Chapter 5
Endangered
Wade sleeps, sitting, using a corner of a wall for support until he wakes up violently. He remembers everything that just happened over the past two days, the House of Magnus, his relationship with Laura, but when he looks at the date on his phone it's the right day, like the two days in the other world never happened. It did happen however he knows it especially when Steve Rogers contacts him stating that all heroes will be meeting at Stark Tower tonight to discuss "recent" events. "No more Mutants…" Wade says to himself. "Shit!" he says loudly as he stands up and his body is enveloped with a red glow before his costume appears on him. Then he is gone, running full speed to the Xavier Institute. Wade arrives at the school around noon to see it has devolved into chaos. Wade spots Hank McCoy and walks up to him.
"Hank, what's going on here?" Wade asks him.
"Wade, it is terrible most of the students have lost their powers and Emma says that the mutant population has been decimated. There are only about two hundred of us left worldwide. We are trying to manage the fallout now if you spare some time we could use the help," Hank tells him, knowing that Wade Clemons and Crimson Knight are the same person after their last team up along with most of the X-Men.
"Of course Hank, anything you need," Wade says as his costume fades away living him in his civilian clothes. Wade starts helping the X-Men deal the many problems around the Mansion until it is time to go to Stark Tower later in the evening.
At Stark Tower, many of the heroes that took part in the assault on Magneto in the other world have gathered in the main conference room and have already started talking about what happened. Surprisingly, many still remember the other world, but some don't.
"Wipe these memories from my mind!" Peter Parker demands. In the other he was married to Gwen Stacey and had a child together in the other world. Gwen was his first failure as a hero. "How and why do we even remember?"
"We can't do that and if I had to guess it was most likely a combination of Emma's mental protection and Dr. Strange's protection spell," Tony states.
"Yes, but how do we go about fixing this? The mutant population is gone less than two hundred are left and Wanda isn't one of them. There has to be a way to reverse this," Wade calmly says as Crimson Knight. "This was done by one of our own, regardless of her sanity. Is this even fixable?"
At this time a battered and exhausted Dr. Strange stumbles into the room. "I've failed my duty as Sorcerer Supreme. My duty is to prevent the use of magic to do something like this. Unfortunately, I have no idea on how to reverse this or if there is even a way to reverse it," Dr. Strange explains.
The heroes start discussing the long term ramifications of the decimated mutant population and the memories some of the heroes retained from the other world, but Wade takes something else away from this exchange. Heroes have no real oversite, SHIELD, HAMMER, SWORD, governments, and even heroes themselves. Who prevents heroes going rogue and how? He'll start studying heroes and villains alike just in case the heroes ever need to be neutralized. At least this way at least he may be able to prevent some things like this, maybe not many, but a few and that's enough for now.
After the meeting Wade heads back to the Xavier Institute, out of costume, as it is most people could find out that his cousin, Beth, is a student at the school. The school is surrounding by three large robots, Sentinels. These aren't the mutant hunting murder machines of the past, but manned suits operated by military personnel. Wade finds most of the students that retained their powers, gathered in the Living area watching the news and discussing the mutant decimation. Beth/Lady Maude, Nori Ashida/Surge, Megan Gwynn/Pixie, Santo Vaccarro/Rockslide (large rocklike body), Cessily Kincaid/Mercury (liquid metal body like the T-1000 in Terminator 2), David Alleyne/Prodigy, Sooraya Qadir/Dust, and a few others are all currently about what will happen to the students that lost their powers David, who lost his powers, included.
Wade stand in the doorway and knocks on the wall. "Hey guys, sorry I had to leave. How are yall holding up?" Wade asks them.
"Wade, glad you're back," Beth says walking up to him and gives him a hug. "I can't believe all this has happened or even how." She says looking into his eyes.
"Beth, I don't know what to say. I promise that if you need me I'll be here, no questions asked. I've got the okay from Scott and Emma to stay here for a little while and help out," Wade tells her.
"You know something don't you?" Beth whispers quietly. "They also have those manned Sentinels outside. They really picked literally the worst things to send here to "protect" us."
"David you know you are one of "them" now," Julian Keller/Hellion interrupts the conversation of the group with a smug smile.
Nori walks up to him and electricity starts coming from her hands "Shut up you idiot!" She yells.
"You wanna go little girl?" Julian yells as he starts to levitate himself and a glow of an emerald huge from his eyes and body appears.
Wade rushes over grabbing both Julian's and Nori's arm with his Crimson Shroud, a dark red magical barrier or field, wrapped around his hands. "That's…"
"Am I interrupting anything? No? Good," Logan says from the doorway with Laura standing next to him. "Everyone this is Laura Kinney. She's…uh…my sister. She was cloned from my DNA and…you know what doesn't matter. Yes she has claws and yes she could kill her, so don't give her a reason too. Consider yourselves introduced." He says and turns to walk away. "Oh and none of my business, but my money's on Nori." He says as he walks away.
"Laura…" Wade says slowly loosening his grip on Julian and Nori. Wade looks away from her remembering the other Laura.
Beth looks at Wade, then to Laura, then back to Wade. "So that's her?" Beth asks pointing at Laura who just looks away.
Laura looks up at Wade. "Wade what are you doing here?"
"Well Beth here is my cousin and with the recent turn of events I came here to see if she was okay," Wade explains. "You have no idea how good it is to see you." He tells her with a smile.
"Why did you look away then?" Laura asks as Julian storms out of the room.
"It's complicated, I'll tell you later. I also have a present for you but I don't have it with me and honestly I don't know if you'll kill me after I give it to you," Wade tells Laura with a chuckle to which she just stares at him.
Time passes and one hundred and elven of the depowered students volunteer to leave the school and the next day these depowered students are loading a bus on the Institute's grounds after being snuck out of the school through the old Morlock Tunnels. It is a time of a lot of emotions as for many of these students the they are leaving a home, lifelong friendships and people that really understood them. It's an eerily quiet and cold night as the students and former students say their good-byes. Wade is present as Crimson Knight and friend of the X-Men. Suddenly, an explosion rocks the campus from the area of the bus.
Wade rushes there with a few others to see the burning shells of the bus. They rush over to start crawling through the debris looking for survivors, but Wade already knows the likelihood of finding anyone is slim. After looking over the damage caused he determines it was a short range missile fired pretty close to the target. Wade looks up at the horizon and sees something before running off toward it. Logan and Laura see this and chase after Wade on Logan's motorcycle. "I need to calm down before I get there or I may run right into an ambush." Wade thinks to himself.
Moments later he arrives at the area he determines where the missile was fire. "Okay, time to find the launch spot and hopefully something I can use to find this bastard," Wade mutters to himself and starts looking around the area. He knows the shooter is long gone by now, but hopefully he left something behind he can use. "Where would I fire a portable surface to surface missile? At this range it would have to fire in an arc, so that limits the location a bit. How did they target the busses? It's too far to use laser sighting. Coordinates maybe? That has problems of its own but possible." He thinks as he walks around the area looking for the launch area. Then he sees scorching and walks over to it. After looking at the ground around the scorching he sees tire tracks from a car, one pair of footprints, and three holes in the ground. "One guy, a car, and the launcher was a tripod…" He says to himself investigating the holes in the ground, but stops when he hears someone behind him.
"Easy kid, it's just us" Logan says as he and Laura walk up and kneel down to look at the scene. Logan takes a few sniffs in the air. "Looks like he used something to mask his scent can't get a good read on him."
Laura does the same and just shakes her head. "Nothing," she says.
"I'll get the tire tracks ran, but I doubt it'll be very helpful, likely stolen, but I'll look into a portable missile launcher with a tripod base. It had to be a fairly small missile with a large explosive content," Wade tells them. "Let's head back and help with the recovery."
After an extensive cleanup the X-Men have recovered the bodies of all the dead and a few days later they hold a funeral for fifteen of the fallen whose families refused to accept their bodies. It is a time of great sadness for everyone. Throughout all the years and all the attacks never has it harmed the student body in such a way. This attack marks the highest causalities the Xavier Institute's student body has ever suffered even though the dead were former students. The fact that they were so vulnerable was the issue. Wade attends the funeral as Crimson Knight and feels so powerless, more so than he ever has in his whole life.
Later that night Wade, still in costume, sees Beth looking out a window on the second floor of the Institute. He walks up to her and puts his on her shoulder. "Sorry Beth, but I don't have any words of encouragement for you. I don't know what to do right now. Part of me wants to hunt the bastards down and kill them. The other part denies that idea outright, but can't come up with a better alternative."
"Why do people hate us so much?" Beth asks rubbing her eyes.
"I don't know. I wish I did. There are so many mutant hate groups in the world and unfortunately it's often the one thing that people of all races and religions can agree on. Mutant hate is global and I wish I could tell you why. It is more than just not understanding, hating, or fearing mutants," Wade explains to her. "Mutants aren't monsters, demons, or freaks. You're all human. Are you the next stage? Maybe, but you might not be. Humanity should have evolved past this, but clearly hasn't."
"Thanks, I think I needed to hear that," Beth says with a smile. "Do you think they'll come back?"
"I won't lie to you. Yes I do its common strategy when attacking an unpredictable or more powerful enemy. First you research your opponents, second demoralize them, cut off their supplies, or whittle them down with hit and run tactics, and third you attack them while they are licking their wounds," Wade answers her.
"What do we do?" Beth asks seriously.
"We prepare, the X-Men are preparing the best they can, but we can't prepare for everything…" Wade says as an explosion rocks the mansion again. Wade pulls Olihandrew out of its sheath. "Beth…"
"No I'm not hiding from this!" Beth tells him.
"Okay, I was going to say stay close and alert. I know you can take care of yourself, but stay focused and don't get….." Wade explains but is interrupted by two robed men bursting through the window. He quickly cuts their weapons in half and sends a kick into one of the men and hits the other in the back of the head with Olihandrew's hilt. "distracted. Now, as much as I hate to say it, we should split up, but he careful." He finishes picking up one of the destroyed weapons. "It looks like they are using anti-mutant weapons, so be extra careful because your powers may not be able to stop them."
"Okay, but you be careful as well," Beth tells Wade and runs off down the hall.
Wade runs off to the entrance of the mansion and sees that the doors have been blown away and a body outside in an abaya, a traditional Muslim dress for women. Wade rushes over to her and checks her pulse. "Still has a heartbeat good." Wade pulls the face cover off to see that it is Laura and not Sooraya. "Laura?" he says and her eyes open and she sits up.
"We should get going. I can smell at least thirty well-armed entered through the front," Laura states as she stands up and pulls of the rest of the abaya.
"You think you can track them easier than I can. Can you tell who the leader of these Purifiers are and lead us to him?" Wade asks.
*Sniff sniff* "I think so, follow me," Laura says and rushes into the mansion with Wade right on her heels.
It doesn't take them long to run into a room where an injured Emma and Julian, Nori, and a few other students are cornered by some of the Purifiers. Julian and Emma are wounded with three Purifiers clustered together holding machine guns aimed at them with a female Purifier holding a knife on the other side of the room. Laura sees this and jumps into the middle of the three Purifiers with the guns and kills them quickly with her claws in both her hands and feet. Wade blitzes past them and appears in front of the woman with the knife and cuts her hand off to prevent her from using her knife. After Wade punches her in the stomach with a strong left knocking her out, he then rips part of her robes to wrap the stub and ties it tightly to slow the bleeding. At about this time Beth/Lady Maude, Sooraya/Dust, wearing only her underwear, along with a few other students hurriedly enter the room.
"Laura, you are here," Sooraya/Dust states.
"Yes and I must apologize, but I believe Allah did not want you to die today," Laura tells Sooraya as she retracts her claws.
"Emma, Julian are you two okay?" Wade asks them.
"We'll live but I can't say the same for many of our students," Emma says holding her shoulder wound. "We need to a stop to this now. Students please follow me. Crimson Knight if you would accompany us I would appreciate it." Emma tells everyone.
Emma, the students, and Wade follow her out into the hall. Wade notices that Beth looks very concerned about something. "What happened?" Wade asks.
"I may have killed one of these guys. I threw him through three walls and out of the second story of the mansion. I was just so angry," Beth tells him hesitantly.
"These people don't deserve your remorse Beth. If I thought I could stop myself with just this scum I would kill them all, but I know if I cross that line I'll likely never be able to go back to being me a hero. That being said, I'm sure he'll live, but you likely broke every bone in his body," Wade reassures her. Wade, Laura and Emma suddenly stop the students and ready themselves for a fight.
"Ah I have found more demons, prepare to be cleansed! It is unfortunate that you have sided with such creatures Crimson Knight! God has shown me the danger of allowing you to live as well as the demons that were depowered. If I let you live the result will be the same albeit a slower death without the sympathy created by the depowered mutants," Reverend William Stryker proclaims walking around the corner with a large pinkish gauntlet on his right arm that pulsates power.
"God huh? I hate delusional psychopaths like you," Wade tells him. "You killed innocent children all for your own hatred. You are no prophet or savior. Surrender and you will be allowed to live, don't and I won't save you."
"All the good you do throughout your life cannot make up for the evil you preach for my child!" Stryker yells and readies to fire a blast at the heroes through his gauntlet.
Wade sighs and blitzes over to him cutting his arm and gauntlet off and then crunches as Laura charges into Stryker's chest with her claws. Laura retracts her claws and a dying Stryker falls to the ground. "I warned you. Laura, I hate that I'm glad you killed him. Sorry, guess I'm no better than he is," Wade says as he stands up.
"You are a very kind and caring man and makes you a far better man than him. You never asked me to kill him, he was a threat to us so I eliminated him," Laura explains to Wade.
"Maybe, but I still attacked knowing this is how you would react. Laura, I need to talk to you, but let's wait until tomorrow, I'm done with this day," Wade says and walks off, cleaning the blood off of Olihandrew then sheathing it.
The next day is full of mourning; the mutant population has been hit so hard over the last week and the few mutants left are starting to feel the pressure of being what could be the last mutants ever. Wade stands out on the porch of the Institute, looking out toward the horizon when Laura walks out of the mansion and joins him.
"I have something to tell you Laura," Wade tells her with a serious tone.
"Is it why you can't look at me for long?" Laura asks.
"Yeah, it's a bit of a long story, but recently I woke up on an alternate Earth that was like a dream," Wade explains to her. "In that world I woke up next to you. I still have the memories of that world and that Wade. The worst part of it is I remember your aunt, Cousin Megan, and your mother.
"I understand then. Was the Laura there like me?" Laura asks curiously.
"Yes, she was strong and intelligent, but she was rescued at a young age and grew up fairly normally. She was a normal girl in that world that was surrounded by a loving family. The best part is that the Wade of that world and I were almost identical in terms of personality the only difference was our history, but the choices he made I would have made," Wade explains. "Including loving you."
Laura looks at Wade. "That I don't understand. How could you even say you love someone like me?" Laura asks him.
"Because I don't see you the way most people do. You give yourself far too little credit. There isn't much about you I can find fault with. Yes you can kill people and you are really good at it. What of it? This is the question you need to find an answer to. Are you always going to kill? You can choose to leave that behind, stay as you are, or find another option. Laura, this place can be a good help to you if you let it," Wade tells her. "Here, I found her while I was looking for you." Wade tells her pulling a letter out of his pocket and handing it to her.
Laura opens the letter and starts reading it. It's from Megan and Laura looks right at Wade. "How did you find her?" Laura asks in a serious tone.
"Well I found that she was blogging about someone that saved her when she was younger that sounded a lot like you about a month ago. When I meet her she told know she was and how she knew you after I saved her from some Facility goons that also followed her trail." Wade tells her and he sees Laura tense up. "Don't worry Megan and your Aunt are both fine. I helped them get set up somewhere safe. I got them in contact with an old friend that will keep them safe and can cover their trail." Wade reassures Laura.
"Thank you, they would have been much safer if I never went there," Laura says.
"But not as complete. They both love and care about you Laura. You don't realize how important you are," Wade says and walks inside the mansion.