achieve. At its worst, she was overwhelmed, subverted, losing control of her mind and body. She had some pretty rough experiences absorbing aliens in the past, and I hated to push her on it, but we needed any information she could get us.

"I hate to ask you…" She held a hand up to stop me.

"It's okay. I should have just grabbed it all on the first touch. Just wanted to make sure you were safe, in case…" She smiled stiffly and kneeled beside the unconscious creature. "Here goes." She was trembling but the hand she placed on its forehead was firm, determined, while she gathered her information. "They're hunters…soldiers…" she whispered. "Home is an endless ocean…beautiful…dark…sparkling sunlight from above….they're far from their home…conquering, exploring. They rule this planet…top of the food chain..." Her eyes were watching distant places in her mind. "They move up the rivers, take what is not theirs…something has been following them…something strange, something alien…they…" her voice caught and she moved a slim white hand to her throat. Alarmed, I crouched at her side.

"Anna? What is it, darlin'?" Her eyes, still that strange, sick color, were wide in terror and she clawed at the side of her neck. I gripped her hand and pulled it away from her throat where newly formed gills puckered and gaped. A gurgling, popping noise escaped her throat, but she was suffocating, choking on the air.

"Let it go! Just let him go!" Even as the words were out of my mouth I knew she couldn't, that the alien's DNA was winding its way unchecked through her system, changing her beyond her control. I felt the heat of an alien blaster bolt again and threw myself over her writhing body to shield her. The bolt exploded against my backside with enough force to send me and Anna flying over the top of the prone body of our first assailant, the two of us rolling fifty yards across the frosty leaf strewn ground. It felt like being hit by a truck, and if not for my adamantium laced skeleton, it would have shattered my spine. I couldn't let her get clipped by that thing. My leather jacket had melted and burned a hole in the meat beneath, my power working to seal the seared flesh as I got to my knees and struggled to stand. The second creature, the one we had been studying on top of their vessel, must have come looking for his friend. He was on us, and from behind furiously stabbed my gaping wound with the bladed end of his staff, my unbreakable ribs the only things that stopped it from running me straight through. Anna screamed in mute horror even as she was gasping for breath, her face turning an unnatural purple from the lack of oxygen. I roared, spun round with the creature still holding tightly to the weapon embedded in my back. I slashed an arc with my claws, connecting them to its flesh and bone. The creature hissed in agony. Holding its shredded arm, it kicked my side and I fell backwards, the staff catching on the ground behind me, driving it deeper. I howled and rolled onto my side, saw Anna scrambling for air, crawling towards the other creature's breather. Though her body moved for a fresh breath, her eyes moved towards the first creature's discarded blaster staff. I reached awkwardly behind me and pulled on the gigantic knife in my back, felt the staff give way in a great suck of flesh and blood. I rolled to my feet, lurched towards where Anna and the second creature were facing off, playing tug-o-war over one of the blaster staffs. She had the breather over her mouth, but she was shaky and I was too flamin' slow. He wrenched the weapon from her, pulled it towards him with both elbows bent, then extended one arm lightning fast, cracking her in the head with the end of the staff. She crumpled in a heap at his feet. The other end it leveled at me and fired, catching me square in the chest. Hot suffocating pain swallowed my core. Stupid me, standing too close to the bluff. It fired again and I vaulted out and over the river, unconscious before I hit the water.