Cyclops sat up straighter beside her. “You got them?”
“Yes!” Jean grabbed his arm excitedly, clenching the gray wool of his sweater between her fingers. “I can feel them both.”
“Where?” Ali asked, tossing off Gambit’s trench, and shaking Remy awake.
Jean shook her head. “I don’t know. I can only sense them, but they are both alive!”
“We need t’ tell da Professor, non?” Gambit gave Ali’s thigh a reassuring squeeze.
Jean tapped her right index finger to her temple. “Done.”
Scott stood, pulling the red haired telepath to her feet. He kissed her softly on the cheek and whispered, “Good job,” in her ear.
A smile of pure joy settled on Jean’s pretty face. For hours she had left herself completely open, trying to find traces of Ororo or Logan. Though it was a relatively safe exercise given the mansion’s telepathic security, it was an exhausting one. “Thanks,” she grinned up at Scott. “Let’s go see if the Professor can locate them.”
Involuntarily Ororo’s fingers tightened on Logan, the sight of Shinobi in his trademark white suit, making her blood run cold. This was the man that had hurt her and her family so much, the man that tried on more than one occasion to kill her, or worse, to take her husband, and had kidnapped her son. This thing in front of her had caused her much pain and for the first time in her life, Ororo Munroe knew what it was to hate.
She watched Shinobi through narrowed eyes as he approached, a sick smile on his handsome face, his gun leveled at her chest.
“…rrroo…” Wolverine groaned.
“Ssh, love.” Ororo soothed, cradling his head in her lap. “Rest,” she whispered.
Shinobi’s lip curled. “Pathetic,” he sneered.
Ororo felt her anger mounting. She gave the gun in Shinobi’s hand an assessing glance, asking mildly, “Tell, me, Shinobi, do you think you can fire that weapon before I ram a few hundred thousand volts through your body, or no?”
Shinobi laughed. “Nice bluff, Storm, but you see, your powers are ineffectual.”
With great satisfaction Ororo held her hand out, slowly opening her blood stained fingers, revealing the two small chips she had removed from her and Logan. With a distinct sizzle, lightening flared in her palm, frying the small microchips. “You were saying?” Before Shinobi could fire, a blast of artic wind tore the gun from his hand and pushed him back through the holographic wall forcefully.
With great care, Ororo lowered Wolverine’s head to the floor, her fingertips lingering over his forehead. “Rest, Logan. Heal.” She kissed his cracked lips tenderly.
“Nnnoo…’Ro..” Logan tried to sit up.
She felt a faint stirring in her mind, but quickly slammed up her psychic shields, not wanting Shaw’s telepath’s in her head again.
“Ssh.” She pressed Logan’s shoulders gently. “Be still, my fierce warrior. I love you.” Gripped by a vengeful anger and grim determination, Ororo reached for the knife she had carelessly discarded on the ground and rose resolutely to her feet. “SHAW!!!”
“Japan.” A glowing blue three dimensional grid map flickered above the table in the war room. “Just outside of Sendai.”
The woman now known as Tessa nodded. “Shinobi’s mother.”
Cyclops swiveled his chair towards her. “Huh?”
The dark haired beauty gestured to the map. “Shinobi’s mother is from Sendai. He has an ancestral mansion there.”
“Ororo is blocking me and I dare not force my way into her mind,” Charles continued. “But from what I could glimpse they are, as Jean said, alive and together.”
Ali and Gambit reached for each other under the table, their fingers intertwining. “When do we leave?” Ali asked.
“Immediately. Kurt and Kitty are prepping the jet, Warren and Beast are gathering medical equipment.” The Professor stated.
“Shaw’s homes are exceedingly well guarded,” Tessa added. “It won’t be easy.”
“Not’in’ ’round here ever is” Gambit replied, getting to his feet.
A bolt of lightening sizzled through the holographic wall, shorting out whatever image inducer Shinobi had set up to project the false image.
“Shaw!!” Ororo yelled, realizing the hall was empty, and Shinobi was nowhere to be seen. “Coward!”
Taking cautious steps backwards, Ororo bent over Logan, checking his condition. Even with his wounds healing, he was, on the whole, very weakened by his weeks of starvation and torment. His chest was a series of raw, gaping wounds, several showing early signs of infection. No telling how long Shinobi had tortured him, or how long he’d been without his healing factor. She tenderly brushed his hair from his face. “Hey.”
“Gotta…get out…” he panted. “Chance…”
“Easy, love.” She smiled reassuringly. “We’ll find him.”
“…thought I was…done…need you…”
Storm smiled, tears brimming. “We’re together now.”
He blinked his hazy eyes. “Yesss…”
Storm felt her chest tighten. Logan was in her arms now! Where was her son? Bright Lady, please let her son be all right! …Chance…
*Safe*
Storm gasped. Was that Xavier? She didn’t know, her mind still rocked by the repeated psychic attacks. She tried to simultaneously block and read the impression sent to her.
*Home*
Ororo gripped Logan’s hand. “Do you hear that?” she asked quietly.
“…Chuck…”
A sob escaped her throat. Only Charles was able to penetrate Logan’s defenses. If he could hear him, then it was Xavier…and Chance… “Oh, Goddess, thank you…”
Logan reached out a trembling hand, his blunt fingertips caressing her soft cheek, capturing the tears as they flowed. His gray eyed gaze was full of love and tenderness. “Safe,” he growled.
Ororo nodded. “Home,” she whispered.
“’Ro, darlin’…”
“Hush.” Ororo commanded, her eyes swirling from blue to solid white, their faint glow eerie in the shadows. “Hold onto me.”
Logan grimaced, gripping the arm Ororo extended to him. Every hair on his body rose as the air around them crackled. He could hear the winds howling outside and the rumbling growls of thunder, growing louder and louder. The winds within the cellar rose, whipping about them.
“’Ro?”
Storm made no reply, her total focus on calling forth the fury of nature itself, her angry thoughts centered on the one man that had caused her so much heartache. Her expression was impassive, her white eyes glowing cold fire and unblinking.
This monster had touched her husband, hurt him, wounded him, used her image to inflict as much pain as possible. This bastard had tried to kidnap her child, had tried to make her forget that he and Logan had even existed. Shinobi Shaw did not deserve the life granted him. All he did was cause pain and suffering.
“…Darlin’…”
Ororo waved one hand. The foundation of the house shook.
“No more,” Storm seethed. Wolverine shifted so that he was closer to his wife. Snips of lightening flashed from her eyes. Flames leapt along the walls as bolt after bolt of white-hot heat crashed around them. The tables and instruments around them rattled, jostled by the forces battering the house that had, up until tonight, been their prison.
Wolverine watched as objects lifted from the table and debris flew around them in a cyclonic pattern. Ororo never even flinched, her expression unchanged, even when several sharp blades flew scant inches past her face. She concentrated solely on the task at hand. Make Shinobi Shaw suffer.
Wolverine heard snapping and realized that the walls surrounding them were bending, being torn asunder by the force of Storm’s fury. The winds rose to a thunderous pitch in the small cellar, the roar was damn near deafening. Debris and instruments of torture whirled above their heads in a funnel. The winds rose, spinning faster and faster, and Logan realized that the mansion was being lifted slowly away from them. Wires snapped and wood splintered as a dark black funnel cloud screamed in angry torment overhead. The black clouds spun faster and faster, sucking everything and everyone up into it’s center. Several Shaw employees screamed in fear, frantically scrambling, trying to get out of the house that was literally being ripped apart.
Ororo bent and linked her arms around Wolverine’s bare chest, careful of his still healing wounds. “Hold on,” she whispered. Lightening slammed into the earth around them and suddenly the entire mansion shuddered, falling apart as Ororo shot her and Wolverine through one of the holes her repeated bursts of heat and light had rendered in the ancient home.
Ororo held them aloft with powerful gales, her colorless eyes searching the grounds for the one she sought to punish. “Shinobi!!”
“Oh my stars and garters!”
“What is it Beast?” Cyclops asked from his position as pilot.
“Weather report.”
“Yeah?”
“Northern Japan…Four massive tornadoes. Off the scales.”
Gambit exhaled. “Stormy.”
Jean went to where Beast was scanning the net for updates. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?” Kitty demanded, phasing through her harness and joining Jean and Beast.
“She’s out of control,” Jean breathed.
“How far away are we?” Ali asked.
“Our proximity will matter not, Alison. We will by no means be able to get anywhere near our captive teammates with the windstorms that our powerful Storm has whipped up.”
“We have to reach them!” Ali protested.
“Perhaps I could teleport in?” Kurt suggested.
“Too soon to formulate any attack plan,” Cyclops said. “Let’s just hope Storm doesn’t wipe out the country.”
The earth groaned. Rain lashed the ground. Lightening split the sky.
From the air Storm raged. “Shinobi!!”
From the rubble on the ground guns fired.
“Ugh.” Ororo jerked as two bullets hit her, one in the thigh and one in her abdomen.
“’Ro!”
Ororo pressed her hand to her stomach, blood seeping through her fingers. She grimaced, lowering herself and Wolverine quickly to the ground, behind a thicket in what used to be a garden. She winced as her leg hit, the pain in her thigh was intense.
“Storm,” Shinobi Shaw called from his hiding spot in the rubble that was once his ancestral home. “It didn’t have to be this way!”
Ororo lifted her head. “Where is he?” she asked Logan.
“Bout ten feet south. Probably behind…that slab of concrete.” Wolverine grunted, trying to see her injury. She waved him off.
The winds slowly died down, until gone altogether.
“’Ro?” Wolverine reached for her, concerned.
“Ssh. He needs to think he’s won,” she whispered, leaning into Logan, pressing her forehead to his.
Logan wrapped one hand around the back of her head, threading his fingers through her hair. “What’re ya thinkin’, angel?”
“Revenge.” she said, her voice like ice.
Wolverine shook his head, feeling the same, but not wanting Ororo to suffer the emotional trauma that came with exacting revenge. “Babe…”
“Shush.” Storm kissed him, her soft lips like petals on his battered ones. For a brief instant it was possible to forget where they were, forget the pain and the hurt. They were together. “I have to,” she said raggedly. “For you. For Chance.” With that she shoved herself away from him, and staggered into the open.
“Storm!” Wolverine called, crawling towards her, his body still ravaged by hunger, too weak to even stand.
Ororo stumbled, falling onto the damp ground, holding her bleeding abdomen. She grunted, spitting blood.
Shinobi’s taunting laughter sounded in the quiet. “Poor, poor, Storm.”
Ororo rolled onto her back, gazing at the now clear sky. Soon Shinobi’s smug face filled her vision as he leaned over her. He toed her with his expensive Italian loafers, pressing his foot into her stomach.
“Hurts, don’t it, sweetheart?” he crooned.
Ororo grimaced in pain, lifting her hands and latching onto Shinobi’s ankle. “You tell me.” Thunder boomed.
Shinobi flinched, pointing his gun at her head.
“Do you fear me, Shaw?” she asked sweetly from the flat of her back. She smiled slowly. “You will.” Long legs scissor out, catching Shinobi off guard, taking him down. He fired as he fell, but the bullet went harmlessly into the air.
Ororo rolled as Shinobi fell, her heel lifting and slamming forward, shattering his nose. She followed the momentum, one leg bent alongside Shaw’s tall for, the other pressed into his arm, keeping his gun planted on the ground, her fist striking him in his already broken nose.
Rain poured from the sky, cold and relentless, the water slicing flesh. A thick fog pooled.
“Aaauuuuhhhh!!” Ororo screamed, striking over and over. Lightening slammed the ground.
Shinobi swore, using his free hand to punch Ororo in the stomach. “Bitch!”
Ororo gasped in pain, blood trickling from her chin. She fell back, away from Shinobi.
“Ororo!” Wolverine roared her name over the howling winds.
Shaw rose to his feet, brushing his dirty suit, his face a mask of disdain as he glared at the woman curled up in front of him. “You are unworthy,” he sneered.
Ororo laughed, a chilling sound of humorless mirth. “I was thinking the exact same thing,” she snarled.
Light exploded all around.
Ororo soared into the air, her arms spread wide, her palms upturned. When she spoke her voice was fire and ice, a merger of heaven and hell. “You dare touch what is mine!” Splinters of wood lifted into the air, spiraling around the two figures in the fog. “You are unworthy!” she threw his words back at him, and as she did, long splinters shot towards Shinobi, piercing his flesh and sending him flying, but not far as Ororo caught him in a gale, holding him aloft. Blood dripped from his face as he stared at her in horror.
“X-Men don’t kill,” Shinobi cried.
“No, they don’t,” Ororo agreed. A steel rod lifted and she caught it in her hand, the tip a perfect angled point. She weighted it and studied Shinobi.
“If-if you k-kill me, you’ll never g-get your son b-b-back,” he vowed, trying to pull the splinters from his body and frantically looking for a way down.
Storm tilted her head to one side. “You think?”
Realizing that Ororo somehow knew he no longer had Chance Shinobi shifted, painfully, into the form of Wolverine. “Go ahead, then, Storm. Kill me,” it taunted.
Ororo hesitated. “Change back,” she ordered.
“No. Kill me,” he spread his arms wide.
Ororo screamed at him. “Change back!”
The Wolverine form laughed. “Fuck you, darling.”
Ororo smirked. “It’s darlin’, prick!” With that she sent the steel rod soaring through the air, propelled by winds in excess of two hundred miles per hour. She flinched imperceptibly as the shaft plunged through Shinobi and propelled him backwards.
Feeling drained, Ororo landed in the wet grass. She tread cautiously to where Shinobi lay, twitching on the ground, three feet of steel protruding from his gut. As she watched his form shifted, becoming a woman that she didn’t recognize with blue skin and red hair. Blood gurgled from Shinobi’s lips.
Storm placed her hand around the metal dowel, curling her fingers and pressing it down. “May you find peace in death,” she whispered, lifting her left hand to the sky and summoning a streak of lightening forth.
“YEEEAAARRRRGGG!!!”
Ororo collapsed.
The smell of charred flesh wafted to where Wolverine lay, tying to crawl to his wounded wife.
“It’s stopped.” Jean whispered, casting Beast an anxious look.
“That could mean a lot of things,” Beast said softly.
Jean closed her eyes. “I can’t feel them…”
Ali reached for Gambit.
Kitty clung to Kurt.
“ETA fifteen minutes, people.” Cyclops said from the cockpit.
Kurt kissed the top of Kitty’s head and softly began to pray.
“’Ro…” Wolverine reached her side, pulling her off the blackened remains of Shinobi Shaw.
“…”
“Baby.” He fell back with her on his chest.
Ororo shuddered, threading her fingers through Logan’s wet hair. “Logan…”
“Here.”
“Love you.”
“Love you.” He let out a faint chuff of laughter as he heard the familiar screech of the blackbird in the air. “The cavalry…”
Ororo sighed. “Chance…”
Logan used the last of his reserves to wrap his arms around Ororo and pull her as close as possible. He turned his face into her hair, inhaling deeply. Home.
