A/N: Really long chapter. Sorry. There just wasn't a stopping point—you'll understand when you read.
BIG BOLD NOTE: I have not seen X3. I will not see it until this story is complete. Please, if you review, do not include spoilers for it, or criticize me for being uncanonical to X3. Thank you.
- - -
Narra woke suddenly in the middle of the night. Wary instinct developed on the road prompted her to survey her room, both physically and empathically. Her eyes found no intruders in the shadows, and her senses found no one in the bathroom, where she could not see. Still, she swung out of bed, padded silently to the doorway, and flicked the switch. The sudden light seared her eyes and she squinted, looking inside, around, and through the clear shower curtain. No one.
These awakenings were inconvenient, but her caution had saved her many times on the road. Perhaps it was just someone having a nightmare that had disturbed her; she sent a reassuring wave of calm outwards to the sleeping students. She still had not mastered shutting off her emotions as she slept.
The clock read 2:48 in the morning, but she was wide awake now. She put on the clothes of the day before and slipped through the outer door into the hallway. Performing kata would calm her, but would wake the occupants of the room next to hers. Somewhere on the first floor was a small gym that would be better suited for her purposes.
Narra found it, only to discover that it was not unoccupied. A young man, perhaps her age or a little younger, was bench-pressing a substantial amount of weight. She stood near the door and watched for a while, faintly fascinated by the way his muscles rippled under his skin. He had to be the strongest person she'd ever seen.
He was also the tallest, she realized a few minutes later as he saw her, put the bar back on its slot with a faint clink, and sat up. Standing, he'd be well over six feet, probably closer to seven. "Are you Narra?" he asked, his voice faintly but unmistakably accented.
"Yes," she said, surprised. "I didn't mean to disturb you."
"You didn't," he said. "I only come down here this late because if the boys see me lifting this much weight, they try to imitate me. I'm Peter," he added.
"Nice to meet you," she said.
He gestured. "Did you want to use the bench-press?"
Narra shook her head. "No, I came down here to practice kata."
Peter nodded, but Narra sensed confusion, so she added, "Ritualized karate exercises." She moved onto the mats on the other side of the room, deliberately facing away from him, not out of rudeness, but out of the knowledge that they would both perform better unobserved. She closed her eyes and breathed in, held it for a count of ten, and began...
-
It was Colossus's turn to watch her as she had watched him. Her movements were clean and precise, more graceful than he ever had been or ever would be. She was almost completely silent; if she was even breathing hard, the sound didn't register over the quiet thumps of her bare feet on the padded mats. She moved faster and faster until she was little more than a dark blur, her feet, hands and face the only light spots.
Peter looked politely away. Gossip spread quickly throughout the school, and everyone had heard of the enigmatic newcomer and her trek from Pennsylvania. Austin, who had a window overlooking the back courtyard and had consequently seen her arrival, swore that she had shrugged off a blow that would have gutted a wild boar, standing steady while gallons of blood poured out of her. He was pretty sure he didn't believe that-- no one could lose that much blood, unless it was the equally mysterious Logan-- but watching her, it was apparent that she knew how to take care of herself. He thought he would have liked to sketch her.
He returned to his weight-lifting; Narra continued her katas. Eventually he finished his workout and started returning the weights to their proper slots on the board, trying to be quiet so they wouldn't clink.
-
Narra finished abruptly and stood still, catching her breath. Sometime before she'd left the ordered kata, putting together her own sequences of moves in an order that was not quite random. It wasn't sparring, and it wasn't ordered repetition, but something in between; it was almost like dancing.
Peter was putting the weights away. "Can you teach me some of that?" he asked.
"If you like," she said, wiping the sweat off of her forehead, then stifled a yawn. "But not tonight, I think."
"What's your mutation?"
She felt worse about being evasive with him than she had with John. "I'm an empath," she hedged. Technically it was true, it just didn't answer his question. "And you?"
"I metallize." Peter hesitated, then concentrated, and all of his visible skin quickly turned to a shiny silver.
Narra found herself wondering what sort of genetic changes would prdouce such a mutation. It can't be a point mutation, she thought. Probably an alteration on the P locus, possibly coupled with a deletion near the X locus... She shook herself mentally; she'd have time to analyze and hypothesize if and when he participated in the database. Stifling another yawn, she realized she'd probably be able to sleep now. "It was a pleasure meeting you," she said. "Good night."
"Good night," Peter said.
-
Narra woke suddenly in the middle of the night. She wasn't sure what had woke her until she cast about with her mind and sensed strong unhappiness. Someone was miserable enough that the feeling was strong enough to pass through her barriers and wake her.
She slipped into a robe and padded quietly down the hall, following the sense until her eyes made her empathy superfluous. Someone-- a girl-- was sitting in the window seat at the far end of the hall, her head leaning against the glass, and from the way her shoulders shook Narra thought she was crying. As she got closer, she saw that it was Marie, or Rogue, as she seemed to prefer.
Narra stood for a few minutes, projecting calm and soothing, but sensed that whatever was troubling the girl would not be fixed with such subtle suggestions. So she sat down lightly on the other end of the window seat and waited for Rogue to notice her.
When she did, she was startled. "I'm sorry," the girl sniffled, her Southern drawl audible even through her tears. "I didn't mean to wake anyone."
Narra couldn't exactly say she hadn't, so she shrugged and said, "I'm used to it." She handed Rogue a tissue. "You want to talk about it?"
Rogue sniffed again and wiped her eyes. "It's-- it's-- Bobby," she choked out.
Narra thought back to her first impressions of the young mutant in question for insight: kind, polite, quiet. "Did you two have a fight?"
Rogue shook her head. "He said-- he said he really likes me." She dissolved into another bout of tears. "And I really like him." The last was nearly incomprehensible.
Narra sent more soothing suggestions. She thought she knew where this was going, but she said, "And you don't think it would work out?"
Empathy doesn't always equate with tact, she thought wryly as the girl next to her only cried harder. That was not the right thing to say. So she fished another tissue out from the stash in her sleeve, offered it to Rogue, and waited for her to calm down. Narra could have made her calm down; it was well within the range of her empathic abilities. But it would have been an unnatural respite and a manipulative thing to do; besides, she hoped that talking about it might make Rogue feel better. She had always wondered about the truth of that old adage; she rarely talked about the things that were troubling her, especially not to someone she knew as casually as she did Rogue. The more burdensome the difficulty, the closer someone had to be in order for Narra to confide in them. But she didn't look down on others for sharing their problems, and had often served as a sympathetic listener.
"I can't be with him," Rogue said when she had stopped sobbing. "I-- if I touch him, I'll kill him!" While Narra was figuring out what to say, she continued more quietly, "I hear them sometimes, you know. All the people I've touched? Logan... Magneto... and David. The first boy I ever kissed? I put him in a coma for three weeks."
"So did I." The words were a surprise to Narra; she hadn't been planning on sharing that particular incident in her past.
Rogue's eyes grew large. "What happened?"
"Not the first boy I ever kissed," Narra amended reluctantly. "But the first I ever had a steady relationship with." She leaned back against the window, ordering her thoughts and memories of the episode in question. "None of my family had conspicuous mutations," she said slowly, "so those who wanted to believe that my father's interest in mutant genetics was purely academic could do so. Some people knew he had a mutant wife, or a mutant daughter, but not many."
Rogue was listening intently. "One day there was an attack on the Pittsburgh subway system," Narra continued. "It was blamed on mutant terrorists. My boyfriend's mother was killed, and he was orphaned. He developed a strong hatred for mutants and vowed to avenge his mother. I thought it would pass, but it didn't."
"I had to tell him," she said. "I hoped he would see that he was wrong about mutants. But instead he went berserk. He attacked me."
"We fought on the street corner. He must have known he couldn't overpower me, but-- he tried anyway." She paused; when she started speaking again, her voice was quieter. "I had no choice. I had to defend myself. In the process he hit his head and didn't wake up for twenty-five days."
"Whoa," Rogue breathed. "What happened?"
"Shortly after I left for India for several months to see my grandmother. When I came back he'd moved to a different part of the city. I didn't try to get in contact with him."
Rogue stared out the window-- and a wave of guilt blindsided Narra. She immediately clamped down on it so as not to channel it to Rogue or any of the sleeping students, but the thought process that had caused it remained. Rogue's mutation was preventing her from being close to Bobby-- and she, Narra, could block others' mutations.
I can't do that, she thought reluctantly. They can't depend on me for their relationship. What would happen when I left? This is between the two of them. It was a rational chain of thought, but she still felt guilty.
"I just want to be with him," Rogue said more quietly. "I've-- I've been alone for so long." This last was nearly inaudible.
Narra felt a swell of pity, sympathy, for Rogue. She knew what it was like to be alone, but in the other girl's case it was far worse. "My parents met through letters," she said suddenly.
Rogue looked at her, her red-rimmed eyes confused. "What?"
"They corresponded for three years before they ever met," she explained. "And by then they were engaged, sight unseen. Though it didn't hurt that when they did meet, my father thought my mother was the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes on, and my mother thought my father was the kindest."
"That's so sweet," Rogue breathed. "They got engaged without ever meeting?"
Narra shrugged. "They loved each other." She said it as if were explanation enough-- and it was. A quick smile flitted across her face. "My mother says she never had such a surprise as when she opened the envelope and a ring fell out."
"But it's not the same," Rogue said, her happiness vanishing. "They met eventually."
"You and Bobby meet everyday," Narra pointed out.
"Yes, but we can't touch each other!"
Rogue was too anguished for Narra to feel amused, but her concern over physical contact did bring back wry memories of the hormone-laden angst of being a teenager. "Talk to him," she suggested. "See what happens. You might be surprised. He knows what your mutation is, after all, and he's still willing to have a relationship." She sensed surprise, and then at last a reduction in the unhappiness rolling off of the other girl.
"Maybe I will," Rogue said. "Anyway, I'd better get to bed. I'm sorry to have kept you up."
"I don't mind," Narra said, and she didn't. In fact, the night was so peaceful, and the stars so calm, that she stayed on the window seat for long moments after Rogue had left, staring outside.
-
Three weeks later, Narra walked downstairs in mid-morning and found herself in the midst of organized chaos. Nearly all the students were gathered, some wearing backpacks or carrying bags, all radiating varying degrees of excitement; their anticipation was so strong, especially among the younger ones, that Narra had to strengthen her empathic shields. The teachers, looking slightly harried, were herding all of the kids into vehicles. Off to the side she spotted Bobby and Rogue, holding hands while a put-out looking John hovered behind them. She smiled.
Scott spotted her. "Are you sure you don't want to come?"
Narra considered. The idea of visiting the museum which was the trip's destination didn't really appeal to her; the only reason she would go would be to help the teachers contol their young charges. Jean had assured her they didn't need help, though, however much present appearances belied that. "I think I'd rather stay and work in the lab," she said. "Have fun, though."
Apparently he couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not; she sensed his confusion and made sure her amusement didn't show on her face. Reaching out with her mind, she sent subtle suggestions of calm to the excited kids, watching in case they needed help getting everyone loaded. When they finally departed half an hour later, she went on to her lab.
-
It was late afternoon when she noticed it. At first she couldn't even name the feeling, but slowly it grew stronger, passing in waves, and she knew it was affecting a very wide area. It was anger and fear, and she could not sense a boundary to its extent.
Something was very wrong. She left the lab and made a complete round through the mansion, making sure nothing was out of order and the few kids who had stayed behind for various reasons were all where they should be. Only then did she turn on the TV to see if she could find what had upset so many people. And she quickly found it. She was still watching intently when the field trip returned; before she even saw their faces, one sense of the mental state of the adults told her that they already knew. Trouble was coming.
-
Narra woke suddenly in the middle of the night. It only took her a moment to identify what was wrong: soft footsteps coming towards her half-opened door, mingled with a heightened sense of anticipation.
She tied her robe tightly around her and was just about to open the door when she saw, reflected in the window, a soft light, and a man with a large gun. Narra flattened herself against the wall by the door and breathed silently, watching him come closer... closer... closer...
He pushed open the door and his gun swung towards the bed, tracking away too late as he realized it was empty. As soon as he appeared in the doorway she burst into motion, grabbing him with one hand over his mouth and delivering a hard blow to his throat with the edge of the other hand. He crumpled to the ground, paralyzed and unconscious; she flattened herself by the door in case any more intruders were forthcoming.
The invader was obviously military, whether the government's or someone else's; he wore camo gear and sophisticated equipment, complete with a head lamp and and ear-mounted communications device. The gun fired tranquilizer darts, not bullets.
This is no burglar. Narra took the gun and peered through the door at the window; the hall was filled with silent, menacing soldiers, who had taken up posts at the doorways and were firing inside. She gripped the gun, but there were too many...
A scream split the air and shattered the window. Narra knew instantly that it had to be Siryn, and the part of her mind that wasn't shying away in agony activated her power and pushed the scream back to a level that was merely painful. That wasn't important. What was important was that the soldiers were distracted. She stepped into the hallway and leveled the gun. It was unfamiliar, but by the time the screams ended, three of the soldiers were down. Another turned, saw her, aimed his weapon; she ducked across the hallway into the empty room as a tranquilizer dart flew centimeters from her head.
Kids were screaming. She clamped down on the raw surge of fear that swept through the mansion. The intruders had picked an ideal time, she realized; with the four fighting adults who were now absent, present, they would have had a hard fight on their hands.
That was also irrelevant for now. A feral roar echoed up from the first floor, and she knew it had to be Logan. He would fight until killed or knocked out, she knew; maybe he could save some of the students. Time to go.
She ducked out of the room and fired down the hall, catching the soldier who had shot at her in the back. Suddenly the attackers all turned and ran for the other end of the hallway, pursuing someone she couldn't see.
A new sound: helicopters. Through the window at the other end of the hall she could see lights; there were intruders in the garden. From someone in the house came again the sound of shattering glass, and more screams and roars. She thought she heard a wall crumbling. Time to even the odds.
-
Narra slipped through the house like a cat, moving as silently as the intruders and surprising them around dark intersections and corners. When she ran out of ammunition, she picked up another carbine from someone who was too slow to dodge her missiles; the gun also proved to be an effective club when used in conjunction with karate.
The intruders were throughout the house, and they weren't averse to using explosives. Her safety lay in the shadows; one dart would be enough to put her out of the fight permanently.
Her body count was up to five when she heard shouting up ahead: the shouting of students. She ran through the halls. They had to figure out what was going on, and if there was a way out. When she got there, though, the last of the students were disappearing into a tunnel in the wall, one she'd not known about. There is a way out! But she still heard childrens' voices in the mansion. She couldn't leave yet.
Making her silent way towards the area that still seemed populated took her through a downstairs foyer peopled with dead bodies; they all had slash marks or stab marks. Logan had been here, and the enemy had paid the price.
Suddenly there were voices just around the corner from her; she flattened herself into the shadows, knowing it wouldn't hide her from the glaring lights. She readied her gun with one hand and prepared to kick--
Two children came hurtling screaming around the corner. Heavy footsteps thudded after them, and two trios of darts embedded themselves in the wall above their heads. Narra exploded forward and slammed the gun barrel into the face of the first pursuer as he appeared; the second gun was already tracking towards her...
She fell to the floor and swept out with her feet, knocking the soldier's legs out from under him. Before he could recover she was on him, driving a blow deep into his sternum. He fell back, gasping for air, and then was still. She hit him over the head with the gun to be sure.
The two children were watching her with huge eyes. She sent a hurried suggestion of calm as she scrambled to her feet. "Do you know where the tunnels are?" she whispered, every sense on alert against more intruders.
The girl nodded dumbly.
"Where do they go?"
"Past the gardens," the boy whispered.
"Good. I'm going to try to get you to the entrance."
"The entrance is right over there," the girl said, pointing.
Narra blinked. Of course there would be more than one way into the tunnels in a house this size. She took off her robe and handed it to the boy. "Take this to keep you warm. I want you to get in the tunnels and run. Don't stop running when you get out-- go as far back in the woods as you can, towards the mountains, and hide."
"Can we find Colossus?"
"Colossus?"
"He led a bunch of students out," the boy, who was older, explained. "But we got espa... epsa... separated."
Narra nodded. "Then find him if you can. Here, take this." On impulse she handed the boy the tranquilizer gun. "Shoot the soldiers if they see you, but stay out of sight!" She shepherded them towards the panel the girl had pointed to. "Now hurry."
"Aren't you coming with us?" the girl wanted to know.
Narra slid the false panel shut behind them. "No."
-
It got harder to slip through the house unnoticed; it was swarming with soldiers. Down a hall she glimpsed Rogue, Bobby and John disappearing into a tunnel; they had Logan with them. They were too far away to call out to, and as they vanished there was an explosion nearby. She had to sprint away to avoid being caught by the soldiers who followed.
At one point she realized that she didn't hear any more screaming children. That had to mean the mansion was fully occupied, and her footstpes became harder to muffle. She had to be the last one there. She finally admitted that it was too dangerous; she had to get out. If she was captured, and they found out what she could do...
All told she'd gotten ten kids out, sending them through the tunnels and picking off their pursuit. She'd probably accounted for fifteen or twenty soldiers. But there was one more thing she had to do.
Doubling back, at one point crawling through the ceiling space, she made her way to the lab. Her laptop, with all the precious data, was upstairs under her mattress. If it was found, hopefully the multilayered redundant password protection and encryption would slow down any hackers. She didn't think it would hold out indefinitely, but there was no way she could go back for it.
Thankfully, her lab seemed untouched. She quickly punched in the combination on the keypad that kept it locked when she wasn't in, slipped inside, and locked it again. The right refrigerator held only chemicals, but she climbed up on the counter, unplugged the left one, and yanked the door open. The petri plates she opened, exposing them to the air and spitting in them; the test tubes she uncapped, regretting the time it took to open each one, and tipped over. By the time anyone thought to see what kind of experimentation she was performing, the mutant DNA would be contaminated or drained away.
Narra leapt back on the counter and vaulted onto the top of the refrigerator, knocking aside one of the ceiling tiles. Then, to her horror, she saw a soldier staring in at her through the window.
She sprung into the ceiling space as the soldier shattered the glass and sent a dart quivering into the foam tile mere inches from her knee; at the same time the door slid open with an electronic click. Lock-scrambler, she realized.
"There's a mutant in the--" Narra sent a strong burst of surprise as the soldier who was calling out through his microphone, turning his sentence into a yell and giving her the time she needed to shoot him. A second soldier burst into the room through the door; she knocked loose a ceiling tile into his field of fire, fouling his vision long enough for her to drop him as well. After waiting a bare second to see if anyone else was coming, she scrambled to her feet and fled through the ceiling space. As soon as someone saw the missing ceiling tiles, they'd know where she was. She had to be gone by then,
She climbed to the second floor by means of a utility ladder on the inside of one of the walls and dropped back into the hallway around the corner from the first tunnel she'd seen. Suddenly there was a child crying, and she hurtled around the corner in time to see two things: soldiers shooting a child discovered in his hiding place, and another soldier, stepping back to give his comrades room, running directly into the hidden panel. It swung open with a click.
"What the--"
Charging six armed men was idiotic; she'd taken on at most two at a time before. She managed to shoot two before the new attack registered. As the others swung their arms to bear, Narra closed with the lead man, ducking under his gun and bodily hauling him to be between her and the other attackers. Three darts thudded into his back and he slumped against her. Grabbing his gun and firing over his shoulder, she hit the man closest to her. The two down the hall fired at her-- she ducked their bolts, and then they were retreating, taking the unconscious child with them.
She ran after them. One fell to her tranquilizer gun, but as the second turned to face her, she realized she was out of darts. Her opponent realized it, too, and smiled wickedly as he leveled his gun.
She threw the empty carbine at him; it hit his gun arm and threw his aim off enough that the dart whistled past her shoulder, so close she could feel the air. Before he could shoot again she tackled him, dragging him to the ground with momentum and surprise.
It was a mistake, and only quick reflexes saved her life as he hauled a long knife out of his sleeve. Before he could strike she elbowed him hard in the solar plexus and then kneed him in the groin; he collapsed with a whoosh! of outrushing air, and she hit him hard in the head to make sure he was down.
Hands shaking, she retrieved the unconscious child who had fallen to the ground in the fight and fled back towards the tunnel. She paused only long enough to retrieve the jackets and carbines of the four fallen men before she ducked inside, yanked the panel down, and ran.
- - -
A/N: Well, we're up to X2 now. The next chapter will pick up immediately on the heels of this one and go to the end of the movie. Then on to the really interesting stuff.
If no one's interested in this, please leave me a review and let me know. I'll still write it, to get it done before X3 changes my ideas of the story, but I won't post it if no one wants to read it.