Strobe didn't know what was happening when the building blew up
behind her. There was a deafening boom, a wave of heat and force that
knocked them to their knees, debris and dust winging itself around them,
and a horrible wave of fear.
Strobe cowered a second as the fiery heat subsided, then rose. Mentally she made a roster check: two missing, Kurt and SheCat. Reflexively wiping dust from the sides of her face, she called for them. Surely they were alright, they had covered explosions before in the Danger Room.
"Kurt! SheCat!"
The base had been reduced to rubble, with small spouts of flame darting like snake-tongues between cracks. Strobe came at last to realize the explosion had been worse than she had first thought. Her cries became frantic.
"Kurt! SheCat! Where are you?!"
A tall figure unearthed itself from under a pile of rubble. It was obviously Kurt, from the tail hanging limp, but outlines and silhouettes were all that the rising dust would allow to eyesight. He staggered a little, and Paige rushed forward to help him. He used his tail to prop himself up until Paige got to him, then fell into her arms. His uniform was smoldering and his ankle was twisted unnaturally, but he had avoided the major brunt of the explosion. Paige helped support him, seeing that he was both winded and wounded, then, when he was leaning safely against her, began to speak.
"Wow. You look wasted." A nod from him, the slightest smile. Then, "Where's SheCat?"
The dust didn't obscure the tears on his face, nor muffle Rogue's cry as she removed the body from the rubble.
SheCat had always expected dying either being agonizing or completely without pain. As it turned out, it was neither.
The explosion had hit her with a minor blow, mainly because, like Kurt, she had been lying down. It had just torn and burned the skin from her left arm and leg. But the work had been done by five adamantium claws. They hadn't hurt, but she had been almost incapable of movement. Then, in the heat she didn't feel, she had begun to sense a dull roar of pain in her body, and the fact that it was increasingly hard to see. Soon the world had bathed itself in white light and she was falling, feeling the red hot pain in her chest, not caring exactly where she was going.
She hadn't screamed, hadn't cried or complained or begged for life. She had gone peacefully, accepting it every step of the way. Like warrior. Like a hero.
She'd always wanted to be a hero.
"No!" Remy rushed forward, pushing Julie over in the process, and knelt before the body. "No no no no!"
Strobe, in turn, rushed forwards, grabbed SheCat's arm and checked for a pulse. None. Rubbing her hands together to generate electricity, she brought them down on SheCat's chest with a loud "CLEAR!". A shock of electricity rushed through her hands; there was a thump and SheCat's body lifted from the electricity. Strobe checked the pulse again. Nothing. She tried again. And again.
Paige, supporting Kurt, was in a state of shock. She had never had to endure the death of a friend. Her life had been easy; her mother and father were tolerant of her mutation, she had been asked to enroll in Xavier's before her gift even manifested. She had lived off a life of peace; reality was a harsh wake-up call. She was in denial.
Julie buried her tear-streaked face in Kitty's shoulder, who was also in a state of denial. Kitty had had to live with that annoying runt for four years, and yet now she felt that she had never even known her. What she would give for a second chance.
Rogue knelt by Remy, placed a gloved hand on his shoulder. She understood his pain. He had sworn to protect her, he had loved her like a sister. And in her one time of need he had been unable to interfere.
Strobe kept trying vainly, thinking only of channeling her energy. In times of grief she would avoid pain at any cost.
SheCat felt a vague sense of hurt, coming through her entire body, coupled with a muffled "CLEAR!". Her brain felt fuzzy; she should know what it was but she didn't. Moreover, the more she thought about it the less she cared.
Her falling ended suddenly. She landed on ground with her knees, sending spurts of pain through her thighs.
It was a field, spreading out over a vast expanse as far as her vision could see. It looked as if it had been bleached; it was white and grey and held within the flora the palest of blues, lavenders and greens. A feeling of peace washed throughout her, coloring her like watercolor. She could run now, like she would never stop. The wind was at her back and she had nowhere else to go. So she ran. She didn't care where she was going.
In his comparatively few years as an X-Man, Kurt had seen very few lives ripped suddenly away, even less done so intentionally. He didn't know it was the claws that had done the work, just believed it was the explosion, a final kamikaze act.
His eyes roamed from where Strobe had accepted defeat and had begun weeping into her hands, to where Gambit was vainly attempting CPR, blood staining his trenchcoat, to the adamantium skeleton that lay among the ruins. Yuriko's healing factor could have saved her, if there had been any healing factor left. The only living part was her bone marrow, and that was forever contained within the metal confines of her skeletal structure.
Past her was Pulsar, laying prone, half buried beneath the fallen ceiling. Had he really taken her life? Was life that temporary?
Kurt didn't know what to feel. His student, his friend, part of the team he was the leader of was nothing more than another casualty in the grand scheme of things. He hated the grand scheme of things.
He didn't notice that a prayer was rolling off his tongue, nor did he notice that Paige set him down against a piece of remaining wall. He was on an auto-pilot. Save the feelings for later. He had to get the others back to the mansion, it was his duty. And yet Liebchen was dead.
The sun was starting to set over the scene of carnage.
Out of breath, she came to a slow stop. She still felt the blades of grass touching her legs, but she couldn't see them. The world was enveloped in a white light, as if she was on a stage and spotlights that came from every direction, even the ground and sky, were beaming down on her. Strangely, she wondered if Shakespeare had had any near-death experiences. It would have explained his work if he got even half as far as she was.
The pain was gone. It had left so subtlety that she hadn't cared. Just like they wouldn't care. They never had. Tolerated her, yes. And yet she had always been an outsider.
A wave of rage swept over her. They would even dare to be happy she was gone, pleased to be rid of her.
In a zealous rage she struck out at the lights ahead of her, whirled around and attacked behind her when she struck nothing. It wasn't fair! She had done no worse then the rest of them!
Calming down, she closed her eyes.
Gambit was intensely cycling through the stages of grief at an incredibly rapid rate. CPR had failed, Strobe's shock had failed, and he resorted to the senseless acts of a mad-man. He shook her, screamed at her, begged for her life, let hot tears streak clean trails down his dust- covered face. Nothing worked.
"No! No! I won't let dis happen! No!" A pause in which he caught his breath and SheCat remained still. Reacting totally on instinct, he kissed her, passionately, then broke apart. "Dat's what you always wanted, right?! You didn't live for it! Weren't you gonna live for it?!"
"Remy, it's over, stop it! There's nothing you can do! Please, stop it!" Rogue was worried now. She had never seen him this frantic, this possessed. She, herself, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and she had barely known her. She could only imagine how he felt.
"You saved my life, why can't I save yours?! Why you? Why did it have ta be you?" His voice became diminutive, and he held the figure in his arms closer. There was no reaction again. He cradled her body and rocked gently back and forth on his knees, softly whispering "No." to himself even though it was of no use. It had been a long time since she nursed him back to health after a particularly nasty encounter with Sabretooth. It had been a long time to get to know a girl, even one so cagey as she.
SheCat gave out a low gasp. With her eyes closed, she could see what was happening across the barrier. She saw Kurt, tears down his face, saw Paige, who looked as if she was dead herself, with no spark behind her eyes, saw Strobe with her face covered, but saw the cracks between her fingers were still wet. Saw Julie, out of tears, still with her face buried in Kitty's shoulder, who's also succumbed to sobbing. Saw Rogue, dry-faced, filing her pain away in a secret section in her heart while comforting Remy. Sweet Remy, who was in a state beyond despair. If she was going to live for anything, it would be for him.
She needed a way out. She needed to find a loophole. She needed...she didn't know what she needed, only what she wanted. She wanted to live.
"No! You can't do this to me! I don't want to die anymore! I don't want to die!" She didn't know who she was screaming at. She just wanted to live, more than anything else.
Tears running from her eyes, she started to run. This time with direction.
"Remy, we must go now." Kurt's three-fingered hand joined Rogue's on Gambit's shoulder. Gambit flinched as if he'd been burned. It was nothing about Kurt, just the thought it being final. So that was it. Her death was final.
Gambit picked her up, holding her as a groom holds a bride, and started carrying her towards the jet, asking no assistance and accepting none.
Blades of grass whipped her legs as she ran, back to where she came from, back to where she landed. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps and her heart hurt as if someone had stuck a red-hot bar of metal right through it. She knew, as if it was a certain fact, that she had to get to where she landed, but the running was so hard. Her foot slammed toe-first into the ground and she stumbled forward, hit her hands and got up again. She had to make it. She had to live.
But darkness was closing in on the field, now with visible plant- life. Her vision swam and she cried for help, knowing subconsciously none would hear. She stumbled again, heart breaking and bleeding, and got up one last time.
Remy stood, foot at the edge of the ascending ramp, wondering how much grief he would cause the X-Men if he refused to return, if he continued to pursue some false hope that she might live. Slowly, reluctantly, he placed his foot on the ramp and began to go up, entered the jet, then heard a small choke sound from in his arms.
SheCat gave another short cough and then a smile to the familiar face above her, then cried out a little when Remy hugged her as close as physically possible.
"Augh! Gently, gently." She gasped, still wounded despite the fact she was alive. Living was painful, yes. She caught sight of Kurt, still tear-stained face, beaming at her, used his finger to wipe a lock of hair from her face. Strobe burst into tears again, but happy tears, as the others rejoiced. Remy was past words.
"What's wrong?" She asked this in response to his wiping away a tear from his yellow-irised eye.
"Nothing, Liebchen. Nothing now."
Strobe cowered a second as the fiery heat subsided, then rose. Mentally she made a roster check: two missing, Kurt and SheCat. Reflexively wiping dust from the sides of her face, she called for them. Surely they were alright, they had covered explosions before in the Danger Room.
"Kurt! SheCat!"
The base had been reduced to rubble, with small spouts of flame darting like snake-tongues between cracks. Strobe came at last to realize the explosion had been worse than she had first thought. Her cries became frantic.
"Kurt! SheCat! Where are you?!"
A tall figure unearthed itself from under a pile of rubble. It was obviously Kurt, from the tail hanging limp, but outlines and silhouettes were all that the rising dust would allow to eyesight. He staggered a little, and Paige rushed forward to help him. He used his tail to prop himself up until Paige got to him, then fell into her arms. His uniform was smoldering and his ankle was twisted unnaturally, but he had avoided the major brunt of the explosion. Paige helped support him, seeing that he was both winded and wounded, then, when he was leaning safely against her, began to speak.
"Wow. You look wasted." A nod from him, the slightest smile. Then, "Where's SheCat?"
The dust didn't obscure the tears on his face, nor muffle Rogue's cry as she removed the body from the rubble.
SheCat had always expected dying either being agonizing or completely without pain. As it turned out, it was neither.
The explosion had hit her with a minor blow, mainly because, like Kurt, she had been lying down. It had just torn and burned the skin from her left arm and leg. But the work had been done by five adamantium claws. They hadn't hurt, but she had been almost incapable of movement. Then, in the heat she didn't feel, she had begun to sense a dull roar of pain in her body, and the fact that it was increasingly hard to see. Soon the world had bathed itself in white light and she was falling, feeling the red hot pain in her chest, not caring exactly where she was going.
She hadn't screamed, hadn't cried or complained or begged for life. She had gone peacefully, accepting it every step of the way. Like warrior. Like a hero.
She'd always wanted to be a hero.
"No!" Remy rushed forward, pushing Julie over in the process, and knelt before the body. "No no no no!"
Strobe, in turn, rushed forwards, grabbed SheCat's arm and checked for a pulse. None. Rubbing her hands together to generate electricity, she brought them down on SheCat's chest with a loud "CLEAR!". A shock of electricity rushed through her hands; there was a thump and SheCat's body lifted from the electricity. Strobe checked the pulse again. Nothing. She tried again. And again.
Paige, supporting Kurt, was in a state of shock. She had never had to endure the death of a friend. Her life had been easy; her mother and father were tolerant of her mutation, she had been asked to enroll in Xavier's before her gift even manifested. She had lived off a life of peace; reality was a harsh wake-up call. She was in denial.
Julie buried her tear-streaked face in Kitty's shoulder, who was also in a state of denial. Kitty had had to live with that annoying runt for four years, and yet now she felt that she had never even known her. What she would give for a second chance.
Rogue knelt by Remy, placed a gloved hand on his shoulder. She understood his pain. He had sworn to protect her, he had loved her like a sister. And in her one time of need he had been unable to interfere.
Strobe kept trying vainly, thinking only of channeling her energy. In times of grief she would avoid pain at any cost.
SheCat felt a vague sense of hurt, coming through her entire body, coupled with a muffled "CLEAR!". Her brain felt fuzzy; she should know what it was but she didn't. Moreover, the more she thought about it the less she cared.
Her falling ended suddenly. She landed on ground with her knees, sending spurts of pain through her thighs.
It was a field, spreading out over a vast expanse as far as her vision could see. It looked as if it had been bleached; it was white and grey and held within the flora the palest of blues, lavenders and greens. A feeling of peace washed throughout her, coloring her like watercolor. She could run now, like she would never stop. The wind was at her back and she had nowhere else to go. So she ran. She didn't care where she was going.
In his comparatively few years as an X-Man, Kurt had seen very few lives ripped suddenly away, even less done so intentionally. He didn't know it was the claws that had done the work, just believed it was the explosion, a final kamikaze act.
His eyes roamed from where Strobe had accepted defeat and had begun weeping into her hands, to where Gambit was vainly attempting CPR, blood staining his trenchcoat, to the adamantium skeleton that lay among the ruins. Yuriko's healing factor could have saved her, if there had been any healing factor left. The only living part was her bone marrow, and that was forever contained within the metal confines of her skeletal structure.
Past her was Pulsar, laying prone, half buried beneath the fallen ceiling. Had he really taken her life? Was life that temporary?
Kurt didn't know what to feel. His student, his friend, part of the team he was the leader of was nothing more than another casualty in the grand scheme of things. He hated the grand scheme of things.
He didn't notice that a prayer was rolling off his tongue, nor did he notice that Paige set him down against a piece of remaining wall. He was on an auto-pilot. Save the feelings for later. He had to get the others back to the mansion, it was his duty. And yet Liebchen was dead.
The sun was starting to set over the scene of carnage.
Out of breath, she came to a slow stop. She still felt the blades of grass touching her legs, but she couldn't see them. The world was enveloped in a white light, as if she was on a stage and spotlights that came from every direction, even the ground and sky, were beaming down on her. Strangely, she wondered if Shakespeare had had any near-death experiences. It would have explained his work if he got even half as far as she was.
The pain was gone. It had left so subtlety that she hadn't cared. Just like they wouldn't care. They never had. Tolerated her, yes. And yet she had always been an outsider.
A wave of rage swept over her. They would even dare to be happy she was gone, pleased to be rid of her.
In a zealous rage she struck out at the lights ahead of her, whirled around and attacked behind her when she struck nothing. It wasn't fair! She had done no worse then the rest of them!
Calming down, she closed her eyes.
Gambit was intensely cycling through the stages of grief at an incredibly rapid rate. CPR had failed, Strobe's shock had failed, and he resorted to the senseless acts of a mad-man. He shook her, screamed at her, begged for her life, let hot tears streak clean trails down his dust- covered face. Nothing worked.
"No! No! I won't let dis happen! No!" A pause in which he caught his breath and SheCat remained still. Reacting totally on instinct, he kissed her, passionately, then broke apart. "Dat's what you always wanted, right?! You didn't live for it! Weren't you gonna live for it?!"
"Remy, it's over, stop it! There's nothing you can do! Please, stop it!" Rogue was worried now. She had never seen him this frantic, this possessed. She, herself, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and she had barely known her. She could only imagine how he felt.
"You saved my life, why can't I save yours?! Why you? Why did it have ta be you?" His voice became diminutive, and he held the figure in his arms closer. There was no reaction again. He cradled her body and rocked gently back and forth on his knees, softly whispering "No." to himself even though it was of no use. It had been a long time since she nursed him back to health after a particularly nasty encounter with Sabretooth. It had been a long time to get to know a girl, even one so cagey as she.
SheCat gave out a low gasp. With her eyes closed, she could see what was happening across the barrier. She saw Kurt, tears down his face, saw Paige, who looked as if she was dead herself, with no spark behind her eyes, saw Strobe with her face covered, but saw the cracks between her fingers were still wet. Saw Julie, out of tears, still with her face buried in Kitty's shoulder, who's also succumbed to sobbing. Saw Rogue, dry-faced, filing her pain away in a secret section in her heart while comforting Remy. Sweet Remy, who was in a state beyond despair. If she was going to live for anything, it would be for him.
She needed a way out. She needed to find a loophole. She needed...she didn't know what she needed, only what she wanted. She wanted to live.
"No! You can't do this to me! I don't want to die anymore! I don't want to die!" She didn't know who she was screaming at. She just wanted to live, more than anything else.
Tears running from her eyes, she started to run. This time with direction.
"Remy, we must go now." Kurt's three-fingered hand joined Rogue's on Gambit's shoulder. Gambit flinched as if he'd been burned. It was nothing about Kurt, just the thought it being final. So that was it. Her death was final.
Gambit picked her up, holding her as a groom holds a bride, and started carrying her towards the jet, asking no assistance and accepting none.
Blades of grass whipped her legs as she ran, back to where she came from, back to where she landed. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps and her heart hurt as if someone had stuck a red-hot bar of metal right through it. She knew, as if it was a certain fact, that she had to get to where she landed, but the running was so hard. Her foot slammed toe-first into the ground and she stumbled forward, hit her hands and got up again. She had to make it. She had to live.
But darkness was closing in on the field, now with visible plant- life. Her vision swam and she cried for help, knowing subconsciously none would hear. She stumbled again, heart breaking and bleeding, and got up one last time.
Remy stood, foot at the edge of the ascending ramp, wondering how much grief he would cause the X-Men if he refused to return, if he continued to pursue some false hope that she might live. Slowly, reluctantly, he placed his foot on the ramp and began to go up, entered the jet, then heard a small choke sound from in his arms.
SheCat gave another short cough and then a smile to the familiar face above her, then cried out a little when Remy hugged her as close as physically possible.
"Augh! Gently, gently." She gasped, still wounded despite the fact she was alive. Living was painful, yes. She caught sight of Kurt, still tear-stained face, beaming at her, used his finger to wipe a lock of hair from her face. Strobe burst into tears again, but happy tears, as the others rejoiced. Remy was past words.
"What's wrong?" She asked this in response to his wiping away a tear from his yellow-irised eye.
"Nothing, Liebchen. Nothing now."