*********************************************************************************
The Second Ascension
Author: Jenskott
Summary: After of the Gathering of The Twelve the machine and the technology of Apocalypse was abandoned and forgotten in Akkaba. Suddenly the reality has changed drastically, without anybody realizing. What happened and who is the responsible? Can the X-Men stop and reassert the timeline in its path?
Notes: Thanks for the reviews but my egos is a bottomless pit, hungry for comments. I want more!
Before beginning I'll warn radical worshippers of the Alex/Annie pair must be disarmed in the entrance, please.
The interlude of the third part and this chapter may turn out to be confusing to who hasn't understood yet the story, so I'll explain it more clearly: I don't label this story like an AU because the interludes happen in comic cannon, although the rest of the chapters technically would be AU. But the cannon differences (Scott without shades, TO-less Nate, toddler Rachel, Betsy alive, Gambit and Rogue married) are due to the events of the interludes. The series is fully planned and I assure everything will be explained and make sense at the end. I'll repeat again the hint of the 'Ages of Apocalypse': 'Someone' had warped the reality and made the world was different suddenly. But Apocalypse is dead so who is kidnapping to The Twelve?
Continuity: Comic.
Disclaimer: X-Men belong to Marvel due to some sort of cosmic disaster. And writing nonsense disclaimers to disown stuff that all know aren't yours is boring.
Feedback: To jorgisimox@hotmail.com. I can't stress enough how badly I need advice and supports. English isn't my primary language, so excuse my mistakes.
*********************************************************************************
Part Four-
The roughened hands of Alex Summers squeezed with a tight grip the thick rope, and they tugged experimentally. Neither the cable nor the rock where it was tied had given in. Perfect.
He fixed his boots on the harsh rock and glanced at the sky above.
A crevasse was carved in the heart of a large fault, as a wound scarring the Earth's skin, built by two walls of ruthless rock drawing a wedge-like outline. They were two tall surfaces of stone jagged and sharp in the areas where the erosion hadn't corroded, smoothed and polished the land in an even, flat surface.
The younger Summers brother was becoming very familiarized with the rift at amazing speed. It was easily understandable being acquainted with the fact of he had stumbled into it accidentally. And now he was stuck between two ramparts of stone, which elongated skywards as bulwarks of a fortress. From that hole he could see the shred of cloudless blue sky silhouetted with the sharp peaks, and the solar disc lurking on a corner. Thanks to its gleaming light he was able of studying the interesting stratums of the land, wide and narrow layers of ground hardened and petrified throughout ages, streaked with beautiful colors.
"I'm looking at the ground and I fall in a pit. This sort of stuff only can happen to me." He muttered with a shake of head. His voice dripped hissing acid. "I didn't know the sight from the bottom was so pretty. Perhaps I should trip in crevasses more often. It isn't like if my skull can crack or something."
Biting and sarcastic mood was his default coping method. Joke about the sheer and blatant absurdity of his plight was one way of focusing his mind in extricating to himself out of it instead wasting time brooding uselessly. His friends could say what they would about his brother and himself, but Scott and he didn't brood or sulk during crisis. The patented and freaking Summers calm and coolness worked focusing their thoughts and sharpening theirs wits under pressure. Brood or fret or freak under pressure wasn't allowed, brooked or tolerated.
Alex supported his full weight on one leg, propelling with the other upwards. Slowly he began to climb along the wall, a sheet of stone wrinkled with jutting bulges and torn with cracks. He had been careful of tying the rope on the most uneven side, and right now his feet stepped carefully on each bump, edge, ridge and slab on the pit. As he ascended along the rift, he felt salty sweat prickling on his skin and drenching his cotton shirt in chest, back and armpits. It was a damned and bothersome nuisance.
"Are you all right, Alex?" Someone screamed from the outside, where the air was clean and the dirt didn't soil and muddle the hair.
"Yes, I believe I can manage it." He yelled back. "Don't worry!"
"Are you sure you don't want my help?"
"Positive!" He replied.
And then the cords raveled and the rope broke, like if that word was its cue.
Havok was thrown backwards with a brutal jolt, and he fell in the void, shouting. His body rolled around in mid-air while he dropped downwards, further down in the darkness. Abruptly a flaring nimbus of electrical green surrounded him and it halted his descent. He hovered silently, wrapped in glittering energy and was hauled upwards, out of the crevasse. With painstakingly care and extreme kindness he was laid down on the ground.
Alex would have kissed the dry and cracked land of dust, rubble, cobbles and boulders, but his stomach was too unsettled to perform brisk, brusque movements. And he wished maintaining a minimal pretense of dignity. Thus he remained where he lay, standing down and immobile as long as he waited his guts decided that throwing up the breakfast wasn't required or wished in that situation.
A green shadow cloaked the piercing sunlight.
Lorna sauntered in front of him, dressed in her hat, flannel shirt and jeans. The upright stance with arms akimbo was supposed to give her a stern, harsh air, but the effect was spoiled by the smirk her mouth, cheeks and eyes failed in hiding. She was chuckling of its shameful plight.
"Oh, the male pride. Downfall of civilizations, ruin of kings and cause of wars everywhere." She quipped as hunkered down and next to him. "You couldn't just follow the easiest path and ask me haul you out, could you? Dumb geologist, I don't want even thinking about the rifts, faults and crevasses could have showed on your skull." She stopped her ranting, and pecked his lips softly, without caring for the taste to powder and sweat. "A fascinating geological study located on your own head. Imagine that."
He sniggered, his mood considerably less dark after of her kiss. "Yes. When we were in Australia, Logan mumbled often my head and my whole family's ones were worthy of being studied."
A sudden shade clouded his eyes and he frowned thoughtfully. Lorna acknowledged with easiness the signs. He had just got one of his introspective moments. She parted the golden locks away of his forehead and curled one of them around a finger. "What is it, honey?"
His eyes of piercing blue looked up, at the sky. Scarce clouds dotted the deep blue of the sky with their ivory, cotton-like whiteness. Gaze the sky and contemplate its peaceful mechanics used to be a source of tranquillity and peace of mind to him. Yet it didn't impede him of brooding in his life, reflecting about his troubles and second-guessing to himself obsessively. Genetic trait, it was. "Have you ever thought what might have happened if we had accepted the offer of Val and taken the job of 'Government's muties'?"
Lorna blinked. "Are you referring to when she proposed you lead the next alignment of X-Factor?"
"Yes. I turned it down because was fed up of endless fights against malignant powers to annihilate all is good and fair in this world. I didn't join to the X-Men willingly, but because they were in troubles and I wasn't heartless. And I was particularly tired of being looking down because my big brother is best leader, best fighter and best everything. And I was downright, absolutely, utterly sick of the supervillain-of-the-week turning up of sudden and using my inferiority complex to turn me on my friends and family."
She laughed. Her laughter was caused for the sarcastic and bitterly ironic tone, but the sound was cracked, worn off and humorless. After all, she understood perfectly his feelings.
"Yes, I can tell it. You and me have been pawns of bad guys since ever. The Living Pharaoh and Magneto were the first ones of a very long list. Our friends practically expected you and me turned evil or were seduced for the dark side of the Force, simultaneously or alternatively. Erik the Red, Malice, the Goblin Queen, Sinister, Genosha, the Shadow King... We must have a knack for being brainwashed, possessed or manipulated."
She paused, pondering thoughtfully. "I believe to stay away of that crap was correct. It hadn't stopped, Alex. We'd have kept being fucked over and over and over again. Nowadays we get our degrees in Geology, and we are together. No evil plots to take over America, no shit beating us."
"You are right" He mused. He had always wanted a normal, uneventful life. And they had earned the right to lay the sword down after of their distressing super-heroes tenures.
She nodded. "Of course I'm right. Now let's go to the cottage to clean you, wash your clothes and heal your bumps, big baby."
She hauled him roughly on his feet, yanking with too strength. Alex stumbled forward, thrust for the momentum. However that lunging move really was a cunning plan to kiss her, exploiting the chance and the opening. She gasped when his lips were suddenly on her, but said nothing while he tasted her thoroughly.
While he performed a merge of lips he felt a strange sensation roaming across his body and a painful pang in his heart. A choking and aching tremor he couldn't explain really, but urged him to increase twofold the passion and tenderness of the kiss, to enjoy it with delight like if it was the last one. He used feel often that sensation when he lay down with Lorna on the bed, the awful hunch of feeling she could vanish and that happy moment would be the last one. Some friends had watched how much passion and fervor they kept in their relationship and had envied them frequently, but that devotion was due to the hesitations and uncertainties plagued him constantly.
He compared his love towards Lorna with a music box of glass, something beautiful but extremely fragile, needed of love and upkeep. It was the reason he exploited every awake moments to tell her how much he loved her and appreciated. He couldn't afford lose her. Alex loved her and needed, and above all he wanted being a better man for her.
By luck it had been increasingly easy since he quitted the X-Men. Leaving had been the only possible option to him. It had become unbearable.
In the beginning he had joined to aid in a moment of dire necessity: the first battle with the Marauders had resulted in the Morlock Massacre and the half of the team crippled and disabled. The X-Men were surviving through new members recruited hurriedly, and he felt a responsibility towards the team no unlike to Scott. The troubles emerged right away. To put it simply he wasn't made of hero's stuff, and it turned out evident very soon. He knew. Everyone knew, and they compared him with Scott, deemed unworthy, looked down on him, and longed for the Scott's leadership. He understood it -how could he don't it?- but he hated it and hated them. And he hated Scott too, because he had been the best in all since they were toddlers. Always the strongest, the fastest, the smartest. He had never allowed to Alex perform some glorious feat and let him get away with it without outdoing him accidentally. He hated him. And above all he hated to himself because Scott never deserved it. He was petty and bitter. He was sick.
But it didn't stop him to feel gradually more inadequate, useless and worthless. He was tired of everyone, always expecting something of him and being disappointed afterwards. If Lorna had been along with him it would have been annoying but bearable. But she wasn't, possessed for Malice and used as plaything for the bastard haunted to his family. Thus he turned to Madelyne to console her, and she used his forlorn feelings of loneliness, reject, loss and resentment to her own goals. She used her own plight to fuel his hatred and turn him into a weapon against Scott. He used to excuse her why she was crazy, very ill and mad. Other life shattered by Sinister, one more of a long list. But in short she had slept with him and had made him love her to take revenge on Scott. He hadn't forgiven fully to Scott for hurting her, but who was he to criticize him? He had committed adultery with his brother's wife.
In the aftermath of Inferno Illyana saved her soul, Jean was free to pursue to her soulmate, and Scott crushed to Sinister and got back his son. And him? He felt sickening dirty, pathetic and betrayed. And very lonely. During the Australian months his misery and dissatisfaction increased. The team was falling apart and he held his share of responsibility on the debacle. He didn't want being a hero, he didn't want be with them, and above all he didn't want they complained about his competence or lacking thereof.
Then they walked where the angels fear tread, the Perilous Siege: Piotr ended up being a respected artist, Betsy became a warrior and he... ended up in Genosha, hunting, torturing, beating, jailing and killing mutants. And used as pawn to destroy to his elder brother, of course. His life's story.
Villains are sorely lacking of imagination.
He had prayed, and God had delivered one answer. Straight, concise and unmistakable. He didn't belong. He couldn't be a superhero. No a full-term hero at least. And he was tired of being shadowed for his brother. He needed being again Alex Summers, gorgeous blonde boy with a boring and dull life cuddling rocks. No Havok, super-heated plasma generator and human-sized disaster. Scott had to feel the necessity for being himself likewise, because he was piloting planes in the granddad company. He was glad for him.
Alex parted lips and kissed to Lorna once more.
Lorna relished in the coppery savor of the lips, a taste salty but extremely sweet. Inwardly she was smirking. She knew he mustered so much passion in everything had to do with her due to his fear and feelings of inadequacy. He shouldn't get so scared, but speaking bluntly Alex had little to nothing of faith in himself. She resented it, but she had learnt long ago was easier forcing the sun to rise in the west than talk him into other thing. And if she was trustful, fear of loneliness and heartbreaking nestled in her chest likewise.
Quitting the X-Men hadn't been an option to her either. Malice and the Shadow King had left her filthy.
So filthy.
Malice had stolen her body and taken away her will, taking great pleasure in doing it. She had locked her away in a tiny corner of her mind while she ran around using her identity. She had allowed her see while she used her powers to hurt people, injure friends and flirt with men like Sinister. That bitch had nullified her free will and handled her physique as a fucking puppet, and worst of all she had been powerless and impotent to impede it. That bodiless whore had raped her. There wasn't other name to it. To get rid of her wasn't enough to get rid of the sick dislike, the raw repugnance and the deep repulsion she felt towards her own body. The body someone had taken over and used to get fun. She was raped, filthy, degraded, stained.
The Shadow King hadn't been anything better. He had ruled her body too. But instead of a simple possession he had dug deep within her soul until finding her darkest places. He had swum delightfully in the pools of her heart where she kept hidden her worst parts, sealed and tied in packages of fetid scum and stinking slime. He had cut them open and released the shit. He had turned upside down her self, bringing out the putrid dregs where she could recoil in horror but couldn't deny them. He had forced her to watch her own blackness, and worst of all, he had done her adore it. He had showed her the evil and she liked it. She had craved and yearned for rolling about the slime and after drinking it. She had desired being filthy, rotten in body and soul, reeking to evil and disease, drunk of amorality and corruption.
And then came the awakening. And when her mind was free of the obscene Farouk's influence, when she could choose between good and evil, she knew that she would never feel pure ever again. She was tainted forever, defiled and soiled. She felt still the slippery tendrils of oozing muck clinging to her legs and crawling upwards to cover her body and drown her.
There was something wrong in her.
There was something bad and repugnant and twisted inside her, struggling for going out. Yes, the evil was lurking and throbbing within her, feeding of the dread and waiting for a chance to arise and taste fear and pain. She could feel it affecting to her brain and tingeing of coal-black her thoughts whenever she deployed massively her power. It reminded her hugely of Jean and her own past troubles with the absolute power messing with her mind.
If she intended retaining her sanity she couldn't belong to the team. She needed get away, relax and live peacefully. Serenity to ease her fears, stability to master her mind, peace to purge her corruption and balance to nurture her light side. Important things she needed as breathe, and she had achieved thanks to Alex. He might drive her mad every so often, but she felt loved with him. A woman happy and whole.
They broke the kiss reluctantly and walked together to their home with stupid, dreamy grins on their blushing faces.
*********************************************************************************
INTERLUDE
Use to Polaris to hunt to Havok and Iceman had been petty, but effective.
Maybe it wasn't right. The woman was powerfully fucked and screwed actually. Scramble her poor head again to force her to execute that dirty job was sickening. And needless to say it was dangerous. She might have developed tolerance to the manipulations, or might strike back aggressively. And thus she had done certainly. She battled feverishly, vigorously. She used all her impressive power, blistering rage and numbing madness to give her supplementary strengths. All for the sake of saving her mind of being ravaged again and her will of being shut out and obliterated again.
But at the end, she yielded.
It was very simple wait for the perfect chance. Alex and Bobby were sent together in one mission and eventually were stranded away the group. Then Polaris assaulted to each one separately, using her rule over the iron to control their bloodstreams. Both passed out instantly and they were promptly harvested.
And the X-Men lay the blame on Polaris when Logan sniffed the trail, without suspecting who was really after of the ambush or who was pulling the chords and leading them around as puppets.
*********************************************************************************
In the next chapter we watch to Logan along with his true love (and for once I'm NOT talking about Ororo. Amazing, right?). Meanwhile the events speed up when more X-Men are fetched.
The Second Ascension
Author: Jenskott
Summary: After of the Gathering of The Twelve the machine and the technology of Apocalypse was abandoned and forgotten in Akkaba. Suddenly the reality has changed drastically, without anybody realizing. What happened and who is the responsible? Can the X-Men stop and reassert the timeline in its path?
Notes: Thanks for the reviews but my egos is a bottomless pit, hungry for comments. I want more!
Before beginning I'll warn radical worshippers of the Alex/Annie pair must be disarmed in the entrance, please.
The interlude of the third part and this chapter may turn out to be confusing to who hasn't understood yet the story, so I'll explain it more clearly: I don't label this story like an AU because the interludes happen in comic cannon, although the rest of the chapters technically would be AU. But the cannon differences (Scott without shades, TO-less Nate, toddler Rachel, Betsy alive, Gambit and Rogue married) are due to the events of the interludes. The series is fully planned and I assure everything will be explained and make sense at the end. I'll repeat again the hint of the 'Ages of Apocalypse': 'Someone' had warped the reality and made the world was different suddenly. But Apocalypse is dead so who is kidnapping to The Twelve?
Continuity: Comic.
Disclaimer: X-Men belong to Marvel due to some sort of cosmic disaster. And writing nonsense disclaimers to disown stuff that all know aren't yours is boring.
Feedback: To jorgisimox@hotmail.com. I can't stress enough how badly I need advice and supports. English isn't my primary language, so excuse my mistakes.
*********************************************************************************
Part Four-
The roughened hands of Alex Summers squeezed with a tight grip the thick rope, and they tugged experimentally. Neither the cable nor the rock where it was tied had given in. Perfect.
He fixed his boots on the harsh rock and glanced at the sky above.
A crevasse was carved in the heart of a large fault, as a wound scarring the Earth's skin, built by two walls of ruthless rock drawing a wedge-like outline. They were two tall surfaces of stone jagged and sharp in the areas where the erosion hadn't corroded, smoothed and polished the land in an even, flat surface.
The younger Summers brother was becoming very familiarized with the rift at amazing speed. It was easily understandable being acquainted with the fact of he had stumbled into it accidentally. And now he was stuck between two ramparts of stone, which elongated skywards as bulwarks of a fortress. From that hole he could see the shred of cloudless blue sky silhouetted with the sharp peaks, and the solar disc lurking on a corner. Thanks to its gleaming light he was able of studying the interesting stratums of the land, wide and narrow layers of ground hardened and petrified throughout ages, streaked with beautiful colors.
"I'm looking at the ground and I fall in a pit. This sort of stuff only can happen to me." He muttered with a shake of head. His voice dripped hissing acid. "I didn't know the sight from the bottom was so pretty. Perhaps I should trip in crevasses more often. It isn't like if my skull can crack or something."
Biting and sarcastic mood was his default coping method. Joke about the sheer and blatant absurdity of his plight was one way of focusing his mind in extricating to himself out of it instead wasting time brooding uselessly. His friends could say what they would about his brother and himself, but Scott and he didn't brood or sulk during crisis. The patented and freaking Summers calm and coolness worked focusing their thoughts and sharpening theirs wits under pressure. Brood or fret or freak under pressure wasn't allowed, brooked or tolerated.
Alex supported his full weight on one leg, propelling with the other upwards. Slowly he began to climb along the wall, a sheet of stone wrinkled with jutting bulges and torn with cracks. He had been careful of tying the rope on the most uneven side, and right now his feet stepped carefully on each bump, edge, ridge and slab on the pit. As he ascended along the rift, he felt salty sweat prickling on his skin and drenching his cotton shirt in chest, back and armpits. It was a damned and bothersome nuisance.
"Are you all right, Alex?" Someone screamed from the outside, where the air was clean and the dirt didn't soil and muddle the hair.
"Yes, I believe I can manage it." He yelled back. "Don't worry!"
"Are you sure you don't want my help?"
"Positive!" He replied.
And then the cords raveled and the rope broke, like if that word was its cue.
Havok was thrown backwards with a brutal jolt, and he fell in the void, shouting. His body rolled around in mid-air while he dropped downwards, further down in the darkness. Abruptly a flaring nimbus of electrical green surrounded him and it halted his descent. He hovered silently, wrapped in glittering energy and was hauled upwards, out of the crevasse. With painstakingly care and extreme kindness he was laid down on the ground.
Alex would have kissed the dry and cracked land of dust, rubble, cobbles and boulders, but his stomach was too unsettled to perform brisk, brusque movements. And he wished maintaining a minimal pretense of dignity. Thus he remained where he lay, standing down and immobile as long as he waited his guts decided that throwing up the breakfast wasn't required or wished in that situation.
A green shadow cloaked the piercing sunlight.
Lorna sauntered in front of him, dressed in her hat, flannel shirt and jeans. The upright stance with arms akimbo was supposed to give her a stern, harsh air, but the effect was spoiled by the smirk her mouth, cheeks and eyes failed in hiding. She was chuckling of its shameful plight.
"Oh, the male pride. Downfall of civilizations, ruin of kings and cause of wars everywhere." She quipped as hunkered down and next to him. "You couldn't just follow the easiest path and ask me haul you out, could you? Dumb geologist, I don't want even thinking about the rifts, faults and crevasses could have showed on your skull." She stopped her ranting, and pecked his lips softly, without caring for the taste to powder and sweat. "A fascinating geological study located on your own head. Imagine that."
He sniggered, his mood considerably less dark after of her kiss. "Yes. When we were in Australia, Logan mumbled often my head and my whole family's ones were worthy of being studied."
A sudden shade clouded his eyes and he frowned thoughtfully. Lorna acknowledged with easiness the signs. He had just got one of his introspective moments. She parted the golden locks away of his forehead and curled one of them around a finger. "What is it, honey?"
His eyes of piercing blue looked up, at the sky. Scarce clouds dotted the deep blue of the sky with their ivory, cotton-like whiteness. Gaze the sky and contemplate its peaceful mechanics used to be a source of tranquillity and peace of mind to him. Yet it didn't impede him of brooding in his life, reflecting about his troubles and second-guessing to himself obsessively. Genetic trait, it was. "Have you ever thought what might have happened if we had accepted the offer of Val and taken the job of 'Government's muties'?"
Lorna blinked. "Are you referring to when she proposed you lead the next alignment of X-Factor?"
"Yes. I turned it down because was fed up of endless fights against malignant powers to annihilate all is good and fair in this world. I didn't join to the X-Men willingly, but because they were in troubles and I wasn't heartless. And I was particularly tired of being looking down because my big brother is best leader, best fighter and best everything. And I was downright, absolutely, utterly sick of the supervillain-of-the-week turning up of sudden and using my inferiority complex to turn me on my friends and family."
She laughed. Her laughter was caused for the sarcastic and bitterly ironic tone, but the sound was cracked, worn off and humorless. After all, she understood perfectly his feelings.
"Yes, I can tell it. You and me have been pawns of bad guys since ever. The Living Pharaoh and Magneto were the first ones of a very long list. Our friends practically expected you and me turned evil or were seduced for the dark side of the Force, simultaneously or alternatively. Erik the Red, Malice, the Goblin Queen, Sinister, Genosha, the Shadow King... We must have a knack for being brainwashed, possessed or manipulated."
She paused, pondering thoughtfully. "I believe to stay away of that crap was correct. It hadn't stopped, Alex. We'd have kept being fucked over and over and over again. Nowadays we get our degrees in Geology, and we are together. No evil plots to take over America, no shit beating us."
"You are right" He mused. He had always wanted a normal, uneventful life. And they had earned the right to lay the sword down after of their distressing super-heroes tenures.
She nodded. "Of course I'm right. Now let's go to the cottage to clean you, wash your clothes and heal your bumps, big baby."
She hauled him roughly on his feet, yanking with too strength. Alex stumbled forward, thrust for the momentum. However that lunging move really was a cunning plan to kiss her, exploiting the chance and the opening. She gasped when his lips were suddenly on her, but said nothing while he tasted her thoroughly.
While he performed a merge of lips he felt a strange sensation roaming across his body and a painful pang in his heart. A choking and aching tremor he couldn't explain really, but urged him to increase twofold the passion and tenderness of the kiss, to enjoy it with delight like if it was the last one. He used feel often that sensation when he lay down with Lorna on the bed, the awful hunch of feeling she could vanish and that happy moment would be the last one. Some friends had watched how much passion and fervor they kept in their relationship and had envied them frequently, but that devotion was due to the hesitations and uncertainties plagued him constantly.
He compared his love towards Lorna with a music box of glass, something beautiful but extremely fragile, needed of love and upkeep. It was the reason he exploited every awake moments to tell her how much he loved her and appreciated. He couldn't afford lose her. Alex loved her and needed, and above all he wanted being a better man for her.
By luck it had been increasingly easy since he quitted the X-Men. Leaving had been the only possible option to him. It had become unbearable.
In the beginning he had joined to aid in a moment of dire necessity: the first battle with the Marauders had resulted in the Morlock Massacre and the half of the team crippled and disabled. The X-Men were surviving through new members recruited hurriedly, and he felt a responsibility towards the team no unlike to Scott. The troubles emerged right away. To put it simply he wasn't made of hero's stuff, and it turned out evident very soon. He knew. Everyone knew, and they compared him with Scott, deemed unworthy, looked down on him, and longed for the Scott's leadership. He understood it -how could he don't it?- but he hated it and hated them. And he hated Scott too, because he had been the best in all since they were toddlers. Always the strongest, the fastest, the smartest. He had never allowed to Alex perform some glorious feat and let him get away with it without outdoing him accidentally. He hated him. And above all he hated to himself because Scott never deserved it. He was petty and bitter. He was sick.
But it didn't stop him to feel gradually more inadequate, useless and worthless. He was tired of everyone, always expecting something of him and being disappointed afterwards. If Lorna had been along with him it would have been annoying but bearable. But she wasn't, possessed for Malice and used as plaything for the bastard haunted to his family. Thus he turned to Madelyne to console her, and she used his forlorn feelings of loneliness, reject, loss and resentment to her own goals. She used her own plight to fuel his hatred and turn him into a weapon against Scott. He used to excuse her why she was crazy, very ill and mad. Other life shattered by Sinister, one more of a long list. But in short she had slept with him and had made him love her to take revenge on Scott. He hadn't forgiven fully to Scott for hurting her, but who was he to criticize him? He had committed adultery with his brother's wife.
In the aftermath of Inferno Illyana saved her soul, Jean was free to pursue to her soulmate, and Scott crushed to Sinister and got back his son. And him? He felt sickening dirty, pathetic and betrayed. And very lonely. During the Australian months his misery and dissatisfaction increased. The team was falling apart and he held his share of responsibility on the debacle. He didn't want being a hero, he didn't want be with them, and above all he didn't want they complained about his competence or lacking thereof.
Then they walked where the angels fear tread, the Perilous Siege: Piotr ended up being a respected artist, Betsy became a warrior and he... ended up in Genosha, hunting, torturing, beating, jailing and killing mutants. And used as pawn to destroy to his elder brother, of course. His life's story.
Villains are sorely lacking of imagination.
He had prayed, and God had delivered one answer. Straight, concise and unmistakable. He didn't belong. He couldn't be a superhero. No a full-term hero at least. And he was tired of being shadowed for his brother. He needed being again Alex Summers, gorgeous blonde boy with a boring and dull life cuddling rocks. No Havok, super-heated plasma generator and human-sized disaster. Scott had to feel the necessity for being himself likewise, because he was piloting planes in the granddad company. He was glad for him.
Alex parted lips and kissed to Lorna once more.
Lorna relished in the coppery savor of the lips, a taste salty but extremely sweet. Inwardly she was smirking. She knew he mustered so much passion in everything had to do with her due to his fear and feelings of inadequacy. He shouldn't get so scared, but speaking bluntly Alex had little to nothing of faith in himself. She resented it, but she had learnt long ago was easier forcing the sun to rise in the west than talk him into other thing. And if she was trustful, fear of loneliness and heartbreaking nestled in her chest likewise.
Quitting the X-Men hadn't been an option to her either. Malice and the Shadow King had left her filthy.
So filthy.
Malice had stolen her body and taken away her will, taking great pleasure in doing it. She had locked her away in a tiny corner of her mind while she ran around using her identity. She had allowed her see while she used her powers to hurt people, injure friends and flirt with men like Sinister. That bitch had nullified her free will and handled her physique as a fucking puppet, and worst of all she had been powerless and impotent to impede it. That bodiless whore had raped her. There wasn't other name to it. To get rid of her wasn't enough to get rid of the sick dislike, the raw repugnance and the deep repulsion she felt towards her own body. The body someone had taken over and used to get fun. She was raped, filthy, degraded, stained.
The Shadow King hadn't been anything better. He had ruled her body too. But instead of a simple possession he had dug deep within her soul until finding her darkest places. He had swum delightfully in the pools of her heart where she kept hidden her worst parts, sealed and tied in packages of fetid scum and stinking slime. He had cut them open and released the shit. He had turned upside down her self, bringing out the putrid dregs where she could recoil in horror but couldn't deny them. He had forced her to watch her own blackness, and worst of all, he had done her adore it. He had showed her the evil and she liked it. She had craved and yearned for rolling about the slime and after drinking it. She had desired being filthy, rotten in body and soul, reeking to evil and disease, drunk of amorality and corruption.
And then came the awakening. And when her mind was free of the obscene Farouk's influence, when she could choose between good and evil, she knew that she would never feel pure ever again. She was tainted forever, defiled and soiled. She felt still the slippery tendrils of oozing muck clinging to her legs and crawling upwards to cover her body and drown her.
There was something wrong in her.
There was something bad and repugnant and twisted inside her, struggling for going out. Yes, the evil was lurking and throbbing within her, feeding of the dread and waiting for a chance to arise and taste fear and pain. She could feel it affecting to her brain and tingeing of coal-black her thoughts whenever she deployed massively her power. It reminded her hugely of Jean and her own past troubles with the absolute power messing with her mind.
If she intended retaining her sanity she couldn't belong to the team. She needed get away, relax and live peacefully. Serenity to ease her fears, stability to master her mind, peace to purge her corruption and balance to nurture her light side. Important things she needed as breathe, and she had achieved thanks to Alex. He might drive her mad every so often, but she felt loved with him. A woman happy and whole.
They broke the kiss reluctantly and walked together to their home with stupid, dreamy grins on their blushing faces.
*********************************************************************************
INTERLUDE
Use to Polaris to hunt to Havok and Iceman had been petty, but effective.
Maybe it wasn't right. The woman was powerfully fucked and screwed actually. Scramble her poor head again to force her to execute that dirty job was sickening. And needless to say it was dangerous. She might have developed tolerance to the manipulations, or might strike back aggressively. And thus she had done certainly. She battled feverishly, vigorously. She used all her impressive power, blistering rage and numbing madness to give her supplementary strengths. All for the sake of saving her mind of being ravaged again and her will of being shut out and obliterated again.
But at the end, she yielded.
It was very simple wait for the perfect chance. Alex and Bobby were sent together in one mission and eventually were stranded away the group. Then Polaris assaulted to each one separately, using her rule over the iron to control their bloodstreams. Both passed out instantly and they were promptly harvested.
And the X-Men lay the blame on Polaris when Logan sniffed the trail, without suspecting who was really after of the ambush or who was pulling the chords and leading them around as puppets.
*********************************************************************************
In the next chapter we watch to Logan along with his true love (and for once I'm NOT talking about Ororo. Amazing, right?). Meanwhile the events speed up when more X-Men are fetched.