Part 2: Generation X

Jubilee could not sleep. She kept having nightmares about the parasite. It chased her through the halls of the dorm, relentlessly pursuing. Finally, she gave up on trying to sleep, and decided on a course of action. She had to make sure that the thing was dead. Once she was sure, she could sleep. Of that she was certain.

She left her room, quietly so as to not wake anyone. She didn't know what she would say if anyone caught her.

"Gee, I was having bad dreams so I thought I'd get some warm milk? Oh yeah, that'd go real great Jubes." She snuck out of the dorm, and ran across the dark campus. She reached the infirmary, and reached for the knob. Suddenly she stopped.

What if it wasn't dead? What if it was waiting on the other side of the door, waiting for some unsuspecting victim? What if-

"You couldn't sleep either Jubilee?" Monet asked, behind her.

Jubilee barely managed to stifle the scream that threatened to out do Banshee. She whirled around, glad for the chance to transfer her fear into anger.

"If you ever sneak up on me like that again..." she warned Monet.

"I am sorry Jubilee. I could not sleep so I thought I would check up on our patient. I was trying not to wake anyone. I did not mean to sneak up on you."

Jubilee let out a breath. "Forget it. Let's do what we came here to do, then try to get some sleep."

Jeez, Jubilee thought. M must really be spooked to give in so easily. Anyway, it's nice to have some backup.

They walked silently, and cautiously into the infirmary. the parasite lay right where Sean had left it. It was indeed dead. Jubilee let out a sigh of relief, just as Monet let out a gasp of surprise. Jubilee looked where she was looking. The man that hadn't moved since they brought him in, was twitching. Jubilee's eye's widened as the twitching turned into convulsions. The man's eye's opened wide, and he began to emit an eerie, agonized scream. His convulsing became thrashing.

Emma sat reading in her bed, a romance novel with a picture of Fabio on the cover. She hoped no one would ever find out she liked this stuff.

"Hello Emma." A hauntingly familiar voice said. Emma shot her head up from the book. There at the foot of her bed, stood Beef. One of her dead students, the Hellions. "Wha- how can you be here?" she asked, frightened.

"You killed us Emma." Beef accused. "You let us die!"

"No!" Emma cried. "There was nothing I could do!" And then another horrible thing happened. Beef began to change. The back of his head bulged, and elongated. His body turned a dark black that seemed to swallow all light. The creature Beef had become hissed and leaped.

Emma Frost awoke in terror. The patient was dying. And worse, he was in terrible pain. She threw off the covers on her bed and realized she was no longer alone. Slowly, she turned. The creature from her nightmare was standing behind her. It swiped at her with claws that rivaled Sabertooth's, slitting her face and throat. She fell to her knees, choking on her own blood.

Monet felt an emotion she was not accustomed to. Mind numbing terror. The man had been sedated, and yet whatever was happening to him was causing him such pain that it overcame the sedatives.

A red stain appeared on the front of his shirt, and his chest began to bulge.

"For god's sake what's happening to him?" Jubilee shouted in horror. But Monet's breath was frozen in her throat. His chest continued to bulge, until with a ripping sound that reminded them of Paige shedding her skin, the man's chest burst in an explosion of blood and flesh. There, protruding from his chest like a hideous Jack In The Box, was the head of most the horrible creature either of them had ever seen.

The contents of Jubilee's stomach surged violently from her mouth. It choked off her terrified scream. Monet was frozen, but she wasn't in a trance, her paralysis was entirely from fear. She wished she was in a trance. She was horribly aware of everything that was going on around her. The sound of Jubilee throwing up seemed to create a kind of harmony with the screech of the newborn nightmare.

Sean burst into the room just in time to see the creature leap from the now dead Shi'ar man. It landed on the opposite side of the room from him.

"Good." He thought. "The beastie's trapped." But he was wrong. The creature spied a ventilation shaft, and ran towards it.

"Don't let it get away!" He shouted. Jubilee was still bent over from shock, but Monet had managed to shake off her fear.

She took off after the creature, but she was too late. It tore through the metal of the vent cover like it was tissue paper. She landed and listened to the sounds of it's claws retreating into the bowels of the complex.

"Sorry Mr. Cassidy." she said shakily.

"It's all right lass." Sean said. "It's probably better that ye didn't get in it's way." He pointed meaningfully at the ripped apart vent cover. Then he turned to the body.

"What in God's name happened? What were you two doing here?"

"We couldn't sleep." Monet said. "As I imagine you couldn't either."

"Aye. I heard the man's scream from outside."

"And to think I thought I'd sleep better, after coming in here." Jubilee said, trembling.

The sun was rising when Matt woke up. He did not know what had happened at first. Then he saw the body next to him and it all came back to him. He shuddered, remembering the feeling of the tube being forced down his throat.

"I wonder why it let go?" he thought. He dismissed the thought. It wasn't really important. What was important was the look on Jonah's face when he saw these things. He dragged the body of the larger creature to the trunk of his car and dumped it in. Then he went back for the egg, and the smaller creature. He'd better get a move on. He was behind schedule already.

Mondo and Penance had somehow been paired up for the search. Though Mondo did not mind in the least, he did wonder why Mr. Cassidy had chosen such a combination. Paige and Jonathan were searching the grounds. Monet and Skin were using the computer to search for the creature, and Jubilee and Everett were making a systematic search of the buildings with Mr. Cassidy. Artie and Leech were of course in the biosphere, Ms. Frost was nowhere to be found.

Mondo and Penance were searching the darker, lower recesses of the compound. Mondo didn't believe that such a little thing could hurt anyone. So he was not scared. Though he did wonder why these tunnels were here. He glanced at Penance. Somehow, he didn't think that she was scared at all. He wondered if she even knew what was going on.

He held a radio in his hand. He had to keep careful concentration in order to keep from absorbing it. He clicked the button and listened to the others. "This is Mondo." He said. "We haven't found any sign of it yet. How about you guys?"

This is Chamber. Jono said. We can't find hide nor hair of the bloody monster.

"Ah...I don't think we should call it a monster Jono." Paige said. "At least not till we know more about it."

I think we know all we need to Sunshine. Chamber replied. It tore it's way out of a man's chest. He continued to scan the woods around them with his mind. Nothing. And that, I can relate to. he thought.

Everett kept close to Jubilee. He himself wasn't worried, much. But Jubilee was jumping at every noise. At least it's light outside. he thought. We'd all be getting the creeps if it were night time. Up ahead, Sean held up a hand, signaling for them to stop. Everett tensed. Had Sean found it?

Leech and Artie sat contentedly in their tree house. Sean had told them to stay there, that there was a dangerous creature on the loose. But Artie and Leech had survived encounters with many such creatures. Besides, the older kids were taking care of it. Why worry?

Monet sighed. She knew that this thing presented a possible threat to the school, but even so, she was bored. Her task was not exactly intellectually stimulating. She glanced over at Skin. He seemed totally absorbed in his job. She sighed again. Why was it that those whose intellectual level were below hers seemed to get more fun out of life than she did? Must be because there's so many more things that are a challenge for them. she thought.

Angelo flipped through the different views of security cameras slowly. He examined each picture carefully, remembering that it was small so it would be hard to spot. Then he started on the camera's in the tunnels. He didn't know why there were tunnels on the grounds. He was afraid to ask Ms. Frost why she had deemed them necessary. On his third try, he found it. He saw it immediately. Dark and sinister, and very, very easy to spot with the night vision lens.

"Madre de Dios." he murmured, stunned. It had grown.

Mondo was startled when his radio crackled.

"Mondo, amigo are you there?" Angelo called.

"This is Mondo my friend. Is something wrong?" he asked calmly.

"Mondo, you've got to get out of there comprende? It's coming right for you!"

Mondo peered into the tunnel ahead of him. He assumed that because Angelo had told him to retreat, that the thing was ahead. Otherwise, how would he retreat? But Mondo saw nothing.

"Where is it Angelo? I don't see it. Granted it's small, but-"

"No it's not! It grew! You've got to run! Dios! It's right above you!"

Mondo's eyes widened in surprise. Above him? He tilted his head back, and saw it. It had indeed gotten bigger.

"Hello." Mondo said, being friendly. But the thing was not in a friendly mood. It extended a secondary set of jaws, and hissed.

Penance didn't know what the thing was, and she didn't care. It was a threat to her and to her friend. And threats had to be eliminated. She leapt at the thing just as it dropped from the ceiling. She missed, sailing over it.

Mondo was driven to the floor by the weight of the creature. The surprise momentarily made him lose his concentration. In that instant, while he was touching it, Mondo absorbed the alien. And, for the first time in his life, he screamed.

Monet leaped from her chair the moment the creature appeared on the screen. "Stay here!" she said. "I'll get them!"

"Si." Angelo murmured, his eyes locked to the screen.

Monet ran from the room, without looking back. If she had, perhaps things would have been different for Angelo.

Skin stared in horror at the events transpiring before him. "No!" he shouted as the Alien dropped on his new friend. So intent on the screen was he, that he failed to see an identical shape drop silently to the floor behind him.

He heard something move behind him, and spun in his chair. He just had time to get a good look at it before the Alien's inner jaws punched into his skull.

To be continued...