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djinmer4 · 6 years

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The Advent of the Herald (Lovecraft!AU)

Sunday morning and it says something about the X-Men that some of them don’t even bother waking up at the explosion that knocks the front wall of manor all the way back into the central dining hall and kitchen. A decent line-up of senior members (Hank, ‘Ro, Summers, Jean, Bobby, and Kitty) are out in front in their uniforms ready to confront the floating, blonde woman who’s blasted their front door.

Everyone else slowly wakes up and gets dressed, confident in their seniors' ability to deal with the problem.

Cyclops steps up for the confrontation. “Who are you and why are you attacking the X-Men?”

She stares down her nose in cool contempt at him. “I am Jimaine Szardos, once and future Herald of Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos. I’m here to challenge the little guttersnipe who thinks to claim my position and show them just how foolish they are. Now, bring out this arrogant magic-user and I will spare the rest of you my wrath.”

“We’ve heard of the Crawling Chaos before, but I assure you that no one here would serve him willingly.” Scott’s hand was up by his visor, ready to fire the moment Jimaine made a move towards the school. “Are you sure you're not mistaken?”

“I’m the greatest sorceress on this plane. And you dare say I could make a mistake? For your insolence, I’ll kill every one of you until I’ve hunted down the thief who thought they could take my position. My power! My immortality!” Fireballs appeared around her and headed towards the X-Men.

“Attack now!” commanded Scott, firing his beams towards the sorceress, who teleported away. The rest of them moved, Storm and Jean rising up to confront her, while Iceman created a protective wall in front of the school.

Just as the fireballs touched down, they fizzled out and died. Around them, shadows grew and darkened and shifted around until a jet black circle filled the area where the parlor used to be. “Jimaine, Jimaine, Jimaine. How very disappointed I am in you.” A strange, gravelly, echoing voice filled the air, speaking more to their minds than their ears. “You seem to be working under the misapprehension that you can command me to do your bidding when really our relationship goes the other way around.”

The blonde woman cowered, afraid of the giant, abyssal figure pulling itself from the shadows. “No, I, I only meant to regain your favor-”

“By attacking my other toys? Poor form indeed sorceress. I was content to ignore you earlier, but now you’ve piqued my annoyance.” The blonde abruptly fell out of the air, to be caught in tendrils of darkness. “Allow me to deal with this insect, Cyclops.” A grin split the featureless head, pulling apart wet skin to reveal sharklike teeth and a tongue longer and thicker than a man’s forearm. “Only fair that I take responsibility for this errant minion.”

Scott did one of the bravest things they had ever seen. He stepped right up to the abomination and told it, “Not in front of the students.”

He received a pat on the head from a giant clawed hand. “How very conscientious of you. I’ll go to that grove over there.” More tendrils came out and bound the thrashing woman, covering her mouth to prevent her from screaming. It loped into the woods surrounding the manor, a predatory stalk that ate up distance (and any desire to follow it as well).

When evening came, Kitty followed the creature’s trail. She hadn’t wanted to be the one to check on it but had drawn the short straw. She just hoped this wouldn’t be her last mission as an X-Woman.

Black slime and mutated flora guided her into an irregular clearing. There she found the creature and Jimaine. The woman’s body had been butchered, limbs torn away, the back of her skull bashed open, her the organs of her abdomen exposed to the night air. Worst was her face, which appeared to have been melted off her head. Even so, the corpse continued to thrash around and a muted keening filled the air.

Kitty swallowed down her gorge and stepped forward, drawing the creature’s attention to herself. Or some of its attention. One tentacle continued to hold up Jimaine’s femur, allowing the over-sized tongue to suck at the marrow. Another held up her face, carefully spreading the skin into a masklike form. But two glowing spots moved around the head (?) yellow and red shifting from looking at the mask to align with her face.

“Ah, my new Herald. Would you like to join me for a meal?” One hand reached into the broken rib cage and pulled out the heart free with a snap. The heart was held out to her, like some obscene, bloody, beating apple.

“Ah, no thanks, I just ate.” She wanted to avoid throwing up. The creature shrugged and stuffed the heart into its maw. “Besides, I’m not sure I want to be your herald. The retirement package,” she gestured to the twitching, mewling torso. “-seems a trifle lacking.”

“She didn’t retire, she was fired.” Another grab at Jimaine’s entrera. “Why wouldn’t you want to be my Herald? It grants you immense magical power, regenerative capabilities, an understanding of the cosmos unmatched by mortals and extends your life a thousandfold. All you have to do is follow my commands a few times a year.”

“I’m not into murder.”

“Noted. I won’t ask you to kill anyone. There are always thousands of beings willing to gain a drop of power in return for a few favors.” IT slurped at the last of the marrow, then reached for the other femur.

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to leave the X-Men alone in return for me doing you a favor?”

“Of course not. Why would I choose to ignore the best entertainment your planet’s produced in half a century? None of you have anything worth offering to get me to leave you alone.”

Well, that answered most of her questions. “So there’s nothing we can do to make you go away?”

“Nothing.”

“Even if we disbanded?”

IT paused and IT’s grin got even wider. “Now that sounds fun! I could watch you all scurry around the globe and interact with even more humans. If anything, that would be even more interesting!”

Her shoulders slumped. “I’ll convey your statements to Mr. Summers.”

A clawed hand waved her away cheerily. “Just call on me if you need any help. You’re my herald. I can hear you anywhere.”

Kitty walked back to the mansion, careful to walk around the ruins of the front courtyard. When she got to Scott’s office, she relayed what the creature had said to her.

“So dissolving the X-Men and sending the students to Frost or Braddock wouldn’t help?” he mused.

“Probably not. He’s already affecting them.” Kitty had a brain flash. “We might want to encourage new students to go there instead though. If he hasn’t observed them yet, he probably won’t notice or change them.”

“We need a name for this thing,” griped Hank. “We can’t keep referring to IT and I don’t want to use that name, Nyarlathotep. Sounds too respectful.”

“What did Yana and Jimaine call him? The Crawling Chaos? Something based on that.”

Rogue was the one who finally tossed out a suggestion. “What about Nightcrawler?”

“Isn’t a nightcrawler an earthworm?” asked Bobby.

“Similar to his real title, descriptive of his appearance, but mundane and unlikely to cause panic among the students. Nightcrawler. I like it.” Scott took a vote. “Does anyone have another idea?”

There were no objections or suggestions.

“Then Nightcrawler it is.”

#lovecraft #X-men #Jimaine Szardos

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