Beginnings and Ends - Post 5
(Hey boys and girls - if you want interaction between another person’s mutant, let me know and we’ll work out a way to do it. You can just talk with them, or I can write it if it gets a little complicated, as I’ve done with this post. Also, sorry for the length!
-Dean)
Raucous was impressed - but frankly, not surprised - that Emma Frost knew her way around the slinking catacombs beneath the former Xavier mansion. What was above lied in ruins, but this “subbasement” had been left relatively in tact. Lucky for them.
On the way to New York, Raucous explained his plan - bring Forge, the leader of the New York resistance, back to England to fix the Braddock supercomputer; run the sentinel blue prints now in Raucous’ knapsack through the computer to run various simulations; understand how the sentinels were programmed to design the concentration camps, and from this derive what the blue prints of each camp would look like; attempt to find weak spots in the defenses of the camp; come back to New York and free the mutants. It was a long shot, but it had to work. And it meant bouncing back and forth, continent hopping like it was no big deal.
“Then once we get to Cerebro, I’ll locate another mutant who will be able to help with that,” Emma replied as she continued through the caves.
“How did you…? Blazin’ telepath.” Raucous should’ve learned. “Stop sneaking around my mind.”
“Stop broadcasting your thoughts. You want to attract the sentinels? Stop thinking so hard! We’re almost there.”
And sure enough, as soon as she said that, she reached a metal panel constructed into the rock. Entering a code, a wall near the panel slid backwards, reveal hallways upon hallways constructed from metal.
“Magnus must have had a field day with this little beauty.” Raucous murmured.
“Magneto helped build Cerebro. Bite your tongue.”
He followed Frost down the twisted hallways, past the Danger Room, the War Room, the Rec Room - everything had to have a room, didn’t it? Why could there just be one fuck-all chamber?
“We’re here.” Emma had stopped in front of a large door embossed with a metal X. “It’s behind this door. Now let me just enter the code…” the electric panel sparked as her fingers touched it. “What on Earth?! It can’t be! The panel is broken!”
“Leave this one to me.” Raucous inhaled and let a yell towards the door, he could feel his throat strain, beg to fall apart, plead for water, always he wanted water. But the door flew backwards, and fell down below into a bottomless chamber.
“Be careful!” Emma hissed. “You could’ve destroyed the machine.”
“But I didn’t. Now, let’s find us an Injin-man and get us outta here.”
Finally, my plan is coming to fruition. Soon I will have surrounded myself with the most powerful mutants of the world. They will come to me in Death and be given life anew, a most wondrous rebirth to serve the Apocalypse! And now, this fantastic creature, this Sin-je, so delicate, so strong. She…she will be my greatest creation yet. For the world will suffer the all consuming fires of…the Famine.
Colossus had been preparing himself all day for what was about to happen. He had even rubbed the bars of his prison against his body, reminding himself what cool metal felt like. It had been years since he had used his mutant power, he was beginning to forget he had one. It seemed that his comrades were doing the same, Pitch lying down with his fingers in his ears, Daniel blowing heat onto his hands, Fugu stretching his legs, rubbing his arms roughly. An escape, conducted by geriatrics too old to use their powers and children to young to have ever been trained on them. The odds looked good.
He had not seen the greatest geriatric of them all, Logan. His help would’ve been much appreciated, but so would a lot of things - Colossus could acknowledge the small wonders of having 3 mutants to work at his side, looking out for each other.
The thunderous footsteps approached.
“Mutants. You are to come with this unit.” Not even asking. Someone needed to teach these robots some pleasantries. And just like that, his collar began to tighten. What was going on? It felt like immense…electricity…the others as well…
Everything went black.
Pitch woke up in a vast chamber. He didn’t need to check to see if the collar was on; he could hear normally. And what he heard was sickening.
Crrrrrrrrrunch
Crrrrrrrrrunch
The Grinder. Appropriate.
He raised his head and saw Colossus, Fugu, and Daniel lying on the floor as well. Daniel saw him and motioned for him to go back down. Pitch quickly lay down and closed his eyes again. He was suddenly grateful for the collar.
He heard a door swing open behind him - trying to get his bearings by picking out sounds - and an unmistakable voice. Its mechanical whirling betrayed its speaker.
“This mutant has caused too much trouble. He is to be terminated with the others.”
He heard a thud near to him, and then a human voice - Flicker’s. Somebody hadn’t been knocked out.
“You want me you fucking piece of garbage? Come and get me! I don’t need my mutant powers to take you down, trash can!”
“You will wait your turn, mutant.” A different direction. At least two sentinels. Visualize the sound, Pitch, visualize and plan. “This mutant is to be terminated first.” A mechanism overhead, getting louder, and suddenly Pitch was off the ground, his legs being squished between two giant metal pillars. Sentinel fingers, no doubt. He braced himself for the noise - prepared to divert the sound waves around his body so that he wouldn’t deafen himself when the collar came off. And then, it happened. The pop, and sudden and absolute silence. He could not see. He could not hear. He could only feel that he was still moving, swinging in the air towards some insensible goal. Why was he still moving?! He had to find out.
Pitch opened his eyes. The others were still lying on the floor. Their collars hadn’t been removed! The sentinels were killing them one by one, and he would be the first to die! This was all wrong! The plan was….
Suddenly, the sounds of the world came flooding into his mind.
A dog barking in a park in Beijing.
A man, letting out a moan after masturbating, in Paris.
The crash of metal falling on metal in a manor in upstate New York.
A fire alarm in a dorm building at Oxford.
A telephone conversation coming from both Madrid and Barcelona.
A grandmother screaming after an ex-convict, laughing, who had robbed her purse.
A woman, gasping for breath in the sea near Genosha.
A child laughing at a cartoon in Scotland.
A German man, praying in Toronto.
Every drop of rain landing on the rooftops of Tokyo in a thunderstorm.
Demands for justice in Buenos Aires.
The snap of a golf ball flying through the air in North Carolina.
An elderly gentleman, slurping pasta in Florence.
The maniacal laughter from a tomb deep beneath Cairo.
Pitch was so deafened by the world that filled his head when he had let go that he did not distinguish the sound of the wall crumbling immediately behind him. Eyes open, his world was an amalgamation of color so powerful, it was at once white.
Death appeared at the foot of the crumbling wall, not hesitating, not thinking, just running. Claws pierced through the skin of his knuckles, old friends, and weapons he was well accustomed to. Three sentinels, now, not two. Twelve humans with energy guns. Piece of cake. But not alone. Don’t wait. Don’t think. Just run.
It seemed like James - sometimes Logan, sometimes Wolverine - now Death - had always been running, and had never had a moment in his life to stop. The line between running from and running to was always blurred, and to or from what certainly was never defined. If Death were at that time capable of his forming coherent thoughts above the slash of adamantium through skin and the cries for help quenched in blood, he would’ve realized that this was the perfect example. He ran to Flicker, throwing him the key to the collars used in the camp to control the mutants’ powers; but was he really running to Flicker, or away from the sentinels? Out of the corner of his eye he dimly saw Flicker running to uncollar the other mutants - Fugu, and two others, one he recognized from a lifetime ago; he couldn’t remember which. Flicker’s hands were like magic, unlocking the collars before Flicker himself even really reached each of the prisoners. But Logan didn’t pay much attention to any of this, he was running again, this time running to the sentinels - running to embrace death, or running to escape fate? He jammed a claw in a giant purple leg, and began climbing up to the back of the machine.
And now he was dodging bullets. Flicker had gotten hold of some of the weapons on the personnel that Death had taken down, and in his haste had begun to fire on one of the sentinels. As it turned around, Death was exposed to the rain of energy fire, quickly swinging as he hung from one claw on the back of the sentinel. It seemed to last hours; Flicker was infinitely faster, letting go of the trigger and kicking backwards, landing his foot in the throat of an oncoming guard. He wasn’t the only one Death had to pay attention to.
Fugu was near another one of the freed prisoners who had found a lighter in the pocket of one of the dead guards now. Death did a count. Eight humans left. As his blade ripped down and he glided to the floor, it brought the count of sentinels down to two. Fugu, right.
The man near him lit the lighter and blew into a sentinel’s face, the fire growing and consuming the entire upper half of the machine. Fugu was doing everything he could to keep the other guards in the area off of the man with the lighter. Kicking. Punching. Running. Grabbing, which inevitably seemed the most effective. Two more were down clawing at their skin as it broke out in hives. The sentinel emerged.
“This unit constructed of flame retardant materials. Your powers are useless. Submit, mutants.”
The other one, the familiar one, suddenly became a sheet of metal and slammed his body weight against the leg of the sentinel.
“It’s buckling, Colossus! Keep going!” He didn’t know where that came from. Death was already on to the third sentinel.
Crash.
There was a ledge nearby the sentinel. Death climbed up onto it and poised himself to jump. Always running.
Crash.
As he flung himself through the air, he retracted his claws. To keep him up, they would have to go in at just the right time, or they would penetrate deep enough. Time it carefully. Always running.
Crash…?
There was a noise, but it came at him from a different way. A fifth mutant, one Death hadn’t paid attention to, was lying on the floor conducting his hands. And Death was no longer paying attention to his sentinel. Shit. He flew to the ground, landing at a giant foot. The sentinel above Colossus, the man with the lighter, and Fugu began to turn around in circles.
“Error. Error. Error 5-9326. Unit stability compromised. Gravitational balance disrupted. Error. Error.” And it came crashing down, right over Fugu.
Suddenly the sickly man was giving orders. “Quickly, help me!”
The man with the lighter reached to Fugu and took his hand.
“Haha, fool!” Fugu threw the man down to the ground as he writhed in pain. It was not for long. The sentinel’s entire body smashed upon the floor like an eggshell. Fugu did not look back.
Colossus look on in shock. “Daniel! Hang on, I will save you comrade!”
The final sentinel stepped forward. “Cease and desist mutant, and your life will be spared.”
It was time to make his escape. He ran over to Flicker, “lets get out of here,” and Fugu, “move it, lanky, we don’t have time to spare,” and ran out of the same hole he had entered in.
“It’s over! We fuckin’ did it!” For once, Flicker’s grin was not mischievous but genuine.
Death shook his head. Always running. “It is just the beginning.”
-Dean)
Raucous was impressed - but frankly, not surprised - that Emma Frost knew her way around the slinking catacombs beneath the former Xavier mansion. What was above lied in ruins, but this “subbasement” had been left relatively in tact. Lucky for them.
On the way to New York, Raucous explained his plan - bring Forge, the leader of the New York resistance, back to England to fix the Braddock supercomputer; run the sentinel blue prints now in Raucous’ knapsack through the computer to run various simulations; understand how the sentinels were programmed to design the concentration camps, and from this derive what the blue prints of each camp would look like; attempt to find weak spots in the defenses of the camp; come back to New York and free the mutants. It was a long shot, but it had to work. And it meant bouncing back and forth, continent hopping like it was no big deal.
“Then once we get to Cerebro, I’ll locate another mutant who will be able to help with that,” Emma replied as she continued through the caves.
“How did you…? Blazin’ telepath.” Raucous should’ve learned. “Stop sneaking around my mind.”
“Stop broadcasting your thoughts. You want to attract the sentinels? Stop thinking so hard! We’re almost there.”
And sure enough, as soon as she said that, she reached a metal panel constructed into the rock. Entering a code, a wall near the panel slid backwards, reveal hallways upon hallways constructed from metal.
“Magnus must have had a field day with this little beauty.” Raucous murmured.
“Magneto helped build Cerebro. Bite your tongue.”
He followed Frost down the twisted hallways, past the Danger Room, the War Room, the Rec Room - everything had to have a room, didn’t it? Why could there just be one fuck-all chamber?
“We’re here.” Emma had stopped in front of a large door embossed with a metal X. “It’s behind this door. Now let me just enter the code…” the electric panel sparked as her fingers touched it. “What on Earth?! It can’t be! The panel is broken!”
“Leave this one to me.” Raucous inhaled and let a yell towards the door, he could feel his throat strain, beg to fall apart, plead for water, always he wanted water. But the door flew backwards, and fell down below into a bottomless chamber.
“Be careful!” Emma hissed. “You could’ve destroyed the machine.”
“But I didn’t. Now, let’s find us an Injin-man and get us outta here.”
Finally, my plan is coming to fruition. Soon I will have surrounded myself with the most powerful mutants of the world. They will come to me in Death and be given life anew, a most wondrous rebirth to serve the Apocalypse! And now, this fantastic creature, this Sin-je, so delicate, so strong. She…she will be my greatest creation yet. For the world will suffer the all consuming fires of…the Famine.
Colossus had been preparing himself all day for what was about to happen. He had even rubbed the bars of his prison against his body, reminding himself what cool metal felt like. It had been years since he had used his mutant power, he was beginning to forget he had one. It seemed that his comrades were doing the same, Pitch lying down with his fingers in his ears, Daniel blowing heat onto his hands, Fugu stretching his legs, rubbing his arms roughly. An escape, conducted by geriatrics too old to use their powers and children to young to have ever been trained on them. The odds looked good.
He had not seen the greatest geriatric of them all, Logan. His help would’ve been much appreciated, but so would a lot of things - Colossus could acknowledge the small wonders of having 3 mutants to work at his side, looking out for each other.
The thunderous footsteps approached.
“Mutants. You are to come with this unit.” Not even asking. Someone needed to teach these robots some pleasantries. And just like that, his collar began to tighten. What was going on? It felt like immense…electricity…the others as well…
Everything went black.
Pitch woke up in a vast chamber. He didn’t need to check to see if the collar was on; he could hear normally. And what he heard was sickening.
Crrrrrrrrrunch
Crrrrrrrrrunch
The Grinder. Appropriate.
He raised his head and saw Colossus, Fugu, and Daniel lying on the floor as well. Daniel saw him and motioned for him to go back down. Pitch quickly lay down and closed his eyes again. He was suddenly grateful for the collar.
He heard a door swing open behind him - trying to get his bearings by picking out sounds - and an unmistakable voice. Its mechanical whirling betrayed its speaker.
“This mutant has caused too much trouble. He is to be terminated with the others.”
He heard a thud near to him, and then a human voice - Flicker’s. Somebody hadn’t been knocked out.
“You want me you fucking piece of garbage? Come and get me! I don’t need my mutant powers to take you down, trash can!”
“You will wait your turn, mutant.” A different direction. At least two sentinels. Visualize the sound, Pitch, visualize and plan. “This mutant is to be terminated first.” A mechanism overhead, getting louder, and suddenly Pitch was off the ground, his legs being squished between two giant metal pillars. Sentinel fingers, no doubt. He braced himself for the noise - prepared to divert the sound waves around his body so that he wouldn’t deafen himself when the collar came off. And then, it happened. The pop, and sudden and absolute silence. He could not see. He could not hear. He could only feel that he was still moving, swinging in the air towards some insensible goal. Why was he still moving?! He had to find out.
Pitch opened his eyes. The others were still lying on the floor. Their collars hadn’t been removed! The sentinels were killing them one by one, and he would be the first to die! This was all wrong! The plan was….
Suddenly, the sounds of the world came flooding into his mind.
A dog barking in a park in Beijing.
A man, letting out a moan after masturbating, in Paris.
The crash of metal falling on metal in a manor in upstate New York.
A fire alarm in a dorm building at Oxford.
A telephone conversation coming from both Madrid and Barcelona.
A grandmother screaming after an ex-convict, laughing, who had robbed her purse.
A woman, gasping for breath in the sea near Genosha.
A child laughing at a cartoon in Scotland.
A German man, praying in Toronto.
Every drop of rain landing on the rooftops of Tokyo in a thunderstorm.
Demands for justice in Buenos Aires.
The snap of a golf ball flying through the air in North Carolina.
An elderly gentleman, slurping pasta in Florence.
The maniacal laughter from a tomb deep beneath Cairo.
Pitch was so deafened by the world that filled his head when he had let go that he did not distinguish the sound of the wall crumbling immediately behind him. Eyes open, his world was an amalgamation of color so powerful, it was at once white.
Death appeared at the foot of the crumbling wall, not hesitating, not thinking, just running. Claws pierced through the skin of his knuckles, old friends, and weapons he was well accustomed to. Three sentinels, now, not two. Twelve humans with energy guns. Piece of cake. But not alone. Don’t wait. Don’t think. Just run.
It seemed like James - sometimes Logan, sometimes Wolverine - now Death - had always been running, and had never had a moment in his life to stop. The line between running from and running to was always blurred, and to or from what certainly was never defined. If Death were at that time capable of his forming coherent thoughts above the slash of adamantium through skin and the cries for help quenched in blood, he would’ve realized that this was the perfect example. He ran to Flicker, throwing him the key to the collars used in the camp to control the mutants’ powers; but was he really running to Flicker, or away from the sentinels? Out of the corner of his eye he dimly saw Flicker running to uncollar the other mutants - Fugu, and two others, one he recognized from a lifetime ago; he couldn’t remember which. Flicker’s hands were like magic, unlocking the collars before Flicker himself even really reached each of the prisoners. But Logan didn’t pay much attention to any of this, he was running again, this time running to the sentinels - running to embrace death, or running to escape fate? He jammed a claw in a giant purple leg, and began climbing up to the back of the machine.
And now he was dodging bullets. Flicker had gotten hold of some of the weapons on the personnel that Death had taken down, and in his haste had begun to fire on one of the sentinels. As it turned around, Death was exposed to the rain of energy fire, quickly swinging as he hung from one claw on the back of the sentinel. It seemed to last hours; Flicker was infinitely faster, letting go of the trigger and kicking backwards, landing his foot in the throat of an oncoming guard. He wasn’t the only one Death had to pay attention to.
Fugu was near another one of the freed prisoners who had found a lighter in the pocket of one of the dead guards now. Death did a count. Eight humans left. As his blade ripped down and he glided to the floor, it brought the count of sentinels down to two. Fugu, right.
The man near him lit the lighter and blew into a sentinel’s face, the fire growing and consuming the entire upper half of the machine. Fugu was doing everything he could to keep the other guards in the area off of the man with the lighter. Kicking. Punching. Running. Grabbing, which inevitably seemed the most effective. Two more were down clawing at their skin as it broke out in hives. The sentinel emerged.
“This unit constructed of flame retardant materials. Your powers are useless. Submit, mutants.”
The other one, the familiar one, suddenly became a sheet of metal and slammed his body weight against the leg of the sentinel.
“It’s buckling, Colossus! Keep going!” He didn’t know where that came from. Death was already on to the third sentinel.
Crash.
There was a ledge nearby the sentinel. Death climbed up onto it and poised himself to jump. Always running.
Crash.
As he flung himself through the air, he retracted his claws. To keep him up, they would have to go in at just the right time, or they would penetrate deep enough. Time it carefully. Always running.
Crash…?
There was a noise, but it came at him from a different way. A fifth mutant, one Death hadn’t paid attention to, was lying on the floor conducting his hands. And Death was no longer paying attention to his sentinel. Shit. He flew to the ground, landing at a giant foot. The sentinel above Colossus, the man with the lighter, and Fugu began to turn around in circles.
“Error. Error. Error 5-9326. Unit stability compromised. Gravitational balance disrupted. Error. Error.” And it came crashing down, right over Fugu.
Suddenly the sickly man was giving orders. “Quickly, help me!”
The man with the lighter reached to Fugu and took his hand.
“Haha, fool!” Fugu threw the man down to the ground as he writhed in pain. It was not for long. The sentinel’s entire body smashed upon the floor like an eggshell. Fugu did not look back.
Colossus look on in shock. “Daniel! Hang on, I will save you comrade!”
The final sentinel stepped forward. “Cease and desist mutant, and your life will be spared.”
It was time to make his escape. He ran over to Flicker, “lets get out of here,” and Fugu, “move it, lanky, we don’t have time to spare,” and ran out of the same hole he had entered in.
“It’s over! We fuckin’ did it!” For once, Flicker’s grin was not mischievous but genuine.
Death shook his head. Always running. “It is just the beginning.”