Memories
Burned Wood
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"Cia, please."
"Nori, I can't break the faith."
"But they're his parents."
"We don't have parents."
"Cia, they're X-Men. And that boy was kidnapped, forcibly aged and trained to kill them! I was there when they thought he had died. His mother refused to teach, refused to leave the library, ended up depressed, all because she thought he had died! They aren't like our parents! They care! Cia, we have to help them!"
Logan and Tora exchanged looks. Surge had been in that room yelling for the past ten minutes. They were in a derelict building, obviously not the main base of this mysterious 'Cia'. From what Surge said, it was somewhere in Manhattan. Suddenly, Noriko stepped out.
"She'll see you."
Logan stood up. Surge raised her hand in warning.
"But…"
"But?"
"But when you step into that room, you'll lose your senses of sight and smell. Cia… likes her privacy. You'll hear her and if you reach out, you could touch her, but you won't be able to find out what she looks or smells like."
"WHAT!"
"That's her conditions."
Tora frowned at the blue haired girl.
"Noriko…?"
"And…and I'm no longer a part of her group. I've agreed to a memory wipe. I'll remember her name and a few unimportant details. But appearance, hideout, important stuff… all gone."
"Thank you."
She shrugged.
"I wasn't really there for long. It was more a sort of stopping point."
"Why all the secrecy?"
"Cia…has had problems… with mutant supremacy groups trying to recruit her. She's an Omega Level if there ever was one."
"So her mutation is to do with memory? Or sensory input?"
"No. That's Ells. Cia…Cia has…has…"
She shook her head as the memories slipped away. Logan walked into the room, Tora stopping to touch Surge's arm comfortingly before following. As soon as they stepped into the room they saw…nothing. There was no one in the room. Then a voice, young, female, soft, rang out.
"You are X-Men?"
"Yes."
"You want to find the clawed boy?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"He's our son."
"Many of those who come to me want to escape their family."
Tora stepped forward.
"We care for him, we want him home," the claws slid out, "Men did this to me when I was younger than you. I am a weapon. And I do not want my son to suffer what I did."
"Metal in your bones?"
"And whips on my back and needles in my veins and fire on my arms and brands on my legs. Beatings, training, savaging by dogs. What mother would want her child to suffer that?"
"Prove it."
The voice was harsh.
"Why do you doubt me? Ah… Your parents betrayed you, didn't they?"
Silence was the only answer.
"I found my parents. Then I left them. They didn't, couldn't understand who, what I was. I was little more than an animal. I had two great friends and both are dead. And I've almost lost the one I loved and I had a son who was stolen. I have lost so, so much. Maybe I want to find it again?"
Then the air rippled and a young woman, only about nineteen appeared before them. She looked like a carved wooden doll. And one arm was blackened like charcoal with a white ash stump where the hand should be. There were other burns, other cracks in the otherwise smooth wood, but the arm was the worst.
"Look what my family did to me! My parents died years ago and when my guardian found me talking to the tree, she burned me! I was the Devil Incarnate! LOOK AT ME!"
Tora stood and met the carved eyes.
"I became this because it was the only way to stop the pain! I used to create flowers and vines and food. Now I'm stuck as a doll. This is what the people who were supposed to care for me did."
Tora reached out and the girl stepped back.
"I can heal you."
"No one can heal me."
"Trust me. I will heal you."
The burned wooden stump tentatively reached out and touched the flesh finger. And the ash and charcoal flickered as water coiled around it. The arm changed to smooth, glossy wood and then to flesh which spread across the body until the girl looked entirely normal. She gazed at her hand, previously half crushed and crumbling ash and flexed it. An odd look passed over her features and then suddenly flowers sprouted from her hands, a violently coloured bouquet. Then she laughed.
"You have my thanks. The boy headed north, towards the state line. He had black hair with red flecks that looked dyed in. Hetrochromia iridium. Yes, I do know medical terms. One eye was blue. The other was gold, like yours. He spoke oddly, like his mind was elsewhere. He couldn't fix on any one thing for too long. I gave him enough food for three days. He mentioned getting to Washington. But then, he also mentioned going to Miami, which is in the opposite direction. Keep an eye out on the train lines. I doubt he'll run the trains but he might use the tracks as a guide."
"Run the trains?"
"Fair dodge. You actually live on the trains, kip in the luggage racks and so on. I couldn't use it to get here but other kids do."
"Why not?"
"Not exactly inconspicuous, was I?"
Tora shrugged.
"You could have stayed still, pretended to be a statue."
The girl, her face now able to move properly, laughed. Logan frowned.
"Tora, what's going on? You disappeared a while ago."
The plant girl rolled her eyes.
"Ells, we're rolling out. Make the woman visible, and make me invisible, inaudible, untouchable and unsmellable."
A young girl answered.
"Sure Cia!"
Cia looked at Tora as she began to fade out of view.
"Debts are paid. You healed me, I gave you information. We never met. Understand?"
"Of course."
The greenish-brown eyes met gold and the girl grinned.
"Thank you. If you ever need help, ask for Acacia. I'll be willing to help."
"I'll keep that in mind. If you ever need help from us, go to the Xavier Institute."
Just before she faded from view, the girl nodded and smiled. Tora nodded and then Logan grabbed her arms.
"Don't you dare disappear like that again!"
She shook her head.
"I got the information we needed. And helped a young woman's life get a lot better."
Suddenly she staggered as thoughts bombarded her.
Etana was standing beside her, lips tight. There was a look on her face that Tora guessed had appeared just before Etana had killed someone.
"Once we have found Curt Tora, I am going to track down that girl's guardians and give them a piece of my mind."
"Etana, please don't go around torturing people. If we have to, we can bring it to court."
"Court? I never did very well in courts. Too many bad memories. I've been tried as a murderer, a demon, a witch, a fairy and a cross-dresser."
"A cross-dresser?"
"Look, I needed to wear armour and they don't make armour in women's sizes, so unless I was going to get Hephaestus to make me some more armour, which, seeing as he was making me some adamantine stuff at the time, was a bit ungrateful."
"Hephaetus? As in the Greek god?"
"Oh, didn't you know? Athena and me go back years. The Warrior Maidens. That's what they called us. Mortal and Immortal warrior maids who you really didn't want to get on your bad side. My armour was a gift from her at my three-hundredth birthday. I got on with Hercules as well. He kept asking if I was a demi-god and we had an argument about whether the Greek gods were actually Gods. I said they were just immensely powerful beings who allowed themselves to be worshipped and got taken in by their own deception…"
"And Hercules said?"
"Nothing. He just hit me over the head with his club. Luckily I was wearing my adamantine helmet, which prevented my head from rolling around on the floor. We didn't speak for the other two-thousand, seven hundred years until the wedding. Then all he said was, 'Athena sends her love'. Why are we talking about me? We have a prodigal son to catch."
Tora staggered and felt Logan catch her.
"What's wrong?"
"Others…can't keep them locked out…"
"You don't have to come with me."
She pulled herself upright and slapped him.
"I. Am. Coming. Compris?"
Logan nodded and they walked out to where Noriko was sitting with an odd look on her face.
"I can remember everything. She didn't wipe my memory…"
Tora touched her arm.
"Cia found out about trust."
Trust. A word with only one meaning, but so many shades. A word that could be used to mean a thousand things, yet truly only meant one. Trust. The one thing the three beings in the room felt for each other implicitly. They may not like each other, or even tolerate each other in normal circumstances. But they trusted the others to help them, lay down their life for them if required. Not that it would be required. But if it was, it was good to know that there were those who cared. How many people lived without care?