Rosa was ugly again. She couldn't control when it happened. It just did. She got that prickly feeling all over her body as the bristles and scales came out. She felt her arms and legs stretch, along with her fingers and toes. Her jaw felt all tingly. Her vision got blurry, all color disappeared, and then everything became sharper, somehow. She curled up tighter, holding her right side. Usually, she felt stronger when she was ugly like this, but now it didn't help. Now she just felt hot and sick, and her side hurt a lot. She wanted to go home. She wanted to go home so bad that it almost made her forget what had happened the first time she got ugly.
No, she couldn't go back. They'd kill her. A goat sucker had no place with humans. She wasn't a very good goat sucker, either. She hated blood. She tried doing that, once, like she was supposed to, but the blood made her sick to her stomach, and it tasted awful. She couldn't even do that right. She couldn't do anything right.
She laid there in the dark; the soothing, cool dark. She laid in the musty shaft where no one ever went. She smelled water. She lifted her ugly head at the smell. Was it raining outside? It had to be; there was no water down here. She should go get some water, but she just didn't feel like moving.
The smell of water grew stronger. Her bristles quivered. Something was moving toward her. Something big, almost as big as the mine shaft itself. She started to sit up. What was it? She peered down the shaft, but she still couldn't see anything. That wasn't right. She could feel it, but she couldn't see it? Now she was scared. Maybe a ghost was after her. Maybe the devil had come for her. She crouched on her ugly legs and bared her ugly fangs with a hiss. She couldn't speak, but she could scare. Go away! I am the goat sucker! Get away from me!
First she saw the uneven, flashing light, then she heard the footfalls, from further back in the tunnel. She saw a man and a woman running towards her. The man had long knives in his hands, and the woman was surrounded in lightning, like an angry angel. But they weren't what she felt so close to her! She hissed again and moved back. Her bristles stood on end, and she saw the vague outline of a huge man, glistening with water, as he reached for her. She scrambled back, still hissing, still baring her fangs. Leave me alone! I'll bite you! I mean it! Leave me alone!
The huge transparent man's head seemed to swivel around, and suddenly Rosa could see "him" completely. It was some kind of robot. It pointed at her with its arm, and she jumped back and to the side. A bright blob of light flew out from its hand and blew a hole in the stony wall where she had been standing. When the wall exploded, the rocks that flew off hit Rosa in the head, on the shoulder, and in the chest. She fell down, her head spinning, and heard the man behind the robot scream with anger.
:
Logan howled and leapt at the robot and came down on its back with all six claws, intending to penetrate its torso. But for all the force he could muster, all the velocity he had, the claws skittered away, somehow deflected an inch away from the suit's white "skin." What the hell? The suit spun around, backhanding Logan across the shaft where the force of his impact splintered an already rotting support beam.
Storm acted next. The lightning charging across her body, the only light they had to see by, leapt out to the foe. With all that water still dripping off of it, it should be an excellent conductor. But the electricity arced harmlessly around it, never once touching so much as a finger. It had some kind of forcefield, and it was obviously strong enough to deflect her and Logan's attacks. How much power did that field take? Could she overload it with constant lightning strikes? Who would run out of strength first? She fired again, trying not to think of the dark. Trying not to see the walls of this tunnel.
The suit was on the move, as devastatingly quick as the first ones had been. In these close quarters, Storm was at an awful disadvantage. Nightcrawler teleported up to the suit's head, wrapping himself around in an attempt to blind, then teleporting away as it grabbed at him. Logan came in for another slice while the thing was distracted. But Logan did not penetrate, his swipe only resulting in a shower of cool, blue sparks, and Nightcrawler could not stay long enough to be a true hindrance. They tried the same attack mode that worked so well against the first enemy they fought, a lifetime ago in the West Virginia mountains; each one diving in, attacking, and diving away. But this fight didn't begin to compare to the one waged against the demon in the false church. The amplification suit was unwounded, not to mention faster, and it was unburdened with pain or distracting emotions. The X-men weren't making any headway at all.
"Kurt!" Storm ordered. "Get the girl and go! Get her out of here!"
He didn't want to leave her and Logan alone, but it looked like he was useless for this fight. He teleported behind the suit, to where he first heard the animalistic hiss. Their mutant wasn't hard to find. Not for him, at least, who could see in the deepest dark as well as brightest day. He would not have known this was a little girl if he hadn't been advised beforehand. She laid next to some rusting metal rods, a small and spindly creature, her legs long and digigrade like a cat's. Tough, bristly fur covered much of her body. That which was without bristles, including much of her face, was covered instead with tiny, jagged, skink-like scales. The hands were still manipulatory, but the fingers were unusually long, covered with scales, and tipped with claws. She had a slight muzzle, and the teeth looked like they were from a possum, slender and needle-sharp. It was the eyes that got to him the most, though. There were four of them, one large on top of one small, but otherwise positioned in the "expected" places on her face. They were glossy and dark, without pupil, iris, or sclera: just black, bulbous, and "shelled over" like an insect's. This was, without a doubt, the most disturbing and ugly form he had ever seen.
Lord, the poor, sweet girl. No wonder she was hiding out in a mine shaft like this.
She struggled to rise from her spot on the ground. Fresh, warm blood flowed from the side of her face, and she was holding her left side. He prayed that the teleport itself wouldn't kill her. Before she had a chance to raise her head, he gathered her in his arms and was gone, rematerializing in the Blackbird's interior. He blinked the sudden light away as his eyes adjusted. The girl underneath him convulsively shuddered and moaned. Please don't be sick, please don't be sick, please don't be sick....
She turned her face toward him and froze. She opened her unnaturally large mouth, lined with frighteningly sharp teeth, and looked like she was trying to scream, but no sound came out. She tried to break away from him. He quickly set her on the bed he had previously unfolded and pinned her in place by her shoulders.
"I be sorry, but I must be fast," he told her in Castilian. "I be no devil and you be no devil. I not take you to Hell. Stay here. We help you soon."
She shivered, terrified, as he let her go. I'm so sorry I can't stay with you, little one, but my teammates need me. Please forgive me. We'll be back as soon as possible. He put his right hand on her scaly forehead and said a quick prayer. Then he moved off of her and was gone in an implosion of blue, leaving the child trembling in his wake.
:
Back in the mining tunnel, things went from bad to worse. Storm stayed back out of the thing's reach while Logan distracted it, but neither of them had made a dent in its armor. She hit it with joule over joule of electricity, and that forcefield didn't so much as flicker. Was she somehow recharging it with each strike? Or was its power supply that well insulated and that strong? And the walls were starting to close in, even if they didn't physically move. It was getting harder and harder not to suddenly bolt for the exit.
Nightcrawler teleported back just as the enemy finally got a good shot in on Storm. The orange/red faceted energy hit her somewhere on the side, and continued out through her back. She staggered away as Logan came in again. She fell as the suit grabbed Logan around his waist with both massive hands and proceeded to crush. The light was gone, now. Even Nightcrawler could barely see. The suit raised one foot above Storm, and Nightcrawler suddenly flashed back to that horrid, horrid night in March, when these things stepped on every human in sight, crushing them as flat as paper in the blink of an eye, and he just stood there while men died. Frozen, immobile, helpless, impotent....
Not again. Never again.
He bent down and picked up a piece of rusty rebar. He wasn't letting that thing crush anyone this time. No, he wasn't. If his blows couldn't get through their armored plate, then perhaps this would. He held the metal in front of him and teleported onto the suit's back.
He materialized on top of his foe. A substantial portion of his improvised weapon did not.
Logan wasn't sure what happened. It was all so fast. In one instant, Storm was down, their light was gone, a huge mechanical hand grabbed him around the waist, and Nightcrawler was screaming something in German. Suddenly a muffled explosion sounded inside the amplifier suit's torso. A hole appeared in that torso, level with Logan's head, and a rusty piece of something shot out of that hole. That bit rebounded off of its forcefield and imbedded itself in another part of its armor, shattering the white plate as if it was made of bisque. The enemy dropped Logan and convulsed, energy arcing wildly inside the boundaries of its forcefield, lighting up the tunnel with purplish-white sparks. All in the space of less than a second. Then, as if in slow motion, the suit fell backwards. Its convulsions lessened to twitches. The great electrical arcs reduced to tiny tendrils of unsteady light.
Logan leapt forward while he had the time and took a swipe at the thing's leg. His instincts were right: its forcefield was gone. In short order, before the feeble light died completely, he lopped off the thing's other leg, both arms, and head. A tingle ran through his body as he worked, subtle little jolts of energy from the dying suit that would have sent anyone else into seizures.
" 'Crawler!" he shouted, as he finished his grim duty. "Storm! You still alive?"
"Logan," Storm's voice called unsteadily. "I can't see."
"I can't either, darlin'," he said. "Gimme a second. Kurt?"
Kurt had not yet responded. Logan pulled a glowstick from a pocket and snapped it into activation. The amplifier suit nearby lay in pieces, blood pooling under a gaping hole in its chest. Ororo laid against the far wall, her hand over her lower right side, just above her hip. She was trembling badly, but she was conscious and aware. Further down the tunnel laid assorted cans, almost all empty, along with a can opener. A candle lantern hung on a nail from a wooden support beam, about the height comfortable for a child. Several rusty poles of rebar laid in a neat pile nearby. Three of them were tied with wire into a rough tripod over an open container of what smelled like sterno. Only then did Logan recognize the distinct, ribbed shape of the rebar in the shrapnel that exploded from the suit's chest. What did Kurt do? Teleport a hunk of metal into the thing?
"Dammit, Kurt, answer me!" Logan shouted, lifting the glowstick above his head. "You know how fuckin' hard it is to find you in the dark like this!"
"... here...."
He could barely hear Kurt, even though the elf's scent said he wasn't more than twenty feet away. Logan moved quickly to the sound of his friend's voice. Kurt's form faded into view as the light grew stronger. He was gasping for breath, facedown in the middle of the tunnel. Logan tossed the glowstick back closer to Ororo and helped Kurt sit against the wall. He seemed stunned, blankly looking through Logan instead of at him.
"Logan... do I still have arms?" Kurt asked.
"Yeah, why?" Logan answered warily.
"Because I cannot feel them past my shoulders."
Logan lifted Kurt's left arm for him while Kurt watched with detached interest. There didn't seem to be anything wrong. The armored sleeve was unscathed, the bones whole and the skin intact. If anything, the hand itself was abnormally warm.
Logan slung Kurt's arm around his shoulder and hauled him to his feet. "Whadja do back there, elf? Teleport a rod into the thing?"
"I... I couldn't think of a-another way... to...."
Kurt's voice trailed off as he looked in the direction of the fallen enemy. As he saw the glistening pool slowly inch its way out from under the shattered torso, he became aware of a horrible smell; the stench of death. The pilot was dead, and he had killed him
Logan felt Kurt's pace slacken, saw his head turn in the direction of the corpse. He shook Kurt roughly and forced him to keep walking.
"Ain't got no time for that, 'Crawler," he grunted. "Storm needs an evac."
"Storm?" he asked, looking around quickly.
She rested oddly, with her legs propped up against the wall and her back on the floor of the shaft. She pressed a hand to her side, in the same area Kurt thought he had seen her take a shot. Though she didn't appear to be bleeding, she was shivering, her breathing rapid and shallow. She stared up at the roof of the tunnel, fear, determination, and pain all visible on her face. With Logan's help he stumbled to her side, his arms hanging limp like those of a doll.
As Kurt's shadow passed between her and the green light of the glowstick, Ororo closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. "Kurt, get me out of here. Now. Get me out of this tunnel."
He gently curled his tail under her back, lifting her ever so slightly. "Liebe, your wound...."
"By the time you carry me to the jet, I'll be in worse shape than from teleporting," she blurted out. "Kurt, I'm begging you, get me out of here."
Her voice held an edge of mounting panic. Kurt wrapped his tail around her torso and pulled her to him. She let go of her side and clung to his chest. He spared a glance back at Logan.
"I'll come back for you," he promised.
Logan nodded, and Kurt was gone.
He did not rematerialize inside the Blackbird. There was a frightened young child in there, and he had no idea where she might be by then. Instead, he took the safe route, first appearing on top of the cockpit, where he could just see inside past the camouflage netting. The girl was still in that animalistic form, and she was still curled up on the bed. Good.
"Can you handle one more trip, liebe?" Kurt asked softly. She nodded, and he stroked her hair with the tip of his tail. "Hold on."
:
Rosa no longer knew what to expect. For the second time in two months, her world had flown apart. First she was cursed as a chupacabras, and now a robot had attacked her and a devil had taken her away. A devil with a European accent, who spoke poorly.
"I be sorry, but I must be fast," he said to her. "I be no devil and you be no devil. I not take you to Hell. Stay here. We help you soon."
When he put his hand on her forehead, she thought he was going to steal her soul, but then he said the name of Jesus instead. And when he moved off the bed, just before he disappeared, he looked sad. Devils never looked sad. They always looked happy when people were hurt or sinning, or angry when people did good, but they never looked sad. So maybe he wasn't really a devil after all?
She started to sit up, but her head spun too much. She could feel the blood trickle down her face. She laid back down on the bed. With the "devil" gone, it was very quiet inside this place. It looked like the inside of a big car, or maybe even an airplane. It was all steel and plastic, and the light was sort of dim, as if they'd parked in the shade. There didn't seem to be a door anywhere, so she couldn't leave even if she could stand up. She laid in the bed, waiting.
The "devil" returned in a minute or so, just like he said he would, and this time he was not alone. The lady that Rosa had seen, the one with all the lightning dancing around her; she was with him. An angel and a devil together? The woman held onto him with both arms, and he was holding onto her with his long tail. He looked very worried about her.
The lady looked back at her as the strange man set her onto the floor. She looked a little startled, but she didn't look afraid. In fact, she almost looked… like she felt sorry for her. Rosa didn't understand English, but the lady's words were so soft. They were spoken in a gentle voice, like her mother once used with her. Neither one of these people were afraid of her, and it looked like they were tying to save her from the robot. What kind of people were they? She was so ugly. Didn't they care about that?
Ororo laid on the floor as Kurt reluctantly teleported away, her body involuntarily trembling with shock and cold. She looked up at the frightened, wounded, hideous little creature on the bed and her heart ached with pity. Yes, she did look the part of a "chupacabra," didn't she? How often had she been chased away? Shot at? Attacked with stones? She kept pressure on her wound with one hand and raised the other to the little mutant.
"Do you speak English?" she asked.
Her voice was shaking as bad as her body. That was no good. She had to project confidence and strength. This girl needed a lifeline, not a sinking anchor.
The girl didn't answer. From the looks of her lip-less mouth and needle-like teeth, it may not be possible for her to talk right now. But she slowly reached down with one scaly hand. Ororo took it and grasped it firmly.
"It's all right," Ororo told her. "You're safe here. No one can hurt you here."
Her words likely meant nothing, but at least the tone should reassure her. After a few moments, the girl slowly crawled off of the bed and next to Ororo, where she curled up by her side. Ororo hugged her close, occasionally stroking her bristling shoulder and arm. Soon the bristles felt like they were growing shorter.
The girl looked up at Ororo as the last of the scales and bristles retreated. Ororo looked down at the her and watched as the creature was replaced by a malnourished, unkempt, naked little girl. Still, she was not quite "normal" looking. At first Ororo thought an injury had torn a large chunk out of the girl's lip, but soon she realized that it was a deformality. This child had so much more to feel self-conscious about than her secondary, mutant form.
Cleft lip, bilateral, she could hear Jean's clinical voice recite. Half the time they have a cleft palate, too.
Ororo stroked the girl's face, running a gloved finger alongside of her harelip, and pulled her close again. The girl tucked her bleeding head into Ororo's shoulder and clung to her, eyes glazed over. No tears, no speech, no movement; just the silence and clinging of a girl in deep shock.
TBC…