The Wanting Comes in Waves

When she first saw them she had no idea what to think. Who were these people and why had they backed her into an alley? Whatever the reason, it was her job to make them regret it. She raised her arms slowing as her body lifted off the ground. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, the transformation was complete. Her once ocean blue hues were gone, black expansed from her pupil, covering her iris and leaking its way across her sclera. She smirked; they were her's now.

She opened her mouth to speak, a primal undertone radiated from her voice box. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"Eris, we want to help you! Please listen to reason while you still can."

Now this, this made her laugh. "You think you can stop me?" she rumbled, "A little man in a wheelchair? Don't insult me."

A caveman in yellow spandex stepped frowning and crouched, obviously in defense of the little man. "If anyone can stop ya, girlie, it's Xavier. And if he won't, I will!"

Her neck swung quickly and she zipped down to hover in front of the wooly man's face. A venomous smirk spread across the girl's full lips. "Oh really? You think you and your protruding butter knives can stop me? Foolish people! You cannot hurt what you cannot see!"

As she said this, complete darkness spread across the alley. They could no longer see me. She seized the opportunity and sent blasts of darkness to all of them, knocking them down and winding them.

"I dunno about y' gens, but Gambit tired of dis fille!"

Suddenly a small rectangle of red light hit her straight in the chest; it sent her reeling and she coughed, blood condensed in the corner of her mouth from where she bit her lip on impact. She surged forward through the air and located the source of the blast. She tackled the man, and looked at his face through the blackness. Red orbs stared back at her.

"May Gambit help y', mon chère?" She could see his smirk and it enraged her.

"Who do you think you are?" she bellowed. Tendrils of darkness emerged from her aura and she tangled them around his neck. "Such insolence deserves a punishment!"

"Such big words for such a' le'enfant."

She howled as arms circled around her waist from behind. She lurched and protested against the arms, but they were like steel. They were steel.

"That's it, Piotr, hold on to her!" an encouraging voice yelled from the other side of the alley.

"I have her," a deep Russian tone sounded back. "But she's fighting hard!"

She thrashed and grunted as she lifted and propelled various items at him. Empty beer bottles collided and shattered against his head and back. Scraps of metal banged and bent around his legs. Nothing she sent toward him affected him, so she unwrapped the darkness from Red Eye's throat and circled them around him instead. She willed it to squeeze more and more around his windpipe but it didn't move, his shiny exterior would not yield under the tendrils.

"Eris!" the weak man again called to her, but this time his voice reverberated through her cerebral.

"My name is not Eris!" she screeched in humiliating fury as tears of anger poured from her eyes. "Don't call me that awful name!"

Please, Eris. Please let me help you. And then everything went black, but it wasn't her doing. Her visioned blurred and she lost consciousness.



"Mon dieu, Professor. What was dat?"

"That, Gambit, was Eris Everly. And that was an example of her awesome power."

"But, like, what is her power?" asked Kitty nervously. She was present at the confrontation and the darkness had shook her to the core.

He glanced at all of his X-Men. They were seated in the living room of the mansion, scattered on various pieces of furniture.

"Her powers are still a bit of mystery to me, but from what my source told me and from what we witnessed, I gather that she can manipulate darkness and make it a tangible thing. She's also an advanced telekinetic."

Remy sighed. "So dat was what was around my neck? Darkness?"

Xavier nodded.



She woke up and blinked once before vaulting upwards. When the pain seared across her head she placed the heels of her palms to her face and kneaded her eyes. What had happened to her? Why did she feel completely depleted?

"Ah!" a deep yet welcoming voice greeted her. "Our visitor is awake. How are you feeling?"

She shot daggers at him and snarled. "Where am I? What have you done to me?"

He smiled back at her. "You're in the infirmary of the X-Mansion, home to Professor Charles Xavier and the X-Men. As for what was done to you; nothing. You fainted when Charles connected with you telepathically."

She eyed him incredulously. "What are the X-Men?"

"We are a team of mutants dedicated to the cause of peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants."

She chuckled. "Of course. Look, I feel fine now. Can I leave?"

"So soon? I'm afraid not, Miss Everly. Professor Xavier wanted to speak with you when you woke up and you still have not fully recuperated."

Grimacing at the sound of her former surname, she shot back at him, "You can't keep me here against my will!"

"That was not our intention. Let me retrieve the Professor." With that, the blue man turned on his heel and headed toward the door.



Remy was curious.

He hadn't been interested in anything, nothing in six months had piqued his interest since she left. Her absence had left a void in him. When women he courted used to explain to him the vast opening they would feel in their chest after he left, he never believed them. He knew that heartache was a term coined to describe being slighted by a lover, but he didn't believe that heartache was an actual feeling, an actual ailment. Now he knew better. He'd wake up every morning and go to sleep every night with the same gaping expanse in his chest. It halfway shocked him that it wasn't visible to the human eye, that anyone who looked at him didn't witness the empty room where his heart used to beat. Necessity woke him up every morning now.

But now he was curious.

He ran into Beast as he rounded the corner to the sickroom. "Beastie, mon ami. How is our little visitor?"

He sighed. "Very fiery. She just woke up and is already trying to leave. I'm going to retrieve the Professor before she jumps ship."

Gambit smirked and patted Beast on the shoulder. "How 'bout Gambit pay her a little visit? Maybe he can convince her to stay a little while, non?"

Hank chuckled. "You powers of persuasion are exquisite, my friend, but I think you may have trouble with this one."

"We shall see." He winked at Beast before he entered the room.



Her eyes bolted to the door as soon as it clicked close. "You another doctor?"

Remy chuckled. "Non, petit. Gambit no doctor, he just come to pay you a visit."

She eyed him suspiciously. "Why?"

He crossed the room and seated himself on the bed beside her. "To be honest, petit, Gambit was real curious 'bout your powers. They interesting, non?"

She shifted in the bed and continued to eye him, wariness spread across her face. She didn't think that the X-Men would hurt her; she'd heard of them from her various connections and the motley crew seemed to exhaust the patience of many, yet their do-gooded reputation put a bad taste in her mouth. She in no way felt comfortable here. Plus, this man unnerved her. He seemed so casual given that less than twelve hours ago she had him by the throat, literally. She decided to stay collected.

"They come in use the from time to time. What about you, weren't you the one who shocked me?"

He smirked at me. "Dat be me. Sorry about that, by the way, petit."

She shook her head. "You certainly are a weird bunch. I attack most of you and you still act cheery with me." She paused and focused her attention on his face. "Hold on! Red eyes!"

Gambit pointed at his eyes and tilted his head to the side. "I assume y' talkin 'bout me, petit?"

"You're Gambit!"

His eyes narrowed in confusion. "How you know me?"

This time, she was the one smirking. "I must say, your reputation proceeds you. You used to be the best thief there was."

Gambit frowned. "What's dis 'used to be'?"

She tilted her head back with a chuckle. "I'm sorry to say, but you've been replaced."

Gambit couldn't help but betray his curiosity. Used to be best thief there was? That meant someone had already overstepped his reputation, and he'd only been out of the business a couple of years. "Replaced by who?"

"Me," she replied simply, her icy blues shining. "It's easy to sneak in and out of places when you create a shade only you can see through. I said my powers came in use, remember?"



"Professor!" Scott called as he ran down the hallway to meet the man before he descended to the infirmary. "Professor, I need to speak with you!"

The older man spun his wheelchair around and smiled up at Scott. "Yes, Cyclops?"

"I wanted to speak with you about Eris, before, y'know, you invite her to join our team."

"Proceed, then."

He sighed and met Xavier's eyes; a steady calmness radiated from his gaze from years of leading his team. "I don't know if we can trust her, Professor. She seemed hellbent on hurting one of us last night."

"Scott, you cannot hold that against her. We all react differently when frightened. If I remember correctly, we had the same conversation about Gambit, and he's seemed to assimilate just fine."

Scott scowled. "Well it wasn't all flowers and sunshine, Professor. We don't have Rogue anymore because of him."

"Now Scott," the Professor's voice hardened, "Rogue had many reasons for leaving that none of us know about, we cannot simply blame Gambit for her departure because of their past."

Scott snorted, "Yeah, but it sure is convenient."

The Professor gave his student a patient smile and a reassuring pat on the forearm as he wheeled around and pressed the southward facing arrow on the elevator's interface. "I know you're just being cautious, Scott, but let's take things slow. We know nothing about Miss Everly yet."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Scott grumbled as he turned on his heel and headed down the hallway.



Knock knock. The voice reverberated in her head, and she glanced around the room to find the source of the voice. When seeing no one, she glanced and Gambit, confusion written across her face. "Did you hear that?"

The pair had been talking about thievery, their only mutual interest, for the last half hour. It calmed Remy more than he thought it would to talk about a part of his life that none of the other X-Men understood or condoned.

"Hear what, chère?"

At his answer, the girl looked even more confused. Her azul eyes focused and her brow was knitted together in concentration, she seemed to be straining to hear something. Gambit caught on quick.

"Professor, why don you come on in instead a' confusing our little visitor?" he called over his shoulder to the door, then turned and winked at her, giving the femme a smirk.

The titanium door zipped open and Xavier wheeled himself into the room. He smiled up at the visitor. "Miss Everly, how are we this morning? I see you've already made a new friend."

The girl grimaced and her fists clenched at the sound of her last name. Remy noticed this, then glanced at her eyes. Black tendrils, like the ones that were around his throat but on a smaller scale, zipped and whirled around and across her eyes.

"Look, first things first, if you insist on keeping me here for conversation, you're going to have to call me by my name."

The Professor looked at her curiously. "Your birth certificate says Eris Margaret Everly, if I'm not mistaken?"

Her gaze was like stone. "That may be, but it's not my name. My name is Nyx, and it's what I would prefer you call me."

He nodded. "Very well, Nyx. As I'm sure Mr. McCoy told you, I've been looking forward very much to meeting you."

Her eyes betrayed her disbelief. "Why?"

Remy glanced from the Professor, to her, then back again. From just their short conversation, he could tell that Xavier would have a hard time convincing this one to stay. He shifted in his seat, ready to leave when the Professor's voice permeated his mind. Stay here, Gambit. You're making her feel more comfortable then I am. This made Gambit uneasy, and he was tempted to leave despite Xavier's plea. He was not the person to find comfort in.

"Your gifts are extraordinary, Nyx. We can use someone like you on a team. Don't you want some place to belong?"

Her eyes turned black in a second and her voice rumbled, raven hair swirling around her pallid face. "Stay out of my mind, old man." The cover lifted off her and she rose from the bed. "Just give me my clothes and I'll be on my way."

Xavier turned to a closet on the adjacent wall and the door opened slowly, then the girl's black mini-dress, leather jacket, and boots levitated through the air and rested on the foot of the bed. She picked her clothes quickly and headed toward the bathroom. During this, her eyes phased back to their normal blue hue and her raven locks fell from the air and down her back. Hand on the knob, she turned to Gambit and smirked. "You mind giving me a lift back to town?"

Remy shook his head. "I'd be delighted, chère."

With that she walked into the bathroom, leaving Xavier and Gambit staring at one another in silence.



"Remy!" Kitty's voice echoed down the hallway as she sprinted to meet him at the door. "Where ya going?"

"Taking our visitor back to town, petit. Why?"

"Do you think you could drop me off at the drug store? I left my toothbrush in a wall again," she said sheepishly.

Nyx quietly joined the two and Kitty glanced at her, apprehension spreading across her face. "On second thought, I'll just ask Peter to take me."

Nyx smirked ruefully and gave Kitty a once-over. "You scared of little ol' me, kitten?" Her eyes quickly faded to black and she winked at the girl. Kitty said nothing, instead giving her a sour look and phasing through the floor.

Remy grimaced at her. "Dat wasn't very nice, chère."

She gave him a look of mock confusion. "Was it not? Whoops! Let's get going."



"You know, you don't have to walk to me the door. Really," Nyx reminded Remy for the fifth time as they climbed the staircase to her seventh floor apartment.

"I know dat, chère. Mais I'd feel guilty if you got mugged in the stairwell."

Nyx rolled her eyes at him. "Please, I'd give hell to anyone who tried that."

Remy chuckled. "You sure are feisty for a le'enfant."

She abruptly turned and her heels and stabbed a finger into his chest. "Quit calling me that!" she warned him, though the threat lost its effect when she noticed that, despite her being a step higher than him, he still had inches on her in height. She huffed and started back up the stairs. "We're close to my-- What the fuck?!" she yelled as she sprinted up the last dozen steps and stopped in front of her apartment.

The door was hanging off its hinges and the frame was splintered. She placed her hand over her mouth in disbelief as she stepped through the threshold and surveyed the wreckage. Furniture was turned over, in the kitchen the cabinets where ripped open and the contents was strewn all over the floor. She made her way back to her bedroom to find her mattress overturned and the closet thrown open, her clothes scattered across the floor. A blouse even hung from a fan blade on the ceiling.

Remy followed her back and stood behind her hesitantly. "Who did you piss off, chère?"

Nyx shook her head slowly." I--I have no idea. I don't owe anybody any money, I've never botched a job... Why would someone do this?" she asked in a small voice as her thin arms wrapped around herself.

Remy looked at her pitiful form and felt a twinge of empathy. "Y' t'ink it's time to ret'ink Xavier's offer, non?"