Chapter Thirty-Five: Revolution

The Garden: Central Core

The mutant thief bowed his spine as Garden input cables uncoiled from the ceiling and rippled down the walls to tangle and intertwine with his flesh. The mutant's eyes flashed open; black as pitch and glowing like coals. His face contorted with rage and endless, almost mindless, defiance. His skin glowed white hot through the blood.

'LET GO OF ME!'

It happened too fast to stop it. Nathaniel Essex only had time to release the thief and save himself before the power erupted from LeBeau's pores.

'No!' he roared in futile complaint as the flash-fire eruption of energy ignited the oxygen in the air in utter silence.

Essex could do precious little to protect his tools and equipment against the devastation. The Marauders Vertigo, Riptide, and Prism were also lost in the silent, beautiful wave of energy that rose like a beam of heatless sunlight from the thief's body.

There was no explosion; the thief's power was too strong. Instead the wall behind him dissolved in a shower of atoms and the steel grated floor shimmered and rippled; in places fuchsia energy ate holes in the thick steel grating. Data cables throbbed with siphoned energy and coiled around the thief's limp form in something almost akin to an embrace. The power faded almost as fast as it had been released, flashing through the room like lightning fire before fizzling out. Thankfully the integrity of the chamber held - just barely.

LeBeau hung bonelessly in the embrace of the Garden; his face awash with blood and the ends of his hair spitting sparks. Nathaniel Essex had but seconds to salvage not just his most recent exploits but his entire life's work.

All his calculations, all his plans; how could it be that he had so thoroughly failed to anticipate the power of the thief's defiance? How could he have lost control so completely?

Moving rapidly towards one of the control podiums Essex planned to enter his own override codes to ensure that LeBeau could not access the Central Core and coerce the Garden into attack mode; he knew that the thief had partially bonded with the Garden already. He also knew that if he did not act now, while the thief was insensate, he would struggle to counter LeBeau's control of the Garden otherwise. Ironically, under any other circumstances, the speed of the mental integration of thief and Garden would have pleased him greatly.

Now however he was beginning to realise the fundamental flaw in his plan; LeBeau could not be allowed to control the Garden until Essex himself could control LeBeau and controlling LeBeau was proving surprisingly difficult.

Around him Essex could sense that the Garden was reacting to the influx of new sensory feedback from the thief; absorbing the backlash of his pain even while LeBeau was unconscious. The Garden had experienced pain only once before and would be inoperative for a handful of moments until it had compensated for the shock; Essex still had a chance.

He had but moments to re-assert his control.

Perchance to dream: the undiscovered country

'To be or not to be that is the question……whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or take arms against a sea of troubles and in opposing end them……..'

The flamingos in the fountain and the alligators in the pool were one thing but Remy could not figure out for the life of him why Wolverine was wearing a Viking helmet and balancing on an exercise ball reciting the famous soliquey from Hamlet.

'Oooookay, dis be a petit bit weird.' He whistled through his teeth eyes scanning the surrounding area.

The wide swathes of manicured lawns glowed like liquid emerald and the sun beat down on the crystal clear waters of the pool like fire. The alligators looked happy enough that's for sure. He watched Capitan Cyclops throw lumps of raw meat to the 'gators while simultaneously manning the barbecue. He nodded in approval; the homme knew how to grill he'd give Summers that much credit.

'To die, to sleep no more - and by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.'

Cyclops looked up at him sharply, red light throbbing behind his visor, 'We need more hot sauce Gambit. After you've re-wired the electrics in the boat house and hacked Sinister's genetic database I want you to run out and get some. Take the blackbird – it's faster than public transport.'

'Pardon?' Remy stared at him and at that moment Jean Grey sauntered by toward the pool carrying a plate of water melon slices. She was wearing a black satin cape and a red leather corset. A nimbus of fire roiled around her frame. She stopped and frowned at him.

'Gambit can you hear me? Please answer me if you can hear me. Are you okay?'

'Eh?'

Jean's voice didn't match the scene. She sounded worried and alarmed her voice distant and distorted as if coming through to him from a faulty connection. The flaming halo wreathing her frame writhed and shivered. Confused Remy shook his head and walked on.

'T'ink I prefer de Viking Wolverine.'

Central Core

Nathaniel Essex reached toward one of the control consoles situated around the circular walkway; a single gunshot exploded the gel-pack hand sensor before Essex could place his palm to it. He whipped around in time to receive a gun shot wound to the head courtesy of the once loyal Scalphunter. He staggered to the side away from the console; his flesh ejected the bullet instantly and the diamond centred on his forehead pulsed.

'In-grate, you will pay for this treachery.' Curling his lips from his teeth Essex concentrated on the psi-triggers he had placed in all his Marauder clones. The trigger would give Scalphunter an instant, and fatal, brain aneurysm; a fitting punishment for this foolishness. It was simply staggering how easily LeBeau could incite utter chaos with his mere presence alone.

The old mercenary shook his head dispassionately. There was neither respect nor fear in his regard as he faced Essex. 'A mercenary knows when to cut and run. I go where the power is – and at the moment that ain't with you.'

Scalphunter raised his gun again, pieces of metal debris from the chamber melding with his flesh like liquid scale armour, reacting to the man's unusual but fairly superfluous mutation. Essex flipped the psi-trigger. He waited for his minion to collapse to the ground dead.

Scalphunter stumbled back, blinking his eyes for a moment. Essex smiled in anticipation only to receive a face full of lead a second later. He reeled backwards, falling against the guard rails more from shock than injury.

'You just don't get it, do you?' the mercenary actually dared mock him, 'You ain't running this show anymore Essex; the kid's got you on the ropes.'

Scalphunter shot again – and kept shooting. Essex reached out with his artificially grafted psionic sense; he reached for the death trigger in Scalphunter's brain. He discovered something decidedly alarming. The psi-triggers in these newest clones had not been activated; the clones had been released without the proper procedures in place. Essex's eyes widened as he understood the implications.

There was revolution in the Garden

Almogordo - cooling tower wreckage

'Sonofabitch,' Jean Grey-Summers rarely swore but when she did everyone paid attention. Much like now.

'Phoenix?' her husband and her field leader turned to her, the visor guard instantly snapping into place as he turned away from blasting rubble away from the crater left in the wake of the eradicated cooling tower.

'I had him, Scott; I had a glimpse of Gambit's mind but I lost the connection before I could make contact.' Jean fumed but turned her energy to something constructive instead of sulking. She concentrated on a large piece of crumbling steel enforced concrete and lifted it clear of the partially excavated hole with the force of her mind and will alone.

'Remy is alive?' Ororo was controlling the air currents to keep the energized dust filling the air in motes of shimmering pink light from choking them all.

Jean nodded, 'Yes; I can't tell you more than that, but he's definitely alive.' She paused, 'He might be semi-conscious. I think I'd have gotten more reaction if he'd been awake when I found him.'

Belladonna Boudreaux stood quietly a few paces away, surveying the wreckage with a critical eye. A combatant worthy of respect, Boudreaux was still only human and therefore could not offer much in the way of assistance clearing the rubble.

'Dis remind me o' de 'gator dat got int' Tante's outhouse.' She mused absently reaching out a cupped palm to catch some of the thick, filtering dust in her palms; it tingled like a static shock as it settled against her skin.

'We were sixteen. He only meant to scare de critter back out into de bayou.' She shook her head, 'dere weren' even bones left o' de t'ing once he was done.' She glanced over at the X-men, 'Dat de firs' time I ever been close t' scared o' m' Remy-boy.'

'Gambit vaporised an alligator when he was sixteen?' Cyclops asked precisely.

'Oui,' Belle's lips quivered, 'It be kind of funny to t'ink on it. De t'ing gon an' glowed like someone done shoved a neon lamp up its ass; den it wen' 'pop'.' She did laugh then, 'De look on his face when he realise what he done,' she shook her head fondly.

No one knew quite what to say to that, and therefore Havok's shout was a welcome distraction.

'Pay-dirt!' Alex Summers shouted up from the bottom of the crater. 'There's metal under the rock down here; probably adamantium. We think it might be a door.'

'Is there an opening – or do you think it can be broken through?' Cyclops demanded crouched at the edge of the crater looking down to where Alex, Lorna, and Bishop had been working to drill down into the earth with their powers.

The energy blast, which everyone assumed was Gambit's doing, had destroyed the cooling tower in a searing wave of energy. That power had just wiped the tower out of existence leaving mounds of glowing powder, dust, and the occasional larger piece of wreckage to litter the ground. Recognising an opportunity the X-men had begun to bore down into the ground under the former base of the cooling tower. Now it looked like their enterprise was about to be rewarded.

Alex, Lorna, and Bishop exchanged shrugs, 'It feels like the metal plating goes right under the ground throughout the complex,' Lorna said eyes closed in concentration, 'I can't just rip it out of the ground.'

'I could probably heat the adamantium up to near liquid form,' Alex suggested, 'Rogue could try and punch a hole in it at the weak point after that.'

Rogue, who had been hovering halfway down the hole, watching the backs of the other three in case of a sudden collapse of the hole, nodded, 'Just tell me where to hit, sugar.'

Cyclops nodded, 'Do it.'

His brother gave him an ironic bow that ended with one finger extended. Cyclops decided to ignore the gesture for the moment; later he and Alex would have a long talk, possibly in the Danger Room, and probably with the aid of boxing gloves.

Cyclops turned around as Psylocke shimmered out of a patch of dust choked shadow and approached, the Crimson Dawn tattoo glowing rusty red in the shadows. 'There's something happening below us.' She said without pre-amble. 'The monitor screens in the security room are active again.'

'What have you seen?' Storm asked intently.

Betsy Braddock smiled viciously, 'A bloody revolution – that's what I saw.'

Perchance to dream: the undiscovered country

'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished…….'

Belle floated in the pool in a bright yellow inner tube wearing a rather scandalous lilac bikini dusted with diamonds. She sipped from a tall glass of iced tea and the 'gators gave her a wide berth. Remy blew his wife a kiss and Belle snatched out a hand fast as a wink to catch it.

'The pangs of despised love, the law's of delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of th' unworthy takes…..'

Jasmine hung heavy in the air and the mouth watering aroma of hot rolls and jambalaya floated on the balmy breeze. Riots of colour from the flower beds glowed in shades of lavender, sun flower yellow, pinks and reds and blues.

'To die, to sleep…to sleep perchance to dream: ay there's the rub……..'

Remy bent down to inhale the scent of the wild roses twinning around the trellises and as he straightened up le Professeur caught his eye. Xavier nodded to him politely across the garden before placing his white rook on the chess board and returning to his game. Remy blinked when he realised that Xavier's opponent was Jean-Luc. His Pere turned around and smiled faintly at him.

'For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.'

A ripple of laughter grabbed his attention. His cousin Emil Lapin was attempting to wrangle one of the flamingos with little success but much amusement from his audience; the laughter had come from Rogue. Remy smiled faintly, as he watched the southern belle flirt with his cousin and finding that he didn't care. It was good to see Rogue happy again.

'Soft you now, the fair Ophelia!'

'Chile you gon stand dere all day or you gon sit an' eat somet'ing?'

Tante Mattie, radiant and wrinkled, stood by a long table decked with a pristine white lace table cloth and laden with food. She frowned at him gently, an expression he had seen a thousand times before in the recesses of his memory. She nodded to a single chair facing all that food.

'Banquet o' de soul, Remy-chile; you need to fortify yo'sel' for de work ahead.' She began dishing him up a huge heap of food. Remy didn't even realise he'd sat down until he'd shovelled the first glorious mouthful of food between his lips. He moaned blissfully; the mouthful was the taste of home and happiness.

'….to take arms against a sea of troubles and in opposing…..'

'Tante am I dead?' he asked after a moment, swallowing his last mouthful and watching as Mercy waltzed over the lawns with his brother Henri. His brother and his sister-in-law looked so happy that Remy had to look away. Henri was dead and gone and the dull ache of grief flared anew in his chest.

Mattie was watching him and her dark, fathomless eyes were full to the brim with love and affection, 'Non chile, it not be your time to die yet. Dark t'ings be comin' to an' end, Remy, but dis not be your end; you barely even begun.'

'To grunt and sweat under a weary life…….

The sun disappeared between the clouds and the garden was plunged into shadow; the breeze turned chill. 'I'm tired tante.' He whispered honestly.

Central Core

'You cannot harm me,' Essex hissed eyes narrowed to glowing slits as he watched the dark clad figure approach, gun raised. Scalphunter did not bother to answer. He simply blasted at Essex's right thigh causing the geneticist to stumble for a second - which was just long enough.

Arclight darted past him with surprising swiftness considering her bulk and knelt beside LeBeau's limp form. She began to check the thief over for injuries in efficient manner. The data cables coiling around the thief's body like the lengths of a boa constrictor did not react to her presence; blood drenched the thief's lolling head. The look Arclight gave Essex was a strange one; there was an unusual focus and clarity to her gaze.

All around the man called Mr Sinister, a life time's work collapsed like castles built in the sand.

Essex took another step back from Scalphunter as the silent mercenary casually ejected a spent cartridge and jacked another shell into his rifle.

'Told you not to underestimate the kid, Essex; told you to leave him be.'

Nathaniel Essex stared beyond Scalphunter to the insensible thief dangling from the data cables. He raised one fist, summoning power. Scalphunter shot him in the chest. The blast went wide and sheared through the cables curling around LeBeau's waist.

The Garden shuddered and light filled the empty sockets of Amanda Mueller's eyes.

………..Nathaniel…………..time to die……….Nathaniel……….

Black Womb Gestation Chambers

'What is dis place?'

Belladonna Boudreaux stared at the large tube like incubators, glass shattered and lights out, which lined the corridor the X-men now traversed.

'Some kind of artificial gestation chamber would be my guess.' Cyclops admitted, 'Cloning tanks perhaps.'

Belle stared at him for a long moment. There was nothing obvious from her expression to suggest distaste but her eyes lingered on the individual pods warily.

Wolverine and Psylocke were in the lead of the group, scouting out the t-junction up ahead. Rogue and Ororo followed after with Cyclops, Phoenix, Warren, and Belladonna coming next and Polaris, Havok, and Bishop bringing up the rear.

They had reached the chamber by blasting a hole in the roof from above ground. The long rectangular room was lined on either side with gestation pods, some of which were still rigged up to a power source and glowed with an eerie pale blue light. A pulsing, headache inducing diffuse red light cast an ugly pale over the contours of the room from the ceiling. The scent of dust, mildew and long abandonment settled on the tongue like rust and acid.

'I guess this is where Sinny hatched his daughters.' Warren mused quietly.

Cyclops nodded not wanting to think on it too hard, 'Probably artificially increased the rate of maturation too.'

Phoenix paused a moment staring between two of the pods. Quick as a wink she darted between them and moved to the back of the room to a small trestle table hidden in deep shadow. Cyclops signalled for the X-men to halt and waited for Jean to return.

Presently she did holding a dog-eared and yellowed flip-pad in her hands. 'Look at this.' She held the pad up. There was faded crayon text scrawled across them.

tHey aRE aLL dEAD. MoTHEr dID nOThinG. FAthER wILL MaKE GLorIa mINd tHE GaRdEN. MuST EsCAPE. gLOrIA wILL hAVE a pRETTy dREam ToNiGHT.

The text was wreathed in childish drawings rendered in brightly coloured, but faded, crayon. Pink and yellow were prevalent and stick figures danced with awkwardly rendered bunny-rabbits across a mound of smiley faces.

'There's more written here,' Phoenix rifled through the pages of the pad, 'I think Gambit's mother must have written this.' She looked up at Cyclops, 'The Dark Beast said she was mute, after all – and her sister's name was Gloria.'

Belladonna's hand shot out and grabbed the pad. She flipped through the pages, 'Remy ain't got a mama.'

Rogue snorted, 'Shows what ya know.' She seemed pleased to know something Belle didn't, 'His mama was created by Sinister but she got away from him and had Remy in secret.' The smile left Rogue's face, 'Poor gal got killed the day he was born.'

Belle's gaze was very steady, 'What was her name?'

'Rebecca.'

Belle did not react and that in itself was telling. She silently handed the pad back to Phoenix and moved towards the exit to the chamber an abstracted frown on her face. Phoenix believed implicitly that it was wrong to psychically pry but there was something in Belladonna's mind that confused her. The woman was thinking about a tomb in a backwoods cemetery and a secret Jean-Luc LeBeau had always kept from his family. Jean frowned as she watched the other woman stalk away but did not ask the questions on her lips. It was not her place.

Psylocke was waiting for them all in the generic white walled corridor they stepped into, 'We need to keep going down.' She nodded further along the corridor to the place where Wolverine crouched low, sniffing the floor.

'Alright,' Cyclops agreed once Wolverine had straightened up and nodded to confirm it was safe.

Psylocke glanced keenly at Phoenix, 'Can you hear it?'

Phoenix didn't pretend not to understand, 'Yes. I can hear it.'

'Hear what?' Warren asked coming to stand beside Psylocke.

'The walls are talking.' She said simply pressing her hand to one of the smooth white walls.

Warren blinked but asked the pertinent question, 'What are they saying?'

Jean and Betsy exchanged a long look before Jean conceded to Betsy. Psylocke's violet eyes were calm and clear and unreadable.

'To be or not to be: that is the question.' She answered obliquely.

Central Core

A whirring noise throughout the chamber indicated that the Garden had recovered from the feedback shock of LeBeau's psycho-physical trauma. The data cords were glowing dark red and pulsing white; Essex could feel the power building.

Nathaniel's mind raced; he must discover what had gone wrong with his plan in order to salvage it.

Initiate Alpha-Omega Nine………initiate……..destruction….

The Garden powered the clone incubation units – and it was the Garden that had summoned the Marauders here under LeBeau's command. The Garden controlled and maintained all Essex's systems from the cloning banks to his archive of genetic information. The Garden had been re-programmed by Essex himself to recognise LeBeau's brain patterns as a part of its core programming; he had anticipated easily taming the thief once he had extracted him from the X-men.

He had never considered the possibility that the only thing that had kept, he, Nathaniel Essex, safe from the thief had been the X-men and their teachings. He had never considered that LeBeau could be quite so dangerous without a master to guide him.

Nathaniel Essex had engendered a Serpent to mind his Eden. He had never imagined that the serpent would turn on him. He had never envisioned a day that the garden would no longer bow to his command.

'No,' Nathaniel Essex was not capable of feeling fear, but if he had been, he would have been afraid indeed at that moment. 'This insubordination will not be tolerated.'

He would not be beaten by his own creation; his own flesh and blood.

Scalphunter snorted, 'The king is dead – long live the king. You wanted an heir, Essex, you got one. Usurpation is the name of the game.' He shot again. Essex absorbed the shot easily but it mattered not.

He had already lost the battle.

The Garden opened fire upon him.

Perchance to dream: the undiscovered country

'It not be time for you to rest yet, chile,' His tante curled his hand in her wrinkled palm just like she had when he was a child.

'Dere be work only you can do; de angels have work for you an' you alone. Break de heart o' de Devil an' bring his secrets to de light chile. Dis be what you were born to do.'

Remy turned his head away sharply, scratching in agitated fashion at his cheek. He thought he'd heard Warren and Betsy talking for a second, and he damn well knew those two weren't welcome in this garden. He frowned when he couldn't hear or see any sign of them as he scanned the far corners of his most secret retreat. He sighed after a moment and let his thoughts drift.

'To be or not to be: that is the question…….'

He stared sightlessly out at the dream-scape garden deep in the hidden realms of his soul. He watched Stormy, the woman in her flowing gown of gold, and the quick eyed little girl with her head scarf, walk hand in hand across the gleaming lawns. As one they turned to smile at him as they passed. Remy lowered his eyes, pain and panic hammering through his body.

'But it hurts; it hurts so damn bad.' He whispered wretchedly.

The sky over the garden in Remy's soul reverberated with a gathering tempest; the black and purple bruised clouds were edged with gilt golden light. Lightning flashed deep within the clouds. The rain was warm and sweet across his skin.

He wondered why he was still here; he knew he wasn't dead. He just wished he could remember what he was supposed to be doing. He had a feeling it was something important.

'The fair Ophelia - nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.'

'What de hell is an "orison"?' he wondered out loud as he turned from the rain to find himself face to face with a goddess and a child.

Stormy and her younger self stood side by side in the rain watching him. The Goddess and the child, custodians of all the goodness in his soul, both frowned at him.

'Make the garden grow.' The younger Stormy said, tugging her beautiful patterned scarf up over her head and frowning at him. 'The soil is parched and the music is old. I'm bored with the same old same old and you promised that you'd bring us new joy to fill the garden.'

Remy winced, he had noticed that the garden was looking a little ragged around the edges and the brass band stand was vacant. 'Dere ain't been much to be joyful about lately padnat.'

'…….slings and arrows of outrageous fortune……..perchance to dream………'

'Joy is where you make it Remy.' The Goddess told him sternly, lightning and thunder in her luminous eyes. 'These excuses do not please us.'

Remy winced again, a shiver of worry sliding through him. The Goddess had a nasty temper and she was very protective of this garden. 'What do you want of me?' he asked.

'Make the garden grow.' The Goddess repeated the words of the child. Remy sighed and closed his eyes. Trust his Stormy to ask of him the one thing he didn't think he could do.

'I'm tired Stormy.'

'To die to sleep….perchance to dream…….it is a consummation devoutly to be wished…….'

Lightning crackled through the garden; he smelled burning.

'There is no growth in death!' The Goddess bellowed and her voice was the crack of thunder and the howl of the wind that rattled through the arboretum. The rain ruined table cloth on the trestle table flapped and billowed as Tante's feast spilled across the mud.

'But dere be peace,' he whispered.

'………There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life.'

His little padnat Stormy stepped forward and forced him to look into her eyes as she gazed up at him dolefully. 'You made us a promise; where there was dark and hurt you would plant the seeds of joy. You promised this to us; you promised to never stop feeding the garden.'

Remy bowed his head and closed his eyes, 'Oui,' he conceded, 'I made dat promise.'

'……..whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer……'

One of the alligators, eight feet long and almost elegantly alien in appearance, all tan scales and striated golden eyes, waddled towards him. Each one of the ridged scales on its back was emblazoned with a red 'X'. The alligator stepped on his feet as it carried on towards the shade of a rhododendron bush. Remy stared after it for a moment in mute confusion.

'Oh dis is gettin' weird.'

He turned from the Stormy duo and in so doing he spied the Viking helmet wearing Wolverine. The diminutive Canucklehead strolled past him with an absent nod of the head and entered into a good natured wrestling match with the X-alligator over a can of Bud. Remy wondered about the relative health of his subconscious mind.

'Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprise of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.'

He glanced around at the cloud shadowed and wind tossed garden and then back to the Goddess who stood guard over all his good intentions.

'Mon dieu I need to get out o' dis freak show.'

Central Core

The once implacable, indomitable, Nathaniel Essex continued to give ground under the barrage of laser fire riddling his body with beams of concentrated burning light.

He backed away from the defunct control panel as the remaining gun turrets set high in the walls around the chamber all turned to target him; he blasted a segment of wall to dust destroying a large swathe of his own demesne.

Amanda's glowing yellow eyes were vacant and dead, high above him, yet despite this it almost seemed as if she saw him. If Nathaniel Essex had been any other sort of mind than he was he would have said that her atrophied face seemed to shift in a flaking ripple and her dead sneer became a sneer of bitter triumph.

Nathaniel Essex stared into the dead, but not dead, face of the woman he had used for over a hundred years - a woman he had destroyed a hundred times in that many years. He was not a superstitious man; he believed in nothing but his own will and intellect, nevertheless, in that moment Nathaniel Essex saw a vision of what was to come. He saw his fate; he saw his doom.

Around the room a command was issued through every cable and data filament; it shivered and writhed in glowing lines of intent gaining volume and impetus as it spread throughout this vast labyrinthine facility. The command had Amanda's voice.

'Garden initiating defence mechanism Alpha-Omega Nine; target Essex: Nathaniel. Garden command input: destroy Essex: Nathaniel.'

'This cannot be….' Nathaniel Essex had forgotten what fear tasted like until this moment. Three dozen laser tracking eyes honed in on him from various points around the chamber.

Scalphunter laughed; a bark of defiance. 'Told you the kid was better'n Summers; told you he'd see you dead before he'd work for you again.'

The shotgun blasted and the remaining gun turrets opened fire. Nathaniel Essex could only stare in naked shock as laser fire ripped through his body from three dozen points around the chamber; he could not believe he had been beaten - and so easily.

Central Core

Arclight gave up trying to clear the Cajun's face of blood; a deluge of the stuff fell like a liquid sheet from the deep roughly diamond shaped divot Sinister had gouged into the thief's forehead. The Cajun-cutie would scar, without question, but she didn't think the injury was life threatening.

She smacked him very lightly across the chops but his head just lolled loosely on the stem of his neck. He was breathing, but out cold. Behind her back Sinister roared as another volley of laser beams pounded into him. Scalphunter ducked around the barrage and dropped to his knees beside her.

'How's the kid?'

'Out of it,' Arclight snapped irritated by the pointless question. She reached up to tug on the Cajun's left arm, pulled up above his head and lassoed in neon glowing cords. When she touched the cords they burned her.

'Shit, what are these things?'

'Look like data cables but they don't act like 'em.' Scalphunter withdrew a black and chrome hip flask from an inside pocket of his duster. He upended the flask over the thief's head, washing a lot of the blood away.

'That isn't water,' Arclight frowned as the scent of liquor mingled with the outhouse reek of blood.

'Rum,' Scalphunter confirmed, 'Kid'll probably like it better.'

'Yeah,' Arclight agreed half-heartedly.

The liquid was doing the job even if it wasn't water. Some of the blood washed away from the thief's face and they both managed to get a real good look of the deep, diamond shaped divot gouged into Remy's forehead; she saw bone before it welled with crimson blood once more. Arclight could see that the thief's eyes were both bruised black like a raccoon. She snickered, 'Oh yeah, Cajun's gonna be pissed when he wakes up.'

Scalphunter just snorted derisively and lightly slapped at Remy's checks, 'Kid? Remy – answer me kid.'

The Cajun's head lolled from side to side as Scalphunter slapped him and his eyelids, eyelashes welded together by blood, jumped and twitched. Beyond that he gave no indication of awareness. He was alive – but that didn't mean a whole hell of a lot.

'Shit,' Arclight whispered harshly, 'D'you think Sinister fried his brains completely?'

She glanced involuntarily back at Sinister who was trading blows with the shrivelled up bitch hanging from the ceiling. Laser turrets blew up around the room.

'Shit, shit, shit,' Arclight repeated muscles tensing, 'We need to get the fuck out of here - now.' Sinister wouldn't be distracted for long. She couldn't believe she'd thought for a moment that anyone could get one over on Sinister

Arclight narrowed her eyes, looking back at the senseless thief almost thoughtfully. He had said sorry; the Cajun-cutie had apologised to her. That was why she was here now, because he'd said "I'm sorry Phillippa."

Arclight could not remember anyone ever apologising to her for anything.

Not her father, who had always been pissed she'd been born a girl and not a boy. Not her brothers who didn't see her being a girl as any reason not to beat the shit out of her whenever they liked. Uncle Sam hadn't apologised to her after Vietnam; they hadn't apologised for the nightmares, the jungle shadows, the screams and the roar of napalm in the night. Uncle Sam hadn't apologised for using the mutie woman in his black-ops missions and then dropping the freak without so much as a fucking "thank you" when Mr President slashed the funding for the project.

Sometimes evil wasn't a choice; sometimes you just woke up one morning and found out there was no way back. No one had ever asked Phillippa if she wanted to be a villain; no one had really given a fuck one way or the other.

The Cajun had cared today though; even if it was for selfish reasons.

The thief had said sorry. It shouldn't have made a difference, but it did. It made all the difference in the world.

Arclight grinned and shoved Scalphunter out of the way. She leaned down towards the Cajun. It was time the Marauders' would-be saviour woke up.

'Wakey-wakey, sleeping beauty,' She cooed cruelly and closed her large fist around the thief's groin before squeezing and twisting – hard.

The Rose Garden

'Bright Lady have mercy,' Storm couldn't help the exclamation as she and the rest of the X-men found themselves in a cavernous subterranean chamber filled with will-o-the-wisp lights and heady bloomy roses. The air was still and stale under the sickeningly sweet aroma of the flowers.

The chamber was dominated by a wavering tower, spindly and black as midnight against the fey-light winking eyes of the coloured cables twinned around the structure from top to bottom. The construct looked like a skeletal cross between the Eiffel tower and a massive electricity pylon.

'What is this place?' Rogue asked in awe.

Bishop sucked in a sharp breath of emotion when he looked around the chamber.

'This is……' he swallowed, 'I have been here before; this is the Witness' Garden.' He stared at the spindly tower wreathed in huge, sinuous cables, 'It is not as I remember it, but I am certain this is the chamber Shard and I were taken to.'

Cyclops looked at him sharply, 'Then we're getting close?' he looked to Bishop when he spoke but it was the telepaths who answered.

'Yes.' Psylocke and Phoenix said in unison.

'You can sense Remy?' Storm asked keenly.

Phoenix shook her head, 'Not exactly; we can sense the power in this place – and Gambit is at the centre of it. We have to get to the Central Core right now!'

She turned looking around her for some way out. The X-men fanned out to look for an exit. It was then that the Garden decided to object to their presence.

'There should be a large steel door, marked with the name of the Black Womb Project.' Bishop began.

Wolverine was the first to know something was wrong. He growled instantly growing still. He thought he heard something; almost like laughter or the scrambling of something sharp and pointed scraping over cold metal and stone. His claws 'snikt-ed' out to full extension and he scented the air; all he could smell were the roses and the scent of metal, dust, and thin soil on the air. He was standing in the rose beds. He had time realise his mistake a split second before the rose bushes crackled into life.

'What the….'

The rose bushes shifted; speared vines barbed with inch long thorns pulled Wolverine's feet out from under him without warning. He fell hard; the rest of the team spun around caught off-guard by the surprise attack.

The rose bushes erupted into life and the noise was incredible; worse perhaps than the deep bite of the roses' thorns.

Central Core

'Ow!'

Remy's eyes flew open and a yelp of very masculine pain burst forth from his lips. He curled in on himself and tried to bring his knees up to protect the family jewels. Arclight let go and retreated from him with a smirk.

'Thought that would get your attention cutie,' She winked at him.

Remy blinked his eyes open and took in his surroundings. He saw Sinister tearing into his own chamber apart as defence mechanism Alpha whatever blasted away at him. Remy smiled contentedly. Then he noticed that he could taste blood and rum on his lips, which was a bit odd.

His left arm was also wrenched up at a decidedly uncomfortable angle twinned in the smaller data cables; he could feel the tiny filaments creeping under the layers of flesh and muscle in his arm like maggots. He could feel the Garden's tendrils tickling at his brain. When he closed his eyes he saw algorithms and computer code. Under the circumstances that was good – it meant he was winning – but it was creepy as all get out all the same.

His right arm hung brokenly from his dislocated shoulder; he thought that it would probably hurt more if it wasn't for the shock and adrenaline coursing through his body - and the fact that he was being eaten alive by a gigantic, sentient genetic archive – that was probably a factor too.

Still first things first…….

'Do I taste rum?'

He croaked before tugging experimentally at his bound wrist. He had a feeling he'd need to be at least partially mobile soon. The last of the laser turrets exploded in a rain of sparks. Remy flexed the fingers of his left hand. He closed his eyes and concentrated as the filaments creeping under the flesh of his hands tugged in closer around the tendons and nerves of his fingers.

The Garden asked him a question; he answered it. The Garden repeated the question and he once again repeated the command - a little more forcibly.

Sinister spun around to face him, seemingly able to sense that he was now awake. The homme's body looked like a colander poked through with steaming holes and his cape tassels torn and ripped. Essex's red eyes were narrowed to thin slits and his lips drawn back from his razor teeth. Remy had never seen the homme look so ravaged. He'd honestly never thought he'd live to see the day. He grinned with savage triumph.

He knew he'd won, but he'd figured Essex would kill him before he had the chance to get in any quality gloating. Eh, looked like his luck was in this time. Sinister would kill him for this, but if he got to spit in the homme's eye as he went, it would be worth it.

He nodded to the man who had tainted his entire life and caused more pain than he could have ever imagined. 'Monsieur Essex.'

Sinister, hunched and cornered like a feral dog, stared at him.

'LeBeau,' it was more than a snarl; it was a curse.

Remy smiled and reached out to the cords crawling down the ceiling towards him like spiderwebs. He used them to pull himself to his feet. The Garden whispered subliminal encouragement as he swayed on his feet and moved towards Sinister. The cords and cables tangled around his body like the tails of his own tasselled cape.

The Garden was with him; he knew that his command had already been initiated. Briefly he tried to imagine monsieur Bete's face when the data transfer began. He hoped that all this would be worth a damn; he hoped that what he did here now would go someway to repaying his debts in blood.

He walked forward to stand before Nathaniel Essex. He stared down into the flaccidly pale features of the monster who had destroyed him once before and had tried to do so again. He stared into those cold burning eyes and felt nothing; no fear and no hatred. Sinister was nothing to him now. He smiled as he realised that live or die, he was forever free of Essex once and for all.

To be or not to be: he'd freed himself from the Devil's shadow. The rest was just icing for the cake. No, not just that. It was more.

It was justice.

'Reap what you sow monsieur,' Remy purred as the Central Core reverberated with a sudden influx of power drawn directly from his own body. The Garden shuddered.

Initiating data transfer……..Genetic archive memory banks……..transferring……

The Rose Garden

'Oh Mah lord,' Rogue took to the air a foot off the ground as a tendril of thorned veils swept out like a lash from a whip trying to ensnare her. Within seconds the entire chamber was filled with the dry, scraping rustling noise of the rose bushes.

The heads of the roses opened, petals unfurling almost poetically beautifully only to spit acidic resin into the X-men's faces. Wolverine, punctuated and lacerated a thousand times over, flashed out his claws and decapitated a swathe of the blood thirsty vines. It made little odds, however, as more of the sharp, biting thorned vines took the place of the fallen and in seconds Wolverine was half-buried under the rolling advance of the horticultural defence mechanism. Seconds after that the X-men waded into the centre of the rose beds; Wolverine, meanwhile, was bleeding from almost every square inch of his body. His blood saturated the parched soil merely strengthening the mutated roses.

'Jesus Christ,' Warren hissed beating at the vines with his wings and sending blood red petals spiralling into the still, dead air. The vines lurched and lunged at him like pricking fingers; thorns beat at the delicate white pillions of his under feathers. Soon white angel feathers fluttered to the ground mingling with the fallen petals.

Cyclops blasted a path through the beds to reach Wolverine and Jean uncoiled the tendrils with her telekinesis. Storm battered the bushes with gale force winds, causing a hail of petals to fly in all directions.

The howl of the winds in this deep, dark place and the guttural growls emitted from Wolverine's punctured throat combined with the thunderous teeth-grindingly awful scraping of the vines and the rose buds to create a cacophony as maddening as it was frightening.

Central Core

'Reap what you sow, monsieur.'

The figure prowling towards Essex glowed with his own power as a twisting nimbus of serpent like tendrils and cables twinned and laced around his left arm and upper torso; the young man in his tattered trench coat, his limping gait, and his blood drenched face, carried himself like a king ascending his throne.

Nathaniel Essex fell to his knees. He could not believe that he had been beaten by his own creation; he could not believe that everything had gone precisely to plan - and that his own success would now be the death of him. He stared into a pair of blood framed garnet eyes.

'What de matter homme, not'ing to say?' The chaos bringer queried silkily. The teeth that flashed behind the mask of blood were startling white. The black eyes smouldered.

'Isn't dis ev'ryt'ing you wanted?' the mutant squatted down before Nathaniel, 'You created me to be your greatest weapon; your greatest achievement.' He smiled again tongue flicking out to lick at the blood drying to a flaking paste around his mouth.

'So tell me, m'sieur, now dat I'm here,' the red eyes glittered and the mutant grasped Nathaniel's chin in his bloody, cable torn hand, 'do you feel proud?'

The Rose Garden

Cyclops concussive blasts obliterated the thick seven foot high wall of vines that had formed like an encroaching wave. Phoenix wrenched the bloody mess that was Wolverine out of the thicket of bloody roses with sheer brute force of will. Havok and Polaris held back watching the rest of the chamber for any other booby traps and Bishop stood with Belladonna trying to unobtrustively protect the woman who did not need protecting. Storm's winds uprooted whole bushels of roses from the black soil and tossed them like tumble weeds across the chamber. Rogue tore the bushes out with her gloved hands; the thorns pierced her clothing but not her flesh.

In short order there was not much left of the rose beds but bare twigs and mounds of crushed petals. The X-men stood panting in the chamber as Storm's winds died down.

'Well that was unexpected.' Havok murmured in the silence that followed. Belladonna snickered.

'Mebbe I take me a cuttin' of dose roses; dey could prove useful in my garden back home.'

Phoenix dropped down beside Wolverine while Psylocke examined Warren for cuts and bruises.

'Logan?'

The half-feral Canadian snarled and sat up, brushing off Jean's hands and shaking himself like a large dog.

He growled, 'Shoulda known better,' he muttered darkly, more angry with himself than hurt. Already the perforations dotting his flesh had begun to close and the burns and blisters caused by the rose venom healed as the X-men watched to nothing more than sore red patches over the Canuck's craggy features.

Cyclops waited until Wolverine had clambered gingerly to his feet and then looked around him at the chamber; aside from the butchered rose garden it looked very much the same as it had when they arrived.

'Alright people let's keep looking for an exit – but let's be extra careful.' He looked at each X-man in turn, 'This is Sinister's playground; there is no telling what we might run into here.'

Almost on cue the ambient light in the chamber coming from the various huge sinuous cables and cords hanging from the tower and the garlanding the walls, changed from fox-fire orange-gold to a far harsher and less forgiving blazing white light.

'What now?' Rogue asked in exasperation at the same time that a mechanised feminine voice seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere in the chamber.

Initiate data transfer authorisation Central Core: initiate transfer data archive memory. Destination designation: Muir Isle Research Centre. Destination designation: Cerebro.

Polaris laughed and impulsively tugged on Havok's arm, 'He's done it! God, he's actually done it!' Lorna's green eyes were luminous, 'He's stealing all Sinister's secrets.'

A/N: Hello everyone I have butchered one of Shakespeare's most famous creations for a bit of dramatic impetus (and because the idea of Gambit as Hamlet amuses me) below, for anyone interested, is the complete 'to be or not to be' speech.

To be, or not to be--that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--

No more--and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--

To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprise of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.