Once again, I've made an error in one of my chapters, and once again, it seems no one but myself has caught it. When Noir's DNA was being examined by Jean Grey, she claimed it was full of 'good DNA'. Now, while this may not be an error literally, it is an error in context. The terms 'good' and 'junk' are used a bit haphazardly by me, in regards to Noir's genes. For those of you who don't know, 'junk DNA' isn't DNA that's useless, it's DNA that the scientific community has little or no understanding of as to it's use or function. Since Noir isn't a mutant, he doesn't have the so called 'X gene' that would explain his powers. While 'good DNA' can explain his ability to leap particularly high compaired to the average human, or the ability to lift several tons, it doesn't explain his ability to project kenetic energy or to 'magicly' change his clothing on demand. The latter, well, some of the latter, can be attributed to 'junk DNA'. So, while Jean's testing would produce accurate results, meaning, that the dominant human genes are inherantly 'good', a lot of the overall results would be meaningless to her.
Phew, that took a bit out of me.What else, what else? Oh yes, I have a plot, it's just going on in the background it seems, if you squint really hard though, you should be able to make it out. If you can't seem to figure it out though, don't worry, you're not alone.
And if you know what the word 'esoteric' means, you're two steps ahead of the pack. Kudos.
It doesn't count if you had to look it up though.
Mistaken Identity
Chapter Eleven
Like any story worth telling, this one is about a girl.
BEGIN CHAPTER
Life used to be so simple. Save the girl, beat the villan, sleep. The same old thing, day in, day out. Then, one day, I met this girl, and everything changed.
It wasn't something instant, everything didn't just suddenly 'click'. It didn't slowly dawn on me over time, it was like remembering something I allready known and had just forgotten for awhile.
I met this girl, and then, I met the same girl, only, she wasn't the same girl, she was trying to kill me.
Or maybe she was just desperate for a date and wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.
I'm still not too clear on that.
Hindsight is such a funny thing, everything can be all dark and muddy You spend your hours and days wondering, trying to make some sense of something that reads like a stack of papers gone through a shredder. Then, after it's all over, when everything is said and done, it seems so clear, so obvious.
What you should have done, what you could've done, what you would have done, if only you had known. But, of course, that's the thing about hindsight, you didn't know, so you couldn't do anything about it at the time.
That's the thing I love about it all, it let's you kick yourself in the ass and say 'What an idiot I was.'
But that's the thing, about being human. You're no smarter, no wiser, you just realize that you messed up, and say to yourself; 'I'll never do that again.'
And then you do.
Y'see, that's what being human really is, being ignorant.
The important thing is to realize that you have been ignorant, accept it, and learn to do things differently. The only problem is, how do you know that you're ignorant, if you're really ignorant?
That's another thing about being human, you're a walking contradiction.
Ain't it grand?
BREAK DAMMIT
Groaning at the sudden strain he was putting on his muscles, Noir forced his legs to move, locking his knees to prevent himself from falling over onto his face. "Yeah, this isn't feeling too good...Little help?" Gritting his teeth from the effort of working muscles and joints that had become weakened from a month of atrophy, he clentched one of his hands over the safety rail bolted to the side of the bed.
Stepping closer, Jubilee grabbed one of Noir's wrists and draped his arm over her shoulders, half-dragging him across the room. "Let's go Van Winkle, we don't have time for jumping jacks." Pushing open the door with her free hand, Jubilee was forced to wrap her arm around the weakened hero's waist as his legs buckled.
"Not feelin' so hot right now, come back...Next...Weee..." Noir's vision hazed out in a blur of throbbing purple as his heart raced to feed blood to his head, getting up so quickly after being bedridden for a month was allready pushing him to his limits, he was in no condition to be sitting upright, let alone walking.
"Upsy-daisy! We've got to get out of here before-" The floor seemed to quiver slightly, it was almost imperceptible with the deadweight in her arms. Then the floor moved again, mimicing the crawling sensation of Jubilee's skin. A third time, the floor actully shuddered, she could feel the vibrations through the soles of her sneakers and everything in the medical room not bolted down bounced, jangled or clattered a testiment to the approching danger. Now moving heedless of Noir's discomfort, Jubilee hooked her elbows under his arms and began dragging his limp body backwards towards the lift. "Just great. 'Stay home Jubilee, it's safer at the mansion.' Riiii-ight." Hugging the body to her chest with one arm, she used the elbow of her free arm to jab the 'up' button, she could feel the shaft vibrate through the metallic doors her back was pressed against. "Come on, come on...'It's too dangerous for you to go on missions yet, maybe when you're older.' Yeah, if I live to be any older."
The doors silently parted behind her, dumping Jubilee to the floor of the elevator on her backside, Noir's upper torso sprawled over her thighs. "They'd better make this one up to me in spades." Squirming backwards, she roughly hauled Noir towards her as the door slid shut. Silently contemplating the doom that awaited them above, Jubilee tried to ignore the awkward position she was in, and succeeded, for a few seconds.
Pent up frustration boiled to the fore as she glared down at the masked face pressed against the inside of her thighs. "If you even think about waking up now, I'm going to kill you."
ANOTHER BREAK
"With great power, comes great responsibility."
"With gr- what? What the hell is that? Sounds like something you'd find in a fortune cookie."
Inwardly, Peter bristled. Uncle Ben had taught him those words, imparting a sort of guideline by which he would live his life. He had great power, and he chose to use that power responsibly. He protected the people of New York, instead of using that power for his own gain. He had done that once, never again would he make that same mistake.
"Maybe you should watch what you say, he is a 'hero'."
"And what the hell am I, chopped liver?" Urd allways had something to say, Mato wasn't sure if it was because she was a goddess, because it was in her personality, or because she was a woman.
"Huh?" Peter cocked his head to the side, confused by the sudden, not to mention strange remark.
"I heard that."
"Crud." Staring at Peter Parker for a moment, Mato reached out and swung his arm at the boy's face.
"Wh-" For some reason, Peter's spidersense didn't blare an alert, not like it usually did. This time it felt sluggish, perceptibly slower. Blunt too, like something had dulled it's edge. The back of Mato's hand caught Peter on the cheekbone, cranking his head back and to the side, making stars swim through his vision. He felt the room lurch to a dizzying angle, and something slammed into the backs of his shoulders. Colors flashed between the ceiling and his eyes, deep red and a sort of bruised purple that didn't really go with the apartment's color sceme. Then everything went black.
YET ANOTHER BREAK
A sigh, feminine and breezy, drifted on the air. "I can see he has as delicate a touch as ever." A shadow flitted over Peter's face, cutting off the warm sunlight he was enjoying. That was wrong, somehow.
Opening his eyes, He saw a face, coppery skin and white lustrous hair was all that he could make out. Flexing his fingers, he felt fine, gritty sand against his skin. That was wrong too.
Another voice called from nearby. "Oi! Urd! Izzat kid awake yet?"
Smiling, the woman turned to the side, her thick hair brushing against Peter's bare chest. He could make out her face now, beautiful, delicate features, as perfect as any movie stars. An odd trio of blue marks on the middle of her forehead and on her cheekbones stood out. They suited her somehow, Peter decided, as if her face wouldn't look complete without them. "Yes, he's awake, no thanks to you."
"Hey, you're the one who suggested this whole thing y'know!"
"I did not suggest knocking him senseless."
"Senseless, trance, same difference."
Sighing, the woman, Urd, for that was who she was, put a hand to her face and muttered something about 'suffering fools'.
"Where-" He sat up. He was sitting on a strech of sand that continued on to the horizon both right and left. Craning his head to look over his shoulder, he noted the slight rise that led to an equally endless strech of lush green grass. Turning back, he stared at the just as equally, if not more so, endless blue sheet of water before him. "We're on the beach." He took in the pristine sight for a few seconds, before adding, "Why are we on the beach?"
"What, y'don't like the beach? Everybody loves the beach."
"Not Skuld."
"Why the hell not?"
"Sand gets into her machines."
"Oh."
Slowly standing up, Peter noticed that his head felt fine, none of the usual throbbing and skull splitting agony that usually if not allways accompanied a good stiff shot to the head. Brushing his hands off on his chest, he also realized that he was dressed in a pair of swimming trunks, blue and red, with black webbing overtop.
"Ya like?" Peter looked up to find the man who had knocked him for an extended loop grinning at him, wearing nothing but a pair of black and yellow swim trunks. "My idea, Urd wanted to stick you in a robe or something more 'fitting' the occasion. Goddesses, feh, as 'wise' and 'semi-all powerful' they may be, they just don't get the idea of a theme."
"Huh?" Peter brushed his hands off again, this time on the trunks. He felt a little out of touch with his surroundings, and the word goddess wasn't sinking in properly.
"Costume, y'know, your battle gear?"
"Battle garb."
"No, I'm pretty sure it's 'battle gear'."
"Which one of us is the goddess of the past?"
"Oh yeah? Which one of us actully gets the idea of battling?"
"Um, excuse me?" Peter felt like he was on a G rated episode of Jerry Springer or something equally as impossible. "Are you two married or something? Because I can just g-"
"What?"
"The hell?"
"Oh, um... I..." Mildly stunned from the twin pairs of intense eyes boring into him, Peter hastily tried to recover his mental footing. "Ah, what I ment was, well, you two act like you're-"
"Me an' her?"
"Married to him? How hard did you hit him?" Turning to look at Mato, Urd gave him a sharp glare.
"Hey, I didn't hit him that hard. Just a little smack upside the head is all."
"Where are we anyways? Really where we are, not just 'the beach'."
"Oh, heh, we're in some sorta shared dream thingy."
"We're in a unified cognative trance."
"That's what I said, a shared dream thingy."
Sighing, Urd pressed her plams against her face, muttering something sounding suspiciously like a prayer. "This is exactly why we need that charm."
"Charm? What charm? Is it anything like lu-"
"Please don't mention cereal, I've had enough of that sort of joke to last five lifetimes."
"Oh." Peter said dully, feeling more out of his depth than he had been in highschool, and that was about as far as one could get.
"Funny, you don't look a day over twenty."
I BLAME STUPID PREVIEW THING
Hauling Noir down the richly carpeted hallway, Jubilee wondered just how beat up the body she was dragging along really was. Jean had announced before leaving the Noir was healing rapidly, but what was that in relation to? Rapidly compaired to Logan? Rapidly compaired to a normal human? Rapidly compaired to someone who had both arms shattered like glass might apply, she supposed. "You'd better be good for something besides a bed warmer."
The sickening lurching of the floor suddenly stopped, as did the subsonic thudding that had accompanied it. "Good thing, or bad thing?" Dragging Noir into the main foyer, she jerked around and stared at the large double doors at the front of the mansion, doing a fair impression of a deer caught in a truck's headlights. Soft creaking sounds were never a good thing to hear after lots of heavy thudding, she decided as she hauled Noir behind the low wall next to the stairs overlooking the foyer.
Thats when a pair of giant purple hands crashed through the front wall, obliterating the front door and several square yards of wall in the process.
Jubilee's pitiful whimper was drowned out by the sound of the giant metal body that followed the arms through the front wall.
Colored in a rather ugly shade of purple from elbow to fingertip, as well as knee to foot, the rest of the massive metallic robot was colored a deep blue. It looked vaugely centurion-like and stood roughly thirty feet tall.
A Sentinel. A machine made for the sole purpose of hunting down and either capturing or worse, killing, mutants.
Peeking around the edge of the wall and down the staircase, Jubilee watched as the mechanical beast strode to the base of the stairs, it's red eyes glowing brightly in the dim light cast by cracked and broken light fixtures along the walls.
"Mutant detected."
She couldn't help but tremble at the sound of it's synthesized voice. 32 Kilobytes of terror. The clanking sound of a rachet being cranked in slow motion was another kind of terror all together, it was the sound metallic tendrils extruding from the machine's palms.
"Unnhhh... Is this a bad time to ask for a glass of water?" Noir's head lifted off of the floor, swaying aimlessly as he tried to sort out what his eyes were telling his brain.
"Shhhh! We-" Jubilee never got the chance to finish, as gunmetal grey ropes speared through the flimsy wall they were using for shelter and wrapped around both of their bodys, scooping them up as if they were mere dolls.
"Mutant apprehended. Target apprehended." The sentinel lifted them up towards it's chest, where a seam was quickly spreading from neck to waist. Pannels slid apart to expose a flat grey screen that brightened with a brief crackle of static before projecting the image of a girl not much younger than Jubilee. "Transceiver online. Speak."
Jubilee stared at the girl on the screen, stunned as she was by this sudden twist, all she could utter was a stupifyed- "Uhhhh..."
"It means me... Hello Skuld, playing with bigger toys now I see." Noir shook his head and seemed to throw off the worst of the groggy feeling that had enveloped him since he had woken up. "Some kids just never seem to grow up, do they?"
Skuld flashed a sunny smile and snapped her fingers. A wire-frame model of the Sentinel appeared over her shoulder. "What's holding you n-" Turning bright red as the rest of the comment sunk in, Skuld snapped her fingers again. This time, electricity crackled along the length of the tendril that held Noir, crawling across his body, making him jerk and spasm untill she snapped her fingers again. "Ahem, as I was saying, before you so rudely interupted me... What's holding you now is a design made by the resident humans of this dem-"
Noir coughed, smoke rising from his costume in places, he hadn't thought to insulate it, or even put in padding, it was simply regular cloth. "So you're saying you couldn't come up with the lame idea of making this hunk of junk yourself? Sad, you're losing your touch."
Turning even redder, Skuld snapped her fingers again, and once more, electricity coursed through Noir's body. It lasted for several seconds this time, clearly, the first had merely been a warning. "-Ension. Obviously, I have improved on the series by adding my own touches here and there." Skuld beamed onscreen. "Do you like my logo? It took a long time to get the colors just right."
"I'd be more impressed if you weren't trying to kill me, I'm not a lightbulb y'know." If it was possible, Noir sounded even worse off than before. Parts of his costume were actully burning.
Snapping her fingers again, the seemingly omniscient girl triggered the fire suppression devices in the sentinel's upper arm, shrouding Noir in a cloud of CO2. "Silly, I'm not trying to kill you, I'm just trying to show you that it's far better to just give up and be with me than to keep fighting me like this."
"You sure have a funny way of showing it." Jubilee snapped from off to the side, she felt like a guest star or something. If her arms weren't pinned to her sides, she would have paffed the screen with her powers, followed by the sentinel's eyes.
Completely ignoring the junior X-man, Skuld covered half of her face with a hand. Perhaps she was making a vague mockery of Noir's choice of clothing at the moment. "Well? Have you decided? What do you say?"
Coughing to clear his lungs, Noir weakly lifted his head to stare at the screen in disbelief. "What do I say? I say..." Wrentching an arm free from the tight embrace of the metal coils, he viciously stabbed his finger into the sentinel's chest. "BAKUSAI TENKETSU!"
The sentinel remained stationary for a moment, before breaking apart. Not like it had been hit by a particularly crushing force, no, Noir's pitiful jab had made a hole as big around as a nickel, but the result was quite the opposite. The sentinel blew apart like a giant grenade, pieces of it flying all over, embedding themselves into the floor, ceiling and walls of the X-mansion's foyer.
Jubilee watched the ensuing chaos from Noir's protected embrace, he had snatched her away from the destruction at the last second and they were currently huddled beside the stairs. The ruined pile of splintered wood offered some meager protection. Once it was over, Noir pulled away and tugged Jubilee to her feet. Nothing was left of the sentinel, it was scattered all over the room in pieces.
"Wow." This guy was, well, amazing. He was sorta like Psylocke and Colossus rolled up into one, with a dash of Logan to boot. "How'd you-"
"Save it, round two's comin' up, and I think I just made Skuld mad." Pointing outside, Noir lowered himself into a half crouch.
Following his point, Jubilee paled slightly.
Roughly a dozen sentinels were touching down on the mansion grounds and were slowly stomping their way towards the mansion.
"I think we can take 'em."
"...Has anyone ever told you that you're nuts?"
"It's come up once or twice."
CHAPTER END
Review time!
SushiiSquirrel - Well, you said you wanted more Noir, so here you go. I hope this enough to hold you untill the next chapter. And besides the wit, I hope I've added another few vague hints about the plot.
Mikai - And you'll keep those words to yourself missy! No cussing here... Er... Besides what I write...
Moonjava - Thanks?
So, sorry I took so long with this chapter, I was in a bit of a funk over.. Well, some personal things, and worrying about my poor leg. Ah well, no reason for you all to suffer for it, right?
But, did you ever notice, how the X-men never seem to be of any use? At all? What's up with that?
