Warning: Torture, character death, slash. If you're not interested in the sex scene, feel free to skip it, I will clearly mark the start and finish.
Chapter 36 – This is How You Remind Me of What I Really Am
"I'd killed him in the end, but revenge only makes things all better in the movies. In real life, once the villain is dead, the trauma lives on inside the victims." - Laurell K. Hamilton, Bullet
The new orders flared brightly in Mutant 143's mind and he eagerly spilled them into Xavier's throbbing brain.
Around the pair of wheelchair bound mutants, the brilliant white globe sprang back into life. But unlike before, when the continents had been speckled with little red dots, now it blazed with a countless number of shimmering white ones, representing everyone else. Magneto granted them both access to every non-mutant sentient mind on the planet in order to destroy them all.
Blinking up at the ceiling, Logan and X drifted together. Not meshed, not merged, but like a pair of shipwreck survivors drifting on the now calm face of the ocean that tried to destroy them.
For long minutes, all they could do was recover from the shattering attack. But, true to their nature, the recovery was both quick and complete. Tattered flesh reformed, wounds sealed up as if they'd never been, and all that remained was a lingering sense of dizziness left over from the blood loss and the proverbial lake of ruby liquid they laid in.
Taking a breath, Logan slid into control and levered himself up into a sitting position. He gave a low whistle when he saw the Jackson Pollock mess they'd left behind during their thrashing. A flicker of thought popped his claws, ensuring that they remained undamaged. The tiny part of him fretting about his healing factor was silenced when the wounds vanished in the same way they'd always done. Taking that as a good sign, Logan flexed his limbs and arched his back to work out any lingering kinks.
A low rumble echoed in the back of his thoughts. "Yeah, yeah," he huffed, and let go, sinking back into the strange space in their mind that had become a shared home sometime during this whole disastrous mission. He didn't need to look to know that the cage Xavier built to contain X was gone. Maybe it's for the best, he thought, feeling a small ray of unaccustomed optimism.
X abandoned the room, uncaring of the bloody mess they left behind. All his feral thoughts rested on Zen, and even Logan couldn't deny the twin flames of worry that burned in their hearts. How had the wave affected the tiny male? Was he alive? Where was he?
Though he refused to admit it, Logan silently pushed X to move faster. They had to find Zen.
"Yuriko." The word lashed the air between them, a whip crack demand for obedience. Instead of dipping her head in acknowledgment, the feral mutant's lips pulled back in a sharp-toothed smirk.
"I am your dog no longer," her voice held a lilting accent he'd never heard from her, and as she stepped fully into the light, a chill that had nothing to do with the snow trickled through his veins. Blood streaked over her skin in gaudy streamers, so bright it almost looked fake. Her hair dripped with it, and he bit back a gasp of shock.
Stryker offered an insincere smile of his own. "Were you able to finish off X?" The question earned a low snarl, causing the man to sigh. "Every time I think I've found the best way to tame your kind, I find myself disappointed." That she was here, preparing to attack, didn't bode well for his greater plans. Xavier's machine should have struck by now, so how was she still standing?
His useless musings ended when the woman who'd been his slave attacked. Dignity kept Stryker from trying to turn and flee. Pride saw him reaching for his gun, even though he knew it was futile. He'd created her after all, and he knew better than most how effective she was. Her dainty foot connected with bone crushing force, jolting a yelp of agony from his throat as the weapon spun away, vanishing into the snow.
Another kick, this one to his upper chest, slammed the military man to the ground with enough force to choke off his prior scream. After the force of the two kicks, her gentle weight settling on his chest almost went unnoticed as he fought to drag air into his tortured lungs. Almost.
The sound of slender blades hissing free of their organic sheathing jolted him, and his winter pale eyes widened as dainty claws inched towards his face. Skin and muscle split, spilling his crimson life over the snow. His agonized scream fought the wind.
For the first time since his mutation activated, Pietro stood frozen. He couldn't move, could hardly breathe as he stared at the body unable to understand his own tangled feelings. IX was dead. He wanted Zen to breath. Breathe, breathe damn it. Get up! Stay down, be dead, never move again. The conflict held him motionless, poised on the razor edge of the moment, waiting to see if the narrow chest would rise or not.
"Zen!" Malcom's childlike voice rose above Pietro's clamoring thoughts, and before he could react, the small boy latched onto the downed assassin. "Oh no, no, no, no! It's all gone." Tears spilled down the boy's cheeks as he patted Zen's blank face.
"Malcom, come on, get away from him," Jubilee staggered to her feet, feeling rather crispy around the edges as she tried to grab the boy to pull him away. Refusing, Malcom clung to the body.
"NO!" red faced, dripping tears and snot, his terrified blue eyes sought out Sandy. "It's all gone. H-he used it up to save us. He saved us! We gotta save him back, we gotta, we're the good guys."
Shame clawed inside the gathered children, who'd all been willing to let Zen's sacrifice stand. Sandy wanted to shake her head, to refuse, but looking into Malcom's wide, innocent eyes, eyes that begged her to make things right, she couldn't say no. It would be too much like stomping on a new born kitten.
Pietro's body jerked, movement returning as the teen stood and made her shaky way over to the fallen mutant. His mouth opened, then closed, remembering the eye burning blue light he'd woken up to. The shield. He saved us. Damn, we owe him one.
"I-I can't do it by myself. He's all used up, I'm going to need help," Sandy admitted, heat burning in her plump cheeks even though the rest of her face remained ash pale. "Line up, hold hands," she took a deep, shuddering breath as she sat cross legged next to Zen's head. Even though she was resolved, she couldn't help but cringe as she reached out to put her hand against Zen's forehead, still half expecting the tiny assassin to wake and attack her for touching him. He didn't move, and he wasn't breathing. Swallowing hard, she held up her other hand.
Without hesitation, Malcom took it and held his hand out. One more devastating wounded puppy look got Jubilee to join hands. One by one the chain formed as the children linked their hands together until Pietro was the only one standing alone. "Please?" Malcom whispered, tears spilling down his red cheeks to tug at heart strings Pietro could have sworn died with his sister.
"Damn it all anyway," he growled as he sat down and grabbed the hand held out to him. Once his hand completed the chain, it began. A rough tug, not at his flesh, but at his power. Pietro hissed, wanting to jerk his hand free. By the way the rest of the kids jumped and whimpered, he knew he wasn't the only one who wanted to break the chain, but he held on.
It felt like a strand of rough wool was being pulled from a hole in his palm, uncomfortable couldn't begin to describe the burning itch of it. Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes and silently cursed the tiny mutant for making him share his power to keep the idiot alive.
From linked hand to linked hand, Sandy drew their powers. Unlike Rogue, she could control her gift, and she could not only draw power into herself, she could spill it out into others. Though hers converted gifts into energy, and she couldn't use another's power that she'd taken. Instead, she could feed on the energy, live off it, if she had to.
Closing her eyes, she shoved the wadded up ball of power down her arm, and into Zen in one giant push.
Zen stood on the threshold of death, studying the black doorway. All that held him back was the chain of obedience, and a slender thread binding him to X . . . Not just X. No, not just X, he thought, running the tip of his finger over the thread again, feeling the flood of emotion tangled up in the crimson line. When had Logan managed to twine his own thread into the line?
Ignoring the crimson thread, he gripped the chain, giving it an experimental tug. Pain arced through him, a whisper of lightning against his flesh, a promise that he could break it, but not without paying the price.
Again, his dead eyes lingered on the doorway. How many times had he experienced death in the mindscape during his training? A thousand times? A hundred thousand? He didn't know. What stood on the other side of death? He didn't know that either. Curiosity burned beneath his skin, demanding satisfaction.
Without making a conscious decision, his fingers tightened on the chain. Before he could shatter the links, agony tore the world asunder.
An inhuman scream tore from Zen's throat, shattering the chain of children as they broke apart, jerking away from the sound as if it were a wild beast tossed among them.
"What's happening?" One of the kids shouted, terror lacing the voice as the howls of agony continued to echo around them.
"I don't know, I don't know," Sandy sobbed, covering her ears as she scrabbled away from the thrashing body in front of her. Nothing like that ever happened before when she'd shared power with someone.
While the other kids jerked away from Zen's convulsing body, Malcom leaped forward. Unlike the rest of them, he could see. The pearly white sphere representing Zen's power now looked like a bag of angry cats. Colors and textures swirled together, clashing instead of working together or becoming what Zen needed them to be.
"Malcom!"
"I gotta," he shouted back, slipping out of Sandy's desperate grab. He pounced on Zen's bucking body and locked one tiny arm around the broken mutant's chest. With the other, he brought his hand up and began stroking the air above Zen's head. Eyes closed, he struggled to smooth the colors, to smudge the textures together. Like this, he coaxed the power as he forced it to blend like chalk on a large piece of cardboard.
Zen's desperate scream died down to a choked gasp as Malcom worked. Slowly, the convulsions died down to trembles. Air tore in and out of his lungs at a frightening pace, but it no longer looked like Zen's body would rip itself apart from the strain.
"There we go," Malcom whispered. "Just like that." He continued to force the power to flow the way it should, never once realizing that he'd never tried anything like this before.
It took another five minutes for him to blend the colors to his satisfaction. They weren't quite the same pearly white they should be, more a dusky gray with tiny flashes of other colors floating along the edges, but it would have to do.
"Did we kill him?"
The tiny, frightened voice drifted down to Zen where he floated in the heart of his mind. Every nerve ending felt scorched as if he'd taken two or three bolts from Storm, and he could still feel the weight of the chains wrapped around him, pulling him down, demanding his submission.
The children.
Yes, his duty. He had to save them. Forcing breath in and out of his tortured lungs, Zen took up his burden again and opened his eyes. "I am alive," he said, his voice hollow and dead.
Pietro cringed back at the sound. IX, not Zen. Shit. He swallowed hard, and said, "What are your orders?" The other kids jumped, their wide eyes flashing with animal fear as they looked from Pietro to Zen and back. Something wasn't right.
Staring up at the stone ceiling, the short mutant remained silent for a long moment before he spoke. "Protect . . . students. Defend . . . school."
"Good, that's good," tension bled out of Pietro and he almost fell over. At least the assassin hadn't regressed back into Stryker's dog. As long as he was still on their side, they had a chance. "We need to get out of here."
Scrambled thoughts began to smooth out as Zen sat up. He had to protect the children and save his wielder. They no longer had the luxury of playing wait and see. "Yes, it's time."
Before they could react, Zen vanished.
He reappeared in the security control center, and if the station hadn't been abandoned he would have lost his life as he fell, body shaking from the influx of pure agony as he tried to use his corrupted power. It felt like acid pouring through his veins, but he refused to give into the pain. Jerking to his feet, Zen stumbled to the bank of monitors. He typed through a series of commands and found what he was looking for.
The dam had been compromised, and the men smart enough to realize it abandoned the facility to its fate. A few lingered, too stupid, or too furious to flee, but the path from the students to freedom was relative open.
Something almost like fear churned in his gut, but Zen forced it away as he drew on the power again. Agony flooded his system for a second time as he reappeared in front of the door, but he was prepared for it this time and didn't allow it to drive him to his knees.
Reaching forward, he pressed his hand against the cold steel door. "Open," he whispered. The door obediently slid apart, revealing the frightened, furious children.
"What the fuck, man!" Pietro roared, but to Zen's surprise, the speed mutant didn't attack. Not that Zen was in any shape to stop him.
"Come, we don't have time," Zen said, deciding not to inform them that death hovered over their heads in the form of several tons of cement and countless gallons of water waiting to crush the life out of them. If he wasn't certain that his powers would give out if he tried, he'd teleport them all to safety, but with the corruption, he wasn't sure if they would make the leap in one piece or not.
"Is it safe?" One of the children squeaked. As much as they wanted freedom, now that the time came to leave their cage, they felt the crushing fear of any captive animal when faced with freedom in an unknown territory.
Somewhere deeper in the facility, they heard a deep rumble. "I will keep you safe, come on. Pietro, you take the rear guard, protect their backs." The speed mutant gave a mulish look but didn't open his mouth to argue. Perhaps the grinding sound of stone settling impressed upon him the importance of the situation. Either way, Zen was satisfied when he took his place at the back of the line. Though he'd rather not have to depend on the other teen, he knew Pietro could help protect the children.
Like a flock of startled ducklings who'd had the misfortune of imprinting on a bobcat, the children followed at Zen's back. He ignored their frightened whispers, trusting that Pietro would ensure none of his charges fell behind. Instead, Zen focused all his attention forward, hunting for danger.
They shuffled along deserted corridors, and none of the children dared ask where the guards were as they walked the halls unnoticed. A sound caught Zen's attention, and he froze. Malcom, whose wide brown eyes had been on everything but the man in front of him, bounced off Zen's back. "Ow," he whined, rubbing his nose, not knowing how close he'd come to setting the assassin off. Every muscle in Zen's body locked down on the instinctual reaction to attack in response to the unexpected touch.
"Watch where you're going," Zen snapped, a strange sharpness to his tone that made all the hair on Malcom's arms prickle. Tears gathered in the young boy's eyes, and he sniffled.
The sound roused Jubilee from her own frightened stupor. "Hey, don't talk to him like that," she said as she looped an arm around Malcom's trembling shoulders. Zen ignored her. "Are you listening to me," she demanded, glaring daggers at his back. Before she could react he turned and held out a hand.
They all felt a surge of something when he did so, perhaps because they'd all donated to his power, and it freckled their skin in goosebumps. "What was that?"
"Stay here, Pietro come with me." A chorus of voices rose up in protest, almost muffling the sound of Pietro's curse as he walked face first into the shield sphere holding the other children with its protective walls. Reaching out, he felt along the edges of the bubble until he'd made it around the group and to Zen's side.
"What do you think you're doing?" Pietro growled, looking between Zen and the frightened faces of the children.
Zen didn't dignify him with an answer as he turned and continued down the hall. Cursing, Pietro chased after him. Halfway down the hall he stopped and opened a door.
"Hello Doctor."
Irritation, hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and cold all churned inside Pietro, forming a tight ball of angry misery that wanted to find relief in beating Zen to a pulp. All of that froze, shattering beneath the hammer of Zen's words.
Keys clattered as the Doctor continued working at his console as if death hadn't just walked into the room behind him. He was humming under his breath, a sound Zen knew well from when he'd been forced to aid the man in his experiments. Not to mention the times he'd been the one under the butcher's knife.
"Ahh, so the dog returns to the kennel at long last," the Doctor all but purred, maliciousness flavored the undercurrent of the words, promising punishment for his long absence. Zen could almost feel the leash tighten around his throat, a choke collar to throttle him into obedience. Protect the children. No, the Doctor was no longer his master. "Report."
The single sharp word almost jolted a response from Zen's frozen lips.
Pietro's heart squeezed tight at the sight of the man truly responsible for his sister's death. The Doctor, the bastard who'd killed her spirit long before Zen killed the flesh. Rage, pure and shining as a sword held over a flame until it glowed with sullen heat, stabbed through him. Reaching out, he gripped Zen's left arm hard. "Don't," he growled.
With an effortless twist, Zen broke from his grasp and vanished, only to reappear behind the doctor. A quick chop to the back of the man's neck sent him sprawling without him ever having turned to look at them. Zen turned to Pietro and gave him a long considering look. His chipped emerald gaze moved from the still living body at his feet, up to Pietro and back again.
"What are your orders?"
At first, the words confused Pietro. Then understanding dawned, and with it a dark satisfaction as sweet and poisonous as dark chocolate laced with arsenic. Back when Zen offered his life as reparations for killing his sister, Pietro refused, but this? This was an apology he could get behind. On the farthest edges of this thoughts, he heard Xavier's voice admonishing him about the dangers of revenge, but it was drowned out by the ocean of hurt and rage this disgusting man caused not only him but every mutant who'd been forced to endure his cruelty.
"Kill him, but first," he hesitated, almost backing out, then he remembered the dead look in Wanda's eyes and the way she accepted the kiss of Zen's blade willingly to escape the monster's clutches. He didn't deserve Pietro's mercy. "But first, make him suffer," the last word exploded out of him, a poisonous hiss of air.
The barest ghost of a smile touched the corners of Zen's lips at the order. With the skill gained from helping the Doctor with countless test subjects, he had the unconscious body stripped and strapped down to one of the exam tables. One of the tables he, himself, had been strapped to on more than one occasion.
Pietro's nose wrinkled at the sight of the naked man, but he didn't protest. Instead, he stood a few feet away from the action, wanting to see everything. This is for you, Wanda, I couldn't protect you, but I can damned well make him pay for what he did. Maybe he'd even ask Zen if he could help. He watched the small assassin set up a tray with several scalpels lined up in two neat rows. I wonder why he needs so many? Pietro couldn't help but wonder.
He found out as the Doctor began to stir. First, he tried to move, but the straps at wrists, ankles, thighs, chest, shoulders, and head kept him firmly in place. "What is the meaning of this," the Doctor shouted when he realized his position. Sharp, piercing blue eyes rolled around the room, flicking from Pietro, dismissing him at a glance, before settling on Zen. "I order you to release me this instant, IX."
"My name is Zen."
"Name," the Doctor sputtered, offended by the very thought. "Weapons don't have names."
Zen selected a scalpel. "This one does now."
For the first time since they'd met, the Doctor's eyes widened in fear as Zen stood over him. Light danced along the edge of the blood hungry blade, and that same hunger was reflected in Zen's merciless green eyes. "No. Y-you can't do this! I order you to release me. I ORDER YOU!"
"I am no longer your weapon." The blade descended slowly, allowing the Doctor to imagine the agony before it caressed his skin. The man tried to wiggle away, but the straps were too tight. Then he tried to suck in his gut in a futile effort to escape.
"Please, oh God, please don't," he gasped as the scalpel popped through the first layer of skin, sinking through the fatty layer and biting into muscle. The begging turned to screams of agony as Zen skillfully drew the sharp blade through his flesh with artistic strokes. He carved a capital I shape into the man's tender flesh. The first cut a long vertical line just below his ribs, followed by a horizontal line trailing straight down his belly to end above the groin. A second vertical line ended the I above the man's hips. As muscle gave way, the shrieking man's guts bulged out in an inviting mound.
Zen was careful not to damage the diaphragm, not wanting to end the torture too soon. Small, graceful hands folded back the twin flaps of skin, fully exposing the Doctor's abdominal cavity. It was as he was pinning the two flaps out of the way, using the line of scalpels as makeshift staples that he heard the gagging sounds.
He turned, blood soaking his hands to the wrists like a pair of morbid gloves, and stared at Pietro. The boy was half folded over, throwing up, and trembling like he was the one being tortured.
A low snort of disdain escaped Zen as he turned back to his task, dismissing Pietro's weakness as unimportant. With the care of a master surgeon, Zen extracted the intestinal track. A moment of focus healed over the ends, ensuring the man wouldn't bleed out. The snaking entrails fell to the ground with a wet plop a foot from Pietro's heaving form. A strangled scream escaped the teen as he back peddled so fast he fell on his ass. Turning, Pietro scrambled on hands and feet out the door.
Shaking his head, Zen turned back to his task. "Alone at last," he said to the man, whose screams had died down to muffled whimpers. He had to give it to the man, the Doctor had one hell of a high threshold for pain. He'd seen mutants reduced to gibbering messes of quivering flesh after less. "In your professional opinion, how many organs do you think I can remove before you die of shock?" Zen asked as he gave the Doctor's cheek a light slap, leaving a bloody hand print on the man's ashen face.
The Doctor refused to dignify the question with an answer. "Let's find out together, shall we?" Zen asked, unable to resist tormenting the man with the same sort of comments he'd once used on his victims. With that, the screams resumed as he extracted the stomach.
The nightmarish screams chased Pietro all the way down the hall, back to the children who were huddled together, eyes wide with terror. His stomach churned, wanting to revolt again, but having nothing left to give.
That's what we've all been fucking with all this time? God! Terror ripped through him as he realized exactly what they'd all been messing with. Even though he'd seen Zen kill as IX on so many occasions, it was nothing at all like what he'd seen him do to the Doctor. Each of those deaths had been quick, an execution. No, not even that, a man putting down lab animals. He'd never been more brutal than he had to be, and it was always over quick.
My fault. He gagged, hugging himself and trembling as he leaned against the wall. Distantly, he could hear the kids shouting at him, terrified and demanding answered, but he couldn't talk to them, not yet. First, he had to wrap his mind around what Zen did. No, what he told . . . ordered Zen to do.
Make him suffer, make him suffer, dear God, make him suffer. He hadn't appreciated how literally Zen would take the order. At most, he thought he might break a few bones, beat him up, hell, do the sort of shit they'd done to him at the school. Not . . . not gut him, and literally start taking him apart piece by piece. The sound of inner organs falling onto the floor played over and over again in his mind, the way they wiggled, the blood spattering off them in a macabre fan of color. I didn't want this, I didn't. I just . . . I.
"Pietro, what the fuck is going on. If you don't answer me I'm going to zap the fuck out of you when I get out of here," Jubilee's furious shout finally broke through Pietro's jabbering thoughts. That girl didn't give idle threats, and her powers hurt like a bitch when she used them on people. He knew first hand.
Pietro licked his lips, cringing at the bitter taste of bile as he straightened and tried not to look like a kicked dog. "Uh, Zen . . . well, we," he faltered, not sure how to explain. No that wasn't it. He didn't want to put it into words. He didn't want to expose his shame. Steeling himself, he forced the words from his lips. He'd given the order, now he had to live with it.
More shrill, agonized screams echoed up and down the hallway, filling the silence and making the children press even closer together. "We found the Doctor," Pietro said flatly, forcing the words out. "And Zen is dealing with him."
"Dealing with? Oh my God, what is he doing?" Jubilee whispered, horror filling her voice as the screams ratcheted up another notch. Then her eyes narrowed as she studied his guilt ridden face. "What did you do," she demanded as her hand slapped hard against the invisible wall between them.
Pietro took a sharp, pained breath like her words were a blow he had to recover from. Then he looked up, dark eyes glaring into hers with all the riotousness of the damned. "I'm getting my revenge, Wanda's revenge, the revenge of every body and mind shattered beneath that bastard's cruel hand."
Instead of understanding, Jubilee scoffed. Her lips twisted in to a disgusted scowl while she glared at him like he was the most loathsome creature she'd ever had the misfortune of dealing with. "Revenge? Really. Is that why you're standing out here trembling?" Her words scalded him, but before he could muster a defense she continued. "You're as bad as the people who made this place," Pietro flinched, but her relentless words tore into him without pause. "Just like the Doctor and everyone else, you used Zen to do your dirty work. Used his hands to bleed someone else so yours could remain lily white. You're pathetic. This isn't revenge, it's nothing more than spite. If it was revenge, you'd be the one in there making that bastard scream instead of Zen. I can't believe you would force him back into this life just for your petty revenge after everything the Professor's done to try and break him free of this mindset. And you . . ." Rage shook her frame as she hit the wall again, jerking another flinch from Pietro's hunched form. "You turned Zen back into a weapon." Another gut-wrenching scream echoed down the hall, punctuating her vicious words.
Pietro's eyes studied the ground as he bowed under the weight of her condemnation. He could feel the eyes of the other children boring into him, judging him. "Well, I say he's suffered enough." That made his head snap up, and unwillingly her eyes captured him again. "You'd better go finish this, Pietro, or by God don't you bother coming back."
He opened his mouth, wanting to protest, but whatever he might have said was lost under another inhuman scream of agony. Pietro's jaws snapped shut and with a final weak glare, he turned on his heal and forced himself to walk back to the slaughterhouse.
The sound of screams drew X down a different hallway, away from the holding cells. He knew the pitch of those sounds. While IX was never one to play with a kill, when ordered, he could be quite creative when it came to torture. A savage grin slid across his lips, exposing sharp teeth as he fell into a ground eating lope.
Within seconds he made it to the blood soaked room. He entered as Zen pulled out the Doctor's liver, earning another high pitched squeal as he neatly healed the severed arteries before letting the organ join the other discarded body parts on the floor.
In the back of their shared mind, Logan felt himself mentally gag at the sight of the tiny blood stained male, the open, still living body strapped to the table, and the gaping hole in the man's lower abdomen where organs used to be. It was the stuff of nightmares, and for once the faint scent, almost hidden under the wash of blood, of Zen, didn't move him.
His body and X had a much different reaction to the scene, and Logan cringed when he realized there would be no stopping this time. Instead of even trying, Logan threw a single complex thought at X before fleeing into the depths of their shared mind. He couldn't cope with the idea of fucking the kid, not when he was still covered in blood and was in the midst of happily torturing someone.
Warning: Lemon starts here!
Zen studied his work with a critical eye. From the Doctor's heaving diaphragm to his now empty pelvis, the lower caverns of his body were picked clean. He ran a hand along the smooth pink surface of exposed muscle. It twitched away from his touch, drawing another almost smile to his lips. Then he sensed something unexpected and the twitch of his lips grew slightly as large arms circled his waist, pulling him back against a hard chest.
He didn't have to turn to know it wasn't Logan behind him. Not with the teeth sinking into his shoulder with brutal force. Every muscle in Zen's body relaxed as he sank into the pain, but unlike ever other time, heat flared too. It spilled into him from where X's mouth met his flesh, forming a burning line from lips to his groin. Pain and pleasure built an inferno in the smaller weapon, driving all rational thought from his head as a low moan fell from his slightly parted lips.
This was so much more than the dreams, better than the thoughts he conjured when he could no longer tolerate the desperate need nagging at him. Every nerve caught fire at once, sending his mind reeling. Then one of the large hands slid down, cupping his burning shaft. Zen cried out, his hips bucking up into the touch, desperate for more than his logical mind could comprehend. Behind him, X growled, sending a deep thrum down his spine and jerking another cry from his lips.
Don't forget the mission. The unwanted thought itched at the back of Zen's mind, cutting into the heat and forcing his body to stiffen, his fingertips dug into the meat of the Doctor, tearing a ragged scream from the bound man. It helped ground him, but it wasn't enough to extinguish the fire building inside of him.
"I have my orders," Zen said, the normal monotone trembled slightly as sharp claws hissed down his back, shredding his shirt while caressing his skin. With a twitch of his shoulders, Zen let the torn material fall, leaving his upper half naked for X's hot mouth to explore.
Zen kept his eyes locked on his victim while hot teeth and a brazen tongue traced the delicate curve of his spine. It took an ungodly amount of effort to focus through the inferno blazing inside of him and he couldn't keep the low hiss of his breath through clenched teeth silent as his back was marked by X's sharp bites. Each one drove his need higher, making it nearly impossible to remember what he needed to do.
With a shaking hand, still soaked in blood, Zen reached out to a bowl he'd set on the table before he began. He almost knocked the whole thing over when his pants were ripped from his body. "X." Zen tried to make the word sharp, a command, but it came out as a gasp. Grabbing a fist full of rock salt, he threw it into the gaping cavern where the Doctor's innards used to be. The bound man gave a feeble croak of agony, satisfying the tiny assassin. His orders were to make the man suffer, and suffer he would until Zen could get back to him.
We don't have time for this, he thought, but it was a distant nagging, easily ignored in favor of the wicked male at his back. Another sharp cry escaped his lips as X's fist slid over his heated shaft.
The small sound broke whatever thin resolve might have been holding X's leash. With another sharp growl, X turned his little mate and tossed him up onto one of the exam tables. The breath exploded out of Zen in a sharp huff as X's mouth found him again. His hot tongue danced over blood soaked skin, cleaning the flesh, and coating hot skin in his scent. Zen's fingers tangled in X's hair as the feral's mouth closed over one nipple, giving the tender flesh as sharp bite as he flicked the tiny bud with the tip of his tongue. Fire scorched Zen's skin, so hot it almost became pain as his senses were overloaded.
Then the pleasure intensified as X's hard shaft slid along his own burning length. The mind-numbing pleasure drove a cry from Zen as he arched, grinding himself against X's body, desperate for things he didn't understand and couldn't name. "Please," he gasped.
At the sound of Zen's plea, X growled and sat up, earning another sharp cry from his mate. Logan's parting thought flared in his mind, not words but images, what he'd need to do to take Zen without harming the much smaller male.
Kneeling he dipped his head forward and ran his cheek along Zen's stiff cock. He buried his nose in the crisp curls, dragging in the mouthwatering aroma of Zen. The hands in his hair gave an impatient jerk, earning a low rumbling growl of amusement. His large hands closed around slim hips, and in a single brazen move, he dipped his head forward, taking the full length of his mate in a single swallow. Zen screamed as he arched up off the table, wide eyes staring down at X's head between his legs as pleasure crashed through his body in uncontrollable waves. He felt like he'd drowned under the onslaught of stimulation as X's head began to move.
The twisting heat began to build inside Zen, a familiar yet so much bigger feeling than any he'd experienced while pleasuring himself. He choked on air, caught between urging X on, and jerking him away, afraid of the overwhelming emotion boiling his insides.
Just before the sensations could sweep him away, X stopped. A snarl escaped Zen's lips, his mind too far gone to form coherent words. Then X moved, forcing his legs up and back, exposing another part of him to that heated mouth. Another inarticulate cry escaped the tiny assassin as X's hot tongue swiped over his exposed hole. Shudders wracked him with shocked pleasure as the feral's tongue explored him and he couldn't stop the near sob of pleasure as teeth scraped across sensitive flesh.
Pain twined like lighting through the pleasure as one of X's fingers joined the dance of tongue and teeth, adding new depth to the storm of sensations tearing through Zen's psyche. Time fractured and fell away as his body opened under X's burning touch. Another sharp cry tore from his throat when one of X's fingers brushed against something inside the smaller male. With a low, satisfied growl, X focused on the small bundle of nerves.
Once more the pleasure built to unbearable levels, an again X pulled away. This time Zen almost sobbed from frustration before the world flipped as X turned him over. A sharp scream cut through Zen's pleasure haze, and he turned his head in time to see X's hand pull back from a fresh gash on the Doctor's side, blood slick fingers stroked over X's hard cock, making Zen's breath catch in his throat as he stared at the slick organ.
A soft growl rumbled in the large man's chest as he blanketed his mate with his own body. Teeth sank into the back of Zen's neck in the same instant that X's cock breached him. Pain flooded his system, but he arched into it, savoring the bite of it as flesh married into flesh, for an instant turning them into a single being of painful pleasure.
"Oh my fucking God!"
X reared up, driving himself in to Zen in a single hard, startled push. Zen's sharp scream was echoed by X's roar of fury as he half turned to glare at Pietro whose face drained of blood as he once more turned to flee the blood soaked room.
Turning back to his mate, X nuzzled his neck, licking the wound softly as he kept still. Zen's breath tore from his lungs in harsh gasps as he stained against the massive cock buried inside of him. Finally, the burn began to ease as another heat forced it back. He gave a low, guttural whine. The sound was answered by X's rumbling growl as he began to move.
Pain and pleasure danced along the tiny assassin's nerves, and he could hardly breathe around the fire engulfing his entire being. Each thrust drove the pleasure in deeper as it stroked over his prostate, and then X's hand found his hard shaft. Zen gave a choked cry as rough fingers closed over him, squeezing and stroking in time to the deep thrusts.
As Zen threw his head back, a final scream on his lips as the pleasure crested, X's teeth sank into his neck a final time as he drove himself into the small body.
End of Lemon
Pietro huddled against the wall outside the door with his hands covering his ears while humming tonelessly to himself in a vain effort to drown out the sounds of two serial killers fucking. If only he could get the image burned in his mind to go away as easily. No matter how hard he tried to banish it, all he could see was blood streaked skin, X's naked body slamming into Zen, the roar of X's voice as he interrupted their 'alone time'.
"That didn't happen, that's not happening, hmmmhmmmhmmmm," he whispered to himself, but it wasn't quite loud enough to cover the sound of Zen's passionate screams. Dear God, who would have thought the robot had it in him to be a screamer? Fuck! Bad thoughts, so many bad thoughts. After this was over, he'd never be able to sleep again.
Something touched his shoulder. A scream tore itself from Pietro's throat as he tried to run, only to fall over his own feet. His eyes snapped open to find Zen standing over him. A very naked, very bloody Zen. He almost screamed again before he covered his eyes and yelled, "Damn it, Zen, go put some clothes on!"
Instead of replying, or vanishing in that strange way he had, Zen reached out and jerked Pietro to his feet. "Wha-"
"Come on, it's time to finish it."
"Would you please put some clothes on first?" He whined, but the complaint was ignored. Pietro did his best to walk with his eyes pointed towards the ceiling and almost ended up falling flat on his face when his foot skidded on a piece of the Doctor he refused to try and identify.
All the embarrassment vanished in a wash of sickness as he took in the room. Organs littered the floor, leaving splashes of drying blood that reminded him vividly of the cages and the endless lake of blood that marred the space. Now it was the Doctor's blood, but looking at it, he couldn't tell the difference. Your hands will be as bloodstained as theirs. Xavier's words haunted the teen as he tried to look away only for his head to jerk towards the table when the mutilated form gave a shrill cry.
A scalpel was embedded in the man's left knee. With an elegant twist, Zen jerked it free. "S-s-stop," Pietro choked out. Zen turned and gave him a long considering look. "Do you want to finish it?" Again he flipped the blade, now soaked in blood, and held it out to him.
You turned him into your weapon.
Guilt spilled into Pietro's guts like acid, eating away at him as he looked at the blank faced assassin. He tried to see Zen, but all he could find in the man standing before him, nude and covered in blood, was IX. He'd done that, stripped the little bit of humanity his roommate managed to develop during his time at Xavier's school away, leaving behind the tiny killer. Was it fair of him to demand another death from the assassin? Would it be fair to Wanda to let someone else have their revenge?
Could he really take a life? Even the life of a cockroach like the Doctor?
With trembling fingers, Pietro reached out to take the scalpel.
Shock jittered up and down Alicia Vargas nervous system. She sat on the floor of the Oval Office, knees up to her chest and her back resting against one of the twin couches that bracketed the presidential seal emblazoned in the carpet of the room. Just ten minutes ago her whole body had been wracked with an agony she'd never experienced before. It felt like she was being pulled limb from limb while being burned alive. In that first flood of agonized terror, she thought the nuns' promise of hell was real and had reached up a clawed hand from the depths to pull her under. Distantly, she could hear the President shouting for help, staffers and agents flocked around her as they made way for the doctors.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the pain vanished. Alicia felt fine. She stumbled over an embarrassed apology while her boss continued insisting on a full debriefing. Someone in the background muttered darkly about how this was probably another breed of mutant attack.
Before they could begin to sort it out, everyone else in the room dropped to the floor screaming. She still felt fine, but now they were dying on the ground, and the offhand comment about mutant attacks struck her like a dagger to the heart. It made her wish she'd died a few minutes ago. When she was dying, they were fine. Now they were dying, and she felt perfect. Did that mean? Could she be a mutant? Dear God, no.
Alicia shook her head. It didn't matter now. All that mattered was the fact that she was an agent of the United States Secret Services, and it was her duty to protect the president. That made him her sole concern.
Unholstering her weapon, she inched across the floor, snatching up a few discarded guns as she went while she fought herself for the strength to regain her feet. The President was lying in a heap on the floor behind his desk. Alicia took a deep breath and shoved his chair off his legs before she settled with her back against the wall so that she had a clean line of sight of both entrances into the room. Gently, she shifted the President's head until it rested in her lap while she kept her Glock in her free hand. Beside her, she lined up the extra weapons, just in case. She slipped a handkerchief out of her pocket so that she could dab at the blood oozing from his nose and eyes.
"What's happening?" he choked, causing another bright line of blood to drip from his parted lips.
"I don't know, Sir, but I'm here. I'm well and I'll do all I can to keep you safe."
George McKenna found it impossible to care about himself in that moment. The title of President didn't matter now. His life as a man didn't matter. The only two titles that held any meaning for him in that blood stained moment were as husband and father and the sharp sting of bitterness he felt at being so far from his loved ones. While he knew he had little hope of a miracle, he found himself praying for his wife, he prayed with all he was and with the last bit of coherent thought he had left that they would be spared this terrible end. He prayed for mercy.
*.*.*
The crowd below the pontiff's balcony milled in confusion as they parted for the various teams of paramedics to reach those who'd taken ill before the pope's appearance. He'd spoken with one of the secretaries to make the proper inquiries before he proceeded with the scheduled events of the day.
In an instant, things changed. Now only a small handful of people remained standing both on the plaza and inside the Vatican. Elisabeth Braddock, who'd decided to use her free day before driving to Milan to showcase Giorgio Armani's couture line for the fall show to see the pope speak, eased herself off the gurney she'd been placed on after collapsing. Blood painted her face in gaudy lines from her nose and eyes. It dripped down onto the front of her new dress, a linen, expensive, and designed specifically for her by Kay Cera, was now totally ruined. Her artfully painted lips twisted into a scowl as she saw more blood gushing from the eyes, ears and noses of everyone she could see.
Taking a slow breath, Betsy cracked open the gates of her mind and let a single tendril of mental power ease out to dance across the plaza in an attempt to find the cause for the mass affliction. She staggered, tried to grab the handrail on the back of the ambulance to keep from falling, and failed. Pain jolted up her knees as the dress ripped, but it was a distant sensation, unfelt under the crushing weight of realization that slammed into her mind. It was so much worse than she thought. Not just the Plaza, or Vatican City. People were collapsing all throughout Rome.
She found herself thankful that her powers had limits, even though she couldn't sense it, something told her that she would find the same no matter how far her mind sought. The only people who appeared unaffected were the ones like her, who'd fallen under the first onslaught. Looking around, she realized one of the others now standing was a mutant like her. It didn't take a genius to put the pieces together. Someone somewhere had attempted to take out mutants the world over, and now the tables were turned.
"No," she gasped, "Please, don't let this be happening, for the sake of God, please stop!"
Her desperate cry fell on deaf ears, or perhaps it had been drowned out by the screams of the masses as extinction reached out to snuff them out.
*.*.*
This is all Bobby's fault, he knew I called the cops, this is his revenge, Ronny Drake thought as pain tore through him. But he'd never thought his brother would be so cruel as to actually kill him for it. Brothers were meant to look out for each other, that's what their parents always told the, and that's how Bobby used to act before he went away to that weird school. Desperate sobs tore from his chest as he clutched at his bedspread and called out weakly for his mom. Why wouldn't she answer him? Fear clawed at him, so big he thought it would destroy him alongside the pain. He'd never understood how awful and all-consuming fear could be until now.
Ronny snatched every breath and counted each heartbeat, cherished each disjointed thought as he weighted them all against scenes from the movies and TV show's he'd seen, the video games he'd played. But unlike all of those, this was reality. There would be no extra lives, no turning the channel. He didn't want to die. That thought repeated again and again in his mind.
I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die.
Sobbing and wailing, Bobby felt each exhale tear out of his chest and guts as the waves of energy seemed to rip him apart from the inside out. Blood streaked his face and it splashed in haphazard patches over his pillow, sheets, and the wall beyond. His vision blurred in and out and he figured he'd be blind before the end and wished desperately for the end to come soon to take the pain away.
Ronny told his brother he was sorry.
He wished he was a mutant, too, so they would be together. And as his life flickered like a dying ember, he found it in himself to hate Charles Xavier with all his young and passionate heart, blaming the wheelchair bound man for stealing his brother away from the home that had raised him, the parents who loved him, and the brother who needed him so badly.
*.*.*
The floor of the New Your Stock Exchange was littered with hundreds of thrashing, screaming bodies.
*.*.*
Over a thousand feet below the surface of the Pacific, the crew of the fleet ballistic missile submarine Montana lay screaming.
*.*.*
Silence stretched endlessly in the small confines of the space shuttle Endeavor as the seven astronauts waited for contact to be reestablished with ground control. They'd been doing routine housekeeping with Mission Control at Houston's Johnson Space Center when there was a succession of garbled noises intermixed with what sounded like screaming.
After that, nothing.
"Endeavor to Houston, Endeavor to Houston. Do you read Houston?" The mission commander scowled and switched channels. "CapCom, this is Endeavor, do you read?" Nothing switched again. "Edwards flight control, is there anyone down there?" he demanded. Again he flipped to another channel. "Cheyenne Base, do you read? NORAD ops, this is Endeavor, please respond." Finally, he switched over to 121.5, the international distress frequency, "Any station, any station, please respond. Is anyone down there?" Peter Coubear whispered, "anyone at all?"
Static was the only answer.
As far as they knew, they were alone, the only human beings left alive.
A shudder of revulsion twisted Pietro's gut as his fingers closed around the blood slick weapon. I'm not really going to do this, am I? The thought dried up all the spit in his mouth, but he found his feet taking him towards the wreck of a man still strapped to the table. His dark eyes jittered from the gaping hole in the man to his face, and he found it hard to decide which was worse – the bloody scraps of humanity left from IX's creative interpretation of Pietro's orders, or the screaming animal madness blazing from the Doctor's eyes.
There was nothing sane left there, even though the man had never been the sanest of individuals. Now, even his twisted yet brilliant intellect was gone. The crazed blue eyes didn't track Pietro's movement, and looking into them made the speed mutant want to turn and run screaming from the room.
Can I do this?
At this point, he'd be helping the man. As tempting as it was to latch onto that thought, Pietro refused. He wasn't putting down a dog who'd been hit by a truck. He was taking a life. Acid burned on the back of his tongue, making each breath sting.
Jubilee's words spurred him on. This is our revenge, mine and yours Wanda. I won't let anyone else take it from us.
Clenching his teeth, he glared down into the ruined face of the man who'd broken his sister and was in turn broken by the very weapon who'd spilled her blood. That thought stilled his hand briefly as understanding slotted into his mind of what Xavier meant about IX. Orders. His words drove IX to this cold, calculated destruction. Someone else's words moved the other mutant to slit his sister's throat. A cleaner death for sure, but still. IX didn't choose to do either thing, the choice was made for him and he moved based on the will of others. So wrong.
Pietro closed his eyes. "For you, dear sister," he breathed as he laid the blade against the Doctor's throat.
Again, his hand refused to move that last millimeter, refused to open the throat of the one who'd wronged him and his beloved sister. Again, he found himself standing on the ragged edge of revenge, yet unable to move forward. Rage blazed in his heart as tears slid down his cheeks, blurring his vision.
"Damn you," he hissed as he started to jerk the blade away, only for his wrist to be caught in a vice like grip. Pietro jumped, he hadn't even noticed the tiny assassin standing next to him, still covered in blood and totally nude. "What?" he demanded while trying to jerk his wrist free of the surprisingly strong grip.
"Relax," IX's dead voice caused shivers to erupt down Pietro's spine. It was like Death telling you to smile. Then he felt his hand inch forward, regaining the small bit of space he'd put between the blade and the Doctor's neck until the blade once more rested against sweaty skin. Understanding blazed in Pietro's mind a second before the first drop of blood spilled. No. His lips shaped the word, but his frozen vocal cords shouldn't squeeze it out past the pounding of his own heart.
No, he thought again as hot ruby liquid splashed across his chest when the arteries gave way under the steady, relentless pressure IX applied to his wrist. It was only later, much later, that Pietro realized he could have let go of the scalpel. IX only moved his wrist, but it was his hand that kept the blade steady as it cut through flesh.
The body on the table gave a final jerk before a bubbly breath escaped, it didn't draw another.
He's dead.
I killed him. The realization did nothing to ease the ocean of agony living where his heart used to be.
His death didn't bring Wanda back.
His death changed nothing.
Author's Note: *Clears throat awkwardly* Soooo, hi? Yeah, I'm not actually dead. I'm surprised too. It's been a while. Like a whole year. I'm sorry! I know, I know, this is the part where I tell you all that I had a very good reason for dropping off the face of the earth and all that…
And I do!
For reals, in August of 2016 I got pregnant and learned the hard way that pregnancy and writing weren't working out for me. I had no focus at all, and my brain had turned into fig pudding. Everything I wrote turned out to be a pile of crap, so I stopped writing.
Well, on May 2nd, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy who was 8 lb 8 oz. We're both doing great, and I thought it was high time I got back to writing.
Forgive me?
If anyone is still reading, thank you for all your support. It means the world to me.