*******************
Eleventh Fragment ~ 'Ghost'
*******************
Elf was the first to wake. Logan wasn't surprised. He *was* vaguely surprised that he could sleep whilst hanging from the handrails, but it fit right in with the rest of him.
"Morning," he said, and yawned. "Ach. Where are we?"
Logan shrugged. "Been travellin' all night. Ain't seen no roadsigns. Either way, we gotta be out of New York State by now. 'Ro's clear on the other side of the country, an' this thing's *visible*."
"There's a city nearby. Maybe it has an airport."
"Planning to steal a *'plane*?" Logan boggled at him.
"Nein, I'm planning to hide in a hangar," said Kurt. "There's not many places you can hide a double-decker bus, you know."
Hope, who'd slept through the night and the noise of the bus, opened her eyes at the sound of voices. She blinked at them and then stared at the little mobile Pietro had made. In a moment or two, she'd realise she had an empty belly or a full diaper or both, and want her Mom.
"You been plannin'," said Logan. "Never thought I'd see the day."
"Hey, I always had plans. Just slightly nefarious ones." Elf smiled wistfully at distant times. "Ach... I miss them."
"I know. Me too."
And that was all that was said about it.
They found a hangar to hide in, in the shadow of a rusting 747, and parked near a wing.
Kitty awoke with a careful stretch and a massive yawn. "Are we there?"
"Nein, Kätzchen. We're in a hangar. Hope's awake, but she's watching the world."
"Where's Lance?"
"He's asleep in the seat behind you. Let him rest, ja?"
Lance, to prove Elf's point, snored.
"Urgh," Kitty muttered. "I'm gonna be like, stuck here for*ever*."
"I could help you out," offered the Elf.
Logan was not inclined to stop him, or offer his assistance instead. The way things were going, every woman was going to have to have several husbands for a while. Best they get used to that idea on their own.
"Just reach forward," said Kurt.
Kitty did so, but the hand that grasped hers was *not* human. Even though she sort of expected it, she wasn't *really* expecting it. It was one thing to remember a picture. It was another to touch the reality.
His fur was very soft, but it was the fingers that unnerved.
"Sorry," he said, sensing that imperceptible flinch. "I can't help how I am."
He sounded so ashamed. Kitty had to wonder what it was like to have the death of the world on her metaphorical shoulders. She decided then and there to forgive him everything, since his own guilt had doubtless done more to him than her hate ever would. And Logan had said it, too. It was stupid to fight any more.
"It's OK," she said, and petted his hand. "At least I know *one* of you on touch. And your fur feels very nice. Like velvet."
She felt him relax at that. "If you like, I can take you for a walk around the aeroplane..."
"I'd, like, rather you took me for a walk to the bathroom." Heat filled her face. "I've been waiting half the night."
"Ah. Pietro installed the porta-potty upstairs. I'll show you the way," he guided one hand to Hope's safety bubble. "There's your kleine Kind[1], and if you follow the edge, here, you find a pole, ja? And up there, a rail."
Cold metal tubes met her fingertips, the same way warm, fuzzy flesh met the back of her hand. "Wow... Lance never does this for me. He just warns me about like, where to put my feet."
"He does? How does he expect you to do anything for yourself?"
"I'm blind. That's over."
"Pffft! Far from it, liebchen," said Kurt, guiding her along the rail. "Here. At the second pole, feel down it, and - there - is Alvin's plant cart. The handle sticks out, see?"
From about waist height at the pole, she felt the arms of the cart and followed it out to the handle, and she followed that to a metal wall.
"Nearly there," said Kurt. "Feel the rivets along the way, and there's the door. Get your left hand on that side. Reach across with your right. There. Now you know where the door is. Feel down with your right hand. There's a handrail. Step up. Feel with the toe of your shoe where it is. *That's* the way. You're doing well."
Kitty giggled, elated. "How do you like, know how to do these things?"
"Margali Szardos - a woman in my tribe back home - was blind," he said simply. "She rarely used a stick, and if she was in someplace new, I was drafted to be her guide. I learned a lot about how to really help from her."
Kitty was counting the steps. Five so far. Six. The rail was turning, and so did she. Seven. Eight. "I'm like, so glad you knew her," she said, and meant it. "I feel like I've been helpless for, like, ever. You've no idea how great I feel right now." Nine. Ten. Eleven. The rail stopped. Kitty felt up the wall and found a horizontal bar.
"One more step up."
Twelve. Kitty grinned. "OK, I can like, smell gasoline up here."
"Just the jerry-cans in the back. The porta-potty's right in front of you. Just walk forward and feel it out."
Kitty found its hard, plastic surface in two steps. Then she found the door by feel.
"I'll be waiting in case you need a guide for the way back," said Kurt.
"Thanks. If you don't mind, I'd like to try on my own?"
She didn't need to see his smile; she could *feel* it in the air. "I was hoping you would."
*******************
Ariel worked tirelessly in the shadows of dawn. He had discovered containers nearby - a ruined building sporting abandoned barrels that had once contained something... something that was now tainted and foul. Ariel didn't mind. The substance was dust now, like everything else, and came clean with minimal effort.
Finding moisture... that was the trick.
He scouted, never straying far from the corpse. He didn't know why and didn't dwell on it. It was almost... natural... to make his base of operations near the trader. After all, he had once been exactly the kind of person Ariel would soon need to find.
He wasn't afraid. Fear had ceased to be a factor. The first barrel of water - the substance of life - had smelled so sweetly in the tainted air... it was almost as a blessing. No-one would hurt him. Not even mutant hunters, not even for being near a human body. After all, water was life and he was water...
Squeezing every drop that he could from whatever he could find, Ariel whistled while he worked. The sound vibrated through the arid surroundings, his mind flying on the wings of a random tune. Trader Dan had always told him not to whistle and he had never understood why. He still didn't - it was such a lovely way to pass the time.
_Maybe,_ he thought, _I can get a good price for my services. Maybe they'll let me whistle if I make the water sweet..._ He paused just long enough to relish the thought. To whistle while you work.
The sun loomed overhead now and he took a moment to make sure his work wasn't evaporating on him. He had many barrels now, more than he could count. At least ten. More than ten.
There were people nearby. People... where had they come from? Could they smell the water, its cleanness through the dusty air?
Ariel smiled. And he had thought he would have to go to them.
*******************
_Stinkin' muties._
She hunted. The bus had stopped and the stinkin' muties were hiding, waiting for night. She couldn't see them, but she knew they were there... there, but too many. The Hunter waits for good odds. The Hunter will wait till she can kill all, not one or two.
So she waited, eyes narrow, breath shallow. They were here... she could taste them in the air... tainting her air...
A shadow! Blue? Wind... something in the wind... hair? White hair. Cold blue eyes. Fast.
She shook her head and strangled a growl. Damn muties. The Hunter calmed. Damn muties would die. The Hunter could wait.
A Hunter needs a weapon. A powerful weapon. Preferably to take them all out at once. The children... the Hunter wouldn't get to hear the children scream... but such was the price one paid for efficiency.
Supplies. Dust. Broken homes, broken hearts. Ruins. Blood. A child's doll, staring out with lifeless black eyes... immortal. Dead.
Why?
Muties.
What?
Die. They must die.
Friends?
Wha - No. None.
Todd.
Mother.
"No!" she whispered, feeling as if her eyes were burning. The smiles faded, the doll returned. Black eyes and beyond...
Black pools.
Oil.
Her smile, devoid of any real emotion, would have made anyone shudder. She mouthed something.
Weapon.
Fire.
*******************
A woman, falsely aged, peered into one of the barrels. "Whar'd you get all this?" she asked suspiciously.
"'E's a mutie!" A man grabbed Ariel's wrist, squeezing the muscles so the boy's fingers spread, showing the webbing between them.
The woman backed away from the water, making hex signs. "Don' trust any of it," she warned the rest of the congregating mob.
"Purest water in the world!" Ariel shouted over the hissing of the crowd. "Nothing but hydrogen and oxygen! Guaranteed no salt, dirt, bacteria, or toxins!"
He stretched out his free arm and spun a down-pointing finger in a quick circle. The water in the barrels mirrored his motion, swirling gently clockwise.
"Free gallon to the first person to try it!" he advertised.
The people murmured and shifted. After a moment, a man with a walking stick came forward. "Ain't got nothin' to live fer on this world," he said. "Might 's well try it."
The first man warily released the young mutant, who retrieved a gallon jug from his cart and filled it from the barrel nearest him.
"To your health, sir," Ariel said as he offered the water.
The man eyed the jug, sniffed the water, and drank some. "Praise be to the heavens!" he exclaimed. "That's the finest water I ever did find!"
"Five dollars a gallon!" Ariel shouted as the crowd surged forward. "Free jugs as long as I've got!"
Well, maybe he wouldn't have to sell himself after all.
"Bring me your dirtwater and a clean container, and I'll purify it," he offered to the amazed crowd. "I can even suck water out of concrete. Watch."
He held his hand over a piece of rubble and drew the water out of it. The concrete crumbled into its component elements. All he had was barely a mouthful, but the awe was thick in the air. He drank that much water out of the air and smiled.
"All I ask is a little in trade - a little food, maybe some cooking implements? You'll never go thirsty again."
"He's still a damn mutie," grumbled the woman.
"Your pardon, ma'am, but I'm a *useful* mutie." Ariel bowed to her, then tapped his cheek underneath the tattoo. "Trader Dan's finest merchandise, at your service."
"So where's your buyer, if you're a slave?"
Ariel pointed to the pickup. "He told me to get out and wait. I think - maybe he knew he was dying... and sent me out on my own. I only found out when I was looking for water." He shuddered. "I *won't* take water from a person. It's wrong."
A small child had come right up to him, unafraid. "You got odd eyes. One's green an' one's blue."
"Yes," he said indulgently. "A normal birth defect. Having odd eyes doesn't make you a mutie."
"Oh," said the kid. She had one brown eye and one grey one. "Rats."
And Ariel had to laugh.
*******************
Kurt rested his forehead against a cool metal pole, listening to the sounds of the others as they woke and waiting for Kitty to finish in the john. Lance's snoring was a constant, and it barely wavered throughout.
"Why have we stoppped here?" asked Alvin.
Pietro, though awake, said nothing, eyes darting between Logan and Mystique and wavering whether to settled on anger, disgust, or fear.
"You have a problem with here, bub?" Logan sniffed, staring out the front windshield at something apparently only he could see. He'd been outside to stretch his legs, but now sat right back where he'd been, claiming he didn't want to be too far from Daisy.
"Here is gut," Kurt called, cutting off any potential conflict. "There would have been better. We should travel only at night, ja?"
"This isn't the best place to hide," Pietro mumbled rebelliously, forgetting for a moment how good Logan's hearing was.
"Didn't stop for the scenery, kid." He gave Kurt a significant look.
The blue mutant sighed and hobbled up to the front to see what he was wanted for, careful not to disturb his sleeping mother and her two equally tired charges. He narrowed his eyes, wishing for the dark of night.
Logan indicated with a nod of his head. There were smudges on the horizon. Moving smudges.
"People?"
"Yep," Logan answered shortly, as was and had always been his way. "A mob."
"You think a mutant might be involved?"
"Just a thought, Elf."
They both heard the door upstairs creak open, sensitive hearing allowing them more access to the aural world than most. Shuffling footsteps moved slowly towards the stairs.
"One," Kitty counted under her breath, "Two, three, four..."
Kurt opened his eyes and followed quietly. Down the stairs, past Alvin's cart, up the aisle. Kitty counted seat-backs until she found Hope's baby bubble.
"Wunderbar, Fraulein," Kurt grinned.
Kitty's grin was ten times wider.
A voice floated to them down the gangway. "Win... Winds..." Daisy squinted at the small print on the page.
Alvin leaned over and scanned the line. "Ah," he lifted the book from her hands. "You found it!"
"Found what?" Daisy looked up, grasping for the lost reading material.
"Windswift's prophecy." Alvin's finger traced the letters. "The one I forgot."
"So what's it say?" Pietro leaned over the back a chair, straining to look, yet unwilling to get any closer than necessary.
"Windswift messenger man purifies world," Alvin read, "His hands are full of blue gold."
Pietro inspected his palms. "Blue gold? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Black gold is oil," Kurt mused.
"Here's another one." Alvin read them the next line in the book. "Lady Luck meets Brother Time, precious moment ends in sorrow."
They turned to look at the speedster, but he just spread his prophetic palms wide. "Got me."
"Ja," said Kurt, a vaguely dubious edge to his voice. "He sure does."
*******************
She travelled back up the road to where she'd left the motorcycle. Cresting a ridge that kept her out of sight, she then slid to the vehicle she'd liberated from the Vanguard home base and knelt beside it.
Those stinkin' muties were just up ahead in the old airfield. She'd seen them, and it made her blood boil. Yet there were too many for her to just wade in on her own. They'd take her down in a few seconds. No, she had to been clever about it. Take them by surprise - that was the way to do it.
The motorcycle stood cooling by the side of the road. There was nobody around to steal it, though she pitied anybody who might have tried. The bike wasn't the only thing she'd retrieved from base, and she patted the array of knives located in various places about her person.
But blades weren't her weapon of choice today.
Suddenly she stopped, pausing mid-step and staring blankly into nothingness. Her green eyes became unfocused as she returned to the battle within.
The consciousness known as Audrey squared off against the original owner of this body. The Vanguard leader was in no mood to fight for control right now. Not when she had such important things to do.
_Stay back,_ she warned.
The other presence refused to leave, and bubbled just beneath the surface. _You can't do this,_ it said. _This isn't why we followed them. This isn't right._
_All's fair in war, darlin',_ Audrey replied, keeping herself firmly fixed in place.
_Get out of my body!_
_Hey, *you* put me in here, mutant. It's your fault we're sharing the same headspace. If it weren't for those others, I probably would've thrown myself off a bridge by now._
_You'd die too if you did that._
_Better than living as a fuckin' *mutant freak*,_ The body clenched a fist, demonstrating that she was most definitely still in control.
_Leave them alone,_ the presence pleaded. _They haven't done anything._
_They were born,_ Audrey answered coldly, and shoved the other speaker away with her mind alone. The body's owner cried out, but was too weak from their earlier battle to do much other than flap uselessly about.
Audrey turned a deaf ear to the wailing, instead returning to the job at hand. She knelt beside the motorcycle and deposited the canister of oil she'd stolen from the hangar adjacent to the mutants.
The situation wasn't perfect, she knew. The rest of the gang would never let her rejoin them like this. She'd have to become a rogue hunter now, travelling around and dispensing justice to Mutantkind wherever she found them. Audrey didn't care. All she wanted was to destroy mutants. That was the primary reason she'd suggested that the other presence take the bike, and waited for it to tire, recuperating herself so that she may take control of this body and keep it in her possession. It hadn't taken her long to work out that she was trapped in here, and she was adaptive enough to realise that her best course of action lay in taking over and using this form as she would her own.
On impulse, she looked at her hand. The skin of this girl was pale - much paler than her own. Younger, too. She supposed the leather she'd also suggested be taken from the base highlighted it. Somehow, it made her more comfortable to be dressed in her own clothes, even if she wasn't dressed in her own flesh.
Of course, there were a few memories that still lingered around. Recollections that weren't her own, but they hardly mattered. More than that, they gave her an edge of some of the mutants in the hangar.
For instance, she knew that the blonde one had mastery over speed, and that the blue woman could change her form at will. Perhaps she should use this body's absorption powers to take that ability. That way, she could go back to looking like Audrey as well as thinking like it.
Abruptly, she shook her head. Use a mutant's powers? It was disgusting, and she gave herself a good, sharp slap to the face that stung her back into more rational thought.
The mutants had to die. All of them.
She'd played with the idea of waiting until they were all asleep, but rejected it again. Most of them had slept while travelling. The man who'd been driving might, but the others she couldn't be sure about.
A stray memory flashed across her mind's eye. That of a silver figure, smiling and talking as if she were his friend. He dashed off faster than any normal human could, and returned again in a nanosecond holding two hotdogs, one of which was offered forward.
Audrey smiled. The fast one knew the original owner of this body *personally*.
Suddenly she had a plan. The fast one had been a threat with his powers. He could rescue the others from a blaze faster than fire could strike at them. He was a liability. Maybe the others had similar abilities, but maybe not. He was the one she knew about. He had to be got rid of before she took care of the others. She had to get him alone and kill him, then go on and take care of the rest...
And now she knew how to do it.
With bait.
*******************
Pietro took care to walk normally in the daytime. It didn't do to be visibly mutant in a strange place. Kurt had decided to hare off investigating a mob, leaving Logan catnapping and anyone conscious in charge.
Alvin was cooking something, which woke up Mystique.
Pietro had decided to take a walk at that point. He couldn't stand being near her while she was awake.
_We all have our sins, don't we?_ he thought. _I left Todd. I don't know where Wanda is... All I do is pick up after everyone's mess..._
He found himself staring at his hands.
_I'm supposed to hold blue gold? What the hell is blue gold?_
"Howdy stranger," said a voice from his past.
Pietro startled.
The vision in leather was a shock, primarily because she was bone thin. And should have been dead. A ghost. A living, breathing ghost.
The other shock was that she was armed to the teeth with knives. She didn't need weapons when she had her skin.
His throat tightened, and when he spoke it was little more than a croak. But it was sufficient.
"...Rogue?"
*******************
To Be Continued...
*******************
[1] Little child/baby.
Eleventh Fragment ~ 'Ghost'
*******************
Elf was the first to wake. Logan wasn't surprised. He *was* vaguely surprised that he could sleep whilst hanging from the handrails, but it fit right in with the rest of him.
"Morning," he said, and yawned. "Ach. Where are we?"
Logan shrugged. "Been travellin' all night. Ain't seen no roadsigns. Either way, we gotta be out of New York State by now. 'Ro's clear on the other side of the country, an' this thing's *visible*."
"There's a city nearby. Maybe it has an airport."
"Planning to steal a *'plane*?" Logan boggled at him.
"Nein, I'm planning to hide in a hangar," said Kurt. "There's not many places you can hide a double-decker bus, you know."
Hope, who'd slept through the night and the noise of the bus, opened her eyes at the sound of voices. She blinked at them and then stared at the little mobile Pietro had made. In a moment or two, she'd realise she had an empty belly or a full diaper or both, and want her Mom.
"You been plannin'," said Logan. "Never thought I'd see the day."
"Hey, I always had plans. Just slightly nefarious ones." Elf smiled wistfully at distant times. "Ach... I miss them."
"I know. Me too."
And that was all that was said about it.
They found a hangar to hide in, in the shadow of a rusting 747, and parked near a wing.
Kitty awoke with a careful stretch and a massive yawn. "Are we there?"
"Nein, Kätzchen. We're in a hangar. Hope's awake, but she's watching the world."
"Where's Lance?"
"He's asleep in the seat behind you. Let him rest, ja?"
Lance, to prove Elf's point, snored.
"Urgh," Kitty muttered. "I'm gonna be like, stuck here for*ever*."
"I could help you out," offered the Elf.
Logan was not inclined to stop him, or offer his assistance instead. The way things were going, every woman was going to have to have several husbands for a while. Best they get used to that idea on their own.
"Just reach forward," said Kurt.
Kitty did so, but the hand that grasped hers was *not* human. Even though she sort of expected it, she wasn't *really* expecting it. It was one thing to remember a picture. It was another to touch the reality.
His fur was very soft, but it was the fingers that unnerved.
"Sorry," he said, sensing that imperceptible flinch. "I can't help how I am."
He sounded so ashamed. Kitty had to wonder what it was like to have the death of the world on her metaphorical shoulders. She decided then and there to forgive him everything, since his own guilt had doubtless done more to him than her hate ever would. And Logan had said it, too. It was stupid to fight any more.
"It's OK," she said, and petted his hand. "At least I know *one* of you on touch. And your fur feels very nice. Like velvet."
She felt him relax at that. "If you like, I can take you for a walk around the aeroplane..."
"I'd, like, rather you took me for a walk to the bathroom." Heat filled her face. "I've been waiting half the night."
"Ah. Pietro installed the porta-potty upstairs. I'll show you the way," he guided one hand to Hope's safety bubble. "There's your kleine Kind[1], and if you follow the edge, here, you find a pole, ja? And up there, a rail."
Cold metal tubes met her fingertips, the same way warm, fuzzy flesh met the back of her hand. "Wow... Lance never does this for me. He just warns me about like, where to put my feet."
"He does? How does he expect you to do anything for yourself?"
"I'm blind. That's over."
"Pffft! Far from it, liebchen," said Kurt, guiding her along the rail. "Here. At the second pole, feel down it, and - there - is Alvin's plant cart. The handle sticks out, see?"
From about waist height at the pole, she felt the arms of the cart and followed it out to the handle, and she followed that to a metal wall.
"Nearly there," said Kurt. "Feel the rivets along the way, and there's the door. Get your left hand on that side. Reach across with your right. There. Now you know where the door is. Feel down with your right hand. There's a handrail. Step up. Feel with the toe of your shoe where it is. *That's* the way. You're doing well."
Kitty giggled, elated. "How do you like, know how to do these things?"
"Margali Szardos - a woman in my tribe back home - was blind," he said simply. "She rarely used a stick, and if she was in someplace new, I was drafted to be her guide. I learned a lot about how to really help from her."
Kitty was counting the steps. Five so far. Six. The rail was turning, and so did she. Seven. Eight. "I'm like, so glad you knew her," she said, and meant it. "I feel like I've been helpless for, like, ever. You've no idea how great I feel right now." Nine. Ten. Eleven. The rail stopped. Kitty felt up the wall and found a horizontal bar.
"One more step up."
Twelve. Kitty grinned. "OK, I can like, smell gasoline up here."
"Just the jerry-cans in the back. The porta-potty's right in front of you. Just walk forward and feel it out."
Kitty found its hard, plastic surface in two steps. Then she found the door by feel.
"I'll be waiting in case you need a guide for the way back," said Kurt.
"Thanks. If you don't mind, I'd like to try on my own?"
She didn't need to see his smile; she could *feel* it in the air. "I was hoping you would."
*******************
Ariel worked tirelessly in the shadows of dawn. He had discovered containers nearby - a ruined building sporting abandoned barrels that had once contained something... something that was now tainted and foul. Ariel didn't mind. The substance was dust now, like everything else, and came clean with minimal effort.
Finding moisture... that was the trick.
He scouted, never straying far from the corpse. He didn't know why and didn't dwell on it. It was almost... natural... to make his base of operations near the trader. After all, he had once been exactly the kind of person Ariel would soon need to find.
He wasn't afraid. Fear had ceased to be a factor. The first barrel of water - the substance of life - had smelled so sweetly in the tainted air... it was almost as a blessing. No-one would hurt him. Not even mutant hunters, not even for being near a human body. After all, water was life and he was water...
Squeezing every drop that he could from whatever he could find, Ariel whistled while he worked. The sound vibrated through the arid surroundings, his mind flying on the wings of a random tune. Trader Dan had always told him not to whistle and he had never understood why. He still didn't - it was such a lovely way to pass the time.
_Maybe,_ he thought, _I can get a good price for my services. Maybe they'll let me whistle if I make the water sweet..._ He paused just long enough to relish the thought. To whistle while you work.
The sun loomed overhead now and he took a moment to make sure his work wasn't evaporating on him. He had many barrels now, more than he could count. At least ten. More than ten.
There were people nearby. People... where had they come from? Could they smell the water, its cleanness through the dusty air?
Ariel smiled. And he had thought he would have to go to them.
*******************
_Stinkin' muties._
She hunted. The bus had stopped and the stinkin' muties were hiding, waiting for night. She couldn't see them, but she knew they were there... there, but too many. The Hunter waits for good odds. The Hunter will wait till she can kill all, not one or two.
So she waited, eyes narrow, breath shallow. They were here... she could taste them in the air... tainting her air...
A shadow! Blue? Wind... something in the wind... hair? White hair. Cold blue eyes. Fast.
She shook her head and strangled a growl. Damn muties. The Hunter calmed. Damn muties would die. The Hunter could wait.
A Hunter needs a weapon. A powerful weapon. Preferably to take them all out at once. The children... the Hunter wouldn't get to hear the children scream... but such was the price one paid for efficiency.
Supplies. Dust. Broken homes, broken hearts. Ruins. Blood. A child's doll, staring out with lifeless black eyes... immortal. Dead.
Why?
Muties.
What?
Die. They must die.
Friends?
Wha - No. None.
Todd.
Mother.
"No!" she whispered, feeling as if her eyes were burning. The smiles faded, the doll returned. Black eyes and beyond...
Black pools.
Oil.
Her smile, devoid of any real emotion, would have made anyone shudder. She mouthed something.
Weapon.
Fire.
*******************
A woman, falsely aged, peered into one of the barrels. "Whar'd you get all this?" she asked suspiciously.
"'E's a mutie!" A man grabbed Ariel's wrist, squeezing the muscles so the boy's fingers spread, showing the webbing between them.
The woman backed away from the water, making hex signs. "Don' trust any of it," she warned the rest of the congregating mob.
"Purest water in the world!" Ariel shouted over the hissing of the crowd. "Nothing but hydrogen and oxygen! Guaranteed no salt, dirt, bacteria, or toxins!"
He stretched out his free arm and spun a down-pointing finger in a quick circle. The water in the barrels mirrored his motion, swirling gently clockwise.
"Free gallon to the first person to try it!" he advertised.
The people murmured and shifted. After a moment, a man with a walking stick came forward. "Ain't got nothin' to live fer on this world," he said. "Might 's well try it."
The first man warily released the young mutant, who retrieved a gallon jug from his cart and filled it from the barrel nearest him.
"To your health, sir," Ariel said as he offered the water.
The man eyed the jug, sniffed the water, and drank some. "Praise be to the heavens!" he exclaimed. "That's the finest water I ever did find!"
"Five dollars a gallon!" Ariel shouted as the crowd surged forward. "Free jugs as long as I've got!"
Well, maybe he wouldn't have to sell himself after all.
"Bring me your dirtwater and a clean container, and I'll purify it," he offered to the amazed crowd. "I can even suck water out of concrete. Watch."
He held his hand over a piece of rubble and drew the water out of it. The concrete crumbled into its component elements. All he had was barely a mouthful, but the awe was thick in the air. He drank that much water out of the air and smiled.
"All I ask is a little in trade - a little food, maybe some cooking implements? You'll never go thirsty again."
"He's still a damn mutie," grumbled the woman.
"Your pardon, ma'am, but I'm a *useful* mutie." Ariel bowed to her, then tapped his cheek underneath the tattoo. "Trader Dan's finest merchandise, at your service."
"So where's your buyer, if you're a slave?"
Ariel pointed to the pickup. "He told me to get out and wait. I think - maybe he knew he was dying... and sent me out on my own. I only found out when I was looking for water." He shuddered. "I *won't* take water from a person. It's wrong."
A small child had come right up to him, unafraid. "You got odd eyes. One's green an' one's blue."
"Yes," he said indulgently. "A normal birth defect. Having odd eyes doesn't make you a mutie."
"Oh," said the kid. She had one brown eye and one grey one. "Rats."
And Ariel had to laugh.
*******************
Kurt rested his forehead against a cool metal pole, listening to the sounds of the others as they woke and waiting for Kitty to finish in the john. Lance's snoring was a constant, and it barely wavered throughout.
"Why have we stoppped here?" asked Alvin.
Pietro, though awake, said nothing, eyes darting between Logan and Mystique and wavering whether to settled on anger, disgust, or fear.
"You have a problem with here, bub?" Logan sniffed, staring out the front windshield at something apparently only he could see. He'd been outside to stretch his legs, but now sat right back where he'd been, claiming he didn't want to be too far from Daisy.
"Here is gut," Kurt called, cutting off any potential conflict. "There would have been better. We should travel only at night, ja?"
"This isn't the best place to hide," Pietro mumbled rebelliously, forgetting for a moment how good Logan's hearing was.
"Didn't stop for the scenery, kid." He gave Kurt a significant look.
The blue mutant sighed and hobbled up to the front to see what he was wanted for, careful not to disturb his sleeping mother and her two equally tired charges. He narrowed his eyes, wishing for the dark of night.
Logan indicated with a nod of his head. There were smudges on the horizon. Moving smudges.
"People?"
"Yep," Logan answered shortly, as was and had always been his way. "A mob."
"You think a mutant might be involved?"
"Just a thought, Elf."
They both heard the door upstairs creak open, sensitive hearing allowing them more access to the aural world than most. Shuffling footsteps moved slowly towards the stairs.
"One," Kitty counted under her breath, "Two, three, four..."
Kurt opened his eyes and followed quietly. Down the stairs, past Alvin's cart, up the aisle. Kitty counted seat-backs until she found Hope's baby bubble.
"Wunderbar, Fraulein," Kurt grinned.
Kitty's grin was ten times wider.
A voice floated to them down the gangway. "Win... Winds..." Daisy squinted at the small print on the page.
Alvin leaned over and scanned the line. "Ah," he lifted the book from her hands. "You found it!"
"Found what?" Daisy looked up, grasping for the lost reading material.
"Windswift's prophecy." Alvin's finger traced the letters. "The one I forgot."
"So what's it say?" Pietro leaned over the back a chair, straining to look, yet unwilling to get any closer than necessary.
"Windswift messenger man purifies world," Alvin read, "His hands are full of blue gold."
Pietro inspected his palms. "Blue gold? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Black gold is oil," Kurt mused.
"Here's another one." Alvin read them the next line in the book. "Lady Luck meets Brother Time, precious moment ends in sorrow."
They turned to look at the speedster, but he just spread his prophetic palms wide. "Got me."
"Ja," said Kurt, a vaguely dubious edge to his voice. "He sure does."
*******************
She travelled back up the road to where she'd left the motorcycle. Cresting a ridge that kept her out of sight, she then slid to the vehicle she'd liberated from the Vanguard home base and knelt beside it.
Those stinkin' muties were just up ahead in the old airfield. She'd seen them, and it made her blood boil. Yet there were too many for her to just wade in on her own. They'd take her down in a few seconds. No, she had to been clever about it. Take them by surprise - that was the way to do it.
The motorcycle stood cooling by the side of the road. There was nobody around to steal it, though she pitied anybody who might have tried. The bike wasn't the only thing she'd retrieved from base, and she patted the array of knives located in various places about her person.
But blades weren't her weapon of choice today.
Suddenly she stopped, pausing mid-step and staring blankly into nothingness. Her green eyes became unfocused as she returned to the battle within.
The consciousness known as Audrey squared off against the original owner of this body. The Vanguard leader was in no mood to fight for control right now. Not when she had such important things to do.
_Stay back,_ she warned.
The other presence refused to leave, and bubbled just beneath the surface. _You can't do this,_ it said. _This isn't why we followed them. This isn't right._
_All's fair in war, darlin',_ Audrey replied, keeping herself firmly fixed in place.
_Get out of my body!_
_Hey, *you* put me in here, mutant. It's your fault we're sharing the same headspace. If it weren't for those others, I probably would've thrown myself off a bridge by now._
_You'd die too if you did that._
_Better than living as a fuckin' *mutant freak*,_ The body clenched a fist, demonstrating that she was most definitely still in control.
_Leave them alone,_ the presence pleaded. _They haven't done anything._
_They were born,_ Audrey answered coldly, and shoved the other speaker away with her mind alone. The body's owner cried out, but was too weak from their earlier battle to do much other than flap uselessly about.
Audrey turned a deaf ear to the wailing, instead returning to the job at hand. She knelt beside the motorcycle and deposited the canister of oil she'd stolen from the hangar adjacent to the mutants.
The situation wasn't perfect, she knew. The rest of the gang would never let her rejoin them like this. She'd have to become a rogue hunter now, travelling around and dispensing justice to Mutantkind wherever she found them. Audrey didn't care. All she wanted was to destroy mutants. That was the primary reason she'd suggested that the other presence take the bike, and waited for it to tire, recuperating herself so that she may take control of this body and keep it in her possession. It hadn't taken her long to work out that she was trapped in here, and she was adaptive enough to realise that her best course of action lay in taking over and using this form as she would her own.
On impulse, she looked at her hand. The skin of this girl was pale - much paler than her own. Younger, too. She supposed the leather she'd also suggested be taken from the base highlighted it. Somehow, it made her more comfortable to be dressed in her own clothes, even if she wasn't dressed in her own flesh.
Of course, there were a few memories that still lingered around. Recollections that weren't her own, but they hardly mattered. More than that, they gave her an edge of some of the mutants in the hangar.
For instance, she knew that the blonde one had mastery over speed, and that the blue woman could change her form at will. Perhaps she should use this body's absorption powers to take that ability. That way, she could go back to looking like Audrey as well as thinking like it.
Abruptly, she shook her head. Use a mutant's powers? It was disgusting, and she gave herself a good, sharp slap to the face that stung her back into more rational thought.
The mutants had to die. All of them.
She'd played with the idea of waiting until they were all asleep, but rejected it again. Most of them had slept while travelling. The man who'd been driving might, but the others she couldn't be sure about.
A stray memory flashed across her mind's eye. That of a silver figure, smiling and talking as if she were his friend. He dashed off faster than any normal human could, and returned again in a nanosecond holding two hotdogs, one of which was offered forward.
Audrey smiled. The fast one knew the original owner of this body *personally*.
Suddenly she had a plan. The fast one had been a threat with his powers. He could rescue the others from a blaze faster than fire could strike at them. He was a liability. Maybe the others had similar abilities, but maybe not. He was the one she knew about. He had to be got rid of before she took care of the others. She had to get him alone and kill him, then go on and take care of the rest...
And now she knew how to do it.
With bait.
*******************
Pietro took care to walk normally in the daytime. It didn't do to be visibly mutant in a strange place. Kurt had decided to hare off investigating a mob, leaving Logan catnapping and anyone conscious in charge.
Alvin was cooking something, which woke up Mystique.
Pietro had decided to take a walk at that point. He couldn't stand being near her while she was awake.
_We all have our sins, don't we?_ he thought. _I left Todd. I don't know where Wanda is... All I do is pick up after everyone's mess..._
He found himself staring at his hands.
_I'm supposed to hold blue gold? What the hell is blue gold?_
"Howdy stranger," said a voice from his past.
Pietro startled.
The vision in leather was a shock, primarily because she was bone thin. And should have been dead. A ghost. A living, breathing ghost.
The other shock was that she was armed to the teeth with knives. She didn't need weapons when she had her skin.
His throat tightened, and when he spoke it was little more than a croak. But it was sufficient.
"...Rogue?"
*******************
To Be Continued...
*******************
[1] Little child/baby.