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Chapters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
 
 
 

The Game of Empires - REVIEW THIS STORY

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

Chapter 19

Jean had chosen a small rest area by the highway in which to wait for the X-Men to arrive. The small public building was the only structure visible in any direction across the flat expanse of desert. A warped and sun-bleached picnic table provided Xavier with a seat, though no protection from the merciless sun. Lilandra stood quietly beside the Professor, their conversation hushed, while Gladiator loomed protectively behind her. Scott and Jean stood together a short ways away. They were just far enough away from the Professor to make it obvious that they were both short on trust, but not so far away that it would be impossible for them to converse with him. Remy had taken advantage of his thieves skills and had wandered as far away in the other direction as he could without someone taking note of it and calling him back.

"That sounds like a Blackbird," Scott said as the rumble of an aircraft’s engines reached their ears. He sounded surprised, and his expression as he cocked his head to listen more closely was puzzled.

"Ororo didn’t say," Jean answered as she, too, turned toward the sound. "I thought the Blackbirds were gone also."

Considering what he had seen on his short trip through the mansion, Remy also was surprised to hear an aircraft approaching. It tightened the band around his chest one more notch and made it that much harder to breathe through the stark terror in his heart.

Remy wasn’t certain if he was more surprised or less when the airplane appeared above the tree line. It slowed as it approached, converting to vertical mode to touch down on the grass a short ways away from them. It was, indeed, a Blackbird, but it looked like it had been hauled out of a junkyard. The paint was pitted and peeled, leaving long streaks of rust down the sides of the fuselage, and it creaked on its landing gear so badly that Remy was afraid the nose gear might break before the airplane settled completely.

The gear held, however, and Remy watched with trepidation as those inside it emerged. His heart twisted savagely as Ororo approached, followed by Hank and Bobby. He was grateful that he had stayed back as the three focused immediately on Professor Xavier. There was a round of enthusiastic welcomes, both for him and for the Summers, and friendly greetings for Lilandra as well. The distance between Cyclops, Phoenix and the Professor was momentarily lost amid the others’ exuberance, and Remy felt a bitter pang. He had no place in their celebration.

After a few minutes, Ororo separated herself from the others and walked slowly toward Remy. Behind her the conversation stilled as the others turned to watch, and Remy found himself at the focus of far more attention than he felt capable of handling.

He took a deep breath to still his trembling as Ororo halted before him. Her blue eyes were the color of the sky on a clear winter day and stared into his with searching intensity. Remy desperately wanted to bolt, but he knew the time for running away was well past. Ororo had once been his friend and she deserved at least this much from him. He would wait, and accept from her whatever reprisal she deemed fit. If nothing else, perhaps it would be enough to show her that he still respected her, still loved her, despite everything that now stood between them.

Ororo pressed her lips together in a thin, crooked line. It wasn’t exactly the expression Remy was expecting. She seemed almost... exasperated.

"I am very angry with you, Remy."

Involuntarily, he glanced at the sky. It was unchanged, cheerfully blue and filled with fluffy white clouds. He was somewhat reassured to think that she wasn’t set to smite him with a lightning bolt.

He forced himself to meet her eyes once more. "Oui, chere," he agreed softly. "Y’ got reason enough t’ be."

She cocked her head, her face stern. "Friends do not simply disappear off the face of the Earth for months at a time, Remy. I had no idea what had become of you, or if you were well." She made a frustrated gesture. "Dear Goddess -- for a short while I believed you dead!"

Remy reeled beneath her glare, his thoughts whirling chaotically. "But -- "

Ororo pressed the fingers of one hand against his lips, silencing him. "But nothing. Do not ever frighten me like that again, do you hear?" Her stern expression collapsed then, giving way to something far gentler. "My heart could not stand it."

Remy was amazed to see a glimmer of tears in her eyes. With a wordless cry, he swept her up in a fierce hug, burying his face in her hair as her arms encircled his neck. The pressure of her embrace was enough to leave him dizzy with relief, and the release in his heart was so sweet it was almost painful. He felt like a drowning man who had suddenly been thrown a life line. No matter what else happened, there was one person who still cared, and who was willing to forgive. Dear, beautiful, wonderful Ororo who was a friend like no other.

After a while he forced himself to release her, but only to the point of twining his fingers with hers before turning to face the rest of the X-Men. He was surprised to see a light of approval on the Professor’s face, but the others were as solemn as he expected. Strengthened by Ororo’s presence beside him, Remy crossed the distance to where they stood waiting.

Lilandra turned as he passed, her aristocratic brows drawn in a troubled frown. Remy could not begin to guess what she was thinking and for the moment did not want to try. He stopped in front of Hank and Bobby. Iceman stood with his arms crossed, but Hank slowly extended a hand.

"I, too, am glad to see that you remain among the living."

Remy accepted the handshake. "’Lo, Hank."

Hank’s expression remained somber for a moment more, then quirked with his irrepressible good humor. "And... setting the past aside for the moment, do you think I could bother you for some assistance with the Blackbird? We lost most of our instruments, including engine controls, when we switched into landing mode and with the gravity of the situation as Jean described it, I believe it would behoove us to repair our modus transporti as quickly as possible."

Remy blinked at him, both surprised and gratified by the request. But with Scott temporarily blinded, there was no one else with the necessary systems knowledge.

"Uh... sure." He looked up at the decrepit airplane. "Where’d y’ get dis t’ing anyway?"

"We salvaged it off the bottom of the school’s lake."

Scott turned sharply toward Hank. "The original Blackbird?"

Hank started to nod, then corrected himself. "Yes." He shrugged lightly. "Such as it is." He turned back to Remy. "Well, shall we?"

Bemused, Remy let go of Ororo’s hand and followed Hank toward the Blackbird. For the moment, he could almost pretend that the impossible had happened and the X-Men had accepted him again. If he ignored Bobby’s angry glare, which didn’t matter much to him anyway, and the stiff distance of both Scott and Jean, which did bother him but was something he could live with... he could almost believe. At least for the short time until they got back to the mansion and the illusion was shattered once again.

As the whine of the Blackbird’s engines died away, Remy leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck to ease the tension there. They had arrived safely and in one piece at the mansion which, from Remy’s viewpoint at the Engineering station, was nigh unto a miracle. The good thing was that the demands of keeping the plane in the air had occupied his mind completely throughout the flight and had given him something to do other than dwell on what would happen once they arrived.

Unfortunately, all the things he had managed not to think about then were filling his mind now, but the others seemed equally consumed by their own thoughts. Ororo and Hank sat in the cockpit with Jean standing between the two chairs in case her telekinetic powers were needed. Scott sat just behind them, his head back and eyes closed. He looked for all the world like he was asleep, though Remy doubted that sincerely. Charles and Lilandra sat mid-cabin, but didn’t appear to be talking. The Professor had become more and more withdrawn as the flight progressed. Strangely enough, he looked like he dreaded returning to the mansion almost as much as Remy. Gladiator had flown escort and was now in the process of settling to the ground beside the Blackbird.

Remy sighed and climbed to his feet as the others began to stir. His kinesthetic sense picked out the people who were converging on the airplane from the outskirts of the hangar and he felt a new lump of terror in his stomach. Ororo had promised him that Logan would warn the X-Men of his presence beforehand, though he wasn’t certain now if that had been a good idea. Most of them, at least, would be far more interested in the Professor than himself, but that was small consolation. He still had to face that one exception.

Remy hung back as the others deplaned. Ororo waited with him, her hand a reassuring warmth on his arm. Finally, she pulled him gently forward.

"Come, Remy. It is time to go home."

Remy could offer only a token resistance as she led him down the steep ramp and down onto the hangar floor. Remy was vaguely aware of the conversations dying down around him, but all of his attention was taken by the woman who stood a little to the side, her hands clasped together in front of her.

Rogue would not quite meet his gaze, though he wasn’t entirely certain he wanted her to. His last memory of her came back to him full force then -- the coldly vindictive smile as she turned away, and the raw agony in his heart as he realized that every single thing he cared about was gone. That pain was still there, undimmed inside him. Usually he pushed it away, ignoring it until it subsided into a dull ache, but seeing Rogue brought it flaring to life and for a moment he thought his knees might buckle.

Ororo’s hand under his elbow steadied him as Rogue slowly approached. If he hadn’t been terrified to the point of feeling sick, he might have been amused by the unconsciously protective stance Ororo adopted as she stepped in front of him.

Rogue paused and looked up at the taller woman, her expression wounded. "Ya know ah won’t hurt him, ‘Ro." Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Ororo’s solemn expression didn’t change, but she released Remy with a small nod and stepped away, allowing he and Rogue to face each other directly. For a moment, Remy desperately wished she would come back, but then he pushed the thought away. This moment was inevitable. The best thing he could do was to try to get through it.

He tried to find something to say. Some kind of neutral greeting or acknowledgment that would at least break the horrible silence between them. But when he opened his mouth, what came out was, "You tried to kill me."

Rogue jerked as if he’d slapped her, her eyes darting to his and then away before he could read the expression in them. She pressed her lips together briefly, then drew a trembling breath. "Until today, ah thought ah had."

Strangely, the admission eased something inside Remy. He kept his gaze on Rogue, but his question was intended for the rest of the X-Men as well.

"Is dat why nobody ever came lookin’ t’ see if I was o.k.? Dey all t’ought I was dead?"

A ripple of reaction ran through the onlookers, but Rogue shook her head before anyone else could answer. "No, sugah." Her kept her face turned away from him. "The others all thought ya safe an’ sound, with no interest in comin’ back here." She turned her head slowly to look at him, and he was stunned by the depth of regret he saw in her green eyes. "Ah lied."

Remy felt like he was frozen in place, unable to run from the hurricane of emotions that swept through him. Rogue’s expression was perhaps the most honest he had ever seen, and for the first time since that day in Antarctica, he wondered if it might be possible to love her still. Just wondering it hurt. So much of him wanted to hate her for abandoning him without the slightest hint of remorse or even pity, but he knew that he shared the blame with her for that.

His hands balled into fists as she swayed a step closer, her gaze falling away from his. He wanted desperately to reach for her, but fought the urge with all of his strength because he didn’t know if he would hug her or hit her if he allowed himself to move.

Perhaps emboldened by his stillness, Rogue closed the remaining distance between them. Remy could smell the heady perfume of her hair as she leaned forward to rest her forehead against his chest. She made no move to put her arms around him, as if she had done as much as she was capable of by making that single contact.

"Ah’m so sorry," she whispered, her voice muffled against his armor.

Feeling as if he might faint at any moment, Remy let his head fall forward until he could nestle his face against her neck with the heavy cascade of her hair for protection from an unintentional touch. At their sides, fingers brushed against each other and twined involuntarily.

"Oui, chere. Me, too."

Rogue sighed softly and they remained like that, unmoving, for several long moments until the intimacy became uncomfortable. Rogue straightened slowly and stepped away from him, and Remy let her go without resistance. They had both needed to say the words and hear them accepted, but neither was ready to move beyond that point. It was somewhat better than a truce, and Remy was surprised to find that it suited him just fine for the moment.

Adroitly, Ororo stepped between them and gestured toward the other X-Men. "Perhaps we should all go upstairs. There will be plenty of time later to resolve whatever needs to be addressed between us." Her gaze swept across the assembled X-Men. "Today is a day to celebrate the return of those we had thought lost."

A surprising number of nods accompanied her words, and the mood lightened as they began to make their way as a group toward the lifts. Remy was certain it would not last because of the many, many questions that remained unanswered. Not just about himself, but about the Professor and Onslaught as well. Still, this was a far better reception than he had imagined and he found himself thinking wryly that despite his best efforts he had, indeed, come home.

Gathering her courage, Renee reached out to gently touch the controls on the laboratory door. They slid aside with a soft hiss that made her jump and confirmed that she truly had not expected the doors to open for her. Outside, one of the tall cat men turned to look at her, his ears swiveling with a musical jangle of earrings. He made no move to lower the heavy sword he carried, and after a moment, Renee walked forward.

She passed the guard unmolested and found herself out in a long featureless hallway. Unfortunately, she had no recollection of coming down that hall, though she knew she had done it. The blow to the head had thoroughly muddled her memories of the time immediately surrounding her fight with Warren, though she remembered enough for the memories to leave her both angry and frightened.

At the moment, she didn’t know what to think. It was plain hunger that had finally driven her out of the lab. She had slept and awakened several times since her brief encounter with Apocalypse, but had not seen anyone. Whatever medical technology Apocalypse had applied to her seemed to have worked because she felt almost healthy now, except for the hunger that gnawed at her stomach and the dull ache of the wounds across her collar and abdomen. She was beginning to think that, were it not for the slaves, even Apocalypse might starve to death in this place. He certainly didn’t seem to have any concept of the daily physical needs of those around him. She had fetched her own water from the small washroom that adjoined the lab once she was strong enough to walk, but had found nothing else edible.

Cautiously, she picked a direction and started down the hallway. The cat guard seemed content to follow her, his presence looming reassuringly behind her. At least she wasn’t alone. She wasn’t certain why the guard hadn’t restricted her to the lab, but she suspected that that, too, was something that hadn’t occurred to Apocalypse.

Curiosity joined with hunger to draw her further and further into the complex. The air was chill and somewhat moist, making Renee shiver in the modest white shift. Her feet were already freezing on the metal floors and she wished momentarily for her cloak. She had grown used to the lack of shoes which, apparently, was appropriate for an Egyptian woman. At least, for the kind of woman Apocalypse insisted that she be. The only time her feet were truly warm while she was awake was when she had the opportunity to curl up on one of the big cushions beside Apocalypse’s chair and tuck her toes under her skirt.

Many of the doors along the winding hallways opened as she approached, but few held anything of interest. Defunct laboratories and storehouses for piles of unidentifiable technologies, none of which appeared to be in working order. She was surprised at the endless clutter until it occurred to her that Apocalypse had probably been accumulating junk for the past five thousand years. She thought of the attic of the X-Men’s mansion and tried to extrapolate that over five millennia, and the resulting image made her smile. Apocalypse wasn’t doing too badly.

One door opened with a rush of bright light and warm, organic-smelling air. Renee paused on the threshold, taken aback by the sudden change. She could see little from where she stood -- the room appeared to be huge, but the walls were ringed with such a thick tangle of tubes, wires and technological things that she could hardly see through the forest they created. A slim passage was preserved, leading from the doorway out into the room, but Renee could not see anything else.

Shivering now with trepidation rather than cold, she crept forward, the cat man her faithful shadow. After a few dozen feet, the narrow passage opened abruptly onto a truly giant chamber. Renee stopped short, amazed by her surroundings. The full dimensions of the room she could hardly guess, but the open area was a rough cylinder, perhaps two hundred feet in diameter and a good ten stories tall. The far side of the room was taken up by a set of large screens displaying an array of data and diagrams. Renee thought she identified a gene sequencing diagram, but the hieroglyphics made it hard to be certain. A horseshoe-shaped console occupied the floor beneath the screens. Apocalypse was seated with his back to her, his attention occupied by the information flowing across his field of vision. Warren stood beside Apocalypse’s chair, one hand resting comfortably across the back.

Off to one side stood a set of fluid-filled cylinders, and beyond those were a set of large box-like constructions that reminded Renee of barn stalls except that they were made of metal and clear plastic. The bottom half of each box was opaque, but in one she caught occasional glimpses of the top of something white that moved inside.

Renee was tempted for one moment just to walk away before she was noticed. She could probably make her way back to the inhabited section of the palace where she would find Shala and a warm meal and at least better clothing than what she had now. But the thought of going back there was simply more than she could stand. The endless days that flowed into each other, blurring in her memory, with nothing to challenge her mind or occupy her time unless Apocalypse decided to call for her, and then even that was only for her to use her powers. And so she found herself walking slowly across the wide room, alternately terrified and fascinated by the choice she was making.

She was no more than ten feet away when Apocalypse stiffened and turned, his expression filling with a mixture of surprise and outrage when he spied her. Angel spun as well, his wings snapping open with a hiss as he sank into a ready crouch.

Renee stopped short at their combined menace, her heart pounding. She felt intensely vulnerable standing there, weaponless and shivering despite the humid warmth of the room.

Apocalypse’s expression continued to darken as he slowly rose to his feet. "How dare you enter this place! It is forbidden!"

Renee shrank back, fighting the urge to flee. Although he had not yet recovered his strength, Apocalypse was still an imposing figure and his rage made him seem all the larger. Belatedly, she remembered the bolt of power, like lightening, that had killed the two guards up on the plateau and real terror filled her. But she couldn’t run. The idea of being cut down from behind was unbearable, so she bit her lip to keep herself from babbling excuses and forced herself to raise her chin and look Apocalypse in the face. If he was angry enough to kill her, at least she would not give him any justification for it.

She gasped involuntarily as Apocalypse lashed out, the fingers of one large hand closing around her throat. Apocalypse did not lift her -- her weight remained solidly planted on her feet -- but his grip was tight enough to constrict her breathing. Renee fought her panic. She could breathe. Not easily, but she could.

"Explain yourself, Healer," he demanded harshly.

Renee felt like a rag doll in his grip, and in terror gave him an honest answer. "I was... curious," she whispered through the pressure on her throat.

Apocalypse’s fury was momentarily interrupted and his grip on her eased minutely. "Curious?"

Renee surprised herself by raising a hand toward the cylinders and pens that were off to her left. "I’ve studied cloning... a little bit. I wanted to see what you were doing."

Apocalypse stared at her as if a number of unexpected thoughts were chasing each other through his mind. But in those moments, his grip relaxed and Renee drew in a shaky, grateful breath. She was acutely aware of the pressure of his thumb where it rested in the hollow of her throat, and she realized with a start that it was the same as the way she laid her own hands against his throat when she used her powers on him.

Apocalypse turned suddenly, steering Renee toward the console by the pressure of his fingers on the back of her neck.

"Tell me what you know about cloning, Healer."

Renee stared at the multiple displays with their incomprehensible hieroglyphics, her mind racing as fast as her heart. She felt like she was being offered a test and one that she couldn’t afford to fail, though she had no idea what the consequences might be. She stared at the tremendous jumble of information before her, displayed in a language she did not understand, searching desperately for something she could identify. The largest monitor drew her eye upward, to the diagram she had originally thought was a gene sequence. Now, she was certain of it, though she had no idea which protein was represented by each of the colored lines.

She started there, and in a soft, hesitant voice, told Apocalypse everything she could remember learning about the science of cloning.

 

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