INFERNO! - Part 2
Posted on Wed Jul 3rd, 2024 @ 12:33pm by Erik Magnus Lehnsherr & Connor Bruin & Bobby Drake & Iris Walker & Jade Farwynd & Bliss Hawkins & Levi Rousseau & Shinobi Shaw & Ethan Hale & Aurora Summers & Kennedy Kelly & Lorna Dane
3,767 words; about a 19 minute read
Mission:
Episode 4: The Savage ConneXion
Location: Savage Land Citadel
Timeline: September 18th, 1990
The metal grate covering the exhaust vent shattered like glass, unable to withstand Bobby's sub-zero blast. It was just tall enough for the three mutants to proceed single file. The core temperature of the port was well in excess of 100 degree centigrade, but between Bobby's cone of frost and Levi's reverse venting, the ambient temperature was reduced to a tolerable 40 degrees. Even so, the strain was plain on Bobby's face.
"Almost... there..." Bobby grunted. Each step was a triumph of his force of will. Every second which passed by sapped more and more of his strength.
When they at last reached the end, Bobby fell to his knees. "Blow it out!"
Levi took his cue and pressed his palms together, then slid them past one another to lock his wrists and had them spin a quarter circle in front of his body while joined. After the inverted hand roll, he pressed both palms outward.
The blast of air was quite explosive indeed. All three mutants were carried on the pressure differential and blown clear of the vent. Where they landed was a generator room that was rather spartan. There was a hole in the ground which vented steam from deep within the ground surrounded by pistons and other assorted apparatuses that kept this annexed section of the Citadel in operation.
"I... need a minute..." Bobby had propped himself up on one side, but he was too weak to stand. "Go... open the doors... I'll... be along soon..."
A quick glance showed that nobody was around. Levi nodded his reluctant agreement. "Let's go, Sanguis."
Jade nodded, looking over at Bobby. She reached out for a moment, her eyes and wrist glowing red. Bobby soon felt a little cooler as she instructed his blood cells to thin out, to provide him some relief. She then turned and followed after Levi.
"Thank you..." Bobby said. "Now go! I'll just be a minute..."
The handful of Sun Temple soldiers who remained loyal to Zaladane were no match for the unbridled fury of the Mistress of Blood alone, to say nothing of the Dustdevil who sent them spiraling about the space. It took them but a moment to get to the gate controls, yet every second was precious.
What they found was horrendous.
A balding girl of frail form was surgically attached to the gate controls. Live wires ran straight from her skull to manacles at her wrists and feet, compelling a reaction. Alive by a thread, her chest never rose or fell. Only her twitching lips gave any indication that she was still breathing.
"Kill... me..." The words came out in a broken Russian accent. "Pozh... Pozhaluysta... Kill me..."
"Sonya." Jade sighed as she recognized the girl that had gone missing in the scuffle with the Brotherhood. It seemed such a long time ago now.
Sanguis' glowing eyes afforded her to see the state of the poor child better than Dustdevil's. Sonya Cross, aka Magnetika was beyond help. Even if they managed to un-attach her from the mechanism alive, she wouldn't survive a trip to the surface. Not even Jade's mastery of blood could help this one live. A fully powered and healthy Mutant had issues in this situation, let alone a barely alive one.
Her hooded head canted sideways a little, as she located the shatterpoint of her system. Rationally, Jade knew she should feel sorry for the girl. Yet...she didn't. Heeding her wishes would be a logical, merciful thing to do. So, Jade reached out with a glowing wrist towards the girl's head, but never reached it and flicked her fingers. An aneurysm in the brain, strong enough to immediately cease all living function. "You can finally rest, Magnetika."
Levi had never met Sonya, but the context wasn't hard to miss. This was a former teammate who had just met her end. Yet another injustice in this dark world. He took a deep breath and centered himself before he used the last dwindling charge of the door mechanism to force the gates apart.
Back outside the Citadel gates, the resurrected demons were fighting with relentless fury. Dead or alive, they gave no quarter and expected none in return.
Ethan swooped to and fro, dodging and diving in his guerilla attacks. It was getting exhausting, but there wasn't any choice. He couldn't let up for even a second. A wildness from within him began to call forth, offering a strength he'd never known before at the expense of mental clarity. As he took another hit from a demon at his back, he surrendered a little more to the battle lust.
Between Aurora, Bliss, and Connor, the three mutants formed a tag-team trio that leveraged aerial tactics with ground-based combat. Aurora and Bliss used their power to take to the sky only to dart back to the ground, pushing, flinging, and immobilizing all they could. Connor ricocheted between the giant demons, attacking what he calculated to be vital points. It had long since turned exhausting, but there was no choice but to keep up the fight.
Grinding groans of ancient stones overcoming their inertia and being forced appear broke the sounds of battle. All eyes turned to the Citadel gates which parted enough to see Sanguis and Dustdevil on the inside.
"INTO THE CITADEL!" Connor signed as ducked the swing of one of the giant resurrected demons.
But he wasn't the only one with that thought. The sinister laughter from before echoed throughout the air as the fiery life-force fled from the remaining demons who fell lifeless to the ground without the animating force. The dark flames converged into a single jet stream that shot through the open gates ahead of the X-Men.
Magneto took to the air, pulling himself forward faster than his feet could carry him. There was no regard as to whether or not the others followed. He didn't need them any longer. They could stay or go. Vengeance would be his.
Jade darted after him. The old man seemed to forget that he could disintegrate himself at any moment so he needed someone to back his play.
Escapade was using one flying opponent as a cudgel against the others as she made her way after Magneto. She was merciless in her battle, not pulling a single punch in her efforts. But the scariest thing was the heartfelt laughter that became her warcry.
"Come on you sons of bitches, you wanted a war? You're getting one!"
"Aw hell," said Jace. He phased and ran through the whole lot of it; demons doors, and walls. If it was safe inside, that's where he wanted to be. No more smelly hordes.
When Bobby caught his wind, he saw a blazing inferno shoot through the main antechamber where the others had gone. It had the uncanny appearance of a blazing head.
"That can't be good..."
Turning back to ice form, Bobby pressed forward to give pursuit. The gates were clearly open. He would just hope the others could catch up if he hit any trouble.
Magneto soon came to his side. "Iceman..." It was the only acknowledgement given by the Master of Magnetism, a grudging respect offered to the only warrior who had made it this far. And it was a warning: stay out of the way.
Despite Bobby's concentration, Magneto pressed on ahead, using the ionic pull of the ancient stronghold to propel him forward at breakneck speed.
"Show off..." Bobby spat.
When Bobby reached the main chamber, shouting and other signs of conflict rolled out. He slowed to a stop and waited. The others were a fair distance behind him and would be there soon. He crept inside and observed a shocking scene.
The fiery head had both Magneto and Zaladane forced to their knees, bound in chains of fire.
"Patefac portas Limbi et nunc me pati!"
"Suffer this, Belasco!" Magneto shouted. Despite his bound state, he summoned a metal plate off the wall that passed inertly through Belasco's head.
"He's not really here, you ignorant fool!" Zaladane shouted, her pain greater than Magneto's due to her lack of armor. The fiery chains were burning her skin into blisters. "He wants to use the artifact to open the gates to his realm so that he can take form here in ours!"
Artifact. Realm. All this sounded heavy to Bobby. He looked toward the dominant feature of the room, which was a large machine that rose up in an angular shape. It clearly had been the source of the sky beam shooting out of the Citadel the entire time they were in the Savage Land.
And there was no mistaking the person who was bound to it like a Roman crucifixion.
"Lorna..." Bobby gasped in shock and awe. What had they done to her? In all of his wildest nightmares, he had never pictured something like this. It was so... evil, so unspeakably cruel, so violating. "LORNA!"
Bobby ventured forth into the open, his ice form growing his stature to nearly twice the height. His limbs grew in length and girth, extending into weapons. In the span of a few seconds, he had become a frozen armature of vengeance. The demonic horned helmet matched that of the flaming Belasco.
At first, Belasco merely laughed and cast more fiery chains in Bobby's direction. The cold malice of Bobby's wrath blue-shifted the light around him into a blurry shadow. Absolute cold extinguished the fiery chains from Belasco, turning his mocking laughter into a scowl. The time for words had past. A matching figure formed of living fire met Bobby's frost troll persona, creating a contrasting tableau of opposing forces, fire and ice clashing in epic form.
"KEEP GOING!" Connor signed. Now that they had penetrated the Citadel, the remaining Sun Temple guards had been slain by the Limbo demons. It was a pitched fight for every step to get to the main chamber. "ICEMAN NEEDS OUR HELP!"
Although she didn’t expect to be successful, Iris decided to try being sneaky. She quietly and quickly darted along, trying to stick to the shadows as much as possible.
Jade had seen Bobby engage the Demon, and she used that distraction to get over to Magneto and release his binds. She did not do the same for Zaladane. She was Magneto's to deal with. "You got enough juice left to help end this?"
Escapade landed next to newly Magneto, her hand out in obvious offer.
"Care for a recharge?"
After being so quickly cast aside and bound by Belasco, it was an uncharacteristic measure of gratitude from Magneto to receive help from the others. Yet that was why he had brought them. There was no telling what challenges had awaited. Certainly nobody could have predicted an self-acclaimed Lord of Hell preparing an invasion that had only been held back by Zaladane's primitive and ridiculous empire.
No matter. The real lord of the manor had come to set matters aright. Magneto accepted the healing catalyzed by Bliss and Jade. With their powers combined, they allowed Magneto to take flight. But before he challenged Belasco, his first move was toward the machine which held Lorna.
"My dear... mein liebes Kind!" For a moment, Magnus paused. Seeing her this way upon entry to the chamber was one thing, but to stand before her was another. "I will free you. This I swear." One by one, the rivets which pinned her to the machine were pulled away, leaving her to fall to the ground.
A blast of fire struck Magneto's back. He fell to his knees before he could recover.
Everyone else could see that for all the valor Bobby's descent into madness had summoned, he had not really done any damage. His frozen plates had protected him against the worst of Belasco's fiery attacks, but since the Demon Lord was not actually corporeal, there was nothing Bobby could do except distract and enrage him. Belasco's flaming head had pinned Bobby to the ground and beaten cracks into his armor with relentless fury. Only Magneto releasing Lorna from the machine had gotten his attention.
"Serius venisti!" shouted Belasco as his visage turned into a stream of fire that flew directly into Lorna's chest. Another Latin phrase echoed around the room. "Nunc me pati!"
Lorna's green eyes fluttered for a moment before they reopened with a fiery amber color. "Suffer me now!" she repeated in English.
"Is there no end to your folly?!" Zaladane shouted, her flaming chains finally falling away. "You've given him exactly he what he wanted! The artifact kept him from bonding with the sacrifice. Now he may manifest through her!"
Magneto was unconvinced. An ultraviolet aura had formed around the machine. To his mind, it appeared to be an interface of some kind, an interdimensional conduit that allowed for transfers of energy, perhaps even consciousness. With fists outstretched, Magneto began folding the machine upon itself one molecule at a time, forcing it into an impossibly dense volume in attempts to disintegrate it and disrupt whatever wave function was emanating from it.
"Let... my... daughter... go! You brimstone Scheißkopf!"
"Lorna!" Bobby had finally recovered. Abandoning his absurd armor, he crawled toward the fight, his desperate hand outstretched for his first love. "Lorna, fight him! Push back! Don't let him win!"
"Bobby?" Lorna's voice was groggy and confused at first, like she had been woken from a dream. She slowly blinked her eyes and shook her head in an attempt to clear the fog from her head. Her eyes refocused on the face in front of her and Bobby saw the recognition in her gaze.
"BOBBY!" Her green eyes found his and he finally saw her again. In this moment, Lorna was back. Her cheerful and effervescent spirit brought light to her eyes and her features warmed in optimistic hope. Lorna knew that the X-Men would save her, they would always take care of one another. Just like with the Morlocks.
"I knew you would find me!" Lorna began to reach out for Bobby in return, her arms were stiff and sore from being chained to the machine but she still mustered her strength to grab onto him. Happy tears began to fill her eyes as their fingertips touched, "I'm so happy to see you, Bobby."
The moment that could have been was cut short with an abrupt cruelty.
Zaladane had gotten to her feet. Using the ring on her finger which had been the source of her teleportation abilities, she manipulated the portal Belasco had created not for her own escape but to cast out the evil that was encroaching on her domain. The pull and swirl of the portal shifted and the evils of Limbo began to be drawn into the portal with all the force of a dying star. In addition to Belasco's dark fire, the machine that Magneto had dismantled went through the portal —along with anything tethered to it.
Bobby's fingers touched Lorna's for a fleeting second before an energetic bond of black light engulfed Lorna and she too was dragged towards Belasco's corrupted portal into the beyond. Bobby watched as the joy left Lorna's eyes and a look of sheer panic and desperation overcame her. She attempted to scramble and claw away from the force the pulled her into Limbo but it was hopeless. She let out a shriek as the forces of infinity sucked her out of this world and into one of indescribable nightmares.
To the horror of one and all, the portal snapped shut. A clap of air, like a ghastly peal of thunder, was a nail in the coffin.
"Zaladane!" Magneto rose into the air, his voice resonating with the wrath of a father and the rage of a psychopath. "What have you done?!" Without the machine and the resulting skybeam to disrupt the planet's magnetosphere, Magneto immediately felt himself returned to full power. No longer was he hobbled by half power. Weariness and fatigue didn't hamper every move and thought. Every fiber of his being pulsated with the resonance of a planet's rotation and the resulting electromagnetic power therein.
"I saved us all!" Zaladane retorted, her eyes growing wild with fear. "You should—"
"You should have killed her!" Magneto shouted, his words echoing with an amplification caused by his forcefield's reaction with the atmosphere, the medium through which the sound his voice traveled. "Instead you have cast her into hell with that... that thing! It is a fate worse than death! One which I will spare you!"
A rod pried itself out of a console and pierced Zaladane through her middle. It lifted in the air, being a hook in the invisible line that Magneto used to draw her after him. The opening overhead that the skybeam had once shotup from loomed ever closer as Magneto flew through it, dragging a writhing Zaladane all the way.
"Hear me, Savage Land!"
Magneto's voice reverberated through the mountains and across field and fen to the savannahs and the glacial barriers that bordered the rest of the frozen continent.
"Magneto lives! Today I have returned to mete out my justice upon those who would challenge me! Behold, your empress!"
Zaladane was but a silhouette in the sky, her outline plainly visible in the light of the sun. A muted shriek of agony preceded a sanguine spray of bloody particulate matter as her body was torn apart by the trace minerals and metals within her blood and bones. With a wave of his hand, Magneto scattered her remains across the sky which caught the light like an airplane's contrail or a twisted, bloody rainbow.
"Today I reclaim my Citadel as my weregild for the life that was taken from me! Remember the sight of the usurper Zaladane! Remember thus ever to those who call me back here!"
Inside the Citadel, the ground began to shake hard enough that the stone exteriors and technical panels began falling apart. The X-Men were unable to stand, tossed about like sailors in a maelstrom.
"What's he doing?!" Bobby shouted. "Is he trying to kill us?!"
"WORSE!" Connor signed. He looked up at the opening and began to see stars. "I THINK HE IS TAKING THE CITADEL INTO ORBIT!"
Kennedy merely flinched at the sight of Zaladane's demise, she wasn't sure if she was becoming immune to acts of violence or if she was merely numb from constant exposure. She had long run ago run out of arrows and her powers were so depleted that she couldn't even charge a playing card if she wanted to. Exhausted both mentally and physically, Kennedy simply sat down on the ground and waited for Magneto to decide what he would do with them. His awesome power returned to him, they were helpless to his whims.
Jace fell to the ground and decided to stay there. This had all been unbelievable. And then... Magneto's daughter? And the end of Zaladane? He just rubbed his face on his hands. This mission is literally been hell on earth.
Iris had approved of Magneto’s actions up until that point. How could Zaladane have sent an innocent into such godforsaken place? She deserves to die. But moving the citadel with them all still inside? What the hell? “I’m gonna throttle him,” she vowed, but it was an empty threat; the worst she was likely to do would be to tell him off.
“Everyone group together! Now!” The fiery form of Aurora appeared in the sky above her team mates and friends. She looked around, she wasn’t sure if she had the amount of power it would take to lift them all and move them clear of the Citadel but there was only one way to find out.
Grabbing everyone in a telekinetic bubble Aurora lifted them free of the Citadel, her orange flames turning white hot then blue at the exertion yet it wasn’t hurting her at all. It appeared the power of the savage land hadn’t deserted her yet, as she found the nearest safe spot to put everyone gently down before touching down to cool off.
Unfortunately the ground where they had landed was rising into the sky faster and faster. Asteroid M was several miles in diameter, so there was no telling how large the landmass in which the Citadel's complex had been embedded would prove to be. The elevator effect of rapid upward acceleration was felt by one and all.
Connor tried to take a deep breath and found he couldn't. Without needing the benefit of breathing to speak, he signed as fast as he could. "BACK INSIDE THE CITADEL! WE ARE EXITING THE TROPOSPHERE! BREATHING WILL BECOME IMPOSSIBLE AND WE MAY BE COOKED ALIVE! HURRY BACK INSIDE!"
He led the way back to the gates, his feet feeling like lead weights against the mass acceleration and the ever dwindling atmosphere. They would have to get the doors shut. They needed to keep the Citadel pressurized until Magneto, as Connor presumed, brought the Citadel to Asteroid M and annexed it as a trophy and expanded research facility. It was insane, to be sure, but Connor could appreciate the poetry of it if nothing else. They just had to survive.
Jade moved as if in a daze. She vaguely heard Connor's instructions and followed. The blood was calling to her, the power of it, the power it lent her over others. It was hard to pull away. Sanguis darted off with the others through a haze of blood echoes of everything that had happened. With the changes in the atmosphere, droplets had started floating, creating a red mist they ran through. How wonderful it felt.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Iris exclaimed as they all hurried back inside. Now she really wanted to throttle Magneto.
What control Levi had over the atmosphere at this altitude helped keep the X-Men conscious and breathing until they managed to lock down the Citadel and preserve what pressurized air remained. Exterior lighting became brighter and brighter as the passed through the ozone layer, forcing them to retreat to the inner chambers of the Citadel on its ascent into outer space.
In time, the computer equipment showed the curvature of the Earth. Mostly cloud cover with spots of oceanic blue jutting through, but it was still a majestic sight. Over the crest of a rounded horizon was something more ominous. Their destination slowly came closer as the orbit dragged it closer to meet them.
Asteroid M.
END
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