Author's Note: As usual, I thought I'd come up with a mutant who was completely original… how wrong was I? So I adapted a mutant that exists in X-Men comics to fit. Sigh.
Chapter Three
The woman laughed as she moved amongst the Institute's newest statues. It was a maniacal laugh, cold and crazy, her green eyes burning with insanity. She skipped from teen to teen, touching a hand or a cheek. Not one moved a muscle, except to rock back and then steady again if Chimera pushed too hard. Each individual was frozen in time, each one dreaming of his or her own desire, illusions fed by Chimera's telepathic energy. Chimera's thigh high boots clicked on the polished floors as she moved about the mansion, ample skin showing between them and the bottom hem of her black mini-dress. A white dragon revolved upward around her body, its open maw resting on her ample chest. Her green hair was a little longer than shoulder length and streaked with white. Emerald lipstick graced her lips; she left a mark as she kissed Bobby's pale forehead.
But the children were not why Chimera had come to the Institute. Her old friend, Mystique, had told her of the nest of telepaths residing there. Chimera had been offended when Mystique had suggested that those telepaths were more powerful than Chimera herself. Chimera was the queen! Let them feel her wrath for daring to challenge her reign! And so she returned to Professor Xavier's study, let the false King gorge himself on her power!
She stroked Xavier's cheek as he sat in his wheelchair, frozen with his hand outstretched as if grasping for something he couldn't quite reach. The woman kissed his forehead, sensing, feeling, reaching for what he was seeing. Her telepathic dragons, psionic beings of luminous green energy, snaked from her palms to entwine about the Professor's frail body, feeding his delusion. Chimera had given him the ability to walk, but his love for his precious daughter had enabled the powerful telepath to break free from the illusion.
Now, the Dragons fed Xavier possibly what he wanted most of all – his family, alive, well and together. They fed him his wife – his first wife, the blonde angel - who had died to save the life of her four year old daughter. Chimera gave him an adopted son, Scott Summers (who in reality was just as frozen in the entrance hall), and his missing son, David. But best of all, Chimera cackled to herself, she gave him his eldest child, his beautiful but wilful daughter, but a version who was loving and gentle and unafraid to show her affection.
But where was that daughter? Chimera had heard Charles' telepathic cry for her help. Her patience was wearing thin as she waiting for the last of the telepaths. She'd already ensnared Jean Grey and the great Charles Xavier, as well as all the other Institute's residents. Where was Ilehana, the Vixen?
A noise outside, a cry of pain, caused Chimera to run to the window. Was this it? Had Vixen finally come into Chimera's clutches? No, a brown wolf sped across the lawn from the mansion's main entrance towards the outer wall. Chimera's dragons hissed to be released, but she calmed them softly.
"Let the child go, my lovelies. She will bring the last telepath to us. I promise, my beauties, you will feast before the night is done…"