AN: I don't own any of the X-Men Characters. I do own Kelpie, however, Gerri, Aunt Erika, Kelpie's foster family, the story-line, and all animal characters she converses with, including the gang members :P. Vixen belongs to one Melody S. (an ex-friend of mine), Aquifer belongs to Rob G. (soon-to-be famous fantasy writer!), Sensherak (aka Alan) belongs to an ex-online-bf whom no longer speaks to me, Jonny LeBeau belongs to an ex-online-acquaintance. Phew! If I've missed anyone, let me know :P

If any of you have read my bio, you'll know that I'm not fluent at Gaelic at all, I only know a few words and phrases. If any of you happen to know Gaelic, and I make a mistake, please, let me know, it's the only way I'm gonna learn! There are some Gaelic words in here that I've acquired through reading and such. I think the only one I used in this chapter is the phrase Tha mi duilich which means I'm sorry.

I've also introduced another character, at least her name, into this chapter, though she won't necessarily be apart of this story. Aithne is Kelpie's sister. Unfortunately, that's all you get to find out until the sequel, titled "Ice Within the Fire: Aithne's Story", which I haven't gotten a chance to put up yet. I'll get to that after I'm done posting this one.

Again: Please review, guys, as it keeps me in good spirits and in the writing mood. At the moment, I'm merely doing this as a pastime because I'm bored outta my mind, but next week I'll be going back to school and I'm going to need some motivation to keep posting :P

In this chapter, the italicized words are what Kelpie is experiencing in dream mode. Everything else is what the other characters are viewing. Oh, and I know I haven't been giving you the Gaelic pronounciations, but since they're names, I'm gonna go ahead this once. Aithne is pronounced pretty much as it's spelled: Ayth-NEE; MacGealach is pronounced Mok-GAY-loch (this is actually a surname I made up, Gealach means "moon" and Mac means "son of"...if you all knew my real name this would all make a lot of sense :P)

I also would like to apologize for not realizing that my sections in each chapter were not being separated correctly. Had you all been reviewing, that woulda been fixed right away and saved a lot of time and confusion:P I'm jk, enjoy!!

CHAPTER 7

Kelpie awoke feeling as if she'd been hit on the head with a sledgehammer. She had been walking home from Cal's place, halfway drunk as usual, and heard something behind her. Then everything had gone dark. She began to put her hands to her pounding head and found she couldn't move them. "Wha' the 'ell?" she exclaimed, looking down and finding her hands shackled at her sides, pinning her to the table she lay on. Her legs were also shackled at the ankles, leaving her without the ability to move at all. Overall, it was very uncomfortable, for her horse-like leg had been put at an angle to accommodate the shackles.

She began to struggle and strain against the shackles and panic washed over her when her bindings didn't budge and inch. A laugh from the shadows stopped her struggles and she watched as a man dressed completely in black stepped into the light.

"Oo the 'ell are ye an' wha' the 'ell d'ye wan'?" she asked as she studied him. His hair was grey and his face possessed dignity and pride. He was fairly tall and well built for a man his age.

Two others stepped up behind him from the shadows. One was a woman--at least, female, that is. She was blue from head to toe except for her hair that was red and her eyes which were a brilliant chrome yellow.

The other was a young man--a boy compared to the man in black--an not much older than she. He was taller than her by several inches. He had a sharp face and was hypothetically handsome with thick brown hair swept straight back from his face. In his hand was a Zippo lighter, and the way he kept snapping it open, igniting the flame, and snapping it closed--to a tune only he could hear--went with the hair and manner to present him almost as a reincarnated fifties rebel.

The older man glanced at the boy's lighter with annoyance and the boy, reluctantly, stopped.

"I am called Magneto," he gestured to the blue woman next to him. "This is Mystique," then he gestured to the boy, "and this is Pyro. What I want, is to see my apparent creation."

"Yer wha'?" Kelpie asked with an eyebrow raised. "Leuk, diolain, I dunna ken wha' ye talkin' 'bout, so why dunna ye jus' le' me go?"

"I had no idea the effects of the drug would do this," he said with just a hint of awed amusement as he walked around the table, studying her.

"Wha' drug?"

"Why, the drug we put into circulation. Tell me, who was your supplier?" He waved his hand in dismissal. "Never mind that, it doesn't matter. You see, we, the Brotherhood, have been trying to recruit new mutants to join our cause. But for some reason, we just can't seem to find many people who agree with our methods. So we developed a drug that can be slipped into any drink and gives them the mutant gene. We circulated it mostly among illegal runners, but if all goes well, we might just dump the whole lot into the city wells. I had no idea it would do this, however."

Kelpie's eyebrow rose once more. "Ye e'er think 'bout wha' i' might do tae some un tha' was already a mutant?"

Xavier and the others stood off to the side in the tiny room, watching the exchange between Kelpie and the Brotherhood.

"I knew it was the Brotherhood," said Wolverine. "Who else would want humans to turn mutant?"

"Shh," said Vixen. "They might hear ya."

Xavier shook his head. "No they won't. We are only witnessing what Kelpie has already been through. Technically, we're not even here. Then again, in a sense, we are. As long as we don't make physical contact with those here, we won't change the past. So stay clear of them."

"Who's that?" asked Wolverine, his arms folded across his chest as he nodded to a new woman that stood near the doorway.

Xavier looked at him then at the group around Kelpie. "I have no idea, but I think we're about to find out."

Magneto had ignored her question--go figure--and motioned to a woman in the shadows. She came forward, grinning at Kelpie as if she had just found a new toy. She was dressed in a white lab coat that fell to her feet and buttoned all the way up to her neck. She had jade green skin and long silver-blonde hair. She looked familiar to Kelpie, but she couldn't place the woman's face.

"I believe you may know our guest, Erika," said Magneto to the woman. If it were possible, the woman's grin grew wider. At the name, Kelpie's body nearly spasmed and her eyes widened.

"Nae," she whispered. "Nae!"

Magneto chuckled. "Good, you do remember. Erika is a scientist now, my dear. She likes to explore and figure out how things tick. I want to find out exactly how my drug works, so in exchange for her services, I let her look around a bit in the people our drugs bring in. However, since you already have the mutant gene, I really have no use for you. But, Erika, she gets upset when she doesn't get to play, and you two have known each other for so long, so why not?"

Kelpie's eyes were wide with fear and she began to struggle anew with her bindings. She had to get out of here and now! She wouldn't allow that woman to control her as she had Aithne!

"I thought you said you were going to let her go," said the boy, Pyro.

Magneto looked at him with an ingenious smile. "Now why would I say that?"

"Because she's already a mutant, Magneto. You're going to let that…thing…" he gestured to the scientist, "fool around in the body of a mutant? Our own kind?"

Magneto's eyebrow rose. "Isn't that what we do every time our drug brings in someone new? They're mutants too, John."

Pyro glared at Magneto when the older man used his name. He hated that name, Kelpie could tell. "That's different," Pyro said. "They weren't born to eventually become mutants."

"How do you know that for sure?" Magneto inquired. "For all we know, it isn't our drug that gives them the mutant gene, it could just be the catalyst that causes the gene to react. Maybe the people Dr. Erika has worked on already had the mutant gene."

Pyro's face became as white as a sheet.

"Come," Magneto continued, "It's time to let Dr. Erika do her job. We have better things to do."

Pyro began to protest, but Mystique's heavy hand on his arm stopped him. With one last regretful look at Kelpie tied to the operating table, he left the room.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With horror, Xavier realized who the woman was as soon as she stepped from the shadows. It was Erika MacGealach. Sister to Alan MacGealach…Kelpie's father. The woman was Kelpie's aunt. This was definitely not good. It was a well known fact that Erika had hated her brother and his wife with a passion.

They watched as Erika pulled a tray on wheels away from the wall and over to the table. Gleaming operating utensils littered the tray.

Vixen's voice was hard as she asked, "They aren't going to…"

"It seems so," said Hank, his hands clenching.

"Over my dead body," said Vixen. Her sais came out and she lunged forward, a war cry on the tip of her tongue. But Wolverine grabbed her arm and held her back.

"Remember what Chuck said: no physical contact."

Vixen looked at Xavier, who nodded in return. "If you try to stop it, you'll change the course of her memory. It could do serious damage to her mind."

"We already know what we need to know," she said furiously. "Magneto's the one who did it. Let's get her and go."

Xavier shook his head. "It isn't that easy. Once this process is started, it can't be stopped until the entire memory has run its course. Not without the possibility of damaging her mind."

Vixen looked back at Kelpie, growling, and shook off Wolverine's hand as she put her sais away. Wolverine knew how she felt. It was the same way he had felt about Rogue. An unusual sense of the need to protect.

A scream of agony came to Wolverine's ears and he looked toward it's source. Dr. Erika had just stuck her surgical knife into Kelpie without using anesthetic. He reached out to Vixen, knowing what her reaction would be, just as she lunged forward again.

"Let me go!" she shouted, struggling against him. "She's gonna dissect her alive!"

Wolverine's arms tightened around her. "We can't interfere, Vixen. It'll change everything."

"Ya'd do the same thing if it were Rogue! Let me go!"

"I want to stop it just as much as you do, hun, but we can't."

Vixen sagged in his arms and closed her eyes, trying to block off Kelpie's screams of pain.

Xavier, glancing at Hank, noticed that his friend was also having a hard time controlling himself. His hands were still clenched into fists, his face was an unnatural purple color and the tendons in his arms bulged beneath his fur from restraint. His eyes flashed an ice yellow. Xavier knew the doctor would not soon forget this. Nor forget what Kelpie's assailant looked like, for that matter.

"Damn vines," muttered the scientist as she cut several vines from Kelpie's wrists, drawing another scream from her.

The door opened several minutes later and a tall hairy man stepped in.

"Sabertooth," Wolverine muttered disgustedly under his breath.

Erika looked up from her screaming patient and asked irritably, "What do you want?"

"Magneto wants you to continue tomorrow when he's gone. He's tired of hearing her screams."

Erika frowned and began to protest as Sabertooth began to untie Kelpie, but Sabertooth's growl stopped her. He picked up Kelpie, now sobbing, and carried her out.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kelpie wanted to struggle against the man who held her, but she didn't have the strength. She was just glad that Erika had stopped.

Erika. How could she have not recognized her right away? The woman had destroyed her life with Aithne's help. Kelpie shuddered.

Vines were growing quickly from her wrists to cover her body and the man who carried her promptly set her down in a small room before she was permanently attached to him. She heard the door close and the bolt slide shut, then she knew only darkness as the vines covered her completely. They began the healing process, but they never got to finish, for, early in the morning a few short hours later, Erika came back and brought Kelpie once again to the operating room.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The third day in Kelpie's memory, Erika didn't come to take Kelpie away to the operating room. The four watched as Kelpie fully healed herself and sat in a corner of the room, curled into an upright ball, watching the door. Her knees were pulled to her chest, her chin resting on them, and she rocked back and forth, her gaze never leaving the door. Tears would fall down her face at intervals, but she would quickly wipe them away.

Then, around noon, the door opened and they saw a figure in the doorway. They couldn't tell who it was, for the light was at his back. Kelpie stopped her rocking and shrunk farther back into the corner.

The figure stepped inside and shut the door behind him and the four witnesses were shocked. It was Pyro and he was carrying a tray of food.

"What's he doin' here?" asked Vixen. "They haven't feed her at all since she got here. Why would they start now?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kelpie shielded her eyes against the glare of the light to see who it was that had come. She huddled farther into the corner, fearing Erika had changed her mind.

"It's okay," came a male voice, gently. "I'm not here to hurt you." The figure shut the door behind him and stepped inside. It was the younger man, Pyro. What was he doing here?

"Wha' ye wan'?" she asked, hugging her knees closer to her chest as he walked toward her.

"I'm just here to bring you some food, that's all. Don't be afraid." He sat the tray of food down in front of her then sat opposite of her, crossing his legs Indian-style.

Kelpie eyed the tray hungrily, but made no move to reach for it.

After an uncomfortable silence, he said, "Go ahead and eat. I promise it's not poisoned. Nobody even knows I brought it down here."

"An' I'm s'pose tae trus' ye?"

Pyro only shrugged his shoulders. Then, after another silence, he said, "Magneto told me when you first came in that he would let you go since you were already a mutant."

"I 'eard. Why woul' ye keep company wit' a guy like tha'?"

Pyro's voice was guarded as he flicked his lighter off and on. "Cause I was for his methods of dealin' with the human problem." He looked up at her and changed the subject. "Ya healed pretty fast. How'd ya do it?"

She considered him a moment, then turned her hand over. A vine grew out of the middle of her palm. "When they wrap around my wounds," she explained, "they close them and heal." The vine then disappeared and she looked up for his response. He didn't look much impressed. He just kept studying her, flipping his lighter open, lighting it, then flipping it back closed, over and over.

"Wha's wit' the lighter?" she asked. "I' ge's kinda annoyin' after a while."

He smiled and looked down sheepishly. "Sorry. It's kinda a bad habit." He looked to her face, smiling mischievously. "Do you like fire?"

She shrugged, still looking at him warily. "Tis okay, I guess. Why?"

He lit the lighter and closed his hand around the flame.

She gasped in protest. "Wha' ye doin'? Ye gonna 'urt yeself--"

She was cut off as he opened his hand and held it out to her. A ball of flame hovered just inches above his palm. "Watch," he whispered and nodded at the ball of flame.

In front of her eyes, the ball of flame began to transform until it became a flaming rose in his hand. "I would give it to you," he said, smiling. "But I'm afraid it might burn ya."

She smiled. "Tis beautiful. Ye've go' a nice gift."

Pyro smirked and closed his hand, the flame disappearing.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vixen sneered. "Is he flirtin' with her?"

"I believe so," said Xavier. "He did something similar to that when Rogue first came to the school."

"I don't care if he's flirtin' with her," said Wolverine. "I just wanna know why the kid brought her food without Magneto's permission."

Xavier was wondering the same thing. A shadow of a smile appeared on his face. Maybe young John was having second thoughts about Magneto and his gang.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Erika monitored Kelpie for weeks. She couldn't understand how the girl could heal herself so fast. Everyday she would cut the girl open and look inside to find everything as if she had never touched her before. She often wondered how much damage she could do to her brother's brat before the kid keeled. Something else that baffled her was the sudden appearance of the tattoo on her arm. No one had touched her except for Erika and Sabertooth, who escorted her to and from the operating room.

Unbeknownst to anyone, Pyro continued to visit Kelpie every night, and, if Erika was gone, during the day as well. Always he brought her food so she wouldn't starve. Kelpie began to look forward to his visits. He always tried to cheer her up, despite the circumstance she was in. And, she hated to admit, she might have fallen for him. She had fallen for one of those who had kidnapped her. It was something she couldn't understand. Was she going insane? Had she finally cracked under Erika's ministrations and only attached herself to the first one who showed her a hint of kindness?

One night, a month after her capture, Pyro came to her in a somewhat sad mood. He wouldn't tell her what was wrong, but she could tell he was tense about something. He kept looking to the door and urging her to eat her food. Something was wrong.

Taking a drink of water, she wrinkled her nose. "This tastes kinda funny."

He smiled apologetically, but she saw the nervousness in his eyes. "Yeah…uh…they've been…messin' with the water pipes around here. Don't worry, it's safe to drink."

With her eyebrow cocked at his stammering, she finished her water and set the empty glass down next to her empty tray. She made an effort to eat everything he brought her, no matter how upset her stomach was after one of Erika's sessions. "Is there sumtin' wrong, Pyro?" she asked, yawning.

He shook his head. "No. Why d'ya ask?"

"I dunno," she said with another yawn. "Ye jus' seem a li'l strange today."

"No. Everything's fine," he said, squeezing her shoulders affectionately. A few weeks before he had started sitting right next to her and last week he had hesitantly put his arm around her shoulder while she cried. She didn't protest and now that was the way they always sat when he came to visit. She actually kind of liked it. Not many people would stand to touch her in the condition she was in: looking as if one of her parents had been a horse.

She suddenly found it hard to keep her eyes open and she yawned again. "Tha mi duilich, but I canna seem tae keep me eyes open. Mus' be all the stress."

"It's okay," he said and moved so she could lay down. As darkness began to surround her, she felt Pyro's arms slip around her and pick her up. "I'm sorry, Kelpie," she heard him say as she slipped fully into unconsciousness.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Where's he takin' her?" growled Vixen as Pyro picked up Kelpie and carried her from the room. No one knew. The picture faded out and back in. They were no longer in a building, however. They were in an alleyway surrounded by a garden. Kelpie was lying on a homemade bed in the middle of the garden beneath the baobab tree, just beginning to wake.

"He snuck her out," said Hank, surprised.

"Why?" asked Vixen.

Xavier sat shaking his head, a small smile on his face. The picture once more faded out and they were jerked back to the present. Xavier straightened from his leaning position over Kelpie's face. She didn't move, nor make an effort to open her eyes.

"Is she okay?" asked Vixen.

Hank released Kelpie's hand and checked her pulse, then looked toward the monitoring machines. "All seems to be in order. She must be recovering from the memory. Just to be safe, however, I think I'll leave her hooked up to the monitors until she wakes and is strong enough to move to a bed."

Xavier nodded. "It will probably take her a couple of hours to recuperate, though she's in for a very bad headache when she wakes."