Family Ties
folder
X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
51
Views:
7,040
Reviews:
30
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
51
Views:
7,040
Reviews:
30
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own X-Men Evolution, or any of the characters from it. I make no money from from the writing of this story.
34
Family Ties Chapter Thirty Four (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse and Hamster Witch, I think the bovilexia is
acting up again. MOO! InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are lovely
bunnies for archiving. J ProPhile gets retroactive good luck on his
test and Jubilee, Ramsey and Tex get extra muse kibble. Readers/Reviewers: Fever broke. All
better. Now maybe this’ll make
sense…
“Well, how
was I supposed to know they’d lock the gates at nine?” Warren said for what
seemed like the millionth time in less than three hours.
“Maybe
because it’s printed in huge letters on the sign outside the gate,” Rogue said
dryly.
Amara
snarled at her. “We didn’t read the
fucking sign.”
“Language,”
Warren reiterated. “Look, it’s the last
day of the concert. Go watch some
bands, get something pierced but don’t tell me what it is, and meet back here
at eleven and we’ll get something to eat before leaving.”
“We’re
leaving tonight?” Todd asked, sounding a bit disappointed. “Why?”
Warren bit
his tongue on the immediate response, that he was sick of hearing the same song
over and over at different tempos with varying degrees of feedback. Instead, he tthe the truth. “There’s something amiss at the Institute
and the Professor wants everyone back home as soon as possible. I wrangled with him to get you all one last
daye.” e.” The cell phone call during
dinner the night before had taken him away from Amara for ten minutes or so
and, when he returned, he found her surrounded by several teenage boys who,
while harassing her mildly, seemed more afraid of her silence than anything
else. With that in mind, he said,
“Stick together, all of you. No snotty attitudes
until we get back to the car, okay?”
All eyes
turned to Amara. “What?” she said,
though without enthusiasm. “I don’t
have a snotty attitude.”
Rogue
suddenly became interested in the far side of the field. “Oh, look…tattoos…”
Amara reiterated,
“I don’t!”
Lance said
somewhat neutrally, “Well, snotty might be the wrong word for it.”
“Thank you,”
she said stiffly.
“I’d say
bitchy before snotty,” he added, dodging a wild swing from Amara. “Oh, look…tattoos!” He took off after Rogue and Todd at near
break neck speed.
Warren
sighed. “I’m going to stay around here
until this thing is over if you want to…I don’t know…talk or something.”
“No,” she
said tersely. “I don’t want to talk
or something.” She flipped her hair
over her shoulder and strode forth into the thickening crowd without a
backwards glance.
Warren
watched her go until he could not differentiate her from the rest of the people
in the crowd before he disappeared into the tent. The letter he had purloined crinkled in his hip pocket and he
took it out somewhat guiltily, his eyes darting unwillingly towards the tent
flap as if expecting Amara to appear at any second. The paper was fine and fragile as he unfolded it; he realized
belatedly that it was not paper at all but rather vellum, a rarity in civilized
world.[1] The ink had a strange tint[2]
to it and he wondered how it was made.
The words scrawled in Latin,
tiny and crabbed like spiders, across the page, row after row of
increasingly cramped writing until they reached the last inch of the vellum
where the ink turned purple and was a flourished name, the only portion recognizable
to Warren being “Aquilla.” Amara’s
last name…Okay, so it’s from Nova Roma then, as if the language didn’t give it
away… The noise of the concert grew
and the light faded as Warren tried to pick out individual words, his school
boy Latin hopelessly rusty save for one almost funny rhyme[3]
that he did not think would be much help in this case. “Damn it,” he sighed, reaching for his cel
phone. His eyes drifting towards the
tent flap again, he nearly jumped when the Professor’s voice came over the
line, tinny and strained. “Professor
Xavier, it’s Warren…”
“Ah, are
you leaving then?”
“Not yet…I
was wondering if you were near the computer.”
“Why?”
“I need
something translated from Latin.” He
waited expectantly as the silence stretched.
“Hello?”
“I’m still
here. I was just wondering how you
managed to get your hands on Amara’s letter.”
“You know
what it is?” he asked, almost eager. I
must be bored, he thought to himself, to be so interested in a teenager’s
letter from home…
“Yes. And I don’t think it’s something anyone
needs to know about other than Amara.”
The Professor muttered something about ‘not another shirt,’ and
continued with Warren. “All I am
comfortable with telling you at the moment is that the contents of that letter
are a large part of her attitude problem lately.”
“Thanks,” sighsighed. “I guess that’s all I’m
getting from you?”
“Your
powers of observation are astounding.”
The call ended with little formality and a promise to hurry back to the
Institute at the earliest possible moment.
Warren
folded the letter again and debated slipping it back into his pocket but
thought better of it. Last thing I
need is a girl who can burst into flames pissed at me.
Amara found
herself near the one tent that sold alcohol.
The smell of stale beer and worse was almost overwhelmibut but it was quieter
than anywhere else on the concert grounds proper so she stayed there. She heard Todd and Lance once early on in
the evening, trying to scam beer without I.D. and failing, but they did not
notice her, tucked into a shadowed corner as she was, hiding near the edge of
the tent on the far side, away from the stage itself. Only a few more hours and I’m home. Home…Will it ever feel like home to me?
“Hey, it’s
that hot chick again!”
Fuck.
“Hey,
girlie!” A vaguely familiar person
wearing horns and his “Sex God” shirt was ambling towards her, his angel-winged
friend in tow, one wing distinctly broken and his entire aspect rather
seedy. “What’re you doing here?”
“I’m an
undercover police officer, making sure they aren’t selling alcohol to minors,”
she said in a sarcastic tone that would have made Rogue proud.
There was
an obvious flicker of fear across the boys’ faces before the devil-horned one
burst into peals of semi-drunken laughter.
“Nah, you can’t be or you’d’ve caught us earlier!”
“Shut up,
Robbie!”
“She’d ain’t
gonna get us in trouble!” He smiled
toothily at her. “Are ya?”
“No,
because I’m leaving.” That crowd is
better than this! She contemplated
for a brief moment pushing past them but instead chose to take her chances with
the crowd in front of the tent, turning her back on the two teenagers to head
around the yellow striped structure.
“Hey, we
just wanna talk to ya!” The one called
Robbie grabbed Amara’s elbow and pulled her back roughly. “Don’t be prissy with us!”
Amara
struggled against his hold, her eyes darting around frantically for anyone who
might be able to help her. She was
sorely tempted to use her powers but half feared accidentally killing her
assailant or worse, in her mind, drawing attention to the fact she was the one
on fire in the first place. “Release
me!”
“Release
me,” the angel-winged boy giggled. “Release
me!”
“Shut up,
Jake!” Robbie shook Amara roughly,
making her head loll on her shoulders. “We
just wanna talk. You ain’t got your friends around now to keep us away, do ya
girlie? You hafta talk to us now!”
Amara
closed her eyes and willed her powers to surface, briefly, and was very
satisfied when Robbie yelped and jerked his hand away from her arm. “I’m leaving!”
“Jake!”
Amara
whirled at the sound of crunching footsteps, her hands flying up to cover her
face as part of her mind registered the descending bottle, clutched tightly in
the teenager’s hand. The glass
shattered, making her head throb painfully and tiny shards piercing her
skin. He was on her then, crushing her
arms to her sides as she struggled, blood seeping down her face and her head
screaming in pain. Robbie said something
under his breath to Jake, something Amara could not quite make out from the ringing
in her ears. She noticed dimly that the
broken bottle was still held in Jake’s hand, pressed either accidentally or on
purpose, against her stomach. Don’t
wriggle, she told herself. Don’t
fight until he drops that… She
willed herself to go limp, the weight of her body making Jake nearly lose his
grip.
“Hold her tighter!” Robbie ordered.
“Fuck. Here…”
Amara felt her feet being lifted
and realized, through the ringing in her skull, that she was being
carried. Gods in the heavens! There’s thousands of people all around me! Why doesn’t anyone notice anything? Swallowing her fear, she opened her mouth and
let out a shrieking scream that would have made anyone’s fillings hurt, but it
was ill timed. A loud, crashing intro to some song cut across the late
afternoon air, drowning her cries and mingling them with the shouts and hollers
of the audience. Jake jerked her hard
against his torso and Robbie snarled something at her that she could barely
make out over the noise of the crowd.
All of a sudden, she was flat on her back in some wiry brush that dotted
the edge of the concession area.
Seizing the opportunity, she tried to scramble to her feet again. “Get a rock!” one of them shouted. Amara redoubled her efforts, her legs
shaking so hard that she could not make them obey her as quickly as she would
have liked. A sick, cracking thud
reverberated through her entire body, starting with her skull and spreading
down her back and limbs, knotting in her belly. She tasted blood and dirt and realized that she was now face down
in the damp soil. Someone was pulling
her by her legs into the brush and she could not make her hands work as the
world swam and heaved beneath her. As
her legs were exposed to the cooling air, she realized with horror what was
happening and put up one last, futile effort against them, only to have the
dull pain reapplied, this crack not as loud as the first. Please don’t let this hurt, she
pleaded with whichever god was listening as her world became a bed of hazy pain
and unconsciousness.
[1] Vellum is
sheepskin parchment. Hasn’t been used
much since the mass production of paper became easy and inexpensive.
[2] http://www.hhs.homewood.k12.al.us/middleschool/museum/RomeDailyLife.html#Ink
More than you ever wanted to know about
ink and stylus of ancient Rome. Go
forth and be educated.
[3] Semper ubi
sub ubi. (Always wear underwear).
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse and Hamster Witch, I think the bovilexia is
acting up again. MOO! InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are lovely
bunnies for archiving. J ProPhile gets retroactive good luck on his
test and Jubilee, Ramsey and Tex get extra muse kibble. Readers/Reviewers: Fever broke. All
better. Now maybe this’ll make
sense…
“Well, how
was I supposed to know they’d lock the gates at nine?” Warren said for what
seemed like the millionth time in less than three hours.
“Maybe
because it’s printed in huge letters on the sign outside the gate,” Rogue said
dryly.
Amara
snarled at her. “We didn’t read the
fucking sign.”
“Language,”
Warren reiterated. “Look, it’s the last
day of the concert. Go watch some
bands, get something pierced but don’t tell me what it is, and meet back here
at eleven and we’ll get something to eat before leaving.”
“We’re
leaving tonight?” Todd asked, sounding a bit disappointed. “Why?”
Warren bit
his tongue on the immediate response, that he was sick of hearing the same song
over and over at different tempos with varying degrees of feedback. Instead, he tthe the truth. “There’s something amiss at the Institute
and the Professor wants everyone back home as soon as possible. I wrangled with him to get you all one last
daye.” e.” The cell phone call during
dinner the night before had taken him away from Amara for ten minutes or so
and, when he returned, he found her surrounded by several teenage boys who,
while harassing her mildly, seemed more afraid of her silence than anything
else. With that in mind, he said,
“Stick together, all of you. No snotty attitudes
until we get back to the car, okay?”
All eyes
turned to Amara. “What?” she said,
though without enthusiasm. “I don’t
have a snotty attitude.”
Rogue
suddenly became interested in the far side of the field. “Oh, look…tattoos…”
Amara reiterated,
“I don’t!”
Lance said
somewhat neutrally, “Well, snotty might be the wrong word for it.”
“Thank you,”
she said stiffly.
“I’d say
bitchy before snotty,” he added, dodging a wild swing from Amara. “Oh, look…tattoos!” He took off after Rogue and Todd at near
break neck speed.
Warren
sighed. “I’m going to stay around here
until this thing is over if you want to…I don’t know…talk or something.”
“No,” she
said tersely. “I don’t want to talk
or something.” She flipped her hair
over her shoulder and strode forth into the thickening crowd without a
backwards glance.
Warren
watched her go until he could not differentiate her from the rest of the people
in the crowd before he disappeared into the tent. The letter he had purloined crinkled in his hip pocket and he
took it out somewhat guiltily, his eyes darting unwillingly towards the tent
flap as if expecting Amara to appear at any second. The paper was fine and fragile as he unfolded it; he realized
belatedly that it was not paper at all but rather vellum, a rarity in civilized
world.[1] The ink had a strange tint[2]
to it and he wondered how it was made.
The words scrawled in Latin,
tiny and crabbed like spiders, across the page, row after row of
increasingly cramped writing until they reached the last inch of the vellum
where the ink turned purple and was a flourished name, the only portion recognizable
to Warren being “Aquilla.” Amara’s
last name…Okay, so it’s from Nova Roma then, as if the language didn’t give it
away… The noise of the concert grew
and the light faded as Warren tried to pick out individual words, his school
boy Latin hopelessly rusty save for one almost funny rhyme[3]
that he did not think would be much help in this case. “Damn it,” he sighed, reaching for his cel
phone. His eyes drifting towards the
tent flap again, he nearly jumped when the Professor’s voice came over the
line, tinny and strained. “Professor
Xavier, it’s Warren…”
“Ah, are
you leaving then?”
“Not yet…I
was wondering if you were near the computer.”
“Why?”
“I need
something translated from Latin.” He
waited expectantly as the silence stretched.
“Hello?”
“I’m still
here. I was just wondering how you
managed to get your hands on Amara’s letter.”
“You know
what it is?” he asked, almost eager. I
must be bored, he thought to himself, to be so interested in a teenager’s
letter from home…
“Yes. And I don’t think it’s something anyone
needs to know about other than Amara.”
The Professor muttered something about ‘not another shirt,’ and
continued with Warren. “All I am
comfortable with telling you at the moment is that the contents of that letter
are a large part of her attitude problem lately.”
“Thanks,” sighsighed. “I guess that’s all I’m
getting from you?”
“Your
powers of observation are astounding.”
The call ended with little formality and a promise to hurry back to the
Institute at the earliest possible moment.
Warren
folded the letter again and debated slipping it back into his pocket but
thought better of it. Last thing I
need is a girl who can burst into flames pissed at me.
Amara found
herself near the one tent that sold alcohol.
The smell of stale beer and worse was almost overwhelmibut but it was quieter
than anywhere else on the concert grounds proper so she stayed there. She heard Todd and Lance once early on in
the evening, trying to scam beer without I.D. and failing, but they did not
notice her, tucked into a shadowed corner as she was, hiding near the edge of
the tent on the far side, away from the stage itself. Only a few more hours and I’m home. Home…Will it ever feel like home to me?
“Hey, it’s
that hot chick again!”
Fuck.
“Hey,
girlie!” A vaguely familiar person
wearing horns and his “Sex God” shirt was ambling towards her, his angel-winged
friend in tow, one wing distinctly broken and his entire aspect rather
seedy. “What’re you doing here?”
“I’m an
undercover police officer, making sure they aren’t selling alcohol to minors,”
she said in a sarcastic tone that would have made Rogue proud.
There was
an obvious flicker of fear across the boys’ faces before the devil-horned one
burst into peals of semi-drunken laughter.
“Nah, you can’t be or you’d’ve caught us earlier!”
“Shut up,
Robbie!”
“She’d ain’t
gonna get us in trouble!” He smiled
toothily at her. “Are ya?”
“No,
because I’m leaving.” That crowd is
better than this! She contemplated
for a brief moment pushing past them but instead chose to take her chances with
the crowd in front of the tent, turning her back on the two teenagers to head
around the yellow striped structure.
“Hey, we
just wanna talk to ya!” The one called
Robbie grabbed Amara’s elbow and pulled her back roughly. “Don’t be prissy with us!”
Amara
struggled against his hold, her eyes darting around frantically for anyone who
might be able to help her. She was
sorely tempted to use her powers but half feared accidentally killing her
assailant or worse, in her mind, drawing attention to the fact she was the one
on fire in the first place. “Release
me!”
“Release
me,” the angel-winged boy giggled. “Release
me!”
“Shut up,
Jake!” Robbie shook Amara roughly,
making her head loll on her shoulders. “We
just wanna talk. You ain’t got your friends around now to keep us away, do ya
girlie? You hafta talk to us now!”
Amara
closed her eyes and willed her powers to surface, briefly, and was very
satisfied when Robbie yelped and jerked his hand away from her arm. “I’m leaving!”
“Jake!”
Amara
whirled at the sound of crunching footsteps, her hands flying up to cover her
face as part of her mind registered the descending bottle, clutched tightly in
the teenager’s hand. The glass
shattered, making her head throb painfully and tiny shards piercing her
skin. He was on her then, crushing her
arms to her sides as she struggled, blood seeping down her face and her head
screaming in pain. Robbie said something
under his breath to Jake, something Amara could not quite make out from the ringing
in her ears. She noticed dimly that the
broken bottle was still held in Jake’s hand, pressed either accidentally or on
purpose, against her stomach. Don’t
wriggle, she told herself. Don’t
fight until he drops that… She
willed herself to go limp, the weight of her body making Jake nearly lose his
grip.
“Hold her tighter!” Robbie ordered.
“Fuck. Here…”
Amara felt her feet being lifted
and realized, through the ringing in her skull, that she was being
carried. Gods in the heavens! There’s thousands of people all around me! Why doesn’t anyone notice anything? Swallowing her fear, she opened her mouth and
let out a shrieking scream that would have made anyone’s fillings hurt, but it
was ill timed. A loud, crashing intro to some song cut across the late
afternoon air, drowning her cries and mingling them with the shouts and hollers
of the audience. Jake jerked her hard
against his torso and Robbie snarled something at her that she could barely
make out over the noise of the crowd.
All of a sudden, she was flat on her back in some wiry brush that dotted
the edge of the concession area.
Seizing the opportunity, she tried to scramble to her feet again. “Get a rock!” one of them shouted. Amara redoubled her efforts, her legs
shaking so hard that she could not make them obey her as quickly as she would
have liked. A sick, cracking thud
reverberated through her entire body, starting with her skull and spreading
down her back and limbs, knotting in her belly. She tasted blood and dirt and realized that she was now face down
in the damp soil. Someone was pulling
her by her legs into the brush and she could not make her hands work as the
world swam and heaved beneath her. As
her legs were exposed to the cooling air, she realized with horror what was
happening and put up one last, futile effort against them, only to have the
dull pain reapplied, this crack not as loud as the first. Please don’t let this hurt, she
pleaded with whichever god was listening as her world became a bed of hazy pain
and unconsciousness.
[1] Vellum is
sheepskin parchment. Hasn’t been used
much since the mass production of paper became easy and inexpensive.
[2] http://www.hhs.homewood.k12.al.us/middleschool/museum/RomeDailyLife.html#Ink
More than you ever wanted to know about
ink and stylus of ancient Rome. Go
forth and be educated.
[3] Semper ubi
sub ubi. (Always wear underwear).