* DISCLAIMER * This is a non-profit work of fan-fiction involving characters created and owned by Marvel Comics Group. * WRITTEN BY * Samy Merchi * ARCHIVED AT * http://mash.yok.utu.fi/~samerc/fanfic/index.html * STARRING * Elizabeth "PSYLOCKE" Braddock Generation X * CONTINUITY * This story takes place after OPERATION: ZERO TOLERANCE and before PSI-WAR. * MATURE CONTENT * This story includes: various verbal references to sexual acts a scene of explicit sex (m/f consensual) a scene with non-explicit teenage nudity * DEDICATED TO * My late mother, Seija. She went away not because she wanted, but because she didn't have a choice. I'll ever love her and ever miss her. I am just happy our love had a voice. ************* * MADONNA * * CHAPTER 1 * ************* *** "Papa don't preach, I'm in trouble deep Papa don't preach, I been losing sleep But I made up my mind, IIIII'm keeping my baybeee... Mmm... I'm gonna keep my baby, mmm ooohhh... Her neatly-manicured fingertips drummed to the rhythm of the disco beat, tapping against the steering wheel of the car. There was a easy happy content smile on her lips as she slowly turned the wheel, turning her car from the main road onto an access road shaded deepdarkly by trees on both sides. "He says that he's going to marry me We can raise a little family Maybe we'll be all right It's a sacrifice It was wintertime, and darkness descended quickly in New England. In the summer, it would be broad daylight still. Now, however, delicate fluffy snowflakes drifted down from the black air, buoyed by soft currents cradling the crystallized water, delivering it from the skíes to the ground like a mother protecting a precious child. "But my friends keep telling me to give it up Saying I'm too young, I ought to live it up What I need right now is some good adviiice pleeease -- The silver Mercedes slowed down as it reached the parking lot, and stopped next to a white limo. The engine kept running for a few moments longer, as the woman in the car hesitated. There was still time to turn around and drive off. Then, with a soft click, the radio was turned off by a pair of graceful, delicate fingers -- steel clothed in silk. She leaned her head backwards but felt it just press against the head-rest of her seat. Then, instead, she with a sigh leaned forward, resting her forehead on the upper edge of the engine-tremored steering wheel, her eyes blankly staring into her lap as her long dark hair dangled downwards, obscuring her face from sight like a waterfall shields the cliff under it. The windshield accumulated snow slowly but steadily. She didn't know how long she sat there, before finally leaning her head back up, bringing her hand over to the ignition lock, and turning the engine off, pulling the key out. She smiled slightly at the keyring, with a silver angel dangling off it -- the keyring had been a gift from Warren on her last birthday. She felt so old. *** "I'll come with you." "No", Elizabeth Braddock replied, and put her cellphone in her purse. "I'm going alone." She put the purse to rest on the hat rack in the foyer to wait for her while she pulled on a warm mink coat over her stylish purple-and-black ensemble. Then, she reached up and grabbed the purse again, tucking it under her right arm. "I wish you told me where you were going", Warren Worthington said, with a hint of frustration to his tone as he stepped from the doorway to the foyer. "What if something happens, what if someone attacks you or something --" "Don't lie to a telepath, Warren", Elizabeth murmured under her breath with some mild amusement, and then walked over to the man she was living with, and placed a hand onto his cheek. "You just don't like the fact that I have a life outside you", she whispered, and touched her lips lightly to his, "and that I won't let you into." Her smile widened a bit, and she turned away, heading for the door out of the apartment. "Who knows", she said as she unlocked the door, and glanced over her shoulder at Warren. "Maybe you're even afraid that I have another man." "Do you?" Warren simply asked, locking his eyes onto Betsy's with some half-hearted accusation in them. Her laugh was bright and so very lacking in taking him seriously. "Oh, I do love it when you try to play tough, Warren." She winked at him, before turning her eyes forward again, walking out the door. "It makes you so sexy." The door closed behind her, and not soon after, there was a loud crash inside the apartment, as Warren angrily swung his fist to the side, and knocked a vase from a table. The porcelain construct flew into a wall and shattered into thousands of pieces. His wings flexed, wanting to fire off countless razor-sharp wing-knives, but the capability was gone, his wings made of feathers once more, instead of metal. But the urge, the desire still nested itself deep in Warren's soul. It had never been the wings. He strode to the balcony, and yanked the sliding door open. His teeth gritted, his mind seething, his skin hot with anger, he took the few steps into the outside air, and then his strong angelic wings took a few strong beats, before catapulting him into the dusky afternoon sky over SoHo. *** "Elizabeth." "Emma." (( Dances with snowflakes )), a thought rang in Elizabeth's mind as she watched the cold, reserved, polite form of Emma Frost stand on the parking lot. Instead, what came out of her mouth was, "Don't you get cold?" Emma Frost's expression did not waver at the remark about her attire. "Mind over matter", she simply replied. "It's merely a matter of control. And what comes easier to a telepath than control?" Her icy eyes twinkled sharply, unsettling Elizabeth more than a bit. With a low click, Elizabeth turned the key and locked the car up, then put the keyring in her purse. "You'd be surprised", she answered enigmatically, returning Emma's little 'favor' with a sharp gaze of her own. The effect was no less lost on Emma than it had been on Elizabeth. For a few moments, the ice queen was able to meet the gaze, before looking away towards the campus of the Massachusetts Academy. "You didn't tell me when you called why you were coming over." "No, I didn't", Elizabeth answered, as she walked away from her Mercedes and towards the headmistress of the Academy, pulling her mink coat tighter around herself in the cold breeze that seemed to have no effect on Frost. Emma rolled her eyes, and tucked her riding crop under her left arm as she started walking down the just-plowed and mostly clear-of-snow road leading up to the campus. "I suppose you didn't come just for a cup of coffee." "No, I didn't", Elizabeth repeated, and could hardly restrain a smile as Emma glared at her. She loved dancing on the edge. It's when she felt alive. "I hear the children had quite the adventure in California", she stated. "Did they all get back home safe?" "Aside from Monet", Emma said, "who seems to have split into two separate beings, everyone is all right." She quirked an eyebrow and looked to the woman walking beside her. "Why are you interested in them?" "Now Emma", Elizabeth tsked, shaking her head. "You suspect even common politesse? And here I'd have thought someone of your upbringing wouldn't be alien to the concept of small talk... It's bad enough when Logan demands me to 'cut to the chase', as it were -- but really, Emma -- et tu?" "Oh, spare me", Emma said, and then looked thoughtful for a brief moment, and touched a pair of soft fingertips lightly to her pale-skinned temple. With an astral SNAP in her head, Elizabeth heard the voice of Sean Cassidy, relayed to her by Frost's own not-inconsiderable telepathic powers. (( Elizabeth! Pleasure t' be seein' you! Emma told me you'd called --)) Elizabeth used her telepathy to backtrack along Emma's astral route and locate Sean. Then, she estabilished her own telepathic link with the Irish X-Man and pushed Frost out of her mind. (( Good to hear from you, Sean. Been a while. Everything okay in here? )) (( Aye -- since the kids got back, it's been pretty quiet --)) Suddenly, Sean's voice paused, and Elizabeth could feel him mentally sighing. (( I'll get back to ye -- something I need to take care of, it'd seem. )) (( All right )), Elizabeth nodded mentally. (( See you in a bit. )) Then, she broke off the link, and felt the psychic rush of pulling power inwards, like taking a deep breath, but more exhilarating. It thrilled her spine. "You didn't --" Suddenly, her expression snapped to seriousness, and she stopped walking, instead drawing to a quick defensive posture, her long hair whipping around and landing over her right shoulder as her torso twisted to face to the left-hand side of the path. Her eyes peered into the darkness of the woods, but nothing was there but trees and snow. Emma watched the ninja woman curiously, tilting her head a bit. After a moment of Elizabeth just standing there, motionless like a statue, she finally commented, "Monet's autism seems to be contagious." Elizabeth finally moved, turning her head around to look at Emma for a moment, not understanding the blonde's words. Then, she blinked, and said, "There's something out in the woods." Emma lifted an eyebrow, and then extended her telepathic powers outwards, searching for any minds out in the darkness. Her eyes closed, she scoured the vicinity for any kind of psychic activity, but to no avail. "There's no one nearby", she said after a moment. "It was probably just the wind." "Maybe", Elizabeth said, and concentrated herself, a pink butterfly aura manifesting in front of her eyes as she projected her own psionic powers to look for any minds in the woods. But she, also, met the same result. "Being a ninja is not just an extension of your senses. It is a sense in itself", she said quietly, but not so quietly Emma couldn't hear her. "Maybe it was an animal." "Well, I don't know about you", Emma commented, "but I would rather go inside and have a glass of brandy than stay out here and chase after rabbits." She resumed the walk towards the campus. Elizabeth glanced after Emma, and then, with a frown, followed. She could feel -- something. A prickly feeling in the back of her neck, like she was being watched. She didn't like it at all. She shot a glare into the woods, and then followed Emma. "You didn't ask my permission before entering my mind to relay Sean's words." Emma smiled widely. "No, I didn't." *** "She almost noticed us." "Don't worry, Peter. She didn't. The forest is full of all kinds of little things, like the old nursery rhyme says... A man in the wilderness asked this of me, "How many strawberries grow in the sea?" I answered him as I thought good, "As many red herrings as swim in the wood." She'll think she was just seeing things and let us go about our business undisturbed as long as we remain sneaky and quiet... We will, won't we, Peter?"" "Yes, Nanny."