Chapter 4- Birthright
Disclaimer- I don't own the X-Men. Alex is mine, however, and if you try to steal her you will die a very slow and painful death
"What kind of demonstration would have people trying to kill you," Rachel asked.
"They weren't trying very hard in my opinion," Logan snorted.
Alex couldn't help laughing. "That is only because you know my secret. No, I don't think they were trying to kill me, but their true purpose remains to be seen." She mused silently on that thought for a few seconds. Then, she made up her mind. "I should go now. Something about this does not feel right."
"One would think you were dodging the question," Emma said sharply. "Just what kind of demonstration did you give them?"
"A very magnificent, but early one." They all turned to see a younger girl with reddish-brown hair, a student codenamed Radio, approaching the group. "Hello, Alex. I'm a bit surprised to see you here of all places. Shouldn't you be somewhere heavily guarded to keep all of those ugly bachelors away?" Her green eyes sparkled with a bit of mischief. "Maybe you need to live underwater to stop their minions from shooting at you."
Alex grimaced slightly at the girl's chiding tone. "Saw that, did you?" Then, she studied her a little more carefully. She was holding something back. "You know why they were here?" the question was more of an astonished statement.
She held up a hand and dropped a handful of gleaming copper bullets on the ground. "Apparently, one of those psychotic men tried to bind you. You're lucky those bullets shattered when they hit the water. If you'd been shot, you'd probably be halfway to the Underground now without any control over what you were doing." The girl spat the words out with disgust.
Alex's face wrinkled in confusion as she reached into her shoulder and pulled out the bullet, then held it out to her friend. "What does this mean, Delia? I don't understand why it didn't work. The spell had at least ten minutes to get through my bloodstream. Maybe he just really is bad at what he does." She let the bullet fall to the ground where it instantly dissolved into ash.
"I don't know how you got so lucky. That would have crippled anybody else. I guess it must be your status as a half-breed." Delia shrugged and lifted her duffel bag further on her shoulder. "Don't worry, though. If it had happened, I would have released you from the spell no matter what." Her tone was ominous and cold.
"Does she mean that how it sounds?" Nightcrawler's whispered words to Logan did not go unnoticed by Alex. Instantly, he had her full attention.
"The most definite way to break a binding spell is through death. Thankfully, Delia would have killed me quickly and put me out of my misery. Otherwise, my days would have been lived out as a puppet for somebody else."
"How do you know all about this, Miss Thomas? And where do you think you're going tonight?" Emma's tone was imperious as she spotted the duffel bag.
Delai rolled her eyes so that only Alex could see. "I'm going to see my family for the weekend. Despite my parents kicking me out, I do have family left. I've been telling you about this trip for three weeks." Naturally, she ignored the first question. She had given away too much already.
Alex hung her head when she heard this. She sighed in frustration and muttered to herself. "You told them. I tried to warn you what would happen." The words went unnoticed by everyone except Logan.
Kitty was the only one of the group anxious to get the conversation back on its original topic. "Why would anybody have wanted to do that to you anyway?" She looked genuinely confused. "I mean, what could they possibly gain from it? What is this underground that you two are talking about? And why is Delia referring to you as a half-breed?"
Alex closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She had been dreading an explanation of these points, but had been hoping to be gone before anybody could ask them. When she finally opened her eyes, she sent a small glare to Delia for being so openly obvious about everything. The younger girl actually had the grace to look sheepish. "I suppose it's time I started explaining a few things. Believe it or not, I'm actually supposed to be fairly important and valuable." She snorted with disbelief at her own statement. "I've been living in a place called the Underground. The rules there are a little different. Mostly, women are seen as commodities, like jewelry or gold. The men generally make bids to parents or guardians when they want a girl to become theirs. Only the guardian can decide who has the best interests for the girl or, in most cases, who will shell out the most dough to get her. Sometimes, the rejections aren't pretty. Occasionally, if the man is very powerful, like Devon is, he'll just take what he wants no matter the consequences. That's what he was trying to do today. My guardian really doesn't like him."
"How could he do that here? He has no jurisdiction on this land. Xavier's is a safe haven for children with mutant powers. We have federal agents on this property. We could have him arrested for attempted kidnapping!" Rachel was living up to her hair color with a tirade that would make most Hollywood starlets back away in intimidation.
Alex just shook her head. They didn't understand. "Unfortunately, I would have been willing to go anywhere he wanted me to. That's why he needed the spell. I've been too stubborn for his liking." She spat the words out as if they were poison. "As to his jurisdiction anywhere, that never stopped him before."
"That's for sure," Delia muttered darkly. Alex turned quickly to keep the girl from revealing anything more, but winced in silent pain as the slashes on her back opened wider. "What the hell have you been doing to yourself? You're bleeding all over the place. You need to tell me all about it right now." She set her hands on her hips and gave Alex a very determined glare. She looked like a very short general trying to command a disobedient soldier.
Alex laughed and reached out ruffle her hair. "Don't worry so much, girl. I've just retrieved a bit of stolen property for one of our 'sisters.'" She patted her pocket where the amulet was safely tucked away. Her eyes gleamed with dark humor that nobody else would understand. "I'm not going to die on you because of some minor scratches. I still have work to do. After all, not many people know the whereabouts of the rightful owner."
"Oh my god! Please tell me that you did not do what I think you just did." She stole a glance at Alex's very solemn face. "You did. Why would you go risking your bloody neck for somebody that you barely know? You know even less about Spell than I do, and I've had plenty of time to find out what little information there is on her."
While the X-Men looked on in confusion, unsure of anything they were talking about, Alex lifted her chin proudly. "It's the same reason I did it for you. It just needed doing." With that profound declaration, she turned back to the X-Men. "Thank you for allowing me this brief rest on your property. It truly has been fun." She turned and walked back in the direction of the beach before any of them could stop her.
Emma pulled Scott into the mansion for another one of their 'conferences,' leaving Logan, Rachel, Kurt, Piotr, and Kitty to watch the girl leave. Delia, however, had no intention of letting her get away without a private explanation. She ran and managed to catch up at the edge of the woods. "Can you at least tell me where you're going after this? I'd like to be able to get a hold of you if I need your help." Her face was so earnest that Alex couldn't resist telling the girl a little more about her plans while she was Aboveground, however long that would be.
"The reason I'm really here is to find somebody. My guardian has fallen in love with a human girl. She's rejected him once already, but he thinks he's given her enough time that she might have changed her mind. I'm the only one he trusts enough to find out if she feels the same way. Hopefully, she does because I don't know what will happen if she breaks his heart again."
"What about you? Are there any guys that you have your sights set on? I mean, all those boys are after you. There must be somebody you have feelings for."
Alex shook her head wistfully. Once upon a time, she would have been as enthusiastic as Delia about things like boys and clothes. Now, her only priorities revolved around training to keep herself defended. "There was somebody a few years ago. It would never have worked between us, though. Besides, he probably moved on a long time ago." She didn't tell Delia that the guy in question was her brother.
Unbeknownst to either of them, Delia's brother had wandered into the backyard on his way to find her. He stopped near the X-Men before noticing the girls in the distance. His face instantly turned so pale that they thought he might pass out. "Who is that with my sister?"
Kurt stared at him with more than a little curiosity. "Her name is Alex. We assumed they were old friends. They talk as if they've known each other forever." His eyes grew more concerned when West reached out to grab the edge of a nearby picnic table to steady himself. His breathing grew unsteady and he blinked several times as if to clear his vision.
"That's impossible," he managed to murmur. "Alex? No, she's supposed to be dead." He had just started moving in their direction when an unearthly howl filled the air.
Alex's head snapped up in alarm. There was no mistaking that sound for anything other than the pure nightmare that it was. "Oh, bloody hell! This is exactly not what I need right now." She grabbed Delia's arm and pushed her toward the house. "Get out of here! You need to get everybody to safety!"
"I can help you! I know how to fight!" She pushed her friend's hand off of her arm." Besides, I think you're going to need all the help you can get." Dimly, Alex saw the others rushing in their direction at the sound of trouble. She vaguely realized that it was useless to keep the others out of the fight. She had to do a double-take when she saw West with them. Her breath caught in her throat before she shook herself out of her daze. Now was not the time to get distracted. She could hear the Death Dogs getting closer.
The X-Men reached them in only a few seconds. Logan sent Alex a look of curiosity. Breathless, she answered the unspoken question he had in his eyes. "They're Death Dogs. They hunt and retrieve humans for their master. Anybody else around, they have free reign to kill as viciously as they can. Don't worry. The Goblin King taught me how to fight these things. They may be ugly and mean, but I'm worse." She wanted to laugh, but the sound got stuck in her throat.
Everybody jumped back as seventeen large snarling beasts came charging at them. They were hideous versions of dogs and had the attitude to match. They drooled pools of saliva when they growled and their teeth were bigger than even Logan's forearm. They could have easily matched Sabertooth in size and pure meanness. All of their attention was focused on Alex. She held out her arm and suddenly a sword appeared in it. Piotr and Kitty looked at her more than a little alarmed. The sword looked suspiciously like the Souls Sword. She looked grimly around her and silently counted the number of Death Dogs. "These are my kind of odds." Before anybody else could react, she leapt toward the nearest dog and started hacking at it with her sword. Instantly, the other dogs began circling around her. They weren't allowed to kill her. Their master had given that specific order when he'd sent them to finish what the human mercenaries had botched. The X-Men didn't know that, though.
When a dog lunged for Alex, Wolverine popped his claws and stabbed it in the foreleg. "The first one's a warning, bub. Next time, you won't be so lucky." The dog shifted its attention to Logan immediately. It didn't have time to do much more than growl at him before he'd stabbed it through the heart. Nearby, the others were working on their own problems. Alex had moved on to her fourth dog, while Delia and West had ganged up on a single one. Colossus had already taken his frustration out on two of them. Rachel, Kitty, and Kurt were also working on their first ones. That left only six for Logan to attack. While he watched, though, Alex finished killing the dog that she was fighting and thrust her sword into the side of another. He grinned, admiring her ferocity for a moment. He didn't need to wonder where her pent up anger had come from. She'd already told him.
It was only a few moments later that the entire battle was over. They had only sustained minor scratches and bruises, except for Alex. She was bleeding profusely from her back and her shoulder. She was grinning triumphantly, though. "That was fun. I really needed a workout like that. Last time I looked like this, though, the goblins had to come and take me away." She winked at Delia with a small chuckle.
Delia couldn't help laughing with her. "Well, in that case, I wish the goblins would come and take us away," she said, "right now." Alex's face clouded over for a moment and she started to yell at her to stop. It was too late, though. The words had already been spoken.
This is for enigmagirl2727 because she asked for it. Next chapter: What do the words mean? Who exactly is Alex and how does Logan know her? What is her connection to Delia? Will there be any surprises connecting her to other X-Men? Tune in next time to get the answers to these astounding questions. Either way, leave a review. Good or bad, I just like hearing what you have to say.
