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THUD!

It was as if just the for a second, time had come to a stand still moving again with an audible THUMP of a now decapitated body slumping and hitting the hard floor.

Cracking her eyes open, Jubilee Lee wiped the blood splattered across her face, kicking the ground to move away from the severed head still rolling in front of her. The blood spilling out was pooling in an ever-widening circle, its dark crimson matching and seeping into the hair of the same color. Dead, yellow eyes were staring into empty space, an expression of shock clearly on the now dead Mystique’s face.

Her mouth gaping open, her eyes wide with shock, she spare a glance to where the rest of the shape shifter lay. Moving up the legs of the figure standing in front of the body, she started to cry out only to be superseded by an equally loud and fearful cry from the other woman in the room.

“Logan….NOOO…” The cry barely left Ororo’s lips before bringing his claws to the back of his neck, Logan sunk into the soft flesh. A sick plop of metal being expelled from warm tissue, flesh and muscles sounded as drawing his claws back, Logan severed and expelled the largest and probably the most important of the implants. Important because, being the first, it was the start of the chain that went down to his waist, not to the mention the one that was connected and controlled his higher brain functions.

The electricity in Ororo’s lightening strikes had somehow managed to ‘reboot’ the controlling mechanism, the electric charge disrupting the circuitry and giving Logan a few seconds of release from the ‘controllers’ and subsequently Mystique’s control. Coming out of his ‘awakened’ sleep, his still primal mind did the only thing it could. It guarded itself and its pack members….and Ororo and Jubilee were the two most important ones in that group. When Mystique commanded him to kill them, he retaliated and took out the threat, namely Mystique.

Feeling the controllers come back online, just as they had when he had been attacked in the first place, he reacted with the same speed and started to take them out….too bad he did not know that they were interconnected.

BUMPHH! BUMPHH! BUMPHH!

The charges started to go off, as each implant went into autodestruct mode. Throat, heart, either lung, stomach, liver etc etc…..all of his major organs blew out from the back, exposing his metal covered spine to Ororo and Jubilee.

“LOGAANNNN!!...Uhn…” Ororo forgot her pain and hurried towards her lover, reaching him just in time for his body to slump over and land face first onto Mystique’s headless torso.

“WOLVIEEE…” Jubilee also charged into action, her mind going into a numb shock at all she was witnessing. She remembered what Henry had told them. Take even one out, the others explode. Hurrying to Logan’s side, she was able to see his busted heart mend itself and resume/continue its pumping action. Whatever healing action she or even Ororo for that matter had seen until now was nothing compared to what was happening in front of their eyes. Following a ‘most important healing first’ process, Wolverine’s incredible healing factor first fixed his heart, then his windpipe, one lung, muscles, liver, more muscles and tissue, kidneys, skin and in that order started to progress down the rebuilding process.

“He…He’s going to be okay?” The girl mumbled both as a statement and as a hopeful question.

Choked up with emotion, Ororo silently nodded, as the skin on the back, directly over the rib cage stitched itself together.

He would be fine. He just needed time.

Just their luck that with the clock striking three, their time just ran out.

----

Unknown to Sinister and his soldiers, not only had Mystique obtained a remote from Forge, but also readied yet another *Joker* in her hand. She did not deactivate the mansion’s security system. As soon as the attackers started to move in, they tripped the alarm and activating the defense systems.

Within seconds, the entire mansion went into clampdown mode; half-foot thick reinforced steel panels fell into place, covering each and every entrance point. As for the ones who were coming in on foot, they had something entirely different in store for them. Thanks to the genius of Henry McCoy, the X-Men had recently installed an invisible fence of sorts. It was a highly modified version of the invisible fence used to household pets. However, unlike the simpler one, which worked at the perimeter, this new one was laid out in concentric ever-expanding circles around the mansion. Therefore, unless the person flew in at a minimum height of five feet above the ground, he or she would get the jolt of their lives. Moreover, thanks to the water sprinklers started up at the outer perimeter, there was enough water to facilitate an easy passage for the current.

Then there were the energy turrets that were planted at specific hidden locations, and although Forge had given the layout to Sinister, it was assumed that Mystique would shit the defense system down….except that like her current employer, Mystique wasn’t a big proponent of the honor among thieves analogy. Even if she did not suspect a double cross, she had one ready from her side, just like always. The only thing that went wrong in the perfect little plan of hers was Jubilee. Had it not been for her intrusion, Logan wouldn’t have got the time to shake off the effects of the implants and subsequently wouldn’t have been able to do what he did. Ororo would have been dead, Rogue gone with Mystique and the X-Men, well; their fate was still in the balance…..but not for long.

---

“Henry!” Ororo gasped at the prone form of her teammate. She had nearly stepped over him while searching for a clean towel to clean up the blood from Logan’s newly healed wounds. His skin had all but grown back completely, within only a couple of patches remaining at his lower back. As for herself, two splinters on either side, Ororo had bandaged her leg. The pain was so intense that she was sure that it was broken. Given the precarious location of the fracture, the splinters weren’t much supporter either.

Crouching down to check on his health, gave Ororo her next surprise. On his face, in the middle of his forehead was something that looked eerily familiar.

--

//Flashback//

“What’s this?”

Forge looked up from his worktable to see Ororo pointing at a small metallic ball.

“Oh, just something I am working on,” the bionic Cheyenne extended a hand to pick it up. A twist and a click later, the ball was split into two equal pieces, the center of which looked much like a suction cup.

“Interesting,” Ororo mused, not knowing what else to say. “What does it do?” She asked to get knowledge about its intended function.

“Nothing as yet, except…this,” Forge held up her hand and with a slight ‘Thuck!’ the fixed the hemisphere at the back of her palm.

“Try to take it out,” he instructed. “But don’t pull too hard.”

He watched as the Nubian beauty tried to slide off, pull it off, lever her fingernail and get some air in to remove the vacuum and still couldn’t get the damn thing off.

“Give up?”

“Do you even have to ask?” Ororo answered in a good-natured way.

“See here,” lifting a thumb and index finger to the sides, he gestured towards the small metal patches there. “Press these.”

Doing as instructed, Ororo watched as Forge pressed two other similar patches, placed at ninety degrees along the circumference.

All the four holders pressed simultaneously, the hemisphere instantly loosed up and lifted off the skin.

“Interesting.”

//End Flashback//

--

‘Forge,’ her eyes widened at the realization of how Mystique had gotten in and whom she had mimicked to get past the sensors.

However, now wasn’t the time to mull over Forge’s betrayal. Seeing Beast’s condition, she was pretty sure that the other X-Men had suffered the same fate. ‘That’s why the Professor and Jean didn’t respond to my hails.’

Both her hands in position, she pressed down on the unlocking mechanism and easily pulled off the inhibitor. Almost immediately, the effects came though as groaning lightly Henry McCoy stirred a little and finally opened his eyes.

“Ororo? What…?” He was up in a second. “There was someone…what happened to your foot…I was….”
“It was Mystique,” Ororo took the charge, bringing Beast up to speed with recent and current events. “She attacked you and the others….we have to wake them up….the mansion is under attack.”

“Wake them up?” A furry hand reached up to rub at the slightly itching forehead. “What do you mean?”
“This,” Ororo held up the device and explained its working. “I believe the others have also been implanted with such devices. The Professor and Jean are not answering my calls.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’ll come with you,” Ororo started, only to nearly topple over at the spike of pain that shot up her leg. “Uhn…Goddess,” she winced inspite herself.

“Ororo, you are in no condition to go anywhere, let alone fight,” Beast grasped her just in time to prevent her from doing a Logan style face first landing on the floor. “You stay with Wolverine and I’ll revive the others.”

“There isn’t time Hank,” the weather witch pulled herself up. “You cannot do it alone.”
“Then I’ll take Jubilee,” the girl looked up at the mention of her name.

“Hank….”
“Nothing doing, doctor’s orders,” Beast’s tone brooked no argument. It wasn’t so much his tone for Ororo as was the condition she herself and Logan were in. What Henry said was right. She would just slow him down and by the time they got in position, the fight would have come indoors.

Not waiting for her answer, Henry sped away towards the elevators, with Jubilee close at his heels.

“Logan,” Ororo hobbled up to the still unconscious Wolverine. Getting no response, she leaned down to kiss him gently on the side of his face before pushing herself up.

“I’ll come back…soon,” she whispered to his prone form.

The next moment, she too left for the elevators.





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