Warning for spoilers is currently required for prompts regarding Apocalypse (if the prompt is about something that wasn't in a trailer, then a warning is needed).
Fill: The sky is falling but all I can hear is your voice (1/2)
anonymous
May 30 2014, 23:03:19 UTC
On a godforsaken piece of jagged hillside the figure of Erik Lensherr stood silhouetted in smoke. Above, below, behind, everywhere was smoke. It stung his eyes, his eyes that had seen too much, too many of his people drop to the ground, void of life and dignity. It burned his lungs, which couldn’t remember how grass and sunlight and rain smelled.
Erik stumbled off the craggy rock he couldn’t remember being thrown at and hurled himself back into the fray. He felt his arm clipped by a searing hot knife, slicing through cloth and flesh with no hesitation. He ran from the sentinel wielding the knife, saved by a young mutant-one of Charles’-freezing the weapon in place in a block of solid ice.
Erik’s powers weren’t exactly useful fighting the sentinels. The robots were all made of non-metals polymers and titanium weapons. The designers learned not to employ metals that Erik could manipulate into the weaponry after the launch of the much-anticipated version 2.6 of the sentinel soldiers, which ended with the bots impaled on their own swords, leaking sparks and oil until they’d ignited and burned themselves to a crisp, frozen in their dishonorable, self-inflicted seppuku.
Erik was forced to take a more rudimentary approach to combat. He carried metal on his person-coat hangers, nails, whatever he could grab on short notice-and twisted them into the necks of the electronic creatures. But inevitably, his precious metal would get jammed somewhere deep and he couldn’t retrieve it before he needed to flee.
And that left him here, in a smoldering pit of debris, on a mountain whose name he couldn’t recall because it was just like the battlefield before that, and the one before that. He was far too old to be running and leaping and punching at anything his abused, arthritic knuckles could reach.
Just as Erik reached the edge of today’s battleground, he felt a familiar presence in his mind. The helmet had long ago been knocked loose and crushed, on another scorched piece of earth. Erik’s speed slowed at the soft brush of Charles’ consciousness against his, until he heard On your left reverberate through his entire being.
He turned quickly but not fast enough to avoid the impact of an enormous sledgehammer-shaped appendage to the gut. He grunted and rolled sideways into yet another jagged rock. He felt the overly familiar crunch of broken ribs grinding in his chest. He’d had the air knocked out of him and wheezed for breath, but none would reach his lungs. If he just had a moment to recover himself he knew he could-
But the time for moments had come and gone. This was no fair fight. This was the hunt, an extermination that wouldn’t end until he and all of his kind were dead.
As he watched through the haze of pain and smoke at the approach of the sentinel’s glowing eyes, his broken body refused to move. His spirit, too, lacked the stamina to cry out, to duck, to do anything at all. The sentinel raised the sledgehammer above Erik’s head for what he knew would be the final blow. Farewell, Charles, he thought as loudly as he could. Give them hell for me.
I’m afraid you’ll have to do that yourself, my friend. And with that, Erik was moving again. Without his command, his body tucked and rolled out of the way just as the rock he’d been in front of was pulverized into dust. All of his pain disappeared, walled off from his senses. Like a puppet on strings his limbs moved in accordance with Charles’ bidding until he was running faster than he had in years.
Erik stumbled off the craggy rock he couldn’t remember being thrown at and hurled himself back into the fray. He felt his arm clipped by a searing hot knife, slicing through cloth and flesh with no hesitation. He ran from the sentinel wielding the knife, saved by a young mutant-one of Charles’-freezing the weapon in place in a block of solid ice.
Erik’s powers weren’t exactly useful fighting the sentinels. The robots were all made of non-metals polymers and titanium weapons. The designers learned not to employ metals that Erik could manipulate into the weaponry after the launch of the much-anticipated version 2.6 of the sentinel soldiers, which ended with the bots impaled on their own swords, leaking sparks and oil until they’d ignited and burned themselves to a crisp, frozen in their dishonorable, self-inflicted seppuku.
Erik was forced to take a more rudimentary approach to combat. He carried metal on his person-coat hangers, nails, whatever he could grab on short notice-and twisted them into the necks of the electronic creatures. But inevitably, his precious metal would get jammed somewhere deep and he couldn’t retrieve it before he needed to flee.
And that left him here, in a smoldering pit of debris, on a mountain whose name he couldn’t recall because it was just like the battlefield before that, and the one before that. He was far too old to be running and leaping and punching at anything his abused, arthritic knuckles could reach.
Just as Erik reached the edge of today’s battleground, he felt a familiar presence in his mind. The helmet had long ago been knocked loose and crushed, on another scorched piece of earth. Erik’s speed slowed at the soft brush of Charles’ consciousness against his, until he heard On your left reverberate through his entire being.
He turned quickly but not fast enough to avoid the impact of an enormous sledgehammer-shaped appendage to the gut. He grunted and rolled sideways into yet another jagged rock. He felt the overly familiar crunch of broken ribs grinding in his chest. He’d had the air knocked out of him and wheezed for breath, but none would reach his lungs. If he just had a moment to recover himself he knew he could-
But the time for moments had come and gone. This was no fair fight. This was the hunt, an extermination that wouldn’t end until he and all of his kind were dead.
As he watched through the haze of pain and smoke at the approach of the sentinel’s glowing eyes, his broken body refused to move. His spirit, too, lacked the stamina to cry out, to duck, to do anything at all. The sentinel raised the sledgehammer above Erik’s head for what he knew would be the final blow. Farewell, Charles, he thought as loudly as he could. Give them hell for me.
I’m afraid you’ll have to do that yourself, my friend. And with that, Erik was moving again. Without his command, his body tucked and rolled out of the way just as the rock he’d been in front of was pulverized into dust. All of his pain disappeared, walled off from his senses. Like a puppet on strings his limbs moved in accordance with Charles’ bidding until he was running faster than he had in years.
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