Chapter Two
Humans. So many humans. Like rats in a sewer, like flies to a light, they teemed throughout the streets of New York City. No, more like a disease. They were a disease that had been inflicted on the planet. They had overtaken it, destroyed its natural beauty, polluted it, utterly ruined God's wonderful creation. They were not worthy to live on this beautiful globe. Humanity was a sickening virus, and we were the cure. We were the planet's immune system, in a way. God did not like what humans were doing to His Earth, and He had created mutants to destroy humanity.
This was the first time I had been among humans since I had joined the Brotherhood. It was strange, in a way, to walk amongst these swarming masses, none of whom gave me any more than a quick glance. None of them realised that my friends and I were the ones who were killing them. They all went about their everyday lives, telling themselves that they were safe from any danger, telling themselves that mutant attacks only happened to 'other people'. Well, they were wrong. We were going after all of them.
Cassandra held my hand a little tighter as we walked past a particularly large group of loud humans. Cassie was nervous around the sub-creatures; her first twelve years had been spent suffering their hatred and bigotry, and even now that she was in a position where no human scum could harm her, she still hated reliving those memories. I squeezed her hand in return, and she gave me a little smile. Up ahead of us there was a crowd of humans, gathered outside a TV repair shop. In the window, a wide-screen TV was broadcasting something, something which was clearly the focal point of the mob. Intrigued, I moved closer to see what was showing. It was a news broadcast.
"…continues to spread throughout the South American continent. At this rate, it can be only days before the Plague will spread to North America. From there it can be expected to extend to Europe and the rest of the world. The source of the Plague remains unknown, but rumours persist that mutants are responsible – "
"Mutants," a human in the crowd growled angrily.
There was a grumble of agreement from the rest of the humans, and I struggled to keep the grin off my face. You stupid sub-creatures! I thought, the ones responsible are only centimetres away! The rest of our group were now around me, and the petite Gemini was glaring angrily at the back of a tall human who blocked her view of the TV. I returned my attention to the broadcast. The newsreader was saying something else:
"…so far no cure to the virus has been found, though some reports indicate a vaccine is being developed somewhere in Argentina. One incredible rumour even suggests that there are mutants with special healing powers, helping to find a cure. While this seems too unlikely to be true, a cure is desperately needed, and one must be found at all costs."
I avoided the eyes of the rest of the Brotherhood as they turned to look at me. I knew what they were thinking. There were mutants helping the human scum to find a cure to our Plague. They called themselves the X-Men. My father, mother and sister were among them. I'd been part of the X-Men myself not so long ago, until I had seen the reality of the truth. They were our enemies, determined as they were to stand in our way, to stop us from defending our kind; to protect the lives of mutant-killing humans. I couldn't imagine what drove them to do so. Why they would rather defend humans than mutants was a mystery. Did they forget what they were? I didn't know, and I didn't care. I didn't care for any of them. Well, except one. But my sister had always been in love with the humans.
I listened to the newsflash again, "…in other news, the nation-wide manhunt for the one who assassinated the President of the United States continues. There are no clues to the man's identity, other than this photograph."
A picture came up on the screen.
"This was taken as the killer fled the scene. Needless to say, he has shot to the top of the FBI's ten most wanted list. A reward of ten million dollars is on offer for information leading to his capture."
Several of the humans in the crowd whistled, "Ten million bucks?"
"I'd pay ten million to be the one who brought the bastard in," one human spat, and some around him murmured their agreement.
Vertigo was standing just beside me, and I leaned over to whisper to him, "I suppose it's a good thing Recyclo isn't here."
"Yeah," he whispered back. "It's not a bad picture of him."
I glanced around at the humans once more. You stupid scum! I yelled in my mind, we're the ones who started the Plague! We're the ones who killed your President! We're standing right here and you can't do a bloody thing! You'll all be dead soon and you'll never know who we are!
A noise from behind me caught my attention, and I looked around. On a bench in the middle of the busy street sat a young mother, lovingly cuddling her tiny baby. As I watched, the infant beamed happily at its mother, and its tiny hand closed around her little finger. She returned the smile, and kissed the baby's forehead.
Something stirred inside my heart. Watching the mother and baby had unsettled me. Suddenly I didn't feel quite so triumphant any more. I thought about it. When the Plague reached North America, this baby would be killed. Killed before it even had a chance to live its life. It would never smile or hold its mother's hand again. For some reason, that bothered me. I couldn't think why. Was it guilt I was feeling? Did this baby deserve to die? It had never done anything wrong.
But it was human, I reminded myself. It would grow up to be just like the rest of its kind. It would hate mutants, and would mistrust and abuse us. That was why we were doing this. Not to kill them, but to protect us. So that mutant babies and children would not be abandoned and mistreated, as Cassandra and the rest of my friends had been. There were machines available now, some kind of detectors that could determine whether a new-born child was human or mutant. Cassandra's parents had found out what she was, and abandoned her. The same thing had happened to Vertigo, and Mole, and Scarab, and Atlas. The same thing had happened to Overlord…but he was dead now, killed by humans, without any provocation. As for Gemini…I wasn't sure what had happened to her. At some point in her childhood she had been captured by a researcher who wanted to perform experiments on mutants. Pyro had rescued her, and he knew her history better than anyone. Gemini would never speak of it. None of us knew how badly she had suffered. Recyclo's past was also a mystery. I knew his parents had died when he was a baby. I knew he had a twin brother, who he'd been separated from, who was presumably also a mutant, but that was all Pyro had told us. When asked about his past, Recyclo would remain silent and pretend nobody had spoken. Nobody really knew anything about him, or why he was so weird. Had something happened to him that had made him the way he was? I didn't know.
I looked at the baby once more, as it gave another beaming smile and gurgled happily, holding its mother's hand tightly. I had another thought. Would the mother love it that much if it had been born a mutant? Of course not. It would have been labelled a freak and dumped at the nearest adoption agency, like Cassandra and the others had been. If humans refused to care for their mutant offspring, then they shouldn't be allowed to reproduce at all.
I turned away from the mother and child. Yet still, as I did so, the tiniest twinge of guilt remained in my heart. For a moment, just for a moment, I had an inkling of why my sister felt the way she did, of why she and her people would go to such lengths to preserve human life. Then I stopped. Get a grip, I told myself furiously, you're starting to think like an X-Man! You've left that behind you. I gave it no more thought.
"Bloody mutants!" a human in the crowd was declaring angrily. "I'd like to get a hold of one; I'd show them what I think of them and their freaky 'powers'! They should all be strangled at birth!"
The rest of the crowd roared their agreement. I saw a figure pushing through the mob, and in the ensuing silence there was a single voice, "Would you like to repeat that?"
I could see more clearly now. The loud-mouthed human was face to face with Mole. Or the air above Mole's head, at any rate. My adamantium-fisted friend was not the tallest, and he stood at least two feet shorter than the human. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Atlas and Scarab, moving forwards. The human sneered down at the tiny Mole, "So what's it to you, little man?"
I knew Mole didn't take kindly to remarks about his height. He narrowed his eyes, "You want to have a fight with a mutant?"
The human laughed, "Why, d'you know any?"
"One or two."
"Tell them: any time, any place. I bet I'm not the only one who'd like to see those freaks wiped out."
Mole's arm moved so fast, I wasn't the only one taken completely by surprise. His fist smacked into the human's face with a horrible wet cracking sound, and the sub-creature was thrown about twenty feet to the side, where he landed in an unconscious heap. It took a moment from the humans to realise exactly what had happened, then screams began to reverberate around the crowd, and several people began to flee. Some of the braver humans, however, had banded together, and encircled Mole.
"Try that again, freak," one of them snarled with undisguised hatred.
"OK," said Mole.
He punched another human, who was sent crashing through the window of the TV shop.
"Get him!"
The rest of them plunged towards Mole, just as Scarab got into position. Grabbing one human by the waist, Scarab flung him aside, and the human screamed as he flew through the air to hit a shop front across the street. The rest of the humans lost their nerve, and began to back away, looking for a way to escape. I glanced around me to admire the disorder. Humans were running in all directions, fleeing from the scene, terror overriding any logical thought, turning a busy shopping street into a stampede. I heard a cry, and glanced over. The woman I had seen earlier was looking around frantically; she had lost her baby in the chaos. Gemini and Vertigo had hurried forward to attack the few remaining humans who surrounded Mole.
I could see the baby, lying helplessly on its back several yards away from its mother, in danger of being crushed in the panic. Without knowing what I was doing, I instinctively ran over and scooped up the infant in my arms. Its tiny hand clutched at the material of my jacket, and in terror it buried its head in my chest. I looked around for the mother. I could see Gemini, with her duplicate summoned to her side, fighting a one-sided battle against a human. I could see Vertigo, performing extravagant back-flips and mid-air somersaults, astonishing the humans with his agility and flexibility, never allowing them to get close enough to touch him. I could see Atlas, using his power to rip up large sections of the pavement, hurling them about in the hope of hitting a human, adding to the chaos. I could see the mother. She was still searching frantically for the baby, screaming its name, tears in her eyes. I hurried over towards her, and her body sagged with relief when she saw her child in my arms.
"Oh, thank you, thank you," she breathed, taking the baby. "Oh, my baby. You saved my baby. How can I – "
When she looked up, I was gone. I didn't want any of my Brothers or Sisters to see what I'd just done. I still couldn't explain why I'd done it. I'd saved a human's life. Why had I done that? I was sworn to the destruction of humanity. Wasn't I? Yes I was, but only as a means to an end. My real priority was the protection of mutant life, the protection of children and young people who couldn't help the way they'd been born. The protection of innocents. I'd saved an innocent, if a human could be called such a thing. I didn't know what to make of it. I didn't want to give it any more thought, so I didn't.
Cassandra was in the fight now, backing away from two humans, one of whom was holding a knife, making threatening stabbing motions. I ran over to help my girlfriend.
"Come on, freak," the human taunted. "What's the matter; have your stupid powers stopped working?"
He slashed at her with the blade, but Cassandra was already moving to avoid his attack. The other human aimed a punch at her face, but she foresaw it and ducked out of the way. With a vicious downwards swipe, I karate chopped the first human, hearing the snap as I broke his knife arm. He screamed and dropped the weapon, sinking to his knees, holding his ruined arm to his side. The other sub-creature grabbed for the knife, but Cassandra had quite literally seen it coming, and she kicked the knife away. She could have picked it up and used it herself, but mutants didn't use weapons. We didn't need them. The humans took one look at us, then turned and fled. I was about to pursue them, when Cass put her hand on my arm and hissed, "Wait!"
"What is it?"
"We've got to go! The X-Men are coming!"
"What?"
"I can foresee it! They must have found out what's going on! They'll be here in five minutes, maybe less!"
I'd forgotten the X-Men were based in New York too. With that jet of theirs, they could get here in no time.
"We've got to go!" Cassandra urged. "We can't fight them without Pyro and Recyclo!"
I was caught in my own indecision. I wasn't afraid of the X-Men, and I would have been willing to stay and face them. But with two of our strongest fighters missing, it probably wasn't a good idea. And if our enemies had my sister with them…things would be heavily stacked in their favour. Eventually I made up my mind.
"All right; tell the others!" I said. "I'll grab Vertigo and tell him to get the chopper started!"
She nodded, and hurried over towards our friends. I looked around for Vertigo. He was the only one, other than Pyro, who knew how to pilot the helicopter. He was further down the street from me, and there were still three or four humans trying to get a hold of him. He ducked, swerved, rolled, and back-flipped with impossible speed and grace, always leaving the humans attacking thin air. Eventually he got tired of showboating, and decided to end the fight. He flipped backwards over a pair of humans, hitting the two of them simultaneously with his fists. They stumbled and fell, and Vertigo immediately ducked a punch from another sub-creature, twisting to kick the human in the jaw. He was waiting for the humans to get back on their feet, when I ran over to him.
"Vertigo!" I called. "The X-Men are coming! Get the chopper started!"
He gave an exasperated sigh, "They would come and spoil our fun, wouldn't they? All right, you'd better get the others! Meet me at the chopper!"
Vertigo hurried off, and I turned round to look for the rest of my friends. Cassandra had grabbed Atlas and Scarab, and the three of them were following Vertigo at a run. Mole and Gemini must have been elsewhere, still in the fight. I had to find them, and we had to get away before our enemies arrived. We couldn't afford to have anybody captured. If the X-Men captured even one of us, then my telepathic father or sister would read their mind, and discover everything we were planning. That was not acceptable.
Mole was still in the middle of a crowd of humans, whose superior size and numbers were beginning to give them the edge. Gemini and her twin weren't far away, battling with another group of the sub-creatures.
"Freeze!" a voice yelled from the side.
I looked over. A group of heavily armed policemen were spilling out of a van that had just pulled up at the side of the road. They wore protective body armour, and were raising their weapons to aim at my friends.
"Mole! Gemini!" I yelled.
The humans surrounding my friends melted away, leaving an open line of fire for the police officers. Clearly their orders were to shoot mutants on sight, as at least three of them began firing automatic weapons. Both of my friends were caught by surprise, but both managed to react in time to save their lives. Mole was lucky that he was a small enough target, and he raised both fists in front of his head to protect himself. Bullets ricocheted off his adamantium knuckles, and he began to run to safety. Gemini's method of survival was similar; her duplicate had stepped in front of her, shielding her from the bullets. Although she always felt the duplicate's pain, damage to its body didn't harm the original Gemini in any way. The first salvo of gunfire hit the duplicate multiple times in the head and chest, and she was thrown to the ground. The real Gemini was running as fast as she could away from the policemen. Once she reached the safety of the crowd of humans, the pigs would have to stop firing in case they hit one of their own kind.
It looked as if she was going to make it, when she suddenly stumbled over an uneven section of the road, and lost her balance, falling on to her front.
"Drop her!" one of the cops yelled.
I was jolted into action. I had to do something to save Gemini, who was still struggling to get to her feet. Time seemed to move in slow motion as I desperately tried to think of something. I was too far away from the cops to get to them in time. There had to be something else I could do to stop them. Something, anything at all Beside me was a lamp-post, partially ripped out of the ground by Atlas' earlier assaults on the pavement slabs. Gripping it with both hands, I pulled with all my strength, and with a grunt of exertion I managed to rip it free. The cops were reloading their weapons and aiming at Gemini, who was still out in the open. There was only one thing I could do.
With all the might I could muster, I swung my arms and hurled the lamp-post at them. It sailed through the air, spinning as it went, and a couple of the more observant pigs screamed just before it landed on top of them, crushing their van. The humans in the crowd, who'd assumed that the police had succeeded in restoring order, began to panic afresh. I hurried over towards Gemini, grabbed her hand, and pulled her to safety. Mole was ahead of us, pushing through the crowd, heading for the helicopter. As we turned the corner that took us off the main street, I took one last glance behind me. The pigs were still trapped underneath the uprooted lamp-post. Their van was completely wrecked, and most of them appeared to have injuries. As far as I could tell, none of them were dead. I didn't care. Killing them hadn't been my priority - saving my friends' lives had. These humans would be punished soon enough for trying to kill us. I turned back to face the way we were going.
Right into more trouble. Mole had already stopped up ahead; the crowd of humans was hurrying away, and I immediately saw why. The X-jet was in the process of performing a vertical landing in the road directly in our path. Gemini saw it and her eyes went wide, as she instinctively clutched at my arm.
"What do we do?" she gasped.
"Run for it!" Mole yelled.
Like a sprinter taking off from the starting block, he sped across the road, ducking underneath the descending jet, making it safely to the other side. Gemini and I, who hadn't reacted quite as quickly, were still stuck with our enemies between us and our escape.
"What do we do?" Gemini repeated urgently, her hold on my arm tightening. "We can run round, but they'll see us!"
"Not if I can help it. Gemini, just hold still and keep quiet, all right? I've got a plan, so just – just keep quiet, OK?"
Gemini didn't look confident, but she put her trust in me, and made no noise. I concentrated as hard as I could, and called on my camouflage mutation. It took plenty of concentration to use it even when I wasn't in danger, and I was glad that Gemini had listened to me, and wasn't fidgeting or making any distracting sounds. My camouflage activated, and my body went into a chameleonic state.
Concentrate, I told myself, keep it going…
I pushed my power as far as I could, concentrating like mad. It wasn't enough just to make myself invisible. I had to hide Gemini too. I held her hand tightly, and my power passed from my skin on to hers. For a moment nothing happened, as my concentration wavered, then Gemini's body disappeared from my sight as my mutation spread to camouflage her body too. She gave a slight gasp as she realised what had happened, but had enough common sense to stand still and keep quiet, her hand still holding on to mine.
The jet had executed a perfect landing in front of us, and the embarkation ramp was lowering.
"Are you ready?" I whispered. "Let's go."
She nodded, and we began to run as fast as we could, along a path that would take us around the jet. Gemini was shaking nervously and her hand was slick with sweat. I kept a tight hold of her, knowing that if we were separated she would become visible once more, and our enemies would be after us. We were past the jet now and I chanced a glance behind me to see what was going on. There were there or four X-Men at the foot of the ramp – in a split second the only one I could recognise was Cyclops – and they were heading in the wrong direction. I breathed a sigh of relief. They hadn't detected us. Even though we were invisible, we were still susceptible to Wolverine's animal senses. Maybe he wasn't with them.
We turned a corner, and the helicopter was hovering in front of us, Vertigo having brought it as far forward as he safely could. I dropped my camouflage, and Mole flung open the chopper's hatch as we hurried up to them. I gave Gemini a boost to climb inside, then someone grabbed my hand and helped me up.
"Go!" yelled Mole.
Vertigo hit the controls, and the helicopter turned to head in the direction of home. He kept the chopper low, so that our enemies couldn't detect us on radar. If the X-Men were able to follow us and find out where we were based, it would be a disaster. We couldn't allow them to find us. According to Pyro our enemies actually knew of the island sanctuary's existence, but they believed it to have been abandoned for years. We had no secondary base of operations – Pyro was working on finding one – and we couldn't afford to be discovered.
Nothing untoward happened during our journey home. Presumably the X-Men had been too concerned with calming the humans on the ground, and hadn't been aware of our escape. They would work out it was us – the humans would describe our powers to them – and they'd be as determined as ever to get in our way and stop what we were doing.
"How the hell did they get there so fast?" Mole was demanding angrily. "We were only there for about fifteen minutes before they showed up!"
"Their jet is supersonic," I reminded him. "And they are based right here in New York."
"I know, but still…they couldn't have got ready and got out here that fast!"
For a moment nobody spoke, then Gemini said slowly, "So…what are you saying? That somebody told them we were coming here?"
"Well…no. I mean, who knew? I – I dunno. Maybe you're right."
He fell silent, and I raised my eyebrows thoughtfully. Mole did have a point. Our enemies had got here pretty fast. Theoretically they could have done it, but it would have taken time for them to find out what was happening, and get kitted up, and get their jet ready, and get out here. It didn't seem likely. The X-Men didn't exactly sit around on 24 hour alert, waiting for Brotherhood incidents to erupt. They had their own lives to lead, and their school to look after.
Unless…my sister. She was telepathic. What if she had sensed our presence? What if she had detected our minds, read our intentions, and warned the other X-Men? No. Their school was still miles away from where we'd been. Her telepathy didn't stretch that far, unless she was using the Cerebro device. And the chances of her using it at that exact moment were slim.
"Maybe we were just unlucky," Cassandra suggested. "Perhaps they were already in the jet – on their way back from somewhere, maybe. They got word of what was going on, and were already on their way."
"Yeah, could be," said Atlas, but he didn't sound confident.
Vertigo sighed, "Relax, you guys. How could they have known in advance where we'd be? They just got lucky. I mean, the only explanation would be if somebody sold us out. But like Mole said, nobody knew we were coming except us."
Gemini's eyes narrowed momentarily, then her expression returned to normal. What was she thinking?
"What's on your mind?" I asked her.
She looked up, "Huh? Oh, nothing really. I just had a crazy thought."
"What?"
"That one of us warned the X-Men we were
coming here."
"That's ridiculous!" Mole retorted.
"I know it is!" Gemini snapped. "I said it was a crazy thought, didn't I? I know none of us is a traitor. I know we all hate humans because of what they've done to us."
I nodded. Cassandra said hesitantly, "Still…suppose they do have some – method – of knowing where we'll be in advance? We'd better tell Pyro, just in case."
"Yeah," said Gemini. "I doubt he'll be pleased. Vertigo, did you actually ask Pyro if we could take the helicopter out today?"
"Um – not really."
"Not really?"
"All right, I didn't."
"Why not?"
Vertigo shrugged, "I thought he might say no."
Atlas groaned. I sighed. Gemini leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, "Oh, great. As if our exalted leader wasn't in a bad enough mood already."
"Where you have been?!" Pyro demanded as we stepped out of the helicopter.
"On the mainland," I said.
"Without letting me know where you were going? I suppose this was your idea, Vertigo!"
Vertigo jumped from the chopper on to the ground, and eyed Pyro lazily, "Yeah."
Our leader berated him angrily, "How many times do I have to tell you to ask me before taking the helicopter? What if something happened and I had to evacuate? What if we came under attack and I didn't know where any of you were?"
"Well, we're alive, aren't we?"
"Shut up!"
The rest of us began to edge away, leaving Vertigo to calm down our irate leader.
"So where did you go? What did you do?" Pyro demanded.
"Nothing much. We went to the mainland, found some humans, knocked about said humans, then ran away before the X-Men could catch us."
"The X-Men were there? What if you'd been captured? Everything we've worked for would have been for nothing if they'd caught you!"
Vertigo shrugged, "Yeah, well they didn't, did they?"
"Not this time! What if you're not so lucky next time?"
Vertigo gave another casual shrug. Pyro shook his head in exasperation, sighing heavily. He gave up. There was just no point in trying to reprimand Vertigo. The guy simply didn't care, and wouldn't bow to anyone's authority. Pyro gave another sigh, "All right, forget it. The main thing is that you're all safe. OK, tonight's training session is cancelled. Instead I'll be briefing and preparing you for a mission we're going on tomorrow. Meet me in an hour."
He turned and left.
"Oops," Vertigo said, when Pyro was gone.
"Yeah, nice going," said Gemini sarcastically. "Remind me never to go along with your ideas again."
"Never mind. Let's get something to eat," said Scarab.
"Yeah."
We headed inside, and I went up to my room to wash the dust and dirt off my hands and out of my hair after the action earlier. Idly I began to wonder what it was that Pyro wanted to talk to us about. A mission of some sort. I was intrigued. It would be my first experience of such a thing. Since I'd joined the Brotherhood we'd seen no real action, just training exercises and the occasional lecture on topics he felt were important. Most of us were beginning to get a little restless, and I was looking forward to whatever was going to happen tomorrow.
I went back downstairs to find the others gathered in the kitchen/living room area, sitting around the small wooden table in the centre of the room, eating a large pizza out of a box. When I'd first arrived here I'd been quite puzzled as to where our food came from – obviously we didn't grow all of it ourselves, and there were no shops on the island. I'd asked Vertigo, whose brief, lazy response had been, "Monthly deliveries – big freezer," and so it had turned out. Atlas, who enjoyed working with the earth, kept a garden near the sanctuary, where we got fresh fruit and vegetables, and it was a surprisingly problem-free arrangement.
Gemini, who had changed into a close-fitting, light blue summer dress that accentuated her small figure perfectly, sat on the sofa with her bare legs tucked under her, and was clearly the centre of attention. Mole sat beside her, casually draping his arm over the back of the sofa behind her. Obviously the next step was to put his arm around her shoulders. He was trying to be subtle about it and failing miserably. Gemini wasn't interested, and she pushed his arm away.
"And you can stop trying to peek up my dress, Atlas!" she snapped suddenly.
Atlas, across the room from her, jumped in surprise and protested his innocence, "I – I wasn't!"
She gave a little smirk. I knew she loved winding them up, playing hard to get, trying to fluster them. I couldn't imagine why. But then, she was a girl, and girls did weird things like that. Well, some girls - not all of them. Cassandra smiled up at me as I entered, and moved over to give me room to squeeze into the armchair beside her.
"Hey, Vertigo," said Scarab. "You never told Pyro about how the X-Men got there so quickly today. Remember?"
Vertigo looked up from where he was lazily slouched sideways in another armchair, his eyes half-closed as if he was falling asleep, "Mmm? Oh, yeah. Oh, I'll tell him when we see him later. If I remember."
"I wonder what it is Pyro wants to tell us," I said.
"It'll be the usual," Vertigo yawned. "Some motivational speech about why we have to destroy humanity. Doesn't Pyro ever realise that he's preaching to the converted? He must know that we already hate the humans."
"Inspiration's lost on you, clearly," said Cassandra.
"Huh. The need for food and water is all that gets Vertigo out of bed in the morning," said Gemini.
Vertigo grinned, then yawned again, stretching his arms, "I'm sorry, but when you share a room with Recyclo, that's what happens to you. Where is old Mr Excitement, anyway?"
"Dunno," said Scarab. "Haven't seen him since we got back."
"Atlas!" Gemini snapped. "If you want to see my panties that badly, I'll lend you a pair!"
"I wasn't – I wasn't looking!" Atlas said hurriedly. "I wouldn't – I'd never – "
Gemini giggled; she loved baiting Atlas. It wasn't really that difficult when he was clearly mesmerised by her. He flushed and looked away from her, very deliberately keeping his eyes from going anywhere near her legs.
"What does Recyclo actually do in his spare time?" Mole asked. "When we're around, he just stands there and says nothing. What does he do when we're not there?"
"He reads," said Vertigo. "Given that there's a finite supply of books on the island, he must be going over them again and again; either that or he's a very, very slow reader."
Gemini gave a laugh. Vertigo sighed, "It's all right for you, you've got a room to yourself. You don't have to share with someone who makes Pyro look cheerful."
"That's the privilege of being a girl," said Gemini. "I don't have to share with any of you."
Cassandra spoke up, "I don't mind sharing with Gladiator."
"Yeah, well, it's different when you're in love, isn't it?"
"I guess."
I slipped my arm around Cassie and she smiled, resting her body against mine. I leaned over slightly to kiss her lips softly, and she put a hand on the back of my neck gently, holding me close. Ignoring Gemini making puking noises, we came together again, and shared another kiss. A warm feeling of elation spread out from my heart, enveloping the rest of my body, and I basked in the love Cassandra and I were sharing. This was perfect harmony; this was bliss. I didn't care what else happened, or what became of us; as long as I had my love by my side, I would always be happy. Humans had killed the only other girl I had ever loved. I would do everything in my considerable power to protect Cassandra, to keep her and my happiness alive and intact. A world without Cassandra did not bear thinking about. A world without Marina was bad enough already. I would never forgive the humans for her death.
Never.
A/N: again, if there's enough people interested, I'll post the next chapter
A/N 2: thanks to everyone who's responded re my request for pictures. When the website is up and running, I'll post the link. Again, drop me an email if you're interested.