THE LONE WOLF AND THE GODDESS - PART FOUR By Davide Briganti DISCLAIMER: All the X-Men depicted in this story are copyright of the Marvel guys, and are used without their permission. No profits are made by posting this story, which is written only for entertainment purposes. Sid "Renegade" Mayer is a copyright of me, so if you wanna use it, please ask me first. * * * The big man in the orange trenchcoat stared at the broken window with a ven- geful gleam in his eyes, hands in pockets. A younger man with dark hair, dres- sed in military pants and vest, put a hand on his shoulder. "Stop thinking a- bout that mutant witch, Rex. The Big B wants to see you right now....and if I were you, I shouldn't make him wait. You know, it gets him REAL mad." Rex turned to face him. "No stinkin' mutant did leave this village out of a coffin, you know? You understand what I'm sayin', man? NO ONE! And that freak of nature just flies away from me like a....a disgustin', big FLY!" The young man shrugged. "You're takin' this thing too personally. We all fail once in a lifetime; and besides, the Sentinel sent after her by the guys at the Underground Installation should have killed her twice with a single blow, considering the blood loss caused by her wounds. Now, let's go!" "Yeah, yeah", Rex mumbled as he followed his companion outside the bar. The two entered the grocery store; Rex took of his pocket the photo of a child and showed it to the clerk. "I've lost my son. Have you seen him?", he asked with a meaningful look. "You're lucky, sir. I found him, he's waiting you in- side.", the clerk promptly answered pointing to the back door. "Thank you." Rex and the young man opened the door and entered a small, steel- made room with a medium-size TV screen on the opposite wall. The figure of what could be hardly called still a man suddenly appeared on the screen: the left half of his head was replaced by a cybernetic counterpart, as it was his left forearm and his right leg. He stood up from the large chair he was sit- ting on, and slowly pointed his steel arm forward with a menacing gaze. "You permitted her to escape, Rex. This disappoints me a lot, you know?" Rex, gulped down a couple of time before finding enough voice to answer the accusation. "It-it wasn't my fault, Boss. I shot her, but she was damn tough, and we were not able to stop her! None of my men can fly!" The cyborg clenched his fist in a sudden burst of rage. "YOU IDIOT!", he roa- red, "She belonged to the mutant group that almost killed me, the X-Men! They left me under the rubble of my first base to die after Mastermold's destruc- tion! THEY'RE MY SWORN ENEMIES AND YOU JUST LET ONE OF THEM GO AWAY!!!" Rex's spine begun to turn into jello as the cyborg's voice became more and mo- re loud and anger-filled. "B-but...", he babbled, trying to dominate fear. "Shut up! I haven't finished yet. Now you two have one day to reunite as many men as you can and get to that guy who lives north of the city to finish off the work." "Ehm...Boss, but ain't the Sentinel that flew off before supposed to take care of her?", the dark-haired young man said. The half-machine man's expression darkened even more. "It was destroyed some minutes ago." The two men looked at each other with a puzzled look for quite a time, then turned their heads back to the screen. "How did it happen?", Rex asked. "Frankly, I don't have any idea. It was just utterly destroyed." "But then, what if the thing which has destroyed the Sentinel shows up when we're there? How are we supposed to handle such a matter?" "That's -your- concern, not mine! Now, begone, and let the mutant and the gene-traitor who protects her feel the wrath of Bolivar Trask!" Sid took the tray off the bedside table, looking at the empty plates with gro- wing satisfaction as Storm finished eating the apple cake. "Excellent.", she said, "You' re a very good cook. It was quite a time since I've eaten something as delicious as this." "Thanks, but it was only a wise choice, and not cooking ability: it was mostly deep-frozen stuff!", Sid replied with a wink, and both laughed. "So, Miss", Sid continued, "I think I have a few questions to ask you. First and foremost, who are you? I saw you fall off from the sky!" Storm sighed, her face turning deadly serious once more. "My name's Ororo, and I was born different from other human beings.....special. I received a gift of power: the ability to command and shape the forces of nature at will, summo- ning forth the powers of the winds, clouds and lightning; but this great gift turned to be an equally great curse, for I was shunned and feared by the other people. But then, one day, I met a man who was, like me, a gifted one. He said he had a dream: a future when the humans and our kind can live toge- ther in harmony, and was recruiting others across the world to teach them to control their own inborn powers and further our rights in society. I accepted, and became part of the group known as the X-Men. Commonly speaking, you may call me a 'mutant'." After this, Storm laid her head on the cushion, waiting silently for his host's reactions. Sid sat at her side for a seeming endless time, looking at her with a pondering look on his face. "I don't care for such things", he finally said, "All I knew is that you were in need of help, and fast!" The mutant woman smiled broadly, sighing with relief. "You know, it's so hard to find a person with unprejudiced views about mutants." "Speaking of prejudices, what did you know about giant robots? The one that pursued you down there said something about mutant-hunting before being si- lenced once and for all." "Pursued? You mean he got here?" "Yes", Sid replied with a wry smile, "but he did not go any further." A white eyebrow rose. "You're saying that you destroyed him?" "Let's say I have some useful tricks for emergency situations." Ororo stared at him for a full thirty seconds with an extremely inquiring gaze, then begun explaining: "A long time ago, we fought a man named Bolivar Trask. He created a series of androids to protect humanity from mutants: these machines were the first Sentinels. Then, the Commander of the Sentinels, Mas- termold, revolted against its creator and planned to subjugate humanity by controlling their brains. We intervened, and Trask died in the explosion that destroyed his secret base. Until now, Sentinels project was supposed to be abandoned: it was because of some strange reports about giant flying robots sightings that I came here to investigate this area." "Well, your investigation is over: you found what you were looking for!", Sid replied with a smile. She catched the joke: "Well, I confess you that I would have been more happy if my researches were less painful!". "Hey, you're still alive, ain't you? Stop moaning!" Ororo giggled. "Alive and in good company.", she replied, "Good thing when you cannot get out of bed." "I, too, am happy to be with you.", Sid replied with a shy look in his eyes. "Damn!", he thinked, "I'm not afraid to fight three-stories tall killing ma- chines, and I quake at the prospect of telling this woman how beautiful she is. If I keep up like this, it's better for me if I go in seclusion in a Zen monastery!" The young man stood up. "Now, take a nap while I ride to the town and find a doctor. We still need to check correctly how are you recovering." Storm's eyes widened as she grabbed his forearm: "Please, don't. If anyone of them finds that I am here, we'll be in a lot of trouble!" Sid looked at her with a puzzled expression. "What do you mean by 'them'?" "There's a racist group, called the Friends of Humanity, who promotes the extermination of mutantkind, and the whole village is crawling with them! It was one of them who shot me before I could fly off!" "That worsens the situation a lot. Can you contact any of your buddies?" "Unfortunately, my comlink got destroyed. I can only hope Jean or Professor Xavier can track me psionically down there." The young fighter's arms crossed as he shook his head: "In that case, I have bad news for you. No empath or telepath of any sort, no matter how powerful, can track any mind down there." "Why?", Storm asked. "Well....", Sid begun to explain, but the unmistakable sound of a firearm being used abruptly interrupted him. A deep male voice yelled from outside: "Hey you! Give us that mutant and we'll let you live...maybe!", and laughters echoed in response for all around. Sid smiled sadly. "Now, Ororo, what were you saying about those Friends Of Whatever?" "Wait! What do you think you're doing?", Storm almost screamed as the man opened the door and headed downstairs. He turned for a moment, then stared at her with a kind smile. "I'm going out to wipe those jerks away, of course." "But-but you're alone and unarmed! You don't even know how many of those fa- natics are out there!" Sid's eyes lowered as his gaze became filled with sadness. "I assure you, I'm not unarmed. And as for being alone.....well, let's say I'm used to it." Ororo felt like a black talon was ripping through her heart as he saw him closing the door. "Sid?", she called with an almost inaudible voice. "Yes?" She tried to smile. "Take care. I'll greatly appreciate to see you come back here with all your limbs!" Sid chuckled in response. "Was that a joke? Hey, after all there is a small chance that you have some sense of humor!" "I got it from you." The young man sighed and quietly closed the door, leaving Storm alone to wipe away the tears that now freely rolled over her cheeks. Bishop's hands clenched on the Blackbird's controls as Psylocke appeared on a small screen beside him. "You' re allowed to take off, Blackbird One.", she said through the intercom speaker. "Thank you, Psylocke. Hourly reports will be sent from now to keep inform you about the state of the mission." "Take care, you all. We don't know what's really down there." "We will be careful as we've always been. Over." The hangar door slowly opened, and the skies over the Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters echoed with the roar of engines: in a moment, both the jet's shadowy figure and the noise disappeared, leaving behind an unnatural- ly gloomy silence in the midsummer's morning. "Well, it seems we've got a rough job, folks", Wolverine said while popping open a beer can. "Any ideas?" "I suggest we begin our investigation in Storm's last known position. After all, it is the only sure clue we have.", Bishop answered while switching on the auto-pilot. The other two occupants, Cyclops and Jean Grey, nodded in agreement. "I'm only hoping that what we'll find there won't be too much for us alone to handle.", Jean added, "Who can tell us if the Sentinels that are presumed to patrol this place are of the same model produced in Trask's factory or more powerful ones?" Wolverine chuckled wryly. "In that case, Red, we'll go see how well flowers grow....but lookin' at the roots!" Scott stared at him with a cold gaze: "Stop it, Wolverine. We're on assign- ment!", he replied, and then turned to the pilot's seat. "E.T.A.?" "Approximately 15:30 local time", was the computer's response. Jean Grey looked at her wrist watch, where a large 11:32 blinked on the LCD display. "Five hours", she thinked, "Hold on, my friend. We're coming." END OF PART FOUR. As usual, E-mail me at renegade@ipsnet.it and tell me what you think!