Hey-O, people! How are you?
I want to thank Ogygian Spring for the kind shout-outs. You rock! I don't know what kind of powers Ruby and Meg's older brother would have. I'm thinking psionic-bursts similar to Cyclops' brother Havok? Let me know what you think.
These characters belong to Marvel, not me.
"So Young" is a stellar song. It reminds me of Chicago. Check it out. (Just as an aside, I do not promote violence in any form. I just thought the song "So Young" really relates to this chapter.)
Thank you and cheers,
Maria
Chapter XXV: The Sorcerer's Apprentice
So young, loaded gun,
Oblivious to what the trigger does,
Will ya wake up?
Never gonna make up,
Got ammunition on a mission,
Gonna shoot you down.
-Portugal. The Man, "So Young"
Yes, this felt right, Jonathan Richards thought. Teacher was so kind, not like everyone thought, not like he had been told since he was an infant. His Mama's, Rachel and Laura, and even Grandma Emma, who Jonathan secretly adored, were all so wrong. In fact, they were such hypocrites. Weren't they preaching tolerance and understanding constantly? But they could not accept someone with such different ideas as they had?
And Teacher was not bad – certainly not evil. He was small, which at first Jonathan, who was so tall and dashing, disdained, but then knobby little Teacher with fingers like gnarled roots had Taught Jon what he knew. And how much Teacher knew!
Not even Jonathan's father, Franklin Richards, knew half as much. Jon knew how to create telepathic projections of beastly animals, manticores and rocs were his favorites, but he had no idea how to Change things into something else – something better. But Teacher had shown him how to do it. And Jonathan had learned how to do it! He had done it to a bat first, Changing the weak scrawny little animal into a beast with ripping fangs and sharp talons. A better creature.
How proud Teacher had been. How proud Jon had been of himself. Of course, he could imagine how horrified Rachel would be and how furious Laura would be. The women, Laura especially, had driven into Jon the idea of Balance, how each and every creature had their place, role and value in Nature. But they didn't understand Teacher and his great knowledge. Teacher did not wish to kill and destroy as Jon's Mama's had always told him. No, Teacher wished to make things better …
Teacher wanted a world where there was no suffering, hunger or illness. That was the noblest intention anyone ever had, in Jon's opinion. Why, wasn't that what Rachel, as Phoenix leader of the X-Men, fought for? Rachel, however, went about it in all the wrong way, constantly protecting the weak from the strong.
Teacher's solution made vastly more sense to Jonathan. In his proposed future, there would be none of that, no oppression or cruelty, no subjugation of the weak – because there would be no weakness. No. Everyone would be equally strong.
It was such a brilliant plan, Jonathan had no idea why he hadn't thought of it himself. Yes, he admired Teacher, but he was still a prideful boy. How relieved he felt that Teacher had placed Jon at the helm of his great mission to create a universe of equality.
Jon also constantly felt in awe that Teacher was the first person he had ever met to share such similar thinking. His cousins, which Rachel reiterated her son should feel some closeness towards, certainly didn't – Olivier was the only one Jon found even moderately tolerable. Jonathan had always nursed a bit of an innocent crush on his beautiful step-grandmother, Emma Frost, but she seemed almost frightened of someone, especially a kid, exercising the full potential of their powers. Just look at the restraint she constantly dictated to her little daughter, Meggie Summers.
And then there was Jeanie … sweet little Jeanie. Of all his family which Jon knew would condemn Teacher's tutelage, it was Jeanie's imminent condemnation that tormented him. Jonathan loved his twin sister more than any other living thing in this or any universe.
And of all the people in his life, he knew Jeanie would be most appalled by Teacher's plans he had converted Jonathan to. Because it did involve killing … which his beloved Jeanie was revolted by. This killing, however, was not cruel. Oh, no. It was merciful.
That was the true beauty of Teacher's plan and what had ultimately won Jonathan over to it. It made such good sense: kill the weak and let the strong survive. It was exactly what Mama Laura had taught Jonathan and Jeanie from their earliest days – it was how Nature worked and prospered. The same way a deer herd was culled of the weak and sick by a wolf pack so only the strongest could live to reproduce. If the weak were permitted to survive, they would burden the prosperous and their suffering would be prolonged.
Well, Teacher's plan for the people of Jonathan's home world worked in the same way. The weak and sick and deformed would be killed swiftly and painlessly. No cruelty or suffering. Then the strongest and most powerful would have the whole world – all the resources the weaker were wastefully using up – to grow, prosper and have babies. And, with Jonathan's powers of transformation, the strong could become even better. He could eliminate every blemish from another person, enhance every power. In a generation or two, all people would be equal and happy. There would no want, despair or suffering. Starvation, war and disease, the horrible ills that plagued the peoples of Earth, would be wiped off of the planet.
Jon knew he should have been more adverse to this plan, especially since Teacher had trapped him in the Astral Plane and Jonathan couldn't return to his home dimension. But then Teacher had patiently explained that he had had no other way to reach out to Jonathan, to share with him his brilliant master plan. And, after Teacher had shared his plans with Jon and showed him the full potential of his powers, of course he forgave his new mentor.
Teacher's thinking and opinions were just so similar to Jon's … and, to the boy's shock, so much like his own family's! Auntie Marie was a shining example. Everyone knew how she wanted the strongest, most powerful descendants. And Jon had always sensed how insecure Emma was about eventually being a weaker telepath than Rachel or Jeanie.
And they reviled Teacher? They had the nerve to call him such horrible names as Apocalypse?
It made no sense. Teacher was just echoing what Jonathan had been taught since infancy. In fact, Teacher's plan echoed Jonathan's deepest convictions almost exactly. How could he reject someone who shared his own ideals so perfectly and had the knowledge and resources to carry them thru? Strive for strength. Be merciful, be kind, but be logical. Only Teacher's plan was even better than what Jon had always been taught by his two mothers and grandparents. It streamlined the whole process …
And put Jonathan at the top. OK, it was selfish, but why the hell not? His silly cousins had always viewed the boy as silent and strange; even Oli only ever wanted to use their powers for mischief and pranks. Not one of them realized their own potential … or that Jon was the most powerful person in the room – or in the whole world – except for little Jeanie. Why should they acknowledge supreme power when they were spoon-fed a doctrine of extreme restraint and suppression of their powers?
Well, that was all about to change. Jon would shape their thinking and opinions to his liking in the same way he had shaped that little bat to make it stronger and better. They would come around to his way of understanding … even Jeanie. Especially Jeanie. Jonathan smiled a secret smirk when he thought of himself ruling a better, more prosperous and peaceful planet with Jeanie at his side.
Are you ready, Student? Teacher called out to him telepathically. Jon smiled. Yes, Teacher didn't make foolish demands for Jon to communicate verbally. Teacher understood that psychic communication was the way of the future, the way all people would communicate in their brave new world, where all people, and all their private thoughts, were open and equal with no room for deception or unfairness. Jon wouldn't be reviled or disdained or pitied for his strange silence; he would be understood for what he truly was – the most supreme being ruling a world of supreme beings without a sign of weakness or failing.
Yes, Teacher, Jon replied psychically to the being known to some as En Sabah Nur – but to most as Apocalypse.
I give all of my Students a new name because they become new beings under my Teaching, Teacher stated to Jonathan. Your reign in your home world, MY home world, the one I was born into, will sweep the Earth like a storm, bringing about an eternity of peace and equality among its people such as their feeble minds could never comprehend.
Teacher regarded his prize pupil Jonathan Richards with his pale eyes as he "whispered" directly into the boy's mind: So I now call you Hyperstorm.
###
Meg puffed on Oli's heels which annoyed her considering she was "leading" this charge to put a stop to Ruby's reckless behavior.
Damn her short legs! Why – oh, why couldn't she be growing taller alongside her psychic prowess?
"You're not following me after Ruby!" the girl snapped at Olivier.
"You right, I ain't!" he replied grimly, but the humor of the lanky boy having to slow his hurried steps to Megan's short pace wasn't lost on him.
"You know what I mean!" she snarled. "I ain't – I mean, I'm not." (One thing about hanging around the LeBeau siblings was she started to eventually pick up on their verbal nuances and accent, something that drove Emma crazy.) "I'm not putting you and Ray in danger!"
"You right, you ain't, cher," Oli replied briskly. When he got very agitated he started speaking in that weird language only he and Ray spoke. "We going by our own selves. You ain't making us."
"Uh, I didn't say I was goin," Ray piped up. The tall girl had had to slow to a downright saunter to let Meg and Oli catch up. Oli was fit and Meg certainly wasn't a couch-potato, but the two were already panting trying to keep up with Ray.
Oli made a dismissive gesture at his sister. If he was going somewhere, alternate dimension or otherwise, of course Ray would be right behind him – or beside him as the case may be. The siblings hadn't spent a day apart since Olivier had been born, let alone in another dimension.
Meg whirled angrily on her two cousins, putting her size-three foot down hard. "It's impossible, LeBeau. You cannot."
"Uh-huh, yeah, we can," Ray replied between bites of a blueberry-cake-donut she had gotten from God-knows-where. "Y'know how Brother can mentally cloak you when you two are having yah 'private discussions?'"
Meg's cheeks burned.
"Same principle only he can piggyback alongside you when you go into the Astral Plane," Ray explained.
"Wha … What?" Meg stammered out, barely comprehending.
"Welp, that's jus a theory," Ray said, licking her fingers carefully. "But if Oli's powers are anything like mine – like how we're both psychically undetectable?" Meg could only nod, bewildered, at the girl's wide green eyes staring at her. "Then it could be possible. Leastways, it worked for me when I followed yah sister Ruby into the Astral Plane."
"You followed Ruby into the Astral Plane?!" Meg and Oli gasped together. They were going to be buying one another a lot of sodas.
"Well, someone had to keep an eye on her," Ray explained calmly.
"I don't get it …" Meg said faintly.
"What's not to get?" asked Ray. "I told you I theorized that Oli could piggyback …"
"I know! I know!" she snapped. "This is just …"
"All so messed up?" Oli suggested to her and she nodded gratefully to her friend.
"Stay away from me!" they heard Ruby suddenly shout.
Meg immediately picked up on Ruby's intense fear – Kymri's too. God, what now? The three kids stumbled in the direction of the Danger Room. As they turned a corner (Ray flying and slamming into it, crumbling part of the wall) Megan saw Kymri levitating in the air opposite of a crouching and angry Ruby. Beads of sweat rolled down the girl's face as she concentrated. To Meg, the scene looked like something out of a horror film; she'd never seen her sister use telekinesis before.
"He-eelp …" Kymri gasped as Ruby tightened her invisible grip on the blue-skinned woman's throat.
"Ruby! What the hell did she do to you?" Meg demanded.
Distracted, Ruby's telekinetic grip slackened on Kymri for a heartbeat and the blue woman teleported away in a puff of smoke. The next instant, she was holding Meg's sister in a headlock.
"I said stay away from me!" Ruby screeched.
"What did she do to you, Rube?" asked Meg. She liked Kymri OK – the woman was like an auntie to her and, of course, she was an X-Man which warranted respect – but she was ready to fight to protect her sister.
Kymri was scowling like she was ashamed.
"Nothing!" Ruby said quickly. "She didn't do anything to me! I-I did something to her. I used my kinetic powers against her."
Her sister and cousins just stared in horror. Using your powers against someone intentionally, maliciously, was unthinkable.
"I was trying to stop her!" Kymri explained.
"Good," Meg replied.
"You can't!" Ruby snarled. And Kymri, making a strangling noise, floated up in the air again.
Meg, overcome with anger, attacked. She's seen enough. "Maybe Kymri can't, but I can!"
Megan was terrified. She had never intentionally used her powers in battle, especially against a loved one. Adrenaline and fear were pulsing thru her temples; she felt herself tottering on the verge of losing emotional control. That could not happen.
"'Member what you did for me, Meggie?" Oli murmured at her ear.
Yes, focus. On the task at hand. She had to stop Ruby. Shut her down. You're not hurting her, she told herslef. Well, you are, but you're essentially helping her.
Meg gathered her strength and fired the most powerful psionic burst she could manage at Ruby. She was shocked when her sister merely deflected the burst with what appeared a swipe of her hand; she was actually summoning a telekinetic shield against her sister's relatively weak attack.
Megan, Oli and Ray could only gawk. Ruby was telekinetically managing to stave off both Kymri and Meg's attempts to contain her.
The psionic burst Meg had released bounced back at her, stunning the girl. Olivier hovered over his friend, almost too afraid to speak; his hands were shaking. Like the girls, he'd never seen real battle before.
"She's gettin' up; God, her eyes are glowing!" Ray shouted suddenly.
Oli glanced in confusion at little Meggie. She seemed too weak to move. Her eyes were shut. But all Ruby's attention was on her sister now.
Ray rushed Ruby, aiming to knock her out. The sudden distraction forced Ruby to drop her hold on Kymri, who was on the verge of suffocation and barely conscious, but Ruby raised an even stronger psi-shield at her cousin's charge. Ray slammed into it, dropping to the ground.
Now! Oli thought desperately. Now I've gotta do it! He nervously fingered his glasses. Could he hypnotize Ruby? His stomach felt sick. He had to throw up - really badly.
Meg gently squeezed his hand. She was coming around.
Ruby, meanwhile, seemed to be fading away - literally. Like an optical illusion. Now, Oli could only see her outline.
"I-I'm sorry to hurt you," the girl's almost invisible figure said, her voice cracking with genuine regret. "Especially you, sis, but you'll see ... I'm actually helping you - all of you, in the end."
And then, like that, she was gone.
Olivier threw up everywhere.