-X-Men-
Ch. 6: Harsh Reality
The Mind is quite a dangerous thing...it's a shame we know nothing about it.
Pin, pin, pin...The constant sound beat into her mind. It pounded against her scull again...and again...and again...
She felt cold and drained. Her back, sore from convulsions, lay still on the cold metal, her arms and legs had long since been silenced by the metal restraints. Teeth chattering, she opened her sore eyes to the darkness of the unknown.
Kaia moaned softly and shivered.
"Rogue..."
There was no answer in the darkness.
"Rogue...!" she moaned, a bit louder this time.
"What..."
The voice was pained, but soothing...a comfort in times of distress. Kaia, unable to roll onto her side, moved her aching neck slowly to her right from where the voice had come. Her cheek touched icy cold metal, and she shivered yet again.
"Are...you...there...?" Kaia whispered, every word draining her strength.
"Wish I...wasn't..." Rogue replied with a strained laugh. "It's time...for me to die...I am so...ready right now."
"Ha...don't...die on me...just yet, 'k?" Kaia whispered back.
"Just tell...the woman...to shut up...she just keeps...going on...and on..."
"And on...and on..." Kaia finished for her.
"You...too?"
"Stupid paths...stupid traditions...doesn't...make...any sense...Rogue," Kaia whispered. "What...do they want...with us...?"
Rogue stared up at the dark, invisible ceiling, feigning sleep. Though sleep offered forgetfulness and blessed relief, Rogue feared the Voice...the constant monologue of the despairing woman in her head...dreams of the desert and unknown names. She feared it all, and, for the first time in her eighteen years of life, Rogue held a sense of terrible, undeniable purpose. The woman's voice, the desert, the names, the man...they all had a purpose, a connection, and she knew it. Unquestionably, the answer stood right in front of her, or rather, in the fabrics of her own mind. Professor Xavier had told her once of the mutants' responsibility to sway the human population into trust, that it was their purpose to help the world.
But this wasn't the same.
This wasn't the "terrible purpose."
Even when Rogue first walked into the Institute as a fully-fledged X-Man, Rogue had always felt that there was something more she had to do...something beyond just being a normal X-Man, a normal mutant.
Rogue chuckled to herself. Normal. What a pathetic word.
"What're...you laughing at...Grey-Skin?" Kaia whispered in the darkness.
"Nothing...just the past," Rogue answered.
Kaia chuckled; she could feel a bit of strength returning. "Hahaha...the past. I don't...have a past, you know...that? I was...found by a...goddamn...truck driver...when I was...four years old...up in the mountains...just wandering...around in the...stupid...snow. Dunno...how I got there...'cept I remember a pounding headache...and a dream...about a woman's...face. Beautiful face...she was...stroking my cheek...called me...'Little One.'"
"She had dark hair...and olive skin...didn't she...?" Rogue whispered back.
"Yeah..."
"Kaia...I think...you and I...we're...connected..."
"Yeah...I don't doubt it...at all," Kaia answered. Sighing, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
"Perhaps we are all meant to do something."
A'Sansa
"But, like, why would anyone want to kidnap them?" Kitty asked as she finished pulling her hair back. "I don't get it."
"Well, why do nearly 60% of women get raped?" Jean answered with a shrug.
"Oh," Kitty whispered.
Jean sighed. "So much for homework tonight."
"Oh, stop it. You better not still be mad at Kaia, Jean!" Kurt pointed out as he teleported right in front of them.
"Kurt, you idiotic elf, do you have to do that?" Kitty cried, trying in vain to backhand him.
"Well, to answer your question, I am," Jean replied indignantly. "The girl's a menace, so good riddance, is what I say."
"WHAT?!" Kitty and Kurt yelled, staring open-mouthed at the redhead.
"Well, it's true, and Rogue's no different!"
"Damn it, Jean, I know you and Rogue have...issues, but shit! Rogue's saved your life and she's never spoken real ill will of you at all, just that you're perfect! Take it as a compliment, Jean!" Kurt yelled, waving his arms for emphasis.
Sighing, Jean walked at a swifter pace, ignoring them completely.
Kitty sighed.
-X-Men-
"I've tried Cerebro, Logan, but I can't get any signal from either of them," Xavier said with a heavy sigh.
Logan leaned back in his chair and glanced quickly at Ororo as she guided the jet expertly. "Well, Professor," he grunted, "we'll just have to find 'em the old fashioned way...our eyes."
Sighing, Professor X glanced back down the jet at his trusted X-Men. Jean was staring gloomily out the window, even ignoring Scott, who kept glancing worriedly at her; Kurt was annoying Kitty again with his antics; and an empty seat lay gloomily in the back. Xavier quickly resumed his frontward view.
"I just don't understand what some random people want with two young girls," Ororo said.
Logan cracked his knuckles and stretched. "If they don't want to answer, we'll just beat the shit out of 'em till they do, is all." He smiled mischievously.
"Is it light that seeps into the darkness, or darkness that seeps into the light?"
The Prophet
Deep, hot, soft sand...
It stretched around for miles, seemingly infinite in every direction.
Nothing but endless sand...
Time did not move here. Indeed, these sands lay untouched by Time. For all its eternal value, for all its unquestionable power, Time simply could not touch that sand. And even as the wind moaned gloomily across it, even as the sun, glaring hot with a relentless, unforgiving anger, beat down upon it, still the sand remained the same.
Nothing but endless sand...
There was something mysterious, something hidden among the sand. You could feel it when you dipped your hands into it and let that soft sand slip from your fingertips back to where it came from. It whispered teasingly in the wind. Even the remorseless sun seemed to have it buried somewhere within its humidity. From them, the Secret echoed soundlessly like the evasive shadow, sweeping its listener up in its romantic mystery, its hidden reality.
Nothing but endless sand...
"Bold is the dreamer."
A'Sansa of the West Tribe (The Religion of the Desert)
"Heart rate is stable, Deathstrike," Alice said.
"For both of them?" he answered, narrowing his eyes.
"Of course," she replied with a shrug as she gave each girl a swift injection. "Brain pattern is a bit erratic, though."
"What do you mean?"
"Here, look at these charts. I took an x-ray of each brain before we did anything," Alice said as she moved to a drawer, opened it, and took out the two x-rays and placed them up to the light. She pointed to a section in the very back of the brain. "Look at this section carefully. See this dark spot?"
"Yes, we've known about this before, Alice. Get to the point," Deathstrike said impatiently.
Alice sighed. "Fine," she said quickly, then replaced the x-rays with a new set and held them up. "Look at the same spot again. I just took these this morning. Increased activity in the brain...we've triggered something."
Deathstrike smiled. "Good...we may actually achieve our goal," he said, absent-mindedly stroking the unconscious Kaia's hair. "They're remembering."
"Do you think me afraid? I am not. But, then again, only fools are afraid...and we are all fools."
A Word to the Warriors (speaker unknown)
"Rogue...Rogue..."
She stirred, wincing at the sudden movement that caused the needles to shift slightly, painfully. Her vision blurred, Rogue struggled to keep both eyes open as she focused on where the voice came from.
The mists in front of her eyes seemed to part for a moment's breath, revealing Kaia not three feet from her, her bare skin exposed to the cold, lifeless metal table below her. Rogue flinched at the large needles and wires that stuck out of her friend, making her look like an odd, flesh-colored pincushion than an actual person. Inwardly, Rogue knew the flinch was both out of compassion...and the acknowledgement that she, too, shared the same predicament.
Kaia's eyes were closed, but her mouth formed the word silently this time, a signal of life. Rogue was suddenly reminded of a saying from a place that lay blurred in her mind, like a half-forgotten dream.
"Life, in essence, is a thing undimmed. It is like the sand; you can shift it, change it, even burn it with hatred, but the truth of life is eternal. No living mortal can control life, no living mortal can destroy its beauty, lest the mortal loses his soul within."
It gave her strength, even if she didn't know why. Closing her eyes, Rogue whispered, "Kaia..."
The word seemed to shatter the distance between them. Rogue's veil before her eyes was suddenly lifted, and she could, despite the blaring light above her, see the remainder of the pure-white room that surrounded her. A few people were moving around them, and someone, a woman's voice, was saying something loudly. The sound rang in her ears, causing her to wince and shift the needles again.
When Kaia did not move, or show any response, Rogue, by sheer force of will, croaked out, "...Kaia...!"
Kaia opened her eyes and gazed at her, eyes red and puffy from tears that were now drying on her cheeks. Her eyes seemed vacant except for when she focused on the girl opposite her; they seemed to stare at nothing, or something that did not exist. As her gaze beat intently into Rogue's, a flare of something wild gleamed in Kaia's eyes.
It took a while for Rogue to comprehend that gleam.
The eyes reflected rebellion.
Before anything else was communicated between them, a woman stepped in front of Rogue, her back turned to her. Rogue closed her eyes again to the room's brightness, wondering what Kaia had planned.
From across the room, Alice was directing the older woman on which place to cut along with the surgical knife. "Make sure you stick her with a sedative first," Alice said.
Nodding, the woman put her knife down on the table, mere inches from Kaia's face. As the woman turned to get the needed item, in a blinding motion, Kaia grasped the knife, pushed off from the table, and slashed the woman across the throat. Needles and blood flew everywhere as Kaia, ignoring the dead woman as she hit the floor, ripped the remaining needles from her back, and leapt onto the floor.
Rogue was trying to sit up, her eyes wide in shock as she watched Kaia crouch into a fighting position, but she held the knife differently.
Kaia gripped at the small hilt of the surgical knife, but held it so the blade was facing outwards and towards her as if she held the knife the wrong way. She then placed her arm at an angle in front of her chest. As she did so, she brought her right foot forward and her left back slightly, still remaining in a crouch. Her teeth bared, she narrowed her eyes as they glowed fiercely, as if with a color of some sorts, but Rogue merely took it as an optical illusion. Kaia's eyes never left Alice's face.
"Woah, woah, there," Alice said, waving her arms in front of her. "What do you think you're doing?"
Kaia advanced a step with a low growl. Alice pressed her back against the opposite wall, her eyes wide in shock.
"Now, now," Alice replied. Rogue could hear a hint of shakiness in her words. "Just...just calm down a bit, would you? I don't want to hurt you, and I know you really don't want to hurt me."
Kaia advanced again as she gripped tighter at the knife.
She's a different person!
The thought struck Rogue so suddenly she nearly toppled over.
"Shadow! Deathstrike! Someone!" Alice was yelling. The door to her right burst open as six men armed with an odd-looking weapon, a cross between a rifle and a slingshot, rushed in towards Kaia. With a yell, Kaia leapt forward, slashing at anything she could get her hands on. As an armed man made to strike at her, something seemed to snap in Rogue. Almost as if instinct had mingled with an animalistic rage, Rogue jumped from her table, barely feeling the needles ripping from her back, blood flying, as she collided with Kaia's assailant, beating him down with her fists.
"Get away! Get away!" Rogue managed to scream amidst her blinding fury. She had never felt like that in her life, and she nearly shook with this sudden raw power at her disposal. In a desperate attempt, she tried to rip at the clothing on them to get at their bare skin, to drain their life force from them, to slowly send them into a reality of agony so intense that only death was the Relinquisher. She scratched at helmets that covered the body, she tore at leather boots, she bit at bulletproof vests. To those who watched, she moved in a constant blur of motion, as if the world around her moved at a slower time than she was moving.
Deathstrike leaned against the door, relishing in the spectacle before him. From behind him, Shadow said, "Aren't you going to do something?"
"In a minute...this is too good to be true! What a success!" Deathstrike grinned. Alice glared at him. "Alright, alright...Shadow, would you please help calm our wonderful Subjects down?"
Grunting in response, Shadow disappeared, only to reappear amidst the fray and jabbing each girl at the back of the neck. As if in unison, they toppled forward, cold ground rushing to meet with unconscious faces. With a sigh, Shadow reached down and grasped each girl under a long-sleeved arm. "I'll assume you want them in their...rooms, then?" he asked in his usual monotone voice.
"Of course," Deathstrike said with a malicious grin.
Shrugging, Shadow pushed past him, but not before he muttered, "You're making monsters out of children..."
"If a child forgets his innocence, if he forgets his dreams, if he disregards his imagination, then the magic of childhood will be lost forever."
Kaia groaned, partly out of pain, and partly out of protest as the second manacle was shackled to her wrist. "Let me go," she moaned in the darkness. "Why...are you...doing this...?"
Shadow sat back with a sigh as he brushed the dirt from his hands. "I guess if you want answers, you go to whatever you can find."
"What...?"
Shadow shook his head, then pushed a full canteen of water and two brownies into her hands. "These are from the kitchen...no, they're not poisoned or sedated. What would be the point in that? Share with your friend over there to your right. She'll wake up soon."
He stood and stretched, then moved to the door.
"Why...though...?" Kaia pressed again, fearful he would leave.
"Get some sleep," Shadow said, biting his lip against an odd lump in his throat. "You'll feel better."
-X-Men-
Alright, sorry I haven't updated in like...a millennia. Sorry, guys, but I had to go back to Hell...I mean, school. I'm a Junior in High School now, so more work...pretty odd, huh? Plus, I left the first section of this chapter at my friend's house, and she was too LAZY to get it back to me...yeesh. Anyway, yeah, I'm actually back.