Disclaimer: Nope, I still don't own the X-Men or anything else Marvel-related. Damn…
I watch her. I always watch her, my Jeanne. By de time I turned up dere was none of de little girl left – I only heard about dat from 'Ro, or from Lensheer. Jus' dis – de beautiful woman I fell in love wit', and even after I've made so many mistakes, who loves me.
And I'm not blind. I know she has her flaws. I know de way she looks at Wolverine when she t'inks I'm not looking. But in de end, I know she's coming back t' me. Can she show him her weaknesses? Will she let him see de truth of her, in de harsh light of day? Non, I don't t'ink so.
When she found out 'bout de Morlocks, she demanded one t'ing from me. Jus' a little t'ing, she said. Took every ounce of strength I had t' bring m' shields down and hold dem dere, but I did it.
She knows everyt'ing about me. Every dark secret, every nasty t'ing I did t' keep going during dose years on de streets when I didn't live, jus' survive. Every time I've killed – who, and how, and most importantly, why. Every fear, every joy.
And in return I know her, know her fears. De way she snaps into action when dere's trouble, putting herself behind walls so deres no emotion, jus' dat cool logic of hers? Dat's her defense mechanism – I ought t' recognise dat; I have enough of dem myself. De fact dat she's so afraid of making a mistake dat it rules her life. De fact dat she still huddles under the bedclothes when dere's a thunderstorm.
So I don't care, what she does when I'm not watching. In de end, when she's done wit' him? She's still coming back t' me.
She's half crouched beside de woman – dere were two of them, a woman and a man, curled up under the snow huddled so close y' couldn't tell where one ended and de next begun. Somet'ing strange about dem, Jeanne says – dat's obvious enough, but she says Non, it's somet'ing about their minds. Can't tell where one ends and de next begins.
Easy t' find them, frozen and half-dead. Almost too easy. I don't like easy. When Sinister offered t' fix my powers, give me control – dat was easy. Shoulda known dat not'ings ever dat easy. Jeanne said that dey were being chased, dat dey were forced up into de mountains, away from de town – if you call dat a town.
If dey were being chased, whoever it was gave up pretty easy. Like dey jus' disappeared; but I don' t'ink dat for a second. Somet'ings not right here. Probably not going t' figure it out sitting here in the Blackbird, watching my girl, dough.
Jus' hope it doesn't come back n' bite us in de ass.
----
Nathaniel Essex woke up slowly, suddenly struck by a thousand things he'd thought he was beyond. Hunger. Cold. Pain. Fear. Thirst and the taste of dirt in his mouth. He was restrained by chains that were cold and hard against his skin and with a start he realised that he was weak. He was human.
What the hell?
~Staring at the readings Vertigo had sent him; once they'd pulled themselves out of the burnt remains of the cabin, that was. Idiots. Fools. Imbeciles. What did a man have to do to get some decent help? Then again, it was that brat with the ridiculous accent he'd sent to recruit them in the first place. Teach him to subcontract…
None of that mattered though. The co-mutation in his latest targets was, if anything, increasing in speed and intensity. The possibilities were endless. The escape of Storm had put his research back years – for some reason he'd never been able to clone her – and he'd spent forever looking for a new source of strong, pure, DNA. This was it. He'd finally be able to step out from under the shadow of Apocalypse and take his place at the top of the ladder – where he belonged.
"Whatcha want us to do, boss?"
Arclight, calling in on the radio link. He was about to snap 'Go after them, of course, idiot!', when a sudden coldness gripped his throat and he instead said "Get back here at once; I've got other things for you to do."
Then there was blackness.~
"Shall I tell you a story?"
He couldn't speak. He couldn't move. Apocalypse stood at the entrance to the prison of Sinister, smiling. Somehow that smile was the most terrible thing imaginable, worse than any threat or torture.
"There once was a scientist who was blessed with great powers, Essex. He gave his loyalty and his life and his soul to one who was like God, and in return long life and every thing he could have wished was his. And the only price was that loyalty, that he would serve his God gratefully, and well, and stand by him when the time came for the strong to take their place as rulers and the weak to bleed and die before them.
But do you know what happened, Nathaniel? This scientist became greedy. He took his new gifts for granted and he began to plot and scheme against his true ruler, his liege. In his delusion he thought that he could fool his God, and that he could even take his place.
Can you guess how the story ends, Essex?"
There was a wetness between his legs, he realised. He'd wet himself, and as he pulled ineffectually against the chains he could only whisper "No." and not know whether it was an answer or a plea for mercy.
"How the story ends, is that the
scientist has all his powers revoked for his disloyalty, and the God finds a
new follower, one who will not betray him.
Actually, I believe you two have met?"
And standing beside Apocalypse, the slim figure of a woman who would look tall in any other company. Physically she looked much the same; the white hair and eyes marking her mutant status; her thin limbs belying the strength they held. But she shone with so much power that Nathaniel found he could not look at her for long, and he dropped his head.
"This, Essex, is my new follower. My daughter, my beloved Chaos. I have no more use for you. Have fun."
The last was directed at Storm, as Apocalypse stalked out. Beyond he could be heard shouting orders at somebody; somewhere a door slammed shut.
Storm – Chaos, rather, tilted her head at him.
"Do you know what he has done for me? I can hear it rain in Paris. I hear the snow fall in Beijing. I can hear the worms crawling in the earth, the snakes sliding through the desert. I can hear the trees grow; I can hear them fall and rot."
Her hand drifted across his cheek, in a mockery of a caress. "And all of these things will obey me. For I am a Goddess, daughter of a God, and the time has come for the culling of the weak and the unworthy. I will hear them bleed. I will hear them die."
An unholy light shone in her eyes. "I can hear you breathe, Essex. But don't worry – we'll soon fix that."
----------
Xavier touched Kurt's mind lightly – there was no need to go deep, and the boy was skittish enough about telepaths as it was – until the memory of his attacker surfaced. When he finally saw it, he gasped. Not her! Not her… she hadn't been real, surely. A trick of the demon, a fragment stolen from his mind to torment him with regret. He suddenly couldn't breathe, and it wasn't until he raised his eyes to Kurt's shocked gaze and the mirror that hung on the side wall that he realised it wasn't from shock, but because she'd materialised and was trying to choke him. Soon fragments of her lay around him, mixed with fragments of what had been a quite expensive vase; Kurt had obviously grabbed the first thing that came to hand, or in this case, tail.
"Cassandra." he said, once breath returned. "I didn't think…" He indicated the filing cabinet. "Kurt, under F. A file for Cassandra Fraser."
Her face had been the same as that of five years past. Fifteen years old, pale and fragile; a telepath, in the main, but her experiences spoke of a deeper, hidden power. Coping with telepathy when you couldn't shield was difficult enough; Charles remembered his own experiences, his hard-won, homemade shields. He'd had no-one to teach him. Coping with telepathy when it was mixed with flashes of what might have been precognition was apparently enough to drive someone insane, which was more or less what she had been, when he'd finally found her. Her power had been two years old by then; supported by a rich family who were prepared to fork out plenty of money if someone would just 'fix' her, he'd taken three months to get her to the stage where she could leave the house, walk upright, and go five minutes without gibbering or attacking anyone. They planned to send her to the Institute, out of sight, out of mind; he'd planned to teach her how to harness her gifts.
Then the accident happened. The Mercedes pinned beneath an overturned truck; the silent, near-lifeless form of the child he'd failed. He'd reached out to her mind; the doctors said she was comatose, but that couldn't explain the perfect shields he'd come across, so perfect and smooth that any probe was cast away, no leverage to be found. Soon the doctors, and her family, stopped returning his calls; after a while, he gave up.
"That doesn't explain why she's attacking me, or even how!" said Kurt, annoyed.
"You think the how is more important than the why?"
An eyebrow raised; with that stubborn expression on his face, Kurt reminded Xavier more than a little of Wolverine.
"The how will help me know how to defeat her. The why only tells me what the motive of an insane woman is. You can't save her, Professor." He snatched up the file. "I'm going to see if mein Katzchen can find out where she is, if she's alive."
As the smoke cloud cleared, Xavier just sighed, and emptied the contents of the hidden flask down his throat. Damn, damn, and damn.
~We've got them, Professor. We'll be back in approximately an hour.~
~Thank you, Jean~
Hopefully their visitors would be a welcome diversion, and he could get away from demons, insane ex-students, and the angry gazes of current students.
-------
Raven and Wanda took another shot of tequila each, rolling their eyes in unison at the display on the couch. Rogue was making herself extremely comfortable in Magnetos arms of late, as well as in his bed, with the result that no-one else was getting much sleep. One thing that Rogue wasn't, was quiet.
Wanda, thought Mystique, had accepted Magneto's apology quite well, although there had been a certain amount of tantrum throwing and the destruction of yet more of the art collection Mystique was trying her best to build up with Warrens money. Oh well.
"We're like one big happy family." Wanda said, apropos of nothing.
"Whose Betsey supposed to be, then?" sneered Rogue, untangling herself at least partially from her lovers arms.
"Oh, she's the cousin nobody likes." said Mystique airily. "But I don't think that's what our dear witch was getting at."
"Just that the family is not quite complete yet." replied Wanda. "We've got a couple of wayward sons and brothers to reel in yet."
"Pietro." said Magneto, frowning. "Last time I heard from him he was in Russia."
"Why?" asked Wanda. "He can be anywhere in the world he likes. Why Russia?"
"I think the reason might have been, and I quote 'to get as far away from you, Father, as possible'" replied Magneto, planting a kiss on Rogue's shoulder to the visible disgust of his daughter. "Stubborn brat."
"And Kurt has not been keeping very good company of late." added Mystique, a matching frown on her face. "Weaning him away from the X-Men would be difficult."
"It might be worth it, though." said Wanda, her mood vastly improving with the thought of scheming and planning.
"What might be worth it?" asked Psylocke, coming down the stairs.
"Painting yer ass red and white and using ya as a dartboard, Sugah." came Rogue's answer, accompanied by giggles from Wanda and low chuckles from Magneto and Mystique.
"Whatever." was the sulky reply. "I'm going out."
She left, accompanied by the usual chorus from Rogue and Wanda of "Don't come back!" Tormenting Betsey was one of their favourite pastimes, and Raven had to admit she didn't try and stop them. The telepath hadn't been proving particularly useful of late.
Now what sort of mischief could they get up to in Russia?…
--------
The Goddess Chaos sauntered out of the cave where they'd been keeping what had been, until recently, Vertigo's boss. She turned her head to regard the assembled Marauders, who instinctively shuddered. Vertigo frowned. Something about those eyes creeped her out. There was slightly insane, like Sinister, and there was completely fucking nuts, and this girl fell into the later category. Not that she was easily scared, but the realisation that her guarantee of eternal life via cloning was locked up under the supervision of this crazy bitch had made her very nervous indeed.
Chaos gestured to the cave. "Bury that." Then she took to the skies, leaving behind several very confused Marauders. As one they crept into the small space. As their eyes adjusted to the dim light, Arclight summed up the situation in her usual concise manner. "Shit."
Vertigo gazed on what had been Nathaniel Essex, and her expression hardened. Right then. As of right now, the Marauders could die. Not just that, but they'd stay dead. Therefore it would be a very good idea to do exactly what Apocalypse and his fucked up daughter demanded, and bury him.
As soon as they could work out a way to scrape all the pieces up off the floor, that was.
A/N: And the plot, well, doesn't exactly thicken, but I am going somewhere with this, promise. Maybe. g Aw, just review already.