TITLE: Endgame
STARRING: Hellion/X-23
UNIVERSE: AU
RATING: M
SUMMARY: The world is ending...but something else is beginning. Set around NXM #20-36-ish.
Chapter 1
"Thiz iz the abzolude, fuckingk worzd day ofb by lifbe!" The boy grumbles to himself as he raises his arm to shield his face. The air around him shimmers, with a greenish hue; moments later, a wall of what appears to be orange fire sweeps over him.
A girl appears over the brink of a large pile of rubble just in time to witness this affront; her already-pale face lightens even more. "Hellion!" she shouts.
"Zdill here." The flames evaporate, and the girl can now see his shape in the smoke. "I kind ob wish somedingk would ged bee. Thiz iz awbul."
She scrambles towards the boy, slipping on rubble and falling, but almost not noticing.
"Do NOT lower your shield!" she shouts in his face. "For ANYTHING!"
"I waz juzd kidding, jeez. Oh, waid…I forgod you don'd have a zense ob humor."
"DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" The girl continues, as if he hasn't spoken.
"Yeah, alrighd, I'b god id. I can wadch by own back…you wadch yours, okay?"
"We cannot stand here any longer." X grabs his wrist and pulls him behind her as she begins to run again.
The ground shakes suddenly, and both figures are thrown to the ground.
"Godammbid!" Hellion shouts, gritting his teeth as he feels the skin being grated off his kneecaps by the concrete. His uniform is ripped all over, and he's covered in minute cuts and bruises and injuries; but this really hurts.
"The strikes are growing more frequent." X says, probably aware of his pain—she is aware of everything—but simply not caring. "We need to get underground, now."
"And where do we do thad?" Hellion wipes blood away from his nose, which is broken; thankfully the fountain of earlier has stemmed to a few drops here and there.
No, scratch the kneecaps hurting thing. Getting hit in the face by a flying brick had sucked ass.
"I know of a nuclear fallout bunker," she says, as she scrambles to her feet again. "Not too far from here—about four miles."
"I can fly uz," Hellion offers again.
"No. We cannot risk the attention that would bring. On foot, we stand a chance."
"Fine." He automatically trusts her to know the odds of everything, since she's basically a computer. Struggling to his feet, he runs after her again.
…
"HOLY SHID!" he yells, as he almost falls off the edge of an enormous crater he hadn't seen coming. He stares in disbelief, at this destroyed part of Manhattan. So destroyed, the ground beneath it is gone. Across the way, the ocean is pouring into the hole.
X is beside him now, gazing across the crater with a tired look. "The bunker may not save us if this happens in that area."
"I figured," he says quietly. He sways slightly, exhausted from all the running, and pain, and wild fear and shock. "Should we juzd give ub?"
"No." Her hand clamps on his aching shoulder as she gives him a direct look. "We need to keep moving," she repeats, but her voice is not as harsh as before. "If we are careful…there is a chance."
"Okayb." He reaches out and takes her hand; they begin to run again. He tries to concentrate on encasing them both in a field of protection, but he has a massive headache from overusing his power. The shield flickers in and out, matching the pulse in his temples. "Thiz iz zo unreal," he murmurs.
X is silent, taking care of the navigation. She can tell that he is running out of energy, as in he will soon be unconscious; they must reach the bunker first, or they are both dead.
She knows they are not too far anymore; about a quarter of a mile.
"Hellion!" she shouts, a few minutes later. He jerks his head up and sees that they are standing in front of a huge mountain of rubble.
"We need to clear the way to the door," she says. In the distance, there is a loud boom, and the ground quakes again; rubble skitters down the pile, raising a cloud of dust.
"On id." He sways and collapses against the girl.
"No!" X grabs him by the shoulder again and shakes him, her face full of fear. "YOU NEED TO WAKE UP!"
"Err—" Hellion raises his head. "X…I'b god nothingk lebd."
"You can rest inside. You need to clear our way to the door."
"Okayb."
The boy closes his eyes and does nothing for a moment; X is preparing to begin berating him again when he reaches out to the pile of broken remnants. There is another rumble, but this time it's coming from around them as the bricks and wood and glass shards grate against each other and rise into the air.
The girl starts. "Hellion, I can see the door!" She grabs his wrist and he stumbles after her, towards what they hope will be safety.
They fall to their knees beside the entrance, and he puts all his effort into lifting the exceedingly heavy metal door from its position, flush to the cement around it. After a few moments of mental straining and loud scraping noises, it floats upwards.
"Ged IN!" he grunts through gritted teeth.
X dives headfirst into the hole; he copies her technique, letting everything go as he falls into darkness, both figuratively and literally.
…
The girl looks around in the dark with her superior night vision; she detects no other life forms inside the bunker, which is enormous. She gets up and crawls to the power panel on the wall; the electricity will need to be conserved, but the boy needs medical attention right now, and she needs proper light to do so. And a first aid kit.
She switches on the lights, and looks around. There is Hellion, lying unconscious on the ground; a crumpled pile of red and black, not all of it on his uniform. Beyond him is the sleeping area; fold-up cots lined in a row. There are blankets and pillows, which is good seeing as it is cooler down here.
Looking the other way, she is presented with a row of shelves, displaying a store of canned and powdered goods. She moves towards this area, favoring her right leg, which—only several hours earlier, had almost not been in existence—and begins to search for the first aid kit she knows will be here, in this well-prepared fallout shelter.
After a few minutes she returns to the boy, a box with a red cross on the lid clutched firmly under her arm. She reaches down, takes a hold of his legs with her hands—one clasped around each ankle—and drags the boy towards the cots. She is wary about moving him in case he has sustained a spinal injury while falling, but she can't leave him under the door, lest it should give way suddenly.
Eventually she manages to maneuver him onto a cot. She opens the box and sets to work.
Halfway through, he awakes and grabs her hand as she moves to re-dampen the cotton ball with alcohol.
"Did we bake id?" he asks in a mumble.
"Yes," X says, her voice flat.
"Good." His eyes close again, and she resumes cleaning his cuts gently. Then, gritting her teeth, she forms a triangle around his nose with her fingers, and begins to push gently but firmly.
"AWWWRRRGHHH!" Hellion thrashes, then his eyes snap open. "WHAD THE HELL?"
"I straightened your nose," X says calmly. "It was very crooked."
He glares at her; she roots around in the first aid box, and finds a bottle of Aspirin, then unscrews the lid and punctures the seal with her finger. "Here," she says, handing him three of the tablets. She knows he is in a lot of pain and will likely need the higher dose.
"Iz dere anydink to dringk?"
X looks around the bunker, then heads to the shelves. A moment later, she returns with a can of soda; a Sprite. She reaches him and opens the can with a spzzt sound; he sits up slightly, knocks back the pills, then takes the beverage and drinks from it hard and long. The aluminum can makes denting noises.
"I believe this bunker is even safer than I had first estimated," X says. "I have not felt any tremors."
"Baybee dey zdopped addackingk uz," he says, as he finishes drinking.
"No. The destruction is not finished." X looks down. "I can smell Adamantium. I think that the bunker is made of the alloy. It was designed to survive such an event."
"Lucky bor uz," he mumbles. "Iz der any Kleenex?"
She finds a few sheets of tissue in the kit; he takes it, then holds it to his nose and blows, hard. His nose makes a very painful sounding creaking noise, and he groans, but continues his efforts; a few moments later he lowers the now-red Kleenex. "This sucks," he says, in a much clearer voice.
"You sounded vaguely like Gambit," X says.
Hellion grins, then he remembers that the man is probably dead, and the expression of amusement fades.
"So what do we do now?" he asks.
"Wait," X says. "And hope that the door does not give way…or that we are not discovered. We should sleep in shifts."
"Then we won't have any company," he points out.
"I do not need company," X says. "Our survival is of paramount importance."
"I forgot…you're basically Robocop," Hellion grumbles. "Well, wake me up when it's my turn. I'm exhausted."
He soon begins to snore heavily, and X hugs her legs, watching him with half-closed eyes above her kneecaps.