Part 12

True to his word, Logan was still waiting by the SUV, and so was Remy. Kitty and Piotyr had already headed out. Not that we had feared any further attacks, but, as Remy told me, both seemed anxious to be alone. I'm sure Kitty had a great deal running around in her mind. Piotyr had been her first true love, and when he had left it had broken her heart. We hadn't been so close then, but I remembered how withdrawn and sad she had been; for months. She had slipped into a recklessness, which might have brought her a great deal of trouble in the outside world, but in the insular community of the school there was little to forgive, and much shared understanding. At least it had worked that way for others. I didn't know if I could ever work with Scott again, as I have said before, I am not the most forgiving person on the planet. And right then, I was bitter and angry, even though I made every effort to disguise it.

"What's the plan gentlemen?" I tried to muster as much enthusiasm as my weary body would allow.

"You crawl into the back darlin', we're going to get out of the DC area, and find a hotel to sleep for a few hours. Then we'll get on the road back to California."

"Just like old times eh, my love? We always do seem to end up on road trips after a fight don't we?" I yawned, he smiled. Deep down inside I knew how close we were to the Canadian border, and I had truly wanted to hear him say that we were going home, but I knew we had to make sure that Storm and Xavier were ok, and I had promised Kurt that I wasn't running again. I was tired, from everything physical, from all the emotions, from all the foreign thoughts running around in my brain, so I crawled into the backseat with no protest. Remy was kind enough to drape his coat over me, and I listened to the two men talk for a few minutes before I fell asleep.

I shouldn't have expected to have had a peaceful, dreamless sleep, not with everything my mind had been subjected to over the last eight or so hours. And hey, I was a X-Man, I guess, nothing ever went 100% straight for us. I suppose that it could have been the images of intimacy that the telepath had forced on me, or the scent of his coat, mingled with the scent of Logan's cigars, and a heightened sense of smell, no doubt brought on by the imprinting I was doing on Logan. Or perhaps it was just that I found both men so similar in their traits and attitudes, and that was why they both appeared in my dreams.

We were standing, shoulder-to-shoulder, in the woods just beyond our house up north. To my right was Logan, claws drawn, to my left, Remy, staff in hand, and I, in the middle, daggers in my hands, and all of us looking out into the woods, eyes focused, muscles set to strike, waiting for something, none to good as indicated by our stance. We were the three musketeers it seemed, catapulted forward in time to stand on this half frozen plane awaiting our battle and our destiny.

It came quickly from the trees, horrible constructs of our friends, mixed with monsters that perverted the looks, which might have once brought us comfort. They approached in a similar line to ours, and we awaited their feral attack. Scott's mouth was curled open in a fearsome grin, betraying rows of pointed yellowed teeth, in a jaw that had been pulled forward to look more like a snout than its normal fine square appearance. Storm was a true weather witch, not the goddess we had always known. Her clothes were tattered as if from the grave, and her hair spun wildly around her face, whipped by a tempest, raised from her own blood red eyes. Jean was simply a ball of orange flames, the softness of her face and form ripped into spires of fire, which made her look hard and sinister. Kitty was no more than a black swirling wraith from which you could almost feel the evil. And behind them all was Kurt, sporting horns, and a grin, which turned up to bare his fangs, now grossly elongated. His eyes glowed like a wolf on the hunt and his fingers ended in terrible claws. And they advanced on us in the haphazard way of automatons, seeking only the shortest path to their goal.

Scott split up our trio by firing on us, causing Remy to dodge to the left, and Logan to pull him and me to the right. The force of his hands around my waist actually catapulted me forward in a bit of an arc, which threw me directly into Storm. My daggers were pointed forward, and my hope had been to drive the blades into her abdomen, crippling her and taking her from the fight. As it happened she decided not to stand still to allow me to do that and my right blade missed her completely, with the left one slashing across her side, opening a wound which began to drip blood. Having decent control of the flying powers, I managed to continue the arc, and as she spun to confront me, I thrust the same blade into her side, tearing a larger wound, which caused her to scream, and momentarily forget me. Kurt however, was another matter. Her screams had brought him to me, and I felt strong hands grasp my arms, and then the sickening feel of teleportation as he tore me away from further injuring Storm. As we rematerialized, my back to his front, I felt the claws at the ends of his fingers rake across my chest, and I felt my uniform shred, and the burning of the gashes he had left in my chest, four in total. I could not take the time to look at my companions or cry for their help, we each had our adversaries, and Kurt was now mine. I plunged forward as his hands finished their course across my chest, and rolled as I fell. He leapt after me as I fell on my back to the hard ground. His hands were in front of him, as I had thought they might be, wanting to use his claws to finish the job he had started, to finish me. I let my blades drop from my hands, to swing at my wrists on their tethers, and I grabbed his wrists in my hands, and forced my arms outwards and backwards. I knew he would not expect it, and I knew that as he was the same height as I, that taking his wrists as I had would pull him directly to me, and I knew that it would hurt. His chest slammed into me with all the force of his attack, his head contacted mine, and I heard a crunch, which likely meant I had broken my nose, but the maneuver had achieved my goal. Kurt's face, like the most of his body was covered with soft fur, which made him immune to my mutant talents, but his lips and his mouth were not, and I pushed my mouth against his, parting his lips with my own, forcing my tongue into his mouth. It was not passion, no, in truth it was obscene, but it worked. The spark of my abilities kicking in caused his yellow eyes to glow for just an instant, and then he was mine. I was able to let his hands drop, and bring my own to the sides of his head, where I drew him even closer to me, taking his breath and life force with my kiss. I could feel the moment his body became heavy on mine, and I took his last breath, heaving him away from me and to the ground with an ignominious thud, not at all worthy of the being he had been. Before I could come to my senses though, his mind rushed through me, and a deep shadow descended over me, and I was blinded to everything, which made using his teleportation powers impossible, as I could not see where to go. I assumed that this must have been Kitty. Her powers were mostly defensive, but on this occasion she was enabling her teammates to attack me as I was most defenseless. I knew this, and knew I could not stay in her shadow for too long, and so I chose, without quite knowing which way was up, to simply throw myself forward into flight, and pray that my trajectory did not take me into one of my allies, or into the arms of my enemy.

I found myself hurtling through crisp, cold air, faster than the shadow could keep up with me. My eyes cleared faster than my mind and thoughts about attacking Logan and Remy swirled, left over from Kurt's doppelganger. Not to say his mind was weak, but I was able to resist its cravings enough to objectively take in the scene below me.

Remy was continuing his assault on Scott, dodging the lasers, all the while hammering at his head with the charged staff, wearing down his ability to control the beams, if not his rage. To watch him, Remy could have been dancing, or doing gymnastics. His movements were so effortless looking, and desperately graceful. But I knew that the appearance of his set face belied his seeming calm.

Logan had attacked Jean; he really was the only one among us who could face her. Her fiery countenance would have crippled Remy or I, but Logan's healing factor allowed him to dart at her with his claws and withdraw without serious consequences other than pain; and I knew that pain would never stop him. His first attack had slashed at her ankles, likely hoping to sever her Achilles tendons. I noted that she was still upright, but shaking, so perhaps he had accomplished that first goal.

I didn't have time to think any further about Logan's plan of attack as I felt the force of a gale light on my body from beneath, forcing me backwards into a copse of trees. The cracking I had heard on impact was likely a mixture of breaking branches and cracking ribs. At least I hoped they were only cracked. Then the air was filled with the freight train screaming sound of Storm's pending tornado fury. But now I could see, and it was simple enough to take my stolen powers and teleport out of her path; simple enough if you didn't count the nausea. I materialized behind her, quickly enough to hear her rage, manifested in a roar, and see her winds splinter the trees into kindling.

She kept the maelstrom swirling around her as she turned to face me again. I did not have the strength to hold my ground were I simply to fly to her. She would bat me away like a bug. I could think of only one way to disable her, and it posed a great deal of risk: I had Kurt's memories of teleporting, and the skill to do it precisely, like landing on a branch or a beam, but if I did it wrong, there was every chance I was going to lose my hands. I had to materialize with my outstretched daggers inside her body. Whatever wind power was left around her would likely force me away and draw the daggers further through her body, but only if my hands were free. Having a longer weapon would have lessened the risk, but there wasn't time. I said a little prayer, obviously the untainted part of the Kurt persona, and I ported, my arms stretched out rigidly before me, my daggers held tight.

I reappeared to a hellish gust of wind battering fragments of wood and earth at me. I felt my whole body tossed around sideways, everything but my arms, but only for a moment, as the embedded daggers and their adamantium blades tore through her body like it was water. She fell. Here was no time for me even to swoop in to try to take her powers and add them to our arsenal; she was dead before she hit the ground. And I hit not long after her, breath stolen by her powers and flight extinguished by her last attack. I hit hard, and felt the pain encircle my chest and ring through my skull. It took me a moment to muster the will to open my eyes; it was Remy who stood over me, having obviously finally dispatched Scott, which left only Jean, if you didn't count the ever-present specter of Kitty. I tried to sit, but the fire in my chest was so great as to prevent me using my abdominal muscles. I rolled tremulously to my front and pushed myself up on my arms, holding in my breath so I wouldn't scream. Once it was up to the muscles in my legs I was able to stand, and finally set eyes on Logan.

He continued to slash at Jean, who shot around him, only a few feet off the ground, taking every chance to whip at him with her fire, if only in response to his claws. I saw burn after burn appear on his skin, only to begin to fade as she attacked another part. But he never gave up and continued to rip her skin. She was weakening, faster than he was, but both were clearly suffering. She was dying, and she knew it, and you could almost see the evil germ of an idea forming in her face as she spotted me finally. With a ghastly laugh she turned from Logan and barreled straight at me, Remy was thrown aside, and I fell back to the ground, unable to withstand the ferocity of her onslaught. I could feel my ribs splinter, and felt blood come into my mouth. And she was reaching for me, her own hands bloody even under the guise of flame. Her hands lit on my ankles and I felt the heat, my uniform quickly burned away and then there was the agony of the flame on my bare skin. It was so intense it felt icy, such a strange dichotomy, not that I had time to really think that at the time as I watched my skin redden, blister and blacken. But she knew what she was doing, because the skin on skin contact was what she had wanted, all of her was flowing into me now, and she was so strong that I could not stop it. Every evil thing she was, and thought that she had was rushing into my brain, pushing my own nature aside in the lava flow. And I screamed as she died.

Suddenly I was standing, and the pain in my chest and on my skin meant nothing, neither did the blood in my mouth, I was a passenger in my own body now, watching terrified through my own eyes as she took me where I never wanted to be. Remy stood, not knowing what had become of me, thinking the battle was over, his back was to Logan, but Logan could see my eyes, that flared in orange flame as I grabbed Remy by the collar of his coat and dragged him to me. And, as I had done with Kurt, as I had done in passion with Logan, I pulled his face to mine and kissed him, holding back the powers, wrapping my arms around his neck and shoulders, pushing myself against him, thrusting my tongue into his mouth. I could feel his passions for me growing against my body, and I looked directly at Logan as I switched the powers on and pulled Remy's life force into me, even as he enjoyed the last moment of sexual intimacy he would ever have. I let the body drop and faced Logan.

He was screaming my name, 'Marie' into the night, and I wanted to cry back to him, to tell him I was still in my body. But Jean controlled everything; even the hateful and erotic words I was throwing at him. He knew it wasn't me, and he could not have known that I still existed, and I forgave him in the instant before he thrust his claws into my chest and finally stopped my heart.