Chapter 14
District X, Bayville...
"Give me a report Domino," Cyclops orders as he stands amongst the frightened mutants. He has to look like he had it all under control for their benefit.
Dom may not be back to 100% yet, but she can still provide observation from the roof-top...though a sniper's scope. No, the gun is not carrying bullets but it can be sat on a tripod so she doesn't need to use her still weak arm. "It's more or less working. The two teams on either side plus Hairy and Tin Man in the midst of them has completely broken down their organisation," she reports back. "Or at least for most of them. There's a group at the front still advancing, they look better trained. There's no sign of panic from them."
"Understood," Cyclops takes the report into consideration. "Storm?" he asks his eyes in the sky.
"In the panic several small groups have attempted to break off. Rogue, Cannonball, Angel and I are on it...I'll need to call you back Cyclops," she signs off clearly in pursuit of one of those groups and therefore busy.
Scott implicitly trusts Storm to cope with it.
There's no point in asking Wolverine and Colossus how they're doing. They'll be busy and Dom would have said if they were in trouble so he moves on to another front. "Iceman, Volcana, report," he orders.
"Flame throwers?! On me?! Are you fucking kidding me?!" is what Cyclops gets over the communicator from Volcana.
"Iceman?" Cyclops decides to try.
"They're trying to burn through my ice wall with flame throwers," is what Bobby reports. He and Volcana had created two barriers. A wall of ice and a wall of fire to hold them back. "Volcana's dealing with it."
And dealing with it means she's just so pissed off she's practically melting the entire block. She means not only did they bring flame throwers to 'Burn the muties out!' to quote them but they tried to use them on her. The stupidity is beyond measure. She controls fire. She's fireproof. They might as well throw soggy sponges at her for all the good their efforts will accomplish.
Course what she's not realising is that her temper has meant she's not paying attention while some of those more professional guys attach crude looking home-made bombs to the front of Iceman's ice wall.
"Oh crap!" Dom swears as she spots it. "Guys look o..."
BOOM!
The bombs explode, shattering the wall and the force of the blast knocking down Volcana and Iceman.
"Cyclops. Iceman and Volcana are down. Get them out of there. Now!" Dom yells into the communicator, trying to get the urgency of the situation across before the mob have their chance to get to fallen mutants.
"Beast, with me," Cyclops orders as he and the blue furred mutant sprint for the door.
Looking on is Cessily, torn over what to do. Watching these guys risk their lives for her, for everyone...
...she has to help surely.
Which would be why she follows the 2 X-Men out the door.
What she finds is Cyclops laying down covering fire with red crimson blasts while Beast hoists the stunned Volcana and Iceman over his burly shoulders.
There were too many. Some were going to burst through. Cessily had to do something. She strides forward, throwing her coat and hat off, revealing her sliver metal body more clearly dressed in a red-pink shirt and baggy jeans.
"Hey, kid, wait!" Cyclops shouts when he spots her walking right at the mob, even trying to reach for her but it's too late as she breaks into a jog and then a sprint.
The mob fire their weapons. Cessily feels the force with which the bullets hit her body but there's no pain to associate with it. She starts to perform flips and spins and show why she was such a good cheerleader. When she gets close she performs a handstand and kicks two guys at the same time with a split.
She spots one guy coming at her with a sledgehammer...and it's only a thought but her body seems to respond to it and her own hand takes the shape of a hammer. She spins on the spot, her arm stretching out and she clocks several guys at once. "Ok, that was kinda cool," she has to confess. The first time she's ever thought that about herself since she transformed.
A grenade suddenly bounces next to her feet. "Oh..." she never finishes that thought as it explodes, sending her flying.
Again there is not as much pain as she was expecting. It's surprising to her how hardy this new body of hers seems to be.
As she lies there the FOH guys move in...only for them to be flung aside by Colossus and Wolverine.
Colossus moves to Cessily's side. "Are you ok?" he asks in his thick Russian accent.
Cessily gets back to her feet, rubbing her head. "Yeah. I think I am," she says as she spots a piece of shrapnel stuck in her shoulder. She plucks it out with only mild discomfort. She spots a man with a sword sneaking up behind Colossus. "Look out," she shouts before reacting first. Her arm takes the shape of a blade and she cuts the sword in two before Colossus knocks the guy out.
Cessily brings her reshaped arm in front of her face and looks at it in surprise.
"Thank you," Colossus says even if it wasn't necessary. No sword can cut his metal skin.
"Y-you're welcome," Cessily stutters over herself. "I've never shaped my arm like that before," she confesses as it retakes the shape of her arm and hand. She wiggles her fingers as if testing them.
"Hey, Tin Man, if you're finished flirting could use a hand," Wolverine yells as more men than even he can handle try to overwhelm him.
"F-flirting?" Cessily stammers.
Colossus mutters something under his breath. "Ignore Wolverine. His mouth speaks before his brain thinks...but I must go aid him. You should go back inside."
"No," Cessily refuses. "I can help," she insists and then as if to prove it she takes Wolverine's metal claws as an example. Her fingers lengthen and sharpened into fierce looking talons.
Colossus arches an eyebrow. Her powers were...interesting to say the least. "Very well," he agrees and the two charge into what should be a withering barrage of fire.
Only on Wolverine no matter how many times they shoot him it just heals...but even that has its limits.
Colossus is like his name. A virtual colossus who charges into the ranks as the bullets bounce off his steel skin.
Cessily ignores the bullets passing through her as she uses her talons to slice the weapons apart. The sight of this girl was so fearsome some of even the more experienced men were starting to back up. After all how do you stop a girl made of metal, whom your weapons cannot harm.
Cessily was running on...adrenaline? Does her body still produce that? No, it was more fear and anger and just sheer bloody mindedness determination. When a truck drives up with guys carrying what looked like rocket launchers Cessily charges at it with barely a thought. She leaps into the air, lengthens her leg into a point and goes straight into the engine, cutting through the metal easily.
The truck stops...and then starts to rock as Colossus picks it up. The men on board jump for it as the large Russian throws the truck aside like a toy.
Cessily feels like a woman possessed. She has never felt like this. She feels invulnerable, unstoppable, like a juggernaut...
...until something touches her back and pain, like fire, surges through her body. It was everywhere...and she loses control over her metal body as it begins to melt, misshape, bubble. She melts down into a misshapen lump on the ground, screaming.
This miracle weapon that stopped her?
A jacked up tazer.
And the thug who found this weakness grins evilly as he shocks the metal lump more. "Die you filthy freak!" he screams at her.
For a few moments Cessily wonders if she could die as she screams in agony and her body morphs and shifts uncontrollably.
Then suddenly it stops.
Cessily's body regains its solidity and she finds her tormentor on the ground unconscious.
"Ya alright, darlin?" a voice with a southern drawl asks.
Cessily closes her eyes and tries to regain her voice.
Rogue sighs. It was lucky she spotted it. Looking around the FOH guys were on the retreat on all fronts. Thanks to this girl the lines of the more professional guys had been broken and now that they had been the whole thing was collapsing.
Rogue can see a team led by Jean and the other led by Havok mopping up the stragglers.
They had done it. They had kept the mob away from the mutants and driven them back. She activates her communicator. "Storm, ya nearby?" she queries.
"Yes. Is it urgent?"
"Sorta. I need ta borrow your cape," Rogue says cryptically. Why? Look down at the silver girl on the ground. The naked silver girl. Luckily Kurt isn't here. He would blush like a beetroot under his fur.
In fact now Rogue thinks on it, where is her brother?
Bayville Hospital...
Kurt is where he often is. Visiting Amanda who was still inexplicably in a coma as she has been for the last month.
No-one could get to the bottom of the cause of it...and it was frustrating and testing even Kurt's faith.
Why wouldn't she wake up?
All Kurt can do is keep visiting, keep talking to her, keep praying that one day soon she'll come back to him.
"Ich liebe dich," Kurt says softly to her as he kisses her temple. I love you.
Kurt sighs and gets to his feet, feeling a need to stretch his legs. He briefly checks his holowatch for how the battery is doing. Wouldn't do for it to short out unexpectedly.
Nah, it's good.
While he stretches his legs he thinks he'll go see where Amanda's parents got to. Last he checked they had done for something to eat...which is good. Need to keep your strength up and all that jazz.
He exits the door and spots her parents, George and Margali Sefton coming back. He meets them halfway and they talk a little.
During that Kurt can't help but notice at the end of the hallway a group of about half a dozen burly men, talking to a nurse, speaking in low tones and she is pointing in their direction.
It's that X-Men training. It's screaming at Kurt that this is suspicious.
When the men start to march toward them and their big coats fly open a bit Kurt spots the weaponry hidden underneath. "Mr and Mrs Sefton, run," he advises as he walks toward the group of men.
The Seftons don't move, utterly confused as to why Kurt would say that.
"Gentlemen. Are you lost perhaps?" Kurt asks in light tones, feigning ignorance as he reaches the group of men.
One of the men grabs Kurt and shoves him up against the wall, gun pointed at his head.
Kurt's eyes focus in on the barrel. "Vone gets zhe feeling you're channelling a lot of hostility. Have you ever thought of embracing our Lord Jesus Christ, mein freund? Through him is zhe path to peace and enlightenment"
The guy just pushes harder, his expression grows darker, he brings his face right into Kurt's...which means he doesn't see the blue spaded tail wrapping around the gun until it's too late.
BAMF!
Kurt vanishes in his puff of blue smoke, choking the man and reappears down the corridor, gun in tail...which looks kinda weird since his human holo-image is still on.
"He's one of them!" another of the group of men realise.
"Kill him! Then the girl!" the leader order.
Girl?! Amanda? They're here to kill Amanda, Kurt realises. Nope. Never going to happen.
They pull their guns and fire just as Kurt teleports so hit nothing but smoke.
Kurt reappears in the midst of them, kicking out in two directions and clocking two of them in the face before disappearing again...and on and on it goes. Kurt appearing, striking, disappearing.
"Enough!" one of the group roars as he grabs Amanda's mother and uses her as a hostage, arm round her neck, gun pressed to her head.
Kurt has to stop in reaction. "Let her go," he orders in a commanding voice.
"You stay back you freak!" the man snarls in disgust. "I'll put a bullet in her brain I swear!"
Kurt can see how the man means it. Even if he teleports he may not be fast enough.
Course what he doesn't see is that nurse sneak up behind and clock him on the head with a fire extinguisher.
Down Kurt goes...his wrist slamming on the floor and his holo-image flickering off.
"Oh my god," the nurse says in horror at seeing Kurt's true appearance.
"I knew it. Spawn of Satan is what they are," one of the men say.
"And she's the mother," the nurse points at Margali. "She's the girl's mother."
"You gave birth to that freak?"
"Don't you call my daughter that," George Sefton steps forward steps forward only for a gun to get pointed into his face making him stop dead.
"Someone finish that freak off," the leader of the group points at Kurt.
A man comes to stand over him, aims his gun, begins to put the pressure on the trigger...when a beam of white energy suddenly strikes him dead-on, slamming him so hard into the wall he cracks it and collapses down to the ground in a heap.
"Don't you touch him!" an angry voice snarls.
Everyone turns to look at the source...and the source is an 18-year old girl with dark skin and hair in a hospital gown, her eyes glowing with white energy, her hand held out, indicating it was the source of the energy beam.
"Amanda?" her father queries.
Amanda doesn't answer. Instead she vanishes in a flash of white light...before a beam of energy strikes another man from another direction...and then another and then another and yet you can't see the source of it.
A beam strikes the hand of the man holding Margali. The man cries out in pain and George uses the opportunity to wrestle the man and gets a good punch in, knocking the man out.
The tide has turned. Most of the men have been taken out. In fact all of them have in a few seconds, mostly by Amanda.
The nurse beats a hasty retreat...only for Amanda to appear in her path in a blinding flash of light. "You," Amanda says, choking on her rage. "You did this," she accuses, her glare filled with anger.
"I...uh..." the nurse stammers, backing up.
"I heard. Everything. For the last month. I heard my parents, Kurt...you. You didn't realise it how you mutter under your breath about me did you?"
Well actually the nurse did know she was muttering. She didn't realise she was being overheard.
"But I couldn't move, couldn't wake up...not until you threatened my parents and the boy I love," she explains to the nurse. That has been Amanda's world for the last month. She could hear everything but she couldn't get herself to wake up but when she heard this commotion...something inside her snapped and finally...finally! Finally her eyes opened and her body responded...though the energy beam thing...that's new. Sorta an instinctual response.
In fact she's been running on instinct and adrenaline for about 5 minutes now and it's catching her up. She can feel her energy sagging. Better finish this quick then. "You will never, ever threaten the ones I love again," Amanda swears to the nurse. "Run, bitch," she says very crudely, much more aggressively than she ever usually acts but she's so pissed off right now.
The nurse runs for it. She doesn't get far as Amanda strikes her dead centre in the back, a beam of white energy emerging from her closed fist, knocking the vile woman down and out.
Amanda staggers forward and kneels down beside her boyfriend. She cradles his head in her lap. "Kurt, liebe?" she queries.
Kurt groans as he cracks an eye open...and spots the girl of his dreams. "Am I dreaming?" he asks.
Amanda chuckles. "No. You utter goof. It's me. I'm back," she assures him.
Kurt's heart soars. "Liebe!" he cheers ecstatically and before he knows it, he's sitting up and kissing her...a lot.
Amanda isn't complaining and despite the fact her parents are here she can only respond in kind.
And the fact is they're all safe now. That's all that matters.
Limbo...
By the time Black Swan and Belasco reach the throne room it is quite clear that the battle between Darkchylde and War is nearing its end.
The two competitors were clearly badly beaten and exhausted. It was only a matter of time before one of them made a sloppy mistake.
And any mistake now would surely be fatal.
War brings his axe down hard, the blow making an opening which he uses to slam a fist across the demon-sorceress' face.
Darkchylde uses the momentum of the blow to deliver a spinning kick back at War.
And then axe meets sword again in a display that's lost all artistic glory and is now a brutal battle of force. Technique vanished ages ago.
Problem for the girl-demon is in that type of battle War probably has the advantage. He's physically bigger and taller and probably stronger. He presses down with all the energy he has left, driving Darkchylde back...until she trips over a broken piece of stone, flat on her back, sword dropped, completely open and vulnerable.
War swings his axe up high, ready to bring it down for the final blow. "Goodbye, Illyana Rasputin," he spits out in his final triumph, murderous gleam in his eye.
Darkchylde's eyes go wide in what is fear. Make no mistake about it. She fears her own death at some level. All living beings do. Her hand desperately reaches for...where is it?!
With a cry of victory War brings the axe down...only to stop halfway as a sharp pain erupts from his torso. He looks down...at the flaming sword stuck in his gut.
Darkchylde found it.
War drops the axe from his suddenly nerveless fingers and it clatters on the stone floor.
Darkchylde sits up, bringing her face to millimetres from his. "I told you, not to call me that," she growls. Her bloodied lips, curl up slightly. "Now what were you saying about goodbye?" she asks.
War can't believe...it's impossible! It is his destiny to finish the Great Apocalypse's work. He can't...this can't be how it ends?!
Darkchylde's eyes glow brighter. "Dasvidaniya...bitch," she states, throwing in a little of Illyana's native Russian with more than a little bit of malicious glee and her Soulsword glows brighter still because this is how it ends. How it was always going to end.
With her victory.
And his death.
Author's Note: I kinda dig Cessily so gave her a prominent role in the fight. And Amanda's awake...and has other new powers to go with it in saving her beloved fuzzy elf. And, uh, wow, Darkchylde won. Thanks to everyone who wrote reviews. Next up; The end of War? The end of Clark? And the fallout from the battle in District X.