Iceman

Emotionally drained and with his morale shot to hell thanks to recent events, Iceman soon learns that life really does go on...

The incessant ringing of the phone was like an underlying echo in the back of his mind which had long lost it's meaning. What purpose it could possibly have in the scheme of the endless, blank void that had become his thoughts didn't register properly.

Above him, even the white, plaster ceiling seemed dreary. The unseasonable dark clouds outside cast a darkness into his room from the open blinds of the window over his bed.

Long had that fateful day passed, but still the words were burned into his mind like they had just come to pass. He couldn't escape the words; he couldn't escape the actions; and he couldn't escape the looming guilt.

"We're gonna fix it all... and we're gonna do it right now."

"Once you poke your heads out there, do you know what they might -- "

"Yeah, we do."

.....

"Then do it."

"Then do it."

"Then do it."

"Then do it."

"Then do it."

The words continued to echo on in the blank void of his thoughts, until his only escape was the ringing that continued on in the back of his head.

Reaching out tiredly, he felt around the night-stand until he finally came across the black cordless. He fondled it for a moment until he found the 'talk' button, pressing it with his thumb as he brought the phone to his ear.

"Hello?" Bobby Drake said with despondence in his voice as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, a howling of wind sounding outside his window.

{{ And finally the inconsiderate dolt answers after ring number fifty-six, }} came that ever-so temperamental voice that Bobby had become reacquainted with.

"Hi Cece," he groaned as he titled his head back into his pillow, closing his eyes for a moment and covering his brow with his bare forearm.

{{ I hope you know I'm up for review thanks to you, Drake, }} Cecilia Reyes said, the young doctor's disdain towards her former teammate in the X-Men evident. {{ This was meant to be my second chance at a normal life. }}

Silence.

"Hold up. You're blaming ME for your career politics?" Bobby sat up in the middle of his bed abruptly, suddenly in shock at her resentment. "What'd I have to do with anything?"

{{ Think about it, Drake, }} Cecilia said condescendingly, and for a moment Bobby thought that she actually believed that her words were justified. {{ Why couldn't you have just gone to another hospital? }}

"Uh, I kind of didn't have a choice which one I went to..." Bobby said in a swelling disgust, considering the possibility that this was all just coming from her odd sense of humor. though still somewhat confused as to where this is all coming from.

{{ Any hospital BUT mine would have done just as good, }} Cecilia continued to steamroll right over Bobby, as if nothing he said was even in the same language.

It was already time to go on the offensive.

"You know, you have a real problem with psychological rationalization and compensation," Bobby announced in his own condescending tone, hoping to catch her attention.

Which of course, he did.

{{ Don't go off on me about psychology, Drake! }} Cecilia snorted, throwing herself into a bit of a frenzy. {{ I am the doctor here, not you. }}

"You're also pretty self-absorbed, too," Bobby noted nonchalantly, scratching the back of his head as he looked around his room somewhat annoyed.

Something on the floor caught his eye.

{{ Me? What about you, Mister 'I just want a normal life without the hassles of --' }}

"What's that, Cece?" Bobby interrupted her as he reached down and picked up the piece of paper, crumpling it up near the receiver to imitate static. "You're breaking up."

{{ You... little... prick! }} Cecilia barked in repugnance. {{ I'm not even on a cell phone! }}

"Cece? Are you still there?" Bobby asked as if confused, continuing to crumple the paper around in his fingers. "Sorry, but I can't hear you! I'm gonna have to go."

{{ You better not hang -- }}

"Bye, Cece!" Bobby shouted over her voice once again before she could finish, and he clicked the 'talk' button on his phone, successfully hanging up on her.

Groaning as he collapsed back down into his bed, Bobby tossed the cordless in the air and let it fall harmlessly on the mattress. He hugged one of the sheets sprawled over his bed around himself and closed his eyes with a sigh.

"I sooo need new friends."

She sat at the rusted metal work bench near the back of the abandoned warehouse, tinkering eagerly at the small electronic device in hand. Cluttering the work bench was other pieces of stripped hardware and various tools to aid her construction.

Occasionally, the lithely built, pink skinned woman went by the name Sarah, but to the mutant world over, she's known as the mutant terrorist Marrow.

Since puberty, her fragile psyche was fractured more than anyone would ever know.

Forced to live disfigured among others like her, patches of bone began to uncontrollably grow out of her skin at an early age. One would think that was traumatizing enough for a young girl to experience in the tunnels under New York City.

They don't know the half of it.

As a child, she had run through the damp and cold tunnels when the invaders arrived, sobbing and crying as the people she knew as friends and family behind her were slaughtered.

The young girl had knew of no other option but to flee, even if something inside her told her it would be in vein. Even if the malignant laughter echoed through the tunnels from the mass murderers that had entered her home.

In her moment of terror she didn't notice the large, shadowy form in front of her and she ran straight into him as if he were a brick wall, being knocked down onto her bottom.

His cold and intense laughter sent a violent chill down her spine. Shuffling backwards in the murky tunnel water, she moved to get away but he reached forward in a flash, taking hold of her arm and flinging her back against one of the tunnel's walls, pinning her there.

"No! Please... unnhh... don't...!" she had cried out with tears exploding from her eyes and straining herself to exhaustion in the relentless struggle. "...don't...!"

There was the sound of a rip followed by her assailant's stifling laughter, and then came the unimaginable pain that seemed to tear away at her very insides.

"You're really a cute one compared to the rest of all them, y'know?" the invader had said while holding himself over her, his voice a raspy whisper. "We're down here to have fun with you misfits before we kill the whole lot of you... and fun it is we'll have."

Every time she had closed her eyes since that horrific and dreadful day, she could still remember that patronizing, wicked grin etched on the violator's face.

And when it was all said and done, she laid in the darkness of the tunnels... laid in the shambles of her innocence for an innumerable amount of time... until she felt another's hand reach down and touch her cheek gently.

"Shhh, petite.... Shhh..." a voice had ushered her. At first she flinched and hesitated, but when she glanced up, she saw two glowing red pupils stand out from the void surrounding her.

"Ev'thing's gonna be okay now," the warm and soothing voice continued as the man stroked her ragged hair. "No one's goin' to hurt you now, Sarah. It's over."

Never again did she want to experience what she had... Never again.

For a moment though, the heaving and shaking that had overcome her ceased. She would never understand why she did it, but Sarah sat herself up and lunged herself into him, and he wrapped his arms around her in kind, cradling her against his body.

"I know dis don't mean nothin' to you now, girl...." Remy LeBeau had told her, in-between quiet sobs himself. "But someday I want you to understand... I'm sorry."

Marrow clenched the screwdriver in her hand and closed her eyes tightly as the words they spoke and the sounds of their voices continued to haunt her until this very day.

Tears had broken through her closed eyelids, and a fire was slowly building inside her. Slowly, she took calm and silent breaths as she molded the feelings inside her into something else.

Finally, the torn woman opened her bloodshot eyes and looked down to what the devices she had been working on; the last of a dozen, pentagon angled mines.

Lifting it up in her hand and tossing the screwdriver aside on the work bench, she pressed the small button on it's edge and red lights began to flash at it's base.

With a heavy breath, Marrow placed it in a brown sack and stood from the desk with the sack in one hand and reached for a remote on the workbench with the other before she turned away, and headed for the warehouse's large exit doorway.

Soon everything taken away from her that day -- and everything forced upon her -- wouldn't matter anymore. The slate would be wiped clean, and the pain would be gone.

It would have to be gone.

On the outskirts of Salem Center lay an estate over hundreds of acres of land that once belonged to the legacy of a man with dream. His dream was a valiant and righteous one some might say, and even after his death it still remains so.

The estate's involvement in the man's surviving dream, however, is still left in question.

In fact, many questions have come to mind from the former students under the late Charles Xavier as of recently. And the answers to those questions have been believed to lay here at the estate, where it all began...

"You have a good day," the cabbie said tersely as he nodded to the young man who stepped outside of the yellow vehicle.

"Yeah," Bobby Drake, one of the original five students gathered by Professor Charles Xavier, replied in a curt manner, and he frowned as he looked over the dried up estate sitting before them both.

After a moment, he looked back to the cabbie, only to see that he and the vehicle had already started back up the access road into the city.

Shaking his head, Bobby turned back to the mansion grounds and snorted slightly as he muttered under his breath, "Right back at ya."

Without Storm around or a proper caretaker, the mansion's once lush green grass had begun to fade, and the orchard trees were sagging in a seemingly dim and hollow gray.

Looking back down to the closed entrance gate, Bobby grew even more curious and approached the call box, pressing a button. He tucked his hands in his pockets as a screen above the speaker promptly lit up and a glowing green helmet appeared.

{{ Welcome to the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. We are sorry to say that the school is currently closed to the public indefinitely. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause, and please vacate the premises immediately. }}

Bobby made a face as he looked over the monitor and speaker box located on the stone wall of the entrance gate. "What the hell is this?"

{{ Excuse me? }} the face on the monitor replied to his surprise, hunching it's animated helmet brows at him. Bobby noted that in the corner of the screen was the word 'Cerebro.'

"The school's never had an automated message before," Bobby stated as he looked up from the corner of the screen to the face displayed. "Let me in."

{{ I'm not authorized to do that, }} Cerebro replied.

"What?" Bobby said and threw out his hand as if to say whatever while he stood up on the tip of his toes to try and look over the gate as he yelled, "Hey, Scott! Open up!"

{{ Mr. Summers is not currently available. }}

"Hmph. Okay, so what? I spent the better half of my life here, Kitt. Let me in," Bobby said irritably as he looked around the stone block of the gate. He shrugged and looked back to Cerebro momentarily. "Besides, a lot of my stuff's still in there."

{{ Robert Drake, mutant alias Iceman, }} Cerebro stated as a file image of Bobby appeared on his screen, as well as a document of information regarding him. {{ You were one of the founding members of the X-Men, correct? }}

"Smart guy," Bobby rolled his eyes with a frown and raised his hand up to the small monitor and speaker, flicking it a couple of times.

{{ Please refrain from doing that,}} Cerebro said casually. {{ The Alpha team has been disbanded for a few weeks now, in case you didn't know. They're no longer needed here. }}

"It's a good thing I was never a member of the Alpha team then, huh?" Bobby said as he put his hands to his hips and looked past the gates to the mansion. "Hmm."

Walking away from the call box to the gates, he took hold onto the bars and started to climb up. Before he could reach the top though, a prompt surge of electricity exploded from the metal gates and through his body, repelling him to the concrete sidewalk.

{{ I wouldn't do that if I were you, }} Cerebro chimed in, purposely late.

"Thanks for the early warning," Bobby groaned through hacking coughs and wheezes as he started to sit up from the concrete, giving the call box a vulgar expression.

Rings of jagged ice abruptly exploded from Bobby's wrists as he threw his hands towards the gate, blasting a beam of ice into the metal bars.

To his surprise, instead of the gate turning brittle enough to break, electricity fedback from the gate's conductors through the beam of ice and knocked Bobby back down hard onto the concrete.

{{ Water conducts electricity, as does ice, Mr. Drake. }}

"Damnit!" Bobby shouted in a heated bout of frustration as he leapt to his feet, his hands reverting back to their normal form as he turned away and stomped his foot. "What the hell is this?!"

{{ You abandoned Professor Charles Xavier's dream, did you not, Mr. Drake? This is no longer the world you want to live in. You said it yourself. }}

"Oh, go stuff it," Bobby snorted as he turned away from the small glowing monitor displaying the hologram's face, placing his hands on his hips and shaking his head.

{{ Damnit, Jim, }} Cerebro declared in it's best imitation of Dr. Bones from Star Trek. {{ I'm... a hologram... not a pork rine. }}

Doing a double take, Bobby continued to shake his head as he turned back to the street and stepped off the curb before sitting himself down onto it. Defeated, he dropped his head to the side against his balled up fist and sighed.

It was almost time for him to go to work.

A small bowling alley that acted as one of the few sources of recreational fun in the city of Plankton, New Jersey, was the place where it would happen next.

The sounds of heavy balls rolling on down numerous sleek isles at a time and smashing into the wooden pins at the end of said isles was very common at the 88 Lanes' Bowling Alley, as was the laughter and enjoyment most visitors took in at nights like these.

Many of the cities in the state of New Jersey were small, suburban communities. Quiet and peaceful to some, dull and unmercifully boring to others.

To Tanya Redfield, it was where she spent most of her childhood, and upon return it would be her escape from the pressing life she had stumbled into in New York. A life of disappointment and failure that only one little girl was able to make up for...

Even here she was able to put the past behind her and enjoy herself in the insanely stupid, yet somehow refreshing, jokes and come-ons the uniformed man across the counter from her was making.

Eric Wright was a small time security guard/bouncer that was recently hired by the 88 Lanes management on a temporary basis to break up some of the fights that had been brewing between high school kids.

The security agency he worked for paid good and to Tanya, there was just something about the boy she had grown up with, and the man he had become today, that tickled her the right way.

Eric was real to her. The realest thing she had known in a long time...

And for a moment, her laughter ceased and she smiled bright enough to light up the entire bowling alley. Like her, the man in front of her hadn't caught the breaks most teenagers leaving high school had.

Neither of them had ended up getting through college, both for different reasons financial and personal alike, but somehow they had managed to get by and they were both enjoying what they had built for themselves.

Since high school, they had had crushes on one another that had never developed into anything more than a close friendship.

Now they were adults, though. Now it could be different...

After all they had been through in their lives, maybe they were mature enough to get past their fears of shattering a long time friendship with awkwardness and instability.

It was in that moment of consideration she reached out to touch his hand...

But their moment was interrupted by the violent explosions that consumed the bowling alley, and her hand would never reach his.

Flames errupted from all corners of the building, and numerous painful screams and cries of horror erupted all at once as chunks of the roof collapsed and fell atop innocents. The debris' weight crushing them, imprisoning them for the inevitable.

Tanya, the young blonde haired woman, moved quickly around the counter she was standing at and ducked down almost as if by a driving instinct, turning her back into the counter and immediately covering her head in a striking fear.

It was same the fear boiling in many Americans at that time. It was the fear that some form of terrorism would be hitting home, and she wasn't all that far off in her fears.

"Stay down, Tawny!" the voice of the man she had grown up with cracked as a form behind the blazes of fire covering the bowling alley suddenly appeared and caught his immediate attention.

Out of the flames came a bold standing woman dressed in a black, sleeveless body-suit with a small device at her waist, her most distinguishing features being her pink hair and skin, along with large bone growths sticking out from all sides of her body.

The security guard watched her as she took the small device at her waist and pressed a button on it, causing another violent explosion to shake the building and send debris in all directions. Without thinking, Eric ran towards her with everything he had.

Marrow cocked her head to the side, grinning sadistically as she took note of that one single security guard in the bowling alley as he charged towards her.

As he lifted his flashlight back and moved in to take a swing, Marrow's arm shot out and she ceased his wrist while his arm was in mid-swing. She fiercely twisted his arm into an awkward position, holding it in place while applying a wrenching pressure.

Eric Wright unexpectedly let out a painful screech, his hand falling limp and the flashlight in his grasp just sluggishly dangled there, useless.

His assailnt bent her arm at the elbow and drew her free hand back, preparing a well-placed strike as she held him there. Her bloodshot eyes established a cold and hard connection with his, taking pleasure in his fear-stricken panic.

"You're really a cute one compared to the rest of all them, y'know?"

Tanya stood up from behind the counter she had dived behind at the sound of Eric's cry, but she could only watch on in horror as the events unfolded.

Marrow's gloved palm shot forward and struck the center of the security guard's face, her pink fingers taking firm grasp of his face as she forced his head back, causing the daring man's neck to hyper-extend and crack underneath her strength.

"Flatscans," she snorted and released her grip on the man's head. With a light thud, his body collapsed at her side, sprawling out lifeless over the bowling alley's floor.

The lithe, pink skinned woman set her sights on her the other target she had in mind, hiding a grin on her face as she began taking informal steps towards Tanya Redfield.

"We're down here to have fun with you misfits before we kill the whole lot of you... and fun it is we'll have," the words echoed through Marrow's mind, overlapping the screams of terror coming from those around her.

She narrowed her eyes and her brow came up firm with a staggering breath out of the back of her throat. There was now a sudden rage consuming her that she just had to appease in the only way she knew how.

"Oh my God!" Tanya finally choked out as she began to slowly back away, but to the tortured soul in Sarah, the cry wasn't issued in the young blonde woman's voice at all.

"No! Please... don't...!"

The words had echoed through Marrow's mind, over and over again, each time growing more intense and feeding her psychosis.

A sickening crunch came with the tearing of flesh as Marrow ripped one of the protruding bones from her back, flipping it over and taking aim as her target took off from behind the counter, past fallen victims and into a run for the nearest exit.

But she wouldn't get far.

In fact, Tanya Redfield let out an agonizing yelp among many cries of pain as the bone-dagger tore through her right shoulder.

The cell phone in her hand was thrown loose from her grasp and across the sleek tiled floor as her shock-riddled body went crashing down hard and long from the exit doors that would be her salvation.

Marrow took advantage of the moment to pounce upon her intended prey, pulling the bone-dagger clear out of Tanya's shoulder and rolling the woman over onto her back.

Soon, her cries from the oncoming, personal and merciless assault the mutant terrorist was besieging upon her joined the chaos of screams and licking flames around her.

But on the main floor of the bowling alley, behind the flame-consumed rubble...

Tanya Redfield's cell phone would lay motionless, a faint and yellow glow illuminating it's screen. A glow illuminating the name of one man.

Bobby Drake.

FROSTBYTE

Got any chilling comments regarding this ish? Hazaah!

This last issue seemed to spark a lot of positive reviews and was seen as a strong comeback to the title after a six month hiatus. Personally, I'm glad, as I wasn't sure if the sort of dark realism I've begun to explore lately was touching base with anyone besides myself.

Also, I know some continuity may be in question in this ish here and even remixed a little, but please try not to think too much of it. Here's to hoping this issue gets the same response as last issue. Keep the e-mails and reviews coming guys, and thanks again.

-Cory Wiegel
June 22, 2003<