X-Men: Sanctuary
Issue # 11
By Kyle Phoenix
War Part 4
"In The Zone"
Roster: Archangel Black Bishop Capt. Ari Chamber Frenzy Hunter Iceman Karma Magma Nightcrawler Northstar Paulie Peter Rasputin, Jr. Psyche Raphael Shadowcat Spike Talisman
Carlos had been in tough spots before. In fact he liked to think that his serial immortality had made him something of a problem solver in his lifetimes, the risks and dangers always overwhelming and odds seemingly insurmountable. Admittedly, several times he'd died. A few when he had thought victory firmly in place, others when death was sure. His time though with the X-Men----------he felt like in the past few weeks he had bounced through uncertainty to the point that he was never sure when or if he'd die in the next moment.
When ice had begun raining down from above and Carlos had gotten faint empathic feelings of the other X-Men squad both above and below, his hopes of escaping this alien ridden base and now crumbling death trap, getting on to the business of rescuing Danielle had sharply risen.
Almost painfully so. And to some degree, Warren as well, their time to bond shorter but still as intense as deep as the one he felt with Danielle. Though Warren's reticence to such a deep psi bond with a man making it seem lighter. The psi bond was the strongest Carlos had felt with another human being sine his days in the French Court, before the Terror with a telepath who could create psi bonds between lovers. Psi bonds that were so strong, the pair could never separate. Carlos suspected that somehow he'd inadvertently done that with Danielle and Warren. The two young mutants would eventually become lost without the stability of the rest of the triumvirate but Carlos had even deeper worries for himself. For what he carried within. Since the bond had been established the doors keeping it at bay had triple din strength, giving him peace for the first time in centuries. Without the others though, the Beast was hammering away at Carlos' mind literally. Pounding incessantly.
Warren's betrayal was orchestrated, Meridian being the only thing that could've snatched him away from them. Carlos would have to get back to Earth and deal with her to free Warren first before finding Danielle wherever Marat had stolen her too. And instead of focusing on reuniting the other two pieces of his soul, hre he was on an alien world dodging patrol and repair squads of a space elevator that was doomed to failure as soon as it had been built on a planet of the insane.
He and Frenzy, old hats now at moving slowly from level to level avoiding damage control teams, who still seemed intent on repairing the massively damaged space elevator, towards the ship Peter had ready for them hadn't expected the second impact minutes later. They could now both look up a mile above them and see space. Organic material and metal had showered down after that impact. The top of the elevator ripped and blasted off. At first Carlos had no idea what the hell it could've been, until the next wave of showering had come down.
Brood. Hundreds of them. Most were dead, ripped into pieces but dozens were alive and engaged in a fierce battle with the remainder of the invasion troops that had survived. It was a fight of such confused, violence that Carlos had wisely decided to avoid it all together. Both sides were going to lose and die here. He and Frenzy still had the revitalizer and now their teammates were out there looking to retrieve them. That was their first and only concern.
"Here!" Peter shouted as the two X-Men ran onto a hangar deck. He was waving frantically need to a sleek fighter ship.
"You don't carjack anything but a Mercedes, huh, Peter!" Frenzy laughed, relieved and impressed as she slapped him on the back.
"It's an experimental ship called the Avery. Classified. It can do limited Stargate jumps, I thought we might need to do that if the others didn't get back in time," Peter beamed after recovering from the impact of Frenzy's congratulations. The woman didn't know her own strength.
"Excellent work," Carlos said and moved towards the entrance way when his mystical senses snapped his neck back. "Shit!"
"What?" Peter said in befuddlement. "I don't smell anything. Maybe it's the alien air fresheners?"
"No, not the ship," Carlos replied, used to Peter's incessant overstatements. He pointed at where they'd come from.
"We want the ship, humanssssssssssss!" Holy Mother shrieked, her hands crackling with eldritch energy, she was flanked by a dozen Brood, who were carrying their Queen and a dozen more who were armed to the teeth. Big teeth actually.
"Oh, fuck, no!" Frenzy roared and took of the revitalizer pack and tossed it at the ship. "There is no way in heaven, hell, or this miserable planet any of them is getting by me. They are the cause of this entire drama to begin with!"
"Agreed," Carlos snapped, and pulled a plasma rifle from his back.
"We can easily take the shift from you," Holy Mother sighed. Looking both worn out and strangely energized. "You've lost, mutants. How about you simply surrender and we offer you immediate siring of our young to make you one of our own? That's the only option available to you at the moment. You're outnumbered and outgunned."
"I can take the eight on the left," Frenzy growled. "Carlos? Carlos?"
Carlos wasn't sure if they could hold the line and even win this fight. This sorceress had fought toe to toe with Talisman. He could use the Beast's within him magicks' but that could start more trouble than it would ultimately be worth. They were at a stalemate.
"Lezzzzzzzz dooooooooooo thizzzzzzzz!" a metallic voice screeched behind the Brood and Carlos grinned, he hadn't even looked to see that Peter had metal merged again and vanished. The fact that he was now directly behind the Brood, animating a twelve foot tall, razor covered, hulking mass that was obviously his construction. It looked like he had formed the metal around his body, extenuating talons and body spikes as well as armoring.
"Peter? Damn!" Frenzy grinned.
"How do you think I kept the ship protected this whole time?" Peter said over the comm link, his first uttering having been through the metallic colossus' mouth and now he was over his comm link.
Holy Mother turned and stared at the spiked monstrosity. It was slowly moving closer to them, in between them and the ship. There would be no way fight through the two determined X-Men and take the ship undamaged. These were desperate beings, and the space elevator's continued integrity was also working against them. Becoming the puppet of a Brood Queen had not been her intention but this one had it's psi claws deep into her, to at all costs preserve the Queen. Holy Mother grimaced and gave the psi/pheromone based order that made her group of Brood sidle towards another ship. She could feel the Queen's other guard hyper spacing in, all they had to do was make it to orbit. With the Brood Queen injured, she couldn't risk a protracted battle with the mutants.
"Stalemate, mutants but while my Queen may've miscalculated in trying to retrieve the San Madre children, we still have those original slaves and therefore, Earth!" Holy Mother spat as The three X-Men were finally standing squarely in front of their ship, the spiked colossus having tipped the scales. A large hangar door opened and Carlos and Frenzy slowly backed in. The Brood made steps forward and several of the Avery's battle guns extended and pointed directly at the Brood.
"Try me," Peter snapped, his mecha empathy stretched to it's limits as he stood/lay inside the husk of his metal colossus, not merged with the metal but cocooned by it like a giant armor. This allowed him to extend his mecha control back to the Avery that he had been so carefully reworking to respond to his thought controls for almost a day now. While he couldn't use his mecha empathy while merged with an independent metal, he had anticipated trouble and created his spiked colossus and kept it hidden behind the cargo bay supplies in case they had to fight their way out.
"Peter? You there, mofo?" Paulie squawked over his comm link.
"Paulie? Yes, I'm here! Where are you? We're about to leave!" Peter said happily into his comm link.
"One sec....." Paulie said and there was a tremendous explosion at the bay doors that caused them to literally be sucked off of the wall. Paulie floated in on an energy wave, clutching several unconscious invasion shock troopers which he tossed to the ground. "Sorry, it took me so long to find you. Our comm links aren't working too well with all this interference but Ari just signaled me about your location from Kitty's scans. These roaches starting some more shit?"
"I see you've made some improvements?" Carlos said over the comm link as he settled into the pilots seat, the instrumentation flashing in English (Peter's doing) as the ship powered up to fly. The brood and Holy Mother were slowly backing towards another, less advanced ship, not wanting to antagonize what was slowly becoming a greater and greater threat.
"You better believe it, Black Bishop! I got the Motts now!" Paulie grinned.
"Get on board, Peter. Paulie, those bugs think they're leaving here alive. Understood?" Carlos said calmly.
"Understood," Paulie grinned and charged into the Brood excitedly blasting and ripping at them.
"Treacherous mutants!!!!" Holy Mother screamed, about to fire an eldritch bolt when Peter's colossus ran into the fray and impaled her on its taloned hand. Simultaneously, Carlos signaled Frenzy at the weapons console and she opened fire n the Brood.
The space elevator rocked again, more explosions and the entire floor listed.
"Time to go, kids!" Carlos yelled over the comm link. "Paulie, I need a door!"
"Awwwwwww, just when I was getting into it!" Paulie sighed and blasted several Brood off him, ripped the had off of another then swooped back and charged at them a second time. This time though he continued through the mass and crashed through the ship behind them and the wall out into the night sky. He turned around and blasted at the hole he made, widening it for the Avery.
Peter used his colossus to scoop up the Brood and push them away as the Avery went from stock still to blasting off in an instant into the night sky.
"Let's get the others and------," Paulie started.
"Don't forget Peter, he's inside that metal husk," Carlos said calmly.
"No shit? Wow, we're starting to look like a major player team, huh?" Paulie cheered as he dove back inside the hangar and came back out with the human form of Peter who'd been waiting with a grin.
"Kitty? I take it you're out there somewhere?" Carlos said over the ship's boosted communications system.
"Carlos? You're finally clear of the space elevator? Good. We have Magma and......a guest, I understand you have the wheels to get us out of here?" Shadowcat said over her comm link. "Magma explained what happened to Dani and Kurt, we have to get out of here and help them."
"Agreed. On our way," Carlos said as he kept the ship hovering long enough for Paulie to toss Peter to the ship entrance door, shut it and then follow Paulie towards the surface. The power radiating from Paulie was almost blinding but he would make an excellent escort if they ran into any trouble. As they dipped through the clouds they were joined on their bow by Nemesis.
"I am here," was all she said. Then she added. "Chamber was lost."
Peter climbed into the co-pilots seat and his hands merged into several ports he'd obviously constructed for his own use. His eyes went metallic again and the ship banked smoother and quicker than Carlos could even calibrate to fly. It was obvious, Peter had worked on establishing a deep rapport with the ship and made several adjustments. It was less than two minutes that they'd rendezvoused with their compatriots on the ground.
Carlos couldn't help himself as he hugged Magma who was covered in a deep purple cloak. "I was so worried about you, mi reina."
Amara chuckled. "I had every confidence you'd return for me, Carlos. I'm just sorry that this world has been so hurt by our presence."
"More X-men, new faces?" Deathbird sneered.
"Hey, knock it off, Deathbird, Magma's vouching for you is the only thing keeping you getting a seat on this ferry out," Shadowcat snapped. Hunter lagged behind and pointed skyward. "What is it?"
"The Imperial Guard!" Deathbird shrieked, her keen eyesight making out the guard as they rocketed towards them.
"We're in no shape for a protracted battle!" Carlos said to Kitty.
"Agreed. Everyone lets' get onboard! Now!" Shadowcat ordered and they all rushed aboard. "Talisman, we've retrieved everyone. We need Option Seven! Option Seven," Liz!" she yelled over her comm link as the ship lurched as soon as they were all inside.
Instead of immediately taking the Avery skyward, Peter flew it through the war torn streets, trying to use the fires and general melee to their advantage.
Talisman rose into the sky, her fists holding globes of mystical energy. She had spent her time in meditation with the planet, getting a sense of what could be done to help it. The space elevator's connection to the dimensional rift had put an extreme strain on the magnetic core, but that was over now. With the force field down as well, the damage had stopped, which was her goal.
She'd never felt so incensed before. It was as if she'd watched a rape occur and this invading force taking advantage of the planet's weakened state wasn't sitting well with her sense of morality either. She'd been communing with the spirit of the world, hearing it's pain, easing it, and telling it that she was here to help, that she would be doing so soon.
Soon was now.
She could see the Imperial rocketing towards her, she turned to fully face them, sensing their power welling to strike at her but she had other ideas. Her entire body began to whirl around as she called upon the spell she'd been working on to help this world and alleviate the problem of the Shi'ar attacking them. It was simple. Lock into what Magma had started and then push it, direct it, make it stronger.
The torrential rains started first, the clouds exploding in fury and the winds joining to start a storm of the wrecked city that had never been seen before. Lightning that rivaled what Storm could summon naturally, Talisman had coaxed the spirit of this planet to release. Then she directed it against the space elevator as a massive earthquake first started and then a chasm miles wide opened below the space elevator.
The Imperial Guard came to a sudden stop in mid air as the entire elevator fell into the gaping maw of Xevan itself. She could sense the X- Men several miles away now rocketing skyward and the shouts from Kitty over the comm link that Talisman could flee now, she'd achieved their goals.
Talisman allowed the mystical fuel of the planet to flow into her and fired an energy wave of anger and rage and righteous fury that knocked first the Imperial Guard out of the sky and then continued onwards and upwards. Using herself as a conduit, Talisman kept a sharp focus on her target and her flowing energy wave smashed into the rear of the Shi'ar fleet at the mouth of the rift. Ships not already in the rift were forced in as the energy wave began shutting down all electrical systems until the rift exploded and shimmered out of existence.
A minute earlier:
Northstar was actually proud of the ice barrier that Iceman was throwing up in the rift, disrupting the Shi'ar on one side and the invaders on the other. Literally miles and miles of ice, weighing hundreds of tons was now floating and lying and dropping depending upon the gravity of where they were propelled. They had developed a plan of Iceman creating chunks and Northstar using a whirlwind and slinging method to hurl it at targets with his speed wake. With his super speed then added to Iceman's projections, they were then rocketing by ships, slamming tons of ice on to them and gone in the ensuing melee. Unfortunately that left them distracted and blind to the arriving energy wave.
"NORTHSTAR!!!!!!" Iceman screamed as he saw out of the corner of his eye the energy wave that Talisman was to use to close the rift. The plan for her to summon the "spiritual energy" of a planet itself had been dicey at best; Iceman had half expected it not to work. The others must've been trying to contact them for their time to egress but the melee had interrupted all but the shortest range communication.
"We're here!" Ari shouted over the comm link, her ship weaving an impossible flight course through the battle towards the two lone floating X- men. Canaan and Khan's forces were violently engaged in a furious battle to maintain the rift to bring in troops to the opposing side and in the middle of it was Ari's ship. A bird flying through a virtual firestorm to retrieve two lone floating men. "Tran, have you got a lock on their suits?!"
"I'm trying!" Tran shouted back.
Ari slammed in more commands to her already overloading console, firing plasma bursts, lasers, missiles at all of the enemies around them---- ----essentially everyone except for the two figures she was steadily moving the ship closer to. She was talking up arms against her own people for these mutants, she'd condemned herself as soon as she hadn't self destructed the ship. Her life was forfeit. But their bravery in defending her Empire's world had lead her to seemingly lose her senses----she would do everything in her power to rescue these two mutant fools.
There was another series of explosions from behind her.
"Captain!" Karma shrieked. "One of our engines is down! I think more of the Invasion ships are shoring up from the depths of this rift to defend against the attacking Shi'ar ships. We're in the middle of-------- we're in the middle of a war!"
"Karma, I'm activating the hyper space! You route all power to the remaining engines! Keep the computer online, Tran, I need the navigation to do this!"
"Yes, Captain!" Tran laughed hysterically. "It was pleasant getting a body right before I die! Again."
"No one dies on my watch, damn it!" Ari screamed as her ship began rattling and literally falling apart from the shots form both sides. She could actually see Iceman and Northstar streaking towards the ship from the distance. She took a deep breath, smiled and then fired several missiles directly at them.
"What are you doing?!!!" Karma shrieked and was about to reach out with her possession power when Tran shouted.
"I have a lock on them! Beaming those fools in now!"
"Good," Ari slumped back into her chair and secured herself as she once again performed a maneuver that the specs on her ship were never prepared for. She halted the ship in mid-flight, reversed course with landing thrusters only then jumped to hyper space from a standing position as the energy wave rolled, crashing like a golden cascading tidal wave through the ships that blocked the exit to the rift. The missiles behind her ship detonated as she'd timed them, the concussive force sending the battleship shearing into the wave itself as hyper space kicked in and what was first a smashing into the wave, slowed to a virtual energy slicing.
"Wow," Tran said as they followed the wave back up through the mouth of the rift in an instant and emerged sling shooting past Xevan. "Where did you learn that maneuver, Captain. Even I'm impressed."
"It was just invented. Now," Ari grinned in spite of herself. "Karma, power up the engines again and bring us around, Shadowcat is relaying the signal she was given should they obtain a ship to break orbit.
Talisman suddenly appeared on the bridge. "Did it work? The wards I placed on the ship?"
"Yes, they did," Ari smiled. "Magic and science meshed quite smoothly to allow your spell to not affect the ship as it did the others."
Talisman fell into a chair, exhausted. "Thank the Spirits. I was sure I'd killed you."
"I have a lock on the X-Men in a stolen ship, they're coming into the bay now. We have to get out of here, another Shi'ar fleet force has just dropped out of hyper space on the outskirts of the solar system," Tran reported.
"Understood," Ari let her fingers dance over several commands on her console after the confirmation of the X-Men docking. "I'm picking up another ship entering the Stargate ahead of us....?"
"Another ship?" Talisman was shocked and immediately reached out with her mystical senses. "Oh no!!!!"
"I feel it too!" Tran said. "She still has a connection to Raphael!"
"What?" Ari demanded. "Not all of us have your precious mutant abilities! Tell me!"
"Holy Mother and the Brood Queen are alive and heading for........San Madre?......in space? They know where it is and their going for those innocent people and then Earth!" Tran said, his eyes flashing with knowing.
Deep space:
The assembled X-Men sat around a conference room table, three Shi'ar exiles and an amalgam of a villain and a disembodied X-Man, now in tow, the revitalizer in the center of the table to heal the anaesthetized children in the cargo bay. Everyone had made their reports, formerly divided squads now back together but changed. One member dead: Chamber. Psyche and Nightcrawler kidnapped by an Asgardian warrior, Marat. And their leader, Archangel having returned to Earth, abandoning them in their time of need. The Sanctuary X-Men team was new, cobbled together to create and protect a mutant town as well as deal with international mutant crises, had journeyed the stars to protect their charges from the crimes committed upon their bodies by the parasitic Brood.
"The Brood Queen wants those five thousand people you left hovering by the Stargate we're approaching," Deathbird said calmly. "She wants it because of the genetic potential of humans. Not only your mutant potential but your race has the highest numbers of being altered by biochemical means as well as radiation into super powers. Even if half of them are able to be successfully altered, the Brood Queen will be able to rape half the galaxy. The one thing that has kept the Brood in check until now has been the overwhelming power of the Shi'ar Empire."
"I think we need to use the revitalizer immediately on the infected children.....and yes, myself. Or I will become a danger to you all," Hunter said, his body visibly drawn and trembling. "I have less than day left before my transformation."
"We could put Hunter into stasis while Peter shows me how to use this revitalizer. It's going to take about six hours for me to insure that it can and will work before I'd be willing to work it on those kids and Hunter," Cecelia said.
"What's the ship's status, Captain, can we engage in another fight so soon. There are at least two Brood vessels that were near the Xevan system and then vanished when the Brood Queen left the planet's surface. With a window of about twenty minutes behind them we're going to need everything possible to take them down," Kitty said darkly. Over the past few days, with the chipping down of their numbers, she'd become the de facto leader of the team along with Carlos, the Black Bishop.
"We'll also have the problem of planetary infection," talisman pointed out. "All of us warping into space near Earth with thousands of Brood and rushing to planet side. It's got problem all over it."
"You take this planetary protector thing seriously, huh, Liz?' Paulie smirked.
"It is my destiny," Talisman said gravely. "There is an alternative though."
"Which is?" Carlos asked, he'd been the most quiet, his thoughts constantly coming back to Psyche and Archangel, the rapport with them felt dead. Did that mean they were? He was also concerned with Magma having taken Deathbird as her personal bodyguard. It was slap in the face to him but that was a Hellfire Club matter. Still it boded ill for his direct future with her. His original purpose with these X-Men had become entangled with their own goals and to some degree his feelings of both loyalty and a sense of possibility with them. He'd turned down Xavier's offer years ago when offered a position in his original five but now....? Perhaps?
"I can go to Earth ahead and prepare a defense. Maybe even take one or two people with me. I'm not sure. Distance isn't like time, there are more random factors to calculate. But I feel I can do it for myself, a lot faster than this ship can. I have every confidence that we'll be able to avert this threat but my loyalty and allegiance to the X-Men, unfortunately, takes a backseat to my responsibility to Earth," Talisman said emphatically.
"Who would go with you?" Kitty asked. "We're going to probably need to board the San Madre isle and try and destroy it as well as fight the Brood. We can't do that at low ebb. You could contact the other teams on Earth. Maybe the Avengers, the Fantastic Four? Thunderbolts? Power Pack?"
"And the Danielle, Warren and Kurt issue?" Carlos brought up. "We don't know what occurred that Warren left us abandoned so abruptly and I have only a minimal sense of them through the psi rapport. I'm worried that as soon as we arrive, we may be looking at being attacked. By Meridian, Sabine or Marat."
"We certainly have chalked up a lot of enemies in a short time. Sabine, Marat, Meridian, Channel and now Canaan," Frenzy pointed out. "And we still need to decide what to do with Holy Mother. Sounds like the Brood Queen has hijacked her in much the same way Tran is in Raphael."
There was an uncomfortable moment and Cecelia spoke up. "I've examined Tran....Raphael thoroughly and while I'm not qualified to speak on mutant mutations I don't think it was either intentional, nor permanent. Raphael's mutant ability seems to be acting as a vessel or a conduit for other mutants so during the conflagration, they merged because of Karma being hit with the energy and Holy Mother reaching out to try and usurp his control again."
"In essence, he snatched me into his body to reinforce his defenses," Tran said slightly bitterly. "He's still here, aware." Tran's face shimmered and Raphael's stoic one appeared. "I believe I am keeping Holy Mother from being able to co-opt him again even in close proximity."
"And Chamber is lost," Nemesis said calmly, her hand lightly touching her sword that was laid on the table. "We mustn't forget to mourn for him."
Kitty made a decision. "Talisman, take Raphael, Carlos, Spike and Magma to Earth. That will eliminate the threat of Holy Mother through Raphael and give us a strong force to lead the counter attack. Deathbird, we could use your help and this would be a great way to pay for your passage."
All eyes turned to the woman who had been ally and adversary to the X- Men more often than anyone else. She grinned darkly. "I have no Empire to return to. And my brother, Canaan, will surely survive and return. Between him and D'Ken my head is up for grabs. I need asylum more than I desire revenge. I pledge myself to the X-Men. For now."
"I snap Tweety's neck like dry pasta if she tries to step out of line," Paulie promised, his energy gauntlets sizzling with energy.
"You're welcome to try, human," she chuckled.
Captain Ari spoke up, sitting at the head of the conference room table. "We should use the Revitalizer on Hunter to see if the children can be saved. Then when we drop back into the solar system and get closer to orbit, the children should be evacuated on the Avery. If it becomes necessary we may have to use the ship to destroy the Brood before they make planet fall."
Carlos spoke first. "Captain, we can't ask you to destroy your ship for us, your only way home."
"X-Man, you haven't been paying attention Hunter, Deathbird and I are outcasts from the Shi'ar Empire, I have no "home" to return to," she answered flatly. "I am concerned about the spread of the influence of the Brood. If they get a foothold on your world, they may soon make a move to attack the Empire. Though the Empire has no loyalty to my future, I still have an oath to its'."
Deathbird laughed. "You always were a hardliner, Ari, I'm glad to see that you're able to bend to help these mutants."
"They fought for one of our worlds as if it were their own, how could I not?"
"Let's all get some food and rest, the nest few hours are all we have before an all out war begins," Kitty said, standing and dismissing the meeting.
Xevan:
Canaan stood on the roof of a half destroyed building, a cloak drawn around him as he watched his troops restore order to the streets below. There was a flicker of warning from his two telepath aides and over the horizon came Gladiator. Canaan watched the warrior come soaring closer and closer until he landed, into a respectful kneel before the Emperor of the Shi'ar Empire.
"My liege," Gladiator said gravely.
"How does my world look?" Canaan asked calmly.
"Your added forces have helped to corral and restore order to all the continents. The loss of the ships in the rift, wasn't as bad as early thought."
"Good. And the prisoner?"
"The X-Man? Yes, we have him. What should we do with him? He's injured."
"Heal him. Restore him to perfect help. It is time that the Shi'ar struck back indirectly at the X-Men as well as rid the universe of my sister, Deathbird. While council decree is that Earth is off limits to all Shi'ar and they are to be excommunicated if they have contact with the humans. We shall breed an assassin of unparalleled ability in their own teammate."
"There is also evidence that the rift is still accessible to open and we've discovered a high ranking leader alive in the city rubble. He has requested an audience with you once his self-healing is completed."
"Self-healing?"
"Yes, it seems that he is part reptilian in physiology and has had to grow new limbs due to injury from one of the X-Men. In twelve hours, Kriss would like an audience with you. To discuss an alliance."
"By all means."
Australian Outback, Sanctuary Base:
A weaving energy spiral erupted over the town, slamming down to the ground, kicking up dirt and scorching the earth. Then winds began to swirl around the scorched spot, as more energy poured out of the gaping energy hole. Talisman appeared and dropped to the ground on one knee, her right arm extended upward the swirling energy still active. She reached out and drew upon the mystical wards she'd placed around the town, essentially energy batteries keyed specifically to her for whatever use she could think of.
Now she was using it as a grounding force again but the differential of teleporting out of a moving vehicle made it something that she had to disperse the energy from. She gritted her teeth, energy spilling from her fingertips as she focused it towards her wards, to absorb. But she wasn't done, she threw her hand into the energy spirals and mentally focused on pulling, on pulling her teammates through.
She waved her arms around, calling up the familiar Earth spirits to help her and Carlos, Raphael, Spike and Magma appeared. With a short gasp, Talisman let the energy dissipate and then fell back onto her haunches.
"Whew. I don't think I could've done that without my wards here!"
Carlos helped her stand and glanced around, extending his empathic senses. "No one is here. Not Alex Rosten or even Gateway."
"Isn't it his job to be here?" Spike asked.
"Twenty minutes to wash up and regroup in the situations room," Carlos said and stalked towards the main building.
"The man's edge was certainly dulled by Dani and Warren. I never thought I would actually wish for her grating personality verses someone else," Amara sighed.
"At least we get a minute to get our selves together," Spike muttered. "Not like we haven't been on the go for--------well since this outfit left Westchester. I'm going to go warm up the medical bay, those kids are still going to need medical care when they get here."
"And me?" Raphael asked.
"I have him," Tran said and with a flash assumed control of Raphael again and trotted behind Carlos.
"Great Spirits, they are all either neurotic or down right creepy," Talisman muttered to herself as she kneeled down and let the familiar Terran earth sieve through her fingers. She had actually missed her home world on such a deep profound level that she began to weep. And the battle was far from won.
Carlos' fingers danced over the hybrid Earth/Shi'ar technology and finally he located the two Acanti that had taken San Madre from the Stargate point and were bringing it towards Earth. They were passing through Saturn's solar orbital path and still heading towards Earth. Ari's ship had just dropped through the Stargate which was on the outskirts of the solar system near Neptune.
"I believe that if I push the engines, I can catch up to the Acanti but there were a lot of damages that we've patched up but not repaired. The Revitalizer is working perfectly on the children and as soon as we are within your Terran moon's orbit the Avery will disembark with Peter and the children aboard," Ari said over the view screen. Her image covered in static due to distance and sunspot activity.
Spike turned from her seat at another console. "I have a message from Mr. Rosten, seems that a small group of X-Men went to Madripoor to retrieve a long range ship to come and rescue us. Lead by Emma Frost."
"The White Queen? Dear Emma has finally put more than her barbs into this team, eh?" Amara said having put on a standard yellow and blue costume and leaning over Spike's shoulder. "Emma took Gateway, Juggernaut, Monet and Alex with her. But they haven't signaled that they've left Earth yet. According to Alex's comm link, he's still on the isle of Madripoor."
Carlos closed his eyes and focused. "I'm getting a fuzzy impression that Warren is there too. The psi rapport isn't completely active though. Like when he was kidnapped. We could most definitely use Emma's group's power in this thing. There's a second airship here, I say I take it to retrieve them. Amara come with me. Talisman and Spike will get our defenses ready here and contact other X-Men. Agreed?"
"Agreed," Amara nodded. "How much time do we have?"
Ari looked up at a computation on her viewer screen. "At their present speed? Six Terran hours. I should be able to catch up to them in about five and half. Our subsequent battle will answer whether that last thirty minutes is victory or defeat. Ari out."
"We can make Madripoor in two hours. Let's go!" Carlos said as he and Amara rushed through the underground network towards the hangar bay.
Amara chuckled. "Thank God we cleaned up Madripoor so that we'll have no worries there."
"Yes, I agree. Other than Warren being Meridian's prisoner, I can' think of anything else that would be a problem there."
Madripoor:
Juggernaut smashed Monet through first one tree, then a second, then a third and finally brought her back up and smashed her into the ground. Emma pulled herself up from where he'd swatted her too and lashed out with another psi bolt at him. Without his helmet, he dropped to one knee, gritting his teeth in agony. Whatever the possession that had overcome the islanders Emma had begun to get the impression that it wasn't purposeful, nor directed. It seemed that telepaths due to their level of shielding were invulnerable as she'd learned when she'd reverted from her diamond form to attack the Juggernaut. Monet's original assumption that only she was immune was incorrect. Emma had noted that everyone seemed to be operating normally, simply under the mass control of another.
Now, the Other........that was where the real problem lay.
Monet leapt forward and grabbed the Juggernaut's wrists then slammed him onto his back. "Can we do this fast please?" she barked.
Sabine hurried behind her and held down the Juggernauts ankles.
"Ok, pay attention to a real telepath, youngsters," Emma said and began glowing with a deep white energy then focused it deeply into Cain Marko's mind.
"Is he back?" Monet asked, her muscles straining against his effort to rise.
"What the hell-----?!" he said then looked at the two holding him down. "You know, while this may be a bisexual thrill for some others. I'm not having a moment."
"He's back," Monet groaned and released him.
Sabine stood up. "So it seems that the Child's influence is simply a natural defense and not intent?"
"Yes, I concur, Sabine, it seems that Meridians little bastard is merely exercising the psionic equivalent of creating a security blanket around itself. It's not even a very deep mental control. I think I can snap the entire island out of it, but I'm concerned that the Child will take this as an attack and retaliate. Hold on, I have contact with Clara and Sara."
"Who?" Sabine asked.
"Undercover agents. I'm generally Lara. Long story," Monet sighed.
We could kill the Child and maybe even Meridian too. She's simply standing by the glowing energy field with Warren, Sara reported telepathically to Emma.
Your image inducers and psi shields are still working? Emma asked.
Perfectly but the closeness is creating an intense feeling to kill anyone who opposes the Child. It's only because we know we're in an influence field that we're even conscious of the duality of thoughts, Clara reported.
We should kill them all, Sara reiterated.
I don't like the thought of killing a child, Emma but I tend to agree here. We could have the next Hitler here. With my hearing the conversation between Warren and Meridian is rather cryptic. I get the feeling that she explained what this child would be long before its unusual birth.
Then why did he fire on the cottage?
Emma shrugged. I think it may've been to kill Sabine. Sabine's affiliation with Meridian gives him a resistance to the Child's psi wave. Warren and Meridian may not consciously realize it, perhaps being lost in the glow of parental stupefaction over their hybrid bastard but they're also under the tot's control. Warren probably sees anyone but Meridian as a threat to his child. I take it they're still within the EGG's perimeter?
Yes, Emma. Looks like the Child wanted the Shi'ar hyper drive. Warren and Meridian have it next to the energy field around the Child. We can't make out the kid for the glow but it looks like they're feeding it or something.
Can't build a damn thing without the X-Men ruining it. Annoying, Emma sighed, her mind already thinking of the financial loss of her EGG space ship that she'd cobbled together rover the years from abandoned Shi'ar technology. I need options, ladies. I don't pay you to sit on your asses. I pay for results.
"Mi reina," a deep voice said and Emma whirled around. She actually smiled a genuine smile of relief at the sight of Carlos and Amara. "I take it the psi wave around the island is not your doing?"
"No, not mine," Emma said and noticed that the two X-Men were holding hands, Carlos obviously extending his formidable psi shields to Amara through touch. "I take it my rescue is no longer needed?"
Without hesitation, Emma reached out to the Black Bishop's mind, telepathic review faster than speech and with his assent they quickly updated the other and then with a quick sweep, Emma brought her group near and far up to date.
"I'm not comfortable with Sabine being here. This one is too dangerous in male or female form to be kept alive," Amara said evenly.
"Whenever you're ready, Red Queen, I am available to see you back up that assertion in action," Sabine grinned.
"Don't think she stands alone, gender bender," Monet said from behind him. "One slip up and you're gonna be turned over to my friend here. And he's itching to smash someone."
Juggernaut slammed his fist into his other hand. "I have been on the sidelines too long in this, who are we capsizing?"
We need to consider how to allocate our resources with this Brood attack coming," Emma sighed. "I'm loathe to try and bring more X-Men near this isle, the Child is opportunistic and I don't want this place full of powerful mutants bent to its will."
"Agreed," Amara said calmly. "I vote for execution."
"Oh, my," Monet groaned.
"Emma, I know you. There's a way, isn't there?" Amara said calmly, ignoring the other's squeamishness. "You're a practical woman. You wouldn't have agents just here to watch your interests. There would also be a way to take out your property from falling into a thieves hands."
Emma grinned in spite of herself. "Why, Amara, I do believe you're thinking like a Red Queen. There's a telepathic bomb that I can set off. Limited range. It would destroy the lab, maybe twenty yards around it. I doubt highly that Meridian or Warren will react to a threat to leave. Where does that put us with you Sabine?"
All eyes turned to Sabine, Meridian's bodyguard and assistance. His face slowly fell into a sad frown. "My mistress gave me explicit orders that should such a situation come up, to not hesitate to kill her. Her interests are not as nefarious as you may believe. She will not risk the world for her child or her own life. Activate your bomb."
"Well, there's employee loyalty for you," Emma snickered. Clara, Sara, we're going Dirty Bomb, evac. Any employees there?
No, give us ten minutes.
You were trained better than that, ladies. You have five.
The X-Men turned and looked to the north where the Frost Industries plant was located, over three miles away. There was first a flash of light that streaked up into the night, iridescent cobalt and then a small explosion.
"And that is the detonation of a Shi'ar hyper drive as well as a founding member of the X-Men. Charles will never forgive me, I'm afraid. Even when I explain this," Emma sighed tiredly.
Monet gazed around and nodded to Carlos. "Can you feel it? No more psi suppression field over the isle. The Child is gone and so is the control. Back to normal."
"Yes and all we had to do was kill and a teammate a child. Aren't we such heroes?" Amara said bitterly yanking her hand free of Carlos'.
"There are still three hundred children to get home safely and their parents to rescue."
"Correction, Carlos. Mutant children. Why else would the Brood Queen and Holy Mother be so fixated on them. Holy Mother used her magicks to make them all, and to breed mutants exclusively for her mutant army. They may be riding the rock that was San Madre back to Earth but she's after the private army Holy Mother created or whatever else she can cobble form this world," Emma said coolly.
Kitty sat in the observation lounge, watching the star scape speed by. She was sitting in a lotus position, trying to clear her mind. Trying to prepare herself for the carnage that lay ahead.
"Hey, sexy, everyone is really impressed with your leadership. We couldn't of made it this far without you holding us together. Warren and Dani were the heart of the team and Kurt their back up," Paulie said as he strolled over to her.
"I'm not here by choice, Paulie. I'm out of the hero game."
"You're like Biggie or Tupac, always being pulled back into the game."
Kitty couldn't but help to open her eyes and giggle. "You're a natural fool."
"Yeah, but you think I'm cute. So, since we might die in a few hours, wanna fuck?"
"Any other man I would be insulted by that. I think you're genuinely trying to be intimate with me," Kitty laughed.
"You're like uber ninja mutant X-men heroine. Why fake some bs line with you?"
"I'm still just a young woman, Paulie. I left the X-Men because of all the death. All that I'd seen and the fact that bluntly, I wasn't just fucking anyone. Everything was so amazingly complicated by being a mutant. By fighting. Always fighting. So much violence. I got sick of it."
"And yet you're back."
"And yet I'm back," Kitty repeated.
"Is it because of him?"
"Him who...? Peter? Our new Peter? A little. I didn't want him to get snatched into this life without having a chance to make an informed decision. He worships the X-Men he met so much, his father. But there's more to life than these endless fights back and forth. At first I was confused....emotionally by his resemblance and his need for a friend. Then I felt protective and now after seeing and hearing how great he was when the chips are down, I'm wondering when he dies. Whether I should stay on after this to insure maybe he lives. He's my dead friends son and nephew, don't I owe them that?"
"Do you? Do you owe Xavier anymore? His dream? His plans? What about your own? Some of us were starting to get into philosophical debates about whether Xavier's way is the right way."
"Yes, Storm and her team split for that reason."
"I think that if we stay together on Earth, we're gonna be a lot different than Charlie intended. We could use you with us. We all know the Hellfire Club is bad news, we can't let them be so heavily represented. And now with Deathbird hanging around. Well, we're starting to look a little shabby in the leadership department."
"Is that what you're here for, Paulie?" Kitty asked him seriously.
"Some of us were talking, we didn't know how to make it formal, but we want you to stay on after we kick the Brood's ass. We need you."
Kitty shook her head in disbelief. "I'll think about it."
"Think about this too," Paulie leaned closer and kissed her, pulling her closer to him. She was surprised at how gentle his kiss was and then he became more insistent and she wrapped her arms around him. It had been a long time since she'd been close to someone. It wasn't unpleasant to think of getting closer to Paulie.
He sat down on the couch next to her and Kitty climbed onto his lap and leaned back, stroking his hair. "Those gauntlets still itching? You should take them off to give your mutant powers a rest."
"Take them off? Yeah, not yet, maybe when we're not heading towards an Aliens remake fight," he smirked.
"Paulie, we talked about this. Those tests I ran. The gauntlets aren't designed for your physiology to maintain contact with twenty four seven. While they are enhancing your ability to maintain and direct your kinetic field, they're not intentionally designed for that. You're essentially doing an abnormality to them that's providing a benefit."
"Ok, ok, Dr. Kitty, I hear you. Can we get back to the make out feel up?"
"I'm serious, Paulie!"
"So am I," he grinned and lifted up his hips and lap suggestively.
"Excuse me? Kitty? Do you have a moment?" Shan said from the comm link.
"I'm here, Shan, where are you?"
"The Avery hangar bay."
"Be right there, Shan." Kitty kissed Paulie on the nose. "Take these off for at least an hour, Paulie, we've got several hours before we catch up to them."
With that Kitty phased through his lap and the couch, sinking through the floor below. Paulie sat back in frustration then held up his wrists and the gauntlets let off a slight flashing light at his mental command. He could feel them pulling slight on his body. And it felt good. That part he hadn't told Kitty or anyone else. There was something almost orgasmic about the sensations that the anklets and wrists gauntlets sent through him, the more he used them. Kitty was just being paranoid, wound too tight from being in command.
Paulie grinned and let a kinetic bolt smash into a chair across the room, destroying it completely. It was getting easier and easier to release the energy in smaller amounts to let off some steam, almost like it was constantly building in him for release. It would be perfect to get into a hardcore battle with the Brood.
Hardcore?
Now there was a cool codename.
Kitty phased through the ceiling into the hangar bay where Peter's ship, the Avery was being kept. He'd spent hours remodeling it to his specifications and interaction with his mutant abilities. It was quite impressive how he'd made the military jumper ship much sleeker and angular to deflect radar detection and energy dispersals. Kitty knew that his knowledge form the Beyond was considerably more than his naiveté lead them to believe and that was beginning to worry her.
Was Peter merely acting dumb? And for what reason?
"Hiya, Kitty!" Peter smiled and waved as she floated to the ground.
"Peter!" she grinned, his enthusiasm infectious. How could she even think that he was anything but a new ally and friend?
Shan walked from the back of the Avery where they had wheeled in the sleeping, cured children. Shan had been put in charge of rechecking the revitalization cleansing as well as keeping the children corralled into unconsciousness with her possession power.
"Kitty, all the kids are accounted for and blissfully asleep. It's tight in the Avery's cargo hold, three hundred kids is a lot to pack in but Peter will be able to leave as soon as were near Earth. We're worried about Raphael."
"Why?" Kitty asked.
"Not just Raphael but the children as a whole. We checked some of the genetic scans of the children. Most of them are mutants and the rest potentials. We think that they may be the Brood Queen's goal. Either the kids or Earth," Shan said.
"A squeeze play?" Kitty nodded. She looked inside the Avery at the cots full of sleeping children. "So we could be delivering them into Holy Mother's plans?"
"If Holy Mother is even still in control," Peter reminded.
"The plan is for Ari to slow down in the Moon's orbit, drop the Avery out and then immediately come around and attack the Acanti before they get any closer to Earth orbit. The differential is only going to be about a thousand miles by then," Kitty nodded. "I wish that we had more time to get more input on this but we're going to have to improvise. Again."
Nemesis sat in the crew quarters she'd been using since boarding the ship a day ago. Her body ached from the exertion of her power so much in the form she'd been using it so that he powers wouldn't appear familiar to the others. Especially Kitty and Amara. It didn't help that once she'd been able to lay down she'd been wracked with guilt over what she'd had to do to Chamber. Impaling him, dropping his body a thousand feet from the tip of her sword on Xevan. Killing an X-Man had always been a possibility when she'd joined with Alex Rosten but she'd never expected it to happen so fast, so viciously.
She laid back on the bed, her costume thrown over a chair next to her sword, her mask still on. If any of the cabin's surveillance devices were activated she couldn't risk her identity being revealed. Always hiding. She closed her eyes and began meditating on her center, on who she was, on the flow of energy through her.
Are you there? She heard the voice almost crystal clear.
Yes, Joshua, I'm here. We're returning to Earth from Shi'ar space.
The Xevan Incident? The Brood?
Yes. We're on our way to intercept Holy Mother and the Brood Queen.
Good. Does anyone suspect?
No. Talisman isn't as powerful in all the areas she could be. Her powers are still material focused, not mental.
And Chamber?
Eliminated.
I feel your sadness. I'm sorry it must be this way.
I know, Joshua. I know. What about Alex has he encountered the Child yet?
Yes, he has. Emma Frost detonated her hyper drive believing that she's ended the threat.
And instead?
Put this whole debacle into motion. I'll see you soon, Nemesis. Stay strong.
I will.
Emma Frost stood in the rubble of what had been one of her most prized possessions. She knew logically that she'd had no choice but to detonate the Shi'ar warp drive, the area not even having a residual trace of radiation, but killing three people and losing a potential multi billion dollar fortune was distressing.
"Ms. Frost? Are you ok?" Alex Rosten asked her from behind. "We should be heading back to Australia to prepare for the Brood attack."
"Yes, I know, Alex. It never ends, does it?"
Clara and Sara walked over.
"We're ready to help out," Sara grinned.
"I take it your image inducers can be dropped now?" Alex asked and Emma nodded. With a short flickering of the illusion of two mousey Marrow and Jessica Drew revealed themselves.
"I'm sure you know these two, Alex. Your files on everyone are quite extensive," Emma sighed.
"I'm surprised but not overwhelmed. It's good to see both of you found work. I'm sure you'll be of a great asset to us at Sanctuary," he smiled broadly as they walked back to where the X-Men and Sabine were assembled, Gateway sitting patiently on the ground.
"And way we go," Emma muttered as Gateway spun his bola, whisking them off to Australia.
At the point where the Shi'ar hyper drive had detonated there was a wisp of energy that spiraled upwards for several long seconds, the portal opening briefly and then Meridian appeared, clutching Warren. She dropped to her knees, taxed beyond even her considerable limits.
"What happened?" Warren gasped, visibly bruised and beaten.
"Our child encouraged Emma Frost to activate the power of the hyper drive to allow him to time travel. They think they destroyed him, when in fact, they did nothing but help him. Crafty little bastard."
"We can contact the X-Men and get on this right away," Warren said as they both shakily stood up.
"If only life were so simple, there's another player coming into this mess."
"Another----? How do you know?"
"The same precognitive power that showed me all of this has shown me that. Unfortunately, you need to be elsewhere, my darling."
"Elsewhere?" Warren was confused as Meridian grabbed his forehead and focused her power through him. There was a blue flash and Warren felt a slamming motion against his body. When he opened his eyes, he was stunned at what he was seeing. Earth below him as he streaked towards it on the isle of San Madre, he turned and sure enough, he was facing hundreds of Brood.
"Oh, shit!" he spat, his memory foggy as to how he'd even gotten here or where he'd been for the past few days. The last thing he remembered was watching the viewer screen in orbit of Xevan.
Xavier Institute, Westchester, New York:
"It's good to see you, Roberto, but a surprise," Cyclops said calmly.
Roberto smiled and nodded. "X Corp keeps me very busy. But I was hoping you could help me with this case. I understand that Prof. Xavier has several undercover mutant operatives. I need to make contact with one of them."
"Is there something going on that I can help with, Roberto?"
"It's a matter crucial to the Sanctuary team. I have to get something prepared for them. Can you help me?" Roberto grinned and behind his eyes Channel laughed joyously. The mutants running through this place were perfect for his plans. If only he could find the perfect one that he wanted. So many toys to choose from, so little time.
Roster: Archangel Black Bishop Capt. Ari Chamber Frenzy Hunter Iceman Karma Magma Nightcrawler Northstar Paulie Peter Rasputin, Jr. Psyche Raphael Shadowcat Spike Talisman
Carlos had been in tough spots before. In fact he liked to think that his serial immortality had made him something of a problem solver in his lifetimes, the risks and dangers always overwhelming and odds seemingly insurmountable. Admittedly, several times he'd died. A few when he had thought victory firmly in place, others when death was sure. His time though with the X-Men----------he felt like in the past few weeks he had bounced through uncertainty to the point that he was never sure when or if he'd die in the next moment.
When ice had begun raining down from above and Carlos had gotten faint empathic feelings of the other X-Men squad both above and below, his hopes of escaping this alien ridden base and now crumbling death trap, getting on to the business of rescuing Danielle had sharply risen.
Almost painfully so. And to some degree, Warren as well, their time to bond shorter but still as intense as deep as the one he felt with Danielle. Though Warren's reticence to such a deep psi bond with a man making it seem lighter. The psi bond was the strongest Carlos had felt with another human being sine his days in the French Court, before the Terror with a telepath who could create psi bonds between lovers. Psi bonds that were so strong, the pair could never separate. Carlos suspected that somehow he'd inadvertently done that with Danielle and Warren. The two young mutants would eventually become lost without the stability of the rest of the triumvirate but Carlos had even deeper worries for himself. For what he carried within. Since the bond had been established the doors keeping it at bay had triple din strength, giving him peace for the first time in centuries. Without the others though, the Beast was hammering away at Carlos' mind literally. Pounding incessantly.
Warren's betrayal was orchestrated, Meridian being the only thing that could've snatched him away from them. Carlos would have to get back to Earth and deal with her to free Warren first before finding Danielle wherever Marat had stolen her too. And instead of focusing on reuniting the other two pieces of his soul, hre he was on an alien world dodging patrol and repair squads of a space elevator that was doomed to failure as soon as it had been built on a planet of the insane.
He and Frenzy, old hats now at moving slowly from level to level avoiding damage control teams, who still seemed intent on repairing the massively damaged space elevator, towards the ship Peter had ready for them hadn't expected the second impact minutes later. They could now both look up a mile above them and see space. Organic material and metal had showered down after that impact. The top of the elevator ripped and blasted off. At first Carlos had no idea what the hell it could've been, until the next wave of showering had come down.
Brood. Hundreds of them. Most were dead, ripped into pieces but dozens were alive and engaged in a fierce battle with the remainder of the invasion troops that had survived. It was a fight of such confused, violence that Carlos had wisely decided to avoid it all together. Both sides were going to lose and die here. He and Frenzy still had the revitalizer and now their teammates were out there looking to retrieve them. That was their first and only concern.
"Here!" Peter shouted as the two X-Men ran onto a hangar deck. He was waving frantically need to a sleek fighter ship.
"You don't carjack anything but a Mercedes, huh, Peter!" Frenzy laughed, relieved and impressed as she slapped him on the back.
"It's an experimental ship called the Avery. Classified. It can do limited Stargate jumps, I thought we might need to do that if the others didn't get back in time," Peter beamed after recovering from the impact of Frenzy's congratulations. The woman didn't know her own strength.
"Excellent work," Carlos said and moved towards the entrance way when his mystical senses snapped his neck back. "Shit!"
"What?" Peter said in befuddlement. "I don't smell anything. Maybe it's the alien air fresheners?"
"No, not the ship," Carlos replied, used to Peter's incessant overstatements. He pointed at where they'd come from.
"We want the ship, humanssssssssssss!" Holy Mother shrieked, her hands crackling with eldritch energy, she was flanked by a dozen Brood, who were carrying their Queen and a dozen more who were armed to the teeth. Big teeth actually.
"Oh, fuck, no!" Frenzy roared and took of the revitalizer pack and tossed it at the ship. "There is no way in heaven, hell, or this miserable planet any of them is getting by me. They are the cause of this entire drama to begin with!"
"Agreed," Carlos snapped, and pulled a plasma rifle from his back.
"We can easily take the shift from you," Holy Mother sighed. Looking both worn out and strangely energized. "You've lost, mutants. How about you simply surrender and we offer you immediate siring of our young to make you one of our own? That's the only option available to you at the moment. You're outnumbered and outgunned."
"I can take the eight on the left," Frenzy growled. "Carlos? Carlos?"
Carlos wasn't sure if they could hold the line and even win this fight. This sorceress had fought toe to toe with Talisman. He could use the Beast's within him magicks' but that could start more trouble than it would ultimately be worth. They were at a stalemate.
"Lezzzzzzzz dooooooooooo thizzzzzzzz!" a metallic voice screeched behind the Brood and Carlos grinned, he hadn't even looked to see that Peter had metal merged again and vanished. The fact that he was now directly behind the Brood, animating a twelve foot tall, razor covered, hulking mass that was obviously his construction. It looked like he had formed the metal around his body, extenuating talons and body spikes as well as armoring.
"Peter? Damn!" Frenzy grinned.
"How do you think I kept the ship protected this whole time?" Peter said over the comm link, his first uttering having been through the metallic colossus' mouth and now he was over his comm link.
Holy Mother turned and stared at the spiked monstrosity. It was slowly moving closer to them, in between them and the ship. There would be no way fight through the two determined X-Men and take the ship undamaged. These were desperate beings, and the space elevator's continued integrity was also working against them. Becoming the puppet of a Brood Queen had not been her intention but this one had it's psi claws deep into her, to at all costs preserve the Queen. Holy Mother grimaced and gave the psi/pheromone based order that made her group of Brood sidle towards another ship. She could feel the Queen's other guard hyper spacing in, all they had to do was make it to orbit. With the Brood Queen injured, she couldn't risk a protracted battle with the mutants.
"Stalemate, mutants but while my Queen may've miscalculated in trying to retrieve the San Madre children, we still have those original slaves and therefore, Earth!" Holy Mother spat as The three X-Men were finally standing squarely in front of their ship, the spiked colossus having tipped the scales. A large hangar door opened and Carlos and Frenzy slowly backed in. The Brood made steps forward and several of the Avery's battle guns extended and pointed directly at the Brood.
"Try me," Peter snapped, his mecha empathy stretched to it's limits as he stood/lay inside the husk of his metal colossus, not merged with the metal but cocooned by it like a giant armor. This allowed him to extend his mecha control back to the Avery that he had been so carefully reworking to respond to his thought controls for almost a day now. While he couldn't use his mecha empathy while merged with an independent metal, he had anticipated trouble and created his spiked colossus and kept it hidden behind the cargo bay supplies in case they had to fight their way out.
"Peter? You there, mofo?" Paulie squawked over his comm link.
"Paulie? Yes, I'm here! Where are you? We're about to leave!" Peter said happily into his comm link.
"One sec....." Paulie said and there was a tremendous explosion at the bay doors that caused them to literally be sucked off of the wall. Paulie floated in on an energy wave, clutching several unconscious invasion shock troopers which he tossed to the ground. "Sorry, it took me so long to find you. Our comm links aren't working too well with all this interference but Ari just signaled me about your location from Kitty's scans. These roaches starting some more shit?"
"I see you've made some improvements?" Carlos said over the comm link as he settled into the pilots seat, the instrumentation flashing in English (Peter's doing) as the ship powered up to fly. The brood and Holy Mother were slowly backing towards another, less advanced ship, not wanting to antagonize what was slowly becoming a greater and greater threat.
"You better believe it, Black Bishop! I got the Motts now!" Paulie grinned.
"Get on board, Peter. Paulie, those bugs think they're leaving here alive. Understood?" Carlos said calmly.
"Understood," Paulie grinned and charged into the Brood excitedly blasting and ripping at them.
"Treacherous mutants!!!!" Holy Mother screamed, about to fire an eldritch bolt when Peter's colossus ran into the fray and impaled her on its taloned hand. Simultaneously, Carlos signaled Frenzy at the weapons console and she opened fire n the Brood.
The space elevator rocked again, more explosions and the entire floor listed.
"Time to go, kids!" Carlos yelled over the comm link. "Paulie, I need a door!"
"Awwwwwww, just when I was getting into it!" Paulie sighed and blasted several Brood off him, ripped the had off of another then swooped back and charged at them a second time. This time though he continued through the mass and crashed through the ship behind them and the wall out into the night sky. He turned around and blasted at the hole he made, widening it for the Avery.
Peter used his colossus to scoop up the Brood and push them away as the Avery went from stock still to blasting off in an instant into the night sky.
"Let's get the others and------," Paulie started.
"Don't forget Peter, he's inside that metal husk," Carlos said calmly.
"No shit? Wow, we're starting to look like a major player team, huh?" Paulie cheered as he dove back inside the hangar and came back out with the human form of Peter who'd been waiting with a grin.
"Kitty? I take it you're out there somewhere?" Carlos said over the ship's boosted communications system.
"Carlos? You're finally clear of the space elevator? Good. We have Magma and......a guest, I understand you have the wheels to get us out of here?" Shadowcat said over her comm link. "Magma explained what happened to Dani and Kurt, we have to get out of here and help them."
"Agreed. On our way," Carlos said as he kept the ship hovering long enough for Paulie to toss Peter to the ship entrance door, shut it and then follow Paulie towards the surface. The power radiating from Paulie was almost blinding but he would make an excellent escort if they ran into any trouble. As they dipped through the clouds they were joined on their bow by Nemesis.
"I am here," was all she said. Then she added. "Chamber was lost."
Peter climbed into the co-pilots seat and his hands merged into several ports he'd obviously constructed for his own use. His eyes went metallic again and the ship banked smoother and quicker than Carlos could even calibrate to fly. It was obvious, Peter had worked on establishing a deep rapport with the ship and made several adjustments. It was less than two minutes that they'd rendezvoused with their compatriots on the ground.
Carlos couldn't help himself as he hugged Magma who was covered in a deep purple cloak. "I was so worried about you, mi reina."
Amara chuckled. "I had every confidence you'd return for me, Carlos. I'm just sorry that this world has been so hurt by our presence."
"More X-men, new faces?" Deathbird sneered.
"Hey, knock it off, Deathbird, Magma's vouching for you is the only thing keeping you getting a seat on this ferry out," Shadowcat snapped. Hunter lagged behind and pointed skyward. "What is it?"
"The Imperial Guard!" Deathbird shrieked, her keen eyesight making out the guard as they rocketed towards them.
"We're in no shape for a protracted battle!" Carlos said to Kitty.
"Agreed. Everyone lets' get onboard! Now!" Shadowcat ordered and they all rushed aboard. "Talisman, we've retrieved everyone. We need Option Seven! Option Seven," Liz!" she yelled over her comm link as the ship lurched as soon as they were all inside.
Instead of immediately taking the Avery skyward, Peter flew it through the war torn streets, trying to use the fires and general melee to their advantage.
Talisman rose into the sky, her fists holding globes of mystical energy. She had spent her time in meditation with the planet, getting a sense of what could be done to help it. The space elevator's connection to the dimensional rift had put an extreme strain on the magnetic core, but that was over now. With the force field down as well, the damage had stopped, which was her goal.
She'd never felt so incensed before. It was as if she'd watched a rape occur and this invading force taking advantage of the planet's weakened state wasn't sitting well with her sense of morality either. She'd been communing with the spirit of the world, hearing it's pain, easing it, and telling it that she was here to help, that she would be doing so soon.
Soon was now.
She could see the Imperial rocketing towards her, she turned to fully face them, sensing their power welling to strike at her but she had other ideas. Her entire body began to whirl around as she called upon the spell she'd been working on to help this world and alleviate the problem of the Shi'ar attacking them. It was simple. Lock into what Magma had started and then push it, direct it, make it stronger.
The torrential rains started first, the clouds exploding in fury and the winds joining to start a storm of the wrecked city that had never been seen before. Lightning that rivaled what Storm could summon naturally, Talisman had coaxed the spirit of this planet to release. Then she directed it against the space elevator as a massive earthquake first started and then a chasm miles wide opened below the space elevator.
The Imperial Guard came to a sudden stop in mid air as the entire elevator fell into the gaping maw of Xevan itself. She could sense the X- Men several miles away now rocketing skyward and the shouts from Kitty over the comm link that Talisman could flee now, she'd achieved their goals.
Talisman allowed the mystical fuel of the planet to flow into her and fired an energy wave of anger and rage and righteous fury that knocked first the Imperial Guard out of the sky and then continued onwards and upwards. Using herself as a conduit, Talisman kept a sharp focus on her target and her flowing energy wave smashed into the rear of the Shi'ar fleet at the mouth of the rift. Ships not already in the rift were forced in as the energy wave began shutting down all electrical systems until the rift exploded and shimmered out of existence.
A minute earlier:
Northstar was actually proud of the ice barrier that Iceman was throwing up in the rift, disrupting the Shi'ar on one side and the invaders on the other. Literally miles and miles of ice, weighing hundreds of tons was now floating and lying and dropping depending upon the gravity of where they were propelled. They had developed a plan of Iceman creating chunks and Northstar using a whirlwind and slinging method to hurl it at targets with his speed wake. With his super speed then added to Iceman's projections, they were then rocketing by ships, slamming tons of ice on to them and gone in the ensuing melee. Unfortunately that left them distracted and blind to the arriving energy wave.
"NORTHSTAR!!!!!!" Iceman screamed as he saw out of the corner of his eye the energy wave that Talisman was to use to close the rift. The plan for her to summon the "spiritual energy" of a planet itself had been dicey at best; Iceman had half expected it not to work. The others must've been trying to contact them for their time to egress but the melee had interrupted all but the shortest range communication.
"We're here!" Ari shouted over the comm link, her ship weaving an impossible flight course through the battle towards the two lone floating X- men. Canaan and Khan's forces were violently engaged in a furious battle to maintain the rift to bring in troops to the opposing side and in the middle of it was Ari's ship. A bird flying through a virtual firestorm to retrieve two lone floating men. "Tran, have you got a lock on their suits?!"
"I'm trying!" Tran shouted back.
Ari slammed in more commands to her already overloading console, firing plasma bursts, lasers, missiles at all of the enemies around them---- ----essentially everyone except for the two figures she was steadily moving the ship closer to. She was talking up arms against her own people for these mutants, she'd condemned herself as soon as she hadn't self destructed the ship. Her life was forfeit. But their bravery in defending her Empire's world had lead her to seemingly lose her senses----she would do everything in her power to rescue these two mutant fools.
There was another series of explosions from behind her.
"Captain!" Karma shrieked. "One of our engines is down! I think more of the Invasion ships are shoring up from the depths of this rift to defend against the attacking Shi'ar ships. We're in the middle of-------- we're in the middle of a war!"
"Karma, I'm activating the hyper space! You route all power to the remaining engines! Keep the computer online, Tran, I need the navigation to do this!"
"Yes, Captain!" Tran laughed hysterically. "It was pleasant getting a body right before I die! Again."
"No one dies on my watch, damn it!" Ari screamed as her ship began rattling and literally falling apart from the shots form both sides. She could actually see Iceman and Northstar streaking towards the ship from the distance. She took a deep breath, smiled and then fired several missiles directly at them.
"What are you doing?!!!" Karma shrieked and was about to reach out with her possession power when Tran shouted.
"I have a lock on them! Beaming those fools in now!"
"Good," Ari slumped back into her chair and secured herself as she once again performed a maneuver that the specs on her ship were never prepared for. She halted the ship in mid-flight, reversed course with landing thrusters only then jumped to hyper space from a standing position as the energy wave rolled, crashing like a golden cascading tidal wave through the ships that blocked the exit to the rift. The missiles behind her ship detonated as she'd timed them, the concussive force sending the battleship shearing into the wave itself as hyper space kicked in and what was first a smashing into the wave, slowed to a virtual energy slicing.
"Wow," Tran said as they followed the wave back up through the mouth of the rift in an instant and emerged sling shooting past Xevan. "Where did you learn that maneuver, Captain. Even I'm impressed."
"It was just invented. Now," Ari grinned in spite of herself. "Karma, power up the engines again and bring us around, Shadowcat is relaying the signal she was given should they obtain a ship to break orbit.
Talisman suddenly appeared on the bridge. "Did it work? The wards I placed on the ship?"
"Yes, they did," Ari smiled. "Magic and science meshed quite smoothly to allow your spell to not affect the ship as it did the others."
Talisman fell into a chair, exhausted. "Thank the Spirits. I was sure I'd killed you."
"I have a lock on the X-Men in a stolen ship, they're coming into the bay now. We have to get out of here, another Shi'ar fleet force has just dropped out of hyper space on the outskirts of the solar system," Tran reported.
"Understood," Ari let her fingers dance over several commands on her console after the confirmation of the X-Men docking. "I'm picking up another ship entering the Stargate ahead of us....?"
"Another ship?" Talisman was shocked and immediately reached out with her mystical senses. "Oh no!!!!"
"I feel it too!" Tran said. "She still has a connection to Raphael!"
"What?" Ari demanded. "Not all of us have your precious mutant abilities! Tell me!"
"Holy Mother and the Brood Queen are alive and heading for........San Madre?......in space? They know where it is and their going for those innocent people and then Earth!" Tran said, his eyes flashing with knowing.
Deep space:
The assembled X-Men sat around a conference room table, three Shi'ar exiles and an amalgam of a villain and a disembodied X-Man, now in tow, the revitalizer in the center of the table to heal the anaesthetized children in the cargo bay. Everyone had made their reports, formerly divided squads now back together but changed. One member dead: Chamber. Psyche and Nightcrawler kidnapped by an Asgardian warrior, Marat. And their leader, Archangel having returned to Earth, abandoning them in their time of need. The Sanctuary X-Men team was new, cobbled together to create and protect a mutant town as well as deal with international mutant crises, had journeyed the stars to protect their charges from the crimes committed upon their bodies by the parasitic Brood.
"The Brood Queen wants those five thousand people you left hovering by the Stargate we're approaching," Deathbird said calmly. "She wants it because of the genetic potential of humans. Not only your mutant potential but your race has the highest numbers of being altered by biochemical means as well as radiation into super powers. Even if half of them are able to be successfully altered, the Brood Queen will be able to rape half the galaxy. The one thing that has kept the Brood in check until now has been the overwhelming power of the Shi'ar Empire."
"I think we need to use the revitalizer immediately on the infected children.....and yes, myself. Or I will become a danger to you all," Hunter said, his body visibly drawn and trembling. "I have less than day left before my transformation."
"We could put Hunter into stasis while Peter shows me how to use this revitalizer. It's going to take about six hours for me to insure that it can and will work before I'd be willing to work it on those kids and Hunter," Cecelia said.
"What's the ship's status, Captain, can we engage in another fight so soon. There are at least two Brood vessels that were near the Xevan system and then vanished when the Brood Queen left the planet's surface. With a window of about twenty minutes behind them we're going to need everything possible to take them down," Kitty said darkly. Over the past few days, with the chipping down of their numbers, she'd become the de facto leader of the team along with Carlos, the Black Bishop.
"We'll also have the problem of planetary infection," talisman pointed out. "All of us warping into space near Earth with thousands of Brood and rushing to planet side. It's got problem all over it."
"You take this planetary protector thing seriously, huh, Liz?' Paulie smirked.
"It is my destiny," Talisman said gravely. "There is an alternative though."
"Which is?" Carlos asked, he'd been the most quiet, his thoughts constantly coming back to Psyche and Archangel, the rapport with them felt dead. Did that mean they were? He was also concerned with Magma having taken Deathbird as her personal bodyguard. It was slap in the face to him but that was a Hellfire Club matter. Still it boded ill for his direct future with her. His original purpose with these X-Men had become entangled with their own goals and to some degree his feelings of both loyalty and a sense of possibility with them. He'd turned down Xavier's offer years ago when offered a position in his original five but now....? Perhaps?
"I can go to Earth ahead and prepare a defense. Maybe even take one or two people with me. I'm not sure. Distance isn't like time, there are more random factors to calculate. But I feel I can do it for myself, a lot faster than this ship can. I have every confidence that we'll be able to avert this threat but my loyalty and allegiance to the X-Men, unfortunately, takes a backseat to my responsibility to Earth," Talisman said emphatically.
"Who would go with you?" Kitty asked. "We're going to probably need to board the San Madre isle and try and destroy it as well as fight the Brood. We can't do that at low ebb. You could contact the other teams on Earth. Maybe the Avengers, the Fantastic Four? Thunderbolts? Power Pack?"
"And the Danielle, Warren and Kurt issue?" Carlos brought up. "We don't know what occurred that Warren left us abandoned so abruptly and I have only a minimal sense of them through the psi rapport. I'm worried that as soon as we arrive, we may be looking at being attacked. By Meridian, Sabine or Marat."
"We certainly have chalked up a lot of enemies in a short time. Sabine, Marat, Meridian, Channel and now Canaan," Frenzy pointed out. "And we still need to decide what to do with Holy Mother. Sounds like the Brood Queen has hijacked her in much the same way Tran is in Raphael."
There was an uncomfortable moment and Cecelia spoke up. "I've examined Tran....Raphael thoroughly and while I'm not qualified to speak on mutant mutations I don't think it was either intentional, nor permanent. Raphael's mutant ability seems to be acting as a vessel or a conduit for other mutants so during the conflagration, they merged because of Karma being hit with the energy and Holy Mother reaching out to try and usurp his control again."
"In essence, he snatched me into his body to reinforce his defenses," Tran said slightly bitterly. "He's still here, aware." Tran's face shimmered and Raphael's stoic one appeared. "I believe I am keeping Holy Mother from being able to co-opt him again even in close proximity."
"And Chamber is lost," Nemesis said calmly, her hand lightly touching her sword that was laid on the table. "We mustn't forget to mourn for him."
Kitty made a decision. "Talisman, take Raphael, Carlos, Spike and Magma to Earth. That will eliminate the threat of Holy Mother through Raphael and give us a strong force to lead the counter attack. Deathbird, we could use your help and this would be a great way to pay for your passage."
All eyes turned to the woman who had been ally and adversary to the X- Men more often than anyone else. She grinned darkly. "I have no Empire to return to. And my brother, Canaan, will surely survive and return. Between him and D'Ken my head is up for grabs. I need asylum more than I desire revenge. I pledge myself to the X-Men. For now."
"I snap Tweety's neck like dry pasta if she tries to step out of line," Paulie promised, his energy gauntlets sizzling with energy.
"You're welcome to try, human," she chuckled.
Captain Ari spoke up, sitting at the head of the conference room table. "We should use the Revitalizer on Hunter to see if the children can be saved. Then when we drop back into the solar system and get closer to orbit, the children should be evacuated on the Avery. If it becomes necessary we may have to use the ship to destroy the Brood before they make planet fall."
Carlos spoke first. "Captain, we can't ask you to destroy your ship for us, your only way home."
"X-Man, you haven't been paying attention Hunter, Deathbird and I are outcasts from the Shi'ar Empire, I have no "home" to return to," she answered flatly. "I am concerned about the spread of the influence of the Brood. If they get a foothold on your world, they may soon make a move to attack the Empire. Though the Empire has no loyalty to my future, I still have an oath to its'."
Deathbird laughed. "You always were a hardliner, Ari, I'm glad to see that you're able to bend to help these mutants."
"They fought for one of our worlds as if it were their own, how could I not?"
"Let's all get some food and rest, the nest few hours are all we have before an all out war begins," Kitty said, standing and dismissing the meeting.
Xevan:
Canaan stood on the roof of a half destroyed building, a cloak drawn around him as he watched his troops restore order to the streets below. There was a flicker of warning from his two telepath aides and over the horizon came Gladiator. Canaan watched the warrior come soaring closer and closer until he landed, into a respectful kneel before the Emperor of the Shi'ar Empire.
"My liege," Gladiator said gravely.
"How does my world look?" Canaan asked calmly.
"Your added forces have helped to corral and restore order to all the continents. The loss of the ships in the rift, wasn't as bad as early thought."
"Good. And the prisoner?"
"The X-Man? Yes, we have him. What should we do with him? He's injured."
"Heal him. Restore him to perfect help. It is time that the Shi'ar struck back indirectly at the X-Men as well as rid the universe of my sister, Deathbird. While council decree is that Earth is off limits to all Shi'ar and they are to be excommunicated if they have contact with the humans. We shall breed an assassin of unparalleled ability in their own teammate."
"There is also evidence that the rift is still accessible to open and we've discovered a high ranking leader alive in the city rubble. He has requested an audience with you once his self-healing is completed."
"Self-healing?"
"Yes, it seems that he is part reptilian in physiology and has had to grow new limbs due to injury from one of the X-Men. In twelve hours, Kriss would like an audience with you. To discuss an alliance."
"By all means."
Australian Outback, Sanctuary Base:
A weaving energy spiral erupted over the town, slamming down to the ground, kicking up dirt and scorching the earth. Then winds began to swirl around the scorched spot, as more energy poured out of the gaping energy hole. Talisman appeared and dropped to the ground on one knee, her right arm extended upward the swirling energy still active. She reached out and drew upon the mystical wards she'd placed around the town, essentially energy batteries keyed specifically to her for whatever use she could think of.
Now she was using it as a grounding force again but the differential of teleporting out of a moving vehicle made it something that she had to disperse the energy from. She gritted her teeth, energy spilling from her fingertips as she focused it towards her wards, to absorb. But she wasn't done, she threw her hand into the energy spirals and mentally focused on pulling, on pulling her teammates through.
She waved her arms around, calling up the familiar Earth spirits to help her and Carlos, Raphael, Spike and Magma appeared. With a short gasp, Talisman let the energy dissipate and then fell back onto her haunches.
"Whew. I don't think I could've done that without my wards here!"
Carlos helped her stand and glanced around, extending his empathic senses. "No one is here. Not Alex Rosten or even Gateway."
"Isn't it his job to be here?" Spike asked.
"Twenty minutes to wash up and regroup in the situations room," Carlos said and stalked towards the main building.
"The man's edge was certainly dulled by Dani and Warren. I never thought I would actually wish for her grating personality verses someone else," Amara sighed.
"At least we get a minute to get our selves together," Spike muttered. "Not like we haven't been on the go for--------well since this outfit left Westchester. I'm going to go warm up the medical bay, those kids are still going to need medical care when they get here."
"And me?" Raphael asked.
"I have him," Tran said and with a flash assumed control of Raphael again and trotted behind Carlos.
"Great Spirits, they are all either neurotic or down right creepy," Talisman muttered to herself as she kneeled down and let the familiar Terran earth sieve through her fingers. She had actually missed her home world on such a deep profound level that she began to weep. And the battle was far from won.
Carlos' fingers danced over the hybrid Earth/Shi'ar technology and finally he located the two Acanti that had taken San Madre from the Stargate point and were bringing it towards Earth. They were passing through Saturn's solar orbital path and still heading towards Earth. Ari's ship had just dropped through the Stargate which was on the outskirts of the solar system near Neptune.
"I believe that if I push the engines, I can catch up to the Acanti but there were a lot of damages that we've patched up but not repaired. The Revitalizer is working perfectly on the children and as soon as we are within your Terran moon's orbit the Avery will disembark with Peter and the children aboard," Ari said over the view screen. Her image covered in static due to distance and sunspot activity.
Spike turned from her seat at another console. "I have a message from Mr. Rosten, seems that a small group of X-Men went to Madripoor to retrieve a long range ship to come and rescue us. Lead by Emma Frost."
"The White Queen? Dear Emma has finally put more than her barbs into this team, eh?" Amara said having put on a standard yellow and blue costume and leaning over Spike's shoulder. "Emma took Gateway, Juggernaut, Monet and Alex with her. But they haven't signaled that they've left Earth yet. According to Alex's comm link, he's still on the isle of Madripoor."
Carlos closed his eyes and focused. "I'm getting a fuzzy impression that Warren is there too. The psi rapport isn't completely active though. Like when he was kidnapped. We could most definitely use Emma's group's power in this thing. There's a second airship here, I say I take it to retrieve them. Amara come with me. Talisman and Spike will get our defenses ready here and contact other X-Men. Agreed?"
"Agreed," Amara nodded. "How much time do we have?"
Ari looked up at a computation on her viewer screen. "At their present speed? Six Terran hours. I should be able to catch up to them in about five and half. Our subsequent battle will answer whether that last thirty minutes is victory or defeat. Ari out."
"We can make Madripoor in two hours. Let's go!" Carlos said as he and Amara rushed through the underground network towards the hangar bay.
Amara chuckled. "Thank God we cleaned up Madripoor so that we'll have no worries there."
"Yes, I agree. Other than Warren being Meridian's prisoner, I can' think of anything else that would be a problem there."
Madripoor:
Juggernaut smashed Monet through first one tree, then a second, then a third and finally brought her back up and smashed her into the ground. Emma pulled herself up from where he'd swatted her too and lashed out with another psi bolt at him. Without his helmet, he dropped to one knee, gritting his teeth in agony. Whatever the possession that had overcome the islanders Emma had begun to get the impression that it wasn't purposeful, nor directed. It seemed that telepaths due to their level of shielding were invulnerable as she'd learned when she'd reverted from her diamond form to attack the Juggernaut. Monet's original assumption that only she was immune was incorrect. Emma had noted that everyone seemed to be operating normally, simply under the mass control of another.
Now, the Other........that was where the real problem lay.
Monet leapt forward and grabbed the Juggernaut's wrists then slammed him onto his back. "Can we do this fast please?" she barked.
Sabine hurried behind her and held down the Juggernauts ankles.
"Ok, pay attention to a real telepath, youngsters," Emma said and began glowing with a deep white energy then focused it deeply into Cain Marko's mind.
"Is he back?" Monet asked, her muscles straining against his effort to rise.
"What the hell-----?!" he said then looked at the two holding him down. "You know, while this may be a bisexual thrill for some others. I'm not having a moment."
"He's back," Monet groaned and released him.
Sabine stood up. "So it seems that the Child's influence is simply a natural defense and not intent?"
"Yes, I concur, Sabine, it seems that Meridians little bastard is merely exercising the psionic equivalent of creating a security blanket around itself. It's not even a very deep mental control. I think I can snap the entire island out of it, but I'm concerned that the Child will take this as an attack and retaliate. Hold on, I have contact with Clara and Sara."
"Who?" Sabine asked.
"Undercover agents. I'm generally Lara. Long story," Monet sighed.
We could kill the Child and maybe even Meridian too. She's simply standing by the glowing energy field with Warren, Sara reported telepathically to Emma.
Your image inducers and psi shields are still working? Emma asked.
Perfectly but the closeness is creating an intense feeling to kill anyone who opposes the Child. It's only because we know we're in an influence field that we're even conscious of the duality of thoughts, Clara reported.
We should kill them all, Sara reiterated.
I don't like the thought of killing a child, Emma but I tend to agree here. We could have the next Hitler here. With my hearing the conversation between Warren and Meridian is rather cryptic. I get the feeling that she explained what this child would be long before its unusual birth.
Then why did he fire on the cottage?
Emma shrugged. I think it may've been to kill Sabine. Sabine's affiliation with Meridian gives him a resistance to the Child's psi wave. Warren and Meridian may not consciously realize it, perhaps being lost in the glow of parental stupefaction over their hybrid bastard but they're also under the tot's control. Warren probably sees anyone but Meridian as a threat to his child. I take it they're still within the EGG's perimeter?
Yes, Emma. Looks like the Child wanted the Shi'ar hyper drive. Warren and Meridian have it next to the energy field around the Child. We can't make out the kid for the glow but it looks like they're feeding it or something.
Can't build a damn thing without the X-Men ruining it. Annoying, Emma sighed, her mind already thinking of the financial loss of her EGG space ship that she'd cobbled together rover the years from abandoned Shi'ar technology. I need options, ladies. I don't pay you to sit on your asses. I pay for results.
"Mi reina," a deep voice said and Emma whirled around. She actually smiled a genuine smile of relief at the sight of Carlos and Amara. "I take it the psi wave around the island is not your doing?"
"No, not mine," Emma said and noticed that the two X-Men were holding hands, Carlos obviously extending his formidable psi shields to Amara through touch. "I take it my rescue is no longer needed?"
Without hesitation, Emma reached out to the Black Bishop's mind, telepathic review faster than speech and with his assent they quickly updated the other and then with a quick sweep, Emma brought her group near and far up to date.
"I'm not comfortable with Sabine being here. This one is too dangerous in male or female form to be kept alive," Amara said evenly.
"Whenever you're ready, Red Queen, I am available to see you back up that assertion in action," Sabine grinned.
"Don't think she stands alone, gender bender," Monet said from behind him. "One slip up and you're gonna be turned over to my friend here. And he's itching to smash someone."
Juggernaut slammed his fist into his other hand. "I have been on the sidelines too long in this, who are we capsizing?"
We need to consider how to allocate our resources with this Brood attack coming," Emma sighed. "I'm loathe to try and bring more X-Men near this isle, the Child is opportunistic and I don't want this place full of powerful mutants bent to its will."
"Agreed," Amara said calmly. "I vote for execution."
"Oh, my," Monet groaned.
"Emma, I know you. There's a way, isn't there?" Amara said calmly, ignoring the other's squeamishness. "You're a practical woman. You wouldn't have agents just here to watch your interests. There would also be a way to take out your property from falling into a thieves hands."
Emma grinned in spite of herself. "Why, Amara, I do believe you're thinking like a Red Queen. There's a telepathic bomb that I can set off. Limited range. It would destroy the lab, maybe twenty yards around it. I doubt highly that Meridian or Warren will react to a threat to leave. Where does that put us with you Sabine?"
All eyes turned to Sabine, Meridian's bodyguard and assistance. His face slowly fell into a sad frown. "My mistress gave me explicit orders that should such a situation come up, to not hesitate to kill her. Her interests are not as nefarious as you may believe. She will not risk the world for her child or her own life. Activate your bomb."
"Well, there's employee loyalty for you," Emma snickered. Clara, Sara, we're going Dirty Bomb, evac. Any employees there?
No, give us ten minutes.
You were trained better than that, ladies. You have five.
The X-Men turned and looked to the north where the Frost Industries plant was located, over three miles away. There was first a flash of light that streaked up into the night, iridescent cobalt and then a small explosion.
"And that is the detonation of a Shi'ar hyper drive as well as a founding member of the X-Men. Charles will never forgive me, I'm afraid. Even when I explain this," Emma sighed tiredly.
Monet gazed around and nodded to Carlos. "Can you feel it? No more psi suppression field over the isle. The Child is gone and so is the control. Back to normal."
"Yes and all we had to do was kill and a teammate a child. Aren't we such heroes?" Amara said bitterly yanking her hand free of Carlos'.
"There are still three hundred children to get home safely and their parents to rescue."
"Correction, Carlos. Mutant children. Why else would the Brood Queen and Holy Mother be so fixated on them. Holy Mother used her magicks to make them all, and to breed mutants exclusively for her mutant army. They may be riding the rock that was San Madre back to Earth but she's after the private army Holy Mother created or whatever else she can cobble form this world," Emma said coolly.
Kitty sat in the observation lounge, watching the star scape speed by. She was sitting in a lotus position, trying to clear her mind. Trying to prepare herself for the carnage that lay ahead.
"Hey, sexy, everyone is really impressed with your leadership. We couldn't of made it this far without you holding us together. Warren and Dani were the heart of the team and Kurt their back up," Paulie said as he strolled over to her.
"I'm not here by choice, Paulie. I'm out of the hero game."
"You're like Biggie or Tupac, always being pulled back into the game."
Kitty couldn't but help to open her eyes and giggle. "You're a natural fool."
"Yeah, but you think I'm cute. So, since we might die in a few hours, wanna fuck?"
"Any other man I would be insulted by that. I think you're genuinely trying to be intimate with me," Kitty laughed.
"You're like uber ninja mutant X-men heroine. Why fake some bs line with you?"
"I'm still just a young woman, Paulie. I left the X-Men because of all the death. All that I'd seen and the fact that bluntly, I wasn't just fucking anyone. Everything was so amazingly complicated by being a mutant. By fighting. Always fighting. So much violence. I got sick of it."
"And yet you're back."
"And yet I'm back," Kitty repeated.
"Is it because of him?"
"Him who...? Peter? Our new Peter? A little. I didn't want him to get snatched into this life without having a chance to make an informed decision. He worships the X-Men he met so much, his father. But there's more to life than these endless fights back and forth. At first I was confused....emotionally by his resemblance and his need for a friend. Then I felt protective and now after seeing and hearing how great he was when the chips are down, I'm wondering when he dies. Whether I should stay on after this to insure maybe he lives. He's my dead friends son and nephew, don't I owe them that?"
"Do you? Do you owe Xavier anymore? His dream? His plans? What about your own? Some of us were starting to get into philosophical debates about whether Xavier's way is the right way."
"Yes, Storm and her team split for that reason."
"I think that if we stay together on Earth, we're gonna be a lot different than Charlie intended. We could use you with us. We all know the Hellfire Club is bad news, we can't let them be so heavily represented. And now with Deathbird hanging around. Well, we're starting to look a little shabby in the leadership department."
"Is that what you're here for, Paulie?" Kitty asked him seriously.
"Some of us were talking, we didn't know how to make it formal, but we want you to stay on after we kick the Brood's ass. We need you."
Kitty shook her head in disbelief. "I'll think about it."
"Think about this too," Paulie leaned closer and kissed her, pulling her closer to him. She was surprised at how gentle his kiss was and then he became more insistent and she wrapped her arms around him. It had been a long time since she'd been close to someone. It wasn't unpleasant to think of getting closer to Paulie.
He sat down on the couch next to her and Kitty climbed onto his lap and leaned back, stroking his hair. "Those gauntlets still itching? You should take them off to give your mutant powers a rest."
"Take them off? Yeah, not yet, maybe when we're not heading towards an Aliens remake fight," he smirked.
"Paulie, we talked about this. Those tests I ran. The gauntlets aren't designed for your physiology to maintain contact with twenty four seven. While they are enhancing your ability to maintain and direct your kinetic field, they're not intentionally designed for that. You're essentially doing an abnormality to them that's providing a benefit."
"Ok, ok, Dr. Kitty, I hear you. Can we get back to the make out feel up?"
"I'm serious, Paulie!"
"So am I," he grinned and lifted up his hips and lap suggestively.
"Excuse me? Kitty? Do you have a moment?" Shan said from the comm link.
"I'm here, Shan, where are you?"
"The Avery hangar bay."
"Be right there, Shan." Kitty kissed Paulie on the nose. "Take these off for at least an hour, Paulie, we've got several hours before we catch up to them."
With that Kitty phased through his lap and the couch, sinking through the floor below. Paulie sat back in frustration then held up his wrists and the gauntlets let off a slight flashing light at his mental command. He could feel them pulling slight on his body. And it felt good. That part he hadn't told Kitty or anyone else. There was something almost orgasmic about the sensations that the anklets and wrists gauntlets sent through him, the more he used them. Kitty was just being paranoid, wound too tight from being in command.
Paulie grinned and let a kinetic bolt smash into a chair across the room, destroying it completely. It was getting easier and easier to release the energy in smaller amounts to let off some steam, almost like it was constantly building in him for release. It would be perfect to get into a hardcore battle with the Brood.
Hardcore?
Now there was a cool codename.
Kitty phased through the ceiling into the hangar bay where Peter's ship, the Avery was being kept. He'd spent hours remodeling it to his specifications and interaction with his mutant abilities. It was quite impressive how he'd made the military jumper ship much sleeker and angular to deflect radar detection and energy dispersals. Kitty knew that his knowledge form the Beyond was considerably more than his naiveté lead them to believe and that was beginning to worry her.
Was Peter merely acting dumb? And for what reason?
"Hiya, Kitty!" Peter smiled and waved as she floated to the ground.
"Peter!" she grinned, his enthusiasm infectious. How could she even think that he was anything but a new ally and friend?
Shan walked from the back of the Avery where they had wheeled in the sleeping, cured children. Shan had been put in charge of rechecking the revitalization cleansing as well as keeping the children corralled into unconsciousness with her possession power.
"Kitty, all the kids are accounted for and blissfully asleep. It's tight in the Avery's cargo hold, three hundred kids is a lot to pack in but Peter will be able to leave as soon as were near Earth. We're worried about Raphael."
"Why?" Kitty asked.
"Not just Raphael but the children as a whole. We checked some of the genetic scans of the children. Most of them are mutants and the rest potentials. We think that they may be the Brood Queen's goal. Either the kids or Earth," Shan said.
"A squeeze play?" Kitty nodded. She looked inside the Avery at the cots full of sleeping children. "So we could be delivering them into Holy Mother's plans?"
"If Holy Mother is even still in control," Peter reminded.
"The plan is for Ari to slow down in the Moon's orbit, drop the Avery out and then immediately come around and attack the Acanti before they get any closer to Earth orbit. The differential is only going to be about a thousand miles by then," Kitty nodded. "I wish that we had more time to get more input on this but we're going to have to improvise. Again."
Nemesis sat in the crew quarters she'd been using since boarding the ship a day ago. Her body ached from the exertion of her power so much in the form she'd been using it so that he powers wouldn't appear familiar to the others. Especially Kitty and Amara. It didn't help that once she'd been able to lay down she'd been wracked with guilt over what she'd had to do to Chamber. Impaling him, dropping his body a thousand feet from the tip of her sword on Xevan. Killing an X-Man had always been a possibility when she'd joined with Alex Rosten but she'd never expected it to happen so fast, so viciously.
She laid back on the bed, her costume thrown over a chair next to her sword, her mask still on. If any of the cabin's surveillance devices were activated she couldn't risk her identity being revealed. Always hiding. She closed her eyes and began meditating on her center, on who she was, on the flow of energy through her.
Are you there? She heard the voice almost crystal clear.
Yes, Joshua, I'm here. We're returning to Earth from Shi'ar space.
The Xevan Incident? The Brood?
Yes. We're on our way to intercept Holy Mother and the Brood Queen.
Good. Does anyone suspect?
No. Talisman isn't as powerful in all the areas she could be. Her powers are still material focused, not mental.
And Chamber?
Eliminated.
I feel your sadness. I'm sorry it must be this way.
I know, Joshua. I know. What about Alex has he encountered the Child yet?
Yes, he has. Emma Frost detonated her hyper drive believing that she's ended the threat.
And instead?
Put this whole debacle into motion. I'll see you soon, Nemesis. Stay strong.
I will.
Emma Frost stood in the rubble of what had been one of her most prized possessions. She knew logically that she'd had no choice but to detonate the Shi'ar warp drive, the area not even having a residual trace of radiation, but killing three people and losing a potential multi billion dollar fortune was distressing.
"Ms. Frost? Are you ok?" Alex Rosten asked her from behind. "We should be heading back to Australia to prepare for the Brood attack."
"Yes, I know, Alex. It never ends, does it?"
Clara and Sara walked over.
"We're ready to help out," Sara grinned.
"I take it your image inducers can be dropped now?" Alex asked and Emma nodded. With a short flickering of the illusion of two mousey Marrow and Jessica Drew revealed themselves.
"I'm sure you know these two, Alex. Your files on everyone are quite extensive," Emma sighed.
"I'm surprised but not overwhelmed. It's good to see both of you found work. I'm sure you'll be of a great asset to us at Sanctuary," he smiled broadly as they walked back to where the X-Men and Sabine were assembled, Gateway sitting patiently on the ground.
"And way we go," Emma muttered as Gateway spun his bola, whisking them off to Australia.
At the point where the Shi'ar hyper drive had detonated there was a wisp of energy that spiraled upwards for several long seconds, the portal opening briefly and then Meridian appeared, clutching Warren. She dropped to her knees, taxed beyond even her considerable limits.
"What happened?" Warren gasped, visibly bruised and beaten.
"Our child encouraged Emma Frost to activate the power of the hyper drive to allow him to time travel. They think they destroyed him, when in fact, they did nothing but help him. Crafty little bastard."
"We can contact the X-Men and get on this right away," Warren said as they both shakily stood up.
"If only life were so simple, there's another player coming into this mess."
"Another----? How do you know?"
"The same precognitive power that showed me all of this has shown me that. Unfortunately, you need to be elsewhere, my darling."
"Elsewhere?" Warren was confused as Meridian grabbed his forehead and focused her power through him. There was a blue flash and Warren felt a slamming motion against his body. When he opened his eyes, he was stunned at what he was seeing. Earth below him as he streaked towards it on the isle of San Madre, he turned and sure enough, he was facing hundreds of Brood.
"Oh, shit!" he spat, his memory foggy as to how he'd even gotten here or where he'd been for the past few days. The last thing he remembered was watching the viewer screen in orbit of Xevan.
Xavier Institute, Westchester, New York:
"It's good to see you, Roberto, but a surprise," Cyclops said calmly.
Roberto smiled and nodded. "X Corp keeps me very busy. But I was hoping you could help me with this case. I understand that Prof. Xavier has several undercover mutant operatives. I need to make contact with one of them."
"Is there something going on that I can help with, Roberto?"
"It's a matter crucial to the Sanctuary team. I have to get something prepared for them. Can you help me?" Roberto grinned and behind his eyes Channel laughed joyously. The mutants running through this place were perfect for his plans. If only he could find the perfect one that he wanted. So many toys to choose from, so little time.