Agent-G: I know what the big-bad is. I'm just being an evil author, you of all people should know that! The only lose end is the name of the big-bad. If you haven't guessed: I'm using an OC for that one.But I don't think it's fun to let them know who they are facing untill the very, very last second. Same goes for the readers grin.
A/N: personally, I hate the first part of this chapter, blegh...
Fighting Destiny - Approaching destiny
It had taken a long time to convince Piotr and Remy of the truth to their story and by the time the rest was convinced that Remy and Piotr weren't going to attack them in the middle of the night, it was already night and Marianne and Michael had retired to their room. There was just so much of the endless argument between Scott and Remy one could take.
But still, neither of them could sleep. Marianne because she worried over the prediction Irene had made and Michael because he worried over Marianne.
"Michael?" she asked after a while.
"Yeah?"
"What if something goes wrong?" she asked in a small voice.
"What do you mean? What if we can't get back? We'll just make a life for ourselves here," he smiled softly.
"No, what if... what if one of us doesn't make it out? What will happen to you if I would die in there?" Michael heard that she was serious.
"Marianne, look at me," he sat up, took her hand and put it over his heart, "if you die, the beating you feel under your hand will stop, I would die with you. Whatever happends to you, I will feel it. So don't even think for a split second that you'll die. Anne, if I stand there, in our dimension, and your not there with me, alive, then I won't set another foot."
"Don't talk like that, Michael," Marianne was near to burst into tears.
"Anne, I wouldn't know what to do without you..." he wanted to say more but Marianne cut him off.
"The same you do as when I'm with you. Well, except for this," she leaned in and kissed him softly.
- = Other Dimension = -
All the alarms suddenly, in the middle of the night, went off. Everyone knew, once they were fully awake, that this only meant one thing: the big rift was forming. The one who could destroy their own dimension with ease. Never before had everyone gotten their uniforms on that quickly and had it down to the briefing-room that fast. Grim expression seemed to be on everyone's face as they waited for Forge and Ben to find the location of the big rift.
"Well," Forge entered the room early next morning, "We have good news and we have bad news."
"Good!" they all yelled, feeling that good news would soften the blow.
"We found the locations, Central America, middle of nowhere. Ben is programming a flight path towards it into the jet," Forge sat down, "the bad news is that this is real and overloading the rift with energy won't work. We can't generate as much energy to close the rift even if we would fly the jet into the damned thing."
- = With Marianne and Michael = -
They were on their way to the location Kitty and Marianne had pinpointed. Michael was seated next to Marianne and kept throwing glances at her. The conversation they had had last night had set of an alarm in his head. He had the feeling that there was something Marianne wasn't telling him, and that worried him: it was very rare that Marianne kept something from him. Most of the time that was when she had gotten hurt when he wasn't at the safehouse.
Rogue also kept looking at the couple from her backseat: she clearly remembered what Marianne had told her the day Rogue had seen her argueing with Irene: if she faced this, it was her destiny to die. Marianne had obviously not told Michael about Irene's warning, otherwise Michael would at least have seemed a bit more stressed out about this.
It seemed to take an eternity before the jet landed, it was quiet as the group left it. The first thing that Marianne noticed that what she saw was not what she usually saw. She saw currents of energy, they all seemed to originate in one point.
'Emily, what's going on?' Marianne asked the entity hesitantly.
'We're close, the closer we are, the more powerful I become. You're picking up on my abilities. I remember now,' Emily's voice was a mere whisper, apparently awed by a long forgotten memory, 'Long ago, after the first split, there was an entity created to prevent further splitting. The power of the entity was uncontrollable, the powers corrupted it, it craved more and more. We could not allow it. It knew that, and tried to evade us, it failed, I was among those who finished it off. I remember now, its last words. It said that it would return. This is one of its 'eggs', it has started to hatch, and to grow, it needs the energy of an entire dimension flow through it into this dimension so that it can sustain the hatchling.'
'You're telling me that we need to destroy a baby?!' Marianne was horrified by what Emily had told her.
'It is not a baby, a baby does not destroy dimensions in order to grow,' Emily retorted.
'I will not have any part of it!' Marianne couldn't believe it, 'if we destroy it... it's still so young! If we destroy it, we're no worse then the entity you destroyed!'
'You will have part of it. It is your destiny. I could not see it untill now, but you had the ability to trap me in your mind, you will have the ability to destroy it because we are one!' Emily was losing her patience with the debate.
'How can I? I'm not a fighter! I'm a doctor,' Marianne pleaded desperately.
"Marianne! Anne!" Michael's voice broke through to her, she blinked several times before looking up at him.
"Anne, are you allright?" he asked worriedly, she could see that the others looking at her.
"I'm fine, I had a discussion with Emily. So, everyone ready? It's over there," Marianne pointed towards where she could see the energy bundle up.
"How do you know zhat?" Kurt looked at her.
"Emily's getting stronger the closer we get to it. I'm using her abilities," Marianne tapped the right side of her head, before starting to follow the currents, to only come to the conclusion that her way blocked by a rather large rock because she collided with it head first.
"Ouch, that hurt," she groaned while rubbing her head.
- = Other dimension = -
"So, you're, like, sure it's here?" Kitty looked sceptical at Forge.
"Yes, the readings are getting stronger here, and I'd think that all of this would kind of, I don't know, give it away?" Forge gestured around himself, and indeed, their surroundings looked like a video game that was either still in construction or being demolished. And considering their situation, it was closer to destruction then being put back together.
- = With Marianne and Michael = -
"Kurt! Look out!" Jean's warning was just in time for Kurt to teleport away before being crushed by a very eager, carnivorous plant.
Remy and Scott had blown the rock apart to reveal, what appeared to be a long, deep cave. After about ten minutes of walking, they had run into an overactive piece of weed.
"Where's Ezra when ya need 'r?" Marianne yelped as she saw it.
"Ezra?" Rogue looked slightly thrown of by that.
"A girl I took care of in my own dimension. She can control plants," Marianne replied before jumping out of the way from the plant.
"You go on, petite, Remy'll take care of the weed," Remy threw some charged cards at the plant.
"I never thought I would say this, but: I agree with Remy. We move on. Be carefull!" Scott ordered.
"I'll stay too, this overgrown daffodil needs to chill," Bobby grinned, before freezing a large portion of the plant. Scott agreed with this and the rest moved further. (A/N: I know it's weird, but it has to be like this in order for the coming chapters to work)
- = Other Dimension = -
"Why exactly are we doin' dis?" Remy wondered out loud, next to Tank.
"Cause we can't give up," Tank shrugged, "it's what we do: we'll be stubborn, fight against the odds and somehow come out as the winners. Well, it's either that or front row tickets to the end of the world. Either way, I'm there."
"Mon ami, you are not well in de head. Remy likes it," Remy grinned.
They were getting closer, the disturbances were getting bigger and they had divided into teams, under the strict orders not to leave anyone behind. It wasn't like they were going to, the chances of losing someone were far too big, as were the missing pieces of, what used to be, earth, sky, anything. And those spots were rapidly expanding.
- = With Marianne and Michael = -
There were just three left, just Marianne, Michael and Rogue. Kitty and Kurt had both been knocked out by a surprise rockslide, Scott had staid behind with Ray and Amara to try and fend of, what looked most like gargoyles or something. Piotr and the rest had been seperated from Michael, Marianne and Rogue by some kind of wall coming down between them and a very large piece of floor sinking away, making it impossible to get to the other side.
It was just at the end of the corridor, Marianne knew it: the currents got more and more powerful, well, that and Emily yelling at her that she needed to get ready.
"Whoa, why do Ah think that that's the bad guy?" Rogue shuddered as they came to the end of the corridor.
"Because, Rogue, that is the bad guy," Marianne winced looking at it, with what she was able to see now, it hurt her eyes: it seemed like a grand statue trapped in a vortex of energy. Somehow, she was drawn towards it: there was a strange beauty to the statue. She had to come closer to it.
"Anne! Stop!" she heard Michael yell, "What are you doing?!"
"Facing my destiny, and I'm going to fight it, Michael, with every fibre in my body, with every concious thought in my mind," she replied, stepping even closer towards it, she was now so close she could feel the energy, it burned against her skin and it hurt. It hurt so much, but she wouldn't cry, if she broke down now, she wouldn't stand a chance against her destiny.
She closed her eyes for a minute, when she opened them, she was just in time to see the energy rush towards her and envelope her, trapping her in the vortex. She could hear Michael scream her name, but then, excruciating pain overtook her and she crumbled...