Howling winds keep screaming round
And the rain comes pouring down
Doors are locked and bolted now
As the thing crawls into town

Straight out of hell
One of a kind
Stalking his victim
Don't look behind you

Nightcrawler
Beware the beast in black
Nightcrawler
You know he's coming back
Nightcrawler

            ~Nightcrawler, Judas Priest


CHAPTER 13: ECLIPSE

"Does this place have a back door?" Veronica asked, cool blue eyes filling with sudden, liquid panic.

"Escape tunnels through the cliff face," Rogue replied, her voice distant, mind working furiously.

"We're going to run?" Jean-Luc demanded, angry.

"Well, let's see," Bobby spoke up, his voice bordering on sardonic. "The Master of Magnetism, who swatted us around like flies before he turned hero, has been taken over by the Shadow King—one of the most powerful telepaths ever—which means the two most powerful and experienced telepaths on earth have probably been possessed, too, with the Phoenix power as an added bonus. Logan is impossible to kill; our best hand-to-hand fighter and the most deadly, with Colossus coming in second for damage." He looked around at the remaining team members and crooked a humorless smile. "We're good and all, but I'm not loving our chances."

Jean-Luc turned pale, and Rogue cut Bobby a nasty glance filled with seething anger and helplessness.

"We run," she agreed with a tight, reluctant nod. "For now."

"Oh, I don't think so," came a teasing voice laced with hatred thick as molasses and a lust for pain that bordered on psychotic.

Rogue turned as if in slow motion, and saw Kitty standing behind her daughter, one arm wrapped around the girl's slim midsection, the other grabbing her chin and twisting it at an awkward angle.

"You die," Kitty contradicted and twisted Irineé's head even further to the side. "Forever."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Irineé concentrated, drawing together all her rage, her pain, her hatred, into one thin beam filled with razor sharp teeth and barbed wire. She lashed out with her mind, with the mercurial speed of thought—and slipped through the molecules of Kitty's mind like oil.

"Nice try, little girl. Can't hit what isn't there, though," Kitty said, her voice a gleeful chuckle.

Irineé whimpered as her neck turned another, painful inch, and she heard the vertebrae in her spine crack.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Dazzler grit her teeth and narrowed her field of vision, concentrating on the flex of solid muscle, the shape of vicious fingers as they cut into the flesh of a young face, and focused her power in a straight, solid line of outraged retribution.

Kitty screamed and fell back, smoking rising from a ragged hole in her forearm before she vanished through the floor, her face twisted in anguish.

And then the world became a blur, everything happening too fast for her to follow.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Lorna faced off with Logan as he burst in, using her magnetic power to levitate above the reach of his fists. Still weak from her ordeal with the Blackbird, she focused the remainder of her power on him, picking him up and throwing him like a baseball through several walls of the complex.

She craned her neck and peered through the smoking wreckage of the walls, nerves singing on edge, alert for any sign of movement, praying that he had been knocked out with concussive force.

She was completely unaware of the person coming up behind her until the moment the fist struck the base of her neck.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The air was alive with howling winds and monsoon rains, and high above it all, Storm rode the waves like a dark Goddess, eyes white with flaring power. Electricity crackled around her body, lacing her in eager, delicate purple-white, and then leaped from her in a blinding flash of energy.

Caught unprepared, Madelyne fell to the floor, smoke trailing from her mouth and nose, flesh still sizzling.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Bobby turned just in time to see Lorna go down, flying forward with the force of a punch to meet the floor with the sickening crunch of crumpled limbs. Green hair trailed out, shot through with strains of blood like a dying Christmas tree.

Bobby's mind went blank and his vision blurred with crimson as pure rage sang in his veins. The power of glaciers flew from his fingertips and the air sang with the crackle of metal as it hardened and contracted with fine, hairline cracks.

A moment later, Colussus was nothing more than a statue, still frozen in the position his punch had carried him to, arm extended, covered in rimes of frost. Metal glittered with swirls of ice that made him shimmer like some strange, exotic ornament, giving away nothing of the deadly temperature his body now existed in.

"If I were you," Bobby said through gritted teeth, "I wouldn't shiver."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Jean-Luc didn't know which way to turn. The world was a smoking, raining ruin where people crashed into each other and through walls with incredible force, and for a long moment, there seemed to be nothing for him to do.

And then the world seemed to catch fire; a bright, screaming bird of unimaginable power flexed its wings and talons within the confines of the room.

The Phoenix.

Don't struggle, child, she sent, and through the flames she stepped toward him, face serene and lovely, long legs taking sure strides through the wreckage of the room. She was peace, and comfort, and love. You were made for lighter things.

He stood in awe of her; the landscape of her mind, the beauty of her features, the smooth glow that suffused her with knowledge and wisdom. She touched him with the sweet lightness of fingers that lifted his chin, forcing him to stare into the inferno of her soul.

Worlds opened in the chasms of her eyes, and universes danced in her irises, the light of stars and the life of millions of planets caught in their depths.

She was fire.

And life incarnate.

Now and forever.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Rogue's fist slammed into Jean's face with the force of a bullet. Red hair flew, and deeper crimson flecked the air as her head snapped backward, fingers slipping from Jean-Luc's face as she stumbled backward.

"I beat you before," Rogue said, and though there were no sibilants in her words, she hissed them. Rough fingers fumbled over the skin of Jean's face, reaching into the secret dimensions of the telepath's mind and pulling.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Irineé fell to the floor, gasping for breath and grabbing at her neck, desperately trying to assure herself that it wasn't broken.

"You all right, chere?" Remy asked, crimson eyes flaring bright against their black velvet backdrop.

She took a shaky breath and tried to nod. Reassured that her head was still attached when pain shot through the tendons of her neck, she nodded with more certainty.

Remy gave a searching glance toward the chaos of the room. Rain plastered his unruly hair to his face, covering most of his features, and she couldn't see the grim smile that twisted its way over his face.

"We need to get you out of here. Where de tunnels your momma talked about?"

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Fire flickered with dim light around the edge of Rogue's form and Jean's brilliance began to fade. The telepath howled with outrage at what was being done to her, and she gathered her telekinetic ability to send Rogue shooting out and away from her, planning to crush her body against the stack of equipment on the far side of the room.

Rogue's face shivered with a deadly grin, picking up the thought easily now as she absorbed Jean inch by inch.

"Go ahead," she taunted, fingers digging deep into the flesh of Jean's cheeks and jaw line, her breath a guttural whisper more felt than heard against the plane of Jean's cheek.

"But I'll take your face with me."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Storm saw him first as he entered, feet dangling more than a foot above the floor as he soared in, face arranged in a malicious expression of glee that no human should have been capable of.

She'd waited forever for this.

Lightning poured from her in a steady wave, purple giving way to pure blinding white as she gave herself to the fury of the skies, a living conduit of rage.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Puck bounded forward and launched himself with both feet at the chest of the Master of Magnetism.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Heady with power, filled with burning, livid, anger, Storm had no time to call back the onslaught she'd unleashed.

"Puck! No!"

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Siryn had stood, patiently awaiting her turn as the battle was met. Blood and fist and bone and mutant power, and she had only one gift, one moment to give. She meant to make it count.

She watched as Puck leaped as if in slow motion, his squat, heavily muscled form extending to its full length as it arched through the air toward their most deadly enemy, saw the lightning as it left Ororo's body, on a deadly collision course.

Her lips parted. The rest of the world had gone silent, still spinning in an endless, eternal moment. Everything was muffled and far away, blurred and unimportant, and her mouth opened with a wet sound that resonated like music in her ears.

Her voice poured through her throat like the sultry creatures of temptation she'd been named for, rising like slow, liquid fire from her chest and streaming forth with the force of lava and broken glass.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

For an instant, there was pain as the high-pitched scream filled the room, its sound heavy and full, filling his head with molten lead.

For an instant, his magnetic shield, formed by the very waves he commanded and microscopic particles of mineral, wavered.

For a split-second, there was nothing but pain, howling high above the feel of molten lead, vibrantly alive as lightning danced over the tapestry of his flesh and into his brain.

"NO!" The Shadow King screamed and fell to his knees.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

A single instant, one high pitched note that was the climax of Siryn's otherwise silent symphony; one second, two, three…

And then sickness seemed to creep through her, clogging her throat, poisoning her mind, and her voice wavered, falling with the crackling sound of a dying fire.

"Probability's a bitch," the Scarlet Witch said, pressing a finger to her own smirking mouth in mockery of Siryn's silence.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Rogue's fingers trembled against the skin of Jean's face, thumbs digging deep for purchase as Siryn's scream filled her mind. Her teeth clicked together, nearly severing the tip of her tongue, and the taste of brilliant copper flooded her mouth.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The globe of power around the Shadow King wavered, flickered, and then solidified, and time caught back up.

White light exploded around him in the shape of an orb, tendrils lightning crackling and hissing around its edges.

A body arced towards it, its form beautiful with the freeform of airborne acrobatics, hands reaching out, heroism in its heart.

Eugene Milton Judd never knew what hit him.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"No!" Storm's scream was short, abbreviated in its anguish, and in an instant, the monsoon rains stopped, the winds ceased, and she slumped to the floor, head cradled in her hands.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Jean-Luc shook his head as if emerging from a trance. For a moment, there had been peace and beauty… and then…

A scream like a wake for dead souls, vibrating in his mind, drilling through the corridors and cleansing them of everything else.

Where had he been? What was he doing?

His vision cleared, and his eyes fell on his mother who lay before him, her fingertips digging into Jean's face so deeply that he wondered she had not drawn blood.

This was all wrong.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"Almost lost you," Rogue hissed, blood fanning from the corners of her mouth as she bore down on Jean.

She felt her son's awareness brush against her, and breathed a sigh of relief that he was all right.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Jean-Luc reached into the villain's mind and cut her strings like a puppet.

Her body sagged and relaxed, and he tilted his head at it with a malignant grin.

"Sorry…" he rolled his head back and forth across his shoulders, feeling the vertebrae crackle with power and energy.

"Mom."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"Mom!" Irineé screamed, lurching forward towards her mother's fallen body.

"Non, chere," Remy said, pulling her back through the debris by the heel of her foot. "We have to go."

"We have to get Mom," she said, craning her face to look at him. Dirt and ash smeared the perfect, lovely curves of her face, her pale hair wet and disheveled around the comparable paleness of her features. But her green eyes were still gorgeous and true, piercing straight through him to the core of his heart.

Was he always this much of a sucker for feminine distress?

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Storm felt her mind cloud and darken, like the weather she called to her.

Long have I waited for this, Ororo Munroe.

Her mind panes of sadness down which tears of regret poured like rain, she barely heard him above the storm in her own mind.

I have taken the life of an innocent.

And you will take many, many more in my name, he replied, entering her.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"Lorna?" Bobby whispered. His voice trembled on the syllables of her name, broke on them like waves upon the beach, passion utterly defeated by the solid reality of packed sand.

He ran his fingers through the deep green of her hair and came out bloody, red stains painting his fingertips.

"No," he whispered, bowing his head to the safety of her hair, wanting it to encompass and protect him. She still smelled of shampoo and the scent that was utterly her own; a deep musk that stirred his soul and haunted his dreams.

Green eyes fluttered open, and he sobbed into her cheek, unseeing.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"Stupid, Southern mudrat," Jean grated out, her lips curling in a snarl. "I can still feel you in here, sneaking around the corners of my mind."

Rogue's body flew across the room with almost the full power of Jean's telekinetic ability.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"Don't worry, lover," Lorna rasped, turning her face to Bobby's. Her cheek brushed his and he drew back, blue eyes wide with wonder.

"Lorna?"

"I wouldn't leave you behind," she said, and pulled him down into a deep kiss, fingers digging deep into the short strands of his dirty-blond hair.

Her hand cupped the curve at the back of his skull and her tongue explored the ridges of his mouth, tasting teeth and tongue. She licked at the edges of his soul and pulled him down, draining him with the passion of her kiss. He was hers, utterly and completely; ever had been.

And now, they both belonged to the Shadow King.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Lasher crept up behind the Shadow King, calculating whether or not his electric tendrils could pierce the veil of magnetism the other held up like a shield.

The room was humid with Storm's rain, and his stone-like skin sweated with the effects.

A little push here, a bend there… he thought he might be able to punch through.

The skin that had prevented him from knowing the pleasure of touch, from the stroke and affection of love and many other weapons, offered him no protection as a set of adamantium claws pierced his back.

He gasped and stared down at the three twinkling points as they burst through his chest, and had a moment to think that something had broken through and touched his heart after all…

And then he was falling down an endless corridor of black that called his name like the waves of the ocean, drowning him in a final embrace.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *         

Rogue's body bounced off the stack of equipment, sending it thundering to the floor with a deafening crash.

"Well," Remy said, cocking his head to one side as he surveyed the situation. He reached out and hooked an arm around Rogue's waist, pulling her close. Her body was pliant, dead weight in his arms, and he shuddered. "Dat makes t'ings a little easier."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Jean-Luc turned, his eyes glowing a bright red as he reached out with one hand and caught Siryn's chin with invisible force, pushing it up with raw will.

"I won't serve your master," she spat with venom, eyes narrowing in defiance.

"Oh, but you will," Jean-Luc breathed, pushing her face up even further as he yanked on the strings of her mind and will. "And you'll love every second."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"Jean-Luc," Irineé choked, her voice cracked with tears.

"He's lost," she said, turning her face toward Remy's, tears streaking her countenance with a gleam that broke his heart.

Remy spared a glance toward the son he didn't remember and shook his head. "We have to go, chere. Now." His voice was filled with the steel of resolve and the ghost of regret.

"I know," she said, and bowed her head, pressing her lips tight against the tide that threatened.

He grabbed her hand, and then they were running.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Their retreat did not go unnoticed.

The Shadow King raised one of his hands, calling the magnetic power of his vessel home.

"No!" Jean-Luc shouted, pointing in a different direction entirely. "She's there!"

The telepathic illusion of Irineé running dissipated as magnetic force hit it, wavering and falling apart like the heat waves of a mirage.

The Shadow King turned his eyes in the direction Jean-Luc pointed, raising his hand again.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

She was the last. It wasn't knowledge that gave her any kind of comfort or satisfaction, it simply was.

From the front lines of the X-Men to the front lines of another world entirely and back again, she had risked her life; bled and laid down her life alongside others who were willing to die for what they believed. She had spent nearly fourteen years back with the X-Men, and Alison Blaire still wasn't sure if she believed in anything at all.

No, that wasn't entirely true. She just didn't know if she believed in anything good anymore.

They were all enraptured, or running away, and she was the last.

She took a deep breath in a moment that existed out of time, and her lungs filled with the smell of memory. The scent and feel of long blond hair through her fingers, over her face.

Was there anything worth living for?

Her eyes snapped up and focused on the Shadow King; Magneto's body, his hand rising, power shooting from his fingertips.

Yes, there was one thing.

Her legs still ran, a marvel of athletic skill, still kicked and spun as she twisted her way through the debris toward her target; the space of the breath she had stolen, the beat of a heart.

She was still alive, still her own. And there was one thing worth living for. One thing, alone.

Revenge.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The magnetic force hit her with the force of a cannonball, and her body twitched, convulsing once as it clenched in upon itself.

She fell to the floor, life and awareness fading fast, running out like sand between her fingers. And still she was alive, and she was her own, if even for the last few moments accorded her.

She was her own, and no one would take that from her.

She struggled to breathe, her chest crushed, her limbs destroyed, and she wondered at the lack of pain. Perhaps there was a mercy, a divinity in death that she hadn't realized. The thought carried her forward, further into the embrace of blackness.

Above, Magneto's form loomed, eyes red and burning with hatred and incomprehensible anger, and she smiled to see it.

"I'll save you," he said, reading her thoughts as they tumbled out like confetti from a paper cup. "I'll make you the most monstrous of us all."

"No," she gasped, and shook her head, her face still painted with the grace of serenity.

"How dare you mock me now, when I have you within my grasp," the Shadow King said, his face curling into the semblance of a smile. "I will own you, Alison, and when I am done, you will wish you had died."

"No," she said again and grinned, blood staining her teeth deep red.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Nearly forgotten, completely unseen, Remy paused by the secret door in the wall as Irineé scampered past him, Rogue's unconscious body still held tight in his arms.

Dazzler's words carried to him as if meant for him alone, and their sound was the breaking of a symphony over the clouded veil of his mind. Violins rose in high discord, shivering with timeliness, and though he could not lay name to the tune which he suddenly recalled, he knew its meaning, and its end.

"Non," he whispered.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Alison tilted her head back and eased her broken jaw, sighing with relief.

"Release me," she whispered.

The Shadow King's eyes widened, almost struck with hilarity by the strange request.

"I'm already dead," she said, and shuddered.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Remy pushed Rogue through the panel into Irineé's waiting arms and turned back, his eyes burned down to the dull red of dried blood now.

He knew he needed to go, that he needed to leave this place or be possessed or killed, himself. And still he leaned against the panel, his chest heaving, his eyes indecisive.

There was one thing he had to do first. A debt that owed repaying.

Bitter tears rose in his eyes, and he closed them against the feeling, all too aware of the trails they traced over the curve of his cheek.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"I saved you," Alison whispered, the words a racking of distant pain that she nearly felt.

And the Shadow King looked up; remembering that he'd lost the target he'd been aiming for, remembering his purpose here.

"Now save me," she said, and closed her eyes, a single tear trailing from the corner of one lid.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

With a rending of mind and soul, a three-foot length of pipe flew from the shadows, its rounded edges limned in bright pinkish-purple, and the Shadow King rose and stepped back.

He needn't have. It wasn't meant for him.

The pipe pierced Alison Blaire's side, plunging through her chest and skewering her heart.

She laid hold of the slim length and pulled it close, smiling even as she died.

Her body exploded mere seconds later, shrapnel flying from the broken pipe, flesh and blood painting a grisly ideogram over the Shadow King's magnetic field.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Bobby's head rose from the tangled confusion of Lorna's lips, his eyes filled with sudden tears.

"Alison… no!"

He trembled, nearly broke from her, but Lorna pulled him back, turning his face to look at her, her eyes deep and voluminous.

He gazed deep, and fell back into their depths.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

On the other side of the wall, Remy paused, his head bowed, face still slicked by falling tears.

"Thank you, chere," he whispered to the woman he had hardly known.

Irineé held his hand, her silent tears mirroring his own.

"She shouldn't have… we could have…" her voice trailed off into faint sobs.

"She did it for us, cherie," Remy said, reaching out and cupping her face in his hands. "We can't let it be in vain, non?"

Irineé's face crumpled with tears and she shook with a racking sob, her head bowing low with the force of it.

"Chere?"

"No," she said, raising her tear-streaked face to him. The pain there was palpable, and Remy wanted nothing more than to reach out and wipe it away, soothe her with the touch of his hands; make all this okay, somehow.

"We can't," she agreed with a short, tight nod.

A child raised and weaned on war… oh how he wished he could save her from all this. And yet, somehow, he was vaguely proud of her. Of her strength, her determination despite the loss of her brother and teammates.

He wished he could remember that she was his. But it was enough right now to know that she was.

They ran, carrying Rogue with them.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

The Shadow King wiped away the few remnants of blood and flesh that had fallen upon him before he'd gotten his shield up.

Gleaming red eyes traced through the darkness, trying to locate the place from where the pipe had come.

Nothing. There was nothing. Not a trace.

But he would find them, oh yes. No one deserved his hatred and vengeance more than the ones who had escaped. He would have them kneel before him, or he would see them dead.

One way or the other.