Darwinian Rhapsody
By LejindaryBunny
A totally awesome X-Men: Evolution fanfiction
A/N: You're not going to believe why this took so long. I'll tell you after the chapter.
Disclaimer: I'm flattered.
Chapter 25.The Birds Began to Sing
The battle was hard. The lab turned out to have been beneath the old warehouse, guarded by Sentinels and similar ilk. Cyclops, Jean, Shadow Cat, Spyke, Wolverine, Avalanche and Toad had fought their way through the defenses to an intersection of four corridors. Presumably one of them would lead to the main lab. To Trask, to Ebony, to Hunter or who knew what else.
"Time to fan out team," Scott said. "Jean and I will take the left most corridor, Spyke, Shadow Cat, you take the one next to that. Wolverine, would you take the next one? Toad and Avalanche can search the left one."
The team voiced its agreement. Toad nodded, he hadn't spoken for almost and hour. His eyes were a bloodshot red and his mouth a hard, determined line. He skulked after Lance keeping aware of any danger that might have been.
Avalanche seemed unnerved by Toad's unnatural silence. He kept looking back as though to make sure he was really still there, worry in his eyes. But the lithe boy was beyond noticing. There was only one thing that permeated the reaches of his consciousness, Ebony. He would find her; he would rescue her. Two simple facts, these. It was not too late, there were not too many of them and they were certainly not too strong. It didn't even matter that the Professor had all but forced him to wear the disgusting green and black jester costume. No tights, no fights he had muttered to himself earlier.
But now no witty banter came to mind; there was nothing funny or even morbidly humorous that he could find in the situation. He concentrated on passing through the corridor as quickly as possible in the manner that was most natural and expedient to him; in leaps and bounds. It was tensely silent, not since the fray with six or seven Sentinel 'bots to gain entrance to the lab had they been attacked. It was eerie.
They came to another diverging of ways. Lance turned to his teammate.
"Should we split up?"
But the Toad was already far-gone down his own path, the one to the right and darker of the two presented. Avalanche shrugged it off, albeit reluctantly, and headed down the passage left to him.
Toad had no sooner gone twenty meters down the metal encased corridor than an alarm began to sound. Had he set it off? He didn't know, but he knew that instantly rapid-fire laser cannons slid out from all angles and all the way down the passage. And they all of course oriented themselves on their one and only target. Fired.
And Toad did his thing. He continued down the corridor with much more intensity and velocity now, ricocheting off walls floor and ceiling, a somersault here, a back flip there, evading expertly each and every laser bolt with all the grace and fluidity of a mad super ball.
Impossibly powerful legs pushed off easily from any which way as though there was no such thing as gravity. Wide spread palms propelled him forward with form that would have made Olympic gymnasts sick with envy. For all intents and purposes Toad flew, no sooner did feet or hands meet purchase when off they sprang carrying the slender amphibian with seeming effortlessness. Not once did a laser bolt meet its target.
Now he was coming towards the end of the passage where a door of some metal waited, closed. Toad appraised it mid leap, landed for a split second on his hands and leapt towards it, feet first in a sort of double-footed flying kick.
And the door crashed to the floor with him atop it, landing in a ready for action, muscles coiled tighter than springs battle crouch. Toad's head whipped around, looking for danger, but the lasers, which could no longer track him, settled back into their chambers, and in the dark room in which he had landed, nothing moved.
Toad now scanned the room more thoroughly, his eyes growing quickly accustomed to the near total darkness. Aside from the passage behind him the only illumination was a gray sort of light from one corner which proved the lab to be just that. It looked like something out of a Frankenstein movie, a high budget one. All around cloaked in shadow were mysterious and horrible devices and tables, perversions of the noble scientific art to be sure. Drills, monitors, tables with shackles, pointy objects of any description and things much more complex and hard to explain. There wasn't a device in the room that didn't have wires of at least six different colors protruding from it.
He studied the abandoned laboratory in detached disgust realizing that this was indeed a Frankenstein's work shop for it must have been between these walls that the Sentinels were created.
It didn't take him long after his evaluation of the room to be drawn to find what was hidden in the far corner underneath the one ghastly charcoal light. He approached it tentatively peering intently at the spot as he closed in but keeping his other senses aware for danger. What he saw bathed under the sickly illumination was a tube of glass metal and wiring and he was nearly upon in when he realized what it contained.
A tiny, delicate and pale figure lay huddled in one corner, if a circular tube could be said to have corners. Locks of raven hair nearly as long as the form itself clung wetly to the otherwise unconcealed creature.
"Ebony!" Todd exclaimed at once, his first utterance in an eternity. He surged forward and threw open the hatch of the glass chamber, sprawling on his knees before it.
Slowly, feebly the ravaged elfin figure stirred, opening halfway glassy, tired looking black eyes. She opened blanched lips. "F-froggy?"
Now he clambered in to her crouching beside her wounded form. "S'me Eb'ny." He smiled weakly. "I came ta rescue you .The X-Men're here too. They're gonna trash this place for ya." He gave a pale imitation of his impish grin.
She tried to smile but failed managing only a grimace of what looked like quite a bit of pain. "I-I don't." she began.
"Shh, don' bother. We can talk later y'know. Right now 'm just gonna get ya outta here yo." He looked at her ruined little body. "Ya can't walk can ya?"
She shook her head weakly. "S.sorry."
"Don' worry 'bout it yo. I'll carry you," he offered gallantly. After all, she couldn't possibly weigh a significant amount. "Er, where are your clothes?"
She blushed, her cheeks tuning pink even as his did the same. "Gone," she said, in an ashamed sort of voice.
"Don' worry 'bout it," he insisted, but he wondered at the tone in her voice. "I guess you aren't up to making any new ones." he said rather lamely, remembering her power.
She failed to choke back sob, tears filling her eyes. "I c-can't." she told him in a terrified whisper.
He picked her up then, holding her maiden style in his lanky arms, trying to keep his eyes from straying off her tear-covered face and onto her naked form. He stood.
"S'okay. Y'gotta be exhausted and hurt an' too tired ta even make shadow puppets an' an' that guy's gonna pay for whatever he did ta ya." He finished the sentence in a growl now noticing the bloody slits in her shoulder blades.
"You don't under- he, he." but try as she might she couldn't form the words between the racking, terrified sobs escaping her throat.
But she didn't need to as Todd's eyes fell back on the bloody gashes and found their significance. For the life ether that stained her shoulders and upper chest, far from being raven black, was a glistening, bloody crimson.
"No," he said in disbelief, just as Ebony managed to convey her thoughts.
"Took them. He t-took my powers. I'm h-human," she sobbed and clung desperately closer to Todd's chest once again soaking his garment with tears.
His hands being occupied with holding her he nuzzled the top of her head with his face even as he turned to leave the lab. Crossing the room to the broken door holding the trembling girl he wondered how he was going to get past the lasers. But he needn't have worried.
Racing down the hall was Shadow Cat and Spyke who was taking out all the lasers as he ran.
"C'mon Toad, we gotta get outta here the whole place is about to blow!" he announced.
"What happened yo?" he asked darting towards them as quickly as he dared with his injured sweetheart clinging to him.
"Like everybody else made it to this one central room and we took out a bunch of Sentinels. Then the Scientist guy activated some self-destruct thing and tried to escape Scott and Jean went after him but I like donno what happened to them." Kitty's eyes fell on Ebony, "Is she going to be okay?" she asked with concern as they fled back out of the passage.
"Donno. What happened ta Hunter?"
"He and a bunch of other normal Sentinels got away," Spyke said as they passed the place where Toad and Avalanche had split. A moment later they were at the first divergence and then the egress to the outside.
The smell of the docks greeted them as they burst forth into the open air and they met the other X-men some hundred more meters away at the X jet. They scrambled into the plane and were fastening in and taking off just as the entire underground complex blew. All of the X-Men had gotten out and aboard.
Looking out the window of the jet, which still made Toad very uneasy, and still holding on to the trembling Ebony he watched the explosion. Maybe, just maybe there'd be no more sentinels?
"Yo Summers," he demanded, "You catch Trask?"
"He got past us, we don't know where he went. He might still have been in the building."
"What about Hunter?"
Cyclops sighed. "He definitely got away, with a whole bunch of other Sentinels."
"Greeeeeat." So there was at least one of 'em left. Could he make more?
Wolverine stalked over to him. "How's the midget?" he growled affectionately.
"Hurt," Todd replied. "Trask did somethin' to her. Had her in some tube. Her powers, I think they're gone." He pointed to her wounds.
"You talk kid?" Logan asked her.
"Don' wanna," she whispered hoarsely into Todd's chest.
The man regarded her; "We'll be back at the mansion in just a sec and we'll take her to the Doc and the Prof as soon as we get in. Until then you just keep her close."
He nodded solemnly, doing anything else hadn't even crossed his mind.
~
Again, sorry this chapter took so long. The first week was because I was banned from the computer. Then I had a bit of a crisis in my own usually mundane life just a little while ago.
I woke up one morning in excruciating pain and passed out, three times in succession, falling to the floor each time I tried to stand. My mom called the ambulance and when they got there it turned out my blood pressure was eighty over forty. (Too low to survive for very long.) They drip fed salt water right into my veins to bring the pressure back up as they rushed me too the hospital. Eight emergency room hours, two phone calls to my hysterical best friend, three bags of salt water, two vials of my blood, a urine sample, and quite a few fears about the fact that I was below room temperature later I discovered what was wrong.
Near fatal dehydration. I was dehydrated because I drank too little water, too much caffeine, and took an allergy medicine that dried out my system. The pain was because my system was trying to suck the moisture out of my blood. The fainting was because I didn't have enough blood to get to my brain. So I spent a week off of school recuperating. Then found out I had strep throat, whoops there's another few days in bed.
The next time I was allowed to go to school it was test week, no time for fan fic there. Five days ago summer vacation started and I definitely needed to rest.
Today is the first time in a while I've felt much like writing. I hope it won't happen again.
On a completely unrelated note I did get to see Titan AE for the first time two days ago. I have fallen madly in love with Preed. Does anyone else have this problem?
By LejindaryBunny
A totally awesome X-Men: Evolution fanfiction
A/N: You're not going to believe why this took so long. I'll tell you after the chapter.
Disclaimer: I'm flattered.
Chapter 25.The Birds Began to Sing
The battle was hard. The lab turned out to have been beneath the old warehouse, guarded by Sentinels and similar ilk. Cyclops, Jean, Shadow Cat, Spyke, Wolverine, Avalanche and Toad had fought their way through the defenses to an intersection of four corridors. Presumably one of them would lead to the main lab. To Trask, to Ebony, to Hunter or who knew what else.
"Time to fan out team," Scott said. "Jean and I will take the left most corridor, Spyke, Shadow Cat, you take the one next to that. Wolverine, would you take the next one? Toad and Avalanche can search the left one."
The team voiced its agreement. Toad nodded, he hadn't spoken for almost and hour. His eyes were a bloodshot red and his mouth a hard, determined line. He skulked after Lance keeping aware of any danger that might have been.
Avalanche seemed unnerved by Toad's unnatural silence. He kept looking back as though to make sure he was really still there, worry in his eyes. But the lithe boy was beyond noticing. There was only one thing that permeated the reaches of his consciousness, Ebony. He would find her; he would rescue her. Two simple facts, these. It was not too late, there were not too many of them and they were certainly not too strong. It didn't even matter that the Professor had all but forced him to wear the disgusting green and black jester costume. No tights, no fights he had muttered to himself earlier.
But now no witty banter came to mind; there was nothing funny or even morbidly humorous that he could find in the situation. He concentrated on passing through the corridor as quickly as possible in the manner that was most natural and expedient to him; in leaps and bounds. It was tensely silent, not since the fray with six or seven Sentinel 'bots to gain entrance to the lab had they been attacked. It was eerie.
They came to another diverging of ways. Lance turned to his teammate.
"Should we split up?"
But the Toad was already far-gone down his own path, the one to the right and darker of the two presented. Avalanche shrugged it off, albeit reluctantly, and headed down the passage left to him.
Toad had no sooner gone twenty meters down the metal encased corridor than an alarm began to sound. Had he set it off? He didn't know, but he knew that instantly rapid-fire laser cannons slid out from all angles and all the way down the passage. And they all of course oriented themselves on their one and only target. Fired.
And Toad did his thing. He continued down the corridor with much more intensity and velocity now, ricocheting off walls floor and ceiling, a somersault here, a back flip there, evading expertly each and every laser bolt with all the grace and fluidity of a mad super ball.
Impossibly powerful legs pushed off easily from any which way as though there was no such thing as gravity. Wide spread palms propelled him forward with form that would have made Olympic gymnasts sick with envy. For all intents and purposes Toad flew, no sooner did feet or hands meet purchase when off they sprang carrying the slender amphibian with seeming effortlessness. Not once did a laser bolt meet its target.
Now he was coming towards the end of the passage where a door of some metal waited, closed. Toad appraised it mid leap, landed for a split second on his hands and leapt towards it, feet first in a sort of double-footed flying kick.
And the door crashed to the floor with him atop it, landing in a ready for action, muscles coiled tighter than springs battle crouch. Toad's head whipped around, looking for danger, but the lasers, which could no longer track him, settled back into their chambers, and in the dark room in which he had landed, nothing moved.
Toad now scanned the room more thoroughly, his eyes growing quickly accustomed to the near total darkness. Aside from the passage behind him the only illumination was a gray sort of light from one corner which proved the lab to be just that. It looked like something out of a Frankenstein movie, a high budget one. All around cloaked in shadow were mysterious and horrible devices and tables, perversions of the noble scientific art to be sure. Drills, monitors, tables with shackles, pointy objects of any description and things much more complex and hard to explain. There wasn't a device in the room that didn't have wires of at least six different colors protruding from it.
He studied the abandoned laboratory in detached disgust realizing that this was indeed a Frankenstein's work shop for it must have been between these walls that the Sentinels were created.
It didn't take him long after his evaluation of the room to be drawn to find what was hidden in the far corner underneath the one ghastly charcoal light. He approached it tentatively peering intently at the spot as he closed in but keeping his other senses aware for danger. What he saw bathed under the sickly illumination was a tube of glass metal and wiring and he was nearly upon in when he realized what it contained.
A tiny, delicate and pale figure lay huddled in one corner, if a circular tube could be said to have corners. Locks of raven hair nearly as long as the form itself clung wetly to the otherwise unconcealed creature.
"Ebony!" Todd exclaimed at once, his first utterance in an eternity. He surged forward and threw open the hatch of the glass chamber, sprawling on his knees before it.
Slowly, feebly the ravaged elfin figure stirred, opening halfway glassy, tired looking black eyes. She opened blanched lips. "F-froggy?"
Now he clambered in to her crouching beside her wounded form. "S'me Eb'ny." He smiled weakly. "I came ta rescue you .The X-Men're here too. They're gonna trash this place for ya." He gave a pale imitation of his impish grin.
She tried to smile but failed managing only a grimace of what looked like quite a bit of pain. "I-I don't." she began.
"Shh, don' bother. We can talk later y'know. Right now 'm just gonna get ya outta here yo." He looked at her ruined little body. "Ya can't walk can ya?"
She shook her head weakly. "S.sorry."
"Don' worry 'bout it yo. I'll carry you," he offered gallantly. After all, she couldn't possibly weigh a significant amount. "Er, where are your clothes?"
She blushed, her cheeks tuning pink even as his did the same. "Gone," she said, in an ashamed sort of voice.
"Don' worry 'bout it," he insisted, but he wondered at the tone in her voice. "I guess you aren't up to making any new ones." he said rather lamely, remembering her power.
She failed to choke back sob, tears filling her eyes. "I c-can't." she told him in a terrified whisper.
He picked her up then, holding her maiden style in his lanky arms, trying to keep his eyes from straying off her tear-covered face and onto her naked form. He stood.
"S'okay. Y'gotta be exhausted and hurt an' too tired ta even make shadow puppets an' an' that guy's gonna pay for whatever he did ta ya." He finished the sentence in a growl now noticing the bloody slits in her shoulder blades.
"You don't under- he, he." but try as she might she couldn't form the words between the racking, terrified sobs escaping her throat.
But she didn't need to as Todd's eyes fell back on the bloody gashes and found their significance. For the life ether that stained her shoulders and upper chest, far from being raven black, was a glistening, bloody crimson.
"No," he said in disbelief, just as Ebony managed to convey her thoughts.
"Took them. He t-took my powers. I'm h-human," she sobbed and clung desperately closer to Todd's chest once again soaking his garment with tears.
His hands being occupied with holding her he nuzzled the top of her head with his face even as he turned to leave the lab. Crossing the room to the broken door holding the trembling girl he wondered how he was going to get past the lasers. But he needn't have worried.
Racing down the hall was Shadow Cat and Spyke who was taking out all the lasers as he ran.
"C'mon Toad, we gotta get outta here the whole place is about to blow!" he announced.
"What happened yo?" he asked darting towards them as quickly as he dared with his injured sweetheart clinging to him.
"Like everybody else made it to this one central room and we took out a bunch of Sentinels. Then the Scientist guy activated some self-destruct thing and tried to escape Scott and Jean went after him but I like donno what happened to them." Kitty's eyes fell on Ebony, "Is she going to be okay?" she asked with concern as they fled back out of the passage.
"Donno. What happened ta Hunter?"
"He and a bunch of other normal Sentinels got away," Spyke said as they passed the place where Toad and Avalanche had split. A moment later they were at the first divergence and then the egress to the outside.
The smell of the docks greeted them as they burst forth into the open air and they met the other X-men some hundred more meters away at the X jet. They scrambled into the plane and were fastening in and taking off just as the entire underground complex blew. All of the X-Men had gotten out and aboard.
Looking out the window of the jet, which still made Toad very uneasy, and still holding on to the trembling Ebony he watched the explosion. Maybe, just maybe there'd be no more sentinels?
"Yo Summers," he demanded, "You catch Trask?"
"He got past us, we don't know where he went. He might still have been in the building."
"What about Hunter?"
Cyclops sighed. "He definitely got away, with a whole bunch of other Sentinels."
"Greeeeeat." So there was at least one of 'em left. Could he make more?
Wolverine stalked over to him. "How's the midget?" he growled affectionately.
"Hurt," Todd replied. "Trask did somethin' to her. Had her in some tube. Her powers, I think they're gone." He pointed to her wounds.
"You talk kid?" Logan asked her.
"Don' wanna," she whispered hoarsely into Todd's chest.
The man regarded her; "We'll be back at the mansion in just a sec and we'll take her to the Doc and the Prof as soon as we get in. Until then you just keep her close."
He nodded solemnly, doing anything else hadn't even crossed his mind.
~
Again, sorry this chapter took so long. The first week was because I was banned from the computer. Then I had a bit of a crisis in my own usually mundane life just a little while ago.
I woke up one morning in excruciating pain and passed out, three times in succession, falling to the floor each time I tried to stand. My mom called the ambulance and when they got there it turned out my blood pressure was eighty over forty. (Too low to survive for very long.) They drip fed salt water right into my veins to bring the pressure back up as they rushed me too the hospital. Eight emergency room hours, two phone calls to my hysterical best friend, three bags of salt water, two vials of my blood, a urine sample, and quite a few fears about the fact that I was below room temperature later I discovered what was wrong.
Near fatal dehydration. I was dehydrated because I drank too little water, too much caffeine, and took an allergy medicine that dried out my system. The pain was because my system was trying to suck the moisture out of my blood. The fainting was because I didn't have enough blood to get to my brain. So I spent a week off of school recuperating. Then found out I had strep throat, whoops there's another few days in bed.
The next time I was allowed to go to school it was test week, no time for fan fic there. Five days ago summer vacation started and I definitely needed to rest.
Today is the first time in a while I've felt much like writing. I hope it won't happen again.
On a completely unrelated note I did get to see Titan AE for the first time two days ago. I have fallen madly in love with Preed. Does anyone else have this problem?