Part Nine
The sound of muffled laughter came from Bobby Drake, who was munching on popcorn on a late night binge of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. The shadows of the darkened room danced as 'Demon Locust's Revenge' was happily skewered by the show.
He smirked at Torg's tasteless jokes, and paused for a moment to readjust himself on the well worn couch.
'It's about time I got to relax,' he thought to himself, 'but I'll feel like hell in the morning.'
The personal reprieve sent him spiralling into a bad mood as events earlier in the evening reminded him of exactly why Scott Summers held the supreme title of Finding Bobby's Very Last Nerve and Pouncing Like His Father Upon It.
Not even Gambit could piss Bobby off so quickly. Well, almost anyway.
Scott had wandered in about three hours before and informed him, for the second time, of the special practice session scheduled for the morning.
"Get some sleep, Bobby," he said the last time, "or you won't be ready for the sequence tomorrow."
And that's all it took. It had kick-started a nasty little fight between the two old classmates, ending with Bobby churlishly informing Scott that he was, indeed, a 'big boy', had 'been through much worse than yet another of Scott's training sessions', and had never seen Scott stop Remy from 'Cajun-style late night, every night marathons'.
At that point Cyke had pinned his lips together like some sort of school marm and angrily left the younger man to his much anticipated television show.
He placed the half-empty bowl of popcorn on the coffee table, carefully stood up and stretched his cramped muscles. He casually walked towards the doorway of the rec-room of the mansion, stubbing his toe in the process against one of the lamp-side tables.
"Ow ow ow!" He hopped on his uninjured foot, angry at the stupid furniture that he just knew was placed right there for the express purpose of slamming itself into his big toe. If he didn't know better, he would've blamed Jean on the table's attack, if he didn't realize somewhere in the back of his how utterly stupid that idea was.
"Mornin' Popsicle." Bobby jumped at the unexpected sound, not hearing anyone's approach. It was the voice of the only X-Man Bobby knew who could sound like a bear and a lion at once.
'Either animal,' Bobby noted, 'could easily maul a person if given the right provocation.'
"Hey Logan," he snapped back. "I was wondering when you and Psycho Girl were coming back."
"My name is Marrow, punk," a slightly irritated voice came from somewhere in the shadows behind Wolverine. Bobby hadn't heard her approach either. She stepped into the light slightly, an unmasked challenge on her face.
"Anytime you wanna readdress this issue, you can load up my personal sequences in the Danger Room," she said, as she retreated to the doors leading to the basement.
Bobby waited for a more hostile remark to land, but it never did.
Wolverine just smiled the grin that said too many things all at once: 'I know something you don't know, you're too stupid to figure it out, and everybody owes me a round of beer.'
Bobby set his foot back on the floor, ran his hands over his tired, bloodshot eyes and scratched his chest absently. He stared stupidly at Wolverine, who just smirked and dared with his old blue eyes: 'Ask. Come on, ask. You know you wanna know. You and Hank are the biggest gossips rivalled only by the firecracker, so come on Popsicle, ask!'
Bobby scowled, deciding the information wasn't worth his small if highly guarded self esteem.
"I don't wanna know," he confidently stated to the older man, who let out a bark of laughter and retreated up the stairs, presumably to his room for some much needed rest.
As Bobby sat back down, absently nursing his throbbing big toe, he wondered for the thousandth time about Logan's ability to somehow tame every woman he knew while he himself stayed such the premiere, alpha-fucking-male asshole.
_____
Scott mentally did his headcount, although he knew that only Marrow was missing, and took account of every person in the Danger Room. Every person, including himself, had suited up and presumably warmed up before walking, slinking, or dashing tardy into the practice session.
Jean was of course there, looking faintly worried as she glanced at Logan, but sending only puzzlement through her side of their telepathic bond. Her confidence in her husband shined through their link, though, and he felt his spine flexing tight into posture reflecting more pride in his beautiful mate than pride in leadership.
She obviously hadn't slept well the night before, but had yet to explain why to him. Dark circles filled hollows beneath her big green eyes, and he wondered what had kept her awake. The link flared briefly with the mental equivalent of a head shake that conveyed her meaning without words: Not now, love, wait til later.
He shrugged through the link as he gauged the rest of his somewhat fragmented team.
Ororo seemed regal as always, ready to face whatever sequence he was prepared to give her. Her eyes were cowled in expectation, and they were completely milky as she had already activated her weather powers. Although Scott had known her for years, seeing her without pupils or iris still unnerved the core of him that insisted she was a goddess, not a mutant like him, not the X-Man Storm as he was the X-Man Cyclops. He wondered if knowing her as a dear friend had intensified, rather than crumbled, that initial goddess view he could not have helped feeling all those years ago when the X-Men first met her.
His gaze next fell on Peter. The Russian had already activated his powers of organic steel, and seemed more like a soldier awaiting commands. That must be a trait he was picking up off of the wayward Bishop, who had taken off some months earlier on an errand for Xavier along with Psylocke and Warren. He scowled to himself. The Professor had only stated it was a simple errand, but what simple errands did the X-Men ever run for Xavier? And what simple errand took months?
His scowl only deepened as he glanced at more of his team. Gambit sat on the ground, shuffling a deck of cards with an air of indifference edging on boredom. Grudgingly, Scott knew if he looked closer, he would see telltale bags of insomnia under the Cajun's black, red-irised eyes. It was hard to feel any sympathy though, knowing Gambit had probably been out partying or something equally irritating.
Rogue stood close to Gambit, absently pulling and tugging at her green gloves, anxious to get the sequence started. Scott noted how Remy barely glanced at her this morning, which was odd, seeing as though Remy enjoyed his barbs with the other Southerner as much as he enjoyed his catfights with Scott himself.
If anything, Rogue looked protective of Remy, which was unusual considering Rogue usually assumed, along with the rest of the team, that Remy had been out partying, drinking, and womanising the night before. In fact, Rogue and Scott normally radiated the same irritation at the Cajun whenever he appeared as hung over or exhausted as he did right now, but Rogue was obviously playing mother hen right now.
Scott's eyes narrowed as he tried to study the Cajun a bit closer, wondering if Remy had been in some sort of trouble the night before.
It gave Scott nothing but a headache because Gambit noticed his scrutiny and grinned like a Cheshire cat with all the cream in the world. Furious, indignant anger flooded Scott for a moment unchecked, along with a good dose of anger at himself for worrying even for a moment about Remy Lebeau.
He decided to quickly assert the rest of his team and get the stupid program over with. He wanted to talk to Jean, who frankly looked like shit, a far cry from the normally statuesque, fiery Phoenix everyone, including himself, expected each and every morning. It was rare to see Jean ill or even pale, and Scott wondered if he could somehow convince her to sit this one out.
He glanced at Sam, who anxiously awaited commands with his gloved hands at his side. His farm boy innocence was easily discernable through his sweet demeanour, which despite its sometimes irritating qualities, was a welcome breath of fresh air on mornings like these. He just had a way of diffusing everyone's grumpy tempers as he had walked into the Danger Room, politely greeting everyone a good morning.
Next to him was Bobby, who - Cyclops noted - looked completely wiped, which would've been odd had he not known about the MST3k marathon the night before.
'Hope he doesn't get hurt today,' Scott thought absently, a fear he harboured for every team mate, if not a little bit heavier for Bobby. It didn't help his conscience any that he hadn't forcibly kicked Bobby into bed, but he knew Bobby had been right in his own barely concealed outraged way.
Bobby was an adult, even if he was stretching his teenaged years a bit thin. Jean sent reassurance through the link, and Scott glanced at his wife again. A small smile flitted through her tired face, and Scott felt his heart pull a bit.
He was absolutely certain she hadn't gotten any sleep the night before, and although he knew she'd protect herself just fine, he couldn't help but want to pull her out of the sequence. He knew he'd never be able to find a justifiable excuse, though, and Jean would never allow it.
He sighed. No one ever listened to him.
And speaking of people who hardly listened to his warnings, there was Logan, who didn't bother to hide the air of ferocious anticipation. His wiry hair seemed to be pointier than usual, reminding Scott of a rather large wolf whose senses had been pricked. He wondered absently if he would play team mate today, or if he'd simply slash around unchecked and unheeding.
His entire team stood, wary or tired, anxious or stoic, waiting to hear another of his trademarked Fearless Leader speeches.
"The sequence we're running today is of particular interest to myself and the Professor," he began, "so I hope you have all warmed up sufficiently and have rested up for this."
Bobby groaned theatrically and loudly, and Scott ignored it, although he sent a look of mild irritation his way.
"Anyone who is unable to complete this training program will be placed on immediate probationary status, followed by a period of extra testing from both the Professor and myself. It's that important, people," he finished.
Most eyebrows were raised, but no one challenged the rules he set, and if anything, Wolverine seemed even more honed to start the program. That would make him harder to accept commands, and wilder than usual. He muttered curses under his breath directed at no one in particular and everyone all at once.
"Phoenix, myself, Gambit, and Wolverine form Gold Team. Storm, Colossus, Rogue, Iceman, and Cannonball form Blue Team. Beast will monitor from the Perch with the Professor and Dr. Reyes. Any questions?" Scott glanced at his team mates, ready for the inevitable question.
"Yeah, where's Marrow," chimed Bobby. "I saw her last night so I know her bony butt is sleeping in."
"The Professor and I felt this sequence should be run without her," replied Scott.
Every team mate in the gathering seemed to greet this news with an air of guilty satisfaction, except for Jean and maybe Sam. He wondered if the team thought it was because Sarah was going to be leaving the team, or something to that effect.
~She doesn't know we're using her program this morning, does she?~ Jean sent to her husband.
~No, but she will see the vid of it,~ he sent in reply.
Nodding slightly to the Perch, Cyclops tensed as the Danger Room shimmered and shifted. The walls disappeared to form a desolate scene. The new sky above the X-Men was a beautifully dusty pink, serving only to disorientate the entire team as they examined the rest of their surroundings.
The ground beneath them crunched uncomfortably with each step each X-Man took, and their ears seemed to reverberate with the unsettling sound of insect exoskeletons being crushed beneath their uniformed heels. There was no vegetation, only a thin layer of crusty, crinkling dirt. Far off into the distance, Bobby noted a beautiful sunset taking place, and he shivered as the temperature began to rapidly drop in the Danger Room simulation.
Dark gray mountains formed in the distance, miles away from the desolate plateau they stood upon. After a quiet command from Storm, Sam blasted into to the sky to gain a birds eye view of the landscape, and his eyes widened as he realized they were on the plateau of a tall hill.
A very tall Hill. The realization clicked through Sam's face even as his jaw hardened and teeth set. Scott didn't need any telepathy to read Sam's thoughts: he was angry and confused.
Scott glanced at his entire team once more, noting everyone's expressions as each took in the bleak scenery. Ororo glanced once more around her, then took the skies after Sam; she did not seem to revel in the air as she usually did. Her face was scrunched in distaste, matched only by Rogue's scowl directed at her erstwhile lover.
Remy's face was completely pale, and his hands shook a bit as his bo staff retracted. He hid his sudden anxiety well, but Jean took note of it in her mind, and Scott knew his wife was determined to talk to Gambit later.
'When did Jeannie start to know more about this team than I do?' he thought sullenly, feeling threatened for a moment. The moment passed quickly, though, as a nasty beast suddenly loped from the top of a curved hill, detracting his attention from Blue Team members immediately.
He began quickly giving orders to Wolverine, who had already begun a pre-emptive strike, and placed himself near Jean, just in case.
Meanwhile, Bobby really hadn't noticed anything special. Wolverine was taking out the beastie and he was just so tired he didn't feel much alarm. It was hard to feel any real alarm anymore, after all the monsters he had faced throughout the years. The Canadian had already taken out the dinosaur-looking monster before Bobby had finished his yawn.
He absent-mindedly iced up to counteract the sudden chill he felt, yawning again as he did so.
Scott turned for a moment, quietly scanning the area for anything else, saw some weird monster crawl through a tunnel suddenly appearing behind Bobby, but before he could shout a command, a warning, anything, it was already too late.
"Iceman!" shouted Storm, and Sam immediately propelled himself towards the older man. He was just in time to forcibly wrench him from the monster's death grip on Bobby's head.
Cliched as it was, Sam couldn't help but think, 'Bobby never knew what hit him.'
____
Sarah sat in the medlab, eagerly awaiting Bobby's awakening. Her legs were happily swinging from the edge of one a Shi'ar healing table and she was currently enjoying just watching him sleep.
The spectacular purple bruises around the crown of his head was an enjoyable site as well.
She snorted. He had known there was a practice that morning, and he had chosen to waste his time in front of the picture machine instead of preparing. No wonder her Hill program had disengaged him from the sequence almost immediately.
She wasn't by any means an expert at programming, but she was a quick study. After months of some of Scott's favourite exercise techniques, followed by several rundowns of Cable's favourite programs with Sam, Sarah had been able to encompass some of the less orthodox training methods designed for one purpose only: take out the unsuspecting, the unprepared, or the unappreciative.
It wasn't that she thought Bobby or anyone else was a weak team member; if anything, her attitude towards all her team mates was that of detached analysis.
She thought to herself, 'Should Jean fall in battle, everyone without exception or reason would subsequently go ape-shit.
'If Scott got injured, Jean would go Dark Phoenix and then everyone would just have to duck and cover.
'If Storm bit the big one, Remy would probably lose his damned mind for a while, and if Remy ever died in whatever circumstances, Rogue would probably manifest some weird new mutantcy, most likely that of learning to control her current one. Bright Lady knows it'd be the only ironic thing left for Rogue in that damned poisoned relationship.
'And if Wolverine fell in battle…well hell, that hadn't ever happened and most likely never would happen. He's held the "Surviving The Best Which Means Better Than You" title for so long if he fell in battle everyone would just wait for that healing factor to bring him back from the dead.
'Even me,' she noted absently as details of their last three months together flew through her mind. As she stared at Bobby, though, her face hardened.
'And then there's Bobby. The one everyone is expecting to kick the bucket 'cause he's the one that wouldn't see it comin'. Idiot.'
She stared at the older man's face, thinking it looked younger than her own. She knew his potential, she knew his strength, but above all she knew that he would never know any of that himself unless he was pushed to an edge and forced to jump.
She'd seen that edge, only once, when she had first met him and the Healer during the mess that madman Bastion had created. And he had been magnificent, worthy of his name and his place within the X-Men. She found later that she had to remind herself of that time often, especially when Bobby saw fit to pull stupid stunts like this.
She thought of Bobby in much the same way now as she had then: potential, not raw or undeveloped. Just chained behind every imaginable mental trap he set up for himself, never allowing himself to change and grow, unless something really nasty occurred.
It always happened like that anyway. She'd noticed that for the X-Men, whenever anything really dire occurred, someone would pull a miracle or a serious vengeance out of their ass to save everyone else from the fire.
'I'm sick of his little boy shit.'
She hopped off the table and walked purposely to the sleeping man before her. She reached over and slapped his face hard and was rewarded with two fittingly ice-blue, if bloodshot, eyes instantly trained on her brown ones.
"Get up, pretty boy," she growled unforgivingly.
He moved his head slightly and winced; he managed to ask, "What happened?"
"What do you think, Popsicle? You weren't ready, you got creamed."
"And I suppose you're here to rub it in," he said sullenly, a headache taking full precedence over any other of his suddenly pressing bodily functions.
"Grow up," she replied, "I'm here to help you."
That got an incredulous stare out of the man, and he narrowed his eyes.
"I don't need your help," he said, "and even if I did, I wouldn't ask for it."
She smirked, having expected something to that tune.
"That's your problem, but you aren't going to be put on active status again until you are able to defeat my Hill program. And I'm the only one that's willing to show you how to kill it."
And with that, the detected the instant rush of anger radiate from Bobby in ice cold waves.
"Get Scott in here, now, and leave me the hell alone," he said viciously. With her last words, all Bobby could think of were the near dozens of people the girl before him had killed during her leadership of Gene Nation. It left his blood seething; he wanted absolutely nothing to do with her.
"Anything you say, Bobb-o."
She left, a happy bounce in her step. It felt good to have the upper hand in her life, once again.
-----
Part Ten
"I can't believe you," Bobby started, but Scott did not reply. He just stood in front of his slightly-younger team mate with a sad look in his eyes. Bobby interpreted it as pity, and his anger intensified.
"I cannot believe this!" he shouted, and that statement got a response from his team mate and leader.
"Shut up, Iceman," he said quietly and surprisingly without any menace. Had he been his son talking, a forceful attitude would have dominated the entire room. But Cyclops was not his son, so his face was just a familiar stone wall; he was the emotionless leader Cyclops, so reliable in battle and in loyalty, so hard to reach when behind his stone wall. Iceman's head began to ache harder.
"Suit up after you've warmed up, and make sure you're really warmed up this time. Marrow is waiting for you in the Danger Room. You have half an hour." And his leader left.
----
When he arrived at the Danger Room, he stared at the console informing him that a session was already in progress. He made his way through the elevator which took him into the Perch, and quietly let himself through.
Marrow sat at the controls, and her gnarly red fingers flew rather gracefully over the keys. She nodded once to him as he sat at the empty console seat by her side, and looked down at the scene below him.
"Betts and Bish are back," he said inanely, and Sarah gruffly told him to shut up. Irritation filled him as he received his second reprieve of the day. As he looked at the program, he recognized it as the one that had beat the shit out of him the day before, and with more than wounded pride, he saw Betts and Bishop quite frankly having a great time in it.
They were almost playing with the program, rather than instantly defeating it. He snuck a glance at the program's author, and found her sweating a bit. Her fingers flew over the keys, sometimes hitting deletes as she keyed the commands she felt most accurate for the team mates on the ground.
But Psylocke and Bishop were old pros at these games, and when the ninja woman decided to use Bishop's outstretched hand as a launching board for some strange airborne attack, Marrow simply sighed and keyed the program to end. The two had not only beaten the program, but they had spoken clearly to the programmer in the most sarcastic of ways. She would have to work harder on the program if she wanted to see the program beat these two.
Betsy's laughter tinkled silvery through the speakers, and Bobby though he saw Bishop smile. Although he knew it wasn't fair to think such thoughts, Bobby was certain the laughter was directed at him and his now seemingly spectacular failure.
"Do you know why they beat it so easily?" she asked him, and he thought she was actually looking for his opinion. He opened his mouth to say something, but she glared at him. His third reprieve.
"No, I don't," he said tersely.
"They adapted," she replied, and stood up. He didn't quite understand what she meant, but she didn't seem to want to elaborate. She stretched her back languidly, dropped her arms to her sides and gestured grandly towards the door with a grin.
"Ladies first," she cackled, and he moaned inside. A smirky Marrow was a sneaky Marrow, and his headache increased. On the outside, though, he was at least careful to keep his face a mask.
---
They met Psylocke and Bishop on their way out of the Danger Room, and Marrow seemed a little embarassed. She neither looked at them nor said a word, and that was unusual for her. He also noticed that neither Bishop nor Psylocke had broken a sweat.
Without a word, Bishop passed, and Iceman saw he was going to the elevator, and he realized the typically stoic mutant was heading to the Perch. He groaned inside again, and Psylocke 'heard' it. She couldn't help herself. She smiled and sidled over to get a good look at the bruises crowning his head.
"Well...Robert. Purple," the word was a purr, "is a brilliant colour for you," she completely. She even lifted a well manicured finger to touch one of the bruises near his left temple. He jerked away in reflex, equally disgusted with her as he was with himself. She turned her face to look at Marrow, and her smirk deepened.
"Really, it wasn't bad," she said unrepentantly, and Marrow shrugged towards the ninja.
"Still learning," she replied, her eyes boring into the older woman's, and the psi shrugged, far more elegantly. Psylocke turned her face towards Bobby once again, and reached out to condescendingly pat the man's cheek. He shoved her hand away from his face, which he instantly regretted as she let out a bark of laughter.
She regained her cool composure in an instant and said, "Good luck." Her voice glided soothingly, as though she really meant the words, and she smiled sweetly at Bobby.
"We're waitin' on you," reminded Marrow, her voice prickly as a burr. Psylocke nodded once, stepping away in an almost balletic movement and went the path Bishop had already gone. Bobby realized tables had turned and both victorious team mates would be fielding the program against Marrow and himself.
'One manipulative ninja, one trigger-happy ex-cop from a future, and a psychoatic murderer, all wanting to see me fail,' Bobby thought to himself, and he felt his emotions slip into an air of defeat.
"Why do you do that?" Sarah asked, as she noticed his entire demeanour become compliant and resigned. Even his posture seemed to indicate failure.
"Do what," he replied sullenly.
"That!" she crowed in triumphant examination, and she went so far as to poke him in the chest. She leaned into her single finger against his chest. Her eyes narrow as she said, "I'm *not* going to let you fucking fail again. Not when my ass is on the line too."
His light brown eyebrows shot up in surprise, and as he looked down at the long finger, his chin pressed hard against his neck. He reached down in plain disgust but to his credit, delicately tried to move it. She shook her head and poked him again, this time harder.
"I'm not about to let that bitch beat me at anything, do you understand? And that includes letting her beat you." Her voice was close to that angry edge, and with that she removed her finger. "And just as a word of advice, the sooner you decide to start thinking the same way, the sooner you'll beat the Hill."
"I don't want to start thinking like you, or her for that matter," he growled, and she snapped at him. Her patience skyrocketed past its limit and her temper flared.
"Then you'll fail again," she sneered, "and you'll have no one but yourself to blame. I've told you twice now how to win this stupid program, and you won't listen. Teaching time is over, Iceman. Time to prove why you belong on the team and I don't."
That pulled him out of his self-deprecating attitude and hot anger fuelled his drive. No one, but no one doubted his place on the team he had helped originally form. He was one of the Original Five and no one, least of all some disgusting sewer rat who currently had extra teeth growing out of her top lip, would change that. It was nearly too much to bear, and his eyes flashed angrily. He didn't know it, but he had iced up.
She looked up and down his uniform appreciatively in both of their anger, noting once again how utterly beautiful he was when he danced the edge of dark anger. His lips curled in disgust as he looked at her, and the veins in his neck stood out like the rivelets of clean clear ice she had seen for the first time last Christmas. He was so angry, so justifiably furious, that his eyes burned hot fire so unlike his mutant power, and he was utterly beautiful in the prime of his powers. Just like he had looked during the whole Bastion fiasco, when he had reached somewhere deeper than he had known and found strength in the darker emotions. She knew his powers would come when he feared for his or a team mates' life; she idly wondered something else as she watched the ice rivelets along both sides of his neck pulse madly.
Would the powers and confidence come when he was angry about his life, his heart rather than his life threatened? She smiled as though she knew a secret, like the satisfied mutant she was, and slammed her palm harder than necessary against the console. Her arrogance only fueled his already furious temperment, and she thought she felt snowflakes form on the ends of her curling hair.
She thought to herself, 'He has a chance now', and they both stepped into the program.
As the door to the Danger Room disappeared, Bobby took stock of their situation. Psylocke had placed them at the bottom of a stone grey, dead mountain, and the scenery was far too familiar to Iceman. His head pounded in time with his heartbeat, which had become erratic with both fear and anger.
The pink sky was threatened by grey windy rain clouds, and Iceman wished that Storm was with them. He nearly picked up one of his booted feet as he crunched against the ground, only to realize he hadn't killed some poor insect by mistake. The ground was just crinkly in that way, and he watched Marrow scuffle the ground with a purpose; she leaned down after a moment to study the ground, but he didn't see anything worth looking at. The ground beneath the top layers was a darker red clay colour, but that wasn't what she was looking for. After a moment she stood up again, and looked at the sky.
His defences went straight up and hers seemed to drop. She wasn't just ready for the environment; she seemed to relax in it. He couldn't understand it, but he didn't care. He would like nothing better than to see her die in the program, and the murderous thoughts frightened the tiny part of his soul that was still calm and rational. He paid no attention to that part, though, and the rest of his body longed to see her fail, to see her utterly and completely broken.
She sniffed the air and nodded approvingly to herself. If anything, she was pleased with the smell, while his own nose wrinkled at the stale properties and almost mouldy scent. He realized sourly that he hadn't noticed that yesterday, so tired and unprepared as he was. And Marrow just seemed right at home in the dismal place.
Marrow bounced once on her feet. "The winged-ones will be here in a moment," she whispered quickly to him, and she pointed at the ground. "So will the grave-diggers. Let's get up this Hill."
"Don't act so pleased about it," he said angrily, and she glared at him.
"Keep talking loudly, please," she hissed, "because that will bring a few more whole packs on us."
He snapped his jaws shut and she smirked. "See you at the top," she whispered as though she meant her encouragement, and it was the only moment Bobby ever compared the hideously featured Marrow to the sofly sloped Psylocke. She proceeded to rip two irregular backbones from her backside arsenal, her face momentarily twisted in pain. She bounced again on her feet, as though she was readying to dance with the mountain; instead, she hoisted her right arm high above her and slammed the sharp bone into the stone and dirt of the mountain side. Using her bones as hiking picks, she began to climb with a smile on her face.
'Too much effort,' he thought to himself, at the thought of actually climbing hand over foot up the mountain. He iced up and began to form an ice slide, determined to beat her to the top and finish the stupid program.
----
Long fingers stretched like spider's legs on the keypad. Betsy and Bishop sat quietly in the Perch, one hulking and the other tiny but full of sweet attitude.
"Let's see," she said, drawing out the last word, and her fingers keyed in a nasty command. She smirked but didn't say anything else as his eyebrow went up a notch. He keyed in his second command affirming her choice of attack, and they both sat back to watch their team mates-turned-opponents on the ground.
Both faces were gleaming with anticipation, although Bishop's was far more clinical than Betsy's.
As they watched the ground below, the wind picked up heavily in the program and tried to toss the wiry pink mutant back onto the ground below. The bottom of the mountain, which had thus far been the simple safe crinkly ground had become full of sinkholes.
Marrow glanced once down her back and gritted her teeth. The grave-diggers, as she had called them, had already come.
She was again lost in her memories as she scaled the mountain; she knew again that she had lost many of her Morlocks to the grave-diggers on the Hill. They were truly nasty creatures, pale grey and wrinkled, faces and bodies like moles. They tunneled through the ground and created open sinkholes which contained spidery liquid nets underneath the first layers of dirt in the hole. The nets were invisible and contained an enzyme which froze the muscles of the frantic victims, and the grave-diggers would take their time in slowly sinking their victims into the ground. Particularly nasty grave-diggers would eat their victims alive, while the spidery nets would keep the victims incapacitated and immobile. Her childhood nights were filled with screams, heard every night as the grave-diggers claimed more and more of the Morlocks. Towards the last few years, only a handful of Morlocks had remained, only to become Gene Nation.
She shook the memories from her head as she picked up her pace and began to scale the mountain in a controlled frenzy of a pace, all the while breathing in a practiced synchronized beat. Breathe, stab, pull, breathe. In, out, again.
As the wind picked up, sand flew around the mutants and only the outlines provided by the viewscreen in the Perch allowed Psylocke and Bishop to keep track of the two in the program.
Iceman had abandoned his slide, and upon a closer inspection by the moniters, a gravedigger had loosened the end of the iceslide from its normally tight ground base. The acidic enzyme in the sinkhole had already eaten away the base of the iceslide, making the slide dangerous to Bobby. The ground around the base of the mountain was full of sinkholes, and Bobby didn't want to risk falling from an unstable slide and into a virtual grave.
In effect, Iceman was cut off from using his patented slide, and he had contented himself to form small niches of ice in the mountain's side by which he would scale. He was ahead of Marrow by almost a yard, but it didn't mean much as Marrow knew exactly what she was doing and had been used climbs of this sort for years. Bobby's breath came out in small puffs of snowflakes, an effect which made the sky above him twinkle like cheap pink ice stone.
Neither mutant worked together, as seemingly planned before. It was self preservation to the end, and Iceman wondered to himself how much help he *could* be to Marrow within the constraints of the program.
After all, wasn't the program simply about the survival of the fittest? Isn't that what Marrow had always preached?
Psylocke narrowed her eyes in the Perch and increased temperatures in the program. Heat coursed through Marrow and Iceman as though they were in a desert, and the ice niches melted quickly enough to become dangerously slippery as footholds. Betsy keyed commands for the flyers, and waited Bishop's counter command. For his part, Bishop let the rockdwellers within the mountain loose. The wind picked up and blasted Marrow and Iceman, and in their moments of blindness, the rockdwellers attacked.
The first swarm attached themselves to Marrow's right arm. Bobby heard her shout his name, and he looked down in time to see a shiny black thing on her arm. It was moving around fast, and he realized it wasn't a single black shiny thing, but a ton of single, black, tiny things. He acted instinctively, and later he realized that his first thought had been to help Sarah. His body reacted with the mutant gift it possessed, and a blast of ice cold air, colder than any arctic winter, enveloped his teammate. He concentrated and built a delicate shelf of ice under her boots, attached to the side of the iron grey hill, hoping that despite the cold, she could feel solid ice under her feet. He gritted his teeth in keeping the heat of the programmed sun at bay, while he hoped Sarah's body could withstand the temperature enough for the swarm to die.
In the end, the swarm had been alive but too cold to move around on her arm, chomping away as they had been at her exposed skin. Sarah had almost been too cold to scrape them away with her free hand, but she knew she had precious little time before the next swarm arrived. Quickly she used a bone knife to scrape away most of the skin which had been the target of the creatures; the skin was white with pus and already swelling, and although it burned like hell, she scraped off as much of the skin from the infected forearm as possible.
She checked around her quickly and shouted to Bobby. "Rockdwellers are stupid creatures, but they'll adapt to your cold. The next swarm's gonna be pissed off at you."
He snarled at her and shouted back, "You're welcome, Sarah!"
She snapped, "If you'd just use your fucking powers, this would've been over by now!"
He stood, clinging to his precious ice niches, but found his brain blanked out under a fury of anger. "I *did* use my powers, you stupid psychopath! I just saved your life!"
She threw a bone dagger at him, and in dodging its aim at his heart, he had to let go of his grip on the Hill. He had enough time to yelp as he began to fall, but Marrow had grabbed his arm as he had fell past her spot on his ice shelf.
"Stop wriggling, you idiot!" she snarled at him, so close he could smell her breath. "Use your powers, or we'll never get out of here alive. Betts and Bishop aren't going to cut us any slack, and I want you to get us out of this now."
His face reflected the shock at his new position, dangling with only her firm grip on a his right forearm keeping him from falling into failure. He panicked for a moment, thinking of the gravediggers, but she tightened her grip without pulling him up. He flailed, trying to find purchase for his boots, but the shelf was wide enough and far enough away from the side of the Hill that he found nothing with which to help himself. He glanced and saw a million black eyes staring at him, and then he saw them make their way across the underside of the blue ice shelf. Those million glittering, oil-black eyes were fathomless, but somehow seemed so intent he realized the creatures were starving. And they were getting closer to his face with every moment. The sun beat down mercilessly and the ice began to melt, but the rockdwellers did not seem to notice.
"If you don't pull a miracle out of your tiny little whitey tightie ass, I will drop you. Five...four....."
He concentrated, but was too panicked to react.
"Threetwoone!" Sarah crowed triumphantly and released her hard grip on his arm, and he felt himself falling into oblivion.
----
"Wake up, Bobby," a familiar voice intoned. He didn't want to wake up.
"Fi' mo'mins...," he mumbled. Something shook his shoulder, and the pain woke him instantly. "Ouch! Dammit!" He sat straight up in bed, his sheet falling down around his waist. He was still in uniform, which didn't mean much. It was the ever-practical-in-battle, ever-embarassing-everywhere-else... what had Sarah called them? Whitey tighties?
His face blushed red and he stared at Jean's amused face. "I've seen it before, Bobby," she teased. He scowled a moment, unsure of what to say, realizing he didn't remember how he got into the Medical Lab. He looked around for Hank, who was nowhere to be found. That was odd, he thought, but Jean's voice brought him from his musings.
"Congratulations," she said quietly. He blinked, uncomprehending.
"I don't know... what happened?" He remembered depthless black eyes, staring at him hungrily, insanely. He shuddered and racked his hands through his coarse dirty blonde hair. He stared at Jean, openly innocent. For a moment, Jean recoiled.
"We... don't know, Bobby. You disappeared, the ice shelf became unstable and dropped Marrow." Her face was cautiously stoic, and openly searching his face for some sign of recognition. "Psylocke and Bishop found your signature on the top of the Hill, and you were unconcious. Without a scratch on you. The program shut itself down, before Marrow could hit the bottom of the Hill, and then we brought you here."
He stared at her, unable to explain himself or his actions. He didn't remember anything besides those damned eyes, and it frightened him. Then he remembered a cackling voice counting down his doom.
"She dropped me," he forced out of his mouth, "and you're telling me I flew to the top."
Jean returned his gaze levelly, and stated, "The professor and I scanned the vids. You didn't teleport, and you didn't slide up. The only thing we know for certain was that you wanted up there, so you go up there." That didn't make any sense. He didn't teleport like Kurt, and he couldn't just wish himself to a spot because he happened to want to escape bugs.
"That's impossible," he started, but she cut him off mid-sentence.
"That was the point," she said quietly, "and I think that's why Sarah dropped you. I don't think she realized your powers would've manifested themselves in that way, but I have a few theories." He leaned in, and she walked over to a screen and touched a few sensors.
"You don't just control temperature, Bobby. You control water," she said, "only you don't have a precise method of control. Cold comes easier, so you never experimented with heat beyond defrosting something. And that took so much effort, you don't do it much." He nodded once, remembering a similar conversation he had had with the Professor when Bobby had frozen Charles' wheels on his old wheelchair as a prank. Charles had made Bobby remove the ice with his powers in an exercise that proved near torturous for Bobby, as though every cell in his body was on fire. Charles had instructed Bobby to return every molecule of water into a vaporized state, into the original airborn state with which he had tapped into for his prank. He never attempted it again after the analysis Charles had given him concerning the pain factor of the experiment.
"I did fly," he said incredulously.
"In a way, yes. You were in your ice-form, and then you reduced your entire molecular structure into a vapor form, invisible to the naked eye. We couldn't even locate you on thermal scans of the vids, because just as you're a blank spot when you're in ice form, you were everywhere and nowhere in vapor form." Her face was a mask but her eyes showed her fear.
He shuddered with the implications. "Did I get all my organs back in their right spots? I don't even know their right spots," he muttered to himself, feeling the air grow cold as he shifted into a protective ice form.
Jean leaned down and gently hugged her friend, ignoring the freeze and eventually pulling back to hold his frozen face between her palms.
"Everything, as far as Hank can tell, is exactly where it's supposed to be," she said softly, soothingly. "You need to eat, because you've been sleeping for days. We were going to feed you through a tube today if you hadn't woken up soon." He looked at her in surprise, and she smiled. "Think you can keep something solid down?" She wasn't smirking, surely she didn't find this horrible situation laughable.
He looked down at himself, cool blues and clear ice, and immediately reverted to human form. "Yeah, I think so."
She left him a moment later in quiet solitude, but he didn't give himself much time to order his thoughts before he decided he needed air. The lab smelled of sterility, and he had trouble breathing for a moment. He swung his feet over his bed and grimaced to see that he really did only have his tiny speedos on. He couldn't bear the thought of icing up right then, though, and he walked to the elevator and found himself going to the top levels of the mansion.
An hour later, Jean found him contentedly sleeping on his back on the roof of the mansion, much in the same position as they had seen in the last moments of the vid. He looked peaceful, and since the night was warm with summer air, she floated a thin blanket from Ororo's linen closet in the attic and over his body. She looked at him a moment longer, feeling like she had tucked in her kid brother for rest. She did not fear him falling from the rooftop, and she realized she would never fear him falling again. Alarming though his manifestation was, it was simply the timing of the manifestation which had frightened them all.
'Is that what you do Sarah', the telepath thought to herself. 'Do you place our team into fear and instincts so that we can push our levels? Do you trust our abilities so much, or are you trying to individually break us?' Jean let herself sit next to Bobby, deciding to stay by his side for a few hours at least, just in case he had unpleasant dreams from his new experience. 'Or are you trying to decide if we're worthy of becoming your new family?' Jean Grey-Summers stared up at the stars and began to quietly meditate to calm her thoughts, just as Xavier had taught her when she had first met him as his student.
Another thought came to her as she tried to clear her thoughts in a pure meditation, and it was not her own thought. It was her husband, speaking to her through their telepathic bond.
~What if she just tried to kill Bobby?~ he sent quietly.
~We will have to watch and wait, my love,~ she sent back worriedly, but comforted in knowing that she was not the only one harbouring that very fear. She received the equivalent of a nod and a brushed kiss across her cheekbones, and then she resumed her post, taking the first watch to guard over the Iceman, her brother and friend.
-----
Part Eleven
The room was tense, and with every moment passing in which Scott ignored the rising fury of Marrow, the room seemed to shrink in size. Wolverine glanced a few times at the prickly Morlock, worried without letting it show in his features. Standing against the opposite wall, Sam wore a permanent frown, his arms crossed, and a few fingers tapping against his temple every now and then as though he was making the battle schematics himself. Pyslocke and Bishop leaned against one wall together, apparently still functioning as a partnership since their excursion together at Xavier's command.
"We'll enter the tunnels here at the old entrance," said Scott, "and the Blue team will enter here." He pointed at the far left-hand corner of the blue schematics, and Ororo nodded once in agreement.
"If the Dark Beast is really down there," Sarah finally said, her voice a scratchy defiant mess, "I should lead the Gold Team." Psylocke's perfectly arched eyebrow rose, partially in indignation and partially in surprise. Her and Bishop's side-mission had yielded data long-sought by the team, which had lead to this meeting in the War Room. Knowing what havoc the Dark Beast had perputrated had long been a thorn in everyone's side, and always without hope of immediate removal. Six long months of surveillance had finally ended the stalemate, and Betsy did not appreciate the skepticism that the Dark Beast may have once again eluded the X-Men.
Scott held her eyes for a moment, then abruptly shook his head. "I don't think so," he started, but Sarah cut him off again.
"I know those tunnels--"
"You hadn't lived there long enough to remember every--"
"I remember enough to know that without me, you'll slow us up and--"
"This isn't under discuss--"
"Fuck you and your discussion!" Marrow shouted. "This isn't about what you think or think you know. This is about trust. You have to trust that I know where to go and how to get us there, and you fucking owe me this." Her face was a snarling fury made vicious with the scars inflicted by her mutation. Her face was twisted in fury, and her placement across the War Room table and Cyclops seemed very small suddenly, mainly because of her arm gestures and the way she had suddenly planted herself at his opposition from around the table. She leaned against over her hands she had slammed down, her face a livid red, staring intensely at the leader of the X-Men, her team and family.
"We don't owe you anything, Marrow," Scott replied tightly, "and you're not leading the Gold Team."
"I know those tunnels," she said rationally, "and I know the traps in them. I know parts of those tunnels you won't find on any map, especially not those you got from the goddamned New York planning centres."
"That's why we need you on tactical here at the Mansion, so you can guide us through any nasty surprises." His voice was cold steel, and she bristled. For a moment, she stared at him hard, the anger so bitter she could taste her own bile. She swallowed once, and then said quietly, if no less fiercely, "You need me on the Gold Team. You'll need me to be there." She stared down at her hands, as if realizing she had repeated herself.
Scott stared at her with a mask that denied the pity he felt in his heart. The Dark Beast had created the Morlocks, and in a sense, had created the mess that was Sarah's life. He could not excuse Sarah's actions resulting from her harsh beginnings, though, and he would not risk the rest of his team to her unexpected nature when dealing in battle. Especially not this battle.
His voice stayed at the same monotone. "Denied. You will be placed on tactical, as backup for the Blue Team. I can't risk your...particular brand of dealing with this situation."
Her eyes were wide and her temper snapped. "You still don't get it, do you, you fucking idiot! You need me to be there as much as.... I need to be there. There, I said it," she said in a rush, "I admit it. I need to be there. I want to kill him and he deserves to die for what he's done to me, to you, and to the Morlocks!"
"What he's done to you, he will pay for, but not because I'll allow you to kill him. As for what you've done to yourself, that's not his price to pay, is it?" His voice went emotionless, and her head swivelled to take in the other teammates. Any compassion he had had to her pleas went cold. He stared at the woman in front of him, trying to keep his opinions of her past from coloring his opinions of her today. It was not easy, but a look from Jean convinced him to try.
"You're going to let him do this to me?" she asked them, taking the time to look every one in the eye if they met her gaze.
"Vote on it, Cyke," came a gravelly voice from behind a cigar the width of a fat man's finger.
"This isn't up for--"
"Scott," Jean said quietly, "Wolverine is right. If we're all going to risk our lives, we should all have a say on who comes, and who stays." Her eyes were strangely distant, however, as though she was battling a great weight in her mind.
~Even if you know she's going to be outvoted, Jean?~
~She needs to know that a romance with Sam doesn't equal trust with all of us,~ Jean sent back, and the rest of the team stood or sat in comtemplation.
Cyclops nodded once, then looked at each in turn.
"Storm?"
The woman who had become the leader of the Morlocks, supposedly the leader during Sarah's brief childhood, weighed her decision carefully. As a Morlock leader, she should have had the same questions concerning her professional attitude for this particular mission. The mantle of the Morlocks had never fit properly, no more so than now. Ororo looked down briefly at her hands, remembering how she had ripped Sarah's heart out of her chest, and how she had felt the necessity to kill her. Could she deny the same to Sarah, who arguably had more cause than any of them to demand the hunt for the monster? As a Morlock leader, Storm voted to let Sarah do as she wished to the Dark Beast and the mission. As the leader of the Blue Team, responsible for lives beyond her own, she could not make a decision in Sarah's behalf. It was all too easy to remind herself that she never wanted to be the Morlock leader, as once again she felt the weight of her actions against the Morlocks. Yet again, she had failed to be their true leader. A negative shake of her glistening pure white hair followed a look of pure sadness directed at Sarah.
Marrow held her gaze at Storm for a moment, and from Sarah's mouth could be heard a clenching noise. Her eyes narrowed and she slowly shook in response to Storm. "On your heart," Sarah sneered, and Storm's eyes widened. Cyclops ruthlessly plunged ahead through the short silence, taking in the next vote.
"Gambit?" He looked like he wished he was anywhere but sitting at his part of the table, and he took out his cards from a pocket somewhere in his battered trenchcoat. Without looking up, he lit a card, then unlit it. A nervous habit the Professor had once commented upon, when Gambit had first met him. He said to his cards, "Marrow should not lead d'Gold Team, but she should be in it."
A partial vote, but still in favor of her at least being part of the strike team. Sarah did not care whether guilt or hard calculation lead to his decision; the count was one to one.
"Wolverine?" A nod. He blew a ring of smoke into the air, but did not acknowledge Sarah. No one was surprised at his vote, considering that secret mission neither Sarah nor Logan had divulged to anyone but the Professor. The mission had somehow created a bond of understanding between the two mutants, and although neither were exactly friendly with the other, they no longer tried to kill each other on a week to week basis. She nodded once to him before turning to the next man. Hope filled her body, because the next voter was someone who meant a great deal to her, someone she could say she almost trusted. Someone who occupied her thoughts and her nights, and whose face had become more familiar than any other she had ever known.
"Sam?" Her voice broke at his name, and the pleading in her voice was apparent. She mentally kicked herself for being so weak even as she stared into his eyes, willing him with her mind to say yes. He walked over from the edge of a control panel lining one of the War Room's walls, leaned over the War Room's great table, and stared down at the maps and blueprints of the Tunnels. Some had been made from eye-witness accounts by the X-Men, some from Sarah's patchy memory, and others from archives of the New York City Planning. He stared at the maps, wishing not for the first time that he had listened to his mother's advice so many months before. Sarah needed a friend in this room before she needed a relationship with him, and he knew in his heart that she could have one in every person in the room. This wasn't about friendship or love, and he knew his vote. In any other fight, he'd want her by his side, but not this fight.
He looked up and stared straight at a woman who had become very important to him recently, someone he did not want to lose. He shifted his stance and his hands pushed up from the table to become knuckled fists. The room was sadly quiet, and all Sarah received from Sam was a reluctant negative shake followed by a plea around his eyes. From the way she turned her back to him, chaotic negative emotion swimming in her eyes, he knew she would not soon forgive him for his decision. If ever.
"Bishop?" Another negative shake. His face was impassive, a stone wall, but the vote was unsurprising.
"Psylocke?" The purple hair barely moved, but it was a shake. Sarah didn't allow herself to care, because she already knew she was outvoted.
"Phoenix?" The redhead took her time, staring at Sarah, then turned to her husband. She shook her head once and did not fidget after her vote.
"You already know my vote," Cyclops said quietly, and Sarah stood her ground for a moment, defiant to the entire team. She stared at him for a moment, and he continued his detailing of the assault plan as though nothing had ever interrupted him. Anger filled her, and an overwhelming desire to shout and scream.
Without a word, Sarah stood, her back straight and carriage erect. She patiently waited through the command sequences, burning Cyclops' plan into her mind. The moment the team was dismissed, she left the War Room without a word to her teammates. Her body language, however, shouted her emotions. Her entire backside had erupted with fresh bone growth, each protrusion ending in a razor sharp edge. Her neck was covered in blood from where the back of her skull had produced a few angry bone spikes. Her boot marks left light tracks of blood, and when Bishop returned a few hours later to review the mission maps, he noticed a small pool of blood congealing in the spot where Sarah had stood. He logged into the computer an extra hour of house-keeping for the room before leaving for his night-watch duty, unable to force himself to speak with her himself.
----
tbc
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