Disclaimer: The characters and universe belong to Marvel Comics. No money is being made from this endeavor. The story is co-plotted and co-written by Mitai, Mel, and Persephone. Please do not archive, pop-up, or MST without permission.

Ashes of Chaos: Break of Dawn
by Jaya Mitai, Mel, and Persephone

Part 1

Day One

Nathan attempted to shake the dust from his eyes as the worst of the wreckage settled around him. Thankfully, the main structure of the building was still intact, no small miracle considering the attack it had absorbed, but he didn't trust that stability to last forever. An alarm was going off, somewhere to his right, and he took the time to wonder at the durability of the systems he and Blaquesmith had designed into this base, his home away from home.

Then he was hefting the beam from his legs and moving.

The main hall had collapsed partially, rock and plaster, shards of metal formed obstacles not easily cleared. He shied away from using his TK, preferring instead to climb over them as he scanned the complex.

Nothing. And he was still in the psi-shielding, if the generator hadn't been crushed.

The light of day seemed unnaturally bright and he squinted as he pushed himself through the collapsed doorway, finally noticing the faint, sharp pain on his forehead and the slight tickle of a dry substance crumbling on his forehead. Cut wasn't deep, and it was the least of his worries.

Right color, though.

Before him, carmine cape a tattered, windtickled shadow of its former glory, armor barely dented by the collapse of the base, stood a figure that matched him in stature and build, hair and eyes.

"Don't build these things like they used to," a thick, sarcastic voice taunted. "Really, Dayspring, a flick of telekinesis and half the building came down. I hope," he continued, tilting his head to the side, sunlight dancing off the bright helmet to play on Nathan's face, "the mountain is significantly stronger; you deserve a lasting tomb."

Cable sneered, reaching a finger of telepathy towards the shields masking the base. Still in place. So far, no psi in the world had detected their battle. Nor had Apocalypse, hopefully.

"I won't be the one dying here, Stryfe." He started a slow circle, ignoring the ache growing behind his eyes as Stryfe inundated him with a series of very ungentle telepathic probes. "I can't tell you how pleasantly surprised I am by your visit, but you really should have called ahead. The place is a mess."

Stryfe threw a sharp spear of telekinetic energy that Nathan blocked easily, and suddenly the two were five feet apart, three, grappling. Nathan barely avoided the small, curved metal blade Stryfe procured from nowhere, knocking it to the side but leaving his right kidney open for a split second.

Stryfe took full advantage, and Nathan twisted away before more than a single blow could land.

"Stab your eyes! If we kill each other, he wins!" It really was a last ditch effort to attempt to stop Stryfe, and there was no persuasion in that voice. Stryfe had been a thorn in his side since the beginning of the revolt, had committed unimaginable atrocities. Blood calls for blood, the way of the desert, in the future as well as the present. And the sands were thirsty.

Stryfe snarled as Dayspring very nearly swept him off his feet, and they backed off, beginning a telekinetic dance while still probing for weaknesses in the others' psi-shields. "Apocalypse has already won, you've guaranteed it through your cowardice!"

With a roar Nathan charged, a sudden, seemingly irate move, and Stryfe welcomed it. Unfortunately, he hadn't bought the loss of control, and was not taken by surprise, ducking a backhand that would have taken his head off at the shoulders and blocking the foot that followed it. More than once since Stryfe had appeared at his doorstep without warning, Cable wished he hadn't left the psimitar back at the house.

#I wonder how it will feel when you're gone. I think I may even miss you, brother.#

Cable fought to push the slight telepathic influence from his mind, not fast enough to counter a blow from an armored fist. He felt his jaw snap as one might feel a pretzel give when broken in half, yet no pain followed as he fell back with a grunt, forcing Stryfe from his mind and telekinetically slapping the reeling telepath with enough force to toss him several yards away.

"This is futile!" He was careful to keep his jaw stiller than he would have liked. It felt curiously numb. "Oath, you idiot, neither one of us can win!"

Stryfe had regained his feet, his TK shield holding even as Cable hammered on it with everything he had, excluding the small store reserved for the virus. "You're wrong, Dayspring! Have you forgotten I bear the name Chaos-Bringer?"

Nathan flinched as he felt the enormous amount of energy building, as he felt it in the hair that stood up on the back of his neck and arm, felt it in the atmosphere as one feels a thunderstorm. Felt it with his peripheral senses, like static against his telepathic probes, like white noise to his mental ears, it was faint, it was overpowering. It was impossible! How could he manage such a feat, considering the powerful blow that had nearly collapsed a base built into a mountainside? Knowing his shields would not hold against such an attack, Cable tried desperately to break through Stryfe's mental defenses, formidable, but no more formidable than his own. Stryfe seemed oblivious to his attacks, dropping to his knees with the effort of focusing all that energy.

He hadn't been holding back, where was he getting the power...?

"Oath, you fool! You'll die!" He'd burn himself out at the very least, a possibly that was very appealing. Assuming Cable survived the attack.

"You... first," Nate barely heard the whisper, and Stryfe's eyes closed, entire body trembling as it began to glow with a light not unlike the radiance of phosphorous as it was exposed to air.

As a last resort, Nathan grabbed the only thing handy -- a rock slightly larger than his fist -- and hurled it at the alpha telepath, using the very last of his telekinesis to try to punch just the slightest hole in that building field of energy. It was a futile gesture, the faint hope of distracting Stryfe his only motivator, already bracing himself for an attack that was going to leave him to Stryfe's mercy, if it didn't kill him instantly.

And distract him he did. Nathan somehow managed to cut a small hole in the shield, and even as it filled back in like cascading water over the lip of a falls, the rock passed through. It bounced with a heavy clang on the metal helmet Stryfe habitually wore, knocking his head back and snapping his eyes open --

And diffusing the collected telekinetic energy like a nuclear bomb, Stryfe seated calmly in the center.

Cable went flying, felt himself hurling through the air as he curled, trying to figure out where down was, hoping to take the brunt of the fall on his left shoulder, the one that could take such an impact --

As luck would have it, he landed on something reasonably level, flat on his back. The air whooshed from his lungs, leaving him gasping frantically for breath as his head filled with cotton, and the sinister, cold feeling of an alien mind.

#Clever... but it gained you... nothing.#

Nathan launched his mind from his body, carrying the fight to the astral plane even as he felt Stryfe doing the same, even as they hastily armored themselves before using the fantastic weapons of the mind and will.

It was only by chance that Nathan glanced down, towards the eartheral realm, ducking under the swipe of a large blade, and his eyes widened as he saw the shadow of rocks and dust cascading down the mountain, a swift wave, almost like the sea, rushing rapidly towards the ground, towards the base --

And then Stryfe had him around the throat, and two eyes shone brightly as the almost evenly matched telepaths grappled.

#Flonq it! Look down, Stryfe!# Frantically, Nathan tried to retreat into his body, use whatever was left of his TK to protect himself from the tons of rock pouring towards it.

Stryfe didn't let him.

The mirror set of eyes glaring into his didn't move, and the astral plane was almost torn in two as twin telepathic screams, almost as one, trumpeted across time and space, and faded instantly, the echo deafening, as instantly as the base -- and the bodies of the two -- were hidden from view by the dust and rock of the shifting mountain.

* * * * * * *

His eyes felt grainy, tight and strained, and he blinked them several times in irritation, setting the autopilot before closing them, his usually steady fingers fumbling with the visor. After a second he finally got the thing off, using more force than necessary and losing his grip, tossing them to his lap. He cursed under his breath, rubbing his eyes roughly before dropping one hand to retrieve the visor.

To his surprise, a cool, slender hand beat him there, patting his before gently picking up the visor.

He didn't need his eyes to tell him whose hand it was.

"Abusing yourself will do no one good."

He fitted it back on with less ease than usual, taking the plane off autopilot and increasing the speed once more. It was actually fairly unsafe to fly at their current speed so low to the ground, but he had unshakable faith in the radar and its accuracy. He used it alone to fly by, dodging about the mountainous terrain, not trusting the plane's cloaking ability over this part of Europe.

There was a reason the mountainous ranges that spanned the borders of Poland and Slovakia were empty. The respective countries' military testing bases were located here, and although he knew their cloaking was far less advanced than the Shi'ar technology used on Xavier's SR-71 Blackbird they'd recently recovered from Bastion, it never hurt to take precautions.

It made flying with autopilot on a bit of an adventure, though.

*Anything, Jean?*

Glorious red hair shifted beside him as Jean leaned back to settle in the copilot's chair. Her unfathomable emerald eyes were lined, tired with tears and worry, but clear.

#Nothing.#

Scott kept his sigh to himself. He knew as well as anyone that the majority of Cable's major bases were psi-shielded for safety, his as well as other telepaths in the vicinity. It was amazing Jean had heard Nathan's scream at all, but it made sense. No technology could shield a broadcast that loud on the astral plane. It had brought Jean to her knees, crying Nate's name, and had caused the tightness of chest and unconfident fingers of Scott Summers.

Her inability to make any contact with their son was causing the absolutely numb feeling of the rest of his body.

He shifted again, the leather seat encompassing him, supporting his back, the soft material contouring to his tense body. Jean bowed her head again, projecting part of her mind onto the astral plane in search of any sign of Nate, waiting for a communication that would tell them where he was and whether he was all right.

They knew his general location, the mansion had received a communication only one and a half minutes before their latest computer system had detected the seismic disturbance on the Polish side of the Catharian range, too small to be an earthquake, but too strong to have been a freak landslide.

And only a moment after that, Jean had hit the floor.

The communication seemed to be a generic warning issued automatically by Cable's systems there, possibly triggered by the destruction of part of the base itself, and arrived a full ninety seconds before notification of the seismic anomaly. A third of that time could be attributed to the fact that their home systems only updated with orbiting satellites twice a minute, creating the possibility the base had been destroyed a minimum of sixty seconds before the landslide. The transmission told the exact location of the base and the time and date sent, along with notifying them that there were two people in the base at the time of transmission. It identified one as Dayspring Askani'son, the other as an intruder.

And that was it. Only 78 bytes of data, the bare minimum. Probably designed so to get it off before the systems themselves went off-line; any attempt to connect to or even ping the system had failed.

Hardly reassuring.

Furthermore, he couldn't shake the feeling he knew exactly who that single intruder might have been.

Blazes, Nate! Why were you there, why did you lock yourself up in your bases and your safehouses and never let us know? He'd walked away from X-Force, left his team and Domino, the woman Scott had found himself almost expecting to someday welcome into the family. He'd returned to them, only to take off again, heading off to his private mission, not letting them in, not letting anyone in.

His chest tightened further as his inattention nearly cost them the tip of the right wing, the Blackbird screaming through a small chasm between two severe precipices as he fought to keep the plane from crashing, only 100 feet off the ground.

The only complaint about the close call from the back was a grunt. "You payin' attention up there, Cyke?"

Cyke. Not Slim, probably the name he'd considered using. Slim. Slym.

He checked the electronic map, plotting their progress towards a preprogrammed point. Only six minutes left before they entered the latitude and longitude of the base, and another twenty seconds before the exact location of the base.

Or, at least, where it had been eight hours ago. He shuddered to think of the time it would have taken them in a commercial jet.

If Nate had been severely injured, he could have bled to death hours ago, he could have died alone in the crumbling base that had failed to protect him --

He shook off that train of thought quickly. Jean was right. Abusing himself would help no one. It wouldn't even make him feel any less guilty. He kept his shielding tight, knowing Jean was scanning at a very receptive level, knowing his thoughts would just add to the melee of minds Jean had to go through, looking for a single thought from the man she'd come to call her son.

And judging from the fists, the fingernails digging into the soft but durable leather of the copilot's seat, she hadn't found one yet.

Scott's pulse jumped several points as his mind, disobedient to the point of mutiny, trudged endlessly forward onto the tracks of a train of thought he didn't need to pursue. What if it had been Apocalypse? And what if Cable had lost his fight? What would be waiting for them?

And how long would it take Scott to track the mutant down, and finish what Nate started?

That was ridiculous, of course. He had only half the current team of X-Men with him, only Jean, Rogue, Gambit, Wolverine, and Hank McCoy. Not nearly enough to take on Apocalypse.

Which brought him to another, logical jump in the rogue train of thought. It was so obvious that even with six highly trained, powerful mutants, attacking Apocalypse would be an exercise in futility. Why couldn't Nate see that? Why couldn't he see that he needed his Twelve, or whoever? Why couldn't he see that he wasn't endangering X-Force unwillingly? They were kids, but they were hardened, not callous like so many revolutionaries' bands, just toughened, tough enough to handle a serious fight and old enough to decide if it was the fight they wanted to pursue.

Old enough to choose their fate.

And that makes Nathan what, then, about eleven, he snapped at his mind, startling it into silence, enough quiet that he was able to gain back enough of his calm center to slow the speed of the aircraft gradually, keeping the Blackbird skillfully still under radar as it lost velocity. He switched off the small alarm chiming to remind him he had entered the target area.

And then he brought his eyes up from the radar, and actually looked out the cockpit windshield.

The particular peak it seemed Nate had chosen to be the protector of his base was a majestic one, the top not as jagged as some of the peaks of the range, dusted with perpetual snow and beautiful. At one hundred feet he was looking at it nearly from the ground up, and it seemed impossibly high, pure and untouched by the lands and the people below it, in perfect, absolute solitude.

It was easy to understand why Nathan had fallen in love with it.

And then Scott dragged his eyes downward, and his heart and hope with them.

Part of the south side of the mountain had given way, a darker, almost bleeding gash cut through the pines that grew stubbornly along the nearly perpendicular cliffs, the rocks and loose mud a trail of tears, of blood down the slope, ending in a pool of destruction at the foot, covering nearly half a square mile of what had once been pine forests.

And probably what had once been the entrance to Cable's base here.

While it wasn't difficult to see the clearing cut so conveniently through the trees, it was difficult to locate an area that was flat enough to land, VTOL or no. One had to take off from a rather level surface, otherwise the pilot was risking upsetting the plane and crashing before he'd really even managed to get it into the air.

And frankly, with his hands acting the way they were, he knew at this point he would be unable to keep them steady enough to successfully complete take-off in those conditions.

Eventually a rocky but fairly flat part on the very outskirts of the landslide became obvious over a small grove of still defiantly standing pines, and he wasted no time in bringing the plane down. Jean had taken off her seatbelt before the wheels had touched the loose dirt and pebbles, yet -- distracted by scanning -- she was nearly the last one off the plane, followed by Scott, who left the engines on idle. If Nate were still alive but injured, he wanted to waste no time getting him home.

He took a deep breath, eyes roving over the torn, scarred landscape, the scent of ripped pine strong in the cold air. Even at the foot of the mountain in early August, it was still cool, cooler than in many other parts of Poland. Beside him, Hank punched buttons on what looked to Scott like something from a Star Trek episode. He knew it had something to do with sound waves, used for locating hollow pockets relatively close to the surface of the earth. Hopefully, Nate had managed to create a telekinetic bubble around himself when the rubble had fallen, close enough to the surface that he could get oxygen.

God, let him be in the base. Let it be that simple.

Jean shook her head, hurriedly jumping from rock to rock, towards the mountain. #Still the psi-shielding, I'm amazed the generator is able to keep it up. Maybe the damage isn't as bad as it looks.# It was a faint hope, even her mental voice broadcast her despair. If part of the base were intact, that was wonderful.

But only if Nate had been inside. The message said he'd been inside, but it had come well over a minute before the rockslide had been detected by the orbiting French satellite and the mansion system had notified them, which left, at the bare minimum, sixty seconds for the transmitted conditions to have changed.

And with the security systems that would undoubtedly have been built in, Scott suspected Apocalypse would have dragged the fight outside as soon as possible.

Unless he'd already killed Nathan, and brought the mountain down to ensure it.

Logan was off to the side, walking softly, leaping lightly from place to place, nostrils twitching slightly as he sniffed. Behind him Hank perched, his tricorder-ish device beeping at seemingly random intervals. Rogue had taken to the air for a better look, and Gambit had split off to the left, sweeping the area around the landslide, making sure no one was lurking around to take them by surprise. Scott had only the faintest of hopes that Nathan had tried to outrun the rocks.

Faint because, if Nate were in the outskirts, then he wouldn't be protected by the psi-shielding.

With a cry, Jean slipped off a large shelf of limestone, disappearing suddenly on the opposite side. Logan was there almost instantly as Scott took off, checking his footing carefully as the rocks shifted beneath his feet. The Blackbird was far enough away that another, smaller landslide probably wouldn't damage it, but they were far too close, and the instability of the new mountain face was a very real danger.

Scott used the relative stability of a downed pine to jog the rest of the way towards the limestone shelf, even as he saw Jean's head reappear, supported by Logan. Her eyes were wild, she was scrabbling to get off the slab of rock.

"Someone... someone's buried right here."

"Nate?"

She shook her head, lifting the giant rock slab very slowly, with a terrific burst of telekinesis. "Too... faint," she hissed, frame shaking with the concentration of moving the ledge super-slowly.

Rogue came in from above swiftly, getting a good hold on what had to be at least a ton of limestone. "Ah got it, y'can let go an' keep the loose rubble from fillin' in the hole --"

Jean obeyed, a pink glow surrounding her, the smaller rocks staying as if by magic as Rogue hefted the rock into the air, catching it neatly underneath and flying it off to the side. Scott ignored the sudden, sharp crack as Rogue broke the rock into several, more manageable pieces before discarding them too far away from the landslide to trigger more destruction.

There was no sign of a body in the nearly six foot deep hole the removal of the limestone had created, and Logan jumped in, sniffing just once before hastily pulling at the smaller rocks on the farthest wall of the hole.

"Jeannie, leggo this side, he's in here --"

She did, slowly, only a small window in her TK wall, and the rocks cascaded around Logan's waist like gumballs from a machine. He assisted their fall, shoveling them out as he cleared a ledge in the unstable wall, and suddenly they saw the darkness as he revealed a pocket of air and space in what had been tightly packed earth and rock.

It took Logan only a second more to clear a sizable hole, and Rogue jumped into the hole, crawling through to hold up the ceiling of the chamber Logan had revealed. Logan climbed in as well, his grunts seeming muffled, and then a terribly familiar face, covered in dried blood, flopped lifelessly out of the hole, not flinching as sunlight found and played with the filthy silver hair that hung in sweat- and blood-drenched locks from that battered head.

"Oh, God," Jean whimpered, and Scott very gently took Jean's hand, projecting his calm as she lost concentration for a split second, as part of the rock wall buckled. His voice was quiet.

"Hank, go get the stretcher."

There was an indignant huff and the almost musical tinkle of pebbles sliding. "I anticipated your order," was the soft reply, and Scott turned his head to see Hank, the stretcher awkwardly over his shoulder as he leapt the last several yards.

Jean squeezed his hand and Scott turned back, in time to see Nate's head disappear, and then the familiar yellow uniformed butt of Logan squeezing back out.

"Hank, get down here."

There was barely enough room for the stretcher to lie flat at the foot of the small cell they'd excavated, and Hank clung perilously to the wall as Logan dragged Nathan out of the hole. His uniform was covered in filth, dust and mud, blood and fluids, as torn as the body that occupied it. Nathan offered no resistance and no sound as he was very gently placed on the stretcher, Logan forced to stand on either side of Nathan's hips as he poked his head back into the room. He pulled it out a second later, looking not up at them but at the rock around him.

"Jeannie, this room's gonna go when Rogue comes out, can y'keep it standing?"

She was sweating, trembling with the strain of the rock she was keeping in place, but she nodded sharply.

"Yes," Scott called down, suppressing the urge to tell her it was too much, she was going to push past her limits.

Logan grabbed the walls, hefting himself out of the hole, before lying on his stomach and reaching down. Hank clung to the sides of the wall, bare feet obviously cut, leaving small spots of blood on the dust and rock. He reached down, grabbing the two handles of the stiff stretcher, and with a grunt of effort, managed to raise the entire thing several feet. Logan snagged the other end, and Rogue's hand poked out of the hole, holding it steady as Hank climbed out. Seconds later the two men had hefted the stretcher - and Cable - out of the hole.

"Get the hell out of the way. This whole section's gonna go when Jean stops holdin' it together." Scott spared a quick glance at his son, not detecting a rising and falling of chest, seeing the visible spread of the T-O as it took advantage of his helplessness to contain it. The uniform covering his chest was shredded, displaying the extensive bruising on his ribcage, the swollen collarbone. His jaw was equally swollen, most likely broken, and his eyes remained closed, face paler than Scott had ever seen it. His gaze flew back to Jean as her legs gave way and she crashed down to one knee, hands braced against the rock, fingers curled.

"Can't hold it... much longer," she hissed between clenched teeth, brow knitted with concentration, shaking very noticeably. Logan and Hank hurried down the rocks, struggling to keep the stretcher level, and Scott backed off several yards, watching the rocks and doing the equations in his head.

"Rogue, grab Jean on your way up, Jean, let go as soon as you're airborne. Don't try to control it, I don't think it's enough to set off a very large landslide." Really, they were too near the base of the mountain itself to cause a more severe landslide. He hurried down the slope and to the left, knowing he didn't have Hank and Logan's head start, knowing he wouldn't beat the rocks to the bottom. To the left he spotted some of the larger rocks and he had a feeling they'd hold steady. Jean was almost at her breaking point, they had to give her some relief now, when she could still control the release of the rocks.

He cast one more look towards Logan and Hank, bounding incredibly smoothly toward the plane. Not out of range, but they would be before the rocks got there. They'd be safe. Remy was racing from the plane with a manual respirator, completely out of harm's way.

"Rogue, NOW!" He knew he wasn't entirely out of the danger zone as he called out, but he figured he had the time to make it to a cluster of very stable-looking, heavy chunks of granite.

He must have forgotten to multiply by the root of 17.

He glanced back in time to see Rogue shoot from the rocks as if spat, snagging Jean under the armpits, and with a cry of pain Jean released her grip on the rocks. A much greater part of the mountain than Scott had anticipated shuddered, and with a groan the mountain began to run once more. The rocks beneath his feet began trembling, and he leapt for the larger boulders, not quite making it. He felt his knee split as it came in contact with a very sharp piece of granite, and then he was down, and rocks and dirt played over him, filling his mouth, choking him. His fingers found a very strong handhold, and he hung on with all of his strength as a not insignificant part of the mountain face passed within a foot of him, pelting him with shrapnel. A particularly spiteful piece of bedrock bit into his hand sharply, cutting deep, possibly into a ligament. He didn't flinch, waiting for the mountain to stop moving, waiting for the ringing to stop.

It was over surprisingly quickly, silent save the hiss of dust and small pebbles as they cascaded down the mountainside. He shook his head sharply, hacking, feet slipping on loose rock before finding the steadier material beneath it.

#Scott! Are you -#

*Fine. Nathan, is he --*

#He's alive. Hank's getting him into the plane now.#

Scott shook the dust from his visor, cursing as he balled his injured hand into a fist. His middle finger refused to curl all the way, a sharp stab of pain his only reward from trying. Definitely hit something, possibly a nerve, no time to worry about it.

He twisted, now facing the plane instead of the mountain, noticing a very strange sensation as the material beneath his heel ground into the rock at his swivel. He moved it quickly, finding the smallest swatch of fabric on the crag he'd been standing on.

Curious, he leaned down, tried to pick it up.

He pulled almost three inches of it up before it stopped, and, tug as he might, it remained firmly wedged.

More curious, he clambered down several feet, eyeing the dust-stained cloth. Beneath the dirt, it was a brilliant shade of red, and very thick, a strange fabric, with a sheer, soft quality, almost like --

Almost like their uniforms, made of spandex and unstable molecules.

But Apocalypse didn't wear red. In fact, the only mutant powerful enough and likely enough to have caused this and had a red cape was --

Was Magneto.

Oh my lord... "Logan! Rogue!"

His injured hand screamed in protest as he tried to pull at the top rock, shifting it to his left to keep it from knocking more of the unstable right side down. That surely would have shifted the man, probably for the worse, they'd have to get him out of there immediately, assuming --

Assuming he was still alive.

Rogue beat Logan there, tossing aside the granite like it was a basketball, and the layer below it, tilting it up like the door to a tornado shelter or a coffin. More of the red cape was visible, in a small pocket mostly filled with loose dirt and rocks. Scott shoveled them away, using both hands, almost digging dog style as Logan puffed up beside him.

"Well, goddamn it all," the mutant growled after a second, with surprising hostility, and he began working as feverishly as Scott, pulling the smaller rocks off, revealing shining, dented armor.

But not red and purple. This armor was silver as a newly minted dime, cool to the touch.

Rogue continued to hold the rock in place, keeping more from sliding into the hole as Logan and Scott grabbed the arm, Scott's good hand digging and moving rocks, finally finding the head, and supporting it as they hauled him out.

Ever so gently, they laid the man down on a somewhat smooth patch in the rocks, and Scott, hands completely steady, pulled back the not unfamiliar helmet to reveal an almost unblemished face, a perfect mirror of the one struggling to survive in the bowels of the Blackbird.

#Scott, what -- #

"Stryfe," Scott whispered aloud, voice curiously empty, and then his fingers found the hot neck, and the shallow, weak pulse that still defiantly pumped blood around the armored, battered body.

The man wasn't breathing.

"Rogue, get the other stretcher. Move! Logan, get this armor off him, it's too damn heavy --" And without another word, Scott lowered his mouth to the blue-tinged lips below him, puffed life into a body quickly fading.

* * * * * * *