X-Calibre Trilogy: Long Hard Road Out of Hell

The safe house looked like all the others on the street – a large older building that had been reinforced against future earthquakes after the big one that had hit about a century before. Miriam gave a code word and an older woman opened the door. It took me a minute, but I realized as I warmed myself by the fire that she was blind. I’d heard that when one sense is taken away the others grow stronger to compensate; I’d come in silently, so I figured she could smell the brimstone and sulfur on me. She was nice enough, gave me a good meal and a hot shower. Both were the first I’d had in over two weeks. I was a little unnerved that she didn’t seem upset at my eccentricities and I was wary asrammrammed into the tiny bedroom with the girl. Oh, she was still scared of me, I could almost smell it on her; but instead I saw it when she gave a small shiver when I came up behind her and suggested she might have reason to be frightened. And despite her declaration of trust, she slept as far away from me as she could without falling off the bed.

She seemed to sleep soundly considering the circumstances; I, on the other hand, slept lightly when I did at all. The years in Magnus’ service had conditioned me to rest in such a way and it served us both well when I heard the muted gunshots downstairs. I was awake in an instant, poised by the door with my hands up to reach for my swords. My motions had roused her from her sleep and I stopped her when she moved to light the lamp that had provided the poor light the night before.

“What is it?” she breathed, fully waking.

“Nazis,” I felt the word roll off my tongue, hardly believing it when I said it. “Get dressed, we’re going now.”

Not my world, not my problem, I reminded myself as I drew my weapons and opened the door. But it became my problem when we got downstairs and the refugees – how had I forgotten about them? – saw me and started to panic. They were so stupefied that none of them could be bothered to help get rid of the police who’d come to investigate the house. I shrugged as I ransacked the bodies; any money or valuables they had would be mine, then. It occurred to me that I had no idea what kind of money this world had – Deutschmarks most likely – and the little bit of cash I had on me was now worthless. I counted it all later after I dumped the second body into the water . . . one hundred Marks, two nice wrist-watches, and what I estimated was at least a couple of hundred Marks-worth of gold in the forms of rings and chains. I opened the hidden compartments in my arm bracers and stashed the curr the there before heading back to the house.

Miriam and the other woman, whose name I learned was Esther, were having a hurried conference with Mama Abigail about what to do now. I was invited to sit in and when the two official conductors admitted that they didn’t think they could lead everyone through Charleston during the daylight hours I was asked if I could do it. I agreed to lead the party simply because it made my life easier to get out of this town before I was officially ctedcted. The one condition I had was that everyone would obey my every command whether it made sense to them or not, or they would be permanently eliminated from the group. I wasn’t sure if I’d dazzled them with my charm or my good looks, but no one caused any trouble en route. We made it out of the city before noon and kept going, heading towards North Carolina. When darkness fell Esther took over the point and I moved to the back of the entourage, which was where I preferred to be. We camped out when dawn arrived and Miriam took over the next night; I noticed the two seemed to have worked together before based on the way they automatically switched point at unspoken landmarks along the way. They all stayed away from me as much as they could and I didn’t protest it.

I was used to such treatment; even during my tours with the X-Men I was the outsider. My thoughts turned to that one morning inside the North Carolina border after I’d been thinking about my fallen comrades during breakfast. As I walked and kept watch that night I was still thinking about it. It had always pissed me off . . . I mean, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t look like a Normal. Dad and Wildchild were ferocious and feline in appearance but human enough to not unnerve everyone else. Morph was on the ugly side but his personality seemed to excuse it somehow. Same thing with Drake; and yet, I never understood how someone who looked like he should have been a centerpiece at Worthington’s nightclub got that much respect and friendship. Blink had been obviously non-human but no one minded because she was cute as Hell. ‘Ro had also been a little off from Normal with her stark white hair and eyes contrasting with her ebony skin – but she looked every inch the goddess no matter what she did and I know for a fact that just about everyone with an x-chromosome wanted to nail her. I, on the other hand, was too far from Normal to be fully included, even by my fellow Mutants. I was the demon, the gargoyle, and the full embodiment of what the Normals feared (I saw a propaganda poster by the Trasks once – I was right in the middle, framed with the words “Genetic Purity Now” on the top and “For The Sake Of Our Children” on the bottom). During periods of brooding I’d worked out why that was, and why no one would have said a damn thing to me if I had been on Apocalypse’s side. As far as I could tell it basically boiled down to inferiority versus superiority. As Mutants we’d been told for so long that we were inferior, unworthy, and generally not good or beautiful enough that it got stuck in our psyches. Apocalypse’s people had turned all that on its ear and then some – suddenly the Normals weren’t so superior anymore. Suddenly it was a mark of pride, a sign of a higher evolution, to look like a “freak”. And as much as I hated to agree with anything that psychopath had done, I had to give him credit. I couldn’t remember ever being insulted based on my looks by one of Apocalypse’s people – for them, that was never an issue.

Magnus and his X-Men, on the other hand, tended to sympathize so much with the Normals that they stayed stuck in the old inferiority trap. Coexistence deep down inside meant blending in, fitting into a norm that the Normals had established. It meant passing for Human, apologizing for being yourself, and feeling like you owed the world for simply being when in fact the world had owed you. It wasn’t coexistence, not really – it was unofficial slavery. I wondered again if this were some sort of Survivor’s Guilt on Magnus’ part – did he embrace Xavier’s “dream” because he truly felt we should live together and see each other as individual people and not demographics . . . or did he embrace it because of the guilt? Guilt for surviving his World War Two childhood by being fortunate enough to be incarcerated in a death camp when his powers were first manifesting, while the Normals dropped like flies around him? Guilt for Xavier’s foolish sacrifice at the hands of the man who meant to assassinate him instead? The one time I’d asked him point blank about it he saw red and used his power to literally throw me out of the room. As I picked myself up from the floor I called back into the room, asked if he would have responded like that if a Human had asked the same questions. Rogue, grateful to be the new Mrs. Lehnsherr with all the carnal benefits that afforded her, removed me from the house – ironically enough, using her power to do so. I never got a verbal answer and never asked again. Their response had been all the answer I’d needed at the time.

“We’re coming up on it now,” Esther slid to the back of the ranks to tell me we were close to the safe house.

“How much further?” I scanned the dots of light spread before us.

“Another twenty minutes,” she fidgeted in my presence

“Alright,” I nodded and stretched my arms above my head. She left quickly for the point to discuss something with Miriam and I sighed. Yes, I’d been firm about the refugees obeying orders during the trip, up to the point of backing up the two women when they were challenged by the others. But despite not issuing any direct threats past that first morning, and despite keeping my distance from them, I heard one of the refugees whisper something offensive to the person next to him that he didn’t think I could hear.

“It almost looks human when it does that, huh?”

My eyes narrowed in the midnight darkness and I felt my teeth start to grind. Despite my unpopularity back home, it had been a very long time since anyone had dared say something that prejudiced in my presence.

“I still want to know what it is,” the other man whispered back. “I mean, it can’t be from Earth because we would have heard about it before now, right?”

I exhaled slowly. If only you knew, you pathetic little flat-scan . . .

“Well, the pulps on the news stands lately have been running stories about space aliens. Sightings of ships, that sort of thing.” The first man nodded slightly, his voice still low.

“You know, I was talking to Marie—“

“Which one’s Marie?”

“The redhead. Anyway, I was talking to her, and she thinks it’s a plant.”

I raised my eyebrow. One of them thought I was a Nazi?

“And I can see her point,” he continued telling the first man. “A monster like that belongs in the Reich, you know?”

“Hey, maybe it’s one of Mengele’s experiments all grown up,” a third person broke into the conversation taking place twenty meters upwind from me. “We have no idea how old it is, and who knows what the lifespan is of whatever they bred together to come up with that?”

“Oh, about the lifespan of your great-grandparents, if they were still alive and just approaching middle age,” I grinned wickedly after materializing in front of them, arms crossed over my chest and my tail weaving through the air behind me. I’m pretty sure one of them had a pre-school style accident upon my sudden appearance; all of them were coughing as the vapors of my teleport blew into their faces on the breeze.

“What – what are you talking about?” one of them sputtered as he went pale, trying to lie his way out of this.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” my smile faded as I took a step towards him. “Shame on you children,” I played up their erroneous assumption on my age. “You should have more respect for your elders.”

“So you are some kind of Nazi-bred demon!” the first man’s eyes widened as his voice rose, attracting the attention of everyone else now who’d either not heard or been ignoring the exchange.

“What the Hell makes you think a Nazi would give a shit about you?” I snarled. “If I were a Nazi, I would have slaughtered the lot of you before you could begin to comprehend what was happening.”

“Oh yeah?” he challenged me, stepping forward to shove me in the chest. “What, you got some kind of Satanic spells to cast on us?”

We were just outside of town now and I was glad for it when my brittle temper finally broke. I allowed myself to stumble back several steps so he’d underestimate me based on my size; then I teleported forward, my fist the first thing to greet him upon reentry. He hit the ground and someone else was stupid enough to try to take me on. I grabbed his legs with my tail and yanked, throwing him to the grass next to his friend.

“Stop it!!” Esther rushed forward but was too afraid of me to try restraining me. Miriam was placing herself between me and the first guy, telling him to shut up and mop up the blood because he’d had the shot in the jaw coming.

“Hey, he attacked me first!”

Esther wasn’t afraid of him, however. She drew her gun and flipped off the safety in the same motion, then brought it up to his head.

“You were given an order. Obey it of there’ll be more than blood to mop up.”

His eyes went from her, to Miriam, and back to me. I was smiling again and when he backed down I smiled at the rest of them, silently inviting any other heroes for humanity.

“Right,” Miriam finally sighed, her face grim. “Our hosts are expecting us, so let’s try to be on our best behavior everyonShe She turned and headed back in the direction of the town ahead of us. Everyone else quietly filed along behind her and I, as always, stayed at the back of the group. We were there within minutes and I watched everyone else go inside. I was still angry and in no mood to play nicely with others so I stayed put.

“Are you sure?” Miriam whispered into the shadows from the doorway. “There’s enough room for you to have your own room even.”

“I’m sure,” I tried to loosen my muscles. “I’ll come for you once the sun is back down.”

“You make it sound like you won’t be going with us to Richmond,” Esther was at the door as well.

“We’re not.”

“What? No, Miriam is coming with us—“

“She and I have a little . . . arrangement,” I purred, turning so she could see my eyes in the darkness. I heard them both hiss in breath at the sight. “She is coming with me tomorrow evening. Aren’t you, Miriam?”

“Yes,” she sighed, her shoulders drooping a little. “I’ll see you in the evening.”

“Oh God, Miriam, you can’t be serious!” Esther’s voice hissed before the door shut on their conversation, blocking me from hearing more. I shook my head and headed back to the edge of town to find a sheltered spot to pass the time. I found it in the tangle of roots and trunk at the base of a large oak tree and cleared away a space large enough to lie down on. Then I sat cross-legged, draped my tail over my thighs, rested my hands on my knees, and closed my eyes.

Breathe in and let the air capture the tension, breathe out and feel it flow away. Breathe in and let it take some more, breathe out and feel it slip away. Breathe in, the air smells sweet like turning leaves. Breathe out, will the pulse to slow. Breathe in, hear the wind passing through the branches above. Breathe out, feel the ground supporting underneath. Breathe in . . . breathe out . . . the breath is the only constant . . . breathe in . . . breathe out . . . the heartbeat is soothing . . . breathe in . . . breathe out . . . breathe in . . . breathe out . . .

As I meditated I felt my body growing more calm and my mind quieting even as my senses seemed to grow more keen. It had been too long since I’d taken the time to do this, and I realized detachedly that I’d never felt my body tingle like this before. Must have been the cleaner air here, on this planet; lots of good oxygen getting to my brain. I focused on my breathing again and let the thoughts slip away. I am the rock, and the rest of this is just water passing around me on its course . . .

I had cleared away most of the anger when she arrived. At first I was simply aware of her: the scent of her on the breeze, the sound of her clothing as she walked through the grass, the subtle shifting of the wind around her form as she approached. I noted it all and let it go, breathe in, breathe out . . .

Wisps of warmth as she sat down nearby, a slight crunch of dirt as she shifted. I hoped she wouldn’t say anything for a little while at least. I would adapt to her presence, just a change in the rippling of the river, and the rest of the anger would slip away . . .