Title: Sticks & Stones
Author: The Duchess Of The Dark
Teaser: Accompaniment piece to a trilogy comprising of 'Prelude: A Canadian Tale', 'Fugue: X-Men' & 'Lucidity: Renascence'. A teenage Helena Draven struggles to cope with her mutant powers and the prejudice of her schoolmates.

Rating: PG-13 for language.

Disclaimer: All recognisable concepts (mutants etc etc, blah-de-blah) belong to Marvel Comics. I own not, you sue my regrettably pear-shaped English arse not. All characters in this piece are mine.

Genre: General/drama. For more dark fiction (not fanfic) visit my page at Illona's Place Vampires at

Archive: Yes, but ask me first, please.
Notes: Text in Italics indicates thought. Italic text in apostrophes 'italic' indicates telepathic conversation..

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Liverpool, UK, December 1939

"Freak! Freak! Freak! Your mum and dad didn't want you!"

Back pressed flush with the coarse grey stone flank of the school building, the whippet-thin girl with untidy curly dark hair gazed at the circle of vicious, taunting faces. The chanting grew louder, faster, building up to the inevitable outbreak of mob violence. An ugly baying pack of white shirts, blazers and striped school ties, they pressed closer, eyes blank with mindless prejudice. Her boot heel ground against tarmac as she tried to take another step back, the wall nudging her spine a tangible reminder she had nowhere to go. She was trapped.

"Freak! Freak! Freak!"

The chill November wind swirled through the schoolyard, creating clattering clouds of discarded sweet wrappers and dropped homework assignments. Somebody threw a broken piece of glass scooped up from the floor. It struck the fourteen-year-old above her left eye, leaving a crescent-shaped cut. Biting her lip, she refused to cry out, refused to give them the satisfaction of knowing they had hurt her. Her heart sank as her treacherous flesh began to itch and tingle, the deep cut knitting as cell embraced cell, looping cohesive layer upon layer until the skin was whole and unmarked. A rippling murmur of shock and outrage swept through the gathered school children, pimple-bright winter faces creased with fascination and disgust.

Helena began to tremble, gaze darting around the ever-tightening ring of her peers. Some were born bullies; gangling thugs with breaking voices and waspish would-be shop gossips with bonnets pinned untidily to their hair. Others were uniformed sheep, lacking the moral fibre, courage and inclination to do anything other than follow the majority. Seeing familiar faces in the constricting throng, faces she would have usually picked out as friends, she felt a cold weight settle inside her stomach.

The ringleader, a hulking boy whose father was the headmaster, laughed nastily and pointed a finger. At the age when physical growth outstripped co-ordination, he was a lumbering, clumsy bully who terrorised whoever he saw fit.

"See!" he bellowed, wiping his streaming nose with a monogrammed handkerchief. "That's not natural! Just like a girl learning to fight like the bloody Chinks!"

Several boys broke into exaggerated pantomime boxing poses, bouncing on their boot heels. Racial tensions of all varieties were high since the outbreak of World War 2, all the old differences between various communities coming to the fore. There had been talk on the wireless of giving out gas masks. The trophy she had won in the first competition allowing non-Chinese, female entrants suddenly weighing heavy in her leather satchel, nestled amongst her books, lunch box and pencil case, Helena swallowed. She recalled the Sensei's proud gaze following her to the judge's table, her bare feet slapping on the cool gymnasium floor as she bowed and accepted her prize. Most of the entrants were of Chinese descent and she was the only girl. The euphoria of achievement had lingered until she cut her hand during an art class and the startled teacher had seen it heal before his eyes. A week later, the headmaster had decided she should return her trophy as she had obviously 'cheated'. On her way to the office, she had found her path blocked. A struggling secondary school in one of the poorest, toughest districts of Liverpool with rebellious students and apathetic staff, sporting or educational achievement was the equivalent of a billboard-sized 'kick me' sign. That she had been unmasked as a mutant was merely a syrupy-sweet cherry on the icing.

Control, she told herself fiercely, eyeing the vicious faces around her. Don't lose your temper – martial arts are for defence only. Remember what Sensei taught you: control, control, control…

Repeating the mantra to herself, hearing the bird-like tones of her mentor, Ming-Na Chan, her Hong Kong English tinged with hints of a Liverpudlian accent, Helena fought the urge to lash out at her tormentors. A tiny doll of a woman with cherry blossom lips and dark almond eyes, her Sensei stood at exactly five foot tall. Teaching from a run-down dojo in the centre of Liverpool's China Town, she was exceptionally selective when choosing pupils. Perpetually serene in a snowy gi, which due to her height was a child's size, she rarely raised her voice. She did not need to. A single look into Sensei Chan's determined black eyes was enough to deter misbehaving students and local youths looking for the gambling and opium dens frequented by sailors alike.

Calming her tripping heart, Helena took a step forward, intending to leave with the remains of her dignity intact. Somebody hawked noisily and spat. A gob of green-streaked mucus landed on the toe of her boot with an audible splat. She looked at it. She watched it dribble to the accompaniment of loud snickering. A faint flush slowly rose on her winter-paled cheeks and her jaw clenched, breath white steam on the blustery cold air.

"Where d'ya think ya going, missy?" the ringleader demanded above the jeering and insults, shovel-sized hand coming up to slap her across the face.

Swivelling, she avoided the blow, her hand flashing up in a shooing motion that did not make contact. With a startled yell, the acne-spotted lad flew backwards like a papier-mâché marionette, mouth a stricken black square. He landed heavily, awkwardly and clutched at his spinning head. Dazedly, he looked down at his left leg, at the unnatural jut of his kneecap. Eyes wagon wheel huge in his head, he began to scream like a boiled kettle, all semblance of juvenile bravado wiped away by unexpected pain.

A dozen heads snapped towards the lone mutant teenager, twelve skulls housing bigoted minds that radiated hatred mingled with fear of the unknown. Feeling her heartbeat increase, primal fight or flight mechanisms galvanising her body, triggering the flow of adrenaline, Helena felt her control beginning to slip away.

Oh dear Lord, oh shitshitshit. I didn't mean to do that, she thought with rising panic. Her emotions starting to spiral, her incomplete mental shielding began to buckle, allowing a trickle of projected thought to pour through. No! Not again! Remember what happened the last time you lost control. Concentrate, get your barriers back up, before...

The trickle increased, rapidly becoming a raging torrent gushing into her mind, drowning her in a flood of angry shouting that echoed the verbal onslaught to her sensitive ears. She was being pushed and jostled, nose filled with the overpowering signatures of teenager vanity; hair pomade used by boys, cloying floral perfume stolen from mother's dressing tables on the girls. A fist struck her in the temple, a brief bolt of pain lancing through her awareness. More hands, female by the length and sharpness of the nails, grabbed her hair, raked across her face.

Assaulted from all sides, mind overloaded with sensory and telepathic input, her lips peeled back from her teeth and she snarled blindly like a cornered animal. Group mentality erasing individual qualms about attacking a fellow student, her classmates swarmed in with the brutal single-mindedness of a lynch mob. Her mouth filled with the wet iron bite of blood as she fell down on all fours, battered to the floor in a flurry of fists, kicking feet, writing slates and school bags used as bludgeons. The satchel containing her precious trophy was snatched away, books torn to confetti, pencils scattered. A ringing metallic clang reached her ears as a short, podgy boy began using the trophy as a cymbal, beating out the staccato rhythm of fear and ignorance on the nearest solid wall.

Raging emotions reaching flashpoint, her mouth opened and she howled piercingly, her vision momentarily whiting out. She was dimly aware of a spasm of intense pain shooting down her forearms, injecting liquid fire through her hands. The constant deluge of blows stopped, her physical pain dying away as her mutant physiology repaired the damage. Whimpering, she raised her head and peered through the dishevelled curtain of her hair. Her tormentors lay were they had fallen, motionless, sprawled over each other like toppled dominoes. All were bleeding from the nose and ears, scattered in rough concentric rings around ground zero – her.

Panting and trembling, Helena forced herself to get up, gazing around in utter shock. She disorientatedly wondered if they were dead. Biting her lip, she looked down at her hands and yelped tremulously. Foot long spurs of bone jutted from between the knuckles of each hand, ivory claws instinctively unsheathed in the face of danger. Raising her hands, she stared at them, then looked back at her fallen persecutors, searching for slash wounds. To her inestimable relief, she saw none, the faint beating of a dozen hearts telling her they were alive, if barely. A hand grabbed her shoulder, and she whirled, clawed fist coming up. The headmaster stared at her with naked horror and disbelief, disgust and fear warring for supremacy in his expression. He looked at her like she was an abomination, a thing, not a person – something to be feared, hated and pursued with a mindless prejudice.

"Good grief!" he choked, unlit pipe dropping from between his teeth.

Homo Superior regarded Homo Sapien and read each violent emotion borne of misinformation. Eyes burning with tears, Helena Draven turned and ran.