The Perfect Soldier

Aaron's POV

Imagine having the wind knocked out of you. Again and again, because it amuses people. You can't breathe, your heart is giving out, and then they drive a stake through your gut. Not your heart, you'd die too quickly. If it's in your gut then you'd bleed to death, slowly and painfully.

That's me right now. Except I didn't get stabbed, I got shot. But that's not the pain I'm talking about.

The only thing that is keeping me from falling to the floor are my handcuffs. Gravity is pushing my shoulders forward, making my knees want to give out, but I can't fall. I want to be next to Jade, but I don't have the strength to move anymore.

I hang my head, or gravity hangs my head. If that's what's happening then gravity and I are on the same page.

Please don't be dead Jade. You can't be dead. You're... Jade.

Tears run down my cheeks, leaving streak marks in the blood stains on my face. Some of them don't even touch my cheeks and go straight to the floor.

I look back up at her with blurry vision. I blink the tears away so that I can see her face clearly. Her eyes are closed, water is still dripping from her hair to the ground. Tiny droplets of water are clinging to her eyelashes.

Then they open. Just like that. No hesitant eye fluttering, no confusion on what her whereabouts are. They open wide in under a second, and they're burning green.

She rises wearily to her feet, as if she doesn't have full control of her limbs just yet. Her hands find her brother's swords which were laying right by her, and she grips them tightly as she stands up straight.

Stryker freezes in his place, his head slowly turning towards Jade. His eyes widen from his realization: She's still alive.

An evil smirk dances across Jade's lips as she makes eye contact with Stryker, ignoring me completely. She tilts her head to the side and yanks her arms apart, breaking the handcuffs.

Stryker's eyes widen even further as he starts to step backwards. Realization number two: Titanium doesn't work on Jade. Well, angry Jade.

Lots of things don't work on angry Jade, like talking.

"Jade, listen, I can explain-"

Zing!

Stryker's jaw drops in horror as the orderly who had been standing by the chair drops to the floor with one half of the titanium handcuffs sticking out of his forehead.

I flinch and my eyes dart around the room. She's going to kill all of them.

She walks with strength in every step, showing us how she's recovered. She drags the swords so that the tips of the blades are scratching against the glass shards on the ground.

One of the men behind Stryker panics and fires his gun at her, but with the simple flick of a wrist, Jade uses a sword to repel the bullet back at the man who shot at her.

In response, every guard in the room opens fire. A storm of bullets rains down on Jade, but her arms fly in every direction, blocking every bullet, and killing every man. One bullet gets close to her face, but she bends backwards in order to avoid getting hit.

Soon Stryker is standing alone. His arm rises slowly, it's shaking so hard he can't hold it straight out, and points his revolver at Jade.

She stands in front of him, her lips smirking but her eyes giving him her crazed death glare.

Jade doesn't hesitate. With one swipe of a blade, she severs Stryker's armed hand from the rest of his body. Blood squirts from his wrist and he screams, his other hand gripping his blood covered limb.

Jade lowers her arms and takes a step backwards, she's swaying slowly in place. "All you have to do is scream."

Stryker drops to his knees and attempts to wrap a cloth around his bleeding stump, but Jade kicks him across the face. He sprawls onto his back and I watch as she gets on him.

She punches him in the face, using both fists in order to hit both sides of his face. Right. Left. Right. Left.

His head hits the ground and bounces back just in time to get hit again.

If she keeps going at this rate, she's going to beat his skull in.

"Jade! Jade stop!" My yelling only makes her speed up, gasps of frustration escaping her mouth.

"You. Don't. Get. To. Hurt. People." Jade keeps hitting him, her knuckles are starting to bleed. "And. Get. Away. With. It." There's emotion behind her punches, but it's not anger. When Jade is angry, that's all she is, angry. It doesn't make sense.

Stryker's face is deformed, his eyelids are purple and covering his eyes. Every part of his face is turning black and blue or bleeding. If he gets even a moment to breathe, all he can do is cough up blood.

"JADE YOU'RE KILLING HIM!" I can't let her do that. If she calms down and realizes that she killed him she'll be scared. Or at least I hope she would be. She promised she wouldn't kill again, so far that's not working out.

Her head whips towards me and I flinch. Her eyes... The blood... It's splattered across her face and she doesn't even care.

But she does, otherwise she wouldn't have said what she said earlier. "Jade." I speak clearly, holding the eye contact desperately. "Please."

She stands to her feet and takes a step over Stryker, who is trying to breathe through his mouth but he keeps coughing up blood. Jade walks slowly over to me, her angered persona is a very calm walker. When she gets to me, her arms reach around behind me to break the handcuffs. My arms fall limply to my sides after being freed, and I slump forward, right onto angry Jade. I try hold myself up, but I sway in place.

After breaking the cuffs, Jade kneels down in front of me. Her glowing eyes focus in on my face, and then they fade. "Aaron?" Jade's face is overlapped by a concerned expression. Just then, I fall on her. My forehead rests on her shoulder as my body starts to fall forward. "Aaron!" Jade pushes my back against the wall and gently pulls my legs out from underneath me so that the blood flow can reach my feet again. "Aaron, look at me." Jade gets real close to my face and starts waving a hand in front of my eyes. "How-How many-fingers-" I can see her lips move but the sound keeps breaking up. I see three different Jades, and they're all a different color.

Then I see nothing.

Acacia's POV

I try to pull the doors apart, but I have to wait for them to open automatically. They slide apart and I sprint towards Jade, who is lifting an unconscious Aaron to his feet. "Aaron!" I run towards them and slide, almost losing my balance due to the water covered floor.

"He's lost a lot of blood." Jade states strongly as she throws one of his limp arms over her shoulder. "We have to get him out of here."

"There's a whole back hall of mutants... Jade-"

"We can't leave them." She finishes my sentence and I pause with my mouth open. Jade doesn't strike me as the Good Samaritan type... Especially when Aaron is in a state such as this.

She reaches down and picks up one of the samurai swords and nudges Aaron over to me. "Take him." I didn't realize she was expecting me to hold him, so I reacted late. Aaron falls limply to the ground and I cringe when I hear the smack.

Jade turns around from facing the door and points her sword at Aaron. "Pick him up." With that, she runs through the sliding doors, which for some reason open in perfect time for her. I lay down next to Aaron and roll him onto his side. The moment my hands come into contact with this shirt, they become drenched in blood.

"Oh no..." We need to get him out of here now.

A glint catches my eyes and I see a ring of keys attached to a guard's belt. I crawl over to his body and tug on it, but when it won't detach, I just undo his belt from his pants. "Please be dead... Please be dead..."

I glance over to Aaron, then to Stryker. He's laying on his back, barely breathing. Aaron will be okay if he's alone for a few minutes... I just have to hurry. "Jade!" I pick up my feet and run through the sliding doors. Jade is cutting through the metal bars on Lauren's cage, and when she sees me she doesn't look happy.

"I told you to stay with Aaron!" I freeze and remember the keys. "You left him alone with Stryker!"

"Well it's not like he's much of a threat!" I pause to catch my breath. "I mean, Jade, you cut off his fucking hand!" She stops sawing and drops her shoulders.

"We have to hurry."

"B-but I found-" Her eyes narrow in on my hands and she sighs.

"We have to hurry now." She takes a step back from Lauren's cage and nods over to the lock. I nod I'm response and fumble with the keys in order to open it. Jade stands in the middle of the hallway and faces the ongoing rows of cages. "Everyone STAND BACK!" She holds up the sword and swings it like a baseball bat, hitting the lock on the next cage dead on.

She repeats this motion, back and forth, switching from the left side of the hall to the right. Her back muscles contract as she swings nonstop, hurrying in order to get to Aaron. People stream from their cages; they stand dumbfounded in the hallway, like they're not sure what do to.

Jade, who had reached the end of the hall, turns around to see twenty people blocking her way. "What are you all doing? GET THE FUCK OUT!" Instantly, they flood through the door, pushing me back into the arena area. Jade walks steadily through the doors and sees Aaron laying alone in a puddle. "Jesus Christ." I walk over to her and stand there, watching as she prepares to lift him.

The sound of scattering glass comes from the area near the glass cage, like someone is struggling to stand to their feet. I tear my eyes away from Aaron towards the sound. "Jade! Lookout!"

Stryker dives on top of Jade and drags a piece of glass across the side of Jade's neck with his good hand. Luckily, Jade had turned her body slightly, so the glass didn't cut her jugular, or any other significant blood path.

Jade slams her head backwards and quickly maneuvers herself around Stryker. She rolls his and her body away from Aaron and lands kneeling with Stryker in a headlock. "You. You made my brother a monster, and you wanted to do the same to me." Her lips are right next to his ear. She keeps readjusting her arms and clawing at his shoulders like she's trying to get even closer to him. The space between them is anything but personal. "But you're such an ignorant piece of shit, you know that. You weren't able to realize one thing." She laughs harshly, the blood from her neck running down onto Stryker's skin. "The one thing that could've saved your pathetic life." Her grip around his neck tightens and for the first time in his life, Stryker realizes he's not going to get away. "You can't create something that already exists." Jade's hands move to his forehead and chin, and she pulls them apart, snapping his neck... Just like that.

Stryker is dead.

Just like that.

Jade let's his body fall limply to the ground, but his head lands so that his dead eyes are staring at me. It's not that I'll miss him, quite the opposite actually, but death has always mystified me. The idea that one minute someone is here, talking or eating or breathing, and in the next minute they're simply a body... It's intriguing.

Jade stands to her feet and falters backwards unsteadily, her arms swinging uncontrollably at her sides. The muscles in her arms suddenly tense as her hands ball up into fists. My eyes travel up her body and I watch as pure frustration takes over her face. Her head is craned upwards at the glass ceiling, her jaw drops as she struggles to steady her breathing. A scream works it's way up her throat, causing the veins in her neck and temples to bulge. I flinch as her scream echoes throughout the arena.

Blood runs down her arms and legs, forming spiderweb-like patterns on her skin. Her breathing is sharp and jagged, like the glass shards still stuck in her wet, tangled hair. Jade is weak right now, she's broken and bloody but somehow if anyone mentioned it I have a feeling that she would be able to prove them wrong. I haven't known her for that long, but she's that type of person. That I know.

Jade looks straight ahead at Aaron and I, her dead eyes locked on me. I think. I hope not. Her entire torso is moving up and down due to her heavy breathing. "Jade..." I find the courage to speak up. "We should g-" Her attention turns away from me and over to Stryker's table of tools.

"Do you hear that." I clamp my mouth shut and listen hard, but I hear nothing.

"Uh." Jade walks quickly over to the table and bends down to see the underside.

"Great. A panic button."

"A what?" She stands up and walks over to me with the same speed. Our eyes meet evenly as she bends down to pick up Aaron.

"We gotta go." I nod and stand up, that's when I hear the quiet beeping. I back away from Aaron as Jade lifts him and adjusts his head by tossing him upwards slightly so that his head is resting against her shoulder.

The automatic doors slide open and Lauren and Terry run in. They both freeze when they see the mess that Jade has created. Jade starts to walk towards them, with Aaron still in her arms, and tells them what is going on. "So basically, if you don't want to be blown to pieces I suggest you leave."

"But where will we go?" Lauren asks as she grasps onto Terry's arm. Jade rolls her eyes and kicks one of the exiting doors down.

"We are not doing this right now. This place is literally about to explode in about three minutes so shut up and move your asses away from this general location. Okay?" Lauren and Terry nod at the same time and start to follow Jade, when Lauren pauses. She shakes Terry's arm frantically.

"Adrian!" Terry's eyes widen and he starts to turn around before Jade notices.

"What are you doing?" Lauren turns to Jade with a terrified expression.

"My sister! Stryker locked her up on the opposite side of the building! I can't leave her!" A large breath escapes from Jade's lungs as her shoulders fall.

"Acacia, take Aaron." She holds him out towards me. I can see her arms shaking. "You, help her." She orders Terry. "And you, come with me." Lauren nods and starts to follow Jade towards the opposite side of the arena.

"Wait! The samples!" She runs back to the lab table and takes the testing tubes before shoving them in her pocket and following Jade.

I drape one of Aaron's arms over my shoulder as Terry does the same. Aaron is significantly taller than both of us, so his feet are dragging across the concrete floor.

I'm immediately blinded by the sun once we exit the building. I haven't been outside in weeks. From the looks of the runways and abandoned staircase machine, I gather that we've been held in an abandoned airport, one that was probably used only for shipping mail. I never got a good look when they first brought me here, mostly because I was unconscious.

Even at this distance from the building, I can still hear the beeping sound. It keeps getting louder and louder as the timer gets closer and closer to running out. Jade still isn't back. Terry is getting impatient.

"I'm going in there." I hold out my arm protectively in front of his chest.

"No. You can't."

"Why not."

"Because if the explosion doesn't kill you, Jade will." I say with pure seriousness in my voice. I just watched Jade kill a man. Granted, he was a very bad man, but not just any person has the capability of taking another person's life.

Terry nods grimly and backs down, but then his eyes widen at the building. "Adrian!" I turn around to see Jade carrying Lauren in her arms... No wait, Lauren is walking next to her. But they're they same person? I mentally facepalm when I realize the obvious fact: They're twins. Adrian is wearing ripped jeans and a torn crop top, but something tells me neither of those were bought that way.

Terry takes Adrian from Jade's arms and checks on Lauren to see if she's okay. "I'm fine Terry, let's go." Jade immediately approaches me and picks Aaron back up bridal style.

"We need to get at least one hundred yards from the warehouse," She says, looking back towards the source of the beeping sound. I nod and gesture for Lauren and Terry to follow me as I head into a run. Converse shoes were not made for running, I can feel the blisters forming on my toes. Jade walks quickly behind us. She's trying to be as careful as possible with Aaron in his fragile state.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

It keeps getting louder, and there's no way that everything that has just happened occurred in under three minutes.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

First comes the booming sound, then the wave of extreme heat. The temperature that the air surrounding us has become burns my eyes and I cover them with my hands. Through my fingers, I can see Jade holding her ground and shielding Aaron from the heat. Her face contorts with pain as her back is the closest thing to the explosion, therefore receiving the hottest burst of air.

"Jade!" I scream for her to hurry up, but even I can't hear my own voice, and it isn't because of the intense burning sounds coming from the building.

The hot air around me is replaced by a cool wind that seems to be pushing downwards and out. My eyes turn towards the sky and I see a large black jet hovering above us. It lands about three yards from me and the ramp lowers. Out runs a blonde, asian girl who is wielding a white reflective pistol in her hands. She runs with it at her side, like she knows how to handle it. "Jade!"  She immediately runs to Jade and hurries her closer to the jet while a blue haired girl approaches Terry, Lauren, and Adrian. "Jade, let me help you." The asian girl begins to take Aaron from Jade's arms when Jade jerks away but keeps moving forward.

"I have him."

"Jade... You're seriously injured." The girl's face is full of worry, so she tries again.

Again, Jade rejects the assistance.

"I. Have. Him." Her face isn't blank like before. She's stuck in protective mode, and something tells me she isn't going to let Aaron out of her sight, let alone grasp.

A sudden soft warmth covers my shoulders and I look to the side to see that a grey blanket has been draped over my shoulders. A large, buff man stands behind me with his arms hanging by his sides. His light brown eyes are glued to me as he tries to give me a reassuring smile, but he fails miserably. "Come on, you're coming with us." His voice is scruffy, just like his little beard. I nod slowly and follow him onto the jet. I'm too tired to make a witty comeback or to question his kindness.

I must have passed out on the jet because when I wake up I'm laying in a hospital bed with an IV hooked to my arm. A dark skinned lady with white hair is attending to the cuts and bruises that I have attained over the weeks. "Hello Acacia, my name is Storm." Her hands are soft and gentle, it's a nice change from the needles and callous hands that belonged to Stryker. Before I have the chance to thank her, the doors to the room slide open and Jade rushes through with Aaron still in her arms. She lays him on the bed two over from where I lay and orders Storm to help him. "Jade you're severely injured." Storm reaches for Jade's arm but she pulls away.

"Aaron first."

"Jade-"

"Aaron first." Jade sits back in a chair and runs her fingers nervously through her knotted hair. Her green eyes are glued to Aaron's body as Storm begins to work on his wounds. I try to watch but my vision gets blurry and soon I'm asleep.

"Hello Acacia Hunter, my name is Charles Xavier." I look up to see a bald man in a wheel chair wheeling himself around his desk. "And I have gathered you three here to talk." I look over to the side. Lauren and Terry are sitting in similar seats. The weird part is their skin color. Lauren is radiating a periwinkle color and Terry is a deep blue shade. I observe my own hands to see that I'm orange.

"Oh God, I'm Snooki." Charles chuckles and stops his wheel chair in front of me.

"You are all inside of your own heads, it is the safest and easiest way to talk to the three of you at the moment." I nod in understanding. "Now Acacia, you're going to tell me what you saw in that warehouse." I stare into his light eyes and immediately everything spills out. I tell him about the white room and Aaron's weak state. I tell him about Aaron's screams and how Jade fucking lost it and killed Stryker. Charles' expression turns an ashen color when I mention Stryker's death.

"She finally cracked." He seems to be contemplating his thoughts privately.

"No offense sir, but I think she's killed before."

"Oh she most certainly has, my dear." Charles starts to wheel himself towards Lauren. "That much we know." Lauren tells him about how Jade saved her sister, Terry talks about how she let every mutant Stryker had ever caught go. This all takes him by surprise.

"She did all those things, even though Aaron was in such a grave state?" We all nod our heads. "Interesting..."

"Excuse me sir, what is interesting?" Charles looks over to me.

"Jade possesses certain traits that would make a good leader, and before now, I had only thought she used those traits for the boy." The boy being Aaron obviously. "Now I learn that she disposed of the threat, and saved countless of lives. Not to mention the fact that she's refusing medical treatment until all four of you have been attended to first." Charles takes one look at our confused faces and smiles. "You see, I have decided to make a new group of talented mutants, such as yourselves, and Jade is going to be the leader. Aaron too, when he is healed, which he will do." He uses a confirming tone when he says these words. He can probably sense my feelings towards Aaron. "And you three will also be a part of this team." He smiles again and wheels himself around his desk where he sits calmly and folds his hands. "Welcome to the X-men."