Chapter 122: Recoil

Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Gambit, Iceman, Collosus, more, more, more. Too many. Too young and old. Too good— too pure, for a world so violent.

They were dead.

But hope burned like the white fires of the wind-riders hair as they traveled to their home.

New-York.

They followed Bronte's lead. He followed his heart. It felt stronger than ever. Emboldened by the last words of a demon with a heart of gold. The touch of a woman of two worlds. She rode the winds with him, hand in hand. The others close behind. Storm held the dead in an ice coffin. A blue-glass block containing all the horrors they'd only barely survived. All the horrors the world wouldn't have to experience because of their actions.

They saved the world. But as he flew them from the ash and ember remains of Russia's open landscapes and desecrated small towns, it didn't feel that way.

It was in those moments that Ilyana's grip on his hands grew tighter. Hope's eyes pierced deeper. Like she was touching him in an entirely new way. Viewing him not as who he was, but who he'd become in her eyes. In her reality.

The city of heroes stood like a beacon in the distance. Glass and metal skyscrapers reflecting the mid-day rays of yellow sunlight. Pigeons in flocks flew beside them, borrowing his spinning winds. The sky was clear.

The fires were everywhere.

Cars lay in a wreck.

Streets and storefronts defamed.

Firebombs bloomed into bubbling red flowers of destruction. No pollen came. Only plumes of smoke and screams as rioters clashed with police and heroes with them all.

"No days off, I guess." Blade commented from behind Bronte.

"What's the problem now?" Mystique sniffled as they descended.

"I think it's quite obvious." Scarlet Witch replied. As they hovered only just above the damaged light poles and one story storefronts, she explained, with many eyes on them.

"They do this because of us."

"You freaks finally did it!" A man yelled as he stepped out of an alley with a gaping head wound and megaphone.

Brontë almost didn't hear him from the blaring sirens and other rioters cursing and hurling things at them. All splashing and shredding under scarlet witches shielding chaos magic.

"What?"

"What…. You destroy an entire nation, cause nuclear fallout and then act like you don't know! BASTARDS! You're all still playing like you're opressed as you hover over us like gods. I don't even know why I have this." The man pulled a gun out from his waistband and took fire at them.

Nobody flinched. Nobody moved at all— making their likening to gods seem all the more real. As if that was neccesary.

He stopped firing.

Brontë couldn't take his eyes off him.

Chaos calmed behind him.

No. Calm wasn't the right word.

It became focused. Fires still burned. Advantageous criminals ran with stolen goods and bleeding faces. Mothers screamed as they held their children close. They weren't calm. But they listened as Professor X spoke to them.

His omega level power held them. And it wasn't his ability to speak into their minds. It was how he could reach their hear—

The man aiming his gun at them turned it on himself and fired.

All of the living mutants holding their dead hopes— dreams, were unfazed by war and violence aimed at them. But as the man fell with blood and skull fragments leaking from his temples, they flinched.

At least some did.

And the chaos was never calming.

It was transforming. Rioters left store fronts and street signs to face the mutants.

Unifying. They stood shoulder to shoulder. Even a few heroes seemed softer on them. Like they agreed, while others tried to play both sides. Their words fell on deaf ears. Their words went up in smoke as the crowd morphed.

Emboldening into an aimed anti-mutant armament.

"GET THE HELL OUT!"

"We're done with you!"

"NO MORE MUTANTS!"

"Why do you guys get to destroy the planet and we have to pick up the pieces! Our politicians do that enough already! We don't need teenage gods doing it too!"

"You shouldn't exist! It's against gods will!"

"You'll kill us all!"

The vitriol blended into a cacophonous one note of pure hate. Hate driven by its greatest catalyst. The same catalyst as always. The one that turned hate into segregation. Into enslavement. Into genocide.

Fear. A beleivable scapegoat.

They saw a legion of hyper-powered beings hovering above them. Most looking completely inhuman. Morlocks and demon-queens and Demi-gods. The marks of a war barely won stained them all. They saw Bronte fly a nuke into a moon. They knew the nuke was meant for China. To them it looked like it was made by the mutants. Thanks to Daken. A Mutant.

For all intensive purposes, they were public enemy number one.

"What's new….. Truly… what is ever new in this world?" Prof X sighed. Voice dead and unnatural in Bronte's mind.

Now that, that made him flinch.

Spider-Man, Dare-devil, Iron-Fist and Sue Storm stood in front of the crowd. Their yells were going nowhere.

The frenzy was impenetrable.

Growing in all its rage.

People even yelled from inside their apartments, hanging out of the windows to unleash all their life's struggles and pain onto the biggest target the world had ever known.

It was horrifying.

"We saved your lives….." Gabbie said from beside Bronte. "My brothers are dead….. my other brother almost died….. saving all of you— and this…. This is how you feel?"

Bronte and Magik held Gabby.

Brontë held many things in those moments.

He was doing the math. Ever since he took the initiative and took down the Vampiric Generals and collapsed Daken's army from inside, he'd been doing the math. It was like the exposure to taking initiative in such a way made it impossible to ignore in every instance since then.

He had to be the one.

Cyclops was dead. So was Jean.

Prof. X had lost his greatest weapon. His vision.

Everyone was stunned. Bronte was as well but he was also elsewhere. He couldn't let the dark hilarity of it all penetrate him fully.

He was thinking. Empowered by the beings like himself looking to him for answers. Hands at his back. Hearts at his side. Riding his winds.

Wanda put a blood-red finger to his throat. She always knew when he was stepping in to lead. And in those moments she supported with a fiery intensity. Without hesitation. Hell, she's the reason they even won the war, if barely at that. It emboldened him. More than the crowd. More than his fears and encroaching hopelessness.

Chaos magic laced his vocal chords and red lightning danced in his white eyes.

"Do the actions of a few represent the many?" His voice boomed like thunder. Twisted and made disturbing by dark magics blending with him and Mend's own.

They wouldn't silence. Mob mentality made them superhumanely fearless. But they did listen. They couldn't not listen. He didn't expect a response but he pressed anyway. It's who he was.

"Let me know. Cause' if that's how y'all feel don't be surprised when people like me aim the same judgement at your police and the government—"

"You've already been doing that!" Someone yelled.

Bronte's eyes aimed down at the burly middle aged man and he flinched.

"Ask yourself why!" Bronte couldn't maintain full composure, "I watched my own blood become the villain you all wished him to be because of systems you support. We ain't supposed to be here right? Then that's entirely because YOU all participate in making it that way."

The crowd went into uproar.

"Nah nah— the actions of a few, remember? You see how it gets. Now you're all murderers, bigots, you radicalize my people because your kind turn them into science experiments and mercenaries for a paycheck. And the ones that don't look as pretty as you have to live underground like a bunch of trolls! I'll get up with all of you. I'll point fingers and press you right back." He yelled so loud the veins in his neck and face bulged. The crowd held their ears in pain.

Bronte calmed as Magik held him tighter. Gabbie cried as she hid behind his bulk.

"But that does nothing. I'm not a politician. I'm a hero. I don't give a god damn what y'all think. You know how I come. I have the power to save people, so I do it. I try to lead by example. But you don't want to be saved…. at least not right now. Not by us. My own need me more and I think it's obvious, if I tried to stay here….. in my home— where I was born, I wouldn't be able to save everyone that followed. I wouldn't be able to do my job. I'm the best at my job. I'm the best there is at what I do, and it's gonna be that no matter who's against me, so yea…. We'll leave. Y'all be careful what you wish for next time, though."

Nobody had to ask where they'd go.

All of Mutant kind now only had one home.

One nation for all.

All its heroes, rogues, mercenaries and villainous terrorists.

They'd flee.

In search of safety, advantageous excursions, something new, hope.

Krakoa was all they had left. Their place of solace in a world made all the more hateful.

Bronte could feel the weight growing on his shoulders every minute. He was no atlas but thanks to his dna he had infinite stamina. He'd need it.

The world was set to change.

And he was at the helm.