will1@earthling.net Walking Arc: Step 0: New Shoes by Phil Hartman DISCLAIMER: They're all Marvel's, except for Danny, who's mine. No money is being made off of this. Please don't sue. NOTE: Once upon a time, there was a pestilential Mary Sue-esque fictive who somehow coalesced into a Written character in some of my long-dead "future mega-brats" arcs :) Well, she's back >) NOTE: Same timeline as "Gatherings" and the rest of those not-quite-spawn-of-Marvelheroes-stories from a few weeks ago... ------------------------------------------------------- 8/1/00: Cheyenne, Wyoming: 23:23 hrs MDT: ------------------------------------------------------- "Sir." The former presidential candidate stirred, glaring from amidst the rumpled sheets of his bed at his bodyguard. "She's gone, sir," the young, brown-crewcut-haired man said, handing the ex-candidate a note. The older man turned on the light, revealing a muscled chest, graying brown hair, and cold brown eyes, as he took the note and read it. Father - My skin turned blue this morning. And the roots of my hair went red. Purple-red. Since I'd rather not get lynched, I've decided to take off for parts unknown. Please, don't waste your time or mine trying to hunt me down. I don't want to acknowledge you as my parent, and I'm pretty sure by now it's a mutual feeling. So your precious secrets won't be told to anyone. Your mutant daughter, Daniela Finally, the ex-candidate crushed the note, and looked at his bodyguard. "Your orders, sir?" the young man asked. The older man threw back his sheet the rest of the way and stood. "Let her run," he chuckled. He stood, clasping his hands behind his back and looked out into the Wyoming night, staring at the prairie. "After all, she's always hated me," the man continued, his mouth twisting into a cruel smirk. "She blamed me for letting her mother die at her birth, couldn't stand my beliefs, and now... she bears the mark of her grandparents' sin." "Sir?" the bodyguard asked, suddenly sweating. "Oh, don't pretend you don't know, Roberts," the ex-candidate snorted, sparing the young man a glance. "I'm the offspring of two mutants. Why do you THINK I hate them so much? And now, my 'little girl' looks like her accursed grandmother." "The mutant terrorist -!?" Roberts wheezed. The former candidate nodded, gratified inwardly at the combination of sympathy and revulsion on his bodyguard's face. "You know the circumstances, yet stand beside me," he said. "Good, Roberts. I need men who can look beyond my 'stain.' I may be of their blood, but I am NOT a mutant, and never will be, thank whatever powers there are." "But your daughter knows things, sir," Roberts said. His employer laughed -- a high, nerve-rattling sound which made Roberts wince. "Let the little heretic see how far she'll get out there on the prairie, outside the compound. Others of her kind will turn on her when they know her heritage," the ex-candidate said confidently. "They can't stand such a creature... "Creed blood never lies." ------------------------------------------------------- Well, that's what I IMAGINE Father would tell his little boy soldiers. Oh? Intro: Daniela Davies-Creed -- Danny Creed, to simplify -- daughter of the greatest mistake of breeding to hit Earth since the Marquis de Sade. Once brown-haired, brown-eyed, mousy little teenage white girl, into boy bands, the like. Happy 14th birthday -- puberty's nothing, look what colors nature wants to make YOU! Fate says. Yes, my father's Graydon. Yes, he lived -- oh, please, you didn't REALLY think that whole "a-mutant-shot-our-Genetic-Savior" schtick was REAL, did you? It was all done with mirrors. Me? Father did a serving maid, who died in a crappy backwoods "hospital" because he didn't bother to hire doctors who knew their ass from a scalpel. I grew up among a bunch of paranoid, gun-toting genetic dead-ends (no, not because they're human, because they're genetic dead-ends), at least until I was 6. Then it was off to Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy in Denver -- didn't take; I was a (heh heh) unholy terror. Then last year, I learned what Daddy Dearest's little friends were really into. Referring to today's FOH, I'm talking hard-core, "mutants-want-to-do-our-women-and-kill-our-children" anti-mutant racists. The wanna-bes fell by the wayside after O:ZT, and the Kelly Act went through and pretty much assured that Dad's dreams of mutant corpses by the roadside were DOA. Most of the remaining FOHers dribbled away from the sect (organized political party? What-EVER, as my friends would say) by the turn of the millennium; mutant-bashing wasn't PC anymore. That doesn't mean that the real nutjobs are going anywhere. They think the Kelly Act will disappear as soon as some mutant makes a stupid mistake or goes nuts in a big city and kills a bunch of humans... Not a big chance that it'll be me... Oh, I know the family tree. Dad used to rant and rave - the only time he ever did, unless he and I were fighting over the stupidity of his whole anti-mutant platform -- about Grandma Raven and Grandpa Victor. (Surreal or what? The greatest mutant terrorist of our time and the worst mutant serial killer of all time, my grandparents...) Oh GOD, I've got blue skin and blue eyes and this hair out of a Cyndi Lauper video - -- welcome to mutancy, Danny! I hate being 14. Hell, what's my power anyway, being an extra for the Smurfs? Oh. My arm went Caucasian for a second there. Shapeshifting. God, talk about trite -- I can look like other people -- give me a BREAK, give me something useful like telepathy or money generation - oh God. Oh GOD. I'm alone, in the middle of the God-damn PRAIRIE, surrounded by ranches and people who don't care about me, and my father's an anti-mutant racist - What the - Aliens? Here? Hell, why not. Nothing like a good abduction to liven up a totally crappy day. No, it's a - -- oh God. Not them. ANYBODY but them. The X-Men. If I'm lucky, they'll just let the short hairy one with the bad haircut gut me and get it over with. Two years since mutants got equal rights, and 60 percent of these sanctimonious spandex addicts still hide in their little enclaves or hide their identities. The Blackbird lands -- the hatch opens -- oh God. The high priest of the cult himself came out to convert me. ~I assure you, miss, despite rumors to the contrary, we are not a cult,~ His High Holiness mutters in my head, coming down the ramp in that stupid, STUPID hoverchair. "First, my name's Danny," I yell at Xavier -- please, I'm Graydon Creed's daughter, of COURSE I know who these dweebs are -- "-and get out of my head!" (Oh, VERY original. Every non-psi on the planet probably yells that at His Baldness.) "Not every one. But it is a fairly common occurence," Xavier tells me -- damnit, he's smiling, STOP him, Danny - "If you've been in my head, then you know who I am," I snap at him. "Don't you have some vendetta or something to inflict upon me?" "Why should I?" Xavier says, his eyebrow rising. He. Doesn't. Know. Who. I. Am. I could almost enjoy what I'm gonna do next. Evil smirk -- get the corners of the mouth right -- and I tell him, "I'm Graydon Creed's mutant daughter." Oh, the look on his face... I can't help it. I start laughing. "WHAT!? You couldn't just mindprobe me!?" I giggle - I'm giggling evilly at Charles Xavier, this's gotta be a first -- "-OH, your ethics, I get it, no mind probes, how terribly nice of you! DUH! Like the skin and the hair didn't scream 'relative of Mystique'!?" "I try not to prejudge others based upon appearance," Xavier tells me -- he's getting the upper hand. "Fine. Well then, brainburn me, and get it over with. I mean, Sabretooth's granddaughter can't be allowed to live, right?" I mutter. He sighs. He's not going to kill me...? "Daniela, we are heroes. We do not go and kill people because of who their relatives are," Xavier tells me. "Well, fine -- that's a good thing," I tell him -- God, that sounds SO stupid, how did I ever end up going to uncomfortable teen in the middle of the Wyoming prairie facing down the world's most skilled telepath? Time to be defiant. "I'm not going to join you and waste my time saving a world that 'fears and hates me,'" I say in my most cynical voice. (Forget mutancy. Smartass is the deadliest power!) ~Actually, I would claim disintegration is the deadliest,~ Xavier zings me. He's not as slow in wit as I thought... "Besides, you assume that the world fears and hates you," he continues. "How do you know unless you look beyond the pain and loneliness of your experience among the Friends of Humanity?" Damnit. "Fine. I have no frame of reference besides a mildly tolerable parochial school and a bunch of hate-screeching, shotgun-toting idiots as adult role models," I snarl. "I'm the dumb little mutie shapeshifter who needs to be coddled and shown the light, is that it? You're a hypocrite, hiding in your mansion, when the Kelly Act lets you and yours go off and get REAL jobs, REAL lives! I think you're addicted to the danger rush!" "I would rather let the evidence speak for itself," Xavier says, tossing magazines to the ground between us. I stretch -- shades of Reed Richards! -- my arm to get them, and pull them back. Xavier's on the front of each one, sometimes with his X-Men, sometimes not. "Geneticist Speaks Out: I Founded the X-Men." "I Am Not Spock -- I Am A Telepath." "Out of the Genetic Closet: X-Men Founder Reveals Hidden History of the World's Most Misunderstood Superhero Team." Great. So much for THAT argument. "Fine," I mutter. "Gimme the stupid spandex uniform and let me get on the stupid training roster." We board the jet -- the one with the visor, and his wife, the redhead, are there, and the icy one who spied on Father during the '96 campaign, and the big blue furry one is piloting the jet. I try not to squeak when the runty one with the hair sits across from me. "Uniforms ain't that bad," he grunts. He sniffs the air, and I roll my eyes. "Daniela Creed. Sabretooth's my grandfather, Graydon Creed is my father, and I know you're the runty one from Canada who wants to have Grampy's liver for dinner," I shoot. "Go ahead. Free shot. Wipe out his bloodline once and for all." He looks at me funny, then looks at the one with the visor and says, "I owe ya a five-spot, Slim. Creed's got some sort a'intelligence gene after all." "HEY!" I yell, and he looks at me. "You don't want a piece of me?" "Yer a kid," he tells me. "Wouldn't be fair. Besides, Chuck said it already -- we ain't out t'murder people 'cause of their family." "Lovely," I mutter -- pull the knees up under my chin - "Mercy from the X-Men." Well, it's warm, and they're trying to be nice - maybe I don't WANT nice, maybe I want someone to tell me what a disappointment I am - -- Jesus Christ, what the hell am I thinking!? Did all my self-esteem go down the crapper when my mutation emerged!? It's not like I'm out to slaughter humans, or rob banks or some crap like that -- I'm a pretty decent person! Oh yes. Shock. I'm coming back down to earth after realizing that I'm the teenage mutant daughter of Graydon Creed. Fine. Let the spandex crowd help me. It can't be any worse than listening to my father try to tell a bedtime story with mutants as the big bad wolf and him as Little Red Riding Hood. ------------------------------------------------------- TBC... -------------------------------------------------------