Title: Babel Fish
Author/Artist: Blue Stem Cell
Universe: Marvel (Alternate Universe)
Rating: 16 +
Genre: Drama/Action/Romance Sub Plot
Summary: "No more Mutants." Three little words and more than 90% of the mutant population lost their powers. Nearly a year later, a British schoolboy, suffering from constant migraine destroys a part of his school and the first new mutation is registered. But just what is his power?
Disclaimer: I own nothing by Marvel or Douglas Adam's.
Note: I'm dyslexic. Not an excuse but just a note in case you come across anything spelled wrong or grammatically incorrect. Point them out to me, I do try and catch the ones I see.
Edited on 16/08/2011. Cleaned up a few spelling/grammar mistakes and did a general tidy up.
Chapter 4: Don't Panic
Walking down the corridor, Scott rubbed at his left temple and silently cursed whatever had attacked them on the way home. It was not a headache as such, but a dull pain reverberated in the side of his head from where he had been smacked against the control panel. Luckily for them, they had a healer amongst their motley crew of mutant children. He would see to that later when he had his students in class. For the time being, lessons were canceled. At least until he found Leeland and Victor but he presumed they could have not have wandered far. Besides, Victor was a sensible boy.
Along the way he passed the triplets who regarded him with a quick glance. "Evening Mr. Summers." They said in unison before making their way past him and he gave a frayed little smile at them. The girls unnerved him most days. He put it down to the fact that he was married to the woman they had been cloned from.
The subject of clones was once again upon his mind and it reminded him to check in on Logan. The feral mutant had taken his young charge, Laura, away for a few weeks. Being cooped up in the school could make both the Wolverine and his little clone temperamental and there did not seem to be enough space in the Danger Room for them to vent their anger.
First thing was first though, he had to retrieve the boys. Finding them, however, was proving harder than he first thought. There was some trust he had enlisted into Victor and he knew that the boy would not take the other one from the lower levels. It simply wasn't safe upstairs and though Beast made a very good point about keeping the boy's trust, he wasn't so sure yet.
Scott had grown up with danger at each and every turn. Having been a member of the X-men for the majority of his life, he felt that the suspicion and caution came with the job. There was simply nothing wrong with treating the boy like a ticking bomb. Just one false move and it was all going to blow up in their faces. However, if it did turn out that this was all setup, then perhaps a bomb was just what he needed.
"Darling, you look a little lost. You didn't hit your head too hard I hope?" Scott turned around and frowned at Emma for a moment before his expression softened.
"Victors showing Leeland around down here." He told her and it was her turn to frown.
"I thought I made myself clear when I told the little urchins to stay upstairs."
"Emma…It's Victor. Besides, there's nothing down here they can get into trouble with. I've put nearly everything on lock down anyway." He gave a roll of his shoulders as Emma leaned forward, pressing her hand towards his chest. "Now who's being a little bit paranoid?" She tutted before circling around him, her hands still pressed against his torso. Delicately, her fingers ran across the tight expanse of his uniform. Scott cleared his throat but a weak smile came onto his lips.
"This is serious. Hank seems to think I'm paranoid-"
"You are. Always alert Mr. Summers, what ever should I do with you." Pausing, Emma took her hands back and rested them on her hips to peer up at him. A smile came to her lips, one that would make even a nun blush and then drop everything and give herself to you.
"Are you even listening?" He asked her as she arched a thin blonde eyebrow up at him.
"We where attacked and we don't know by who. Non of the machines will work when he's around and this…this just feels weird and you're acting no better." Frustrated, that's what he was but her expression never changed even when he loomed over her with his sheer mass in muscle.
"If this is supposed to intimidate me, it's not working. To be honest, I used to pay good money to-"
"And there you go again!" Scott very nearly threw his hands up into the air in frustration but instead he settled for pinching the bridge of his nose.
"We can talk later." Said Emma, her tone changing suddenly, her eye's wide with some kind of fear. Scott looked at her but she charged past him and made her quick way towards the Danger room.
"Oh you silly boys!" Scott could her hear shout down the corridor as he moved to quickly follow her.
The prehistoric reptile regarded both screaming boys for a few more moments before it became tired of their terror. Great scales adored its pale gray skin and it's beetle like eyes blinked up at the bright lights that lay overhead. With a great swing of its tail, the creature attempted to topple both boys to the ground.
Victor was the first to jump backwards, kicking of his sandals to stick to the sides of the metal walls. His reptilian mutation gave him that advantage, but being able to walk across the ceiling would not help them keep out of the way of the creature that was steadily filling the room.
Pressing himself further into the corner, Leeland stared at the creature as it made its swoop for them both once again. Narrowly missing them, he held his breath and pleaded with his body not to let him wet himself. Then again, he supposed peeing his pants would be the least of his trouble if he were to be eaten by the creature. And that was it; he was going to be snuffed out by an animal that didn't exist in a room that didn't make sense.
As he closed his eyes, ready for the creature to snap him with its jaws, to gobble him down, he something tugging on his wrist. Without a second thought, he was pulled up into the air by his arm and when he opened his eye's he found that it was Victor and his tongue.
"Jesus!" Leeland exclaimed at the reptilian boy rolled his eyes and pulled him upwards by his dark prehensile tongue. Wrapping his arms around him, Leeland clung to the boy's back. Gritting his teeth as not to close his eye's in fright, he watched and waited for the animal to swipe at them again. Victor was exceptionally fast but now he had a dead weight attached to him and it proved harder to scrabble his way up the wall.
"God, don't you weigh anything?" Victor grunted between his teeth as he tried to reach across towards the observation desk.
"Well ah hardly think that matters right now!" Leeland shouted back. Of all the things to say in crisis and Victor had to go and choose that. On the plus side, there was not that much meat on him. Perhaps the creature wouldn't be interested in something that would loose a weight lifting contest to a chicken wing.
Emma reached the door to the Danger Room first but it did not open to her. When she tried the control panel, her fingers received a shock of pale green electric, stinging her extremities. Cursing, she pursed her lips to the side.
"Oh no you don't." It is to be said that Emma Frost had a great deal of power and amongst being one of the most powerful telepaths within a ten thousand mile radius; she was also quite adept with machinery.
But it did not matter how good she was with electronics, the doors simply refused to budge for her.
"Of all the technological advances the human race has made and we forget to stick on a good old fashioned lock and key. Simple. Why do we never go for the simple things?" She droned out to herself as Scott came to her side, shaking his head. "The emergency doors sealed as well and I can't get to the control platform."
There came a mighty roar from within and the walls around them began to shake. Whatever was in there with the boys was large and angry but she had faith in Victor that he wouldn't end up as a green smudge on the floor. Leeland on the other hand…there was a loud shriek and Emma rolled her eyes with a shake of her head.
"Where's Kitty when you need her?" Scott gritted his teeth.
Yes, thought Emma, our nonthreatening poster child Shadowcat', or 'Sprite', or 'Ariel' or whatever incredibly unimpressive name she was using these days, that's just who they needed. Unfortunately, Kitty was away visiting her parents and the closest they had to someone who could walk through walls was a girl who would crumble the surrounding area if she walked through it. As tempting as it was, Emma had decided using the children for destruction never won her any brownie points with them. This would have to be done the old fashioned way with just her and two other X-men. One of which was nowhere to be seen.
In fact, Beast had indeed heard the ruckus coming from the Danger Room and he had wasted no time in trying to collect his thoughts together with what he now knew about the boy. Oh a clever old thing was Beast and he wondered why he had not thought of it sooner. But he was only one man and surely he was not expected to come up with all the answers all the time.
First, he made he way quickly to the observation deck but found it quite hard to negotiate his way in. That only confirmed his suspicions as Scott had mentioned the total lock down. That meant know one would have been able to operate Danger Room no matter what level their mutation was. Perhaps, however, a very powerful technopath could…
Quickly, he made his ambling way down to the next level and came face to face with Emma and Scott who were still trying desperately to enter the room. Though they seemed to be having some form of heated debate and Beast cleared his throat. The pair stopped to look at him in the same manner as mother bears who had just found an unsuspecting hiker with her cubs.
"I think I may know what our problem is." He started.
"We know the problem Henry. The doors are locked." Emma frowned. "The problem is why it's locked?" She said through gritted her teeth, her pale hair sweeping in front of her eye's as frustration clear on her face. They would all be dammed if she lost yet another student to some stupidity of immediate school lock down!
"He's doing it Emma." Beast frowned but resisted the urge to place his hands upon his hips. Frost was no imbecile; she would figure it out when her anger was not so contorted.
"You mean….Leeland?" Scott asked and Emma's reaction was to groan, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose in utter frustration. That was certainly no way her headache was budging now.
"Though I suspect he hasn't got a clue that it's his doing."
"Subconsciously running his fear through the machinery, including the DR." Scott mussed but Emma was the one to groan and very nearly threw her hands up into the air.
"Less chatting about it, more getting them out, hmm. Then you two can sit and talk about genetics over a nice cup of tea." Honestly, people really did need to get their priorities in order.
"What are we doing?" Leeland asked sheepishly, noting how Victor was steadily scrambling for the observation deck. Pressing himself closer to his back, he'd buried half of his face into his neck. The smell of clean laundry and coconut was what greeted him underneath the sweat of perseverance. Leeland presumed that he probably smelt like old socks, but he could worry about personal hygiene later when he wasn't about to trampled on.
"Well…" Victor grunted and shifted Leeland so his heels where not digging into his thighs. "There's an emergency power box on top of the observation deck…ahhh….Reach that, press the big red button and hopefully, ukk, all this should stop."
"You all right?" Leeland asked stupidly and Victor could only laugh in response. "Brilliant." Was his reply. "I feel terrific!"`
Though Leeland suspected that sarcasm might have been laced through his words.
The dinosaur was now trying to bash its double-decker bus sized head into the walls. It was trying to knock both boys from the wall, but Victor was determined that his hours of practice were going to pay off. Oh he was going to have blisters by the time they were finished but he was not giving up!
"So…It's not real?" Leeland seemed to be full of idiotic questions and it made Victor roll his eyes. "No, genius….uhh, it's the nano stuff. Creates whatever a person wants."
"Why the hell would someone want a Mapusaurus! Seriously, of all the stupid things-"
"-Wait a minute! How do you know what it is!"
"Uhh…ah did a project on 'em last year." Leeland said quietly with a frown and noted that Victor had stopped moving. Would it be rude to dig his heels in like one would do with horses, but he suspected Victor would simply shrug him from his shoulders and so he clung on harder.
"Leeland."
"Yes Victor?"
"You're an idiot." And with that, he began to scramble further up the wall until they reached the observation deck. The screens were pulled down but they did not need to see inside to reach the control panel. Unfortunately, they were a quite a bit up in the air and Leeland had a sudden attack of height phobia which he never knew he had before. Burying his face into Victor's shoulder, he breathed in his scent and let his hands cling to the front of his chest. Never before had he been in such close proximity to someone and it was causing his heart to race frantically.
"Reach up." Victor gritted his teeth together as he clung to the side of the jutted out ledge but Leeland shook his head in terror. "Ah can't reach."
"Yes you can! Just shimmy your body further up and reach over me. You'll only have to open the box and hit it with your hand, nothing too complicated." If Victor could, he would have slapped Leeland around the head but his hands where currently preoccupied. If it was just the button he had to press then he could have done it quite easily with his tongue, but it was never any good when it came to latches.
"I…I-I'm scared." The blonde whispered.
Victor closed his eyes and pressed his lips together before he turned his head slightly to the side to look at the boy, a small smile appearing on his lips. "I know Lee." His voice was softer than it had been moment before and Leeland peered upwards, two green sets of eye's meeting over their shoulders. The blonde nodded and started to do what Victor instructed him to do.
"Girls, are you ready?" Emma pressed her fingers to the sides of her own temples as the triplets did the same. If they couldn't get into the room, then they could do the next best thing. By forcing the boy to sleep, everything would revert back to normal, at least that was the theory. Unfortunately, Emma could not knock the boy out on her own with his pesky block hidden away inside his mind.
The triplets nodded. "Miss Frost." They said. "This may hurt him quite a bit."
Emma nodded; it was a chance they had to take. "He'll get over it." They closed their minds and focused solely upon the pale boy inside the Danger room. It was hard trying to pinpoint the boys mind for it seemed ever so scattered. They where able to hone in on Victor's mind in an instance, but they left him be and focused on the other boy.
A sudden rush of emotion hit the girls all at once and they gritted their teeth together. "Wait!" The called urgently but it was too late.
Leeland pressed upwards, stretching his body as far as it would go with Victor holding him firmly by his sharp little waist.
"There!" He successfully fiddled open the latch and smacked his hands against the button just as fog floated in front of his vision. "Huh?" At once, a pain shot right through the center of his head, causing him to shout out. It felt as if a hot poker had been shoved through his ears and scrambled about in a horrific little circle. Before he had time register anything though, his eye's slipped shut and he went limp in Victor arms.
The creature vanished with once last whip of it tail and a mighty roar. Victor wobbled upon the wall, Leeland's weight suddenly became dead in his arms and he could no longer hold onto the ledge. With his arms wrapped around the blonde, he slipped from the metal panels and plummeted to the ground below.
Though before his skull could become crushed upon the ground below, he felt great big arms sweeping him upwards and they landed with a soft thud on the metal ground below. Opening one of his eyes, he looked upwards to see Beast grinning down at him and he had never been so glad to see his favourite teacher. He still had his arms wrapped firmly around Leeland and had pulled him close to his chest. Once he had gathered his thoughts, he clenched his teeth together and pawed the boy off into his teacher's arms and moved to his feet.
"Whose genius idea was that!" He shouted at Scott as he came into the room, followed by Emma. The triplet hovered at the door, each one of them staring at the pale thing in Beasts vivid blue arms. The contrast was strange and it gave the boy an almost pale blue hue but it was not that that kept the girls at bay. The girls kept their distance, wondering if their suspicions had been confirmed.
Twenty minutes later they had Leeland back in the medical bay and this time Beast hoped his DNA machine would work.
"So he's a technopath?" Victor had gathered himself around the bed that Leeland was laid out upon. Now he was asleep, he could see his features more clearly. There seemed to be something troubled and contorted on his face and the green boy was sure that he had seen him some place before. Though that seemed a little silly and he looked up at Beast.
"Either that, or he's Omnilingualist." He had pondered on the idea for a while and it seemed more and more likely.
"What's that?"
"There is an active psionic translation field running inside his head. It intuitively translates any languages he'll come into contact with, whether it's written, spoken or indeed computer data. I suppose that would reach out to any kind of electronic machinery."
"Explains why I can't read his mind." Emma pondered from the side, her fingers tapping on the side of her chin. "Or why Cerebro refused to detect him. There's too much there protecting his mind."
"But we won't know until he wakes up."
"Yeah." Victor suddenly turned on his teacher. "About that!"
"Oh Victor don't start, you're going to give me a headache." She drawled out with a small roll of her eyes. "Putting him to sleep seemed to be the only logical thing to do at the time."
"But he'd pressed the reset button!" He exclaimed but felt a hand on his shoulder and his eye's met with Mr. Summers ruby coloured visor.
"Why don't you head up to the upper levels with the girls, I'm sure everyone's eager to know what he's like."
"Yes." Said Victor. "Because I can really comment on what he's like from ten minutes of him hanging onto my back and cowering like a little girl." He left the room without another word but gave a quick glance over his shoulder towards the boy. With a shake of his head he decided he would bi pass the common room; he had graves to visit.
The triplets didn't move. Instead, they gave Emma one sweeping glance before they decided to save the conversation for later. Then, they could interrogate away to their hearts content.
Emma had the distinct impression that the girls where annoyed at her, but what was new there. Before she could question them though, they followed after Victor and the medical bay doors slid shut.
"So what made him do it then?" Asked Scott as he perched on the side of the bed, looking down at the boy who was out for the count. Beast shrugged, it could have been for a number of reasons.
"Unconsciously of course. He's scared and has nothing familiar to protect himself with."
"So a dinosaur is his answer?" Emma shook her head, she supposed she didn't want to know and regarded the boy one more time before moving towards the door. He was starting to unnerve her and she decided to put as much space between them as she could.
"Where are you going?" Scott asked.
"To lie down. All this palaver has quite worn me out." When she left the room, the last little hold she has upon Leeland's sleeping pattern was broken and he gave a tiny stir upon the bed.
It felt as if a bus had hit him. That bus has then proceeded to run over him several times before the paramedics could reach him. Then, once he was in the ambulance, he had fallen out strapped to the bed and fallen down a great crevasse.
With a groan, he realised he was once again back in the medical lab with Mr. Summers and Doctor McCoy peering over him like a caged animal in the zoo. The boy was getting rather tired at being stared at like a panda and frowned up at them. When he did so, the pain in his head became worse and the nausea reached critical inside his stomach. With out a second thought he lurched upwards and spilt what little contents he had in his stomach onto the floor.
Hot sour bile collected in the corners of his mouth and he tried to spit the remainder of it out. "Uhh, sorry." He muttered, staring at the mess on the floor but Scott shook his head and patted him gently on the shoulder.
"Not to worry, Emma get's to the best of us sometimes."
"What 'appened?" He asked, pressing his bandaged hands to the top of his now pounding head.
"You did." Commented Beast as a little machine moved over to the bed and began to clean up the vomit.
Leeland looked up as he wiped the back of his mouth and the older mutant handed him a glass of water from the side, which the boy drank down gratefully.
"You put the Danger Room on lock down with out meaning too. Created the Dinosaur from your subconscious and then couldn't think straight enough to get rid of it."
"Oh." Leeland felt his cheeks and ears burn with embarrassment and he dipped his head. Victor was right, he was an idiot and he had almost gotten them both killed because of it.
"So it was me?" He mumbled but Beast smiled kindly at him. "You're a techopath and perhaps a Omnilingualist."
"Better start learning to talk to people Kid, you're going to need it."
Beast explained to the boy about what he believed his powers to be and how they where mapped out. As well as the control of machines he would also be able to covert any language inside his mind but they were yet to test that theory. He also explained that perhaps there was some latent physic ability that was stopping the likes of Emma from seeing into his mind. For that, Leeland was grateful. He was not so sure he wanted someone like her inside his head. It was not like him to dislike someone after only knowing him or her for less than twenty-four hours but she was slowly moving her way into the pages of his bad book.
So now he was stuck down in the medical bay with no one but Beast for company. Victor never came back and Leeland didn't blame him. He was on his own with nothing but machines whispering in his ears, slowly turning him mad he feared.
xxx
Having threatened to throw Santo through an upstairs window, the other students had left Victor be. All he said, whilst slamming the front door, was that if they so badly wanted to know what he was like then they should dam well go and find out for themselves.
Out in the grounds of the Xavier institute, Victor zipped up his coat and made his little walk towards the graveyard. It was situated at the back of the school; a reminder of what life with the X-men was like. Paras's parents wanted him to be buried along side his friends who died in the bus explosion. They were proud of their son and his mutation and Victor wonder why all parents couldn't be like that?
If he had wanted to, he could negotiate his way around the graveyard with his eyes closed and it only took him a few moments before he found the tombstone with his best friends name inscribed.
"Hey." He said quietly, looking down at the smooth granite with the boy's name inscribed followed by his code name; Indra. There was a little space for his date of birth and the one that struck Victor, his date of death. Looking at it would make his heart race, his eye's water but if he kept crying then one day he wouldn't want to stop. Paras wouldn't want that and he supposed neither would anyone else.
"So I guess you've heard about the new guy. Yeah, he's ok. Scared, he's really scared and I was a bit mean. I want someone to blame P…not just the guy who, you know…" Victor gave a deep breath and blew it outwards, watching it mist up in front of him before he knelt in front of the little grave.
"I think he'll need a friend when Doctor McCoy's done poking at him and Miss Frost has stopped being, well…Miss Frost will never stop being like that but we can all hope, right?" He sat down on the wet grass and slightly grimaced at the moisture that his jeans began to soak up. At least he had changed into his trainers to venture outside.
"Kind of cute in a weird way, if you like twelve year olds. Suppose it's not his fault but there is something familiar about him but I just can't think what." Everyone knew that when Victor went to visit Paras, he would end up talking to himself. It was either that, or wandering around the institute muttering away to himself. The boy was determined that he was not going to go insane with grief, Paras wouldn't want him to. In fact, as pacifist as he was, the purple hued boy would have beaten it out of Victor if he could.
Resting his head in his hands, he regarded the gravestone in silence before a noise behind him made him turn his head upwards. The triplets stood there with their jackets wrapped around themselves for protection from the cold and soft pink scarves shielding their mouths.
"Victor?" They asked. "May we ask for your advice?"
Smiling, the boy nodded his head and pushed himself to his feet, wiping the dirt from his knees. "Sure."
"If you believed that someone was hiding the truth, would you want him or her to tell you?" Celeste asked first causing Victor to frown for a moment as he thought of a response.
"You mean, like lying?"
"Not quite." Commented Phoebe. "Just not telling people something that may be important."
"But what if they're hiding the truth to protect someone, wouldn't that be a good enough reason not to tell people." He asked with confusion, wondering what the emotionless girls were getting at.
"Thank you Victor." Said Mindee and the boy gave a soft smile and a nod of his head. "Not quite sure what you're thanking me for but you're welcome."
"Would you perhaps do us a favour?" They asked as one. "Be his friend, he's ever so lonely."
"Leeland?" He asked and the girls nodded. "We'd do it ourselves." They said. "But we have more important fish to fry." And with that, they bid him good evening and turned upon their heals to head back up to the school.
"Sure." Victor muttered as he watched them walk away before rubbing at the side of his head. Well, now he supposed that he had his orders and perhaps getting to know the new mutant wouldn't be so bad.
xxx
As she lay in her bed, Emma pulled the delicate sheets up against her arms and stared at the wall to her side. Of all the possibility's in the world. Of all the people who could be mutants once again, the first one to come about in a year and it was him. Why did she believe that none of this was going to creep up on her and bite her in her expensive ass. Her youth was going to haunt her and if she didn't play her cards right, everything was going to blow up in her face.
She buried her face in the pillows and tried her best to drown out the noise of her students and focused on the one little silence that wouldn't speak. Leeland's thought where blocked to the world, but she knew she get around it. After all, she was Emma Frost and there was nothing that child could keep from her.
The bedroom door creaked and footsteps padded across the expensive rug and a body moved into the bed next to her. Arms wrapped around her from behind and Scott pressed himself up against her, losing himself in her neck.
"What are you hiding from me Emma?"
Emma lay still and let her eye's close.
"Come back to me in seven hours when I've slept Darling."
"Then we'll talk?"
She stayed quiet and he felt her slip from behind and turn in the bed, the pair of them on separate sides.
"A girl needs her secrets."
TBC~
