The Nocturne Factor

Disclaimer: It all belongs to Marvel, except for my original characters, of course. But if Marvel wants to use them, they can. Feel free to post this, or any other Glaivester fic, anywhere, but please notify me so I can brag about it.

Summary: Fifth in the Essex Plan series. Kurt's true appearance is revealed at school. Principal Kelly is furious, but his daughter finds Kurt intriguing. The Friends of Humanity decide to make an example of him. And Nocturne manifests.

Chapter 1 The Set-Up

Thursday, December 20, 2003

Kelly looked around at the empty school building. It was night, and all of the students had left. Only two more days, Friday and Monday, and then he would be free! Free of high school, free of worrying about freak students. It was too good to be true. He would be the mayor come January 2.

At the Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding House, Todd Tolansky looked around with satisfaction. Finally the place was clean. He hadn't ever worried about it before, but now that the Xavier people were helping them out financially, he had decided to make the place look nice.

Freddy, Mystique, Lance, and Pietro. They, as well as Todd himself, were the only members left. Wanda had left to be at the Institute with Kurt. The Acolytes, even, were going to the institute more and more. Although they had never lived at the boarding house, they had always been housed at one of Magneto's remote bases.

Todd sighed. He was a Toad. No one, but no one, liked him.

"Hello."

Todd turned to see the person to whom the voice belonged. "Who are you?"

"Call me Natalie. Natalie Logan. I like that, I think." The girl walked over and plopped down on a chair.

Todd looked at the girl. "How old are you?"

"Fourteen."

Todd thought a second. He was seventeen, only three years older. So it wouldn't be entirely robbing the cradle, now would it?

"Don't I know you?"

"I don't think we've ever met, but perhaps my father knows you?" The girl squeezed her left hand into a fist, unsheathing three adamantium-laced claws. "I have decided to keep his name. As a last name, though. But I don't like the stuffy Institute. So I'm going here. Hello again, and howya doin', and which room is mine?"

"You're X23? I've heard of you."

"Good. Then show me which room is mine, NOW."

"August 30, 2003," whispered Kurt. "Vow. It vas only four - less zan four months ago that you vere born. And now you look like a six-year old." Talia had been aging a year every two and a half weeks. Kurt's eyes began to tear up.

"Daddy, what's wrong?" asked Talia.

"Nothing, liebe. It's just... you deserve more of a childhood. A full thirteen years, and then seven as a teenager, but - but you're going to be all grown up in a matter of a year. It's not fair."

"I'm sorry, Daddy."

"It's okay. I love you." Kurt hugged his daughter tightly, and she purred happily.

"Daddy?"

"Ja?"

"I was watching TV the other day. I like that show. The one with the cop. You know, the cop who piloted the starship."

Kurt thought a second. Then it dawned on him. "Oh, you mean the cop who also played Captain Kirk on Star Trek?"

"Yeah. Wot's his name again, Daddy?"

"T.J. Hooker, I think."

"Daddy?"

"Ja?"

"Aren't those my initials, too?"

"Ja."

"How 'bout calling me T.J. Hooker?"

"Uh... 'hooker' might not sound too nice. But we can call you T.J. if you like?"

"Please, please, Daddy? Call me T.J.?"

"Okay."

In Polotown, a fifteen-minute drive from Bayville, the state chapter of the Friends of Humanity were meeting.

"And we have discovered that there is a traitor among us," announced the lead speaker. "Or more precisely, a spy. One who is here only for the story. Charles Overton."

J. Jonah Jameson paled. Oh, no. His cover was blown.

"Or should I say, J. Jonah Jameson, the owner and editor of The Daily Bugle? Guards, arrest him."

Peter Parker watched helplessly as Jameson was led away by two burly men.

"He will be made an example of. Humans who sympathize with mutants will be taught a lesson. We will use him to show not only that sympathizers are bad, but that they are no more likely to be spared the horrors that mutants bring than anyone else."

"How?" asked Parker.

"You'll see."

Far away in the shade, a blonde woman in a snow-white leotard watched intently. She formed and reabsorbed psionic blades of light in her left hand. She seemed to be talking to someone in the shadows, but he could not be made out.

"So, Tyrone. They've captured Jameson. Should we rescue him?"

"Not yet, Tandy. We need to find out what they are planning. If we give ourselves away, they will be able to look for us next time, and prevent us from finding out more. Let's wait until we have no more choice in the matter. If they attempt to kill him, we will save him."

Merith Essex, aka Ms. Dexter, was looking intently to the screen. Her "father" was giving her a magnetic scan that had a similar effect to a sonogram.

"Well," said Mr. Sinister, "the pregnancy is going as planned. "You will now need three times the nutrient broth as before your pregnancy. But I was right; your organs have gotten more fragile as a result."

Although the Essexes had organs and a skeleton like other people, they were less rigid and able to morph themselves so as to heal quickly and could be converted into a homogenous tofu-like substance when necessary. Whenever injured, the areas around the injury would lose their cohesion so that they could fill in again before reforming the lost organs. This contrasted with, for example, Death, aka Gorgeous George, whose entire body was a homogenous fluid all the time, as it had been since he had been a teenager. The pregnancy, however, had caused Ms. Dexter's body to lose some of its regenerative ability.

"Can we determine yet what the powers are likely to be?" she asked.

"Not entirely. The baby will be stronger than most from birth, that much we know. It should also have some psionic abilities, but beyond that I cannot say for certain."

"I feel... love. I am afraid that I will lose rationality over this child."

Mr. Sinister's gaze softened. "You mean that you will put the child's interests above the cause? The child is the cause, my daughter. Your feelings are normal, and I would have altered you so that you would not have them if I thought that they would be hurtful to our cause."

Ms. Dexter seemed relieved at this, and relaxed.