Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel, X-Men Evolution, or any decent snack foods at the moment.

Author's Notes: I told you I'd have this up quick.

Chapter 8

Enemy Within

The static cleared...but the veil of mystery as to what exactly my mind had presented me with hadn't been lifted yet.  The new area was entirely black and darkened until what looked to be a spotlight shone a light upon a plain office desk.

The desk appeared to be made out of real wood, and upon closer inspection it looked like one I had considered purchasing for my room at home when my freshman school year was approaching.  The price tag quickly turned my mother's opinion of, "Maybe we'll get it" to "For that much money, it better be able to do your homework for you."

The desk wasn't littered with simple assignments or textbooks. Instead it was nearly covered with pictures. Polaroids, postcards, and even what looked to be a picture cut from a magazine kept the top of the desk from even being viewed. I reached my hand down and picked up a picture at random and looked at the still image. I raised an eyebrow and was puzzled by the picture. It wasn't something I had ever done. Instead it was something I had thought about doing at a time. It was a picture of me standing in front of a vending machine that dispensed dollar scratch off lottery tickets with one of the cheaper selections in my hand.  I blinked in surprise as the Polaroid began to turn into a very thin and very small movie while it showed me scratching off the ticket and winning a one-thousand dollar jackpot.

I had always wondered 'What If' every time my dad used the extra singles from his grocery purchases to grab a couple of tickets. What if we won the big jackpot? What if I was the one who scratched off the winning ticket?

"Ahem"

I looked up to finally acknowledge Xavier was looking at another image in his hand. Without looking up he already guessed as to what this section was.

"I assume this is your imagination. Daydreams in particular because these images mostly stay within the realm of rational thinking..."

The Professor raised an eyebrow at the Polaroid he was looking at...I hoped he wasn't looking at an image of the one time I pictured him as 'Mr. Clean' in my head complete with the big gypsy earring.

"That's what I guessed, I've got a picture of me winning on a scratcher's ticket... Um, whatever you're looking at will be kept private, right?"

"Yes, Alan, it will... I would like to note one small bit of caution. Due to the nature of Rogue's powers, what I'm looking at now would be fatal if you tried to do it in reality."

The only way that picture could have been grabbed out of Xavier's hands any faster was if God himself tried to do it. I peered at it and noticed very quickly what he was talking about...

I was just kissing her...

Ok, maybe it wasn't just a casual kiss ...

Fine, it looked like the jaws of life would be required to pull us apart.

"Uh..um...yeah..um..about this...well..." I then came to a realization. He's a telepath in charge of a school filled with teenage mutants. What was in this picture was probably pretty damn tame compared to what he may have picked up in the past from other students. I then glanced back down at the photo and looked closer...

One hand was running through her hair, the other was...going South, and I'm not talking about Mexico.

...Ok, maybe this wasn't exactly as tame as I thought before, but I was willing to bet it wasn't out of the ordinary.

I glanced over to Xavier and he just nodded.

"Don't worry, that's perfectly normal. Don't dwell on it either or it will just get worse. You'll consciously try not to think about it and only result in making the thought more intense. For example, if you tell someone to not think about a purple elephant they won't help but think about it."

"Oh, like when you think about trying to sleep but it only keeps you awake?"

"A very appropriate analogy."

I nodded as I threw the questionable picture under the desk and wondered where the hell that blindfolded guy with the furnace was.

I flipped through a few pictures and grinned at as they portrayed various scenes that helped me escape from reality. There must have been over a hundred instances of me flying around like a super hero, just as many of me saving the day with super strength, or some other ability that helped my mind wander from an algebra test or two. I then noticed that the guy in the memory section of my brain had a point. There were quite a few in here about Rogue..

Before thinking any further my mind shifted to another area, almost in a violent fashion this time. The static was louder and the shift was faster.

I soon found myself outside of the institute. It was a rainy, moon-less night and it felt like there was a vice tightening in my chest. My palms were sweating and my mouth dried up, I could barely talk. The beautiful greenery was replaced by the look of a war zone. Trees were replaced by scorched stumps and large gashes were dug into the dirt, the scene was eerily familiar. A weak moan coming from the ground at my feet interrupted my curiosity as to what happened and was replaced by horror as I looked down at the source.

"Dear...God."

It was Kurt. Blood was pooling underneath him as his breathing became more and more shallow. He had multiple lacerations on his arms in a defensive manner and a very deep stab wound in the chest, near the heart.

"Kurt! Kurt, what the hell happened!?" I kneeled down so that he wouldn't have to speak loudly to answer. His response was a wide-eyed stare with fear in his eyes. He was staring directly at me. He didn't utter a word. He just looked at me as if I was his attacker. His breaths became more shallow and spaced apart.

"Kurt! Kurt, come on man! Stay awake! You can't--"

My words fell on deaf ears, or dead ears as the case was now. The man covered in blue fuzz suddenly stopped moving; the pool of blood stopped growing. Kurt was dead.

I just stepped back in shock, trying to take in what I had just seen before a sickeningly familiar sound cut through the calm sound of the rain hitting the walkway. A very loud motorcycle engine revving up and speeding down the street.  It was him, that guy who was hunting me down the first night. The nut-job with the guns.

I knew that I wasn't safe outside and bolted into the mansion at top speed. I quickly shut the door behind me and looked around the main entrance.  The destruction outside paled in comparison to the war-zone that was before me.  Any furniture that hadn't been splintered was overturned. There were large cuts in the hardwood floor as if someone had drug a sword through it. There were wounded and fallen teenagers strewn about. They were either groaning in pain or silent due their life leaving them. My eyes immediately locked onto the faces I recognized: Scott, Jean, Jubilee...they looked like they had suffered the worst of it and fought the hardest. If this was just the entryway, I was afraid to see what awaited me in the other rooms.

Before I even got the chance to leave the living room, I heard a loud slam on the door followed by the noise of wood splintering. I turned just in time to watch the door collapse from the blow of a police battering ram. Three faceless policemen rushed in and tackled me to the ground. They were being lead by the biker.

"What the hell is going on?!?" I screamed when I could lift my face off the floor long enough to get the words out.

"You should know best, ya sick bastard," the biker spat.

I looked at him clearly as the policemen lifted me off the ground after shackling my wrists together with handcuffs. The leather coat and scruffy look was replaced by a very professional appearance, suit and all.

"You are being placed under arrest for the murders of..." He paused as he pulled out a printed document from an inside coat pocket. "Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Hank McCoy, Charles Xavier..." I didn't even listen as he rattled off many more names from the list that I didn't even recognize,  "...and finally, whatever the hell that blue thing is we stepped over on the front lawn."

"But...what...how?" I couldn't even form a sentence, my mind was a mess.

"We've got some eye witnesses who survived that slaughter-house you made."

I was lead out of the mansion in a very unforgiving manner by the policemen behind me. Whenever I slowed my pace they gave me a quick jab in the back with a nightstick. I was halfway down the walkway when I saw who the "eyewitnesses" were. Kitty and Rogue were sitting on the curb by an ambulance as a paramedic tended to a deep gash in Kitty's shoulder and another EMT tended to some cuts on Rogue's face.

The sound of the big guy opening the squad car door must have caught Rogue's attention because she glanced over at me. When her eyes recognized me she quickly jumped to her feet and tears flowed as she screamed at me.

"Fuck'n kill 'em! He'll just go crazy again 'til there's nobody left! Are you proud of yourself, ya sick bastard? You killed them! You killed them when they trusted ya!"

The EMT had to forcibly hold Rogue's arms behind her to keep her from bull-rushing me. He should have let her go. I deserved whatever beating she could dish out.

"Don't worry," the reformed biker called to her, "we've got enough evidence to give this freak the death sentence." At that he shoved me into the squad car. I lay where I landed as he closed the door and went around to the driver's side to take me to my judgment.  My world was crashing down around me and I didn't even know what happened. Why couldn't I remember? I kept asking myself this as I still lay on my side on the back seat.

The car passed through a tunnel. Darkness enveloped the vehicle as something caught me entirely off guard...the feeling of motion stopped entirely.

The emptiness cleared to reveal the disappearance of a few objects---the handcuffs that bound me, the car that carried me, the driver that was taking me to my judgment. It was all replaced by a cold, damp room. Found myself seated in a wooden chair with what appeared to be a spotlight or skylight shining down upon me, revealing my immediate area.

"Hello? Is anyone there? What happened? What did I do?"

What else could I do but look for someone? I didn't know where I was or what brought me to this place.

"Hiya 'killer'. Like my humble abode? You built it, so it wouldn't necessarily make much sense to complain to me anyway."

"Oh God no...no...no, not you."

"God can't hear you. He doesn't listen to murderers. You've got a special place in your own little corner of the damned."

"I didn't kill him! You did! You made that THING that stabbed him!"

"News-flash pal!  I AM you! I'm in YOUR head! You honestly think they'll just lock up a chunk of your brain when you get found out? Fuck no, you worthless puppet!"

"P-Puppet?" I didn't know why, but that word stood out.

"Yeah, puppet. Who the HELL do you think was in control when you turned that parking lot into a third world country? The fucking TOOTH FAIRY? I was! I just turned on your powers, grabbed the strings, and made a masterpiece! It's just too damn bad my friendly disposition didn't rub off on you when you were experimenting yesterday."

"Experimenting?" Further confusion flooded my mind, what did he mean experiment? How I was trying to understand my powers the other day?

"Yes!" the darkness snapped, "When you wanted to see if you could 'walk without strings' the other day. Nice weapon by the way, a club. Can't kill the victim immediately so they have to suffer with internal wounds... Should have gave it a test run on that bitch in the raincoat."

A grim cackle echoed from wall to wall as the disembodied messenger seemed to partake joy in the thought of killing someone. Why the hell did he keep referring to me as a puppet?

"What do you mean? It's my power, I can control--"

"For chrissake, shut UP! You don't even believe yourself. You're still confused as to what happened when you blacked out in the parking lot. Want to know?"

I stood up from my seat in the middle of the darkness. "What the hell are you? Show me what you look like! You talk like you're in charge but you're not even brave enough to show yourself!"

"Oh, it seems as if the puppet has grown a backbone...fine, it's only fair that you see who's in charge," the voice said snidely.

Another pillar of light similar to mine appeared about 10 feet in front of me, a figure stepped into it...it looked like the black oil that covered my arm yesterday. Only this time it took the shape of an entire humanoid figure. It was my height and build...its similarity to myself was eerie.

"What happened in the parking lot before the X-Men picked me up?" I just wanted to get answers and get out of there.

"Ooh, ordering ME around? You can drop the front. I'm you so I know what you're thinking. I took control after you finished weeping like a damn infant at the body of that worthless schlub. I decided to see the sights of ol Chicago...and see what I could do on my 'birthday' as it seems to be. The power...oh the power was MAGNIFICENT! Since I didn't have a body to use, I just pushed yours as hard as it could go. Every sense to me was new, I could create hand-held destruction and destroy what was already made. I felt like a GOD. After finding out what I could do...it brought me to that parking lot. I ran along with my arms out in blades and just let them form gashes into the ground, reveling at the sound they made as rock was scraped from the earth. I found a car and decided to find out how much I could lift. Well, I can at least flip a car! It started to get a little fuzzy after I stabbed that screaming bitch. Called me a mutie freak...if you hadn't woken up when you did she wouldn't have had enough blood left to gurgle for help through!"

I couldn't believe it... It recalled the exact area in which I had no recollection of and it sounded happy as it relayed the carnage.

"W-Why? Why me? Why did you do this? Why me?  Why did YOU have to show up? Why couldn't I have just gotten the powers?" I slumped down on the ground at this point...just trying to form words.

"Well, give it a day or two and the bald cripple will probably tell you what some of the newspapers are printing about the facts of mutants. You won the genetic lottery! Fuck, if you actually LISTENED to what some of those impartial science teachers were telling you about mutants when they first showed up, maybe I wouldn't have to fucking tell you!"

"What?" I couldn't remember any teacher even discussing the mutant issue in class except for one...

"Yeah, you heard it but you never bothered to remember it. I can dig into your memories even if you can't. You haven't been listening to anything I've said other than the parts that give you an excuse to weep like a damn baby. I am YOU. I'm part of your mind! I'm part of the whole 'New Mutant fruit basket'. Hell, I can see as far back as to when you watched your first smut film in the basement of a friend's house when you told your parents you were going over there to swap video games! Sorry pal, I've never seen a copy of Mario that involved a damn condom!"

"Stop that..."

"What? Proving my point?"

"Stay out of my head...stay out of my memories...stop it...." I wasn't even safe in my own mind...

"Christ, fine. I'll stay out of your head. Besides, I'm already having fun even with your whining."

"What? What do you mean?" This thing seemed to live off of carnage...how could it be having fun by simply tormenting me?

"Come ON! You're not that scared," the figure barked. It then charged at me until it was now in my light, only a foot away from me.

"You haven't even wondered where baldy went? Or why he's not trying to find you? You never left your mind. You're still here. Your body is still in a trance."

Fear crept up my spine as things started coming together. I don't remember waking up. I didn't even wonder where the Professor went when I seemed to appear in front of the mansion. I was still in my mind, but where was the person who said he'd tag along?

"Your body is asleep...it doesn't mean it ain't movin' pal! While I've been keeping you a big 'ol bundle of nerves in here, I've also been playing puppet master! Anyone worth their salt can walk and think at the same time! Hell, I already got that nice hit on the Asian bitch that I wanted yesterday!"

"Stop! Stop it! Don't hurt anyone else! Stop--" My panicked cries were cut short as a sudden feeling of drowsiness swept over me.

"The fuck was...was that? That big blue guy tackled us...had something in his...hand."

It seemed as if I wasn't the only one getting weak. Big blue guy? Was he talking about Hank?

He called himself 'Us' just then. We felt that at the same time. He was telling the truth the whole time...we were one and the same. A being of carnage and a terrified teenager all rolled up into one.

Just like Jekyl and Hyde...

----

I'm very proud of this chapter. It was very hard for me to write just due to how I wanted it to go exactly. If that sentence made any sense whatsoever...

As always, flames are disliked but constructive critcism is always appreciated.