Disclaimer: You all know the drill. I do not own Evo or any characters besides Sorrel, Duke and Séance.
Summary: Word reaches the Xavier Institute about a mutant Asylum in the woods of Virginia, and the X-men are sent to investigate. Meanwhile, a powerful, pregnant mutant runs for her life…
Rated "PG-13" for mob violence, drug reference and language. May go up later.
Cyan and Rising
By Rhapsodyblue15
Chapter One: Darcy of the Dead
The Insistent Prince was not the type of bar where classy folks were found. Even the toughest bikers avoided it. After all, a drunk mutant was a force to be reckoned with. Yes, it was the only completely mutant bar in the state, owned and run by Marullo Rigolle, the three-armed Italian.
On one particular night in early June, one Duke Richard forced his way through the drunkards and drug addicts to the bar, where a petite figure in a black sweater-coat sat hunched over a bottle of ginger-ale.
"You're not old enough to be here, young lady," Duke smiled.
The pale, dark haired teenager looked up at him. She was haunting for someone so young. Her eyes were huge, the whites pierced by two deep green pools of irises. There were deep shadows under her eyes, and she had the peaky appearance of someone who hadn't seen the sun in a long time. Her long, thin fingers wrapped around her glass bottle as if to tear it in half.
"If it pays my debts, I'll go anywhere," she replied in a hoarse soprano voice.
Duke shook his head sadly.
"Don't talk like a prostitute, kid. It doesn't suit you. Those debts aren't yours, anyway. They're your pap's."
The girl smiled a him and looked at the floor, letting her shoulder-length hair fall into her face.
"And what brings you here from work, Mr. Richard? Don't you have your hands full with the crazy house?"
"Darcy, I don't like that term. Our patients are not crazy; they are ill, and their powers make them dangerous. It is my job to either rid them of their illness or their power, so that they can be treated in normal facilities."
"I know that, Mr. Richard. You tell me every week."
At this moment, a burly man in his forties approached the pair.
"Excuse me," he said, "Is there a Darcy Collin here?"
"That's me."
"You're the one they call Séance?"
"I know of no one else by that name."
The man twisted his hands nervously. He sniffed, obviously holding back tears. He took Darcy by the shoulders and looked her in the eye.
"Please, Miss. I was hoping you could get me in touch with my wife on the other side. Our kids are restless without her, and-"
"Do you have twenty dollars?" Darcy interrupted coldly.
"Y-yes, Miss."
"Then I don't need your life story. Come on out back, and I'll put you in touch with her. She wants very much to hear from you."
The man allowed tears to flow, unchecked.
"Thank you, Séance. You don't know what this means to me."
She patted him on the arm with feigned sympathy and jumped off the stool. she motioned to him, and both he and Duke followed her outside. They were all silent. After all, you don't get many opportunities to talk to the dead.
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Darcy Collins was not a social girl. Never had been. She'd been born in a dump of a house to a typical redneck couple. Her mother was dead within a year of her birth and her father was an abusive drunkard with many debts.
On Darcy's twelfth birthday, Red Collins bought his daughter a package of tampons, telling her that he figured she'd be needing them soon, and that he didn't want to hear her whine when she would. Darcy was none too thrilled, and began to cry, wishing her mother would be there to talk some sense into her father.
And then came the flash of light. Above Darcy's head, a ghostly image of Mrs. Daisy Collins appeared, reprimanding her husband for his lack of love. Red Collins went into shock that resulted in a heart attack, and though he survived, he blamed his daughter for everything.
And that was the birth of Séance, the mutant who could talk to the dead.
Now, five years later, Séance was wandering the night, selling her services for twenty dollars a soul, desperately trying to pay off her father's debts.
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"Your talent always fascinates me, no matter how many times I've seen it," Duke confessed as Darcy shoved a twenty-dollar bill into her pocket, "You ought to raise your prices."
"I'm thinking of going for fifty a soul. What think?"
"You deserve hundreds."
Darcy looked up at the asylum worker, with his bald head and thick glasses, his freckled skin and thin frame.
"You know," she said, "That's not all I can do."
Duke raised an eyebrow in interest.
"Really?"
"I've discovered something new. I somehow have the ability to locate lost objects or people, too. I guess the dead aren't all I can find."
Duke's eyes widened behind the glasses' rims.
"Interesting…" he whispered, the gears in his head whirring at top speed.
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Somewhere not far away, a young woman ran through the woods, clutching her stomach. The baby was kicking again.
"No, baby," she whispered, "Mummy's got to run now."
She pushed a strawberry blonde curl out of her face and sat down beneath a tree. She'd be safe here, at least for a bit.
Eight months pregnant and running for her life. These two just didn't go together.
"C'mon, Sorrel," she urged herself forward, "Just run a little farther. For the baby."
She pushed herself into a standing position and gasped. Her head began to spin. The world was turning upside down…
A force ran through the air around her, flattening all the trees and bushes within twenty feet of her to ash.
"No," she sobbed, "Not now…"
Somewhere in New York, Cerebro began beeping like crazy.
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And that, my friends, is chapter one. Next: who is Sorrel? What is she running from, and what is going on with her? There will be plenty of Kurt, Kitty and Scott next chapter, I promise.
Up next: Chapter Two: Swallowing the Hormone Bug