Panther - A Nightcrawler Fanfiction

25) We're All Just Human

[Author's Note: 

{5.20.2013} Edited through this chapter for errors

X-Men Characters In This Chapter: Nightcrawler (Kurt), and Professor X (Charles Xavier)

OCs: Panther (Emery) and the Shadow (Marcus Preed)]

Emery woke to find herself lying in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, and who knows where this room really was. Feeling a pressure on her neck, she raised a hand to her neck. Someone had put a collar on her, and that collar was chained to something. She looked above her head from her laying position. It was chained to the bed. She sat up cautiously, expecting that man, Marcus he'd said his name was, to be there. And there he was, sitting in a chair with his elbows on his knees and his head drooping down.

Emery tried to create her little plasma balls that she was so comfortable using, but nothing came. A soft 'hmph' of frustration and confusion escaped her.

The noise attracted Marcus' attention.

"You can't use your mutant ability so long as that collar is on you."

"Then take it off me."                              

"Sorry, love, I can't do that. You'll just try to fight me right now, or try to escape, and I can't have either."

Emery processed this information as she shifted slightly to get more comfortable.

"Does it hurt?" his voice floated softly to her ears.

"What?"                                 

"Your ribs, do they hurt?"

Emery moved around and tested her ribs, as she had done every morning since they'd been broken. She didn't feel a thing.

"No, I... I can't feel any pain."

Marcus let out a sigh of relief. "Good," he said looking up at her. "Then my healing worked. I hadn't expected it to. I haven't tried to heal someone in..." he let his sentence drop off and lowered his eyes back down to the floor.

"Why am I here?" Emery asked.

"You're here, love, because you are strong, and I want to fight with you on even ground."

"You want to fight me? Look, I can't even control my powers yet. They're very unpredictable. They hurt people and endanger their lives. Why on earth would you want to be the center of that?"

"I can help you."

"Aren't you supposed to be the bad guy?"

"I really can help you Emery. Your powers, while different from mine, I can help you control them. That's all I'm offering. You help me by fighting me. I help you by training you to control your powers. We both get stronger."

"What if I don't want to take your offer?"

"Then I will have to resort to unconventional means to get what I want. I can possess people, bend them to my will. I'm not such a good guy Emery. Don't think I won't hurt you or the ones you care about to get what I want."

Marcus stood up and left the room.

Well, that was odd, Emery thought. She pulled at the collar. There had to be some way to get this thing off her neck.

---

"Wir müssen sie finden! Vhy can't du sense her?!" Kurt's voice rose at the Professor. The Professor set the Cerebo helmet down on its pedestal. He'd just finished using it to search for Emery's mutant marker, but either she wasn't using her powers, or something was blocking him from seeing them.

"Kurt, you need to calm down. Panicking, and getting stressed over this is not going to help anyone, nor is it going to find Emery. Now you know Cerebo doesn't pick up on mutants until they use their powers."

"But es stores deren signatur. Ve already haben Emery's!"

"Yes, but there must be something blocking her from accessing her powers, and if she can't access them, neither can we find her mark on Cerebo."

"Du meinst sie ist poverless?!" Kurt exclaimed. All the air seemed to exit his body. "Vhat if sie gets hurt?"

His tension escaped him and he was overwhelmed with a sudden sense of helplessness, hopelessness, uselessness. Kurt flopped down onto the floor, and stared at the ceiling. He took a couple deep breaths. The Professor had once, a few years ago, treated him for being so easily riled up. He'd thought he'd had a hold on that, but the thought of Emery being gone in any way... it scared him. And right now, there really wasn't anything he could do to help her. His outbursts, might-as-well call them what they are, were just getting in the way. He needed to calm down. Somehow, lying flat on the floor, or rooftop, and staring at either the ceiling or the sky, always seemed to relax him enough to straighten his thoughts out.

The Professor let him lay there for a few minutes before speaking up again.

"We will think of something. In the meantime, why don't you go downstairs and get something to eat. You must be hungry after everything that has happened today." Kurt started to protest but the Professor continued, "You may not feel like you want to eat; you may not want to do anything but find her, but you need something in your stomach. What if you have to fight to get her back here? Are you really going to run off so little energy and rely on your teammates to get her for you? Of course not, you're going to throw yourself right into the middle of everything as you usually do around her. So why don't you go downstairs and eat something?"

Kurt stared up at the Professor, upside-down, from his spot on the floor. There really was no arguing with the Professor. Though, he had expected a more analytical, mathematical, or scientific reason. This spiel of the Professor's was far too... human. Not that the Professor wasn't human, it was just that... well... it was almost as if the Professor was thinking with his heart and not his head.

Kurt teleported down to the kitchen ceiling, falling the rest of the way to the floor and landing on his feet. He really was hungry... and worried. How could he not be worried? Half the X-men were out of commission and now Emery was missing. They knew the most likely answer was that Marcus had her, but they had no way of finding Marcus any more than they had a way to find Emery. He hoped Marcus wasn't hurting her.

---

Emery stared down at the plate Marcus had set in front of her.

"What did you do to the food?"

Marcus sighed. "I didn't do anything to the food. I meant it when I said I needed you to get better. Why would I do anything to the food if I want you to heal?"

"Because you're evil. And I thought you already healed me."

"You still need your strength. And I'm not always evil: only when I have to be."

Emery watched him leave again. Jeez... he was kind of a depressing, evil captor wasn't he?

She picked up the fork and dug into the spaghetti he'd prepared for her. She was surprised at how delicious it tasted.

When she finished eating, she set the plates on the stand beside the bed and picked up the video game he'd left for her: something to amuse her time until she was tired enough to sleep. It was Pokémon. She smiled; she hadn't played Pokémon in years. As long as she was stuck here, and she knew she was stuck here, she might-as-well go along with his plans. Yes, she'd already, subconsciously, and now consciously, accepted Marcus' offer. Best case scenario, Emery would get control over her powers, defeat Marcus, and return to the X-men, and to Kurt. Kurt... she wondered if he was okay. He was probably worried sick about her.

She selected Charmander as her starter Pokémon and began her long journey into falling asleep.