Chapter Nine: Trouble in Paradise
(A/n- I have to take this time to say thank you to the reviewers and to put in a disclaimer so I don't get my butt sued off.
Disclaimer: X-men: Evolution and all characters that you see on the show belong to Marvel comics and WB Kids. Amori, Lara, Hannah, Daniel, and Kendra belong to me. If you want to use them or this plot please ask. Bayville belongs to the U.S.A (I only live thirty miles away right across the Hudson!).
Ack, this is longer than I meant it to be. Oh well. Please R/R.)
It's eight o' clock in the morning on Christmas and I've just been awoken by Lara. Ask me how happy I am about this arrangement. Oh well, she is only twelve. I haven't written here since the plane, and Amori might kill me one day if she finds a chunk of our lives missing, so I'd better give a quick update.
We've been here for a week and we've basically spent the whole time at the beach and the mall. We'll probably go back to the beach later today (after Lara's pixy stick high has worn off of course. Amori told Alex giving Lara all that sugar was a bad idea. She might end up setting us on fire, which she could do if she so desired). Amori and Hannah have been attempting to knit together a fragile friendship; it's sorta working. She's also got rid of some of the tension she's been working up ever since she moved to the mansion. There hasn't been a peep out of her about the government or the senate since we got her. This is a track record for Amori. Alex hasn't changed since I saw him in November. He's still very outgoing, and good for a laugh. Though I do think the storm experience has made him a little bit more cautious. As for me, well, don' t tell, but not being 'Leader of the X-men' for a while is really nice.
Amori's cell is ringing. I can hear it though the wall. I can also hear her cursing at it through the wall. She never turns that thing off. Let's see…it just stopped ringing. Lara's bouncing around their room now (I can hear her), and Alex is next to me wondering why he gave her that candy. Amori just ended her call with 'Merry Christmas. Je t'aime.' Obviously she was talking to Remy. Of course one wonders what he's doing up at three o' clock.
I closed the notebook still wondering why Remy was calling Amori at three in the morning, and wondering why I'd documented it. Probably 'cause I was still tired. Next to me Alex was trying to recover from the shock of being woken at eight o' clock in the morning. He was not by any means a morning person, no matter what holiday it was and has probably never seen a sunrise in his life. I opened the blinds in the room attempting to shine some sunlight into his face, but instead we were greeted with gray skies, blowing trees and waves crashing along the beach. Looked like a storm was coming in.
"Maybe it'll clear up." Alex shrugged, not sounding to optimistic. "It wasn't supposed…"
Alex was interrupted by a long string of expletives coming from the next room. I couldn't tell which one of the girls it was, but the sound was high pitched, and clear. Next thing we knew there was a loud banging at the door and Lara came running back in, but this time she wasn't on a sugar jazz.
"Turn the TV to WB." She said urgently.
Alex took the remote for his television from his desk and turned the TV on. He channel surfed for a few seconds before coming to the WB network. It was a Saturday, so even though it was Christmas morning WB Kids was still on. Pokémon had just finished up and now they were showing X-men: Evolution; professor Xavier's planted show.
"So, what's up?" Alex mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "It looks like any other episode. There's Scott, Jean, Evan, Kitty, Amori, Hannah…" He stopped mid sentence.
On the screen the animated version of myself was talking to a girl with short brown hair, and seemingly tanned skin. The girl standing behind them had red streaked hair and was wearing a halter top, capris and platform shoes. Amori and Hannah were animated and on TV, and somehow I didn't think that this was the professor's doing.
"Get this," Lara eyed the TV wearily. "On this weeks episode new character Amori and her kid sister Lara get kicked out of their home by their stepfather. A friend of Amori's rescues them. Sound familiar?"
"Professor Xavier did not put that there." Amori appeared the door with Hannah next to her. She leaned against the frame with her nightshirt swaying near her knees. "I smell trouble."
"Ditto." Hannah said. "I'd say that you three have a problem, because of course now anyone who watches this show in Bayville is gonna know. It was a good cover until the government found out."
I sighed. "I wonder if Daniel had anything to do with this."
"Of course he did. He's the source of all our problems." Amori said sensibly. "I suggest we get up and enjoy our Christmas, but we deal with this first thing tomorrow."
"Enjoy our Christmas?" Alex raised an eyebrow.
She shrugged. "Well you don't want your parents getting suspicious do you? They'll wonder why we're all so upset."
"Shh!" Lara waved her arms around and pointed to the television.
The TV versions of Amori, Lara and I were being dragged off kicking and screaming, by guys in black armor. Some of them were also taking away Kurt, and he wasn't wearing his image inducer. Neither was Lara. Bad omen or coincidence? I didn't know, and I wasn't eager to find out.
~
It was still cloudy when Amori and I went out later that day. We'd deemed it too windy to go to the beach, and Alex, Lara, and Hannah were inside the house glued to the PS2, so Amori and I decided to walk around a little. We skirted around the topic of what had happened that morning, and talked about oddly normal things like CD's and sports.
Alex's block was a typical suburban settlement. All the houses were modern and well kept. Some houses had evidence of child inhabitants, and some houses looked like they belonged to retirees, aka- old people. There was a palm tree at the base of every house and different flowers planted neatly in pots hanging on light posts. The development was reletivly new; most of the houses had been built in the early nineties, late eighties. Coming from the air port, Alex had to drive over a lot of back roads to get here. All big towns, malls and high ways were about twenty miles away. If Amori had remembered that last little detail, we wouldn't have gotten into the pile of shit we got into next.
We probably looked like brother and sister when we were walking down the street. It was just like we were in eighth grade again when we used to walk home from school together. Amori would be the one doing cart wheels and hand stands down the sidewalks and I'd be the one laughing behind her while telling her to stop. At the moment she was in a crab walk at a street corner waiting for me to catch up.
A beat up Yellow BMW New Bug pulled up next to Amori at the corner. As the window rolled down she got out of her crouched position looked the car over. There were two people in the car, and boy did they look worng for that car. People in Armani suits usually down'r drive beat up BMW's. This alone was a tip off for me. Amori was engaged in conversation with the two men, but I couldn't hear it because I wasn't close enough yet. So I jogged up to Amori and the car.
"…where Route 35 is?" I caught the last snippet of sentence from the guy sitting in the drivers seat.
"Route 35?" Amori shrugged. "I don't know. I'm sorry."
The man in the passengers seat stuck his head out of the window. "Maybe your brother knows?" He flashed a smile. If it was supposed to put me at ease, defiantly did not do it's job.
"We're not native." I said shortly. There was something not right here, something other than the Armani suits. I could tell they had accents, but not from where. "My sister sometimes forgets not to talk to strangers. C'mon Amori."
"Sure you don't know. We're mighty lost." Driving man spoke. The accent was southern. I looked oit of the corner of my eye to see how far away Alex's house was. I wanted to know how fast we might need to run. My Danger Room training was kicking in.
She looked at me oddly. She wasn't feeling what I was about this. "We wish we could help you, You might want to try one of the--."
Amori stopped short suddenly, making a sort of 'eep' noise under her breath. I whipped my head back to the scene. Automatically I reached for my glasses, ready to pull them down and blast the car away.
The guy in the passenger seat was holding a gun. We've been up against guns before, and it was no sweat. But those were all common handguns. This looked like something you'd shoot an elephant with, and it was pointed at us.
"Oh give me a break." Amori rolled her eyes, holding her hand out obviously readying to use her powers. Ten seconds later we were still sitting there with the gun pointed at us. Her powers weren't working.
"Get in the car." One of the guys demanded.
I grabbed Amori's arm and started backing her away. At first she was resisting, but when she saw the gun still following us she let me lead her. The two men didn't say anything. The driver just shrugged and pointed his finger in a slight motion. The man with the gun pulled the trigger twice. Bullets didn't come out. Little darts flew out at lighting speed. I felt a hard 'thwack' in my neck, and my head started to swim. I tried to pull the dart out but my fingers were numb and I couldn't move my arms. I couldn't see Amori, because my neck wouldn't move, and finally I had to succumb to darkness.
*~*
I don't know why, but all I could think about were marshmallows. Big, white, and fluffy marshmallows were dancing all pver the place. It was really nice, except for the occasional burning pain that would come. It seemed very out of place in marshmallow land. Maybe I'd call the marshmellow gaurds to come take care of this…
"Scott, Scott. C'mon bro, wake up! Scott please? Wake up." Why did the marshmallows sound scared?
"Scott!" I felt a hard slap accompany my name. I jerked around, and fell of te marshmallow I was sitting on. I fell for awhile, before my head made contact with a cold hard surface. My eyes flew open.
"Ve zought you vould not vake up!" I looked above me as I moaned over and over again. My head hurt so much as my eyes focused on Kurt and Alex kneeling by me. I looked around the room. It was obvious that this was not Alex's home or the side walk. The walls of the room were made from gray cement and the ceiling held a small slit where a sliver of sun light was filtered in. It was a cell
"Oh god." I groaned. "I feel like I got hit with a sledge hammer."
"Have some water." Said an unfamiliar voice. An African American woman who looked like she was in her early twenties handed me a flask. Alex opened for me whn I found I couldn't and held it to my mouth. I took deep gulps, discovering that water seemed to clean out my system.
"Thank you." I said. I was lying near a wall, so I slowly pulled myself up against it to a sitting up postion. The room was filled other people. They looked to be from ten to late thirties. Some were huddle in groups and some were alone in corners. The smallest children were all squished together on the three beds that occupied the room. Across the room I saw Evan and Rogue talking to some of the kids. There was a girl crying in Evan's arms as he stroked her hair. I didn't see any one else that I recognized in the crowd.
"You've been out for twenty-four hours." The woman informed me. "Your friends were very worried. I think you might have gotten a double dose of that seditave they've been using on all of us."
"All of us?" I looked aroud the room again.
Kurt nodded. "Ja. Every one being held in zis building is a mutant."
"They're holding…where are we?" My mind started spinning again. The government had started an anti mutant project.
"Somewhere on the west coast." Alex frowned at the wall. "About thirty minutes after you and Amori left on Christmas two guys rang the doorbell. My mom answered and they gassed her or something, so she was out cold. Dad was in the garage so he didn't hear anything. The guys came into the den where were playing video games and gassed us too, when we woke up we were here. We only know west coast because one of the guys over there woke up while they were flying him out here."
"then Kurt, how'd you, Evan, and Rogue get here."
"Snowball fight in Bayville Memorial Park. Zey got us zere. Ve've been here longer zan you zough; since Christmas Eve." Kurt sighed. His demonic looking tail twitched nervously behind him. Tail? Ah…Kurt's image inducer was missing. "Remy's here too, over zere some where. Jean, and Kitty aren't zough because zey went home for ze holidays. I don't know about ze rest of ze mansion. I zink Jamie and Bobby went home also, but ze rest are zere."
I was about to ask another question but Alex raised his hand up before I could speak "Amori and Hannah were taken to other rooms and Lara's somewhere in here."
I scanned the room again searching for Lara. She was easy to spot with her orange fur, in a near corner. Her image inducer was missing also. She was talking to a dark haired boy that looked to be about her age. Bright range flames danced around both of their hands.
"Drink some more." The woman with the water was handing me the flask again. "It flushes the sedative out of your body, not to mention it hydrates you again. I'd guess you'd have to be thirsty after twenty hours."
"No offense, but…why are you helping me?" I asked skeptically. "There're a lot of little kids in here that probably need more help than I do."
"None taken." She said, smiling. "You've saved a lot lives in your day. You deserve it. And besides, you were the only person still knocked out. I was worried, along with your friends, that maybe you wouldn't wake up. My name's Kendra by the way. Kendra Casey; formally of St. Louis." She held out her hand.
"I'm Scott Summers, from Bayville, New York." Her grip was strong and she grinned as she shook.
"I met your brother and friends." Kendra said gesturing around. "And let me be the first to say. Your cousin is quite a feisty one."
I was instantly alert. "Why? What happened?"
"She wouldn't give up her image inducer." Alex said dryly. "She miniature Logan. She bit the guy who tried to get it off of her."
"That wasn't good was it?" I put a hand to my forehead.
"They had to knock her out with the back end of a gun." Kendra grimaced. "Then they had to fire a few shots into the ceiling to get everyone calmed down again."
I looked at the ceiling. Sure enough there was a circle of bullet holes that looked very much like a machine gun had made them. At least Lara hadn't been too hurt. She looked fine over in the corner. When I felt better I'd have to go and check on her.
I watched the residents of our room for a few minutes trying to collect the thoughts in my still swimming and throbbing head.
"'Ey mon amie, you feeling better?" Remy's familiar Cajun accent floated behind me. I turned around quickly, immediately regretting it. I felt faint again, and it was a major effort to keep my self up straight.
"Better, I think." I shrugged. "How're you?"
"Well as a captive can be." Was his flat answer. "Can't get outa this place."
Kendra nodded in agreement. "The security is very good, and people haven't tried to escape because of the children. No one wants them hurt. We've been trying to be optimistic, and hope that they let us out."
"Trying to be optimistic? How long have you been here?"
"Since two days after the mutant press conference ." Her voice took a downward tone. "I wish that we could try and escape."
I raised my eyebrows. Escape. Hmm… I could do this. If I tried, I really could. I'd been in worse situations than this thanks to Magneto. Of course this was (I assumed) the United States army, but hey, we had an advantage.
Remy grinned, watching my face as I thought. "I guess you've 'dought of somet'ing, I know dat look. Remy'll get Evan and Rogue. Looks like dis could be fun."
*~*~*