Memories

Break Me

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If you want to use Tora, or any of my other characters, PM me.

Warning: Mentions of miscarriage in this chapter, plus some rather dark thoughts from Tora.

She stared at the mirror, at the face staring back out at her. The hair coiled and styled, no scars marring the face. Poacher leant towards her, hissing words out at her.

"Are you really that weak? You are nothing!"

"I… I… I have…worth…"

"You. Are. Nothing."

Tora turned away, tried to block out the words and then Poacher's voice changed.

"You need him. Let me go and I will bring him back."

She raised her head slowly and stared at the empty silver orbs, the hair swirling around in the mirror.

"All you have to do is let me out."

"No… Not after last time… I can't trust you…"

"I. Am. YOU!"

"Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!"

"So alone and afraid. When will you tell them? Dare you tell them you doubt your own sanity, that you fear your own inner darkness? The darkness that is I?"

"Go away! Leave me alone!"

"But you are already alone. I am just another part of you."

"NO!"

The shards of glass fell into the sink, as blood ran down her hands, as cuts knitted back together. This had to stop. Every mirror whispered to her, every time she looked at her reflection she ended up seeing Dark Dragon's emotionless face staring out. She was being taunted, driven mad by her own subconscious. It was worthy of Norman Osborn in terms of insanity. She clutched the sink and stared at one of the shards, her golden eyes flashing silver then she pulled away, breathing heavily.

She couldn't cope. This was so alien, so dangerous, she daren't tell the others. Their only other case like this had been Jean and Dark Phoenix was simple. She arrived when Jean was stressed, under extreme pressure. But this… This was different. This was manipulative, carefully prising her fingers away from her hold on reality. She was hanging on the edge of the cliff, her hands the only thing keeping her up. Dark Phoenix stamped on the hands. Dark Dragon was so much more careful. Gently raising the fingers, in such small degrees you didn't even notice until you fell. Tora stared at the shattered back on the mirror, wondering how she was going to explain away the third mirror in only half as many weeks. She had to control herself. She had to. They couldn't have the slightest hint there was something wrong. She needed to ride this out on her own.

Because she didn't have someone to lean on anymore.

"Of course, she was so unstable at this point she didn't even realise there were some of the world's foremost psychics just down the hall and all she had to do was ask for help."

"But she never would. You know that."

"I'm worried about Tora."

Scott turned and nodded at Xavier.

"Aren't we all? She's unstable, dangerous, losing her grip. She can't even go into the kitchens anymore."

"What?"

"I saw her backing out, then retching. I go in and there's a slice of raw meat on the bench. I don't know what set her off, but I think either her senses are going into overload or she's regressing to a more feral personality."

"We can't tell Logan. You know how he'd react."

Scott nodded. He looked exhausted.

"She doesn't trust us anymore, can't even hide her anger when we go against her. She's not Tora anymore."

"Her shields have changed. Previously they were passive, using the hiding method over other barriers. But… They've changed. It's like they're now bright and flashing, designed to draw you in… and then it just drives a psi-knife right through your mind. She's falling apart Scott. We need to get her to open up."

"You know she won't Charles. I only found out about this Project: Eden when Kurt told me. She won't talk to us about private stuff."

"What's happening to us Scott? We aren't a family anymore."

"I don't know. I don't know…"

In the shadows, Tora retreated. She was finding it easier to hide in shadows nowadays. The silver on her old uniform had been so impractical, preventing her from hiding. The dragon now was more grey than silver, and she knew she looked dangerous. She liked that.

She was dangerous.

Phoenix let out a low whistle, staring at the pool.

"Okay, she's freaking me out now. She's scarier than lots of super-villains. And that's impressive."

Her hands snapped open and waves shot direct at Scott's chest, pinning him to the wall. Once, she would have only used this much force on the worst enemies, in the most dangerous of circumstances. But this was just a training exercise. Cyclops could barely breathe. And if she used this amount of force on him, what would she use in the field?

"Tora… Stop!"

She didn't, instead increasing the pressure.

"Tora!"

"I said you'd pay. I said you would answer for my son. I said you would suffer. So scream. Scream, Scott, and know that no one can hear you."

What the… This wasn't Tora. Tora would have done this in public, shown that once their fight was over, there was no more hard feelings. Doing it in private, when there was no one else there to watch, that stank of something rotten. She was doing this for reasons other than revenge. Her eyes flashed silver.

"Go on. Scream."

And he did, striking her with optic blasts that sent her flying to the other end of the room. She flipped, and landed, lying low, legs splayed out, arms providing the centre of gravity. There was something spider-like in her stance, something fundamentally wrong.

"Do it Scott. Let it all loose. All that power. Let it loose at me."

"Tora? Why?"

"I… I… I need…"

"What do you need?"

And she launched at him, hands trying to pull off the visor and Scott struggled to keep it on but he felt it being tugged away and then Tora was sent flying by the beam and she was laughing.

"More! Give. Me. MORE!"

Scott closed his eyes but he suddenly felt fingers trying to pry them open.

"TORA! STOP THIS!"

And she answered with a deep, dangerous laugh that chilled Scott to the bone. And then she was being pulled off of him and he felt his visor being placed back and he dared to open his eyes again. And Tora was hurrying in after Logan, a look of concern on her face.

"Scott? What's wrong? You were shouting. We all heard you."

He stared at her, not quite certain what to believe. Then he grabbed her shoulders.

"Where. Were. You."

"What? Just now? With Danger. We were planning on a new method for computer security. Box commissioned me to write an entire new language that didn't depend on ASCII or Unicode."

"So… Who was in here with me?"

"There was no one here. You came here alone. Said you had something you wanted to work out."

Scott frowned but shut up. And Tora finally disengaged herself from the Danger Room's computers. This was going to be a very interesting way of wreaking revenge.

"That's just…nasty…"

"Luckily, she wasn't held accountable when the truth was exposed."

Jamie stared at his parents.

"I wanna go!"

They exchanged glances. Tora bit her lip.

"I mean… Leech and Archie are both going to be there and it would be best for Jamie to be with his intellectual equals."

"You mean Valeria Richards? Tora, admit it. Our son is quite possibly smarter than Reed Richards and I'm still not entirely sure how that works…"

"Jamie needs to be taught to control his gift. He's already learnt almost everything in our libraries. Even Hank can't keep him occupied for long. X-Club has given up on trying to teach him stuff. He's a sponge for knowledge. Reed can give him the challenges he needs. And if we spend more time with the New Avengers than the X-Men, then we'll be in the same city."

"It reeks of boarding school."

Jamie pouted.

"I wanna go!"

"Logan, think of it this way. Where is he going to be safer? On the last mutant stronghold, which is going to be attacked by every anti-mutant bigot out there; or at the Baxter Building, which has some of the most advanced security systems in the world?"

"And which is the home of the dumbest genius in the world."

"Sue can rein Reed in."

"He's still the idiot we're intrusting Jamie to!"

Jamie blinked.

"I wanna go! I wanna go!"

Tora sighed.

"Logan, Jamie learns. It's a part of his mutation. He has the potential to be as clever as Prodigy could have been. He's this huge mainframe that absorbs information, He needs to learn."

Logan sighed. Then nodded.

"We'll give him a shot at it. But if I think it's too dangerous, he's leaving."

Tora nodded as Jamie started dancing around the room, yelling, "I'm going to the Future Foundation! I'm going to the Future Foundation!" Logan smiled and ruffled his hair.

"Try not to sound too happy, kid. We were hoping you'd graduate from Xavier's with honours."

"Really, his parents should have known better than to put him in contact with Valeria Richards. It was just asking for trouble. The two super-intelligent five year olds."

"Excuse me, it wasn't Jamie who accidentally released the evil Reeds. That was Val. Jamie just did damage control."

"I'm sorry, but those two should never have been allowed to breed!"

"What? Just because they basically started a new caste of super-genius mutants…"

She staggered into the bathroom and clutched her stomach. This had been the reason she hadn't dared to tell anyone. No more mutants. Her own body was suffering beatings on a regular basis, preventing the healing factor from rerouting. And then there was the fact she had been put under a great deal of emotional stress.

This one would never have survived, even without Wanda's curse. She barely managed to lock the door before the blood finally trickled down one leg. She doubled over as the cramps hit her again, letting out a little gasp of pain. She could hear people hurrying around outside, knew that her mad dash through the hall would have attracted attention, especially when she frozen, feeling the little fist clasping around her insides. But she wasn't going to make them carry this burden. They would fuss over her, pity her. But really, this was for the best. She had already seen to pain that Curt carried. She saw the way that Jamie and Eva were treated as monsters because of their X-Gene. It would be better that this child was never born, never got beyond a few dozen cells. It was for the best…

She ignored the shouts outside as she started to clean herself up, disposing of any evidence. Logan wouldn't see it like her. He would be upset, angry that she had kept this to herself. The others would panic, think she needed support. Support! Her, needing support? She was above them all, something more, something powerful. She started, then dived into a cubicle as the door was forced open.

"Tora, come out now!"

"I'm fine!"

"I'll believe it when I see it!"

"One minute."

She hurriedly wiped away the last of the blood, the last of the evidence, then stuck her head out.

"Does anyone have a pad?"

It was a good excuse, as excuses went. The men instinctively recoiled and Laurie dived into her bag, suggesting she'd been about to go to the mainland.

"Here."

Tora took the brightly-coloured packaging and nodded.

"Thanks."

She closed the cubicle door again and waited for them to go before collapsing to the floor.

It was for the best, after all…

What was?

"I… I don't…"

"Her healing factor wiped all traces. She never even remembered that incident. It was a way of protecting her."

"Her own mind playing tricks on her, preventing her from grieving."