Disclaimer: Furor Paxx and VulgateOfEarth do not own the X-Men or any affiliates. All are the property of Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc and its various affiliates and partners. Phoenix Malcolm, Haiden Malcolm and all irregular characters are the sole property of Furor Paxx and are being used with permission.
~~ Pietro ~~
He was there. He saw Freddie's last moment and knew that there really was no justice in the world. How could someone so hopelessly innocent die in the middle of all this? All Freddie ever did was make sure everyone was happy. He didn't even like beating people up, but he did it for the Brotherhood.
Of course, that was before they got caught.
Pietro shivered, perfectly aware that nothing made sense anymore. It had started out being all about escaping the government , but somehow there was more to it. Immortals and the Fates and only God knew what else. Pietro paused. Was God involved in this somehow? He hoped so, because if what was under the city was any indication, they would need divine intervention if any shred of humanity was to survive.
Pietro grimaced, the end of the world was nigh and he had never gotten that mess about the diary cleared up… he shook his head. A diary at a time like this? Who cared anyway?
Pietro raced right up to the gathered soldiers and mutants around Freddie's…body. It felt weird thinking of it like that… his corpse? Nah, it was still Freddie as far as Pietro was concerned. He was just asleep, that's all. But Pietro had a message to deliver.
"Valzinameku sends his greetings." Pietro recited, carefully not looking at the mutants. "He says that soon he will rise from the depths and conquer what was once his. Resistance is futile and all that other spacey bull shit. He's a demon, by the way. Or at least a monster. I think he's a demon, cause I just can't picture anything worse than him."
"Are you okay kid?" One guy asked, unsure whether or not to take Pietro seriously or not.
"What the fuck kind of question is that? You were only trying to kill me a few hours ago." Pietro's voice betrayed no emotion. "I gotta run. There're a few more people I have to tell."
Pietro took off down the street. Where would the president be right now? He ran past a shop with a TV in the window, and made it two blocks before he ran back for a double take.
The president. Making a speech. In a town less than ten miles from Bayville.
Pietro's eyes narrowed. How convenient.
~~ Ororo, Kitty, Mystique ~~
The three women had crowded in the far end of the cage, as much to get as far as possible from the thing as to get closer to the other prisoner.
"I am Lucifer, the last of the race known as the Vulgates. My kin and I were bidden to protect the suface world from Valzinameku. We have failed. Our kind had grown weak, confident that the Fates would guide us through all our endeavors, and quickly fell to the Demonic's fury."
"So that, this thing is called a demonic?" Ororo tapped her chin. "And the Fates? Are they like your gods?"
"The Fates supposedly direct our actions. The Vulgates acknowledge no gods, but have worked in conjuntion with the Fates for so long that we became, shall we say, dependent on their assisstance."
"Supposedly... you don't share this view?"
"I believe the Fates are exactly what you make them. If I take a path that no one has before me and others follow, would I not be a Fate? The logic in the Fates is lacking and Vulgates were once known as notorious for their logic. Time has made us weak and in our weakness we began grasping for straws. Our weakness has cost us greatly."
"So basically we're doomed." Mystique said blandly.
"Perhaps, but the Future is always changing. I see several different courses of action that could turn the tide."
"You can see into the future?"
"I can observe the patterns of human destiny and their inner consciousness, and by that I can see the Future."
"Uh-huh."
"Unfortunately in our case, all of those actions can be facilitated only by outside forces."
"What outside forces?" Ororo asked, half knowing the other mutants would be involved somehow.
"There are humans like yourself who are on their way to this chamber as we speak. All your hopes lie with them. If even one of them acts out of line or isn't strong enough to fulfill their part, your deaths are as certain as theirs."
"And you don't care one way or another?"
"Vulgates have no em-. What I mean to say is, I have been trained to ignore feelings of hopelessness and dewsperation. Such emotions are weaknessess and illogical. And on a level that you surely would understand, there is nothing that I can do to affect our chances. I am confident that I have done all I can here, even if it is nothing to you, and will die with no regrets."
Ororo paused to consider what he had said, or rather, stopped himself from saying. Vulgates have no emotions. Then he switched and said he had been trained to ignore emotions. Ororo didn't think he was lying so much as holding back. She honestly believed that he believed that his apathy was the result of the way his people lived.
"Which mutants are coming?"
"What are 'mutants'?" he asked, pronouncing the word akwardly.
Storm thought carefully before answering him. Everyone knew that mutants were genetic cousins of humans, victims of chance who had ended up with the double recessive mutant gene, but how does one explain that to a person who has been underground for... how long was an eon anyway?
"A mutant is like a human, but with special powers, like super speed or the ability to control the weather."
"Like Mages?"
"I suppose."
"You are human Mages who radiate no magical aura. I must investigate. I know not the names of the mutants, but perhaps I can describe them to you. Would you prefer physical apperances?"
"That would be perfect."
"Leading the group is a tall, odd coloured young man, he walks or rather hops on disproportioned legs and slouches."
"Hops? That's Toad."
"Directly behind him is a short, muscled man with three claws of adamantium."
"Logan." Kitty was looking up now, and Mystique had settled back against the bars of the cage.
"There are several wounded among them. One has dark skin and golden hair, another is fair of skin and covers his eyes with a band of ruby set in gold."
"Well, Evan is obvious, I guess the other is, like, Scott." Kitty noted.
"How badly are they injured?" Storm interupted.
He just shrugged. "There are others as well, a girl with hair as red as blood, a-"
"How badly?" She repeated.
"I am sorry. They would be better off dead. They should be dead. Since they are headed straight here, they will be soon anyway."
"It's starting to bother me the way you talk about people like that." Mystique said with a more than a touch of irritation.
"I am merely trying to be straightforward with you. You are all better off dead, and any fate is better than being the one to release Valzinameku."
"You keep saying how terrible that is, but this creature hasn't hurt us yet. For all we know, you are the real threat here." Storm watched the Vulgate carefuly, searching for any sign of emotion that would give him away. There was none.
"It is true, there is no way for you to tell if this is all some clever ruse. However, you must know that under no circumstances would trap myself in a cage made of my kin's bones."
The women looked a bit more closely at the bars of his cage. Yes, it was made of bones, some of them weren't even cleaned completely. Kitty whimpered when she saw the torn flesh hanging off one of the bones.
"That, that cannot be. Those are too big to be human... but you aren't human. I forgot." Storm conceded.
"I must admit, I have always been..." Here he cleared his throat. "smaller than everyone else."
"Oh don't worry. I'm short too." Kitty said with sympathy.
"I am NOT short. My growth has merely been stunted by this environment. Vulgates are not built to live in caves."
"Uh, huh. Right." Kitty's voice bled sarcasm.
"Oh spare me your humor."
"How old were you when you came here?"
"I was all of five seasons old."
"Five seasons? Is that like five years?"
"Perhaps, it matters not, the past is to be analysed and its lessons are to be memorized."
"Analyzed? Why?"
"There is only so much that any mortal can remember. We must limit our memories to the bare essentials or we shall become feebleminded in our great age."
"Oh. Sounds hard."
"It is at times, but the Vulgate doctorine leaves you no choice. I believe Valzinameku is asleep now and we may discuss our escape."
"What?"
Lucifer sighed. "The logic is simple. It expects you to try to escape, that is why it hasnt killed you yet. You are here for sport. He assumes that I will accept the Fate, crap, I think you call it, and will not even attempt to escape. That is why he will let his guard down around us. We have only one chance, and mustn't ruin it."
"Cool, then we can forget about this whole thing?"
"No. Then you will leave to intercept the mutants who are coming here. I will take care of Valzinameku."
"Alone?"
"It is only a Demonic. I can easily kill it."
"Then why didn't you do that a long time ago?"
"I felt that I should wait. And also, any escape that I could have organized by myself would have left me either dead or in too weak a condition to do what must be done. Now you can provide distractions and carry out the contingency plan, should I fail."
"Contingency plan?"
"Destroy us both. He will not kill me, I realize that now, there is a further purpose he has for me. If I cannot kill Valzinameku, you will kill us both."
"But, but, then you'd be dead."
"I apologize, I was under the impression that that was what happens when you kill someone."
Mystique chuckled lightly. It was so difficult to tell if he was being honest or had an extremely dry sense of humor.
"It is no joke, now listen, I have had time to sit here and prepare several dozen plans, but in order to complete them, I must know what each of your talents is. It would also be beneficial if I knew your names."
"How rude of us." Storm said by way of apology. "I am Ororo Munroe, also known as Storm. I can control weather patterns and invoke any of the elements of weather."
"So you are a weather witch."
"Yes."
"It is a pleasure to meet you Ororo Munroe."
"I'm Kitty Pryde. Kitty. I can phase through walls and stuff. And if I walk through, like, anything electronic, it kinda shortcircuits."
"What is Electronic?"
"With electricity I guess. Like lightening."
"You can walk through lightning?"
"No. Yes, I guess I could, but that's not what I meant."
"I will inquire more later."
"Yeah, um, yeah." Kitty flushed a bright red.
"And I am Raven Darkholme, Mystique to everyone who knows me as a mutant. I am a shapesifter."
"What do you mean by that? Why would you hide your identity?"
"Mutants are hated and feared by humans." Storm said simply.
"Ah, that explains quite a bit then. I have decided how best to execute our escape."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. Kitty, phase through the cage and come stand beside me."
She did, darkly thinking of what a fool she was that she hadn't done so earlier.
"Um, I can phase people out with me too." she whispered, thouroughly ashamed.
"Truly? Even better. For how long can you walk through stone?"
"I don't know, I usually don't suffer any side effects from it."
"Even with people accompanying you?"
"Yeah."
"Can you go up, through the rock?"
"No."
"Then teamwork still remains paramount. You have saved us a few hours though, and now I have less person to worry about protecting. If this fails, you take the others and run, don't turn back, don't slow down, run straight through everything that gets in your way. Is this clear? I need you to be strong, you must be the one to escape, even if it means leaving the rest of us behind. We need someone who can get back down here without letting Valzinameku out."
Kitty shrugged. "Sure, I guess."
"That is not good enough. People will die if you guess. People are dieing now, you must pull through. Now release us so that we can begin."
"I don't get why it's so hard? We can just climb out, right?"
"If there was even the tiniest fault in this prison, Valzinameku could, would escape here. I think that when your friend fell, you made him phase through the adamantite walls."
"But I wasn't touching him."
"You need to touch someone to phase with them?"
"Yeah..."
"The perhaps he phased through on his own. The fact of the matter is that you are in here now and the prison is still intact. Enough of this, to the plan." By now they were all standing in a corner of the great cavern.
"Ororo, can you lift the three of you onto that ledge there?" He pointed to a seven foot step about fifty feet above the ground.
"Don't ask me if I can. I will." Storm was sweating bullets though, fifty feet was pretty high up, and with two other people... It would be a very close call.
"You take Kitty, I will lift Raven."
"What?" Storm stared hard at him.
"There is no reason to strain yourself yet. You still have to resuce the other mutants. Go now, three hundred paces through the wall of that ledge is a tunnel. Follow it to you companions and lead them to safety. There are people after them, beware. However, if the enemy is the only one willing to house you, do not hesistate. You will suffer greatly at their hands, but I will come for you. You are not supposed to die like this."
"Your Fates tell you this?" Mystique needled as she felt herself rise into the air and Storm took off with Kitty in tow.
"My heart tells me this. You will not die here, I swear it on my wings. You mustn't fail me, Kitty, I have placed a burden upon you that may never lift, but please, do not forsake me."
There was an earshattering roar as Valzinameku surged to its feet, sensing Lucifer's magic. Kitty didn't look back even when she heard a sickening crunching noise behind her. She just grabbed Mystique's and Storm's hand and ran, counting the steps and trying to fight off her panic.
~~ Pietro ~~
He was there. He saw Freddie's last moment and knew that there really was no justice in the world. How could someone so hopelessly innocent die in the middle of all this? All Freddie ever did was make sure everyone was happy. He didn't even like beating people up, but he did it for the Brotherhood.
Of course, that was before they got caught.
Pietro shivered, perfectly aware that nothing made sense anymore. It had started out being all about escaping the government , but somehow there was more to it. Immortals and the Fates and only God knew what else. Pietro paused. Was God involved in this somehow? He hoped so, because if what was under the city was any indication, they would need divine intervention if any shred of humanity was to survive.
Pietro grimaced, the end of the world was nigh and he had never gotten that mess about the diary cleared up… he shook his head. A diary at a time like this? Who cared anyway?
Pietro raced right up to the gathered soldiers and mutants around Freddie's…body. It felt weird thinking of it like that… his corpse? Nah, it was still Freddie as far as Pietro was concerned. He was just asleep, that's all. But Pietro had a message to deliver.
"Valzinameku sends his greetings." Pietro recited, carefully not looking at the mutants. "He says that soon he will rise from the depths and conquer what was once his. Resistance is futile and all that other spacey bull shit. He's a demon, by the way. Or at least a monster. I think he's a demon, cause I just can't picture anything worse than him."
"Are you okay kid?" One guy asked, unsure whether or not to take Pietro seriously or not.
"What the fuck kind of question is that? You were only trying to kill me a few hours ago." Pietro's voice betrayed no emotion. "I gotta run. There're a few more people I have to tell."
Pietro took off down the street. Where would the president be right now? He ran past a shop with a TV in the window, and made it two blocks before he ran back for a double take.
The president. Making a speech. In a town less than ten miles from Bayville.
Pietro's eyes narrowed. How convenient.
~~ Ororo, Kitty, Mystique ~~
The three women had crowded in the far end of the cage, as much to get as far as possible from the thing as to get closer to the other prisoner.
"I am Lucifer, the last of the race known as the Vulgates. My kin and I were bidden to protect the suface world from Valzinameku. We have failed. Our kind had grown weak, confident that the Fates would guide us through all our endeavors, and quickly fell to the Demonic's fury."
"So that, this thing is called a demonic?" Ororo tapped her chin. "And the Fates? Are they like your gods?"
"The Fates supposedly direct our actions. The Vulgates acknowledge no gods, but have worked in conjuntion with the Fates for so long that we became, shall we say, dependent on their assisstance."
"Supposedly... you don't share this view?"
"I believe the Fates are exactly what you make them. If I take a path that no one has before me and others follow, would I not be a Fate? The logic in the Fates is lacking and Vulgates were once known as notorious for their logic. Time has made us weak and in our weakness we began grasping for straws. Our weakness has cost us greatly."
"So basically we're doomed." Mystique said blandly.
"Perhaps, but the Future is always changing. I see several different courses of action that could turn the tide."
"You can see into the future?"
"I can observe the patterns of human destiny and their inner consciousness, and by that I can see the Future."
"Uh-huh."
"Unfortunately in our case, all of those actions can be facilitated only by outside forces."
"What outside forces?" Ororo asked, half knowing the other mutants would be involved somehow.
"There are humans like yourself who are on their way to this chamber as we speak. All your hopes lie with them. If even one of them acts out of line or isn't strong enough to fulfill their part, your deaths are as certain as theirs."
"And you don't care one way or another?"
"Vulgates have no em-. What I mean to say is, I have been trained to ignore feelings of hopelessness and dewsperation. Such emotions are weaknessess and illogical. And on a level that you surely would understand, there is nothing that I can do to affect our chances. I am confident that I have done all I can here, even if it is nothing to you, and will die with no regrets."
Ororo paused to consider what he had said, or rather, stopped himself from saying. Vulgates have no emotions. Then he switched and said he had been trained to ignore emotions. Ororo didn't think he was lying so much as holding back. She honestly believed that he believed that his apathy was the result of the way his people lived.
"Which mutants are coming?"
"What are 'mutants'?" he asked, pronouncing the word akwardly.
Storm thought carefully before answering him. Everyone knew that mutants were genetic cousins of humans, victims of chance who had ended up with the double recessive mutant gene, but how does one explain that to a person who has been underground for... how long was an eon anyway?
"A mutant is like a human, but with special powers, like super speed or the ability to control the weather."
"Like Mages?"
"I suppose."
"You are human Mages who radiate no magical aura. I must investigate. I know not the names of the mutants, but perhaps I can describe them to you. Would you prefer physical apperances?"
"That would be perfect."
"Leading the group is a tall, odd coloured young man, he walks or rather hops on disproportioned legs and slouches."
"Hops? That's Toad."
"Directly behind him is a short, muscled man with three claws of adamantium."
"Logan." Kitty was looking up now, and Mystique had settled back against the bars of the cage.
"There are several wounded among them. One has dark skin and golden hair, another is fair of skin and covers his eyes with a band of ruby set in gold."
"Well, Evan is obvious, I guess the other is, like, Scott." Kitty noted.
"How badly are they injured?" Storm interupted.
He just shrugged. "There are others as well, a girl with hair as red as blood, a-"
"How badly?" She repeated.
"I am sorry. They would be better off dead. They should be dead. Since they are headed straight here, they will be soon anyway."
"It's starting to bother me the way you talk about people like that." Mystique said with a more than a touch of irritation.
"I am merely trying to be straightforward with you. You are all better off dead, and any fate is better than being the one to release Valzinameku."
"You keep saying how terrible that is, but this creature hasn't hurt us yet. For all we know, you are the real threat here." Storm watched the Vulgate carefuly, searching for any sign of emotion that would give him away. There was none.
"It is true, there is no way for you to tell if this is all some clever ruse. However, you must know that under no circumstances would trap myself in a cage made of my kin's bones."
The women looked a bit more closely at the bars of his cage. Yes, it was made of bones, some of them weren't even cleaned completely. Kitty whimpered when she saw the torn flesh hanging off one of the bones.
"That, that cannot be. Those are too big to be human... but you aren't human. I forgot." Storm conceded.
"I must admit, I have always been..." Here he cleared his throat. "smaller than everyone else."
"Oh don't worry. I'm short too." Kitty said with sympathy.
"I am NOT short. My growth has merely been stunted by this environment. Vulgates are not built to live in caves."
"Uh, huh. Right." Kitty's voice bled sarcasm.
"Oh spare me your humor."
"How old were you when you came here?"
"I was all of five seasons old."
"Five seasons? Is that like five years?"
"Perhaps, it matters not, the past is to be analysed and its lessons are to be memorized."
"Analyzed? Why?"
"There is only so much that any mortal can remember. We must limit our memories to the bare essentials or we shall become feebleminded in our great age."
"Oh. Sounds hard."
"It is at times, but the Vulgate doctorine leaves you no choice. I believe Valzinameku is asleep now and we may discuss our escape."
"What?"
Lucifer sighed. "The logic is simple. It expects you to try to escape, that is why it hasnt killed you yet. You are here for sport. He assumes that I will accept the Fate, crap, I think you call it, and will not even attempt to escape. That is why he will let his guard down around us. We have only one chance, and mustn't ruin it."
"Cool, then we can forget about this whole thing?"
"No. Then you will leave to intercept the mutants who are coming here. I will take care of Valzinameku."
"Alone?"
"It is only a Demonic. I can easily kill it."
"Then why didn't you do that a long time ago?"
"I felt that I should wait. And also, any escape that I could have organized by myself would have left me either dead or in too weak a condition to do what must be done. Now you can provide distractions and carry out the contingency plan, should I fail."
"Contingency plan?"
"Destroy us both. He will not kill me, I realize that now, there is a further purpose he has for me. If I cannot kill Valzinameku, you will kill us both."
"But, but, then you'd be dead."
"I apologize, I was under the impression that that was what happens when you kill someone."
Mystique chuckled lightly. It was so difficult to tell if he was being honest or had an extremely dry sense of humor.
"It is no joke, now listen, I have had time to sit here and prepare several dozen plans, but in order to complete them, I must know what each of your talents is. It would also be beneficial if I knew your names."
"How rude of us." Storm said by way of apology. "I am Ororo Munroe, also known as Storm. I can control weather patterns and invoke any of the elements of weather."
"So you are a weather witch."
"Yes."
"It is a pleasure to meet you Ororo Munroe."
"I'm Kitty Pryde. Kitty. I can phase through walls and stuff. And if I walk through, like, anything electronic, it kinda shortcircuits."
"What is Electronic?"
"With electricity I guess. Like lightening."
"You can walk through lightning?"
"No. Yes, I guess I could, but that's not what I meant."
"I will inquire more later."
"Yeah, um, yeah." Kitty flushed a bright red.
"And I am Raven Darkholme, Mystique to everyone who knows me as a mutant. I am a shapesifter."
"What do you mean by that? Why would you hide your identity?"
"Mutants are hated and feared by humans." Storm said simply.
"Ah, that explains quite a bit then. I have decided how best to execute our escape."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. Kitty, phase through the cage and come stand beside me."
She did, darkly thinking of what a fool she was that she hadn't done so earlier.
"Um, I can phase people out with me too." she whispered, thouroughly ashamed.
"Truly? Even better. For how long can you walk through stone?"
"I don't know, I usually don't suffer any side effects from it."
"Even with people accompanying you?"
"Yeah."
"Can you go up, through the rock?"
"No."
"Then teamwork still remains paramount. You have saved us a few hours though, and now I have less person to worry about protecting. If this fails, you take the others and run, don't turn back, don't slow down, run straight through everything that gets in your way. Is this clear? I need you to be strong, you must be the one to escape, even if it means leaving the rest of us behind. We need someone who can get back down here without letting Valzinameku out."
Kitty shrugged. "Sure, I guess."
"That is not good enough. People will die if you guess. People are dieing now, you must pull through. Now release us so that we can begin."
"I don't get why it's so hard? We can just climb out, right?"
"If there was even the tiniest fault in this prison, Valzinameku could, would escape here. I think that when your friend fell, you made him phase through the adamantite walls."
"But I wasn't touching him."
"You need to touch someone to phase with them?"
"Yeah..."
"The perhaps he phased through on his own. The fact of the matter is that you are in here now and the prison is still intact. Enough of this, to the plan." By now they were all standing in a corner of the great cavern.
"Ororo, can you lift the three of you onto that ledge there?" He pointed to a seven foot step about fifty feet above the ground.
"Don't ask me if I can. I will." Storm was sweating bullets though, fifty feet was pretty high up, and with two other people... It would be a very close call.
"You take Kitty, I will lift Raven."
"What?" Storm stared hard at him.
"There is no reason to strain yourself yet. You still have to resuce the other mutants. Go now, three hundred paces through the wall of that ledge is a tunnel. Follow it to you companions and lead them to safety. There are people after them, beware. However, if the enemy is the only one willing to house you, do not hesistate. You will suffer greatly at their hands, but I will come for you. You are not supposed to die like this."
"Your Fates tell you this?" Mystique needled as she felt herself rise into the air and Storm took off with Kitty in tow.
"My heart tells me this. You will not die here, I swear it on my wings. You mustn't fail me, Kitty, I have placed a burden upon you that may never lift, but please, do not forsake me."
There was an earshattering roar as Valzinameku surged to its feet, sensing Lucifer's magic. Kitty didn't look back even when she heard a sickening crunching noise behind her. She just grabbed Mystique's and Storm's hand and ran, counting the steps and trying to fight off her panic.