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xp_logs2008-10-26 09:21 am
x-bevatron.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2008-10-26 09:21 am
Day Zero - The Hellhound
Pete and Jean-Phillipe stage a two-man rescue of Marie-Ange from Caliban.
Jean-Phillipe looked at the East Village apartment building they'd been directed to from just behind Pete. "That man at Silver was not joking when he said that the building was smashed up, was he?" he observed. The front of the building had been defaced, the front door hung drunkenly off its hinges, and there was not a single window in the entire building that was not shattered.
"Looks like one of my sister's old squats. Only I suspect the inhabitants are friendlier. Alright, stay with me, and keep very quiet. If anything comes at us that isn't Angie, hit it repeatedly with whatever you can until it falls over, and worry about whether it'll survive some other time." Pete moved cautiously toward the door, eyes scanning the windows, looking for anyone that might be watching out of them.
Jean-Phillipe stayed behind Pete, moving as quietly as he could. Caliban frightened him, and he was secure enough in himself to admit it. Not to mention that it wasn't just Caliban they had to worry about, but the thralls he had gathered around himself, as he was sure that the psychopath would merely replace the ones he had killed. After all, they were merely 'meat' to the albino.
"Upworlder returns, yes, yes? Come to join pretty redhaired upworlder, yes?" Caliban's hissing voice came from inside a broken window, and flashes of the mutant's white skin could be seen in the shadows. "Killed many humans, you did. Cooked like meat, yes. Very good. Caliban said you would come back."
"Come to take pretty redhaired...merde, now I am talking like you," Jean-Phillipe retorted. "I have come to take my cousin back from you, you psychopath." His hands flexed and crackled with static.
"Bollocks. So much for surprise." Pete muttered. "Horrible beatings it is, then." Abandoning any pretence at stealth, Pete sprinted for the door, just in time to meet a lank haired, exhausted looking man in a tattered suit staggering out of the door snarling murderously.
"Oh good-" Pete ducked under a wild roundhouse, and responded with a swift shot the groin that doubled the poor bastard over "-brainwashed fuckups. Just what I needed."
Jean-Phillipe held his hands low, ready to use his powers if necessary, but Pete was a one-man wrecking crew as he punched and kicked his way into the building. He merely followed in the cranky Englishman's wake, keeping an eye on the thralls in case one happened to get around behind Pete without his noticing.
Caliban lurched from the shadows, one hand wrapped in Marie-Ange's hair. The Frenchwoman had the same glassy-eyed look as the other thralls, as well as looking as if she hadn't slept in days, instead of just the few hours she'd been under the albino's control. "No no no no no!" he hissed, voice growing higher and more childlike with every intonation. With an angry squeal, he pushed Marie-Ange, aside and advanced directly towards Pete, his huge arms knocking his thralls to the sides. "Traitor upworlders, traitors to mutants, Caliban's patience is over! Crush you now and rip you like meat, yes yes. Tear you from--"
Pete didn't wait for him to finish speaking before sprinting straight at him throwing athe couterblow.n arc of hotknives at Caliban's left, between him and Marie-Ange, forcing him to shy away from her, as she half-fell half staggered away from him. "Get her the fuck out of here" he yelled to Jean-Phillipe. "Just fucking grab her and run!" before slamming into Caliban as hard as he could, forcing the larger mutant back only slightly, and being forced to duck to one side to avoid the counterblow. As he did so, one of the exhauted looking thralls grabbed for him, pulling him slightly off balance, and leaving him unable to completely avoid Caliban's next strike, which caught him a glancing blow to the side of the head.
"You've got--" Pete ducked, and kicked out hard behind him, trying to gather momentum to push himself away from the crowd and toward Caliban, trying to put the huge mutant between the brainwashed innocents and him "-about two minutes before I'm going to have to do something fucking drastic, so hurry up."
Then he lost track of Marie-Ange and her cousin, as Caliban and the crowd closed on him, and all his concentration was used just dodging blow after blow, and just preventing the crowd from overwhelming him. He managed to put a few of them down, and land a number of blows that actually seemed to get through to Caliban, before the inevitable weight of numbers meant he was borne to the ground.
"Tear you apart, upworlder!" Caliban pulled one of the poor thralls from Pete's back, throwing the man into the wall, before picking Pete up with one hand. "What you say to me now?"
Pete spat blood into Caliban's face, and smiled.
"Fuck you, sunbeam, and the horse you fucking rode in on." Pete started to glow, as the energy of his hotknives blasted straight out from ever part of his body, straight into Caliban.
Caliban screamed and staggered back, dropping Pete to the ground. The energy pouring out of Pete didn't let up, as he landed on his feet, stumbling slightly as he did. As Caliban stumbled back, Pete stepped forward, not letting up the energy for an instant. After a short while, the screaming stopped, and Pete let the energy up. Incredibly, the charred mess that used to be Caliban was still twitching.
"You're a tough bastard, aren't you, cunt? Not sure I remember anyone lasting that long..." Pete muttered.
"Mercy..." it croaked.
Pete reached into his jacket and withdrew a battered packet of cigarettes. The first cigarette his pulled out was snapped in the middle. He gave it a look of disgust, and flicked it away, before fishing out another, intact cigarette from the pack, then looked round the room, at the collection of unconscious and whimpering people lying on the floor and slumped against the walls. He lit the cigarette with a fingertip, coughed, spat blood again, and looked back down at Caliban.
"Mercy? Not from me, fuckface."
And energy poured out from him again, and didn't let up until there was nothing left of Caliban.
When the glowing embers died down, a small throat-clearing could be heard in the wrecked condominium.
"Alas, poor Caliban," the deep voice sounded as a figure walked from the shadows to stand silently across from Pete, looking down at the smear of ash on the floor. "He was persecuted by the humans for so long, I feared that he had lost anything resembling sanity. It no longer matters, I suppose. He was tested, and he was found wanting." The stranger looked over to Pete, a smile crossing his dark features.
"I am Apocalypse."
***
Marie-Ange's red hair was easy to spot, even as lank and messy as it was. She fled the room, and Jean-Phillipe was running towards her even before Pete's order to him. He glanced back just enough to see Pete begin to emit energy from his entire body, then turned back as he stumbled through the rubble of what had been a dividing wall. Some of Caliban's thralls who had not been in the room when he and Pete had entered moved to block his path. He remembered Pete's words, even if he weren't already inclined to force, and twisted his right arm forward, sending a lethal jolt at one thrall to open a hole. He lowered his shoulder as the first thrall fell, and rammed into another, bringing his left hand up to press flat against his target's stomach, discharging another surge of electricity. And then he was past the line and chasing his cousin, while the rest of the thralls seemed more inclined to react to Pete's struggle with Caliban.
Marie-Ange ran blindly unaware of much of her surroundings, only just barely avoiding colliding with the remains of destroyed walls and doors hanging off hinges and huddled thralls and debris in her panic. She didn't recognize the room that she ran into as a former bedroom, she only saw that it was a dead end, except for one window, and she collapsed against the wall, sobbing.
The sobbing brought Jean-Phillipe up short as he entered the room. Something was wrong with the way Marie-Ange was behaving. Clearly Caliban had done something to her with that control he had exerted on her. "Marie-Ange? Are you all right?" he asked in French as he slowly approached.
Marie-Ange didn't answer at all, didn't look up, just sat curled up, face buried in her knees with her arms wrapped around her head as if to protect it. The shaking subsided, but it was as though she didn't even know Jean-Phillipe was in the room, much less speaking to her.
Well, at least the sobbing had subsided to a point. But now she wasn't even paying attention at all. She was practically catatonic. "Cousin? Cousin!" he said sharply snapping his fingers in front of her face to no response.
Still no response, not even the slightest indication that she heard him, or knew he was there. Marie-Ange remained on the floor, trembling and whimpering and holding her head tightly. Her face was buried too deeply for Jean-Phillipe to hear clearly, but it was almost as though she was talking to herself, only occasional words, some he couldn't understand at all, and some he could hear all too clearly - dead, hurt, blood, fire, betrayal, team, family...
He shook his head. Catatonic wasn't the word to describe Marie-Ange's behavior. He wasn't entirely sure what it was. The snapping and shouting hadn't seemed to reach her, perhaps it was time to try something a bit more direct. Reaching out a single finger, he carefully adjusted his power and delivered a spark to the back of Marie-Ange's hand, no more than the tickle a joy buzzer would have provided.
Whatever response Jean-Phillipe had expected, it was very certainly not Marie-Ange's sneaker-clad foot kicking at his groin and only missing due to him toppling over backwards onto his butt. Before he could get up, Marie-Ange was standing, and the butt of a wooden staff that had not been there before was pressed into his throat, nearly cutting off his ability to breathe.
Well, he had certainly elicited a reaction. Whether it was better or worse than Marie-Ange being unresponsive was highly debatable. The threatened position he was in completely overwrote the fact that this was his cousin, and he swung his leg at her kneecap while also throwing his hand at her midsection and directing a slightly more powerful jolt of electricity at her.
The kick hit, although against Marie-Ange's shin as she stepped away, but the electrical blast did not - the staff swung down as though Marie-Ange were trying to block the energy, and as the bolt hit it, the staff brightened, and then faded away entirely, leaving her hands empty.
Marie-Ange stepping away allowed Jean-Phillipe enough room to get to his feet, which had been his whole intention in the first place. "Shit" he muttered, realizing belatedly that he was actually attacking his cousin. He raised his hands, backing off to a nonthreatening posture.
Her attacker had backed away, and so Marie-Ange did as well, pressing up against the wall she had been huddled next to. "Leave me alone, go away." She said quite clearly, in English. "I do not want to hurt you." She glanced at her right arm, and raised a hand, and a slender sword appeared in it. "I will fight you if I must, but you can leave now and not come to any harm."
"You are busting my -balls-" Jean-Phillipe replied in an incredulous tone. It was clear from her actions that she did not recognize him. "I am your cousin, you crazy whore!" He left his hands out and to his sides, open to show no threat to her. "For god's sake, snap out of it!"
When Marie-Ange made no move, either toward or away from him, he made an exasperated sound. "Can you hear me in there, you fat cow?" He had to admit, calling her all the names he usually just called her in his head, and all in the name of trying to break her free of whatever Caliban had done to her, was perhaps more enjoyable than strictly necessary. "You have horrible taste in clothes, you frigid bitch, and your vanilla white-bread boyfriend is dull and boring and a waste of a halfway decent ass!" His volume was increasing as the imprecations did not even cause a change in Marie-Ange's blank expression. "My God, you are even more insane than your hyper-religious mother!" He shook his head. He -knew- her mother was a sore spot with her, and still nothing. If it weren't for the sword, he would have stepped in and slapped her silly as pretty much his last resort. But that only worked in the cinema anyway.
And then he remembered the last few words she had been muttering when he had cornered her, and had a fantastically bad idea. But she wasn't moving it all, so he doubted if he told her "I have been working for Magneto" in a completely normal tone of voice, that she would...
The slap across Jean-Phillipe's face came not just with Marie-Ange's hand and arm, but her whole body as she put her hips into the swing. It left her hand stinging, and a vivid red mark across his face. "If you are lying to me, I am going to slap you again. If you are not... " Quite abruptly, she stopped talking and grabbed at her head with one hand and at Jean-Phillipe's shoulder with the other, groaning in pain and very nearly pitching forward.
Of all the things he'd said, why had it been -that- one that snapped her out of it? He caught her gently, even though his cheek was throbbing from where she'd slapped him. Someone had obviously taught her well. "I think that perhaps we can leave off the slapping until we get you safe to Silver?" he asked.
Despite leaning almost all of her weight on her cousin's slender shoulder, Marie-Ange looked up at him with an expression that was nothing less than cold clarity. "We will speak on the way there. If what you said is true, then I expect that your incompetence with your power is a ruse?" It was almost a statement of fact, rather than a question, despite the mid-sentence interruption of Marie-Ange's headache. "And for the record, Doug's ass is quite a bit more than decent."
***
"Alas, poor Caliban," the deep voice sounded as a figure walked from the shadows to stand silently across from Pete, looking down at the smear of ash on the floor. "He was persecuted by the humans for so long, I feared that he had lost anything resembling sanity. It no longer matters, I suppose. He was tested, and he was found wanting."
The stranger looked over to Pete, a smile crossing his dark features. "I am Apocalypse, of course. You needn't worry, I've no intention of harming you. You're obviously one of the strong, by how efficiently you dispatched my Hellhound. Nor have I any need to delay your friends," he nodded towards Jean-Phillipe and Marie-Ange. "They may depart unharmed. I would speak with you for a while, if you please."
Pete's eyes narrowed, as he looked at Apocalypse, and he took a drag on his cigarette, before flicking it away. At his side, his fingers fixed for a second. The he smiled on more time, sharp and dangerous looking. "So talk..."
Apocalypse nodded, then gestured to a blank wall that peeled back on itself, restructuring the brick and concrete into a stairway arcing out of the rubble. Into the empty arch rose a pale man in a dark peacoat, hands silently moving like a conductor as he restructured the material of the city around him. "Post," Apocalypse introduced casually. "My herald. He remakes the human city into what we wish it to be. In time, this will all be cleansed, free of the effluvia of human taint. A nation devoid of the corruption that humanity has visited upon the planet. A shining city, a new Jerusalem if you will. Come, allow me to show you."
He walked out onto the floating staircase, extending his arms like a proud father towards the black spire that had risen from the ruins of Madison Square Garden. "My Citadel," the would-be conqueror intoned. "A sign to our people that we have evolved to rise above humanity, that we have a greater purpose. Would you like to be a part of that purpose?" he asked Pete.
Pete followed him out onto the staircase, looking around at the New York skyline, and its newest addition, listening to the sound of a few sirens in the distance. He shrugged. "Well, all the pubs're shut, and I've always been a big fan of any purpose that'll put me ahead of the curve. Christ knows, I'm sick of all the squalid little crap humans get up to - you don't look to be offering any worse than any other government to me, and at least you're up front about it. Go on, then, squire. What d'you want me to do?"
"Caliban was my Hellhound," Apocalypse explained as they drew closer to the Citadel. "He was a master of fear, he could predict where the humans would congregate in times of panic. Simple, but effective. Unfortunately, his base nature made him weak. You, Mister Wisdom, can take his place."
He raised a hand haltingly. "Yes, I know who you are. I know that you have worked for the British government, that they used you as a tool to further their self-destructive aims. You have my word that I will never look upon you as a tool or a weapon, but rather as an equal in this new world. All I ask is your assistance. You know this city, these humans. I wish to make of them an example, to show the rest of their kind that we are not to be trifled with." Reaching the Citadel, Post gestured and a portal spiraled open in the wall of blackened concrete. "I need you to guide my Horsemen. Direct them to where they can cause the most terror. I know that you can be trusted, Peter. Please, make yourself at home. My Horsemen know to defer to you as they would to me."
Pete glanced around at the Citadel's construction as they walked. "An example. Yeah, that sounds about right. Right then. In the short term, I'll need to know what each of these Horsemen is good at, to work out where to put them, but past that, all I really need is a map, and a few boxes of cigarettes, and I can get to work..." he said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
Apocalypse gestured to a slim brown-haired girl leaning against a wall. "Autumn - Famine, as she prefers - will assist you. We have work to do, a city to transform. I will leave you to your part."
He reached out, clasping Pete's shoulders in a gesture of trust and camaraderie. "We are going to do wondrous things, Peter. All I ask is that you believe in me."
With a nod, he turned to Post and nodded. "I would like to see more of my city. Shall we?"
The man responded by bowing gracefully at the waist - an archaic motion that did not seem out of place when Post used it. "My liege, your city simply awaits your presence," he said, the cool tone infused with an unholy devotion to Apocalypse. He straightened and glanced out over the city that sprawled around them, breathing it in.
The group had ended their wanderings on a small balcony that jutted over miles of open air that was no longer clean. Post took a step and then another before he vanished over the side; far below, a faint wrenching noise could be heard as a chunk of sidewalk was ripped away. It flew up, only slowing to catch and stop Post's fall. Smiling, he flicked two fingers up and it gently rose into the air.
"My liege?" he asked as he appeared back into view. "And unto the stairs that go down from the city of Apocalypse..." Post pointed below as hundreds of pieces of stone work from the very foundation of the city rose to form a winding stair case. "It is your city now but I think I shall borrow it for a time."
Jean-Phillipe looked at the East Village apartment building they'd been directed to from just behind Pete. "That man at Silver was not joking when he said that the building was smashed up, was he?" he observed. The front of the building had been defaced, the front door hung drunkenly off its hinges, and there was not a single window in the entire building that was not shattered.
"Looks like one of my sister's old squats. Only I suspect the inhabitants are friendlier. Alright, stay with me, and keep very quiet. If anything comes at us that isn't Angie, hit it repeatedly with whatever you can until it falls over, and worry about whether it'll survive some other time." Pete moved cautiously toward the door, eyes scanning the windows, looking for anyone that might be watching out of them.
Jean-Phillipe stayed behind Pete, moving as quietly as he could. Caliban frightened him, and he was secure enough in himself to admit it. Not to mention that it wasn't just Caliban they had to worry about, but the thralls he had gathered around himself, as he was sure that the psychopath would merely replace the ones he had killed. After all, they were merely 'meat' to the albino.
"Upworlder returns, yes, yes? Come to join pretty redhaired upworlder, yes?" Caliban's hissing voice came from inside a broken window, and flashes of the mutant's white skin could be seen in the shadows. "Killed many humans, you did. Cooked like meat, yes. Very good. Caliban said you would come back."
"Come to take pretty redhaired...merde, now I am talking like you," Jean-Phillipe retorted. "I have come to take my cousin back from you, you psychopath." His hands flexed and crackled with static.
"Bollocks. So much for surprise." Pete muttered. "Horrible beatings it is, then." Abandoning any pretence at stealth, Pete sprinted for the door, just in time to meet a lank haired, exhausted looking man in a tattered suit staggering out of the door snarling murderously.
"Oh good-" Pete ducked under a wild roundhouse, and responded with a swift shot the groin that doubled the poor bastard over "-brainwashed fuckups. Just what I needed."
Jean-Phillipe held his hands low, ready to use his powers if necessary, but Pete was a one-man wrecking crew as he punched and kicked his way into the building. He merely followed in the cranky Englishman's wake, keeping an eye on the thralls in case one happened to get around behind Pete without his noticing.
Caliban lurched from the shadows, one hand wrapped in Marie-Ange's hair. The Frenchwoman had the same glassy-eyed look as the other thralls, as well as looking as if she hadn't slept in days, instead of just the few hours she'd been under the albino's control. "No no no no no!" he hissed, voice growing higher and more childlike with every intonation. With an angry squeal, he pushed Marie-Ange, aside and advanced directly towards Pete, his huge arms knocking his thralls to the sides. "Traitor upworlders, traitors to mutants, Caliban's patience is over! Crush you now and rip you like meat, yes yes. Tear you from--"
Pete didn't wait for him to finish speaking before sprinting straight at him throwing athe couterblow.n arc of hotknives at Caliban's left, between him and Marie-Ange, forcing him to shy away from her, as she half-fell half staggered away from him. "Get her the fuck out of here" he yelled to Jean-Phillipe. "Just fucking grab her and run!" before slamming into Caliban as hard as he could, forcing the larger mutant back only slightly, and being forced to duck to one side to avoid the counterblow. As he did so, one of the exhauted looking thralls grabbed for him, pulling him slightly off balance, and leaving him unable to completely avoid Caliban's next strike, which caught him a glancing blow to the side of the head.
"You've got--" Pete ducked, and kicked out hard behind him, trying to gather momentum to push himself away from the crowd and toward Caliban, trying to put the huge mutant between the brainwashed innocents and him "-about two minutes before I'm going to have to do something fucking drastic, so hurry up."
Then he lost track of Marie-Ange and her cousin, as Caliban and the crowd closed on him, and all his concentration was used just dodging blow after blow, and just preventing the crowd from overwhelming him. He managed to put a few of them down, and land a number of blows that actually seemed to get through to Caliban, before the inevitable weight of numbers meant he was borne to the ground.
"Tear you apart, upworlder!" Caliban pulled one of the poor thralls from Pete's back, throwing the man into the wall, before picking Pete up with one hand. "What you say to me now?"
Pete spat blood into Caliban's face, and smiled.
"Fuck you, sunbeam, and the horse you fucking rode in on." Pete started to glow, as the energy of his hotknives blasted straight out from ever part of his body, straight into Caliban.
Caliban screamed and staggered back, dropping Pete to the ground. The energy pouring out of Pete didn't let up, as he landed on his feet, stumbling slightly as he did. As Caliban stumbled back, Pete stepped forward, not letting up the energy for an instant. After a short while, the screaming stopped, and Pete let the energy up. Incredibly, the charred mess that used to be Caliban was still twitching.
"You're a tough bastard, aren't you, cunt? Not sure I remember anyone lasting that long..." Pete muttered.
"Mercy..." it croaked.
Pete reached into his jacket and withdrew a battered packet of cigarettes. The first cigarette his pulled out was snapped in the middle. He gave it a look of disgust, and flicked it away, before fishing out another, intact cigarette from the pack, then looked round the room, at the collection of unconscious and whimpering people lying on the floor and slumped against the walls. He lit the cigarette with a fingertip, coughed, spat blood again, and looked back down at Caliban.
"Mercy? Not from me, fuckface."
And energy poured out from him again, and didn't let up until there was nothing left of Caliban.
When the glowing embers died down, a small throat-clearing could be heard in the wrecked condominium.
"Alas, poor Caliban," the deep voice sounded as a figure walked from the shadows to stand silently across from Pete, looking down at the smear of ash on the floor. "He was persecuted by the humans for so long, I feared that he had lost anything resembling sanity. It no longer matters, I suppose. He was tested, and he was found wanting." The stranger looked over to Pete, a smile crossing his dark features.
"I am Apocalypse."
***
Marie-Ange's red hair was easy to spot, even as lank and messy as it was. She fled the room, and Jean-Phillipe was running towards her even before Pete's order to him. He glanced back just enough to see Pete begin to emit energy from his entire body, then turned back as he stumbled through the rubble of what had been a dividing wall. Some of Caliban's thralls who had not been in the room when he and Pete had entered moved to block his path. He remembered Pete's words, even if he weren't already inclined to force, and twisted his right arm forward, sending a lethal jolt at one thrall to open a hole. He lowered his shoulder as the first thrall fell, and rammed into another, bringing his left hand up to press flat against his target's stomach, discharging another surge of electricity. And then he was past the line and chasing his cousin, while the rest of the thralls seemed more inclined to react to Pete's struggle with Caliban.
Marie-Ange ran blindly unaware of much of her surroundings, only just barely avoiding colliding with the remains of destroyed walls and doors hanging off hinges and huddled thralls and debris in her panic. She didn't recognize the room that she ran into as a former bedroom, she only saw that it was a dead end, except for one window, and she collapsed against the wall, sobbing.
The sobbing brought Jean-Phillipe up short as he entered the room. Something was wrong with the way Marie-Ange was behaving. Clearly Caliban had done something to her with that control he had exerted on her. "Marie-Ange? Are you all right?" he asked in French as he slowly approached.
Marie-Ange didn't answer at all, didn't look up, just sat curled up, face buried in her knees with her arms wrapped around her head as if to protect it. The shaking subsided, but it was as though she didn't even know Jean-Phillipe was in the room, much less speaking to her.
Well, at least the sobbing had subsided to a point. But now she wasn't even paying attention at all. She was practically catatonic. "Cousin? Cousin!" he said sharply snapping his fingers in front of her face to no response.
Still no response, not even the slightest indication that she heard him, or knew he was there. Marie-Ange remained on the floor, trembling and whimpering and holding her head tightly. Her face was buried too deeply for Jean-Phillipe to hear clearly, but it was almost as though she was talking to herself, only occasional words, some he couldn't understand at all, and some he could hear all too clearly - dead, hurt, blood, fire, betrayal, team, family...
He shook his head. Catatonic wasn't the word to describe Marie-Ange's behavior. He wasn't entirely sure what it was. The snapping and shouting hadn't seemed to reach her, perhaps it was time to try something a bit more direct. Reaching out a single finger, he carefully adjusted his power and delivered a spark to the back of Marie-Ange's hand, no more than the tickle a joy buzzer would have provided.
Whatever response Jean-Phillipe had expected, it was very certainly not Marie-Ange's sneaker-clad foot kicking at his groin and only missing due to him toppling over backwards onto his butt. Before he could get up, Marie-Ange was standing, and the butt of a wooden staff that had not been there before was pressed into his throat, nearly cutting off his ability to breathe.
Well, he had certainly elicited a reaction. Whether it was better or worse than Marie-Ange being unresponsive was highly debatable. The threatened position he was in completely overwrote the fact that this was his cousin, and he swung his leg at her kneecap while also throwing his hand at her midsection and directing a slightly more powerful jolt of electricity at her.
The kick hit, although against Marie-Ange's shin as she stepped away, but the electrical blast did not - the staff swung down as though Marie-Ange were trying to block the energy, and as the bolt hit it, the staff brightened, and then faded away entirely, leaving her hands empty.
Marie-Ange stepping away allowed Jean-Phillipe enough room to get to his feet, which had been his whole intention in the first place. "Shit" he muttered, realizing belatedly that he was actually attacking his cousin. He raised his hands, backing off to a nonthreatening posture.
Her attacker had backed away, and so Marie-Ange did as well, pressing up against the wall she had been huddled next to. "Leave me alone, go away." She said quite clearly, in English. "I do not want to hurt you." She glanced at her right arm, and raised a hand, and a slender sword appeared in it. "I will fight you if I must, but you can leave now and not come to any harm."
"You are busting my -balls-" Jean-Phillipe replied in an incredulous tone. It was clear from her actions that she did not recognize him. "I am your cousin, you crazy whore!" He left his hands out and to his sides, open to show no threat to her. "For god's sake, snap out of it!"
When Marie-Ange made no move, either toward or away from him, he made an exasperated sound. "Can you hear me in there, you fat cow?" He had to admit, calling her all the names he usually just called her in his head, and all in the name of trying to break her free of whatever Caliban had done to her, was perhaps more enjoyable than strictly necessary. "You have horrible taste in clothes, you frigid bitch, and your vanilla white-bread boyfriend is dull and boring and a waste of a halfway decent ass!" His volume was increasing as the imprecations did not even cause a change in Marie-Ange's blank expression. "My God, you are even more insane than your hyper-religious mother!" He shook his head. He -knew- her mother was a sore spot with her, and still nothing. If it weren't for the sword, he would have stepped in and slapped her silly as pretty much his last resort. But that only worked in the cinema anyway.
And then he remembered the last few words she had been muttering when he had cornered her, and had a fantastically bad idea. But she wasn't moving it all, so he doubted if he told her "I have been working for Magneto" in a completely normal tone of voice, that she would...
The slap across Jean-Phillipe's face came not just with Marie-Ange's hand and arm, but her whole body as she put her hips into the swing. It left her hand stinging, and a vivid red mark across his face. "If you are lying to me, I am going to slap you again. If you are not... " Quite abruptly, she stopped talking and grabbed at her head with one hand and at Jean-Phillipe's shoulder with the other, groaning in pain and very nearly pitching forward.
Of all the things he'd said, why had it been -that- one that snapped her out of it? He caught her gently, even though his cheek was throbbing from where she'd slapped him. Someone had obviously taught her well. "I think that perhaps we can leave off the slapping until we get you safe to Silver?" he asked.
Despite leaning almost all of her weight on her cousin's slender shoulder, Marie-Ange looked up at him with an expression that was nothing less than cold clarity. "We will speak on the way there. If what you said is true, then I expect that your incompetence with your power is a ruse?" It was almost a statement of fact, rather than a question, despite the mid-sentence interruption of Marie-Ange's headache. "And for the record, Doug's ass is quite a bit more than decent."
***
"Alas, poor Caliban," the deep voice sounded as a figure walked from the shadows to stand silently across from Pete, looking down at the smear of ash on the floor. "He was persecuted by the humans for so long, I feared that he had lost anything resembling sanity. It no longer matters, I suppose. He was tested, and he was found wanting."
The stranger looked over to Pete, a smile crossing his dark features. "I am Apocalypse, of course. You needn't worry, I've no intention of harming you. You're obviously one of the strong, by how efficiently you dispatched my Hellhound. Nor have I any need to delay your friends," he nodded towards Jean-Phillipe and Marie-Ange. "They may depart unharmed. I would speak with you for a while, if you please."
Pete's eyes narrowed, as he looked at Apocalypse, and he took a drag on his cigarette, before flicking it away. At his side, his fingers fixed for a second. The he smiled on more time, sharp and dangerous looking. "So talk..."
Apocalypse nodded, then gestured to a blank wall that peeled back on itself, restructuring the brick and concrete into a stairway arcing out of the rubble. Into the empty arch rose a pale man in a dark peacoat, hands silently moving like a conductor as he restructured the material of the city around him. "Post," Apocalypse introduced casually. "My herald. He remakes the human city into what we wish it to be. In time, this will all be cleansed, free of the effluvia of human taint. A nation devoid of the corruption that humanity has visited upon the planet. A shining city, a new Jerusalem if you will. Come, allow me to show you."
He walked out onto the floating staircase, extending his arms like a proud father towards the black spire that had risen from the ruins of Madison Square Garden. "My Citadel," the would-be conqueror intoned. "A sign to our people that we have evolved to rise above humanity, that we have a greater purpose. Would you like to be a part of that purpose?" he asked Pete.
Pete followed him out onto the staircase, looking around at the New York skyline, and its newest addition, listening to the sound of a few sirens in the distance. He shrugged. "Well, all the pubs're shut, and I've always been a big fan of any purpose that'll put me ahead of the curve. Christ knows, I'm sick of all the squalid little crap humans get up to - you don't look to be offering any worse than any other government to me, and at least you're up front about it. Go on, then, squire. What d'you want me to do?"
"Caliban was my Hellhound," Apocalypse explained as they drew closer to the Citadel. "He was a master of fear, he could predict where the humans would congregate in times of panic. Simple, but effective. Unfortunately, his base nature made him weak. You, Mister Wisdom, can take his place."
He raised a hand haltingly. "Yes, I know who you are. I know that you have worked for the British government, that they used you as a tool to further their self-destructive aims. You have my word that I will never look upon you as a tool or a weapon, but rather as an equal in this new world. All I ask is your assistance. You know this city, these humans. I wish to make of them an example, to show the rest of their kind that we are not to be trifled with." Reaching the Citadel, Post gestured and a portal spiraled open in the wall of blackened concrete. "I need you to guide my Horsemen. Direct them to where they can cause the most terror. I know that you can be trusted, Peter. Please, make yourself at home. My Horsemen know to defer to you as they would to me."
Pete glanced around at the Citadel's construction as they walked. "An example. Yeah, that sounds about right. Right then. In the short term, I'll need to know what each of these Horsemen is good at, to work out where to put them, but past that, all I really need is a map, and a few boxes of cigarettes, and I can get to work..." he said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
Apocalypse gestured to a slim brown-haired girl leaning against a wall. "Autumn - Famine, as she prefers - will assist you. We have work to do, a city to transform. I will leave you to your part."
He reached out, clasping Pete's shoulders in a gesture of trust and camaraderie. "We are going to do wondrous things, Peter. All I ask is that you believe in me."
With a nod, he turned to Post and nodded. "I would like to see more of my city. Shall we?"
The man responded by bowing gracefully at the waist - an archaic motion that did not seem out of place when Post used it. "My liege, your city simply awaits your presence," he said, the cool tone infused with an unholy devotion to Apocalypse. He straightened and glanced out over the city that sprawled around them, breathing it in.
The group had ended their wanderings on a small balcony that jutted over miles of open air that was no longer clean. Post took a step and then another before he vanished over the side; far below, a faint wrenching noise could be heard as a chunk of sidewalk was ripped away. It flew up, only slowing to catch and stop Post's fall. Smiling, he flicked two fingers up and it gently rose into the air.
"My liege?" he asked as he appeared back into view. "And unto the stairs that go down from the city of Apocalypse..." Post pointed below as hundreds of pieces of stone work from the very foundation of the city rose to form a winding stair case. "It is your city now but I think I shall borrow it for a time."