DISCLAIMER: All recognizable characters belong to Marvel Comics, and are being used in a non-profit manner for reading enjoyment. The song mentioned in the story and the title is by Savatage, from the album "Gutter Ballet".
When The Crowds Are Gone
By Matt Nute
"Alison Blaire is dying."
Those were the only words that had been spoken by the six-armed sorceress
known as Spiral when she had appeared in the middle of a Danger Room session.
Instead of the almost required battle that normally would have ensued, silence
had fallen over the assembled mutants of X-Force and the X-Men.
In the tense, wordless moment that stretched on, everyone paused, then one
figure slowly advanced towards the white-haired witch. Removing his headgear,
Shatterstar met Spiral’s gaze.
"Take me to her side." Behind him, another voice sounded.
"Ah’m going too." Shatterstar looked over his shoulder and glared.
"Mojoworld is not your home, Rogue. This is my matter that I must attend to."
Rogue shook her head.
"Ah’m not even gonna pretend Ah know what the songbird means to you, but what
Ah do know is this: she’s Longshot’s wife, and he’s gotta be
hurtin’." Her
voice cracked, almost imperceptibly. "And he’s mah friend. So Ah’m
goin’."
Slowly, Shatterstar nodded.
Spiral extended a hand to Shatterstar, palm upwards. He laid his palm atop
hers, clasping fingers. With a look of mixed disdain and empathy, she extended
a metal arm to the woman called Rogue. Her other four arms began to weave in a
complex pattern, as lights began to rise and flicker about her.
"Oh, no way am I letting ‘Star head off into another dimension by himself!"
A
yellow-gloved hand clapped onto the otherdimensional swordsman’s shoulder. He
glanced briefly into the eyes of Tabitha Smith, his teammate and the mutant
pyrotechnic known as Meltdown.
"I… thank you, Meltdown." was all he would say. Tabitha smiled and pulled
her
sunglasses over her eyes. Finally, a blue-skinned hand clasped Rogue’s
leather-clad shoulder.
"I’m coming, too." stated Warren Worthington, the high-flying Angel. He
spread
his feathered wings in a grand gesture, almost challenging anyone to deny him.
From across the Danger Room, he met the gazes of the others assembled. Most of
them knew the past relationship between he and Alison, once called the Dazzler
for her mutant ability to convert sound into light. And none of them were
about to stop him.
As Spiral raised her arms one final time in her dance, light encircled the
five of them, then faded, leaving the rest of their comrades standing
awestruck and confused.
"What do we do now?" mumbled Bobby Drake, looking to his friends. From behind
his ruby quartz visor, Scott Summers, the leader of the X-Men, took a deep
breath.
"Now," he said, "now, we pray."
Time changed color. Space shifted pitch in a constant cacophony of noise and
dissonance. And just as suddenly as the maelstrom had begun…
It stopped.
The five travelers stood in an empty theater, alone on a bare stage. Rogue
looked about, dumbfounded by the lack of an audience, something unheard of on
Mojoworld.
"Spiral," she began, "not ta seem too curious, but what gives? Ah’ve
never
heard of any performance in the Mojoverse bein’ empty…" Spiral silently
turned
away and strode off the stage, through the empty aisles towards the exits.
Warily, Warren took to the air, following her. Slowly, Rogue followed suit,
with Tabitha and Shatterstar in tow.
Once outside, they all gasped as one. The Spineless Ones, the former rulers of
the media-driven planet, lay before them, all prostrate and silent. At the
head of them stood a humanoid figure, light purple hair blowing in the wind.
"Major Domo." growled Shatterstar. "Mojo’s lackey." Rogue placed
a hand on his
arm, restraining him. Tabitha looked around. Every television set, every
screen, every monitor was dark. From the air, Warren could see the denizens of
Mojoworld standing, lying, and kneeling all the way to the horizon. With his
hawklike vision, he could see almost every one of them clutching small flags.
Even the children grasped small scraps of blue cloth, emblazoned with a yellow
sunburst emblem.
Dazzler’s insignia. Warren landed next to Shatterstar, almost able to palpably
feel the warrior’s discomfort. Never before had he been around so many of his
people, and felt their utter silence, their despondency. He was accustomed to
the cheers of the crowd, the chaos of the masses during one of his
gladiatorial matches, or one of his media spots. But this… this was unheard
of.
"It’s a media blackout…" breathed Meltdown. "They’re all
here. All of them."
"Exactly." intoned Spiral. "Every man, woman, and child on the planet has
made
the pilgrimage here to Production Central. This is the biggest series finale
of them all. The curtain call to end all cu-rrk!" Her veiled jeer was
interrupted by Shatterstar’s blade at her throat.
"This woman, whom you so casually scoff at," he hissed, "is our Queen. And
more." Spiral slowly edged away from the twin blade and nodded.
"Through here." She silently led the four mutants through a black-draped
archway, slowly proceeding through the crowd that parted before them. Major
Domo cut them off quickly.
"Spiral," he sneered. "these.. guests of yours are not authorized. They may
wait out here with the commoners." He folded his arms across his chest.
Seconds later, he was being held in the air, one of Rogue’s inhumanly strong
hands gripping the front of his tunic. Spiral and Shatterstar both held blades
to his throat, while Meltdown held a small ball of glowing plasma, prepared to
shove it down his throat. The Angel, on the other hand, merely glared with
enough rage to show that he was prepared to kill the simulacrum in a second.
"On second thought," he gasped, "perhaps a… walk-on appearance would
not be
amiss?" Rogue threw him aside roughly and strode first through the doors.
Once inside, however, she gasped and stopped dead in her tracks. The four
others crowded by her, with similar reactions. Before them lay a figure barely
recognizable as human, there were so many wires and tubes protruding from the
bed. Scanners beside the bed beeped slowly, a dim metronome counting away
seconds of precious life.
And perched like a raven at the head of the bed sat a blond-haired man, lean
of face and figure, clad in a black leather jacket and breeches. Rogue slowly
walked up, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Longshot." she whispered. He nodded, covering her five-fingered hand with his
four-fingered one.
"Rogue." he answered. "She’s dying." A tear fell from his eye,
splashing on
the face of his beloved, beneath the bandages and medical apparatus. The other
four circled the bed, each bearing looks of concern and fear.
"What happened?" croaked Warren. Longshot looked up, meeting the blue man’s
gaze.
"An illness that none of us saw until it was too late. Before you ask, there
is no vaccine, no cure. And yes, it is fatal." He hung his head in shame. "She
hid it from us all for months, until she grew too weak to hide the symptoms.
She is wasting away, and we all can only watch."
Everyone grew silent, save for the slow, measured breathing from the woman on
the bed. While everyone watched, Shatterstar unsheathed his swords and slowly,
with infinite care, lay them beside the body of his Queen. Taking a knee by
Longshot, he dropped his eyes to the floor as well. Tabitha took a step back
and nudged Warren.
"What’s with ‘Star?" she questioned. "I mean, we all thought he
was some
test-tube clone, But it turns out he was really this Ben Russell kid from
Boston all along. So why’s this lady here so important to him?"
"You think you know it all." came the choked reply from behind them. Tabitha
turned to see Spiral holding her helmet in her two bottom arms, her fine white
hair covering her face. Stifling a sob, the sorceress continued.
"Not even the boy himself knows the truth. It is a story twisted by love and
fate, of sacrifice and duty. Before you, known to you as Shatterstar, kneels
the greatest tragedy the cosmos has known." Warren stepped over in front of
the six-armed woman.
"I know that you weren’t always like this, Spiral." He whispered. "You
were
once human, a woman, Rita. Mojo twisted you into his puppet, and whatever he
did to your soul in the process, it turned your heart black as pitch." Spiral
glanced up, through a veil of tears. With a shrill cry, she drew an arm back,
then slapped Warren Worthington soundly across the jaw.
"How DARE you!" she hissed. "You know not the pains I have suffered for
this
boy!" Before she could strike again, she felt a light hand in her arm.
"Then tell us." She looked behind her to see Shatterstar, his red hair
unbound, staring into her face. And in that instant, all the years of
battle-hardened arrogance, the magicks that hid her mind away, all of it broke
like crystal. And Spiral wept. She gestured, and in a flicker of light, she
and the others vanished, leaving Rogue alone with Longshot and Alison.
"Where’s she taken them?" Rogue asked. Longshot placed a hand on her waist,
restraining her.
"She will not harm them." He said quietly. "It is time for the truth to be
told." Rogue looked into the blue eyes that so many years ago had captured her
heart and girlish fancies. She could see that the years had jaded the man who
had once been the very soul of innocence. She saw the toll of civil war, of
leadership, and the sorrow of losing his wife. She squeezed his hand carefully
in her gloved palm.
"If you will excuse me," he whispered, "I must consult the healers and the
mourners. It will not be long." Before she could say anything, Longshot
slipped from her grasp and walked into the shadows. Rogue started after him,
then heard a small, weak voice from the bed.
"…well…if it ain’t the Mississippi swamp rat…" Rogue turned,
a retort on her
lips. She looked down into Alison’s clouded blue eyes gazing up at her. She
bit back the reflexive comeback and sat down.
"How ya doin’, Ali?" she managed to croak out. "Ya don’t look so
hot." Alison
laughed, a weak, sickly sound.
"Been.. better…" her jest was interrupted by a fit of weak coughing. Rogue
rose to summon a healer, but Alison forced her hand up onto Rogue’s forearm.
"Don’t waste your time…" she breathed. Rogue sat back down, holding
Dazzler’s
hand in her own.
"Don’t talk like that, girl." She whispered in her Southern accent.
"Y’all
gonna be happy and live a long life together, you an’ Longshot. Don’t you quit
on me, songbird." Alison smiled weakly.
"Time… time’s different here, Rogue." She responded. "Longshot
and I have had
a long and happy life. I wish you could have seen it, Rogue. The wedding, our…
our family…" Rogue gasped.
"Y’all had a family?" she squeaked. "And Ah never got told?" She
smiled and
wagged a finger at her friend. "An’ here Ah thought Ah was gonna be an
auntie…" she paused, then hunched over sadly.
"Aw, who’m Ah kidding?" she sighed. "You an’ me weren’t
never that close, Ali.
Ah mean, ever since ya joined the X-Men, Ah gave ya nothin’ but grief. An’
then…now…" she sniffed, ribbing away a tear. Alison chuckled and squeezed
her
arm affectionately.
"You’re kidding? As I remember, last time we spoke, I was blasting you into
the Siege Perilous!" she laughed, ending it with a phlegm-stifled cough.
"Now wait a cotton-pickin’ minute!" Rogue protested. "Ah ordered ya to
do
that, so’s we could destroy Master Mold! Ya only did whatcha had ta!" She
smiled at her bedridden comrade and saw it returned warmly.
"I’m dying, Rogue." Alison finally whispered.
"Ah know, Dazz." Rogue replied. "Ah’m here."
"I’m so scared, Rogue…"
"Ah’m here, sugah." Rogue breathed softly, bending over to embrace her
friend.
"Ah’ll be here for ya. Ah promise."