In the night
Come to me
You know I want your touch of evil
In the night
Please set me free
I can't resist a touch of evil

Arousing me now with a sense of desire
Possessing my soul till my body's on fire

A dark angel of sin
Preying deep from within
Come take me in

I'm so afraid
But I still feed the flame

You're possessing me

            ~Touch of Evil, Judas Priest


CHAPTER 12: SEDUCTION

He had been known as Amahl Farouk once, when the world was young and just beginning to lose its innocence to the age of industrialism. It was a time when the word mutant had yet to be discovered, and even then he had had great plans.

He scarcely even recalled his mortal body, what his face had looked like. Such concerns had been beyond him the moment Charles Xavier had cast him from the mortal coil and deserted him on the astral plane. Left for dead by his enemy, he had become part of the weave of the astral plane itself, had become a spirit, a force without face and known only by the name Shadow King. And though the name pleased him little, the fear with which it was spoken pleased him greatly.

He was a mirage, the desert flower, the hidden oasis, salvation wrapped in deception, waiting only to devour. He was timeless, ageless, at once tied to everything and nothing at all. In his attempt to slay his enemy, Charles Xavier had created a foe beyond all reckoning.

Seduction was a fall from grace, a beautiful descent into darkness and desire that could only truly be appreciated by one practiced in its art. Humans and mutants alike thought themselves noble and pure, despite all their actions to the contrary. Could he be blamed for opening the fragile flowers of their minds? For allowing them to experience the darkness and anger and base desire that drove each of them on a level they were barely even aware of? Like the serpent in the Garden, he dangled the fruit, and let each of them taste of the truth. The anger, the hatred that consumed them did not come from him; it came from within, and that made its taste all the more sweet.

He opened them, but he did not control them. They followed him willingly, their blood lust and hatred fueling their fervor. Forces unknown and unspoken, forbidden to be thought of, were far stronger than any moral code imposed by the world. They reveled in their freedom, and he was their savior.

Seduction was a slow, languorous art, all the more beautiful for its simplicity, perfect in its duplicity, and he was a master. Slowly, ever so slowly, he granted the heart's desire for freedom, for power, for control, and they flocked to him.

Prisoners in a web of their own making, he only showed them the design.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Jean-Luc stood at the top of the world, his arms raised high in the air, as if in supplication. Power sang in his veins and writhed on the wind around him, rising in a crescendo of glory. Above him, the sun shone, bright and blinding, and below, people bowed and scraped like tiny stick figures, their words and efforts futile, lost to his ears.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Irineé  sat and watched over her brother with a troubled heart. Almost twenty-four hours had passed in relative silence, her father and brother sleeping through the mental effects of their struggle.

She didn't understand what had happened, why her brother had lost control like that, but it worried her. Worried her even more than the tenuous grip of sanity their father was holding on to.

Jean-Luc moaned and shifted in his sleep and Irineé  felt a sudden chill creep down her spine, the sound of his voice lodging there with icy claws and digging deep. The image of a mountain flashed through her mind, and all around her, the grass turned black and withered as blood began to rain from the sky.

The image passed as quickly as it had come, and she shook it off, chalking it up to her overwrought emotions. Maybe she had better get some sleep, herself.

She fell into a sea of troubled dreams, the feeling of foreboding skittering up and down her spine like a millipede.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Ororo stood in the old attic room of her home in the mansion. Devoid of furniture or the plants she had once so loved, she felt stripped naked beyond the bare skin of her flesh, which rose with the chill of goose bumps, wintery wind drifting down through the open skylight.

Logan's arms tightened around her chest from behind, twining around her with complicated emotion. The moon loomed large above, filled with questions and dreams, and beneath its light she felt small and vanquished. What was her pride in the face of this?

She turned to him, words on the tip of her tongue, entire revolutions and revisions spinning on the edge of her mind. The design of the universe, of everything that was possible seemed to flash before her, and she had only to touch it to take back the space of years.

Forge's face stared back at her, and her blood turned to ice.

"Untouchable, unreachable Goddess," he accused, voice falling from his mouth with a rasp that was at once his and Logan's both.

"No," she pleaded, desperate. "I gave up that persona years ago."

His face became fluid, melting like candle wax and reforming into Logan's knowing smile. "Fat chance, darlin'," he said, and she felt his claws trace a pattern over her heart.

Arctic wind filled the room and he disappeared before her eyes. She was freezing, ice cold, bone-chilled in a way she had never known. Her skin tightened with a rime of frost that seemed to spread from the design over her heart, and her neck crackled as she craned it, staring down at the symbol he had left behind.

A bloody "x" crisscrossed her dark breast, the cuts shallow and sluggishly bleeding even as they pumped out ice. A symbol of her team, which she had devoted her life to. A symbol in mathematics declaring that which is unknown.

She stared down at it and felt her skin harden, her insides turning to solid ice, and knew it was a condemnation… a declaration.

A mark to cross out that which no longer existed or mattered.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Irineé  stared into a mirror, at last finding a place of peace between the corridors of her nightmares. She breathed deep, took a moment to think.

In the mirror, her face twisted, shifted, becoming almost demonic, and she gasped and backed away.

A dagger slipped between her ribs from behind, penetrating her heart, and she turned, blood frothing on her lips, breath escaping from the slit in her lungs as she stared at her attacker.

Her own face grinned back at her.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Remy tossed and turned and thrashed in his sleep, ghostly images chasing him down the corridors of his mind. There were people there that he knew—he knew he knew them—but he couldn't remember who they were, or what they wanted. He tried to speak to them, to ask them what they wanted, but every time he stopped, they attacked him with fists and hands and weapons, and so he ran on.

All around him, boxes rose and towered in precarious stacks, seemingly endless as they rose up out of sight and forward beyond the range of his vision, as far as he could see. No matter where he ran, no matter how many corners he turned, they went on, relentless, heedless of his predicament.

Cardboard boxes, wooden crates, file cabinets, metal lock boxes, all labeled with strange, mysterious words that he felt he should know somehow, but didn't recognize. Bizarre words and phrases surrounded him, flying by in meaningless syllables as he ran; Guild Laws, Elixir, Candra, Externals—

He stopped at the end of the row, his attention caught by one box in particular, larger than the rest in the row. Chains surrounded its girth, clenched in place by a gigantic padlock, and dust covered it so completely that he had to wipe it away to be sure of what he was reading. Its label was just as cryptic as the others, hastily scribbled in a scrawl of handwriting he recognized dimly as his own.

The others were coming, screeching with glee as they chased him down. He didn't have much time. If only they'd give him a moment…

He reached out and touched the padlock.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The moon touched down on the horizon, and on the other side of the sky, the sun began to rise.

Somewhere not too far away, the Shadow King began to laugh.

And Remy's eyes snapped open.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Bobby woke from strange dreams he couldn't recall, and struggled from the bed, head feeling like it was filled with damp cotton.

He pulled on his robe and hit the button to open the door to the hall, and stopped in surprise.

Remy stalked down the hallway, eyes fixed straight ahead, not even pausing to glance at Bobby as he passed, though surely the cajun must have seen him.

Bobby blinked. "Remy?"

But he was already gone.

Bobby harrumphed and tightened his robe around him. "And Lorna says I'm cranky in the morning," he grumbled.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Lorna entered the storage room of the complex, humming tunelessly beneath her breath, mind occupied by the supplies she'd come to retrieve. Even with the rows fluorescent light it was dim in there, as if some sort of aura kept it darkened. Boxes and random items and equipment trailed off away from her in towering rows, and shadows pooled at their base, yawning into darkness toward the end of the low, narrow halls. Staring down them, it was all too easy to imagine the boogeyman of her childhood lurking around every corner, waiting for her to step right into his arms.

She shook her head and stepped inside, pushing the ridiculous thought away.

The door slid shut behind her as she stepped inside, and the thoughts she'd chuckled at a moment before returned with a vengeance, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. There was something down here, she was suddenly sure of it. There was a sound, more sensed than felt, the presence of another… she cocked her head to one side, eyes narrowing. And there was a smell, familiar but haunting, tickling at the edges of her mind.

Fear fell to the wayside as warrior instincts took over. As if in a daze, she stepped forward, senses heightened with a sudden rush of adrenaline, every nerve standing on end as she strained to catch any sign of who the intruder might be.

That smell… its name danced on the tip of her tongue, its memory loomed on a burgeoning wave…

She rounded the corner.

Remy crouched like a predator beneath a precarious tower of boxes, form steeped in shadows, his trench coat spread out around him like a living extension of his body. The dull orange glow of a cigarette flared in the darkness as he inhaled, the faint light illuminating his face for a brief moment. Smoke rose as the shadows eagerly reclaimed his features, leaving behind the twin embers of eyes; baleful crimson brilliance that glared hatred and eclipsed the tiny fire held between his lips.

"Remy?" she whispered, her lips feeling suddenly dry.

His eyes snapped up and focused on her and she was sorry she hadn't listened to her first instinct.

He dropped the cigarette with a leisure that belied the menacing posture of his body, and rose to his feet with a whisper of leather like a phantom rising from the mist.

"Sorry, Belle," he said, his voice smooth and gritty and dripping with acid. Every tone echoed menace, every syllable promised pain and torment beyond imagining. "Can't let you do dis."

Terrified though she was, Lorna forced herself to hold her ground. This was her friend, her teammate. Surely he didn't mean to hurt her.

She remained completely rational right up until the tip of his bo staff smashed into the bridge of her nose.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Rogue awoke with a start, unsure of where she was. She sat up, eyes blinking rapidly as they took in the room around her, and she leaped from her bed, turning to stare at it as if it were some kind of unsuspected enemy that had snuck up and stabbed her in the back.

Her heart began to calm its frantic beating, freed at last from the molasses of her nightmares, and she pressed a hand to her chest, reassuring herself that she still breathed. Scattered images still raced through her mind, pieces of a terrible past she had wished a million times forgotten.

Ah'm okay. Everything's okay, she thought.

She lifted her eyes from the bed, reassured at last of where and who she was—and froze solid.

Her image stared back at her from the mirror across the room, its expression frozen in a mask of horror she could barely feel on her own face. The body she saw was her own, and it shook and trembled with sheer terror.

It was clad in the white and green uniform of the Brotherhood.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The shrill ring of the commlink interrupted Bobby's solitary breakfast, and he sank sulkily deeper into his bowl of oatmeal, hoping someone else would answer it.

He spooned another mouthful of pasty, cinnamon flavored gruel into his mouth and swirled it around, swallowing in exasperation as the commlink continued to ring.

He slammed the spoon into his bowl and rose from the table, carrying his oatmeal with him. If he was going to be interrupted by some kind of emergency, he was going to make sure that this time it didn't happen on an empty stomach.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

In the basement storage room, Remy leaned over the face of Lorna, one hand rubbing the stubble along his jawline.

He stared down at the serene face and contemplated, hand tightening against his bo staff.

"Sorry chere, but dis need to end, now."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Bobby clicked off the commlink and scraped up the last of his oatmeal.

No emergencies today, he thought, rejoicing.

He had barely swallowed when the alarms began to go off all over the complex.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Rogue hesitated only an instant, shaking fingers poised over the zipper of her old uniform. Then she rushed from the room.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Theresa Cassidy woke to the sound of alarms, and found herself in front of the computer database with no memory of what she had been doing or why she was there.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Eugene Judd did a backward handspring out of bed, coming up to face the Marauder who'd been about to kill him only seconds before.

The empty room mocked him with the reverberating sound of alarms.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

In the basement, Remy paused, head coming up as the alarms began to sound. Something in that sound was familiar…

He blinked and snapped to awareness, eyes wide and filling with horror as they looked back down to the woman who lay, unconscious on the floor below him.

Blond hair wavered and shimmered, dissolving into green, and rounded features slimmed, cheekbones lowering just a notch.

"Mon Dieu," he whispered.

The bo staff fell from his hands and clattered to the floor.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Irineé  jumped up, immediately on guard and awake, fist crashing through the mirror of her room.

The alarms sounded as she stared at her hand, watching the blood trickle from shallow cuts.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Jean-Luc awoke, moving from dream to reality almost seamlessly as the claxon of alarms played on.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Bobby's eyes narrowed on the monitor, and he pushed the button that would open the front door of the complex, his hand already up and ready to freeze the intruder where they stood.

"You've got thirty seconds to explain yourself," he said, when no threat seemed imminent.

The woman before him opened her mouth as if to speak, and then all hell broke loose.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Rogue rushed from the hallway in an outfit Bobby still had nightmares about, and other X-Men rushed from every corridor, their eyes bright and confused, the glint of madness in their eyes as if ready to attack without question. Irineé  and Jean-Luc entered last, their eyes dull and dazed, but no less ready for combat. He turned, questions rising to lips, and then forgot what he had been about to say as Remy emerged from the basement, carrying Lorna's limp body in his arms.

"What the hell happened?" he exclaimed, rushing to take her pliant body from his teammate.

"I'm… I'm sorry," Remy said, and Bobby understood two things in that moment. One, Remy was responsible for Lorna's state, and two, he was damned lucky that the alarms had gone off or she'd be in a lot worse state than she was right now.

"What the devil is going on?" Rogue demanded, emerald eyes suspicious as they flickered back and forth between Bobby and her estranged husband.

And from behind them, forgotten, the delicate figure of a woman stepped through the doorway, dark hair disheveled, blue eyes bright despite their obvious exhaustion.

She spoke in a tone that seemed altogether too reasonable for the chaos that had descended on them.

"Perhaps I can explain."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"Get. Out," Rogue said, advancing on the woman. "For all we know, you're responsible for all this."

Veronica Hayes' lips curled in a sardonic smile that neither confirmed nor denied Rogue's words. "True. But send me away now and you'll lose valuable information."

Rogue seemed not to hear the woman as she put her hands against Veronica's chest and pushed her back through the doorway.

"I know why your husband's alive," Veronica said, voice quiet as she met the other woman's scalding gaze.

Rogue's eyes widened, and she ceased to breathe, backing up a step as the words hit her with the force of a slap.

"What?"

And then Remy stepped between them, pupils swirling like the red storm on Jupiter against the black backdrop of his eyes. They bore into her with promise and pain, and she was reminded that this time, he was at full power.

"Talk fast, chere."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"I am Doctor Veronica Hayes, top consultant and head scientist on a project to create a robot that could travel through time. The project was based specifically on a robot you all may be familiar with, called Nimrod."

"A Sentinel," Rogue hissed, eyes narrowing. "You created another Sentinel and you got the nerve to come walkin' through our door?"

"I never claimed to be your friend; I merely said I have information," Veronica replied with a faint smile. "Think of me as a reluctant ally."

"Ah'm gonna be thinkin' of you as a smear on the floor if you don't get ta the point soon."

Veronica took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. "We were to send the robot back in time. But time travel is tricky at best. It requires a disturbance in the time/space continuum to focus on if one expects any kind of accuracy. Great expenditures of energy provide the best focal point to achieve such a goal. Time and space seem to bend around such events, leaving the stream malleable, open to change. In short, the friction and vibration of molecules, at an extremely heightened level, seems to actually punch a hole in time/space. In human terms, this would require the equivalent of a nuclear explosion. Lacking a nuclear explosion within the time frame we needed, we focused instead on an equivalent explosion of mutant design."

Rogue started visibly, and she looked to Remy, but he only stood, staring at Veronica with flat, calculating eyes, arms folded over his chest.

"We sent Nimrod II back in time to the point where the mutant known as Gambit attempted to destroy the mutant known as Sinister. It seemed simple enough at the time. What we didn't count on was the temporal transference that occurred."

"Temporal transference?" Rogue asked, her voice sounding sharp despite the distance of her shock.

"We calculated as precisely as we could. But because we could only track Gambit's biorhythm in that very moment, we had to focus on him. Because he was about to die, Nimrod II's presence would affect nothing, and time/space would be barely concerned as the vacuum wouldn't last more than a millisecond before Nimrod II's form replaced Remy's—almost tricking the time stream into not noticing, as it were." She cleared her throat, and tried not roll her eyes at their looks of confusion. "We meant to send Nimrod II back in time to the moment of a split second following Gambit and Sinister's deaths, altering the time stream as little as possible," she clarified. "But we calculated a millisecond too soon, and because the space had to be vacated for Nimrod II to appear… well, we ended up with a transference instead."

"I t'ink you'd better repeat dat in English, chere."

"What I mean is," Veronica said with a sigh, "that two separate pieces of matter cannot exist simultaneously in the same place." And still, they stared at her, looking blank. "Even time has rules. I can't exist in the same space as this coffee cup," she said, motioning to the mug Bobby had set down nearby. "It's a paradox that time cannot abide. The whole timestream would collapse, and even something as un-sentient as time does its best to keep such things from happening. So, Nimrod II took Gambit's place just a split second before his death would have occurred, and Gambit was sent forward in time, right to the spot where we had launched Nimrod II from. For lack of a better way to explain, they 'switched places'. It was a very fascinating lesson in the way that time works," she added.

The X-Men stood and stared at her, wordless.

"I was there when he died," Rogue said, her voice cold and ragged. "I was linked to his mind. I felt him die, felt the last star of his mind wink out." She paused, took a deep breath, banished the tears from her voice. "He was dead."

"Originally, yes," Veronica agreed with a slight incline of her head. "But now, it seems more likely that you felt his mind disappear as it was yanked forward in the time stream."

Rogue shook her head, mouth opening and closing like a dying fish.

"He was inches from death when he teleported in. We nursed him back to health, healed him."

"Out of the goodness of your heart, Ah'm sure," Rogue snapped.

"No," Veronica disagreed with a sudden smile. "On the orders of my superior."

"But… why?" Rogue asked, eyes searching the Doctor's, all semblance of anger gone now. She was desperate for answers, and it might have touched Veronica's heart once, long ago, when she was young and still believed in truth and hope.

"I have no idea how you people remain so naïve," Veronica said with a shake of her head. "My superior's motives were less than noble, I assure you. Plan A failed, Nimrod II failed, thanks to some sabotage by my mutant assistant. So we went to Plan B, namely, divide and conquer. Time travel erases memory. Language, basic teachings, these things remain, because they are timeless and absolute. Understandings that exist as a basic structure, separate from the sense of self. But the sense of self is malleable, based on experience and the passing of time. When one travels within time, the sense of self is lost because the linear process of events and experiences has been changed. The loss of memory is temporary as the mind reasserts itself and finds its place in the time stream, but nonetheless complete." She paused, considered. "Unless one is very experienced in the workings of the mind."

Remy turned on her slowly, red eyes like fire as they leveled on her. "So you sent me here to manipulate everyone else, shake dem up, throw dem off course."

"We knew what would happen, yes. We were very aware of the relationship that has developed between the mutant called Magneto and Rogue," Veronica said with a nod at the mutant female. "And of the problems it would cause with the children and the entire team. It was our superior's hope that the entire team would be ripped apart by your presence, leaving them open to further manipulation."

Remy's eyes flickered uncertainly to Rogue as he processed what the Doctor had said about Magneto, but he hardly had time for that now. "You used me. Played with my life," he said, advancing a step closer to her, eyes seeming to burn right through her.

"Yes," Veronica replied, voice steady. "But you were only Plan B. Something we didn't plan on, that fell into our laps."

Rogue reached out, put a hand on Remy's shoulder, stopping him. Her eyes were wide with sudden knowledge.

"What was Plan A?"

"The assassination of the mutant known as Magneto in the year 2004, before he became the up and coming powerful figure in politics that he is now. Of course, we would have preferred to take him out before the unfortunate events concerning the Shadow King's possession occurred, but our mutant history records are not as complete prior to that date. So we had to settle for what we could get."

"But… why?" Rogue was baffled. "He wasn't a threat to ya'll anymore. He wasn't possessed anymore."

"No. But his political standing and the movement of the Mutant Council towards mainstream acceptance was a threat. Cut off the head and the body falls."

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," Bobby muttered.

"Mutant hatred," Theresa accused. "That's your reason for all this? Fear that we might become accepted as part of the human race?"

"You're not human," Veronica countered, voice icy.

"Neither are you, lady," Bobby said, shaking his head.

"There was another very good reason for taking out the mutant called Magneto," Veronica added, a sudden, sardonic smile creeping to her lips. "Not that it matters anymore."

"What do you mean?" Rogue asked, advancing a step on the woman.

"I mean," Veronica said, voice slow and very succinct, "that he has become the Shadow King again."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Rogue stood open-mouthed, rage and anger coursing through her like a living thing. In the face of all the conspiracy she had just witnessed, this was the absolute worst. "Lies," she hissed. "That's impossible. We killed the Shadow King a long time ago."

"We've been tracking the mutant known as Magneto as much as we could. Biorhythm's are tricky; they don't give you an absolute location, but they can be found. Magneto's changed just recently, right after the launch of Nimrod II, just slightly. It changed again last time I checked on him, and he had changed immensely in the time span of a single day. My partner was able to locate the source of energy as being in New York, simply because it was so large and powerful. Plan C was located in New York City, the last temptation of Magneto, so to speak, but I think the Shadow King is the reason it didn't come to pass. I believe his contact there in New York led the Shadow King to my superior and corrupted him. That's why I fled. And faced with the threat of the Shadow King… well, there was only one place I could think of to come," she finished with a shrug.

All the X-Men were reeling.

"No," Rogue said, but her voice was weak, lacking conviction. The slight change; that had been the transference to Joseph's body, and the major transformation… No. This woman had to be lying. But it fit. It all fit.

"The very fact that I found your secret complex should tell you I had an in," she went on, voice like smooth glass as she interjected on Rogue's thoughts.

Joseph's body; the Shadow King's back-up in case Magneto's body ever failed.

"Remy told us everything he knew before we sent him back to the very room he claimed was his own."

Magneto was in New York. He'd been having headaches…

"I have no reason to lie about any of this," Veronica went on.

The dreams. Her costume. Rogue's mind raced. Her eyes locked briefly with every X-Man in the room, and she saw the same fears, the same nightmares reflected there.

Ororo shook her head, slow and resolute. "It is impossible. I was there when we killed him."

"The dreams," Irineé  breathed. Her green eyes searched the faces of the others, hoping for confirmation. "That's what the dreams were about."

Ororo's face collapsed, hope dying still-born.

"We've all had them?" Rogue asked, looking around. Silent, mournful faces nodded in accord.

"Damn," she muttered, turning away. "Well, at least we have a little bit of time."

"Uh…" Bobby spoke up, sounding regretful. "No we don't. Magnus contacted me a little while ago to tell me they were en route home."

Rogue opened her mouth, about to ask how much time they had left, plan already beginning to formulate in her mind. Too late, too late.

The floor shook and the walls reverberated with the sound of jet engines.

The Blackbird was home.