Chapter 9: Magneto
Magneto arrived at the mansion early the next afternoon, accompanied by Amelia Voght, one of his Acolytes and an old flame of Charles's. Ignoring the hostile looks he was getting from the rest of the X-Men, he went straight down to the infirmary. "What is this about, Charles?" he said. "You sent me no explanation, just a request that I be here. What--" his voice trailed off as he saw Sara standing beside Xavier, wrapped in a sweatshirt, sweater, and bulky jacket, and still shivering. It wasn't her clothing he looked at, but her face, at the metal that covered half her face. She had left her contact lens off, and her white eye looked so much more startling.
"Incredible," he said finally. He reached out to touch it, and Sara flinched at the upraised hand.
"Sorry," she murmured at his surprised look. "Old habits die hard." She didn't explain, and he didn't ask. He reached out instead to touch her face again. She pushed his hand away and pushed her sleeve back, exposing the latticework of delicate metal tendrils that covered her skin. He touched that, feeling the metal.
"It has a manipulatible magnetic field," he murmured to himself. "Charles, could we get started? I do have other places to be."
"Certainly," Xavier said, and Sara took a deep breath, lying down on the bed. He shook his head. "The clothes will have to come off," he said.
Sara flushed a brilliant pink. "Please," she started to say, then sighed. She took off her sweater and all her clothes, down to her underwear, and lay down, but he shook his head.
"All of it," he said. Sara blushed. "My dear," he said with a trace of impatience, "I am not doing this so I can stare at you like some adolescent schoolboy. There must be no obstruction between my field and this metal." She hesitated a moment more, and then reluctantly removed her underclothing, lying on the table nude and shivering. Hank turned the heat up in the room for her comfort, and she smiled at him gratefully.
Magneto stretched his hand out over her body and 'pulled' at the metal lightly. When nothing happened, he exerted a little more force. Sara gasped. He increased the pull again. She gasped, and her face twisted briefly. Without warning, he yanked at the metal with about two-thirds of his power.
Sara screamed in agony; it felt like her skin was being ripped from her body again. Magneto stopped, leaving her slumped on the table, sobbing. She took deep breaths, getting herself under control, and lay down. Her fingers curled around the edge of the bed as Magneto raised his hands again.
This time he used all his power, and it really hurt. She dug her fingers into the bed, not noticing when her nails broke and began bleeding. Her entire body was wrapped in the magnetic field, and she writhed in it, clawing at the mattress beneath her, screaming soundlessly. Suddenly a cacophony of voices filled the room, screaming too, and they howled, Hurt! HURTHURTHURT STOPSTOPSTOPSTOP! Magneto stopped, and there was no sound in the room for a while except for Sara's ragged, torturous breathing. Then the massed voice of the metal organisms ripped through the silence of the room. Get OUT! Getoutgetoutgetoutgetout!
"Charles, what is that?" He looked startled.
Xavier sighed. "The Shi'ar thought it was metal. It wasn't. We discovered it was actually a colony of microscopic organisms that look like metal. A Shi'ar scientist bonded this metal to her body by removing patches of her skin and replacing it with the metal. But the organisms seem to possess telepathy, as well as a hive mind, and they were what you heard."
Magneto shook his head. "Incredible. But trying this…it's no use, Charles. It's bonded to her body. I can't get it off. You will have to find another solution." He gently slipped a hand under Sara's arm and helped her stand. "I'm sorry, my dear," he said. "I cannot help you." He turned his face aside as she put on her underclothing and jeans.
Sara flashed him a weak smile as she pulled her sweater over her head. "You tried. I thank you for that, even if it didn't work." She leaned heavily on his arm as he helped her out of the room, disappearing down the hall, and turned to Charles.
Xavier shook his hand. "Thank you for trying, old friend."
"I'm sorry I couldn't help," Erik said. "She's a lovely girl under all that metal."
Sara went down to the Danger Room and set up a simulation, working with her ordinary sword.
Anger smoldered in her mind as she attacked the simulated enemy. It wasn't fair! She had finally found a place where she belonged, a man who loved her, and this had to happen. She was disfigured, ruined, and nothing was going to help. The voices in her head were driving her crazy, calling to her incessantly. If only she could block them out. But she'd tried putting up the shields and barriers that Xavier and Jean had taught her to put up against other telepaths, and it hadn't worked. She savagely chopped down another enemy, ignoring her protesting muscles and aching wrists. She'd been going at this way too long, but she didn't know how else to work off her frustration. She was in the middle of slashing apart a Brood warrior when the simulation froze.
Logan had been watching her slash and rip apart everything in her path for a while now from the observation room. She was dripping sweat, panting, clearly exhausted, but whatever the thoughts were that were making her angry, they weren't going away. He called a halt to the simulation and entered, handing her a towel. "Sare," he said, "Yer not doin' yerself any good hackin' things up like this. Wanna talk about it?"
"No," she said shortly.
"Sare, c'mon. Ya know ya can talk ta me. Ain't nothin' yer goin' through that I ain't already gone through myself. I had adamantium bonded ta me too, ya know."
"To your bones, Logan. Mine's on my skin, where everyone can see it! I see the funny looks everyone's giving me! And the way Magneto looked at me, like I'm some sort of lab specimen or something! I hate it! I hate all of this! Why can't everyone just leave me alone!" She crumpled to her knees, burying her face in her hands.
Logan knelt in front of her, hating the anguish that poured out of her. "Sare," he said gently, taking her arms and trying to pull them away from her face, "Listen ta me--"
She pulled away from him. He pursued her, grabbing her arms again. "Sare--"
She struck out at him blindly. Wrapped in her own anguish, she slapped him soundly across his cheek. He raised his hand and slapped her back, harder than she'd hit him. He instantly mentally kicked himself for his reaction, but it was too late.
She raised her hand to her red cheek, staring at him, and he wished with all his might that he hadn't done that. "Not you, too," she whispered.
He stared at her, hating himself. "Sara, I…I don't know what possessed me to…" he tried to reach out to her again.
She scrambled out of his reach, and he saw all the old fear crowd into her eyes again. With a choked-off gasp she pushed away from him and ran out of the room.
Lilandra drooped as she was informed of the results of the experiment. "There is nothing else to be done, then, Charles. She is stuck with the organisms bonded to her body. I wish it wasn't so."
Logan stuck his head into Xavier's study. "Chuck, have ya seen Sare? I can't find her anywhere."
Xavier said, "No, I haven't. What happened?"
Logan shifted uneasily. "We had a fight. Sara hit me. Damn fool that I was, I hit her back. She ran away. I don't know where she is."
Xavier blinked. "You hit her? After all she's been through? Logan, what were you thinking?"
"I wasn't thinkin'," he said grimly. Xavier closed his eyes. "She's not in the mansion. I need to get to Cerebro, find out where she went." His hoverchair went at full speed down the hall, leaving Lilandra and Logan to catch up however they could.
He sent his mind questing out beyond the walls, out over the extensive grounds. No Sara. He sent his thought out over the roads, then into the town. And what he found made him call urgently to the X-Men.
X-Men! He cried urgently. Sara's at the warehouse that Koven used. She's going to take his ship back to the creatures' home planet! You must stop her! But he already knew it was no use. She had too much of a head start. Perhaps…
"Lilandra, he gasped, "Sara's trying to take Koven's ship back to the creatures' home planet. Can you--"
Her communicator beeped, and she picked it up. "Majestrix, there is a small two-person craft leaving Earth's atmosphere. Do you want us to--"
"Yes, yes, put a tractor beam on it and keep it from leaving!" she exclaimed. She listened as her flagship's captain spat out a string of orders in the Shi'ar Imperial language, listened as the tractor beam was deployed. Then there was cursing in several other languages as the beam apparently missed and Koven's craft, with Sara on it, soared past Earth's moon and headed off into the deep velvety blackness of space. "Majestrix--" came the apologetic voice of the captain, "we're sorry, the ship is gone, it was too fast for our beam--"
"I am coming up," Lilandra said immediately, "We know where the craft is going. Charles, do you wish to come? My craft will hold all of us, though it will be slightly cramped until we get aboard the flagship."
"Yes, we're coming." Xavier broadcast a mental call to the X-Men. X-Men! Get to the hanger, quickly! Get aboard Lilandra's ship. Don't stop for anything, we won't be gone long. I'll explain once we're all aboard. Hurry! He made sure the Imperial Guard heard it as well.
Normally Charles enjoyed watching the deployment of the Shi'ar's stargating technology; the huge ring of light in the blackness of space that would cut the time it took to reach Lilandra's Throneworld by more than half. But he was too worried now to really care about the scenery outside the window, and he knew the others felt the same.
As they followed Lilandra onto the bridge, he asked her, "Why are we using the stargating technology? Shouldn't we just follow her?"
"Lilandra looked grim. "No. Charles, did you never wonder how Koven reached your planet before I could get word to you? He took the technology to build a miniature stargate with him. Apparently he left the computer on autopilot and it is responding to her. No, our only hope is that we reach it before she does. She will not survive on the planet's surface without an environmental suit."
In the dark space beside a white dwarf star, a ring of light appeared, and a silver craft slipped through it, settling into a stationary orbit around the chunk of rock closest to that dwarf star. Just before the Stargate closed, however, a smaller craft slipped through, not the gleaming seamless Shi'ar design, but one a bit rougher, cruder, belonging to a race who had not yet fully developed spaceflight.
Magneto's ship dropped out of hyperspace, and Voght shuddered. "We will have to go back through that again going back," she made a face. Magneto paid no attention to her, concentrating instead on the small silvwer craft orbiting the rock in front of them. Moments later the much larger Shi'ar royal flagship dropped out of its own stargate and settled into orbit behind the small silver craft. No notice was taken of his ship, keeping a cautious distance from the other two. Then both craft sent tiny personal shuttles down to the planet's surface.
Sara stepped out of the shuttle and onto the surface of the planet. The heat hit her like a wave, setting her human skin to sweating. The voices in her head, which had been getting so loud and so persistent that she couldn't stand it anymore, were shrieking in joy at being home. As she turned and saw the pools of silver all over the surface, the cacophony of voices crashing into her head turned into physical agony and she clutched her head, whimpering. There was no barrier she could erect against this assault, nothing she could do. She only vaguely heard the whine of another shuttle touching down onto the scorching surface of the planet, then a gentle arm went around her shoulders and she looked up, seeing Logan's face through his spacesuit's helmet screen. "Sara," he cried to her, "I love ya, please, c'mon! We'll find some way of getting' these creatures offa ya, I swear we will! I'm sorry fer hittin' ya, I didn't mean it, please! Sara, it's too hot, it'll kill both of us, please c'mon!" He tugged her to her feet, and she, growing uncomfortable in the heat, took a step toward the shuttle.
Then a fierce wave of psychic anger washed over her and froze her where she stood. The creatures were not going to allow her to go. They wanted to go home, and they didn't care about her. Seemingly of their own volition, her feet began to walk toward a sheer cliff a short distance away. Logan ran after her as she called in panic, "I can't…Logan, help! They're making me…I can't…help me!" He seized her arm, but the creatures' hold on her mind was too strong, and she was getting inexorably closer to that sheer cliff.. Gladiator and Scott jumped out of the shuttle, fully suited, and began to run toward them.
Home! The voices in her head exulted as they drove her ever closer to the cliff. Jump off! They cried to her. Free us! The heat in our planet's core will melt us off this body and we will be free!
But it will kill me! Sara screamed to the voices in her head.
They didn't care. She screamed in terror as her body took that last fatal step off the cliff, and suddenly found herself caught, arrested in midair. Logan clung to her wrist with all his strength, and she reached up, seizing his wrist with her other. "Logan, save me!" she screamed in terror. "Please! Help!"
"Sara! Can you climb up if ya hold on?" He called to her as Gladiator and Scott reached him, braced him against themselves, and reached down a hand to her. Sara began to try, pulling herself up, and it almost looked for a moment as though she would make it. She screamed suddenly, desperately, as the creatures turned their attention to her fingers. She strained to keep her grip, calling to her would-be rescuers that they were making her uncurl her fingers, and there was nothing she could do. Her fingers gradually uncurled, responding to the relentless inner prompting from the creatures on her body, and to the pull of gravity, and she fell.
Logan howled in anguish and made a last, desperate grab for her. His hand closed on something, and it came away in his hand as she fell. He heard her scream halfway down into the lava flow below, then there was nothing but silence, and his gasping sobs as he clutched the necklace he had given her a couple years ago, its chain broken. The three men stood for a long time at the top of the cliff, mourning their friend, before the heat made it imperative for them to leave.
The mood in the mansion was somber, as the X-Men mourned her loss. Logan spent a great deal of time alone, staring at her necklace. He had added the delicate gold pendant to the chain that held his dog tags. He was absently rubbing the purple stone when Scott came into the kitchen. He sat at the kitchen table silently.
"It never goes away, Logan," Scott said quietly. "The hurt gets less after a while, and you move on, but the memory is always there, and it never stops hurting. When Jean did I felt like I wanted to die, too. Nothing ever hurt so bad before. Nothing will ever hurt as bad as that did. But life has to go on, Logan."
Logan sat for a moment more, then said, "Ya got a Danger Room session planned fer this afternoon?"
"No. But if you like, you and I could go kick some simulated butt. Would that make you feel better?"
Logan nodded. "Yeah." As he got up, the pendant caught the sun's rays, filtering in through the window, and glowed for a moment.
