The Paper Monster

Chapter 1

Something was going to happen today.

And the intensity of it was unnervingly swirling in the pit of her gut.

It wasn't because there was a suspicious man hovering near the door, who continuously glanced back at an old-style beautifully rejuvenated Harley Davidson parked right across the bookstore. His red-glazed sunglasses and leather jacket did nothing to comfort her since he had been standing there for over more than an hour. An hour.

It wasn't because of a very good-looking African-American woman mulling over the purchase of either Wuthering Heights or How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days. Her very neatly cropped white hair was unnaturally natural when it came to her. She might as well have pink or purple hair and look just as nice.

It wasn't because of the stocky, overly built male to her right at the cash register who absolutely stunk of cigarettes and cigars. When he belched rather loudly in the quiet bookstore (with the exception of Nick Cave's album softly playing in the background), the white-haired woman gave the man a sour look.

It wasn't because of the model-like redhead wandering up and down the aisle for a book to read in the cold weather in early November. Her beautiful long hair swished around her body as she hummed to the currently played music.

It wasn't because there were more customers than normal in Prosperity, Minnesota on a Sunday.

No, actually it was all of that.

Sweat gathered on her hands from the strong heater of the store and her nervousness. She wiped it on the thigh of her jeans, fidgeting with the horrendous, tacky yellow-orange checkered flannel she chose on a rush before arriving to work. She couldn't help it. All four of the other customers made her highly anxious.

It was as if they were preparing for something, expecting something big to happen.

Missy punched in the numbers of the cash register. "You have good taste," she told the customer who was grabbed the bag, which contained Great Expectations.

The teen laughed and rolled her eyes. "It's for English class, not really my choice." The punk teen glanced out the window and sighed, tonguing her snakebites from the inside of her mouth. "It's gonna rain soon. I'm going to end up drenched."

Missy chuckled. "You should go across the street to Mrs. Johnson. She's selling umbrella's for three dollars." Once the cash register finished with it's little mechanical dance, Missy handed back the customer's change of exactly five dollars.

"You know what, that sounds like a good idea. Have a good day!" Though the teen had piercings on her eyebrow, nose and lips, she had the manners of a nun.

Bells held up over the door chimed as the thin, black-covered teen exited.

The woman smiled and opened up her book to the page with a dog-ear, and continued from where she left off. This was what Missy Schneider loved about working in a bookstore. A bookworm herself, she could read endlessly as long as she did her job and watched over the shop. An elderly couple that owned the store desperately needed an employee and ended up hiring a regular, Missy Schneider.

It was never boring here. For Missy, who was a regular over-worked daydreamer, it was magnificent. It worked perfectly for her since she didn't receive a lot of customers, until today that is. She loved imagining. Sometimes it came true, sometimes it didn't. She even foolishly thought herself to be psychic at one point.

But that didn't matter.

Today, she had a hunch today was going to be a bad day.

It didn't suit well with her.

"You do that a lot?"

The gruff voice from the man leaning against the counter made her jump. It caused her to drop her book, but did nothing to pick it up as her chocolate eyes blinked shockingly at him.

He speaks!

"I…um, I…" As hard as she tried, her mouth just continued to move but no sounds came from it. For a moment, she thought the man was had a disability that made him incapable of producing any sounds. Because when he entered the little bookstore, all he did was lean against the counter and stared at the aisles with boredom. When Missy had tried to help him, he completely ignored her.

The man grunted and turned back into his previous position, going back to ignoring the gaping woman.

Missy blushed hotly, bending down to pick up the fallen paperback. She dusted it off before standing fully erected.

Just as she stood, she jumped back at the sudden appearance of a customer standing in front of her. Her keen eyes didn't miss the way the four other customers stared at him.

"May I help you?" Missy asked, forcing a smile on her face.

The person before her wore shades darker than night and a cap that was tilted downwards in a way to hide his face. The windbreaker he was wearing had beads of water dripping down, dropping on the carpet of the store with an eerie pattern.

Missy glanced out the window to see it was raining. When she turned back to the customer, he smiled and waggled a fork tongue in a motion that could only be defined as sex.

Immediately, her politeness dropped to her feet. "Oh, you!" An annoyed look covered her face as she crossed her arms over her chest. "What the hell do you want?"

Her best friend of basically her lifetime laughed and slid his glasses down the bridge of his nose to twinkle those unnatural gold eyes of his before hiding them once more. "What's wrong, baby face? I thought you'd miss me?" His head tilted downwards at her non-model body. "Have you put on some weight?"

"Not that none of that is your business." Missy hissed, crossing her arms self-consciously and sucking in her slightly pudgy stomach unconsciously.

"When I saw you, it became my business." Slade smiled at Missy's flaming face of anger. He reached over to poke her stomach, but that hand was immediately swiped away with her own. "Come on, tell me you missed me." He leaned over the counter, turning his cheek towards her as if expecting a kiss.

"Who'd miss you?" Missy's hands immediately were at her jean-clad hips, mouth pursing as her foot tapped quickly in irate. "And where the hell…" She glanced at the other customers to see that all four were staring at her. Her face flushed and she coughed into her fist lightly. "Where the hell have you been?" She whispered, leaning towards Slade Slanders with a face that only an angel of hell could have.

"I was…busy," he hesitated, glancing around him. It made Missy suspicious. Slade was rarely uncomfortable.

A mutant born of a few animal characteristics of a reptilian snake, Slade Slanders came about Missy at the age of five. And what she had learned from him was that he was never scared, even as a tyke. Built like a line backer and at the height of over six feet tall, the mutant had nothing to worry about; especially because he had mutant qualities to defend himself with.

But right in front of her, he was fearful.

"What's wrong?" Missy asked, placing her hand over his, which was trembling. "Holy crap, Slade, you're hands are freezing!"

Slade smiled his adorable smirk. "It happens when the weather's cold." He gestured with a nod towards the window at the heavy pouring rain.

"Still!" She shouted, completely forgetting about the others as she started rubbing his hands in an attempt to make them warm. "What if you get sick? What if that happens again?" She stressed, chewing on her lower lip with nervousness.

Reptiles were coldblooded species. They depended on external sources of heat. If they fell in a place too cold or couldn't gain any heat source, their immunity lowers to a dangerously low degree that makes them vulnerable to any level of bacteria, germs and viruses. Once it had happened to Slade when he was thirteen, and never again was he going to reach that point of death. Even if Missy had to bring hell on earth, she wouldn't let her friend go through that once more.

"I'm not cold." Slade shrugged, gently shoving her hands away from his. "I'm warm, see?" He unzipped the top of the windbreaker (which started right below his chin) and showed her his reddish, yellow-orange tinged scales. His scales flashed at her once more before disappearing into his human skin.

Missy frowned and looked back down at his human-like hands. She wrapped her hands around them once more as if believing for a minute that she was probably imagining his freezing hands.

She was not.

And that only meant one thing. It made fear coil around her heart.

Missy glanced up at him with concerned eyes. "What's going on?" She didn't realize the lean man enwrapped in a leather jacket tensing at her quivering voice. "Why are you scared?"

When Slade didn't answer and tried peeking over his shoulder, Missy yanked on his hands, forcibly turning his body towards her. She ripped off the sunglasses from his eyes and placed her hand on his cheek, keeping it there so that he was obliged look at her. Missy smoothed her thumb over his cheekbone, gazing into his golden eyes with affection and concern only close siblings could have for one another. And because their bond was grown from nothing, it made it all stronger.

"What's wrong?" She asked once again.

Slade covered her hand with his and held it tight in his grip. "I need to talk to you," he said lowly. His eyes glanced quickly at the completely still man leaning against the counter before grabbing his sunglasses from Missy to place them back on his face. "I need to talk to you right now and somewhere else." He stressed the importance of it as if it depended on his life, or hers.

"Okay," Missy answered. She didn't even think of the other customers as she attempted to drag Slade into the back.

"I'd like to buy these!" A smooth womanly voice said from behind Slade, who suddenly stiffened and recoiled from the woman's presence as if she was a plague.

Missy's eyes furrowed at his unusual action. His jittery reactions were not only affecting him, but her as well. She turned back to the white-haired woman and nodded. After literally pushing Slade into the back door behind her, she smiled a smile that could do a President good. "You have good taste," she said robotically, unaware that she had said this before.

The man in leather snorted, twiddling a cigar in between his fingers.

A blush for the third time today covered her face and neck as she punched in the numbers into the cash register.

"Are you okay?" The dark skinned woman asked, tilting her head in concern as she saw Missy's hands clench tight till her knuckles turned white.

Missy gave a sharp nod, staring at the cash register as it did its little slow dance. This register seriously needed an upgrade.

"He looked a little scared." The woman pressed, glancing over Missy's brown hair to the back door, which clicked shut.

Storm's lips thinned at the innumerous theories running over her head. She didn't risk a glance at Logan who was still perched at the counter like an obedient parrot. But she did twitch her nose, signaling not only to Logan, but also to Scott who was near the door and Jean who was now browsing near the Sci-Fi collection that this would be the best time to complete their mission, given to them from the Professor. Just before Storm was able to talk, their target beat them to it.

"He's just cold," Missy mumbled, tapping her index finger on the counter in a restless pace. All she wanted to do was close the store and comfort Slade. She merely prayed silently that whatever had happened wasn't as bad as he made it seem.

"Why don't you come with me-" Storm started to try and pursue the target to join along in an innocent cup of coffee, but the skittish woman interrupted her.

"N-no, I…I'm fine," Missy cleared her throat before handing the woman back her change. "Have a good day-"

The windows of the store exploded. Glass flew everywhere, landing on the carpet floors in a silence musical song. Bookshelves were thrown on the floor from the unknown force. They groaned, ripping off from the floors they were nailed on and landed on one another like domino. Books fell and flew, refusing to acknowledge Newton's Law of Gravity as the paperbacks and hardcover books created their own tornado.

Missy was thrown on the floor from the attack. The cash registered slammed down right next to her head, popping out cash and coins from it's death. Cold wind whipped around her, throwing her wavy brown locks everywhere.

The small case that held small snow globes of Disney characters tilted back slowly and held still in the air as if to hold it's own weight, but like the Titanic it leaned back and fell right upon Missy's leg.

Her cry of pain was drowned out in the loud sounds of rushing objects and high winds.

Within a second, Slade opened the back door to see what the hell was going on and immediately the blood from his face fled as he saw who exactly was attacking the bookstore. He quickly duck and army crawled to Missy who had her hands on her face, sobbing aloud.

"Missy, Missy!" He yelled, lying upon her body to protect her from the flying objects that were caused from the weather witch.

Storm's eyes were wholly white. She held out her hand towards a mutant and soon enough they were obliterated from lightning striking down on the earth. As soon as that person was taken care of, she turned towards Jean who was using books and shelves to throw an opposing mutant. "Jean!" Storm yelled out a warning.

Soon enough the mutant who tried to attack Jean from behind was a blackened crust pressed up against a wall from Scott's laser beams.

Jean didn't have time to thank him as another shock wave went through the already crumbling building.

Arclight let out a little grunt as she clapped her hands once again. An invisible wave rushed through the store, destroying away objects and sweeping her enemies off their feet. Just when she was about to do it again, to finish the scene for good, a lightning bolt crashed at her feet.

Storm groaned as she lifted herself up. A trickle of blood ran down her temple, dripping on the tattered carpet.

"W-where's the target?" Scott pushed off a bookshelf that was on top of him.

"She's still here!" Jean yelled, defending herself from a mutant with fireballs shooting out of his mouth. "Cash register! Cash register! She's at the-" Jean's hand pulsed with power as it deflected fireballs. "She's at the cash register!"

Logan who had just slashed someone across the throat panted. He heard Jean's words and turned to where he was standing previously for over two hours and saw the snake boy from before fighting with three mutants.

He wasn't doing so well with them.

Slade twirled in the air, landing on his front painfully on the fallen cash register. He barely heard Missy's screaming and sobbing as he struggled to pick himself up. He cracked open a swollen eye, spitting on blood as determination charged through his veins. Slade had to protect her. He had to because nobody was going to do it. Nobody was going to do it, but him.

The feeling of pain wracked his body, but he concentrated. Fangs lengthened as his scales rose to utter protection. Slade felt his eyes grow warmer, turning into a darker gold color.

"Ahh, pretty boy wants to play again?" The woman who had punched him to the floor sneered, picking at her nails. "Come on, come on, pretty boy." She all but purred.

"Hurry up and take him out." The man to her right eyed the X-Men warily. "We need to get her and run."

"But can't we play with them a little longer?" A teenage girl decorated in tattoos and piercings whined, itching to bring down the telekinetic redhead.

"No, he's right. Let's finish this." The feral woman's face twisted with pure glee at the prospect of spilled blood. Her hands rounded, fingers tensing with energy. Her face shifted, bones popping as she was turning into a savage beast with bloodthirsty canines and crazed red eyes. "Someone get the girl while I handle this."

"Leave her alone." Slade snarled, his face darkening with the intent of danger.

The man laughed. "Why would we do that, when we're here for her in the first place?"

Slade narrowed his eyes. "Who sent you?"

"As if we'd tell you!" All three laughed as they approached.

"Slade," Missy sobbed. Fear gripped at her throat like a leather glove, pushing down ever so slightly that she could hardly breath.

"Stay there, Missy." Slade said with such deadliness in his voice that Missy paused from standing. He hissed at the woman-beast, feeling his wounds healing. With a swing of his arm, it elongated to the length of an anaconda's body till it wrapped around the teenager's neck. The other arm went to the man's neck as his body coiled about the bucking feral's.

Slade ignored the woman's slashing claws against his scales and enclosed around all three tighter. It was then, his strength depleted when the feral woman sliced her claws down his face, catching his eye.

"Fucking snake!" The teenager croaked, rubbing a hand around her reddening throat. She narrowed her eyes, dyed hair whipping around her wildly as it grew. "Taste a bit of your own medicine!"

As if her hair had a life of it's own, it flew at Slade.

Logan flew forward, knocking down the feral woman. He roared, adamantium claws extended and ready to cause damage. A fist hit him right beneath the eye and stars sparkled in his vision. But he returned the hit with equal force, knocking the beast woman on her back. Soon enough her throat ruptured and blood spewed everywhere.

Missy watched as World War III continued in the small bookstore. She whimpered, holding a fist under her nose as her vision blurred once more with oncoming tears.

She was helpless.

She couldn't do anything.

A human with no powers and no background experience in fighting was completely useless in a battle such as this. And she had a fractured ankle on top of all that. There was no way Missy was going to be able to do anything let alone defend herself.

Chocolate brown eyes widened as Slade was thrown from the across the room by the mutant's whip-lashing hair.

"Slade!" Missy screamed, picking herself up and dodging mini-battles as best as she could in order to get to the only source of protection she knew. As she limped to his side, Missy winced at the lacerations all over his face and neck. "Slade-!"

"Missy, run!" Slade coughed, attempting to pick himself back up.

She shook her head, crying even harder. "Nuh-no…"

"I can't protect you here, Missy. You have to run and try to do it." Slade winced as Missy threw her arms around him and held tight. "You have to run. Run far and don't stop. Don't trust anyone, Missy, or else they'll get you."

"W-why?"

"Just do what I fucking told you to!" Slade yelled. A vein popped from his forehead.

But Missy held onto him stubbornly. "I can't. I can't do it!"

"Yes, you can! Missy, you're a fucking-" Slade cursed, wrapping his arms around her and rolling across the floor a couple of times. They barely dodged the teenager's hair slamming a bookcase down where they formerly were.

"Go!" Slade pushed at her weakly. "Just start fucking running!"

Missy wasn't given a chance to say no as Slade hissed venomously at her, showing her his fangs so she can see how dire the situation was. With a heartbreaking sob, she picked herself up and ran awkwardly with a limp out the hole from the side of the bookstore. Missy ignored the cry from the redhead for her to stop.

Rain pelted her, soaking her jeans and shirt to her skin like a second layer. She gasped from the pain of her ankle, forcing her body forth as her leg swung in an arc to lessen the pressure on it. Just like every victim in a horror movie, she took a look over her shoulder to see nobody in the street. But that didn't slow her down. Instead she ran faster with heavy desperation.

"Hello?" She called out as she ran, barely able to scream out a plea for help. Where was everybody? Why wasn't there anybody on the streets?

Missy continued to push herself to run, throwing her arms up and high (as an athletic person would do), and limping her way down the sidewalk. Her soaked jeans weren't doing any help of her running as her hair stuck to her face like glue.

She wiped a hand harshly across her face, agitated by the sticking strands of hair.

Just when she was positive that her lungs were going to explode, Missy reached the edge of the small city of Prosperity, Minnesota. One more foot and she'll be on the road directing south. She cursed, coughing harshly as she glanced back to see smoke rising from the destruction. Her car was parked just behind the store. But because she was panicking, she didn't think about it at all.

There was no way in hell she could go back. She already has gone this far and now she must keep going.

Her thoughts went from 'safety' to 'Slade'. Perhaps if she went home, she'd be able to meet Slade there.

Yes, she'll meet him there.

Missy turned left and started running away from the road to the tall forest trees. It took her a while to reach, since it the area was vast, but as soon as she hit the barrier of the shrubs and trees, Missy felt secure. She started jogging, wincing every so often when her ankle would protest from the weight it was forced to move upon, resolved on reaching the small cabin just built a few more miles east.

The rain did nothing to comfort her long journey. It fell upon her harder, trying to drag her down into the dirt.

As Missy ran, she did not notice a solemn figure camouflaged with the thick trees surrounding her.

Kill her! Murder her!

Rip that silly bitch's throat out!

Rape the living shit out of her! Do it! You know you want to!

Scratch her thighs! Claw her face! Tear her pussy! Break her bones!

Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it-

As soon as the young woman ran past him, the maddening voices came to an absolute stop. It was pure silence with the exception of pattering rain, fast winds, gasping breaths, and stumbling feet. For a moment, he had a taste of peacefulness that he had never come across in his lifetime. Never.

Victor Creed relaxed from his tensed pose, slowly turning his head to the slight right to gaze at the woman staggering until she fell.

It was utmost peculiar how the angry voices went away. And though it dispersed along with the headache, it didn't sit well with Victor. He snarled at the image of the now limping woman, clawing at the trunk of the tree so he could travel through the high tops branches. Victor followed the woman, scrutinizing her as he almost tried to search for those missing voices in his head, the headaches, and the blood thirst: the beast.

But it was gone.

He frowned ferociously, his brown eyes glittering with malice at the thought of a mere human girl holding the ability to contain his beast from savagery. The man in him raged at it for it portrayed a weakness that Victor Creed couldn't possibly have.

It pissed him off.

Victor breathed hard, flying across from tree to tree until he dropped right in front of the shrieking woman.

He looked up at the woman with a fearsome snarl on his face. It didn't help that he could literally smell her fear permeate the air. The feral man's body stiffened further than formerly. But his teeth flashed in pure irritation at the notice of the constant voices that had been running through his head since birth gone. The tranquility was stunning, but the fact that a human woman had the power to subdue a part of him angered him.

Without the aid of his beast, Victor felt the desire to slaughter this bitch to the next millennium.

The air in Missy's lungs whooshed out of her body as she was tackled onto a floor a second after seeing a huge object fall from the sky. Her back scraped along the hard rocks and strong sticks. A cry came from her lips when her head had bounced up painfully from the forest ground. The hovering weight of doom pressed down upon her.

She opened her eyes when a sinister chuckle rang in the air only to see brown eyes of insanity.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Victor preened at the fact the woman was quite terrified of him.

After all, who wasn't?

His sickening smile grew wider, watching as the woman's pretty pink lips trembled. Victor laughed obnoxiously loud, booming his voice in a fifty feet radius as she attempted to talk, to plea for her life.

"Pl…pluh…p-please…" Her voice dwindled into softness.

Victor merely grinned. He closed his eyes, leaning in closer to her face and breathed in deeply. The painstaking fear oozed from the woman, caressing his body like an old lover's touch with just a tease of fingertips. More than usual, his beast, he, would nourish from this fear. It was an addictive drug, highly dangerous than the mixture of alcohol and cocaine, meth and ecstasy. And the apprehension on his victim's faces made the experience more like an orgasm than anything.

But when he breathed in her scent, something different happened. Something that has never happened before in his life happened.

He purred.

Alright, I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't have made another story, lol! I'm already booked with fictionpress and fanfiction, but I did it despite my mind fighting against it. Because xiMenagerie literally begged on her virtual knees and did numerous prayers for me to write an X-Men fanfiction, I did it. NOW YOU HAVE TO UPDATE YOUR STORIES, DAMMIT!

Honestly, I don't know much about mutants and their genes and stuff, haha. This is something completely knew, and I'm pretty much digging it. I did some research on wiki about the main character's abilities and personalities, but you as a reviewer can do much more and criticize and give a few pointers if I tend to go out of character. The first four characters (aka "other customers") are Jean Grey, Logan, Storm, and Scott. I'm not really following a movie storyline. I watched X-2, X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: First Class (MICHAEL FASSBENDER IS HAWT. I'm seriously irrevocably in love with him), the other night (IT WAS SO AWESOME) to get a vague idea of what I'm tying myself down to. So, I'm basically using some characters for this story. There isn't really a plotline of the X-Men movies I'm following. I'm just creating my own.

Doing a romance, especially with Victor Creed, is very tricky. I don't want him to lose his vicious killer side, but at the same time, I have to find some godly way to pair him off with my OC. This…is going to be hard. Oh, god why?

This chapter was meant to be much longer, but the last sentence was just begging to be used as the final words of this chapter. It was a must! LOL

Based on this first chapter there are a few questions already going around, but you guys'll just have to wait and see. I have some plans already sketched out, the only problem for me is the movie characters personalities, LOL. ;_;

Thanks for reading!