Disclaimer: The characters and universe belong to Marvel Comics. No money is being made from this endeavor. The story is co-plotted and co-written by Mitai, Mel, and Persephone. Please do not archive, pop-up, or MST without permission.
Ashes of Chaos: Break of Dawn
by Jaya Mitai, Mel, and Persephone
Part 8
Emma checked her mirrors and blind spot, then slid smoothly into the next lane, the car purring under her foot. Visual checks were a good habit to keep, even when a telepathic sweep indicated quite clearly that no one was in her way.
The meeting had gone... moderately well, though not to the extent she'd hoped. At least the X-Men seemed to have a decent grasp of the threat Stryfe presented, even if Scott and more particularly Jean were displaying somewhat unexpected protective, even possessive, tendencies regarding him.
Emma hadn't really expected to have Stryfe turned over to her, qualifications aside, and she was forced to admit that Moira herself was more than capable. Still, she thought with some annoyance, Moira was not qualified to deal with a recalcitrant, much less a hostile, telepath.
Charles's references to estimates of the likelihood of Stryfe regaining his powers had seemed... low, somehow. Emma hadn't seen the scan results herself, of course, and the damage was presumably serious if Moira claimed it was -- but operating under the assumption that Stryfe would never regain his powers seemed overly incautious. Too optimistic by far from the perspective of dealing with a normally powerful, currently disabled enemy -- perhaps more appropriate to a doctor's caution in promising results, except in that case it seemed too pessimistic and likely to discourage the patient. That didn't seem like Moira.
Moira was probably too idealistic for her own good, actually, in that respect as in many others. She'd consider herself obligated to restore Stryfe to as much function as possible, and hence make him more dangerous.
Emma frowned to herself and eased off the accelerator as she began to overtake a car that was meandering erratically from side to side in her lane, at a speed significantly below the speed limit and even more dramatically below that of the cars in the next lane that were preventing her from moving over to pass it.
The driver, presumably, was either very inexperienced, very distracted, or considerably impaired in the function of mind, body, or possibly car. A telepathic fingering of the mind cleared matters up by coming away covered with thoughts of an extremely messy chili sandwich. And napkins.
Emma reached out again and planted the rather pointed suggestion in the offending driver's mind that chili stains, even should they occur, might be preferable to bloodstains, which could very well come to adorn the upholstery if a certain amount of attention did not return from unduly messy early dinners (or very late lunches) to the road.
Still hanging prudently back, she watched with satisfaction as the car ahead of her steadied and began to come up to speed.
And that, Emma thought, was the sort of thing Xavier and his students would balk at. They would mindwipe or mind-control; Xavier had even taken a student, Karma, whose powers -- of "possession" -- were entirely focused on wholesale, if temporary, takeover. They would only do it, however, when they considered it "necessary," usually for the sake of maintaining secrecy.
Emma was not inclined to argue most of the situations where they found "necessity"; she simply preferred her own, broader definition. What she'd done to that driver barely even qualified as manipulation; she had simply concealed her suggestion to avoid the likely panic most people not accustomed to telepaths would experience at a sudden voice in their heads. It had gotten the car out of her way and quite possibly prevented an eventual wreck.
If she could get hold of Stryfe soon enough and make herself an influence while he was still weakened, she would be able to make him far less hazardous to herself, the world, and specifically her allies. They were allies, and good ones, even if they seemed sometimes to be willfully naive.
Less hazardous. Even useful.
* * * * * * *
Nathan eyed Hank as the blue-furred doctor moved about the room. It wasn't his best intimidating glare, or even particularly unnerving, though he was starting to think about using one of those if Hank didn't shut up, or at least suddenly develop a much less smooth, soothing, professional, irritating bedside manner.
"...In fact, I dare say within a few days you'll be in shape to start acclimating your reconstructed knee to supporting weight again."
Latching onto the idea of getting up, Nathan let the exasperation he'd felt at being bedridden ever since he had returned to consciousness build to a head. Enough. He reached across his body, right hand closing on the covers, and yanked them back with an unintentional flourish.
Hank turned around at once, annoyance and alarm evident in his face as he hurried over and leaped across the bed. "Were you warm?" was all he said; Nathan half smiled at the tone.
"I'm getting up," he informed Hank firmly. "You could," he added after a moment, "get out of the way." Of course, Hank didn't.
Sitting up was an adventure; abused abdominal muscles screeched their heated protest despite all his care to push himself up with his hands, but he persevered. There. Not so bad. He took several breaths, moderately full but none so deep as to induce arguments from his mending ribs. Not vehement ones, at least.
Then he braced himself for the swiveling motion and swung his legs off the bed.
"This is premature," Hank tried.
"I don't care." Nathan's feet touched the floor. It was cold. He tried flexing the toes of his right foot experimentally against the surface. Nice to feel something besides bedsheets, but he was already getting warning twinges from his right knee.
Nothing he couldn't handle, but despite Hank's apparent conviction that he had no sense, he really didn't want to injure himself any worse.
"Hank. You're in my way. Stop hovering."
Hank failed to move back. "Nathan. My desire to have you confined in my care for an excessive period of time is, I assure you, no more fervent than yours for the same eventuality. I suggest therefore that you try to avoid exacerbating your injuries."
"I'm sick of being in bed," Nathan stated adamantly. "I'm getting up."
He pushed off from the firm mattress, carefully, and stood up with his weight overwhelmingly on his left foot, as he'd planned when he picked which side of bed to get out of.
Wouldn't want to get up on the wrong side of bed, after all.
His mouth quirked in amusement at the thought even while he took careful, steadying breaths and blinked to clear the slight dizziness that resulted from standing up after days flat on his back. Nathan was grateful he'd at least been through some therapy, enough to get the blood moving.
Securely upright, if gingerly so, he looked down and found Hank still hovering worriedly. "I'm not going to fall," Cable pointed out. "I'm standing on my left foot."
Hank considered this for a moment and then stepped back. "An excellent precaution," he acknowledged, then heaved a gusty sigh. "Very well. If you continue it -- and promise to support yourself telekinetically to protect your right knee -- I'll look into stepping up the schedule on your walking practice." A sour look. "If only because the process of propelling you forcibly back into bed might be more deleterious."
Nathan scowled sullenly. That was actually exactly what he'd been planning, but it was irritating to be told as if he weren't likely to think of it himself. More importantly, however, he wanted it to look like a concession. Never let yourself be diverted from a good plan just because people cooperated with it in an annoying fashion.
"I want to get this knee --" he shifted his right leg slightly, tapping his foot gently on the floor (the nerves in the knee attached to it jangled warningly) in a kind of symbolic stomp "--back in shape as fast as possible," he grumbled. "But I guess that'll do." An appropriately grudging pause. "Yes, I promise."
* * * * * * *
Kurt Wagner, known sometimes as Nightcrawler, looked up from his book as the telephone rang and bounded agilely from his bed to the middle of the wall, then did a flip to land within reach of the receiver. A curl of his prehensile tail lifted it and brought it to his ear, whereupon he took advantage of its being cordless -- an attribute selected with his acrobatic training and habits in mind -- and hopped back to perch on his footboard.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Kurt. Are you well?" The voice came as something of a surprise; although he still corresponded since Excalibur's dissolution with various friends who remained superheroes, he had had no reason to expect a call from Charles Xavier today.
"Professor!" Kurt placed his bookmark and then carefully closed the volume. "I am very well, and you?"
"I am fine as well. Forgive my abruptness, but in fact I called to ask you a favor regarding your contacts with other erstwhile members of Excalibur."
"Ah, I see. Whom are you attempting to contact? I would have expected you to ask Moira, first, as most of our files are still on Muir...."
"I don't wish," Xavier said, sounding slightly uncomfortable, "to contact Moira about this ahead of time."
Kurt blinked and shifted the phone to a blue-furred hand, then took the book with his tail and stretched back to lay it gently on the mattress. This sounded... strange. "How very... interesting. May I ask why?"
There was a short, wry laugh from the other end of the line. "Stryfe attacked Cable at a location in the Alps; both were severely enough injured that the X-Men, upon retrieving them, took them to Muir for treatment. Stryfe is still there, in Moira's care, and currently projected to remain until he recovers some mobility. We've determined that despite Rahne's presence, it would be preferable to have someone else present to offer protection, preferably someone with the ability to attack from a distance. Scott suggested that someone from Excalibur might have an advantage in terms of familiarity, and that you would be the ideal person to consult on both selection and communication with such a person."
Kurt did not drop the telephone, but it was a near thing. A little dazed, he replied, "I will try to assist you, Professor, but first perhaps a slightly less compressed tale of these events...."
* * * * * * *
Stryfe tried very, very hard to ignore the slight headache building up right behind his eyes, concentrating instead on the heat of the sunlight on the left side of his face. It was a constant heat that wasn't welcome, making a thin trickle of sweat tickle down that side of his face, and although Muir's weather didn't seem to include that many clear days, the ever-present sunlight on the same part of his face, every time there was sun, never abating, never shaded or relieved, was getting to him on a level that he would never have dreamed anything so simple and harmless could.
Not to mention the tickle was driving him crazy. And he knew he could turn his head, if he had to, but his refusal to do so recently had made his neck that much more stiff. Therefore moving even slightly tended to bring about an ache that took hours to fade, and he wasn't willing to add that to the list of other minor discomforts, adding up to make him the miserable lump he currently was.
So he remained absolutely still, merely breathing, and cursing every breath as it brought the strange yet attractive odors of food. His stomach had shrunk considerably, and he'd already had fights with his gall bladder, on the subject of not eating, and the enticing aroma of the strange soups Moira had prepared for him was a torture of another kind. Of course, she left it out of his reach just enough to ensure that he'd have to reach up his hands to take the bowl, and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that even if he could twitch in that direction, he would never again have the muscular control to use the silverware carefully enough to eat without spilling it all over himself.
The same with the water. It would take much less effort, but he'd still have to turn his head quite a distance to find that straw, and since he was getting the fluids he needed intravenously, it was just more pain with no real prize.
Like most of his existence here, he reflected moodily. He was still objective enough to realize that he was falling into a depression, clinically as well as psychologically. He was not moving; his metabolism was falling along with the production of hormones and chemicals in his brain, as his nutrient requirements were not met. Not to mention being constantly worn down by a discomfort that was never alleviated, not getting enough sleep, refusing to talk or even to interact with anything... all these would lead to a physical depression.
And his train of thought was taking it further. But even being able to identify that only made it that much worse. Aware of his misery on so many levels, able to dissect it without changing it. Like his probable inability ever to walk again.
Could he move? Yes. He had enough feeling now that he knew he would be capable of the most basic human movement. He could twitch experimentally like a babe in a cradle. And that would be the extent of his motions, the epitome of the man he could possibly become after this. There was no hope that his mind would recover -- the brain was a fascinating organ in that it did not heal from damages like that. Nerves didn't recover at all, a protein inhibitor preventing the overgrowth that would lead to death. In his own time, such injuries could be corrected, treated, but here...
Here there was no need even to attempt the struggle, because there was no fruit to pluck from the tree of life. He could not defeat Apocalypse. He had sacrificed that chance in one stupid move against Cable, a move that had burned him out; he'd overextended and done it in full knowledge and he'd wanted more power! Caught in the heat of the moment, in his own excitement and hate, he'd crippled himself as surely as he'd crippled or killed Dayspring.
Even the thought of Dayspring's having survived couldn't stir a fire in his gut, and he kept still, kept ignoring the trickle of sweat down his face, kept ignoring the scent of food in the room.
Kept ignoring the woman, or perhaps girl, standing in the doorway, watching him.
* * * * * * *
Rahne stepped into Stryfe's room again, silently this time, for once ignoring Moira's suggestion to make small talk. It was getting wearying, chattering nonsense to someone who never answered, and it made her feel like a fool.
He wasn't asleep, she decided. His breathing was wrong for that. She shifted ever so slightly into a more wolfen form and padded closer, listening and smelling carefully. Yes, he was definitely awake -- but she didn't think he knew she was there.
He still smelled of fear and pain. She sighed, noiselessly. What more could she or Moira do to reassure the man? He'd hardly smelled frightened at all, only angry and shocked, when she and the rest of X-Factor had nearly captured him. And *then* he had been in very real peril of being chopped in half at the waist, if the teleport disk failed. At least she thought so; granted most of her experience with teleport disks was based on Illyana's.
Illyana. Lost soul in bright silver, lost eyes beneath golden hair. Rahne had been so terrified of her back then, back when Illyana was the half-wild demon sorceress queen of Limbo.
She would have fought for her -- had fought for her -- but she'd been too much of a coward to reach out very often. She'd still been fighting off the lingering feeling that she herself was devilspawn at the time....
By the time Rahne had understood Illyana, and had begun to see that the other girl was as horrified by the evil she'd been tainted with as Rahne herself could be, and as terrified of the attraction of wild power, it had been too late.
Too late for a real friendship with Magik, at any rate, though perhaps there had been some underlying current of kinship eventually. Perhaps. At least Rahne had thought of bringing the Darkchilde face to face with her own rescued alternate -- and the Darkchilde had not killed Illyana.
Instead, the sorceress had sacrificed herself to set the world right as best she could.
The poor child had then had her parents slaughtered before dying herself of the same pathogen that was killing Moira, the same one this man had released.... She was not going to growl. She was being silent.
And... the urge to snarl died away. Stryfe had essentially killed the sweet little innocent girl, and Rahne knew how Moira felt, knew the aches --- and somehow she still couldn't hate him. Not that she was trying. That would be wrong. Love your enemies.... Well, maybe she wasn't quite to that point yet. Not with him.
He reminded her of Illyana. Of Magik. Well, in a very superficial sense, perhaps now he reminded her of the little one, asleep and helpless -- but she had never smelled so terrified, when Rahne was there, and somehow she didn't think little Illyana had fought medical treatment quite so... obstinately.
But he reminded her now of Magik, of what she should have seen and never did until it was too late, until she could only look back and regret. Magik had hidden her pain as best she could, and pushed away those who tried to help.
But then, Magik had at least part of the time regretted the evils she'd done, had never gone so far, surely -- and at times she had genuinely tried to change.
Rahne frowned, and gave another silent sigh. He'd gone off to sleep while she thought. REM, she noted absently. And from his scent, not a pleasant dream.
She leaned over the bed in some surprise as his lips parted, as if he meant to speak. Stryfe was frowning, face working slightly and pain and fear showing visibly as they usually didn't when he was awake. Only her enhanced hearing let her catch the words, breathed in a long-unused voice. "No... won't break."
Won't break? She straightened, staring down at him thoughtfully as he fell silent again. What wouldn't break? Cable? Him? It made very little sense, unless he thought they were trying to torture him into something. Sure, Moira wanted an admission that he was aware and could move, but that seemed a foolish thing to refuse so stubbornly.
On further thought, perhaps it wasn't so strange that he was always afraid. He still considered them enemies -- Moira was a personal friend of Cable and most of the X-Men, and Rahne (aside from working with Cable briefly) had fought him directly in recent years. If she'd been captured by, say, the MLF, Rahne was none too sure that she'd ever really relax no matter how kind they acted -- especially if she were helpless.
There was no help for that situation, really. Here he was, and here he'd stay. They could only try to reassure him -- and to heal him. With all he'd done, she still felt sorry for him.
* * * * * * *
Stryfe lay as he always did now, still and miserable. He'd drifted off to sleep again, he thought, but it hadn't been particularly restful. His dreams, like his wakings, had been filled with pain and the fear of yielding, of showing more weakness than he already had -- as if another drop mattered to an ocean.
A soft voice startled him; he almost flinched. "We arenae trying to break you, ye know."
The girl. Rahne. Wolfsbane. From the sound of her voice, lower and a little rougher than usual, he guessed she was in a wolfen form. But how had she--? She could not have read his mind, could not have known what he was thinking, surely.
"Matter of fact, we're trying our hardest tae put ye back together." She paused for a moment. "But there's only sae much tae be done if ye willnae help yuirself at all."
He felt a soft hand on his forehead for a moment -- it seemed to have fur on it -- before she tilted the water bottle until the straw just touched the corner of his mouth, and then let him alone to think.
And debate whether to try to drink, or try to turn away, or lie still and let the thing tickle at his mouth until somebody decided to move it.
* * * * * * *
Kurt crouched thoughtfully on the ceiling, toes finding purchase where most wouldn't, and waited patiently for an intelligible response to emerge from the telephone.
He had gone over Xavier's criteria repeatedly before making the call.
Someone who cared about Moira and could survive a period of some weeks looking after her, with no one there but her and Rahne -- and Stryfe. Who could survive Moira's reaction to being "looked after."
Someone who had a chance of protecting them both against at least a significantly weakened Stryfe, although Kurt had the uneasy feeling that such an experienced supervillain was not likely to attack before he was prepared to have a reasonably good chance at defeating whoever might be guarding him. A distance attack.
He'd thought about Meggan, whose elemental side could be useful, but didn't think such a sensitive empath was likely to be the best choice. Not for this.
Besides, while either or both would respond at once to a call for aid, she and Brian were newlyweds. It would hardly have been fair to summon them unless he'd concluded they were the ideal choice.
Considering powers, attitude, and likely availability, Kurt had finally settled on asking Pete Wisdom first. This was the fourth number he'd called; he'd gotten an answering machine seven times, refrained from assuming Pete would call back, and persisted.
Upon hearing why Kurt kept calling him, Pete had -- judging by the resulting clatter and other sounds -- tossed the telephone down in disgust and was currently wandering around the room, muttering to himself and pushing things around. Kurt was getting rather tired of it.
"Herr Wisdom," he said loudly into the phone. "Either respond or hang up the phone, if you please."
More noises, a distant grumbled curse, then Pete's voice coming through clear and just a little too loud at first. "Wot? Fine. Thought I'd hung up on you and couldn't find your number."
Kurt sighed. "Perhaps it would have been helpful to check the phone itself to see whether or not it was still off the hook?" he suggested mildly. "Pete, I am sorry for the necessity of bothering you with this, but all things considered you are the person I'd most prefer to have on Muir with Moira and Rahne at this time."
"Oh, I know. Nobody else has the nerve to snipe back at the bloody hag when she's sick and all altruistic, is that it?"
"And that you might be expected to use your hot knives effectively on Stryfe if he manages to mount an attack -- and not otherwise?"
Pete snorted, and Kurt heard the sound of a lighter, then a puff of something that was presumably smoke across the receiver. "You really expecting that to be a problem, with all the goody-two-shoes spandex-types?"
"Perhaps not... probably not... but there are some I would not ask to live with Moira caring for Stryfe." Kurt paused, then added with some amusement, "Besides, as you pointed out yourself, you take Moira's more abrasive moments well."
"I'm a Brit." He sounded affronted.
"Exactly. Consider that the only other two people in the facility at the moment are Rahne, who is far too gentle much of the time to be snapped at without feeling guilty, and Stryfe, who is probably desperately annoying on purpose but is also her patient and hence will be accorded some consideration on that score. You two weren't fooling anyone; you enjoyed the verbal sparring...."
"Enough, Wagner," Pete growled into the phone. Kurt winced, but the next words, in the same irascible tone, were "I'll be up there in a few days. Got something to finish up first -- unless you think the bloody 'Chaos-Bringer' is going to be up by then? Pretentious bloke, name like that."
* * * * * * *