xp_logs | Ashes & Mist: The Ultimate Risk of Risks

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With the situation more bleak then ever, Essex shares the most desperate of plans with Rachel.

The island was in an uproar, communications having broken down with the failure of the last mission. Preparations were being made to evacuate the more vulnerable humans from the island while Rachel rallied the last of the forces to move out, with Kurt in charge of the finer details.

Fingers trailed along the fresh headstone, the cold stone an echo of the iciness that had gripped her heart, its chill tempered only by the roiling rage that boiled the depths of her very soul. Tears brightened verdant eyes, never once spilling over even as she drew on the strength of the memories of her loved ones that had perished in battle. From her parents down to Korvus and Remy, it had been one long road of bloodshed and pain. She only wished that their sacrifices had not been in vain.

She sensed Essex’s approach before she saw him, raising her gaze to meet his and nodding a silent greeting.

"So many of them. And just empty graves beneath." He sighed, his head down. The last few days had aged him, his dark hair now solidly silver and the last streaks of black in his facial hair disappearing. For the first time, he seemed weak to her eyes; an old man struggling under a weight he could hold no longer, but only delay the inevitable. "Betsy is coordinating the remaining commanders with the UN forces, and Wakanda has agreed to take our refugees. There's a Stark facility in Germany working on some countermeasures. They've asked me to join the team there with their efforts."

Rachel nodded, wanting to comfort him and provide him hope but knowing that any effort put in toward that end would be in vain. Eyes were cast downwards at the smooth stone beneath calloused digits, unable to reconcile the image of this man with the imposing figure he once was.

“Y’should, Prof,” she murmured, hair falling down to cover the side of her face. “You’d have access to more resources there, at the very least. Once Kurt and I lead our teams out, I’ve a feeling this place’ll be little more than a ghost town.” Plus, he would be safer there than he was here now that their location had likely been compromised. “M’not sure how long we can hold Apocalypse back or how long before the UN decide they’ve had enough and decide to rain nuclear warfare down on us like hellfire an’ brimstone.”

In fact, if it were not for Betsy’s efforts, Rachel was pretty sure Remy’s execution would have been the cue to launch the mass destruction backup. “We leave an hour before daybreak. Take Betsy and go. If there’s anyone who can come up with an alternative to indiscriminate genocide, it’s you.” She offered him a wan smile. “I’m betting my life on it.”

"That might be the case. Rachel, there is another option. LeBeau felt it was as dangerous as a direct attack on Apocalypse with less chance of success. But since he failed, I see nothing else." He took a seat on the bench. "Years ago, I had been close in my research on a weapon; something that could negate mutant abilities selectively. When Apocalypse attacked New York, I was forced to abandon my lab, but I know it has not been found or destroyed. If we could get to it, we could shut down his army on the point they launch the assault. It would cripple him and give us a chance to destroy him, once and for all."

"New York is a dead zone, prof. Getting in there would be suicide," Rachel frowned down at the man and crossed her arms. That her first reaction was to kill the idea was unsurprising. But these were desperate times and she respected him too much to think that anything he said was not worth listening to. "Much less getting in there for a weapon which may or may not still be intact and in your old labs. Can't you recreate the weapon here? Or in Germany?"

"Impossible. Even if I had the data, which I don't, I'd need the samples that I was working from, and those are long destroyed." Essex fixed her with his grey eyes. Throughout her life, they had always been there, his gaze on her as proud as a teacher could have. When her parents died, he provided the compassion and the steadiness to hold on, to find her resolve and be ready for Remy to shape it. He was the rock on which the X-Men were based for years, and now she could see the stark understanding in them. They had lost. Only a miracle could stop Apocalypse. Anything less just delayed the inevitable. "We don't have the manpower to do it. Remy's attempt cost us our best team, and Amanda passed away this morning from system shock. We can't get that weapon. Unless you are willing to take the ultimate risk."

She almost laughed. Of course she understood her professor. But how many more ‘ultimate’ risks did these people have up their sleeves? If this one didn’t work, was someone else going to suggest raising mutant zombies and performing sex rituals with them? Rachel sighed and swallowed heavily, carding fingers through short fiery-coloured strands as she leaned irreverently against her boyfriend’s fresh grave in a way she knew he would not mind.

“Tell me,” she said finally, crossing her arms and cocking her head to the side. Because he was right, they needed a fucking miracle and her Prof. Nat had this bloody annoying tendency to buy miracles in bulk and produce them at the last possible minute. “I’m listening.”

Essex looked off, into the sky over the ocean surf for a moment. "Charles once told me that he was sure he'd once touched a mind fleetingly that seemed to be an echo of his own. For years, it was a kind of research project; a science experiment for our spare time. But as we looked closer, we came to believe that our world was one of a progression of realities, all separated from each other by a dimension barrier which only the most powerful psions could ever cross. For all his considerable power and the aid of Cerebro, even Charles only ever caught momentary contacts; so brief that the thought was gone as soon as it could register. If our theory is correct, there could be an infinite number of worlds strung along before and after ours; a spiral rising and descending infinitely into space, in which trillions of decisions have been different. Do you understand?"

“You’re saying alternate dimensions exist and that powerful psions can cross over the barriers that separate them,” she summarised, raising both brows at the null mutant with a muted kind of incredulity that came with knowing Essex for all of her life. “I’m guessing that y’know how to cross this barrier -- or at least send me across this barrier -- so that I can, what, get to your lab in the alternate dimension and steal the weapon? Or bring people back from another world to help infiltrate New York and get at the weapon? How would I even get back? Can we choose what dimension I land in so that I don’t end up in a world where, say, Apoccy has made the entire world his playground?” She had an endless string of questions, but Rachel shut her mouth with a click of her teeth. If her guess at the professor’s plans came anywhere near being correct, this was beyond an ultimate risk -- there were millions of ways in which things could go wrong.

"Now you understand why I called it the ultimate risk." Essex said, almost wryly. "Forge and I collaborated on a device which has the ability to provide a supercharged burst of psionic ability to a psion. We hoped to find a way to amplify our own psion forces, but we were never able to make it safe. Combined with your abilities, I think it might have the capacity to allow you to transition corporally into the astral plane, and from there, follow a thread back to a time before Apocalypse. You are a powerful psion, Rachel. There will be resonances that react to you. But we can't 'aim' you to a place we've never seen. You could end up in a world worse off than this one."

He paused, tapping together his fingers. "However, if you end up back in a time frame before Apocalypse and a world which is similar to ours, there should still be X-Men; allies. Willing to help by following you back here. Such a force could penetrate Apocalypse's New York base and reach my lab. Once you have the weapon, Apocalypse and his men will be helpless. Now, getting back will be the tricky part - but I believe I know a way."

"This is Xorn." He passed over his datapad with an image. A psionic singularity with the power of a small sun for a mind. He's the only psion powerful enough to possibly allow you to follow your path back here with allies. If you can find help and find him, he should be able to bring you home. A tremendous number of risks, my dear. You could be trapped on a world totally foreign to you. Or find your allies only to find no way back here. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. At least one good thing from this world would be spared Apocalypse."

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself,” she stated, voice hard as she walked closer to study Xorn’s image. Rachel mulled over the plan as Essex waited, listing and discarding reasons why the plan should or should not be executed. Ultimately, it all boiled down to the fact that they literally had no other choice left at their disposal.

“If this process fails and I die or am unable to come back,” she said finally, turning a solemn gaze to his. Wanting but unable to see that as an acceptable risk. “Then... There are too many people relying on me, Prof... How soon can you be sure that the device will work?”

"A day or so to to run full diagoistics, make sure that we're giving you every chance to succeed. There may be side effects, Rachel. No one has ever psionically discorporated and recorporated before. I don't know what might happen." He touched her cheek with his strong, scarred fingers. "If it doesn't work, if you can't get back, you must promise me you won't throw your life away. The answer may lie in tomorrow or twenty years from now for you, but you must not give up or given in to despair, child."

“I set out at daybreak, Prof. M’not sure if I can delay my departure -- Betsy needs me on-site tomorrow and I don’t know if or when I’ll be back.” Rachel furrowed her brow at him, reaching up to grasp at his fingers, his almost tender gaze melting a corner of her soldier mask. “And y’know I can’t make that promise.” The ugly thoughts and demons that resided within her would drive her insane long before she could make good such an oath.

"I'll speak to Betsy. She'll deploy her teams without you." Essex said. "Going and coming back, time will be mutable. You will have your chance, child. So long as you believe that, it will be the case." He turned and started back towards his lab. "Prepare yourself, and then come see me. We have a great deal with work to do and little time."