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Miko
Chapter 18 -----------Blood, Sweat, Tears, Sulfur, Death, Whatever...
Callie felt her fate was imminent. She was going to die... he was going to kill her. Callie felt her power drain, she had already let go of the children, they had all woken up.
No emotion was rushing into her anymore, but she still felt it... the fear mixed with pain.
She didn't want this... the feeling.
Pain wasn't hers, she hadn't owned it most of her life. She was a monster, just like the feeling she had released wanted her to be. Monsters didn't feel pain...
She deserved to die. She saw Logan, completely consumed by the rage she had returned back into him, and put her hands to her sides.
It was fitting, the rage she felt had brought her to life, to take it all away.
Callie held her breath, and closed her eyes.
But the end didn't come from Logan. Rather, it threatened from a different source.
The young girl, Leila, was still screaming, and where her hands were on the ground, cracks and splits occurred in the concrete floor beneath her.
Spreading, they extended to the glass shell surrounding her.
Her screams got louder as the cracks in the ground and the growing rumbles around the room caused the bottles on the shelves to shake and the glass house to burst outwards in shards.
The glass in his face caught Logan by surprise.
He clawed at it, and the pain he caused his face seemed to snap him out of his rage.
Or maybe infuse it further; Callie couldn't tell, but whatever it did, Logan stopped in front of her, looking down.
Claws extended, eyes glaring, and blood dripping down his face...
Most people would have been consumed by fear, felt lost in terror with having the Wolverine stare them in the face, with those emotions dancing across his tormented eyes.
Callie's tears were openly falling now, and of course she was afraid, but she was overwhelmed by a different sensation...
Shame.
She had brought him to this... she had caused it all.
The ceiling started pouring down around them.
Callie noticed a boy she in the medlabs too... she had forgotten about him. To her left, she watched as he turned to ice and fought to keep the ceiling panels up.
The ice he projected just cracked.
Dust and pummeled debris made the room look like it was covered in a haze.
The shakes just increased and it felt like there was no end.
A cry from the blue mutant with the tail was the only thing that got Logan's horrible gaze away from her.
Callie lowered her head and let out her breath. She hadn't known she had been holding it.
"Logan?" Kurt cried.
Just as he said it a support beam from the floor above came crashing down in between Callie and Logan.
Logan leapt out of the way instinctively, but Callie just let it fall, saved only by the floor splitting up beneath her, causing her to slide towards the back of the medlabs.
Her back slammed into the back wall and she let herself lie where she fell even though she was still awake.
Logan could tell this as he fought against himself to gain control of his emotions. The sudden snap of his rage back inside his head had caught him off guard, and he had lost control. Still not entirely sure of how had came back into control, not ever being able to know that it was the look in Callie's eyes... her willingness to show her honorable soul in feeling regret and shame, in owning up to her mistakes, that had soothed the beast within Logan.
"She wants to die..." He didn't know how he knew... but it was true... he let the statement hang in the air.
He housed his claws, finally coming back to his senses, feeling himself control the rage that never ceased, and he moved in her direction.
He felt Kurt behind him.
"Logan get out of here... I can..." Nightcrawler began.
"No." Logan started, cutting Kurt off. "Jean's back here too. You find her and teleport her out. Bobby's got Leila." Logan looked back to, sure enough, see Iceman accepting his loss at keeping the ceiling stabilized, and going to grab the now unconscious form of Leila Montique.
"And you've got Callie?" Kurt asked, his hand now on Logan's arm.
"Yes." Wolverine answered, looking down at the gesture. "I do... I've done a lot of stupid things Elf, but I'm back inside my head. I wouldn't wish my rage to anyone; I've been losing myself to it ever since I could remember. I saw Callie go through exactly the same thing. And now she wants to die, I've been there too."
Kurt lowered his head and let go of Logan's arm.
"Go save Jean." Logan stated once again. "I'll go save myself."
Kurt blinked and teleported away. Logan clenched his teeth, cleared his head, and charged to the back of the room.
Callie could feel the room being tortured apart. She closed her eyes to wait for a pillar to crush her or for Logan to claw her. Whatever was most convenient.
Maybe this was all a bad dream... and she would wake up in the morning to her mommy making waffles and her dad ready to take her to the zoo or out for a walk in the garden... or maybe...
The room filled with the smell of sulfur. Callie almost smiled as tears streamed down her face.
She WAS going to die.
Fire and Brimstone... it was what she deserved.
"Get up." She heard a voice shout and still somehow growl.
Her eyes opened but she didn't move.
"I said... "it growled lower. "Get Up!" He barked, as a few more glass instruments crashed to the floor behind him, and sparks from an electrical wire that had become exposed lit the air. The earthquake intensified, as if showing it could do just fine without its creator. Like it had something to prove.
Callie sucked air into her lungs.
Logan hauled her to her feet.
He glared at her.
She stared back.
"Do it..." she whispered... backing up as far as she could to the wall... away from Logan... away from the exit... away from her life.
"Go ahead and do it." She said with more force.
She saw his eyes hold pity for her. He felt sorry for her.
HE felt sorry for HER?
Callie screamed with blood and tears eating her throat. She held up her hands to get him away. Her epiphany dissolving as she saw herself for what she was... and running from it...
An energy blast ripped out of her and hit Logan square on the chest. He flinched.
"DO IT!" She screamed... sobbing. "Please..." she whispered as he moved closer to her. He moved to reach her.
She screamed again, less forcefully.
"Monster!" She yelled and hit him across the face. He didn't react.
"You're nothing!" She sobbed, hitting him again. Feverishly she hit him and almost fell to her knees. He caught her and she cried into him.
"Monster." She whispered to herself. "I'm nothing."
Callie held her breath again and found herself deaf to the sound of imploding air and a blue hand wrapping around her waist... only when the floor was wet and solid with grass and morning dew did her brain register the sound of crickets chirping obliviously and the first slips of sunlight bursting forth from over the horizon in pink and orange.
She was outside.
Callie looked back at the chaos and destruction she had caused.
The damage she had wrought on a beautiful mansion in Manchester. A place where children learned.
Callie's eyes, a beautiful bright blue, stained red through saline tears, closed shut as she collapsed to the ground.