Chapter Five: Fate

Gaelie let out a short scream of fright, and then pointed a trembling finger.

" You," she hissed, and Rakla laughed, holding up a chunk of foul-smelling yellow fibres. The hair, she realised with growing nausea. " You killed that girl, and you killed Lorne! Both mutants… you dared to kill your own kind?!"

Behind her Toad suddenly lurched snarling to his feet in a fit of immeasurable strength, and the two clashed with a horrible scream, falling backward together into the ever-flowing pool of Lorne's blood, biting and kicking with all the feral instinct of wildcats. Presently Mortimer screamed with pain, and the sound of Rakla's cruel laughter could be heard amidst the fray.

" Enough!" screamed Gaelie, and suddenly her hands felt very hot; she looked down to see green energy webbed between her fingertips. She felt very strange, for it had been many years since she had used her power, but as time seemed to slow and she saw Rakla driven back momentarily she thrust her hands at him, and watched the tendrils fly from her outstretched fingertips and envelop him. Almost that very instant she was showered with a myriad of wet chunks as the thousands of tendrils cut through the other mutant, sending bits of him splattering everywhere. The alley was instantly filled with the smell of the drug, for it invaded every fibre of the Forgotten's living tissues.

Gaelie retched and tried to wipe the foul-smelling lot from her dress, and then saw Toad struggling on the floor of the alley, and she rushed to his side.

He was covered in blood, both his own, Lorne's, and Rakla's, and there were horrid gashes that laid open his flesh, but Gaelie noted with gratitude that none of them looked life-threatening. Beside Toad lay a glittering knife, and from it Gaelie felt a most horrible aura radiating, and at once she knew it was the blade that had slain Lorne.

Sitting up, Toynbee seized it and held it out to her. " Destroy it."

" How?" Gaelie gasped, feeling the slick metal in her hand. Her gut twisted with nausea as it seemed to writhe in her clutches, trying to get free, to finish its slaying.

" Throw it in the harbour," whispered Toad. " Throw it out as far as you can."

She nodded, moving forward to help him to his feet. " Let me help you home first."

" No," he hissed, shaking his head. " We must not go back there. The rest of them know of Rakla, and were in allegiance with him. There is now a hunt for our blood; in a few hours, when they need a fix again, they will leave the flat and come searching."

" What… what should we do?" asked Gaelie quietly.

" All is lost," said Toynbee sadly. " If I were you I would throw myself into the harbour as well, and be rid of this nightmare forever."

Gaelie looked at him in shock, and despite their paleness his eyes were very dark.

" I say this not in cruelty," he said slowly. " But you are addicted, and will forever be, and from now on wherever you go to find your fix they will be there, waiting for you. Better you to take your fate into your own hands; death is rapture compared to what they would do to you. For the rest of your life you will be running, but you cannot outrun the addiction. No one can. And where it lies, they lie."

Gaelie absorbed this in silence, and after a long period of silence she asked softly, " What will you do?"

Toynbee seemed to smile in the deep darkness. " I saved a relic from the night I was Forgotten, taken from a man I slew in this very alley." From his tattered coat he pulled a shining pistol, and held it up reverently.

" Go to the harbour," he said. " Do not leave your body to the wolves; it is too beautiful yet."

" Come with me," Gaelie whispered.

" I cannot face those waters again," said Toad, shaking his bloody head. " Nothing could ever make me go back there, not even all the redemption in the world. Go lie with Lorne; it is your rightful place."

With that he turned his back on her, his head bent over the puddle of Lorne's blood, cradling the pistol as though it were a child. Gaelie could hear him taking softly to it, and slowly she turned and walked out of the alley toward the harbour. She cast one last look over her shoulder at him, her eyes filling with painful tears.

" Goodbye, Mortimer," she whispered, and fled from the darkness of her past, into the darkness of her future.

Toynbee remained in the alley much longer than he had anticipated, but he had not reckoned that the gun would start speaking to him. Had he known that it was only madness setting in, long overdue, it would not have mattered. He remained.

He remained until the moon had begun its descent, fleeing from the sun. He remained as the puddle of Lorne's blood mingled with his own and with the traitor Rakla's and finally sunk into the concrete, the ants dispersing in an angry swarm. He remained until the steel of his talking Glock reflected the visage of a youngish man with a strange visor across his eyes, flanked by grim-faced followers, all of whom he dimly recognised despite his near blindness. He remained until his talking Glock was deftly plucked from his numb fingers by the visored man, who said " Mortimer Toynbee, you are to receive justice for your crimes against humanity. Cerebro was able to locate you; we thought you were dead. You've been lucky to be free this long. We are taking you to Charles Xavier."

With that he was pulled to his feet and promptly supported as his captors realised that he could not stand. Absently he rolled his nearly white eyes up to the face of the man who spoke, his thin lips with their glittering ring curved upward slightly, and he said in a very strange voice:

" I thought you had forgotten me."

The end.

Look out for the sequel!