Apocalypse Protocol (Marvel/NIKKE)

[Stimpak Medic]

Chapter One: Into the Fire

I awoke to a cold, lonely feeling. I didn't even open my eyes and knew something was dreadfully wrong. I couldn't hear my breath. I couldn't hear the faint electrical hum of my refrigerator that I kept next to my computer setup for when I needed a quick energy shot. I didn't feel the warm glass of the computer table under my cheek that I had fallen asleep on.

I opened my eyes. What greeted my was not my workstation, nor my bedroom. It was an infinite gray. Like a deep fog in a midday forest. Yet there were no trees, or anything. I didn't feel hunger or thirst. I simply was.

Hmm...

What was I saying? Something about a computer? No. I must be imagining things. I don't own a computer, do I? I'm not sure, and that's what kills me. The feeling of being unsure to me is infinitely worse than being sure either way.

Did I steal it? I scrunch my eyebrows and rub my temples with the sides of my hands.

Why can't I remember this? I was completely sure a moment ago. Damnit! This is so frustratingly depressing and enraging.

I can't remember.

A name flashes through my mind for a second. Charles.

Yet it slips through my grip like sand. Leaving only the irritating feeling that I know the name, and it's there in my mind, but I can't remember it.

"What is this?" I ask, but it melts into the gray with not even an echo. Just the gray. As if even the comforting blanket of sound had abandoned me in this gray haze as well.

Who was I?

I believe my name started with an M.

Michelle? No. That didn't sound right. Max? No. Too short. Mariam? No, didn't fit me.

Why is this so frustratingly difficult?

Who am I?

I quickly and frantically tap the sides of my temples with my pointer fingers, accidentally pulling out a strand of my medium-length brown hair. I have to hold it very close to my eye, else it gets swallowed by the fog.

It doesn't help. I throw the hair into the fog, and it makes no sound of touching any ground. There are no sounds of footsteps, no breathing, and I begin to wonder if this is all inside of my head. But why? Why would I have such a confusing hallucination?

Why?

I don't understand.

Who was I? What was I?

Why have I been subjected to this torture? What God have I offended to find myself in such a situation? Pray tell me. I promise to bow to you and pray every day. Just get me out of here.

Nothing. No God responds. No sound in the wind. No siren call.

Nothing but the gray greets me here.

It's just me here.

I'm sorry. Whatever transgression I have committed, I will atone and bow my head. Please, just get me out of here.

I'm starting to get scared. Am I really alone here? Is there something out there?

The cool feeling has turned chilly as shivers crawl across my body from my head to my calves like eager bugs.

I try to calm my racing heart that beats against the bony cage of my ribs.

I feel so lonely.

I feel like I've done something wrong. I don't know what it was, and whom I offended so deeply as to find myself here...Yet here I remain nonetheless.

I just want to run away. Yet where would I run to? This is all gray. Am I going upwards, downwards, forwards, backwards, sideways? Is space here linear? If I step forwards, how can I be sure that I am even going forward?

Still, I step "forward," and nothing greets me. There is no ground to step on. No grass or concrete beneath my feet, yet all the same I do step. And with that step, there is a faint light ahead of me, akin to a little glow bug in the night. I reach forward to it, but it flitters away, dying out in the gray. I step forward again, and the light returns. My full attention is now focused on that light.

Another step. Another. Another. Another. Another.

Before I know it, I am sprinting like a carefree child through a meadow chasing a butterfly.

I jump forward without hesitation, free of inhibition, and my hands close around the light. Holding it close, it is a small sphere of condensed soft white light.

Opening my hands, the ball seems to have found it comfortable to rest in my cupped palms. It gently bobs up and down with the height of a fingertip, yet it feels like the most valuable thing in my life.

It feels, in a physical sense of a concept, like myself. If that even could be an actual physical thing that made the least bit of sense to anyone other than myself.

It's mildly warm, and it seems to enjoy resting. However, there is something dark at the core of it, that sucks in some of the light that escapes it.

It hops from my hands, up my arms, across my shoulder, then diving into the side of my head.

Instantly, everything changes.

I'm somewhere else now. I remember my name. Matthew. I'm seven years old, and sitting with my parents in the living room at the dining table. It's a late fall morning. The leaves have mostly fallen, and the frost is on the pumpkins mom likes to line up on the yard next to the squashes and gourds she places as decorations in the front yard. Dad is sipping his coffee as he reads the paper. Mom is in the kitchen cooking the eggs, potatoes, waffles, and sausages.

The smells wafting from the kitchen are wonderful as always. I sit at the table, playing with my Hot Wheels cars as big sister gets ready for her college project today in the living room.

Dad closes the paper and begins to speak, but everything returns to a gray haze, and I'm in the gray again.

The memory remains, and I feel a warmth filling me that I wasn't used to.

I step forward again, and this time, I'm not greeted by a light, but a blackness so deep, it seems to pull the gray into it. Like a miniature black hole, it simply sits in front of me, neither offering itself to me nor escaping. It was as if it had no intent at all whatsoever.

I stepped forward and put my hand gingerly up to it, and I felt like my entire existence was pulled, tugged, sent through a series of tubes before being deposited into a blasted landscape.

I woke distraught, terrified, and horrifically sad.

The ground was smooth like glass. It was steaming all around, and there was no grass or stones, just the cloudless summer sky and the glassed ground. I was twelve years old at the time, or so I was sure, and I saw a large ship of cold metal, with white lettering on the side with a strange logo.

S.H.I.E.L.D., it said, and several robots fell from the sides and ran up to me.

One of them was holding a projector.

It showed the image of a woman.

The words she said didn't make sense to me, and I felt something hot building within me, as if I was being burned from the inside out.

Everything turned hazy, and I felt a stinging sensation in my right arm. Everything blurred, and I desperately reached out to the woman's hologram, but it was no use as everything faded.

Then, instead of the gray greeting me again, I woke to something even worse. Much worse.

The sound of an EKG's beeping alerted me to the fact that I was either in a hospital or somewhere unsavory. However, the latter thought was immediately dispelled when I opened my eyes. I was lying on a bed in a hospital gown. Next to me was a small table where there were several things of mine. A wallet that was open. In it were seven or so bills, and a few ID's and business cards of all sorts.

A nurse walking by the room looked at me and almost dropped her clipboard in shock. After which she quickly ran off.

"What was that?" I asked, before the sound of running boots filled the hall, frightening me.

Did something happen?

Five women in full-body military gear with rifles in hand stormed into the room, screaming for me not to move, guns pointed directly at me. Their faces are mostly covered by optical sights and visors, leaving very little to see of their identities.

I freeze.

"I didn't do anything!" I protest, but they scream at me not to move or speak again.

We stay like that for a good fifteen minutes before someone tiny walks into the room. She could easily be confused for a lost child, if not for her evocative outfit and clear control of the guards who followed her orders.

She had medium length black hair on the longer end that was meticulously cut, that shined with every move she made. Her white coat was open to a white shirt that showed off her midriff and stomach. She had a white skirt that was cut very short and white long boots. Her purplish eyes were permanently set in an arrogant and dismissive look, matched only by her smug grin.

She stopped in front of my bed and put her hands on her hips. Eyes narrowing.

"So, you finally wake up after wasting my money keeping you alive all this time? Tell me who you are immediately." She commands. It might have been cute if it weren't for the rifles in the women's hands nearby, pointed directly at me.

"Uhhh," I say, my mind trying to frantically understand what's going on.

"Now!" She snaps at me, raising her right hand and looking to the women nearby. I hear the clicks of their guns.

"Matthew. I don't know the rest." I reply.

"You expect me to believe that drivel right after you appeared in the middle of my private office and almost blew the place apart when you warped in from wherever you came from? Don't test my patience." Her voice had switched from arrogant to venomous.

"The only reason I haven't had you executed was that it was clear to me you weren't an assassin. Now, explain yourself."

"I don't know..." I reply, and clearly, that's not a good enough answer for her.

"Oh? Amnesia? Don't worry. We have ways of getting things from you, amnesia or not. Take him to the lab." The short lady says, and walks out of the room. Then the women with rifles call more people into the room, and I find myself with a black bag being placed over my head, and I'm quickly tied like a prisoner.

"Wait!" I shout, but it just comes out as a muffled sound as I'm dragged away.

 

[Stimpak Medic]

Chapter Two: How It All Started

In a dark room, a hologram flickered into being. It was a life-size hologram of Charles Xavier. Bluish and occasionally flickering at the edges.

He had a firm face, with his eyes slightly lidded like a man who had much to admit, and little time to do so.

He started, his voice firm, but heavy and weighted down as if he had the world on his back, and only now had he shown it.

"My X-Men. If you are watching this, then I have passed on.

Do know that I wholeheartedly believe that I have lived my life in the best way possible, having dedicated so much of it to making sure that our people will see a better day.

And having my home filled with your love and courage has been a life well spent.

I truly love you all.

But as you all know, there have been moments of compromise that we have had to make.

For me, one such compromise involves a mutant...A mutant so powerful that their very existence threatened our way of life and any chance we would have for a peaceful coexistence between mutants and humans.

Now that I am gone, I have no choice but to leave this for you to handle.

The story of how this came to be and what you now need to do is my darkest secret..

But as I know some of you hold me in very high regard, and for that I am humbled and honored. Because of that high regard, I know what I am about to tell you will shock and maybe horrify some of you. But please hear me out until the end...Combining our mutant-seeking technology with my telepathic abilities was finally not just a theory but a reality.

Let me explain myself fully before you judge too harshly. At long last, we would be able to locate any mutant in need...Or any mutant that would be a threat to man or to our cause of having mutants and humans living together in peace and harmony.

This was many years ago...it was in the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters' earliest days, and I had finally come up with a working model for Cerebro...

One day, while the original X-Men were out on a mission. I was using Cerebro to try to keep tabs on Magneto and other such concerns when a unique signature appeared.

Something I had not seen before. It was most definitely a mutant signature. But there was something...different, something more powerful...At first I was worried that the machine was broken. That I had misused it.

But it wasn't, and I had not. It was the largest mutant power signature Cerebro had ever registered.

I was immediately filled with such hope, such a thrill of discovery...but then, suddenly, a wave of panic washed over me.

I couldn't breathe. What if Magneto finds this mutant before me? What if he is already there? I couldn't get a hold of you, X-Men, and I couldn't wait for you to return from your mission.

I had to see this mutant for myself. I had to get there before anybody else.

One would think that I would be used to the fact that so many emerging mutants were so young...

But this one was so powerful and so young.

I met him one autumn morning with an avatar I created with my mind in the front yard of his house. He was playing in front of a tree with a toy dinosaur and a toy green Oriental dragon.

"Hello. My name is Charles Xavier. What is your name?" I asked him, but it was clear he had no intent of speaking with me, answering my question with two words.

"Stranger danger."

I should have seen that coming.

He seemed so...ordinary.

His name was Matthew Malloy, and he was eight years old.

"I'm sorry for startling you," I said, trying to start the conversation again.

"No, thank you," he replied.

No thoughts were coming from inside the house behind him.

"Where are your parents?" I asked a moment later. "May I speak to them?"

Matthew ignored me, continuing to play with his toys; they sprang to life and engaged in a vicious melee. He spoke up.

"On one side, the prehistoric super-species known as the devil dinosaur, and on the other side, all the terror of the mysterious Orient in the form of the mighty Fing Fang Foom.

"This is for everything!" The tiny dinosaur roared, biting into the side of the dragon's shoulder.

A small explosion of sparkles like fireworks burst nearby them, and from nowhere, the sound of an announcer shouting "Domination!" blared.

Matthew looked at me and announced, "It is a belt tourna-" Then he froze. "Wait, are you making my mind tickle? You are a total stranger."

"Are your parents home?" I ask.

"Shh! The second match is about to begin."

"Matthew, you may want to-" I stop mid-sentence as the dinosaur and dragon balloon to the size of a human.

"What are they fighting for?" I ask, trying to steer this away from a disaster.

"This is a grudge match." He answered as the dinosaur released a rumbling roar, and the dragon breathed a stream of molten fire breath across the lawn.

If not for my mutant powers, I would have died right there.

Authorities arrived, but I was able to mentally manipulate them into fleeing the scene before they were accidentally hurt or killed.

But I was unable to enter this boy's mind.

I was unable to psychically suggest anything to him.

I was unable to make him sleep or paralyze him, or any of the other ways my specific abilities are able to stop such chaos.

Every time I tried, the boy would, almost on instinct, on reflex, erupt with this destructive power.

It wasn't concussive; it wasn't elemental. It was something different...

As if the world around him were being turned inside out and pushed outward.

The best I could do was convince his mind that I was no longer there, and even that made the young boy agitated and suspicious...He knew something was wrong.

I was at an impasse. This was the most difficult challenge I had ever faced.

A young, destructive, out-of-control mutant.

If the world found out that there was an uncontrollable mutant of such horrible capabilities, our chances of finding peace within the human world would be impossible.

Without understanding what he was, I could not help him control these abilities...

But he was so young that I was worried that even if I was able to figure this all out, the task of control for the young man would be too much for him to handle.

This was the humans' worst fear about mutants realized. What was I to do?

And if Magneto or any other negative influence had gotten a hold of him before I could figure it out... What was I to do? Let Magneto get his hands on this mutant power? Let this small child become a mass murderer?

In the name of complete confession, I will admit to you the horrible thoughts that plagued me.

I thought about putting the child down.

This child was an anomaly. Not a representative of our entire species.

It is a thought that I never had about any of you, but, as I said, I had never been in this position before...

But it was very clear that if I were to physically or mentally attack the boy and his power revealed itself to be even more than I had originally thought.. Then I could start a chain reaction of damage, death, and destruction that...I just could not live with.

I could not control him; I could not overpower him...I would have to find a new way to communicate with him.

And so, I decided to start over. Taking the form of a child instead of an adult, I approached him later that year. We grew to an understanding with each other.

Now that I had his friendship, I was in the position to carefully, gently, precisely put up a series of psychic blocks that removed Matthew's ability to tap into this power.

I also did the young man the courtesy of letting him forget any of this had ever happened.

I removed every memory of the lives he had taken and the destruction he had caused.

I helped place him in a very reputable orphanage that an old colleague of mine from university was in charge of.

I took away his rights as a mutant.

I took away his identity as one of us.

As far as the world was concerned, this young boy's parents ran away and never came back.

To save the world, I, for lack of a better word, lobotomized the young man.

I know some of you will be quite confused and angry at me because this does fly in the face of everything I taught you.

But that is how dire the situation was for the young boy and all of us.

I promise you there was no other choice.

But still, you may ask yourselves... Why I didn't just dampen his powers? Just enough to bring him to our school.

Because it was more power than I had ever faced.

I feared the worst and acted accordingly.

You may also be asking why I didn't turn him over to S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers?

Because I didn't trust them.

Not Tony Stark, not Captain America; none of them would help him.

They would imprison him. Starting a chain of events that would bring chaos and destruction.

I was not going to hand over a young, defenseless mutant and tell them that they were right about us.

That they were right to be afraid of us. And this isn't conjecture; I can read their thoughts. They would not help him or us. That any day, anywhere around the world, another mutant could be born that could turn this world inside out.

I wasn't going to let everything we fought for, and everything we struggled for and everything we survived be for nothing.

Not yet. They had a long way to go before they truly saw mutants as anything but something to keep an eye on.

And yet I couldn't do what I should have done, which was to put this boy down.

I couldn't do it. But what I had done was a very delicate operation, and there was no way to be 100% sure that it would work.

Every day I would follow Matthew's life through Cerebro.

And every year I would go visit him and make sure that my mental blocks were, and for a long time...

As Matthew got older, Charlie stayed the same. Everything held.

Until one day...

"Matthew, good to see you, my man."

I stayed, especially to keep an eye on him through puberty, which we all know is when mutations bloom or become secondary mutations.

I would visit the boy from time to time. Always as his friend Charlie. To keep a close eye on the psychic blocks.

One day he looked at me.

"Who are you really?"

"You're in my-" He paused.

"You're not real. Are you real under there, or am I making you up?" He asked me.

"Did I kill other people?" He asked me again.

I don't lie to him.

"Yes. I'm sorry that I could not help you more. Your powers, unchecked, are dangerous and volatile."

He looks down at the ground, tears filling his eyes.

"I didn't know."

I reply to him, trying to calm him.

"You were a little boy, and you did not... It was an accident of nature."

He looks to me with confusion in his eyes. "Accident of nature?"

"This is the hand dealt to you."

"I don't want this power. Take it away from me." He says, darkness filling his eyes.

"I can't do that..." I look down at the ground. The unspoken end to that sentence was said by him.

"Without killing me." He finishes.

"And that I cannot do." I reply, resolute in my beliefs.

"Then I give you permission. Right now. Whatever you were doing to me, wipe my brain. Give me amnesia. Whatever you did so I didn't know any of this. I don't want to know this. I don't want to know any of this. Just get rid of these memories and powers."

And with that, I set up a strong series of psychic blocks and memory repression that has allowed Matthew to live a normal, unassuming life.

And I have continued keeping an eye on him from afar.

But as this is my last will and testament, I must turn to you, my students and friends, and ask you forgiveness for this breach of trust...

I am afraid his powers may begin to erode the blocks that I have so carefully set up, and manifest in ways that may even harm him. I hope by the time you hear this, my X-Men, that it is not too late."

The hologram buzzed off, and the room was left dark and silent.