SPN/X-MEN Crossover Part 8/9: Destiny's Denial
Title: SPN/X-Men Crossover Part 8/9: Destiny’s Denial
Author: neutraldeviance
Fandom: This is the eighth part in my X-Men/Supernatural-Verse. There is no established timeline for either fandom.
Rating: R (this chapter for language, violence and other graphic depictions)
Pairings: Sam/Dean, Sam/Peter (implied), Logan/Scott/Jean, Bobby/Ann Marie
Supporting Characters: Ororo Munroe, OMC, OFC, Meg, a slew of other characters
Summary: The final battle rages on, but all may not be as it appears…
Warnings: established relationships, angst, read at your own risk, ~”text”~ is telepathic speech
Word Count: 7,509
Beta: Beta’d by her uber-tasticness sylvanwitch
Disclaimer: The story is mine. The characters are not
A/N: 1) Really, much gratitude goes out to all who have stuck with me through this series and given me your awesome feedback 2) ) This is the link to Part 1: Feral Attraction if you are new to this series ^.^ 3) As always, feedback is still craved
Outside the Base…
Karen Dobbs sat in a chair in the security gatehouse, huddling in the medical blanket that she had been given and sipping the hot coffee the girl had graciously offered. Her piercing blue eyes never strayed far from her three leather-clad companions though. She wasn’t willing to trust so easily, especially after what she had experienced. It was a day she would never forget…
Approximately four hours ago…
“Karen! Snap out of it!” The bespectacled, balding bear of a man in run-of-the-mill office attire and white lab coat had been trying to get Karen’s attention for the past few minutes as he stood there one hand perched on his right hip the other impatiently snapping in front of her face.
The day had gone by, mostly without incident. One of the mutants they were studying had developed some kind of seizure from the new serum they were formulating. So the regular tests had been sanctioned; blood, urine, tissue samples--the whole nine yards. It would be probably another month before they could start again on a new serum. So it wasn’t exactly the best of times for the new lab assistant to venture off into the land of daydreams.
“Um…what? Uh, sorry sir. I must have zoned out.” She blinked back at him through her own glasses, a hint of red flushing her cheeks.
“Karen, we need those samples. Sooner, rather than later.” He grumbled back at her with an exasperated sigh, wondering where in the hell the United States government found the majority of their employees, and off-handedly decided it had something to do with a cracker-jack box.
“Of course, right away, sir.” She stood up from her lab stool where she had been cataloguing healthy mutant cells’ reactions to the new serum under a powerful microscope.
She hated this part. It was mundane busy work that usually got shoveled onto some eager intern’s plate. As it is, this project was too high priority and top secret to entrust its knowledge to new recruits. She sighed as she fetched a pair of surgical gloves and strode quickly into the examination room where the mutant who had the adverse reaction to the new serum lay strapped to a bed.
As usual he graced her with his million-watt smile, pearly teeth flashing in the dim falsetto lighting. His head canted to the side, causing his long rust-colored bangs to fall into his face and hide his extremely exotic red on black eyes.
“Seems I’m all tied up wit’ nowhere t’go, petit. What is it you be planning den, hm? I could t’ink of a few t’ings, cher.”
The mutant’s broken English with the rich Creole-French accent, coupled with his devilishly sexy good looks would have charmed the pants off any other woman, or most any other man as well if the truth be told. But Karen Dobbs was not one to be swayed so easily.
“Nothing exciting today I’m afraid, Mr. LeBeau. We just need to get some more blood samples to determine what went wrong” She replied with faint irritation.
“Damn vampires, all of you. And I told you ‘fore. Stop it wit’ dat ‘Mr. LeBeau’ stuff. Call me Remy.”
Karen huffed a sigh and pulled on her gloves before turning to him and offering a short, curt nod. “Alright, Remy it is. But you signed up for this project, if I remember correctly. When complications like this come up we have to be absolutely sure we know the cause.”
She went to the counter and peeled a sanitized hypodermic needle out of its casing and labeled four different-colored vials for various tests. After preparation was complete she pushed a wheeled tray containing the needle and vials over to Remy’s bedside and swabbed his forearm with alcohol.
“Little prick now…” She had a moment of near satisfaction with the mutant’s pained grunt from the needle stick erupted.
As the vials began to fill, Remy looked at her with a smirk. “I do believe dat you enjoy hurtin’ dis ole’ Cajun. Breaks m’heart, cher!”
She couldn’t help but let a small smile grace her otherwise serious face. She finished up with Remy, filled the required vials with his blood and left the examination room to deliver the specimens. She had no sooner walked into the main lab when all hell broke loose.
First it was the Asian woman with purple hair, one of the mutants they had been studying. Her name was Elizabeth, so the charts said. She waltzed into the room, followed by an impossibly tall dark-haired man, his skin covered in silver metal obviously marking him as a mutant but not one Karen had ever remembered seeing. They were both wearing black hooded robes and their eyes…Karen would never forget their eyes…were black as pitch and their whole demeanor exuded a sense of malice.
Instincts told Karen to get out of the way, so before anyone saw her, she ducked below one of the tables, clutching Remy’s samples so as not to drop them and risk them shattering.
It took every ounce of her will to keep from screaming during the events that followed.
Without a word the two mutants leapt right into action. The first was Dr. Kessler, the man who had demanded the blood samples. The metal-skinned behemoth simply walked up to him and twisted the man’s head right off his body. The demented laugh that resounded from the metal-man echoed around the room and sent an icy chill up Karen’s spine.
In the same move, Elizabeth melted into the shadow of another lab assistant, then rose up behind her, still within her shadow, and rammed her fingers into the woman’s back pushing her still-beating heart through the front of her chest and crushing it in her grip. After Elizabeth had dropped the heart and let the woman’s convulsing body follow it to the floor, she licked her fingers with an ecstatic hum and looked around as if choosing who was next.
That’s when the first of the screams erupted. Lab techs, doctors and scientists all scrambled over each other to get away from the senseless brutality, but they just weren’t fast enough. Within a few short minutes, Elizabeth and the metal-skinned man had drained the last of the cries of horror from the twenty or so people that had been assigned to that sector, leaving a bloody mess of destruction in their wake.
Outside the door, Karen could hear more screams from men and women shouting for help. Gunfire was heard, then more screams and maniacal laughter. Shocked to the core, Karen stayed where she was for a few lingering moments, until she was absolutely positive the two had left. She crawled out from her space, still grasping white-knuckled onto Remy’s blood samples.
Completely forgetting the bound mutant in her haste she rushed towards the door, but forced to a halt when she was confronted with what she could only describe as a huge, swirling mass of living smoke.
It billowed through the doorway and knocked her back with a strength all its own. She was flung backwards and into a glass medicine cabinet. She fell to the floor with a yelp, and in the process dropped Remy’s blood samples. The shattered tubes caused Remy’s blood to splatter all over her lab coat, and that is the moment Karen Dobbs lost it.
She scrambled to her feet, eyes wide as she frantically turned to face the thing that had knocked her down. She felt she was going insane, and maybe she was, because it wasn’t where it had been just moments before. She caught the tail end of the living smoke as it rushed into Remy’s examination room. It was Remy’s scream of bloody murder that kicked her survival instincts into high gear.
On shaking legs, she hurried out the door leading to the hallway, too shocked and fearful to bother with tears. As she rounded the door she thought she heard footsteps coming her way from an adjacent hall and looked around for somewhere to go to get out of whatever’s way. She spotted a storage closet and quickly threw open the door then shoved the contents of one of the shelves to the side and squeezed herself in, shutting the door behind her.
She curled up into a ball, remaining quiet as a mouse.
The Present, Outside the Base…
“I must have passed out or fainted, or maybe both…I don’t know, because the next thing I remember I was being dragged out of the storage closet by that…that…animal.” Karen quickly downed the rest of her coffee, wishing to heaven that she had a nice chilled bottle of Gray Goose instead.
She had decided to tell them what she could remember because they were trying to help her, and they didn’t seem at all like they wanted to hurt her. It still pained her to talk about it though, because some of those people she had known to be kind and generous family-oriented men and women who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She also felt an immense weight come over her, as guilt reared its ugly head. She was the only one of them to survive, so far as she knew. And she had survived because she had hidden like a coward.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it, lady. Take it from me, guilt gets you nowhere.”
Wolverine could smell it all over her, though the expression on her face gave her away just as easily. Karen didn’t dare look at him but to the bottom of her empty cup as she nodded slowly.
“Rogue to Cyclops, come in.”
Cyclops turned away from the others as he pressed the comm. button on his earbud receiver. “Cyclops to Rogue, what’s your status?”
“Very hostile, sir! We’ve found Dean…and we need back-up…..” Then the line went dead just as a deafening crash was heard.
Cyclops yelled into his microphone to Rogue but there was no answer, just dead silence. He switched frequencies.
“Cyclops to Phoenix, what’s your status?” His voice held all the strength of his training, but there was also a hint of wavering devotion as his heart came into play.
“Phoenix to Cyclops, we acknowledge Rogue’s transmission and are en route. We are descending into the lower levels now“ Abruptly, Phoenix opened the mental bond she shared with Cyclops and Wolverine and spoke directly to their minds, in case technology failed them. ~”Project Graffiti is most definitely a go! NOW!”~
The internal channel was immediately abandoned, and the men it was directed to leapt into action.
“Graffiti! Time to earn your paycheck!” Wolverine growled out as he tore open the door to the cramped security house, leading the way into a battle he still wasn’t quite sure they were prepared for.
~~~~
Present…Underground
Dean had fallen to a crouch, murder in his eyes as he looked on at the scene, recognizing demonic magic at work. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as the animal sensibilities within him hissed at the dark energies that permeated the room.
“Sammy? You okay, bro?” He growled out to the lax form strapped to the table that had stopped screaming seconds ago. Sam’s eyes were closed and his lips were slightly open, head lolled to the side. There was no answer. “SAMMY?!”
“Sssshhhh you’ll wake him up, Dean! Can’t you see he’s sleeping?” A deep rumbling chuckle came from Col. O’Connell’s chest as he stood up beside the table, the steaming and bloodied dagger still caught in his grasp.
“Who are you?! If you killed him I’ll RIP YOU APART!” Dean’s piercing glare roamed minutely over the rest of the cloaked assemblage, who were all staring at him with one collective sneer. Their eyes were black as pitch, a demon’s masquerade. He filed away for later the fact that the man he had seen with Sam in Cerebro was among them.
“Oh come now, Dean. Why would I kill him? We were so inseparable once, if you’ll remember.” The demonic gleam in Col. O’Connell’s eyes seemed so very vaguely familiar to Dean. Memories surfaced of a previous hunt in Chicago and a certain blonde-headed bitch they’d left for dead…and the subsequent result of their mistake when that same bitch had taken over Sam’s body.
“Meg.” There was no question in Dean’s voice, and he followed the name with a guttural snarl.
“Bingo! You know? You’re smarter than I gave you credit for. Hmmm, it’s a shame such genius is wasted on a raging animal.” It was meant to antagonize him but only served to help Dean focus his anger into a pinpoint laser shot directed at the Colonel.
O’Connell staggered from the physical force of Dean’s anger as the feral’s pheromones reacted and stirred the similar emotional response in his body. The anger pheromones emitting from Dean were having an effect on everyone present, as a startling unrest began to form among the gathered twelve demon-possessed mutants. Some were fidgeting, others were glowering, but all were feeling a deep-festering rage that bordered on the uncontrollable. They all stayed put in their designated spot, however, for fear of breaking the circle and rendering the arcane summoning powerless.
“You’ve gotten stronger, Dean, m’boy.” O’Connell squared his shoulders and the demon inside him quickly garnered control of the body’s emotions. “Tsk tsk. You don’t wanna make me angry, Dean…you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
“I’m gonna do more than that you fucking hellbitch!”
Dean gathered his strength and leapt up from his haunches with a roar, fingers extending into claws as the force of his jump propelled him up and over the bodies nearest him. Too slow to react to it, O’Connell went rolling to the floor beneath the furious Dean, each trying to gain control of the other. The dagger the Colonel had been holding went skittering to the floor with a metallic clang, and the demonic energy that had been thick as porridge suddenly dispersed with a rumble as the collective demons’ concentration was broken.
“You’re gonna pay for that, Dean Winchester!” O’Connell snarled as the rolling came to a stop and Dean straddled him, his claws braced in a deadly grasp around his neck.
“D..Dean?” Sam’s voice was weak and child-like. He had blacked out from the pain that had seared through him as the symbol was burned into his chest. He had felt a pull from somewhere within the darkness, a light, a beacon of hope, in the form of a feral growl that had brought him back to consciousness.
He half hoped he was in heaven with his dead lover, but the pain in his chest was still there, and he was pretty sure that if it were heaven he wouldn’t be strapped to a summoning altar. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the table calling out again. “D…DEAN?! Please….”
“Sammy?!” The strangled cry that forced its way out of Dean’s throat was filled with hope. The need to feel his mate, kiss him, hold him, be with him was too strong for him to overcome and he ripped himself away from the floored O’Connell and raced to Sam’s side.
With tears of unbridled happiness in his eyes Dean gently laid his hand on Sam’s cheek. When Sam looked at him with those big, beautiful, hazel eyes Dean nearly came undone with emotion as he struggled with the bonds that held his lover fast to the table.
“I..I thought you were dead…they told me you were dead!” Sam’s cracked lips parted in joy, seeing Dean alive and well. They quickly opened in surprise and desperation, though when their moment of happiness was ripped from them. “DEAN! NO!”
Sam saw it before Dean could react to it. Dean rose slowly into the air by an unseen force and was stopped, hovering a few feet above the ground. Dean grunted as he was turned mid-air to face Col. O’Connell, who had regained the fallen dagger and was telekinetically controlling Dean’s body. Meg was filled with a new determination to end the threat of the Winchesters forever.
“We’re going to win this war...it’s pre-ordained, Dean. My only regret is that you and your brother won’t be there to grovel at our feet.”
Dean roared out in frustration as he struggled against the force holding him and failed. The demonic spellcasting began again in earnest, with another sacrifice front row and center.
~~~
Rogue and Siryn had followed Karen’s directions and found the stairwell that led to the lower levels. There was a security key-card module set up, but that didn’t deter Rogue in the slightest. She called another stolen power and her skin transmuted into organic steel. In this form her strength was nearly limitless and was practically immune to just about…well, everything.
Her fingers ripped into the steel door at opposing points and she grabbed hold, literally wrenching the barrier away, causing an echoing metal screech. When she was done, she rested the door on its side against the wall.
“After you, girl.” Rogue smiled sweetly and gestured to the now unbarred entrance as her metal skin reverted back to normal.
Siryn stared wide-eyed at her teammate, marveling at the sheer unfairness of the different abilities Rogue was allowed. All she could do was scream…albeit really, really loud…but it would still be nice to pick and choose whatever power you wanted at any time. She shook her head in amazement as she took the lead.
They made it quickly down the stairs and came upon an empty hallway. All seemed quiet as they pressed on, but soon enough they heard a loud scream of pain and followed its direction. When they reached the room marked “Training.” Rogue caught Siryn’s shoulder and pulled her back.
“Get behind me, Siryn…we don’t know what to expect.” Rogue reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle of blessed Dasani. She uncapped it, and Siryn quickly followed suit. She wasn’t sure exactly how the water was going to help, but Phoenix had assured them during the briefing that it did work and actually temporarily rendered the entity powerless.
“Okay, gal. On three. One…two…” They both ran into the room on ‘three’ tensing for the fight, and were staggered by what they saw. Dean was being held hovering in the air while some guy in a black hooded cloak chanted in some creepy language. A man, presumably Sam, was strapped to a table, naked as the day he was born and looking worse for the wear.
Around them in a perfect circle were more black-cloaked men and women…a few among them they’d had problems with in the past, but one man in the group they considered a very dear friend and teammate.
“PETER!” Rogue called out in a futile attempt to gain his attention and pull him away from this madness. What it did instead was pull the chanting man out of his concentration and focus his pitch-black eyes on the two girls.
“More interruptions?! Why, Dean, you didn’t tell me you brought us gifts!”
“Ah ain’t no ‘gift’, mistuh. You let everyone go an’ Ah’ll go easy on ya…” Rogue’s usually sweet Southern voice was unyielding.
“The Dasani! ROGUE! NOW!” Dean was able to yell out while still struggling against his invisible bonds.
Rogue heard Dean and understood. There was only one way to get to them fast enough. One moment she was there and the next she wasn’t as her form dispersed into a black cloud and then reappeared just inches behind O’Connell, the dark smoky trail of Nightcrawler’s teleportation effect dissipating around her. She wasted no time in splashing the Dasani bottle’s contents into O’Connell’s face.
Rogue stepped back in surprise at the howl of rage and pain that emerged from O’Connell’s mouth as the demonic presence within him reacted to the acidic burn of the holy water.
Dean immediately fell from his hover to the floor. As if expecting it, he took control of the momentum and landed in a crouch. He wasted no time in rolling to the side, in the same movement grabbing a bottle from his own bag. He ripped off the cap and swung the bottle around his head, sending arcs of holy water in all directions, making sure most of it wasn’t wasted as it hit several in the circle at once.
Demonic hisses of pain erupted all at once and Siryn, seeing that the water did actually work, quickly rushed in and splashed those who had been out of range of Dean’s assault. Steam rose up thick around them, creating a foggy haze in the room.
During the confusion, Sam had developed a renewed sense of hope when he realized Dean was truly alive! He furiously worked at the leather strap that Dean had managed to weaken before the older brother was lifted painfully into the air. He strained again, letting the fresh adrenaline flowing through his body empower him. Finally, the weakened knot snapped loose, and Sam quickly reached over to work on the other wrist.
“KILL THEM!” roared O’Connell as he began recovering from the initial blow.
Rogue had seen where this was going and had been in contact with Cyclops, their field leader, but in mid-sentence she was silenced as O’Connell reared back and bitch-slapped Rogue, sending her ear-piece shattering to the ground. Rogue cried out in surprise as she toppled sideways under the force of his attack.
Dean and Siryn gave each other an “oh shit” glance when the encircled twelve growled collectively back at them.
~~~~
Phoenix and Iceman had found the security monitors and as such had been able to view Storm, Angel, Rogue and Siryn. Before they had contacted anyone, though, Phoenix had played back the past 24 hours of video footage on fast forward so they could get an idea of what had happened and what they were dealing with.
It seemed like the start of a normal day, military personnel milling about, doctors and scientists running tests. It looked like just another government facility. Then the massacre started.
Phoenix gaped, appalled, at the scenes of carnage on the screens. One screen showed three mutants attacking the mess hall, taking the servers and customers off-guard. They were merciless in their slaughter until every last person was dead. When they were finished, they took syringes and filled entire bags with the blood of their victims.
Other screens showed similar actions with different mutants and their prey, on the roof, in the labs, the offices; every time, entire liters of blood were drained. “The blood of innocents…” She gasped, covering her mouth to keep from retching.
“Phoenix…that’s….that’s Peter!” Iceman exclaimed, pointing to another screen where the massive metal-skinned mutant and a purple-haired woman who seemed to be able to teleport through shadows had raised similar havoc in another laboratory.
“That’s not Peter, Iceman. It’s his body…but it’s not him” She said with experience as she forced her eyes away from the gore.
They had both seen enough to know what had happened, and Phoenix fast-forwarded the tape to real time. She had already seen Dean disappear into an elevator, presumably going down. When she found Storm, they made contact, and she directed Storm and Angel to their location.
It didn’t take long to regroup, and only seconds had passed since Rogue’s frantic transmission when Cyclops contacted them. Phoenix led the way through the halls until they had come upon the doorway Rogue had ripped from the wall. Phoenix updated their status to Cyclops and turned to the rest of their team.
“Okay, we can afford no mistakes. Remember, we have friends in there, too…” Phoenix looked at her teammates and tried to convey in that look how important it was that they remember they were X-Men and not killers. “…Right. Let’s go!”
The four of them descended the stairs and pressed forward. The labyrinth of corridors was eerily quiet at first. Phoenix slowed the group to a halt and reached out her mind to find their friends. She didn’t search for long before calling out “THIS WAY” and rushed top speed down another hallway. As they got closer they followed the sounds of fighting that steadily increased in volume that led to a room marked “Training”.
What they came upon, when entering through the doorway, was absolute chaos.
Dean was in the midst of fighting two of the black-robed mutants and holding his own with his fists and feet against twisting vines produced from a woman’s arms and the other’s razor sharp bone blades slipping from various parts of another man’s body.
Rogue was squaring off with a demon-eyed Peter, their strength nearly equal due to Rogue manifesting his organic steal skin. A loud metallic clang was heard every time a hit connected. It was quickly becoming a standoff between the two.
Siryn’s piercing wail abruptly assaulted everyone as the force of her sonic scream was focused on a trio of the demonic mutants and sent them flying into the opposite wall with a crash, but she was silenced by the purple-headed woman, who rose up behind her through the shadows that shrouded the room. One well placed kick to the back of the head silenced Siryn for the count..
The remaining five mutants were trying in vain to keep the integrity of the spellwork intact, by holding Sam down and forming a circle as best they could. Sam had gotten one arm free from his leather bindings but hadn’t yet reached the other and it was imperative that he stay in the summoning circle.
O’Connell desperately recited the dark spells from memory, the dagger glowing red hot above him. The cauldron of boiling hot blood was letting off a steaming vapor like it was gearing up for something.
Phoenix quickly stepped in and took charge, ordering her team into a formation.
Since Angel’s wings would be more of a hindrance in a close-up fight than anything, he was left close to the doorway playing marksman with the salt-filled shotgun.
Storm was sent to the air on her winds to see what she could do about aerial support.
Phoenix’s mental powers were left open and she absorbed what knowledge she could from enemies’ surface thoughts. Her eyes opened as they were directed to the golden urn, bubbling with blood.
~”Iceman! That blood! It’s a conduit between our world and theirs! Take it down! Freeze it!”~ It was simply easier and faster to tell Iceman mentally what needed to be done.
He iced up and nodded to Phoenix before rising up several feet on a solid podium of ice. When he was high enough he directed his ice-blasts in front of him to produce an ice-slide. Stepping onto it, he slid down and up like a stationary surfboard, using momentum and gravity to help his speed. When he reached midway to the room he jumped off and flipped over the table and O’Connell just in time, because Peter had managed to pick up Rogue and slam her into the ice-slide, causing it to shatter, sending ice-bits flying everywhere.
Rogue quickly recovered and teleported into the force of her fall, and right behind Peter, using the remaining momentum to kick her feet into his back. With a surprised yell, he toppled face-first to the floor, and with Rogue riding him like a skateboard, his metal-covered face slid into the concrete, leaving a good four foot long, face deep gouge in the concrete.
Ducking into a roll as he landed, Iceman quickly aimed his super-cold force beams towards the cauldron and encased it in a solid block of ice and putting out the fire that had been keeping it going.
“NOOOOOOOO!” O’Connell screamed in furious defeat as the spellwork he had been building abruptly came to a halt when the bloody gateway was entombed in a thick ball of ice. He snarled out his anger and whipped around to face Iceman. He rushed forward, raising the dagger above him, and before Iceman could turn on his heels, he brought the steaming dagger down hard into Iceman’s shoulder, causing his iced form to chip and crack.
Iceman screamed and fell to the floor in a heap.
“IDIOTS! YOU’VE RUINED EVERYTHING!” O’Connell’s tarpit eyes glimmered with hate and regret, seeing the work of years unraveled in minutes. “YOU’LL ALL PAY! KILL THEM ALL!”
He didn’t figure Iceman for a challenge, and that was a mistake. While in Ice form, Iceman had complete control over his body and its functions. He rolled over to his side, and pulled the dagger out of his shoulder. The wound immediately closed and re-formed as Iceman shaped the ice his body was made out of to fill in the cracks and chips. It took a lot out of him, but when he was done he was good as new, if a little winded.
It had all happened in a matter of seconds, enough time for O’Connell to scream out his order. Iceman shoved himself upright and reached out his hands, directing his super-cold beams to form around O’Connell, encasing the raging military leader in a solid block of ice up to his neck.
Hearing their master’s shouted order, the five who had been trying to hold the circle together cried out in unison as they charged into battle. Two took to the air, a man and woman, focusing their energies on Storm. They worked together as they cornered her in the air using their dual abilities of speed and flight to turn her own winds against her. Their actions formed a vacuum, trapping Storm within a solid tempestuous wall of her own making.
Storm gathered her strength and channeled her energy into bolts of lightning that cascaded and multiplied until they had the twin mutants in its electric grip. The two cried out in pain as they fell to the ground. They had done their job, though, as the tempest wall that surrounded Storm was collapsing in on itself without the centrifugal force to keep it together, and it was too erratic for Storm to control.
The angry tempest lashed out sending funnels of wind shooting in all directions and throwing Storm against a side wall, where she connected painfully and fell to the ground with a grunt.
Two of the robed mutants were joined by the purple-headed one and advanced on Phoenix. One of them, a man with russet colored hair, produced what looked like playing cards from beneath his cloak that began to crackle and glow with explosive energy. Four of them shot out with deadly accuracy from his aimed throw, and Phoenix barely had enough time to throw up a telekinetic shield.
Three of the glowing cards exploded forcefully into her barrier, but she took hold of the fourth with her mind and tossed it right back to its sender. It exploded against his chest, and with a strangled grunt he went flying backwards, knocking his head against a corner of the table Sam was struggling with to free himself from.
A woman with green hair dodged out of the way of the hurled card-thrower, and her eyes glowing a vibrant jade as she reached out and snagged Phoenix’s equilibrium in an iron grip. She twisted Phoenix’s center of gravity, causing Phoenix to lose her balance and fall painfully to the ground while slowing her gravitational flow to keep her in a constant state of vertigo.
The Asian woman with purple hair walked slowly to Phoenix, who was trying to recover and block the effects of the green-haired woman’s attack, and drew a gleaming, silver-bladed samurai sword from a strap around her waist, licking her lips with satisfaction. She raised the sword high into the air, preparing for a death strike.
The sword would have met its mark had it not been for a quick acting Angel, who took aim and fired. Due to his specific mutation, he was gifted with extraordinary sight, the same as the feathered birds his mutation evolved from. It made him almost an expert marksman, and with training he could have easily bested the fabled Robin Hood in a contest.
The first salt-blast shot the sword out of the Asian mutant’s grasp, the second shot her square in the chest. The demon within screamed in agony as its host body flew backwards from the force, and the mystical barrier the salt made, mixed with the iron shells, made sure the mutant was caught in a daze, if momentarily.
The three that Siryn had previously slammed into the wall had resurfaced and had trained their sights on Angel. The woman, a blue-skinned mutant with reptilian-like scales surged upward. Another shot rang out and, she met the same stunned fate as her Asian co-conspirator. Angel kept the remaining enemies at bay as best he could with the salt-loaded gun and holy water.
Dean had wound the plant lady in her own vines and tied them into tight knots. The man who had been producing the bone daggers from his body rose once more from being knocked down, and rushed Dean, locking him in a hold, bone dagger pressed against Dean’s neck threateningly.
“Your brother was so good, Dean. Sucked this body’s cock like a pro! I’m gonna enjoy tearing that hole of his apart when my Savior is through with His vessel…”
It didn’t matter that Dean could sense the lies through the demon’s hissing words. The fact that it had threatened his Sammy brought the animal to the surface, and Dean growled and wrestled out of the man’s grip.
Fingers curled into claws, he rounded on the man and ripped into the man’s belly, slicing through the meat and skin like a hot knife through butter. With a yell, Dean threw the man like a shotput, sending the bone-dagger mutant slamming into the green-haired woman keeping Phoenix in a constant state of vertigo. They tumbled over each other onto the floor, dazed and bleeding.
Storm groaned as she regained consciousness. She shook her head and stood up, bracing against a wall for support. She looked around and saw that several of the robed mutants were down but quickly coming to. Feeling too weak to access her control over the weather at the present time, she assisted Angel with backup, pulling the shotgun and water bottles from her own bag. Mocha eyes glared, daring any one of them to come after her again.
Phoenix shook her head as the feeling of inertia stopped suddenly and rose shakily to her feet. She looked around her and noticed that they actually had the upper hand, even though Siryn was still unconscious and their enemies were already regrouping. It was now or never, and she knew what she had to do.
She raced across the room to Sam’s table, meeting Iceman and Dean there. They worked quickly to relieve Sam of his bonds, while the demon Meg screamed her rage of defeat within her ice-bound meatsuit.
“I…don’t have my powers anymore…I can’t feel you Dean!” Sam’s hazel eyes looked back wide-eyed, still not daring to believe that his lover was truly alive and wondering if this were just a figment of his imagination, or perhaps another demon in a shape-shifter’s form.
“It’s okay, Sam.” Phoenix laid her hand on his shoulder and moved in front of him so their eyes could meet. “I know what’s keeping your powers at bay.”
She closed her eyes and a warm fiery glow radiated from her aura, taking the shape of mythical bird her codename was derived from, as it surrounded her body. Her psychic energies reached out and tugged along the link with Dean she had previously formed in her med-lab. Being this close to Sam allowed her to slingshot along Dean’s connection to Sam. All three audibly gasped through their connection as her essence filled the void and allowed Sam’s powers to burst to the surface.
They both screamed out as Sam’s eyes opened wide, glowing radiantly with a golden hue, and the two inhibitors that were affixed to his temples dissolved into nothingness with a crackling pop.
What happened next would be burned into the memories of every person present, demon and mutant alike. A silent awe over took the room as raging psionic energies unfurled and undulated their way around Sam’s aura. Phoenix was forced to rip away her connection, lest she be caught in the torrent of Sam’s might. She collapsed against the table, breathing heavily and doing her level best to reign in her own energies.
“So much…power…” she gasped out.
~”EEENNNOOOOOOUUUUGH!”~ Sam screamed out with a rippling psychic arch so powerful that everyone in the room, mutant and demon, fell to their knees, grabbing their heads in pain.
Sam levitated himself into the air by his telekinesis and fought to control the raging psychokinetic energies that surged from his body in the form of a brilliant golden aura that matched the twin suns his eyes had become.
When he stopped rising in the air, the psychic echo quieted, allowing everyone affected by it to come back to themselves and watch in awe and amazement as the powers that evil had coveted were fed right back to them in retribution for every single horror they had visited upon their victims.
The twelve robed mutants and O’Connell, still encased in ice, shrieked in a unified chorus of pain as Sam’s glare reached out and ensnared the demon parasites in his grasp. His face was contorted by such vengeance and overwhelming hate that even Dean had to take a step back and watch his lover in fearful amazement.
In an effort to escape the wrath of their Savior’s would-be host, every demon-possessed mutant’s head raised to the sky and the demonic essence of their possessors spilled out of their mouths.
The problem was they couldn’t escape.
As if in a synchronized dance, each previously possessed mutant, and Col. O’Connell fell unconscious to the floor and the various demonic clouds spiraled around and around in a futile effort to escape, each one rebounding as it came up against an impenetrable invisible force.
Every X-Man and Dean covered their ears from the otherworldly wails of the trapped demons, now vulnerable in their truest forms, enraged at having been robbed of their destiny and freedom.
Phoenix activated her earpiece and screamed into it, updating Cyclops and Wolverine of their status. “It’s working! Keep it up Graffiti! Thank GOD in heaven it’s working!”
~~~~
Outside the base…
Graffiti stood beside the security house, her eyes white and glowing with concentration as she focused her powers into a single, rotating devil’s trap that had been formed high above the complex, encompassing the Base in its entirety. She concentrated and slowly brought the perfectly formed trap inwards, making it smaller. It gleamed a shiny gold in the overhead sun’s rays.
“So…hard….so many trying to push…o..out….d…dunno how long…Mr. Wolverine!” Graffiti yelled out. She had never focused her powers to such an extent before, holding each and every intricate symbol in perfect contour with the massive trap on a scale this large.
“Keep it up, girl! Whatever you’re doing, it’s working! It’s working!” Wolverine was breathing deep and hard, keeping his body’s temperature from dropping in the cold Antarctic winds.
Cyclops was watching from the doorway of the Security house, his back to Karen Dobbs. He never saw it coming when an empty coffee pot was shattered against the back of his skull, rendering him unconscious with a low grunt.
Wolverine started with a growl as he smelled something off and snarled as he turned to face the building, rushing over when he saw his lover slumped in the shattered doorway, blood seeping from the back of his head.
He stood up, his body on automatic, as his claws snaked out from his fists. He kicked the door open, and saw that the room was empty. His eyes darted to an open window, just big enough for someone to crawl through.
“MR. WOLVERINE!” The girl’s strangled cry forced him into action as he darted back outside and found one Karen Dobbs, eyes black as pitch, holding Graffiti tight, with a scalpel pressed dangerously against the girl’s jugular.
“Call your dog off, or she gets a Columbian necktie!” The demon within Karen hissed out..
“You don’t wanna do this, lady…” Wolverine first tried to reason, always; his sense of honor wouldn’t dictate otherwise.
“Oh I very much want to do this, actually. It’s been so long since I could feel the hot life-essence of a virgin. Pure…untainted…but I want to play.” She emphasized her point, grazing Graffiti’s skin and causing a thin line of blood to drip and fall.
To her credit, Graffiti realized the importance of her part in this mission and never once faltered in keeping the Devil’s Trap intact. Even as the cold metal scalpel sliced her skin and she felt her own blood drain down her neck, she still kept her focus on the slowly rotating, intricately designed image that continued to hover over the base.
It was then that a pinprick line of crimson shot out from the doorway of the security house, causing Karen to cry out as it punched through her left shoulder and rendered her scalpel arm useless. Wolverine looked back to the doorway and saw Cyclops struggling to get up, his hand still on the ruby quartz visor that allowed him to focus his eye-blast and perhaps had just saved them all.
The moment Graffiti felt the arm loosen its hold and as the scalpel dropped from the woman’s grasp, she bent forward into a roll, sending Karen hurtling to the ground with a startled shout. Graffiti relaxed into her roll and came back up on her feet, turning just in time to reinforce her Trap and form a new one around the downed Karen Dobbs.
“I won’t fail…I will NOT FAIL!” She screamed out into the winds as both Devil’s Traps glowed brighter and stronger and fierce determination became etched on her young features.
~~~~
Underground…
Sam’s body glowed even brighter as he let his psychic energies surge outward. He was not given an inch of mercy in the time he was trapped in this godforsaken place, and he would be damned if he was gonna give an inch of mercy now.
The Demon Smoke around him wailed and cursed him, but every time they tried to attack him, they rebounded off his psychokinetic aura. When they tried to escape through an open door, they were met with an infuriatingly persistent invisible force that would not let them pass. They were trapped.
Sam, through all the confusion, found a stability and clarity in his bond with Dean that quickly reformed, and that protective warmth of Dean’s thoughts within his own empowered him further. Tears stung Dean’s eyes as he reveled in the safe and warming essence that was Sam, filling him and taming the beast that raged.
“It’s time, Dean. We must end this…now.” Sam called out to his lover, linking their minds. Dean knew what his brother was planning, and they began to chant in unison.
“Sequens exorcismus recitari…”
The demon clouds began a spastic and futile race against time as the holy rite began to expel their very essence from this plane of existence.
”…potest ab Episcopis…”
Phoenix watched what was happening and called on memories she had from peering into Dean’s mind just a couple of days before. She quickly latched onto the tentative mental bond she shared with Sam through Dean and flooded the other X-Men with the knowledge of the words.
”…nec non a Sacerdotibus…”
The X-Men, Dean and Sam all spoke the foreign language forcefully and with meaning, caught in Sam and Phoenix’s mental trance. The Demon Smoke conjoined and bubbled together to form one giant swirling mass of demonic essence that encircled itself around Sam.
”…qui ab Ordinariis suis ad id auctoritatem habeant…”
The Demonic smoke began to tear itself apart in hues of blue, purple, orange and fire red as the one-way portal to the hellish dimension they came from was ripped open.
”…In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen!”
An angry, thunderous rumbling built as the collective dark cloud collapsed in on itself and then spread outward with such force the walls around them shook, threatening the integrity of the Base’s foundation. Sam’s aura sped outward in all directions, forcing the Cloud of Demons into the portal in a final eruption of hellish flames as the portal between worlds snapped itself shut
With a weary sigh, Sam’s golden energy ebbed away as he slowly lowered himself to the floor. Dean snapped out of his trance just in time to catch Sam in his arms before he fell. Sam’s hazel eyes blinked open, immediately seeking Dean’s loving gaze. A peaceful smile overcame his features as he spoke with a weakened voice.
“You’re alive…” His eyes closed and his body went lax in Dean’s arms.
~~~~
Part 9/9: Affirmation
Author: neutraldeviance
Fandom: This is the eighth part in my X-Men/Supernatural-Verse. There is no established timeline for either fandom.
Rating: R (this chapter for language, violence and other graphic depictions)
Pairings: Sam/Dean, Sam/Peter (implied), Logan/Scott/Jean, Bobby/Ann Marie
Supporting Characters: Ororo Munroe, OMC, OFC, Meg, a slew of other characters
Summary: The final battle rages on, but all may not be as it appears…
Warnings: established relationships, angst, read at your own risk, ~”text”~ is telepathic speech
Word Count: 7,509
Beta: Beta’d by her uber-tasticness sylvanwitch
Disclaimer: The story is mine. The characters are not
A/N: 1) Really, much gratitude goes out to all who have stuck with me through this series and given me your awesome feedback 2) ) This is the link to Part 1: Feral Attraction if you are new to this series ^.^ 3) As always, feedback is still craved
Outside the Base…
Karen Dobbs sat in a chair in the security gatehouse, huddling in the medical blanket that she had been given and sipping the hot coffee the girl had graciously offered. Her piercing blue eyes never strayed far from her three leather-clad companions though. She wasn’t willing to trust so easily, especially after what she had experienced. It was a day she would never forget…
Approximately four hours ago…
“Karen! Snap out of it!” The bespectacled, balding bear of a man in run-of-the-mill office attire and white lab coat had been trying to get Karen’s attention for the past few minutes as he stood there one hand perched on his right hip the other impatiently snapping in front of her face.
The day had gone by, mostly without incident. One of the mutants they were studying had developed some kind of seizure from the new serum they were formulating. So the regular tests had been sanctioned; blood, urine, tissue samples--the whole nine yards. It would be probably another month before they could start again on a new serum. So it wasn’t exactly the best of times for the new lab assistant to venture off into the land of daydreams.
“Um…what? Uh, sorry sir. I must have zoned out.” She blinked back at him through her own glasses, a hint of red flushing her cheeks.
“Karen, we need those samples. Sooner, rather than later.” He grumbled back at her with an exasperated sigh, wondering where in the hell the United States government found the majority of their employees, and off-handedly decided it had something to do with a cracker-jack box.
“Of course, right away, sir.” She stood up from her lab stool where she had been cataloguing healthy mutant cells’ reactions to the new serum under a powerful microscope.
She hated this part. It was mundane busy work that usually got shoveled onto some eager intern’s plate. As it is, this project was too high priority and top secret to entrust its knowledge to new recruits. She sighed as she fetched a pair of surgical gloves and strode quickly into the examination room where the mutant who had the adverse reaction to the new serum lay strapped to a bed.
As usual he graced her with his million-watt smile, pearly teeth flashing in the dim falsetto lighting. His head canted to the side, causing his long rust-colored bangs to fall into his face and hide his extremely exotic red on black eyes.
“Seems I’m all tied up wit’ nowhere t’go, petit. What is it you be planning den, hm? I could t’ink of a few t’ings, cher.”
The mutant’s broken English with the rich Creole-French accent, coupled with his devilishly sexy good looks would have charmed the pants off any other woman, or most any other man as well if the truth be told. But Karen Dobbs was not one to be swayed so easily.
“Nothing exciting today I’m afraid, Mr. LeBeau. We just need to get some more blood samples to determine what went wrong” She replied with faint irritation.
“Damn vampires, all of you. And I told you ‘fore. Stop it wit’ dat ‘Mr. LeBeau’ stuff. Call me Remy.”
Karen huffed a sigh and pulled on her gloves before turning to him and offering a short, curt nod. “Alright, Remy it is. But you signed up for this project, if I remember correctly. When complications like this come up we have to be absolutely sure we know the cause.”
She went to the counter and peeled a sanitized hypodermic needle out of its casing and labeled four different-colored vials for various tests. After preparation was complete she pushed a wheeled tray containing the needle and vials over to Remy’s bedside and swabbed his forearm with alcohol.
“Little prick now…” She had a moment of near satisfaction with the mutant’s pained grunt from the needle stick erupted.
As the vials began to fill, Remy looked at her with a smirk. “I do believe dat you enjoy hurtin’ dis ole’ Cajun. Breaks m’heart, cher!”
She couldn’t help but let a small smile grace her otherwise serious face. She finished up with Remy, filled the required vials with his blood and left the examination room to deliver the specimens. She had no sooner walked into the main lab when all hell broke loose.
First it was the Asian woman with purple hair, one of the mutants they had been studying. Her name was Elizabeth, so the charts said. She waltzed into the room, followed by an impossibly tall dark-haired man, his skin covered in silver metal obviously marking him as a mutant but not one Karen had ever remembered seeing. They were both wearing black hooded robes and their eyes…Karen would never forget their eyes…were black as pitch and their whole demeanor exuded a sense of malice.
Instincts told Karen to get out of the way, so before anyone saw her, she ducked below one of the tables, clutching Remy’s samples so as not to drop them and risk them shattering.
It took every ounce of her will to keep from screaming during the events that followed.
Without a word the two mutants leapt right into action. The first was Dr. Kessler, the man who had demanded the blood samples. The metal-skinned behemoth simply walked up to him and twisted the man’s head right off his body. The demented laugh that resounded from the metal-man echoed around the room and sent an icy chill up Karen’s spine.
In the same move, Elizabeth melted into the shadow of another lab assistant, then rose up behind her, still within her shadow, and rammed her fingers into the woman’s back pushing her still-beating heart through the front of her chest and crushing it in her grip. After Elizabeth had dropped the heart and let the woman’s convulsing body follow it to the floor, she licked her fingers with an ecstatic hum and looked around as if choosing who was next.
That’s when the first of the screams erupted. Lab techs, doctors and scientists all scrambled over each other to get away from the senseless brutality, but they just weren’t fast enough. Within a few short minutes, Elizabeth and the metal-skinned man had drained the last of the cries of horror from the twenty or so people that had been assigned to that sector, leaving a bloody mess of destruction in their wake.
Outside the door, Karen could hear more screams from men and women shouting for help. Gunfire was heard, then more screams and maniacal laughter. Shocked to the core, Karen stayed where she was for a few lingering moments, until she was absolutely positive the two had left. She crawled out from her space, still grasping white-knuckled onto Remy’s blood samples.
Completely forgetting the bound mutant in her haste she rushed towards the door, but forced to a halt when she was confronted with what she could only describe as a huge, swirling mass of living smoke.
It billowed through the doorway and knocked her back with a strength all its own. She was flung backwards and into a glass medicine cabinet. She fell to the floor with a yelp, and in the process dropped Remy’s blood samples. The shattered tubes caused Remy’s blood to splatter all over her lab coat, and that is the moment Karen Dobbs lost it.
She scrambled to her feet, eyes wide as she frantically turned to face the thing that had knocked her down. She felt she was going insane, and maybe she was, because it wasn’t where it had been just moments before. She caught the tail end of the living smoke as it rushed into Remy’s examination room. It was Remy’s scream of bloody murder that kicked her survival instincts into high gear.
On shaking legs, she hurried out the door leading to the hallway, too shocked and fearful to bother with tears. As she rounded the door she thought she heard footsteps coming her way from an adjacent hall and looked around for somewhere to go to get out of whatever’s way. She spotted a storage closet and quickly threw open the door then shoved the contents of one of the shelves to the side and squeezed herself in, shutting the door behind her.
She curled up into a ball, remaining quiet as a mouse.
The Present, Outside the Base…
“I must have passed out or fainted, or maybe both…I don’t know, because the next thing I remember I was being dragged out of the storage closet by that…that…animal.” Karen quickly downed the rest of her coffee, wishing to heaven that she had a nice chilled bottle of Gray Goose instead.
She had decided to tell them what she could remember because they were trying to help her, and they didn’t seem at all like they wanted to hurt her. It still pained her to talk about it though, because some of those people she had known to be kind and generous family-oriented men and women who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She also felt an immense weight come over her, as guilt reared its ugly head. She was the only one of them to survive, so far as she knew. And she had survived because she had hidden like a coward.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it, lady. Take it from me, guilt gets you nowhere.”
Wolverine could smell it all over her, though the expression on her face gave her away just as easily. Karen didn’t dare look at him but to the bottom of her empty cup as she nodded slowly.
“Rogue to Cyclops, come in.”
Cyclops turned away from the others as he pressed the comm. button on his earbud receiver. “Cyclops to Rogue, what’s your status?”
“Very hostile, sir! We’ve found Dean…and we need back-up…..” Then the line went dead just as a deafening crash was heard.
Cyclops yelled into his microphone to Rogue but there was no answer, just dead silence. He switched frequencies.
“Cyclops to Phoenix, what’s your status?” His voice held all the strength of his training, but there was also a hint of wavering devotion as his heart came into play.
“Phoenix to Cyclops, we acknowledge Rogue’s transmission and are en route. We are descending into the lower levels now“ Abruptly, Phoenix opened the mental bond she shared with Cyclops and Wolverine and spoke directly to their minds, in case technology failed them. ~”Project Graffiti is most definitely a go! NOW!”~
The internal channel was immediately abandoned, and the men it was directed to leapt into action.
“Graffiti! Time to earn your paycheck!” Wolverine growled out as he tore open the door to the cramped security house, leading the way into a battle he still wasn’t quite sure they were prepared for.
~~~~
Present…Underground
Dean had fallen to a crouch, murder in his eyes as he looked on at the scene, recognizing demonic magic at work. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as the animal sensibilities within him hissed at the dark energies that permeated the room.
“Sammy? You okay, bro?” He growled out to the lax form strapped to the table that had stopped screaming seconds ago. Sam’s eyes were closed and his lips were slightly open, head lolled to the side. There was no answer. “SAMMY?!”
“Sssshhhh you’ll wake him up, Dean! Can’t you see he’s sleeping?” A deep rumbling chuckle came from Col. O’Connell’s chest as he stood up beside the table, the steaming and bloodied dagger still caught in his grasp.
“Who are you?! If you killed him I’ll RIP YOU APART!” Dean’s piercing glare roamed minutely over the rest of the cloaked assemblage, who were all staring at him with one collective sneer. Their eyes were black as pitch, a demon’s masquerade. He filed away for later the fact that the man he had seen with Sam in Cerebro was among them.
“Oh come now, Dean. Why would I kill him? We were so inseparable once, if you’ll remember.” The demonic gleam in Col. O’Connell’s eyes seemed so very vaguely familiar to Dean. Memories surfaced of a previous hunt in Chicago and a certain blonde-headed bitch they’d left for dead…and the subsequent result of their mistake when that same bitch had taken over Sam’s body.
“Meg.” There was no question in Dean’s voice, and he followed the name with a guttural snarl.
“Bingo! You know? You’re smarter than I gave you credit for. Hmmm, it’s a shame such genius is wasted on a raging animal.” It was meant to antagonize him but only served to help Dean focus his anger into a pinpoint laser shot directed at the Colonel.
O’Connell staggered from the physical force of Dean’s anger as the feral’s pheromones reacted and stirred the similar emotional response in his body. The anger pheromones emitting from Dean were having an effect on everyone present, as a startling unrest began to form among the gathered twelve demon-possessed mutants. Some were fidgeting, others were glowering, but all were feeling a deep-festering rage that bordered on the uncontrollable. They all stayed put in their designated spot, however, for fear of breaking the circle and rendering the arcane summoning powerless.
“You’ve gotten stronger, Dean, m’boy.” O’Connell squared his shoulders and the demon inside him quickly garnered control of the body’s emotions. “Tsk tsk. You don’t wanna make me angry, Dean…you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
“I’m gonna do more than that you fucking hellbitch!”
Dean gathered his strength and leapt up from his haunches with a roar, fingers extending into claws as the force of his jump propelled him up and over the bodies nearest him. Too slow to react to it, O’Connell went rolling to the floor beneath the furious Dean, each trying to gain control of the other. The dagger the Colonel had been holding went skittering to the floor with a metallic clang, and the demonic energy that had been thick as porridge suddenly dispersed with a rumble as the collective demons’ concentration was broken.
“You’re gonna pay for that, Dean Winchester!” O’Connell snarled as the rolling came to a stop and Dean straddled him, his claws braced in a deadly grasp around his neck.
“D..Dean?” Sam’s voice was weak and child-like. He had blacked out from the pain that had seared through him as the symbol was burned into his chest. He had felt a pull from somewhere within the darkness, a light, a beacon of hope, in the form of a feral growl that had brought him back to consciousness.
He half hoped he was in heaven with his dead lover, but the pain in his chest was still there, and he was pretty sure that if it were heaven he wouldn’t be strapped to a summoning altar. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the table calling out again. “D…DEAN?! Please….”
“Sammy?!” The strangled cry that forced its way out of Dean’s throat was filled with hope. The need to feel his mate, kiss him, hold him, be with him was too strong for him to overcome and he ripped himself away from the floored O’Connell and raced to Sam’s side.
With tears of unbridled happiness in his eyes Dean gently laid his hand on Sam’s cheek. When Sam looked at him with those big, beautiful, hazel eyes Dean nearly came undone with emotion as he struggled with the bonds that held his lover fast to the table.
“I..I thought you were dead…they told me you were dead!” Sam’s cracked lips parted in joy, seeing Dean alive and well. They quickly opened in surprise and desperation, though when their moment of happiness was ripped from them. “DEAN! NO!”
Sam saw it before Dean could react to it. Dean rose slowly into the air by an unseen force and was stopped, hovering a few feet above the ground. Dean grunted as he was turned mid-air to face Col. O’Connell, who had regained the fallen dagger and was telekinetically controlling Dean’s body. Meg was filled with a new determination to end the threat of the Winchesters forever.
“We’re going to win this war...it’s pre-ordained, Dean. My only regret is that you and your brother won’t be there to grovel at our feet.”
Dean roared out in frustration as he struggled against the force holding him and failed. The demonic spellcasting began again in earnest, with another sacrifice front row and center.
~~~
Rogue and Siryn had followed Karen’s directions and found the stairwell that led to the lower levels. There was a security key-card module set up, but that didn’t deter Rogue in the slightest. She called another stolen power and her skin transmuted into organic steel. In this form her strength was nearly limitless and was practically immune to just about…well, everything.
Her fingers ripped into the steel door at opposing points and she grabbed hold, literally wrenching the barrier away, causing an echoing metal screech. When she was done, she rested the door on its side against the wall.
“After you, girl.” Rogue smiled sweetly and gestured to the now unbarred entrance as her metal skin reverted back to normal.
Siryn stared wide-eyed at her teammate, marveling at the sheer unfairness of the different abilities Rogue was allowed. All she could do was scream…albeit really, really loud…but it would still be nice to pick and choose whatever power you wanted at any time. She shook her head in amazement as she took the lead.
They made it quickly down the stairs and came upon an empty hallway. All seemed quiet as they pressed on, but soon enough they heard a loud scream of pain and followed its direction. When they reached the room marked “Training.” Rogue caught Siryn’s shoulder and pulled her back.
“Get behind me, Siryn…we don’t know what to expect.” Rogue reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle of blessed Dasani. She uncapped it, and Siryn quickly followed suit. She wasn’t sure exactly how the water was going to help, but Phoenix had assured them during the briefing that it did work and actually temporarily rendered the entity powerless.
“Okay, gal. On three. One…two…” They both ran into the room on ‘three’ tensing for the fight, and were staggered by what they saw. Dean was being held hovering in the air while some guy in a black hooded cloak chanted in some creepy language. A man, presumably Sam, was strapped to a table, naked as the day he was born and looking worse for the wear.
Around them in a perfect circle were more black-cloaked men and women…a few among them they’d had problems with in the past, but one man in the group they considered a very dear friend and teammate.
“PETER!” Rogue called out in a futile attempt to gain his attention and pull him away from this madness. What it did instead was pull the chanting man out of his concentration and focus his pitch-black eyes on the two girls.
“More interruptions?! Why, Dean, you didn’t tell me you brought us gifts!”
“Ah ain’t no ‘gift’, mistuh. You let everyone go an’ Ah’ll go easy on ya…” Rogue’s usually sweet Southern voice was unyielding.
“The Dasani! ROGUE! NOW!” Dean was able to yell out while still struggling against his invisible bonds.
Rogue heard Dean and understood. There was only one way to get to them fast enough. One moment she was there and the next she wasn’t as her form dispersed into a black cloud and then reappeared just inches behind O’Connell, the dark smoky trail of Nightcrawler’s teleportation effect dissipating around her. She wasted no time in splashing the Dasani bottle’s contents into O’Connell’s face.
Rogue stepped back in surprise at the howl of rage and pain that emerged from O’Connell’s mouth as the demonic presence within him reacted to the acidic burn of the holy water.
Dean immediately fell from his hover to the floor. As if expecting it, he took control of the momentum and landed in a crouch. He wasted no time in rolling to the side, in the same movement grabbing a bottle from his own bag. He ripped off the cap and swung the bottle around his head, sending arcs of holy water in all directions, making sure most of it wasn’t wasted as it hit several in the circle at once.
Demonic hisses of pain erupted all at once and Siryn, seeing that the water did actually work, quickly rushed in and splashed those who had been out of range of Dean’s assault. Steam rose up thick around them, creating a foggy haze in the room.
During the confusion, Sam had developed a renewed sense of hope when he realized Dean was truly alive! He furiously worked at the leather strap that Dean had managed to weaken before the older brother was lifted painfully into the air. He strained again, letting the fresh adrenaline flowing through his body empower him. Finally, the weakened knot snapped loose, and Sam quickly reached over to work on the other wrist.
“KILL THEM!” roared O’Connell as he began recovering from the initial blow.
Rogue had seen where this was going and had been in contact with Cyclops, their field leader, but in mid-sentence she was silenced as O’Connell reared back and bitch-slapped Rogue, sending her ear-piece shattering to the ground. Rogue cried out in surprise as she toppled sideways under the force of his attack.
Dean and Siryn gave each other an “oh shit” glance when the encircled twelve growled collectively back at them.
~~~~
Phoenix and Iceman had found the security monitors and as such had been able to view Storm, Angel, Rogue and Siryn. Before they had contacted anyone, though, Phoenix had played back the past 24 hours of video footage on fast forward so they could get an idea of what had happened and what they were dealing with.
It seemed like the start of a normal day, military personnel milling about, doctors and scientists running tests. It looked like just another government facility. Then the massacre started.
Phoenix gaped, appalled, at the scenes of carnage on the screens. One screen showed three mutants attacking the mess hall, taking the servers and customers off-guard. They were merciless in their slaughter until every last person was dead. When they were finished, they took syringes and filled entire bags with the blood of their victims.
Other screens showed similar actions with different mutants and their prey, on the roof, in the labs, the offices; every time, entire liters of blood were drained. “The blood of innocents…” She gasped, covering her mouth to keep from retching.
“Phoenix…that’s….that’s Peter!” Iceman exclaimed, pointing to another screen where the massive metal-skinned mutant and a purple-haired woman who seemed to be able to teleport through shadows had raised similar havoc in another laboratory.
“That’s not Peter, Iceman. It’s his body…but it’s not him” She said with experience as she forced her eyes away from the gore.
They had both seen enough to know what had happened, and Phoenix fast-forwarded the tape to real time. She had already seen Dean disappear into an elevator, presumably going down. When she found Storm, they made contact, and she directed Storm and Angel to their location.
It didn’t take long to regroup, and only seconds had passed since Rogue’s frantic transmission when Cyclops contacted them. Phoenix led the way through the halls until they had come upon the doorway Rogue had ripped from the wall. Phoenix updated their status to Cyclops and turned to the rest of their team.
“Okay, we can afford no mistakes. Remember, we have friends in there, too…” Phoenix looked at her teammates and tried to convey in that look how important it was that they remember they were X-Men and not killers. “…Right. Let’s go!”
The four of them descended the stairs and pressed forward. The labyrinth of corridors was eerily quiet at first. Phoenix slowed the group to a halt and reached out her mind to find their friends. She didn’t search for long before calling out “THIS WAY” and rushed top speed down another hallway. As they got closer they followed the sounds of fighting that steadily increased in volume that led to a room marked “Training”.
What they came upon, when entering through the doorway, was absolute chaos.
Dean was in the midst of fighting two of the black-robed mutants and holding his own with his fists and feet against twisting vines produced from a woman’s arms and the other’s razor sharp bone blades slipping from various parts of another man’s body.
Rogue was squaring off with a demon-eyed Peter, their strength nearly equal due to Rogue manifesting his organic steal skin. A loud metallic clang was heard every time a hit connected. It was quickly becoming a standoff between the two.
Siryn’s piercing wail abruptly assaulted everyone as the force of her sonic scream was focused on a trio of the demonic mutants and sent them flying into the opposite wall with a crash, but she was silenced by the purple-headed woman, who rose up behind her through the shadows that shrouded the room. One well placed kick to the back of the head silenced Siryn for the count..
The remaining five mutants were trying in vain to keep the integrity of the spellwork intact, by holding Sam down and forming a circle as best they could. Sam had gotten one arm free from his leather bindings but hadn’t yet reached the other and it was imperative that he stay in the summoning circle.
O’Connell desperately recited the dark spells from memory, the dagger glowing red hot above him. The cauldron of boiling hot blood was letting off a steaming vapor like it was gearing up for something.
Phoenix quickly stepped in and took charge, ordering her team into a formation.
Since Angel’s wings would be more of a hindrance in a close-up fight than anything, he was left close to the doorway playing marksman with the salt-filled shotgun.
Storm was sent to the air on her winds to see what she could do about aerial support.
Phoenix’s mental powers were left open and she absorbed what knowledge she could from enemies’ surface thoughts. Her eyes opened as they were directed to the golden urn, bubbling with blood.
~”Iceman! That blood! It’s a conduit between our world and theirs! Take it down! Freeze it!”~ It was simply easier and faster to tell Iceman mentally what needed to be done.
He iced up and nodded to Phoenix before rising up several feet on a solid podium of ice. When he was high enough he directed his ice-blasts in front of him to produce an ice-slide. Stepping onto it, he slid down and up like a stationary surfboard, using momentum and gravity to help his speed. When he reached midway to the room he jumped off and flipped over the table and O’Connell just in time, because Peter had managed to pick up Rogue and slam her into the ice-slide, causing it to shatter, sending ice-bits flying everywhere.
Rogue quickly recovered and teleported into the force of her fall, and right behind Peter, using the remaining momentum to kick her feet into his back. With a surprised yell, he toppled face-first to the floor, and with Rogue riding him like a skateboard, his metal-covered face slid into the concrete, leaving a good four foot long, face deep gouge in the concrete.
Ducking into a roll as he landed, Iceman quickly aimed his super-cold force beams towards the cauldron and encased it in a solid block of ice and putting out the fire that had been keeping it going.
“NOOOOOOOO!” O’Connell screamed in furious defeat as the spellwork he had been building abruptly came to a halt when the bloody gateway was entombed in a thick ball of ice. He snarled out his anger and whipped around to face Iceman. He rushed forward, raising the dagger above him, and before Iceman could turn on his heels, he brought the steaming dagger down hard into Iceman’s shoulder, causing his iced form to chip and crack.
Iceman screamed and fell to the floor in a heap.
“IDIOTS! YOU’VE RUINED EVERYTHING!” O’Connell’s tarpit eyes glimmered with hate and regret, seeing the work of years unraveled in minutes. “YOU’LL ALL PAY! KILL THEM ALL!”
He didn’t figure Iceman for a challenge, and that was a mistake. While in Ice form, Iceman had complete control over his body and its functions. He rolled over to his side, and pulled the dagger out of his shoulder. The wound immediately closed and re-formed as Iceman shaped the ice his body was made out of to fill in the cracks and chips. It took a lot out of him, but when he was done he was good as new, if a little winded.
It had all happened in a matter of seconds, enough time for O’Connell to scream out his order. Iceman shoved himself upright and reached out his hands, directing his super-cold beams to form around O’Connell, encasing the raging military leader in a solid block of ice up to his neck.
Hearing their master’s shouted order, the five who had been trying to hold the circle together cried out in unison as they charged into battle. Two took to the air, a man and woman, focusing their energies on Storm. They worked together as they cornered her in the air using their dual abilities of speed and flight to turn her own winds against her. Their actions formed a vacuum, trapping Storm within a solid tempestuous wall of her own making.
Storm gathered her strength and channeled her energy into bolts of lightning that cascaded and multiplied until they had the twin mutants in its electric grip. The two cried out in pain as they fell to the ground. They had done their job, though, as the tempest wall that surrounded Storm was collapsing in on itself without the centrifugal force to keep it together, and it was too erratic for Storm to control.
The angry tempest lashed out sending funnels of wind shooting in all directions and throwing Storm against a side wall, where she connected painfully and fell to the ground with a grunt.
Two of the robed mutants were joined by the purple-headed one and advanced on Phoenix. One of them, a man with russet colored hair, produced what looked like playing cards from beneath his cloak that began to crackle and glow with explosive energy. Four of them shot out with deadly accuracy from his aimed throw, and Phoenix barely had enough time to throw up a telekinetic shield.
Three of the glowing cards exploded forcefully into her barrier, but she took hold of the fourth with her mind and tossed it right back to its sender. It exploded against his chest, and with a strangled grunt he went flying backwards, knocking his head against a corner of the table Sam was struggling with to free himself from.
A woman with green hair dodged out of the way of the hurled card-thrower, and her eyes glowing a vibrant jade as she reached out and snagged Phoenix’s equilibrium in an iron grip. She twisted Phoenix’s center of gravity, causing Phoenix to lose her balance and fall painfully to the ground while slowing her gravitational flow to keep her in a constant state of vertigo.
The Asian woman with purple hair walked slowly to Phoenix, who was trying to recover and block the effects of the green-haired woman’s attack, and drew a gleaming, silver-bladed samurai sword from a strap around her waist, licking her lips with satisfaction. She raised the sword high into the air, preparing for a death strike.
The sword would have met its mark had it not been for a quick acting Angel, who took aim and fired. Due to his specific mutation, he was gifted with extraordinary sight, the same as the feathered birds his mutation evolved from. It made him almost an expert marksman, and with training he could have easily bested the fabled Robin Hood in a contest.
The first salt-blast shot the sword out of the Asian mutant’s grasp, the second shot her square in the chest. The demon within screamed in agony as its host body flew backwards from the force, and the mystical barrier the salt made, mixed with the iron shells, made sure the mutant was caught in a daze, if momentarily.
The three that Siryn had previously slammed into the wall had resurfaced and had trained their sights on Angel. The woman, a blue-skinned mutant with reptilian-like scales surged upward. Another shot rang out and, she met the same stunned fate as her Asian co-conspirator. Angel kept the remaining enemies at bay as best he could with the salt-loaded gun and holy water.
Dean had wound the plant lady in her own vines and tied them into tight knots. The man who had been producing the bone daggers from his body rose once more from being knocked down, and rushed Dean, locking him in a hold, bone dagger pressed against Dean’s neck threateningly.
“Your brother was so good, Dean. Sucked this body’s cock like a pro! I’m gonna enjoy tearing that hole of his apart when my Savior is through with His vessel…”
It didn’t matter that Dean could sense the lies through the demon’s hissing words. The fact that it had threatened his Sammy brought the animal to the surface, and Dean growled and wrestled out of the man’s grip.
Fingers curled into claws, he rounded on the man and ripped into the man’s belly, slicing through the meat and skin like a hot knife through butter. With a yell, Dean threw the man like a shotput, sending the bone-dagger mutant slamming into the green-haired woman keeping Phoenix in a constant state of vertigo. They tumbled over each other onto the floor, dazed and bleeding.
Storm groaned as she regained consciousness. She shook her head and stood up, bracing against a wall for support. She looked around and saw that several of the robed mutants were down but quickly coming to. Feeling too weak to access her control over the weather at the present time, she assisted Angel with backup, pulling the shotgun and water bottles from her own bag. Mocha eyes glared, daring any one of them to come after her again.
Phoenix shook her head as the feeling of inertia stopped suddenly and rose shakily to her feet. She looked around her and noticed that they actually had the upper hand, even though Siryn was still unconscious and their enemies were already regrouping. It was now or never, and she knew what she had to do.
She raced across the room to Sam’s table, meeting Iceman and Dean there. They worked quickly to relieve Sam of his bonds, while the demon Meg screamed her rage of defeat within her ice-bound meatsuit.
“I…don’t have my powers anymore…I can’t feel you Dean!” Sam’s hazel eyes looked back wide-eyed, still not daring to believe that his lover was truly alive and wondering if this were just a figment of his imagination, or perhaps another demon in a shape-shifter’s form.
“It’s okay, Sam.” Phoenix laid her hand on his shoulder and moved in front of him so their eyes could meet. “I know what’s keeping your powers at bay.”
She closed her eyes and a warm fiery glow radiated from her aura, taking the shape of mythical bird her codename was derived from, as it surrounded her body. Her psychic energies reached out and tugged along the link with Dean she had previously formed in her med-lab. Being this close to Sam allowed her to slingshot along Dean’s connection to Sam. All three audibly gasped through their connection as her essence filled the void and allowed Sam’s powers to burst to the surface.
They both screamed out as Sam’s eyes opened wide, glowing radiantly with a golden hue, and the two inhibitors that were affixed to his temples dissolved into nothingness with a crackling pop.
What happened next would be burned into the memories of every person present, demon and mutant alike. A silent awe over took the room as raging psionic energies unfurled and undulated their way around Sam’s aura. Phoenix was forced to rip away her connection, lest she be caught in the torrent of Sam’s might. She collapsed against the table, breathing heavily and doing her level best to reign in her own energies.
“So much…power…” she gasped out.
~”EEENNNOOOOOOUUUUGH!”~ Sam screamed out with a rippling psychic arch so powerful that everyone in the room, mutant and demon, fell to their knees, grabbing their heads in pain.
Sam levitated himself into the air by his telekinesis and fought to control the raging psychokinetic energies that surged from his body in the form of a brilliant golden aura that matched the twin suns his eyes had become.
When he stopped rising in the air, the psychic echo quieted, allowing everyone affected by it to come back to themselves and watch in awe and amazement as the powers that evil had coveted were fed right back to them in retribution for every single horror they had visited upon their victims.
The twelve robed mutants and O’Connell, still encased in ice, shrieked in a unified chorus of pain as Sam’s glare reached out and ensnared the demon parasites in his grasp. His face was contorted by such vengeance and overwhelming hate that even Dean had to take a step back and watch his lover in fearful amazement.
In an effort to escape the wrath of their Savior’s would-be host, every demon-possessed mutant’s head raised to the sky and the demonic essence of their possessors spilled out of their mouths.
The problem was they couldn’t escape.
As if in a synchronized dance, each previously possessed mutant, and Col. O’Connell fell unconscious to the floor and the various demonic clouds spiraled around and around in a futile effort to escape, each one rebounding as it came up against an impenetrable invisible force.
Every X-Man and Dean covered their ears from the otherworldly wails of the trapped demons, now vulnerable in their truest forms, enraged at having been robbed of their destiny and freedom.
Phoenix activated her earpiece and screamed into it, updating Cyclops and Wolverine of their status. “It’s working! Keep it up Graffiti! Thank GOD in heaven it’s working!”
~~~~
Outside the base…
Graffiti stood beside the security house, her eyes white and glowing with concentration as she focused her powers into a single, rotating devil’s trap that had been formed high above the complex, encompassing the Base in its entirety. She concentrated and slowly brought the perfectly formed trap inwards, making it smaller. It gleamed a shiny gold in the overhead sun’s rays.
“So…hard….so many trying to push…o..out….d…dunno how long…Mr. Wolverine!” Graffiti yelled out. She had never focused her powers to such an extent before, holding each and every intricate symbol in perfect contour with the massive trap on a scale this large.
“Keep it up, girl! Whatever you’re doing, it’s working! It’s working!” Wolverine was breathing deep and hard, keeping his body’s temperature from dropping in the cold Antarctic winds.
Cyclops was watching from the doorway of the Security house, his back to Karen Dobbs. He never saw it coming when an empty coffee pot was shattered against the back of his skull, rendering him unconscious with a low grunt.
Wolverine started with a growl as he smelled something off and snarled as he turned to face the building, rushing over when he saw his lover slumped in the shattered doorway, blood seeping from the back of his head.
He stood up, his body on automatic, as his claws snaked out from his fists. He kicked the door open, and saw that the room was empty. His eyes darted to an open window, just big enough for someone to crawl through.
“MR. WOLVERINE!” The girl’s strangled cry forced him into action as he darted back outside and found one Karen Dobbs, eyes black as pitch, holding Graffiti tight, with a scalpel pressed dangerously against the girl’s jugular.
“Call your dog off, or she gets a Columbian necktie!” The demon within Karen hissed out..
“You don’t wanna do this, lady…” Wolverine first tried to reason, always; his sense of honor wouldn’t dictate otherwise.
“Oh I very much want to do this, actually. It’s been so long since I could feel the hot life-essence of a virgin. Pure…untainted…but I want to play.” She emphasized her point, grazing Graffiti’s skin and causing a thin line of blood to drip and fall.
To her credit, Graffiti realized the importance of her part in this mission and never once faltered in keeping the Devil’s Trap intact. Even as the cold metal scalpel sliced her skin and she felt her own blood drain down her neck, she still kept her focus on the slowly rotating, intricately designed image that continued to hover over the base.
It was then that a pinprick line of crimson shot out from the doorway of the security house, causing Karen to cry out as it punched through her left shoulder and rendered her scalpel arm useless. Wolverine looked back to the doorway and saw Cyclops struggling to get up, his hand still on the ruby quartz visor that allowed him to focus his eye-blast and perhaps had just saved them all.
The moment Graffiti felt the arm loosen its hold and as the scalpel dropped from the woman’s grasp, she bent forward into a roll, sending Karen hurtling to the ground with a startled shout. Graffiti relaxed into her roll and came back up on her feet, turning just in time to reinforce her Trap and form a new one around the downed Karen Dobbs.
“I won’t fail…I will NOT FAIL!” She screamed out into the winds as both Devil’s Traps glowed brighter and stronger and fierce determination became etched on her young features.
~~~~
Underground…
Sam’s body glowed even brighter as he let his psychic energies surge outward. He was not given an inch of mercy in the time he was trapped in this godforsaken place, and he would be damned if he was gonna give an inch of mercy now.
The Demon Smoke around him wailed and cursed him, but every time they tried to attack him, they rebounded off his psychokinetic aura. When they tried to escape through an open door, they were met with an infuriatingly persistent invisible force that would not let them pass. They were trapped.
Sam, through all the confusion, found a stability and clarity in his bond with Dean that quickly reformed, and that protective warmth of Dean’s thoughts within his own empowered him further. Tears stung Dean’s eyes as he reveled in the safe and warming essence that was Sam, filling him and taming the beast that raged.
“It’s time, Dean. We must end this…now.” Sam called out to his lover, linking their minds. Dean knew what his brother was planning, and they began to chant in unison.
“Sequens exorcismus recitari…”
The demon clouds began a spastic and futile race against time as the holy rite began to expel their very essence from this plane of existence.
”…potest ab Episcopis…”
Phoenix watched what was happening and called on memories she had from peering into Dean’s mind just a couple of days before. She quickly latched onto the tentative mental bond she shared with Sam through Dean and flooded the other X-Men with the knowledge of the words.
”…nec non a Sacerdotibus…”
The X-Men, Dean and Sam all spoke the foreign language forcefully and with meaning, caught in Sam and Phoenix’s mental trance. The Demon Smoke conjoined and bubbled together to form one giant swirling mass of demonic essence that encircled itself around Sam.
”…qui ab Ordinariis suis ad id auctoritatem habeant…”
The Demonic smoke began to tear itself apart in hues of blue, purple, orange and fire red as the one-way portal to the hellish dimension they came from was ripped open.
”…In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen!”
An angry, thunderous rumbling built as the collective dark cloud collapsed in on itself and then spread outward with such force the walls around them shook, threatening the integrity of the Base’s foundation. Sam’s aura sped outward in all directions, forcing the Cloud of Demons into the portal in a final eruption of hellish flames as the portal between worlds snapped itself shut
With a weary sigh, Sam’s golden energy ebbed away as he slowly lowered himself to the floor. Dean snapped out of his trance just in time to catch Sam in his arms before he fell. Sam’s hazel eyes blinked open, immediately seeking Dean’s loving gaze. A peaceful smile overcame his features as he spoke with a weakened voice.
“You’re alive…” His eyes closed and his body went lax in Dean’s arms.
~~~~
Part 9/9: Affirmation