Chapter 7 Tricks and Countertricks

[A/N some one-sided Juggitty in this chapter! I am assuming Kurt to be a seniot and Kitty a junior in this fic, as it is about two years after the beginning of the series. Scott was therefore a junior at the start of XME, although I am not certain that that is series canon].

It was Thanksgiving morning. Rogue was in the danger room with Scott and Remy, charging cards, having borrowed a little of Remy's powers. Only, she had borrowed them and Scott's powers at the same time, and was turning the cards red with energy instead of yellow. They were quite effective at destroying things, but would they be effective against Sinister?

Rogue charged one up partway, not enough to cause serious damage, and then threw it at Scott. Scott took the explosion, and surprisingly enough was not fazed by it.

"Try it again, but throw it somewhere else in the Danger Room," instructed Scott.

Rogue threw it at a target, which was immediately blown backwards with a little smoking black spot left on it.

"So I am pretty much immune to those cards," smiled Scott. "So their effect is much like my optic blasts. So they should be able to hurt Sinister."

Kitty for her part was indulging in a lot of fantasizing about Cain. She knew that she had just turned seventeen and was too young for him, but she had such a crush on him. She had been told, though, to stay away from him. Cain made it perfectly clear that he was not a safe person to be around, and that he was currently so screwed up that he could nto be certain that he would not lose control at some point and try to smash everyone in the vicinity.

Nonetheless, Kitty kept writing "Kitty Marko" on her notebook. Her eyes began to glaze over as she indulged in daydreams about riding horses with him, or about him in a torn shirt holding her in a torn dress - darn she had seen too many paperback novels with Fabio on the cover.

School had been interesting, especially since the Brotherhood had been let back in. Strangely enough, Principal Kelly had been more subdued this year. For the most part, students were either fascinated by the mutants or afraid of them, and very few had tried to bully them. Kurt's half-brother had disappeared, and no one knew where he had gone, which was a bit of a relief, because Kitty had been afraid that he would have helped Principal Kelly to get them in some sort of trouble.

As it turned out, though, Kelly had been so busy on his campaign for the mayorship, that he had forgotten to worry about mutants. There had already been an anti-mutant candidate in the race, and so Kelly figured that he'd do better to avoid the controversial issues and to stick to things that most people would agree on, like property tax reform. Being the only candidate who was not affiliated with one or more of the richer families in Bayville, he was the only one who had been willing to pursue it. And this way, he could stick it to the mutants, anyway, as they all lived in the big mansion whose taxes would triple under the new system. The Brotherhood wouldn't be affected, unfortunately, but then you can't have everything.

And Kelly had been elected. So currently he was too busy getting ready to leave the school and to take up his new position to spend any time persecuting mutants. He'd save that for when he had real power.

So things were good for Kitty. And in two years she'd be of age and then she would go out with Juggernaut and prove to him that she was the one.

Kitty went back to her daydream of riding horses with Juggernaut. Suddenly she realized that Juggernaut's horse would probably be crushed under his weight. She then re-imagined his horse to be a genetically altered Hulk-horse. So they were riding along a beach. Like, cliche to the max!

Piotr and Freddy were cooking dinner, as the Brotherhood had been invited over. Wanda was "having a polite conversation" with Kurt, which apparently meant that they were comparing notes in some sort of competition to see whose father was worse.

Talia was playing Centipede on an old Atari 2600 [A/N They are the best!], and racking up a high score.

So when the message came over the Professor's real-time audio-visual two-way communications feed, it broke the mood rather abruptly. The Professor had taken to leaving it on and to allow the video-intercoms in the house to automatically switch on whenever a message came through, so the message just appeared suddenly.

"Hello, X-Men. Whoever is there, please respond." Everyone gathered, and the Professor said, "go ahead."

"I am the Red Skull. I have Kurt's mother. If you want her alive, send me Kurt. My son apparently has been corrupted by Gypsies. I will not have him degraded by contact with inferior and verminous races. If you wish to come rescue her, here are the coordinates. Come and try to get her. I dare you."

No tricks, apparently. No subtlety. The Red Skull had simply offered a challenge and an ultimatum. He must have thoroughly expected that he could defeat the X-Men in a head-on attack.

Then suddenly, Mystique appeared on screen. "Kurt," she whispered, "I have escaped. Please, don't believe the Red Skull. Don't go after him. But I am too weak to get back to the mansion. I managed to get to Larson's Woods, just a few hundred feet from the Skull's hideout, and I am hiding from him quite well. I managed to steal one of his communicators. I can transform into an animal if I have to, I think, and hide. But I can't do it for long. I am near the old bridge right by Gifford's Stream." Kurt knew the place. "But the place is crawling with the Red Skull's men, so be careful." The transmission ended.

"I vill get her," whispered Kurt as soon as the connection was severed. "I can get in and out vithout being noticed."

"Wait," said Xavier, but Kurt had already bamfed away.

Kurt used four 'ports to get him to where he wanted to be. Then he was hit by some sort of electricity, and he fell, unconscious.

Valkyrie spoke into her walkie-talkie. She was seven feet tall, could lift over twenty tons, and could run at speeds approaching seventy miles an hour for a short time. "I have your son."

"Bring him here."

The Red Skull looked at Mystique. A medium height man with black, pupil-less eyes stared back at him.

"Well done, Exchange. Your power is among the most impressive. Only the Nordic people could produce such a fine specimen of mutant as yourself."

Mystique grimaced. "What happened?"

"Exchange has the power to cause two people to exchange - 'souls' for lack of a better term. If he touched two people at once, then they switch souls for, oh, say, an hour or so. Unless he touches them again, in which case he switches them back before that. So I was you. So your son is here. So my son is here, to be taught to be a good, Aryan German and to uphold the principles of racial purity and Nordic supremacy."

"Have you ever considered," spat out Mystique, "that 'racially pure' is just a fancy way of saying 'inbred?'"

"If your genes aren't faulty, you shouldn't fear inbreeding," sneered the Skull.

"They will come for you!" hissed Mystique.

"No, because I gave them the wrong coordinates. I am not a moron, you know. I only made my threat and had 'you' tell them I was lying so that would be too engrossed in uncovering my previous deception to notice 'your' deception. I mean, that you had escaped and needed picking up was so transparently false that there is no way that they would have believed it without me creating a decoy deception, namely that I was claiming to have you when you had supposedly escaped."

~Mystique. There is a pyramid in the Shansi province of China. Tell the Red Skull that you can give him access to its secrets if he releases you and Kurt.~ Apocalypse was once again in Mystique's head.

"Johann," whispered Mystique. She hoped to get the Red Skull's attention by using his real name.

"Yes, Amalthea?"

"It's Raven now."

"Yes, Raven."

"Please," she pleaded, "let me go. I know something and I'll give you the information freely if you free me and my son."

"What do you know?"

"I can tell you how to find a pyramid in China. It has..."

~Great technology.~

"...great technology."

~It can be used to enhance one race.~

"It can be used to enhance one race."

~And to make the Aryans even more superior than they are now.~

"And to make the Aryans even more superior than they are now."

~And the Wachukus as well, and any other races which are wise enough to side with the Aryans.~

" And the Wachukus as well, and any other races which are wise enough to side with the Aryans."

The Red Skull looked intrigued. He turned to Mr. Mbakama. "Upload, forget about Dr. Chamberlain for a few minutes. I want to know if Mystique over hear is telling the truth."

"Yes, comrade." Mr. Mbakama always referred to the Red Skull as "comrade." Not so much because he was a communist, per se, but because he hated the Red Skull's smug superior attitude and even more so hated the fact that the Red Skull considered Europeans to be superior to Africans. He had been taught from a young age that the Wachukus were not just the superior tribe of their area, but rather the greatest people in the world, and it was only their naivete that had allowed them to be conquered by European powers during the colonial age. He thought of himself as using the Red Skull, much as the Red Skull was using him, and believed that as soon as the Luseths were defeated, his people would take all of Africa, and then the new Nazi Europe would be made to grovel at Africa's feet rather than the converse. Like the Red Skull, he had no interest in conquering the other's continent. He was pleased to let the Skull have Europe and northern Asia, and to let some Asian group have the rest of Asia, while he conquered only Africa (the Middle East, he figured would be split among the three powers). However, he saw Africa as the dominant power in the relationship, much as the Red Skull saw Europe as the dominant power.

In any case, the Red Skull had insisted that those who worked for him called him "sir," or "master." Mr. Mbakama, however, was too proud to do that, and he also knew that the Red Skull needed his services. So he insisted on making certain that the Red Skull knew that he saw the Nazi as an equal, not as his better (in reality, he saw him as his inferior, but was discreet enough not to say so). So "comrade," it was. Of course, when speaking to those of his inferiors whom he was not currently serving, he would call them whatever struck his fancy and make them call him "master." Power had its privileges.

So Upload walked over and opened the door of Mystique's prison. He lifter her head up and looked into her eyes. She reeled and became disoriented as he began reading her mind. Then he suddenly became disoriented. Apocalypse had taken control.

"The pyramid is in the Shansi province of China," said Upload. "I will write out the directions."

"We will send Xian Chung. I am too busy here to deal with it right now," said the Skull.

~That will be fine for now. If he works for the Skull, he will still help us make our alliance.~ The voice was in Upload's head now.

"Yes, comrade."

"Xian Chung?"

"He is my ally in Asia. A mutant with the ability to create a subspace pocket to store things in. His name is Pocket [A/N original character]." The Red Skull smiled. Pocket was in a position of power in the Chinese government, and was set to stage a coup when the time was right. China would finally stop concerning itself with silly things like trade and the production of civilian goods and take it upon itself to conquer all of non-Russian Asia. The Japanese had proven unworthy allies. The Chinese would hopefully be much better. But first he would have to make certain that their government was prepared for all-out war. Despite the scuffles between China and the US over foreign policy, and the obvious desire to reunite with Taiwan, the Red Skull doubted that China had the grand expansionist vision that he had for them, or that many Americans feared it had. India, Southeast Asia, Australia and Indonesia. China had the troops, now if could just get the will he was certain he could make them the dominant power in the region. And he felt that Xian Chung would be the leader to do that for them. So he needed to arrange a coup d'etat so that the current government would truly become the conquering Fascist menace that so many Americans feared it was.

But for now he was content to contact his ally in China and to relay the coordinates to him and to tell him what to do. Upload was typing all the necessary information furiously into the computer.

Mystique smiled slightly, against her will. "Mission accomplished," she whispered.