Memories
Responsibility
Disclaimer: What do you think?
If you want to use Tora, or any of my other characters, PM me.
Tora sat up. Stared at the fed brain slug then grimaced. It felt like someone had jumped up and down on her head. She staggered forward slightly then heard Emma in her head.
Attention all X-Men, Utopia is under attack! I repeat, Utopia is…
Tora shot towards Emma's signature then her mouth dropped open as she skidded to a halt, staring at the giant Sentinel. And then she spotted Curt.
Emma tried to hold her back but Tora stormed towards him regardless.
"CURTIS STEVEN LOGAN, YOU ARE GROUNDED UNTIL YOU ARE TEN! WHAT RIGHT DO YOU HAVE TO PUT YOUR LIFE AT RISK LIKE THIS!? YOU ARE GOING TO YOUR ROOM, YOUNG MAN, AND YOU ARE NOT TO LEAVE UNTIL I TELL YOU THAT YOU MAY! COMPRIS?"
Poison sagged.
"Maman…"
"Room. Now."
Poison grumbled as he walked off up the slope. Tora turned around looking thunderous.
"Which of you idiots gave him permission –gave these children permission to fight the Sentinel!? I swear, whichever one of you it was, I shall hurt you! Children are not weapons! I will not allow any child to be used as a combative tool on Utopia while I am still breathing! In case you haven't remembered, I have first-hand experience with child weapons! I was a child weapon! I burnt and tore and screamed! WHICH OF YOU IS RESPONSIBLE!?"
She screeched the last sentence, angry and irate. Scott looked her in the eye.
"You'd rather we all died? Ouph!"
He clutched at his nose. Tora was snarling.
"Don't worry, Scott. I just broke it. I swear to you, Summers, you are worse than Weapon X! At least they were honest about what they did! At least they never hid their motives behind 'teaching them to defend themselves'! You're building an army, Summers! An army of children! I will not be party to this! I will not teach children to be killers! The world has enough pain in it already without you creating another me!"
She stormed off, tears streaking down her face. Scott clutched at his broken nose, blood streaming down his face. Then he looked up.
"Let's get clean-up started."
"Ow?"
"Not really. She deliberately didn't shatter the bone. Made sure it was a clean break. She still cared enough about him to prevent herself from permanently disfiguring him."
Emma raised her eyebrow at Scott.
"Also, dearest Logan is about to go through the exact same tumult that you have just suffered. In the interests of fairness, I decided to put you through what he will have. Only I was a lot quicker to end you suffering. Now. Back-rub."
Two floors up, Logan entered his room to find Tora staring out over the Bay.
"Tora? Why's none of your stuff sorted?"
She turned to look at him.
"I don't think I can go to the school."
"Tora? You were the one who reacted most violently to Scott's use of the kids in battle…"
She looked at him.
"And that's exactly why I shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the students. Logan, I can barely trust myself to hug my own children! What does that say about me?! Look at me, Logan! I'm not safe! When I hit Scott, I broke his nose! And I felt good! When I was fighting the Hellfire children, I wanted to hurt them!"
"Tora…"
She turned away.
"I'm not safe. Not to be around children, not to be around humans. I'm leaving. The X-Men can't contain me any longer. It isn't fair. On any of us. I've moved on. I am something more."
A breath caught in his throat.
"Tora… Don't do this…"
"I'm leaving."
"Going to the Avengers?"
"No. I am leaving. Forever."
"Earth?"
"More than Earth. What use am I now, Logan? I'm a monster. I can't even control my own bloodlust."
"Tora?"
She looked at him and her face was streaked with tears.
"What happened to out wonderful future? Where is our peace, Logan? I can't even hold my own darkness back. This will hurt."
She placed her hands on either side of his face and suddenly he had the feeling of being plunged into an icy pool.
My shields have expanded to contain you. Logan, this is my ideal. This is what I have become…
She was staring at Scott.
"You would make my children into soldiers?! You are as bad as the people who turned me into a weapon! You are the new Weapon X, Scott."
And then the claws dug into flesh and he gasped and she felt such satisfaction at hearing his gasp of pain, his scream when she withdrew her blood-stained claws, the rich iron scent of blood tasting sharp on her tongue and she hungered for more. More blood would be good. Kill. Kill. Kill. And she turned away before she tore his throat out and feasted on his flesh. Because that was what every little fibre of her being wanted to do.
Logan's eyes snapped open and all he could do was stare at Tora's golden eyes, dark with conflict.
"What are you?"
She kept on staring at him, refusing to let go.
"I am not safe. I…I have to leave. I'm beyond redemption."
"No."
She stared at him, eyes lost and clouded with pain.
"No one is beyond redemption. If I was allowed to make up for my mistakes, if Buckethead was allowed to make up for his, then you are certainly allowed to try and fix yours. I don't want you to leave. Neither do the kids. Think of Curt. For the first time in his life, things are looking up. He's an accepted member of the Young Avengers, as well as the X-Men. He's got a girlfriend –which I'm still reserving judgement on, by the way- and I reckon he's about as in love as a three-year-old with the body of an eighteen-year-old can be. He's actually excited about going back to the school. For the first time ever, he feels like he's worth something more to people other than us. He's wanted. But if you leave, that's like shoving it all in his face. Jamie? The Future Foundation is everything he wants in a school but if you hadn't noticed, he still insists on seeing us every other day. He may have intellectual equals there but we're still his family. And Eva? Eva needs someone to tell her I'm not always right and to not copy me when I start to swear. She needs someone to show her how to incapacitate a man without killing him, how to be sarcastic and tougher than Emma's diamond skin. And I-"
"Logan, you've made your point. I'll stay."
His mouth dropped open.
"Really? It was that easy? I'd already planned ahead past me, past Kitty, past Hank, past the students. I think I'd gotten through most of the Avengers and how they needed you…"
Tora raised an eyebrow.
"That must have been some of the fastest thinking you've ever done."
He shrugged.
"I was worried."
Tora let the smallest of smiles grace her face for a second.
"Has anyone asked Cia where she wants to go?"
"What?"
"You know? The tree girl? She's sentient, Logan. Sentient and probably capable of speech around about now."
He stopped.
"Huh?"
She sighed.
"Excuse me. I have to go and formally ask her to come with us. Then I may need to go and find a way of uprooting a mature acacia tree, transport it across a continent in the Blackbird and replant it without the poor girl dying properly this time. Can you pack for me, Logan?"
She swanned out, leaving Logan feeling rather out of his depth. Tora poked her head back in.
"Oh, I'm not taking the Headmistress post before you ask. Give that to Kitty."
And then she was gone again.
"That's vaguely amusing."
"She never really meant to leave, did she? She was just pulling Logan's leg?"
"We shall never know, Phoenix. We shall never know."
"You mean I'll never know! I hate you and your omniscience! It really drives me crazy, you know that?!"
The masked woman grinned slightly.
"I know."
"Hello, Cia."
The face smiled softly.
"Can you speak yet?"
"Sor…ta…"
"We'll work on that. I assume you've heard about the whole fight?"
"Yeah…"
"Have you made a decision? I guess no one has formally asked you?"
"…school…"
"Okay. Brilliant… You do know, I can't take all your trees. Just you."
"I…know…"
"Just checking. Hmmm. Can you move your roots much?"
"I…compress…them?"
"Can you?"
"Small…still…huge…too hard…"
Tora nodded.
"Okay, so big pot. Big, big pot. And a crane…"
"Big, big pot? I mean really…"
"Don't diss big, big pots."