Dismal Angel 2010 – Episode 1

Chapter 1: The Chase

             He was running.  The shadowed figure ran along the rooftops as Ororo Munro sailed across the wind watching him below, he jumped over large stretches of alley between buildings in an almost cat like manner, landing on his feet every time with an eerie precision, he was a fast runner, and agile as he hopped over railings and debris, his pace quickening.

             She'd been chasing him for some time, he didn't seem to be growing weary, but Ororo was, it was time to stop the figure swathed in black before he got away altogether.

             Even while caught in the chase, it occurred to Ororo this shadowed figure had nothing to do with the mission, except that he had simply arrived in what seemed to be the wrong place at the wrong time.  The X-Men had been trying to trace the whereabouts of Juggernaut in Illinois when somehow they'd lost him, and that was when the dark lithe figure had appeared.

             He showed no face beneath the black mask, but something about the way he'd moved when he'd arrived where the X-Men had been staked out waiting to try and capture Juggernaut, seemed to suggest alarm and panic.  He'd been fast, perhaps too fast.

             Ororo threw her out, and the sky cracked and split with light as she summoned blue-white lightning to her fingertips, she thrust her hand downwards, throwing forks of it towards the shadowy figure – who skilfully dodged each one in turn.

             "Storm, did you catch up with him?" the voice of Scott Summers came through her communicator, which was attached to the belt around her slim waist.

             Ororo forced the wind to all the might it could muster, propelling her forwards, "He's heading north – about to run out of buildings to sprint across – now would be a good time to cut him off, Cyclops!" she spoke to her communicator, pressing down on her belt with one free hand, holding her other arm out to balance herself.

             "Bobby is already on it!" replied a rather serious sounding Cyclops, "When he traps him, get ready to try and approach – but be careful!"

             "I shall be," Ororo drew more lightning from the sky to light the rooftops below, she could see the figure – whom she was positive had to be male – now heading towards what was going to be a dead end.  "He's approaching the edge of the building!" she cried into the communicator.

             "I'm on it, Storm!" came the enthusiastic voice of Bobby Drake – and as if on cue a very tall wall of ice appeared up almost as if out of nowhere, forming from the very edge of the building before the dark figure had a chance to reach its edge.  Ororo watched the dark figure slam into the wall.  Even without seeing his face, his body language spoke volumes, he was becoming frustrated.  The walls began to rise around the dark figure, Bobby Drake – also known as Iceman – rose from a slide of ice near the edge of the building, standing proud in his ice form.  "Got him!  Got this sucker on ice!" he cried unreservedly, throwing his hands up to the air as if he were cheering.

             Ororo let the winds dissipate around her, she began to slowly descend from the sky into the large circular roofless ice prison that Bobby had created, the dark figure tried to run, "Stop running, we mean you no harm!" Ororo cried at the shadowed figure.

             The shadowed figure didn't seem interested in her plea, and more determined to get out of the trap.  He put two black-leather-gloved hands against the walls of the ice prison, his hands glowing a faint yellowish-orange that seemed to pass into the ice, he let go, and a large chunk of the ice imploded, leaving him enough room to climb out, and allowing him to take off once again, this time in a different direction.

             Ororo gaped, she'd seen this kind of power before, and it dawned on her from where, "By the goddess…" she whispered to herself, she let her hand quickly grab onto her belt to broadcast her voice over the communicator, "He's escaped," she took to the sky, "Heading East now!"

             Ororo dare not announce yet who she was beginning to suspect this shadowed figure might be, perhaps it was because the last night the figure had spent as one of the X-Men he'd been guilty of murder, or maybe it was that she just didn't like to make assumptions.  It might be possible more than one mutant on Earth possessed the same abilities as the man she was thinking of.  Ororo swallowed her nerves and began to follow by sky, "he's leapt off the side!" she cried, watching the dark figure leap from the side of the building, her eyes wide. 

             "Kitty should be able to get him!  She's down at the North East side now!" Scott's voice came through the communicator, "I'm on my way there now to try and head him off!"

             "Kitty!" Ororo pressed the button off her communicator, "the runner is heading down your way, stop him at all costs!"

             Kitty Pryde slammed her hand against her communicator belt, it had been a while since she'd heard any voices on it.  She'd been patrolling the North East of a nearby apartment building in Illinois, the others had gone to chase a suspicious man in black – she'd been told to wait East until signalled.  "Helloooooooo," she whined, hoping her voice was broadcasting to the others, "can you guys, like, hear me?  I haven't heard anything but static in the last ten minutes…" she sighed.

             Static echoed from the communicator belt, but nothing else, she frowned and tapped at it again, this time a bit more furiously.  She realised she might have accidentally short-circuited the belt when she'd phased through a wall earlier that night.  Kitty's misfortune with her powers always inadvertently ruining electrical or battery operated technology had begun to become a bit of an inconvenience for her.

"What's going on up there?" she asked herself as she glanced up nervously, no one had been in touch, it was unlike the other X-Men to keep her uninformed, it seemed for definite her communicator was well and truly broken. 

The flashes of lightning up in the sky seemed to suggest something might be happening – certainly if Ororo were pulling lightning out of the sky there had to be some progress being made in the chase of the rascal who had appeared while they were all on the stakeout waiting to trap Juggernaut – who incidentally, had not shown.

             A dark figure began to become imminent, swinging down from what seemed to be a long fine rope, she watched dumbstruck, eyes wide, and as the figure came swinging towards her, she phased herself quickly, hands in front of herself as if to stop the impact. 

The dark figure swung right through her, she heard a thud as he made impact upon the street, and she turned, looking behind her, he was standing there, seemingly looking right back at her, paused for one moment in what seemed to be thought.

             "Don't run!" she put her hands out as if to stop him.  Too late, he was off again, running towards the south east.  She pressed her hands on her belt, "South East!" she gasped to the communicator, before taking off herself at a run, knowing no matter how fast she was, there was no way she'd catch up with him.

             A beam of red light lit the street, Kitty recognised Scott Summers optic beams, he'd been coming in from the southern direction, she watched, dumbfounded as the dark figure dodged the beams of Scott Summers, flipped and rolled to the side, stopping near a trashcan, picking it up and throwing it at the man.

             Scott used his optic blast to stop the trash can from hitting him, when he turned, the dark figure was already too far ahead for either Kitty or Scott to catch upon. 

             "Why did you not stop him?!" Scott was running near Kitty, "didn't you hear us."

             "My communicator isn't working!" Kitty bellowed, she couldn't believe Scott was chiding her now like she was still a fifteen year old. 

             "STOP RIGHT THERE!" cried a rather loud firm voice from above, Kitty and Scott both glanced upwards.

             Jean Grey dropped from the sky, long red hair flailing around her, her telekinetic powers slowed her down to a halt just two feet above the ground, Bobby came lunging down a slide of ice near her back while Ororo came descending down from the sky, with her snowy hair flowing in the wind around herself.

             The dark figure was floating two feet above the ground ten feet away from the X-Men – Jean's telekinetic powers had managed to grasp him before he'd made an escape.  Jean let herself drop from her telekinetic hold, and she began to approach the figure, the others following in suit.

             "Why'd he run?" Kitty asked, she herself now breathless from her short run trying to catch up with him.  She leaned forward a little, hands resting on her knees, panting.

             "I do not know," Ororo stated, although she had a very good guess she did not yet want to admit what she had saw up on the roof – it was not right to make assumptions just yet.

             The figure seemed almost as if he were crucified, his arms stretched out straight on either side of himself, legs together tight, head high, Jean's powers having hold on every part of him.

             "I think I do," Jean moved over to the figure slowly, "I sensed who he was the minute I got close enough…and once you know who he is, you'll understand why he was running…" she reached towards the mask on the dark figure's head and yanked it off quickly, watching the long brown hair tumble free of its confines.  Dark eyes with fiery irises gazed back at them all, an expression of complete shame and anger evident on his chiselled, slightly rough features, he was half shadowed in the darkness of the night, half illuminated in the orangey glow of the nearby streetlights.

             "Oh…my…god," Kitty put her hand to her mouth, as she found herself staring into the face of the man she had not seen in seven long years, the face of someone she'd once considered a close friend, and team-mate.  "It's Gambit…"

             The dark figure raised his head a little, giving a smirk, his angry expression faded quickly, "Bonjour, Mes Amis."