Part III
Minisinoo
Dominic and I have climbed all the way to the statue's crown by the time Lucifer joins us with Wolverine, who's carrying the girl in his arms. Only the telekinesis of Lucifer can raise our false torch the 306 feet from the ground below to the statue's fist. We watch as it shudders, then begins to rise, up, up. Meanwhile, Erik rips off the old torch head and casually tosses it into the bay. Our own settles in its place and is locked down. "Soon," he says, "the whole world will have a new light of freedom -- freedom from fear."
I glance at Wolverine while Erik speaks, hoping that, up here in the winds over two hundred feet above the sea, Wolverine can't smell me enough to know I'm not who I look like. When Erik finishes securing the new torch, he turns to me. "Where is Jean?""In the guardroom."
He frowns. "That wasn't the plan." But he seems more annoyed than suspicious.I decide to take a chance, though if my guess is wrong, it could be fatal. "I know," I say with Raven's typical brusqueness. "I figured it'd be best, all things considered. The later she finds out about the girl . . ."
"Ah, yes." He shrugs and appears to accept this. "Are we ready to ascend?" He glances at me. "When I've transferred my power to the girl, I'll need you to teleport me down again."I simply nod, though we won't be teleporting anywhere. I don't have Raven's powers, but it doesn't matter. This is part of my plan, to be isolated with a weakened Erik while Zeus and the Wolverine are elsewhere. Once Lucifer has given his power to the girl, I'll be able to knock him unconscious and get the girl free. If she has Lucifer's power, she can get us down -- I hope. And deal with Wolverine and Zeus, as well.
But before Erik can raise us, we hear the purr of a stealth jet, passing by the island. What rotten timing and I curse under my breath as Dominic curses in Greek. Erik turns to glare at me. "I thought you said Charles Xavier was taken care of and wouldn't get back to Westchester in time?"I have no idea what he's talking about, but I've been in such situations before and bulled my way through them. Putting on my best annoyed face, I reply, "I thought he was."
"How could they have known then?""The future-teller?" Dominic asks.
"He was on the plane, as well." Erik turns back to me. "So I was told . . .""I thought he was!" I say, though I still have no idea what they're referring to. Apparently Raven was told to stop Xavier's return to Westchester. Did she cause the plane to crash? Is Xavier alive or dead? Why didn't Scott say something to me? (Because you didn't give him a chance, my sensible side retorts. I hadn't had a lot of time to chat yesterday.)
"You didn't verify they were both on Worthington's plane?" Erik demands.There's no reason to save Raven's reputation, and if they assume Warren Worthington is behind the X-Team's arrival, Erik won't look further for an internal leak. "It was Worthington's plane," I say. "I assumed he'd be on it!"
"Raven, you know better than that. We'll discuss it later. All three of you, go below and stop them."Wolverine growls and hands Erik the girl, then turns on his heel to depart, Dominic following. I hesitate. I don't want stuck in the narrow stairwell with Creed. He'll smell me for sure there, not to mention that the real Lilith wouldn't bother with stairs in the first place.
"What are you waiting for?" Erik asks. "Go.""Yes, Lucifer." I back away, hoping he doesn't register that I didn't simply bamf right from the spot, and take my time getting to the stairwell so the other two have already started down. I make my own descent cat-silent, and by the time I reach the base, the battle is already underway with Polaris pitted against Zeus, and Beast and Sabretooth against Wolverine. Apparently, Zeus just discovered that he can't hurt the magnetic bitch with lightning. Charged air sparks all around her, flickering blue like St. Elmo's Fire over her green hair. When I appear from the stairwell, Beast turns to square off against me, leaving Sabretooth to deal with his old nemesis. The noise of their bellowing fills the room and I flip past Beast, aiming for the second level rails. Grabbing one, I fling myself onto the rim; he follows. Excellent. We're above (and away from) the others.
I lure him further off until I think we're sufficiently distant, then let my whole form shimmer and my eyes phase back to their normal green. He stops cold. "You're not Lilith, are you?""No," I say.
"Where is Lilith?""Locked in a closet in the security room along with the security guards."
"Whose side are you on, Jean Grey?""The same side I've always been on, Hank McCoy -- that of mutants."
He grins abruptly. "I can see why Scott likes you." But he grows serious again and speaks urgently. "Lucifer's machine doesn't work. We have to stop him from using it.""What? I thought you came for the girl?"
"We did. But it's much bigger than that now -- Senator Kelly is dead.""How? I mean, how do you know the machine doesn't work?"
"I am a doctor." It's droll. "The DNA change doesn't last. Kelly came to the mansion when he didn't know where else to go. His body had begun breaking down within hours of the alteration. He died late this morning -- simply disintegrated into base components."I can scarcely believe it. "Scott didn't tell me about that." But again, I hadn't given him much time to tell me anything, and he'd been more interested in trying to get me to leave. "We did tests. Before using a human, we did tests on animals. The machine worked."
"Did you see the animals afterwards?""Yes." But then I remember -- I only saw them immediately afterwards. "I saw them, but -- Raven. It was Raven who reported the long-term results." I'd never thought to doubt her. Hank watches me work through the implications while the shouts of conflict drift up to us from below. We don't have forever for philosophical discussion here. "Erik doesn't know, Dr. McCoy. If he did, he wouldn't go through with this."
"Are you so sure?""What's the point if they die?"
"True. But human beings have a remarkable capacity to hear what they want to hear, believe what they want to believe, even in the face of contradictory evidence.""We have to tell him. We have to stop this. If it kills all those people . . ." I don't even want to think about the result for mutants, and turn to go.
"Mystique, wait. Think.""We don't have time to chat, Beast. He'll listen to me. I have to tell him."
"Will he listen to you? Will he believe you? Where is your evidence coming from?"And he's struck right at the heart of my own doubts. I'm not sure Erik does believe or trust me anymore, much less trust Xavier's team. But I trust them. Hank McCoy is telling me the truth as far as he knows it, and he's in a position to know. "We have to destroy mini-Cerebra."
"Yes, we do. Can you get us to Lucifer? Will you help us?"I nod once. "I'll help. But you've got to trust me. For Scott's sake, if nothing else."
"How about if I trust you for your own?"Smiling slightly, I glance to the floor below. Sabretooth and Wolverine are nowhere in sight, apparently having taken their fight elsewhere, but Polaris and Zeus are still below. Both look battered, and she rips up the floor to encase him but he twists it away with tornado-force winds. "Stay here," I tell Beast, sliding down a pole and grabbing a bit of fiberglass molding sliced off by Wolverine's claws. Seeing me coming, Zeus calls out, "Lilith!" The boy really is an idiot, announcing the cavalry sneaking up from behind. Polaris whips around, but I'm somersaulting past her before she can stop me. Using the fiberglass, I hammer Zeus into unconsciousness.
Beast has dropped over the railing, too, loping to join us. With this battle over, we can hear the roars of Wolverine and Sabretooth echoing somewhere in the distance. Polaris is staring at me with her mouth open and I glance around quickly, then shift into my own form and back into Raven's. Comprehension crosses her face. "She's going to help," Beast says."Let's go find Sabretooth, then."
"You find Sabretooth. I have to get back to Erik."Polaris glares. "I thought you were on our side?"
"And do you think I'll do you more good showing up with you, or letting Erik think I'm on his side?""He's a telepath, won't he know?"
"People tend to accept what their eyes tell them. But keep Wolverine away. Erik will suspect only if he thinks to, but all Wolverine needs is one good whiff."Nodding, they head off, leaving me. I kneel by Dominic. He's bloodied in several places, and I dab some of that blood onto the fur of my borrowed form. I need to look suitably cut up, then I head for the stairs. It's a long climb a second time, and I'm panting by the time I reach the top. "Erik!" I call out as I reach the torch platform. "Zeus is down, Mystique is down. We need to evacuate!"
A small door opens in the torch's side and a moment later, he floats onto the platform. The wind whips his silver hair and red cape. "I don't think that will be necessary. Jean."I freeze where I'm standing, and wish I really did have Raven's powers to teleport away. "How did you know?"
"When you admitted to not verifying that Destiny was on the plane. Raven would never be so careless -- nor would she admit to it, if she had been.""But you sent me down with the others --"
"It made no difference. No one can stop me now. And please -- take your own form. No need to maintain the charade."I obey, but I'm not surrendering yet. "Mini-Cerebra doesn't work, Erik. The change doesn't last; it just kills. Senator Kelly is dead!"
"Who told you this? Xavier's pet dogs? We've conducted experiments ourselves; the machine works.""It was Raven who gave the final reports. She lied."
"You don't think I'd know, if she had?"Furious, I miscalculate. "You didn't know I was seeing Scott for three years!"
Lost in fury, he backhands me, knocking me into the railing so that I almost overbalance, and I grip cold metal as he shouts into the wind, "I trusted you! And you repaid me in betrayal!""I did not!" I wipe blood off the corner of my mouth. "Not once in three years. But question you? Yes! Am I not allowed to question you, if I think you're wrong? It was you who taught me to question in the first place. It was you who taught me to use my mind critically! Does that only apply to others?"
"If you were using your mind critically, you'd realize how you've let Xavier's people manipulate your emotions. Scott Summers doesn't love you, Mystique. You're useful to him. Yet you're ready to sacrifice everything you believe in for this phantom love. Women always were the weaker sex, easily mislead by feelings."And I don't know whether I want to scream or cry, and whether it's because he doubts the authenticity of Scott's feelings, or because he doubts me for my gender. "I don't think it's Scott who's deceived me," I say. "I think it's you. If you really thought so little of me, why'd you call me the daughter of your heart?"
His expression is bemused. "But I don't think little of you, Jean. Fathers protect their daughters. We recognize their virtues and weaknesses, direct them towards what's best for them. I gave you missions that suited your unique talents, missions that didn't require you to make ideological choices you were ill-suited to make -- as you've proved by this ill-starred affair with Xavier's brat."Bitterness tastes like wormwood. "What about your friendship with Xavier?"
"I've never let emotional attachment get in the way of necessity, Jean.""You assume I would?"
"It's quite clear that you have. You've sided with them, have you not?""I haven't sided with anyone except mutants! It's you who've stepped over the line, Lucifer."
I remember what Hank said to me earlier about people being unable to see the truth even if it was right under their noses. "Your machine doesn't work," I continue, "but you refuse to believe that because it doesn't suit you to believe. Is that rational? And even if it did work, what makes you think that little girl" -- I point to the torch where Ilyana must be strapped already into the seat of mini-Cerebra -- "can possibly make the changes to DNA that you can? It takes more than raw power, and deep down, you know it! You kept the full truth from me because you knew I was the one who'd see the flaws in your plan and confront you about them! Dominic is too stupid, and Wolverine only cares about Wolverine. As for Raven -- she hates humans. She'd do anything to start a war with them. The more humans dead, the better, as far as she's concerned. Of course she'd lie to you about the results, because it meant you'd go through with this insane idea!"He's enraged now and I watch it fire his eyes while red flames lick all around his body. "So King David must have felt," he thunders, "when faced by Absalom."
"No," I spit back, "so Tamar must have felt when David wouldn't pursue justice because he didn't want to see the truth about his other son! Absalom did the honorable thing, Erik! Not David!""Enough! If you think Absalom right, then die like he did!" And I feel a TK fist grab me and fling me over the edge of the walkway, out into space. And I know I will die, just as Erik said. The harbor is a long way down, and at this height, hitting the water will be like hitting concrete. Even if I survived the impact, I'd be too broken up to swim.
Except I don't fall, or not more than a few feet. I stop with a jerk that almost dislocates my shoulder and find myself glued to the bottom of the walkway by the metal communicator on my wrist -- the only foreign object on my body. My heart is pounding in my chest and for two breaths, I'm just too surprised to react. Then I grab a support strut with my free hand and swing my body up to lock my legs around it while glancing about wildly. Below, on the observation deck of Liberty's crown, I spot Polaris, one hand flung out towards me. She's flanked by Beast and Sabretooth. No sign of Wolverine. I want to warn them that Erik knows about me, but the fact I'm in my own form and dangling from Liberty's false torch should be a mighty big clue.I don't know exactly what happens next because I'm too busy holding on. I do know that Polaris must have created a diversion for her rescue of me. I hear a lot of shouting and see the red glow of Lucifer's power above me, and the quick peek I take back towards Xavier's three shows them thrown back inside the crown. Well, what had they expected, going up against a man who's arguably the most powerful mutant on the planet? (Whether that title belongs to Lucifer or Xavier is a matter of opinion.) But I can't help them now, not directly. The best way I can help them is to get back up on that platform.
The wind at this height is horrible. It blows my hair into my face and freezes my fingers and toes, and I'm all too conscious of the fact I'm 300 feet above the harbor. Every muscle in my body has cramped and I toy for a moment with just letting go. It might be easier than hauling my ass back into a fight that I'm probably going to lose. But I've never surrendered in my life and I'm not starting now, so with my legs still tight about the strut, I release one hand to reach for a new handhold, then scoot my body after. And so it goes. Reach, grip, pull, scoot, reach, grip, pull, scoot. It becomes my mantra.I've made it to the edge of the platform when abruptly, shards of the ceramic torch encasing mini-Cerebra explode outwards, and I know that Lucifer has succeeded in transferring his power to the girl and started the machine. He must think himself unassailable. A quick glance around shows the sky red above me, and a little below, on the crown, I can see that the X-Team is distracted. Wolverine's shown up. He and Sabretooth square off once more, but that doesn't last long before Polaris just lifts Creed by the metal on his bones and flings him out into the bay.
Recover from that, I think. Of course he will -- but not immediately, and that's all I care about. The red glow is spreading, seeping out across the water, and even if the X-team ran down the stairs to the arm level and then climbed back up, there's simply no way they can reach the torch in time. Polaris can fly to a limited degree by manipulating the earth's magnetic fields, but I doubt she can handle the high winds at this altitude. I'm the only real chance the girl Ilyana has, the only chance the diplomats on Ellis Island have, but I have only minutes to get myself back up there and stop the process.Then I feel a pull at my wrist, on the communicator, and glance around. Polaris has her hand out once more, trying to help, or at least make sure I don't fall. And if her magnetic touch really doesn't assist much, just knowing she could catch me again gives me the guts to move faster until, hand on a strut of the railing, I peer over the platform floor. No Lucifer. He must still be in mini-Cerebra and the bottom of the false torch hides me from his view. The sky above is even redder, six great wings of fiery glory reaching up into the sky as if Liberty gripped a seraph in her fist. I'm almost out of energy -- so tired. But if I can just get over the edge without being seen . . .
One leg up, knee bent, I pull with both arms and feel my belly slide over the freezing cold metal floor. But annoyingly, I'm too big in my natural form to fit under the rail. "Shit," I mutter. I'll have to shift, compress my mass to make myself small. It's not that I lose actual weight in a shift. Mass is a constant, but density isn't, not for me. It took me years to learn to adopt forms that were appreciably larger or smaller, but even so, I have limits. I couldn't turn myself into Scott's cat -- which is too bad; there might be advantages to being a cat right now. Then I realize the railing is shifting, rising up -- Polaris, of course. She's making it easy for me to get up there even if she can't get there herself, or affect mini-Cerebra directly. I drag myself the last few inches to safety, then lie still a moment, panting, though the floor is iron cold and the red wings around us have expanded half the distance. Above, I can see Erik kneeling just outside the door of mini-Cerebra, his shoulders slumped -- his back to me."Up, Mystique," I whisper, crawling towards the central pole so that I'm directly below the torch and hidden again. I've been lucky so far, and I glance towards the crown. It's just Polaris there now, watching. Sabretooth and Beast must be on their way, even though they know they can't reach the torch in time. Pulling myself up, I try to think. Even weakened, Erik is formidable, and there's a reason Polaris can't just stop the machine directly. Erik can block her even now. But sometimes the simple approach is best; I just need a weapon. Glancing towards the rail, I point to it, miming me swinging a baseball bat -- hoping Polaris gets the idea.
And indeed, one of the lower crossbeams detaches itself to float towards my hand. Snatching it out of midair, I glance up. Unfortunately, if Erik can't see me, I can't see him, either, but I assume he hasn't moved, and if I climb up the rear, the machine itself will block my presence. Only the front is see-through. So I scuttle up a small, built-in ladder to the back rim. I'm betting if he's facing any direction, it's towards the statue and Ellis Island, and I edge around the opposite way. Sure enough, when Erik comes into view, his back is towards me once again.Raising the iron bar, I bring it down on his head, not hard enough to shatter the skull -- even now, I can't kill him -- but he drops like a bull six feet onto the platform below.
I waste no time verifying that he's out, and yanking open the door, find the girl twisting in the seat, screaming silently. I know I might kill her if I shut off the machine while a person is locked into it, but I'm out of time and alternate recourse. I bring down the iron bar on the delicate control panel. The crash is loud, and the girl has time to draw one breath before the red-flare effect disappears -- sucked right back into her. She stiffens, then collapses in the seat.Dropping the bar, I tug off the helmet and unfasten the straps, then check her pulse, careful to keep her glove in place. Flutter, flutter. Pause. Flutter. Longer pause. Flutter. Longer pause. "No," I hiss. After all this, she's going to die anyway. Picking her up in my arms, careful not to touch skin just in case, I carry her out of the machine and look down at the torch platform below. Lucifer lies crumpled on the deck; that's the good news. The bad news is that it's still six feet down. Alone, I could make it easily, but carrying the girl, I might twist an ankle.
Suddenly, a door in the platform slams open and Beast surges up, swinging himself into a fighting crouch. He spots first the unconscious Lucifer, then me, standing above him. "Is she alive?" he shouts over the wind."I'm not sure!" I shout back, and pass her down to him. He bends to examine her and starts CPR as I leap onto the deck to join him.
Sabretooth is pulling himself onto the deck now, too. He nods to me, cautiously, but speaks to the doctor. "The girl?"McCoy doesn't reply, just shakes his head, though he's still working. Sabretooth pushes him aside, not roughly, but not gently. Dropping to his knees, he takes the girl's hands and pulls off her gloves, then claps them to the sides of his own face. At first, I'm not sure what on earth he's doing, but then I recall that, like Wolverine, he's a healer.
"Come on, kid," he says. Beast and I watch, yet there's no response. She remains limp in his grasp. McCoy hangs his head and I glance over my shoulder towards Ellis Island. It seems cold, but I can't help thinking that even if we lose the girl, we saved all those people and that's not a bad trade-off. Yet I can see boats on the way -- no doubt police or harbor patrol. And a helicopter is lifting off."We need to go," I tell them. "Unless you want to be arrested."
"What should we do with Lehnsherr?" Beast asks."Give him something to put him under for a while and leave him."
"They won't be able to hold a telepathic-telekinetic of his strength -- ""And staying here to confront the police is going to solve that problem?" I snap. "Try explaining the situation to biased, mutant-nervous police."
Before he can retort, there's a hiss and we whip our heads around to look. The girl is jerking in Sabretooth's grip -- alive. And Sabretooth is jerking, too, gasping like a beached fish; veins stand out under his skin. McCoy leaps forward to pull him away from the girl's deadly hands, and she crumples onto her side, still sucking in air. We have our miracle for the evening, I think. But the boats are still coming, and the helicopter is closing on us, searchlights swinging. "Come on," I say, hurrying forward to grab the girl and unceremonious sling her over my shoulder, heading down into the arm's stairwell. "The sooner we can get out of here, the better."I'm stuck watching events unfold on television, just as unable to affect them as any other viewer but condemned to suffer by greater knowledge of what's going on.
The students and I have gathered around the television in the den. There aren't so many students at the school, even now -- perhaps thirty-five, total -- and Hank's permitted Piotr to escape the medbay for the evening. He takes up most of one couch. Despite the language barrier, the kids have accepted him into their midst. Some of that owes to sympathy, but some boils down to the simple fact he's an attractive young man. Jubilee, Kitty and Marie all vie to fetch him pillows or a glass of water . . . much to Bobby's dismay. Gloomy with jealousy, he slouches beside me and distracts himself by making tiny time-bombs. Funny, how the small dramas of life go on, even with something so critical looming over us all.Not that the kids know how much rides on tonight. They do know that Piotr's sister was kidnapped, and they know Ro took out the team earlier; the jet's departure is hard to hide. And they assume (rightly) that the team went after the girl. But they don't know the rest of it -- and I'm not telling them. No one saw Kelly's arrival but the adults, and no one else knows of Lucifer's plans to transform the diplomats on Ellis Island -- and use Ilyana to do it. Even Piotr doesn't know all of it. The kids are watching the summit because it affects them as mutants. I'm watching the summit, hoping that everything stays quiet. And for a while, my hopes are met; there's little footage of Liberty, just a few shots of her rising spotlighted in the background. Nothing appears amiss.
Half an hour into the summit, things change. There's burst of red light from off-screen left, and a pause in the closed-captioning. All the kids sit up and take notice, and I can tell they're chattering to each other even as the camera swings towards Liberty Island.The statue's torch is glowing. This wasn't a scheduled display, the caption says at the screen bottom, followed by useless questions. Within seconds, flames seem to lick upward into the night and the commentators are asking if the torch (improbably) has caught on fire. But this isn't real fire. I know what it is. Lucifer, I mouth. In the hubbub of the den, no one notices, though Bobby is pulling on my sleeve, trying to get my attention. I hold up a hand, hushing him and lying, "I don't know anymore than you do."
The Lucifer Effect is growing, spreading out from Liberty towards Ellis Island, and my heart slams hard inside my ribcage while my gut seizes. They must have failed, and that means they may be dead. In that moment, and despite the imminent danger to every human at the summit -- not to mention the worldwide impact that transforming them would have -- my main fear is for the people I know, not the people I don't. Jaw clenched, I grip the couch cushion, while around me, kids are on their feet. They can still remember 9-11 and are starting to get hysterical. So are the diplomats on Ellis Island. On-screen, we see security running through the crowd, trying to initiate a useless evacuation while the camera bobs as the carrier is moved along with the rest. And I'm not sure I can breathe, much less make myself move, but I have to. I'm the only adult here with the kids, the only one they have right now. (Please, God, not the only one they have left.) "Calm down!" I call out, aloud. "Calm down!"And then, right before our eyes, the red light vanishes completely, as if it never had been. And the den goes utterly silent -- even I can tell. Questions follow, both in the captions on the screen and from the kids around me. I tell them I don't know. And I don't. I don't know what happened, but I feel an overwhelming relief. They're still alive. Or someone is. Someone stopped Lucifer, and I wish I knew who, and whether Jean is with them. I can be forgiven for worrying about her, I think. Before long, I find an excuse to get away from the kids, leaving them under the watchful eye of the older students. I tell them I'm going to go find out what I can, as if I have some magical source, and they let me go, probably assuming I do. But I just need to be alone.
Ducking into Xavier's office, I slam the door and sink down into one of the leather chairs in front of the desk, my eyes closed, blocking out everything. I concentrate on simply breathing -- in, out, in, out. Please, be okay, I think. Please, please. All I can do is wait, and I feel sick to my stomach. I can face a crowd of several thousand, or the whole U.S. Senate. But waiting alone and helpless here, now, I'm the most frightened I've ever been.Feedback always welcome.