Chapter 4
The Frankenstein Effect
Shadowlady
robbijo2000 at yahoo dot com
R
Drama/Dark
Archive: Yes please, pretty please.
Summary: The X-men have created a monster they can’t defeat.
Continuity: Post X3
The days drifted together, falling in rapid succession to the hands of time until weeks had flown into months and yet like some unknown tension, some dark spot of secrecy clung to Jubilee, Kitty, and Rogue.
They worked together, they laughed, they lived but there were shadows in eyes too old for their young frames, screams in the night from remembered horrors that fed an already bubbling rage.
Turning their nightmare over in their minds the girls sat in the warm summer sunlight and stared out over the grass. Their gazes locked on the herd of horses grazing a few feet away, their minds on other things, on memories that had lain dormant too long.
“We need to face them,” Kitty whispered softly, “Need to know why.”
“That’s easy,” the cynicism in Rogue’s voice was plain, “We were expendable.”
“Still, they have to explain, to apologize,” Jubilee rose and walked to the fence, leaning on it as a tall, handsome bay approached her. Petting the older mare she sighed and leaned her forehead on the sun warmed coat, “We shouldn’t have gone, and they shouldn’t have let us.”
“They did what they thought they had to so they could protect that boy,” Kitty stated eying Jubilee, “Putting him above us.”
“I wish Logan were here,” Rogue whispered softly, “Wish he could help us train. He’d teach us how to kick their asses.”
“Rogue, you’re showing your thirst for blood,” Jubilee grinned at her friend, careful to keep her hair over the eye that a soldier’s blade had blinded.
Rogue stared at her friend before glancing at Kitty, “Expendable or not we have a right to be free. It’s our choice, our bodies, our minds, Logan understood that. He’d understand us needing..”
“There you three are,” the soft timbre had the trio turning to eye the large man walking toward them carrying something in one hand. “Jubilation if you’ve a moment I’ve got something for you.”
“Hey Tank, sure whatcha got,” the sass was back in her voice, shaded with anger and pain but back nonetheless.
“It’s a optic piece,” Tank held it up and moved closer to Jubilee, “You wear it over your bad eye, replaces the dead optic nerves and such. It’ll give you inferred vision in your eye, and while its not..”
“Thank you,” Jubilee interrupted turning her head, her good eye closed. “I can see again and that’s the most important thing to me.”
“Just sorry I couldn’t repair your..”
With a slight smile Jubilee shrugged, “It’s a reminder.”
“Of what?” Tank frowned at the shared look the three women shared.
“Of what expendable means.”
“Bullshit!” Tank snarled, “You ain’t expendable so get that shit outta your head now!”
“We were,” Kitty pointed out softly her gaze steady.
Tank glanced at her then at Rogue and Jubilee, agreement ran in all three faces, pain, and acceptance as well. Shaking his head he swore and glanced at the horses before focusing on the trio again, “Maybe to them. Not to us, not to me. I’d fight anyone who said such a thing about you. Nobody and I mean nobody has the right to sit back and pass judgment on anyone of the three of you. You’re stronger than ten men, you’ve survived hell and came out of it without letting it destroy you. You show me one man, one of them that could do that and I’ll shake his hand.”
“Logan could, Logan has,” Rogue pointed out.
“Logan’s a Creed,” Tank snapped and shook his head, “He’s got his Momma’s backbone. Logan’s what a man is supposed to be, not some pansy assed sonofabitch who ain’t got nothing figured out about life.”
“But you’d change us,” Jubilee said. “You offered to get someone to take away our scars, to heal us completely..”
“For you. Not for me,” Tank replied seriously as he cupped her jaw, “To me you’re as beautiful as Goddess, as Rebecca, as Helen. Scars don’t matter.”
“But you said it would help us heal, help us forget,” Rogue stated calmly.
“It would have when I offered it. Now, it would be like covering them up with a mask, the world wouldn’t see them, but you would. Every time you looked in a mirror, every time you had a nightmare. I won’t do that to you.”
Watching him turn and head back toward the house Rogue swore, “Tank?”
“Yeah kid?”
“Would you help us train? Teach us to fight like Logan would?”
Tank sighed and eyed them, “I can’t. But I know someone who can, someone who’ll push your minds and bodies to the breaking point and beyond and make you into a true fighter, a true warrior.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow,” Tank said softly, his gaze darting from one face to the next, “First thing. I’ll call her now.”
“Thank you.”
Tank shrugged, “Don’t thank me yet, you’re gonna wish you’d never asked me before this is over.”
Long after he’d disappeared back inside they stood there huddled together, “Logan’ll come for us, for me.” Rogue whispered softly her fingers tracing over and invisible tag around her neck, “I don’t want to be weak for him.”
“None of us do,” Kitty said softly and looked at Rogue. “We learn to fight, and then we go back.”
Like a solemn vow the trio nodded together and grasped hands, they had something to fight for now and Charles Xavier would know it before they were through.
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