Scene One
June 15, 1992
The skyscrapers ahead in the distance loomed over them, their early morning shadows draped over them, blocking the blind rays of the garish sun. Man-made fingers of glass and steel vainly reaching towards the heavens, coming nowhere even close tot eh slightest graze of a cloud. Even in these modern and secular times, man still sought to be close to God while still attached to this physical realm, desirous of the best of both worlds. In a way, the occupants of such spaces were gods and goddesses to themselves, holding the financial fates of thousands if not millions in their single, human hands. Omnipotent beings looking down upon the masses from teir lofty perches. With the hidden meaning and that power of money being the reason for such a visual spectacle, it was still a wonderful sight to the eyes as young and awestruck at such things as Xavier's.
A horn from behind them blared, echoing throughout the small channel on which they were floating. The island before them drew ever closer, but not fast enough for the activity of youth, leaving Xavier to grow more and more impatient by the minute. Over the horizon o his right stood a huge green statue upon a pedestal but he pain it no mind. His father had pointed it out many times before, even taking him their once a few years ago with his mother before Melissa was born. Perhaps it was because he was too young at the time, but he did not actually have memories of such an event. They, however, had documented it with pictures now stashed away in one of the family's many photo albums, so it had to have been true. It nevertheless interested him very little now. His father's pointing it every time a trip such as this had been made most likely had taken the mystery from the green lady on the water.
A large, white bird, a seagull, flew feet away from his left shoulder, cawing loudly and flapped its wings, giving it enough lift to glide with the wind to the other side of the watery abyss. The abruptness of such an outburst had shocked him slightly, but no one else around him, leaving him to feel foolish, cowardly even, for inching as close as he did to his father to his right leaning on the white, painted, steel railing. An arm reaching down behind his head, firm hand on his shoulder and a slight laugh, "Just a bird, Xavier," said he in a humorous tone, not in chastisement for his irrational fear as Xavier had thought. "Dumb bird," mumbled Xavier, "What's he need to hitch a ride on a boat for when he could just fly over like that the whole way?" "Never mind the bird," he told Xavier, "It's your sister's birthday and mom wanted to do something special for her today."
His sister, Melissa, had been born three years ago today, a month after he himself had celebrated his seventh birthday. It had been a day less about him than his mother and her stomach appearing as though it were about to burst. Everyone fawning over her and the space the child-to-be-had occupied for the time being. It was as if she wore playing host to an alien life form that was using hr body to incubate itself until its body was developed enough to survive on it's own from the outside and burst forth into the world. Only instead of being the subject of revulsion, his mother and the being inside her were adored and pampered. It was his birthday but instead of paying any attention to him, any visiting family merely dropping colorfully wrapped boxes beside him and headed straight for his mother either laying on the living room couch or waddling along the few areas she could now without to much stress or discomfort. Only tearing herself away from this routine long enough to give a grand tour of the pink-painted, frilly decorated room next to his own.
As expected, a month later, a fleshy thing screamed at the top of its lungs, quieted only by the embrace of his father's arms cradling around it. The formerly vacant room was now occupied by this thing he detested for its mere presence, not wanted to understand the invader. His father kneeled down, cradling the thing in his arms low enough for Xavier to see and said, "Melissa, say 'Hi' to your bit brother." Looking back at him were a pair of beautiful brown eyes. A smile and a cooing laugh from her mouth, shaking her head to the side before returning her gaze to him. The small, stubby fingers of her hand reached out with her arm, palm grazing his lips with another laugh. "Terry," said his mother from behind him, "I think she likes him." "Hear that buddy?" said his father, "You have a fan." The bare, pink face, spattering of hair on her head, she looked to be the most tender and gentle of all things alive. Although his mind knew not the words nor the meaning behind them along with their significance, she was innocence personified. Pure.
"Melissa Kristin Michaels!," called his mother from yards behind them, causing Xavier and his father to turn around, "Terry, take care of our daughter." Gone were the days of Melissa being a stationary being completely dependant upon others for transportation. Since the day she first learned to crawl, she had made it a point to be everywhere at once and get into anything and everything, much to their parents' headache. The innovation of walking upright only increased her mobility. Her legs brought her tumbling towards them, smiling and laughing with a giggle, "Daddy!" His father squatted down taking her in his arms and scooping her up as she reaching him, crushing her close to his chest. Her arms wrapped themselves as a Boa Constrictor around his neck, the stranglehold of love getting a laugh from him. "Pumpkin," said their father, "What do you think you're doing running away from your mother like that?" "Your little girl here is a handful, just like her father," answered their mother. His and Melissa's noses touched and rubbed against each other, parting before their mother leaned in close to him for a kiss. Lips touched, connecting softly seconds before Melissa stuck her hand in between them and forced the separation, planting a kiss of her own on his lips.
Their mother feigned first shock then anger at such a bold move by her daughter, their father laughing on at the spectacle. "Looks like you got some competition, Kris," said their father jokingly. She grabbed Melissa by the shoulders, moving as if she were about to shake her, "You little home wrecker," said through clenched teeth. Melissa only laughed all the more, shaking her head and resting it on the father's shoulder. Only after a few moments of prying her fingers from his shirt was her grip on him loosened enough to pull her away from him. She cried a bit, reaching out towards him, but too far out. "Stay with your brother for a minute," she was told by him. He turned her around to face Xavier as he took her and held her close. Xavier had his doubts as to whether or not he was strong enough to hold her, but if his father had faith enough in him, he was sure he could.
Her legs wrapped around him, locking together at the ankles behind his back, his hand behind her back, holding her there for a long moment. Her brown eyes seemed to gleam with a of life of their own. Her face brought in close to his, her lips pressing to his own. His first kiss, from his three year old sister, was not as it was expected to be. No sparks, no bells nor fireworks bursting into the air like in the movies. It was simply flesh upon flesh and that was all his young, ten year old mind could make of it. Her head leaned down gently onto his shoulder, arms around his neck, brown hair rubbing softly against his cheek. To him, the embrace was not about attraction, nor a desire for anything more then the sibling love they had shared since their first meeting.
Scene Two
Xavier watched on as Melissa strode confidently down the aisle on her way towards him. The warm light of the saturating and filling her gown, giving the bleached whiteness a luminous glow. Her every step was timed perfectly with the beat and rhythm of the organ music, every eye on either side gazing at the beautiful young woman before them as she passed. Faces he recognized, their family. Something was seriously off, they would never be able to have a ceremony like this.
Her face was barely visible behind the white veil over her, the beaming smile piercing through the layer as Xavier took her hand, helping her straining muscles in the climb the couple steps in front of the altar. Her stomach rounded and protruding into an obese figure, although he knew it was not food intake that had caused her to grow to such a size and form. Their hands, on top of the other as they shared a look, a gaze, peering into the other's eyes, their souls.
Someone coughed to their side, a shuffling of papers as a balding man looked down to read from a prepared file. "Lieb geliebt," said he, his German accent full and thick, "Wir werden hier heute gesammelt, um uns diesen zwei bei der heiligen Ehe anzuschließen..." Even Kameron and Emma screwing around behind him could not ruin this day for them. They turned away from each other, facing the man speaking not to them nor anyone else, but to properly and legally carry out the procedure.
Their hands at each other's side were joined for only a minute through the speech, Xavier pulling it away from Melissa touch. Burning rippling through his hand, before his eyes, lines of scaring scratching their way along the back of his hand, turning into the screen of an Etch-a-Sketch as he watched. Shocked moans echoing from those around him, the flaming burning riding up through his chest to his neck and face. Fingertips touching his lips, feeling the damaged flesh of burned and scarred tissue. In a moment, the months of surgery had been undone.
The man in front of him looked away, folding up the papers and walking away. Xavier turned to see everyone rising up from their seats, making for the aisle and leaving. "What? Where's everyone going?," mumbled Xavier, seeing Melissa now feet away from him in a pink, low cut dress now, "Mel?" The woman in the white dress turned away from him, walking down the steps, glancing back to him for only an instant but enough for him to see the faint outline of her face, one he would never forget.
"Riley!" he bellowed, the sound of his voice bouncing and echoing along the walls. She continued moving away, Xavier chasing after her, grabbing her by the shoulder and spinning her around to face him and a slap to her face, tossing the veil over her face to the side. She collapsed onto her side, a grunt from her as the air knocking from her lungs, first from the force of hitting the ground so hardly, then by Xavier's foot ramming into her stomach full force. She cried out, her body curling into itself, another kick from Xavier to her chest.
"Xavier, man," said a voice from behind him, "Don't do this man." A hand gripping his bicep, trying to pull him back and away from the beaten Riley. The point of his bent elbow crashed into the Kameron's temple, sending him backwards and landing on the floor in a head. "Stay the fuck away from me!," yelled Xavier, "All of you!"
They were gone! The lines of pain on his hands had faded away, leaving the back of his hand with a smooth face. His fingertips grazed his cheek, feeling only the normal touch of skin. He was healed. A laugh from his lips. Somehow, his body had healed itself and made him normal again. Xavier grabbed at a silver serving tray, needed to see his own reflection, only feeling the unharmed flesh was not enough for him to believe.
It was not what he had expected, seeing the impossible. The eyes of Victor Von Doom staring back at him. He was Victor now, and Victor was him. The tray slid across the floor with his toss, clattering noisily against the far wall. Table overturned from the force of his flipping it. Cries Shane crying there on the floor only infuriated him all the more, igniting his rage. His foot crushed into her body, the blows doing nothing to assuage his anger, not making him feel any better nor worse, but someone was going to have to pay. "All you fault," he yelled, "All you fucking fault!"
The walls around him and them igniting, a wall of napalm, the heat warming his face yet nothing compared to what was in his heart. Blood dripped from Riley's mouth, coughed in a spurt into a spatter onto the floor. A blow to her face, knocking her back a couple feet, flat on her back. Another cough of blood, wetting her lips, droplets of crimson on her nose and cheeks.
Melissa lay there beaten and bruised, a red stain growing in size through the fabric f the white dress from between her legs. She was crying now, not for herself, but something else lost, the violence of the past few minutes the cause. Xavier dropped to his knees, his anger and hatred having cost him something he had lost once before. He lifted her up to his shoulder, her arms lying limp at her sides, the tears wetting his chest.
"Xavier," yelled her voice in a far off distance, "God damn it, the fuck is wrong with you?" A hand roughly shook him by the shoulder, his eyes opening in a snap to see the ceiling of their bedroom. A thick haze hung over him, yet he knew where he was, Melissa unbroken form the only comfort. The bare skin of her body wrapping around him, intertwining her legs with his, her eyes looking to him with concern. "That had to be the worst nightmare you've ever had."
Xavier's breathing remained heavy and labored, difficult to realize the fact that his hate and anger had not truly manifested themselves in such an outburst of anger. "I'm sorry, Mel," said he, his tongue coming from his mouth, wetting his crackling lips and swallowing down his parched throat, "I'm sorry, you know I'd never intentionally hurt you." "Christ, what started all this?," she asked. She slid out from underneath the covers of their bed, unashamed of her body exposed to him and the rest of the empty room, "I'll be back. You sound like you need something to drink."
Scene Three
"Dude," said Kameron pointing from Xavier to the television screen in front of him, "These Mexican bitches are hot. Showing all that ass and I bet you not one of them are older then seventeen." "Keep it in your pants Kameron," said Melissa passing behind the couch on which Kameron was sitting, standing close to her brother's side, "You already have that Barbie doll to play with." "At least he's not my brother," called Emma from a connecting room.
"¿Qué es esto Scooby? ¿Usted quiere otro bocado Scooby?," sounds from the television's speakers. Kameron shakes his head with a smirk, laughing, "That sounds so fucking hot." "Kameron," said Xavier, "You're watching Scooby-fucking-Doo for fuck sake! You going to get off your ass and get ready or what? We got to get going. Hell even that sex toy of yours has enough sense to know that." "Just because it's a cartoon doesn't mean it's stupid," Kameron said, rising to his feet now, not enjoying being talked down to about his perversion by someone who nails his sister, "Animated chicks can be hot too, ever see some of that hentai shit?"
Emma pops out of the bedroom of the hotel suite, skipping along the floor. The skirt she was wearing could not really be called a skirt at all, more like a rubber band around her waste. She wanders over towards a duffle bag on the floor a distance away from the trio of Xavier, Melissa and Kameron. Bending over, rummaging around for obviously nothing more then to show the string flossing her ass crack to Kameron, "Hey Kammy, where'd you say you saw my dildo?"
Kameron looks on at her, licking his lips, shaking his head only after realizing a question had been posed in his direction, "Sorry babe, what was that. Had my mind on something else." "Thing," said Melissa with a roll of her eyes, "being the main word there." Kameron raised an eyebrow and winked in Melissa's direction, "You're just jealous aren't you brown eyes? Just mad that she's been getting boink by me and you haven't."
Melissa gagged, her mouth opened as if she were about to throw up at the thought of even touching Kameron, hand over her mouth and half-running to the bathroom, "Oh fuck, think I'm gonna puke." Kameron's eyes follow her as she stumbles into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her. "No Kameron," said Xavier already way ahead of what was going through Kameron's head, "We're not doing some kind of girl swapping thing. God know what I'd end up catching from you thing. Besides, this isn't a Republican convention."
"Rebuplicans suck," said Emma as she came towards Xavier and Kameron, "There was a shit load of them outside that Planned Parenthood place before when I went by there to get some free condoms. They pass them out to teenage girls like candy." "Lamb skin right?," asked Kameron, "You know how Captain Winkie doesn't like latex." Xavier gags now, would have followed Melissa into the bathroom had this cheap shit hotel been so cramped and the bathroom only big enough for one person to be in the bathroom to take a shit, "And me and Melissa are supposed to be the ones grossing people out. You two coming or not, because I could really give a fuck right now. I doubt I'm going to need your help against Pain and his little rag tag group of misfits, but I do need you to keep an eye out for Melissa for me."
"Dude," said Kameron gesturing with a thumb pointing back to the bathroom door, "If you haven't noticed, you're girl's the one holding us up. I'm ready, Emma's ready, but brown eyes in there is holding us up now." Xavier grunts and sighs in aggravation, moving to the door and wrapping his knuckles against the frame, "Mel, it's me. Safe to come out now, Emma's done flashing her shit to half of America. Not all its cracked up to be, guess Kameron should sit down with a shrink and talk out his preferences for young chicks." "Promise," called Melissa from the other side of the door, "I swear to fucking God, if I see her moldy, grilled cheese-looking cunt I'm going to spew all over the three of you." "I promise, Mel," answered Xavier, "Now can you come out please? Don't leave me in an arena alone with these nut balls. If they're disgusting you that match, come out there with me to the ring tonight and watch me wrestle first hand. Wear a mask if you're afraid of getting any of Pain's blood on you, sure Emma and Kameron can hook you up with something they have."
The door opened ever so slightly, enough room for her to peer out through the crack, "I'm not wearing any of their perverted leather shit. Who the fuck knows what's been spilled on it." "Paper bag then?," he said, "Sure Kameron found plenty uses for them back in his fat chick nailing days."