Disclaimer: I own none of the characters within.
Author's Notes: Thank you all so much for your support. It's nice to know that, no matter how crazy and chaotic and confusing my life gets, there will always be one absolute, constant thing: that little voice in the back of my head screaming "You have to update MP!!" Reassuring, eh?
And snaps to everyone for the compliments about the Festival! Just so ya'll know, my show was a big hit and I had a lot of people come up and tell me they really liked my work. That just about made my little writer's heart burst with pride.
SO! Had to get a chapter out quickly because... I'm going on vacation! Again! Whee! Ain't life grand? I get to go to SAN FRANCISCO. Oooo. And I'm going to the Wax Museum and to their Chamber of Horrors to see if there's a Jack the Ripper exhibit. Are any of my other readers really into Jack the Ripper? Because I am.
KamalaKali-- Nope, I don't live in Delaware. I live... elsewhere... shifty eyes, shifty eyes... But I'm going to be in San Francisco. Wheee. Can anyone tell I'm excited? XD
kanoba-- Pietro already had his chapter, way back when. But he'll start doing more. I hope. If he cooperates.
Everyone-- I'm glad Pyro's so popular with all of ya. He's a bit off from the TV show version of Johnny, but I didn't like their version of him so much. Meh.
But enough about meeeeeee... on to the new chapter!
--
Pain.
Searing pain.
Pietro woke up screaming, clutching his middle and writhing on his back. It felt like his body was being consumed, from the inside, like he was caving in on himself. Actually, a more accurate description of how felt would be that his stomach was turning into a black hole and sucking him inside-out.
He rolled onto his side, panting, moaning, and realized it was hunger. It was a maddening, all consuming hunger that was eating away at him.
Superspeed easily burned up the light fuel he had consumed at lunch. He had been unconscious for an hour real time, a lifetime in this silent void. The lack of sustenance was killing him.
Breath hissing through clenched teeth, he started dragging himself down the hallway, heading for what he hoped was the kitchen. Although moving too fast for human eyes to see, he felt like even a crippled turtle could outrun him now.
Inch after agonizing inch, he lurched around a corner and recognized his surroundings. He was indeed heading for the kitchen. Was, in fact, quite near it. Perhaps miracles did happen every once in while.
He managed to open the kitchen door and slither in on his belly, stopping every few moments as he was wracked with pain. Slowly but surely, he made his way to the refrigerator and yanked the door open. A bottle of full sugar Dr Pepper was before him, and he ripped off the lid and guzzled almost all of it in one long drag of the bottle. A second finished it off.
Laying there on the floor, he felt the energy returning to him, the fire of his furnaces being stoked by the sugar rush. He had the strength to stand.
He moved through the kitchen like a whirlwind, eating ravenously and trying to balance it so that he ate things that wouldn't be burned up so quickly. Sugar, lots of it, and lots of protein, too; fuel that would last longer in the end.
Sated for now, he set off around the mansion to find some form of entertainment.
--
Logan prowled the mansion often.
It was his duty, the responsibility he had taken upon himself when he came here, a silent vow to protect those that he loved.
Through the halls he stalked, most often in the early hours of the morning, when no one was awake to appreciate his vigil. He hated being praised; made him more uncomfortable than most people would think.
Today however, with its' extraordinary circumstances, had driven him to take up his paces in the light of day.
No one noticed.
He walked a familiar path. Through the kitchen, the dining room, raising an eyebrow at Freddy dozing contentedly with his head leaned back against the wall. Into the hallways, down to the gym, into the exercise room.
Here the routine ended.
Sniffing the air, he smelled Pietro. And at the same time, he saw what the boy had done.
Bounding over to the wreckage, he examined the treadmill with a steely eye. Speed had given impossible strength to Pietro, and the work he had wrought was something Logan would expect from Sabertooth, minus the claw marks and the foul stench.
He passed a rough hand over the broken tread.
"All right, Speedy," he muttered. "Why'd you do this?"
The ruined piece of machinery did not answer.
--
As the door to the library closed behind them, Charles indicated for Erik to be seated. The man hesitated for a moment, before complying and moving to sit down in an armchair. Xavier himself seated himself opposite the little center area, so that he could see him at all times.
Jean and Scott shared silent looks, and he whispered to her telepathically, I'm sorry.She smiled at him, squeezed his hand, and sent back, Me too.Spreading his arm gallantly, he gestured for her to sit down on the couch, which she did, and he settled down next to her, putting a warm arm around her shoulders.
"Now Erik--" Charles began, but he got no further.
The door opened and closed quickly, admitting Rogue. She stood with her back to the door, uncertain, begging permission to be allowed to stay.
"Rogue," he said, scolding.
"Please, professor," she said softly. "I have to know, too."
Brushing her hair behind her ear, she tapped her temple once, indicating to him to come into her mind and see the reason. He easily stepped inside and was quite surprised by what he found.
Nightmares that were not her own. Nightmares haunted by the voice of... Erik?
Pietro's nightmares.
"Yes, Rogue," he said aloud. "Please join us."
She sat down on the far end of the couch from Jean and Scott, folding nervous hands in her lap.
"Now, Erik," Charles said again. "How much do you know?"
"Not much," he confessed. "Not nearly as much as I'd like to. Please, Charles, what's happened to him?"
"No one knows yet," Xavier explained quietly. "Although I promise you we're going to find out why."
"But what happened? Where is he?"
"As near as we can tell from the information we gathered from the Brotherhood, he began moving so quickly that they could not keep track of him. He eventually he became so fast that he vanished entirely, and there he remains."
Erik licked his lips and stared at the ground. The statue on the table next to him rose a few inches into the air, hovering nervously in place.
"Can... can he be... saved?"
"We don't know, Erik. We don't even know what could possibly trigger such a reaction."
"I see."
--
Upstairs in the entertainment room, the natives were restless.
Johnny had told a few select stories involving ridiculously immature pranks played by he and Pietro, most of which ended with the words, "...and that's why we aren't allowed to have shaving cream/cod liver oil/keys to the car/Aerosmith CDs/a karaoke machine/money anymore." When he had either run out of stories or gotten bored with telling them (no one could tell which), he had begun staring at the X-Box meaningfully.
Finally, Evan got the hint.
"Wanna play, Acolyte?" he challenged.
"Bring it on, X-Man."
The game of choice was " The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King". Evan played, as he said, "Aragorn, mighty warrior king!", while Johnny favored "Legolas, lethal and skilled in many forms of combat!" Evan called Legolas a "pansy Elf", Johnny called Aragorn a "scruffy moron". The battle was on. The setting: Pelennor Fields. The goal: kill more Orcs than your opponent.
"Ah ha ha!" Johnny shrieked. "I'm at thirty-one and you're at twenty-eight!"
"Watch this, flame brain," Evan snarled. "Two with one blow!"
"I'm in my groove! Look at me go!"
"Ha! That Southron didn't stand a chance, man!"
"How do you like THOSE apples?"
"Bring it on, man, bring it on!"
"Gah, you just shot me!"
"You can't shoot the other player!"
"Wait, are we supposed to be saving Merry and Eowyn...?"
"Forget that, man, these Orcs are just begging for an ass-whupping!"
Todd was watching eagerly, having always longed for an X-Box himself. He secretly hoped that they would let him play as well, but severely doubted his chances. The Acolytes and the X-Men were the cream of the crop; Brotherhood boys were just leftovers that neither team had wanted. There was little reason for them to share their treasure. It seemed sometimes that the worst discrimination against mutants came from the mutants themselves.
Lance had neither eyes nor ears for their activity. He sat hunched over on one corner of the sofa, hands clasped together and trapped between his knees. Haunted eyes stared straight ahead, peering uselessly at some point that did not exist, searching for an answer he might never find, while Wanda's words hissed at him from the silence.
You don't even CARE about Pietro!!
And what if it was true? While at the same time Pietro's voice screamed back from a farther memory.
...because let me tell you my friend, you are nothing to me!
No matter how hard he fought, he couldn't keep the tears out of his eyes.
--
Wanda, meanwhile, had long ago slipped quietly from the room, unnoticed by all. She glided down the stairs in stocking feet, rubbing her upper arms nervously. The whole mansion felt like it was closing in on her, smothering, suffocating. She couldn't recall a time when she'd felt so alone, nor so confused.
Seeing her father again. Should she be happy or furious? She remembered being so angry at him, once, a long time ago, but for the life of her she could not remember why. Every time she reached back into her memories, she saw her father offering her an ice cream cone, or taking her out to the movies.
But where was Pietro?
All these happy picnic memories of her and her father. The two of them at the movies, going on vacations, all these random events. But she couldn't ever remember going to school, or having friends. It was like she only had select memories, and the rest had been erased.
But this was real life. There was no Lacuna to take away anything that may have made her so angry.
Was there?
She quickened her pace to avoid thinking about that too much. It was impossible for someone to have their thoughts erased. Impossible. But then again, ten years ago, the world would have said it was impossible for someone to have blue fur and a tail and be able to teleport their body with sheer willpower.
Nothing is impossible. If she's learned one thing as a mutant, it's that.
At last, she reached her destination: the library. Taking a deep breath for courage, she moved closer to the doors, pressing her ear up against the crack between them and listening, tense and strangely frightened.
--
"There's nothing we can do to help him," said Charles. "Unless we more know more about him. Your son is a closed book to us, Erik. Only you can open it. Tell us everything."
"There's nothing to tell, Charles," Erik said, eyes veiled. "I don't know anything about what's wrong."
"You're lying."
Everyone glanced at Rogue, who had just spoken. She rose slowly from her seat and crossed over to Erik. Catching his chin in a gloved hand, she forced him to meet her gaze.
"Tell them the truth," she said in a flat, cold voice.
"I am..."
"Tell them," she said. "Or I will."
She released him and stalked back to her seat, but when she sat down she looked exhausted and fearful. Erik's hands were shaking, and he could meet no one's eyes as he said in a weak voice,
"Pietro's power was not always superspeed."
Outside the door, Wanda's hands flew to her mouth.
And as the mental images cascaded around the room, Charles felt a growing horror building inside him.
"My God, Erik, what have you done to him...?"