TWISTED
BEAUTY
PART 1: "ROSEBUD"
He stood there staring at it from the doorway, a mug of coffee slowly cooling in his hand.
Henry McCoy, known more dynamically as "Beast" of the famous X-Men, was dumbstruck by the sight in his lab. Already late for his classes, he'd rushed over to look for the satchel he liked to use for his paperwork. When he opened the door and saw the stunning object on the opposite side of the room, there was little more he could do than stop and stare, a pair of elegant eyeglasses sliding imperceptibly down his nose.
The rose that had been so stubbornly introverted for weeks was now in full bloom. Not only that, but it had grown as well, a thicker and longer stem than what he had left just the night before. Thorns that were barley more than bumps now covered the stem, as sharp-looking as sharks teeth.
It worked. He realized. Invigorating the flower with G-Cells had stirred astonishing overnight growth. He would have to thank Reed Richards for providing the sample of the titan. Right after he documented everything thoroughly and moved the burgeoning plant into something large enough to accommodate its growth.
I injected this thing with DNA from a radioactive colossus, I may need to isolate it.
Beast used a finger to lightly push his glasses back up his snout. "Right…" He knew he had to move swiftly. Already late for his first class, the rose had to be secured before others began snooping around to find him. There was a mobile curtain set that he kept in the lab, and retrieving it from the corner of the room, he set it around the flowerpot to shield it from view.
"I'll come back for you during break." Speaking gently to the vibrant petals, he ran a furry-finger around the outer rim, inspecting the perfection with which his project had bloomed. Every petal was absolutely flawless, healthy and beautiful.
"I'll just give you a little drink before I go and take my notes later." Filling a beaker with water from the sink, Beast poured the contents in a ring around the base of the stem.
"There, that should hold you over for now." He stood there for a moment, beaker in hand, staring down at it. Giving a hum of curious thought, he set the glass aside and adjusted the clay pot to make sure the face of the flower was in position to get the most sunlight though the window. "You just worry about growing for now, I'll take care of you."
Pulling the curtain stand into place, Henry grabbed his bag from where it sat beside a work table. He was heading for the door when something stopped him. Sniffing, he picked-up on a very faint metallic scent in the room. Finding nothing worth immediate attention however, he left.
The door to the lab closed with a moderate slam as Beast went off to make sure his morning class hadn't descended into anarchy. The curtain he'd left behind was white and pristine, silhouetting the flower against the light streaming in from outside.
A few seconds after the door closed, every so slightly, the shadow shifted.
The long road to the mansion was a dirt path lined on either side by a few yards of grass and bushes. Roaring down the center of the road, a lone motorcycle left a cloud of dust behind it as it sped towards the Institute. The rider wore no helmet, preferring to let the wind run through his thick black hair. He had no real fear of injury, even if some catastrophic accident occurred on the home stretch.
Dressed in a black leather jacket over a white shirt, worn jeans, and riding with a sun-faded olive-green duffle bag on his back, Wolverine, known less frequently as Logan, spat a gob of brown to the side.
A group of students sitting on the front yard of the mansion rose to their feet as Logan pulled up to the entrance. They whispered amongst themselves, staring with caution but careful not to make it too obvious.
Logan came to a stop, and knocking the kickstand into position, worked a kink out of his neck as he dismounted. He spared the not-so-inconspicuous teenagers a glance from behind his sunglasses and spat another wad of accumulated tobacco spittle.
The door to the mansion swung open, and students passing in the hall came to a stop when they saw who had arrived. A renewed murmur of conversation spread through them, though as Logan walked towards the stairs to the second floor nobody spoke to him, they meekly got out of his way.
"Welcome back, Wolverine!" One kid called out. He stopped on the flight to see Bobby Drake looking up at him from the passing throng.
"'Sup kid." Logan answered, taking his glasses off. "You been staying out of trouble?"
Bobby shrugged. "Mostly."
"Right answer."
The last of the students filtered out of a relatively small room, Professor Xavier sitting in the center beside his elegant oaken desk, a mathematics book splayed out across his lap. Logan entered the room, having to turn his body aside to let a teenage boy with bone-like spikes growing out from his elbows pass by.
"Glad to see the mansion is still standing, Chuck." Shouldering off his duffel bag, Wolverine extended the other hand towards the Professor.
"Not for… lack of trying." Xavier answered with a wry tone. After a brief but earnest handshake, he set the book aside and gestured for Logan to take one of the seats that formed a semi-circle opposite the desk.
"So I heard." Splaying his knees, Logan leaned back in the chair. "Giant monsters, huh? I would'a called but I lost my phone."
"And how was your sabbatical?" Motoring around the side of the desk, Charles propped his elbows on the surface and clasping his hands, touched his chin to the paired thumbs. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
The living weapon didn't answer at first, mulling the disappointment with a twisting of the corner of his mouth. "Nah, she's still out there somewhere. I don't know if those project creeps got their hands on her again or what."
Xavier glanced down at his papers. "Laura is out there somewhere. I think we both know she's more than capable of looking out for herself."
"Yeah…" Wolverine, absentmindedly traced his fingers over the right side of his jaw, where he recalled feeling the twin blades tear though the flesh. Of course, no scar remained on the skin, but on the Adamantium-protected mandible he did sense a memento.
"Yeah she's a wild one."
"In any case I'm glad you've come back, Logan. Recent… events have left things in rather a strained state. SHIELD is all but out of the fight, and between the Avengers and Fantastic Four, they're doing all they can to keep emergent threats in check. We might be too if Jean were more recovered from her… incident."
"What about Scott and the others? They gearing up for anything?"
This raised a probing eyebrow on the Professor. "You're thinking of going out on a mission? So soon?"
"You know how I am, Xavier." Logan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Can't stay settled in one place for too long."
Both men understood the sentiment. Unlike his original X-Men, Logan had never been a student or protégé. Like Storm and Beast, Wolverine was more a colleague, someone he didn't have to play the part of mentor and proxy parent to.
Breaking the silence, Logan propped his feet up on one of the adjacent chairs. "So, besides interdimensional monsters, what's new around here? Where's Storm?"
"Asgard, of all places." Charles answered nonchalantly.
"Asgard?"
"Yes, apparently Ororo preferred to have some distance to cope with the loss of T'Challa and Wakanda. Can't say I blame her."
Wolverine nodded with a pursed lip, knowing full well the desire to get away from the world for a while. "She's been through a lot."
"Indeed, Thor was kind enough to send a messenger, quite literally a raven with a letter tied to its leg. She's recouping under his guardianship in the royal halls, her every necessity provided for." Charles raised an eyebrow. "I'll grant you it's probably nicer than her old room here."
The curtain slid back abruptly, and Henry stepped back from what he saw.
"Well… that's different."
In the span of half a day, the rose had grown. It was not just taller, thicker, the lips were now pointed and jagged, the thorns were bifurcated, even triadic in places. No, it hadn't just grown, it had mutated.
With his jaw slack, Beast crouched and ran a finger upward, going with the grain of the spikes. Marveling at the changes, he spared a second to glance over his shoulder before grabbing the flowerpot and bringing it over to an examination table.
Placing the rose under the inspection of a table-top magnifying glass, Henry examined the petals in detail.
"How remarkable…" Even at a much smaller level, the signs of mutation were clear. Both the flower and the stalk had transformed, developing a hardened surface more resembling tree-bark.
"It's expressing more of Godzilla's features than I anticipated…"
Looking back to the window, speculations and theories began to extrapolate.
"It's not just the photosynthesis at work, the monster's DNA is responding to the solar radiation! A true hybrid of plant and animal."
He refocused the magnifying glass over the flower, and with his right hand, cradled the underside of the bloom to move it with slight adjustments. There wasn't perfect symmetry, but there was an order to the growth of the petals. The spikes rose and fell in serrated peaks, an almost imperceptible familiarity to its 'father'. Something was also happening to the style and stigma, it had closed, shut-up underneath a hard growth.
"What are you turning into?" Beast asked aloud, moving the optic away so he could bend forward to stare with his own eyes at his creation.
"Or should I ask: what have I turned you into? Is my little rosebud still there, or are you becoming my twisted little beauty?"
Sitting back, Beast let out a contemplative sigh as he scratched lazily at his chest.
"One thing is for certain… you will need new accommodations."
"They going at it again huh?"
Bobby Drake sat down beside Kitty Pryde at the edge of the pond, reaching a hand over his shoulder to create a backrest out of ice for him to lean on. A game of cat and mouse was playing out over the pond; Nightcrawler was teleporting to and fro in the air holding a concave metallic bowl against his chest. On the shore, Cyclops stood with a hand to his visor tracking his friend to each point, firing a quick shot of crimson at the improvised target.
"Yeah" Kitty groaned, raising an eyebrow. "You know Scott; can't take a break from training even after fighting a titanic alien monster. I think he's still bruised-up."
"I heard you guys cut it pretty close a few times, went all 'Fantastic Journey'."
"I would have rather fought Blob and Toad in a handicap-match." Picking a pebble from among the blades of grass, she flicked it towards the water. "Though it was pretty fun. But what about here? You guys barely escaped with your lives!"
Bobby thought it over for a moment, remembering the mountainous scope of SpaceGodzilla as it commandeered the area with its glowing crystal spires. Their familiar patch of Connecticut countryside terraformed into a sinister alien palace.
More often than not he put on a bravado in the company of danger. Not just in the effort to save face among his fellow students and those he wanted to impress, but also to assure them that he was not a liability in stressful situations. His mentors risked so much just to give him a place to hone his powers without feeling like the world was staring at him constantly, and to give them any reason think of him as unworthy of the opportunity pressed down on him like a ton of ice.
"The SpaceGodzilla was pretty freaky." He said, holding his tongue to one side of his mouth in thought. "But you know, we're X-Men, we kicked its ass."
Kitty lunged out with a shove to his shoulder that toppled him over. "You are so full of crap, Bobby!" She scolded him with laughter.
"Hey!" Chuckling in turn, Drake reflexively shot a beam of frost, intending to pin her arms to her sides. But she phased through it just as fast, moving to wrestle the prone Iceman and being intercepted by his full guard. Giggling as they playfully struggled, they failed to notice the cloud of sulfuric smoke appearing beside them.
"Uh-uh! Save ze canoodling for later you two!" Both teens craned their necks to look upwards and saw the smirking face of the pleasantly demonic Nightcrawler.
"Ca-what?!" Bobby and Kitty quickly and somewhat clumsily untangled themselves, she side-glanced Kurt with fictitious insult.
"Come on Bobby!" From his position on the bank, Cyclops swung his arms until his hands clapped in front of him. "Let's shoot some ice-skeet!"
"So is that what Rogers' said?"
Standing in front of the window that overlooked the western property, Logan's face twitched with pensive thoughts.
"About as much." Xavier answered, reclined in his seat. "You know how direct he likes to put things."
"That's him alright. Opposite of Fury."
"Which is probably why Steve gave me the call sub rosa, Director Fury most likely didn't want to tell us that Erik is free because he knows we'd go on the hunt for him." Snatching a non-descript bottle of brown liquor from a nearby glass-paneled cabinet, he motored his chair over to the desk where a squat and sturdy glass was waiting.
"He's right to think that of course." Charles eyeballed the pour with a purse of the lips. "But, he is mistaken in that he imposes his own logic over mine."
"Going hard after Magneto would be a mistake." Logan took up the expensive glass and took an immodest swig before finishing his thought. "It'd be like the UN attack all over again, a goddamn shit-show. Bodies and rubble everywhere, whole world wantin' to put collars on us."
Taking back the decanter, Charles considered putting the stopper back in place, but reconsidered. "Erik no doubt believes that we are aware of his escape, he's keeping the Brotherhood quiet for now until he has a plan in place. Having been incarcerated for nearly a decade, there would be a lot of new factors for him to consider."
"And he's a real patient guy. Probably gonna hit us in a way we won't even see coming."
"That's my fear." Xavier ended the last word with a drawn-out sigh, taking a swig of his own directly from the bottle before he stuck the cap in.
Logan noticed the series of scratches on the left side of the Professor's desk, a reminder of the first day he had let Charles go into his mind to try and recover lost memories. It had the adverse effect of unearthing glimpses of the operation that bonded the liquid Adamantium to his skeleton. He lashed out in reflexive rage, claws flashing as his arms swung out.
"Jean really didn't miss any detail..." He said, marveling the degree of meticulousness with which the Phoenix had restored the mansion. "Didn't happen to fix the uneven table in my room, did she?"
"Maybe." The professor smiled, turning his chair and motoring towards the door. "The south-wing elevator is certainly a bit smoother. Now there's some footage downstairs I'd like you to take a look at."
"Something to do with giant monsters?" Wolverine asked hopefully, following behind.
"Not… unrelated." Stopping just on the other side of the threshold, Xavier turned to give his friend a rather serious look. "It has to do with Wanda."
With the onset of evening and the end of daily classes, Beast opened the door to his lab with an unusual haste, still dressed in his professorial slacks and vest over a button-up. Over his left shoulder was slung his leather carry bag filled with files and student papers to review. In his right hand he carried what looked like a thermos, if it were designed by NASA and intended to survive the vacuum of space.
"How's my little girl doing?" Of course, the plant did not answer, nor did its abnormal spikes give any gesture of wellbeing.
"Let's move you someplace more comfortable."
The greenhouse served as one of the student facilities for both botanical studies and recreational activities. Set apart from the rest of the mansion, the glasshouse was positioned 30 yards from the pond and in a spot aligned with a break in the surrounding trees for the rising sun to reach it early. It had been Storm's pet project in the summer of 2002, a place for her to relax and tend her growing things.
With the sky a mix of orange and purple shades, the door to the greenhouse swung open with a light creak and Beast entered shoulder-first because his hands were full. He paused once he was facing inwards to see if he was alone, and finding he was, proceeded.
"I've got a nice little corner all picked out for you." He cooed, now cradling the experimental flower in the crook of his arm. "And plenty of space for you to grow into."
Setting down his other accessories, he carried the pet plant to the other end of the garden and set it down beside a much larger container. Normally used for bush plants beside doorways, the off-white box was already filled with dark soil, with a small hollow scooped in the center.
Carefully, he tilted the rose-pot to one side, giving the ceramic just enough of a shake to loosen its contents.
"Oh my…" When it finally parsed from the bowl, Beast saw that much of the soil had been replaced by twisting, thorn bearing roots. "Not an hour too soon I see."
He gently placed the coiled bundle in the hole and smoothed the empty spaces over with excess loam.
"There…" Patting the dirt like he was comforting a babe, he smiled tightly and gave the outer petals a brief caress. "A much better place for you than some sterile lab."
Retrieving the thermos-looking container, he held it at arm's length as he unscrewed the cap. "I took the liberty of acquiring a special drink for you I scooped from the reactor." He upended the container and poured out a few ounces of clear water, soaking it into the dirt at the base of the rose's stem.
"Not enough to poison your surroundings, but just enough that it should be a bit more nourishing for you than regular old tap water."
He replaced the cap while not taking his eyes away from the rose, wanting to touch it but knowing better. Instead he used a nearby rake to push the new pot closer to the glass wall. "I'll be back to check on you tomorrow. You just spread your legs and get comfy."
Satisfied that his pet was in an optimal position, he drug over a step-stool, and digging into his bag, took out the project file to record the alterations to the subject's condition. Next was a small digital camera he took a few shots with. "You might consider this a baby picture."
Packing his things away, his vision caught on the part of the data sheet where the name of the subject would go. Something tugged at him, a notion that the rose should have a proper name instead of just the nomenclature designation; BIO II: NUCLEI TEST
It began very faint, like the yowling of a cat two streets over. The door to Jean Grey's room opened in the middle of the night, the half-asleep woman stepping out into the hall with her head tilted upwards. She was listening, but the sorrowful wail didn't seem to come from any auditory source, rather she was hearing it in her mind, a kind of psychic cry.
Ooaaaawwwwwwoooo….
Again, it echoed out, barely above a whisper. This time she was able to discern a general direction. Jean glanced over her shoulder, seeing nothing in the shadowed hall other than the same adornments that were just as motionless in the daylight.
"Should I wake the Professor?" She debated with a pensive bite of her lip. As she raised a foot to step in the direction of Xavier's room, the sound came again, impulsively, she retracted her foot. There was an inexplicable pull acting on her, something that drew her in the opposite direction.
Jean stepped barefoot out onto the back lawn, a bright waning moon casting her in an ethereal glow, her long pastel blue bedshirt billowing in the gentle breeze.
Ooaaaawwwwwwoooo….
There was something empathetic in the call, sad, in pain.
"It's the greenhouse…" She realized, turning her head towards the structure, the upper-left corner of it highlighted in the moonlight.
Entering the glass room, her eyes roved about the dark shapes, taking in the warm smell of rich earth and plant life. Dried leaves crunched under foot as she passed, striding carefully towards the opposite end of the space. Coming to the last row of racks upon which sat dozens of different pots, she spied the large container sitting against the wall.
The red petals of the rose seemed eerily luminous in the dark, accented by the tips of the thorns climbing the stem. Though changed from the last time she had seen it, there was no mistaking the voluptuous bud.
"Is that Henry's flower?" She whispered to herself, face pinching in confusion. "What's happened to it?"
With what little moonlight streamed in through the windows, Jean knelt and laid her hands on the corners of the planter. Leaning forward, she stared intently.
Ooaaaawwwwwwoooo…
"Ahh!" Jean stumbled back, the origin of the wail this time coming from right in front of her. Startled eyes gawked from where she lay on her backside, recoiled from the deceptive rose. What frightened her most however, was the piercing intensity of the cry inside her own head, like blasting the volume of guitar feedback on headphones.
Rising to her feet, she walked out of the greenhouse with a much quicker pace than when she had entered.
Near the corner of the box where Jean had put her right hand, the soil birthed a green tendril. Upon emerging, it reached out and laid itself softly on the surface of the corner.
Morning came without any significant event. The students arose, attended their personal hygiene to varying degrees, and prepared themselves for the day's routine.
"Morning, Scott." Beast said as he ambled down the hall. In passing, Scott Summers gave his friend a pat on the back having just come back indoors from his early jog. Wearing sweatpants and black tank top, he dabbed his forehead with a towel and began thinking about the comfortable shower he was heading towards.
"Scott, come to my office." The voice of Professor Xavier in his head gave no hint of a casual request.
"Of course." Rubbing the towel over his arms with a sigh, Scott took a hard turn right.
Wolverine and Xavier were already waiting for him when Cyclops entered the room. They were watching a television that hung at the border of the left wall and ceiling. Charles pointed to the screen. "This happened 30 minutes ago."
It was a news feed playing on screen, and as Scott positioned for a better look, he saw the aftermath of a tragedy being broadcast.
"—counts nearly 15 people dead in the explosion. First responders are still searching for survivors. But as far as witness reports, we understand the attack began with the box truck in the reception area, and was followed by three of four gunmen hunting down—"
"A terrorist attack in Michigan." Muting the television, Xavier began his own brief. "A community center run by a group of mutants and mutant allies was attacked. It began with a box truck driven right into a crowd of people before detonating. Then, as you heard, gunmen appeared to continue the attack by killing anyone still standing. The whole thing transpired in just under a minute before the perpetrators fled."
"Dear god…" Was all Scott could say, covering his mouth.
"Not quite." Charles corrected. "Though no-one has officially claimed responsibility for the attack, I have reason to believe the culprits are a group of religious extremists who call themselves 'The Purifiers'."
"Like the Church of Humanity, only Islamic" Wolverine tossed Scott a flyer. "Came across this on my way back down, thought I'd have Chuck take a look at it. Couldn't read it, but the imagery was pretty clear."
Holding it for inspection, Summers noted that amidst the Arabic script, was pictures of famous mutants, including the Professor and Beast.
"They're Islamic fundamentalists." Xavier continued. "And from what I've been able to discern from the leaflet, see themselves as being in a holy Jihad against mutants, or as they like to call us: 'children of Shaitan', their term for-"
"The devil. Yeah, I get it." Scott threw the flyer away from him in disgust. "So what are we gonna do about it?" The question was asked with the grit of demand.
"First…" Motoring to his desk, Xavier took a fountain pen from its holder, and used it to write blankly on the desk pad. "We need to find out who these people really are." A wall panel to his left moved back and out of view to expose a hidden pathway. "I'm going to try and use Cerebro to locate some members."
"Then what?" Scott's impatience showed in his voice, somewhat irritated by how calm the Professor was being.
Logan stepped into his field if view, his eyes seething with the same anger.
"Then we go in and start putting these assholes down."
Humming merrily to himself as he prepared his desk for the first class of the morning, Beast anticipated a thought-provoking discussion of 19th century philosophers. He was then pleasantly surprised by the arrival of Jean Grey poking her head into the room.
"Good morning, Jean." He smiled.
She wasn't so chipper. "Hey, Henry.. Can uh, can we talk?"
"Absolutely, come on in." Concerned by her demeanor, Beast abandoned his material and gestured to one of the half-desks as he walked around to meet her.
She sat down, giving her friend a curious but wary expression as he crouched next to her. "What is it?" He asked.
"What did you do to your rose?"
The bluntness of the question caught him off guard, he stammered a response. "Well-I, w-what do you mean?"
Jean fixed in on his eyes. "I saw your rose in the greenhouse last night, it was mutated into something… else."
Straightening his back, McCoy nodded in confession. "You're right, I have taken new steps in my experiment. Due to unexpected results, I decided to move it out to the greenhouse." His face pinched. "But I don't see why a few extra thorns should give you cause for such a concern."
"It's not that Beast, it's…" Jean searched for the words. "It- I heard it calling out last night."
At this he was truly dumbfounded, blinking vacantly as the information processed. "You… you heard my rose… calling out? Like, it made a noise?"
"I know it sounds bizarre but, given everything else we deal with. At first, I didn't know what it was, but I heard it in my head, like a psychic echo. I followed it from my room out to the greenhouse, it was coming from your flower. I don't know why, but it just felt so sad."
"Could it be an effect of Godzilla's DNA?" Beast wondered. "He does possess a degree of psychic power… But why would it be sad?"
"It was just, beyond unnerving, Henry. I've got to know what you did to it." Jean took his paw in her hands, gripping the muscled digits tenderly. "I can't shake this feeling in my head."
He saw the anxiety in her eyes and couldn't bring himself to deceive her. "Ok…"
The sound of students on the other side of the door interrupted the tension of the moment. "Come find me during lunch, dear." Beast told her as he stood. "And I'll tell you everything."
Xavier concentrated in the heart of Cerebro, Scott and Logan standing a few paces behind him. Though the ambient light in the chamber was white, in the mindscape of the Professor, his world was bathed in clouds of dark purple, like an expanded view of some paranormal galaxy.
He was surrounded by silhouettes of people standing in a shadowy forest, animated in whatever activity they were doing on the material plane. Voices in all tones reverberated over one another like multiple ripples bouncing off each other, creating a cacophony of unintelligible, muffled speakers.
"Where are you…" Charles wondered, searching for one voice in all the many to utter something that would give an indication of any foreknowledge of the attack. Sorting through the voices was a meticulous task, like listening to a dozen different audiobooks at once waiting for one particular word to be spoken.
Plenty of people were talking about what had happened. One woman who had lost a son this morning couldn't get two words out without breaking into sobs. A policeman driving back to his station couldn't hold back a string of obscenities to describe how angry he was to his partner. A news anchor standing offstage was going over his notes on the names of the dead and asking with practiced familiarity if there were any updates on suspects.
Emotions often clouded thoughts, making Xavier's effort more difficult. That's why he was seeking out those minds who were calm, perhaps tinged with cathartic satisfaction.
"Wait… there…" Dearborn, Michigan, home to one of the country's most prominent Muslim communities. He didn't like the implication, especially given his own history with combating stereotypes. But it was what it was, unpleasant or not.
"…served well." He heard a man say.
Charles' brow pinched, focusing in on the source. Shifting shadows parsed on either side until one remained. Standing by himself, a bearded man in loose clothing spoke, hands behind his back and gazing down through a window as a television played behind him.
"…oday will be a first demonstration, that our Jihad against the mutant demons will not be stopped."
"Bingo." Taking off the Cerebro helm, Xavier motioned for Logan and Scott to step close.
"Found him?" Wolverine asked.
"He doesn't know who the leader of the Purifiers is, or what their next move is going to be, but he's a good place to start." Placing a hand on the sides of their heads, Professor X imprinted them with the name and address of the man in the vision. It was a matter of a few seconds before the process was complete.
"This isn't something I want to bring the whole team in on." Scott frowned.
"No, you two may want to reach out to some friends for help with this one." Charles had a few suggestions in mind, but this was their mission to run.
"Betsy" Was the first name out of Logan's mouth.
"Yup." Scott agreed with a short nod.
"You two get to it, we need to put a stop to these people before any more innocent lives are lost."
Cyclops and Wolverine were experienced leaders, needing no further direction to initiate mission preparations. Watching them leave, Charles was glad to see men who had been at each other's throats more than once being able to work together so smoothly. It seemed to him that they just got tired of being adversaries, even granting the occasional barb.
A hair raised on the back of his neck, like a cold breeze had run across the nape. He instinctively glanced to his left, searching for the cause of such an odd phenomenon, but saw nothing but the inner wall of the chamber.
"Right here, Kitty!" Dani Moonstar dashed laterally to intercept the Frisbee, catching it by the tips of her fingers as she stumbled unexpectedly.
"You almost ate it on that one!" Pryde said, cupping both hands around her mouth.
"It wasn't me!" looking to the lawn with annoyance, Dani wiggled her right foot. "I tripped on this stupid root!"
Locating the offending rhizome, she noticed the peculiar texture and coloration. "The heck is this?" She knelt down and ran a finger over it, then slipped under and gave it a little pull.
"Eep!" Dani drew back and clutched her hand to her chest when the root reacted.
"What happened?" Running over at the sound of her friend's alarm, Kitty put an arm around her younger teammate and followed her gaze towards the ground. "I've never seen that before…"
Katherine made to reach for it, but Dani grasped her arm to keep her back. "No, don't touch it!" She warned. "It's not normal."
"Neither are we." Pryde reminded her with a taste of rebuke in her tone. She knelt and laid a finger on the root gently, and as before it twitched at the stimuli of touch. Kitty lifted her finger away briefly before laying it back down, treating it like a cautious animal. This second time, the tuber remained calm to the contact, settling down into its groove.
"Where is it from?" Dani asked, leaning over Kitty's shoulder.
Lowering her head, Kitty set her gaze up the incline of the terrain and saw the backside of the greenhouse not very far away. The notion was clear, however dubious it might be. The fact remained however that this was a place where the inexplicable and fantastic was par the course.
"But where is it going?"
Switching directions, she extended the path of travel and followed it to the pond.
"Look for anything out of the ordinary." Kitty said as she and Dani entered the greenhouse. "Well you know, relatively out of the ordinary."
"One of those, 'you'll know it when you see it' type of things." Her friend replied rhetorically.
Their searches diverged, Pryde breaking to the right and Dani moving straight down the center aisle. The rows were divided by type, herbs, flowers, etc. Moonstar paused to sniff some lavender blossoms, nuzzling her nose deep to get a full, rich scent.
In was in the peace of her enjoyment that she heard something. She wasn't even sure she it was anything at first, but the instinctual alertness to the possibility of danger convinced her to move on with her investigation.
"Find anything yet?" Katherine called out from where she perused a row of planters aligned on the wall, inspecting the ferns and thick leaves.
"Checking the back, I-whoa…" Dani stopped when she reached the end of the tables and beheld the botanical anomaly growing wild in its own container. "Pretty sure I found it."
The rose was now far larger, the stem a foot and a half long and three inches thick, the texture hardened and covered in jagged thorns. The flower was now the size of a grown sunflower head, centered by a strange gold-colored organ, and facing towards the outside instead of upwards.
The roots however had overgrown, two overlapped the edge of the planter, three more had burst through the sides and begun to grip around nearby objects.
Kitty arrived and stood beside Dani, just as enthralled by the sight. "Yeah, I think 'whoa' hits it right on the money."
Crouching down, the girls examined the monstrous bud, staring wide-eyed at the menacing advertisement of botanical belligerence.
"Maybe it's a transplant from the Savage Land." Dani speculated.
"Or maybe some spore from Godzilla's world got through to ours." Suggested Kitty.
"Oh man, something like this could definitely displace native species, dominate the local flora, I mean look at this thing!" Prying lightly at the tendril coiled around the closest table leg, Danielle found more muscle than expected was needed to contest it. "Left unchecked, there'd be whole forests of this thing."
"None of these roots are going through the floor…" Wondering out loud, Katherine searched among the exposed limbs for one that could be the source of the root they discovered outside. "Is there one I can't see?"
She attempted to move the planter, but it refused to budge. "Wha-?" Made of ceramic, even full of dirt she should have been strong enough to at least shove it aside a bit.
Phasing her body, she stuck herself halfway into the floor. When she came back up her face was in shock. "It's broken through the concrete!"
"What are you two doing?" At the sound of the voice, both girls pivoted around to see Beast and Jean Grey standing in the center aisle.
Kitty stood and quickly pointed to the mysterious plant. "There's a monster flower in here! Where'd this thing come from?"
"Monster?" Sounding wounded, Beast adjusted his glasses.
"My god!" Jean said with a gasp as they saw what had become of the rose. "It's grown!"
"This is uh, beyond expectations…" Beast almost shouldered through the girls to get closer to his project, shaking a clipboard out of his satchel and letting the bag fall to the floor.
"It's rate of growth is incredible." His eyes darted between the plant and his paperwork.
Peeking at the mostly hand-scrawled notes, Moonstar read the subject designation. BIOIINT.
"What's 'Biollente?'" she asked.
"Bio-what?" Beast rephrased the word, confused by its sudden creation.
"There." Dani pointed to the term near the top of the sheet and pronounced the letters phonetically. "Bio-lln-t, Biollente, Biollante. Is that it?"
Doc McCoy held the paper up, starkly realizing the separate components of the project title were close enough to be mistaken for the same word. "Huh…"
While the others were fascinated by the flower's development, Jean couldn't help but feel the magnetism between herself and the mutation. Part of her felt like it was staring back, experiencing the same radiant perception as she was. Stepping forward, Jean raised a hand, like reaching out to pet a dog.
Unnoticed by any of them, was the further coiling of the tendril around the leg of the table like a python. Twisting with such pressure the metal began to warp.
The hairs on Beast's neck stood on-end as the shadow of Jean's hand passed near him, eliciting his feral intuition to snap in response.
"Jean, what are you doing?" Turning to see Grey mesmerized, he let his left arm drift closer to the plant.
Kitty's panicked voice cut through the entrancement. "Beast! Look out!"
He glanced back at Kitty, not realizing where the danger was coming from. "What do-"
The green vine, rising from where it sat on the edge of the planter lashed out to snatch Beast's wrist and yanked him in with remarkable strength.
"Good heavens!" He yelped, bracing against the planter with his other hand. Kitty swiftly grabbed hold of McCoy's arm and phased it through the tendril to free him. The four of them recoiled, Moonstar and Beast both throwing arms around Jean to pull her away.
The shelves to their left toppled over as the vine broke the leg away, sending dozens of pots crashing onto the floor.
"Professor!" Dani cried. "Where did that thing come from?!"
"It didn't-" He stammered, a dizzying amount of questions flying through his mind. "I mean it's not from anywhe-"
The concrete under their feet began to rumble, a lightning-bolt fissure tearing through the floor and racing towards them.
Kitty began shoving the others in the direction of the exit. "Get out!" She barked. Beast was astonished, moving but still checking over his shoulder to see the flower turn to face them.
"It's sentient…" He realized.
Jean's head was still in a fog, unable to turn away from the plant even as the others ushered her along.
"Ooaaaawwwwwwoooo…!" This time, the cry was not just psychic. All four of them were forced to cover their ears to defend against the high-piercing wail.
"It's angry!" Jean grunted, leaning her body on McCoy. "And afraid!"
Professor Xavier was just joining Wolverine and Cyclops in the underground hanger when the sound reached even them. Charles stopped where he was, holding his head with both hands to withstand the pain. Wolverine too bared his teeth in irritation. Seeing them both react to an unseen happening, Summers' body tensed to jump into action.
"Rah!" Logan snarled, his face contorted in a grimace, his ears sensitive enough to feel the audible sting. "The hell is making that noise!"
"Something's wrong." Xavier muttered, concentrating on discovering the scream's genesis. "I think it's Jean!"
Being just days removed from a manifestation of the enigmatic Phoenix Force, the possibility of another flare-up was cause enough for the three of them to head for the elevator.
On the road that led past the property, an older model pick-up truck came to a casual halt. It was off-white with maroon accents and decals, and a matching camper shell.
"Hadha hu almakan alsahiuh?"
"Hadha hu ma hu malhuz ealaa GPS"
The two men in the cab both took a few extra seconds to check the GPS device held by the passenger.
"Nahn hna! The driver banged a fist on the rear window. "Adhhb! Adhhb! Adhhb!"
The camper shell flipped open, peeling back from the front to stand straight up on the hinged back end. In the bed were two other men wearing cheap blue jumpsuits and black masks that concealed all but the mouth and eyes. Between them was a homemade mortar tube installed directly into the truck.
Within seconds one of them had a shell in his hand and dropped it down the muzzle. They hunkered down just before the mini-artillery launched the projectile with a TOOMPH! The other man repeated the process with his own shell, beginning a smooth flow of fires and reloads.
Both groups were on course to meet on the back lawn, Wolverine out ahead of Cyclops and Xavier, Beast acting as rear-guard for the girls.
"You kids alright?" Logan asked the teenagers, shepherding them past him.
"We're fine." Assured Kitty, assembling with the others as they caught-up. "It's that weird plant Beast is growing in the greenhouse!"
Cyclops seized Jean in his arms as soon as he could. "The Professor said something was wrong, is it-?"
"No, it's not me Scott. Henry… created something, and I think I know how."
"Henry?" Xavier could read the anxiety on his friend's feral face. "Tell me what's going on."
"I uh…" Clenching his teeth, McCoy steeled his nerve. "I've been experimenting with something that… I'm afraid has gotten out of my control."
Passing Jean to the care of Dani and Kitty, Cyclops began to make his way towards the green house, only to be stopped by an outstretched arm from Wolverine.
"Wait…"
The whistling began low, but both Logan and Beast's ears pricked to it. Years past, Wolverine had heard this sound more often that any one person would care to, and long-dormant reflexes surged to the fore.
"INCOMING!" He screamed, turning to leap and throw his body over those of the females.
The first mortar impacted 60 yards away, leaving a crater in the driveway, sending students scrambling for their lives towards the mansion. Another came down a few meters closer to the house, fortunately destroying nothing but the integrity of some soil.
Now alert to the threat, Cyclops spied the next shell, little more than a black spot moving almost too fast to catch. But his hand went to his visor, and a thin red beam intercepted the round, detonating it before it could land.
"Get the students underground!" Every student at the institute was drilled in emergency cases, which included the mansion coming under attack. The underground bunker was designed to withstand the destruction of the mansion and had actually survived the SpaceGodzilla.
Another explosion in the air was thanks to the quick-draw of Cyclops, the volatile nature of his energy beam serving to obliterate most of the shrapnel. Even so, a few hot bits peppered the façade of a top-story window.
Jean refused to leave Scott behind, and standing behind him, threw up her arms to create a telekinetic shell around them both. The others fled to the building, Beast ripping Xavier out of his chair and carrying him bodily for the sake of speed.
Another shell was on trajectory to land on the far side of the mansion, so it took Scott an extra half-second to judge his aim. And while he managed to catch it in time, it distracted him from something else. Several green roots emerged from the ground, rising straight up in front of him.
"GAH!" Scott yelped, watching the vines twist together to form a rope about a foot and a half thick. "Jean! is that what you were talking about?"
She gasped when she turned and saw the fibrous column on the other side of her boyfriend, terrified that the creature sought to harm him in some way. It was due to this distraction that Scott missed the last mortar round.
The greenhouse erupted in a firestorm, glass and metal shards shooting in a million directions. The column of vines quivered and split apart, the tendrils collapsing to the ground.
The attackers on the truck pulled the camper shell down as the vehicle accelerated, dirt clouds produced by the spinning tires in their haste to get away.
"Namal qutilna eadad qalil minhum!" The driver exclaimed, his voice and nerves trembling with adrenaline.
His passenger pounded the inside of the door, thrilled that their mission had gone off perfectly. "Nem fieala! Allahu Akbar! Rubama hataa shaytan X- Men!"
"Allahu Akbar!" They both shouted joyously. "Allahu Akbar!"
Skidding to a halt at the perimeter of the crater, Jean and Scott saw that the greenhouse had been destroyed and everything in it either obliterated or shredded by debris. The valiant effort of the concrete foundation did all it could to keep two of the walls intact, though it had suffered a catastrophic shattering.
"It was the rose." Jean said, seeing the spot where the planter had been annihilated. "Henry had this, mutated rose here and…"
"Is that what came out of the ground?" There was a curious sympathy in his voice, not understanding why it seemed to strike such a chord with her, but seeing that it did nonetheless. "An extension of this rose that had everyone so worried? Thank God no-one was hurt."
Rushing through the front doors of the mansion, Scott and Jean were met by throngs of terrified students clustering the main foyer. Upon seeing the senior staff, at least a dozen of them surged to mob the two with questions.
"Where'd the Professor go?" Cyclops asked in an authoritative voice to cut through the clamor, holding up his hands. A few pointed in the direction of the elevator to the lower levels, indicating that he had gone back to Cerebro.
"Alright, everybody just remain clam and get to the safe room." Spotting Bobby Drake near the main staircase, Scott pointed to him. "Bobby, make sure they all get in there and keep an eye on them, got it?"
"Got it, Scott!" Taking charge, Drake shouldered his way through the crowd, waving his arm towards the west wing. "Come on! This way!"
Leaping over the property fence, Logan crouched low and sniffed the air, all his sense on a hair-trigger.
Exhaust…
He sniffed again.
Cordite…
Savage fangs clenched, a boiling hatred for whoever had carried out the attack on the institute. Searching eyes located the skid marks left by the getaway vehicle, giving him a direction to start tracking.
"They were on the old south road." He growled out loud, knowing the Professor could hear him.
"I'll contact Fury." Xavier answered telepathically. "Get satellite images of what kind of vehicle they used."
"I've heard of this kind of thing before, Chuck. Drive up, launch a few shells from the bed of a truck, then take right off."
"Remarkably effective and simple." He had to admit. There was no doubt in Charles' mind that the so called 'Purifiers' were behind this, employing tactics familiar to many guerilla fighters from the Mujahideen to the IRA. "In the meantime, I have Beast and Kitty searching through local traffic and security cameras."
"It's a start."
Dropping down on the outside of the fence, Dani Moonstar saw Logan kneeling on the dirt road, gaze cast westward.
"Think you can give us something?" He asked her.
"I'll try, but I'm not super good with this yet." Dani walked to the tire marks and sat down cross-legged between the tracks. She closed her eyes, exhaled slowly, and began to concentrate.
He had heard about what this girl was capable of, but never saw it in action. Logan waited, and sure enough, after a few moments a translucent image began to fade into existence. Pinkish in color at the edges of the shape, it developed into the outline of a pick-up truck with an open camper shell parked directly where she sat, like a picture coming into focus.
"Huh…" Logan remarked. "How the hell do you do that?"
"I can tap into residual thoughts and emotional impressions left behind by people. These guys were pumped with adrenaline, makes it a little easier for me."
As more lines and edges filled in the gaps, Wolverine could actually recognize the make and model of the vehicle.
"I know this type of truck." He said. "Can you throw in some colors?"
Dani shook her head, eyes still closed. "Sorry, just shapes."
Crouching near the back, Logan waited for a few more details to come into place. When the outline of the license plate clarified, he smirked.
"Xavier, here's the truck they used."
Seated in Cerebro, Professor X looked through Wolverine's eyes to see what Moonstar had brought into being and accessed the bit of memory that told him it was a mid-90's Ford.
"I'll let the others know what to look for."
"Chuck, I'm gonna get my bike." Walking over to the side of the image, he stared hard at the men frozen in time, loading the mortar tube. "When they get a fix on these sons-a-bitches, you just point me in a direction, and I'll take care of the rest."
"Logan, it is imperative that we get information from these men. We need at least one to talk."
"I'll bring one back, and he'll spill his guts. One way or another."
"I don't think I need to beat the matter over your head, Charles." Still working at his computer, Beast was sorting through still images taken from traffic cameras. Each shot featured a vehicle that resembled the model of the one that had ferried the attackers. "But if Erik decides he wants to make an example of these extremists-"
"Then it will likely be a bloodbath that we can do nothing about." Xavier hated to think that someone who he had spent years trying to stop might be the most potent weapon against the Purifiers. Fighting fire with fire, burning everything in their path to cinders.
"If it comes to it, we might have to fight them both."
McCoy raised an eyebrow at the suggestion, having to war on two fronts in some insane 3-way clash. But despite the necessary focus on the matter at hand, he couldn't shake the guilt over the life-form he had so arrogantly created. It depressed him to think that he had brought something to conscious life just in time to be incinerated by an act of fanatical hatred. And he had only just begun to realize the potential of what it was becoming.
"Biollante…" He mused silently, recalling the queer name that Dani had derived from the shorthand of the subject title. "It does seem to roll off the tongue, doesn't it?"
Xavier could sense the troubled thoughts of his friend even without actively probing. There was a sort of radiant psyche that each person emitted, not unlike the concept of an aura.
"Henry…" Charles began, altering his tone from pensive to empathetic. "When we met you out on the lawn, you told me that an experiment of yours had gotten out of control. Just what were you doing?"
Beast's fingers ceased their work on the computer controls, hovering above the buttons. "You know I won't lie to you, my friend. Though I do fear I may disappoint you with my lack of proper foresight."
Cupping his hands over his mouth and nose, he took a deep breath. "It began with a parcel I received from Reed Richards."
The longer Xavier listened to his friend explain the course of events, his jaw slowly dropping, the more he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
The maroon and white truck pulled into the old parking lot with a squeal of the breaks. Left untouched for the most part, it was one of those asphalt patches that featured long weeds growing from cracks in the ground like varicose veins. A rusted chain link fence surrounded the perimeter like a cordon of tetanus, it was one of the many lots abandoned to the elements and those who didn't value much what they left parked in it.
In the shadow of a defunct and hollowed-out manufacturing plant, the four men exited the vehicle. The two that had ridden in the back tore out of their cheap blue jumpsuits, throwing them and the ski-masks back into the bed. Grabbing a squared red jug from behind the cab's backrest, the front passenger unscrewed the black cap. All four were in nondescript street clothes, prepared ahead of time for melting into obscurity.
"You really think that will be enough?" The driver asked, checking over his shoulder for any bystanders.
"The man said we might not need even half of this stuff. It's basically like rocket fuel."
"Just hurry up and start splashing that stuff around!" One of the mortar-men warned, growing visibly impatient. To emphasize his point, he gestured to the open road where another vehicle might come through any minute. They weren't the only ones who liked to take advantage of the discretion of the location.
Tossing the cap aside, he began dousing the outside of the truck with the translucent, greenish fluid. A splatter in the cab, along the sides, a dash in the bed, all the way around, and a good shot on the pavement underneath. He made a thin trail leading away from the truck before chucking the container in the bed, ricocheting it off the underside of the camper shell.
Striking a match, the other mortar-man dropped it onto the end of the accelerant trail. Immediately the flame took and raced along the line to where the rest of it pooled.
"Let's go!" The driver barked jostling the nearest man to move. No sooner had the four of them begun to disperse in different directions, then a storm of fire consumed the truck in bright flames. Within seconds the tires popped, metal started to melt, and the gasoline in the tank ignited as well.
Very quickly and very efficiently, the truck was reduced to molten slag. By the time night had fallen in earnest, it was unrecognizable.
A duo of motorcycles sped away from the Xavier Institute, Logan leading Summers as they set out on their hunt. Provided with a general idea of where the men had gone that Kitty and Beast had managed to piece together from a number of camera feeds, they'd been tracked across state lines into Rhode Island.
The rest of them meanwhile were playing host to a number of agents from the FBI, Homeland Security, and SHIELD. Much to the disappointment of a few of the students, Agent Macon, the one who had seen them through the SpaceGodzilla ordeal, was not among them.
As the lights of the mansion illuminated the night, teams of forensic analysis teams scoured the property to examine the craters and search for shrapnel.
A flashlight beam walked slowly over the pond, a lone FBI agent standing at the edge, doing a cursory check.
"This place freaks me out." Me muttered, knowing he was in a place where the borderline supernatural occurred.
Shuddering, he clicked off the light and turned his back.
Splunk...
With a sharp nasal inhalation, he whipped around, casting his light over the water once more. His free hand went to the grip of his sidearm, prepared to draw it in a heartbeat. As he moved the beam further out, it was then he saw the object sprouting on the surface.
It reminded him of a waterlily, only this flower was as big around as an innertube float and sticking at least three feet out of the water. The crimson flower was set atop a quartet of dark green, jagged leaves.
"Man, they got some weird decorations." He took a step closer to get a slightly better view. So absorbed by the far object, he never noticed the silent ascension of the vine from the water directly in front of him.
His arm outstretched with the flashlight, it was seized by the vine, crushing the ulnas and radius bones easily. Just as he opened his mouth to scream, he was pulled off his feet and dragged under the surface with a splash.
A few moments later, and his body was lifted from the water by a trio of vines, his arms pinned to his sides by a tendril, neck and head twisted at an unnatural angle with only one eye peeking out. They brought him closer to the flower, holding him above.
His breath was tightly controlled under the pressure on his chest cavity, absolute terror wracking his mind. Under the moonlight, he was able to see the organ in the center of the rose: the interlocking, spiked fangs.
"Ooaaaawwwwwwoooo-ruuuuuuggh!…"