X-MEN
TOMORROW LAND
Suds watched quietly, the people passing him, not noticing much in the way of other people, asside from themselves. They stepped out of the way of others, or banged into them, exploding past people too busy to notice or care what was going on around them. Suds only wawtched. He was good with that. Watching was a specialty; not only was he good at it, but it helped him to concentrate. Concentration was key to his plan. Soap sat next to him watching silently. She did not touch him. If she did, well, she had seen what he did to people.
Suds leaned over to Soap. Her pale blond hair whipped harshly at the girl's face. She glanced up at him, her gaze full of love and adoration. What she did now was crucial. In order to not be discovered by the brotherhood, she had to conseal her gifts with great ardor. To use them in public as she did was dangerous. There were those around them that felt the power she exerted. Soap shifted her eyes stealthily, side to side, watching out, sensing for them. She and her brother had been working for weeks to catch up to them and their agents. In order to destroy them, they need to start from the bottom up. They had fianally reached the "up" part. Suds leaned into her, not speaking. He asked her a question. She responded with a nod. They were ready. Across the street, a young woman in her twenties walked into the Chinese laundry with a large bundle in her arms.
Suds and Soap pushed off from the bus stop bench and crossed the street, unaware of the cars flying past them. They noticed not what was going on around, but in front, the danger they were to face. Soap reached the sidewalk first, then Suds. Yin and Yang, black and white, night and day. Soap opened the door, Suds walked through, and all hell broke loose.
Within thirty minutes, the police, state troopers, and people who worked at the Xavier institute arrived at the laundry. The time was 4:40 P.M. on a Saturday morning in October. Soap and Suds had gone in at 4:10, wiping out virtually every person in the laundry, slaughtering all but one. The woman who had walked in at 4:09 sat in a corner, whimpering. She muttered endlessly about the boy like night, the girl like day, how each had done terrible things, gotten into her head. The woman had no true identity. She had many names, many nationalities. She was one thing and everything at the same time. SHe was male, she was female, black, white, indonesian. Her current alias was Rebecca Halliburt; she was capable of creating an illusion around herself, forcing your mind to believe that the person before you was real; a psycic picture put out and created so skillfully one could never tell the difference.
Rebecca now lay on a metal table, in a freezing sterile room under the school of the Xavier Institute for Gifted Children. Gifted as in mutants. Professor Xavier studied her carefully, then gently placing his hands on the woman's head, searching for answers. Inside was a garbled mess of memories, information, codes, and torture. She was not psycicly damaged by the boy and girl he saw in her mind; that had been seen to by members of the brotherhood. She had been cowed, dominated, and, in simple terms, brain washed to serve and follow any order given to her by use of codeword. If she was to be asked to kill herself, she would have no choice but to; her own subconcious, so severely warped, would force her to do the deed, no matter how much it pleaded and tried not to. Rebecca was dying of a rare brain cancer, further speeded up by the tampering and damage to her neurosis; she had been convinced to speed of the process by thinking of the death by cancer constantly. The human mind was deadly powerful, and hers was in no way weak. It had taken a great deal of determination and power to destroy this woman, but what was even more wicked was the fact that she had allowed it to happen willingly over a process of several years.
Xavier found a message within her mind, implanted skillfully by another telepath. The old baldie found himself in a square room, gray, completely sterile and forbidding. In the middle there stood a girl in her late teens. She was plain, boring, her face square, wide gray eyes, pale pink lips, white blond hair. Nothing special. Xavier stood and walked to the girl. She followed him with her eyes. He stopped in front of her, gazing intently at her plain face.
"You have found my message. Good. My name is Tess Leon. I have created a non-threatening image in good faith so as to not frighten you.
"I work for no one. I fight for no one. I and my brother fight to stop the brotherhood. They are hot on our trail. We are in need of your assistance. My brother is a danger to himself and others, as am I. Hurry. Neither of us have time. Chicago, Lower Wacker, 3:33 on Thursday. Second tunnel to the left. Come quickly. We have information you will need"
The message ended and Xavier retreated from the mind of Rebecca. She was weak, unable to take another intrusion into her mind. He felt confused. Why would two teenagers wreak such havoc in order to just leave a message for him? He shook his head. There was a great deal to think about. He would send Nightcrawler and Wolverine. The two would be able to effectively deal with anything this girl and her "brother" threw at them.
Wolverine awoke sweating, his brow furrowed. He had had another dream about Jean. Instead of hovering closely, ready to kill him, she'd been wreathed in flame, tortured, screaming about how her soul and his were eternally damned as they had been linked so closely. Her red hair had whipped around her body, twining about his, burning his flesh. He put his hands to his face, wiping away tears. At least it wasn't another masochistic erotic fantasy with her writhing and ripping at his flesh as she made love to him. The thought sickened him, and yet it brought pleasure to his most prominent feature. What he would have given to be with Jean. And yet she had chosen Scott over him. Two years had passed since her death, and since that point, Professor Xavier had taken over the body of a much younger man, a vegatable. Xavier had found the man to have no mind, eventually repairing it enough to the point to be habitable. Scott had been found, a blathering, witless man, gone insane at the amount of psycic energy directed at him from Jean. She had torn apart the fragile fibers of his mind. Now Scott was in rehabilitation, rebuilding his mind, block by tedious block. Scott was a mess. So was half the nation.
Wolverine walked to the dresser, neglecting to turn on the light. He didn't need it. Not anymore. He struggled to remember why he had woken up. Xavier. Xavier had been calling him. He was needed downstairs. He pulled on a gray sweatshirt and pants, pulling open the door and jogging swiftly down the corridors. He bumped into Nightcrawler, sneaking about.
"Xavier call you?" Wolverine asked.
"He did," Kurt replied. "What does he want?" Wolverine shrugged. He didn't know. Kurt walked quietly with him, his silence unnerving. Kurt's accent had lessened in the few years since he'd been at the institute, practicing his language, his skills. He had even started up a relationship with one of the other teachers here. It had ended some months before, leaving the two estranged. SHe had become paranoid that he watched her in the shower.
But Kurt wasn't that kind of person and wouldn't do that to a fellow co-worker, let alone a woman he was romantically involved with. His relationship with Ororo had grown stronger, but they were nothing more than friends, although the spark for something more was there. Ororo was now married to Black Panther. He was alright. Wolverine didn't care much for him. No one saw Ororo anymore, now that she was with child and trying to deal with her own people in her own country.
They walked down the hall, each in their own perspective thoughts, each wondering what the dawn would bring.