Post by thejellyfish on Jul 1, 2015 0:39:44 GMT -5
Astonishing X-Men #6
Origins: Goddess of Rain and Wind
by thejellyfish
Kenya, AfricaMany Years Ago
“Did you get it?” asked an older man. The man was small and rotund, with tufts of white hair protruding from his scalp.
“Yes, Mr. Cich,” said a sixteen year old Ororo Monroe as she pulled a large teal gemstone out of her bag and tossed it to Cich.
Cich handed the gemstone to his partner, a man wearing a trenchcoat and a red bandana around his head. His face was adorned with a handlebar mustache and his long, dark hair cascaded around his shoulders. The man looked at the stone with a magnifying glass searching for any and all imperfections.
“Tsk-tsk,” went the man. “It seems this girl isn’t as good as my son thought, Borya. There’s a scratch. Tiny, but it’s there.”
“I’m disappointed in you, Ms. Monroe. You knew how important this was. Why did you fail?” asked Borya in a condescending tone.
“I did not fail. I-“ started Ororo, before the miniature man stepped towards her with a threatening look.
“BUT, YOU DID!” he yelled, putting his face inches from hers. “It was not meant to be damaged.”
Borya Cich looked back towards his friend. “Let us be done with this,” he said and he began to walk towards the exit. He tossed the stone back at her feet.
“Good luck finding a meal.”
Kenya
A Few Years Later
“The people want to help you ‘Ro,” said the naked man in the bed next to Ororo. His skin was tanned and his dark hair was pulled into a ponytail. His cold, metal leg brushed against her soft, warm leg sending a shiver up to her back. “Why are you so adamant that they – and me, by extension - not help you?”
“Forge, I cannot let these people just throw their lives away by helping me. I cannot be the cause of their deaths. I will not be the cause of your death,” Ororo replied sweetly, as she gently caressed the side his face. He turned his face inwards toward her hand and placed a kiss on her wrist.
“These people have been throwing their lives away every second they’ve lived under this oppressive regime. They know the stakes, I know the stakes. And there’s other ways I can help. I can build them weapons, get them the upper-“ Forge started, before being interrupted by a kiss. The kiss started tender and chaste, but quickly became more frantic as time went on until eventually, after what seemed like forever, she pulled away.
“No.”
“Fine,” replied Forge, as he turned around and got out of bed to get dressed. “Sometimes, I wonder if you know what the stakes are.”
London
2008
“Hey ‘dere, Stormy! Don’ min’ me. I’m jus’ commiseratin’ over da fact dat righ’ when I get engaged to a beautiful woman, she get taken away from me to…” says Ororo’s friend as he trails off to let a few tears fall from his face and drink the rest of his bourbon.
“You’ll be okay, Remy. You’ll be a-okay,” Ororo said as she seated herself on a barstool and patted her friend’s back. Remy then lifted up his arm and wiped away his tears.
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” he replied demurely.
For a moment, the pair let a silence creep over them before hearing a pair of feet headed towards them on the wooden floor. Ororo turned and saw that the mystery person behind them was Forge.
“Hey, ‘Ro. We should probably get going,” said Forge as he brushed Ororo’s arm with his hand. “Sorry about… everything, Remy.”
Ororo stood up to leave and felt a hand grip her arm tightly and then tug at her wrist. She turned to Remy drunkenly stumble out his seat.
“I’m comin’ too, y’all,” said Remy, gagging a bit from all the alcohol he consumed.
“Remy, I-“
“I’m comin’.”
Kenya
2009
“Hey, ya hear ‘bout dat Sunspot guy?” asked Remy as he vaulted across a rooftop and kicked his opponent in the chest before charging a card and throwing at another opponent on another rooftop. “Callin’ it now, his secret identity is dat da Costa kid we keep hearin’ ‘bout on de news.”
“That one that inherited his company from his dad just recently? Yeah right, Cajun. And my right leg is made of flesh and bone,” shot back Forge before firing a few shots from his energy pistol at an assailant across the street.
A crack thunder and a bright flash of light stopped both men’s conversation its tracks, as both Remy and Forge looked up to see Ororo gently floating down from the clouds like a goddess of the winds and the rain. Rays of light from the sun pierced around her surrounded her as she called more lightning and large gusts of wind down on her foes.
“If we could cut the chatter, boys, then I think we’ll get this done much quicker,” said Ororo, touching down onto the rooftop alongside Remy. At that moment a tank blast knocked the roof out from under Ororo and Remy. They fell into the store below them and Remy landed on his feet but broke his leg while Ororo landed on her back.
The last thing Ororo remembers from that day was the butt of a gun.
A Plane Over the Atlantic
Two Months Later
“It seems you've gotten yourself in a bit a predicament, haven’t you?” asked the bald man sitting in front of them. “You’re lucky Hank and I got you and your friend out of that prison, Miss Monroe.”
“Who are you? Where’s Remy?” asked Ororo with a hint of worry as to where her friend was.
“I am Professor Charles Xavier,” he said with a flourish of his hand before gesturing to the blue furred pilot of the plane. “This is my friend, Hank McCoy.” Hank waved from his seat at the front of the plane.
“Remy asked that we drop him off in Sicily. He claimed he had business to attend to there; something about his ‘no-good-deadbeat’ father. We’re headed to Westchester, in New York. He said he’d meet us there when he was finished with whatever it was that he had to do,” finished the professor.
“No, turn around. I have to go back, my people need me. I-“ started Ororo before being interrupted by Xavier.
“You – and Mr. LeBeau - can never go back to Kenya, Miss Monroe. But, I know you saved lives back there. I need someone that can save lives.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are a mutant. I am a mutant,” he said. ‘We’re dangerous.’ Ororo let a soft gasp escape her once she heard his voice in her head.
“Humanity and mutantkind need to be protected, not from each other, but from those that mean them harm. That’s what you were doing in Kenya, protecting your people from harm. You can continue to do that, except now you’re not just stuck in Kenya.”
“Tell me more.”
Westchester
One Year Ago
“Congratulations Julian,” said Ororo as she looked down at the recent high school graduate.
“Thanks, Miss Monroe. Ya know, this isn’t how I imagined my high school graduation going, but this? I like this, after everything that happened, I finally have something to look forward to again,” replied the young mutant as he looked up at her before wrapping her in a big hug, metal hands clinking together behind her. “Thank you.” Ororo responded to hug in kind, wrapping her arms around the young mutant.
Julian stepped back from the hug and went to join his fellow graduates, wrapping his arms around Doug and Kitty while Meggan floated behind them until Remy snapped a picture.
Ororo turned to see Xavier at her side, leaning on his cane. “So, is this what you imagined when I told you we’d be saving the world?”
“Not at all, but I would not have it any other way.”
Next: Origins: Sometimes Two People Are Bad For Each Other