AMENDS IN THE ABYSS: THE INFERNAL ATONEMENT OF SCOTT SUMMERS
CIRCLE SIX, HERESY: AN APOSTASY OF CAUSES AND COIFFURES
Probably ten minutes later or so, there was still nothing but space surrounding Cyclops. He gyrated endlessly and aimlessly, the man ceasing to understand which way was up and even what his purpose was anymore in all this. Planets passed by him at an abnormally fast rate, and in a distant corner of his mind, Scott knew that such velocity on his own part could not be possible.
Tkkka tkk tkk…tkkka tkk tkk…
It sounded as if the "transmission" from Scott's son was having difficulty reaching the man, as splayed out into space as the latter was. It was really from all the spinning that father and son could not connect exceptionally well at first.
Finally, after a another several bodily rotations on Scott's part: God, Dad…I didn't remember you to be so…pliable in outer space. Thought you were a bit more solid than that.
...Nathan, I'm just so…old…not really into the whole extremeness of physicality that my job has demanded all these centuries...
I read you, Dad. Well, you'll be happy to know that after this Circle, we'll be two-thirds of the way there. Keep on sticking it out and we'll all be a family again, you, me, and Mom…
…Yeah, you know, speaking of "Circles"…am I in orbit around some planet or something? I'm feeling the pull of some heavenly body, but I can't get a bead on what it is…
Honestly, if there's any heavenly body involved here, it's that of your first and best spouse, Scott…and I don't mean that in some creepy, Freudian Oedipal way, of course.
Keep thinking of Madelyne…Dadelyne…
In the reaches of the underworld here, even someone as heavy-hardass as fucking Cable could give in to a bit of giddiness, reverse psychologically.
...You have a worse sense of "funny"…or at least "punny"…than I do, Nate... Scott turned his body all around in this space, wondering just at the fact that he could still breathe, pondering what his next destination would be…or perhaps Mephisto just grew tired of playing with him, forgot all about him…
We're definitely headed towards something major, Scott. This Circle's all about Heresy, the idea of some set of brazen beliefs flying in the face of another grouping of values that are much steadier and really matter. Conflicting systems are what this one's all about. Do you remember any times when said systems were at play in your life?...say, for instance, when you had certain sets of obligations that were at odds with one another?...
To get through here, you need to consider where you went wrong, in determining which of the two pulls on you, at a critical time with Mom…which of the two was the true path…and which was the heresy. Be careful on this one.
Just as the man's hapless form was careening ever so rapidly towards an existence-obliterating meteor shower…the entire illusion of outer space faded and the lights of Scott's longstanding team training chamber came on again.
He really had been out of practice with all of this. Scott reached over and threw up while another major lady from his life, in a sense, strolled on up to stand above him.
"Been a bit too long since you've been going through the exercises, would you say?"
"Oh, Ororo…" [BLEAAAHHH]
"Let it out, Scott…let it all out. I know it's been tough, what with all the competing concerns you've had going on as of late.
The lady ran her fingers through the white follicular ripple streaking across her scalp that was her Mohawk. "Your need to support a family. The possibility of using your talents for profit, by becoming a mutant hunter. Oh, I know of all of that. The Professor and I have been talking, you know."
Cyke noticed that he had those old yellow gloves on again…noticed too that he was wearing the old school dark-blue-with-yellow-effects costume that defined him during the All-New, All-Different era. The togs that constantly were on his back, whether he was leading the Originals or those relative whippersnappers of the Second Genesis.
"Charles doesn't think you have what it takes to be his best…administrator anymore, in his school, Scott. He thinks you've given up the Dream, for something far more…frivolous."
"That's because Charles doesn't know what it means to have a family…and by that I mean a real family," Scott managed from his prone place on the Mansion's Danger Room floor. God, but he hated New York anymore…too many bitter memories—especially in light of anything and everything that happened with his first, best spouse. "You know, not like, an ad hoc one of soldiers and such...rather a flesh-and-blood one, with a husband and a wife and children. He never knew anything like that."
"And that's because Xavier made such sacrifices in his life, Scott, giving up such humble, stable pleasures so that he could strive for those who were oppressed everywhere."
Storm strode over to the far end of the room, then raised her arms to hover Mohawk-first up to the window near to where the controls were. She gave a signal to the Professor, who was on the side of the glass and watching both of his most prized leaders very carefully.
"Believe me…and you know this damn well, such that I shouldn't have to tell you…Charles could have had his choice of any lady he desired. Could have sired tens, if not hundreds of Xaviers—beyond David, and Future Battle-Atomic Xavier, and everyone else we know in his progeny."
Yeah, because those fuckers are so God damn functional, Cyke thought to himself. But he remained silent for the moment.
"Anyway, Scott," Ororo went on, "we're not here to jabber on until the Final Judgment. We here at the Institute have got a good, final exam for you…and you'll find that it'll put you in a bit of a dilemma. But more on that in a moment.
"Do you recall the one time, a few months before the Mutant Massacre, when the two of us met like this…?"
Scott nodded. "Of course. It was the infamous duel we underwent, to determine who would become the head of the team. WHO WILL LEAD THEM…with the big red question mark in the top left corner, I remember it very vividly."
Storm ignored her conversant's metacomment and acknowledged Xavier's working a few settings on Danger Room control. "I'm certain you remember all the stakes that were in play…"
Cyclops responded only by staring at the lady, knowing full well of all to which she was referring. The throwdown between him and Storm was not only about who was the most competent, but also who was the most relevant—Scott never wishing to let go, from the time Charles first appointed him official leader, to a lengthy period thereafter, never wishing to relinquish the opportunity to be in charge of the Children of the Atom. The death of someone very dear, or at least the semblance of her, was the first thing that ever drove him away from the responsibility.
The second happenstance was a birth, a couple of births in fact—of a shared life between spouses, of a new third life between them. And Scott's allegiances lay not in the camp of those births, but rather in the incessant mission for mutantdom which the man assumed year in and year out. It took the phenomenon of his being forced out—through the bout for leadership with Ororo—for Scott to finally give up and walk away again.
As such, it was not, at that time, that Scott chose to be with Madelyne and Nathan Christopher…he was just shunted into it by default.
Scott noticed that the plain, pasty walls of the Room shifted to a shimmering sapphire sky against ivory mountains.
"So about that dilemma," Ororo went on, levitating herself towards the center of the chamber. "It's gonna be a real squall of a quandary that you'll find yourself in.
"You lose here, against me now as you did last time—and me, without even any powers then—you'll be trapped in this chamber for a very, very long time, forced in here to perform exercises in the name of Xavier and his Dream…just as you were forced out of here before, through our duel all those years ago.
"You win here…you then have to decide between your wife and child…and ever seeing any of us ever again, at least in the context of going on missions. You will be forced into retirement forever and ever, coerced and cursed to dull, mundane Madelyne family life till the end of time."
Scott had already made his decision between the two options before Ororo had even finished speaking. He never forgot who was pulling for him the most, and for whom he was pushing in turn.
As she settled into an aerial battle pose, Storm spoke once more. "This bout will straighten you out, Scott…make you remember which was the cause that was most worth fighting for…and which was the false calling for your life's work."
"Interesting to hear so much invective against falsity and heresy…from someone who spent a fair amount of time impersonating a goddess in Kenya."
At this Ororo's face wrenched into full-bore fury.
"You motherf…BEGIN!"
The lady wanted to strike Scott down, then and there, with a fast bolt of her most joltin' juice…but she knew that he was baiting her, in a way…just as so many down here were doing the same to him. Scott was smartening up a bit like that.
At any rate, the two had at one another, Storm sending down hail to strike at Scott, the latter charging amidst it to reach safer ground and then firing back a shot to sail over the woman's head. A typhoon then originated within Ororo, which whirled at Cyclops, who propelled himself away by firing into the ground and pushing off from the floor that way. While in midair, Scott leveled another blast at Storm, which apparently missed once again as it flew over the lady's noggin.
"My man, you are out of practice," shot Storm as she reached within herself for the fiercest of her lightnings to strike out once more. A slight sensation welled within her, that her head was starting to feel…heavier for some reason, but she dismissed it for the time being.
Meanwhile, on the ground again, Scott looked to the faux sierra in the "distance" and mused about Maddy once more. This fake Canada (which was most likely an improvement on the real one…just bustin' chops, Northern Neighbors), with its serene scapes, brought to mind another snowy locale which was too near and dear to his heart—and the man pretended to be there instead, while battling it out with the barometrically-based babe in his little scuffle at present. As he continued to dodge, he looked too at the superbly stunning Storm, noticed through his continual "misses" of optic blasts that what proudly crowned her was increasing in its area…and it would spell her defeat in the ensuing instants.
Scott jumped past some natural, precipitation-based obstacles launched his way as he continued to contemplate how, after all, his adversary's abilities thrived on the darkening of the sky, and the attendant turbulent circumstances…while Cyke's own solar-powered talents prospered most when it was sunny. He and Ororo were real opposites of opponents in that way.
And when the sun's rays shined, the man phrased mentally, you know it makes everything…grow…
About six or seven minutes and a dozen optic blasts sailed above Ororo's head later, the latter had her man cornered by a fake, reflecting lake at the edge of the Danger chamber.
"I hope you have your second concession speech prepared, Scott…for this twice of times that I will have defeated you."
"Ororo…Goddess of the High Hors…, I mean, Winds…"
And this set the lady on gritted edge again, she wishing so badly to savor her impending victory but distracted again by Scott's carping at her.
"The problem with you is that you've always let too much go to your head…"
Then with this Scott shot a glance, literally with his laser optics, down the length of the lake.
"As you can plainly SEE!"
Storm instantly looked down, to divine what, in literal Hell, Scott was doing. She caught the red beam rushing through the water, then the ripple effect that parted the waters a second.
What she then espied made her jaw drop and her hands fly to the top of her head.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
(Okay, so this author made fun of Mackiechusetts in his "Illin'" story for all the Adam Sandler "NOOOOOs"…Tou-effin-ché).
She could feel the wonderous white wisps of hair down the center of her head…
…as well as on each side, making for once more a full head of sumptuous, snowy hair.
"You are effectively helpless now, Storm—you dare not continue to function in any capacity without the irritatingly-undying decades-dead trend of Mohawk atop your head—a Mohawk which has now effectively been LOST in the shuffle of so many shocks of hair!
"Our duel…is over."
Thus, just as with that one-on-one so many years ago, in which Ororo had emerged victorious through relieving the most critical implement of a visor from Scott's cranium, so too had Cyclops taken a triumph from Storm by doing the same.
In a sense. At any rate, the miserable Mohawk subsided once again into the lovely sea of the weather lady's hair. The stylish do had its place, at one time…but not unlike the Outback adventures which it preceded, it was a finite time, and for it to be brought back now, and repeatedly, and forever, was to force it, not unlike so many horror film remakes that go under the radar; or resurfacings of has-been musicians, on tour for no one to care about; or…basically any major trope of the Machine, whether mutant-based or not, from the "leaving the team with a bag over the shoulder" covers to the "faux Fall of the Mutants bodies-draped-over-each-other-pseudo-peacefully" covers to the "Welcome to the X-Men: Hope you surv…hope you go and fucking eat my ass" introductory semi-taunts that completely don't come up again and again every seventeen issues. The constant reemerging of Storm's strident hairstyle was a…Mohawkrocosm, of all that.
Completely flustered at the moment, in any case, the aforesaid stridently-'styled lady lowered herself to the floor as the Danger Room reverted to its usual bone-hued backdrop.
"Okay," she said, finally, after wringing her hands for a few minutes. "I…concede defeat. Undoubtedly now, Charles and I and the others will all answer to you, as you begin to formulate another attack plan against the most recent and fearsome of our foes…"
"No."
Scott knew that another artifice would be played against him right away, and like the skillful leader that he was, the man was ready for it. He spoke loudly enough for those involved to hear. "I'm…I've decided not to play this game, anymore. Ororo, Charles…what you've offered here was something far more noble, in adventuring…something far more on-the-level and for-the-thing-in-itself than what was offered to me a couple of levels up…with 'Crap! The X-Men' and what have you."
This last was met by a whimsical look of incomprehension from Storm; apparently one Circle didn't always know what the next was doing, down here. "Anyway…I am certain that at this juncture, you want this much more than I do, Ororo. I myself have a far greater mission to accomplish, a far loftier cause I need to serve, a far nobler quest I must see through.
"I thereby step aside and give the leadership of the X-Men back to you, Goddess of the High Winds."
As the man finished, Storm looked to him grimly, then nodded. "We all wish you luck, then, Scott, with wherever your mission, cause, and quest may take you."
"Thank you, Ororo."
Instants after the Bright Lady pointed the way for Cyclops, through a door whose middle broke open into halves like the sides of a vicious bear trap, the man thought to himself on what kept him going just now, through the heat of the fight. It wasn't a need to lead others. It wasn't to mindlessly follow the message of a Dream anymore.
Pondering on what Madelyne went through…her having the baby alone, without him being there to help her as he should have…recognizing the need to be there for her now, and to serve her and Nathan Christopher forever—that was what kept the man from failing and falling into an infinitude of Danger Room sessions upon his impending defeat just moments ago.
And with his lady love's strength, his son's counsel, and some Longshotlike or Domino-donated luck…Scott just might make it through to see his wife and son and be one as a family once more.
TO BE CONTINUED