Title: Earth
Series: Elementals Quartet
Rating: M
'Verse: AU, two years after the first movie.
Disclaimer: Sadly, only Gaia is mine. But if they ever want to get rid of Hank, they know where to find me…
Summary: The first in my Elementals series, wherein the residents at the X-Mansion meet a 'family' of very unusual mutants. Hank meets a woman who will change the course of his life, and those of the X-men, forever.
A/N: The poetry Hank quotes is by Ralph Waldo Emerson, it's not mine. Reviews would be much appreciated!
Chapter 1
It was gone midnight when Dr. Henry McCoy, genius, politician, mutant, made his way out the front door of the facility he had been working in for twelve sleepless hours. Tapping the locking sequence into the keypad glowing faintly in the wall with clawed, dexterous fingers, he lifted his briefcase in one vast hand and made his way towards the dark smudge of the forest. To his shame, he much preferred to travel through the trees in a bestial manner than by car, and it was part of the reason he was leaving the compound so late. He had been invited to view the final conclusions of a piece of medical research there, and had helped them tweak it into perfection, so that by the time he finished, he was alone.
Pausing just inside the woods, he carefully stripped off his neat suit, comfortable in his nakedness, folding the clothes and putting them in the briefcase, to be replaced by an old, worn pair of black shorts, their frayed ends just reaching his knees. Stretching the kinks from his spine, he snapped the locks shut, straightening up. Eying the canopy overhead for a moment, he lifted a foot and, perfectly balanced, gripping the briefcase in his toes, he leaped up and grasped a strong branch with one hand. He swung his body backwards for momentum, preparing to reach for the next handhold, when the distinct hum of car engines sounded behind him. His sensitive ears flicked as he absently hung there, puzzled by the approaching whine of the vehicles.
"A conundrum." He murmured, totally lost as to the identity of the people skirting the edge of the lab and heading in his direction.
With an agile twist of his body, he hooked his knees over the branch, still keeping a careful grasp of his briefcase, and lowered his torso to hang freely, gazing back in the direction of the buildings. His keen, yellow eyes picked out the shapes of three off-road vehicles, moving quickly towards the woods. An instinct, emerging from the primal part of him that had earned him his moniker with the X-men, stirred in warning, and he warily lifted himself, carefully throwing the case, which contained not only his most comfortable business suit but also vital notes on the development of the antidote he had just finished observing, up to a high branch of the tree. For a moment it teetered, looking like it was about to fall, but what must have been a breeze moved the branch below it slightly, and the precious cargo stilled.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Hank crouched on his branch, eyes narrowing as the cars drew to a halt. Several men began to disembark, congregating not twenty feet away, just outside the beginning of the wooded area. The moonlight gleamed along metal in their hands, and Hank went cold. They were carrying weapons. Despite the warning bells his survival instinct was now ringing with a vengeance, he remained frozen, their voices carrying in snatches to his ears.
"…went into the woods, saw him…"
"…spread out, hunt him down…"
"He can't have gone that far, we'll split…"
"Alright, move out!"
This last was barked harshly, and the men raised a ragged cheer before splitting into the three groups they'd arrived in. One group headed off to Hank's right, another to his left. The third group stood for a moment where they had gathered, before they turned and began checking their weapons. Hank silently turned and began to leap through the trees, his heart pounding in his chest, adrenaline making his limbs perfectly steady even as fear uncurled inside him. He was totally alone, it was nearly one o'clock in the morning, and he had at last recognised the shaven heads and fanatic violence of his pursuers.
His suspicions were confirmed when he heard another faint cheer and a choral chant behind him. "Down with the muties! Up with the FOH!"
Hearing this, Hank allowed himself to submit to his baser instincts. He swerved away from the course he had been following, moving off to his right. He was deep enough into the forest that it was almost totally dark, but the usual sounds of nocturnal animal activity were gone. The total silence made the hairs on the back of his neck bristle, until his sharp ears at last caught the sound of the pack of hunters, moving clumsily through the forest. They were the smallest of the three groups, and the ones he would deal with first.
He moved like a ghost through the murky darkness, his blue coat blending in with the surreal quality of the shadows around him. He stalked them, nostrils flaring at the scent of gun oil and fear that they couldn't hide from him, and he bared his fangs in soundless disgust. His highly trained mind was busily churning out solutions, and he settled on the one that would be quietest; he didn't want to alert their companions that the hunters had become the hunted until it would be too late.
Dropping to the ground, he bounded over the distance between them on noiseless feet, launching himself at the group with a soft snarl. Almost as one, they turned, fumbling for their weapons in the dark. To their horror, Bill was already unconscious, the giant, blue creature which had taken him down already moving, their hands on their guns already too late.
One down, four to go, he told himself, landing on one stupefied man's chest with enough force to drive him to the floor. There was the wet crack of his skull on the hard ground, and he lay still. Three more. The biggest of his enemies, slightly behind the other two, finally raised his rifle, but with a rumbling growl, Beast jumped and grabbed a branch, swinging himself over the two shorter men and delivering a backhanded blow to their comrade that dropped him where he stood.
As the leaner of the two left took aim at the broad, blue back, his stockier companion let off the flare that Hank had failed to notice was hidden in his belt. Cursing, the genius twisted away instinctively as a bullet hissed viciously past his shoulder. The crack of gunfire shattered the silence of the forest, birds shrieking in alarm, and Beast, realising that silence was no longer a possibility, howled in fury. Snarling, he kicked the rifle from the numb, shocked hands of the man who was sure he had killed the mutie freak, before knocking him out with a single punch to the jaw.
The man holding the flare was yelling for help even as he pulled the trigger, and the sound of running feet and a searing flash of pain hit Hank at the same time. His arm immediately began to throb savagely, and, knowing that the second group of FOH soldiers were rapidly approaching, he turned and fled. The breath was rasping in his lungs, and his eyes were sliding in and out of focus as he streaked through the branches of the trees, taking daring leaps in his haste, feeling sticky, hot blood oozing from the wound on his bicep, which burned in agony every time he used his left arm.
He could feel himself tiring even as the sounds of his pursuers, jeering and howling for his blood like a pack of scavenging hyenas after a wounded lion, too weak to defend itself, drew closer. Fear made the rasping, desperate breaths catch in his lungs, his golden eyes seeking a way out, an escape, as the animal began to rise in him, the innate terror of being trapped not far behind it. The hole in his arm was beginning to go numb, though it still sent sharp bolts of pain racing through him every time he gripped a new branch, and he knew, clinically, that he was near to fainting from blood loss. If he could rest, only long enough to bind the wound and stop the bleeding, he would be fine. If not, he would lose consciousness and undoubtedly be killed by his brutal hunters.
Dimly, he thought he heard the sound of singing over his now totally primal fear, and he turned and headed for the source of the voice. The incongruity of someone singing in such a situation didn't strike him until he emerged into the clearing, right at the heart of the forest, from which the elusive, haunting melody seemed to issue. Sobbing for breath, he leaped from the trees, staggering into the center of the almost bare area. It took a few moments for the strangeness of what was happening to dawn on him.
He was leaning, half-collapsed, against the trunk of an enormous tree, of a kind which he had never before encountered. The trunk was so broad around that even he, huge and long-limbed as he was, would need to be three time his size to circle it with his arms. The bark was pale brown and strangely soft, like moss, and the leaves gleamed silvery green in the moonlight. What was strangest, however, was that the soft, almost inaudible singing he had heard seemed to be coming from the tree itself.
Forgetting his pursuers for a moment in the familiar fascination of discovery, he ran a clawed hand wonderingly over the surface of the bark. Startled, he jerked his hand away; it was warm. He rose to his feet unsteadily, heart still pounding, and had just jumped into the lowest branch of the tree when the first of his hunters burst into the clearing, gun already raised as he looked wildly for his quarry. The others, outrun by their eager comrade, were not far behind. Hank, cornered at last, too exhausted to run, merely huddled against the tree trunk, raising his eyes to stare up at the crown of the huge tree, the feel of its warmth around him somehow comforting, blunting his terror.
"There is no great and no small, To the Soul that maketh all; And where it cometh, all things are; And it cometh everywhere." He murmured regretfully. He was a scientist, and an atheist, but the FOH men were usually devout believers, in their own way. Was he, too, not a creature of God? He sighed, feeling the loneliness he had always tried to avoid thinking about engulf him. Was this how he was to die? Alone in the forest but for his merciless killers, who would not even offer him a burial?
Through his fatigued eyes, the next few minutes took on a feeling of unreality. It seemed to him that a hand, glowing with a pale, silver-green light, emerged slowly from the trunk of the tree, followed shortly by a slender arm and then the rest of the body, until the glowing woman – and woman she undoubtedly was, Hank thought in distant shock, for she was totally naked – stood in front of the tree protectively. Her voice reached his ears only faintly, as though from a great distance, but he knew that it was light and musical, like the song of the tree.
"You are not welcome here. Leave."
The FOH follower raised his gun, sneering, and Hank wanted to cry out, because surely something so enthrallingly beautiful couldn't be allowed to die, when the one of the trees behind the man moved. A thick branch creaked once, then bent and struck him in the back, sending him flying to land in an ungainly heap, unconscious, clear across the other side of the clearing. Bemused, shock setting in, he watched as the glowing woman stilled, waiting, her head tilted, clearly listening to something he couldn't hear. After a moment, her slender hands began to dance through the air in front of her, her fingers twisting intricately together.
From the forest around them, Hank heard the pained, muffled cries of his former pursuers and the solid thump of what he assumed were more branches attacking them. Then, abruptly, there was silence. The woman nodded once, obviously satisfied, and turned to him. Despite being only half-conscious, the blue mutant blushed and averted his face; she was significantly female in all respects. For a moment he thought he saw past the blaze of pale light to an amused quirk of full, inviting lips, but then she approached and he had the sudden realisation that she wasn't necessarily friendly.
He looked down at her for a moment and then, without any movement of her arms, the branch he was on flexed and lowered, gently depositing his weak body on the soft grass that seemed to be reaching up to cushion his descent, before with another soft creak it was restored to its former position. The woman crouched beside him, and he got the feeling that unseen eyes were examining him. Finally, she rested a warm hand on his shoulder, above his wound, and he flinched, not only because of the pain, but because she was touching him despite his ferocious appearance. He stared at her hand on his arm, simultaneously desperate to keep the contact and feeling another savage bolt of agony. He cleared his throat, finding his voice at last.
"I am terribly sorry to invade your privacy," Even to his own ears, he sounded weak, and his voice was strained, "But I would be most obliged if you could remove your hand from the vicinity of my wound. It is rather, er… painful." He ended faintly as she rested soft fingers directly over the injury, which gave another twinge.
She didn't reply, or even remove the offending limb, and Hank was beginning to become angry. "My good woman, I said-"
He cut off abruptly as she laid her other hand over a visible tree root. The green glow intensified, and the warmth of her hand seemed to seep into his skin, soothing away the ache. There was an odd, uncomfortable stretching feeling, but the pain of the injury was diminishing to bearable levels, and he was suddenly feeling revitalized. She removed her hand, and her body suggested her satisfaction as she rose, extending a hand to help him up. He took it cautiously, not putting too much weight on her as he stood, and he couldn't help but notice that her skin felt soft and pliant beneath his.
When he towered over her, he tried to offer his thanks, but the words wouldn't come, and she waved his attempts at coherent speech away. Without a word, she turned and pushed her hand into the tree trunk, obviously going back to wherever she had come from. This, at last, woke him from the strangely pleasant stupor, and he started forwards just as her shoulder began to sink into the receptive wood.
"Wait!" He called urgently; somehow, he was not ready to see her vanish. She paused and he softened his voice. "Wait, please."
Her head turned and he watched in wonder as the light dimmed, then went out, leaving him with a brief vision of pale skin glowing in the moonlight (lots of pale skin, he later remembered with a blush), pink lips parted slightly in surprise, dark, woody brown hair curling around slender shoulders and pale green eyes, without pupils. Then, marring the strange, goddess-like aura around her, she laughed and winked, blowing him a kiss before she was absorbed back into the tree.
Hank stood there for a long moment before turning and making his way back towards the mansion, briefcase forgotten, the pain in his shoulder dulled to a constant discomfort that he could bear if he didn't think about it too much. This, he reflected ruefully, was quite easy, as his mind was full of a glowing green figure and a mischievous, beautiful face.