Sailor Mercury awakened groggily. Goddess! What a headache she had. Was someone beside her breathing or was that just her temples throbbing? She'd check in a minute after the pain subsided. After a few minutes the pain didn't seem to be lessening any but she was now sure that someone was breathing lightly beside her. Who was it? she wondered. She opened her eyes slightly and almost screamed aloud from fright! And she would have screamed too except that this monstrosity had clapped his three fingered hand to her mouth. It spoke softly with a pronounced German accent "Shh fraulien, don't be frightened, I won't hurt you."
It spoke softly and reassuringly as it crouched, smiling at her. If you call it a smile! Even after he closed his mouth she could still see the gleaming white fangs poking out slightly between his lips. She eyed it carefully. It's face was long and narrow and covered in soft, blue fur and his eyes were yellow with no visible pupils, but she doubted it was blind. At least her headache had gone away. She was far too interested in this creature to notice it now. She examined the hand which held her mouth shut. She had not been mistaken. It was made up of only three fingers and clothed in a white glove. She was very glad she had studied English so she could understand what it said. But what good was that if she could not communicate back to it? She decided it was a he.
Nightcrawler looked the girl over carefully. She looked to be no older than 14. Judging from her face she was Japanese but what a strange uniform she wore and her blue hair! But, he thought to himself, he and his uniform must look no stranger. She was obviously very afraid but, he sighed, his appearance tended to do that to people. He kept his voice soft and non-threatening.
" I am going to lower my hand, do not scream. Please." He added as an afterthought. "Do you understand?"
He saw her manage a small nod. Good. He carefully lowered his hand. To his relief the child didn't scream but still he could see the fear in her eyes. "I am Nightcrawler of the Xmen. I won't hurt you. What's your name?" He couldn't quite catch it. "Ami?" He queried. She said yes. "Don't move or make any sound. We are in terrible danger here. If we are heard we may find ourselves in deep trouble. Understood?" Another nod. "What are you doing here?" he whispered.
Ami said "I am not sure. We were teleporting away from an explosion and were trying to get to our home in Tokyo but we are here now," she looked around "Where is here?"
Nightcrawler looked at her incredulously.
You are in the sewers of Manhattan. We? Who's we?"
"My friends." She wondered how much she should tell this odd stranger. For all she knew he could be a nega-demon though for some reason she doubted it. He pressed her for more information. "Just who are these friends?" then "you can teleport?"
But before he could receive the answers to either of these questions the chatter of an automatic reverberated of the walls. They'd been spotted!
"Well, well, well, up and at-em pretty, pretty" Marrow growled at Sailor Moon, jostling her to consciousness. Sailor Moon said sleepily "But Luna it's not time for school."
"What's she talking about wind-rider?" Marrow asked Storm.
"I can not be sure Marrow but she seems to be speaking Japanese."
At that moment it was Sailor Moon's misfortune to wake up to find Marrow peering at her. She screamed long and loud. Ororo tried to calm her but Sailor Moon was practically hysterical. Marrow peered anxiously about "Thanks to that stupid pretty, pretty were going to have the FOH all over us in 5seconds. We gotta shut her up and get out of here now!"
"Marrow please. She's calming down now. Run ahead to Wolverine and tell him I shall be along in a minute. Now Marrow!" She said when Marrow started to protest. Her voice sounded very tried. She spoke in a rough sort of Japanese but still managed to make herself sound reassuring "We do not know where you came from as Xmen it is our responsibility to make sure you are not hurt because of us."
Sailor Moon said in a very frightened voice "What was that thing?"
Storm looked at her and said "That is just Marrow, don't be frightened of her. Looks can be deceiving." Oh what she would give for a proper translator!
Suddenly Sailor Moon realized that the others were no where about. And Rini was missing! "Rini" She cried out. Ororo heard voices far down the passage. She quickly grabbed the now wailing Sailor Moon by the arm and lead her swiftly down the sewer. She would of liked to have used her mutant powers to fly but no doubt the F.O.H. would have tracked her and she would lead them right to Marrow and Wolverine and the others. As it was, with this child bawling her eyes out they wouldn't have much trouble tracking her either way.
"Be quiet child. Our lives depend on it!" Just then Sailor Moon seemed to hear the voices down the tunnel. She turned very white but quickly shut up. Swiftly and silently they ran down the passage with Storm in the lead and Sailor Moon huffing and puffing behind her.
Only Marrow, Wolverine, Storm and Nightcrawler were separated. Nightcrawler was scouting ahead when he was ambushed by some FOHers and Storm and Marrow had been separated and lost but Wolverine had tracked them both down and was now leading them back to the main group which consisted of Rogue, Professor X, Colossus, Shadowcat and Gambit. These five had happened upon Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus.
Colossus had nearly tripped over their prone bodies in the dark.
"Ohh my head" said Jupiter in Japanese. She started when she realized she and Venus were not alone.
"Venus." said Jupiter as she nudged her. She and Venus stared around at the five worried faces. Professor X was the first to speak, not verbally, but into their minds.
"We are the Xmen. Don't be alarmed." He telepathed soothingly. " Could you tell us who you are and how you got here?"
Venus spoke aloud and in English for everyone's advantage "We're Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus of the Sailor Scouts. We're not quite sure what were doing here ourselves. We were teleporting from this huge explosion but we wound up here. Where is here anyway?"
"Your in the sewers beneath Manhattan." said Professor X.
"Manhattan!" exclaimed Venus
"Hey. Where are the rest of the Sailor Scouts?" queried Jupiter. She looked around in alarm. And Rini, she thought to herself, I hope she's with the others!
"We found you both lying here and were as puzzled as you are about how you got here. Who are the Sailor Scouts?" asked Xavier
"Well," explained Venus, the more eloquent speaker of the two, "We're a group of superheroes who defend Japan. We were teleporting away from an explosion when I believe we blacked out and I guess we lost one another. There are three others plus Rini. The others are Sailor Moon, Sailor Mars and Sailor Mercury. So why are you guys down here?"
"Well" said one woman with a southern drawl "We were stopping a bombing of a bank but we've been a little sidetracked by the appearance of the Friends Of Humanity."
Jupiter, who now found herself speaking English with ease, said "Who are the Friends of Humanity?"
Everyone looked at her like she'd just flew in from the moon or something "What? I live way over in Japan you know."
"Since you don't seem to know, cheres, I guess Gambit'll have to tell you. Friends of Humanity is a terrorist organization against mutants, which just happens to be what we are."
"Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Mars, You must come with us so we can get you to safety." the bald man in the hi-tech wheel chair told them. "But how to get them out safely?"
"Uh professor, I hate to interrupt but there is shooting up ahead where Nightcrawler should be now." Colossus exclaimed.
Xavier listened for just moment before saying "Blast, they must have seen him! Quickly X-men, the others will have to catch up later!"
Rini woke to find herself alone in a dank, dark corridor .Yuch! Thought Rini. "Where are we? Where's everyone else?" she thought as she began to cry. Suddenly, behind her she heard the sound of running. She was barely able to duck in the shadows when four people brushed past. The one in the lead was a male dressed in blue and yellow, the second was a black woman with silver hair garbed in a purple costume, the third was the most frightening. She had short pink hair and bones sticking out her back and the fourth was... "Sailor Moon!" She cried out so happy to see her even if it was her and only her. She and Sailor Moon began to cry all over again, this time for joy.
"Yech. Sappy, flatscan pretty-pretties." Marrow made a gagging noise.
"Hate to break up the reunion kiddies but those FOHer's catch us were all as good as dead." Broke in Wolverine.
v"Yes we must hurry. Wolverine you will have to carry the child." Agreed StormA confused Rini asked Serena a few questions which mostly cleared up the problem. Serena carefully explained that she had woken up with the two women, who were apparently called Marrow and Storm, surrounding her and that they were on the run from a group of people with guns and one bullet had actually flown right through her hair. The man in blue and yellow, who was called Wolverine, had caught up with them a little before they found Rini. Before she could explain any further though they found themselves running again. And Rini really didn't think that any of them knew where they were going.
Mars awoke surrounded by strange men. She almost thought of it as if a dream come true until she saw that they all had guns and they were all pointed at her! One of the men told her gruffly to get up. She knew he was speaking English but it wasn't her best subject so she just gave him a very confused look.
Another person beside her asked in English " Is she a mutie? What should we do with her?"
The man who was in charge told him "We'd best keep her with us until we know for sure what side of the gene she's on. "
She was pushed to her feet by a woman who didn't look much older than her. Her hands were tied together and when she tried to struggle she heard the click of a dozen guns being cocked. She was forced to march onward and as she walked she began to hear shouts and gunfire up ahead. Sailor Mars was really worried about their sanity when they began to speed up. The thought struck Sailor Mars "They must be soldiers of some kind." Where and when was she? She didn't remember any wars happening on Earth.
Great. She thought. I'm being marched to my doom by some crazed zealots and I'm probably not even on the right planet any more. Great, just great.
About the author: Katya R. is an aspiring author who likes to think she looks vaguely like Sailor Jupiter. She has also found that she has Nightcrawler's power of semi-invisibility since she tends to accidentally sneak up on people a lot and people tend to forget she's around. She likes to collect comics but only the Marvel kind and only as a hobby. Some of her greatest ambitions in life are to win a no-prize or write a novel or comic for Marvel or possibly all of the above. Joe Kelly rules! Long live Stan Lee!
Katya R. is also the author of the Anime/Marvel Crossover "One Marvelous Day" and several poems on the subject of Creatures also found in this website. Feel free to give me your feedback at fuzzy_elf@hotmail.com, but be nice!
