Who: Kurt Wagner, dream!Hope, dream!Rogue, dream!Bastian What: Kurt and Rogue are trying to bring Mutant-kind’s last hope to Utopia When: During the Second Coming arc Where: Las Vegas, and Utopia Status: complete Rating: PG-13 for character death and angst
Kurt was exhausted. His body ached, and his heart raced, and his head was pounding. But he kept them moving. Rogue, and Hope. He kept them moving, racing ten miles at a time towards the West Coast. Each jump was five times his normal distance.
Trying to stay ahead of the people that wanted to see this teenage girl dead.
Hope. Their last hope. Something that Scott believed in so fervantly that Kurt was moved to believe too. He was a man who understood the merits of faith, and it was faith that he had to rely on now.
They arrived in Las Vegas and his body screamed at him. He heard Rogue say his name.
“Fine. I’m fine.” His ears were ringing as he crouched down to regain his strength.
“Liar, you’re exhausted. You’re doing too many jumps and goin’ way too far. Let me take your power. I can help!” Rogue was about ready to tear her hair out. She didn’t understand why Kurt was pushing so hard and not letting her help.
“No..save your strength. Just in case.” He rubbed at his head as he rested. “All that matters.”
Rogue sighed. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that Kurt had been a leader in his own right. The fuzzy elf understood tactics and strategy. She was being held in reserve. Rogue turned to the girl. “Hope?”
“Gonnabesick...”
“We’re almost there, darlin’, just a few more jumps. You’ll get used to it.”
“No, it’s not the jumps. Nathan’s timejumps are worse. I just..I feel weird.”
There was some kind of thrumming sound. Rogue looked around. “Wait, do you hear that?”
“Nein...” Kurt groaned. What now?
There was an explosion and something slammed into Kurt, sending him flying back.
“What the hell?”
“Get behind me, sugah.” Rogue stepped in front of Hope as she drew on Colossus’s powers. “Get behind me right now. We’ve got trouble.”
She was staring right at something that was part man, part machine, and all bad. What’s worse, is she recognized him.
“Rogue, what is it?!”
“Bastion! Get to Nightcrawler right now, I’ll hold him off.”
“What? No! I’m not going to leave you!”
Kurt rolled his shoulders. “Hope, do as Rogue says.”
“Rogue--”
Rogue charged towards Bastion. “Run, dammit!”
Bastion fired a blast from an arm cannon at Hope. It struck Kurt as he lept to shield her. The pain was searing, and he cried out. But Hope was safe.
Rogue, meanwhile, was opening up several cans of whup-ass. She pounded a fist into Bastion’s skull, then popped claws and slashed him up the chest. The man-machine grabbed her claws and snapped them in half, before flinging her into a wall. “Enough. The child is a clear and present danger to humanity and will be exterminated.”
The woman popped wings and foot claws. Before they’d begun, she’d tapped everyone she could. Rogue was damn good at using other peoples’ powers. She charged at him. “Go to hell!”
He hit her with a blast full in the chest. She screamed, but she kept coming. “I’m not going to let you have her, machine.”
Rogue rammed into him fists first, shouting, “Do you hear me? YOU CAN’T HAVE HER!”
It wasn’t enough, and she was flung away screaming from a blast of his exposed chest. She lay on the ground in a daze. Bastian turned to finish her off.
Hope lost it. “Get away from her!” She hit him with a pole.
“No. We have seen you. We have seen what you become. What the world becomes because of you. We cannot allow you to live.”
“Nn....Hope.” Kurt ported, hoping to get to her before the creature killed the girl.
“Warning, Mutant powers in use...calculating counter-measure.”
Kurt appeared in front of Hope, but Bastian’s hand was on Hope’s throat. Kurt’s body formed around the machine’s arm. Agony unlike anything he’d ever known lanced through his body.
Hope’s voice was a whispered plea. She didn’t want any more people hurt because of her. She didn’t want this man to die for her. She wasn’t a Messiah. She was just a girl. “Please..pleaseplease...”
Rogue could only watch helplessly.
“O..o..luh..lord in this..this time of need...” Kurt summoned his last reserves of strength, and called upon his faith. He’d been through good and bad, he’d seen things that would challenge any man’s belief in God. He’d lost his faith, and found it, over and over again.
In this hour, he had one jump left in him. It was a jump far greater than he could have done, even when he wasn’t fatally wounded. Six hundred miles to Utopia.
Kurt Wagner had faith.
“St-strengthen me.”
Bamf!
He was dying. He knew it. There was the severed limb of a cyborg in his chest. But his faith had come through. It had been rewarded, his leap of faith. He smiled at Hope. He could see the white light coming to claim him.
“Nightcrawler..Mister Wagner..we have to get help, you need..oh god..please you have to...please no.”
“Worth..it..” He felt her fingers close around his hands, and struggled to reassure her. She didn’t need to cry. He’d be okay. The light seemed to envelope the girl. Their last hope. He had to trust in the others to keep her safe. Scott had a plan. Scott always had a plan.
“I..I believe in you.” Kurt was engulfed in warmth, and felt only joy.