Whispers

 
 
"Sorry, sugah. I can't let you choose it this time." She held out the tiny baby with the white tendrils framing her small face. "Candra."
 
Dere are a few constants in dis world dat people don't
give nearly enough credit for: de X-Men always gonna find trouble
wherever it be hidin', de world always goin' t' go t' hell by way o' fire
an' burnin' if y' let de mos' powerful mutants live, an' somewhere
in de middle o' everyt'in' will be Raven Darkholme.

-
Inky blackness swallowed up the back alley behind two dark buildings in the middle of a slum district of New York City. The only light came from three red pinpricks, closely spaced—the end of a cigarette and a pair of demon eyes. A storm was brewing on a far horizon, but the clouds had not yet reached this place. The night was clear if starless, backlit with the busy distant glow of the streets nearby. Heavy smoke breathed out its sharp, rough scent in the alleyway, but there was no light to see it.

A dark form materialized nearby, easily visible to those bright red pinpricks. Lean curves wrapped the figure, but the voice was harsh.

"LeBeau."

"Raven."

He dropped the cigarette to the asphalt and ground it out beneath his heel, leaving only two bright embers for light.

She came closer, crouched beside him to look out of the narrow space between brick walls. He thought he could see a wicked smile curving the blood red hue of her lips, setting off her skin's radiant blue. Yellow eyes glowed sharply in the darkness because of his own enhanced sight.

He looked out with her. "Y' came t' discuss business?"

"Plans are afoot," Raven stated quietly. "We would like your assistance."

"Oh?" He turned toward her, glancing over the fall of red hair over her skin. He knew by her snort of derision she could hear the smirk in his own tone.

"Your employer is interested in mutant potential." She didn't once glance at him. "Perhaps he should let us make him more."

He mulled over her words, leaning back on the wall to slip out another cigarette and light it. It burned briefly with a magenta glow before falling into the dull red of human fire.

"De machine, it works den." He said it leadingly, deliberately leaving out the question mark.

Raven shrugged eloquently. "We seek more manpower."

He barked a laugh and pushed off the wall. His long duster swirled around his calves. "Y're chasin' a pipe dream, chère. Can' hire de Marauders."

"Don't walk away from me, LeBeau!" Her furious voice chased him to the end of the alley and he paused, turned his head just enough to catch her standing at the corner of his eye. "We're willing to work with clones."

That gave him pause. He turned all the way, stared into the inky blackness between the buildings and Raven's dark form therein.

"Which?"

"Malice, Psylocke, Cre—"

"Non." He waved her to silence, and though she could not see the gesture clearly, the word was as effective. "Malice," he stated, "cannot be cloned. She ain't a body. Ain't got no genes."

It was a point. Raven digested that.

She stepped forward. "Our priority is Creed."

He nodded, understanding. "I'll talk t' de boss."

"And you."

The demon eyes narrowed sharply. He turned away, staring down the cold New York street toward his next destination. "Can'."

"Why not?" she demanded. "Sinister clones all of you."

He turned on her a sardonic smile. "Y' wouldn' want him t' clone me, chère." He started walking.

Her voice followed hard behind him. "We need your skills."

He chuckled coldly as the darkness swallowed him up. Essex didn't share the things that mattered. Never had.

Never would.
 
People seem surprised when I tell dem don't remember dis part.
Seem to t'ink dat jus' because it's moi dat means I lived it. Well, dere's
more dan one sun in dis sorry 'scuse for a world an' more dan one
Remy and more dan one reason dat circle got broke.


-
Remy LeBeau, as he was known out here in the greater world, stared into glowing red irises in the mirror of a cheap motel bathroom and studied the whites behind them. What was it like to be anything but a devil? He let the glow fade, turned away, and wiped his face with a dry towel.

Wolverine was the epitome of Sinister's stolen labors, and Remy had watched him walk away with no memory whatsoever of anything that he had just done. If this hadn't been a solo job, Remy would probably be dead right now—or returning to some other contrived horror. But it had been and, with the Wolverine's memories conveniently wiped, that left little for Remy to be worried about.

He dropped the towel on the floor and picked up a shirt to slide over his upper body. The trench coat he'd tossed over the back of one moldering chair he wrapped around himself quickly, checking the pockets for his cards. It all fit with the persona—a useful one he'd picked up that had lured Wolverine to him.

A cell phone rang. He answered. Silence floated uneasily around him in the room as he listened.

"Oui, Monsieur Essex," came his smooth reply. "I understand perfectly."

The phone shut with a click. Remy took one glance at the blaring red numbers on the clock beside the bed.

Time to return to the nest.

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"Interesting."

Remy flipped off Essex and sat up on a sinister-looking medical bed in a huge underground lab that stretched from end to end of the cavernous space with sterilized stainless steel equipment, counters with beakers and syringes, petri dishes, and computers monitoring everything. In the center of the array stood several beds—one of which he selected for his seat—and the equipment for surgery. Around the room were more beds in a neat circle against the walls. Mutants lay on those, hooked up to various sensors and equipment that fed into the monitors. On one wall stood tall pods filled with red fluid—and more mutants.

Essex studied Remy's eyes with intense interest.

His own were completely red beneath the gentleman disguise he wore of dark hair, brown eyes, healthy skin tone, and brown suit. Remy knew this and pretended indifference at the scrutiny.

"What did he do to you?" Essex murmured, more to himself than to Remy.

"Nothin' you can't fix," Remy replied smoothly. He wore the easy, light southern accent as if he was born to it, though he preferred the thick praline drawl of Cajun. Essex did not like to hear it as it reminded him of Remy's divided loyalties, something Remy could do well to not remind him of.

Remy lay back on the medical bed, knowing what would come next. And it did.

First, the light haziness around his mind, politely demanding him to lower his mental shields. It came far too easy for Remy's liking, but he let the thought fade quickly before Essex could enter. Then the sharp, acute stab of psychic pain and telepathic burrowing through his mental synapses. It was quick, brutal analysis, but effective.

Essex did a remarkable job at determining the exact layout and capabilities of Remy's mental wiring for his powers. Always had. He had taught Remy his powers before they even manifested. Some still were yet to come.

Then came the more physical poking and prodding and wiring him to machines and musing over charts and statistics and giving an impatient look for Remy's impatient sigh. If it had been any of Essex' other subjects, the response would have been significantly harsher, but Essex had long fostered a sort of paternal pride with Remy—even if Remy had done little to deserve it.

But the scientist's back stiffened slightly and Remy realized he had caught the thought, or at least a whiff of it.

"You have no other home, Remy," Essex stated, using his name, a rare concession, almost conciliatory. "You have no other family."

Unequivocal.

And Remy didn't give a d—. He didn't belong to Essex any more than he belonged to the man who gave his seed to make him. He wasn't just a creation of some scientific mind or evolutionary will.

"Almos' done?" Remy asked, allowing a light drawl, earning a glare from Essex.

Never wise to antagonize the man with the knife poised over your brain, but Remy didn't accomplish things by playing it safe. He pushed the edge with a calculated smoothness that Essex and his telepathy and his science had yet to ruffle. There was always this underlying understanding between them that eventually Remy's powers would grow beyond the grasp of their nurturer and the son would outgrow the master and everything would change between them. But now...

"I tire of this game of yours," Essex said. He readied a hypodermic needle. "I'm going to put you under."

"Imagine that."

It would be cruelty to leave Remy awake for a surgical procedure. Anesthetics never had done much for him.

He braced himself lightly, felt the needle enter his arm, and welcomed the blissful blackness that followed.

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"Dieu!"

Coming awake was like coming alive in Stryker's pen. A million pinpricks of pain exploded across his vision. He couldn't breathe. An iron vise held down his limbs and he was shaking with the aftereffects of more powerful drugs than Styrker had ever dreamed up.

He waited for his vision to clear, his stomach to settle. The slightest motion and he had to lean over the side of the bed and hurl. His insides were weak, empty, agonizing.

"Don't hold back, why don't y'?" Remy spat out, not bothering to look for the imposing figure that was doubtless nearby.

"Do you think this is torture?" Essex asked as mild-mannered as ever with just a hint of amusement at the idea. "He shackled you to a lesser state. I have merely freed you to be what you are again."

Yes. All that potential. Remy swore.

Essex came closer. "Why is it you insist upon thinking of yourself as this name?" he asked, tongue curling with distaste.

Remy fell back onto the bed, still shaking from whatever it was Essex had done to him. "Mirror."

Essex looked thoughtful, then acceded to the request with a nod. His hand hovered over a surgical tray, then finding what he wanted, lifted a small mirror and handed it to Remy.

His eyes were back.

The irises glowed red, heady and brilliant, flaring when he willed them to. Instead of whites, he had blacks. What was it like to be anything but a devil? He handed the mirror back to Essex.

"You have not answered my question."

Remy leaned back his head, closed his eyes so the room would stop spinning. "'S my name," he said. He could have kicked himself. The accent was thick Cajun—like his parents'.

Essex frowned deeply. "You do not have a name."

Non. O' course not. Dat'd be asking too much of a world dat jus' don't give a— He cut off the thought before Essex did it more forcibly. Remy hated handing over control of his mind to the scientist, but it was the price for undoing Stryker's experimentation.

He settled for giving Essex a mild-mannered look of his own. "Comes in handy out there." He waved vaguely in the direction of the outdoors.

"You could select any alias to work under. Why this one?" And for once, there was genuine curiosity in the tone.

Remy held his gaze for a long moment. "Why this urge to get all fatherly all of a sudden?" His tone was cold.

Essex chuckled coldly in return. "I am no father, I assure you."

Remy snorted. As if he was worried about that. But he answered the question. "She named me that."

"She had no right to name you," Essex pointed out. He set about gathering up the things he had used in his operation. Remy deliberately avoided identifying them.

"That so?" he asked, lightly.

Essex did not look up from his task. "You were not hers."

He snapped back hard at that. "And those nine months inside her were just my imagination then?"

Essex did look up then. His brown eyes were hard. The faint tendrils of telepathy caressing Remy's shields became starkly sinister. "She agreed to produce a child with your potential. From the beginning," he said patiently, "you were mine."

Remy evaluated the man before him. Now was not the time to press. He was being let off lightly for angering him. But a smile curled his lips and he answered in the thick Cajun patois of his mother and his father. "Oui, Monsieur Essex."

No one ever said Remy played it safe.

Essex frowned thinly, but he turned away and completed putting everything away. Always everything in its place. "Debrief," he said curtly.

Remy leaned back, finally allowing his stomach the real opportunity to settle. "Found dem," he said softly.

The words were enough to excuse the accent. Essex looked pleased, grinning sharply. "Indeed? And were my former colleagues on hand to witness your discovery?"

Former. Slated for destruction for their willful theft of intellectual property Essex had never planned on sharing. Remy shrugged, not willing to admit the entire truth, that they had built upon his research in grotesque ways, utilizing his suspension chambers—practically identical to the ones lined up on the far end of the lab, his notes on mutations and how to manipulate them, even his serious advances in cloning. Nor was he willing to admit just how bad the job went down. Letting Wolverine loose only solved one of Remy's problems, that of dispatching those required. He'd done most of his personal work earlier.

"Most o' dem are dead," he stated bluntly, closing his eyes on the mercurial gleam likely to enter Essex's eye. "Deir...subjects went ahead an' finished de job."

"I see."

Remy cracked an eyelid. "Only a handful o' dose survived. Mostly de ferals. Everyone else dead in de aftermat'."

Essex did not probe further. He had already received the thick bundle of journals, papers, and samples Remy retrieved on his capture and subsequent escape. The follow-up job with Wolverine had been mere cleanup. Get Team X out of the picture, preferably dead, destroy all of the offshoots of Essex's stolen work, never mind that those were people—or mutants if you'd rather, and eliminate those responsible for the theft. That left only Stryker. For all he knew, the homme was still walking.

"What about McTaggert?" Essex asked abruptly.

Remy snorted in derision. "Ain't dat de femme y' said refused t' continue researchin' wit' y'?"

Essex looked sharply irritated.

Remy glanced away. He let the accent lapse into an understated Southern. "I didn't think ya needed me lookin' for her."

"Indeed." The voice was cold. "She was also my former colleague and well-acquainted with my research. She has the Proteus chamber and has been publishing in academic journals about telepathic transference when she has never successfully transferred a mind from one body to another." No, that was Essex's accomplishment.

Remy grimaced, then cursed. He had missed that one. He sat up, swung his legs over the side of the medical bed, putting him on eye-level with the doctor.

"So what? You want me to infiltrate the X-Men?" he asked. "That's where she's holing up for now while that redhead goes to school."

"Jean Grey?" Essex scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Yes, I believe she wanted to be a doctor. That's right." The words weren't really meant for Remy, so he didn't bother to respond. "Very well. You may go to the X-Men. Choose whatever cover you like and find out more about McTaggert's research. If it mirrors anything in these journals..."

"Oui," Remy replied sharply, cutting the man over and earning a hard stare. "Destroy it."

Essex nodded, seemingly satisfied. "But this time..."

Something cold snaked through Remy's belly, whether fear or anger it was hard to tell.

"All of it."

Remy curled his lip. So Essex had poked around in his mind for the job details as well, n'est ce pas? He flipped him off.

Essex sighed wearily. "You need me in your head. I would rather not hear any complaints about my correct evaluation during your surgery."

"Evaluate my brain," Remy replied, "not my mind."

Callous amusement crossed the other man's face. "You have no say in anything I do concerning you."

Remy got to his feet, ignoring the way the room swirled about him unsteadily and retrieved his coat from where he had dropped it on his way into the monstrous lab. He slipped it on, checked his pockets, ignored the blinding headache threatening behind his eyes. One last glance back at Essex. Remy opened the door. It only swung outward for a few.

"For now, homme."

The door swung shut.

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Seven profiles lay scattered across the standard blue and pink print of a motel room bedspread. Matching curtains hung over the windows. It was that half-light between day and twilight when the clouds burned brightly gold if the sole occupant of the room bothered to look out and see it.

He did not.

Instead he studied the dossiers lying on the bed one by one, running a gloved finger across some high point or another. Jean Grey. Henry McCoy. Charles Xavier. Scott Summers. Moira McTaggert. Ororo Munroe. Erik Lensherr. Four high-school-age teenagers and three steady adults. Henry, known as Hank, and Jean would both be attending college, one from the Institute and one away, leaving six people living at the mansion permanently. After seeing Summers in the whole island incident, however, there would be no telling how many temporary strays had taken up residence.
 
The first thing Ah remember of all the tahmes Ah've lived is holding to my
Papa's hand as he walked meh down the streets of New Awlins at eleven
fifty-one at naght. We were goin' to meet some acquaintances of his, a word
Ah had already learned meant dangerous men and double talkin'. Ah was
fahve years old. Ah'd never known any different.


-
Gruff and surly, his body sheltered in a heavy jean jacket that had seen better days, the Wolverine stomped purposefully down a poorly lit alleyway. A tiny, dark-haired girl clung tightly to his hand. What appeared to be his bomber jacket had swallowed her up and only her elfin face, the tips of her fingers, and the bit of legs below her knees poked out.

It was cold out. Winter was never fierce in the city of New Orleans, but it could still put a chill on one's bones.

He suddenly gripped the child's hand more tightly, hesitating where the street turned. He tucked her behind him.

"Hold on now, Anna. Don't need to be worrying about you."

She wrapped her arms around the back of his knee, tucked both feet on one shoe, and buried her face against his leg. He wasn't a tall man or a big man, but he was big enough to just about hide her from the front.

Wolverine continued forward, paying no more heed to her.

The little girl studied their surroundings as they reached streets lit with lampposts and homes with windows that glowed behind the curtains. The fragrance of the last forgotten and dying blooms of summer wafted across the night tang. She thought she could smell traces of spice and family and pain, all mixed up with the scent of nearby water. Her father taught her to pay attention growing up. Pay attention with all your senses, he'd said. She struggled to stay awake, lulled by the steady motion of his walk.

She came abruptly alert when he jostled to a stop outside the door to one of the mansions. He rang the doorbell and waited patiently for someone to come.

She looked around her interestedly, then remembering herself, ducked her head against his leg and became completely still.

The door opened and a man's clear tenor rang out. "And y' are?" It held the taint of the Cajun.

"Wolverine," came the gruff reply.

The man stepped aside and her father went in. She remained breathlessly still and silent as he walked over plush carpets, past rich oil paintings and antique furniture, into the depths of this New Orleans home. She wondered if only the servants were Cajun or if this was merely a city home for a bayou family.

"Is dis de chil'?" asked a woman's rich voice.

The little girl's father brought his hand to the back of her head and she stood up from behind him.

The woman was a dark-skinned, heavyset woman with a thick braid around the top of her head and a colorful wrap around her body. Dark eyes pierced both girl and father, and Anna pressed just a little closer to her father's leg.

"Go on now," he said and prodded her in the direction of the woman.

Obedient, she went forward.

"Come wit' Tante Mattie now, chil'," the woman said warmly. "I have cookies fresh baked an' dere's room enough for y' in de kitchen."

Anna took one last look at her father, who only gave her an encouraging expression before following after a tall, slender man down the hallway. Tante Mattie's hand was inviting. She reached out and allowed her own to be swallowed up in the rough, callused warmth of the woman's.

"Come along, chil', an' y' can meet my Remy."

Obediently, she trotted behind the woman through the long hallway and around several corners before finding herself in a large, spacious kitchen with thick, broad tiles on the floor, long counters, tall windows. On the right half of the kitchen, a large wooden table had been laid with about a dozen plain wooden chairs pulled up around it in front of a broad hearth on which a royal fire burned. Over the fire hung a roast. At the table sat a scrawny, raw-edged boy in denim trousers, bare feet, and no shirt. Messy auburn hair fell over his shoulders and into his eyes. The small part of his face that was clear to the girl was all sharp edges and razor thin. He didn't look up on their entry. His gaze was pointed at the table and two stacks of cards, one face up. He held several cards in one fist, their red and black points standing out to her in the warm glow of the fire.

"Remy," Tante Mattie called. "Y' get up proper an' greet our guest."

The boy slid off the chair, setting down his cards as he did so. He hooked his thumbs through the belt loops on his pants and came forward.

Anna stared at him.

He was much taller than her. As he approached, she could make out his bony ribs in sharp relief and burning red in his dark eyes. Even closer, she could see that his eyes themselves were black, drinking in the light. She took a step forward at that, and he arrested his motion entirely. His eyes were fascinating, fixed on her with startling intensity. She had never seen anything like them.

"Ah'm Anna," she got out.

One eyebrow winged upward beneath his bangs. "Remy," he muttered back, then at Tante Mattie's reproachful look, stuck out one hand to shake.

Anna eyed him warily. She had seen her father shake hands with the men he did business with, but she had never had reason to attempt the gesture herself. She looked back at Tante Mattie, her long dark hair flying about her.

"Sit y' bot' down." The colored woman shooed them both toward the table again. "I'll bring de cookies."

The boy's eyes gleamed, but he curled back up on his chair, shoving another out with one hand for Anna to climb into.

"Whah are yoh eyes that color?" she asked, curiously.

The boy shrugged, a casual gesture with only one shoulder. He began to shuffle in his nimble fingers. She watched, intrigued, at the mesmerizing, easy rhythm, the way light and shadow played across his hands.

His unruly mane had fallen across his eyes again. The girl reached out and brushed back the reddish hair. He looked up, clearly startled.

"Ah lahke them," she said with all the certainty only the very young can master.

Remy furrowed his eyebrows together, but Tante Mattie separated the two of them with a quick wave of her hand at Anna's arm and set down a plate of cookies.

"Don't cheat, mind," she said to Remy and ruffled up his hair.

"Yes'm," he mumbled back. The gleam came back into his eye and he dealt out.

Anna snaked out one hand and took a cookie. She nibbled at the edges. It was chewy and flavor just bursting in her mouth of oats and spices and honey. Very good. She wiped her mouth and picked up her cards.

"Y' know how t' play?" the boy asked with a rolling Cajun accent of his own.

Anna let do with a nod.

"Bien." His sharp features fell intently to the cards. He spread the five cardboard slips in his hand.

Anna ran her finger along her own and reached out for another cookie. "How old are ya?"

The dark eyes neither flickered nor turned. "Eight." He set a cookie to his mouth.

She blinked. She hadn't even seen him take one.
 
Mah name is Rogue. Tahme was when things were different, but they aren't. A rogue doesn't play bah the rules. A rogue doesn't go bah the rules. A rogue doesn't need the rules. Ya see, a rogue plays Russian roullette with lahfe—and gets the bullet.

-

Rogue had settled into Storm's garden, weeding with a vigor that would surprise anyone coming across her there. It was rather therapeutic this roguing of the rich soil, clearing out the undesirables, leaving the good plants to hopefully thrive and blossom.

She stopped for a moment to wipe the sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist. When her hand fell, she nearly jumped out of her skin. A girl, long auburn hair, blue tank top, worn jeans, eyes closed, blood streaming from her scalp beneath the hair and from beneath her clothes, was falling forward toward Rogue. Rogue moved to catch her. The girl was a heavy weight in her arms. Her eyelids cracked slightly open, and Rogue saw in horror the rivulets of blood pouring from the corners.

"Mère?" the girl asked, her voice a hoarse whisper, faintly accented.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Rogue brushed back the hair with her gloved fingers, searching for the wound that had led to this girl's terrible state, but the girl shook her head.

She coughed. Blood stained Rogue's clothes.

"What's wrong?" Rogue had already been telepathically screaming for help since she first laid eyes on the girl, but she knew that nothing could possibly be done fast enough to save her. "What happened?"

The girl's eyes opened wide. They were red, brilliantly glowing irises against the white. A wave of nausea clenched Rogue's stomach. She stared, horrified, into the girl's all too familiar eyes.

"I did what I could," the girl whispered. Her body trembled like a leaf in the wind. "Tell Grandfather Logan,"—she paused to breathe—"I did what I could." The life slipped out of her body, and she fell limp.

"No," Rogue whispered. "No."

She couldn't comprehend it, this girl in her arms. Dead.

"Jean!" she screamed aloud, the sound ripping painfully from her throat. "Jean! Please, someone help!"

That's how they found her moments later, holding the girl, screaming for help, crying, trying desperately to hang onto her sanity. Hank and Logan got her into the medical bay and Jean settled the girl onto the table.

"It'll be okay, Rogue," she reassured, even as she got to work.

Rogue sank into a chair in the corner of the room, unhearing, unseeing.

It wouldn't. It couldn't be okay.

The girl was dead.

Rogue leaned back against the wall and stared blankly forward as the doctors did their work.

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"Mère."

Rogue felt numb with the events of past hours. Jean and Hank had come back with their grim test results. The girl was about twenty-two and had died from the shattering of her nervous and circulatory systems. Her genetics had confirmed her words. Rogue was somehow her mother. She had a daughter.

Dead.

Rogue sat in an out-of-the-way chair in the corner of the medical bay, unable to move, barely able to breathe. She had a daughter. A dead daughter.

"I did what I could."

Ragged laughter burbled out of Rogue's throat, coming from some overexposed, shocked, almost manic area of her mind. She wanted to scream, to rant, to rail at the unfairness of the universe that gave her a child of her own body, her own blood, only to take her away, dead the day she met her. She gasped in a breath, struggling to overcome the sudden asphyxiation that overwhelmed her. Rogue put a hand to her face and drew it away wet. She was crying. Laughing and crying.

"Tell Grandfather Logan..."

"Yes," Rogue said suddenly to herself, her voice barely audible, a breath of a whisper on a tongue thick with emotion, from a throat raw with tears. "Ah'll tell Logan."

She tried to stand. She found she couldn't and cried out as she collapsed on the floor. Heavy sobs racked her shoulders, her stomach, her body. So much pain at the unreality of all of this.

"Rogue?" Logan's arms were tightening around her.

She dug her hands into his shoulders, buried her face in his chest, and keened like a small child who had lost everything she had ever had.

"She called me Mama, Logan. I couldn't save her, and she..."

"Shh..." Logan hushed her in the circle of his arms.

Rogue wept.

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Children. He'd lost to Pulse on account of children.

After all he'd done...

Angry...into bar

"Bourbon. Keep dem comin'."

Everyone knew when Gambit was in a mood to get drunk to give him what he wanted and let him be. He drank in lieu of killing something.

He barked a sharp, humorless laugh, shook his head, then downed his glass in a gulp.
 
All right, y'all. Ah'm gonna tell y'all a story.

Listen carefully, mesdames et messieurs, or y'll get as los' as if y' were wanderin' abou' our bayou. Pay attention t' every wor'.

Or y'll feel shaken, scattered, t'rown to de wind. An' trust me, mes braves. Y' will be.

Y'all listen to him, ya hear? 'Cause Ah ain't gonna help ya along much once we get goin'.

Dis is a long journey, and we all goin' t' take turns carryin' it forwar'.

Ah'm gonna tell ya, and she'll tell ya, and he'll tell ya again.

Y' heard de ladies. Watch y'r step. Dis ain' a pretty story.

    Broken

    FANDOM: X-Men: The Movie

    STORY SUMMARY: Lives, fates, and time itself lie broken in the hands of the Witness.

    DISCLAIMER: All characters and organizations (with the exception of small, mostly unnamed minor characters) throughout the series are the product of Marvel.

    CANONICAL NOTES: This story arc utilizes a strange combination of movieverse and comicverse and none of the above. Sorry about that.

    LANGUAGE AND ACCENTS: Cajun French is courtesy of Heavenmetal (many thanks). I will attempt to reproduce accents in this story arc.

    AUTHOR'S NOTE: This fic is the granddaddy of my entire fanfiction universe (with a couple of exceptions). Expect to see characters, relationships, names, and premises you recognize. Realize: it all leads somewhere you won't.

    (UNBOUND) entries are in drafting phase and are likely to change radically before complete.

    Picture

    Stories

    All
    0. Entertaining Angels
    1. Queen Of Thieves
    1.0 The Storytellers
    1.1 Queen
    2.1 Night
    3.0 Prelude To Legacy
    3.1 Legacy
    3.2 Legacy
    4.0 Prelude To Remember
    6.1 Fierce
    7.1 Court
    9.1 Shattered
    9.9 Coda
    Clips


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