Bhagavadgita, a x-men fanfic

"Bhagavadgita"

All recognizable characters and settings belong to Marvel; I am using them without permission but mean no harm and am making no profit. The plot and original characters, however belong to me. Any and all feedback is appreciated at dexf@sympatico.ca. Redistribution of this tale for profit is illegal. Please do not archive this story without contacting me first to obtain my permission.

Nate Grey was only three days old when the world ended. For any one else, that could have presented a problem. He dragged his hands through his lank hair and looked around at the landscape around him; lush trees, green grass, and warm sunlight. It was a world he never really knew.

"I thought I sensed you."

"You always will find me around this loop in the spiral." Nate Grey said, hovering in a lotus position in front of a tired and stunned looking Nate Grey.

"I'm a little new to all this."

"Tell me."

{{I suppose.}} Nate Grey said, sitting on the grass and digging his fingers into the rich loam. He looked around the field again, letting the sunshine soak through his rubber and metal mesh jumpsuit. He made a strange comparison to the trenchcoated and tattooed twin floating in front of him. {{All of it?}}

"Yeah, I think so." Nate Grey said quietly, and reached into the other Nate's mind. There was a moment of natural psionic resistance before the psi-probe broke through and joined the genetic twins in a manner not unlike their philotic twinned DNA.

Nate Grey opened Nate Grey's mind, and

they

saw

ALL.

***

The vile trickle of the Hudson slopped through New York, it's waterway clogged with industrial wastes, mutated algae and bodies from the most recent cull. The only docks left on it's putrid length were rotted and sagging, no boats left tied up in the toxic water.

The Citadel of Apocalypse loomed like a scar in the city, the great characteristic left there in what was once the greatest city in America. Now, in it's streets of rubble and ghettos of despair and death, no shades remained of the life it once held.

Both Nate's floated high above it, centering on the ruins of the World Trade Center and considering the damage. Off in the horizons, zeppelins burned in the sun, and a last ditch effort by the human race plummeted into the Atlantic.

{{Yes.}} Nate smoothed his long bangs away from his forehead and grimaced. {{Sinister activated me too late, and Forge never really got a chance to do anything with me. So, Apocalypse ripped the guts out of the world during day two of my learning curve.}}

{{And then?}} Nate thought.

{{It was a choice. It was only a matter of time before this Apocalypse figured out the spiral. So, I tore the Earth's core in two, and the explosion cracked the planet's crust like a shell.}}

{{Yeah. I had planned to go with it, but the backlash had other ideas.}}

{{Remember, your subconscious will to survive can crack planets.}}

{{I guess so.}} Grey looked away from the world. {{Can we go back now?}}

{{Sure.}} Grey shifted out of Nate Grey's mind, and they both settled back into the sunny meadow again. Nate Grey looked at his outfit and back at Nate Grey's.

"So, when do I get the new threads. I'm a little overdressed, I think."

"In a bit. Tell me something--" Nate Grey said, brushing a hand over his short cropped hair in a typically nervous gesture. "--when Sinister activated you, what did he say?"

"Um, 'the radiance of a thousand suns... I am become as death, the destroyer of worlds.' That Bhagavadgita quote."

"Right. Tell me something, then. What really happened?"

"What?"

{{You heard me.}} Nate Grey thought, his eye blazing. {{What really happened with your world.}}

{{As in pissed right off, yes. I thought it was a little too pat how close your world was to mine. That and I didn't find out who that quote was from until I came here. So, are we done fucking about yet?}}

Nate Grey's face shadowed, and his eyes gleamed. Finally, he took a deep breath and waved his hand. The scenes of destruction faded away to a world not unlike Nate Grey's adopted one. New York seemed a little cleaner, a little less frantic, but basically identical. Nate Grey looked at the green grass under his feet and back up to Nate Grey, standing in his grey rubber and mesh jumpsuit; a jarring note in the wild.

{{Because I could. Because I liked it. I'm a god, Nate. Just like you. There are an infinite worlds within infinite worlds along the spiral. What does one matter?}}

{{Ever snuffed out a few billion lives, Nate? It's the power of life in your hands, and the wave of split second glorious agony in their minds. It's what real power tastes like.}}

{{Yes. Don't play around here. We're gods; born to rule what we see, and recreate what we dislike. You may call yourself a Shaman, but it's the same damn thing. You have no right to judge me, Nate. We're divine brothers, you and I.}}

{{You might be right. But a shaman protects his tribe, and that's this planet. And if we're brothers, than remember this.}} Nate Grey looked puzzled at the trenchcoated twin. {{I'm older.}}

Grey reached out, and took hold of his three day old brother. He pulled out his full powers, and lashed bonds on the younger man. In terms of power, they were both tremendous, but Nate Grey had the experience of not only his years, but those of the man he'd inherited the title from.

People believe that the power of telekinetics is in moving very big things, like cars and boats and tidal waves. However, the real strength is in moving very small things, like atoms. Nate Grey reached into the core of his twin, and almost casually flicked a bundle of energy. Electrons, protons and neutrons explored outwards, and smashed other atoms as they went, which in turn smashed more, releasing energies a thousand times greater than the sun.

Nate Grey held the energy to a small sphere, in which Nate Grey burned as a final, fatal star, and then was consumed into nothing. Nate sat down on the green grass and relaxed his telekinetic holds, throwing the last of the energy and radiation into the vacuum of space.

He touched the leaf on a dandelion which was peeking up from the ground, and felt the energy of the field around him, in his very bones. He felt the soft simple pleasures of the animals in the surrounding woods and the people in the nearby towns. He felt the pulse of the world in his mind.

And not once did he feel regret.

FIN