X-Men 1st Redemptions

67: X-ternally Bound-2

"All right, dat is de last straw," Gambit said. "You ain't going dat far. Gambit won't allow it."

"Who said you got a say in it?" Shine said. "Look, what use it defeating the External if no one sees it? They'll go out and summon her again, and it might work. I want them to have the Fear of God."

"Dey be more like to kill you for taking away deir power," Gambit said. "You don't understand."

"What don't I understand?" Shine finally lost her patience with him. "That cults thrive off of power like plants thrive off of soil? That they fight and kill for it like drug addicts will kill for a another dosage or the money to buy it with? That they hate each other because they are in competition for it, and that the External, like all false deities, thrives off of tension and hatred and fear and lives off of that worship like bread and water? That outsiders are mistreated, and that people who try to leave are branded for life by this experience and never really are cut off from it? Family Ties run too deep, and the nightmares never stop. Is that what I do not understand?"

Gambit blinked at her. 

"What was that?" Mystique asked.

"My father was in a cult," Shine said. "And so was my uncle...many years. I heard the stories.  I've been around groups much like cults, and I was almost killed by several on the last missions we were on. It was horrid enough." She crossed her arms. "And you have to cut them out by the roots. There is no other way to end it, or they just keep drawing in new suckers. The cycle never ends. Isn't that the way of it? Now, we will not walk into this Bayou, show off a little to this External thing, and then walk out like nothing happened and leave these poor fools in bondage to  their little charade. They will have their chance to break free, and you had better darn well not stand in our way. Is that clear?"

"Dang..." Rogue muttered.

Logan was grinning. "Let's go find 'em. I can't wait to see the looks on their faces."

"But..." Gambit was losing his ability to argue. "If you know all dat, den you know what else."

"I know that human sacrifice is basically a part of this whole thing," Shine said. "Though you may call it something else to hide how grotesque it is--they always do... It's appeasing the gods, isn't it?"

She pretty much nailed it, though no one said "gods".

"This begins to sound familiar to me again," Storm said. "I see we have run in similar circles. "Well, lead the way." She gestured. "Let us go see if these people will be freed."

"This is serious." Kurt was clutching his smaller Bible to his chest. "I have never seen such a thing... My only experience vith the occult vas a fortune teller at the circus, and I didn't like going in there at all. The first time it vas too uncanny."

"Oh, you should never go to those," Shine said. "And you ought to repent if you have. Knowledge from people like that always has a price."

"You are right about that," Kurt said. "I never heard that it made anyone happier."

"Only mutants can tell the future," Mystique commented. "Sometimes."

"I wouldn't take Apocalypse's words as foolproof," Shine said, like she'd read her mind.

Mystique jumped.

"Uncanny, ain't it?" Gambit said to her dryly.

"Shut up," she said.

"Might as well just take us there," Rogue said to Gambit. "Or Shine'll turn on her eye-flashlight thing she does, and they'll find it anyway."

"I could try..." Shine said.