Let me know what you think...write me at cornwell@planet.eon.net
After sprouting a fairly large set of feathered wings out of my back in my early teens there is very little in life that surprises me. Until very recently that is. A couple months back I was blown away when Xavier, a man I had looked up to for years became a benevolent entity that nearly eradicated all of humanity. Following right on the heels of that was the return of my original wings I thought I had lost long ago when a harpoon ripped though them. I left the X-men shortly after this and due to recent events I don't think I'll be going back. This may sound selfish but right now I could care less. The fact is I don't feel like fighting for Xavier's dream anymore. The professor fought for it all his life and look where it got him. I don't feel like putting my life on the line any more. I'm tired of fighting battles that we can never win. I've given it my best shot and I recognize a lost cause when I see one. The mutant race has conveniently become the sole reason for all of the evils on the planet. The tension between mutants and humans is coming to a head. The choices I am left with is fight or flight. I choose the latter. It's not the choice a hero normally makes but lately I don't feel like being a hero much anyway. The way I figure it if I leave them alone they'll leave me alone. Is it to much to ask that I be left to live my life in peace. Apparently it is. The war I have tried so hard to get away from seems to be determined to drag me back in. They won't leave me alone. They attack me when I've done nothing to warrant such attacks. I thought I could live a normal life but I see even this will be denied to me. They're trying to kill me and from where I stand death doesn't look all that bad. It can't be any worse than the hell I'm living in now...
My log cabin is coming to the big screen this summer. They're not making a movie about it or anything like that, they're just filming a movie in it. Not the entire thing I don't think...not unless they can film them in just a week. From the look of some movies I'm seen recently maybe they can. One week...that's how long I've been out of house and home. Not that I'm complaining...they paid me a fair amount of money to rent out my place for the past week. Still the week I spent skiing at the local resort has wore me out. I hope they've finished up their filming cause I'll be glad to get back under my own roof. As I pull up the long winding driveway that leads up to my cabin I begin to wonder how they even knew about this place. I mean it's not like you can see it from the main highway...that's one of the main reasons I bought the place. I have no idea why but for some reason I think something is wrong. I think all those years I spent on the X-men have made me paranoid. What could possibly go wrong?
I can't stand it anymore...I have to get out of this car. You think you're uncomfortable after a six hour car drive, try making that trip with an enormous set of wings strapped to your back. They don't design cars for people like me. Pulling the car to a stop in front of the garage I make a quite look around to make sure I'm alone. A half a minute later I'm a couple hundred meters in the air. It feels so good to use my wings again...even one week is to long a span between flights. In fact they're probably the only thing that keeps me going lately. I never realized how much I had come to depend on my friends in the X-men. We were like a family...especially the original five of us. I miss Scott, Jean, Hank, but most of all Bobby. No! I'm not going back...there's nothing to be gained by living in the past. The fun we use to have together is long gone. The world has become a lot meaner, the villains a lot more bloodthirsty, and the simple truth is the ruthless Archangel was better suited for today's world than the high flying Angel.
Someone's inside the cabin. I saw a shadow move away from a second floor window as I landed a minute ago. Nobody should be here. The film crew should be long gone and the only other person....Betsy? She came back to me...oh God I hope so. When she stormed out of here a couple weeks back I thought she'd never come back. She's more important to me than I ever thought possible. What was I thinking? Trying to drive her away from me...to protect her from whatever Apocalypse has planned for me. When his lackey Ozymandias came to me the night my wings came back telling me it was all part of his masters grand design I guess I kind of freaked out. I had no right to take it out on Elizabeth. It's my fault I'm even a pawn of Apocalypse. I sold my soul to the devil so I could soar in the heavens once again. I think I made a terrible mistake treating Betsy the way I did. I know I made a terrible mistake but the sad truth is that if I had the chance to do it all over again I'm not sure I'd do anything different. I'm not sure I can drive her away a second time though...I barely managed it the first time. As I walk in the front door I fall to my knees in horror. I'm not sure what I expected to find but never in my wildest nightmares did I imagine this. The lifeless body hanging by a rope a few feet off the floor in the center of the cabin. The lifeless body of Betsy.
Betsy's dead! Somebody killed her. They killed her to get at me...the message on the wall behind her makes that very clear. I can't go on. This is to much to ask. How can I continue to fight for peaceful co-existence when this is my reward. I thought I had made enough sacrifices but why this one...why Elizabeth? He expects me to want to fight for his dream...to live in peace with the people who did this? He expects the impossible. I hate the human race. Them and their normal lives. They hate and fear us...call us monsters. I say the opposite is true. They are the true monsters. They are the ones who almost made the man who founded the group that did this to Elizabeth president. They killed Betsy...they hunt us like animals...they're wiping out the mutant race. They must pay for what they've done. I will make them or die trying. That's when I hear the laughter.
I have no idea who this guy is. He's talking like I should know him but I think I'd remember a guy who dressed in a green body suit and wore an over-sized fish-bowl on his head. The only thing I know is that he's the most likely suspect in Betsy's murder. I'm across the room in less than a second only to find he's not there anymore. I barely get my arms up to protect myself in time as I slam into the fish tank built in to the wall behind him. My left arm is cut up pretty badly from the jagged edges of glass remaining in the drained fish tank but I'm doing better than my hundred dollar a piece exotic fish that lie dying at my feet. Carefully extracting myself out of the remains of the tank I curse myself for making such a stupid mistake. Holding my left arm I see Betsy's killer standing on the other side of the room. He must be a teleporter or maybe possesses super speed. Just as I adjust to this new information I am stunned when he begins to multiple. Where only one stood before there is now ten then twenty. Just how powerful is this guy?
I think I tore a few muscles in my right wing. I panicked when the small army surged toward me and went to fire a load of paralyzing darts at them. I forgot that I can't do that any more with these wings. I'm really going to have to get use to these new (old) wings. As it is I can't seem to lay a single hit on any of these guys. One second they're there and the next they're not. The opposite is not true...they seem to be able to hit me where ever I've let my guard down. Suddenly they all vanish and there's only one left standing in front of me. Never one to question a little good luck I let loose with a vicious right hook. I think I shattered my right hand as I connect with a very solid living room wall that replaces my intended target at the last second. I swear that wall wasn't there a second ago and then it hits me...I do know this guy. I've seen his picture in the "Daily Bugle" back in New York. He's that guy Spider-man's always putting away...Mystery-man or something like that. If Spider-man can take him he can't be that hard to beat...I hope.
I take to the air cause from the look of things this guy can't fly. I'm not going to get very high inside the cabin but it's high enough to keep me out of his (their) reach. It looks like he doesn't want me to take this outside due to the fact that heavy steel slabs have just slide down over all the windows and both doors. As try to stay aloft in my limited air space I become aware of two things. The first is that Betsy's body is gone and from what little I know about this guy I begin to wonder if it was ever really there to begin with and not some elaborate illusion. The second thing is a lot more painful. I slam face first into the heavy glass chandelier I put in a couple months ago. The pain sends me falling to the floor. Like the wall I can swear that it was not there a few seconds ago. They both appeared out of nowhere...like they were invisible until I hit them. I land badly...I mean very badly...I'm guessing I going to be on crutches for a couple months at least. As I struggle to sit up...(like I'm even going to try and stand up) I notice him sitting in my favorite chair a few feet away. After telling him to make himself at home I try to make a deal with him. I offer him double whatever they're paying him to kill me if he just walks away now. I am a little surprised when he turns my offer down...I always thought villains went for double crosses like that. As he rises to his feet and makes his way toward me I think I say the stupidest thing I've ever said in my life. I tell him to hit me with his best shot. I don't know what scares me more the fact that I said that or the fact that he laughed.
One second later Warren Worthington's log cabin explodes in a huge fire ball. By the time the local fire department gets there the house is already consumed.
***
Mysterio had watched the entire battle from a hill top half a mile away. As he shut down the video screens and equipment he had set up around him he laughs to himself. He had finally won. Every other time Spider-man or some other hero had beaten him. It had only taken a week to set up all the equipment in the cabin but it had taken well over a month to plan this one. The equipment he had lost in the cabin could be replaced ten time over with the money that Bastion guy was paying him. Plus he had finally gotten that light bending invisibility trick to work out right. All in all a very good day. Maybe I might just try taking on Spider-man again...well maybe not Spider-man but Daredevil...yeah Daredevil I can beat him I think.
***
Scott heard the dishes crash to the floor a second before he felt his wife's pain in his head. Moving quickly into the kitchen he found his wife seated on the floor among the shattered dishes hugging her knees crying. He didn't even have to ask...he knew...they had gotten Warren. Two of his closest friends killed in the past weeks. Scott Summers joined his wife on the floor and that is where they stayed until Sam came over for breakfast the next morning.
***
Apocalypse sat in silence a full minute before noticing it. "Why have you stopped?" he asked. Ozymandias looked up at his master in silence before telling him why he had stopped his recording of history in stone. Ozymandias spoke "He is dead, your fourth horseman Death has fallen in battle." Never before had he seen his master surprised but at that moment he was very much so. "Perhaps you were wrong...perhaps he was not one of the ones destined to survive the..." Ozymandias started before Apocalypse shouted him down. "NO...something is very wrong, this should not have occurred...someone or something is changing history permanently...the time stream is not separating as it should, alternate time lines are not being formed...the true Apocalypse is at hand." stated Apocalypse.
***
The new addition to her cell was creeping Jubilee out. What appeared to be the charred skeletal remains of an guy with wings hung on the wall next to the jar that now held the slightly melted chunk of ice that looked like Bobby's head. She knew it wasn't Archangel because Wolvie had told her sometime back that Warren had gotten his original wings amputated That he had them replaced by those metal ones he had now. What was left of the wings on the skeleton didn't look metal to her. No way was Bastion going to fool her this time she thought and then she remember something. Something she had seen in one of Paige's letters from Sam. Something about Warren growing new wings or something like that. She hadn't been able to read the whole thing cause Paige had come back to her room...but she thought that's what it said. She hoped she was wrong cause if she wasn't things didn't look to good for the X-men. Things didn't look to good for her.
The End?