Chapter 8
As Serpent got into the elevator, she put away Frost, Tele and Elect, much to the disappointment of Elect of course.
I don't wanna go away; I like it out in the real world! She complained, flopping down onto a nearby couch and falling off.
"I'm sorry, but it gets hard to keep all four of you guys out for a long time, I'm only keeping Blaze out because she looked like she was having a fun time talking to Rogue." Serpent replied to the annoying little voice as she stepped out of the elevator in the medical wing.
"Hello Serpent, what happened to you?" Dr. McCoy asked, handing a glass of water and a pill to a boy whom was sitting on a chair.
"I took another mutation yesterday and cut my hand, I guess when I hit the floor in the Danger Room it broke the scab." Serpent replied as if it were nothing. Dr. McCoy gave her a stern look.
"What's your new mutation?" he asked.
"Invisibility, her voice isn't as strong yet though and I have to wear special clothing that Lisa invented with chemicals that allow themselves to become invisible when I do." He nodded and looked up at the clock.
"I'm so sorry Serpent, I have to go grab something right now. Just sit down and put a cloth on it." He said before leaving the room in a hurry.
"Hi, my name's Ricky, but you can call me Mediator. I'm twelve." The boy said, holding out his left hand. Serpent took it and shook it slightly before grabbing a cloth, taking off her right glove she placed it on her wound.
"I'm Serpent, why do they call you Mediator?"
"I see dead people," Ricky whispered, laughing at his own joke. Serpent looked confused, seeing as she had never heard of that quote. Ricky looked annoyed now. "Never mind, I can see ghosts, spirits and, well, dead people in general. That's why I'm here right now, I can't control it so I see them all the time and it really hurts my head to see them. What about you, what're your mutations?"
Make him shut UP would ya! Frost shouted, she had been trying to sleep and with him jabbering she couldn't.
"I have nine mutations." She replied, ignoring Frost's statement. Ricky looked at her with wide eyes.
"Nine? Show me one." Serpent realized that her telepathic shield was still up for her appearance so she took that down first, revealing her multi-coloured hair and still red eyes.
"They represent each mutation I have or gained."
"But you still haven't showed me one yet." Serpent smiled at the boy's enthusiasm and unleashed her left hands' claws, laughing at his reaction as he jumped slightly.
"I got these awhile ago,"
"They're like Logan's, do you know him?" Serpent never got to reply to them because Dr. McCoy came in.
"You can go back to class now, Ricky. Just come back here every morning for your pill and don't forget." He said. Ricky nodded and jumped up.
"Nice talking to ya Serpent. Bye." He waved to her as he walked out the door and back to class.
"I hope he didn't bother you too much. He doesn't have very many friends here yet."
"No, it was nice talking to him. He's a very sweet kid." Serpent said, putting her claws back.
Sweet in an annoying-keeping-little-voices-up kind of way, yes. Frost stated, shoving her head under her pillow. Serpent laughed out loud, but stopped when she saw that Dr. McCoy was looking at her strangely.
"Well, let's see that hand." He said. Serpent held out her hand to him and tried not to wince as he took off the cloth.
"Why do you always have to cut your hand whenever you're taking mutations?"
"Because the palms of my hands are the only parts on my entire body that won't heal itself, making it easier for me."
"Where's Blaze?" he asked, startling Serpent with his question.
"How the heck did you know she's not in my head?" she asked, still in shock. He looked her straight in the eye and said, "You're eyes are red."
Serpent blushed at her stupidity.
"I'm going to have to put stitches in." she nodded and turned her head away as he began to stitch up her busted hand.
Lunch Room…Lisa took a slice of pizza from the buffet thing and looked around for Serpent, but was waved over by Rogue.
"Where's Serpent?" Lisa asked as she sat down next to Rogue, not noticing Blaze on the other side of Rogue.
"She got hurt during scrimmage and went to the medical wing." Blaze replied. Lisa looked over to her left and saw Blaze; she nearly dropped her glass on the table and stared at her with an open mouth.
"W-what are you doing here?" she managed to squeak out. Blaze giggled.
"Don't worry, Serpent knows about this. She let Me." Lisa nodded and took a bit of her pizza, she was craving meat right now but didn't want to be rude and ask.
"Who's that?" Blaze asked, taking a bite of salad and pointing over to the far corner to where Ricky sat, picking at his food.
"That's Ricky, he's twelve and been here for about two weeks." Rogue replied, looking over at Bobby with a sadness in her eyes as he sat with Ramses and a few other people. Lisa caught onto that.
"What happened between you and Ice cube?" she asked.
"We got into a fight last night, I'm not sure what over, but we broke up." Rogue replied, pretending to be interested in her salad.
"He's a jerk either way." Kitty said, walking over with Serpent following. "You deserve much better if he doesn't want someone like you, Rogue."
"We should get ready for class, it starts in a bit." Rogue said, getting off the topic of her ex. Serpent grabbed the slice of pizza that Ramses was just about to and he grabbed her arm.
"Back off bub, you only bet me because you cheated." Serpent said in s dangerously low voice. "I could have killed you if I wanted to, but I didn't. So leave me be." She shook his hand off her and followed her friend out the door, until she stopped and turned around, walking to the back of the room where Ricky sat.
"Hiya Serpent," he said cheerfully. Serpent had to smile.
"Hello, what class do you have next?"
"Art and boring stuff like that. But I can draw, Jean helps me sometimes too." Serpent raised an eyebrow.
"Who's Jean?" she asked. Ricky was about to reply when the first bell rang.
"I'll tell you later, see ya after class!" he picked up his books and ran out of the room. Serpent shook her head and smiled.
History with Ororo wasn't the most interesting that day; they were just learning about World War II because it was with all grades. That went by quickly, without incident… but period five wasn't uneventful for Lisa, Serpent no, Lisa yes.
"You must be the new kid, I'm Logan." He said as Lisa entered the dome-like room, with the same T-shirt on as before, but she now had on loose green sweat pants and no socks or shoes. Lisa smiled; she still had her hologram up so it didn't show her fangs… yet.
"What are we doing today, Logan?" one of the other students asked.
"You guys actually have this period off, I want to test Lisa by herself. Everyone, go do something." everyone was gone in a flash.
"Logan, before you start, let me warn you that this isn't my true form. I have a hologram on me that this watch creates." Lisa said, pointing to her watch. He nodded.
"I just want you to destroy the things that come at you, alright?" Lisa took a deep breath and nodded. Logan walked into the control room and set up the simulation for level two. Lisa sat down on the simulated grass and crossed her legs, meditating. Her tail twitched restlessly behind her as she used her enhanced senses to listen for the approaching creatures.
A twig snapped to her left and her eyes snapped open. She shut off her watch and slowly stood up, walking silently over to a nearby jungle tree, she used her claws to climb up it without any problems. She crouched in the shadows of the tree and waited for the creature to come out of the bushes. As it's head came into view, Lisa bared her fangs and got ready to pounce on her prey.
Logan watched the green scaled mutant with amazement as she jumped from the tree and killed the first thing with her sharp claws, the others burst through the trees and attacked her too. Everything was going well until Lisa fell to the ground and was held under the paw of one of the things. Her tail ripped it off and threw it against a nearby tree. Logan shut off the simulation and walked over to the reptilian.
"And you said that was only level 2! I'm gonna be dead by the time I reach level 10!" Lisa exclaimed, wiping the beads of sweat that formed on her brow.
"You did alright kid, class is going to end soon so you can go now." Logan said. "Your scales suit you, you shouldn't hide them from others you know."
Lisa looked at him oddly; he sounded like her 'mother' (a.k.a. Serpent). "You sound like Serpent… oh wait, you two are related. She told me in History to tell you to meet her in the kitchen because it's going to be the only quiet place in all the school."
Logan nodded to her his thanks as she put up her hologram again and ran out the door as the bell rang.
Serpent was sitting with her legs crossed, eyes closed and arms at her sides on one of the tables when Logan walked in.
"Take a seat, Logan. I'm just picking out what memories I should let you see of our long past history." Serpent said, not moving any other muscle in the process. Logan walked over to Serpent and seat down in a chair in front of her. Serpent opened her gray eyes and looked sadly at her older brother.
"First off I'm going to tell you what I've been doing for the last forty years. I went to Sudbury in… I think it was early 1965, anyway. I stopped the police from killing a small group of about six or seven mutants and took them into hiding in an abandoned pipe, a very large one. Then an idea came to me, why not build a mall for mutants so they don't have to be afraid of humans killing them. So that's what I did, and for the next ten years I worked on making it bigger and more modern, with the help of all the mutants that I helped. Then I got captured by Stryker, he gave me all my spikes, but not my claws and wings, just like you."
"You had them before?" Serpent nodded and brushed a bit of her hair out of her eyes. "But, how?"
"Bone, that was another part of my mutation before the metal was put around them. My claws in my hands used to be bone as did my tail and wings too. When I came back, I finished up my mall within the next year and one of my friend's father, Shock's father who was only about fifteen at that time, invented a thing that could keep even the most powerful telepath's mind out of the minds of mutants in the mall. And that's about it. Oh, and, I saved Lisa about three years when she was twelve and only her claws and fangs had shown up for her mutation, her scales came in the year after. I gave her a store all to herself and the access to chemicals so she could make special clothing for special mutants, like myself."
"Wow, you've done a lot with your life." Logan said, quite sarcastically too. Serpent glared at him.
"Are you ready to see a few things of the past?" she asked him.
"I've always been ready, what year are we talking about and how old are we?" he asked.
"I'm talking anywhere between 1505 to 1520 in Germany. You're five hundred and five and I'll be five hundred on June 8th." Logan looked at her in disbelief. "I'll translate the memories into English because I don't feel like explaining it afterwards. Don't interrupt me and here we go…"
Serpent leaned forward and placed her hands on either side of Logan's head, a few inches away. He could feel her poking around in his mind before the following memory filled his vision:
Logan was running through a field of long grass, looking back every so often until he came to the peak of a hill that looked over all the land his family owned.
"Took you long enough to get here. Mama is going to be mad." Logan turned around to see a very young Serpent (not called by that name though). She was wearing a long gray cotton dress with a white pinafore over it, her waist length hair was tied back in a tight bun, she had bare feet and her hazel eyes were glazed over as she held a walking stick. "Papa is coming home too, help me walk home."
End memory…Logan felt Serpent quickly go out of his mind and she buried her head in her hands.
"Are you alright?" he asked. Serpent looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
"I'm fine," she said, her voice cracking a bit. "I just hate seeing myself like that. I was blind when I was younger, until my healing mutation kicked in and healed my eyes and they turned gray because of my two mutations. Mama and papa threw me out and were killed later that day along with the rest of our family because the villagers burned the house down… my first day of sight was my worst. Do you want me to show you a very… well… do you want to see another one?" Logan nodded and felt her poking around again…
An older Serpent was tied to a post in the middle of the town, people screaming "witch!" at her. She looked no older than fourteen did.
"Where are you brother? Why did you leave me?" She cried out to the sky as the villagers began to light the tinder under her feet. She slowly began burning alive. Logan ran out of the crowed and doused it with water, but it wasn't working as she continued to slowly burn to what would have been her death. She tilted her head up to the heavens and gave a blood-curdling scream.
End memory…Serpent let out a gasp of breath and quickly left her brother's mind. Logan looked at her as she slowly got off the table.
"Are you okay?"
"No! I'm not okay! I've just lived through being burned at the stake again! Just leave me alone for awhile, please." Serpent ran out of the room and down the hall, ignoring all the strange looks everyone she passed gave her.
You didn't have to show him that one you know. Ani said quietly. Serpent didn't care, she just ran back into the room she and Lisa shared and locked the door.
"You made her open up memories, didn't you?" Lisa asked coldly as Logan walked past the TV room. He nodded slightly. "And just when I thought the nightmares would stop, you make them start up again. Blaze is gonna like this…" Lisa muttered the last part of her sentence as she walked/ran down the hallway towards her room.
"Serpy?" Lisa asked in a small voice as she came to a stop in front of the door.
"I'm alright Lisa, I just need awhile to cool off." Serpent's voice said from within the room. Lisa sighed and walked back to the TV room.
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