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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 27

Renee faced into the hot desert wind, squinting as the grit-filled air burned her eyes. Around her, a field of shriveling grain sighed and bowed in the wind’s grip.

“The drought has been bad this year, Lady.” Namores stood beside her, his fingers trailing lightly across the half-formed heads. “If we give the Lord Apocalypse the tribute he demands, there will be nothing left for my people to eat.”

Renee turned to look at him, grimacing as the incessant wind caught at her scarves, blowing them across her face. She gathered up the offending strips of gauze in one hand, holding them captive. With the other hand she shaded her light-sensitive eyes. She swept her gaze across the valley floor, taking in the patchwork of fields. A tributary of the Nile usually fed these lands, but, according to Namores, the river had slowly dried up over the last few years.

She let her hand fall. “You don’t need to worry about the tribute,” she told the older man. “There will be more than enough for everyone.” Apocalypse had given her free rein in her oversight of the village and its inhabitants, and she intended to do everything in her power to see that they never suffered Apolcalypse’s ire again.

Strangely, Apocalypse no longer seemed concerned that she might escape his mountain home. He’d given her the use of one of his skimmers, though with her usual compliment of cat guards, and access to much of the underground portion of the complex.

“Lady, not even Lord Apolcalypse can make the rivers run when there is no rain.” Namores shook his head.

Renee’s dry lips curved into a smile. “Watch.”

Dropping to her knees, she lay her hands against the dusty ground and let her power loose. The same cellular growth power that allowed her to heal would also allow her to boost these poor, dying grains far beyond what sun and water and dirt could accomplish.

The grain stalks closest to her hands immediately straightened, their color darkening to a healthy green. The stalks elongated, growing fresh leaves and the grain heads swelled. The effect spread outward, rippling across the field and drenching Renee in the smell of new growth.

She narrowed her perception, gritting her teeth as she forced her power to obey, and for the grains to turn golden and ripen instead of shooting green stalks twenty feet into the air.

Above her, Namores murmured several unfamiliar words, his tone tinged with wonder.

Renee pushed her power until even the grains on the very edges of the field had full, heavy heads. Then she sat back and brushed the dirt from her hands.

“Go gather your harvesters,” she told Namores.

He nodded enthusiastically, his eyes roving the new, fat grain. “Yes, Lady.” He turned and waded away through the waist-high grain at a pace very close to a run.

Renee rose to her feet and followed him more sedately. When she reached the edge of the field, she found two of the cat men waiting to intercept her. One handed her a ceramic cup filled with water, which she drank gratefully. The other kept his hands on his weapons, his ears constantly moving.

Finishing the water, she followed the two back toward the parked skimmer. She knew the cat men’s body language well, by this point, and knew when they had instructions to return her to Apocalypse’s complex. What Apocalypse would want from her then, she couldn’t guess. But, she would deal with that once she arrived. Until then, she could sit back in the skimmer’s one seat and rejoice in the fact that she had spent her day doing good for the people Apocalypse had put under her care.

The skimmer settled to the metal floor of the hangar with a clang that reverberated around the vast space. The hangar reminded Renee of the one beneath her childhood home, but dwarfed the X-Men’s by several orders of magnitude. To her eye, most of the ships parked inside it looked like they hadn’t been used for years. Some seemed like little more than piles of wreckage, leftover machines from ages gone by.

She jumped lightly to the ground, wincing at the cold metal on her soles after the warmth of the outside. She wondered who maintained the massive ships, or even the skimmers. She had yet to see anyone that looked like a mechanic. It could all be automated--the ceiling was covered with a tangle of tubes and lines and mechanical frameworks--but she hadn’t seen any of it in operation if that was the case.

Her cat guards headed for the nearest bank of elevators, and Renee followed. They rose to the residential level. Renee glanced down at her dirty toes and the dust streaks that marred the pristine white of her skirt and shook her head ruefully. She would need a bath before going to see Apocalypse.

Shala had a bath drawn and ready when Renee reached her suite. The girl bombarded her mistress with questions about the village and its people as she stripped the ornaments from Renee’s hair and helped her out of her clothes. Renee did her best to answer, knowing how hungry Shala must be for news of her family. Renee knew the feeling too well. Every time Apocalypse or Ozymandias mentioned the X-Men, she had to bite her tongue to keep from asking about them.

“Sugar, ah’m gettin’ a mighty sense of déjà vu here.”

Remy looked up from his abstract consideration of the mansion’s driveway to find Rogue standing halfway down the front stairs, one hand on her hip. A short ways away, Scott and Jean were cajoling Elisabeth into a brand new SUV, while Beast kept up a running monologue from the driver’s seat.

Remy grinned. “Is dat because I asked you out on a date an’ suddenly it’s turned into a group event?” He swung one leg over the seat of his also-new Harley. “Again?”

Rogue laughed. “Somethin’ like that.” She came down the stairs and settled behind him on the bike, hooking her gloved fingers in the front pockets of his jeans.

Remy paused at the simple intimacy, so different from the insults they’d traded on that first outing. He opened his mouth to comment, but closed it again as Gladiator settled to the ground between the two vehicles.

The Praetorian inclined his head toward Remy in a sketchy bow. "I am to accompany you."

A tight, nauseating knot formed in Remy’s stomach, and he felt Rogue’s arms tighten around him. "Says who, homme?"

Gladiator’s stiff expression didn’t change. "It is my sworn duty to protect the royal House Neramani. The Empress, your mother, agreed that this duty is best served by my joining your expedition."

Remy’s hands tightened on the handlebars until he could feel each ridge in the grips digging into his flesh. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jean stop and turn, her expression worried. A step ahead of her, Betsy also paused with her hand on the roof of the SUV.

It was Betsy’s expression that made Remy’s hot protest lodge in his throat. The flash of relief, as if a conflict between Remy and Gladiator would be just the excuse she needed to back out. Remy couldn’t give her the chance to recant. The woman was becoming a ghost--she needed to spend time with people, doing the normal things people did.

Remy turned his attention back to Gladiator and summoned a flip smile. "Suit y’self, then. But if y’ going to come wit’ us, y’ going to have to ride wit’ them." He jerked his head toward the SUV. "Ain’t no room on de bike."

Gladiator hesitated, looking surprised, but then acquiesced with a nod. He retreated to the SUV and climbed into the passenger seat. Jean shooed Betsy into the backseat, then climbed in behind her.

Remy kicked the Harley to life in a roar and a cloud of gasoline fumes. "But the Empress, my mother" he mimicked Gladiator’s formal tone, "an’ I are gon’ have a lil’ chat when I get back," he muttered darkly.

Rogue chuckled and hugged him from behind.

Oddly reassured, Remy pulled out of the driveway in a squeal of tires.

Once she was clean and dressed, the cat men led Renee into a section of Apocalypse’s complex that she had not seen before. A long series of stone tunnels punched through the heart of the mountain away from the labs, twisting and meandering as if the designer had followed the natural lay of the stone rather than forcing a path through it. Renee did not see any doors or rooms as they walked, and the further they went, the more her curiosity grew.

They emerged on the floor of a small valley surrounded on all sides by cliffs hundreds of feet high. Renee’s breath caught in her throat. The most amazing tree she had ever seen grew in the center of the clearing. The massive cedar had to be centuries old, she thought. It rose at least a hundred feet in the air and its trunk was as broad as an old fashioned railroad car. Gardens surrounded the base of the tree, filled with a wild profusion of flowers and shrubs. She immediately knew this must be the source of the blooms that decorated her bath each day. The air smelled incredibly sweet, and in the still air she could hear both the buzz of insects and the chirping of birds.

Renee’s gaze rose. The deep cleft in the rock should have been bathed in shadow, but a series of huge mirrors attached to the rock walls reflected the light downward, allowing the tiny paradise to flourish.

"Do you like it?"

Renee gasped and spun at the unexpected voice. Apocalypse stood off to the side of the entrance, his arms crossed over his chest and his expression one she couldn’t identify.

She swallowed convulsively. "I--yes, it’s beautiful." Her heart started to race. She bit her lip, hoping the fear didn’t show on her face. Apocalypse had never asked her opinion of anything.

He gestured for her to go on in to the garden.

Not knowing what else to do, Renee complied. She stepped from the cold stone of the tunnel onto soft humus. The rich earth sank beneath her toes, earthy and wonderfully alive. The sensation reminded her of summers running barefoot at her grandfather’s mansion. She smiled at the memory, stepping lightly along a narrow path that threaded through the garden. She tried to shut out her awareness of Apocalypse following her. He said nothing, only trailed in her wake. In truth, the sudden show of patience was downright bizarre.

She paused to study a long frond studded with tiny velvet flowers. The blooms were a deep burgundy color, so vibrant she could hardly believe they were real. She reached out to stroke one of the miniature petals, finding it just as soft as she expected. As she did, she kept a surreptitious eye on Apocalypse. He hardly seemed to be aware of her, but instead stared in her general direction, his gaze distant.

"What purpose does this place serve?" she asked him, and was gratified to see him start.

The gray eyes jumped to hers, unguarded just for a moment, and Renee could have sworn she saw pain there.

He looked away. "It serves no purpose."

Renee straightened. "I don’t believe you." Feeling oddly bold, she turned to face Apocalypse fully. "You don’t do anything without a purpose."

For a second she thought he was going to fly into a rage, but instead he smiled. The fleeting expression was made all the more strange by the inhuman shape of his jaw, and gave way almost immediately to something ancient and bitter.

"Very well, Healer." He looked out across the rampant greenery toward the great cedar rising out of the center of the valley. "This garden was intended as a gift. Long ago."

"For who?"

The wide jaw tightened. "It no longer matters. Now it is yours."

Renee stared at him in surprise. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out so she closed it again. Flustered, she turned away and began picking her way down the narrow path. After a moment, she heard Apocalypse’s boots crunching after her.

Renee increased her pace. Panic clawed at her heart, spurring her forward until she was nearly running. The path she followed took her straight to the base of the massive cedar tree. She clambered over the humps of roots, heedless of the rough bark on the soles of her feet, hearing Apocalypse always right behind her.

When she reached the trunk, she spun around and put her back against it, fingers digging into the woody grooves of the bark. Apocalypse stopped short at the move, and Renee’s breath caught in a sob. "You’re never going to let me go, are you?"

Apocalypse’s eyes narrowed. "When you have completed your half of our agreement, Healer." His voice was cold. "Then I will release you." He began to turn away, but then turned back, spearing her with his gaze. "Not before."

Renee nodded jerkily, unable to tear her eyes away from his.

With a sound of disgust, Apocalypse turned and strode away.

Scott leaned back in his chair at the X-Men’s table inside Harry’s, cradling his beer in both hands. The large table in the front corner of the bar was almost always empty, regardless of how crowded the bar got. But the X-Men had been using it as "their" table for more than ten years and the local population seemed to respect their claim.

At the back of the bar, a live band was just finishing its setup on the tiny raised platform that passed for a stage. Scott didn’t think he was going to enjoy the music. The band members were dressed in an odd combination of goth black and military green. All four of the young men were surprisingly athletic-looking for musicians and had their hair buzzed short, though two of them also wore black eyeliner and lipstick. Their backdrop was a big parabolic dish apparently salvaged from an old satellite tv system, with the band’s name spray painted across it.

After a few discordant test notes, the band launched into their first song. Scott was pleasantly surprised. Though the music had a definite alternative edge, it wasn’t too bad. Across the table, Remy drummed his fingers on the tabletop in time to the driving beat, and Scott’s lips quirked in a smile. Remy liked anything that smacked of counter-culture, and he spent an entertaining moment imagining how the other man was going to react to the strict ceremonial requirements of life among the Shi’ar aristocracy.

Scott’s humor was short-lived. It was too easy to let his thoughts drift back to that one week so many years before, and that very, very different Remy--Remi, he corrected himself. That boy had been as much of a straight arrow as himself, too aware of his responsibilities to rebel, and too trusting of the Professor to try to buck the role Xavier asked of him.

Scott uttered a caustic snort and took a swig of his beer. They’d both been too trusting of the Professor, that was for sure. The anger he’d managed to set aside for a while bubbled up inside him once again, making his chest ache. It was anger partly fueled by guilt, he knew. Guilt at his own willful blindness, and the fact that he’d all but shoved Remi out the door with his little speech about selfishness and responsibility.

Sighing, Scott leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table and set his beer bottle down on the table, cupping the narrow base with both hands. "Remy."

The other man turned from watching the band to give him a curious look. "Oui?"

"I--" He paused ruefully. How to broach a topic Remy absolutely hated having to deal with? He shook his head. "Okay, I guess I need to ask your indulgence here. I need to say something, and it’s probably just going to tick you off. But, please, just let me say it and then, if you want, we can pretend it never happened."

Gambit’s eyebrows had disappeared into his hairline by the time Scott finished, but the surprise look quickly morphed into one of suspicion. "An’ if I say no?" he challenged.

Scott shrugged, beginning to find the whole situation surreal. "I don’t know. I’ll probably write you a letter or something."

Remy barked a laugh, sounding genuinely amused. "All right, Cyke, you’ve piqued my curiosity." Remy made a vague gesture, his humor disappearing. "Say what y’ need to, eh?"

"Yeah." Scott stared at his hands, feeling suddenly awkward. "I owe you an apology," he finally said. He risked a glance upward, and found Remy watching him with a wary, but not hostile, expression. Around them, the other X-Men were listening to the conversation, all interest in the band abandoned. Only Gladiator continued to ignore them as he had most of the evening. He sat at the end of the table with his back to the group, his gaze constantly roving the crowd.

Scott forged on. "We... had a conversation. Thirteen years ago, sitting on the roof of the mansion." He couldn’t help a small smile for just how bizarrely apropos that now seemed.

Remy’s expression closed even further. "Y’ do realize I don’ remember any o’ dose times, non?" His voice was soft but painfully tight.

Scott nodded. "I know. You’re welcome to my memory of it, if you want."

Remy glanced over at Jean. Scott followed his gaze and saw Jean nod, her gaze full of compassion.

Remy’s lips thinned. "Mas oui. Do it." He looked away from both of them. Beside him, Rogue reached out to take his hand in both of hers. Remy didn’t acknowledge her.

Scott felt the tickle of his wife’s telepathic fingers in his mind. I hope I’m doing the right thing, he thought as he watched Remy blanch in reaction to the remembered conversation.

You are, Jean answered. He needs these pieces of himself.

After a moment, Remy looked up. "What’s de point in takin’ dis up with me, Cyke? It ain’t like I’m really de person y’ had dat conversation with." The hostility Scott expected had crept into his voice.

Scott shrugged. "Except that, in a way, you are." At the answering flash of anger in the other man’s eyes, he held up a hand. "At least in my mind." Frustrated, he let his hand fall to the table in a fist. "Don’t you see, Remy? I’m almost certain I was the last person to talk to you before Xavier went and shredded your memories." His anger surged as he finally gave voice to the thoughts that had been plaguing him. "And I think--I *think*--you were asking me to help you find a way out and all I did was spout some tripe about trusting the Professor..." He trailed off helplessly.

Remy stared at him in silence, his mobile face shifting through a dozen expressions that testified to some inner conflict. In the end, though, all he did was shake his head. "It ain’t your fault, Scott." He didn’t quite meet Scott’s eye, but instead stared at a point somewhere over his shoulder. The red irises, which could glow like molten lava or be as flat and dark as congealing blood, had gone dim.

Remy heaved a sigh. "If I understand right, it was mostly his--my--" He grimaced, obviously unhappy with either pronoun. "Rem’aillon’s idea." He hunched his shoulders, and Scott got the distinct impression they were nearing the end of Remy’s patience with the entire topic.

Unfortunately, none of it made the bitter taste in Scott’s mouth go away. Maybe it wasn’t his fault, but it certainly wasn’t Remi’s either. "The Professor should have put a stop to it." He forced himself to meet Remy’s eyes. "We were all just kids. We didn’t know any better. But he should have."

Jean gave him a disapproving look. "That’s not very fair, Scott."

Her disagreement felt like a betrayal. "How can you keep defending him?" he demanded.

Jean brushed her bangs out of her face, the gesture impatient. "He was handed a choice that could potentially lead to the destruction of the entire human race, Scott, with indisputable proof of just how easily it could turn out that way. Don’t forget, that entire other timeline was predicated on the single fact that Gambit," she flashed Remy a smile, "--our Gambit--didn’t exist there." She gestured across the table. "That’s all. *One* person wasn’t there and the entire world collapsed."

Scott noted that Remy was staring at Jean in something akin to horror and felt the echo of it in his own heart. It would have been a terrifying prospect to be faced with. But surely an unknown future, armed with the foreknowledge Remi had brought, would have been better than ruthlessly choreographing history and the lives of people the Professor was supposed to care the most about. Wouldn’t it?

It struck Scott then that the mere fact that he couldn’t answer the question for sure was the answer in and of itself. For the first time since he’d learned what the Professor had done, he could understand why he’d made the choice he had. Scott might never agree that it was the right one, but the feeling of being stabbed in the chest began to abate.

He sat back in his chair. Remy looked more than a little shaken, and Scott decided it would be best to wrap the conversation up before one or the other of them lost their composure. "Anyway, I’m sorry," he told the other man. "For whatever it’s worth, I would rather have had you stay at the mansion all those years ago."

Remy finished off the last of his own drink in a single swallow, then shrugged, shoving the empty bottle toward the center of the table. He looked away from Scott, and the uneven shadows falling across his face made him seem haggard and worn.

The uncomfortable silence that followed was drowned out as the band wrapped up their first set in a crescendo of guitars. Scott applauded politely. Across from him, Remy turned away. Rogue leaned against the other man’s shoulder and said something that drew a flickering smile.

On stage the band members unslung their guitars, milled about. The drummer set his sticks aside and stood up to adjust the satellite dish back drop. He muscled it over a bit and adjusted the angle as if its position had been bothering him somehow.

"That didn’t go too badly," Jean commented in a low voice.

"I guess." Scott raised his eyebrows. "No explosions, no blood."

She chuckled.

"Is it just me, or does that dish look like it’s powering up?" Hank’s voice, tinged with alarm, interrupted them. Scott’s gaze snapped toward the stage. The graffitied satellite dish had begun emitting a low grade hum. It was also now aimed straight at the X-Men.

Gladiator reacted first. He dove across the corner of the table with a shout, tackling Remy and taking both he and Rogue to the floor. Scott jumped to his feet, his hand going automatically to his glasses. He could hear Gambit cursing Gladiator roundly, but didn’t have attention to spare as he tried to assess the threat. The four musicians had moved off of the stage. One looked like he was working some kind of control board that Scott had mistaken for part of the sound system.

The dish emitted a shriek of power that Scott felt clear up into his sinuses. All around the bar, people clapped hand to their ears and looked around in alarm.

"Get down!" Scott shoved Jean away from the direction of the beam. As if in slow motion he saw Hank and Betsy begin to move back from the table as well. But Psylocke’s feet got tangled in the chair legs and she went down with a screech of pain.

Scott vaulted onto the table and aimed an optic blast at the center of the dish. Releasing the blast blanked his vision, but the power shriek cut out abruptly. The bar filled with screams and the smell of smoke.

When he pushed his glasses back into place all that remained of the dish was a mound of slagged metal. The wall behind the stage had blackened and small tongues of flame clung to it. Panicked people shoved their way out of the bar en masse.

To Scott’s surprise, one of the band members grabbed a jacket from a nearby chair and began beating out the flames. Two of the others pulled automatic rifles from somewhere and took up defensive positions at the edges of the stage. The fourth stood by the control panel, cradling one hand as if he might have been injured by an electrical discharge when Scott destroyed the dish.

To Scott’s right, Rogue and Gladiator rose into the air. Gambit rolled to his feet, bo staff in one hand and a trio of playing cards splayed in the other. To his left, Beast leapt neatly atop a neighboring table, his induced image flickering out to be replaced with his normal blue self.

"Hold your fire!" the man--soldier, Scott corrected himself, for that was obviously what these four were--shouted to his men. "We don’t want to hit any civilians."

Scott had just enough time to be surprised by that before Jean telekinetically yanked the weapons out of the men’s hands and snapped them in half. The pieces clattered to the floor at the soldiers’ feet.

The last of the bar’s regular patrons pushed their way out the doors and an odd kind of silence descended. Harry, Scott noted, hadn’t gone anywhere. He stood behind his bar, a sophisticated power rifle in his hands, and watched both groups with equal parts anger and wariness.

"Deep breaths, everyone," Scott told the X-Men. He didn’t think the soldiers posed any additional threat. The X-Men had them too badly outnumbered.

He turned his attention to the soldiers. "And you--hands in the air where I can see them." Slowly, the four soldiers complied.

"Cyclops, Psylocke’s hurt." Jean’s voice held a note of real fear. "She’s unconscious and I’m not reading... anything... from her."

Immediately, Beast jumped down from the table and went to Elisabeth’s side. Scott could only afford to spare them a glance. Psylocke lay on her side, half under the table on which he stood. Her long hair covered her face. One of the chairs had fallen on top of her, and Hank moved it aside as he bent down to examine her still form.

Scott turned back to the soldiers. "What was that machine? What did it do to Psylocke?" Deep inside him, a quiet rage built for how easily they’d been ambushed. He had no idea who had set it up, but he knew with instinctive certainty that the whole point of the ruse had been to fire that weapon at them.

The apparent leader of the group stepped forward. "I don’t know what it’s supposed to do, X-Men. We were just following our orders."

Scott reached for his wife through their rapport. "Phoenix?"

"He’s telling the truth," she confirmed. "They’re US military and they all have manufactured psi blocks in their minds. They can’t tell us anything useful." Her breath caught. "But they were told the weapon couldn’t harm anyone except telepaths."

Scott turned to look at her, and saw his own shock reflected in her eyes. A weapon against telepaths? That sounded particularly ominous.

Scott kept a tight hold on his emotions. That could have been Jean lying there just as easily as Betsy. They’d been sitting right next to each other. But there was no purpose to be served in prolonging the confrontation or harming the soldiers. "Let’s get out of here, everyone." He turned toward the bar’s owner. "I’m sorry for the mess, Harry. We’ll pay for the damage."

Harry adjusted his grip on his rifle and gave Scott a curt nod. "Appreciate it. But I think I’m gonna send Uncle Sam the bill this time." He glared at the soldiers.

Scott jumped down from the table as Hank scooped Betsy up in his arms. With Jean beside him and Rogue, Gambit and Gladiator covering the rear, he followed Hank toward Harry’s back room and the service entrance there. They needed to get back to the mansion, not just for Psylocke, but because he had the feeling something big and ugly was looming on the horizon and the more time they had to prepare, the better.

 

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