After the Merge
Author: Jenskott
Summary: What if when Cyclops merged with Apocalypse, he kept accidentally any of the power?
Notes: Thank you very much for the reviews! I want more! And regarding to the questions: The characterizations Scott and Jean had in Lobdell era (Perfect Leader and X-Mother) were wildly different of their personalities in Claremont era. They seemed me very artificial, like if they were being forced to rehearse a role they hated. Jean was fed-up of acting like a psychologist, she felt betrayed by the Professor and her husband had nearly dead in the Dream's name... Of course she blew up.
Rating: PG-13 for some language.
Feedback: To I need opinions, please. They will be read, reckoned with and worshipped.
Part Four. Wall of Bricks-
The Danger Room vibrated with still another explosion of light and fire. Flame-throwers unleashed tongues of golden blazes, machine guns shot barrages of aggressive bullets, spiked iron balls fell from the ceiling, pits opened on the floor, and gas, blaring alarms and flashing lights invaded the battleground.
Given that X-Force was using the training chamber, explosions weren't unexpected. Destruction is meant to reign around the confident, boisterous and reckless mutant group. However there was something amiss in the crowd's behavior during their duel with the program. An odd kind of lightness overpowering them. An elation easing a weight of hurt, fear and regret constricting their chests.
Nathan 'Cable' Summers had snapped out of the coma.
Domino beamed thinly, with wistful motherly pride, as her team shattered and blew up more murderer devices. It was nice seeing them happy and smiling after the last hellish weeks. Murky days of terrible anguish and wrenching uncertainty and frightful grieving. When Nathan had stirred violently on his biobed, before awakening, the... mirth had chased the gloominess away had been almost too much to bear. She felt exhilarated, and the kids were bursting with energy.
So she had dragged them to the Danger Room, where they could vent their pent-up distress constructively without obliterating innocent properties. Nearly everyone was gathered: Sam, Danny, Bobby, Tabitha, James, Bedlam, Terry, Julio and Shatterstar. It felt... right they were all together. The sight brought her memories of happier times where they were a dysfunctional family. She ignored the faint and nagging voice asking her if she missed them. If she wanted the things back to the way they used to.
A very dangerous thought.
Abruptly she laughed. "It's useless you try creeping up stealthily on me, little girl. I know you're here since the first moment."
The noiseless footsteps her ears had detected stopped. They were substituted by a derisive chuckle. "The old man was bragging on how good you're. I was going to check it."
The beautiful raven-haired woman didn't alter her watchful stance, but she tilted her head a fraction to regard with piercing purple eyes to the short, slim teenager. Se didn't question how she had come into without setting off the safety command stopped the program. Her eyesight had spotted behind the girl the trapdoor led to the Morlock Tunnels. It was opened. And shadows gleamed on the hole.
"Sarah, right? What is your opinion now?"
"That I owe to Wolverine an apology."
A shark-like grin split her face. However it was less mischievous and sincerer than usual in her. Marrow had changed quite since her terrorist days. She wore casual attire, a plain maroon T-shirt and dark-blue overalls made of unstable molecules. Saw-edged spikes of bone jutted out of her skin, but they only stuck out of her knees, elbows, covering her shoulders as armor plates, and shaping a horned crown on her forehead. Through hard training she had gained considerable control about her power.
"Sarah!" A nice voice, with thick but charming accent, wavered on the air. Sam Guthrie landed smoothly in front of them, doused in the amber glow of his crackling force field, showing a big smile shining on his mouth. Sarah smiled weakly... Or coyly? Domino quirked an amazed eyebrow. "Since when are you here?"
She giggled nervously and scratched her crown. Unbeknownst to her, Domino gaped. The little psychopath was acting as a shy teen girl? "I've just come back from visiting to Callisto. I didn't know you were training now."
As they conversed, the rest of X-Force gathered around them. Some of them were surprised, others glad or wary. Tabitha showed a decidedly hostile scowl.
"So have you been crawling amidst rats now?" She huffed diffidently. "Certainly you smell like one."
Silence. "Well" The proud Morlock rebuked with a smoldering glare. "I rather prefer smell like a rodent than be one. And I prefer the ones with four legs and tail before humans who cross her boyfriend with his best friend, force him to eat her shit when they're feeling bad, and expect he returns as a sick puppy when they feel better. "
"How you DARE." Her eyes flashed and Tabitha felt energy building up inside her and hissing on her fingertips. Rage and guilt ate her and fueled at once, and she was on the brink of attacking when Domino slipped smoothly between them and blocked her eyesight. Her foreboding, ominous leer promised considerable pain if she struck. Meltdown relented with a jittery shudder.
Domino spun around to throw her threatening glare at Marrow, and although the rose-haired girl stood her ground, her frown diluted in a mollified and abashed countenance. She sighed, glad of having steered the crisis. Since X-Force had returned to the mansion, Sarah and Tabitha had been on the each other's throats. And nobody needed to ask why.
"God, I'm hungry" Sam voiced nervously with a forced smile. "May we go up to the kitchen and nibble anything?"
Both women shot him heated glares capable of melting lead, and he backed down with a squirming, frightened squeal. It was interesting and funny check Cannonball was so clueless like his mentor about love matters.
"Sometimes I wish I have stayed in Asgard." Danielle Moonstar mumbled darkly, shaking her head. "I'm glad of Mr. Summers is fine -or as fine as he's capable of in this situation-, but what is there about his father? He remains stuck in a coma." She spoke out loud, knowing her reflection would change the subject instantly.
Surprisingly, Marrow was the first in speaking. "Please" She sputtered "If is true the half of one quarter of the things I've heard and read about the upworlder, he'll come out of it."
Sam nodded firmly. "Mr. Summers is a fighter, like his son, or his daughter, or his wife. Just like them, he'll rise from his ashes."
The buzz wasn't less monotone or more bearable now than in the first day, Jean thought dejectedly.
"Jean, are you sure of you want doing this without further backup?"
"Absolutely sure, Charles." Her voice was haggard, but otherwise emotionless.
Nathan and she sat together by the Scott's bedside. They were slightly hunched onwards, reading his face anxiously as he kept drowned in the abyss of a permanent dream. Jean's eyes stung with the tears and the glittering lights of the infirmary, but she contemplated his features, carving them in her perfect memory. His brittle brown hair, his bulged forehead, his perky nose, his thin lips parted with each breath, his manly chin. Under that light someone might mistake that coma for a deep and peaceful slumber.
Her hands wrung her skirt's folds shakily. Weeks. Weeks since his husband was a motionless vegetal laid on that mattress and confined in that lab. She'd not brook it longer.
"I agree with Jean, Professor" Nathan voiced sternly, glaring at Xavier with a stony look. Phoenix peeked sideways to him. With wary curiosity. There been only were hours since he'd awoken, but she'd noticed of something odd between Charles and him. Although Nate didn't trust in the Professor, he respected him. However she was sensing a lot stored hostility boiling in him beneath layers of tough chilliness.
She repressed a gasp of realization. Had he 'heard' somehow their conversation back that day?
Meanwhile, Cable kept on talking the Professor into his plan. "We don't know what can lie underneath the Scott's mind, Professor. Traps, pitfalls, gaps, labyrinths, anything. It's rather dangerous go down to one telepath. Two telepaths can protect at each other if someone sets off a trap, and you can monitor our progress from outside, only in case. It's reasonable and practical."
It was. The Professor sighed. Nathan had given perfectly valid and solid arguments, acting as a military boss instead of a stubborn teen. And like the great strategist he was, Cable knew that'd disarm him. He couldn't refute his plan. However Xavier knew it boiled down to one thing: it was his own guilt -by involving Scott in this- against a double Summers guilt trip -Nathan grieved by not having taken his father's place and Jean mourned by not having protected her spouse-. Never he had a prayer to convince them.
With a weary and defeated expression, he nodded. "All right. Please, be careful."
Mother and son nodded back. The broad, rough Nathan's hand grabbed the little and smooth Jean's fingers, squeezing them reassuringly. Both of them shut their eyes and Phoenix rested two fingers on Cyclops' forehead.
Of sudden they soared through the astral plane, gliding among millions of minds, dodging billions of thoughts, and heading for the familiar Scott's signature. The two shooting stars of liquid golden fire and crackling orange flames skimmed alongside the verge of his mind. After an instant of still hesitation, they plunged into it.
It's almost impossible define to a headblind like works a telepath's mind. Mainly because the telepaths operate with thoughts, no with words, and the individual thoughts are too personal to be transferred to another person without changes or misinterpretations. It can be said there's a first level, where the telepath senses or sends the brain waves as if they were sounds. That's the hearing layer. At a second level, the thoughts or remembrances shape visions the telepath can interpret like pictures. That's the sight level. When a high-level telepath slid his or her conscience into other mind, the psionic power translates automatically the synapses and electric impulses in images.
The images Nathan and Jean were seeing within Scott frightened them.
Rogue clenching Ms. Marvel's throat as she stole her powers. Kitty seeing to Piotr speared on the chest by Deathbird. Remy taking from Sinister a capsule would cost him his soul. Sarah watching Sabertooth disemboweling innocent people. Ororo finding her parent's corpses. Bobby watching Lorna fanning Alex. Warren cleaving off Hodge's head with his sharp wings. Piotr seeing his sister twisted in a horrible demon. Jubilee tortured by Bastion. Betsy crippled by Slaymaster. Lorna possessed by Malice. The Professor watching his son bedridden.
Sketches and flashes of the most traumatic, most awful and saddest times in X-Men's lives were flashing quickly around of them as a lightning storm. But there were other visions, more dreadful by far. Scenes of barren landscapes carpeted with cadavers, where the ground was a crimson lake due to the blood leaking out of the corpses. And on the red sky streaked with ebony thunderclouds, crows and vultures hovered on relentless circles. Images of war and death and desolation and bloodshed. And everyone giving off vibes of cruelty, of greediness, of violence, of bloodlust. Those were Apocalypse's memories.
But Scott's soul wasn't visible at anywhere.
"Stab his eyes!" Nathan swore bitterly. "That bastard won't leave him alone even after his death."
"That isn't the worst thing, Nathan. Look!" Jean pointed upwards.
The 'place' where they stood was a kind of glass-made dome. And the thin walls shuddered and vibrated constantly. Voices, shouts, whispers and cries were heard, like spectral gusts of wind shook the chamber. Like if they were in a house with the walls too thin to keep the neighbors' voices out.
And the voices weren't memories. They were conversations could be happening right now, random thoughts Scott couldn't know, idle musings he couldn't have heard.
Jean gulped heavily, feeling old remembrances being stirred. And asphyxiating her.
"What the fuck is going on here?" Her cracked voice muttered. The familiarity was too awful.
"Jean, look at that!" Nathan warned.
She whirled around to watch other image. An Apocalypse's memory. Almost the last one. Cable diving on him, brandishing his psimitar. He blasting repeatedly, unleashing tongues of power without any effect. The razor-sharp pike slashing downwards, and hacking him off the Summers' brain. Then, with a last burst of fury, telepathy entwining with telekinesis and lashing him out of his host's mind. The power abandoning him in the process, and the last supply spent instinctively in molding a new body. However, remnants of the energy were left behind.
Jean contemplated horrified the chain of events. "Holy... Pieces of the power of the Twelve are still in Scott. That means..." Her lips emitted a strangled, wheezing gasp. "He's now telepath! But he's unable of controlling it, and everyone's thoughts are driving him catatonic!" It wasn't a wonder he didn't wake up.
Nathan nodded grimly. "Needless to say the garbage of Nur's mind isn't helping." He placed a hand on her shoulder and stroked it gently. He needed being strong for her mother. "Cheer up, Redd. We know now the trouble. And we know how fix it."
Jean controlled her shivers and nodded. A frown started to harden her gorgeous features. "You're right. It'll be a load of work. We have no time to relive old, painful memories." Her fists clenched determinedly. She couldn't waste time in regretting and weeping. She needed being strong for Scott. She had to focus on the task. "The first thing is build mental shields. A-"
"Wall of bricks." Cable completed the sentence. "Come on."
Jean was the most experienced so she began. Her eyes studied carefully the shattered dome, perusing each crack, seam and rift fracturing the barrier. She spread onwards her palms and strands of rose energy gushed forth from her fingers. Thousands of strings stuck on the vault, entwining together and weaving a thick, multi-layered cobweb of thinking along the borders of the mind. No strand was frayed or raveled. When she was done, Nathan imagined a large boulder of grey stone and placed it on the border of the net. His mind started piling up one square brick after other, building the bulwarks of a towering, castle-like stronghold. In an afterthought he erected a postern on the wall.
When he put the last block, the voices piercing the brain stopped at last. Both breathed reassured.
The first chore was over. But there still was a lot job left to do. As they searched for Scott, Jean and Nathan began to acknowledge, separate and box away every image. Likewise they wiped thoroughly each Apocalypse's shard they came across, cleansing carefully Scott's brain off his slime.
When the swamp was clearer of gunk and sludge they found him. He was squatted in a corner, with his head buried in his knees, shivering fretfully. Tendrils of darkness swirled around him. An unbidden recollection flashed on Jean's eyes. Of a redhead ten-year huddled in a nook of her own head, writhing and shrinking to hide of the voices. A sliver of pain stabbed her aching heart.
Her son and she floated gradually to both Scott's sides.
Scott. Wake up
The hunched, glum shape quivered, startled. Who's Scott?
You're
He lifted his head up with painfully slowness. They were in front of him, but his glowing eyes gazed dimly at the skyline. They didn't miss his glazed, dilated pupils. I don't know anyone named Scott
Yes, you do! You're him! She sounded desperate.
No. I'm a hero. I'm a thief. I'm a teenager. I'm an old man. I'm a student. I'm a professor. I'm a prankster. I'm a depressed. I'm a scientific. I'm a dictator. I'm a runaway. I'm a millionaire. I'm a god. I'm an animal. I'm a man. I'm a woman. I can be anyone and anyone can be me. Voices and memories swim in my head and I can't deduce fiction from reality. I don't know if I'm real or not. How can you know I'm real, let alone who I am? Perhaps you're more ghosts sent to torture me
Listen to me Nathan commanded with a rough and still gentle tone that Jean had heard thousands of times in other lips. You're Scott Summers. My father. Her husband. You've saved a world and the battle has torn you apart. But it's over. Return with us to rest. To home
I don't know which my home is. I don't know who I am He repeated stubbornly.
I'll show you. We'll do it Jean draped her arms around his neck and her remembrances seeped in him.
He watched the first image of the shy but polite kid who had kindly offered her one chair instead of hitting on her like her other teammates. The long classes, the study sessions, the graduation. The fights against Magneto, Vanisher, Blob, Unus, the Brotherhood, Juggernaut, the Sentinels, Mimic, Factor Three. And always, in the tranquillity of the routine or in the heat of the battle, her eyes drifted to him. He watched them declaring their love at each other, and his heart skipped one heartbeat. He watched them dating and fighting throughout the years and a smile tugged upwards his corners' lips. His eyes widened when he witnessed the development of a spiral of events ended up in her death in the Moon.
He moaned loudly, feeling something ripping and bleeding into his chest. That agony was choking, unbearable. But anyone else's recall shouldn't hurt so much, right? Then that memory was of him?
Jean cuddled him tightly and another cascade of images flooded him. Her miraculous rebirth. Her grief finding out he wasn't available anymore. Her rising, simmering fury towards the redhead was her splitting portrait. The amazing revelations in Inferno. The months spent taking care of the baby and fighting. The Nathan's loss, in the Moon again. Theirs bright, luminous and long-time delayed wedding day.
Nathan took over then. He showed the first, blurry glitches of his memories, when his parents and a redhead teenager of loving gaze held him, cradling him and feeding him. The searing pain when Apocalypse infected him with the virus. The years spent in the future. The day they found out they were father and son. His wedding from his viewpoint.
More and more images flashed.
Scott, I know stay in here is tempting. If you can keep out and quiet the outside world, no one can harm you. But this place, its safety, its quietude, is phony. You must muster courage to regain the control of your own life. Please, live. Live for me
Please, Slymm. Don't leave me again
Glorious brightness flared and filled the place with blinding glow.
Jean opened her eyelids with a start at the same time her upper body jerked backwards. With drowsy, sluggish movements her hands stroked her eyes. She felt dizzy, worn out, and her body stung as if a jolt of electricity had coursed it.
"What the flonq is going on here?" A harsh voice barked next to her. She frowned. Nathan. Her eyelids fluttered and she regained her bearings slowly. A group of concerned people was circling them. The Professor, Betsy, Emma and her telepathic students were the closer. The remainder X-Men lingered on the rear, giving them a wide berth.
"What is going on?" Hank seemed downright scandalized, and Xavier rose a disbelieving brow. "Stars and garters! You've remained passed out fourteen hours straight! We were fearing by your lives here-"
"But we've woken up, haven't we, McCoy?" Nathan cut off brusquely. A blazing headache was thumping in the edges of his skull, and he was feeling crankier than usual. "Now tell me. Is Scott fine?"
Realization and fright dawned in a startled Jean, and her look swiveled hastily at the bed. Her hope sank into black despair when she saw, in dismay, her husband as heavily asleep as he'd remained during weeks.
Of sudden his frame trembled with a tiny shiver. More shudders followed on. His body stirred and began to move steadily. Brown eyelashes quivered and fluttered.
His eyes opened to see a mass of red hair lunging at him. Shouts and laughs crowed the air.
Scott Summers was back at last. But was he the same person?
Why didn't his eyes throw beams when he opened them? After several weeks without sunlight, his body had depleted his energy reserves.
To be continued...