Iceman

Tanya Redfield

Sherry Redfield 

Marrow

IN CASE YOU'RE JUST JOINING US: After investigating into a mutant terrorist attack on a bowling alley in New Jersey, the X-Men Omega faction summoned Bobby Drake to let him in on their findings: that Tanya Redfield had possibly been among the victims!

Joining his former teammates in their investigation, Iceman and the team soon found that Marrow was the one behind the attack, as well as Tanya's abduction. And to make matters worse, Sherry was next on her list of targets! The only question now is if they'll be able to make it to her before it's too late...

Tanya Redfield stared blankly through blood shot eyes at the hospital ceiling, her breaths almost inaudible to those moving around the table she lay on. They were the doctors and nurses that made up the staff of the local New Jersey emergency room.

All of them were working quickly to assess the brutal injuries that had been inflicted upon her at the hands of a madwoman out for a rectification that one would only understand from their eyes.

But to the emergency room staff, none of that mattered. What did matter though, was the severe loss of blood their patient had sustained as well as the possible blunt head trauma. The bruises and abrasions could wait for the time being.

Just moments ago, she was brought in by Bobby Drake and a handful of the X-Men Omega faction. Bobby was her ex-boyfriend that she had left back in New York. He was also Iceman, a founding member of the original set of X-Men.

It was strange, but she hadn't honestly expected him to come for her when Marrow abducted her for the second time. She knew who he was inside, and of the miracle heroics his friends had been known for. But part of her wished none of it was true.

Tanya had thought that her life was over after seeing some of her life-long friends perish in the attack on the bowling alley. On top of such emotional trauma, when Marrow took away and tortured her for hours on end in her own home, it all started to add up and she couldn't help it.

She broke.

And she had given away her daughter to end the pain...

But now, none of it would have mattered anyway. Maybe if she had just bared with the physical and psychological torture for just a while longer, Bobby and his friends would have came. Sherry would have been safe, and Marrow defeated.

That didn't happen, though. She had broke. And now, part of her was wishing the doctors would fail in their attempts to bring her out of that life threatening daze she was clinging too. Clinging to it as if she knew it could consume her and take her away.

As a single tear dribbled down her cracked and dry cheek, Tanya Redfield had wished for the world to fail as she did. How much more bearable all life would be if she hadn't had anything to live up to. How much easier life would be...

But then again, in her eyes, she knew that she didn't deserve to live if she wasn't willing to die the most painful death a thousand times over for the young girl that had come to call her Mom. All's she could do now was close her eyes now and hope.

"There weren't many survivors after Marrow had attacked that bowling alley," Betsy Braddock, Psylocke to her teammates in the X-Men, stated as she crossed her arms and observed the Hospital staff working around Tanya Redfield in the emergency room. "I guess you could say she was lucky," she considered softly.

"Lucky that a personal vendetta excluded her death and instead replaced it with torture and suffering, in which she would eventually be left to die if Rogue and I hadn't showed up to find her?" Bobby asked rhetorically, citing a bout of silence between himself and those around him. He paused, thinking over what he had said for a moment before continuing with, "Okay, yeah... maybe you could say she was lucky..."

"If Marrow's vendetta was with Tanya all along, then why go through the trouble of launching a full on assault on 88 Lanes?" Warren asked, mentally trying to put the pieces together. "Better yet, how did she get the resources to do so?"

"The Brotherhood's been long decimated, but I'm bettin' ol' McCoy had other safe houses about that Marrow could have operated from," John speculated as he toyed with a pack of cigarettes in his hand. "Stuff used to torch that place wasn't too fancy as it is from our little look through of the scene."

"Knowing Marrow, she was probably killing two birds with one stone..." Bobby said with a groan. "Or maybe it was three stones, considering her involvement with Sherry."

"Right," Warren nodded his head, counting them off. "Her continuing vendetta against humans, revenge against Tanya for harboring Sherry, and getting Sherry back for whatever twisted reasons in her mind."

"What does ol' boner-nose want with Sherry?" John asked as he turned to Bobby with a hunched brow, thinking back to the night the Brotherhood had crashed Harry's.

"Apparently, she's Sherry's biological mother," Bobby said to their surprise, especially John's. His jaw was nearly touching the floor as the possibility of the young woman he had bunked with in the Brotherhood was a mother.

"Bloody sucks for the little girl," John coughed and shook his head. "I couldn't imagine Sarah maiming a man long enough for somethin' like THAT to occur, let alone changin' diapers or wiping away poo."

Bobby shook his head as well and waved his hands dissuasively. "Either way, we have to find this fair and get to Sherry before Marrow does."

"I just plucked the location out of Tanya's mind," Betsy announced.

"We shouldn't even technically be here, anyway..." Warren cleared his throat and looked around his shoulder before turning his attention back to the three before him. "Blink and Rogue are in the waiting room. We'll have Clarice port us there to set up recon. and then call in the rest of the team if anything goes down."

"Sounds like a plan, mates," John hunched his brows, having stayed relatively quiet in the discussion. "Blink's always happy to let us bum a ride, eh?"

"Y'know, child labor's bound to pick up on you guys one of these days," Bobby pointed out with a grin before the four started off down the hospital's corridors.

Warren snorted and grinned. Not if his pockets were as deep as the rumors say, he had thought to himself as they walked towards the waiting room. Bobby stayed behind the three for a moment to catch one last look into the room they had taken Tanya.

He took a deep breath and exhaled, sure to cross his fingers that she'd be all right while he was gone. It's not like it was his place to worry anymore... or so she obviously hadn't wanted it to be.

Their time together was over, and the reason why it was so -- a reason which hurt him as it had others in his position -- was one he found that he could respect in those who didn't live the life he had lived. The life he kept living for some reason, regardless.

After today, it wasn't his place to worry anymore.

"Jennifer Marie Heaston!" the voice of one severely pissed off mother boomed across the boardwalk, startling even some of the nearby adults. "Get your butt over here right now!"

Stomping through the crowds of people spread over the boardwalk in Jennifer and Sherry's direction was the young blonde girl's infuriated mother.

"Uh oh..." Jennifer cringed in apprehension, quick to turn away from her mother's oncoming scorn and she slowly begun to hyperventilate.

Beside her, Sherry tilted her cone of cotton candy to the side and looked at the pink novelty watch on her small wrist. Impressed, she hunched her brows and looked back up to Jennifer as the girl buried her hands in her face.

"Two hours and thirty-six minutes," Sherry said nonchalantly as she took a bite out of her cotton candy, her jaw swishing side to side as she spoke. "Not bad."

Jennifer ignored Sherry's words while she muttered words like 'five across the hieny' and continued to bury her face in her hands.

Eerily, the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood up and she felt a chill go down her body, but before she could lift her head up to see if her mother was yet nearby, the boardwalk was suddenly shook by a violent horde of explosions.

Sherry was immediately thrown onto her back from the initial shock, gripping onto her cotton candy cone, but Jennifer managed to stay on her feet as she instinctively ducked down and covered her head.

Together after the shockwave hit, they both turned their heads up and looked to it's source. All across the boardwalk, chunks of the wooden platforms blasted into the air, propelled by the hidden explosive devices planted under various spots of the boardwalk.

"MOM!!!" Jennifer shrieked in absolute horror over the cries and screams filling the evening's air as she watched her mother, among many of the other fairgoers, consumed in one of the many fiery explosions delivered before her.

The white cone of cotton candy slipped from Sherry's hand as she and Jennifer watched on, frozen in the eclipsing terror that had taken the boardwalk.

A twisted roar of splintering wood and collapsing support beams sounded as a large portion the boardwalk in front of her started to cave inward, and that was Sherry's cue to snap out of it and run for her life, with or without Jennifer.

"Come on, Jennifer!" Sherry's voice cracked as she grabbed onto her friend's shirt and turned around to run for land before the boardwalk would collapse.

In her moment of terror, however, Sherry hadn't noticed the woman behind her and ended up running straight into her as if she were a brick wall. Her little body was sent reeling back over the trembling boardwalk and onto her bottom.

With a groan, Sherry shook her head and looked up to who she had run into, and if her blood hadn't been running cold in fear already, it would have been at that moment. Standing over her was something out of a nightmare.

The disfigured woman stood with raw colored, almost pink, skin and had wretchedly bones sticking out of her body. Her bloodshot eyes spoke volumes in any horror film, and the sadistic grin that set in from ear to ear had said it all.

Marrow had finally seen her daughter face to face for the first time in years.

Jennifer's sudden, nearby scream shattered the tension between the mother and daughter, and Sherry's head snapped in her direction.

A loud creaking noise of sorts had sounded from the gap of torn wood that had swallowed Jennifer's mother, and the collapsing wood created a sort of slope that was taking Jennifer down with her.

Terrified, Sherry turned about-face and tried to make a move across the crumbling boardwalk, but it was no use. Marrow's hand came down upon her shirt's collar sharply and ripped her away from what would be her escape.

"No, no, no! You're not goin' anywhere just yet, sweet heart!" She said through gritted teeth as she jerked Sherry's small body back against her chest and pried her daughter's eyelids open. "I want you to see this..."

Sherry let out a cry and squirmed as her eyes were forced open to the scourge being enacted across the boardwalk. "Let me go!"

The young girl tried to fight it, but there was no use. Jennifer clawed and shuffled as valiantly as she could, and a wild updraft of flame licked at her feet as she started to slide to her life's premature demise.

She knew it was coming, and besieged by tears, Sherry did too.

However, when Jennifer's little eyes turned down to the updraft of flames there was a flash and two garbled figures shot upwards from within the flames.

That same sensation of shock and surprised washed over Jennifer, and nearly immobilized her, but she couldn't help but lock onto those two fleeing forms and tried her hardest to comprehend in such a time what they were.

Her conclusion came at about the same time Marrow and Sherry's did. One of those who had emerged from the all but certain watery graves and passed the threshold of the fiery boardwalk was an angel with powerful and glorious wings.

Clinging to one of the angel's legs as if clinging to all life that they'd ever have were two children in summer clothes, just younger then Sherry and Jennifer, and attached to the other leg was a man about in his late-thirties, dress shirt and tie and all. And in his arms, embracing his body tightly, was Jennifer's mother.

Warren Worthington III -- the Archangel -- was doing his righteous duty.

Following in hot and quick pursuit behind him was a woman with flowing green hair. Hair that whipped back and forth, side to side, from with-in-side the cackling magnetic bubble that was carrying her weight with relative ease.

In tow, just below the woman's feet, were a number of those wounded and in need of dire medical attention, magnetically huddled together and tied to the bubble that carried their savior.

They were those who had fallen victim to the viscous and near senseless attack that day, and to her astonishment, Jennifer grew weightless and was lifted from the edge of her death to join them.

Lorna Dane -- a Polaris -- was in full effect.

The single glimpse of those heroes spoke more then a thousand words for the mutant terrorist Marrow and her captive in Sherry Redfield. Though Marrow was sure the two X-Men that had just crossed her path were unaware of her exact presence, she knew that where there was at least one, there were surely others about.

And is if the actions of Archangel and Polaris weren't enough, her scan over the crippled and chaos consumed New Jersey fair revealed much more...

The tall, roaring flames suddenly died down low to the wood of the boardwalk. In an instant, a back draft of sorts occurred and the flames were sucked along the tired oak towards a grinning, blonde haired man clad in flame retardant leather.

All of the flames covering the boardwalk had been collected at his feet, and encircled him in a ring of fire that grew and raged mighty in life once more, but this time at his disposal.

John Allerdyce -- the Pyro -- had things under control.

With the fires cleared and the actions noticed by Marrow, even more of Pyro's teammates were free to perform their self-declared responsibilities.

Across the boardwalk, those in danger were the first to disappear in a swooping, lightning fast blur of silver and black and sky blue, and suddenly as fast they were gone, they reappeared safely unaware in knowing what happened.

That same blur continued back and forth among the vast wood planks, around the obstacles of gaping holes, rocky and unstable sections, and the occasional food stand and established fair ride to save those in need.

Pietro Maximoff -- a Quicksilver -- was clearly on his game that day.

Far off of the boardwalk and in a respective the parking lot, a mass of pink warp-portals suddenly appeared and a quad of men and women guided those victims into each. Some of the portals lead to hospitals, and others to another parking lot not far off.

The evident guardian of these transports was a young, lavender skinned woman, who stood near the center of them all. Her strained eyes glowed of a pink energy that matched that of the portals she commanded, and she tried not to tremble as the strain grew.

Clarice Ferguson -- with a Blink -- was an intricate part of their salvation.

And upon viewing these actions, among a handful of unmentioned others performed by the uniformed men and women that called themselves the X-Men Omega faction, their once ally turned long time enemy -- the deranged, mutant terrorist woman, Marrow -- could only think of one thing in regards as to what it all could possibly mean.

"Ah crap..."

"HELP!" Sherry suddenly screamed as she realized a rescue operation was already in progress, and shortly after the woman's attack had been put into affect to boot. "I'm over here!" She continued to scream and struggle. "I said let me go!"

"Ow!" Marrow yelped as Sherry bit down onto her forearm, and she brought her fist up in ready to retaliate with such an extreme prejudice. But before she could strike the girl over the head, she paused abruptly as a realization came upon her.

The boardwalk had suddenly grown steady and quiet, and an awkward air unlike the late summer's evenings was evident. It was almost unbearably cold.

Then coming upon her sharply, her vision cleared in a dark flash of exploding stars as a cold fist slammed into her face, and her body went numb as she was unexpectedly sent skidding across her backside over the boardwalk's wooden planks.

When she looked up, her vision more or less refocused, and over her stood her one-time teammate in the X-Men, Iceman. Sherry had shuffled behind him, and in an eerie amazement, noticed his fists were clenched and converted into pure ice, while the rest of his body was it's usual Caucasian skin tone.

"I believe the girl said to let her go," he said to her boldly, and she knew why he was there, and suddenly it was all starting to make sense. Tanya Redfield must have survived to tell her ex boy-toy, Bobby Drake, of her plan and the X-Men were dispatched.

Nevertheless, Marrow wasn't going to go down without a fight. She ripped two bone daggers from her shoulders with a sickening crunch and flung them at her new opponent with her usual, dead-aim accuracy.

"Bobby!" Sherry could only cry out from his side as she watched on.

Bobby was quick to stand in front of her and he waved his iced over hand in the towards the oncoming daggers, flash freezing them in midair.

That didn't kill the propulsion the frozen bones were traveling at, however, and Iceman squinted his eyes and flinched out of reflex as the brittle bone daggers crashed into his chest and shattered off of him.

When he opened his eyes, Marrow was already up on her feet and she closed the space between them both quickly, immediately sending a snap-kick into his chin. Iceman stumbled back and she sharply followed up her attack with a back fist, only to meet his forearm as he brought it up in a block and then shoved his free hand into her chest.

Upon contact, an explosion of ice jolted out of his palm and against her body, sending her sailing clear across the boardwalk. After the quick flight, she crashed down hard against a bulky, protective railing at the boardwalk's edge.

"Sherry, I want you get off the boardwalk and into the parking lot!" Bobby yelled to her as a bridge of ice appeared under his feet and carried him up and at a one-hundred and eighty degree angle around Marrow's fallen form. "There'll be someone there waiting for you!" The young girl did as she was told and took off into a run.

Her mother's ex-boyfriend and a man she had come to recognize as her own friend was there, and he would take care of things. From what she had come to know about him and the people he knew as friends, he would have to be able to...

"You have some real problems, Sarah," Iceman said as he lowered his sled of ice over Marrow. Her torso was covered in a heavy sheet of ice, but she was already beginning to stir with a low groan that mimicked a growl.

"I just don't get it. Maybe your mutation's causing your skull to clamp down against your brain a little too hard, or mayb -- " Bobby cut himself off as Marrow shot him a sharp look and then pressed a button on a small device attached to her waist.

In a flash of twisted pink and purple light, Marrow disappeared and as soon as he recognized this, Iceman felt a blunt strike come upon his head, and a sharp pain shot down the back of his neck. Marrow was on the rebound of his attack.

The force of the surprise attack sent him over the edge of his ice bridge and twisting in midair. As he went down, he'd see a blur that was Marrow standing at the tip of his slide with her fists balled together, and then he came down upon the strangled boardwalk hard.

The parking lot.

"That's the last of the more serious cases," Psylocke confirmed, nodding towards Xorn, Rogue, and Blink as Archangel and Quicksilver walked through the final portal with bodies in arm. It closed shortly behind them.

"We should get to the hospital, too," Xorn suggested, a bright blue light coming from the eye slits in his iron mask. "We may be able to help more."

"Seems like that's all there's left for us to do," Blink chimed in in agreement and she tied her sweat-drenched hair back. Psylocke scanned the area and placed her hands on her hips, nodding with a breath.

"Rescue teams are starting to show up, anyway," she stated. "Job here's done, gang."

Blink erected a portal, which she and Xorn entered almost immediately. As Psylocke started to join them, she looked over her shoulder towards the remaining X-Woman and raised a curious brow.

"Coming, Rogue?" she asked. Rogue shook her head.

"No," Rogue shook her head, squinting her eyes against the evening's closing sun as she looked out onto the boardwalk. Firefighters and police officers were spreading out across it. "Bobby an' that Sherry girl haven't come back yet."

"Maybe they made it out in one of Blink's portals?" Psylocke presumed, but Rogue shook her head again.

"He'd of let me know," Rogue said. "I'm gonna hang back for them. I'll call ya guys up on the horn when I'm ready to get picked up."

"Alright," Psylocke nodded and retorted sarcastically before she entered Blink's lingering portal, "but don't be surprised if we start the after-party without you."

Rogue put her hands on her hips as Blink's portal engulfed her teammate and vanished. Shortly after, she caught a glimpse of a small and distant figure coming towards her from off the boardwalk.

Many of the firefighters and rescue crews were too busy to notice her, and that was fine, because Rogue had a feeling who she was.

"Sherry?" Rogue asked, kneeling down to the young girl as she came up to her. She huffed and wiped away her tear washed face, giving Rogue a shaky nod.

"Your Bobby's friend, right?" Sherry asked apprehensively, noting the skunk-haired woman's southern accent.

"That's right," Rogue said steadily as she looked her over. Aside from being out of breath and frightened beyond all belief, Sherry seemed alright. "Where's he at?"

"Back fighting that freaky looking woman," Sherry replied almost frantically, and she swallowed hard. "He was winning when I saw him last."

"Good," Rogue smiled and took the young girl's hand into her gloved fingers as she stood up to her full height. "There was no doubt in mah mind that he would be. Now c'mon. We need to get you to safety."

"But why was she trying to kidnap me?!" Sherry suddenly blurted out, pulling her hand away from Rogue's. "Why did she try to kill all those people?"

"Because mommy dearest wants you all to herself," Marrow's sinister voice struck them. Off guard, Rogue spud around on the heel of her foot and pushed Sherry aside, standing in Marrow's way of Sherry. "Hi baby."

Sherry had stumbled backwards and out of the way of the fight, though unsure of where to go next, especially if Marrow being there had meant that Bobby lost.

Rogue balled up her fists and held a stance. Without the use of her catalogue or Ms. Marvel powers, she wasn't much of a match for Marrow or anyone else for that matter, but she knew she had to hold the woman off.

"Try your best," she said, narrowing her eyes.

"OooOoo," Marrow taunted as she lunged at Rogue, jabbing the bone dagger in hand towards her stomach. "Someone lookin' to get gutted like their boyfriend?"

Rogue side stepped out of the way and took hold of Marrow's jabbing arm, twisting it upwards. She then pulled her body around Marrow's arm as she held it up and out of the way, and kneed her in the stomach harshly.

"He's not mah boyfriend anymore!" Rogue exclaimed, and she wrenched Marrow's arm back again, making her drop her weapon. Before Rogue could bring her clenched fist about to strike her again, Marrow locked her body in place and flipped the southern belle down onto the concrete.

"Can't say it matters either way," Marrow muttered as she drop kicked Rogue in her exposed kidneys. Rogue gasped and her body locked up as the dull pain washed over her back. Being vulnerable certainly had it's drawbacks.

Marrow dropped to her knees, picked up the bone dagger. She rolled Rogue over and drew the dagger high up, ready to deliver the promised killing blow.

"When cat fights go bad," Iceman's voice suddenly boomed, and as Marrow's head began to turn, a wave of ice crashed into her body and sent her tumbling over Rogue's body to the ground beside her. "Next on Hidden Camera."

Shaking off the feeling of deep cold, as well as the sheet of ice that covered one side of her body, Marrow staggered to her feet and moved her hand to her waist to check the status of her teleportation device. To her delight, it was still in one piece.

"Don't think you're goin' anywhe --" Bobby started to say as he dived towards Marrow with clenched fists, but once again before he could finish his sentence, there was that familiar and frustrating flash of pink energy, and Marrow's foot crashed into the back of his neck, sending him face first into the concrete.

Marrow used his body as a springboard and launched herself into the air, only to disappear again and then reappear behind Sherry. Sherry gasped and tried to run, but Marrow jerked her by her arm and let a back-fist fly into the young girl's temple.

Iceman and Rogue both heard her cry out and they looked up in her direction together, only in those last seconds all they would see is Marrow grin victoriously as she lifted Sherry's unconscious body into her arms.

"Snoochie whoochies, Drake," she hunched her brows, and in yet another abrupt, swirling flash of pink and purple energy, she was gone.

"Damnit!" Iceman cursed and slammed his clenched fists against the ground. Marrow was gone with Sherry, and though the X-Men's presence prevented a massacre and the death-toll was minimized greatly, Sherry was just one

"Everyone's got th' situation under control, Bobby," Rogue said as she looked his way from the ground and wiped her bleeding nose with her jacket's sleeve. He looked her way, heaving, and she confirmed with a nod, "We can go after them!"

"Prosh, bodyslide by two!" Iceman shouted urgently with a groan as he shuffled up to his feet, and he ran to Rogue's side as she too got up to her feet.

......

An eerie silence had followed his words.

{{ ... I'm not supposed to be able to hear you... }} Prosh suddenly replied out of no where. Iceman and Rogue both blinked in unison, glancing at each other in an awkward silence before disappearing in a flash of exotic blue energy.

FROSTBYTE

Got any chilling comments regarding this ish? Hazaah!

This issue was supposed to be the finale of "LOST SOUL DRIFTING," right? Heh, nope. Wrong. You guys should know me better by now. It seems that I can never decide when a story's ready to be finished.