Dark Side of the Moon
By: InnerFathoms
Setting: A few months post-'Ascension'.
Summary: The visions glimpsed in Apocalypse's mind by Professor Charles Xavier start to become a reality on the evening of Rogue's eighteenth birthday. Dear friends are lost, new allies are gained, dreams are betrayed, and the advent of darker days draws near. For Bayville's mutant population, everything is changing and the lines in the sand are fading. As they face the darker depths of what it means to be different, the idealist known as Professor X comes to realize the fragility of his dream. Even the "greatest mind in the world" is powerless to stop the oncoming trials witnessed from a bleak future where his pupils are no longer the individuals he once believed them to be.
Discretions: Not much canon material here, except for a few things that are pretty easy to recognize. By the way, italics indicate stressing or enunciation, or character thoughts. 'These' mean telepathly and psychic communication.
Pairings: Scott/Jean, Rogue/Remy, and slight hints at Warren/Jean
Genre-Rating: Action, Adventure/Angst/Romance
Disclaimer: I own none of these characters or their histories, as they are licensed to Marvel and I am not making any profits.
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Chapter II: Bombarded
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...And were silenced by gunfire.
A trickle of blood poured down the curve of Jean Grey's temple, disappearing into the crimson of her frayed hair. Pain stabbed at her ankle, forcing her to one knee so that she could alleviate some of the strain on the injury. Her palms were up, fingers splayed, telekinetic energy blurring the air in front of her hands as she relinquished her shield.
Her ears were still ringing from the blast.
Soot covered her new blouse.
And Scott's end of a forged telepathic link was distorted. The severance of their mental bond indicated his loss of consciousness.
Had Jean been standing, her knees would've buckled. She forced some semblance into her mind and swallowed the panic rising in her chest. A moment ago she had been so vexed….
…Now all she felt was emptiness.
Moans of agony and cries of anguish seeped inside her hollowness, filling it to the brim with rage that slowly ebbed away her restraints, causing her muscles to twitch and her head to ache. Jean groaned into her hand, placing it to her face and sniffling. The Professor had warned her of this. In times of turmoil, she was not to give in.
Insanity would create more problems than it would solve. She couldn't wipe away all the bad without destroying the good as well.
Not even a week had passed after Apocalypse's apparent defeat before the Professor had Jean undergoing extensive psychic training sessions and a subtle form of therapy. The excuse he hid behind was the fact that she had been psychically exhausted from her mental duel with him while he was under Apocalypse's control. Jean couldn't even remember the encounter, couldn't recall a time when her inhibitions had slipped away.
Gravely, the Professor had informed her that many dark days lie ahead. Jean had known that already, had anticipated it ever since realizing how ungrateful many people were, even after mutants had saved their lives and prevented them from becoming what they feared and abhorred. Yet, she had never heard him inform the other students about their future predicaments. It was a given, yes, but the Professor was always so somber around Jean, as if he was keeping a secret from her that pained his heart every time he neglected to share it with his star pupil.
'And with a heavy heart, I've seen the dearest of friends become our worst enemies…'
The line had stuck with her, and not because of the prophetic tone or ambiguity, but because of the trepidation it instilled in Jean's heart, as if that one message had been meant for her alone.
Thus, the weekly and eventually daily sessions. Jean was adamant to refuse the urge to ask what the Professor had meant with his foreboding remark; she trusted that his new tutelage would surely be of help in the future, even if it did keep her in the dark.
Awakened out of her reverie by a particularly close groan, Jean massaged her temples and cleared away the burden of so many thoughts. Action-----not deep thinking-----was what was needed of her at the moment.
The closest patron to her was a man in a suit, pinned beneath a piece of rubble fallen from the ceiling. Focusing on the object in question instead of the man's terror-ripen face, Jean closed her eyes and lifted the rubble off him with little conscious effort. He coughed and sputtered, but a meek whisper of thanks escaped his parched lips. Jean gave him a soothing touch, wanting to reach out and organize the chaos in his mind.
The whines of the injured carried over to her in a dirge so haunting that it chilled her core. Shivering, convulsing, Jean staggered to her feet and gave the man a comforting smile. He reached for her but understood that her powers were required elsewhere. With a wordless goodbye, Jean parted from him, and ducked beneath some electrical cords to assist more trapped individuals.
The gunfire recommenced a few minutes later, somewhere on the other side of the room from Jean. She gave a backwards glance, tentative in her step as she moved toward a woman with a table atop her back. The gunfire meant that the explosion was not accidental; Jean didn't have a doubt. Whoever had caused the calamity was only using the gunfire as a threat to quiet the vocalizations of pain and discomfort. She couldn't derive much more understanding from the incident. With most of the commotion and voices off in the distance, Jean was determined to occupy herself with saving others until a confrontation came. The anger still broiled her blood, traveling through her veins with fiery intent…
…And Scott. Rogue. Remy. Her stomach twisted with unfulfilled grief, but she knew the three of her friends had a better chance of taking care of themselves than some of these people did.
She lifted the table off the woman and checked her pulse. Unconscious, but still alive. Jean exhaled in relief, hoping that she wouldn't come across any of the deceased. She prayed that there were no casualties, and held out hope that all the wounded would be treated. For some reason, the bomb struck her as a caveat or scare more so than an act of malice. A way to get someone's attention…
People were standing and dispersing from the main entranceway of the restaurant. Jean ducked low but still managed to count about six moving figures, some of them holding guns, some seemingly weaponless, but all of them very able-bodied. Their gazes were cast at the destruction around them, as if they were searching for particulars within the rubble.
'Why?' Rogue drawled, ''cause of that mutants welcome sign out in the window?'
Jean's gut continued to twist until she had to gasp. A mutant hate crime wasn't unheard of, but something of this caliber, involving the harm of humans…She wasn't ready to feel responsible for all the agony caused in the restaurant, even if she could justify her own innocence.
The mutants welcome sign had sat in the window for a reason. Though the others didn't know it, Jean knew the restaurant had been bought by Warren Worthington III last month. A mutant who owned an establishment would surely welcome his own kind. Jean dearly hoped that it wasn't the reason behind the explosion.
After freeing and checking on two more people, Jean found herself hiding behind a flimsy wooden structure with one of the moving people standing on the opposite side. Her anger surged and fought against her restraints, causing the wood to rumble. The man on the other side gasped and took some steps away, his feet crunching plaster and splintered wood.
'Stop it!' Jean hissed, struggling for control. The wood stopped shaking, much to her relief, but then it was blown apart by some foreign energy blast, spraying her in the face with fragments of wood. She cried out, rolling backwards in defense and sending a spike of pain shooting through her ankle, strangling her earlier outcry.
The walking man reached for her, but Jean lashed out and carried him off his feet, discarding him on top of a pile of debris.
"Mutie!"
The word pierced Jean's heart and made her cringe. Redness flushed her cheeks as indignation crept into her complexion. She withheld her wrath and crawled along the floor, putting as many barriers as possible between her and the other walkers.
That one word confirmed her fearful suspicious. Mutants were to blame for this horror, even if they weren't the ones who perpetrated it.
"Get her!"
"She's heading that way!"
"Don't shoot! Just stun!"
An energy blast dismembered a chair above her head. Another one broke apart a clump of plaster that showered Jean from above and choked her with the dust.
An energy blaster appeared in her line of sight, one hand cupped around it and the other wrapped around the trigger. The obscenity ripped from its owner's hands, probably breaking his trigger finger, and it exploded to bits upon impacting a thick piece of debris.
"Over he----!"
Jean silenced the walker with a telekinetic blast, knocking him out of sight. She continued crawling, ducking under tables and climbing over rubble, like a mouse trapped in a frightful maze. Were they testing her? Taunting her?
The ceiling shuddered above her. Jean clutched her head and capped her powers before they brought down the entire building structure. Small things escaped her attempt at suppressing her powers: a chair, a table, a piece of plaster. One subconsciously directed projectile slammed one of the walkers in the chest. His gun went off and blasted a hole in the ceiling.
She had no idea where she was going or what section of the restaurant she was in. Had she strayed far from her table before the blast? What direction were her friends in?
'Scott? Scott!'
Nothing; the connection was still inaccessible. That meant Scott was still blacked out or…
Jean steeled herself and refused to "what if" anything. Innocent people were in danger and cold-blooded fiends were prowling the restaurant searching for mutant prey.
"Jean…" A groan came from her left, beneath a den of debris.
The voice was a whisper but recognizable. Jean gasped and crawled towards the voice, finding the restaurant owner and fellow mutant known as Angel lying beneath the rubble. "Warren."
She disassembled the chunks of rubble with her TK and scrambled toward the fallen, winged mutant. The back of his trench coat had been ripped, exposing the snow white feathers of his massive wings. "How are they?"
"A little sore," Warren mumbled, grimacing. Undoing his belt strap, he began to remove his trench coat to allow his wings some freedom to stretch and mend their stiffness, when Jean gasped and pointed at his side. Something had torn through his coat and slashed his side, leaving a gaping wound that slowly trickled down his bare side, pooling near the waistline of his pants.
"We've got to get you to a hospital," Jean whispered, helping Warren disrobe and free his wings. Once she cast the coat off to the side, the rest of his injuries came in to view, his entire torso exposed to her. A few contusions lined his left shoulder like purple and blue kisses, and a smaller scratch grazed his broad back, just beneath one of his wings.
"No hospital in Bayville would ever take me, Jean, and you know it," he stated matter-of-factly, wincing as she helped him to his knees.
"Then I'll get you to the Institute. Dr. McCoy is one of the best, trust me." Jean swung his arm behind her shoulders and proceeded to support part of his weight and help him stand.
"Don't be foolish, Jean," he whispered in her ear, causing her to stop and question him with a worried expression. "I know you didn't come here alone. Save the others first. I can handle myself if things get too nasty."
On cue, his massive feathered appendages extended to full wingspan and cut through the air with an elegant flap. Her accosting look did not faze Warren, but he did spare her a brilliant smile. "If I can trust you, Jean, then you can trust me. Get the others help and I'll meet you in the parking lot. We can head to Xavier's from there."
Nodding but still hesitant, Jean agreed and stepped back from the injured mutant, allowing him to flex his wings once more. "Just watch out for the guns. I don't think they're afraid to use them on anyone who fights back."
He gave a baffled frown but quickly hid it for a more solemn stare. "Go. I'll be fine."
"I wouldn't speak so soon, bird-boy," a youngish male voice declared from behind them. Jean spun around, gritting her teeth against the flare of hot pain in her ankle. Fiery tears blurred her vision as her eyes locked onto the blonde-haired man. Debris nearby took flight and started to move around them as if the air were a fervent whirlpool. "Hello, Jean. Nice surprise, huh?"
Duncan Matthews stood over her with his weapon burrowed into her red mane, a wicked smile cutting across his facial features. He'd gotten a hair cut and lost some of the blonde dye, the roots of a brunette peaking out beneath the faux platinum. No longer did he wear a Letterman's jacket, either; a simple piece of wardrobe that Jean believed he would be interred with. Yet he smiled down at her, gun against her skull, wearing a leather jacket to compensate for the surprising absence of his prized garb. Beneath it he wore a tight-fitting plain tank top that had tears around the collar, exposing part of a tattoo on his chest. Seeing her gazing at it, Duncan pulled down on the collar and gave her full view of the small tattoo inked in his skin below his collar bone. Muties was printed boldlywith a self-explaining red circle and a slash mark.
"Lovely," Jean muttered. Duncan ignored her venomous tone and grinned.
"I know. Everyone in the group's got one…just not all in the same place." He gave a crude smirk and continued. "I've realized we've never seen eye to eye on almost anything, Jean, so I won't try to throw any politics at you right now."
Duncan and politics? Jean withheld a snide laugh and kept her face stern.
"You want the simple facts?" Jean nodded, staring into the dark abyss of the energy blaster. "You and me are going to be spending a lot of time together."
A sickening thought popped into Jean's head; she gave a look of repulsion as it fed the seeds of her imagination.
"Not like that," Duncan confirmed. "You're not my type anymore. Don't dig the mutie chicks."
"I've always been a mutant, Duncan," Jean whispered harshly, glaring up at him.
"Yeah, well, it was better when I didn't know what a mutie was." The word continued to irk, slapping Jean in the face, its demeaning impact finding her as a target. "Don't act so hurt, Jean. Mutie's the new term for scum like you. Times are changing, princess."
Jean spit in his face, glancing his nose with her saliva as it dripped down into his mouth. Furious, Duncan wiped it away with one arm and planned on using the other to crush Jean's head in with his weapon. Warren rushed in front of her, ramming Duncan and dislodging the energy blaster from his grasp, as he fired reflexively. The bolt whizzed past Jean's shoulder and shattered a table behind her.
Warren's wings flapped and surged to help maintain his balance as he struggled with Duncan; they also encased the mutant-hater by closing in on him from both sides and forcing him to fight.
An energy blast fired nearby grazed Warren's shoulder and scorched his wing, burning a few feathers and spilling blood onto Duncan's shirt. Jean saw his wings convulse as the pain stunned Warren, giving Duncan the opportunity to shove the older man off of him. Warren landed on his wings and groaned, a fresh cut flowing freely from his shoulder, a scarlet river running down his chest.
Climbing to his feet, Duncan stared at Jean with wild eyes akin to that of something primal. The blood staining his white tank top only added to the madness. "Mutie slut!"
The insult passed right by Jean, and she leveled Duncan with a calculative narrowing of her eyes. A reckless mutant-hater was more dangerous but easier to fool than a calm one. She could manipulate his viciousness to her own advantage and use his rage as his downfall.
He clawed at his shirt and tore it open to fully reveal the blood-stained ink sigil of his undying hatred of mutants, and then he charged her.
A painful sidestep brought her out of harm's way, so she kicked out her foot and tripped Duncan, sending him careening off balance and onto an overturned table. He banged his head on a chair leg and groaned, his head bobbing.
Vindicated, Jean strolled over to him and took him by the jaw, jerking his face up to hers and staring into his disoriented eyes. "If you've hurt anymore of my friends, or if any one of these innocent people dies, I will come back here and rip your heart out, Duncan!"
Though dazed, his mind still processed fear in its finest. Jean's nails dug into his jaw, drawing blood. The voice of malevolence was not her own; inhuman. "Mutants are going to rule your kind, Duncan, and you better count yourself lucky if I refrain from entering your pathetic mind and tearing it apart synapses by synapse and then dancing on your psyche until insanity is all you know!"
A dark stain appeared in the front of his jeans, as Duncan quivered in her grip. He yelped and moaned and squirmed, but Jean held tight, digging deeper into his flesh. She flipped him off the table and onto his back against the carpeted floor. Her fingernails left his chin and hovered over the tattoo bathed in crimson upon his sweaty chest. "This has got to go!"
"No!" Duncan protested, slapping at her and rolling around on the floor.
"Stop, Jean!"
Instinctively, she whipped around and swiped, intending to slash at whatever was trying to hinder her desires. She half-slapped, half-clawed Warren's face, leaving fresh tears along his cheek and snapping his head to the side.
"Insolence is rewarded only with-----Warren!" The foreign voice of ire skipped a beat, replaced by a high-pitched cry in Jean's true voice. Whatever had taken possession of her vocal chords had departed, leaving her frightened by the sudden incisions made on Warren's face, as she realized that they were the product of her own fingernails. "Oh!" She looked back down at a whimpering Duncan, blood lacing his neck like red ribbons trailing down from his jaw line.
Jean stumbled away from him and crawled backwards, bumping into a wall and shrieking. Her rapid breaths drew in hot air, suffocating her lungs. She coughed and withered, her eyes watering, until Warren had his arms around her, soothing her with his voice and calming her with his embrace. Sticky tears dripped onto his skin, as Jean buried her face into his chest, unable to explain her actions. Her loss of control was deeply perturbing, and it rendered her nearly incapacitated.
Taking the moment as a vengeful window of opportunity, Duncan pulled himself up and onto his feet, groping for his weapon among the rubble.
Beating him to the offense, another walker found the couple on the floor and fired off his gun, reacting to the enormous wings in his view. The bullet pierced Warren's left wing with a shattering finalization, causing him to scream just as Jean's sobs altered to mimic his outcry; but as his screams died into a grunt, hers grew into an ear-splitting cacophony of tortured unrest and white hot pain, a sound beyond her world as something usurped its control over the telepath. Rage poisoned the intensity of the outburst; psychic blasts accompanied the screams as they were directed at the walker, ravaging his mind and splitting apart his psyche.
Once the energy and ferocity exhausted out of Jean, she collapsed in a heap atop the semi-conscious Warren, unknowingly having crippled the walker, leaving him in a comatose state.
Jean stirred but Duncan kicked her in the head and silenced her moans. He looked down at his blood-stained chest, his ruined shirt, and his blistering tattoo, and snarled as he kicked at his ex-girlfriend for the second time.
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Remy LeBeau knew what a hangover felt like.
This was ten times worse.
The undeniable throbbing in his head robbed him of coherent thoughts. His eyes stung with plaster and sawdust, temporarily blinding him. Something pressed down on his ribs, constricting his attempts at drawing in air. He coughed and gagged but the metallic taste in his mouth would not be banished. He was staring up at the ceiling-----what was left of it, anyways.
A coppery scent flooded his nostrils; nausea crept into his gut and surprised him, drawing out a groan of discomfort from his lips. The world seemed to liquefy before him, swimming within his vision and spiking his senses, depleting his comprehension of the situation.
The explosion. The screams. The destruction.
Rogue?
A bomb had gone off and torn through part of the restaurant, leaving fractured structures and mangled bodies in its wake. Lament laced the air, borne of cries for help and wails of pain. Something electrical cracked and sprayed sparks into the air. A jagged edge had burrowed into the nape of his neck, corrupting his muscles and rubbing into his spine. The chunk of debris positioned just below the back of his head would give him neck problems for weeks if he didn't relive some of the ache. Lifting his head caused the world to distort again, but his neck muscles cheered and relaxed.
Craning his neck despite the pain, Remy searched for a brunette and white streaked mane, as his concerns shifted from himself to another. Rogue was out of his line of sight, igniting a fresh wave of anxiety that riddled his nerves.
"Rogue…" He croaked, barely able to hear his own voice. Drops of blood tickled his throat, burning and making him sputter. "Rogue…"
"Don't speak."
The voice came from nowhere and anywhere, reaching Remy's ears with its owner unseen. A moment later, he could breathe again, able to draw in full but painful breaths as the weight was lifted off his rib cage. Two tiny hands tugged at his armpits, dragging him backwards and over clumps of debris and scattered rubble. Remy half-glanced around him, wondering how far the explosion had pitched him. He spat at the floor, trying to get rid of the blood in his mouth. He had no sense of his location; he recognized nothing.
"Say something if this hurts."
The mysterious voice again, this time coming from behind his head. Had his neck not been bothering him so, Remy would've tilted his head back and looked up into the voice's face.
A door bumped open and Remy felt his feet slide over a threshold. Cool air rushed at him and prickled his skin while freezing the sweat adorning him.
"Hang on, there're some steps."
One of the hands slid out from under his arm and moved to the center of his back, sliding so that an arm could wrap behind him. The other arm hooked underneath his knees, hoisting him off the ground. Remy's head bobbed and his vision dimmed, as the voice carried him a few feet and set him down on something. "Don't leave this spot."
"Are those real, cherie?" He'd meant to say something along the lines of sure, no problem, but he was already half-dreaming, delirious with a more pleasant situation than the current one. "Come 'ere an' let Remy decide."
"I'll be back soon."
As hurried footsteps clambered on cement steps, Remy's head tilted to the side and he glimpsed a fleeting figure shadowed by the dark of night and the failing of his sight.
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Scott Summers lay in the same position for a very long time.
He kept his eyes fearfully squeezed shut. His protective shades were crushed beneath his shoulder; he felt the ruby quartz shards pricking his flesh. The lonely darkness behind his eyelids was so cold.
He was used to seeing red. But in his imagination, everything was much worse.
Whenever his eyesight was unavailable, his mind's eye would unintentionally strive to create the horrific from the mundane, the torture from the discomfort; all the scenes he played through his mind were supposed to be worse than the reality beyond his eyelids. But Scott was too afraid to open his eyes and see for himself. The restaurant had already suffered enough destruction without his concussive blasts bringing the rest of the building down around him.
Scarlet and crimson lined the walls, the floors, the skewed objects. His mind's eye painted a hellish landscape that afflicted him all the more because he could not-----would not-----open his eyes and disarm his imagination. The metallic taste in his mouth and the coppery air only fueled the horror in his mind.
'Jean…Jean…Jean!'
No response. She was either unconscious or…
Scott's insides were skewered by fear and the unknown, tempting him to scream his lover's name had his throat not been so scorched. She's tough, she's fine. She's probably saving lives, busy tending to the wounded.
His thoughts were only partially comforting. None of those assumptions could be confirmed unless he heard her voice or felt her sweet touch. Their telepathic link was temporarily stalled, meaning the explosion had knocked her out. That was the only explanation; Scott entertained no others, no "what ifs" or alternate scenarios. Otherwise, he would be admitting defeat, conceding in the battle and deeming all hope lost.
'Jean…'
Still unconscious. Scott remembered to breathe. A crescendo of pain erupting below his chin almost pushed him off the precipice of consciousness. His eyes squeezed shut harder and his teeth dug into his fleshy lip. Why was his shirt so sticky?
A steady pulse of pain in synch with his breaths frightened Scott. A misleading numbness told him nothing was wrong because he could feel no pain or discomfort. But Scott felt the sticky hotness, the slick wetness, and he knew that the hurt would eventually wash over the lack of sensations. Pain was a budding flower waiting to bloom and spread itself throughout his torso.
Someone gasped to his right. Instinctually, Scott turned towards the noise but kept his eyes closed. "Who's…" His voice died on him as his throat briefly closed up.
"Can you feel my hand?" A voice inquired, and Scott could not, thus meaning the hand was probing his chest, making contact with the numbness that did not register with his brain. Logic provided him the answers, but his body was being fooled by the absence of feeling.
Scott shook his head slowly. "Not good." In a much quieter tone, "So much blood."
Had his hearing not been as acute, Scott would not have picked up on the whisper. So much blood…
Two hands tugged at his armpits and dragged him along the floor. Not long thereafter, an arm cradled his legs and another looped around his back, lifting his body off the floor.
The heat and human cries were suddenly replaced by cool air and unnerving silence. Then Scott heard a giggle and, "Come t' papa." It sounded like Remy, somewhere close by.
A hard surface pressed against Scott's back, as the arms disappeared out from under him. His rescuer laid him down and checked his pulse. A short sigh escaped into Scott's ears.
"Does your chest hurt at all?"
"No," Scott mumbled.
"That's not good."
You don't have to tell me twice, Scott mused, tasting the scent of advent rainfall, sweet air mixed with a far off downpour headed for Bayville. Did that make any sense?
"There were four in your party, right?" Scott nodded, thinking about Jean and Rogue still inside. He was almost positive Remy was lying somewhere close, probably in a similar condition to his own. "Four mutants?"
Scott nodded again, hesitantly.
"They came for us," the voice whispered. "I hope they were expecting some resistance."
Wanting to question his rescuer, Scott opened his mouth but sensed the person's leave, followed by loud footsteps on concrete steps.
"Remy can do dis all night long…" The male voice told the night. Scott's worries for the other half of their party intensified.
Overhead, the moon glowed with an ominous glean behind a veil of gray clouds.
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Having attended Bayville High, Duncan Matthews had seen a lot of weird things and learned to expect the unexpected, whatever that meant.
But when he saw the tiny girl in denim and cashmere with luscious blonde locks, he was smitten. The glare set in her features did not deter him from admiring her curves as she plodded towards him. Maybe the night would turn out better than he had expected…
When the babe kicked at a piece of debris, Duncan anticipated her cry of anger and hurt due to a stubbed toe. He was still smiling when the debris departed the ground in a motion much like a soccer ball receiving a well-placed kick, and he came to his senses a moment too late. The debris struck him in the chest and exploded in his face, knocking the wind out of him and dropping him to the ground.
She was on top of him before he even had a chance to recover his lost oxygen. Her hands wrapped around the front edges of his leather jacket, and she yanked him off the ground and shook him violently.
Her gaze was locked on his chest. "What does this tattoo mean?"
"Whatever you want it to mean, babe." He noted her unimpressed face. "Signifies my journey to eradicate this town of all muties and reunite Bayville's normal citizens by eliminating their fears."
The slap came from a powerhouse. Duncan's jaw clacked like never before, not even from the hardest punch he'd ever sustained.
"You hit like a man."
The second slap split open his cheek. Duncan's eyes lit aflame at the arousing taste of pain. "I like a chick who can pack a wallop."
She sneered at him, jarring him as she shoved him backwards and held onto his jacket, yanking him forwards savagely. "Why did you plant a bomb in this restaurant?"
"Why do the hot babes always look hotter when they're mad?"
A third slap; this time spraying droplets of blood on the floor, as Duncan's broken lip gushed. "Tell me who set you up to this! I know you didn't do it on your own!"
"Hey," Duncan said, defensive. "We didn't make the device or the plan or choose the location, but we made everything happen! We did the dirty work."
"Then who put you up to it?" The girl demanded, her eyes flashing inches from Duncan's face.
All these questions and Duncan was getting bored. The babe was fine, no doubt, but looks didn't make up for her annoying play of twenty questions. The mission was not yet fulfilled and they needed to nab one more mutant. The efficiency of the plan depended on him now, and any wasted time would lure them closer to getting caught before they could complete the job and gain the rewards.
"Alright, enough is enough, babe." He reached for her, intending to shove her to the side and walk away.
He'd never seen a chick move so fast. One second, his hand was almost on her shoulder. The next, his pinkie was being jerked around so harshly that Duncan thought that she'd ripped it from the socket. Pain exploded in his hand as his pinkie flared, twisted in the girl's fingers. Duncan cried out and withered, his attempts at freeing his digit only adding to the hurt.
"You can handle nine fingers, can't you?" The girl asked, venomously quaint. "But can you handle the pain of having one of those fingers being torn from the rind? I'd like to see if you could."
The gunshot came from behind the girl and in between two mounds of rubble. The bullet was meant to subdue, aimed for the leg, but it ricocheted off the back of the girl's thigh and pierced one of the rubble mounds instead.
Duncan's mouth twisted into a frown as his face flushed scarlet. A mutie…touching him.
Duncan rammed his fist into the girl's palm, though his target had been her pretty face. She twisted it and he heard his wrist crack, followed by a current of pain that shot up his forearm. Another bullet deflected off the mutie's back, and then another off her shoulder. Her fingers curled around Duncan's throat in a vise grip, removing his feet from the floor and bringing him upwards. He stared down into her face with a mix of fear and rage; wild emotions that made him kick out and struggle in her stone grip.
"Who's behind this?"
The fingers tightened, applying greater pressure around his windpipe.
"Who's behind this?"
The air was cut off from his lungs.
"Who's behind this?"
Finally, his eyes bulging, his head spinning, and the deprivation of oxygen nearly causing him to pass out, Duncan saw a high-level energy blast pound the mutie's back. She cried out and released him, falling into him and sending Duncan crashing to the floor.
She wasn't one of the ones he was sent to collect. He more or less knew all three of the targets. Only one of them was missing. Duncan looked forward to meeting up with the missing link and catching up on old times, maybe by settling a score or two.
The one who fired the energy blast walked up to Duncan as he was climbing onto his feet. "She one of 'em?"
"No, she's not," Duncan responded in a disappointed tone. He looked at her with dirty thoughts polluting his mind, but the promise of a great reward kept him from doing things that would damage the operation. He took in a large whiff of the girl's perfume, smiled down at her, and then turned back towards his accomplice.
"Are we finished then?"
"Not quite." Duncan's gaze scanned his surroundings quickly. "Two down, one to go."
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Author's Note: So the plot deepens! Who could Duncan & co. be working for, you might ask? Find out soon, and I hope it will be surprising. The group he is leading is pretty much the same group of punks who attacked the Morlocks in that episode that Leech first appeared in. Like they were going to stay locked up. And what's up with Jean? Okay, so that's a little more obvious. But Carol? She's a little shadier for now. Thank you to all those who reviewed the first chapter! Please continue to do so! I would like to hear your thoughts on the story, any questions, or any insight you might have! Review!
Next Time: Chapter III: Creed
A little backstory, some different developments, a few answers and more questions, as Duncan & co.'s benefactor(s) is/are revealed, along with more details about the mysterious hostess named Carol.
-fathoms-