![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
x-eidolon.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsThose chosen to follow Rachel back are immediately psionically ripped out to join her in a sudden transition into her world. As they do, a summary of events of Rachel’s world are shoved into Wanda's mind.
After another night of wrenching nightmares of an awakened Chthon wreaking havoc in Wanda's body, she finally listened to Amanda's not so subtle hints that her Boss Lady take some well-deserved time off. A few days of ignoring the phone and lazing about with Stephen had certain appeal, so she had left instructions to only reach her should there be an emergency and had started her first real vacation in years.
She was celebrating by running a hot bath in the claw foot tub that she had been delighted to discover in Stephen's bathroom years before. Wanda leaned over the side and dragged her fingers along the top of the water, shivering in anticipation of a long soak with a good book.
Standing, she shrugged off the robe and let it simply puddle around her feet - taking the time to put it up seemed a waste of good bath time. Slowly Wanda stepped into the hot water, groaning as her muscles clenched in response to how hot it actually was - and then, without warning, she felt herself falling. For a moment there was the pain of hitting the tub and the shock of being submerged ...
Just as suddenly Wanda found herself dressed and standing in a place that looked familiar but only barely, like the twisted remnants of a faded dream.
__________
Flashback: At the West Coast Annex, a traitor kills a traitor, and Scott cleans up the mess.
A pink-haired figure stood above her toppled foe, spatters of blood - matching the dead man's helmet - staining her multifaceted wings. There was little blood on the dead man himself, which became more apparent as the cloud of semi-opaque, greenish dust settled around the pair and was scattered into the wind. Only the killing blow had caused traumatic physical damage. The girl wiped her sword in a patch of trampled grass. It glowed faintly as she sheathed it and flew up from the shallow crater.
The landscape surrounding the West Coast Annex had been greatly altered over the course of the battle. Black clouds of smoke were mirrored in Pixie's black eyes as she surveyed the scene. She readied a shaky hand on the hilt of her blade as a member of the resistance approached. She was wounded and fatigued from battle, but she summoned her dust to the surface of her skin. It would be strong enough to aide in her escape, should she need to flee.
Scott blew a plank out of his path as he limped out of the doorway to the West Coast Annex, his eye taking in the devastated appearance of the building and the grounds. The compound had definitely seen better days – it was going to take more than a lick of paint to fix this up. Turning his gaze away from the buildings Scott ran a measured eye over the grounds, they didn't look too bad, which was a little bit of a relief, there was just the one girl already out there watching the building. Scott opened his mouth to call her back inside to help getting the other survivors out when he noticed the sword in her hand and the body lying at her feet. Scott's words died in his throat as he saw the familiar profile and the wings unfurling from the girls back. "Megan?" Scott asked as he hobbled towards the girl, "What have you done?"
Pixie straightened as the powerful mutant approached. She knew didn't have the strength to fight him, but she hoped her voice was strong. "I'm putting an end to it - the fighting, the living in fear. My sister was right - it's futile to go against Apocalypse. It's time to wake up and face reality. I embraced the dark truth... and I've been shown freedom. It's a new world, in a lot of ways. I've seen a whole new side to my powers as well, unlocked to me when my sister told me of our true parentage." Dammit. Why did she feel like the owed Scott an explanation? There was no way he would understand. Her tone turned to pleading. "It'll be a different world now, but we can survive."
Scott shook his head, "You can survive it, but at what cost?" Scott asked sadly as he gestured around at the grounds around them, "Is it worth it? All the deaths so far, all the deaths to come, is it all worth is so you can just survive? People need more than just survival Megan, we need freedom. We need hope. Can you tell me you really have that?" The X-man turned a sad look on the young girl, "Can you tell me you're really happy now?" He gestured at the body of his friend, "Was his death worth it? Or were you just following orders so you could survive a little bit longer? He died believing in something and giving his all fighting for it. What do you believe in Megan?"
Pixie's black eyes clouded over, gaining a hard, non-reflective appearance. "Happiness is an illusion. And beliefs can turn out to be lies. Here's a fact - if I don't carry out my orders, then I have no chance of anything. And if you stay here, neither do you. The resistance is over." Her dust released slowly from her skin, its pale and faintly sparkly hue of the past was now a sickly green. As it rose into the air, the breeze twisting it into patterns. The thin haze distorted the appearance of everything viewed through it. Twisted faces appeared in the clouds. Pixie's own face looked sickly and demonic.
Johnny coughed and waved away the dust, eyes going wide as it began to affect him. "I did it," he gasped. "I took down the defenses and let you in, like you asked. You have to take me with you now."
Scott stared at the blonde Acolyte who had just arrived on the scene, "Johnny?" the ex-students were really coming out of the woodwork today weren't they. Scott's gaze flicked to the sprawled body of the master of magnetism and then back up to Johnny's face. "Don't do anything that you'd regret. Well nothing else you'd regret," he corrected himself as memories of their last meeting floated to the surface of his mind.
"A bit late for that, Summers," he replied. Johnny unhooked one of the flat metal discs clipped to the sleeves of his jacket and tossed it from hand to hand for a moment. He hurled it at a wall, seemingly at random, face twisted into an angry snarl. The disc bounced off the wall and slammed into the centre of Pixie's back, just below her wings.
"I'm on your side!" Pixie gasped at Johnny, her breath escaped from her, startled by his attack. He seemed crazed to her, possibly due to the neurotoxins in her dust. "Magneto was helping the X-men! I killed him!" She released a puff of dust as she struggled to get away. "Stop!"
A blast or red energy shot between the two of them cutting through any further conversation. "Enough!" Scott said coldly into the ensuing silence. "Look at the two of you, willing to rip one another apart at the drop of a penny." He turned to face the angry young man who had just arrived. "You really think killing her is going to make things better? Do you think he'd have wanted that?"
"You think I care what he'd have wanted anymore?" Johnny screamed. "We are fucked, Summers. Fucked. All I want is to live a little bit longer and a little bit better till it all goes to shit." He hurled a disc at Summers, as well.
"Don't you dare try to stop me, Scott," Pixie growled, seemingly oblivious that his energy blast had just saved her from her enraged cohort. "This is pointless. Fuck all of you." Emboldened by Johnny's attack on their former mentor, back throbbing in pain, she unleashed a swirling storm of dust - not caring who it enveloped. In days passed this might have inflicted her targets with hallucinations of light and color, but now the neurotoxins in her dust stimulated anxiety and fear in the brain. It pulled phantoms out of the darkest recesses of the mind and stabbed the heart with terror.
Johnny gasped as the dust was absorbed by his skin. Staring around wildly, he launched himself at Pixie, training and experience forgotten in his terror.
Pixie whipped out her sword for the second time that day, plunging it straight into Johnny's chest as he attacked.
She moved too fast for him to react. He gasped, looking down at the sword with disbelief as blood bubbled out of the wound. Johnny's knees buckled and he fell.
"Johnny!" Scott rushed forward catching his ex-student's body as he fell, unfortunately there was nothing the X-man could do for the younger man as he lowered him gently to the ground. "So now you're killing your own allies Megan, even after everything he'd done for you. There's really nothing of that girl I used to know left in you is there?" he asked coldly.
Pixie shrugged, shaking off the last of her mental attachments as she prepared to end Scott's life. "In the end... it really doesn't matter." Her sword arm moved quickly as she struck with the faintly glowing blade.
"When it comes down to it that's all that matters," Scott replied coldly as a force beam smashed into Pixie's chest driving her back into a nearby wall. "I'm just sorry you can't see that anymore."
Pixie's black eyes went wide with pain and shock. Her sword clattered to the ground, its light fading as her eyes dimmed. "I..." she gasped. She slid down the wall, her wings crumpling unnaturally, and fell into a heap at its base. ''... regret... n...." And that was it before she went motionless.
Scot shook his head sadly as he turned to observe the grounds of the West Coast Annex; the burning buildings and littered bodies. "I'm glad you don't" he said quietly speaking to the empty air as his eye rested on Johnny and Pixie's still and broken bodies, memories of their carefree faces as they had been in the past playing at the school in happier times flashing across his mind. "It's only those of us left behind who have to live with regrets." The man said sadly as he turned and walked away, the shadows folding around him until all that could be heard were his footsteps slowly fading away into the distance. All that was left were the two motionless bodies highlighted in the light of the burning building and slowly covered by a blanket of ash
__________
Flashback: Jen Walters and Kyle engage in an epic battle in the most unlikely of places.
To anyone else, the biting winds and freezing temperatures of the Antarctic might have sapped their strength or - worse, if they were unprepared - killed them. But nothing seemed to bother the woman known by most simply as She-Hulk as she trudged through the waist deep snow towards the small outpost. Not the snow, not the temperature or even the tiring journey she'd embarked on to reach one of the few remaining scientific outposts that were either still loyal to them or not yet destroyed.
Normally these visits, by her or someone else, meant a refreshing of supplies and an exchange of information and this one was no different.
Jen Walters had volunteered not only because she was one of a handful that would be able to survive with minimum effort in the harsh environment but also because it was her cousin, Bruce Banner, that was working tirelessly in an effort to turn off the X-Gene. Before Apocalypse that would have been akin to someone trying to kill the mutant population but desperate times ...
Finally reaching the door, Walters paused and then cursed when she saw what she couldn't have seen from a distance. The door was badly damaged.
The door had been reinforced metal and a plastic that had been designed to not crack or warp in the extreme cold. The metal was marked with black soot. The plastic was torn in places, warped in others, and splintered and ragged around a hole where the electronic lock had been. The lock was in pieces on the ground.
The ice around the door was cracked as well, and rent as though something had torn at it with a pick or knife, in even jags around the doorframe and handle.
"Shit!" Throwing her pack to the side, uncaring about where it landed, Jen cautiously pushed her way through the door. It swung open and she noted it was barely hanging onto the hinges - whoever had come through here had done a number on the door. The interior lights were on and the front room showed no damage other than the door but she didn't trust that and quickly moved inwards.
The next space would be the labs and then the housing unit - she'd find him in the labs, probably.
Bruce was not in his bunk, or the next, or the next. It wasn't until she turned down a long hallway to the even more cramped and Spartan housing quarters that there was even a sign of life, if you could call a few smears of blood signs of life. The walls of the hallway were dented in places, as though someone had thrown a body, or a giant fist into them, and here and there on the dents were streaks of drying brown blood and a black tarry substance, and even more rarely, something green and gooey.
Walters let her hand hover over the blood stains for a moment and felt frozen, uncertain. She had seen much terror since Apocalypse took over the world and had done things she never thought she'd been able to do in the name of bringing him down. She had buried friends and lovers - had killed people she once had shared a bond with. And yet for a moment she couldn't bring herself to move forward because the fear was just too great.
But when the anger and the worry welled up inside her, she buried the fear and stepped through the door.
The smell was almost overwhelming. Bitter iron almost masked the other pungent smells - they hit in a second wave as the reason for the first was made more than obvious. The institutional-grey walls were smeared red drying to brown in wide streaks and tiny chunks of flesh seemed to be ground into the concrete. It was like someone had taken a bear, or a wildcat into a butcher's shop, except for the lack of bones. And in the center, covered in more drying smears of red and brown was a man, crouching, barefooted and handed despite the bitter cold, and gnawing on a long piece of raw meat.
His hair was ratty and tangled, filthy with mud and grime and worse, and the smell, what of it wasn't from the walls and gore, was from him.
"No. No, no, no, no, no," Walters whispered, crushing the door frame without realizing it. There wasn't much left of the man that had become a meal under the claws and teeth but she didn't need anything to identify him with. Bruce Banner had been alone - and unprotected. She had followed Essex' suggestions and had left the only family she had left so she could go off and do the good, never ending, fight.
Jennifer Walters had been the good little soldier and what had that gotten her? Death and the loss of the one thing left on this miserable planet that had meant anything to her.
The next noise that escaped her wasn't a word but a deep, guttural scream that caused beakers and glass to explode and cracks to appear in the wall.
The savage glanced up, and let the strip of meat fall from his mouth. His head tilted, and startlingly clear amber eyes met Jen's, tracking her. The falling shelves meant nothing to him, nor did the cracks that threatened to let in the bitter cold. He backed away on all fours, never once taking his eyes off her, until he reached the far wall, and then sat back down on his haunches and picked up another piece of flesh, turning it over in his clawed hands several times before biting in.
Fear, grief, exhaustion. It all faded away until she didn't remember what any of it actually felt like, until the only thing left was the rage. Jen would have looked down, would have checked on the remains of her cousin, but the thing that stepped through the doorway didn't even so much as spare a glance. She stalked forward, green muscles clenching and unclenching as she moved towards the object of her rage.
She was close - almost within arm’s reach before the thing that was barely a man noticed her approach. He glanced up, and a flicker of something passed across his face - cunning maybe - it wasn't quite intelligent decision making. The intelligent decision would've been to recognize the all-consuming rage and run. Instead he uncoiled, getting to his feet to reveal ruined black leathers and clawed hands and feet and sprung, leaping up onto Jen's shoulders and driving his entire weight down upon her.
Before the sight of her cousin's blood dribbling down the creature's face, Jennifer Walters might have reacted differently - she might have yelled or even screamed, though her powers had protected her through this godless war so far. Instead, she was almost silent as she was slammed against the ground. Almost silent, though underneath, as she wrapped her hands around his throat and twisted sideways to slam him into the ground in return, there was the beginnings of a low growl.
[Kyle]
__________
Flashback: Korvus and Yvette cross swords
Korvus stood on post near the Atlantic Seawall. What was once a small botanical garden had since been abandoned and left to grow wild into a rare patch of dense foliage. It had become one of his favorite look-out posts. Even with the mass of his armor and the skyward handle of Nandaki, the bamboo shoots and dense shrubbery could obscure his silhouette. It reminded him of a time when he lived in India, a time when keeping his mind clear and his emotions calmed was a much more manageable prospect.
She had been with the group only a few days, rescued during a raid. A small, delicate-looking young woman, with eyes too big in her pointed face and long brown hair. She exuded a vulnerability that made people want to take care of her.
Which was precisely the plan.
Penance made her way to the seawall, ready to signal her pick up after collecting all the data she could on the rebels. Her powers had done her well, allowing her to blend with the shadows and infiltrate even the smallest tunnels and air ducts in her quest for information. It galled her not to be able to remove some of the leadership of these gene-traitors, but she'd been warned against it. Get in, gather information on their movements and weaknesses, get out, those were her orders.
She reached the wall, then paused at the sight of the figure with the outsized sword standing watch. Time to continue the little girl act. She approached slowly, making sure he'd seen her. "Hello. Korvus, isn't it? I'm Penny."
It was unusual to see someone near the Seawall and, more suspicious than that, she knew who Korvus was by a glance. "Penny." The large man gave a short nod. "It's unusual for people to be out here." He let the statement linger, knowing how she reacted to the implication might tell him more than if he asked directly.
"Oh, I did not know it was not allowed. I took a wrong turning." She watched him carefully, instincts telling her he might not be so easy to fool as most. "I knew you by the sword - it is quite famous among the people here."
The young woman answered a question he hadn't asked. Korvus was very familiar with scoundrels of various sorts and predicting a person's suspicions to assuage them was very common. "You can leave that way." He pointed to a path that was meant for his own reinforcements. It would almost certainly lead directly into a camp and capture. If she was just lost, she'd take it readily.
Except her pick up wasn't that way and the longer they waited, the greater the chance of being spotted. Penance glanced at the path, and then back at Korvus. "And if I don't want to leave yet?" she asked, innocently. Her hands, held behind her back were shifting into long, deadly blades, however.
Clearly she'd been compromised. Korvus reached back to grip the long haft of Nandaki. "I believe we can dispense with the pretence." He drew the blade slowly, though the size didn't matter to him. A sudden movement might cause her to act immediately. "I am a stranger neither to deception or to violence."
"Very well." In a blink of an eyelid, her skin shifted, turning dark red, her hair smoothing into long, sharp points that echoed the long blades of her hands. "Most fall for the cute and innocent act, gene-traitor," she snarled, dropping into a crouch that made her a smaller target. "You'll wish you had, before I kill you."
"If you were cute or innocent, I may have as well." The huge man wasn't needlessly hurtful. In his studies of swordsmen, he had picked up some tricks from history and taking control of the psychological battle was part of that. Korvus held the blade out along his center line at a slight upward angle. To attack him, a person had to cross several feet of deadly edge. His stance remained otherwise very neutral and casual, as if he wasn't taking the combat seriously.
Penance was an assassin, more used to stalking and pouncing unexpectedly. But she knew more than that, had learned along with the rest of Apocalypse's elite, years of hard training and fiercer struggle to survive. She judged the reach of the sword, circling around Korvus carefully. He couldn't push her into anger, not with petty insults like those, but she was on a schedule. "Sure you aren't compensating for something with the cutlery, Korvus?" she retorted. "You know what they say about the size of a man's sword."
Korvus smirked slightly, turning with the assassin, the spikes on his armor making it difficult to get a good angle of approach. "A woman with your breasts may not wish to bring up the size of one's genitals as a measure of worth." He retorted. "You are very clearly incapable of mounting a reasonable offense against someone of my skill. Apocalypse wouldn't stand for such weakness."
She'd noticed the way his armour was impeding him, glowing blue eyes taking in every detail. "Are you sure it's not you being afraid to take me on?" she taunted, her long toes digging into the stone beneath for purchase. Then she launched herself at him, moving with lightning grace, aiming at his off side so that he would have to turn to block her. The long blades of her hands and feet slashed at him.
Surprisingly, Korvus was much more agile than his frame would suggest and certainly well beyond human limits. The armor was almost certainly intentionally deceptive, a smooth roll all that was necessary for him to avoid the series of slashes. He was on his feet and ready as fast as the eye could follow but he wasn't attacking yet, for some reason. "If you lose to me, does Apocalypse reject you? Where do you go if I refuse to kill you?"
"If you refuse to kill me, you die, gene traitor," spat Penance as she landed on all fours behind him, before launching herself again. If he wanted to talk rather than fight, that was his loss. She came in low, this time, aiming at the gaps left by his armour at his knees. He was faster than expected, so she needed to slow him down.
A jump and midair twist followed, allowing Korvus to strike from overhead, their blades clashing as they passed. He wanted to show Penance that Nandaki was much more than a simple large blade. His standoffish approach was certainly odd but it wasn't beyond him to have some ulterior motive.
The sword jarred throughout her body and she landed a little less gracefully than before, trying to shake off the impact. Whatever his reasons for not going after her, she knew she would be outmatched as long as he had the location advantage. Time to take things to her comfort zone.
Penance leapt at him again, but instead of trying to strike at him in passing, this time she landed on his chest and shoulders, clinging to his armour with her feet and one hand while she raised the other to slash at his face.
Korvus took a gamble. He expected he was much more durable than her and so he simply turned and leaped, chest forward, from the platform there were on into a dense patch of bamboo. With a twist of his wrist he angled Nandaki so that it would protect his face. Between the blade and his armor, he'd survive the fall without an issue.
She was durable - but not that durable, and the impact combined with his weight would incapacitate her for crucial moments, at least. With a curse in a language he didn't recognise, she pushed herself away from him in mid-air, toes leaving long scratches in the armour, and twisted around so that she entered the bamboo thicket like a diver. She vanished amid a flurry of shredded leaves and waving tree-tops.
A slash from Nandaki cleaved through a huge swath of bamboo shoots, the stalks slowly dropping to the ground. The cover was quickly fading. "This is your chance to disengage." Korvus offered, finality in his voice.
"I am afraid I can't do that." Her voice drifted down from above, followed by several bamboo trucks, sharpened like spears. They made a hollow whistling sound as they shot through the air, aimed at skewering the other mutant. "I have my own duty."
Korvus shifted his weight just slightly, the bamboo spears grazing against his skin harmlessly. He kept his eyes on the direction, trying to establish a pattern of movement.
More spears followed, this time aimed at trying to block his movement. Leaves tumbled down, obscuring the view, and then there came a small red shape, spiky all over, one arm converted to a long, impossibly-sharp blade. Penance slashed down as she passed him, aiming to bisect her opponent diagonally from shoulder to torso.
The large man continued to move with surprising agility. It was clear that something thrown at standard speed was simply not fast enough to cause him worry. Fortunately for Korvus, he was able to focus most of his attention in Penance's direction. When she came flying out of the thicket his blade moved, an arching slash that cleaved through the bamboo stalks effortlessly as it swung toward his opponent.
She landed in a crouch behind him, remaining hand splayed against the leaf-littered ground. Everything went still, the silence broken only by the quiet whisper of bamboo leaves tumbling down and Korvus' breathing. Across his breastplate, a long scratch gleamed in the dim light.
Penance's eyes dimmed, then went out. A thin line appeared across her neck, beads of blood shining wetly. Then her head tumbled off, resting in a nest of leaves, her body collapsing with a small sound into a spiky heap.
After another night of wrenching nightmares of an awakened Chthon wreaking havoc in Wanda's body, she finally listened to Amanda's not so subtle hints that her Boss Lady take some well-deserved time off. A few days of ignoring the phone and lazing about with Stephen had certain appeal, so she had left instructions to only reach her should there be an emergency and had started her first real vacation in years.
She was celebrating by running a hot bath in the claw foot tub that she had been delighted to discover in Stephen's bathroom years before. Wanda leaned over the side and dragged her fingers along the top of the water, shivering in anticipation of a long soak with a good book.
Standing, she shrugged off the robe and let it simply puddle around her feet - taking the time to put it up seemed a waste of good bath time. Slowly Wanda stepped into the hot water, groaning as her muscles clenched in response to how hot it actually was - and then, without warning, she felt herself falling. For a moment there was the pain of hitting the tub and the shock of being submerged ...
Just as suddenly Wanda found herself dressed and standing in a place that looked familiar but only barely, like the twisted remnants of a faded dream.
Flashback: At the West Coast Annex, a traitor kills a traitor, and Scott cleans up the mess.
A pink-haired figure stood above her toppled foe, spatters of blood - matching the dead man's helmet - staining her multifaceted wings. There was little blood on the dead man himself, which became more apparent as the cloud of semi-opaque, greenish dust settled around the pair and was scattered into the wind. Only the killing blow had caused traumatic physical damage. The girl wiped her sword in a patch of trampled grass. It glowed faintly as she sheathed it and flew up from the shallow crater.
The landscape surrounding the West Coast Annex had been greatly altered over the course of the battle. Black clouds of smoke were mirrored in Pixie's black eyes as she surveyed the scene. She readied a shaky hand on the hilt of her blade as a member of the resistance approached. She was wounded and fatigued from battle, but she summoned her dust to the surface of her skin. It would be strong enough to aide in her escape, should she need to flee.
Scott blew a plank out of his path as he limped out of the doorway to the West Coast Annex, his eye taking in the devastated appearance of the building and the grounds. The compound had definitely seen better days – it was going to take more than a lick of paint to fix this up. Turning his gaze away from the buildings Scott ran a measured eye over the grounds, they didn't look too bad, which was a little bit of a relief, there was just the one girl already out there watching the building. Scott opened his mouth to call her back inside to help getting the other survivors out when he noticed the sword in her hand and the body lying at her feet. Scott's words died in his throat as he saw the familiar profile and the wings unfurling from the girls back. "Megan?" Scott asked as he hobbled towards the girl, "What have you done?"
Pixie straightened as the powerful mutant approached. She knew didn't have the strength to fight him, but she hoped her voice was strong. "I'm putting an end to it - the fighting, the living in fear. My sister was right - it's futile to go against Apocalypse. It's time to wake up and face reality. I embraced the dark truth... and I've been shown freedom. It's a new world, in a lot of ways. I've seen a whole new side to my powers as well, unlocked to me when my sister told me of our true parentage." Dammit. Why did she feel like the owed Scott an explanation? There was no way he would understand. Her tone turned to pleading. "It'll be a different world now, but we can survive."
Scott shook his head, "You can survive it, but at what cost?" Scott asked sadly as he gestured around at the grounds around them, "Is it worth it? All the deaths so far, all the deaths to come, is it all worth is so you can just survive? People need more than just survival Megan, we need freedom. We need hope. Can you tell me you really have that?" The X-man turned a sad look on the young girl, "Can you tell me you're really happy now?" He gestured at the body of his friend, "Was his death worth it? Or were you just following orders so you could survive a little bit longer? He died believing in something and giving his all fighting for it. What do you believe in Megan?"
Pixie's black eyes clouded over, gaining a hard, non-reflective appearance. "Happiness is an illusion. And beliefs can turn out to be lies. Here's a fact - if I don't carry out my orders, then I have no chance of anything. And if you stay here, neither do you. The resistance is over." Her dust released slowly from her skin, its pale and faintly sparkly hue of the past was now a sickly green. As it rose into the air, the breeze twisting it into patterns. The thin haze distorted the appearance of everything viewed through it. Twisted faces appeared in the clouds. Pixie's own face looked sickly and demonic.
Johnny coughed and waved away the dust, eyes going wide as it began to affect him. "I did it," he gasped. "I took down the defenses and let you in, like you asked. You have to take me with you now."
Scott stared at the blonde Acolyte who had just arrived on the scene, "Johnny?" the ex-students were really coming out of the woodwork today weren't they. Scott's gaze flicked to the sprawled body of the master of magnetism and then back up to Johnny's face. "Don't do anything that you'd regret. Well nothing else you'd regret," he corrected himself as memories of their last meeting floated to the surface of his mind.
"A bit late for that, Summers," he replied. Johnny unhooked one of the flat metal discs clipped to the sleeves of his jacket and tossed it from hand to hand for a moment. He hurled it at a wall, seemingly at random, face twisted into an angry snarl. The disc bounced off the wall and slammed into the centre of Pixie's back, just below her wings.
"I'm on your side!" Pixie gasped at Johnny, her breath escaped from her, startled by his attack. He seemed crazed to her, possibly due to the neurotoxins in her dust. "Magneto was helping the X-men! I killed him!" She released a puff of dust as she struggled to get away. "Stop!"
A blast or red energy shot between the two of them cutting through any further conversation. "Enough!" Scott said coldly into the ensuing silence. "Look at the two of you, willing to rip one another apart at the drop of a penny." He turned to face the angry young man who had just arrived. "You really think killing her is going to make things better? Do you think he'd have wanted that?"
"You think I care what he'd have wanted anymore?" Johnny screamed. "We are fucked, Summers. Fucked. All I want is to live a little bit longer and a little bit better till it all goes to shit." He hurled a disc at Summers, as well.
"Don't you dare try to stop me, Scott," Pixie growled, seemingly oblivious that his energy blast had just saved her from her enraged cohort. "This is pointless. Fuck all of you." Emboldened by Johnny's attack on their former mentor, back throbbing in pain, she unleashed a swirling storm of dust - not caring who it enveloped. In days passed this might have inflicted her targets with hallucinations of light and color, but now the neurotoxins in her dust stimulated anxiety and fear in the brain. It pulled phantoms out of the darkest recesses of the mind and stabbed the heart with terror.
Johnny gasped as the dust was absorbed by his skin. Staring around wildly, he launched himself at Pixie, training and experience forgotten in his terror.
Pixie whipped out her sword for the second time that day, plunging it straight into Johnny's chest as he attacked.
She moved too fast for him to react. He gasped, looking down at the sword with disbelief as blood bubbled out of the wound. Johnny's knees buckled and he fell.
"Johnny!" Scott rushed forward catching his ex-student's body as he fell, unfortunately there was nothing the X-man could do for the younger man as he lowered him gently to the ground. "So now you're killing your own allies Megan, even after everything he'd done for you. There's really nothing of that girl I used to know left in you is there?" he asked coldly.
Pixie shrugged, shaking off the last of her mental attachments as she prepared to end Scott's life. "In the end... it really doesn't matter." Her sword arm moved quickly as she struck with the faintly glowing blade.
"When it comes down to it that's all that matters," Scott replied coldly as a force beam smashed into Pixie's chest driving her back into a nearby wall. "I'm just sorry you can't see that anymore."
Pixie's black eyes went wide with pain and shock. Her sword clattered to the ground, its light fading as her eyes dimmed. "I..." she gasped. She slid down the wall, her wings crumpling unnaturally, and fell into a heap at its base. ''... regret... n...." And that was it before she went motionless.
Scot shook his head sadly as he turned to observe the grounds of the West Coast Annex; the burning buildings and littered bodies. "I'm glad you don't" he said quietly speaking to the empty air as his eye rested on Johnny and Pixie's still and broken bodies, memories of their carefree faces as they had been in the past playing at the school in happier times flashing across his mind. "It's only those of us left behind who have to live with regrets." The man said sadly as he turned and walked away, the shadows folding around him until all that could be heard were his footsteps slowly fading away into the distance. All that was left were the two motionless bodies highlighted in the light of the burning building and slowly covered by a blanket of ash
Flashback: Jen Walters and Kyle engage in an epic battle in the most unlikely of places.
To anyone else, the biting winds and freezing temperatures of the Antarctic might have sapped their strength or - worse, if they were unprepared - killed them. But nothing seemed to bother the woman known by most simply as She-Hulk as she trudged through the waist deep snow towards the small outpost. Not the snow, not the temperature or even the tiring journey she'd embarked on to reach one of the few remaining scientific outposts that were either still loyal to them or not yet destroyed.
Normally these visits, by her or someone else, meant a refreshing of supplies and an exchange of information and this one was no different.
Jen Walters had volunteered not only because she was one of a handful that would be able to survive with minimum effort in the harsh environment but also because it was her cousin, Bruce Banner, that was working tirelessly in an effort to turn off the X-Gene. Before Apocalypse that would have been akin to someone trying to kill the mutant population but desperate times ...
Finally reaching the door, Walters paused and then cursed when she saw what she couldn't have seen from a distance. The door was badly damaged.
The door had been reinforced metal and a plastic that had been designed to not crack or warp in the extreme cold. The metal was marked with black soot. The plastic was torn in places, warped in others, and splintered and ragged around a hole where the electronic lock had been. The lock was in pieces on the ground.
The ice around the door was cracked as well, and rent as though something had torn at it with a pick or knife, in even jags around the doorframe and handle.
"Shit!" Throwing her pack to the side, uncaring about where it landed, Jen cautiously pushed her way through the door. It swung open and she noted it was barely hanging onto the hinges - whoever had come through here had done a number on the door. The interior lights were on and the front room showed no damage other than the door but she didn't trust that and quickly moved inwards.
The next space would be the labs and then the housing unit - she'd find him in the labs, probably.
Bruce was not in his bunk, or the next, or the next. It wasn't until she turned down a long hallway to the even more cramped and Spartan housing quarters that there was even a sign of life, if you could call a few smears of blood signs of life. The walls of the hallway were dented in places, as though someone had thrown a body, or a giant fist into them, and here and there on the dents were streaks of drying brown blood and a black tarry substance, and even more rarely, something green and gooey.
Walters let her hand hover over the blood stains for a moment and felt frozen, uncertain. She had seen much terror since Apocalypse took over the world and had done things she never thought she'd been able to do in the name of bringing him down. She had buried friends and lovers - had killed people she once had shared a bond with. And yet for a moment she couldn't bring herself to move forward because the fear was just too great.
But when the anger and the worry welled up inside her, she buried the fear and stepped through the door.
The smell was almost overwhelming. Bitter iron almost masked the other pungent smells - they hit in a second wave as the reason for the first was made more than obvious. The institutional-grey walls were smeared red drying to brown in wide streaks and tiny chunks of flesh seemed to be ground into the concrete. It was like someone had taken a bear, or a wildcat into a butcher's shop, except for the lack of bones. And in the center, covered in more drying smears of red and brown was a man, crouching, barefooted and handed despite the bitter cold, and gnawing on a long piece of raw meat.
His hair was ratty and tangled, filthy with mud and grime and worse, and the smell, what of it wasn't from the walls and gore, was from him.
"No. No, no, no, no, no," Walters whispered, crushing the door frame without realizing it. There wasn't much left of the man that had become a meal under the claws and teeth but she didn't need anything to identify him with. Bruce Banner had been alone - and unprotected. She had followed Essex' suggestions and had left the only family she had left so she could go off and do the good, never ending, fight.
Jennifer Walters had been the good little soldier and what had that gotten her? Death and the loss of the one thing left on this miserable planet that had meant anything to her.
The next noise that escaped her wasn't a word but a deep, guttural scream that caused beakers and glass to explode and cracks to appear in the wall.
The savage glanced up, and let the strip of meat fall from his mouth. His head tilted, and startlingly clear amber eyes met Jen's, tracking her. The falling shelves meant nothing to him, nor did the cracks that threatened to let in the bitter cold. He backed away on all fours, never once taking his eyes off her, until he reached the far wall, and then sat back down on his haunches and picked up another piece of flesh, turning it over in his clawed hands several times before biting in.
Fear, grief, exhaustion. It all faded away until she didn't remember what any of it actually felt like, until the only thing left was the rage. Jen would have looked down, would have checked on the remains of her cousin, but the thing that stepped through the doorway didn't even so much as spare a glance. She stalked forward, green muscles clenching and unclenching as she moved towards the object of her rage.
She was close - almost within arm’s reach before the thing that was barely a man noticed her approach. He glanced up, and a flicker of something passed across his face - cunning maybe - it wasn't quite intelligent decision making. The intelligent decision would've been to recognize the all-consuming rage and run. Instead he uncoiled, getting to his feet to reveal ruined black leathers and clawed hands and feet and sprung, leaping up onto Jen's shoulders and driving his entire weight down upon her.
Before the sight of her cousin's blood dribbling down the creature's face, Jennifer Walters might have reacted differently - she might have yelled or even screamed, though her powers had protected her through this godless war so far. Instead, she was almost silent as she was slammed against the ground. Almost silent, though underneath, as she wrapped her hands around his throat and twisted sideways to slam him into the ground in return, there was the beginnings of a low growl.
[Kyle]
Flashback: Korvus and Yvette cross swords
Korvus stood on post near the Atlantic Seawall. What was once a small botanical garden had since been abandoned and left to grow wild into a rare patch of dense foliage. It had become one of his favorite look-out posts. Even with the mass of his armor and the skyward handle of Nandaki, the bamboo shoots and dense shrubbery could obscure his silhouette. It reminded him of a time when he lived in India, a time when keeping his mind clear and his emotions calmed was a much more manageable prospect.
She had been with the group only a few days, rescued during a raid. A small, delicate-looking young woman, with eyes too big in her pointed face and long brown hair. She exuded a vulnerability that made people want to take care of her.
Which was precisely the plan.
Penance made her way to the seawall, ready to signal her pick up after collecting all the data she could on the rebels. Her powers had done her well, allowing her to blend with the shadows and infiltrate even the smallest tunnels and air ducts in her quest for information. It galled her not to be able to remove some of the leadership of these gene-traitors, but she'd been warned against it. Get in, gather information on their movements and weaknesses, get out, those were her orders.
She reached the wall, then paused at the sight of the figure with the outsized sword standing watch. Time to continue the little girl act. She approached slowly, making sure he'd seen her. "Hello. Korvus, isn't it? I'm Penny."
It was unusual to see someone near the Seawall and, more suspicious than that, she knew who Korvus was by a glance. "Penny." The large man gave a short nod. "It's unusual for people to be out here." He let the statement linger, knowing how she reacted to the implication might tell him more than if he asked directly.
"Oh, I did not know it was not allowed. I took a wrong turning." She watched him carefully, instincts telling her he might not be so easy to fool as most. "I knew you by the sword - it is quite famous among the people here."
The young woman answered a question he hadn't asked. Korvus was very familiar with scoundrels of various sorts and predicting a person's suspicions to assuage them was very common. "You can leave that way." He pointed to a path that was meant for his own reinforcements. It would almost certainly lead directly into a camp and capture. If she was just lost, she'd take it readily.
Except her pick up wasn't that way and the longer they waited, the greater the chance of being spotted. Penance glanced at the path, and then back at Korvus. "And if I don't want to leave yet?" she asked, innocently. Her hands, held behind her back were shifting into long, deadly blades, however.
Clearly she'd been compromised. Korvus reached back to grip the long haft of Nandaki. "I believe we can dispense with the pretence." He drew the blade slowly, though the size didn't matter to him. A sudden movement might cause her to act immediately. "I am a stranger neither to deception or to violence."
"Very well." In a blink of an eyelid, her skin shifted, turning dark red, her hair smoothing into long, sharp points that echoed the long blades of her hands. "Most fall for the cute and innocent act, gene-traitor," she snarled, dropping into a crouch that made her a smaller target. "You'll wish you had, before I kill you."
"If you were cute or innocent, I may have as well." The huge man wasn't needlessly hurtful. In his studies of swordsmen, he had picked up some tricks from history and taking control of the psychological battle was part of that. Korvus held the blade out along his center line at a slight upward angle. To attack him, a person had to cross several feet of deadly edge. His stance remained otherwise very neutral and casual, as if he wasn't taking the combat seriously.
Penance was an assassin, more used to stalking and pouncing unexpectedly. But she knew more than that, had learned along with the rest of Apocalypse's elite, years of hard training and fiercer struggle to survive. She judged the reach of the sword, circling around Korvus carefully. He couldn't push her into anger, not with petty insults like those, but she was on a schedule. "Sure you aren't compensating for something with the cutlery, Korvus?" she retorted. "You know what they say about the size of a man's sword."
Korvus smirked slightly, turning with the assassin, the spikes on his armor making it difficult to get a good angle of approach. "A woman with your breasts may not wish to bring up the size of one's genitals as a measure of worth." He retorted. "You are very clearly incapable of mounting a reasonable offense against someone of my skill. Apocalypse wouldn't stand for such weakness."
She'd noticed the way his armour was impeding him, glowing blue eyes taking in every detail. "Are you sure it's not you being afraid to take me on?" she taunted, her long toes digging into the stone beneath for purchase. Then she launched herself at him, moving with lightning grace, aiming at his off side so that he would have to turn to block her. The long blades of her hands and feet slashed at him.
Surprisingly, Korvus was much more agile than his frame would suggest and certainly well beyond human limits. The armor was almost certainly intentionally deceptive, a smooth roll all that was necessary for him to avoid the series of slashes. He was on his feet and ready as fast as the eye could follow but he wasn't attacking yet, for some reason. "If you lose to me, does Apocalypse reject you? Where do you go if I refuse to kill you?"
"If you refuse to kill me, you die, gene traitor," spat Penance as she landed on all fours behind him, before launching herself again. If he wanted to talk rather than fight, that was his loss. She came in low, this time, aiming at the gaps left by his armour at his knees. He was faster than expected, so she needed to slow him down.
A jump and midair twist followed, allowing Korvus to strike from overhead, their blades clashing as they passed. He wanted to show Penance that Nandaki was much more than a simple large blade. His standoffish approach was certainly odd but it wasn't beyond him to have some ulterior motive.
The sword jarred throughout her body and she landed a little less gracefully than before, trying to shake off the impact. Whatever his reasons for not going after her, she knew she would be outmatched as long as he had the location advantage. Time to take things to her comfort zone.
Penance leapt at him again, but instead of trying to strike at him in passing, this time she landed on his chest and shoulders, clinging to his armour with her feet and one hand while she raised the other to slash at his face.
Korvus took a gamble. He expected he was much more durable than her and so he simply turned and leaped, chest forward, from the platform there were on into a dense patch of bamboo. With a twist of his wrist he angled Nandaki so that it would protect his face. Between the blade and his armor, he'd survive the fall without an issue.
She was durable - but not that durable, and the impact combined with his weight would incapacitate her for crucial moments, at least. With a curse in a language he didn't recognise, she pushed herself away from him in mid-air, toes leaving long scratches in the armour, and twisted around so that she entered the bamboo thicket like a diver. She vanished amid a flurry of shredded leaves and waving tree-tops.
A slash from Nandaki cleaved through a huge swath of bamboo shoots, the stalks slowly dropping to the ground. The cover was quickly fading. "This is your chance to disengage." Korvus offered, finality in his voice.
"I am afraid I can't do that." Her voice drifted down from above, followed by several bamboo trucks, sharpened like spears. They made a hollow whistling sound as they shot through the air, aimed at skewering the other mutant. "I have my own duty."
Korvus shifted his weight just slightly, the bamboo spears grazing against his skin harmlessly. He kept his eyes on the direction, trying to establish a pattern of movement.
More spears followed, this time aimed at trying to block his movement. Leaves tumbled down, obscuring the view, and then there came a small red shape, spiky all over, one arm converted to a long, impossibly-sharp blade. Penance slashed down as she passed him, aiming to bisect her opponent diagonally from shoulder to torso.
The large man continued to move with surprising agility. It was clear that something thrown at standard speed was simply not fast enough to cause him worry. Fortunately for Korvus, he was able to focus most of his attention in Penance's direction. When she came flying out of the thicket his blade moved, an arching slash that cleaved through the bamboo stalks effortlessly as it swung toward his opponent.
She landed in a crouch behind him, remaining hand splayed against the leaf-littered ground. Everything went still, the silence broken only by the quiet whisper of bamboo leaves tumbling down and Korvus' breathing. Across his breastplate, a long scratch gleamed in the dim light.
Penance's eyes dimmed, then went out. A thin line appeared across her neck, beads of blood shining wetly. Then her head tumbled off, resting in a nest of leaves, her body collapsing with a small sound into a spiky heap.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}