Title: Unforgivable Sinners 2 : The Past Never Forgets
Summary: The sequel to Unforgivable Sinners. Yuriko, Stryker and Logan's pasts are soon to be revealed. Where will this journey to the past take them? How will it end once they rediscover themselves? Will they hold on to the past, or move on to a new future?
Note: This fanfiction occurs entirely in the X-Men movie-verse =). 'nuff said =)!
W00T!!!! Chapter 57 up sooner than expected =D!!!
COLORFREE = Thanks for the review =D!!! Yeah, I guess I made the night last for too long already x.x! lol. But actually, once tomorrow comes, the story will come close to its end too. The next day will also focus more on their pasts. As for the series of events in this chapter (and probably the next ;)), they will focus more on Stryker's past. I hope you like it ;)! Sorry if there aren't much L and Y here x.x
CAPT. O' HAGAN = Here's your next chapter =D!!! And I'll really try to post as much as I can before you leave for another state (whoa O.O! Does your work require you to go out of town often?). Ooohhh...since you're a fan of Stryker, I think you'll like this chapter lots ;)! It gives a few hints about his past and all that =D! Actually, the next few chapters will focus more on him and his past...Aaah! I wish I can tell you more about the plot, but I'll let it unfold as the story progresses ;)! Thanks for reviewing =D!
Chapter 57: No escape
Stryker couldn't believe what he was seeing. That woman wasn't Yuriko...she couldn't be. But she was so much like Yuriko. She looked like Yuriko. Her face, her voice, her body, her eyes. He felt his lips shaking as he looked at her. Who was she and what was she doing there? What did she want from him?
"Who are you?" He asked. He could hear his own voice shaking. Then he looked back at her and clenched his jaw as he closed his hands into tight fists. He was tired of playing games. And if this was an illusion, some sort of mind game, then he wanted it to stop now. "What are you?! What do you want from me?!" He shouted.
"No, William." She said in her ghostly way. "I'm not an illusion. I'm not a mind game. Please stop thinking of me as such. You're hurting my feelings."
Stryker's eyes widened as he heard her words. How did she know what he was thinking? How did she know what was going on in his head? Quick breaths escaped from his lips as his own fear started to eat him from the inside. What was going on? Was this another vision? Another dream? But no, everything felt so real. This was happening for real.
He closed his eyes shut, wishing that the Yuriko in front of him would disappear. Then he opened his eyes and saw her still sitting there, across the hall from him. And she was still looking at him with that ghostly, gentle smile on her face. He wanted to run away...crawl away, but he couldn't move. His body wouldn't let him move.
"Two decades of friendship and now you're acting as if you want to forget about me." She said, still with that smile on her lips. "Why, William? Don't you want me anymore? Don't you want to remember me? Remember what we used to have?"
"Get away from me!" He shouted through clenched teeth. "I don't know you." He clutched his head with his hands, digging his fingers through his hair. "Leave me alone." He closed his eyes shut as he continued to squeeze his head. "I don't know you!" He shouted at the top of his lungs. He just wanted her to go away.
"But you do. Deep inside you know you do. You're just so scared to remember." She said softly. Then she got on her hands and knees and crawled towards him. "Open your eyes, William. Open yours eyes and see the truth. Embrace the past and accept it."
"I don't know want to." He said forcefully. "I don't want to remember any of it." Then he opened his eyes and saw Yuriko kneeling right in front of him. Her face was in front of his, as if she was looking deep into his soul.
"Get up, Will." She said firmly. "Get up." Her voice was imposing. "You're stronger than this, William. Whenever things got rough you always stood tall and faced it head on. You never let anyone down. You were always there for me, even for Logan, when we needed you." She spoke as if she knew everything about him. "Remember that one mission where you came back for me? I almost lost my mind in that mission. I couldn't find the will to move after seeing so much death. But you came back and saved me. How many bullets did you take for me that night, William? One? Two? Three? A dozen? You almost died for me...but you lived, you survived, because you're not the kind of man who gives up that easily." Her eyes were intense as she looked at him.
Stryker felt his chest tightening as he listened to her. He couldn't move his eyes away from her stare. And as he listened to each and every word, he started to remember. He started to remember bits and pieces of that night...when he ran back to the room and found Yuriko staring at...at something...she was staring at something and she couldn't seem to move. But he pulled her off the floor and hauled her with him. Then after that, after that, something happened, he fell and there was so much pain, then...
He closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side. "No...Please don't make me remember. Please, Yuriko, don't." He couldn't believe he had just called her by her name. "Please make me cherish this night for as long as I can." He whispered. "I don't want to know my past. Not yet, not now. Please, not yet..."
"Not even your happy memories?" She asked. Then her voice faded away.
He opened his eyes and found himself alone again. Yuriko had gone. He didn't even find any trace of her. She had disappeared as if she hadn't even been there in front of him a while ago. Stryker sighed in relief and wiped the sweat that trickled down his forehead. He could still feel his heart pounding in his chest, but his breathing had slowed down to a more normal rate. He still couldn't understand what just happened. Why did he see her? Did all that happen for real? And why did that Yuriko know so much about his past? Did he bring that upon himself? Was he the one who made her appear? Was he the one who brought her there? Was she a part of him?
Or maybe he was starting to remember. His past had come sooner than he expected.
"I can't believe you let her down." Said a deep, gruff voice.
He looked to his side and his eyes opened wide as he found Logan standing right next to him. Logan was looking down at him with a cigar in his hand. He was wearing a white shirt and military cargo pants and a silver dog tag dangled around his neck. He looked the same, but he somehow looked a little younger. "Heh." He scoffed. "And I thought you were her friend." He said in a mocking tone. "But you pushed her away."
Stryker stood up and took a step back. "No...not again." He whispered. His voice was filled with fear and his fear also reflected through his widened eyes. Was Wolverine also a part of his past? "Get away from me." He said as he took another step back.
"What?" Logan asked. "You're going to push me away too?" He threw his cigar on the floor and grinded on it with his foot. "I know you more than anyone else, Billy." He said as he took a step towards Stryker. "I've been with you on the battlefield countless of times before. You guarded my back and I guarded yours for almost two decades. Two decades, Billy." Then he smirked. "Oh wait...I remember you hate it whenever I call you that. Sorry, William." He muttered. "It's just that it's been a while since we last talked. It's been a long time since we've last practiced too. We really were the best, weren't we? No one could touch us. We were invincible." Logan said firmly.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Stryker said. "But I know what you're trying to do. You're...you're trying to make me remember. You're making me remember my past!" He shouted through gritted teeth. He quickly walked backwards, almost fumbling on his feet. "You're forcing it into my brain!" He pointed at his head.
Logan chuckled and stepped towards him. "I'm making you remember your past? Tsk tsk tsk." He said, shaking his head from side to side. "But I am you, William Stryker." His eyes were filled with intensity as he looked back at Stryker. "I'm a part of you. I am something you can never push away because deep inside you know that you want me to be here." He took another step closer and then he snickered. "Where did you think I come from? From the wind? Do you think I'm some kind of deus ex machina? That I just came from out of nowhere?!" Logan shouted. "Open your eyes, Will! I'm for real and you know it! You know you want to remember!"
Stryker breathed in and shook his head from side to side. "No. No...." He gasped and took another step back. He clutched his head in his hands and closed his eyes shut. "That can't be true." He said, gasping. "You're not real and I don't want to remember! I want to forget everything! Everything!!!" He shouted. "Why can't you just leave me alone?! Give me my final night's peace?!" His fingers pressed harder against his skull as if he was going to claw his brain out of his head just so that he could finally end everything. Then he opened his eyes, hoping that the ghostly image of Logan would finally be gone, but the tall figure was still standing in front of him.
"This isn't a dream, William." Logan said with a serious tone in this voice. "You can't just open your eyes and wake up to reality...because this is reality." Then a sly smile curled up his lips. "You can't run away from yourself."
"Stop this!!!" Stryker shouted at Logan. "I don't need you!!! And I don't need my past!!! I want to be rid of it!!! I want to set myself free from it!!!" His voice echoed in the hallway as he shouted at Logan. It was about time that he confronted his past. He wanted it to realize that he didn't need it anymore. He wanted to tell himself that he could live without it because his past-self was nothing like him.
Logan clenched his fist and gritted his teeth as he looked at Stryker with those piercing, angry, wolf-like eyes. "Then you're just a coward after all." He said with a tone of anger and dismay. "To think that I once trusted you with my life." He exhaled and shook his head in disappointment. "What happened to the young man who used to be my brother in arms? The boy who thought he could do anything? What happened to him, huh?"
Then he breathed in and step closer to Stryker. He was now standing just an arm's reach away from him. "Looks like he has grown up into a weak, pathetic old fool who can't even face himself. You can't even face who you really are. What will you do, William? Keep on running away from your past until it finally consumes you?"
Stryker could feel his entire body shaking as Logan's words entered his ear. His eyes were wide with fear and terror as he looked into the eyes of the man in front of him. Then he shook his head from side to side, telling himself that Logan was wrong...telling himself that none of this was really happening. "You're wrong....You're wrong." He said softly his shivering lips. He had to get out of this nightmare.
He suddenly turned around and ran down one of the hallways. And as he ran, he could still hear Logan's voice trailing after him, shouting, screaming, and echoing as if Logan was right behind him... "You can't run away from your past, William! You can never run away from what makes you 'you'! You think you're a new man but you're still the same Stryker I know!!! You're still the same man!" The voice shouted.
Then the voice that echoed in his head changed into Yuriko's voice. "Stop running away, Will." She said. "We're not your enemies. We never were. We just want you to accept the past...accept yourself, your fate. It's the only way. We're not trying to pull you down...We're just trying to make you realize that..."
/"You have no right to tell me what I should think and what I should do! This is my life and it's mine alone!"/ He shouted in his mind. /"I need none of you!!! Get out of my head and leave me alone! Leave me before I go mad!!!"/
And in that instant, the voices stopped. He stopped in his tracks and tried to catch his breath. His chest and shoulders heaved up and down as quick, rugged air escaped from his parted lips. He was definitely too old for this...too old for forgotten memories...too old for all this pain...too old to run away from his own past. But at least it was all over now. They've finally stopped haunting him. And now he just had to sleep and wait until his past finally consumes him for real, until his past finally regains its rightful place in his self, in his life, in his future.
He straightened himself and exhaled as he closed his eyes. He just hoped that when his past comes back to fill his head, it would be quick and painless. Quick so that he wouldn't feel the pain of holding on to his present...Quick so that he wouldn't have the time to think, to wish, to hope, to grab onto each and everyone of his current memories. Yes, that was what he wanted...the quick and painless of death of his current self.
Then his head perked up and he looked at the end of the hallway. He sensed someone there, and someone was. He saw the silhouette of a child. It looked like a young boy. The hallway was dark, and the child was quite far away from him so he couldn't see him that well. He narrowed his eyes and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he observed the moving, walking silhouette. And out of curiosity, he walked towards it. He had a gut feeling that he should stay away, but something in him was telling him to go nearer, to see it closer, as if the silhouette was pulling him towards it.
As he walked closer to it, he gradually started to see more and more of the boy. It was a child, a young boy with straight, dark brown hair that went over his eyebrows. He was wearing plain shirt and shorts that were long enough to cover his knees. He could barely see the boy's face because the boy was running around. He had something in his hand, something that looked like a toy airplane. Stryker could even hear the boy mimicking the sounds that an airplane made as he held the toy up over his head, trying to make it fly with his hand. He seemed to be busy playing with the little aircraft.
"Hello?" Stryker asked softly as he approached the young man. At first he thought it was Jones, but this child was too small to be Jones and he lacked the eyeglasses that made Jones quite recognizable. Jones also didn't seem like the boy who adored playing with little, plastic airplanes, and he was supposedly with Scott now.
The boy suddenly stopped running around. His back was facing Stryker and he slowly moved his hand down to his side. Then he turned around and faced the older man. Stryker's eyes opened wide as he saw the young boy's face. It looked familiar...like someone he should know. He felt as if he'd seen that face before.
The child smiled and held the plane up towards Stryker. Despite his young, boyish smile, the child's eyes seemed so empty. He looked like a lifeless shell, a wooden puppet with a smile that had been painted on his face. Though his eyes were looking at Stryker, he looked like he was staring into nothingness, as if he was staring through him.
"We got this for our sixth birthday." His voice sounded transparent, hollow and robotic. But each word echoed in Stryker's head as if the boy was talking from inside his brain. "Daddy knew we liked airplanes. Daddy knew we liked staring at the sky, waiting for fighter airplanes to fly over our heads...that's why he bought us this." He said monotonously. "And we've wanted to become a pilot ever since."
"Not again." He whispered as he looked at the boy. "No. This can't be happening." His voice was shaking as he took a step back. "That can't be me...He can't be..." The boy was supposed to be him at the age of six. He was looking at the image of his younger self. He couldn't believe how innocent he looked...how carefree and harmless he looked when he was six years old. He couldn't help but wonder how he turned into the hateful monster that desired the destruction of the entire mutant population.
But now was not the right time to think of that. Because right now, what he wanted was escape from his past because it was now starting to catch up with him. It was slowly making its way into his consciousness, slowly taking over his mind. It was starting to make him remember. It was gradually making him remember everything.