I lose what I love most
did you know I was lost until you found me
a stroke of luck or a gift from god
the hand of fate or devil's claws
from below or saints above
you came to me
here comes the cold again
I feel it closing in
it's falling down and all around me falling
~Garbage -- Stroke of Luck
It was utter chaos, and Magneto was vaguely annoyed, arms crossed in an expression of placid arrogance and utter disapproval. From the tower where he stood, the view was unobstructed, and he watched, the master of the destruction that was being caused, with an unflinching eye.
Hands rhythmically rolled the metallic balls around and around his palm, massaging ever so slightly, fingers unconsciously fidgeting as he let his eyes rove over the destruction.
"It's like a poem," came the singsong voice from behind him, as there was a breathless whisper and a giggle. "A living poem. Daddy's come home to play."
"For goodness sakes, will you shut her up?" he snapped, his eyes not moving from the battle taking place, watching as the X-Men fought alongside the vampire and his colleagues. "This isn't what we discussed."
A low, sensual laugh emerged from behind him, as fingers gently slid across his forearm. He gave the woman next to him a scathing look, turning back to the scene.
"This is exactly what we discussed."
"Ambushing is a cowards way."
There was silence, and the tone that the answer was returned in was harder, clipped, "It's the only way, if you want to get things done. You want to disorientate them, you bring them down."
He narrowed his eyes. "Do not think I've forgotten what you are."
"Good, I'm glad. Because then you'll remember exactly what I'm capable of. You and I want the same things, Erik, but don't let the appearance fool you. You may think you are wise, old Man, but I've got a couple centuries on you." Her eyes narrowed, and there was a shift, and the normally angelic face shifted into one of demonic ugliness. "Watch and learn, child. You'll find that I get things done. And I've never been to jail."
The face slipped away, and suddenly she smiled, leaning forward to press her cold lips against the powerful mutants cheek. He closed his eyes and shuddered as the laugh behind him grew almost hypnotic.
"Metal man smells fear. Fear and a heart. Metal man-"
"Dru, shut up," his companion snapped, letting her eyes flash with irritation as she turned back to her companion. "And keep watch. Prophecies require timing, precision and a little manipulation. Don't screw it up."
The vampire beside him growled, and the smile turned angelic as she cocked her head at him, absorbing his expression. "Don't think you're better than us, Magneto. Never underestimate the undead."
And he let a smile crawl over his face, cocking his head and shaking it, before reaching out and grabbing her with surprising strength, pulling her closer until he could look into the deceitful eyes. "One thing you must learn about me, Darla. I never forget."
She smiled. "That's my boy."
A figure launched at him, loomed out from the darkness and he let a growl escape him, reaching up and grabbing it from the fabric on the front of his shirt and pulling, letting the momentum take the mutant or demon or whatever the hell he was. He slammed him down, hard, on the pavement, and the creature, stunned, could do nothing when Angel brought his foot down, smashing his heel into the chest.
The yellow eyes glowed as he whipped around, feeling the rush of air as a tangle of brown and white rolled to a stop before him, immediately standing. Rogue was breathless, there was a cut on her cheek, and she wiped the blood away absently, never noticing the way he focused on it completely until something else crashed into him with claws.
Angel immediately pushed up, slamming a fist into the face and rolling over, nodding to Rogue who immediately nodded back. With a yell she grabbed the shirt, rolled into a duck and the mutant went flying.
The mutant had some pretty nice moves, for someone so young.
And the strength of a Slayer.
Angel swallowed once at the thought of his first love, but was thankfully distracted when Rogue glanced at him.
"Logan?"
"There."
And the mutants kept coming, and the growls filled the air as Logan fought above them, over a bleacher that had been abandoned, claws extended as he punched, kicked and stabbed with all the grace of a bar fight. Next to him, Storm stood, arms extended, such a vision of power and grace, as the lightning came along with the wind, faithful to their master.
They had been cut off, from the rest of the team, and Angel used the borrowed time before another mutant targeted him to seek out his friends. Wesley he found easily enough, directly under Storm, playing an odd game of King of the Hill, as he kept any mutant that tried to reach Storm and her winds from getting to her by throwing them off.
Cordelia was nowhere to be found.
He didn't have time to concentrate on that fact before he was plunged into again, and this time the push was accompanied by a sickening squelch, as he groaned, the claw digging into his body, drawing blood.
"ANGEL!" Rogue was immediately beside him, throwing the beast off. He gave her a smile of thanks, but immediately his eyes widened and he shouted a warning. Rogue turned, but was not fast enough, and a stray bolt of a reddish laser skimmed her side, burning into the flesh. She gasped, reeled, and Angel's cry of warning caught in his throat, as he immediate plowed into her, wrapping his hands around her waist and rolling with her, quickly, until they were under the bleacher where they were safe from the mutant blasts.
She was breathing hard, face constricted slightly from the pain, eyes slightly dazed, and he immediately checked her face, wiping the blood off absently and licking it off his finger before feeling the wound on her shirt.
She gasped, and despite the injury, managed to fight off his questing fingers with an angry, "What the hell are ya doin'?"
The Southern accent was thick, and Angel swallowed, shaking his head, barely paying attention to it before again moving to the hem of the shirt. "Nothing personal, okay? We gotta check the injury." She had incredible strength, but she was clearly wounded, and Angel finally just growled in warning, pinning her hands down with his knees before lifting up the shirt and pressing his hand against the wounded flesh.
In his concentration he barely heard her quick intake of breath, the way she stiffened , forgot to breathe when his fingers touched her skin.
"Not too bad. When we get out of here, Cordy'll just wrap it up. Just… might leave a scar." She didn't respond, she wasn't even breathing, and finally he looked up, into her face. What he saw was so completely off: in the chaos of the night, the blasts and howls and cries of angers followed by shouts of pain, Rogue's face held an expression of absolute bewilderment. Her eyes were focused completely on one simple point, and his eyes quickly floated down to follow it.
His hand resting against her bare skin.
"You…" she looked confused, conflicted, and their eyes met, and suddenly Angel remembered what he should have never forgotten – Rogue's mutation was her skin.
And he was touching her and nothing was happening.
There was absolute quiet, and the urge to panic was rising in his soul, utterly terrified, mind grasping for answers, while she quickly tore off a glove with her fingers, exposing the milky white skin that rivaled his in paleness.
Her fingers floated to his face, her eyes wide and shocked, and when she touched the ridges on his face, sensitized folds of a demon, his eyes closed, a small groan working his way from his body.
He unconsciously leaned into the caress, feeling a small puff of warm air on his face as she breathed out. Questing digits slid over the skin, and everything was so still –
Until the shouts grew louder, and they were both shocked out of their daze, as Logan's voice cried out hoarsely for Rogue and Storm and Wesley cried out for him.
The reality of their situation became apparent once more, and immediately the two injured warriors scrambled up, moving as quickly as they could from out of the bleachers to find their friends had more than held their own without them.
Rogue pulled on her gloves immediately, nodding when Logan grabbed her by the elbows, demanded to know if she was all right.
"I'm fine," she said, her voice a little more shaky than usual, and her eyes were on Angel, but she said nothing, had no time for observation, as another blast came, and the second wave of mutants and vampires came at them again.
His mind was overtaken by the fighting, as a vampire came immediately for him, and he pulled out the stake hidden in his trenchcoat, ducking under the swinging arm and slamming up, impaling him on the short stick, watching him explode with a satisfying blast of dust.
But his eyes were on the fighting Rogue, and even as his mind wondered where the hell Cordelia was, he couldn't help but notice, that the girl had just had the shock of her life.
The years training her mind had left a woman of boldness, more than capable fight in a fight. On several occasions Logan had called her dangerous, and she knew that from the burly street fighter, that in itself was the highest compliment she could have earned.
Jean did not consider herself a warrior by nature. Unlike Storm, who fought well when she had to and enjoyed the tactile stealth of it all, and had no problems with taking out another if they threatened the lives of those she loved, and unlike Rogue, who had absorbed enough murderers and killers, and had retained enough of her own sassy nature to earn a reputation as a playful, sassy, deadly warrior, Jean had always been known as the healer. In a situation where someone needed protection from a fight, she was never chosen, because there were others, who were better, at this.
She should have felt fear, insecurity, because Jean, despite being called `perfect' for most of her adult life, or perhaps because of it, was blatantly, largely, insecure. Tall, gawky as a child and then blossoming in late teens, only to be struck with the life shattering eye opening experience when she kissed someone and suddenly all the thoughts he was thinking had flooded into her.
Life was terribly complicated when every fleeting thought of what every one thought of you was clear.
And now, fifteen years later, Jean Grey stood, body over a woman who had barely been a teenager, fighting for her very life.
Cordelia Chase had been almost rendered comatose. Jean suspected she had never been much of a fighter but she had more then held her own until the chaos of what was happening seemed to overwhelm her and she had sunk to the floor, covering her eyes.
Jean hadn't understood what was happening until she recalled one night, so long ago, when she had crawled to the floor in much the same way, hands over her ears in any attempt to stop the voices.
Clarity had come with a single glance, and immediately Jean had yelled to Scott to cover her, and her entire concentration was taken with keeping the vampires, the mutants and whatever beasts that had centered on them, away from the girl.
Scott was busy trying to protect her from much the same thing, and Jean had been soley absorbed in the fight, thankful for her mental abilities to keep everything at least ten feet away from the circle, distracted only when she realized they had been completely cut off from the other half of the group.
They stood, the trio, in the dark corner, where no light shone except for the one lamppost that was coming dangerously close to burning out.
And the assailants kept coming.
It took everything in Jean to keep vigil over the girl, wanting desperately to turn away from the fight and tell Cordelia to try to shut her mind down, avoid everything that was swimming over her because then, maybe she would stand a chance to stop drowning, but each time another blast would come or another hand would swing and it took her mind and her body completely focused to keep the little bubble of space around her and the girl clear, trying to help keep the flood of emotion that was trickling through even her tired body, from getting to Cordelia, from paralyzing her more.
The bubble was quickly losing ground, and in her weariness, Jean felt the emotions, the words, the hate slipping over her, infecting her body with the alien feelings.
Just her and Scott, it wasn't enough.
She bit her lip and took in a short breath, and immediately let it out in a cry of alarm when Scott was beaten, a sock in the jaw dislodging the ever precious eyepiece. It slid, dangling off his nose, and for a second her focus was on him, setting it right, love for her fiance outweighing the worry and fear that had consumed her before.
It was a deadly mistake.
In the second she had turned her focus, a blond woman, small and quite normal looking, had taken advantage. She flipped in towards her, cleared the space, and before Jean quite knew her folly, she had been kicked in the chest, flying back into the darkness, leaving the Seer unprotected.
Her body landed with a jarring impact, making her gasp for breath, her head slamming against the concrete, making her dizzy and leaving her mind, her most powerful weapon, splintering with pain.
She gasped, but had no time to look for Cordelia because they came again, this time for her, and she stumbled up, her mind groggy, her body in pain, but still workable as she fought defensively now.
She could not see Cordelia, but she could hear her, when the hoarse rasp of the seer came through the darkness.
"Buffy?"
Wesley Wyndham Price supposed he had more than done his share on behalf of the human contingent – namely him – of the fighting group. Though the fighting had been fierce, he sustained only a fading bruise on his left cheekbone.
The pavement was hard, he should know, he had just spent the last five minutes lying on it, and Storm only smiled, shaking her head before reaching her hand out to help him up.
"I am impressed."
Wesley gave her a smile, running his hands through his ruffled hair and taking in a deep breath, steadying his tired body. "That I was able to hold my own with no powers to help me?"
"No… that you were able to land that hard and not crack your head open."
He smiled sheepishly when she winked, and gave a soft laugh, shrugging, "It happens quite often."
"I would imagine it does."
Again he shared a smile with the Goddess, and now, seeing her in battle, he understood why she had earned the nickname. Storm was truly a sight to behold when her eyes were solid white, when the wind obeyed her every whim, and though the white hair was passive now, gliding over her shoulders, the strands would never be tame.
"Where's Cordelia?" The smile left his face as he turned to Angel.
"Oh, Lord."
"Jean `n Scott are missin' too," Rogue said, hand on her ribcage where the laser had taken it's toll. Immediately Logan took a look, his gloved fingers covering hers as he sniffed slightly.
But Rogue's eyes were on Angel, then sweeping the perimeter of the darkened cement parking lot.
There was complete darkness. Every lamppost had been broken, the glass shattered uselessly on the ground.
Ororo Munroe didn't seem to care. She walked a little ways apart from the group, and suddenly the winds came along with the thunder, and the lightning crashed, and the parking lot was illuminated with Storm's light.
Immediately the remnants of the group were located, and the scene made more than one mutant catch their breath, and Wesley gasp entirely.
Without another word, everyone broke into a run, Rogue not trusting herself to fly with her injury.
Storm flew, the fastest, outpacing them, but Wesley immediately stayed by Angel, struggling to keep up with Angel's faster gait.
"Angel it can't be her."
"It's not her," Angel said immediately, his eyes dark, words clipped. "She… God it can't be her."
Her.
Wesley swallowed down the confusion, breaking into a sprint, yelling as they reached the outskirts of the fight, the mutants and vampires trying to keep them the hell away from what was inside.
From Buffy Summers and Cordelia Chase.
Logan paused beside him, and sniffed once, and suddenly there was a low growl that emerged, like a dog with his fangs bared.
Rogue paused, asked hesitantly, "Logan?"
He sniffed again, and the claws slid out, as he whispered, "Mystique."
It was the pain that sliced through her arm that brought her back to reality.
Cordelia's eyes shot open, and immediately the source was clear.
Buffy Summers was cutting her arm with a long knife.
The chaos of emotion that had been struggling through her now filtered through into one simple emotion that she found impossible to block : hate completely, and utterly directed at her.
"Buffy…" she struggled, but the blonde just smiled, shaking her head and keeping her long, agile legs thrown across Cordelia's torso, keeping her pinned beneath her.
"Hold still, Cordy," Buffy said, catching the blood in a plastic bag. "Just trying to get a little sample here."
"What are you- Buffy!" The pain was sharp, but it was more the sight of the blade slitting open her skin, the blood pouring out, the hate that was so incredibly overwhelming, that kept her in place more than anything. She attempted to yank her hand back, but the grip on her hand was strong, and Buffy only shook her head in annoyance.
"Always about you, isn't it Cordelia? Am I hurting you, bitch?"
The words were edged in hate, and Cordelia's heart skipped a beat, the movement almost painful. "You're not… you can't be Buffy."
A low laugh came from Buffy's throat, as she shook her head and held the arm steady. "Why? You haven't seen me in years, Cordelia."
"You're not-"
"So I hear you've shacked up with Angel. Heard it from Wills. That true?"
Cordelia blinked, shaking her head slightly, disoriented. "What?"
"Oh you know. That you're doing the shagging thing."
Immediately Cordelia's eyes widened, and she yanked hard, bucking from under the Slayer, but immediately she was back under.
Damn. She had never known Buffy to be so flexible.
"Buffy – what the HELL are you doing?"
"You know he would never have left me, Cordelia, but he loved me too much to have a relationship with him." Buffy paused, taking the knife from Cordelia's dripping arm, and depositing it in her jacket pocket, appearing to be lost in thought. "He wanted me to have a normal life. He loved me so much, he couldn't stand for me to spend the rest of my life – loving what he was. A dark, evil, killer."
Cordelia sucked in her breath, her eyes immediately flashing. "You're wrong Buffy. He was never like that."
"He's exactly like that. And you let it happen. You're putting your life on hold for a vampire, who'll never age, never grow old – and is bound to darkness." Buffy's blue eyes bore into hers. Cordelia only swallowed, letting her hazel eyes glare right back. "It must kill you, doesn't it? The wondering? Does he love you too much or too little? Why on earth would he give up everything with Buffy, and not care about it with me? I bet he hasn't even brought it up. No kids. No life. You age and he stays the same."
"It's not like that."
"Oh? And what makes your case so different from mine?" Buffy shook her head, the wind sliding through her bangs. "Too much, or too little."
Cordelia trembled, anger sliding through her, replacing the hate that had been so rampantly directed at her, and she was glad for it, as she struggled again. "You can't do it, You can't make me doubt him."
Buffy only smiled, and clucked her tongue. "Already did, Cordeila. It's in your eyes."
"MYSTIQUE!"
Buffy looked up, and then back down, patting her cheek. "See ya soon, sister."
Cordelia closed her eyes, as the pain resurfaced, the aching gaping wound on her forearm dripping blood, the flood of emotions encompassing yet again as she struggled to stand, keep herself upright as the footsteps pounded on the pavement and the fighting was coming closer, and so were the emotions.
She closed her eyes, wished for all the pain, and horror to just go away, and suddenly she was drowning as it came full force – pain and love and anger and hate and doubt and fear and it was worse than the visions because it never stopped.
DAMMIT.
Cordelia Chase tried to concentrate, to focus before she lost her mind, but it was too late.
The world tipped sideways and the asphalt met her face and everything went black.
She had fallen asleep a half hour ago,
Gunn took a breath, gently shifting the sleeping woman in his arms, trying to settle more comfortably on the sofa as he clicked off the television.
It was doing him no good. All it was doing was making him worried and scared and that shit just wasn't cool when he had to protect Fred.
Weird. He knew Fred thought she was the last person in the world who needed a protector. She had spent five years as a slave, and that made her strong – half crazy, but strong, and resourceful. She had rescued him, when Angel had been torn between man and beast in Pylea and he guessed that now it was time to return the favor.
Gunn never took well to people close to him dying. For five long years his life had been about protection, making sure what happened to his little sister, who never had a bad bone in her body, never happened to anyone else.
And now, with Fred's tiny hands wrapped around him, with her chin settled on his chest and her body shifting slightly with each unconscious breath, he understood why he had let himself have only the vestige of a life in favor of hunting down every damn vampire he had seen and staking the hell outta it.
Funny how the very reason for him forgoing having a life was now making him wish for one.
This thing with Fred was getting damn mushy, and hell, he had only kissed her once.
Perfect timing too. Figured he'd be distracted by a woman when the apocalypse came; when there were demons and mutants and humans and demons masquerading as mutants running amok in Los Angeles, which had it's share of evil already – AND WHERE THE HELL WAS ANGEL?!
His job had just gotten a hell of a lot harder.
Thunder and lightning ransacked the place, and he jumped, causing Fred to stir above him, looking up and blinking and then shivering.
"I've always hated rain," she muttered with a drowsy twinge on her already faded southern accent. "It's wet."
"And loud," he responded, tightening his arms around her as the thunder blasted, and lightning made the darkened room light up with seconds of white hot illumination.
She shivered slightly, and he absently kissed her forehead, running fingers down her soft dark curls, looking around the hotel.
The distant far off screams and cries were getting curiously closer, and suddenly they were too close, because Gunn pushed Fred off of him and walked to the counter, reaching behind it and picking up the makeshift ax that had been given to him so long ago.
Fred was immediately up, grabbing a crossbow and arrows, aiming them easily toward the door.
When it burst open, they were ready for an attack, but when Angel paused, holding a bloody Cordelia across his chest, the bow and arrow was immediately lowered, and Fred darted forward, followed quickly by Gunn.
Angel only nodded, moving past them, as a crowd of others moved into the room, carrying duffel bags, some with scrapes, others holding injured limbs.
The mutants.
Wesley was one of the last in, closing the door behind him, and waiting, looking only once as Angel hurried up the stairs with the unconscious Cordelia, followed by Jean, Rogue and Fred.
Logan took a breath, and turned back, moving past Gunn towards the door.
"She can't hold them off forever."
"When Storm's through she'll come in through the roof," Wesley said, motioning with his head. "Hello Gunn, Good to see you," he added as an afterthought. The two immediately sprinted for the stairs.
Gunn was left alone in the middle of the floor, holding his shiny ax and feeling completely confused.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"
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