Another chapter update? So quickly? Yes. Yes it is.
A/N: This is the second to last chapter. YES. I said it. Next chapter is the last chapter, and then there's an epilogue. I hope we all enjoyed this.
Chapter 17: Tomorrow (We Will Meet Once More)
The world, quite literally, erupted in fire, causing all the X-Men (save Gambit who had to be pulled to safety) to scramble out of its way. Xavier didn't really have to move at all, since his chair was below the average height level (though if he had hair, he wouldn't have it anymore).
The few braver ones looked back up to watch as Rogue and Phoenix dueled high above them, the air streaming with various projectiles from both. Phoenix balled telepathic and pyrokinetically controlled fire in her hands before sending them slamming towards Rogue, who with the aid of Cerebra, easily parried them, and returned with a few surprises of her own. Great storm clouds began to form above them, jutting lightning into the ground, missing Phoenix by inches, but taking out dozens of Mutates at a time. X-Force noticed that none of them even strayed near them, a deliberate play on Rogue's part.
The Mutates, scattering and briefly confused as the hold Phoenix kept over them wavered, sought for something to aid their commander in battle. They finally saw such an option in X-Force. Hundreds of Mutates, all the ones in the immediate area, picked up that thought and turned in sync to study the mutants. It was an extremely disconcerting sight. Good thing Gambit couldn't actually see it.
"Piotr?" He called out, rising to his knees in the quickly increasing mud. His Russian friend came to his side, helping the man to his feet. "Wha's happenin'?"
"Rogue is battling the Phoenix," Piotr explained in his deep accent, his voice quiet despite all the noise around.
"Is she winnin'?"
"I do not believe anyone is winning."
"What about de army?"
"They are looking at us."
"How many?"
"Hundreds."
"..."
"Mayhaps thousands."
"Dey're lookin' at us?" Gambit whispered to Piotr, his hands slipping into his pockets to fiddle with the cards that tangled there.
"Da."
"In what kinda way?"
"Menacing."
Gambit nodded. "Remy need you to be his eyes, Petey. You up to it?"
"Da," Piotr agreed, knowing that there really was little he could do in this situation without his abilities.
"Where dey at?"
"Which ones?"
"Any ones!"
"Twelve o'clock."
"Your's or mine?"
"Your's."
Gambit charged the cards he suddenly held in his hand, sending them flying in the direction Piotr supplied and was rewarded with several large explosions muffled only slightly by living flesh. Gambit smiled rakishly and was already threading more cards between his fingers. "I t'ink we goin' to have some fun, Petey."
Elsewhere, Wolverine was having his own sort of fun, the kind that ends with his claws being covered in the thick musculature of bodies he'd rammed them through so many times that the substance didn't even try to drip off. His metal claws weren't to that point yet, but it would only be a matter of time. While above him, Phoenix and Rogue were trading metaphysical blows and transient wounds of all sorts, he ran through the crowd of Mutates, his claws out, his teeth gnashed, and a low primal moan of pleasure in his throat. Logan was in his element, the only one he'd ever been truly comfortable with. He didn't know his past, and doubted he had a future, but what he did know was that he was a man bred for battle, and lived for the exhilaration that he found there.
Storm rose into the air, fog swirling at her feet and faced the thousands of Mutates before her. It went against a deep inner grain to take life. It was against nature to do so. Her eyes flashed white and her hair, the same color, swirled about her head. The storm clouds above started to churn and roil, before giving birth to massive tornadoes, of the highest caliber. Micro-managed to the Nth degree, Storm made damn sure they hit only Mutates. She might not like what she had to do, but she did it. For the good of the many, she would kill a few...hundred.
The others likewise made use of themselves. Jubilee shot her pretty sparkles, blinding Mutates long enough for Beast to take them out, whilst Magneto slowly, but epidemically, caused the iron in the Mutates' blood to heat and sear arteries closed, killing in a most effective manner. They would find out later that Magneto and Storm had the highest kill amounts on that day (and Logan would be most upset and envious).
Xavier, however, watched. Truthfully, he doubted he could help X-Force with their battles, and the fight going on above was most fascinating. He alone of X-Force could actually see what was happening on the astral plane, and it was one of the most impassive battles he'd ever seen. While their bodies were spitting and hissing in physical space, in truth, the minds of Phoenix and Rogue were not even there. Their minds were locked in a much more intimate battle.
With his telepathy at full range, he could only get a bare sense of the power the two women were wielding against one another. Their astral forms were completely still, and the noise of the physical realm did not even try to breach the air around them. Their eyes were locked on one another's, green clashing with gray, both steely cold and determined. This was not a battle of powers or abilities or even strength. This was a battle of will.
Mind against mind, spirit against spirit. This battle, a long time coming, had little to do with the recurring themes of betrayal and redemption, nor did it have to do with the jewel that Shaw had sent them both after. It had to do with two girls, growing up together, rivals for the same boy's affection, for the same friends, for the same place in life. They were enemies. Pure and simple. Everything else was just dressing.
Telepathy battered at telepathy, small whispers of purple twinkles in the air showing just how much force was between the two women. Rogue's hands clenched and unclenched as her forehead began to bead out sweat, her face contorted with effort. Rogue, with all the many powers and lives she'd absorbed, and with the aid of Cerebra, was still not a telepath. Her mind was not meant for this strain. Even so, she pushed on.
Phoenix, annoyingly observant bitch that she was, took the time to gloat (even if the strain was getting to her as well). "You can stop fighting now, Rogue. We all know that my mind is so much more powerful than yours."
Rogue grinned maniacally, a sudden idea occurring to her. "It's not quality, Jeannie...it's quantity."
Rogue opened her arms wide, and to the astonishment of both Xavier and Phoenix, shadows forms began to flow from her fingers, slowly shaping into humans. Telepaths that Rogue had absorbed and now kept within herself. Together, they turned the whole of their abilities against Phoenix. She withstood the assault from all sides for a few minutes, but even a telepath of her magnitude, already over-strained holding the Mutates in line, fell to the rush of power slamming at her shield. With a small shocked gasp, Phoenix's astral form fell from the plane. Rogue took satisfaction in knowing that for a few minutes Phoenix was out of action. It was all she would need.
Rogue pulled the psyches back to herself, folding them into her mind with ease, though a few did protest. Psylocke, in particular, didn't like the "cell" where Rogue kept the psyches to keep them from attempting control on her mind. Even in the astral plane, a headache brewed behind her eyes and she raised her hand to rub at it. Somewhere in the back of her mind she noted that in the physical realm, Phoenix fell a few feet, but otherwise remained in position. Her eyes viewed Rogue blankly, lost in her own thoughts, or rather, lack there of.
Rogue started to return to her body, to start in action the plan that would end this, when she sensed another presence nearby. Though, truthfully, this part of the astral plane was under the Shadow King's control, he himself stayed far enough away to not be affected by anything that happens there in. Even he feared Phoenix. Rogue thought at first that he'd sent a surveyor, to take note and carry back information to him, but opening her senses fully she realized that he still hadn't learned his lesson.
"Xavier. Always watching. Always teaching. Why did you come? I thought we made it clear in Bayville that this does not need involve you."
Xavier sent his own astral projection a few feet closer to Rogue's. "I want to know the truth. Of what happened to you, and the rest of my students. You've given us half-truths and all-out-lies, almost destroying us without a care. Before this is over, I want to know why."
Rogue eyed him, taking in the tall imposing figure his astral form took. She floated closer, gently taking his hand. "Okay."
Rogue suddenly, and without warning, send millions of thoughts, three years worth of moments into his mind. It lasted only a second, but to Xavier it seemed longer. Every second, every action, every memory of three long years suddenly available to him, and it overloaded his mind. His astral form disappeared, and down on the Earth, his physical body stopped the sudden seizure and slipped into unconsciousness. Rogue smiled as she noted it. He would have his truth, but it was really up to him what he did with it. She had done all she could to set things right, and it was time to truly end this conflict.
Rogue rooted herself in the physical realm and took a few seconds to note what was happening below her. Wolverine was lost amidst many bodies, quickly growing, while in the distance tornadoes and hail took down hundreds of troops in wait. Magneto had people dropping like dominoes, all in a line, and at the front line, so to speak, Gambit, Piotr, Jubilee, and Beast did their best to keep the hordes from encroaching further (and killing X-Force).
Rogue balled her fist and knew that this was a situation that she'd led them all to. At the time she'd thought it the only way to be sure. To be real. To make a footnote of herself on the annals of history, but now she feared that only the enemies would live to tell. Enemies that even now cowered in hiding, waiting until the bloodprice was paid before coming out to scavenge the remainder of what was left.
Rogue could taste a combination of bile and blood in the back of her throat, and she closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to face the hundreds of people before her. As she did so, a flurry of facts slid behind her eyes, a side affect of calling all those many lives and abilities within her to the surface. Not one at a time, not in combination. No. She called them all. She fueled her own demise.
Rogue clasped her hands over Cerebra's headset and concentrated.
There were 1234 people within a two-mile radius of Rogue.
She called those powers, and funneled them into her mind, her eyes flying open to reveal of rainbow of glowing, colors kaleidoscoping into mixtures of colors never seen before. Her face paled with the effort, even as a small trickle of blood, leaking from her brain slid down the side of her face, from her hairline.
Of that number, 234 are corpses, or rapidly dying, and 992 are Mutates. 8 are mutant.
Below her, sensing the great power surging above, the fighting stops. The Mutates stare at Rogue, unaware of anything but the beauty of that light. It was salvation. It was deliverance. It was release from a life of non-living, going from one day to the next without even realizing how long it had been since they'd stopped simply existing and felt life.
Rogue felt her power stutter, as the physical exhaustion of the past two days caught up with her. Her body would not hold up to this torture, manic pain that shadowed every delightful discovery of what she held within her. She concentrated harder.
Sky is blue, grass is green. Blood is red.
Slowly, imperceptibly even to the telepaths, small waves of telepathy started to resonate from Rogue. It grew stronger, and the telepaths noticed. Phoenix woke from her trance and screamed with rage. She struck out with her own telepathy, but it was too late. The invisible waves of power batted those feeble attempts to stop Rogue easily.
His eyes are the most beautiful things Ah've ever seen. When Ah looked into them, Ah felt emotions, for the first time that Ah can ever remember.
Rogue let her arms fall to her sides; her strength funneled so much into Cerebra and her own mind that no longer even tried to cradle her poor aching head. The light in her eyes was no longer incandescently colorful, but rather burned with the bright non-color of the sun, blinding everyone with miles so that they couldn't even gaze upon her any longer.
Those small waves felt like they were tidal waves, crashing against all mental barriers and shredding any connections between people like it was tissue. On the ground, Mutates began to scream in agony. Almost immediately, those closest to Rogue and the team began to slump to the ground dead. As they watched, more and more bodies fell. X-Force felt the power in their minds, but had nothing to be obliterated. Beast ran about, trying to help the people he was only minutes before attacking, knowing it was futile, but trying with his own heart to help anyways.
Gambit couldn't see her, but he liked to imagine he could feel her warmth on his skin, her touch on his face. He kept his unseeing eyes open, if only for the painful reminder of what he'd give to save her.
Ah think, in the end, Ah'll miss him, knowing that he has always been her's. Never mine. Never again.
Phoenix, feeling the agony of her people, her teeth bared in hatred, threw aside any logical plans, including escape, and did what she felt she must. She drew the dagger hidden at her waist and flew at Rogue.
Even as the blade slammed into her chest, into her heart, Rogue sent out one last powerful wave of telepathy, one that echoed for miles and miles, giving even baseline humans a headache. Rogue stayed in the air for a few moments, the tableau not as shocking as it could have been. She'd assumed the backlash of the task she'd set into motion would kill her. She'd go down gracefully and angelically, her good task of the millennium done. Maybe even she'd fall into Remy's arms, and die there.
Instead, blood spurting over her hands, Rogue pulled the dagger out, stared at it for a second, her grey eyes confused. Then, she fell to the Earth, slamming into it with a thud most that echoed through the now empty battlefield. X-Force watched. They witnessed.
Beast wept tears of bitterness, his poet's soul in hell at the sight of such a loss of life. Wolverine echoed the sentiment of being in hell, but then again, he'd always felt that way. Storm was unseeing, her mind so lost in the primality of nature that even if her mind had thoughts, it would be as old and unreadable as nature itself. Jubilee held Gambit's hand on one side, and Piotr's on the other. The trio watched as Rogue fell, and Phoenix fled, and together they joined Xavier in standing at Rogue's side.
She was bloody and bruised, her face scratched from the fall. Still, she lived. Rogue opened her mouth, to tell them one final thing, but her windpipe was crushed and no sound emerged. Xavier understood what she wanted without having to read her mind, which after the exertion of before was in shambles and chaotic. He answered her unasked question. "We'll do as you wish. I promise."
Rogue smiled, her teeth red with blood and darker things not meant for the light. Her grey eyes were fogging over already, but still she managed a tear as Gambit sank to his knees beside her and took one of her hands. As she held on to him, she thought to herself one last thing, her last words of a sort.
Ah didn't intend it to be this way, but it is a hellavu way to go.
She would not be forgotten.