Pulse, Part Nine

by Tangerine

 "Charlotte Jones!  Hey, Char, over here!"  Bobby called as he waved madly in the crowd, jumping up and down to overcome his lack of height.  It was not him her eyes fell on first but the young man standing behind Bobby, overshadowing him by seven inches.  Bobby smirked, knowing Shatterstar's bizarre taste in fashion had stopped more than one person dead in their tracks and grateful her reaction was so normal.  He missed normal.

 "Bobby!  I haven't seen you in months!"  She cried over the crowd and proceeded to weave in and out like a pro until she was directly in front of them, a plastic bag clutched tightly between her fingers.  "How are you?"

 "Not too bad," Bobby replied warmly.  "We don't see you in Westchester often enough, Charlotte, what brings you this far out?  How are you?  How's Timmy?"

 "I'm here hunting for some toy my son talked me into buying.  I'm running around like a madwoman.  It's been a headache to find, but he deserves it.  He's doing well in school, and he only needs his crutches for long walks now.  He's a walking miracle, Bobby, and because of that I can almost say that I'm happy again with my.  I'm doing well."  Charlotte paused for a moment, noticing Bobby's drained, aged appearance with mild distaste.  "But you're lying to me, Bobby, you look terrible.  Is it her?"

 Bobby turned on the dimwits.  "What?  Who?"

 "I don't know your definition of bad, but the morgue looks healthier than you.  This is Betsy's doing, I bet.  She didn't tell you what she did to me, did she?  Scaring me like that, mocking that fact than I'm only human.  She's bad news, Bobby.  She needs help." Charlotte stopped abruptly, eyeing the red-haired man as he stared distastefully in her direction.  "Why is he looking at me like that?"

 "I have no idea.  Why are you looking at her like that?"

 Shatterstar frowned and looked between the old friends, hoping he was not being prepped to play the victim for some tasteless joke.  "She is speaking badly of your teammate.  That should not be allowed.  In my world, I would challenge her and we would fight to the death."

 Bobby smiled sadly.  "Betsy's going off the deep end.  You'll see that soon enough.  Charlotte is right to be worried, but there's not a lot we can do to help her when it's obvious she doesn't want help.  Still, Charlotte, you are being hard on her.  She's trying to stay sane.  I can give her that much."

 "It doesn't look like she's winning, Bobby, keep that in mind, will you?"  Charlotte shrugged and hoisted her purse further up her shoulder, flicking her braided hair back with a quick toss of her head.  "Listen, I have to go, but let's get together sometime and do whatever it is old friends do."

 "Sounds good, Char.  I'll give you a call."

 Charlotte smiled, thinking how Warren had said such things to her, lying to her, thinking she didn't realise what he was he was doing.  Charlotte shrugged, missing him despite his shortcomings.  She turned to leave, remembering the good old days when X-Factor existed and she felt almost useful aside the mighty mutants she had befriended.  People are right to fear, she decided, someday the term human will be nothing more than a faded memory.

 When she was well out of hearing range, Bobby turned to Shatterstar.  "Gav, man, you have to learn some tact.  She's a good friend of mine, so she's pretty forgiving, but you can't just blurt out death threats.  People don't tend to like hearing things like that, especially from strangers, you know?"

 "No, I do not know," Shatterstar replied, feeling wounded from the comments and not understanding why.  "It is honorable to defend one's teammates regardless of what they have done in the past.  It is the warrior's way."

 "You aren't a warrior, not here, not when you're dressed like that."  And despite himself, Bobby smiled, eyeing the outfit with laughter in his blue eyes.  Shatterstar frowned again, looking down at his silver shirt and tailored black pants.  "We're in Westchester.  People don't dress like they're going to a club unless they're actually going there."

 Shatterstar put his hand to his chin and said very quietly, "I wish to leave now."

 Bobby was immediately sorry he had said anything and nodded, finding the nearest doors to the mall and leaving through them, knowing Shatterstar would be close behind.  Bobby got in the car and started it, feeling worse and worse, thinking he had probably shattered whatever self-esteem Shatterstar had left, but he did not go back to the mansion.  The mansion was too much for him to bear right now.

 "I'm sorry about the clothes thing," Bobby muttered when he stopped the car, putting his head against the dash and looking up to the top of the forest, the lush canopy of deep green highlighted by slivers of golden light.

 "It is not your fault.  It is mine.  I am the one who cannot accustom himself to this world despite the fact I have been here for years.  I do not know how to dress, I do not know how to talk, I do not know how to be human.  I am a warrior.  That is what I know," Shatterstar said, getting out of the car and ripping his shirt off, throwing it to the leave-covered ground.

 And when he raised his glance from the crumpled shirt, Shatterstar had to stare in wonder at the height of the green and the colours of the wildflowers cast brightly against a dark emerald background.  The sun cut through the trees despite their protest, and Shatterstar found himself awed.  His world was all desert and swamp, and this, this was amazing.  He had spent too much time in the south with Cable.

 "Where are we?"

 "Just some place I used to come when I was young.  It's right on the edge of the school's grounds," Bobby said with a shrug, walking immediately to a path that led its way twisting and turning down the shallow cliff face.  "It used to be my haven.  I haven't been here for years, not since I was a kid."

 "You are not old," Shatterstar said, following Bobby down the steep decline though his better sense told him just to walk back to the mansion.  "You humans undervalue aging.  With the Cadre Alliance, if you had years to your name that meant you had the warrior spirit.  You are still young."

 "I've been fighting with the X-Men for more than eight  years, Shatterstar, nearly a decade of my life.  I'm tired, but I can't think of what else I would do.  I certainly didn't enjoy being an accountant, but it was safe."  Bobby paused, looking at the stern face as the eyes lifted to the sky, clearly awed, strangely innocent.  "How old are you?  You can't be very old."

 Shatterstar looked at Bobby as they stopped aside a small brook, bubbling happily as it flowed along the path it had followed for centuries, never thinking about the path that lay on the other side of the rock.

 "By your record of time, I am twenty," Shatterstar replied, jumping onto a large rock then crouching there, his knees bent at sharp angles and the muscles of his thighs bulging strongly through the thin fabric of his pants.  "You could be no more than twenty-four.  We are not so different in years, but I have fought a war.  Can you say the same?"

 "And here I thought you didn't talk," Bobby replied with a gentle grin, kicking his sandals off and wading into the water, remembering when Warren had sat on that very rock bearing his soul.  "I can't but I have lived a life.  Have you, Gaveedra Seven, known what it feels like to live?"

 Shatterstar looked at Bobby sharply, angry that Bobby had the gall to spit such an insult at him, but Bobby appeared only sad, pitying as if he would change that truth if he had the power to do it.  "You know I have not."

 "Then what say you to this: you teach me to be a warrior, teach me to fight, and I'll teach you what I can about living, about being human," Bobby said, tipping his head to view the reaction on the youth's face.  "Would you be willing to do that?"

 Shatterstar did not have to think about it.  It was a simple matter of, "Yes."

* * *

 When she was sure Bobby and Shatterstar had left, Betsy had immediately run to her room, pulling the blinds tightly together to block the light.  Days before, she had sat in the sun ignoring the sting of the light on her skin because she knew the brightness was the only way to fight the shadows.  She hadn't told Bobby.  She couldn't find the words to explain her growing sensitivity because it was such a terrible truth.

 She needed only a touch, only a few minutes in the dark, and she would feel better.  It would not hurt so much if she only got a taste of the shadows, but it was addictive like a powerful drug, and she found that she did not want to leave.  She stayed in her room, in the blackness, letting her weakness overcome her strength.

 She hadn't counted on Domino searching her out.

 Domino had been suspicious of Betsy since she had arrived, Psylocke should have remembered that, but she needed to feel the coldness on her flesh just once because then she would bear all the pain in the world without complaint.  She just needed a moment's reprieve from the pain.

 Then Domino had turned on the lights.

 Betsy had screamed at her, shrill and angry, screeching with curses that Domino thought in passing were not befitting of a British aristocrat, and she had attacked Domino, her skin dark with the touch of the Dawn.  The shadows had followed suit, lashing out at Domino and trying to harm her.  It was the picture of insanity, Domino had thought mildly as she defended herself, completely and utterly mad.

 Domino had fought her off, escaped the slippery hold of the shadows through sheer force of will while battling Betsy, careful not to harm the telepath if only for the sake of the baby, and Betsy had fled the room in a cloud of white, her bathrobe flowing behind her like wings. That had been some time ago.

 Now.

 Dressed in a white robe, Betsy sat in a dark room, the heavy draperies protectively drawn over the monumental windows.  She had been there for hours, far too long to bother counting, and she could hear Domino outside, trying to find her.

 "Psylocke, damn you, I know you're in here!"  Domino screamed, stalking the halls like a bird of prey, the hunting sun trying to find and consume the hiding moon.  Betsy only wanted to be alone.  She did not want this.  "Shatty and Iceman are gone, and now you and I are going to talk about what's going on here!  That scene back there didn't help matters!"

 "Do not hurt her," Betsy whispered through cold lips, wondering how it had all deteriorated so quickly.  The shadows had felt her anger, instinctively reacted to it, and that fact chilled Betsy to the very centre of her being.

 That was why they scared her, why she feared them so much, because they were a part of her, a cancer, a disease, that would grow to eventually control her.  It was only a matter of time and that time was near.

 "Goddamn.  You British wench!  Where are you?" Domino called, throwing open the door.  Betsy whimpered, drawing further into the corner and wishing her away.  Domino looked at Psylocke, seeing the flash of white, and she deliberately turned on the light.  "I'm not going to fall for that again.  Once was enough!"

 "Why are you doing this to me?"  Betsy asked, burying her face in her arms.  "I can calm them, I can make sure they will not hurt you again, but you are making it so hard, Beatrice.  They are so close to winning.  They want me."

 Domino walked  methodically around the room, pulling open the drapes and turning on every lamp she saw until Betsy was blinded by the light.  "As of now, you will never know what the dark looks like again, and you are going to tell me the truth, Betsy, when I ask you to tell me."

 "The light hurts," she murmured, wanting Warren alive more than she ever had before, so much that it pained her and made her baby turn to seek comfort.  She curled her body over her large belly, feeling the soft fluttering like a million kisses against her skin.

 "How close are you to losing control?  How well have you lied to Iceman?"

 Betsy looked up at her drearily, her long purple hair hanging limply, defeated by the pains of existence.  "I am nothing if not a liar.  All telepaths are, Domino, if you're to look under our surface, if you're to crack our shell."

 "I don't want your bullshit!  I want your truth!"

 Betsy pushed her hair away from her face and took a deep breath.  "I am very close, but this baby will be born in a month.  I can hold on until then.  It is not so long, not in the grand scope of things."

 "And what happens then?  What happens when your baby is born?"

 Betsy lay her head on her arms, stretching them over her belly and her knees.  There was dark there, under her sleeves, where the light could not penetrate.  "Then I will be theirs to do with what they wish.  I don't have the strength to fight them any more."

 "And what do they want?"

 "I wish I knew, but I don't.  The reasons are unclear, but it would mean extreme power.  I would not be an undercloak.  It is something far more than that," Betsy said simply, the red tattoo over her eye burning, and she put her palm against it, to cool it, to calm the fires.  So she had finally admitted the role that she played, so what?  It did not change things.  It did not alter the fact she would have to inevitably leave this world.  "They want me.  I don't know what else to tell you."

 "It amazes me how easily you X-Men fuck up your lives!  Amazes me!  No one does it better, and you idiots don't realise it, don't fucking realise all the destruction you do!  Even I know of the Crimson Dawn, what it does to people, and I don't even believe in that mystical garbage!"  Domino neared Betsy, who was sliding up the wall into an unsteady stand.  "Iceman has a good heart, but he hasn't got a damn about what you've done to yourself."

 "I did not do it," Betsy whispered, her fingers scratching down her face and across the crimson mark, "and Warren did not mean for this to happen.  He could not have known, and I will kill you if you try to blame it on him!"

 Domino cringed at the shriek then screamed at herself for having been so weak to do so in the first place.  "Goddamn it!  Goddamn you!  Goddamn me!  Me!  Because if I had half a brain I would leave right now and not look back!  I don't want to see what's coming to you, Psylocke, I don't want to go there, but I'm here now, and I can't leave!  Goddamn you.  I want to leave!"

 Domino's words echoed off the walls, and Psylocke suddenly felt very cold, wrapping her arms around her body.  Domino looked around, her intuitive sense about the closeness of evil alerting her to a presence other than the darkness radiating off Betsy.  They were not alone.

 "My.  My.  My."

 Domino immediately grasped her knife, pulling it from its sheath and clutching it tightly.  Already she was poised to fight, her legs bent and her back arched, her eyes watching for all signs of movement and her mind clear for focus.

 "Domino, he is not here to harm us," Betsy said carefully, laying her palm atop the silver blade and pushing it down, the metal cutting in her hand.  She felt no pain.  "He is here to help me."

 "And my help I see you need."  There was anger to the voice, sharp but undefined.  "Did I not explicitly tell you to better guard yourself?  But then I underestimated the power that wants you.  I did not understand how bad the desire is to own you."

 "Sinister," Domino began to say, her voice raw and harsh, but Betsy pushed her hand harder against the knife.  Domino watched the blood drip onto the carpet and said nothing more, allowing herself to be controlled by Betsy's disturbing actions.

 "Why have you come?"  Betsy asked quietly, her other hand still to her face, still at the scarlet brand, still remembering how inhuman she had yet to truly become.  "Surely my mental unbalance would not have you here now.  It has been a long time in coming."

 Sinister bowed his head, his silvery skin oddly blinding in the bright room and causing the women to squint at the glare.  "It is necessary I take you into hiding.  This has become more dangerous than I had hoped it would be, so you can no longer stay here.  I thought I would only have to deal with one devil, but the Dawn will take you if Apocalypse cannot."

 "Apocalypse has made no move against me," Betsy said quietly, watching Domino as she stared blankly, hiding her thoughts with a skill that surprised Betsy.  Domino's mind had become blank, empty, void.  "And I can control the Crimson Dawn."

 Sinister smiled a cold grin.  "Little do you realise, Psylocke, that Apocalypse has already struck against you.  As I speak, in a secret attack, Iceman and Shatterstar have been taken down by his Horsemen, but it is you he truly wants."

 "And why would he go through that trouble?  Why not take me directly?"  She asked.  If Bobby had been attacked, if some harm had come to him, she would have sensed it, wouldn't she?  Did she not still have the heart to do that?  "You're lying to me."

 "I am, Psylocke.  You will be mine and that child with you."

 Betsy screamed as Sinister's silver flesh began to mutate into blue, twisting and writhing like a demonic beast, and she pulled back against the wall, trying to find the shadows but they were not there.  "Damn you, witch, I could have saved us!  You turned on the lights!"

 "I need only one of you," Apocalypse said with a cold smile, his blue lips twisted in a hideous grin.  Before Betsy could blink, Domino was on the ground, bleeding from a large gash in her stomach.  She did not scream.

 "You did not kill her," Betsy said, seeing Domino's chest rise carefully and blood spew forth with every laboured breath.  Betsy laughed awkwardly with relief, her fear making her giddy.  Her fingernails had dug into the soft drywall of the corner, chips of dark green paint lodged in her skin.  "But you will kill me."

 Apocalypse looked at her, feet taller and looming huge over her trembling frame, and Betsy bent low to the ground for a moment, grabbing hold of Domino's blade.

 "What, little Elisabeth, do you plan to do with that?  I allowed you one victory.  You almost killed me so many months ago trying to protect your precious Angel, my rightful possession, my son!  You won that battle, you insolent child, but you will not have this one."

 "I am eight months pregnant, Apocalypse, what damage could I do you?"  Betsy asked, her knuckles white against the metal as the other arm wrapped around her belly.  Through a veil of purple hair, Betsy tipped her head and narrowed her eyes.  "And I do not need a victory.  I only need an escape."

 The sword cutting through the air with a vicious hiss, Betsy threw it at the overhead light, slicing the chains that held the chandelier to the ceiling.  It came crashing down upon Apocalypse, shattering against his body and splintering into a thousand shards of crystal.

 "You are weak," Apocalypse growled and reached for her, a large hand with larger fingers trying to grab her.

 Betsy threw herself to the ground, thankful for the hardwood floors and the slippery surface.  Grabbing hold of Domino's wrist, Betsy got her foot under Apocalypse then cringed when the hand threatened to come down upon her again.  With all the power she could muster, she called to the shadows, called them to save her.

 The dull blackness created by the ruin of the chandelier took hold of her body and pulled her in.

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