Memories
The Other
Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men or any of their characters. Tora and Weapon X-ii are my own though.
She was smiling cruelly at him when he woke up.
"Tora…?"
"Oh, I'm not Tora. She is."
He looked to where she was pointing and struggled against the chains that were holding him. Tora, the real Tora, was being held up by one arm, Creed twisting it almost 180 degrees. She raised her head and he saw the cuts and bruises of a bad beating just beginning to fade.
"My thanks Runt for bringing my little pet back."
Her eyes were dark with fear and sorrow. When she spoke, she was in obvious pain.
"Logan. Sorry. Didn't smell them coming."
"Shut up you worthless piece of trash!"
Suddenly she was dangling from one of his huge hands, claws digging into her neck, blood welling up so Logan could smell it.
"You look a lot better than you did seven months ago. I'll enjoy this."
She was trying to fight, trying and failing desperately. The other woman, the one who looked and smelt like her walked over and hit her in the stomach.
"You're nothing. Just an imitation of me. You're a clone. A shadow of the real Marie. And that's me."
Tora was trying harder to get away, animal rising to the surface in panic. She struck out at Creed, claws catching in his clothes.
"Gotta try harder than that frail."
The woman who claimed to be the true Tora laughed at the other woman's obvious pain as Sabretooth's claws dug deeper into her windpipe.
"Leave her for later. I'll watch them. You go and deal with…the plan."
Creed grinned, then threw Tora across the room so she landed limply at Logan's feet. Her eyes, that almost looked defeated, bore into him. How could Creed do this to her? He'd already shattered her confidence. And now he was threatening to hurt her even more. When he'd left to put whatever plan he was doing into action the other woman strutted over.
"Wolverine I assume. Such a pity all you ever saw was my shadow. I was Weapon X-ii, the success. That there was a failure. But what would you expect of a clone? They gave her adamantium as well and not just in her claws. No, she got the full skeleton. What a joke. Such a pity."
Now he was closer he could see all the differences between her and his Tora. She'd put on make-up while he was out. She hadn't changed her clothes though but he could bet when she wasn't disguised as his Tora, she'd wear something revealing. And the eyes were bitter and harsh while hers were shielded but caring. Suddenly Tora's hand snaked out and she tugged the other woman over. By now her injuries had healed and she quickly broke through his chains. Then the other woman hit him and he blacked out for a second. When his senses cleared he panicked. The two women were now both covered in blood, both had smooth metal claws out. And he couldn't tell the difference. Both smelt of Creed. He didn't dare fight when he could injure his sort-of-girlfriend. Not that it was really official or anything. More a sort of understanding.
The two were equal as injuries from their claws didn't heal. One swung out and missed, the other brought her hand down over the right side of the first's face, splattering the black stripe of hair with red. The injured one howled then struck out, sending the other flying. The downed woman looked up at Logan with pleading golden eyes.
"Help me."
That sank it. He struck out at the woman at his feet, pinning her down. The bloodsoaked woman looked at him with a grimace of pain.
"How did you know I was me?"
"You asking for help? Give me a break."
"Congratulations Miss Circen. Managing to beat your clone like that. I'm impressed."
The woman pinned between Logan's arms screamed.
"LIAR! I AM THE FIRST! I AM THE TRUE ONE!"
Creed was smiling, like he was enjoying the show.
"Actually, you were the clone. I…edited your memory and brain pattern. It's a pity only claws were adamantium. I could have done with some for fightin' the runt."
Logan slammed his captive's head down to knock her out and followed Tora into the attack on Creed. He felt quite happy she was so defensive of him,
"LOGAN IS NOT A RUNT, YOU OVERGROWN-"
At this point she was winded with a blow to a stomach so whatever she thought Creed was, she didn't get a chance to say. He sort of wished she'd had time to finish the comment. But by now the adrenalin was pushing intelligible thought out of the way. There was just dodging and striking, two-on-one animal brawling. But she was having trouble seeing, the blood from her mutilated face dripping into her eyes, throwing her vision into turmoil. In the end she had to pull back to try and stop the bleeding. In the end Creed decided it would be easier to run. When Logan turned he saw all the bleeding from her fight with the clone.
"Cut them out."
She was looking at him with the single eye he could see. And he understood. She yelped as he tried to carefully cut her skin. He didn't want to do this. She'd had enough pain but if he didn't do this she'd have even more scars. But when he came to her face he knew he couldn't help her. The cuts went to the bone so he could see the dull metal of her skull. They had pierced into her mouth. He couldn't cut away the contamination without hurting her too much. At least the cuts were clean. Four parallel lines, from forehead to jaw, cutting over the brow but somehow managing to miss the eye.
"You need a proper doctor to see to this."
She nodded slightly and he realized it couldn't be as bad as falling on her own claws. Then she turned and gave a cat-like hiss.
"She's gone."
He turned and saw a trail of red dots peppered on the ground. They both began to follow the scent, injuries forgotten. It was when they heard the scream they realized what had happened.
"Eloise!"
She pushed past him and ran faster than he thought possible. She may not be close to her parents but she'd come to like her younger sister. He hadn't known exactly why until he'd talked to her earlier. She was smart and in some ways very grown up. But when he got to the point in the woods and saw her confusion at seeing two of her sister, one bleeding from numerous injuries, the other with her face torn open it hit him she was 15. The same age as Kitty. She'd obviously been attacked and now the two women were fighting. Only this time it was different. It wasn't testing each other's limits, pushing then retreating. This was a proper fight with both knowing how the other fought and both determined to beat the other. One desperate to protect, the other to lash out and hurt. But now he knew which was which. He dived in to help her and the other her ran yelping, like a wounded dog. He was all for going after her but Tora was trying to pick up Eloise and go back.
"We need a doctor for her. Please Logan, I need help on this one."
So typically her. She was incapable of asking for help for herself but she needed help with her sister. So he dropped the chase and helped her carry her sister back to the house where there was a lot of screaming, accusations thrown and panic.
She watched in silence as Tora absorbed the pain of having her face stitched up. She couldn't exactly tell the doctor the painkillers didn't work. She'd insisted on having Logan there. She gave the reason that the doctor she normally went to would want to know exactly what was used and she wasn't in a fit state to remember. Their fingers had interlaced and the doctor hadn't noticed. They'd got back and the stitches had been rejected. But by then the flesh had begun to knit together. She wore a power suppressor for as long as she dared before she began puking up from adamantium poisoning. And also watched the movies suggested by the other X-Men. Then she'd walked out into the pouring rain. The woman smiled slightly and reached up to her mask. Slender fingers traced over the carved ice.
Logan was walking out in the rain. Her hair was plastered to her head and she was looking upwards into the clouds. She turned and he saw the left side of her face first. The unblemished side. Then she turned to look at him fully and he saw the scars. Nothing anyone could do would get rid of them. They weren't like normal scars. The skin was perfectly unchanged until the sudden dark lines that now dominated her face. The edge of her mouth was twisted around the first scar. All four had ruined any chance of her ever leading a normal life without an image-inducer on permanently. And he knew her fierce animal pride wouldn't allow that. She was too like him in that respect.
"Shouldn't you come in? It's chuckin' it down."
"I love the rain. It makes me feel alive. There never used to be rain."
She stretched a hand up to the heavens to catch the water then let it trickle away through her fingers.
"But it's polluted. All the water smells of acid and smoke and humanity."
She looked sad. He knew she hated the scents of cars and smoke. She spent a lot of time outside, just sitting or standing in the rain or sun. For some reason she now avoided the mansion, only spending time there to eat, sleep and train. She turned her eyes on him. Now, whenever she was alone with him the barriers would drop. It was partially because she trusted him to be able to let them down, partially a need for someone to understand. He couldn't help but shudder at the mutilation of a face that would have been beautiful. If it hadn't been for the age in the eyes that shouldn't have been there. For a short while the promise had been there. That if, in a few years, she was able to put her past behind her, something beautiful would have appeared, like a butterfly from a cocoon. But a single mistake had destroyed that. One second of hesitation from driving her claws into a living, beating heart and no amount of surgery would ever hide the scars.
"It troubles you doesn't it?"
She had no trouble reading him now. She knew when to back off and when to push a point. She was
pretty much the only X-Man who dared to look him in the eye. And tell him straight to his face when he started being obnoxious. And then didn't run away.
"Come on. Slim wants you to get a physical just to make sure you're OK to go."
"Scott knows full well I'm fine."
"Well we can go back in. Or just go for a walk?"
She smiled and slid out a hand. Scott was probably going to kill them but he threatened to kill them every other day so what was the difference? As soon as they were out of sight of the house he brushed the scars with one hand and noticed she flinched.
"I didn't mean to hurt you."
"It's fine. They're just sore after that time with the collar."
"I can't believe you volunteered to wear that thing."
"It was that or bleed on the carpet. And Charles is annoyed enough at me already."
"What did you do to annoy him?"
"I sort of used the banister as a scratching post."
"You mean the banister on the staircase that was original and has survived all the attacks on the mansion so far?"
"Sort of that banister. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know catnip had that affect on me. Neither did Kurt."
"Great. My girlfriend goes crazy around catnip."
She dropped his hand and stepped back a bit.
"Did you mean that?"
"What?"
"The girlfriend comment?"
He looked into the eyes that had a slight hint of fear in them. She thought he was teasing her. She was preparing for him to hurt her like she'd been hurt before only worse.
"Course I meant it. We're a couple OK?"
She smiled weakly and he couldn't help but kiss her.
A soft voice startled the woman out of her reverie.
"Death said you'd missed me."
"Hello Phoenix."
"You know to call me Jean."
The red hair, green-eyed woman in a white costume stepped into the light.
"I'm sorry about the whole burning away the universe thing. It's how I work, remember? Just like it's your job to try and stop me."
"It's fine Jean. I knew it was going to happen. Frankly I'm amazed you took so long. Everything was going stagnant."
"You've changed since we last met. Have you become bitter?"
The woman turned to look at her 'sister'. They were dark and light, fire and ice but they got on.
"How close are you to finishing the reserves in the Stores?"
"Close. Just enough left for some…pondering."
Jean Grey-Summers, also known as Marvel Girl, Phoenix, Red, Jeannie and at a few down points in her life Dark Phoenix, Ravager of Worlds, but no one mentioned that if they were smart, sat beside the woman in black.
"You're still getting upset about it aren't you?"
"It's fine for you. You chose to be Phoenix. I just got told I had to do this and I never got a chance to back out."
"Yeah. I sort of know what you mean. Do you mind if I…?"
"Sit down, enjoy the party. You're about to come back as it is."