"How?" Storm asked.
"He's my brother, Matt," Kodiak replied. Psylocke glanced at her.
"The one who ran away from home," she said flatly.
Kodiak nodded. "The one my dad never talked about. I think he knew about Matt, so he kicked him out of the house and acted like he had never existed."
The young man started to stir ten minutes later with the help of a little telepathic nudging on the part of Psylocke. His eyes opened and a collective gasp shattered the silence. Matt Briase's eyes had no irises or pupils. Instead they were a solid silver.
"Matt?" Kodiak asked hesitantly.
Her brother blinked. "Aurora? You've grown."
"Matt, what's wrong with your eyes? They're silver," she asked.
He raised his hands to them, as if noticing them for the first time. "I don't know. Aurora, there's something in my head. Someone."
"We know," Kodiak replied. "Who is he?"
Matt opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out. He gasped as if he were being suffocated, lurched forward and collapsed. Kodiak was at his side instantly.
"Matt?" she shook her brother's arm.
Psylocke, sensing a surge of telepathic power, grabbed Kodiak's arm and pulled her back. "Stand back, Kodiak. Something's going to happen."
Suddenly, Matt's eyes opened, but it was clear that he was not conscious. A ghost-like form drifted out of them, solidifying when it was free from the young man's body.
The figure before them was a man, broad-shouldered and muscular. He was middle-aged and could almost have passed for a normal person. His clothes were black, but they were hard to distinguish from his skin and hair. They too were midnight black. The only part of him that wasn't black was his eyes, which were silver.
Good day, children, he said.
"What did you do to my brother?" Kodiak asked.
He laughed telepathically, each chuckle resounding painfully in everyone's brains. I am a mutant, much like you. I am telepathic, yes, but I can live within another creature, preferably a mutant. I am like a parasite, you could say.
"But you don't have to be a parasite?"
That is correct. But what is the fun of having the ability to do so if you aren't going to utilize your powers?
"You enslave others," Kodiak said, "What fun is that?"
You wound me. I don't enslave them, I merely –
You merely invade their brains and take over, isn't that right, Sir Parasite? Betsy asked heatedly. Her presence was in the X-men's minds, pushing aside the pain that the parasitic mutant had inflicted every time he spoke.
Who asked you? he looked at Psylocke and narrowed his eyes. She cried out and staggered, hit by a telepathic attack. Angel caught her as she fell and glared at the parasite.
Such anger, from one so young, the mutant sighed mockingly. What is the world coming to?
He started to retreat into his unwilling host, who was still unconscious. Kodiak raised her bow, an arrow on the string and fired it. It struck the mutant in the arm, which was still solid.
If I entered your brother, I could force him to attack you, as I did before, he warned.
"But he fought your control, didn't he? He's stronger than you thought," Kodiak accused, another arrow ready.
True, I may have underestimated him, but it will make no difference if I fry all his brain cells.
"If you do that, I will kill you," Kodiak replied and fired the second arrow. It hit his shoulder, right above the first one.
The parasite hesitated, not so much out of fear, but because his host was waking up. Psylocke was staring at Matt intensely, concentrating her telepathy into a psychic wakeup call.
The parasite shuddered. Matt was awake, and using his own telepathy to force the parasite out of him. Finally, the parasite drifted out of the young man's eyes and solidified, landing on the ground nearby.
I can find another host, the parasite hissed. He started to flee, but a lightning bolt slammed down in front of him.
"You can, it's true, but you won't," Storm called from the sky. Thunderclouds crawled across the sky, and lightning pooled in her hands as Storm hovered, waiting. Behind the parasite, Wolfsbane shifted from human to wolf form and Spyke sprouted spikes along his arms and shoulders. Angel and Kodiak took to the air.
There was a moment where there was no movement from any of the combatants. The first attack came from neither the X-men nor the parasite. Matt stood up and held out a hand that sent a force bolt into the parasite, throwing him backwards.
The parasite was caught off-guard and stumbled. Matt approached him, one hand still outstretched, his eyes no longer silver since the parasite left.
"The windrider is right, Parasite. I'll kill you before you find another host."