Chapter Six: Burying the Dead with the Harvest Seed
Jubilee sat on the gentle hillside; upwind from the smell of rot and decay that was the result of Onslaughts last victory over mankind.
The sun slid down, shimmering in clear and vibrant colors, against the clouds.
Jubilee sighed softly.
In the morning she would forage for supplies and then begin the long hike to the north. To the North there were mountains where no one had lived. It wouldn't take long once there. Maybe a year. And then nature would have reclaimed the death and stench of this mess around her. Already, animals she had not seen in the last four years were beginning to emerge from the surrounding wilderness. It was as if they knew the threat had passed.
Jubilee leaned back against the soft cool grass. But she could not relax.
She sat up quickly and yelled out loud "I know you're there. I can feel you... watching..." and she began to cry. Knowing all too well that no one was watching her, no matter what she felt.
In an adjacent dimension Emma Frost stood over the polished white casket. Her traditional risqué white outfit now replaced with a more somber soft blue velvet dress.
"The headstone is beautiful." She said out loud to no one and to Kurt. "I thought you should know."
She had allowed herself to spare no expense in the last few days. She had exercised such taste and style that when the components were combined, the over all effect was breathtaking.
Red and black roses lined the sea side burial site. The great stone marker bore small intricate gargoyles on the corners, protecting a central relief of Kurt's face over the front of the stone, which bore his name.
The inscription read simply "May he continue to rise." A fitting tribute for a man who had so often claimed that he had gotten progressively 'better' every day of his life.
"I really loved you Kurt. I still do. You are very easy to miss and to love." She hugged herself to feel the velvet of the dress against her arms. "It's a shame no one else got to know that Kurt. I'm sorry."
And Emma Frost looked up at the vast empty burial site. No one else had come. Not the X-men, nor that Pryde woman who was now running the English arm of the X-men, the eXtremists who Kurt and Emma had so often aided, not a single friend or enemy had come to pay the proper respect to this dark and fallen hero.
A man in a nice suit and dark glasses did eventually arrive with a telegram from Nick Fury of Shield. It expresses his deep regret and sorrow at 'Burt's passing.
Emma wanted to laugh. And Emma wanted to cry.
At the same time, in another world, Scott Summers wanted to look at his wife; Betsy Summers, in her deep Asian eyes. She pulled the psychic field from his mind. He felt it slide out but he waited a moment before opening his eyes. Betsy's telepathic powers were invasive and offensive. Not as subtle as many others, but Scott trusted none of them as he trusted his wife.
"You're right." She said, wringing her hands as though to clean them. "He just vanished."
Cerebro had detected no other mutants in the area at the time and recorded no mutant activity that could be connected with LockJaw's disappearance.
"You didn't tell me." She said. "You didn't tell me about Rogue. Why did you even bother?"
"She's his mother."
"She's been almost completely unresponsive for two years Scott." Betsy was worried. Scott loved his adopted nephew. He could not have loved him more if he were his own son.
"I would have wanted... I did want..." Scott considered carefully before continuing "I thought she might have seen it. I thought his life, might have been enough to bring her around, if her love for Logan could have..."
Betsy laid her hand on her husband's arm. "I think that if she could love him like you do, then it would have been enough, but she cant Scott. Not for a lack of trying, just for a lack of ability."
Scott breathed in deeply and sighed. "He's tough you know. He's his fathers son."
"He's tough. And he's his father's son. And he's a grown man who can take care of himself." She continued "And he's your son too you know. He moves like you when he fights and he sounds like you when he's being sincere."
Scott was sitting up tall; her words had lifted him from his sulk like a broken marionette, dependent on one string. He looked thin to her now and helpless in a way.
"The truth is Scott, you're always right there with him, even when you think you're not."
With that Betsy left the room so that Scott could finish his thinking on the matter, as she knew he had to. She slipped down the manner stairs and out the back of the great house. She sprinted toward the small cabin on the back property where she knew she could find Rogue. As she closed on the cabin she slipped in to a heavy stealth mode. She was in the room before Rogue knew it.
The psionic blade leapt out of her hand. She clouded and dulled it, so as to avoid any real damage, and she reached in to Rogue's mind.
Suddenly Betsy couldn't move. She was wrapped in a distance. She didn't want to admit something, so she couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't listen and couldn't reply when she had heard. It was Rogues mind, she knew, wrapped up in her own mind.
*The man...*
The man?
*Logan, but not Logan.*
Yes.
*Gone.*
Gone where?
*Gone. Gone away*.
And a searing heat began to cut through Betsy's face. She fell back on to the floor and began to convulse.
She awoke to the metallic taste of blood mixed with the salt of tears that had burnt her eyes. As she rose to her feet she looked to Rogues chair. Rogue was leaned against her precious window and her closed eyes fluttered as she dreamed.
Betsy opened the cabin door and wiped the blood from her nose. It had been a foolish stunt. Probing an unbalanced mind can be dangerous. But now it was time to go. To find Scott. To confess what she had tried. He would make sure. He would see to her. See that there was no permanent damage.
Scott was amazing that way; he possessed the ability to forgive things he would have never allowed. And this was one of those things, easier to apologize for than it was to get permission for.
So Betsy began the long walk back to the mansion, disconnected from her body and unsure of her footing, occasionally wiping away too much blood and threatening to collapse. But inside she glowed. She had done all she could to help.
And back on the Keepers Station:
"I wish Uncle Scott was here." I said for the umpteenth time. "I wanted to travel, but this is ridiculous."
What seemed like a million but might have only been a thousand monitors glowed before me. Each showing a different earth, each focused on a moment when that reality was facing crisis and dividing.
And from what the computer was indicating, several dimensions were being overwritten. It would seem that in a world known as the Age of Apocalypse, the X-men, led by Magneto no less, had obtained a sacred crystal and brought about the end of the AOA. Now the dimensional damage was receding and the monitors were tracing the restoration of the dimensions.
The computers were however registering two mounting problems.
My problem was this: I couldn't get the proper coordinates to register on the monitors. Apparently I had been chosen to maintain this station and all of the multiverse to prevent the destruction of the whole. A task made none too easy by the fact that no matter how I entered the coordinates it seemed to lead me to a group of worlds instead of to just one. They also seemed to be two groups of numbers too long.
While I had been attempting to discover how to view and perhaps aid the evolution of these worlds, the meter attached to the computer was steadily climbing. It was currently at 40 percent. One hundred percent meant that realities were overflowing across each other and in short; I wasn't doing my job.
The computer answers simple questions, like "Aren't there any instructions that come with this job?"
It will tell you that Sir Charles Xavier, the last Keeper of the station, left me detailed instructions on how to maintain and run the timelines.
When asked where these instructions are however, it will also sadly inform you that these instructions were 'undone' in the last temporal reversion. And of course, the computer explains this station will remain unaffected by the restoration of the time-line, because a new keeper was already chosen.
Sir Charles instead will be restored to his home world at the moment he had been recruited. The cumulative experience and knowledge he had accumulated in his years spent here will be 'deposited in his unconscious mind' and 'may exist as something like intuition'.
So I can't even retrieve him and have the station explained to me.
Hence the desire to find who was threatening the dimensional stability and beat them soundly until I feel my understanding of dimensional mechanics had increased. And my frustration at my seeming inability to accomplish said task.
"Don't make me hurt you." I told the little red light that despite my warning had begun flashing faster as the meter climbed up to 43 percent.
I was two thirds of the way toward discovering first hand what a conniption fit was when the needle reached 50 percent. It was also at that point that the systems began to activate for themselves and display the dimensional telemetry of the afflicted worlds.
In one world troops were mounting. It was an invasion force. They were preparing an assault on the tiny island nation of Genosha. In this reality the Genoshian government sold the island to Warren Worthington who had turned it in to a refuge for Mutants, Scientists, and anyone who needed time alone or with friends in paradise.
No one ever expected that Bruce Banner would arrive here with his new theories on anti-gravity and accidentally discover interdimentional travel. No one could foresee the Friends of Humanity working through the corrupt African government to fund this mission.
No one can yet see what will happen in the years to come after that technology falls in to 'friendly' hands.
No one but me.
Small red letters spelled out possible actions I could take to remedy the situation. I had at my disposal a device capable of retrieving objects from other dimensions. I could use this to secure Bruce Banners control system for his 'anti-gravity' device.
I could tap in to any dimensions communications and warn them of the coming attack.
Or, it told me lastly; I could use the microwave weapons mounted on the station's exterior. It charges the microwaves to a specific dimensional frequency, takes aim at the earth below, and then it kills any living target.
I recoiled at the thought. What if stealing the device and warning them didn't work? What would I be forced to do?
