Jessie Logan, better known in the time she now called home as Wild One, made her way down stairs carefully weaving through the groups of teenagers and young adults that made up the student body of Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youth. She managed to squirm passed a group of kids that stood frozen in the door of the main dining room. "What's the hold-up?"
Her voice drifted off as the newest student at Xavier's turned a wild-eyed stare on her. She stared back into a set of impossibly blue eyes that she had only seen one place before.
"Kyle?" The name escaped with the sudden rush of air leaving her lungs as sleep and pain mingled in her mind.
He blinked. "Do... Do I know you?"
"Long story," Wild One, said shaking her head to flip the chestnut mass out of her eyes. "And you wouldn't believe me anyway. They call me Wild One."
"What is this place?" Kyle asked as he motioned to the group behind Wild One. "Downstairs..."
"It's a school, Kyle. One where mutants learn to control and use their abilities." Wild One smiled and held out a hand. "You're safe here. Come on, I'll show you around."
The feral mutant reached out slowly and carefully let the girl twine her gloved fingers with his clawed ones. He blinked again when she smiled up at him.
"Relax, Cyclops," Rogue said from the hall. "Wild One has things under control."
"Anybody hurt?" Wild One called.
"Nothing serious," Rogue answered.
The younger girl smiled again and pulled Kyle out of the room. "I'm hungry so we can start in the kitchen. You're in luck, it's Logan's turn to cook. That means there's real food instead of that fru-fru stuff Jean likes to fix up."
The man sometimes called Wolverine looked up when Wild One dragged the scruffy-looking young man into the kitchen behind her. "What are ya doing outta bed, kid? Jean wanted ya to stay there for another two days."
"Don't be such a dad, Dad," Wild One shot back as she filched a sausage link from one of the platters. "Can Kyle and I grab a couple of plates to take outside? They're all in gawk mode out there."
"At you or your friend?" Logan asked as his eyes raked over her shorts and tank top.
"Both," Wild One snorted. "They'll get over it. Food?"
Kyle stared around as Wild One slurped the last of the maple syrup of her plate and fingers. They had taken their plates, covered in more food than he'd thought she could eat, and hidden in a small glen where they could look out over the school but no one from the school would be able to see them. "And everyone here is a mutant?"
"Just about," Wild One said as she flopped onto her back. "The janitor isn't, and neither is the ground's keeper. Then you have little old me."
"You're human?" Kyle asked as he pulled away slightly.
"Last I checked, yeah," Wild One drawled with her eyes still closed. They remained shut when she felt Kyle's claw-like nails at her throat. "Problem?"
"You lied to me."
Gold-brown eyes opened slowly. "When? You've never seen me before today. How? I never said I was a mutant. Of course," Wild One said softly, "I never said I was normal, either."
Kyle froze when cold metal pressed against his side. "What the? Claws?"
"Neat, huh?" Wild One grunted. "Let's make a deal, Fluffy, I'll put mine up when you put yours up."
Blazing golden eyes stared up into the almost molten blue as the claws at Wild One's throat moved to let a rough palm caress her cheek. Her own artificial claws slid back into their sheathes with a metalic rasp.
"What are you doing?" Wild One whispered as Kyle continued caressing her cheek.
"Not a clue," he admitted quietly. "Wanna help me find out?"
"Kyle," she half whimpered as his lips came down on hers.
He pulled back when she winced. "Wild One? What's wrong?"
"Ribs," she hissed. "Sorry. I'm still kinda sore."
Kyle's hands instantly gentled in their exploration. "What happened?"
"Sabretooth wanted to hear me scream." Wild One gave a small half shrug. "Ol' fangface doesn't react well to disappointment, and my battle suit isn't much good against high-speed impact injuries."
"Why are you here? This isn't your fight," the young mutant whispered as he carefully brushed a lock of chestnut hair from her face.
Wild One sighed. "I wish people would stop saying that." She held his face firmly between her ungloved hands and made him look into her eyes. "You've meant my father. He was in the kitchen, remember?" Kyle nodded carefully so she continued. "He's a mutant. They call him Wolverine. My mother was a mutant. Everyone I have ever loved, everyone I have called family, has been a mutant. I don't know how to be human. Jubilee likes to say that my mutant power is to be a bitch."
"I don't think you're a bitch."
Wild One chuckled. "That's because I'm with you, silly. Oh, and call me Jessie."
Kyle forgot to respond as Wild One pulled his mouth back to her own.
"I thought she was just going to show him around," Scott "Cyclops" Summers complained as he leaned against the window seat to take the pressure off his leg where the boy had clawed him.
"Lighten up, Lazerbrain," Logan growled from where he was dealing with some of the paperwork in Professor Xavier's absence. "Sides, Wild One can take care of herself."
Scott snorted. "Not much of a concerned father are you? Fuzzball."
"When I need to worry about her, it's a little too late to worry," the older man said flatly.
Unfortunately, Logan was right. It was far too late to worry.
Wild One made a sound of animal rage as she and Kyle were cut off from the mansion. His own growl echoed hers as they moved back to back and started to circle.
"Anyone you know?" Kyle rumbled without taking his eyes off the masked men in black surrounding them.
"Nope," she growled in return. "Break for the mansion the first chance you get."
"I'm not leaving you behind," he snarled.
Wild One didn't get the chance to answer when tazers were fired from all sides. She couldn't even curse herself for not wearing her battle suit as she howled in agony.
"Jessie!" Kyle twisted as the darkness gathered at the edges of his vision, trying to reach her as they both fell.
Kyle was still there when Storm and Rogue came looking for them. Storm started looking for clues to where Wild One had gone, but Rogue yanked Kyle up by his shirt front and slapped him until he came around. He grunted and twisted in her grip, growling angrily.
"Jessie," he hissed as he continued to try and rip away from Rogue's grip.
Rogue only shook him hard. "Where's Wild One?"
"Rogue, please," the older woman said gently as she placed her hand on the angry woman's arm. "Kyle, focus please."
He turned his eyes on her with a low growl and she nearly took a step back at the raw rage there. Storm took a deep breath and continued. "What happened out here, Kyle?"
"Men. Lots of them," Kyle snarled. "They had tazers. Knocked us out. Took Jessie!"
"Jessie?" Rogue muttered with a glance at Storm.
"I would guess that's Wild One's real name," Storm answered with a shrug. "We should get the others."
Kyle finally twisted out of Rogue's hold, leaving most of his shirt behind, and took off in the direction Jessie's scent lead him.
Rogue let out a curse Storm hadn't heard her use since Wolverine had touched her in an effort to save her life.
"Go get the others, I'll follow that brat," Rogue said sharply before taking off at a run after the blond mutant.
Storm found Wolverine and Cyclops already heading in her direction. "Wild One has been taken."
"I know," Wolverine snarled as he continued running.
Cyclops only grunted and motioned Storm to fly ahead.
Wild One opened her eyes slowly to find a man dressed in bloody red robes standing over her with his hands raised as if in prayer to some higher power. Slowly his words filtered through her pain fogged mind.
"Oh, Great and Terrible L'Talla, Beast Queen of Ancient Times," he chanted. "Take this vessel as your own! Take this blank slate and write yourself upon it!"
A feral roar rose in Wild One's throat as she thrashed against the shackles holding her on to the altar as more robed men started to echo their high priest's chant.
Pain ripped through her muscles that had nothing to do with the mostly healed injuries from the fight with Magneto and his Brotherhood. As her body was twisted into something else, Wild One fell back to what would be the ultimate battlefield this time.
Her own mind.
Jessie Logan stood up slowly and glared around at the mental image she had formed long ago of her mind through the childhood games that taught her to keep out a psionic invasion. The forest was silent and the massive wall around it was still whole. But something had to have gotten through. The forest of her thoughts should have been alive with animals/thoughts/feelings/sounds.
With a scowl worthy of her father she concentrated until her mental-self was wearing her black battlesuit instead of the tanktop and shorts she was wearing in the real world.
"Come out, come out, where ever you are," Wild One shouted in a childish sing-song chant.
Her mirror image dropped down from the tree branches and grinned at her. Wild One's own lips twisted in a cold smile as she gazed into the blood red eyes.
"Nice try," she drawled. "But you've got the eye color all wrong."
"Give up, child," the other said in a surprisingly flat voice. "This is my place now."
"You've got to be kidding," Wild One muttered and urged her mental world to change. She ignored the pain of her body and the alien-ness of what she wanted her well ordered mental world to become.
L'Talla stared over the mortal girl's shoulder in what was the closest thing to terror Wild One had ever seen at that close range. Then the wall of rage came crashing down on both of them like a tidal wave.
The lessons of her childhood echoed around Wild One with Jean's voice. Focus on what you want to happen. It's your own mind, with in it all things are possible. With your will you can even block Professor Xavier, or me. You have the strength of your body, but you also have the strength of your mind. Use it! Again! We're not stopping this until you can throw me out on my psionic ass, young lady! Human does not mean helpless! Again! Focus! Know who you are, know it to your soul. Once you know that no one can take over your body.
And focus Wild One did. She forced her mental world to reorder itself into its new shape, and L'Talla was helpless in the maelstrom of emotions, memories, fantasies, nightmares and daydreams. Hope would carry the demon one way then unbridled rage would sweep her in the opposite direction.
All the while Wild One remained calm and untouched, standing above the raging mental waters on a solid rock of self. After what seemed like days, both aching and wanting it to end, Wild One reached out and yanked the trespasser out of the new ocean.
L'Talla stared at Wild One weakly as she started to fade away. "You beat me..."
"You got that right, bitch," Wild One snarled as she mentally shaped a solid iron-banded chest around the demon before she returned to the real world.
"Rise up, L'Talla! And bring this world to its knees in an ocean of blood," roared the high priest just as the X-Men burst into the warehouse just off the docks of Salem Center.
"At this point," said the form sprawled on the altar, "an ocean of blood sounds just about right."
The priest stared down at his Goddess' new form in awe, until her claws ripped out his throat.
Jessie Logan climbed to her feet on the altar and raised her bloodied fist into the air. "Followers of the Beast Queen, hear me!"
Everyone in the building froze as the light from the brazers seemed to make the tawny fur on her bare body glow.
"Your precious goddess just got her ass kicked," Jessie growled into the silence as her tail lashed around her legs. "Leave."
Storm stared numbly at the body sprawled behind the transformed girl. She had known Wild One was dangerous, even that she was prone to violence. But she had never seen the girl kill before.
Jessie climbed down and started her long slow walk toward the X-Men. Halfway there she found herself crushed against Kyle's chest. Her arms wrapped around his waist.
"Take me home. Please, just take me home," she sobbed into his shoulder.
Jean finished her careful examination of Wild One's new form and left the sedated girl under Kyle's watchful eye as she went up to brief the Professor. She was not looking forward to what Logan would no doubt have to say about what she was going to tell them.
"Well?" Rogue asked sharply as soon as the tall redhead was through the door.
The Professor raised his eyebrows at the young woman as well as at the powerful maternal protectiveness coming off her in waves.
"She'll survive." Jean paused and cleared her throat. "Unlike what Magneto did to Senator Kelly, this transformation is on the subatomic level so Wild One's body isn't rejecting it. I'm not sure if I can reverse it."
Logan leaned forward with a scowl. "Did ya ask Wild One if she wanted it reversed?"
"Why wouldn't she?" Scott asked. "Before she always had the option to at least try and live a normal life..."
"Wild One ain't no such thing as normal," Logan growled. "Never was."
"All of this is quite beside the point," Professor Xavier pointed out. "In any case, if Jean can reverse it, it is still Wild One's choice. She is not a child."
"Like I said, I don't know if I can," Jean sighed. "And I'm keeping Wild One sedated for the time being. She's unstable and likely to lash out violently."
"When you do allow her to wake up she will be very...annoyed with you," Storm said after a long moment of silence.
Kyle waited for a full half hour before carefully removing the IV drip from Jessie's arm. He gathered her up gently, then went in search of her room matching scent with scent until he found it practically under the mansion's gabled roof. There really wasn't much in it besides the bed, a battered desk set and a half empty wardrobe. A dog-eared copy of The Art Of War laid open at the foot of the bed and textbooks were scattered across the top of the desk with loose leaf paper tucked in here and there.
Someone had brought her gauntlets back up and placed them carefully on the rack inside her wardrobe. From the smells in the room it was that girl called Rogue.
Kyle processed all that information as he crossed the room to Jessie's plain twinsized bed with the simple quilt used as a bedspread. He laid down and curled them both on their sides with him pressed against her back. After a long time he fell asleep with his nose buried in her hair and the smell of wildflowers.
When Jean discovered the both missing she nearly panicked, but Logan followed their mingled scents up into the highest floor where only a few students made their homes and directly to the one farthest back in the mansion. He opened the door carefully. After a moment he closed it again and motioned the other X-Men back down the hall. He stopped and scowled at Scott before pointing down the stairs.
"Leave them be," he rumbled once they were two floors down. "They're sleeping it off.
"Sleeping it off?" Jean echoed indignantly.
Logan nodded. "They ain't like the other students here, Jeanie. Wild One's tougher, and that boy's just as rough. They'll find their own way to deal."
"If he hurts her I'll rip his arms off," Rogue mumbled as she started back down the stairs.
"I hear ya, darlin'," her older lover chuckled.
Jessie opened her eyes slowly at the feeling of someone watching her. A pair of much-loved blue eyes looked cautiously down into her newly cat-slit golden-brown eyes. She let a small smile curl her lips. "Hi there."
"I...I thought you might be mad at me," Kyle whispered, although he didn't move his hand off her waist.
"Never," she whispered back. "We're too much alike."
"That's us," he chuckled as he settled back down beside her. "Two of a kind."
Jessie Logan sighed and cuddled up against his chest. "Yep. Two of a kind."
They were both smiling as they drifted back to sleep.
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