I really got pissed off after this chapter. First, my computer erased my
first document of this chapter, and I was forced to start all over. Then, I
saved it on a disc, but it wasn't formatted so I lost everything I had on
it and had to start over AGAIN. Then, I wrote it again, based on the ideas
that I had from my previous tries. I finished it without throwing my
computer out of the window, and then, guess what I found. My first copy of
the chapter.
FINALLY, I decided to send you the second copy because it was the best. Hum.
Oh, and thank you for everyone who explained to me who Theresa Cassidy is!
**********
All was darkness.
It was all Nathan could feel, breathe, smell, hear or even see.
An endless black void. Total oblivion.
At one point, Nathan came to wonder if he was dead, or alive. Thinking slowly woke him up from a dreamless very deep sleep.
He couldn't feel anything, couldn't move or open his eyes, and the only thing he could feel was a strange emptiness in his throat, but he knew he was alive. He just simply didn't want to believe that he was dead. It wasn't logical, from his point of view.
"Jean?" he tried to mutter, only ending with some kind of a faint hum vibrating in his head.
He hoped he was in the med lab, and not somewhere else . . . like the morgue. The thought of that made him shiver as he reminded himself that if he was thinking, he couldn't be dead. He suddenly felt a strange emptiness in his chest. How could he tell? Maybe this was death.
Again, Nathan tried to move, but what was the use when you couldn't even feel your body?
There was nothing else he could do but wait. Wait for what? Even he didn't know.
He waited, for what he thought were minutes, hours, maybe even days. He had lost the track of time, and at every occasion, a strange sleep claimed him, not making it quite different from where he already was. The only thing that changed was that he couldn't think or keep questioning himself.
***
At an imprecise moment in time after what he defined as his 'unreal wakeup', there was a light change in what he felt. It was like if he felt dizzy, without really being awake. That feeling stayed like that for some time, until the black void that surrounded him simply vanished, being replaced by an image of pure repulsion and disgust that would have made him yell in horror, if he could use his voice.
It seemed to be some sort of thought that his conscience had probably taken away from him. It was the back alley massacre, were he had killed those FOH members that had harmed Max. He could see their petrified faces, the blood, but was really scared him the most was himself, smiling at the sight of all that.
The picture disappeared as quickly as it came, and another one replaced it. He seemed to be in a hospital, in the same room he had been back in Ontario when he had been in coma. He could see doctors around his bed, all looking at him with a look of disgust and fear. He looked down and saw that he was holding one of them down, his hand around his neck, pinning him down on the side of his bed. His face was a strange mix of red and blue, and he was visibly suffocating. The other doctors all started helping their colleague, and the last thing Nate saw was Max, leaning on his room's entrance door, looking at him pitifully.
The image disappeared again, and there was a moment of silence as Nathan just wondered questioningly what these pictures could mean. Another image came before he could think of a solution.
This one was in the med lab, and he was surrounded by the schoolteachers. He saw himself throwing a dagger towards Jean, before the image disappeared, like the previous ones, and being replaced by one that seemed to be at the docks. He was running, between warehouses that seemed to be drenched in some sort of liquid. Gasoline.
Nate looked up, and saw that there was another figure on the warehouse, looking down on him. He ignored it, and kept on running, but soon realized that the figure was following him. He saw himself stop, and slowly, saw people come out of the shadows. They stayed faceless. He saw himself talk to them for a few minutes, then they were gone, each going their way.
The image vanished as quickly as it came, and there was a short moment of silence, as Nathan tried to understand the significance of what he had seen. His first thought was that his second self was gone, and he was absorbing his thoughts. There was another possibility, which could be that his conscience was trying to make him crack.
More time passed, but there was no other sign that appeared, no other picture. All was like it had started.
Darkness.
***
A gigantic blow, like an electric current passing in his whole body woke Nathan up, and his first reflex, after feeling the excruciating pain in his body for a couple of seconds, was to get in an upright position. He tried to inhale a large amount of air, to try to calm down, but no oxygen was reaching his lungs. He tried inhaling another time, but it still wasn't working and so he brought his hands to his face, trying to feel what was blocking him. He felt something plastic placed on his mouth and nose, and he tugged on it. The mask gave a weak resistance before letting go and being literally ripped off Nate's face.
He gasped noisily, and right after, felt pain, like a hot wire being placed on his chest. He brought his hands to the area that was hurting, which was the middle of his chest, slightly to the left. The heart.
For the first time since his wakeup, Nate opened his eyes, but saw nothing except an odd whiteness. He closed his eyelids as he also felt his eyes burning. After a few seconds, he opened the again, and let them adjust to the strange light. A smile curved his lips as he ignored the pain for a moment, savouring the thought that he was in the med lab, at the school. He was safe.
He coughed, one hand on his stomach as he looked around the room. His wound, and whole upper chest was wrapped in white bandages, but it hurt when he did anything else than breathe normally. It was annoying.
He noticed that he was alone in the room, even if it was brightly lit. Jean had maybe had to run upstairs for something, because she had never seen her leave the med lab very long, when there was a patient in it.
Looking around his bed, he saw that many machines, all connected to him by wires or tubes surrounded it. He started pulling some of the wires off his skin, seeing the machines go blank one after the other once he did. The needles in his arms were a bit more difficult to take out, but he arrived to, after light hesitations.
He stayed still for a moment, just waiting to see if someone was going to come, but no one arrived. He noticed that a machine looking a bit like a monitor was making an odd, aggravating sound since he had pulled the wire connected between him and it.
Sighing deeply, he swung his legs to the side of the bed and placed his bare feet on the cold floor. Looking down at his legs, he saw that he was wearing a pair of grey joggings that didn't belong to him. There was a black logo on the left side, representing an encircled X. The school insignia? He didn't think so.
He tested his legs, leaning on the bed for a while, just to see if he could support his weight without falling to the ground. After a few tries, he was able to walk to the machine and turn it off, stopping the noise that was bothering him. A heavy, unwelcoming silence laid in the room.
He walked around a little, looking at the papers Jean had placed on the counters, reading some parts of files or reports on other mutant students and their powers. Now he clearly knew why they couldn't go to normal hospitals. How could they welcome, and help, a teenage boy with the power to melt anything he touched?
But he? What could he do? Blades out of his wrists . . . animalistic conduct . . . some heightened senses like hearing or sight. . . what was that all about?
Sick of waiting for someone to show up, Nate walked to the entrance, opened it and stopped, suddenly curious of knowing what was behind all those doors in the hallway. All had the strange symbol of an encircled X on them.
He smiled wickedly as he walked to the first intersection and strolled down of it, until he saw that he was in a large circular room, in which were displayed what looked to be costumes, or more like leather uniforms, behind glass panels near the walls.
Ah. Now he remembered. Max had told him something about all of this. Something like, the school was the headquarters of a mutant crime fighting organization that protected and helped mutants from the rest of humanity, without showing hostility towards humans, but rather friendship. Friendship between humans and mutants? A dream. An illusion that doesn't, and will probably never exist.
Nate looked at each uniform, trying to guess to whom they belonged. Logan's was easy because they were holes at the first areas, to let his claws come out. Ororo, who controlled the weather, probably had the one with the cape behind it. Scott's was also easy to identify because of the visor and pair of ruby lensed glasses placed next to it. The next uniform looked like Ororo's, but without the cape, and so was probably Jean's. Three others were almost identical, and they most probably belonged to Rogue, Kitty and Jubilee. One of them, probably Kitty's was made of lighter leather, probably for it to be easier for her to walk through solid walls. The last three ones were more masculine, like Logan's and Scott's, but were all three made of different types of leather. One was more adapted to fire, the other to ice, and the last one was also very light. Was this one Max's, and was lighter for him to fly better? Probably.
The last thing he saw in the room was a closet, and he found inside pilled up shirts. He took one, seeing that he wasn't wearing anything else beside the pants, and slowly slipped it on, careful to not harm his wound.
Nathan went out of the room, back to the hallway, and started walking towards another door, opposite to the bed lab. This one was strange. It was round, like all the other ones, but there was some sort of blue orb in the middle of it. It seemed you had to do something with it for the door to open. He kneeled down to face the strange object, and felt it flick on as it passed in front of his eyes. There was a small deep.
"Cerebro is reserved for the use of authorized personnel only. Please contact Professor Xavier or Dr. Grey for more information," Nathan heard a voice saw from the door.
He smiled, as something clicked in his mind. Cerebro. Cerebral psychic room in which telepaths can localize mutants, by their mutated brainwaves. Clever.
Nathan's eyes widened and he awed in a surprised manner at his own intelligence. How come he knew what Cerebro was?
Now slightly freaked out, Nathan decided that he would be better off looking for the professor or one of his friends. He walked to one of the panels on the wall, knowing by experience that it was the elevator. The door slid open, and he entered, pressing the button leading to the first floor.
He didn't even know what time it was. He wasn't hungry, but that was because of the IV tubes Jean had plugged in his arm during his sleep, but he could say that he was especially thirsty. There was no sound as the door slid open, on the first floor, revealing a hallway that was the total contrary of the one he had come from. In this one, everything was made out of wood, or looked natural. It was to say, this floor was much more cozy and welcoming than cold, clean and shiny metal. Well, for Nathan it was.
The first thing Nate noticed was that it was dark outside but that the whole school was completely lit in the inside. It meant that it was probably just after dinnertime. Probably between eight or nine. Slowly, he walked towards the common room, one hand around his aching waist. There was no one there
His second option was the kitchen, but he also didn't find anyone there. Finally, he thought that maybe it wasn't that late after all, and that maybe they were all eating. He walked at a light pace until he reached the dining hall's door. It was slightly ajar and he could hear the teachers inside talking and laughing. He smiled. He knew all the students ate before the adults, and only the younger X-Men waited to eat with them.
He opened the door completely and looked inside, smiling a little. He knew his being there would probably be somewhat of a surprise, but he would have never expected it to be like it happened.
First off all, they all stopped eating or talking. The professor, sitting at the end of the table, was the first one who saw him, and, Nathan was very, very surprised to see the smile he had slowly disappear. Scott and Jean, seeing the professor's expression, both turned towards the door and Scott's jaw dropped as his fork fell in his plate with a clatter. Jean just stared, wide eyed, still holding her wine glass. Luckily, she caught it before it fell on the white nap. Logan, who was sitting at the other end of the table and was the closest to the door, had his feet on the table and a cigar in his mouth. His chair was leaning on two legs, and when he saw Nathan, he literally fell backwards, but jumped on his feet before the chair landed on the floor with a loud smashing noise. John was drinking, and choked. Bobby's eyes just widened, Rogue stopped chewing what she was eating, Kitty covered her mouth with her hands, and Jubilee, Max and Ororo just gasped.
Nathan looked at them all, visibly very confused and frightened by their reaction.
"W . . . what?" he asked, making a step back.
There was a long moment of silence as their stone looks turned into questioning looks. Jean slowly took her eyes off him and turned to the professor, who was still looking at the boy with mixed enquiry and insecurity.
"Nathan?" he asked.
The boy just stared.
"Will you come to my office?" the professor continued, to everyone's surprise.
Nate didn't understand anything, but he nodded and made another step into the hallway. The professor wheeled out after him, and the dining room stayed silent, long after their departure.
***
Nathan closed the door behind the professor and watched him manoeuvre his wheelchair behind his desk. It is only then that he allowed himself to walk forward and sit in one of the armchairs, designated for visitors.
"How are you feeling, Nathan?" the professor asked, a dead serious look on his face.
"Fairly well, sir," Nate said, wondering why he was so serious. "Thanks to Jan's help, I suppose."
"Yes . . ." the professor said vaguely, holding his chin and looking at Nathan an odd way that made the boy feel very uncomfortable.
"Can . . . can I ask you why . . . euh, well why do you all look at me strangely?" Nathan asked timidly. "I hope you all know that I am very very sorry for what happened at the docks, and before that in the lab. I don't mean-"
"Yes, I know Nathan," the professor interrupted. "It's not because of that that we all stopped when you entered. It's . . ."
Now it was the professor's turn to look uncomfortable.
"Well, to put it frankly, it's because at first impression, we thought you were your other self again," he said finally.
"What?" Nate said, slightly offended. "But-"
"No, Nathan," the professor interrupted again. "Don't say anything about that."
Nate sighed in frustration, a deep frown on his face.
"Fine, but can you at least tell me why you thought I was as my conscience again?" he asked.
"Nathan . . ." the professor was uncomfortable again. "It's . . . well, you know, mutations do things to you after and during the first few months. Some are positive, others are negative. To truly explain this, I guess I should take you as an example."
Nathan just looked at him inquisitively.
"Your mutation is to create things by the thought, by making other people believe these things are there. The easiest thing for you to create are weapons, because people easily believe that they are there and that you can harm them with those things or protect yourself. Jean thinks that that part of your mutation can evolve, and you could maybe create a vaster amount of things," the professor tried to explain. "A mutation sometimes, well, a rather large amount of them, have a second stage. Yours is . . . your animalistic manners. Your high sense of hearing and sight come from there, and we are guessing that your conscience, or second self, also comes from there. Now that you have confronted your self, Jean and I are guessing that it will not take over you, unless your emotions surface too much again. I am talking about when you are angry, or scared. I do not think it will try to kill you. Never forget that that self is a part of you. It is the way you are."
"Yes, I understand al of that, professor," Nathan said. "I'm not feeling the voice in my head the same way, and I think it's going to stay still for a while now, but I want to know why you all looked surprised. You were still thinking that I was my other self, but how could you do that? I mean, we look different . . ."
Nathan's voice slowed down on the last word as he looked at the professor wide eyed. Xavier looked away, avoiding his gaze as he stared to understand.
Nathan jumped out of his seat and quickly walked to the door, ignoring the professor calling his name. He ran out of the room until he reached the stairs, jogged up them until he reached the dorm room floor. He ran up to his room, ignoring the pain that had started in his chest again. Pushing open the door, he directly ran to the bathroom. He turned the light switch on and turned to face the large mirror above the sink.
His jaw dropped and an odd look appeared on his face.
His normal brown hair was of a much darker tone now, dark enough to give back bluish reflections. His skin was visibly more tanned and he could see his fangs were back, even if they were much smaller than how they were normally. His ears weren't pointy like they did sometimes, but they would probably appear over night.
Nathan considered all of that very well, seeing it almost as normal, because it was a change in his appearance, that didn't exactly 'change' him. What frightened him the most was what had happened to his eyes. The same, strange amethyst colour that he was probably going to keep forever, like all the other changes.
Now he understood why they had all looked at him that way. He just didn't look ordinary with those eyes. They way they were, their colour, it was just . . . strange. It made people see you a different way. The look that was in them was the way his conscience would look at people. With hostility.
It wasn't the way Nathaniel Cage would look at someone, but he was stuck with it.
Eyes that injected fear in you. That could see straight through you.
Nathan didn't move for a long time, looking at his reflection.
A long time after, he turned off the light, walked back into his room, shut his door, locked it and slumped into his bed, without a word spoken, trying to restrain the anger he was feeling.
A voice kept teasing and laughing, muttering faintly in his head: "I am your conscience . . . I am you . . . You can't get rid of me . . . I killed you, you killed me. We are the same . . . I am still here, we both came back because we both held on to life . . . but I will get you. You can count on me for that . . . I will always be there . . . . . . I am your conscience . . . I am you . . ."
**********
He's more of himself, but his conscience made him absorb a great part of his self's appearance and now there are no 'walls' in his mind separating his sanity from his evil side. Both sides are all mixing up and so he is himself, with all the bad in it too, fighting to be released.
Right.
Okay, people. This is time for the real vote. I'm going to add romance (finally). Who would you think would go better with Nathan? Kitty or Rogue? I think I already made my pick, but want to hear your ideas and please precise WHY you want that person to be chosen.
;p
FINALLY, I decided to send you the second copy because it was the best. Hum.
Oh, and thank you for everyone who explained to me who Theresa Cassidy is!
**********
All was darkness.
It was all Nathan could feel, breathe, smell, hear or even see.
An endless black void. Total oblivion.
At one point, Nathan came to wonder if he was dead, or alive. Thinking slowly woke him up from a dreamless very deep sleep.
He couldn't feel anything, couldn't move or open his eyes, and the only thing he could feel was a strange emptiness in his throat, but he knew he was alive. He just simply didn't want to believe that he was dead. It wasn't logical, from his point of view.
"Jean?" he tried to mutter, only ending with some kind of a faint hum vibrating in his head.
He hoped he was in the med lab, and not somewhere else . . . like the morgue. The thought of that made him shiver as he reminded himself that if he was thinking, he couldn't be dead. He suddenly felt a strange emptiness in his chest. How could he tell? Maybe this was death.
Again, Nathan tried to move, but what was the use when you couldn't even feel your body?
There was nothing else he could do but wait. Wait for what? Even he didn't know.
He waited, for what he thought were minutes, hours, maybe even days. He had lost the track of time, and at every occasion, a strange sleep claimed him, not making it quite different from where he already was. The only thing that changed was that he couldn't think or keep questioning himself.
***
At an imprecise moment in time after what he defined as his 'unreal wakeup', there was a light change in what he felt. It was like if he felt dizzy, without really being awake. That feeling stayed like that for some time, until the black void that surrounded him simply vanished, being replaced by an image of pure repulsion and disgust that would have made him yell in horror, if he could use his voice.
It seemed to be some sort of thought that his conscience had probably taken away from him. It was the back alley massacre, were he had killed those FOH members that had harmed Max. He could see their petrified faces, the blood, but was really scared him the most was himself, smiling at the sight of all that.
The picture disappeared as quickly as it came, and another one replaced it. He seemed to be in a hospital, in the same room he had been back in Ontario when he had been in coma. He could see doctors around his bed, all looking at him with a look of disgust and fear. He looked down and saw that he was holding one of them down, his hand around his neck, pinning him down on the side of his bed. His face was a strange mix of red and blue, and he was visibly suffocating. The other doctors all started helping their colleague, and the last thing Nate saw was Max, leaning on his room's entrance door, looking at him pitifully.
The image disappeared again, and there was a moment of silence as Nathan just wondered questioningly what these pictures could mean. Another image came before he could think of a solution.
This one was in the med lab, and he was surrounded by the schoolteachers. He saw himself throwing a dagger towards Jean, before the image disappeared, like the previous ones, and being replaced by one that seemed to be at the docks. He was running, between warehouses that seemed to be drenched in some sort of liquid. Gasoline.
Nate looked up, and saw that there was another figure on the warehouse, looking down on him. He ignored it, and kept on running, but soon realized that the figure was following him. He saw himself stop, and slowly, saw people come out of the shadows. They stayed faceless. He saw himself talk to them for a few minutes, then they were gone, each going their way.
The image vanished as quickly as it came, and there was a short moment of silence, as Nathan tried to understand the significance of what he had seen. His first thought was that his second self was gone, and he was absorbing his thoughts. There was another possibility, which could be that his conscience was trying to make him crack.
More time passed, but there was no other sign that appeared, no other picture. All was like it had started.
Darkness.
***
A gigantic blow, like an electric current passing in his whole body woke Nathan up, and his first reflex, after feeling the excruciating pain in his body for a couple of seconds, was to get in an upright position. He tried to inhale a large amount of air, to try to calm down, but no oxygen was reaching his lungs. He tried inhaling another time, but it still wasn't working and so he brought his hands to his face, trying to feel what was blocking him. He felt something plastic placed on his mouth and nose, and he tugged on it. The mask gave a weak resistance before letting go and being literally ripped off Nate's face.
He gasped noisily, and right after, felt pain, like a hot wire being placed on his chest. He brought his hands to the area that was hurting, which was the middle of his chest, slightly to the left. The heart.
For the first time since his wakeup, Nate opened his eyes, but saw nothing except an odd whiteness. He closed his eyelids as he also felt his eyes burning. After a few seconds, he opened the again, and let them adjust to the strange light. A smile curved his lips as he ignored the pain for a moment, savouring the thought that he was in the med lab, at the school. He was safe.
He coughed, one hand on his stomach as he looked around the room. His wound, and whole upper chest was wrapped in white bandages, but it hurt when he did anything else than breathe normally. It was annoying.
He noticed that he was alone in the room, even if it was brightly lit. Jean had maybe had to run upstairs for something, because she had never seen her leave the med lab very long, when there was a patient in it.
Looking around his bed, he saw that many machines, all connected to him by wires or tubes surrounded it. He started pulling some of the wires off his skin, seeing the machines go blank one after the other once he did. The needles in his arms were a bit more difficult to take out, but he arrived to, after light hesitations.
He stayed still for a moment, just waiting to see if someone was going to come, but no one arrived. He noticed that a machine looking a bit like a monitor was making an odd, aggravating sound since he had pulled the wire connected between him and it.
Sighing deeply, he swung his legs to the side of the bed and placed his bare feet on the cold floor. Looking down at his legs, he saw that he was wearing a pair of grey joggings that didn't belong to him. There was a black logo on the left side, representing an encircled X. The school insignia? He didn't think so.
He tested his legs, leaning on the bed for a while, just to see if he could support his weight without falling to the ground. After a few tries, he was able to walk to the machine and turn it off, stopping the noise that was bothering him. A heavy, unwelcoming silence laid in the room.
He walked around a little, looking at the papers Jean had placed on the counters, reading some parts of files or reports on other mutant students and their powers. Now he clearly knew why they couldn't go to normal hospitals. How could they welcome, and help, a teenage boy with the power to melt anything he touched?
But he? What could he do? Blades out of his wrists . . . animalistic conduct . . . some heightened senses like hearing or sight. . . what was that all about?
Sick of waiting for someone to show up, Nate walked to the entrance, opened it and stopped, suddenly curious of knowing what was behind all those doors in the hallway. All had the strange symbol of an encircled X on them.
He smiled wickedly as he walked to the first intersection and strolled down of it, until he saw that he was in a large circular room, in which were displayed what looked to be costumes, or more like leather uniforms, behind glass panels near the walls.
Ah. Now he remembered. Max had told him something about all of this. Something like, the school was the headquarters of a mutant crime fighting organization that protected and helped mutants from the rest of humanity, without showing hostility towards humans, but rather friendship. Friendship between humans and mutants? A dream. An illusion that doesn't, and will probably never exist.
Nate looked at each uniform, trying to guess to whom they belonged. Logan's was easy because they were holes at the first areas, to let his claws come out. Ororo, who controlled the weather, probably had the one with the cape behind it. Scott's was also easy to identify because of the visor and pair of ruby lensed glasses placed next to it. The next uniform looked like Ororo's, but without the cape, and so was probably Jean's. Three others were almost identical, and they most probably belonged to Rogue, Kitty and Jubilee. One of them, probably Kitty's was made of lighter leather, probably for it to be easier for her to walk through solid walls. The last three ones were more masculine, like Logan's and Scott's, but were all three made of different types of leather. One was more adapted to fire, the other to ice, and the last one was also very light. Was this one Max's, and was lighter for him to fly better? Probably.
The last thing he saw in the room was a closet, and he found inside pilled up shirts. He took one, seeing that he wasn't wearing anything else beside the pants, and slowly slipped it on, careful to not harm his wound.
Nathan went out of the room, back to the hallway, and started walking towards another door, opposite to the bed lab. This one was strange. It was round, like all the other ones, but there was some sort of blue orb in the middle of it. It seemed you had to do something with it for the door to open. He kneeled down to face the strange object, and felt it flick on as it passed in front of his eyes. There was a small deep.
"Cerebro is reserved for the use of authorized personnel only. Please contact Professor Xavier or Dr. Grey for more information," Nathan heard a voice saw from the door.
He smiled, as something clicked in his mind. Cerebro. Cerebral psychic room in which telepaths can localize mutants, by their mutated brainwaves. Clever.
Nathan's eyes widened and he awed in a surprised manner at his own intelligence. How come he knew what Cerebro was?
Now slightly freaked out, Nathan decided that he would be better off looking for the professor or one of his friends. He walked to one of the panels on the wall, knowing by experience that it was the elevator. The door slid open, and he entered, pressing the button leading to the first floor.
He didn't even know what time it was. He wasn't hungry, but that was because of the IV tubes Jean had plugged in his arm during his sleep, but he could say that he was especially thirsty. There was no sound as the door slid open, on the first floor, revealing a hallway that was the total contrary of the one he had come from. In this one, everything was made out of wood, or looked natural. It was to say, this floor was much more cozy and welcoming than cold, clean and shiny metal. Well, for Nathan it was.
The first thing Nate noticed was that it was dark outside but that the whole school was completely lit in the inside. It meant that it was probably just after dinnertime. Probably between eight or nine. Slowly, he walked towards the common room, one hand around his aching waist. There was no one there
His second option was the kitchen, but he also didn't find anyone there. Finally, he thought that maybe it wasn't that late after all, and that maybe they were all eating. He walked at a light pace until he reached the dining hall's door. It was slightly ajar and he could hear the teachers inside talking and laughing. He smiled. He knew all the students ate before the adults, and only the younger X-Men waited to eat with them.
He opened the door completely and looked inside, smiling a little. He knew his being there would probably be somewhat of a surprise, but he would have never expected it to be like it happened.
First off all, they all stopped eating or talking. The professor, sitting at the end of the table, was the first one who saw him, and, Nathan was very, very surprised to see the smile he had slowly disappear. Scott and Jean, seeing the professor's expression, both turned towards the door and Scott's jaw dropped as his fork fell in his plate with a clatter. Jean just stared, wide eyed, still holding her wine glass. Luckily, she caught it before it fell on the white nap. Logan, who was sitting at the other end of the table and was the closest to the door, had his feet on the table and a cigar in his mouth. His chair was leaning on two legs, and when he saw Nathan, he literally fell backwards, but jumped on his feet before the chair landed on the floor with a loud smashing noise. John was drinking, and choked. Bobby's eyes just widened, Rogue stopped chewing what she was eating, Kitty covered her mouth with her hands, and Jubilee, Max and Ororo just gasped.
Nathan looked at them all, visibly very confused and frightened by their reaction.
"W . . . what?" he asked, making a step back.
There was a long moment of silence as their stone looks turned into questioning looks. Jean slowly took her eyes off him and turned to the professor, who was still looking at the boy with mixed enquiry and insecurity.
"Nathan?" he asked.
The boy just stared.
"Will you come to my office?" the professor continued, to everyone's surprise.
Nate didn't understand anything, but he nodded and made another step into the hallway. The professor wheeled out after him, and the dining room stayed silent, long after their departure.
***
Nathan closed the door behind the professor and watched him manoeuvre his wheelchair behind his desk. It is only then that he allowed himself to walk forward and sit in one of the armchairs, designated for visitors.
"How are you feeling, Nathan?" the professor asked, a dead serious look on his face.
"Fairly well, sir," Nate said, wondering why he was so serious. "Thanks to Jan's help, I suppose."
"Yes . . ." the professor said vaguely, holding his chin and looking at Nathan an odd way that made the boy feel very uncomfortable.
"Can . . . can I ask you why . . . euh, well why do you all look at me strangely?" Nathan asked timidly. "I hope you all know that I am very very sorry for what happened at the docks, and before that in the lab. I don't mean-"
"Yes, I know Nathan," the professor interrupted. "It's not because of that that we all stopped when you entered. It's . . ."
Now it was the professor's turn to look uncomfortable.
"Well, to put it frankly, it's because at first impression, we thought you were your other self again," he said finally.
"What?" Nate said, slightly offended. "But-"
"No, Nathan," the professor interrupted again. "Don't say anything about that."
Nate sighed in frustration, a deep frown on his face.
"Fine, but can you at least tell me why you thought I was as my conscience again?" he asked.
"Nathan . . ." the professor was uncomfortable again. "It's . . . well, you know, mutations do things to you after and during the first few months. Some are positive, others are negative. To truly explain this, I guess I should take you as an example."
Nathan just looked at him inquisitively.
"Your mutation is to create things by the thought, by making other people believe these things are there. The easiest thing for you to create are weapons, because people easily believe that they are there and that you can harm them with those things or protect yourself. Jean thinks that that part of your mutation can evolve, and you could maybe create a vaster amount of things," the professor tried to explain. "A mutation sometimes, well, a rather large amount of them, have a second stage. Yours is . . . your animalistic manners. Your high sense of hearing and sight come from there, and we are guessing that your conscience, or second self, also comes from there. Now that you have confronted your self, Jean and I are guessing that it will not take over you, unless your emotions surface too much again. I am talking about when you are angry, or scared. I do not think it will try to kill you. Never forget that that self is a part of you. It is the way you are."
"Yes, I understand al of that, professor," Nathan said. "I'm not feeling the voice in my head the same way, and I think it's going to stay still for a while now, but I want to know why you all looked surprised. You were still thinking that I was my other self, but how could you do that? I mean, we look different . . ."
Nathan's voice slowed down on the last word as he looked at the professor wide eyed. Xavier looked away, avoiding his gaze as he stared to understand.
Nathan jumped out of his seat and quickly walked to the door, ignoring the professor calling his name. He ran out of the room until he reached the stairs, jogged up them until he reached the dorm room floor. He ran up to his room, ignoring the pain that had started in his chest again. Pushing open the door, he directly ran to the bathroom. He turned the light switch on and turned to face the large mirror above the sink.
His jaw dropped and an odd look appeared on his face.
His normal brown hair was of a much darker tone now, dark enough to give back bluish reflections. His skin was visibly more tanned and he could see his fangs were back, even if they were much smaller than how they were normally. His ears weren't pointy like they did sometimes, but they would probably appear over night.
Nathan considered all of that very well, seeing it almost as normal, because it was a change in his appearance, that didn't exactly 'change' him. What frightened him the most was what had happened to his eyes. The same, strange amethyst colour that he was probably going to keep forever, like all the other changes.
Now he understood why they had all looked at him that way. He just didn't look ordinary with those eyes. They way they were, their colour, it was just . . . strange. It made people see you a different way. The look that was in them was the way his conscience would look at people. With hostility.
It wasn't the way Nathaniel Cage would look at someone, but he was stuck with it.
Eyes that injected fear in you. That could see straight through you.
Nathan didn't move for a long time, looking at his reflection.
A long time after, he turned off the light, walked back into his room, shut his door, locked it and slumped into his bed, without a word spoken, trying to restrain the anger he was feeling.
A voice kept teasing and laughing, muttering faintly in his head: "I am your conscience . . . I am you . . . You can't get rid of me . . . I killed you, you killed me. We are the same . . . I am still here, we both came back because we both held on to life . . . but I will get you. You can count on me for that . . . I will always be there . . . . . . I am your conscience . . . I am you . . ."
**********
He's more of himself, but his conscience made him absorb a great part of his self's appearance and now there are no 'walls' in his mind separating his sanity from his evil side. Both sides are all mixing up and so he is himself, with all the bad in it too, fighting to be released.
Right.
Okay, people. This is time for the real vote. I'm going to add romance (finally). Who would you think would go better with Nathan? Kitty or Rogue? I think I already made my pick, but want to hear your ideas and please precise WHY you want that person to be chosen.
;p