PRE-READING NOTES* Hulk featured in story is 2003 variant. Movieverse inspired AU. Pre-established Rogan romantic relationship. Rated T for baller ass epic fight scenes, romance, and mild swearing. All rights reserved to respective holders.
Approximately several thousand feet above the Nevada desert*
"EVERYBODY GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND!", shouted the terrorist, holding his flame-engulfed hand in the direction of the President and the first lady, as Air Force One was in the process of being held hostage by mutant radicals.
"Good Lord, please not like this, I don't wanna die to a buncha mutie scum!"
"Shut up, you stupid sapien!" one of them said, landing a haymaker right on the President's jaw, sending a couple hundred volts of electricity coursing through his body, incapacitating him for a good while. "Gentlemen, set up the studio", the head honcho barked. The technicians of the group stepped forward, setting up a camera hidden in a duffle bag while the other set up a sattelite, attempting to hijack any signal they could, to spread the word on what they had done. "Have we started the fire, boss?"
"Yes, the fire rises", spoke the mysterious masked man with the flaming hand.
Meanwhile, several thousand miles away...
Wolverine never took Rogue to be much of a morning person. Which made the discovery of her and Jubilee eating, of all things, ice cream, at what must've been 4:30 in the morning, all the more shocking. A single thought sprang to mind:
"The fuck are you two doing up this early?"
The drowsier Jubilee sprang to life, seeing the living killing machine she so endearingly christened "Unc" appear behind the either of them without warning.
"Holy shit, you're quiet! Yo chica, you think we should put a collar on his neck with a little bell attached to it?"
"You come at me with a collar, Sparkles, and you'll lose the hand holdin' it."
"Love you too, unc", she replied ever-snarkily.
Anna-Marie, the woman ever-accustomed to being sentient at these hours, however, was unfazed, if not, delighted, by her lover's sudden appearance.
"Oh, mornin', sug. Want some Rocky Road? It's damn good, plus Jubes brought M 'n' M's."
"What I want is to know what all the commotion is in here before I go back to bed. From what I overheard, you're gabbin' poor Sparkles here's ear off. What's that about?" Logan furrowed his brow in curiosity, combined with the slightest sarcastic smirk.
"She's been talking nonstop about this crazy book she's been reading, 'Programmed to Kill'; it's full of crazy shit like Satanic sex cults, paramilitaries, serial killers, you name it! She's been connecting the dots n' stuff from this book to other insane stories. She knows I'm a big horror geek and that I'm into crazy true crime stuff, but the thing is, she started with this at 12:30," interjected Jubes.
"Ah'm tellin' you, there's a connection to all this somewhere, an' ah'm this close to findin' it! There're Satanic forces runnin' amok in this world an' ah ain't gonna be fooled no longah, sug."
That sounded like Logan's Marie, alright. Ever since she'd found faith while talking with Kurt, that blue Kraut bastard with the tail, she took up a furthered interest in trying to make sense of a world that didn't make no damn sense in the first place. He supposed as long as he was there to back her up and catch her if or when she fell, they'd make it out alright. It was an evil, scary, no-good world out there, one that'd chew her up and spit her out without a second thought. He wanted to make sure that at least she wouldn't walk down that road alone.
At times he wondered if she thought the very same way about him.
"She talked to you about serial killers and Satanists, for 4 hours?"
Sparkles shrugged. "Yeah, she kinda lost me at "ritual child rape". Never mind any of that, this ice cream is fucking terrific, why don't ya have some?"
"Yeah, c'mon, Logan, take a load off! How the hell can ya be grumpy when ya got yer two favorite gals in the world with ya, and ice cream on top of that?", said his lover.
"Ice cream on top of my two favorite gals? Sounds like a dirty dream, if you ask me."
They all shared a chuckle as he sat his 160-year-old ass down at the kitchen island as his skunk-haired angel scooped him a bowl of early morning delight. It wasn't until he sat down that he really took notice of Marie's delicious freshly-19-year-old figure across from him, shapely in all the right places, wearing a thin phthalo-green tank top and stark black panties, that both hid and revealed a perfect amount of ass, an ass that a little voice in the back of Logan's mind was just ITCHING to open-palm. Her panties offered a glaring yet visually pleasing contrast in color to her deathly pale skin. If Wheels was still here, God rest his soul, seeing the once timid and scared girl that his favorite student dragged in, all grown up and confident like this, he'd have a heart attack all over again. His advanced senses picked up her vanilla-scented body soap, and by God, he almost began to purr.
"See anythin' ya like, sugah?" she said, noticing his glare. She met his, almost losing herself in his eyes, blue as the Atlantic ocean, they were. She leaned forward to give him a better view of, arguably, the most dangerous pair of cans in the world. Get a grip on 'em for too long, and you could win yourself a trip to the E.R.
"I'm seein' everything I like right now, darlin'", he replied, lust in his voice. They hungered for each other's lips, and almost attacked each other, until a familiar voice interupted.
"I'm still here, you know", Jubilee interjected, annoyed by all the unwarranted P.D. of A. between her best friend and her other, over-a-century-old best friend.
Not to be outdone, Marie flicked an M 'n' M at her forehead, with near pinpoint accuracy. Just then, a siren started blaring, shaking the three back to Earth.
"Oh God, what now?"
Elsewhere, Scott Summers, busy signing approval papers for the new slate of incoming students for the coming school year. all 400 to 600 of them, human and mutant alike. No one ever said being the headmaster of the Charles Xavier Memorial Academy for Higher Learning was an easy job. On the contrary, it was often thankless. In a way, Logan was thankful that the Professor chose Scott over him to take his place as head honcho. He enjoyed being at the school and mentoring the students, but paperwork and business dealings and other things like that just weren't his bag. Everyone at the school saw him more as a father figure than a teacher. Scott, however, was always a hard worker at heart, one of Xavier's highest marking students. Even in the field, he was a skilled tactician, as opposed to Logan's beastly battle mentality of "rip 'n' tear first, strategy later". More often than not, his quick thinking has saved his team's skins, as well as defuse sticky student situations... sometimes literally sticky, like the one incident regarding Danny Collins, the mutant student who had adhesive skin.
In any case, Scott could feel his eye bags growing heavy, as the caffeine in his system began to wane. At least he has his TV on to keep him company in these wee hours of the night. CNBC was his station of choice, as he'd a portfolio to maintain. They were discussing something relating to the president's recent economic power plays, and what it could mean for investments, but it was all background noise to Scott. All he could think about was finishing these papers. 'I can power through this,' he thought to himself, 'just 50 more cases to revi-'
Suddenly, the television went to static, then to a garbled image, then finally to a half-decent picture of a man dressed in all black combat gear wearing a balaclava, who seemed to be on an airplane... next to the president, who had a broken and bloodied nose, and was apparently forced on his knees. Then Scott noticed the man in the balaclava's right hand was flaming, and his aprehension turned to fear.
"What the hell?" he whispered to himself, as he pressed the "record" button on his smart TV remote.
"*KSSSSSSSH* -are the Mutant Liberation League!"
...
...
...
"HAIL THE ETERNAL REVOLUTION! HA- *KKSSSSSSSSH* END OF TRANSMISSION."
"Shit!" he exclaimed in anger, as the video feed cuts short, and the TV resumes its scheduled broadcast. Scott as well ends his recording of the TV and uploads the MP4 to the cloud, for later. Suddenly, Jean Grey walks in.
"Did you spill coffee on yourself again, Scott?" she inquired.
"No, something far worse. we've got a situation on our hands. National security."
"What do you mean?"
"President Kelly has been taken hostage aboard Air Force One."
Realizing the severity of the situation, Jean Grey sends out a telepathic message to every active member of the X-Men, while Scott presses a big red button on his desk, sounding a blaring alarm
"To me, my X-Men! Situation DEFCON 2, report to main living room in full uniform in 5 minutes."
"I hate it when she does that", bemoans Jubilee, "so invasive."
"A lot cheaper than a PA system", replied Wolverine, standing up from his seat.
They all dispersed with haste to change into their team uniforms.
The team gathered in the room with the largest television in the mansion, the main living room. Jean and Scott stood front facing the group as the shared leadership. The active roster consisted of the Nightcrawler, Rogue, Wolverine, Jubilee and Iceman. Beast was away on business, patenting a groundbreaking Parkinson's medication, and Storm was away on a diplomatic mission to the isolated African nation of Wakanda.
"Just what the hell is this about, Summers?" Wolverine inquired.
"Ja, ich was getting mein beauty sleep to prepare for ze school theological debate in... mein Gott, 7 hours?" chimed in Kurt.
"Apologies, Kurt, but there are more pressing matters at hand. Just 15 minutes ago, multiple TV stations were hijacked by a signal originating from Air Force One. This is a capture of the live feed that was broadcast", he said, typing into a tablet, as the video began on the television.
KSSSSSSSH* -are the Mutant Liberation League! For centuries our people have been persecuted for their abilities given to them by the Almighty- *KSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH* -now, our people's time has come! Revolution will be upon us! The earth will be cleansed of the homo sapien stain once and for all! If 23- *KSSSSSSSSSSSSSH* -llars is not transfered int- *KKKKKSSSSSH* by 8:00 A.M. EST, The leader of your so called "free world" will be executed in a most gruesome fashion, and several bombs will be dropped ove- *KSSSSSSSSSSH* HAIL OUR PEOPLE! HAIL THE DAWN OF THE NEW TOMORROW! HAIL THE ETERNAL REVOLUTION! HA- *KKSSSSSSSSH* END OF TRANSMISSION.
"Huh. You'd think terrorists'd be able to afford higher quality video production," quipped Jubilee, the self-appointed techie of the group.
"Yeah, I couldn't make heads or tails of much of that", replied Bobby.
"Good thing we don't pay you to do the thinkin', Bob", grumbled Logan, still wary of Bobby because of how he broke his lover's heart before she came to him.
"Regardless, as of right now we know 2 very important things: where they are, how much time we have to get to them, but the trouble is for every one thing we know there're 3 we don't, so we're gonna have to learn as we go along with this one, since we don't have much time", said Dr. Grey. "We're only gonna need a few of you for this mission, but the rest of you are welcome to tag along. Kurt, we need you to pop into the plane and evacuate the president and the first lady back to the Blackbird ASAP. Logan, I know gonna like this part: crowd control. Take out anyone that gets in your way. But make it clean and quick, we don't want the president thinking we employ butchers."
"Yeah, yeah."
"Talk about buzzkill", said Rogue, "Watchin' Logan hack 'n' slash bad guys into pieces always makes me feel real fuzzy inside~"
"There's something more important at stake here than just roughhousing with some bad guys, Rogue. If we manage to pull this off, if we can save the life of the sitting president of the United States from a hostage situation, think about how the perception of mutants in this country could change. We'd be national heroes," said Scott."
"Maybe even earn ourselves a statue or two", quipped Logan.
"Mutant kids across America would be able to be seen as patriots, just like any other American, wouldn't that be sweet? This could be the most important mission we've had since Liberty Island," said Dr. Grey.
"I just hope I get to be useful", grumbled Bobby. Logan wore a face of visible displeasure.
"Oh, I'm sure we'll find a way to squeeze you in, Bobby", said Dr. Grey. Throughout their whole conversation they hadn't noticed Jubilee, halfway inside the elevator, yelling "LAST ONE TO THE BLACKBIRD HAS TO WASH IT WHEN WE GET BACK!" They all scattered accordingly towards the elevator door.
"Oh, I'm sure we'll find a way to squeeze you in, Bobby", said Dr. Grey. Throughout their whole conversation they hadn't noticed Jubilee, halfway inside the elevator, yelling "LAST ONE TO THE BLACKBIRD HAS TO WASH IT WHEN WE GET BACK!" They all scattered accordingly towards the elevator door.