Part 10
They had found Sinister.
It had taken a few tries to get his signature locked in, but once they had success came quickly. Cerebro had done its job and had done it well.
They had found Sinister. And he was in Upstate New York
And it had all been way too easy.
Remy paced the small room, dodging around the X-Men scattered there, leaning intently over Cerebro. They shouldn't even be able to track Sinister. They'd known that from the beginning even when they'd gone after Rogue. But what else could they have done? Abandoned Rogue to the chance that she really was in the care of a madman because they were afraid of a trap? Pretend they had never found her or assume her mutant signature or Sinister's was being forged? No, of course not. The X-Men did not give up that easily. And that simple fact had gotten them all stuck with a slew of tiny machines running through their blood and controlling their bodies. They'd walked into a trap then and they were walking into one now.
Remy didn't like it. He didn't like it one bit. But what could he do?
"Sugah, ya're gonna have ta stop that pacing. It's distracting."
He turned to look and Rogue. "Would y' rather I did jumpin' jacks?" His voice was sour and sarcastic.
She shook her head angrily and returned her attention to Cerebro where a small group of X-Men, specifically Joseph, Betsy, Rogue and Iceman, were busy searching for the exact address Sinister was supposedly located at. The chances that they would be successful were slim at best, unless they had a really, really, strong lock on the villain.
Remy continued pacing.
Betsy sat at the chair before the supercomputer that was the X-Men's Cerebro. She was hooked directly into the machine, her telepathy adding extra power to it. They now knew Sinister was in upstate New York, but they still needed to find an exact address.
To the right of Betsy stood Bobby, and to her left stood Rogue and Joseph.
Remy stopped pacing and noticed something.
Joseph had a strange look in his eyes. It was faraway and distant, something like a mix of anger, determination, and contemplation. A very strange and very dangerous combination.
Remy was about to ask the man what was on his mind when Joseph suddenly seemed to come back to himself, attention snapping to the present. "I think I can help the situation," he said.
"What are ya thinkin', sugah?" Rogue turned slightly to look at the man with the long, silver hair.
"If these nano-probes are made of metal, then my power over magnetism should be able to affect them. I may be able to short them out so that they cannot be reactivated."
"You may be able to short them out? Isn't that a bit risky?" asked Bobby, a skeptical look on his face.
"Maybe. But it is a risk we need to take."
Bobby rolled his eyes. "Oh great, now Magneto incarnate wants to play hero and hopefully save the day."
"My name is Joseph. And I am not trying to play hero. I simply wish to help, which I believe I can do if you will let me."
"You don' have any idea how dese nanos will react t' your powers, Joe. Sinister ain't stupid, he's gotta have some kinda backup." Remy shook is head to emphasize the point.
"They are simply machines. They will not have the chance to react if I do this right. And I will do this right."
"We don't doubt that, sugah, but we just don't know enough about these things ta take the chance." Rogue rose a comforting, gloved hand to his arm. Joseph glanced at it briefly and then looked back up.
"Is it not more dangerous to let the nanos run around inside our bodies, acting out the orders of a mad scientist?"
No one replied. He did have a point.
"I will not be controlled by a villain!" And there it was. The determination that blazed in those blue eyes, the same determination they had seen in Magneto so many times before. That unrelenting will to succeed. And in that moment Remy knew that Joseph would have his way.
And in that moment Remy also realized the implications of that way.
There was a blue aura surrounding Joseph as the young mutant rose from the ground, power spreading out in a translucent wave.
It crossed over Remy.
And his world ripped apart at the seams.
He didn't remember falling to the ground, but he found himself there, with his head pressed to the floor, arms wrapped around his body as it drew itself into a fetal position.
It came slowly at first, a trickle of excess power streaming from a tiny crack in his mental walls. Then the crack spread, creating a spider web of lines across the barrier that separated him from torrents of power over which he had no control. He watched in horror as the cracks broadened... And then the walls shattered.
He was immediately overcome with the intensity of it all. An incredible pain went supernova within Remy, originating in his chest and cascading out from there to fill his whole body in agony. He tried to scream, but the sound couldn't shake itself free from his trembling lips.
It was all too sudden, a shock like an explosion as all the power that he had traded so much to control escaped its prison.
He couldn't form coherent thoughts, could only turn panicked efforts to holding back the pure energy that emanated from him. Panicked efforts that were not enough. Potential energy was transformed into kinetic energy that cascaded through him, sliding across his body, crackling in the air. It felt like he was being pulled apart from the inside. It felt like millions of white-hot needles poking him inside and out. And it hurt. Bad.
Energy, more than he could handle, surrounded him in an aura of pink light and he could dimly feel the floor heating up beneath him. Clenching his teeth he tried to hold it back, to stop it from leaking out of him and charging the objects around him. He scurried to push the excess power behind the mental blocks he tried to create in his mind.
But it was useless. He hadn't been able to do it in the past and he couldn't do it now. That was why he'd needed Sinister's help in the first place...
He could feel the emotions of the X-Men swirling around him, could hear their panicked thoughts as they watched him being consumed by his own power. Fear, surprise, worry. He could sense it all so clearly. Rogue's apprehensiveness about what was happening to him, terror that he might be hurt. Magneto's suspicion at Remy's reaction to the neutralization of the nanos. And a whole mansion full of other emotions that jumbled around inside his head, screaming for attention as his world ripped apart around him. As his body ripped apart around him.
He had to control it. He had to stop it. He mentally grabbed at the tendrils of kinetic energy that reached out around him, blowing up everything they touched, and slowly, tediously pulled a few back. But it wasn't enough. The floor was getting hotter, burning as its molecules scrambled about faster and faster.
His soul tossed in agony as it was consumed in a blazing, furious fire, that threatened to leave him, and everything around him, a charred, smoking, empty hulk of ashes.
Until... there was a vat of water to extinguish the flames. Cool and clean, glorious and beautiful as he suddenly felt the barriers in his brain rebuilding themselves around the power he couldn't control. Brick upon brick, tiny nanos running around his head, completing the job they were consigned for, liberating him from the wrath of his mutation. He watched as the wall rebuilt. There was only a small hole in it now, a rapidly sealing hole. And on an intuition so strong he could do nothing but act on it, he wedged his mental hand into that hole and stopped it from closing. Leaving it just big enough that he could reach into the power beyond if he wanted to, but small enough that nothing substantial could seep out and consume him.
It was over.
Remy didn't move, concentrating on drawing the kinetic energy in the floor back into himself, or rather, on changing it back into potential energy. It was a hard thing to do, since his powers really didn't work that way, but he managed to transform enough energy that the danger of an explosion was quelled, though the ground was still a bit hot.
And then he simply focussed all his attention on the tedious task of breathing. He forced his lungs to do their job of pulling air in, then pushing it out. In. Out. In. Out. Finally he felt like he had some semblance of control over himself, even if he was still shaking spastically.
His head hurt terribly and he suddenly felt exhausted. All over his body there was a burning sensation, the same kind he experienced when he overused his powers. He really would have liked to stay there all day, not moving, curled up on the floor, but he knew he couldn't do that. Slowly, he spread his perceptions out to encompass the room, rather than just himself. He realized that someone was standing over him, or rather, bending over him.
Very slowly, Remy raised his head to see who it was, wincing slightly at the pain that caused.
Hank stared down at him, a worried expression creasing his furry face. Past him Rogue, Joseph, Bobby, and Betsy were gathered, all crowding in to see if he was okay. Unfortunately for them, Hank's massive bulk effectively obscured their view.
"How do you feel?" asked the doctor.
Remy gave him an annoyed glance and then looked away. "Fine," he lied. Actually, he felt like he'd been hit by a truck... no worse—a tank.
"Of course, how else would you be? How silly of me." Hank's sarcastic words managed not to be biting, but they did express the enormous stress he was under with all the patients he'd had to deal with over the last day—most of which were friends.
After a few minutes of doing a cursory exam to make sure Remy was really okay, and after Remy made it thoroughly clear that he was not happy with being poked and prodded, the doctor asked the question that everybody in the room was wondering. "Now my Cajun friend, as it seems that you are officially still among the living, would you please endeavor to tell us what exactly happened to you?"
Remy took a moment to consider his answer, covering his hesitation by wincing in pain. Obviously Joseph had stopped doing whatever it was he had been doing because the amnesiac mutant was standing still and quiet, lacking any sign of the magnetic energy he could weld. And Remy was able to figure out that that must mean that once Joseph had ceased his efforts in shorting the tiny machines out, the nanos had returned back to normal. The nanos. His nanos. His priceless saviors, his wretched slavers, that had been keeping him functioning normally for longer than the X-Men knew.
He mulled over the idea of telling them the truth, of letting them finally know the whole story about the true nature of his powers and the real reason he'd worked for Sinister. But the consideration passed quickly as he accepted the fact that they wouldn't understand. They would only condemn him like they had before and it would be the Trial all over again. He wondered bitterly where Rogue would abandon him this time. Maybe she'd have the grace to drop him somewhere hot instead of back at Antarctica. Then again, that might not be such a good idea either; there were plenty of barren deserts in the world that he didn't particularly wish to visit.
So he couldn't tell them... and he didn't want to lie to them. That only left one choice: distract them by placing the blame elsewhere. And conveniently enough, there was the perfect person available who really did hold the majority of the responsibility for what had just happened. "Why don' y' ask Magneto. He de one dat decided t' rattle us 'round wit' his powers."
"I am not Magneto," Joseph said firmly from around the Beast.
"Yeah, whatever." Remy slowly began to stand and Hank did the same, rising from where he had been kneeling in front of him.
"I simply directed a magnetic field at the nano-probes in our blood streams. And then Gambit fell to the floor in pain and lost control of his powers. When I stopped using my powers the nano-probes returned to their normal states; I could feel their magnetic fields realigning themselves and Gambit seemed to recover. If I had exposed them to my powers I little longer I would have succeeded in permanently damaging them," Joseph continued angrily. "I did nothing wrong."
"All dat self-righteousness. You still can' even admit y' made a bad choice. You don' know enough 'bout Sinister or dese nanos to start playin' games."
"I was not playing games." He shook his head for emphasis, long white hair swishing about as he did so. "Does no one else find it suspicious that Gambit was the only one who seems to have had an adverse reaction to the use of my powers?" Everyone looked at Joseph and then back at Remy. Apparently they all found it suspicious.
Remy was steaming. Didn't they understand what could have happened? Didn't they realize the danger in what Joseph had done? "It wasn' a reaction t' y' powers!" Remy yelled, eyes blazing. "It was what y' did t' de nanos! Don' y' get it?! I COULD HAVE KILLED YOU!" Then he promptly shut-up, realizing that he'd said more than he'd intended to, and knowing that he was dangerously close to simply diving at that thick-headed amnesiac and knocking some sense into him, literally.
So he spun angrily on his heel, and stormed out of the room, leaving them all staring behind him.
§ ¨ © ª
He really hadn't felt like going to the roof again. That activity was getting old real fast, having been extremely overused recently. It also felt incredibly useless. He needed to do something. Normally he could find a way to deal with waiting, finding something to occupy his attention. But now? Now people he cared about were injured and he could do nothing to help them.
Unless he went after Sinister. The X-Men knew the geneticist's location, all they needed to do was act on it.
So instead of storming to the roof of the mansion, Remy stormed to his room and suited up for combat. He slipped into the black jumpsuit he'd used earlier for the break-in at the bank, liking the heavy weight of his cards and the knife that sat in its pockets. It would have been nice if he could have his trench coat too, but he'd never gotten it back after he'd given it to Rogue on the rescue mission. The duster was probably alone and forgotten somewhere in her room and he really didn't plan on going in there to retrieve it. Picking up his staff, now contracted into an efficient hand-held size, Remy looked around one last time to see if he had everything he needed. He did, and was just about to leave when Rogue entered. She didn't even bother to knock.
"What happened down there, Remy?"
He looked sharply up at her, anger blazing in his eyes. She returned the glare evenly, green eyes demanding an answer. He didn't give her one.
"You're hiding something," she accused.
"Oh really? T'anks for informing me," he really was tired of this. He knew what would happen next. She would prod for information she was better-off not knowing, and he would refuse to give it to her. They would yell, fight, and then storm off, refusing to talk to each other. That's the way it always worked between them.
"What did ya mean when ya said ya could have killed us?" she asked, still managing to hold her volatile temper in check.
"It doesn' matter. Can't y' jus' let it go?"
"No. I thought we weren't going ta keep secrets anymore." She looked at him carefully, searching for some sign of guilt.
He wondered if she found it. Why was he hiding this from her? She of all people should understand, having gone through so much trouble controlling her own powers. But the pain from the wound left after the Trial was too strong, the rejection too fresh. He still didn't trust her. Was afraid to trust her.
"I never said dat," he replied, and then added, more softly, "I'm sorry, chere. I can't."
"Why?" she asked, exhasperated. Her eyes were pleading, begging him to just tell her and to stop pulling away from her.
He only shook his head, not really knowing how to answer that question. Did he really know the answer? All he knew was what he felt and the vulnerability he was experiencing at having so many things out of his control. This, at least, was in his power. The key to his past was his and he wasn't ready to lend it out just yet.
Her pleading eyes turned hard before him and he saw the anger blossoming there. "Ya're nevah gonna change, are ya? Fine, Remy. You jus' keep wallin' yerself up, Ah don't care." She spun on her heel then and stomped out of the room.
He knew she was just saying the words out of anger, but they still managed to sting a bit. Forcing himself to build an impenetrable barrier around himself, the same kind she was referring to, he walked out of the room after her, following her only for the purpose of getting to the stairs.
She spun in the hallway ahead of him. "Why are ya followin' me?" she demanded.
"Don' flatter yerself. I'm jus' tryin' to get t' de war room," he replied in icy tones.
"Why?" The anger in her countenance mixed with wary curiosity.
"I wanna get de coordinates f'r Sinister's position."
"Ya're goin' aftah him? Alone?" she exclaimed in shock, assuming the worst.
"Maybe." He kept his expression and stance casual.
"Are ya crazy?" she asked, disbelieving.
"Do y' need t' ask?" he replied simply, moving past her in the hall and stalking off toward the stairs. He felt her follow him and heard her steps fall into time with his own.
"Ya can't go alone."
"Watch me," he suggested mildly as he reached the foot of the stairs.
"That's suicide."
"Really? Well, it's better dan stayin' here an' watching Stormy an' Sarah die. Dat would be suicide." He forced the words to come out cold and unfeeling, fighting the wave of despair that should have accompanied them.
She continued to follow him, though she didn't speak anymore until they reached his destination. When he entered the war room, he was rather annoyed to see that everyone but Henry was still there. A couple of hostile looks were flung his way, which he met with graceful indifference. The hostility turned into alarm as he pushed past them where they were gathered around Cerebro and started entering commands into the computer.
"What are you doing?" Betsy demanded.
He didn't answer. He really was tired off answering stupid questions whose answers were really quite obvious.
"He's tryin' ta get Sinister's coordinates so he can go aftah him," Rogue supplied from where she stood by the doorway.
There were a few exclamations traded behind him in reaction, most centering around the phrase 'stupid Cajun', but he didn't really care. His attention was focussed on the computer screen. It was still searching for Sinister's exact position, though it was narrowing the options down considerably. There was a tiny countdown display that said the search would be complete in 30 seconds. He waited them out tensely, no longer even hearing what the other X-Men were saying.
Finally, he got the information he needed.
An address. Gambit stared at it, logging the location into his memory.
Then, he straightened, turning to walk out of the room. Joseph stepped in front of him to block his way. "You cannot go alone."
"I'll decide what I can an' can't do," he replied solidly. "Now get outta de way, Joe."
"How were you planning on getting there?" Betsy asked as she stepped up to join Joseph in creating a human wall in front of Gambit.
"I'll hotwire Logan's bike. He c'n survive wit'out it f'r a few hours." He said the words in all seriousness, as if it had been his plan all along and not something thought up on the spot.
"You sure got one big death wish," Bobby added as he too joined the others.
"Yeah, sugah. Ya think Logan's just gonna let ya take his motorcycle?" Rogue asked, and then added her own mass to the bunch of people in Gambit's path.
"'Course not. But de man's upped an disappeared since after he brought Maggot down to de medlab, so I figure he won't notice." This was all said as Gambit made his way around the X-Men blocking his path. He didn't get very far. Logan suddenly appeared in the doorway, a low growl rumbling from him.
"Really?" the short Canadian asked sarcastically. "Ya ever touch my bike, Cajun, an' yer not gonna have all yer limbs attached when yer done. Now what's this I here 'bout us goin' after Sinister? It's about time."
"No us. Jus' me," Gambit stated definitely.
"We're not gonna let ya go alone, sugah. The X-Men stay together."
Remy whirled around to face Rogue. She stared at him steadily. There was a moment of uncertainty and he fought with something inside of himself. Then finally, he barked out, "Fine. But I'll only wait f'r the rest of y' for ten minutes. Then I'm leaving." Everybody nodded their agreement and hurried out of the room, making good on their time to get ready.
And then Gambit was left alone, waiting for his team.
Waiting for a fight with Sinister that he knew, deep down in his gut, would be paramount in its importance. Waiting for a fight that he envisioned with an ominous, threatening aura around it.
There was a chill slithering through his bones, not the normal ever-present one that had become a part of his persona. This was extra cold, etching frigid fear and unrest into his soul. This was the touch of death.
And in the empty war room of the X-Men's mansion, Remy LeBeau shivered.