Generation X: An Alternate Ending
Part One: Synch, M, Chamber, Husk, Skin, Tores and Gil
"Wait! I've found a live one!"
"Who? WHO?!"
"I'm pulling 'im free!"
"Ev! Dude! You okay?"
Everett Thomas opened his eyes, blinking painfully. The chaos of a disaster
zone struck him like a rock. Shouts, screams, sirens all muddled together to
into one continuous scream.
"Yeah, yeah", he said, answering his friend Gil. Gil's worried face peered
down at him from above a pile of rubble. With a sinking heart, the mutant
codenamed Synch asked tightly, "Where are the others?"
"All still missing." A firefighter said.
"We need to find them." Synch said in panic. Calming himself, he reached out
with his unique aura, looking for his missing friends. 'I should be able to
do it with my synch power', he thought. A jolt of raw power met him from
across the room.
"Over there! It's Monet!", he yelled, taking off for a pile of rubble
against a far wall. He reached down, throwing away rocks twice his weight
with the strenght he synched from M. He worked as is if posessed, his
thoughts running feverishly around in his head.
'By absorbing her powers, I was able to survive the blast. I owe her my
life! She has to be okay!'
"You got her?" Gil's anxious voice cut thru his thoughts.
"Er, yeah....."Synch said, struggling to pull them out, "Both of her!"
Gil's eyes widened, his mouth dropped open, but before he could say anything,
Synch dumped one of the twins in his arms. The second twin was set down
gently beside him, propped up on a rock with her head rolled over to the
side. "Watch them." Synch said curtly.
Synch stood for a moment with his eyes closed. Faintly, very faintly, Gil
could see an outline around him, one that suddenly shot off like a rainbow.
"Over there!" Synch yelled, hardly stopping to point. The firefighters were
right behind him.
"'Ow does he know where they are?" asked one man incredulously.
"Er, he, um, saw them, I guess," Gil muttered, but the firefighter hadn't
waited for an answer. Across the room, everone threw the rocks right and
left, uncaring of who got in their way.
Gil sighed and put the twin he held down. 'Two' he thought, shaking his head
'Man, does my life ever get intresting when Angelo comes to visit!' He
reached out an arranged a rock behind one of the twins. 'They really are
alike. I wish Angelo could see them. Him and Tores were always arguing
about twins'.
Gil gasped in horror. He was imagining Angelo dead already! Quickly he
looked over at teh commotion, but nobody was laid out dead, nobody was even
uncovered yet. He turned his head away and tears silently washed his eyes
for his cousin's death.
Suddenly, his head spun around. Synch's "rainbow" aura, that had covered him
like a shell of seaking energy threads before, was taking on a definate shape
now! A shape very much like the one Gil himself had always seen around
Angelo!
"Whoa," he whispered, just before Synch hauled up Skin from beneath the
rubble, Tores and Chamber a moment after.
Angelo Espinoza looked terrible. His extended skin was running slightly,
making him look like a melted candle; his clothes almost gone; his body a
mass of bleeding cuts and lacerations. Tores looked little better, but
Chamber was barely untouched, though his leather jacket had a big, smoking
hole in the back of it.
With a shout of joy and relief, Gil took two steps torwards his cousin...and
that move saved his life.
The ground trembled, enormous rocks thrown high into the air; the twins were
suddenly blasted, rocks and dirt flying up, the two girls in the center like
human missiles. One twin flew thru a half-standing wall, her body shattering
the stone into sharp edged facets before landing hevily on the grass, a dark
stain appearing beneath her head.
"Catch her!" Synch yelled, diving for the second falling twin. His aura took
on a bright, focused color beam, seeming to draw him closer to her than he
already was. As is in slow motion, Gil saw the twin Monet, her hair flying
all over and her arms tangling, fall like a stone into Synch's waiting arms.
Gil sighed in relief.
Too soon
A wall of dust rose up, obscuring the sight of their attacker. Amid screams
and cries for help from nearby humans, a sharp, almost metallic smell rose up
to hover over the ruin.
"Oh, damn!" Yelled Gil, flinging himself to one side just as a bolt of energy
shot our from the dust cloud. The firemen surrounding Skin and Tores
scattered out of the way.
Gil furiously rolled against a far wall, staying low but keeping a lookout
for the others. He crawled as fast as he could, choking and coughing on the
dust and his own blood. "Angelo", he yelled thru his burning throat. His
smarting eyes began to water.
A second blast came from the dirt, landing near Synch. The mutant was
attempting to sheild the girl he held with only partial success. "If I ever
get out of this," he muttered between clenched teeth and cracking lips,"I
will never, ever complain again, no matter what Banshee or Ms. Frost cook
up!"
"Mutants!" a booming, hollow voice called out, "Do not resist!"
A dead silence descended around the ruin. Far off, more like an echo than an
actual noise, the sounds of cars and peole provided an unnatural background
for the entrance of the Prime Sentinal.
The sunlight swirling on the motes of dust created a rainbow even Synch would
have found it hard to rival. Teh upturned faces of humans...frozen in shock,
pain, disbelief, and anger....all a silent witness to the extermination of
the next generation.
Footsteps were heard then as the Prime cut thru the sunlight, scattering the
dust into charotic whirls, destroying the rainbow. As a body, the humans
stepped back, dragging their wounded with them. Vaguely, Synch wondered why.
Was it because they were afraid of the mutants...or the Prime?
The daylight took on a surreal quality for Synch. Gil, crying over the
barely concious body of his brother...the humans, scared or unwilling to
help...the blank stares of the others, their thoughts damning them to hell
for an accident of birth...and the most nightmarish of all, the silence of
the footsteps of the Prime as it halted in front of him.
"You have been tried and judged," it seemed to whisper for him alone, "Now
you must die." It's hand raised, fingers spread out and energy points
glowing.
"Stop! What do you think your doing?!" An old man said, leaping onto an
overturned car.
"You are interfering in a government sanctioned project, human. Such
interferance is not allowed." The Prime turned, it's attention taken by the
man, preparing to kill him. Paige Guthrie suddenly emerged from overhead,
screaming in anger. She'd used her powers, the ability to rip off her skin
for a new form underneath, to create a half-bird with claws. The Prime
turned, and sent Paige flying away with a mighty punch that was even heard.
With that same motion, he turned and leveled a blast at Synch.
"No!" The old man said. With a supreme sacrifice, he threw himself in front
of Synch, and took the blast full in the chest. It was the final act of
bravery for him, but not the final one of the day.
Everyone stood frozen in shock, the Prime most of all.
"He killed David!" a human woman screamed, "Kill him!" She picked up a rock
and threw it at the Prime. Without a thought the Prime turned to her and
killed her.
If he thought that this would scare everyone, he was dead wrong. With
screams, the entire crowd of humans converged on the Prime. Stones, guns,
and knives, anything they had, they attacked with. The Prime knew it fought
for it's existance, using ever dirty trick it knew of. Synch hoped it knew
when it died too.
By the time that Bastion arrived, the kids had been taken to a hospitol, and
nobody remained around. Bastion stood for awhile, looking, searching...and
finally realizing that the empire he'd created on blood was toppling
The world would still hate and fear them. But everything a begining.
(
geocities.com/soho)