Thanks for the feedback: Pandora, Dee Saylors
Raynold: Is an original character. In X-Treme #25 Kitty makes reference to having killed someone, specifically to save a friend. I don't know what cannon story that line refers to (too many holes in my collection :)) so I just made up a quick backstory about a situation that forced Kitty to kill someone. Also Evo-Piotr can never have to place in Kitty's life that he had in 616 since he wasn't her knight and first love who made her feel safe while she was making the transition from normal 13 year old to a member of the X-Men, so instead I had him be the person to see her through a tramatic event in her past.
Lance spotted a comfortable looking boulder a few feet off the trail and decided now was as good a time as any for a break. He leaned back against the stone and took in the view. To his left the Rocky Mountains stood tall and proud. Snow shimmered on their peaks as the sun ruthlessly cut through the thin mountain air. To his right he could see the beginning of the Great Plains. Flat emptiness stretched to the horizon. The city of Boulder was nestled in the shadow of the rather large hill he was climbing. Once he would have called it a mountain but it's nearby and much larger cousins put it to shame.
"Tired already Lance?" Ricky, one of the guys he worked with at the BLM's range fire department, asked.
Lance made a face at him. "I'll beat you to the top." He challenged.
"I'll believe it when I see it." Ricky called back. He continued on up the trail.
"Are you really alright?" Carl Diller asked when the others were out of ear shot. "You know my sister'll kill me if I don't do a proper job of watching out for you."
"Becca told me she'd have my hide if I didn't listen to you." Lance admitted. "It's nothing. I just haven't gotten used to the altitude yet."
"You've been living here for a month now." Carl said. "That excuse doesn't hold much water."
Lance stood up and determinedly started up the trail again at a quick march. Carl shook his head and took a few jogging steps to catch up. "Lance will you please tell me what's wrong. Is it…"
"It's just the altitude." Lance insisted stubbornly. "There's nothing I can do about it anyway. Learning to live with it is the only choice I've got."
Carl sighed and dropped back to give Lance some space. He'd met the young man several years before when his sister and her husband had basically adopted him. Becca had been dragging Lance along to family get togethers since the boy had been nineteen. Lance had always determinedly stayed on the outskirts of any gathering. Carl had liked the young man well enough but never really thought much about him.
A month ago Carl's brother-in-law had call him up and asked if he could quietly find Lance a job in the BLM's range fire department. Ed had explained why the kid needed to get away from Coos Bay and why it was best if he weren't put in crisis situations that happened in the middle of a city. Carl had been stunned. Never in his wildest dreams would have imagined that Lance Alvers was a mutant. He'd seen stories about them on the news. The quiet young man who accompanied his sister's family more often than not just didn't fit his mental image of a mutant.
He'd heard the worry in Becca's voice as she told him that if Lance didn't have a place to run to he'd blindly run away. She was afraid he'd go off a cliff if he were left to himself. Becca and Ed looked at the young man as family. Despite his uncertainty about mutants Carl didn't have the heart to disappoint them.
Two days later Lance's things arrived by FedEx. He'd left Coos Bay in such a rush he hadn't thought to pack. The following day Lance himself had shown up on the Dillers' doorstep. He'd reverted to being exactly as Carl remembered him the first time they'd met. The only thing that was different was this time Carl knew why there was so much wariness in the younger man's eyes and he realized that he sympathized. No wonder the kid looked hunted. He'd been run out of his home and his life simply for getting sick. For being born different.
Lance didn't talk about the disease that had catalyzed his departure from Oregon. Once a week he drove down to Denver so that the physician at the mutant clinic there could monitor the progress of his condition. Still Carl could help but notice that Lance got tired more easily than someone with his life style should.
Lance always said it was just the altitude.
****** ****** ******
Hank McCoy cleared the counter in front of him with a violent sweep of his arm. Slides, cultures and a microscope clattered to the floor. Cecelia Reyes, the X-Men's resident doctor, glanced up from the article she was reading. "Not a successful test?" she asked sarcastically.
"What was your first clue?" Hank snapped.
"Talk to me," Cecelia said. "I know you've been researching this disease since the first know case and I'm a general practitioner who didn't even know she was a mutant until a few months ago, but it might help. You've studied the Legacy Virus; I studied medicine. A broader outlook could uncover something."
"And Moira has both general and specific knowledge and it does us no good whatsoever." Hank exclaimed.
"Then feel free to take your temper-tantrum down to the Danger room," Cecelia replied tartly.
Hank paused. For a moment he stood still, eyes closed. He pinched the bridge of his nose then he sighed. "My apologies my dearest Dr. Reyes. It has been an exceptionally frustrating week."
"Help me with the next round of physicals and all will be forgiven." Cecelia replied with a wave.
"I'd just as soon referee Tabitha and Ray's next lover's spat." Hank replied with a shutter.
He sat back and popped his knuckles. "What do we know about the Legacy Virus? Not enough obviously. There are four stages: During the first stage the symptoms are minimal. A loss of stamina, feeling run down or excessively tired. During this stage the patient's body is still trying to fight the infection. A simple blood test can detect the presence of the virus. The second stage begins when the virus successfully grafts itself on to the genome and begins rewriting that which makes us mutants. At this point a DNA analysis is needed for diagnosis. It becomes more difficult for the patient to maintain control of their powers. Mutant abilities may begin expressing themselves in new ways or their strength may increase. The third stage is marked by the appearance of painful lesions. Second stage symptoms become more severe. During the final stage the victim's powers increase exponentially in strength, control becomes non-existent. Eventually the body is burned out and death occurs. That is assuming that the victim isn't killed first to contain the damage."
Cecelia grimaced.
"Moira and I believe the key is a vaccine of some sort. Something that will prevent the virus from attaching itself to the genome. Of course to develop such a vaccine we need data. At the school and in as many other locations as possible we offer routine screening for the disease. Despite our efforts only a handful of people are diagnosed before the third stage. Almost every mutant experiences power surges as their powers develop. The second stage symptoms are easily written off as being part of the a natural development in their powers rather than something more sinister."
Hank sighed. "Outside of the mutant community there is limited interest in curing the disease. Almost eighty percent of the known mutant population is under twenty. The vast majority of the earlier generations of mutants are either vigilantes or criminals. We have very few scientists and doctors. Sinister is the only researcher from the 'dark side' who shares his data. I dread thinking about how he obtains it. It's times likes these that truly make me realize what a terribly young species we are. And just how strained our relationship with our parent species has become."
****** ****** ******
Lance could barely hear the voice on the other end of the CB over the roar of the flames. "We are cut off!" He yelled. "Give me a direction! Where's the closest safe harbor?"
"Goddamn, idiot environmentalists." Ricky cursed.
Lance vehemently agreed. Burnt out tree stumps provided habitat. There were rules about knocking the damn things down. They'd followed the rules. One of the trees they'd left standing had fallen by itself, right across a firebreak. It became a bridge for the flames and now the fire had trapped Lance and six other guys.
"Highway… miles North…" The CB crackled. Lance nodded to himself. It had been months since he'd used his powers, since the day he'd been told he'd entered the second stage of the Legacy Virus. Normally his powers didn't have a range of miles, but maybe this once the Legacy Virus could save lives instead of taking them.
"Okay guys, we're going north." Lance yelled. "I've got a way to clear a little breathing room for us. Just don't freak when things get a little weird okay?"
The group worked their way toward the highway until they reached a dead end. Lance knelt and pressed his hands to the earth. His eyes rolled back until only the whites showed. A wave of soil crashed over the fire.
Lance fought to control it, to use the tremors to open a road to safety. The virus rewriting his DNA had other ideas. Lance gave up on controlling the direction of the quake. He allowed it to radiate outward in all directions as if he were the epicenter a natural quake. Instead of forcing the quake to make a road north he focused his efforts on controlling the magnitude. Lance forced it to turn over the topsoil and bury the flames rather than going deep. His powers wanted to crack the earth's crust and tear it asunder. Lance demanded that the quake stayed tame.
It didn't want to stop. Lance screamed in frustration as his power willfully disobeyed him. He bit the inside of his cheek. The warm coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. He clenched his fists. He was in control!
Finally the quake subsided. Lance opened his eyes to see the rest of his team huddled together staring at him with shock and no little fear. For over a mile in every direction the fire was gone. It had been replaced with acres of freshly turned soil.
Lance swayed dizzily as he stood. "W-we've s-still gotta g-get out of here." He said and realized he was shaking so badly that he was stammering.
Lance took a faltering step forward. Ricky bit back his nerves and slid under Lance's arm. "Mike, we've got plenty of room to get a helicopter in here." He said. "See if they can find us one."
****** ****** ******
The flames leapt at the X-Men with malicious intent. Glimpses of mythical creatures could be scene gamboling in among the flames.
"What is that lunatic up to this time?" Rogue demanded. Ice shot from her hands to form a barricade around the flames.
"Why y' lookin' at me cherie?" Gambit asked.
"He was your teammate once." Angel said with a frown at the Cajun.
"Dat be two teams an' a life time back." Gambit said. "To please mon amour I am an X-Man now. 'Sides like y' said: Pyro's only playing with a handful of cards an' half of dose be jokers. Nevah did know why he did much of anything."
"I don't care why Pyro's doing this. It's our job to stop him." Shadowkat said. "Angel, you said there was too much cover to get to him. Can you fly me over him?"
"You got it." Shadowkat stretched out her arms and the winged mutant caught her wrists then pulled her aloft.
They soared over acres of flames, all twisting and writhing under the unnatural influence of Pyro's power. To the west the sky was dark with thunderheads as Storm fought to protect a mid-western city that was threatened by the blaze. In the east a wall of ice, Bobby's work, prevented any further spread of the fire. Somewhere down there Kitty knew Jean, Scott and Amara where were working to evacuate families from rural homes.
When they were over the heart of the fire she ordered. "Cannonball special."
Angel tucked his wings in close to his body and dove toward the ground. A few feet above the rocky gully where Pyro cowered he spread his wings and snapped his arms forward. He tossed Kitty toward the Flame-tamer while he soared back into the sky.
Kitty phased through an overhanging ledge of rock then she tucked and rolled to come to her feet behind Pyro. What she saw shocked her. Kitty didn't see a manically laughing villain with a flame-thrower on his back that she'd expected. She found Pyro on his knees. The Australian's hands were burning. He held them as far from his body as he could. In a broken voice he pled with them. "Stop. Please stop."
Kitty gasped. Pyro turned toward her. The lesions spreading up his neck and across his cheek branded him as a victim of the Legacy Virus.
"I can't stop it." He said sadly. "Got rid of all me flammables and I still can't stop it."
"John, trust me." Kitty said. She walked toward the fire-tamer. Helplessly Pyro watched her approach.
Kitty grabbed Pyro's shoulders and phased him. She pushed his hands into the stone beneath them then stepped back. "No oxygen, no fire." She said. "Now I need you to focus. You've got to stop this."
"I can't." Pyro cried. Around them the flames changed color as the temperature rose. The rock walls of the gully glowed eerily under the blue light of the fire.
"John, you've got to. You can do this." Kitty pled.
Time dragged on. Kitty felt the sweat dry on her skin as heat stroke set in. She caught a flash of movement above them. Angel soared into the sky as Gambit plunged through the air.
The agile Cajun landed on top of the outcropping Kitty had phased through then somersaulted into the gully. There was a brace of charged cards in his hand.
"No!" Kitty screamed. "He's trying to stop it."
Gambit took in the scene at a glance. "De time for tryin's up." He said. Before Kitty could react Gambit launched a roundhouse kick. It connected with Pyro's jaw. Because his hands were anchored to the ground there was no way for the fire-tamer to roll with the blow. Gambit's kick snapped Pyro's neck as surely as a hangman's noose.
"You heartless bastard!" Kitty cried kicking Gambit in the stomach. "It wasn't his fault." Around them the flames faded back to orange as they cooled.
Gambit caught her wrists and pinned her against the wall of the gully. "Listen to me femme."
Kitty phased through him and contained her attack.
Gambit backed away. He restrained himself to blocking and dodging Kitty's blows. "Y' member dat concrete school gym Jeanie was usin' to shelter de ones she 'vacuated? It be safe 'nough for a normal fire… when he turned up de heat it be nothin' but an oven. Dere was already a babe dead and an elderly couple 'bout to follow."
Kitty stopped. Her eyes still burned with fury.
Angel landed on the outcropping. "He had no choice Kitty." Angel said. His eyes became distant as he thought of his beloved Betsy Braddock, sequestered behind thick psi-shields. It was the only way they had left to keep her uncontrollable telepathic abilities from destroying the minds around her. "Pyro should have asked help before it came to this."
****** ****** ******
Lance let the paper drop to the table. He walked to the window. He'd never met St. John Allerdyce. Pietro had though. The speed demon and the fire-starter had apparently hit it off big time.
When Quicksilver came back from the first, disastrous confrontation with Apocalypse every other sentence that came out of his mouth had started with Pyro. Todd and Fred had concluded Pietro was in love and teased him mercilessly. Several months earlier Lance probably would have joined in. Pay back for the teasing he'd endured when Pietro had realized he liked Kitty. That's what he would have done, if it had been several months earlier. As it was Lance had been too deeply sunken into depression. Teasing Pietro would have been too much effort, mostly he'd just been irritated with all three of them over the noise.
Pyro was dead now. Killed by the X-Men. Before he'd died Pyro caused a fire that burned over thirty thousand acres of farmland and was responsible for ten deaths. Pyro had the Legacy Virus.
Lance rubbed his hand over the open lesions on his arm. He walked into his bedroom and picked up the bottle of painkillers on his dresser. Lance's doctor had prescribed them when he entered the third stage of the virus. Lance hated taking them. They screwed with his head too much when he was on duty so he made due with Tylenol. The only reason he ever used them was that he needed a few good nights of sleep a week to keep functioning. His doctor was always amazed when he didn't ask for the prescription to be refilled.
Lance counted out the remaining capsules. After a few moments he went into the bathroom and grabbed a mostly empty Tylenol bottle. He swept the painkillers into the new bottle then tucked it behind his picture of the original Brotherhood and X-Men at Camp Ironback. He wasn't in any hurry and he wanted to do this right when he did it. It would be easy enough to get more pills. Hell it would probably make his doctor worry less if he acted like he was actually using them like he was supposed to.
****** ****** ******
The X-Men watched as Beast bounced about the room like an over grown chimpanzee while explaining his findings. "I thought… Nay I hoped that what we had learned might have provided us with a vaccine. Never in my wildest dreams…"
"Spill it Hank." Logan growled impatiently.
"A cure my surely friend." Beast pronounced. "You are looking at a cure for Legacy."
"A cure?" Piotr asked.
Beast had been hanging by his toes from the ceiling fan. He dropped to the floor and walked up to Piotr. "Yes Piotr, after so long we are only one step away from a cure."
"One step away… Then what we have here is what we have always had: Nothing."
"Piotr!" Kitty exclaimed.
"My friend, the only problem left is that Stryfe incorporated his twisted soul into the cure as thoroughly as he did the disease." Hank said. "I refuse to give his final human sacrifice. I will find a way to make this cure work without a martyr. All though if Stryfe himself were still among the living I'd be sorely tempted to inject this preliminary cure into him."
"What do you mean?" Piotr asked.
Hank sighed. "The final step to complete the cure is to inject it into a mutant host. Like the disease the cure will catalyze upon the first use of their powers. Then and only then will the retrovirus become active. However the catalyzation process produces a secondary product: A toxin that will kill the host. I just have to find a way to catalyze the cure without taking a life in the process."
Piotr watched intently as Hank placed the serum back in his lab and walked away with the others.
"Coming Piotr?" Cecelia Reyes called as he lingered in the lab.
Piotr shut off the lights and followed her out of the lab. He watched the rest of the X-Men split up. Each was lost in their own thoughts. They followed their individual inclinations as they dealt with the mix of hope and frustration. When he was alone Piotr turned around and headed back to the lab.
He filled a syringe with the serum. As he held it up, staring into its depths a small hand closed on his wrist. "Piotr, Hank will find a way. This isn't it." Kitty said.
"How did you know?" He asked.
"I know you." Kitty said.
"It is fitting is it not? My sister was the first victim of this disease. I will be the last."
"No." Kitty protested. "You've got to let Hank try to find another way. At least you have to give him the chance."
"My little Katya, how many more victims should we allow this disease to have while Beast looks for a cure that satisfies his sense of ethics?" Colossus asked. "I would have sacrificed anything for Illyana, my Snowflake. I did sacrifice so much to protect her: I gave up my honor to keep her safe from Magneto. It was for nothing. When I finally found her there was nothing I could do to keep her. I would have given anything, even my life to save hers but I could only hold her as she died. Now I can finally stop the thing that killed her. Forgive me Katya I must do this."
Kitty lunged. She tried to snatch the syringe away before he could depress the plunger. Piotr shoved her away and injected himself with the serum. "I am truly sorry, but this is the right thing." He said then shifted forms.
****** ****** ******
Lance felt like a shaken up can of soda. His powers were building under his skin and the slightest falter in his control would bring about an avalanche of destruction.
It was time. He thought about the stash of painkillers in his room. After today's visit to the doctor's he'd have eighty-three capsules. He'd take them when got home.
There were letters sitting on the dresser, addressed and ready to send. To Becca and Ed Jarol, to Carl Diller, to Jeremy Bills to Ricky Hanks and few others who'd been friends and who'd hear what he'd done. He wanted to explain things to them. He'd thought about writing or calling Bayville, Kitty, Todd, anyone else who was still around from the old days. He decided against it. Why put himself back in their lives just to take himself out days later? If they heard he trusted them to understand. They knew what Legacy did to a person. They all know what his powers were. They'd understand why he couldn't risk holding on to the bitter end.
Lance walked into the medical clinic. He sat the empty bottle on the counter. "Hey Jen, I need another refill." He told the girl who doubled as a receptionist and pharmacist.
She smiled brilliantly at him. "We've got something a lot better than those." She said. "We've got a cure. The retrovirus just arrived last night. Legacy's been cured."
There was a soft thump as Lance dropped into the nearest chair. He stared up at the girl, disbelief in his eyes. "Really?" He asked.