The weather around Elizabeth started to change quickly. The warm and sunny summer day was becoming dark, windy and cold. "Our guest is starting to stir my pet." She said softly to the falcon on her arm. The small yet powerful bird cooed his agreement. Elizabeth looked up at the gathering clouds and then back at the bird. "Go quickly friend and do as I have asked. Time is not on our side." Again the bird cooed, then he opened his wings and took off with a genital nudge from the tall black and purple haired woman. After watching the falcon for a few moments Elizabeth turned away from the tall grass she had been standing in front of and started to make her way back to the camp.
The winds in the camp were harsh and cruel. The perfect match for the mood Alexandria was in. She opened her eyes slowly and rubbed her throbbing head. She looked around her quickly to get her bearings and found she wasn't in the small cell anymore. She was laying on a cot in a large spacious tent. She sat up slowly since her head was swimming. She shook it lightly to clear it and could once again feel her powers surging though her. "What the hell?" She asked the room. There was no answer. She remained on the cot as she closed her eyes, listening to everything and anything she could hear. There was water near by, a lake perhaps. People all around her. Birds, other small animals. Footsteps.. Someone was coming towards her again. "Well this time they won't get a chance to touch me." Alexandria stood and watched the tent flap.
Thomas entered the tent with a tray of food and some tea. He was surprised by the sight of the child awake and standing but even more surprised at the girl's eyes. They were white as snow with no sigh of the brilliant blue irises or even pupils. The skies out side grew dark and a crack of thunder sounded angrily, shaking the ground under everyone's feet. A gust of wind knocked the try from Thomas' hands and then another knocked him backwards.
"I'm getting really sick and tired of being knocked out and waking up in strange places." Alexandria hissed as she below Thomas out of the tent. She hovered in the air as she threw the man into a tree just out side the tent. Lightening flashed all around her. "So unless you wanna know how it feels to be deep fried from the inside out, I'd start taking Bub!" A streak of lightening landed at Thomas' feet. Alexandria kept him pinned to the tree with the winds.
"That will be quite enough, Alexandria."
The sudden voice in her mind started Alexandria, but she kept a grip on what she was doing as she looked around to see who had projected to her. "Who said that?" She asked as if she were talking to Jean.
"I did, Lexie."
Alexandria's gaze fell onto a tall woman with black and purple hair. Her fair skin and purple eyes, and the British accented voice opened memories of being five again, sitting in the sun room drinking tea and being read the complete works of A. A. Milne. "How do you know my name?" She asked the woman who was walking up to her. Alexandria kept Thomas pinned but moved a hand towards the woman who was coming closer to her. She recognized the woman, but it couldn't really be her.. She was dead.
"I was there the day your parents' named you, luv." The woman said as she stopped walking against the wind. "You know who I am don't you?"
Alexandria looked at the woman critically. "You look like someone I use to know, but she died with my father ten years ago."
Elizabeth shook her head. "I can assure you, Lexie, I am far from being dead. But I don't blame you for being skeptical. You must be very confused and scared. I can prove to you I am who you think I am." Elizabeth looked up at the young girl and smiled.
"I not only know your name, but I know how your parents chose your names. You where named Alexandria after the Egyptian city in which you were conceived." Alexandria blushed which made Elizabeth smile more. "You share your middle name, Francis, with Professor Xavier. Or do you still call him Papa Charlie?" She paused a moment. Alexandria had her full attention on her but she still wasn't letting up on the storm, which could do a lot of damage if she couldn't get the girl to clam down and believe her.
"You carry your mother's surname because no one ever knew weather Logan was your father's first or last name. Although when your were naughty enough and your mother wanted to get your attention quickly she'd call your Alexandria Francis Logan Munroe. She still do that, luv?" Elizabeth could finally feel the winds around her start to ease as she spoke to the child in her mind. "Your godparents are Jean Gray and Remy LeBeau. Tell me Lexie, does Remy still call you Snowflake? And what was it he called you when you were being moody? Ah yes, his little thunder cloud." Elizabeth smiled when she saw Thomas fall from the trunk of the tree and dash away.
"You have a little brother. Five years your junior. His name is Logan Henry Xavier Munroe. The first time you saw him after Jean brought you down to med lab you told him that you loved him and that you would share your momma and daddy with him, but that Kitty, Jubilee, Jean, Remy, and even Rouge, though she was his godmother, were off limits cause they were yours. You told him he could have Scott if he wanted him."
"It didn't work ya know." Alexandria said as she set herself gently onto the ground. The winds had died down and the sky was starting to lighten. "He still acts like Aunt Marie is all his." Alexandria took a few easy steps towards the other woman. No one out side the family would have know what her fist words to her new brother would have been, nor would they have known that her Uncle Remy called her his little thunder cloud when she was mad or being a brat. "Aunt Betsy?" She asked still in disbelief.
Elizabeth nodded as she felt a thump in her chest. She hadn't heard anyone call her Aunt Betsy in ages, and until know she never realized how much she had missed it.
"But.." Alexandria said once she was face to face with the woman. "Your dead. You died with my father.. He," She shivered at the thought of the man who had held her in the cell earlier. "He killed you both. I saw the tape myself."
Elizabeth smiled as she took Alexandria's chin in her hand. "Don't believe everything you see, luv. Video can be misleading. I am very much alive." Alexandria's eyes were full of questions and Elizabeth knew she had the right to some answers. "Come luv, we'll have a spot of tea and I will explain all of this as best I can."
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
A wicked summer storm raged out side the mansion as Kitty and Rouge waited for the video from the mall parking lot's security cameras to download. They'd been working for hours with no luck at finding Alexandria. "Looks like 'Ro's waking up." Rogue said as she handed Kitty a cup of coffee.
Kitty looked up from the computer screen and out the window. "I was hoping we'd have something to tell her before she did." Rouge put a hand on Kitty's shoulder. "But everything happened so fast Rouge.. I can't.. It's all still a blur."
"You should take a break, maybe take a nap, go down and see 'Ro. You need to let yourself process it all, Kitty. You've been in here since y'all got back." Rouge said softly. The younger woman was already shaking her head.
"Rouge be right, chere." A smooth male voice said from the doorway. Kitty and Rouge both looked up and smiled at the Cajun. "You not do the petite any good if you to tired to t'ink straight. And 'Ro isn' gonna be happy if you go and burn yo'slef out."
Again Kitty shook her head. "I can't just do nothing. It's my fault she's gone. If I had grabbed her, made her come to the van like Ororo told me then she...."
"T'in she would have been fightin' to get back out of de van." Remy said as he leaned on the control island in the middle of the room. "That little bit o' thunder can be just as hard headed and stubborn as her ol' man was."
Kitty leapt to her feet as she slammed her hand down on the console. "But she'd still be here! Don't you get it!" Kitty's rant was quickly interrupted by the sound of the computer beeping at them. Kitty sat down again and started to call up the security tape. The three teammates watched the tape completely though before Kitty started zooming in, clearing up, and extracting certain parts.
"Who did the attackin' chere?" Gambit asked as he watched Ororo and Alexandria go flying on the screen. "The attack she look familiar to Gambit."
Kitty shrugged as she continued to work. "I couldn't see them. I was in the van with Rachel and Logan. Bobby and Sam might have seen their faces."
Gambit shook his head. "Not be the faces chere.. Be the powers."
"Ya know sugar not that you'd said somethin'." Rogue said as she called up the attack on another screen. She replayed the section of the tape where Ororo and Alexandria were attacked and paused it. "There.. The plasma hitting those cars.. It comes in waves.. Kinda like Havok's use ta." Rouge said as she pointed out what she saw. "Then here.. The blast that shot at 'Ro and Lex.. It kinda looks like Scooter's."
Kitty looked at what Rouge was showing her but it didn't make any sense. "Why would Scott be attacking us? And besides, Havok's been dead for years.. He was one of the first victims of that mutant that killed Wolverine and Psylocke."
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
"Alexandria" Ororo murmured as the storm outside continued to rage.
Jean held tightly to Ororo's hand as she listened to the thunder out side. "Shh, my love, you need to relax before you take out all of Salem Center." She whispered into the ear which lay behind a sheet of white hair. Ororo's eyes fluttered open and she turned to look at Jean who brushed her hand down the cheek of her lover. "Welcome back beautiful."
"Jean," Ororo said in a horse voice. "what happened? Where are the children?" She started to sit up but Jean put her hand on her shoulder and told her not to sit up to fast. "Jean." She said again more sharply.
"Logan and Rachel are with the Professor, Kitty is working in the control room and.."
"Alexandria is missing." Ororo finished. Jean nodded. There was a long pause in which neither woman said a word and then Ororo began to cry. "It was just like with Logan, Jean. We were attacked, I went down, there was a bright flash of light and then.. He was.. Now she's.."
Jean sat on the edge of the bed and took Ororo into her arms. "No, Ororo. No, it's not like Logan.. She's not dead.. She's not."
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
"Ok," Alexandria said as she began to pace outside of Elizabeth's tent. "Let me get this straight. The guy with the green hair is a gate keeper. He has the power to open portals into other realties. Which is what this is.. An attentive realty to the one we come from. This guy was sent to grab my mom but grabbed me instead, cause this other mutant.. What did you call him? The Collector? What a dumb name. But anyway, this bad guy wanted to use my mom to get something back that he lost."
Elizabeth watched the young woman walk back and froth in front of her. "Alexandria, that drives me as nuts as it use to when your mother did it.. Please, luv, sit down.. And yes that's the jest of how you got here and way, but it's only the tip of the whole bloody ice burg."
Alexandria stopped pacing and sat next to Elizabeth. She still couldn't believe that she was sitting next to a woman who'd been dead to her for the past ten years. 'Ask her.' A voice in the back of her head kept saying. 'If she's here ask if he is as well." Alexandria shook her head to stop the voice and clear her mind. Everything she'd been told so far seemed like something out of one of her Uncle Bobby's sci-fi books.
"Lexie," Elizabeth said softly, "are you alright?" The look on Alexandria's face caused the woman to blush. It was definitely a, 'what the hell do you think' look. A look she'd know anywhere since she'd seen it pass over Wolverine's face many times. "Right then, suppose not." Elizabeth took a sip of her tea and then looked at the girl once more. "Lexie, before we go on can I ask you something?" Alexandria nodded. "Since finding out who I was, and that I'm still very much alive, why haven't you asked me about your father?"
"I'm afraid to." Alexandria asked softly.
Elizabeth nodded. "How much do you know about the battle we died in?"
"Not much." Alexandria told her softly. "My Mom never really talked about it. Like I said before I saw a video that had been taken by the blackbird's on board cam, but I was watching that from the doorway of the control room and over Kitty's shoulder. I saw enough though to know that the man who had me before is the man on the tape."
"Well," Elizabeth said as she looked at Alexandria once more. "Let me give you the real story. You see," Elizabeth stopped when Alexandria stood up abruptly. "What is it?"
"Someone in the field behind us." Alexandria said as she stepped out side. "I can smell them."
Elizabeth stood and walked up behind her. "You have your father's senses?"
Alexandria nodded. "Not nearly as good. Things don't drive me as nuts as I'm sure they did him, but I can pick up things.. Can heal real good too."
Elizabeth watched as the girl's eyes began to white over. "No, Alexandria. It's alright. I think I know who is coming.. And I think you do too."
The winds in the camp were harsh and cruel. The perfect match for the mood Alexandria was in. She opened her eyes slowly and rubbed her throbbing head. She looked around her quickly to get her bearings and found she wasn't in the small cell anymore. She was laying on a cot in a large spacious tent. She sat up slowly since her head was swimming. She shook it lightly to clear it and could once again feel her powers surging though her. "What the hell?" She asked the room. There was no answer. She remained on the cot as she closed her eyes, listening to everything and anything she could hear. There was water near by, a lake perhaps. People all around her. Birds, other small animals. Footsteps.. Someone was coming towards her again. "Well this time they won't get a chance to touch me." Alexandria stood and watched the tent flap.
Thomas entered the tent with a tray of food and some tea. He was surprised by the sight of the child awake and standing but even more surprised at the girl's eyes. They were white as snow with no sigh of the brilliant blue irises or even pupils. The skies out side grew dark and a crack of thunder sounded angrily, shaking the ground under everyone's feet. A gust of wind knocked the try from Thomas' hands and then another knocked him backwards.
"I'm getting really sick and tired of being knocked out and waking up in strange places." Alexandria hissed as she below Thomas out of the tent. She hovered in the air as she threw the man into a tree just out side the tent. Lightening flashed all around her. "So unless you wanna know how it feels to be deep fried from the inside out, I'd start taking Bub!" A streak of lightening landed at Thomas' feet. Alexandria kept him pinned to the tree with the winds.
"That will be quite enough, Alexandria."
The sudden voice in her mind started Alexandria, but she kept a grip on what she was doing as she looked around to see who had projected to her. "Who said that?" She asked as if she were talking to Jean.
"I did, Lexie."
Alexandria's gaze fell onto a tall woman with black and purple hair. Her fair skin and purple eyes, and the British accented voice opened memories of being five again, sitting in the sun room drinking tea and being read the complete works of A. A. Milne. "How do you know my name?" She asked the woman who was walking up to her. Alexandria kept Thomas pinned but moved a hand towards the woman who was coming closer to her. She recognized the woman, but it couldn't really be her.. She was dead.
"I was there the day your parents' named you, luv." The woman said as she stopped walking against the wind. "You know who I am don't you?"
Alexandria looked at the woman critically. "You look like someone I use to know, but she died with my father ten years ago."
Elizabeth shook her head. "I can assure you, Lexie, I am far from being dead. But I don't blame you for being skeptical. You must be very confused and scared. I can prove to you I am who you think I am." Elizabeth looked up at the young girl and smiled.
"I not only know your name, but I know how your parents chose your names. You where named Alexandria after the Egyptian city in which you were conceived." Alexandria blushed which made Elizabeth smile more. "You share your middle name, Francis, with Professor Xavier. Or do you still call him Papa Charlie?" She paused a moment. Alexandria had her full attention on her but she still wasn't letting up on the storm, which could do a lot of damage if she couldn't get the girl to clam down and believe her.
"You carry your mother's surname because no one ever knew weather Logan was your father's first or last name. Although when your were naughty enough and your mother wanted to get your attention quickly she'd call your Alexandria Francis Logan Munroe. She still do that, luv?" Elizabeth could finally feel the winds around her start to ease as she spoke to the child in her mind. "Your godparents are Jean Gray and Remy LeBeau. Tell me Lexie, does Remy still call you Snowflake? And what was it he called you when you were being moody? Ah yes, his little thunder cloud." Elizabeth smiled when she saw Thomas fall from the trunk of the tree and dash away.
"You have a little brother. Five years your junior. His name is Logan Henry Xavier Munroe. The first time you saw him after Jean brought you down to med lab you told him that you loved him and that you would share your momma and daddy with him, but that Kitty, Jubilee, Jean, Remy, and even Rouge, though she was his godmother, were off limits cause they were yours. You told him he could have Scott if he wanted him."
"It didn't work ya know." Alexandria said as she set herself gently onto the ground. The winds had died down and the sky was starting to lighten. "He still acts like Aunt Marie is all his." Alexandria took a few easy steps towards the other woman. No one out side the family would have know what her fist words to her new brother would have been, nor would they have known that her Uncle Remy called her his little thunder cloud when she was mad or being a brat. "Aunt Betsy?" She asked still in disbelief.
Elizabeth nodded as she felt a thump in her chest. She hadn't heard anyone call her Aunt Betsy in ages, and until know she never realized how much she had missed it.
"But.." Alexandria said once she was face to face with the woman. "Your dead. You died with my father.. He," She shivered at the thought of the man who had held her in the cell earlier. "He killed you both. I saw the tape myself."
Elizabeth smiled as she took Alexandria's chin in her hand. "Don't believe everything you see, luv. Video can be misleading. I am very much alive." Alexandria's eyes were full of questions and Elizabeth knew she had the right to some answers. "Come luv, we'll have a spot of tea and I will explain all of this as best I can."
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
A wicked summer storm raged out side the mansion as Kitty and Rouge waited for the video from the mall parking lot's security cameras to download. They'd been working for hours with no luck at finding Alexandria. "Looks like 'Ro's waking up." Rogue said as she handed Kitty a cup of coffee.
Kitty looked up from the computer screen and out the window. "I was hoping we'd have something to tell her before she did." Rouge put a hand on Kitty's shoulder. "But everything happened so fast Rouge.. I can't.. It's all still a blur."
"You should take a break, maybe take a nap, go down and see 'Ro. You need to let yourself process it all, Kitty. You've been in here since y'all got back." Rouge said softly. The younger woman was already shaking her head.
"Rouge be right, chere." A smooth male voice said from the doorway. Kitty and Rouge both looked up and smiled at the Cajun. "You not do the petite any good if you to tired to t'ink straight. And 'Ro isn' gonna be happy if you go and burn yo'slef out."
Again Kitty shook her head. "I can't just do nothing. It's my fault she's gone. If I had grabbed her, made her come to the van like Ororo told me then she...."
"T'in she would have been fightin' to get back out of de van." Remy said as he leaned on the control island in the middle of the room. "That little bit o' thunder can be just as hard headed and stubborn as her ol' man was."
Kitty leapt to her feet as she slammed her hand down on the console. "But she'd still be here! Don't you get it!" Kitty's rant was quickly interrupted by the sound of the computer beeping at them. Kitty sat down again and started to call up the security tape. The three teammates watched the tape completely though before Kitty started zooming in, clearing up, and extracting certain parts.
"Who did the attackin' chere?" Gambit asked as he watched Ororo and Alexandria go flying on the screen. "The attack she look familiar to Gambit."
Kitty shrugged as she continued to work. "I couldn't see them. I was in the van with Rachel and Logan. Bobby and Sam might have seen their faces."
Gambit shook his head. "Not be the faces chere.. Be the powers."
"Ya know sugar not that you'd said somethin'." Rogue said as she called up the attack on another screen. She replayed the section of the tape where Ororo and Alexandria were attacked and paused it. "There.. The plasma hitting those cars.. It comes in waves.. Kinda like Havok's use ta." Rouge said as she pointed out what she saw. "Then here.. The blast that shot at 'Ro and Lex.. It kinda looks like Scooter's."
Kitty looked at what Rouge was showing her but it didn't make any sense. "Why would Scott be attacking us? And besides, Havok's been dead for years.. He was one of the first victims of that mutant that killed Wolverine and Psylocke."
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
"Alexandria" Ororo murmured as the storm outside continued to rage.
Jean held tightly to Ororo's hand as she listened to the thunder out side. "Shh, my love, you need to relax before you take out all of Salem Center." She whispered into the ear which lay behind a sheet of white hair. Ororo's eyes fluttered open and she turned to look at Jean who brushed her hand down the cheek of her lover. "Welcome back beautiful."
"Jean," Ororo said in a horse voice. "what happened? Where are the children?" She started to sit up but Jean put her hand on her shoulder and told her not to sit up to fast. "Jean." She said again more sharply.
"Logan and Rachel are with the Professor, Kitty is working in the control room and.."
"Alexandria is missing." Ororo finished. Jean nodded. There was a long pause in which neither woman said a word and then Ororo began to cry. "It was just like with Logan, Jean. We were attacked, I went down, there was a bright flash of light and then.. He was.. Now she's.."
Jean sat on the edge of the bed and took Ororo into her arms. "No, Ororo. No, it's not like Logan.. She's not dead.. She's not."
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
"Ok," Alexandria said as she began to pace outside of Elizabeth's tent. "Let me get this straight. The guy with the green hair is a gate keeper. He has the power to open portals into other realties. Which is what this is.. An attentive realty to the one we come from. This guy was sent to grab my mom but grabbed me instead, cause this other mutant.. What did you call him? The Collector? What a dumb name. But anyway, this bad guy wanted to use my mom to get something back that he lost."
Elizabeth watched the young woman walk back and froth in front of her. "Alexandria, that drives me as nuts as it use to when your mother did it.. Please, luv, sit down.. And yes that's the jest of how you got here and way, but it's only the tip of the whole bloody ice burg."
Alexandria stopped pacing and sat next to Elizabeth. She still couldn't believe that she was sitting next to a woman who'd been dead to her for the past ten years. 'Ask her.' A voice in the back of her head kept saying. 'If she's here ask if he is as well." Alexandria shook her head to stop the voice and clear her mind. Everything she'd been told so far seemed like something out of one of her Uncle Bobby's sci-fi books.
"Lexie," Elizabeth said softly, "are you alright?" The look on Alexandria's face caused the woman to blush. It was definitely a, 'what the hell do you think' look. A look she'd know anywhere since she'd seen it pass over Wolverine's face many times. "Right then, suppose not." Elizabeth took a sip of her tea and then looked at the girl once more. "Lexie, before we go on can I ask you something?" Alexandria nodded. "Since finding out who I was, and that I'm still very much alive, why haven't you asked me about your father?"
"I'm afraid to." Alexandria asked softly.
Elizabeth nodded. "How much do you know about the battle we died in?"
"Not much." Alexandria told her softly. "My Mom never really talked about it. Like I said before I saw a video that had been taken by the blackbird's on board cam, but I was watching that from the doorway of the control room and over Kitty's shoulder. I saw enough though to know that the man who had me before is the man on the tape."
"Well," Elizabeth said as she looked at Alexandria once more. "Let me give you the real story. You see," Elizabeth stopped when Alexandria stood up abruptly. "What is it?"
"Someone in the field behind us." Alexandria said as she stepped out side. "I can smell them."
Elizabeth stood and walked up behind her. "You have your father's senses?"
Alexandria nodded. "Not nearly as good. Things don't drive me as nuts as I'm sure they did him, but I can pick up things.. Can heal real good too."
Elizabeth watched as the girl's eyes began to white over. "No, Alexandria. It's alright. I think I know who is coming.. And I think you do too."