y'know. :)
Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.
- Revelation 2:10
Cable had taken the lead almost immediately, inching his way through the pitch-black warren of rooms and corridors with the X-Men following at a cautious distance. The tomb complex was a maze, and navigating it was made no easier by the infrared capabilities of his techno-organic eye. He'd done this exactly once before - in a different monument, in a different time - and now he wished that he had Aliya beside him for this second attempt.
Of course, the lack of her presence was, ultimately, the reason he was here.
His infrared registered a thin line running across the sand-covered floor and up one of the walls. There was a heat source somewhere behind it; an obvious trap, the sixth one they'd encountered so far. He stopped, hearing the hesitant footsteps of the X-Men stop behind him as well, and kicked a small rock onto the line.
A sequence of white-blue lasers burst out of the wall and upwards from the floor, creating a grid that instantly reduced the rock to mere steam and would have most definitely vaporized anything else caught in it.
"Fry it," he told Storm, gesturing at the grid with his gun. A small lightning bolt jumped from her fingers to the wall, and the lasers abruptly shorted out with a metallic sizzle. He maneuvered another rock into place over the line, just be sure, then started moving forward again when nothing happened. They were passing rooms and branching tunnels with alarming frequency, and though he checked all of them briefly for potential traps, he wasn't detouring from the route he knew led to the lazarus chamber. There was a reason, after all, that his primary weapon had a heads-up display. Right now it was giving him the map he and the X-Men needed.
Even Cable had to - grudgingly - admit that Apocalypse was no fool. Faced with a small army of mutants, he'd fallen back on the tried-and-true strategy of "divide and conquer." Mesmero was leading two of the kids on a merry chase, while the Hand's top assassins were keeping two of the adults busy. That left only four of them to actually penetrate the lazarus chamber, and considering that it had taken an army of thousands to evict him from Egypt in the first place, four mutants would seem to be an easy victory.
But Apocalypse's plan hadn't been as successful as it might have, because all he'd done was get rid of the liabilities: Rogue was useless, Gambit unpredictable, Wolverine a good fighter but outmatched, and Professor Xavier a hostage situation waiting to happen.
Cable was going into battle with the three true powerhouses of the X-Men - a weather goddess, a boy who could punch a hole through a mountain, and a girl who would one day ravage solar systems with a single thought. Divided, yes. Conquered - not damn likely.
Keeping a low voice, Cyclops asked, "What are we going to do?"
Cable didn't even have to think about it. "We're going to kick down the door and blast Apocalypse to ashes."
"That's a little... violent," Jean said.
The familiar surge of hate rose in his chest, filling him with new strength and determination, and his good eye flashed gold. "He's earned it."
He felt, rather than saw, Storm frown at his back. She'd left the headset behind for this trip, and he was glad of that; it would be one less voice arguing against what he had to do. "This crusade against Apocalypse seems rather personal."
Personal? Before he'd made the time jump, he'd spent a sleepless night thinking about everything that lead to the decision. He'd thought about Mother Askani and her clan of warriors, about the nameless, faceless man and woman who had cared for him as a child, about the more than six billion people that Apocalypse had killed on his rise to global supremacy. Mostly, however, he'd thought about Aliya, and he'd thought about Tyler, and he'd thought about all the ways Apocalypse had attempted to ruin - if not end - his life because he was too great a threat to the tyrant's mad ambitions.
When he's cured, you'll bring him back? his father's voice asked now, echoing in the unborn past.
No, the Askani sister's voice answered. If you embrace this path of destiny, he will be lost to you forever.
And hard on the heels of that memory came another - that of his wife, calling to him across the battlefield. Nathan!
Nathan!
Nathan!
"Cable," Storm said, putting a hand on his shoulder and breaking his train of thought. It also startled him out of infrared; as he looked at her, her white hair and eyes seemed to glow faintly with some inner light. Storm was nothing like his late wife - and yet, for reasons he didn't want to consider, she was. Right now, her eyes held an expression he'd seen many times in Aliya's: concern.
He shrugged off her hand and the emotions of the past, and switched back to infrared. "It is personal."
"Why?" Cyclops asked. "What did - um, will - he do to you?"
Cable shook his head. Under less serious conditions, he might've been tempted to laugh. Of all the people, he thought to himself, and moved forward.
He hadn't gone two steps when a telekinetic hand grabbed him. Jean said, in a much harsher tone than she'd yet used, "You're asking us to put ourselves in serious danger. I think we're entitled to know why."
Cable turned around and looked at the three X-Men, standing defiant and still in the darkness, and told them a very, very small part of the truth: "He killed my wife. Aliya Jenskot. Satisfied?"
"No," Storm said, with a small shake of her head. "We are sorry."
"Don't be. She died in battle against En Sabah Nur; there is no greater honor for a warrior of the Askani," he said as he started walking again, repeating the phrase he'd heard so many times, from so many people. But the words were hollow to his own ears, and he knew without using his telepathy that he'd convinced exactly no one.
"The Askani are your family?"
Cyclops again. The boy had a right to be curious - more or less. Still, it was starting to get on Cable's nerves. "Clan. My family-"
He stopped in mid-sentence, hearing the faint hum of machinery behind the rough rock walls. "Hold it. Nobody move."
The three X-Men obediently froze.
He focused on the line where the left-hand wall met the ceiling, and was not surprised when the hum changed to a grinding noise and the wall suddenly shifted towards them. A quick glance revealed the right wall moving inward as well.
"I hate these damn things," he muttered, then, louder, ordered, "Run!"
The corridor was a straight shot, sloping downwards at an angle of approximately twenty degrees, and the floor began to vibrate slightly as the walls closed in, making their flight a bit trickier. Cable kept his footing, as did Storm, but the children stumbled.
"Wait - I can hold it back," Jean said, stopping and putting a hand to her forehead.
Without missing a beat, Cable turned, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her forward again with a none-too-gentle yank. "No you can't."
Ahead of them, electricity was flickering around Storm in a translucent aura. She was claustrophobic, a stray fact Cable had gleaned from his earlier telepathic foray into her mind, and he hoped she could keep it together until this was over.
The walls were very close now, barely three feet apart and narrowing by the moment. They passed beneath an open shaft in the ceiling and he looked over his shoulder, checking; the last thing they needed was one of Apocalypse's minions to come chasing after them.
"Cable!" Cyclops called.
The corridor ended in a blank stone wall with another gaping black hole in the floor in front of it. Cyclops and Storm had stopped mere inches from the hole, and were looking back at him expectantly.
"Take care of him," Cable told Jean, knowing she'd understand, and pushed her in Cyclops' direction. "Go!"
A telekinetic bubble appeared around the two kids and they jumped into the hole with no hesitation.
"I can't summon a wind in here," Storm said. Her voice was calm enough, but the electricity crackled brighter.
The walls were at two-and-a-half feet and closing. Infrared showed that the hole - more accurately, a mine-like shaft - was fifty feet deep. Nasty trap for humans: damned if you stayed, damned if you didn't. For mutants...
"Not a problem." He took hold of her arm and jumped, pulling her down with him into the blackness. His own telekinesis caught them and slowed their descent just as the walls rumbled shut with a resounding boom, sealing them in total darkness.
But not for long. Cable popped a flare and dropped it to the bottom of the shaft; he and Storm touched down a moment later. "You two okay?"
"Fine," Cyclops said, wiping dust from his visor. Jean was cautiously peering into the only exit, a broad corridor barely tall enough to accommodate Cable's height. "We just didn't expect to have lead roles in 'The Mummy Returns Again.' "
Cable didn't have the slightest idea what he was talking about, and he didn't care. He checked the HUD and said, "This is as far down as we go. There should be a reset device somewhere on this level, or another way out." The map didn't show one, but that wasn't fazing him. He started methodically sweeping the room with both his infrared and the gun.
From behind him, Storm asked, "How do you know?"
"I know Apocalypse." The gun bleeped softly, and his mouth twitched in a triumphant smile. "Here we go - there's a hidden door that leads to the surface. No traps."
"How do you know that?" Cyclops challenged. Cable had the distinct feeling that the younger mutant was starting to dislike him. A lot. As if the family wasn't dysfunctional enough already.
"It's his emergency access." He tapped the rock wall with the tip of his gun. "This is a refuge, the place he retreats to when he's injured..."
"And he might be too injured to teleport in," Jean finished.
"Yeah." Cable closed his eyes briefly and reached out with his telepathy, checking on the others. Rogue and Gambit were scaling the cliff above him, Mesmero waiting for them at the top, and Wolverine was holding his own against the Hand. Apocalypse's attention would be split between three battles; perfect.
"Divide and conquer," he said to no one in particular. The earlier twinge of a triumphant smile returned, but this time it was more of a smirk. "Let's move."
Once again, he led the way, pushing into the narrow corridor with infrared on. There were no traps here, and he hadn't expected any. Apocalypse was not predictable, generally speaking, except when it came to his lazarus chambers. Cable had raided one, the Askani had raided at least three more before he came of age, and they all held to the same basic structural design with a faithfulness that bordered on obsession. It didn't hurt that he and the Askani had also raided Apocalypse's citadel and found schematics for the old chambers, along with new ones.
After a few confined yards, the corridor abruptly opened into a wider, high-ceilinged entryway. The wall directly opposite them was not rough-hewn stone, but a pair of smooth metal doors that stretched from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. They were covered in dust, with small piles of sand built up at the bottom edges from disuse, and Cable knew that Apocalypse had not been too weak to teleport in, nor to transport Mesmero elsewhere.
The doors gleamed dully under their layers of dust and grime, evidence of a former high shine, and set in the center, just above eye level, was a raised metal square. Inside the square was an etched outline of a hand; the lock mechanism. The entire effect was one of solidity, impenetrability, and permanence.
"Somehow, I don't think kicking is going to work," Cyclops said with thinly veiled sarcasm.
"No," Cable said, approaching the doors. "These are blast doors, three feet thick and made from a vanadium-adamantium alloy - probably the strongest metal on Earth. Plasma grenades will dent them, but that's about it."
Both the kids made exasperated noises at that, and Jean muttered, "Wunderbar."
Cable ignored them and ran his gun in a broad sweep over the door, wanting the sensors to back up what his telekinetic probe was telling him.
"What are you doing?" Jean asked.
"Looking for a weak spot."
"There's a weak spot?" Cyclops asked, sour humor still firmly intact.
"There's always a weak spot." The gun's sensors sounded again, a different noise this time. He drew an X in the dust, marking the place, and backed up to join the other three. "There. If we all hit that mark with everything we've got, we should be able to force our way in."
Storm asked, " 'Should'?"
"It's worked in the past," Cable said, raising his eyebrow in acknowledgement of the slight joke. Past, nothing.
"Okay, on three," Cyclops said, putting his hand to his visor. "One... two... three!"
A red energy beam slammed into the door, joined immediately by a blue-white lightning bolt of considerable size, an invisible wedge of psionic force, and the dual assault of Cable's primary weapon and his telekinesis.
The metal groaned, then warped inward, and then, after an agonizing moment of uncertainty, burst inwards and wrenched apart, leaving a roughly circular opening four feet in diameter. Cable started for it, but a restraining hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"Stop," Storm said. "We've followed you this far, but we will not stand back and let you kill him. Whatever Apocalypse has done to you, whatever crimes he's committed, it doesn't sanction murder."
"X-Men don't kill," Cyclops added.
Cable glanced at them all in turn, then pulled away from Storm's hand. "We'll see."
He started for the opening again, muttering, "And it'll be a miracle if I even get the chance," under his breath - but judging from the frisson of worry that danced through the three minds behind him, he thought they might have heard him anyway.
The metal was warm, but not hot, and he climbed through the gap easily, dropping to the ground in the room beyond. Apocalypse's lazarus chamber.
It was a room as grand as the first chamber had been. This one had twin rows of columns, much like those in Amarnath Cave, and here, finally, there were decorations: a single line of hieroglyphs that wrapped around the walls and columns where they joined the ceiling. Cable recognized the glyphs as Apocalypse's personal signature: "The First One, bestowed with eternal life."
Not if Nathan Dayspring had anything to say about it.
The room was illuminated by unseen sources, casting an eldritch, pale blue glow over the stone. At the far end of the room, between the two lines of columns, lay a massive sarcophagus. It, too, was glowing, especially the hieroglyphs that covered it. It was not a stone sarcophagus, but a mix of metal and stone, with metal tubing and pipes snaking from its base into the wall behind it. A faint wisp of steam rose from it.
Cable checked to see if the X-Men had followed him; they had, looking wary and even a little afraid. Good. A little fear would keep them alive. He turned back to face the sarcophagus, drawing a second gun and holding them both at the ready.
"Apocalypse!" Cable shouted. His voice did not echo, as it should have, but was almost swallowed by the room instead. "Show yourself!"
There was a slow, scraping shudder, and then the sarcophagus yielded up its occupant and Apocalypse stood before them, in the light, once again.
This was not the same massive, towering figure that had greeted them in Amarnath Cave. He was still tall, but not quite so, and the bluish-violet metal bands of his armor seemed to hang on him, making him look thinner, even somewhat wasted. He remained an imposing figure for all that, and Cable knew full well that En Sabah Nur was more than he appeared.
"Such miserable, pathetic creatures," Apocalypse said. His voice was an inhumanly low bass rumble that could be felt in the floor and through the body. Cable remembered it. He also remembered that the Apocalypse of his time had not sounded so pained. "You have come a long way to die."
"There will be no death tonight," Storm said, stepping forward protectively with a graceful swirl of her cloak.
"Except yours," Cable added with a emphatic click of his gun. Storm gave him an unpleased look over her shoulder, which he barely registered - not that it would have mattered to him if he had seen it.
Apocalypse lowered his head, glaring at them with a dark look. "Fools. Did you think to catch me off-guard in my own sanctuary?"
Cable caught his meaning and spun to look behind him as a solid stone block dropped into place in front of the door. "That's not going to stop us," he said, turning back to face the tyrant.
The corner of Apocalypse's broad lips twitched in an unreadable expression. "Perhaps."
A series of clicks and whirs sounded from the columns directly in front of them, and then the room seemed to explode into a fury of death.
If the maze above had been lined with lasers, this single room was bursting with them. The blue-white beams sliced through the air from dozens of weapons mounted high on the columns and walls, and still more were fired by a handful of small, spider-like drones that spilled from nowhere. Even as he took cover and returned fire, Cable analyzed the situation the way he had been taught at Mother Askani's knee, so long ago. The stationary guns fired in a fixed pattern,
while the drones adjusted to their targets. The latter were a more serious threat, but the whole thing was almost too easy.
Could Apocalypse have some plan behind the weak show of force? Without a doubt. Just what, though, Cable didn't know, and so he decided to substitute speculation for action. He dove behind another column and destroyed a cluster of stationary guns with a single shot, then checked on the X-Men.
To their credit, the X-Men were standing their ground. Storm was picking off machines with lightning, Cyclops was doing the same with his optic blasts, and Jean simply crushed the devices or wrenched them apart. Cable took out a pair of drones with a quick burst of gunfire, and while he was thus occupied, almost missed Apocalypse's next salvo.
"Should you choose to surrender now, the next few minutes will be much more pleasant for you," the tyrant announced. "I may even be persuaded to spare your lives altogether and find a place for you in my army."
"Not interested," Cable said, and fired at him.
Apocalypse took the shot full in his chest with only the slightest grunt. "So I see." And without further conversation, he unleashed another round of weapons from the walls and columns.
Caught in a firefight between a drone and a wall-mounted laser, Cable was unable to block the tyrant when Apocalypse extended one hand towards them. The limb grew and elongated, stretching like a rubber band across the room, and the fingers of his hand closed into a single, solid panel - which struck Jean on the side of her head with whiplike speed. She stumbled sideways from the impact, telekinesis failing.
"JEAN!" Cyclops managed to catch her before she fell, and turned on Cable with an angry, "You didn't tell us he could do that!"
"The subject never came up," Cable said, being more flippant than the situation called for. The truth was, he had forgotten. So much for preparedness.
Storm raised her arms, redirecting the lightning at Apocalypse. "Such tactics will get you nowhere," she said, loudly, and Cable wasn't sure whether she was talking to him or the ancient mutant standing before them. She took a few steps towards Apocalypse.
"Storm, stay back!" Cable shouted over the thunder crackling off her hands, but she continued to close the gap. Pressing the attack - a good idea, sometimes. This was not one of those times.
Apocalypse took the lightning without flinching, and quicker than any of the other mutants could react, reached out and grabbed Storm around the waist in one pincer-like hand. His face twisted into a truly inhuman expression of pure hate as he lifted her from the floor. In a voice that matched his face, he growled, "I could say the same, weather witch."
"Stop this! Let me go at once!"
Coming from anyone else, it might have seemed like an utterly pointless and even laughable demand, but the aura of bruised nobility surrounding her gave Storm's command a weight that caught even Apocalypse by surprise. He tilted his head and studied her for a moment. "Ororo. 'Beauty,' " he said, in a milder, almost amused tone. "Hardly a warrior's name."
Storm stared at him with disbelief. "How -" she started to ask - plainly the prelude to "How do you know my name" - but she was cut off by a sudden burst of mirthless laughter from the ancient mutant. The laughter died just as quickly as it had begun, and Apocalypse fixed her with a fanatical glare.
"I know more of this world than you can ever dream," he said, triumph lighting each word. "I have seen the bright flower of its civilizations, and the dark cruelty of its wildernesses. I have heard the secrets whispered by the souls of dead humanity and the stars that guard the heavens. I know this world with a greater depth and scope than any creature before or hence. That is why... I must destroy it."
The words hung in the air, freezing the X-Men in place with the sheer malevolence of it all. Cable, who had heard the rhetoric before and was not nearly as impressed, nonetheless found himself chilled as well. Apocalypse was more than evil - he was also insane. Not the best combination.
Apocalypse's triumphant demeanor suddenly shifted into a dark rage, and he tossed Storm across the room. She slammed into a column, cried out at the impact, and fell to the floor unmoving.
"For untold centuries I was locked in that wretched cage - imprisoned, like a common thief, by that cursed magician," Apocalypse snarled. He raised his fists, blue-violet energy glowing around them, and his voice rose with every word until the entire room shook from the booming echoes. "And now that I have regained my freedom, now that the world lies at my feet, begging to be conquered, begging me to fulfill my birthright, I WILL NOT LET A PACK OF USELESS CHILDREN STEAL IT FROM MY GRASP!"
He pointed his hands at the column above Storm, and the energy leapt from his fingers and blasted the stone. The column collapsed, raining down on Storm and burying her beneath the debris. Jean immediately took the brunt of the weight with her telekinesis, but with her injury, Cable could see that she wasn't going to be able to hold it for long.
And it didn't stop there: along with the physical attack, Apocalypse slid telepathic fingers into Storm's mind and pulled up every terrifying memory of confinement that he could find.
Cable felt it - he was sure Jean and Xavier felt it too - when the panic started.
Tongues of lightning began flickering through the rubble, making Jean's task all the harder. A larger bolt broke free with a sharp crack and scorched the ceiling. Cable couldn't help her physically; his meager reserve of TK was more or less exhausted, unless he wanted the virus to start running loose again. But he laid down a round of strafing fire, backing up Cyclops' optic blasts, and went to her aid on the psychic plane.
Ororo's mind at the moment was a dark and chaotic place, almost suffocating in its own harsh panic, and it took Cable precious seconds to find what he was looking for. When he did, though, he shoved it to the forefront of her mind, then cut Apocalypse's link with her and returned his own focus to the fight. The memory of flight through warm blue skies, high above the vast savanna, lingered with him for a moment longer, and then it too was gone.
The lightning display lessened considerably, and Jean shoved the rocks away to reveal a dirty but unharmed Storm. Apocalypse, 0; X-Men, 2.
Cable's moment of distraction had been a moment too long, however, and he snapped back to reality just as Apocalypse reached out, grabbed him, and threw him away without the slightest difficulty.
He hit the floor and slid, briefly, on the sand-covered rock, but was scrambling to his feet before the dust had finished rising into the air. And then, before he could take the steps that would put him back into the fight, he was brought to a halt by a single word.
"SCOTT!"
It was a shout both telepathic and verbal, a cry of such profound terror that it cut through his natural psychic shields and left him slightly disoriented from the emotion, and he remembered, suddenly, what Jean Grey would one day do to save Scott Summers.
Cable shook it off just in time to see Apocalypse swat Cyclops like an insect; the boy went flying and slammed into the base of the sarcophagus.
Apocalypse pinned him against the stone with one armored foot and raised his hand, aiming it directly at Cyclops. The tell-tale glow and crackle of energy appeared around his spread fingers. They had, at best, two seconds before Cyclops was blasted into nothingness.
Cable had thought about what might happen to him if he was successful in destroying Apocalypse. It had been an issue of some debate among the few people who'd known what he was going to attempt in this timejump. Would he, as Blaquesmith had warned, simply create a divergent timeline and leave his own future unchanged? Would he blink out of existence altogether? Or would he suddenly find himself in the future of this timeline, a soldier of the X fighting to realize the professor's dream as his parents had - not as Nathan Dayspring, the Askani'son, and not as Cable, the alias he'd chosen for this trip, but under his true name of Nathan Christopher Summers?
At the moment, the question was academic. If Apocalypse killed Cyclops, the question would become irrelevant altogether.
Cable was at a bad angle for a shot - there were columns in his line of sight - but he raised his gun anyway, on instinct. And then he stopped.
Because even though Storm was still too out of it to do anything, Jean Grey would go to great lengths to save Scott Summers.
The air of the room seemed to ripple and bend, and then the disabled weapons began ripping themselves from their moorings and flinging themselves with lethal speed directly at Apocalypse. The mutant batted and blasted them away, but one clipped his shoulder and he staggered backwards.
"You CHILD!" he thundered, furious, striding towards her and forgetting Cyclops altogether; the younger mutant climbed to his feet and made for the shelter of the columns. "Are you THAT eager to visit Osiris?"
Jean's only answer was to send a massive chunk of stone flying at his face.
Apocalypse dodged it and opened fire on her; the girl had a TK shield up, but it shattered almost immediately under the onslaught. She ducked behind the nearest column as the energy blasts continued.
Cable, meanwhile, had reached a better position and now pumped the barrel of his plasma rifle twice before taking careful aim and shooting Apocalypse in the center of his chest. The tell-tale glow spread out for a few inches, staining the deep blue armor a golden orange, then vanished. A second later, the hit portion of the armor starting bubbling.
Apocalypse stopped firing at Jean and looked down. "What is this tr-"
He didn't get to finish the sentence, though, because the armor erupted outward with a wet, ripping sound that metal was not supposed to make. Apocalypse cried out in pain - in true, genuine pain, a sweet sound to Cable's ears - and retreated backwards towards his sarcophagus, clutching the gaping hole in his chest.
It was time for the endgame. Cable reached out with his telepathy to find Professor Xavier. Xavier, along with Wolverine, was just outside the canyon entrance to the tomb. The Hand ninjas had vanished once again - where, it didn't concern him, as long as they weren't running to play backup for Apocalypse. Your students are done here, Professor.
Indeed they are, came the reply. Good luck, Askani'son.
Cable severed the connection and started one with Cyclops. It was a bit disorienting to find himself inside this particular mind - not even a glint in his eye yet, he thought to himself - but he said, You remember the way out?
Yes, Cyclops answered immediately.
Then go. Seal the door if you can. Xavier and Wolverine are already outside again - you get out of here NOW.
Wait a minute - we're not leaving you behind!
...If you embrace this path of destiny, he will be lost to you forever...
The irony was not lost on Cable. 'But you will,' he wanted to say, 'you will abandon me one day, and without the slightest regret.' Instead, he forced down the thoughts of his lost family and said, I've got my own ticket out of here. Just go. Save your team.
No, he started to protest, but Cable wasn't going to have it.
If you stay, you'll die. GO!
Cyclops was clearly wavering. Jean tugged on his arm with a telepathic, Come on, and that seemed to decide it for him. Without any further debate, he turned and ran for the door. Jean followed, but Storm hesitated.
He caught a faint whisper from her mind - Bright Lady, protect him - and then she too was gone. A heavy thud sounded against the other side of the door, and Cable knew that he and Apocalypse were trapped inside.
Apocalypse chuckled. The wound in his chest had already begun to knit back together, even without the aid of his sarcophagus' regenerative technology. "It seems you have been abandoned by your fellow soldiers."
"I'm not afraid to face you alone," Cable growled, discarding his empty rifle and withdrawing a full gun from the holster on his waist. He also withdrew a compact metal device that was only slightly smaller than the one he'd used to blast the cave wall open. He kept it hidden from the other mutant's sight, and out of his thoughts; no point in giving away his trump card before he needed to.
"There is such a thing as courage," Apocalypse said, almost meditatively. "I know, for I have seen it. There is also such a thing as stupidity masked as courage. I have seen that many more times. And you, soldier, though you bear the scars of battle upon you - I believe that your courage is a mask."
"Believe whatever you want," Cable said, firing at the other mutant's head. "You're still going to die!"
Apocalypse dodged the shot entirely, and retaliated with an energy blast that caught Cable full in the chest. "I think not."
Cable was driven backwards by the force of the blast, though not actually injured; his body armor had been designed with Apocalypse in mind. He tripped over his discarded weapon and fell. The gun in his hand, along with the bomb, went skidding across the floor.
Swiftly, Apocalypse grabbed him around the waist with one massive hand and reeled him in until they were less than three feet apart. Apocalypse held him up like a prize catch, and sneered. "You have been defeated, soldier, and by a mistake so simple only a novice would make it. Is this the best defense this miserable civilization has to offer - a foolish old man who stumbles over his own weapons?"
"Nah. You forgot the pack of useless kids," Cable said, almost gasping out the words as Apocalypse's hand tightened around his ribcage, steadily suffocating him. He felt bones beginning to crunch, and knew he'd be feeling the consequences of this encounter for quite some time. But it didn't matter. All that mattered was the bomb and the gun lying next to it.
Apocalypse had made a crucial mistake himself, in lifting Cable above him: Cable could now see the weapons on the floor, and if he could see them, he could move them.
Plasma-based weapons - typically guns, rifles, and cannons - were powerful and relatively compact, which was why the Askani had adopted them. The magnetic shields that contained the plasma were sturdy, not easily breached, and they were reliable, long-lasting weapons.
The thing that made them a bit tricky to handle was that, if the magnetic shields were breached, they detonated in a big way. Without the shields, the plasma (which was after all the same stuff that the sun was made of) would expand in a chain reaction that made twenty-first century nuclear bombs look mild by comparison. Cable ordinarily took great pains to avoid damaging his weapons, but right now he was counting on it.
He used his telekinesis to nudge the gun and the bomb into position directly under Apocalypse, right between the mutant's feet where the explosion would cause maximum harm. And to keep Apocalypse distracted, he pulled his metal arm - his stronger arm - free and fired a blast in Apocalypse's face with the small gun he kept hidden in his glove. The other mutant howled in incoherent rage, loosening his hold on Cable momentarily as he put a hand to his face in pain.
It would have been the perfect opportunity to escape if he wanted to, but he didn't. Not at all.
"Remember it, Apocalypse - the name's Cable." A telekinetic push of a button armed the bomb. Five seconds.
"Annoying insect! You are not worthy of remembrance!" Apocalypse shouted, white teeth flashing in his blackened, blasted face, and squeezed him tighter, this time with both hands. Cable did nothing. Let the monster think he'd won; it wouldn't matter in...
Three...
"Bodyslide by one," Cable said through gritted teeth. He had to time this perfectly...
Two...
He met Apocalypse's red eyes, the golden flare of telekinesis spilling from his own as he held the bomb in position, and silently wished the ancient mutant a painful and agonizing death.
One...
"- Graymalkin bound!"
Zero.
Gambit and Rogue hiked to the far edge of the canyon plateau (after he'd given Mesmero a few farewell kicks for good measure), then picked their way down the crumbling cliffside and across the flat ground to the Blackbird, a matte-black smudge against the night sky.
Rogue, bless her Southern heart, gave him a quick tutorial on the radio and then left the plane to give him some privacy. A few minutes and one agonizing call later, he found her sitting on the steps of the Blackbird's boarding ramp, staring absently at the canyon.
"Ready?"
She jumped slightly and turned to look up at him. "Yeah. Did you... take care of everything?"
The solution had been simple, once he'd thought of it, and painful in its elegance. "Oui. Called a guy I know, small-arms dealer, owed me a favor. We cut a deal - I forget I know him, he do a couple things for me."
She still hadn't stood up, so he sat down next to her. Apparently her earlier rush to help her X-friends was gone. Maybe she was more concerned about him than he thought.
Without looking at him, she asked, "Like what?"
"Things," he repeated, being evasive on purpose; Rogue didn't need to know Henri's body was going be stolen from the Parisian morgue, where it was being held pending completion of the police investigation, and illegally transported back to New Orleans. "He's gonna make a few calls, get a contract put on Mesmero - though word is the Hand already lookin' for him."
"Ouch."
He nodded. "And this guy, the one I don't know anymore, is gonna get the blood feud to stop."
"The blood feud between your guild and that other one," she said, looking surprised. "The feud no one can stop."
He nodded again.
Surprise turned to outright skepticism and she crossed her arms over her chest. "And how's he gonna do that?"
"By tellin' everyone a story 'bout how it wasn't the Guild sent Henri to rob an Assassin house, it was me an' Mesmero."
He watched, numb, as understanding flooded her pale features, along with a vaguely horrified expression. "But that means... you'll never be able to go home. Doesn't it?"
He nodded again and sighed, long and low. "Yeah."
"Oh God," she said faintly, still looking at him with that horrified expression.
Before it changed to pity, he flashed a sunny grin and nudged her arm. "But I got a place wit' y'all, right? Long as you don't make Remy wear one a' those dork-patrol uniforms."
She nodded immediately, a small grin flittering across her own face, and opened her mouth to say something else, but the black watch strapped to her wrist beeped and crackled to life. Cyclops' voice shouted, "Rogue! Where are you?"
She gave him a swift look reading 'see, they do need me, you jerk,' and answered, "By the Blackbird, gettin' ready to come help y'all."
"Forget it. Start the jet and prep for launch, NOW!"
"You can do that?" Remy asked her, curious. He was pretty sure he could've hot-wired it, but getting the thing off the ground was another matter altogether.
"Sure, but I can't fly it." To the communicator, she said, "Why? What's goin' on?"
A flare of static was the only response, along with a deep rumble that shook the ground slightly beneath their feet. Moving figures appeared at the mouth of the canyon, running flat-out, and Gambit realized it was the other X-Men. It looked like Wolverine and Stormy were carrying the professor between them.
Rogue ran up the steps of the plane and the engines started warming up almost immediately.
Another quake rumbled through the ground, and this time a blinding white explosion filled the canyon, lighting the desert as though it was noon, and raced on toward the running figures and the jet.
Remy looked on the bright side: close as he was to the source of the explosion, Mesmero was probably toast.
The blast wave hit, knocking him back against the jet and rocking the jet itself. He'd raised his hand automatically to shield his eyes against the light, and lowered it now as the glare faded to see what had become of the X-Men. A faint ripple surrounded them, bending the light; it took him a moment to figure out that it was a telekinetic forcefield. Obviously came in handy, having a telekinetic around.
The X-Men closed the distance to the jet quickly, with the dust-choked, smoking debris of the canyon making an impressive backdrop even in the dark. For the first time since he'd met up with the team, he wondered if they did this kind of stuff every day.
He greeted them with, "What happened?"
"Cable set off an explosion inside the golden room," Cyclops said, breathing hard. "Apocalypse is history."
Remy looked at the other three X-Men, not surprised. Big explosions tended to do that to a body. "That so?"
The professor nodded; Remy had to be impressed with a guy who managed to look dignified and distinguished even when he was being carried like a sack of potatoes. "Yes. And we should leave before the Egyptian military arrives to investigate."
"After you, mes braves," Gambit said with a grand gesture, which none of them seemed to appreciate. He waited until the X-Men, his new colleagues, boarded - he wouldn't call them "family" yet, if ever - and then he got onto the Blackbird himself.
He did not look back.
Bonus Note: I found this poem while I was writing Chapter 14; it's "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley. It's actually more fitting for one of Apocalypse's servants in the comics - Ozymandias (duh) - but I've always thought of it as relating to Apocalypse himself. Maybe because Beast quoted it in TAS. I dunno. But here it is. Enjoy!
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.