The Thing That Came On X-Mas Eve

A long, sinewy arm reached out with blinding speed, and two lumps of dead flesh struck the ground yards away in different spots, the disembodied head's long tongue still dripping warm fluids.

It stood almost nine feet tall even in its crouching posture. Like other N'Garai, it visually resembled a grotesquely distorted skeleton coiled with long wiry muscles and tendons under a leathery hide. Unlike its smaller kind, it sported a long, sinuous tail, continuing the ridge of irregular bulbous protrusions also lining the back of the wide torso. Its head was stretched into a long peaked skull with flaring horn-like extensions bulging from prominent brow ridges, under which deep-set, slit-like eyes glowed with unholy life. The cadaverous features led to a muzzle-like, lipless mouth bearing sharp teeth and vicious fangs. Powerful jaws opened to reveal a long, slimy tongue dripping thick saliva.

The N'Garai Warlord looked at the unconscious young woman down before it. In the faint light of the glowing cairn carvings, the alien eyes sparkled as it considered the graceful curves of her prostrate body, the wet dark skin contrasting with the spread mane of long silvery hair; a perfect offering to start the conquest of a world.

Its rival Warlord Kierrog could waste time elsewhere, it thought. There was much to be enjoyed here.

The monster leaned forward, lowering itself to all fours above Storm, the slow motion of its lean limbs hinting at enormous contained power, despite the emaciated appearance of its frame. The snake-like tongue contorted to first lick at its own fangs, saliva flowing freely from its maw, before sliding to run obscenely over the silken skin of breasts, neck and cheeks, making her squirm in nervous, prescient reaction. The N'Garai servants tugged on her limbs, opening her legs even wider and bending them at the knees to allow a better positioning beneath their master, while between the bent, triple-jointed legs of the monster, a shaft of blackened, ridged flesh began to grow in length and girth.

Storm groaned softly. Her mind was on the verge of wakefulness, but the N'Garai chant still lingered in her, her body continuing to rock and undulate to its now muted rhythm. Registering the cessation of the previous multiple caresses, her body was growing restless in undefined anticipation, and the weather all around echoed it. The air pressure had built up to almost unbearable levels and the sounds of the heavy downpour of rain resembled the tense drumming preceding a dramatic event.

The member growing from the creature's groin had already reached enormous dimensions, and its knobby head pressed against the gleaming swollen folds of the X-man's sex, even before the being had settled itself fully between her legs. Storm squirmed at the cold contact of the inhuman member on her most delicate flesh, and nebulous questions began to push through her mind, fighting against a wild jumble of strange sensations and impulses.

Why could she no longer feel the rain? Did that matter? Did anything matter beyond her urgent need, one which she could not consciously name?

Before Storm could muster any clear rational thought, the N'Garai lunged down and forward, driving its huge phallus into the young woman, impaling her with a single fluid thrust.

Storm gasped for air and her eyes opened wide in pain and shock and bewilderment. Her whole body tensed violently in response to the overpowering influx of sensation from her core. The first thrust into her sex was immediately followed by another and another, a multitude of savage piston-like intrusions that made her nerves cry out loudly in dramatically conflicting signals that fought for supremacy over her awareness. In the instants her senses sought answers to what was happening, to make sense of her abrupt jolt into waking reality, she had already begun to push back unconsciously against the N'Garai's thrusts, seeking to match its rhythm, to catch up with the rush of impossible pleasure and pain exploding from their junction.

Her moans, cries, and gasps lasted mere seconds while her body reacted in mindless, instinctive acceptance of the dark, ravenous lust that had grown unbidden in her core, seeking to consume her, until finally, as she overcame the shadows of confusion and want, Storm realized in a flash of horror the true nature of her predicament. Crying out, she shook her head from side to side in an instant of futile denial, her voice failing to vocalize fully the surge of conflicting rage, fear, and disbelief.

Sensing her wakefulness, the N'Garai began to thrust harder and faster, driving the monstrous member even deeper into the hot, drenched depths of its captive. Sensation rose exponentially at her core, and Storm could only arch her back and throw her head backwards in a violent spasm, gasping loudly again and again, in time to the powerful rhythms of the physical assault overwhelming her body.

In unlikely reflection of its unwilling mate, the N'Garai tossed its own head backward and roared with a deep, inhuman voice its unmistakable delight. Fragile as she was, the human was proving far more delicious to possess than it had expected, her body and soul was rich in magnificent depths, and her hunger nearly matched its own.

With eyes closed shut, fists clenched, lean muscles straining in desperation, Storm fought the maelstrom growing in power and urgency inside her, desperate to scream, to dislodge the viselike grips on her limbs, to throw off the fearsome monster mounting her, to stop her own body from its bewildering yet undeniably powerful reaction to her assault - to ultimately break free, from captors, ravisher, and her own sensations and urges - from everything.

"NO!" Storm finally screamed, her whole body arching off the rock slab, hips surging upwards like with a life of their own, supporting herself on head and feet, as her mind and body exploded into a violent convulsion of powerful, all-consuming pleasure.

The sound of the shattering cairn was deafening, as the lightning turned night into day for long, eerie instants.

************************************

It felt like eons before Storm could muster enough strength to rise up. She was drenched, the rain having continued unabated after her final collapse, and her whole body trembled, though not with cold.

To her bafflement, there were no traces of the N'Garai, big or small. Her nude body, the scattered remains of the cairn and the charred grounds and trees around her, were the only evidence present of all that had transpired.

It would be easy to think it had all been some kind of illusion, a trick or sorcery as insubstantial as the small creatures had at times been. Yet she could hardly ignore the deep soreness pulsing in her most tender areas. Even if it had vanished like a ghost come morning, the thing that had taken her had been real at least in one sense. She could even recall faintly feeling it fade to nothingness while still inside her.

She felt both relief and horror. She had experienced something terrible, an almost unspeakable ordeal. Yet somehow, she had succeeded. She had destroyed the cairn and banished the N'Garai. Perhaps she had actually saved the world.

Surely that justified the price she had paid.

Storm shook her head. How could she deal rationally with what had happened, and how it had happened? Even for someone who faced the extraordinary as often as an X-Man did, to mate with an extra-dimensional demon, to be possessed by a veritable monster, was hardly a trivial event. But terrifying as the brief glimpse of her hideous inhuman ravisher had been, even more shocking were her own physical reactions, and the astounding ultimate result.

Despite her outrage, fear, and revulsion, she had experienced, in the arms of her inhuman enemy, her first true orgasm ever, and it had been utterly fantastic. Nothing in her past experiences had ever led her to believe that sex could be so powerful, so brutally delicious. But had it been a unique event? Could only such a creature as the N'Garai make her feel pleasures of that magnitude?

It had surely been sorcery, she decided. The evil power of the mystical N'Garai had affected her mind and warped her senses, rendering her vulnerable, unnaturally responsive. Only that could explain her reactions under such unpleasant circumstances. Only that could explain the intensity of her climax.

Disturbing as was the realization of her unlikely climax, maybe it had also allowed her victory. Never before had she summoned lightning on such a scale, and possibly nothing less could have destroyed the cairn. Maybe only her panic and anger, and that particular instant of violent, overblown release of orgasmic energy, had made her reach so far past her normal limits.

But did it make it alright? Did the end justify the means? Could she so casually accept that she had actually enjoyed being ravished by a fearsome monster?

Suddenly, Storm realized that she still ignored the fate of her fellow X-Men, and whether they still needed help or not. She could not afford to waste more time sorting her troubled feelings, her anger and shame, and chided herself for such weakness. It was unlike her to be so selfish, so lacking in self-control. Any personal issues would need to be held back for later, she decided.

Covering herself with the wet, tattered cape, Storm flew up into the air, heading for the Mansion, while dawn began to color the skies of a new day.

CHAPTER 3: YOU'D BETTER WATCH OUT, YOU'D BETTER TAKE CARE

Ororo's breath stuck at her throat, eyes wide with disbelief, as her mind flashed back to that terrible night, months past. It could not be true. The N'Garai were gone, banished from the Earth. They could not be back, she told herself again. Not now. Not here.

It could not be right behind Kitty.

"Ororo?" Kitty asked with a frown, hugging herself, feeling the chilling unnatural cold even through her thick woolen sweater. "What's wrong?"

The creature uncoiled itself, stepping forward from the shadowy corner where it had crouched, extending its long limbs with almost languid slowness, moving towards the young girl oblivious to its presence.

"Kitty," Storm said softly, her eyes unwavering, fixed on the dark shape looming over the teenager. She could not remember it being so big and hideous. "Phase down through the floor right now, and keep doing it, moving down to the lower levels."

"What-?"

"Don't question me. Just do it. Phase down. Do not stop. Now."

"I-"

"NOW."

With impossible speed, the N'Garai attacked.

Storm's eyes turned white.

************************************

"Take care, elf," Logan said, closing the door and watching the car drive away, before his nose wrinkled automatically. There was the faintest smell of ozone in the air.

************************************

Storm had been ready, the power already built up in her, and still the creature had almost been too fast.

The claws ripped through the tiled floor as if through paper, exactly on the spot where Kitty had stood fractions of a second before. Storm even saw the sharp claws rake through the top curls of Kitty's hair just before she finished disappeared from sight, phasing down through the floor.

Its first target gone, the N'Garai immediately rushed at the other X-Man present, claws coming inches away from Storm, before the lightning bolt struck, sending it flying backwards.

She rode up the wind into the air, and unleashed another lightning strike against the creature.

With dark smoke rising from its body, the N'Garai stood up, clearly unharmed, its inhuman stare fixed on the young woman suspended in the air above it. For an instant, the eyes of woman and monster met.

Storm felt her stomach knot even tighter, and again seemed unable to breathe. Was that recognition she saw in the eyes of the creature? Could it be the same one as before? Could this be the same monster that had possessed her, that night long past?

It was. It had to be. How else to explain the way its stare, its appearance, affected her, made her tremble from head to toes? She had barely seen it that night, in the brief instants that she had been conscious in its embrace, overwhelmed by shock and fear and outrage and impossible pleasure, but she could never forget the feeling in the core of her soul at its proximity, the primal awareness of its very alien presence.

The demonic creature had been the first enemy, and first nonhuman being, to ever have sex with her, as well as the first to ever give her a real orgasm. There had been others afterwards, enemies, nonhumans, or both. But none, not even Sauron, had involved such an unlikely combination of horrendous alienness and undeniable sexual prowess.

She could not fail to recognize it.

As Storm hesitated, caught in the locked stares, the N'Garai extended its long tongue to lick briefly at its fangs, and closed one of its inhuman eyes briefly, before looking down, away from her.

Storm felt an icy shudder run through her flesh.

It had winked at her.

It knew, too.

The shared moment had lasted a mere instant, and now, with almost contemptuous ease, the creature completely tore through the floor and its underlying structure, opening a wide gap leading to the level below.

"What the-?"

In the hallway below, Kitty stood, staring up open-mouthed.

"NO!" Storm shouted.

A third lightning bolt struck the N'Garai, but it ignored it, as its claws ripped wood and metal, enlarging the opening leading down.

"DOWN, KITTY! PHASE DOWN!" Storm yelled as she flew down, shifting the wind into a hurricane-like gust that dislodged the N'Garai and sent it flying to slam against the wall behind it. "I TOLD YOU TO KEEP MOVING! GO!"

Kitty opened and closed her mouth ineffectively, unable to speak, much less move.

The N'Garai rose, and digging with the claws on hands and feet, it began to move slowly forward against the powerful flow of wind.

"KITTY! SNAP OUT OF IT! YOU MUST GO AWAY! NOW!"

"Oh, my-What-What's that?"

Still focusing on the wind with gritted teeth, Storm jumped down through the gap, and grabbed Kitty with both hands. She had to fly them both out of there.

She barely had time look up as the N'Garai fell over them, all claws and fangs and coiling tail.

************************************

As Logan reached the mechanic shop, he looked up, sniffing loudly at the air again. More ozone. And clouds were beginning to gather in the sky.

He cursed under his breath. He hated driving under bad weather.

************************************

Storm rolled on the floor, sharp pain pulsing from a shallow near-miss cut on her shoulder. Having time, she would have felt proud of Kitty, who had bravely pushed her aside from the attack, just before phasing away in the last moment possible, but as Storm tried to rise to her feet, a huge clawed hand grabbed by the long, slender neck. Lifting the young woman up like a rag doll, the N'Garai slammed her painfully against a wall. There was no more time left.

She winced as the inhuman demonic visage closed to mere inches away from her face, its eyes glowing. The black fangs dripped thick saliva as it extended the long tongue. She closed her eyes and turned her face to a side, and felt with a chill the cold slimy appendage slide on her cheek and down her neck.

"HEY, UGLY!"

Storm opened her eyes to see Kitty slam a chair against the creature, the wood shattering harmlessly on its lower back.

The creature looked back, a hiss coming from its lipless mouth, and the long ridged tail snapped out like a whip, passing straight through the young girl's midsection.

Kitty staggered backwards, hands clutching at her belly, her face growing pale as she gasped for breath. Yet there was no blood. She had phased just in time, letting the tail pass right through her insubstantial form, but she had still felt it. Immaterial or not, contact with the demonic creature had somehow affected her, even while phasing.

"Cold, so cold..." Kitty gasped, while she appeared unharmed physically, she felt like a spear of ice had stabbed her through. She had to escape, she knew, letting her body slip down through the floor again.

Gritting her teeth with effort, Storm brought her legs up, knees bent at chest height, and slammed both feet on the chest of the N'Garai, just as she summoned lightning once again. The direct electrical discharge made the creature shake, and open its hand, helping Storm push her attacker back. As she dropped to the floor, gasping, she summoned a sudden gust of wind that threw the N'Garai far down the hallway.

The creature immediately ran back at her, and Storm took to the air, struggling to achieve flight in the small enclosed space of the hallway, going for the large window at its end. She had to lead the creature outside, where her powers would be more useful, far away from Kitty.

Blasting with lightning the window and its protective ironworks, Storm rushed out of the house, spinning in the air to face the expected attack. And saw nothing.

The creature had not followed her.

"Kitty," she muttered, before rushing into the house again, caution literally thrown to the wind.

************************************

Kitty phased down and sideways, moving through rooms, pantries and linen closets with deliberate randomness, trying to throw the thing off her scent. Did she leave a scent while phasing? She could take no risks. Whatever that horrible thing was, it was still after her, she knew. In the brief instants when she risked solidity, she could hear the sounds of its breaking through floors and walls, searching, hunting for her.

Storm had surely escaped, Kitty thought, to bring the other X-Men to the rescue. There was no way she could even contemplate the alternative.

She only had to survive until the others arrived, any minute now. Surely not even that thing could stand against the X-Men. But would she last long enough? Her phasing power had proved only a partial defense. Her stomach still felt stiff and numb from where the tail had passed through her. Maybe it was just her fear, she thought.

She had to survive, Kitty decided, fixing her resolve on such determination, while the rest of her mind urged her to collapse and surrender to panic. The beast could attempt to ambush her friends. She had to keep it busy, and give the X-Men a chance to attack.

There was only one way to keep the beast at bay, she realized; if she could reach it.

As Kitty pashed down again, her tears were left behind in the hardwood floor.

************************************

Storm jumped down again, all her senses alert for a possible trap, but again, the beast was not there. Another hole had been torn through a side wall, and warily she stepped through. The path of destruction had been easy to follow, as Kitty had apparently been leading the N'Garai in a twisting race through the mansion and the basements below. The concrete walls of the lower levels had not stopped the creature, Storm noticed, but maybe they had given Kitty enough time to widen the distance between hunter and prey, and enough time to let her catch up with them.

Not that she knew what to do when facing the N'Garai again. But she would never let it have Kitty. That she knew. Somehow, anyhow, she would get her safe, away from the danger of the demonic being.

Suddenly, Storm knew exactly where Kitty was going.

************************************

The Danger Room stretched over three hundred feet in each direction, its tall metal walls concealing the multi-purpose devices designed to test and train super-powered mutants in the use of their powers.

If anything could stop the demon it would be here, Kitty thought, seated in the control booth set high in the farthest wall from the place she had entered. She had air-walked from the training floor to the booth and activated the multiple offensive systems, preparing a suitable welcome for her relentless pursuer. Automated giant saws and pincers, laser attack grids, everything the Danger Room could offer was ready to receive the monster.