Tales of a Young Mutant 40
Disclaimers: This story, though probably not in all chapters, will definitely have celebrities in it. I don't know what they're sexualities are, and this is not meant to imply them, either. If you are not of legal age in your area, or are not interested in this type of literature, then GO AWAY!!
The X-Men, Spiderman, Blade, the Fantastic Four, Mutant X, and all associated characters are the property of Marvel Comics.
Batman and all related characters are the property of Dc Comics.
Charmed is owned by Warner Brothers.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and all related characters created by Joss Whedon. Copyright 20th Century Fox.
The characters of Final Fantasy are the property of Squaresoft.
Hercules and Xena are owned by Renaissance Pictures, I think.
Street Fighter and Final Fight are owned by Capcom. Fatal Fury and King of Fighters are owned by SNK. Tekken is owned by Namco.
This story follows the life of a young mutant I made up, Joshua Monroe. Before you read this series, be sure you have read Adventures of a Real Dark Night in the boy-bands section of this archive, about chapter 7-13. The character was introduced in that story. Also, I encourage reading the stories listed below in the Tales universe, as they crossover from time to time.
For those of you who have read my other story, The Birds and the Bat, this is not a `sex scene in every chapter' type story like the other one was. If you like this story or don't like it, I would like feedback.
Also, email all comments to me at redrealityranger02@hotmail.com.
Be sure to check out, if you haven't already:
Tales of a Real Dark Knight
Tales of a Superhero Band
Tales of the New Phoenix
Tales of a Human Spider
Marvel Knights
All are in the Gay Male Celebrity Boy Bands section of the archive, save Marvel Knights, which in the Gay Male Celebrity section.
Thanks, and on with the story.
Tales of a Young Mutant
Chapter 40: The Middle of the End
“I think this will serve as a reminder of old times, yes?” Sinister said as his holographic image disappeared.
Then the battle began as the Marauders attacked.
Sinister pulled out all the stops on this battle. Not only did we have the original Marauders to deal with, but they had extra help. Scrambler, Arclight, Riptide, Vertigo, Blockbuster, Harpoon, and Scalphunter were aided by Whiteout, Lupa, Leash, Sauron, and Ruckus.
I had reviewed the Cerebro Files on the mutants resulting in these clones. Whiteout, clothed in a white jumpsuit with a white cloak, the costume covering her entire body, had the power to radiate light from her body in such a way that it could blind her opponents. Lupa was in many ways a female Beast, with heightened strength, agility, and feral senses. She wore a green loin cloth resembling a thong, as well as a green top that barely covered her breasts. Leash was dressed in a red leather teddy, with black leather gloves and boots that extended up her arms and up to her thighs. Her power was the psionic ability to bring another person’s astral image out of their body, then “leash” that astral image, giving her mental control over them, resulting in a glazed, blue eyed glare from the enemy and a visible psychic collar around their neck.
Sauron, in his animalistic state, resembled a pterodactyl, and, aside from the ability to fly, he also had the ability to send hypnotic waves from his mind, allowing him to control his opponents. Ruckus, dressed awkwardly in a pink shirt and purple leather coat and matching trousers, had the ability to absorb sound with an intake of breath, and then release it at highly amplified volumes.
The only problems that we had in offensive fighting abilities were Arclight, Riptide, Blockbuster, Harpoon, Scalphunter, and Lupa. However, all the other enemies were huge problems that needed to be handled as soon as possible.
<Everyone aim at a status-affecting mutate and disable them, now! It doesn’t matter how, just do it!> I shouted as the Marauders attacked.
Storm as quickly as possible summoned a lightning bolt that luckily hit Vertigo before she could send a wave that would have fucked us all up. Scrambler was about to hit her with a blast that would have either cut off her powers or turned them on herself, but Eros shot three empathic arrows at him, killing the clone.
Whiteout tried to blind the group of us, but luckily our comm. goggles still protected our eyes like regular shades, only tenfold. Thus none of us were affected. A swift psychic bolt from Psylocke knocked her unconscious.
I looked over and saw Gambit engaging in battle with Arclight, almost matching her in skill of fighting. Rogue was going up against Blockbuster, matching brawn for brawn.
Green Falcon had been blocking the explosive energy attacks from Harpoon with a shield from her power ring, but she didn’t notice as Leash came behind her, pulling her astral form from her body and chaining it in mental bondage.
Phoenix did, however, and before Green Falcon could be controlled, Jean hit Leash hard with a telekinetic slap, then a psychic bolt that knocked her out and broke her hold on Green Falcon.
I decided to use this time to try and get myself, Blade, Eros, and Charge out of the foyer and on to our next destination, but when I glanced at Blade, he was being hypnotized by Sauron, who I hit with a swift mental bolt to knock him out and release Blade, causing Sauron to revert back to being a very attractive blond man in his late twenties.
All of a sudden, a yell resounded through the room, so loud that it was giving me a splitting headache. I fell to the floor catching my head, and looked around the room, observing that everyone else had done the same thing. I found that Ruckus was indeed yelling at the top of his lungs. His sonic scream hit some of my friends so hard, in fact, that Phoenix and Storm, both aerial at the time, were hit full force and sent crashing into a wall, going unconscious.
“Someone shut him up!” I shouted.
“Silencio!” shouted Willow and, suddenly, Ruckus, who looked astonished, was silent. I hit him with a psychic bolt then, knocking him out.
“We’ve got this from here!” Huntress shouted, and as looked to her, I saw that she was fighting against Lupa.
“Go on!” agreed Willow as she used a shield spell which encased around Riptide, to block his skin shuriken, then recited one that made him catch fire.
“We’ve got your back!” shouted Psylocke, who was now engaging Scalphunter.
“Okay.” I replied, and Blade, Eros, and I left them to fight.
Going along several corridors, we found the entrance to the secret passage, an area of a stone wall, which was the fastest way to get to Sinister’s throne room. We entered the passage and found that it was wide, at least enough so that we could walk side by side in twos comfortably. Suddenly, Blade came to a stop.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“We’re being followed,” he replied. “Vampires. You three go on ahead. I’ve got this.”
“Right,” I replied and the three of us left Blade to his work. We reached the end of the tunnel, and left out. As the exit end of the secret passage closed behind us, we came face to face with the door to Sinister’s throne room. And so were the last of Sinister’s Olympians, Artemis and Hera. Both ‘deities’ were dressed in golden leather bodysuits, with swords in hand. Artemis’s bodysuit was slightly tighter than Athena’s, and had high-heeled boots.
“Hello, boys,” Hera said. “I see that you’ve come to get inside the throne room.”
“No, I am.” I replied, running towards them, and at the last moment flipping into the air. Each of them had swords that they were going to use to try and cut me, but Charge and Eros had their own that they blocked with. This allowed me to get inside the throne room, while the guys handled their own.
Lupa tried to scratch Huntress with her clawed fingers, but Huntress dodged, then sidestepped, squatted, and kicked out to sweep Lupa’s feet from under her. She then pulled out at stake and tried to stab the mutate.
Lupa caught her hand, however, and, grabbing her arm, flipped Huntress onto her back hard. Huntress rolled out the way in time to avoid Lupa trying to step on her, and then flipped to her feet. Huntress spun and kicked three times at Lupa, who avoided all three. After the third kick, Huntress jumped and spun to try and kick Lupa in the face. Lupa caught Huntress’s foot with one hand, then grabbed her leg with the other hand and tossed her into a wall. Huntress rolled forward and to her feet, ready to fight again.
Psylocke avoided Scalphunter’s laser firing from his blaster that he constructed. She knew that a good mental blast would take him down, but she didn’t have time to try to both avoid the blasts and concentrate on a mental blast.
“Enshroud!” she heard said behind her, and looked to see Willow, an eerie look in the witch’s eyes. When Psylocke turned back to look at Scalphunter, his eyes seemed to collect a dark fog over them, and it became obvious that Scalphunter could not see when he began to spew obscenities that would make a sailor blush. Psylocke used this as an opportunity to summon her psychic dagger, a foot-long ‘knife’ of telepathic energy which formed around her right fist, which she jammed into Scalphunter’s skull and into his mind, putting him out of commission.
Green Falcon kept blocking Harpoon’s energized attacks, cursing herself that she could not be on the offensive. Then a smile came to her face and an idea to her mind.
Green Falcon surged a lot of power to her power ring and pushed out in her shield, allowing her to get closer and closer to Harpoon. Harpoon kept vainly throwing explosive energy harpoons at Green Falcon, who kept blocking them with her shield. Harpoon threw one last energy harpoon at Green Falcon, who pushed the force field so close to Harpoon that the harpoon’s explosion took Harpoon with it.
Arclight kicked at Gambit, trying to knock him down and then use the dagger in her hand to kill him. Gambit ducked under her foot, then used his staff to jab her in the stomach. He then swung the staff to connect with her face and knock her into a wall. Gambit threw a handful of charged cards at the fallen Marauder who shrieked as the cards hit her, exploding on contact.
Rogue ducked under one of Blockbuster’s punches, then hopped and kicked the slow brute in the face. In her line of sight, she could see Huntress facing off against Lupa.
“Yarrgh!” Blockbuster shouted out as he made to grab Rogue. Rogue bent backwards so that she was on her hands and feet, barely missing being grabbed, then using her hands for balance, she channeled all her strength to kick Blockbuster with both feet as she performed a backflip. Blockbuster went flying away from Rogue. . .
. . . Huntress heard the impact of the kick and for a split second looked back over her shoulder, seeing the quickly approaching body of Blockbuster. Huntress leapt out of the way and Lupa was crushed underneath the weight of the massive Blockbuster, who was out cold from Rogue’s attack.
Huntress smiled in thanks at Rogue, and the two of them moved on to help take down Riptide.
Although Riptide could have been trying to kill most of the heroes in the area, Quicksilver had started taunting him the moment he recovered from Willow’s burning attack (The ol’ shake, rattle, and roll method), saying how the mutate with the ability to throw skin shuriken at super speeds would be unable to hit him. The frustrating part to Riptide was that the boy was right. Everything that Riptide tried to throw at him, Quicksilver was able to dodge, and Riptide, in his effort to prove the boy wrong, followed Quicksilver through the lower levels of the fortress trying to kill him.
Quicksilver was admittedly having fun, but the more he taunted and avoided getting hit, the madder Riptide became. And with Phoenix being knocked out, he wasn’t able to alert anyone to the danger he was in, considering using the comm. goggles would signal Riptide of his plans to get help.
In his fast-paced thoughts of what to do, and how to save himself, Pietro felt a sudden pain in his side, and with a shout of pain, he fell to the ground, his communication goggles falling from his face and turning on.
“Okay, Speedy Gonzales, what do you have to say before you die?” a smirking Riptide said with a handful of shuriken.
“Fuck you,” replied Quicksilver, upset that he’d been pegged, trying not to show the fear that he felt. . .the fear that he was indeed going to die.
“Cute. But I don’t do dude.” Riptide said. Quicksilver winced and braced himself for the pain. However, as Riptide reached back to throw the shuriken, Quicksilver saw a light blue glow appear and form into Pierce behind him.
“Shuriken!” shouted Pierce as Riptide threw the jabbed star-shaped pieces of skin. The shuriken turned into sparkles. The sparkles disappeared and a light blue glow could be seen inside of Riptide.
As Riptide began to groan in pain and blood began to spew from his mouth, it became obvious to Quicksilver that Pierce had materialized the shuriken inside of Riptide, likely inside his heart and other vital organs.
As Rogue and Huntress arrived on the scene, Pierce gave them the thumbs up as he and Pietro orbed away so that Pietro could be healed.
Blade could feel and smell the scent of undead that came with the presence of a full-blooded (well, fully-undead) vampire as they approached from behind him. Blade pulled his sword free from the scabbard on his back and prepared for the attack that he knew was imminent. As the vampire generals came into vision, Blade knew he shouldn’t have been surprised, but he still was, that they wore body armor and carried hand-to-hand weapons similar to his. The first, a tall Asian male, whom Blade mentally dubbed “Scarface” carried a sword, similar to Blade’s, save the inscriptions in Japanese on the blade. Blade knew that the scar over his left eye must have come from a fellow demon hunter or slayer that had been lucky enough to cut him with silver across his face. And judging by his continued presence on this plane of existence, the other person wasn’t so lucky afterwards.
Undead number 2 was an African-American vamp, shorter than Blade, and carrying what looked like a pair of battle axes. Blade nicknamed him “Tattoo” for the fact that he had a snake tattoo coiling around his neck.
The last of the generals was a female Caucasian vampire, blonde haired, wearing a more tightly-hugging version of body armor, along with a chain belt around her waist. This woman, who carried sais as her choice of weapons, he simply dubbed “Blondie”.
“Well, if it isn’t the notorious Blade.” Scarface said as he came into view.
“If we gon’ do this, then let’s do this. I ain’t got time for that ‘underestimation of the good guy’ shit that ya’ll spit out,” Blade said, the agitation apparent in his voice.
“So be it,” Tattoo replied. With a twist of his axes, Tattoo charged forward at Blade, then swiped at him with the axes. Blade moved to the side, avoiding the attack completely, then made to swipe at Tattoo with his sword. Tattoo swung his axes to block Blade’s advance—and then stunned Blade when the resulting clash of metals broke Blade’s sword.
“You fight against higher weaponry,” smirked Tattoo.
Blade quickly tried to determine how he could have been bested by blades that looked as though they were of lesser quality than his sword, considering Blade had broken through swords of solid steel with his silver sword. Then realization hit him.
“Adamantium,” Blade growled. Then an almost evil smile came to his lips. “No big deal. I can’t beat you with any of my weapons. That just means I’ll have to steal one of yours.”
Tattoo advanced on him again, slashing quickly and fiercely, Blade barely able to avoid each blow. Then, on one particular swipe, Blade caught the wrist of his opponent, and then twisted the arm until he heard the satisfying snap of the bones breaking. Tattoo growled in pain and released the ax he held in his hand. Blade caught the ax just as Scarface made to attack him. Blade elbowed Tattoo in the back, causing him to crash into a wall of the tunnel, then spun and kicked Scarface in the head, making him stagger backward.
Before he fell, Blondie slid between Scarface’s legs, avoiding being fallen on, and putting her on the other side of Blade. Blondie then tried to swipe at Blade’s face with one sai while she stood up, then stab him in the chest. Blade jumped over the first assault, then grabbed her other hand. Tattoo tried to swing at Blade, who used Blondie’s sai in the hand he held to block. Blade then kicked Blondie (but still held to her wrist), Tattoo, and Scarface in quick succession using the same foot. Tattoo tried to decapitate Blade, but Blade countered by stabbing him in the chest with Blondie’s sai, ducking as he did so, causing Tattoo to decapitate Blondie. Blade then punched Tattoo in the face, hard enough that he flew backward into the wall with the impact and then decapitated him with his own ax. Blade now held one ax and one sai and prepared to deal with Scarface.
“I’m gonna kill you, Daywalker!” Scarface growled, charging at Blade.
“If I had a penny. . .” Blade mused as he blocked Scarface’s vertical slash with both ax and sai crossed in an X. He then pushed Scarface backward and hopped in the air, spinning several times, kicking him several times in the face with one jump. Scarface tried again to stab Blade, but Blade spun out the way, cut off the sword hand with the ax, then stabbed Scarface with the sai. Scarface growled in agony, both from the stabbing and the loss of his hand.
“Aww, shut it up!” Blade said, akin to Yosemite Sam, as he used the ax to decapitate him.
Satisfied with the three piles of burnt ashes, Blade retrieve the sword of his enemy, which fit perfectly in his scabbard.
“I think I quite like this one,” he said. Then, upon hearing agonized male yells, Blade ran toward the end of the tunnel.
Charge ducked another sword swing from Hera and rolled out of the way, trying to get away from the crazed ex-lover. He had no way to attack offensively, his sword cast aside when her adamantium-hued weapon easily cut through his silver one. Hera, however, kept quickly closing the space between them. Charge ducked another swing, then another. Hera made a downward swing with her sword, but Charge rolled out of the way. As Hera made to swing again with the sword, Charge conjured an electricity bolt and threw it at her sword. Hera shrieked with pain as the electrical current surged through the sword and into her body and dropped the adamantium blade. Charge got ready to throw another bolt of electricity, but suddenly found that his thoughts had been invaded. But how he was unsure of.
“That’s right, lover.” Hera smirked evilly as she approached him. “All this time you’ve been avoiding my advances, I’ve been slowly breaking through the defenses of your mind, past your mental shields, past the electrical currents surging in your brain to get into the core of your consciousness. And now that I’m inside, I’m about to seriously fuck you up,” she quipped as she took hold of his head with her hands.
No! Help! thought Charge as he found himself unable to withstand this woman’s powers.
Eros long ago cast aside the remains of his sword in his fighting with Artemis. However, in the footsteps of others who had learned to do the same, Eros had learned how to manipulate his psionic powers in such a way that he could form weapons of different kinds with them. Thus he had been able to form a sword of empathic energy. A sword that was strong enough to compete with Artemis’ sword of adamantium. On one clashing of the swords, Eros had swung so hard that Artemis’s sword began to vibrate. Stunned by the sensation, Eros quickly disarmed her, then spun and kicked her in the chest, knocking her into a wall. Artemis looked angrily at Eros, a yellowish tint coming to her eyes. Eros remembered that color—it meant that she had activated her feral powers.
Artemis leapt at Eros, who swung his sword to try and stop Artemis. Artemis flipped over his swing, then kicked Eros in the back of the head. This broke Eros’s concentration and caused his psionic sword to diminish. Eros turned to Artemis and prepared a psychic bolt, but Artemis was faster. She performed a flipping kick that hit Eros fully in his chest. Artemis followed through with the attack by gripping Eros’s arms, causing Eros to fall on his back with Artemis perched on top, her high-heeled boots almost stabbing into his chest.
“Any last words before I gut you open?” she smirked evilly as she raised a dagger from her belt into the air.
“Sinister?! Apocalypse!! Show yourselves!!” I yelled as I looked about the expansive throne room. My feelings of anger and hatred toward my two enemies began to boil inside of me. Feelings built up over all the losses I’ve suffered, all the family that I’ve lost, began to resurface.
That was coupled with the eerie feeling of the throne room. It was a very dark, dimly lit room about the size of a high school auditorium, with stone floors and walls. Banners hung from the ceiling, banners colored either black or red, with a diamond shaped emblem on them-the same one on Sinister’s forehead.
At the very back of the expansive room sat Sinister’s throne. His throne was made from what appeared to be gold, but with blood red upholstery. The images carved into it gave off nothing but a sense of hopelessness and despair.
There must be another way out of here that I don’t see. I thought to myself. I began to stretch out with my telekinesis, feeling along the cracks in the floors and the walls for anything that may trigger a secret door. I searched the throne room floor, the walls, (and fought the urge to throw up as I passed most of the blood) and then the stage the throne was set upon. Then I found it . . . a switch on the throne. It would reveal a passage that was hidden behind the throne that would lead to another hidden area, somewhere that I figured very few people knew existed, since neither Eros nor Charge knew about it, and they were both high on Sinister’s people list.
I ran forward toward the throne, ready to finally face my enemies—when suddenly, from out of the ground, a figure jumped out, spun around and kicked me in the chest, so hard that I flew backward from him, my goggles flying from my face to land broken on the ground several feet away from me. I flipped to my feet and analyzed the figure of this enemy. He was slightly taller than I, dressed in all black, with black leather pants and a full-length black leather coat, a black tunic, and a black mask, with two air holes and two slits for eyes that appeared to be black—devoid of irises. A symbol like that of an h with a line cut through it (ħ) was on the forehead of the mask. He carried a staff that had a deadly-looking scythe at one end.
“Look, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t want to harm you, but I’m getting to that hidden passage, whether I have to go through you or not.” I said, making sure that he knew I was serious and meant business.
“You can try to get past Hades,” the guy said, “but you won’t succeed. “You will die.” He finished, lowering his staff to point the blade at me.
“Not today.” I said, pulling my sword free of its sheathe and getting ready to go on the offensive.
With a grunt I ran forward toward him, raising my sword to strike. But when I swung it downward, it went straight through him. It was like cutting through a mist. Upon paying closer attention, I could tell that the guy actually turned himself into mist—a mist whose upper body began to reform and swing the scythe-end of the staff at me. I blocked the staff with my sword and pushed him away.
I tried to strike him with a vertical slash, but he simply spun to his right out of the way, then, using the staff for balance, he jumped into the air and spun, kicking me in the face. I shook the pain off and went at him again, this time swinging horizontally. He used the staff for balance again and jumped over my sword swing, then tried to kick me in the face, but I ducked underneath his foot. This caused him to swing over my head and land behind me. I sensed him swinging the scythe end down at me, but I parried with my sword.
This is taking too damn long! I thought to myself as I channeled a psychic bolt and fired it at him. The blast hit him full-on—but it had no affect on him whatsoever! I next tried using my telekinesis to force him into a wall and knock him unconscious.
I immediately felt like a dumb ass when his body seemed to vanish as he hit the wall—it was as if he merged with the shadows somehow! I tried to detect when he’d return, expecting him to come at me again, but I couldn’t detect his thought patterns with my telepathy.
So instead, I reached out with my telekinesis, analyzing the room, all cracks and crevices again, to find my opponent. And upon my search I felt his mass forming behind me, ready to strike at me with the scythe.
I hurriedly turned around, slinging my arm in a slapping motion, knocking the staff out of his hand with telekinesis, and then kicked him in the chest as he finally formed a solid mass. The strength of the kick caused him to slide across the floor away from me. I stood in an offensive stance, sword raised above my head.
Then Hades reached out his hand at me, a dark aura forming around it, and to my surprise a pool of darkness rose from the ground and slapped the sword from my hand. I looked away from Hades to the path of my sword and tried to go after it, but as I did, Hades must have teleported through the ground again, and he rose from the ground in front of me and swung a punch at me.
I blocked his punch, and then countered with one of my own to his jaw. Hades staggered backward, then lowered himself to the ground and attempted to sweep kick me. I quickly did a back-flip over his foot, landing as he rose to his feet. The two of us began trading punches and kicks back and forth, blocking each other effectively, each seeming to be just as good as the other, until we both attempted a front kick at the same time, knocking each other across the room.
As soon as I got my bearings again, I cut loose with a strong Phoenix-enhanced telekinetic blast, the golden-hued energy flowing from my hands. However, rather than hitting Hades, the blast collided with a dome of pure black shadowy energy that erected around him, as though pulled from the infinite shadows in the room—shadows which quickly formed into a black energy beam trying to force its way past my blast.
For at least a minute the two of us stood stalemated, neither one able to outdo the other. Then some sort of involuntary reaction occurred. An explosion in the center of our beams occurred, forcing the two of us backward into the surrounding walls—hard.
Hades was the first to stand. Shadowy energy began to form in his hands and transform into scythes. Scythes which he threw at me. I cartwheeled to avoid the first projectile, then lunged out of the way of the second. Before he could form a third, I channeled my telekinesis to summon a set of psi-claws on my right hand and fired them at Hades. He ducked to avoid them, but he was clipped on the side of the face by one of them.
“Yarrgh!” Hades yelled. He touched the side of his face where the claw had cut him, then removed his mask to wipe at the blood flow.
And as he did so, my heart sank to the bottom of my stomach.
Eyes that used to be brown stared at me in anger and frustration, the color now completely blackened. And filled with hatred, no recognition whatsoever. But I recognized him.
“K-Kevin?” I squeaked in disbelief.
“Your Kevin does not exist,” Hades replied to me, as the wound on his face turned into mist, then turned into completely healed flesh, “only Hades. And now you will suffer the full wrath of my death powers!” As he said this, he held his hands up at me. I found myself instantly immobilized. Pools of dark shadowy ooze ensnared my feet, as an icy numbness consumed them. I suddenly realized the extent of my brother’s powers. Kevin was able to control the shadows, as well as merge with them, and command energy that could force the life energy out of some one. Like he was doing to me now. As the ooze covered my body, I could feel my life energy being suffocated out of me, and feelings of sorrow began to push past my mental defenses and into my mind.
“Kevin!” I said weakly, the effects of his powers quickly killing me. “Please, don’t do this! I’m your brother for Christ’s sake!”
“I AM HADES, CRETIN! YOUR KEVIN IS NO MORE!” he replied.
I couldn’t let this end this way. I had to stop the demon that must have possessed my brother. I concentrated with the last of my strength to destroy this death cocoon I was being entrapped in, using my telepathy to eliminate the thoughts trying to enter my mind, and my telekinesis to expand the matter around me. With a great burst of my power, I succeeded in breaking the barrier that surrounded me.
Hades looked surprised that I had escaped his power. I knew that he was surprised by the glowing that surrounded me, my body seemingly engulfed in fire. As the ‘flames’ dissipated, Hades charged at me again, a death-energy scythe in hand. I quickly dodged out the way and mentally retrieved my sword.
“Aargh!” I yelled. I looked down to see the scythe imbedded in my stomach. Hades had been too fast for me and had come behind me while I got my sword. A feeling double that of the dread and death I had just felt began to spread through my lower body and I fell off the scythe to the floor and onto my back.
Hades knelt above me as tears came to my eyes. “There, there, lad. It’ll all be over soon. Embrace your death,” he said as he raised the scythe above his head.
On the downward swing I caught his hand, then quickly jabbed my psi-claws through his chest. Hades began to gasp uncontrollably, then went silent. As I looked into his eyes, they turned from black in color to their original brown. But by then it was already too late.
“J-Josh?” he asked fearfully.
“Oh God. Kevin!” I said as I willed my claws to vanish. His body began to fall to the floor, but I quickly caught him, holding him in my arms.
“I’m sorry.” Kevin said. “But I couldn’t stop him. He—he controlled me. . .”
“Shh!” I said, “Save your strength. I’m gonna heal you, and then you can get out of here, and. .”
“It’s not possible,” he said. “Your powers aren’t going to be able to heal me. Sinister already knew that. The powers of shadow and death that I possess are able to cancel out yours. It’s why if ever you or any other mind-reader would try to find me it wouldn’t work. It’s why he spared me. . .to hurt you.”
“But—how—“
“—am I able to tell you this? The powers that had me bound forced me to see the horrible things I was doing without being able to control them. I was brainwashed into being Sinister’s servant. He used some sort of special serum--”
“--Kevin—“
“No, you shush. It’s my time to talk. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I couldn’t save Mom and Dad, I’m sorry that I made you have to do this, I’m sorry that I never told you that I was bi, and I’m sorry that I never got to fight alongside you, now that I know that I’m a mutant.”
The flood of information that was washing over me was becoming too much, but I tried to ignore it so that I could focus on the only relative I had left before all of this started. Before the attack on my home. Before my parents were transformed. My last hope had been to at least find my brother alive. “Kevin, you can’t die!!”
“I can, and I must, and I will. Goodbye Josh,” he said. I could feel the life slipping away from him, the light in his eyes fading. Then one last thought came from him.
Promise me that you’ll stop them both. Promise me, He thought spoke to me.
I replied. Kevin attempted to smile. Then, he was still.
Sobbing, I closed his eyes, my hands shaking, sadness and anger taking over. More was anger. I knew what Sinister had intended. Either I was going to kill my brother, or I was going to let him kill me. He wanted to make me sad, make me turn away.
But all he did was make me angrier. How dare he do this to me? A voice screamed inside my head. Anger and hatred for my enemies began to take over me, and as my anger grew, my power involuntarily activated and increased exponentially. I could feel the Phoenix Force within me growing, enveloping my body. With some sort of second sight, I could see the transformation that was taking place in my body—and in my uniform—as if I were seeing into a mirror.
An eerie glow had enveloped my skin, seemingly radiating an orange light. My blue eyes began to glow with the same orange color. My hair, before the battle being cut short and being changed to fully white, had turned back to being jet black. My uniform went from being mostly black to a completely different outfit—my gloves became golden colored as well as my boots. My bodysuit looked like a male version of Jean’s, except that mine was white instead of green, and the sash she wore around her waist was a gold belt around mine, a bird emblem being the buckle.
Automatically, my Phoenix Blade went back to its sheath on my back. The fire of anger I felt in my heart was echoed by the white Phoenix emblem on my chest.
And now, Sinister and Apocalypse would feel the wrath of the White Phoenix.
So, what do you guys think of Josh’s latest transformation? Like? Dislike? As always, send your comments to me at redrealityranger02@hotmail.com. Or, send them to jercolap@hotmail.com. TTFN! One more left in this set!