New Chapter...equals...YAYNESS!
Chapter Sixteen: Why? (The King of Love is Dead)
Australia was a disaster area, one equal to that of Hiroshima or New Orleans post-Katrina. It was utterly violated by nature, or in this case, by Mutate. They'd swept through from the west coast to the east and destroyed everything in their path not of use to them. There'd been no warning and no survivors to let the rest of the world know what was happening. Even now, only a select few were even aware that something had gone down, and even less realized the scale of it.
Buildings had been shattered where they stood, decades old and stable foundations doing nothing to stop the many geo-abilities that Mutates had been armed with. Any baseline humans had been killed as soon as sighted or sensed. Some had their heads imploded from certain vocal tones wielded by various mutants, some simply dropped where they stood under the assault of mental attacks, and then some others went down the old-fashioned way in a bloodbath of Japanese film epic proportions. There were a select few mutants taken back to Genosha, where they would undergo the Mutate process, which again, only a few would survive. In the end, the survivors of this massacre would number in the hundreds, and millions would die.
There was a large empty space between the coasts in Australia, where heat and deserts made it barely travelable, let alone livable. Rogue surveyed it, and watched as hundreds upon hundreds of Mutates walked through it, none of them showing the wear and tear of such an undertaking. She piloted the ship a few miles ahead of them, and took it down.
Rogue landed the plane in an open field, though it had very little grass and no trees. She stepped from the plane, and gingerly onto the ground, and knew immediately that the thousands of Mutates heading her way felt her do it. There were at least a dozen Mutates within the mob with connections to the Earth, and the others shared their senses and thoughts, what little there were. Connected mentally through Phoenix; they moved in synchronicity, their minds as if one, their actions without thought, puppets in the hands of a madwoman.
Rogue opened her "third" eye, and all her senses and the connections between the Mutates and their master shone in her mind brighter than the moon on a clear night. Silvery webs of connection, spirally closer and closer, and tighter as well, all the way to Phoenix, connected to them all through a clear, thick silver chain, strong as it's namesake.
Using Cerebra, and her own permanently taken mental abilities, Rogue would not only seek to destroy those connections. She would unravel them and kill every single once-person that was attached. She would delight in it. If she actually felt such emotions as delight and joy. No, like her Mutate compatriots, she felt only the vaguest and faded emotions. It would aid her in this mission.
The troops were cresting a hill, miles away, but clearly seen to her. They didn't smile or yell in glee of battle. They moved silently, smoothly, but without thought, again. They weren't even people anymore. Individualism had been wiped out as soon as the countdown to the "plan" began. They were robots moving at the will of their creator. Rogue should have felt something, bitterness or perhaps sadness? All she felt was determination.
She pulled Cerebra's control headset to her hands, and slipped it over her skull, settling it on comfortably. Then, she took to the air for her final battle, and at last, she felt something; fear.
Rogue smiled softly as an old saying unwittingly came to mind as the Mutates came closer. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Rogue just wondered where the road paved with bad ones led, and if she would like it there.
X-Force was in shambles, but they re-grouped nonetheless. A quick looking over by Beast proved the situation dire, but not heart-stoppingly so. Colossus for the moment had no powers. The metallic coat that covered him had been destroyed by Phoenix, and Beast had no idea whether another one would form or "grow" in its place eventually. It would take further research, and there was no time for experimenting at the time. For now, Colossus was out of the fight.
Gambit was in equal bad attentions, but wasn't so final. The blindness appeared to be only temporary, with shadows and light already returning to him. He was incredibly weakened by the act of blindness, but years of thieving and training meant that he wasn't to be discounted from the fight. He'd long ago made it near impossible for him to be defeated by the loss of any one of his senses. He could be heard boasting that even in a dark room he could balance perfectly on a steel beam less that three inches wide...and that he could disrobe a woman in the same situation within seconds. Jubilee, with her broken ankle and sprained wrist from her own incident with Phoenix, found the energy to laugh at that. She and Gambit were resting near the rear of the plane, letting the others, still able, plot their next move. Next to her, Cannonball was sedated. Beast didn't think Sam would ever walk the same again. He had no knee-cap on his right leg, and given the choice, Beast would have rushed him straight to the hospital. However, there had been no time.
Wolverine, already fully healed, was het up and fit to fight. Magneto, having decided most wisely after Colossus' incident with Phoenix to "hide", was also fit to fight. Storm still shook from the force of the unending nightmares forced into her mind, and jumped at every sound, but it was clear that she was also ready to fight. Xavier studied them and was satisfied that some of his most powerful allies were alright. Beast, who'd arrived in yet another plane only minutes after Rogue had escaped, didn't quite realize the enormity of the effort they were contemplating.
"To be honest, Charles, the girl wiped us out. We rushed in and stood no chance," Storm stressed, wringing her hands as much from worry as from nerves torn apart. Her hair was matted about her shoulders, from sweat and effort, and she made no attempt to fix it.
Xavier nodded, and folded his hands in front of his face. "Do we really have a choice? Seeing what Phoenix was capable of, can we truly blame Rogue for wanting to stop her? And others that would appear to be just like her?"
Wolverine ached for a cigar, but ignored it. "Rogue has good ideas, but she ain't going about it the right way. Her way is gonna kill a whole helluva lot of people."
"She feels it is the only way," Beast replied.
Xavier interrupted before the violent mutant and his oft-pacifist friend engaged in another debate. "For all we know, it might be. It does seem that these Mutates have adopted a "do-or-die" idea to life. She's had three years to form this plan, and we've had two days to think on it." Xavier slipped his hands to his sides and stared at his old friends. "She never was a fool, and I fear that she probably is right."
Wolverine glared at him. "After all these years of telling me that violence isn't the answer, you...what? Change your mind?"
"I don't like admitting this, but this is a situation that we are completely lost in. We have no idea of what is truly going on in Australia, or what they're doing. We can only...trust. Have faith that Rogue knows what she is doing."
"She does seem quite capable," Beast added, turning to correct some navigational things as they entered Australian airspace, only to gasp at what the aft cameras were showing him as the zoomed into the coastal area. "However, I doubt she did this, so I fear that leaves only one option."
The others, including Gambit and Jubilee, hobbled their way to the front of the plane, taking in the desolation that now lay there.
Jubilee voiced what they all thought. "How could someone do this?"
Fires waged at various placed, in varying sizes. As the ship soared by at a lower altitude, the better to see the destruction, the fires waved in the wind, and rose a bit before ducking back down. Other than that, nothing moved. None of the bodies, none of the buildings. Not even the trees. Everything was dead.
Xavier concentrated for a moment, and verified that thought. "I'm sensing no life signs. No humans, no animals. Nothing."
Gambit steadied himself on the back of the pilot seat and struggled with the emotions clogging the cockpit. "What's happened?"
Storm was the one who spoke, and as usual, did so with an elegant melodramatic tone that often fit the situations they got caught in so well. "Angels and devils walk the earth, and they care not for what their battles cause us mere humans."
Gambit deciphered the poetics and quickly deduced what she meant. "Rogue was right."
Xavier ducked his head and turned his chair back to the small table with its map of Australia and the information that they'd all learned the past couple of days. "I fear she is."
The others returned to their seats, and their own thoughts. The next thirty minutes were traveled in silence, but the atmosphere of the plane was mournful. X-Force had never learned the virtue of distance, and they felt every loss as if it were personal. It was both a virtue and a curse. Too much distance, and you could do damage with your apathy. Too little...and you hurt every time you went into the field. You lost something of yourself each time you lost an innocent.
Many of X-Force finally faced the fact that the time was coming when they'd either have to quit or removed themselves from these situations, because they'd already lost so much of themselves that very little remained. Some hid that loss behind drinks, smoke, or sex. Others hid it behind archaic wisdom, silence, and fake smiles. Others again didn't hide it at all.
Beast looked up from the directional controls and caught sight of what lay ahead and he immediately called the team to the front. They came silently.
The sight before them was an awesome one. Hundreds of dark figures, Mutates, were spread out but moving steadily east. A couple dozen feet above them, telepaths hovered, some on their own volition, others in the arms of flying Mutates. Higher still, was one figure, one that burned in a fire of her own making, Phoenix.
Even farther ahead, a lone figure drifted above the ground, tied down with a couple lines connected to a small plane, her arms thrown out and a bright red light forming about her head like a demonic halo. As they watched the glow grew brighter, until it shone like a second sun in the evening light. It was Rogue and she was "firing up" her own mental engine.
X-Force watched as Rogue stirred the pots of the atmosphere, calling lighting and thunder to her, the ground shaking beneath her, lava boiling to the surface beneath her before being covered by rain and water from a freshly formed spout nearby cooled it into rock again. Fog rolled in, and the heat in the area rose swiftly.
Beast plotted a landing area just behind her, and as the plane curved around her and the shifting circumstances that she was controlling, a small wave of red pulsed from her. It only traveled a few feet, but the second one only seconds later traveled farther. As the situation and scene was described to him, it was Gambit who made the connection.
"She's using the abilities and the lives she's absorbed to fuel Cerebra, make it stronger."
Xavier nodded. "She's using her own life force, as well."
"It will kill her," Jubilee exclaimed as they finally touched down.
Xavier turned to the door, his eyes sad. "I fear it will."
They opened the door and watched as Rogue floated even higher, the atmosphere even more volatile, and new events occurring. Shadows came to life beneath her, as holes within the timeline and reality itself began to form. Creatures spilled out of them, before being overtaken by other abilities that manifested from her. The plants came to life, rising and destroying many of the creatures, before the rains came again, this time made from acid and burning away anything that ventured too close.
X-Force wisely chose to stay a bit away, and watch as the situation unfolded.
Finally, the army of Mutates arrived, and Rogue opened her eyes, only seeable now because of the odd gray light that suddenly formed in her crimson halo. Two small dots of gray that watched as the Mutates froze as one and Phoenix drifted down to a stop in front of them.
"You cannot stop me, Rogue."
Rogue laughed and let her arms fall to her sides. "Ah'm willing to try."
Phoenix nodded, this time, a bit sadly. "So it will be."
"So it will be," Rogue echoed.
Then, the world erupted in fire and chaos, and all X-Force could do was watch.