In My Image
Part One
by Diamonde
DISCLAIMER: All Marvel characters belong to Marvel. All characters I made up belong to me, as does the plot. There is no money being made, therefore I'm quite mad to do this at all, but at least my insanity isn't breaching too many laws.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Kaylee unblocked my writerness with her brilliance, so I started this story. Lynx commented and encouraged and helped and nagged so that I continued it. Blame them.
CONTINUITY: Mine. Vaguely related to recent Marvel, but hopefully not as crappy. Domino, Pete Wisdom and Cable (who isn't doing so well in the health department, tee hee) are with X-Force because I wanted to. The rest I'm sure you'll pick up, I did. ;)
Yes, I'm starting another ongoing story. Shoot me, I deserve it. Then again, I seem to be a masochist so I'd most likely enjoy it...
"Sam. Wake up."
"Jus' a few more minutes..."
"You said that an hour ago. NOW." Domino could not be disobeyed when she used that voice. Even Cable was cowed by it. For at least thirty seconds.
"Okay, Ah'm up..." He sat up obediently and yawned, blinking bleary eyes and trying to remember where his feet where. He felt like he hadn't slept at all. "And Ah feel terrible."
"If you come in at 4 AM when you KNOW you have an early training session you deserve it. Don't expect sympathy from me."
"Four in th' mornin'?" Sam blinked muzzily, confused. "Ah was asleep by eleven, honest..."
"And I heard you come in at four." She frowned. "Strange."
"Yup. Mind getting out so Ah can get dressed?"
"Sorry, forgot about your virginal modesty." Domino winked at him and left, the guiltily good mood since Apocalypse's latest retreat and the re-forming of her little family still showing in every word. She still had a variety of unresolved gripes with Cable (who really had problems of his own) but having him back while he recuperated meant that things were The Way They Should Be and she could cuss about it properly.
It wasn't too obvious unless you'd been watching her, but the haunted powerlessness that she'd been carrying with her was gone and some of the old playfulness was back instead. And Sam had been watching her like a hawk. For some reason he'd known that it had been getting to her, even when there was no visible sign and telepaths were fooled. He'd reasserted himself as the leader of X-Force despite his hesitation, letting Domino play wingman instead of bearing even more responsibility after Terry's incapacitation. He didn't know how his perception of her had changed from an almost infinitely capable kick-your-ass-for-you-if-you-don't-behave combination of den mother and drill sergeant to an ordinary human being, but it had. Perhaps because it had been necessary. Perhaps he'd just grown out of it.
Too early to think about this, all over anyway. Got to get up... Sam half-crawled to a cold shower, which only helped a little. His eyes were still trying to shut on their own, and all he wanted to do was curl up in bed again and let the world save itself for a day or so.
Damn, Ah feel like Ah just DID a training session. Not bruised, just stiff and fatigued. As if he'd been using his power to its limits for hours and hadn't had a chance to recover yet. One of Magneto's sessions, where he'd push you harder and harder and every time you made it over an impossible obstacle there was another bigger one waiting until you couldn't even move anymore. "If you do not move beyond your limits, force them to retreat, then you will never advance. Control is not something the world will just give to you, you must work on it, force yourself to maintain dominance over your own power and make it do what you want." Then again, Cable says mostly th' same thing, just not as wordy about it.
He shook off the memories and reluctantly dried himself, arms feeling like noodles with twenty-pound weights on the end. Overcooked noodles. Damn, this is gonna hurt.
Since Cable's powers were essentially out of action for the time being, he was happily concentrating on their hand-to-hand skills. He'd claimed that given a year or so of intensive training they might manage to move up from 'downright pathetic' to merely 'pitiful'. Then Domino had poked him and he'd laughed, but there was a point there somewhere.
In his current state, Sam would have much preferred the refuge of his blast field. He was partnered with Jesse this morning, who was determined to demonstrate his usefulness through the skills he'd picked up in Genosha. Demonstrating it by wiping the floor with the field-leader type person would be a bonus, so he was unlikely to go easy just because his opponent was tired.
Suppose Ah can see his point. Cable knows what Ah'm capable of, Jesse's still gotta earn his place...
Pulling the last of his uniform on, Sam looked quickly into the mirror to check himself and stumbled back with a gasp. His reflection wasn't him. It had darker, closely-cropped hair and black clothes. Hard blue eyes looked at him... and normality reasserted itself.
The apparition had lasted for only a fraction of a second, not enough for him to be entirely sure it wasn't a product of fatigue. A hand pressed to the glass just left fingerprints, which was somehow reassuring. Did Ah really see that? And if Ah did... what the hell was it? It might have been a trick of the shadows, he hadn't turned the light on and it was a little dim. And the person had looked like him. Except for the hair, and the clothes, and probably the age...
"Sam, would you get your butt out here?" Dani banged firmly on the door twice and walked off.
"Dammit." After one last suspicious look at the mirror, Sam took a deep breath and hurried out. "Ah so totally do not wanna do this..." he muttered pointlessly.
"Awake now?" Domino asked with a grin."Yeah, mostly." The shock of the strange face had certainly made his mind alert, but the small adrenaline surge had left his body even more tired than before.
"Good. Shall we get moving, then?"
The participants spread out and faced each other, dropping into various positions of readiness. Sam watched Jesse warily. Since his speed was down he was going to have to anticipate, which was fortunately one of his two advantages over Jesse Bedlam. Despite the knowledge and reflexes he'd acquired, he had very little experience consciously predicting an opponent's strategy. He could only react. Sam's other advantage of physical fitness was just barely making up for some of his exhaustion, and couldn't be relied on.
"Ready then, Guthrie?"
"Whenever you are."
The first two blows were testing, the next three attacking. Sam managed to block or duck all of them, but was irritated with himself for being pushed to the defensive so quickly. A small counterattack was easily avoided, and for a few minutes neither of them gave any ground. But although he was tiring faster, Sam's time with the X-Men hadn't been wasted. Being exposed to such a wide range of fighting styles had been very educational. He didn't have any cards on him, but a sudden flicker of his left hand distracted Jesse's attention well enough for Sam's right foot to get him in the side of the knee and knock him down.
Jesse rolled to the side and back up onto his feet with surprising speed, looking annoyed. And aggressive. His next series of blows were fast and a little hard for a training session, the last kick catching Sam squarely in the ribs.
Air flew out of his lungs, and Sam gasped for breath that wouldn't come. Noairnoairnoair! his body screamed. But sudden cold fury crashed over him like an arctic waterfall. Forcing out a little of his lungs' residual volume of air let him breathe again, and he took a solid breath as he spun into a responding kick.
Jesse stepped back to avoid it. Sam took two steps forwards and feinted to the right before slamming his left hand into the younger mutant's sternum. Bone creaked a little and Jesse yelped with pain, taking another step back from the force of it. Sam used the split second to administer a perfectly executed kick to the stomach.
He was almost humming, exhaustion forgotten. It all felt so natural, so smooth... his body flowed towards a follow-up blow to the head without conscious thought, as if he'd been doing it all his life.
"For fuck's sake, Sam!"
A pale hand grabbed his wrist mid-punch, pulling him around to face its owner. With a twist and a jerk he broke her grip, hands floating up and ready to attack or defend as the moment dictated... then his eyes met snapping violet rage, and the sudden skill left him so quickly he nearly fell. "What..."
"Exactly what I was wondering! What the hell did you two think you were playing at?"
Sam blinked and looked around. At Jesse, still wheezing and clutching his stomach. The rest of the team gaping at them in shock. And Cable with his I'm-not-just-going-to-bite-your-head-off-I'm-going-to-swallow-it-and-shit-it-back-down-your-neck expression. "Ah... he knocked the wind out of me, Ah got angry..." He shook his head in confusion. "Don't even really remember, it just felt... easy."
Domino paused, watching him carefully. "Go have a shower and eat something. We'll talk about this after we've both calmed down."
"Yes ma'am." Domino's tone could have made Stalin slink off with his tail between his legs. As he crept away under the wilting heat of Cable's glare, Sam could hear her turn on Jesse. "And YOU... can play with me for the rest of the session. Let's see how you do against someone who's actually slept, hmm?"
* * *
Domino looked at Pete and Cable. They looked back. "Damn," she said eloquently.
"What actually happened?" Pete lit a cigarette with a sigh.
Cable growled. "Jesse hit Sam a fair bit harder than he should have, nearly cracked his ribs. Sam responded by trying to kill him, apparently. I only saw the end."
Domino shook her head. "Not exactly trying to kill him. Sam didn't even look that angry, just completely focussed on hitting anywhere there was an opening. That last shot was pretty dangerous though. It would have knocked Jesse out at the very least" She drummed her fingers on the table thoughtfully. "What worries me is that he didn't just lose control because he was angry. He wasn't thinking at ALL. It was completely methodical, like he'd done that series of moves so often it was completely unconscious."
Pete frowned. "And?"
"He hasn't. I have NEVER seen him fight like that. I know exactly what all my kids can do, and up until this morning Sam was nowhere near that level." She paused. "I'm not even sure I am."
Cable blinked. "That's ridiculous."
"I know. And he just did it anyway."
"I'll talk to him then. Maybe you should call and ask one of the X-Men if anything happened while he was there that might explain it."
"A bit gently, Nate. I don't think he really remembers what happened."
"Doesn't mean either of them should get off easy." Pete stretched. "For some reason I have this real problem with the idea of beating up someone who's supposed to be on your side because of some stupid alpha-male thing."
Domino smirked. "Finally, a man after my own heart. But I just meant that guilt with a few good insults would probably work better."
Cable tried to look haughty. "Well, are you going to make that phone call or not?"
Domino winked at Pete. "Sure, just let me decide what I'm going to say. 'By the way, did Sam take any crash courses in martial arts slash get mind controlled by someone proficient in said martial arts slash do anything freaky while he was with you?'"
Pete looked over at Cable. "Is fitting all that sarcasm into one sentence without taking a breath her mutant power?"
Nathan nodded. "We think so."
"Sam?" Cable's head poked around the door."Come on in."
He came on in and sat down on the chair, looking sternly at the person curled bonelessly on the bed. Sam tried not to squirm. "Would you like to tell me your side of the story?"
"Jesse kicked the wind out of me. Ah got pissed and lost it, Ah guess."
"You guess?"
"Ah don't remember exactly. Ah remember when he hit me, after that it's kinda fuzzy."
"What do you remember?"
Sam looked guilty. "Ah just... wasn't thinking. Hit him back a coupla times, then Domino grabbed me and Ah snapped out of it."
Cable brushed over Sam's surface thoughts gently, about the most he could manage anyway. He was... hiding something. Felt sincerely sorry and was rather confused as to what had actually happened, but was worried about something else. "Is that it?" he asked, letting a touch of irritation seep into his voice.
Sam frowned. "Just for a second... Ah didn't recognize her, still didn't think. Ah might have hit her."
"Be thankful that you didn't, she would have kicked your ass for you. And you would have deserved it."
"Ah know. It won't happen again." The fervent sincerity was utterly clear.
"Good. Because next time EITHER of you pulls something like that you'll be suspended so fast your heads will spin. You've never done anything like that before so we're going to write it off as a temporary aberration. But it's not safe in a team where the members are as likely to go for each other as an enemy and you know that."
"Ah'm sorry. Ah really don't know what the heck happened. Maybe it's just that Ah'm so tired..."
"Then don't do these things when you're as exhausted as you look now. Missing one session won't kill you. But if this is just the two of you having some stupid competition I will. The last thing we need is..." Cable trailed off. Between one sentence and the next Sam had fallen asleep. He was almost tempted to wake him up so he could finish such a nicely planned lecture, but decided he probably wouldn't manage to get the kid coherent again for several hours at least. "Guess I'll use it on Jesse instead."
But he still felt as if Sam was keeping something to himself.
* * *
"Is Sam coming down for lunch?" Dani looked around. Jesse was sitting quietly on the other side of the table looking very subdued, but Sam had yet to put in an appearance.
"I'll go see if he's awake." Tabitha slid out of her seat and headed towards the stairs. Dani just sighed.
"Sam?" Tabitha smiled. He looked so cute when he was asleep. She reached out stroke the rumpled blond hair, kneeling down next to the bed. "Sam honey, you gonna wake up for lunch?"One of Sam's hands shot out to catch her wrist and lift it away from him. Snapping blue eyes opened to glare at her. "Don't. Touch. Me."
She squeaked in surprise. "I... I thought..."
"You thought wrong. Now get out, I'm sleeping."
Surprised and hurt, Tabitha left. "Goddamn men," she muttered to herself as she stomped back into the kitchen.
"He coming down or what?"
"Nope. And believe you me, that boy is SHITTY if you wake him up."
James shrugged. "I could have told you that."
* * *
Sam dreamed. Fog twisted, wrapping itself around him as it tried hold him back. Unable to run he stumbled along, chasing voices that hovered just out of reach. A child laughed, a woman murmured back. Sam tried to yell, but the fog dulled his voice to a whisper. Couldn't they feel it? Something was lurking in the fog, something tall and quiet and horrible... He needed to be with them, then they'd be safe. More children, laughing and playing and shouting... and in the distance a rattle of gunfire.
The fog turned dark and closed around him, solidifying into walls of dank concrete. And outside the woman started to scream and scream and didn't stop... Sam gasped and fell to his knees, chest heaving. The sound of her ripped into him, tearing him to bloody shreds and the blackness closed in...
He woke up in a tangle of sweaty sheets, gasping for air as if he was drowning with the screams still ringing in his ears. Trying to shake off the sick horror, he sat up. A stab of pain in his chest and the terror came bubbling back for a few horrible moments.Then from downstairs came a loud crash, followed by loud laughter and some amused yelling. Reality slipped back in, and Sam closed his eyes again with relief. The pain was just where Jesse had kicked him. A quick examination revealed a nasty bruise, but nothing that wouldn't heal. Only a nightmare... if a terrifying one.
Sam slid out of bed, ignoring the feeling of urgency which was only slowly fading. The glowing red numbers on his alarm clock provided the only illumination, emphasizing their message of evening. He'd slept for nearly the entire day.
"Good way of getting out of a lecture," he muttered to himself as he searched for less disgusting clothes. "Fall asleep. Why didn't anyone wake me up before now?"
He asked the question again when he got downstairs and discovered, to his embarrassment, that dinner had been cooked without him even though he it was his turn to help.
"I DID try to wake you up. At lunchtime. You yelled at me, so nobody wanted to try it again." Tabitha was pouting determinedly.
Sam blinked. "Ah did not."
"You did so. You were pretty rude, too."
"Ah swear Ah didn't wake up once."
Pete grinned. "My sister does that. She can open her eyes and tell you to go fuck yerself without waking up."
Domino snorted. "You think that's good? G.W. could open his eyes, leap out of bed and shoot someone with perfect aim.... THEN wake up and have no idea why he was on the other side of the room."
Relieved at the distraction, Sam quietly made himself useful. Lord... am Ah developing split personalities or somethin'? That's three times today. Maybe Ah should... But Cable's telepathy still had an out-of-order sign on it, and he couldn't think of anyone else he wanted messing around in his head when there might actually be something wrong with it. Cable might have been more cynical and ruthless than most of the others, but he could be relied on not to fix anything that wasn't broken. Besides, maybe there was a logical explanation for all of it...
As the conversation moved on, Sam glanced up to find Domino giving him a very odd look. He flushed and looked away. Whatever it was, he'd deal with it himself for the moment. If it ever happened again.
* * *
Two days of blissful normality passed. Then came another one of Pete's 'tips', which pointed straight at a group Apocalypse's cultists holed up in an old temple. Those too old and weak to keep up had, of course, been left behind. But if there was a priest or two among them, the information could be invaluable.
"And," Pete concluded, "we are absolutely not telling Cable 'bout this little trip, right?"
"Right," Domino agreed firmly. "But I'm coming too."
Pete sighed. "I thought you two weren't gonna come play outside with th' rest of us."
"I'm making an exception."
Pete narrowed his eyes. "I'm just not sure there'll be enough room in the plane for you AND yer guilt complex."
Domino squinted right back at him as they squared off. "I think you're mistaking me for a Summers, Mr Wisdom. I'm coming."
Pete smirked. "If you WERE things'd be even more incestuous than normal around here, but 'defacto Summers' fits nicely. Guilt by association."
Domino drew in a sharp breath. "Watch your mouth. You can call me a bitch, you can call me an evil-minded witch, you can call me all sorts of nasty names that Jimmy's too young to hear but DON'T call me a Summers!"
James blinked. "Hey, what did I do?" Both Pete and Domino ignored him.
Pete gave her a deliberately speculative look. "Come on, I'm sure there's some Summers DNA in there somewhere... body cavities, for instance..."
"So that's it. You're just jealous because you aren't getting any. Is it my presence as a sexually active woman that's the problem, or is it that given the choice I'd rather screw Nate than you?"
Pete winced. "Okay, that was nasty."
Domino glared. "I may still be mad as hell, but at least he's got that injured cute thing going on."
Tabitha stifled a snigger.
"Sure, if you like the aging GI Joe type." Pete sighed. "Personal insults aside, would the little princess like to give us one good reason why she should come instead of staying here to mind that six foot seven baby of hers?"
"Six five, and I would." She smirked. "It's my plane, and it isn't going anywhere without me."
There was a pause. Dani rolled her eyes. "Are you two done playing now?"
Pete shrugged. "I think so. Let's go." But he waited for the rest of them leave first, letting them get out of earshot before speaking quietly to Domino again. "Isn't it going to look a bit suspicious, though?"
She shook her head. "Today looks like another bad day, but it's more pain than depression this time. I said I'd leave him and his migraine alone in a nice quiet house to sleep it off."
* * *
Sam sat silently in one of the back seats, watching the clouds roll by. He wanted to be out in them himself, carving trails through that smug fluffiness. Flying had stopped being something frightening he couldn't control and become the ultimate release, the one true moment of freedom. But he couldn't go out there and let the ripping wind tear all the worry away now, he had to save all his energy for whatever resistance they might meet. If any. If the source Pete wouldn't identify wasn't just sending them on a wild goose chase.
Something was whispering to him that this wasn't the case, though. A feeling of impending danger was hovering persistently, probably the cause of his restlessness. But for whatever reason, Sam's impatience was building. He wanted to be there faster, face whatever it was and drag it out into the open. Anything to stop the nagging unease.
Not as fast as some of the other planes we've used b'fore... wonder if Ah could fly faster on my own. He knew he hadn't before, but suddenly he was curious. When was the last time he'd really pushed himself to the limits of sheer speed? Blown everything on acceleration instead? It was an intriguing thought. Something to do another time... when he was angry or depressed enough to think that risking being a wet splat sounded like fun.
As they flew the clouds faded out, and were replaced with the burning dark blue of the desert. Inside the air-conditioned plane the exterior heat seemed like an oppressive presence, lurking outside and just waiting to crush them as soon as they stepped out of their cool bubble. Or possibly that was Sam's paranoia speaking again. Cable really IS a bad influence on me, who'd have thought they'd end up bein' right...
Pete and Domino fought half-heartedly over where to land, but once they'd set down a few large dunes away from the cliff housing the temple they were all business. Quiet business. The silence itched. Too quiet? No. Too... something. Something's wrong. "Something's wrong." He said it softly, but with increasing wariness.
Pete frowned. "What?"
"Ah don't know... something just seems wrong."
Pete nodded. "We'd better be extra careful, then. Miss Fussy and James can go in first."
Sam shuddered involuntarily as the wariness turned to dread. Something WRONG... His stomach churned all the way to their spot a short sprint from the huge stone doorway, then clenched tightly as Domino and James Proudstar continued and slipped silently through.
It was too much.
As quietly as he could Sam ran after them, ignoring the surprised hisses behind him. Enormous statues with coldly watching eyes stretched up on either side of the door, and for a moment Sam almost knew something about them. There was a relevance there... no! Domino. James. He passed the statues and followed his friends in, determined to drag them back out but feeling with absolute certainty that yelling would be a bad thing.
The interior was dark and cool, with more huge statues and pillars looming fuzzily out of the blackness as his eyes strained to adjust. The ceiling was high, lost in the blur. Sam struggled to see, blinking desperately. The other two were just ahead, turning back to face him in puzzlement. Then a grinding sound echoed loudly through the huge hall and Sam knew he was out of time. "Get out!" he yelled. "Now!"
Immediately they both began to run back towards the door, knowing better than to ask questions. The urgency arced between them and the darkness loomed.
But it was too late. The fading echoes of his shout were drowned out by a thundering roar, and from both sides a tide of rock swept in. Sam was almost outside again and missed most of it, the other two had no chance.
The same cold detachment as he'd felt fighting Jesse swept over Sam again. Falling rocks coming towards his friends. Distance between him and his friends. All he had to do was get them across that space.
Sam did the impossible. Standing slightly braced he stretched out his arm... and his blast field flared away from his body, just managing to catch his teammates in it as the wave overtook them. Then it got harder. It took nearly all his power to pull both of them through several tons of falling rock, leaving almost no protection for himself. But it didn't seem to matter, his concentration didn't waver even as the avalanche started to catch up with him and a rock ricocheted off another to hit him in the side. The sound of bones breaking was drowned out by the general tumult, so he didn't notice.
After a second that felt like a lifetime he finally drew the happily glittering orange-gold field back around him, cocooning all three of them. Then the roof fell in, thundering down and filling the air with rock and dust. It sounded almost like Apocalypse laughing.
Still no panic, just mercurial thought-action streams. Angling himself upwards, Sam made what would probably be his only attempt to break free. They were out of air, and in a few seconds the entire mountain would be on top of them.
Domino's luck held and after another interminable few seconds they tumbled back into the sunlight, falling hard onto the sand as Sam tried to take a breath and quietly passed out from the pain.
Seeing the ground coming up fast Domino went limp and rolled, wincing as she discovered a few nasty bruises. Struggling up to her knees she looked around for the other two. James was sitting up and shaking his head uncertainly, Sam was lying still with blood seeping from an ugly-looking wound in his side.Scrambling over to him, she saw Pete and the others approaching from the side. She could hear them as well, loud swearwords coming from more than one throat as she checked for pulse and breathing. Heartbeat was strong but fast, breathing was strained. She looked down. Yes, compound fracture of several ribs would do that.
Lucky he didn't puncture a lung, she decided as she tried to stop the blood flow with the few supplies she had on her. Sam moaned and she winced in sympathy. Bone shifted at the slightest pressure, but bleeding into the desert didn't seem like a good idea either. "Dammit, kid..." He'd saved her life. How? Maybe getting to be less of a kid...
"What happened?" Pete sounded angry. Translated, that meant he'd just been badly scared.
"Entire place fell in on us."
"Gathered that. Why wasn't he protected? I thought his-"
"He was using it to cover me and Jimmy."
Pete blinked. "Can he do that?"
"No." She shook that thought aside. "Plane?"
"On its way."
What else was there to say? She looked down at Sam in silence, but her thoughts buzzed. There's something strange going on with you, Sammy, and you know it. But is it a good thing or a bad thing? Good thing, the grateful part of her insisted. Bad thing, her warning paranoia hissed. The little piece of her that delighted in danger and housed most of her humour just laughed and whispered 'wait and see'...
To be continued....