DISCLAIMER: Standard disclaimer applies. X-Men are Marvel's. Dakota and the Destruction Crew are mine. No money (either way you look at it). Without permission.
WARNING: Violence. People weak of stomach should not read the last section in this part. The only thing I can say that won't give it away for those who will read it, but all I can say is evil people do evil things.
And now back to our irregularly scheduled story...
The First Step - Part Four
Beverly McIntyre
Storm warily drew the note out from her pocket. She had noticed Dakota's obvious cover for Longshot when she was just going to inquire after Dazzler. She wanted to find out why, but from the looks the rest of the X-Men gave her, they had not caught it and wanted to hear what was on the note. But Storm would talk to Longshot later about it. Alison's absence did not bode well in Storm's mind. As she smoothed out the note, she looked at each of her team's anxious faces. She could have sworn Sam was going to blow up from anticipation. His face held the features of an excited puppy seeing it's master after a week's absence. If I prolong this any longer, I may have to ask Logan to go get a mop. As she brought the note up to read, she noticed that Marrow was not amongst the rest of the team. Some small part of Storm was relieved. It could not quite accept Marrow as part of the team.
Just as Storm was about to read the note she was interrupted. brreep
"Dakota, you're pocket's beeping!" Longshot pointed at the bulge in his friend's pocket. Dakota smiled sheepishly as he pulled a small cellular phone out of the pocket. brreep
"Sorry about this." ,Dakota mumbled before he flipped the phone open. "Dakota. Uh-huh. You could say bad timing..." Storm saw his face blanch.
"Is something wrong?" Dakota told whoever was on the phone to hold on a second before placing his hand over the flat receiver.
"Is there a room I can side-step into to finish this call?" Storm saw something urgent in his eyes.
"You can use the room over there" ,she said uncertainly. Dakota murmured a thanks before sticking the phone to his ear and basically dashing into the indicated room. She could hear speak to whomever as he shut the door.
"Now tell me every minute detail-" Storm looked back at the X-Men. They were not to concerned with the quick departure of the man who had just appeared on their doorstep an hour or so ago. They all seemed to be sitting on pins and needles to hear what Xavier wrote. For some, like Wolverine, it wasn't exactly a pretty sight. Storm decided it was best to not keep them waiting any longer or she might have a minor mutiny on her hands. She cleared her throat and once again tried to read the note.
"Dakota-Greetings my friend. As you may have already figured out, I am now in the custody of Bastion. This imprisonment is a trying ordeal, but it has given me time to think things over. After much consideration, I want to offer you a temporary position at my school. I need to know that my students will be well taken care of, and I can implicitly trust you to do just that. I believe my students will welcome an 'associate professor' until my return. I also you can teach some of my students many of the things I have neglected or cannot. When you arrive at my school, show this note to Cyclops or Storm. They will help you get accustomed to life at the school. Please, my friend, do this one favor for me. -Charles."
When Storm had finished the note, the X-Men sat oddly silent. The note had been the first words they had heard from their professor since he had given himself up to federal custody after Onslaught had ravaged New York. The only two people who seemed unaffected were Dr. Reyes and Maggott, both of whom were too new to the team to understand what the note meant to the rest of the team. But both were mindful enough to remain quiet to let the news sink into the hearts of the rest of the team. Finally, the emotionally-heavy silence was broken by Wolverine.
"So we're supposed to believe this kid was sent up here by Chuck to baby-sit us?" Wolverine looked directly at Longshot for an answer.
"Logan, he is hardly a child. He appears to be around my age. And from the note it seems that the Professor was genuinely concerned about our well-being," Storm answered. She had seen the look in Longshot's eyes. He truly believed that his friend was up here for a good reason, and he had no way of putting that into words. Storm knew Longshot well enough to know if Longshot believed in someone as much as it appeared he did for Dakota, then Dakota was probably stout of character. Besides, she did not want to see her friend cut apart by Wolverine's reply. Longshot had been away from the team for long enough to not be aware of Wolverine's increasingly erratic tendencies as of lately. Storm did not want either man hurt by whatever was said: Logan for hurting his friend with barbed words or Longshot being hurt by words said by a man he called a friend.
"The kid's a child to me, 'Ro. 'Sides, no one knows better than Chuck that we can survive without him for a while. We've done it time and time again." Storm gave herself a mental reminder to ask Logan later if he thought she was a child also.
"I do not see this as a bad thing, Wolverine" ,Joseph started thoughtfully. "It still shows that the Professor is thinking about us and is still concerned with our well-being. Dakota may be a way for Xavier to set his mind at ease. For the Professor's sake, I think we should accept him into our little family."
"Listen 'Joe', I'd like to set Chuck's mind at ease as much as the rest, but I'm gonna be cautious about letting anyone into our home who just shows up on our doorstep sayin' he was sent by Xavier to lord over us." Out of the corner of her eye, Storm saw Longshot's brows knit together. He was obviously not happy with how Logan had worded things.
"Gentlemen. Gentlemen" ,Beast said diplomatically. "The primary question should not be the Professor's intentions. First, we should determine if the note is authentic or not. Once we figure out if this note did come from the Xavier's hand, then we can debate over if Dakota should 'baby-sit us' as Logan so eloquently put it. Storm, may I please see the note?"
"Of course." Storm handed the note to Hank, who sat on the bottom step of the grand staircase. Beast spent a minute looking over the note.
"This does not appear to be the Professor's handwriting." ,Hank said when he finished his inspection of the note.
"Of course, it wouldn't be. You're reading my translation of the original note. Dakota had taught me this code and told me that Xavier, him, and me were the only people who knew this code. You didn't think Xavier would have sent a note like this out from under Bastion's nose in plain English? That would have been neat if he did because I wouldn't have had to spend three hours deciphering the note."
"Ah, you have my pity, my eternally-lucky friend, but would you happen to have the original note that was in Xavier's fair hand?"
"I have it, Henry." ,Storm said as she pulled the first note Dakota had given to her out of her pocket and handed it to Beast. "Dakota had given this to me to verify Xavier's handwriting."
After a few minutes of inspecting that note, Hank looked up. "This is indeed the Professor's handwriting, but one fact does not prove a hypothesis. Logan, if you could use your keen olfactory sense to detect the Professor's scent upon the paper."
Wolverine took the piece of paper and began to sniff it. Storm was oddly hit by a fit of giggles, which she wisely suppressed, at the picture of grown man looking like he was sniffing at a scratch-and-sniff. "This paper's been sanitized and resanitized. There's only six scents on it. Ro's and Hank's are the most recent. sniff, sniff Longshot's and Dakota's are the strongest. sniff, sniff There's a scent I don't know. sniff, sniff But under it all is Chuck's scent. I'd know it anywhere."
"If'n y'all are so hot an' bothered to figure out if this note is from the Professor, why don't y'all give the note to Longshot. His psycho-whatsit power could tell ya the past of the paper and the feelin's of the people around it." ,Rogue chimed in as she got up off of the stairs. She took the paper from Wolverine's hands as she descended past. She handed the piece of paper to Longshot. "Here ya go, sugah. Work some o' your magic."
Longshot gently cradled the rumpled piece of paper in his hands. He didn't see a telepath around to monitor him so he wouldn't get a sensory overload from reading the past of the piece of paper. But it looked like something that had to be done to prove his friend was here because of the note. Note for his own reasons as Wolverine had insinuated. Longshot cleared his mind and let the past roll into his mind.
"I am a sproutling. I can see the sky from between the leaves above my head. I will be big like my neighbors. I will touch the sky with my green fingers. I will grow to be-" His visions abruptly stopped as Rogue took the paper from his hands.
"Try again. Ya went back a bit too far." She placed the paper back into Longshot's hands. Longshot had hoped to just feel the paper's history around Xavier and not have to consciously guide himself. It took so much out of him to direct the way the past came to him that he wished there was a telepath around to moderate what he was going to do next, but there wasn't one around so, he had to do this the hard way.
Longshot took a firm grip on the past of the paper and began looking for Xavier amongst the images. There was so much that this little piece of paper had gone through that it was hard for him to moderate the flow of images. Sweat broke out on his brow as he tried not to get swept into the tide of images rushing by. He held onto a tree as the past swirled around him. He felt he was not going to find anything this way and he started to collapse. But before he sank in any further than his knees he saw something. A lonely man in a wheelchair bent over a piece of paper, scribbling out a message. Longshot dove through the images swirling around him. He swam toward the image that he needed to get for his friends. Halfway to it, he felt like his lungs were going to burst and his arms were leaden. Sheer desperation to get to it drove him on. I'm not going to fail Dakota. He's helped me more than he let's on. I have to start repaying him. I'm not going to fail. Just when Longshot started to lose cohesion with the paper, when he had driven himself to a point of utter collapse, he fell into a memory.
"I see a man. He's taking that object that leaks all over me and making patterns all over the front of me. He's worried. He had just come back with the pink-barked man with white leaves growing out of his top. Maybe he should get a better pruner. The peach-barked man waits awhile after the white-leaved man leaves. The peach-barked man has no leaves. It must be Autumn. He comes over to me and starts to make his markings all over me. It feels odd, but I can't stop him so he goes on. After he gets done he folds me into a funny position. After a while the woman with the long, black leaves comes back. I remember her. She brought me to the no-leaf man. She takes me away to another place. I leave behind the sullen, no-leaf man. Maybe he is sad because he has no leaves?"
Longshot knew that wasn't exactly what his friends were looking for. They were hoping for him to read Xavier through the sheet of paper, but he knew he was close. He couldn't see much anymore. Fatigue was waring him down, but he could feel Xavier near. Blindly, he moved away from the memory to one that felt that it could be what he was looking for. It'd better... be the right one...I can't... take... much more... of this... Luck smiled on its prodigal son as Longshot sank into the past.
"I'm writing this as fast as I can. I don't know how long I have until Bation comes back to interrogate me some more. I hope the mole can get this out of here. She said she could get this straight to Dakota. I need him to watch over my X-Men. I feel that they are going to need his help soon. I don't know where this feeling comes from. Maybe fatherly intuition. But I need to know that my X-Men have the best looking after them. Dakota can also help those I have forgotten to help. I think Rogue may benefit best from his help. She came so long ago for a problem I have been neglecting to try to solve. Cyclops may not like this intrusion or the history Dakota has with me, but it is time to get Dakota to the X-Men. Bastion has convinced me that there are dark times ahead that will make it absolutely necessary for Dakota to be alongside the X-Men. I trust their abilities, but I feel that will not be enough in the days ahead. I need to know that the X-Men are hands I trust implicitly. The X-Men are my life. I cannot live without them, though they may be able to live without me."
Longshot sagged as he finished orating what he saw and felt. Storm and Rogue had to catch him by each arm to keep him from collapsing to his knees. The feelings of intense worry and conviction left him as the note slipped out from between his fingers and fluttered lightly to the floor. Longshot hoped he said things right. Sometimes it was just so hard to put the experiences that happen around an object into words. He took a few deep breaths to clear his mind of the errant images floating in front of his eyes. When those images had cleared, he straightened himself out so he could stand on his own two feet.
"D-did I do okay?" Storm fought back the tears as she looked into his eyes. She knew that his "reading" off of the paper was the truth. The Professor was truly worried about his X-Men and having Dakota at the mansion was what set his mind at ease. In Storm's mind, that was enough reason for the X-Men to welcome Dakota into their midst.
"You did fine, Longshot. You did fine." Storm looked to the rest of the X-Men. "Longshot cannot lie to us through his reading of the paper's past, and I do not believe that he would lie to us with the translation of the note. We are now back to where we started. Do we follow the Professor's will and welcome Dakota to the mansion? Or do we kindly thank him for the news on the professor and send him on his way?"
This was not an issue she would force her opinion on. After Zero Tolerance, there was a tenseness in the air that was palpable. If Dakota was going to stay in the mansion with the X-Men, it would be on a concensus of the team.
"Look. I may be green to this X-Men thing, but I have seen this Dakota guy in action down in Australia. I think he's got somethin' that we need now. He's... I dunno...jus' got somethin' about him. If we're takin' a vote on this, I vote him in." ,Maggott said after a bit of silence. He absently stroked the two mechanical slugs that sat on his knees.
"The Professah did sound awfully worried 'bout us. It sounded like he knew he wuzn't comin' back f'awhile. If havin' Mr. Dakota here sets the Professah's mind at ease, then I say let him stay. The prof' done so much f'us. Why don't we do this f'him?" ,Cannonball said.
The rest of the team chimed in their thoughts and most of them leaned toward accepting Dakota. Except Wolverine and Reyes. He still was unconvinced. She didn't really care one way or another.
"Wolverine," Longshot began slowly. His strength was slowly coming back to him as he spoke. "you're the only one not convinced. I think I can make a deal that Dakota will accept. He wants to make sure that the decision to welcome him here is unanimous. Why don't you give him a trial period? If you could give him a couple of days to see if he should be here, then could you say if you wanted him or not? It would give you a chance to see him in action."
"That is a wise offer that all of us should partake in, even if we have already voted yay. It would give us all time to see who we have welcomed into our midst." ,Beast said magnanimously. "I say we hold off the true vote until this trial period is over."
Everyone basically agreed with Hank, and began to get up off of the stairs when the door to the room Dakota was in flew open and the object of discussion came rushing out of the room. He checked over his shoulder once before coming up to the team. His face was a bit paler than it had been when he had gone in.
"Is there are a problem, Dakota?" Storm had to keep herself from adding a 'Mr.' in front of his name. She remembered about what he had said earlier about adding titles to his name.
"Oh, yes. In a rather BIG X-Men take care of their own way."
While the X-men were discussing his fate with them, Dakota was answering a phone call that put an enormous lead weight in the pit of his stomach.
"All right. Tell me everything. From the beginning and don't skip a single detail. ... When did this come in? ... THREE HOURS AGO!?! ... Yes, that's a long time. Especially if you're the one being tortured for three hours. ... I don't give a flying shit about the regulations. When the D.C. are rumored to be attacking two X-Men, I want to know immediately. ... Locating my number does not take three hours. It's in BRIGHT yellow numbers above the main switchboard. ... Verifying is a waste of time when the D.C. is involved. ... Look, you pencil-necked, nose-picking geek. You are costing two people their LIVES. I will be sure to tell my brother-in-law, who everybody knows owns Blackhorse Inc., about your competency. ... DON'T even begin to whine to me! I'm not the idiot who had this information sitting in his lap for three hours. I will take care of this mess and deploy the right team. But you better pray to whatever God you believe in, because if I find either of them dead, I'll take it out of your hide." Dakota snapped the phone shut. How was he going to walk out there and tell the people whose trust he was trying to gain that two of their teammates had been captured by a group of lunatics who had a penchant for torturing their hostages. "Shit."
"Happens" ,came the gutteral voice from behind him. Dakota whirled around to see a pink-skinned, pink-haired young woman with bones jutting out of her body crouching in the shadows. I know her from somewhere.
"Pardon?" He thought he would go polite with someone who looked like she wouldn't care if she ripped his throat out right now. Wait a minute. I know her from one of Chuckles' files.
"It happens. Especially to all of the pretties who live in this oversized cardboard box. Can't you hear all of them out there, moaning over the ROUGH life they live out there in the light."
Her name's Marrow. A Morlock. Her body produces diamond-hard bones that she uses as weapons. WAITAMINUTE. She's supposed to be dead. Storm ripped out her heart to save a bunch of innocent commuters. What's she doing in the mansion? Am I seeing a ghost or something?
"Um, excuse me for asking, but what are you?" Gee, don't I sound stupid. Unconsciously, his body tensed. He was going to be ready for anything.
"I'm a Morlock. I'm an ugly little mutant that the pretties forced underground. But I will walk-"
I'm going to take my own life into my hands here.
"Y'know," Dakota interrupted. " maybe when two people's lives are not hanging by a little thread, I'll have time to listen to your little diatribe. But now's not the time. Maybe you can just hang around later and I'll listen. I have to go get the X-Men and hopefully stop two murders."
"You'll listen to me? Then what? Try to convert me into a loving, surface-dwelling freak?"
Okay, now I'm getting a little worried.
"No, I'll just listen. You tell me whatever you want, and I'll listen. Sound fair?" Marrow looked a little confused. Obviously, she was expecting a different kind of response from Dakota. So was I. But that is what came out of my mouth. Marrow's confusion quickly turned to anger.
"Don't toy with me, light-dweller."
"I wasn't." Where the hell is this coming from? She looks about ready to cut me to little pieces. Marrow looked like she was about to say something but quickly thought better of it. In one fluid motion she drew out a bone from her side and threw it. Dakota let his instincts move his body. He caught the bone-knife by its handle and returned it back. The bone vibrated next to Marrow's ear as it stuck out of the wall. She looked a little shocked. Then Dakota blinked and she was gone.
I've got to tell the X-Men they have ghosts running around the mansion that throw bone-knives that feel awfully real. When Dakota looked where Marrow had been, he saw a gash in the wall where the bone-knife had sunk in. Or maybe I should tell them they have a crazed Morlock running around throwing bone-knives at people.
Unsure if it was a wise move, Dakota turned to open the door. He felt relief when he put his hand on the doorknob and didn't feel a anything poking him in the back. Now here comes the fun part. I get to tell the X-Men that Angel and Psylocke are in mortal danger. Oooh, lucky me.
"GET OFF! GET OFF! GOOD GOD, GET OFF OF MY WING!" Angel's screams of agony tore Psylocke out of the blackness that had been gently cradling her. His high pitched bellows made her temples throb. Her eyes snapped open to see a petite, Asian woman standing on her lover's charred wing. The woman's brown eyes looked from the scanner she was holding in one hand to a clipboard she was holding in the other. Her black hair was cut in a very butch manner. She also must have had a great sense of balance as she kept her footing on the wing as it tried weakly to knock her off. She seemed to ignore Angel's pleas of agony and continued scanning.
Psylocke didn't know why she was already on her feet, maybe it was instinct, but it was a dangerous position for the woman standing on Angel's tender wing. Psylocke lunged to kill, but found out after a centimeter of freedom that she was on her feet because she was shackled into that position. She looked down and was shocked to see her feet were IN the floor. When she looked up, her hands were manacled in a sort of stone structure descending from the ceiling. She looked at Angel with hopes that he was in a better situation, but her heart sank when she saw how he was tressed up on the floor.
The man with wings like a bird was spread-eagled on the floor. Psylocke vaguely remembered something brushing past her while she had rested in the darkness about a vulgar joke about a "Bird-boy" spread-eagled on the floor. But now she got the full gist of the comment and wanted to rip the head off of the woman standing on her lover's wings.
The woman stepped down from on top Angel's wing and walked past Psylocke. She cast a brief glance at the purple tressed telepath. "The mind-witch is awake" ,she said as she moved onto another security camera.
"Good mornin', love." The feminine, Australian voice breathed on her neck. "How are we farin' this day? Did ya jus' love that sweet lil' song your lover jus' sang for us?" Psylocke snapped her head back to hopefully break the woman's nose, but all she got was someone grabbing her hair and yanking her head back even farther. "Tsk, tsk. You really shouldn't treat your guests that way, love. It's very inhospitable."
"I am not your 'love'," Psylocke growled through clenched teeth.
"Oh yes, you are. I'm jus' gonna love the way you scream in pain. I'm gonna love the way you beg for your's an' your lover's lives." Psylocke tried to ignore the pain in her shoulders and scalp as she tried to reach out to her fellow X-Men.
"Lash, stop. You're only giving her more will to put behind her telepathic calls for help." Psylocke felt her hair being released and brought her head up. She saw a European man with intense, dark blue eyes watching her.
"Why? What's the matter, Psion? Can't hold her back?" ,Lash taunted as she stepped behind Psylocke a few steps. A sickening suction noise floated past Betsy's ears. Meanwhile, Psion bristled at the comment.
"I can hold her back" ,he said tersely.
"Even with your left lobe tied in a knot?" crack Psylocke felt the whip scourge down her back. Her telepathic sending, which had been blocked by some sort of barrier, abated for the merest of seconds, as did her breathing. But once the initial sting of pain was gone, her breathing went back to normal and her telepathic sendings were pushed harder.
"You're not going to break her. She's a trained ninja. They have training of some sort to keep them from breaking under torture" ,Psion said as he redoubled his telepathic barrier around Psylocke, just to be safe.
"Who said I wanted to break her? Maybe I jus' want to get my practice whips-" crack "-done on her before I move onto her lover."
"If you so much as touch him," ,Psylocke began through a mask of concentration. "I will-" crack
"You'll what? Wiggle around in your bonds?" crack "No, you'll call me nasty names. Right?" CRACK "No, I got it. You'll jus' stand there an' do nothing." With each stroke of the whip on her back, Psylocke pushed even harder to get past Psion's barrier. She found the barrier moved just slightly after the last whip crack. She didn't know how much longer she could keep this up. She could feel the blood flowing down her back and the horrendous sting the whip left. She felt the odd sensation as a small trickle of blood raced down the back of her leg. "But y'know, this isn't nearly as fun as it should be. Why don't we take a break and take care of your lover? Inferno, I believe Mr. Worthington has bled enough on his fine carpet. Why don't you take care of his wounds?"
Psylocke looked down at Angel, whose head lolled in semi-consciousness. He probably wasn't even aware of what was going on. The red-haired woman who had been standing in front of the fire reached into the fireplace and withdrew her hand with a small dancing flame in her palm. She serenely glided over to the bullet wound in Angel's wing.
"Don' worry none, lad. This won' hurt one bit." Inferno lowered her hand near the wound and the little flame jumped off her hand. It danced upon the pinkened flesh as Angel roared in pain. When the wound had closed the flame lept back into Inferno's palm. She held the little flame up in front of her face. "See, it didn't hurt ye at all."
Inferno stood up and moved to the nearby gun wound on Angel's arm. Angel was writhing in agony. His precious wing fighting against its bindings. Inferno knelt down next to his arm. Angel rolled his head to the side. He mouthed the word 'no' to her, not finding any voice left in him. She looked him straight in the eyes as she lowered her hand near the wound, and the flame lept upon his wound. Angel found his voice again as he expressed his pain at the top of his lungs. He tried to get his arm free, to bring it near to him to protect it. His bindings held it to the floor and chafed his wrist some more that it bled. The flame lept back into Inferno's palm. She got up and moved to the third and final wound on Angel's side.
Psylocke watched Angel get tortured more as Inferno knelt down next to his side and let the flame dance upon his gun wound. "I will kill you." Inferno looked up at her at the calm statement and tilted her head to the side.
"No. Ye probably won't." Inferno turned back to the flame and scooped it up from Angel's writhing form. She placidly walked back to the fireplace and gently set the little jet of flame back into the fire.
"Do you think this is going to break me, Lash?" ,Psylocke spat. "This only hardens my reserves. I will make you pay for all of this."
"Hmmm, is that so, love? But you are mistaken on what we're here for. We're not here to torture you and run away. We're not here to break you. We're here to kill you. Actually, I could have had Shadow put a bullet into both of your brains and be done with it, but we want you to suffer. Life is never as easy as a bullet in the back of your head; why should your death be any different?"
"The X-Men will come. They'll come and free me. Then I'll make you pay for hurting him and me."
"Oh, you're right. The X-Men will come. Y'see that's what we're waiting for. They will come, and we will be ready."
