X3: The Ace Of Spades

Disclaimer: X-men is owned by Marvel Comics and 20th Century Fox. I do not own X-men, nor am I making a profit from this work of fan-fiction. So don't sue me! Not that you'd get a whole lot from me anyway ;)
A/N: Hey guys, hope you had a good week. Back with the next chapter – we get to see the aftermath of the battle, how things go for Jubes, and the fates of Remy and Kurt. Hope you like it – please read and review!

Chapter 33: Torture

Carol struggled, clawing her way to consciousness, trying to obtain control over Rogue’s body moments after she’d appeared, unconscious, within her mindscape near Carol.

It was a long, painful process – each time she pushed toward full control, the electric jolts still being delivered disrupted any forming thought or mental process.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed before she exhaustedly opened her eyes, but it had been enough that the jolts were coming less frequently, and with less of a kick to them.

She endured one more shock, and then worked on forcing her muscles to cooperate until she could use a fraction of her normal super strength to rip the device from her body, and toss it to the side where it sparked moments later – she’d removed it just in time.

She gasped, tasting dirt in her mouth as she laid face-first in the lawn as her limbs trembled wildly, and she tried to regain control over the muscles of her diaphragm so she wasn’t breathing in spasmodic, arrhythmic cycles.

As her breathing slowly evened out, she summoned up the will to force her arms underneath herself and push her up and back onto her knees, and she was shocked at how weak she was. She hadn’t felt like this since… well, since Rogue had sat with her as she bled out on the pavement.

Too tired to stand, she slowly crawled over to Dani and yanked the much smaller taser leads off of her, and watched as Dani’s body relaxed, and her body began to try to recover.

Carol nearly collapsed at the energy that simple act had taken out of her, and she moved back to a sitting position and closed her eyes. She reached back down to Rogue’s mindscape, but found her just as unconscious and completely out of it as she had been when she’d appeared in it.

Carol’s eyes snapped open. ‘Remy!’ she thought, and struggled to her feet. She held a hand up to her forehead, trying to overcome a wave of dizziness that washed over her at that moment. At the same time, she tried to bring back the blur of Rogue’s images that had flashed before her to figure out which direction the robot had taken Remy and Kurt.

Her forehead creased, and she tilted her head slightly until a clear image of that moment came forward in her mind – it had taken them south, over the front of the compound.

She shakily rose into the air, harnessing her powers – now Rogue’s – to speed in that direction, climbing higher and higher to try to get a better vantage point.

She held her hand above her eyes, shielding the sun from them, and scanned the horizon, but saw nothing but looming storm clouds to the south, sweeping over the landscape and obscuring vision.

“Damnit!” she muttered, descending back toward the Purifier complex. She had no idea of how long ago the robot had taken them – the pain and loss of concentration of Rogue had shaken the mindscape, and when she’d taken over it had shaken her as well. There was no way of telling how long Rogue had fought to stay conscious, or how long it had taken for her to fully take control. It had seemed like hours but for all she knew it had been minutes…. Or hours.

And the robot could easily had flown to the next block and landed, and she’d never know it. There was little she could do to search now. The mansion had Xavier and the others who could help, not to mention their communication capabilities with Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. who would surely be able to help out.

Carol lighted on the ground next to the spot they’d taken Remy, and picked up the bo-staff he’d dropped. It had slid back into its collapsed state during the struggle, so she gripped its short length firmly in her left hand and moved over to the now-stirring Dani, and she helped her to her feet.

Dani groaned, holding her head. “Did we win?” She asked groggily.

Carol grimaced. “We destroyed the little ones, and did enough damage to scare the thing off. But it took Remy and Kurt. We have to get back to the mansion.”

Dani nodded, and Carol could tell she was still out of it, disoriented by the brutal blast of sonic energy she’d taken. “You wait here, I’ll help the others and we’ll get going before the Purifiers start coming to.” Carol said, releasing her hold on Dani’s arm, letting her catch her balance.

Carol moved across the lawn to where Bobby lay on his side, his eyes partially opened. “Bobby?” She said, kneeling down next to him.

“Bobby?” She repeated, shaking his shoulder, which brought forth a moan of pain from him, and she used her hand to roll him over onto his back. She grimaced at the blackened and tattered uniform, torn or rather burned away across his chest to reveal the injury.

She could see the exact path in which the ADS beam had swept over him and vaporized molecules while he was in his ice form, completely destroying a diagonal patch of uniform from his lower right abdomen and up across his chest to his left shoulder.

The skin was an angry red, puffy, clearly burned, but from what little she knew it was a severe first-degree burn – almost like a really bad sunburn, and the point where it had first hit was second-degree, blistering slightly.

“Rogue?” Bobby asked, the movement jolting him fully awake.

“Bobby, you have to get up – we need to get going, and I need your help.”

He nodded slightly, and she helped him up to his feet, and she could see he was trying to keep from shifting too much to prevent pulling on the burned skin. “You okay?” She asked.

He hissed in a breath as he took a step forward and forced himself to take another one. “I can move.”

Carol nodded, and gestured for him to follow her to Piotr. “I don’t know what this is – some sort of really slippery liquid,” she said, stopping near the edge of the puddle of anti-friction liquid surrounding Piotr who laid face first on the ground, no longer struggling. “But, you can freeze it, right?”

Bobby nodded. “Yeah, I should be able to. Hey Pete, shift to your metal form in case I put a little too much juice into this,” Bobby called.

A moment later Piotr nodded the best he could, and his body grew as he changed into his bio-metallic form.

Bobby carefully knelt down, and placed his fingers into the liquid, and it began to crystallize around his fingers, the crystals of ice spreading slowly outward toward Piotr.

The frosty bluish-white ice climbed up over Piotr’s body, freezing the liquid that had splashed all over him, and then continued on.

A resounding crack sounded through the air, and the ice on his body splintered and slid off as Piotr stood up, finally able to push himself upward. He carefully took several steps, each step indenting the newly formed ice, and then dug his feet in and shoved off, sliding forward on the soles of his shoes. The ice, while still slippery, had changed form enough to negate the properties the liquid had had while fluid.

Piotr slid to a stop at the edge, and inclined his head in thanks to Bobby before shifting back into his organic form. His face was creased with worry as he looked at Carol. “Did you see Remy and Kurt?” He, unlike the others, had been fully awake and aware of what was going on the entire time, simply unable to move.

Carol averted her gaze, and shook her head reluctantly. “No. Let’s get out of here before we run into any reinforcements, and get the Professor’s help.”

Piotr sighed, and nodded – it was the only thing they could do, other than search randomly and hope they found someone that had a large lead on them. He grabbed Bobby’s arm to steady him, and helped him across the lawn as Carol did the same for Dani.

It took several minutes at their slow pace to reach the other side of the compound, but they ran into no resistance – the only Purifiers in sight were the ones still unconscious and injured that they’d left behind on their fight toward the inside.

“What’s that noise?” Dani asked, rubbing her forehead, and they stopped in their tracks when they realized they’d been tuning out the sound of a warning klaxon the entire walk.

“Sixty seconds,” a muffled, robotic voice sounded from speakers in one of the building, and drifted out the partially open door. “All personnel evacuate.”

Carol’s eyes widened, as did Dani’s and they met each other’s gaze at the same moment. “That sounds like a countdown.” Carol stated flatly.

“Um, yeah, let’s pick up the speed a little, that usually means a big explosion,” Dani said hurriedly, as she widened her stride, still holding onto Carol’s arm for support, as they cleared the outer gate, and started moving faster into the clearing they’d left the cloaked X-Jet in.

Piotr grabbed Bobby’s arm and forced him to pick up pace to match theirs, and his breath came in pained pants as each step moved his skin and irritated the burns.

Carol found the still-open ramp, and moved up it with Dani, mentally counting off the time in her head.

Piotr and Bobby made it up the ramp and slapped the panel to shut it, the pistons hissing as the motors compressed them and raised the ramp.

Carol froze, staring at the pilot’s seat, and looked to the others as they took their own seats, trying to buckle Bobby in the best they could. “Um, who is gonna fly?” She asked, mentally reaching thirty seconds.

Bobby looked up at her incredulously through a wince as he settled the harness near his abdomen. “You are, Rogue – you’re the second pilot…….”

Piotr shook his head next to him. “Bobby, that’s not Rogue – couldn’t you tell by the accent?”

Bobby’s eyes widened and he looked up at Carol. “You’re….. whats-her-name? What happened to Rogue?”

“It’s Carol,” she said, her tone short. “Rogue’s unconscious.”

“We can’t fly,” Bobby protested. “That’s why we took two pilots on each team,” he said – Remy had planned it so that if something had happened to one, there would be a backup for each team – he and Rogue on their team, and Hank and Ororo on the other.

Carol took a deep breath as she reached ten seconds, and then spun around, dashing to the pilot’s seat. “I’ll do it,” she called over her shoulder.

“I’ve done some sims, and I’ve flown my uncle’s Cessna with him. This can’t be much different, can it?” She winced as she said that and looked over the unfamiliar controls. Her eyes lighted on a button that was labeled ‘Altitude thruster control’, and slapped that. The engines whined, and the X-jet shakily rose into the air.

She gripped the controls tightly, and pulled back. The jet spun a full circle about its center as it jetted forward, but looking out the windshield as she managed to pull them right-side up, she saw they had picked up speed, moving away from the buildings.

A small screen, showing a camera view behind the plane, lit up as the buildings imploded. From what she could see now, they’d likely not been in danger where the plane had been, but there had been no way of knowing how big the self-destruction was. It seemed to be rather controlled, as if the explosives had been designed and built professionally into the buildings as they’d been constructed. Another flash lit up the computer building in the distance on the screen, and she hoped the others had gotten out in time.

She brought her full attention back to the windscreen, and jerked to the side, bringing forth shocked shouts from her passengers as they narrowly missed a church steeple. She gritted her teeth and decided very quickly that the view up front was much more important than the view behind them.

“Dani, could you come up here, and work this GPS for me? I don’t really want to take any hands off the controls right now,” she said as she slowly brought them higher and higher into the air above the city.

“Alright,” Dani said, in a shaken voice. “Just, keep it steady, no sudden moves like that while I’m moving up next to you, okay?”

Carol nodded, gripping the controls firmly, keeping them from moving. “Alright, we’re steady. Just plug in the mansion, okay?”

Dani unbuckled her restraints, and gripped the heads of the chairs as she passed them on the way up to sit in the copilot’s seat. She sat down and buckled herself in once more before reaching out to the touch screen of the GPS system and began scrolling through menus.

She tapped in the location of the mansion, and pressed the “Navigate” button, and the screen switched to show a map of the surrounding area with a dot representing the plane, a line out in front slightly to the east.

Carol slowly nudged the controls, turning their trajectory until it matched the line on the screen.

Dani looked over, and shot her a shaky smile. “You’re doing good, just…. Keep doing this. The only tough part will be the landing.”

Carol nodded, her stomach churning as she dreaded the coming landing maneuver that was approaching with every mile that passed quickly beneath them.

***********************************************************************

The S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. unit struggled to maintain its altitude as it crossed the countryside, hurtling as fast as it could push its thrusters, to reach its home base before its systems began to shut down. It had already been forced to shut down its primary weapons systems, and lost secondary protection systems halfway into the flight.

The tasers had quickly run out of juice – a self contained unit simply did not have the battery supporting it that a hand-held taser did, so each shock now delivered was weak enough to do little to its captives – and the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. had resorted to discharging electricity through its hands at regular intervals to ensure the captives remained in control.

The circuits of the arm holding Kurt had been severely damaged during its fight, and it was all the robot could do to keep electricity pulsing down to its palm, and it received intermittent signals back from the still-functioning hand.

As it neared three-quarters of the way into its flight, and neared its base in West Virginia, the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. pumped more power into its speed, its frame beginning to shake slightly in the air.

When it hit a pocket of turbulence and bounced around for several moments before it could lower to a calmer altitude, a single wire within its damaged arm came loose of the wire bolt holding it in place, and became caught in the straining motors of the hand nearby.

The motors caught, and automatically reversed direction, attempting to correct for the foreign body, but managed little more than to open the hand slightly before the wire caught again, and the gears clamped down onto it.

The S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. continued sending the short bursts of electricity into its hand, and its CPU could tell no difference from moments before as the wire continued to send the signal that the hand was firmly holding the blue-furred mutant it had picked up.

The S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. never even noticed, at the next patch of turbulence, when Kurt fell from its malfunctioning hand while the robot continued its flight toward its home.

Kurt, however, noticed quite quickly at the sudden lack of contact with the hand, and the now-missing electric jolts. He tumbled through the air, the winds buffeting him as he struggled to tear off the leads of the taser that were still attached to him, and still pumping out weak pulses of energy.

By the time he’d removed it, straightened his fall by maneuvering his arms and legs, and looked back at dwindling figure of the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L., and noticed a figure gripped in its other hand, it was much too far away for him to even make out who it
was.

He had a very limited range, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying to teleport back. He focused his gaze, tears in his eyes from the wind, on the disappearing S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L., and put his energy into teleporting, and disappeared with a *BAMF*.

He reappeared in a cloud of purplish smoke that dissipated quickly in the wind, and found himself closer, and teleported again, several more times, until he found himself exhausted. While each teleport brought him closer, it drained more and more energy, and he simply couldn’t teleport far enough to catch up with the swiftly moving S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L..

One last attempt brought him no closer, and he found himself nearing the ground with each jump, and bringing himself closer and closer to passing out from the exertion.

He took a deep breath, and began a series of short teleportations, decreasing his speed as much as he could as the ground quickly approached.

He managed one final teleportation, toward a field , and braced himself as he slammed heavily into a rolled- up bale of hay, bounced twice more, and rolled nearly twenty feet, coming to a stop near a herd of grazing cows that looked up curiously at the strange visitor.

His body was extraordinarily flexible and durable due to his mutation, and he managed to escape the hard landing with no more than a body covered with bruises, but the violent motion was enough slam his brain around inside his skull, stars exploding behind his eyes.

He managed one last look up at the horizon where the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. was no longer in view, before the blanket of darkness rising up behind his eyes swallowed him up into unconsciousness.

*********************************************************************

“So at the moment we have four who have pledged money toward the organization, and would be willing to serve on the Board of Directors. I have a few more I’m still trying to contact, and I’m rather certain they will agree as well.” Charles said.

Warren smiled. “Thank you, Charles. I finally got all the paperwork done. It will be a few weeks, I guess, until it’s official, and during that time we can get the charter together, and assess the funds. Did I mention I finally came up with a name?” Warren asked.

Charles shook his head, moving the wheelchair around the corner. He’d run into Warren in the hall near the kitchen, and asked him to walk with him as he went back to his office. “No, you –“ He held up a hand, falling silent and concentrating.

He looked up moments later, concern written all over his expression. “I’m sorry, Warren, I’ve been waiting to hear from the team – they went on another mission, and I just sensed them nearby. They’re landing in the hangar and someone is injured. I need to get down there.”

“Sure,” Warren said.

Xavier turned the wheelchair around, simultaneous contacting Annie telepathically to give her as much warning ahead of time as possible.

Warren followed him to the elevator, and by the time it had reached the basement and the doors had opened, the large doors of the hangar slid open in front of them, revealing Ororo and her team, a fragile-looking Jubilee in Logan’s arms.

“Get her to the med lab – I just warned Annie a minute ago.” Charles said to Logan, who quickly brushed past the group.

“What happened?” He asked Ororo, who watched Logan and Jubilee go, an anguished expression on her face.

Ororo shook her head. “It was a trap. There were at least twice as many people than we expected, and they had some sort of jammers that shut down all our communicators. The X-Jet still can’t raise the radio here, whatever they did. We had to retreat, and Jubilee covered for us, but one of the Purifiers got a lucky shot in.”

“Where are the others?” Charles asked.

Ororo sighed. “I’m hoping they got out right after we did. I would have circled around and tried to warn them, but Jubilee was…..” She trailed off, gesturing toward the Med Lab, where Hank had followed Logan as they spoke.

Charles rubbed his forehead, and nodded. “You did the right thing,” he said comfortingly. “There’s little we can do but hope Jubilee pulls through. She’s a strong girl…… I’ll go to Cerebro and see if I can get in contact with the others.”

Ororo managed a small smile, and nodded at Charles. “Alright, I’m going to see how Jubilee’s doing,” she said, and Charles turned his wheelchair and moved in the direction of Cerebro’s doors.

The others gathered around the entrance to the med lab, and watched – Logan stood to the side, looking lost as Hank applied pressure to the wound, and Annie bustled around the room, grabbing various objects.

Warren, who’d stood in the back, turned at the tap on his shoulder to find Lorna looking curiously at him, her view blocked by his wings. She was carrying a bottle of laundry detergent, and had clearly been on her back from the laundry room. “What’s happening?” She asked quietly.

“There was an X-Men mission, and Jubilee was shot,” Angel replied, quietly.

Lorna’s eyes widened, and a small gasp escaped her throat, and she pushed forward until she could see the room. A hand came up to her mouth at the sight of Jubilee - the energetic and fun-loving girl she’d slowly become friends with - lying on the table, her skin deathly pale.

“Damnit,” Annie growled loudly inside the room as she looked at a manila folder she’d pulled from one of the drawers: Jubilee’s medical file. Jubilee was hovering on the edge, and the next several minutes would decide her fate.

Annie looked up to Logan, and the gathered group. “She needs a transfusion. She’s type O negative, which would be great if she was donating, because it works with any blood type, but she can only take her own type when she needs some herself – does anyone have O negative? Logan?”

Logan shook his head, frustrated. “B positive.”

Warren cleared his throat. “I’m O negative.”

Annie’s eyes lit up as she looked over the shoulders of the others to where he stood in the back, and rushed forward. She pushed Ororo and Sam aside, and grabbed his arm. “Do you have any genetic disorders, STDs, anything like that?” She asked, pulling him into the room.

He shook his head, blushing slightly at the last bit. “No, nothing like that.”

Annie took a deep breath. “Will you let me transfuse some of your blood into her?”

Warren nodded. “Of course….”

She pushed him into a seat next to Jubilee’s bedside. “Great, we need it,” she said, moving over to a tall cabinet, and beginning to search through several drawers.

She shook her head. “Never done a mutant-to-mutant transfusion, so I hope this works the same. If should, but you never know. But without it, she’s not going to make it.”

Warren saw Logan clench his jaw tightly, and an anguished look appear on the faces of the others, including Lorna’s face – Warren knew the two girls had become close over the past several weeks.

Annie returned with a device that had two long tubes, attached to a syringe-shaped object, each ending with needles. “A bit old fashioned, but we don’t have time to collect blood and then transfer separately – it’s got to be direct,” she said, turning Warren’s forearm up toward her and swabbing it with alcohol.

She swiftly inserted the needle, and it took Warren a few moments to even feel that it was in. She did the same to Jubilee’s arm, and began working the device. Warren quickly felt the slow pull of his blood being pulled into the device, and watched as it mixed in the center, and then moved over to the tube on Jubilee’s side, and into her body.

Warren leaned back into the chair, and glanced over to where Lorna was looking at him with a grateful expression, As Annie moved between Warren and Jubilee, checking their pulses and breathing rates.

Several long, deathly quiet minutes passed, before Annie sighed. “I think we’re out of the woods.” She chewed her lip for a moment. “If you don’t mind, I’ll keep the transfusion going for a few more minutes, Warren.”

He shook his head. “Take as much as you need,” he said, although he was starting to feel the very first hints of light-headedness.

Annie smiled, and patted his hand. “Thank you.”

She looked up to Hank, who was still holding her bandages in place, the flow of blood much slower now with the pressure applied. “Let’s stitch her up quickly.” She said, reaching over to a tray of medical tools to grab the surgical thread.

**********************************************************************

Lang strode into the hangar, and grimaced at the sight of the damaged S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. as it landed. Its armor was pockmarked in places, and torn off in others to completely expose its wiring and delicate innards. He clenched his fists.

“Bitch,” he muttered, the image of the young, skunk-headed mutant woman that had done this coming easily to mind. He’d taken a still-frame of her of the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L.’s footage, and currently had his computer running through face recognition software, hoping he’d find a match.

He growled in frustration as he neared the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L., which now stood at attention, when he realized the damaged arm had apparently ceased functioning, and lost grip on the mutant it had carried. Now he’d have to appease Maldrone with a single mutant from this whole fiasco.

“Release him, and then run a full self-diagnostic and send it to Master Mold,” Lang commanded – he’d set up a voice-command interface for his and Maldrone’s vocal patterns, so even if for some reason they couldn’t get to the Master Mold, or something had gone wrong, they’d still be able to control the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L.s.

:ACKNOWLEDGED: The voice of the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. grated out, an odd squeal in the background of its voice projection.

Its damaged photoreceptor blinked, and then went out completely as it released its hold on the trench-coated mutant it had picked up, letting him fall roughly to the ground.

Lang walked over, and bent down to peer at the mutant, whose unnaturally colored, red-on-black eyes fluttered open slightly. Lang grabbed the collar proffered by one of Boss’ men, and reached down to snap it around his neck, neutralizing his powers.

“Who are you?” Lang muttered, more to himself than the mutant on the floor in front of him. “And where did your little team come from?”

He shook his head, and stood up – they’d eventually get those answers out of him with enough time and effort – and he was certain Maldrone would enjoy overseeing that: the man had a flair for the unconventional when it came to torture and coercion.

Lang brushed off his hands, as if trying to rid himself of the short contact he’d had with the mutant, and gestured to the men.

“Take him to one of the cells, and start him with a little greeting – show him what we think of his kind. I’m going to be in the Master Mold – let me know when Maldrone is ready to come out here,” he said.

He sneered, and swung his foot full force, into the mutant’s stomach, causing him to gasp for breath, his eyes rolling back into his head as he slipped from semi-consciousness back to unconsciousness.

Lang cursed. “Damnit! He’s got some sort of body armor on – take that off too, and give him the proper welcome,” he said, before he turned and attempted to stride from the room without limping too badly – the toes of his foot pulsing in pain from the full-force kick to the body armor he’d not realized was there.

**********************************************************************
“Let’s never do that again,” Bobby said as he slowly made his way down the ramp of the X-Jet with the others.

“I don’t plan to,” Carol said.

She’d managed a landing at the mansion – barely. The gaping hole of the hangar bay beneath the basketball court yawned open nearby, and the mangled metal basketball hoop on the ground nearby, as well as the ten-foot long trench in the grass was testament to the ‘barely’ part.

Carol had circled three times, trying to get enough control over the vehicle to lower it safely into the hangar, but she had missed each time, drifting to the side as she began to descend. She had settled for landing topside and not risking running into a wall on the way down and tumbling out of control.

As it was, she’d clipped one of the basketball hoops, and still had a bit of forward momentum as the pads had touched ground, leading to the furrow in the soil.

Logan met them at the back door, obviously having heard the rather obvious racket they’d made landing. “We were beginning to wonder if you’d made it out,” he said. “We got ambushed, and the comms were out so we didn’t know if you had.”

Carol nodded. “Us too. You run into the robots?”

Logan’s brow furrowed. “No, just a hundred or so Purifiers…. Carol, right?”

She nodded, not surprised that he had sensed it so quickly, having seen her on their mission with X-Force while she’d taken control then. “Yeah, Rogue’s out of it for a while.”

He looked over the clearly injured Bobby, and the ruffled looks of the others, and then frowned as he looked past them. “Who crashed the plane?”

Carol looked down, a hint of embarrassment on her face, but felt a bit affronted at his description of her landing as a “crash”.

Logan nodded. “Figured. Why didn’t the Cajun-“ He stopped at the look of grief passed over Carol’s face – a mixture of her own and Rogue’s.

“He… we fought off and destroyed most of the things, but one got away. It took Remy and Kurt. I tried to follow when I got control, but it was already gone. Figured the Professor could find him. Or we could get Fury….” She said, trailing off.

Logan sighed. “Damnit. Alright, let’s go talk to Chuck, then I’ll get my phone and call Fury.” He glanced over to Bobby. “You should probably be looked at too, kid.”

“Robots, huh?” He asked, as he led the group down past the kitchen and toward the stairs.

Carol nodded. “One about the size of Abdol, four more about your height. Durable as hell, all of them had all sorts of tasers, rubber bullets, that sort of crowd control weapons. The big one got away, but Rogue did a number on it before it took her out.”

“Just what we need,” Logan muttered.

“Alright, Bobby, you head down, get yourself checked out. Might have to wait, Annie’s pretty busy.” He passed a hand over his face. “Jubes got shot, and Annie’s taking care of her.”

He raised a tired hand when he saw the panicked looks on their faces. “She’s gonna be alright, Annie’s got her patched up. Go on down and see her, I can talk to Chuck on my own.”

As they began to move toward the stairs, Jimmy, who’d been around the corner on the other set of stairs and listening to them, came around in front of Logan. “Mr. Logan, what’s going on?”

That moment, as he stepped around, Carol pitched over, face-first on the ground, and lay motionless.

Dani, who had tried to catch her as she began to fall, turned her on her side. “Rogue? Carol?” She asked, worriedly, shaking her shoulder.

She looked up and shook her head. “She just passed out.”

Logan relaxed, and then looked at the three of them, inclining his head toward Jimmy. “C’mon, kid,” he said, placing a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder.

“I’ll tell ya what I can, if ya help me find the Professor, how ‘bout that?”

Jimmy nodded, a worried gaze locked on Rogue. “Is she okay?” He asked as Logan grabbed his arm and steered him toward the computer lab and Xavier’s office.

“Yeah, she’s alright, just strained herself with her powers. They’ll take care of her,” Logan said, his voice fading as he moved away from Dani and the others.

“What was that?” Bobby hissed.

Dani shook her head. “Jimmy cancels out powers. And I think one of Rogue’s is actually when her psyches take over, and when he got close enough, Carol got kicked back. Logan just didn’t want him thinking he’d caused it.”

Piotr bent down, and carefully picked Rogue up, ensuring her skin wasn’t near enough to his for an accidental absorption. “Let’s go see Jubilee, and get Bobby and Rogue to the Med Lab.”

***********************************************************************

Annie pulled the stethoscope away from her ears, and stepped back, looking at her patient. “Alright, you can go,” she said, having just given Warren a thorough examination. “You gave a lot of blood, though, so just take it easy the rest of the day. No flying – I don’t want to hear about you passing out and falling out of the air, alright?”

Warren smiled slightly. “Alright – no flying.”

She patted his shoulder. “Thanks for your help.”

Warren nodded, and stood up, feeling the bandage pull on the skin of his arm as he moved. He shot one last glance to Jubilee, who was lying unconscious on the nearby bed, before he moved out of the room to the others in the hall.

Annie had ordered everyone else out, telling them they could see Jubilee when she woke up, and that she didn’t want them disturbing her now. The others all sat at various places in the long metal-walled hallway, and they looked up as the doors slid shut behind him.

“Annie said she’s going to be fine,” he said, as he moved to stand over next to Lorna.

“Thanks,” Lorna whispered, leaning closer to him, and touching his hand.

“No problem –“ he stopped what he was saying as Dani, Piotr, Bobby, and an unconscious Rogue reached the bottom of the stairs nearby.

Ororo stood up, and hurried over to them “Thank God you’re back. Is she alright?” Ororo asked, looking up at Piotr who held Rogue in his arms.

He nodded. “Just unconscious, she’ll be fine. We ran into Logan upstairs, he told us what happened. We were ambushed too, some sort of robotic mutant-hunters.” He sighed, knowing the next part would be hard – Remy was one of her closest friends, and she’d also come to know Kurt quite well since he’d been back at the mansion.

Piotr shook his head. “We got away, but…. They got Remy and Kurt.”

Ororo closed her eyes, anguish passing over her expression. “Damnit,” she said softly.

She slowly opened her eyes again. “Is Logan….”

Dani nodded. “He knows, he’s talking to the Professor right now.”

Ororo sighed heavily. Her stomach churned at the thought of Remy and Kurt in the clutches of mutant-haters like the Purifiers. “Alright, Logan will do what needs to be done – right now we should get these two in to Annie,” she said, nodding at Bobby and Rogue.

Ororo moved ahead of them, and entered the door of the Med Lab first.

Annie raised an eyebrow, looking up from Jubilee. “I thought I said no one……”

She stopped and sighed when she saw Rogue being carried by Piotr, and Bobby limping in, his the burn on his body standing out clearly to her.

“Alright, come on in. Pete, set her down over there,” she said, pointing to a nearby bed. “You, come over here,” she pointed Bobby to the chair near Jubilee’s bed that Warren had sat in minutes before.

She moved over to Rogue’s side – someone unconscious needed to be checked out first, given the many things that could be wrong, as opposed to someone with a burn.

She pulled on a pair of latex gloves to keep her skin from contacting Rogue’s, put the stethoscope back to her ears, and shook her head slightly. “Can you guys go on a mission and not get injured?” She muttered to herself as she pulled Rogue’s shirt up, and placed the pad of the stethoscope to her chest.

**********************************************************************

Rogue jolted upright seconds after she regained consciousness, the last memory in her mind that of the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. carrying Remy and Kurt away. She just narrowly avoided cracking heads with Carol, who was kneeling next to her in her mindscape.

Carol jerked back, and nearly fell over, not expecting the sudden movement from Rogue.

“Carol?” Rogue asked, looking around in confusion. “Carol, it took Remy,” she said, her voice shaking slightly.

Carol nodded, and squeezed her arm. “I know. I took over for you, but by the time I broke out of that damn wire, they were long gone. I flew around for a while, but….” She held her hands out helplessly.

A tear slid down Rogue’s cheek, and she bowed her head, her fists clenching in her lap.

“I’m sorry, Rogue. I got the others back to the mansion, and Logan’s getting the Professor to help, and he said he was going to call Fury. I’m sure they’ve got satellites watching all over the place, and they can follow that robot thing. We’ll find him,” Carol said soothingly, pulling Rogue into a firm hug.

Rogue nodded against her shoulder. “Ah won’ stop, Carol. Ah’ll tear every Purifier base apart if they can’t find him. Ah…. Ah never told him Ah love him,” she said bitterly.

Carol cupped Rogue’s chin in her hands, making her look up to her – in her mindscape there was no fear of her powers, as it was skin contact, not the mental equivalent of it, that triggered them. “I know you will, and I know you never really got to tell him, hun. But, he knows it. He’d be blind not to. And enough of that talk – you’ll tell him after we tear apart all those bases,” she said, smiling.

A small smile managed to force its way onto Rogue’s face. “Yeah.”

Carol pulled back slightly to grab her hand, and pull her to her feet. “Get going then. I’m not gonna let you mope around,” she said, winking at her. “Warning though – you might be a bit sore – that electricity was jerking your body around pretty bad.”

Rogue nodded, and squeezed her friend’s hand. “Thanks, Carol.”

Rogue let herself fade slowly from the mindscape, and take control of the conscious part of her mind once again. She groaned at the instant flare of pain from pulled muscles as she awoke – Carol certainly hadn’t been exaggerating about that bit.

She cracked her eyes open, and pushed herself up into a sitting position on the bed. Annie spotted the movement, and moved quickly over to her from Jubilee’s side.

“Hey, welcome back,” Annie said, a slight grin on her face. “I could’ve used my nurse-in-training a few hours ago. How do you feel?”

Rogue stretched slightly, feeling her muscles scream in protest. “Alright. Sore, but Ah’m okay. Wish Ah could’ve been here helpin’.” Her eyes, concerned, glanced over at Jubilee, whose abdomen was wrapped in white gauze bandages. “Jubes okay?”

Annie nodded, and began to give Rogue a brief look-over. “It was a bit scary for a few minutes, but she’s stable now. Fortunately the bullet went straight through, and managed to miss anything too major.”

Rogue grimaced. “Ah was wonderin’ what happened…. The others alright? Ah’m guessin’ they got ambushed too.”

Annie glanced toward the closed door. “Yeah, they’re okay. Bobby has some burns, and will be hurting for the next week or so, but everyone else made it out with only a few cuts and scrapes.”

Annie set down the small flashlight she’d used to shine into Rogue’s eyes to test for pupil reactions. “Alright, you’re free to go.”

Rogue stood up, and hesitated, biting her lip. “Are yah sure yah don’t need any help?”

Annie nodded, and squeezed her shoulder lightly. “Yes, everything’s under control. Go on, I think Ororo’s waiting for you to wake up – help them find Remy, you’ll be no use to me when you’ve got that to worry about,” she said knowingly.

Rogue smiled gratefully, and walked over to the sliding doors, and exited the Med Lab, to find Ororo sitting against the opposite wall, the rest of the corridor abandoned.

“Rogue!” She said, standing up quickly. She moved over and pulled her into a hug. “Are you alright?”

Rogue nodded, hugging the white-haired woman tightly. “Yeah,” she said, and her voice broke slightly. “Best Ah can given everythin’.”

Ororo pulled back, and looked at her with concern clear in her eyes. “Logan’s talking to your government group right now, and they’re sending people over to the base to figure out what those robots were. Kitty grabbed a few computers when we were attacked, and I have her and Piotr going through the files to see if we can find anything useful.”

She leaned forward and kissed Rogue’s forehead gently. “I know how hard this must be for you, but we’re going to find him. He’s been through worse…”

Rogue nodded, and then her head shot up as what Ororo said made her think of the other person the news would be hitting hard. “Where’s Sarah?”

Ororo’s eyes widened, and she brought a hand up to her mouth. “I…. I’ don’t know, I haven’t seen her. I should have thought about her reaction, but…. I’ve been so worried about everything….”

Rogue placed a hand on her shoulder for a moment. “It’s alright. Ah’ll go find her…. Hopefully she hasn’t heard yet.”

**********************************************************************

It was late in the evening when she’d awoken in the Med Lab, and the sun had already set by the time she found Sarah, the stars slowly beginning to appear in the sky above the mansion grounds.

She’d searched the mansion, from Sarah’s room to her own, to Remy’s. She’d asked the remaining students if they’d seen her, and no one could really recall having seen her since earlier in the afternoon – even Jimmy who could often be found with her had been looking for her.

With the usual places exhausted, she’d looked in the garage and the library with no luck. She’d nearly slapped herself in the forehead when she had glanced out the kitchen window – she’d not looked down by the stables.

She knew she had the right idea when she neared the building and saw the door slightly open, and she pulled it fully open, her eyes adjusting to the near-pitch black of the building. She heard Sarah’s soft sobs before she even spotted her.

“Sarah, Ah’ve been lookin’ all over for yah, honey. What are you doing out here in the dark?” She asked softly, moving over to where Sarah sat near one of the stalls, her legs pulled up to her chest, face against her jean-covered knees.

Sarah looked up, and Rogue saw long tear tracks glisten on her cheeks in the dim light. “R-Rogue, Remy’s gone…” She said, her face crumpling.

Rogue dropped to her knees next to the younger girl, and pulled her into a tight hug. “Figured yah must’ve heard when ah couldn’t find yah.” Rogue said. “No one knew where you went.

Sarah nodded against her chest. “Most people don’t notice when you stand by them an’ don’t say anything.” She said, clutching onto Rogue desperately.

“He- he promised he’d come back. They said he got taken by the things that hurt you.”

Rogue closed her eyes, a few tears of her own escaping down her cheeks. “Ah know, sweetie. Ah’m worried about him too, but he’s comin’ back. It’ll jus’ take a little longer’n he planned. Ah’ll find him an’ bring him back to us.”

“They’re gonna h-hurt him, aren’t they? They’re the same ones that killed everyone in the tunnels.”

Rogue ran a comforting hand rhythmically up and down the smaller girl’s back. “Probably. But nothin’ our Remy can’t handle. They’re the ones that should be worryin’. Remy’s probably hurtin’ them as much as they can hurt him.”

That finally coaxed a slight smile from Sarah, and she looked up at Rogue, tears still streaming down her face. “He would, wouldn’t he?” She said softly.

Rogue nodded, and reached up to brush Sarah’s disheveled hair out of her face, and trace a gloved finger up and down against one of the tear tracks on her cheek. “He’s way too much for any of them t’handle. An’ we’re lookin’ for him. The team Remy an’ Ah joined… they’re gonna look too, an’ they have a lot of government resources to help. We’ll find him soon.”

“Let’s get yah back to the mansion, okay Sarah? Remy won’ be very happy to come back with you sick with a cold from bein’ out in the damp like this,” Rogue said, standing up and easily lifting her in her arms.

Sarah nodded against her shoulder and let her carry her out of the stables and toward the mansion. She gasped suddenly and tightened her grip when she felt Rogue lift off into the air, flying toward the third floor windows on the outside of the mansion.

“Sorry, should have warned yah. Didn’ think you’d want all the attention right now if we went in the regular way.” Rogue said, as they lighted upon the balcony of one of the rooms.

She pulled the door open, and took Sarah inside, setting her down on the bed. It took a moment for Sarah to recognize Remy’s room. She looked up questioningly at Rogue.

“Ah figured we’d both sleep better bein’ as close as we can t’Remy. Ah’ll stay with yah here.”

Sarah nodded, and kicked off her shoes, scrambling up the bed to pull aside the sheets and curl up in them, and moments later Rogue joined her.

“I can’t lose him, Rogue,” Sarah said quietly, several minutes later, calmed by the scents of the room: Remy’s aftershave, the hint of cinnamon and tobacco from his cigarettes.

Rogue lifted her head from the pillow and turned her face toward Sarah, reaching a hand out to run it along her arm. “Ah know sweetie. Neither can Ah. Ah love him so much….” She said, whispering the last bit.

Sarah nodded. “I know you do. I heard you that night at Dani’s parent’s house.”

Rogue’s gaze snapped up to hers, surprise written across her face. “Yah were awake?”

“Yep. I didn’t say anythin’ because I didn’t want to push you two – Storm told me not to. Remy loves you too, y’know. He talks to me about you in the same tone he does when he tells me he loves me,” Sarah said, smiling softly.

“Ah wish Ah told him…” Rogue said mournfully.

Sarah nodded knowingly. “I did too, when he went to find you when you absorbed Carol. But I got the chance later. An’ I think he’s wishin’ he told you too. He’s a little shy about saying it about you – I think he got hurt by a girl he liked before he knew us.”

Rogue’s mind flashed to Ororo’s words the night he’d woken up after coming to the mansion, about how he’d been hurt badly in the past. “Ah think you’re right. Ah guess we both have a similar experience…” She trailed off, thinking about her aborted relationship with Bobby.

Rogue scrunched her nose slightly, and looked back to Sarah with a slight grin. “What happened to me bein’ the adult, comfortin’ the kid? Ya’ll are mixin’ it up on me now.”

Sarah giggled softly, and moved closer, her arm sliding around Rogue’s waist to keep her close by. “Thanks Rogue, I’m glad you found me. I needed you.”

“Ah’m glad too, honey,” she said, and the room fell quiet but for their breathing, and the faint sounds of those throughout the mansion.

***********************************************************************

Logan, Rogue, Ororo, and Xavier waited near the front door, early the next morning, as a black government-issue vehicle pulled up in the driveway, and Nick Fury got out, in the middle of a heated conversation.

Fury bent back into the car to grab a folder, propping the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he reached back to shut the door, and slowly move toward the mutants waiting to greet him.

Fury took the phone back into his hand, and brought his mouth closer to it.

“Why in the hell am I just hearing about this from you now, General?” Fury all but growled into the mouthpiece, a frown etched onto his face.

There was close to a minute of silence as he listened to the man on the other end, before he shook his head. “No, General, I don’t care if you thought you could find it on your own. This is a matter of national security, and I should have been informed of this the minute you knew, not over a week later, and then only after prying it from you after the damn things attacked my agents. Goodbye, General, I’m sure the President will be more than interested in what I have to tell him. I expect the full details of your little project sent to me within the half hour,” Fury said, and snapped the phone shut before the man on the other end could even formulate a response.

Fury sighed, and massaged his forehead with his hand for a moment, before looking up to the others. “Sorry. So here’s the deal: these robots are part of an advanced military project. DARPA’s work, it seems. They went out for testing down in Arizona about a week ago – some sort of proving exercise. The Army approved the project, and they were heading back to D.C. to begin full-scale production.”

“The convoy carrying them was hijacked somewhere along the way, and apparently the Army’s been searching for them since. They’ve been keeping it quiet, hoping they could find them without bringing anyone else in, and of course without bothering to inform S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Fury shook his head. “I sent a team of techs out last night to the Purifier base. Most of it’s gutted with the explosives they had set up, but the robots weren’t reached, and still like you left them. They’re some sort of advanced AI, called S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L.s, supposed to be the future of war – all robots in the field, no soldiers at risk. One of the developers has gone AWOL and taken them with him – apparently to the Purifiers.”

“Do we know where they went?” Rogue asked quietly.

Fury shook his head. “Not at the moment. The smart bastards hijacked them in the middle of a big storm – we have no idea how they took it over or where they went – all the witnesses in the convoy are dead. And unfortunately it was pretty damn cloudy around the base, which blocks most of our satellite images. We got them flying away to the south for a few miles and then they disappear. I’ve got my people scouring hours of images to the south, east, and west of there, but that sort of thing takes time. Hopefully we’ll get lucky and catch them peeking through a gap in the clouds, or appearing somewhere there wasn’t cloud cover.”

He flicked through the folder he’d taken with him. “We’re also looking for reports of sightings, or anomalies detected on airport radar in the area, but that’s taking time as well.”

Nick looked to Charles. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to set up a base of operations here, if you’ve got an empty room somewhere. We might just need your team as well once we find them. The rest of my team is coming – they’ll be here in a few hours, and hopefully by then I’ll have the General’s report on what these S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. things are and what they’re capable of, and have some sort of lead on Remy and Kurt.”

Xavier nodded. “Of course. School is out for the semester, so I can set you up in one of the classrooms. Like I mentioned ,we managed to salvage several computers from this, and we’re going through them now – hopefully that will help us.”

Nick nodded, and gestured toward the car, and Agent Carter emerged, carrying several duffel bags, and a laptop bag. “Your Cerebro – that find anything?”

Charles shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. That could mean they’re unconscious. Or using some of those neutralizing collars we found them using last time,” he said, raising an eyebrow to Fury.

“Or dead – you’ve got to consider that too, Charles,” he said, not seeing Ororo quickly reach over to grasp Rogue’s hand.

Charles shook his head. “They had the chance at the compound. No, I think they want them quite alive, for information. They want to know who we are – who has been raiding their bases.”

Fury chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, and then inclined his head in assent. “You’re probably right. Well then, let’s just hope we find them before they tell the Purifiers what they want to know. Because at that point they will be useless to them.”

***********************************************************************

Remy spat out a mixture of saliva and blood onto the floor at the feet of his ‘guard’ even as the man slammed his fist once again into his stomach, driving the air from his lungs.

He’d been handcuffed, the chain of the cuffs running around a solid steel pipe in the ceiling of the dank room he’d been placed in. The guards came in to regularly beat him, preventing him from falling to sleep any time it looked like he might, and he knew quite well they were trying to break him through pain and sleep deprivation.

Time had seemed to acquire a strange property during his stay, and it felt like he’d been there for days, but his internal clock told him it had only been overnight.

At this point, he was beginning to not really feel much of the beatings – his body already felt like one giant bruise, and there was little they could do to cause him pain beyond anything he’d felt and endured in the past.

The door to the cell opened, and a man walked in – the straightening up of the guard told Remy it was the man in charge of things. “Well, let’s see just who Lang managed to bring me, at the cost of four of his S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L.s” The man said as he strode further into the room.

Remy heard the irritation in his voice at that, but it was something else that caused a small smile to appear on his lips – he recognized the voice. Remy lifted his head from where it had been hanging down with his chin on his chest, and his grin grew when he saw the horn-rimmed glasses of the man in front of him, and the eyes behind the glasses widening in shock as he realized just who his captive was.

“You!” Maldrone gasped.

“Well hello dere, fancy meetin’ you here. What’s a girl like you doin’ in a place like dis?”

“How – you should be dead, you little snake!” Maldrone said, striding forward, and backhanding Remy across the face.

Remy stared back at him unfazed, his red-on-black eyes dancing at the rise he was getting out of the man that had tricked him into helping plan the Tunnel massacre. “Non, I’m as alive as I should be, given de incompetent you hired to kill me. I mean really, hirin’ Boudreaux? Y’could have at least hired Belladonna – she wants me dead as it is an’ de fee woulda been a bonus. Instead you hire her incompetent little brother to do it. De little bastard didn’ even try to find my body after he shot me.”

The guard, sensing his superiors’ rising anger, and hearing the impudence with which the prisoner was addressing him, slammed a booted heel into his side, causing pain to explode up the length of Remy’s body.

Maldrone clenched and unclenched his jaw several times, taking a deep breath to try to keep Remy’s words from affecting him, and he quickly regained control of his temper. “Actually, I’m rather glad you lived. Because it brought you here to me, so I can have the pleasure of killing you myself when we’ve obtained the information we need from you. And now I get the chance to thank you for your help.”

Maldrone grinned. “We’d never have been able to kill all those muties without your help, Mister LeBeau,” Maldrone said, “It must feel good to know you were instrumental to the first shot in our war against mutants – the first act in the eventual forced extinction of your race.”

Remy took a deep breath, not letting Maldrone get to him. “Mentionin’ dat won’ get a rise outta me. I made my amends for my part – your little teams gonna serve life when de New York courts get done wit’ dem.” Remy said.

The grin on Maldrone’s face was wiped off, and he was rewarded with another backhand across the face, this time with more force, enough for stars to light up behind Remy’s eyes as his head snapped back.

“Must’ve hurt you a lot to lose Zdravko. Didn’t it? He was your best man, an’ I blew him t’bits an’ you’ve been strugglin’ since to replace him.” Remy said, smirking against the pain.

“Hell, even your little robots could barely hold their own – an’ de one dat survived wasn’ lookin too hot when he dropped me off. Figure dat’s what, couple million to even start repairin’ it, not t’mention de millions y’lost back in New York,” Remy said, mixture between a pained cough and a laugh emerging from his lips.

Maldrone visibly shoved down his reaction to Remy’s words, and shook his head. “Just make this easy on yourself, LeBeau. Tell us who your little group is, and I’ll give you a quick death.”

Remy spat out a large gob of saliva he’d been building up in his mouth – more blood than saliva at the moment, really – straight into Maldrone’s eyes before he could react, and laughed harshly as Maldrone stumbled back, swiping at his face.

Maldrone cleared his eyes and strode forward, kneeing Remy forcefully in the stomach. “Little bastard,” he spat, “I’m going to enjoy breaking you, and when you’ve given up your little friends, you’re going to die, slowly.” He all but growled as Remy retched in front of him.

Maldrone turned to the guard. “Bring him to me tonight – no sleep, no food, no water. And tell I need to talk to him. He’s going to get me just what I need to make this little mutie sing his heart out.” Maldrone said, turning to stride out of the room, slowing only momentarily at the bitter, ironic laugh that echoed around the room from Remy.

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A/N:Muahaha, I believe this one could be considered a cliffie as well (evil grin). Two in a row! Hope you enjoyed it. Slightly shorter than last chap, but that’s just how things flowed.

Thanks for all the great feedback next chap, and hopefully you can forgive me for cliffie-ing you guys again. :D So, Jubes is gonna make it, Remy’s being tortured, Kurt is knocked out in a field somewhere, and everyone’s looking for them.

Next chapter, we see some leads, and then the big rescue mounted by both X-teams. Only two left now – this next one and the epilogue one after that. We’re coming down to the end pretty quickly now, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

See you all next week!