by Berzerker_prime

Summary: Lycanthrope and the X-Men pick up the pieces of the setback and gain a little info.  But none of them were expecting this!

A/N:  I'M SOORRRYYYY!!!!!!  I know, I was evil and I left you all at a really rotten cliffie for over a year.  It was terrible of me, inexcusable and just plain E-VILLE!!!  This is what I get for going to college and going through about six other fandoms at the same time.  T_T
Anywho, here's part five, at long and final last.  Please R/R and enjoy!
Gomen nasai!!!  ^_^;

*********

     He didn’t know what to do.
     Lycanthrope sat on the floor in the X-Men’s underground medical facility between the beds occupied by both K and Angela.  His knees were curled up to his chest and his head was resting on his arms.  He listened to the steady beep-beep of the heart monitor connected to K, each tone drilling itself into his consciousness.
     Angela was still out like a light, in a deep state of REM sleep.  It would be several hours until she woke up again, if not days.  But, in the long run, she would be all right.
     K was another matter.  The sniper’s shot had burned its way straight through his chest and had left second and third degree burns on his back.  Professor Xavier and Ororo had done what they could, which went a long way, but there was only so much to be done outside a hospital.  And obviously, they didn’t want to take him there.  He was presently hooked up to a breathing device and it was even money if he ever woke up again.
     That left Lycanthrope, effectively alone, the soul source of information about future happenings, causes, and effects.  And he didn’t know what to do.
     With Mystique’s appearance, everything had been turned on its head.  Her claim that she wasn’t the assassin who was going to kill Senator MacKensey and that she knew who would was obviously questionable.  Lycanthrope knew her track record since the beginning of the Terra-Mutant War.  This was probably still another convoluted attempt to save her own skin.  But that sniper had definitely not been her.  He had been in a fight with Mystique before and, shape changing abilities aside, that definitely had not been her.  The fighting style had been all wrong.  More weaponry and tools had been used by the sniper and when those had failed him, he had fallen back on brute force.  That wasn’t how Mystique fought, in any form.
     And besides that, how could she have been in two places at once, anyway?  If Forge had been right, all those years ago before he had left the Morlocks, then there would have been no way for her to have two of her future selves in the same past at the same time.
     Goddamit, now Lycanthrope was getting a headache.
     He sighed and pushed all the confusing thoughts aside.  Naturally, he was left with one simple, unavoidable truth; he didn’t know what to do.
     The younger Morlock stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned against the wall, looking up at K’s blank, unconscious face.
     “You really screwed me but good, this time, you know that?” he asked.  “Dammit K, what’d you have to go and do that for?  I could have handled it, you didn’t need to… to do that.  You’re always pulling this crap.  All the time.  And it’s always because of me.”  Clenching his teeth, he launched his left fist sideward and hit the side of the mattress.  “Why do you even bother, K?  I don’t get it.  Why for a nameless, skinny, little street-rat like me?  I just don’t understand.”
     He dropped his hand back into his lap and stared at it for several moments.  Then, he was seized by a sudden urge to stand.  He did so quickly and leaned both hands on K’s bed, spitting out a curse.
     “You can hear me, can’t you,” Lycanthrope said, “I know you can hear me, so why don’t you just wake up, already.  Then we can finish what we set out to do here.  Just wake up you blue, fuzzy bastard!”  Something wet dropped onto the pillow case next to K’s head.  First one drop, then another, then three more.  Lycanthrope found that his strength had left him again and he sank back down to the floor, ignoring the tears streaming from his own eyes.  “Bastard,” he mumbled, “how could you do this to me?  I can’t do this on my own.  You bastard.  You bastard.”

     In the observation bubble overlooking the Danger Room, Xavier, Logan, Ororo, and Scott all looked out the window dubiously.  Sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room, a white circle with about a three yard radius around her, was Mystique, looking rather put out and not bothering to hide the fact.
     Logan crossed his arms over his chest, growling out a sigh in the back of his throat.  “I don’t like it, Charles,” he stated, simply, “you know how she is and somehow I don’t think twenty-five years is going to change her disposition.”
     “Maybe not her disposition,” Ororo agreed, “but what about her interests?  Is it so hard to believe that she would want to set time right as well?”
     “I’m with Logan on this one,” Scott put in, “I don’t trust her.  K, Lycanthrope, and Angela said they thought she was MacKensey’s assassin and all we have to go on to the contrary is that she was there at the same time as the guy trying to stop us.  But, I mean, we are dealing with time travel, here.”
     Xavier studied Mystique on one of the observation bubble’s monitors for several moments before saying anything.  “On the other hand,” he offered, “despite her… unorthodox ways of doing things, what she’s done she’s always believed to be for the best for Mutant Kind.  Killing Senator MacKensey and beginning the Terra-Mutant War would most definitely not be that.  However, Ororo is correct also.  Who knows how time has changed her thinking?  And with K in his condition, we have no reference.”
     “What about the kid?” Logan asked.
     “Lycanthrope?” Scott inquired, “what about him?”
     “He musta had some kind of contact with Mystique.  Maybe he can tell us something about how she works in their time.”
     “Now may not be the best time, Logan,” Xavier stated, “the boy is… rather out of sorts at the moment.  He needs a little bit of time to calm down.”
     “Time’s the one thing we don’t got a lot of, Charles,” Logan reminded him.
     “Yes,” the professor agreed, again looking dubiously at Mystique on the monitor, “I know that.”

     Lycanthrope didn’t know how long he had been sitting there since he had fallen asleep.  But, in due time, he was startled out of his exhausted slumber by a sudden bamf and the smell of brimstone accosting his ol’ factory.  Upon waking, his first instinct was to glance up at K.  He found the Morlocks’ leader still fully unconscious on the bed next to him.
     “Sorry,” said a voice near the door to the sickbay.  Lycanthrope looked up and found Kurt wandering his way.  “Didn’t mean to vake you.  I just zought I vould come and see how I vas doing.”
     Lycanthrope collapsed back into the wall and leaned against it, sighing.  “I don’t get either one of you,” he said after a substantial pause, “how can you be making jokes at a time like this!?”
     Kurt took a step back, faltering under Lycanthrope’s annoyed tone.  Lycanthrope, for his part, looked away and cast a glance over at the still sleeping Angela.  “I just don’t get it,” he mumbled again.
     After another moment of uncertain silence, Kurt plopped down on the floor, cross-legged and arms folded across his chest.  He followed Lycanthrope’s gaze and watched Angela sleep for a few moments, then looked back at Lycanthrope.  The other boy was still brooding, looking extremely lost, as lost as anyone that Kurt had ever seen.  Kurt sighed, tapping the end of his tail on the floor behind him in a contemplative, problem solving habit.  He finally decided to take action.
     Kurt teleported across the room and got right into Lycanthrope’s face, making quite possibly the biggest googie-face in history, a finger at each side of his mouth, pulling it wide, and sticking out his tongue.  For extra measure, he tossed in noise that somewhat resembled a “la-la-la.”
     Lycanthrope blinked.  Then, at length, a his own mouth curled into a thin smile. “Wh… what’re you doing?” he said around a barely stifled giggle, pushing Kurt in the face and making him back off.
     The fuzzy elf leaned back on his hands, plopping back on the floor once again.  “Um hum,” he said, nodding as if to himself, “zere it is.  Knew it vas in zere somevere, ja?”
     “Oh great,” Lycanthrope said around a sigh, “he’s cracked.  Monumentally mental.”
     “Nope,” Kurt said, hopping up to his feet again, “I know exactly vhat I’m talking about.”
     “Care to explain it to me?”
     “You laughed.  So, I know zere’s a vay you’ll get zrough all of zis.  If you had really given up, you vouldn’t have found any reason to laugh, ja?”
     Lycanthrope blinked again.
     “So now,” Kurt said, then bamfed up to the light fixture and hung from it, “all you have to do is decide vhat to do.  Later!”
     Kurt teleported out of the room, tossing off a wave, and once again Lycanthrope blinked.
     “He’s so weird,” he mumbled to himself.

     “I think we should hear her out,” Ororo stated.  This elicited a sour face and a snort from Logan, a groan from Scott, and a raised eyebrow from Xavier.  “The future described by the Morlocks isn’t safe for any Mutant, treacherous or not.  It is in her interests to help us.”
     “Maybe,” Scott admitted, “and maybe she’s trying to get us to save MacKensey so that she can change something else and put Mutants on top.  Even if we do listen to her, what do we do about it?”
     Xavier pivoted around on one wheel and regarded the interior of the Danger Room once again, thought creasing his features.  “That may depend on what she has to say, Scott.  But, for the moment, nothing can be harmed by simply listening to her side of the story.”  He gazed across the expanse of space between himself and the shape shifter below.  She seemed to sense the gaze and met his eyes.  “I’m going to speak with her,” Xavier stated, “however, I’d like Lycanthrope’s input.”
     “Looks like the kid had the same idea, Charles,” Logan said, indicating one of the walls of the Danger Room.
     Lycanthrope’s silhouette was framed by the open door.  He stood there just long enough to get Mystique’s attention, then entered.
     “Is he nuts?” Scott exclaimed just before the Room’s automatic systems kicked in.
     Commotion broke out on the entrance side of the Danger Room.  Lycanthrope dodged an incoming swinging blade, dropping to all fours so that it wouldn’t decapitate him.  As he did, he kicked in his abilities and shifted to his trademark panther form.  Nimbly, he jumped to the side, avoiding some laser fire, then bounded forward, toward the circle where Mystique was now standing.  Now confronted by metal tentacles of electric quality, he jumped over one, ducked under another, and caused two more to collide, rendering the entire bunch limp and useless on the floor.  A few more agile jumps avoided more laser fire and Lycanthrope’s last rebound landed him directly in Mystique’s personal space, tackling her to the floor and pinning her with his two massive front paws.
     For their part, in the observation bubble at the room’s apex, Scott and Logan gaped at the outcome like two freshly hooked fish.
     “Maybe it’s time for another upgrade,” Logan mused.
     “You boys and your toys,” Ororo groused.
    Mystique found herself gazing up into two yellow eyes, neither of which seemed exceedingly happy with her presence.  Calmly, she turned her head to the side and regarded the observation bubble.  “This place never did have reliable security,” she shot up to the microphones.
     Silently, Xavier pulled his hand away from the dial on the control panel controlling the difficulty level of the room and refolded his hands under his chin.
     “I’m the one you’re talking to!” Lycanthrope exclaimed, commanding Mystique’s attention once again.  “You’re going to answer every question I’ve got or, by the X-gene, I’ll kill you like the traitor you are!”
     “Really, Lycanthrope, there’s no need for dramatics,” she calmly and sarcastically drawled out, “you’re just like Nightcrawler that way.  But I guess that’s to be expected; you have picked up some of his more stubborn habits.”
     “Don’t play games with me, Mystique!” Lycanthrope shouted, adding a bit of a roar to it.
     Mystique laughed under her breath.  “Really, boy,” she said, lowering her voice, “would you really kill the only person who can tell you who your parents really are?”
     That caught Lycanthrope off guard.  He pulled back, sitting on his two hind legs, and allowed her to sit up.  Blinking several times, he looked at her with confusion.
     “I didn’t think you would,” she continued, “help me save MacKensey and I’ll tell you everything I know.  In fact, help me save MacKensey and history will be such that you could live with them.”
     “What’s she saying?” Scott asked in the observation bubble, straining his ears to hear the muted voice through the speakers.
     Xavier furrowed his brow in concentration.  After a substantial pause and a cocked eyebrow, he returned his face to its careful mask of neutrality.  “Nothing important.  She’s not… saying anything important.”
     Lycanthrope shifted back to his Human form and stood to his full height to regard Mystique.  She too, got to her feet.  “We’ll save MacKensey on our own terms.  I won’t play whatever game you’re playing.  But first, I wanna know what you know.”
     “That would take quite a bit of time to tell.”
     “Mystique!”
     “I want out of this steel zoo cage,” she stated in all seriousness.
     “Not gonna happen,” Lycanthrope answered.
     “Then I can’t help you,” she said, sitting on the floor once again, arms calmly crossed over her chest.
     “Give me a name!” Lycanthrope demanded.
     “Knowing that, won’t help you.”
     “Just answer me.”
     “Forge.”
     Lycanthrope heaved her up by the front of her shirt, letting his abilities show through in the form of a slight growl.
     “It’s true,” she affirmed, unfazed by the threatening expression, “Forge is the assassin.  As I said, that little bit of information isn’t going to help you.”
     “It’s not possible.  Forge disappeared over a year ago.”
     “Silly boy, where do you think he disappeared to?”
     In the observation bubble, Xavier turned and wheeled himself out of the room.  “I am going to go and join this conversation,” he informed the others, “it’s time Lycanthrope told us what he knows about Forge.”

     Once Xavier was satisfied that Mystique was genuine in her desire to help them stop the assassination of Senator MacKensey, they decided on a change of venue.  Instead of the cold metal surroundings of the Danger Room, the entire group was now in the main sitting room of the mansion.  Xavier had called together all of the X-Men to the conference, hoping that they would all pay close enough attention so as not to miss any details.
     “I’m having a hard time believing this,” Scott was saying, “I mean, Forge’s always been a little out there, but…”
     “Yeah,” Rogue agreed, “I just ain’t getting’ a picture of him assassinating a senator.”
     Lycanthrope sighed and shook his head slowly.  “Unfortunately, I can,” he said, “ten years ago, when Kitty first dropped in on us, he was already getting to be a little unstable.  But after that, every time a time flash would occur, he just got worse.  Every time he said something about how ‘it wouldn’t let him see who she was.’  Finally, a year ago, he left the Morlocks, saying something about how he’d figured it all out, that it was supposed to happen.  Then, he just disappeared.”
     “Uh oh…” Kitty muttered to herself from her seat, seemingly unaware that she had.  Everyone turned to her curiously, so she decided that she couldn’t escape elaborating.  “I think I did it,” she said, “while I was in the future, there was a flash, so I asked Forge what he saw.  He said he had a kid, so I asked him who with.  He told me that he never got the chance to see her.”
     “Wonderful,” Mystique muttered sarcastically, rolling her eyes skyward, “so your gossip fixated him on it and it finally drove him over the deep end.”
     Kitty glared at her.  “Hey, I was just, like, curious, okay?  It didn’t seem like it was that big a deal!”
     “Let’s not get bogged down in blame,” Xavier said, diplomatically, “we should stick to the facts.  Mystique, how did you come to know that Forge traveled back in time?”
     “I saw him,” she said, simply, “I decided to follow him after he left the Morlocks and I saw him enter a time portal.”
     “We won’t ask why you were at the Morlocks layer to begin with,” Lycanthrope groused.
     Mystique pointedly ignore him.  “As near as I can tell, his trip through that portal took him to yesterday, when our time’s Nightcrawler got shot.  He was dressed and armed the same exact way.  Obviously, he missed his target which provides an explanation to another part of the puzzle.”  She glanced over at Kitty.  “Your trip to the future was purely an accident.  Ten years ago, our time, I observed the older Forge experimenting with his time portal generator.  He was disheveled and looked as though he had been in a fight.  The portal went off outside of his control and through it, Shadowcat dropped from the sky.”
     “Okay, so I think I get it,” Logan put in, “history according to Forge would go something like this.  He looses it, travels twenty-five years into the past, but gets his date wrong, where he runs into Kitty, Lycanthrope, Kurt, K, and Mystique.  He looses the battle, so he retreats to fifteen years into our future where he has portal problems and accidentally brings the half-pint there.  Then, at some point, he travels into the past again to assassinate MacKensey.”
     “Unless we can stop him,” Jean stated, “in which case, he’ll never have gone crazy and none of this will have happened.”
     “The catch, of course, is that we have to do it discreetly,” Ororo added, “otherwise, history will know of mutants and will be against them because of the assassination attempt.”
     “Zat is a very tall order!” Kurt exclaimed.
     “But we gotta do it,” Lycanthrope insisted, “if we don’t, Humans and Mutants go to war.”

*********
Will the X-Men stop the insane Forge?  Will K and Angela ever wake up?  Will it matter when they do?  Will the author ever update to let you know the answers?  Find out whenever the heck the next part finally gets finished!  ^_^;