_And then what?_
Then the game would be over.
Smash considered this. When you were as powerful as he, normal pursuits somehow didn't seem as entertaining as they did to lower mortals. He had to create his own games, or at least turn thankless tasks such as this into something more interesting.
He watched his sister through the void as she boarded the helicopter with her motley band of ancestors and lackwits, and his tail twitched in thought.
He could crush them all with a thought. He had the power. Kelly would die, he'd be rid of those accursed 'Neo-X-Men' for good. But where was the fun in that? No sport at all, and then he'd be right back where he started.
Then there was the small matter of his parents. He had to make sure they remained intact, if only so they could go and produce him twelve years from now. His father, Kurt, had remained with Kelly. As a safeguard? Had Victoria's group cottoned on to the fact that he needed the young mutant alive if he was to remain himself so?
_Very clever, children. Very clever indeed._
No, he'd bide his time. Let them bring together their distant allies. They were no match for the Phoenix. Nobody in the universe could even hope to match the power of a celestial entity. Let them fight him. They would lose in the long run, and he'd have his sport that way.
With this warped kind of logic, Smash settled down in the ether, idly poking holes in the timestream and playing God in a variety of lives he cared nothing for. A pregnant woman had an unforeseen miscarriage. A man suddenly walked off the street into the path of a truck. A rockclimber missed his footing and slipped off a cliff face. Little things, but they kept him amused.
He could wait until tomorrow. Mad though he was, Smash had patience enough for that. Kelly had to be in the right place at the right time, and he knew the Neo-mutants' thought processes well enough to see that they'd try to tempt him out of hiding by placing Kelly in a compromising situation, then attempt to launch their 'secret weapon' on him.
It would make for an interesting game.
_Play on, little ones. Play on._
*
"Is this hunk of junk even airworthy?" Mags asked as the 'copter took to the air. She juddered in her seat, and frowned.
"You got a problem, kid, you can always walk it." Logan tapped something Charles had told him into the navigational system and held onto the controls as they powered away at speed. The Institute was soon nothing more than a blip on the horizon, and those who'd never travelled in an X-Men vehicle before were awed by it.
"Whoa," Todd pressed his face to the window. "Woudja lookit that, yo. All those people look like little ants. Feels like we're really flyin'."
"We *are* flying, you idiot," Lance snapped. Todd gave him the one-fingered salute.
"Any more of that, and I'm ejecting you all right now," Logan warned without even bothering to look round.
Blob was incensed. "Hey, I ain't done nothin'!"
Logan didn't answer, and the immovable mutant fell into mutinous grumbling. Kitty attempted to assuage Lance, with mixed results, and Jean had her hands full explaining a few differences in the time period to Mags.
"So you're not allies at all," the furry mutant girl surmised, gesturing at the fragmented Brotherhood members along for the trip.
Jean scrunched up her face. "Not exactly. We're on the same side in that, we're all mutants, but the Brothehood's methods... differ slightly from ours. We're peaceable. They're not. They don't even like us on a social level, with one or two exceptions." She inclined her head at Kitty and Lance.
"I guessed as much from the reception I got at their place," Mags said ruefully. She twitched in her seat, flipping her tail this way and that and wriggling against her safety belt. "We there yet?"
_Definitely Kurt's daughter._
*
Pietro cracked open an eyelid. Kelly was blithering idiotically to his left, and he shied away from the older man, edging to the very brink of the couch. But Kelly was persistent, if nothing else, and bombarded Pietro - and anyone else listening - with questions and babbly, half-finished sentences.
"So, you're all mutants? Every single one of you? Jeez, talk about feeling outnumbered. And you've all been living in Bayville this whole time? Well, apart from the obvious. So you really come from the future, young man? I can hardly believe it, but then, who am I to dispute evidence like *this*? If there are mutants in the world, then why not time-travellers? Makes perfect sense, if you think about it properly...." He went on. And on. And on, and on, and on, until finally, Pietro could stand it no more.
He levered himself to his feet with a grunt and pushed through the circle of 'guards' towards the door.
"Hey!" exclaimed Bobby as he was rudely shoved aside, crashing into Jamie and producing several clones. "Aw, man!"
Kelly squeaked as a clone fell across his lap and looked sheepishly up at him. "Oops, sorry mister."
Kurt watched as Pietro went to leave, and chewed the inside of his cheek. He didn't want to leave Kelly, just in case, but he didn't want to abandon the new recruits to run after the blonde boy. With Ororo out of the room, he was senior team member, and responsible for them all. So instead he settled for yelling. "Hey, Pietro, where are you going?"
"Away," was the brusque reply, and Kurt blinked.
"But aren't you gonna help us to safeguard Principal Kelly? We need every available hand to - "
"Seems to me you're doing a bang-up job on your own," Pietro sniped, cutting him off mid-sentence. "You'd better attend to your teammates, Fuzzy. They need you. I don't."
Kurt was puzzled, but could see the warped bit of sense in Pietro's words, and duly set about rounding up the stray clones and arranging them to form a sort of barricade in front of Kelly's legs.
Halfway down the corridor, Pietro stopped. He leaned heavily on the lavishly decorated wall and sighed, letting his scowl slip and easing his facial muscles out of the frown he'd schooled them into. Talk of Wanda and his father's experiments had unsettled him more than he'd thought they ever would. Or could. He wasn't sure anymore. Especially that geek, Xavier. Never trust bald men. Especially bald men who could read your mind like an open book.
Pietro was a privacy fiend by nature, and didn't take kindly to his thoughts being read by someone who'd been an enemy of Magneto since before the master of metal even *had* children.
Children.
Plural.
The reality of what was going to happen hit him like a ton of bricks.
Wanda was going to come here.
He had no doubts as to what would happen then. He still remembered her screaming revenge at him on the sole occasion he'd gone to visit her in the asylum. Her face had been wild, dirty, and her hair a mass of spikes and troughs that lent themselves to the madwoman persona. She'd only been a little kid at the time, but they were alike enough for him to know that his twin bore grudges the size of Calcutta. If what those Neo-X-Freaks had said was true, and Wanda *did* have enough power now to beat this 'Smash' dude, then it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility that she'd try to use them on her brother first. In fact, it was almost a certainty.
The mutant also known as Quicksilver blinked as he came to an unsavoury conclusion. Far be it from him to run from a fight, but if the Scarlet Witch was going to come here, then here was exactly where he didn't want to be.
He straightened up and started walking down the hallways with unnerving accuracy. He'd been inside this Institute before to deliver a note to Nightcrawler, and remembered running past another exit to the back of the building. Once outside, it'd be easy enough to avoid the automated defenses with his speed. Hell, he'd done it before and lived to tell the tale, hadn't he?
"So that's it, huh?" The husky voice caught him by surprise, and he faltered. "You're just going to leave."
Pietro swivelled his head to see a slender figure framed in the corridor, arms folded and eyes narrowed at him. He squinted, unable to see who it was until she obligingly walked forwards a little.
Nicole Pryde stared blankly at him, expression inscrutable. He'd almost forgotten about her. Damn it.
"They don't need me here, and I don't need to *be* here. Bad for my health."
"Running away from your sister?" Her tone was flat, and her bluish-green eyes remained lifeless and dull. She seemed a most uninteresting person to talk to, even though she hadn't said a word to him or the rest of the Brotherhood since they arrived at this kooky joint. In fact, this was the most she'd said in a single sitting, period.
Pietro folded his arms defensively. "I'm not running away. I'm protecting my health."
Nicole said nothing, but her eyes never wavered. It was more than a little unsettling to be stared at so, and Pietro found himself feeling uncomfortable under her intense gaze.
"What're you staring at? Have I got food between my teeth or something?" Still no answer. "Jeez, you're a fountain of conversation, aren't you?" Nothing. Not even a flicker or blink. He gave up, and turned to leave again.
"I'd kill to see my brother again."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard."
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said. He died a long time ago. Killed in an experiment at the research lab where they kept us. He wasn't even my true sibling, just a half-brother, but I'd kill to get him back." Her face was fathomless, her tone bleak. She didn't sound bitter, but more like she was merely stating a fact, like what you need to get from the grocery store, or that you need to put gas in the car. Mundane.
Pietro frowned. "And this has *what* to do with me, exactly?"
She shrugged. "Your sister's been locked away a long time. Perhaps she'd feel the same way."
He snorted. "Pfhhhrt! Wanda? Yeah, right. More likely she'll try to blow my head off the moment she walks through the door. And since I'm kinda attached to my skull, you'll understand why I'm not all that keen to run to her with open arms." He took another step, turning his back on the enigmatic mutant.
The next thing he knew, she had him in a choke-hold and pressed with his face against the wall.
"Hey, what the - "
"Do you know what they did to my brother?" Nicole whispered softly, her tone almost gentle despite what she was doing. "They cut him open, from tail to tip. Wanted to see what made him tick. The anaesthetic they used was shoddy, though, and they didn't want to spend out money on lethal drugs. Guns were messy, since they wanted the body intact to study. Likewise lasers. So, instead, they knocked him out and let him bleed to death on the operating table. I watched them do it, right there in the middle of our cell cluster."
Pietro choked. "I'm sorry, but I really don't see what this has to do with me or Wanda, and you're seriously hurting my neck."
Nicole's grip didn't let up, and she leaned in close to whisper in his ear. "A wise man once told me, you don't know what you've got, until you don't have it anymore. I never really understood him until I lost Joshua like that." Then she released him, and Pietro stumbled to hit his nose on the plaster with an angry curse.
"What the hell was that for?" he demanded hotly. "Look, I'm sorry about your brother and all, but what do you expect me to do? Just because you lost him doesn't change my relationship with Wanda none. She hates me, and I know it. She - "
"Do you hate her?"
"What?"
"Do. You. Hate. Wanda?"
Pietro paused, face troubled. "I - no, not really. I don't *hate* her. Not the same way she hates me, anyway." He squinted at Nicole thorugh one slitted eye. "Who are you to ask me personal stuff like that, anyway? I don't think it's any concern of yours whether I greet my psychopathic twin or not."
The powerless mutant folded her arms again and closed her eyes, leaving herself ostensibly vulnerable to atack. But Pietro got the distinct impression that nobody could sneak up on her, despite what she looked like.
"I'm the result of a forced coupling between the mutants known to you as Kitty Pryde and Todd Tolensky. I never knew my parents, so their identities meant little to me before I came here. Family wasn't something I concerned myself with, since I didn't have one. Not since Josh died. Then I met Josh's father on the outside. He was the wise man I spoke of, and made more of an impression on me than all my teammates put together. I only met him once, but it was enough. He was an escapee like me, but a loner. To this day, I don't know what happened to him. But I rememeber what he said. You should too." She spun on her heel and stalked slowly back the way she'd come wihtout a word more, leaving Pietro feeling disoriented and confused after their brief audience.
Nicole stopped, and threw back a comment that made him freeze in his boots. "He looked just like you, by the way. Josh. Like father, like son, I suppose." And then she was gone.
Pietro's jaw dropped as he watched Nicole stalk further inside the mansion.
His son.
The fucking bastards killed his *son*.
Or they would, if everything went the way Susan said it was going to.
He hadn't had a vested interest before this. He just hadn't cared. Sure, the threats of camps and whatever held his interest - for a while. But now...
He had/would have a son.
And they'd kill him.
Pietro fell to his knees. He hadn't even met a girl he wanted to be with, yet, and he'd lost his son.
He *knew* he was going to be a better father than Magneto was. Hell, it couldn't be hard. All he had to do was hang around.
Whatever happened, good or bad, he was going to be a good father.
And the first thing he'd do was make sure his son would survive.
If there was one thing Pietro Maximoff knew, it was how and when to get out of the firing zone.
{Zwip} He was back in the Rec Room. "What if we move Kelly to another state? I mean, I can run at Mach 2. There's no way psychoboy could follow us, right?"
"Guess again," said Ricky. "He's the Phoenix. He can make a wormhole between star systems, he can certainly make one between Bayville and Utah."
Pietro sighed. "Rats."
*
"Charles?" A brown-haired woman in a white labcoat came striding out of the tall square building that could only have been Muir Island Research Centre. She held a white clipboard in the crook of one arm, and gestured rapidly at the cluster of teens plus wheelchair-bound man exiting from the jet that had asked for clearance to land on the island's runway not ten minutes ago.
Charles looked up and smiled. "Moira. Good to see you. You're looking well."
Moira MacTaggart rearranged her steel-framed glasses on the tip of her nose and advanced on her old friend and colleague. "What brings ye to Muir Island? Ye didna say ye were coming for a visit."
She was unexpectedly interrupted by a bounding brown shape that leapt from the mingle of teens behind Xavier and rose up to lick her face. Moira very nearly dropped her files in surprise.
"Surprise," cried Rahne, slipping effortlessly back into her human form.
"Rahne?" If possible, Moira was even more confused now than she was before. "What - Charles, what's going on here? Why've ye brought all ye students with you? And ... this gentleman."
"Delighted to make your acquaintance," Beast greeted, shaking her hand and blushing slightly at how big his palms were compared to hers. "My name's Dr. Hank McCoy."
"Charles, what on *earth* is going on?"
"Well - unless we stop certain events? Quite possibly the end of life as we know it."
"Again?" said Moira. "I thought we went through all this with Kevin... Is something wrong with his therapy?"
"Therapy, Charles?" said Beast.
"Later," Xavier promised. "No, this is something more complicated. Susan?"
Susan stepped forward. "We need to -er- 'borrow' Kevin for a while. If we don't, there's a high likelihood that our future will come to pass."
"What the bloody hell are you talkin' about?" said Moira.
Susan rolled up her left sleeve. There was a number on her arm. "My name is Susan Walkingbird[1]. I'm from the future. More precisely, a future where mutants are bred in captivity and used for weapons or medical experiments. This future is made possible by the death of Principal Edward Kelly sometime tomorrow afternoon - and the subsequent discovery of anti-mutant documentation in his office. That starts a chain of events that results in our kind being the new slaves of humanity. We need Kevin to help kill that future."
Moira stared at her. "Ye woh?"
"Please," said Xavier. "We don't have much time, Moira. We need Kevin's power of reality manipulation to help defeat a threat from the future."
"Yeah? And who might that be?"
"David Wagner. Kurt's son by a forced breeding experiment. He's bonded with a celestial avatar called the Phoenix. Kevin's power can at least equal that power."
*
Meanwhile...
"Ricky? Are you all right?"
"...not really. Th' inhibitor drugs are finally wearing off... I feel all - Oooooohhhh..."
Kurt knew about potential powers. With Scott and Jean for parents... "Maybe we'd better take you for a walk outside, ja? Clear air to clear your mind?"
"I'm dizzy," Ricky said as he rose shakily from his chair. "Like stuff isn't where it should be."
"We'll walk slow, okay?" Kurt supported Ricky under his elbow. "Sit on a bench."
"Sounds good," he blinked slowly and stumbled towards the door.
"Is that normal?" Kelly asked. "What happens when Mr. Wagner has to go to the doctor? Can you kill yourself with your own powers? Am I really safe here? How many of you *are* there?"
"Not really, he has a special doctor, maybe, I hope so, and we don't know," Bobby said patiently.
*
Moira shook her head. "No," she said firmly. "He has no control. He spends most of his time changing his furniture into random objects."
"Listen," Susan said, her tone demanding that such action be taken. "Right now, some of the others are on their way to pick up a very powerful telepath. She can help Kevin to focus."
"And do what?"
"David has time-travel powers, among other things," Susan explained. "We need Kevin's help to trap him in the present. Otherwise he'll give up trying to fight us and jump directly to the time where he kills Principal Kelly."
"Kevin manipulates reality on a molecular level," Moira said. "He can't affect another mutant's powers."
"But he *can*," Susan insisted. "Mutant powers are triggered by the X-gene, which is really no more than an unusual strand of DNA. DNA is a complex chain of four different proteins, arranged in a particular order. By altering the molecular pattern of the compounds, Kevin can rewrite the code, changing the X-gene into junk DNA, thereby canceling any abilities it created."
Dr. McCoy, who had been nodding along during the explanation, said, "That's *brilliant*."
"I'm not going to ask how you learned such things," Moira said to Susan, "but you are absolutely correct. Logically, at any rate. If your teammates return with this telepath, and if she can indeed help Kevin control his powers, then you may take him with you."
Susan grinned at the Professor. "Score one for the future."
*
"Feeling better?" Kurt asked.
The two mutants were sitting on a stone bench in the garden. A few birds were hopping around in the trees, and a steady flow of water made sweet music in the angel fountain.
"A little," Ricky said. "Everything still looks warped, though."
A light breeze played in Kurt's fur, and he breathed deeply of Ororo's gardens.
Ricky raised his hand and waved across the deserted grounds.
"What was that?" Kurt asked.
"I saw Nicole in the window," he said.
Kurt glanced around. "The Institute is behind us."
"It is?" Ricky blinked. "I see her standing there."
Kurt swung his legs over the bench and walked several yards towards the building. Turning back towards the other boy, he asked, "How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Two," Ricky replied, without turning around.
"*Cool*..."
*
The X-Jet, despite being such a huge craft, was undetectable to normal radars. It was also fast enough to make anything else in the air look like it was moving backwards. As a result, the trip from Muir Island at the tip of the Scottish coast some three hundred miles to the centre of England was relatively uneventful and smooth. Some might even call it boring.
Tabby was one such person.
"When are we gonna *get* there already?" she demanded of nobody in particular.
Nobody answered her. They'd all given up after the first dozen times. And the dozen after that. And the dozen after.
You get the idea.
Scott flew with unnerving accuracy, checking the scanners and manoeuvring the mammoth craft like a pro. Rogue sat beside him, mostly redundant, since he refused to let her handle the controls.
"Aw, come on, Scott," she pleaded, "Let me fly this hunk of junk for once."
"No way," Scott shook his head emphatically. "I have enough problems keeping Nightcrawler in check behind the jet's controls. Just for once I'd like to go it alone."
"Jeez, selfish much?" Rogue grumbled, and slouched in her seat. After a few moments she contented herself with adjusting the mirror set so politely above her seat, until their fearless leader told her to "Quit shining that thing in my eyes!"
Rogue growled to herself, and left off the mirror. She stared into it, watching Victoria, who was now centre stage in the glass after her meddling. The dark girl was staring out of the window, watching the world go by beneath them. One hand pressed against the glass, and her mouth had formed a little 'o' of wonder long ago that still had yet to leave her face. Rogue smiled, remembering her first trip in the X-Jet. It wasn't quite so momentous, since she'd been freezing cold, wet with snow, and worried she'd killed Scott at the time. Memorable for all the wrong reasons, so to speak.
Victoria twisted a little more in her chair as a flock of geese squawked at the passing jet. Rogue smirked, and, on impulse, released her own safety belt and went to sit beside Evan's daughter. _Can't be any worse than sittin' up front with control-freak-boy,_ she told herself.
"Hey."
Victoria looked up. "Hey."
"Mind if I sit here?"
"Be my guest. It's your 'plane."
Rogue slid into place. "Well, technically speakin' it ain't mine. Belongs to the Professor, although how he got it's a mystery to everyone bar Logan, and he never tells us nothin'."
"It's an impressive craft."
"Mmm-hmm."
Silence fell between them. The kind of uncomfortable silence where both parties are thinking of something else to say. Or at least, that was what Rogue thought until she looked up and saw that Victoria was staring out of the window again with ill-concealed awe.
Rogue took a moment to regard Evan's future daughter. It was ironic, really, that Victoria was so incredibly tall. Evan was always complaining about his height, and how stubby legs like his were no good for basketball. Victoria could probably make a shot from one end of the court to the other without anybody even coming close to touching her. Her skin-tight black catsuit accentuated her long legs something awful, and Rogue couldn't help but feel a little inadequate in comparison.
Her uniform wasn't really much different to that worn by the majority of new mutants at the Institute, save for the fact that Victoria wore no yellow 'x' emblazoned across her front. Or on any other part of her person for that matter. Instead, there was only the tiniest splash of colour in the shape of a small red 'v' below the base of her throat, which stretched about five inches downwards and then tapered off to a point. Her hands were bare, and her boots were black. Altogether, rather a monotonous outfit, really.
"Are you the team leader?"
The question startled Victoria, and she swung round. "Excuse me?"
"Team leader," Rogue repeated. "I kinda got the feelin' it was either you or Susan, but I couldn't decide."
"Oh. Yes, I'm team leader. Susan's a Technomage and great strategist, but not so good in combat conditions. I'm field commander for this mission. My Dad - Evan - is proper leader back home."
"*Evan's* leader of the Neo-X-Men?" Rogue's tone was incredulous, and Victoria laughed.
"Yes, well, from what I've seen here I can understand what'd make you react like that. Be assured, in our future, Evan's a very different person. Stronger. He has to be." He voice turned grim. "We all have to be."
The uncomfortable feeling was back. Rogue bit her lip. "Um, can I ask you a question?"
"Go ahead."
"How many of us survived. You know, into your future."
At once, the tall girl looked sad. "I shouldn't - "
"Please?"
She sighed. "Not many. Most original X-Men were drafted into the mutant breeding programme pretty early on by the government. As far as I can remember, only Dad, Forge, Avalanche, Iceman and Wolfsbane escaped. Plus the Professor, of course, and Wolverine. The rest of their respective teams were never seen or heard from again until we started the breakout missions a few months ago. Sometimes," she looked away, "it was easier not knowing what'd happened to them. We rescued several originals, plus as many second- and third-generation mutants as we could."
"How many was that?" Rogue's voice was breathy, and she felt like she was being strangled from the inside.
"Three originals in all. The ones known to you as Nightcrawler, Magma and Angel. The other gens... Well, you've seen them for yourself. Nicole, Mags and Ricky are all the survivors so far. Quicksilver broke out himself not long ago, but other than that, nobody. We're trying, but we're pitifully outnumbered. It's hard to fight an enemy that doesn't seem to have an end to it. They just keep on coming, day after day, stealing ten mutants off the streets for every one we rescue."
"That's... that's terrible." Rogue's eyes filled with tears, and she blinked them away, staring solidly at the floor until her emotions were more in check. The news of her own demise didn't sit well with her (_Understatement of the year!_) and she fiddled studiously with a piece of torn leather on the side of the flight-seat. "All those people. I can understand why you took the chance to come back here."
Victoria said nothing, and Rogue glanced up to see that she was staring off into space and fiddling with something around her neck. She didn't seem to be listening anymore, and was muttering something unintelligible to herself. Rogue was a little put-out, and squinted at the jewelry that had removed Victoria's attention away from herself. By craning her neck a little, Rogue made out a small gold ring, hung on a thin chain and looped about the taller girl's throat. It was insignificant - the kind of thing Kitty might wear - but she played and fiddled with it something chronic. There was an inscription on the outside, but restless fingers had worn the words away long ago.
Rogue suddenly had the distinct feeling of déjà vu. She could've sworn she'd seen that necklace before, but the exact location escaped her. Victoria was obviously very attached to it, judging from the way she held it close and stroked its smooth, metallic surface.
_Either that, or she was close to the person who gave it to her,_ the Goth girl thought wryly, their previous conversation making her wonder whether Victoria had received her trinket from a sweetheart lost to the future she was now trying to prevent.
It was, she considered, the kind of thing lovers exchanged. Tokens of affection - things she used to dream about in her more vacuous moments as a child. The kind of thing she'd long since resolved herself to never having herself. Boys didn't tend to favour girls like her, who didn't put out and generally made every effort to stay aloof and distant from the rest of the pubescent population. They preferred bubbly, outgoing types like Kitty or Jean. Either that, or they went solely for looks. Usually blondes, she'd noticed. The complete opposite to her own bi-colouring. Knockouts like Susan would probably have guys trailing at their feet the moment they stepped through the door of Bayville High.
Rogue started, sudden realisation hitting her with all the force of a runaway freight train. The memory of fingers trailing over a ring-necklace abruptly slotted into place, and she stared, open-mouthed at Victoria as several things suddenly made a lot more sense than they had before.
Tabby, evidently bored by both taunting Scott and filing her nails, saw her expression and snickered. "What's the matter, Roguey-poo? Cat got your tongue?"
Victoria jerked from her reverie at the other girl's words. Her head snapped up, and she met Rogue's gaze square on, before the Goth had time to hide or disguise it. The taller mutant dropped her necklace, but said nothing, cheeks reddening slightly.
Scott's voice abruptly rang out from the controls. "We're approaching the co-ordinates Mainframe gave us," he said, using Susan's codename in typical leader fashion. "Everybody better get ready."
A thought crossed Rogue's mind, and she frowned. "Scott, how much do you know about this place we're going to?"
"Just the location. Why?"
"Did you know it's a heavily-populated city, surrounded mostly by heavily-populated towns?"
"I think I remember Mainframe mentioning something like that, yeah."
"Scott."
"What?"
"Where the heck are we supposed to set the X-Jet down where nobody'll see it in a heavily-populated city?"
Beat. "Aw, crap."
Tabby sniggered openly. "Looks like our 'fearless leader' cocked up again."
"Boom-Boom, shut it," Rogue snapped, unfastening her belt and going to Scott's shoulder. She glanced at the map flashing up on the tiny screen and tapped a few controls. "There," she said at last, pointing to a likely spot. "We can land in one of those fields. Nobody'll see us there."
Scott peered at the spot she indicated. "Of course they won't, that's nearly thirty miles away from where we wanna be!"
"It's a city, Scott. This is the closest we can get without bein' seen and reported, thus negatin' all we wanna prevent. Do you know what'll happen if this hunk of metal's splashed all over the 6 o'clock news?"
Scott pouted obstinately. "How're we supposed to get from there to this Betsy Braddock person if we can't fly?"
Rogue tutted and raised her eyes heavenwards. "Wolverine left a couple of bikes stashed in back in case of emergencies. There should be enough for us to have one each. Betsy can ride with somebody when we pick her up."
"*If* she says yes - ow!" Scott cried out as she cuffed him upside the head.
"Stop bein' so negative! She'll agree to come with us," she turned away, then muttered inaudibly, "She *has* to."
Tabby didn't stop chuckling until Rogue stopped by her seat. "Come on, Blondie. We'd best get the bikes prepped to save time when we land."
"*Yes*!" Tabby stood up, punching the air, and stretched luxuriously, not unlike a cat. "Finally! Something to *do*! I was going stir-crazy just waiting around like this." Any qualms Rogue might've had about sharp hearing being a part of Boom-Boom's mutation evaporated at that moment. No way could she be that happy if she'd overheard what words had passed a few seats behind hers. Portent of your own death doesn't make you bubbly, to say the least.
The two vastly dissimilar girls made their way to the back of the seating arrangement and pressed the code that would let them further into the bowels of the jet; but Rogue paused as a dark hand jutted out and grabbed hers, yanking her backwards.
Victoria didn't have to say anything, her eyes were enough to claim Rogue's attention. "Blondie, go through on your own for a second. Things haven't changed that much, so you should be able to remember your way around. I'll be with you in a second."
Tabby raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows, but said nothing and did as she was bade.
"I saw your face," Victoria said simply as Rogue perched on the seat next to her. The Goth nodded. "I take it you've figured it out."
Rogue chewed on the inside of her cheek, averting her eyes despite herself.
"Does it bother you?"
Did it? She considered her response for a second. "Nah. After what you said about mutant persecution, I'm not getting' on any bandwagon that discriminates against other folk."
Silence. Then: "Thanks." A pause. "Even our own teammates have a difficult time accepting it. In our future, mutants have banded together to fight a common enemy, but that doesn't mean there's no prejudice left in the world other than anti-mutant, or anti-human." She grasped the ring again, running her fingers along the inside edge in a distracted manner.
Rogue watched, and asked, "Do you two... are you in..." She fumbled, not sure how best to phrase her question. In any event, she didn't have to.
"I love her," Victoria said without hesitating. "I'd do anything for her. This mission, it scares me more than a little. If we're successful, there's a chance that she may never be born. From what she worked out, I'm OK. Fate took a kinder role in my destiny than hers." She wiped at her eye, and for the first time Rogue noticed they were wet with unshed tears. "I don't want to lose her, but I have to take that risk. For the good of mutantkind."
Rogue didn't know what to say, so she said nothing. Eventually Victoria looked up and smiled the smile of someone on Death Row.
"You'd best go get the bikes ready before Cyclops blows a gasket."
"Uh... yeah." Rogue rose to go, eyes travelling to the floor and staying there. She searched desperately for something to say, something comforting, but this wasn't really her forte. Someone like Jean would've known what to do, and had a smooth word at the ready before Victoria even finished speaking. _But I'm not Jean,_ she thought ruefully, and not for the first time, either.
"Hey, Rogue! Get the lead out!" Scott yelled from the controls. He sounded irritable, as well he might. "We land in ten, and I don't like the idea of leaving Boom-Boom alone with our equipment. Go keep an eye on her."
Rogue's head snapped up, and she scowled at the back of his head. "A'right, a'right, I'm goin'. Jeez, impatient much?" Grumbling profusely to herself, she stalked to the back of the area and banged the code into the panel on the wall. It slid open with a faint hiss.
As she stepped through, Rogue chanced a backward glance at Victoria. The dark girl was once again staring out of the window, hand clamped about the gold circle around her neck. Rogue was suddenly struck by a sense of profound grief. She hadn't known any of the Neo-X-Men for long, but their story had touched her in a way nothing ever had before.
It wasn't pity. Rogue wasn't condescending enough to pity any of them. It was some emotion caught between sadness and determination, and was never ignited moreso than when she considered that lonely figure clutching at a meaningless trinket that signified both what she had, and what she stood to lose should they be successful.
_Would I be willing to make such a sacrifice?_
Rogue couldn't answer that truthfully. Not even to herself.
"Hey, Rogue. Help me to loosen off these straps, would ya?" Tabby's voice cut through the air like a knife, and Rogue turned to see her scrambling with the restraints on one of the small bikes Logan had stored in here for just such a need.
"What d'ya think you're doin'?" she demanded, running across.
Tabby blinked. "Getting them ready. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"
"By lettin' em loose before we've landed?" Rogue rolled her eyes and re-tightened the strap with a tug and a grunt. "I said prep 'em, not slide 'em across the deck to crush yo'self."
Tabby threw up her hands. "Well sor-*ry*!"
*
"I'm sorry, sir," said the orderly. "Wanda Maximoff's treatment plan has a very specific visitor list."
"You see Professor Charles Xavier on there?" Logan poked at the back of the folder the orderly was holding. "I work with him."
"I'm afraid affiliation with a permitted visitor does not amount to access," the orderly shook her head.
"What if I have a letter from him?" Logan persisted.
"Do you?"
"Hold on," Logan said. "I left it in the car."
"What car?" Todd whispered as they walked out of the building.
"There *is* no car," Logan sighed.
"Then what -"
Logan whirled on the small mutant. "*You* are here as back-up," he growled. "You are *not* to question my authority, or have any independent thoughts." He straightened up and turned to the rest of the group. "Red, get a letter."
"What?" Jean blinked at him.
"Half-pint, you got some paper?"
"Of course," Kitty produced a small notebook from her purse.
"And a pen?"
Wordlessly, Kitty handed over the requested implement.
Logan gave the pen to Jean and opened the book on the hood of a car that belonged to someone else. "Now, call Charles and get a letter."
Jean sighed. "I'm sure this isn't quite inside the rules." Obligingly, she bent over the notebook and extended her telepathic powers.
_Professor?_
There was no answer.
"He's too far," Jean said.
"Then just make it up," Logan instructed. "You've studied with him long enough; you know how he words things."
Shaking her head, Jean penned a letter.
*
"Amazing literary powers of hyperbole and pun-making," Jubilee said.
"Nah," Sam looked thoughtfully out the window. "Given his parents? I'm thinking a Medusa-power."
"Anyone who sees his face turns to stone?" Amara asked.
"Or spontaneously combusts," Sam shrugged. "Whichever."
"Is that possible?" Kelly whimpered.
"I think we're about to find out." Jubilee
pointed to Kurt and Ricky, who were slowly making their way back towards
the front doors.