"Mr. Ben-Joseph, it seems you have a slight amount of explaining to do," Jean said calmly, looking at the mutant before them.
"Actually, I owe you no explanation at all. However, you managed to get through the holographic and psychic defenses and you see me for what I am," his voice was deep and peaceful, like grandfather's.
"You liar! You lied to me! All this time!" Terra was in a complete frenzy. She could not even bring herself to say anything else.
"Be quiet, Terra," she did not look happy but obeyed without too much hesitation. "My real name is of little consequence. You may call me Prophet, for that is the only name that has any meaning to my identity. The real Ben-Joseph and I are partners in running the Remnant. He is not actually a mutant but his children are. He is appealing on our behalf to the powers-that-be, hoping to attain some sort of relief from the unrelenting persecution we have recieved over the years.
"Because of my reputation as a fraud and less-than-orthodox appearance, I have been shunned and ridiculed by the Israeli people. However, I will do anything in my power to save them. I act as Ben-Joseph's double while he is away and as his advisor while he is here. So, I apologize for the deceit, but I hope that you can come to understand my position and the reason we have to hold it at such high security. Now, if you don't mind, I would thoroughly like it if you would restore my holographic representation of Ben-Joseph just in case someone decides to disturb us."
Go ahead and do it, Typo, Jean thought-spoke to him. He obeyed and the tiny little mutant soon appeared to be Ezra Ben-Joseph once again.
"It is clear to me that you are as powerful as your reputation lets on, Dr. Summers. Or should I call you The Phoenix?" he raised his eyebrows as he spoke.
"I haven't gone by that name for quite some time, Prophet," she replied coldly.
"But you will again...someday," he said with a tone of certainty in his voice.
"I doubt that seriously," she had to fight to keep from rolling her eyes.
"I assure you that you will. I have seen it. I say this in mere fact, without ego, that I am the most powerful pre-cog, alive and my prophesies are never wrong. I foresaw you coming here to save us long ago, probably even before you had heard of The Remnant."
"I have the Phoenix locked away, where it belongs," Jean could not believe she was having this conversation with a total stranger. She did not like to mention the ordeal with the Phoenix to Scott, her own husband. Let alone be told that she was going to be the Phoenix again one day.
"The Phoenix is who you are, Jean. You cannot run from it forever. The Phoenix is your destiny," he spoke with such firmness and certainty that he almost made Jean believe it for a little while.
"Maybe one day," she mused, "but that day is neither her nor now."
"This is true," he said and shifted in his chair clearly ready to speak about something else. "Why don't we have a look at those weapons?"
Shockwave descended from the jet like a hawk upon its prey, precise and poised for the kill. The MCA had clustered like bees around his mother's house. There was no sight of her or his stepfather so there was still hope. He conjured a wave beneath him to slow his fall. The agents must have suddenly caught sight of him because they were now directing their fire towards him. He saw the bright yellow tracers from the gun work their way closer and closer to him until...
A bullet tore through his leg, entering into the back of his thigh and out the front of it. Blood spurted in his face and in his eyes. Another bullet smashed into his shoulder sending him in a spiral. This was more than enough to distract him from his power. He continued to fall to the ground. He had only precious seconds to react. He summoned a powerful, semi-spherical boom to create a small crater is his front yard. He waited until he was almost level with the ground before he started slowing down again. He still hit the compacted mud with a dull thwap, knocking the breath from his lungs and causes fuzzy stars to cloud his vision.
He took a small moment to assess his wounds. The bullet he had taken to the ribs wasn't bad at all. The one that had hit him in the right shoulder limited his mobility and range of motion, but nothing that he could not work around. The wound in his leg was quite another matter. Blood was spurting out in pulses. Surely, it had severed a major vein or artery. He would have to act fast.
Don't stop! Get up and do what needs to be done.
He boom-jumped at an arc towards his attackers, another bullet bouncing off of his ribs as he flew through the air. There were a lot of them and he knew that he would have to conserve his energy. He nearly landed on top of a group of them as he let out another semi-spherical boom centered around his body. Their limp bodies slammed into their jeeps with enough force to knock them off of their feet. There were more of them on the other side of the vehicle and were making their way around. Shockwave dropped to his belly and let a focused boom erupt from his hand into the ankle of an unknowing MCA agent. He watch the bones in his ankle and foot shatter like glass. The man fell to the ground in agony. Putting him out of his misery Shockwave released a boom into his face.
He rolled underneath the jeep and look towards the tail of it. More agents were making their way around to get a shot at him. He let out an arc wave and knocked them all to the ground as well. They didn't have time to think, let alone retaliate before he crushed them under his wrath.
Up on his feet again, his eyes scanned around for another target. He saw a group of them gathering together again, looks of absolute terror on their faces. He could not help the grim smile that crossed his face.
They're afraid of me, he observed. They were in complete fear for their lives, as if any moment could be their last. And rightly so.
He boom-jumped towards them dealing a vicious uppercut to the first one. He felt his jaw give way under his blow as he added a boom to it. He spun, dealing a hook to another. He continued the spin giving the third a kick to the gut. He faced his last foe and unleashed a terrible boom into his chest.
He took one more look around to make sure that he had terminated the threat. He did not see anybody else. As the adrenline rushed subsided slightly he began to feel the effects of his wounds. He was lightheaded, dizzy and felt dehydrated. He limped, clutching his wounded leg, trying to keep as much blood in his body as possible, all of this to no avail.
"Mom! Mark!" he yelled, unlatching the gate hobbling towards the front door of the house. It was locked so he used a boom to put it in splinters. He called out again for his mother and stepfather. There was no answer. As he was about make his way to the basement where they were likely to be hiding but he did not have the strenght to carry on. He collasped on the living room floor and heaved in lungfulls of oxygen as quickly as his body would allow.
Not like this...not like this...he pleaded as he slipped away into the black.
Lindsey ran as fast as her legs would carry her. Since the sun had hidden itself behind the trees she shadowported her way into Caleb's living room.
Please God let him be alive, she prayed silently to herself. She knelt beside of him and put her fingers to his neck, frantically seeking a pulse. To her overwhelming relief she found it. It was weak and slow but he was alive.
"Lifestream! Hurry!" she screamed. She rested her hand on his cheek on one hand and wiped the steady flow of tears from the other. She could not imagine losing one more person in her life.
Please let him be okay.
Lifestream and Nathan burst into the room seconds after her. Lifestream went on the other side of Caleb and did not hesitate to start healing him. She began to glow with that strange ambient light like she always did when she used her power. Lindsey watched in amazement as the bullet imbedded deep in his shoulder was pushed out as the skin and tissue mended itself.
Caleb suddenly bolted upright and looked around. He seemed to be in somewhat of a stupor.
"Mom..." he breathed in a voice, barely audible. "Mom!"
He was up on his feet and running through every room in the house, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he had almost died or that Lindsey and the others were even there. Lindsey took in a deep breath before she rose to her feet. It was not fatigue that was ailing her, but sorrow. Everything in her life had changed so fast! Nathan, long thought dead had basically busted down her door. Caleb had given her the ultimatum of choosing between the two of them. Now, the MCA was after him and was using his family to get to him.
They're doing a pretty good job, she thought, nearly aloud. Caleb usually had an iron will, his mind and heart set on doing what is right. His entire world was crashing down around him and he was buckling under the pressure.
He walked back into the living room. The look of panic had seemingly subsided.
"She's not here," he hung his head. She could see the inward battle reflecting on his face. He had put them all in danger by running off like this. It was exactly the kind of opportunity that the MCA needed to get ahold of him. Why would Mindflare suddenly warn him about all of this? Unless...
The reality of what was happening hit her like a wrecking ball.
"We have to leave!"
"What?" Caleb asked.
"Why? What's wrong?" Nathan stepped towards her, alarmed at the concern she was displaying.
"It's a trap! This is exactly the opportunity the MCA needs to get their hands on you. They can't touch you while you're at the mansion."
"I know all that. Mindflare told me all of this already. It was worth the risk. They got my dad," he stifled a sob, "my mom and stepfather were lucky."
"Mindflare is probably the one who tipped them off," she pointed out.
"No...he tried to warn me...that's..."
"...exactly what I wanted you to think," came a voice from outside the door. It was cool, and calm. It would have been pleasant except for the ominous tone infested thick within it. It could only belong to one person.
Mindflare, and his usual escort had just walked up to the house without warning. No doubt they had been waiting and watching the entire time from not far off. If looks could kill, Mindflare would have burst into flames on the spot. Caleb had been decieved, and now daggers and flames errupted from his eyes in hatred for Mindflare. He gathered energy in his fists, ready to strike.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Mindflare warned.
"Why, because you'll have your posse do your dirty work for you? You ignorant coward! We've been them once and we'll do it again," Caleb taunted through gritted teeth. Lindsey watched as Nathan did not move or say anything. He did reach down and unlatch the straps holding his pistols and kept his hands ready to draw at a moment's notice.
"Because if you so much as breathe in a way that I find threatening I'll have Grendel shred your mother in two," he said, flicking his head outside. True to his word, outside the young man had his claws at Caleb's mother's neck.
"Mom!" he screamed, taking a step towards her.
She did not reply with words but with a terror-filled screamed.
"Stay right where you are!" Mindflare warned. Caleb froze, under his spell.
"So it was a lie? You're going to turn me into the MCA now? Make a deal?" Caleb demanded.
"No, my dear boy. I was telling you the truth when I said that I'd realized the error of my ways dealing with lesser lifeforms. I was also telling you the truth when I told you that you have the power to end this war for one side or the other. The difference between them and me is that I will do whatever it takes to win."
"I won't be used for another one of your twisted ideas, Mindflare! Forget it!"
"It doesn't appear that you have much of a choice in the matter, Shockwave. I have no problem having your mother killed if that's what it takes."
"No! Please don't hurt her!"
Mindflare gave him a diabolical smirk. He gave Caleb a look that told him that the ball was in his court.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked.
"Caleb you can't be serious!" Lindsey protested.
"Quiet, Lindsey!" he growled.
Mindflare answered him as if there had not been an interruption at all.
"All you have to do is come with me. I had planned on you being here alone but since you brought some friends with you this complicates things."
"They followed me," Caleb spat bitterly.
"We saved your life!" Nathan interjected in disbelief.
"You would have died," even Lifestream could not hold her tongue at Caleb's apparent disregard for their help.
"I'll go. Let my mom go and let my friends go and I'll do whatever you ask. You have my word," Caleb promised.
This was not happening. Lindsey was not going to pass up the opportunity to have her vengeance on Mindflare, much less hand Caleb over to him on a silver platter.
"Caleb, you don't have to do this. Lifestream can heal your mom," Lindsey pleaded.
"As gifted as this young lady is, I doubt that she can reconnect a head to its body," Mindflare smirked again. It was making her sick. She was not going to let him go free. She looked and saw that it was Luminos and Zues guarding him. The odds were not good but fighting was better than giving up.
"That's enough!" Nathan had drawn his pisol and pointed at Mindflare's head quick as a whisper. A red laser pointer flickered slightly between his eyes.
"Lower that weapon!" Mindflare commanded. He turned his gaze to Caleb with a threatening look upon his face. "If he shoots me, Grendel will kill your mother. I'm going to count to three. That would be one...two..."
"Stop!" Caleb jumped in front of the path of the laser. He turned around, his back facing Mindflare and he eased his way over to their side.
"Caleb! What are you doing?" Lindsey demanded. "We can save her!"
"Just go, Lindsey! Just let me go! I'll be alright! Please just do this so that they won't kill my mom," he begged her, tears forming in his eyes. Lindsey had had enough of this. They had been at a standstill for much too long. She shadowported outside and grabbed hold of Grendel and ported him back into the room so fast it must have seemed like a blink to everyone else. She held the boy down with her power, immobilizing him with fear.
"RUN!" she screamed to his mother. She stood there in a stupor, not sure what had happened. "Do anything and I'll kill him!" she had never been more serious in her life.
"You're not the one making threats here! He knows what it means to be a soldier to pay the price," his voice sounded bold but there was a look of fear and uncertainty on his face.
"Dad, please!" Grendel suddenly exclaimed, the fear invoked by Lindsey's power overtaking him. Everything came full circle. This was as startling revelation. Even Mindflare was not so heartless as to let his own son die.
"You keep your mouth shut!" he exclaimed. There was a look of shock and surprise on the other two's faces as well. It seemed that things were suddenly making sense to them. "Luminos, fetch the woman.
In a flash just as quick as her own, Luminos had disappeared and reappeared with Caleb's mother in his clutches. What happened next was so fast it was hard to tell if it were even real or if it were just a passing thought. Caleb aimed a focused boom and Luminos and fired, hitting him squarely in the face and sending him flying, probably dead. Zeus fired a bolt of lighting so powerful it burned a hole the size of a golf ball through Caleb's torso. Nathan fired a round from his pistol that hit Zeus squarely in the chest. Mindflare used his telekinesis to rip the gun from Nathan's grasp. The gun spun around and fired three rounds, one that hit Lifestream in the abdomen, one that hit Nathan in the neck, and another that hit Caleb's mother in the chest.
Lindsey held her ground, only her and Mindflare remained standing. Grendel was still locked tightly under her grasp. He called the gun to his hand and pointed it at her. She did not bother to raise him up and use him as a shield. She took her shadowform, in which the bullet would pass through her.
"Let him go," Mindflare pleaded.
"Put down the gun or I will kill him," she rasped through her altered voice.
"He can't be killed, he's invincible," Mindflare taunted. Lindsey had studied the Xavier Protocols on the Brotherhood of mutants extensively. Grendel's body was seemingly invincible because of us unparalleled healing factor. She had already formed a strategy for how to kill each of the Brotherhood, only because she figured she would have to go through them to get to Mindflare. She had discovered that, while in her shadowform, she did not even rely on oxygen to breath. While it was only in a simulation under Beast's supervision that she'd tried it, it was a ninety percent accepted fact that she would be able to breathe in space so long as she could maintain her shadowform.
"He can't breathe in space, I can," she warned. She could hear the faint groaning of Caleb, his mother and Lifestream in the background.
"Even if that is true, I'll kill them all before you get back. You're not that fast!" he did not look like he was really convinced of that. Lindsey wasn't either. She and Grendel were moving out of the house and into the sky before either of them could think or say another thing. Up, and away, so far from the ground the house was only a spec. Soon she could look down and see the ocean and the outline of North America. She was well out of the atmosphere of the Earth but she had to be sure that she would clear its gravitational pull. When she was satisfied with her distance, she plummeted back down into the house where she was.
Mindflare gasped and fired the gun in alarm. It missed her by inches and smashed into the wall behind them. She had kept hold of Grendel, deciding she would give Mindflare one more chance to surrender.
"I was nearly to the moon and back, and you barely had time to blink. Drop the gun," Lindsey begged in agony.
"Please just do what she says, Dad!"
"Shut up! You're bluffing! No one is that fast!"
"Your son's life depends on you putting down that gun, Mindflare! Do it! I'm going to count to three. That would be one..."
"Wait!" he pleaded, still not willing to part with the gun. He must have realized that his power was nearly useless against her for he had stopped trying to tamper with her mind.
"...two..."
"Stop!"
"Put down the gun!"
He began to point the gun towards Caleb. She saw his finger squeeze the trigger and that was all she needed. She ported up to space and let Grendel go. He gasped for air that wasn't there and floated away into the void. She ported back down to the house to see the bullet still in flight flying towards Caleb's face. She scooped him up and moved him out of the way just in time.
She appeared in front of Mindflare, making her aware that she had done what she had set out to do.
"Just you and me now," her voice rattled as she assaulted him. First, she knocked the gun from his hand then grabbed him by the throat. She began to choke the life out of him and simultaneously invoke him with her fear-like shadow energy.
She screamed with delight as she sucked him into her nighmare, closer and closer to death. She absorbed his hate, his fear and anger. He remained powerless under her grasp.
"No...please..." he begged silently.
Just die...please just die...
There was a tall, thin figure rising from the other room. She could not be distracted. She had to finish him off. Right as he was about to slip away an atomic bomb went off in her face. She was vaulted off of Mindflare and into the wall with such force it gave way under her weight. She tasted blood in her mouth and fell, in agony onto her face. She lay still, so very still. She did not even dare to breathe. She was completely blinded and could not seem to return to her shadowform.
She heard Mindflare say something under his breath. She gritted her teeth expecting to breathe her last breath. Instead she heard several crackles of electricity.
"Grab Shockwave and let's go," she heard them walk out of the door, leaving it open. She waited as long as she could stand and then dared to open her eyes and look around. She still could only see circles and haze. Luminos must have hit her hard.
"Nathan?" she called out. She tried to take her shadowform again but her power seemed to not be working. All she got was a low moan in response but she could tell it was him. She crawled to the sound of his voice. He had sat up when she got to him.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
"I'll live. What's wrong?"
"I can't see. He hit me with a beam of light when I was in shadowform. I looked right at it. Nothing Lifestream can't fix. They took Caleb," she said, barely able to catch her breath. Everything had happened so fast. It was all over in a matter of seconds. "Lifestream?"
"She's gone, babe."
"What?" Lindsey asked in disbelief.
"They killed her and Caleb's mom before they left."
"Oh God," she sobbed, pressing her hand over her mouth. She fell into Nathan's arms. She did not know what to do or think. She just cried and let him her comfort her, even though she knew that everything would not be okay...at least not today.