Post by thejellyfish on Jul 29, 2014 2:16:39 GMT -5
Astonishing X-Men #0
Old Friends
By thejellyfish
Three Years AgoCentral Park, Manhattan
“Mon dieu, how did dis happen?” asked Remy LeBeau, the mutant known as Gambit, to no one in particular. Central Park was destroyed and SHIELD had been called in to clean up the mess that the X-Men had made. Grasping his arm in pain, Remy walked out from under the rubble that had dropped on him during the battle.
Truthfully, Remy knew what caused this to happen. “Stupid professor didn’t have de heart ta put his homme in de nuthouse, dat’s what.” he said to his surroundings. It was night time now and the smoke rose high over the skyscrapers. ‘Must’ve been out for awhile.’ thought the Cajun. He looked over towards the ambulances and began walking in that direction. Charles was standing with the aid of Ororo Munroe, the X-man called Storm. Her head was bleeding, but she held Charles up as he talked to SHIELD personnel.
Remy reached the ambulance and alerted the paramedic to his arm. The paramedic, a short, attractive blonde, got to work fixing his arm while another grabbed gauze and medical tape and wrapped his eye, which he was apparently bleeding from on top of his other injury. Remy looked over to Ororo and Charles, who was getting placed in a wheelchair so that Ororo could be treated. Once Remy was all fixed up, he walked over to Ororo.
“Oh, thank the goddess, Remy! You’re safe!” exclaimed Ororo, “we thought you were crushed under that pile of rubble.”
“Please Stormy, you should know dat it ain’t dat easy ta kill me.” Remy looked at Charles, who was being loaded into an ambulance. “How’s he doin’?” Remy asked in a caring tone.
“He’s hard to read, my friend; harder than usual. It’s as if Erik’s death hasn’t even hit him yet.”
“It will soon enough, chere. I wan’ ta know what de hell happened, I think he owe us dat much.”
Just then, Kurt Wagner, codenamed Nightcrawler, teleported in with a heavily wounded child, handing her to the paramedics, so that they could fix what was broken. Kurt backed away from Ororo and Remy and sniffed a tear away. Remy looked at the child once more and saw that the girl would obviously not make it. Her face was mangled, legs were broken, and three of her fingers were missing. Remy immediately looked away from the girl a tear welling in his own eye. Remy walked back towards Kurt and placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
Hank McCoy, the mutant scientist known as Beast, stumbled towards the group with a thousand yard stare. He noticed the child in the ambulance being placed in the body bag. Hank walked over to the others and wrapped all of them in a hug. Remy winced in pain, but ultimately returned the hug. Letting the tears come, Remy felt the tears fall down his cheek and heard Kurt let out more sniffs.
The hug relaxed and Ororo spoke up, still holding her friends. “We must never let this happen again. Why? Because we are the X-Men, we stop things like this from happening. But we are not only X-Men, we are a family; and we protect other families from going through what that little girl’s family is going through. We are here to stop this from happening ever again.” Ororo looked each of them, stopping at Remy, and added. “I know that this could have been stopped beforehand, and believe me; I will speak with him privately on this matter. But first of all, I love each and every one of you.”
The X-Men let go of each other and Ororo put her hand in the center of the group. “I love all of you too.” Kurt replied as he placed his hand on top of Ororo’s.
“Some say that we don’t get to choose our families, but I would choose you three a thousand times over.” Hank said as he added his hand to the center.
“You folks de only family I got left, apart from Betsy. Words can’t describe how I feel ‘bout y’all.” Remy said as he added his hand to the top. Ororo flipped her bottom hand so that it was holding Kurt’s and placed her other hand on top of Remy’s.
Present Day
Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, Westchester
Douglas Ramsey had been dreaming the same dream for weeks. He’s in space, at the edge of creation, and he hears a language that he’s never heard before. A code no human is supposed to know, but he knows it. It always ends with an image of a device, floating past him through the cosmos. He wonders what the device is, but is more transfixed on what the language sounds like. Then, it’s over.
Doug wakes up with a start in nothing but his boxers, all thanks to the human alarm clock, Kitty Pryde. Kitty is by no means an annoying person; in fact, she’s the opposite, at least to Doug she is, he thinks she’s amazing. Smart, witty, and beautiful, Doug couldn’t be more in love with someone if he tried. But, they were best friends and science partners. Pride (or Pryde as Kitty insisted that they call themselves) of the Xavier School due to their shared genius in programming, the two young mutants were as close as any two high school graduates could be without being romantically linked, and that was not something that Doug was willing to risk.
“Doug, wake the hell up, you schmuck. We have work to do. We need to help Professor LeBeau test the security system!” yelled Kitty, as she pulled the covers off of him and threw him an outfit that she had already picked out for him.
And there’s the other reason Doug hasn’t asked her out, her inappropriate crush on Remy LeBeau. With her being his teaching assistant it was bound to happen, the guy oozed charm, but it was still weird. Doug threw on a pair of jeans and a black and yellow v-neck and walked out of his room with her.
Kitty was the first to speak. “Doug, you’ve been really spacey these last few weeks, Hank been working you too hard?”
“Nah, just been having a recurring dream. It’s one of those doozies.”
A short moment passed between the two of them. Kitty and Doug passed Julian Keller and Meggan Gwyyn, talking to Professor Wagner about leading a group of students through a Danger Room course.
“Well, you gonna tell me, or am I gonna have to beg?”
“You’re gonna think it’s stupid.”
“I promise, I won’t.” she replies, brushing his shoulder.
Doug proceeds to tell her of his dream, the alien language, the device, the edge of creation, and how real it all feels. Kitty meanwhile gives Doug one of her famous looks signifying that the dream is, in fact, a doozy. He finishes his description when they get outside and begin approaching Professor LeBeau.
“Dude, you watch too much Star Trek.” Kitty replied with a hint of sarcasm.
“Okay, one: that’s not what’s causing these dreams, two: you know you love Star Trek, don’t lie.”
“Okay, you’ve got me there, but only the new movies. Chris Pine is hot. Super hot.”
The pair reached Professor LeBeau, who was wearing his thief gear and going through some stretches in order to prepare for his “break in” of the school. The students would all either be in the Danger Room running drills or out on the yard, hanging out, so Kitty and Doug could make sure all the security systems were up to snuff.
“Did I hear someone say that de new Star Trek movies are good?” asked Remy as he lifted himself up from his forward pose.
“That was me, Professor.” replied Kitty excitedly, hoping that the charming professor would be too cool for Star Trek.
“Petite, you should be ashamed a’ yourself, dem movies are absolute crap. I know it, Doug knows it, an’ everyone else knows it.”
Doug smiled to himself, stepped up, and logged into the school’s security control system on his phone while Kitty did the same, frown on her face.
“So professor, we running through the whole system or just a small set?” asked Doug excitedly. He loved testing the schools systems, for an old mansion, it sure had some advanced technology packed into its walls.
“I don’t think we need ta run through de whole thing today, just the obstacles. Remember, we got them drills today. Don’t wan’ ta hear from ole’ Stormy ‘bout how de students all got trapped in there.”
“Just the obstacles, you got it.” replied Kitty. Remy climbed to a second floor window and popped open a lock. “Here we go.” said Doug as he ran the security program.
Present Day
Six Feet, Westchester
Charles Xavier and Hank McCoy stood in the elevator of the Xavier School, waiting to hit the bottom floor. It was silent in the small elevator and maybe a little more than cramped.
“Hank are you sure, that you wish to do this?” asked Charles patiently.
“Charles, I need to do this, I need to know what’s going on.” Hank replied as they reached the bottom.
“I understand your need to do this Hank, I do, but I fear that you may not be able to contain yourself.”
“I can contain myself just fine. Remember how calm I was when you asked me to build this damn prison?”
“I remember you saying it should be a tomb.”
“And I still think it should be. But don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Swear.” replied Hank, closing the conversation.
Charles and Hank walked to the plastic room, Hank taking a seat behind a glass panel, monitoring the cell that Charles had just walked into.
Charles closed the door behind him and sat down behind a chess set.
“Charles.”
“Erik.”
Next Time: Dead Man Talking