Nightcrawler and Fortress appeared outside the Citadel in midair. Greg felt sick and disoriented (a side effect of the teleport) but instinctively started flying, as Kurt had counted on. It was raining now outside, and flashes of lightning illuminated the darkened city.
Fortress grabbed onto Nightcrawler and shouted over the storm, "We're going back! I'm not leaving her!"
Kurt looked Fortress in the eye. "Listen! She may not even be here anymore! We have to fall back or they'll just pick off more of us! You can't help her by being captured yourself!"
Greg glared at him for a moment, then silently conceded the point. He saw Phoenix pulling the others up over the Citadel to meet the descending Blackbird, and headed to join them. The other X-Men were boarding the plane when Storm flew out of the Citadel in pursuit, as other gunships began to converge.
Fortress terminated a few of the ships with extreme prejudice as the Blackbird shot away, fighting the turbulence Storm generated. She tried a few shots at Greg before he retreated, but with plenty of room to maneuver he was too quick to hit. Although fast, Storm couldn't break the sound barrier, and the Blackbird and Fortress were soon lost to view.
"They underestimated us, but we underestimated them, too," the Chief said. "They should never have been able to get away."
"Well, your people didn't get that jet of theirs shot down, and why the hell did you brew up that storm outside?" Hardishane glared at 4705.
"I am sorry, sir," 4705 said disconsolately. "The weather reflects my emotions, and I wanted so much to please you, to catch them..." she looked like she was about to cry. The rain beat harder on the windows.
"Oh, calm down, you did well." 4705 looked up, smiling at the praise. The rain immediately slacked off. "Can you tell us what they're likely to do now?"
"I... I am not sure. They will not wish to abandon me or Rogue; they will return. But I do not know how soon. After such a defeat, they may go back for reinforcements. I simply cannot say." Again, she seemed upset that she couldn't fulfill his request.
The comlink beeped. "Hello, Chief Magistrate here," she said as she hit the acknowledge button.
"If you are through with 4705, I really need to consult with her. The readings I'm getting from this new mutant are extremely confusing." The Genegineer sounded frustrated.
The Chief and Hardishane regarded each other for a moment. "I suppose we've debriefed you enough for now. If they come back quickly, we need to prepare now. If not, we'll have time to get more information out of you." Hardishane sounded reluctant to let her go.
"When the Genegineer is through with you, head to engineering. They haven't been able to make sense of your communications equipment."
"I will help them as much as I can," 4705 promised. She headed out the room and down the elevator to the Genegineer's lab. No guards accompanied her; none were needed. 4705 was completely loyal to her superiors and Genosha now.
As she entered, she spared a brief glance at the girl strapped to the examining table. She had been fitted with a skinsuit and a damping collar before awakening, of course. 4705 was just checking to make sure she was secure. She didn't want the Genegineer getting hurt in any escape attempt.
She came up and waited deferentially for Moreau to acknowledge her. "Ah, 4705. There's something very odd about her. What can you tell me about her powers?"
"Storm, fight them! They can't have changed you this much!" Rogue had been staring aghast at her obsequious manner. Rogue had awoken already bound and collared, but even that hadn't been as horrible as seeing her friend fawn over the man who had brainwashed her.
She was ignored. 4705 was thrilled to be able to help. "Her primary power is to absorb the powers and memories of others, by physical contact. It's normally temporary, but in one case, that of Ms. Marvel, it was permanent. I think you may be having trouble because Mr. Marvel was, in fact, part alien."
"Alien? You mean, truly extraterrestrial?" 4705 nodded. "That would explain a few things. Her DNA is still fundamentally human; mutated, of course, but comprehensible. However, her metabolism and cell structure is certainly odd enough to be alien. This molecule, for example," as he indicated a display, "might be a hormone, or an antigen, or possibly even a waste product. I simply can't tell."
"Get this collar off me an' Ah'll show you some waste products," Rogue muttered darkly.
He frowned, examining his readouts. "I'm not confident my normal techniques would work in this case. But I think I can 'reset' her powers, erase this current template and start her off from scratch. I'd need to find a way to erase those memories anyway; the conversion process isn't set up for multiple personalities. Look at those tangled brainwaves."
Carol's consciousness sat alongside Rogue's inside their head. It was difficult sometimes to separate the personalities, but they had reached a detente of sorts. Still, Carol had always nursed a hope that somehow she would find a way out of this foreign body she was trapped in, somehow get a chance to have a normal, separate life. She found she was terrified at the thought of being erased, and she was furious at the thread of hope she saw in Rogue's emotions, even diluted by the fear, dread and horror of the situation.
"They underestimated us, but we underestimated them, too," Nightcrawler said. "Apparently they've improved their conversion technology, and they were better-coordinated than we imagined."
"That's putting it mildly," Kitty said darkly, glaring at the now-conscious Magistrates. They were still restrained, of course, but Phoenix couldn't yet spare the attention to keep them asleep. She was recovering, though.
"Hardishane was all about control. He was my handler for a while. He would have set up an armored command center, and run the show from there." Logan frowned ruefully. "Gotta admit, they got us good. Storm probably told them just how to do it."
"We don't have a lot of time to save Storm," Rachel said. "Her mind... they killed all her old emotions, and implanted new ones, submission and loyalty to them. She remembers us, but she doesn't care. We might as well be strangers to her." She looked away, almost crying. "I've... seen it before."
The others exchanged glances. The future Rachel had come from was a horrifying repeat of the Holocaust, with mutants rounded up and pitilessly exterminated. Rachel refused to tell them much about her personal history, though. She was too ashamed of her survival, and what she had done to secure it.
"They haven't developed it as far," Rachel continued, trying to gather her self-control. "Memories and emotions are tied together, and her old life isn't important to her anymore, so she doesn't remember it well. Like a class she was forced to take. In my time, the hounds... the victims remembered everything, and used it against you." She seemed lost in reverie; Kitty thought she looked, for the first time she'd ever seen, like the frightened little girl she once must have been.
Rachel came back to the present. "The new emotions haven't fully 'set' yet. And the old ones are blocked, not totally erased. I think I could bring her back, if we did it fast. Another day or two and Storm as we know her will be gone, even the Professor couldn't help." She looked at the rest, speaking passionately. "But no matter what, we have to stop these bastards. The collars, this conversion technology... it's all part of my time. They'll get better, stronger, more irresistible. We've got to stop them now, before... before it happens again."
Nightcrawler felt like the universe was pressing on his shoulders. {I never thought the 'weight of command' was more than a metaphor. Please, God, help me find a way! Make me equal to this task!} He looked at Wolverine, desperately trying to come up with a plan that didn't involve sacrificing two of his closest friends. "Can you infiltrate that fortress, and attack the command center from the inside? That would give us a window..."
Logan was shaking his head. "No way, Elf. Hardishane knows me too well. If he wasn't lookin' for me, I could probably do it, but not when he's expectin' me."
"I could try. He doesn't know me." Shadowcat looked on Storm almost as a second mother. "Even if Rogue isn't in the Citadel, destroying that lab would keep them from converting her for a while."
"You're damn sneaky, 'Cat, and no mistake." Wolverine sounded more grim than usual. "But this takes world-class skill. It'd take, what, half an hour to work your way in? You can't be Ogun that long. Not and come back again." He grimaced. "Besides, they've got mutant-detectors all over the place. Storm could get by 'em with her powers suppressed, but she's back to full strength and she ain't workin' for us anymore. None of us can creep in there undetected."
"We can't take 'em head-on, not with what we have here, and them being coordinated like that. We gotta head home, get reinforcements, and come back in force. Goin' at that base now, with their command and control intact, is suicide. It won't do Storm or Rogue any good. And you heard Phoenix, it's more than them at stake."
Nightcrawler grimaced. "So we return to fight both Storm and a brainwashed Rogue, with little hope they can ever be restored, along with a fully-recovered and prepared Genoshan army."
Phoenix had seen Wolverine go berserk before. It was a daunting experience for a telepath to witness that kind of overwhelming rage; it was like his mind blazed with bright red fury. Everything burned away but a need to cut, to rend, to destroy. Over many years Logan had learned to contain that anger, and direct it; but it was a tenuous, hard-won control.
That red light had started to show in Greg's emotions as soon as he'd realized that Rogue had been captured. It had been simmering, and now flared up into a crimson wave at the mention of Rogue's peril. She momentarily wondered if they would be able to hold him back before he threw himself into a hopeless assault on the entire Magistrate corps.
But Rachel quickly sensed that this fury was different; it was as terrible in its own way, but it had focus. Where Wolverine was a fiery star, Fortress was a coherent laser. His mind was difficult to read at the best of times, but she thought that she'd have trouble following the whirling tornado his thoughts had become, even without the field. Kitty was like that sometimes, when working on a complicated technical problem.
Greg spoke slowly and deliberately. He sounded almost calm, but even the Magistrate prisoners felt a chill as he began. "I have a suggestion..."