Chereads / Journey Of Ben Tennyson / Chapter 72 - Chapter 72 - Key To Release Apocalypse

Chapter 72 - Chapter 72 - Key To Release Apocalypse

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Rogue and Sharky were in intimate moments, since Sharky has now completely recovered, she wants to release all the stock of lust, which she had kept when he was in coma.

Sharky noticed she was in some tension, "What happened, why are you looking at some problem?" He asked her.

"Everything is okay, but I still miss you," Rogue replied as she continued kissing him, she didn't want to share her problem.

"Tell me," Sharky again asked. "It's nothing, I'm fine," Rogue tried to act cheerful, but suddenly she clutched her head and started shaking uncontrollably.

"One last time, I am asking, tell me what happened to you?" Sharky asked, as he gently placed a blanket over her.

Rogue didn't know what had happened; she started sweating profusely. "I don't know, it felt like my head was on fire, I was seeing different scenes, and hearing different voices. It's like many people have entered my mind."

"It's okay, I am here for you," Sharky said as he gave her some kisses to comfort her.

"Sharky, don't use your powers, I don't want you to fall into a coma again," Rogue thought Sharky was going to use his powers, so she stopped him, also her headache was relieved. He took her in his arms, and they both fell asleep.

Meanwhile, in a different place, a brown cat jumps into the house. The cat morphs into Mystique and addresses the other person as Destiny, the blind mutant who can see visions of the future. Destiny tells her that she has always foreseen that Rogue might not live up to her destiny.

Next morning, Rogue brushed her hair in front of the mirror. She looked at her hands briefly before pulling her gloves on. Just as she was about to leave, Logan knocked on her door. Rogue opened it and got a fright to see him standing there.

Logan asked, "I was wondering if something was wrong." Rogue didn't respond; instead, she said she was late for school.

At school, Rogue walks symbolically alone through a corridor full of chatting groups of teens. She goes to enter a girls' bathroom, only to get a flash of touching Kitty, and phases through the door instead. She is greeted enthusiastically by Risty.

Rogue asked Risty, "Where you been, you disappeared totally some days ago?"

Risty replies, "I was sent to England by my parents because of the outbreak of the mutant epidemic."

Rogue goes to take a drink from a fountain, but sees a dream of touching Storm, causing lightning to strike the fountain and water to spray everywhere. Rogue runs away.

Risty finds Rogue sitting alone on the tables outside, and asks tentatively if that was Rogue's mutant power.

"It's like my head is getting 'a little crowded' with all the personalities I have absorbed. And with Sharky going into a coma, something has triggered it." Rogue explained to Risty.

Risty glossed over the seriousness of this and suggested playfully that they go to the concert to have some fun at the expense of the people there.

At the concert, there were a great many teens present, including Kurt and Amanda, Tabitha, Kitty, Scott, Jamie and of course Jean.

Rogue and Risty come up a few feet away from them. Rogue gets a flash of Scott and her eyes turn red. She takes them closer to the stage, but Rogue is becoming more distressed every minute, saying she doesn't like crowds.

Risty points out that she is covered up, but it is not that Rogue is worried about. She holds her head with both hands, groaning and getting bumped around by the concert-goers. Rogue is panicking and disoriented, until she finally staggers back into Risty, both of them screaming as the transfer kicks in and Risty morphs into Mystique.

Rogue gets a flash of grabbing Mystique's arm, and as Mystique falls to the ground, unconscious. Rogue morphs into Risty, then back into herself as she sees Mystique's prone form on the floor. She stops a few feet from Mystique, has a flash of Sabretooth, and falls on all fours, morphing into the animal itself.

Mystique awakens in time to witness the transformation and calls out to Rogue, who is too far gone to hear.

Rogue/Sabretooth explodes out of the crowd and storms the stage, leaping onto a huge stack of speakers and knocking them towards the crowd. She tears down light rigging and causes general havoc, causing the crowd and band to flee and the X-Men to step in to protect the people from falling and flying speakers.

Jamie valiantly attempts to tackle Rogue/Sabretooth, but his contact with the Rogue/Sabretooth skin knocks him out; several duplicates fall from him in the process.

Scott blasted Rogue/Sabretooth into a wall; underneath the resulting pile of rubble, Rogue caught a glimpse of herself clinging to the falling Juggernaut, while Kurt prematurely announced that he was out of the fight.

Rogue/Juggernaut burst up out of the rubble. He charges through a wall of the venue, escaping, followed closely by Mystique. The X-Men are surprised to see what they think are three of their enemies in one place and decide to regroup at the mansion; Kitty half-carries a dazed Jamie.

Rogue steps out onto the street, only to have a police car come up behind her. Rogue gets a flash of touching Magneto, and she turns into Magneto herself. Rogue/Magneto used her magnetic powers to throw back the car. Then she dreams of Pietro. Rogue/Pietro zooming off down the street, but get cut off by another police car.

Rogue had a flash of Arcade, the computer playing kid, and morphed into the shifty-looking but ordinary form as the car drove past. She ran into an alley, where she turned back into herself and sank to the ground, hugging her knees and shivering.

Mystique comes there, "Please listen, I know I hurt you. But I can only take care of you by being with you as a friend," She expresses concern for Rogue and wants to explain, but Rogue is furiously angry and hurt; she morphs into Mystique herself and fights her.

"You only used me to break the X-Men," She shouted, though Mystique insists she only wanted to be near her, saying that if Rogue searches Mystique's own memories, she will see why.

"I don't know anything," Rogue shouted, while she transformed back into Rogue.

"Admit the truth, Rogue. I adopted you when you were four. Search your memories. You are my daughter. Rogue." Mystique tries to explain. Rogue is deeply distressed and confused. She refuses to listen and runs away.

She uses Kurt's power to get up onto a rooftop and conceal herself there, crying. She hears Wolverine's Harley Davidson and morphs back into Sabretooth.

As Wolverine rides past, Sabretooth/Rogue jumps off the roof and tackles him off his bike. She is looking for a fight, but Logan smells her, and says "Wait a minute, you are not Sabretooth?"

"Fight me," Rogue/Sabretooth shouted, while Wolverine refused to fight.

However, Scott, Kurt, and some of the new mutants arrive in the X-Van, and Scott doesn't listen to Logan's warning before he blasts Rogue/Sabretooth through another wall. Logan informs him that "Sabretooth" is really Rogue, and they enter the building to find her while the others wait outside.

Rogue shifts back into herself and struggles, "Logan, there's too many of them! No. No! No!" She cries out and holds her head as she gets flashes of Scott, finally morphing into him.

As Scott calls out to her, "Rogue, are you here, we are here to help you." But then Rogue saw the touching of Scott and turned into Scott herself.

"Hey bigshot, better help yourself," Rogue/Scott said as he fired his Optic beam on Scott.

She blasted him with his own power, and he surmised that it hurt more than he had thought. While Logan concluded that Rogue was shapeshifting, she shapeshifted into Avalanche and caused a shelf to topple onto Logan and Scott before shifting back into herself again.

"Help me!" Desperate and scared, she pleaded for their assistance.

"We will, just stay calm," Logan promised.

Scott says to her, "Yes, we're your friends."

Rogue gets flashes of Risty, "No, I have no friends." She morphs into Storm and throws the boys out onto the street as a lightning storm rages within the warehouse.

Lightning blasted the roof off the building, and Rogue flew up into the air, changing back into herself and simultaneously using Scott and Storm's powers. As the X-Jet came towards her, she threw it out of the air with Magneto's power.

Beast was knocked unconscious. Rogue continued tearing up the street and scattering the X-Men with Scott's power, and Storm got permission from Charles Xavier to intervene.

Jean used the telekinesis to stop her, but Rogue used Telekinesis to defeat her. Scott used Optic Beam, she returned it back with her thunder.

Kurt carries her away, but she returns alone and Kurt lands with a tumble on the ground. Storm joins Rogue in the sky and tries to take her down with a lightning bolt, but Rogue takes it and gives it back threefold, and Storm plummets to the ground, unconscious; she's saved just before hitting the ground by Jean.

"Everyone fall back, I can take the beating better than anyone can," Wolverine said, as he commanded Bobby to ice him up to Rogue's level. She is still struggling with the chaos in her head and hugs her knees in mid-air, giving Logan the opportunity to tackle her down.

They land on a car, Logan underneath, and Rogue produces several duplicates, ready to fight. Logan tries to talk her out; she uses Magneto's and Scott's powers on him respectively, sending him flying into the van.

Then she noticed Sharky coming toward them. The duplicates surrounded him, while he paused her on the ground with his time-stopping power, preventing her from using any of her own abilities. Then he used the Time Reverse Powers to recover everyone back.

Sharky then held her and hugged her, then he released the Time Pause; as he fell unconscious. Rogue looked scared when she noticed Sharky had once again fallen unconscious. She retracted the duplicates, crying out while hugging Sharky.

She screams, transforming into Cody Robbins, Nightcrawler, Quicksilver, Storm, Cyclops, Blob, Mystique, Risty Wilde, Shadowcat, Sabretooth, Avalanche, Arcade, Magneto, Jean Grey, Todd, Beast, and Juggernaut. All of them scream, gasp, or grunt in their own voices until Rogue finally morphs back into herself and collapses into Sharky's arms.

Logan demands of Xavier whether she's going to be okay, and Xavier, looking anguished, says that he doesn't know. The other X-Men approach and Logan carries Sharky and Rogue to the van. High above, on a rooftop, Mystique watches sadly.

A new day. Rogue is looking down at the unconscious Sharky in the infirmary. Logan is in a chair by her side, and Xavier is watching from outside the glass doors.

"It was all my fault; he just woke up a few days ago, but because of me, he's become unconscious again," she said while still holding onto Sharky.

"It's not your fault, Rogue, and Sharky will wake up in a few days. All of us are here to help him." Logan soothed her, noting that Sharky was still unconscious.

Rogue nodded, but she still cried. Just the previous day, they had been talking about it, and she planned to travel with him for one whole day. But then he had been confined to his bed.

Scott approached Xavier, "How long has Rogue and Logan been here?"

"Rogue hasn't left his side, although she is very fragile from having the personalities forced out of her; she still takes care of Sharky. While Logan stands there to take control of Rogue if she becomes unstable" Xavier explained the situation.

The limo pulls up outside the institute gates. Mystique and Destiny are once again in the backseat.

"What your vision tells me now Destiny," Mystique asked Destiny.

"An ancient mutant will rise to once again walk the Earth. Your faiths, both yours and Rogue's, are in his hands… " Destiny explained to Rogue.

Gambit breaks into Angel's house and steals an ancient relic. Angel sees Gambit thieving, and he chases him outside where Gambit meets up with Mesmero and hands him the relic.

Mesmero tries to leave with the relic, but Magneto shows up and traps him using iron fence rails. "You have a lot of courage to hypnotize one of my men to do stealing for you."

Mesmero has Gambit charge up some of his cards, but Magneto tightens the bars around him, crushing him, saying "Release the Gambit." Mesmero does and Magneto takes the relic from him, "I am going to find out if this was all worth it." He pulls up the ground under Mesmero and pulls him along behind as he leaves.

At the Institute, the X-kids play a game of Mutant ball. Angel shows up and breaks up the game, while saying, "I need to see Charles Xavier."

Angel identifies Mesmero as the one that blasted him. Xavier tells Angel about Mesmero, "He manipulated Jean into stealing the rings that formed the first key. And the Spiderstone is half of another key." He continued, "Now that Magneto is involved we have to find the other half of the key first."

At Magneto's base, Magneto is searching through Mesmero's mind to find answers, "The relic is one-half of the Spiderstone and that when these two pieces are combined they form a key to release the most powerful mutant of all time, En Sabah Nur." He found out.

Meanwhile, Magneto is furious that Colossus is not Mesmero able to escape, and with the piece of Spiderstone. He tells Colossus that they're going to London to stop Mesmero from getting the other half of the stone.

At the Institute, Rogue brings Sharky his dinner, he's still in the bed while he just wakes up for a few minutes. Kurt followed her. He tells her that Wolverine and Storm are out searching for their mother and that the others have gone to London.

She tells him that they aren't related, but Kurt says that they are and no matter what she's going through, he'll be there for her. Rogue ignored him, while she turned back towards Sharky.

In London, the X-Jet arrives at the museum. Xavier asked, "Cyclops go in the back and tell their stowaway that we've arrived." Cyclops fishes Iceman out of one of the storage compartments.

Magneto and The Acolytes head into the museum and take care of the security. While the X-Men and The Acolytes mix it up, Magneto finds Mesmero and traps him in an elevator compartment. Mesmero loses the Spiderstone and it's drawn to the other piece. When the two pieces meet and fit together they form a huge mystic spider.

Magneto tries his best to keep the spider from leaving the museum, but the spider is barely slowed down and drags Magneto behind it. Mesmero is able to break free and chuckles to himself when he sees Magneto struggling with the spider.

The spider bursts free from the museum and lands on some cars close to Xavier. Magneto tells, "Xavier, ask your crew to destroy the spider, no matter what it takes."

Xavier tries to reason, "We don't know enough about the spider to destroy it."

"I know enough, and that it is one key that won't unlock any doors." Magneto answered.

"X-Men, capture and protect the spider." Xavier answered differently to Magneto's demand.

Colossus, Sabretooth, and Pyro each take a turn at the spider, but it beats them to a pulp. Mesmero runs into Xavier as he's trying to escape. Xavier uses his telepathy to probe his mind and find out about Apocalypse. The X-Men get to the spider, but they have no luck stopping it.

It reaches a populated area and Gambit crashes into it with a double-decker bus. He climbs out and charges the bus with it still on top of the spider.

Angel flies over in time to see the huge explosion. The spider is slowed just long enough for Magneto to catch up to them. The X-Men and Xavier arrive to see Magneto trying to destroy the spider.

"Stop, don't destroy them," Xavier tells him. But Magneto replied, "I have to destroy the key." Using his full power, Magneto is just barely able to destroy the spider and the Spiderstone drops to the ground.

Xavier tells him, "You have done exactly what Mesmero wanted him to do, that the spider wasn't a key, but actually, a guardian created to prevent Apocalypse from escaping. Mesmero manipulated you the whole time knowing that you were the only one with enough power to destroy the guardian. Now with the spider gone, the Second Door will open."

Xavier continued, "If Mesmero is able to find the third key and release Apocalypse, their world is going to change forever." After giving the warning, the X-Men return back to their Academy.

On a cruise ship in the Caribbean, most guests enjoy a party, but Amara feels seasick and is accompanied by Tabitha. Scott and Jean consider a moment together but are interrupted by Kurt and Kitty.

Bobby tries to impress Tabitha and Amara but inadvertently forms an iceberg. Scott interrupts, startling Bobby, causing him to almost fall overboard

Scott rescues Bobby, who faces Scott's anger. Tabitha notices Amara's condition is not good, and shares it with Ororo, who decides to check on her.

During breakfast, Tabitha tries to prank a complaining lady, causing a fire. Jean uses her powers to stop the fire, revealing her mutant abilities. Chaos ensues, leading to the exposure of other mutants on board.

Later, the atmosphere turns hostile due to anti-mutant remarks, prompting Tabitha to join Amara, who's in a weakened state. As the ship docks at San Sebastian due to bad weather, Amara's condition worsens, and Tabitha, with Bobby's help, starts rowing towards the island in an ice canoe to get Amara the help she needs.

Amara, Bobby, Tabitha, Kitty, and Kurt, head to a hot spring to help Amara with her sickness. Amara, diving into the spring, discovers a fissure that starts to rumble. The water becomes too hot, and as they escape, Amara surfaces, warning of the danger.

As the tremors hit the town, the group uses their powers to help those affected by the chaos. The locals witness the kids' abilities and begin to see them as heroes, cheering for their help.

As the day comes to an end, the kids are invited to a party, but Amara feels downbeat, believing she caused the volcano's activity. Suddenly, the volcano rumbles, before they can react, the volcano erupts.

Fires break out in the town as rocks and ash scatter. The kids try to contain the lava. Amara realizes she's the only one who can stop the eruption and moves towards the crater. Storm arrives and attempts to stop her, but Amara, controlling the lava, falls into the crater during another explosion.

Storm fears for Amara's life but is surprised when Amara swims through the lava to shut down the volcano. The other kids find Storm alone, learning that Amara fell into the crater, leaving them in disbelief.

Amara miraculously rides a volcanic flare to reunite with the other kids, leaving them amazed. The islanders cheer the kids, and Storm, though pleased with the reception, remains concerned about their departure from the boat. Then they returned back to Xavier's Mansion.

At the unknown place, An unknown person breaks into the X-Men's files, specifically targeting Wolverine's data and triggering alarms. Escaping the guards, the intruder slides down the building and disappears into the sewers.

At the mansion, Wolverine conducts a tough exercise, causing dissatisfaction among the students. Bobby jokes about the exercise while others get trapped in a pit.

Two helicopters from S.H.I.E.L.D. arrive, prompting Wolverine to talk with Professor Xavier, who confronts him about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s suspicions regarding the break-in at their HQ. Eventually, Logan boards one of the helicopters at gunpoint, unable to explain the situation.

Nick Fury confronts Logan, showing him his company footage "See, someone break-in with Adamantium claws, and DNA samples match with you Logan."

Logan was confused, while Fury introduced him to a scientist, "She is Deborah Risman."

"I was working with Hydra and their attempt to replicate the Weapon X program that created Logan." Deborah Explained her past work.

"Are you mad?" Logan was angry at them.

Deborah didn't give him an answer, she continued, "We've succeeded with the 23rd attempt, using your DNA to create a warrior named X-23." She feels happy but also said while adding, "However, due to an error in the process, X-23 turned out to be a girl with emotional instability and hatred. X-23's uncontrolled powers raise concerns about the potential damage she could cause."

X-23, while spying on the X-Men during their exercises, is reminded of her harsh training program and the lack of love in her upbringing. She's troubled by her emotional and behavioral problems and experiences conflicting emotions while observing the camaraderie and care among the X-Men.

At S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, Deborah continued to explain to Logan about X-23's upbringing and her troubled past. She expresses her intention to correct her mistake by coming to S.H.I.E.L.D.

Meanwhile, X-23 lurks in the X-Men's institute and later knocks out Xavier in a surprise encounter.

Fury informs Logan that X-23 targeted the X-Men's files. Understanding that they are X-23's next targets, Logan decides to confront her. Fury, aware of X-23's capabilities, reluctantly gives Logan an hour to handle the situation.

Logan, appealing to X-23's sense of empathy, attempts to guide her through the confusion. X-23, amidst the overwhelming situation, begins to show signs of hesitation, feeling torn between her mission and Logan's unexpected connection.

This pivotal moment brings a temporary lull in the chaos, allowing Scott and Ray to catch their breath and regroup.

As the atmosphere grows tense, Logan cautiously approaches X-23, aiming to establish a connection by recounting their shared origin.

X-23 grapples with inner conflict, visibly affected by Logan's words. The X-Men hold their breath, hoping that this connection will lead to a positive resolution and end the mayhem.

It seems like the scenario describes an intense and heartfelt interaction between Logan and X-23, where Logan aims to connect with her, emphasizing their shared experiences.

X-23's emotional reaction shows her deep distress and confusion, leading to a moment of vulnerability. Finally, Logan manages to diffuse the situation, giving X-23 an opportunity to escape, showing a protective and understanding side to his character.

"Logan, we need the X-23," Nick Fury shouted, while coming towards him, seeing X-23 escape.

"Fury, she is a child, who needs love, not some experiment. She has the right to live," Logan confronts Nick Fury. Nick Fury, seeing the situation, returned back.

While Rogue updated everything to Sharky, about X-23. She was a little happy, because Sharky had woken up. Mostly she cared for him most of the time, while complaining about herself, she is the reason for his condition. And for that reason her mood was becoming unstable sometimes.