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Title: The New Mutants, volume XI: Secondary
Author: kanedax
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse
Spoilers: X3, New Mutants volumes I-X
Rating: R for sex, language, and violence, all of a somewhat graphic nature
Summary: A former colleague returns to the Academy, and two former lovers battle to the death
Notes: If you don't like things dark, then you probably won't enjoy what I have coming up, starting with this chapter. Trust me, I've written two Harry Potter fanfics to completion. One of them I killed 15 characters, and in the other I drove one of the Weasley Twins batshit and had him kill Draco. I'm not afraid to screw with the status quo, and I don't pick favorites.
You've been warned.
As usual, I do not own the X-Men, Marvel Comics, 20th Century Fox, or a life. And considering this is the third chapter I've posted since Friday night, I'm thinking I could use one.
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Knock, knock.
Marie D'Ancanto looked up from couch, where she was laying down watching television. Public television. One of those slow TV nights.
"Yeah?" she said.
"It's me," the voice on the other side of the door answered.
She smiled. "Come on in, sugar."
The door opened, and Cody Robbins, a young man Marie's age, stepped in. At the sight of her, he grinned from ear to ear and let his backpack fall from his shoulder onto the ground.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," she responded. "How was your trip?"
"It was fine," he sighed. "Could have been better, but you know..."
"I'm sorry," Marie moaned. "You know I wanted to come meet your parents, but... you know..."
"Yeah, I know," Cody replied, sitting in her roommate's desk chair.
"First time we dated I disappeared for three years," she said. "Now I get sick the weekend I'm going to go home with you. I swear, I'm not trying to avoid commitment, or anything."
Cody chuckled. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," Marie said, sitting up and crossing her arms around herself, rubbing her hands against the arms of her sweatshirt. "I'm still a little dizzy sometimes, and I'm feeling a little cold. But otherwise I'm good."
"No more pukey?"
She smiled and shook her head. "No more pukey. Cleared up after a good sleep, actually."
"Maybe it was just nerves," he said, sitting down on the couch next to her and rubbing her back.
"Maybe," she responded, squeezing his thigh. "I promise, next time I'll do much better."
"Well, maybe we can make it a two-family Thanksgiving," Cody said. "Your family does a lunch, mine does a dinner, right?"
Marie groaned. "Ugh, too much turkey."
Cody smiled. "Well, we'll figure something out."
Marie dropped her head onto Cody's shoulder. "I missed you this weekend."
"I missed you, too," he said, his arm encircling her shoulders.
"Jodie's been gone since Thursday," she said, running her hands up and down his leg. "Her sister's getting married. I've had the place all to myself."
"Damn," Cody replied. "I picked the wrong weekend to go home."
Marie sat up, and looked to the door. "Well," she said, biting her lip. "Jodie did say she's not back till Tuesday."
"Oh, really?" Cody said, his eyebrows rising. Marie walked to the door and closed it.
"We'll have to be real quiet, though," she said, walking back to the couch. "Kate's out of town, too, so Ashley's on RA patrol."
"The Nazi?" he said, smiling.
"Mm hmm," Marie said, her hand moving up and down his leg.
"I can be quiet if you can," he said, his hand running up the outside of her shirt and cupping her breast.
"I have a pillow to muffle either of us if we need it," she said, her hand moving up his leg.
Cody's hand slid under Marie's shirt, feeling her bare skin against his palm. As he kissed her, he slid his hand under her bra, finding her bare, hard nipple.
"Mmmmm," Marie moaned into Cody's mouth.
Cody tensed. His hand squeezed down hard against her breast.
"Ow!" Marie said, pulling her head away from his, "Not so--"
No, her mind spun at the sight. No, no, not again.
She pulled Cody's hand away from her chest, and the veins that were showing in his face disappeared. Unfamiliar thoughts swirled through her head.
"Cody?" she said quickly. "Are you okay, baby?"
Cody looked at her in shock. "What happened?"
"I don't know," she said, "I don't know what happened..."
She reached to grab his arm, but he pulled away, standing up.
"I thought you said you were cured."
"I am," she said, a note of panic crawling into her voice, "I am cured. I took the shot, and they said it was..."
Cody took two more steps backwards, seemed to lose his balance temporarily, then righted himself on the chair.
"I thought you said you weren't one of them anymore," he growled.
She stood up and walked to him. "I'm not," she pleaded. "I swear to God, I'm not one of them anymore."
"Then what the fuck was that?" Cody yelled.
"Please," Marie cried, "please don't yell at me. I'll go to a clinic, find out what happened, but please don't yell at me."
She fell towards Cody, who quickly backed away. Marie fell to the floor.
"Don't touch me, you fucking freak!" he screamed, his back slamming against the door.
"Please don't leave," Marie sobbed, tears streaming down her face. "Please, I love you, I'll do whatever I can to get it fixed, I swear."
"You already put me in a coma once, you bitch," he said. "That ain't gonna happen again."
"Cody!" Marie screamed, her voice cracking, but it was too late. Cody Robbins had already ran out the door and out of the dormitory, leaving Marie D'Ancanto in a sobbing heap on the floor.
"This is bad," Logan mumbled as he leaned on the couch.
He and the rest of the students of Xavier Academy were transfixed to the CNN broadcast on the television. On it, from the view of a helicopter camera crew, hundreds of people were crowded around an office building, trying desperately to get inside
The text across the bottom of the screen: CHAOS AT WORTHINGTON LABS.
"--as hundreds of thousands of so-called 'cured' mutants are converging on Worthington Labs across the world," the reporter was saying. "Warren Worthington, Jr., founder of Worthington Industries, and the force behind The Cure, has called for a press conference at five pm this evening, to try to defuse the situation, which is growing uglier and more violent by the minute."
"I gave them my life's savings," said a mutant being interviewed, his purple skin covered in what appeared to be clay-like cracks. "To get my problem fixed.
"It ain't no cure, I ain't fixed. I'm worse than I was before!"
"This is definitely bad," Bobby agreed.
"What do you think this means?" Kitty said from next to Bobby.
"It means," Logan said. "That we might have a lot of work on our hands."
"Those poor people," Theresa said. "They thought they were going to be able to live again, to walk around the street again."
"Yeah," Arthur said. "Well, when you start playing with the devil..."
"Warren Worthington isn't the devil," Kitty said sharply. "He was trying to help people, to help his son."
"Yeah, well," Arthur said, leaning back in his chair, "maybe he ain't the devil. But mutation's part of God's plan, or Mother Nature's plan, or whatever you wanna say. Either way, he was fucking with the natural order of things, and they went along with him."
"I gotta go talk to Storm," Logan said, standing up. "See if we can start locating Magneto or any of the other cured..."
His voice stopped in his throat as he turned to leave. Standing in the doorway was a woman. At least Logan thought it was a woman, as she was covered literally from head to toe in scarves, skirts, and pants. The only part visible was her eyes.
"Help me," she whispered breathlessly, falling against the doorway.
Logan's brow furrowed, then he noticed a smell in the air that he hadn't smelled in a long time.
"Rogue?" he asked.
"Please, help me," she said, her voice tainted with exhaustion.
"Rogue!" Bobby yelled, jumping from the couch. He and Logan both ran to her at once as the others looked on in shock and confusion.
"Don't touch me!" Rogue screamed, backing away. She ran into the table behind her, sending a vase shattering on the floor.
"Call Warren," she pleaded. "Maybe he can get me another dose. He knows you, he knows we're friends, he can give me a special shot. One that I won't have to fight over, one that I won't have to pay for."
"What's going on?" Ororo said, running down the hall. "I heard a shatter."
"Just please fix me," Rogue whispered, the scarf around her face wet with tears.
"How did you get here?" Bobby asked.
"I teleported," she sobbed, then passed out on the floor.
"--mean she teleported?"
Rogue slowly returned to consciousness, opening her eyes. She was laying in a room that felt both foreign and familiar. Two faces hovered over her, but they were still too blurry to make out.
"Where am I?" she slurred, looking around. When she spoke, she realized that her mouth was no longer covered.
This broke the haze faster than anything, and she bolted upright, pushing herself against the wall next to the bed.
"You're in my room, honey," Ororo said calmly. "It's going to be okay, you passed out."
She reached out to take Rogue's gloved hand, but Rogue quickly pulled away, curling it against her chest.
"Don't touch me," she moaned, pulling the covers up to her chin. "Please..."
"It's okay, Marie," Logan said. "We're not going to hurt you, and you're not going to hurt us."
Rogue turned to him, and Logan unconsciously pulled back. There was a look in her eye that he had never seen before.
Was it disgust?
"What do you know?" she spat.
"Well, I know that you're covered up about as much as you can be," he responded. "As long as it's not skin, we're safe, right?"
Rogue turned away, looking down at the bed.
"This is all your fault," she growled.
Logan was taken aback. "Hey, what?" he said, shocked. "Slow down, kid. I brought you up to the room, sure, but I didn't bring you here."
"Did you absorb a teleporter, or something?" Ororo asked.
"Yeah," Rogue responded. "Kurt."
Now it was Ororo's turn to blink. "Kurt?" she asked. "You saw Kurt? When?"
Rogue turned to face her, and once again that look of loathing was in her eye. "When he rescued me from the plane."
"But that was two years ago, kid," Logan said. "You've seen him since?"
"You and your fucking healing factor," Rogue muttered, and turned as far away from him as she could get.
Ororo turned to him. "Can I have a minute alone with her, Logan?"
Logan looked helplessly back and forth between Rogue and Ororo, then breathed out a deep sigh.
"Yeah," he said, standing. "But I'll be just outside if you need me, okay?"
He opened the door and walked out.
"How is she?" Rogue and Storm heard Bobby anxiously ask from the hallway.
"Give her some space, kid," Logan said, closing the door behind him. "She's just a little--"
After the door closed and the voices were cut off, Ororo turned back to Rogue.
"What happened, Rogue?" Ororo asked.
"Are you going to get me some more of the stuff?" Rogue asked. "Some more of the cure? You called Warren when I was sleeping, right?"
"We haven't called anyone yet," Ororo replied. "What happened?"
"Maybe bring Jimmy in here," Rogue continued, her voice shaking. "He's the kid they based the cure off of, right?"
"Rogue..."
"He can be my new best friend," Rogue said, her voice rising into manic tones. "We can do everything together, he can be my new teddy bear, he--"
"Rogue!"
"Stop calling me that!"
"Okay," Ororo said, trying to get her voice back down to a calmer level. "Marie."
"I just want to die," Marie moaned, her legs curling up to her chest. "I'd rather be dead then be like this again."
"Now don't say that," Ororo said.
"I got sick," Marie said. "So I couldn't go home with Cody. He came back, and I touched him, and he left me. He called me a freak, and he was right."
"Marie, you're not a--"
"I went into the girls bathroom," she continued without hearing Ororo. "Turned on the shower. Really hot. Brought in my razor."
"Marie..."
"I wanted to die," Marie said. "But the razors wouldn't work. I kept on cutting and cutting, and it kept healing and healing."
"What?"
"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for that asshole and his fucking healing factor," Marie cursed, turning to the door.
"But," Ororo said, perplexed, "that was over three years ago."
"Fucking healing factor," Marie repeated, and absently reached over to the bedside table. Ororo always kept a cup of water there, in case she got thirsty in the middle of the night.
Ororo watched in shock as the cup, which was a metal pint glass she had bought when Scott and Jean had dragged her out to the Rennaissance fair five years ago, slid three inches across the night stand and landed in Marie's hand.
She picked it up, and Ororo could see condensation, and then frost, on the outside of the cup. Marie's hand was also covered in frost.
"Mmmm," Marie said, her eyes dropping in exhaustion as she sipped. "Cold water."
Two minutes later, Ororo closed the door to her bedroom. Logan, Bobby, Kitty, and Peter all converged on her. It was a small crowd, but Ororo's claustrophobia still tickled around the edges.
"She's asleep," Ororo whispered quickly. "Downstairs, everyone, please."
"She said she teleported," Bobby said as they walked down the stairs to the living room. "How is that possible?"
"Do you think Cody was a mutant?" Kitty said. "You know, like, he could teleport, but just hid it really well?"
"No," Ororo said, looking around the living room. The other students were still there, their attention split between the news broadcast and the conversation behind them.
"Kitchen," Ororo said to the four, and they walked down the hall again.
"No," she continued when they got there. "I don't think Cody was a teleporter. I think she got the ability from Kurt."
"Selective amnesia?" Peter asked. "She found Kurt, absorbed enough to get her here, then forgot everything when she passed out."
"Kurt wouldn't let her go on her own," Logan said. "He's too nice a guy to leave a girl alone with a power she doesn't understand. He'd be here right alongside her."
"The news broadcasts," Ororo said, driving herself into their line of brainstorming, "are saying that the repowered mutants are coming out of their recovery worse than before. That's their way of putting it, but what I'm guessing is that the Cure has only a temporary effect on the mutation. It alters the body enough to mask the x-gene temporarily. But when the gene fights its way back, it fights back with a vengeance."
"Meaning?" Logan asked.
"Meaning secondary mutations," Ororo said. "Powers that lay underneath the original mutation, that the body forces forward in order to break the hold that the vaccine has on the body."
"So, what?" Bobby asked. "Rogue's a teleporter, too?"
"More than that," Ororo sighed. "She's displayed a teleportation ability to get here. She's also displayed a healing factor, as well as control over metal and temperature."
The group had fallen silent.
"Now, if I can make a few leaps in judgment," Ororo said. "I'm guessing that, when Kurt saved her when she fell from the X-Jet, they may have touched temporarily. Maybe not enough to knock him out, but enough where he could mistake the feeling of vertigo and disorientation as an after-effect of the teleportation.
"I can also guess," she continued, turning to Bobby, "that, despite your constant vigilance otherwise, you two attempted some skin-to-skin contact once or twice?"
Bobby nodded, his face turning pink. "Once," he said. "At my parent's house, after Stryker invaded the school. We kissed."
"And she absorbed my healing factor twice," Logan muttered. "When I accidentally stabbed her, and when we were at the Statue of Liberty."
"Which was where she also absorbed Magneto," Peter said. "Got the stripe in her hair."
"She's re-manifesting all of the powers she's absorbed in the past," Ororo said. "That's her secondary mutation. The powers are becoming permanent."
"Jesus Christ," Logan said, looking up at the ceiling. "Poor kid. It's probably good she never touched Scott, or else her dorm would have been destroyed."
"She definitely wasn't herself up there, either," Ororo said. "It's possible that all of the memories she absorbed are coming back permanently, as well."
Bobby shook his head. "I wouldn't necessarily say that."
They turned to him.
"When I visited her a few months ago, when we broke up, she was a different girl already. She had left this life behind her, and wanted nothing more to do with Xavier or the Academy again.
"I think she probably blames us for what's happening to her."
"As long as she's here," Ororo said, pointing to Bobby and Kitty, "I'd suggest you two keep it on the down low. She's unstable enough as is, and I have no clue how she'd react if she found out you two were dating."
"Of course," Kitty said, nodding her head vigorously.
"Let's head back into the living room," Ororo said. "I think everyone should be filled in on the situation."
"I think we have a bigger problem than romantic entanglement," Logan said. "If Rogue came back more powerful than she was before, then what about all of the mutants who were shot with the Cure cartridges at Alcatraz?
"What about Magneto?"
Clank Clank Clank.
The dark-haired woman looked up, watching the shadow descend down the staircase. She put her feet up on the desk, being careful to avoid the hanging metal balls (What do they call those things, anyway? she thought absently), and waited for his arrival.
"Hello, Erik," she purred as the man turned the corner into the large room. "I could hear the metal soles of your shoes from a mile away."
Erik Lehnsherr paused, staring at the shadowed corner.
"And who," he said, his deep voice echoing around the room, "believes that they have any right to call me by that name? In my house?"
"Aw, come on, Erik," she said, turning on the desk lamp, "that's no way to talk to an old flame, is it?"
Erik squinted at the woman sitting before him. Pale skin, black hair. Attractive, by human standards.
"Don't you remember?" she said, standing up and walking to him. "The prison on wheels? The Cure cartridge? I think I recall you saying 'You're not one of us anymore.'"
"Mystique?" he said.
"Mystique was the naked blue woman you knew for years," she said. "Raven is the woman you see before you now. Raven Darkholme."
"Oh, yes," he replied, his voice darkening. "Your slave name."
Raven shrugged. "It's grown on me."
"And what makes you think that I would allow a homo sapien such as yourself on my premises?"
"Erik," she said, brushing her hand across his cheek. "After all the times we shared together. All the forms I shared with you. Even that little girl you chained up at the Statue of Liberty. And this is how you repay me?"
"If it weren't for my curiosity," Magneto said, "I would kill you where you stand for even touching me with your human filth."
"Trust me," Raven said, walking away. "I want to be here even less than you want me here. I had given up on my mutant life, gone to being a respectable member of the cattle drive they call the human race.
"But, as usual, things are different now."
"Yes," Magneto mused, "I suppose they are, aren't they?"
"I hear you're looking for your children. Pietro and Lorna?"
"How did you...?"
"You told me about them one night," Raven said. "Early on, you mentioned them while we were drinking. You don't get drunk very often, Erik, but I'm assuming you remember that?"
"Apparently not," Magneto said.
"Hmmm," Raven said, sitting back down again. "Anyway, when things started happening around here, I assumed you would want to find them again. But I found them first."
"Really?"
Raven nodded. "You should really watch the news more often, Erik. It may be made by mere humans, but when they say something about two mutants named Maximoff taken into custody in Moscow, it can be somewhat enlightening."
"So you know where they are being held?"
"Of course," she said, smiling. "I'm Miss Espionage, remember?"
"And you'll tell me?"
"Of course not."
"And why is that?"
"Like I said," Raven said, standing. "Things are different now."
"But, Raven," Magneto said patronizingly, "what about all the times we shared together? All the forms you shared with me? Even that little girl I chained up at the Statue of Liberty. And this is how you repay me?"
Raven snickered. "Cute."
Her body rippled, and within seconds it was replaced with a clone of Erik Lehnsherr, in full battle regalia.
"Such a shame," Raven said in the voice of Magneto. "She was so beautiful."
She/he walked took two steps towards Magneto.
"You left me," Raven said. "You left me, naked and alone, to either die or be thrown in jail."
She leaped at him. In mid-air, her body changed again, and Erik was knocked to the ground to find a lioness on top of him, her claws digging into his shoulders.
"I wanted you to die," it growled, "knowing that I was closer to finding your dear children than you were."
"Mystique, my dear," Magneto groaned beneath her, "things are different."
He brought his arms up in a blur, and the lioness was tossed into the air. In mid-flight, it changed from a lioness into a raven, which swooped down and landed on the desk.
Magneto stood, blood pouring from the wounds in his shoulders. He stared down Raven, who cawed and fluttered her wings.
"This should be fun," he said, and suddenly became a blur, zooming across the room in a split second and grabbing the bird.
Raven changed again, into her human form, and kicked out with both feet, forcing Magneto to release his grip of her neck and fall to the ground. She jumped on top of him and swung her hand down to his face. Magneto's hands blurred again, catching the arm just inches from his head.
"And you can change your elemental state, too?" he chuckled, staring at her rock fist. "That is interesting."
"Takes practice," she said, throwing her knee into his crotch.
"Rrrrgh," Magneto groaned, doubling over as Raven climbed off him. He looked up to see her arm had become a long steel blade.
"Foolish girl," he said, lifting his hand and throwing her across the room. "I have gained a new power, but that doesn't mean I've lost my old ones."
Raven's head slammed against the stone wall, and she crumpled, half-conscious, to the ground below.
"Let's end this game, Mystique," Magneto said. "Tell me where my children are, and all will be forgiven. I will take you back into the fold."
Raven chuckled, blood dripping down her pale cheek. She spit to the side, leaving a wad of bloody phlegm on the floor.
"I'd rather die than join you again," she replied.
"Well, then," Erik said. "Considering that you told me that they were in custody, somewhere, that's already more information that I had already."
The smile left Raven's face.
"I should be able to figure it out eventually. Moscow, you said?" he chuckled, brushing his hands together. "Well, that narrows it down considerably."
"Erik," she said.
"Thank you, my dear traitor," he replied, blurring across the room to stand next to her. "Your assistance has been most valuable."
Raven watched helplessly as his hand flew at high speed at her face. She barely felt the impact as her head was slammed against the back of the wall.
And then Raven Darkholme felt no more.
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