Logan stared at the still-sleeping Ashlyn, wondering at all the trouble she had caused. An' there're two more like'er, he thought to himself.
"And how is our patient faring?"
Logan looked up into Hank's calm face. "Still out like a light, Doc. I 'spect if what's been goin' on in'er head's as bad as the Professor says she's gonna be out fer some time."
"I concur. It is not necessary for you to remain here, however, my friend. I am more than capable of handling our young charge despite her apparent abilities."
"Professor wanted me to hang around."
"Hmm…I wonder why."
"You 'n me both, Hank. You 'n me both."
"Now explain ta me what ya were doin' drinkin' this early in tha mornin', Remy," Rogue demanded.
"T'ain't none a your business, chere, if Remy wan' to get hisself pissing drunk any time, day or night!"
Rogue gaped at her lover. "Remy, I…"
He was instantly contrite. "I sorry Rogue. Is jus' dis girl got me all turned around, nuh? How she start talkin' like Remy, huh? Why she cling to me so?"
Rogue placed a gloved hand on his shoulder. "I'm sure tha Proffessuh'll figure it out."
Frowning, Remy stated, "Well till he does, dis t'ief goin' ta keep hisself away from certain femmes, n'est-ce pas?"
Ororo eyed Scott warily as they climbed up to the roof. Bobby had been posted at the gate. "I take it that things did not go well picking up the new mutant."
He sighed. "That's putting it lightly."
"Tell me, Scott, what happened?"
"I wasn't picking her up that was so bad, though she did resist." He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know, it was just something about her that rubbed me wrong."
When Ororo gave him a questioning look he explained: "I let her provoke me. We were practically fighting in the Professor's office for God's sake! And she's just a kid. She can't be more than…nineteen at best. Then Beast came in and she completely flipped out."
"It does not sound as if you were completely at fault Scott," she said, stopping his upward climb with a hand on his. "The girl had her own part to play."
"But I should have been a bigger man about it."
She smiled serenely at him. "We are all human, Scott. We cannot be perfect all the time, not even our fearless leaders."
A smile touched his lips, although she could tell Scott was still troubled by what he had let happen. "You're a good friend, Ro."
"And you are a good leader, Scott."
There wasn't much more to do while waiting for Ashlyn to wake than breathing exercises or listen to Hank talk. Lucky for Logan, Hank only needed a warm body to get going. He figured even Ashlyn would qualify.
"Am I boring, Logan."
"Nah. Some of us just ain't got yer gift of gab," he answered, slumped in a chair about a foot from Ashlyn's bed, deceptively at ease. "Ain't that right, kid?"
Hank looked up from his files, halfway across the room. "Is our young charge awake?"
"Yeah. Ain't ya."
Ashlyn quickly sat up, pulling her legs and the white blanket to her chest. "I'm sorry."
Logan sat up in his chair. "What for."
"Everything. Pickin' that fight. Both of'em."
"You can stop talkin' like me, darlin'. We ain't fooled no more."
Ashlyn shrugged. "It'll go by itself…now that I can't here ya."
"Hear us? Fascinating."
Ashlyn's head whipped around in Beast's direction.
"Please do not be frightened. I assure I do not mean you any harm and I did not mean to frighten you before."
Logan was surprised to see her blush. "Don't apologize. I'm the one that lost my head, an' I'm real sorry for it. I shouldn't a treated you like you're some kinda freak 'cause you're blue."
"It is nothing if not a common reaction," Hank said as he came toward them. "And I accept your apology." He stopped a couple of feet from the bed. "Would you mind terribly if I examine you."
Although she maintained her outward composure Logan caught the spike of fear Hank's request produced. "If you wanna."
"It's all right, darlin'," Logan reassured her. "Ain't no one gonna make ya."
"Logan is quite right. He regularly refuses his yearly check-up."
"Don't need one," he grumped.
"Surely so, but curiosity…"
Ashlyn managed a small smile at their banter. She scratched at her fingertips idly.
"What's wrong, kid?"
She shrugged. "It's weird bein' alone in my head."
Logan narrowed his eyes. "You some kind of telepath?"
Their heads turned as the door to MedLab slid open. "Something like that," she murmured as Professor Xavier and Jean walked in.
The Professor smiled warmly at the young mutant. "How are you feeling my dear?"
"Pretty weird actually. Never been alone in my head before."
"Never?" Jean asked. She treasured those rare moments of mental isolation, which were usually of her own making. The Professor had told her of Ashlyn's flimsy mental shields.
Ashlyn shook her head. "The Master never collared me--"
"Collars?" from Professor Xavier.
She nodded vigorously. "He often punished Cara and Tarsus by takin' away their mutant powers with the collars."
"And you were spared because…"
A rueful look came over her face. "My mutant power. It made it so I never upset the Master the way Cara and Tarsus did."
"Yes," the Professor said thoughtfully, "we have been pondering your power--"
"Ya gotta believe I didn't mean for it to get out of control the way it did."
"We all understand."
Smiling Jean added, "You're only human after all."
A pained look crossed Ashlyn's face. "But I-- we're not. Human."
Everyone in the room wore a look of confusion. Except Logan. He nodded. "Knew somethin' was wrong."
Ignoring Logan, the Professor begged Ashlyn to explain. "The Master spliced our genes in vitro with a species of wild cat."
"May I ask--" Hank began.
"South-American Margays. For the agility."
Stroking his chin, he mused aloud, "And yet somehow this mysterious master of yours managed to maintain your human physiognomy."
"I don't think so, Hank," Logan said. "I think the kid's got somethin' else up'er sleeve."
"On my--" Ashlyn was cut off by the intakes of breath around her. "--wrist actually." Looking more upset by the moment, she glanced down at the oversized digital wristwatch she wore nestled in golden fur. "Don't you have great timing," she accused.
"Yer a giant cat."
She smiled sadly. "Tell me about it."
"Where's ya tail?"
Breaking in before Ashlyn could answer, the Professor asked: "Gift from your Master?"
"You could say that," she said looking at anything but the Professor. "Look, we were running away, but we couldn't go out into society like this," she pointed to herself. "We have orange fur and rosettes…we don't exactly blend."
"And your master made these things for you?"
"Yeah, for when he sent us out to train. Though they weren't really meant for the long term."
The Professor floated closer to the bed, Jean behind him. Ashlyn swung her legs over the side. "So your 'Master' manipulated your genetic material because of the added abilities it would lend you and your siblings."
Ashlyn nodded.
"And do you know why he…created you? For what purpose?"
"To be whatever he wants," she answered without hesitation. "We're his creatures. Or were."
"What happened?" Jean asked.
"Cara and Tarsus decided it was time for us to go. We couldn't be…" she stopped and thought for a moment before going on: "We were becoming what he wanted and we couldn't do it anymore. Cara and Tarsus decided it was time."
Professor Xavier: "And you?"
"I spent a lot of time with the Master's presence, and my mutant power made it difficult for me to go against him. It was only my loyalty and love for them that allowed me to do it at all."
Bobby tapped his communicator. "Hey, Scott."
"You got something for me?"
"Yeah. There's someone roaring down the road on a bike, and she looks pissed from here."
"Just be nice, Bobby. Don't give her any reason to provoke a fight. Remember she's just looking for her sister."
"Gotcha. Be seein' you soon, Fearless Leader. Bobby out."
Logan sniffed disdainfully. "That the same mutant power that let's ya get all cozy with people ya just met."
"Uh huh. The Master called it mimicry. I'm always projecting a low-level psychic field."
"Why didn't we feel it?" Jean asked.
The Professor answered for the young mutant. "Think of it as telepathic white noise."
"Exactly," Ashlyn agreed. "Unless you're looking for it, you're not going to feel it. It's always informing me--"
"Like an empath?"
"Something like that. Except when I'm in close proximity to someone, or just around them a lot I automatically modify my behavior to compliment theirs."
"Fascinating!"
Ashlyn managed a half-smile for Hank.
"An' when do ya get to be yerself, kid?"
She shrugged. "When I'm alone. I guess. I've never been alone."
Bobby waved down the rider. "Hey! We've been waiting for--"
The rider, a woman with long black wind-curled hair, fishtailed the bike to a stop about a yard from Bobby, spitting dirt. She was off in moments, letting the heavy machinery fall to the ground. She came sprinting at Bobby. "You killed her! Where's my sister!"
"Killed her? Hey Lady, chill out. Nobody's killed any body."
"Yet."
"Whaddaya mean yer never alone?"
"I'm looking fer my psycho brother, Logan!" she exclaimed clutching the sheet tighter. "I cain't afford to go inta the woods somewhere," she said, literally bristling.
Logan wasn't much better, coming half out of his seat in anger. "It ain't gonna work a second time, girlie."
"Peace! Both of you," Professor Xavier said, repeating the order to Ashlyn telepathically.
"It ain't a trick," she said with narrowed eyes. "Yer in here, Logan," she tapped her head with one stubby finger. "Even if the Professor is keeping you out now you're already in here. There just ain't--" with difficulty she corrected herself "aren't any updates."
"Professor!"
Xavier tapped his comm-link. "Go ahead, Scott."
"We have a situation up here."
"What is it?"
"You were right about Ashlyn's sister showing up sooner than expected. But somehow she's got the idea that we killed the kid. Bobby's handling it, but I'm on my way up to try to convince her of otherwise."
Professor Xavier frowned.
She flicked her fingers. Three inch claws sprang from the tips.
Bobby swore.
"Who killed my sister," she demanded in a low growl.
"Look…nobody's killed your sist-- You're a giant cat!"
She looked down at her hands gone from smooth suntanned skin to golden fur with black rosettes. "Yeah, tell me about it."
It sounded like a threat. "I don't wanna hurt you, Lady."
She made to swipe at Bobby's throat.
So he froze her hands.
A growl trembling her body, Bobby saw that she was concentrating. And pissed as hell. "Hey, I warned you. Look, someone's comin' out here to explain everything, okay?"
Then there was the unmistakable sound of ice cracking. Unmistakable to Bobby.
Ashlyn leapt off the bed. "Cara!"
Professor Xavier shook his head. "Scott shall see to the problem."
"You don't understand, Cara isn't like me. At all. She's like Logan."
"And what's that, darlin'?" he asked, voice dangerously low.
She turned to him. "Half-wild. Barely contained in her mask of humanity even when she's wearing a skin." She turned back to Xavier. "Cara had the hardest time adjusting to the world outside the lab. If she thinks I'm dead… And why would she think I'm dead anyway?"
Transfixed, Bobby watched her claws spring up another three inches through the glass-clear ice around her hands. Then six more. The last inch and a half poked out of the ice like strange sculptures.
He barely had time to duck when she used the block still around her hands as a sledgehammer. "Cyclops!!"
"You share a telepathic connection with your siblings, right?" Jean asked.
Ashlyn nodded.
"When the Professor closed your mind off from our emotions, he also closed it from every other kind of telepathic communication. Neither of them can feel you right now, and the only time something like that would happen--"
"Is if I'm dead," Ashlyn finished for her. "You gotta let me back out, Prof."
Shaking his head, the Professor said, "You are not yet prepared to handle the onslaught of so many open minds in one place."
"If you don't drop the shields you got on me right now then whoever you've got up there is gonna become my sister's scratching post. Please…"
High up on the left gate-pillar, Cyclops, ignoring her strange appearance for the moment, touched the side of his glasses. The red laser that shot out was meant to stun the girl -- had she not pitched forward into a roll, out of range. "Cara, we haven't killed your sister," he called out.
"Then why'd you just shoot at me!"
Standing up behind her, Bobby shouted, "Maybe 'cause you just tried to impale me?"
She rounded on him. "I'll do better than try, Ice Boy."
"It's IceMan!"
"Bobby pay attention," Scott called. Of all the times for a fit of vanity…
He turned just in time to watch the ice around Cara's hands shatter. Claws fully extended she leapt at him.
Both Cyclops and Bobby took aim at her. She twisted in midair, veering off to the left. "What the--!"
But Cyclops wasted no such time marveling at acrobatics he had already seen. He took aim again, sending the young mutant back into the air.
"Professor, she's not going to stop until she knows I'm alive," Ashlyn pleaded. "Or until someone kills her."
"Sounds like my kinda girl."
Ashlyn hissed at Logan.
Frowning at them both, the Professor said, "I can not risk your sanity."
"So you're gonna risk all your X-Men?" She looked from him to Jean, and then to Hank. "Can't you see that's absurd?"
"You ain't gonna get any help from them two on this one, kid."
"Logan…"
"Look Chuck, the kid's right. Why risk Scott and Bobby when all ya gotta do is let'em see each other. Ain't this takin' yer sense of duty a little too far?"
With an intensity that made her want to lash the tail she didn't have, Ashlyn asked, "You'll take me up?"
"Ya bet kid."
Xavier: "Wait."