Nightmares
The fire sparked in front of him as he stirred it, the cold air overwhelming what little warmth it offered. Barely cooking the meager meal of rabbit he caught earlier in the day during his trek across the waste. He added a few more of the branches he had gathered on his trek.
Lightning streaked across the cloud-covered sky causing unnatural darkness. He would not be able to travel far in the dark as he had planned he would have to venture some during the day risking exposure and dehydration.
Another snap from the fire sends a cascade of blinding light into the air causing him to blink, only to find the man in front of him. the small aboriginal and never seemed to age skinning, muscular with silver hair and piercing black eyes. A concerned look filled his features, if he had a name no one he knew had ever discovered it.
He nodded to the man who looked at him with sad eyes as more lightning flashed across the sky.
"Hungry?" He asked, waving his hand towards the meager rabbit.
the old man shook his head, tilting his head slightly to look at the clouds and lightning above. The old man just sat there and looked at him, waiting for him to speak further.
"I wasn't expecting you. I was still a few days’ travels from the hideout. Mind help me out here?" He asked, glancing at the sky above.
He did not know how he had gotten here, he remembered waking this morning in the middle of the barren outback. he has been here a few years ago …. with...he couldn't remember who…
That should frighten him that he couldn’t remember yet…
The old man gently tapped his head then waved his hand at him. instinctively he brought his hand up to his face… his glasses were missing… he never left without his glasses…
"Why are they so important?" he whispered. He was suddenly confused about what was going on. He was asleep at home with… Green… eyes haunting him… why couldn't he remember… his eyes hurt momentarily, why was he here in the desert hundreds of miles from human life…
What evil had he done to be cast here to die… who had he hurt to end up here… Why couldn’t he remember… his friends.. the people he loved… green eyes flashing fire at him….
"I know you… I've seen you before here… why can't I remember,” he asked a fire suddenly growing in him at the old man’s appearance, memories lost trying to reforge them, “why… I don’t even ….” Searing hot pain lanced through him as thunder crashed around him sending him to his knees. His brain felt like it was on fire as the thunder crashed around him. He felt warm hands cupping his head and a sudden calm seemed to fill him, the thunder dying down.
“Remember…”
He remembered waking in the desert that morning… He couldn’t recall how he had gotten there… Why was he there… his friends… family... Even his name… a black hole in his memory knowing he had to survive and that he had people that missed him knowing how to survive, Triangulate his position had known of an old abandoned town near where he had woken. He had been there before several times … he had traveled there before with a group of enemies turned friends from a crash… He had been found by the one he loved, green eyes searing into his soul; in a desert-like this promising to aid him. Yet, now he was alone, ragged clothes on his back, a gallon of water jug and a knife was all that he had.
Did he truly deserve to be alone after what he did?
Whom did he betray?
More lightning flashed above him followed by a deafening crack of thunder. flashes of pain coursed through him reminding him of things lost that should never have been lost.
The old man seemed unfazed by the storms above, focusing on him.
He knew he should fear the desert but he could survive that. The loss of memories should frighten him, the burning in his eyes should frighten him… Being abandoned by his friends… and his family should destroy him… he did not feel anything like he was just a part of his whole life that he did not know. He felt smaller than he should be a small piece of his whole.
He had woken in this desert knowing that his survival depended on the small abandoned town to the east, so he traveled east to the small town where the old man lived, but he was here now…
The warmth from his head vanished as the thunder crashed around him again, Lightning flashed in the sky above waking him from his trance, blinking back sleep he glanced around the campsite, fire almost out, his rabbit mostly eaten. The light seemed to be creeping along the horizon hours seemed to have passed. The campsite was empty. The old man vanished. He wondered if it had been his imagination. He wondered yet again why he had been cast to this hellish land. He prayed that whatever demon he offended that he might earn some mercy… Sighing he slowly stood, took his bearings as the clouds continued to lighten to the east, thunder rolled in the distance, another few days of travel…
Remember…
Thunder crashed and for a brief moment, he thought he saw an angel with scarlet hair, soft emerald eyes beckoning……
—----
The nightmare came again, the flashes of red, the haunted halls of the pyramid filled with the machine designed to insure an ascension to godhood.
Falling from the blow that always came long on the ground as the monster closed with its target. When a sudden thought seems to stretch through the bond they shared, "You've always been the beacon, lighting my soul with hopes and dreams"
And for a moment he stood straighter, more proud, "whatever happens I love you."
She rose on her elbows to see him standing before Apocalypse and the boy. A dozen minor injuries bled red from his frame. "Scott?" She sent…
"You look pretty impressive against a boy," he growls as he lunges slamming into the boy forcing him from the strange cocoon of energy, “Let’s see how well you fare against a MAN!”
“Scott!”
A wave of red energy explodes from the two men she sees them withering merging, pain flares over the bond searing with the intensity of a star as she feels him withering in agony then simply vanishes as his mind… his soul… simply ceases and the bond shatters…
In his place stands a mutated monster wearing his face eyes glowing blood red….
“remember”
Rotting garbage feels her nose as she feels the cold wind buffet her… an alley? no an old village market. What?
“Master, are you well?” a voice asks from the side.
“No Ozymandias, I am fine, take me to the chattel,”
No…..
“Yes, My master, the granite man replied leading her forward,
No…..
She glanced at a shop window as they passed a stall, A slim face was reflected, sunken brown eyes with a hint of red, dark brown unkempt hair….
NO!!!!
—------------
Pain shot through her, as she woke screaming, her mind reflecting it outward, a loud crash echoed the scream… No no no he’s been gone for two years …. she had never felt anything they’d scoured the world. nothing the bond had been shattered in that brief moment of sacrifice now…..
Pain burned through her as she continued to scream to thrust the pain away from her… snapping sounds echoed to her ears as a sudden draft of bone-chilling air slammed into her.
She opened her eyes to see the tattered remains of her room destroyed, the walls broken outward, and a sudden layer of snow swept in gathering at her feet. Her home ruined, the home he had bought her destroyed in her pain.
Only the cold air seemed to pass through the bubble of raw power that surrounded her. Darkness surrounded her. Fire that she feared seemed to flirt through her vision
She had felt him, Alive, the pain it was him she was certain of it. She had seen him consumed by Apocalypse at the end of the battle, unable to sustain the monster’s energies drained and battered, destroyed in the battle a pyrrhic victory he had ensured.
She let the Alaskan air envelop her. The bone-chilling cold helped her focus. Could he still live?
She floated there lost in thought, how long had she prayed and hoped only to be left with nothing… heartbroken
~Redd?~
She turned to see Nathan standing in the remains of her home, “What are you doing Redd? You’ll freeze to death that won’t bring him back. Let me in, please.”
“Nathan? how?” she lowered the bubble where he stood holding a robe.
“Come on Redd you really think I wouldn’t feel that outburst? I’m not shocked Xavier and his goons aren’t here yet. Half the telepaths in the northern hemisphere felt that. I cheated. I have the ability to body slide where others don’t.” She let him put the robe on her as she finally collapsed into her son, the tears suddenly flowing freely, the cold almost overwhelming her.
“I… I felt him,'' she whispered, “in pain… for the first time… in so long..” She cried into his shoulder, “then it was gone… we looked so hard for so long…” she cried as she felt his warmth embracing her, “ I had started to rebuild after so long… now this” she felt the shocking sensation of the body slide, she did not know where they went nor did she care.
“I tried for so long to move beyond it and the monster,” she whispered shuddering
He hugged her closer as she wept, whispering gently to her “Redd I was there, Sabah took him and theydied, we searched everywhere and found nothing. Are you certain it wasn’t something else?”
“Nathan, I shared a bond with your father for years both in the past and in the future. I know what I felt. and for a brief moment, it was alive again. I’ve struggled so hard to move forward for so long now. Do you think I want to be reminded of him when I had finally started to move on, go on missions again? Helping Ororo and the team, I've even started to mend fences with Rachel…” She shuddered briefly remembering the searing pain she had felt, “Now this? Do you think I want this now?”
He led her away from the platform into a small living room with a fire, “get warm let me get some coffee and we can talk.”
She sat there by the fire letting its warmth fill her as she searched back through her memories of what had just happened. The brief vision was almost as intense in her brain as the intense pain. Was this new nightmare drug up by her finding the hidden chest in the floorboards or something more… Was she being given some way to finally find him or was it a nightmare? She felt the professor’s mind searching for her even Rachels she was not ready to face them yet not till she knew. Was he real or a figment a hope that she had thought had died during her grief…
—--------------
The Fire had finally died down letting him continue his search, she had been here he could feel that the master would be pleased. They had finally found her hiding spot after two years of searching. Now they could move forward and the master would be pleased. Another had been here the blood of the monster, both gone now….
Master, he thought, I have her and the blood as well…
Excellent proceed as planned time to end this
He withdrew himself to the shadows of the fire as he saw the shape approaching overhead, it swooped in, a jet of some strange design several mutants exited from it. He could taste the other blood there and others…
—-------
“No sign of Red here, Storm. Cable was here but they ported out. Something else was here just don’t know what,” Wolverine commed from the wreckage as he made his way through the destroyed house.
“Prestige?” She heard her name called as she swept the ruins for her mother feeling her touch everywhere. Feeling her father’s presence still here after two years. She had only visited the house a few times before the events that sent her to the future, only to return to discover her father dead, his friends, family; her friends and family had moved on. Something she never could do .
Nathan had been here, her half brother, Jean was alway closer to Nathan she would always seek him out…
“She’s gone, Storm so is Cable, there was something else but I can’t pinpoint it.” She commed back floating above the house. She felt him now a part of her always would of her parents he had always been the more caring always reaching out for support even before he knew who she was. He had always been a shoulder to cry on….
“ Pick up Wolverine and return to the blackbird, SHIELD is already tracking onto this location we can ill afford them seeing us here.” She could feel Ororo’s frustration, her mother was her best friend. Both had fought side by side for some eight years before her father’s death. She could feel a strange miasma emanating from the house as she floated down to Wolverine’s position.
“Yeah I feel it too kid, your mom be fine,” Logan hissed as he constantly scanned the wreckage. “She’s with your brother wherever he’s hiding these days. As for the other thing,” he shrugged his shoulders. She still felt the man's desire for Jean, the lust he felt and hid about her.
“Coming old man?” she mocked as she sent tendrils of energy to surround him, propelling him towards the blackbird. Still the same old Logan, the creepy uncle she loved to hate, and hated loving. The Man who stabbed her….
The scream had stunned her, her mother rarely reached out to her telepathically. Not once in the months since she had been back from the future. Her mother had tried several times to talk to her but she had let her own hurt get between them. She knew what had caused the scream and that bothered her what had renewed that pain….
“You okay kiddo you still look a little green there?” He asked as he handed her a water bottle. she felt the slight jarring as the blackbird rocked slightly hitting the turbulence caused by their escape.
“I’m fine, just wasn’t expecting to have my breakfast interrupted by Jean,” She responded a little more bitterly than she expected, taking the bottle sipping the water. Why did she still feel that miasma? She had felt it several times before what had caused it…
“Listen kiddo, you still can’t be holding a grudge against her she's had a rough couple of years, you know she’s starting to warm to you,” he said sitting down beside her
“Warming up to you you hope,”she thought bitterly before speaking “Warming up to me Logan? She’s barely spoken to me in the last year, Dad was the one that kept bringing us, trying to fix everything, Now… Now she hardly wants to talk to me. She’s seen you more than…” She bit off her frustration with her mother, how many times had she tried to forge the bond with her here only to be spurned, how many times had she tried to connect with her here. how many times had she wished for the mother that had loved her with all her heart. How many times had her father brought them together to have a family dinner, movie night or some other event together, only to have it shattered by the bitterness that Jean showed her, her own anger at the woman barely older than her. She wished Jean would love her like her mother had dieing on the night the Sentinels came and took her. She shook her head distractedly. She still felt the miasma here on the Blackbird.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded, anger suddenly filling him while his face remained calm.
It was here, in this cabin with them, “Noting Logan,” she replied, giving him a flat look, “nothing I or you want to be voiced here and now.”
“Listen Kiddo, nothing, and I repeat nothing is going on between your mom and me. We are just friends.” He growled, She felt his rage rising, only to stop as he suddenly turned his head “Do you sense that?” she felt him think in the whispers of her mind.
Suddenly the shadows to their right lashed out, impaling Logan in his seat. They lashed out at her, sharp pain exploded from her right breast as she slammed into the seat pinned there.
Dark red eyes suddenly pear at them, “The master wants you Blood but nothing stops me from having my fun.”
She feels herself rising up as the plane plane suddenly nosedives; she can barely hear Ororo and Rogue shouting from the cockpit as they tumble. Logan’s eyes are burning red as he cuts the shadows holding him falling to the ground as blood flows from him in a dozen places as he leaps forward attacking the shadow monster. Slowly her vision starts to tunnel as she watches Logan struggling with the monster before she surrenders to the blackness.