Disclaimer: I have seen God, and he is a Hobbit.
This chapter: the rescue! What will happen when Juliet meets the X-Men? Read on and find out!
Author's notes: this story will have Kuroro. If ya don't like that, stop reading. Or you can just skip over the mushy parts, your pick.
Uber-thanks to Jacob and Nandireya, who really helped me with this chapter.
Also, MEGA-THANKS to Amy, my mentor and the coolest person ever. This fic is officially dedicated to her.
Juliet was curled up in a fetal position, trying not to move her left arm too much. She had slipped on some rocks a few days ago while she was leading the pups outside the den to play a bit, and had broken her arm. It was a nasty break, parts of her bone had been sticking through her skin until she had pushed them back into place, and now the wound was all red and puffy, and it really hurt.
She was in a lot of pain. It was hard to breathe, and she kept coughing, so hard that she felt her lungs would pop out sooner or later. The wolf cubs kept nosing her, trying to get her to move, but she couldn't, she was hurt too badly. Worst of all, she couldn't keep anything down. Lichen had brought her Elk liver, raw and full of life, but she ended up vomiting it up two hours later. Since then, she hadn't kept anything down long enough for it to digest, which made her even weaker.
Her malnutrition had made the illness worse, and she had started hallucinating, screaming in pain as she relived memories from her past, only to suddenly calm down as she fell into coma-like sleep. If she didn't get medical attention soon, she'd die. "God?" she cried out in a moment of lucidity. "Why? Why did you bring me this far, save me from so much, only to die here? Please help me!" The wolves didn't understand her language, but they cuddled up around her, trying to help her in any way they could. She was part of their pack now, and they'd protect her to the death.
Xavier awoke with a start. He had just had a very strange dream, very strange indeed. It wasn't really a dream even, just a constant, repeated message, not even thoughts, but a subconscious cry for help. He had tried to get a mental reading on the sender, but all he could get was an internal distress signal, growing steadily weaker, as if the person sending the distress call was fading fast.
He hurried to Cerebro to try and lock in on the distress signal. Surprisingly, it was not very hard to find. The sender of the distress signal had brainwaves very different from those of mutants and humans, which led him to believe that the sender was neither, leading to another set of problems entirely. He managed to place a lock on the location, Mt. Denali National Park in Alaska, about two miles from the mountain itself. He was able to tell that the distressed person was a juvenile female, and was severely injured, almost close to death.
'Ororo, Kurt,' he mentally called them. 'Sorry to wake you up, but I need the two of you to go on an important rescue mission. Suit up and head to the Blackbird. I'll send the approximate coordinates into the navigation systems.'
Ororo and Kurt met at the Blackbird and got in. Kurt had passed his certification to fly just a few months before, but Ororo was experienced enough to make up for that. "Who exactly are we rescuing, Herr Professor?" Kurt asked over the com unit.
"I'm not quite sure, actually. There's something blocking me from finding out more. I do know that the person is young, female, and in quite a bit of distress. You need to find her and bring her back as soon as possible. I have a hunch she'll need medical attention."
"Jawohl," Kurt said as he and Ororo started the launch sequence. Within minutes, they were at sub-orbital velocity, speeding toward Mt. Denali National Park. The jet made the flight in half an hour, and soon they were circling over the radius the professor had given them.
"I'm going to run an infra-red scan," Ororo said, switching it on. "In theory, it'll pick up every heat signature possible. However, snow makes a very good insulator, and it might hide some things."
"What about that?" Kurt asked. There were two unusual patches of heat on the screen. One was a funnel-shaped column, the other was tube- shaped.
"Maybe some kind of underground shelter. It seems like the best place to start, anyway. Let's set the plane down and check it out." They left the plane in a clump of pine trees not too far from the shelter. Not too far away from the shelter, they found a series of tracks that were unusual to say the least.
"The tracks are wolf until this point," Ororo said, pointing at the pawprints. "But then they change into normal, human footprints that lead off toward the shelter. How could that be?"
Kurt shrugged. "Perhaps we should look closer to the shelter," he suggested. They did, but when they got close to the entrance, a wolf lunged out at them, snarling and baring her teeth. "I'm thinking that this might not be the place we're looking for," he said meekly. "Nice doggie."
Lichen had been keeping guard while the others slept when she heard a strange noise. Looking towards the source of the sound, she saw one of those metal-birds hunters used when they came to kill. She kept on alert as she saw two hunters get out of the metal-bird, and walk over to the pups' playground. They were chattering to each other in hunter-language, and walked closer to the den.
They were coming for the pack, she realized. Lunging out at them, she gave them the fiercest growl she could do, warning them not to come any closer. She'd attack if she needed to, there was no question of that. Even if they hit her with a thunder-blaster, she'd fight as long as she could.
Juliet opened her eyes weakly, even though she couldn't see much. Lichen was outside, barking about some kind of hunters, sending a chill down her spine. Could the Queen's Guards have followed her here? They couldn't have. She sniffed the air, sighing in relief. It wasn't them, but it wasn't hunters, either. They smelled, they smelled like Elerie's friends, almost. But older, and different. Maybe they could help her. But before she could think about it more, she fell into another coughing fit, and everything went into darkness.
Ororo heard Juliet's coughing fit first. "There's someone in there," she breathed. "Kurt, I'll hold off the wolves. You go in there and get her to the Blackbird."
"But I don't know where I'm going! I could teleport into a wall or something!"
"It's just snow, and I know you can do this, Kurt. I trust you."
Kurt blushed a bit, then remembered the task at hand. "Ja, Ororo," he said, teleporting and hoping that he didn't mess up. He landed about a foot away from a large wolf that thankfully was still asleep. Even though the inside of the den was dark, the only light source being a small fire in a stone bowl, he could still see quite well. Over to his right there was a medium sized lump of what looked to be animal hides and blankets, with a shock of dark hair peeking out from it. 'That's probably her,' he thought, moving closer to her and picking her up.
'Mein Gott!' he mentally exclaimed. She was extremely light, she couldn't've weighed more than forty pounds, and her breathing was very shallow. He also grabbed the leather satchel she had been using as a mattress and the fire bowl, extinguishing the flame. He didn't want to leave anything behind that she might need. He teleported to the Blackbird, reclining one of the seats back as far as it would go, and strapping her in, trying to move her as little as possible. Then he teleported outside to get Ororo, and about five minutes later, they were in the air.
"We need to get her to Hank as soon as we land," Ororo told him as she flew the plane, going as fast as was safe. "She's comatose, and her pulse is weak. If she doesn't get medical treatment fast, she'll probably die."
Kurt nodded. Once they reached the mansion, Kurt teleported to the infirmary with Juliet.
"Oh my stars and garters!" Hank exclaimed when he saw Juliet. "I take it this is our newest addition?" He took Juliet out of Kurt's arms and laid her on a bed. "She barely weighs anything!"
He checked her pulse, but it was barely detectable. "Ororo, I need your help. Get her into a gown while I get an IV ready." Ororo often assisted Hank with medical procedures. She had helped Jean so often; she could've passed the RN exams without even trying. Ororo did so, and by the time Hank had the IV ready, Juliet was lying on a bed, all ready.
Hank noticed Juliet's arm. There was a huge gash on her left arm, oozing pus. It was clearly infected, and would need serious attention once they had stabilized her. But what really caught his attention was that Juliet's arms were covered with feathers. Several kinds, overlapping to form what appeared to be some kind of wing. Hank was intrigued, but decided to wait until later to check the wings out. He hooked up the IV, inserting it into the main vein on her arm. She didn't even flinch. "Ororo? We need to stabilize her heart rate."
"Already ahead of you, Hank," Ororo said as she got the defibrillator over to the bed and hooked it up, adjusting the amperage so that it wouldn't hurt the girl. "Ready?" she asked. Hank nodded. "One, two, three, clear!" The girl's heartbeat shot up, but then returned to very low. They tried it again. "One, two, three, clear!" This time her heartbeat shot up and reached a normal level, staying there. "Well, that was good. She's stable, at least."
"If you're referring to her heartbeat, then, yes. However, I need to run several tests. Her arm is obviously infected, and likely has spread to other parts of her body. We may have gotten her heart rate stable, but we are not out of the proverbial woods quite yet."
"I take it that means that we need to run more tests."
"Precisely." Hank filled a hypodermic needle with an antibiotic. "Would you please sterilize that area right there?" He pointed to a spot on Juliet's arm. Ororo did so, and Hank injected the needle into the young girl's arm. "This broad-spectrum antibiotic should at least help until I can get a clearer picture of what ails her." He took a syringe-full of blood. "Will you please place her in the X-Ray machine? I would like full- body pictures done, as well as some of her chest cavity and arm."
Ororo gingerly picked up the girl and placed her inside the X-Ray tube, doing as Hank had asked. As the X-Ray buzzed and hummed, she wondered who the little girl was. Kurt had retrieved her belongings; there wasn't much, but it might give them a clue or two. Of course, they could always ask the girl when she awoke.
Hank carefully measured out the blood. Some of it went into the Microbial Analyzer, which would tell him the contents of her blood, what bacterium were present, the amount of white and red blood cells, that sort of thing. Some more of it went into the Genetic Evaluator, which took the DNA from a blood sample and examined it, comparing it to the DNA stored in its banks, and pointed out unique features. The MA's tests would take at least fifteen minutes, the GE's, twenty. He went over to the X-Ray machine and helped Ororo remove the girl and place her back on the bed. By the time they had put a dressing on her arm and placed blankets over her to keep her warm, the x-rays had developed.
"Oh, Goddess," Ororo gasped when she saw the x-rays. "I've never seen anything like it."
"Neither have I," Hank agreed. "Her physical structure is even more avian than I realized. Look at those lungs and that heart, they're quite large. And her bone structure. Not completely hollow, but close. But her frame seems.....emaciated. See? Bones tell more than you would think. She's suffered from malnourishment for most of her life, I'd guess. It's put her growth plates into remission. But recently, she must have found a way to get good food. Her body shows signs of rapid growth, catching up. However, I cannot be sure. Her physiology is so radically different, I'm not even quite sure how to treat her. Too little medicine and her body might not be able to fight the infection; too much and it may be overwhelmed and do more harm than good. I figure that if we take the normal dose for a child and reduce it by one-half, we should be all right."
Ororo nodded. "How old do you think she is?"
Hank shrugged. "She could be anywhere from late childhood to early teens. I'd place her between nine and eleven, but I could be wrong."
"Poor little girl." Ororo brushed a lock of hair away from the girl's face and started looking through the belongings that were placed on the adjacent table. She carefully undid the knot that tied the knapsack shut and took a leather-wrapped bundle out, gently unwrapping it. The bundle contained a book, its cover was leather-covered wood, its pages were printed paper that had been treated with some sort of solution to protect it. Ororo opened the book to the inside cover, seeing an inscription in a fine hand.
"Te min neaita, Juliet," she read, stumbling a bit over the unfamiliar language. "Per tu neata, Elerie CeraVierle. Rejada mi, rejada pa I amer tu eterna. Ai Sida ha's tara'sh, a su vihai'i." Ororo looked confused. "What does that mean?" She flipped through the book, finding what looked to be a table of contents. "Enesa, Esodus, Levitisus, Nafai, Dutereonoy.........Hadassah, Ruth, Deri d' Solomon...Hank, I think this is a bible." She flipped through further, to an especially thick page. It was an illustration of a myriad of people walking across a path in the middle of a sea. "Definitely a bible."
"Most fascinating." Hank examined the fire-bowl. "This appears to be some sort of a camp-stove. The inside is filled with a type of fat, presumably fuel. It's actually quite similar to what the Inuit and certain Arctic tribes use as a portable fire."
"They have things like that in Africa, too, in some parts. They're useful." Ororo continued to look through the bag, pulling out another book, which was very thick. "L'Dejiai Covajsa d' William Shakespeare. I think it's obvious what this is."
"Yes, it appears that I am not the only thespian here anymore. And there is no need to tell me what this is, either," he said, showing her what he had just finished examining: a rosary. "Silver and amethyst, quite well crafted I should say. But these items don't seem to fit together."
Ororo shook her head. "I know. It's strange. The books and the rosary are in such fine condition, it's easy to see that they were well made, and they probably cost a lot of money. Yet the empty food bag, her clothes, all the rest of her belongings show signs of extreme wear and tear, including her."
"Perhaps a wealthy family fallen on hard times, clinging to the last items of finery? Or maybe she's a thief. I really don't know. We'll just have to ask her when she wakes up, I suppose."
Ororo nodded. Just then, the GE and the MA beeped. Hank went over to the MA and looked at the printout. "Pneumonia, as I suspected. Her white blood cell count is low, but the antibiotic should help. I'll keep her on penicillin and vitamin supplements until she recovers." He then went over to the GE, his eyes growing wide as he read the results. "Well I'll be a monkey's uncle," he gasped. "Ororo, take a look at this." Ororo walked over.
"Yes?"
"Her DNA is completely unlike anything I've ever seen before. The machine doesn't know what to make of it. It doesn't even come close to any of the DNA in its banks. The basic structure is the same, but there are some marked differences. I don't think she's either human or mutant."
Ororo was confused. "Then what is she?"
"I think we're dealing with some sort of new species. I can't wait until she wakes up, a conversation with her will be most enlightening, I believe."
This chapter: the rescue! What will happen when Juliet meets the X-Men? Read on and find out!
Author's notes: this story will have Kuroro. If ya don't like that, stop reading. Or you can just skip over the mushy parts, your pick.
Uber-thanks to Jacob and Nandireya, who really helped me with this chapter.
Also, MEGA-THANKS to Amy, my mentor and the coolest person ever. This fic is officially dedicated to her.
Juliet was curled up in a fetal position, trying not to move her left arm too much. She had slipped on some rocks a few days ago while she was leading the pups outside the den to play a bit, and had broken her arm. It was a nasty break, parts of her bone had been sticking through her skin until she had pushed them back into place, and now the wound was all red and puffy, and it really hurt.
She was in a lot of pain. It was hard to breathe, and she kept coughing, so hard that she felt her lungs would pop out sooner or later. The wolf cubs kept nosing her, trying to get her to move, but she couldn't, she was hurt too badly. Worst of all, she couldn't keep anything down. Lichen had brought her Elk liver, raw and full of life, but she ended up vomiting it up two hours later. Since then, she hadn't kept anything down long enough for it to digest, which made her even weaker.
Her malnutrition had made the illness worse, and she had started hallucinating, screaming in pain as she relived memories from her past, only to suddenly calm down as she fell into coma-like sleep. If she didn't get medical attention soon, she'd die. "God?" she cried out in a moment of lucidity. "Why? Why did you bring me this far, save me from so much, only to die here? Please help me!" The wolves didn't understand her language, but they cuddled up around her, trying to help her in any way they could. She was part of their pack now, and they'd protect her to the death.
Xavier awoke with a start. He had just had a very strange dream, very strange indeed. It wasn't really a dream even, just a constant, repeated message, not even thoughts, but a subconscious cry for help. He had tried to get a mental reading on the sender, but all he could get was an internal distress signal, growing steadily weaker, as if the person sending the distress call was fading fast.
He hurried to Cerebro to try and lock in on the distress signal. Surprisingly, it was not very hard to find. The sender of the distress signal had brainwaves very different from those of mutants and humans, which led him to believe that the sender was neither, leading to another set of problems entirely. He managed to place a lock on the location, Mt. Denali National Park in Alaska, about two miles from the mountain itself. He was able to tell that the distressed person was a juvenile female, and was severely injured, almost close to death.
'Ororo, Kurt,' he mentally called them. 'Sorry to wake you up, but I need the two of you to go on an important rescue mission. Suit up and head to the Blackbird. I'll send the approximate coordinates into the navigation systems.'
Ororo and Kurt met at the Blackbird and got in. Kurt had passed his certification to fly just a few months before, but Ororo was experienced enough to make up for that. "Who exactly are we rescuing, Herr Professor?" Kurt asked over the com unit.
"I'm not quite sure, actually. There's something blocking me from finding out more. I do know that the person is young, female, and in quite a bit of distress. You need to find her and bring her back as soon as possible. I have a hunch she'll need medical attention."
"Jawohl," Kurt said as he and Ororo started the launch sequence. Within minutes, they were at sub-orbital velocity, speeding toward Mt. Denali National Park. The jet made the flight in half an hour, and soon they were circling over the radius the professor had given them.
"I'm going to run an infra-red scan," Ororo said, switching it on. "In theory, it'll pick up every heat signature possible. However, snow makes a very good insulator, and it might hide some things."
"What about that?" Kurt asked. There were two unusual patches of heat on the screen. One was a funnel-shaped column, the other was tube- shaped.
"Maybe some kind of underground shelter. It seems like the best place to start, anyway. Let's set the plane down and check it out." They left the plane in a clump of pine trees not too far from the shelter. Not too far away from the shelter, they found a series of tracks that were unusual to say the least.
"The tracks are wolf until this point," Ororo said, pointing at the pawprints. "But then they change into normal, human footprints that lead off toward the shelter. How could that be?"
Kurt shrugged. "Perhaps we should look closer to the shelter," he suggested. They did, but when they got close to the entrance, a wolf lunged out at them, snarling and baring her teeth. "I'm thinking that this might not be the place we're looking for," he said meekly. "Nice doggie."
Lichen had been keeping guard while the others slept when she heard a strange noise. Looking towards the source of the sound, she saw one of those metal-birds hunters used when they came to kill. She kept on alert as she saw two hunters get out of the metal-bird, and walk over to the pups' playground. They were chattering to each other in hunter-language, and walked closer to the den.
They were coming for the pack, she realized. Lunging out at them, she gave them the fiercest growl she could do, warning them not to come any closer. She'd attack if she needed to, there was no question of that. Even if they hit her with a thunder-blaster, she'd fight as long as she could.
Juliet opened her eyes weakly, even though she couldn't see much. Lichen was outside, barking about some kind of hunters, sending a chill down her spine. Could the Queen's Guards have followed her here? They couldn't have. She sniffed the air, sighing in relief. It wasn't them, but it wasn't hunters, either. They smelled, they smelled like Elerie's friends, almost. But older, and different. Maybe they could help her. But before she could think about it more, she fell into another coughing fit, and everything went into darkness.
Ororo heard Juliet's coughing fit first. "There's someone in there," she breathed. "Kurt, I'll hold off the wolves. You go in there and get her to the Blackbird."
"But I don't know where I'm going! I could teleport into a wall or something!"
"It's just snow, and I know you can do this, Kurt. I trust you."
Kurt blushed a bit, then remembered the task at hand. "Ja, Ororo," he said, teleporting and hoping that he didn't mess up. He landed about a foot away from a large wolf that thankfully was still asleep. Even though the inside of the den was dark, the only light source being a small fire in a stone bowl, he could still see quite well. Over to his right there was a medium sized lump of what looked to be animal hides and blankets, with a shock of dark hair peeking out from it. 'That's probably her,' he thought, moving closer to her and picking her up.
'Mein Gott!' he mentally exclaimed. She was extremely light, she couldn't've weighed more than forty pounds, and her breathing was very shallow. He also grabbed the leather satchel she had been using as a mattress and the fire bowl, extinguishing the flame. He didn't want to leave anything behind that she might need. He teleported to the Blackbird, reclining one of the seats back as far as it would go, and strapping her in, trying to move her as little as possible. Then he teleported outside to get Ororo, and about five minutes later, they were in the air.
"We need to get her to Hank as soon as we land," Ororo told him as she flew the plane, going as fast as was safe. "She's comatose, and her pulse is weak. If she doesn't get medical treatment fast, she'll probably die."
Kurt nodded. Once they reached the mansion, Kurt teleported to the infirmary with Juliet.
"Oh my stars and garters!" Hank exclaimed when he saw Juliet. "I take it this is our newest addition?" He took Juliet out of Kurt's arms and laid her on a bed. "She barely weighs anything!"
He checked her pulse, but it was barely detectable. "Ororo, I need your help. Get her into a gown while I get an IV ready." Ororo often assisted Hank with medical procedures. She had helped Jean so often; she could've passed the RN exams without even trying. Ororo did so, and by the time Hank had the IV ready, Juliet was lying on a bed, all ready.
Hank noticed Juliet's arm. There was a huge gash on her left arm, oozing pus. It was clearly infected, and would need serious attention once they had stabilized her. But what really caught his attention was that Juliet's arms were covered with feathers. Several kinds, overlapping to form what appeared to be some kind of wing. Hank was intrigued, but decided to wait until later to check the wings out. He hooked up the IV, inserting it into the main vein on her arm. She didn't even flinch. "Ororo? We need to stabilize her heart rate."
"Already ahead of you, Hank," Ororo said as she got the defibrillator over to the bed and hooked it up, adjusting the amperage so that it wouldn't hurt the girl. "Ready?" she asked. Hank nodded. "One, two, three, clear!" The girl's heartbeat shot up, but then returned to very low. They tried it again. "One, two, three, clear!" This time her heartbeat shot up and reached a normal level, staying there. "Well, that was good. She's stable, at least."
"If you're referring to her heartbeat, then, yes. However, I need to run several tests. Her arm is obviously infected, and likely has spread to other parts of her body. We may have gotten her heart rate stable, but we are not out of the proverbial woods quite yet."
"I take it that means that we need to run more tests."
"Precisely." Hank filled a hypodermic needle with an antibiotic. "Would you please sterilize that area right there?" He pointed to a spot on Juliet's arm. Ororo did so, and Hank injected the needle into the young girl's arm. "This broad-spectrum antibiotic should at least help until I can get a clearer picture of what ails her." He took a syringe-full of blood. "Will you please place her in the X-Ray machine? I would like full- body pictures done, as well as some of her chest cavity and arm."
Ororo gingerly picked up the girl and placed her inside the X-Ray tube, doing as Hank had asked. As the X-Ray buzzed and hummed, she wondered who the little girl was. Kurt had retrieved her belongings; there wasn't much, but it might give them a clue or two. Of course, they could always ask the girl when she awoke.
Hank carefully measured out the blood. Some of it went into the Microbial Analyzer, which would tell him the contents of her blood, what bacterium were present, the amount of white and red blood cells, that sort of thing. Some more of it went into the Genetic Evaluator, which took the DNA from a blood sample and examined it, comparing it to the DNA stored in its banks, and pointed out unique features. The MA's tests would take at least fifteen minutes, the GE's, twenty. He went over to the X-Ray machine and helped Ororo remove the girl and place her back on the bed. By the time they had put a dressing on her arm and placed blankets over her to keep her warm, the x-rays had developed.
"Oh, Goddess," Ororo gasped when she saw the x-rays. "I've never seen anything like it."
"Neither have I," Hank agreed. "Her physical structure is even more avian than I realized. Look at those lungs and that heart, they're quite large. And her bone structure. Not completely hollow, but close. But her frame seems.....emaciated. See? Bones tell more than you would think. She's suffered from malnourishment for most of her life, I'd guess. It's put her growth plates into remission. But recently, she must have found a way to get good food. Her body shows signs of rapid growth, catching up. However, I cannot be sure. Her physiology is so radically different, I'm not even quite sure how to treat her. Too little medicine and her body might not be able to fight the infection; too much and it may be overwhelmed and do more harm than good. I figure that if we take the normal dose for a child and reduce it by one-half, we should be all right."
Ororo nodded. "How old do you think she is?"
Hank shrugged. "She could be anywhere from late childhood to early teens. I'd place her between nine and eleven, but I could be wrong."
"Poor little girl." Ororo brushed a lock of hair away from the girl's face and started looking through the belongings that were placed on the adjacent table. She carefully undid the knot that tied the knapsack shut and took a leather-wrapped bundle out, gently unwrapping it. The bundle contained a book, its cover was leather-covered wood, its pages were printed paper that had been treated with some sort of solution to protect it. Ororo opened the book to the inside cover, seeing an inscription in a fine hand.
"Te min neaita, Juliet," she read, stumbling a bit over the unfamiliar language. "Per tu neata, Elerie CeraVierle. Rejada mi, rejada pa I amer tu eterna. Ai Sida ha's tara'sh, a su vihai'i." Ororo looked confused. "What does that mean?" She flipped through the book, finding what looked to be a table of contents. "Enesa, Esodus, Levitisus, Nafai, Dutereonoy.........Hadassah, Ruth, Deri d' Solomon...Hank, I think this is a bible." She flipped through further, to an especially thick page. It was an illustration of a myriad of people walking across a path in the middle of a sea. "Definitely a bible."
"Most fascinating." Hank examined the fire-bowl. "This appears to be some sort of a camp-stove. The inside is filled with a type of fat, presumably fuel. It's actually quite similar to what the Inuit and certain Arctic tribes use as a portable fire."
"They have things like that in Africa, too, in some parts. They're useful." Ororo continued to look through the bag, pulling out another book, which was very thick. "L'Dejiai Covajsa d' William Shakespeare. I think it's obvious what this is."
"Yes, it appears that I am not the only thespian here anymore. And there is no need to tell me what this is, either," he said, showing her what he had just finished examining: a rosary. "Silver and amethyst, quite well crafted I should say. But these items don't seem to fit together."
Ororo shook her head. "I know. It's strange. The books and the rosary are in such fine condition, it's easy to see that they were well made, and they probably cost a lot of money. Yet the empty food bag, her clothes, all the rest of her belongings show signs of extreme wear and tear, including her."
"Perhaps a wealthy family fallen on hard times, clinging to the last items of finery? Or maybe she's a thief. I really don't know. We'll just have to ask her when she wakes up, I suppose."
Ororo nodded. Just then, the GE and the MA beeped. Hank went over to the MA and looked at the printout. "Pneumonia, as I suspected. Her white blood cell count is low, but the antibiotic should help. I'll keep her on penicillin and vitamin supplements until she recovers." He then went over to the GE, his eyes growing wide as he read the results. "Well I'll be a monkey's uncle," he gasped. "Ororo, take a look at this." Ororo walked over.
"Yes?"
"Her DNA is completely unlike anything I've ever seen before. The machine doesn't know what to make of it. It doesn't even come close to any of the DNA in its banks. The basic structure is the same, but there are some marked differences. I don't think she's either human or mutant."
Ororo was confused. "Then what is she?"
"I think we're dealing with some sort of new species. I can't wait until she wakes up, a conversation with her will be most enlightening, I believe."