Game of Survival [Book One]

5

"How are we going to know when the other mutants are going to arrive?" Warlock asked Reaper who was, oddly, knitting on the floor of the kitchen.

Instead of looking up at Warlock to answer his question, Reaper said, "You'll know when they get here."

Ira lifted himself onto the counter and asked, "Can't you sense them?"

"I can."

"Then why don't you tell us how close they are?"

A large smile reached from ear to ear as he said, "It's more fun this way."

Ira and Warlock let out a groan just in time for Psylocke to enter the room. As he entered, Reaper stopped what he was doing and looked up at him. He couldn't help but wonder if he should enter his mind to see what he was thinking. Psylocke, on the other hand, walked past him without even a passing glance. He opened the fridge, pulled out a bottle of water, and left the kitchen without a word.

A smile danced across Reaper's face as he quickly got up from the floor, placed his half-knitted hat onto the table, and followed behind Psylocke. Three weeks had passed since Reaper had first tried to make a move on Psylocke and he was finally starting to feel like he was getting somewhere. He knew that if he kept trying, he'd get what he wanted.

Psylocke.

Psylocke, however, was oblivious to Reaper following him. The moment his hand grabbed a hold of his doorknob, a hand grabbed his wrist and pulled. Suddenly, his back was pressed against the wall and Reaper was staring deep into his eyes. Saliva was starting to collect itself inside Psylocke's mouth as his eyes stayed locked with Reaper's. As soon as he swallowed, Reaper's eyes lit up, he took this as a form of acceptance for what he was about to do.

Slowly inching forward, Reaper leaned towards Psylocke, his eyes closing as he grew closer. Just as his lips brushed against Psylocke's, he disappeared. Reaper's eyes shot open when his lips smashed against the wall. It was only after Psylocke had teleported three hundred miles away that he started to feel his heart rate slow down.

"That was close," Psylocke said out loud.

As he looked around, he saw that he was in the middle of a field of flowers. With a shrug, he collapsed and looked up at the sky. Clouds danced by as he stayed there until the night started to take over the day.

Back at the warehouse, Reaper was pacing back and forth, wondering if maybe he should stop trying to go after him.

"He like's you," a voice said from the doorway of the room Reaper had secluded himself to.

Reaper stopped pacing and looked at the person who had said what he thought was a mistake. "What?"

Warlock entered the room and sat on the bed Reaper had claimed as his. "Psylocke. He likes you, but he's never had a good relationship with his emotions. He's scared."

"Scared of what?"

Shaking his head, Warlock took a deep breath in. "We've seen a lot of people die. Humans and mutants. Psylocke... he used to be a monster. He's come a far way since then, but he's had so many people let him down in the process, that trying to trust someone else puts what little humanity he has left at stake. He doesn't want to risk what he's worked so hard for."

__________

Just a few miles away, the girl that had acted as Maxum's fan was pressing her thumb against a fingerprint scanner next to a large, metal door. As the door in front of her opened, she walked in and tossed the notebook onto a metal desk, the sound of metal hitting metal filling the silent room.

"How'd it go?" A man sitting at a computer asked as he watched her shake out of her jacket.

"He's one of them. I don't know which one, but I'm positive this time."

"What are we going to do?"

As she walked over to her computer and turned it on, she said, "We wait for General King to get back from his mission and we tell him that it's time to move in."

"Do you think he'll listen this time?"

"He doesn't have a choice," she exclaimed, pulling up footage she had taken using the ben she had carried around with her all day. It was pure luck that she had run into the mutant. It was even luckier that she got a perfect shot of him.

"Woah," the man exclaimed as he rolled his chair over to her desk to look at the picture.

"I know," she said with a smile. "It's the perfect proof that there are mutants here."

Fixing his glasses, the man nodded. "The general is going to love this."

632 MILES AWAY

Screams filled the room as one of the doctors slowly slid an eleven-inch needle into a mutant's spine. "Hold him still!" The doctor yelled when the mutant began to squirm from the pain. Four men dressed in military uniforms grabbed a hold of the mutants' limbs and pinned them down on the metal sheet they had been using as a makeshift table.

"There, there," a second doctor said as he held the mutant's head down. "Don't worry, Rogue, we will end this as fast as possible."

No matter how many times the doctor had said they would end it as fast as possible, the pain continued. The needle in Rogue's back went deeper, his spine arching from the pain. Every time his body involuntarily moved out of pain, the grip on his limbs grew tighter until he could feel them begin to turn numb from lack of blood circulation.

When the needle was finally pulled out of his spine, he felt a wave of relief flood over his body. That feeling quickly ended when the gripping hands tightened around him and something sharp dug into the middle of his back.

Another scream filled the room as the second doctor peeled back his skin and clamped it down for a better look. The first doctor kept telling Rogue to be quiet, but it didn't matter. By the time the doctor had started opening him up, his vision was going blurry. Only moments later did he fall into his only salvation.

Unconsciousness.