The Xavier Institute Neo
Issue 7
"Proteus"
Logan rang the bell at the hotel's front desk once. When no one showed up, he rang it again, harder. Still nothing. At last, Logan raised one hand, balled up into a fist, and was just about to bring it down hard on the bell when someone rushed forward from one of the doors at the sides of the room. He was dressed in ordinary business casual attire and he had a plastic name-tag colored gold and black across from his shirt pocket.
"S-sir?" the man asked, clearly terrified.
"Hey, chief." Logan said, "Nice to see ya. Look, me and the kids need a room for a couple days..."
As Logan said that, he gestured back with his thumb towards the couches at the entrance, where Jubilation, Scott and Piotr were seated. Kurt was standing very close by, trying to engage in small talk with Piotr. It wasn't working.
"I... I... am not certain we can accommodate you." the man said, "Our rooms are fu..."
"Ya still got plenty of keys on that wall there." Logan noted, causing the small man to wince.
"We... um... are having..."
"Look, we got money and you've got rooms. Let's quit beating around the bush, huh bub?"
"Sir, no one else will want to stay here if I let you in."
Of course, Logan knew exactly what the terrified man meant. He was referring to Kurt. As kind and gentle as Kurt Wagner was, his daemonic appearance would almost certainly scare off any tenants who learned of his presence there. For a moment, Logan wasn't sure what to do. He was an expert in fighting and intimidation, and he was no slouch in the planning department, but that guy was a rare occurrence; somebody who was standing up to Logan in spite of his fear over someone else. That meant that trying to terrify the guy would be a major mistake. It'd just make him even less cooperative.
"Just a minute." Logan said, then thought "What now, Chuck?"
"I'd rather not use anymore of my powers today if it can be helped." Charles replied with his thoughts, "If nothing else, the money issue is taken care of. If you have to, you can rent out a few of the other rooms too."
Logan sighed, then turned to face the desk clerk again, and said, "Look buddy, if you're worried about cash, then how about this. If anybody leaves thanks to us, we pay you the difference. Good enough for you?"
"They... might never come back." the man tried to offer as an excuse, but Logan was leaning against the front desk pretty soon with a grin, saying, "Fine, but I kinda figured super heroes like us'd be more welcome in a place like this."
"S-super heroes...?" the man asked, his suspicion quickly growing, even as his terror faded, "You mean that you are American super-heroes?"
"Nah. International." Logan replied, "I'm from Canada, Piotr's Russian, Kurt's from Germany... The other two are from the states though."
"Are... are you certain that you're...?" the man ask curiously, at which point Logan exclaimed, "Hey! Piotr! Show the man your super-hero stuff."
Piotr seemed a little surprised to be singled out for a task like that, but it did make sense. After all, his was the power least likely to blow things to pieces, which wouldn't be terribly creepy. He quickly stepped forward, transforming as he did so into an eight-foot giant made of metal as strong as titanium. The man working for the hotel was amazed as, with Piotr's permission, he felt the young man's smooth, metallic skin, and looked up into his reflective eyes.
"You... you know..." the man said, "If I could just tell people that you are super-heroes, it wouldn't matter if you really were or not."
"Smart move." Logan remarked, with only a slight sarcastic overtone to the comment.
"Please..." the man said after taking a few moments to think about it, "Take this key, and this one, and this. These will be your rooms."
"Three rooms?" Logan asked, a little suspicious.
"Our rooms each have two beds." the man said, "Two are for the men and one for the young lady."
"Lady?" Jubilation asked, sitting upright, and looking around to be certain he was really talking about her. She'd never in her life been referred to as a lady. Before coming to the Xavier Institute, Jubilation had been referred to, at best, as "that brat," or "that crazy kid." At worst, she'd been accused of being a danger to society and compared to the devil on numerous occasions. They'd been titles she hadn't been able to escape, and even at the school, most people only called her "Jubilation" or "Jubes" in the case of a few of the kids. Jubilation Lee had no class and no manners. She was a simple, flippant, American teenager. Calling her a "lady" was almost like calling Godzilla a "Princess," and yet... and yet...
And yet, deep down inside, it felt good to hear it. In fact, it felt so good that Jubilation quickly smothered the negative feeling as she stood up to follow the others to their new rooms.
"Here's your key." Logan said, tossing it to Jubilation. Of course, Jubilation failed to catch it, and had to pick it up off the floor, but she couldn't really bring herself to feel as angry about it as she normally would have, and when she saw the room that was going to be hers and hers alone, her existing angst began to truly dissipate for the first time in as long as she could remember.
Charles Xavier had needed several hours to fully recover from the deep, negative impulses that Betsy Braddock had sent his way, but it hadn't taken him even as much as seven seconds to realize that her therapy would undoubtedly be a long and exhaustive process.
As the barrier around the room rose up, and the one around Betsy's cage came down, Xavier carefully opened his mind again, his full defenses at the ready. Betsy seemed to recognize him in her thoughts, though she still screamed, the same way she had before. She was feeling cautious and suspicious of him, as well as deeply afraid, which was very natural at that stage. Xavier carefully announced his presence mentally, and she reacted by pulling back slightly before relaxing a bit.
"I can feel the anguish of what has happened to you in the past." Xavier said, opening yet another section of his mind to her, showing Betsy how he had been prepared for war when he entered the army, and how that had helped him, in time, to learn to face even the most horrible thoughts calmly. However, as Xavier did that, Betsy responded with frightening intelligence, feeding the thoughts right back to him, outlining every person who'd mistreated him in that time, and every unjust action that he had himself committed. It was sobering. With his next message to Betsy, Xavier told her that a healthy perspective could enable one to survive even the worst knowledge, but Betsy, in turn, would turn around and not merely tell him that a negative side existed to all of those things, but show him that side, and the intense emotion she felt regarding it. Xavier wasn't certain he could come up with an answer for that. Betsy was very much a pessimist, and Xavier an optimist. It was difficult to relate.
Maybe that was the reason he'd hesitated to read the minds of others intentionally in the past. Sometimes, Charles Xavier had a hard time stepping outside of his own thoughts and opinions and listening to the views of others. Regrets were almost a constant companion for him, but as far as letting other people's opinions penetrate his mind, Xavier had been rather slow in many instances. It was one of the reasons he'd avoided Moira for so long.
Professor Xavier had leveled light, inoffensive mental scans at Betsy several times over the course of the past minute, but if there was anything in her mind but grief and despair, she was concealing it intentionally. He felt lost for a few moments as he probed just a little deeper, but Betsy seemed to block the deeper probes off before they could get close enough to her to learn anything useful. He felt very much rejected when she did that, because he couldn't be completely sure what she really thought of him. The fact that Betsy Braddock was letting the professor get so close, mentally, was a good sign, of course, but she seemed to have seen something in his thoughts that she didn't like, and set up mental blockades to keep him out of sensitive areas of her mind. It was daunting.
Xavier opened his eyes sadly to look at the shrieking girl, but when he actually did look at her, he saw something new. It was so obvious, and yet, it had never occurred to him before... The professor had been trying so hard to bring Betsy back to an understanding of reality and her powers, because he'd assumed that she'd absorbed the thoughts of others and gone into shock from that, but it wasn't shock at all. Betsy's mind was powerful enough to grasp and cope with the visions she was seeing without weakening even in the slightest. It wasn't that her mind had been broken by the visions she'd seen, so much as tenderized. Betsy had seen memories of lives spent in struggle, worry, greed and sin, and had lost hope. Even her shrieking, and her recent mental blockades spoke of a person who felt miserable; thinking that her trust had been badly betrayed, so she didn't dare to expose herself to the misery experienced by people ever again.
When he'd arrived at that realization, Xavier knew the tack he had to take. He didn't like being rough on Betsy, but she'd decided to avoid contact with people at all cost, to keep from getting hurt, and that meant that he needed to drive home to her a very basic lesson about hurt that her parents had been negligent in teaching her.
Xavier again found himself in the domain of the mind, drifting through the stray thoughts around Betsy's consciousness, most of which were dark memories that she didn't know how to dispel. The professor saw the thoughts plainly as he drifted forward, to find Betsy's defenses rising up again to block him off, but when that happened, he lashed out hard with the same weapon that she had been using; pain. Images flowed into Betsy's mind against her will of the man named Cain Marko; the cruel, jealous bully he'd been, the many things he'd done in Xavier's childhood, in his teenage years, and when both of them went to war. Betsy saw Cain's rebirth as the Juggernaut and how he'd returned and attacked Xavier and his students, in the end being defeated by Xavier himself, who'd been forced to tamper with his thoughts in order to stop him, and through it all, she saw the intense, personal pain that Xavier had been under, and for a moment, her defenses faded.
"This is the pain that I have felt!" Xavier exclaimed, sadness and grief leaking out from the peace and care he'd previously shown her, "It is this that drives the misery in my own life; the worry, the despair... Your misery is of a different sort, because you have absorbed the pain and misery of others, but you would not have been so upset by that if you were not truly a good person inside. Open your thoughts to me, and let us be together in our collective pain!"
Then, Betsy truly did open her thoughts to Xavier, and he felt them surround him like an enormous, dark cloak, encroaching on his mind like a foul-tasting poison. Soon Xavier was surrounded by memories not her own of teachers who'd endured curses, fury, and in many cases assault simply for doing their jobs, children who were so miserable with their lot in life that they saw it only as imprisonment, men who'd been turned into killers because of some misplaced sense of patriotism, or been blamed for lies that were only the fault of misinformation given to them, and their lives had fallen into ruin as a result. The thoughts surrounded Xavier's mental presence like black dust or smoke, each particle stinging as it touched him. The thoughts were the very kind of thoughts he'd needed to work so hard to ignore, and they were real things; not simple pessimism. As the thoughts crowded in around Xavier, he heard a voice at last, resonating through them all; speaking from the darkness.
"You wanted to share in my pain, Charles Xavier, and let me share in yours? For me, there's nothing to be lost from such an attempt. I have enough misery now, that one more person's sadness will do me an insignificant amount of harm. Still, I wonder if you realize just what you're asking for... I'm not just one little girl anymore, Xavier. I'm the thoughts and feelings of a hundred thousand men, women and children, who were born, lived, and died in futility and misery, dreaming of higher goals, but never reaping their rewards, or getting any closer to achieving them, and in many cases, never working towards them at all. I've seen everything about my country that was hopeless, lost and despairing, and I've gained the wisdom from the thoughts of those people, to know what's truly so horrible about that. If you really want to know me, you'd be better off knowing them first; all of them, all at once, just like I did, but if after all that, you can ever bring yourself to look at another human being, I might speak with you again."
"No!" Xavier exclaimed, not entirely certain what he should do as the vile, tainted voice all around him began to fade, "Don't shut me out, and don't impose such limitations! Let me see what makes you so miserable! Let me share in it, and comfort you!"
"Very well." the voice said without feeling, "But remember; you were the one who asked me for this."
As soon as she'd felt the sharp blast of force coming from within the soundproof chamber, Moira had brought up the shielding around Betsy's cell, and lowered it around the surrounding chamber, then rushed to the door to open it and ran forward, ignoring the wailing of the little girl who'd involuntarily become the avatar of all the misery of her country, but when she saw what had happened, she froze. A deep cut had been made in the walls of the room that reached out into several other adjacent rooms in that section of Muir Island, as if someone had torn it open with a scything blade, and Xavier was lying on the floor, his wheelchair tipped over, screaming madly; his eyes seeing nothing...
It took Moira a moment to realize that alarms were going off all around her, after seeing that.
Raven had rushed for Fred Dukes' room the moment she'd heard the crashing sound, and found the normally-invincible teenager on the floor, unconscious. He was breathing, but nothing she did could wake him.
"Dammit!" Raven exclaimed furiously, "If Anna did this, I'm going to... I'm going to..."
For the first time since she'd revealed her true nature to Anna, however, Raven didn't know what she wanted to do, or rather, what she could do. Anna's powers were already so far above her own that the very idea of trying to punish her in any way for anything she did was almost laughable, and for a mother to be an effective authority figure, they need to be able to say when no means no. Already, it seemed that even if Anna acquired the powers of Professor Xavier, the chances were slim that she'd listen to what Raven wanted. Raven was furious and terrified. She'd hoped that giving Anna a little time away from battle would convince her that Raven really wanted what was best for all mutants. In fact, the opposite had turned out to be true. Anna had only drifted further and further away from what Raven needed her to be as time had passed. To Raven, it had seemed for so long like the ascent of mutants to power on Earth had been her only goal, but all she'd really accomplished with Anna had been ensuring that mutants would never completely die out. Anna seemed to want nothing to do with her mission, and if what she suspected was true, she was becoming so focused on her own desires, that she didn't even care if she got in Raven's way.
"She'd better not have held onto him for very long." Raven muttered angrily as she watched the large, heavy teenager at her feet breathing deeply in unconsciousness.
Kurt and Scott inevitably wound up in the same room, and each unpacked their things relatively silently. It wasn't that they didn't want company; just that each was a little shy around others, and not eager to expose themselves to other people, though for opposite reasons. Kurt's fear of being hurt by others was a fairly common one. Scott's fear of hurting others, on the other hand, was far less common, but no less potent. Each had unpacked virtually everything they'd brought with them before either of them even thought of speaking to the other. Reacting to what others said was so much easier than saying something yourself, but in the end, it was Kurt's faith that urged him to speak first. Even if Scott did wind up hurting his feelings, God would still be there for him.
"Why did you join us, Scott?" Kurt asked, sitting on his bed, and facing Scott's direction, "Did you really think that Professor Xavier would be in danger here?"
"I wouldn't feel right staying behind." Scott replied a little too quickly, "Everybody else has plans, or dreams, or hobbies..."
"And you do not?"
"My only hobbies are study and exercise." Scott said a little sadly, "I get a rush from learning new things and accomplishing new feats with my body, that makes it easy for me to enjoy those things, but I don't really have any long-term dreams of my own, and I certainly don't have your kind of imagi... your kind of faith."
Kurt tried not to take offense at what Scott had been about to say as he tried again to determine why the other boy had come along, in the end.
"You have no dreams of your own, so you just follow others around, and do as you are expected, or do you just try to go where the excitement is?"
Scott looked a little confused by Kurt's question at first, but finally, he said, "I guess I am attracted to excitement, despite all the problems it's given me in the past, but when that was all I had, I felt like I was living pointlessly and aimlessly, whenever I wasn't enjoying myself. I didn't have a dream. Even now, the dream I have, that makes me feel better about myself isn't mine..."
"It's Professor Xavier's dream." Kurt concluded with a smile that showed his well-brushed teeth, "You believe in his dream just as much as he does."
"Yes." Scott admitted, letting himself smile a little, "I guess it may be a little weird to be following someone else's dream instead of your own, but..."
Kurt however, shook his head, causing Scott's unfinished sentence to fade away into nothingness.
"As long as you truly believe in it, it is your dream, whether you thought it up on your own or not. I do not regret the fact that others believed in love, honesty and justice before me. I glory in it. It is sometimes discouraging that their philosophy is not universal, but knowing that it was good enough for others often makes my faith all the more delightful. When there is a legacy behind a belief, having faith in that belief can be so much easier."
"Yeah..." Scott replied, "Yeah, you're right."
"Then there are times when the circumstances of your life make it impossible for you to completely follow the ways that others have." Kurt said sadly, "In those instances, you may need to allow your actions to vary from theirs, even if your values remain the same..."
"Is this about what Logan said this afternoon about Kevin McTaggert?" Scott asked, curiously.
"I have been unable to stop thinking about it since then." Kurt admitted, however, looking away sadly, "The very idea of a being whose power centers around seizing and murdering hostages would be a nightmare to fight, because it would force whoever fights it to cross a moral line..."
For a short time, both boys were silent. Kurt's thoughts strayed back to vivid images of the being that acted to force people to choose between murder and death. It terrified him."
"Could you kill" Kurt asked aloud "to save those you care about?"
Scott remained silent for a while, but it was clear he was thinking about it.
"I don't think people have the right to kill each other." Scott said at last, "Putting people in prison may give them the chance to think better of their past actions and turn their lives around, but death is forever."
"That is not what I asked." Kurt insisted, determined to get an answer of some kind out of Scott, "Would you kill to save your own life? Would you kill to save the life of someone else you held dear if you truly had no other choice?"
Scott was silent again for another few seconds, but he finally said "I don't think so, Kurt. I've fought people before when my life was at stake, but even when that happened, I don't really think I was all that afraid of dying. Maybe I just don't know enough to be afraid of death, but I'm not sure I can accept a fear like that just yet, and if I can't accept the fear of death, I can't kill because of it."
Kurt wasn't sure what to say at first, but he sort of understood what Scott meant. It took a lot of courage to be afraid.
When he came to that realization, Kurt decided to test his own courage. He knew that if nothing else, Scott was both honorable and trustworthy, which meant that he was the best person to trust with the contents of the box.
Quickly, Kurt reached into his suitcase to retrieve the last item contained therein; a long, thin, wooden box kept closed with two hinges on one side, and a buckle on the other. Kurt dragged it onto his bed and opened it up as Scott watched, intrigued and a little worried. Then, he turned the box around, so that Scott could see its contents; a long, thin sword designed with two sharp edges, and a curved wrist guard like a rapier.
"I have little money." Kurt said to Scott, "When I spend some of it, I only do so if I believe the item that I am purchasing will help me to protect what I care about. Even if I never use this sword myself, it has already served its purpose, because it reminds me that I have the courage needed to protect the people I care about, and that it is right to do so, when insisting on pacifism will only cause more people to get hurt."
"Of course, I'm almost certain the others would not understand," Kurt said sadly, "so I must ask you not to tell others about this revelation I've made, or about the sword, except for Logan. He definitely knows already, but has respected my privacy."
Scott looked a little surprised by what Kurt had shown him, but it didn't take him more than a few seconds to respond.
"Sure, Kurt. Your secret's safe with me, but why tell me? I mean, you must have had this sword for a while. Why let me know right now?"
"Because I have recently needed to test my courage. I have been afraid ever since I acquired the sword that others would find out about it, and try to take it from me." Kurt explained gradually, his expression growing more serious, "Scott, you must know even better than I do that our mutant powers can be used quite easily as lethal weapons. In some cases, they're weapons more effective than any made by the hands of ordinary humans, and because of that, if we are responsible enough not to misuse our powers, then there is no weapon that we cannot use responsibly. That is what I believe. This is why I trust myself, and why, I believe, others should trust me, to possess a sword. Still, I do not believe that everyone would agree with my reasoning, and that's why I am afraid of others learning about this weapon of mine. I knew that if I could not brave that fear, I could never face the fear of losing my life, or the life of someone I cared about. That is why I told you about it, Scott. I wanted reassurance that I had the courage to take action when I was afraid. Thank you for allowing me to find that without suffering a loss, or punishment from it."
"Um... You're welcome." Scott said, otherwise at a loss for words as Kurt closed the sword case and slid it under his bed.
The security team had arrived to seal up the wall breaches with molten steel not long after the alarms went off, but just as they arrived at the scene, and started setting up their machines in front of the crack in the wall, smoke and bright red energy flew forth from the hole, developing contours, and refining into a physical-looking shape, which knocked the sealing equipment over, and seized Henry Cerrelu around his entire body like a humongous hand. The others dove for cover as the fiery smoke vanished, and Henry fell to the floor, rising to his feet swiftly, as if being lifted by invisible hands, an insane smile plastered across his face, and a malevolent look in his eyes.
"Yeah..." Henry said, smiling, "Yeah, that's a start. Say, were you guys trying to plug that hole there?"
None of the other members of the security team spoke. Each was terrified, and some were trembling. They were facing the worst possible eventuality.
"Yeah, I thought so." Henry, or rather, the being that was controlling him said, "Oh, well. Some people are just jerks, I guess."
Suddenly, the entire section of the ceiling in Muir Island came down with a crash, and in moments more, Kevin Mctaggert's new body rose up into the air, passing through the ceiling of the Muir Island detention areas, and several rooms after that, until he was back out in the open air, floating high above the place where he'd been held captive for so long and remarked, once more; "Yeah... Yeah, that's a start."
As much as she hated to do it, after he'd gone out of his way to help her, Moira had to leave Xavier where he was for a while as she dealt with a matter far more important than any sick girl in need of help. The military referred to it as "Muir Island Omega Eventuality," which meant the escape of the most dangerous inhabitant of Muir Island; Kevin McTaggert. Kevin's homicidal escapades the first time had been the worst thing that Moira had ever gone through, and the thought of going through it all over again was her worst fear. It had been for all those years since Kevin's capture. As much as Moira knew that it was Kevin who'd decided, again and again, to kill, she couldn't help but fear that maybe some part of it was her fault, not for giving birth to him, but for falling for a man like Joe McTaggert. She'd been so blinded by his poetic way with words, and his past accomplishments, that she hadn't seen the kind of person he was from the start. If Kevin had had someone else to look after him; a father who actually cared about his son, he might have been raised to be a good man, determined to use his powers only to help people, and he might have single-handedly become the savior of mankind, but Moira couldn't have known from the start how things would turn out, and she certainly couldn't travel back in time and change them, as urgently as she wanted to. It was chaos in the Muir Island research facility for nearly fifteen minutes once people discovered that the security team sent to seal up the broken walls had vanished, and communications had been sent to the local military by the installation's computers. Moira had questions to answer, plans to make, and people to organize just to keep the place from falling down around her ears before she could even think about setting up an effort to find and recapture Kevin, and by that point, it became obvious that Kevin was no longer on or around Muir Island, which meant that with his powers, he could be anywhere...
The moment she'd realized that locating Kevin was going to be a problem, Moira put the military generals she'd been on the phone with for a while on hold, and rushed back to check on Xavier, who was no longer screaming, but still seemed unintelligible. Moira was more terrified than ever then, because Xavier showed no signs of responding to her when she addressed him, which meant that pleas to help her find her son would probably fall on deaf ears too. Regardless, she helped Xavier back into his wheelchair, and quickly wheeled him out of Betsy's chamber, not sure what else to do. Whatever she was going to do, it had to be done in a hurry, or more people would wind up dead, but Xavier didn't seem to be responding to her hurried words, so instead, she swiftly made arrangements with the generals she had on the phone for the implementation of one of the secondary cage protocols; which meant that several of the metal cages the military had for that purpose were going to be loaded onto helicopters. The problem was, before they could take action against Kevin, they needed to know where he was, and the easiest way to do that, Moira knew, was to wake Xavier.
"Charles," Moira said at last, kneeling down on the floor in front of him, so that she could look into his eyes, "I'm not a psychic mutant like you. I dinnae have special powers to sense the things that go on around me in other people's thoughts, so I have no idea what ye've seen, or what Betsy did to yeh. All I can say is that ye're not like her, Charles. Ye're not a little girl, ye're a man, and ye're no slave to yuir thoughts. Ye're their master. Yeh know how to dispel any thoughts that get in yuir way, Charles, so use that knowledge. Please, put those thoughts in their place and come back... Help us."
For several seconds, it seemed that Moira's words had had no impact upon professor Xavier, but after about half a minute had passed, Xavier's eyes began to dart towards Moira, then towards the floor, then up at the ceiling, then back at Moira again, and in about three minutes, he opened his mouth and spoke once more.
"Th-thank you, Moira. If not for your help, I… I might have been lost forever."
"Can you help us, Charles?" Moira asked, getting to her feet slowly, "Kevin's gotten oot, and I need yuir to help us track him down."
Xavier looked horrified when he heard that news, but he replied quickly, saying, "Moira, I realize that every moment counts when it comes to Kevin, but I'm afraid I won't be much use for the next few minutes. The ordeal with Betsy was too taxing. My powers are too weak, and my concentration is erratic at best."
"I can't ask you to do the impossible, Charles," Moira admitted, her voice full of worry as she spoke to him, "But as soon as you can, please tell me where he is..."
Xavier just nodded, his whole body trembling.
Within fifteen minutes, Charles Xavier had sensed Kevin's presence around the suburbs near Ruthven, which was several dozen miles inland from where Muir Island was. Of course, the cages could be on site in only a few minutes if dispatched from the right facility, but if Kevin tried to escape, Xavier might be needed again. When Moira headed out to supervise the recapturing on the supersonic military jet she'd been provided with for quick transport in just such a situation, she insisted on taking Xavier with her, and he, in turn, had recognized the terrible danger, and remembering his promises to his students, had insisted on taking the X-men.
Naturally, Moira was the only person involved in the process who knew of Xavier's involvement in locating Kevin. Everybody else just seemed to think that she had some kind of machine that could locate him by a homing device, or by his DNA, or some such thing. In reality, such methods would never have worked, because Kevin had no physical DNA to detect, and could easily have melted any homing device, but if anyone had been able to jump to those conclusions, they never let on about it. As far as they knew, Xavier was just a good friend of Moira, who she didn't want to let out of her sight during the investigation.
To Kurt, the trip across the country had been a complete surprise, and it was quite likely they'd all be headed into horrible danger, but despite the impending threat, and perhaps even a terrible fight that they might have on their hands, there was a part of him that was a little bit happy. Professor Xavier's hesitation to offer the X-men the chance to go with him when the situation would be dangerous had been an obstacle to their success in the past, and it was, despite the circumstances, refreshing to see that changed. Maybe, Kurt thought, there really was a chance that the X-men could be superheroes, like the Fantastic Four or Spider-man. Those guys went out of their way to do the right thing and help people, no matter how tough the situation became, and it was just a little easier to tolerate his physical appearance and his worries if Kurt thought of himself in that light. Of course, superheroes never killed, which was a little harder to take, not because Kurt wanted to kill anyone, but because he was almost certain that Logan had killed people in the past; maybe even lots of people. If there was a "no killers" rule stretched across the title of superhero, the X-men would have to leave Logan behind, which Kurt wouldn't have done for any title on Earth, even if he'd been asked to be the next pope.
"No matter what," Kurt thought silently as they approached their new destination, "I couldn't give up my new friends. Even the ones I don't really like. To give up on them would be like giving up on God himself. Perhaps the high profile of a superhero is a curse in disguise, if one must leave behind the ones who need their help the most."
However, Kurt's contemplation ended as the jet gave a short bump, sliding to a stop outside of Ruthven.
The plane had been traveling with limited noise and friction, just as it had been designed to the whole way, but when it came to a stop, it revealed yet another feature; it had radar and sonic detection devices built into it. The pilot's primary job up to that point, in fact, had been to try to pick up Kevin on the sonic sensors, just so that he could maintain a safe distance from the decidedly dangerous mutant.
At that point, they could all see the small blip on what definitely looked like a radar screen, but was, according to the pilot, only sensing the vast levels of energy that Kevin was pushing out at all times. It certainly looked like Kevin was just wandering this way and that, through the range of the sensors, maybe doing nothing, or maybe doing all kinds of horrible things. There was no way to be sure. Scott seemed a little afraid as the group watched the blip go about its business, but Xavier was far more nervous, and Moira looked petrified as she went, more than once, into the back room of the craft, to use the lower-bandwidth radio they had back there. To judge from her posture, and the look on her face, things on the front lines weren't going well...
Years before, Kevin's biggest weakness, like that of most enemies, had been bullets. No one could see the bullets being fired from guns, and what Kevin couldn't see, he couldn't control. However, he seemed to have grown considerably faster in reacting to attacks, because the bullets hadn't been outside the gun nozzles of the soldiers for more than a moment before Kevin would vanish from where he was, and walls of solid bedrock started to form around the soldiers, closing them in, and getting tighter and tighter.
"...got the shot."
"You sure?"
"I'm taking it."
"God help us all if you miss, John."
The soft hiss of a silenced pistol, then, with even greater clarity...
"Dammit! Where'd he go?"
"Look out!"
"Oh, Goahhah!"
Kurt flinched hard at the sound of bones being crushed under tons of rock. The screams of dying men echoed through his soul and he found that as great as the danger was, he couldn't take it anymore.
"Himmel in the highest!" Kurt exclaimed, furious, "Enough is enough! I will listen to no more of this!"
"Huh?" Jubilation asked, no idea what he was talking about.
"No more of what, Kurt?" Scott asked, truly curious.
"Aw, crap..." Logan muttered, his eyes widening as Kurt reached into his suitcase and pulled out the long, slender box which only Scott recognized by sight, "You... heard all that?"
"Ja." Kurt replied, fury still all over his face, tucking the box under one arm, "I know where he is, and I can get there the fastest. It will tire me, but... I can take one of you with me."
"Then take me!" Piotr exclaimed, "I am his weakness. With my metal body..."
"Only if his host has been killed already." Kurt replied, "If he sees you before then, you are dead."
"I'm goin'." Logan said, "Take me. I'm a good soldier, like you."
Kurt gave a brief, meaningful nod, just as the other three X-men got up, not sure what to say, but Xavier was the one who spoke.
"Kurt, I know you want to do something, but the danger is too great. We can't just..."
"I know what I cannot do, professor." Kurt said, his anger returning, "I cannot sit in a parked stealth aircraft like a coward, while men die by the dozens who my power might have saved."
"Kid's a man now, Charlie." Logan said with a mischievous smile, "The rest of ya can follow if you think you're up to it."
Then, just like that, Logan put one hand on Kurt's shoulder, and both vanished in a burst of smoke, a trail of such bursts appearing and fading only a moment later across the countryside.
Charles Xavier watched the bursts go, angry with himself for how everything had turned out, but he wasn't sure who he was angrier at; Kurt for running off like that, into almost certain death, or himself, for not being able to follow...
The sight that Kurt saw as soon as he arrived within view of the battle was dizzying and horrifying. It would have been, even if he hadn't expended so much of his x-force to travel across such a long distance. Kurt could see the green plains in the center of the location, and the cloudless, blue skies overhead, but everything else in his range of vision was an image from the darkest tale of horror. The hills surrounding the plains were small, and their grass was covered in a mass of red and brown. Kurt could see the center of the plain decorated with a giant, golden pyramid, steps leading up to the top of it, where a massive plateau of golden bricks, clearly crafted by the will of Kevin bore a gold throne, encrusted with jewels. Kurt found the whole sight hideous in its bloodthirsty and intentionally-opulent nature, so used was he to the dogma of self-sacrifice and giving out of love. Sitting on that throne was what looked like a worn, grayed skeleton, as a beautiful woman with long, flowing hair floated through the air in his direction.
"P-please..." the woman muttered in the only kind of voice she could manage, "Don't... Don't do... this..."
"Oh, come on." the skeletal form of Kevin replied, "This is the greatest gift in the world. Once we merge, I will know everything you know, and since I never age, you'll have earned immortality as well. You never know. You might even like it."
As he said that, the woman bent over Kevin, clearly against her will, and Kurt could hear her screaming as her lips met his, and the old host turned to dust upon the golden floor, which quickly faded, so that it would not tarnish his magnificent throne.
Logan cursed once, just quietly enough that no one without enhanced hearing could have heard it, then said in the same tone of voice, "He's showing off. He coulda touched her any way he wanted to, even by leavin' his host for a minute."
"But that would have left him vulnerable." Kurt replied.
"Look around, Kurt." Logan said, and Kurt started looking at Logan in shock. It was the first time Logan had ever called him by his real name, instead of "kid" or "you."
In the end, though, Kurt did look around, and Logan explained, "He's got nothing to worry about. He just mopped the place up with the military, and the closest help's miles away. He wouldn't be vulnerable if he left that guy's body. He'd just being a jerk."
Kurt seemed unsure of what to say to that, but he had another question that he wanted to have answered before he tried to challenge Kevin in any way.
"Kevin is a mutant, like us, is he not?"
"Yeah."
"What are the limits of his x-force?"
Logan looked surprised, but pleased by the question, so he responded quickly.
"He turns the biochemical energy of host bodies into x-force, then uses that. That's why he's unstoppable as long as he's in a host."
"Then, would not the body of a mutant be even more effective?" Kurt asked, horrified.
"Yeah." Logan replied, "The more powerful, the worse he'd be. He could keep drawin' power from a mutant fer months."
Kurt was sorry to hear that, because it meant that there was that much more at stake if either of them failed, but he quickly tossed aside the sword box, and drew the sword out with his left hand, holding it carefully as he waved it back and forth.
"Got any experience with that thing?" Logan asked.
"Not in battle." Kurt admitted, "Would you like to use it?"
"Thanks, Kurt." Logan said, tightening both fists, and Kurt saw Logan's bright, metal claws come out just then in a way that he hardly ever saw, to the point of sometimes forgetting that they were even there, "I think I'll manage, though."
After that, there were a few seconds to plan the attack as Logan and Kurt stood in the shadow of the pyramid before the time came to strike.
It was, of course, quite true that absorbing a new host gave Kevin access to all of their knowledge, memories and thoughts. He felt with delicious ease the fear that had gone through his victims before the inevitable moment when they'd become one with him; the names and faces of the people closest to them, every wonderful and horrible experience they'd ever gone through, and in particular, the knowledge and higher education that the tragic woman he'd most recently inhabited had spent her life accumulating. Much of it was useless junk about math and science, and some uncertainty thing, but in her thoughts, Kevin also found many amusing stories that he found enjoyable; in particular one about a being named Proteus. Proteus was a god of the sea, charged with living his life bound to some menial task, like taking care of seals or some such thing, Proteus was a god who took many different forms, so that people wouldn't keep coming to him for information about the future. In short, he sought security in bodies other than his own, and that was something that Kevin understood quite well. In fact, he almost felt sympathy for the character. It was a rare feeling in Kevin, and it felt unpleasant, so he decided to start planning his next move instead. He liked the body he was in at that point for some reason, because of its appearance, although he knew it would wear itself out eventually. Still, he wasn't really sure where to go next, or what to do. Would he be able to use the body's power to get across whole oceans? Would he really want to, in the end? Could Kevin rule his homeland with his powers? Could he be a new god for the modern age?
"Yeah..." Kevin said aloud, the first words he'd said in the new, feminine voice he'd acquired, "That's a start."
Just then, Kevin saw the glint of a metal very different from gold coming at him from the side.
"Gee, that was stupid of you." Kevin said to the frozen mutant with the wild hair and metal claws, "Why else did you think I built this throne, if not to protect me from behind? You've got a lot of nerve though, and you did try to hit me from the side. I could use sneakiness like that, especially since mum seems to have found some way to track me down. Maybe I'll let the girl go, and take you instead..."
As he (or was it she) said that, Kevin reached for Logan's hand, and the woman gasped aloud, scared out of her mind, but in one piece. Kurt still crouched behind the throne for a moment more, until the gold at his feet started to rise up around him, and he had to teleport away. Kevin had learned his location, and his plans the moment he's taken Logan as a host, but worse, he'd know everything that Logan did in only moments, and when he learned about Moira and... Professor Xavier. Like a bullet, words he'd heard just recently rushed through Kurt's head.
"The more powerful, the worse he'd be. He could keep drawin' power from a mutant fer months."
"I could use sneakiness like that, especially since mum seems to have found some way to track me down."
Kurt swallowed hard as he saw Logan's body take off through the air at impossible speeds across the country, towards the place where the jet was, with Xavier in it.
"Professor Xavier is the most powerful mutant I know." Kurt realized silently, "If Kevin takes him... all is lost..."
Then, as quickly as he could, in spite of his exhaustion, Kurt began the long string of teleportations back to the jet.
Kurt arrived back at the jet within minutes, but the sight he saw filled him with terror, because he knew he was too late. Logan, Scott, Jubilation and the others were all trapped in shackles, hanging from the side of the jet, and Professor Xavier seemed to be standing upright and rubbing his eyes, as if trying to get over being hit with a bright light.
"You never really had a chance, you know." Xavier replied with a cruel smile, "No other mutant can beat me, although, mummy-dearest..." he said as he approached Moira a bit closer, "it was a cruel trick to try."
The sight brought it all back to Kurt. The dreams of his own helplessness, and the horrible thoughts he'd put himself through; thoughts of his friends dying, because he couldn't deliver a killing blow against another man... But Kevin wasn't just going to let Xavier go. As much as Kurt owed Charles Xavier, he knew what he had to do.
Clutching his sword tightly in one hand, Kurt charged forward towards Xavier, then teleported right behind him, and lunged forward...
...Only to find that Xavier had vanished. Kurt's sword flew from his hand, and into the air only a moment later, as he realized just how badly he'd been tricked. Soon, he was on the ground on his back, with Xavier standing over him.
"Idiot." Kevin said in Xavier's voice, "I can use your professor's powers now, too. I can sense you wherever you are, just by your thoughts. You never had a chance against me."
Kurt tried to teleport away again, but something was keeping him in place as Kevin stood over him, his legs on either side of Kurt's, then Kurt looked down through both their legs and saw his sword lying on the ground behind Kevin, and remembered something that Logan had told him about Kevin's powers. As long as he can see it, he can control it. As long as he can see it...
"I could put you up against this wall here with your friends," Kevin debated, "but you'd just be able to teleport out. Oh, well. Guess I'll just have to kill you."
Grinning like the maniac he was, Kevin caused seven stone spikes to rise up out of the ground around him, and descend slowly towards Kurt, when the dark, furry X-man made his move, and suddenly, there was a metal sword sticking out of Xavier's body from behind.
Kurt could feel Kevin's grip on him loosening, and quickly teleported behind him, to grab hold of the sword again. Kevin had been able to see and control all of Kurt's limbs except one; his tail, which had been lying on the ground between his legs. At the last moment, the end of Kurt's tail had grabbed the sword and stabbed him from behind, even before he could react. It was the only way Kurt could have claimed victory, but it came at a high price.
Xavier fell forward, off the blade of the sword at the moment of death, as the nebulous energy force that was Kevin's true form separated from it involuntarily. Quickly, Kurt rammed the sword into the ground, trapping the hideously-convulsing Kevin where he was. The metal of the sword had disrupted Kevin's ability to use his powers, and that would remain the case until he could be recaptured in an actual enclosure. Quickly, Kurt began teleporting the others out of their bonds as Scott stared angrily at the being who'd killed Xavier. Piotr stood over the professor with a truly saddened look on his face, like a silent guardian. Jubilation didn't know what to think, but in a way, she felt just as bad about what had happened as anyone else there.
Betsy Braddock had tried to fool herself into thinking she'd won some kind of victory over Xavier at first, but then, if that had been the case, why had she gone out of her way to conceal the crack in her cell from others? Why not just remain in that tiny place for the rest of her life? What was there left in the world for her to learn?
When Xavier had regained his senses a relatively short time after his encounter with her, it had filled her with surprise and awe. Though he'd been shocked by the thoughts that she'd shared with him, he clearly had the skill needed to deal with them, which meant that, contrary to her own previous assumptions, that skill existed. As much of a pessimist as Betsy had been since her mutant powers had first manifested, she couldn't ignore what Xavier had accomplished. When he'd told her that he wanted to share in her pain, she'd given him copies of every thought she'd absorbed, and he, in turn, had managed to deal with it. He was an older man. He had more experience, but, she realized, if Xavier could use his powers in that way, so could she, if only she knew how...
The dark thoughts still circled around Betsy's consciousness as she struggled to find the method that Xavier had used, but that was when she heard the thoughts of his students returning, and in their thoughts, lay the realization that Charles Xavier was dead.
Betsy wasn't too surprised by that, considering the monster that he'd gone to face. It surprised her far more to note that the monster had been vanquished, in fact, and was being brought back to Muir Island in a metal prison. It didn't mean much to her, though. All that mattered was that Charles Xavier could no longer teach her the secret technique he'd used to dispel the dark thoughts, so she lapsed into despair again, until she heard the thoughts of Moira McTaggert; the very woman who'd done Betsy such a favor by giving her that protective booth to live in.
"Charles! Come on! Don't quit, Charles! Ye've got more in yeh than that!"
Then, Betsy heard the thoughts of Xavier's other students, each yearning for the professor to pull through; even the two who were far less inclined to be optimistic, and that was when Betsy made the big, responsible decision that her foolish parents hadn't trained her to make. She left her body and traveled, invisibly, to Xavier's bedside, where Moira was struggling to keep him alive with medication, patches and bandages... It wouldn't work. A sword had been driven through Xavier's stomach. There was, Betsy realized, only one way that Xavier could be brought back.
Quickly, Betsy took action, using the very power that she'd used not long ago to put a gash in solid metal. She felt the severed blood vessels and tendons, and the cells of Xavier's organs, which had been divided from one another, and with slow, delicate, telekinetic impulses, the cells began to move back towards one another. In and out, back and forth, Betsy's power moved, stroking its way gently through the damaged cells like the slowly-flapping wings of a butterfly, and then, when she could see that Xavier's soul was just about to leave his body, Betsy put a swift pressure on his chest and released it. In a flash, Xavier was awake, his eyes open and his breathing rapid and unreliable. Still, he was alive again, and a combination of Moira's medicine and the natural healing of time could do the rest. At the very least, his mighty brain was quite back to normal.
"Come to me, Xavier..." Betsy said into his thoughts the very moment he woke up, "I've shared with you my most powerful thoughts. Now, share your thoughts with me again."
Xavier, however, didn't respond as he lay back in the hospital bed, trying to relax as Moira and the others smiled delightedly at him. He had a lot of healing to do before he'd be ready for Betsy again.
Xavier was in bed for a few days after having been brought back to life, and had had enough time to thank Kurt for what he'd done. It was a very strange feeling to Kurt, being thanked for killing somebody in front of all their friends, and he was pretty sure it would never happen to him that way again, which was all to the good.
However, Kurt got something else that he'd never expected, nor dared to hope for as he sat on the ceiling of his hotel room, reading a book one day, soon after the incident. There was a knock on the door, so Kurt quickly let go of the ceiling, to balance on his tail before landing the floor with a soft thud.
"Mister Wagner?"
Of course, whoever it was had pronounced his name wrong, but he didn't really mind, so Kurt just quickly opened the door, and to his surprise and shock, the man standing before him was a very high-ranking military leader. Kurt could see that the man was dressed in his uniform, as if going to a formal ceremony. The man was gray-haired around the edges, but the hair on the top of his head was still brown, and he had a look of surprise on his face as he stared at Kurt in awe, and perhaps a bit of dismay.
"You're a mutant as well..." the general realized aloud, to which Kurt felt obliged to reply.
"I am. I am Kurt Wagner. Might I inquire as to your name?"
"My apologies." the general said, "You gave me quite a scare there, for a moment. My name is General Benjamin Stone, and I've been trying to determine for a while who it was that eventually stopped Kevin McTaggert. Moira tells me that Charles Xavier had something to do with helping to track him down, and he mentioned you..."
"Yes." Kurt said, hesitating for only a moment before replying honestly, with a very severe expression, "I was the one who drove a sword through Xavier's chest when Kevin inhabited his body. In doing so, I stopped Kevin, and nearly killed the Professor. I will not disguise that, because if placed in the same situation again, I would make the same decision."
The general looked a little surprised to hear such a mature reply from such a young boy, but he spoke only a moment later with sternness in his own voice as well, "Tell me the truth, Mister Wagner. As a mutant yourself, did Kevin's powers have any effect on you?"
"He would have killed me with them had I not struck him down." Kurt replied, "The danger was great, but too many were dying. I could not sit back, and..."
At that point, however, the general smiled a satisfied smile, and Kurt could feel that he didn't need to say anymore.
"You know, I first found out that you were a mutant as I was standing right here in this doorway a few seconds ago. I think if I'd found that out before arriving here, I might not have come. I'd have been worried you'd be like Kevin."
"Even among humans, there are lunatics and criminals, sir," Kurt explained sadly, "and it is they who get the attention."
"I can see that now." the general replied, "Having met you, and talked to you, I can see you're one of the finest soldiers I've ever met, despite your age, and that's why I'm honored to present you..."
Quickly, the general dug something out of his pocket, and handed it to Kurt, who took it with a befuddled look on his face.
"...with the Jack twin-pistol star of service. It's the highest honor of courage and decisiveness that the armed forces of the United Kingdom can offer to a civilian, first earned by the masked fighter Union Jack during his days as a member of the Invaders. Yours has your name written on it."
"It... it..." Kurt could barely speak as he held the precious medal in his hands. It was far more than he could ever have hoped for.
"One more thing, however." the general said, "Though the idea of any of this happening again fills me with mortal terror, there is a chance that it might. If we ever need your assistance in another such crisis..."
Quickly, Kurt straightened up and saluted, then said "My courage will not fail, sir, though I cannot promise that I will not. Today was a close call."
"That's all anyone can ask." the general replied, reaching out his hand to shake Kurt's, "It's been an honor to meet you, Mister Wagner, and I hope to see you again some day."
Then, the general walked off down the hallway again, and Kurt was left, staring dumbfounded at the medal he'd been handed, fascinated and terrified by the great responsibility it signified. The challenge of Kurt's life would be living up to his own standards from that point on.
Fred Dukes woke up on the floor of his bedroom, though the chair he'd been sitting in seemed to have been removed. The first sight that met his eyes, though, was a pleasant one; the tiny form of Anna, with her visible, insect-like wings, seated with a smirk on the end of his nose. Perhaps, Fred realized, she'd been there the whole time he'd been out, but when his eyes fluttered open, she took flight, expanding back to her normal size, as he lay there on the floor. At that point, Fred could have gotten back up, but his head was too full of images, puzzles and questions. He couldn't bring himself to raise so much as one hand when he was so confused.
"I don't get it." he said to Anna, who was sitting on the ground next to him, staring into his eyes, "Why ain't you scareda me?"
"Huh?" she asked.
"Most girls run when they see me comin'..." he muttered, "Why ain't you scareda me?"
For a moment, Anna opened her mouth, but swiftly closed it again, as tiny electric charges danced back and forth through her eyes, flying into the air in the direction of her ears before dissipating.
"Naw, I mean aside from that..." Fred said, finally gathering up the strength of will to right himself with his arms, "I mean, I ain't exactly a movie-star pretty boy. Why me?"
Anna looked a little sad for a moment, but at last, she said, "'Cause you see stuff about me nobody else sees. 'Cause... We're kinda the same. Ah mean, did you ever think that somebody could come along and love you for who you are, and maybe even take you up in their arms and kiss you, and it'd all be happy ever after from then on?"
"Naw." Fred replied, "I ain't that stupid."
For a moment, there was a pause in the conversation, and then, Anna's mouth opened again, and she continued, "Me either. Ah got these powahs that say nobody can ever get close to me for too long, or else they're dead. Just short contact, and even that's got a price. How many people do you think could put up with that in the world?"
"Probably only a couple..." Fred muttered.
"Both of us got fantastic powahs..." Anna replied, putting one gloved hand on Fred's arm and helping him to his feet, "But they keep us from being... intimate with people, and if we're not gonna be intimate, we may as well not be intimate together... Just so's we don't have to feel too lonely."
"Yeah..." Fred replied, his confusion fading, and a genuine smile appearing on his lips, "I can live with that."
Sir James Braddock rushed forward as soon as he saw Professor Xavier emerging from the inner chambers of the Muir Island research facility, and was relieved to see that there was a weary smile on the Professor's face.
"Betsy." James said quickly, "Is she...?"
"She's had a hard time, but she should be alright." Xavier said with a smile, "She won't shout at you anymore."
"Oh, thank you!" James exclaimed, then said, "Nothing I could give you could ever equal what you've given me, but nonetheless, I feel I should pay you somehow. Here."
At that point, James shoved a check with quite a number of zeros into Xavier's hands, causing the professor's eyes to widen, despite his exhaustion.
"Mister Braddock..." Xavier said, stunned, "I can't accept..."
"Do not rob me of the chance to express my gratitude to you." James said sternly, "Please. Humor me. Take it."
Xavier looked at the check, then at Braddock, then at the check again, and at last put it in his pocket.
"There is one more thing, however." Xavier said, feeling a little regret creeping up around him, "I've taught your daughter a means of coping with her special abilities, and it seems to be effective so far, but if she's going to live a normal life, she'll need to train in that technique regularly. Now, I suspect that I could communicate with her over long distances if it was truly necessary, but I have a school in America specifically intended to help those with special gifts learn what they need to know for the future, and I think that your daughter would be helped most by enrolling there. That way, she could receive a fine education, and also learn to control her special abilities even better. Will you agree to that?"
"A boarding school in America?" James asked, interested, "Yes... If you think its best, I'll accept that, but I'll want to hear from her regularly. If things work out, I might even be willing to..."
However, just then, Logan came running up, his wild hair looking even more disheveled than normal as he said "Chuck, we've got a problem."
Quickly, Logan handed Xavier a slip of paper a moment later, which Xavier ran his eyes over, and the moment the professor had finished reading the paper, he felt worry grip his heart as well.
"Sir," Xavier said, "May we use the jet you brought us here in for a moment. There's an urgent problem I must attend to."
To be continued...