Disclaimer: I wave any rights to the X-Men universe, Marvel or the characters found therein.

Author's Note: Written for the LiveJournal community 100(underscore)situations; prompt 65-Scream. 1080 words.

Frailty

He was smiling now, eyes glazing with pleasure. Both of them, the man in fatigues and the one in a lab coat. Stryker arrived first, Palance not far behind. The Doctor's gestures were energetic and as telling as any verbal conformation. They were speaking of the recently recorded data, minute details digitally rendered with bulky computers and steely instruments spread throughout the room. Pages of data that classified the mutants, tracked them by chart and graph.

They finished talking and moved closer, eyes falling to their newest acquisition. The Colonel's lips curled with cruel satisfaction while the Doctor's were molded in sadistic curiosity.

Over the days, weeks, months, years she had been trapped underground at their mercy her body changed. Adapted. She was built for it; survival. A genetic kink that would ensure she lived despite her environment. Despite him.

She became a spectator, watching from the sidelines as they played with the young girl. Taunted with whispers she would have no choice but to listen to. The mask held secure over the mutant's face would ensure this torture, their masculine voices would drone on in comforting tones as each outlined the various ways they would experiment on such vulnerable prey. That young, poor misfortunate girl. Watched as her neighbor started to struggle again with static, choppy movements as the small body bucked within the cylinder cage. Fighting the inevitable, clawing at the glass as if trying to break free.

She almost snorted at the futile motion. Clueless child. Innocent child. She had clearly never been hunted, never been hurt in the manner that was to be her future. She could almost watch as lost hope dulled blue eyes.

Well that didn't take long.

It was a cold and selfish thought driven by the disappointment and dread that washed over her as the Colonel glanced her way, as the Doctor smiled. Perhaps it was a thought they could read, the reason they turned on her, one monster recognizing another.

And that was what she was becoming; a twisted image of the person she had once been. Changing because of him. Like them. Self-centered, apathetic to all that fell short of her immediate desire, a consuming obsession with ends and means and justification. Their pain. Her freedom. Escape, entrapment. Life, death. She was broken, fractured, her mind splintering, slowly moving in the wake of an explosion of color. But it wasn't the revenge she sought, it wasn't her pain she felt. That's when it started to make sense. As much as it always did.

This... It was hers; it was another's. The young girl cried out, but so did she. It swam before her eyes, mercurial images and thoughts and memories that she never carried. That she never experienced, that she was now.

Dusk. It had a color, a taste, a sent she would have never discovered without the separation from the outside world. It flickered, the dieing heart of a distant day. A bird hovered in the sky, a gray storm hovering at the edges ready to move in, a banshee's cry in the distance, endless green. Black sheep, lithe movements of muscle as hooves marched out a tune on beaten soil, a woman's face, a man's back. Hello. Goodbye. Powerful words decimating the skeletal structure of a weathered barn, a cry, a shout. Accusations, blame, guilt, abandonment. Shock, quaking ground, falling leaves. Warm bread, a breeze cool and crisp, the sent of heather and wild grass, tang, salt, blood. New lands, same looks. Cold eyes, sharp and wary. A mansion, a wheelchair, beds in a row and girls mindlessly smiling. Welcoming all the while pushing away. Old, new, same, different. Chaos, men in black, guns. Helplessness. Fear. Panic. Screaming. Siryn. Alarms. Darkness.

There was a duality when she next opened her eyes. The figures sharpened and blurred, both larger and smaller than she remembered. The room had sifted, it remained the same. The hazy green that veiled her world, a hue she had categorized what seemed like ages ago as sick and putrid had changed. It was darker, dulled in the light. Clouded. Turning brown. It was blood she realized; her blood. No. It was their blood. She must have screamed, bucked against her restraints and clawed at the tubes that had been within her arms.

It wasn't just the skin anymore. Oh no, she had truly evolved into a creature far more deadlier than she ever thought possible. Because of him. The Doctor's discoveries. The Colonel's experiments. They needn't strap her body to a table anymore, wouldn't bother to force direct contact between prisoners for any other reason than pure entertainment. It was in the blood now. Perhaps it had always been. A transfusions of memories.

Of power.

She fixed her eyes to the other, the young girl. She would recognize the red hair and blue eyes as her own, something within her flitted about in fear and wonder. A mirror image that would never truly be, and she knew how to do it. Saw the patterns clearer than the one before her had. It wouldn't take much. It was triggered by a feeling, a hum to stroke an itch that was constant in her throat. She could feel it, this new sensation, while the girl had been desensitized at it's continued development. A scream, a pitch that would echo and pulse, that could shatter the cage. The girl had tried, she knew that now. Fought the monster taunting her, lost because she didn't know how to use what she thought uncontrollable.

Unable to take the horror, the pleading look thrown her way by the girl she turned back to the men. Ignored the way they seemed to ignite fresh terror long thought buried in anger. Focused instead on the itching, the tickling at the base of her throat, not letting herself be distracted with satisfaction as comprehension tightened the Colonel's features at the Doctor's raised brow.

She drew in a breath of sterilized air, long since used to the metallic taste of processed oxygen. She concentrated; screamed. The mask designated and crumbled like brittle paper in the wake of fire. Felt the liquid cage quake as she watched with fascination the glass fracturing in a beautiful pattern that spelled freedom.

The Colonel stepped back, fear showing on aged features. There was chaotic movement, frantic shouts. An alarmed sounded.

She was free.

ETA: updated 14/12/08