Age of Apocalypse: (Un)known Enemies

[x-eidolon.livejournal.com]

The six of them pair up to face off against the Horsemen, quite unprepared for what – or who – they were going up against.



"There's interference," Jim said, relying on Angelo to keep eyes on the horizon while he performed his scan. "Not quite shielding . . . closer to the partitioning Moreau used. And the signal's fuzzy. Process of elimination says it's Pestilence, but I can't pinpoint his location." The dust was still settling from the hastily-blasted roadblocks he'd created; at least knowing the Horsemen were on their way meant there was no need to be subtle.

Angelo pulled a face. "Man, I hope it's not anything like Moreau. Techno-organics creep me out and they're so tough to kill."

"Agreed. It took six of us just to isolate his consciousness." For just an instant the telepath wondered if perhaps Pestilence was Moreau. His alternate self had never encountered the man directly, but the Horseman's shielding, the augments -- Apocalypse's technology could easily have upgraded the Genoshan's massive exoskeleton into something more streamlined. But no, even if Moreau had survived in this universe Apocalypse would never have wasted those resources on a human, let alone elevated one to the position of Horseman. Still, he recalled certain similarities . . .

Jim shook his head. "Never mind. We'll work with whatever comes." Telepathically, just in case any unseen ears were listening, he added #We just need to keep him distracted and away from the tunnels.#

#Distraction I can do#, Angelo sent back with a fierce grin, still scanning the area every moment. #I'm good at that.#

Jim snorted. #Yeah. We may not be what Rachel was looking for, but at least we're useful as bai--#

The opposing force arrived like the rush of stormclouds on the horizon.

Between the ruined buildings appeared dozens of faceless figures in black bodysuits. Though traveling in no particular formation their steps fell with the steady synchronicity of a military parade. They streamed through alleys and through half-demolished buildings to a single point of convergence like scouting ants rejoining the main column. An opening salvo that confirmed the identity of their attacker: drones.

Then, as one, they charged.

Jack's shield caught the vanguard, but they moved fast. Moreover, they instantly reoriented themselves around the obstruction. With dispassionate efficiency they climbed over their colleagues to breach the limited telekinetic wall, or simply battered it until they found the outermost edge. Before Jack had time to adjust the first few were already on him.

With no other or better focus in sight, Angelo moved to assist Jack, brutally punching and kicking the drones in an effort to keep a clear space, however small, around them.

"Legion? Does this seem familiar to you? Something in the files..."

"Busy!" Jack snapped, forcing back a wave with a blast of telekinesis. The impact felt wrong. It was organic but with little yield, as if the flesh covered something much more solid. As his attention lapsed he felt something graze his back, and it was only Angelo's vicious intervention that kept a drone from managing to close its hands around his neck.

This was bad. They were too close, and Angelo was constantly moving; if he shielded he'd either enclose the attackers or risk chopping his teammate in half. These things were relentless—

Then a realization struck him.

"Skin!" Jack panted, hammering the wave in front of him again, "Find Pestilence!"

"Give me a lift", Angelo said instantly, already preparing his "wings". "I need height, I'll take it from there."

"Done." The telekinetic stabilized a small, basic shield on his left while he clawed the fingers on his other hand in preparation. One breath, two, and he wrenched his arm up as if he were tossing a ball straight into the air. Telekinesis did the rest.

Angelo caught the updraft easily, gliding over the battle below in search of his quarry - and then he saw where Pestilence was hiding. Taking a deep breath, he pointed himself that way and down and began to attempt a controlled landing.

Jack couldn't spare the attention to track Angelo's flight, but he could sense that the grasping bodies around him were paying the younger man's departure no mind. It was true, then: he was their primary target. Or rather, the vastly more capable Legion of this world.

Knowing there was such a gulf between his alternate self and his own powers still stung, but the Horseman's mistake was their gain. Every resource erroneously directed at him was one less for the others to deal with. Still trapped within the press of the silent, ceaseless horde, Jack extended a spherical shield just large enough to enclose his body, shut his eyes, and settled back to wait.

He wasn't hiding, precisely, though he was in the midst of a huge mass of surging bodies driven forward by a single purpose. Pestilence, though, was the focal point, the single helmeted figure in a sea of pale, hairless faces. He strode forward with purpose, not the madcap dash of the phages around him, but the controlled advance of a foe that has calculated every variable, and is assured that every possible outcome is total victory.

A small eddy broke the flow as he spotted Angelo's soaring glide. As Angelo neared the ground, Pestilence's menacing walk became a lope, then several running steps before the Horseman launched himself at his opponent, shoulder driving into his midsection, and sending them both towards the ground in a much less controlled fashion.

Angelo had seen it coming and had a few seconds to get as ready as he could. He managed to manoeuvre them so that he had the upper hand on impact with the ground, saving himself from being too badly winded if nothing else.

Reinforcement in Pestilence's bodysuit and helmet kept him from being injured upon landing, and the pair rolled several times before coming to rest. Pestilence was already moving as their momentum slowed, a knee arrowing up into Angelo's ribs.

Angelo grunted in pain and without thinking about it, lashed out with his powers to grip Pestilence's helmet and drag him into a headlock. If he could get the helmet off, he quickly realized, it would give him a possible point of vulnerability to use.

He tightened his grasp and twisted - and if he broke Pestilence's neck doing it, he couldn't quite bring himself to care.

Pestilence's head pivoted one way, then the other, to test Angelo's grip, but as tendrils of skin joined the grab and strengthened, it was clear it was a lost cause, and the helmet came free with the hiss of equalizing air pressure. His hands slapped downward at several tendrils that reached toward him, then twisted to plant his feet in Angelo's midsection, heaving him several yards away.

The movement continued into a handspring as Pestilence got to his feet, his back briefly to Angelo, who could only see close-cut blond hair. But when the de-helmed Horseman turned to face his opponent, a very familiar face stared emotionlessly across the distance between them.

Doug Ramsey.

Angelo stared briefly in utter frozen shock, before Pestilence was coming at him again and he had to move.

His jaw set, determination hardening in his mind to kill Pestilence, here and now, for the sake of his friend.

Pestilence showed no reaction, simply looked at Angelo, assessing tactics in the space of a heartbeat. A blade, something larger than a knife, but smaller than a sword, popped out of a concealed compartment behind the Horseman's right wrist. He came back in, faster than Doug had ever been on his best day, the blade hissing through several crosswise slashes.

Angelo responded the only way he could, making a shield out of the spread skin of one forearm and a skin blade of the other to meet the Horseman's -and he had an extra weapon at his disposal, ten finger-whips lashing out at Pestilence's head from all angles.

Pestilence hunched his shoulders up, the fabric of his bodysuit extruding in a way somewhat similar to Angelo's skin. With much less material to work with, all that he managed was a high collar, but that protected what was probably the most vulnerable spot - his ears. Lashes across the top of the head could be painful, but his hair was kept close-cropped enough that it was unlikely that any of the finger-whips could find purchase for a grab.

The Horseman pushed in even closer, hammering at the defenses made from Angelo's raised forearms. Slashing would do very little against Angelo's skin, and the likelihood of puncturing with the blade was very low. A change of tactics was called for.

::brachial plexus - cutaneous and muscular innervation of entire upper arm:: Pestilence's armblade swept across to parry Angelo's aside, leaving a small opening for the rigid extended fore- and middle fingers of his left hand to shoot through and jab sharply into the nerve cluster and cause an involuntary spasm.
::radius - largest at wrist, ulna - largest at elbow, apply maximum force at midpoint of forearm::

In the moment of the spasm dropping Angelo's arm slightly, a number of actions happened in quick succession, made possible only by the mechanical augmentation that Pestilence's body had undergone. First, his left hand slipped downward to latch onto Angelo's wrist. Second, his armblade retracted, flattening and reinforcing his own forearm even as he brought it downward in a precisely targeted hammerblow aimed at breaking the other man's forearm.

Skin, after all, still required bone to give it a framework.

The blow landed, and bone snapped cleanly under the force, bringing a quickly choked-off cry of pain.
But what Pestilence hadn't counted on was that Angelo's skin wasn't baseline human and didn't work by human rules. He sent what had been his blade directly at Pestilence's throat, while his whips began ripping at the bodysuit - the better to remove his opponent's defences.

If not for technologically enhanced reflexes, Angelo's attack would have succeeded. But Pestilence had just enough speed to interpose his reinforced forearm and protect his throat. The subdermal extruders that created his uniform were managing to keep up with closing the tears created by Angelo's skin whips, but the longer he stayed in close, the more likely it was that he would be overwhelmed in a grapple.

Turning his palm toward Angelo's face, the smooth blackness of Pestilence's armor irised open and was replaced by a painfully bright flash and a rush of heat - a tiny magnesium flare, designed to temporarily blind and give him time to disengage.

Angelo hadn't known what to expect, but it had been clear from that hand movement that something was about to happen. The skin of his forehead stretched out and down to form a makeshift eye protector, which was enough to shield his sight from the flash just as it came.

And then he thought of something else. One of his whips drew back and reshaped itself into something more like a blade, thin and very sharp, looped itself around Pestilence's waist, and drew tight.

Pestilence twisted in place, searching for a way to disengage from the danger, but the lasso Angelo had drawn left no room to duck beneath or leap above. It drew taut, and then through, like a loop of wire cutting through a block of cheese.

The bisected Pestilence fell limply to the ground, and the phages that had been hammering at Haller's telekinetic shield came to an abrupt halt. They stood motionless, puppets awaiting a signal from their puppeteer.

With the pressure off the telekinetic wasted no time on thought. What had been a tight shield exploded into a wave of force, tossing the motionless drones in every direction. They fell like wooden dolls, inert and lifeless.

Jack prodded the closest body with his toe. There was no reaction, and not because of his attack. It was if they had simply switched off.

Frowning, the telepath resumed control and began to jog towards Angelo.

Angelo, meanwhile, had pulled back from the body, staring down at what he'd done as he shook the blood off his skin... and then he turned away in a deliberate movement, doubled over and vomited.

"Skin, are you okay?" Jim called. He drew to a stop next to his teammate, then did a double-take at the Horseman. Or rather, the pieces of the Horseman.

"Christ," he muttered, staring at the slick mess of partially-spilled organs and synthetic components.
Blood seeped out from the severed halves of Pestilence, a puddle growing beneath his motionless body. An eerie silence descended on their part of the battlefield, phages standing stock-still.

::reboot::
::catastrophic system failure, restore from last backup::

The pool of blood reversed, shrinking back as Pestilence's body soaked it back up. Tendrils extended from the bottom of the ragged torso, reaching to meet with identical strands growing out from the lower trunk.

The telepath drew a sharp breath. Eyes locked in macabre fascination, Jim reached over to touch his teammate's shoulder. "Angelo," he murmured, tone urgent.

Angelo blinked at him, then followed his gaze.

"- oh, that's just not fair. Do I have to cut him up again?"

"No." He wouldn't have asked the younger man to do so even if the tactic had been effective. Jim briefly considered a telekinetic rending, but he suspected that, too, would only be temporary. Nonetheless, the attack hadn't been for nothing. The two halves had now rejoined, but the internal repairs were still ongoing. Attention was . . . diverted. The telepath moved to kneel beside Pestilence.

"You got him down," said the telepath, putting a hand over the Horseman's waxen face. He closed his eyes and prepared to enter his mind.

"Let's see if I can keep him that way."

The outer defenses had already been breached. Artificial as they were, they had either been damaged by Angelo's attack or their resources had been temporarily reprioritized to facilitate the physical repairs. It looked like nothing more than broken circuitry board. The telepath pushed through it without effort.
The first indication of the next level was a low hum, like the buzz of a laboring cooling fan. This next structure, the first organic defense in Pestilence's mind, was a massive cube. What he took at first to be some sort of odd pixilation to the form gradually resolved itself into billions of tiny bodies. The apparently solid structure was, in fact, boiling with bees.

There was something off about them. They moved correctly and seemed to possess depth, but they lacked a sense of weight. A moment later Jim knew what they reminded him of: a computer rendering.

The telepath paused, considering. They would swarm if approached directly. He could shield himself, but he didn't want the man's defenses any higher than necessary. Fortunately, he had options.

Beekeepers needing to open a hive used smoke. It blocked the insects' alarm pheromones, interrupting the normal defensive reaction. Cyndi's predisposition towards fire meant the effect was easily replicated. Cloaked both by shields and smoke, Jim gently worked his fingers between the squirming bodies and the bees slid aside. Nodding to himself, the telepath stepped into -- and through -- the cube.

It wasn't difficult. But repelling intruders, he was beginning to sense, was not the primary purpose of the barriers.

Beyond was another cube, this one of rushing water. It, too, had that same vaguely unreal quality: the water's course was too smooth, too regular. Jim smiled as the smoke around him dissipated; this was more his speed. Without hesitation he stepped into the cube.

The natural reaction was to struggle against the current; in reality the body would drown whether you wanted it to or not. An inexperienced psi might panic and allow themselves to do the same. Jim did not. Instead he simply let the tide take him.

The current expelled him into one final void with one final cube. Where the other hazards had been deceptively organic, this one was, instead, deceptively mechanical. While initially nothing more than a mechanical block, closer inspection of the "circuitry" revealed it to be flesh and bone, stretched taught and shining to create the last barrier. What he had taken for wires were in fact veins, here and there threaded through with yellowish ropes of nerves. Rather than silicon, the substrate had the slick red smoothness of muscle.

The entire structure pulsed gently, as if drawing breath.

With the care of a surgeon positioning his scalpel, Jim touched the fingertips of a flattened hand to the fleshy wall. Then, slowly, he drew his hand down.

Flesh popped and crackled in the wake of his movement, the cauterizing heat delaying any repair. As Jim bent double to reach the cube's base a force not unlike telekinesis pushed the edges further apart. By the time he straightened the opening was complete.

And that was that. Beyond this was the seat of consciousness.

With a single, meditative breath, Jim stepped forward into light.

_______



Even if Molly wanted to pace she couldn't. There were rocks and rubble everywhere. She looked out over the city, what was left of it, with a deep frown. Old her remembered bits of what this looked like too but it was a memory and so seeing it for real was weird.

A rumble in the distance, like thunder, but more like the animals stampeding in the Lion King made her look up quickly. She started to back up, but nearly tripped over some rocks. The rocks shifted, uncovering a skeleton underneath. It had clothes, but they were dirty, and it had a necklace on.

Molly stared at the skeleton for a long time, letting out a little breath.

Wanda gently placed a hand on Molly's shoulder and felt momentarily overwhelmed but, oddly, more at how out of touch she had become over the years to those students at the school than their surroundings. But then again, she had just survived being in a hell dimension while thinking she was being possessed by the elder god Chthon. She was starting to get used to this.

"We can take a minute," she said quietly, in case there were ears close by, "if you need it." Wanda had long ago stopped thinking that children were truly children. She had watched Doug and Marie-Ange respond to horrible things during their teen years - then again, she thought with a sigh, perhaps given what they did now for a living they were not the best examples of well-adjusted teenagers.

But she didn't know what Molly had or had not experienced and was keen to protect her as much as she could.

Folding her arms and hugging her stomach, Molly nodded. She crouched down beside the skeleton.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "Whoever you are."

It was hard to believe the bad guys had done all of these things and hurt so many people. But she hoped they could stop them so they wouldn't hurt anyone else. She finally stood up with a sniff, wiping her nose and fixing her shoelaces in case they had to run or something.

"Where do we go now?"

"We keep them away from the tunnels that lead to the labs," Wanda responded, "while we try to deal with these Horsemen." They started to move through the rubble once more, Wanda showing Molly the best way to place her feet and walk on the rubble so as not to make more sound than they necessarily had to. "Stay close and yell if you see something before I do."

There were street signs that Wanda knew as they walked carefully through the destroyed city - and she wondered at the fact that their world had managed to sidestep this end of the world while this one had not.

"I would not be so rude as to conceal my arrival."

The voice was startlingly close. A youngish man, shaven-headed and shirtless, was perched on a pile of rubble behind them. No footsteps had warned of his approach. He smiled a familiar smile once he had their attention.

"Hello, Ms. Maximoff. It's been quite some time."

Wanda shifted slightly, instinctively, to put herself in-between the new arrival and Molly. "It has been quite a while," she responded slowly, red light flickering to life and throwing the rubble around them into sharp relieve. "Marius." He didn't look like she thought Famine would look like but there was something off - something that made him wholly alien to her when she tried to compare him to the young man she knew back home.

"So I am." He tilted his head one way, then another in a way reminiscent of a hawk inspecting a distant mouse. "And I see you are indeed Wanda Maximoff. How odd. We presumed you dead after taking out Maddrox and that Infinite factory. Were we in error, or are you in fact risen from the grave?" He gave her another smile. "A bit on the messianic side, but then, when you are concerned it is often the improbabilities which are the most probable."

Staying behind Wanda, Molly poked her head out and found herself staring at Marius. He had the same face as Marius but he looked so different. His eyes were scary and hungry, like a wolf's eyes.

But she wasn't as afraid as she thought she'd be. Maybe it was memories of the old her. Still, she was pretty scared. Mostly about the whole other world thing in general, though. She suddenly missed home, a lot.

"W...what happened to you?" she said. Old her remembered he was bad from stories, and she could see he was from how he moved and how he acted, but she didn't know or remember why that was.

The man gave her a cursory glance, then did a double-take. His head tilted again, this time in puzzlement. "I thought the camera was said to add ten pounds, not ten years," he remarked, giving Molly a curious look. He stroked his chin. "Powers align, so I suppose I can understand the error, but even still. Riveter's sister, perhaps?"

"Enough."

Red bolts of pure chaos energy boiled out of almost nothing and streaked towards Marius right as Wanda slammed backwards into Molly, attempting to push the teenager further away. This was not the young man that they knew and she knew there was a danger - not only for Molly but for herself - to be swayed by the mirage of the one they knew. Unwilling to go closer, she readied another bolt even as she reached for the strings to manipulate things on an unseen level.

But the first bolt found only empty space.

At her back was a wash of heat the stench of sulfur, and a fist struck the side of her head hard enough to dizzy her. Wanda spun to the ground, and suddenly he was standing over her. Even as she watched she could see his body beginning to flow and change; the abdomen sunk, the ribcage bulged. Lean muscle dissolved into bone and ropey tendons. His already dark skin darkened further until it seemed almost to swallow light.

Grey talons seized Wanda by the wrists, and before the woman had time to react she felt a sharp stab to the area directly beneath his palms. Her attacker leaned over her, giving her a clear view of a face growing sharp with armored protrusions that formed a death's head of its very own, and bared his teeth.
"Enough indeed," said Famine.

Before Molly knew it Wanda was pushing her backwards and she let out a yelp of surprise, stumbling over bits of rocks and metal bars as she caught a red light. But then Marius was gone, and then he was somewhere else, and he smelled like rotten eggs, like Kurt did sometimes. And he was also hurting Wanda.

"Hey!" Molly said. A bright purple light spread across her eyes as she reached up and grabbed Marius by the back of the neck, flinging him into the hollow shell of what used to be a building.

"Leave her alone!"

Even those brief moments of - of absorption had taken their toll. Wanda staggered to the side and curled her bleeding wrists against her stomach as her world turned grey. She shoved past the pain and shock, cursing herself for letting him get the drop on her so quickly. The anger helped her find her feet again.

The already damaged building erupted with pulverized bricks and mortar as Famine levered himself free. His movements betrayed not even a sprained ankle.

"That, young lady," the Horseman remarked as he picked up a twisted piece of rebar still half-embedded in a chunk of concrete, "was extremely rude."

Without pausing for breath, Famine whipped the concretion of metal and concrete directly at Molly's head.

Molly's eyes widened as she brought up her arms reflexively. The blob of debris shattered into chunks of rock and metal, sending a small cloud of dust everywhere. Crouching down, Molly grabbed what was left of a bolted down mail box and hurled it at him. Old letters flew everywhere.

"Eating people is ruder!" she said.

The mailbox struck with a clang too sharp to be metal-against-flesh. Famine tore free from the deformed box, the movement punctuated by the painful screech of his talons against metal.

"Do I smack the fork from your hand? Of course . . ." The Horseman hurled the largest scrap at her. While her attention was on the projectile his body blurred.

Suddenly he was right beside her, his sunken yellow eyes burning. His hands were already stretching toward her, and on his palms Molly could see fanged mouths the size of silver dollars, teeth still red with Wanda's blood.

". . . I prefer my veal well-fed."

"Really? You think you're far too clever, little boy." Wanda's voice was suddenly, uncomfortably close. She had used the momentary fight between Molly and Marius to circle around and come up behind the Horseman. He'd been so focused on the teen that he'd failed to keep track of where his original prey had been.

A mistake.

Less than a foot away, she raised her still bleeding hands and shot him point blank with two hex bolts. Wanda wasn't certain what would happen - Genosha had proved to her that 'her' Marius, at least, was able to absorb and channel the chaos energy. But she wasn't certain if this one could. And, at the very least, there was always the chance that if he wasn't expecting it, the result might be ... nasty.

Something between a gurgle and a hiss emerged from the Horseman's mouth as the attack triggered an automatic retaliation. A spidery line of crimson energy arced between them as Famine's elongated spine snapped back, enveloping them in a corona that only barely missed contact with Molly.

If she'd had the strength to scream, Wanda would have. There had been only a very small handful of times in her adult life that she had felt the adverse effects of chaos energy. There had been feedback during Genosha but nothing like this; as she staggered back and fell into the rubble, retching, it felt as if someone was slowly peeling her skin off and trying to force its way inside of her through her veins.

Both Wanda and Marius looked like something was really wrong. Which was bad for Wanda and good for Marius? Molly bit her lip as she pulled herself to her feet.

"Wanda? Um...are you...should I find...help?" Molly said, glancing between the two of them as she hovered over Wanda, trying not to touch her. She didn't want to break anything.

"I--I don't know what to do." The only doctors she knew were in another universe. She kept a close eye on Marius, in case he started moving again.

The fallen Horseman twitched, then vanished. And instant later he appeared on his hands and knees some distance away, breathing heavily. His body blurred, and once more he disappeared only to reappear just a few yards to the left. The stringy muscles on his nearly fleshless back jumped.

"I - I am fine," Wanda said after a long moment, though it was clearly a lie. She was at least able to push herself up to the point where she was half on her feet with the rest of her leaning on a large piece of building that had fallen on its side. "I certainly hope that hurt him more than it did me," she continued, voice tight with pain. Her powers were flickering on and off at the corner of her vision -lines laying over the war torn images of the world only to disappear in one place and reappear in another. The feedback loop had knocked more than just her physical self for a loop.

She gestured for Molly to come closer. "We need to take him out fast and hard," Wanda said softly. "But we need to be smart about it or else he will have the upper hand."

"I can punch him?" Molly offered. Usually hard meant like strong, right?

"Does...does 'taking out' mean like...out out, though?" Old her had a lot of those take outs. But it was not something she wanted to remember...or do herself.

Wanda's hand dropped onto Molly's shoulder and squeezed gently. "Yes, it does. But you leave that to me," she said, firmly. "Whatever happens, Molly, know that we do this to survive but know I will carry that burden." Her hand dropped and she took a shuddering breath. "I have a plan - listen, I believe ..."

Some distance away, Famine let out a wet hiss and hurled a hex bolt to the side. The craze of red threads crowding his vision subsided as the energy discharged further down the street to explode the support of a communications tower. There was something different, caustic about her power. Whatever had happened to her after her presumed demise, taking a hit from her powers now felt like full-body heartburn.

That was a shame. He had hoped to have some fun. Now it seemed he would just have to kill her.
The Horseman's already-taloned fingers sharpened to the consistency of razors. He readied himself to teleport.

Back where Wanda and Molly were conversing, Wanda's head suddenly snapped around and her eyes narrowed. Somewhere Molly couldn't see, the lines of chaos had suddenly started screaming. She knew what that meant - she had been around Kurt and Clarice long enough to know what her powers did when a teleporter was about to make a jump. And Wanda had no intention of letting Marius get the drop on them - or escape.

Wanda deftly hooked those lines and gave them a sharp pull, saying to Molly, "Get ready, remember the plan and be prepared - he will not be happy."

Swallowing, Molly nodded. "Okay," she said softly. She told herself this was not Marius, not real Marius. Tried to, anyway. This world was different and dark and not everyone was like they were in hers. Some of them were bad, very bad. And they couldn't be good again. That part she didn't like to think about either.

She sprinted towards Marius, punching him in the face once she got to him so he'd be all wobbly. She punched him again, and again, but not too hard to where he'd get far away. She had to grab him.

The Horseman staggered, but even reeling from the aborted teleport it was like hitting a slab of concrete: had Molly not been invulnerable her hand would have shattered. Yet though she made contact the blows did not seem to have the effect they should have; though the man was rocking under the force he was not showing any signs of pain.

When Molly went in for a fourth punch, she discovered why.

A hand intercepted her fist in mid-swing and held it there with the immobility of a vise. The girl found herself eye-to-eye with the Horseman -- and he was smiling.

"Brave girl," he remarked, yellow eyes burning deep in their sockets. "Strong as well."

His other hand shot up to grasp her by the wrist.

"I thank you for that."

Famine swung the girl in an overhand arc that ended in sharp, brutal contact with the pavement. Concrete fractured under Molly's slight frame, raising dust and rubble. Hand still locked around her wrist, the Horseman turned to Wanda and presented the limp girl.

"I advise you not test your luck, Wanda," he said, dangling Molly by the arm between them. "Your powers appear to cause an interesting interaction. This close to the girl I imagine there would be some collateral damage."

"Luck?" Wanda asked, straightening, hands held out at her side with red light playing through her fingers. "Oh Marius, my power was never about luck and all about the impossible." There was no flash or bang or anything dramatic - just a touch of string that linked itself to Marius' wrist, weakening his grip just enough for Molly to feel it.

Molly's eyes opened, startled confusion and fear quickly melting into a strange look of determination as she used her position like a fulcrum to swing herself behind Marius in a quick motion onto his back, ripping her wrist away from as she did.

"I'm not your chess piece," she said, then double punched him in the back of the head.

The Horsemen stumbled forward and, still clinging to his back, Molly used her weight to turn the stagger into a fall. Her hands slipped around his neck: too small to fully encircle them, but strong enough to crush the windpipe and pinch closed the carotid artery.

Famine's body reacted to the threat before she could even begin to apply the pressure. Under her fingers formed armoured plating so dense even her strength could not fracture it. In one swift movement the Horseman rolled onto his back to pin her beneath him, brought his head forward, and slammed the back of his hard-ridged skull into the girl's face again and again.

Wanda leaped over more debris, getting closer to two grappling while trying to keep a safe distance. Getting in-between Molly and Marius at the moment would be almost certain suicide but there was no way she was leaving the teen alone. Scooping up a piece of concrete, Wanda threw it with as much power as she it while using her powers to find the perfect spot alongside Marius' head to throw him off balance and stop him from headbutting Molly.

The concrete threw Famine's head askew. Though successful in halting the attack on Molly, his attention was now turned on Wanda.

"You are far too accustomed to circumstances working out in your favour," Famine remarked. Molly still pinned beneath him, he reached for a collection of spidery red threads below Wanda's feet and yanked.
The ground had been weakened by the battles waged on the New York streets and it didn't take much, just a nudge from Marius, to cause it to collapse under Wanda's feet. She stumbled as the sink hole suddenly opened up underneath her, a chasm to the tunnels that zigzagged for miles under the city - sewers and subways, home once (and perhaps still) to a group of forgotten mutants.

Her hands scrambled at the edge even as her body swung in suddenly open air and Wanda found herself dangling above a seemingly never ending black hole.

Molly shook away the feeling of being played like a basketball. There was a little crater underneath her head too. She glanced over to see Wanda, her eyes widening before she bit her lip and suddenly yanked Marius's head down to bring him closer, then dug her thumbs in his eyes, pressing as hard as she could. Her eyes blazed purple.

Wademan had told her once if you had to fight dirty to do it if you had to. Or something.

Famine whipped away with a snarl of pain. His bulging vertebrae spiked like the quills of a porcupine in a tactic that would have inflicted grievous damage on most, but to Molly succeeded only in interfering with her grip.

The window did not go to waste. The Horseman rolled onto his front and reached around to grab Molly by the hair.

"And you," he hissed, eyes still squeezed shut, "are becoming irritating."

Molly tried to get up but he had her hair. She twisted around, looking for a way to get him to let go and resorted to swinging wildly.

"Well...you smell like rotten eggs!"

Famine brought her around to face him. His eyes, bloodshot from her attack, began to redden in a different manner.

"Touche," he said as a crimson glow painted her face. He smiled.

"Die with the last word."

The throw sent her hard into a five-story building, but Molly was small; the impact did nothing more than collapse part of an outer wall. However, Famine wasn't finished. With the remainder of the power he'd absorbed from Wanda, he hit the building with a single, massive hex bolt.

Years of neglect, abuse, and natural stresses finally took their toll. Girders creaked, mortar crumbled, and the entire building collapsed on Molly like a house of cards.

_______




So this was New York City now. Remy could recognize the street. On the corner had been a small Eitiran restaurant that Ororo had discovered one afternoon, managing to pry him out of the office to join her there for lunch. It had been small and cramped, but through a rear hallway opened into a narrow rear patio that had somehow coaxed a massive canopy of grape vines up the surrounding bricks and concrete, growing towards the sky. It had been a surprising oasis; cool and clear and unexpected in the harshness of the surrounding city blocks.

The building was rubble now, part of a corner that had been bombed out and burnt to the ground. Some buildings showed signs of futuristic use; sided in materials that he could only guess at, bristling with sat-com clusters and tight beam burst emitters. But they were a few beside the rest of the teetering cityscape, deeply scarred by years of war. Here, only the shadow of Apocalypse's great Citadel mattered as it rose on the banks of the Hudson. It dwarfed the next tallest towers, and from the apex, Remy could only imagine the view.

He understood a little better why his alternate self had chosen to try and take out the man himself. Only here did the danger he represented finally come into focus; not just a madman, but a man who would break the world in order to possess it. He shook away the thought, coming back to the job at hand.

"Talk to me, Cannonball. Remy not seeing any 'Horsemen' yet."

"Negative here too, I-" Sam started, stopping when a blur of motion caught the corner of his eye. "Hold on, we've got... looks like a couple dozen people moving together, faceless black-suited figures." He swerved in the air to try and get a better look at them. "Not Horsemen, but there's a ton of 'em."

Before he could get more than a glancing look, a thing -like a winged horse, but half again the height and width, with scales and leathery wings dropped down out of the sky. It fell gracelessly past Sam, and then unfurled enormous ragged wings and soared past him, nearly clipping his legs as it caught the updraft created by his powers.

Another dropped down past him, and then a third, and between them, a vehicle hovered just long enough that its passenger could be seen, and then it too dropped down past him, landing in the middle of the street.

"Stay overhead, Sam. Try and cut off any reinforcements." Remy snapped open his staff and walked forward into the street, keeping an eye on the figure. Which surprise was coming this time?

"Copy that." managed Sam while watching out for any more surprises from above or below, ready to intercept them should any appear. Remy was more than capable of taking care of himself but he'd likely have his hands full with... whatever the heck those things were. He readjusted his course to try and track just where those creatures had come from in the first place, in the hopes of intercepting any more that might be coming and to try and get the drop on them by meeting them head-on.

As the vehicle touched down, it shimmered and rippled, as though it was made of liquid metal, and then shifted, becoming an enormous woman, moving forward on a body that ended in a long tail. She was scaled in grey and black, but the long tail was thick and white and segmented, ending not in a rattle but a blunt end. Her hair draped over her shoulders, also ghostly white and wet, and segmented like the tail -not snakes, but maggots. It slithered towards Remy, tail whipping wildly, and reared up, half again as tall as he was, and wielding a sword as long as his staff.

For many people, the scene would have been paralysing, but there was something not finished about the movements. It didn't exist fully in the space, according to his spatial sense. Part illusion? Either way, he wasn't about to believe anything at face value.

"Impressive. Didn't know dat Apocalypse had mythical figures on de payroll. What is dat... de gorgon or something? Remy can almost see de CGI."

The gorgon tilted its head, seeming to consider the figure standing before it, and then rushed forward, slashing at him with the sword. As it lunged, the maggots that made up its hair lashed out as well, stretching out further and further and trying to bite with mouths that dripped goo.

"I don't think so." Remy said flatly. He barely moved to sidestep the sword, allowing it to pass a hair's breath past him. The lunge drove it forward and off-balance, and as the snakes closed, his fingers flickered. A half dozen cards lanced out, enveloping the creature's head and deadly coif in explosive energy.

The explosions left the creature nearly decapitated, torso and arms cratered and oozing a opaque white fluid. It slithered on a few meters on sheer momentum and then shrunk in on itself and disappeared, leaving traces of slime on the street and crumbling sidewalks.

The quiet from the creature's disappearance lasted barely a moment, and then as though it had left behind its young, a swarm of leeches came up from the shadows - from under abandoned dumpsters and behind shattered metal doors, and in between cracks in the street and buildings. They ignored Remy, and came together to form a slithering humanoid shape.

"Dat wasn't entirely what Remy expected." He muttered under his breath. Protean mutant, illusion or magic? Entirely too many options. The Cajun reached down and picked up a rock from the rubble around them, weighing it in his hand. When the creature finally turned, he unleashed a throw, the rock now outlined by a corona of purple energy. Instead of the extremities, Remy had aimed dead centre, striking it in the middle of the wriggling mass.

As it had before, the creature exploded, bursting out in gobs of wet goo that splattered noisily on the ground and buildings. It left behind stumps made of the leeches, and those quickly dissolved as well, leaving nothing behind.

There was a whirring behind Remy, the sound of near-silent motors coming in behind him, and as he turned he could see the vehicle landing. Its rider slid off, and stood. "Fair bargain then, since no one expected you either. LeBeau, you are dead. How are you haunting this place?"

"Maybe you boss isn't as strong as he thinks. Or Remy just particularly hard to kill." He saluted with the staff. "So, you think dat you now 'Death', do you, Marie-Ange? You think you really understand de slightest thing 'bout what dat means?"

"What I think is irrelevant." Death took a slow step back, and then the pavement came up around her, forming a grey dusty-looking golem that appeared to be made of concrete and gravel. "You were killed once, you can be killed again." The voice came from the center mass of the thing that had surrounded her, and it lurched forward, more graceful than a ten-foot-rock-thing should've been, bringing both fists down onto the ground in a hammerblow that cracked the road.

"Dat's mistake number one." He dodged back from the blow. The golem was quickly peppered with cards, breaking off chunks as it swung for him.

Like the gorgon, and the thing made of leeches, the golem took visible damage from the explosions, leaving it pocked and oozing. Unlike the previous two, it kept going - the chunks that broke off sublimated -but the cracks and craters smoothed over, leaving it smaller, but whole and still attacking. It swung its rocky fists in wide arcs, faster than anything that large or heavy should've been able to.

"See, killing isn't death. Most people don't understand dat. Dey think of death as violent." Remy twisted and his staff erupted with a trail of energy as he whipped it past the wild swings. It connected precisely on the inside of the left arm, shattering it from the body. "Death is peace. It comes and it takes de pain away. You see dat last moment, when de spark dies out, either instantly quick or a quiet fade. It's where everyt'ing dat batters us finally stops."

Talking was good; talking was distracting. Most of all, talking gave them something else to focus on. This was a different Marie-Ange gone down a different path, but wherever and how ever she'd gone, it was one Remy could keenly remember walking himself. "Non, petite, you not Death. But you want to be Murder, as dat is something dat you understand just as little 'bout."

And then the golem stopped, unmoving except for the occasional ripple through its form, like the ground at the epicentre of an earthquake. The wild swings ceased, the grinding noises as it had moved towards Remy went silent - it was as if it was a statue, made of gelatin.

When it shuddered and collapsed, in a flood of goo, it was empty -the woman who had been inside it gone.
LeBeau simply grounded his staff and waited; in part trusting his spatial awareness and in part hoping that he was starting to get to her.

"You ever thought 'bout what it takes to truly murder someone?"

The voice came from behind him, though when he turned, there was no one there. "I would have predicted you would say death is release, not peace, but I suppose you would know. You do still outnumber me by a factor of ten." Death stepped out from behind a overturned van. "If I keep you talking, are you going to explain how you came back from an execution?"

"Simple. Apocalypse understands even less den you 'bout murder." He keep a wary bead on her movements, his powers filling up his head with angles, timing and objects in motion. Just a little more. "In all, dis is one sad excuse for an empire. A pile of rubble and a building screaming inadequacy issues. Always de problem wit' conquerors. Tend to be good at de process, and completely useless at figuring out just what dey want to have when dey win."

"Well, that was very entertaining but not useful at all." Death said dryly. "I do not suppose you are going to give me any sort of straight answer, which I really should have expected." She spread her arms, gloved fingers barely visible at the ends of the long sleeves of the grey cloak and laughed. The cloak grew darker, like ink soaking a parchment as she spoke. Long bones slid out of the sleeves, and the skeletal hands wrapped around a scythe that looked just a little too long to be right.

"I am not sure why you think I care about what you think. You know I never did."

"Careful now. You abandonment issues are showing." Remy pointed the staff at her before starting to speak in a sotto voice, goading her. "So when my replacement family didn't love me enough, I joined a lunatic to take over the world and show them. He calls me Death. Isn't that, like, deep."

The pointed end of the scythe and Remy's staff were almost touching, and he smiled. "But, sure, you want a straight answer, Marie-Ange? Here's one; you haven't started to impress me."

Death opted to remain silent, and brought the scythe down in a brutal arc, sweeping past the staff.

The scythe was easily parried as Remy spun. As he did, he swiped his hand through the mud at his feet, coating it in grime. He blocked the backspin high, and thrust forward, hand suddenly glowing. The mud,
flaring off kinetic energy as it was charged was like a torch dipped in pitch, fueling the energy's corona high and hot as the inorganic material burned through the creature's ectoplasm like butter. His fist punched all the way through, but instead of a body inside, the creature merely melted off around his arm.

"She was never dere." Remy said quietly. "Now... I might be a little impressed."

A shower of broken concrete and broken glass rained down on Remy and his opponent, followed by clouds of ash and dust. Cannonball was chased by a crack of thunder, as he skidded like a stone off the side of broken structure above them. Sam's skipping blast off the building sent up shadows, reaching out like dark fingers towards him.

He was invulnerable blasting, but that didn't mean he wasn't untouchable. Worse, he could be misdirected and aimed at others. Remy launched a set of cards, punctuating those closest.

"Guthrie!" Remy yelled, but he couldn't catch his attention.

The trio of batwinged horses flew in a tight formation above Sam, matching his speed. One broke off, pulling its wings in tightly and dropped in a head-first dive towards him.

Sam noticed the diving monster just a hair too late. He reacted, veering sharply to one side in an attempt to dodge the assault, but not quick enough to completely avoid the creature. It grazed him slightly, bouncing off of his forcefield and knocking Sam askew with an audible grunt.

The impact was followed by a splash of goo and fog that obscured Sam's vision momentarily - until his forcefield burned off the glop from the dissolving creature. The other two flying monsters swooped in, clawed feet first, and like the first, dove in towards him. These two, however, pulled up before impact, crowding Sam in between them. One closed in to try to bump him, glancing off the forcefield, and then the other came in from the opposite side.

Sandwiched between them both, Sam quickly realized he was boxed in and braced himself for what he was about to do next. He concentrated hard and focused on reversing his powers, aiming to throw himself into reverse as it were. It had a hard jarring impact on his body, even when he'd slowed down some before trying it, but it got him clear of his two enemies at least.

The abrupt departure of their target seemed to stun the creatures into immobility, and then - just as suddenly - they disappeared.

For a moment, the skies were clear, and Sam twisted to turn around the skeleton of a near-destroyed skyscraper. As he passed the concrete and steel beams, the building grew nodules. They erupted by the dozens, forming batwinged green things that leapt out at him in swarms, trying to grab at him with clawed fingers and toes.

"What in the name of-" Sam started taking evasive action before he could finish that thought, twisting and turning in the air. Some of the things bounced off of him, but a few landed on his forcefield, throwing off his ability to navigate with their additional bulk and the impact of them landing on him.

"Get. Off. Of me!" he bellowed, aiming for a nearby overhanging girder. He plowed through the weakened metal, knocking off the creatures that were on him in the process but ricocheting off at an awkward angle as a result. And there were still more of those things coming.

The gremlins were indeed still coming, seeming to come out of nowhere -shadows, building overhands, the underside of girders. Maybe one in ten successfully connected with Sam, and half of those slid off his forcefield, but one - large, and scaly, with goggles and dreadlocks that whipped in the wind managed to get him around the head. Its claws couldn't get through his forcefield, but it clung onto him, still trying to bite and claw and managing to obscure his vision.

Grumbling under his breath, Sam almost muttered aloud what else could go wrong, stopping short of tempting the fates. He bobbed and weaved up and down, hoping to shake off this gigantic hitchhiker, finally just skyrocketing upward as fast and as steep as possible in an attempt to get rid of him. If he could get high enough into the atmosphere there'd be a lot less oxygen, if that was what the monster breathed anyway, and if not it could hopefully freeze at the very least.

As he climbed, the gremlin grew heavier, and the unmistakable feeling of ice spread down his back and legs. It thrashed wildly, clubbing Sam several times with clawed hands that broke off into frozen shards, and then kept hammering at his back with the stumps. As he somersaulted to turn around before the air grew too thin, the thing gave one more violent shake and let off a high-pitched hissing whistle, like a tea kettle about to boil over.

The shrieking grew louder, almost to the point of piercing. There was one last shake, and then the weight and cold were gone, as if they'd simply vanished. Sam had a moment of reprieve, and then something slammed into him, both hot and cold at the same time.

The shock sent Sam reeling, both mentally and physically, especially coming so soon from ridding himself of his most recent annoyance. Caught off balance, he didn't have a chance to counter the impact and found himself flying towards a nearby building. He was unable to change his course but his powers protected him as he smashed through wood and concrete, coursing through the building and emerging much closer to the ground than he cared to be.

Sam pulled up, angling up so he buzzed just ten feet off of the ground or so, and he began to loop backward to see what the heck had hit him. That was when he noticed another battle nearby, and he turned his head to see Remy and Death.

Gambit was as he ever was in a fight - moving inhumanly fast and striking and dodging with precision that was unerringly accurate – far more than any man should have been able to do. Death had changed, now
a tall figure robed in black and wielding a scythe with skeletal arms - and nearly meeting Gambit's speed and agility.

In the moment that Sam turned his head to assess, he was buzzed - literally. A one-person speeder rose up past him, coming so close as to clip him - and then rushed past him with the high-pitched buzz of a racing motorcycle.

The shadows melted off the building, and emerged from the ground, expanding into bloated creatures, no two the same, all shiny with bloat and rot and mould. They came up in a wave, crawling and slithering and writhing over each other in their haste to reach their target.

"Dis is getting-" Behind Remy, a wall came down and nearly crushed him. From behind it swarmed another wave of faceless creatures, fangs and claws extended. His staff whirled a tight arc, exploding them almost as fast as they came. But there was no end to the swarm, forcing him back step by step. She hadn't been this relentless before. Why now?

Unless-

The blow sent him sprawling.

Death, again in her pearly white cloak stepped out of the swarm, parting it smoothly. As she strode forward, the robe melted, showing the bone-white armor she wore underneath, one glove now stained with red. "You did not think that the only thing I have gotten from Apocalypse was his approval, did you?." She stopped and picked up a fallen metal pole, and ripped the crumpled "No Parking" sign off of it. "I know you were smarter than that before we killed you the first time."

"Right, dat was de end of playing nice." Remy wiped the blood from his mouth. His hand moved almost too fast to follow, and the card streaked past her. It struck what seemed to be a random pile of rubble behind her. But in the midst of the rubble was the top cap of a gas main that he had seen before. The kinetic energy tore open the gas main and ignited the residual gas, tearing up the street and enveloping Death in flame.

The flame spluttered out too fast, like it was extinguished, but evenly. The tattered awning on a building still burned, the heap of a car smouldered - but the space where Death had been was a hissing, steaming puddle of goo - and from behind Remy, three stories up, a hoverbike sped past, it's rider wrapped in a pale grey cloak.