I like to write with original characters. This is probably my least OC-
based fic (I've written several, even though this is only my second on
the site) and so I thought it would be a good one to include, but it's
a little out there. I decided to add "Horror" as the secondary genre
after writing chapter 2.
If you think I own any of the characters in chapter 1 (besides maybe Jen) you've been under a rock or something.
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"Sir!" yelled Toad as he ran inside. Magneto couldn't imagine anything that could explain his unaccustomed energy. "I found her! Ha! I did it; found her!"
Magneto frowned. "This is no time for stories of your love life."
"Not HER. Unfortunately. No, I found a replacement for the girl!"
This caught Magneto's attention sharply, though the only outward sign of this was that his eyes narrowed a bit. "Are you sure?"
"Completely. I saw her do it!"
"This replacement...absorbs powers?"
"No. I'm sorry, but it will have to be you to die. Maybe more than once."
Magneto was growing impatient with Toad's riddles. "What is her power?"
"She's a duplicator. She duplicates things; objects, herself, others. You see! She can create a dozen of you and two or three of you can power the Apparatus and cover the city, leaving nine or ten."
"You have seen her duplicate others?"
Toad grinned wide. He turned to the door and whistled. A man who looked very much like Toad hopped in, followed by another. "Sir," said the first, then the second.
After a few seconds the corners of Magneto's lips turned up. Soon he was grinning almost as broadly as Toad had been when he entered. "Very good, Toad. Thank you."
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It had been in Philadelphia. Toad had been milling about, waiting for Mystique to finish up a meeting with an informant, when he had met her. It hadn't been a very nice neighborhood, so when he noticed a pretty white girl walking alone he became suspicious. She looked about thirteen. He was already trussed up like a spy in his trench coat and hat, so he decided to follow her. She was wandering, seemingly lost. She was walking past a little dingy electronics shop when she stopped dead and stared at the window. Toad got closer and saw what it was that had meant so much to her: it was a sign that read "No Mutants Allowed!" Toad smiled.
"There's no way for them to know," he said, walking up to her.
She startled and almost ran.
"It's all right, dear. I wasn't attacking you. Merely pointing out that they can't know unless you're obvious about it. They only put up the sign because they think it will help their business."
The girl stared at him. It was obvious she was trying to see his face under his hat. "Does it?" she asked finally.
"Probably. They all hate mutants in this area."
The girl looked worried. "Can you tell me how to get out of this area?"
"Well that's simple. Choose a street and follow it until you find yourself in a different neighborhood."
"I've been walking along here since last night."
"Really?" Toad realized that despite her looks she must be powerful. She hadn't a snowball's chance in hell of walking the streets all night without getting picked up.
The girl's eyes opened wide in embarrassment. She hadn't meant to reveal that she was alone and without anywhere to go.
She was certainly interesting. The last thing Magneto would want would be to take in a stray, of course, but there was no way he could leave without satisfying his curiosity about her power. That and maybe she would provide some entertainment while he waited for Mystique.
"Where are your parents, then?"
"New Hampshire."
"You're a long way from home, then."
"I'm visiting my aunt and uncle. I missed a bus and now I'm trying to get back to them."
"I have a car. Where do they live?"
She was far too slow to respond. "25 Hummingbird Road."
"That's nowhere I've ever heard of."
She stuck her chin out at him. "But you're not from around here."
"How do you know?"
"You can't be. Besides, you have an accent."
"Just because I have an accent doesn't mean I can't live around here. Go down to Thoreau Avenue and tell me whether they have accents."
"I have to go now."
"You're not going to walk all night again, are you?"
"So what if I do? I can take care of myself."
"I don't doubt it. So can I."
She looked at him strangely. "What...what do you do?"
"You really want to know?"
The girl looked very curious. Curiosity killed the cat. "Please."
Toad smiled. He looked up and saw a fire escape that made a good target. He checked for witnesses then grabbed it with his tongue and pulled himself up to it. "That is what I do," he called down to her.
Her eyes were comically large.
"And you?"
She didn't move for long enough that Toad thought she wasn't going to. Finally she pulled something out of her pocket with a flair. It was a knife. Toad was about to ask whether that was all when he saw clearly that it was not. She put her other hand to the knife and when it came away there was another, identical knife in it. She did a funny movement and there were two knives in both hands. She looked like a magician revealing card after card from his hand. She did it again and suddenly she was holding eight knives, four in either hand. She turned toward him, cocked her arms, and threw the knives. Toad leapt and landed on the ground near her. He looked at where he had been and there he saw that all eight knives had crashed against the fire escape. At least a couple of them would surely have hit him.
"That's it?"
"It's enough."
"Didn't you lose the knife?"
In response she pulled another identical knife from her pocket.
"Do you at least know how to throw a knife?"
"I taught myself."
"Let's see, then."
"Where?"
"At me."
She gladly complied. A little too gladly, maybe. Toad had just enough time to wrap his tongue around it. He held it up to look at how it would have struck him. It was off; it would have hit sideways instead of blade- forward.
"I see. Let me teach you."
By the time Mystique had come looking for him he knew a rough story of the girl's life. Her name was Jennifer Carmazzi. She was from Highmont, New Hampshire. Soon after her thirteenth birthday she had accidentally duplicated herself at school. She tried to keep going to school but three weeks later some boys tried to beat her up and she duplicated herself so many times that she was able to beat them off. She ran away. She made it to Philadelphia about a month later. She discovered that she could duplicate objects and other people, but she didn't like duplicating herself; she had watched herself get hit by a car while running across the freeway and had been afraid ever since.
Just then Toad saw a middle-aged man he knew to be Mystique walk up, so he decided he had better hurry up and convince the girl to come with them. "You know what that means, right?"
"What?"
"The coppers have to have identified your body."
The man looked at him strangely, but the girl's expression registered nothing less than horror. "My parents, my friends...they think I'm dead."
"Well, you are..."
"What the hell is this?" asked the man.
Toad merely smiled. "Jen, dear, would you like to come with us? Nowhere to go, no one to see."
Jen started to cry. She nodded.
Toad glanced sideways at the middle-aged man.
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Jen found that she had little trouble living with the Brotherhood. At first she had found it uncomfortable that there was metal everywhere; it reminded her of a prison. She had also found it a little hard to get used to Magneto and Mystique and she was downright scared of Sabretooth. Still, it wasn't so bad. She surprised herself with how fast she adapted to living with Magneto and Mystique and even Sabretooth didn't seem so awful. He liked to play the role of the big, dumb brute, she found. If you challenged that, though, and didn't talk down to him or act threatened by him, he toned it down. He really wasn't as stupid as he pretended to be. She wondered whether Magneto knew that. And as for Toad, she liked him a lot. He seemed like the big brother she wished she had had instead of a big sister.
"So, when do I get my codename?"
"I thought we discussed this," responded Toad in mock exasperation, "Nobody knows about you. If we were to name you they would just find out about you."
"But if we only used it here."
"Fine. To me you'll be Duplicator. How's that?"
"Mortimer!"
"Damn that woman. I know I never told you that name."
"It was Victor, actually."
"I'll make sure to break his nose the next time I see him."
"I don't think he'd mind much; he DOES have a healing factor."
"Maybe I'll break it so bad it won't heal."
"I bet you can't."
"I'll take that bet. A month of kitchen detail, then?"
"You're on!"
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There was no reason Jen could see not to create a few copies of her hosts. Toad had had little trouble with his first two copies, less trouble than she had ever seen a person have before. She herself had stumbled around the first several times she had split. In any case Toad didn't have that trouble and she created three more copies of him. That was a little too much for him, though, and he spent the rest of the day on his back, trying to get used to seeing out of six pairs of ears, feeling with twelve different hands.
Mystique had even less trouble than Toad did. Jen created three copies of her at first and she had them under control in minutes, so Jen created three more. Upon insistence she made three more for a grand total of ten versions, but at that point she stood up to the larger woman and absolutely refused to make any more. Jen spent the entire day dreading that Mystique would suddenly become overwhelmed and pass out from having so many bodies at once, but she never did. She was so amazed that she promised that night that she would eventually create the ten additional copies the woman asked for.
Magneto, to his obvious embarrassment, didn't do nearly as well with his copies. After only one he became unbalanced enough that she stopped, fearful that he would pass out. He insisted that she make another and she complied, but her hand never left his side, ready at any time to draw his selves back together. With that he didn't insist that she make more immediately. She made one more copy that night and two more the next day, and it was two days before he was fully recovered and using all of his selves efficiently.
When she got around to Sabretooth she was very cautious. She made one copy quickly, then stood back to see how he would react to it. As she feared, he didn't react well. Both of him started to sway like he was drunk. He let out a yell and began to swing out both sets of arms, probably to steady himself. The result, however, was that of a gigantic blender; if Jen had been hit with any one of those arms she would have been severely injured at the least. She backed off quickly, and left the room entirely when one of the Sabretooths hit a wall and dented it. She decided that two was enough, and he didn't disagree with her.
The island base of the Brotherhood had never been busier. Even though most of the Mystiques and at least a couple of Magnetos and Toads were away at all times there were a lot of people around. Every day Toad and Mystique would mention some great success they had managed to achieve because of the duplicates.
She had been with the Brotherhood for a month when Magneto told them that the new Apparatus was complete and shortly they could mutate an entire city. They decided that New York would still be an important target, despite the fact that all of the world leaders were no longer gathered there. They would also target Washington D.C. and other key cities. There was only one Apparatus, of course, but Magneto fully intended to move it from one location to the next without anyone putting up effective opposition. Charles' students would be nothing, of course; they could hardly manage one version of the Brotherhood. The government would be more of a problem but still a problem they could overcome. Magneto had certainly escaped from their prison easily enough.
It was the most amazing thing Jen had ever seen. They had put the Apparatus in the basement of a building and Magneto had powered it up. It had spilled out a great wave of this white heat. It had reminded Jen of a sauna.
The X-Men showed up, just as Magneto expected they would, but they likewise couldn't stop the Brotherhood. Cyclops attempted to knock out the machine, only to find himself faced with a Jean Grey on both sides. Both were Mystique, but he didn't know this. One of them proved she was false and Cyclops went to the other, who took his visor. Two Toads and a Sabretooth managed the real Jean Grey and Storm. Wolverine spent the entire battle pinned to a wall by a Magneto.
When the first Magneto died another took his place, and they laid the corpse out on the ground next to the Apparatus for the authorities to find later. Jen had objected to this, but Magneto himself insisted. It was quite an advantage for one such as himself, he argued, to have the authorities believing he was dead, even if Charles and his students knew the truth.
Both Jen and Toad wanted to remain at the base to watch the scene unfold on television, but Magneto argued that they would be better to continue immediately. It would be some time before the effects would be visible on any kind of large scale, and they were in a position to cover several cities before anyone besides the X-Men were even aware of exactly what was happening.
They covered Washington D.C. almost without incident, though this time they took Magneto's corpse back to base with them. Charles came, with Cyclops, but they came only to talk. One of the Magnetos stayed behind to talk as the rest returned. He wasn't about to let Jen speak to Charles or even get near him.
"This was a grave mistake, Erik, the worst you have made."
"I disagree, my dear Charles. They will no longer be able to ignore us, to enforce their policies upon us without any interference. Many of the policy- makers are themselves our brothers and sisters now." He had specifically waited for an important Congressional session in which almost all of the key Senators and Representatives would be present. "Perhaps more importantly we can have our own sanctuaries now, much larger ones than your little school and my island."
"It's not that simple!" argued Cyclops.
Charles continued. "I am surprised at your naïveté, old friend. Do you believe that these people will turn around and form a happy mutant society, with you as their elected leader?"
"They need not thank me, Charles, but they will adapt. They will not continue this vein of anti-mutant legislation."
"They will die! Senator Kelly died, Erik."
"I believed we have already discussed this. Is that not correct, Cyclops?"
"You claimed he was not really dead."
"We shall see in a mere matter of days whether or not the process is deadly."
"At that point you will see the severity of the error you have committed."
"Do you intend to continue to oppose me?"
"How can I not?"
"That, old friend, is the tragedy. We no longer have any reason to be enemies and yet you insist. Please do not make me kill you or your students; I would regret it terribly."
"At the least let the girl go, Erik."
"Ah, so you do know of our delightful little friend. She is free to leave at any time; she is familiar with my beliefs and does not object to them."
"She is a child. She can not be expected to understand the reality of murder, least of all on this scale."
"I apologize, Charles, but I must be going. I enjoyed our discussion."
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That afternoon at about 1:30 they were gratified to find that they were on the news. Jen had spent the entire time since they had come back from D.C. waiting, hoping for news, and Toad had kept a duplicate waiting with her. When the news they were waiting for finally came on all of the Toads dropped what they were doing and came to watch. Two Mystiques and a Magneto came also.
"We apologize for the delay in your regularly scheduled programming, but we have breaking news," the anchorwoman said, "There appear to have been terrorist attacks on both New York City and Washington D.C. The details are not yet clear but some kind of energy wave engulfed New York yesterday and Washington this morning, which authorities say may be some kind of biological weapon. Immediately after the wave there were reports citywide of heart attacks, strokes, and other medical problems, including many very unusual ones."
Toad laughed. "Very unusual! I hope our dear President McKenna suffered a very unusual medical problem!"
The sentiment was echoed by Jen and even Mystique seemed visibly pleased. Only Magneto still looked serious.
"What is it?" asked Mystique.
"Medical problems, whether they are unusual or not, are not what I had in mind."
"I should activate the catalysts?"
Magneto looked at her thoughtfully. "Yes. The catalysts should do the trick."
One of the Mystiques stood up without another word and walked out.
Never one to let her curiosity go unsatisfied, Jen turned to Magneto. "What is she doing? What's a catalyst?"
It was a Toad, not Magneto, who responded. "It's something that speeds up a change. It sounds to me that Mystique has set up a nice little fireworks show to celebrate our accomplishment."
"Huh?"
"Trauma is what causes mutants to manifest. We want our new brothers and sisters to manifest, so..." He trailed off.
"Fireworks?"
"Bombs, dear, explosives. I know Mystique; when she wants to be noticed she's quite effective." Toad, all six of him, glanced sidelong at the sole remaining Mystique.
"Bombs? She's not killing people, is she?" She regretted it as soon as it was out; Magneto had told her several times that the only way mutants would have peace is if normal humans were moved out of the way. Then again, why use the Apparatus if they were just going to kill them all?
"Worry not," said Magneto in the compassionate voice she had only ever heard him use two or three times and only ever toward her, "we are minimizing the number of deaths necessary by using the Apparatus. No more people will die than is completely necessary."
That made Jen feel better. She couldn't help but notice that he didn't promise that no one would die - just the opposite, in fact - but then she remembered the three Magnetos who had died in order to operate the Apparatus. This wasn't a game, and some people had to die. It was for the best.
She had only just turned her attention back to the television when the remaining Mystique spoke up. "It's done."
"That was fast," commented Toad.
"I'm not wasting all of my duplicates sitting in front of a television."
Toad smiled. "I'm not as skilled as you are at doing a dozen different things at once."
"Fifteen, actually."
"Mystique," said Magneto warningly.
"How long until the fireworks begin?" asked Toad.
"They are beginning now."
"Very good," said Magneto.
"How long until people start to change?" asked Jen.
Magneto answered instead of Mystique. "They have already begun, and the changes should be largely complete by tomorrow. The next time we will be on the news, which is, I assume, what you are truly asking about, will be to report the catalysts, and perhaps to follow up with the changes undergone by those involved. We shall see whether by tonight these humans do not understand what awaits them."
If you think I own any of the characters in chapter 1 (besides maybe Jen) you've been under a rock or something.
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"Sir!" yelled Toad as he ran inside. Magneto couldn't imagine anything that could explain his unaccustomed energy. "I found her! Ha! I did it; found her!"
Magneto frowned. "This is no time for stories of your love life."
"Not HER. Unfortunately. No, I found a replacement for the girl!"
This caught Magneto's attention sharply, though the only outward sign of this was that his eyes narrowed a bit. "Are you sure?"
"Completely. I saw her do it!"
"This replacement...absorbs powers?"
"No. I'm sorry, but it will have to be you to die. Maybe more than once."
Magneto was growing impatient with Toad's riddles. "What is her power?"
"She's a duplicator. She duplicates things; objects, herself, others. You see! She can create a dozen of you and two or three of you can power the Apparatus and cover the city, leaving nine or ten."
"You have seen her duplicate others?"
Toad grinned wide. He turned to the door and whistled. A man who looked very much like Toad hopped in, followed by another. "Sir," said the first, then the second.
After a few seconds the corners of Magneto's lips turned up. Soon he was grinning almost as broadly as Toad had been when he entered. "Very good, Toad. Thank you."
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It had been in Philadelphia. Toad had been milling about, waiting for Mystique to finish up a meeting with an informant, when he had met her. It hadn't been a very nice neighborhood, so when he noticed a pretty white girl walking alone he became suspicious. She looked about thirteen. He was already trussed up like a spy in his trench coat and hat, so he decided to follow her. She was wandering, seemingly lost. She was walking past a little dingy electronics shop when she stopped dead and stared at the window. Toad got closer and saw what it was that had meant so much to her: it was a sign that read "No Mutants Allowed!" Toad smiled.
"There's no way for them to know," he said, walking up to her.
She startled and almost ran.
"It's all right, dear. I wasn't attacking you. Merely pointing out that they can't know unless you're obvious about it. They only put up the sign because they think it will help their business."
The girl stared at him. It was obvious she was trying to see his face under his hat. "Does it?" she asked finally.
"Probably. They all hate mutants in this area."
The girl looked worried. "Can you tell me how to get out of this area?"
"Well that's simple. Choose a street and follow it until you find yourself in a different neighborhood."
"I've been walking along here since last night."
"Really?" Toad realized that despite her looks she must be powerful. She hadn't a snowball's chance in hell of walking the streets all night without getting picked up.
The girl's eyes opened wide in embarrassment. She hadn't meant to reveal that she was alone and without anywhere to go.
She was certainly interesting. The last thing Magneto would want would be to take in a stray, of course, but there was no way he could leave without satisfying his curiosity about her power. That and maybe she would provide some entertainment while he waited for Mystique.
"Where are your parents, then?"
"New Hampshire."
"You're a long way from home, then."
"I'm visiting my aunt and uncle. I missed a bus and now I'm trying to get back to them."
"I have a car. Where do they live?"
She was far too slow to respond. "25 Hummingbird Road."
"That's nowhere I've ever heard of."
She stuck her chin out at him. "But you're not from around here."
"How do you know?"
"You can't be. Besides, you have an accent."
"Just because I have an accent doesn't mean I can't live around here. Go down to Thoreau Avenue and tell me whether they have accents."
"I have to go now."
"You're not going to walk all night again, are you?"
"So what if I do? I can take care of myself."
"I don't doubt it. So can I."
She looked at him strangely. "What...what do you do?"
"You really want to know?"
The girl looked very curious. Curiosity killed the cat. "Please."
Toad smiled. He looked up and saw a fire escape that made a good target. He checked for witnesses then grabbed it with his tongue and pulled himself up to it. "That is what I do," he called down to her.
Her eyes were comically large.
"And you?"
She didn't move for long enough that Toad thought she wasn't going to. Finally she pulled something out of her pocket with a flair. It was a knife. Toad was about to ask whether that was all when he saw clearly that it was not. She put her other hand to the knife and when it came away there was another, identical knife in it. She did a funny movement and there were two knives in both hands. She looked like a magician revealing card after card from his hand. She did it again and suddenly she was holding eight knives, four in either hand. She turned toward him, cocked her arms, and threw the knives. Toad leapt and landed on the ground near her. He looked at where he had been and there he saw that all eight knives had crashed against the fire escape. At least a couple of them would surely have hit him.
"That's it?"
"It's enough."
"Didn't you lose the knife?"
In response she pulled another identical knife from her pocket.
"Do you at least know how to throw a knife?"
"I taught myself."
"Let's see, then."
"Where?"
"At me."
She gladly complied. A little too gladly, maybe. Toad had just enough time to wrap his tongue around it. He held it up to look at how it would have struck him. It was off; it would have hit sideways instead of blade- forward.
"I see. Let me teach you."
By the time Mystique had come looking for him he knew a rough story of the girl's life. Her name was Jennifer Carmazzi. She was from Highmont, New Hampshire. Soon after her thirteenth birthday she had accidentally duplicated herself at school. She tried to keep going to school but three weeks later some boys tried to beat her up and she duplicated herself so many times that she was able to beat them off. She ran away. She made it to Philadelphia about a month later. She discovered that she could duplicate objects and other people, but she didn't like duplicating herself; she had watched herself get hit by a car while running across the freeway and had been afraid ever since.
Just then Toad saw a middle-aged man he knew to be Mystique walk up, so he decided he had better hurry up and convince the girl to come with them. "You know what that means, right?"
"What?"
"The coppers have to have identified your body."
The man looked at him strangely, but the girl's expression registered nothing less than horror. "My parents, my friends...they think I'm dead."
"Well, you are..."
"What the hell is this?" asked the man.
Toad merely smiled. "Jen, dear, would you like to come with us? Nowhere to go, no one to see."
Jen started to cry. She nodded.
Toad glanced sideways at the middle-aged man.
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Jen found that she had little trouble living with the Brotherhood. At first she had found it uncomfortable that there was metal everywhere; it reminded her of a prison. She had also found it a little hard to get used to Magneto and Mystique and she was downright scared of Sabretooth. Still, it wasn't so bad. She surprised herself with how fast she adapted to living with Magneto and Mystique and even Sabretooth didn't seem so awful. He liked to play the role of the big, dumb brute, she found. If you challenged that, though, and didn't talk down to him or act threatened by him, he toned it down. He really wasn't as stupid as he pretended to be. She wondered whether Magneto knew that. And as for Toad, she liked him a lot. He seemed like the big brother she wished she had had instead of a big sister.
"So, when do I get my codename?"
"I thought we discussed this," responded Toad in mock exasperation, "Nobody knows about you. If we were to name you they would just find out about you."
"But if we only used it here."
"Fine. To me you'll be Duplicator. How's that?"
"Mortimer!"
"Damn that woman. I know I never told you that name."
"It was Victor, actually."
"I'll make sure to break his nose the next time I see him."
"I don't think he'd mind much; he DOES have a healing factor."
"Maybe I'll break it so bad it won't heal."
"I bet you can't."
"I'll take that bet. A month of kitchen detail, then?"
"You're on!"
................................................
There was no reason Jen could see not to create a few copies of her hosts. Toad had had little trouble with his first two copies, less trouble than she had ever seen a person have before. She herself had stumbled around the first several times she had split. In any case Toad didn't have that trouble and she created three more copies of him. That was a little too much for him, though, and he spent the rest of the day on his back, trying to get used to seeing out of six pairs of ears, feeling with twelve different hands.
Mystique had even less trouble than Toad did. Jen created three copies of her at first and she had them under control in minutes, so Jen created three more. Upon insistence she made three more for a grand total of ten versions, but at that point she stood up to the larger woman and absolutely refused to make any more. Jen spent the entire day dreading that Mystique would suddenly become overwhelmed and pass out from having so many bodies at once, but she never did. She was so amazed that she promised that night that she would eventually create the ten additional copies the woman asked for.
Magneto, to his obvious embarrassment, didn't do nearly as well with his copies. After only one he became unbalanced enough that she stopped, fearful that he would pass out. He insisted that she make another and she complied, but her hand never left his side, ready at any time to draw his selves back together. With that he didn't insist that she make more immediately. She made one more copy that night and two more the next day, and it was two days before he was fully recovered and using all of his selves efficiently.
When she got around to Sabretooth she was very cautious. She made one copy quickly, then stood back to see how he would react to it. As she feared, he didn't react well. Both of him started to sway like he was drunk. He let out a yell and began to swing out both sets of arms, probably to steady himself. The result, however, was that of a gigantic blender; if Jen had been hit with any one of those arms she would have been severely injured at the least. She backed off quickly, and left the room entirely when one of the Sabretooths hit a wall and dented it. She decided that two was enough, and he didn't disagree with her.
The island base of the Brotherhood had never been busier. Even though most of the Mystiques and at least a couple of Magnetos and Toads were away at all times there were a lot of people around. Every day Toad and Mystique would mention some great success they had managed to achieve because of the duplicates.
She had been with the Brotherhood for a month when Magneto told them that the new Apparatus was complete and shortly they could mutate an entire city. They decided that New York would still be an important target, despite the fact that all of the world leaders were no longer gathered there. They would also target Washington D.C. and other key cities. There was only one Apparatus, of course, but Magneto fully intended to move it from one location to the next without anyone putting up effective opposition. Charles' students would be nothing, of course; they could hardly manage one version of the Brotherhood. The government would be more of a problem but still a problem they could overcome. Magneto had certainly escaped from their prison easily enough.
It was the most amazing thing Jen had ever seen. They had put the Apparatus in the basement of a building and Magneto had powered it up. It had spilled out a great wave of this white heat. It had reminded Jen of a sauna.
The X-Men showed up, just as Magneto expected they would, but they likewise couldn't stop the Brotherhood. Cyclops attempted to knock out the machine, only to find himself faced with a Jean Grey on both sides. Both were Mystique, but he didn't know this. One of them proved she was false and Cyclops went to the other, who took his visor. Two Toads and a Sabretooth managed the real Jean Grey and Storm. Wolverine spent the entire battle pinned to a wall by a Magneto.
When the first Magneto died another took his place, and they laid the corpse out on the ground next to the Apparatus for the authorities to find later. Jen had objected to this, but Magneto himself insisted. It was quite an advantage for one such as himself, he argued, to have the authorities believing he was dead, even if Charles and his students knew the truth.
Both Jen and Toad wanted to remain at the base to watch the scene unfold on television, but Magneto argued that they would be better to continue immediately. It would be some time before the effects would be visible on any kind of large scale, and they were in a position to cover several cities before anyone besides the X-Men were even aware of exactly what was happening.
They covered Washington D.C. almost without incident, though this time they took Magneto's corpse back to base with them. Charles came, with Cyclops, but they came only to talk. One of the Magnetos stayed behind to talk as the rest returned. He wasn't about to let Jen speak to Charles or even get near him.
"This was a grave mistake, Erik, the worst you have made."
"I disagree, my dear Charles. They will no longer be able to ignore us, to enforce their policies upon us without any interference. Many of the policy- makers are themselves our brothers and sisters now." He had specifically waited for an important Congressional session in which almost all of the key Senators and Representatives would be present. "Perhaps more importantly we can have our own sanctuaries now, much larger ones than your little school and my island."
"It's not that simple!" argued Cyclops.
Charles continued. "I am surprised at your naïveté, old friend. Do you believe that these people will turn around and form a happy mutant society, with you as their elected leader?"
"They need not thank me, Charles, but they will adapt. They will not continue this vein of anti-mutant legislation."
"They will die! Senator Kelly died, Erik."
"I believed we have already discussed this. Is that not correct, Cyclops?"
"You claimed he was not really dead."
"We shall see in a mere matter of days whether or not the process is deadly."
"At that point you will see the severity of the error you have committed."
"Do you intend to continue to oppose me?"
"How can I not?"
"That, old friend, is the tragedy. We no longer have any reason to be enemies and yet you insist. Please do not make me kill you or your students; I would regret it terribly."
"At the least let the girl go, Erik."
"Ah, so you do know of our delightful little friend. She is free to leave at any time; she is familiar with my beliefs and does not object to them."
"She is a child. She can not be expected to understand the reality of murder, least of all on this scale."
"I apologize, Charles, but I must be going. I enjoyed our discussion."
................................................
That afternoon at about 1:30 they were gratified to find that they were on the news. Jen had spent the entire time since they had come back from D.C. waiting, hoping for news, and Toad had kept a duplicate waiting with her. When the news they were waiting for finally came on all of the Toads dropped what they were doing and came to watch. Two Mystiques and a Magneto came also.
"We apologize for the delay in your regularly scheduled programming, but we have breaking news," the anchorwoman said, "There appear to have been terrorist attacks on both New York City and Washington D.C. The details are not yet clear but some kind of energy wave engulfed New York yesterday and Washington this morning, which authorities say may be some kind of biological weapon. Immediately after the wave there were reports citywide of heart attacks, strokes, and other medical problems, including many very unusual ones."
Toad laughed. "Very unusual! I hope our dear President McKenna suffered a very unusual medical problem!"
The sentiment was echoed by Jen and even Mystique seemed visibly pleased. Only Magneto still looked serious.
"What is it?" asked Mystique.
"Medical problems, whether they are unusual or not, are not what I had in mind."
"I should activate the catalysts?"
Magneto looked at her thoughtfully. "Yes. The catalysts should do the trick."
One of the Mystiques stood up without another word and walked out.
Never one to let her curiosity go unsatisfied, Jen turned to Magneto. "What is she doing? What's a catalyst?"
It was a Toad, not Magneto, who responded. "It's something that speeds up a change. It sounds to me that Mystique has set up a nice little fireworks show to celebrate our accomplishment."
"Huh?"
"Trauma is what causes mutants to manifest. We want our new brothers and sisters to manifest, so..." He trailed off.
"Fireworks?"
"Bombs, dear, explosives. I know Mystique; when she wants to be noticed she's quite effective." Toad, all six of him, glanced sidelong at the sole remaining Mystique.
"Bombs? She's not killing people, is she?" She regretted it as soon as it was out; Magneto had told her several times that the only way mutants would have peace is if normal humans were moved out of the way. Then again, why use the Apparatus if they were just going to kill them all?
"Worry not," said Magneto in the compassionate voice she had only ever heard him use two or three times and only ever toward her, "we are minimizing the number of deaths necessary by using the Apparatus. No more people will die than is completely necessary."
That made Jen feel better. She couldn't help but notice that he didn't promise that no one would die - just the opposite, in fact - but then she remembered the three Magnetos who had died in order to operate the Apparatus. This wasn't a game, and some people had to die. It was for the best.
She had only just turned her attention back to the television when the remaining Mystique spoke up. "It's done."
"That was fast," commented Toad.
"I'm not wasting all of my duplicates sitting in front of a television."
Toad smiled. "I'm not as skilled as you are at doing a dozen different things at once."
"Fifteen, actually."
"Mystique," said Magneto warningly.
"How long until the fireworks begin?" asked Toad.
"They are beginning now."
"Very good," said Magneto.
"How long until people start to change?" asked Jen.
Magneto answered instead of Mystique. "They have already begun, and the changes should be largely complete by tomorrow. The next time we will be on the news, which is, I assume, what you are truly asking about, will be to report the catalysts, and perhaps to follow up with the changes undergone by those involved. We shall see whether by tonight these humans do not understand what awaits them."