Day Zero - Generation Gap

[x-juggernaut.livejournal.com]

Wandering through Manhattan, Laurie encounters Post, and finds an unexpected savior.



Laurie had managed to find a deserted hotel some time in the early morning hours and had raided the kitchen within for the makings of breakfast. She'd placed another I.O.U on the counter, both for the breakfast and for the other supplies she'd lifted. There had been widespread looting in the city, but food hadn't yet run out, something for which Laurie was greatful considering how nasty things were likely to get once it had.

With all ways off the Island now seemingly blocked, if base level humans survived within...Laurie didn't want to think about the fighting that was going to break out, and not just between human and mutant. She supposed it was silly to keep leaving these little I.O.Us, but it gave her an obscure sort of comfort to believe that eventually someone would come back and follow up on them. As long as she continued to leave them, it meant she hadn't given up on the idea that they'd triumph here, that somehow they'd win this fight and return New York to what it was, not what it had become.

From outside the double doors, Laurie could hear noises from outside. A quick glance revealed someone outside in the street, looking back and forth in an obvious panic. Dressed in a business suit that looked like he'd been sleeping in it for days, he looked over his shoulder, then tried to make a run for the hotel.

He might have made it, if the impossible hadn't happened. A fire hydrant literally exploded next to him, the force of water knocking him back into the street. The asphalt seemed to ripple, reforming partially around him. Laurie could hear his screams - then someone else entered her field of view.

A man casually appeared from around a corner, hands tucked in his peacoat jacket pockets as if to ward them from the wind. He was apparently oblivious to the panicked and pain filled screams of the business man until he paused on the street corner. Tilting his head one way and then the other, he finally commented.

"Once more. Can you ask me that question one more time, please?" His was a cultured voice, with a hint of an accent, and it could have been mistaken for poliete if one ignored the steel and ice in his tones.

"O-oh god, please," the trapped man sobbed. "Please god, just let me go, please..."

The strange man peered up into the heavens and then towards where the Citadel was. "Your god is dead and my god? My god suffers neither fools nor humans gladly." Casually, he brought up a hand and twisted the closed fist in a tight circle.

The effect was instantaneous. The asphalt moved like water in a circle before exploding upward, wrapping the human in grey, heavy tendrils of cement before yanking him back underground. The screams stopped as the surface rippled before calming, looking as if nothing had happened on that spot.

It had all happened so fast, that Laurie hadn't been able to process it fast enough to do anything, or at least that's how it had seemed. She knew that she should do something now but her legs felt like jelly and she couldn't seem to get any sort of air into her lungs in order to say something. She'd never understood the term 'paralyzed with fear' until now. The man out there, the mutant had just killed someone with no remorse, and seemingly no real idea that he was doing anything other then cleaning up garbage.

How did you deal with that?

"S-stop." she choked out, barely a whisper. "You...Y-you shouldn't have d-done that."

Her voice was louder at the end, and she stepped out into the street, pushing her way through the double doors of the hotel lobby. It was false bravado, pure and simple and she knew it. But she couldn't let this man continue to kill innocent people, not in any world she wanted to remain living in.

"I s-shouldn't have done w-what?" came the mocking question. He didn't even bother to turn around as he walked to stand over the spot that was now the final resting place of one human who couldn't run fast enough. "I should not have done what is natural and what my lord has ordered? Or is that I should not have toyed so much with him and should have ended it ten blocks down? Hmm?"

Post finally looked up and gave her a sly look. "Answer carefully, my little lost blind mouse, or I shall build you a maze of your own to explore."

Laurie's skin took on a violet tone, her power spreading silently from her skin to the air around her as she took a step forward, and then another. She didn't have the same chances someone like Scott, or Ororo might have. She had no real offensive power to speak of, other then the possibility that she could get close enough that this man wouldn't notice her influencing his body till it was too late. She just had to keep him talking, keep his focus on her words and his gloating...God she hoped this worked.

"What right does your lord have to decide the value of someone's life?" Laurie replied, answering his question with another.

She allowed the anger to come, turning the fear and helplessness inside herself outward, and then focussed it on the mutant in front of her. She would not fail here, would not let the rubbery feeling in her knees, or the shaking of her hands stop her.

Three steps in and the only warning Post gave her was the creaking in the street lights as he suddenly slid a leg back in a quick movement, a quick breath escaping as he called on the city. The two street lights, one on either corner, slammed into the pavement less than a foot away from her, burrowing into the streets like metal worms.

Metal on pavement sent a shrill noise like a wounded animal through the air as he shook a finger at her. "Lord Apocalypse and I detest waste," he told her, making a showing of disappointment. "You could have stood at his feet and watched the new world rise above but instead you choose death? Ah, child, what have the humans done to you?" There was that cold anger again as he slashed his hand down, the street thrashing beneath her feet like some controlled earthquake.

Laurie threw her hands outward as she fell to the ground, still pumping out pheromones into the air around her in increasing amounts. If she had to kill herself to do it, she'd not let this man get away. Adrenalin, like an old friend surged inside her, causing her heart to beat faster, and she seized on the feeling to keep herself going.

"You talk of humans as lesser beings, but look at what you do. If you were really advanced your lord wouldn't need to kill people in order to gain followers." Laurie spat out, trying to get to her feet but falling to her knees again. "They'd follow your lord because he showed them a better way, not because he'd kill them if they didn't."

The street echoed with the sharp bark of laughter as he threw his head back, arms spread wide. The peacoat flapped in the wind as he gestured around them. "You think this is to gain followers, my little mouse? We have followers aplenty; you have been out in the streets, you have seen the word being spread. This?"

Rolling his shoulders forward, his hands flew towards each other before stopping inches from each other. The city shook as it followed suit, walls sliding forward until they brushed each of Laurie's shoulders, dust settling over her head like a veil. "This is just for sport."

Laurie had begun to crawl forward as he spoke, each inch a study in patience as the street rolled under her. She stopped now, cringing back as if that would stop the walls from squashing her flat.

"Violence is the last refuge of the feeble minded." Laurie noted, straightening up again as the walls came no closer. She was still on her hands and knees but at least she'd stopped shaking now. "How long will it take all his so called followers to figure out they can take whatever power he has from him? I wouldn't get too comfortable in your sport, if I were you."

Post stepped forward and stopped, a hand hovering over his heart. "And what sport are you playing at?" he asked quietly as he stepped away again. "I had so hoped to be able to finish this myself but the city is as much my weapon as my lover, so I suppose a knife is better than an open hand." Hands clenched so tightly the joints popped as he began to move, forcing the city to obey, a wide mouth made of bricks and clay with teeth of windows and a tongue of black pitch.

"Though you walk in the valley of death, you shall fear evil; for I am with you and my city shall comfort only me."

Of the times in her life that Laurie had been close to death, always there'd been someone close by that she trusted to save her. There was no one now, and as she gathered herself for one last effort, she wondered where her father and friends were now, and hoped they were safe.

"You'll be with me alright, because I'm going to take you there." Laurie shouted, pushing herself upward in a desperate jump forward that she hoped would bring her close enough to the man, before it was too late to do anything at all.

While she was lunging forward, she hadn't seen him twist his left wrist even as he skipped backwards with ease. The man hole cover had been under her stomach until he forced it to surge upwards; with a hiss of steam it slammed into her stomach and chest and lifted her clear off the ground. It hit the ground with a clang while she just made a dull thud on the pavement.

"No, no I don't think you will," Post responded above her groans. "And now, I grow bored and I do not wish to try my lord's patience by tarrying too long in my games."

A shot rang out, the bullet throwing up sparks as it ricocheted off the pavement.

"You play your games away from my daughter, you son of a bitch."

Zach Garrison stepped out into the street, revolver leveled at Post's chest. He gave a quick glance down to Laurie. "Hi, honey. I guess you're not the only one who learned a lesson from Charles Xavier. Wasn't about to leave you. You okay?"

Laurie blinked up at Zach in shock for a moment, but a smile grew as she turned her head to look at their enemy. She was bruised and battered certainly, but nothing beyond that. "I'm fine, Dad. I'm sorry I was so...I'm sorry."

Zach moved in between Laurie and Post, keeping the gun leveled directly at the top button of Post's peacoat. "I don't care who you are, who this master of yours is," he said. "My daughter and I are getting out of here. And if that has to be through you..."

He thumbed the hammer back again. "There is nothing I won't do to protect my daughter. You want to test me?"

A hint of movement, fingers straightening like rods had been shoved down them, and then Post was staring happily as a spear of brick erupted from the side. It bite deeply into the flesh of Zach's stomach, digging in from momentum and forced the mutant to stagger back a few feet in shock.

"Mmm," Post replied, hands clasped together before him. "Perhaps I do. You may have spoiled my fun with my little blind mouse over there but, actually good sir, this? This is so much better."

"NO!" Laurie screamed, watching as her father was skewered. "Leave him alone, you bastard."

She struggled to her feet, wincing as she felt a stab in her shoulder where she'd landed on it.

Zach slowly looked down at the thin spear of brick pushing through his abdomen, then gasped as it quickly withdrew. He dropped to his knees, the revolver clattering to the street as he pressed his hands to his stomach. He rolled over to look at Laurie, his mouth moving in silent words that could have been "I'm sorry", had he only the breath left to speak.

"I fear you have bigger concerns than stopping me if you do not wish to see his blood fill the gutters." Ignoring them both now, Post turned on his heel and headed for the wall of the nearest building. As he twisted his hand in a circle, the brick responding by churning in a clockwise manner to create a hole, he mused over his shoulder, "I think it funny that your father could have ended all of this but he hesitated. For what? If his hesitation was for you? Ah, I do love the taste of irony."

He stepped inside the gaping hole in the wall as it closed around him, the only thing remaining was the sound of his soft laughter as it faded on the wind.

Laurie had already turned though, and was no longer listening to Post. She dropped to her knees beside her father and pressed her hands into the wound in his stomach. She couldn't smell anything foul coming from it, a miracle that there hadn't been any damage to his intestines.

"Dad! You can't die on me, you hear? I won't let you."

Zach's eyes opened and closed, and he gasped for breath. "Laurie... listen. I want you to know... I tried. I wanted... I wanted to be..."

He coughed, and doubled over in pain, clutching at his stomach.

"Don't talk, Dad." Laurie admonished him, trying to think through her growing panic. She needed something to stop the bleeding, and some way to carry him as well. God she wished Forge was here, or even Garrison. Either would've been able to think of something. The hotel! They'd have some kind of infirmary there and she'd be able to get supplies. "I have to go for a second, Dad. Just a second. Just, just stay here, and don't move!"