THE LOW ROAD HOME

By Wesley Overhults

Earth-13

Far beneath the streets of New York City was a network of tunnels. Though their original purpose was long ago discarded, the tunnels still served one important function. They housed an entire society of mutant outcasts known as the Morlocks. The Morlocks called these tunnels The Alley and they had dwelt there for many years. That tranquil life beneath the world would come crashing down around them, however. Unknown to them, someone was watching them. This pair of malevolent eyes saw how ugly and misshapen they were, what imperfect specimens of mutant DNA they were, and the owner of those eyes sought to remove the stain of the Morlocks from the face of the planet. To that end, the man with sinister intentions collected a group of mutant assassins, selecting each one with careful consideration. When his work was complete, the man called Mr. Sinister set these Marauders on the trail of the Morlocks. They followed one of them, tracking Tommy across the country until she unwittingly led them straight to Callisto and the rest of her tribe of outcasts. When they stepped foot in the tunnels, the Marauders licked their lips like hungry wolves, eager to sate their lust for carnage with the blood of all those who dwelt in the dark. However, the Morlocks were not alone. Whatever being or beings than ran the cosmos decided that they deserved to live. The X-Men, fabled champions of mutants, would come to their aid though they wouldn’t exactly be the X-Men the Morlocks would’ve known.

The X-Men arrived in a swirling cloud of vapor, remnants of Amelia Voght’s style of teleportation. All of them checked the surrounding area and looked for clues to determine their location. They didn’t have to spend too much time agonizing over it. Two of them already knew these tunnels, knew the familiar odors that wafted through their nostrils and the tinkling sounds of water as it dripped from pipes. Rats skittered from their hiding places and somewhere cries of agony bounced off the tunnel walls of The Alley.

“It’s happening,” realized Berzerker, his face twisting into a grimace as he remembered a phantom pain from long ago. “This is it, right here and right now. It’s happening all over again.”

“This is The Alley,” confirmed Marrow, turning to her newer teammate. “What’s happening, Ray?”

In her home reality, Marrow had never known the massacre that consumed the Morlocks in most realities. Whereas the Morlocks were traditionally led by Callisto, Marrow was their only leader in her reality. Marrow knew the Morlocks as a true society, one that offered a real alternative for mutants who couldn’t afford to live at Xavier’s school but needed protection from normal humans. The idea that a group of assassins like the Marauders could knock on her door and end everything she had built never crossed Marrow’s mind.

In contrast, Berzerker knew all about the massacre. He was one of the few survivors of that massacre, the last of his offshoot group known as the Tunnelers. Were it not for the intervention of Cyclops and the rest of X-Factor, Berzerker wouldn’t have even been alive. It was a debt he repaid by becoming a member of X-Factor and later the X-Men of his reality. Now here he was once more, back in a hellish nightmare he replayed in his mind every time he closed his eyes at night.

“The massacre,” explained Berzerker. “You don’t know what happens? They kill almost all of us.”

“The Tallus says we’re here to stop it,” spoke up Voght, shifting into the role of team leader she played so well. “The Morlocks have no ties with the X-Men in this world. We’re the only ones who are here to help them.”

“Then we need not waste more time talking,” decided Sunfire, eager as ever for combat. “Who are these assassins?”

“They call themselves the Marauders,” answered Berzerker. “They work for Mr. Sinister.”

“Better get the kid out of here then,” suggested Sean Madrox while gesturing to the X-Men’s youngest member.

The mutant boy called Cypher had pulled his weight on the team ever since he first arrived. His mutant ability to decipher any language came in handy when they needed info from a foreign source or when they needed someone to hack into a computer system. Ramsey’s ability even extended to body language so he could hold his own in a fight. This was something entirely different though. Those among the X-Men that had previous encounters with the Marauders knew that Sinister’s personal hit squad was absolutely ruthless. This was the kind of mission made for people like Marrow and Sunfire, people who didn’t mind getting their hands dirty. Doug was better than that and he was still a kid.

“We’re going to need all the help we can get,” noted Voght.

“I can handle it,” assured Cypher.

“We’re wasting time,” said Berzerker, electricity crackling from his fingertips as he ran down the tunnel and turned the corner into what looked like one of the main Alley tunnels.

“I like him more and more with each mission,” noted Sunfire before lifting off the ground and flying after Berzerker.

“Everyone keep on your toes,” ordered Voght while the rest of the X-Men followed their two teammates. “The Marauders are merciless psychopaths. They won’t hold anything back when it comes to doing their job. Show them the same courtesy.”

“Looks like the boys already found a fight,” said Sean.

All the X-Men felt the heat from Sunfire’s attacks. The corner they had turned lead them straight into The Alley’s main tunnel, the one the Marauders were using to mow down the Morlocks with lethal efficiency. The second Berzerker arrived on the scene, Scalphunter aimed his rifle squarely at the former Morlock. He squeezed off two shots that buried themselves into an electromagnetic shield. Berzerker wasted little time once he stopped the bullets. Arcs of electricity surged from his fingertips towards the hired assassins. Blockbuster swatted the lightning bolts aside and ran towards Berzerker. Sunfire barreled into Blockbuster, knocking the largest of the Marauders off his feet.

“Vertigo, Riptide, show these punks what we can do,” ordered Scalphunter.

Sunfire let a blast of fire fly from his hands but his aim was off thanks to Vertigo and her dizzying attack. The two X-Men staggered towards their opponents, trying in vain to fight off the Marauder’s attack. Riptide cackled with malevolent glee before spinning his body into a miniature cyclone and then letting his deadly throwing blades fly towards Berzerker. Sunfire threw himself in between his teammate and the lethal projectiles, his fiery body sustaining no damage from the harmless shrapnel.

“You wanna play with sharp objects?” inquired Marrow, vaulting over Sunfire and Berzerker to pounce on the Marauders. “I got some for ya.”

She slashed at the assassins with her bone daggers, managing to draw blood from Scalphunter and leave a nasty cut across his face. He stepped back and assembled a handgun from the pieces of metal on his outfit. Scalphunter fired the handgun at Marrow, burying two shots into her chest and taking her down. Voght appeared in front of Scalphunter and blasted him in the face with a cloud of vapor to blind him. Berzerker took the opening Voght gave him and unleashed an electrical attack that sent all the Marauders backing up.

“Nowhere to run,” said Sean Madrox from behind the Marauders as he pointed his gun at them.

“Nowhere to hide,” finished one of Madrox’s duplicates as he mimicked the action of his creator, standing to the right of the Marauders.

“You’re outmanned,” stated another Madrox from the left side of the Marauders.

“And outgunned,” finished the final clone as he stood before the Marauders. “Hand over the weapons.”

“Arclight,” ordered Scalphunter.

The Asian woman’s hand glowed with energy before she slammed it on the ground and discharged that energy in the form of violent shockwaves that shook the entire Alley to its very foundation. The shockwaves were so huge that they shook loose the top of the tunnels, causing parts of it to cave in. The Marauders and the X-Men scattered due to the cave-in. When the dust settled, Voght, Sean Madrox, and Cypher were looking at a wall of rubble with their teammates on the other side.

“Where’re the Marauders?” wondered Cypher aloud.

“Right here, little man,” snarled a voice.

“Doug!” cried out Voght as Sabretooth leapt from the darkness of the tunnels and tore into Cypher with his claws.

Amelia shifted into her gaseous form and put herself between Sabretooth and Cypher, enlarging the cloud until it was a wall of vapor that could stop the feral Marauder from doing any further damage. Madrox quickly created more clones of himself and opened fire on Creed. The bullets had little effect on him because of his healing factor but it was enough to send Sabretooth back into the dark of the tunnels where he came from.

“He’s hurt bad,” confirmed Voght after turning back into her human form and cradling Cypher in her arms. “I have some medical training but without the proper equipment he’s not going to last. Do these Morlocks down here have a healer?”

“If they do then they’ve already got their hands full,” reminded Madrox. “We have to go after Sabretooth before he kills more of them.”

“I’m not leaving Doug alone to die,” stated Voght.

“You forget I can be in more than one place at a time,” reminded Madrox, motioning for his clones to pursue Sabretooth while he stayed with Voght to care for Doug. “Can you teleport us through that rubble?”

“I don’t know if Doug can survive the trip,” admitted Voght. “I’d be scrambling up his molecules and then putting them back together again. Sean, I have a bad feeling we’re all going to die down here.”

“They’re getting away,” realized Sunfire as he watched the Marauders scurry into the dark like the rats they were. “We should give chase.”

“Marrow’s hurt,” reminded Berzerker.

“I’m fine,” retorted Marrow, clutching her chest to slow the bleeding and staggering to her feet. “I got a healing factor. Shouldn’t take more than a couple o’ minutes to get the bullets out.”

The three X-Men chased the Marauders down the tunnel, Sunfire using a shield of fire to block the bullets from Scalphunter’s gun that sped towards them. The tunnel branched off into two different directions and the Marauders split accordingly. Vertigo turned back to their pursuers and used her power on them, twisting their perceptions so they couldn’t tell which way the Marauders went. The X-Men stopped in their tracks and staggered blindly towards the fork in the tunnel, trying to figure out which way to go.

“Split up,” ordered Marrow. “Ray, go with Shiro. I can handle myself.”

Berzerker let out a wide range electrical attack that managed to stun Vertigo long enough for her to cease her attack. The X-Men tried to catch their breath for a moment and hold down the contents of their stomachs before picking up the chase again. Harpoon wasn’t going to give them time to do so. He charged one of his weapons and then let it fly at the X-Men. Berzerker blasted the energy spear with a bolt of lightning that caused it to explode on contact before it could reach him or his teammates.

“We need to stick together,” he reminded Marrow.

“They’re splitting up, we’re doing the same,” she retorted before heading off down the left tunnel to chase after the splinter group of Marauders.

Berzerker cursed under his breath as he and Sunfire went after the main group. He sent a surge of electricity into the electrical lines that wove their way along the tunnel. The surge caused a power outage that killed all the lights in The Alley. He reasoned that the Marauders couldn’t kill what they couldn’t see and hoped that would buy the Morlocks enough time to mount a counterattack or for him and Sunfire to take them by surprise.

“They will see me coming a mile away,” said Sunfire, guessing the purpose of Berzerker’s action. “However, they are blind without some source of light. I presume these Morlocks are accustomed to working in the dark. They have good night vision?”

“They should,” answered Berzerker as the two X-Men continued down the tunnel. He could hear screams and sounds of murder further down and it only quickened his pace.

The tunnel opened into a wider room and it seemed that the Marauders had stumbled upon more of their targets. Sunfire flew into the room first, his flames lighting up the place so his teammate could see what he was doing. However, they only sights they were greeted with were dead bodies. Glowing shafts of energy came at Sunfire, courtesy of Harpoon. Sunfire blasted them aside and shrugged off the bullets from Scalphunter’s firearms. The wind in the room kicked up as Riptide roared towards Sunfire.

“Gonna blow you out like a giant birthday candle,” he promised the fiery X-Man as he blew Sunfire backwards via the wind he generated.

“I remember all your tricks,” said Berzerker as he came at the other Marauders. “This time you won’t kill any of my people. This time, I’m gonna kill you.”

“You die just like the rest of them,” retorted Scalphunter, squeezing off a few rounds that were deflected by Berzerker’s lightning. “We live in a pretty simple world. Boss wants people dead, he calls us, we take care of it. We don’t really give a damn about anything else.”

Something roared in the dark. A giant shadow appeared behind the Marauders as Scaleface shifted into her dragon form. Berzerker smiled as he recognized his lost love and watched her begin to take apart the Marauders. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Harpoon leapt on the dragon’s back and jammed one of his spears into Scaleface. She cried out in pain even as Berzerker blasted the Marauder off of her. The rest of the Morlocks chose that moment to strike. Sunder dealt the Marauders clubbing blows, scattering them about the room like bowling pins. Erg opened his eye and let out a blast of electricity that stunned Scalphunter. Blockbuster moved to lock up with Sunder, both giants trading titanic blows that shook The Alley as easily as one of Arclight’s quakes.

“How about you try shooting me with that eye of yours,” suggested Prism, absorbing a blast from Erg and then turning it back against its owner.

Prism turned and absorbed a plasma blast from Sunfire before redirecting it to finish off Scaleface, frying her to a crisp with the heat. In a matter of moments, the Marauders had turned a disadvantage of small numbers into an advantage by cutting down the opposition. The two energy-based X-Men opted to leave Prism alone and concentrate their attacks elsewhere. Berzerker immediately went for Harpoon while Sunfire blasted Riptide.

“I don’t burn, pal,” warned Blockbuster, clubbing Sunder over the head and then turning and catching a fire bolt from Sunfire. “I don’t know who you are but you sure ain’t a Morlock. Not that it really matters in the end though.”

Blockbuster backhanded Sunfire, swatting him into a far wall like he was an insect. Berzerker hit the mammoth Marauder with bolts of lightning that sent the giant staggering backwards. It was a losing battle though. The Marauders had the numbers advantage and they pressed it as Scalphunter constructed another gun to fire at Berzerker. Sunder knocked Scalphunter aside and then caught an uppercut from Blockbuster that drew blood. Blockbuster delivered a mammoth right cross that left Sunder out on his feet. The punch-drunk Morlock threw his fists at his opponent but his aim was severely off and Blockbuster took him down with another brutal blow.

“We’re wasting time with these people when there’re Morlocks to kill,” decided Scalphunter. “Harpoon, bring down the tunnel.”

“Rip and Prism are still in there,” reminded Harpoon, retreating with his leader and Blockbuster while Riptide and Prism continued to battle the two X-Men.

“They’re expendable,” countered Scalphunter, pointing his gun at Harpoon’s forehead. “Do it!”

Harpoon casually shrugged before charging up one of his spears and hurling it at the ceiling. The explosion caused most of the room to collapse. Berzerker and Sunfire managed to jump back in time to avoid the falling rubble but Riptide and Prism weren’t so lucky. The debris shattered Prism on impact while Riptide suffocated under the weight of the rubble. The two X-Men looked at the blocked tunnel forlornly, realizing they would have to double back if they wanted to catch the Marauders.

“That’s two down,” said Berzerker while clenching his fists to hide his rage at being forced to relive the worst experience of his life. “There’s still enough of them to make it an unfair fight though. Hopefully the others are having better luck than we are.”

Sunfire didn’t answer verbally. Instead, he suddenly and violently plunged his flaming fist through Berzerker’s chest, discharging a blast of plasma that scorched his body from the inside out and fried his internal organs to a crisp. Berzerker’s dead body fell backward, landing in a mangled heap on the concrete of the tunnel floor. The expressionless mask Sunfire wore flickered in the light of his flames and looked down at the corpse with a haunting lack of emotion.

“One down,” said the renegade X-Man as he flew back the way he and Berzerker had come. The X-Men had their mission but he had different marching orders from a much higher power.

The lights going out didn’t slow down Marrow at all. She had spent practically her whole life living underground so she had excellent night vision. However, it seemed that the Marauders didn’t share such traits. That left them easy prey and Marrow was definitely in the mood to hunt. She had seen a lot of horrors in her life but she never thought she would see the wholesale slaughter of her people. She had a chance to stop it though. She could hear the Marauders fumbling in the dark, looking for an exit or possibly a source of light so they could at least see where they were going. She pressed herself against an alcove and waited. Slowly and methodically she scraped the bones protruding from her back against the concrete of the alcove. It made a scratching noise that drew the Marauders’ attention and only further agitated them.

“What the hell was that noise?” asked Scrambler.

“How about you go look,” suggested Vertigo.

“Hell no,” retorted her teammate. “Bad enough we have to come down here to this shithole anyway. Now we can’t even see what the hell we’re doing.”

“Go look,” ordered Arclight.

Knowing better than to question his superior when she was already in a foul mood, Scrambler did as commanded. He cautiously and slowly crept towards the sound, not knowing that he was sealing his own doom. Marrow continued scraping, drawing Scrambler closer and closer to her position. When the time was right, she pulled Scrambler around the corner and jammed a bone dagger right through his throat. The young Marauder managed to activate his power before his death, using it to cause Marrow’s bones to grow out of control. Large spikes of bone erupted from Marrow in all directions, skewering many of her internal organs. She collapsed to the ground and gurgled blood, trying desperately to concentrate so she could reverse the growth and then let her healing factor do the rest. She could faintly hear the other two Marauders calling out to their lost companion before giving up and moving on further into the darkness.

Marrow managed to cause the bone growth to recede and her skeleton returned to what passed for normal where she was concerned. She crawled around the corner, inching laboriously towards the Marauders. If she could just survive for a few moments longer, she knew her healing factor would take care of her seriously wounded body. She just needed time but she also needed to move. The Marauders were still loose in The Alley. She had to find them and kill them or find a nice, quiet spot to curl up and heal so she could kill them later.

“You look like me.”

Marrow heard the voice, not completely registering it. She looked up and saw a pink-haired girl who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old staring down at her. She blinked hard, trying to decide if the girl was real or just a hallucination brought on by so much loss of blood. Standing before Marrow was an eight-year-old version of her, the girl that could become this reality’s Marrow.

“Now’s not the time, kid,” gasped Marrow, greedily sucking in oxygen to keep herself alive. Her healing factor was repairing the damage nicely but it would take more time than she had.

“Are you one of the bad people?” asked Sarah hesitantly.

“I’m the one the bad people are afraid of,” assured Marrow before hoisting herself back to her feet.

Sarah stared in awe at her rescuer. When the bad people came into this section of The Alley, she ran and hid in one of the alcoves that dotted the tunnel. She was small enough to curl up inside it and she held her breath and waited for the bad people to go away. Sarah had never been more scared in her entire life. She wanted to find her mother but they got separated during all the shooting. Maybe this woman knew where her mother was.

“Is that the truth, girly?” inquired a voice. “Let’s see if I’m afraid of you.”

“Get behind me, Sarah,” ordered Marrow, moving in front of the girl to shield her as Sabretooth stepped forward.

The small amount of light coming from the sewer grates filtered into the tunnels and gave Marrow an approximate idea of where her new opponent was. Sabretooth’s appearance didn’t do him enough justice though. Though he was taller and bulkier than his archrival Wolverine, Sabretooth possessed all the quickness and agility of a jungle cat. He had managed to kill all the Madrox clones that were pursuing him just before running into Arclight and Vertigo. The two female Marauders told him there was something in the tunnel that had killed Scrambler. Sabretooth took this as a personal challenge and decided to see what kind of monster lurked in the dark. What he found didn’t intimidate him in the slightest.

“How’d you know my name?” asked the girl.

“Better start runnin’, girly,” suggested Sabretooth, keeping low as he stalked his wounded prey. “Not that it’ll matter of course.”

Marrow took a quick survey of her surroundings and found them wanting to say the very least. If she could hold off Sabretooth long enough, she could get this younger version of her to safety via one of the ladders that led to the surface. She would have to get the manhole cover off first though because she knew Sarah wasn’t strong enough to move it herself, not yet anyway.

“We’re gonna have to make a run for it, Sarah,” warned Marrow, scooping Sarah up in her arms and making a beeline for one of the ladders. “Hang on tight and shut your eyes.”

Sabretooth roared and pounced towards Marrow. Spikes of bone flew from one of Marrow’s forearms, the deadly daggers hurtling towards Sabretooth with frightening speed. One of them clipped Sabretooth’s shoulder and it bought Marrow enough time to get a good distance up the ladder. Climbing with one hand was murder though, especially given the hell her body went through just moments before. She could practically hear Sarah’s heartbeat as the young Morlock clung to her for dear life.

“I want my mom!” she cried tearfully.

“I’ll settle for you being okay,” retorted Marrow.

Sabretooth jumped and grabbed Marrow’s ankle, threatening to yank both her and her young charge from the ladder that would carry them to sanctuary. Marrow twisted her leg and kicked herself free but Sabretooth was on the ladder and climbing fast. Marrow managed to get the manhole cover off the tunnel but Sabretooth’s claws ripped into her right ankle and tore it to shreds. A bone spike came out of her left heel and she jammed it downward, stabbing Sabretooth in the eye and causing him to recoil.

“Not tonight, girly,” he warned, his eye healing in a matter of seconds.

“Sarah, I need you to climb into the light,” ordered Marrow even as Sabretooth jumped again and began another ascent. “I know it burns your eyes but it’s safe up there.”

“The bad people live up there,” reminded Sarah.

“Go!” ordered Marrow, shoving Sarah upward as the young Morlock began to climb. “Don’t look back, Sarah. When you get all the way into the light, find a place called the Xavier Institute. Tell the people that live there what’s going on. Tell them and get them to make it stop!”

Marrow watched this young version of herself make it all the way out of the tunnel. She watched Sarah turn back and reach out her hand. Was it Marrow’s imagination or did she see tiny spikes of bone sticking out of that hand? It didn’t matter in the end. Sabretooth wrapped his arm around Marrow’s waist and threw her back down to the tunnel floor. He turned his attention to the Morlock child who had escaped but a few bone spikes lodged themselves into his back and made him rethink his decision.

“You wanna scrap then, girly?” he asked, letting go of the ladder and dropping back into the tunnel to face Marrow. “Let’s go then.”

Marrow smiled ruefully and held her bone daggers in her hands, waiting to carve up Sabretooth like a turkey on Thanksgiving. She knew she wasn’t going to walk away from this fight. She had lost too much blood already and her healing factor hadn’t finished repairing the damage from Scrambler’s attack. It didn’t matter though. Voght said the X-Men had no clue what was going on but if Sarah could get to them then they would be in The Alley in a matter of minutes. Marrow had given these Morlocks a chance to stay alive even at the cost of her own life.

“He killed the last of the dupes I sent out,” realized Sean Madrox as he and Voght continued on.

“Doug’s not going to make it,” said the Madrox clone that was carrying Cypher in his arms. “These people don’t have a damn healer?”

“We have to find one if they do,” said Voght. “I can’t teleport Doug, the molecular rearrangement might kill him when we come out of the teleportation. We have to keep going on foot.”

“You two aren’t going anywhere,” promised Arclight.

Both Sean and Voght felt the wave of dizziness overcome them thanks to Vertigo. Sean couldn’t maintain his clone under that kind of stress and it quickly became a part of him once more, leaving the fresh corpse of Doug Ramsey lying on the ground. Not knowing where her enemies were, Voght attempted a blind teleportation. The swirling mists that made up her body coalesced behind Vertigo and she hit the Marauder in the back of the head to stop the attack. Arclight slammed her fist against the ground and sent a vibration spike through it that hurled Voght backward. She got back to her feet but then stopped short as she realized the Tallus was trying to tell her something. In all the frenzy and the carnage, she had forgotten their actual mission. At this point, she was more focused on keeping herself and the rest of her team alive.

“What is it?” inquired Sean.

“The Tallus says ‘mission aborted’,” explained Voght. “We’ve never failed a mission before.”

The two X-Men had little time to wonder what was going on. Along with Sunfire, they vanished in a cloud of swirling mists as the Tallus recalled them from that reality. They would never know that Marrow’s courageous actions alerted this reality’s X-Men to the Marauders’ presence in The Alley. Those X-Men would arrive and drive the Marauders out of the tunnels but not before most of the damage on the Morlock race was already inflicted. The reality-hopping X-Men also suffered casualties that day, leaving behind the corpses of Cypher, Berzerker, and Marrow. Those that survived found themselves in a conference room, the same one where their Timebroker had explained to them the urgent nature of their mission.

“Berzerker didn’t make it,” informed Sunfire, neglecting to mention his was the hand that slew his teammate. “I assume Marrow and Cypher suffered the same fate.”

“Doug’s gone,” confirmed Voght. “We’ve got to figure out what’s going . . .”

She cut her words short as a cloud of pixie dust heralded the arrival of the Exiles. The three surviving X-Men stared at the Exiles, not knowing exactly what was going on. The Exiles looked equally perplexed as they stared back at the X-Men.

“Voght?” questioned Sandman. “What the hell’s going on?”

“I’m sorry,” explained John, the X-Men’s Timebroker, as he appeared in the room. “I tried to get you here sooner but I had enough troubles of my own. This place is the Axis, the center of time and space. Jules is planning something and I need your help to stop it.”

Next Issue: It’s the moment Exiles fans have been waiting for as the team finally confronts Jules and “Killing Time” begins.