Chapter 8 will be posted in four installments - each one just long enough to post alone but together just too long for a single post.
"What the flamin' hell is this thing doin' here?" Wolverine grumbled, more than a little pissed off to be staring, face to face, with Apocalypse again, even if only in effigy. He was beginning to like these Neo even less than he already did. Cyclops' intense reaction wasn't helping his mood any either.
"What does this mean?" Iceman stared blankly at the metal figure then turned to study the other statues lining the room more closely. "I mean, were the Neo head of his fan club or something?"
Cyclops stood transfixed in front of the image of his worst nightmare. The ghastly, grinning face leering out from beyond the grave, mocking him still. His fists balled up tight at his sides, his muscles quaking with irrational anger. He struggled to restrain the torrent of emotion as it threatened to overtake him. Wolverine felt Cyclops' rage welling to the surface and took several cautious steps back.
Fuck you! Never again! The scream in Cyclops head found a voice as he let loose a wide crimson force beam, holding nothing back, granting his violent urges a quick but devastating release. Unlike the mutant the statue portrayed, it had no defenses against Cyclops' unleashed fury. Molten metal oozed from the edges of what used to be the head of the hated icon, vaporized by the ruby blast, a smoldering crater in the wall behind.
Shadowcat and Beast snapped up at the sudden outburst, seeing that Wolverine calmly stood a few feet away from their perturbed leader, obviously unfazed by his reaction. Beast assessed the situation for a few moments taking note that Emma hadn't even acknowledged the ruckus. His eyes carefully scanned the room once more before he resettled himself at the console. He glanced up in his competitors direction and strangely enough, instead of the look of concern he expected to see, Shadowcat was already intently refocused on her task at hand, a contented little smirk on her face.
Emma vaguely acknowledged the wave of anger that rippled through her link with Scott. But it quickly dissipated. He wasn't in danger, so she pressed on. As her shimmering astral form approached the huge gleaming orb that embodied the Spirit Clan's astral sanctuary, a deep thrumming filled her head like a massive heartbeat set to its own rhythm. Carried upon the pulsating tone, the beckoning whispers of a thousand phantom voices, calling her to them. As she inched closer to its surface, making out figures and faces just beyond the swirling, transparent skin, images layered on top of one another like a giant onion wrapped around an impenetrable central core. The energy and dedication needed to construct this massive archive on the Astral Plane simply defied comprehension. And she took only passing interest in it. The voices were calling.
"I recognize some of these statues." Iceman announced into the air as he examined the effigies along the east wall. " This one is Gideon. Over here is Selene." He pointed towards the head of the room, a life size replica of an attractive blonde perched on a marble pedestal. "I think that one is supposed to be Candra.".
"Absolom. Nicodemus. Crule." Wolverine identified statue after statue as he made his way along the west wall. "I don' like where this is goin'."
Cyclops' recovered his senses quickly at the prospect of piecing together the unexpected puzzle scattered about them. He could browbeat himself later over his loss of control. A small cough cleared his throat as he rubbed at the back of his neck, the tension there throbbing like an infected wound.
"How do the Neo even know about the Externals?" Cyclops joined Iceman as they examined the statues. "Without Nate's files we would never have known about their affiliation. So how would the Neo know about them and why would they care?"
"They're all dead anyway. But 'Clypse wasn't one of them, was he?" Iceman noted as he glanced around. "And who are all these other statues of?" He motioned in a wide arc to the thirty two other statues lining the room.
Wolverine stopped in front of an alcove matching the one across the room, occupied by the now slagged statue of Apocalypse. A disgusted grunt accompanied the flashlight beam as it leveled on the statue's face.
"Yo, Popsicle. This face ring any bells for ya?" Wolverine called over his shoulder. The illuminated figure was tall and wide, poised with regal bearing, the sharply pointed ears and fanged grin made all the more disconcerting by the fiery hue of his polymer coated skin.
"Aw, hell. You have got to be shittin' me!" Iceman moaned as recognition sparked rather unpleasant memories. "There is no freakin' way they could know him. None!" The depth of his disbelief choked his words.
"I don't recognize the face..." Cyclops began.
"This here is our favorite fuzzy blue elf's sperm donor. Name's Azazel." Wolverine filled in the applicable details. "He's a real piece a' work."
"For all intensive purposes, the guy is Satan. There is no way these backwater, gene Nazis could know about him. None!" Iceman was getting frustrated, apprehension stiffening his spine as a tinge of fear wormed its way into his racing thoughts. "He hasn't even been on Earth for what, like, a million years. There's no way!" Maybe those instincts he had been looking for for so long finally found him. This wasn't coincidence. Somehow, it all felt like a cruel joke tailored to the Xmen and he didn't want to wait around for the punch line. The suspicious feelings inexplicably blossomed into full scale dread. He made a break for the back of the room, away from the troublesome evidence that stared unblinkingly down upon them.
Emma slowly reached out, gently pressing her fingertips to the orb. It's surface rippled at her touch, warming then gently yielding. The honeyed voices sang out in harmony, enticing her to enter, to share their knowledge, to add her story to their own. She felt a lazy warmth settle into her stress tensed muscles, the sweet voices cocooning her in languid tranquility. It felt like coming home after being away for far too long.
"Calm down, Bobby." Cyclops had to reign in his friends anxiety, like any strong, in control team leader would. "There's plenty here we don't understand. Losing your cool isn't going to help."
"Ah ha, ah ha..." Iceman's laughed sarcastically at the unintentionally bad pun. "...says the man who just recycled a defenseless statue of Apocalypse." He shot back, ice daggers hovering in the sarcasm, his dread now morphing into aggression, his tone escalating to mocking. "Maybe you should watch more CSI cause that is no way to preserve evidence, buddy."
"Yeah, well, at least I'm not turning tail and running away." Somewhere in the back of his mind, Cyclops knew he didn't mean that but the wave of irrational anger returned anew. All he felt was the need to attack.
Wolverine quirked an eyebrow as he turned. Scott and Bobby weren't messing around. Tempers were rising fast and for no good reason.
"Are you calling me a coward?" Iceman's shouted response and accompanying crepitation pulled Beast from his task once again. Bobby icing up in anger was certainly not a good thing. Beast leapt from his seat, placing himself in front of his friend, his raised hands beckoning Bobby to cede this argument before it erupted into a fight they would both regret.
"Robert, stop this. This is definitely not like you." Beast glanced back over his shoulder at the agitated Cyclops. "Either of you."
"If you have to ask then maybe I should use smaller words." Cyclops taunted, taking a stiff few steps closer to his icy teammate. He faintly heard the tiny voice in his head saying something about stopping but it was just a distant whisper he effortlessly disregarded. Wolverine was already moving to intercept his team leader.
"You girls done with yer slap fight?" Wolverine bellowed, his raspy voice echoing off the domed ceiling and into the corridors beyond. "Cause I'd be glad to end it for ya."
"Now you're calling me stupid?" The stagnant air suddenly whipped into a breeze as Iceman sucked what little lingering moisture remaining in the air into himself, growing in concordance with his rage. "Jean didn't think you were such a brain surgeon either!" That thought was buried deep, a criticism that he never intended to let see the light of day. It had no place between friends with a history like theirs but he wielded it now like a dagger and drove it deep with a biting sarcasm that no one but Emma could appreciate.
A sudden stab of rage, Scott's rage, shook Emma to her senses. She quickly retracted her hand from the orb, refocusing on Scott with a shake of her head. The voices moaned pitifully at her retreat, begging, sobbing for her to return. She hesitated, still entranced by the images that floated just inside the sphere, but slowly back away from the object. What am I doing? A hint of revulsion settled in with a sneer. Scott was on the verge of a blind rage, and she was communing like a hippie with this - thing. She snapped her consciousness back into her body and rose from her seat in a long, fluid motion.
"Get out of my way, Hank!"
"I think not, Robert."
"You can try little man."
"I don' even gotta try, 'specially with you Blinky!" SNIKT!
Emma strode across the room with a snap of heels on linoleum.
"Isn't this quaint?" She glared between them with slitted eyes. "Of all the immature antics I've come to expect from the four of you, this surpasses even my expectations. And in the middle of a mission no less - how professional." The scathingly dry indictment was accentuated with a dramatic crossing of her arms and a sharply cocked hip, punctuating her displeasure.
"Shut up, Emma." Cyclops growled back at her. "And stay out of it." Emma felt the anger seething with every word.
Oh, you think so? Emma's gaze settled on him with the faintest hint of disbelief arching her eyebrows. If Scott was trying to invoke her ire, he succeeded. Scott knew better than to challenge her like that especially when there was an audience present.
Her glare passed over each of them. Iceman compounded in size, vicious icy spikes erupting from the surface of his glacial form. Beast planted himself like a linebacker, a snarl starting to curl his muzzle as he flexed his clawed hands. Wolverine, claws extended, crouched low, starting to circle, the feral climbing fast to the surface. Cyclops, his face an angry red, veins starting to pop on his forehead, in his neck, crimson energy curling in wispy tendrils just behind his precariously thin visor.
This was wrong. Seriously, desperately wrong.
Emma reached out to each of their minds, her eyes growing wide at the flood of raw, primal hatred she sensed griping each of them. Scott worst of all. She sifted quickly through the surface thoughts cluttering their minds to find the source of this improbable chain reaction. The anger, while deep seated in each of them, was being tapped as a vehicle for the anger of another. Of a great many others. Each of them was channeling the fury of the Orb, the slender, silver thread that connected each of them astrally to its collective consciousness, imbedding itself deep into their subconscious minds like a starved tick come to feast. She delicately navigated through their minds to the thread's point of insertion then deftly cut the invasive link in each of them. The whole procedure was surprisingly easy, the Orb withdrawing its tendrils obediently as she severed each link, the voices calling to her still.
The four men collectively gasped for breath as they regained control of their own minds, their shoulders slumping as the artificially maintained anger abruptly drained away. They looked blankly at one another. Wolverine retracted his claws and, with a snort, paced away from group.
"What, pray tell, was that?" Beast quizzically asked, rubbing the back of his neck, his bristled hackles now itching as they relented.
Emma's face was stern as she strolled up to Cyclops side, slapping her hand across his shoulder.
"Scott, man, I'm...I'm sorry... I don't know..." Bobby began his haphazard apology as he reverted to flesh and blood, his friend cutting his words short.
"Bobby, I don't think any of us were to blame." Cyclops looked to Emma for an explanation.
Not like any of you need an excuse to act like an ass. She returned his look, half rolling her eyes.
"No, you were not." Emma conceded. "There is a psychically potent construct anchored to this place on the Astral Plane. It seems to have hijacked your subconscious anger."
"Hmm... interesting. But to what ends?" Beast queried.
"I thought that was obvious. It wanted you to kill each other."Emma tilted her head towards Cyclops, a smug smirk on her face. "Aren't you glad I don't listen to you?"
Cyclops could only return her expression. He knew she'd make him pay for his outburst irregardless. The less he said, the less he defended himself, the quicker her retribution would be.
"And why would it want us to do that?" Cyclops was used to being attacked but not by his friends, his family. The whole reason his reaction to the statue was so violent was not only because of what Apocalypse had done to him but the fact that the madman had used him to hurt those that meant the most to him. And he had almost done it again. He tried to dampen the mental shudder that coursed through his thoughts. Emma didn't need any more ammunition.
"Well, I'll have to check into it further to be sure but an educated guess says that you somehow triggered the psychic security system." She confidently replied.
"So why were you and Kitty unaffected by this security system?" Beast questioned as a few quick swats of his massive blue hand landed on Bobby's back, the gesture reassuring him that there was no harm done, none taken between friends.
That is a good question. But not one Emma was willing to riddle out right now. And definitely not while in present company. It would be much easier to sidestep the question and return on the Astral Plane later for her answers.
"Where has that precocious kitten strayed to this time, anyway?" Emma looked around the room, her gaze settling on the computer console. Shadowcat still sat in front of the computer monitor, engrossed, a self satisfied little grin glued to her face. She hadn't even registered the commotion.
Beast approached the console, leaning slowly over the monitor. He paused momentarily for her to acknowledge his presence but she did not.
"Kitty." Beast quietly called her name to avoid startling her. He didn't even receive so much as a batted eyelash. This was something he definitely was not used to - his presence usually dominated every room, every encounter, everybody. He was awfully hard to ignore.
"Kitty!" He half shouted now.
She quirked her eyebrows up and, after a long pause. "Wait... one... minute..." She directed as she typed furiously at the keyboard. "Almost..." Her grin grew. " ... GOT IT!" she exclaimed with a final flourish of the keys. She finally looked up at her team, their eyes all fixed intently on her.
"I got it. It's downloading now." The glee in her voice shrinking under their hard stares. "What?" She looked between them all, confused, and definitely feeling like she missed something.
"How could you have breached it so quickly?" The disbelief in Beast's voice stung the girl, a small hurt look crossing her grinning face as he rounded the console to confirm her statement.
"Eighteen digits, randomized sequencing, double redundant encryptions. Nothing short of the pass codes would break this system."Beast almost sounded accusatory.
"I... I don't know. It just felt right." She weakly offered in response.
Thanks for sticking with me and the story despite the long delay. Me and the muses needed to regroup. Next installment - Buried Memories/ chapter 8.2.