****

 
At first it was just movement in the overwhelming darkness, but Angel thought he heard something, a small noise multiplied by dozens, a kind of repetitive, muffled clicking. Storm decided to use lightning so they could have some illumination, but as soon as she did, and they could see what was coming towards them, they wished she hadn’t.

They were facing, in wave after dark wave, bugs. Giant bugs.

They looked more or less like cockroaches or large beetles, only about twelve feet tall and nine feet in length. Their black carapaces gleamed, reflecting the lightning flashes like dark mirrors, huge pincer mouths opening and closing with metronomic regularity. It was that causing the clicking noise.

“I didn’t think bugs could get that big,” Spider said, sounding numb. Well, a swarm of twelve foot evil cockroaches could do that to a person.

“Not in the Earth realm,” Angel concurred, getting a better batter’s grip on his axe. “The physical realities of that dimension - the four square law - prevents it.” He didn’t bother to add that those rules didn’t apply to gods or demons, as they were dealing with enough.

“The who what?” Piotr asked.

“Basically it says that, beyond a certain point, something would be too big to sustain itself in our gravity,” Storm answered, giving him the shorthand version.

“Right, it would suffocate under its own weight.” Angel wondered why they were even having this conversation now, but it was something to do that was distracting. They stank of fear, himself included. There was nothing that quite wormed its way into the Human psyche like big, ugly, marauding bugs in a swarm. Very basic, but highly effective.

“You know, I think I’ve had dreams like this,” Piotr added, possibly trying for levity, but his voice was too weak.

There was no counting the bugs headed towards them. Well over two dozen, and there seemed to be no ending to the dark horizon they were marching out of. The lightning didn’t frighten them, but why would it? They were manifestations of darkness, courtesy of the twisted but limited mind of Kalfu, father of darkness.

“Whatever you do, don’t let them get near you with those pincers,” Angel said, gearing up to make his move. “Avoid the legs too - they look spindly, but if they can step on you, they’ll pin you down. Try and stay on top of them as much as possible, and don’t let them gang up on you.”

“There’s way too many of them,” Spider said, pointing out the obvious.

“I know. But would you rather die without a fight?” He asked, and then ran toward the lead bug.

It leaned down towards him, pincers opening wide as it let out a screeching hiss, and Angel buried the axe in its head. It screamed like an air raid siren and reared up, almost taking him and the axe with it, but Angel yanked it out, just in time to cut off the head of another bug trying to get him from behind.

The first one collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud that shook the quasi-existent earth, and Angel jumped up on its quivering body, using it as a launching point to jump up on the back of a living bug. He buried the axe in its back, breaking the steel like carapace, and it screamed and tried to throw him off as he jumped to the back of the next bug and did the same thing. This was a pattern he kept repeating, and it was all he could really do; at least no matter where he chopped into them, the wound would be fatal.

Spider was pretty much following his lead, leaping from the back of the bugs, one to another, with enough force to make their bodies crack as if they’d been hit with a giant shoe. Some of them may have been technically alive, but they laid twitching on the ground, unable to move. Storm was skewering some with lightning bolts (the smell of fried insects was pretty disgusting), and seemed to balance herself on a small pillar of wind, keeping herself above bug access. Piotr was left on the ground, but was for now holding his own. In metal mode, he was able to punch them hard enough that he put his fist through their exoskeletons, and rip off their pincers. But he often paused to make a noise of disgust, suggesting he really didn’t care for getting bug guts all over him.

In spite of the fact that thy had easily wiped out over a dozen of these things, they kept coming at the same rate; an eternal army of flesh eating monster bugs. This whole thing was an exercise in futility; they were doomed.

Oh, the ignominy of it all. Had he ever imagined that he’d be killed by a giant cockroach? It was so sad it was funny; too bad he was too tired to laugh.

It was then he felt a prickle along the back of his neck, making his hair stand on end. It was a familiar feeling of power - Kalfu showing his ugly mug again? He turned his head towards what he sensed was the source of the feeling, but what he saw was not Kalfu, but a sliver of red light, cutting through the darkness like a scalpel. What the hell was it now?

It must have caught other people’s notice, because Piotr let out a sudden cry of pain, and Angel looked down to see one of the bugs had grabbed Piotr by the arm, and - metal or not - was chomping right through it. Well, demon bug - demon bugs could do anything. Angel didn’t really know what the weakness of Kalfu created Bugzillas were.

Before Angel could pull his axe from the back of the roach he was on now, Spider came crashing down on the bug’s back with such force it didn’t just crack, it splattered. Piotr yanked his arm clear and stumbled back, cradling the limb to his chest. It was still attached, just bleeding copiously.

Angel jumped onto the back of a beetle charging Piotr and buried the axe in its thorax, making it screech and rear up - it was like trying to walk on a bucking semi - when something emerged from the gash or red light.

It was a woman, of all things, and the bugs all screeched as one and started to do something they hadn’t done before: backpedal. Being not just bugs but big, huge fucking bugs, this wasn’t easy for them. Angel jumped down to the ground before he got accidentally thrown off and trampled in the bug rush.

He soon realized why the Buggles were trying to get away so fast. This woman was shedding energy - god energy - like body heat, and it made her glow red, as if outlined by neon. She was a lanky woman in a black leather outfit with fiery red hair, and eyes that were indeed fire. Angel felt the almost undeniable urge to hide.

Spider jumped down to join them, and Storm dropped down so dramatically it was like her powers suddenly gave way. “Jean?” She gasped.

The woman looked towards them, but her eyes settled on him, and he felt his hackles rise as he realized her gaze was warm. He was ready to throw the axe if he had to. Her eyes narrowed, and she said, in an oddly layered voice, “You’re not Human. But you’re … familiar. Oh, yes - I’ve seen you in Logan’s mind.”

Okay, so this was the Jean that Logan had mentioned?  But he'd said she was just a mutant!  Wow, how much back story had he missed here?

But the demon inside him cringed once more, and he felt like jumping out of his skin as Kalfu’s ill defined face appeared once more, hovering about ten feet in front of and twenty feet above Jean. “Who dares trespass -” he started to roar, but she didn’t let him get very far.

“Oh, be quiet,” she interrupted, and she suddenly seemed to flare, like a sunspot, far too bright for them to look upon, and Angel could feel the shockwave go through him, and almost take him with.

But as soon as the light died, and they could look again, the bugs were gone. Kalfu was gone; Jean was gone; her rip in darkness was gone. All of it … Angel couldn’t even sense it anymore.

“Okay, what the fuck just happened?” Spider asked, probably speaking for all of them.

“That couldn’t have been Miss Gray,” Piotr said to Storm, and it sounded like he was pleading. “Could it? What’s happened to her?”

Angel knew, for his part, that he had to thank Logan for ever thinking of him, or he’d have been dead as those goddamn bugs.

He got another creepy sense of power, and suddenly the world seemed to drop away from beneath them. For a moment it was like plunging into null space, their stomachs rising and heads falling, until they rather abruptly met the ground. But even before his vision came back to him, Angel knew from the scent alone that this was Earth - his Earth.

He could almost smell the sun, hidden behind black storm clouds for now, but it made his skin crawl. He had to get inside as quickly as possible.

He had just shoved himself up to his knees when he heard someone darting out towards them, and he turned, instinctively tensed to fight, to see Cyclops stop just short of them. “Are you guys all right?” He asked, and seemed to stare at Piotr’s bleeding arm.

Piotr was sitting up, still cradling his bloody arm, but he looked stunned in a way that had nothing to do with his injuries as the steel slowly ebbed away from his skin. “We saw - it was -”

“We need to get him inside,” Storm interrupted, getting to her feet. Piotr looked up at her, clearly confused, but Angel figured out that she didn’t want to tell him about Jean, not yet anyways. He wondered why. “He’s been hurt pretty badly.”

“Is Logan around?” Angel asked, jumping to his feet. Maybe he’d know what was up here.

Cyclops shook his head, and went to Pitor, helping him up. “No, we just got back ourselves. The front of the mansion is trashed again, and the lounge is full of frozen giant rats.”

“What happened?” Storm asked. “Are the kids okay?”

Angel felt a chill run down his spine, and he had a sudden bad as he looked sharply behind him -

- to find the Weird Sisters leering down at him, with bright and sinister eyes. “Hello-”

“-Daddy.” They both reeked of Berserker blood.

He groaned and shut his eyes, hoping they’d be gone when he opened them again, but pretty sure they wouldn’t be. He still had the axe, and considered using it, but the fact that he thought about it meant it was too late. While he wasn’t completely convinced they were telepathic, they did have an eerie ability to know what you were thinking the moment you did. He could try his luck now, but he had a feeling they were already getting ready to laugh at him, and there was nothing more bone chilling than their disdainful, crow like cackling. They just had to come along with Bob, didn’t they? If he didn’t know better (did he?), he’d think Bob only had them as part of his entourage to annoy him.

He hoped wherever Bob was, he was paying for this.

24

“So, tell me, you got glass guts?” Logan asked, tensing for a lunge. If he hit just right, he bet he could cut the fucker in half.

Nebby chimed a delicate laugh. “No guise works with me, Human. I -”

“You’re a flippin’ galah,” Bob said.

Logan figured he’d teleported, but he followed the turn of Nebby’s head, and saw that Bob was … floating?

He looked like he was standing in mid-air, four meters away from and slightly higher than them, glowing a violent blue. The energy seemed to stream from his eyes and surround him, a network of living tears. “Call me little Power all you want, Neb, but I’m still one of them - and do you really think you could make me fall to my death in a heaven dimension? When they were givin’ out brains, they scraped the bottom of the pot for you, didn’t they?”

With Neb distracted by Bob, Logan made his move.

Logan charged forward, popping his claws at the last minute, and drove it through Neb’s glass gut, ripping clean to the other side. He felt his own skin tear on the splintered shards of Neb’s “skin”.

Nebby backhanded him with a pained roar, and it was like getting swatted with a cement mixer. His vision dissolved into motes as he went flying, and hit something so hard it broke. (He hoped it wasn’t his spine.) When he could see again, he saw he’d hit a tree hard enough to snap the trunk like a celery stalk, and with enough continued velocity that it fell the other way instead of on top of him. His one lucky break.

Bob and Nebby appeared to be grappling within a halo of swirling blue and white light, but this time on the ground. Yasha edged over to him, still looking pissed off that she had to remain in the penumbra of shade, and asked, “Break anything?”

“Not yet.” He honestly wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to do an inventory just now. And it looked as if he hadn’t cut the bastard clean in half either. Shit. He was denser than he looked - probably in more ways than one.

From seemingly out of nowhere, a glass ball a bit smaller than a cue ball hit the dirt and rolled into the copse, and Logan sincerely hoped that was not a piece of Nebby. “I will not be trapped in one again!” He roared, and tried to throw Bob, but it didn’t work, and they both went rolling onto the suspension bridge. They might be supernatural beings bleeding energy that could have singed your short and curlies, but still, they kind of looked like two belligerent guys in a Glasgow pub on a Saturday night after payday.

Trapped in what? The ball? How could Bob shove his big, oversized glass ass in that? But he had said “again” … a time bubble? Oh fuck, how hard of a blow to the head did he take to think that?

But it made perfect, completely fucked up sense. They didn’t need to kill him necessarily, just encase him in time like amber. Maybe it wasn’t even possible to kill him.

“Did you see where that thing went?” He asked her, as he stood up. Oh wow, did his back hurt. Made him feel like an old man.

“The golf ball? Maybe. Why?”

“I think Bob’s gonna need it.” It looked like Bob needed all the help he could get; Nebby had him pinned down to the bridge and was now pounding his face to mush. Shitty for Bob, but it left Nebby’s back exposed.

Logan ran towards the bridge and then jumped, not wanting to alert Nebby with his footsteps on the bridge. His dive was accurate enough, as he landed sinking his claws deep into his prismatic back. He screamed and threw back his massive head, slamming it straight into Logan’s face. His nose shattered and he saw blinking motes once more, even as he felt the blood streaming down his face.

Before he was aware of anything happening, he was flying through the air, and heard Yasha shout his name. He just barely hit the rope railing of the bridge, and as he went over it, he made a desperate grab for something solid, and managed to snag the side of bridge with his claw.

For a moment he dangled off the side precariously, head still swimming, but managed to slide his other hand between the slats as the bridge rocked and swayed drunkenly, as if trying to deliberately throw him off. But it was just the fight between godheads, and Nebby still looked to be winning this one.

“I am the utmost!” Nebby roared, slamming his glassy fists into Bob, like he was a nice, tender punching bag. “I will not be defeated by a godlet!

You Powers can go to hell! I am-”

Logan was starting to pull himself up onto the bridge, intending to shout to Yasha to see if she found the time bubble or whatever the hell it was yet, when he saw a blur in the air, dark yet smoldering.

It all happened so fast he mostly realized it retrospect.

A vamped out Yasha, sizzling and smoking from exposure to a godly sun, vamped out due to the pain, leapt on Nebby’s back like he had, but with enough force to shove him off the side, his weight tearing through the rope rail like tissue paper. And even as they fell over the side, she smashed her fist through his glass torso, and inserted the time bubble and she turned into living flame.

Nebby screamed in agony as he fell, reaching to claw at the hole in his shattered chest, as Yasha became a pillar of flame that quickly disappeared into ash that drifted in the sky like a granular cloud. Nebby’s glass body lost its prisms, became milky white, and he was so preoccupied with digging out the object in his body he didn’t bother to save himself from smashing down to the ground.

Logan couldn’t honestly believe he’d seen what he’d seen. Yasha just … she didn’t just burst into flames and dissolve into nothing. That hadn’t happened. How could that happen?

He was filled with a strange, cold numbness that wasn’t unfamiliar, and let himself fall.

He didn’t even try to land on his feet. He hit the rocky ground hard, sending shudders of pain through his charged body, but he ignored it as he crawled on his elbows and knees towards the prone figure of Nebby, who seemed to be turning to ice. Logan could still taste ashes in the air and see them scattered on Nebby’s broken torso as his golden eyes started to cloud over, brim with milky white. “You fuck,” Logan growled, and slammed a claw right into the center of his face.

He kept doing it until he shattered his whole head, and because it didn’t feel quite satisfying enough, he retracted his claws and just started smashing his fist into what was left of him, the glass shredding the skin of his knuckles even as it broke under his assault. Some slightly milky fluid that had absolutely no scent at all started oozing among the ruins, and he wondered if that’s what passed for its blood. The head was gone and he was working on the body when he heard Bob say behind him, “He’s dead, Logan. You killed him before the stasis field could fully take effect.”

“Why did you let that happen?!” He roared, snapping his head back to glare at him.

Bob looked pretty messed up himself, with cobalt blood streaming from his nose, dripping from a cut beneath his eye, trickling from a split lip. “I didn’t, Logan. I -”

“Why didn’t you tell us about the fucking time bubble?!” Yasha must have figured out what it was, just like he did, and decided to take her shot, no matter that it would probably kill her. That was the main problem with tough women: they didn’t know when to hang back.

“If Nebby saw it in your minds, he -”

“Can you bring her back?” He demanded. He was so angry he didn’t even feel the burn of healing in his hand; he felt like he was full of molten lava. And he felt like driving his claws straight through Bob’s face.

Bob shook his head and grimaced sympathetically. “I don’t do resurrections. I’m sorry.”

Logan wanted to see if he could cut him up, shred him like Nebby, but he knew he wouldn’t get very far. That just made him angrier, and he had to turn away before he did something he regretted. “You should have never brought her here.”

“I didn’t know he’d shift the location; I didn’t realize he’d be so afraid of vampires.”

If he was making a joke now, he would kill him. “Why would a god be fucking afraid of vampires?”

“Because, like him, they’re a half-breed.  No one could know better than him how dangerous they
could be.”

He supposed it was an answer, just not a very satisfying one. No answer would be enough, though, would it? He didn’t want to cry, but in spite of his best efforts, his throat closed, and he could feel hot tears trailing down his cheeks, the saline burning the cuts that had yet to completely heal. He knew, on one level, it was stupid to cry over the death of a vampire; but this wasn’t just any vampire, this was Yasha.

Oh damn it. He knew this was trouble. He knew she never should have come along. But how could he keep her out of a fight? It would have been like keeping him out of a fight. They had always been too much alike.

He tried to swallow back the rage and despair that threatened to overwhelm him, but it was still choking him; he was finding it hard to breathe. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he growled, wiping the snot and tears off his face and smearing blood. As soon as he said it, he knew couldn’t go back like this. “Gimme a push, will ya? I can’t - I don’t wanna seem like a fucking wreck.”

“I doubt you need it. You’re the master at putting your feelings off until later, aren’t you?”

Logan was going to chew him a new one, until he realized that was probably a subtle push.

“Let’s just go,” he grumbled, aware that the feels of aimless rage and strangling sorrow was starting to ebb; not disappear, but wane, fall back behind natural barricades inside his own mind. He could live with that, if only for now.

He wondered how many others hadn’t made it.

25

It wasn’t a surprise to find that the mansion was trashed, but he was surprised to find who was loitering around.

They just popped up in the main foyer of the mansion, which now had the front door missing, and about an inch of water on the hardwood floor, tinged pink with blood. Wesley, with a bloody bandage on his head and a slightly glazed look in his eyes, showed up instantly, to ask Bob to come downstairs, as they had wounded. Logan followed, mainly because he wanted to know who.

The answer wasn’t good. Xavier was down, after contacting Jean (fuck, that’s what he was doing?! He was lucky his head hadn’t exploded like Delirum’s), and Marcus had fought with a Berserker, which pretty much said it all. That was how Wes had gotten himself banged up as well, but Bob “fixed” him in the elevator (well, all he said was “You’re fine,”), and Wesley didn’t even seem to notice. Piotr almost got his arm bitten off by a demon bug (he didn’t even want to know), but was better off than most.

Down in the bright metal corridors that made up the real guts of the mansion, the first person they encountered on the way to labs was … Rags?

Rags, for some reason wearing a Xavier Institute sweatshirt. “Oi, Bob, Medusa said to say hi to ya.”

“Oh yeah? How’s she doin’?” Bob replied casually. Medusa?

“Well.”

“What about you?”

“I’m good. I fink I’m over my depression. Well, ‘til the high wears off …”

“Take what you can get,” Angel said, coming down from the other end of the hall. He looked okay, but smelled of something sour … bug guts?

“Ooh, swoopy, besouled fancy ass vamp finally shows ‘is face,” Rags taunted. “I fought you ran off.”

Angel glared at Rags, for all the good it would do. Did they know each other? Or was it just his rep? “I was talking to Amaranth. By the way, Bob, she’s threatening to give you a witchcraft enema.”

Bob just shrugged. “Least of my problems at the moment. I’ll make her some pineapple tarts and she’ll forgive me.”

Pineapple tarts? Again, he didn’t want to know.

Angel gestured with his eyes alone that he wanted to talk, and Logan nodded and hung back as Bob and Wesley continued down the hall. “They bad?” He asked quietly, as Wes hadn’t exactly specified the severity of their conditions.

Angel half shrugged, reluctant to be the bearer of doom. “Xavier’s the worst, although I have no idea how Marcus survived after losing so much blood. Must be perks to being a mutant.”

“Sometimes.”

“So, you guys are tight or somfing?” Rags said. He remained loitering a bit farther down the hall, obviously deciding the entertainment was here, and not in following Bob and Wesley. “I guess that makes sense.”

“Why do you say that?” Not that he hated being associated with Angel, it was just Rags said it with such disdain. But why the fuck was he here? And what happened, because he seemed to be giving off an air of confidence that was foreign to him.

“ ‘Cause you bof never met a demon you didn’t kill, haven’t ya?”

Both he and Angel exchanged curious glances, wondering what the fuck he was on about - had one of them killed a friend of his? - before Angel replied, “That’s not true. I have demon friends.”

“I’ve dated some,” Logan said, substituting “dated” for the correct term, which was actually “fucked”. (Well, mixed company.)

“I wasn’t disparagin’ ya guys, you jus’ got a similar kinda rep, ‘s all.”

“The majority of demons don’t like us?” Angel guessed.

Rags gave him a thumbs up gesture. “Yer names are like shoutin’ “mad cow” at a Burger Shack.” Logan was still trying to figure out how to take that when Angel just shook his head, deciding that pretending Rags wasn’t here was the best course of action.

He leaned closer, and whispered, “Where’s Yasha?”

Oh god, here it was. Something in Logan’s gut twisted, and all he could was shake his head. But Angel was smart enough to figure out what no answer meant. “Oh shit,” he said, with genuine regret.

“Whaf’s ‘appened?” Rags asked, apparently picking up on the somber tone. “The world still isn’t endin’, is it?” Rags had started to come over, but stopped short, sucking in a breath so sharp it was like he’d been punched.

“Logan-”

“- sad,” the Weird Sisters said, sashaying down the hall.

Rags started to back up, and said, “You know wha’? I gotta phone call to make. See ya upstairs.” He then ducked into the nearest elevator. Coward.

Although he grimaced in distatse at saying the words, Angel told them sharply, “Girls, now is not the time.”

“We-”

“-can-”

“-cheer him-”

“-up, Daddy-”

“-you can’t.”

“Don’t call me that,” Angel hissed at them. Although he had no idea why the mixed nuts were here, he was glad they were, because, for a moment, Logan felt more sorry Angel than he did for himself. Imaging having them as your “kids”.

The Sisters leered at him in stereo, and now Logan could get a whiff of burning tires - Berserker blood? Wow, what the fuck had happened while he was gone? “Why -”

“-not?”

“Are you -”

“-going to -”

“-spank us?” Even though it was clearly mocking, there was a buried challenge in there somewhere.

“You can’t take ‘em anywhere,” Logan commiserated, knowing that from hard experience.

“Why don’t we take this somewhere private?” Angel suggested to him, although he was giving the Sisters his best flaming death look. That only seemed to amuse them.

“Yeah, let’s,” he agreed, retreating farther down the hall. But what the hell was he going to say when he got there?