Fan Fiction ❯ Power of the Elements ❯ On the Wings of a Mystery ( Chapter 3 )

Power of the Elements

 

By Ranitagoyle

 

Feedback to RJDolphin7@aol.com

 

Website: http://www . gargsmoon . com

 

Series/Sequel: This is the sequel to The Energy and the first in the Elements Trilogy.

 

Timeline: It's been six months since The Energy and six years since the first X-Men movie.

 

Disclaimer: Refer to the prologue.

 

`Italics' denote thoughts

“…” denotes regular speak

`…' denotes thought speaking

 

 

 

Chapter 2: On the Wings of a Mystery

 

December 10

9:38 P.M.

 

It began as a good day. Ranita took a day off from her classes and took her guest shopping. With Professor's Xavier's permission, of course. The pair spent the day, mostly window browsing, but they managed to buy Amiya a couple of outfits. The girls returned to Ranita's apartment to drop off their bags thus ending their day of shopping, though the sun had set over the city a few hours ago.

 

“You hungry, Miya?” Ranita asked. The girl just nodded. Amiya couldn't help but be amazed at how quickly she and Ranita had become friends. “Good, `cause I know this great pizza place that's still open… uh, you do like pizza, right?”

 

Amiya smiled and said “As long as it doesn't have anchovies.”

 

“I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Ranita said, making her way to the door.

 

 

The girls made their way to the pizzeria. Toni's was the casual diner. The blue booths were old, but clean. The service was friendly and the pizza was great.

 

“Evening, Nita! The usual?” the young guy behind the register greeted.

 

“Of course, but make it a large, Billy,” Ranita told him as she and Amiya made their way to one of the unoccupied booths. After the waitress took their drink orders, the two sat in silence. Finally, Amiya decided to ask some questions that had been on her mind.

 

“Tell me about the Institute. Is it nice?” she said curiously.

 

Surprised at the normally shy girl's directness, Ranita took her time to think about her home in Westchester.

 

“It's a runaway's paradise. It's a place where you don't have to worry about where the next meals are gonna come from. The Professor tries to make it a safe haven for mutants, especially those of us who had a rough start.” Amiya noticed that Ranita had said `us.' She wondered if Ranita was talking about mutants in general. `Maybe we have more in common than I first thought,' she thought. She listened while Ranita told her about the school within a school. And some of her misadventures with her friends while there. Though the thought of training in the Danger Room (Ranita promised that the Danger Room was for the advanced students only) frightened her, Amiya thought the school as a whole was a wonderful opportunity.

 

“I'll do it,” Amiya said, interrupting Ranita's tale about how Jubilee had colored Wolverine's hair yellow. It took Ranita a moment to catch what Amiya had said, but when she did, she smiled.

 

“Great! Now before I start runnin' my chatty Kathy mouth again, do you have anymore doubts, questions, frustrations you'd like ta tell me about before I call the Professor with the O.K.?” Ranita asked.

 

“Just one question. Why? Why are you doing all this for me?” she whispered her question.

 

Ranita couldn't help but wryly smile. “Let's just say that I know what it feels like to have nowhere to go,” she replied, though she wouldn't elaborate. Before Amiya could reply, the waitress came with their pizza. For the next hour, the two devoured their meal with small conversation.

 

They had finished their dinner and were about to leave when there was a disturbance from the front of the diner. There were a couple of people in bluish-gray body armor with full masks to make their identities indistinguishable. `Damn it! Q-Men,' Ranita thought. The Quarryman or Q-Men, as they were sometimes called, were radicals against gargoyles and were on a mission to destroy them. But apparently their prey wasn't of the gargoyle variety tonight.

 

Their presence had obviously caused a stir in the small crowd in the diner. Ranita could hear the customers muttering, questioning the possible reason the Quarrymen were there. Unfortunately, Ranita and Amiya had a sneaking suspicious of what they wanted.

 

“Shut up!” one Quarryman shouted, receiving silence at his shout. “Now, all of you nice folks are going to tell us if you've seen this girl or you're not going to have a nice evening,” he threatened. The photo he held up was a picture of Amiya. “She may have a friend with her.”

 

Billy looked at the picture. He recognized the girl as the friend that Ranita bring in with her. Sparing a quick glance to Ranita's table, Billy saw that the girls were holding their heads down, trying not to draw attention to themselves. The Quarryman with the picture was slowly headed toward their table.

 

“What do you want her for?” Billy asked, looking at the Quarrymen. The Quarryman turned around to address Billy's question.

 

“She's a mutant and what we want with her is none of your—” the Quarryman stopped with he noticed Billy's eyes flicker to something behind him. He turned to find an empty table and a still swinging back door.

 

“After them!” the leader yelled as he and his fellow Quarrymen ran out the door.

 

 

Ranita was just about fed up with the situation. After they'd snuck out the back door of Toni's, Ranita had hoped they could have just walked out of the side alley and get back to her apartment. No such luck. Ranita could hear the leader not far behind them and apparently he was calling for back-up. Ranita exited the side alley then she and Amiya started darting pass evening pedestrians.

 

“Do you trust me, Miya? `Cause if you do, I got an idea,” she explained.

 

“Yeah, I do,” was all Amiya could say.

 

“Good, then follow my lead,” she said and continued to run for about a block. Then abruptly she turned right into another alley, which turned out to be a dead end. With nowhere to go, Ranita and Amiya turned to their pursuers.

 

“Hello, boys. Nice night for a mob, isn't it?” Ranita said, looking at the people gathering in the alleyway. `Too many for the simple stuff,' Ranita thought.

 

“Hands up, mutants,” one of the men, obviously the leader of the pack. Seeing that everyone else had their gun out and pointed at them, Ranita and Amiya did as they were instructed. As the Quarrymen slowly encircled the girls, Ranita started to concentrate. Eyes close, she drew from the deepest well of her power and being.

 

`The powers of water and air…'

 

“Now, be a couple…”

 

`Unite to fight…'

 

“of nice girls…”

 

`And defend us this night!'

 

“and come along quietly,” the leader said, waving toward the van that had pulled up.

 

“Who said anything about being a nice girl?” Ranita's eyes snapped open showing a yellowish tint instead of the normal pupils. Suddenly, a tornado force wind filled the alleyway and the screams began.

 

 

Above Manhattan: 5 minutes ago

 

“Quiet night. Don't you think, Brooklyn?” asked Lexington, as he glided next to his rookery brother.

 

“Yeah, quiet,” was all the reply Lexington was going to get from his normally wild brother. Lex understood the reason behind his brother's melancholy mood. Earlier that year, Brooklyn had his heart broken once again by Sailor Venus. Though, he had more or less gotten over it, the approach of the Christmas holiday had thrown his brother back into his moodiness, or rather his loneliness.

 

“Look, Brook, I know you're bummed, in fact the entire clan knows it, but you're not helping the situation. It's not like you're alone in it,” Lexington said.

 

“And what do you want me to do about it, Lex? It's not like I can ask Goliath for a vacation to find a girlfriend,” Brooklyn snapped back. His olive-skinned brother didn't even react to his brother's attitude, but decided to answer Brooklyn's question.

 

“Maybe not in those words, but yeah. That's exactly—” He was interrupted by screams coming from their left.

 

“We'll settle this later. Let's go!” The two gargoyles veered to the directions of the screams. All of a sudden, they confronted a torrent of wind, which forced them to land on a nearby roof.

 

“What the heck is that?! A tornado? In the middle of Manhattan?” Brooklyn asked, loudly. He dug his talons into the roof and pulled his wings in.

 

“Unlikely,” shouted Lexington. Brooklyn signaled that he understood and preceded to run on all fours across the adjacent rooftops. Finally, they arrived at the rooftop above an alley, but the screams had stopped and the winds were easing down. The duo glided down to get a closer look at the alley. They found Quarrymen. Someone or something had managed to knock the Quarrymen, at least those not fast enough to get away, unconscious. Their bodies were scattered about alley, some of them were even laid out in the sidewalk.

 

“What did this?” Lex questioned, not really expecting an answer.

 

“I did, gargoyle,” a deep voice came from behind them. They turned to find, hidden in the shadows of the alley, for all tense and purposes, a dragon.

 

This dragon wasn't the typical dragon with the large body and enormous wings. Its body was fashioned after the dragon of Chinese legend. It was thin with scales ranging from the deepest cerulean to the brightest blue. His eyes glowed with golden yellow. Though it had no wings, its body floated… above two unconscious girls.

 

Brooklyn and Lexington's eyes blazed and wings flared. Their instinct to protect surged. “Who are you and what did you do to them?” Brooklyn demanded.

 

“Stand down, gargoyle. I only did what I was summoned to do. There is no time for this. We shall finish this discussion on the roof.” With that, the dragon encircled the girls and levitated to the top of the building.

 

Wanting an explanation and to avoid being spotted, Brooklyn and Lexington sank their talons into the brick to quickly scale the building. They made it to the top just as New York's finest were arriving. Seeing that the police had everything in hand, Brooklyn turned to the reason they were on the roof. The dragon had the girls laying on its long, scaled body. The girls appeared unharmed.

 

“I ask again, who or what are you and what have you done to them,” Brooklyn calmly demanded.

 

“I am called Wyndigore. Tis been a long time since I've encountered any of your kind. The young mistress is just tired from summoning me and her friend was apparently hit with some kind of calming magic. Now, I ask a question. Are you still a noble race or have you too lost your way?” he asked. The growls that reverberated through the gargoyles at the insult seemed to be the answer Wyndigore was seeking.

 

“Good. Then I charge you with the protection of my mistress and her friend. My presence here is demanding on her and I must return. Do you accept?”

 

Nodding, Brooklyn waited for the dragon to uncoil itself from around the girls. Surprisingly, Wyndigore did not just uncoil itself, he levitated the girls into the arms of their new found protectors. It was then that Brooklyn got a closer look at the girl in his arms. Though young looking, she couldn't be no more than twenty. Her shoulder-length dark hair framed an equally dark face held a child-like innocence. Brooklyn knew then that he would keep her safe.

 

“With that settled, I bid thee farewell.” Brooklyn and Lexington watched while Wyndigore simply faded into the night.

 

“Okay, Brook. This might seem like a weird question, but what in the world have we gotten ourselves into?”

 

“Good question. I'll let you know when I figure it out,” he said, stepping to the roof's edge. “You got her, Lex?”

 

“I got her. She's very light,” Lex observed. With his tail wrapped snugly around the girl's waist, Lex had the girl effectively `tied' to his back, leaving his arms free to glide. Together, they dove off into the night, making their way to their home in the sky.

 

Castle Wyvern.

 

Brooklyn looked to the girl in his arms and couldn't help but think, `How the heck am I going to explain this to Goliath?'

 

 

Ranita's Apartment Building

 

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY AIN'T BACK YET?!!” Logan's voice echoed in the empty lobby. Sam Guthrie, also know as Cannonball, flinched at the violence in Logan's voice. He knew the Wolverine was slowly coming to the surface.

 

“She told me that they were going to the pizza place down the street and would be back in a little bit…” His voice trailed off when he saw the Wolverine slam out of the front door. He blinked for a minute then turned to Rogue. “Sorry, Rogue. Nobody told me to be on the lookout for anything—” The hand that Rogue held up and the sympathetic smile on her face stopped him.

 

“Don't worry so much, Sam. I'm sure they just got to talkin'. You know us girls,” she said, leaving to catch up to her husband before he did something they'd all regret. Once she was gone, Sam slumped in his seat with relief. `I don't care how long I'm supposed to be here. Tomorrow, the Professor's gonna have to find someone else to take over,' he thought.

 

 

“You didn't have to scare him, Logan,” Rogue scolded as soon as she caught up to him. Logan looked at her and saw the frown on her face.

 

“He doesn't realize the trouble that follows little sister. Besides, he needed a good scare,” he grinned. Rogue couldn't help but laugh a little at that. Together, they walked into Toni's. There was nothing spectacular about it. The smell of cheese, pepperoni, and other pizza toppings flooded Logan's nose. He ignored them and searched for the familiar scent of his little sister. He found the scent at a table near the back door, but it was wrong. There was a twinge of something that Wolverine knew all too well. Fear.

 

“Hey, kid,” he shouted to the guy behind the counter. “What happened to the two girls that were sittin' here?”

 

“Quarrymen. Chased them outta here about twenty minutes ago,” Billy told them. Rogue watched as Logan's back tensed. She quickly grabbed his arm and led him to the door. With a smile, she thanked the young man and they stepped into the cold night air.

 

“You think you can track her, Logan?” Rogue asked. She watched as his body slouched forward and heard him scenting the air, trying to find Ranita's scent.

 

“Got it, but it's faint,” he said, taking off in the direction of Ranita's scent. Rogue followed close behind. Soo, they saw a crowd of people cornered off by police tape. The pair stopped a block away and ducked into a nearby alley.

 

“Why don't Ah get up on the roof to get a sky view of what happened while you see what you can hear from down here?” Rogue suggested. With a nod from Logan, she quickly rose to the building's rooftop.

 

Logan came out of the alley and made his way to the crowd. He could hear crazed shouts the closer he got.

 

“I didn't sign on for dragons!” one woman yelled as she was shoved into the back of a cop car. Logan watched and listened as other Quarrymen with similar stories were put into squad cars. Then a red Fairlane pulled up to the scene. A man and woman got out of the car and flashed their shields to the officer standing outside the police tape. The officer lifted the tape to allow them entrance to the scene. While the woman went toward the alley, the man walked toward one of the other detectives on the scene. Logan played close attention to the man since he knew Rogue would watch the woman.

 

“Bluestone, Gargoyle Task Force. I want everyone of the Quarrymen taken to the 23rd for questioning. What happened here?” Matt Bluestone.

 

“Briscoe, 25th precinct, from what we can gather the Quarryman chased two girls to this alley. There's no sign of the girls. The only thing we found on arrival was these nuts waking up,” Briscoe concluded. Bluestone noted the man's conclusion, nodded his thanks and went to join his partner. Deciding that he had all he needed, Logan walked back to the nearby alley and waited for Rogue to come back.

 

He didn't have to wait long. Rogue landed next to him. He told her what he heard from his end and after she began to report what she observed.

 

“The woman, Maza, seemed to search the alley. She was looking for somethin', Logan. And she musta found it too `cause all she did was nod and met up with her partner. That's not the weirdest thing though. I found claw marks up on the roof,” she paused when she saw him tense up.

 

“Show me,” he said. Nodding, Rogue grabbed Logan underneath his arms and flew with him to the very spot she sighted the claw marks. Setting him down, she watched as Logan examined the marks.

 

“I know it couldn't have been Sabretooth unless he don' had his claws dipped in adamantium. Then again there are only four marks for each hand so that points to somethin' else entirety,” she rambled.

 

“You're right about it not being Sabretooth and about the number of marks. There were five of them including Ranita. What worries me is that three of `em aint' even human,” Logan said.

 

“I'll call the Professor and see if he can find her with Cerebro while you're gettin' us a taxi,” she said.

 

“A taxi?” Logan questioned, a little bit thrown off by the request.

 

“We need to report Ranita missin', Logan, and what better place than where all those Quarrymen were taken. We might be able to find out what really went on here,” Rogue concluded her explanation.

 

“I love the way you think, darlin',” he said with a weak smile. Rogue stepped closer to his body and rubbed her hand against his stubbled check.

 

“We'll find her, Logan, and I'm sure she'll be fine,” she said laying a gentle kiss on his other cheek. Not wanting to say anything to that, Logan just nodded. Together, they made their way off of the roof and set about putting their plans into motion.

 

Meanwhile on another rooftop…

 

“Wings have the target. I repeat, wings have the target. Advise,” a voice spoke through a walkie-talkie.

 

“Acquire the target. Use any means necessary,” the voice on the other end commanded.

 

 

That's the end of this chapter. I hope everybody enjoyed it!