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** ** indicates telepathic communication
‘ ’ indicates thought
“ ” indicates spoken words

White lights, green people, white lights, green people, white…

Four, then one, four, then one…..ONE

HIM

Hair the color of hay, eyes the color of the sky, smell….smell that of HATE.

Hate…towards her, and yet not. Hate of who she is, what she is, what she comes from….who she comes from.

WEAPON X

--

A clear plastic thing is coming towards her. That’s the way it always is….at least in this one. There are others too. Like the one where she is jump started.

“Stop,” The man in charge stops the nurse. “No anesthesia.”

He revels in the pain he causes her, not once, but repeatedly.

“You’re joking right?” One of them raises a question. “Dr. Rice…” That’s what they call him. Either that or…Zander. “That’s…that’s inhuman….” She can feel the anger inside him. Along with that, there are other smells. Pride, superiority, hate….always hate. That is always there.

“OUT!” He jerks a thumb at the door. “Everybody out! NOW!”

The others fear him. Fear what he about to do you her. Fear what he can do to them.

So they leave.

They leave her all to him.

‘Don’t,’ she wants to cry out. ‘Don’t leave…p-p-please. Don’t.’


Behind the mask, his lips curve in an evil, satisfied smile. He sets on his work….the one thing that gives him the most joy…torturing her.

-----

“What are you doing out here?” Jubilee looked up at the group headed her way. She ticked their names off her mental roster. Cue ball, Xavier, One eye, Scooter, Red, Jean, White, Ororo.
“Sitting,” she answered as if the redhead had asked the most obvious question.

“Why are sitting her child?” Xavier wheeled himself near her, stopping at the grunts and groans coming from the other side of the door.
“What’s going on inside?” Scott recognized a particular grunt as the one he had heard from the other girl. “Who is in there?”

“Who do you think?” Something about him didn’t sit quite well with Jubilee. Maybe it was that he was an authority figure and the only authority that either of the two girls recognized was not there and the fact that an upstart was trying to establish himself in that position, seemed to set their alarms off. ‘It could be that,’ Jubilee mused. ‘Or it could be that he is a jackass. Yeah, that sounds better.’

“Jubilee, what is happening to your friend?” the Professor inquired calmly. He had half asleep when a wave of emotions hit him, causing him to clutch his head at the sheer intensity of it. Conducting a telepathic sweep, he was surprised to find that it was from one of the temporary inhabitants of the mansion. If the emotions in themselves weren’t enough, the fact that he could read the girl’s thoughts almost threw him for a loop. Only a few hours ago, he couldn’t even get a peek and now, now she was like an open book to him. An open, but highly dangerous book.

Fearing for the safety of the students and the girl’s companion, Xavier contacted Scott, Jean and Ororo. He had updated them on the precarious situation, and together they had made their way to the guest room where the girls were situated. It was there that they were right now, with Jubilee sitting on the floor, her back against the door.

“Having a dream,” although the answer had given in an nonchalant fashion, it didn’t take telepathy to see the worry in her eyes.

“That doesn’t sound like a dream,” Ororo pointed out. Just then, a loud cry sounded both from inside the room and from outside it.

“Jean!” Scott caught the falling form of his girlfriend.

“Jean, I specifically asked you to restrain yourself and not to probe telepathically,” Xavier just about snapped at her. Instructing Scott to help her to a seated position on the ground, he began to calm the frazzled telepath.

Once again the silence was shattered by a sound from within the room, except that this time, it was a cry, it was a full fledged scream.

“AAAAAHHHHHH!”

“Ok, that’s it. I’m going inside,” Scott tried to move to the door, only to stopped by Ororo.
“Don’t,” Ororo face had a sick look on it. “Don’t go inside. Not yet. Give her some time.”

“Ororo!” Scott turned out and held her as she looked to follow the route Jean had taken a few moments ago. “What’s wrong? Professor, what’s happening to them?”

Xavier had a look of concentration on his face as he scanned the girl inside, only to have her abruptly drop of his mental radar. ‘Just like before.’

Moments later the door was yanked open by a sweaty, haggard looking X23. Without even sparing a glance at the collected x-men, she looked towards Jubilee and jerked her towards the inside of the room. That done, she disappeared back into the darkness.

Pushing herself off the ground, Jubilee stepped into the room. “Goodnight,” she wished and closed the door behind her.

“Professor!” Scott wanted to find out what had just happened inside the room. However, at the same time he was worried about the wellbeing of both Jean and Ororo. Jean, he understood had received a telepathic backlash or overfeed or whatever telepaths got. What happened to Ororo?

That thought and the conversation of the previous evening were still rolling around in his mind, when Xavier spoke and made matters easy for him.

“Scott, please take Jean to your room. She should be all right now. However, let her get a goodnight’s sleep. I’ll stay with Ororo until she recovers.”

“Yes sir,” the younger man nodded numbly. Lifting the now languid Jean, he walked away towards their room, leaving Xavier to deal with Ororo’s sudden ailment.

Once in their room, he laid Jean on the bed, pulling the covers over her. Kissing her gently on the forehead, he lay down himself, his thoughts returning to the seemingly outlandish claim that Xavier just a few hours ago. Seeing Ororo’s reaction, it didn’t seem so outlandish now.

----

“Ororo, if you could please get Jubilee, X23 and Mr. Lebeau situated in the guests rooms,” Xavier had easily got Ororo out of the way. He wanted her to be busy, at least for quite some time.
“Yes Professor,” Ororo answered, and led the two girls and the young man away.
“Scott, please join me my office,” Xavier asked of his team leader. **You too, Jean**

Once there, he had asked Scott to close and lock the door. That has set both of them on guard. Locked doors meant something FYEAEO i.e. For Your Eyes And Ears only.

“What is it Professor?” Jean sounded worried, concern clear in her voice and telepathic projections. It was the same with Scott, although with him, he was worried about the girls, who in eyes were in grave danger with someone who he in no uncertain terms called a maniac, although not to his face.

“Professor, are you worried about the girls?” Scott voiced his thoughts.

“I am concerned with many things Scott…..” Xavier’s answer hadn’t been so direct. He knew that what he was going to say was something that had worried all of them for quite some time and still did. He was sure that he would have to face at least one flare up either from the usually emotional Jean or in this specific case, even Scott. “Not the least of which are the two young ladies currently under our roof. It seems Wolverine has some very expansive contacts.”

He then told Scott what Jean already knew, having caught it from Wolverine’s mental projection. He however, did not discuss the matter Dr. Henry McCoy, whom neither of his students knew and whom he had approached years ago for joining the school and team he was trying to establish. Things hadn’t worked out for them, with McCoy graciously refusing his offer. Xavier had all but forgotten about the mutant scientist, until he heard his voice over the music playing on his laptop.

‘How did McCoy land up with Wolverine?’ was the something he still had trouble understanding. He hoped that once Wolverine returned from his mission, he would be able to get some information. He hoped, but given what he had seen so far, he wasn’t pinning his hopes on that idea.

“But that is not the thing foremost on my mind. Its something more closer to home. That is why I have asked the two of you to come here.”

“What Professor?” Scott and Jean spoke in unison, both missing the subtle hint that the Professor gave by saying ‘two of you’.

“I am worried about Ororo.”

“Ororo!” Their faces wore their surprises. That the meeting would be about Ororo was the last thing either of them would have imagined.

“Yes,” Xavier nodded. “I believe we have found something, someone to help us with her…condition.”

“Someone?” Jean was the first to speak. “Who Professor?”

Scott wasn’t so quick on the draw. He took his time and was able to match two and two to get four. “Why do I think I am not going to like where this is going? I am not, am I?”

Xavier had to give it to Scott; he was great at handling facts and dealing with them. It had been that quality of his, which had struck Xavier when he had first met the young, seemingly blind teenager.

“Scott, I am afraid that you are right. I am talking about Wolverine.” Jean let out a surprised gasp and Scott a unsurprised sigh at that news.

“Wolverine?” The redhead piped up. “What’s he got to do with this?” The memory of Wolverine and X23 attacking Scott once and almost again a second time outside the mansion still clear in her mind, she wasn’t too happy to hear the Professor link him with her best friend, even if it was to help her. Also wasn’t forgotten the demolished gate, door and garage shutters, along with the power outage they had to suffer.

“Yes,” Xavier nodded. He might have neglected the warning signals he had noticed as mere co-incidences, but seeing Wolverine in that yellow and blue and with the mask on top of that, proved to be a homerun as far Xavier was concerned. The cherry topping on the cake was Ororo’s emotional reaction, which given the weather witch’s Alcatraz like control, shouldn’t have happened with any of the X-Men let alone a stranger. There was no doubt in Xavier’s mind that somehow, somewhere, Ororo had met Wolverine, either as himself i.e. Logan or Wolverine, or as his previous codename, Weapon X.

Then there was the question of the girl named X23. Seeing her reaction, first to Scott’s comment about the labs and then to his blurting out and calling Logan, Weapon X, assured the Professor that she too had been to one of those torture cells. That would explain the metal claws, which although not numerically equivalent to Wolverine’s six, were from the same genetic strain.
That particular thought brought up two more even disturbing ones, breeding experiments and experiments on children.

However, now wasn’t the time to think about that. It was Ororo, they had gathered to talk about.

----

“I believe Wolverine knows about Ororo’s time…about her time away from us,” he finally said.
“Away from us? You mean in those labs?” Jean asked for clarification, getting it by a slight nod.

“Professor, we aren’t even sure whether she had been in one of those labs or not,” Xavier’ hypothesis didn’t convince Scott.
“Scott, she was gone for more than two years,” Jean contested Xavier’s and also her point.

“And she came back,” Scott shot back. “On her own.”
“What if she ran away?” the ball was lobbed back into his court.

“Did it look like she had been running from anything?” the team-leader persona was on full force.
“No it didn’t,” Jean agreed. “But how do you explain the memory loss and the fact when she came back, she had more control over her powers than she had ever had before, then any of us ever had before….or now.”

--

That seemed to work as Scott’s face scrunched in concentration. “I can’t,” he finally relented. He knew what Jean had said was the truth. From the time she disappeared to the time she came back, Ororo Monroe had changed both as a person and as mutant wielder of the weather. Her power and her control over it had grown multiple-fold. Where she had to concentrate to generate and control a medium sized twister, she effortlessly did the same with half a dozen jumbo ones.

“From what I know of the labs,” Xavier opened a secret compartment in his table. Taking out the one of the folders from the dozen of so stored inside it, he handed it to Scott. “Their experiments have known to cause amnesia in their subjects, or in some cases, complete loss of memories. Moreover, from what I know about Weapon X, whom we now know is Logan; he case was the latter one. He has been searching for those lost memories and also for his past for the past fifteen or so years.”

“Fifteen years!” Scott’s eyes widened behind his visor. “That would mean he was a teenager when they got hold of him and put that metal on him.”

“I am not too sure about that,” Xavier shook his head in denial. “According these files, Weapon X possesses a highly potent healing factor. That allows him to heal from any kind of injury, whether it is inflicted manually, explosive propelled or mutant powered. He was able to recover from all kinds of poisons, acids, alkalis, drugs, tranquilizers….the list goes on for quite some time.”

“They did all that to him,” Jean blanched at the mere thought.

“And Scott,” Xavier finally came to the point he wanted to make. “His healing factor also takes care of the body’s breakup.”
“What does that mean?” Scott turned to Jean.

“It means, he doesn’t age like we do,” was the simplest explanation the redhead could manage. “He might be thirty years old or he might be three hundred, or even older than that.”
“Three…hundred….” The words seemed unnatural by their mere sound. “Or…older than that. He could be older than the Professor.”

“He could be,” Xavier answered with a amused smirk.

“And you say, he knows Ororo,” Scott was quick to recover.

“I am not sure whether he knows her personally or whether he has read her file,” Xavier presented his various theories. “Or if he was a prisoner at the time Ororo was there.”

“Or if she was even there,” Scott didn’t let up on his side.

“Or if she was even there,” Xavier acceded that much.

--

Silent for the past few moments, Jean spoke again.

“Professor, do you think it is a good idea to bring it all up again. Ororo has had a difficult time getting over the two lost years of her life. In some ways she still hasn’t.”

“I agree Professor,” Scott nodded in support. “And if Wolverine has anything to do with it, I am not sure if it’s worth knowing.”

“Scott, Jean, put yourself in Ororo’s position or Logan’s position for that matter,” Xavier’s words held wisdom and years of experience of dealing with people. “Wouldn’t you want to know about everything in your life? Even if knowing it is painful, not knowing it is not worth the ignorance…or avoidance.”

That had the desired effect, silencing both Scott and Jean as well as any arguments they might have had in mind.

Ending the meeting, Xavier had one more thing to say. “I would request to keep this to yourself.”

“Sure Professor,” the redhead smiled ruefully. “No use in getting her hopes up, or troubling her.”

------

Elsewhere,

“Fuckin’ nostaligia,” Logan growled and pulled at the spandex for the umpteenth time. “Been a long time since had this one on. Its frickin’ riding up my ass. Gotta start keeping underoos with this.”

He had been tracking the hulk for hours after the green giant disappeared from the aerial surveillance team that had been tracking him. They couldn’t afford to be too close. That was yet another precaution to take with the hulk. No one knew when he would do a 360 degree turn, both figuratively and literally. One second he could be sitting around, smell a flower or something, and the next he would be leaping into the air, rising hundreds of feet to shove the same flower down your throat.

“Green skinned jackass,” the expletives didn’t let up. “Had to come here. Had to get me to freeze my nuts off searching for you to get you back to that crazy old fart Ross. I’m tired, I’m hungry, need a brew, a cigar. Fuck, I need away from here. This ain’t even my gig anymore.”

Talking to himself, Logan stopped short as a now familiar scent reached him.

‘He’s here somewhere,’ falling silent, Logan crouched to the ground. Luckily for him, his move was just in time to avoid a thick tree trunk that whooshed above his head.

‘The fucker is using a tree as a baseball bat,’ that thought wasn’t quite appealing to Logan. ‘Seems to have learned new tricks since the last time.’

THUMPPPP!!

The ground shook as tossing the tree trunk away, the Hulk decide to get a hands on experience.

“HULK SMASSSHHHH!!!!”

“FUCK!”

------

Back in New York,

Having assured Xavier that she was feeling better, Ororo returned to her loft apartment and almost immediately feel asleep….a fitful one.

Minutes later, she entered a dream of her own.

“Ororo….Ororo,” a distant voice is calling her. Something about the voice strikes her as familiar.

Sitting up, she finds that she is laying on something white and fluffy….snow. “Where did all this snow come from?” she says out aloud, reaching out to grab a lump, she is surprised to find that as soon as her fingers touch it, all the white vanishes, becoming instead a dry, gravelly sand, which inspite of her efforts slips from her grasp.

“Ororo, Ororo,” there is that voice again. This time she recognizes the voice.
“Mother?” She isn’t sure that she spoke it aloud, so she tries again. “Mother.”

“Ororo,” the female’s voice is urging her to do something, but what? “Come quick. Hide here.”

“Hide?” The word has barely left her lips that she finds herself in that hotel room in Cairo, her parents standing before her.

“Come quick dear,” its her father’s turn now. “Stand under the door. We will be safe here.”
“No we won’t,” she wants to cry out to them, but she cannot. Flailing her arms, she feeling something yanked out from within her. Falling to the ground, her body wracking with pain, she sees a young girl emerge from within her and join the couple calling to her.

“No…don’t,” she tries to warn them, but fails yet again. Reaching for her throat, she finds a metallic collar around it.

Suddenly, another familiar…harrowing sound reaches her ears, the approaching drone of an aircraft engine.

“No.” She is unable to move, unable to speak, watching helplessly as death comes in from the sky. The very same sky where she rides her winds. “No. Get away….get…”

Words are lost to her, her eyes widening at what happens next. The plane transforms….It grows claws….sharp, metallic claws. At the same time, she see the sand change back to snow.

“Goddess, help me,” her pleas are ignored. “Help….them.”

GGGRRAAAHHHH!!

There is a mouth and eyes on the plane now. Golden, almost reddish eyes stare right at her, twinkling with a sick mirth that frightens her.

“I’m gonna kill ya,” the voice from the transformed plane is a blood chilling one. “All of ya.”

Raising its claws, it plunges head long into her parents, killing them instantly.

Dispensing of their bloody bodies, it steps towards her. “Now yer turn.”

“HELP!!” She finds her voice just in time to hear another sound, one that she instinctively knows means safety.

It is that sound that causes her to wake up.

-SNIKT-


Note: No new characters in this one. Can’t just go on adding, can I? The whole Ororo dream sequence was done on a whim. Needed to get her some representation and she got quite a lot in this chapter.

As for the difference in her power levels, think the Ororo initially shown in Ultimate X-Men and then think the Ororo in Uncanny X-Men (The present one). You'll get the idea.

Hope you liked it. Next chapter, ass kicking!!

Spoilers: X23 #02

Please, don’t forget to review!!





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