Bones (Part Six)
Written by RatMist.
Caution: Rated R for harsh language.
He found her in the Danger Room, taking out her agression on some weird looking programmed mutants and hellbeasts.
"De fuck? Hellbeasts?" he urked. Somehow, she had programmed into the Danger Room computer a few rather vicious demon-looking creatures, complete with fangs. It was monstrous, frightening. And not unlike the pink creature busily engaged in 'killing' them.
"She really not happy, den," he thought sourly. Oh well. Time for her to find a new reason to hate, as if she did not readily supply reasons on her own.
From the Danger Room Loft, his voice broke through the microphone:
"I spy wit' my lil' eye an angry petit' Morlock." Marrow's head whipped up and around, and Remy winced when one of the hellbeasts took the opportunity to smack her hard with a clawed paw. She flipped with the power behind the attack, her body spinning in an football spiral before landing hard upon the surreal battleground.
It dawned on him then. This was the mysterious 'Hill' she had referred to once or twice while making rude comments on Scotty's choices of training programs.
And it was everything she had implied. Dark green vegetation covered the cakey red landscape, but there was not a tree in sight. Not a speck of tall foliage in which to run for cover. Pitholes were covered with sandtraps, and in the far stark background he could see dull grey mountains. They too were bare, little more than piles of rocks. The sky was a pale pink color, reminding him of a sunset. It was the only beautiful feature in the desolate program.
He heard her snarl at his general direction through the speakers, but she did not outwardly reply. She hurriedly launched herself at her attacker, and he watched as she latched onto the beast with her left arm and teeth. Her right arm hung uselessly at her side, more than a few broken shafts of bone peaking out from her elbows. It was painfully broken, and swinging on its hinge.
Her armory of blades was almost depleted on her back, but one blade still waited in its warm sheath. Sarah gathered her strength and waited for the hellbeast to stop wriggling so much, the grime in her teeth mixing with her own blood. Full of adrenaline, she barely felt her right arm, nor did she care. She could only barely remember hearing a familiar voice, so lost was she in the physical manifestations of her memories.
She dropped her left arm to grab at her last remaining boneblade, hanging onto the filthy creature by her teeth. Her left arm arched over as she plunged the boneblade into the hellbeast's brain, effectively killing it.
The battle was over, Sarah the victor. As she lay panting on the ground, next to her last prey, she coughed a bit of saliva out of her mouth. She vaguely tasted salt from the beast's hide. And her right arm was still broken.
Remy LeBeau watched as the woman haggardly stood up and turned her face skyward. He saw her spikey cheekbones kiss the pale pink sky as Marrow struggled to regain her breath. She cradled her broken right arm with her left, and stood with her powerfully muscled thighs apart. She gritted her teeth, and Remy felt slightly panicky.
"Sarah, NO!" he shouted through the speakers, but Sarah had already wrenched her broken arm back into place. He watched in shock as she began to rip the splintered bones from her elbow, her face a grim line bordering on intense pain.
Both mutants endured three gory seconds of the bout of necessary self mutilation on the complimenting landscape.
After ripping the last one, she could not contain her strangled cries as she fell onto her ridged kneecaps. She threw the splinters away from her, and wiped her mouth with the back of her arm. Adrenaline was still pumping furiously, and she found her release.
Her head tilted back towards the creeping blue upon pink of the false night sky, broken arm and whole arm slightly arranged near the torn uniform covering her legs. And she screamed.
She let her voice carry her rage and dispair, her triumph and rebellion. She was conquered and the conquerer. Undeniable, and blending. She hated the Hill, hated everything it had thrown in her path, but now she rejoiced as she proved she was still its master. Bathed in the dark green blood of the hellbeast as well as her own body secretions, she felt herself knit into the scenery with an utter satisfaction that came with securing territory.
For Sarah, a Morlock who had known only pain, this was ecstasy.
Her smooth breasts arched proudly as her neck muscles strained with their efforts to release, and Gambit was struck by a surge of lust so primal he sucked his teeth. The womanizing side of Remy LeBeau wondered if even he could get her to scream like that for a man, but the rational and half-fearful side shamed him at the unbidden thought.
"Computer, end program. Auth'rization Remy LeBeau, codename Gambit. Team statis alpha gamma three-oh- seven-seven." His voice was monotone and without life.
The computer complied readily, and as Sarah's eyes opened, the sky of a nuclear winter over the Hill melted into the dull metal walls of the Danger Room. She inhaled sharply, then exhaled slowly, numbly feeling the tension in the back of her neck and an urge for water in the base of her throat.
She looked up to the tall Cajun, her eyes shining with moisture from the intense pain her bones had caused her. His black eyes seemed to gleam like a banked fire. The eyes of a different hellbeast stared at her with something close to pity and...lust??
And her hackles rose. How dare he intrude.
"What the fuck, is yer problem...Upworlder?" She sat on her heels, taking breathes between each pause. Each phrase increased in volume, as if her voice could match his height from her position at his steelclad boots. She was still shaking a bit from the adrenaline rush, the thrill of the Hill. It had been so long since she had felt so high, and Gambit's presence was fast taking that away.
"We need t' talk," he said, his face giving away a bit of apprehension.
Now that was a surprise. The Cajun was not afraid of anything as far as Sarah knew; she had never known him to show any fear before. Must be something nasty.
She grinned fiercely.
He grimaced painfully.
Ohhh, yep; it was definitely something nasty. Goodie.
"Whatcha want, Gumbo?" Her tone, inflection, everything caught Gambit off guard a second. She could have been Wolverine with that statement, and her voice was a fine husky graval in the now sterile feeling Danger Room.
"Gambit t'ink it be easier if he jus' show you, eh?" His accent was almost too thick, and she sniffed the air. The fear was there, but also a resolved determination. She could handle that. She nodded, and adjusted herself on the floor, neatly resting on her haunches. Her broken arm was healing itself, the familiar ping of 'pins and needles' signaling its work.
"Computer," Gambit said, looking away from Sarah, "run archive program eight-two-two-seven. Authorization, Remy LeBeau, codename Gambit." The computer readily complied.
And Sarah found herself back in the Tunnels. "What the fuck..." her mind whirled with coiled curiosity. What could he possibly have to show her here?
Harpoon launched himself at Sweetbreath, his intentions quite clear with his sharp harpoons in his hands. She sucked her breath. She had been six years old when the Morlocks had been attacked, viciously annihilated. Even the best warriors had been no match, but Sarah had not been able to help with that.
She had been in a shadowy corner, hiding with her mother. Mother, whom she could not even remember what mutation had forced her into hiding, into the Tunnels which became Sarah's home. Her only clear memory of her mother was from this night, tasting blood from her mother's mouth as it dripped onto own mouth, and reaching up to find that Mother was dead. Someone had ripped her throat out, and Sarah remembered covering Mother's throat with her small, bony, useless hands, trying to make her knit back together again, and only feeling the soft chewy meat and warm blood splash even harder onto her skin.
"What the fuck is this, Cajun?" she said with a low growl. "Ain't nothing you could show me here that I haven't seen already."
"Computer, pause," Gambit said, staring at a darkened corner of the program. He pointed to it.
"Recognize it, petite?" his voice was genuinely curious.
"Why? What's it to ya? Get on with it already," she returned.
"Do you recognize it?" his voice was tinged with a desperation.
"WHY DON'T YOU EXPLAIN IT, PRETTYBOY," she snarled, rising to her feet. He walked towards the shadowy corner and pointed. There was a slender foot peeking out from the corner, barely covering a pink foot.
A small, dusky pink foot with an thickly calcified heel. Bone. Her eyes flew open with instant understanding, instant nausea.
"Gambit found you there, Marrow. Gambit, he found you that night. There was a woman, covering you, an' she was already dead. You were crying, and---"
She launched herself at him. Slapped him. Slapped him again. And again, even harder. "No," she moaned. "It wasn't you. It was an angel. It couldn't have been you!!" And her slaps turned into full out blows, a viscious backhanded punch drove him to his knees, rebreaking her right arm.
"You can't break me!" she shouted at him. "I am stronger! You can't do SHIT to me!" Her wellspring of intense resilience backed up her words. "YOU CAN'T HURT ME, you SONUVABITCH!!" She completely lost her temper, her battle rage hitting her so heavily she found she couldn't breath. She staggered away from him, wishing desperately that she had a boneblade in her back, but knowing she was completely empty.
"You....you..no....couldn't....oh goddess..." Sarah bent over as she threw up. It was too much. She had never spoken in detail of this night, never wanted to relive it. The Tunnels were full of blood. She sickly turned her head. Oh goddess she could smell it, taste her mother's blood on her lips again.
Her mind struggled. NO! It was over, right? Everyone was dead, right? And she had to go on living, and that meant never returning to this night. This night of death, of chaos. Of pain and a questions that could never be answered.
"Sarah, Marrow, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he murmured through his bleeding lips.
"I..." she couldn't finish her words. She couldn't even hear Gambit. She was lost, she was weak, she was six. Sabretooth leared at her in the background, Vertigo's face was a mad mask. She did not know what to say. The bile was still heavy in the back of her throat. Dammit, she was still thirsty, she thought ridiculously.
"Fuck you," she muttered at the crouching bundle a little distance away. "Go away, go away.....fuckin go aawaaaaay.....FUCK!" She was screaming again, lost in her nightmare.
"FUck yoUUuu!!! BRIGHT LADY, I HOPE YOU BURN I HOPE YOU BURN BURN BURN!!!!" she kept screaming and screaming at him. He crawled towards her, his trenchcoat sliding through the vomit, and he took her in his arms again. Just as he had all those years ago, on this night.
She pummeled her enemy. Screaming, lost in her memories of that horrible night, she screamed until her voice gave out and all she could do was cry. But he held onto her anyway, heedless of her broken arm, heedless of her attempts to gut him.
"Why, oh why did you bring me back to this?" She whispered, her voice so hoarse from overuse, the pain from her bruised body and broken arm finally registering. It was like she was awakening. She could smell the tinge of cigarettes, and she clung to that scent. It wasn't blood. It wasn't blood, and that was all that mattered. She sucked the scent into her body, still struggling with the bonds around her. No more adrenaline, and even the familiar rage had drained itself out. She was completely exhausted, and could do nothing but sit in her own vomit, with a Cajun's arms around her.
"'Cause, Sarah," he pulled back from her, as she swayed a bit to look into his demon eyes. "'Cuz Gambit, he be burnin ever since den, and he be wantin...." His words trailed off in her ears. She couldn't focus on his face anymore, blurring.....
For the first time in her entire life, Sarah passed out in a man's arms.
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Continued in Part Seven.