Disclaimer: This is a work of
fan-fiction. The here fore used characters belong rightfully to Marvel and I
just borrowed them. The only profit I hope to achieve with this is the pure
pleasure of the reader, so no copyright infringement intended. Please do not
sue me, I don't have money and won't be getting some from this story. The
dialogue used at the end of this story was taken from WildC.A.T.s/X-Men, The
Silver Age and it is also not mine.
Author's notes: This story refers
to the WildC.A.T.s/X-Men Crossover The Silver Age and it is set shortly before
the comic book begins.
Please send me feedback, 'cause I'd
like to know whether you liked my story or not. If you'd like to archive my
work, please let me just know where, so I can go looking for new stories there
I haven't read yet.
Breaking the
law
by Belladonna
It is dark in my cell, a small light shines in from the outside but it is not enough to lighten the little room completely. But that doesn't matter because I am perfectly capable to see in the darkness, even if I'd rather not seen what I see there. There I am sitting in a cell in some rotten tiny town and keep brooding over things. My hands are cuffed as well as are my feet, my clothes torn so that I only have my trousers left. I am sitting in a solitary cell of a prison in some south American little town, me the greatest thief of the world. I ask myself how it could have come with me that low and if it had been worth it.
~/~
When I was born it was obvious that I was
different than all the other children, my eyes branded me now as then a mutant,
red on black. But whether that would have bothered my parents, my true parents
or I even had inherited them from one of them is something I'll never know.
Instead I grew up on the streets, a place no children should grow up, a place
where kids make experiences they should be spared to make. I had to steal so
that I would not starve, I've learned that early and quickly. I had to steal
clothes so that I did not freeze to death, but now I am asking myself whether
that would've bothered someone. What would one less mutant possibly mean? The
thievery had been necessary to survive and I had been a quick study of life and
survival so I soon became quite good at it. It was just something that belonged
to my life like breathing, it was my life to be specific, because without the
things I gained through stealing I would not have survived that long to think
about it now. I never considered it something wrong then or as something bad, I
didn't know better. I had never learned anything else and why should only the
other people have enough food and clothing. Back then I did only steal what I
needed to survive, I was too busy with surviving than I would've wished for
luxury. Like today it was simply a transfer of possessions, with the little
exception that these consisted then of things I really needed to survive. And I
had been really good at what I was doing, never were the people able to catch
me so I always got away unharmed. Although sometimes I had wished to be caught,
that one of the rich families of the town who lived in these expensive houses
got me and maybe took me to live with them. But that were fantasies, it never
happened. I had often stood at the windows and looked in at Christmas or
Easter, at the holidays when the whole city had been so extremely nicely
decorated. I had watched how the other kids played with their toys or ate with
their families at a rich decked table. When they unpacked their presents and
their faces lightened up with joy I must admit, that it did indeed hurt me and
got me a sting right into my heart. I had no parents to give me presents, had
no one I could go to at the holidays and I didn't even know my birthday. As I
now reflect back, I simply wanted to have a place where I belonged.
Even the other kids who lived in the streets
shunned me and even whether we shared a similar destiny they were still normal
and I was a freak, a child of the devil. They were afraid of me and retreated
away from me, they called me names that hurt me much, even if I knew not to be
a demon's spawn despite my strange eyes. But I wasn't so sure every time if
they could have not been right. Soon I realized that my eyes were not the only
mark of my mutation, 'cause I developed a certain feeling for the emotions of others.
I was able to read their emotions, something's called empathy. That would
quickly turn out a great advantage but a disadvantage as well as I was soon to
find out. I found out that if I concentrated hard enough I was able to project
my emotions onto others and it made me back then a better thief. I only used my
abilities to get me some food and I considered them a great gift. Finally I
would get some recognition from some entity that watched over me. Now people
wanted to give me something when I begged or they did not realize me while
emptying their briefcases, when I used my gifts to influence them so that I was
hidden from them. That ability proved extremely valuable, now I had the
infinite possibility to make my way through life. But I soon met the shadowy
sides of that gift. I could feel now how people were angry that I stole their
money and that they actually loathed me, children who scraped a bare living on
the streets and stole from hardworking good citizens. The words of the other
kids did hurt the more now because I felt their anger, their hate and fear.
Their harsh words were meant absolutely honest and I could not understand what
I did to them that they hated my like this. I was willing to share my loot,
since I was able to double it through my powers. But instead of gratefulness I
received the full load of their fury, 'cause I prevented their success. They
beat me and took everything away from me. I felt how they used me when they
took my offerings several times, but I didn't understand why they did it. I
only wanted to belong somewhere. And we thieves had to stick together. Even if
I didn't know where I belonged to, I had known about the sense of community the
other kids had. I could feel it clearly. When I now stood at the huge windows
and looked into the houses I felt the delight of the other rich children and
the love of their parents for them, things I had never been allowed to feel. I couldn't fight the
feeling that I envied them for that.
But the day should come for me too when I found
a family, a place where I belonged. That was the day I got caught for the first
time in my life. And that although I possessed special powers. I don't know why
I didn't use them that day, but I had had a strange feeling. I had to choose of
all things the head of the Thieves Guild to become my next victim, although I
didn't know that then. I had chosen him to steal his wallet 'cause he looked
wealthy. Naturally he had to catch me, though I was very good at that method of
stealing. But as good as I was, he was a better thief than me. I still do not
know why he did it, whether he needed a new recruit or pitied a poor little
mutant, because I could not read his feelings clearly. But he took me, in his
house and raised me just like his own son, as if I was his son too. He even
gave me his name and made me a member of his family, against the will of the
other clans of the Guild. He trained me and showed me, what was necessary to
know and do for a professional thief. I was a good student, now I had finally
found my place where I could belong to and I learned eagerly because I didn't
want to disappoint my father. And he'd never been disappointed with me, he'd
never said he regretted taken me in like I had expected at first. I was so used
to being used for my powers and after that being dropped like a hot potato..
But nothing like that happened. And I still can't trust people completely.
Had I recoiled of stealing other things than
food and clothing before, I didn't want to hurt someone, I learned quickly that
the rich ones possessed too many wealth, and some things not even missed when
they were taken from them. They didn't deserve to have that unmeasurable
wealth. It was nothing wrong what I did, I still did not see it as anything
wrong. These people did not honour their things when they still were their
things so why bother when they were now missing? It served them right and I
felt no guilt at that. On the contrary, that was it what I was, what I did and
I was the best. The powers I developed, my empathy and the ability to charge
objects kinetically helped me to stabilize my status. I had been raised to that
and I'c been raised good to be the king of thieves, the worlds finest thief. I
outdid all the others, even without my special powers, but I could not reach my
fathers abilities. But that was a goal worth reaching for me, so it didn't
matter to me. I know exactly that I've never been welcome in the guild, a
freak, but my abilities as a thief had made them respect me, I've earned it and
even if we are not a family by blood, so they accepted me finally how I was and
who I was. Here I've found my place and I did everything to prove to them that
I truly did earn their respect and was worth it; that I was worth being a part
of the family.
~/~
Now I am sitting here in that small cell, my
hands and feet cuffed in heavy chains. I look at the blackness of the tiny room
and keep asking myself, whether it was worth it. I shouldn't ask myself that
much because the answer must be a definite yes. I have found my place and a
family that took me to be one of their own even as I was a stranger to them and
a mutant. I owe them my deepest gratitude and do everything to show them just
how grateful I am. This might me a good chance to think about all my life so
far, but actually I don't regret anything. I don't regret that I am a thief,
that is what I do. And I am not sorry that I steal, it did lead me to my
family, to my place in life. The people whom I steal from don't deserve it
better they don't know what to do with all their money. None of these noble
folks had made a single move or spend some money to help me as I was still
living on the streets. Just my father had shown me what it meant to have a
family and helped me when I needed it and now it is for me to honour that
gesture and to return it. Stealing meant for me living, and it has become my
life now. And though it says that you shouldn't steal all the other people do
it whether they call it thievery or something else. They steal the lives of the
others when they oppress them or they steal the lives of the children on the
streets by abandoning them, just like they've stolen mine. The people always
take things from others and justify their actions with flimsy lies. I am a
thief, I take things because I can, it is that what I do and I don't have to
justify myself in any way for that.
~/~
In my pants I had hidden a small clamp that
would prove to be pretty useful now. The guards didn't find it when they
searched me. With that little piece of metal I pick the locks of the chains and
they fall to the floor with a little metallic sound. Relieved I rub my hands
and ankles to restore the blood circulation. In one of my pockets I have left a
package of cigarettes and I just want to light one up, to think about how I
would possibly escape from here, as the door opens. The guards bring in another
prisoner, bound like I had been before at my hands and feet with a extra chain
to a collar at his neck. They throw him
uncaringly into the cell next to mine, then leave us alone. He is blond and has
a noticeable tattoo on the upper right arm, a standing cobra with a roman
seven. Must have been in the military or something like that. I wonder, why he
would be here, if the guards thought him that dangerous to put him in these
heavy chains and why he was thrown here in the solitary wing with me. I
recognize him now, I've seen him though the bars when I was brought here. The
guards are long gone and I study my new fellow prisoner. He is angry because of
some reason and keeps pacing in his cell. I stand up and go to the bars. I
truly ask myself what he must have done to get here.
"So, mon ami…whatcha in for?"
(Inspired by WildC.A.T.s/X-Men, The Silver Age,
page 1)