Author's note: Sometimes the words are hard to put together. This time they were easy. Sometimes the story just flows.


"When did the pains start?" Beast asked.

"A while ago, it's been building." She sat on the edge of the bed and scratched at her chest. She looked around the lab. "You really are a jack of all trades huh?"

"I have a lot of interests." He pulled the X-rays he'd taken of her chest and examined them. "Are you okay?" Her pale face concerned him.

"The pain is gone. Still, it feels like I got hit in the chest really hard."

"It looks like there's some kind of foreign object here next to your heart." He frowned at the film. "You said, back when you first got here, that the crystal you encountered shattered and a fragment embedded in you?"

"Yeah, there were bits of shrapnel all over but I was able to get them out. None went that deep."

"Apparently one shard did. What did this crystal do?"

"My family – all we were concerned about was with getting my cousin back. Dad didn't go into any details during the briefing. I did find out a bit on my own though. From what I was able to gather, it made the reality . . . . loose at the seams."

"So this is probably what made you jump to different universes."

"I guess so."

"What happened last time you were jumped between universes? Physical symptoms I mean."

"It sucks. Everything feels like it's being pulled inside out."

"It doesn't look like there's any damage to the surrounding tissues or blood pooling. We can go in and take a look, try to get it out."

"No," Quetzal slid off the bed. "If it's what's making me jump between universes then it's the only way I have of getting back to my family."

"It doesn't sound like your jumps are controllable. The next one might kill you. Or the shard could just tear itself loose. That could be . . . disastrous."

Quetzal frowned.

"We can find you another way home." Damned if he knew how, but he would find a way to get her home. He started compiling a list in his head of contacts who might be able to help.

"I don't know."

Beast knew if he pushed too hard she'd shy away. "I'm not going to cut you open without permission Quetzal. But please think about it."

Quetzal found Wolverine in one of the halls on her way out the door. "What the heck exactly were you trying to do?" she growled at him. "You don't have any empathy for me."

"I figured you got out of answering a lot of awkward questions. Maybe now you'll answer one of mine. Where were you?"

Oh, he was clever when he wanted to be. "You have your methods for clearing your head, I have mine. A long flight and a good cup of coffee was all I wanted."

"And no good reason for not telling me this sooner?"

"I'm a stubborn cuss." She crossed her arms. "And I resent the flipping heck out of you tracking me like you did."

He glared at her. "You're still not telling the truth."

Quetzal shrugged. "I've confessed to everything I care to confess to. Believe it or don't, I've got nothing more to say." She stepped by him. "If you'll excuse me, I need some air. It's getting claustrophobic in here."

"You can't hide forever."

She grinned over her shoulder. "You're free to come with me if you like."

She always had to get in the parting shot. Wolverine was fine with that. It kept her talking and it kept her confident. At some point she'd slip up.

Quetzal sat on a fallen log next to the pond. It had been a while since the last pain in her chest. Probably because she was calmer now. Not so much adrenaline flooding her body.

She didn't like the woods. It was quiet, but it wasn't like the open plains. It was claustrophobic and dark. The trees filtered out what little light there was at dusk. The lowering light put a chill in her bones. She should have put on her jacket before she went out, but the sun had been relatively warm when she left to go outside and think. A layer of fluffy down underneath the sweatshirt would have to do for now.

Quetzal thought about her family. For the first time it really hit her that she might not see them again. If she let Beast take the shard out (if he even could) then there might be no way to get home. Even with the shard she might not get home. What if she jumped again and it landed her further away, or in the vacuum of space?

The thought of never seeing her family again made her eyes start to sting and water.

Maybe Beast could get her home somehow. Maybe she should just relax and let them run their tests. Have a little trust that the X-Men really were concerned about her.

She knew what her dad would tell her; pride's a failing you got from me. You have to ask for help when you need it.

But did she really need help?

Her glance caught the hole she'd left in the ice when she fell through. It was starting to ice over. She could have died there so easily. That was a pretty clear indication there.

"All right," she muttered and stood up. "I'll let him take the shard out. I'll let them help me. I'll give them some trust. They might be nosy so-and-sos but they haven't made a move to hurt me. Not even Wolverine. I'll even flipping ask them for help."

There was snow crunching behind her and Beast's smell pooled around her before the wind blew it away. "Worried doc?" she said without turning. "I was just about to come in."

"I'm so glad to hear that."

Quetzal's blood went cold. The voice wasn't right. It wasn't even close to right.

She turned, fearing the worst. When she saw him her stomach dropped and her heart froze. The fur was close to the right shade of blue now, but she could taste the chemical tang of dye. And even from this distance she could see the cruelty in his yellow eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she licked her lips. "How did you get here?"

"I'm looking for you Wanderer. I've come to take you home."

"Bullspit," Quetzal hissed. She felt the Creature rear up and made no effort to restrain it. Her teeth lengthened and her protective plates started growing around to her front, preparing her for close-quarters combat. Dark Beast was as close as she'd ever come or ever hoped to come to actual incarnate evil.

"You have something that's mine, and I will take it back."

Her hand shot to her chest. The shard of crystal was what he wanted.

"In the meantime I have a present for you." He lightly tossed something small at her that glinted in the air.

Quetzal instinctively flinched, the protective membranes covering her eyes as she braced for something to happen. When nothing did she crouched to examine what he'd tossed at her feet. She picked up a gold chain with a small cross on it. It matched the one she wore.

"Your father says hello. Or at least he would if . . . .if he were here." Dark Beast smiled, gloating.

"You bastard!" Quetzal shrieked and threw herself at him.

He grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against a tree. "Temper, temper." He drove his knee into her stomach before dropping her in the snow.

With the wind driven from her, Quetzal writhed in the snow, trying to breathe.

Dark Beast picked her up by the collar of her clothes. "I think I'll pay a visit to your friends first though."

"I'll kill you," she choked out.

"How much damage do you think I can do before they realize I'm not Beast? Last time I had an opportunity like this I bricked him up in a wall first. That was fun. Maybe I'll do it again. Stop thrashing." He shoved her face first into the tree.

Her face was bleeding. The change to Saurian form wasn't working. "Deal with me," she snarled. "You want the crystal I have. So deal with me. They've got nothing to do with this."

"Of course they don't. This is just for fun. I'll be seeing you Wanderer – real soon." He touched two claws to the side of her head.

Quetzal collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

It was dark when the Creature woke up. She thrashed to her feet. The trees were too closely packed for her to spread her wings so she ran. Abstract concepts were difficult for her to grasp, but she understood danger and fear. And what to do when a fearsome predator is headed to a nest with defenseless kin.

The Creature shrieked in the night air, a battle cry to rally comrades. Once again the call was unanswered. On her run to the mansion she stretched into saurian form, galloping on wings that she couldn't spread for flight.

She slammed into the front door at top speed. It creaked but it didn't give. With a shriek she circled back around to try again. Obstacles were a temporary hindrance, but still frustrating. This time the bay window proved to have much less structural integrity than the door.

The protective membranes covered her delicate eyes, but thick feathers protected the rest of her body. Leaping through the glass pane did no damage. The light in the room however, was blinding. She would have to rely on scent and temperature until her eyes adjusted.

The Creature barreled down hallways, snuffling for her prey's scent.

"Quetzal, what the hell are you doing?!"

The words meant nothing. A sudden flash of heat impacted her side and knocked her off of her stance. She thrashed to her feet and swung her tail around, knocking the human down. He was not her prey. She continued her pursuit.

The next snuffling breath drew in the traces of her prey. With another battle cry she charged forward, driven by an instinctual desire to remove the predator from her nest. Her prey yelped in surprise when she leapt forward, her mouth gaping wide.

Before she could snap her jaws shut every fiber of her being yelled "STOP!" as the human half of her mind suddenly regained functionality. The Creature shut down and dropped to the ground.

Quetzal was as shocked as anyone else. Her form withdrew back into human proportions, feathers shedding off in one mass. She screamed in fear as she scooted away from Beast. He looked just as frightened as her.

"What happened?" she asked the world. It was just like waking up from a nightmare into something worse. "Where did Dark Beast go?" She was gulping air through her nose and mouth. "He said he was coming here. He said he was going to hurt people." She was moderately grateful that there was no trace of Dark Beast in the air.

"I'd say you beat him to it," Beast snapped. His heart was pounding in his chest.

Quetzal scrambled to her feet. She was naked; the transformation to the Creature shredded her clothes. "I have to find him. We're in danger until he's dealt with. All of us." She reached out a hand to help Beast to his feet.

"How the hell did the Creature get loose?" he asked as he hauled himself up.

She didn't remember it very clearly. "Dark Beast – he, he did something to my head." And she bolted back for the door, stopping only long enough to grab her long jacket.

Quetzal raced back to the pond as fast as she could. When she hit the cold night air she immediately reproduced the fluffy downy feathers over her bare skin and toughened her feet. Without slowing down she fumbled for her phone. The X-men weren't the only friends she had that Dark Beast might go after. She dialed Victor Creed's number and silently cursed each ring that went by. Finally the voice mail kicked on.

"I hope you're still using this number because it's the only one I know for you." She said quietly and quickly. "Keep an eye out for an atyp that looks like Beast over the next few days – heck, maybe weeks; he's patient. If he's not acting right then put him down hard. Because it won't be Beast. It will be Dark Beast. He'll be after you because of me. Just stay careful. I don't have time to explain now."

Quetzal slowed down to a trot and then stopped. It abruptly occurred to her that if Dark Beast was still lingering then encountering him by herself would be bad.

Jean and Wolverine caught up to her quickly.

"You left quite a mess and scared a lot of people," Jean said. Her voice was stern.

Quetzal tried not to scream at them. They didn't understand how bad this guy was. "Dark Beast did something to my head. It let the Creature loose. She thought – she thought –" There was an intense image in Quetzal's head. A nest with young chimeras, fragile little eggs, and an insidious weasel trying to gnaw through them.

"That was a strong image." Jean blinked. "She thought her . . . nest was in danger."

"He said he was going to hurt everyone." Quetzal said. "And even if he didn't say it - it's what he does. We have to stop him."

"Where was he?" Jean asked.

"By the pond."

It was clear Wolverine wasn't buying into it, but Quetzal didn't care as they started towards the pond. He'd understand when he encountered Dark Beast. Brushing up against anything that evil could only provoke fear and the intense desire to right the world by eliminating it. The Creature had gone after the wrong target, but she would have died defending them against Dark Beast. They'd have to understand that.

"Stay alert," Quetzal said as they neared the pond. "He's very dangerous."

"Which is why you went charging in head first?" Wolverine asked.

"Hey, I smartened up," Quetzal said. "But hurry, we can't let him get away."

Finally they arrived at the pond. The snow was pristine and freshly fallen. Quetzal's tracks led up to the log she had been sitting on and then away from where she fell. There was nothing else. No second set of tracks, no signs of a brawl, nothing.

"I saw him here," Quetzal said. She wasn't believing what she saw.

Jean tucked her hands under her arms for warmth. "There's no sign anyone was here but you Quetzal."

"I saw him, I smelt him." She ran her claws through her hair, staring at the snow. "I fought with him. There - there should be blood here. My blood. It should . . . . it shouldn't be all . . . . undisturbed."

"There's nothing here kid," Wolverine growled. He was trying to figure out what her game was this time.

"This isn't possible." There was no sign of a struggle. No sign of anything but her lonesome presence. She saw a glint in the faint light and bent to pick it up. It was the necklace. "He gave me this."

Wolverine took it from her and smelled it. "Your scent's the only one on it." He handed it to Jean for examination.

"How do you know it belongs to your father?" Jean asked.

"It matches mine. My dad and mom, my sisters, my cousins, we all had matching crosses." Quetzal's hand touched the pendant around her own neck. The chain was loose enough that it would remain during her transformations.

"There don't seem to be any sort of distinguishing marks on it."

"Marks can be traced," Quetzal said. Her voice was distracted.

"That's my point," the testiness in her voice made Quetzal's attention snap back to the present.

"If it had any distinguishing marks then it wouldn't be his. My dad didn't carry anything that could be traced."

"Quetzal, I'm not sensing anyone around but us. No one is out here."

Quetzal was still staring at the snow. "He was here. He was," she insisted despite what her senses were now telling her.

"Let's go back to the Mansion," Jean said. "It's getting cold out here."

"I knew there was something not right about that girl," Wolverine said. "Course I didn't know she was that degree of crazy." He had told them about the afternoon Quetzal disappeared, went out of her way to avoid him and any questions he'd had about it.

It was clear to his friends that Beast's nerves were still jangling from his face-to-maw encounter with the Creature. "It does make the rest of what she's told us suspect."

"But is she lying?" Cyclops asked. Her reaction to his attempts to stun her had been swift and unexpected. The tail blow had sent him to the ground and knocked the glasses off his face. By the time he'd found them the incident was over, with a hangdog and confused Quetzal being escorted back inside by Jean and Wolverine. Quetzal stammered out sincere apologies for the mess and answered all the questions she could. All her answers boiled down to "Dark Beast did something," but even she acknowledged there was no evidence to back it up. Then she'd gone up to her room to get dressed and lay down.

"She seems to honestly believe what she's told us. Even the Creature thought it was protecting us." Jean said. "But . . . she may be disturbed."

"Dimension traveling has been known to cause problems in the perception of reality," Beast said. "Her whole history is . . . quite fantastic. With no way to prove or disprove it. Just her stories. While they hang together logically on the surface . . . . " he trailed off when he realized there wasn't a delicate way to say what he was thinking. "Schizophrenics can build similar views of the world. It all makes sense according to their internal logic, but it doesn't make it reality."

"And we haven't gotten a complete truth out of her yet," Wolverine said. He'd finally figured out why her pat answers bothered him. "She'll give half an answer. But any complete story has to be dragged out of her. Why didn't she tell us about being a construct."

"She did tell me." Beast said with a frown. "But it was only after I noticed the unusual genetic markers – where the building blocks were fused together."

"Right, you would have figured it out on your own," Wolverine said.

"And by telling me she could ask that I not tell anyone else." Beast shook his head. "Is she really that cagey?"

"You saw her at the camp," Wolverine answered. "Have you ever seen another raw recruit with nerves that steady? She has ice water in her veins."

"At any rate," Storm added. "It seems her control of her alter ego is not nearly as ironclad as she claimed. We could have had a bloodbath here like back at the camp. She nearly killed you Hank."

Beast didn't want to think about the gaping serrated jaws. "She stopped herself."

"Barely," Wolverine grumbled. "If she hadn't then how much more damage could she have done before we stopped her? She fast and tougher than she looks in that form."

There was silence for a minute as everyone considered what might have happened. Storm shuddered. "Things cannot be allowed to remain in this state. We have to leash the Creature if she is incapable of doing so."

Cyclops summed up the situation. "So we have on our hands a weaponized mutant with delusions of persecution. Jesus Christ, and we were letting her near the children."

"We were lucky," Wolverine said. "So what do we do with her now?"

Quetzal sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the necklace in her hands. She didn't know about the conference that took place downstairs, but she berated herself for her actions and turned the matter over in her head.

She was certain the necklace was her father's. And she knew she hadn't acquired it herself. It was real and solid. Something had happened.

But her body had no bruises or aches that would have remained after a confrontation like that. There was nothing in the snow to show that a second person had been there. Not a footprint or tuft of fur or anything. And looking back at the way it ended she had to concede that to the best of her knowledge Dark Beast didn't have any talents or tech that would shut down the human half of her mind.

So she was forced to entertain the possibility that it was in her head. It was unthinkable. She didn't have hallucinations. Horrible, awful nightmares on occasion, but never hallucinations. Never anything to suggest her mind could snap to the point where she'd procure her own matching necklace and not remember it. If she were a normal atyp with a normal brain structure she could chalk it up to a malevolent psychic. But psychics had no effect on her.

Therefore she was either sane and something – someone was screwing with her with technology she didn't know and for motives she didn't understand. Or she was losing her mind. There was no third option that she could see. The second scenario was unacceptable, but the first was unbelievable.

Her dad would tell her to think it through before things got even further out of hand. Figure out your options before any of them close off.

She closed her eyes and thought like a Chimera, not the scared girl she was. If someone was out to get her then she was clearly unprepared for this kind of attack. Without motive or even a likely perpetrator she couldn't track down her unseen attacker. Still, she wasn't about to discount Dark Beast as the force behind it right away. Furthermore, the attack had nearly caused an unacceptable casualty when she nearly took Beast's head off.

Maybe she was losing her mind. It wasn't likely. All Chimeras were supposed to be psychologically hardy. An army of super soldiers would be useless if they were suffering from PTSD. There was nothing in her mental history to suggest that she was likely to start suffering delusions that badly for no cause. So if it was her going crazy then somehow it was due to her recent connection with the X-men. Maybe Jean's psychic ability had an unpredictable effect on the connection between Chimera and human. Maybe Quetzal, lacking the conditioning she was designed for, wasn't that psychologically hardy and the violence had splintered her mind further. Maybe the stress had her jumping at shadows her mind was manufacturing.

So matter which of the two scenarios is correct, there's only one course of action, she concluded. I have to go.

She didn't notice she was rubbing at her sternum again. When she got up she grabbed her phone and checked the hallway to make sure no one was hanging around eavesdropping.

Quetzal hit redial on her cell phone and waited for the other end to pick up. Once again the call was picked up by a soulless if cheerful voice connecting her to the recipient's voice mailbox.

"It's me again," Quetzal said. "I think – it seems I may have warned you about nothing. I'm sorry if I caused any alarm. Still, keep an eye out for any encounters that don't seem right. He's vicious, and he'd hurt anyone I had contact with, just for fun it seems. I might be crazy; I might be paranoid; I might be right and everyone that I . . . that I talk to is in danger. Be careful." She took a deep breath. "I know you didn't mean it out of any goodness of your heart but I think you were right about what I should do. You might not hear from me for a while."

Afterward leaving the message she ended the call and set the phone on the nightstand. She sat back in the armchair, legs akimbo, and rested her head against the back of it, waiting to fall asleep. Her dad would do that when the end of the day came and he was worried about the ubiquitous "them" being after his small family. Of course when he did it he had a shotgun with anti-personnel rounds laid across his lap. Quetzal had to satisfy herself with an unsheathed K-Bar knife resting under one hand.

I guess you were right dad. "They" really are after me. She tightened her grip around the necklace looped around her hand. And when I find them, they'll have heck to pay.

Sleep was a long time coming.

Wolverine sat against the wall in the room next to Quetzal's. It was Kitty's and she was away. He felt like he was invading her privacy by being in here without her knowledge. Kitty kept the door locked and faded through it as she needed to so he would have to fix the busted lock before she returned. In the meantime he was able to sit with his back to the wall and listen to Quetzal as she thought she was alone. She didn't talk to herself as much as he'd hoped, but he did hear her leave a message on someone's phone.

So Quetzal was making contact with someone in secret. Warning them about things. It sounded like it could be a handler. Mysterious meetings and mysterious messages were a bad sign.

Despite that, he felt better knowing his instincts weren't leading him false. He had to find some kind of proof, but now he knew there was something to be found.

He waited in the darkness. He would have to wait until he was confident she was asleep. Her senses were acute too and he didn't want to be heard. In the meantime he closed his eyes and meditated.

A few hours later Wolverine made his way to his own bed. Any soreness from sitting on the hardwood floor that long was both ignored and rapidly fading. He was trying to think of a way to get Quetzal's phone away from her. The messages left for her would probably prove to be quite enlightening.

She always seemed to be carrying her phone in her front pocket. If Remy were around it'd be a quick matter to ask the light-fingered Cajun to lift the phone, but he was off dealing with some personal business and wasn't likely to be back for another few weeks. Wolverine would just have to remain alert for an opportunity.

With the rudiments of a plan in place Wolverine felt much better. It was only a matter of time until who Quetzal really was and what she was doing was ferreted out. He laid down to catch a few hours of sleep.

The sound of a manila envelope being propped against the window didn't wake him up. It was unlabeled and had no fingerprints or any other identifying materials. There were no footprints in the snow leading up to it.

Wolverine would find it in the morning. And all the predictive models indicated that his subsequent actions would prod Quetzal to develop in a suitable fashion. She had proven resistant so far, but that wouldn't last. All domesticated creatures, chimeras included, craved to be broken to the harness at some deep level.

Author's Postscript: One chapter left in this 'verse. Stay tuned!