Chapter Twenty: Fragmentation
The klaxons continued to wail as plasma fire and traditional bullets ripped through the lazy afternoon warmth. Beta-Star guards built barricades at the entrance points and formed units covering each other as they fired at the mutant intruders.
Those intruders stood outside the main gates and casually debated their next move. The guards' bullets pitter-pattered and bounced off the magnetic shield Lorna had erected around herself, Alex, and Fatale. Gambit and Creed had performed a disappearing act some time earlier; Lorna figured it was a thief trick and that the pair was now already deep inside the complex. Of course by default that meant she and Alex were the decoy; Fatale could go hang as far as Polaris was concerned.
'Ready?'
Alex, dressed as Havok, laced his fingers together and stretched his arms out; limbering up for action. His earlier handiwork filled the area. A melted armoured jeep sat in four puddles of liquefied rubber that had formerly been the jeeps tyres, and the gaping hole in the outer wall of the primary silo gave a good view of the equally eradicated hole in the inner walls of the gutted building.
All in all, the raid had been staggeringly easy.
Lorna glanced at Alex and then smiled cattily at Fatale in answer, 'Oh yeah.'
The trio turned to stare at the cavalcade of abandoned military vehicles forming a barricade preventing their escape. She and Alex exchanged a look as the rhythmic whup-whup whirring of helicopter rotator propellers floated over the smoky stillness towards them.
'Okay then,' Alex grinned, 'I'll melt, you sculpt?'
'Uh-huh,' Lorna nodded, 'But first….' She flapped her hand distractedly towards a trio of soldiers who were either braver, or considerably more stupid, than their colleagues. The trio had started inching towards them and now opened fire with high-powered plasma rifles. With a wave of that same hand Lorna knocked the trio onto their asses and half way back to their buddies behind the barricade.
'There, that's better; I don't like distractions while I work.'
Lorna allowed her power to envelope her in flickering emerald flame as she rose a few feet off the ground. She concentrated on the half melted jeep near by; snatching up the metal hulk with her mind and stretching out the fingers of her power as well.
Alex took a few steps back, tugging Fatale with him. The assassin glared at Polaris; the simmering jealousy the greyish skinned woman fostered towards Lorna was getting old fast. Fatale shrugged free of Alex's restraining grip; Havok smiled. Fine then, let her take the consequences of pissing Lorna off.
Taking a few more big steps back Alex then pivoted on his heel, body twisting so he faced towards the barricade of abandoned vehicles lined up against the dirt road horizon. He loosed a twin fisted blast of super-heated plasma; his plasma blast smashed into the line of armoured cars and he concentrated on maintaining a steady level of energy as he melted the burning hulks of metal into slag.
Simultaneously Lorna tore the already wrecked jeep from its melted foundations and sent it hurtling through the air like a magnetic green comet. Fatale was too busy watching Havok in action to notice the trajectory of the jeep, which happened to put it on a collision course with her.
She had just enough time to note the large shadow descending upon her and look up, 'Oh fu….' She reacted on instinct to avoid instant death.
The jeep crashed down on top of Fatale's rapidly closing teleportation window at the same moment that Havok cut a wide, smoking trench into the ground of the front court yard; tearing up concrete and earth in a superheated white hot slash at least ten feet deep and five feet wide. The resultant blast spat hot rock, dust, and scalding mud flying through the air; the soldiers holding their position in hiding took cover as best they could. Fleeing like rats from the deluge of debris.
The trench created a divide between Alex, Lorna, Fatale, and those remaining soldiers who had not decided it was more strategic to retreat into the base.
Havok stepped up beside Polaris who had set down on her feet at the smoking edge of the trench to survey the melted mass of red hot metal that was once a dozen armoured vehicles with a critical eye. She was haloed in her liquid-fire shimmering powers and Alex was almost obscured from human sight by the blinding, coruscating, nimbus of his concentric plasma blasts as they coiled around him.
'Okay then; creation time.' Lorna smiled rising into the air once more and stretching her arms out like a conductor towards the smouldering pile of molten metal.
Alex smiled back watching her rise in the air; he loved it when Lorna pushed her powers and her creativity to the max like this. 'Don't hold back; show 'em what you're made of.'
Lorna did not waste any further words on an answer; instead, still smiling, she closed her eyes and took a cleansing breath. She would let her actions speak for her this once. Letting out her breath she snatched up the old jeep again and hurled it into the mass of melted vehicles.
A second later that steaming mass began to shift and quiver; liquefied metal began to flow backwards, pulling together in streamers of flowing silver. The blackened skeletal carcasses of the jeeps and Humvees shuddered and groaned; growling and screeching as the metal shells cracked and twisted into new shapes.
Within moments the whole pile was almost unrecognisable; it resembled nothing so much as a thorn forest made of liquid steel as it stretched over the ground, rolling forward and outward in all directions and prickling, with razor pointed fingers, several feet into the air.
The Mistress of Magnetism had only just begun her work as the first of the military helicopters buzzed into view. Havok charged up and watched the choppers with a keen eye. He needed them to get just a little closer……
The siren roared; blearing yet another warning of impending mayhem. Ororo Munroe hurried up the boarding ramp into the Blackbird and took a seat in the main cabin alongside the rest of the team called to action.
'Goddess preserve us, what now?'
She murmured under her breath, but Logan, seated across the main aisle of the cabin from her glanced over with a wink. Ororo shared a faint smile with her friend and comrade before buckling herself in.
'Okay people,' Cyclops dropped into the pilot's seat of the Blackbird as he spoke. The strains of the last week clearly audible in his voice and notable by the presence of Jean at his side; in lieu of the recent upheavals the rigid team structure had long since fallen by the wayside.
'Cerebro has registered the presence of Polaris and,' Ororo caught her breath, hoping it would be Remy's name Cyclops spoke next, 'And Havok.'
Cyclops voice caught just a fraction on his brother's codename and Ororo felt a swell of sympathy for him; the fractious relationship between the brothers had always been a cause of pain to Scott.
'They appear to be in a powers fight, either with each other or with unknown forces, maybe human, out in the boondocks of Illinois. Beyond that we're going in blind.' Cyclops' words were clipped but his frustration was palpable. As a leader herself Ororo shared his sense of helplessness.
'Havok?' Warren spoke up from his seat further up the cabin. 'Christ, Scott, that's about all we need. What's he got to do with any of this?'
'I don't know,' Cyclops sighed tersely, 'It's not impossible that Havok's appearance is unrelated to Gambit and Polaris' defection but, considering Cerebro has identified Polaris' energy signature as well, I think it's likely that Gambit and Creed will be on the scene somewhere.'
Ororo frowned, 'Is that why you refused to allow either Rogue or Joseph to participate in this mission?'
Ororo had not been the only person to note Rogue's displeasure at being commanded to remain at the mansion and she had wondered at the reasoning behind Cyclops decision. Rogue was invaluably useful in combat missions, although Ororo would concede that placing Joseph against Polaris might have unexpected results; their powers were so similar after all.
It was Logan who answered, 'We ain't got a clue what's goin' down darlin'; all we know is the Cajun's runnin' wild and Rogue's been actin' fishy since Gumbo lit outta here. The way the two been actin' around each other lately, put them together, and chances are they'll take each out and us with 'em.'
Ororo sighed; there was much she had longed to say for months in regards the other woman's attitude towards Remy since her return to the team, but the only time she had attempted to speak of it Remy had made it very clear that her opinion was neither sought nor appreciated. That rebuff had hurt Ororo although she knew his anger had not been directed at her.
'You are right Logan; I merely wished for clarification.'
Ororo Munroe nodded to Logan respectfully but addressed her next words to Cyclops. She did not proactively push her own role as joint-leader very often but she expected to be respected as a leading member of the team all the same. She feared that her close personal relationship with Remy now meant she was being excluded from vital information.
'It might be best to assume that we shall be faced with the full contingent of the Marauders when we arrive also, in that case.'
Ororo had not fully come to terms with the fact that Charles had not thought it relevant to inform her, as both a field leader and as Remy's sponsor in the X-men, about Remy's past; equally she was deeply disappointed that Jean, her best friend, had not told her as well. Remy, she knew kept things from everyone and so she was least disappointed in him.
Thus she had determined to prove to the entire team, that, despite her personal investment in Remy, she was still first and foremost a leader and capable of divorcing herself from her feelings and assessing the threat of even those closest to her heart. In that vein she continued in cool, authoritative tones.
'It seems likely that we may have to subdue Remy by force, or at least prepare for that possibility.' She hated even saying it, but Remy did not act in half measures. He either did nothing at all or burned all his bridges at once, that was simply his way.
More than one pair of eyes fixed on her in response to her words as Cyclops bank the aircraft sharply to the right.
'Marauders; shit don't tell me they're involved as well? Bad enough if we've got to put up with a Maliced Lorna and a nutso Cajun.' Robert almost whined and slumped into his seat. 'Great; next you'll be telling us that Sinister himself is going to lay out the welcome mat.'
Ororo regarded the other members of the mission team with a regal calm. 'We cannot assume he won't be.' She pointed out grimly.
Fatale re-materialised in one of the corridors of the base.
'Bitch,' she muttered under breath thinking of the green haired hag who had tried to crush her with a car. Of course it took more than that to kill McCoy's number one creation.
The squawk and crackle of a radio transmission assaulted her ears from a small room further down the egg-shell coloured corridor.
'…….Unit ten Beta-Star requesting immediate backup; I repeat we have a full alert mutant incursion in progress; base integrity is compromised requesting immediate deployment of the Prime Sentinel units.'
Fatale located the human guard whimpering into his walky-talky. She allowed herself to ripple into the shadows, bending light around her. Moving with the silent confidence of the invisible she extended her wrist blade and stepped into the pokey little room behind the balding, khaki wearing retired military man.
Invisible and soundless she stood at the man's back and smiled down at him; this was all so easy.
'….this is Commander Evans, of unit ten Beta-Star requ….urk!'
In and out as smooth as butter; Fatale's blade entered the man's back, sliding easily between ribs. A deft twist of her wrist found his heart and the useless sack of bones was dead before he could blink. She let his sweaty bulk drop and rippled away again.
She had to find the Dark Beast.
Mr Sinister raised his blinding red gaze from the read out of one of his many monitors to look up at his wall display as a small, persistent, beeping alarm demanded his attention.
He frowned at what he saw; removing Threnody had perhaps been a premature act as now he found he had no one to monitor his various in-put screens on his behalf; such menial work, was of course, beneath his dignity to do himself. Unfortunately Scalphunter had not yet fully regenerated from his disastrous encounter with the thief and the other Marauders, in various stages of their own revival, did not have the right temperament or mental acuity for the task.
'The X-men are abroad?' Sinister rubbed the pad of his thumb to his bottom lip meditatively as deciphered the information scrolling over his screen, 'Should I postulate from this that Lebeau has decided to up the ante?'
He walked over to the bank of monitors and noted the co-ordinates and trajectory of the in-flight Blackbird. A stiletto thin smile scythed over his pallid face; ah, so that was the thief's stratagem, was it?
It would appear he had underestimated both Gambit's suicidal recklessness and his capacity for pre-meditated acts. Sinister had thought the man's over-emotional tendencies and adherence to such nebulous and abstract ideals as loyalty and fealty would prevent him from attempting to use Summers and Grey as leverage in his foolish campaign of defiance.
Clearly he had made a misassumption.
His lips thinned the smile erased instantly; he could not afford harm to come to Grey or Summers. Most particularly Summers; Grey, while undoubtedly a treasure of genetics, was somewhat more expendable than Summers. Sinister had extensive samples of Grey's DNA after all.
If Lebeau's intent was to jeopardise Summers to strike out at Sinister himself……well, if that were so, Sinister would have to intervene in a manner he did not particularly wish to. Lebeau was more valuable to him alive than dead, but Summers took precedence in all things.
Sinister stared into his monitors as he rolled calculations, variables and risk factors around and around in the sterile, cold labyrinth of this mind; the numerous power generators humming formed a low, strangely soothing, murmur at his back.
'What are you up to Lebeau,' The creature known now as Mr Sinister mused out loud, 'and why do I feel that any action I take to counter you will only be to your advantage?'
There was no answer within the cold chambers of Sinister's inner sanctum save that is for the mechanical ticking of an antique pocket-watch.
It was the girlish squealing that really got to him. Remy paused in his attempt to force the Dark Beast along the corridor and idly contemplated smashing his bo-staff down on the shaggy-furred doppelganger's head as hard as he could.
An evil Henry McCoy he could accept; most often good and bad were merely differences in perspective anyhow, but a cowardly McCoy, non, that was something else entirely.
'Nooooooooo!' Presently the Dark Beast was clinging to a doorframe by his claws while Sabretooth nearly ripped him in two hauling on his legs to pry him loose. Remy's lips twitched; under other circumstances this would be tres amuser.
Sadly at the moment he did not have time to appreciate the humour. He swirled his bo-staff, retracted it to half its full length and smacked the length of it down onto the Dark Beast's fingers. The doppelganger yelped in pain and lost his grip. Sabretooth hauled him from the door.
'Nononono……unhand me you reprehensible genetic dead-end.' The Dark Beast howled pitifully, 'Help! Help! Guards! Where are you all? The American tax payer pays your wages! I am a prisoner and I demand someone come and guard me this instance.'
The Dark Beast continued to wail and gnash his teeth as he scrabbled for purchase; his claws digging into concrete walls and leaving runnels half an inch deep bleeding plaster dust as Creed pulled him along, inch by inch.
'Yer keep squirmin' I'm gonna rip yer arms off,' Creed warned the struggling Beast. Gambit followed behind the pair (no way he was giving Creed his back) and shook his head ruefully. Another moment of listening to McCoy's pitiful wailing and he'd rip McCoy's arms off and save Creed the bother.
'No! No unhand me; I will not allow you to….' Beast twisted and managed to yank one leg free of Creed's grip. He pulled back the powerful limb and kicked Creed hard in the lower back. Sabretooth staggered and lost his hold on the other man completely. He spun instantly catching his balance, claws flashing, and curses at the ready.
The Dark Beast jumped to his feet and fell into a predator's crouch facing Creed. Remy, thoroughly sick of the whole sorry affair, extended his staff and brought it crashing down onto the Dark Beast's head. The grey furred self-proclaimed evil genius collapsed into a panting heap of mangy fur. Gambit kicked him over with the toe of his boot. As expected the Beast had been shamming; he came up swinging and Remy sidestepped neatly before hooking his staff under McCoy's huge head.
'Behave m'sieur or dis gon go badly for you, no?'
The Dark Beast was three hundred plus pounds of muscle and sinew; he could flatten Remy with one lucky blow and his natural acrobatic prowess and agility was a match for Remy's own. The real Henry Hank McCoy would have been a difficult takedown for Remy and Creed combined. The Beast would use both his physicality and his brains to his advantage and still manage to fight in a way that caused the minimum of pain to his opponent.
This useless flea-bitten mess, in sharp contrast, was too much a coward to even try to fight with anything approaching skill or panache.
Remy hated cowardice in an opponent; vice he had plenty of and could forgive in others, dishonour, well, Remy didn't hold with honour anyhow and fighting dirty was just good sense – but cowardice, non, he hated that. He could feel his lip curling with utter contempt for the Dark Beast.
In truth Remy was also a little put out that his planned ruse, to pretend to be with the X-men still and convince McCoy he was here to rescue him from a crazed Havok, had been rumbled instantly by McCoy.
The homme had known as soon as he caught a glimpse of Creed that Remy was shamming. After that he had started screaming and wailing and trying to climb the walls to escape; the fact that he kept screaming to be saved instead of trying to fight was perhaps the most pathetic aspect of this whole farce.
Bracing the staff against his quarry's throat Remy held it in place with his folded elbows and let a faint thrum of kinetic energy run through the adamantium length. He man (or Beast?) – handled McCoy to his knees and brought his face close to his opponent's tufted ear.
'You really startin' to piss me off now mon ami; dis ain't no way to treat a teammate, oui?'
'Accck……you are mistaken…….my Acadian scum…….I am most palpably not your teammate…..yuk.'
The real McCoy (pun intended) would have easily broken Remy's hold on him; this one was an aging wannabe and for all his squirming could not break free of Remy's headlock. Remy found himself missing the real Beast with a sharp ache of regret. He was still disgusted with himself that he had fallen for the Dark Beast's masquerade just like all the rest of the X-men when the doppelganger had pretended to be Hank for weeks.
'Ah non, Monsieur Bête; I seem to remember dat you lived at de mansion for weeks before Onslaught snagged you, oui? Don' matter dat you were shammin' den, you still been a teammate in de lit'ral sense, non?' Remy smiled and jerked his bo-staff up against the Dark Beast's throat a little harder, pushing down dangerously on the man's windpipe.
'In fact,' he purred in the man's ear as his charge started to singe fur and dance from hair follicle to hair follicle, igniting them as it spread, 'Moi, I be t'inkin', dat mebbe you bein' premature in your attitude; I t'ink we got a lot to offer each other, oui?'
'Argh…..you…..are being……ack!......too coy…..Gambit…..ple – ukkk – ase tell me what you really mean for I fear….aggr….that I cannot…..ackkkk……participate in this……conversation further….without…..agggh….further illumination of….gah…your intent.'
The Dark Beast tried to break free by going suddenly limp and leaning all three hundred pounds or more of his body weight against Remy. Already anticipating this form of 'attack' Remy simply took a breath and leaned into Beast, taking that added strain and concentrating on building the charge as it spread through the millions of individual follicles of hair covering the Dark Beast's body.
He smiled cruelly, glancing up at Creed who was lounging against the far wall at the end of the corridor watching the show. 'D'accord mon ami, perhaps you right, eh? Perhaps I let M'sieur Tooth do de talkin' instead?'
Creed cocked his head to the side like a curious dog; Remy could almost see his ears prick up. He chuckled darkly.
'Of course,' Remy continued with a certain dark glee, 'm'sieur Tooth been known to get a lil' physical while he talkin' but I'm sure you man enough to take it, oui?'
Creed grinned and took a step forward; the Dark Beast stopped struggling against Remy's hold on him and stared in horror at Creed. Remy was disgusted all over again.
He and the real Henry McCoy may not be that close (and this was actually a source of regret to Remy; he liked the Beast and wished he could dare to trust the other man more) even so, he had always admired the true Beast's courage, conviction, and boundless generosity. The mangy creature in his arms was not so much evil doppelganger as a vicious insult to the man he resembled so closely.
'What you t'ink mon ami?' he sneered into the Dark Beast's ear, 'You like dat idea better?'
'…..accckkkk…..not especially….no….'
'No? Well den guess you ought to be nicer to me, oui? Or'n I'm gon throw you to Creed an' watch him shred you, D'accord?'
Remy was by no means sure if he could charge animate matter now, or whether whatever Sinister had done to him to remove that capacity was still in effect. Still, that didn't matter right now as he did not need to start charging the Bête Noir's flesh, only his hair, and that was dead anyhow.
'V….very well, now that I am fully prescient…akkk!....Gah!....of the salient facts of my….urrr….situation…..I am all ears and attentiveness.' McCoy gasped out as Creed, prepared for the moment to play the part of silent muscle, went back to slouching against the wall.
Remy closed his eyes, yanked hard on the staff drawing it inwards and then upwards under le Bête Noir's chin, as he rose to his feet; a choking McCoy dragged upright with him. He opened his eyes once more. The charge crackled a vivid fuchsia through his staff and he smiled sharply as he saw that much of McCoy's chest hair was already glowing.
That should prove an incentive for good behaviour, non?
Cyclops, flying the Blackbird, could not turn to face Ororo as the impact of her previous words were felt throughout the cabin but he pitched his voice back so it could be heard.
'Explain Storm; I agree with you that we can't dispute the possibility that Sinister is going to be at the site when we land, but it sounds like you've a reason to see it as more than a possibility.'
Ororo nodded and chose her next words carefully, 'Since the revelations regarding Gambit's connection to Sinister became known I have thought long and hard over the connotations. Remy left New Orleans on the turn of his eighteenth birthday. He was twenty-three when he joined the team.'
Robert interrupted before she could come to her point, 'Jeez – wait, you're telling me he's only twenty-six?' he looked from Ororo to the back of Jean's head, 'He's only Jean's age?'
Ororo smiled caustically, the fact that at twenty-eight, Ororo herself was older than Remy was a source of some embarrassment to them both; especially as she had been in the form of a pubescent child when they first met.
'Yes Robert; Remy does not know the exact day and month of his birth, but he is no older than twenty-six years old.'
She waited for everyone in the cabin to remember her previous line of discussion before continuing.
'I believe this period of five years wherein Gambit was on his own, are pivotal. Remy must have become enmeshed with Sinister sometime before he met me in Cairo Illinois and some time after leaving his home. That is a small window of time; it must have happened, I would argue, when he was between nineteen and twenty-one.'
'Okay Storm,' Warren said slightly impatiently, 'I mean that's important to know in the wider context but how does….' He stopped as he came to his own realisation. 'Shit, if Gambit's twenty six now, six years ago he would have been twenty - and it was about that time that Sinister created the Marauders and struck out against the X-men for the first time.'
Jean turned around in the co-pilot's seat, surprise colouring her expression, 'God, I never thought of that.' She shook her head green eyes fixing on Ororo, 'That would explain why he went to Lorna, then. I couldn't figure that out but it makes sense in context to the Marauders. That's the only link between Gambit, Sinister, Sabretooth, and Polaris after all.'
Ororo nodded gravely, 'Remy would never speak of his previous vocation before joining the team in anything but the most vague generalisations.' She looked pointedly at Logan who was perhaps the only other person on the team who might understand Remy's past life, 'I do know however that he supplemented his income by working as a freelance bounty-hunter.'
Logan's grizzled eyebrows quirked, 'So that's where he gets it from?'
The gruff man snorted a laugh, 'Shoulda figured; Guild trained thief could make good money scoping out a mark for a hunter. Hell Gumbo wouldn't have to get his hands dirty takin' down the mark, just find the bastard and sell the location to the highest bidding.'
'Indeed,' Ororo said sadly, Remy had never spoken with any pride about his previous life, but it still disturbed Ororo to imagine the sort of things Remy had done for nothing more than money and an immature desire to get his own back on a world that had often treated him poorly. Remy was better than a mere mercenary for hire. He always had been, but no one had bothered to tell him so. Alas as with all things the lowest common denominator defined the whole and Remy would always be tarnished by those things he had done wrong because no one had ever encouraged him to do the right thing.
'My main point however,' She said slowly, feeling like she walked a tightrope over a chasm filled with knives with every syllable spoken, 'is that his dual vocation as thief and bounty hunter would have afforded him a wide variety of contacts that a man such as Sinister might wish to exploit.'
'Meaning?' Warren demanded, but Ororo chose not to address his rudeness at this moment. Her pride was not so great, and there were more weighty matters to worry about. Later however she and Warren would have words.
'Meaning,' she replied coolly giving Warren the full weight of her gaze as she unconsciously sat up straighter in her seat assuming the familiar mantle of regal dignity she wore like a cloak around her every action. 'I believe that Remy knows some, or all, of the Marauders.'
Ororo looked down and forced herself to say the words she could barely make herself believe, 'It seems improbably that he would not, considering the time scale.' She looked up again and stared almost defiantly at each person in the back of the plane in turn.
'If I was ever in Sinister's position, as loathsome as it is for me to imagine it, I would look to recruit a thief of Remy's calibre and skills to form part of any team I gathered to face the X-men.'
She found herself staring at the back headrest of Cyclops chair. She refused to look elsewhere. All she could hear was the roar of the Blackbird's engines and the thumping of her own heart.
It was Logan who broke the crushing silence that filled the cabin like a miasma, 'Gumbo never fought with the Marauders 'Ro; I'd'a smelled him.' He looked around the cabin, 'And I don't forget a scent; ever.'
Ororo met her friend's eyes struggling to keep her feelings at bay, 'He escaped Logan; Jean told us that he escaped something so terrible that it nearly destroyed him.'
She reached out across the aisle towards Logan in a rare show of physicality, but right now she wanted the tacit support of his steady presence as she spoke. It felt as if with every word spoken that questioned his actions, she betrayed Remy in someway. He had oft told her that she was the first person to see the potential for good in him, and perhaps the only person in his life who had ever given him her unconditional trust; now she found that she could do so no longer. Sinister's cruel taint of association had already cast doubt on everything she believed.
'Remy is precious to me in a manner I cannot speak of,' she conceded eventually unwilling to speak more of the value she placed upon Remy's friendship because she did not feel anyone, even those in this plane whom she loved like family, had a right to know her inner most feelings.
'However I am no fool,' Ororo smiled faintly as Logan took her hand in his two large, calloused hands. 'Perhaps more than anyone else in this plane I know Remy's faults and his flaws. He is capable of monstrous recklessness and selfishness,' she glanced around the cabin.
'He sees the world differently than most; he places his trust in the wrong people or he trusts not at all. Betrayal had been the currency of his life up until he came to the team.' She smiled sardonically, 'He would be the first to admit that.'
Ororo Munroe sat straight in her seat once more and opened her eyes; composure and poise came easily to her, a constant façade she hid behind. Inside something curled up and died behind her breastbone; a wordless sense of agony and betrayal searing her throat like bile. She swallowed inaudibly and addressed the rest of the team.
'I am left to wonder, knowing what I do, just what Remy did for Sinister in that time; a time of monstrous cruelty and bloodshed. What could wound him so deeply to the core that he would willingly devote himself, ever more, to fight the darkness in him where once he embraced it?'
She looked at each passenger in the aircraft in turn, almost wishing that someone would give her an answer other than the suspicion gnawing at her heart and soul. Logan met her eyes with his own steady, ancient gaze. Warren turned away from her look, his own brows riding low in a frown. Bobby plucked at fluff balls on the upholstery of the chair in front of his own and Bishop, silent all this time, continued to look down at the plasma rifle he polished in his lap. Jean met her eyes, sympathy and empathy bleeding from her gaze.
Remy adores you, 'Ro; whatever is going on with him that hasn't changed.
Perhaps, but he and I are not children; devotion and friendship does not save one from pain and betrayal. I fear for him and I fear what he might do.
There was nothing Jean could say to reassure her and after a moment the telepath turned in her chair to face front as the fluffy cumulous clouds of spring danced by the speeding aircraft.
No one in the aircraft cabin spoke for many miles after that; each person locked in their own thoughts, their own fears. For Ororo the rest of journey was a silent torture; in her mind she reached for the presence of her Goddess and found only questions.
Her mind's eye fixed on a memory of a night months ago; a night in which she had gone down to the Morlock tunnel memorial and found a sea of candles marking every grave stone. That one act of remembrance had pierced her to the soul; Remy would not weep for strangers, yet it had been tears she had seen in his eyes that night. It was also the first time he had ever outright lied to her.
Ororo closed her eyes and offered a silent prayer to her Goddess whose presence she felt only the absence of in her soul.
Please Goddess, he was not there; please Goddess do not do this to me. I love him so; do not force me to hate him. Please Goddess let me be wrong; let it be that he was not there. Let it be that the death of the Morlocks lays not upon his head - for I fear that I might kill him to find he has betrayed me so.
'Arrrhhhgg!...enough you violent, inbreed hick……cease and desist!.....Ukr….do you….ack!....do you know how hard it is to condition this fur? You will ruin…ack!...my pelt entirely!'
The Dark Beast twisted and squirmed against the headlock but Remy simply moved with him, hanging off the Bête Noir's bulk and letting the other man all but throttle himself in his half-assed attempts to escape. When McCoy began to realise he was not getting free that easily he grew still.
'What do you want?' he choked out eventually and Remy rolled his eyes heavenward; for a genius the homme sure took a while to realise he was licked.
'Conversation, M'sieur; we gon have us a nice chat, mon ami.' Remy whispered into the Dark Beast's ear and pressed down a fraction of an inch harder against the other man's windpipe.
By this point the Dark Beast was well aware he was in considerable trouble but arrogance was clearly no respecter of circumstance; his lips curled and his next words were anything but submissive.
'Alas……ahhhgh…..but I'm afraid that I do not…….wish to…..urrkkk…..demean…oww would you stop that…acck!…demean myself by attempting to plug the depths of inferiority that would be necessary for us to converse successfully…ack!'
McCoy tried to brace his feet against either narrow wall of the cell block corridor using his size and reach to wedge himself in place; Remy kicked his legs out from under him and the Bete Noir very nearly choked on his own tongue as he momentarily fell against the staff lodged under his chin.
'Now homme, dat's jus' plain rude.'
Remy jerked the staff away and kicked McCoy in the back, knocking him to the floor. He landed on top of the furry doppelganger before the man could twist around and start fighting back. Straddling the Bête Noir he fisted a hand into the back of his furry head and let his charge envelope the man's skull completely.
McCoy shuddered underneath him and vaguely Remy wondered what it felt like for someone else to have his charge running through their flesh. It seemed like it hurt, which was food for thought if nothing else. He leaned down to hiss in McCoy's ear once more.
'I come all dis way to talk to you mon ami; brought some friends wit' me an' ev'ryt'ing jus' for you.'
He purred as McCoy's face contorted under his glowing fur with pain; the scent of burning hair filled the narrow corridor causing Creed to wrinkle his sensitive nose in distaste. Still he did not back off; he wanted to watch and absorb every nuance of McCoy's pain up close and personal.
Remy shook his head; distantly there was a voice in his head that told him to stop. Death was inevitable after all, but cruelty was a choice and never a necessity. Remy Lebeau had made several promises to himself years ago in the aftermath of the massacre. He'd promised that he would never hurt another living being like he was now hurting McCoy solely for his own gain. He'd also promised never to kill in cold blood and he'd already murdered Grey Crow.
It was a slippery slope and Remy wasn't sure just when and where he'd started his downward slide.
'You gon talk to me homme, because if'n you don' I'm gon burn off ev'ry hair on your body, string you up to de walls an' let m'sieur Tooth slice you open befor' I reach through de gapin' hole in your chest an' blow your black heart straight to hell; comprehende vous?'
Somewhere a line Remy had sworn he would never cross again for any reason, had been not so much crossed as scrubbed out of existence. The little voice in his head that seemed to be screaming at him from a very long way away begged him to run while he still had a chance and while there was still something good in him left to salvage.
'You listenin' homme or you want me to let Sabretooth explain it to you again, eh?'
Remy tightened his grip on McCoy, digging fingers into his scalp and catching the man's choked off gasp of increasing pain. What good were morals, honour, and the rest of those things to him? His high morals and refusal to give in to the worst of Essex's demands hadn't done a thing to save the Morlocks after all; probably just ensured they died horribly.
'Not at all..ack…..my psychotic….agggrr….former comrade at arms…..ukk…I believe …ugg…..that I understand you completely.'
Remy released McCoy abruptly, jumping lightly to his feet and fastidiously wiping off his palms where singed grey-blue fur had come loose from the main bulk of the Bête Noir's body in chunks.
'Merci mon ami,' he smiled and winked at Creed who looked mildly impressed by the ruthlessness he had shown, 'so den, why don you tell me a story, eh?'
The Dark Beast struggled into a crouch and rubbed at his neck. He looked up in response to the suggestion with mild contempt.
'I fear I am not in the business or catering to your juvenile desire for bedtime stories.'
Remy cocked his head to the side and reached out snake fast to snatch up a fistful of the fake Beast's scalp fur, 'Hey homme, I'm t'inkin' you ain't in a position to refuse, non?'
The Dark Beast pulled free of Remy's hold and glanced warily between Remy and Creed. He did not look happy.
'Perhaps you are right; what story would like me to narrate for you? Jack and the beanstalk; Cinderella? Disney is about your speed, is it not, my thievish aggressor?'
Remy smiled blandly and withdrew a collection of throwing knives from his trench coat pocket; too fast to countenance he threw one down. It struck and embedded in the flesh of the Bete Noir's right hand, still quivering in the air as the other man struggled to register what had happened and why his hand was speared to the ground.
'Mebbe later, oui? Right now I wanna hear de tale o' what rock you gon an' crawled up from under homme.' He winked, 'An' what dat's got to do wit' a mutual acquaintance of ours.'
McCoy wrenched the throwing dart from the back of his hand and rubbed almost childishly at the injury with his good hand. He glared mutinously up at Remy.
'Mutual acquaintance, whatever do you……?' he stopped thoughts percolating behind his large furred face, 'Oh my Stars and Garters.' His eyes grew comically wide. 'You cannot mean….' He trailed off.
Remy nodded fixing his eyes on McCoy's, 'Oui m'sieur, I do.' He fanned out the glowing blades in his hand, 'Now you better start talkin' homme or else, moi, I be t'inkin' to make a trade wit' de man Essex.'
McCoy swallowed, 'A trade?'
'D'accord,' Remy crouched down snatched up the homme's furred head and held the glowing points of his fistful of blades to the Bête Noir's wide right eye, 'You for me, homme. One o' us is gon end up in his labs – an' I t'ink I'd like it better if'n it be you.'
McCoy licked his lips with an incongruously pink tongue against the greyish-blue of his fur. 'P…perhaps we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement…one where neither of us graces Mr Sinister's labs with our august presence?'
Remy's smile was as sweet and wide as a child's and his eyes were hard as blood red marble.
'Start talkin' homme.'
The Blackbird sliced through the skies headed for trouble in the hinterlands of Illinois.
Cyclops guided the Blackbird towards the quadrangle structure that was obviously some form of military installation; the smoke and light show coming from the ground was a dead giveaway that it was also their destination.
He frowned as he began the planes descent; he wasn't sure he could face another showdown with Alex like the last one. Still he was fairly sure Alex wouldn't be throwing him out of a commercial airplane and leaving him to die a painful death impaled on rocks in the ocean as he had last time.
No in all likelihood Alex had come up with a whole new way of letting Scott know that he sucked as a brother. Alex had always been the imaginative one in the family after all.
Scott frowned as he gained a better look at the situation on the ground; what was that silver thing down below? It looked like a huge, twisted tree made of metal rising up out of a smoking crater in the ground.
What the hell was that thing – and what were those things coming out of it? It looked almost like chopper propellers coming out of one of the thick, sinuous metal arms of the 'tree' like structure dominating the entrance way to the building. He was still trying to puzzle out what he was seeing when Jean stiffened beside him in alarm.
'Scott; watch out!'
Jean's warning shout came a fraction of a second too late as the Blackbird came into range of one of the metal 'tree's' serpent like branches. The branch, made of a liquid amalgamation of metallic parts, sheared off the tip of the Blackbird's left wing; at the same time the outer shell of the aircraft was buffeted by a pulse of magnetic energy.
Internal systems failure was imminent. Cyclops attempted evasive manoeuvres but there was nothing he could do; they had been ambushed before they had even arrived fully at the scene.
Another tendril of living metal smashed through the side of the aircraft, piercing the inside of the cabin and tearing a wide gash in the outer hull. A moment later the roof of the plane was peeled off like lid from a sardine can. Jean enveloped them in a telekinetic bubble an instant before the lack of oxygen could implode their lungs and kill them all.
The X-men went down – and they went down hard.