Chapter 11

Ok, a quick recap. I fell in love with a guy, and broke his heart. That's normal. I beat up a guy who should have crushed me. Literally. Getting weirder. I'm an escaped mutant from a mental facility where they cut me open and sewed me together again, badly. Oh yeah, I'm made of glass.

...How am I not yet crazy!? Oh, right. I am.

Glacier sat on the side off the bed, her head in her hands. She lifted her throbbing head, and looked around herself. She was underground, the walls harshly cut stone. Veins of metal crisscrossed them, shining dimly onto her arms. She got up, and walked to the long mirror on one wall, her metal framed bed behind her. A girl looked back at her. Her hair was tangled. Glacier focused on that normal worry, to stop her whole world crashing down around her. She let a glass spike slither out of her arm, delicately pointed. She lifted it, and roughly hacked off a chunk of hair. She carried on chopping, the hair gathering around her like dust. Her hair got shorter until it was only a few inches long. She rubbed her head, small tufts flying from it. It looked as though it had been pulled apart. Just like her. She had left everything. Her heart yearned for the warm touch of another's hands, stroking her arms. Her own cold hands slid up her forearm, and she looked down at it, expecting to see...She looked back up at the mirror, her eyes blurred with tears. If she closed her eyes, then she could almost...feel him standing there. Next to her. She needed him. Her fingers curled around her arm, and her shoulders trembled. Tears dropped freely onto the floor, making small, sad noises. Glacier looked up again, seeing herself, a pathetic creature, reaching for something she could never have. She pitied herself, and disgusted herself at the same time. She let go of her arm, and stood up straight, staring herself down in the glass. She didn't need anyone. But, a tiny voice reminded her scornfully, you so obviously do.

The door opened smoothly. She turned, and saw a graceful woman slink in, covered in blue, almost scaly skin.

"What do you want?" Glacier asked imperiously.

Mystique's eyes narrowed, as she smiled wickedly at her. "It's time for your training."

Mystique prowled into a large circular room, devoid of all constructs, apart from a rack of silver rods. Mystique picked one up, and swung it round her, holding it against her back as she waved her hand for Glacier to get one as well.

Glacier lifted her arm, shot out a glass spear and caught it. "I prefer this," she said quietly.

Mystique smiled, pointed the end of the shaft at her, and raised her hand. Her fingers curled, persuading her forwards.

Glacier shook her head in amusement, then whipped into the air, landed, both feet on Mystiques shoulders, jumped off, swept onto the floor, one leg tucked under in a low crouch, her spear swung behind her.

Mystique whirled around, and raised one eyebrow. She jack-vaulted over Glacier using her rod, and landed behind her, swinging her rod around so that it caught her across the back. It never met flesh, Glacier flattened herself at the last minute, and the rod swished against the empty air. Glacier twirled her leg around, and Mystique jumped into the air, her body quivering. Glacier jumped up, her own body electrified with adrenalin.

Mystique circled her slowly, staring her down. Glacier watched her, flicking her hair out of her eyes. Or she would have, if she still had hair.

Then they were really trying to fight. It was like a dance, if the dancers had the potential to kill one another with their bare hands. Glacier closed her eyes and let her instincts guide her.

"Enough!" Magneto said from the doorway, a small green man crouching behind him. He clapped his hands together slowly, three times. "Very well done, my dears." He started walking toward them, flipping his cloak off his shoulders. The other man caught it, and rolled it up, holding it close to his body.

Glacier's chest heaved, and she wiped the sweat from her brow. She looked down, and saw a trail of blood across her hand. She felt her forehead, and her fingers felt the sticky, warm oozings of a gash that ran from one side to the other. She pressed the skin together, and the cells quickly knitted tightly. Mystique wasn't so lucky, her arms patterned with criss-crossed cuts. They wouldn't scar. Glacier smiled at her, and she grinned back.

Magneto wound an arm around Mystique's waist. "She really is impressive, isn't she my dear?"

Mystique stuck out her chin, and sniffed in contempt, but her eyes sparked with the fight. "She could be of some use," she said in her strange, almost echoing voice.

Magneto smiled, and turned on his heel, his hands now behind him. "We shall put you to great use, Glacier, mark my words." He walked out of the room, the man holding his cloak smiling wickedly at Glacier, looking her up and down.

Glacier spun the rod in her hand, and shoved it back up her arm. Mystique threw a towel at her, and Glacier was caught off guard. It hit her in the face.

Mystique sniggered. "You can dodge nearly all of my attacks, and yet if I have a towel, I have the upper hand."

"Ha ha," Glacier stuck her tongue out. "Shut up. You're just sour 'cos I beat you."

Mystique frowned. "You didn't beat me."

"Right, right. You let me win, because I'm so weak, and helpless and new. You just wanted to show me the ropes, and I almost strangled you with them." Glacier threw the towel back at her. It didn't hit her.