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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
 
 
 

Proverbs - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Cat Smith
Last updated: 01/02/2007 02:01:11 AM

Chapter 10

The corridors were bleak, dismal, and unappealing in any way imaginable. The stone they were made of was dark, cold, and made everything seem claustrophobic. The floors were slippy with water and single-celled organisms of which Rogue and Gambit didn’t know the name of, but were sure Beast would, and the ceilings were so low that in some places, the 6ft odd Remy had to stoop to keep on walking.

Not only that, but there was always a creepy feeling that someone was watching you, or that you were being followed. It was hard not to turn around and look, harder still to keep walking. Rogue moved closer to her lover, and placed her hand in his. With her free hand, she felt the walls. They were as slippy as the floor seemed -- it reminded her of seaweed covered walls and steps on beaches. With a grim smile, she hoped the incline of the floor didn’t get any steeper, or they would fall and slide to the bottom. With a little laugh, she inanly remembered the episode of the Simpsons where Mr Burns was a vampire who had a slide. But her smile fell from her face as she remembered the ending to that episode. She sighed, and looked up at Remy. A thought came to her.

“Sugah? What... what happened ta Logan? Ah’ve heard ya mention Bishop, but not Wolvie.”

Flicking one of his auburn bangs behind his ear, Remy sighed. “I dunno, chere. I didn’t see him. I t’ink he got away...” His voice trailed off.

“But ya don’t know?” Finished Rogue. Remy nodded sheepishly.

After a while longer of walking down the corridor, Rogue found to her disgust that the incline indeed _did_ get steeper. She scowled, then lifted herself from the floor into the air, and put her arms around Remy’s waist.

“Wha--!?” He exclaimed, as he found himself flying.

Rogue couldn’t hide a smile. “What can ah say?” She asked. “Mah legs sure were gettin’ tired!!” She flew slowly down the corridor, taking directions from Remy and following them quickly. As the corridor once again got more pleasant, with drier walls and floors -- though the bleakness and greyness remained -- both X-Men jumped as they heard a loud thunder clap not too far off. Remy got up off the floor, rubbing his butt. Rogue giggled and grinned at him. “Sorry sugah!” She managed in-between laughs.

Remy smiled wryly, then looked off to the direction the sound had come from. “De mother of all lightnin’’ bolts, I t’ink?” He turned to Rogue with a grin. “Now who could dat be?”

Lifting him from the floor, Rogue sped along the tunnel, leaving Remy yelping, and herself laughing. She stopped laughing, however, as they entered the hall in which Hadea was fighting.

As they entered the hall, the saw that Hadea’s combatant was indeed Storm. The white haired goddess was soaring agilely around the rafters, and Hadea was firing at her with what seemed to be Bishop’s gun. Like a dolphin in the ocean, Storm turned fluidly, and rushed toward Hadea, and unleashed a lightening fury upon her. Gambit gasped. His friend had made a fatal mistake. She had assumed that her lightning bolts would kill, or at least phase Hadea. She was wrong. Gambit closed his eyes against the massive flash of lightning, and so missed Hadea’s clawed hand creeping around Storm’s delicate ankle. When his eyes opened again, Hadea was stood glaring at Storm, who was lying on the floor, her head propped up against the wall, with blood dripping down from it. Remy was about to go to her, horrified that his best friend was hurt, when Rogue cast him a look, and flew towards her. Remy took a deep breath, and faced Hadea alone. Taking a glance around the room, he saw Bishop strung up on the far wall, handcuffed, head forward, unconscious. Deciding that he would have to get him out as soon as possible, he darted forward, caught Hadea a sharp blow in the stomach, then brought his knee up to her head. He turned, and looked over at Storm and Rogue. Storm was looking woozy, but alive. Rogue looked at him. He pointed to Bishop. Nodding, she started to fly up to him to free him from his restraints. Remy licked his lips, and looked down at Hadea. She was on all fours, low to the ground, circling him like a wolf. Remy gazed down at her, wondering what she was up to. A least, he thought, while she was after him, she couldn’t go after any of the others.

Resolving to not wait to see what Hadea was scheming in her half-mad mind, Remy took the initiative, and planted a low roundhouse in her throat. It would have crushed the windpipe of a human, even when Remy was only a human himself, but all it did for Hadea was knock her to the floor.

Moving around her, fast, hoping he could be out of her line of sight before she could recover, he was then facing her back. Before she could move, he hit her again. Unfortunately, she was faster in recovering from his first blow than he had hoped, and she dodged. As he recovered his balance from the missed hit, Hadea striked, pouncing on his chest, as she had the first time they met, restraining his limbs so he couldn’t move.

Feeling a cold shudder of premonition, a fleeting, terrible thought flitted through his head; if he died, Rogue, Storm and Bishop would never get out of here alive. The very thought of that gave him strength enough to push Hadea off of him, and towards the wall where Bishop had been shackled until Rogue had freed him just now.

“What do you think you are doing, Remy?” Asked Hadea, her voice a bizarre, guttural mix of sweet and utterly mad. “Do you have the stupid idea that those chains can hold me?”

“We’ll find out in a minute, chere, won’t we?” With that, he pushed her closer still towards the shackles. As he found himself on the receiving end of a clawed punch, courtesy of Hadea, he cursed himself again for underestimating her in his haste to get out of there. Rolling away from her second attack, with her missing only by luck, he wiped the blood from his stomach, and feverishly tried to think of a plan. As he ducked and dodged her next few punches and kicks, and returned a few of his own, he realised with a strangely detached feeling, that he wasn’t going to get out of there.

Summoning what was left of his energy, that was seeping out of as did his blood, Remy sent a single thought to the love of his life; “Go.”

Rogue answered it by flying across the room as fast as the confined space would let her, and hitting Hadea double-fisted in the gut. Grabbing Remy and retreating with him, Rogue set him down at the other end of the room. Ignoring Hadea’s colourful curses as she got slowly up, Rogue bit her lip thoughtfully, thinking of how she had beaten her enemies in the past, if that would work on her. As she came across a half-forgotten memory, her eyes lit up with excitement, for she realised it might just work!

Her joy was interrupted by Remy again pleading with her to leave.

“Ah’m not leavin’ you again, Cajun, ah’ve tole ya before!” With a secretive smile, she asked if he could keep Hadea busy for two minutes.

“I s’pose so. What’s y’ plan?” He asked speculatively.

Another secretive smile played on Rogue’s lips, and she kissed Remy quickly, before bolting thru the roof, making sure to do it just above Hadea so some of the large, heavy bricks fell on the vampire, making her lose her balance if nothing else. Remy watched for a moment, not moving, then decided whatever Rogue had planned, he had to give her the chance to do it; it was the only chance they had.

He leaped in to resume the battle.

Rogue flew higher and higher into the air, gaining speed as the air thinned.

Ah hope ah can pull this off; last tahm ah did this, ah had Peter’s strength, as well as mah own!

When she got as high as even her nigh-invulnerable body could handle, she made a U-turn and made for the castle, and more specifically, Hadea. Screaming a thought for Remy to get back as soon as the place was visible, the two combatants tiny dots in the hole she had made, she plummeted thru the roof, in the exact same hole, and, fists first, slammed into Hadea. Vaguely aware of the floor smashing beneath them, and the next floor and the next, until they hit the basement, Rogue thought dizzily,

“Ah wonder if’n it worked?” Before the blackness took her.

When she awoke, she was in the remains of the hall, which was littered with bricks from the ceiling, tiles from the roof, and broken floor boards. She sat up a little, and saw that Hadea was in the shackles with Bishop had been kept prisoner in, and that Storm was conscious, and sat up. Sitting up further, Rogue was gladdened to see Remy looking at her.

Stroking her face, he whispered to her, “T’ank God... I was so worried ‘bout y’... I t’ought...”

“Oh, hush, sugah,” Rogue told him softly, but smilingly. That smile fell when she saw Bishop, still blacked out, and pale. “Will he be alraht?” She asked, worried.

Storm nodded, careful not to move her head too much, and stood gingerly. “He should be fine, if given some blood, and time to heal.” Then she turned to Remy, her blue eyes serious. “We must get out of here now, before she awakens. I would not like to be here for that; we are all far too weak to fight her.”

“Too late for that, I think, pets,” came a snarling voice from the other end of the room. All three X-Men paled as they saw that the vampire woman was awake, and mad. “You are all going to die at my hands, slowly and painfully. You will beg for my mercy, but will get none. You will die!”

She snapped her chains, and ran at the X-Men.

As Hadea raced at the weak, bleeding and tired X-Men, hopelessness overcame them. Charging a piece of nearby rubble, Remy threw it at her, but she leaped over it, and rode the shockwaves. Storm could only manage to summon a weak blast of lightening, but it had no effect whatsoever. Rogue could only sit there, weak as a kitten, and stare. As such, it was she who saw what happened next the best.

Hadea, their slow and painful death, was but a few meters away from them who a saviour came in the form of bone claws and a bad attitude.

“Wolverine!” She cried, joyfully. Remy leapt up, hope giving him strength, and held Hadea down as Wolverine pierced her heart with his claws. A frightful scream, the sort heard in the best sort of horror movies ripped forth from her mouth and filled the room, seeming to permeate every cell. as it died away, it’s echo still sounded in Rogue’s ears. It was a sound she’d never forget, no matter how long she lived.

Wolverine broke the shocked silence. “Let’s get the hell out of here before she pulls some weird vampire shit and brings herself back to life.”

Storm looked at him, with dazed eyes. “You think she can do that?”

Wolverine shrugged, and hoisted the still unconscious Bishop over his shoulder. “I don’t know too much ‘bout vampires, but I know enough that you can’t ever be sure they’re dead. How many times have we taken Drac down?”

Storm bowed her head in acknowledgement. “Wolverine is correct. In any case, I think it would be wise to leave; I do not like this place. It seems to have a life of it’s own, and we should go before it decide’s to take revenge for it’s master’s death.”

“I t’ink y’ right, Stormy,” Agreed Gambit, and taking Rogue’s hand, he left Hadea, and the rest of his past behind him, hopefully forever, and walked into the future, with Rogue’s hand in his.

 

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