DISCLAIMER: See any of the first five parts for it.
NOTE:
italics the mental stuff
bold the action/sounds stuff
FEEDBACK: I could use a lot more. Send it to bkittle@creighton.edu Please! [Makes those really cute bunny eyes that either make you ashamed or sick to your stomach.]
The First Step - Part 7
Beverly McIntyre
Most of the X-Men were once again sitting on the grand staircase. Each one had a leaden lump sitting in their stomachs. They had all seen the condition that Psylocke and Angel were in when both of them were rushed to the almost ill-prepared rooms. It had been three agonizing hours since Beast, Joseph, Marrow, and Dr. Reyes had disappeared into the rooms and feverishly began to coax life back into their teammates.
Storm was starting to fear that things were not going well. Oh, Goddess, just let them live. She felt as if a white-hot needle was piercing the base of her skull since she had seen the condition that Psylocke and Angel were in. She could not decide if the sensation was raw fear, anger, or a combination of the two. Though it had subsided when she tried to busy herself on Dakota's behalf. It kept her mind off of the possibility of the death of her two friends. But when Longshot had everyone but Rogue and Wolverine vacate the room where his friend now peacefully lay, she had felt the sensation hit her harder than before.
Now, it was almost unbearable. She wanted to do something. Sitting and waiting were not doing anything to alleviate the burning at the base of her skull. She absently rubbed the back of her neck as she rose from her seat on the steps. She had to do something before she went insane.
Wolverine looked up at Storm as she rose from her place beside him. It had been two hours since he and Rogue had finished helping Longshot. He knew what the Wind Rider felt. It was a common malady that he felt, too. In fact, every X-Man in the room seemed to be feeling it. They all had to be thinking that they could have done something more. Some, like Bobby, thought they should have gone to the apartment to lend a hand. Everyone looks like they're a keg o' gun powder jus' waitin' to explode.
Wolverine's thoughts were interrupted by Longshot strolling into the room. He looked almost happy. I don't know which is more annoyin': his happy-go-lucky attitude or that I actually envy him right now.
"Hi, guys. I just snuck down to the rooms where Beast, Dr. Reyes, and the others were working on Angel." Longshot tried to keep his normal effervescent nature to a dull roar. These people looked just about ready to leap out and tear each other apart, but they seemed to perk up when he said he had been spying on the condition of their teammates.
"Dr. Reyes was not taking care of Betsy?" Storm's voice carried the smallest hint of fear that something had gone wrong.
"Nope. Betsy's fine. She was just sleeping when I peeked in. Anyway, Beast and them are crowded into that little room." Longshot shrugged. " They looked like they were finishing up."
"Indeed, we were," Beast said from the hallway behind him. Longshot turned to see a ragged and weary group enter the room. Dr. Reyes and Beast wore blood-stained, white smocks while Joseph had a sheen of sweat on his forehead and his posture looked fatigued. Marrow was nowhere to be seen. Beast let out a big sigh. "I don't know how much Longshot had seen or told you, but I believe it is incumbent upon me to give a full report on both patients' status. Being as I am extremely tired, I'll be brief.
"Psylocke is now resting comfortably. In a few days, she should be up and able to move around on her own violation. Aside from any psychological trauma, she will only be left with the deep scarring on her back from numerous lashings from a whip.
"Warren is a different case. On top of his outwardly wounds, he had a hairline fracture of his left femur. Once we get the appropriate materials, I will put a cast on his leg, and he will be wheelchair-bound for awhile. I won't go over the mile-long list of various other injuries that I have gotten well underhand. But there is one item left to be addressed." Beast paused and there was no denying the sadness in his eyes. "After the extensive injuries to Warren's wings, I believe the only course of action left is... amputation. I believe we would have had a hard time saving his wings even if we still had a fully stocked med-lab. But as we are without any truly sufficient medical facilities, his wings will not survive."
"Goddess, no," Storm breathed. When Angel had mysteriously regained his original, feathered wings, he had called it a blessing. The loss of the metallic wings given to him by Apocalypse were a reminder of a very dark time for him. When his old wings grew back, Warren had walked around like there was a great weight off of his chest. The loss of his precious wings would nearly destroy Angel's new-found spirit.
Dakota had slipped out of the room where he found himself asleep on top of a big piece of plywood supported by a slowly melting ice column. He looked down the hall and saw Beast's broad back as he addressed the X-Men. Dakota quietly shut the door behind him and stealthily moved in the opposite direction. He got to the set of doors that he figured Psylocke and Angel were behind. He picked the one on the left and slipped in. He had to do a few good deeds.
Angel lay on a pile of blankets in the middle of the room with his wings spread out on some more blankets. Is everyone in this house going to be sleeping in the dead of winter without a blanket on their bed? Of course, that isn't really a problem with Storm making the weather outside of the mansion Spring-like. Dakota carefully tip-toed over beside one of the wings and knelt down. He noted exactly how he was removing the bandages from one section as he delicately peeled the bandage away from a tender part of the wing. Dakota paused as Angel stirred slightly, but went back to work unbandaging part of the wing when Angel settled back down. Looks like Inferno really hurt you bad. This might take a minor miracle.
With a small section of the wing exposed, Dakota looked about the room to find a any object sharp enough to cut skin. He quickly found one at his throat.
"What are you doing to him?" Dakota recognized Marrow's voice as she brought the bone-dagger closer to his throat. He could feel a small trickle of blood start to run down his neck where the diamond-hard bone purposefully nicked him.
"Trying to save his wings would be my best guess," he spoke softly so not to wake Angel up and to keep his throat intact. Dakota felt the dagger bite further into his skin. He was starting to get a little nervous. "Uh, if you kill me, he's doesn't have a chance of keeping his wings."
"If I kill you, you won't have a chance of hurting him any further. Besides, aren't you supposed to be dying with a bullet in your gut?" Marrow sounded as cool as ice and willing to slit his throat at any time.
"I got better." Dakota was going beyond the point of nervous to irate. His voice went into a harsh whisper. He didn't want the X-Men walking in to see what he was about to do. It just wouldn't look good for him. "Look, it's obvious you're doing a good job of looking out for Angel's well-fare, but if you don't remove that dagger from my throat he's not going to be Angel anymore. He's going to lose his wings if I don't do something."
"Why are so sure you can do something that McCoy can already do?"
"Are we seeing the same pair of wings here? Just look at them. There is nothing McCoy or anyone else can do. I'll bet you that McCoy is out there right now with the X-Men telling them that he's going to have to amputate the wings. Now, I can save the wings, but that would require you not slitting my throat."
Dakota was taking a gamble. It sounded like Marrow was truly concerned about Angel's well-being. If she was, she would have to know how much Angel would hurt if he lost his wings. Dakota's gamble paid off when he felt the dagger removed from under his Adam's apple.
"I'm watching your every move." Dakota twisted around and easily plucked the dagger out of her hand. She looked at him in angered shock. No one had ever disarmed her so quickly before. Of course, she was not completely disarmed. She reached over her shoulder to grab another dagger out of her back, but she stopped when he drew the dagger across the palm of his hand.
He set down the dagger next to him and turned back to the hand-sized section of revealed wing. As blood trickled out of the wound he gently placed his hand on the burnt skin. He kept his hand there until he felt the small wound on his palm heal up. He removed his hand and nodded in satisfaction. One down, one to go.
"Re-bandage this wing while I work on the other one," Dakota quietly ordered as he picked up the bone dagger and moved to the other side of the room. He knelt next to the other wing and carefully began unwrapping part of the bandage. Marrow almost reverently knelt down next to Angel. Do I dare touch his flesh with my hands? With infinite care, she rewrapped the exposed wing, trying hard not to sully his wound with her clumsy hands.
Dakota was oblivious to the almost pious scene going on across from him. He carefully slit his other palm and placed it on the exposed, blackened skin. He again held his hand on the wing until he felt his palm heal his own wound. He looked up to tell Marrow to finish up this wing while he went next door to take care of Psylocke. Words never quite came to his lips when he saw what she was doing over there. She was still rewrapping his wing with what looked like too much concern. I'd better do this one myself. My entire point of sneaking in here was to do this before anyone came in to check on him. The way she's moving, it'll be the Fourth of July before she gets done. Dakota tore his eyes away from Marrow and her tender ministrations and finished the job on that wing.
Y'know after some thought, maybe it wasn't a good idea to let a psycho rebandage his wing. I don't think I should leave her alone in here with him. When Dakota looked back across the room, Marrow was no longer next to Angel. Worried, Dakota glanced around the room. She wasn't anywhere in the room. The only sign that she had exited the room was that the door was slightly open. Where'd she run off to? Oh, well. Doesn't look like she did anything other than rewrap the wing. I'm just glad that she didn't do anything harmful to Angel. He's suffered enough for awhile. But there was something in the way she looked at him. Almost like he was a truly divine being. Wonder where that came from? Dakota rose up from beside Angel and made his way over to the door. He had to take care of one more person before going back to his little room with the plywood and ice.
Marrow ran through the tunnels that she called home. She was almost in a state of euphoria. She had touched him. She had touched her angel. She sped onward, her feet lighter than they had been in years. She had touched the one who had sacrificed so much in these tunnels and become a near divinity in the process. If that Native American man had been right, she had just helped save one of the most precious asset of her angel: his wings.
Marrow sped around the corner and skidded to halt in front of a blood-stained wall. The bloodstain was in the shape of a winged man. Marrow walked up reverently put her hand on the pattern of blood.
This was where she had first seen Warren Worthington III, who would become her up-world angel of mercy. Many nights she had slept at the foot of this monument, dreaming of meeting her savior who flew in the blue sky. Today, she had fulfilled part of that dream. Though her angel had been hurt, she had helped him. She had met him. For a little while she had been worried that she would never be able to see him fly against an azure sky. But now there was hope.
Privately, Sarah knelt down in front of the holy icon. She bowed her head reverently and prayed to the spirit of mercy that permeated this small shrine. She prayed for her angel to be able to fly once more across a sky so wide it was boundless.
Dakota had just managed to silently close the door behind him and sit down on the table made of wood and ice when the Storm quietly opened the door. She looked slightly shocked to see him sitting on the edge of the table. She gazed at the blood-stained abdomen where no bullet wound could be seen. She looked back up into his eyes.
"I came to see how you were doing. Longshot had said he had taken good care of you, but I do not understand this." She gestured at where his wound used to be. "When I last saw you, you were near death."
"What did you think Chuckles sent a human up here to be your assistant professor?" Storm raised an eyebrow.
"'Chuckles'?"
"Oh, God. Um, you better not tell him that I called him that in front of you. He'd kill me." Storm tried to keep a small trickle of laughter from bubbling up inside of her. She had a hard time imagining the Professor appreciate being called 'Chuckles.' Storm heard some footsteps behind her and turned to see who it was while trying to keep a straight face. Dr. Reyes came strolling into the room.
"All right Dakota, you had better appreciate this. I lost the coin toss. So, I get...to see...how your...bullet wound is doing?" Reyes looked at Dakota's healed stomach. "Wait a minute. You're supposed to have a bullet wound in your abdomen. Where'd it go?"
Reyes came over and probed his rock-hard stomach with her fingers, not quite believing what she was seeing. The only trace that there had been a bullet wound was a circular stain of blood. She began to mumble to herself. "This kind of metabolic healing is amazing. This skin looks totally healthy. No scarring, nothing. It's only been four hours since he got the wound. This is amazing."
"Well, I've got a pretty amazing metabolism. Anyway," Dakota twisted, and Reyes just waited for his stomach to burst open and blood to start pouring all over the floor. She was mildly surprised that nothing happened. He just swept something into the palm of his hand and turned back to her. "Here. You'd know how to get rid of this better than I would."
Reyes put her hand out and Dakota poured a small pile of tiny pieces of shrapnel into the palm of her hand. "That's from the specialized bullet that Shadow shot into me. It gets halfway through the body before exploding internally, causing even more damage."
"That surely would have killed me," Storm observed with some clear shock.
"Wait a minute. Wait a minute," Reyes started before Dakota could say anything. "Are you saying that these little things were inside of your body?" Dakota nodded. "Then how do you get these out?"
"My body kind of spit them out."
"'Spit them out?' What do mean 'spit them out?'"
"I woke up, and those were all clustered in a pile on top of my stomach."
"Okay, let me get this straight. Not only does your body heal at a inhuman rate but it also purges foreign objects from it as well."
"Right." Reyes looked at him in disbelief.
"Where do I go to get that kind of health insurance?"
"I don't know. I just picked this up when I was fourteen." Reyes shook her head as she turned and walked out of the room. She obviously didn't need to tend to a patient who was already healthy. As she walked out, she mumbled about having to talk to Beast.
Storm looked over at Dakota after Reyes left. He was sliding off of the makeshift table. "Is there any other mutant abilities I should be made aware of?"
"Yeah, I have an-eep."
"An 'eep?' What's an an 'eep?'" Storm knew that it was an exclamation, but she just couldn't resist. The bubble of laughter was still dancing around inside of her. It also relieved some of the shock she was feeling at Dakota's rapid healing and the revelation that she really would have died if he had not jumped in front of the bullet for her.
"Right now, it's a splinter in my butt." Dakota reached around and plucked a rather large splinter out of his hind-end. He looked at it in mild annoyance before tossing it over his shoulder onto the table. "Damn plywood. Always splinters on the ends," he said as he rubbed the sore spot. Now, it was severely taxing for Storm to keep herself from laughing, but she somehow managed to keep her composure.
"If you want to, I can call Dr. Reyes back in here."
"Nah, it's okay. It'll heal in a minute. Now, as I was saying, I also have an im-WAITAMINUTE." He looked at her hopefully. "Why do you need to know about any of my other mutant abilities?"
