Chapter 1: Regeneration
In Moira's opinion the day had started like any other in the facility on Muir Island. She had breakfast with Rahne and let Neme out to go and find her own. She started the rounds of the patients at the facility, checking on their progress. Her final stop was with the patient with no higher level brain functions.
She was looking at the chart when she heard the voice.
"Moira…" The voice rasped as it had never been used.
She dropped the chart as she looked up. "Charles?"
"…Yes Moira. It has been a long time since we last spoke in person…"
She shook her head vehemently, pulling wisps of copper coloured hair from her neat bun, "This should be impossible. We spoke about it in theory, but to move yourself into a new body as your own was being destroyed?"
"…I had to. They still need me Moira and my work is far from done. Things will get worse than they already are."
"Aye, and the strain could have been too much for your powers. It was a dangerous thing Charles, considering the distance between this body and your own."
There was a dry, hacking chuckle from the body on the bed, now inhabited by Charles Xavier. A body never used and would need time to build up its strength. Moira moved over to the bedside and sat down on the bed.
"You do not need to tell me how lucky I am, Moira. I am well aware of the fact. But others were not so lucky. Jean…"
"There was nothing they could do. She was driven to insanity, Charles. Ororo told me that Logan killed her as a final mercy."
"I know Moira." He sighed. "But I know it was my fault to begin with. What would have happened if I had not put the blocks in place?"
She shrugged, "I'm sorry Charles, not even I can say. It is fairly possible that the Phoenix would have surfaced eventually anyway."
He settled into deep thought for a few minutes. As if he was mulling many decisions made over the years and wondering if they were the right choice.
"How are the girls?" He asked finally, smiling a little.
"A handful, but they always were. Rahne's control has improved, so we're less prone to teenage werewolf outbursts now."
"And the other one?"
She let lose a breath she was not aware she was holding. "Neme, she is as well as can be expected. She looks after herself mostly, and plays with Rahne. She also keeps a close eye on her. Sometimes I think Neme knows more about her than I do."
Charles smiled at her encouragingly. "You are doing admirably with the two of them, considering the nature of their abilities." He paused before frowning. "There has been no improvement?"
Moira could not keep eye contact. "No, not in nearly five years. I know that I predicted that it would happen; I just didn't think she would go so soon. She still has that spunky personality, insatiable curiosity and stubborn streak. It was terrible watching it happen with my own eyes. Everyday she lost that little bit more."
He patted her hand in a paternal way. The doctor in her told her it was a very good sign, that it was possible he could make a complete recovery, at least physically.
"But she has not turned on you or Rahne. It was the best decision to send her here. The number of students arriving at the school could have had a disastrous effect on her."
Moira remained silent. Both Neme and Rahne. She saw them both as her daughters. Neme's regression tore her apart inside.
"I take it that by calling her 'Neme', she no longer answers to her given name?" He asked her.
"No, not in quite some time. Rahne shortened her other name to Neme. Apparently it doesn't sound as evil." She gave a little chuckle.
"Have the restraints been effective?"
"Oh, yes. It's restricted most of her power, her body is not capable of containing it, at least not right now."
She stood up again. "Here I am, talking your ears off. You should be resting Charles, and that means no powers. You can worry about all of that when you get your strength back." She gave him quick medical exam and satisfied that he was fine, she left him in peace to rest.
She was cutting potatoes for her and Rahne's dinner, still deep in thought about the repercussions of Charles' actions in moving to another body. Ultimately she supposed that as you die, perhaps things have a different perspective to them.
"Moira?" Rahne's voice called her back to the present. "You're cutting those into nothing."
She turned and looked at the lanky teenager. Rahne looked back at her with wolfish eyes. Those amber coloured eyes had unsettled more than one visitor to the island. Her auburn hair was short and somewhat scruffy, and the dusting of freckles made her look more than impish. A pendant of a sharp fang hung around her neck.
"You seem out of it."
"Hmm? No, I'm fine. Where's Neme?"
"I think she's around here somewhere. Probably having a nap. The weather's still pretty cold, she doesn't like that much."
She gave an absent minded acknowledgement and returned to making their dinner.
There was a bit of a clatter, which she immediately associated with Neme. All these years living at the facility and she still had trouble with the tiled floors.
The door into the kitchen was nudged open and Neme entered the room. Most people heard her speak of Neme and assumed that she must be a sister of Rahne, and in a sense that was true. However if they ever saw Neme, well the reality was very different to any mental image that they had conjured.
A storm-grey scaled snout pushed the door open. A forked tongue flickered in and out of the mouth. A wedge shaped head was revealed, with small spines around the jawbone and two black coloured horns on the top of the head, each about a foot long and sweeping towards the back. There were two leathery ears. Some sharp fangs protruded from the closed mouth, each the size of the blade of the vegetable knife Moira was using to cut the potatoes, and many times sharper. Clear, pale grey reptilian eyes missed little detail as they glanced around the room.
It moved into the room, walking on four feet. The forefeet each had five digits, and each had a razor sharp black claw, though these were mostly retracted. The hind feet also had five digits, but instead of walking on the whole foot, only the toes were used. Just above the ankles on all four legs were what seemed like metal bracers.
A thick tail, nearly as long as the body, followed into the room. It had spines embedded down it, and it ended in a thick, paler grey, leaf shaped knob. The body was mostly covered by thick storm grey scales, but the underside and some parts of the head and neck had a hide, which was paler than the scales.
Overall she stood at five feet at the shoulder, and if she stood on her hind legs she was well over eight feet tall. A very lithe body with wiry muscle exposed the predator nature, as if the fangs and claws did not make it known already.
She padded into the room, the claws making a quiet click on the tiled floor. She made her way over to Rahne's chair and lay coiled around it.
That was the general habit at dinner time in the house. Rahne would either help or sit down, while telling Moira about her day, while Neme usually curled up somewhere in the room out of the way or around Rahne's chair if she was sitting there.
Dinner was a fairly quiet affair; Rahne spoke of what she learned about with her tutor, considering only the facility was on the island, it was mostly idle chitchat watched by Neme with eerily intelligent eyes. It was Moira's opinion that Neme was far more intelligent that she pretended.
"Neme's been weird today." Rahne piped up suddenly.
Moira glanced quickly down to the creature currently dozing on the floor.
"'Weird' how?"
"I don't know… she's just been a bit off, as if something is distracting her. Her focus isn't the same. She missed one of the deer on her first try; normally she can take one down right away."
"All predators miss sometimes, Rahne. You know that."
Rahne shook her head. "Not like that. She was going for the kill strike and she completely missed. Something was wrong."
That was unusual. Normally Neme went for the kill strike on her prey and that was it, she never showed needlessly cruel tactics or played with her food when she had trapped it.
Unless… Unless it was caused by Charles waking up and calling to her. His telepathy could have come back into effect again. That would have affected the predator, considering she was sensitive to such things. She could have picked up on the sudden arrival of the telepath.
She looked down to the half sleeping predator, who decided to give a lazy yawn. It did not seem to be bothering her now, but then Charles always told her he had a bit of difficulty reading Neme, even back when she was human. Perhaps the reptile did not care because she herself did not see it as a threat, and because of that Neme felt no need to investigate or act upon it.
The last time she had Neme use her tracking abilities it was to find Rahne, who had just been attacked and then dumped in an alley by a mob, led by her father.
Now, however, she had two trackers, Rahne had a keen nose too, and once she arrived and got used to Neme, she would follow Neme while she hunted to learn how to track.
She reached down and scratched Neme behind one of her ears and was rewarded with a deep, growling purr. One of Neme's eyes half opened to look at her.
"How was your ability today?" She asked Rahne.
"Okay, I guess. I still get the feral urges really strong, but I didn't lose control today."
"Another day? Well this is your longest yet. No pressure or anything." She added with a smile. "I'll take care of the dishes tonight. Go off and do something."
No sooner than she had stood up, a red wolf pounced on Neme and nipped and pulled on her ears with its teeth. That jolted Neme awake who then stalked after the fleeing wolf.
She smiled after her two foster daughters. Neme, who was nearing twenty one and Rahne at sixteen. Both very different and at the same time similar. They made life much more interesting at the facility.
It was dark when Charles awoke again. It felt strange to be in this body, the body of his twin who had his mind destroyed by Charles in the womb. Ultimately he was regretful that it was his abilities that robbed him of his sibling, yet at the same time he was grateful that his sibling had left the body.
He was unaware he was reaching out with his telepathy until he felt the familiar presence of Moira, and then of her younger charge, Rahne. He concentrated for a moment before getting a vague impression of Neme as they called her now. She was a slippery mind to get hold of, but at least he knew she was there.
But he was unsure if the little girl he had met so long ago was still there, he would have to wait until he was recovered enough before trying. He did know that she was displaying some of her mutant hunting traits, but did not seem to be particularly bothered by mutants. At least that particular hurdle appeared to have been cleared, for the moment anyway.
He was not strong enough to even consider trying to contact Ororo yet. They still needed him, yet they still had to become strong on their own.
Charles settled back into his pillow, allowing sleep to reclaim him once more.
A/N: I decided I didn't like the way that the original Project Nemesis was going, so I've started to rewrite the entire thing. As you can see my muses decided to make me go in a very different direction, hopefully they won't flee on me like they did on the first attempt. Please review and leave feedback.