Part Twelve

Final Showdown



Ray never had been in a real combat scene, but today his power was needed, at least theoretically, to destroy Louis. Based on what happened last time, Ray knew Louis was a very powerful mutant.

"Just remember to keep yourself out of view until all of us got into place, okay?" Elisabeth said to him.

"How can I NOT remember, miss? You've repeated yourself for the last ten minutes."

Logan said, "That boy will do fine, Betsy. Just don't go an' make him nervous." He turned to face Elisabeth. "You sure this will work?"

"Theoretically, yes."

"Then what will happen to Jubes, Piotr and Rogue?"

Elisabeth did not want to know.



"Looks like my little secret's out."

Sinister stood in the middle of the massive room, bloodied by the mutilated patrons' bodies, the broken glass roof everywhere. He trod carefully toward Louis who was still kneeling with head between his shoulders, breathing heavily. "I never thought I'd come this far only to be foiled by a soul dead for two years ago."

"Why... did... you... kill Penny?" he hissed.

"Why?" Sinister laughed. "What a stupid question. Why? You know something, one great philosopher used to ask that, and finally he was condemned to die. Questions, my dear Louis, are a worthless invention for the less fortunate to move up the social ladder. Or the hierarchy of the mutants, if it were to be applied to the newer world. I am a powerful mutant, yes. You are a powerful mutant, but bent on revenge. That blinded your conscience, which is good for me! I want what you have, you have what I need. What a convenient marriage!"

Louis looked up, his face paler now that the tendrils he had coming out of his neck had been severed by Sinister's bio-electric powers. His whole being was not fully restored, and now his body began suffering. "You... scum."

Sinister laughed. "I know. I've been called worse, believe me. But who's the actual scum here? You fell for my deal in order to seek revenge, you sold your soul to me to gain more power. That failed, you used your soul to re-exact your revenge, going on a killing rampage across New York. Do you realize the NYPD thought they had the crazy killer who used acid to kill his victims behind bars?" He shook his head slowly. "You could have escaped this, clean as a whistle. If not for that bitch whom you wanted so much to show off around."

"She's my lover!" Louis shouted and grimaced. The dryness in his throat was unbearable. He could see his hands began to slowly fade under the sun and made a dive towards the shadowy nook of an upturned table. "She's my lover," he repeated in a whisper.

Sinister made a sympathetic smile that could have him bagged an award. "Aaaawww, isn't it sweet. Love across the planes." He crouched before Louis who was shaking in pain, like a man under malaria. "But that's what differentiates me from you. I am an immortal. While you're just some scum with a fucked-up chromosome that gives you this power."

One tentacle had been silently sliding across the floor behind Sinister and was about to sap him off when Louis saw his hand shot out to it. He grasped it tight in his hands; Louis screamed voicelessly. "You fool. You think I am not immune to this?" He grasped it tighter; Louis struggled to contain the pain while his open mouth expelled nothing. The pained expression on his face was enough to make a man wince.

Sinister pulled the tentacle in one clean jerk; it came off with a violent spurt of blood from the base of his neck and Louis started to gasp for breath. "Stop..." he breathlessly said. "Stop..."

"I will," Sinister smiled mirthlessly. "After you're dead." He covered his lips in a burlesque effort to present a prim image. "Oops, I forgot. You're already dead." He laughed aloud as Louis struggled to cover his bloody neck. "Which makes you underqualified to apply for a grave lot. I guess you'll die in some Potter's Field."

Blood seeping from between his lips, Louis' smile was as sudden as it was nightmarish while he slowly managed to say, "I suggest you rethink that, Sinister."

"Oh yeah?" Sinister said as he leant closer. "Why is that?" he whispered.

"I just made a good friend back from the grave."

Sinister wondered briefly what in the hell was he talking about when he suddenly felt his head gave way to a violent explosion. With everything that was left in his body Louis kicked Sinister in the balls as hard as he could and struggled to stand.

Remy stood unsteadily before him, looking down at Sinister with a gaping hole in the forehead, struggling to contain the pain. "Dat should get his attention. You're all right?" he asked Louis. Then he took notice of the blood trickling down his neck. "Guess not," he answered to himself.

Louis merely looked at him and started to turn away. Remy quickly ran to his side. "Hey... Louis."

He turned with a pained expression. "Arrest me, Remy. I've done a lot of damage."

Remy nodded, Melinda's death still a raw wound in his mind. "Dat I don't deny. But one thing. Why did you save me just now?"

Louis looked down and then at the still writhing form of Sinister. He was compelled to smile but managed to supress it. "Nothing."

"Remy!" said a voice he recognized. It was Bobby. "What - oh my God, what happened here?"

"Hell! That's Louis! Kill him!" Logan screamed as he raced toward him.

Remy quickly threw a card to him that effectively stopped him. "Non, Logan. Sinister manipulated him. But Gambit's glad all's over now."

"Sinister? Where is he?" Elisabeth said as she looked around. Suddenly something grabbed her on the neck and she managed to give a short shriek.

Remy turned to Louis who was looking at him with white eyes. "Sorry, Remy, but it's not over till I say so." The severed tentacles had somehow grown back around his neck. They writhed now and then, making Louis looked like some monstrous octopus.

There was a quick hissing sound that Remy recognized and in an instant all of the X-Men were lifted high above the floor by those tentacles. Logan clawed at the tentacles but his claws merely went through them while the others could only struggle. "Goddamit!" Logan managed to say.

"Louis, stop dis," Remy said.

"He can't, Remy!" A voice said from somewhere on the roof. "Now I will obtain the X-Men's essences to create the ultimate being I need to succeed!"

"Louis, fight it!"

"No, Remy! He won't dare! He needs it! Can't you see how desperate he is?!"

Remy could see his five friends began to visibly deflate and the watery tentacles fill with blood, flowing toward Louis' now hideously bloated neck. He began throwing kinetically charged cards at his neck but just as then his feet got bound by a new tentacle. He was lifted up high in the air.

"Louis! Fight him! For your sake fight dat son of a bitch!" Remy screamed, dangling upside down from the tentacle.

Those who were wound around the neck became more and more deflated to almost twice their former size. Any longer and it would be too late. Remy closed his eyes and prayed for some sort of a miracle.

Behind his closed eyes Remy sensed a sudden change of temperature. Mon Dieu, Gambit's next, he thought. But the slipping sensation never came. Instead the heat became more and more intense until Remy could feel it around him. He opened his eyes and the sudden brightness that met his sight was too unbearable. He squinted to see more clearly.

Behind Louis he could see someone standing with hands held outward, palms outward on Louis' back. From there the bright greenish-white light originated and spread throughout Louis' body, then to the hideous tentacles. As the heat seared, the hold on Remy's feet loosened.

"No! NO! Who are you!?" Remy could hear Sinister's voice above them. "Stop this! Stop!!"

As Remy turned to have a better look at Louis something akin to a nuclear explosion started from inside him. It expanded in a reddish circle hue and as it did so the tentacles around his neck and those that elongated beyond began to disassociate slowly.

"NO! YOU'RE DESTROYING EVERYTHING!"

As each tentacle disappeared Remy saw in the heart of the red circle Louis, smiling at him. The last word he heard before he slid into the abyss was:

"Tu es completement debile, Remy."