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Title: The New Mutants II, Volume XVII: Projects
Author: kanedax
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse plus other Marvel ‘verses
Rating: R for language, nudity, and sexual situations
Spoilers: Post-X3; New Mutants I & II (see above)
Summary: Ororo catches up with Franklin, and Logan catches up with Rogue
Notes: Plugging away. I don’t own the X-Men, 20th Century Fox, Marvel Comics, or Spuder-Man. But I will, probably the same time I buy Optimash Prime.
Previous Chapter (Secret Lair) / Next Chapter (Neutralized)
Franklin Richards felt himself pulled from a dream involving tacos, Final Fantasy XX, and a pool full of Converse sneakers by a hand shaking his shoulder roughly.
“Richards, wake up,” he heard Ororo say from a distance. His eyes peeled open, and for a second he couldn’t remember where he was. He looked around the room, which was dark and dank, and felt the hard cot beneath him, and remembered.
“What is it, Professor?” he asked, and before she could even say a word, he could feel the waves of accusation pounding into him from her mind. The thought that she was once again ready to accuse him of something that he probably didn’t do made him all the angrier that he had been awoken.
“What do you know about Weapon X?” she asked firmly.
“Weapon what?” he groaned, rubbing his eyes. His focus came to him, and he saw Peter standing in back, looking almost as confused as himself. Low moans surrounded him as the others awoke from the noise. Jono Starsmore stirred in his chair, since his metal chest plate wouldn’t allow him to lie down on a cot.
“Weapon X,” Ororo said. “What do you know?”
“Um, I don’t know,” Franklin snapped. “Nothing?”
“Can the attitude,” said Ororo, her arms crossed.
“Jesus Christ, I’m not giving an attitude,” he snarled. “I’m tired, I’m in a bad mood, and you woke me up in the middle of the night to ask me about something that I’ve never heard of. This is merely a reaction to your stupidity.”
“The United States government has a list of projects that had been worked on by a man named William Stryker,” Ororo explained. “Your name was on that list.”
“Never heard of him,” Franklin said. But something twitched in the back of his mind. Have I?
“You’re sure?”
Franklin ran his hands through his hair, his head on his knees. “I don’t know,” he said. “My folks may have talked to him once or twice, but I never met the guy. Maybe. Fuck, I don’t know, maybe I just heard one of you mention him and the name stuck. It’s striking a little bell, but only a little one.”
“You’ve never met him.”
“I don’t remember ever meeting him,” he said.
Ororo sighed, rubbed a finger against her temple in irritation. “Get up,” she said. “We need to check something.”
“Professor,” Franklin groaned, “Couldn’t I just sleep? I’m really tired. Running through Rogue’s head wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
“We need to check something,” Ororo repeated. “I want to make sure that you’re not carrying anything.”
“Carrying… What are you talking about?” he looked down at himself. “I’m in a t-shirt and boxers.”
“Go wake up Moira,” she told Peter. “And get Forge. I don’t know what kind of equipment Magneto and the Brotherhood have laying around here, but we need some sort of metal detector, or something like that.”
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re psychotic?” said Franklin, pulling on the pants he had been wearing when they arrived.
“I prefer to think of myself as driven,” replied Ororo. “And right now our main priority is protecting everyone in this cavern. I just want to make sure that you’re not getting in the way of that priority.”
“Fuck,” Franklin grunted as they left the room. “Just because you hate my parents doesn’t mean that I’m a bad guy, alright? I’m not some spy.”
“I never said that you were,” Ororo said shortly.
“Yeah, well, you’re thinking it,” Franklin replied. “I’m just as confused about all of this as you are.”
“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough,” said Ororo as they walked through the main room. “Mr. Parker, would you mind following me? Logan?”
“Um, sure,” Peter Parker said, turning with a raised eyebrow to Logan.
“Anything you need to know about Weapon X, this is your man,” Logan said. “He might be able to fill you in on this Defender thing, too.”
“I know, that’s why I’m inviting him to follow us,” Ororo said.
“Well, I’m mostly saying that I’ll just be dead weight in any conversation you big brains have,” Logan continued. “Everything I’ve studied the past few months, he knew most of it well before me.”
“Okay,” Ororo said, surprised. “We’ll catch up later, then.”
“I want to be there when we decide what’s next,” Logan said. “But I have a few things I want to take care of first.”
Peter Parker and Peter Rasputin crossed paths, Parker following Ororo and Franklin while Rasputin walked up the stairs. Mary Jane looked on uncomfortably.
“Excuse me?” she asked, raising her hand slowly. “Is there anywhere for us to sleep? It’s way past my daughter’s bedtime.”
Colossus nodded. “I’ll send Alison down before I head across to the other side,” he said. “She’ll show you where everyone’s bedding.”
“Is that the punk girl with the dirty mouth?”
“I have her CD,” May said sleepily.
“And you’re never getting another one after this,” MJ said sternly.
Logan put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Where’s Rogue?” he said. “I want to check on her.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed slightly. “She’s in her room,” he said. “Practicing.”
“How many rooms does this place have?” Logan asked. “You sounded like everyone was crammed together in one space.”
“Most of us are,” Peter said as the two walked up the stairs. “But there’s only so much room, so some of us have spread out.”
“But she’s here, right?” Logan asked as they came out of the mouth of the cave, where Alison and Kurt stood watch.
“Yes, she is,” Peter said uncomfortably. “But I don’t know if it’s a good idea…”
“Pete,” Logan said affably. “It’s me.”
“I know it’s you,” Peter responded. “But Rogue’s been through a lot in the past few days. She’s pretty unstable right now…”
“I can watch out for myself,” Logan said. “She’s already absorbed me, so I won’t be fucking up her powers or her mind. And whatever she does to me, I’ll heal.”
“I’m not talking about you,” said Peter. “She means a lot to me, I don’t want her to get hurt again.”
Logan chuckled and shook his head. “What, are you two dating, or something?”
Peter sighed and looked out to the ocean. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
“Hey, she’s a great girl,” said Logan. “She deserves a decent guy like you.”
“Thanks,” Peter said. “But I can tell you, I know how Bobby felt.”
“Are you two done yapping over there?” Alison said from the edge of the island. “We’re on a schedule, Cajun’s getting antsy.”
“When Kurt comes back, Ororo asked that you take the woman and her daughter to the sleeping room,” Peter told her. And to Kurt: “You can show Logan to Rogue’s room when you return.”
“Are you sure?” Kurt asked.
“Yeah, they’ll be fine,” Peter said resignedly. He put his hand on Kurt’s shoulder and Kurt, staring off to the shoreline with his infrared goggles, disappeared in a puff of smoke.
“Those two have been the definition of sexual tension since I got back,” Alison said to Logan. “Pete and Rogue, not Pete and Kurt.”
“Thank God for small favors,” Logan said, suddenly getting a picture in his mind that he wished dearly would disappear.
“Poor girl,” Alison said, shaking her head. “Can’t touch that big hunk of Russian man meat. I’d go insane.”
“How are you holding up?” Logan asked. “I’m assuming you came back after the concert?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Alison. “I’m as much on the wanted list as the rest of them. Lord knows what happened to my agents and all those bastards. I brought my buddy Rick with me. You’ll meet him, he’s decent folk.”
“Mutant?”
“Nah, just gay,” Alison said, forcing a chuckle out of Logan. “He’s a member of my band. Jumped into the crowd to find his parents. Got them out safe, and snapped his ankle trying to help out some others. I hauled him back with me hoping he’d get some high-tech care from Forge, or something.”
“Not so much?”
“Not so much,” she said. “We only had time to wrap an air cast on it before we went Splitsville.”
“How’d you get here?”
“Took the vans. With five of us in the big house we were still able to squeeze everyone in well enough.”
“Fuck,” he said, remembering the car still parked in the middle of the forest. “Where are they at?”
“The vans?” asked Alison. “Man, I don’t know. The Profs took care of them before they came across. For all I know, Kurt teleported them into the middle of the lake.”
Logan nodded his head. Not a bad idea, actually.
“So when are we making our move to get them out?” Logan asked, but Alison lifted a finger to silence him. She put her hand to her ear, and pulled the penlight from her pocket, aiming it towards the shore. Seconds later, Kurt appeared in a puff of sulfuric smoke.
“Don’t know yet,” Alison said. “We’re in a holding pattern right now, since we don’t really know where they are.”
“Well, they’d be at the Raft, right?” asked Logan. “I thought that’s where all the super powers are being held.”
“Fuck if I know,” said Alison. “You’ll have to talk to Munroe about that one.”
“I can take the Parkers to the room,” Kurt said to Alison. “It is on the way.”
“No complaints here, chief,” she replied. “It’s only been a day and it’s already smelling like locker room down there. I’ll enjoy the breeze while I can.”
“Are you ready?” Kurt asked Logan.
“Yeah, take me to her,” Logan replied as the two walked down the stairs, leaving Alison alone with her thoughts, which trailed back to Rogue and the Russian Man Meat, and became naughtier with the passing seconds.
“Damn,” she said to herself, “Now I’m horny again.” She thought about going back down into the room where all the cots were laid out, where almost everyone, human, student, and faculty were staying with snoring bodies and uncomfortable mattresses. She looked around at the empty island, covered in darkness, felt the fresh breeze on her face, bit her lower lip, and shrugged.
“Well,” she said breathily, hustling around to the side of the cliff and unzipping her pants, “No time like the present.”
Logan turned back to look at the room that they had just traveled through, connected it to the vast cavern in which they stood, and tried to tally it all up.
“This is one damn big cave,” he said to Kurt.
“Ja,” Kurt replied. “We do not know the purpose of that last room. Ororo thinks that the tower used to have some machine on it that I know nothing of.”
“The machine they used on the Statue of Liberty?” Logan said, turning back to look in the room, a long walkway cutting through a cavern lake with a pedestal splitting it in half. “It would make sense.”
“This room is a little simpler to grasp,” Kurt continued, looking warily down into the seemingly bottomless crevice below them. He pointed to the far wall, which was covered in a series of circular holes, large enough for a man to step through.
“Prison,” Logan said.
“Ja,” said Kurt. He kneeled down and, reaching over the edge, rapped his knuckles against the cliff. A faint clanging echoed through the cavern. “Magneto used the tiles to travel across. The bars had no locks on them, but Rogue and Peter were able to get them all off. They are the only other rooms besides the communications room and the room where everyone is bedded, so those who can make it across the chasm are sleeping there. Me, Rogue, Storm, the Cassidys. Not that any of us have slept, mind you.”
“Which one is Rogue’s?”
“That one,” Kurt said, pointing to a space between two of the holes. Instead of a door, there was a series of the metal tiles layered on the wall. “She locks herself in. Has only come out if there are meals, and then returns quickly.”
“What’s she doing in there?” he asked.
“She tells us she is practicing,” said Kurt. “Nothing more than that. Peter knows, but he has not said anything to us. Maybe she will tell you more.”
“How do I get in?” Logan asked, and Kurt placed his hand on his shoulder. Moments later, the two were standing directly in front of the tiles. Logan’s arms whirled in the air as he tried to regain his balance on a small rock shelf that was jutting from in front of the door.
“Jesus, warn me when you’re doing that,” he said. Kurt smiled teasingly, then knocked on the tiles.
“Who is it?” came Rogue’s voice from inside.
“It is I, Kurt Wagner,” Kurt said formally, his thick German accent giving it a somewhat regal quality. “I have company.”
“Do you think it could wait?” she replied. “I’m trying to concentrate.”
“I can wait if you want me to, kid,” Logan said. A gasp came in response to his voice, and he heard a rustle of cloth through the steel. Seconds later, the panels slid aside like an elevator door, and Rogue stood before them, wrapped in her familiar green cloak.
“Logan!” she said, grinning from ear to ear. She rushed forward and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tight. Logan yelled as he felt his balance start to give out, and she grabbed his arms, her ungloved hands gripping his jacket.
“Sorry,” she said shyly. “I forgot where I was.”
“That’s, um, that’s fine,” Logan said, feeling his heart pound in his chest. He looked down at the shelf and caught sight of Rogue’s feet, which were bare up to the hem of her cloak. “Really, I can come back later if you want.”
“No, no, stay,” she said quickly, her hands never leaving his jacket, the grin never leaving her face. “I can bring him back, Kurt.”
“You are sure?” asked Kurt.
“Ja, Herr Wagner,” Rogue replied teasingly.
Kurt looked at her, and sighed. “Alright,” he said. “But be careful. Don’t get too excited.”
“Of course not,” said Rogue.
“Call if you need anything,” said Kurt. “Peter is over on the shore right now, but he should be back in a little while.”
“Okay. Go!” Rogue pulled one hand from Logan long enough to wave Kurt away. Kurt shrugged to Logan, then disappeared in a puff of smoke. Logan saw him reappear on the other side of the cavern and walk through the archway.
“Get in here,” Rogue said to him, pulling him through the circular door. She waved her hand, and the tiles slid closed behind them.
“You’re getting that whole magnetism thing down,” he said appreciatively, staring at the door. Rogue didn’t respond, and simply embraced him again without having to worry about pushing him into a bottomless pit. This time he hugged her back.
“I missed you,” she said, her face pressed into his jacket.
Logan reached behind her and pulled her hood over her head, allowing him to hug her head to his chest. “I missed you, too, kid,” he replied. They stood that way for a long time, Logan hearing a sniffling coming from her Rogue’s face and a patch of wetness growing around her eyes. He was dimly aware that she was naked beneath her cloak, but let it pass as nothing sexual. Just something that was what it was.
“Nothing,” Forge said, waving an extremely makeshift device over Franklin, fashioned from parts they had torn from the minivan before it disappeared into the ocean.
“I told you,” Franklin said from the table.
“You’re sure?” asked Moira.
“Positive,” said Forge. “No radio, no metal, nothing.”
Moira sighed, looking at Forge’s equipment. “Is that a gear shift?”
“Might be,” Forge said defensively. “But, look, unless he was implanted with something in the last twenty four hours, we’d know about it. Hell, Moira, when you and Sean do an initial test run on new mutants you scan them, right? Document everything down to their fillings?”
“It might not catch everything,” Ororo said from behind them.
“Yeah, it might not,” Forge snapped back. “But we’re state of the art back home. Any type of homing beacon that I can think of, it can catch. And I can make up a dozen beacon designs between Garfield and Hi & Lois every morning. If we didn’t catch it back there, then we’re not going to catch it with this piece of crap.
“The kid’s clean.”
Ororo walked up to the table and looked down at Franklin. “You’d better not be in any sort of psychic contact with…”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Franklin exploded, sitting up. “Will you just lay off me already! I told you, I might recognize this Stryker guy’s name, but I’ve never met him. I don’t have anything to do with any Weapon X, Triple X, Racer X, or anything X-related!”
“Except for the X-Men,” Peter Parker interjected.
“Except for the X-Men!” Franklin screamed. “Maybe you guys are related to this whole Weapon X thing, ever think of that? Is your buddy Charles on that list?”
“Franklin…” Moira said.
“I’m just sick and tired of being constantly accused by you!” he continued to rail at Ororo. The table beneath him vibrated slightly. “I helped out that Rogue chick, and this is the thanks I get? Maybe I should just turn myself in; at least I’d be wanted. I wouldn’t have to hear everyone thinking that I’m going to go evil.”
“Why haven’t you left?” Forge asked. Franklin turned to look at him angrily, and Forge raised his hands in defense. “Hey, kid, no accusations here. I’m just wondering why you’re still here instead of with your parents.”
Franklin, his lip quivering with rage and sadness, shook his head fiercely. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know why I’m still here. I’m asking myself that all the time. I’ve heard your thoughts, Munroe. Doctor. I know that you’re scared of me. You think that I have the potential to be more powerful than any other psychic you’ve ever met, including Xavier. I think that freaks me out a bit, but I also know that means I have the power to walk out of that school any time I wanted to. I know I’m strong enough to just send out one pulse strong enough to knock everyone around me out long enough to disappear.”
“But you haven’t…” Moira said.
“No, I haven’t,” Franklin sniffed, tears welling in his eyes. “Because I don’t have anywhere to go. Those people on the news, those aren’t my parents. I mean, they are, but they’ve changed. I don’t know how long they’ve had their powers, and I feel like they’ve been lying to me for years. When they’re home, I heard snatches of thoughts in their heads a few months before they called you. I didn’t understand a lot of it, but that’s where I got the Stryker name from. When they were home, they were my mom and my dad. But when they were at work… God, I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore…”
“That’s alright,” Ororo said quietly. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been thinking about how hard this must all must be on you.”
Franklin looked up and cracked a small smile. “You really mean that,” he said. “I can read it.”
“Head back to bed,” Moira told him. “We’ll let you sleep in.”
“Thanks,” he said, wiping his face as he left the cave’s version of a med lab.
“God, what a mess,” Parker said after Franklin left. “Sorry I gave you guys a false lead.”
“You might not have,” Ororo said. “He only told us that he doesn’t know anything, not that he’s not involved at all.”
“Unfortunately, that doesn’t get us any closer to finding the kids,” Forge said, sitting up on the table.
“So, it’s Parker, right?” asked Moira. “Peter Parker?”
“He’s Spider-Man,” said Ororo. “Cool, huh?”
“Ah,” said Moira flatly.
Parker snorted. “Not impressed?”
“Not really,” Moira replied. “I’m the only human at the Academy. I’ve been around super powers since I started college. It takes a lot to impress me nowadays.”
“Oh.”
“Besides, I’m from Scotland. Spider-Man was more of an American thing.”
“Don’t worry,” Forge said, patting Peter with his cybernetic hand. “I had your lunch box and your Mr. Potato Head.”
“And you know I never got a cent from the royalties?” Parker chuckled.
“Shoulda had a trademark,” said Forge. “You would have made a mint.”
“I do okay, considering my career path’s included intern photographer, philanthropic do-gooder, and village idiot.”
“You looked taller in your pictures.”
“I hunch.”
“So Logan says you know about Weapon X,” Ororo said, pushing herself up onto the table next to Forge.
“More than you probably want to hear,” Parker said.
“I want to know about Project Defender,” she replied. “We know that Franklin has a connection to Weapon X, and we know that his parents are both in Project Defender. I want to know how the two of them are related.”
“There’s not much I can say in that area,” said Peter, leaning against the stone wall. “Defender’s a recent development, and I’ve been out of the loop for a year or two already.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
“Okay,” Peter shrugged. “I know that Tony Stark is involved with Project Defender. I know that Stark Industries bought Quest Aerospace, which had bought Oscorp, and that all three were involved in negotiations with the Defense Department and with Weapon X for weapons contracts around the turn of the century. I know that Stark Industries eventually signed a contract with the Defense Department, and I can only assume that Project Defender was the result of that contract.”
“That’s one of the things that’s been rubbing me the wrong way this whole time,” Forge said. “It’s Stark. Project Defender is based around, you know, synthetic mutations. Mutations that were lab created. And then there’s this guy. No powers, only a suit that I could build in an afternoon if I had the parts available.”
“Well, he’s the money guy, isn’t he?” Moira said.
“He’s definitely the money guy,” said Forge. “But I’ve read enough in my life to know that the money guys rarely like to get their hands into things. For every Mark Cuban or Richard Branson there are a hundred billionaires that just toss their money at whatever will give them more money. So why is he risking his life? And why is he spending ungodly amounts of cash on a super suit that contradicts everything that he’s trying to sell with Defender?”
“Hubris?” Ororo said.
“Because he’s a cocky son of a bitch?” said Peter.
“Same thing,” Ororo replied.
“Hubris, son of a bitch, that’s a sure thing,” said Forge. “As soon as he opens his mouth you know it. I don’t know… I don’t like it.”
“Sorry about that,” Rogue eventually said, pulling away from Logan.
“That’s fine,” Logan said. “I guess you’ve been through a lot.”
“Have a seat,” said Rogue, motioning towards a metal chair in the corner. Logan walked over to it and pulled it toward him, but pulled his hand away in pain.
“Ah, shit!” he yelled. “Hot!”
“Oh, sorry!” said Rogue hastily, throwing her hand out to the chair and shooting a quick spray of ice at it. “That should be better.”
Logan touched it again. It was a little on the cold side, but he supposed he could live with it, and sat down.
“So what have they told you?” asked Rogue warily, sitting on the bed opposite Logan.
“Not a lot,” Logan said. “That you were in a bad way, but one of the other kids fixed you up. How are you feeling?”
“Better,” she said. “At the concert, I got in the way of one of the Defenders. We collided, and both were knocked out. I absorbed him. A lot. Too much, from what Dr. MacTaggert’s told me. They say when I was brought back to the school I was going crazy. I don’t remember too much of it. I kept blacking out and coming back again. When I was awake it felt like someone else was trying to push me around in my head. Then Franklin showed up in my mind, and Johnny disappeared, and I was fine again.”
“Who’s Johnny?” Logan asked. “Pyro?”
“No, another John,” said Rogue. “One of the Defenders, the fire guy. You know who I’m talking about, right?”
“Not a clue,” he replied. “I’ve been so focused on history lessons the past few months I’ve barely been paying any attention to the news.”
“Well, there’s six of them,” Rogue explained. “Five of them have mutant powers, although they’re making a big deal of the fact that they weren’t born with them.”
“Like Parker,” said Logan to himself.
“Who?”
“Spider-Man,” Logan said. “He’s in the med lab with Ororo and the others.”
“Wow, really?” said Rogue. “He must be, like, ancient.”
“Remember who you’re talking to, little lady.”
“Sorry,” said Rogue. “Anyway, five of them have powers, and one of them is just a guy in a robot suit. The one I absorbed was the fire one, calls himself Johnny Storm.”
“He was the one in your head…”
“Yeah,” she said. “Franklin’s been having a hell of a time around here lately. Two of them are his parents, and Johnny’s his uncle. I think that’s why he wanted to help me, though. It was probably weird to him hearing Johnny coming from my mouth.”
“Franklin Richards, right?”
“Franklin Richards,” Rogue agreed.
“Ororo’s talking to him right now,” said Logan. “Parker and I think that he might be related to Weapon X.”
Rogue’s eyes widened, then she shook her head. “Whatever, I trust him.”
“Do you?”
“He was in my head,” she said. “He saved me from going insane. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. Besides, I don’t think we can do anything but trust him. He has a lot of power. I heard Dr. MacTaggert and Professor Cassidy whispering on the trip over here. Franklin has barely been trained, but he already had the ability to do what he did. The Professor didn’t even have that kind of control at this age.”
“Wow…”
“Add a telekinetic power on top of that, plus Lord knows how many other psychic powers that he hasn’t recognized yet, and this kid could be a force.”
“Glad you trust him,” Logan said, looking back to the door. “I don’t know if I’d be able to have the same trust.”
“He’s tough to like,” said Rogue. “He can be a prick sometimes. But he’s doing better.”
Logan nodded, then turned back to her. “So what have you been doing in here? Everyone says you’ve been practicing.”
“Oh…” Rogue stammered. “Yeah, I’ve been practicing.” As she spoke, Logan noticed that she tightened the hem of her cloak over her legs.
“What have you been practicing?”
“Nothing much, really,” she said, blushing slightly.
“But you have to do it in complete isolation?” Logan said. “And you barely leave the room?”
“I kinda have to,” she said quietly.
“Why?”
“So no one gets hurt.”
“What are you practicing?” he repeated, more forcefully.
Rogue opened her mouth to answer, and then closed it. She looked up at him, into his eyes, and Logan could see a decision being made.
“Do you want me to show you?” she asked.
“Do you want to?” he replied, suddenly not so sure he should have asked in the first place.
“I do,” she said. “You and Peter are the only ones I trust to see me right now, and you’re the only two who could come out unscathed if things go bad.”
“Have things gone bad?”
Rogue stood up slowly, and looked at the chair in which Logan sat. “Could be better, could be worse,” she said cryptically.
“Okay…” Logan said warily.
“You just have to promise me two things,” she said. “Don’t stare, and don’t freak out, no matter what you see.”
“Marie, what are you doing?” he asked as she reached for the belt around her cloak.
“Promise me,” she said, turning her back him, her face burning red.
“I promise,” Logan said quietly.
“The first time this happened, when I was unconscious,” she explained as she untied her belt, “I completely destroyed everything I was wearing. Mr. Forge says that he can make me a suit if I need it, once we get back to the Academy. But for now our supplies are a little short, so I’ve been practicing in here where no one can see me.”
She pushed the green cloak from her shoulders, and stood naked in front of Logan, her back turned to him.
“You’re not staring, are you?” she asked over her shoulder, self-consciously covering her breasts.
Logan smiled kindly. “I’m not,” he answered. “Don’t worry. Just show me what you want to show.”
Rogue nodded, and then took a deep breath. “Before Franklin took Johnny out of my head,” she explained, “he left me the knowledge of how to control his power. Flame on.”
The last she mumbled to herself quietly, and was instantly engulfed in flame. Logan leapt from his chair and ran to the cot, grabbing a blanket.
“No!” Rogue yelled as he ran towards her. “I said don’t freak out! You promised.”
Logan’s eyes widened as he stared at her. Her face, her hair, her entire body was encased in a halo of flame. Beneath it, her skin glowed like a log at the bottom of a campfire, crackling with dark spots and with yellows, reds, oranges, and whites too bright for him to look at directly.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, feeling the heat baking his skin.
“Not at all,” she replied. He looked down at her bare feet, seeing the rock of the cave floor begin to glow a dull red color. And then her feet were lifting off the ground, and she floated a foot off the ground.
“You can fly,” he gasped.
“I can fly,” she responded, a grin spreading across her face. “That’s the easy part.”
“This is the easy part?” he said bewildered. He could feel the sweat evaporate from his face, could feel the skin on his arms crackle with sunburn.
“If it hurts, stand back,” said Rogue. “I need to concentrate.”
“I’m fine,” he said, too shocked to move.
“When Johnny told me how to activate his powers,” she said, “he said that it was like flicking a switch. Say ‘flame on,’ think ‘flame on,’ just think ‘turn the fire on,’ and you’ll be on fire and flying. A lot of them have multiple powers, but they’ve been trained to think of it as a simple on off switch. You’re either on fire and flying or you’re not. You’re either invisible and making force fields, or you’re not. You’re either a huge, super strong beast with no intelligence, or you’re not. Their training was limited; they never recognized the degrees to which they could work, because they only recognize the power.
“What if you wanted to be invisible without making a force field? What if you wanted to have incredible strength but keep your own mind? What if you wanted to fly, but to not be on fire as you did so?”
As she spoke, Logan watched in amazement as a seam grew down the length of her body. Slowly, with great effort, the fire peeled away, her bare, untouched skin taking over where the fire once lay.
“Johnny left it in my head,” Rogue said. “He left it like a truth. He made me believe that I needed one for the other.”
The fire slipped down her arms, until only her hands were covered in flame. And then it was gone.
“I’m practicing,” she said, sweat starting to bead on her face from exertion. “I’m training myself to learn how to fly without the fire.” Logan looked down, and saw that her feet were still off the ground, the points of her toes six inches, ten inches, now fifteen inches from the stone below. He looked up to see that she was coming close to touching the roof of the cave.
“That’s incredible,” he breathed. Rogue smiled and looked down at him, then fell to the floor. Logan reached out and grabbed her, catching her before she lost her balance. She blushed furiously, realizing that she was standing in front of him completely nude, and ran quickly to her cloak.
“I still have a ways to go,” she said, pulling it over her body. “My eventual goal is to be able to fly without having to start the fire at all. I’ll be honest, though, the other John’s helping me with that, as much as I’m loathe to admit it.”
“Allerdyce?”
“Pyro could control the fire but not create it,” she said. “Johnny can create the fire, but not control it. When I was floating up there, I was using Allerdyce’s pyrokinetics to pull the fire away. It’s just a matter of convincing myself that the fire doesn’t need to be there, and to get myself to recognize what the flight feels like. It’s self-control, it’s self-awareness, and now that you’re here I’m really hoping you’d want to teach me like you taught Lucas, Jimmy, and Alex.”
“I don’t think I’m going anywhere any time soon,” said Logan. “The past few days have been crazy for all of us, and I’m as wanted as you are.”
Rogue smiled and wrapped him into another hug. “I’m just so glad you’re back.”
“Hey, it was worth it to see you fly,” he said, kissing the top of her head.
“Yeah, and I’m sure you’re not complaining about the nudity, either,” she teased.
“I will say it’s a first,” he replied. “So is that all you’ve been doing in here? Sleeping and setting yourself on fire?”
“Not really,” she said. “I’ve already taught myself to do one thing well.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
She stepped back and pulled up her sleeve.
“Flame on,” she said, and her bare arm was encased in flame. As soon as it ignited, the fire drained down to her wrist, forming a ball in her hand. It twisted and spun, elongating and coiling around itself like a snake.
“I only need to ignite my entire body to fly right now,” Rogue said, smiling. “As for the smaller stuff… what can I say? I have Johnny, I have John. I can create it, and control it.”
Logan chuckled, shaking his head as the fire twisted into the shape of a man, then slithered around to the back of her hand, extending into three flaming claws.
“If only Pyro could see me now.”
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