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, sorry for the wait – I didn’t expect it to be that long, but things came up in RL. Now I feel bad/even more evil for leaving you with two cliffhangers. On the plus side, this is one of the longest chapters of this story, if not the longest. Anyway, thanks for the great feedback, and let’s get on with the chapter! Read and Review!

Chapter 34: Search and Rescue

Kurt woke up to a mixture of the scents of incense and burning candles. The smell seemed so familiar to him – it reminded him of visiting the churches of Germany, something he had quickly found was best done after those at Mass left, given his appearance due to his mutation.

Kurt grimaced at the deep, dull ache of his body, which seemed to be pulsing in time with the much more painful pounding of his head.

When he opened his eyes, he found that he was in a room, lit by dozens of candles that lined the outer perimeter of the room. The walls themselves, painted a dark blue that made the room seem even darker, were covered with numerous arcane signs – pentagrams, paintings of angels and demons, runic scripts, and other symbols and paintings. There were several low, long dressers, each holding a number of round clay jars, and large multi-colored crystals. Several objects that looked like daggers or knives rested on what appeared to be a low altar, which also contained several statues of Greek gods and goddesses.

“Vas?” he muttered to himself, and tried to straighten up on the soft bed he was lying on. He regretted that instantly when his left arm exploded in a mind-numbing pain, and he hissed in a breath, clenching his teeth – he felt his tail writhing beneath him at the intense pain.

“Hey, you’re finally awake,” a soft, melodic female voice came from his left.

He turned his head swiftly, not having noticed the person during his short look around the room.

A young woman sat in a low armchair to the left of the bed. Her hair was blonde, cut raggedly near her neck, and streaked with blue and green highlights. It contrasted starkly with her dark purple lipstick and heavy eyeliner around her eyes. She was wearing a tight black tank top that accentuated her rather curvy figure, and he saw it had been ripped almost deliberately in several places near her stomach. It matched a rather short black-and-white skirt, and a nearly knee-high pair of black boots that tightly encased her long legs.

Kurt couldn’t miss the fact that she was a rather beautiful girl, even with the nose-piercing, eyebrow studs, two golden rings through her lower lip, and earlobes studded with piercings – not something he had really been acquainted with until he’d come to America, and certainly not something one typically saw on people leaving Mass each Sunday. However, the thing that stood out to him the most were her bright, aquamarine eyes – the most brilliant shade of blue he’d ever seen. All her other features, and her makeup seemed to do nothing but frame them, and make them stand out even more.

“Who?” Kurt began, trying to sit up again but failing once more.

“I’m Amanda. Amanda Sefton. What’s your name?”

Kurt shifted until he was a bit more comfortable, and could see her more clearly. “Kurt Vagner.”

“Nice to meet you, Kurt. How are you feeling?” She asked.

“Like I ran face first into the ground, und didn’t use a parachute.” Kurt said, groaning at the throbbing of his head and his shoulder.

“Well good, because that’s about what happened. You fell right outta the sky – it’s lucky I was outside with the cows and saw you land.”

“Vhere am I?” Kurt asked groggily, fighting past his headache to try to get his mind working.

“My room,” she said, smiling slightly and leaning forward, closer to him. “I brought you back to the house. I’m glad my dad’s away at the Agri-Con – he’d freak if he found a mutant here. You are a mutant, aren’t you?”

“Ja, I am. Your father does not like mutants?”

Amanda shrugged. “Not really. He’s….. pretty conservative about that sort of thing, y’know? I’m probably lucky he hasn’t freaked out more than he already does about me and all this,” she said, gesturing around the room. “But he needs me here – ever since my ma died I’ve helped him with the farm, and I don’t think he could handle it without me.”

“Ah, I understand. My father vas very much the same.” Kurt said.

Kurt tried to sit up once again, and bit back a moan of pain.

Amanda stood up and helped him move into a sitting position on the bed. “Hey, just take it slow. You’re lucky to even be alive. I don’t know how you managed to survive that fall with only a dislocated shoulder,” she said, nodding toward his arm.

She moved over to one of her dressers, where a mug sat, and she brought it back over to him. “Here, drink up. This’s my ache remedy. Doesn’t taste that great, but it works a lot quicker than an Advil. Once you’re feeling a little better we can have a look at that shoulder.”

Kurt took the cup with his un-injured arm, and peered into it – it was a greenish-brown liquid, with visible, tiny chunks of herbs floating on the surface, and the smell wafting from it reminded him of algae or seaweed. “This?” He asked, trying to hide his skepticism.

She chuckled. “Yes, that. Drink it fast and it’s not too bad.”

He took a deep breath, and gulped the contents of the mug down, grimacing at the taste and the oily, slimy texture as it slid down his throat. He shook his head as he felt it trek down to his stomach. “Ach, vhat is in this?”

Amanda smiled and took the cup back from him. “Just herbs and things – they work really well. Took a while to get the mixture right – you wouldn’t want to taste what I used to have.”

“Vell I….. I…..” He stopped as the liquid finished settling, and almost instantly, he felt the pain in his body diminish, and his headache nearly disappear. Even the pain in his arm became much more tolerable. “That- that is - it vorks so quickly…..”

Amanda nodded. “Told ya. Now, let’s see about your shoulder,” she said, leaning forward.

He shook his head. “It is alright, I haff had this happen to me plenty of times before,” he said, thinking back to his days in the circus. “I can set it back into place.”

He maneuvered the limp arm around to the other side of his knee, and then clasped onto it beneath his leg, as if he were trying to hug the leg. He braced himself, and then pulled firmly backward, stretching his back while he kept the grip on the leg, until her heard a soft pop as the shoulder returned to its socket.

He moved the arm experimentally, and despite the pain, it now moved as it should. He cradled it back to his chest, and looked up at Amanda. “Gut.”

She stared at him with slightly widened eyes. “I… guess that works. Still hurts though, doesn’t it?”

She didn’t wait for him to nod, but instead moved forward, gently touching the shoulder with her cool fingertips. “My potion doesn’t work on the really bad stuff, but I can help you, if it’s alright….”

He nodded. “Ja, if you can help, please do it.”

“Alright, just hold still,” she said. In the next moment, it became clear to him that she was a mutant like him, when an orange-yellow glow surrounded her fingers, and moved from them to settle around his shoulder.

The glow coming from her hand gave off a warmth that grew as it kept in contact with him, and soon it felt as if he had place a hot-pad on the joint. The heat, and whatever else the glow contained, swiftly soothed the inflamed joint, and the swelling eased. The pain slowly dissipated until it was the same light background ache the rest of his body had obtained from drinking her ‘potion’ as she called it.

“Mein Gott,” Kurt breathed. “You are amazing. Danke.”

She blushed slightly, and leaned back, her hands leaving his shoulder to reach up and play with an ankh necklace that hung around her neck. “You’re welcome. It’s just my gift, and I like to help people with it if they need it.”

She reached back up to touch his shoulder. “Did I do enough, or does it still hurt at all?”

He shrugged, and then rotated the shoulder around. “Nein, you removed all of the pain.”

She smiled, and then glanced at his blue skin as her fingers began to trace along the curved symbols scarred into his flesh. “These are beautiful. You do them yourself?”

“Ja. Each one.”

“It must have hurt. I mean, I got a few tats and they weren’t too pleasant, but you’ve got these all over…” She said, tracing her fingers down his arm, sending pleasant tingling up the skin. “They remind me of the runes I use when I’m casting.”

“Vas – casting?” Kurt asked uncertainly.

“Yeah – casting. Y’know, spells?” She said, gesturing toward the small altar on the other side of the room, and the pentagram-circle surrounding it.

Kurt’s eyes widened as it finally clicked together, and he started to wonder just how much his brain had been rattled by the fall that he hadn’t made the connection before. “Ah – you are a Hexe – a…. witch?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I prefer Wiccan though – less of the bad connotation with the word. How else did you think I was healing you?” She asked with an amused expression on her face.

“Vell, I thought you were a mutant…. Like me.” Kurt said slowly.

Amanda shook her head. “Nope, I was only able to do this after I got into Wicca – I’m pretty sure I’m not a mutant.”

“I see,” Kurt said, nodding, although he suspected she was, and that her mutation had developed – like in many people – in her early teens as she was getting “rebellious” and getting into things that her father wouldn’t approve of in her bid for independence, and she had simply made this connection to magic – rather than a mutant ability – being the cause of her powers.

“So where are you from, Kurt?” Amanda asked, finally removing her hand from the scars on his arms.

“Germany. I spent most of my life in Munich.”

“Really? I figured Germany with the accent – but yeah, my dad’s from Munich too. He was born there, but only lived there until he was five before my grandparents came over to the US.”

“It is a small world, like they say,” Kurt said, smiling slightly. “So you haff always lived here…. vherever here is?”

She nodded. “We’re outside of Glenville. Small town in West Virginia. Yeah, I’ve always lived here. This was my grandad’s farm when he move over, and my dad’s been running it since he passed away, and now it looks like I’ll probably be continuing the tradition I guess.”

“But that is not vhat you vant to do?” He asked, noting a hint of resentment in her voice.

She glanced down at her lap. “Not really. I’d like to go to college – art school actually. Just sell the farm to someone interested and get out of this place.”

Kurt nodded. “Ja, I know that feeling. Sometimes vhat your family wants you to do isn’t always what you vant to do.”

She flashed a brief smile. “Exactly. I’m already twenty-one, and I’ve hardly ever been out of the state. I want to leave and experience things like all of my friends are.”

“Friends….” Kurt muttered, and then sat bolt upright when he finally remembered just what it was that had had him falling from the sky. “Amanda, I need to call my friends – one of them is in danger, and – it’s complicated,” he said, reaching down under the blankets for his right boot, when he realized he wasn’t exactly fully clothed.

“Vhere are my clothes?” He asked, blushing.

“Oh, right,” Amanda said, still confused by his sudden urgency. “They’re over in the corner,” she said, pointing to them, “I….. figured you’d be hurt a lot more than you were so I took them off so I could see where you were hurt…. Sorry….”

He shook his head. “It is fine. I just need my boots.”

She stood up and moved to the corner of the room, and grabbed his boots, bringing them back to him.

He dug his fingers into the edge of the left boot, where a small compartment had been sewn on the outside to hold the backup team communication device each of the X-Men had.

He fished it out, took one look at it, and closed his eyes. “Scheisse,” he muttered to himself.

Some time, either during the fight with the robots or during his landing in the field, the entire communicator had snapped in half, leaving the two halves strung together by several wires.

“What’s that? What’s wrong, Kurt?” Amanda asked, touching his arm.

“This… this vas my communicator, so I could contact my friends. I am part of a team of mutants that helps others und works against those that hate mutants. Ve vere…. On a… a mission you vould call it und ve were attacked, und I vas taken away with one of my friends, und the others were injured. I vas dropped along the way somehow – that is vhy I fell into your field. I haff to talk to them.”

“Team of mutants – like, that group that showed up and stopped Magneto in California?” Amanda asked.

“Ja,” he said, nodding. “That team. I vas not along for that one, but my friends vere.”

Amanda’s face lit up. “Wow. You guys are, like, my heroes – I’ve been searching the internet and news articles to try to figure out who you are. This’s….. really cool,” she said, grabbing his hand.

Kurt smiled slightly. “I’m glad to see ve have fans. Could…. could I borrow your phone? I think I remember the number, und I really need to call…”

“Sure, I’ll be right back – it’s one of those handset things – my dad ‘doesn’t believe’ in cell phones.” She said, rolling her eyes as she stood up once more and moved quickly out of the room.

Kurt watched her go, and then closed his eyes, trying to keep some rather…. impure thoughts at bay, and managed to turn his still-recovering mind to thoughts of the mission-gone wrong, and the person who’d been taken with him. The faint memory of a brown trenchcoat flapping in the wind as he tried to teleport back to the robot gave him a pretty good guess as to who had been taken.

“Rogue is not going to be happy to hear this,” he muttered to himself.

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

Remy blinked wearily as he was jerked back from a few precious seconds of sleep by a sudden blaring of an airhorn in the confined space of his brightly lit cell. He glared in one general direction at the unseen guards and then shifted, letting his arms, which were strung up above him by his handcuffs, get into a better position.

He wasn’t sure precisely how long he’d been there, but he knew it was close to a full day, and the guards had kept quite stringently to Maldrone’s demands, starting him out with the basic sleep deprivation that was a staple of any interrogation/torture. Any time it looked like he was falling asleep, they would blare different noises through the small room to keep him awake.

Overall it didn’t bother him that much – he’d been without sleep for much longer in the past, in fact one of his jobs which involved a very heavily secured place with constantly changing security tactics and rosters, he’d remained awake for over sixty hours straight until he spotted the exact moment to slip in through a perfectly aligned sequence of guard movements.

The thirst bothered him much more – they’d followed their orders with that respect as well, and his mouth was dry, longing for a drink of anything. The beatings, constant and ever-present, were small change to him. It had been nothing he hadn’t experienced in the past.

But the thing that was getting to him the most was wondering about the others – Rogue and Sarah in particular.

He sighed, and pushed those thoughts away – there was little he could do now, and he knew that Rogue and the others would be coming to get him as soon as they could. He knew he could hold out against these interrogations until then, and he’d hazily seen Kurt get away so he knew they would be able to figure out where the robot had taken him.

Remy turned his gaze to a fixed point in the corner of the room, and started up yet another imaginary poker game in his head – it was his fifth since he’d been brought to this cell, and it helped pass the time and take his mind off of the entire experience.

He made it uninterrupted through three hands: a win, a fold, and one loss against one of the imaginary opponents his mind constructed for him who, he had realized by the second game, bore a striking resemblance to Rogue – so much so that he didn’t mind too much losing to her.

Halfway through the fourth hand, however, he was interrupted by the door of the cell slamming open, and Maldrone stalking in. “What’s the name of your little group, LeBeau? Where are they?” He asked, his face close, almost snarling the question.

“D’you mind? I was jus’ finishin’ dis hand, an’ I got a pair of pocket aces dat’re gonna win it for me.” Remy said, annoyance in his voice.

Maldrone looked at him strangely, a bit put off by the seemingly random statement. “Get off it LeBeau. Seems like we’re breaking you a lot quicker than I thought we would. Who do you work with?”

Remy shook his head. “Fuck off an’ let a man play his hand.”

Maldrone snarled, and slammed a heavy fist into Remy’s side. “Tell me, LeBeau. It only gets worse from here.”

He stared quietly at Remy, who then turned his attention back to the corner wall, and muttered something under his breath about a third ace on the river card.

Maldrone took a deep breath – he wasn’t sure if the mutant was breaking, or if this was just a display. He turned and snapped his fingers at the short man he’d left near the entrance of the door, who brought forward a small black toiletry bag.

He reached in and pulled out a pair of pliers. “Alright, you little freak,” Maldrone murmured, and swiftly placed the clamping end around Remy’s pinky, squeezed, and then twisted it to the side until he heard the bone snap.

Remy flinched slightly and clenched his teeth before slowly, cooly, turning his gaze to Maldrone. “Dat ain’ gonna get you nowhere, Ronny. I’ve had so many bones broken, dis’ll be pie. Don’ you got anythin’ better? Or you dat unimaginative?”

Maldrone dropped the pliers, and leaned forward to knee his prisoner in the groin, and as he finished gasping and trying to double over from the first blow, he did it again.

Remy hacked out a cough-mixed with a shout of pain, and saw stars behind his eyes, but shoved the pain away as quickly as he could. “Ronnie, ain’ you seen Casino Royale? Dis one didn’ work on James Bond, y’really think it’ll work on me?” He asked, his voice hoarse, gasping for air.

Maldrone barked out a short laugh, and shook his head. “Damn, you are one cocky son of a bitch, I’ll give you that, LeBeau. But sooner or later you’ll break. I’ll find the thing that will do it, and by that point you’ll be a sobbing pile of bones, begging me to kill you.”

He pulled out a switchblade, and carefully opened it, reaching up to grab one of Remy’s hands.

“Really?” Remy asked, grimacing at what might be coming. “De old finger trick? C’mon, de Yakuza got you a hundred times over on dat one.”

Maldrone shook his head. “No, I won’t cut off your fingers…. Yet. First you’ll squeal, and then I’ll do it, and mail them off to your little friends one by one. No, I have something else in mind.”

He gripped Remy’s left hand, and slowly pressed the tip against his palm, and pressed forward. Remy bit his tongue, and clenched his eyes shut as the knife sliced and stabbed through the flesh of his palm, just missing the bones of his hand, and then emerged on the other side, a long trail of blood flowing down his hand and arm.

“Putain,” he spat, taking in sobbed breaths of pain. “Little bastard, you’re gonna regret dat.”

“I think not,” Maldrone said, grinning sadistically as he gripped the knife. “You’ll betray them soon enough. I won’t regret a thing.”

He twisted the knife from side to side, before yanking it out of Remy’s hand, and Remy found himself fighting back a wave of nausea and intense, stabbing pain.

Maldrone stared hard at him for several more moments. “I’ll let you think about this, LeBeau. When I come back I expect the information.”

Remy shook his head as Maldrone turned and left the room, handing the blood-soaked knife to his assistant.

It was, in fact, the very thing that Maldrone wanted, that would keep him going, and keep his mind focused. He knew the minute he gave up the information, he was dead. But more importantly, the minute he gave it up, Maldrone would go after the mansion, where Sarah and Rogue were. It was their faces constantly in his mind that kept him going.

Remy clenched his left hand into a shaky fist, despite the lancing pain of the movement, and stopped the blood flow as best he could. He took a deep breath, fighting down the second wave of nausea – primarily because he knew there was nothing in his stomach to force out in the first place.

“Where were we,” he muttered, gazing once more at the corner of the room. “ah, de big reveal,” he said, mentally flipping over his pocket aces, and smirking as he collected the chips from the middle of the table as one of the other imagined players, who looked suspiciously like his brother, tossed his cards down in frustration. “Henri always did have a bad poker face.”

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

Kitty returned to the classroom that had been set up as a sort of base of operations. Piotr sat in front of one of the spare monitors they had scrounged up, which was hooked up to one of the computers Kitty had taken during the mission.

Several other monitors were set up around the room, but were unattended – one was the one she’d been working on, and the other two had been looked at by one of the people that had come to the mansion, part of the secret team Remy, Rogue, and the others had joined.

‘Jamie,’ she recalled to herself, remembering how he’d split himself into two identical versions of himself and sat down at each computer. He’d finished with the computers, and disappeared to wherever Fury and the rest of his team were in the mansion.

“Hey Pete,” Kitty said as she came up behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder and leaning over slightly to look at the monitor he was looking at.

“Kitty,” Piotr said, jumping slightly as he hadn’t heard her enter. “Did they answer?”

Kitty nodded. “My mom did. Daddy’s line was busy, but I told her to let him know. She…. wasn’t exactly happy that I’m not coming home today, but I already got the tickets refunded and set for Sunday for the same price instead, so there wasn’t much she could say.”

Piotr nodded – he’d already taken a few minutes away from their work to call his own parents, who had been rather understanding, begging him to be careful. They knew he was part of the X-Men, and had an idea of how it could be dangerous, but likely didn’t realize the full extent of it.

“So you getting anywhere on this one?” Kitty asked, nodding at the screen.

Piotr shook his head, and pointed to the fractured image. “This one seems to be really damaged. I haven’t been able to find more than a few uncorrupted documents on here, and none of them have been useful.”

Kitty sighed. “My fault. I thought I saw a spark when I grabbed this one – I must have accidentally phased into it a bit when I was trying to pull it out. Alright, let’s give up on this one. I think…”

She stopped when she saw Rogue enter the room and give her a soft smile. Rogue was followed by Logan, Ororo, the rest of the uninjured members of the team, and by the members of Fury’s shadow team. Bringing up the rear was Fury himself, talking quietly with Xavier next to him.

“Anythin’?” Rogue asked hopefully, moving to stand next to Kitty.

Kitty shook her head. “This one, no. Same for those two,” she said, gesturing at the two Jamie had searched. “This one, however, I think we’ve got some interesting things. I do know they were in contact with a Purifier base in the South. The wording in one of the e-mails hinted at that, maybe somewhere close to D.C.. I can’t say it’s where they took him, but it’s a possibility.”

Kitty grimaced slightly, looking at her teammates. “Also found a log. Aside from those robot things arriving a few days ago, I found out they did grab those mutants they were talking about in the news, but they shipped them out. We missed them by a day, and I haven’t been able to find where they sent them.”

Charles closed his eyes, and rubbed at his forehead. “A day….” He muttered, but then shook his head. “There’s little we can do now about that. Did you find anything else?”

“Not much, unfortunately. If I’d had more time back at the base I could have looked for the most used terminals and probably would have got some that had a lot more information, but…” She shrugged.

Fury grabbed his laptop, and turned it around on one of the tables in the room so that they could see it. He tapped in several commands, and a map of the United States came up, each state hosting one or more small red dots in seemingly random places.

“This is our database of suspected and confirmed Purifier bases.” He tapped on it with the mouse and it zoomed in toward the D.C. area. “If they did take them to the base you found a mention of, we’ve got a few possibilities – one here in south-west West Virginia, one here near D.C. in Virginia, and one in Maryland.”

“I’ll get our intelligence looking into those three,” Fury said, turning the laptop to type out a brief e-mail to the agents back at the Helicarrier. “See if they can find any unusual activity or have seen anything that might hint which one they’re being kept in.”

Fury glanced up as he tapped the mouse to send off the e-mail. “I got the files on these S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. robots, and finally finished looking them over. They were being designed as the ultimate soldier – a soldier that always followed orders, never slept, with a single-minded determination to complete its mission.”

“It seems one of the men on the group developing these things, Stephen Lang, was secretly a member of the Purifiers, and helped the group steal the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L.s.” Fury said.

“The good news is that what you encountered is about the extent of what they can do. They were designed to be non-lethal, because of objections by those higher up, worried about a sort of ‘Terminator’ situation being a possibility. Thankfully they kept them from putting on all the assault and sniper rifles that had been planned.”

Fury spread his hands. “Now, I don’t know if they’ve split up all the rest, but there are three more units like the one you encountered. That’s a possible fifteen more of these things at whatever base we end up going to, if they didn’t send them off like they did this group. Plus the one that took Remy and Kurt, although from what you told me it likely won’t be in any shape to fight.”

Piotr nodded grimly. “That’s…. a lot. At least we’ll have everyone here,” he said, nodding to the others around the room.

“I know,” Fury said. “When we do this, you all will be the first sweep, and then I’ll send in several squads of my human agents. We’ve got a few EMP-type weapons that might work on them, so they’ll go through taking out anything you miss. From what I’ve been able to tell, if you act quickly enough it takes them a while to figure out how to respond – “

He was interrupted by a low ringing that sounded like a cell phone. Everyone looked puzzled, automatically pulling their cell phones from their pockets to see if it was theirs.

When it wasn’t, and they actually paid attention to the noise, it led their gazes to the corner of the room. Kitty had kept her boots on after the mission, and then taken them off during the previous night, tossing them into the corner, and the ringing was coming from them.

Rogue was the first to react, realizing it was the communicator, and realizing that everyone else on the team was right there in the room so it wasn’t them calling. She stood up quickly, her chair tumbling behind her, and strode over to the boots, removing the small device.

“Hello?” Rogue asked breathlessly as she thumbed it open, answering it.

‘Rogue? Is that you? ’ Kurt’s voice asked over the connection.

“Kurt!” Rogue said, looking at the others, who all moved quickly to gather around her and the phone, and she switched it into its speaker mode. “Are yah alright?”

“Ja, I am alright. I-“

“Kurt, is Remy there?” Rogue asked, interrupting him.

There was a moment of long silence. “No, I am sorry. The robot malfunctioned as it vas taking us away, und it dropped me. I tried to get back to Remy but it vas moving too fast. I barely made it to the ground. I’m sorry.”

Rogue closed her eyes for several moments. “It’s alright,” she said quietly, handing the phone to Fury, who was standing next to her.

Logan placed an arm around her shoulders as Fury took the phone, and she leaned against him, heaving a big sigh. “Ah hoped….” She whispered.

“I know, kid.” Logan said simply, squeezing her shoulders.

“Kurt, this is Nick. Do you know where you are? We weren’t able to track the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. – the robot that took you, and we’re trying to figure out where it could have taken – well, just Remy now.”

“Ja, I landed on a farm, und the owner has been taking care of me. Ve are in…” There was a moment of murmured voices – his and a female’s voice – over the line, before he came back on. “In the suburbs of Glenville, in West Virginia,” Kurt said finally.

Neena was already next to Fury’s laptop, and she typed in the name and had the database search for it. Another small dot, green this time, appeared to the north of one of the red dots.

She tapped the screen. “Here. Look, it’s along a perfect straight line between the base you raided, and the West Virginia Purifier base here. Sounds exactly like what a robot would do if it was really damaged and trying to get its prisoners back – shortest distance to its home base.”

Fury nodded, and turned back to the phone. “Alright Kurt, we’ll pick you up sometime in a few hours – I’ll have some men come over for you. We think we know what base they’re operating out of, and we’ll stage a strike as soon as we can.”

“Alright, I vill be here. I vant to be in on the strike.”

“You will, Kurt, if you’re feeling up to it. I’ll be in touch. Fury out.” Nick said, turning off the communicator.

He turned to look at the others. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get your things ready – I’m gonna need all of you for this mission, if you’re up for it. We’ll stage from our Icarus base down by Norfolk. I’ll call ahead and let them start to get their teams ready. We’ll move either tonight or in the morning tomorrow, depending on how much intel we’ve got on this place. Can the Cajun hold out until then?” He asked, looking toward Ororo.

“He’ll make it. It’ll take a lot longer than two days for them to even start to get anything from him. And anything they do get will be a lie.” Ororo said.

Fury nodded. “Good, let’s go. You take your jet, we’ll send you the coordinates for rendezvous when we get out there. Rogue, you stay with the X-Men, get them ready and fly with them– you’ll know how to direct them to the ‘Carrier. Logan, I need you to come with us, start getting a preliminary plan of assault together with Dom.”

Logan grunted his assent, and leaned down to kiss Rogue carefully on the forehead. “You alright here?” He murmured.

Rogue nodded. “Yeah, Ah got it. You go ahead, Ah’ll meet you there,” she said, letting Logan pull his arm away from her shoulder.

Jamie and Clarice grabbed the bags they’d carried into the room the evening before, when they’d arrived, and Domino grabbed her own after handing Fury his closed laptop.

She paused near Rogue as she followed Fury and the other two out of the room. “You holding it together enough for this?”

Rogue’s expression tightened, her eyes hardening. “Yeah, Ah’m fine. Jus’ hopin’ Remy’d be there when Kurt answered.”

Domino nodded, a knowing look in her expression. “I know how it feels. You’re doing good, just keep your mind set on Remy – it helps.”

“Thanks, Dom.” Rogue said, as the older woman patted her arm and then picked up her long duffel bag and carried it out of the room.

Xavier looked around the slightly diminished team, absent Jubilee and Bobby, both too injured to come on this mission. “Alright, get suited up, and collect whatever you need to bring along. I hope you will not run into any more of these S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L.s, but good luck is not usually something our team has when it comes to things like this. I had Nick download the schematics the military provided into the X-Jet’s computer so you can look them over on the trip. Good luck.”

Ororo stood first, and filed out of the room, moving in the direction of the stairs, and the others soon followed.

Xavier rolled his wheelchair over to where Kitty and Piotr still stood at the far end of the room. “Kitty, if you have anything that could help us get into the Purifier systems, please bring it – I want you to get as much information as possible before the team goes in. We don’t want a repeat of this last mission.”

“Sure Professor, I’ll bring what I need.” Kitty said, and Xavier inclined his head, moving toward the exit of the room.

Kitty turned her gaze to Piotr, her eyes traveling up to settle on his face. “Ready for this Pete?”

He nodded solemnly. “Yeah. I could do little to help Remy before, and I intend to make up for that.”

Kitty nodded, and placed a hand on his arm. “Alright. D’you mind carrying the good hard drive down to the Jet? It might come in handy, and I’ve gotta run up to my room and get some stuff.”

“I’ve got it, go ahead,” Piotr smiled, and turned toward the computer, and began to disconnect it from the monitor as Kitty jogged out through the wall closest to the staircase.

***********************************************************************
Xavier paused in the elevator, holding the door for the person he’d sensed had been following him – and before that hovering near the door of their meeting room. “Come on in, Jean,” he said, a smile in his voice.

Jean grinned sheepishly and slipped into the elevator car next to him, and let the doors slide shut behind her. “Sorry, I was waiting for you to be alone, to talk.”

Charles nodded. “I know. I’m heading for Cerebro, if you’ll join me,” he said, gesturing forward as the elevator reached the basement level and the doors opened.

“Charles, I heard about Remy. I want to help. I want to go on the mission.”

Charles stopped his wheelchair, and turned to look sternly at her. “Jean, you know I can’t allow that. The risks….. they’re just too great.”

She looked at him determinedly. “But you said we’re making a lot of progress. I can feel that we are.”

“And you are. Just not enough to keep her in check during an intense mission like this. On the ground with the others you’d simply be a liability – Alkali all over.” Charles said.

Jean sighed, and ran a hand through her hair in frustration. “They’ll need a pilot, Charles. Someone to get them out of there if things go badly. If I go in just as pilot and stay on the Jet, I won’t be a liability, will I? And that would free up Ororo for the mission itself – and I’m the best pilot you have here.”

Charles frowned, and stroked his chin. “I… suppose if you promise to stay on the jet and go strictly as the pilot…. That could work. But nothing else,” he said sternly.

Jean nodded, and leaned down to kiss his cheek, which rewarded her with the rare sight of Charles Xavier blushing. “Thank you, Charles. I’ll tell the others.”

“Be careful, Jean. If she breaks out again, I fear we may not be able to cage her – your mind will be too damaged.”

She looked seriously at him over her shoulder as she turned back toward the hangar. “I know, Charles.”

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

Rogue zipped up her team uniform the rest of the way, and then looked into the mirror as she picked up an elastic band and gathered her hair behind her head with her free hand and started to wind the band around the ponytail she’d created.

She turned it around on itself several times around the ponytail, and finally let it snap firmly into place. She lowered her hands slightly, and brought them to her face, rubbing at her eyes.

She took a deep breath, and then stood up, grabbed her regular clothes and tossed them into her locker. She grabbed the pair of black gloves that were a part of her team uniform, and slowly slipped them onto her hands as she walked out of the changing area, and into the central room where the uniforms were kept.

She sighed when her eyes automatically came to rest on the exact spot where, over a month-and-a-half ago, she’d first kissed Remy. “Yah better be alright, Remy, or Ah’ll kick your ass,” she muttered quietly, trying to keep the stabbing feeling in her heart from affecting her – she needed to, like Domino had said, be clear-minded for this.

“Rogue?” Sarah’s soft voice came from the doorway, interrupting her train of thought.

“Hey sweetie,” Rogue said, glancing up at the younger girl. “What’re yah doin’ down here? Ah was jus’ gonna head up an’ find yah.”

Sarah fidgeted slightly, her fingers twisting together in front of her. “Everyone was gettin’ dressed up for a mission, an’ I saw Mister Logan leave really quickly with those S.H.I.E.L.D. people. Did- did you find Remy?”

Rogue nodded. “Yeah, we’re pretty sure we know where they took him. We gotta go to this other base to get ready, an’ figure out how to break in an’ get him. We’re goin’ in either tonight or tomorrow mornin’.”

Sarah nodded, clearly trying to fight back tears. She’d woken in the night several times next to Rogue, nightmares about Remy afflicting her sleep, and Rogue had held her as she cried herself back to sleep each time.

“Ah’ll bring him back to us,” Rogue said, reaching out to touch Sarah’s cheek.

Sarah moved forward, throwing her arms around Rogue. “I know,” she said, her voice muffled against Rogue’s shoulder.

Sarah turned her head, and looked up at Rogue’s face. “Please be careful, Rogue. I don’t wanna lose you either.”

Rogue felt her throat tighten, and she simply nodded, hugging the younger girl tightly. “You’re not gonna lose me, or Remy, sweetie.” She said, stroking the back of her head softly.

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

“That is my ride,” Kurt said, as the sounds of helicopter blades thumping grew closer, and turned into a constant pitch, and several moments later a knocking came at the door nearest to the front of the building.

Amanda nodded, helped him stand up, and then walked with him to the front door.

“Thank you, Amanda”, he said, grabbing her hand. “For taking care of me like this, und helping me. It vas nice meeting you.”

She smiled. “Maybe…. Maybe we’ll meet again sometime.” Amanda said.

Kurt nodded. “Vell, I live in New York, but I guess anything is possible.”

Amanda shifted the small covered cup she held in her other hand, and then pressed it into his hands. “I hope so. You never know, we might see each other again sooner than you think. Here’s another of those potions, when the other one starts to wear off, if you need it.”

Kurt inclined his head. “Thank you, I think I vill need it,” he said, and turned the doorknob to open the door, and found a man with a S.H.I.E.L.D. insignia on his tactical vest waiting for him.

“Mister Wagner?”

“Ja, I’m ready.” He said.

He started to move out the door to follow the man, and then he looked down when he felt a piece of paper crinkle in his fingers next to the cup.

He glanced down, and smiled, blushing slightly when he saw what it was – her phone number.

He looked back up to where she stood, chewing nervously at her lower lip, her arms crossed, eyes hopeful.

“Goodbye, Amanda. I think you might be right, ve just might be seeing one another again soon,” he said.

She smiled, her expression changing to relief and satisfaction. “I’d like that. Maybe even somewhere over dinner…..” she said, winking slightly.

Kurt chuckled, and nodded. “That vould be a very nice place to meet.”

“Mister Wagner, I hate to break this up, but… Colonel Fury wants us back as quick as possible.”

Kurt nodded, and shot one last glance at Amanda. “Alright, I am ready.”

“Good luck!” Amanda called after him as he followed the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to the still-running helicopter.

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

Rogue smiled at the look on Kitty’s face when she saw the enormous, cavernous, computer room on the USS Icarus. It was almost as priceless as the expressions on everyone’s faces when they’d first spotted the enormous Helicarrier hovering over the outskirts of Norfolk.

That particular moment had been marred slightly by nearly being shot down moments later – it had been several tense moments before the security team manning the series of anti-aircraft guns confirmed that the unfamiliar jet was, indeed, cleared to land by Nick Fury himself.

“Don’t drool, Kit,” Dani whispered next to her friend, and Kitty’s mouth snapped shut, and she shot a glare at her.

“I wasn’t drooling, just…. admiring,” she said, her eyes drawn back to the room.

Large monitors hung from the walls, displaying various news channels, satellite feeds from places around the world, and views from beneath the Helicarrier, of the city below. The floor of the room was lined with desk after desk of computers, large monitors glowing brightly in the dim-red lights of the room, technicians at each one, all running various tasks.

Fury straightened up from where he had been standing across the room, hunched over a computer near the other members of X-Force. He waved their group over to him, and they quickly moved across the room, drawing interested looks from the occupants of the room.

“Sorry about your landing,” Fury said. “Forgot to make sure the defense team knew about you coming.”

Ororo nodded. “It’s alright, we’re getting used to people trying to shoot us down,” she said, smiling wryly. “Do we have anything new?”

Fury smiled grimly. “Well, we were right on the base, that’s where they took him. Once we knew where to look we found a few police reports about people seeing a strange flying machine in the area. The S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. got a bit sloppy as it came in, and we managed to freeze a split-second blur on a weather camera near the base, and got that,” Fury said, nodding up to a large screen in the corner, which showed a blurry image of the robot – the outline of Remy visible in its hand.

He frowned. “It’s a big base. We have a few schematics of the general layout, but they could have changed it a lot in the past two years since it was built. Right now we’re trying to break into their network, get some better intel on the situation, figure out where Remy is before we go in, but it’s been hell finding even a crack in their firewall.”

The group gathered around the two computer terminals that had been dedicated to the operation, and Kitty slid up next to Logan to watch over the shoulder of one of the techs, at his computer screen.

“You’re not going to get in that way,” she said, after several minutes of silence, watching what he was doing.

The tech, a man in his late twenties with slicked back, moussed hairdo, turned his head to look at her, his expression annoyed. “Excuse me?”

“The network – you’re not going to get in the way you’re trying to. We’ll be here for days before you get anywhere.” Kitty said.

The man shook his head, shooting her a condescending look, and turned back to the computer screen. “I’m sorry, kid, but I’m the one here with a Master’s in computer science, who has been working for SHIELD for the last ten years. What were your qualifications again? You look like your still in high school – leave it to the experts.”

Kitty’s eyes hardened – if there was one thing she hated it was being spoken down to by someone else like that. “College, actually, and I just happen to be the person that’s been in and out of half a dozen Purifier computers the last few weeks, and I know how they’re set up, and you’re not getting into them that way.”

“Listen, when you get a job here, you can –“ The man began, but was cut off by Nick’s voice behind him.

“Killian, it sounds like she knows what she’s talking about. Why don’t you take a break, and let her have a try, okay?” Fury said, moving up beside Kitty.

Killian tossed down the pair of headphones he’d had hanging around his neck, and stood up. “Fine,” he muttered, storming off.

“Sorry about that, he’s not my usual tech for things like this. You think you can get in?” Fury asked.

Kitty nodded, and eagerly sat down in front of the computer monitor in the seat Killian had vacated.

The young, blonde-haired woman who was sitting at the terminal next to her leaned over, as small grin on her face. “Thank you for putting that arrogant jerk in his place. He’s been insufferable, thinks that since he’s been here longer than the rest of us he knows everything,” she whispered, and extended her hand. “I’m Courtney, by the way.”

“I’m Kitty,” Kitty said, shaking her hand. “Just wait until we hack into this thing without him – that’ll really get him.” She said, grinning.

“Where do we start?” Courtney asked. “We were just banging our heads against a wall for the last hour.”

Kitty turned to look at the screen, and wrinkled her nose. “Windows? You guys aren’t even using Linux?”

Courtney shook her head. “That’s Jules’ preference – I’ve got Unix here,” she said, patting her keyboard. “Here, switch me, I’m fine with his setup.”

“Thanks,” Kitty said gratefully, rolling backward in the chair, letting Courtney take her place before she moved over in front of the other computer.

“Alright,” Kitty said, pulling out a thumb drive. “I’ve been working on a Trojan Program. I’ve got it looking identical to the Purifier setup for their time-sheet program. I think it will fool their firewall. But what we need is to flood their server connections, get them searching for another route to the internet, trick them into contacting our servers, and we send this little guy down the line to them and we’re in.”

Courtney’s eyes lit up. “That might just work. I like how you think. I’ll start setting up the flooding, you get your little program going.”

Kitty smiled. “Let’s get crackin’,” she said, pushing the thumb drive into the USB port of Courtney’s computer.

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

“Alright, we are officially in,” Kitty said, turning her seat around to look at the others, nearly a half-hour later. She raised her hand and gave Courtney a hi-five, grinning excitedly.

Fury leaned closer to peer at the computer screens, and then leant back, a pleased expression crossing his face. “Very impressive, Kitty. When you’re done with college, you should come talk to me – I think I can guarantee you a job offer if you want it.”

Kitty’s cheeks turned pink. “Thanks. That…. That might be kinda cool.”

“Now,” she said, turning back to the computer. “Let’s find the schematics, and see if we can figure out where Remy is.”

Courtney found the schematics of the base first, and sent the image up to the big screen above them, blowing them up for the others to see them better. “There you go with those,” she said.

Logan looked up at the screen, his eyes flitting over the blueprints, trying to decipher them, find the places most likely guarded well, and the places that breaking in would be the easiest.

Kitty tapped away at the keyboard, the clacking of the keys seeming loud in the hushed corner of the room as she sped through the main directory of the server she’d managed to get her Trojan to infect and get her in through a back door. She search each directory for the keyword she was looking for, from her experience with the Purifier hard-drives.

“Here we go,” she muttered. “Video camera system,” she said. “Let’s have a look at our friends.”

Kitty tapped in a command and her screen brightened, shifting into a picture from a security camera, which showed a narrow corridor, Purifier men and women moving up and down it. She tapped another button, and the image changed to another hallway, stayed up for a few seconds, and then switched again, cycling through the cameras on the grid.

“This could take a while,” Kitty said, as Rogue leaned closer to peer at the images. “They’ve got over five hundred of these things.”

And she was right – it took a while, and a lot of boring images until they hit upon one of the cameras looking into a large hangar bay, where the damaged S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. rested standing up, several technicians and mechanics swarming over it, hanging from a nearby scaffolding as they attempted to repair it.

The next several cameras showed different angles of the hangar, displaying only that one S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. inside, although the bay was big enough for several more.

Fury waited until it cycled through another hangar, this one empty, before he spoke up. “Good news is it looks like they did split these things up and you won’t have to deal with them. Bad news is now we have no idea where the other fifteen are.”

Domino nodded. “This will make this one easier, but knowing those things are still out there somewhere…. We’ll have to get IntelSec out looking for disappearance patterns, see if they’ll give themselves away…” She stopped as the screen switched to a small holding cell.

“There!” Rogue said, her hand grasping Kitty’s shoulder tightly until her friend tapped in a command to freeze the image. She released her grip and moved it to the back of the chair so she didn’t hurt Kitty.

“Remy,” Rogue whispered, staring at the screen.

The screen showed Remy, handcuffed with his arms above his head, leaving him in what looked like a very uncomfortable half-standing half-hanging position. His trenchcoat lay on the floor in the corner, and they’d removed his shirt at some point, leaving him completely bare-chested.

Even in the black-and-white image she could see ugly bruises covering his skin, darkest especially around his stomach and ribs, and his face showed clear signs of beating as well – one eye nearly swollen shut – and what looked like blood in a long line down one of his arms.

The door to the cell suddenly opened, and a tall, smarmy-looking man strode in, carrying a long, rodlike object. Rogue recognized him instantly. “Maldrone,” she spat.

Fury nodded. “Make sure we’re recording this in case we don’t snatch up Maldrone when we hit them,” he said to Courtney, who nodded and scrambled to begin the recording.

Maldrone circled Remy, speaking to him, but Remy simply stared into a corner of the room, ignoring him, until the man reached a full circle, stopped in front of him and said something.

Remy slowly looked over, smirking through his cut lips, and said something back that clearly angered Creed’s assistant.

Rogue gasped when he extended the tip of the rod he was holding, up to Remy’s neck, and it sparked against his skin. Remy’s entire body jerked, curling up on itself, leaving him hanging for several seconds solely by his wrists as he clearly struggled to breathe.

“Cattle prod,” Fury muttered, as Remy lowered his legs again, seeming to recover somewhat from the sharp jolt.

They watched as Remy grinned again, and said something else that angered Maldrone more, bringing on another shock, this time to his bare stomach, and then another before he recovered, to his neck again.

“Gawd, Remy,” Rogue whispered, horrified, into the hands that had come up to cover her mouth, oblivious to the tears streaming down her cheeks and over her gloved fingers. She jerked slightly each time she saw the prod touch his skin.

“Do we have audio?” Fury demanded, but Courtney shook her head.

“Only video,” she said, her face pale, clearly shaken by what was unfolding on the screen in front of them.

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

Maldrone steeled himself before he entered Remy’s cell. It had been over half a day since he’d visited it, and he’d become disturbed by rumors he heard flitting through the Purifier populace. The guards, it seemed, had become afraid of the mutant. He’d read through medical reports on eight different guards, who had been injured during their interrogation and beating of Remy.

The injuries ranged from broken bones, to one person who’d been rushed to the hospital with damaged testicles – after that they’d very firmly restrained Remy’s feet, tying them together, and leading the rope behind him to anchor it on the wall, preventing him from kicking.

The latest had been a man that received an elbow to the eye when he got too close. And now the guards were drawing straws to see who had to get the duty of beating the wild mutant.

Maldrone shook his head. “We’ll fix that,” he muttered, running his hands along the long cattle prod he held as the guard in front of him opened the door and let him enter.

He eyed the prisoner who was, once again, staring at the same corner of the wall, muttering under his breath the moment Maldrone stepped in. He slowly started to circle the mutant, eyeing heavy layering of bruising from his guards’ handiwork.

“You’ve been hurting my guards, LeBeau,” he began, as he moved behind him. “Not a very smart move. Things will only get worse the more angry you make them.”

He got no response, so he moved over to the front of Remy, and stared at him hard. “We caught your little girlfriend. Pretty little thing, for a mutant, if you like that sort of look, the stripe in the hair, long sleeves and gloves and all that. My guards are entertaining themselves with her now. I’ve been thinking of making her scream just for you – pipe in the sounds from her cell into yours so you can listen to them.”

Maldrone was stunned when Remy smirked slightly, and turned his head until his gaze met Maldrone’s, one eye purple, the lid nearly swollen closed, and then he heard him chuckle.

“Is dat so?” Remy asked. “An’ what’s her name? My girlfriend.” He said when Maldrone stared blankly at him.

“I…”

“You’re such a fuckin’ bad liar, Maldrone. I mean, c’mon, I ain’ dat stupid. If you had any smarts at all you’d have at least made sure you knew somethin’ before you claimed dat.”

Maldrone’s anger flared, and he gripped the prod tightly, and brought it up to the mutant’s neck, flicking it on, and it sparked to life.

He smiled as Remy’s entire body spasmed at the high-voltage shock, and a strangled cry escaped the mutant as he tried to jerk himself away from the prod.

Maldrone gave the mutant a few moments to recover, and was surprised to see the same smirk slowly appear on Remy’s face after he’d finished coughing to get air back into his lungs.

“Cattle prod, eh?” Remy said with a chuckle. “Pretty kinky dere, Ronny – now we all know how you an’ your wife entertain y’selves in de bedroom, I guess.”

Maldrone’s face twisted with anger at the words - and the cocky expression on his prisoner’s face - and jabbed the prod forward into his stomach, and then moments later into his neck once again, leaving Remy a twitching mess, groaning in pain.

Maldrone slowed down, getting a grip once again, and much more methodically applied shock after shock, the prod leaving burn marks as it touched the same spot of skin over and over, until the mutant was coughing and sobbing in pain.

“Alright you little freak. Are you ready for me to stop? Ready to tell me what I want to know? Who do you work for?”

To his surprise, Remy nodded weakly, and spoke, his voice hoarse. “Yeah, I’ll tell you. Jus’… promise to leave her out of it.”

Maldrone’s eyes lit up with pleasure. “Alright, your little girlfriend won’t be harmed. Now tell me who you work for. Where is this little team of yours based?”

Remy coughed, and wheezed in a breath of air. “We… We’re from…” He said quietly, his voice lowering at the end of the sentence into a mumble.

“Where? Speak up,” Maldrone said, his body following its automatic reaction to the whisper by leaning in closer to Remy’s face.

He realized his mistake a split-second too late, as Remy’s head snapped forward, his forehead slamming into Maldrone’s face. A crack sounded through the room as blinding pain shot out from Maldrone’s nose, his vision nearly graying out.

Maldrone staggered back, dropping the prod, and both of his hands reached up to stem the spurting flow of blood from his nose. “’Ittle fucker, you bwoke my nobse,” he managed to say. “Guards!” He shouted through his hands.

“Get me to a medic, now! Beat the hell outta this bastawd,” he said as they barged into the room

‘Goddamn, ’ he thought as the guard guided him to the door and down the hall. ‘He’s a nutjob! He just takes everything and comes out on top,’ he thought, the faint sound of Remy chuckling behind him sending chills down his spine.

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

Rogue straightened up shakily, faintly aware that the back of Kitty’s chair had a hand-sized piece missing, crumbled to dust in her grip. She was glad to see Remy still had some fighting spirit left, with the headbutt to Maldrone, but the entire scene had almost been too much for her.

“Rogue,” Logan said softly, and put a hand on her shoulder.

“We’re goin’ in. Now.” She said, flatly, not looking at him.

“We still need to plan – “ Fury protested.

“Then plan. Ah’ll go in on mah own if Ah have to. Ah’m not lettin’ them put one more hand on him.” She said, her voice low, dangerous, shaking.

“I understand you’re upset, but please, think this through. At least give us a half-hour. We’ll even plan it as we fly to the site. If we just speed in, someone’s going to get hurt. Remy’s doing as good as we could have hoped, and Maldrone’s going to be getting fixed up at least that long.” Nick said.

Rogue closed her eyes, and let out a frustrated breath, her hands clenching into tight fists at her sides. “Alright. Half an hour. Ah’ll be in the jet,” she said in a short tone, and strode away, shrugging off Logan’s hand, and ignoring her teammates expressions.

Nick smile weakly to Domino as Rogue left the operations room. “Guess we go with the straightforward plans. I wouldn’t want to be them when she gets down there.”

He looked back to the two computers. “Kitty, can you call up those schematics again, please?”

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

Rogue made it to the jet before breaking down. She pitched to her knees on the hard metal floor of the jet, and let out a choked sob, her shoulders shaking.

“Rogue?” Came Jean’s concerned voice from the front of the plane – Rogue had forgotten she’d flown them, and remained behind – by orders of Xavier from what she’d told them.

Rogue looked up, her bangs hanging down in front of her face, obscuring her vision of Jean, who stood up and hurried over to the back of the plane. “Rogue, what’s wrong?” Jean asked. She placed a hand to her forehead. “You’re radiating so many emotions.”

“So-sorry,” Rogue managed, sniffing, and reaching up to swipe the hair from her face and drag her sleeve along the tears on her cheeks. “They’re….. we found Remy – they’re torturin’ him. They’ve been torturin’ him since they got him,” she said, her voice breaking.

Jean’s face softened, and she knelt next to the younger woman, placing an arm around her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “When are we going?”

“Half-an-hour,” Rogue said irritable. “Ah…. Wanted t’go now, but they wanna plan. Gawd Jean, he looked so bad.”

Jean nodded, and let her lean against her, as she stroked her back. “He’ll be fine. Ororo says he’s really tough. We’ll have him back in no time.” She sighed. “I just wish I could help more.”

Rogue nodded, and pulled back slightly. “Ah know. But you’re pilotin’. Coudn’ get anywhere without someone t’do that.”

Rogue sniffed again, and wiped away several more tears. “Sorry Ah broke down like that. It was just…. that was really hard ta watch….”

Jean looked at her with understanding. “I know. I can feel it coming off of you.”

She stood up, and offered Rogue her hand. “C’mon, let’s clean you up a little – you don’t want to rescue Remy with runny makeup on your cheeks, do you?”

Rogue closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and manage a slight smile. “You’re right, he’d probably get a smile outta that though,” she said, allowing Jean to pull her toward the back of the jet – their larger jet – to the medical station, and pull out a mirror and several wet wipes from one of the drawers and hand them to her.

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

Stephen Lang trudged back from the hangar, having just checked on the damaged S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L., and the progress of the repairs. Things were slow, and there would be little chance that it would be functional for several days.

Maldrone had sent off his remaining S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. unit after he arrived for the interrogation of the mutant they had captured, sending it to Montana with the others. Now he was dealing with the unruly mutant while Lang was left to make up for the losses his creations had incurred.

Lang shook his head, and the next moment he found himself flat on his stomach, tasting blood on his lips, and a ringing in his ears after the wall of the hangar behind him blossomed up in a large explosion.

He scrambled to his feet, and looked at the hangar, the entire east wall now gone, and he dove to the ground next to a fallen crate. He watched a team of men enter the hangar, carrying weapons, and he could tell instantly they were spec-ops of some sort, pure professionals as the swept the room, taking out any of the men that remained standing after the blast. He knew he’d been found – the military had somehow figured out where he’d taken the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L.s.

Behind them he saw three others enter, not wearing the military uniforms, but rather, slick black form-fitting suits. One was an African-American woman, her hair an unnatural white and streaming around her face as she walked.

The man next to her made him realize they were a small group of mutants – he was completely blue, a long spade-ended tail swinging behind him. Lang went stock-still when he realized it was the mutant he’d had the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. pick up – the one it had dropped along the way.

‘My God, we attacked a government mutant team. Damn, we’re dead.’ He thought to himself.

The third person moved forward – a shorthaired woman with pale skin and a pure-black patch of skin around one eye. She raised a long rifle – a Barrett, he noted absently – in one hand, barely aimed, and fired off three deafening shots.

He watched helplessly as each .50 caliber bullet punched perfectly through the un-damaged photoreceptor of the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. standing across the hangar, and sparked around inside its skull. He nearly cried out at the act, which all but destroyed most of the vital systems of the S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L., but managed to keep silent, and he slowly began to crawl away, back toward the main section of the base.

He made it around a corner, and scrambled to his feet once more, dashing into one of the rooms as a group of armed Purifier men marched past toward the hangar. He closed the door, and heard the inevitable firing of weapons, the sound of the Purifier’s guns fading with each methodical crack of the mutant woman’s weapon.

He scurried into the corner, and yanked at a small maintenance panel – the entire building was filled with maintenance tunnels that ran along the power and water conduits.

Lang cut his shaking hands on the sharp metal in numerous places, but he managed to yank it open and squeeze into the space. He squinted in the dim light – now all he needed to do was find his way to one of the rooms farthest from the attack, and make a run for it, and he had a chance, he thought to himself as he began the long crawl along the dirty concrete floor of the tunnel.

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

Jamie patted his body to make sure all his parts were there the moment Kitty let go of him, and finished phasing herself and Piotr through the ceiling of the computer room.

He looked up to find himself surrounded by several dozen staring, surprised technicians who watched as the three of them appeared through the ceiling.

“Hey guys, we’re just here to steal all your stuff, nothing to worry about,” Jamie said cheerfully, and snapped his fingers several times. Half a dozen dupes appeared, and each of them did the same until they easily outnumbered the shocked people.

“Tie ‘em up, boys.” He said, and his duplicates grabbed the arms of each of the people and began to cuff them, and direct them out of the room toward the now-secure hangar bay.

He turned back to look at Kitty. “Oh yeah – please don’t do that again. That felt very unsettling. And creepy. No more walking through walls for me. I’ll jump in through the window if need be.”

Kitty rolled her eyes. “Big baby. Pete doesn’t mind, do you, Pete?”

Piotr smiled, and shook his head, his eyes scanning the room. “No, I don’t mind the feeling at all.”

“Well, ‘Pete’ happens to be about the size of a grizzly bear, so I don’t think much would be bothering him, anyway. Me, on the other hand,” Jamie said.

“Ugh, let’s just find the main terminal and get what we can off it, instead of complaining.” Kitty said, throwing up her hands, and stalking toward one of the arrays of computers.

She flicked through the files as fast as she could, and then moved to the next one to do the same, and Piotr and Jamie and several of his dupes followed suit.

They’d searched through more than half of them, when suddenly a loud siren sounded through the room, and several rotating lights on the ceiling began flashing red.

“Warning, self-destruct sequence initiated. Two minutes until detonation. All personnel evacuate.” A calm female voice came over the speakers in the room.

“Don’t look at me,” Kitty said, her eyes wide as she looked up to Piotr and Jamie. “Someone must have triggered it. We gotta grab what we can and get the heck outta here.”

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Maldrone stood in front of Remy, his fists clenched, the front of his face heavily bandaged with a small splint running along the side of his nose to keep the many fractured pieces of the bone in place. He’d made the medic give him a quick fix, because he wasn’t going to let the mutant sit and enjoy his reprieve.

“You’re lookin’ nice, Ronny,” Remy said, his voice still raw, hoarse. “Startin’ a new fashion look? Somehow I don’ think it’ll catch on too quick.”

“Shut up,” Maldrone barked, sounding now as if he had a cold that was blocking up his nose. “You’re going to fucking tell me if I have to rip your intestines out and feed them to you.”

“Dat sounds fun,” Remy said. “We gonna play wit’ your dolls, too?”

Maldrone let out a frustrated scream, and jabbed his recovered cattle prod directly against Remy’s sternum, holding it there as the mutant shook from the applied voltage.

He pulled it back, and slammed the end of it into Remy’s head like a baton. “You really aren’t going to tell me, are you? You’re really going to let me torture you like this?” Maldrone asked disbelief in his voice.

Remy coughed, and clenched his teeth until his body came back under his control. “Dat’s really what I’m goin’ to do. I’m really never goin’ to tell you anythin’, Ronny.” He managed.

Maldrone closed his eyes, and gestured to the guard at the door. “Go get the keys for the cuffs, and get the tub ready. We’ll see how he feels about drowning.”

The guard was gone only a few moments when the entire building rumbled and shook, an explosion echoing down the halls. Maldrone steadied himself against the wall. “What the hell?”

Remy chuckled. “Dat means you’re out of time. My friends are here, an’ I’m sure dey ain’ too happy. Maybe you better go take care of dat?”

Maldrone growled and spun around. He was nearly to the door of the cell when the ceiling above him cracked, and then exploded downward on top of him in chunks of crumbling plaster.

Maldrone shoved a particularly large piece of the fallen ceiling off of his leg. As the dust cleared, he froze when he saw the girl who’d fought the Prime S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. blow-for-blow, standing in front of him, staring coldly at him.

She moved forward, almost faster than humanly possible, and the next moment her hand was around his neck, pinning him to the wall. “Ah should kill you, right here, right now, for what you’ve done,” she said, her low voice, the sound of it along with her words stabbing fear into his brain.

“Ah could do it yah know. One little squeeze, an’ your little bones go snap.”

His eyes widened in panic as her grip tightened, cutting off his air supply.

She shook her head. “But Ah won’. That’s what makes us diffren’ from you an’ your followers.” She said, and dropped him to the floor, letting him flop around as he gasped for breath.

She brushed her hands on her pants and turned toward Remy, her heart sinking at the sight of him – he looked even worse than he’d looked over the camera. She rushed over to his side, and undid the rope around his legs, before reaching up to use her strength to snap the central-chain of his handcuffs.

The loss of support caused him to fall forward, heavily against her, and she wrapped her arms around his chest to steady him, trying to hold him as delicately as possible, so she wouldn’t be hurting him further.

He smiled weakly, his face close to hers. “Too you long enough Chére. But I knew y’were comin’.”

“Remy,” she said in a choked whisper, shifting him so he could support himself against her better.

“Jus’ waitin’ t’get me half-naked like dis, eh?” He asked, his balance wavering, trying to waggle his eyebrows.

There was a sharp growl behind them as Logan leapt through the ceiling, his boot slamming down on the hand Maldrone had been trying to use to steady a small pistol, aimed at the two of them.

Rogue winced at the sound of the cracking bones, and nodded her thanks to Logan.

“Always check ‘im for weapons before y’do the rescuin’.” Logan said, grabbing Maldrone and hefting him by the collar of his shirt.

“An’ what’re you doin’ with this hand?” Logan muttered, yanking Maldrone’s other hand out of his pocket – too late.

Maldrone hit the last button of the combination on a small device in his hand, and a siren rang out around the complex, red lights flashing in the hallway as a voice announced that a self-destruct sequence had been initiated.

Maldrone laughed hysterically as Logan tore the thing from his hand. “You’re too late, you won’t get what you came for now. All the information you want will go up in a fireball with us.”

“I don’t give a shit about information, bub – we got what we came for,” Logan said, nodding toward Rogue and Remy. “You’re just a nice little bonus. We’ll see how big a man you are when S.H.I.E.L.D. gives you a little taste of your own medicine. Your boss is next.”

Maldrone’s mouth clamped shut when he finally got his answer of who Remy was working for. The government – S.H.I.E.L.D. to be precise. He trembled slightly before Logan snapped a fist to his head, the blow knocking him out.

“I’ll get him outta here, we gotta move,” Logan said, and Rogue nodded.

“We’re fine, go ahead.”

As Logan left the room, slinging Maldrone in a fireman’s carry, Remy smiled, and tottered slightly next to Rogue.

Her eyes darkened, and a hint of blue flashed across them when she saw the power-nullifying collar around his neck. She reached up, and snapped the controls off, disabling it, and then bent the frame open to the side, freeing it from his neck.

“Mmm, Chére, could y’get me my trenchcoat? I spent a lot of money on dat, an’ I ain’ lettin’ dem incinerate it here.”

Rogue nodded, and turned, leaning him up with his back against the wall. She let go of him and moved across the room to grab the trenchcoat, which was in relatively good shape, all things considered.

“Alright, Sugah, let’s get yah out of here,” she said, flinging the coat over her shoulder.

Remy nodded, and stepped forward, nearly losing his balance, and she grabbed him once again. “Sugah, yah can barely stand. C’mere.”

She maneuvered him, and then picked him up in her arms – somewhat awkward due to him being larger than her, but rather easy overall, given her strength. She carried him over to the hole she’d created, and they both looked up at the light streaming in from five floors above them where she’d torn through the roof.

“Maybe I ain’ thinkin’ straight, but I thought it was de dashing prince was s’pposed to carry de damsel. Not de other way around,” Remy said.

Rogue chuckled slightly. “Ah think we’ll make an exception this time. Yah couldn’ even carry a feather in this shape.”

Remy sighed. “Alrigh’, jus’ don’ tell no one ‘bout dis, hein? Ain’ good for m’image.”

Rogue shook her head. “Yah are impossible, even when you’re a second away from passin’ out.” She said, and began to ascend through the ceiling, up to the next floor, and continued upward.

“Dat’s my job,” Remy said, trying to grin.

They reached the fourth floor without incident, when suddenly a shot rang out as the cleared the ceiling, and Rogue spun to see a nervous Purifier training his weapon on the two of them.

“Screw dis,” Remy said, and a glowing card – the last one he’d kept in the pocket of his trenchcoat, an Ace of Spades, flew into the face of the Purifier guard, and exploded brilliantly, knocking him backward.

“Nice move,” Rogue said. “Didn’ even realize yah pulled that out until it exploded.”

“Dat’s what she said,” Remy said, chuckling sleepily, leaning forward with his head against her shoulder.

Rogue blushed. “One more dirty joke an’ Ah’m droppin’ you,” she said, her voice remaining affectionate as she continued upward until they reached the roof, where the X-Jet sat.

“C’mon Rogue, you’re the last one,” Dani called, waving at her from the ramp. “We have half a minute max!”

Rogue ran forward, wincing in sympathy as Remy groaned at the rough treatment, and she saw the X-Force helicopter lift off in the distance.

She jogged up the ramp, and Jean began to take off before she’d even reached the top. “Hang on,” she yelled as the ramp began to rise behind Rogue.

The engines lit, and the Jet lifted off, leaping forward as the building underneath its landing pads began to disintegrate.

Rogue found herself thrown backward into the seat at the medical station, and pressed down into it at the acceleration.

“Yah alright?” She whispered to Remy, helping him sit on the seat next to her.

He nodded, and fell forward and to the side, ending up with his head in her lap. “Dat’s gonna hurt in de mornin’ though.” He muttered.

He smiled dreamily up at Rogue, who was beginning to look blurry to him. “Thanks for savin’ me, Chére. I got…. I got a secret t’tell you,” he said, his eyes slipping shut.

“What is it?” Rogue asked, leaning down, her face close to his, seeing him begin to slip out of consciousness.

“Je t’aime, Chére. ” He said, a slight smile on his lips as he passed out.

Rogue felt tears sting at her eyes, and her heart swell, and she reached up with a shaking hand to touch his cheek. She leaned forward and gently kissed his lips. “Ah love yah too,” she whispered, staring at his sleeping form, oblivious to her teammates, to the plane, to anything but him.


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A/N: Aww…..

Hey guys, sorry ‘bout the wait. I thought I’d get it done over a week ago just before I left to New York, but I didn’t. I flew across country to a friend’s wedding up in Buffalo – I was in the bridal party so I was pretty busy. And after that, me and a few friends that had attended decided to be spontaneous and have a road-trip back. We went up, saw Niagara Falls and went into Canada, and then drove back across the country, only just got back Friday. It was a pretty fun time, but now I’m back and ready to get writing.

Hope you liked this chapter. I threw in Amanda last night while watching an X-men Evolution episode. I saw their version of her, and decided to make my own, and give poor Kurt a bit of fun. Originally it was just going to be a random farmer that found him.

So, Remy’s back, after I tortured him even more, poor thing. And now he just has to stay awake when Rogue tells him she loves him. :D

Anyway, one chapter left, the epilogue, with the aftermath of everything, and a few hints on where things are going for the sequel. I’ll try to get this one out quicker to get back on schedule – maybe by midweek or by Friday.

See you then, and thanks for reading!

P.S. Je t’aime is French for “I Love you” – just in case one of you out there somehow didn’t catch that. :P