!-- /* Font Definitions */ font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ , , {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin-top:0cm; margin-right:0cm; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} page Section1 {size:595.3pt 841.9pt; margin:72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} 1 {page:Section1;} --
She's just a girl, Jean thought, barely just past mid teens. She frowned in concern remembering how old she had been when her powers had surfaced. The girl was sitting in the corner, her legs propped up against her chest and her forehead resting on her knees. Her feet, legs, hands and arms were laced with the red vines that seemed to stem from her. She appeared to be out of breath as her chest heaved.
Biting her lip Jean approached carefully, lowering herself as she got closer, "Sweetheart" Jean said softly. The girl snapped her head up and widened her tired eyes at the appearance of the woman. Jean momentarily paused but then smiled warmly at the girl,
"We've come to help you" she felt the girls panic increase and tried to be as welcoming as possible, "I promise we are not here to harm you" she knelt down next to the girl as she felt the panic subside a little, "did you do this all by yourself?" Jean questioned, looking around the room. The girl nodded slightly, her eyes wandering to the feral and Jean noticed,
"That is Wolverine and my name is Jean Gray, we are people that are very much like you" Jean smiled,
"l-like me?" the girl suddenly spoke, her voice was raspy and dry. Jean's smile widened at the response,
"Yes, we have special gifts like you" she replied, the girl frowned,
"T-this is n-not special" the walls shuddered in her discomfort, Jean bit her lip and tried a different tact,
"Your vines will sprout flowers someday though" she smiled again. The girls eyes twitched and Jean felt the girls mind become erratic again,
"You want t-to take me away" the girl spoke again, this time with worry in her voice,
"Only if you are wanting to, we don't force anything on you" Her voice was full of motherly concern; however that only seemed to upset the girl more,
"Lies!" she screamed and the walls shook further, Jean grew concerned that the walls may crumble if they were stressed anymore "I don't trust you, I don't trust him!" the vines around her thin fingers snapped as she pointed at Wolverine and the small insects flew at him.
"Wolverine!" Jean gasped as she saw her comrade assaulted by bloodied vines and deadly insects,
"Shit! - Jean the girl!" Wolverine cursed, Jean turned round to see the girl rip herself from the wall and run from the room. As the girl exited the door more vines grew up to replace the shredded ones, trapping them in the room.
Remy roared as he threw more explosive cards at the giant, the thin paper sliced into its skin and exploded bits of flesh and muscle in every direction – a majority of it staining more of Remy that hadn't already been tarnished by the corpses. He growled as the mangled skin weaved itself back together again and the beast continued its attacks. The thing swung its cleaver with very little skill but plenty of strength to slice a man in half.
The giant suddenly let go of the cleaver and it shot right in Gambit's direction. He cursed and quickly ducked in time, the sword crashing into the room opposite. Turning his head back to the battle at hand he only had time to see his vision shadowed before a heavy weight came crashing down on him. The creature pinned Remy to the floor, his fanged mouth and piercing yellow eyes glaring down at him.
"Monsieur – you need to brush your teeth no?" Remy gagged as the creature's hot breath hit his face. The giant roared and Remy gritted his teeth at its piercing pitch and flinching as it gripped his arms even harder. The creature seemed ready to strike and Gambit prepared himself for the bright lights – if there were such things – and held his breath. However the inevitable didn't come, he opened his eyes to see the creature staring to the stairway; Gambit craned his neck to see a blur of a girl running past and out the door. The creature screamed this time, recoiling as if almost in pain from Remy before turning to ash on the floor. Remy looked about him, the red vines that covered the walls shuddered a final time before turning brown and shrivelling up.
Jean watched as each of the insects fell to the floor each clinking as landed. She ran over to Wolverine who had until now been unreachable because of the mass of insects that had covered him. He growled, shaking like a wet dog as pieces of glass fell from his body.
"Wolverine! Are you ok?" she worried over him, noticing the large amount of blood and glass shards that were now embedded in his skin,
"Fine" he grunted picking the pieces from his skin and yanking slightly harder at the ones his skin was attempting to heal over.
"So those bugs were actually pieces of glass..." Jean mused, "The girl!" Jean looked to the door and saw their pathway had now been blocked once again by the vines. Wolverine grumbled some obscene profanity as Jean walked towards the wall of red. She touched the vines gingerly; they were no longer wet and pulsing, but dry and faintly warm as if they were a newly dead body. What's more was that they had become rock hard, almost like they had turned to stone.
"Wolverine..." she mumbled, "We might have some trouble getting out of here".
Mercy didn't know what was happening to her and the rather rude awakening by these strangers had been less than a welcome relief to her. Time had become irrelevant after she had first found veins sprouting from her hands and attaching to the wall. The first time she'd been awakened was by the pounding in her head, she felt like more than one person was in her head and each were terrified, curious and disturbed.
Then police had come, she felt the blue and red pulsing lights behind her eyelids and the attempts to get in to the house. They never got to her but she heard the screams as they'd tried, after a few more attempts they'd stopped and the house quieted. When the strangers had come she at first didn't notice, the panic had not been there and the only sign had been the feeling of someone watching her – she immediately pushed them out. She had calculated three just by the aura's that had radiated in her mind, but each had tampered whatever she had been able to feel from people before.
She had tried to stop them, but whatever guards she put up were easily cut down. Then she'd seen the woman, she'd never seen anyone dressed like 'that'. The large man behind her immediately set her on edge even before she'd seen the knives coming out of his hands. There was another but she had set her newly created beast on him... how had she created all these things?
The woman had said that she wanted to help her and all she could think is that they wanted to take her to a mental institution... of course what else could this be other than her going mad? She wouldn't go with these people, where was her father? Shouldn't he have come back from the States now?
She bolted down the stairs with little care of how many steps she missed and the smell of blood became more pungent. Her eyes flickered on her creature its yellow eyes gaping back at her before she swept through the front door. The garden was a tangled mess and her ankles were easily sliced by wandering rose vines and the sharp decaying vines that she herself had created.
Her throat was on fire and was suddenly cooled by the harsh cold of the outside world. It felt like years since she'd actually been out in it. She ran as far as her legs would carry her – the burning in her calves nothing compared to the fear she felt in her chest. The solid concrete of the path soon turned to damp grass as she raced through old and new gravestones that appeared as simple grey blurs in her teary vision. In front of her in the distance she noticed a small building that appeared to have an opening. She aimed for that opening and scurried inside barely registering the place in which she now found herself.
Remy groaned as he got to his feet, his muscles ached from the strength of the beast he had been wrestling. Feeling disorientated he gazed around him, the corpses that had emerged from the walls had fallen to ashes much like the creature – his analysis of the room was cut short by laboured noises from upstairs. He bolted up the staircase to a door that had appeared to be more vines than wood
"Jean, Wolverine you in dere?!" he yelled through the deep red substance,
"Gambit! Oh god you're alright!" Jeans muffled voice shouted back, "There's an energy in this room that's stopping me from sensing the girl... I can't even sense where she's gone!" Jean frowned in frustration, even with the strength of her powers the energy stopped any form of discovery being released, "Gambit, we're going to try and break this door down – you're the only one able to track the girl down – I'll let you know when we're out"
"Compris, Cheri" Gambit replied and shot back down the stairs. As he got outside he glanced at the sky – it would be light soon – he growled at the horizon in its predictability, things could never go smoothly. He got to the end of the pathway and closed his eyes searching for any signs of distress; it was harder now as people were gradually awakening from their sleep creating mixed and blurred emotions that confused his mind as he tried to filter them out. At last he felt a familiar aura that shook with confusion and fear,
"Cheri" he sighed and opened his eyes his gaze fixed on the graveyard.
Mercy held her breath and curled even tighter into the corner she had stumbled into. Upon entering the small building she realised that it was one of the few tombs that resided in the graveyard walls. The majority of the tombs had been destroyed through vandalism and the residence of those tombs had been allocated other graves. This one however was more or less intact but that fact brought very little comfort to her.
Although the bodies that had been placed in the tomb had long ago turned to dust she felt the threads of their beings surge at her presence. She swore she heard mumblings from the two stone coffins that lay within the middle of the tomb and every now and then she was sure the lids would move. She closed her eyes and attempted to calm her nerves, all she needed to do was stay in this god forsaken place until light – surely whoever was after her wouldn't risk the attention of others.
Remy approached the building cautiously, the emotions of the young girl even stronger now as he inhaled the cold dust of the tomb. He heard a person's ragged breathing faintly through the stone as he slid against the wall trying to find a way in he spied part of the brickwork had fallen in. Cautiously he made his way to the hole and slipped inside the darkness of the tomb. The smell was even worse inside and he was sure he could feel the cobwebs seep underneath his coat. As his eyes easily became accustomed to the change in darkness he spied a small shivering mass in right hand corner of the tomb – the girl.
It seemed as if she hadn't noticed him, Remy lowered and slowly moved toward her as he tried to work out when was best to actually signal his presence. He wasn't sure if she was even awake, but a quick check with his empathic abilities revealed that she was trying to suppress her emotions. He gulped and reached a hand out,
"Petite..." Remy whispered softly, the girl snapped her head up and gasped her eyes wide in the darkness. He saw her arms reach out to the walls and thin veins of red glowed against the cold brick, "No, no!" Remy held his hands up as if to signal surrender, "Cheri I'm not here to hurt you" he tried to keep his voice soft. He'd had vast experience with women and how to charm the hardest of hearts but a petrified teenage girl was another thing entirely.
Her breath was harsh as she tried to focus on Remy and he feared she may start hyperventilating if she didn't calm down.
"Y-your with them" the girl glared at him accusingly, Remy frowned,
"You mean Jean and Wolverine?" he questioned, then smiled, "Yeah but I is nothing like them petite" it was the girls turn to frown, "You see, dey always follow de rules but Gambit never have time for any of dat" he grinned,
"Gambit?" the girl tilted her head; Remy noticed her body relax slightly as her fingers crawled down from the walls,
"Dat's my name" Remy replied, "May I ask what yours be Cheri?" the girl looked at him suspiciously for a moment,
"....Mercy" she replied, her eyes lowered to the floor,
"Mercy, dat be a pretty name" Remy smiled and slid down the wall "Now would you give me the honour of living up to your name and showing me a little mercy – I only came to talk" Mercy looked back up at him and nodded slightly, "now, dey be some pretty awesome powers you got there petite, I never seen anything like dat"
"It's fucking ridiculous" Mercy spat bitterly "I never asked for this..." she looked down at her hands that were now caked with dirt, she then looked over to the coffins, "I feel like a lunatic"
"... I can understand" Remy mused, "I felt like I'd never be able to escape when my powers began..." he frowned at the deaths he had caused when his powers had awakened "to many people in my head and not enough space no?" Remy grinned as the girl looked away,
"You have.... powers... to?" The girl questioned the phrasing of 'powers' was a sour word in her mouth. If these people have powers to then they aren't here to take me to some hospital, she thought to herself as she watched the older man. The Cajun smiled and nodded to her answer,
"You be right petite, watch" Remy put a hand inside his duster coat and revealed his pack of cards, Mercy blinked and stared at the cards inquisitively. With his index and middle finger Remy selected a card from the pack and held it up in-between himself and Mercy and with a deep inhale of air focused on the card. Mercy watched as a faint pink glow began to radiate around the card and gradually get bigger and deeper in colour. Within seconds the card glowed a deep fuchsia and a slight hiss could be heard. Remy grinned and threw the card a few feet into the air; Mercy looked up her mouth agape and jumped as the small card burst into pink flames like a firework.
"Gambit make things go boom" He smirked and looked to Mercy who snapped her head back down to him, her face softly relaxed back into blankness from the amazement she had held in her gaze just a moment ago,
"I kill people... and mutilate their bodies when they're gone..." she muttered, lowering her head, Remy gazed at the young girl who reminded him all too well of himself,
"I've killed people to Cheri, an I know de feeling is not pleasant" he sighed and slid his cards back into his pocket,
"Will it ever go away?" Remy was slightly dumfounded by her question, Mercy seemed to understand from the silence "these... powers?"
"Oh..." Remy bit his lip, "I don't know... but I know that Xavier can help you to control them" He hated pitching the professor; it was one reason why he preferred to be less talk and more action when sent out on missions. How could he pitch something that once before he considered nothing more than lies.
"Xavier?" Mercy raised her head back to look at the Cajun,
"He de Professor of our School... he can teach you how to control these gifts of yours, maybe help you see how they aren't dat bad" he smiled, he noticed the girl about to speak, the scowl on her soft features showed it wouldn't be pleasant and he quickly interjected, "just give it a try petite, betta dan being alone here eh?"
Mercy stared at the man intently; although the darkness shrouded much of his features she felt no hint of betrayal in his voice. This Gambit had been the first person in years to talk to her as if she was not some alien being – with or without the army of dead people behind her. Now calmed she knew that the lady named Jean had only been trying to help... but in her presence she had felt like a child – the motherly aura that woman gave off didn't sit right with her. She watched the man named Gambit rise and hold out a hand to her, she bit her lip and after a moment gingerly placed her hand in his.
"Chere... I won't let anyone hurt you" the man smiled and Mercy felt warmed by it. She rolled her gaze over to the coffins at her side, they still wished to be released but for them it was too late and what she could bring was hell on earth compared to the silence in which they slept.