May, 1998
"Do you understand what he is saying?" Storm asked from the backseat of the rental car. They were forced to abandon Belle's and Remy's "family friendly" vehicle, as it was so badly damaged by Nanny's attack. Belle had inevitably chosen a similarly sensible four-door sedan.
Remy didn't gloat about being right, however. Belle glanced over at him now; he was seated in the passenger seat, muttering to himself. "No clue," she said with concern, returning her eyes to the road. "Remy's only got a passing understanding of a lot of languages, English bein' one of them, but I've never heard de likes of dis here nonsense."
Storm leaned forward to look at the side of the thief's face. Remy did not seem to comprehend his surroundings at the moment. He had gone in and out of reality over the past few hours. If he had a recollection of the things he was saying during these times, he had not let them in on it. Remy abruptly fell silent. Belle's hands were tight on the steering wheel, knuckles white. They were driving south. From Storm's understanding, it would be something like an eight-hour drive to New Orleans.
"Dat's good," Belle told herself. "Maybe he's gone t'his happy place."
Remy suddenly shouted in alarm and Belle pressed the brakes. Remy's hands were clasped to his head as he called out again. Belle navigated to the side of the road.
"Remy! Remy, me sha, what's wrong?" Belle grasped his shoulder, shaking him.
"It's...it's a miracle! De Saints win de 2010 Super Bowl!" he declared, and then began to weep tears of joy.
Belle and Storm stared at him and he lapsed into silence. Eventually, Belle shook her head, signalled left to return to the flow of traffic.
"My husband's gone crazy," she said softly.
"We might have taken my plane," Storm told her. "It would have been faster."
"Now you crazy if you think I'm gonna let a pre-teen girl fly some broken ass plane hunnerds of miles from Illinois clear to New Orleans," Belle told her.
Remy abruptly said to Storm: "If it's any consolation, I'da let you do it, padnat."
Belle shook her head with exasperation. They were on a highway along the Arkansas border, approaching Memphis, Tennessee. Belle signaled to turn onto an exit offramp. "I need coffee if we're ever gonna make it. Call and check back in at home."
"Sounds good, ma belle," Remy told her.
"You hungry, padnat?" Belle asked Storm, looking at her in the rearview. "Can I get you a Happy Meal?"
"I am unfamiliar," Storm replied. "What is a 'happy meal'?"
Remy smiled. "Better not stop at Mickey D's. Girl doesn't eat meat. And mebbe they stopped fryin' their fries in beef tallow...quel dommage...but I couldn't say for sure what it is they do to 'em now."
"You must be feeling better if you're reminiscing about McDonald's french fries," Belle observed dryly.
"They're just not de same," Remy lamented.
"There's a breakfast place," Belle said. "Pancakes okay, girl?"
Storm's stomach let out a growl and she clapped her hands over her midsection with embarrassment. The two adults laughed as Storm gave a chagrined smile.
"Let me just pull inta de gas station first," Belle told them. "I'll fill it up. Use de pay phone. Hang tight."
When Belle stepped from the vehicle and closed the door behind her, Storm asked Remy: "How did you know that I do not eat meat?"
He was silent for a moment, and Storm wondered if he hadn't lapsed back into his time-lost state. "What do you remember...from before you got turned inta a baby girl?"
Storm was perplexed. "I do not understand you, Remy."
"You and me are friends, padnat," he told her.
Storm shook her head and felt a flutter of worry in her stomach. "Of course we are friends," she began. "You saved my life. I am grateful."
"Ororo," Remy said, his head turning slightly in her direction.
A tremor went through Storm. "Who-?"
"Logan," Remy tried again. "Kurt."
Storm sank back into her seat, her hand on the release of her seatbelt. "Remy, I do not know these names."
"Kitty. Jean. Piotr. Betsy….Rogue?"
"Stop it!" Storm shouted, grasped the door latch. When the door did not open, she reached out the open window to release the door from outside.
"Stormy…" Remy began.
"Do not call me that!" Storm had opened the door. She ran into the parking lot. The Arkansas landscape was largely flat, empty in the area surrounding the gas station. This exit was just a small waylay station for miles of freeway. Storm thought she could simply ride the winds and fly; Cairo was not so far away. Or...there was a truck driver, she saw him stepping from his vehicle. She began towards him. A ride back in the opposite direction, perhaps? Storm saw the man's eyes size her up as she approached. Her footsteps faltered. She was...remembering something. Something terrible. An assault in a truck, and Storm, suddenly with blood on her hands, struggling out from beneath her attacker's body.
A hand clasped her arm and Storm turned, her blade raised. Belle's eyes looked down at her. Her chin was lifted, throat exposed to the point of Storm's knife.
"Thought we gettin' pancakes, padnat?" she asked, her voice low.
Storm let out a frightened breath, lowered her weapon. "Belle, I am sorry."
"S'alright," she said. "Know what it's like, t'be a girl on your own. Let's get back to de rental. We gotta get some food in Remy before he turns into a right grouch."
Belle led Remy from the vehicle. He'd been wearing sunglasses since they'd departed late that afternoon, the three of them having slept for most of the day. Even now in the evening light, he wore them still. Storm had a sense that anti-mutant sentiment was at an all-time high. The gas station's windows had been plastered with signs reading: Do You Know What Your Children Are? followed by the Mutant Registration Act contact information. Storm wore her knit cap over her closely cropped white hair, despite the clement May weather.
They went into the diner, found seats at a booth in the rear, and were given menus by the hostess. Both Remy and Belle requested coffee.
"Think you can keep it together long enough to have a short stack, cher?" Belle asked Remy, her tone light but her expression concerned.
"Can't say," Remy responded, his hands wrapped around his coffee mug. "Don't think I have much cause to pass through Arkansas in dis life or any other, so maybe it'll be okay for now."
"I'm not followin'," Belle said tiredly. "Remy, can you for once just speak plain?"
Storm watched Remy consider his answer. Often talking to Remy was like walking into a conversation she'd only just half-heard. She was seated across from the two adults, sipping ice water through a straw.
"Pretty sure I'm seein' things," Remy said.
"Well, dat's a good thing, ain't it?" Belle asked. "Your vision's comin' back?"
"Not seein' things with my eyes, no," Remy continued. "Seeing things like...past and future, maybe? Or different timelines. Realities."
Belle stared at the side of his face, her expression was one of alarm. "I thought you said your friends helped you wit' your powers?" she asked slowly.
"I think that jolt Nanny gave me might've crossed some wires," Remy admitted. "Most of de time what I'm seein' is...another version of myself. Like a timeline that is an echo of ours, or vice-a versa. There's a lot of overlap. And when de timelines meet up, it's like I see a thin veil between his reality and mine. I know what he knows, will know."
"Does he know Esperanto or whatever it is you're mumbling?" Belle asked.
"I suspect it's some kinda Old Kingdom jibber-jabber," Remy said.
"Mebbe you're cursed again," Belle suggested, almost hopeful.
"That'd be an easier fix than seein' multiple realities, for sure," Remy agreed.
"What is the Old Kingdom?" Storm asked.
Remy frowned. "Short version: it involves a bunch of hocus pocus. Magic. A whole lotta nonsense. Portents, predictions, most of which involve de end of time. And me, unfortunately."
"When you first began to speak in tongues..." Storm began, "you said something along the lines of: timelines tangling twisting tearing."
"Always adored alliteration," Remy said.
Their waitress brought their orders, placed their food onto the table. Belle arranged Remy's food for him, buttered his toast while he wore a perturbed expression on his face.
"I am so sorry," Storm told him. "I acted impulsively."
"For de last time, Stormy," Remy said. "It was an accident. My Tatie says it'll heal on its own. I only hope my sanity holds out dat long."
"Tante Mattie will heal you up, cher," Belle said. "Mebbe our little Storm Cloud here, too."
"I do not need a healer—," Storm began but was interrupted.
"'I wandered lonely as a cloud. That floats on high o'er vales and hills,'" Remy said.
"Tongues again?" Belle interrupted.
"Wordsworth, me sha," Remy responded.
"Your head's in de clouds, Rem," Belle said with fondness.
Storm smiled as she dumped breakfast syrup onto her pancakes. Her earlier fear of...what was she afraid of anyway...the unknown?...had faded. She was grateful the Goddess crossed her path with these two unusual people. Assassin and thief, or as Remy had told her: the two goodest bad guys she was ever likely to meet.
"We'd better get back on de road," Belle said after they'd eaten, then poked Remy so he'd let her out of the booth. "I got t'use de little girls' room. C'mon Storm."
"I do not have-," Storm began.
"You'd best try!" Belle said and departed for the washrooms. "I ain't stoppin' five minutes down de road!"
"And she thinks she won't be a good mama," Remy smiled in Storm's direction.
Night had fallen by the time they'd reached the outskirts of Memphis, Tennessee. Storm could see the faint orange haze of city lights on the skyline. Belle was not planning on stopping again, with exceptions for additional caffeine (or begrudgingly, for bathroom breaks). Remy periodically complained about missing his cigarettes, but otherwise he did not burst into any Old Kingdom jibber-jabber. The two adults picked fights, cajoled and argued, and otherwise entertained one another. Storm was not pressed again about her memories or past.
Remy sang: "Only the strong survive, only the strong survive...Oh, you've got to be a man, you've got to take a stand-."
"Now where in de world did that come from?" Belle asked.
"Elvis' 1969 comeback album, From Elvis in Memphis," Remy replied.
"Oh my - ugh! How d'you remember that and not t'put de toilet seat down!"
"It's not de best song on de album, that's for sure. De best-known one goes: And a hungry little boy with a runny nose plays in the street as the cold wind blows. In the ghettoooh."
"Oh, Lord above!" Belle cried. "Spare me dis!"
"And his hunger burns….So he starts to roam the streets at night and he learns how to steal, and he learns how to fight. In the ghetto…"
Belle conceded and echoed: "In the ghettooooh…"
Storm laughed quietly. She couldn't recall the last time she'd laughed.
"Stormy likes our duet," Remy observed.
Storm poked Remy in the shoulder. "Do. Not. Call me. That!"
"Y'see what you taught her," Remy said to Belle. "Now everybody's gotta jab at me."
Storm leaned forward in her seat. Up ahead on the two-lane highway was the strobing of red and blue lights. Belle slowed the vehicle.
"Que pasa?" Remy asked.
"Looks like a checkpoint," Belle said idly.
"Quick, we gotta ditch de illegal arms and de kilos of coke!" Remy announced.
Storm gasped.
"Remy, she don't know you're joking!" Belle scolded.
Remy laughed and Storm poked him again. "You'd best sit back and make sure you're buckled in, padnat," Remy told her.
"Put your hat on, chèrie," Belle added.
Storm complied, pulled her hat down over her hair, over her ears and tucked stray strands of hair beneath it. There were very few cars in line at the checkpoint. They were third, the first two were given only cursory glances.
"With luck we'll be waved through," Belle said.
They were out of luck. Belle looked at Storm. "Our names are Robert and Belinda Lord," she said. "You'll need a name."
Ororo is a name, she thought to herself.
"How about Wildi?" Remy laughed. "Wildi Windrider."
"You are for sure not namin' our baby," Belle informed him in a deadpan tone.
There were a half-dozen police cruisers, a pair of armored vehicles, both with rear doors propped open. An officer approached the driver's side door as Belle rolled the window down.
"Evenin' ma'am," the officer said, shining a flashlight into the vehicle's interior. The beam of light passed over Storm in the backseat, then back to the two adults in the front. "License and registration?"
"This is a rental," Belle said, pulled out paperwork from the glove box, handed him an ID.
"Where you folks heading?" the officer asked idly, looking over her information.
"Jackson," Belle answered.
The officer's eyes flicked up to hers. "You got a ways to go," he said. "Got a reason for the trip?"
Belle's mouth compressed a little, somewhat annoyed. "Family there. Funeral."
"Was going to say, won't the girl be missing school?" the officer said. He stooped to look at Storm. "What's your name?"
"Wildi," Storm said. "Wildi Lord."
The officer's eyes dropped back to Belle's identification. "Adopted, I'm guessing?"
Belle smiled in a forced-polite sort of way. "Right," she said.
"Sir?" the officer prompted Remy. "You got your ID on you?"
"Sure," Remy said. "It's in my back pocket."
The officer stared at him, Remy did not register this as he could not see. The officer ordered: "Well, then take it out. Slowly."
Remy lifted himself up from the seat to pull his wallet from his back pocket. He rifled blindly inside the billfold for a moment, looking for the right card.
"You mind taking off your sunglasses, sir?" the officer asked.
"He has an eye condition," Belle said, taking the wallet from Remy. She removed his ID, passed it to the officer. "Is there a reason you'd need his license when I'm the one in the driver's seat?"
"License doesn't say anything about vision impairment," the officer said. He signaled to his partner, handed the two licenses over. "Run these."
"Do you need me to do a breathalyzer?" Belle asked. "We haven't had anything stronger than coffee, sir."
"This isn't that kind of checkpoint, ma'am. Sir, would you please remove your sunglasses?"
Storm's stomach was clenched in a knot. Remy complied, continued to stare forward at nothing.
"He had an accident. Arc welding," Belle was saying. "He can't see."
"I'd like you both to step out of the vehicle," the officer said.
"What is it that you think we've done?" Belle asked.
"Belinda," Remy warned. "Just do as the man says."
"Your husband's talking sense," the officer said, he put his hand on the driver's side door handle. "Step out of the vehicle."
Two more officers were approaching. Storm swallowed, unsure of what to do. Both Remy and Belle stepped out of the car.
"Hands on the hood of the car," Belle was directed.
"Now, what is this-," Belle began.
"Hands on the hood of the car," the officer repeated more forcefully. He nodded to two other officers who approached Remy on the opposite side.
One of them shone his flashlight into Remy's face. He didn't blink or move.
"Hey, sarge, you ought to check this out," one of the officers called.
"You stay put," the sergeant told Belle. She was in the middle of being searched. Storm hoped she did not have her weapons on her, but thought it likely that she did. Storm's own dagger was in her boot. The sergeant approached Remy. Looked him in the face.
"Sir, you have any other form of registration on you?" he asked.
"I don't know what you mean," Remy responded. Storm noted that both Belle and Remy had lost all trace of their accents.
"You know what the MRA is all about, don't you?" the officer persisted. When Remy did not respond he spoke to the other two officers. "Go activate the scanner. Take the girl, put her in one of the wagons. We'll question her separate."
Remy spoke then, a note of hostility in his voice: "You can't question a minor without a guardian present."
Belle called out from where she still stood with her hands on the hood of the car. "You have no cause to do this!"
One officer had departed for the armored vehicle. The other was jiggling the handle to the rear passenger door. "Open up," the man called to Storm through the glass.
Storm's gaze went from Belle to Remy.
"You got any proof this girl actually belongs to you?" the sergeant asked Belle, then turned to Remy.
"Since when do we put licenses on kids, like dogs?" Remy asked. It was clear he was becoming more irate with each passing moment.
"It's clear that colored kid is not yours," the officer by Storm's window said, he leaned down to peer at her through the glass. "And if she is adopted, well, bless your heart, aren't you a saint."
The expression on Remy's face was one Storm had not seen, nor thought to ever see. It was a look of absolute rage.
"Robert, honey-." Now Belle was the one trying to calm him down.
The two law enforcement officers by the vehicle must have sensed a sudden charge in the air. Though Remy's eyes remained black as pitch, there seemed something decidedly threatening about them now.
"I'm going to ask you to lie down on the pavement," the sergeant said, his hand on his holster. "On the pavement, hands behind your head."
Storm climbed into the front seat, pushed open the passenger door. "No!" she cried, then at a loss as to what her role could be in this charade called: "Mom! Dad!"
Remy paused then, took a breath. Slowly he raised his hands to the back of his head. Dropped to a knee. Storm was seized from behind. "Remove your hands from me at once!" she cried.
Something was coming out of the back of one of the armored vehicles. Something vaguely humanoid, but decidedly mechanical. Other officers were stepping from cruisers now to approach them. Storm could hear the squawk of police scanners and radios. One or two of the officers had hands on their hips or tasers in their grips.
If Remy is tasered, what will happen then? Storm wondered. She was being pulled back. The sergeant had not waited until Remy was prostrated on the ground, instead he pushed him forward by the shoulder. Put a knee in his upper back. Handcuffs were produced. Storm struggled and the first officer who grabbed her was joined by a second.
Belle had two officers on her now, forcing her over the hood of the car.
"Hands on your head!" several voices called to her. In the floodlights illuminating the checkpoint, Storm could see Belle's expression was steely, but when her eyes found Storm's they softened. She willingly complied with the orders.
Storm continued to fight however. She was being forcibly dragged to the second armored vehicle. The robotic monstrosity that had emerged from the first wagon neared her.
Performing scan, an electronic voice announced from within its body. Mutant signature detected.
"We got one," said the first officer incredulously. "I'd a never thought it!"
"Seems that tip from Illinois was right," said the second. Storm was roughly manhandled, forced to bend over into the rear of the armored vehicle. Her legs kicked. She found her arms twisted behind her back, zip ties tightened around her wrists.
One officer climbed into the rear of the vehicle, pulled Storm inside. She let loose a volley of largely ineffective sparks. The officer cried out, hopped from the vehicle. "Tase that freak!"
Storm had fallen to the floor. The second officer said: "She's just a kid."
Storm found herself pepper sprayed instead. She gagged, coughed spasmodically. Her eyes burned and streamed.
Outside there came several shouts. Mutant signature detected. Mutant signature detected. The machine intoned.
"Shit, shit!"
"There's fucking three of them?"
"Don't you fucking move! Don't either of you fucking move!"
"Radio backup."
"We are not resisting!" Belle cried. "Stop it!"
"She has weapons on her!"
"Shoot the bitch."
"Fuck, she's fucking-she's pregnant!"
"Shoot her twice."
Storm struggled into an upright position only to be knocked backwards by an explosion that rocked the armored car. It was followed by the sound of gunfire. Remy, she thought. Belle, oh no.
The sound of screaming. Then...snarling. Something banged against the doors of the wagon. Then the whole vehicle shook. Storm struggled, the ties on her wrists cutting deep into her skin. Panicked, feeling trapped, she was out of her mind with terror. Storm screamed, over and over again, her voice echoing against steel walls. She had to escape, she must get free!
Suddenly, she recalled herself trapped aboard Nanny's ship, struggling against the bonds that held her. Nanny telling her she would not remember, that she would begin life anew. As one of Nanny's little orphans. Except Storm was not a child. She was an adult, her body forcibly, painfully reduced to childhood. The names came back to her now, not painfully familiar, but familiar as in family. Logan, Kurt, Kitty, Jean, Piotr, Betsy, Rogue. Storm screamed out again, this time not in panic. Electric current flowed over her body, melting her bonds, crackling against the interior of the armored car.
The doors were suddenly thrown open. At the exit, the sergeant. His eyes were wild, inhuman. He was flanked by a pair of Hounds. Storm summoned a blast of wind, blowing her adversaries away in a twirling tornado. She called the winds back to her and took flight. Her eyes scanned the scene, searching for her friends. Gambit, Remy LeBeau. His wife, BellaDonna Boudreaux. She knew them now, from their letters, from hers and Logan's visit to New Orleans at Mardi Gras, just this February last.
Their rental vehicle was overturned, smoking from an explosion. The robotic scanner, a Sentinel, Storm now recalled its name, was destroyed. Only its legs stood now on the pavement. Hounds were attacking everything in sight, officers, each other. One went spinning away, a dagger in its chest. Storm turned to see Belle on top of the other armored van. She summoned a gout of flame which sent two more Hounds fleeing. Storm called a lightning bolt, disabled the spotlights illuminating the scene. There was Gambit, moving like a shadow between flashing police cars. She saw a Hound and a pair of possessed officers coming at him from behind. He did not see them.
Storm shouted a warning, fear gripped her chest. Then, something else. A clawing sensation in her skull. The brain-freeze cold of The Shadow King, the Evil One. His laughter possessive, deeply satisfied as he strove to claim her mind.
"No!" Storm cried. "You-will-not!"
She could see him now, see herself outside her body. Here on the Astral Plane she was an adult, a child no more. The astral projection of the Shadow King was horrifying to behold. His wicked claws, oversized hands, claimed her body. His gruesome mouth opened, intending to swallow her. Her force of will caused him to slow, slavering jaws wide. His eyes glowed bright, sickly green. But then his head snapped sharply to the left. Something had struck his great horned skull, a booted foot. Storm gasped. BellaDonna was there, fully clad in knight's armor. Like a vision of the patron Saint of New Orleans, Jean d'Arc. Belle swung her sword and the Shadow King fell back. Storm found herself released.
"Enh, Rougarou! You good at trackin' down little girls wit' Hounds. But let's see what happens when ya take on these two hot bitches!" The sword she bore swung in an arc over her head to flash downwards. The Shadow King retreated.
"You may have caught me off guard," the Shadow King intoned, slunk backwards into the swirling tumult of the Astral Plane. "I will know for next time. The Shadow King...does not forget…"
Storm found herself back in her child-body. Helicopters were thumping overhead, spotlights searching. Belle was at her side, helping her into an upright position. "You...you are able to traverse the Astral Plane?" Storm asked her.
"Is that what'cha call it? I just use it for spyin' on my husband," Belle grinned at her. "C'mon, let's make tracks."
"Where is Gambit?" Storm asked. She was answered by a large explosion that destroyed the blockade crossing the street.
An unmarked police car suddenly reversed in front of them, rear-ending a police cruiser.
"Oopsie," Gambit said, his hands on the steering wheel, a pair of handcuffs dangled from his wrist.
"Shove over!" Belle announced. She hauled open the rear driver's side door, then climbed into the driver's seat as Gambit slid over to the passenger side. Storm launched herself into the backseat, slammed the door as Belle took off down the highway, wheels screaming on the pavement.
"Whoo!" Gambit said as he was thrown back into his seat. "How's dat for horsepower!"
"Up ahead, two oncoming cruisers," Belle said. She issued a direction and a distance.
Gambit pulled himself through the passenger side window to sit on the ledge. He had apparently appropriated one of the officer's firearms.
Storm was about to protest when he fired twice. He must have changed the rounds. The explosions lit up the pavement ahead, the screaming police cruisers hit their brakes. Too late, they were brought to an abrupt halt as they fell into the gaping wounds in the street. Belle swerved to avoid the pitfalls. Gambit was nearly ejected from his perch. Storm dove forward to grasp him by the coat, pull him back inside.
"We got to do somethin' about those whirlybirds," Belle said.
"I ain't shootin' down a chopper," Gambit told her.
"Allow me," Storm said, lowering her own window. She leaned out, looking up at the pair of helicopters. She summoned the winds which pushed the choppers up and away. They bobbed, attempting to steady themselves. Strong gusts forced them to ground themselves in a nearby field. Storm called up a dense fog and they disappeared into it.
Their car sped into the night, weaving through vehicles like a needle through fabric. Traveling so fast, the other vehicles they passed looked as if they were parked. Heading toward the city of Memphis, losing themselves in over and underpasses, on ramps, bridges over the river sparkling with the reflections of city lights, then finally city streets. They abandoned the vehicle in an alley.
"So, we gonna check out Graceland while we're here?" Remy asked. The stony silence the two women gave him served as an answer. "Oh, fine. Party poopers. We can still get barbecue, right?"
Next time: A brief discussion involving next steps. Chapter Six will be a family reunion...of sorts.