LIKE THE OCEAN

By Adam Thur

Sinister…

Apocalypse…

Both of these men possess more power than any human could ever fathom, yet despite their massive power, all they do is stand motionless, staring at each other coldly. Apocalypse grins at Sinister menacingly, and lets out a low chuckle.

“You?!” Sinister exclaims, “You set my prisoners free! Why??”

“I don’t tolerate traitors, Essex. Lest you forget that you tried to destroy me four decades ago. I was generous, and offered you your life for eternal servitude, but when I awoke from my replenishing slumber I discovered that you had abandoned our pledge and left me. So long as you are not under my control, I shall be the bane of your life, and make it a living hell! Starting with the destruction of what you care about most… your experiments!”

Rage fills Sinister’s soul, and though he knows that he doesn’t stand a chance against him, he charges towards Apocalypse, his fists glowing with energy. Apocalypse reacts quickly, and before he knows it, Sinister is being flung backwards until he slams into the hard, cold wall. His skin reverts from a healthy peach back to a chalky white as his image inducer falls to the ground.

Then, suddenly, inevitably, his world comes crashing down around him once again…

“Nathaniel?” Elizabeth Grey call down to him from, the top of the tall staircase leading to the basement, “What’s going on? I heard a crash… is everything all right?”

“No…” Sinister whispers to himself, “she can’t see me like this!”

“Nate?” she says as she continues down the stairs, “What is this place?!”

Then she shrieks in terror as she looks to her left and sees the monstrous form of Apocalypse standing with his arms crossed, and a large grin on his face.

“Well, well…” Apocalypse’s voice booms, “This is an interesting development! You never told me about her, ‘Nate’!” he says, mockingly.

“What’s happening?! Nate?!”

As she reaches the bottom of the stairs, Elizabeth finally sees her lover’s true appearance.

“Your face! So cold… so bloodless… my god…!”

“Liz… I… I never meant for this to happen…”

“Wh… what are you?”

“Allow me to summarize…” Apocalypse says, smiling, “after his wife and child died approximately forty years ago, I took that broken man and manipulated him into the equally broken one you see before you. I changed him, transformed him into an immortal demi-god willing to do my bidding. Obviously, he rebelled… cowardly of course. He fled while I was deep in hibernation…”

Apocalypse looks down at Sinister, who is on his knees, never bothering to get back up after being shot down. “I’ve never seen you so vulnerable, Essex. It’s quite… amusing.”

Sinister becomes utterly enraged and jumps to his feet. He charges at Apocalypse once again, but is flung down once more. Sinister grabs his jaw and reaffixes his malleable form, while Elizabeth watches in shock. Sinister lifts his head to see Apocalypse’s glowing hand aimed directly at him.

“I will not tolerate this utter defiance!” Apocalypse yells. His glowing hand unleashes a blast of energy, and it shoots through the air towards Sinister. Without thinking, Elizabeth jumps into its’ path.

“NOOOOO!!” Sinister cries, as he sees Elizabeth fall to the ground in front of him, the fiery blast burns the flesh on her abdomen. Adrenaline surges through his body as energy crackles in his palms. He lets the energy out in a concentrated blast that knocks Apocalypse’ bulky body to the ground. Sinister runs to Elizabeth’s side, his breath is heavy and his heart is racing.

“Elizabeth?!”

“I… I’m fine… don’t worry…” Elizabeth struggles, “Nathaniel… I don’t care what you are… or who you were… I… I love you…”

“I love y… NO!” Sinister yells, as Elizabeth’s eyelids close, “You can’t die!”

He picks up her body in both arms and brings her to his laboratory in the adjacent room. He realizes that Apocalypse has seemingly disappeared. If his situation weren’t so urgent, he’d wonder where and why he’d gone.

“I can’t let you die… this is my fault… my fault…”

Two miles away from Sinister’s house, the recent escapees try desperately to avoid contact with other people, but that task becomes increasingly difficult in broad daylight.

Even though not all the mutants are visibly different, their ragged clothes and ravaged bodies would definitely garner unwanted attention. Walking through the backstreets of Chicago, Pearson suddenly collapses to the ground. Maclean and Andrew quickly rush to his side.

“I’m okay…” Pearson says, using Andrew and Maclean’s hands to pull himself to his feet, “it’s just… I was trapped in that cell for three years… and my legs haven’t gotten much exercise, making them nearly useless…”

Pearson uses Andrew and Maclean’s shoulders to hold him up as the three of them catch up with the rest of the group.

Suddenly, they all come to a halt as the sound of playing children breaks their eerie silence. This normally welcomed noise sends the mutants scattering like ants to a place to hide. Some run into a dark alley, including Andrew, Maclean, and Pearson, who hide behind a gathering of trash cans.

Then, a bright red ball bounces into the alley, and the children’s laughter begins to get louder as it comes closer. Three young children run into the alley to retrieve their ball. They quickly take the ball and begin to run back to the other children to resume their game, but, out of the corner of his eye, one boy sees a person’s shadow at the back of the alley. He stops, then slowly walks a few feet to the back as the other two children look at him, confused.

“Is someone back there?” the boy calls out. Andrew, Pearson, and Maclean all stare at each other, wide eyed and nervous.

The boy continues further into the alley, calling out, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

He apprehensively leans his body to the left to see around the garbage cans, and jumps in fright as he sees Andrew and Pearson on the ground. Maclean’s face is fortunately hidden behind Pearson’s back.

“What are you guys d…? AHH!” The boy moves to a position where he can see Maclean’s face, and is terrified by the unexpected sight of Maclean’s green scales.

“AHHHHHH!!”

His lip quivers as he rapidly runs away, also hurrying his flustered friends.

“We’d better get moving,” Andrew says. “yhose kids are bound to tell someone about us!”

“NO!” Maclean yells, “I’m sick of running, sick of looking… like this! I didn’t choose to be like this… why did this have to happen to me?”

Maclean’s months of stress and grief suddenly break out in the form of tears, “I’m not running any more!”

“If they find us, they’ll kill us!”

“Is that so bad?!”

“Don’t talk like that!” Pearson breaks into the conversation, “Don’t let those bigots control your life! They’ve judged you by your deceiving outer shell. They haven’t had the opportunity to see inside you… the real you!”

Maclean stands silent for a minute, then lets out a deep breath, “Okay… let’s go…”

All the mutants soon regroup and flee the scene, just in time to hear distant noises of an angry mob coming their way.

Sinister lays Elizabeth’s unconscious body on a platform in his laboratory.

“She’s sustained heavy damage to her abdomen…” he says aloud to himself, “Apocalypse’s blast has burned parts of her flesh. She’s lost a lot of blood, and will need a transfusion. Luckily, I have plenty stored. Now it’s just a matter of matching the molecular structure of her blood with another sample.”

Sinister loads a needle into a syringe and inserts it into Elizabeth’s forearm, drawing the necessary blood. He places a drop on a glass plate and slides it into a microscope.

“If I inject her with blood that doesn’t match her own, it could possibly be fatal… luckily, the appearance of the agglutinogen on her red blood cells is fairly common, therefore I have an abundance of similar blood.”

But then, Sinister notices something else about Elizabeth’s blood sample… something he never expected.

“My god! This can’t be possible! Elizabeth possesses a dormant X-Factor gene!!!”

“They’re right behind us!” Andrew yells, breathing heavily.

A mob consisting of over a dozen furious people chase after the mutants, for no reason other than the fact that they’re different… that their genetic makeup sways slightly away from the norm. They’re scared of them, they fear for their children’s safety, and they want these strangers as far away as possible.

One man catches up to the mutants and tackles Maclean from behind. As they both fall to the ground, the man picks up a large rock and strikes Maclean in the head, instantly drawing blood.

“That’ll teach you freaks!” the man says, standing over Maclean.

Seeing his friend in need, Pearson picks up a wooden board off the ground and hits the man from behind. He falls to the ground, unconscious, and Pearson drops the board beside him.

The chase soon develops into a brawl as man battles mutant. The ground is quickly stained red as the clash rages on. One brown-furred mutant, more animal than man, uses his razor-sharp claws to slice a man’s face. One human pounds a mutant in the abdomen with a fallen tree branch, breaking two ribs.

Suddenly, a man arrives carrying a gun and sets it up to his eye, aiming at an unsuspecting mutant. As the mutant runs past Andrew, the trigger is pulled and the mutant falls, splashing blood onto Andrew’s face.

“Enough…” he says, wiping the blood off his face, too quietly for anyone to hear through the terror of the bloodbath.

“ENOUGH!!!” he screams, eyes glowing, and hands burning with his mutant power to create flames. He shoots the flames at the gunman, setting him to flames as he runs aimlessly, then falls to the ground in pain, still burning. Everyone, both man and mutant stop what they’re doing and stare at Andrew, who is still spouting fire from his hands. The only noise heard is the excruciating scream of the burning man.

“If any of you come after us, the same will happen to you!” Andrew says coldly to the terrified humans.

All the mutants turn around and quickly run off, never turning to look back.

“Extraordinary!” Sinister says, intrigued, “Given the right incentive, the gene’s potential could be unleashed. I’m interested in what her mutagenic transformation would be, but that can wait… I have important tasks to attend to.”

He finds a large amount of blood that matches her own, and starts the transfusion.

Then, as the transfusion proceeds…

“Essex.” Apocalypse says, as he reappears mysteriously from the shadows, “I’ve given you the motive and time to discover what was already painfully obvious to me…”

“You mean… you knew that Elizabeth possessed the X-Factor?”

“Of course! I knew as soon as she descended the stairway. Apocalypse is aware of everything, but now it is time for you to redeem yourself by once again doing my bidding.”

“And what makes you think I would?!”

“Hours ago, I planned to threaten your own life to persuade you, but now I have found a more effective method.” Apocalypse says as he looks at Elizabeth’s unconscious body.

Sinister stares at Apocalypse coldly, then looks to the ground, “Fine. What do you require?”

“It has come to my attention that I am in need of mindless lackeys to do my bidding; ones that do not have enough free will to rebel. They will act as my Horsemen.”

“Where do I fit in?”

“I have perceived that no mutants on the planet wield the amount of power needed to provide me the facility I require. I would like you to arrange means for me to augment a mutant’s power.”

“I’ve recently completed work an elixir that will locate the X-Factor in the cell and will trigger mitosis. Although it will actually be isolated to the X-Factor, therefore increasing its potency. A simple task… simple for me that is, whereas human science will not become this advanced for many years.”

“Excellent!” Apocalypse says, “Bring it to me…”

Sinister retrieves a test tube filled with an orange fluid from a stand on the other side of the room.

“I would like to see its effects first-hand.” Apocalypse commands.

“It must be used on a person already in possession of the X-Factor, but such a person is not available since you freed my test subjects.” Sinister says, almost mockingly.

“Have you so soon forgotten? We have a subject right here!” Apocalypse says, gesturing his bulky arm towards Elizabeth.

“No…” Sinister pleads, “NO!”

“Yes!” Apocalypse says, as he picks Sinister up by the neck and takes the test tube from his hand. He throws Sinister away, sending his crashing into some equipment. Apocalypse strides over to Elizabeth, picking up a syringe on the way. He pokes the needle through the top of the test tube and loads it with the elixir. He then jabs the needle into Elizabeth’s forearm.

“NOOOOOO!!!”

As Elizabeth’s body begins convulsing as the forced mitosis commences, Sinister lashes out at Apocalypse, lunging towards him and punching him in the face. Apocalypse picks him up once again, but Sinister breaks free and shoots a blast into his chest, thrusting Apocalypse a few feet backwards.

Suddenly, their quarrel is ended as a flash or energy knocks them both to the floor. They watch as electricity engulfs Elizabeth’s body until it has become too bright too see.

As the brilliance dies down, they see Elizabeth sitting on the edge of the platform where she formally lay… but she is different now. Her body retains the same form, but it has become a translucent blue, still cracking with energy of the same colour.

“Nathaniel?” she asks in an echoing voice, “What’s happened to me?!”

Andrew runs to the front of the group of mutants, gesturing for them all to stop walking.

“It’s becoming increasingly difficult for us to avoid human contact in such a large group.” he says loudly for them all to hear, “I think the time has come for us all to go our separate ways… to start new lives…”

“What about me?!” asks the mutant covered in brown fur, “What am I supposed to do?”

“And me!” says a mutant woman with bright red skin, “We can’t start new lives!”

“I… I’m sorry…” Andrew says, “but that’s not my problem. I wish I could help you, but… but there’s nothing I can do!”

All the mutants divide and walk away in separate directions, some alone, some with others. Andrew, Maclean, and Pearson walk away together, all remorseful that they couldn’t do more to help the others.

“Elizabeth… no…” Sinister whispers.

“Excellent!” Apocalypse says, “Very impressive results, Essex!”

“No… I… I didn’t…”

“My God!! Nathaniel?!” Elizabeth asks, as she raises her hands to her face, “What’s happening to me?”

“Essex has released the full potential of your mutant gene.”

“Mutant gene?!” she asks, confused.

“Elizabeth, I… I didn’t mean to…” Sinister tries to explain, “When I replaced your lost blood, I noticed that you were in possession of the X-Factor gene. Apocalypse used my formula on you, and increased the power of the gene. The result…” Sinister says pointing at her, “…was this. I’m sorry… so sorry…”

“Enough of this!” Apocalypse commands, “She will come with me immediately! After I have wiped all free will from her mind, she will serve as an excellent Horseman!”

Apocalypse moves towards Elizabeth, but he is interrupted by an enormous blast of energy that strikes him square in the chest.

“NO!” Sinister yells, energy still flowing off his hand, “She stays here!”

Apocalypse laughs, “How amusing that you think you pose a threat to me!”

This remark makes Sinister even more angry and he shoots at Apocalypse once more, with an even larger blast. As he falls to the ground, Apocalypse becomes enraged. He stands up and slams Sinister with his huge fist, knocking him to the ground. Apocalpyse stands over top of him with his fist glowing with energy.

“You don’t understand how easily I could kill you!” Apocalypse says, “I have the tonic, so now I can ensure that you will never cause me any trouble again!”

He raises his hand, aiming to pummel Sinister, but as Elizabeth watches her lover in trouble, she quickly reacts. Unexpectedly, she raises her hand as electricity flows from her and strikes Apocalypse, sending him flying a few feet backwards into some equipment. She can barely even believe what she just did. The equipment then sparks wildly setting the surrounding area to flames.

“I don’t have time for this!” Apocalypse spouts as the fire begins to spread. He strides purposefully past Sinister and approaches a frightened Elizabeth. He quickly renders her unconscious, picks her up over his shoulder, and walks off into the shadows, dissapearing from the basement.

The fire has quickly spread throughout the basement, and it begins to fall apart.

“Elizabeth… no…” Sinister says, as he slowly pulls himself to his feet. He rushes to the stairs and runs up to the foyer. The floor here has become weak from the heat below, and so Sinister quickly rushes through the front door and out onto the lawn.

He watches as his house, and his life, burn to the ground…

Two days later, Sinister walks up to the door of the Grey household and knocks on the door. It is answered by Doctor Richard Grey, Elizabeth’s father.

“Oh, hello Nathaniel,” he says quietly, “I’m glad you stopped by. How have you been?”

“We’ve all taken Elizabeth’s untimely death very harshly. How have you reacted?”

“I… I will be well… but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to not having her around.”

“I’m so sorry…”

“It’s not your fault. Fires happen, and there’s nothing we can do about it. At least you managed to escape with your life…”

“Yes…”

“I dread having to tell her brother in New York. They were very close.”

“Doctor Grey… Richard. I’m going to be leaving Chicago… for good. There are too many memories here.”

“I understand. It was good to know you Nathaniel.”

“Thank you. Goodbye, Doctor.”

Sinister turns and walks off the Grey’s property and down the street. ‘I wish I could have told him the truth,’ Sinister thinks to himself, ‘I wish I could have told him that Elizabeth hadn’t died in that fire, but that she had been taken by Apocalypse and transformed into his first Horseman…’

‘Apocalypse has taken everything from me! My lover… my research… I will travel to New York and find Elizabeth’s brother. The X-Factor in the Grey bloodline is very strong, and future generations might possess enough power to destroy that madman Apocalypse once and for all!”

Andrew, Pearson and Maclean take a break from walking and sit in the streets resting. Suddenly, they see two dark figures approaching them. As they walk further into the light, they recognize one of them.

“You!” Andrew gasps, “You’re the one who freed us! Thank you, thank you so much!”

“Silence!” Apocalypse commands, “You will come with me, immediately!”

“Wh… what?!” Pearson asks.

“Even though you are weak now, you all have potential to wield tremendous power. You three will join her,” Apocalypse says, pointing to Elizabeth, “to become my Four Horsemen!”

“Why would we do that?!” Maclean demands.

Apocalypse grins threateningly, “You have no choice!”

Their screams echo through the streets as Apocalypse forcefully injects them with the tonic.

Elizabeth stands there, motionless… emotionless. She wears armor that almost completely covers her body, containing the vast energies underneath. As she looks blankly into the distance, images of people in her past fly through her mind. Thanks to Apocalypse, she has no recollection of who they are, but she knows that she loved them and that they miss her terribly.

A tear drops from her eye onto her translucent blue face and runs down her cheek…