Age of Apocalypse: Homecoming

[x-eidolon.livejournal.com]

The team returns to their bodies, only seconds having elapsed.



The coffee mug clunked at his feet.

His office. He was back in his office.

Jim staggered as a violent trembling seized him. He threw his hand out to his desk for support and the wood splintered under his touch; that same wave of telekinesis shattered the bulb in his desktop lamp, and his laptop contorted with an ugly noise. The varnished wood began to smoke. His mind screamed with it.

It did not go unnoticed. Charles' alarmed attention was now on him, and Jim hurled his memories at the man without warning or permission: the last day that had been only moments, Essex's private dystopia, Rachel's desperation, and begging, demanding that Charles get to Cerebro, that the man chase the slim chance she had survived the collapse of the astral construct and look for her now even though he had felt the amount of power rushing from her as she pushed them back and knew she had kept none for herself.

He missed Charles' response. He knew only that one moment the man was in his mind, and the next he was gone. Maybe to check on the others, maybe to Cerebro. Maybe even to call Moira and Nathan. Either way it had had the desired effect. Jim was alone in his head again.

He sank to the floor, oblivious to the old coffee soaking into the knees of his jeans, and covered his face with his hands.

Dad . . . Dad, I'm sorry, we did something bad . . .


****

Sam's instincts kicked in, his powers flaring to life and enveloping him in his forcefield almost instantaneously. He pulled up out of his nosedive, the wind no longer screaming in his ears and face with his powers activated, and with a lot of effort and a not inconsiderate amount of G force later he'd avoided a crash landing and was flying easy once again. Sam let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and sighed.

"Well, that sure was interestin'."


****

A splash into the hot water, a moment of disorientation and pure panic and the bath water turned a jewel tone red before the entire bathtub suddenly shattered into a million pieces. Wanda fell amongst the shards and water, coughing up what little she had swallowed and laid there as she heard Stephen calling out in worry deeper into the house.

None of the damage that she had 'suffered' in the astral plane was there - just smooth skin and old scars. But the mental pain still radiated.

Pushing herself up, she reached for Strange as he ran in. "My phone," Wanda said, letting him wrap his arms around her. He helped her avoid the worst of the damage but she wasn't thinking about the shards of porcelain on the floor. She needed to find her phone, needed to call Remy - she needed to make sure they had all made it out in one piece. And they needed to figure out what was going to happen next.

****

Remy landed on the floor with a heavy thud, the shock of the transition jolting him, leaving the mutant heavily and uncharacteristically disoriented as he lay on the carpet beside the low bed.

Ororo was awake in a heartbeat - though she hadn't fretted when she had turned over in her sleep and found him missing his manner of entrance was certainly attention-grabbing. "Remy?" she murmured, wondering how much sake he must've had to trip him up so badly on the way back to bed.

The sound of her voice gave him a point of reference, as his mind tried to stop the swirl of confusion and dislocation. Ororo was here. He could see the small kanji on the signs around the room. Tokyo? Was he back?

"'ro? You dere?"

"Of course, mpenzi." He sounded disoriented, unsettled, and so she pushed herself up, moving to the edge of the mattress and reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. "Let me guess, Tanaka-san dragged you out for 'debriefing' and more bragging about that ridiculous boat he's thinking of buying."

"Non. Rachel found Xorn." With a groan, he struggled to sit up and push himself back on to the edge of the bed. "De whole thing was a setup."

This certainly had her attention; she gave a quiet gasp, her hands sliding to his forearms to help him back onto the bed. "What happened? Where were you?"

"Astral Plane, I think. Somehow Xorn pulled us into Rachel's dimension. But it wasn't a different dimension. It was some kind of stage set up by Essex and Kwannon. De Rachel we met? Dat's not some other world's Rachel. It's Nate and Moira's daughter. De one we thought we saw die." Remy shook his head. The concepts weren't familiar to him, and he was mentally stumbling, trying to process things. "Essex managed to turn her into a... I don't know, psychic being or something, and de trap her in a fake world in order to raise her."

Remy was mildly familiar with Swahili profanity and he knew that the words Ororo muttered then were less than pleasant even as she slid to sit next to him. "Who else was there? Were you able to free her?" She realised she was peppering him with questions and tamped down her burning curiosity, grateful that he seemed to be in one piece, at least. "In your own time, love. Get your bearings first."

"Random group. She-" Remy paused as his phone buzzed. He took a quick look and gave Ororo a nod. "Wanda was dere, and she's safe at home now. But I think dat Rachel sacrificed herself to get us back. How do I tell Moira dat we let her daughter die again?"

"By telling of her bravery and strength with as much sympathy as you have," Ororo murmured, her arms enfolding him as if she could protect him from this eventuality. Outside, thunder rolled. "We will go to her tomorrow."

Deep within the embrace, Remy sighed. "You right. We can handle it tomorrow." Right now, he just wanted to remind himself that he wasn't alone, Ororo was here and real, and in this world, he had something to fight for.

****

Angelo landed heavily back in his chair, knocking it over under him, and then sat unmoving on the floor, somewhere between stunned and devastated at what had just happened.
After a while, he couldn't have said how long, another thought made its way through the fog, just one word.

"...Molly."

It was enough to get him up and running to find her, to make sure she was okay. Because at least he could protect one little girl.

****

Molly had trailed off mid-sentence, and that sometimes happened while she was gathering her thoughts, so Kyle gave it a second before waving a hand in front of her face. "Mols?" She was blinking, but very slowly, and her eyes were jittering around in their sockets, but she was still standing. He reached back into his pocket to grab his phone with one hand, and reached out to poke Molly in the forehead with a finger - claw all the way in -with the other when her eyes went fully open.

Sucking in a breath, Molly met Kyle's eyes for a split second but didn't really see him. The first thing she noticed was that the ceiling was back and there were no holes in it. Maybe that meant everything else was okay too. She darted out the door, sprinting down the hallways as her attention traveled from place to place to place, studying every panel and rug and plant and vase. Nothing was smashed. But it was only when Molly shoved open the doors and ran outside, yards away from the mansion, seeing it there, untouched was when she really knew. She was really back.

Well, Kyle thought, there was a thing he could check off his to do list - have a student run out of his classroom without explanation. He was stunned momentarily, long enough to realize Molly had gone out the
classroom door, and then followed. The closest bathroom was in the opposite direction from where she was going and she seemed confused. "Molly? Mols? You okay?" He called out.

Molly glanced down at herself, patting her clothing, adjusting her hat. There wasn't any dirt either. It was like nothing'd happened, but she remembered things. Stuff she did herself somewhere else and stuff as an adult and her age now but things she didn't actually do because things were different there. There were all these horrible things. Her head hurt from thinking of them.

"Molls?" The smell of fear under Molly's shampoo and food smells and the smells of grass and trees was unusually sharp - like she was scared but in quick lightening flashes instead of the slow build like most people had. "You okay, half-pint?"

The sound of a voice made her tilt her head, and it took her a moment to realize Kyle was there again. But in that moment she saw him covered in bloody rags, with long hair and nails and fur and smelling like dead things. His breath on her face was the straw and she clenched her fist with wide eyes and a gasp.

"Holy shit!" she said with an expletive no one had really heard from her before, swinging a punch at his face. He should not have been there. Not at the mansion. He hadn't been there in awhile.

Holy Shit was right - Kyle was not expecting a fist aiming for him, and not from Molly Hayes. He dodged, moving half on habit, dropping back to throw out a leg to trip her - and then catching himself before he could. Something was wrong and now was not the time to go all block-and-subdue, and even if something had happened, he wasn't about to leg lock a teenage girl. "Molly!" He shouted her name but she was definitely not all there - and almost before he realized she wasn't responding, pulled out his phone and hit the emergency call button.

The punch meant for Kyle connected with Lorna's bright green car instead, sending in tumbling over itself with a series of thuds and rattled and shattering before coming to rest upside down, wheels toward the sky. Molly stared at Kyle, flinching when he yelled like she'd been slapped. The rags went back to normal and he just looked more freaked out than scary. Her brain was still fuzzy. And still hurt.

She felt queasy all of a sudden, so she threw up. It didn't help, though. Kyle and Mary Angie and Marius and Logan, and more. Lots more. The evil man made them evil. All the memories swirled around and pushed around in her brain like they were fighting.

She glanced back up, a deep frown on her face as she clutched her stomach. "Why was everyone evil?" she said. She didn't understand how that helped. Her fuzzy head turned into a dizzy head and her legs gave out as she dropped to the ground.

"Is the professor okay...Logan ate him," she mumbled from the grass, curling up into a ball, her eyes unfocused. "Place isn't safe....Horsemen'll be here any moment....they're like bloodhounds. I hate those guys...DP...dude...slow down...I--"

Her eyes fluttered closed.

"Molly just collapsed. I dunno what happened." Kyle was already explaining as he crouched down to make sure Molly was breathing and not seizing or bleeding from the ears or anything. "One second she was doing a book report, next, running out of the room and then she just kind of freaked. Uh. Someone might wanna tell Lorna - Mols kind of punched her car."

Dr. Voight dismissed the call before Kyle could finish explaining about the car, which he'd sort of expected. He didn't wait for her to arrive - he tabbed down to the next name on his emergency contact list - Haller - and hit the 'text' button. Molly had brain holes, and they might need one of the telepaths, and he didn't know Ms. Frost well enough to call her.