Chapter Fifteen: The Oral Tradition of Lock Jaw

As told by Counting Crow

Many years ago there was another Storyteller who set about unknowingly on a great adventure.

He had climbed to his Power-Place in the mountains after fasting for many days. It was there that he prayed to the Great Spirit and to the Great Mystery beyond. He prayed for a vision of healing, that his nation and the white brothers could come together in understanding.

He sang his song late in to he night and he beat his drum until the whole valley below seemed to glow.

When the glow took on a life of it's own he stopped drumming and rose to his feet. Above him there was a blast of noise and a piercing light. It passed over his head and crashed in to the valley floor below. It left behind the smell of animals, roasting on the fire.

When he had ascended to the ground below he found that it was a man who had fallen from the sky.

He was burnt and still, but his heart beat on and his breath remained steady.

The man was too heavy to lift on his own, so the Storyteller returned to his village and brought six warriors to draw the man from the earth where he had fallen.

These warriors had seen many battles. They knew what injuries were fatal and which were not. This man was not supposed to be alive. And yet they dug around him and brought him from the earth.

When they lifted him, it seemed as if all his blood has run from his body in to the ground. They wrapped him in buckskin and placed him on the back of their strongest horse.

All six warriors were convinced he was dead by the time they reached the village. The man was brought to the Healer. The Storyteller and the Healer sat with the man for three days and hovered over him with sacred herbs, prayers and medicines.

Then he opened his eyes.

A pain in his face made him sit up and lean forward. His lips curled back and there was a great noise of tearing flesh.

A pair of bright metal fangs had burst through the mans gums above his own. One of the teeth had been broken loose in his head when he fell. He pulled it from his face and with much less noise he retracted the one good tooth.

The Storyteller and the Shaman sat amazed as they saw the man begin to eat almost immediately after retracting the tooth. The Shaman edged in close and lifted the mans lip to see the soft white gum still turning pink as it closed again over the secondary tooth.

At first the man was quiet and confused. And when some suggested that he was perhaps a fool, the warriors would turn angry. They would explain that they had all been hit and beaten so badly as to have become slow and confused. And that to have been hit with the earth itself, and to have been all but dead, was more than enough to confuse even the wisest man.

Then the people were quiet and respectful.

One day, he rose to his feet and emerged in to the daylight, wrapped in his buckskin blanket.

Soon he was taken to the river to bathe and given new clothes to wear. He spoke English, and not the Native Tongue, but when he wished, he could show you the pictures in his mind and he could see the pictures in yours.

The people had many names for him at first, but later he would be known as The Stone Man and finally The Metal Buffalo Man.

He brought many songs and stories, and he made for our people Six Sacred Prophecies. All of which have come to pass.

One day, his people came for him, led by The Wild Man, who was The Metal Buffalo Man's father.

He asked only one thing of the tribe. That the Storyteller of the tribe come here, today and find One-Eye or The Metal Buffalo Sister, and tell them these things, which I have written down.

"On a more personal note, on behalf of myself and he tribe, we would like to thank him for the last two of the sacred prophesies. " He smiled with a deep wisdom and grace. "They were stock tips. We're cleaning up." And with that said, he nodded, smiled, and left the building.

Scott wandered out of the mansion, his head spinning slightly from the Storytellers tale. Something was not right. He felt like he was missing pieces. He would have discarded the whole thing if it hadn't been for the adamantium tooth wrapped in the Storyteller's instructions.

He wandered out across the lawn like he used to when he first came to this place.

Soon enough Jean was there at his side. She knew the cue well enough. If Scott was on the lawn, he was wondering about something. Eventually he gave her the tooth and she closed her mind to all distractions.

She saw Genesis crafting the Adamantium in to this form, she saw and felt it tearing out of the boys mouth over and over. Saw him raised by Scott and Betsy! She saw him latch on to people with this tooth and use the contact to drain their powers. Saw him saving whole worlds. Saw him confronting parallel versions of the X-Men in alternate realities. She saw him with his mother, Marie, long dead on this world. Saw him talking to Mary-Ann in a forest. Saw him falling in flames in the cool dark earth.

She jolted out of the vision when the broke the tooth free for the last time and as it flickered away, she saw all the Storytellers who had held it until now, their faces, swirling away in to green and black.

"He's a dimensional... guardian. He's..." She sobered for a minute. "The son of Logan and Marie!"

"He was talking to Mary Ann, Scott! OUR Mary Ann!" She was amazed.

"The Metal Buffalo's Sis-ter..." Cyclops said knowingly.

The night was falling quickly. A light mist had become a drizzle and Scott and Jean stood, facing each other, unsure once again, exactly what would be expected of them in the near future. They made their way back to the mansion where they were confronted by Kitty Pryde.

The whole mansion was a'buzz with activity. There was a ghost on the property.