A Rumble of Frost chapter 23

February 16th 2001, British Royal Museum, 3:00 AM EDT

"So..."  I said slowly. "Does anyone else see the douchey looking guy in golden  armor glaring at us like he wants to flay us alive?" My team members all  nodded, and I sighed resignedly. "Yeah...I was afraid of that. I was  kind of hoping it was just me."

The blood red eyes scoured  us all, drilling into us like the man was hoping to see our souls. The  condescending sneer on his lips as he took us in wasn't really giving me  the impression that he was a warm and fuzzy person. I had to admit,  this wasn't what I pictured when I thought of Gilgamesh.

The  ancient kind took a long breath. "Time." He said derisively. "Another  treasure for me to hoard. Your reasons for waking me, mongrels? Are you  simply thieves? Or is it to be some favor of boon you wish to beseech?"  As he finished speaking, his eyes snapped to our resident redhead,  glaring her down. "You dare?"

We all looked at Jean, who  winced. "Ow." She said, holding her skull. "I can't see his mind.  It's...protected, somehow." When she saw us all staring she flushed a  bit. "Sorry, it's kind of my go to reaction to meeting powerful unknown  entities" She turned to look at Logan. "Don't suppose you know this  guy?"

The hairy man actually looked a little offended.  "Being older than I look doesn't make me prehistoric. I wasn't around in  ancient sumeria, red." Jean giggled a bit at the reaction, and I saw  Scott scowl at the exchange. Maybe he did know his girl was getting her  milkshake blended by Logan. Or maybe he was just a possessive dick who  pined after a girl who barely noticed him and got pissy when she  interacted with any other man. Based on my interactions with him I was  leaning toward the latter.

"Um, guys?" Said Kitty  hesitantly. "I don't think we should be ignoring the ancient hero king.  He doesn't seem amused." At her worried tone, I looked up to see  Gilgamesh stepping from his stone sarcophagus.

Deciding to  take charge, I stepped forward myself, drawing his attention. "Alright,  Jean, no more trying to mind read our new friend. Everyone else, shut  up and let me talk.  Especially Scott."

"I didn't even SAY anything." Protested the glasses wearing dick hotly.

"No,  but I really don't like your face. So shut up on general principle."  Ororo snickered at that, but I ignored her to focus on Gilgamesh. "So,  Gil. Can I call you Gil? We're here about an artifact that you had in  your possession quite some time ago. One you decided to get rid of for  some reason. We didn't know you were here, and didn't mean to try to  wake you up. We just kind of needed more information about the Zodiac  Key."

His eyes flashed, and a series of portals opened  around him, what looked like lances and swords slowly easing out of  them, aimed directly at us in a way that couldn't be seen as anything  but a naked threat. "Know your place, mongrel. You speak to the king of  heroes. Show me respect, or I'll carve it into your cooling corpse."

I  twitched, annoyed. This guy wasn't exactly likable. I wanted to punch  him even more than Scott. However I ALSO didn't want to get me and  everyone I brought with me riddled with what looked like very sharp and  based on some of the glows, possibly magical weapons. "Apologies." I  grunted out. "Your majesty." That last bit kind of hurt to say, but it  hurt less than a spear the size of my leg to the gut, so I swallowed my  pride.

The golden asshole preened. "It seems even the  dregs can be taught. I recognize your untruth, but knowing your place is  more important than sincerity. As for your purpose...you seek no  information, you seek the astrolable. You wish to follow the map to the  vault that key unlocks." He clicked his tongue. "Fools. You seek to  unearth that which should stay buried."

"What, exactly."  Said Peter, eyes boring into Gilgamesh intensely. The crimson irises  flickered over to my friend, who repeated himself. "What should stay  buried? What are we seeking to unearth? Because you seem pretty much  unruffled by us, and some of us are scary. Now maybe you can't tell how  strong we are, but anything as old as you probably has some tricks for  sensing danger. So what made you decide to give up the key and hide in a  stone box for however many decades?"

A dozen new portals  formed, more weapons emerging, and they all angled at Peter menacingly.  "I do NOT hide." Snarled the enraged king. "I simply...wait. Prudence is  not cowardice. Should he awaken, I could destroy him myself. But not  without cost. So I chose to lie in wait. To bide my time until another  answer became apparent."

"Wait." I said slowly. "So the  key was...bait? You were dangling it out into the world to try to find  someone who could beat this...whoever he is? That's stupid. How would  you even know the people who came were strong. It's not like you  arranged a te-" I stopped, sighing and pinching the bridge of my nose.  "We have to fight you for the astrolable, don't we?"

The  king of heroes smiled, for the first time since I'd met him. It wasn't a  pleasant smile. There was no joy or warmth. Only a dark, violent  amusement. "Not at all, mongrel. Were I searching for one who could  unseat me I would have been sealed for eons. No, you need not defeat me.  You need only survive." His eyes shone, and the dozen or two portals  became a fucking thousand of the things. "Of course, that would be more  than the last few searchers managed."

He  flicked his hand casually and a fucking WATERFALL of razor sharp  weapons came roaring toward us. Without thinking I punched the air,  smashing the space in front of us in one of the largest expressions of  energy I could safely manage.

As  the dozen or two weapons bounced off the broken space, the rest were  driven back by a massive wind vortex on one side and a burst or  telekinetic force on the other, as Jean and Ororo deflected the attack  outside my radius. As the weapons fell away, they dissolved into a  shower of red sparks, and I saw the same exact weapons begin to slowly  ease out of the portals.

"Logan,  get Spidey, Cat, and Kitty out of here." I paused. "I guess Scott too,  but don't like...put yourself out or anything." A squawk of affront came  from the glasses douche, but since I was busy and also who cared, I  ignored him. The space I'd broken, which had been a stable shield for a  while, broke down, and a burst of powerful shockwaves roared across the  chamber at Gilgamesh.

Deciding  discretion was the better part of not demolishing a national landmark, I  just said. "Fuck it, I got this." And snatched up Felicia and Ororo,  getting squeaks of surprise from both girls as I barreled out of the  building while Gil was distracted.

Peter,  being faster than me, grabbed Kitty and booked it himself, and Jean  snagged Scott and Logan, much to my disappointment. I heard Gil roar  with outrage, until Ororo tossed a fucking lightning storm over my  shoulder at him, slowing him down.

Once  we got outside, I could see the portals glowing from within the  building. Lots of them. He was coming at us for another pass and our  asses were grass if we just kept defending. Somehow this was costing him  almost no energy, and Ororo, Jean, and I had used a ton of power from  what I could tell.

Dropping  the girls in the grass across the street as I stopped I stripped off my  jacket, planting my feet as I turned to face the building. "Ororo, I  need a funnel cloud around that place. Impassible winds. Kitty, you work  with Jean to get the guards out, go in through the ground. Do them one  at a time if you need to. I might be able to drop this asshole, but it's  going to be heavy on collateral damage."

Ororo  nodded, and her eyes began to glow as the winds picked up around the  building. Jean and Kitty broke off to one side. Peter stepped up next  time as I started to gather energy. This was going to be EXTREMELY  difficult. It was more energy than I could safely use, and while I was  willing to let the fallout be what it was, I'd still need to CONTAIN  enough energy and then shape it.

"This  is going to be a big deal isn't it?" Peter said in a hushed tone. He's  waited a few minutes to talk, letting me do my thing for a while before  chiming in. I nodded tightly, not daring to waste enough concentration  to speak. This move was something I'd never used before. I'd come up  with it, trained it on a smaller scale, but it caused way too much  destruction for me to use it any circumstances that weren't life or  death, even proper training. He crossed his arms. "Alright. I'm with  you. Do what you need to do."

I  must have looked surprised, even with my focus, because he chuckled.  "Look, Billy. You might not be the most careful guy, but I trust you.  It's clear that you thought about this enough to have the girls get the  civilians out. So if you think you need to do this, then do it. I'm with  you all the way." The hypocenters around my hands had been growing  brighter. Not bigger, but brighter, and the I felt the energy in them  start to destabilize, little sparks and skips of power coming off the  orbs.

Clamping  down on them with my will, I forced the energy to solidify. This wasn't  anything I could do mid fight, not really. But with time to work I had  the inner strength to tame much more of my power than I was capable of  safely using on the fly. Combined with this being a matter of most of  the damage being unleashed AFTER I used the attack, it was enough for me  to do it. I was getting close.

Jean  and Kitty sprinted over. "Alright." They panted. "We got them out.  There were only a few people inside. Whatever you're going to do, do it  now, because that tornado is looking like a pincushion." She pointed and  I noticed the spears and swords trying and failing to break through the  vortex.

"Rory!"  I bellowed. "Wait until the next barrage and then cut the wind. I've  got it from here." She called back an affirmative, and I waited, holding  onto more power than I could have imagined using this morning. After a  second the wind began to die down, vanishing as quickly as it came.

I  glanced at the museum. A row of columned stone buildings, this would be  easier because I knew that there was no one inside and the damage would  be localized. I smashed both hands forward, shattering the space, but  rather than punching, my hands were open.

As  the power cracked the air, I curled my fingers in the shattered world,  and with all my strength, dragged one up, and one down, making a  circular motion. As I did, I released all my energy, and the vibrations  tore through the world, half in one direction, half in the other.

The  massive shift in energy in that pattern did exactly what I'd wanted it  to do. It tore up an entire fucking building and the ground underneath  it, and dropped the whole son of a bitch on the museum hall we'd all  just come out of, where Gil was currently waiting. I knew because he'd  come to the door to try to get a better view to attack the vortex.

I  locked eyes with him as the building smashed down, a massive football  field sized sheet of earth crashing into the museum and flattening the  whole fucking place like a pancake. I dropped to my knees as the  aftershocks rippled through the earth, too exhausted to stand. Felicia  was at my side in an instant, Peter joining her as they tried to help me  sit down. At five hundred pounds my kitten didn't have the muscle to  hold me up.

"Holy  shit." Said Kitty, with muted awe. "That was...that was insane. I've  never seen anyone do anything like that. You completely destroyed him."

"That."  Said a clipped, familiar, very annoying voice. "Is a tad optimistic."  We all turned to see Gil, sitting in some kind of weird golden ship  throne, head on his palm, smiling down at me with interest. "But I'd say  you passed the test at least." He glanced at the utter devastation I'd  unleashed. "I admit your attack capabilities are...adequate."

As  we stared in stunned horror at our enemy, completely fine, he smiled  and a portal opened over his hand. A small, intricate, golden clockwork  device dropped into his palm, and he tossed it carelessly at us, only  for Peter to dive for the thing. The astrolabe, I would assume.

I  wanted to call him an asshole, to yell and scream, but I couldn't beat  him, especially not like this. And he WAS giving us what we wanted.  Well, almost. We didn't have the twins, but we had what they wanted, and  we hadn't been quiet about getting it, they would come for it soon.  Which only left the question of what the fuck IT was.

"What  does this lead to?" I said seriously, pointing to the astrolabe. "You  said it would unearth someone. Someone powerful. Someone even you  acknowledged. Who? At least tell us that," The throne had begun to rise  into the air, but it stopped at my question, already oriented to shoot  off into the night.

Without  looking back at me, Gil sighed. "I suppose a showing like that earned  at least some degree of reward. You might be a mongrel, but you're a  powerful mongrel. You'll be useful when he arises, as I know he  eventually will. Fine. You ask his name, I do not know it. Have never.  He predates me, predates the gods, predates this world perhaps. He has  slept for generations, and lived for eons."

"Ok." I said frustratedly. "But that means nothing if we don't know what to call him."

He  smiled. "But you do. His name is lost, but they do have a word to  describe him. It was used in ancient times, to speak of his coming, and  struck such fear and horror into those who heard it that through the  millennia it became synonymous with death and destruction on a scale  that ends the very world. A being so horrible that they identify his  very existence as the end of times. They called him...Apocalypse."