Dismal Angel 2010 - Episode 17
Chapter 1: Signs of Madness
Kitty Pryde awoke from a peaceful slumber startled, she was unsure what she'd heard that had woken her up so abruptly, so she lay in the darkness, with her eyes open, gazing into the endless blackness of her comfortable room.
No sound, nothing. Maybe I imagined it, she wondered, she rolled over to glance at the digital clock on the bedside cabinet. It's red letters flashing 4am. She rubbed her head, she realised she had two more hours to sleep before getting up to get ready and prepare a maths lesson for the new students. Wakening up in the middle of the night for seemingly no reason was not the kind of situation she needed when she would be dealing with twelve new students in four hours.
She'd almost been ready to close her eyes and go back to sleep when she heard a smash, glass upon paving stones cement. It was more than just the sound of glass dropping, it had sounded so loud and so forceful it almost seemed as if the glass might have been thrown.
Kitty got up with a gasp and rushed towards the window, throwing the drapes open and gazing out into the night.
She was surprised to see Remy LeBeau out there, he was on his knees on the basketball court, and Kitty could see the broken shimmer of glass all around him. Sighing, she grabbed her robe and slipped out of the room via the window, using her air-walking methods to get down to where Remy was without falling.
Remy LeBeau's head was hanging incredibly low, and it sounded almost as if he were sobbing. Not the first time, she realised. Remy hadn't been the type of man to cry once upon a time, but now tears had been occasional, and she felt that was far too much for a man like Remy.
She made her way across the field towards the basketball court, several feet away from the mansion itself. "Remy…it's 4am…" Kitty yawned, as she walked over, carefully stepping around the broken glass to reach him.
"Go away," he sobbed, his shoulders trembling.
The floodlight from the basketball court lit them both up, Kitty could see blood on his hands, he'd cut himself, by the looks of it, on a broken bottle. She could smell whiskey in the air, she could see the ground was wet, that was what had been broken.
"What's wrong…?" Kitty asked, she touched his shoulder tenderly.
He pulled away, spinning around, his eyes glowing bright red. "I said go away!" he yelled at her.
"Don't talk to me like that," Kitty said calmly, "have you been drinking again?"
It was a Monday morning at 4am, almost three weeks since Remy had returned to the mansion, Kitty had noticed him seemingly tipsy most nights. On a Friday two weeks ago, during a double date, he'd drank like a fish, and this worried Kitty quite a bit. She'd never known Remy to be a heavy drinker in the past.
He ignored her, he was looking away to the distance, as if he saw something that wasn't there, "GO AWAY!!" he yelled in a voice full of torment, he grabbed the sides of his head, his eyes squeezed shut, tears rolling down his cheeks. "GO AWAY! GO AWAY! GO AWAY!" he was shaking his head as if trying to rattle his brain inside his skull.
"Remy! What's going on!?!" Kitty demanded, she tried to pull his hands away from his head, they were covering his ears, "What's the matter?!"
"What the fuck is he screaming about?!" came a grumbling voice from nearby, Kitty turned, Logan was awake and didn't look in the best of moods, his hair tangled, his eyes bleary, he looked older than usual due to the darkening of the stubble on his chin.
"I don't know…" Kitty let
go of Remy's arms, "He's been drinking – I think."
"I can smell it a mile off," Logan uttered.
"He smashed a bottle of whiskey off the court," Kitty pointed out, "Logan, help me get him up…"
Remy grabbed a piece of glass nearby him, the nozzle of the bottle had not completely smashed, leaving a sharp edged weapon in his grasp, "GO AWAY!" he screamed, although, Kitty could see he wasn't looking at either herself or Logan.
The piece of glass in his hand began to glow with a brilliant white light as Remy began to kinetically charge it within his grasp, the brighter anything he charged seemed to go, the more likely it was that the thing would explode with more impact. His eyes were glowing a furious red, his teeth were clenched in anger.
"REMY! NO!" Kitty gasped, she grabbed onto his wrist with both hands, "ABSORB IT BACK!" she pleaded. She'd rarely seen Remy do it but she knew he could absorb that energy back without even harming himself. The way this piece of glass was being charged up, the more likely someone was to get hurt.
Remy struggled with her, "GO AWAY!" he screamed, violently fighting, he threw her off easily, Kitty Pryde was barely strong enough to hold back the anger.
"Ow…" Kitty winced, hitting her shoulder off of the hard ground. She glanced up, the bottle was charged up so brightly that the light was becoming as blinding as the sun. Remy was a silhouette against the light, the red in his eyes still brilliantly clear through out the light. That image made Kitty shiver.
"He's goin' mad!" Logan grabbed a good hold of Remy's hand, holding onto the bottle, "absorb it Cajun, or I'm gonna crush your fist until there's no bones LEFT to hold anythin'."
Remy struggled, "GO AWAY!" he screamed again.
"Who is he talking to?!" Kitty demanded, she saw no one in the direction Remy was facing, only the empty fields of the estate. "Remy! There's no one there!"
"Absorb it back, LeBeau!" Logan cried at Remy's ear, "Absorb it back!"
"He's going to wake up everyone in the mansion!! The Professor is going to go ballistic, he's barely been here a week and he's already causing mayhem!" Kitty fretted.
Remy grabbed a hold of Logan's hands trying to pry his fingers off of his fist, he looked panicked, and fevered, his eyes were no longer black and red but a brilliant bright red that neither Kitty nor Logan had ever seen before.
Kitty got up wincing in slight pain, she cut her hand on the glass and swore to herself, "fuck," as she rushed over, she grabbed a hold of the Remy's other arm, trying to pry his hand off of Logan's, "Let go!" she screamed at him, tears of panic rolling down her face. She'd never seen Remy look so frenzied, it was almost like he was a different person. "REMY!!! PLEASE!!! ABSORB IT BACK!!!! YOU'LL KILL US ALL!" Kitty pleaded. She could see his hand loosening over the bottle, if he dropped it, the moment that piece of glass hit the ground, there would be no more ground, or any of them.
The air became static around them, it changed to suddenly Kitty could barely comprehend what was going on. Her hair she could feel standing on end, tiny flickers of electric blue light were jumping between them, and Kitty could feel it's sting. It was like very tiny electric shocks, "what the…" she yanked her hand away in pain.
A loud echoing boom caught both their attention, they both turned just in time to see the basketball hoop exploding, the basketball which had been rolling around the ground in the wind exploded just as suddenly. The bench nearby exploded, luckily leaving no dents in the asphalt.
"What's going on!?" Kitty asked, ducking as a piece of wood came flying by.
"I don't know!" Logan yelled. Despite the electric shocks were increasing, Logan did not loosen his grip, "Absorb it, Cajun. Now."
One of the windows of the mansion randomly exploded, the back door exploded, one of the pillars exploded.
"It's him!" Logan said, "he's exploding everything around us!"
"OH MY GOD!!! REMY!!! STOP IT!" Kitty shrieked, "You're going to kill us all! Look what you've done!!"
Remy's hand became limp, and the piece of bottle began to lose its charge, finally, it dropped to the ground with nothing more than a smash, no explosion. He was breathing heavily, his face shimmering with sweat. The light in his eyes died down and soon his black and red eyes were gazing over the dark fields. He looked fevered, and afflicted, he was shaking so badly that Kitty thought he might be close to taking some kind of attack.
"What's going on?!" Kitty turned to see some of the other X-Men – and students – through the door.
Kitty felt this was all Remy needed, not only had he seemingly just shone some first signs of madness, but now everyone was there to witness it. "Nothing! Go inside!" she hissed.
Logan let go of Remy's arm carefully, "I'm going to go get Hank…" he was about to walk off, but Kitty stopped him.
"Leave it," Kitty said softly, she grabbed his arm gently, Remy was sobbing uncontrollably into his hands, "He's calmed down, I don't think he's going to do anymore damage."
"He could have killed us all!" Logan said, "don't you think he should be under some kind of treatment?!"
Kitty got up slowly, "later," she uttered. "We're all tired, its 4am and we all have stuff to do tomorrow, we should all just let this drop for now," she took Remy's arm, "c'mon, Remy."
Remy got up slowly, weakened and still in tears, he kept his face covered, he did not want the others to see him cry. Kitty led him through the door through the crowd of her colleagues and students who had gathered to see what had happened.
"Go away…" Remy whispered, he looked over his shoulder between his hands. Kitty felt a chill sweep over her.
He's going mad…he has to be…there's no one there, Kitty thought. They got to the top of the stairs in the foyer, "Who was there, Remy?"
"He was…" Remy whispered, "he was."
Kitty looked at him, his eyes were puffy and wet, "who was."
But Remy did not answer, he simply looked away from her. Kitty felt immediate concern strike her. How was she ever going to explain this to Rogue without frightening her. It was frightening Kitty.
