The X-Project

Ororo is shocked when an old, familiar face comes out of hiding with worrying news.


It was with great reluctance that Ororo finally left the brownstone and began the trek to the Jeep; not because it had been a particularly pleasant day spent there, but because she regretted having to leave while the inhabitants were still under such obvious stress. With Amanda missing it seemed the mood in the building had taken a turn for the dour, and it was all she had been able to do to convince Remy to step away from his office and relax for a few short hours. Better that than none at all, she had thought at the time, but she wondered if the Cajun had even registered the things they had talked about during that period.

With a pragmatic sigh she shrugged and picked up her pace - for some reason she had the strangest sensation that something wasn't quite right. A quick check to her phone showed that things at the mansion were fine, and she had just come from the brownstone and knew things were under control, if not normal, there. She rounded the corner of the city street and crossed in front of several storefronts, darting a gaze behind her in one of the large windows. She saw nothing out of the ordinary, but even confirming that did nothing to get rid of the prickling at the back of her neck.

Finally, fed up with the creeping suspicion that something was amiss, she took an abrupt turn down a dead-end alley whose top was uncovered by awnings or grates. If there truly was someone following her, they would either have to confront her there, or lose her when she took to the sky.

It was as she felt the convection currents build up around her and her feet left the ground that Ororo caught a flash of movement behind her, back at the mouth of the alley and part way up a wall, but she barely had time to register it before her own momentum carried her into the air, quickly ascending to emerge from the alleyway, the dull, smoggy sky opening out around her.

It was then that she noticed the figure waiting on the roof.

The woman - or boy, possibly - was clad in a leather biker jacket and skinny denim jeans that did nothing to hide an almost painfully slim form. Hands were in pockets, wild, dark hair blown about by the wind. Ororo caught a flash of white, even teeth. Whoever she - or he - was, was grinning at her in a knowing, unpleasant way that was far from comforting under the circumstances.

She was torn. On one hand, it was obvious that whoever this was, they were following her, ostensibly with some purpose other than amusement in mind. On the other, they had not done anything overly hostile to put herself or anyone else in danger. Chances were if she continued to leave that would be that - the problem would be over.

But what if they know something about Amanda? It seemed a far-fetched possibility, yet Ororo was loathe to discount any coincidences, even unlikely ones. The figure's cocky grin and leather jacket reminded her of the English girl, and if there was a chance that they might know something about her whereabouts she had to find out. Lessening the winds that lifted her, she set down on the building across the alley from the other mutant (she had yet another uncanny feeling that this was so), pitching her voice to be heard across the way. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"Just a word."

The voice that carried back across the gap was low and somewhat husky, but almost certainly female, and as the wind whipped around the figure's face Ororo caught a brief flash of full lips and pale, surprisingly mild eyes. The stranger spoke again.

"It's important."

"Then tell me what it is," Ororo called once more, narrowing her eyes as she tried to identify the stranger. There was something almost familiar about her, or at least something in her voice that nudged at the weatherworker's memories.

"It's about Sarah. She's in trouble."

This was not the name Ororo had been expecting to hear. Frowning, she gathered the winds about her and lifted herself to the other building, coming to rest several yards from the other woman. "What has happened? How do you know this?" she demanded.

Everything about the stranger's stance now conveyed her impatience and irritation. "Does it really matter how I know?" The woman sighed in obvious disgust, though the sound was more or less lost on the breeze. "She's in the underground. And she's bitten off more than she can chew. She's going to get herself killed if you don't do something."

"It matters becau--" Ororo stopped herself. This wasn't the time to argue. "How is she in danger? From whom? What happened?" she repeated. "And why did you follow me?" How did you know?

"Look, do we have to yell at each other on a rooftop? If you're not going to come with me right now to fix this, which you clearly aren't, then maybe we could go somewhere my ass isn't frozen?"

"If you would just tell me what I asked then there would be no need to stay here any longer," Ororo replied icily, though she did lessen the winds somewhat so that it was easier to be heard. Stepping a little closer, she studied the woman's face, trying to place it. I know her... "Who are you?"

"I'm no one."

"You followed me here. You know something about Sarah, and the underground. I know your voice. You are not no one. But if you are what you claim to be, then I see no reason why I should stay and listen to you." Raising the winds once more, Ororo turned to leave the rooftop, fed up with the enigmatic stranger's games.

"Oh come on, Ororo, she's in trouble okay?" the young woman yelled over the sudden increase in wind, her hair flying all the more wildly around her face. "You want to make this about me we can, but I'm not the fucking issue here!"

Whirling about, Ororo caught sight of the stranger's face, exposed by a sudden gust of wind. It was older, surely, and marked with a long scar where none had been before, but she recognized the woman now. "The girl from the bar," she muttered, shocked by the sudden surge of memory. She could still recall the pelting rain, the feeling of rough pavement against her cheek, and the warmth of blood spattering her hand. Taking a step back, she blinked several times, as if to erase what she saw before her.

She shouldn't have been able to hear from over there, but of course she had. Moistening her wind-blasted lips with her tongue, the woman then pursed them into a smirk.

"Like I said. I'm not the issue here."

Taking a quick inventory of the facts - namely, that this wasn't a hallucination, that this woman knew her name and of Sarah, and that she still didn't seem to be threatening violence - Ororo calmed herself. "If you want me to help you, you must tell me more. Where is Sarah, exactly? What trouble has befallen her? And why did you come to me?"

This time the stranger's sigh clearly conveyed a 'finally', and she took a couple of steps forward, pulling her hands out of her pockets. "She's in one of the more remote areas of the tunnel systems. She went down there's looking for some old friends, I guess, but they've gotten a bit mean over the past few years, and they don't much like upworlders."

She paused, her brows drawing together in thought for a moment. Ororo noticed that there was a small bare patch across her right eyebrow where the scar crossed it, the skin puckering slightly around it as she frowned. "They're dangerous. They've caught her and I have no idea what they're going to do to her."

Breathing in through her nose back out again very slowly, audibly now that the wind had stilled for the most part, seconds ticked past while Ororo processed, and the woman eventually went on.

"And you?" She shrugged. "You're a goody two shoes. And it was you or him. And I don't like him."

Ignoring the last statement for now, Ororo pursed her lips thoughtfully. "If you saw her, why didn't you stop her then? Why wait?"

The brunette shrugged. "I didn't think she'd be very happy to see me. And I didn't know she was just going to wander down there alone," she added, sounding just a shade defensive.

"So you want me to go into the underground -" Ororo shuddered just slightly at this thought "-and bring her back, perhaps encountering her 'old friends' and whatever agenda they may have laid out for her." She eyed the woman doubtfully. "And I am supposed to trust you that this is all true, and that you do not have some sinister reason for stalking me and setting me up."

With an amused curl to her lip the stranger shrugged again, slipping her hands back into her pockets. "If I wanted to kill you you'd know it on account of being dead already." Something about the words rang as clichéd - was that a quote from somewhere? Regardless, though her tone was dryly amused, the woman seemed entirely serious.

Still not convinced, Ororo nevertheless felt indebted to the other woman. If her extrapolation was correct, then the long scar running over her face had been made by the woman's own knife in Ororo's hand over ten years ago - an act she had never forgiven herself for. "Give me all the information you have. I will find out what I can and then make my decision. If I can help, I will."

"Fine."

After a brief exchange of information that proved to be more worrisome than Ororo had hoped, the two women agreed on a meeting time and place. There was little trust there, but the stranger had little choice, and neither did Ororo. She had given her word that she would help. Once they completed the exchange, she once again called the winds and lifted herself off the rooftop. Her destination was not the mansion but the brownstone, which she had left not too long before. If anybody would be able to give her the information she needed, it would be Remy. She only hoped he would be willing to speak of it.