The spray of silver emanating from my fingertips hit the wooden training post with a satisfying hiss, carving out blocks the size of my fist and sending shavings everywhere. I whirled in a tight circle, dropping to the ground like my legs had been chopped out from under me before popping back up. The rubber ball that had been aiming at my head whistled past, marking the floor with blue dust.
I grinned, fangs on full display.
I was down in the DR, training. Why, you ask? Because it was fun. Dodge, whirl, slice. I was in complete control here. No one could bother me, mostly because no one could find me.
I lifted my arms above my head, stretching, and only narrowly missed being tagged by another powder-dusted ball. "Oops," I laughed to myself. While the sim was still running was absolutely no time to be distracted. I pointed my finger at the ball, following its path, and shot off a little bullet. The offending toy exploded with a loud pop! and I couldn't stop the smirk that painted itself on my face.
The exercise continued on, increasing the amount of ammo being launched at me, throwing targets into the air for me to destroy. Some of the airborne ones were capable of staying aloft for minutes and took a ton of thinking to work through, mostly because nothing stopped when those bad boys popped up. I still was shot at, and I still had the posts to worry about as well.
My breath was beginning to come in heaves as my throat constricted. No time for that now. No time to worry about the asthma, I had to take down the two flying targets before I got hit by one of the blue dusted balls, because as soon as I was marked the sim was over.
I was not ready for it to be over. Not yet.
I pulled my arms into my chest, flipping up into a mid-air horizontal roll to avoid three balls that I barely dodged. I could tell I'd been hit, though, even as I completed the roll and slashed out to separate six posts from their stands. I quickly patted the bit of dust on my stomach, but it wouldn't come off. I scowled. Points lost, right there. Damn.
I retreated back towards a metal wall, falling behind it as more missiles blasted past my head. I slumped on the far side, listening to the dull whumps the small toys made as the contacted the smooth metal.
"Time to think," I muttered. "Two choppers, at least twenty posts. Enemy fire to watch out for. Wish I had my team with me." I grimaced, my hand latching on my right shoulder as pain blasted through my concentration and stole my coherency for a precious moment. When the episode passed, I gasped, panting harshly. I threaded my fingers through my hair, squeezing tightly. "Focus!" I hissed to myself.
I pushed myself to my feet, hands held aloft, and crept to the edge to regain my bearings. Tactical recon, baby, it's what you gotta do in times like these.
When I looked around the corner, what I expected was not what I found.
I expected a war zone. I expected to see wood shavings and pieces of expensive machinery and blue dust and unmoving balls, all framed by the silver gleam of the DR. Instead I found...
...a room.
My room.
I looked quizzically around, expecting someone to pop out and say, surprise! But I was alone. Alone in the room I had once called my own, before I was forcibly relocated to the mansion. There were stacks of books lying about on the tan carpet; my dresser was covered in old papers and receipts and the t.v. gathered dust on top of an ancient VCR player. The mirror was almost completely covered in pictures; one or two from every state and school I'd been in.
I staggered forward a step, hardly daring to believe what was happening.
It's a sim, I told myself fiercely. There are bound to be people who can plant images in your head, especially images you already have. Just tweak some details and they're a sitting duck, trapped in their own head until you put a bullet between their eyes and they're gone. I need to practice.
My legs gave out from under me and I almost collapsed on the bed. I tangled my hands in the soft silver and black blanket that had been torched when the mansion exploded, brushed a hand across the pillow that still had a dent from when I'd last slept on it. A hysterical laugh fought its way out of my mouth.
"What the fuck...?" I said, a painful smile distorting my words.
"I never did approve of the language," a familiar - dreaded - voice spoke from the doorway. "Though not much I could do, given I did the same thing." The tone was rueful; but it sounded patronizing nonetheless.
I rolled over the bed in an instant, charging a ball of wind in my right hand and fisting the left. My ears pressed against my head, flat in agitation, and I hissed. There wasn't any good cover unless I physically flipped the bed over, but if I needed I could be out the window in three seconds flat-
"Calm down," Dad said, a haunted look crossing his face. "Please, son. You have to calm down or-"
"Or what?" I snarled. "What can you do to me that you haven't done already?"
He winced. I took the opportunity to let the blast loose at the section of wall above his head. Plaster and dust rained down, creating a choking cloud he was flailing to escape. Around me, the room wavered like a mirage, like disturbed water in a still pool. I whipped to my feet and braced for impact as I shot head-first through the window, glass slicing my face and arms. I tucked into a roll, landing hard on my right shoulder, sending pain ripping through me once again.
I fought against it, clawing at the dead grass on the front lawn, forcing myself to my feet with a shove from my left hand, taking off at a dead sprint.
Again, the world around me shuddered. The sidewalk and rocks that crunched under my feet were replaced with metal; the mailboxes with wooden posts, and the clouds above with the DR's version of choppers. I sighed in relief, even as a rubber ball hit me square in the stomach.
A cloud of blue puffed up, but the pain that accompanied it was unexpected and jarring.
I dropped to my knees, clutching the agony that had become my abdomen, tears streaming down my face to mingle with the dust in the air. I clawed frantically at the ground with one hand, trying to stay curled around the injury, but after a moment it became clear I was stuck.
It was a blessing when I blacked out.
"...blood can't be transfused, we'll just have to hold him until he produces more..."
"-unacceptable, do you hear me? I will not tolerate this, not when I am this close-"
Pain. Pain everywhere, I couldn't escape, I knew my fate was to die here someday, all I wanted was to see daylight again-
Darkness.
"Where are you, Loki?"
I shifted in the leather seat, looking at my hands. Something was wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I swiped at my eyes, wishing I could sleep the night through, just for once. Just once.
Xavier was on the other side of the desk, his fingers steepled, staring at me intently. Papers were scattered about, and light flooded the room with warmth through the ornate window just behind him.
"Loki, I need you to tell me where you are."
"I'm right here," I said, confused. What the hell? Did he lose his eyesight sometime between now and the last time I saw him? Sheesh, old man. That's what glasses are for. Go get some.
"This is not what you think it is," Xavier said, pulling his hands apart to grab the control for his chair and power it up, rolling around the oak monstrosity and coming to a stop right in front of me. I ducked my head so I was hiding behind my bangs. I hiked my shoulders up.
"That's why this feels wrong," I whispered. My hands writhed in my lap, knotting and unknotting, picking at hangnails and running sensitive fingertips over old scars. "Why everything feels wrong."
"Where are you?"
"I don't know. Someplace awful." I looked up at him, my eyes filling with tears. "I've done awful things, Professor. I've killed people. Just let me die there, wherever I am. Please."
"No," he said forcefully, seizing my left hand. As he did so, feeling drained from the other, until I couldn't move it. I stomped down on my panic. "We will find you. We will heal you. All we need to know is where you are, Loki. Please. Describe the place and we will find it."
"Cinderblock walls," I mumbled. "A cot bolted to the ground, and a hole in the floor under the sheet from where I bled to escape... metal doors, but for the training room, that's wooden, I don't know why..."
"Good, good," Xavier said encouragingly. The numbness was creeping up to my bicep, now. It felt like dead weight on my shoulder, unexpected weight that I wanted off. Fear grabbed hold of me unexpectedly, choking me, choking the words I wanted to say. About the surgery, and the device with the chemical that made mutants hurt, and the training, oh god the training...
"We have a new mutant at the mansion," Xavier said. His words took on a hurried tone. I was losing control, he was losing control, Dad was losing control-
"Dreams, Loki, she communicated to Kitty through dreams and we found her. She can track you. Just go to sleep and we'll find you, we'll use your description to locate the place you're being held at! Loki!"
"Get it off!" I shrieked, yanking my hand back and clawing at my right shoulder, cloth giving way to skin as my nails tore at it. Skin gave way, light blue blood the color of the DR's hit powder pouring from the wounds; muscle shredded, and I hit bone in two more powerful swipes.
I was screaming. I didn't know when I stopped.
"Please, please, please," I sobbed. "Please, Dad, make it stop. Please, make it stop! If you ever loved me, please!"
Someone gathered me close and I clutched at them, burying my head in the available shirt as the person drew their hand up and down my spine. Everything hurt. My head, my gut, my shoulder. I couldn't take this anymore.
"I'm sorry," Dad whispered, and I knew it was him, because it had always been him, hadn't it? Haunting my dreams. In this new living nightmare, of course he would be here. "I'm sorry, son, I'm so sorry."
"Just make it stop," I whispered brokenly. "Make the dreams stop. Make them go away, Daddy, so I can sleep forever."
His hand ceased its comforting motions on my back, making me whimper, but he continued when he felt me tense under him. I could feel my body coiling, like a spring being wound too tight. Too much, it was all too much.
"Why did you do this to me?" I screamed into his chest. I couldn't grasp the control needed to summon my winds, otherwise he would have been kabob on the spot. "Why did you do this to your own son? Your flesh and blood?"
"I was afraid," Dad said simply, like it explained everything, but it didn't. It was no excuse. I could feel the energy building up within me, begging for an outlet, needing a target to release my anger onto. He was here; he made me miserable. Why not him, after all?
"I was afraid I would still love you, even though you went against everything I stood for," he murmured into my hair. "And I did. I couldn't stop. The thought of you out there, it was driving me mad, and when I found out I was a mutant as well..." I thought he grimaced, but it's hard to tell when I can't see anything but shirt. "It was petty revenge and I knew it. But you ruined me, Loki, and I was damn determined to ruin you too."
I didn't want to hear this. I really didn't want to hear this.
Razor-sharp winds exploded from my body as I howled my grief to the invisible sky. Dad was sliced to pieces in an instant; but seconds later he reappeared next to the bloody chunks of what had been him.
"I hate you!"
"I know," he said calmly. Like he was okay with it. Like it didn't matter what he had done, the pain he had caused me, the agony I went through as I couldn't sleep and now-
"You're a shit father!" I continued yelling. "You never should have kept me if you couldn't take care of me! You tortured me! You abused me! And I can't even hurt you because you're goddamned DEAD!"
Dad had started crying at some point. The tears gave off their own soft glow in this place, wherever we were, surrounded by darkness only belayed by the brightness emanating from our skin.
I lashed out with a strike that held all of my fury, all of the pain I'd felt in the past couple of years living with the knowledge that my own father mentally tortured me whenever I tried to sleep, had disowned me when I needed him most, had threatened my sanity and well-being and now was here, present, for some unfathomable reason.
He didn't avoid the blade, just let it sail through him and take him to halves which toppled downwards, disappearing after a moment. I ripped at my hair with my one good hand, the other having been lost in a mountain somewhere in Tibet, along with the rest of my right arm.
"Do you see this?" I shrieked. I gripped my stump until my nails punctured through my shirt and sent drops of blood down into the void. "Do you see what I've been through, all because of you?"
Back again. Dad nodded, still crying.
"I hate you," I whispered. "I can't forgive you, not now. Not ever, even."
"I know," Dad said softly. He didn't tread a step closer than he was, for the winds I controlled were only leashed so long as my temper was as well. "I came to apologize. And to tell you that someday, when you've healed from these wounds I've given and led you to, I hope you might accept it."
"I can't!" I screamed. Everything was wrong, wrong, scrambled brains in a broken body, I couldn't forgive him for this, never, never, never...
"Loki!" a faint voice called. Through my tear-clouded vision I could barely make out the form of a girl, one I'd never seen before. She was running full-tilt at me, sweat plastering her hair to her head.
"Good bye, Loki," Dad said. I whirled back to him, intent on stalking over there and telling him that he wasn't about to leave until I gave him permission but a white aura was enveloping him, cradling him in softness I envied, because it was the gentle touch of death welcoming him back, a touch I desired more than anything right now.
I walked slowly toward that white cloud, reaching out a hand, fingertips millimeters from brushing the inviting chill of inevitable demise, when I was tackled from the side, head snapping around to see the mysterious girl responsible.
She pinned me quickly, but I put up no fight. Dad had apologized and was gone; I wanted to die to escape the pain that had become the definition of my existence.
"Loki, you have to follow me, right now," she said fiercely. "Xavier's practically right on top of you and if you don't come out soon, you're a goner."
I said nothing, just closed my eyes. A goner, huh? Sounds like a plan to me.
There was a moment of disorientation as she hauled me to my feet and then flipped me on her shoulders in a picture-perfect fireman's carry. She took off at a steady pace, me squinting off in the distance for her destination.
I was done fighting. Let what happened happen. Dad was gone, and he was sorry. Sorry for what he'd done.
The light at the other end was not the cool, comforting light of death I wanted. In fact, it burned, like too much sun focused on one spot. I shifted, but the girl didn't ease up on her iron grip. The darkness receded from that place, the place of light and life and pain.
She wasted no time with remarks about our current place; she stepped into the burning brightness with nary a flinch, while I started hollering my head off. It burned, like the kind of burn you get from touching a hot stove and forgetting to let go.
"One more jump-!" she panted.
I closed my eyes-
"...Bolivar Trask has been charged with kidnapping, several counts of abuse, over forty counts of voluntary manslaughter, along with a host of other minor charges that the judges all took into account when sentencing today. Trask will be spending the remainder of his life in the highest security prison in the States with no chance for parole..."
I smiled at that, though it was weak.
I had been gone for three months. In that time, Trask led a strike force with me and two other brain-washed mutants out into the city to pick off dissenters... meaning mutants.
I flexed my hand, my mind flickering back to the dream I had constructed to avoid the painful, painful reality. The training. Having both arms was nice, though I'm not sure how well it translated into my real-world actions.
At least I didn't remember killing anyone. But that didn't make the knowledge any easier a burden to bear.
I smoothed my fingers over the thick pad taped to my stomach. If not for Dad, I wouldn't have gotten shot, wouldn't have broadcasted enough pain and panic while conscious for the first time in months for Xavier to find my mental signal, wouldn't have been able to get the new girl - Moonstar - to fall into my dreams and get a general location on me.
I hated him. But I owed him my life, and then some.
At least now I knew he was really dead. Now, the little piece of him inside me was gone, dead, and the only nightmares that haunted me were the kind my own subconscious produced. No more outside influence. No more Dad.
No more Dad.
Tears dripped down my face and I turned my head to the side, hoping to mask them in the pillow, but the person who stroked my sweaty forehead didn't seem to mind that I was breaking down.
I wanted to jump, I wanted to flinch, and if my powers hadn't been out of whack I might have killed the person who touched me. Reflex.
"It's going to be alright, Loki," Xavier said.
He wouldn't lie to me. So I chose to believe him. He had saved me. Was he...?
I could feel the coolness slipping into my arm that meant another round of sedatives to sleep during the healing. I flicked my eyes back over to him and tried to lift the corners of my lips into a smile.
"Thank... you..." I breathed, and fell into sleep gladly.
I could rest. For the first time in years, I could rest again.
A/N: Hm. Took a couple of revisions, but I like it. The last mini-arc before we begin the final finale and wrap this story up, ladies and gents. Sorry for the wait; I've got class during the summer, which unfortunately has to take precedence.
I've told my readers about this before, but I'll pitch it again: movie-verse sequel? Yea or nay? Review, kind people, and let me know about the chapter and my idea! Thanks! Until we meet again, peace!
