The Thing That Came On X-Mas Eve

Her trembling finger hovered over the keyboard, ready to give the activation command. For an instant she doubted. She had finished the training course in the use of the control systems barely a day ago. What if she had done something wrong?

She shook her head. She had to be right.

Suddenly, the door in the facing wall below opened loudly, and Kitty almost brought her finger down, triggering the attack. Almost.

"Ororo?" Kitty asked incredulously at the sight of the beautiful silver-haired woman in the room below. At that very instant, something broke into the control booth, from behind her.

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

"NO!" Storm yelled as she saw the N'Garai appear behind Kitty in the control booth above, the momentum of its attack taking it straight through the heavily reinforced windows overlooking the Danger Room.

Kitty fell before it, and Storm rushed up through the air to catch her, barely missing the deadly claws of the falling monster in her concern for the youngster.

Storm sighed with relief as Kitty hugged her tightly. She appeared unharmed, but was shivering and her eyes were clouded.

"Ph-Pha-phased-d," Kitty stammered. "B-B-But so-so cold! So cold-!"

Tears welled to Storm's eyes. It had been close, too close. Kitty had phased through the booth's control board and floor just as the creature attacked, and the monster had barely brushed her before plummeting down to the floor of the Danger Room.

"So-cold..." Kitty whispered again, before closing her eyes. She was unconscious.

In the floor below them, the N'Garai stood unharmed, while thick steel doors sealed all exits and the Danger Room jumped to life.

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

"Is something wrong, Professor?" Peter asked, looking down with concern at his wheelchair-bound mentor.

"I-I'm not sure," Charles Xavier said, frowning.

"Any danger?" Peter asked, ready to change into organic steel. Down the aisle in the store, Kurt Wagner also shifted to a stance reflecting readiness.

"No," Charles Xavier replied. He could sense nothing dangerous nearby. He had felt for an instant a faint, strangely familiar psychic flash, but it was now gone, and he could not trace it.

He could not even tell if it had carried distress, anger, excitement or all of these at once. Maybe it had been an echo from Scott, still grieving for Jean's death, yet he doubted it. He had yet to successfully reestablish his usual psychic rapport with his X-Men, and such long-distance communication was unlikely.

Xavier sighed. Dark psychic echoes were not uncommon in the holiday season, even for a telepath as shielded as him. The season always created an atmosphere of highly charged psychic noise, where depression and excitement fought in the collective animus.

"Don't worry," he assured his students. "It was probably nothing."

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

Either the creature's charge or Kitty's phasing must had damaged the controls of the Danger Room, Storm thought, as she dodged looping aerial snares and a sudden blast of white-hot fire. The system did not seem to be respecting the usual safety protocols. The Room was trying to kill them all. But it did not seem to be succeeding regarding the N'Garai, Storm reflected with anguish, as far below them, the N'Garai roared in rage, its claws destroying another set of offensive devices that had failed against it. And she would not be as lucky for long, she knew. She was doing sharp evasive air maneuvers in the room's restricted space, with the unconscious Kitty in her arms. She would eventually tire and slow down, while the devices would not.

They could not even escape the room. Impervious blast doors had sealed all exits, covering even the breached windows of the control booth, blocking all avenues of exit. The Professor had wrought far too well. Maybe she could use lighting to blast her way out, but she could not channel it through her body with Kitty in her arms without killing her.

The creature below roared even louder, and Storm saw several heat-seeking missiles strike the monster, doing no greater damage than knocking it off its feet. She wondered what would it take to kill it, and realized that a second wave of missiles was already targeting them as well.

She had no time to think, only to react. Dropping Kitty, she unleashed a wide lighting blast, frying the targeting electronics in the missiles even as they launched, before focusing a powerful gust of wind to cushion Kitty's fall. Unguided, the missiles struck the walls not far behind her, and she fell, dazed by the concussive waves.

She fell hard on the metal floor, having barely managed to slow her descent. Rising to her knees, she saw Kitty lying a few feet behind her. A set of automated saws slid out from openings in the floor and moved towards them, while the missile launchers above targeted them again. In desperation, Storm closed her eyes, and gritting her teeth, channeled all her fury, all her will to survive, into one single thought.

The room was bleached a sudden, blinding white.

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

"Oh, fuck," Logan muttered, as thunder crashed all around him. The sky boiled with storm clouds, wild lighting still flashing in the distance.

The chances of a dozen lightning bolts striking down at once were damn slim, he decided, bringing his motorcycle to a stop. Something was seriously wrong.

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

Storm looked up slowly, fighting the limpness that threatened to claim her whole body. The Danger Room was dark, the lights as dead as the fallen machinery. Only the glow of several small fires illuminated the scene.

She had unleashed an electrical discharge of such power and ferocity that the resulting electromagnetic pulse had shut off all the electronics around them. The Danger Room, and maybe the whole mansion as well, had become inactive.

Behind her, Kitty remained unconscious. Brushing her long silver hair off her face, Storm turned to see the N'Garai, walking towards her from the center of the darkened room, slowly but inexorably.

The N'Garai had survived the Danger Room unleashed. Her powers at full strength had failed to do more than slow it down, and now she felt drained, spent, as she had rarely felt. There was no apparent escape or way to outsmart the thing. Its circumventing of Kitty's trap proved it was as intelligent as it was deadly.

Her chances, their chances, were insignificant. She was ready to face her death, but she could not fail Kitty. The girl had to be protected. At any cost.

She had to somehow delay it, gain enough time for the other X-Men to return.

She had to.

She stood up with a grimace and strode forward. Grabbing at her torn and stained sweater, she pulled it up and over her head, and tossed it aside.

Several paces away, the N'Garai stopped.

The shorts fell around her ankles and feet and Storm stepped out of them, moving even closer towards the N'Garai. Reaching at her back, she unclasped the bra holding her generous bosom, and pulled it off, letting the large teats bounce free.

"Do not touch the girl," she said, with just the slightest quaver in her voice. She swallowed hard and continued: "You can have me, but do not touch the girl."

CHAPTER 4: NOT A MUTANT WAS STIRRINGxxx

If everything was fine, he would call Mariko from the mansion and apologize, Logan thought, barely keeping the tires from slipping while speeding down the wet road, back towards the Mansion.

He just had to make sure.

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

The creature stood before Ororo, motionless except for its long tail, which undulated sinuously in a way that combined with its silence, made her more uneasy than any threatening gesture or spoken menace would have. With its alien shape made into a red-edged silhouette by the light of several raging fires scattered behind it, the N'Garai seemed somehow more unreal, yet not any less menacing. It resembled an awful, grotesquely distorted shadow come alive.

"I know you. And you know me."

Ororo boldly moved yet another step forward towards the fearsome being; she had to keep the being as far away from Kitty as possible. Setting her bare feet wide apart, she straightened her back and placed her hands on her hips, presenting herself clearly, without any apparent fear.

"You... had me. At the cairn. I know you remember."

The N'Garai crouched lower, a strange glow in its eyes.

"You enjoyed having me then. I know that. But..." She hesitated for just a fraction of a second. "Was that enough?"

The creature did not reply, but its glowing, demonic eyes met hers with a deep stare, full of dark meanings.

"You could try to take me again, by force, but I swear I'll that be dead before you can have me like that," she stated with gritted teeth, her blue eyes matching the creature's stare without flinching. Despising every word even before they were spoken, she added: "But spare the girl and I'll be yours. Willingly. Any way you want. As often as you want. And I... I can make it better for you. So much better. By cooperating."

The creature shifted its head slightly to a side, not breaking eye contact, but made no further show of understanding.

Storm felt panic again threaten her resolve. The other N'Garai the X-Men had faced had somehow communicated in what appeared to be English, but maybe this one was different. It was obviously intelligent, yet it had not spoken at all.

She breathed deeply. She had to make sure the creature understood her.

With careful slowness, she extended one arm and pointed back at the unconscious girl behind her, and shook both her head and one raised finger. Then she pointed up and forward at the creature, before gesturing back at herself, while nodding with deliberately exaggerated motions.

It had to understand her, she thought with growing desperation. It had to.

Hating what she had to do, Ororo slid her hands down to the sides of her wide hips, letting her trembling fingers find their way to the upper edge of the thin panties that were her only remaining garment. After a deep breath, she began to edge the panties down.

The N'Garai darted forward, and its hiss filled the darkness between them.

Storm froze still, but she did not look away. She would meet her fate face on.

The N'Garai stopped its head inches away from hers, the deadly clawed hands not far behind. Their eyes remained locked and the twin glowing orbs seemed to probe into her soul. Despite her firm determination, she shivered as her body reacted instinctively to the ominous proximity of the creature's alien flesh, and the overpowering musk of its inhuman smell seemed to envelop her and saturate her senses.

Yet Storm felt no fear. Rage and growing despair had left no space for such a pathetic emotion.

After a few impossibly long seconds during which she had expected a killing stroke, the creature suddenly moved slightly backwards and extended its tongue with shocking speed, flicking it at her face, missing her mouth only by a hair's breadth. Somehow she resisted the urge to pull back, and held her eyes firm in the locked stare. She hardly dared to breathe as the long tongue darted out again, and again, always falling just short of licking at the full, trembling lips of her slightly open mouth, so close that she could almost taste it, but without any actual touch. The blood-red appendage began to also dart at her chin, earlobes, and long neck, making the soft down on her nape stand up. But she still held the stare.

The N'Garai relented for an instant, and cocked its head askew, its eyes burning with greater inner fire, before its tongue shot out again, lower this time. Storm's eyes grew wide and her body tensed with surprise as she felt the near-miss graze one of the nipples jutting proudly from her high breasts. The next flash of the tongue targeted the other nipple, and she fought the urge to look down. She could not tell if she sudden rush of sensation corresponded to any actual contact or not, and the next ephemeral touch ran all around the outer edge of one aureole. The creature's control was uncanny as each nipple and its aureole was grazed with near-infinitesimal precision, despite the alien eyes remaining locked on Storm's own.

Storm swallowed hard in angry confusion, wondering how she was expected to react at the strange ritual, while her body and mind unsuccessfully attempted to sort out her feelings about the N'Garai's aborted advances. Were they meant to warn or menace? Did the creature mean to feast on her literally? But could the actual physical touch be really any more disturbing than these strange denials and the weird sense of near anticipation they created?

She felt the tension build more and more, until she was finally desperate to have the game end, to stop the teasing, to have the thing act at last, whatever way. Just as the monster flicked its tongue once again, she unconsciously pushed her chest out and forward. The rough inhuman tongue rubbed against her hard nipple for one maddeningly short instant, and she gasped loudly, her whole body tensing powerfully at the actual contact.

The N'Garai stepped backwards, its tongue at last withdrawing from her proximity, which further bothered her. Was the monster was trying to tell her something? Was she not worth touching?

She caught her breath as she suddenly saw the hint of inhuman amusement in its eyes, and its tongue again darted out, briefly waving obscenely before her until finally curling back to lick at its own fangs, making her grimace with barely contained revulsion and anger. As if the message had not been clear, the monster then reached out with one hand, extending one clawed finger towards the young mutant heroine. The sharp index claw that she knew could rend steel, grazed lightly against her lower lip, letting her taste just the smallest hint of her own blood, before moving to first circle at the contour of her right aureole and then to graze along the nipple's now erect length, casually flicking at the bud's tip with the non-sharp reverse edge of the vicious claw.

Storm shuddered. Her skin had seemed to burn along the path the claw had followed.

The monster's finger then moved down along her flat, trembling stomach, until the claw slid behind the frontal edge of her panty, where it then curled to slide behind the fabric and against her shaved mound, moving to access the core between her trembling legs. Ororo held her breath as she felt the gnarled length of the inhuman finger, pressing against her, parting her folds with incongruously gentle care. She could not remember any time when she had been as painfully aware of any sensation in one part of her body.

After sliding back and forth slowly, probing the soft flesh around her slit, the N'Garai's finger then slid out between her folds, reversing orientation, so the sharp claw faintly grazed the hood of her now swollen clitoris just before violently twisting down and out, tearing through the silken panties violently.

Though unharmed, Storm almost collapsed to the floor along with the ruined panties, after the release of her nervous tension, but she held on to her courage and stood her ground. She knew not whether to feel relief or despair. The N'Garai certainly deemed her touchable. It was just teasing her, cruelly toying with her, like a cat with a mouse. But it did want her sexually. It just wanted to push her to the edge before possessing her.

She clenched her fists. Whatever she felt, the only important thing was that her delaying plan was feasible, that they had a chance; a chance to allow the X-Men time to arrive, a chance for Kitty to remain unharmed for as long as she could keep the creature busy. She had to keep it really busy.

"I survived sex with you once, you monster," Storm muttered, slowly stepping out of the fallen panties. "I can do it again."

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

Logan ran over the snowy landscape, having left the paved road after his bike had slipped on an ice patch to its ruin. Cutting across the woods he could make better time, he knew, not thinking twice about the wrecked motorcycle or what Mariko may say on the state of his newly-bought jeans and jacket.

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

She almost jumped back reflexively as the creature shot an arm out at blinding speed, to grab at the panties she had kicked aside. Holding the flimsy item in its deadly grip with incongruous carefulness, the N'Garai lifted it up before Storm's face.

She felt a sudden flush of warmth in her face, as she saw the drops of moisture falling from the wet fabric of the panties. She had not lost bladder control, but that may have been less disturbing than the obvious alternative. The creature had only touched her down there for a couple of minutes at the most, she thought, distressed.

The N'Garai dangled the drenched panties before her for just a couple of seconds before slowly lifting them up to its demonic face and sniffing loudly. Its tongue then extended to lick at it thoroughly.

She stared with a mixture of horror and fascination at the gesture. At first it seemed almost ridiculous in its association to human fetishism, but soon she felt her body tremble at the sight of the creature tasting her fluids on her underwear with such evident relish. It had become a primal, animalistic action, highlighting the bestial nature of the inhuman being that would soon possess her again.

The N'Garai soon let the panties fall, and moved forwards towards the young woman, crouching so its demonic dark face was level with hers, and its tongue extended again to lap at the skin of her cheek. Storm closed her eyes and tightened her lips, as the raspy wet flesh began to slide first on her soft face, then along the curve of an ear, behind its lobe and down her long neck, before inching down to her bust, which shook despite her rigid self-control. Doing what it had before only hinted at, the tongue circled the shape of each of her round teats repeatedly, then rubbed slowly on the point of each hard nipple and around the edge of each swollen aureole. It was ridiculous for the N'Garai to devote such attention to her breasts, Ororo thought, squirming uneasily. The creature did not even appear to be a mammal.

The N'Garai moved closer, and using its long tail for balance, it crouched lower, moving both clawed hands to Ororo's waist, while the tongue moved down along her torso, tracing the contours of her tensed stomach muscles. Its touch was icy cold, and the long bony fingers almost encircled her slender waist, before sliding past her hips to grab at her taut backside. While the tongue delayed momentarily on her belly button, the creature's inhuman grip managed to encompass the fullness of each round buttock, the tips of the claws reaching dangerously inside the crevice between her large, firm gluteus.

Storm swallowed hard as the powerful hands kneaded insistently on the grabbed flesh of her rear, while the trailing tongue drew abstract patterns with its saliva, leading towards the junction of her spread legs. After giving her gluteus one final vicious squeeze, they slid down along her muscular thighs, until closing around the rounded calves. With barely restrained power, the creature tugged her legs farther apart, spreading her stance wider. All to allow the creature's muzzle better access to her sex, she knew.

The N'Garai's mouth moved to her exposed core, and the sharp fangs brushed against her shaved pubis, as the long tongue moved to explore her sex. Ororo clenched her fists and stiffened as it slid over the outer folds of her sex, rubbing the swollen labia insistently before forcing its way between them, wiping along her private channel until she had to swallow uneasily in reaction. The probing tongue rubbed her hooded clitoris, and proceeded to repeat that action, again and again, making Ororo wince as the delicate nub became more and more sensitive. Relenting before long, the tongue slid all the way back over her vaginal folds, perineum, anus, and up between the quivering globes of her buttocks. Then it withdrew slowly, lingering just momentarily on the contours of the anal sphincter, to slide back again between the labia, and brush the erect clitoris once more, before finally sliding with an abrupt thrust deeply into her sex.