Truckload o' Notes: Just so we're all on the same page regarding the Fujita Scale, an F3 tornado has 158-206 mph winds; "damage is severe, with most trees uprooted, walls and roofs torn from well-built houses, and cars lifted from the ground and thrown."
"I am become Death, destroyer of worlds" is a reference to the famous (or infamous, whatever) line uttered at the first atomic explosion by Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, who was paraphrasing the Bhagavad Gita.
The thing about seizures is true. Not only the person having the seizure but also the person trying to hold them down can be injured. The best thing to do is to clear the floor of furniture, etc., and just let them ride it out while you go call 911.
And for those unaware of the Baxter Building's significance (referenced here and in the prologue), it's owned by the Fantastic Four, who have their base on the top levels. They rent out all the other floors, y'know, to pay the bills.
Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confused events
- 'Macbeth,' Act 1, Scene 3
Storm's earlier feelings of horror had blossomed into something greater: a sense of hatred that threatened to overwhelm her altogether. These Horsemen were wrong, an abomination of nature. Their existence, their actions, went against everything she knew to be right and true. They were like black holes, warping the patterns of the world around them.
At the same time, she knew that they were victims of a madman, and that she could not lash out against them unthinkingly.
That hardly made the thunderclouds stop building overhead.
Nor did it make War stop sending explosions their way.
Cyclops, running hard next to her, turned around and let an optic blast fly. It missed, but War was sufficiently distracted to give them a momentary breathing space. Storm pointed a direction out to Beast on her her other side. He nodded and immediately changed course, veering off between two buildings; Famine veered off in pursuit of him. Storm kept flying the same path she'd picked out in the beginning, and made sure Cyclops and Jean were with her as well. The plan - if she could call it that - was simply to run, and get in shots when they could. The odds of winning a face-to-face battle seemed very small, and she could not take that risk with her students.
An explosion burst in the air barely three feet in front of her face, and Storm pulled up sharply to avoid it. As she completed the maneuver, Jean's voice said, Over here!
Storm turned to see her students ducking into one of the buildings, and although she had mixed feelings about that course of action, she followed them. War shouted something just as the heavy metal doors crashed shut behind her, but the words were lost in the noise.
The building, so plain and unassuming from the outside, was a different creature altogether on the inside. The corridor they found themselves in was made of smooth, gleaming silver metal, inset with glowing lights on the floors and ceilings, and with doors bearing official-looking numbers and warning signs. It was also wide and tall enough to allow flying, so she remained in the air.
"Do you know where we're going?" she asked Jean as they ran down the corridor, thinking that perhaps the girl was using her telepathy to guide them.
"No," came the slightly breathless response. "It just looked like a better option!"
It did at that. War had not yet breached the door behind them, probably because this entire facility had been created to withstand such attacks, if Carol was being truthful. But Storm was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it always did.
They came to a junction of four corridors. Cyclops paused, looked down the other three briefly, and then picked one and ran. Jean followed, and Storm, after a cursory glance of her own, followed as well.
This corridor angled downward slightly; the descent was not too sharp - certainly nothing like the hallways in Apocalypse's tomb - but steep enough for Storm to realize that they were heading underground. The very thought made her uncomfortable, but she banished it.
They had gone a fair ways down the new corridor when a blast echoed from far away, accompanied by an immense thud as the door blew in, and Storm knew that War would be on them shortly. She flew faster, Cyclops and Jean keeping pace, and suddenly the corridor ended, opening up into a truly vast room. Well over the length of a football field, it was just as high, and filled with enough peripheral equipment to supply the Institute a dozen times over. But that was not what made them all stop in their tracks.
"Oh my God," Jean said. Her voice echoed, and then echoed again. "Is that -?"
Cyclops took a step forward, tilting his head back to see everything. "It looks like it. But that would mean..."
"A mystery for another time," Storm said firmly. She had gaped as well, but only momentarily, and had now spotted a side door that had "SURFACE ACCESS: EMERGENCY" written across it in bold red letters. "We've got to get out of here before War corners us."
The students snapped out of their trances and ran over to the door. It was locked, but a telekinetic shove from Jean took care of that, and they climbed up the simple metal ladder beyond while Storm guarded their backs against any possible attack from War. Wherever the Horseman was, he wasn't closing in. Storm wondered briefly if that was good or not.
Then she took a last glance at the distinctly, undeniably alien shape of the massive UFO in the middle of the cavernous room, and hurried to join her students.
Carol didn't make it back to help Logan right away. Almost as soon as she'd left Pestilence plunging toward the concrete, she'd seen Famine and Beast engaging in a fierce battle. Famine had the upper hand, mostly because Beast was trying to stay out of her reach, and Carol decided to help balance the equation a little.
She dropped down in front of him and neatly blocked a blow from the horse's front hooves. "You looked like you could use an extra pair of hands!"
"Most assuredly so," he said, breathing hard.
Famine circled around and brought her horse to heel a couple yards above their heads, staring down at them with a fierce glare that belied her corpse-like appearance. "No amount of help will save you," she proclaimed. "Apocalypse destroys all who stand against him!"
"They just love to make speeches, don't they?" Carol muttered to Beast, who snorted. "Any ideas?"
"You might be able to touch her, but I doubt that I can," he answered in a low voice, never taking his eyes off of the Horsemen, who was still waiting for them. Why not? Two opponents probably weren't enough to make Famine nervous, not if she'd been slaughtering whole divisions of S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel. "Her power appears to be tactile-based, just like Rogue's."
Carol looked at the purple-suited figure. No gloves to cover the claw-like hands, but that didn't necessarily mean anything except that she didn't mind leaving fingerprints everywhere. "How do you figure that?"
He grimaced and rubbed one arm - which, Carol noticed now, looked a lot thinner than the other one. "As Ben Franklin once said, 'Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.' "
"In that case, I get my diploma on Tuesday," Carol said. "So what do you suggest?"
Before he could answer, Famine spurred her horse on with a dry, rattling cry, and dove at them with her hands spread wide. Carol took flight; Beast ducked and rolled away. They all came out of their maneuvers at roughly the same time to find that nothing had changed: it was still a Horseman facing down an X-Man and his ally.
"This could take a while," Beast said, quirking up one furry eyebrow.
Now Carol snorted. "Great."
Famine appeared to have reached the same conclusion, because she abruptly wheeled her horse around and headed in the same direction as Logan and Death.
Without so much as a glance between them, both Carol and Beast took off after her.
Storm emerged into the fresh air to see Jean and Cyclops watching a fight between Wolverine and Death. From the slightly vacant looks on their faces, they were also having a telepathic conversation.
She was concerned about Wolverine as well, but not as much as she was about the Horseman chasing them. She shut the emergency exit's door and melted it into place with a few quick pulses of lightning; it would take War several blasts to get through that.
They had come up at the far end of the tarmac, and, remembering the layout of the room beneath them, she realized that faint fracture line running down the middle of the gray asphalt strip was not a natural formation or damage from the attack, but rather the line where two doors connected. It was similar to the Velocity's hangar design, and surely built for the same reason: maximum concealment.
Before she could do more than consider the implications of that, a sharp cackle made her look up swiftly. "Cyclops, Jean -!"
Cyclops and Jean broke off their telepathic conversation abruptly, whirling around to see what Storm was warning them about, and at the same moment Storm sent a lightning bolt at the mechanical horse as Pestilence swooped down on the two students. The bolt missed widely, but Cyclops and Jean managed to duck in time to avoid Pestilence's grasping hands.
"Don't be afraid, little children!" the Horseman called, making a sharp turn and coming back at them. "Being sick never killed anybody!"
The wild illogic of that statement made Storm frown in true concern. Pestilence was obviously insane, and crazed opponents were harder to fight precisely because they were so unpredictable.
"She's not playing with a full deck, is she?" Cyclops asked.
"Not even close," Jean said, before Storm could.
Pestilence cackled. "Apocalypse has ordered us to destroy you, and I LIVE to serve!"
Storm sent a hard gust of wind rushing at the Horseman, and then another from the opposite direction; the robotic horse, unable to cope with the sudden crosswind, wobbled fiercely and, with the decisive touch of Cyclops's optic beam, finally dumped its rider onto the ground.
"Hold her!" Storm ordered Jean, who quickly stretched out her hand to guide her telekinesis. Pestilence tried to rise, but met the unexpected resistance and fell back to the cement. Storm took advantage of the momentary reprieve to drop a lightning bolt onto the mechanical horse, reducing it to a thousand sparking fragments that showered over the Horseman.
Jean moved toward Pestilence, brow furrowed in concentration as she held the Horseman in place. "What are we going to do with her?"
Cyclops took a few steps closer as well. "We're going to find out everything she knows about Apocalypse."
Pestilence looked up, a sly grin flitting across her features. "Little boy, little boy..." she cooed, rising as far as Jean's telekinetic bubble would allow. "Oh, little boy, you are adorable!"
And before any of the X-Men quite knew what was happening, Pestilence broke free of Jean's telekinetic hold and grabbed Cyclops around one wrist. A green light flared at the point of contact, illuminating Scott's face in the same shade as Pestilence's skin, and then Jean cried out and knocked the Horseman away with another burst of telekinesis. Cyclops faltered, but Jean caught him as well.
Pestilence, despite being on the ground for the second time in as many minutes, started laughing uncontrollably. "Oh, poor little boy, so sad, so sad. What's wrong, dearie - got a touch of the plague?"
Thunder boomed overhead, expressing Storm's emotions better than any mere words. Pestilence just climbed to her feet, still laughing hard enough to make her hold her side.
Storm narrowed her eyes, trying to collect herself and to think of a new strategy. This was not going well at all.
"Apocalypse has pronounced sentence," Famine screeched. Her voice was growing scratchier and more unpleasant with every word - so, of course, she was beginning to rant non-stop. "You are unfit! We will grind your bones to dust in his name!"
Beast leaped backwards, avoiding the sharp hooves of her horse. "With apologies to Apocalypse, we'll have to pass."
"That's right," Carol added, backing up with him, although she was hovering a few feet off the ground. "Our schedule is booked solid this week. Sorry."
Famine didn't have much of a sense of humor. She let out another nails-on-a-chalkboard scream and dove at them. Carol waited for it, then turned and flew in a straight path, making herself a much easier target than Beast, who was waiting for his own moment as per their hastily-assembled plan.
As soon as Famine passed over his head, Beast jumped up and grabbed one of the horse's legs, literally risking his neck in the process, and yanked it off in a burst of sparking wires. Carol watched the whole thing over her shoulder, including the part where Famine's horse wobbled precariously. For a second it looked like the horse would go down, but it stayed aloft. Carol had to admit - however grudgingly - that they were well-built machines.
And meanwhile, Famine was gaining on her.
Carol flung herself up and back, into a textbook loop, and came out behind Famine. The Horseman wheeled about to face her, and Carol saw one clawed, bony hand stretch out towards her as Famine came charging back.
"Oh, no thank you," Carol said, and darted upward at the last moment, ascending to a safer altitude. The Blackbird was nearby; she could still reach it and use the weapons systems. Beast would be okay for the few moments he'd have to face Famine alone.
"The dread lord cries out for your destruction!" Death shouted behind her, and she whirled instinctively to block any coming blows. But the Horseman was not yelling at her; he was still trading blows and verbal spars with Logan.
Logan had managed to pin Death on the ground, slashing at him with his claws incessantly so that Death was forced to use his wings to block the onslaught instead of taking flight. But the cry that had alerted Carol also signaled an abrupt change in the fight's balance.
In the heartbeat between slashes, Death flung his wings wide and pushed away, propelling himself upwards and backwards in a single smooth motion. His wings beat only once to carry him to a height of nearly fifty feet.
"Get back down here and fight!" Logan snarled, brandishing his claws. The remaining sunlight glittered across their curved adamantium surfaces. It also glittered across the twenty-foot wingspan of Death as he reached a zenith and hung there, suspended for a single moment like a martyr on a cross. Then his wings seemed to contract violently, and a silver cluster of razor-tipped metal feathers flashed through the air - and embedded themselves in Logan's body.
Carol abandoned her plans, again, and darted over to where her old friend had fallen. "Logan!"
He opened his mouth, and a strangled noise that could have been "paralyzed" came out. Nothing more.
A paralytic agent of my own design. Thus far, it's worked very well on mammals, including lesser primates.
I'm going to kill him, Carol thought, and it was no idle promise. The moment this craziness was over, she was going to track down Sinister and kill him. But first she was going to beat the truth of what he'd done to her, and done to Warren, out of the bastard.
The feathers were buried in Logan's flesh; she tried to pull one out, but it stuck. Some kind of barb. As she thought about it, he started to convulse, and she loosened her grip on his body. She'd learned long ago that the worst thing to do was restrain someone during a seizure - but still, he needed help.
Beast had also rushed over, and Carol grabbed his arm now as she headed back to engage Famine; Death had vanished. Secretly, she was glad of that. She wasn't looking forward to fighting Warren, even if he was a mind-controlled slave. "Base medical facilities, third building on the left, big red cross on the door. Help him. Don't worry about the rest of us."
Cyclops coughed, a weak, dry sound, and Jean pressed her hand against his forehead, feeling for a temperature.
"He's burning up," she called to Storm. Her voice sounded frantic to her own ears. But what kind of sickness moved this fast? Scott?
He moved slightly against her fingers, and she heard a faint whisper in her mind. It sounded like her name, but she wasn't sure.
"Where is Beast?" Storm called back, darting a blow from Pestilence.
Good question. She closed her eyes and reached out for his mind. Beast - where are you? Pestilence got Scott!
He didn't respond with words; without significant training, very few non-telepaths could, and Beast hadn't been with the X-Men long enough. But she did receive a clear picture of a building with a red cross, and a strong feeling of security and help.
Jean broke off contact and told Storm, He's at the base's medical facility.
Then we'll take Cyclops there, Storm answered decisively.
"Oh, too much head-chatter, much too much," Pestilence said, pausing in her assault to give them a reproving frown and shake of her head. Jean wondered how she knew - was she telepathic, or was Apocalypse merely using his own telepathy to keep her informed? The green-skinned woman hissed and added, "Why don't you all just curl up and die like good little children?"
"No," Cyclops said, coughing, and fired an optic blast at the Horseman. The beam had barely left his visor when he collapsed against Jean, nearly knocking her off her feet, and this time, she knew he was truly down.
Pestilence shrieked when the beam hit her. The force of the blast sent her slamming into a building, and she collapsed to the ground with a moan. It didn't look like she was getting up any time soon either. Jean felt a fierce surge of emotion, like vindication, on Scott's behalf. She also felt a wave of guilt; if she'd just been able to hold Pestilence back, then he never would have gotten sick.
Storm waved her hand, sending a thick shroud of white fog over the fallen Horseman, and lightly touched down next to Jean and Cyclops. "We should move quickly."
Jean nodded, using her telekinesis to keep Cyclops up; she would have to carry him the entire way. He was pale, but not sweating, and she feared that meant that he was even sicker than he looked. Scott, she said, putting her hand on his forehead again. Scott, please, talk to me.
All she got back was a jumble of pictures and feelings, none of them happy. A fever dream, she realized, and felt slightly sick herself. Was it just yesterday that she'd been exalting over her good fortune - over a future that could now die before it was even born?
"Hurry," Storm urged, putting a guiding hand on Jean's shoulder. Jean shook her head, clearing away the thoughts, and started running for the medical building with Cyclops' too-warm body at her side and Storm watching their backs.
Famine, Carol had decided, was a hell of a lot tougher than she looked.
The Horseman was about as physically intimidating as a toothpick, but she had somehow managed to absorb an incredible amount of punishment. The only real progress Carol had made since Beast had left for the medical facilities was the final destruction of the horse.
As she maneuvered into place for another run at Famine, Carol figured that "absorb" was the key word. Famine's power probably compensated for it all, by sucking the energy away before it could damage her body. Then again, what did she know?
The entire battle was frustrating Carol to no end. She was having an unusually ineffective week - first losing to a bunch of second-rate criminals, and now being stymied by a handful of zombies. Fury would kick my ass if he saw this, she thought. She wasn't making S.H.I.E.L.D. look very good.
Famine raised her hands, earthbound but still ready to fight. A pale purple glow flickered around her fingers. Carol had no desire to find out what the glow felt like up close, and she began to reconsider. There had to be another way to do this-
Backup's here, Jean said in her mind. Carol jerked upwards, startled, and looked down to see Jean and Storm running towards them.
Jesus, kid, watch that, she shot back, then asked, Where's Cyclops?
Jean's answer was a mix of words, emotions, and images that told Carol the whole story in an eyeblink. It wasn't a happy story, but it was the unskilled method of communication that really caught her attention.
That bad? Carol asked, surprised and not a little worried; if the girl was that distracted, she could get hurt. But it was a rhetorical question, and she didn't wait for Jean to respond before saying, Don't let Famine touch you. What's the status on the other three?
Storm via Jean jumped in with, Pestilence is down. We haven't seen War for several minutes, and Death is also missing.
Out loud, Carol called, "Just us girls, huh?"
"Not for long," Storm replied, taking to the air a few yards away. She pointed at something behind Carol.
Carol knew without turning what she would see, but she did anyway.
Death was returning to the fray, wings flashing, and War was at his side.
"Jean, take care of Famine," Carol called down, taking command of the situation automatically. "Storm, handle Death. I'll deal with War."
There was no response from either of the X-Men, but a sizzling bolt of lightning went crashing down perilously close to Death as Carol charged War.
War dodged her easily, then swung around. His face twisted into a truly malevolent expression, and he drew one of his swords, raising it high over his head and shouting, "Apocalypse's will be done!"
"Not today," she said, ducking the blade. Carol had a significant advantage over the Horsemen, except for Death, in that she had been flying for years. She wasn't limited to linear movement like up and down, left and right; she used the entire sky, fighting in all three dimensions. Gravity wasn't an issue for her - something that might prove to be the deciding factor if she did confront Death.
War's momentum carried him forward for a second, and Carol quickly brought one fist up and punched him in the center of his chest. The blow stopped all that momentum, and the horse kept going while he stayed still.
Carol grabbed his armor's shoulder guard and threw him, straight down, as hard as she could. War smacked into the ground with a satisfying boom, sending up a cloud of dust and debris. She hovered in place for a moment, waiting expectantly to see his defeated and unconscious body sprawled in the impact crater, but what happened instead was a sharp clapping noise, a flare of red light, and a ringing explosion right behind her head.
The burst of superhot air didn't hurt her, but she went with it anyway, letting the force of the explosion carry her earthward. She landed hard, kicking up a small impact crater of her own, and got to her feet immediately. War came out of the dust cloud with his sword swinging, but her seventh sense got her clear, and she was able to turn his attack to her advantage with a good swift kick to his ankles.
The kick knocked his legs out from under him, and Carol clamped a hand on the neck of his armor, holding him up, and used her other hand to punch him in the side of his ugly Roman-style haircut.
Watching him survive the fall without a scratch had given her an idea. War's armor could obviously take a substantial beating, but she was betting that the rest of him wasn't so tough. Carol pulled her fist back again, ready to break his nose, and stopped in mid-gesture when she heard Jean shriek.
She looked over her shoulder and saw Famine's skeletal fingers closing around Jean's neck, a wicked purple glow surrounding the two figures. She also saw that Storm was still trading aerial strikes with Death.
Carol said a very bad word, tossed War away, and flew at Famine at top speed, which was somewhere around Mach 3. Not wanting to hurt Jean, she stopped just short of them, but channeled all that momentum into a single punch that, from the sound of it, cracked Famine's jaw in at least two places. "They're just KIDS! JESUS!"
Famine staggered back, and Carol lashed out with a swift kick to the Horseman's midsection that sent her slamming into a wall. Then she spun and caught Jean before she hit the ground.
The teenager was in bad shape. Famine had sucked a lot of life out of her; she now looked fairly skeletal herself, and all the color had gone out of her flesh. Even her hair had faded to a dull, brittle orange.
"Come on," Carol said, swinging Jean into her arms like a baby. "We've got to get you off the battlefield-"
One of War's explosions hit the ground right behind them, knocking Carol onto her knees. She lost her hold on Jean and the girl went flying, hitting the scorched cement with a heavy thud that surely didn't do anything to help her.
"You shall not escape our wrath!" War shouted overhead.
Carol thought fast, glanced around, and settled on a chunk of concrete near her hand. She grabbed it and rolled over, then flung it as hard as she could at War's ugly face.
He saw it coming and moved, trying to dodge, but Carol's arm was a lot faster than he was, and the concrete clipped his shoulder. War fell back - not much, but it gave Carol just enough time to scramble up off the ground and launch her fist into his nose. It made a very satisfying wet, crunching noise. He cried out and fell back even further, clutching his face.
Carol hit him again, and again, as hard as she could, right in his face and on his head. The sixth blow knocked him off his fake horse, which she also hit, just for good measure. When he smacked into the ground, he moaned and didn't get up. Just like I planned, she thought triumphantly. The man was not as strong as the armor. Were they ever?
"This time, have enough sense to stay down," she told him. She flew back to Jean, who hadn't moved an inch, scooped her up - minding the girl's fragility - and flew towards the infirmary as fast as she dared.
The base's infirmary was relatively small, with a front desk of plain, battered gray metal, no waiting room to speak of, only a handful of gurneys and a slightly larger number of beds. It was also completely unscathed, which sent the rather disheartening message that none of the personnel had made it there during or after the Horsemen's attack.
Immediately after entering, Beast had deposited Wolverine on a gurney in the small operating room and set to work removing the feathers. That had taken only a few minutes, once he'd found a decent scalpel. Then Storm and Jean had arrived, bearing Cyclops, and Beast had likewise deposited him in the OR. Then he'd barred the infirmary's sole outer door with the biggest, heaviest thing he could find - namely, the front desk.
Now the door burst inward, desk flying, and Carol said urgently, "Beast! Jean needs help NOW!"
Thus interrupted in his ongoing quest to get a reliable temperature from Scott, Beast looked over his shoulder and through the OR doors and saw Carol cradling an emaciated Jean in her arms.
Incredulous, he turned away from his two previous patients and demanded, "What are you people doing out there - throwing yourselves into their hands?!"
"She got distracted," Carol said, carefully setting Jean down on the nearest available gurney inside the OR. "And I hate to say 'I told you so,' but..."
"But you told us so," Beast finished for her, somewhat irritated. "Yes, I remember that very well. Famine, I presume?"
Carol nodded sharply. "She didn't touch her long. I knocked them apart as soon as I saw it."
Beast nodded, already absorbed in his new task. He was not, by definition, a medical doctor, but he had spent a lot of time studying biology and the medical sciences simply because they interested him. His handful of university classes and first-aid training courses were certainly being put to the test now, and he resolved to actually go get a medical degree after this. Patching up X-Men, it seemed, was going to take a lot more skill than he'd anticipated.
But even with the little knowledge he had, he thought that he could figure out what had happened to Jean. It was based on a large amount of conjecture - admittedly not the firmest grounds for medical treatment, but there was little else he could do. Even as Carol continued to explain what had happened, Beast fished out an IV line and bag, filled the latter with the most nutrient-rich fluid he could find, and plugged the former into one of Jean's few remaining accessible veins.
"I do hope this works," he said, mostly to himself, and returned to Scott. The boy was not doing well, and-
"You mean you're not sure it will?" Carol demanded.
Beast sighed and said, "Famine is the loss of food - malnutrition - so it stands to reason that the Horseman of that name would steal the nutrients from her victims."
"Well, there goes my confidence in the medical profession," Carol muttered. Beast saw no reason to enlighten her. "Just keep your head down if the fight heads this way, okay?"
And with that, she reached out one gloveless hand and gave him a faintly patronizing pat on the shoulder, and Beast suddenly felt the unmistakable sensation of memories being pulled from his mind.
Carol jerked her hand back as though she'd been burned. "Holy- What was that?"
"That," Beast said with some effort, his head swimming, "was Rogue's absorption power."
Carol looked at her hands. "That's not good."
Beast shook his head. "No, I'd imagine not."
A loud boom shook the walls, sending plaster bits raining down on them, and Carol broke off her staring contest with her hands. "Tell Logan we could use his help out there," she said, gave Beast a brief salute, and then flew out of the medical building just as urgently as she'd entered.
Another explosion echoed almost immediately, and Beast reflexively hunched over Scott's body as more plaster fell. He could feel the heat radiating from the boy - a fierce, unrelenting fire that was going to kill him just as surely as any any collapsed building, and give him some truly horrific nightmares along the way. Scott had not stopped twitching fitfully since Jean and Storm had brought him in.
" 'The sleep of reason produces monsters,' " Beast quoted, looking up at the damaged ceiling. And I fear we have all been asleep too long.
Alone against Death, Storm thought she was doing a fair job of holding her own; the blue-skinned Horseman seemed skittish around her lightning, probably due to his metallic wings, and she was able to enforce a relatively safe distance between them. When War had staggered up and rejoined his fellow Horseman in the sky, though, Storm quickly found herself hard-pressed to keep pace with them.
War would charge her, swords drawn, and as soon as she dodged him, Death would swoop in with wings and feathers slashing. She avoided their first two attacks, managing to knock away one of War's swords, but on the third, she spun away from War and was immediately sliced across the shoulder by Death.
Storm did not cry out in pain, but it was a very near thing. She retreated into a a cocoon of whirling air, making the wind spin fast enough to generate a small F3 tornado, and in the safety of the funnel's eye, she held her wound with one hand and tried to regroup. More accurately, she tried to calm herself down. But she had very nearly reached the limits of her patience.
She would have to dispose of them, somehow, and she would have to do it alone. She could not depend on the other X-Men, adults or students; they were all incapacitated in some way. Nor could she depend on Carol, simply because the woman was an unknown factor.
The responsibility was a heavy one, but she was used to the weight of the world.
Decision made, Storm dropped the winds and found War and Death waiting for her, side-by-side with mace swinging and wings spread.
She also saw a small green form speeding toward them and knew that Carol, at least, would be there to assist.
"Resist," Death said, pointing an accusing finger at her, "and be obliterated."
Storm drew herself straight, letting herself slip back into a role she had not assumed in years, but which still fit well enough to be mildly frightening in its familiarity.
When she was barely into her teenage years, just beginning to realize the forces at her command, Ororo had been decreed the living embodiment of the Goddess by a small tribe in Kenya. She had done her best to be a benevolent deity, bringing gentle, life-giving rain to the people who worshipped her, but the Goddess was not always so magnanimous. The Bright Lady created, yes,
but creation could not happen without destruction.
And Storm knew very well how destructive She could be.
She closed her eyes and let the will of the Goddess flow through her.
Cloud patterns warped for a hundred miles in all directions, catching the attention of every meteorologic station in North America, including the one aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. The training operation being conducted in the North Atlantic was immediately abandoned as they turned course to Utah.
Closer at hand, a jetstream in the upper atmosphere was yanked earthward, bringing supercooled air from the arctic rushing down onto the isolated patch of desert. Black clouds built faster than the eye could see, until the sun was blotted out entirely and it looked more like night than day. Rain began to fall, hard and fast, and then the drops of water started to solidify.
Storm floated serenely in the midst of the chaos, buffeted by the wind but untouched by the hailstones now falling from the sky. She was dimly aware of Carol, hovering right below her, shouting something. It did not seem important.
The two Horsemen were struggling to stay airborne. She would not stoop so low as to take their lives, but she would put an end to the battle. Storm raised her hands, feeling the familiar warm sensation of electricity gathering along her fingers, and willed the lightning to strike the horse.
The mechanical body glowed, flickering with that ghostly precursor to a blast that the ancients had named St. Elmo's fire. Then a tongue of raw electricity split the air in front of Storm and ripped into the metal guts of the Horsemen's steed.
The explosions sent hot shrapnel flying in Storm's direction, but with a wave of her hand the wind carried it all away.
War tumbled to the ground. Carol darted after him, and through the flurry of hailstones Storm saw her exchange a quick burst of swift, solid punches. War, however, still had some fight left, and he caught Carol in the face with an explosion that knocked her into a building.
Storm stopped the hail and lessened the wind, dropping to the ground herself and meeting War's wrathful face with a calm and level gaze.
"You are nothing in the eyes of Apocalypse!" War shouted.
She felt the electricity gather around her again, and knew her eyes were glowing brighter than the hatred War was spouting forth. He felt the electricity too, looking up at the sky in something like fear as she pronounced his doom.
"Apocalypse is nothing in the eyes of the Bright Lady."
And before he could respond, she put her hand close to the metal armor of his chest and fired a bolt of lightning into it. In less than a half-second, one hundred million volts of electricity were channeled into a conductor that covered his entire body.
He cried out, back arching, and collapsed into a smoking, sparking heap. A faint moan told her that he was not dead, and Storm decided that she would be glad of that later, when her anger subsided.
"Get down!" Carol shouted, slamming into her side and pushing her out of the way just as a few dozen feathers sliced down where she had been standing.
"The servants of Apocalypse will not be so easily defeated!" Death shouted.
Storm tried to climb to her feet again, but Carol pushed her back down. "No. I have to do this by myself."
"Then may the Goddess protect you," Storm said, and hoped that her influence would count for something.
It was a duel. No - it was a dogfight. The fiercest of her life, and she had been in quite a few.
Carol could fly faster than most planes, was more agile than any fighter jet, and had a phenomenal reflex time. She'd outclassed every S.H.I.E.L.D. operative, in every S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicle - and they had some doozies - in every aerial maneuver imaginable.
But Death was in another league entirely.
They had traded punches and kicks for a few moments, and then Carol had taken the fight on the run. She dodged and twisted and ducked, soaring up as high as she could, until the blue dome of the sky blurred into black, and then diving down until even she felt the atmospheric burn on her skin (to its credit, the hand-me-down uniform held up under the strain). And the whole time, Death was just a hand's breadth behind her.
Carol, running out of ideas and hope, stopped suddenly, spinning around in the same motion and bracing herself for impact. Death veered off at the last moment, his wing's razor edge slashing across her upraised arms. She felt nothing, and a quick check showed the uniform was torn, but there was no blood. That was good; it meant the wings had a relatively low adamantium content. Pure adamantium, or an alloy with higher than ninety percent adamantium, would pierce her skin.
"This effort is futile! You cannot triumph over the Horsemen of Apocalypse!"
A scatter of feathers shot towards her, and she dropped, letting gravity take her out of danger. Death retreated to a slightly higher altitude, although he looked like he was gearing up for the next parry.
"Ace!" Logan shouted, and she turned to look down at him. "Watch-"
Death slammed into her back. Taken by surprise, she couldn't stop her fall in time, and smacked into the stained and blasted concrete face-first.
"Watch your back," Logan told her, finishing what he'd been trying to tell her before she'd been knocked out of the sky.
"Thanks." Carol pushed herself out of the cement, glaring at him sourly, and brushed some stray hair away from her face. "How are the kids?"
"Better," he said, but she was already in the air once again.
Death was waiting for her, making a wide, slow circular pass like a vulture. She dodged another burst of feathers, but made no attempt to go in for a strike herself. A physical fight wasn't working, perhaps because she didn't want to bash Warren's face in. Whatever the reason, it was time to change tactics in a big way.
"Warren - it's me," she said, circling around him. "It's Carol - Carol Danvers. You remember me, I know you do!"
He shook his head, giving her a high, scornful glare. "You know nothing. You are nothing."
She drew closer, risking a feather barrage, and said softly, "I know that I love you, Warren."
She could remember the precise moment she'd realized it - how she'd met his eyes over a table in the restaurant in the Baxter Building on their ill-fated third date, and saw there a light that warmed her entire soul. Warren Worthington was special, and every complicating factor - the fact that she was his bodyguard, the large age difference between them - faded away to nothing.
Warren's gray-blue eyes suddenly blurred in her memory into black ones with glowing red embers at their cores, and Carol felt a moment of panic before she reasserted her personality with the mental equivalent of a shove. Not now. She would not go now.
Not yet.
Blue eyes, full of grace and love. She held the memory tightly and forced herself to concentrate more on what was happening. It was Death she was facing, not Warren. But was it really?
Those eyes looked back at her now, devoid of compassion or any human feeling. However, he was no longer on the offensive, and she was able to get a little closer.
"I just want to save you," Carol said, not quite so soft as before, but still with all the truthfulness she could bring to bear. She reached up and lightly stroked his cheek with the back of one fingernail, not letting him look away from her. She felt something warm and wet on her owncheek; a tear. If this worked, she would never see him again.
But Carol Danvers was stronger than her emotions. Strong enough to take on an assignment as a bodyguard for a spoiled rich mutant, strong enough to stick to her job even after she'd fallen for him, and strong enough now to save his life with the sacrifice of her own.
"I am become Death, destroyer of worlds. There is nothing to save," Death said, and brought a wing slamming into her. Carol, caught off-guard despite herself, tumbled backwards a few yards. She shook her head clear, wiping the betraying tears away in the process, and charged back. Once again, he let her get within arm's reach. She hoped that meant Warren was fighting to gain control, just like she was against Rogue.
But then his wings twitched - the prelude to another strike - and in the few seconds she had left, Carol declared, "I know you're in there, Warren, and by God, I'm going to find you!"
Quicker than he could react, she put her bare hands on both sides of his face, holding him fast, and deliberately used Rogue's power for the first and last time. And Carol, with the training of a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative and years of experience in all areas of combat, used it with a skill that Rogue could not have matched.
She dove to the heart of Warren's psyche and stripped away the orders Apocalypse had put in place, stripped away the controls and suggestions Sinister had embedded throughout, stripped away every bit of darkness and evil and hatred and every urge to violence until the black shroud wrapped around Warren Worthington was gone and his psychic form stood free and shining pure once again. The darkness had to go somewhere, though, and if she had been a true telepath she might have been able to dispel it harmlessly to the astral plane, but she was using borrowed powers with definite limits and the only place she could send it...
...was into herself.
She did not feel it when she fell out of the sky and hit the ground so hard that she cracked the cement. She did not see the young man once known as Death also crash to the ground, his wings retracting automatically as he was knocked unconscious.
Because Carol Danvers was gone.