The Day the X-Men Died
The sun was setting behind me as I sat on the cool green grass before the stone. My shoulder length brown hair stirred in the cold fall air and I absentmindedly tucked a stray wispy behind my ear.
My name is Kitty Pryde. And a lot has changed in ten years. I no longer wore my hair in a ponytail and always let in hang loose. I wore a black cat suit with the customary red X on my shoulder and on the yellow belt around my waist. The symbol didn't mean anything anymore, not after he died, but I wore it in their memory. I reminded me of what I once was. No, what I still am.
"Kitty?" someone called behind me. I smiled slightly at the familiar voice and relaxed a bit. Wordlessly and without turning around I patted the grass beside me. I moment later the person sat beside me and I turned my head to smile at him, and he smile back. Lance hadn't changed much at all. His uniform from when he was a member of the Brotherhood was still practically the same, except now he wore goggles instead of the ridiculous helmet and his hair was longer. "What are you doing?" he asked switching his gaze to the stone in front of me. He didn't need to ask though. He knew all to well why I was here.
"I come every year. You know that." I answered in a small tone gazing at the stone. Or more appropriately, tombstone. And written on it was-
Charles XavierTeacher, father, and a beacon of hope
A beautiful array of flowers that I had handpicked that morning lay before the tombstone at the top of the hill. It was nothing fancy, but it was the best I could do for him after her died. Beside his grave was an identical tombstone that simply read-
Logan:
Wolverine
I never knew his last name having always referred to him as 'Mr. Logan'. Now I regret asking him, even though her probably wouldn't have told me. Flowers lay before his grave as well. Beside his grave was another tombstone that read Ororo Monroe: Storm. And beside hers Hank McCoy: Beast. On and on the graves went each with the name of the fallen X-Man. Scott Summers: Cyclops. Rouge. Evan Daniels: Spyke. Kurt Wagner: Nightcrawler. And at the very end of the row, Jean Grey.
Lance gazed at the graves with unemotional eyes. I didn't expect anything else from him. He didn't know them like I did. They weren't family to him like they were to me. But he was here, sitting beside me, and that was enough.
Years ago if someone told me I would be sitting in a graveyard next to Lance I would think them crazy. Then again, ten years ago I never expected all of my friends would die in front of my eyes. And the worst part was that I remembered it clearly. The day the X-Men died.
It was around February ten years ago when the attack was launched. Nick Fury released Bolivar Trask from prison and gave him permission to create an entire fleet of Sentinels. That's when everything went wrong.
Trask unleashed the Sentinels on the earth with one purpose: to hunt down and destroy all mutants. It was on that day the earth became a battlefield. Sentinels filled the sky and roamed the streets searching for mutants and destroying everything in its path. The X-Men had of coarse fought back along with a few other mutants. Even the Brotherhood and Magneto had joined the fight. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, after all. We fought with everything we had, but it wasn't enough. There were to many Sentinels and not enough mutants.
Regardless of that we had fought. I still don't regret fighting in the battle. I just regret not fighting hard enough. Surprisingly the first one to get shot down was Logan. And it was my fault. I wasn't paying attention and one of the Sentinels had come after me. Logan saved me, but at the cost of his own life. I didn't think it was possible. Logan was the strongest of us all, but there he was, lying in a pool of his own blood at my feet. The next to be killed was Storm who was shot from the sky in a hail of bullets.
Rouge was killed soon after Storm after being crushed under a Sentinel. It just… went on from there. One by one the once strong X-Men dropped like flies in front of my eyes. But we kept on fighting. One thing I can't remember is how long we fought, and how the battle had ended, because soon it was just me Lance Wanda and Jean left. Not only had the X-Men been defeated, but Magneto and his group as well. Toad, Pietro, Blob, Gambit, Pyro, all of them. We were all that was left of the Battle of Bayville as we called it. The battle where the war began. Soon after the battle we learned that the Mansion had been attacked while we were gone. The new mutants, like Tabitha Amara and Bobby, had been holding the fort and were all killed along with the professor.
Jean had gone mad with grief. Her powers went haywire on her and like before she lost control. The professor and Rouge were both gone and there was no one who could control her. And with a final surge of her powers that destroyed what was left of Bayville, other than Lance Wanda and I who were protected by Wanda's powers, Jean burned herself out and perished.
I cried for many days after that. Everything was gone. Bayville was destroyed, the X-Men were all dead, and I was alone. The last of the X-Men. To my surprise Lance and Wanda stayed with me. But then I remembered they had lost everything to. Wanda lost her father and brother, and Lance had lost his friends. We were alone together.
That's how I ended up here. Sitting beside Lance, once my worst enemy, in front of my friend's graves. I had cleared away what rubble I could with Lance and Wanda's help and buried all the X-Men where the Xavier institute once stood. A place of refuge and a beacon of hope for mutants with Professor Xavier as the light.
What really made my blood boil was the fact that the X-Men had always done their best to help others. All we wanted was to be accepted, but apparently that was too much to ask. Instead we were hunted down like wild animals. We still are today. That's why Lance was sitting here beside me and why Wanda is probably somewhere nearby along with Rhea. Trask is still out there, and we stuck together to hunt him down and to destroy the Sentinels that were still hunting what mutants were left in the world after ten years.
I sat there staring at the graves for a few moments more when the sun finally dipped below the horizon behind me.
"Kitty? You ok?" Lance asked staring at me worriedly. I shot him a reassuring smile and nodded. I returned to the destroyed institute, the place where it all began, every year to pay my respects to my dead teammates and friends. But every year I returned, I never cried. It confused me as much as it must have confused Lance. I wanted to cry every time I came here. I wanted to let out all the pain I felt. I wanted to cry and scream like I did after the Battle of Bayville. But for some reason I just couldn't.
"I'm fine." I answered. He was about to say something else when we heard a car honking behind us.
"Time to go!" Another familiar voice called. Smiling a bit more and looking over my shoulder I saw Wanda leaning against a battered green jeep. I didn't know when she got there, or how long she had been there, but I didn't care. I stood up with Lance jumping up after me. I frowned at the graves one last time before turning my back on them like so many times before and headed towards Wanda and the jeep.
I smiled when I came up to Wanda. She hadn't changed much at all keeping the red attire and hair. She even had the same cross earrings she wore during the Battle of Bayville.
"Rhea says she thinks Trask is in Paris." Wanda said curtly hopping into the passenger seat of the jeep. Glancing at the drivers seat I saw a girl with long waist length silver hair staring off into space looking bored. Her name was Rhea, a telepath we happened to stumble upon when we were searching for Trask. Sometimes she would have visions of the future that greatly helped us find Trask.
"Paris?" Lance repeated jumping in the back with an amused grin.
"Yep."
"Nice. I've always wanted to go to Paris." I said with a small smile stepping up to sit beside Lance.
"Well it's been overrun with Sentinels like every other city in the world. Somehow I don't think it will be exactly what you expected." Rhea said sarcastically as she turned on the jeep and stepped on the gas. Lance and I both laughed some as we drove away in the gathering twilight.
Glancing back at the institute one last time with a silent promise that I would be back next year I realized something. Maybe the reason why I didn't cry when I returned was that there was no reason to. Sure I lost all of my friends in one horrific battle, but they died doing what the X-Men were trained to do. Fighting for the good of everyone, mutants and humans alike.
"Well then, off to Paris." Wanda sighed as we drove along the old streets of Bayville. Not bothering to wonder how we were going to get to Paris in the first place I smiled a bit wider. I had new friends now to. They weren't like my first family, but they were family all the same. Besides, traveling with these guys was a riot, and it was a great excuse to see the world.
Or what was left of it that hadn't been destroyed by Sentinels that is.
My name is Kitty Pryde, and I am the last of the X-Men.
My name is Kitty Pryde, and I watched my friends die.
My name is Kitty Pryde, and I survived the day the X-Men died.
Man I went over this like five times and I'm still not to happy with it. Anyways a few days ago I watched X-Men Evo and I got hooked. Last night I was surfing youtube when I found a vid called The Day The X-Men Died by 3glitteringrose3, check it out. It was a great vid that nearly mad me cry and was inspired to write this. It has nothing to do with the vid I was just inspired by the concept of the X-Men dieing. At first I was just going to kill 'em all and make the humans all guilty. But then I got the idea of letting just Kitty survive since she's my fave along with Rouge. I love the over all concept but putting it into writing was hard for me. T_T I did what I could. Sorry I sorta rushed the part where they died putting nothing into detail. I couldn't come up with anything to tell you the truth. LASTLY Rhea is an OC I created and decided to throw her in there for fun so don't pay to much mind to her. Ok, I'm done. Hope this was ok. I tried. ^_^