will1@earthling.net Mapping the Thanatoic by Phil Hartman DISCLAIMER: They're all Marvel's, except for any mentions of my OCs. It's all fiction. No money is being made off of this. Etc. NOTE: The end of my Betsy arc - but never fear, she WILL return. She's got me wrapped around her finger ... I just need to shift gears in the overall timeline and investigate a certain Pandora's box Ms. Braddock opened a few stories ago - the tale of the only known human son of Cyclops and Jean Grey-Summers ;) NOTE 2: AU; also, graphic imagery, disturbing subtexts, language, violence, and my take on the origin of Vargas. ------------------------------------ 7/18/06: ------------------------------------ He was running. Rodrigo was running through a field of poppies. He was small, again, and the clouds were high and thin. It was sunny. He was happy. It was how he knew it was a dream, because peace and happiness were rarely connected to his adulthood. It took the adrenaline rush of a fight, the light fading from an opponent's eyes, to make him happy as an adult. There was something sad, in that, his adult self thought. The clouds thickened, and Rodrigo lost himself in his boyhood. He watched the butterflies, instead. There - there was a funny purple one, almost more like a moth with how feathery its wings were. Its wings had spots like eyes - to fool birds and other predators, his tutors had told him. The butterfly lighted on Rodrigo's extended fingers, and walked a bit on his hand. He laughed, gently, and waved it off; it tickled. But the butterfly flittered nearby, and Rodrigo watched it. The shade of purple was so unique. Almost like - - no. That was the adult Rodrigo's memory. That did not belong here. Even as much as he enjoyed the Hunt - always capital H, he remembered, such a sacred duty was to be sanctified, and sealed in blood. Such rituals did not belong here. In dreams, he could be small again. He could lay aside the leathers and the greatsword, and the Hunt. His family had been hunters for the Spanish courts since before the time of the Moors. Other daring souls could keep their honor by fighting bulls; his family hunted more dangerous prey. He was the fittest of the Species, was he not? He had to be. "Rodrigo?! Rodrigo, come here!" Papa. Not angry - he was so rarely angry, and even as a small boy, Rodrigo had sought to honor his Papa. He ran, on short legs, and smiled when his father Julio stood before a straw-filled dummy. He held La Muerta - a rather overwrought name for a greatsword, Aunt Lucia had once teased before Christmas Mass. She had not laughed after she had entered Papa's drawing room. She rarely laughed anymore. It was a sad truth of their family - laughter was rare among the daughters of the family, after a certain age. Few stayed on the estate, and marriage was seen more as a duty than a romance by the sons. "It is time you started learning, Rodrigo. You are a dutiful son - you do your chores, you do well in school. But you are meant for more than running the estate or becoming a businessman. You are special - different from Felipe or Paolo," Julio said, letting the boy take the greatsword. Rodrigo struggled to hold the sword, but he wobbled with its weight. His father laughed - not cruelly, Rodrigo knew - but the boy focused. He would prove himself worthy of La Muerta, even as he didn't quite know where she would take him. But Rodrigo Gregorio Vargas de la Juarez would follow. Now, if he could just deal with that pesky BUTTERFLY - -------------------------------------------- It was night. Madrid - the tourist's quarter, with the dark back alleys and seedy dens. He was almost a man - 17, if he remembered. His blood ran hot, with anticipation - #Control yourself,# Vargas reminded himself. #The huntsman who rushes in puts himself at risk needlessly.# He stepped from the shadows, La Muerta at attention, and darted toward the graft-corrupted minor bank official he'd been hired to dispatch. "IDIOT! A sword against this!?" the official - a mousy little man, sneering, with an askew tie - spat, pulling a gun from his jacket. Vargas dodged the first few bullets - Felipe and Paolo had always begrudged him his unearthly speed - - but he coughed when the fourth hit him square in the chest. Blood - his. The prey had struck well. And he didn't seem to be embracing the great darkness. "Interesting. You have fought well, Senor Balais. Now it ends," Vargas said - no cough, no froth of blood. He swung La Muerta, ending Balais' horrified scream. Rain started to fall as Vargas took his proof of the completed job, but he couldn't help but notice something ... odd. The butterfly - the SAME butterfly - flitted by, stained with a few drops of Balais' blood. And the eyes on its wings seemed to be crying, from the way the drops had spattered. #Mourn for us both, dear butterfly,# Vargas thought, looking left and right before he vomited. He wasn't sure if it was from his strangely-healing gunshot wound or the sight of Balais' body. ------------------------------------------- "Drugs." "That had better not be a slander, Doctor Valenza," Vargas - now in his 20s - snarled, bare-chested, from the medlab table. Valenza was a "supraphysician," with knowledge of the odd beings whose adventures were splashed in the papers. Vargas would have disdained the academic, were it not for his father's long-ago admonition that the body is only the hunter's shell. "Respect the talking, thin ones, Rodrigo. Their weaknesses are merely surface flaws. The mind is the greatest weapon we have, and professors, doctors and scientists are the whetstones which sharpen it," Julio had advised his eldest son. So, Vargas held back another retort - and the desire to strangle the balding, fat doctor. "It's no slander, Senor Vargas. Your ancestors changed their own genetic code through the use of drugs you and I can't even imagine. This wasn't random mutation, either - I would guess they knew of ancient, steroid-like substances which would pass along enhanced physical changes through selective genetic alteration. Consider it a less refined version of breeding prize bulls," Valenza said, smiling as Vargas sat up. "Then I am ... something new. Not a freak, like those 'X-Men,' or that animal Magneto. I am a warrior, born," Vargas pondered. "I would call you a true homo sapiens superior. You are still human - but a honed and perfected human," Valenza agreed. "Your tendons are closer to steel than flesh. Your muscle density is far better than average. Your healing abilities are almost superhuman - at the very least, boosted. Your reflexes are astonishing." Vargas smiled at that; the doctor may be annoying, but he was speaking from respect. That was good; a Vargas deserved such talk. #But I must never let myself become soft. I am a warrior, not a dandy,# Vargas thought as he sat up. "Gracias, doctor. I am ... reassured, that I am not a mutant abomination," Vargas said, pulling on his shirt. "And I know what I must do next." He left Valenza's office, sparing the man's life; if Valenza had not recognized the need for keeping confidences, Vargas would not have bothered going to him. And there was no honor in fighting weaker prey. #These 'mutants,' on the other hand ...# Vargas put his coat on, glancing at the flowers in a planter outside of Valenza's building. And he raised an eyebrow as a purple butterfly flitted past. ------------------------------------------ She was far better than he'd thought. Her weapon was her very mind; her body, honed to a razor's edge. Her reflexes were almost a match for his. But he was faster. He *had* to be - - ah. La Muerta found purchase. Below the sternum. A quick kill, and Vargas tossed Psylocke's body aside. But there was one more thing. #Respect for a fallen enemy,# he thought, running a finger along La Muerta's blade and coating the tip with blood. He ignored the strange, broken blue-furred man who crawled to cradle Psylocke, and wrote "Pronto" on the wall. The Beast had been brave, but not a worthy foe, and the woman with the strange brown and white hair he'd first fought lay unconscious across the room of Action Force's base. That "Rogue" had lacked any enhanced physical traits. She had attacked him with blue energy. He had ignored her power - magnetism, he thought, noticing that La Muerta had wobbled in his hands but not flown free - and had spared her, hitting her in the stomach with the greatsword's pommel. #She is dangerous, but not worthy of killing. This Psylocke, however - she was a true foe. Let them keep her body, however ... I have taken her blood. That is enough,# Vargas thought, slipping through a service tunnel. But it didn't lead to the surface. And the butterfly was back. And it was ... larger. "You are a dream creature. I am master of my mind and body. I banish you, strange guide!" Vargas barked, raising La Muerta. He spat a low, soft curse and dropped the oversized - PARROT? - he found in his hands, as the tunnel vanished. ~Master of your body, yes. Of your mind? You are keen in your thoughts, Senor Vargas. But I have ever been familiar with the mind,~ the butterfly "said." In a familiar voice. TOO familiar, Vargas realized - - and then a blade of purple struck HIM - -------------------------------------- He awoke, gasping. And tried to sit up. And couldn't - The moonlight let Vargas see where the Thais twins lay by his door, still clothed and holding their weapons. The drool from the corners of their mouths made his heart freeze. "Relax. I didn't do anything permanent to *them.* They'll sleep until Action Force arrives," the voice - British, cold, as cold as a Pyrinees night - rang from the shadows. "What *have* you done, to me, then?" Vargas asked - fight the fear, try to move, ANYTHING - "Taken your body from you. Your autonomic nervous system will continue to function. I am no murderess. But you will never again perform another abominable 'Hunt.' You will die, honorless, alone, years from now - in prison. Your 'trophy room' will assure that," the voice said, ice dripping from each word. "You were no telepath," Vargas hissed - he would show no fear - And then the butterfly loomed over him, its "eyes" piercing his soul - or what he believed was a soul - - and he feared. ~I was ever first a telepath ... Rodrigo. The telekinetic you slew was a diversion. A sideroad, of sorts. Much as you see mutants,~ the butterfly snarled, its voice growing warmer - hot, with unleashed rage. ~But YOU are the abomination. The evolutionary sport. Did your father fail to research those drugs your ancestors took? That they were derivatives of the ones used by the first Assassins, back during the days of the Ottoman Empire? You're the failed experiment, Hunter.~ "You cannot LEAVE me like this - I will be FREE!" Vargas raged - he could move a *bit* - ~To what? Kill more innocents? The techs at Action Force headquarters were no prey. You did that as bait for us. That was no honorable Hunt, Vargas. You stooped to murder - petty thuggery,~ the butterfly spat. ~Rot in your own hell.~ And with that, the woman Vargas knew only as Psylocke was gone. #A cripple - the last Vargas, unmanned -# Felipe had died from too many women; Paolo, from the white powder from Columbia. They had been the weak ones. #I refuse this,# Vargas thought, looking upward. La Muerta hung over his headboard. If it was jostled loose, it would swing. Vargas gave one mighty shove against the headboard. He hoped there would be no butterflies. ------------------------------------- the end ... for now. -------------------------------------