Chapter 12
Manhattan
Mushroom clouds of debris rushed through the theatre from the explosion on stage. In the dusty shadows, frightened silhouettes of the audience scurried frantically in all directions to escape.
The upper deck shook from the stampede below. Scott's knees buckled from the tremors. He grabbed the balcony railing overlooking the stage.
Marrow, Calisto, Sunder, Caliban, Masque, and Healer ripped through center stage like blood thirsty dogs.
Calisto's energy blasts caved-in the rear exits, boxing in the hysterical crowd. Marrows razor sharp bone daggers hurtled in every direction and chopped down anyone unfortunate enough to try and run.
"Rogue, you and Jean clear the exits! Make sure everyone gets out! Psylocke, protect Vaughn! He's the one they're after, don't let him out your sight! Gambit and I will try to slow down the Morlocks head-on!" Cyclops said.
"Let's do it," Betsy said.
Scott shut his eyes and swapped his red sunglasses for his visor.
"Morlocks. Had to be Morlocks," Gambit mumbled.
"…Oh, Sara…" Jean said, her lower lip trembling like the theatre itself.
"Ah, know…" Rogue shook her head and took a deep breath, "…but ah guess, fer better or worse, we're all free ta make our own choices."
Psylocke tossed off her dress heels. She pounced onto the balcony railing and balanced herself on the balls of her bare feet.
"And clearly Marrow's made hers." Psylocke dove from the balcony into the sea of the crowd below.
Jean ran to the railing.
"She's still our friend, Betsy! Don't hurt her!" Jean yelled.
Betsy did not respond. Psylocke was out of earshot. She weaved through the crowd and drew her psiblade as she approached the stage.
"X-Men!" Caliban shouted.
"Even better," Callisto said.
She fired a knife at Psylocke, who deftly somersaulted out the way.
"Ain't no friends where fists concerned, Chere," Gambit said to Jean.
He kinetically charged a king of hearts.
Jean summoned her magenta telekinetic aura and floated over the balcony. She turned to Gambit.
"You don't really believe that, do you, Remy?" Jean said.
"Ga-…" Gambit started.
Jean didn't wait for a response. She telekinetically lifted Cyclops and flew toward the stage.
Gambit arched his eyebrow.
"C'mon, swamp rat…" Rogue grabbed Gambit and took flight over the balcony, "…ya'll can think of yer witty retort on tha ride down."
Gambit gazed at Rogue's evening gown hugging her buxom chest.
"Gambit t'inkin' o' one right now." Gambit wet his lips.
"Heh, this ain't the ride down, sugah." Rogue said.
She dropped Gambit midflight.
"Chere!" Gambit yelled.
"This is!" Rogue yelled back from the ceiling.
Gambit fell ten feet. Felt about ten thousand. He acrobatically dismounted into a squat on landing while Jean gently lowered Cyclops beside him.
Jean and Rogue soared toward the rear exits to clear the rubble as Gambit and Cyclops scrambled closer to the stage to help Psylocke.
"Gambit don't understand dese women." He dusted his tuxedo off.
"Tell me about it," Cyclops said.
Jean quickly raised a telekinetic shield to insulate the crowd from the battle on stage. Rogue dug through the wreckage blocking the exits with her superhuman strength to clear a path.
"Ah ain't seen this many people in a hurry to leave a theatre since Dazzlah: The Movie." Rogue shoveled a boulder to the side.
"It had its moments." Jean telekinetically moved fallen ceiling beams.
"Ah know! Dern thing was ahead of its ti-Ungh!" Rogue said.
Caliban rammed his massive shoulder into Rogue's back. His gargantuan frame gifted by Apocalypse gored her like a red and white rhino.
"Rogue!" Jean refocused her powers on Caliban and telekinetically slammed him through an entire row of seats.
"I don't want to hurt you Calliban. We never did. Why can't you believe that?" Jean said.
With Jean focused on Caliban, Callisto slipped behind her.
Jean turned. Callisto jammed her knife into the side of Jean's abdomen.
"AAAARGHHH!" Jean writhed.
She retaliated with the telekinetic equivalent of a sledgehammer to the face that drilled Callisto.
A hot sweat broke over Jean's face. Her quivering body lowered to a knee. She'd used her vast mental abilities to perform surgery before, but never on herself. Never in the middle of a battle.
First time.
Everything.
"Ungh..." Jean moaned.
Her magneta aura wrapped around the knife handle like psychic fingers and dislodged the blade.
Blood gushed down her leg. Callisto struck a vein of splotchy red oil.
Jean applied telekinetic pressure to compress the wound. For a few seconds. Hard to focus. The stabbing pain shot throughout her body. Concentrating only made the throbbing worse. Felt like someone hammering a nail through her skull.
Jean crumpled onto the floor unconscious.
Sunder and Masque inched closer to Psylocke on the far end of the stage. Marrow pinching Psylocke in from the other side.
Psylocke stood, psiblade ready, guarding Rio Vaughn behind her.
"Such a pretty, pretty face Nebo has now…look so much better on Masque!" Masque hissed at Vaughn.
"Try it," Psylocke said in a chilling monotone.
She waved Masque on with her psiblade. The Morlocks were so unorthodox as fighters. It scared Betsy. All her martial arts training only meant so much against a gang of thugs that would gouge her eyes. But whatever it was the Morlocks had in their arsenal, Betsy wanted them to bring it. Bring it all. The show just started and Betsy wasn't going anywhere.
Rio slumped behind Psylocke. His right leg was limp and soaked in blood. Had to have been hurt in the explosion.
"S-S-Sunder…Please! It's me! Nebo! Nebo!" Rio said.
"Sunder knows exactly who you are. Uncle Tom piece of garbage," Sunder said.
Rio didn't blink. His glossy eyes were wider than the gaping hole in the stage.
"…But…" Rio stammered.
"Quiet!" Psylocke shushed him.
Poor guy didn't have any offensive mutant powers. Psylocke was on her own. Great. Not that Betsy trusted him or anyone else to help her anyway.
Sunder and Masque advanced on them.
Cyclops carved a line at Sunder and Masque's feet with an optic blast that kept them at bay.
"That's far enough, gentlemen," Cyclops said.
"Lissen to de man, mes amis." Gambit held three kinetic cards between his fingers.
Marrow locked eyes with Cyclops. Her fiery stare redder than his own.
"Speaking of Uncle Tom's, the golden boys are here," Marrow said.
She hurled a flurry of bone daggers at her two former teammates. Cyclops dodged to the left, Gambit, the right.
"Just had to be Morlocks…" Gambit muttered.
"Stop this madness, Marrow, before more people get hurt!" Cyclops said.
"I didn't take orders from you when I was an X-Man, Summers, and I damn sure don't now!" Marrow seethed.
"You are an X-Man, Marrow, and you'll always be a part of this f-…." Cyclops said.
"Family!? That what you were about to say? Huh! Shut the hell up," Marrow barked, "The Morlocks are my family! Don't you ever forget that!"
"…I'll let that slide. I know things haven't been easy for you. Believe me, none of us have had it easy… But you know in your heart all this death and destruction isn't the answer! You're better than this!" Cyclops said.
"You think you have any idea what the last few years have been like for me? For any of us?" Marrow unsheathed a bone dagger in each hand.
"You say I'm family? But tell me something, are you guys my family? Where were you when I was being tortured by Weapon X? Where were you then? Where was my X-Men family? Or better yet, how about poor Maggot? You even know all the suffering he went through at Neverland? You even care?" Marrow demanded.
"…Dis really more a conversation for Stormie, no?" Gambit said.
Marrow launched a bone dagger at Gambit that sliced the edge of his tuxedo jacket as he dodged.
"You…you have no right to even speak, Judas," Marrow growled.
"…I…we didn't know about you or Maggot. I'm sorry. I know that doesn't make it right…but neither does what you're doing now. You know these childish displays won't accomplish anything but hurting innocent people. You're a grown woman, Marrow. Start acting like it," Cyclops said.
"Don't talk down to me like I'm one of your braindead students who can't think for themselves. The whole world's not your precious little school. And don't go wasting your fake tears and pity on me and Maggot.
You know I ran into him a few months ago. Let's just say he and his new friends the Marauders have something sinister planned for the X-Men. I bet, Summers, I bet you barely even know who Maggot was. I bet in all the time he was an X-Man you didn't say more than two words to him.
You even take the time to try and know the guy?" Marrow said.
"I…" Cyclops stuttered.
"See, that's the difference between X-Men and Morlocks. I would die for the Morlocks!" Marrow pounded her chest, "You know why? Because I love them. Them! The people! That's family! The X-Men… oh, I tried your way. The X-Men expect you to die for their ideals. But guess what, soldier boy? The world ain't made up of ideals. It's made up of people.
I love the Morlocks and keep coming back because I love the people. It's that simple. The people are my home. The Morlocks' ideals and values change. I get that. Everything does. It's the people I fight for and care about. You, X-Men? Nah, the people don't matter half as much as the damn sacred blue and yellow uniform. The cheap X logo means more than the person wearing it."
"Hear that! Uncle Tom scum sucking trash!" Sunder glared at Rio, "THAT'S what being a real Morlock means! Not running out on your friends! Not forgetting who you are for fame and fortune! Not abandoning the people that love you!"
Sunder hocked a thick glob of spit at Rio.
"Sold out our own people, our family, for what?" Masque raged, "For human money? Human women? Disgusting sell out traitor must die!"
Marrow stepped forward.
"We're here to send a message. In public. On TV. For the world to see. This…" Marrow pointed her bone dagger at Rio, cowering behind Psylocke, "…This will not be tolerated. Self-hating mutants that sell-out our race will be tried and executed."
"I'm still a mutant, God Damnit! I just look different!" Rio stood and shouted.
"You are not one of us!" Marrow screamed.
She fired a bone dagger.
Psylocke ducked.
Rio did not.
The jagged dagger shredded the side of his neck. A fountain of blood sprang from the laceration and sprayed the white of Psylocke's gown. Rio's body hit the floor.
"You killed him…" Psylocke stammered.
Her eyes swelled with red faster than her silk dress.
"You killed him!" She angrily shouted and leapt in the air.
Psylocke bounced off Sunder's rocklike shoulders before he could swat her and launched herself at Marrow.
"C'mon, princess!" Marrow baited Psylocke on.
Betsy speared Marrow to the hard wood stage floor. The two desperately wrestled for control, rolling side to side like savages.
Psylocke wildly swung her psiblade like a torch in a darkened cave. Marrow parried, slicing Betsy's forearm with her bone dagger.
"Agh!" Betsy grunted.
She reeled back from the surge of pain. Marrow jammed the broad side of her bone dagger against Betsy's throat and forced Betsy onto her back. Marrow mounted and unsheathed a second bone dagger.
"Oh, you've had this comin' a long time!" Marrow said.
She clinched down tighter across Betsy's throat. Psylocke gasped for air. Starving for crumbs of oxygen. Marrow's grin widened.
Pyslocke bashed her knee in Marrow's gut. As all the air rushed out Marrow's chest, Psylocke blasted Marrow's temple with a stiff elbow.
Marrow staggered back. Her knees wobbled like wet noodles. Betsy had her. She knew it.
"Marrow!" Sunder yelled.
Damn it.
Sunder and Masque charged Betsy from behind.
"Not so fast, mister!" Cyclops fired an optic blast.
It landed squarely on Sunder's chest but barely moved him an inch. Cyclops continued firing, raising the intensity. Masque slipped behind the blast as Sunder bellowed with a guttural, disdainful laugh at Cyclops' benign attack.
"Ha! This?" Sunder waved his hand through Cyclops' beam like it was a flashlight, "This is supposed to hurt Sunder? Who do you think you ar-…" Sunder said.
A kinetic card sizzled through the air and synergized with the optic blast to trigger a massive explosion. The rippling shockwave blew Sunder across the theatre.
"De name is Gambit. Remember it," Gambit said.
Masque snatched Gambit from behind in a chokehold. His clammy fingers wrapped around Gambit's mouth like ten larvae.
"Pretty boy face look good on Masque!" Masque said.
"Aaarh!" Gambit squirmed.
The more he wiggled, the tighter Masque's hold became.
Scott turned and fired a narrow beam at Masque. It missed Gambit's cheek by less than an inch and decimated Masque.
Gambit dropped to his knees. Panting. Struggling to catch his breath.
"T'anks, mon ami. Gambit's face a national treasure," Gambit said.
"Something like that." Scott rolled his eyes.
Jean, how're things with you and Rogue? Scott telepathically asked.
I'm sorry, the redhead you're trying to reach is not available right now. Leave a message Scottie, and she'll get back to you when she's conscious, Madelyne telepathically replied.
"Jean!" Scott yelled.
Scott feverishly spun back and forth for any sign of her or Rogue among the chaotic crowd. Nothing. Just a sea of frightened faces. Women. Children. Grown men clawing, tearing at one another to squeeze through the path Rogue made through the rubble.
As the cannibalistic crowd trampled one another to exit through the clearing, Scott treaded through the dense mob. He was a yellow and blue tank cutting a path through the human trees around him, shoving people out his way in search of his wife.
"Jean! Jean!" Scott shouted, his shrill voice cracked.
"Over here!" Callisto yelled from Scott's flank. Her sour, nauseating voice was like a shot of whiskey to the ear.
Scott whipped his head to the side.
Healer stood beside Callisto. She seemed fresher than when they first broke into the theatre. Calisto's Cheshire smile greeted Scott followed by Jean's unconscious body.
"Jean!" Scott yelled.
Caliban scooped Jean off the floor and pressed her over his head. He shot her limp body at Scott's chest like a shotput.
"Aaaargh!" Scott groaned.
He and Jean toppled to the floor from the collision.
"Caliban always say, the ones you love hurt you most!" Caliban laughed.
"Unrequited love's mah department, sugah!" Rogue said.
Her body trembled as she rose back to her feet. But she didn't get up alone. Rogue hauled a fallen steel strut off the floor and swung at Caliban.
He flexed to brace for the blow. The beam slammed against Caliban's concrete-like skin and bent around his shoulder. It was a bicycle crashing into a truck. A big, bald, Apocalypse engineered truck.
The thunderous vibration of the impact turned Rogue's forearms to jelly. She instantly dropped the strut to the floor.
Caliban beamed.
"Caliban-…" he started.
Rogue rocketed at Caliban and leveled him with a jarring side kick.
"Caliban needs ta shut up!" Rogue yelled.
Healer scurried toward Caliban. With a touch, Caliban staggered back to his feet.
Cyclops fired at Healer, but Caliban shielded him with his mountainous body.
"You can knock Caliban down a thousand times but he will always rise!" Caliban pounded the floor with his fists.
The miniature earthquake shook Rogue and Cyclops to the ground.
Healer continued moving. He snuck behind Psylocke and Marrow as they traded punches.
"Argh…Gambit…take out Healer!" Cyclops yelled.
"Be a pleasure," Gambit said.
Healer quickly touched Sunder, knocked out in the corner.
Gambit fired a kinetic card at Healer's head. Sunder exploded back to his feet and smothered the kinetic card blast.
"Wanna try that again, Judas?" Sunder snarled.
"If you insist." Gambit pulled another card.
Sunder charged and snatched Gambit's wrists before he could throw. He wrenched Gambit's wrists as if he was unscrewing Gambit's hands from his forearms.
Callisto sauntered over. Her eyes never wavered off Gambit. They were pained slits open in darkness staring deep into Remy. Gambit knew those eyes, and more importantly, what was in them. Seen it more times than any man should.
Disappointment.
Heartbreaking. Agonizing. Disappointment.
It was written in her eyes. Extra bold font. Remy would know the look even if he was Daredevil.
Callisto petted Remy's cheek as Sunder torqued his wrists. She leaned in closer to whisper in the X-man's ear.
"You know, I get you, Remy Lebeau. I get you," Calisto said.
She stepped back. Raised her voice.
"See, you're not an X-Man. That's why you're a traitor. Youmassacred our people…" Calisto said.
"I didn't kill nobody!" Gambit yelled.
"You massacred our people for your own survival…" Calisto grabbed Remy by the hair, "…Oh, I know the real story. The job you passed on in favor of the Morlock Massacre. We Morlocks know everything about those that have persecuted us. Everything. And that's why I know you're traitor. 'Cause you're like us deep down. You're not an idealist. You're a survivalist. If it comes down to you or someone else, then to hell with them, right? That's all we're doin' here. You're just us on the other side of the battlefield."
Calisto pressed her forehead against Gambit's and talked through her gritted teeth.
"It took me a long time to accept that. See, it's the dreamers that're the problem. The Sinisters, the X-Men, the politicians, they are the problem! We're like you. We're here, doing all this, because we're like you, Lebeau. If it's down to us or them, then the Morlocks will survive!"
Calisto grabbed Gambit's chin and jammed her lips against his. Her stale tongue thrashed around his teeth and gums. She chewed his lip until spurts of blood curdled around her mouth.
Calisto gave a savage smile.
"I didn't want you to die without knowing I pardon you, Lebeau." She spat his blood in his face. "I pardon you."
"…Merci, petite," Gambit muttered.
Sunder cranked Gambit's arms back toward his spine as if they were butterfly wings.
"Aaaargh!" Gambit moaned in agony.
Betsy turned her head from the sound of Gambit's aching yell. Marrow seized the window of distraction and nailed Betsy with a barrage of clubbing strikes to the face until Betsy's swollen cheek glowed red.
"Aw, all this blush looks good on you, princess!" Marrow said.
She wound her fist back as far as it would go for a brutal haymaker. She fired her fist at Betsy, but before it could connect, Betsy jammed her psiblade under Marrow's chin through her skull.
Marrow instantly crumpled to the ground, her body convulsing in spasms.
"…Better than it ever looked on you, kiddo." Betsy huffed, struggling to catch her breath.
Healer ghosted over to Marrow and revived her before Betsy could react. Marrow wiped the drool from her lip and unsheathed two new bone daggers.
"C'mon, really?" Betsy said to herself.
Betsy's eyes fluttered from Callisto to Marrow and back. Beads of sweat streaked down the side of her face.
"We can do this all day." Calisto took a step forward.
Betsy wiped her brow.
"But you can't." Marrow took a step forward.
"You might be right…" Betsy bent her knees, ready to strike, "...how about we find out."
Betsy lunged at Marrow.
The second she made a move, the eastern wall of the theatre exploded from the outside.
"What now?" Betsy coughed from the spray of dust.
A dozen armed soldiers swarmed the theatre.
"There!" one soldier pointed at the stage. What was left of it.
He fired a dart from his rifle that pierced Callisto's shoulder. She dropped to a knee, trembling, gasping for breath.
"Callisto!" Caliban yelled.
A hail of darts pierced Caliban, Masque, and Sunder. Gambit tumbled out of Sunder's limp grip onto the floor. Healer feigned being hit and laid out among the fallen Morlocks.
Marrow dodged a dart that sailed past her head and hit the back of the stage. It landed and rolled next to Betsy's feet.
Marrow returned fire. She threw her bone dagger like a javelin at the soldier. It tore through his Kevlar uniform and shredded his bicep. His rifle clanged to the floor.
Marrow sprinted beside Callisto and checked for a wound or blood. Nothing.
"Thank God," Marrow said.
"Th-they're gone…" Calisto said.
"I'm right here," Marrow said.
Callisto collapsed in Marrow's arms. A shroud of twelve shadows fell upon Marrow.
"Yeah!?" Marrow barked at the soldiers.
She egged them on defiantly, "C'mon!"
The battalion of soldiers fired. Twelve darts cut into Marrow's arms, back, and chest.
With their attention on Marrow, Healer crept away from the pile of unconscious Morlocks toward Rio's bloody body.
He was facedown. Blood seeped from his neck. By now it had clotted, blackened into a crimson soup that clung to Healer's robes. They sucked up the stream of red like a washcloth.
Healer gently tilted Rio's chin up.
Rio's eyes rolled back and struggled to focus on Healer. On anything. Rio's tepid, broken inhales gurgled from the blood trapped in his lungs. Each breath sounded like the churns of an overfilled garbage disposal.
"Shhhh…" Healer said.
He placed his hand on Rio's shoulder and healed him.
"…For ruining your show." Healer smiled.
The soldiers swept over the unconscious Morlocks and handcuffed each one.
Rogue massaged the side of her head and staggered to her feet.
"What in tarnation did ya'll hit 'em with?" Rogue said.
Not a single soldier answered. They rounded up their livestock of Morlocks and headed for the exits.
"I didn't see any badges…" Betsy stood in front of the soldiers, "…Hey! Identify yourselves or as far as I'm concerned you're just as dangerous as they are."
"I suppose that concludes this little exercise," Sebastian Shaw said.
The Inner Circle nonchalantly walked onto the demolished stage from backstage.
"Shaw," Betsy drew her psiblade.
Shaw nodded at the soldiers, and they resumed carrying the unconscious Morlocks out of the theatre.
"Spirited effort as always, X-Men, but the authorities will take it the rest of the way," Shaw said.
"Ah don't seem ta reckon ever seein' the local sheriff's office usin'…whatever it was they were just usin'," Rogue said.
"Nanomachines, simpleton," Donald Pierce said, flexing his mechanical arm. "Projectile nanomachines that temporarily inhibit mutant powers."
Rogue made a fist at Pierce.
"Ah've got somethin' simple for you too, Robocop. A ton of it," Rogue said.
Betsy picked up the dart that missed Marrow and examined it.
"Homeland security has become a much more complicated and hence profitable engagement. Kelly has greenlit outsourcing homeland security to different private military corporations due to the mutant crisis," Shaw said.
"And let me guess, this one just happens to be owned by Shaw Industries," Betsy said.
"As well as all its investors in the Hellfire Club, Miss Braddock," Jason Wyngarde smirked.
Madelyne rubbed his chest.
"And with this little demonstration I am certain we have risen to the top of Kelly's list," Shaw said.
"Demonstration?" Betsy said.
"Little?" Rogue said.
Betsy sneered at Shaw.
"Don't sound so disappointed, X-Men. Who do you think leaked Vaughn's true identity to the Morlocks?" Shaw grinned.
"After that, it was only a matter of sitting back and waiting for the predictable Morlocks to arrive seeking his blood," Harry Leeland said.
"The Morlocks' ill-conceived attack only served to further our agenda. They publically reaffirmed the reality of the 'scary mutant' to the nation and allowed us to display our new mutant hunting nanotechnology," Shaw said.
"And it doesn't bother you in the least that your money and your products will be used to terrorize your own kind?" Betsy said.
"My dear, the only thing that is of any concern to me is profit. There is one thing all people can agree on. It's not morality or ideals. It's the cold bottom line of dollars and cents. That is universal.
Humans will see the footage from today and lobby for our nanotechnology to be in every state, district, and county.
Mutants will see today's footage and realize now, more than ever, mutants are targets, and flock to have our mutant cosmetic surgery done to blend in better. Like any well run business, we profit from both sides," Shaw said.
"Vaughn had it done an' that didn't turn out too great for him," Rogue said.
"We know that. But the world does not. Vaughn took fool's pride in being a mutant and outed himself not long ago. Mutants will look at that and decide that if they conceal their mutation socially and physically, they can blend in and be just like everyone else," Wyngarde said.
"And that's really what this's all about, right? Being like everyone else? Hording money? That's how far we've come after all this time?" Betsy said.
"Things are the way they are for a reason," Pierce said.
"Agreed," Madelyne said.
"Until next time, X-Men. We have other engagements this evening," Shaw said.
"Always a pleasure, Miss Braddock," Wyngarde said.
"Tell Alex I said hello," Madelyne said to Psylocke and Rogue.
Shaw turned and headed for the exit with Madelyne, Pierce, Leeland, and Selene following.
"Quite a rousing show tonight, don't you think so?" Leeland said to Selene.
"I found it tawdry. Very, very tawdry," Selene dismissed.
"Yes. And thoroughly entertaining," Leeland said.
Rogue floated over to the other X-Men, strewn amid the rubble, unconscious. Betsy glanced at the dart. She wanted to go Colossus and transform her fist into steel and crush the damn thing into bits. Or be like Rogue and throw it as far as she could until it hit orbit.
She sighed.
Betsy knew she wasn't any of them.
She was Pyslocke.
And Pyslocke held onto the dart as she went to stir Jean, Scott, and Remy.
