A Simple Case of Scientific Curiosity

A Simple Case of Scientific Curiosity

It is before dawn on the Xavier Estate. The light filters through the curtains of the bedroom, highlighting tiny motes of dust tossed here and there by the air currents inside. Warren lies asleep beside me, snoring quietly. I don't wish to disturb him, so I gently slip out of our bed and dress myself in a pair of loose trousers and a hooded top. I think a run in the garden will do me some good, and might even put me in the mood to sleep, too, so I pull on my training shoes and sneak downstairs, careful not to make a sound. My ninja training is still imprinted on my mind, despite my reversion to this English body, so I am able to pad down the old stairs and out into the frozen garden without waking any of the others up. As I creep away from the house, their muddled, mixed-up dream-thoughts – of cardboard trees and Richard Nixon playing the tuba, in the case of Beast, or of Elle MacPherson singing opera in not-very-many-clothes, in the case of Logan – fade from my mind, and I am grateful for the peace and quiet. I run through the grounds of the mansion, through crisp, frosted grass and through groves of trees that are weighted down with powdery snow. I run until I am down at the lake, and I pause for a moment to look out across it to the horizon, my breath misting in front of me in steaming clouds. I run my gloved hands through my blonde hair and let out a little whoop of joy. I haven't felt this good about myself in months.

"I trust, Ms Braddock, that you will be slightly less exuberant for a moment while we speak?" says a voice behind me.

"Who's there?" I say as I turn, even though the voice is immediately familiar. My psychic knife flares into existence almost automatically, giving me close-range protection. In this new/old body, I can manifest both psi-bolts and the knife, making me much more formidable than I was before, in either body. Stunned, I realise that I had not sensed this man up until a moment earlier, and when I see him, I understand why. Standing before me, in his full regalia of dark blue high-collared costume, complete with cape sliced into strips, high boots and short gloves, is the man known as Nathaniel Essex, otherwise known as Mr Sinister. Behind him is what I assume to be the fading light of a tesseract – the mechanism that Essex uses to teleport himself from point A to point B almost instantaneously. Essex shrugs dismissively, as if that is meant to reassure me somehow.

"Oh, don't be alarmed, child. I'm not here to pursue some kind of immature vendetta against you and your… friends. This is simply a matter of scientific curiosity. Come now, Ms Braddock, haven't you the slightest desire to see how you have been changed?" He smiles, his two rows of shark-pointed teeth forming a devil's grin between his black lips. It sends a shiver down my spine.

"I can see why Scott never invites you to parties," I say, acidly. "I suggest you leave. Now. Before I wake the rest of the X-Men and you have to leave anyway."

Sinister sighs, rolling his solidly red eyes as if this is the hundredth time he has heard this kind of exchange today. "I was rather afraid you might say that." He snaps his fingers, another tesseract opens behind me, and Sinister's Marauders come pouring through like Allied troops invading the Normandy beaches. Scalphunter arrives first, followed by Blockbuster, Vertigo and Scrambler. Riptide and Arclight step through, followed by Prism and Harpoon. The massive Inuit is the last to arrive, and the tesseract closes behind him with a sound not too dissimilar to that of Kurt's teleportation. "I trust you understand the severity of the situation now, child?" he says, his voice leeched of its polite tone and edged with cold diamond. "You will come with me – now, this instant or you will die."

Time for a little misdirection, I think. I raise my hands as if to indicate I'm surrendering, while at the same time projecting desperately into the minds of the X-Men. Help me, X-Men – Marauders are on the grounds! Help me! As Vertigo and Arclight step forwards to grab hold of me, I extend crackling psychic knives from both my hands and stab them straight into the women's brains, shorting out their nervous systems with a single blow. Two down, six to go… Blockbuster lumbers towards me, his huge hands outstretched. I simply duck them and swipe at his legs with my own, using my hand as a pivot and dropping him to the ground with a convincing thud. Before he can rise, I leap at him and thrust my knife into his skull, drawing a satisfying scream from his lips as I pull his deepest darkest fears out of his mind and into stark clarity at the edge of his consciousness. The shock of it causes his nervous system to shut down, and he lies there on the ground for a while, twitching occasionally.

A glowing harpoon thuds into the dirt by my leg. I dive clear of it instinctively and roll to my feet in front of the huge hunter. Behind me I can sense Prism. He wants to fry me in the back with a laser burst, I can sense it, but he's waiting for the right moment. Just a little longer…

Harpoon draws back his fist, ready to crush my skull with one blow. He wants to smear me into the dirt with the harpoon he has clutched in its massive fingers. I can sense that, too. He lets fly with the harpoon just as Prism fires his laser. All I have to do is sway aside and watch the two of them annihilate each other. As Harpoon's fist hits him, Prism's body is shattered into thousands of razor-sharp fragments that shred the other man's flesh as if it were nothing but raw offal. The big man falls, his face a bloody ruin and his body little better.

All around me the Marauders are closing in, and I am left wondering why Scalphunter hasn't shot me in the back yet – and where the rest of my team is, for that matter. Has Scrambler somehow managed to affect my powers from a distance, without touching me? That thought chills me to the bone.

The sound of Wolverine and the rest of the team running or flying towards the lake immediately answers my doubts. None of them are in costume, but Cyclops still manages to look as commanding as ever. Sinister points at him and Riptide swirls towards him like a whirling carnival of death, those little resin stars he puts out flying everywhere. One of them grazes my leg and leaves a long, ugly cut. Cyclops fires an optic blast at him at point blank range, dropping the lithe, purple-haired mutant in an instant, his head becoming little more than a messy conglomeration of meat and bone. I feel Sinister's momentary disappointment – and, briefly, consternation – but he recovers quickly and directs Scrambler towards me. If that were not an indication of who his primary target is this day I don't know what could be.

Come on, then, little man.

Come on.

Scrambler sees me aim a precise kick at his torso and shifts aside, letting the force of the blow carry me further than I was planning, but even as I move I am flipping, twisting, using my momentum to help me shift into a better position. I come to my feet again and launch the heel of my hand towards the little man's face. They are gloved, so there is no danger of skin to skin contact.

Or so I thought.

As I find his delicate cheekbone, shattering it with a single precise blow, a patch of skin is exposed where my shirt and glove do not meet. Scrambler's fingers brush my flesh tenderly, like a lover, and my mind erupts in chaos as the world enters my skull– all at once, it seems. I can sense further away than I have ever felt before. The children playing in the streets of the Bronx seem as if they are next door. I can sense the entire city of New York – most of the state, actually – trying to invade my mind with their everyday thoughts, and the sensation is driving me closer to the edge of madness than I have ever been. I can do little else but throw my head back and claw at my face in agony, screaming wordlessly.

"Get out get out get out!" My voice is a strangled shriek, barely audible through the tidal wave of thoughts crashing through my skull unbidden. "It hurts! Oh, God – it hurts!" Through blurry vision, I can see that the psychic feedback has knocked out my team mates – even Colossus is lying stunned on the ground. Jean is writhing in agony, clutching her skull and letting out little choked gasps, mewling like a kitten. Then, I look up through teary eyes to see Scalphunter standing over me with some kind of device attached to his skull and an odd-looking gun in his right hand.

"Say bye-bye, toots," he says emotionlessly as he raises the gun. He fires once, and my world goes dark. As I spiral down into the blackness, I hear Sinister say "Prep her for transport. I need her warm."

The first thing that comes to my muddled mind when I wake up is how antiseptic the air smells. It's like having to breathe concentrated formaldehyde. I can feel my lungs protesting with every breath that they take, but after a few moments they adjust and I am able to examine my surroundings, still a little light-headed. I am chained by my wrists to either side of a small square cell, my legs in irons and my neck circled by a steel collar that presses against my carotid. That, too, is attached by a chain to the floor of the cell, making any movement almost impossible. "Well, would you look at that – she's awake," says a voice that I recognise as Vertigo's, from off to one side. Strange – I can't sense her. The thought occurs to me that Sinister has probably injected me with some kind of inhibitor to block my access to my powers – a sort of biological circuit-breaker that makes me as human as it is possible for me to be. I look up and Vertigo smiles, her beautiful face twisted with sadistic pleasure. Her skin-tight green and white costume is reflecting the light crazily, making me feel even more ill, as I presume it's supposed to. She runs her hands through her similarly coloured hair and blows me a kiss.

"Morning, sweetheart," she says, her lips forming into a sweet little smile that I would trust more if I were not aware of how unrelentingly psychotic she and the rest of her team mates have been made to be by Sinister's persistent genetic tinkering. Of course, some of them, like Scalphunter and Blockbuster, and probably Arclight as well, didn't need that to begin with, but with sweet little Vertigo, you probably would have thought of her as a Las Vegas stripper, or a whore peddling her body in the back streets of the Big Easy before you reached her current profession of "bloodthirsty mercenary". She winks at me and continues "Sinister's going to have such a wonderful time with you, sweetie. He can't wait to carve you up and see what makes you tick. We all can't. Especially Scalphunter. He loves English girls. He likes the sounds they make when he cuts them. He'll make it so good, you'll be begging him to slice you up." She smiles again, and kneels down so that she can look me in the eye. "We're all looking forward to making you feel special, baby." She kisses me, forcing her nimble little tongue between my lips and down my throat, and making me gag. Drawing back, she licks my cheek and laughs as I spit at her, trying to get the cloyingly sweet taste of her out of my mouth. "Be seeing you soon, honey. Real soon." She leaves the room, her razor-edged laughter ringing in my ears like a death knell, or a funeral dirge.

God help me…

Sinister arrives soon after Vertigo has left. He is flanked by Arclight and Scalphunter, the latter clutching a pistol and toying with its barrel occasionally. Arclight eyes him contemptuously, pointing at the pistol with a finger, and sneers "You know, that's probably a case of penis envy you have there, pal." Scalphunter's expression changes in an instant from one of boredom to one of intense irritation, and he brings the gun up to within a couple of inches of her eyeball, so close that she could touch it with her eyelashes if she were to blink.

"Flinch," he says flatly. "Give me an excuse, you mouthy bitch, an' I'll spread your dumbshit brains all over the wall."

Sinister holds his hand up. "Silence. Watch your language, please, Grey Crow."

For a moment, what I could swear was fear sweeps across Scalphunter's craggy features, and he quickly puts the gun back in its holster with a meek "Yes, sir." Sinister smiles thinly and slips some surgical latex gloves over his pasty white hands.

"Thank you. And Philippa, if you ever try to goad him into that again I will strap you to a table – I don't care what kind – and I will slice you open without anaesthetic in order to examine your innards. Do you understand me?" The threat is all the more compelling since it is delivered in Essex's precise, genteel tones. Sinister is not known for raising his voice very often – and believe you me, he doesn't need to. To see Arclight shudder and cower away from her master, even when his back is turned, is to know what kind of power the man wields: Philippa Sontag can tear sheet steel in two with her bare hands, and he makes her cringe like a baby. If I hadn't been frightened before I certainly would be now.

"Now, then," Sinister says, returning his attention to me. "Elisabeth, this will be a brief precursory examination to determine some basic variables by which we can judge your recent metamorphosis. It won't hurt unless you make it hurt. Do you understand?"

"Why are you doing this?" I say, my voice hoarse. Sinister raises a jet-black eyebrow, the blood-red diamond in the centre of his forehead warping slightly as he does so.

"My dear, you have been a side interest of mine for years. Your original metamorphosis while under the control of the Hand remains one of the most fascinating things I have seen in my years of cataloguing mutant DNA. It's my understanding that this was achieved through magic as well as science, is that correct?" That surprises me. I didn't think anybody else besides Matsu'o Tsurayaba knew, or cared, about what happened to me, other than the X-Men and my brother.

"How do you know about that?" is all I can muster my voice to say. Sinister's face breaks into another hideous smile.

"You would be surprised at what I know, Ms Braddock," he says simply. "Let's just say that I have my methods and leave it at that, shall we? One does become rather adept at gathering information when one has to collate so much of it. My boy Scott and his brood are a hard lot to keep track of without proper organisation, wouldn't you say?" He smiles again, and I feel my stomach drop down about three feet. "Now, then. Let me explain why you are here. I have plans for you, Elisabeth. Jean Grey's DNA is the best example of female mutant genes I have right at this moment – she and Scott have produced a fine heir for me – but I'm curious as to how your odd DNA might combine with Scott's. Call this a hobby of mine." He shrugs, as if explaining away a simple passion for toy trains. Holding up a small hypodermic needle, he jabs it into a vein in my arm and draws out a small amount of my blood. Handing it to Arclight, he holds up a small spatula and says, "Open your mouth, please." I keep my lips pressed together firmly, determined not to do as he asks. Small victories are the only ones I think I will be allowed while I'm here. Sinister's face falls. "Do as I say, Elisabeth, and open your mouth, or I will be forced to have Arclight and Scalphunter make you open it." Resolutely, I keep my mouth closed, and Sinister sighs. "Very well. Philippa, Grey Crow – if you please." Scalphunter punches me in the stomach with a meaty fist, knocking the breath from my lungs and making me gasp involuntarily. Arclight moves in quickly and holds my mouth open so that Sinister can reach in and scrape a few cells off the inside of my cheek. When he has finished, she slaps me hard, and I feel my cheekbone shatter, splintering like balsa wood.

"Don't ever do that again," Sinister snaps. "I have had enough of your childishness, Elisabeth. You will help me do this, or you will die. I trust that is a stark enough choice for you that you will not be so recalcitrant in future?"

Even with a broken cheekbone, I can still find the strength of will, somewhere, to whisper "Go to hell."

Sinister shrugs. "If that is how you want it. Arclight, Scalphunter, you may feed her to the others if you want. I have what I need. There are always more subjects, after all." He laughs humourlessly. "Thank you for your help, Elisabeth." He throws them the keys to my bonds, and Arclight quickly frees me, watching cruelly as I slump to the ground.

"Aww, poor Betsy fall down go boom," she says, laying sarcasm on like thick mascara. She kicks me in the ribs and I feel a couple of them snap cleanly, the sharp edges pressing into my left lung and making breathing suddenly even more painful. "How d'ya like that?" she snarls. "You're nothing but a plaything now, girlie-girl. No helpful X-punks to come save your cute little ass." She jerks me up by the hair and lets me dangle agonisingly from her fist, my legs barely touching the ground. "Here, baby. You take her." She lets go of me and I fall to the ground, feeling agonising spikes of pain shooting through my body. Scalphunter stands over my crumpled form, a cruel smile on his face.

"I suppose V told you all about what I like to do to English girls, did she?" he says, lascivious glee sounding in his voice.

"She told me… she told me enough," I manage, through the pain. "She told me… that you… were a bully and a fool." That's it, Betsy. Make him mad. Brilliant plan.

"Well, now… you certainly got a big mouth on you, don't you?" Scalphunter pauses, sucking on his drooping moustache for a moment. "I'll give you credit, bitch. You're half right, but I ain't no fool." He holds me up by the shoulders so that I am level with his face. I can smell the stink of meat and beer on his breath and it makes me want to throw up. He lifts one corner of his mouth and I can see yellowing teeth revealed by his lips, the crooked edges lined with stains and old pieces of food. "I know when to waste a body and when not to. The boss don't care what we do to you now he has what he needs. You're gonna be a long time dying, sweetie-pie. A long time dying. Oh yeah."