Unusual
The blood...
The death...
The blades...
The war...
You remember?
Remember?
Remember them?
Saphira...?
Why does that sound... familiar?
Heart ache... pain...
Destruction...
God, it hurts!
Help...
Help me...
Help us!?
Please... remember...
The bluey-grey eyes flickered open in the semi-darkness. The light from the monitoring equipment cast a strange glow over them both.
Phantom and Entity still lay in the medical lab, but Entity was the only one awake. His eyes searched and his weakened body tensed, just in case.
"It's me..." came a voice.
Tom walked out from the shadows and stood at the foot of Entity's bed. He looked concerned, but not sympathetically. He seemed worried about his own safety around Entity rather then the condition of his friend.
"Why... here...?" Entity asked weakly, propping himself up on his elbows.
"How old are you?" asked Tom, staring deeply into Entity's eyes.
The question evoked a look of confusion from his friend.
"Fourteen," he replied, sliding himself into a full sitting position.
"How old are you, Matthew," he asked again, darker this time.
"Fourteen," Matt repeated, bowing his head slightly.
This discussion was confusing him. What was wrong with Tom? Why the sudden interest in his age?
It was odd, though. Both of the times he had answered 'Fourteen', it felt as though he was blatantly lying... he couldn't understand it.
"Why does it feel like you're lying?" Tom asked, tilting his head.
"I'm not... I don't know what you mean, but you're starting to irritate me... please leave," Entity asked, flumping back into his pillow.
"You've never been truthful to any of us. You're always keeping things from us. Why?" he asked, ignoring Entity's request.
Entity's voice filled with a sudden poison, "If you refuse to leave, I will make you leave..."
Tom backed away slightly, as if pushed sharply.
"One day you'll talk... I'll be there," he said, before leaving the room. As the door closed and he was plunged into silence, Entity's mind began to race...
"Why were you lying? I wasn't lying. I'm seventeen years old... aren't I? Yes? I must be... why did I feel like a liar? It wasn't right... I've been around for longer... much longer... No I haven't... I'm fourteen...just fourteen...," his thoughts were jumbled... as if his memory were gradually un-locking and events that he had long forgotten were playing slowly into his brain...
Tom walked out of the elevator and hurtled aggressively up the stairs. He was almost around the corner when he crashed into someone. With a heavy thump, he hit the ground and grunted. He looked around to see who he'd ran into and start yelling but was surprised to find Jubilee sitting opposite him, smiling awkwardly.
"Oh! Sorry... I was running and I... sorry for almost killing ya there...," Tom stuttered, getting to his feet and gently pulling Jubilee up onto her's.
"No problem! You get used to being knocked around when you're one of the X-men," she replied, smiling a little more comfortably now, "What's up?"
Tom smiled awkwardly at her and explained, "Relationship troubles..."
"Awww, hun, don't worry about it. If Tessa's still pissed off at you for breaking it up, it just means that you'll have to try extra hard to avoid her," Jubilee chirped, trying to cheer him up.
"Nah, it's not Tessa... I didn't mean a 'love' relationship... more like, friend ship troubles...," Tom explained, struggling to find words.
"C'mon, talk to me," Jubilee smiled again, shoving him playfully, "Let's go outside in the dark, sit down and you explain everything."
"Fair enough... but if you get bored, slap me," Tom joked, following her down the stairs and towards the door.
The cold night air hit them like a bucket of icy water. They stepped out into the darkness, broken only by the dim lights from the windows of restless students and mentors. Jubilee took his hand in hers and they hurried around to the stone benches at the side of the mansion and sat down.
"Go on, talk," she encouraged, punching him on his arm, not aggressively, though.
"Entity's keeping something from us... I don't think he trusts me," Tom explained, looking up at the lit dormitory windows.
"Tom, he doesn't trust anyone. Don't take it personally!" she said, trying to lighten his mood.
"But we're supposed to be friends! How can friends not trust each other?" Tom asked, shrugging to illustrate how he felt.
"You have friends at school that you don't trust... you've told me before," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"I have, haven't I?" he replied, looking at her with an apologetic smile.
"Yeah, but I don't mind listening," she said, shrugging.
Her black hair rippled like water in the night-time breeze and the rich glow from the windows cast a golden light on her face.
"At least someone's here for me," he said, looking into her eyes.
She smiled before replying, "I'll always be here for you... even though that sounds really soppy!" she joked.
"Hehe, yeah... soppy...," he mumbled, caught in her gaze, "Ahem... so... yeah... stressful times."
"Tell me about it! When I got problems, I don't let them get to me though," Jubilee told him, smiling up at the starry sky.
"You never talk about your problems...," Tom pointed out, still looking at her.
"No one's there to listen...," she said, solemnly. She looked at him then, frowning.
"I'm here... for you.. Talk to me?" he asked, placing his hand on hers and gently squeezing.
"I'm... not sure... it's just... I guess I'm just... lonely...," she said, hesitating, clearly not wanting to share her feelings.
"Maybe I can help you with that?" Tom asked slowly, leaning slightly towards her, looking deep into her eyes, admiring the little sparkle in them.
"Yeah... maybe you can...," she mumbled, leaning closer to him.
He pressed his lips firmly against hers and hooked his arm around her back, pulling her closer to him. She returned the kiss, passionately, snaking her arms around his neck and embracing him at the same time. The heat made them forget the cold and for those few precious moments, time didn't matter. The Brotherhood, missions, troubles, danger, none of it mattered at that precise moment in time.
Eventually, too soon for their liking, Jubilee had to break the kiss to breathe. As she gasped the air in, she looked into Tom's eyes, longingly, lovingly, but happily.
Tom looked back at her in the same manner but with a spark in his eye that made Jubilee blush. He smiled warmly at her, admiring her face and rosy cheeks as she just kept staring.
"I love you," he whispered suddenly, placing his hands on her shoulders and rubbing them softly.
"Seriously?" she asked, raising an eyebrow but retaining her adoring look.
Tom nodded silently and smiled again as she replied, "I love you too."
"Would you like to go out someplace?" he asked, hoping that they could get some privacy and time away from a place filled with psychics, empaths and problems.
"I'd love too... so long as it's nowhere expensive...," she replied, getting to her feet and pulling Tom up with her.
"I don't care how much it costs... let's just go," he said, holding her hand in his and walking to the front gate.
The couple walked slowly down the path, away from the institute and towards the town, lit by the pale moonlight.
The blood...
The visions...
What do they mean?
Why do I see them?
Why can I hear the voices?
"Concentrate," Entity muttered to himself, his hands manipulating the telekinetic field around the dimensional rift.
His mind hurt, and strange thoughts were fighting their way to the surface, along with the enraged cries of the Negative Phoenix, furiously struggling to break free.
The Danger Room had suffered enough, but the upgrades Beast had made were helping the entire chamber keep from collapsing as the vortex spiralled wildly within the psychic constraints of Entity's barrier.
"Reach out with your mind... find the object and pull... there... I feel it... pull... release me... ignore it... keep pulling, keep the vortex enclosed, find out what you created in there...," he thought, focussing completely on the task at hand.
The Negative Phoenix's struggles were beginning to effect his energy output, and he could almost hear the computers in the observation booth fizzling out as they were overloaded.
His hands grew warm with the power. A familiar glow illuminated him and he felt the control of his mind slipping. Just as he realised he had to shut it off, he spotted something move inside the rift.
"If I knew what it is that I'd created, this would be so much easier...," he thought to himself as he locked his efforts on pulling the object free.
"It could be anything... anything I've ever thought about... What could it be?" he thought again, glimpsing the item once more.
The vortex began to buckle as his attention abandoned the attempts to keep it open. As it began to seal, the object slipped through briefly and in the seconds that it was there, Entity knew what it was.
"Oh my-... it can't be? Yes it can be... If it's anything I've ever thought of, it could very well be...,"he thought, picturing the large blue police box in his mind and tugging through the gap as hard as he could.
It slipped further, but the breach was threatening to close. The walls of the Danger Room groaned with the strain but stayed firm rather then collapsing.
"Just a bit further... I can't believe this... as insane as this is, it'll be useful if I get it through," he thought, strengthening his mental hold on the TARDIS he had created that had been trapped in the other dimension.
With an almighty explosion that shattered the observation window, the hole in the fabric of reality sealed, sending Entity into the wall on the far side of the Danger Room. He felt a rib break as he impacted against the hard metal surface and slid to the floor.
The chamber was filled with thick grey smoke that was gushing from several valves around the room. Entity winced as he got to his feet, gently rubbing the tender flesh above his splintered rib and looking around. There was a pale white light coming from a pair of windows ahead of him and through the screen of grey he could barely make out a large, rectangular object in the centre of the Danger Room.
He limped forwards, anxious to see wether his attempt to drag his mind's creation into the real world had succeeded. His brain felt heavy, but his head was still filled with ideas about what to do if he had been successful.
"If I've pulled a TARDIS into existence... imagine what I could do... where I could go..."
He reached ahead and felt the object in front of him. Fairly warm... and wooden.
Success!
Using a burst of telekinetic energy, he swiped the blanket of smoke away from the area and examined his creation with wide, excited eyes.
The blue structure stood much taller then him, and the light from the windows made it seem as if it were looking at him back. A thought occurred to him...how would he enter? Upon careful examination, this TARDIS had no keyhole, which meant there was no lock.
He cautiously reached for the door handle, trying to contain his overwhelming excitement. It opened with a click and without wasting any time, stepped inside...
Jubilee and Tom approached the gates of the mansion several hours later, after an entertaining trip to a nearby carnival. Tom's stomach felt like it was about to burst after all the burgers he'd eaten and the things that Jubilee had won were too numerous for her to carry and so had to be frozen together.
Despite this, both were laughing and reminiscing, occasionally kissing each other and playfully attempting to trip each other up.
"Stop! You'll kill me!" Joked Jubilee as Tom took another swipe at her legs.
"I wouldn't dream of it," he grinned back, tripping her again but catching her in his arms as she fell.
"My hero!" she yelled, hugging him tightly and cutting off his oxygen supply.
"If you ever fall, remember that I'll be here to catch you," Tom told her, lifting her back to her feet and reaching his other arm out towards the entrance.
He pushed the gates open and they walked inside, allowing the gates to automatically close behind them. It was still dark, but the sun was rising in the distance and the sky was not as black as it had been when they left.
"D'you thing anyone missed us?" Jubilee asked, knocking into Tom's side a few times.
"Me? Probably not. You? Probably Wolverine," He replied, quickly grabbing a large pink teddy that his newly found girlfriend dropped.
"Oh yeah... Mr Claws...," she said, giggling profoundly at her little joke.
"Mr Claws? I'll let him know you said that," laughed Tom, trying not to think what Wolverine would do if he knew they were mocking him.
"Don't! He'll eat me!" she whined, punching him in the arm playfully.
"Probably," Tom said, "But he'd have to beat me to it."
They walked into the entrance hall and looked around. Nobody was up, but the lights were left on for them. There was a small pile of books on the side table, next to the wooden chair, that were probably left behind by Entity's brother, Liam. On the floor in front of the elevator was a small card (from the look of it, the ace of spades) that had presumably been left by Gambit.
"Awww, no one's here to say hi," Jubilee said, her voice echoing around the hall.
"But it also means no-ones here to see this," Tom said, quickly pulling Jubilee into a firm kiss and holding her against him.
She giggled against his mouth and replied, "Yep, if anyone saw that I'd kick you ass."
"Mmmmm, be my guest," Tom murmured, smiling playfully at her.
She pretended to kick him, but ended up dropping half the stuff she was carrying. Between fits of laughter, the two of them went about picking them up, ignorant to the fact that the elevator had just opened.
It was only when the doors closed with a slight thump that they realised they were not alone.
"Hello?" Tom called, quickly placing the stuffed animals he held on top of Jubilee's pile.
Entity walked forwards, stopped momentarily to give him a questioning look, then continued to walk up the staircase towards his room.
"What're you doing up?" Tom asked, sounding highly disappointed that Entity was awake.
"Clearing space," he replied, mysteriously before disappearing around the corner without another word.
"You go cheer up grumpy guts while I go find room for these," Jubilee suggested, shunting him gently before walking up the stairs towards her room.
"Wish me luck?" he called, hopefully.
"Good luck!" she chirped before vanishing around the other corner.
Tom stood still in silence for a second, contemplating how he should go about taking to his friend. Finding nothing to say, he decided that he ought to just improvise once the conversation started.
He bounded up the stairs and made his way along the corridor to Entity's room. Without bothering to knock, he opened the door and stepped in. The room was neat and well-kept, and he immediately spotted Entity in the corner of the room and he was, indeed, clearing space for something in the corner.
"What are you clearing space for?" Tom asked, still sounding glum and blank.
Entity stopped what he was doing and stood up, folding his arms and fixing Tom with an unreadable expression.
"About an hour ago, I pulled the TARDIS out of another dimension. It's down in the Danger Room and I need to get it out of the way," he explained, in a matter-of-fact tone.
Tom stood in silence with a dis-believing expression. He folded his arms and rolled his eyes before continuing, "Right... and I suppose Spok's down there too to tell you how to use it?"
"Actually, the TARDIS is alive and has the ability to communicate telepathically. Spok's not down there, no, but the TARDIS is and needs to be moved elsewhere," Entity replied, returning to his clearing of space and not looking at Tom.
"You're.. not joking... are you..," he realised, unfolding his arms but retaining a relatively blank expression.
Entity walked out of the room and started down the corridor, calling back, "No Tom, I'm not joking," before skimming down the stairs and into the elevator.
For a second, Tom had no clue what to do. After moments of apathy, he followed Entity down the stairs, intending to discover the truth.
After an elevator journey that seemed to take years, Tom walked out in to the sub-basement and headed for the Danger Room observation booth. The doors slid open and the first thing that hit Tom as unusual was the fact that the window that allowed the occupants of the booth to view the contents of the Danger Room had been completely shattered.
The fragments of broken glass reflected the sparks flying from various computers and keyboards and all Tom could do was stare in alarm. He walked slowly up to the hole where the window had been, crunching the broken glass beneath his shoes. In the centre of the scorched, but relatively unscathed, Danger Room stood a fairly large blue Police Box.
He instantly recognised it as the TARDIS, a strange vehicle capable of travel through space and time (and occasionally different dimensions), from a television program they hadn't watched in years.
A bemused smile played about Tom's face as he surveyed the scene below him. The TARDIS's front door was left slightly ajar and a dull glow came from the inside. Tom remembered the program in which the TARDIS played a key role and thought back to the afternoons that they had spent watching it together round each other's houses, back when neither of them knew they were mutants.
They used to enjoy the adventures through space and time that the TARDIS's owner, The Doctor, frequently embarked upon. He remembered the frenzied discussions they'd had about what owning a TARDIS would be like. Still... It was years ago... everything had changed now.
Tom surfed a thin ice slide down to the chamber below, landing unsteadily in front of the blue machine.
Distant memories concerning facts about the TARDIS began to re-surface.
"It only looks like a Police Box because of the chamaeleon circuit, which enabled it to look like almost anything so that it could blend in with it's surroundings...," he remembered, reaching out to touch the wooden door, "People don't notice it unless they're looking for it because of another special device called the Perception Filter... we used to imagine what it would be like to have a perception filter...," he pushed the door further open to reveal the insides, "The inside is much, much bigger then the outside because the inside exists in a different dimension to the outside... it's complicated...," he stepped into a large, dome-like chamber that was lit with a dull green light that was being emitted by the console in the centre of the room.
The console was made up of various jumbled pieces of technology that all seemed to have a particular function. In the centre of the circular console was a large transparent column that stretched up to the ceiling. Two smaller cylinders were contained inside this clear tube, and he remembered that, when the TARDIS was travelling, these two smaller cylinders would rise and fall to indicate engine speed.
The console itself was on a raised circular catwalk made from metal. This platform was raised by another platform, slightly bigger and more like a giant hexagon but still made up of metal. A small ramp (made from bricks) led from the doors to the first platform, enabling an occupant to make their way up without much strain due to climbing.
A low hum was emanating from the console and a steady, lazy throb of sound echoed through the room. Entity stood behind the console and in front of a small screen attached to the central column. His face was lit slightly by the blue glow of the screen and the chairs behind him also seemed bathed in the strange light.
Entity looked up, and for a slip second, seemed to smile at Tom's reaction. Tom was stood in the door way, looking around the room with an indescribable look of sheer amazement. He stepped forwards, still admiring his surroundings as the doors sealed behind him with a click.
"... How?" he asked, after making his way (slowly) to the centre platform.
"Anything's possible when dimensions are concerned," Entity replied, concentrating on the screen in front of him.
"I... don't suppose you could... make other things?" Tom asked, out of nothing else to say.
"I was pushing my luck with this," Entity responded, cautiously reaching to his left and pressing a small gold button.
He acted as if he was reading a set of on-screen instruction, but when Tom made his way around to Entity's side of the console, the screen displayed heaps of symbols but no instructions that he could make out. Many unusual pictures rotated and clicked into place with other symbols, but none of it made any sense.
Entity frowned and reached to his right to rotate what looked like a glass paperweight three times to the left. A strange bleep made Tom jump a little, but he calmed quickly and asked, "What do the symbols mean?"
"It's the TARDIS's language, but that's not how we're communicating," Entity replied, smiling slightly.
Tom gave him a sly look before continuing, "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
Entity's reply was simple, but effective,
"Yes."
Tom smiled and gazed up at the central core.
"Is it the real thing?" he asked, reaching out to touch a button on the console.
His hand was stopped by an invisible force as Entity replied,
"It's a version of the real thing. If it's a mental creation of mine, it may differ from the actual TARDIS that we knew."
"Kay," Tom said simply, still finding it hard to believe.
His expression must've obviously shown his dis-belief, as Entity straightened up and looked at him.
"I'll prove it, if you want," He said, a small grin formed on his face.
Tom grinned back as he replied, "You're going to anyway, no matter what I say."
Entity nodded, flicking a switch to his left without even looking.
"I have to get it up to my room, remember," he informed, turning his attention towards the console and hitting various buttons and devices as he went.
"Okay then, but if we land on Mars-," Tom began, but Entity cut in,
"You'll kill me? Stop quoting Jackie Tyler," he said, running to the other side of the console and rotating another paper-weight-like device.
The chamber shuddered slightly. Tom grabbed the chairs for support, just in case.
"Do you know what you're doing?" he asked, almost afraid.
"Yup... I'm getting a stream of instruction fed into my brain... just lock the temporal perimeter, release the quantum stabilisers, set new co-ordinates that relate to a real-time destination and Tom, if you'd like to pull that lever?" he asked, pointing to a small lever in front of Tom before grabbing the side of the console.
Tom reached slowly forwards and pushed the trigger. As soon as it clicked into place, the chamber shook and filled with a sound that they both knew very well from the old television show,
"VWOORP... VWOORP... VWOORP...,"
The metallic grating sound grew progressively louder and Tom began to wonder wether they'd wake anyone up. The room was shaking quite viciously and both wondered when it would stop. After more of the grinding sounds from the engines and the two smaller cylinders in the central column began to slow their up-and-down motion, the room stood still and all fell quiet, save the steady heart-beat-like sound of the console.
"Are we there yet?" Tom asked, shaking him self free of the spell of the trip.
"Step outside and see," Entity suggested, pointing towards the doors at the front of the room.
Tom moved over to them, closely followed by Entity, and the pair of them stepped out into Entity's dormitory.
"It works...," muttered Entity, careful not to let his excitement overpower him and destroy the room.
"I think we've found a new mode of transport...," Tom replied, turning to face the blue box.
"Quite... now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get some sleep," Entity smiled, not looking at Tom, but gazing in admiration at the TARDIS.
"Come off it! With this in here, you'll never get to sleep!" Tom laughed, thumping him playfully in the arm.
At that moment, as soon as he'd hit Entity's arm, Tom realised he was keeping Jubilee waiting. Without another word, he left the room, glancing over his shoulder one last time to look at the machine before he closed the door.
Entity was left in the room, staring at the TARDIS with eyes that were looking into the future and past. So many new ideas arrived in his head, making him feel tired already. After leaving briefly to brush his teeth, he returned and climbed into his repaired bed, still watching the TARDIS, and planning as he fell slowly to sleep.