Work Text:
Be Careful What You Ask For
by Lucinda
She had thought there was nothing left for her. That her life was essentially finished, that there was nothing more that she could do after her eyes had been ruined. In her despair, she had assumed that it didn't matter what happened to her; she was finished anyhow, what did the fate of the broken bits of her life matter?
She had been mistaken. She had been abducted by the agents of an extra dimensional television producer. Mojo had ordered her kidnapped and enslaved in order to make her a star of a television program. He had ordered one of the surgeons on his staff to replace her ruined eyes with bionics, better than the original. She could see again, even seeing a bit into the ultraviolet, and if there was no normal light, she could switch them to use infrared. It had seemed an incredible gift, one that almost made up for the fact that she had been kidnapped, taken from her home, from anything that might have been left for her.
Then, she had discovered the hidden price, the rest of the reason why Mojo had chosen her. He had said it was because she was beautiful, because she could act a part very well, and had the physical training for the stunts required. While all of that was true enough, there were easily dozens, hundreds of other attractive women that he could have chosen to use. But those others were not telepaths. He had chosen her, not for her looks, or her charming voice, but for the abilities of her mind. Somehow, his technicians had made it so that as the show was broadcast, it also broadcast a subliminal conditioning, a subtle and gradual conditioning that would eventually leave Britain's children open to his control, willing to do his bidding. The psionic influence was amplified in the transmission, but it needed to originate from a telepath. She was that telepath.
She had managed to escape, with the help of someone else that had once been enslaved to Mojo, a person called Longshot. He had taken he with him when he had returned to the base of the X-Men. The possibility had occurred to her that she could still have a future. She could still be useful, still make something worthwhile of her life. All she had to do would be join the X-Men, and she could once more defend the helpless, once more stand against villains using abilities beyond those that police or secret servicemen could fight. But not alone, never again would she need to stand alone against the darkness if she were an X-Man.
There had been mixed reactions to her idea. While it was almost unanimous in the idea that it was good that she wasn't moping in despair as a result of her kidnapping and time in Mojo's world, that didn't mean they wanted her on their team. They didn't know her, didn't know her abilities. She would have to prove herself to them if she wanted to join. Her family meant nothing here, and the connections that she had forged at home in England were useless in this matter.
After a great deal of debating, they had decided that she could stay at the mansion. She could train and exercise in their facilities. She was allowed to help them monitor some of the basic security systems, and assist Xavier and Jean Grey in some of the assorted telepathic scans, she was not a member of the team.
That had been made clear to her every day, in dozens of subtle ways. There were certain things that they didn't discuss with her, like sensitive missions, and potential rivals. There were many little in jokes and phrases that had come to have a particular meaning here that she didn't know, wasn't a part of. The X-Men themselves were not entirely welcoming, as if they didn't want to let themselves get to close to her. Some of them didn't think that she had the inner strength to be a superhero. They hadn't said it, but it had been there, in their eyes, whispering in the thoughts behind the words they spoke.
She wanted to prove herself worthy.
There is a very old saying, passed down for generations, often ignored, but still very true. Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. It warns of the consequences of things, how nothing ever happens without repercussions, how some things can have a price attached. In this case, Betsy wanted to have something happen, some chance to prove herself worthy to the X-Men. Not the slow building of trust that would eventually happen from day after week of repetitive assistance, but something faster, something dramatic. That something would come to her, in the person of Sabertooth.
She had been monitoring when the disturbance started. Something terrible was happening within the underground territory of the mutants that called themselves Morlocks. They were terrified, and they were dying, in horrible pain. The X-Men, including some of their older, more capable students, had gone down to do what they could, to try to help the Morlocks. She had been left at the mansion, to make certain nothing happened. After a while, the wounded had been brought in. There were horribly few wounded Morlocks, and three of the X-Men had been wounded as well. The others had remained below, trying to find and deal with the source of the carnage.
Nobody had counted on the source of the carnage coming after them. The Marauders, a group of ruthless, vicious mutants, had slaughtered the Morlocks, and were now in the tunnels, trying to add the X-Men to their list of kills. Almost all of them, that is. The largest, a feral mutant known only as Sabertooth had left the tunnels. He had followed the scent of the X-Men back to their base, where he intended to find their wounded, and finish what had been started below.
All that stood in his was was a few pitiful electronic measures, more aimed at detection than prevention. And Betsy. She could feel him, taste the rage and blood lust and roiling anger inside of his mind. He terrified her, especially since she knew that he intended to leave not a single living creature behind in the mansion. He wanted the floors to be covered with spilled blood, the wounded ripped apart beyond any help.
She couldn't let that happen. It would be against everything that she was, that she wanted to be to allow this sadistic monster to slaughter the wounded. But what could she do? She wasn't like Brian, she couldn't take him down uninjured. He was getting closer, and she had to do something, something other than stare in fear and loathing at his psi-pattern.
He wanted to hunt them down and slaughter them. What if.. what if he had something more interesting to do than find the wounded? What if.. she swallowed against the rising lump of fear, what if he had a moving target? That should be much more
interesting than finding helpless victims. Live terrified healthy prey, screaming and trying to escape... she felt like she was going to be sick.
There was no time to be sick. No time to givein to fear or nerves, or hysteria. She had to do something, and it had to be fast. She sent out a frantic mental warning, hoping that someone from the team would hear it, would know that danger and death was approaching the mansion. She had to do everything in her power to buy enough time for the others to return, to buy time so that the others could live. Betsy had never felt so afraid in her entire life.
Trying to control her trembling, she hit the button that would sound the electronic alarms, and moved out of the secure room. He would be getting closer now, anticipating helpless prey. If he was to be distracted, it had to be now. She took a deep breath, and ran out of the mansion, skidding to a near halt close to him, and turning to run, away from him, away from the house, projecting fear and panic towards him. It worked, and with a deep growl, he began to chase her.
oh god oh god he was chasing her, she could hear him growling, and there were words in the growl, terrible threats of what he would do when he caught her. Her blood soaking the ground, her entrails spread in a circle around her, her bones cracked open and scattered. She had wanted him to chase her, now why on earth had that been? Why.. oh yes, because unlike the others, unlike poor Kitty, or Kurt, or those few pitiful Morlocks, she could still run away. She tried to run faster, hoping desperately that the X-Men would return, that they could stop him before anyone else was hurt.
She was running out of yard, of open area to run in. She had to try to think of something fast, before he caught her.... A sudden flare of sharp pain in her lower leg made it clear that he had her already. Maybe the whole chase had been nothing more than him toying with her, just prolonging the chase for his own twisted amusement.
He may have caught her, but she wouldn't just lay down and die for him. She gritted her teeth to keep from screaming, and lashed out at his mind, hoping that the methods of attack that she had so carefully studied would work against him. He snarled, and his eyes went bloodshot, and almost changed in color, nearly going black as his pupils expanded. He'd felt it, that was clear, but it hadn't been enough.
He slashed at her with his claws, and she began a frantic series of moves, trying to avoid the claws, trying to keep anything vital from being hit. Betsy began to pray... praying that the X-men arrived, praying that she not have to face the prospect of life as a cripple... praying that she could keep him here long enough. Soon, she was bleeding from dozens of slashes, some of them fairly shallow, others were deep, and she could feel the severed muscles of her stomach screaming in pain, along with the deep slashes on her leg... threatening to make her collapse at his feet.
She had just glanced at her leg, wondering why it was going numb. She could see hints of something almost white through the blood... Betsy felt the world twist around her, and staggered attempting to stay on her feet. Things had gone oddly grey, as if the color had faded, been slowly seeping out of the world as her blood had seeped from her. There was a loud noise pulsing in her ears, fast, although it was starting to slow now, and her breathing was harsh gasps, scraping into her lungs.
As if from underwater, she heard a voice. It sounded worried, and almost familiar... Everything faded into darkness, and she felt herself collapse onto the ground. It didn't hurt at all anymore.
end.