First things first - the disclaimer. This is a little different than my other
disclaimers, because, well, I didn't actually "write" this story. Well, yes,
I wrote it, but it's not my plot. Everything is Marvel's. Amanda belongs
to Marvel, Margali belongs to Marvel, the Norris belongs to Marvel, and,
of course, Nightcrawler belongs to Marvel. The story is a re-telling of the
comic book prequel for "X2: X-Men United". I changed everything in there
into a fanfic because I wanted to write a sequel to the movie and I needed
to make sure everyone knew Kurt's background before I wrote and posted that.
So technically Marvel could sue me. But that would be pointless. Let's say they do take the little money I have, then what? Then I won't be able to buy more comics and I most likely won't get more money. Even if I do, I'll be very displeased with Marvel and I won't buy anymore of their comics. They won't get any more money from me. I'm poor, they're poor, I'm unhappy, they're unhappy, nobody wins. So let's just keep it kosher and stay away from all this suing business.
And pick up the "Official Comic Book Prequel: X-Men 2 - Nightcrawler"! It's a good read.
So here it is. The prequel to "X2" - Fuzzy Elf style.
Time to getcho fic on!
The Shadow of Death
Writer - Chuck Austen
Editor - Mike Marts
Editor in Chief - Joe Quesada
Adapter - Blitz
My God, my God, look upon me;
why hast thou forsaken me?
and art so far from my health and from the words of my complaint?
O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not;
and in the night season also I take no rest.
- Psalm 22:1-2
Part 1
"It's only a show. Entertainment," he kept telling himself. It was only a bit of fun. He was not demeaning himself by doing this. He was only adding to the experience with his ... uniqueness.
That's what he repeated to himself as a wrapped his fingers and toes around a pole jutting up over a hundred feet from the ground in the circus tent. His gleaming yellow eyes watched the show below, listening for his cues, his gaze locked on the pretty young woman, shrouded in white robes, clutching a cross as she knealt before an altar with five others behind her, dressed similarly. "Oh, Heavenly Father, I offer myself to you, your humble servant to do your bidding," she declared. "Show me the way, Oh Lord. Send me a sign."
A demon leapt down onto the altar cross, small horns poking through his scalp, a tail whipping madly behind him. The glittering yellow eyes flashed as he howled, "God has abandoned you, woman! God has abandoned you all!" in a dramatic, theatrical voice.
"Noo!" the young woman screamed in horror. "It cannot be true!"
"But it is true, woman!" he growled, grabbing her white robes with one, three-fingered hand and pulling her closer so he could look into her grass-green eyes. "Now, really," he hissed menacingly. "Do I look like someone who would lie to you?"
"But he - " She stopped suddenly, the fear on her face giving way to confused irritation. In a voice too low for anyone but the blue man in front of her to hear, she whispered, "Heeeey ... that's not how the script goes, Kurt."
"It is today, Amanda," he grinned, baring his fangs. "It is today!" He bounded into the air, a pitchfork in one hand, Amanda in the other. Below, the audience gasped.
"Waah!" Amanda screamed. Her hood flew back on her head, revealing short red hair. "Oh, God. You take my breath away every time you do that."
"I live to take your breath away, Amanda," he said as he bounded from bar to bar, taking a moment to look into her eyes again.
"You ... you do?" She furrowed her brow. "What's gotten into you tonight, Kurt?"
Ignoring her, Kurt continued with his lines. "God shall not have you, oh beauteous one!" he bellowed to the heavens. "Not this night, nor any other!" He caught another trapeze and wrapped his two-toed feet around it, using one arm to support Amanda so she wouldn't fall. "Tonight, you belong to the Devil!" His laugh sounded little more than a hideous howl.
At the sidelines, an attractive young man held his trapeze, awaiting his cue. His blonde hair was swept back to reveal two, crystal-blue eyes. Angel wings grew out of his back, but those were only an illusion, as was everything else in the show. Almost everything else. "Kurt's ad-libbing again," he complained. "How am I supposed to know when my cue is up if he's ad-libbing? I'm gonna get all mixed up."
"Relax, Werner," another "angel" told him. "You'll be fine. Your cue should be the swing-out, anyway."
As he said, this, Kurt Wagner, the Incredible Nightcrawler, gave the line Werner was waiting for as he and Amanda sailed through the air, swinging from the trapeze. "Yes, it's true, ladies and gentlemen. The Devil is a real swinger!" The audience groaned.
"Help me, Oh Lord!" the young woman cried out. "Send me an Angel!"
"Hey!" The blue demon reached for her. "Where do you think you're going, lady?! I'm not finished with you yet! Come on, baby! Don't you know sinners have more fun?!" The audience laughed and the girl struggled to get out of his grip. The bar tipped forward and the ropes it was attached to twirled and jolted. Amanda's bare feet slipped and skidded on the smooth plastic as she tried to get out of his grasp. "You haven't lived until you've loved a guy with a tail!"
Amanda lost her balance and plummeted head downward to the circus floor.
"Amanda!" he screamed, losing character in the heat of the moment. The audience gasped once more in horror.
"I can't reach her!" Werner yelled out.
Kurt watched her fall, screaming. The nets hadn't been rolled out yet and Amanda was out of reach for the other acrobats.
"Oh, no!" Kurt hissed to himself. "He missed her!"
There was the BAMF! of imploding air and suddenly the blue demon was gone. "That demon vanished!" someone yelled.
"Quick, catch her!"
BAMF!
"It reappeared!"
Kurt appeared just below Amanda as she hurtled downward. He wrapped every limb around her. "I've got you, Amanda!" There was the sickening thud of flesh on concrete as Kurt hit the ground and Amanda landed on top of him.
"I - I don't think this was part of the show ... " a mother said, leading her young son out of the circus tent.
The man next to her jumped up with the rest of the audience members. "Somebody call an ambulance!"
The rest of the cast members gathered around the two fallen performers. Neither one of them moved. They looked as if they were dead.
***
"That was a stupid, stupid thing you did, Kurt. Stupid."
A small tent had been erected before the start of the show. A cot sat at the opposite wall, covered in pillows. In one corner rested a first-aid box. The tent was used as a small, make-shift hospital, but Margali, the owner of the circus, had hoped they wouldn't need it tonight.
"What were you thinking? Hunh? You can't change the cues in the middle of a performance!" she scolded him, strong arms crooked to place strong fists on her hips. "Especially when the net hasn't been rolled out yet! You've been with my circus since I found you as a baby, Kurt ... you should know better."
"I said I was sorry, Margali," the "demon" murmured. The horns had been removed while he had been receiving medical attention, but he still wore the black and red devil suit. He stared down at his feet, unable to meet Margali's gaze.
Margali was beautiful, despite her age. Time had been kind to her. The only wrinkles on her tired face were the ones that rested just beneath her eyes from nights spent awake, caring for two children, one of which seemed to insist on being awake all hours of the night. She had soft, silky hair, a little lighter than Amanda's, tied back in a bandana and a wide, red mouth. She was a woman who had worked hard her whole life to get where she was today, and a woman who would have to continue to work hard for her remaining years. She commanded respect from her co-workers and family alike, but was not without compassion.
Margali noted the shame on Kurt's face and her tone softened, though it was still angry. She still doubted whether Kurt fully understood what he had done. "Sorry isn't enough," she said. "You're like a son to me, Kurt ... and a brother to Amanda. And I don't mean to be harsh, but you've broken some ribs, and it might be a whole month before you can perform again. The circus needs you." She tried to look him in the eye, but he kept his sight trained on his feet. "Why would you do such a thing?" she asked, resting a hand comfortingly on his shoulder.
"I don't know Margali, I - " He lifted his head a little to speak to her, and when he did, he noticed to people outside the tent - one man wearing angel wings and a girl in flowing white robes. He stopped for a moment to watch them.
"Are you sure you're all right, Amanda?" He had asked that question many times since she had woken up.
"Yes, Werner," she said, embracing him and holding her cheek against his chest. "I am now ... "
"I guess I thought - " Kurt broke his stare and lowered his sight from Amanda to Margali's knees and muttered - "the devil made me do it."
"Oh, Kurt," Margali cooed, taking his hand and putting her hand on his back. "Whatever's bothering you ... it'll work itself out. I promise."
***
In the small town, a few miles from the residential area, a church had been built. It was old, but sturdy, and bigger than many other churches that were often built in small towns. Kurt had found himself in here after Margali had left his bedside. Though it hurt to walk, he had to leave the confines of the circus.
'I love God,' he thought to himself. 'I have to.' He gazed up at the crucifix, his eyes fixed on the Son of God nailed to it. 'Without a belief in His divine plan for us all, a mutant like me, a person born with strange and very unhuman like powers would have no reason to go on. Without God's love - '
"Kurt?" a soft, feminine voice interrupted his thoughts. "Are you all right."
"I - yes ... I'm fine, Amanda," he said, turning halfway to look at her. "Just embarassed is all. How did you know I'd be here?" In his mind, his thoughts continue. 'Without a belief that God loves me, and has a purpose for me, what else could there be for me in life?' As he stared back at Amanda, he thought to himself, 'If God wasn't there to love me, who else would?'
Amanda grinned playfully back at him. At least she wasn't angry like everyone else seemed to be. But then again, Amanda never seemed to be angry with him for long. "Old theaters, old movies, or the nearest church," she said wryly. "You're sort of predictable that way."
"I suppose I am ... " he grinned back at her, " ... I'll have to be more impulsive in the future."
"No! Please ... " Amanda laughed jovially. "I've had enough of your spontaneity for one day!"
Kurt remembered why he had escaped to the church in the first place and put a three-fingered hand to his forehead. "I'm so sorry, Amanda. I don't know what got into me - "
Amanda's smile disappeared only to be replaced by a new, gentler one. "I do," she answered, catching Kurt off gaurd for a moment. "You made it very clear."
Before Kurt knew what was happening, Amanda's lips were locked to his. Slowly, he shut his eyes and wrapped his arms around her. When she finally pulled away, smiling softly back at him, he said, "Amanda, this is too good to be true."
"Before today," she explained, "you never let me know how you really felt. And besides, ever since Mother found you alone and abandoned as a baby, you always seemed to think of me as a sister."
Kurt brushed his hands through her red hair. "I never thought of you as a sister, Amanda," he said quietly, his yellow eyes locked on hers. "I ... I just always assumed you thought of me as a monster."
"Oh, my sweet Kurt," Amanda smiled, holding his hands to her face. "Never, never, never." Suddenly, her tone changed. "Come on. Let's go. Let's leave together. Now."
"Leave? Why? Why can't we stay with Margali and the circus and just be together?"
"Because ... " Amanda paused, wondering if she should continue. She was about to say something Kurt would not want to hear and she would not want to say. But she kept talking. It needed to be said. "Mother would never approve and you know it. She loves you as an adopted child, loves you as a son ... but never as a son-in-law. It was her idea to put you in that devil costume, Kurt ... how do you think she truly feels about you?"
Kurt backed away from Amanda and crouched down, as he often did when he chose to sit. "I know it was her idea ... but I never thought of it as a 'racist' thing. Or an anti-mutant thing," he said. He did not want to hear these words about Margali, though he had often wondered them many times before. "That somehow she might think less of me."
"You should hear the things she says about you when you're not around," she pressed.
"No ... no I can't believe - "
"But it's true. It is. She tells me things she would never tell you," she said, trying to force him to believe her. She stepped closer to him, resting a head on his shoulder as he put an arm around her lovingly. "Let's go away, Kurt. Now. Together." And, as a final afterthought, "Don't you want to be with me?"
"Oh God, Amanda, yes," he said, pulling her close. "I want that more than anything."
The two stood for a moment, the stained glass window behind them haloing their forms before they left the church, walking away from the town, away from the circus, away from Margali and all those who would oppose their match and their love.
So technically Marvel could sue me. But that would be pointless. Let's say they do take the little money I have, then what? Then I won't be able to buy more comics and I most likely won't get more money. Even if I do, I'll be very displeased with Marvel and I won't buy anymore of their comics. They won't get any more money from me. I'm poor, they're poor, I'm unhappy, they're unhappy, nobody wins. So let's just keep it kosher and stay away from all this suing business.
And pick up the "Official Comic Book Prequel: X-Men 2 - Nightcrawler"! It's a good read.
So here it is. The prequel to "X2" - Fuzzy Elf style.
Time to getcho fic on!
The Shadow of Death
Writer - Chuck Austen
Editor - Mike Marts
Editor in Chief - Joe Quesada
Adapter - Blitz
My God, my God, look upon me;
why hast thou forsaken me?
and art so far from my health and from the words of my complaint?
O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not;
and in the night season also I take no rest.
- Psalm 22:1-2
Part 1
"It's only a show. Entertainment," he kept telling himself. It was only a bit of fun. He was not demeaning himself by doing this. He was only adding to the experience with his ... uniqueness.
That's what he repeated to himself as a wrapped his fingers and toes around a pole jutting up over a hundred feet from the ground in the circus tent. His gleaming yellow eyes watched the show below, listening for his cues, his gaze locked on the pretty young woman, shrouded in white robes, clutching a cross as she knealt before an altar with five others behind her, dressed similarly. "Oh, Heavenly Father, I offer myself to you, your humble servant to do your bidding," she declared. "Show me the way, Oh Lord. Send me a sign."
A demon leapt down onto the altar cross, small horns poking through his scalp, a tail whipping madly behind him. The glittering yellow eyes flashed as he howled, "God has abandoned you, woman! God has abandoned you all!" in a dramatic, theatrical voice.
"Noo!" the young woman screamed in horror. "It cannot be true!"
"But it is true, woman!" he growled, grabbing her white robes with one, three-fingered hand and pulling her closer so he could look into her grass-green eyes. "Now, really," he hissed menacingly. "Do I look like someone who would lie to you?"
"But he - " She stopped suddenly, the fear on her face giving way to confused irritation. In a voice too low for anyone but the blue man in front of her to hear, she whispered, "Heeeey ... that's not how the script goes, Kurt."
"It is today, Amanda," he grinned, baring his fangs. "It is today!" He bounded into the air, a pitchfork in one hand, Amanda in the other. Below, the audience gasped.
"Waah!" Amanda screamed. Her hood flew back on her head, revealing short red hair. "Oh, God. You take my breath away every time you do that."
"I live to take your breath away, Amanda," he said as he bounded from bar to bar, taking a moment to look into her eyes again.
"You ... you do?" She furrowed her brow. "What's gotten into you tonight, Kurt?"
Ignoring her, Kurt continued with his lines. "God shall not have you, oh beauteous one!" he bellowed to the heavens. "Not this night, nor any other!" He caught another trapeze and wrapped his two-toed feet around it, using one arm to support Amanda so she wouldn't fall. "Tonight, you belong to the Devil!" His laugh sounded little more than a hideous howl.
At the sidelines, an attractive young man held his trapeze, awaiting his cue. His blonde hair was swept back to reveal two, crystal-blue eyes. Angel wings grew out of his back, but those were only an illusion, as was everything else in the show. Almost everything else. "Kurt's ad-libbing again," he complained. "How am I supposed to know when my cue is up if he's ad-libbing? I'm gonna get all mixed up."
"Relax, Werner," another "angel" told him. "You'll be fine. Your cue should be the swing-out, anyway."
As he said, this, Kurt Wagner, the Incredible Nightcrawler, gave the line Werner was waiting for as he and Amanda sailed through the air, swinging from the trapeze. "Yes, it's true, ladies and gentlemen. The Devil is a real swinger!" The audience groaned.
"Help me, Oh Lord!" the young woman cried out. "Send me an Angel!"
"Hey!" The blue demon reached for her. "Where do you think you're going, lady?! I'm not finished with you yet! Come on, baby! Don't you know sinners have more fun?!" The audience laughed and the girl struggled to get out of his grip. The bar tipped forward and the ropes it was attached to twirled and jolted. Amanda's bare feet slipped and skidded on the smooth plastic as she tried to get out of his grasp. "You haven't lived until you've loved a guy with a tail!"
Amanda lost her balance and plummeted head downward to the circus floor.
"Amanda!" he screamed, losing character in the heat of the moment. The audience gasped once more in horror.
"I can't reach her!" Werner yelled out.
Kurt watched her fall, screaming. The nets hadn't been rolled out yet and Amanda was out of reach for the other acrobats.
"Oh, no!" Kurt hissed to himself. "He missed her!"
There was the BAMF! of imploding air and suddenly the blue demon was gone. "That demon vanished!" someone yelled.
"Quick, catch her!"
BAMF!
"It reappeared!"
Kurt appeared just below Amanda as she hurtled downward. He wrapped every limb around her. "I've got you, Amanda!" There was the sickening thud of flesh on concrete as Kurt hit the ground and Amanda landed on top of him.
"I - I don't think this was part of the show ... " a mother said, leading her young son out of the circus tent.
The man next to her jumped up with the rest of the audience members. "Somebody call an ambulance!"
The rest of the cast members gathered around the two fallen performers. Neither one of them moved. They looked as if they were dead.
***
"That was a stupid, stupid thing you did, Kurt. Stupid."
A small tent had been erected before the start of the show. A cot sat at the opposite wall, covered in pillows. In one corner rested a first-aid box. The tent was used as a small, make-shift hospital, but Margali, the owner of the circus, had hoped they wouldn't need it tonight.
"What were you thinking? Hunh? You can't change the cues in the middle of a performance!" she scolded him, strong arms crooked to place strong fists on her hips. "Especially when the net hasn't been rolled out yet! You've been with my circus since I found you as a baby, Kurt ... you should know better."
"I said I was sorry, Margali," the "demon" murmured. The horns had been removed while he had been receiving medical attention, but he still wore the black and red devil suit. He stared down at his feet, unable to meet Margali's gaze.
Margali was beautiful, despite her age. Time had been kind to her. The only wrinkles on her tired face were the ones that rested just beneath her eyes from nights spent awake, caring for two children, one of which seemed to insist on being awake all hours of the night. She had soft, silky hair, a little lighter than Amanda's, tied back in a bandana and a wide, red mouth. She was a woman who had worked hard her whole life to get where she was today, and a woman who would have to continue to work hard for her remaining years. She commanded respect from her co-workers and family alike, but was not without compassion.
Margali noted the shame on Kurt's face and her tone softened, though it was still angry. She still doubted whether Kurt fully understood what he had done. "Sorry isn't enough," she said. "You're like a son to me, Kurt ... and a brother to Amanda. And I don't mean to be harsh, but you've broken some ribs, and it might be a whole month before you can perform again. The circus needs you." She tried to look him in the eye, but he kept his sight trained on his feet. "Why would you do such a thing?" she asked, resting a hand comfortingly on his shoulder.
"I don't know Margali, I - " He lifted his head a little to speak to her, and when he did, he noticed to people outside the tent - one man wearing angel wings and a girl in flowing white robes. He stopped for a moment to watch them.
"Are you sure you're all right, Amanda?" He had asked that question many times since she had woken up.
"Yes, Werner," she said, embracing him and holding her cheek against his chest. "I am now ... "
"I guess I thought - " Kurt broke his stare and lowered his sight from Amanda to Margali's knees and muttered - "the devil made me do it."
"Oh, Kurt," Margali cooed, taking his hand and putting her hand on his back. "Whatever's bothering you ... it'll work itself out. I promise."
***
In the small town, a few miles from the residential area, a church had been built. It was old, but sturdy, and bigger than many other churches that were often built in small towns. Kurt had found himself in here after Margali had left his bedside. Though it hurt to walk, he had to leave the confines of the circus.
'I love God,' he thought to himself. 'I have to.' He gazed up at the crucifix, his eyes fixed on the Son of God nailed to it. 'Without a belief in His divine plan for us all, a mutant like me, a person born with strange and very unhuman like powers would have no reason to go on. Without God's love - '
"Kurt?" a soft, feminine voice interrupted his thoughts. "Are you all right."
"I - yes ... I'm fine, Amanda," he said, turning halfway to look at her. "Just embarassed is all. How did you know I'd be here?" In his mind, his thoughts continue. 'Without a belief that God loves me, and has a purpose for me, what else could there be for me in life?' As he stared back at Amanda, he thought to himself, 'If God wasn't there to love me, who else would?'
Amanda grinned playfully back at him. At least she wasn't angry like everyone else seemed to be. But then again, Amanda never seemed to be angry with him for long. "Old theaters, old movies, or the nearest church," she said wryly. "You're sort of predictable that way."
"I suppose I am ... " he grinned back at her, " ... I'll have to be more impulsive in the future."
"No! Please ... " Amanda laughed jovially. "I've had enough of your spontaneity for one day!"
Kurt remembered why he had escaped to the church in the first place and put a three-fingered hand to his forehead. "I'm so sorry, Amanda. I don't know what got into me - "
Amanda's smile disappeared only to be replaced by a new, gentler one. "I do," she answered, catching Kurt off gaurd for a moment. "You made it very clear."
Before Kurt knew what was happening, Amanda's lips were locked to his. Slowly, he shut his eyes and wrapped his arms around her. When she finally pulled away, smiling softly back at him, he said, "Amanda, this is too good to be true."
"Before today," she explained, "you never let me know how you really felt. And besides, ever since Mother found you alone and abandoned as a baby, you always seemed to think of me as a sister."
Kurt brushed his hands through her red hair. "I never thought of you as a sister, Amanda," he said quietly, his yellow eyes locked on hers. "I ... I just always assumed you thought of me as a monster."
"Oh, my sweet Kurt," Amanda smiled, holding his hands to her face. "Never, never, never." Suddenly, her tone changed. "Come on. Let's go. Let's leave together. Now."
"Leave? Why? Why can't we stay with Margali and the circus and just be together?"
"Because ... " Amanda paused, wondering if she should continue. She was about to say something Kurt would not want to hear and she would not want to say. But she kept talking. It needed to be said. "Mother would never approve and you know it. She loves you as an adopted child, loves you as a son ... but never as a son-in-law. It was her idea to put you in that devil costume, Kurt ... how do you think she truly feels about you?"
Kurt backed away from Amanda and crouched down, as he often did when he chose to sit. "I know it was her idea ... but I never thought of it as a 'racist' thing. Or an anti-mutant thing," he said. He did not want to hear these words about Margali, though he had often wondered them many times before. "That somehow she might think less of me."
"You should hear the things she says about you when you're not around," she pressed.
"No ... no I can't believe - "
"But it's true. It is. She tells me things she would never tell you," she said, trying to force him to believe her. She stepped closer to him, resting a head on his shoulder as he put an arm around her lovingly. "Let's go away, Kurt. Now. Together." And, as a final afterthought, "Don't you want to be with me?"
"Oh God, Amanda, yes," he said, pulling her close. "I want that more than anything."
The two stood for a moment, the stained glass window behind them haloing their forms before they left the church, walking away from the town, away from the circus, away from Margali and all those who would oppose their match and their love.
