X-Men: Evolution
Blood Magics
37. Entangled
Xavier was relieved to be back in his wheelchair.
He wasn't going to complain, but lying on the floor all that time hadn't just been uncomfortable; it had started an ache in his very bones that he was sure was going to last awhile. After all, much as he hated it, he was getting older. On top of that, being carried around was rather humiliating, though he wasn't going to complain about that either; there had been no help for it. Even if his wheelchair had been waiting just outside the laboratory's exit, he would never have wheeled himself through the forest they were in.
It was a relief when they had been able to administer the antidote to Rogue and Kurt, as well; for Rogue, it had only taken a couple minutes before the green on her skin and in her hair had faded to nothing, and she came back to herself. As soon as she had, and they had been able to verify it, she had been untied and the inhibitor collar taken off, and she had shaken off worried comments and queries, and had sat in a corner- or at least, as much of a corner as the Velocity had- and curled up, tight- lipped and white faced. A few people had tried to go over, but Xavier gave everyone a mental command to let her be for now; he intended to have a discussion with her soon, to help her process what she'd been through, but for the moment, he figured she both needed and deserved some time on her own to process it herself.
When they had administered it to Kurt, who made it just as difficult to give it to him as Rogue did since he'd woken up halfway back to the jet and began to thrash even as Colossus carried him, it seemed to have a far worse effect on him. Xavier had even worried for a time that it wasn't working at all, and instead simply making him ill- he'd rapidly gotten weak on it and was sweating with a high fever- but as Beast checked him thoroughly, the green spots all over his skin did seem to be shrinking, just far more slowly. Xavier could only assume that the effect was simply slower and stronger than it had been on Rogue because Kurt had suffered under the control serum for a much longer time; Rogue, after all, had been sweating too as she came out of it, though they had not checked her temperature.
Once the antidote had been administered to them, Beast had then looked after Kitty; they had what they needed in the jet, so after administering some local anesthetic which Kitty had utterly hated the process of, he'd carefully cleaned the cut along her left jawbone and then stitched it up. Thankfully, no one else had sustained an injury like that, though several people were sporting bruises. Gambit in particular had nasty ones on his arms, and scratches on his hands, but no one else needed any immediate treatment.
After it was determined that everyone had been treated, and that Kurt was slowly improving, they prepared for takeoff. Once they were in the air, they would distribute the food kept in the jet around; both the Velocity and the X- Jet were kept stocked with emergency rations. By this point, pretty much everyone was both hungry, and exhausted; it was, Xavier suspected, the only thing that kept the jet as quiet as it was.
On the walk over, Storm had relieved Boom- Boom of Dragon and was carrying the small girl herself; Xavier could feel guilt clinging to the older woman, and intended to get to the bottom of it- but not right this second. No, first they were getting on their way, and he was sorting out something else, first.
"Where are we, exactly?" He asked Jean. "Kurt teleported us from Sinister's New Orleans lab straight here, and we never heard anything regarding our location."
Jean rubbed at her head. Her face, he noticed, had been a bit pale right from when he'd first seen her brought into the lab, and he suspected she had been finding the strain of everything that had been put on her to be too much. It had been quite a bit, after the other adults had all been captured; having her as the sole adult looking after all the younger students while also making more of the antidote had been quite enough to ask of anyone without adding the rescue onto it. She already felt guilty for not having formulated a better plan, he knew.
"Bolivia." She answered, waving a hand in the direction of the control panel. The location, Xavier knew, would have been displayed, but he was more concerned with staying in the same area as his students.
"Quite a trip." Beast commented.
"Indeed. Getting home will take a while, then."
"Don't forget that two people have to take this back to New Orleans so that we can bring the X- Jet home." Wolverine grunted. He was in the pilot's seat. "Sooner rather than later."
"Let's just go home first and see what time it is when we get there." Xavier suggested.
"Yeah, yeah." Wolverine turned his attention back to the controls. "Everyone buckled?"
"Everyone who can be." Storm confirmed; she was holding Dragon on her lap, since the girl was far too small to be strapped into a seat safely. Kurt, curled into a ball and trembling as the antidote slowly erased the control serum in his system, couldn't be strapped in either, so after some careful consideration, he had been carefully tied down; they would untie him once the jet was safely in the air. Kitty was strapped into the closest seat she could get to him, eyes never leaving his trembling form.
The jet shuddered a little as it rose; Wolverine carefully moved it upwards, then set the course for home. Once the jet was moving through the air, most of the students undid their belts so they could move around. Kitty didn't bother undoing; she simply phased out of it and slithered back onto the ground next to Kurt. Several people crowded the food storage compartment.
Unbuckling his own belt, Xavier figured it was time to address what he felt was the most important issue right at this moment, and wheeled himself over to the one who'd played the biggest part in their escape.
"Gambit."
The former Acolyte gave him a crooked smile. "Mission's over- you can call me Remy. I prefer that 'less I'm workin'."
Xavier smiled back at him. "Remy. Thank you. Without your help, it's hard to say if we would have ever made it out of there with our free wills intact. Perhaps not even our lives. And I apologize that we left you in the containment cells for as long as we did; if I had not had as many other things on my mind as I have, I would have spoken with you much earlier."
"Dealing with Sinister does give a person a lot to deal with." Remy acknowledged.
"And it's not even just him that's been on my mind." Xavier told him. Before he gave his blessing for Remy to join his X- Men, he wanted the man to know at least some of what he was getting into. "We have received… information that Trask, the man behind the creation of the Sentinels, is planning something big to do with getting rid of mutants. We've been trying to determine what that might be and when he's planning to strike, but we've yet to find any more information other than that we can say, "something is coming.""
"Government and military like to hide their secrets." Remy nodded. "Takes a lot to get it out of them."
"As it is, we're worried it may come down to fight. It would be nice to be able to stop it before it comes to that, but our contacts insist that so far, he has done nothing wrong."
"Fighting is one thing all of you are good at, at least. Quiet approaches and stealth missions, maybe not so much, but once the fight was on even ground, you all had no trouble taking out Sinister."
"He's not gone, though." Jean pointed out. "I mean, it seemed like it for a moment, but he started regenerating. Just because he collapsed his lab base in on himself doesn't lead me to think he's gone for good, not if Cyclops could blow him up and it barely slowed him down."
"You are correct about that, Jean." Xavier nodded. Their conversation had caught the attention of the rest of the students as well who were all listening in, though passing out trail mix bags and granola bars and bottles of water at the same time. "He'll likely be back some day. We'll have to be ready for him. However, we can all relax for now; his lab is completely destroyed. Everyone made sure to remove everything he could use. He still has what he knows, of course, and his own abilities, but without his machines and his files, there will be little he can do. When we go to retrieve the X- Jet, we'll take a couple others to make sure that we completely destroy everything that could be potentially left in his New Orleans base, as well. Unless he has another base somewhere, he will need to start from scratch, and even if he does, we have set him back significantly. Sinister is not gone for good, but he is gone for now. That's something we can be proud of."
Xavier fell silent to allow for the cheers a couple of his students gave to die out, then continued.
"However, there is one thing that I would like to mention. Gam- sorry, Remy. As you mentioned, it seems that there are still skillsets that we need to work on honing in addition to keeping our fighting skills sharp for future battles to come. I was hoping that perhaps you might be able to help with that. That Saturday that you gave us a hand with the brawl in the middle of town, you later said that you were looking to join us. If that is still your interest, even knowing that we are expecting clashes against both Trask and Sinister some day in the future, then I would like to offer you a position- both in our team, as an X- Man, and on my staff, where you would be in charge of helping our students hone their skillsets for stealth missions."
Xavier had noticed Dragon cringe and draw back into Storm's hold when Trask's name was mentioned; he noticed Remy stiffen almost imperceivably at Sinister's name.
However, there was no hesitation in his voice when he responded.
"It would be my pleasure."
A few more whoops and cheers were called down the jet, and Remy smirked.
"Oh, you're excited now. You might regret it when it's your turn to learn what I teach."
A couple students exchanged nervous glances; Beast and Storm, however, chuckled.
"Yeah, woo- hoo. There's still something I'd like to know. How did you get out, and how did you find us?"
"I brought him along, Wolverine." Jean responded before Remy could. "I… didn't have a plan to work with, and I brought him as emergency back- up. I'm glad I did."
"Indeed, but that begs the question- how did you manage to find us?" Storm inquired. Xavier frowned; she had a very good point.
"Yes, how did you track us down?"
"Dragon." Jean gestured towards her.
Several pairs of confused eyes fell to the girl on Storm's lap.
"Dragon? You found us?"
"I could tell what way to go." The girl answered. Squirming out of Storm's loose grip, she scampered over to where Rogue still sat in her chair away from the others, and rubbed against her legs the same way a cat might. "I could feel you."
Rogue, whom Xavier noticed had been silently watching the proceedings happing at their end of the jet, looked down at her.
"You felt me?"
"Just like you said you could feel me! Only… only I can't feel you now. But at the time, all of a sudden I could feel that you were really scared, and you got really sad, too. I could feel you then, and I knew where you were. Well, not where you were, but I knew what direction you were in. So we followed it until we found everyone!"
"That connection they ended up with!" Xavier realized.
"Yeah, I never understood what was going on with that?" Multiple put in. "How could Dragon feel anything from Rogue? Jean wouldn't explain it."
Xavier glanced around the jet; everyone was looking, except Wolverine who still kept his eyes on the controls and out the windows of the jet.
"Perhaps later?" Xavier suggested. "Right now, I think it would be best for us to get home and recover. I'll call into the school and get all of you a day or two off from it; I think that would be best. Then we can go over everything, from everyone's perspective, until we all have our questions answered."
"Sounds fine to me. Leave the work for later." Boom- Boom said carelessly. "But what I'd like to know now, is, Rogue was scared and sad? What exactly do you mean by that? Rogue's only emotions are indifferent or angry."
"Well, that's rude." Kitty shot back from her position on the floor. She had undone Kurt's ties herself, and was holding his head in her lap.
"Oh, you know what I mean."
"I know that your tongue is as explosive as your bombs." Wolverine barked from the front of the jet. "Good to know that you, at least, didn't learn a damn thing about how your words can get other people hurt on your account. Start taking that into consideration, will ya?"
Boom- Boom opened her mouth, but no words came out; when she closed it after a moment, some red had made its way to her face.
"I knew what was happening." Rogue muttered as soon as the jet was silent.
All eyes turned to her.
"I could see everything, hear everything… but my body refused to do what I wanted. It only obeyed Sinister. I hate not having control of my own body. I can't stand it."
Her hands curled into fists; her jaw tightened, and her posture was rigid. Xavier felt a deep ache in his heart at the reminder that of all his students, Rogue had been the one who got her free will taken away from her the most frequently, for one reason or another.
Dragon, looking up, tried to crawl into her lap; it took a couple tries, as she used her back legs to try to hop and it took more than one, but once successful, she curled up against her. After a moment of frozen immobility, Rogue's arms acquiesced and came up to hold her.
Though Xavier tried very hard not to associate the tiny nine- year- old with an animal, she really did look like a cat or small dog trying to comfort their sad owner.
"I see. And the emotions at the time were strong enough that even though Dragon has no training in terms of feeling for other people's minds, she was still able to sense it, and follow it back to you. I suppose that, in that case, we should be relieved that that café incident happened just the way it did, despite the trouble it caused you both." Xavier sighed.
What he didn't say was that the convenience was starting to make him feel… uncomfortable. He couldn't even quite say why, exactly, but there was something there that just… felt like it couldn't simply be coincidence.
"Well then, I guess- ooh, are those Doritos? Where did you get those?" Iceman's head snapped over to Berserker, who had indeed managed to find a bag of the chips. Whatever he'd been going to say was completely forgotten in favour of the chips. "Come on, man, share!"
The conversation, at that point, derailed; several students began checking what other people had managed to get out of the food storage, and many started making trades of small amounts. Xavier smiled as the students became more interested in that than in anything else; another time, after they were home and had all gotten decent food and sleep, everything that happened would be gone over in detail until everything was understood, but right now, it was enough to simply be glad they were on their way home at last.
There was, however, one last thing he wanted to check into. Making his way over to where Storm sat, he spoke into her mind.
"What's bothering you, Ororo? You were upset; I know it was something to do with Dragon."
"I forgot her, Charles." Her mental voice dripped with disgust at herself.
"Whatever do you mean?"
"In the laboratory, I spoke to Tristan just before I destroyed the machinery on the tank for him. He asked me to watch over Dragon. Her fate, when he did not know it, haunted him a long time. He felt bad even for asking it, but he wanted to make sure she was taken care of, since he had robbed her of her mother. I promised him that I would, because she was part of our family now. But when it started collapsing… I looked for her at first. Gambit was the one who saw her, heading towards the stairs, so I went that way as well. I intended to intercept her and carry her out. But by the time I reached that area, it had gotten worse… the cave in was starting and I… I felt as though I was being buried…"
"Your claustrophobia took over."
"Yes… and I forgot her and simply tried to get out. Mere minutes after I promised to look after her, Charles, I forgot about her and simply looked after myself." The self- loathing Xavier could feel thickened.
"You did not fail your promise, Ororo. She is here. She is safe. Moreover, as you said, she is part of our family now, meaning that you are not the only one tasked with looking after her. We all are, and we all will. And so we have done- perhaps you were overwhelmed, but another stepped in. That's what families do. When you were unable to be the one that ensured she got out safely, Tabitha took over and did so. Just as many of us have taken over tasks when others felt overwhelmed. There is no shame in that, and there never will be. Just as you told Tristan, Dragon now has an entire family that is watching over her."
Xavier and Storm looked at each other in silence for a moment, then Storm sighed again.
"He turned white."
"I'm sorry?"
"Tristan. After I made that promise, he turned white. He'd been black that entire time. It makes me wonder what changed."
"Hmm…"
"Redemption, perhaps." A third voice joined in; Beast was close enough to hear. "He told us, didn't he? That he was still in hell because he couldn't forgive himself for what he'd done. Perhaps, now that he knew that the little girl whose fate he tortured himself over was healthy, safe, and loved, perhaps now he could finally forgive himself."
Xavier's lips twitched into a smile at the thought. As often happened, though, many more thoughts came to follow, including the uncomfortable feeling that some things just seemed too convenient.
"It is amazing, isn't it?"
"Many things are, Charles. What exactly is it you speak of now?" Storm asked.
"Just how much her life indirectly intersected with ours long before she ever came flying onto our property in a panic over Trask."
"Whatever do you mean?"
"If Tristan had never killed her mother, he may never have been around to save Kurt. Kurt may have died that night trying to flee the circus if Tristan had not bought him the time. Then, she was picked up by Trask. Sinister confirmed my suspicions that it was Trask's getting hold of her that taught him the existence of mutants. If he'd never captured her, there would be no Sentinels, and mutants might be a secret to the world, still. And then, later, she escaped Trask's prison and facility on exactly the night before Sinister was to come there. If she had not escaped at precisely that time, a night when apparently something drew nearly all the guards to another place in the building, Gambit may not ever have gotten away from Sinister himself on that day; from what we were told, Sinister's fury at Dragon slipping through his grasp blinded him to the fact that Gambit had help, and only because the other person with Gambit was able to surprise Sinister, Gambit got away. Without that, there would have been a few things that had gone differently, as well- our escape, for one. Dragon herself might not realize it, but she snaked through a few important events that all led to what's happened today, and what has happened in our recent past over the last couple years, and what will happen in our future. And that's only what she caused before she came. You also have to take into consideration that she arrived at the mansion just in time- not even a week after, Tristan attacked, and her power was the only one able to put a permanent stop to him. It also feels rather odd that she and Rogue mixed their blood with each other and formed a very unconventional and unbreakable mental connection just in time for Dragon to be able to use it to track us down when we were all captured and hidden in such a way that any other method of locating us that we know of would fail. All of it seems… difficult to believe that it's all coincidence."
"Now that you mention it…" This time it was Beast who spoke, sounding both intrigued and amused. "Our Dragon does seem to have gotten herself truly and thoroughly tangled in the threads of destiny, hasn't she?"
Xavier frowned; his eyes turned to Dragon. She was still on Rogue's lap, but now, Rogue seemed to have come out of her shock at least a little and was trying to help her drink some water from one of the bottles. Unfortunately, the shape of it was not conducive to Dragon's face shape at all; Rogue tried to carefully tip some water into her mouth, and a good bit of it flowed out the sides, soaking Rogue's legs while Dragon sputtered. Remy, looking highly amused, sauntered over and cupped one hand, saying something; Rogue glared at him, but it was half- hearted compared to her usual glares, and poured the water into his hand. Dragon began flicking her tongue out to drink the water from Remy's cupped hand, instead.
A small part of Xavier's brain piped up, oh, look, another problem we're going to have to find a solution to.
But right now, he ignored that voice, turning over Beast's words in his mind.
Truly and thoroughly tangled in the threads of destiny…
Part of him was dismissive, but… the other part of him… had to wonder.
Maybe he'd better see if he could get in touch with Irene Adler, just to be certain.
A/N: So many strange happenings... is it really all by chance? Hmm...
Well... one more chapter left in this story. After that, there will be a break before the third and final one starts being posted- I haven't even started working on it yet, there's so much else to do. But at least this story will finally be wrapped up, after how long it's been waiting. Hope you all have been enjoying it.
And one final, silly note: Bottles no workie. Dragon mouth too shallow. XD
