It is I! Jjah-Jjah! Guess what! Sigmund has been captured! Instead of
killing him, I had him lacquered, so now he'll never be able to move again!
Buahahahahahahahaha! And guess who brought him in? Ed the purple
flamingo! In gratitude, he will become my new muse! (Sorry Anise and
Bubba!)
Anise: That's no fair! You didn't even give us a chance!
Bubba: Yeah, you didn't even start tryouts!
Ed: Well, you could have tried getting up off your sorry asses and trying to help, but nooooo! (AN: Rock on, Ed!)
Erm. Anyhoo. Thank you to all my splendiferous reviewers! I have never gotten so much praise before in my life! :-D Here are my responses to your reviews reviewers!
Qwel: Thank you! I didn't like that she lost her memory either! This is my revenge! About Pietro. Waaaaay towards the end of the story, there will probably be a sibling reconciliation, but till then Wanda is going to kick her brother's behind several times.
Roguehobbit: *Blushes* You're so nice! You won't expect where I'm taking this story, though I did drop several hints in this chapter. As for world conquest, I'm afraid I need Ohio, because my fav zoo is there. You can have all the other places, if I can visit.
Hathor: Thank you! I have not seen Jay, sorry!
RogueDragon5: Thanks! But, don't absorb my life. With me in your head you will become afraid. Trust me.
Arisa Charin: Thank ye! However, I'm afraid that taking over the world is my job.
Taineyah: Thank you, my dear!
HA! I thanked everyone! Take that! Well, here's the disclaimer:
Disclaimer: Ahhh, X-men. Wish I came up with the idea, but I didn't. Oh well, moving on.
Onward, my lovelies!
****
*** Chapter Three: Oh yeah.
Wanda was trying to peacefully watch TV.
She really was.
However, trying to watch TV while a hormone-ridden, teenage, mutant, idiot, Toad was dancing about in front of the set trying to get your attention was enough to send any sane person into a rage of bloodlust.
"Yo Sweet-Cakes, get a load of this!" Toad proceeded to show off his acrobatic prowess in a series of moves that he believed made him look athletic and daring. In reality, they made him look like a lizard.
"So what ya think, yo?" Toad landed on the sofa and leaned in next to Wanda, grinning. "Impressed? How 'bout we go out tonight, honey?"
Wanda said nothing, and Toad, seemed to take it as an affirmative answer. "Don't worry, Sweetness! You'll have the time of your life!"
The poor boy never saw Wanda's dragon-like glare and the way the ceiling above him ominously began to shake. He took a flying leap and. found himself propelled into the ceiling, where his head crashed through and got stuck..
Wanda settled back down into the couch with a smirk and changed the channel while admiring the new Toad chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Before long, Todd's muffled screams for help reached the other Brotherhood boys and they all found their way into the TV room.
"Hey Toad, what are you doing up there?" Freddy asked, dumbly.
"Mrr gurhr cswertl mrrphhh." Toad replied.
Lance looked from Wanda to the boy hanging from the ceiling and said, "I don't even want to know."
Pietro however, responded to the scene with hyper high-pitched laughter. "Why didn't I think of this? Way to go Wanda!" He looked his shoulder at his twin with a nervous smile.
He always seemed nervous around her, Wanda mused. She knew that she had once been angry with him as well as her father in the past. However, she had yet to regain a single memory of why exactly she had hated Pietro. In fact, she hadn't regained any memories recently. The last dream had been practically a month ago. It was disturbing, really. To have someone be nervous around you all the time and never know why.
While she had been thinking, the boys had been trying, unsuccessfully, to yank Toad down from the ceiling.
"Hey Wanda!" Lance huffed, "You were the one who stuck him up here, so the least you can do is help get him down!"
The other two boys looked at him like he was crazy and even Toad stopped his struggling to hear what Wanda's reaction would be to the impromptu request.
Wanda narrowed her eyes and groaned, but got up from the couch anyway to help free the annoying pest. Together, all four of them yanked on Toad, while Toad himself wriggled like bait trying to get down. Finally, he moved a fraction of an inch and everyone sighed in relief. They pulled harder and the bottom of Todd's face could be seen. All was going well until his head was almost out of the hole. That was when the ceiling cracked..
Toad popped his head out and the ceiling surrounding cracked and fell. The sound registered in the others minds, just in time to keep from being knocked in the head. Well, that is everyone but our hero, Wanda.
A huge chunk of plaster fell down and clobbered Wanda right across the head. Needless to say, she fell to the ground, completely out of it.
***
Wanda's ten-year-old form huddled back into the corner of the cell. It was lights-out and she was supposed to be asleep. But she never really did what she was supposed to do anyway, so it didn't matter. She had a lot of things on her mind. Lately she had been questioning herself.
"Jillian?"
*Present.*
"What are you doing?"
*I'm lying here awake trying to figure out how they get the whipped crème into Twinkies. What are you doing?*
"What do you think about me?"
*Is this a trick question?*
"No, really, what do you think?"
*Uhhh. Well. You're friends with me, which testifies to your overall brilliance. And. You're probably in need of some anger-management classes. But other than that, you're an imaginative, bright, person. Why?*
"Do you think my father had a good reason for leaving me here?"
*No.*
"No?"
*Parenthood is hard. You turned out to be a little bit more of a challenge than he thought, so he took the easy way out. Nothing more.*
"You think so?"
*I would say, "I know so", but that sounds so cliché.*
"What about Pietro?"
*Pietro?*
"Yes, my twin brother. He didn't care, either. He just stood there with father and didn't do anything to stop him! He didn't even protest! Or cry! Or anything! He let father abandon me here! He abandoned me too!"
The ceiling rattled and outside, down the corridor, a ceiling fan exploded and lodged itself into a wall. Somewhere, a glass broke. Tendrils of dark energy radiated from Wanda to the walls of her cell, akin to the energy in a lightning sphere.
"Was I really so horrible, so out of control, that my own brother no longer cared for me?" A tear slid down Wanda's lip, where it flowed to the corner of her mouth, then fell to the floor.
Jillian did a double take. Wanda was crying. Whenever Wanda cried, she more often than not, hurt herself. But this was unique. Usually Wanda cried and then lost her temper. This time, it was the other way around. She didn't know what to think. She searched Wanda's mind for an answer.
*I'm not afraid of you, Wanda.*
Wanda had several weaknesses. Some more obvious than others, but the reactions of those around her had always been a constant factor. Fear. It seemed that everyone was afraid of her. Wanda encouraged it mostly. Fear was the perfect barrier. It kept people away and kept them from looking below the surface to find what wounds were still bleeding.
But fear was a curse as well. Fear kept a wall between you and life. Fear was contagious. Often the people, who instilled fear, became slaves to fear. Wanda was such a person. She kept her barriers up and reinforced them every chance she got. She used fear as her weapon, but she was also afraid. She was afraid that there was something wrong with her; that she had been abandoned here for a legitimate reason. She was afraid of always being the outsider, no one ever letting her in because of her power. She was afraid of being abandoned. She was afraid of being alone.
She was not alone.
*I will always be here. You're not alone, because I'm here too, remember?*
"But you're not even real!"
*I'm real as long as you keep talking to me. And maybe I'll still be real even after that. I don't know. I don't.*
Wanda sniffled and crawled into her hard cot, pulling the blankets up around her chin.
*Now is not the time. We'll talk more about me later. As for Pietro, children and even grown-ups, often fear things that they do not understand. Sometimes it even overcomes rationality. It's amazing at times, how alike children and adults are. The real fools are the adults. At least children admit they're children. Grown-ups pretend that they're above it all when really they're just acting like kids. If they just recognized their behavior for what it really was, then maybe you and I wouldn't be here.*
"What does that have to do with anything?"
*Probably nothing. Now go to sleep. We have unusually important things to do tomorrow.*
Wanda smiled. Jillian didn't make sense 99% of the time, but even then, she was comforting. With this though in mind, she fell asleep. But Jillian was still there.
***
*Wake up, sleepy head! Word on the crazy-person's grapevine is that you have a visitor today!*
Wanda groaned and rolled over, covering her head with a pillow trying to unsuccessfully muffle out the voice.
*You've got to be kidding! A mere pillow will not stop the rantings of Jillian, the magnificent! Wake up! Didn't you hear me? You're going to have a visitor! A visitor. You know, one of those people from the outside who come to visit you? *
What Jillian was saying finally registered in Wanda's head. She shot straight up in bed, all sleepiness gone.
"A visitor? I've never had a visitor before! How do you know?"
*The way I know everything. I eavesdropped on the nurses while they were in the Ladies Room.*
"Maybe it's father, or Pietro. Do you think they're going to take me out of here finally?"
Jillian was silent for a moment.
*Maybe.*
Wanda mused for a few moments. She walked over to the wall and rested her hands on its smooth surface. This was where she had battered her hands that first time. When she had met Jillian and crimson had been running down. The cloak of anger once again descended on her and wrapped around her form tightly.
"If it is father, I'm going to kill him."
She said it simply. As if she were talking about the weather. Her voice was stoic but her face was another story. Her expression was cold, sorrowful, and angry all at once. A person observing her would have a hard time telling if she was going to cry or commit mass murder.
It was then that the sound of the door bolts being slid back heralded that it was time for Wanda to go see her mysterious visitor. Wanda struggled in the usual way. Things flew through the air, burst into flame, and exploded, but she did not try to escape. Finally, she was in the familiar straight jacket that Jillian had fondly dubbed "Bob" and was led down the equally familiar corridor to a part of the hospital that she had never been before.
The visitation rooms.
Wanda struggled and they began to draw her towards a particular closed door. She had to get free! The anger inside her seethed and burned. It had to be her father! No one else knew she has here and Pietro was too young. She found she could move the tip of one hand slightly. It was all she needed. She began to collect her power. He would pay. The door opened..
And it was not her father. A strange looking bald man in a wheel chair sat behind a table. But it was too late. Her power controlled her, and at the unexpected sight she lost all control over the power she had been gathering. Everything in the room began to go crazy, until.
The man brought his hands to his head and immediately Wanda felt a foreign sense of calm wash over her. She fought it, but her anger just slipped away. It was still there, but she couldn't grasp it.
Wanda started. She had just heard a voice in her head and it wasn't Jillian. It was this man. No sooner had the alien words registered in her mind she immediately felt the prickling sensation behind her eyes that signaled her of Jillian's watchful presence. She was not alone with this strange man. Someone she trusted was right there looking at him with her. She calmed considerably.
The man seemed satisfied. He smiled and motioned for her to sit down. She did.
"I'm very pleased to meet you Wanda. My name is Charles Xavier and I would like to help you. Now,-"
***
Wanda suddenly felt like she had a horrible hangover. Colors slashed behind her eyes, screaming that it was too soon. There was still more to see. She tried desperately to hold on to the dream, but it slipped through her fingers like water. With a final outraged screech, the dream was pulled out of her reach as her eyes flickered open.
She was on a couch, with something cold on her forehead, and several stupid looking worried faces peering down at her. She was being shaken. By Pietro.
"Hey man, do you think it's a good idea to shake her like that? I mean she's not a martini." Toad ventured.
"She's got to wake up sometime! Sooner rather than-". He glanced at his sister's face to find her eyes staring menacingly back at him. "Ack! Wanda,you'reup!I'msooosorry!IwasreallyworriedandItriedtosaveyou,Ireallydid!B utitwaseveroneelse'sfaultasusualand-"
"Pietro." The boy stopped short. Wanda grinned. She finally remembered why she didn't like Pietro. She sat up gingerly and looked him straight in the eye.
"Run."
***
If you read this you're probably either curious or confused. Welcome to the club! Membership to the club requires you to click on the little purple button and leave a review! Ok?
Adieu then!
Anise: That's no fair! You didn't even give us a chance!
Bubba: Yeah, you didn't even start tryouts!
Ed: Well, you could have tried getting up off your sorry asses and trying to help, but nooooo! (AN: Rock on, Ed!)
Erm. Anyhoo. Thank you to all my splendiferous reviewers! I have never gotten so much praise before in my life! :-D Here are my responses to your reviews reviewers!
Qwel: Thank you! I didn't like that she lost her memory either! This is my revenge! About Pietro. Waaaaay towards the end of the story, there will probably be a sibling reconciliation, but till then Wanda is going to kick her brother's behind several times.
Roguehobbit: *Blushes* You're so nice! You won't expect where I'm taking this story, though I did drop several hints in this chapter. As for world conquest, I'm afraid I need Ohio, because my fav zoo is there. You can have all the other places, if I can visit.
Hathor: Thank you! I have not seen Jay, sorry!
RogueDragon5: Thanks! But, don't absorb my life. With me in your head you will become afraid. Trust me.
Arisa Charin: Thank ye! However, I'm afraid that taking over the world is my job.
Taineyah: Thank you, my dear!
HA! I thanked everyone! Take that! Well, here's the disclaimer:
Disclaimer: Ahhh, X-men. Wish I came up with the idea, but I didn't. Oh well, moving on.
Onward, my lovelies!
****
*** Chapter Three: Oh yeah.
Wanda was trying to peacefully watch TV.
She really was.
However, trying to watch TV while a hormone-ridden, teenage, mutant, idiot, Toad was dancing about in front of the set trying to get your attention was enough to send any sane person into a rage of bloodlust.
"Yo Sweet-Cakes, get a load of this!" Toad proceeded to show off his acrobatic prowess in a series of moves that he believed made him look athletic and daring. In reality, they made him look like a lizard.
"So what ya think, yo?" Toad landed on the sofa and leaned in next to Wanda, grinning. "Impressed? How 'bout we go out tonight, honey?"
Wanda said nothing, and Toad, seemed to take it as an affirmative answer. "Don't worry, Sweetness! You'll have the time of your life!"
The poor boy never saw Wanda's dragon-like glare and the way the ceiling above him ominously began to shake. He took a flying leap and. found himself propelled into the ceiling, where his head crashed through and got stuck..
Wanda settled back down into the couch with a smirk and changed the channel while admiring the new Toad chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Before long, Todd's muffled screams for help reached the other Brotherhood boys and they all found their way into the TV room.
"Hey Toad, what are you doing up there?" Freddy asked, dumbly.
"Mrr gurhr cswertl mrrphhh." Toad replied.
Lance looked from Wanda to the boy hanging from the ceiling and said, "I don't even want to know."
Pietro however, responded to the scene with hyper high-pitched laughter. "Why didn't I think of this? Way to go Wanda!" He looked his shoulder at his twin with a nervous smile.
He always seemed nervous around her, Wanda mused. She knew that she had once been angry with him as well as her father in the past. However, she had yet to regain a single memory of why exactly she had hated Pietro. In fact, she hadn't regained any memories recently. The last dream had been practically a month ago. It was disturbing, really. To have someone be nervous around you all the time and never know why.
While she had been thinking, the boys had been trying, unsuccessfully, to yank Toad down from the ceiling.
"Hey Wanda!" Lance huffed, "You were the one who stuck him up here, so the least you can do is help get him down!"
The other two boys looked at him like he was crazy and even Toad stopped his struggling to hear what Wanda's reaction would be to the impromptu request.
Wanda narrowed her eyes and groaned, but got up from the couch anyway to help free the annoying pest. Together, all four of them yanked on Toad, while Toad himself wriggled like bait trying to get down. Finally, he moved a fraction of an inch and everyone sighed in relief. They pulled harder and the bottom of Todd's face could be seen. All was going well until his head was almost out of the hole. That was when the ceiling cracked..
Toad popped his head out and the ceiling surrounding cracked and fell. The sound registered in the others minds, just in time to keep from being knocked in the head. Well, that is everyone but our hero, Wanda.
A huge chunk of plaster fell down and clobbered Wanda right across the head. Needless to say, she fell to the ground, completely out of it.
***
Wanda's ten-year-old form huddled back into the corner of the cell. It was lights-out and she was supposed to be asleep. But she never really did what she was supposed to do anyway, so it didn't matter. She had a lot of things on her mind. Lately she had been questioning herself.
"Jillian?"
*Present.*
"What are you doing?"
*I'm lying here awake trying to figure out how they get the whipped crème into Twinkies. What are you doing?*
"What do you think about me?"
*Is this a trick question?*
"No, really, what do you think?"
*Uhhh. Well. You're friends with me, which testifies to your overall brilliance. And. You're probably in need of some anger-management classes. But other than that, you're an imaginative, bright, person. Why?*
"Do you think my father had a good reason for leaving me here?"
*No.*
"No?"
*Parenthood is hard. You turned out to be a little bit more of a challenge than he thought, so he took the easy way out. Nothing more.*
"You think so?"
*I would say, "I know so", but that sounds so cliché.*
"What about Pietro?"
*Pietro?*
"Yes, my twin brother. He didn't care, either. He just stood there with father and didn't do anything to stop him! He didn't even protest! Or cry! Or anything! He let father abandon me here! He abandoned me too!"
The ceiling rattled and outside, down the corridor, a ceiling fan exploded and lodged itself into a wall. Somewhere, a glass broke. Tendrils of dark energy radiated from Wanda to the walls of her cell, akin to the energy in a lightning sphere.
"Was I really so horrible, so out of control, that my own brother no longer cared for me?" A tear slid down Wanda's lip, where it flowed to the corner of her mouth, then fell to the floor.
Jillian did a double take. Wanda was crying. Whenever Wanda cried, she more often than not, hurt herself. But this was unique. Usually Wanda cried and then lost her temper. This time, it was the other way around. She didn't know what to think. She searched Wanda's mind for an answer.
*I'm not afraid of you, Wanda.*
Wanda had several weaknesses. Some more obvious than others, but the reactions of those around her had always been a constant factor. Fear. It seemed that everyone was afraid of her. Wanda encouraged it mostly. Fear was the perfect barrier. It kept people away and kept them from looking below the surface to find what wounds were still bleeding.
But fear was a curse as well. Fear kept a wall between you and life. Fear was contagious. Often the people, who instilled fear, became slaves to fear. Wanda was such a person. She kept her barriers up and reinforced them every chance she got. She used fear as her weapon, but she was also afraid. She was afraid that there was something wrong with her; that she had been abandoned here for a legitimate reason. She was afraid of always being the outsider, no one ever letting her in because of her power. She was afraid of being abandoned. She was afraid of being alone.
She was not alone.
*I will always be here. You're not alone, because I'm here too, remember?*
"But you're not even real!"
*I'm real as long as you keep talking to me. And maybe I'll still be real even after that. I don't know. I don't.*
Wanda sniffled and crawled into her hard cot, pulling the blankets up around her chin.
*Now is not the time. We'll talk more about me later. As for Pietro, children and even grown-ups, often fear things that they do not understand. Sometimes it even overcomes rationality. It's amazing at times, how alike children and adults are. The real fools are the adults. At least children admit they're children. Grown-ups pretend that they're above it all when really they're just acting like kids. If they just recognized their behavior for what it really was, then maybe you and I wouldn't be here.*
"What does that have to do with anything?"
*Probably nothing. Now go to sleep. We have unusually important things to do tomorrow.*
Wanda smiled. Jillian didn't make sense 99% of the time, but even then, she was comforting. With this though in mind, she fell asleep. But Jillian was still there.
***
*Wake up, sleepy head! Word on the crazy-person's grapevine is that you have a visitor today!*
Wanda groaned and rolled over, covering her head with a pillow trying to unsuccessfully muffle out the voice.
*You've got to be kidding! A mere pillow will not stop the rantings of Jillian, the magnificent! Wake up! Didn't you hear me? You're going to have a visitor! A visitor. You know, one of those people from the outside who come to visit you? *
What Jillian was saying finally registered in Wanda's head. She shot straight up in bed, all sleepiness gone.
"A visitor? I've never had a visitor before! How do you know?"
*The way I know everything. I eavesdropped on the nurses while they were in the Ladies Room.*
"Maybe it's father, or Pietro. Do you think they're going to take me out of here finally?"
Jillian was silent for a moment.
*Maybe.*
Wanda mused for a few moments. She walked over to the wall and rested her hands on its smooth surface. This was where she had battered her hands that first time. When she had met Jillian and crimson had been running down. The cloak of anger once again descended on her and wrapped around her form tightly.
"If it is father, I'm going to kill him."
She said it simply. As if she were talking about the weather. Her voice was stoic but her face was another story. Her expression was cold, sorrowful, and angry all at once. A person observing her would have a hard time telling if she was going to cry or commit mass murder.
It was then that the sound of the door bolts being slid back heralded that it was time for Wanda to go see her mysterious visitor. Wanda struggled in the usual way. Things flew through the air, burst into flame, and exploded, but she did not try to escape. Finally, she was in the familiar straight jacket that Jillian had fondly dubbed "Bob" and was led down the equally familiar corridor to a part of the hospital that she had never been before.
The visitation rooms.
Wanda struggled and they began to draw her towards a particular closed door. She had to get free! The anger inside her seethed and burned. It had to be her father! No one else knew she has here and Pietro was too young. She found she could move the tip of one hand slightly. It was all she needed. She began to collect her power. He would pay. The door opened..
And it was not her father. A strange looking bald man in a wheel chair sat behind a table. But it was too late. Her power controlled her, and at the unexpected sight she lost all control over the power she had been gathering. Everything in the room began to go crazy, until.
The man brought his hands to his head and immediately Wanda felt a foreign sense of calm wash over her. She fought it, but her anger just slipped away. It was still there, but she couldn't grasp it.
Wanda started. She had just heard a voice in her head and it wasn't Jillian. It was this man. No sooner had the alien words registered in her mind she immediately felt the prickling sensation behind her eyes that signaled her of Jillian's watchful presence. She was not alone with this strange man. Someone she trusted was right there looking at him with her. She calmed considerably.
The man seemed satisfied. He smiled and motioned for her to sit down. She did.
"I'm very pleased to meet you Wanda. My name is Charles Xavier and I would like to help you. Now,-"
***
Wanda suddenly felt like she had a horrible hangover. Colors slashed behind her eyes, screaming that it was too soon. There was still more to see. She tried desperately to hold on to the dream, but it slipped through her fingers like water. With a final outraged screech, the dream was pulled out of her reach as her eyes flickered open.
She was on a couch, with something cold on her forehead, and several stupid looking worried faces peering down at her. She was being shaken. By Pietro.
"Hey man, do you think it's a good idea to shake her like that? I mean she's not a martini." Toad ventured.
"She's got to wake up sometime! Sooner rather than-". He glanced at his sister's face to find her eyes staring menacingly back at him. "Ack! Wanda,you'reup!I'msooosorry!IwasreallyworriedandItriedtosaveyou,Ireallydid!B utitwaseveroneelse'sfaultasusualand-"
"Pietro." The boy stopped short. Wanda grinned. She finally remembered why she didn't like Pietro. She sat up gingerly and looked him straight in the eye.
"Run."
***
If you read this you're probably either curious or confused. Welcome to the club! Membership to the club requires you to click on the little purple button and leave a review! Ok?
Adieu then!