-A/N-: It’s always the case, isn’t it? When you get to the juicy bits in the story, the author always has to get sidetracked and totally distracted by something else… For more than half a year. Yeah, sorry this has been put off for so long! Sorry, sorry, sorry! If it’s any consolation, this is a mega-long chapter.

This chapter was not beta’d, so grammatical mistakes and typos were my fault and mine alone. And it’s definitely my fault if you guys have forgotten half of what this is about! Apologies!

WARNING: We may or may not see character deaths past this point.

---

“Sundown’s not in another three hours, so we’ve got plenty of time, but I’ll bet they’ll be expecting us sooner than later,” Logan commented as all of them silently descended the lowered ramp that led out of the Blackbird. “They being Blacken and his little gang of followers of course,” the Wolverine added distastefully.

“A lot can happen in three hours,” Mystique pointed out, her appearance rapidly changing into that of the familiar, blue, reptilian shape-shifter they all knew. There was no reason for her to remain looking like a normal human anymore if they were going to trespass on unfriendly territory.

“This trap is much too obvious,” Magneto said after a moment of silence whilst they gathered at the bottom of the aircraft and surveyed the lifeless prison-like asylum before them. “But as obvious as it may be, we have to proceed with caution. We’re dealing with a man who has made it abundantly clear that he has no qualms concerning murder, much less the murder of our race. We’re dealing with a man who knows what he’s doing.”

John did not feel much like proceeding with caution, truth be told. All he wanted to do, really, was to bust into the forsaken building, get Rogue, light Blacken on fire, and then get the hell out. Rescuing Pietro was purely optional. But, he knew that Magneto was right to say they had to come up with a sort of plan or this operation would most likely end in catastrophe. John realised that his own scheme was flawed anyway; from where he stood, he knew that the asylum was way too huge a place to conduct a one-man search. In a tiny clearing, untouched by the greenery surrounding it, the building stood, like a looming four-storey effigy out of a horror movie. Its greying walls and broken windows contrasted starkly with the forestry around them. It looked almost surreal and haunted, and definitely uninviting. Out-of-its-damn-place would be the correct term, John realised dourly, checking to see if his, or rather, Rogue’s lighter was still with him and that his igniter was well-strapped around his wrist.

“I hope Rogue and Pietro aren’t… aren’t hurt or anything,” Kitty managed to mumble under her breath quietly.

John ground his teeth in frustration. If anyone so much as lays a finger on Marie…

“Rogue’s a strong girl,” Bobby’s self-assured voice interrupted John’s train of thought, “I’m sure she’s fine. As for Pietro, I have no idea how he got himself kidnapped in the fist place, having powers such as his.”

What if… John thought to himself dismally, wondering for a few moments, then shook himself mentally. There was no way the kid would… Nah.

“It doesn’t look like anyone’s coming out to greet us,” Storm remarked, gesturing towards the large, corroded, metal doors that could only be the entryway into the mental institute. John was surprised that the doors still remained standing upright on its hinges, considering the condition it was in. It could have been more than half a century old for all he knew, judging by the black-brown rust layering the thick steel. Just above the door hung a large, tarnished, chrome plaque that read ‘Welcome to the Woodbrige Mental Institution’.

John couldn’t help but agree that this was definitely where one such as Ezekiel Blacken would dwell.

“Chances are they’re waiting for us on the inside,” Mystique replied the weather-manipulator. “Then, it would at least be easier for them to surround and ambush us.”

“Makes sense,” Logan muttered.

“Think we can just walk in?” Bobby wondered aloud. “That door doesn’t look like it would open on its own to let us through.”

His innocent question was answered seconds later.

CREEEE-K.

Everyone in the group flinched as a sudden, ear-splitting screech of crunching metal filled the still air of silence, causing a flock of startled birds to leave the sanctuary of the treetops and take off into the blue distance in a flurry of terrified feathers. The front doors seemed, right now, to be folding into itself. It was being crumpled with ease like a piece of particularly fragile tin foil.

John looked around at Magneto—the only one who hadn’t flinched at the unexpected racquet—and wasn’t at all surprised to find the man with one hand outstretched and a look of concentration directed at the doors ahead.

A small smile, a final sweep with his arm, and the rust-coated steel doors blew inward through the entryway of the building, smashing anything that would have stood in its way.

A brief moment of silence passed.

“And what the hell happened to the ‘proceed with caution’ bit?” Mystique bit out acidly, glaring pointedly at Magneto, patience with the man steadily running thin.

“That, my dear, was to ensure our entrance would be clear and free of anyone who might be waiting to welcome us from behind them,” he gestured brusquely at his handiwork, now nothing but a heap of metal not in the least resembling a door resting within the building, a few feet from where it stood moments before. “For all you know, the place could be crawling with people who want to kill us.”

“Your little Imploding-The-Enemy’s-Door stunt also managed to ensure that Blacken knows that we’re at his doorstep!” the shape-shifter retorted hotly.

“Well, the man is expecting us. Might as well make an impressive, if not daunting, entrance,” his voice rose dangerously, “to remind him just who he’s up against… And who we are.”

John couldn’t help but agree with his former leader. And even Logan had nothing to say to that.

Mystique opened her mouth, ready to say something to rebuke the man for his proclamation, but quickly decided against it and turned away from him.

“So, are we going to enter the place or stand here just looking at it? I would like to get in there and look for Rogue, preferably not sometime next century,” John said loudly then.

“Patience was never one of your strongest virtues, Pyro,” Magneto muttered wryly, “And I would like to think that not all of us are here just because of her.”

“I don’t know, your son seemed to have a little father-hating complex before he went missing,” Logan said rather doubtfully and more out of malevolence than anything else. “Think that’ll change when he sees that you’ve come to save him?”

“That doesn’t matter to me anymore. I know I’m not fit to be called his father; I haven’t been for quite some time now. But if this gives me a fair chance to right some of the wrongs I’ve done and atone for some of the mistakes I’ve made, then I’ll take it.”

John was pretty sure that he had never heard, nor seen, this much raw emotion in Erik Lensherr, ever; apart from when openly showing his passion to set human-kind straight. It was then that the pyrokinetic manipulator realised, with some regard, that he—the one whom people quite often thought of to have a heart of steel—was quite an emotional and expressive man.

“Okay, yeah, whatever,” Logan’s gruff voice hid his growing deference for the metal manipulating mutant. “Like the kid said, let’s finish what we came here to do. And maybe take down Blacken while we’re at it as well. At least that would put us at peace once and for all.”

That seemed to stir the crowd of them.

“Well, let’s get going then,” Storm said hurriedly, leading the way towards the mental institute, making straight for the doorless front entrance.

“Be on your guard,” Magneto advised the others warningly as he followed after Storm.

Logan grunted as he started to walk. “What harm could they do to us? We’ve got,” he counted, “seven of us in total, all powerful enough - and hopefully sensible enough,” he glanced at Bobby, Kitty and John, “to know how to keep out of danger.”

“Ah yes, one that controls the weather, one that manipulates metal, one that creates ice out of thin air, one that walks through walls, one who can set the place on fire, one with exceptionally sharp claws, and of course, me… I believe we do have a formidable team.” Mystique tutted.

“Hopefully, it’s enough,” Bobby said quietly to Kitty and John, who were the last to follow the rest of the party into the foreboding building.

John cast one final glance upward at the hundreds of dark, shattered windows that looked for all the world like the soulless, vacant eyes of a zombie, before entering the asylum with the rest of his team.

On the contrary to what Magneto had said before about the place crawling with people wanting to kill them, there was no one to be seen as they walked through the doorway. An empty reception desk stood to one side, half-destroyed by the flying door. A stairwell that led upstairs could be seen from where they were further down the hall.

They stopped there at the foyer. The interior looked more like a dingy, darkened ballroom complete with grubby carpets and a dusty chandelier, instead of the den of an evil extremist group. Which was quite surprising, judging from the outward prison-like appearance. John supposed that the reception area was probably all for show and that the upper levels, which no doubt had lodged the mental patients were more jail-like.

“The place doesn’t seem too heavily guarded,” Logan noted, sniffing the air and straining his ears. He couldn’t hear a damn thing; other than themselves, the place seemed deserted and uninhabited, even to the Wolverine.

“Maybe it’s a trap,” Bobby muttered, looking around nervously, fingers twitching to freeze something.

“That’s because, like I’ve already said before: it is a trap,” Magneto replied calmly, as though speaking to a child.

“Alright,” Storm spoke up, “Hank McCoy said that the blueprints to this place indicate a stairway that leads to an underground basement somewhere around here. The best thing we could do is split up. It’ll be less time-consuming and much easier to search the place this way.” She gestured indicatively, “Logan, you take Bobby, John and Kitty and search the lower level of the building. The rest of us will look above ground.”

“Why do I not have a say in this?” John protested, not really liking the idea of going below ground to look for Rogue. What were the chances of actually finding her there?

“Because,” Storm said testily, rounding on John, “I was put in charge of this operation. If anything happened to you, to any of you, I’ll be accountable for your unthinking, reckless conduct.”

John rolled his eyes. Of course.

“You know, it was exactly this sort of regulatory pushiness that made him leave you people in the first place,” Mystique sniffed. “We were more… liberal with our thinking.”

“You mean you Brotherhood people didn’t care if anyone got killed in your campaigns,” Logan corrected bluntly.

Mystique turned to stare at Logan, realising that she had included herself with the Brotherhood, and was not sure whether to tell him that yes, it didn’t matter who lived or died as long as they fought for a cause, or to tell him that no, the Brotherhood was no more and she wanted to have nothing to do with them because their leader left her to die.

“Can we stop this pointless wrangling?” Magneto’s humourless voice cut through the brief hush. “We’ll take the woman’s suggestion and get going.”

“Fine with me,” Bobby murmured, and Kitty nodded in agreement. John couldn’t help but notice that she was sticking close to the Iceman, who was probably the only person she felt most comfortable with in the group. Of course, John knew that he’d had dealings with Kitty ‘Shadowcat’ Pryde in the past way back when he was still an actual student at the mansion, but they were never really close. In fact, neither of them really acknowledged each other’s existence until a heated discussion between them ensued down one of the hallways in the school one day which began with a simple ‘could you please stop walking through the damn walls all the damn time?’

That had been the day Kitty Pryde really took any notice of John Allerdyce. That day was also a very long time ago. And really, the Kitty of today would no doubt say that that John has changed a great deal. Although for better or for worse, she couldn’t quite figure out yet.

“Right, c’mon kids,” Logan said, turning and heading off in a direction that he hoped would successfully direct him to the staircase that would lead down to the basement. “Try not to kill anyone if you don’t have to,” he added gruffly.

“And if any of us runs into Blacken?” John asked as he, Bobby and Kitty trailed behind.

Snikt. “Kill him,” the man growled.

“Full of contradictions,” Magneto muttered quietly to himself, watching the four of them leave and trying to hide his annoyance. Of course, the old man knew that when the situation came, he would not hesitate to kill Blacken himself.

The old man then turned and headed to the stairwell that lead upstairs, not bothering to tell the other two women to follow him despite knowing that Storm deemed herself the rightful overseer of the pact, or at least thought she was. She would just have to share the title with him then. After all, Erik Lensherr was never one to be called a follower, but always a leader. He would definitely have preferred to have Pyro in his little group instead of Storm, really. But he supposed it didn’t matter. And if they did manage to recover his son, it was all for the better that Pyro weren’t there with him. Magneto still hadn’t forgotten what the distraught boy had said about Pyro being more of a son to him than he did. Those words stung. Badly.

As he climbed the stairs, Ororo Munroe and Raven Darkholme in his wake, he told himself that once they got out of this, he would make it up to Pietro. In whatever way possible.

The first floor was filled with numerous hospital-esque corridors with numbered doors leading to patient wards. The place was old, dim and shadowy... And much too quiet for Magneto’s liking, truth be told. But he didn’t voice his growing misgiving about the whole situation.

They combed the first storey in silence without much success in finding anything remotely alive, which definitely set Mystique on edge. From what they could tell from the empty rooms they explored, they all looked to be virtually unused since the day the building was set to be demolished.

The second floor didn’t look much different. In fact, it was almost a carbon copy of the previous floor. Magneto decided to do some searching on his own instead of sticking with the other two. They could take care of themselves, he reasoned.

The man finally came to a large room that seemed to be the only one in the place so far that looked like it had been utilized. A desk, two chairs, a lamp, and a sizable window to the left corner of the room. Stepping further in and kicking up a storm of dust from the filthy floor, he could make out the forest and the looming figure of the Blackbird through the misty panes of the glass. From what he could make out of the sunlight shining through the dirty glass, it was well past midday.

He had better find Pietro soon. And Blacken. He definitely wanted to find Blacken. And exterminate him.

“Looking for me?” a slick voice from the doorway startled Magneto into spinning around on the spot.

Speak of the devil. Magneto was stunned for more than just a split second.

There were two people standing by the entryway looking back at him. Both of them, he readily recognised. One of them was Ezekiel Blacken… and the other surprised him even more, if that was worse. And judging by the look she was giving him, this situation did not at all bode well for the magnetokinetic.

“You!” he managed to choke out, not sure what else to say. “You’re alive!” And he hoped that his voice was loud enough to travel down the hallway and reach the ears of Mystique and Storm before something unpleasant happened.

“Yeah. Is that so very surprising… boss?”

Magneto did not much want to know the hows and the whys of how she came to be alive and well and clearly working for the man she now stood beside. “What have you done to my son?” he demanded rather forcefully instead.

“Done to your son?” Blacken seemed amused. “You should ask him. But then again, I suppose you wouldn’t be able to, seeing as you’ve just encountered a serious problem.” Pause. “Me.”

Then, in a flash—a mere span of two seconds or maybe even less—Magneto found himself crumpling to the ground, the wind knocked out of him painfully. And he didn’t have to be the genius he was to figure out that this was all planned from the beginning and that he was stupid to have not remained together with the others. His vision went dark momentarily, capturing the face of his assailant in a frozen picture. And the very last thing the metal manipulator was to hear was the weakening of his ragged breathing, the loud pounding of his heart, and the distant cackle that belonged to Ezekiel Blacken.

“I knew you had your uses,” Blacken nodded approvingly to his accomplice. “Now, with that taken care of,” the man said, walking up to Magneto’s unmoving form and smiling an impious smile, “let me take what I need from this man before his two companions arrive.”

---

A few corridors away, Mystique and Storm were about to enter what seemed like their thirtieth room that day when muffled sounds caught their attention. It sounded like conversation. Voices.

Storm looked at Mystique, who looked back unblinkingly as they realised whose voice they were hearing.

“Magneto!”

And they ran.

And they never stopped running until they came to the room with the door wide open in inauspicious welcome; the room with their fallen comrade and two other people they didn’t quite want to see at that moment in time.

“Took you girls long enough,” Blacken crowed from where he stood at the far end of the room as soon as the two entered.

Mystique and Storm’s eyes fell on Magneto, who lay lifeless on the ground. And the blue shape-shifter inhaled sharply, clenching a fist.

“What have you done?” she hissed with venom, eyes narrowing and heart rate doubling… And half-hoping, half-pleading, inwardly that Erik Lensherr was not possibly dead. The notion of him lying on the floor looking like he was was just… absurd.

Storm, on the other hand however, had other fears. Her eyes widened when she looked to the other individual in the room. The female.

The same dark eyes, same dark hair, same dark skin and unquestionably, the very same wicked smirk.

And Storm almost completely forgot that Blacken was standing there in the same room with them and that they were all in an asylum, for that matter.

“It can’t be!”

“And why not?” her assumed-dead archrival asked, raising an eyebrow.

Storm was dumbfounded. “But I thought I – you…!”

“You thought you zapped me dead?” Callisto laughed a cackling laugh, “You’re such a fool.” Her smile widened. “You did it once remember? Before that big showdown at Alcatraz. And I didn’t die, did I? What made you think doing it a second time would be any different?”

“But I saw you! You weren’t moving!” Storm was partially outraged and just more than a little apprehensive. Her worried frown caused Callisto to widen her grin.

“Yeah. Ever heard of ‘playing dead’? Once you left, I got up two seconds later and ran for cover since just about everyone on the island was about to be decimated. I was injured, of course, but not dead. And let me tell you, electrocution hurts like a bitch.”

“Girls, girls! Play nice,” Black chided.

“How can you be working under him?” Storm asked accusingly and sceptically at the same time. “Blacken wants the mutant race wiped off the face of the earth! He’s human! Not mutant!”

“Quite the opposite, actually,” Blacken interjected casually.

There was a short pause as his words sank in.

“What have you done to him?” Mystique’s voice finally broke the silence. It was bleak, cold, harsh. She had crossed over to where Magneto lay, whilst Storm and Callisto had been getting reacquainted, and was now kneeling by his side. She looked for signs of a heartbeat. There was none. She looked back up at the man who did this, the hatred already building inside her at an alarming pace.

“You want to know that badly?” Blacken asked, an eyebrow cocked. “Well then, my dear, let me demonstrate.” He raised both arms, as though preparing to conduct an instrumental ensemble.

There was a shrill, deafening sound of glass cracking and metal bending, which caused Storm and Mystique to swing around to the left just in time to see the opaque panes of the only window in the room shatter into a million pieces and a stake of metal tear itself from its large frame clean off the concrete wall with a thunderous grate.

Mystique’s eyes widened as the jagged, broken chunk of metal came hurtling towards her with lightning speed. She dove to one side, barely avoiding being impaled on the spot in time, and heard the heavy makeshift javelin smash to the ground where she had been standing just seconds before in a ringing chaos of noise. It ground to a halt against the one of the four walls.

Blacken smirked, satisfied. “Don’t you know?” he said to them then as the shape-shifter picked herself up. “My skin… is poison.” The man’s eyes glittered vindictively, as though what he had just revealed was the biggest and darkest secret in the world. Then, he laughed and turned to leave. “Take care of these two,” he said to Callisto, exiting through the door, “And then kill the boy. He’s useless to us now. After all, with the father gone, his part of the deal no longer exists.”

---

“This seems too… weird,” Logan’s voice echoed through the basement in which all four of them had just stepped into after descending the stairs they had found a while ago. “Where the hell are the people? I thought this was the headquarters that housed these Eradicators. And weren’t they expecting us?”

John rolled his eyes. “Hey, I’m not complaining. Are you that eager to start a fight?”

Large gas tanks and canisters lined the far end of the basement, and a massive sign that read DANGER; FIRE HAZARD was nailed to the wall above the lot of them. It made the place seem more like a large, underground boiler room—unusual for an asylum undeniably. John couldn’t help but give the warning sign an odd look. If anything, he was the fire hazard here.

Even so, he conceded that the damned catacomb was, without doubt, a dangerous place to be.

Well, the basement seemed empty enough apart from the gas canisters. It was a vast garage-type space that could easily accommodate a dozen parked cars. The other three walls that enclosed the area were bare apart from a few closed doors. Storage rooms, most likely. There were easily about six or seven doors that led to separate rooms that he could discern in the dim light available.

The Wolverine, Iceman and Shadowcat had already begun their wordless search around the parameter. John figured he’d best try one of the doors like what the rest were doing if he were going to get anywhere. The one to his right was unlocked, so he opened it, took a look at the interior, and deemed it safe to enter.

From what he could tell from the little light filtering through door he just stepped through, which barely lit the dark room, it was unfurnished and empty and definitely void of life. All he could make out were the grey-brown walls, paint peeling with age.

He sighed despondently.

Rogue… Marie… Where the heck are you?

He realised she’d been out of his sight for almost twenty-four hours straight now and he wasn’t sure she’d be alright anymore. She’s strong, he tried to assure himself, recalling that Bobby had said the same thing before they came into this accursed place. She's a strong girl. She… Oh, God, once I get my hands on that fuckin’ kidnapper, I swear I’m gonna’ fucking burn him…

He composed himself quickly, silently declared that there was nothing remotely interesting about the room he was in, and walked back out into the main chamber of the basement once more, ready to try another one of the rooms. Logan, Bobby and Kitty were searching around other parts of the large basement, echoes reverberating through the large antechamber, and he could hear the trying of locked doors and the disappointed sighs following their discoveries of nothing.

With each passing moment, John grew increasingly certain that the search here would account for naught and that they would have much more luck helping the other group explore the upper floors of the building.

He tried the door to his left, pleased to find it wasn’t bolted shut. The knob turned smoothly enough on the contrary, quite unlike some of the other doors he had tried; they seemed to have not been used in years. Stepping through, he also realised just how small and compact and different this room was in comparison with the others. Sure, it was dark and musty and unused for ages, just like the rest, but tall, dark shelves lined every wall ominously and the place seemed to suffocate him. He was already starting to feel claustrophobic.

His eyes darted around, searching the darkness, and they landed on a large filing cabinet, rusted and dust-covered from years of neglect, which stood at the very far end of the tiny room. And there, sitting against that very filing cabinet, slumped in what John was sure was an extremely uncomfortable position, with her head bowed and eyes closed, was Rogue, still clad in her sleeved nightdress which was now clearly rumpled and creased and covered in gray patches of dust.

“Oh, Goddammit. Fuck!” John flew across the room and knelt down beside the girl’s unmoving figure. “Jesus. Rogue!” He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her as hard as he dared to go, “Rogue!” he said again, his voice urgent and desperate. “Get up, Marie! Open your eyes!”

Moments passed. And at last, as though stirring from a deep sleep, Rogue’s eyes cracked open and John let loose a relieved sigh. When she finally recognised him, her eyes widened with unfeigned horror, nowhere near the welcoming and thankful expression John first expected.

“What’re you doing here?” she whispered urgently, wanting so much to yell. Her voice was hoarse and dry. “Get out! It’s a trap! You shouldn’t have come… You-!”

“Shh… We’ve come here to get you back.”

But Rogue shook her head violently. “No. You shouldn’t be here! It’s a trap, John! Why did you come?” she demanded angrily, half-delirious.

“Hey, listen,” he said defiantly, gripping her by a sleeved arm in an attempt to calm her down. “I would never leave you to the hands of this psycho killer bastard,” he paused, looking at her pointedly, “And neither would any of your other friends from the mansion,” he found himself saying. “You’re one of the few people I care about, Marie. And when I say one of the few, I mean the only one.”

Rogue quietened, her ragged breathing returning to normal. She shut her eyes jadedly, unable to say more.

“Now, are you okay?” John asked quickly, his eyes roaming her body, checking for any signs of injury or open wounds.

“I’m fine. Just… my head hurts a little.”

John’s eyes snapped up to her pale face, landing on a huge bruise on her forehead; the very bruise that resulted from someone hitting her over the head in the mansion kitchens, rendering her unconscious. He brought a hand up and gently brushed her limp, silver-white locks of hair away from the bruise.

“Shit… it looks bad,” John breathed, his fingers lightly tracing the angrily-purpled skin. “Who the hell did this to you? Blacken?” he demanded, searching for another reason to add to his ‘Why I Want To Kill That Bastard’ list.

“John…” Rogue said quietly, wanting to reach for his hand and clutch it tight, in hopes of getting him to pay attention to what she was saying and not her bruises. But she realised once more that she did not have her gloves on and touching him in any way would be impossible. “We have to get out of here before he comes back. Before… Oh, no. No, no, no, no,” Rogue murmured, as though suddenly remembering something. “John, we can’t stay here. We have to go.” Ezekiel Blacken is not who you think he is.

“But, the others are still looking for Pietro…” And I need to set things straight with the man behind all this.

Pietro. Pietro. Pietro.

Rogue felt like she had been slapped. Why hadn’t she realised it sooner? Why hadn’t she recognised that voice? Why?

“John, he’s not who you think he is,” Rogue said, voice suddenly low and shaky.

“What…?”

“BLACKEN IS NOT WHO YOU THINK HE IS!” her voice rose, octaves climbing precariously, “HE’S NOT HUMAN.” Pause. Inhale. Exhale. “He’s a… he’s one of us.”

Silence.

Footsteps could be heard now, hurried and intense, and they resonated through the hallway outside, getting closer with each passing second. John didn’t have to guess that Logan, Kitty and Bobby were running in their general direction. But at the moment, he was still trying to grasp and comprehend just what Rogue had told him.

Blacken was a mutant? But then why-

“Did I just hear… Rogue!” Logan yelled as he rounded the corner with the other two and his eyes fell upon her frail, vulnerable figure.

“Thank God we found you!” Bobby sounded a little more than relieved and rushed forward to kneel next to a thoroughly vexed John just to ensure that she was real and she was really there.

“Is she alright?” Kitty exclaimed, all kinds of apprehension written on her almost paper-white face.

“I’m fine,” Rogue said quickly, panic and dread rising in her voice once more. If they were to remain here any longer… “We’ve got to get going. We can’t stay here,” she grounded out, trying to pick herself off the ground.

John grabbed her by the arm firmly, telling himself that the questions could wait. “Can you stand?” he asked.

Rogue nodded. She was not bound nor gagged anymore, she should be able to stand upright.

“We’ll get her to the Blackbird,” Logan was saying as John and Bobby carefully helped her to her feet. “Then we’ll come back for the others.”

Rogue tensed. “There are others?”

“Yeah. Storm, Magneto and Mystique,” Logan replied, guiding them out of the room quickly and back out into the central part of the basement.

“What?” Rogue was incredulous, “We’ve got to get them out of this place! They’ll all… They’re in danger!”

“But what about Pietro?” Kitty voiced, looking concerned and a little anxious at how terrified and how vulnerable Rogue looked at the moment.

“Forget about Pietro!”

“Huh?”

“There’s no time to explain! Just... Oh.”

Rogue’s expression changed completely as she looked to where their escape route was; the stairway that led up to the ground floor. Her expression was one of resolute horror and defeat.

The others turned to stare.

There, blocking their only exit, stood the man behind it all; behind the murders of Tabitha Smith, Warren Worthington the Second, Amara Aquilla and Lance Alvers, behind the theft of the Cure sample from Worthington Laboratories, behind the kidnapping of Marie D’Ancanto… and behind the death of Erik Lensherr.

Ezekiel Blacken smiled. And it was not a pleasant one.

---

-A/N-: ASDFGHKOMG!CLIFFHANGER!!!NOOO.

And I shall now break down and cry for the next hour or so for killing off one of my favourite characters (whom I, admittedly, never liked until I started writing this fic).

Erm… I had a weird thought the other day: I wonder what it would be like if Stranger were put to screen and turned into a movie. Haha. ‘Twould be darn cool.

Here are the review responses to the chapter previous chapter that I promised 6 months ago (runs and hides from oncoming tomatoes and eggs being thrown at her):

Dama Jade: LOL. I’m back (again). I hope this chapter actually made up for the long wait.

Psyc0gurl: You sensing an end to this story is about right. There are less than half a dozen chapters more to go. I wonder if you’d prefer a bad ending or a good ending, although I’ve already locked the final chapter in stone… And there should be a sequel (if I don’t turn lazy again).

Alexandra-Black: Wow, you were pretty close about one thing in your review about what’s gonna’ happen in the end… And I wonder if you’re still reading this. Haha. Thanks for reviewing anyhow! You’re great!

SkyRogue: Yay! Pleased to meet you! And since I’m replying to your first ever review, welcome aboard the Stranger ship! Although I may be saying this a little too late… And woohoo, you’re a Ryro shipper! Glad this fic was of help in turning you into one. :)

MorbidSeraph: Spoilers? It wouldn’t take a lot of money to buy them off me. LOL. Just kidding.

PsychoTherapy: Guh. You’re probably mad at me for not updating for so long.

we-r-the-cure: YOU WERE RIGHT! The inside man was Pietro. Looks like you picked up on it pretty well. Haha.

Growl Snarl: You asked a great deal of questions in that review. Hmm, I hope that you finally know why Rogue claimed than Blacken wasn’t human; it’s ‘cause he’s a MUTANT. Is he a hypocritical bastard? Maybe. The next chapter should sort that out. And yes, Quicksilver made a deal with the devil, but Magneto wouldn’t be able to confront his son about that now, would he? Being dead and all… :(

ShadowWren: THANK YOU. Yes, tying up the loose ends of X3 was the main objective of this fic. And I wonder if I’ve done a good enough job on it. Anyway, I’m flattered that you think this is one of the best Ryro fics out there. Means a great deal to me. (Big, cheesy grin)

the sillylittlepanda: Your review was THE review that prompted me to get off my butt and write this chapter after the long 6-month hiatus. GO YOU! I guess it seemed as though I needed more encouragement to finish what I started. Haha, thanks! And no, Blacken was not an alien as you initially remarked. LOL. Imagine if he was, though…

To the rest who reviewed chapter 26, both new readers and old, namely: 0-Jackie-0,Sublime Angel, carter13, Ambaron Luxuria, reviewer, Wildcat Black Ranger, Built on the Horizon, verdant quest, Dementa, Black Sorceress, Obiwanfan, Nahirta, Ranawe217, xLiLix, AGirlBrushedRed, Chica De Los Ojos Café, TPolTucker, RedMagic, roguelane, Carline, Elirrina, kahjit, 7… THANKS FOR THE CONTINUED SUPPORT.

And, as always, constructive criticism, reviews and/or cookies are always welcome.