In deep space, not too far away from one of the colony worlds of the Kingdom of Elle, there was a blue-white B0V spectral-type star with twelve planets orbiting it. Nine of those worlds were gas giants of Classes I, J, S and T, great bodies of mixed gasses enveloping worlds with high density cores that — for some odd reason or another — never developed the physical mass necessary to commence nuclear fission and become stars in their own right. Two more planets were Class E worlds, the same size as Earth yet clearly incapable of developing life given their close range to their home star.
The last world…
"Home, sweet home," Lum mused as she gazed at the main view screen on her ship's bridge after Ayumu and Rachel had combined their powers to teleport the craft and all aboard it — atop Ataru's several would-be lovers, there was Benten, the three elder residents of the Hinata-sō, Pepper, Ryūnosuke, Shinobu, Logan, Rachel and Anne Marie — the three hundred light-years from Earth to Yiziba.
"Yeah. Even if I am Gifted now, it still feels fuckin' weird thinking that about THIS place," Benten breathed out.
Naru reached over to squeeze her reborn wife's shoulder, which made Benten smile. "You picking up Ataru anywhere, sugar?" Anne Marie asked as she gazed on Rachel. "You always said he had a pretty strong empathic signature even if you only met him once."
The genetic daughter of Cyclops and Phoenix closed her eyes. "Yes…" she breathed out. "Hasn't gone to the Cave of the Future…" She then sighed. "He's going to that cabin he discovered when he was a kid, just before he found out about his younger sisters. Is that rather typical for him, Ayumu?" she then asked.
A nod. "Yeah. It's a nice, warm place out in the woods," Ayumu affirmed. "Sorta like heading out of Toronto for cottage country in Muskoka would be like. Remember that?"
The other Earth-born Yizibajohei, not to mention the X-Men accompanying them, nodded, many of them grinning. The alien-borns amongst them perked. "What?" Lum asked.
"Lum, what do you know of Rachel here?" Luna then asked as she waved to the girl calling herself "Marvel Girl" when she was in costume.
The Oni turned to gaze on the woman her age with the green eyes and red hair that marked her as a clear relative of the current host of the Phoenix Force; Rachel had stopped styling her hair in the punkish buzz-cut she once had and allowed it to grow out to a more beautiful bob-cut. "You're a time-traveller," Lum then stated as memories she absorbed from Ataru came back to her. "You're Phoenix's and Cyclops' daughter…but you come from a future when someone was killed and the authorities began cracking down on naturally-born metas like you. They used robots…"
"Sentinels," Rachel provided. "They were originally designed by a man named Bolivar Trask around the time when Father and Mother — in this time-line — began going on adventures as part of the original X-Men team. They were a military project meant to give the American government the means to control if not eliminate mutants…"
"Do you HAVE to say that word, Rachel-san?!" Motoko snapped.
Rachel jerked. "Motoko, stop that," Luna then scolded. "What happened to Rachel in her home time-line has marked her deeply. Don't push it with her."
"So I take it these things went outta control when you come from, right?" Benten asked.
A nod. "Yes," Rachel stated. "The man in question that triggered the fate-split — to borrow Haruhi's term for it — was Senator Robert Kelly of Kansas. He always was scared of people like me and he wanted to make normal people feel safer."
"Typical same behaviour," Benten mused.
The others nodded. "In your time-line, he was killed, right?" Lum asked.
Another nod. "Yes. Because of that, the Mutant Registration Act was passed by Congress and we all ended up being caged by the Sentinels in concentration camps," Rachel explained. "As that happened, the technology that created the Sentinels expanded and evolved to the point where they became virtually self-aware and self-functioning. In the end — by the time I slipped into this time-line — they ruled America and were trying to conquer the world. Because she's from Canada, Major Raeburn reformed the War Hawks and launched an all-out war to destroy the Sentinels. It was…bad."
The others nodded again. "Who's Major Raeburn?" Pepper asked.
"Our planet's Jewel Warrior," Konno Mitsune answered. "She actually has the Keystone Jewel, Pepper-chan. These days, she wanders from planet to planet to help train other Jewel Warriors in how to use their own Jewels to defend their people."
Benten and Lum gaped. "Your planet got the Keystone Jewel?!" the Oni demanded. "Tcha! It's said to be so powerful, whoever became its Host could destroy anything!"
"Well, Deannie likes to keep things in reserve for when she needs 'em."
Eyes locked on Logan. "You KNOW this girl?" Benten asked.
A smirk. "I may not look it, Benten, but I'm over a hundred years old now. Deannie was born the same year Canada was formed as a self-governing country; that was 1867." He sighed. "Part of my powers; my body regenerates from wounds, keeps me young."
"Nice Gift," the reborn master weaponsmith noted.
A shrug. "It's got its good and bad points," the man known as Wolverine said. "So what say we get this ship onto the ground and go find Ataru?"
"Tcha!" Lum breathed out as she keyed controls.
As the tiger-striped saucer-shaped craft soared down to commence atmospheric approach over Yiziba's northern hemisphere — which had a polar-centric continent on it surrounded by large seas from the other landmasses on the world — Rachel sighed as she relaxed herself in one of the guest seats at the aft end of the bridge. Her eyes flicked over to the young girl in the grey jumpsuit who truly earned the appelation "goddess who walks amongst men." While Kasuga Ayumu as Infinity hadn't existed in Rachel's birth time-line — the younger avatar of the Phoenix Force had never learned what had happened to Moroboshi Ataru and how that might have affected the lives of so many others — the fact that there was an Infinity in THIS time-line had been of enormous benefit for Earth in many ways. And it was NOT just the matter with Galactus.
For Rachel — who had come back to the modern era over two years before, having arrived in the city of Toronto when she did come — it had been something else…
Toronto, near Eaton Square, thirty months ago…
"She's dear…my God! She's dead…!"
Hearing the horror-struck voice of the man whose death had caused so much pain and misery in her own past, Rachel blinked before she looked up at Robert Kelly as she cradled the unmoving body of Carey Shelton, a six year-old girl who would never see her next birthday. She then turned to glare at the pink-hued monster that had transported himself back in time to track her down; he was now accompanied by several Prime Sentinels that had been created using the nanotechnology that had made Nimrod possible. "Damn you…" she hissed as her eyes began to glow, her powers building up as she prepared to lash out at the prototype Super Sentinel. "You just don't care, do you?"
"You are a mutant, Hound!" the almost human-sounding voice of the prototype man-sized Sentinel said as he raised his armoured hand to point at her. "You have no…"
"Ya know…" a strange girl's voice then called out with an odd mixture of American accents, that voice making everyone pause before they turned to look up into the sky over Nimrod's head. "I like to think of myself as a nice girl…"
"Infinity!" Phoenix gasped on recognising the young Japanese girl that had saved her very life and sanity in so many ways not six months before.
As Cyclops instantly moved to comfort her and the other heroes — atop members of Alpha Flight, there were the Avengers and the Justice League; the Heroes Alliance were off handling wildfires in northern Ontario — tensed at her arrival, the woman born Kasuga Ayumu floated down to land half-way between Nimrod and Rachel. She then turned to gaze at the humanoid robot in the pink armour nearby. Gazing at this stranger, Rachel blinked…before her psionic powers began to pick up a virtual tidal wave of COSMIC energy billowing from deep within this girl's heart.
"…but there are some things that really make me MAD!" Infinity then said as her face darkened, the image of the cosmos appearing on her normally bronze-pink Oriental skin. "Then again, you're nothing but a dumb robot, so it's understandable."
"Uh-oh!" Wolverine breathed out. "Back away, everyone! She's gonna blow!"
"Do as he says!" Thor barked. "The Infinite One is most incensed!"
Instantly, the heroes backed away save for Cyclops and Phoenix, who stayed very close to Rachel and the unmoving Carey. Robert Kelly was also frozen in place…before Wolverine grabbed him and pulled him back. "Move back, you idiot!" the Canadian-born hunter snarled. "She let's go and you distract her, she'll level the city!"
The honourable gentleman from Kansas was shaking his head, the horror of what he had just seen — a Sentinel send a cutting beam of energy into the heart of a CHILD! — nearly causing him to break down. As Superman moved to shield Kelly with his body, Nimrod took a step closer to Infinity. "Identify yourself, mutant!" he demanded.
"Alert!" one of the Prime Sentinels then stated. "No X-gene detected! High mesonium content detected! Suspected ally of Major Raeburn postulated!"
Nimrod tensed. "She must be terminated."
Infinity smirked. "Others have tried…"
Her eyes then glowed…as the Prime Sentinels all screamed out while their bodies literally EXPLODED as the nanites that had given them their powers were ripped away from them, then disintegrated. "Oh, Hera…!" Wonder Woman breathed out. "Child, STOP!" she then cried out. "You're KILLING them! Don't do this…!"
Suddenly, the granite form of Mjölnir appeared before the champion of Paradise Island. "It is too late, Diana," Thor then gently stated. "The Infinite One is now in a state where none of us save the Lady Deannette can stay her hand. To fight her…"
Wonder Woman blinked…and then she — not to mention many others — winced as the poor people who had been turned into Prime Sentinels by Nimrod collapsed dead onto the tarmac of Yonge Street, now nothing more than bleeding and shredded piles of dead flesh that BARELY could be called human. As the warrior-robot from the future took that in, he then focused his optical sensors on the mysterious girl standing before him. "You are interfering in this unit's mission to protect the human race from mutants!" he declared. "You are an ally of the mutants, thus you must be terminated!"
"'Terminated,' huh?" that deceptively calm voice then mused. "Like you just did a little girl, huh? A girl that never got the chance to learn what Gift she had?" The voice of the Goddess Who Walks Amongst Men then picked up as her eyes began to glow an infernal white that made all the psychically-gifted heroes around her gasp in horror as they felt the true core of this strange gestalt between a somewhat-normal Japanese teenager and something that was ultimately Beyond mortal understanding. "Fine."
Her smile turned into a deadly smirk. "I prefer 'deletion' myself."
As her body began to glow, Wolverine screamed out, "GET DOWN!"
"Or as the Cybermen would say it…MAXIMUM DELETION!" Infinity hissed.
People hit the deck…
…as the Infinite Wave exploded from its mistress' body!
Robert Kelly blinked as his vision slowly returned to him. "My God…!" the senator moaned out. "Are we alive…?" he then croaked before looking around.
"Yeah, we are!" Wolverine's voice then echoed from nearby, making the Kansan turn to gaze on the Canadian-born hunter. "What the hell did that kid do?!"
"The Infinite One — the Cosmic All — has rendered judgement, friend Wolverine," the powerful voice of a certain Asgardian declared. "The Sentinels were not worthy."
Kelly turned as Thor came up. "What happened, sir?"
Thor gazed with a look of deep respect on the still-glowing girl nearby. The bodies of the slain Prime Sentinels — to say anything of Nimrod himself — had totally vanished! As Kelly looked around, he noted that the crowd hadn't moved at all from when he had last looked on them…how long ago was it? A glance at a nearby LED clock hanging off the side of a building on Dundas Street told him the time. My God! Just ten seconds…? he gasped to himself before he turned back to the thunder god. "What did she do?"
"She destroyed the Sentinels and the Prime Sentinels, Senator," the leader of the Fantastic Four said as he came up to join them. "ALL of them. I just confirmed this through equipment back at the Baxter Building. None of them are left functioning now. Anywhere on Earth. All the equipment associated with them was totally wiped out as well."
"'Maximum deletion,' indeed," Wonder Woman breathed out.
All the natural-born metas who heard that breathed out in relief at the thought of the monstrous machines that had haunted their lives since Bolivar Trask had created the Mark I Sentinels years ago were no more. "Good fuckin' riddance!" Wolverine then snapped.
Superman breathed out. "Regardless of the morality behind them, Professor Richards, they ARE a government-sanctioned project," he then stated as he gazed on Mister Fantastic. "Yes, Nimrod was clearly rogue and Infinity is not an American citizen…"
"Those things were active in CANADA, Superman. Where they HAD no authority to act even if the poor girl there might have been American," the voice of Guardian, the leader of Alpha Flight, then declared as he came over to join them, accompanied by Captain America.
A nod. "Yes, Professor Hudson, you're right," Kelly then stated, sensing new strength flood his body as he turned to gaze at the young woman and the child…
…who was now coughing as she was being cradled by a weeping Rachel Summers, with both Cyclops and Phoenix hovering close to them. "Oh, my God…!"
"As she is called 'Infinity,' good senator, she possesses an infinite number of ALL the virtues and vices," Thor said. "Her anger can cause worlds to shatter and stars to burn out in the skies. Her mercy — as we can now see — is also quite infinite."
"She brought her back from the dead?" Wolverine asked.
"Young Carey's spirit had not slipped into the realm of Hel, my friend," Thor stated as he smiled at the smaller man. "While I suspect that the Lady Infinity could pull one who had already gone to their next life back into this one, methinks she does not care very much to deal with all the many complications such an act will unleash."
Kelly sighed. "The Teen That Saved Earth," he breathed out. "My God…"
"AH!"
All the heroes jolted on hearing that gasp from Infinity. Eyes snapped over to see that the glow around her had vanished and she was now staring wide-eyed at Rachel, who was — understandably enough — cringing away from such a look; after all, if this being had just wiped out all the Sentinels from EXISTENCE itself, the former Hound wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell of fighting her. "What?!" Rogue asked.
The girl born Kasuga Ayumu blinked, and then she laughed before she snapped her fingers. Flashes appeared in the hands of every hero present…revealling lit cigars! "Huh?!" Wolverine grunted. "Hey, darlin'! What's goin' on?!"
Infinity giggled. "Don'tcha get it, Logan-kun?! You know who she is?!"
She pointed to Rachel, who jolted again as she moved to hold the now-quite confused Carey closer to her. "What?" Phoenix demanded.
Another giggle. "Jean-chan! She's yours and Scott-kun's DAUGHTER!"
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
And then…
"Should I say 'congratulations?'" a wide-eyed Robert Kelly then asked.
People exchanged looks, and then gazed on the two X-Men born Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Both of them were gaping at each other for a moment before turning to look at Rachel — who was now blushing madly at being revealed like THIS! — and then they looked on each other before screaming out, "WE'RE NOT EVEN MARRIED!"
As people began to wildly chatter over what had just been revealed, Thor's roaring laughter then thundered over the intersection of Yonge and Dundas…
Rachel shook her head as the images flashed through her mind before she turned…and then she blushed on seeing Ayumu gaze at her. «Sorry,» the woman from the future telepathically sent out to the greatest of Yiziba's mega-metas before she turned to walk into the master bedroom of the ship. As she gazed out a portal as the scout ship began descending into Yiziba's atmosphere, the young mega-psi could only sigh.
My God…I'm falling in love with her…! she moaned to herself.
Thinking about it, the traveller from the future then smiled as she recalled what had happened after the destruction of the Sentinels by Infinity…which also included the complete wiping out of not only all design information on-line and on paper, but also the blanking out of the knowledge to create such machines from every living soul that had ever been involved in the construction of those damned things!
Of course, the big part was actually being "reunited" with this time-line's version of her parents, whom she had barely known back in her home time-line due to their being executed when she was but a mere child and had been kidnapped to be transformed into a Hound by Doctor Roderick Campbell, the cybernetic master of all organic mutant-hunters known as "Ahab." Of course, Rachel never had to fear Campbell ever coming back from that dark future to haunt her life anew; Suzumiya Haruhi had sealed off all possible links between that time-line and the "main" universe by removing the very aspect of Time from that world, thus allowing it to virtually disintegrate. Even better, the modern-day version of Campbell was nothing like his future-self…though he, now living in England, was being watched by the British version of the Specialised Warfare Regiment of Canada, the Extraordinary Intelligence Service (or Military Intelligence, Section Thirteen) as a potential "person of interest."
But given the fact that Robert Kelly — the man whose death in Rachel's time-line had been the catalyst of so much misery and death — had personally witnessed a Sentinel KILL a helpless CHILD in PUBLIC in the middle of the largest city of CANADA had begun something that certainly would lead to a much better future for humankind as a whole. Thanks very much to Windtalker — who had filmed what Nimrod did to Carey in all its gory details — the whole PLANET had seen what an AMERICAN-built machine had done to a helpless CHILD then living in CANADA! Immediately after that incident, the United Nations Security Council passed resolutions that condemned any form of artificial intelligence research that could be used to attack any human being for any reason. Atop that, they passed an amendment to Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that added the phrases "planet, dimension or timeline of birth" and "type of personal metahuman power or origin of same" to the entitlement of rights and freedoms guaranteed by that document…which effectively refuted all government laws declaring mutants as being a separate and distinct species of humanity.
"Homo sapiens superior" were truthfully Homo sapiens sapiens.
Rachel then smiled as he remembered how Magneto — a child of the Holocaust — had wept unashamedly after the announcement came from New York about the amendment to the UDHR and how such was passed with a vast majority by the member nations in the General Assembly. While many of the X-Men had reason to hate the man born Eric Lensherr in modern-day Poland, Rachel remembered her time-line's version of the man and how kindly he had been when he had helped her try to put a total stop to Project: Nimrod. With that declaration, Magneto was formally pardoned for all his past acts — on the proviso that he didn't engage in them again — of terrorism and allowed to resettle on Genosha. There, he helped overthrow the rule of the Magistrates under former X-Man ally Cameron Hodges, liberated the native population and became the island nation's first popularly-elected president…and remained so to this day even after the "temporary amnesia" had hit everyone that had dealt with Yiziba in any way possible. Wonder if Uncle Eric knows what just happened, Rachel then wondered.
There were the protests, of course. The Friends of Humanity — ironically under the leadership of a normal child born from both Sabertooth and Rogue's adopted mother Mystique, Graydon Creed! — immediately began protests towards trying to revoke the changes in the UDHR and the replacement of the Mutant Registration Act in America with the Young Metahuman Support and Civil Aid Act proposed by Robert Kelly to find ways to help naturally-born metas adopt to the use of their powers for the betterment of themselves and their country. Unfortunately, said protests — which also focused on the "muties' pal" Infinity as Creed and his allies tried desperately to learn everything they could about the girl who had single-handedly wiped out the Sentinels — soon attracted the attention of many heel-type Yizibajohei that had got their Gifts thanks to Moroboshi Ataru. Graydon Creed — not to mention Cameron Hodges, David Moreau, Sasha Ryan and many others — all were hunted down and killed by Margo Black at the request of one of several Genoshans who had been Gifted thanks to Ataru before the Magistrates had got to her and transformed her into a drone-like mutate, Jennifer Ransome (who came to call herself Uhuru from the Swahili word from "freedom"; she was a standard FISS-type Yizibajohei whose past-selves — much to the surprise of many — actually had NEVER developed a personalised battle-name for their line).
Once people began looking at daisies from the OTHER direction, the protests pretty much had petered out by the time the "temporary amnesia" had hit everyone.
"Hey, Rachel. You okay?"
Rachel gasped, and then she turned before blushing. "Ah, Ayumu…"
Ayumu smirked as she leaned up to the other girl, which made Rachel's cheeks turn a very interesting shade of red at the closeness of the Japanese teen to herself. "Wanna go on a date when we get back to Earth?" she then coyly asked. "I gotta introduce ya to thinks like taiyaki, yakitori and takoyaki. You should'a been there at the culture festival at school when…"
She then gasped as Rachel grabbed her and kissed her HARD on the lips!
"She don't realise how much of a heartbreaker she is."
Luna giggled; she had created a small scrying bubble to look in on her friend. "True. Then again, given the potential extent of Rachel's powers, dealing with someone like Ayumu — who helped Rachel's mother master her abilities — does make her feel safe." She then gazed knowingly on Anne Marie. "Like how Ataru dealt with you."
The power-absorber known more commonly as "Rogue" blinked before she blushed. "Yeah," she said as she remembered the several times a certain wandering boy from Japan had kissed her — on both the cheek and the lips! — whenever they had met up. At first horrified at the idea that she would end up absorbing Ataru's psyche into her own mind — which was already heavily influenced by what she had done to poor Carol Danvers, the Kree-influenced Avenger known more commonly as Ms. Marvel — the woman born Anne Marie Raven in Mississippi had been stunned to realise that Ataru hadn't been affected at all by her touch. Later learning of the Stone-Body Shield Defence, Anne Marie had travelled to Yiziba to learn its secrets from Ataru's adopted older sister Negako. Said lessons had been progressing well until everyone's memories were blanked out by the idiots from the MIBs and the ICW, which had forced poor Rogue back into her self-imposed shell as she shied away from everyone she lived with, even her would-be lover Rémy LeBeau (Gambit).
Now that she had them back, she had to complete her lessons.
She wouldn't get anywhere with Rémy if she didn't!
"Yeah, you're right…" The ship then shook. "Hey!" Anne Marie called out.
"We just landed," Benten said as the sounds of the ship's engines then powered down, and then she waved them to the main door. "Everyone out who's getting out!"
As Lum moved to shut things down, Benten popped open the hatch to reveal that they had touched down in a grassy clearing with a forest off in the background. Mist hovered over the ground in the near distance. As soon as he stepped outside and slipped on his mask, Logan sniffed…before he took a deep breath. "Damn!"
"You okay?" Ryūnosuke asked.
"Keep forgettin' how clean this planet's air is compared to Earth," Wolverine replied before he tensed as his nose twitched. "That you, Cajun?!"
"Yeah, it's me, Logan!" a heavily-accented voice called out.
"RÉMY!" Anne cried out as a certain master thief/assassin-turned-hero and X-Man came up from the direction of a distant city on the horizon. Beside Rémy LeBeau — who was in the standard fighting uniform of Gambit — was a familiar woman in solid black with a smoky grey cape wrapped around her, an amused smile on a face that was a direct replica of Jean Grey's save for the slightly different hair-style. "Maddie?! How…?!"
"Miss Madelyne was happy to help me come here," Gambit said as he nodded politely to Nightmist, who smiled in return. "I knew you'd be wanting to finish your lessons with the Lady Negako, chérie, so I called out to her to get me over here. Good thing, too."
Rogue tensed. "Why?"
A sigh…
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(Posted Sun, 25 Mar 2012 19:07)
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