Shiny new chapter for those of you who survived Monday and still retain your higher brain functions. I commend you on your perseverance.
I own only Carson, Lucy, a few nameless incidentals (maybe. I don't actually know. They are, after all, nameless.), and my ideas. And the angst. I own that too.
"Talking"
Thinking.
"Carson talking."
Stopfen auf deutsch. -- Stuff in German.
Demon Blood: So Strange
Chapter 5 -- Deoxyribo
"What are you going to do with him?" She asked warily, holding her sleeping child closer to her chest. The little boy snuffled in his sleep and snuggled closer to his mother's warmth, blissfully oblivious to his surroundings. A cold wind whipped around the young woman's ankles, tearing at the corners of her cloak with the ferocity of the impending blizzard that was bearing down on them. Clouds raced each other across the darkened night sky, obscuring the millions of stars that should have been visible this far away from civilization. The only man-made structures in sight were the crumbling stone mansion she stood in front of and the swinging bridge a half-mile back down the road. Another hooded figure stood between her and shelter.
The grey-haired man's mouth smiled at the picture of familial affection, but his eyes remained stony. "I'm simply going to bring him into his full potential, to bring his heritage to the forefront of his genetics and enhance his abilities."
The woman's eyes narrowed. "No. I will not allow it. He is human; I've had his DNA tested myself."
"And I've had his blood tested myself."
"You what?!" she hissed, fury edging into her voice. Her son squirmed against her and she loosened her tightening grip on him, rocking him slightly until he settled down again. "I never gave my permission for that!"
He chuckled at her anger. "Permissions aside, the findings were quite… enlightening. But you already knew that, didn't you?" The woman looked away. "That's what I thought. Your son, while his genes are fully mutant, has a most unusual blood type, and it is anything but human. Demon, I believe is the correct term, yes?"
The red haired woman glared at him. "You had no right."
The man stepped forward to place a hand on her shoulder but she moved away. "I understand your frustration-"
"No you don't!" She exploded and advanced on him, teeth bared. "This is my son. My son! And I will never allow you to play games with his life, no matter who his-" she choked and looked away.
"Who his father is?" The man offered with a smile.
He glare settled on him once again. "Yes. It doesn't matter. He will not be one of your experiments." She turned on her heel and strode away, her coat catching the wind and billowing out behind her like the cape her master wore. The child in her arms made a small squeaking sound and turned over, opening a pair of deep brown eyes to look at her. He giggled and held his arms up, twining his five fingers into the front of her cloak. She looked down at him and bit her lip, watching the pair of tiny, sharp fangs that glinted in the moonlight whenever he smiled. Her hurried stride slowed. "Hello my little one." She whispered. He giggled again and she reached out to touch his soft blue skin with one finger.
The gray-haired man approached her from behind and stood a respectful distance away. Watching the pair closely. "I can help him, you know. I can give him something he'll never have otherwise."
She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes hard. "What could you possible offer him that I cannot."
"A normal life." She looked back down at her son, who was now trying to grab and hold onto his toes without much success. "I see the way you look at him. You know he doesn't have you ability to blend in with his surroundings. He will grow up hated, scorned for what he looks like. For what you contributed to his DNA, not his father."
She closed her eyes, fighting back the tears that were threatening to spill over onto the child she held. "And you, you think you can help him?" she asked bitterly.
"Yes." His hand came down on her shoulder. "I know I can."
Mystique pulled away from his touch and walked as quickly as she could away from the castle on the hill that Magneto had converted into his laboratory. The man smiled harshly after her. She would be back.
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One of the only reasons Todd would stop just short of saying this wasn't his life, other than the fact that that MADE NO SENSE, was that it was his life. Things hadn't always been this bad. He blamed the bald guy in the wheelchair for where he was now. If it weren't for the Professor's 'vision of the future', Todd Tolensky might still exist somewhere other than just inside his own head. The other Brotherhood members had taken his version of their potential to heart, and even Lance had resigned himself to being the bad guy, an ending he had been trying to avoid ever since he had met the infamous Kitty Pryde. Fred was more than a little excited about being considered really evil, not just an overweight joke. As far as Todd was concerned, his friend didn't have a weight problem. It was just an unavoidable side effect of his power, like Todd's too-long legs and the strange discoloration of his teeth. For the huge teen it was probably just a relief, having the insurance that five years or so into the future he was still going to have people around who didn't laugh about how he looked. He was still going to be part of a team.
A team.
What team?
Lance was angry all the time, Wanda spent ever spare minute practicing magic in a frenzied attempt to accelerate her powers even further than where the vision had placed them, Todd was pretty sure she was losing her mind in the process but every time he tried to talk to her she hexed him off his feet or slammed a door in his face, and Pietro- well, Pietro was a jerk, but that was nothing new. The white-haired boy had been so sure they were going somewhere with all this that Professor X's confirmation had only affected his smugness, not the effort he put into cultivating his powers. And he brushed off Wanda's precariously balanced psyche as just another mood-swing-like phase she was going through.
The team was still there, but Todd missed his friends. He especially missed his am-not-and-never-will-be-you-girlfriend, who hadn't spoken to him face-to-face in over a month. He had stopped making up nicknames for her a long time ago, when she stopped responding to 'Wanda' unless you said it several times with increasing volume. Now she only answered to "Scarlet" unless there were several feet of space and a wall between her and whoever she was talking to. Which, considering the level of apathy everyone else displayed for her well-being, was him and him alone. And he was becoming increasingly less inclined to attempt conversation with ever harsh response and door to the face it got him. But he didn't want to stop trying.
He didn't want to lose everything he had gained so suddenly two years before.
But...
It felt like he already had.
Everyone was getting stronger and coming into their own and pulling away from the hub of "friendship" he had found himself a part of and he didn't want to give it up but the more he tried to keep it together the more it seemed to fall apart.
And yeah, he blamed the bald guy for that.
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"She said Lucy had been looking for me." Kurt said, perched on the kitchen counter and conversing with Kitty over the general commotion of the kitchen. It was breakfast time and everyone was frantically trying to get some food before they had to high-tail it off to one of their various levels of school.
The girl he was talking to shrugged. "Maybe she, like, wants to break into a bank or something."
Kurt laughed and shook his head, using his tail to get something off a higher shelf for one of the younger students. "No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that is more up Carson's alley."
"Right, the 'unstable' one." Kitty giggled. "Wouldn't it be weird if the Professor was wrong? I mean, if Carson really was just a part of Lucy's imagination?"
"Well I doubt that." The girl jumped about six inches and dropped the bowl she was holding, a four-fingered hand catching it before it crashed onto the countertop. Carson handed Kitty back the dish and continued as though her sudden appearance hadn't caused any surprise. "I'm pretty sure I would know if I didn't exist. Except, maybe if Lucy lied me into existence I wouldn't be able to tell the difference."
"H-how did you do that?!"
The girl looked at her unplastered hand and then back to the ghost. "I put my hand under it and closed my fingers when it hit."
She waved her hands in front of her face, clearly flustered. "Not that! How did you get there without me noticing?"
"I… walked? I dunno, honestly I thought I was being pretty loud."
"Hey…" one of the youngest mutants poked her arm and she looked down at him. Her strange appearance was beginning to draw people's attention. She was still wearing her trench coat, but the hood was down and it was no longer belted at the waist, so her oddly formed legs and tail could easily be seen. "You look like Kurt!"
"I do?" She looked over at the blue teenager and broke out in a huge, fangy grin. "Hey! I do! Lucy does anyway."
"How is Lucy anyvay?" He asked warily, her unnaturally red eyes unnerving him.
"Still sleeping!" Carson offered cheerfully. "I don't really blame her. The girl's been on the move longer than should be possible, even with a backup generator at the ready."
"And the generator vould be… you?"
"Yep! But it's complicated and I'm too lazy to explain it, so that's all you get! It's got something to do with a split consciousness and… bilateral neural wiring or something." The same boy as before tugged at her tri-pronged tail and she jerked it out of his grasp, shooting him a slightly disturbing smile that got him to back off fast. "Please don't pull the tail," she said brightly. "I'm just borrowing it."
Kitty leaned on the counter and addressed her directly. "So you're, like, Lucy's sister?"
"No, I'm her evil clone who was brought into being to create havoc and rain down chaos on the earth from the very fabric of the universe itself!" She grinned.
Kurt looked just as confused as Kitty did. "Vhat?"
Carson rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm her sister. Older twin by about ten minutes. Our DNA is identical, but Lucy got the demon blood, so I was always the 'normal' one. Not sure how that makes sense, but it obviously did at some point in the timeline. I had my own body up until a little less than three years ago when some pan-dimensional hell thingy stole it and I ended up in Lucy's skull. Since then we've figured out that only one of us needs to be awake at any given time in order for her body to function and although sister dearest doesn't trust me as far as she can currently throw me I usually end up being the one in control anyway. Clear enough?"
Kitty held up her hands again, this time to stay the flood of highly illogical information being thrown at her. "Woah, woah. Pan-dimensional what?"
"'Hell thingy'." The girl said, her eyes' color fading to a dull orange-gold. "Carson doesn't know what to call it and really neither do I, so we're sticking with that for now."
"Yay! You're awake!" She chirped, eyes sparking momentary scarlet.
"Yeah, whatever. Did you kill anyone while I was out?"
"Nope!"
"Great. I know you're not lying and I still don't believe you."
Kitty leaned closer to Kurt and whispered in his ear. "Do they always do that?"
"I- I do not know. I think so."
"Um…" Lucy rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "Where are we?"
"The kitchen. Vhy? Couldn't you tell from Carson's thoughts?"
She shook her head. "Nah, the way we interact inside each other's minds is a little more complicated than that."
"Oh! That reminds me! Fuzz-butt over there is a teleporter."
"Really?!" she squeaked. Carson laughed and she glared and looked embarrassed and pleased with herself and angry and ecstatic and irritated and relieved and that many reactions and emotions on one face made it impossible to tell what was going on in their head. She coughed nervously and their expressions settled. "Sorry about that. But you really can teleport? Carson's not just screwing with me again?"
"Vell…" He grinned and bamfed over behind her. "Maybe."
She spun around and hugged him for no apparent reason. "Sweet!"
When she let go Kitty looked both confused and irritated. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Everything!" She said happily. "See, there's this demon god of chaos who-"
"Anyone who needs a ride, I'm leaving now!" Scott called, poking his head into the kitchen. It had emptied out except for the high school students, who quickly, and loudly, scrambled to grab their backpacks and get out the door. "That means you too, guys. The Professor said you can't miss any more class this semester."
Kitty pouted and Kurt protested. "But Scott!"
The older boy wagged his finger at them, grinning. "No buts, Kurt, Profs orders."
The brown-haired girl sighed dramatically and grabbed her books from the table, phasing through it on her way to the door. Carson tilted her head to the side, watching her go. "Cool."
Kurt grinned apologetically at the girl and followed suit. "Look on the bright side!" He said with a hopeful smile. "Now you at least have to stay until ve get back!"
"But-"
"Tschüss!" He called over his shoulder, not giving her a chance to protest before porting out.
Carson, with her infinite wisdom, stared after him in utter confusion. "They cheated!"
"It's called school, dear."
"It's called cheating. At life."
"Shove it, girl. Let's just go find someone we can talk to. I need to explain this to another human being or my head might explode."
More angstosity from Todd, more confusion from the twins. A little bit of background on how Kurt ties into the actual plot of the story (and yes, the story DOES have a plot, it's just strange and convoluted and is taking a long time to set up because of frakkin' HOMEWORK).
I hate homework. It's evil. And... yeah, evil.
And I'm going to try to update every week, but not necessarily weekly, although I might curl up and die (and therefore not update at all) without the comments from my readers whom I hold so dear. [Psst. This is the part where you review because I've been asking very nicely and love you all with tremendous amounts of awesometude.]
--Dotskip.