Age of Darkness

by jenskott

In an universe where don't exist lines between heroes and villains, a dream is demolished. Or isn't it?

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Age of Shadows

Author: Jenskott

Summary: In a universe where there aren't lines between heroes and villains, a dream is demolished. Or isn't it?

Continuity: Based in comic, but Alternative Universe. Very Alternative.

Rating: PG-13 or NC-17. I'm unsure.

Notes: I wanted to do a dark and scary story. I warn it's enough disturbing.

Disclaimer: Whom do you think they belong? Marvel? It's a possibility.

Feedback: To jorgisimox@hotmail.com. GREATLY appreciated. If you like it and not tell me, maybe I'll not think in writing a sequel; and if you hate it and not tell me -politely, please-, I CAN just write a sequel.

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The orange glimmer of the fierce dusk, coloring the clouds in red and orange and violet, matched the wild glow of the flames below, joyous in the destruction. Their savage and rushed flickers seemed to greet to the hot sun and thank its support, put the sky in fire the same they put the ground in fire. The blazes flooded the scorched land, curling and spiraling above the floor, eating whole the big house. Rolling fires sprang throughout, claiming the place theirs own, and raided gleefully passages and rooms, fueled with woods and fabric ironically had served to embellish the establishment. Massive and hot-melting fire tongues streaked along the corridors, letting a trail of scorched and cracked land, roasted and sizzling boulders, and blackened corpses lying everywhere in the wake of the fire. Even the wind seemed plot against the place, living up the flames, and dragging with him rains of amber sparks, burning ashes, death cries, and shouts.

The last noises of a bloody battle lasted still hung on the air, dragged by the sorrowful howls of an unforgiving, biting wind. Under the shadows of the fire, men and women continued the carnage, oblivious to the ruin surrounding them. Noises of slashed flesh, broken bones and spilt blood echoed through the landscape, a wreckage of boulders and rubble, and a sea of ashes used to be a green lawn.

The loud mayhem of the combats masked the loud footsteps of a bald, short man, stalking carefully to his enemies. His dressing was tattered and his feet were bleeding, but he was oblivious to it while walked along a former passage, with the half-crumbled walls sheltering him effectively. Over there the place had been wildly and thoroughly ravaged by the flares; the black and smoking floor was simmering with the sheer, boiling heat, and there was patches of molten stone bubbling slowly, but he didn't allow it bothered him. Nothing would do now. Nobody was watching that hellish area, and that carelessness allowed him lurking with relative safeness. And he would take revenge.

The ambush had been too violent and well planned. They were lounging lazily, fully indolent and inattentive, when explosions rocked the place in several points, signaling the coming of the raiders. The random attacks had spread confusion and havoc through the teams, and phony telepathic commands had misled them. The strongest ones had been snared alone and killed almost at once, and the rest had been broken in and trapped in tiny groups. The resistance had been promptly slaughtered barely it'd started.

He got lucky.

His team had been headed at a zone where had nobody, when the Earth quaked and wavered. All them stumbled and tripped helplessly when the ground split in a rift, a circular crack surrounding them. Pillars of incandescent magma come from the planet's core erupted along the crevasse shaping a veil of fire, a glowing and liquid drape of blazes out of which rushed a girl whose body was living lava, soaring above them. She gestured dismissively, and the blazes grew and joined building a dome on top of their heads. Of sudden, it collapsed, raining and flooding the circle where they stood.

Theirs partners were surely charred heaps of ashes by now, smoking somebody's shadows printing the floor, but he had been fortunate. His power kicked in time, and he'd vanished out of that place, while the bloodcurdling screams of his teammates torn the air, drowned in lava. He faded in a secluded, already leveled, corner of the backyard, and overwhelmed by the aftereffects of the elemental attack, fainted. When he woke up, the fire had already begun, and the fight was practically over. They'd lost; he could see that. Was useless scavenging the lot in blazes, searching survivors, and needless to say, dangerous. No, he had a better idea.

He used his vanishing power to look for the ringleader, the person behind of the raid. Teleporting in several areas and killing people here and there, he got at last sight of him standing over the doorway, surrounded by plenty of his men. He glared him balefully his stern, forbidding figure, shimmering with the blinding brightness of the red fire, ignoring the way the wind flapped dramatically his cloak or the sparks of fire glinted golden in his blue armor. A dark cowl warded his face into shadows, and two red-flaring spots shone in them.

Very soon there would was only darkness. Not matter who was protecting him, he would see his blood sprinkling the barren land. Out of the folds of his shredded costume, he pulled out a sharp knife. Its murderer glint, along his curvy edge, woke blood thirst in him. A twisted smile dawned his face when he vanished.

He sprang in the thin air by his side, brandishing high the dagger, ready to stab his heart.

"DIE-"

He had no time to speak more words. With blurring speed, the tall man turned at him drawing back the cowl, and his eyes blasted a dazzling bolt of force, a column of red energy drilling a hole through his belly.

He gurgled incredulously, and fell down, his body blowing the littered ground with a thud, and his limbs spread at full length around him. Blood and innards sprayed everywhere, and under his heap a puddle of blood was staining the zone.

The man strode next to him. His sight was glazed over with mist, but the scorn was patent in his face, outlined through the veil hazing his eyes.

"Short-sighted idiot!" He scoffed with deep disgust. "Truthfully did you think you could come near of me without me noticing it? I knew you were hid over there all along."

"You... bastard." He panted, feeling his strengths and awareness slipping slowly downhill. His dimmed eyes caught the glimpse of a metallic glint next to him. His knife. Blotted with blood, but no of his target. Only the width of a hair strand separated it from his fingers, but it didn't matter. The weapon was out of his grasp anyway.

Someone stepped near of the man. It was red, like the blood sliding down his vision, but albeit it was dark, wasn't a blood-like red. A flame was more like it.

"You gave up your friends without giving you a damn. Only your survival mattered. Your chose no rescuing your comrades, but get away and hunt him down, instead. Only revenge mattered to you. Don't play smart or righteous with us." It stated harshly. The voice dripping with contempt, only mildly regretted or sorry of his corpse splattered and broken on the place.

He wanted retort something, anything, a scathing reply outraging it and damaging it, take with himself the tiniest piece of victory he could manage as last rebel act before dying. A thin beam pierced his chest ending up his life instantly. He spat a blotch of blood and passed away.

The man shut the red-tinted lens of his visor, and pulled up his hood back. His partner regarded the cadaver with a sidelong glance. He scrutinized carefully the expressions swimming in the smooth face, but like always it was a stirred mixture, hard of reading. The bitter spite and fury had given way to a sad indifference, and now a rueful expression lingered on it.

He circled her thin waist with an arm, drawing her in him. "May you tell me what's bothering you, honey?"

She raised her up, and he beheld the sadness and the regret dancing in her green eyes. She could go from merciless to kindhearted in a span frightfully short. It startled to everyone but him, who understood her mind far better than anybody did.

"Why did you pierce his heart? He was slated to die anyway. It was unnecessary." She asked with a not quite flat voice. She had intended to mask the plaintively, questioning tone out of it and had failed.

He played idly with one of the auburn locks caressing her soft face, her mane curled like a living blaze, as long as she was waiting for his answer. "He'd suffer a long, painful and unpleasant death with that gap in the belly. I did it quick and painless. You can disagree, but I personally think it was more merciful"

She nodded, accepting the brutal logic of it. She really agreed with the reasoning, although it was bugging her for some reason. Yet she couldn't judge him; she'd done worst in her time after all. And would do again, on and on. Criticize him would be a pointless, hypocrite action.

But she didn't like he stained with blood his hands, in spite of he had no choice on the matter.

An ear-bleeding, high-pitched clamor, halfway between a wail and a howl, disrupted her thoughts. From the sky was flying downwards a figure, amidst the acrid and bad-smelling billows of smoke. A blonde and middle-aged man wearing a green-and-yellow outfit landed smoothly on the land, ahead of them.

Knuckling his forehead, he led at her a courteous glance and a respectful at him.

"It's over, sir. The last groups of enemies are dead or have yielded, and the house is burnt in ashes. The activities of this society have concluded." He spared a swift, curious glance at the prone and bleeding form. "Forgive my curiosity, sir, but isn't that man the Vanisher?"

His leader shrugged off. "He's. Banshee, tell to Shiro to quit of hurling fireballs at the residence, and to Bobby to put off the fire. After warn to Kurt to set explosive charges. I wish this place crumbled to its foundations. I don't want anything left. Dismissed."

A shadow flashed in his steeled, unreadable countenance. The flash of bad memory, a reminiscence triggered, was exposed in his face. Bitter and poisoned remembrances lurking into him and brought into the light, to the present, to hurt him.

Banshee nodded, and with a piercing screech, took off in wings of sonic wind to carry out the orders. Meanwhile, he spared a moment to turn around and look over his troops, with his wife squeezing her bust in his sore back, and wrapping her tender arms around his chest. It was soothing and nice, but that enjoyable gesture didn't warm his heart and reassure his soul like ever. Bearing in mind what he was witnessing it wasn't a wonder.

Flanked by Dazzler, Blink, and several more of his crowd, were some of the, euphemistically speaking, fighters were in the place when they had lied siege and raided the headquarters.

They had accomplished o retrieve to few more, but these were really important. He smiled briefly, recalling the Iliad and several other Greek legends where a woman was the key on a war or siege.

The headmaster of that infernal place had assured they were carefully conditioned and bigoted to fight for his sake, disregarding their own lives. Nevertheless, when they cut the strings they fell down as lifeless dolls. He wished the same thing had happened with all of his followers, but the minds of the rest were less tampered, and they battled viciously.

But the psychic damage had been extensive with them. He had abused with their brains during years, hacking out pieces and disrupting bits and neural paths to obtain willing, obedient slaves, fully dependent on him. He had come to nullify wholly their minds, doing them the next better to hollow shells. And when they had beheaded the snake, they were converted into mindless beings, running around in confusion. The psionic feedback had scrambled their heads and they were wrecked right now.

He perused the girls with a sickening repugnance stirring his stomach. He checked over their names in his memory.

Storm. Psylocke. Rogue. Jubilee.

Poor, lovely women, victims of him. His wife was one of them for several years. The thought of she reduced to servile tool of his ambition twisted something in his chest. The idea of other women used and abused of this way incensed his rage. He wasn't a saint, but he did NEVER sink so low. He was bloodstained, but he'd killed in the heat of the battle. Never tortured, abused, harassed and raped to someone in body and soul, twisted and stained a soul to fit his wishes. It was repugnant. Revolting.

"We're done here" Scott shook his head, disgusted, and peered at Jean piercingly. "Order to the troops dispersed they pick up the prisoners, come back and crowd together here in the front door. By the way, is ready the task I entrusted to Sean with?"

Jean shut her eyes in deep focusing, fleeting orange sparks filtering out of her eyelids. "I've given the orders. And yes, the fires are practically put off, and Nightcrawler is finishing of setting up the bombs."

"Perfect" He nodded, encouragingly. Then he picked his earpiece, and voiced in the speaker. "Banshee, are you?"

/Yes, sir. The job is done. Nightcrawler has practically finished with his task/

"Perfect. You and the rest return here. We're leaving."

/Yes, sir/ he answered, and shut off the communication.

A thin and glowing line of orange light bordering the skyline were the last remnant of sunlight when Cyclops and his followers left behind a wasted ruins, a dumpster of remainder walls and dunes of debris, with rafts of charred wood standing upright as pillars of a temple. Random lights flickering and sparking still, making up a haunted atmosphere in that picture of destruction.

Along the way, someone stepped over a fallen wall, stomping accidentally a sign. The brickwall was cracked in big chunks, and covered with a blanket of ashen dust, and the sun, the wind and the weather had worn and carved the surface. However, the words chiseled on the sign were still clearly legible.

Xavier School To Gifted Youngsters.

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Reinforce the discipline was really more of a necessity than an option, reflected grimly Jean Grey, while glared disgustedly to the workers in the base scurrying off hurriedly when she strode along the corridor, a somber expression darkening her countenance.

They were running away as freaked rabbits that had just spotted to one hawk. Spineless morons, fretful fools, she bristled. That was no way of greeting to one upper officer, and such mental weakness was unbefitting and unsuitable to one fighter in the crew of Scott. Perhaps they would be very soon looking forward to one very long time in the Training Room. She'd see that.

Wanting imparting a lesson of behavior, she smoothed painstakingly her red and golden outfit, whose shadowed hue seemed even darker under that light, and tossed ostentatiously and flippantly her long strands over her shoulders, walking with casual and smart nonchalance and a daring attitude. Once in a while, though, she hurled an attentive peep at the person walking along with her.

She was oozing with confidence still when she reached her destination. The guardians placed at both sides of the door blinked at her sight and at the child standing by her side, and she looked back with a fluttering, sardonic grin.

Behind the door, in a heavily psy-shielded cell was waiting for her a confrontation she'd delayed for a very long time, with someone who she honestly hoped see never again. However the prospect of see that person in those circumstances beat her natural reluctance. There was a very old feud to settle, and she got the upper hand in this. And every intention of making profit of it.

She regarded carefully at each guardian, fixedly for several seconds, enjoying with the inward squirms they were getting, extremely nervous under the scrutiny they were being subject to. She was gifted with a knack to get unsettled to the men and women Scott and she leaded, and was very fond of using it when the opportunity presented itself. It was useful to hold the soldiers in line.

"Open the door and let me pass." She solicited laconically.

The guardians got expressions of open disbelief, and exchanged bewildered stares, obviously hesitant and puzzled.

"Ma'am, I thought that-" stammered the boldest.

She put up a hand, hurling him an annoyed glance. "If you were going to say you thought I get the highest clearance and am authorized to visit the prisoners whenever I wish, you are pretty right. If you were going to suggest other thing, I recommend close your mouth and get out of my way."

The guard gulped and whirled to type the multiple digits of the security lock. His partner edged slowly away of the door, visibly eager of obliging her. At last the hatch opened with a click, and both soldiers cleared away frantically, saluting her afterwards.

She stepped into the square and stark room, closing but no locking the door in the wake of her entrance.

Her sight spotted briskly the rectangular table and the figure, prone and sprawled on it. Shackles were seizing firmly wrists and ankles, and sturdy adamantium chains zigzagged diagonally over him, holding him stuck on the table. An inhibitor collar was wrapping tightly his taut neck, and a helmet was pressuring his mind. The grotesque device was designed to absorb any telepathic energy of him, forestalling some possible attack or scan, at the same time allowing attack him or scan him.

Around the table were placed several telepaths, staring down him with terrible eyes. Their hands were raised towards him, and hands and eyes were glowing with hot ivory, lashing at him with growing power. The air hummed with the low noise of the energy coalescing.

The man secured on the table was rigid and his body was drenched in sweat. Fists and eyelids were tightly clenched in excruciating pain and intense concentration, mustering strength and will. He didn't surrender easily; she had to give in him that.

She looked approvingly at them, and her eyes met casually with Monet St.-Croix and Jonathan Starsmore, two former Hellions of the White Queen. They acknowledged her presence with a nod and returned to the chore. It was stark obvious they weren't guaranteed to succeed exit in trespass his formidable defenses and breaking into his head, but it wasn't the goal either. They were mainly to drain him, dry up his power, spend his energy, wear off his resistance and bend his will until he wasn't a danger anymore.

But she wasn't planning in he living so long.

Jean leaned casually in the jambdoor, folding her arms with a relaxed stance. "Good morning, Charles. I trust in you find the accommodations being to your liking."

He snapped his head upwards, sloping it to look straight at her. Jean smirked with glee knowing he was taking in his red, red outfit with the yellow bird-like sign emblazoned on the chest, and in her hair, with a color among fire-orange and crimson-red.

"Y-you." He stuttered, among wheezes.

She shrugged nonchalantly. "Yes, I know, it's been a while. No quite if you want my opinion..."

He clenched his muscles in a futile effort to strain the manacles. Jean scoffed, and without speaking word her telekinesis tightened furthermore the chains around his body. He went on struggling against them but at last gave up, stopping grapple with them. He slumped, having accomplished nothing other than waste more energy, and mustered all the anger he was capable of in measure her with a bored glare.

"Is... That... the way of speaking to your husband?" He raged with a voice wasn't nearly so impressive when it sounded cracked and hollow. Once upon a time, that tone and that intense, hot glare had overwhelmed her with fear, apprehension and worry.

Now it was deflected boringly by a spiteful, mockery huff.

"My... husband?" She chuckled, humorlessly. She left her makeshift support and strode parsimoniously towards him, walking around the table and standing by the headboard. He didn't need to bend his neck to look at her now. Her red shape was looming over him, her head standing between the light source and him, casting a shadow all over his body. Yet his eyes weren't more relieved, since she blocked the light coming from the ceiling, but no the shimmering light spots of the telepaths pounding against his mindshields.

"My husband." She repeated. She peered at him considering her words. Venom crept into her voice. "You being my husband would imply I was you wife. I was your ear when you needed to preach, your psychiatrist when you needed complain, your prized possession when your needed gloat, your little soldier when you needed to kill to someone without sullying your precious conscience, your dummy when you needed vent your anger and frustration, your hole when your felt horny. I was plenty of things to you but never your beloved and loved wife."

"Is that the motive you're torturing me?" He wheezed.

Her face incensed, deeply outraged. "If we wanted torture you, or somebody for that matter, you'd be bleeding with your skin flayed, your bones broken, your body red and swollen with punches and bruises, and wouldn't retain at all capability to spell coherent syllables or whatsoever. We don't torture prisoners. This scenery is standard security procedure against a dangerous prisoner. Don't flatter to yourself thinking you're special." Jean snarled with a deceitfully cold voice.

"You little ungrateful." He rasped. "With all I did for you."

"Oh?" She queried, funnily. "Let's make the list. I was a poor girl dumped in a mental institution, with a diagnosis of incurable schizophrenia. You convinced to my parents to heal me, eliciting from them a promise of no intervening. You stopped the voices in my head, and put together back my mind. You took care of playing my savior and making a ten-year old little child was in absolute awe of you, so intensely thanked and trusting she'd make whatever you said and obey whatever you ordered without questioning. You locked down my power, all the time convincing me that it was for my own good. During eight years you pretended being a wise, kind man genuinely interested in my welfare and my future, drifting me apart of my family. Then, when I reached the adulthood, you proposed me, persuading you wanted to look after me. Well, we can argue you didn't lie, since you definitively 'looked after' of me. I was so flattered and deeply thanked I did anything you wanted. Then, when I realized what a fool I'd been to agree happily, was too late. You'd hacked my potential to impede it blossomed, hence assuring I'd be no menace in the future. I was now a helpless puppet, alone and defenseless."

Jean paused, the remembrance giving a coppery taste in her mouth, and arched back her head, laughing. "But I'm no longer, am not I? No, I'm not a naive, fool and manipulated little girl anymore. I shan't be a puppet of yours again, and I've power to match my declaration." She folded her knees and crouched slightly. "What is it like? The feeling of the person who you strung along being now powerful, certainly more powerful than you? He made of me a woman, gave me back my power, mine by right, and my life."

She laughed ironically. "To think you turn down to make him another member more of your clique in expansion... What is it like knowing you denying to make a new ally resulted in your defeat and ruin?"

"He was tainted by the Sinister's corruption. He is evil-"

His head reeled sideways with the brutal telekinetic slap. Pain throbbed in his skull, and a trickle of blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth.

"He isn't perfect or a good-goodie, but he's honest and sincere, contrarily to a sanctimonious, self-righteous, full-of-himself fool I know." She grated, holding in check her blistering fury with her quickly ebbing patience. "But is that the true trouble, right? You HAVE to be right. You can't, ever for a moment, accept the possibility of you being WRONG. You were unable of acknowledging your own mistakes and repairing them, stubborn in your own infallibility. You behave as if you were more than human, approving or disapproving conducts or demeanors according yours own petty standards, which are daily stomped by yourself. You're so stuck in doing the things your way you think any other way is wrong or evil. Because that you disliked Scott. You did never think why he acted of the way he did, or why he was as that. No, he'd been used by Sinister and therefore was evil."

She shook her head, her fury steadily replaced for tiredness. "New flash of news. You're wrong. The world isn't only divided in black and white, but there's a vast range of greys in-between. He isn't exactly a good person but he's got values and an honor code he allows himself never step in. You never could presume of no crossing your own lines. You dictated rules and after broke up them when it suited you."

He heard her words without really listening them, too busy seeking something callous and offensive, something to needle and hurt back. "Perhaps you infatuation with him has nothing to do with his personality and everything to do with other things." He shouted before his brain caught on he was saying, before being able stop to himself. "So good are his performances your perspective has been turned upside-down with the taste of another dick in your mouth?"

The blow wasn't so hard to rip the table off the floor or crush the shackles, but he felt his body pummeled once and again on the table. The chains rattled and squeezed his battered self as snakes of barbed wire coiling around of him, and he could hear the sickening crunch of his jaw. He'd sworn his brain was rattling inside his throbbing skull.

Over the headboard, Jean was bursting in blazes spiraling around hers, a pale reflect of her sizzling fury. He had practically forgotten her terrible, destructive temper. Likely because he had made sure she was too scared to unleash it with him. But he was now on the receiving end.

She lifted up a hand, silently, and the flares flowed in it, being absorbed. With a click of her fingers, the last sparks crackled and blinked off. Then she glared down at him. Her voice was low, very low.

"Since you're so concerned with the issue, I swallow it whole and suck it greedily. When he shoots his seed in my mouth, I slurp the juice and I lick dry his shaft afterwards. Glad now?" She grimaced in disgust when an idea dawned in her. "By the way, you look pissed off with me by sleeping with someone who loves me and who I love, but you never loved me and never were faithful to start with. I DO know what you did to the women who are now in the medical bay, thank very much. You used them to fulfill your ambitions and necessities."

He peered at her, unrepentantly. "Anything else you want tell me? Or can we get this over with?" He retorted diffidently. In spite of the bindings, the pain, the physic and psychic weariness, and the stress.

She blinked with that cockiness she should really have expected, and snorted. "Nothing. No, excuse me, I've something else needs be said." Jean flung an arm forward, pointing at the door. "Can you see that girl standing over there?"

His brows raised in a display of his puzzlement, and he craned forward his neck. From the beginning the conversation, a girl in her early teens, clad in a flat white dress, had stood up and remained quiet, so quiet and unnoticed he hadn't given her any thinking. No, it wasn't only her stealth, but she had been also masking off the feeble psychic probes he was capable of now. Her hands were plugging her ears to avoid listen to the ongoing conversation, or maybe the last sentences. The red bangs blossoming around her hands and all around her head clicked a memory. She resembled hugely to...

"You can come here now, honey" Called Jean, beckoning her with a hand. You can unplug now your ears, sweetie. We're done now telling the obscenities you don't want really hearing

Thanks for the warning, mom

The girl lowered her hands with a sigh of relief, and setting her best unreadable mask, she marched unwaveringly towards Jean. When she reached her side, Jean placed a hand on her shoulder and gazed meaningfully at him.

"I'm sure you've heard talk about my twelve-years daughter. Charles, this is my daughter Rachel Anne Summers. Heir of Scott's strength and mine. Honey, do you want showing to Uncle Charles you are capable of?" She giggled, sardonically.

Rachel said nothing. Only nodded, determinedly.

Xavier scrutinized the soft, sweet face leaning on him, and towering over his head. A scowl was wrinkling her pretty face and otherwise serene face, and he reflected in the scary likeness with her mother, mainly in her rich red hair cascading downwards on her shoulders. But her face wasn't quite like hers, sporting subtle differences, the most evident were her cerulean blue eyes, the same color the Scott Summers ones, he'd heard. They turned to be deeply antipathetic to him.

Suddenly a yellow glow dulled her blue eyes. A flaring brightness lit up her eyes with golden light.

Then he felt a slight poke in her shields. The poke repeated once more, now rippling through them, bordering the edges of his mind and exploring the barriers. She was testing them, he said to himself.

After a sharp, razor pain exploded in a single spot in his head. He moaned, feeling a kind of needle pinning in his shields and piercing a hole, an infinitesimally tiny tear through the surface and the multiple layers.

Then the crack extended in a straight line, cutting the shield and going forward till completing and closing the circle. His shields were divided now in two halves. More cracks started to turn up, slicing the shield in parallel and perpendicularly. It felt as a knife or thin scalpel slashing his shields in checkers, skillfully dicing them until they resembled the meridian and parallels in a globe.

She swung her hand in a slapping motion in the physical world.

A hurricane blew, washing over his harmed shields and dragging each square piece as a storm would do with leaves and pebbles, leaving his mind bare and stripped from defenses.

The psychic attacks, held at bay until then by his shields, rushed in his mind storming in it. He screamed and screamed, until he had forgotten how speaking.

Then a figure towered above him. His glazed vision believed seeing a woman, but it was very blurred. It looked like a bird, too. And it was glowing, so glowing.

A voice whispered in his ear. Threatening, and furious.

"Have you felt ever what claws tearing through your mind is like?"

Tongues of liquid blazes erupted out of the figure and streamed towards his head, in his head, burning, scorching, charring, and blistering in its trail, leaving behind a wake of obliteration.

He wished screaming and begging.

But there wasn't a 'he' anymore.

The telepaths witnessing the unparalleled ferocity and viciousness of the psy blast, gazed in appalling stunning to Jean sending still with both fists linked a river of psychic fire at his brain. Horror invaded when the figure blackened slowly, and at last, when it was only a colorless heap, it imploded in a rain of ashes, which disintegrated at atomic level when touched the floor.

Monet staggered backwards and leaned on a wall, trembling with every retch.

"Was necessary go so far?" she asked faintly, no expecting a real answer.

Jean Grey gazed at her, and she gasped in spite of the nausea, surprised in the forlorn, crestfallen expression she sported of sudden. Her wild hair seemed even brittle, lanky and darker.

"You were listening. You heard he did to me, to more women, to the persons who he'd snared and made believe he was his savior." She stated feeling miserably glum. Steadily her voice turned murkier. "After I was sticking around with Scott, he made all in his power to made my life -our life- a Hell. He was driven in harming us and hurting us, using his X-Men to destroy us, no unlike of Sinister, Magneto, Apocalypse and the like. Because that, when someone gave us the chance we needed to annihilate his sort of sect, Scott had too many reasons, personal and no personal, to take it. And I'd to assure me of he'd effectively disappeared at last."

She trailed off, realizing Chamber giving her a lopsided, speculative eye. "What?" She wondered.

"It was because you disintegrated entirely his body, wasn't it?"

She nodded. "Yes. I don't wish odd death returns, surprises, clones, or anything else what comes back to bite in the worst moment possible" She sighed ruefully. "My biggest regret, though, is having brought here to Rachel. She didn't need to see this; but I needed she learns these things are no pretty."

Rachel, who had covered her eyes with both hands and shut her lids as Xavier was erased off, and who hadn't spelt two words during the entire meeting, glanced at her mother.

"Never mind, mom. I'm fine." She stated off-handily. Her mother kept on her sad and contrite face yet. Rachel sighed, and held her hand to send a tendril of warmth and reassurance. Jean beamed and squeezed her hand, relief and tenderness written all over her face.

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The defeat of Xavier had brought about an entire load of outcomes and a full wad of troubles.

It wasn't Scott regretted at the slightest shut down his damned place for real, but there was things needing being done or straightened on after of the battle, reports to be written, files to be classified, records to be printed, and now he was facing his worst nightmare: paperwork.

He wasn't done to this. Hell, Essex would agree with him, and they agreed never in anything. All it steamed from the 'I-won't-be-your-puppet-or-your-slave-anymore' thing, he suspected. But desk job never was done to him. It was so... boring for lacking of a better word. Sit down, stranded in the middle of heaps and heaps of stupid papers, going mad to find something just decided no turn up...

Oh, right, frustrating and stressing. Those were the words he was looking for.

He was made to battle, to live by the moment when he charged with his clan and engaged in battle with the enemy, feeling the heat, the dust and the blood blossoming around. He wasn't a general who drew lines on a paper; he led from the forefront, as Alexander the Great. It wasn't he'd got so big of a head, no. He needed be in the battleground, feeling the same danger and risking his life the same than the lot. It was only fair. Besides, he was very good improvising. He couldn't fix a sudden trouble or calamity if he was in his desk, waiting for news. His tactician skills had provided salvation and life often to his partners.

Besides, there was other mighty reason to dislike him the paperwork, and that thought line had brought it forward. He was very adamantine in getting the body count, determining who had participated in the siege, who had survived and who had passed on. And watching the number of people had dead under his command got him depressed always. Jean was saying him always cadavers on both sides are bounded to there be in a war; he did understand and acknowledge it, would be delusional acting otherwise, but it didn't mean he had to LIKE it or ACCEPT it. He was responsible of the lives fighting under his orders, damn it. The ones sided with him trusted with their lives in him, it was his duty bring them back alive to all.

Immersed in his wallowing he tossed disgustedly a paper on a high pile. Unfortunately the paper carried too impulse, and it slid down, falling softly.

He grumbled, annoyed with the minor nuisance, and leaned sideways to pick up the rebellious leaf.

A generous cleavage interposed between the paper and his line of sight. He snapped up his head, flushing unwillingly, and looked ahead at squinted, piercing eyes and a pale and beautiful face passed through a red filter.

The Asian woman straightened, threading her hand along her violet hair in a haughty manner, while rested the paper on the pile. She seemed insanely pleased when Scott looked away hastily to control and to erase his blushing, and he knew with chagrin she knew, but he couldn't help it. That redness facial betraying his thoughts had to go away.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I was near when that paperfold slipped out of his table-"

"It's all right, Revanche" He stated, using her codename purposely. It did her more impersonal "Thanks for the help. You can return to your post."

She smirked. Mischief twinkled in her eyes "Perhaps there's other matters where I may be useful, sir. I'm sure you can think in something"

He glared at her from the corner of his eye. "I don't understand what you're suggesting. Return to your post"

"Oh, I'm sure you understand me perfectly." She purred, placing a hand on his thigh. She ignored foolishly the warning look he was giving her, and her fingers trailed upwards, as far as his groin.

Her head reeled backwards and she staggered with the force of the backhand, no enough to leave a bruise, but enough to sting in the cheek. The hand had bolted swift as a snake, and she hadn't seen that coming ever.

"I SAID: RETURN. TO. YOUR. POST!" He roared.

She wasn't a coward, but whatever fury she could feel was drowned in the fear of him. His lenses covering his eyes were shimmering with barely restrained energy, and he seemed on the brink of exploding.

He rose up, staring straight at her. She felt his eyes, eyes could drill mountains boring into her, and even though she was an expert ninja, shivered.

"Don't ever try and doing that again" Scott seethed dangerously. "Only one woman is allowed touch me, and you aren't her."

She gulped and nodded automatically. Satisfied watching her dread, he sit down. He was loath to resort violence, or using the kind of dictatorial tricks Magneto and Apocalypse daunted his respective flocks with. But the woman was wading through dangerous waters, and he was determined to show that. From now she'd think again before trying and seducing him. He wasn't screwing up what he had accomplished.

Only one weakness. Jean was the only chink on his mask he would allow ever.

Weaknesses were to be hidden. Sinister said emotionalism is a futile thing, used to hinder the intellect and making potential leverages. It was only weakness befuddled the mind and the clear judgment. Over that time he was an orphan boy, with a head trauma which gave him a violent emotional turmoil in a daily basis; and to Essex didn't cost it a lot convince him of the emotions he couldn't control and were going him raving mad were evil things. He did a point of being the master of himself, holding in check those bothersome things. And let never to anyone gets too close. It had given him pain and heartache only.

Every those purposes were by the wayside when he met with Jean Grey. He was frightened inwardly. He wanted to run away. She chased him, even though she didn't know she was doing it. He broke his sacred rule with her, and ironically he felt stronger. She'd shown him he could trust whole-heartily in her. She was the only person he let too close, and the only would be. He wasn't losing her for a roll on the hay with a woman who didn't even care for him. His feelings-repressing skills came handy in these occasions.

Thinking about it, this accident was a perfect example of letting emotional impulses, which he didn't need, got the better of him and spoiled that really mattered to him.

Snapping out of his reflections and remembrances, he looked up at the ninja with a raised brown. She was backing slowly, and going to work at her desk.

"I don't know what you'd imagined, Kwannon, but I'm intolerant of that kind of conduct in my office." He remarked with a quizzical frown. "Why were you wanting to play the boss whore role? You're a splendid and expert warrior. You don't need demean to yourself to rise up in the ranks"

She kept on sorting out her own reports, suddenly very quiet. It was unsettling after of her former behavior.

"Very well, play stupid now" Scott snarled. "But I was being sincere with it. I was planning getting you promoted after seeing your performance yesterday, but I may rethink my decision according that charming attitude of yours"

She whipped her head upwards. He couldn't make out colors, but knew a blanched, livid face when he watched one.

"You want being promoted, work hardest and never again repeat that stupid stunt. And forsake those conducts. Get a minimal of pride and self-esteem, for the God's sake!"

"Yes, sir" She stammered.

Scott sighed. Kwannon wouldn't flirt with again, but he'd rather tell to Jean anyway. He didn't intend to upset her -he liked very much breath- or turn her on Revanche, but was surer and less problematic to recount her the true facts first-hand, instead of letting she heard a scurrilous and phony gossip.

A concern resolved, twenty more to go.

The door suddenly slammed open, and he cocked his head to regard to the newcomer. His posture straightened immediately, and his face turned stern. Business-like.

A tall and slender man stood in the middle of the threshold. He was clad with a fit blue suit with odd red symbols, matching the sky-like hue of his skin. Blonde curls slid around a sharp and unyielding face, marked with worry, anxiety, rage, negative emotions churned in a place stripped from joy. Behind he two pairs of metallic, razor-sharp wings were quivering nervously, like yearning for something.

"Worthington" Scott acknowledged, steepling his hands.

"Summers" The man replied grimly, flexing his powerful and athletic arms. He was pouring relentlessness and agitation everywhere, Scott reflected.

"Good morning, Worthington. Has the Archangel of the Death come for his thirty silver coins?"

Warren felt oddly shocked and caught off-guard. A laugh bubbled in his chest and he snickered, without realizing he relaxed, right what Scott wanted.

"Interesting metaphor, Cyclops, but way unsuitable. Xavier wasn't a God to me -albeit I respected him-, and he betrayed to me first. It's only fair I returned the favor." Archangel paused, the flow of the memory returning, and with it his eyes got a razor and merciless glint. "I believed in him. But in that battle he left me behind in the field to cover his tracks. Mind you, I'd sacrifice my life if he asked me or it was necessary, but was neither of them -and he IS telepath, he has NO excuse-. He chose to leave me behind only because it suited him. Then Apocalypse picked me, and twisted in this" he eyed down in hatred "thing."

Summers rolled his eyes behind the shades, having heard this tale thousand times actually. "Then you turned to us, and offered the key to destroy the mansion and the X-Men. In exchange for a prize."

"Yes" he spat ferociously. "I've got my revenge. Now I want my reward. I want to Elisabeth Braddock!"

*********************************************************************************

The infirmary was little and well illuminated, but there was a definite atmosphere of coldness pervading on the air. Even though the beds were cozy, the place was bare stark, intensely bleak and impersonal. The stink of it touched, tasted and smelt, even with the stench of the antiseptic.

Scott, with his cloak hanging behind him, and Warren, gone all the bravery displayed before and replaced for reluctance, entered silently.

"The infirmary to the captives is located in other side. Over here we heal to our sick and wounds, but this case was special."

Worthington wasn't hearing really the Summers explanations. He had eyes only for the beds where four of the prisoners rested. Neither for the black doctor who hurled at him a hostile glare when they entered, or for the boy performing bedside duty.

The boy.

Something in him shivered when his sight spotted to that young man, and he shifted, feeling very unsettled and uncomfortable of sudden.

He was young -fourteen years, likely-. Spiked locks of hair neatly combed were ruffled with the fan, forcing him to smooth again his bangs, of color brown but with a hint of redness. His face was sorrowful, very sorrowful, but his square jawbone and looks foretold he'd be a very handsome man, with determination carved on a harsh-looking face, and fearsome eyes. His frame -strong and well built to a kid such young- was covered with a dark blue spandex suit, and a strange weapon -a long metallic stick with a sharp and curvy edge on one end- was slung with two leather straps crossing his back.

There was somewhat... creepy in that boy, in spite of his mournful expression and his silent stance, stroking gently the one patient's hand, with tenderness difficult of believing. But the way his left eye was faintly glowing, shimmering with amber brightness...

If that boy was who he believed, the rumors milling on the mutant grapevine, heard on the X-Mansion and on the Apocalypse's citadel in Manhattan alike, told he was a force to be reckoned with.

Downright ignoring his partner, Scott walked inside, staring apologetically at the storming Cecilia's countenance, and stopping by the boy's side. He rolled slowly at him, and Scott wrapped his arms around him. He got a face of enduring an unavoidable suffering.

"Dad, please."

"Hush, Nate." He answered.

Warren's brows lingered on his hairline. He'd heard rumors, casual chat of people who had nothing better than do, drawing a picture of Cyclops as an emotionless, cold, callous man, detached emotionally of the rest of the humankind. The gossips didn't portray him capable of human warmth, or of a gesture that natural, so logical as embracing to his own son. He supposed the windmill isn't to be listened at, after all.

Meanwhile Scott infused warmth and love to his boy without a care for the world.

Nathan Christopher Summers. His elder offspring and his pride.

He wondered during his times of reflections and idle musings because he had named to his son after two persons who he owed nothing to. The father who abandoned him, and the man who planned use him in his accursed chess game.

But he yearned desperately for being a good father. He wished being by his children's side when they needed them. He NEEDED give them the things he had never, such like a home, loving parents, a good life.

"Dad, I'm not trying to be noisy, but would you mind put me down?" Nate pleaded, among wheezes.

"Oh, give to your old man some slack" Scott scoffed with a mocking face, obliging his frantic beg. After he surveyed slowly the room, taking in the woman lying under the covers. Everyone gaping at the ceiling with their blank eyes of absent look, and breathing with low, faltering gasps. The low thumping of theirs chests and the steady rise and lower of them was the biggest sign of they being alive.

Scott glanced troubled at Nate, seriously concerned with the psionic feedback he could be getting in that room. The misery and the distress were visible even to headblinds.

"What were you doing here, Nate? Mind you, you weren't doing anything wrong, it's only I'd like know-"

"Studying the pieces of a jigsaw needs being put together." Nathan Summers mumbled enigmatically. Scott wondered what side of the family he acquired that mean streak from.

"You were checking their state." He translated a tad cautious, peering at the shapes, prone and limp on the beds, asking with fear what he'd seen. "Can you assess his state?" He asked, mechanically.

And Nathan hurled one of his stealth 'Is-he-using-leader-voice-with-me?' glances, sulking before of responding. "They're very messed. Their heads resemble a puzzle has been cut in pieces with a blunt knife, and whose bits were piled up, being missed several ones. The psionic feedback they received when Xavier was struck down was unbearable. Right now their awareness, the conscience of who and what are they, are withdrawn and twisted. Without that telepath to lead their thoughts they've lost their selves."

He sighed plaintively. "They are very screwed. BUT I'm sure they can return to the normality." He beamed meekly.

Warren suddenly swept him off his feet, holding him high on the air.

"Worthington!" Shouted Scott, between alarmed and enraged -and partially feared for Archangel-. A fist smacked painfully on his head's rear, and he whirled, receiving a baleful, heated glare of Cecilia.

But the blue mutant wasn't listening. And Nathan wasn't particularly scared, stunned or slightly anxious to blow up big, big things. Which was good. No, he only was suspended on the air, boring his relaxed, mild eyes in the frantic, pretty wild ones of the large man holding him.

"Please" Warren beseeched plaintively. "Please, tell me B-Psylocke will be well. Or at least she may get back her mind together. Please, give me the word."

The young teenager with power enough to snuff out suns eyed him mercifully, feeling his grief and his fretting, his overwhelming necessity, strangling him. He felt it all, taking in himself and understanding it.

"She may" Nathan stated slowly. "But it is no secure. It will take plenty work, a lot of psychic healing and rehab, but I trust in hers, and of the rest, recovery."

Warren sighed relieved, and beamed. Was nearly unexpected see an honest and kind smile in that harsh face.

"Thanks"

"However-" continued Nathan, floating himself as far as the floor.

"HOWEVER?"

"However, I d-don't get... why would someone do that to other person? Why do make suffer like this to another human being? I don't understand."

Archangel regarded him under a new light. "You are wiser than your years suggest." He commented.

His father placed, strong, supportive hands on his shoulders. "And I hope you never understand, Nathan" he stated clearly, no trusting excessively in his words. "But there's people who thinks might makes right; and who believes to make suffer to defenseless persons, watch to someone weeping or hurt, is funny, gratified or even dutiful."

Archangel stared him piercingly. Definitively the grapevine wasn't to be believed. "The funny part is the Professor believed really what he was doing in. He was full of good intentions at the beginning, but somewhere along the way he stopped viewing the difference between the good and the evil. He stopped of differentiating his dreams of his nightmares, his good purposes of his dark wishes, and then achieving the dream became to be an end on itself. He thought the end doesn't justify the means, but very soon the means lost importance to accomplish the supposedly desirable end; and at the end, he didn't know what end was really striving for." Warren shook his head heavily. "I think still he'd been a good man from first. But he was very powerful, and was obsessed. And look where it led him at: his power devoured him whole, and his obsessions devoured to the rest. His darkness overpowered him, and he didn't realize ever."

Without saying loud another sentence or waiting for a remark, he strode towards one of the biobeds, where the subject was lying oblivious to her bearings and the strange shapes and voices surrounding her.

Scott peeped at the crestfallen, glazed look of fright of his son. He patted friendly his back.

"Calm down, Nate. You aren't like him."

"Yes, of course" He muttered miserably, his eye pulsating with light. "And who can guarantee I stand like this? I look the poor people in the raids and culls, look the guys slaving and slaying using their power like easy excuse, and I realize I might just be or finish up being like them. I don't WANT being a monster, but if I'm not careful-"

"You shan't do, son. You care plenty for the people, and notice they are real and alive, to let to yourself corrupt. I believe in you."

He embraced to Nathan again, and this time the boy didn't protest. Scott Summers pondered briefly in his quiet, kind, compassionate and softhearted son. He was so fine kid, his empathy doing him too aware of the sufferings of billions of humans to ignore them or swat them aside. And although he wished his son was happiest and less afraid of himself, Cyclops prayed for he continued being so merciful and careful. With his potential, was precise he mastered his powers and his mind, or else...

Warren Worthington reflected Cyclops and his little kid might get their bonding moment as long as they wished. He was very busy in his task now.

He kneeled beside to the figure of a pretty, homely young woman with wavy violet hair, breathing faintly, oblivious to the outside world. Her temples were nevertheless glistening with salty pearls of sweat, unveiling her inner fight. She had to be somewhat more together than her partners were. Aside benefits of being a telepath herself, he reckoned, relieved.

He observed her face, enthralled with her beauty and mortified with her pain.

Betsy? he called. Silence.

Betsy? More silence.

Come on, Betsy, return here, with us. I'm Warren

A heavy silence ensued. Then a faint and wavering sound was heard in his head, disrupted as if there was static.

W-. r. een?

Of sudden he remembered his body needed to breathe. He kissed her drenched forehead with a tenderness would surprised who came across him like Angel of Death. Yes, Betsy, I am. I'll be here for you to help. And when -WHEN- you get back your life, I'll keep on looking after you. If you want me

He strained his virtual miss ears to not miss the answer, but it was only followed on by the echoing silence of his own brain; however, within his head crackled a buzzing noise in the background. Telepathic noise, perhaps? Would be Betsy its origin? Hadn't she shut up the communication then? Maybe she couldn't answer, but was inclined to rely on him, or let him get a shot. Or maybe it was only wishful thinking on his part, and she wasn't feeling appealed to trust in anybody, specially a man, even though he was, at the very least, her friend.

He was willing help her at any rate. He'd do her trust.

Meanwhile, Scott and Nathan were locking stares in the hunched shape of Worthington, standing faithfully by the bedside. Scott kept his natural unreadable mask, but inwardly he was noticing of the radical change suffered by his random ally. More natural, more eased, softer; almost mellow. His slayer wings neatly folded in his back, resting peacefully. The slumped posture, taut with hurt, but no the kind he showed before. That was a hurt born out of hatred, burning in him. This was a hurt born out of grief and regret, more alike to snow falling. Scott guessed he had just witnessed a glimpse of the man who he was, before of the tinkering of Apocalypse.

He was on the brink of dwelling in what he could have been without Sinister, when his attention was stolen by something infinitely better. He spun with a flap of his cloak simultaneously to his son, knowing her presence long before she arrived, or greeted.

"I'd supposed I'd meet you here" She greeted with a warm smile. Their daughter was next to her, perusing the surroundings with the quiet and serious expression he was used to.

Her older brother approached to her, and they shook hands.

"How are you today, baby?"

She punched playfully his shoulder. "Don't call me baby, jackass!"

Nathan winced and rubbed his throbbing, albeit no sore, limb. "Ouch! That hurt, carrot-hair!"

"Moron!"

"Mind-witch!"

"Like if you had grounds to talk, dork!"

Scott stroked his temple, pondering shut up them. Nobody could say in that moment, but although his two children loved at each other much, they were fighting, let's say, all the time except when they slept. He didn't figure out that silly sibling rivalry.

Like if he could speak about THAT.

He banished the thought. Now was no time to think about Alex. Now he wanted communing with the woman ahead of him. He strode firmly towards her, smirking in anticipation, along the way walloping to Nate for his dirty mouth and stroking the Rachel's hair, and slung an arm around her waist. With a brisk motion, he pulled her into him, joining his bodies together in very close distance, and wrapping the other arm around her back. Scott proceeded to suck and nip greedily her collarbones, delighted with the moan of pleasure and gusto it elicited from her. Jean arched back her head, writhing in his arms as he was raining her face with swift and fluttering butterfly kisses.

Was... your morning... funny, sweetheart She panted in his mind, feeling craving boiling into her.

It wasn't at all. Until now He said back. Scott focused -pretty hard chore when his attention was steered at other issue-, sending in her head the early events, dumping through the psy-link the whole of memories, feelings and thoughts.

She seethed inwardly. The scene had been plated in her mind was threatening spoiling the excellent mood she was in, with the Scott's tongue exploring her tonsils.

I'm going to throttle to that b- She started, but Scott cut off her quickly.

Get mercy. She was making a foolishness, but I think I taught her well her lesson. Give her some strike more

Jean agreed grudgingly. Then she lit up with the next question. And you? Did you get fun with your husband?

She laughed, pulling his mouth on her neck. Let's say I'm happily widowed

Then she dumped her remembrances in his head, narrating without words her final meeting with him.

Took a sort very special of trust let one person into your most intimate thoughts, including the dark pits and murky corners of your mind where prowl your worst and most sinister bits, the things you never let go out to pretend be civilized, the black impulses and yearnings every human being has. Particularly when the two persons binding together their minds were educated to trust in nobody.

Both Scott and Jean didn't think really much of the love. To the former it was a fleeting, passing thing that gave only pains and let his heart bleeding, too tattered to be sewn fully, and he had no hope of experiment ever, therefore no worthy of brooding about it, being one thing he couldn't have. To the later was a lie, an illusion created by someone who she trusted and believed in, used to snare her and manipulate her.

And then they had run into each other, and learnt what is like love to someone until the point of being willing die and kill by that person. Had taken time accept it and low the guard, trust again in someone else, but they had done it.

Everyone -Cecilia, Warren, the patients, their children- were ignoring them while they were busy in necking locked in an embrace, when the door banged open violently, and a spiraling rocket of explosive orange light blasted inside, heading at the opposite wall with too speed to stop in time. Abruptly, though, the dazzling meteor was frozen airborne. The tall and slim boy shaking with the sudden tug, breathed in relief and blinked off the crackling field of orange energy exploding and flaring around his.

Nathan released his firm telekinetic hold, placing him onto the cold floor. The teenager ruffled back his short bangs peevishly, and gave a wan smile of gratitude at his best friend.

"Sir-" He started to speak, but his voice cracked and his smile turned into terrified stare when a foreboding ebony shadow with two eyes sparking with flaring ire on her pretty murdering scowl stood between him and his commander.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, GUTHRIE? THIS IS AN ENFERMERY, NO A SIDESHOW!" Cecilia Reyes bellowed as louder as she might without waking up to the patients; which is to say no much but still quite impressive. And scary. While Sam was summarily chewed off, he was reduced to an apologetic and writhing heap, wondering if he'd survive.

Whereas Nathan was stifling a round of guffaws, Scott was contemplating the show of the mild and cold Cecilia menacing to someone with grievous body harm, he considered things. Mainly if the life was a way, the journey is loaded with unexpected turns.

The Guthrie family was a large family of Kentucky, poor but with its members close-knitted. Then the father died, overloaded with work to help to his family, said Sam, but dying nevertheless, and letting them alone. Sam tried to act like a responsible adult, but the things were rolling downhill since then. The mother died got sick and died, and when the war broke out that zone of the country was ravaged, devastated and burn down plenty times. Many of his brothers and sisters died, and only three remained alive and scavenging in the mountainous wastelands when Sinister met them. He discovered their potential and planned mold them in useful puppets. But now, the three were enlarging the ranks of his enemies: Elisabeth was servicing to Apocalypse, Paige was a Hellion, and Sam, the oldest and most promising, was under his command.

Another of his brilliant schemes had backfired on him. What a fucking surprise.

Sam was definitively the most dangerous, even though looking over his goofy face of farmer blonde boy you couldn't tell. But he was beginning to peep at and grasp in the true extent of his own power, his skills' range, and above of all, he knew a born leader when he saw one. And Sam Guthrie was destined to command armies.

Right in the actual moment, Sam had managed sneak out of Cecilia, who had mellowed at last, and was changing the Storm's pillow, all the time giving them the evil eye. Cringing nervously, the Kentuckian boy stood upright in front of Scott, with stiffness what he intended masking his nervousness with.

"Any trouble, Sam?" He DID know there was one, moreover bearing in mind the rushed way he had stormed into the place on top of it.

Sam got his best 'cool soldier reporting' impersonation, and breathed out "There have been a skirmish over the Middle West between Apocalypse and Sinister. The former ordered a culling over Omaha, and seemingly the old Sinister's base was established still there, so he fought it. And lost."

Scott nodded, with his mind in elsewhere, calculating and running through possible sceneries.

"There's also news about Havok" Sam voiced carefully neutral, gaining the full Scott's attention once more. "He'd killed to War and was frying to Famine when one of the Prelates -I reckon was the magnetic gal- beat up him making profit of the weakness that anorexic brat had given him, and captured him. I think was then when the forces ceased of being equaled, and Sinister's side began to lose the field. He had to feel cornered..."

Sam mused weakly, becoming to get thoughtful, mulling something under his voice. It gave to Cyclops time to get used to the idea and meditate in the implications.

"He fled out of the field, running away and dragging their troops along with him. He had to set up explosives charges, because seconds after, that region and a chunk of the state blow up."

"What?" Scott squealed, the appalling horror he was feeling giving him difficulties to breathe.

Sam nodded firmly "It's a big, big gaping hole on the floor for now."

A silence ensued. Cecilia and even Warren were diverted from what they were doing, staring with bulged eyes in stark horror at the back of the young boy had just spelt that information. The Summers family stood crowded and silent. The air was suddenly still and weighed.

Scott throw back his head and barked a raspy, humorless laugh ringed next to hysterical to the circle of people surrounding him. He folded his arms and continued chuckling, trembling with stupid bubbling giggles, and shaking on and on the head with a cynical, bitter smile coloring his face.

Jean was about of interrupting, when he spoke at last. "Interesting. I wonder what he was hoping accomplish with, making that foolishness. Nevertheless, it fits in with his melodrama sense. He couldn't just run. No."

Fury, cold fury, terrible fury creased his face, and he threw up his arms in disparaging and impotent disgust. "Imbeciles. All of them" He spat. "Killing at each other over a square inch of land. Apocalypse, Sinister, The Hellfire Club, Magneto, Doctor Doom in Europe... All anxious for modify the world into what-it-should-be according each one of them, all wanting take over it...Are so blind, so redemptionless blind they aren't realizing they're destroying it all? There won't be world left to the winner, nor people to reign over if they continue with this nonsense."

He paused, threading his hand along the curly strands of Jean to relax. "The only thing those buffoons are accomplishing is burn it all in ashes. Mark a square of ground and claim 'this is mine', kill and slave people... That isn't power. It's idiotic to battle for that. Nobody cares for your possessions when you're six foot underground and grass and moss has grown over your grave." He finished ominously.

Archangel had arisen for then, and was walking thoughtfully towards them. His eyes were fixed upon Scott, a sincere curiosity swimming in them.

"Then what do you battle for, Summers?"

Scott blinked and reacted to the unexpected and inquisitive answer, tilting his head at him with a questioning furrowing.

"You were brought up by Sinister. Later you reveled against him. You assembled a group of mutants making a clan, mustered your army and started to pick up your battles wherever you deemed fit. Apocalypse, Magneto, Xavier... You attacked to anybody that was in your way in the time. The person suffering the attack didn't seem to matter a lot. You turned to yourself in an unpredictable loose cannon, pestering to Sinister or blowing up the Hellfire Club Headquarters all the same. And albeit you never came across me like a guy who risks for helpless people out of selfless altruism, you helped to persons in danger if you could do it. Excuse me if I'm not seeing a pattern here."

Scott crossed his arms and glared straight on his eyes. His unsettling, piercing look shone hot red and pierced and disquieted him with his unreadable, stern features. His eyes glowed behind of the red film, fixed on him, almost daring him to continue questioning or snooping off. Archangel looked away.

"I'm not trying to grill you. Merely I'm curious. No more, no less."

Cyclops remained shut up. When he spoke, his voice sounded abrupt and harsh in the silence.

"At the beginning I didn't matter me really one or other way. I'd grown up lonely and miserable, my life was a worthless shit, and I did know whom I owed it at. A fucker tried and used me as a guinea pig and a living weapon, and other fucker was turning this country in a barren land sprinkled with blood and cadavers. I didn't wish be master or slave, but the Apocalypse's war was raging on, and the only way of surviving was banding together. I didn't assemble my merry mutant band to save the world but to fend off on my own and to get revenge."

"When nobody cares for you when you are a child and your little brother has a grudge against you, you tend to be egoist. However, when someone chose join me of its own volition and fought with me, I considered my duty take care of him or her. I take upon me the responsibility of protecting these who entrust in me. Many crowded together with me to protect to themselves or his families or just out of plain wish of fighting against our enemies. Thus my group was born and grow."

He then spread his arms embraced to her wife and children. "Then I met with Jean. We got our fights but fell in love. We ended up by acknowledging and accepting our feelings and doing something about it." Cyclops stated, effectively resuming a history was really very LONG and twisted. They hadn't known in the most pleasant of the circumstances, the attraction they felt was masked with a phony dislike for each other and only capital events such like the Jean's death forced their mutual capitulation. He was glad, however; he had stolen her from her former owner, with every intentions of not giving her back.

"When Jean and myself became an item, when was born Nathan, and later Rachel, I had someone else to care me for and look for. I'd built a family, something I thought I'd never have or wish, and they filled on me a very old inward emptiness. I don't fight only for revenge anymore. I fight to protect to the family I love and to protect to the bunch of mutants that chose follow me. And if to look after to my wife, grant a future to my children, or save to my folks I've to rip the Sinister's head off and pin it in a pike, I'll do."

The last statement had been said with a special ferocity, and Archangel took his word on it.

"I must considerate yesterday I received a fine example of it, right? The Professor Xavier was pestering you and trying hunt you down, so you..."

"I annihilated to that pal because was screwing with me." Scott snarled angrily. "He desired a woman who never was his to begin with, and wanted to get me killed because he was fucking jealous. He wished to make me suffer, torture me and kill me just after of having shattered my mind and soul; after he... he... I don't want imagine even a glimpse of what he'd have done to Jean. He played against me, and was outplayed and overpowered. He defied to me and I beat him. End of the history. And I'll do likewise with anybody enough idiot to challenge me."

Archangel gazed him, lost in a no entirely unsettling silence, for a while mulling his words throughout the time he remained wordless. "I see" he stated with a carefully neuter and very non-committal expression.

"All right." The overzealous doctor turned up of sudden, features glowering and arms akimbo, boiling with self-righteousness, standing between both. "Since you're done seeing it, you and the family can continue your conversation in other side else. Preferably one where there aren't sick persons."

Warren opened the mouth, but he thought again, knowing better than to argue with a doctor -conclusion supported by the surrounding expressions of the others-, and chose back off wisely.

"May I see to Elisabeth later on?" He asked, tentatively. The doctor smiled.

"Of course. When she - and the remainders- have got their rest. Now go out!"

The door slammed unforgiving behind them, leaving them in the lonely and aloof corridor.

Warren shrugged. "Well, that went fine. If you look for me, Summers, I'll be in the rooms you disposed me"

And where you'll be watching over me all along He thought to himself while strode away, his wings folded but in alert. The way in the light bounced off them, sparkling periodically, was enthralling and suggested a manner of greet.

Sam stood still as long as Worthington walked down the passage and turned the corner. Then he glanced sideways at his leader.

"If that's all, am I dismissed, sir?" he wondered politely and respectfully.

Scott smiled, bemused with the ever-mindful manners of Guthrie. "Go right ahead, Sam. Go to lounge"

Cannonball made a formal salute, and scampered, planning already the way he'd spend the day.

Cyclops wrapped an arm around her woman's waist, and she leaned sideways on him. A sign of elation, of release of a burden had weighed in her for days, and she expressed through affection. He relished on her warmth, burning through the close bodies.

"I think Worthington gets the right idea. We can spend the rest of the day together, without troubling for some mess can arise, and pretending we're a normal, anodyne family for a change. Sounds good to you?"

Jean clasped her hands together in delight. "That's a great idea, love. But don't you have paperwork to do?"

Scott cringed, wrinkling powerfully his face as if he intended to shake that thought off him. "Jean, the paperwork can f- wait." He corrected swiftly, after of peeping stealthily at his the pair of young teens standing by his side with stares too innocent to be good. "You're more important than any stupid report."

Jean arched her brows in ironic interest. "My, that must be the sweetest phrase you've said me so far this day. Sounds good to me. What is your opinion in the matter, kids?"

Both of them squirmed uncomfortably under the light of her broad beaming, with the corners of the mouth tugged fully upwards, green irises sparkling and teeth showing. It was of the honest kind but also of the 'Let me down, impudent brats, and I'll be disgusted, and you DON'T want seeing me disgusted' manner. Jean Grey possessed an uncanny ability to seem pleading and menacing simultaneously.

"It's well for me, mom." Rachel replied, no that cowed with the warning tone underlying, but fond and eager with to taste normalcy for once, specially after of the early confrontation replaying in her memory.

"I'd actually done plans- OUCH!" Nathan squealed, feeling the violent elbow of his sister grinding on his arm, leaving a purplish bruise. "But I suppose Joe will understand because I can't work out with him today." He said grudgingly, hurling leering daggers at her sister. Rachel gave the Innocent Puppy Look, completed with watery eyes and fluttering lids. A deadly weapon was that look.

"Don't worry, son. You'll be able spend plenty time with your cousin later on." His mother assured him. After her sister's death, Jean had looked after of her nephew and niece, Joseph and Gailyn Bailey. It was no easy bring up to two children in that dark age, especially if they aren't yours, but she felt she owed it to Sarah. She suffered so much, and a part of that pain came mainly of what she'd done and what she was.

Nathan sighed and answered in dismal "May I get a cup of coffee?"

"You are too young to get coffee!"

"But I like it!"

"Too bad!" Her mother snapped harshly.

Scott squeezed lightly her hand to draw attention to him, no really looking forward to a familiar clash at this hour of the morning. "If that was all, are we going already?"

His family nodded, some more baffled than other did, and they gathered along him, the argument forgotten. Scott walked with Jean by her side, her red and golden outfit so beautiful and ominous under that light as Jean herself. Their children trailed behind, Rachel seeming downcast and Nathan bolder but either of them silent outwardly. A talk was going on inside their minds, though.

Scott led his family while thought morbidly about the last development. Another day, another battle, he meditated. They'd won, everyone were alive and together. It'd be a motive to feel happy and pleased, but he didn't manage put aside his concerns and relax. Tomorrow there would be more hardships, more battles awaiting them, more people intending take them away him. It was an endless thread of them since years ago, and he was thoroughly fed-up with all that fight.

His optimistic part did afford the luxury of impertinently nag him, pointing they had lived through a lot together and he had kept alive them and pulled out of countless troubles. He let basking in the elation the reflect brought to him. He had something worth living for now, and maybe might lose it, but he had done very well so far.

He'd protect the family he'd built. And would crush mercilessly to whoever was crazy enough to dare him and try to steal it, just like he had done yesterday.

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Final Notes: I'm not being deliberately ruthless and mean with Xavier. I don't hate him, but this tale had to be written of this way. This is a shaded timeline where nothing is like it should. No character is really a hero here: Scott killed cold-blood a man and slapped a woman just for making a point, and Jean sought her daughter's help to exacting revenge on a man.

I can get some prequel or sequel planned. If this piece of work liked you, warn me if you want one.

END