Rough Draft - The Warrior with No Name - Ch 29
I hate this chapter with a passion. It isn't working, Piotr is out of character and David gets the pooh kicked out of him. Any comments, suggestions, questions would be appreciated by any and all. Do NOT be gentle, be honest--though, in all honesty, the grammar problems are the least of my worries. ;P
Thank you in advance!
(This is only part of the chapter, by the way. It's going to be about 3000 words when I finish.)
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It’s strange to see Illyana as an adult. Only a few days ago, I was sparring with her younger self in my living room. She’s been through so much, the poor kid. Kid… she’s a year older than me.
Peter’s taking the adjustment…rather well. There’s tension there, but he appears to be coping. Though we’ve been through a lot in the last week, I feel like I’ve known him forever.
I had to warm up to Pete. Peter’s so different. It’s wonderful.
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Piotr blinked awake and sighed in…disappointment? The feeling struck him as odd. He should not have felt disappointed to be free. But he and Kitty had been locked in a kiss when he had awakened from the dream. He ran a hand over his face, and then stretched the kinks out, wondering exactly how long he’d been trapped by David in that nightmare. The initial feeling of disappointment quickly mutated into anger.
“Hey.”
Piotr turned his head sharply at the voice and saw Kitty lying beside him, watching him, curiosity shining brightly in her hazel eyes, her head pillowed on an odd-colored cluster of ferns. She smiled at him and a flush came unbidden to Piotr’s face.
“Are we awake yet?” he asked, giving a smile of relief and embarrassment. She was safe. She was here-wherever here was. And he should have behaved himself when they were in the dream. Though Piotr loathed to admit it, Logan was probably just in his anger at him.
A blush raced across her cheeks and nose like a fever as she nodded and tried to sit up. Piotr’s smile faded. Kitty was bound with a rope and fastened in a straight jacket. Fury almost choked him as he sat upright. Ignoring the sudden wave of vertigo he all but grunted his malcontent with the present situation.
This is my fault, he thought angrily. David was trying to get back at me for-for what? He voiced his guilt as he leaned over and snapped the rope.
“Peter,” she told him gently, “there’s no point in placing blame on yourself. It could have been anybody. But I got dibs on the first punch.” She frowned mightily as Piotr tinkered with the buckles at the back of the straight jacket. “He put me in a straight jacket? Seriously?” She sounded breathless with rage.
“You get the first punch,” Piotr said quietly, his flesh sliding into organic steel. “I will kill him.”
Kitty’s odd-colored eyes widened a fraction in wonder as he impatiently tore through her bonds as if they were paper.
“Wow,” she breathed. Her breathlessness had nothing to do with anger this time. He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. His eyes, his skin, his hair-everything was coated in steel. The metal of his skin glinted in the light of the strange suns, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination as he was only clad in his underwear. Wanting to know the comfort of his powerful arms and if he was warm or cold to the touch, Kitty had to fight her overwhelming need to be closer to him. She knew a moment of realization as she studied him. “Now, I know why you were given the codename Colossus.”
He looked at her as though seeing her for the first time since changing, the strangeness of his eyes entrancing her. “You knew?” Even his voice had changed. It wasn’t hollow or metallic, but deeper with more resonance. Her stomach fluttered as did her heart.
“Just figured it out,” she told him with a shake of her head. “Your pictures are in several places at the mansion, but only when you look like this. Not the…the flesh and blood form.”
He ducked his head, then stood, reaching down and lifting her to her feet. “You are safe now,” he told her. She marveled up at him as he towered above her. He had to be at least seven feet and some inches tall.
An indistinct female voice yelled nearby, and Kitty and Piotr immediately responded by running in the direction it came from. The shriek that followed it spurned them on, and Piotr was the first to clear the strange striped trees. What awaited him frightened him even in his changeform, and he stopped in his tracks, his bare feet digging great grooves in the white sand of the lake’s beach. The metal of his face contorted in shock even as Kitty closed the distance between them and stood beside him.
David Brogan, the man who had kidnapped his sister and his friend and forced Piotr to watch his dead daughter, cowered as a blonde cloven-hoofed woman spoke in hisses to what appeared to be N’Garai demons, but the N’Garai were trapped in…
His mind went numb with the possibilities and, even in his changeform, he felt his body react to the shock. Though he had no bodily fluids while armored, the automatic response to swallow worked his throat anyway. His feet carried him forward relunctantly.
“N’Garai Demons?” he asked aloud and the demon-woman whirled on him, her yellow eyes widening. Her features. My God. No. “Illyana?” He became flesh and blood immediately, staring at his sister, his Little Snowflake, horrorstruck. This was too much for him to bear. “What…” His blue eyes darted from her horned head down to her cloven-hoofed feet, his gaze lingering on her armor-incased arm, sword, and the black lightning tattoos that covered almost every inch of her reddened skin. “What has happened to you?”
The demons hissed at him moving forward menacingly and she signaled them to halt giving a hiss of her own. They slithered back but continued to watch as the scene played out.
“This-this is what I…” She looked at her feet, took a deep breath and met his gaze again. “Please don’t hate me, Piotr,” she begged, tears welling in her golden eyes.
Piotr swallowed. His sister was a demon. How could he have let this happen to her? He had not been able to save his daughter and now his sister was-- “I could never hate you, Snowflake,” he whispered, even as her form melted into that of the spikey-haired young woman dressed in gypsy clothing with the one large tattoo, piercings and several chains and bangles dangling. “I would ask for your forgiveness. I feel I am responsible-“
“No!” Illyana lunged for him and embraced him tearfully, her fingers cold on his back. “I had to become the monster you saw to defeat the Demon Lord.”
He hugged her to him, willing her to blame him. “I could have-“
“There was nothing you could have done, Piotr Nikoleivitch. Nothing. Do not dwell on it.”
“I love you, Snowflake.” Her brother smoothed a hand over her hair tenderly. Forgive me for not being the protector I should have been to you.
Illyana only cried and tightened her hold.
Kitty approached cautiously, very aware of the acid-drooling N’Garai watch their every move. Piotr and Illyana seemed to be oblivious to them, but David, who trembled on the ground was not. The strong odor of urine confirmed her first impressions of the man. He was nothing but a coward. Still angry, Kitty wanted nothing more than to hurt him, but chose not to make any sudden movements lest the N’Garai decide they needed a Kitty snack.
Her eyes darted around just in time to see Logan, Spiderman and the Fantastic Four exit the strange forest. The trees reminded her of that candy board game she used to play as a child.
“What are we gonna do with David?” she asked no one in particular.
“Is that the telepath?” Johnny Storm asked, eying David suspiciously.
Kitty nodded. “Yeah.”
“Hate ta say it, Kiddo, but we’re either gonna have ta get Emma to neutralize ‘im or I’m gonna gut ‘im.” Logan’s claws came out with ‘Snikt.’
Illyana pulled away from her brother and wiped her eyes. “Limbo is enough punishment for him,” she told them. “He stays here.”
“No!” David cried his voice becoming a groan as Piotr punched him, forgetting his promise to Kitty in his anger. Kitty, however, said nothing. Although her anger was just as justifiable for David using her son against her in such a horrific way, she had not been close to the man as Piotr had. She was mildly surprised that Piotr had not assumed his metal form yet.
“You. Had. No. Right!” Piotr punctuated each word with a fist to David’s face and stomach. His ex-friend could do little to defend himself. “You took my sister! You took my friend! You tortured me with my daughter’s image!”
“Damn,” Spiderman commented. “Can--Will Peter kill him?”
“If he isn’t stopped,” Illyana said and winced when Piotr kicked David. She rushed towards the men and grabbed her brother’s arm, holding on with all her might, slowing him down-if only a little.
“Let go, Snowflake!” yelled Piotr. “I’m going to kill him!” He made to hit David again, but Illyana stood her ground, clawing at her brother’s arm.
“I’m sorry, Piotr,” she told him sadly, straining under Piotr’s bulk, his sheer strength. “I can’t let you do this.”
Piotr shook his head, his eyes wild with grief, fury. “I will not be-“
Suddenly a circle of golden light opened beneath David, and he fell through. Piotr cried out in rage and Illyana let go and backed off as Piotr dug at the dirt where David had been lying.
“Now, waitaminit, Half-pint, ya can’t just-“
“I met him when I was seventeen, Logan,” Illyana said. “Unfortunately I needed him in the battle.”
“But-“ Reed Richards began then stopped. “What is this place?”
“This is a demonic realm called Limbo. It has no time. And we’re out of time now. I’ve got to get you back.”