X-Men Origins: The Twin

Chapter 9

As the day went on happily with them joking around and a hearty meal at the evening Tamsin forgot for a moment what worried her. But as soon as she closed the door of her room again and sat down on her bed with only the lamp on her bed stand offering little to no light in the room
she rested her head on her palms feeling the depression hitting her again. 
It would be a long restless night again - her insomnia always got the better hand of her and she was tired of taking sleeping medication. 
She was a mess and it hurt not being able to show others her pain. 
Because it was easier to just pretend everything was fine then to see their smile crumble. 

Tamsin had never been good in expressing her own emotions. In her childhood her father was very strict and empathy was impossible for the born ex-drill instructor.

She let herself fall down on the side, chin still resting on her hands  and legs bended - so she laid there in fetus position - hoping the exhaustion would take over her making her fall asleep before the night ended. 

Tamsin awoke under the clouded night sky dust circling above her. She laid on her back with every inch aching as if she was thrown on the ground multiple times. 
She coughed breathing in the dry air and looked around - as far as she could see in the dark many rocks were lying scattered around her . Had there been so many rocks before? How long was she even lying here in the open?
She heard a gun click not far away and rolled around forgetting her sore body and narrowed her eyes to try and recognize the enemy in the dark. 
She crawled over the floor - where was her weapon? It had to be lying around here. 

Her hands groped around the floor trying to find her stuff. She reached one of the rocks and pulled herself on her knees breathing heavily. As she hid behind the rock still trying to make out the direction of the gun her hands made their way along the rough surface.
Her movements paused and her eyes widened as she touched something crispy covered in hair. Her head slowly moved towards her hands and as they clouds cleared away the moonlight shone onto the wide field. 
Tamsin backed away in a hurry, a panicked cry excaping her lips as the rock revealed itself as a part of a house with a burned body lying on it - a bar piercing through his lower abdomen. 
What the f**k hapened?

She heard footsteps approaching and the rattling of a rifle she got used to. What was she supposed to do know? Her body was weak, she had no weapon and...
It was a do or die situation - so she didn't hesitate as she crawled back to the corpse and searched for something to defend herself with. 
The footsteps came nearer; a light beam wandering over the battle field. 
She found a combat knife in his surprisingly intact shoe and grabbed the handle without faltering and turned around kneeling in defense position looking straight into the light beam. 

The man mumbled something in Korean into a radio and Tamsin heard him remove the safety.
She lunched forward and pushed the knife through his ankle with all the power she had. His leg gave in and he fell backwards firing the gun into the sky. 
She retracted the knife and jumped onto him holding the blade onto his  neck, his face was twisting in pain and he bit his lower lip to not cry aloud.
His muffeled screams made Tamsin hesitate and she sank back onto the ground. 

A shot went off echoing through Tamsin's eardrums as she saw the man's head burst open with blood splattering onto her face and already dirty uniform. 
The murderer stood above the two; retracting the barrel and walking around the busted head to kneel next to Tamsin.
"There is no need to have mercy with those bloody red commies".
Tamsin recognized his voice. "Charles!!" she exclaimed - the relief bringing tears into her eyes. 
"What happened?" She pointed around her to the burnt corpses lying around the ruin of what once seemed to be a house.

"That's what I wanted to ask you... Our hideout was bombed. It was too late for any of us to flee... we all got caught in the explosion". His eyes looked deeply into hers as if to search for an answer. 
Tamsin remembered her comrades trying to flee the scene in horror, the sound of the approaching bomber and the immense heat on her body. 
"We ALL should be dead" he stressed and spread his arms. "But look at us - not even a scratch". 
Tamsin's eyes widened, "How can that..." she paused.

There had been a situation before she miraculously survived. That one time children aimed their guns at her... what was wrong with her?

"Whatever... we should get going for now." He grabbed her arm and pulled her on her feet. "No matter what he said through the radio - he probably didn't come alone". 
Tamsin nodded supportive of his idea and grabbed the dead enemy's gun - just to see a piece of paper in his breast pocket. 
She curiously fetched it and instantly wished she hadn't done it. 
It was a picture with three faces smiling at the camera- one of them was the dead man lying before her whose face was nothing else but a huge bullet hole. 
The other two on the photo was a young woman - probably not much older than Tamsin, wearing some kind of school uniform and a little boy in her arms. 

"What are you doing? Let's get going" Charles urged her to move on and was on the look out for any other hostile Asians.
Tamsin got up, shouldered the rifle and wiped the blood from her new found combat knife. 

"Did anyone else survive?" Tamsin tried to push the thought of having killed a family's father to the back of her mind and concentrate on her own dilemma again.
Charles shook his head. 
"I was checking the perimeters - looking out for any survivors. But as far as any of them could have gone... they are all dead" he said unconsciously reaching for his bullet wound groaning in pain. He shouldn't be moving around so much so it wouldn't open again; but staying here would be their sure death. 
Tamsin supported him placing his arm on her shoulder so he could lean on her everytime he was straining the wounded side.

"We should head back - report on our troops state and getting professional treatment for your wound" Tamsin said but Charles suddenly stood still upon seeing a pair of headlights approaching. 
"That's his back-up" Charles whispered pulling her to a nearby piece of the ruins; stumbling backwards because of his limp.

The car came to a halt not far from them, it's tires raising dust around them. Two black uniformed men exited the car with flashlights in their hands. One of them opened the door to the backseat making way for a man way too well dressed for a war zone. 
"Where is that damn commie?" The man said as soon the door was closed again and the other men showed him the way through the corpses with his flashlights. 

Tamsin was surprised at hearing that man speak English - but his attire showed no sign of any relations to the army stationed here. Instead she saw - as the headlights of the car shone onto the sash around his arm - a red skull with six tentacles coming from it. 
What kind of alliation was that?
She rested herself against the stoned wall and hoped they wouldn't find them. One hand muffling her breathing sounds; the other clasping the handle of her knife...



Tamsin stared against the ceiling with the moonlight throwing the shade of her curtains against it. Her throat was dry and she felt uncomfortable just laying there.
She heard the leaves of the tree outside her window swaying in the wind in irregular patterns - and that bugged her.

She threw the blanket to the side and padded through the dark house downstairs to the kitchen.
Wrapping herself into her dressing gown she aprroached the kitchen door noticing the light already being turned on.
Tamsin peeked past the ajar door and surprisingly saw Charles sitting there, hands folded under his chin - a wine glass in front of him. 
She coughed and opened the door carefully. Charles' eyes were closed as if he was sleeping and Tamsin didn't want to wake him - so she tiptoed to the cupboard and took a random glass to fill it with water.

Sipping the lukewarm water she moved carefully around the older professor and her gaze landed on the opened note-book between his elbows. 
All kinds of notes on the mutations living in this house - how they could be controlled, enhanced and their effects. 
She checked if Charles was really sleeping before she took the notebook and flipped a few pages until she found her name written in longhand. 
He didn't know much more than herself about her mutation - it was just a block, some kind of defense mechanism. 
Seeing how all the other mutants she knew were all able to do some fancy stuff from shapeshifting to controlling metal and minds she thought her own was quite lacking.

Charles shifted in his seat threatening to wake up and Tamsin was about to flip back the pages and lay it back in its original position but another passage caught her eye. It was written rather small and jammed between all the other notes: who is Tamsin Kinross?

She didn't realise she came off as a mystery - but thinking about it, what did they really know about her? She was the sister of Moira, drives a black impala and one day suddenly stormed into Charles' office asking him to erase her memories.

Tamsin laid the book back in front of Charles and emptied her glass in one shot hoping it would be some booze she could drown her thoughts into.
She was no soldier, never really was and wouldn't be one now more than ever. So who was she?