I've stared at this for too long, so it's just gonna get posted. Enjoy!
Laurien quickly lost track of how long they were in the air. A nervous energy pulsated throughout the hull of the jet, accompanied by the steady hum of the engines and punctuated by the occasional pop of the bubble gum Peter was chewing.
Laurien closed her eyes, attempting to breathe past the anxiety pulsating throughout her bloodstream. Her mind was racing, and she was left in an argument with herself regarding why it always seemed that she was on a bloody plane when it seemed like the world was ending?
One of the many things she had noticed since moving to North America in 1962, was how much Americans liked their cars and airplanes. Laurien had no such fondness. She much preferred how it was in the European continent, where everywhere was easily accessible by train, and some entire countries could be traversed in a matter of hours. She was painfully aware that if she ever wished to return to Europe, she would of course have to endure yet another plane ride. The idea made her stomach turn, and during this rather obsessive tangent she began wondering if it was possible to charter a boat instead.
She was ultimately rather glad when Jean's soft voice brought her back to the present.
"Were you scared?" She asked, looking at Raven. "That day in D.C., were you scared?"
"No." Raven uttered quickly, her expression blank. Something passed over her eyes before she then turned back to Jean, adding, "But I was scared on my first mission. I was on a plane like this with my friends. About your age. We called ourselves the X-Men."
Raven looked toward where Scott sat on the other side of Jean. "Your brother was there. We used to call him Havok. He was a real handful…" She revealed, a smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth. "But when it came down to it, he was very brave."
"Alex was very protective of us all. He had a fierce heart." Laurien added softly, her own heart clenching painfully in her chest. She knew whatever grief she felt within herself was likely tripled for the young man sitting across from her. "He didn't smile all that often, but when he did, it felt so special to see."
Hank cleared his throat from the pilot seat, drawing their attention towards him. "We didn't get along initially, Alex and I. He used to call me Bigfoot." He said with a wistful chuckle. "But once we got to know one another, he became one of the best friends I ever had."
Scott nodded. While Laurien couldn't perceive his expression due to his glasses, the wave of grief that flooded from the young man brought tears to her eyes.
"What happened to ze rest of the kids that went with you?" Kurt asked curiously. "The X-Men."
Raven hesitated. Her gaze shifted to meet Laurien's, a pang of pain passing between them. "Hank, Laurien, and I are the only ones left. We couldn't save the rest of them."
Laurien's fingers fiddled with the straps of her jumpsuit, the faces of her friends briefly flashing through her mind. Darwin, Angel, Sean, and now Alex, with only memories and photographs remaining of them.
"Look, I don't know what they've told you about me, but I'm not a hero." Raven uttered bitterly, her expression drawn tight. "I was going to kill a major political figure on live television."
Laurien tilted her head to the side, observing her friend. "But you didn't."
"Because you all convinced me not to." Raven countered.
"Well, you're a hero to us." Jean piped up again. "Seeing you that day on TV changed my life."
"Mine too." Kurt said, looking bashfully down at his hands.
"Mine too." Peter chimed in after another pop of his bubble gum. "I mean, I still live in my mom's basement, but... everything else is... well, it's pretty much the same."
The teens chuckled at Peter's attempt at self-deprecating humour. The mood in the jet gradually lifted, a tentative warmth replacing the tense chill that had previously surrounded them.
"I'm a total loser." Peter added with a grin, earning a more confident laugh from the others.
"You're doing just fine, Peter." Laurien assured him, gently knocking his shoulder with her glove-clad knuckles.
"Hey," Hank beckoned from the pilot's seat. "We're getting readings of some major magnetic activity."
"Where?" Raven queried, frowning.
"Everywhere."
Raven and Laurien exchanged a quick glance before they both disengaged themselves from their seatbelts and made their way to the front of the jet.
In the distance ahead of the jet, an ominous wall of grey clouds stretched across the horizon.
"That… doesn't look normal." Laurien murmured, gripping one of the handles hanging from the hull a bit tighter. While she didn't know much about different cloud types— cumulus, nimbus, and whatnot —she could tell that these were no normal cloud formations.
"We're going into that?" Raven asked nervously, looking at Hank.
"Prepare for some turbulence." Hank muttered, tensing in his seat.
Laurien gripped the back of Hank's seat with her free hand as the plane's hull began to shake once the jet pierced the clouds. Visibility was nonexistent for several pulse pounding moments before the clouds dispersed enough to reveal a scene of utter chaos and destruction. Dust, rocks, and debris soared through the air in streams, arcing and circling the famous pyramids in a strange orderly pattern.
"Seventh wonder, 12 o'clock." Hank announced, taking the jet between two of the pyramids. In doing so, he revealed the city of Cairo, or at least what was left of it.
Plumes of smoke rose from the city's buildings, as fires and explosions raged below. Similar streams of debris were being pulled into the atmosphere, as though something or someone was robbing the city of its very foundation. An imposing pyramid of futuristic architecture stood imposingly above the city centre, its metallic exterior reflecting the sunlight.
"That's new." Hank stated, nodding towards the monument.
Before anyone could comment on it, Jean's voice cut through the air. "He has the Professor in the centre of the pyramid." She revealed to the rest of them, her eyes having glazed over. Suddenly, a horrified look marred her face. "He's going to transfer his consciousness into the Professor. If he does that, he'll have the power to control every mind in the world."
Raven looked up at Laurien with wide eyes. Their theory had been confirmed.
"What the hell is that?" Moira asked, drawing their attention back to the front of the jet as she frowned at what appeared to be a force field near the base of the futuristic pyramid.
"It's Erik." Raven murmured, a hand coming up to hold Laurien's shoulder.
Laurien jumped when Peter suddenly appeared next to her, seemingly trying to get a good look at his estranged father. "Huh? You mean he's causing all this twirly whirly stuff?"
Laurien stared down at the force field before her gaze shifted to take in the swirling mass of debris-riddled tendrils in a new light. "He's never been able to do that before."
"According to legend, Apocalypse bestows great power upon his disciples." Moira explained, raising an eyebrow in consideration. "He must have enhanced Erik's abilities."
Laurien bit her lip, fear sparking within her, as she hoped that Apocalypse hadn't done anything irreparable in addition to enhancing Erik's powers.
Raven glanced back at the teens who remained securely strapped in their seats. "You guys help Nightcrawler get into the pyramid, and get Charles." She turned to Laurien, "Laur, you–"
"I'll take care of Erik." She asserted firmly.
"How are we going to get through that?" Hank inquired, carefully piloting the plane around the swirling debris encircling the force field.
"I can get you in there." Peter said, a hand gripping Laurien's arm. She opened her mouth to say that it was probably best that she went alone, but he stopped her. "I came here for him. Please, let me help you."
She paused for a moment before shutting her mouth and nodding, clenching her jaw as she looked back at the carnage outside.
Raven then turned back to the teens. "The rest of you, get Charles on this plane and get him out of here."
"Hold on." Hank warned them as the plane lurched suddenly. "Coming in to land."
Laurien braced herself between her handle and the back of Hank's seat, holding on tightly and waiting until the jet was safely and firmly on the ground before letting go. She followed the others as they exited the plane by the cargo ramp and set foot on solid ground. Well, that may not have been accurate. The ground beneath their feet was shuddering ominously, and they had to take care not to stumble over the vast piles of rubble dispersed around them.
"The entire world will be feeling this." Hank explained as he joined her in surveying their surroundings. "Erik's magnetic fields are essentially churning up the earth from the inside out. He needs to be stopped quickly, or else there will be nothing left."
Laurien nodded solemnly, seeing the destruction that had already been laid upon the city before her. She had never been to Cairo before, having accepted that it would remain amongst the myriad of iconic places she'd never get the opportunity to see outside of pictures in books. She could recall a time when her father had 'accidentally' given their family a university-grade architecture lecture about the pyramids over dinner one night. The lecture had exhausted most of the family, but seemed to greatly inspire Roosje, who vowed to see them with her own two eyes one day. While Laurien couldn't remember much of what her father had said, she knew that many of the classic Seven Wonders of the World, such as the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, were destroyed and lost throughout the centuries. Her heart ached at that moment, as she knew that many other countries' wonders and landmarks were being destroyed at that very moment.
Raven hurried them all forward. "Hank, you and I will go with the kids, Laurien and Peter will take Erik, and Moira will be waiting on the plane."
"Wait." Scott called, bringing them all to a halt.
"What?"
"Not all of us can fully control our powers." He admitted, exchanging a brief glance with Jean.
It then struck Laurien that they were teenagers, perhaps no older than seventeen, yet so much was being asked of them. They'd barely had time to experience the world outside the mansion, let alone a battlefield. From what she'd heard from a brief conversation with Alex, Scott had only gained his powers in the past week, and he'd barely gotten time to try them out. Laurien only knew a little of Kurt's story, and she wasn't sure what Jean's circumstances were, but she could tell that they were both scared to death.
Raven shook her head. "Then, don't. You need to embrace them. We all do." As if to emphasise her point, Raven's skin gradually shifted into its natural blue shade. "Pull out all the stops and hold nothing back, because we absolutely cannot allow Apocalypse to succeed."
Peter turned to Laurien, and she gave him a small nod. He placed his goggles down over his eyes and came to stand next to her. She was just about to ask him about the process of him getting her to Erik when he wordlessly placed a hand against the back of her neck.
She blinked, and the next thing she knew, they were now standing upon a large piece of concrete, raised several hundreds of metres off the ground. Laurien bent double as a wave of intense, yet familiar nausea rose within her. Taking a few deep breaths, she righted herself and set her gaze upon her husband.
Before them, Erik hovered in the centre of the rotating expanse of debris. His eyes were shut, his arms extended out as he controlled the insanity surrounding them. A transparent force field surrounded him, preventing them from getting any closer to him, its shifting walls catching the dying light of day like iridescent chain mail.
He was wearing the same armoured costume she'd seen him in back at the mansion, but it was now completed by the inclusion of a helmet. It was eerily similar to the previous iterations, having been initially designed to prevent Charles from interfering with his plans. Had it been yet another 'gift' from Apocalypse? A way to discourage Charles from communicating with Erik, and bar them from devising a means of escape before Apocalypse's grand finale?
Laurien found it difficult to pull her gaze from him. Here he was, so close, but she couldn't yet touch him. The lingering sensation that had been simmering just beneath her skin throughout the past few days hit her in that moment with full force. She longed for him to take her into his arms, to hold her, to make her feel alright again. The past few days had been hellish, to put it simply, and her mind was struggling to fathom everything that had occurred, but what kept her going was the hope that if she could just get her family back together again, everything would eventually be alright.
Peter suddenly vanished from her side, appearing several feet away as he attempted to physically press against the force field. Despite his efforts, the barrier refused to give way. In an instant, he reappeared beside her, shaking his head. "The magnetic field is too strong. I can't get us in there."
Laurien frowned and began carefully observing the moving mass, wondering if there were any capabilities within her mutation that may penetrate the force field. They both flinched when a series of successive claps of thunder erupted behind them. They glanced around, seeing the red flash of Scott's laser beams in the distance. The inevitable battle against the Horsemen had begun.
Laurien turned back towards Erik, knowing that they hadn't much time. "Erik!" Laurien yelled, hoping that he could hear her through the magnetic field.
She saw his eyes snap open at the sound of her voice. His head immediately turned, searching the destruction surrounding him for the source. His gaze soon found her. "Laurien, what are you doing here?" He demanded, eyes wide in fear. "Where are the kids?"
"They're back in New York with Sera. Waiting for their father to come home." She explained, before taking another step forward. "You need to stop this, Erik. Please."
"I can't." Erik said, shaking his head. "I want to, but I can't. You must believe me."
"He's going to destroy the world, and kill Charles to get what he wants."
"He'll kill you." Erik countered, desperation palpable in his eyes and wavering voice. "He'll kill you and the girls if I try to stop him."
The words struck her hard in the chest, and she knew the fear that was undoubtedly coursing through his veins at that very moment.
Laurien could still vividly recall the horrific and overwhelming sensation that had gripped her in her dream when Nina was dying in her arms. An indescribable mixture of despair, fury, and pain. Perhaps it was that horrible sensation that had led Erik to try to kill the men at the factory, the very same that had prompted Laurien to break the bones of a dozen police officers in the forest clearing without a second thought. It was needless to say, they would do whatever they could for their children. They would give Nina and Kasia the world if it were possible, yet the world that Apocalypse offered would be the embodiment of everything they had fought to protect their daughters from. Therefore they needed to continue to fight, even if they may ultimately fail and die in the process.
"Erik, this is the world we're talking about. Almost five billion people who depend on what we do now." Laurien urged, even though the implications of her words filled her with tremendous fear. "As much as I hate to say it, it's a risk we have to take."
Erik closed his eyes, tears running freely down his face. She could tell he knew she was right, though it was a terribly difficult thing to accept. His attention then shifted to Peter beside her, a hint of recognition dawning slightly on his face as he opened his mouth. "And you?" He asked in a choked voice, diverting the focus away from himself. "What are you here for?"
"I'm your..." Peter started, but then trailed off. He glanced uncertainly at Laurien for a moment before facing Erik again. "I'm here for my family too."
Erik nodded, but conflict still marred his features.
"Please, Erik." Laurien pleaded, as she pulled off her thick gloves and held out a hand for him, desperately wanting to touch him, to reassure him with more than just words. "I'm here with you, my darling. We'll do this together."
He locked eyes with her, and after a deep breath, he slowly released his control. The magnetic field surrounding him slowly disappeared, allowing her to see him properly. The large chunk of concrete and rebar Laurien and Peter were standing on started to descend, and Erik followed them down with it.
Once they safely reached the ground, Erik removed the helmet from his head and tossed it to the side. He quickly cut the distance between them, taking Laurien's outstretched hand and pulling them together into a crushing embrace. Tears spilled uncontrollably from Laurien's eyes as she held onto his shaking armoured form like a lifeline.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He murmured, one of his hands holding the back of her head as he buried his face into the crook of her neck, his other arm wrapped tightly around her waist.
"You've done nothing to be sorry for, Erik." She cried, kissing his temple, feeling his intense fear and foreboding slipping under her skin as she tried to share her desperate attempts of assurance and hope with him. "It's going to be alright, I promise you."
"The girls…" He began, his fingers burying themselves in her tangled mess of hair that had been hurriedly pulled back into a ponytail.
"They're fine. They're with Sera, and we both know that she will do whatever it takes to keep them safe, no matter what happens here."
A giant fiery crash in the distance prompted Laurien to glance toward Peter. He held up a thumb at her with a questioning look. With a slight nod from Laurien, Peter vanished in a blink of an eye.
Laurien quickly turned her attention back to Erik. She adjusted her grip on him, holding his face between her hands to get a good look at him. It was then that she saw the angry red marks around his throat. The image of the other Horseman's glowing whip around his neck sprang to the forefront of her mind, eliciting a pang of white hot rage deep in her stomach.
"What have they done to you?" She whispered, attempting to keep her voice from breaking. "Are you hurt?"
"It's nothing." Erik assured her, bringing their foreheads together.
Laurien pressed her lips to his, revelling in the explosion of sensations that passed between the two of them. She could feel him, all of him, and every fibre of his being was crying out for her, to never be parted again.
She reluctantly pulled away, instead pressing her lips to his cheek. "We need to go help the others." She murmured against his skin. "We'll have more time later, I promise."
She felt him nod, before he wrapped an arm securely around Laurien's waist. The ground beneath their feet fell away as they levitated into the air and moved towards the sound of the battle raging on between the X-Men and the Horsemen.
I share a Disney+ account with my best friend (shhhhh, don't tell Disney), and he must think that I'm up to something weird based on how much I've been watching parts of X-Men: Apocalypse over and over again, haha. It's for writing purposes, I swear.
I also did a rewatch of X-Men: Dark Phoenix recently, and... I still don't like it. Oh well, I'm still gonna incorporate it into the story somehow, but I'm changing some major plot things to suit my preferences and not dwelling on it too much. I also think the story will end at about 68 chapters total, based on my estimations, give or take a chapter.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please leave a review! I'll be responding to all of them, though my Fanfiction notification email thingy has been acting up and I don't know how to fix it properly.