DISCLAIMER: I don't own X-Men or any of it's characters. Only my words!
Note: This is experimental. I may or may not be finishing this series. Also, I'm now taking requests so if anyone wants me to do a spin-off based on an idea they might have, I'll be sure to check it out. That's all. Thanks for reading and ENJOY! ;D
Chapter 1: Awakening
The last thing I remember—
Is a face.
Fading out in the dark.
But I wasn't afraid. Somehow I wasn't afraid.
I felt as though I were just…falling asleep. You never know it when you fall asleep. Not unless you've ever been put to sleep before a surgery or drugged. Which I have.
But this felt different.
It wasn't like being put under anesthesia, but more like slowly falling into that space between sleeping and waking, just before falling into a deep sleep. And then it all just cut out. There was nothing at all. No pain, no thought, no anything. Just like in sleep. Emptiness. Even now, I can only recall vague images that had floated through my consciousness as I slept, but I can't for the life of me remember what they were.
And then I woke up.
I only knew at the time of my awakening that I was weak and disoriented. I felt light and heavy all at once as I came to my senses; a bright light shining in my eyes. I could hear someone gasping in the distance, but when the ringing in my ears subsided I realized it was me. That's when memories of what had happened seemingly hours ago resurfaced and I cried out as I sat up and looked down at my abdomen, expecting to see a gaping wound just below my rib cage where I had been stabbed by a blade as long as my forearm.
But there was none.
I brought my hands up to my diaphragm and noticed a glow of violet light around my hands that usually only appeared when I was preparing for an attack. Only this glow had crawled up my arms and spread about my entire body.
I watched wide eyed as it faded away and my hands returned to a more natural, solid state. " 'Azazel…' " A disembodied voice floated through the air and I looked around wildly, having believed that I was alone...And that's when I saw him.
Azazel.
Only it wasn't. Not really. I stared at the spectre; a somber, shirtless man with red skin and messy black hair, blinking profusely and I reached a hand out to the image…but my hand went right through him. It wasn't real. He stared down at me but he didn't seem to see me. He—like my hand—was surrounded by an aura of violet light; intangible.
Could this be a projection of my memories? I had wondered. No, not my memories. I don't remember this at all! Then who's memories are these?
As if things weren't confusing enough, the ghostly shadow of Emma Frost, my former mentor and friend, walked slowly over and put her blood-stained hand on Azazel's shoulder. " 'Azazel, you must let her go now.' " She said to the unresponsive man. " 'She's gone.' "
"No, I'm not!" I said aloud without thinking. "I'm—right here…."
But he blinked and wordlessly consented, rising onto his knees and I too got up, awed and confused. I then made the mistake of looking down and saw a glowing river of what I soon realized to be blood. My blood. From where I…
Died.
I sank to my knees with a horrified cry, and shoved my hands in my hair as Emma led a subdued Azazel away. "No!" I cried out, reaching a hand for them to come back. I didn't want to be alone. "I'm not dead! I-I'm alive!" But they soon started to fade away like my hand; only instead of becoming more solid, they seemed to be fading out completely as was the pool of blood beneath me.
And then they were gone, as though they'd never been there in the first place.
"I'm alive!" I had screamed after them, and it was only then that I caught sight of Her out of the corner of my eye.
I hadn't even noticed her run up, having heard my cries, and I looked at her, unable to speak as I took in her features: Tall, dark skin, African American features, statuesque figure, long, white hair…
She stared at me with wide eyes and a gaping mouth, her breath quickening like that of a terror-stricken rabbit.
"Storm?" I asked disbelievingly and she gave a startled, "Oh!" Before bolting down the hall in the opposite direction. I could hear her distressed calls for the Professor both audibly and mentally.
"Wait!" I had called after her, struggling to my feet. I felt like I hadn't used them in months, but all of my memories were fresh in my mind as though I had just awakened from an extended nap. "Storm!"
" 'I couldn't be Storm,' " I thought to myself. " 'That woman looked my age! Older. The Storm I knew couldn't have been more than seven years old! Still a little girl. There's no way—' "
I staggered up the elevator and leaned against the wall as it climbed up. Everything seemed just the way it was. It had to be. I could still remember what floor the Professor's study was, where the living room was, the kitchen...it was all so clear. " 'That woman must be her mother. That's it!' " I reasoned with myself. " 'There's just no way it could be her.' "
However, when the elevator opened I could see the white-haired young woman bent forward at the Professor's side as he wheeled toward the elevator, stuttering profusely as she tried to explain her desperate state, "It is Her Professor, I know it! She's still wearing the jumpsuit! It's covered in blood! You have to come—"
The woman gasped again, her hands flying to her mouth as though to keep from screaming and the Professor turned white as a sheet as I stepped out of the elevator. It closed behind me with a mechanical whirr.
He stared at me for a long while, his eyes locking with mine, and I stared back unblinkingly. I had noticed it the second I'd stepped out of the elevator but it only now had registered in my brain. Not only did the Professor look ten times older than last I saw him, but he was…
Bald.
Completely and totally, undeniably, light-reflectingly BALD!
"Professor," I whispered. "What happened to your hair?!"
"Ohh!" He exclaimed, clapping a hand to his mouth just like the woman next to him and she fell to her knees, trembling.
I shook my head vigorously, wondering what the bloody hell was going on. This wasn't the welcoming I had expected. "Well don't just stare at me!" I cried, becoming more and more unnerved by the second. "Say something!"
The Professor's jaw trembled and he licked his lips before saying in a shaky voice, "Storm, I want you go find the others and bring them here immediately."
The woman rose to her feet as if backing away from a crouched lion waiting to pounce, her eyes never leaving me, "Go, Storm." The Professor hissed, he too never ceasing his staring and she flinched, but obeyed; taking off at a jog, then a run, then a sprint and out of sight.
Becoming more and more distressed, I looked to the Professor pleadingly. "That's not Storm." I said bluntly. "Storm is a little girl. She's this tall—" I added, putting my hand level with my waist. "She tosses and turns in her sleep. And she controls the weather." I pointed down the direction the woman had fled, "That is not Storm."
"Elizabeth," The Professor said in an eerily pacifistic voice, "I want you to remain calm until the others get here. This is a shock for all of us. But let's just wait for the others to arrive before we start…asking questions. Alright?"
I nodded vaguely and blinked and nodded again more confidently, "Alright."
And the others did arrive...but not as I remembered them.
Beast had gained a considerable amount of weight (in muscle it would seem) and his beastly features too had aged; only there was no longer that same look of anger that he always bore in his eyes, but a refined calm that now overtook him. Composure. Then there was Havok-
No. No, that's not Havok. That's definitely not Havok.
The young man before me wore red tinted sunglasses in spite of it being considerably dark in the mansion, and his hair was a dark brown, not golden blonde. His features were similar to that of Havok but at the same time very different. He looked somewhat…younger. And stoic. Very stoic.
The only one who had remained nearly the same as I had left him was Logan.
I felt myself break into a relieved smile as I regarded him. "Logan! Finally, a familiar face!" I gasped breathlessly and took a stumbling step towards him. Several people took instinctive steps back but I couldn't have cared less at that moment. "I knew I wasn't…" But his gaze was not that same, indifferent one like he'd had the first time I met him in Tilly's apartment after he'd rescued me from the ice in Canada.
No.
He, like all the rest, stared at me as though he were seeing a ghost. He was a lot less…hairy, too. In fact, he gave a tame appearance all around; no longer the scraggly, rude man I'd met not too long ago. His farel eyes were tired, no longer wild and angry like Beast. He looked as though he had aged twice his years. And for me-
That felt like the last straw.
I began to hyperventilate. "What's going on here?" I whimpered. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"
When I received no reply I grew angry, "Where is everyone!? Where is the Alex? And Tabitha and Dimitri and Emma? Why do you keep calling her Storm," I gestured to the white-haired woman who had taken cover behind Logan, grasping his arm fearfully. "And where is the Professor's hairline?!" I looked around and, when I received no reply, slowly sank to my knees in despair, clutching my arms as I whispered, "Where is Azazel?"
For a moment, I just stayed there, shivering as I tried to process what my mind and my eyes were telling me.
Then a hand rested on my shoulder.
I looked up and found myself face-to-face with a red-haired stranger who I hadn't seen. She had green eyes and a beautiful face. And an equally beautiful voice as she reached out to me telepathically and said, " 'You have been asleep for a very long time. But now it's time for you to wake up.' "
"Come," She said audibly, taking my hand and pulling me up. "It's time we all got to the bottom of this."
"This doesn't make any sense," I say as I sit, surrounded by strangers, all staring at me; some in disbelief, others in complete and utter confusion. We've spent about an hour after my little episode, during which the Professor had attempted to calm me down and explain the situation. And doing a terrible job of it. I'm still trying to process it as we speak, and I'm having a hard time paying attention.
"Yeah, Professor," Says the Havok look alike in a stiff voice. "How can someone…die, and then come back to life seventeen years later?"
I give a moan and shake my head in my hands as the words ring in my ears over and over again.
Seventeen years…
"Perhaps we should start from the beginning," The Professor says uneasily, looking to me, but I just fold my hands in front of my mouth and stare forward, my leg shaking uncontrollably. He sighs and runs a hand over his bald head, as though forgetting his hair no longer exists there. "Alright, I shall start from the beginning..."
He tells the tale from his point of view, explaining how they had rescue myself and my friends along with Magneto and his gang from Sabretooth that day in the woods. We had been searching for a supposedly lost boy, but had been deceived. What they really wanted was my friend Tarina, a Mutant Seeker. Creed kidnapped Tarina and nearly killed me (for the first time).
Then the Professor told how it had all escalated from there. How the X-Men had, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to help us save our friends. The break into the Island where Stryker laid waiting for us to fall into his clutches, the high risk escape with Remy LaBeaux and the other Mutant prisoners, the regroup and final assault on the Island…
The attack back at the Mansion, when we thought all was safe.
My death.
And then he turns to me, but I can hardly look at him as Storms' begins to sob uncontrollably. She still blames my death on herself it would seem but she was just a kid at the time. There wasn't anything she could do; at least, that's what I wanted to tell her as she fled the room. But I couldn't.
I've been frozen in a state of shock and I can only stare ahead as the Professor says bluntly, "You were gone, Elizabeth. Do you remember what happened after that?"
I shake my head, "All I remember is fading out and then…nothing. It was like I was asleep. And then I just…woke up." I meet his eyes for the first time since following him and the others into the study. "Professor, please tell me it's not true."
"I wish I could," Is all the Professor says, looking as though he truly regrets having to drill this into my head. "But seventeen long years have gone by since your "passing." I have aged. As have Storm and many of the others you once knew."
I chew on my lip and then ask the hard question, "Where are they now?"
"Azazel left a long time ago." Replies the Professor right off the bat, stabbing me in the heart and I feel the ghost of a pang in my abdomen as he says, "He had to move on, just as we all did. We lost contact with him soon after and…haven't heard from him since."
I remain silent and he continues, "Donovan and Alex—Scotts' brother," He gestures to the sunglasses-at-night guy beside him who gives a curt nod. "Moved away together to pursue their careers. As far as we are aware, they are still living in Sydney as we speak."
I nod at that, feeling a small ray of happiness peak through the gloom in my mind.
"Tabitha and Dimitri still attend school here in New York, not too far away from their parents," He notices my slightly confused look. I had assumed they were orphans or something. "Doug and Tilly got married and adopted them." He says a little too vaguely and I feel my stomach twist again. So much I've missed. So much I can never reclaim…
"They visit the Institute often. In fact, both Tabitha and Dimitri were to stay here for the week during the holidays." Again I feel my heart lift a little. "Emma too has moved on. I believe she is currently running her own school for gifted youngsters herself, though the location is a well-guarded secret; for the protection of her students of course." He adds and I continue to nod as though I've become a mechanical being, stuck on repeat.
But when he doesn't continue I look up, ceasing all other movement, and try to meet his diverted eye, "What about Glenn? And Angel?" I ask, referring to my old friends from the days in which we all lived together with Magneto and his band of Mutants.
But he doesn't answer me and I look around the room. A hush has fallen over it.
I look over at the red-haired girl, named Jean, who is the only one who will meet my eye, "He works for Sinister."
"Sinister?" I repeat, glancing around once more. "Who's—who's Sinister?"
"You know him…" The Professor struggles to get the words out, trying to gage my emotions but I've blocked him off from accessing my mind. It's safer that way. "As Nathaniel Essex."
"Essex?" I whisper hollowly. That...psychopathic scientist who tried to experiment on me? The man who destroyed everything I loved about Glenn, my best friend, and turned him against me? And Glenn works for the man? How is that even possible?
"Do you remember—?" The Professor begins and I snap at him, my eyes unintentionally glowing with a bright purple haze that I can control most times, "Of course I remember him! I remember it like it was yesterday!"
"Calm down, kid," Logan says, raising his hands up and down as if trying to pacify a wild horse that's become too unruly. I shoot a glare at him as he approaches, angry and hurt that he of all people has the audacity to try and calm me. What makes him think he has the right to tell me to calm down?! "This is a lot to take in, Charles." Logan tells the Professor. "Maybe we should let her get some sleep—"
"I'm done sleeping," I say and stand up rapidly, making a few people jump. "I've slept for seventeen years! Remember?"
"I want to see Azazel." I say a bit abruptly and everyone exchanges glances. "I want to see him right now."
"Ms. Hawthorne, we've already told you, he's gone." The Professor says gently. "I haven't the slightest idea—"
"Oh, come on, Xavier!" I snap, ignoring the outraged look on Hav—Scott's face. "You have Cerebro, isn't that enough?"
He looks at me, then looks away.
Something clicks in my head and I smile spitefully, "You don't want me to see him." Now I'm pissed off. "You don't think I can handle it."
"The way you're acting, darlin'," Logan steps up and tries to take my arm to sit me back down. "I don't think you can handle much else until you've thought this through for a while."
I laugh mirthlessly and yank my arm away, "You're right." I start to step away from the others, moving backwards towards the wall. "I do need to think this through."
And with that I phase through the wall and into the yard, leaving them calling after me as I run off into the garden. Something is missing here. Something just doesn't make sense. It can't be real. But if it isn't-
Then what is?
More coming up soon! R&R to let me know what you think and whether I should continue or not. And again, I'll be exploring new ships (and old ones, too) so if anyone's got any suggestions plz lemme know!
~THESCRIBE!
