Chapter VI
Well, I did what I did
And I didn't mean anything.
I don't know how I got this far down with the ceiling.
Well, I did what I did
And I'd do it all over again.
~The Ceiling by The Wild Feathers
…
New Orleans
Nil gasped for air and felt the rope loosen. Once more, he was plunged head-first into a tub, just deep enough to drown a man. Relief and panic mingled. His blood was building in his head and the only relief was being dropped, but of course that meant the water was coming again. This brief moment of respite would be obliterated by the unbearable pressure in his head and chest. One quick gulp and it could all be over. He wanted this to end, but he didn't want to die.
"What're you doin'? Cut him down!"
He collapsed on cement. Gasping for air, blinded by relief, he limped like a fish out of water at Gambit's feet.
Gambit knelt. "Right now, you've got two choices. One, you revert the virus. No one need ever know you planted it t' begin with. Or two, I throw you back t' Belle. And everyone will know why. Live a hero or die a coward. Seems easy enough t' me."
Barely alive, he nodded.
…
Canadian Wilderness
"It is as we feared," said Colossus. "The Purifiers were sent by the men who harmed Marie Bennett. And they did not come to liberate her."
Cyclops looked to Magik. "Re-enforcements?"
"None. They sent everything they had at their disposal, which means-"
"They're defenseless." He paused. "You're sure?"
She nodded and Magneto said: "Then we must strike now."
Everyone agreed and when Rogue called SHEILD, no one protested because they knew the agency would arrive too late.
Magik transported them three-hundred miles north to a tundra wasteland. Even the Sun was wrapped in snow. Deep beneath the earth, frozen too long to recall the Sun's warmth, existed a labyrinth of twisted horrors. Rogue, Colossus and Magneto would appear to break in from the surface and draw the guards while Magik transported the others inside to flank them.
…
Salem Center
Sam was confused. What had he done to deserve this kind of treatment? His friends discarded him; Psylocke had left long ago. Hank gave him some medicine and then left him alone in a cold and dark room. After an eternity of calling out to no one, Raven finally entered the room.
She took his hand. "How ya feelin'?"
"C-cold," he shivered. "I'm cold."
She removed her own socks and placed them on his bare feet. Then she warmed them in her hands until the ice in his veins melted. Straddling his legs, she rubbed his calves and thighs until they burned. Her compassion broke his heart.
"W-why's it s-so dark?"
Sorrow clouded her eyes. "It isn't dark, Sam."
"Am Ah d-dyin'?"
She kissed his hand. "Dr. McCoy's moving you to a Shi'ar medlab on Mars. They have more advanced equipment."
"Ah d-don't wanna die on Mars."
"'The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want… Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for thou art with me. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life…' You need to be brave, Sam. Your body's weak and can't afford to expel energy on fear."
At long last, warmth flooded through him. "Ah'm sorry. Ah was an idiot. Your life before me is none of my business. Can you ever forgive me?"
"No, you were right. I used you to replace my husband and that was wrong of me. If you hadn't been brave enough to call me on it, I would've wasted the rest of our lives comparing you to him. I'm sorry. Maybe I should lie, but I don't want you going to the grave thinking you did me wrong. You're a good and honorable man, but I can't love you."
He brushed her tears away.
…
New Orleans
Gambit, Belle, and a handful of her associates clustered around a shivering Nil, typing furiously on a number of laptops. Fence watched remotely and, at first, nothing changed. Then the virus froze. For a long time, he continued to work without progress.
"Ain't unusual," Fence said through Remy's Bluetooth. "It's hard to kill."
Remy's phone buzzed with a text message from Rachel saying Raven was safely back at school. He didn't answer immediately and it buzzed again. This time, Rogue had sent a set of coordinates with 'Hill on the way. Join if u can.'
"You got this?" he asked Belle, who nodded briskly. "I owe ya."
She basked in his affection and missed Nil's smirk. Using his cyberpathy, he'd gotten the coordinates off Remy's text and routed through the PC to hack the building's system. Killing the power and sealing the exits would complicate whatever Gambit left to accomplish and Nil would have more time to deal with his other captors. Given the choice, he would've preferred to face-off with the X-Man over Belle and her goons, but he had to seize his options as they appeared.
Remy stepped into another room before using his stolen teleporter to leap back to Manhattan. Hill was disgruntled to see him and immediately confiscated his device, but Fence had the blueprint to create another. She couldn't leave him at HQ alone, so he was begrudgingly given a seat aboard the Quinjet.
Back in New Orleans, Fence finally caught Nil's background maneuverings.
"Stop him!" he shouted as the fire alarm wailed.
"Oh, seriously?!" Belle pulled out her gun, aimed for his head, but before she could fire, he threw the laptop at her and ran like a hare from her hounds.
Rounds fired around his head as he dove for the bath tub. When they paused to reload – so close he could smell them – he bolted again. The large double doors were barred with chains. He dashed for the busted window – three stories high – and hesitated. Someone grabbed his collar, yanked him back, and shoved another barrel in his face. He flinched, waiting for a shot that never came.
The assassins were frozen in time. Bella Donna was literally mid-step.
"You are not a man with many friends," said Nate, stepping from the shadows.
Nil knew this freak had to be a friend of Gambit. "Alright, you caught me. I'll be a good boy and-"
"Too late to bargain." He snatched Nil's shirt, flew out the window, and together, they ascended into the brilliant sky.
"If you're going to threaten me, might I know why?"
"Her jacket." He continued to climb.
"Oh. I never intended to keep it. Come, good fellow, let's-"
Nate dropped him and Nil scrambled to snatch hair, clothes, body – anything to anchor himself. He secured a grip on the flyer's ankle.
"Have you any idea what I've been through today?" he shouted. "If we could settle this like gentlemen, I'd be much obliged!"
"There's only one way to deal with men like you, and I would gladly do it. But I made a promise. So here's what we're going to do… You're going to take her to dinner. A nice dinner. Then you'll tell her that your heart just isn't in it, and it wouldn't be fair to waste her time. You'll wish her well and you'll never again darken her door-step. Got it?"
"What is this girl to you?"
Nate's eyes flashed. "Do you even know her name?"
"Raven! Her name's Raven!" He held on as Nate kicked his hands. "And she said her heart was broken. I don't know what your sweetheart told you, but we both got what we wanted."
Nate descended to the drawbridge over the Port of New Orleans and set Nil on the summit. Below, the cars looked like ants. As he floated away, he said: "She didn't want you. She settled."
"Wait! You can't leave me here!"
He smiled. "Watch me."
…
Canadian Wilderness
"Be on your guard," Colossus warned as he, Magneto, and Rogue dropped inside. They'd spent a solid hour whacking away ice, snow, and permafrost before chewing on cement and steel. Despite the cold, Rogue was sweating, and used her scarf to dry her face.
"Ah thought we would've heard from Emma by now."
"Since the Phoenix Five, her powers are not so manageable," Colossus said quietly.
"Or maybe they've got telepathic disruptors," said Rogue.
Magneto impatiently cut them off. "Enough speculating. Come."
The rebel in her reared up and she smothered it. They were all working towards the same goals. 'Brisk' was just his way. As the hallway narrowed, she was forced to fall in line behind him, although his broad back obscured most of her view. His new uniform didn't flatter him. It left his sinewy arms and wide shoulders exposed. Those arms had seen tens of thousands of sunsets, and those shoulders had carried the weight of the world. Sometimes, they held the world down. When she and her friends battled his oppression, those arms never hesitated to strike back. Only once had they ever been gentle. She blushed and tried not to remember their night in Utopia. If he ever thought of her, he didn't let it show.
The hallway came to a crossroad and they decided to split up. They'd attempt to reach the others. Successful or not, they would reconvene in thirty minutes.
Rogue took the center route: an unmarked hall like all the others. Soon, she came to a fork and then another. She carefully counted her steps and kicked the walls to mark her turns. The place wasn't a maze, it was a labyrinth. It was only a matter of time before she found the others.
Peshew!
Lights died and she was submersed in black. The unnoticed, steady hum of machines faded and she heard only her heart and breath. Closing her eyes, she focused on her surroundings. She could hear them now… they were nearby. In fact, someone was coming straight for her. Heavy. Clumsy. Not one of hers.
She shot up to the ceiling and held herself there, intending to drop on whoever was coming. But this thing could see through the dark and knew she was there. Rogue heard the rushing of air and blocked her face just in time. Losing her hold, she collapsed onto the hairy beast. Teeth gnashed on her arms, hot drool stained her coat and sprayed in her face. Without Wonder Man's super strength, she would've been mincemeat, but she couldn't get a firm footing to overpower her opponent. They were locked in a bloody tango.
More footfalls preceded Scott's optical blast. He shot wide, missed, but now had a visual on his target and continued to fire. The attacker took a hit and ran.
Rogue bolted after him, Scott behind her. Someone was running in the hallway perpendicular to them and cut off the creature's escape route. She heard Bobby throw up an ice wall and the beast plowed head-first into it. It held. Trapped, it turned back to charge at Rogue, but she tackled it first. Scott leapt on them, too, and groping in the dark together, they managed to subdue it in a chokehold. Finally, it fell limp. She and Scott held still for a minute longer: arms interlocked and panting in each other's face.
"Ya gonna buy me dinner now?" she joked.
Instead of responding with his usual stoicism, he said: "Guess I'd better. That's the most action I've gotten all week."
They disentangled as Bobby joined them. "You guys okay?"
"Were you bit, Rogue?"
"No. Ah mean, yes, but didn't break the skin. What the hell is that thing?"
The sound of metal crashing on metal echoed throughout the building. The thunder of a hundred feet stampeded towards them.
"We're too late!" said Scott. "Bobby, seal the exits. Rogue, with me!"
They dashed through the dark. She followed by sound, but what guided him? If he'd been counting steps, too, that would fail him since he'd walked part of the way and ran the rest. Finally, she saw light at the end of the hall. It opened into an enormous chamber lined with prison cells. Every door was opened.
The room was full of prehistoric monsters that had fallen from the sky or crawled out of the deep. A handful of exhausted X-Men surrounded them.
"Back into the cells!" Scott shouted.
In response, the room erupted in screams, thunder, plasma blasts, and electric explosions. It was a dance floor from hell. Between strobing attacks, Rogue spotted a group of doctors running away and cut them off.
"Nothin' but ice for five hundred miles, boys. Where you headed?"
"Please!" Cried the leader. "They have my fam-" His head vanished before her eyes. His headless body dropped to her feet.
The Decimator.
Around her, her friends waged war, but she could not move. She watched through someone else's eyes as the doctors ran back and forth, had one exit sealed by combat, another blocked by an X-Man. When they spoke, their heads burst like water balloons. Her friends could only stare in wonderment before another crisis demanded action. One last doctor slipped the noose.
"Don't let him get away!" Emma shouted.
Rogue leapt after him, running down another dark hall, guided only by his footsteps. Ten seconds later, someone pursued her. Emma, she decided by the sound of heels.
Suddenly, he stopped, so Rogue did, too.
Emma lit a glow stick and rolled it towards him. He stood patiently by a door.
"End of the line, doc," said Emma. "Hands on your head and come slowly."
Rogue shook her head. "He wasn't running from us, he was leading us to something… Weren't you?"
He gave no response.
"We're not going in till we get back-up," Emma said and repeated her earlier instructions.
Again, he didn't seem to hear.
The sound of a struggle came from behind the door. Glass shattered and a man cried out. Rogue acted impulsively, rushing into the room just in time to see a man's silhouette vanish into a teleporter. Telepathically, Emma summoned Magik, who followed his trail.
A man lay on the floor. His neck had been cut open with a broken vial, and although he'd lost too much blood, Rogue checked for a pulse anyway. Nothing.
"You!" Emma rounded on their lead. "Start talking."
"No!" said Rogue. "He can't."
She didn't know how much she could say without activating the Decimator, but she had other ways of extracting information. Slowly, she removed her glove and touched his face. Memories assaulted in swirls and flashes.
X-gene carriers were wheeled in from across the globe. They were unwillingly, unwittingly exposed to all sorts of stresses – diseases, drugs, torture – in an attempt to jump-start their mutations. It was a slow, tedious process fueled by human traffickers and unguarded runaways, war refugees, and the homeless. Until a miracle happened. Three days ago, an alien vessel deployed extraterrestrial flora over Kentucky. The plants produced spores, which accelerated and exaggerated the effects of the X-gene. Nearly ninety percent of the patients died from exposure, but the remainder transformed into mindless beasts.
"Why do you hate us?" she hissed.
His memories, still crawling in her mind, revealed a frail little boy and overworked woman. They'd been plucked from a refugee camp and promised a good life in America. Only when they crashed upon the shores of Canada did they begin to doubt. By then, it was too late to escape. They were gone now, the boy and his mother, and the doctor was told only his cooperation kept them alive.
"Help's on the way," she told him. "Stay-"
"Watch it!" Emma shouted.
The slither of rushing snakes filled the room and Emma dropped her light with a grunt. Rogue felt something stab her thigh and heard the doctor yelp in pain. Blinded once more, she reached down and ripped the chewing serpentine from her leg. Emma transformed into her diamond form and slammed against the onslaught. She screamed as she was lifted from her feet and carried down a vent shaft.
"Emma? Emma!"
A hundred knives stabbed her back, from her shoulder down to her knee like a horrible zipper. Again, she grabbed and yanked it loose, but before she threw the nightmarish tentacle away, a single claw snapped through her wrist. Her inhuman howl echoed her diamond companion's, and Rogue hobbled pitifully into the shadows. The doctor had not been so lucky. Drowning in his own blood, he muttered something and his head exploded. The beast screeched and fought against the agony before slinking away to lick its wounds.
Rogue gripped her bleeding wrist with all her might. It stung. And it smelled like chemicals. Should she stumble through the dark and hope the beast didn't return? Or wait and hope the others came for her?
She decided to sit and listen. No Emma. No more combat. Only the nausea, coldness, and dizziness that accompanied poison.
Where was Scott? Where was SHIELD? Damn Magneto for not letting her call sooner! Damn that arrogant bucket head! She laughed at herself. That couldn't be her last thought. No, she would think of Remy. And Raven. 'You haven't got all the time in the world.' Damn that girl for being right…
Across the floor, her cell phone buzzed. The light and noise didn't attract the monster, so she crawled through a pool of her own blood to answer.
Remy.
"Where are you? Ah'm hurt real bad and Emma-" The line clicked. "Gambit?" He hadn't heard a word. Hopeless, she gave into her tears. "Ah'm sorry. Ah love you."
Unbeknownst to her, he had heard, and pinged her location from her phone. SHEILD had secured the first floor and was clearing the second. She was in the basement – fifth floor, but Gambit didn't wait for the agents.
"Take a medic!" Hill shouted after him.
His rushing footsteps alarmed the agents, who turned their guns just in time for him to turn them away.
"Medic! Medic!" called the dancing doctor, hands raised in surrender. "Where are you going? The stairs are that way!"
Gambit lodged a charged card between the elevator doors and shielded the medic as they exploded. Then he heaved her over his shoulder, leapt to the cable, and slid down. They landed in darkness. He lit a charged card against the night to reveal a giant tentacle lined with black claws flying towards them. A plasma blast struck and the beast exploded into flying entrails.
"Cyclops?"
"Gambit!"
The medic rolled out several glow sticks. It was a nightmarish scene. Bloody handprints smeared the walls. Dislodged tentacles squirmed final twitches. A man's foot lay in a pool of crimson.
"Any word on Emma?"
"No. Where's Rogue?"
"No idea."
Taking the medic, he traveled ever deeper. They didn't go far. Lying face-down in the dark, like an unwanted doll or road-kill, was the woman he loved.
"I've got a pulse but it's weak" The medic tapped her cheek. "Rogue, can you hear us? We'll have to carry her. Take off your coat, we'll use that."
In a duster hammock, Rogue was cradled between them on the slow ascent upstairs. Remy should've taken the lead, and at first he had, but he kept looking back and missing a step. Now he supported her legs, eyes fixated on her alabaster face. He tried not to think about her crimson life dripping through his coat, staining the bottom of his boots. Finally, they reached the first floor.
"I'll get the stretcher. Stay with her."
He knelt and heard her mumble his name. "Right here."
"…love y'…"
"What's dat?"
She gasped and forced out: "Ah love you, you ass."
"Can't hear ya."
Her eyes fluttered open and she was panting with exhaustion. "Gonna… kill… you…"
"There's my girl. Stay with us. Avengers might not mind you sleepin' on the clock, but you're on X-Men time now."
"So… dead…"
…
To Be Continued…
…
Author's Notes: Conceptually, this should've been the climax, but as none of the plot points are resolved, on we go! Monsters in this chapter were inspired by Metallica's 'All Nightmare Long', Stephen King's 'The Mist' and mythical beasts, Minotaur and Medusa. Difficult to describe in the dark. I adore Sam Guthrie, but this is pretty much the end of the line for him. Those following the comics will know he hooked up with Izzy Kane on Mars and they now have a child together. Never one to stand in the way of a happy ending, he's off to find his.