Memories
Forward
Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men or any of their characters. Tora and Weapon X-ii are my own though.
She woke. There was water coming in from the open doors. It was raining. She closed them and sighed. She glanced at the clock on the table beside the bed. She'd got enough sleep to feel healthy. She'd never needed much. And she always felt more awake at night anyway. It sounded like everyone else was asleep. Everyone? No. There were voices downstairs. Quiet. Confidential. And only two. Kitty was along the corridor and Ororo had walked away from the stairs recently and not gone back down. Curiosity piqued, she opened the door. The corridor was dark but her pupils, normally oval, widened until the irises were no longer visible. She could see the outlines of the corridor and more. She'd realized it was special when Eva couldn't see the colours. She'd obviously had that gift before hand. She could see the sleeping form of Kitty through the wall, in reds that weren't red. As she'd grown older she'd realized she could see into infrared. It was useful. Not very far in but enough to allow her to see objects that radiated heat. She couldn't really tell how warm an object was but it was useful. Anything with a temperature difference of about 10°C showed in different shades. And the rooms had a temperature of about 20. It wasn't a big difference, but if you could see a rabbit in the heather, you could tell the difference between two shades of not-quite-red. She moved silently, on the balls of her feet. If you knew how, you could move more softly than a cat. And with more grace. With that she eased herself onto the banister. The empty space to the bottom of the house gaped below her. She stepped into the void.
As she fell, she twisted in the air, braced herself and landed lightly on her feet. It had been a while since she'd tried that trick. She had to stop herself from laughing. She remembered the bruises she'd gained learning how a cat twisted in the air and then the work that had gone into landing silently. It had been her coup d'grace and she knew it. Then she remembered why she had come downstairs. She sniffed the air. They were in the living room. Scott and Xavier. Once more she became one with the shadows. The words were there. She listened intently.
"What do you mean, you couldn't read her?" Scott. He sounded annoyed.
"I mean, Cyclops, that she has shields unlike any I have seen before."
"What do you mean?"
"I have encountered two types. The first type I have placed the X-Men's heads. A telepath can still sense you are there, but not your thoughts. The second is completely hidden. The astral plane is uninterrupted. Unless I physically meet the person, I do not know they are there."
"And this Tora?"
"At first I took her to be one of the second type. I couldn't see her at all. And then I found it."
"What?"
"With her, there is a tear in the plane. Absorbing. So miniscule I didn't notice at first. But there is a hole in the universe and it's in her mind."
"What!"
"I don't know Scott. It could simply be those digital chips she mentioned. Or it could be a natural mutation. Either way, this is something new."
"Logan thinks so too. He said she's different from him. I think he likened her scent to that of a cat. It was either a lynx or an ocelot. One or the other."
"Yes. I got the scents from him."
She had heard enough. It was all she could do to stop herself from confronting them. And the words sunk in. Xavier was a mutant. And more than that. He was a telepath. He could read minds. He'd obviously been trying to read hers and couldn't. Well that was his problem. She wasn't going to listen to them talk about her anymore. She recalled the steps that creaked as she walked upstairs. When she reached the second landing, she froze. There was someone there. Watching. For how long?
"Impressive jump."
Wolverine. Somehow she thought he wouldn't tell the others about this.
"I heard them talking."
"`Bout you?"
"What do you think?"
She felt, rather than saw his grin.
"Give Scott space. He lost someone he cared a lot about recently."
"How?"
"No one really knows. Her powers got out of control somehow. She spiralled into the darkness and couldn't get out. In the end she died to stop herself from killing him."
"What darkness?"
"You ever feel as though there's something inside you, eating away at you?"
"…No. I am the thing that eats away at myself. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah. That's what it's like for me. Don't reckon anyone else would get that."
She turned to go. There was no reason to hang around. She could feel his eyes burning on her back as she walked away and the beast sang within her.
There is someone like me. I am not alone anymore. Someone who understands.
There was nothing more than curiosity from the water. That and a faint hope for comradeship. Tora didn't understand love. In all the languages she knew, not a single one had a version of that. Perhaps it would be interesting to see that confrontation from another angle…
Logan hadn't heard her. He'd been preparing to go on one of his frequent nighttime walks when he'd happened to glance up and see her climbing up onto the railings. He'd withdrawn into the shadows and watched as she'd jumped. The grace with which she'd fallen and landed gave him an idea as to the differences in their "training". He was the assassin, used when you needed mass slaughter. She was the spy, the one in the dark. While he was sent to do the messy jobs, she'd have been sent for the ones that needed to look like an accident or the ones brute-force couldn't get at.
He'd heard Scott and Chuck talking and realized she must have overheard. Poor kid. She was just a kid. It was like that time with Kitty and the Brotherhood only opposite. She had the body of a woman but she moved, talked, smelt like a child. But it wasn't because of time changes. This was because a kid had been messed with. She was more weapon than warrior. He still couldn't quite believe what he had seen. She'd hit out at Sabretooth. Cut him and hurt him. But he hadn't healed. She had taken every one of his hits and he'd bled from hers. He'd still been bleeding when he'd run. All the fights he'd had with Creed and neither of them were ever permanently injured. But this girl was different. She was coming back upstairs and he shrank into the shadows. She stopped. Sniffed the air and Logan cursed. Course she'd be able to smell him. Well he might as well talk. He cast around for something to say.
"Impressive jump."
He watched as tension slid out of her. She turned towards him
"I heard them talking."
"`Bout you?"
"What do you think?"
He grinned. Then was serious.
"Give Scott space. He lost someone he cared a lot about recently."
"How?"
"No one really knows. Her powers got out of control somehow. She spiralled into the darkness and couldn't get out. In the end she died to stop herself from killing him."
"What darkness?"
"You ever feel as though there's something inside you, eating away at you?"
"…No. I am the thing that eats away at myself. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah. That's what it's like for me. Don't reckon anyone else would get that."
She turned to go. She was blunt and to the point. She wasn't the sort to waste words. A loner. And something sounded within him.
There is someone like me. I am not alone anymore. Someone who understands.
She couldn't help but smile as feeling of responsibility came rushing around her. He wanted to help the girl who hurt deep down. Which was really rather like him. Well, like he'd be shortly. Relatively speaking. Considering life-spans and so on. At the moment he was still throwing up walls around him. It would take a lot to pull them down.
The light woke her. Tora…that was her name now. She uncurled and stretched, wondering whether she would leave today. It would be hard to. Now she wasn't alone. So many new scents. So many new words and colours and things to do and learn and see. She wanted to know so much. All she had learnt. It was only a fraction of all there was to know. And she wanted to know. She wanted to find out everything. But to begin with she'd find out all she could about the X-Men. She was good at finding out stuff. All it would take is ten minutes alone with a computer. She was good with computers. Computers did what they were told. They were easy to read. Not like people. Some of the X-Men were easy to read. They couldn't hide their stance or scents. Others were better. The best was Wolverine. He kept deliberately changing stance, changing body language when she tried to read him. But to be fair, she was doing the same.
A tentative step out of the room. It was quiet. There was no one on this floor. They were all downstairs. She then had to decide the conventional route and the quick way. In the end she walked. It was easier to explain than dropping out of the sky. And she didn't want to be asked questions. She wanted to be the one who asked them.
They looked up when she entered. Half of them smiled openly. The others tried to. But she could tell it wasn't a real smile. Of course they were nervous around her. They knew less about her than anyone else they offered their home to. Xavier would simply read their mind for their intentions. But her…she was different. Unreadable and therefore a wildcard. An uncertainty. She liked the idea of being an uncertainty. She been so uncertain and now she was sure. It was everyone else who didn't know. In a rare moment of thankfulness she smiled as she remembered the difficult times spent learning to read a persons body language. The teacher had been a curt old soldier. He'd spent hours drumming the knowledge into her. And when she'd finally managed to read him, through all the layers of subtle poses designed to confuse her he'd smiled slightly and never came back. But not before she'd overheard him talking to the Professor.
"Best pupil I ever taught."
She'd felt so embarrassed. He'd never given her any hint he had been pleased at her. And she'd not seen it. She was good but she'd realized then he hadn't taught her all his tricks. From then on, she'd watched her tutors carefully. Gradually, without any of them realizing it, she learnt to see what they didn't tell her. Watched her fencing tutor and learnt how he always disarmed her. Watched her martial arts tutor and realized exactly where to apply pressure to cause your opponent to collapse. Noticed how the firearms master always used a gun with a slightly skewed barrel, to throw her shot off. They were all cheating and when she learnt their tricks she soon surpassed them. They'd all left, echoing the sentiment that her first teacher to leave had.
"Best pupil I ever taught."
The words from around the table dragged her back to reality. She hadn't realized they'd been calling her by her new name. The name she'd… rather embarrassingly… forgotten.
"Tora, are you alright?"
"I am just thinking. Remembering something I was once told."
She noticed the worried glances between Scott and Xavier. If they had guessed… But they wouldn't. Not unless Wolverine told them. Logan didn't strike her as his real name. It was like hers. One name. The others all had two. But she only had one and so did he. But if he was like her… No. He'd lived outside. That much was clear. He spoke with slang, something she still couldn't get her head around, no matter how often her teachers had tried to explain you sounded like a foreigner if you spoke with the proper grammar. She hadn't got that. Why would people not speak properly? Once more she noticed they were all looking at her.
"I am sorry. I cannot help but remember my past."
Once more, nervous glances. Logan was the only one that looked at her.
"I know it's hard for ya to adjust. With me it took years. Still am if you want the truth."
She shrugged. She didn't really care about adjusting. All she had noticed was the fear when she had mentioned her past. She decided to make them uneasy.
"If you don't want me to talk about it, I won't. I heard it is hard to hear about another's suffering."
She hit home there. They looked guilty. She had read them all correctly. They feared her but they feared what had been done to her more. They couldn't begin to comprehend her suffering so they tried to ignore it, pretend it hadn't happened. There was nobody there who would begin to understand the pain. The hurt and beatings. Oh, they had told her on the flight here. Kurt had almost been beaten to death in Germany because of his appearance. But that had only been one time. It had been every single day. No reprieve. And the physical signs had faded, leaving only the memory and the nerves. For weeks after the first beating she'd flinched whenever a guard had moved too suddenly. She was dreaming again. Why couldn't she stay in the present?
"We were planning to have a training session after breakfast. If you would like to watch, then we could see the extent of your mutation…if that is what you want."
She shrugged again.
"I have a better idea. Do you have a computer anywhere?"
"Yes. Why?"
"I copied my files. I can give you the articles on my abilities."
"I would prefer to see them myself. Where did you copy them too?"
"My head."
Once more the nervous glances.
"I don't forget anything. They saw to that. Every little detail I notice is recorded and placed on the chips."
"How much memory do you have?"
"You mean how much backing storage. Memory isn't that good. I don't really know. I've never reached the upper limits. Oh, and would I be able to train? I haven't had a proper training session since Creed took over six years ago. I did enjoy them."
Logan…it was easier to give him a name, even if it wasn't his real one, seemed worried about something.
"Six years with Creed. What did he do to you?"
So he definitely had a past with Sabretooth.
"Tried to make me fight him. When I wouldn't he beat me and later cut. Once he'd hurt me he'd throw me back into the cage. Sometimes he'd forget to chain me. But once I'd been hurt, he'd forget about me."
"Never anything other than beatings?"
"He used to say stuff that I didn't understand but I got used to ignoring it."
He didn't exactly relax but his shoulders lost some of their tension. What else could Creed have done to her that made him so nervous?
Naïve. The girl without a clue in the world. Of course it wasn't her fault. She had enough drugs to prevent her from gaining the unfortunate scent and Creed had kept them up, partially because it was easier to control her but mainly because the needles were so deadly looking. The poor woman would be in for a shock soon. She wasn't really a woman. She was stuck at an earlier stage, drugs preventing her from developing. But it would be interesting to see how she reacted to the training.