Lorna felt dizzy and sick. Every movement seemed like it was an immeasurable chore. Wanda, who looked weak herself, put her arm around her shoulder and went to help her to her feet. Lorna would have been grateful for the help, but she spotted Alex.
He was still unconscious, and she made a vague movement towards him. Her sister seemed to understand, and she moved her closer to him. Lorna put a hand on his shoulder and, with what little strength she had, shook him.
Alex remained unconscious. Wanda sighed.
"I think I have enough power for this," she said.
She reached out and tapped his head. There was a scarlet glow, and then Alex woke up, coughing and sputtering.
"My powers really are only limited by my imagination," she said, looking impressed with herself, "Need to remember that."
Lorna managed a smile too. At times like this it was easy to remember that Wanda was Peter's twin. She reached out and touched Alex's face. He looked up at her, and his face lit up when he saw her.
Ignoring Wanda, he pushed up and put his handcuffed arms around her. Wanda made a noise, but let go of Lorna's shoulder. Lorna allowed herself to lean on Alex's chest, her head tucked neatly into the crook of his neck.
"You're back," he said.
"Looks like," she said.
Her voice sounded rough, and Lorna could still taste something coppery in the back of her throat. Alex looked at her with concern.
"She just coughed out a malevolent entity," Wanda said, "Give her a rest."
His eyebrow arched.
"Wow," Alex said, "Consider me impressed."
She smiled, and Alex leaned in and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
"Glad you're okay," he said, "That whole black lips thing looked really bad on you."
Lorna laughed, even though it hurt a little. Her sister was frowning, but Lorna nodded so she'd know it was a joke. For a moment she closed her eyes, letting herself glory in the safety of the man she loved and her sister. She could feel Alex's arms around her, and she knew that Wanda was close.
But it only lasted for a moment, because she knew what it was the machine did. She knew what Essex had been working on: he'd discussed it in great length with Malice. So she opened her eyes and touched Alex's handcuffs. They sprang off, and another touch got rid of the cuffs around his feet.
It felt like pulling teeth.
"Lorna?" Wanda asked, seeing her exhaustion, "You okay?"
"Not really," she said, "But we need to get out there. The...machine that Essex built, it's gonna kill a lot of people if we don't stop it."
There was a loud crash outside the tent, almost as though someone was slamming into one of the support poles. Wanda got shakily to her feet, and Alex helped Lorna to hers. She nearly fell when they got up, but Alex quickly caught her.
"You sure you want to do this?" he asked, "Maybe you should rest."
She shook her head.
"You'll need me," Lorna said.
Alex looked at her uncertainly but, instead of arguing with her, Wanda's voice cut off whatever words he wanted to say.
"If she says she can do it, she can," Wanda said, "And, trust me, if she's with us, then there's less chance of some asshole catching her off guard here."
Alex gave her another worried look, but he didn't argue. Maybe he didn't feel like arguing with both of them, or perhaps there was something in Wanda's tone that showed him he was going to lose. So he gripped her waist tighter, Lorna fixed her arm more securely around his neck, and they exited the tent.
Logan spotted Emma even before he got out of the car. She was glittering and sparkling and, even though he'd never seen her like this, Kayla had told him what she could do. She'd confessed it in the same breath where she'd told him about Stryker, about the deal she'd made to save her sister's life. Mystique had been with them that day, the messenger of an ugly truth, and insurance against his sanity slipping.
It hadn't mattered in the end though, not with Kayla's feelings being more real than the lie she'd had to tell him. They had gone into that plant to save her sister, and he'd come out of it believing that he'd lost them both.
But now Emma was only a few hundred feet from him. She was in danger again, but a different kind than what he'd tried to rescue her from at three mile island. No, now she was in danger from herself and those who would seek to use her for their own purposes.
The truck turned in the dirt. There was fighting going on all around them, but his eyes were fixed on Emma's position. She was fighting someone who looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place him. Either way, he was growing blue fur and claws.
Logan bounded out of the car, ignoring everything else. He still wasn't sure what he was going to do next, but he knew he had to stop the two of them. From what Charles had told him, the guy with glasses was one of his teachers. If Emma was fighting him, then things really were as bad as he'd thought.
He ran up to the two of them, but stopped just before he jumped in between them. His healing factor was as strong as ever, but getting in between the two of them would result in several broken ribs in seconds. It would make talking difficult.
"Emma!" he yelled.
She looked up, and he saw confusion in her sparkling eyes. The guy with glasses used this opportunity to try to swipe at her, but suddenly clenched the side of his head and winced. He looked over at Logan and Logan saw recognition there. So he really was familiar.
Charles must have said something to him, because Hank had suddenly started to back off, his eyes going to what looked like a metallic canister in the middle of the camp. Logan figured that was the machine that Essex had been commissioned to build.
"Logan?" she murmured.
The diamond skin began to recede, almost as though someone was peeling it back. Logan saw a confused young woman underneath it, looking as lost as the day that Kayla had pulled her out of her cell. She slowly began to shake her head.
"You died," she said.
"I wish I had sometimes," Logan said, "But for some reason, I keep goin kid."
A sudden, almost crushing hope showed in her eyes. He knew what she was going to ask and, although the words were bitter, he couldn't let her believe it any longer than she had to. He'd lived too long trying to ignore the fact himself.
"She's gone," he said.
The hope died immediately. He saw a certain hardness in Emma's jaw, but she looked like she was going to say something. Good. As long as she was talking, then there may yet be some hope for her. Once they stopped talking, like his brother had, then there wasn't any hope left.
"Why did you get to live?" she hissed, "Why didn't you die? Why didn't you protect her?"
Logan swallowed, and answered the question as honestly as he could.
"Ask myself that every mornin," he said, "Still don't know."
Emma's hands clenched into fists.
"That's not an answer," she said.
"All I got kid," Logan said.
She looked around her, and Logan could see that her hands kept releasing, and then bunching up again. He hadn't been around her long enough to know what that meant.
"You're here now," she said, "Why?"
"Thought ya died that day," Logan said.
"I might as well have," said Emma.
The words were matter-of-fact, void of self-pity. Logan could feel his old worries, as well as those of Mystique, creep up on him. She sounded too much like him, and that was far too much to feel at that young an age.
It was the recklessness of youth combined with the pain of the ages. It was too easy to understand why she wanted to hurt others.
"Didn't mean ta leave ya behind," he said.
"I turned out alright," she shrugged.
He gestured around him.
"This is alright?" he asked.
"I need to stop him," Emma said blankly.
"Kid, Stryker senior's goin senile," said Logan, "His son's a coma patient, a damn vegetable. Has been for a year."
Her brow furrowed.
"He went to the United Nations two mothns ago," she said.
"Shapeshifter," Logan said, "Ya mighta noticed he's been acting funny. That's why."
Emma hesitated. It was one thing to think that your quest for revenge might be pointless. It was another thing to know it.
"They still need to pay," she said.
"And how many others?" demanded Logan.
He still didn't know exactly what the machine did, but from the way her eyes glanced back at it, Logan could tell that he'd come close to its purpose.
"All of them!" she snapped, "All of them! You know what they did!"
"Yeah, they took ya mother and sister," Logan said, "I get it, I do. But this won't help you, and it sure as hell won't help them!"
"It's what my mother would have done!" Emma screamed, "She would have burned the world if she lost me!"
"And what about Kayla?" said Logan, "What would she've done?"
She paused, and Logan could tell that she'd thought about this. Perhaps she wouldn't have liked the answer.
"I saw what she did when they took ya from her kid," he said, "I saw what she was willing ta do. They said, go seduce this guy, make him believe he loves ya, and we won't hurt ya sister."
Emma's mouth dropped open. She hadn't known that that was what had happened. There had been very little time when they had first found her, too little to explain the sacrifices that Kayla had been willing to make for Emma.
But it had been nothing compared to what had actually happened.
"But even then," Logan said, "She wasn't that kinda person. She...we..."
He closed his eyes. He could still see their living room, see Mystique in the corner, watching the two of them. She'd just told Logan the truth about Kayla an hour earlier. Kayla had been driving herself home from work that day, so he'd been waiting there to confront her.
And she'd told him, told him everything. He'd looked away, wondering if this was how this was always going to tend. After all the lives he'd taken, all the shit he'd done, he hadn't deserved a normal, happy life. The blow still hurt deeply, so he'd said, with a bitterness only a man who'd lived hundreds of years could muster:
"But it was real for me."
When she'd told him it was real for her too, he hadn't believed her. Not yet. It had taken five days of searching for leads on her sister, for him to really, truly believe it. Their days had been numbered but, at the time, all he'd seen was a future with her.
It made it hurt all the more when it was taken away.
"It ended up being real for us," Logan said, "Even when she was supposed ta hurt someone, even when she wanted ta, even when that person woulda had it comin, she couldn't be anything other than who she was."
Emma stared at him, her entire body tense and her eyes filling with tears.
"Who are ya gonna be kid?" he asked.
