madimpossibledreamer

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Marvel Crossover AU (Self-Made Hero: The Infinity Mirror)
Summary: Giles finds the second of his recruits.
Word Count: 565
Rating: Gen

          Oz doesn’t realize there’s anything wrong with his world. Why would he? He doesn’t have anything to compare it to.
          Fiction, the news, the internet, the government controls it all. If all copies of a book 1984 hadn’t been burned, he would’ve seen that this future had, at least partly, been predicted. But without the knowledge, he didn’t have anything to show what a normal life should be like.
          He’d wondered, once, what awful thing he’d done in a former life to be born in this one as a mutant. He had to have been a serial killer, or something. Like every child, he had seen what out of control mutants did. Ones that didn’t follow the rules endangered the lives of everyone, so of course they had to be controlled. They’d all watched the tapes. Of the damage they’ve done. Of terrified men, women, children huddled up, begging for mercy from uncaring mutants. He didn’t feel particularly like a serial killer. In fact, he was often more quiet and kind than his human classmates, but if he didn’t watch his natural instincts it was only a matter of time. Maybe he’d worked out most of his aggression in his past life, but still had to be punished for it in this one.
          He kept his head down, followed every instruction. Until one fateful day.
          He sees the girl phase into existence. Sees the lack of the mutant tattoo marking them as being registered with the government under the Mutant Registration Act before the shouting policemen do.
          They’re pointing guns at a terrified little girl. Guns. They’re screaming at her, about to shoot her. And something just snaps.
          He’s never wolfed out in anger before. Always under order, always obedient. He’s not obedient now, as he changes and grabs the kid and runs.
          He’s never told whether he killed the policemen. The newspapers say so, but the girl—Marcie Ross, as she introduces herself—says that the newspapers don’t always tell the truth. It’s a foreign concept for him, but she finally manages to convince him that people lie. He still doesn’t fully understand the reasoning behind it, but then, according to her, he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to attempt to lie—ever—because he can just be silent instead.
          She explains that her parents were killed before they could register her. That because of the rules, she couldn’t register herself. An adult had to do that. That there were plenty of other orphans like her who faced firing squads just because their parents had died as peaceful protestors or pamphlet-writers or even for listening to the wrong music.
          There’s a near call, but then he hears a voice in his head, and sees a red-head with a shy smile, and they’re led to what turns out to be a safe haven hidden in the world. The leader, a Miss Grey, is apparently not all there, but she seems coherent enough as she banishes the red-head and another, an older man. They’re not mutants, despite the fact that they can twist the world and hide two fugitives with one gesture of their hands.
          Marcie will be safe, and he has the feeling these two might need him, and Miss Grey isn’t happy about him leading others here in the first place. So he offers to go with the two, and they say yes.

The Wolf