I do not own X-Men, however, Eric Wasser is mine.
Enjoy,
--P.
From the top of the hill Eric can see the bay, the island, and the bridge slowly hovering over the water in a motion that causes the eyes and brain to jarringly disagree. He lags behind as the other soldiers around him race downwards and descend on the blocks between them and the water.
Sarah walks up beside Eric, clapping him on the shoulder. The sensation causes him to twitch. He's still staring at the bridge.
In the new world, will there be no place for things of beauty? Or are they not beautiful simply because they were built by human hands?
"You ready?" Sarah asks him,
Eric nods.
"Magneto, Callisto, and the others are on the bridge. They've got a small force with them, but it's not going to be enough to take the compound. They want me to lead the second wave in after the bridge is in place."
"And I go with you?"
Sarah shakes her head. "No."
"What do I do?"
"You're going to be with the group that stays on this side of the bridge. Magneto anticipates a counterattack from behind and it will be your job to stop them."
A sharp noise to Eric's left makes him turn his head. A large-bodied mutant has crashed through a shop window and is pounding the store owner into the floor. The man's screams abruptly stop. Eric turns his attention back to the bridge as it moves closer to the island. He feels sick. He's aware of Sarah guiding him down the hill.
"This is important." She says. "If a counterattack comes from our rear, there'll be no escape. Magneto won't haven enough strength to reroute the bridge a second time."
Eric nods, but he's not really listening to Sarah. He can't concentrate for the sound of the screams and breaking glass around him. The mutant soldiers--if they could be called soldiers--have gone wild with destructive glee. They kept their cool for a while. They marched into town hidden under cloaks and heavy coats, relatively unnoticed. For most of the trip through the outskirts, they managed to resist the urge to pillage, to attack humans on sight. However, with their goal of Alcatraz and Magneto's avenging Golden Gate Flagship on the horizon, what composure the mutants had is gone.
"Eric?" Sarah notices that the boy has stopped walking. He's at least two steps behind her and not moving. "Come on. When the bridge drops we're going to need to be in place."
"What are they doing?"
Sarah looks around at the others. She and Eric were walking down the middle of the street in a straight path directly to the sea. The others, however, have spread out over the sidewalks and into buildings. They've lit fires and toppled cars. Sarah is not quite sure how she missed it all. "They're…"
"They're killing people."
"Just humans." She walks back up the hill towards he friend. "This is a war, kid. It's not going to be pretty. Besides, It's Worthington's fault for putting his factory so close to such a big city. He's damned his own people to die with his ignorance. And pretty soon, it won't even matter."
In the new world, without humans, who will we demonize?
Eric doesn't look at Sarah. He's still watching the bridge. "What happens after we destroy the cure?"
"We win."
"What do we win?"
Sarah growls. "Look, we don't have time for this now! Come on." She snatches Eric's hand and starts dragging him down the hill. A car smolders and catches on fire as the two pass. "I know Magneto hasn't had much time to teach you, but he has faith in you kid. You're power is the strongest of anyone who'll be staying on this side of the bridge. You need to keep your head."
"What if I can't?"
"Don't think like that. You can. You will."
When they get to the edge of the water, the bridge has already been laid. Sarah mentally kicks herself for not hurrying, but there's nothing she can do now. In the blink of an eye she scales an abandoned van at the very lip of the bridge.
"Listen up!" She roars, addressing the mutants that--by now--have left their marauding and arrived at the base of the connection to Alcatraz. "You have your orders and you better keep to them! If you're staying here, stay the hell here! Don't get any funny ideas about coming over the bridge and leaving this side unguarded! If you're with me, then you better not get any funny idea about chickening out! Otherwise I'll cut you myself." Sarah reaches behind her, rips a sword-like length of bone directly from her spine, and shrieks a blood-curdling battle cry that makes Eric shudder involuntarily. She raises the bone weapon over her head and screams: "Charge!" The mutant soldiers shriek in reply.
They surge past Sarah's van and begin their rush across the battered Golden Gate Bridge. She makes to leap down and join them, but Eric is clambering up the side of the vehicle, and before Sarah knows it, he's clinging to her.
"Watch it kid!" She snarls. "I don't want to hurt you…"
"Sarah!" His face is buried in the soft part of her shoulder, a place devoid of bone-growth. "Be careful."
She's still pumped; still ready to charge into the fray and tear people apart. She's really more Marrow now than she is Sarah. Still, the armor-clad woman runs a hand through the boy's hair. "Don't worry about me. I'm going to be just fine. That is, unless I sit here talking all day and don't lead my troops."
Eric backs away from her; nods. He can't meet her eyes though.
"You still scared to be here by yourself?" She asks, reaching out and fixing the boy's long blue scarf.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be." She finishes tightening the scarf around Eric's neck so he won't lose it. She has no idea why she does; she has no idea why she performs her next action either. "Here…" Marrow says, and with a slight gasp of pain, rips one of the bone spires from her elbow. "Take this. You'll be fine. You're tougher than you think, kid."
By the time Eric takes hold of the dagger, feels how surprisingly light it is, Marrow is already off of the van and half-way to catching up her battalion. In a few moments she's passed them and is leading the charge once again.
Eric turns around and climbs down from the roof of the van. Sixty or so mutants are milling about the base of the bridge, but they're not really saying anything. Some of them sit down and wait. Others stare off in the direction of the island. Eric doesn't have special senses; he can't imagine what they must be seeing, hearing, even feeling with their mind.
He's concentrating, trying to see down the length of the bridge when the first of the sirens reaches his ears. Within moments, police squad cars are barreling down the hill and Eric can't help but feel a slight tinge of panic. One of the mutants beside him begins to belch out a deep throaty laugh, saying something about 'pathetic reinforcements.'
The police park a block away. They fan their cars out and take up positions behind the vehicles, using them as shields. A man with a bullhorn starts to make demands. "Mutants, all of you put your hands on your heads and get on the ground. If you fail to comply, we will open fire immediately! You have this one warning!"
The throaty man beside Eric gives another laugh. "Let's have a little fun before the real reinforcements show up." Stepping forward, he bellows an order to his fellow mutants: "Break 'em in half!"
Eric remains standing at the cusp of the bridge. He watches the ensuing bloodbath. The police manage to kill one mutant. They wound at least a few before they're completely overrun. Outgunned and outnumbered, they are in fact ripped apart. Eric looks away, feeling the same sickness in his stomach as when the shop keeper was killed earlier.
In the new world, will there be no place for law? Just because you can rip someone in half, does that mean you should?
When the soldiers return to the bridge, they're in much better spirits. They laugh and make jokes. The throaty mutant notices Eric standing, back turned, off and away from the crowd. The man shuffles over and grabs Eric's shoulder with a rough hand. "You're still a little wet behind the ears, ain't you boy?"
A bit of blood soaks into Eric's shirt; he can feel the dampness on his skin. It makes him want to throw up. It makes him want to scream.
"What's wrong? You don't speak?"
"Don't… touch me." Eric hisses through clenched teeth. Those same teeth are suddenly snapping together as he finds himself forcibly spun around.
The man is glowering down at Eric now. "What'd you say?" The boy does not meet his gaze.
In the new world, will the brutes still pick on the feeble? Magneto says that human beings are bullies; cowards that prey on the weak. There are cowardly bully-humans, yes… but so are there cowardly bully-mutants…
Eric's jaws clatter together again as the larger man shakes him gruffly by the shoulders. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"
In a flash, a memory from Eric's childhood comes back to him. It's brief, nothing more than a bit of conversation between his five year-old self and his now dead aunt.
He forgets why she said it, and what the story behind it was, but for the briefest of moments Eric hears Pearl speaking: "Just because someone is an adult, it doesn't always make them right."
To a five year-old it was a very profound statement, but had been lost to other memories as the boy grew older. It's resurfaced now.
Eric's brain clicks.
Just because someone is a mutant, that does not make them a good person.
The throaty mutant is growling now, his face a clear indication of his anger. Slowly, Eric moves his eyes, turbulent and startlingly blue, to meet the beady black of the larger man's. They stare into each other for several seconds, neither moving or backing down
Eric speaks. "Let go of me." The command is calm, but unyielding.
"Make me!"
"Alright."
The throaty mutant starts to laugh, but is quickly cut off. He winces. The man hadn't noticed the bone knife that the boy had been clutching in his hand, but he notices it now that it's buried in his throat. He manages to gurgle once before falling to the ground.
Eric doesn't look at man he's just killed. He doesn't want to. He's not especially proud and he doesn't want think about his actions any more right now. Besides, the other mutant soldiers are staring at him.
The boy wipes his hands on his jeans. He reaches up and readjusts the scarf around his neck. With one hand, Eric moves his black hair out of his eyes.
"Why did you do that?" One of the others demands.
Eric clears his mind. Magneto told him to find the center, find the feeling beyond emotion, beyond the chattering of the outside world. They'd only practiced once. There was no time for anything else.
"Traitor!" Another mutant screams, her nails growing longer and more talon-like. "Traitor!" She chants, "Traitor!"
The other soldiers strike up a traitor chorus, their various weapons being drawn or summoned. The mob advances a step. Eric doesn't move. A pale blue light is issuing from his eyes, but the vengeful marauders don't seem to notice. If they do then they don't seem to care. Chanting, the mob continues to advance on Eric.
Eric lifts his arms, stretches his hands in front of him--palms out. Magneto said for Eric to feel it with his mind. Feel the swells, the currents--the tide itself. "Your weapon is the lifeblood of the planet." Magneto had said. "You'll never be without it, no matter where you go. You're a primal force of nature."
The bridge moans softly, waves lashing at either side. The water below has turned to froth.
In just on session, the two of them sitting alone at the edge of the forest camp, Magneto had told Eric everything he'd ever need to know: "You must remember, never to demand anything of the ocean. It is far more powerful and wise than you or I could ever hope to be."
Eric does not dare demand. He asks.
He asks the sea to rise. He implores the water to defy laws that have held it for millennia. He requests the liquid tendrils reach into the sky like twin blue serpents. He begs them to twist, flow, and arc into the air above the bridge itself. Eric wills thousands of pounds of water down like a dragon onto the advancing mutants.
The ocean complies.