3. Rinse


"I don't understand" she spoke, her voice choked up as she spoke to herself.

"Why can't he see me?"

"I know" said a voice from behind her. "Do you want to know too?'

The young woman looked over her shoulder to the stranger's voice.

"Yes. Why can't he see me?"

"He doesn't want to" the Angel of Death responded. "He's rinsed you away"

"Can't he get dirty again?" she asked, almost begged the woman before her whom she instantly recognized as an angel.

"He has" said the Angel, "but it's not you". She spread her wings and an image flashed across the woman's eyes.

It was him. She smiled as she stepped foreword, entering the mortal plane. She felt weird and out of place. Heaven was much bigger. It fit better. But here, in the world she didn't belong to even when she was alive, it was almost like weighing five times heavier and on top of that, being blind.

But she didn't care. He was here.

But it was like he wasn't.

He still couldn't see her. He had his eyes on another woman in the room.

"'He's rinsed me'"

Even as she repeated the angel's words, they sounded hollow, impossible.

How could he rinse her? She—They—

"Why?" she begged the figure. "Why?"

"I know. Do you want to know too?"

The Angel of Death stepped through the vision as well. But as she did, her appearance changed from that of a bat-winged, dark-haired woman to a regal panther with the same bat wings and a gold necklace. It had a weird design on it.

"Yes. Why has he rinsed me, Angel?"

"Because he had to."

She looked upon the man of her dreams, going about his life like nothing had happened, giggling and playing with the other woman like a little boy. He had fallen in love again.

And it hurt her.

"He had to? Why did he have to?"

The panther came to sit at the feet of the mutant woman.

"Because the Soulless said so."

In her mortal life, she had never known of such thing as a Soulless but upon dying she learned that it was the name of the book of fate.

There was a Soulless for every dimension, galaxy, star, planet and living thing.

"What does the Soulless say?" she whispered through her tears. She knew that what the Soulless said could not be changed.

The panther/angel looked up at the heart broken young woman.

"I know. Do you want to know too?"

"Yes" the woman said calmly, not at all irked by the repetition of the question. "What does the Soulless say?"

"Do you want the cliff-notes version or straight from the book?" asked the panther with a very humanly smirk.

The woman smiled despite herself. "Both" was her response.

"When angel's lose,

but do not cry,

that will be the day

foreseeing the new sky"

"And what does that mean?" the woman tore her eyes from the couple in front of her to look as the Angel of Death in the eye.

"What it means, Ms. Braddock, is that the universe has some big plans for Mr. Warren Worthington the third."

Even though the angel tried to sound light hearted to brighten the mood of the woman, it barely worked.

"Does it say anything about her?" she asked indicating to the girl whom Warren was with.

"The child to come

Will have angels for parents,

Through a love and another,

Wings will be inheritance"

"You're going to have to spell this one out for me" she sighed.

"The Soulless speaks of a child to be born around this century. It will have angels for parents…"

"But Paige Guthrie is anything but an angel" she said coldly, looking back at the young girl who was still with Warren.

"I was getting to that" said the angel/panther in slight annoyance. Just because she was the Angel of Death didn't mean that she didn't have emotions.

She wasn't God.

If anything, she was more like the Phoenix.

"The child will have angels for parents "through a love and another". She loves Warren and she loves her brother, Jay, who has the mutation of wings as well"

"So basically the X-gene for wings is in her body" she elaborated.

"Exactly"

She sighed and wiped away her tears.

"So that's it for me then?"

"No"

Betsy looked at the panther in surprise. That was not what she was expecting.

"No? What does that mean?"

"I know. Do you want to know too?"

"Yes. What do you mean that this isn't it for me yet?"

The panther smiled a smile that was neither scary nor intimidating. Even with a mouth full of sharp teeth, it was a smile of cleverness.

"In and out of the shadows

floating below the deep

nothing is impossible

when the soulless weep"

"What does that mean?" she asked frantically. Something in the back of her mind told her that it was very important.

As she asked the question, the Angel of Death dissolved into a wisp of black fog and the mortal plane around her vanished as well leaving her in the dark.

"I don't understand!" she yelled at the darkness.

"Don't worry" the Angel's voice echoed around her.

"He'll be able to see you"

And suddenly, Betsy Braddock was elsewhere.


This story is a mix of two different dreams I had. In one I was Betsy looking at Warren and Paige and I figured I was a ghost because I couldn't touch either of them and I could go through things. I had just read the 'She Lies with Angels' story line which is my favorite non-Phoenix related story. The last installment is only the second comic that made me cry (as pathetic as it sounds, the first one was New X-Men #163 at the end when Scott made his farewell speech to Jean at her grave). In the second dream I was the Angel of Death and I was giving some random person the tour of heaven. Everything related to the Soulless did not come to me in the dream but it is mine nonetheless. Whenever I think of a random rhyme or something that would make a good spell if it was used, I record it in this book I have that I call my Soulless because the first thing I put in it is the rhyme that is last said in this story.

I don't know when I'll update next but until then,

stray