Chapter 4: Illusions

Jubilee stared at the revolting mess on the floor in front of her. "No way," she said finally, her voice flat. "Like, yuck. Peas. I hate peas. And how do you expect me to eat, anyway? With my face in the food? I'm hungry, but I ain't that hungry! I'd rather starve to death before I play yer stupid mind games!" She vented her feelings by lashing out with her foot. The bowl of food went flying, and Jubilee's aim proved true. She got Bastion square in the chest with the bowl and cup.

Bastion simply raised one eyebrow and started to brush disdainfully at the mess clinging to the front of his clothing. "How ironic." He lifted a sticky finger to his mouth, licked it thoughtfully. Maybe if the child saw him eating it, she would think it was safe. Maybe then he'd have better luck getting her to eat the pentothal-laced food. He looked at the tip of his finger as he said, "That's almost exactly what Bishop said."

She had turned away from him, staring at the rear 'wall' of her cell, but at the mention of Bishop's name she turned, her eyes wide. "Bishop?" Then she realized she was showing too much emotion, reacting too strongly to his comment, and she turned back to face the wall again.

Bastion didn't let his grim satisfaction show in his voice. Staring at her back, he said, "Before I killed him." Jubilee didn't turn around, but her shoulders hunched a little, in misery.

On the other side of the one-way illusion, Daria frowned in sympathy. The child looked so miserable, so lost and lonely and alone…And the emotional butchering Bastion was doing to her was cruel, plain and simple. I'm going to be sick, she thought unhappily. I know I should do something to help her…but I can't. I can only watch. Watch as he pushes her buttons… She turned her attention to the wisp of memory Jubilee's mind had dragged up at the mention of Bishop's name…

The X-Men were congregated around Ororo as she introduced the tall, dark-featured, mountain of muscle named 'Bishop' to the rest of the X-Men. "…and this is Jubilation Lee."

Bishop raised an eyebrow. "The last X-Man."

Jubilee blew a bubble with her gum. "Really? Cool." She tried to hide her surprise from the others. 'cording to everybody else, this dude is from some eighty years in the future. So if he says I'm the last X-Man, I guess he knows what he's talkin' about. …

Daria stared at the machinery, dutifully carrying out its function. It appears this is Lee's introduction to the X-Man Bishop. More information, more details for Bastion to linger over, before Operation Zero Tolerance begins in earnest? She schooled her features into one of bland attentiveness, but she couldn't help but feel a prickle of anger. It was impossible for the child to block off all her thoughts all the time; she hadn't been trained in that yet. Which was why she was in that circle, and not Professor Charles Xavier. And while she was alone, Jubilee thought of anything to keep her mind away from the topic of home.

Daria already had dozens of recordings of Jubilee's thoughts. She had seen the girl's early life, she knew about Jubilee's gymnastics training, her childhood in Beverly Hills; had seen Jubilee's parents murdered, had seen the child's hopelessness and despair as she was shuttled into the state system, from an orphanage to finally a foster home hat was truly horrible; while the foster parents assigned to Jubilee hadn't been physically abusive, the emotional neglect had been staggering. It was no wonder Jubilee had finally chosen to run away, desperation driving her into becoming one of the many homeless people living on the streets of California.

The X-Man named Wolverine had saved her from all that. Daria had found herself smiling as the tiny, scrappy little girl had found and helped a prickly, gruff, initially hostile older man. She watched as Jubilee's sunny smile and easy disposition had cracked Wolverine's armor, had allowed her into the dour man's heart. She had seen the memories of their times together, good and bad, and her heart contracted painfully at the thought that those two would never see each other again. It wasn't fair. Jubilee was too young, she didn't deserve this…!

They had also recorded many of Jubilee's more private thoughts . The discomfort from the too-tight strap had channeled her mind down into memories and fanciful imaginings that Daria wouldn't have wanted anyone to see had they been in her mind. But Bastion watched them all, even the more private, personal ones. It was just…sick. Wrong. And she tried not to think about her own part in perpetrating this wrongness, but as time went on and days went by, and she saw how cruelly the child was being treated, her conscience grew less and less easy to live with.

She turned her attention back to the unfolding scene in the illusion chamber. Bastion had given her a little datacard with a simulation he had put together himself, with instructions that she was to begin playback when he asked her to open the 'window'. She didn't know what was on that datacard…didn't want to know either, but it wasn't like she was going to have a choice…

Jubilee had turned to face Bastion. "For the record, Pinky," she spat, anger evident in every line of her body and every word she spoke, "I'm already tired of this game. Ain't no way, no how, yer gonna make me believe ya went and killed all the X-Men when I was sleepin'. I don't care how many visors you throw at me! I ain't—"

Bastion grabbed a handful of the wiring attached to the bulky mindsifter on her head and yanked her head back so far her mouth opened involuntarily. "I didn't say they were all dead," he crooned, his voice oily with satisfaction. What he was about to do would surely break her will. "Yet." If her bond was as strong as he had suspected from looking at all those memories she had of the X-Man named Wolverine, she would definitely break with this little simulation he had put together. "Daria, open the window."

On cue, a section of the wall started to slide up, and Jubilee started to turn automatically. "Hope I got one with…a…view…omi…" she turned fully around, and stared at the image displayed through the window for a full moment, stunned and shocked into speechlessness as tears glazed her eyes. "Wolvie…?" she whispered in a small, tight voice.

He can't hear you," Bastion said coldly. Jubilee barely heard him, her attention fixed on the screen. Logan was held captive against the back wall of a cell, strapped into some sort of machine with electrodes bristling out of attachments all over his body. His yellow and blue costume was torn, his face crusted with old and fresh blood from his nose and mouth, but he still looked defiant.

Bastion heard a recorded male voice asking, "Mutant designate: Wolverine, we will ask you again: what is the prime location of the gene terrorist faction known as the X-Men?"

On the screen Wolverine growled out, "and I'll tell ya what I told ya before, bub. Kiss my Canadian ass!"

The voice snapped, "So be it!" and yanked a lever. Electricity crackled, radiating down those electrodes from the generator in front of him, and Wolverine threw back his head and howled. It seemed to go on for an eternity; Jubilee's soft cry of denial lost in the sound of the maddened howls of agony. She remembered all too well what that had felt like…and with Wolvie's enhanced senses, what was horribly painful for her must have been almost unbearable for him. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she lowered her eyes, despair written in every line of her body. It was over. Somehow, they had gotten Wolvie, and he was being tortured. Her best friend in the world. As if from a distance, she heard the levers turn off, and in the sudden silence, she heard Wolverine's voice… "P-please…stop…"

She jerked rigid as realization crashed over her in a wave. It was a trick. Another hoax. An illusion. Whatever. Her shoulders started to shake with suppressed laughter.

She heard Bastion say, coolly, "You can end this suffering, Miss Lee. Just tell us what we want to know." He ordered the window closed, his voice filled with grim triumph at the thought that she had been taken in by his ruse. "Tell me. Tell me and I'll let you go free." He wouldn't…but she didn't know that. His lips curved in a grim smile as he saw her shoulders were shaking…and then the smile disappeared as her head came up, and he saw she was laughing.

The look on his face was priceless. Daria, outside the illusion field, had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as well. Nothing. Not a single image. She's onto us. She couldn't help but be irrationally glad Jubilee had figured it out. "God, I love this girl," she whispered to herself as she ejected the simulation card Bastion had been so proud of and was now useless. Behind her, she heard Jubilee say, "Ya almost had me there, huh! You almost convinced me he was the real Wolvie, getting' fried! But ya had to go and push it too far! Too flamin' freakin' flappin' far!"

Bastion had a look of chagrin on his face, his eyes cold as he looked at this little girl who defied him with every step, who seemed to have him all figured out. "Oh, really." His voice had an edge of anger in it. "How is that?"

Still laughing, Jubilee said, "It was the 'please stop'…any Wolverine I know would die before he'd beg!" And with that realization, the nagging fear at the back of her mind was silenced; the fear that that might really have been Scott's visor back there. It was an artifact from one of their battle scenes. She didn't know how Bastion had gotten it, nor did she care. The important thing was that Bastion did not have the X-Men, had never had them, and if she stayed firm, he would never have them. She strengthened her resolve. To relieve her feelings, she kicked the bowl on the floor again, splattering more food on Bastion's tunic. "Ya thought ya had all the answers, didn't ya? Ya thought you were bein' so shrewd…the big, smart, resourceful human…lording it over the frightened little nobody mutant!"

Kicking the bowl wasn't doing anything to relieve her feelings. She switched targets.

"You…" her foot impacted with Bastion's cheek, "…were…" kick, "…wrong!…" kick. Her kicks weren't leaving any apparent marks, but she didn't care. "Before I became a mutant, before I learned I was a mutant, I never even knew there was a difference between human and mutant! I thought the idea of somebody hating somebody else for no good reason was stupid!" she stared him down. "Is this all ya can do, Bastion? Is this what the big fight is about? Humans' right to punish—to torture—to hate! Is that what you're fighting for? If it is, you can keep yer stinkin' humanity!"

Bastion's eyes turned fiery with anger…and Daria, in the main chamber, started as an image swirled on the monitors. "Wha—?" She didn't understand what she was seeing at first. A hand, but like no hand she'd ever seen. A mechanical hand and arm, much like a prosthetic one designed for those who had had limbs amputated. Some sort of free-flowing pink stuff crawled up the limb, and began to mold itself to the mechanical construct, covering it, crawling fluidly over everything until it had solidified in an uncanny resemblance of a human hand, complete with lines on the palm and whorls of fingerprints on the tips. And then the image shrank, the angle widening, until she could see the same thing happening to the entire metallic construct, which she could now recognize as being distinctly man-shaped. The synthetic flesh ran upward, covering the face, and the features that emerged as the substance solidified were those of Bastion.

"At last…" she heard Bastion's voice say as he looked at his hands.

Daria stared. This couldn't be from Jubilee's mind… "What am I looking at…?" and in the next breath, it had vanished. "Gone?" She frowned. Those had to be Bastion's memories, but… "But…how?"

She turned to ask Bastion a question, and the words died on her lips as she saw his fist rise, then fall with a sickening crack on the child's upturned face. Jubilee's nose and mouth bloodied instantly from the force of the blow not surprising, since the underlying structure wasn't bone and flesh and muscle, but unyielding, unforgiving metal. Jubilee barely had time for a gasp of pain before she hit the floor with a wham!. She barely had time to blink away the stars of pain swimming in her eyes before Bastion was on her, wrenching her head up, glaring at her with cold blue eyes that suddenly seemed less than human. "My humanity, child," he said icily, not bothering to hide his rage, "is the only thing keeping you alive." He dropped her, pushing her contemptuously to the floor, then turned and opened the cell door.

She yelled after him as he left, "Yeah. Right. Do what you want to me, Bastion! It won't matter! It won't ever matter! I won't break! I'm never gonna break!" The door hissed shut behind his retreating back, and she relaxed, leaning her head on the bulky equipment for a brief moment before the discomfort would cause her to move. She spat a clot of blood out of her mouth, and muttered, "I showed him."

Outside the cell, Bastion approached Daria and started to remove the food-stained tunic he had worn in. Daria moved to help him automatically, her mind still busy absorbing what she had seen. "Sir…about what I saw…?"

His voice was harsh…and she was suddenly terribly aware of the slightly mechanical, grating quality to it. Funny, she'd never noticed it before. "You saw nothing, Daria. A past that never was."

She said, "Yes sir," automatically. Obedience had been too firmly ingrained into her for her to ignore it. She gathered the tunic together as he continued, "I want all the information you've gathered on the subject and have it processed within the hour. Then alert Harper and the rest of Operation Zero Tolerance that we move on the X-Men we've identified in Hong Kong the moment they are in the international flight zone. Tonight."

Daria's eyed widened in astonishment. "Tonight? That's some time ahead of schedule, sir. Are you sure you want…to risk…" She trailed off, for Bastion had paused in his path toward the door to look at her with eyes like blue steel. She swallowed hard. "Right away, sir."

End notes:

The source material for this chapter came from the latter half of Gen X #27. I did, however, take some liberties, especially with the end. Jubilee's 'I showed him' scene in the cell is actually the last panel in the issue. I juxtaposed that with Daria and Bastion's conversation because it fit in better with the flow of the story. My apologies to Lobdell and the artists, Bachalo/Mhan/Vey/Hanna, for my mangling of your work!

Thanks for reading, everyone, and stay tuned for the next chapter!