The Game of Empires - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Valerie Jones
Last updated: 02/13/2010 03:54:13 PM

Chapter 8

She paused beside the bed, her hands clasped together and her eyes fastened on the floor. She didn’t dare look up at the reclining figure, though she could tell from his breathing that he was awake. A small part of her mind catalogued the hollow rattle and decided that he did not sound very good. The disease had gotten back into his soft tissues.

"I will not tolerate disobedience in my house," Apocalypse said without preamble. Despite the rasping wheeze of his breath, his voice was solid, angry, and Renee flinched under his imagined stare. "Is this clear?"

Renee nodded without looking up. She had learned very well how Apocalypse would react to any obvious signs of rebellion. She heard a rustle as Apocalypse shifted on his bed, but he didn’t speak. The silence stretched as Renee waited in growing uncertainty. He had to be watching her, but she didn’t dare look up to see his expression.

Finally, he spoke. "At least you are contrite." His voice had lost its hard edge and seemed, if not exactly pleased, then at least accepting.

Renee felt a little of the tension running out of her. When the guards had first caught her, she’d thought they were going to kill her. But at first, all they did was lock her in her room. She’d started to believe that was all that was going to happen when they came back and dragged her in front of Apocalypse. Apocalypse had given her no chance to speak, no chance to explain or even apologize. The guards had tied her wrists to the arm of Apocalypse’s heavy stone chair and held her there on her knees while Apocalypse ordered Ozymandias to give her twenty lashes. Terrified and humiliated, she’d listened to Ozymandias counting out her agony. Defying Apocalypse had been a horribly foolish thing to do. She should never have reacted so blindly.

The experience made clear to her a surprising difference between Apocalypse and the Shadow King. She wasn’t used to being able to react to her anger and revulsion. The Shadow King had controlled her completely -- not just her actions, but her thoughts as well when he chose. He had always left her enough freedom so that her emotions were her own, because he enjoyed feeling her hatred, her fear and horror. He would never have done something like this. In all the time Renee was his hound, he had never hurt her to gain her obedience-- he’d never needed to. But Apocalypse needed to intimidate her into doing as he desired. He had the power to imprison her, and he had the power to kill her. But he could not completely control her mind or her heart.

Her thoughts turned to her Uncle Warren, chained somewhere beneath her feet. She felt a kind of helpless fear for him, but she had to believe that he would be strong enough to resist Apocalypse. And that, she understood then, was the key. Apocalypse was the greatest physical power on the planet, but he could not prevent people from resisting him.

Renee found herself relaxing by degrees. She was still afraid, but she felt an amazing sense of freedom as well. She had not realized until that moment that she alone owned her soul. She waited in silence, marveling at her discovery.

"Nightengale."

Startled, Renee looked up. Apocalypse was watching her, the fire in his basalt-colored eyes the only sign of life. "Come closer, child. Have you forgotten why you are here?" One skeletal finger beckoned to her.

Renee forced herself forward and stopped when her thighs brushed the edge of the bed. She didn’t want to be so close to him. The bite of the lash on her back was much too fresh a memory, and she remembered his face, cold and uncaring, as he’d watched. His face seemed a little softer now. She could see the lines of exhaustion etched into his skin. After a moment, he closed his eyes and Renee wondered if he trusted her so much, or if he simply believed that she wouldn’t dare defy him.

She sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. There was little room, leaving her uncomfortably aware of Apocalypse’s ribs pressed against her hip, and the gentle rise and fall of his breath. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached over to lay her hands in her customary place at the base of his throat. The motion stretched the skin of her back and she hissed softly. Apocalypse’s eyes opened at the sound. Renee found herself staring into their gray depths from a distance of barely a foot. She had no idea what emotion she saw there, but his gaze burned through her until her activated power overwhelmed her senses.

She forgot everything then and was consumed by the battle to control her powers. Exhausted and aching, she had little strength left to force the mutations to obey her will. And yet, she refused to let it escape her. Since the first time the Shadow King had used her powers-- used her-- to kill, she had sworn that she would never do such a thing of her own will. And she never had. At times, that knowledge had been the only thing that had defined the boundary between where she ended and the Shadow King began. It had become intrinsic to who she was, and even Apocalypse’s arrogant cruelty could not entice her into sacrificing that part of herself. If she touched him, it would only be to heal. And as much as she might like to refuse that contact, she didn’t think it was practical to believe that Apocalypse would allow that.

She sat back when she had done as much as she could without losing control. Apocalypse slept, his breathing slow and steady. The ugly rattle in his lungs was gone, and Renee felt a bizarre sense of satisfaction. The question of right and wrong continued to spin in the back of her mind, but she pushed it away. She didn’t know if it would be worth the price to destroy this ageless evil, and since she had no one to turn to, no one who could help her choose the best path, she could only follow her heart.

Remy let out his breath in a tired sigh and leaned his head back, wincing at the stiffness in his neck. He spent a moment trying to massage the kinks out, then straightened once again.

"Ready to give up for a while?" Token was perched on the arm of the sofa, her toes tucked into the pile of throw pillows that inhabited that corner of the couch. "I made some soup."

Remy glanced up at the clock on the wall and was surprised by how much time had passed. Like most technical industries, the space industry spoke a language of its own, comprised not only of advanced mathematics and engineering, but also of a dizzying array of acronyms. It was a language he needed to learn before he would be able to decipher the clues that would lead him to the information he wanted. It was also hideously boring.

He stood and stretched, then followed Token into the kitchen, where the smell of good things cooking assailed him. "Smells wonderful, cherie." He took a seat at the small breakfast table, marveling once again that such a tiny space could be so inviting. Sunlight filled the corner where he sat, filtered through the leaves of a multitude of plants until it was diffused into a warm glow. The kitchen itself was filled with bundles of fresh herbs, onions, garlic and various peppers, all hung to dry wherever a space could be found. The floor and the counter were both made of fired clay, painted in sunset colors and glazed, and wherever Remy looked in the busy kitchen, he spied frogs. Most were ceramic, of various colors, sizes and varieties. They inhabited the many plants in the room and peeked out from behind the canisters of flour and rice. By far the largest sat on the floor just inside the door, and, if it was as solid as it looked, Remy guessed it would weigh about thirty pounds.

Token smiled as she set a bowl of soup down on the table in front of him. "Have you found them all yet?"

Remy shook his head as she settled across from him with her own bowl. "Nope."

Token claimed that there were forty-four frogs in her kitchen. Remy had found thirty-eight. But rather than tease him about his power of observation, she simply began to eat. And that, he reflected in the comfortable silence, was probably why he kept coming back here. The little house was less than eighty miles from Westchester -- uncomfortably close to the past -- and yet, Token had made it bearable. She had a kind of quietness to her, and a natural hospitality that had invited him into her life from the beginning. In that way, she was much like Ororo, and he found himself feeling the same kind of affection for her. There was still an undercurrent of the attraction he’d felt when they’d met, but so far, neither of them had made any significant effort to explore that direction. For Remy, the wounds were too raw, and the things that had made it impossible to stay with Rogue would be just as destructive to any other relationship he tried. He hadn’t said anything to her, but Token seemed to understand, and she seemed perfectly willing to let him show up without warning on her doorstep, to stay for a couple of days and then disappear again.

He looked up from his thoughts to find Token watching him, her head cocked thoughtfully to the side and her long hair nearly falling into her soup. "Would I be intruding if I asked what you were thinking about?"

Remy shook his head and tried the soup. It was good, though a little bland for his taste. "Non. I was jus’ t’inking about how nice y’ house here is." He gestured with his empty spoon.

Token’s eyebrows rose. "My house?" She looked around at the busy clutter, obviously surprised.

Remy shrugged. "Mostly because you’re in it, but oui."

She flushed slightly and grinned. "Why, thank you."

He returned the smile. "Y’ welcome."

They sat in silence for a few moments, until Token jumped up and held out her hand. "C’mon. I want to show you something."

Remy eyed her with mild suspicion for her sudden enthusiasm. "Show me what?"

She caught his hand and tugged lightly. "Just come with me."

Remy surrendered and dropped his spoon back into the bowl. He stood, ducking to avoid the low-hung plants, then allowed Token to lead him into the back of the house. He was unsurprised when she took him to her workshop, which was filled to overflowing with various artistic efforts in clay and ceramic. Shelves lined all four walls, displaying a tremendous collection of pottery and sculpture, all awaiting either glazing, firing or both. A sheen of gray-brown dust covered the floor, mottled with innumerable footprints until it almost seemed to form a pattern over the bare wood.

Token went to her work table and Remy followed. He had spent some time there before, poking curiously through the collections as she worked at the pottery wheel. Oddly enough, he felt a little nervous every time he entered the workshop, as if even his exceptional reflexes could not keep him from accidentally knocking one of the fragile pieces down and shattering it.

Token picked something up from the table and turned around to give it to him. It was a bust, carved in red clay and still moist. The detail was amazing, but it was the woman’s face that took Remy’s breath away.

"That’s her. The woman I saw you arguing with." Token watched him intently.

Remy turned the sculpture in his hands, studying every angle. She was young and strikingly beautiful, though that, Remy supposed with a dash of conceit, was not too surprising for a female version of himself. But it was the expression on her face, even more than the resemblance, that made him pause. There was such fierce determination written there, such anguish, as if the argument Token had seen was tearing her heart in two.

"Who is she?" he asked, unable to tear his gaze away.

Token gave him a lopsided smile. "I was hoping you would tell me. But if you don’t know, then I guess she’s a mystery."

Remy looked up from the sculpted face to meet Token’s gaze. "But you saw us together in the future?"

She shrugged, nodded. "I can go looking for her again, if you want." There was a slight hesitation in her voice, as if the prospect frightened her ever so slightly.

Remy looked down again at the face in his hands. He had lost everything that had ever meant family to him, mostly to his own bad choices and inability to face up to the consequences for those choices. But only blood could have made this woman’s face so similar to his own. Even without asking, he knew that her eyes, too, were red on black, the signature that said that this could not be coincidence. Blood was the only hope he held now. Blood was the thickest of bonds that held people together, and perhaps, with the chance to start fresh, blood might prove to be enough to overcome the sins of his past.

"I would... like dat."

Token steeled herself against the buzzing sensation she felt whenever she used her powers on Gambit. It was a maddening sensation, as if her powers were brushing up against a tremendous well of energy that leapt the gap like an electric spark and raced through her nervous system. It was a portent of great things, she believed, and the glimpse she had seen of his future confirmed it. And so sheer curiosity drew her to read him again, though in the back of her mind she was afraid of what she might see.

Remy was watching her expectantly, so she closed her eyes and tried to tune her powers to search for the woman she had seen before. It should be possible to find her again, having touched that place in time once already.

Pieces flashed by -- images, sounds, scents. Most went by too quickly for Token to identify them, but here and there she touched something coherent. A woman’s arms, holding him tightly while he cried, her voice murmuring softly. The rough interior of a cave was lit with firelight that threw their shadows on the wall. Voices came and went. One, a man’s, was full of anger and disappointment. Another was filled with sadness.

The pieces whirled on until Token saw a flash of something familiar. She grabbed it, struggling to absorb what was there before it escaped her again. She could see the woman’s face, the one that was so much like Remy’s, and the eerie eyes that reflected the same kind of pain. They were standing together in the midst of what looked like a battlefield, their argument plain in their stances and the ever changing language of gesture and expression. Corpses of men and creatures littered the ground around them, though neither one seemed to notice. Token forced herself closer, pushing toward them through air that felt as thick as syrup, until she was close enough to hear the words that passed between them.

"No! Absolutely not." Remy shook his head vehemently.

The woman’s lips thinned. "This is not the time for you to go all noble on me, Remy. We need him. We can’t fight this battle on two fronts -- you said that yourself."

Remy looked away, his gaze roaming the field of death that surrounded them. Slowly, he nodded. "We can’t. But we’ll find another way. I won’t trade your life for an advantage."

The woman crossed her arms and stared evenly at him. "You won’t, but I will."

Remy’s gaze snapped to her in alarm, but she spoke again, forestalling him. "And don’t you dare try to stop me. Just tell him the answer is yes," She made a sweeping gesture at their surroundings, "so we can stop this insanity."

"Do you have any idea what kind of life you’d be living?" There was pain now, more than anger, in Remy’s voice.

The woman dropped her gaze, and Token saw fear written in her face. But then her expression firmed, though she continued to stare at the ground. "It doesn’t matter what kind of life I’ll live. You and I both know that. Or have you forgotten that my father sacrificed his life to save the X-Men? That my brother and my best friend died trying to protect us from the Shadow King. And my other best friend -- " her voice caught for a moment, "gave up his life, his dreams, his future -- even his throne -- to protect us." She paused and slowly raised her head to stare at him in proud defiance. "I am a LeBeau, and I would be ashamed to show my face here or anywhere if I wasn’t willing to sacrifice whatever I must."

Token felt her grip on the moment slipping. She clawed desperately, hoping to hold on for just another moment to see what answer Remy would give. But the fragment was whisked out of her grasp and whirled away. She had found part of the answer, though, and perhaps that would be enough.

She opened her eyes to find Remy staring at her in concern. "I’m o.k.," she reassured him.

He looked skeptical. "You were... gone... a long time, chere."

Token let go of his hands and shook her head, trying to clear the miasma of emotions that the future scene had evoked. "I found her."

He leaned forward. "An’?"

"And, I guess she really is a lost relation. She said she was a LeBeau."

Remy’s high brows drew together in a deep frown. "Dat don’ make any sense."

Token could only shrug. She knew precious little about his family. "I suppose it’s always possible that you two were separated as children. Or even that she’s a more distant relation than she looks. The genes are strange beasts."

His troubled expression hadn’t faded. "Y’ don’ understand, Token. I was adopted." He tapped his chest. "Off de streets o’ New Orleans when I was fifteen. Even if I had a sister... or a cousin or whatever, she wouldn’ have de same name."

Token gave him a puzzled frown. "You’re right, that doesn’t make any sense." She sighed softly. "I don’t know if this will help, but she mentioned that both her father and her brother had been killed. It had something to do with the X-Men -- " She faltered momentarily as his eyes snapped to hers, "and someone she called the Shadow King."

"De Shadow King?" Remy seemed almost disbelieving. "He’s been dead more dan three years now."

Frustrated, Token sat back. "I don’t know what it means, Remy. My power doesn’t give me that. All I see is pieces."

Remy shook his head. "Not y’ fault, chere. Dere are ot’er people I should be askin’ f’ explanations." He stood slowly.

"Are you leaving?"

He looked back down at her with a tiny smile. "Not tonight, cherie." Then he turned and wandered out of the room, toward the front door. Token heard it open and then close with a quiet click. For a moment she debated following him, and then decided that it would be best not to interfere. Whoever this man was, he was tangled in a mess of terrible and important events. And for all that she cared about him, Token wasn’t certain she wanted to become any more deeply involved with Remy LeBeau.