Chile
Mounds of soot rained down on Hank's furry back. He looked like a big brown groundhog peeping out of from the dirt.
Not a single Quechuan was left standing.
"My word," Hank said solemnly.
Piles of unconscious and lifeless bodies lined the ground like stiches. Artillery shells and blood stained knives laid to rest beside their fallen human masters.
The pungent, crispy stench of burnt flesh hit Hank's olfaction with the grace of an Adamantium fist. It was like the time they let Wolverine grill steaks on the barbecue.
Well, maybe this didn't smell that overcooked. But this was close.
Hank wheezed. After a violent spasm he coughed up dirt residue caught in his throat. His eyes burned from the wall of debris pushing through the air. He blinked repeatedly. Desperately. He could barely make out the shape of his teammates beneath all the rubble.
A pearl of sweat glistened around Hank's brow.
He dug and dusted through the ashes. Somewhere buried beneath the debris were his friends.
"Someone… say something," Hank said.
"…Ungh…something," Bobby yelled.
Hank whipped his head to the side.
Bobby, with Warren draped over his shoulder, limped across the desolate battlefield.
"Robert!" Hank said.
"Beastie boy," Bobby staggered over to Hank with Warren in tow, "We really need to pick better vacations."
"International travel is always a mess." Hank helped ease Warren off Iceman's shoulder, "How is he?"
"You tell me, doc," Bobby said.
He and Hank rested Warren onto the floor.
"He took a pretty big shot in the back. How about the others?" Bobby said.
"…Fine, Drake," Bishop mumbled from under the fallen ceiling. It sounded like the wreckage itself was talking.
Bishop rose from the rubble as if the jagged hunks of boulder were fallen leaves. The fallen rocks had sliced his broad shoulders and thighs, drawing blood like red pencil marks.
Jubilee and Emma, in her diamond form, crawled out from under Bishop.
Emma glanced back at Bishop. She gave him an ever so subtle smirk.
"That was…surprisingly pleasant," Emma said.
"It wasn't. We almost died," Bishop said.
Jubilee elbowed Bishop.
"Not what she means, B. Sheesh," Jubilee said.
"I am aware. And it wasn't," Bishop said.
"Ha!" Emma gave a haughty laugh, "There's plenty about me you are not aware of, Lucas."
Emma reverted from her diamond form. "Yet."
"And pray you never learn," Hank mumbled.
"Preach, brah," Bobby said.
Emma shot Bobby a fiery stare that pierced his ice skin. Bobby lowered his eyes to the floor like a scalded dog.
"Better," Emma said.
A chilling quiet swept over the Blue Team like an autumn wind.
The battle was over. But this wasn't the Danger Room. And those weren't droids and holograms crumpled on the floor.
"We sure leave big footprints…" Jubilee said.
"Size twenties," Bobby sighed.
"This would've happened regardless if we were here or not," Bishop said.
"Which makes our action, or inaction rather, all the more tragic," Beast said, just loud enough for everyone to hear.
"The sooner we grab Cortez the sooner we can all get out of this place," Bishop said.
"N-No one is going anywhere!" Luis seethed.
He staggered to his feet. The Blue team dead in the crosshairs of his plasma rifle.
"You think you can just walk away! You think you're allowed to just walk away! Look at what you outsiders have done to our people!" Luis trembled with rage.
"Calm down, friend, war's over!" Bobby said.
"The war you started! The war we had no business in!" Luis shouted.
"Dude! We literally just got here! We had nothing to do with…" Jubilee said.
"Shut up! Shut your mouth or so help me I swear I'll shut it for you!" Luis said.
He took a step closer. His aim locked between Jubilee's eyes. But his eyes…his eyes wavered onto the bodies around him.
"…Over there…she…you know that's my cousin. My own damn cousin. My blood. And over there, my neighbor for ten years. Shot…shot him myself," Luis said.
"It's alright, it's alright," Hank said gently, reassuringly.
Luis took a deep breath, vacuuming air in through his nostrils.
"We weren't like this. Then the outsider came. And we came to hate one another. More outsiders came. You. And we came to kill one another. Someone has to pay for that!" Luis cried.
He pulled the trigger.
"Move!" Bishop yelled.
A plasma bolt hurtled at the Blue team.
Bobby quickly summoned another ice shield to block the attack. The plasma bolt shattered the ice shield and detonated. The massive impact launched the Blue team across the room.
"You think you can just come here, play god with our lives then just leave because you can! This was our home! This was our lives you played wi-!" Luis cried.
Tomas speared Luis from behind. The two brothers tumbled to the ground, wrestling for control.
"…This was never about the outsiders…it was always about us! You and me, brother!" Tomas snarled.
He strangled his brother. His fingers formed a bony noose around Luis' throat.
"Why, Louie… why did you have to take her from me? You were my brother!" Tomas tightened his grip.
"You killed her! It was you, it was you and you know it! She didn't deserve any of it! She should still be alive if it weren't for you!" Luis growled.
"I never touched her!" Tomas shouted.
He rammed the back of his brother's head onto the jagged floor over and over. A pool of blood formed around Luis.
"Dad!"
Tomas paused. His son, Franco, sprinted into the chamber, weaving around the battered bodies on the ground.
"Dad, stop! Please!" Franco raced over to Luis.
"Don't hurt Uncle Louie!" Franco begged.
"He's a lying, cheating human! Just like the rest of them!" Tomas snarled.
"He's not the rest of them! He's my uncle!" Franco said.
He rammed his father and pushed him off his uncle.
Tomas looked at his son. The pain pouring from Tomas' flush face…it was as if his son put a bullet in his heart.
"…My own flesh and blood…" Tomas staggered to his feet, "…a human lover."
Tomas turned his back to Franco. He bit his tongue. Shut his eyes. Anything to hold the tears.
"…You are not my son. Not now. Not ever again. I renounce you. My son is dead today," Tomas said.
"Dad, please…I love you. I just want us to be a family again," Franco said, tears aging his young eyes.
"You are not my family," Tomas said.
He stepped over his brother's bloody body. Franco charged at his father again. This time, Tomas swatted him to the ground.
"And…" Tomas inhaled deeply, "…neither is he."
"Wait!" Franco cried.
Tomas lifted his right leg and stomped his foot through his brother's skull.
Franco snatched a crimson stained dagger off the floor.
"AAAAARGH!" Franco roared at his father.
Franco jammed the blade into his father's back until the tip pierced through his stomach. Tomas slinked to the floor. His eyes open. Frozen.
Franco tried to pull the knife from out his father. He grunted and wriggled it, but the handle was hooked too deep in tissue to dislodge it. Franco's blood-soaked hands quivered until he let the knife, and his father, go.
Tears dripped from his soft, oval eyes like the droplets of blood from his fingers. Tiny puddle of bloody tears formed at his feet.
Franco pried his eyes off his father's corpse, lain crisscrossed over his uncle's dead body. Lifeless mutant and human shells together, forming an X shape. Franco took a final, deep gaze at the life he knew, dead in front of him, and marched out the base to face the new life waiting for him. One without his Dad. Or his Uncle Louie.
The underground base, perhaps once a magnificent subterranean burial chamber, didn't look much different from its original purpose. Bodies littered the crimson grounds, crumpled like used tissues carelessly tossed aside. Used up and thrown away. Humans and mutants alike.
But from the smoke and ash, from the blood and betrayal, the X-Men rose.
Bobby, reverted back to his human form, crawled from across the room toward his friends, dragging a very weary and lucid Warren. Hank, Emma, Bishop, and Jubilee staggered to their feet following the shuddering impact of Luis' plasma bolt.
Poor kid. Patricide was an unthinkable crime. But for Hank…after everything he had witnessed and been through as an X-Man, as a man, he understood.
Hank understood that fear and ignorance could burgeon into anger and hate. And Hank could feel the hurt in the orphan child. Hank could almost reach out and touch the rays of pain and betrayal ebbing off the lad.
How…why did it have to come to this? Why did it always have to come down to this? Someone plays God and it ends with brother killing brother.
Trail of Tears.
Civil War.
Holodomor.
The Holocaust.
History of mankind right there.
Hank bit his lip.
And if Hank and his friends didn't do something, Exodus would do the same.
The shrill tenor of hands clapping shattered the silence.
Hank's pupils tented.
The jarring, deliberate rhythm of the claps were not the applause of admiration or enjoyment. These were the pithy, sardonic claps meant for mice finally reaching the cheese.
"Bravo, X-Men, bravo," Fabian Cortez said, "I knew you would deliver. You always do."
"Cortez!" Hank snarled.
Cortez nonchalantly walked toward the X-Men. Unchained. Unrestrained. His faux clapping and smug smirk just made Beast want to pretend Hank Mccoy didn't exist. That punch-able face made Beast want to pretend he was Beast and only Beast. A wild, vicious animal who could tear Cortez to pieces without repercussion. Without it being wrong.
A beast was well within his right to mete out justice with an eye for an eye, jungle style.
But he wasn't a beast. He was the Beast, Hank Mccoy.
"How did you…?" Hank stammered.
"Oh please, Mccoy," Cortez bellowed a hoarse, hearty laugh, "You honestly believe these… these savages could contain me without my allowing it?"
"Definitely not your mouth," Bobby said.
"Then all this time you've seemingly been a prisoner here, you could have escaped whenever you wanted?" Hank said.
"To what gain, pray tell?" Emma said.
Cortez inhaled and admired the devastation around him. His broad smile like a slit watermelon.
"Isn't it glorious? Look at what I've accomplished," Cortez said.
"Yeah, sainthood's right around the corner, bub," Jubilee said.
"When I first came to this backwards village, these natives didn't even know what a mutant was. Mutants and humans living in perfect harmony. Would you believe, the mongrels were naïve enough to believe that their powers were simply gifts from the gods?" Cortez snorted.
Hank shifted his eyes at the word "gifts." Something about the snooty, elitist inflection in Cortez's voice made it sound like it was the most absurd idea known to man that mutant powers could possibly ever be considered gifts.
Cortez walked over to Luis and Tomas' dead bodies. He squatted beside them.
"See these two? Brothers. When I first arrived seeking 'refuge and aid,' they led their peaceful mongrel tribe together. They were inseparable. But it didn't take much to corrupt them," Cortez said.
He grabbed Tomas' limp head.
"No, it didn't take much at all. Isn't that right, Tommy? See, we're all alike in the end. Tommyboy here, he loved his brother's wife. Loved her. But thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. So he hid his feelings, and they went on with their little lives, pretending to be a family. Pretending to be civilized.
One day, I orchestrated outside raiders to attack their village. Luis and Tomas led their warriors to repel the attack. And they did. Just as I planned. But when it was over, suddenly the people were cheering Tomas' superhuman gifts from the gods for saving the village, instead of Luis' strategic planning," Cortez said.
He dropped Tomas' head and pinched Luis' cheeks.
"Oh, this one, so jealous. So hurt. Weren't you? Jealous little puppet. He saw the cheers and admiration from his people toward his mutant brother and those like him. He saw how the wind was blowing. I got in his ear and simply fanned. I warned him this was only the beginning. Yes, soon the people would be ensnared by these mutants. They would overlook his contributions and leadership for the flashy, powerful mutants, and eventually, the mutants would rise up and believe they didn't need the humans anymore. All I did was tell him what he already knew," Cortez said.
He stood up.
"He had to stop it before it happened. And I told the mutants the same. The puppets did the rest. Tomas was convinced his brother, who in his mind already stole the woman he loved, was preparing to destroy all the mutants. Tomas wanted so badly to believe it was true.
He wanted so badly an excuse to take Luis' wife. He thought his brother was a paranoid human who stole the woman he loved to stifle him because he was a mutant. He was so content and eager to blame all his troubles on him being a mutant. It was like a huge weight of responsibility was lifted off him when I explained to him he was not gifted by god. He was just a common mutant. A genetic mistake that the humans would always fear and hate.
It was something to see. Tomas righteously confronted his brother to liberate the woman he loved. And with a little flame stoking on my part, I subtly manipulated Tomas' powers. When he fought his brother, his powers flared out of control. And in the crossfire, Luis' wife was killed. Both brothers blamed one another, and the battle lines were forever drawn." Cortez gave a savage grin.
"That's low, dude," Jubilee said.
"Even for him," Bobby said.
"It doesn't surprise me in the least. Snakes slither," Emma said.
"Surely, Frost, you of all people would appreciate the art in deception on this grand of a scale? The skill required to move mountains with the gentlest push of a few buttons." Cortez locked eyes with Emma.
She paused.
Hank glanced at his teammate. Emma shuffled her body weight onto her left leg.
"…The only thing I appreciate, dear, is how truly miserable and pathetic your little existence must be," Emma said.
"That's not a no in any language I speak, Frost," Cortez said.
Bishop grabbed Cortez. He corralled the former Acolyte by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
"Then let me put it in a way so you can understand! We came here for one reason only. You're going to tell us where to find Exodus, and you're going to do it before my fist reaches your face!" Bishop growled.
"Preferably after!" Jubilee said.
"Fitzroy was wrong about you, Mr. Bishop…" Cortez smirked, "…He told Shinobi and I you were a brilliant warrior and worthy adversary."
Bishop sneered. His fist trembled.
"Give it to him, B!" Bobby said.
Cortez winked at Bishop.
"But you're really just…common. Another Wolverine clone who cannot see past his own fists," Cortez said.
"Seeing past my fists is your problem, not mine," Bishop growled.
"I believe you're forgetting our little agreement, aren't you, Mr. Bishop?" Cortez said.
"Huh?" Bobby said.
Bishop angrily scrunched up his face.
"My unconditional release for Exodus' location…" Cortez looked dead in Bishop's eyes, "…So, release."
Bishop tightened his grip.
"Whoever said I intended to honor that agreement?" Bishop said.
"Oooh, what a delightful twist," Emma said.
Hank exhaled.
If what Cortez said was true, if he was indeed reunited with the Upstarts, then how could they let him go free? After all the chaos he caused here, there was no way Cortez could be allowed to just walk away. If they didn't do something now, then they would most certainly regret it later. Cortez and the Upstarts, sooner or later, would be back to cause more death and destruction.
Hank took a long deep breath.
"…Lucas." Hank rested his hand on Bishop's shoulder.
Hank gently shook his head no.
"Henry…" Emma said.
Bishop swiveled from Cortez to Beast. Sadistic grin to defeated grimace.
"Do as the blue gorilla says," Cortez said.
Bishop shut his eyes. He spiked Cortez to the ground like a football then walked off.
"We'll regret this. You know that, Henry," Emma said.
"I'll add it to the pile," Hank said.
Cortez stretched his back.
"Excellent, X-Men. Predictable as ever but no less excellent. Now the mice may have their treat for crossing the maze," Cortez said.
"Brie or swiss?" Bobby mumbled.
"You were right to seek me out. Exodus is an unusual creature. He exclusively sees life on a philosophical level. He has no emotional link to anyone or anything, which makes him far more dangerous to me than even Magneto. I could reason with Magneto. Manipulate him. He had emotions and attachments. Heart strings that could be pulled.
Exodus is devoid of all that. And frankly, that is what unsettles me the most about the man. He is one hundred percent driven by whatever beliefs he latches on to at a given moment. He once worshipped Magneto, but he is far more akin to you X-Men," Cortez said.
"Right. And Living Monolith's my kid brother," Jubilee said.
"This is not the time, Jubilation…" Hank shushed her.
Cortez glanced at Hank.
"I may have underestimated you after all, Mccoy. You see more than you let on. I can see the unease in you as we talk about him. Exodus is governed entirely by abstract ideals, which makes him rigid, fanatical, and lethal.
He almost killed me once. And he did so in a way where I felt, for the first time…completely helpless. To protect myself against him, I set out to understand him, should our paths cross again.
Exodus has a shrine he maintains in the Swiss Alps, where he ruminates, meditates, and recharges his powers. I shall upload the precise coordinates to you, X-Men," Cortez said.
He rose to his feet. Dusted off his clothes.
"And, X-Men…thank you. You just put me in the lead." Cortez chuckled.