Chapter 12: Power

Quicksilver sped back outside to where they were all waiting. Juggernaut stepped up to him. "What's goin' on?"

"Magneto's talking to the head lab guy right now. There's a kind of…you can't really see it unless you move fast…but it's like this bubble around where they are. I don't know if it's a force field or what, but I couldn't get inside it. I got close to them, but I wouldn't have been able to touch them."

"And the rest of the lab?"

Quicksilver grinned deviously. "Ripe for the taking. A couple nurses, a few doctors…guy's with guns. Lots of them. Military men. This guy is way in with the government."

"Bloody fascists," said Juggernaut. "They got Cure weapons?"

Quicksilver shook his head. "Don't know. Couldn't tell."

"Is there any opening at all in the force field?" Eden asked.

"Don't think so. If there was, couldn't see it. We'll have to get him out of it, if you want to kill him."

Eden nodded.

Juggernaut cracked his knuckles. "Well, we're not gonna find out sittin' around here. Jaida, on my back. Let's go."

He knelt on one knee so that Eden, whom Quicksilver guessed was weaker than the rest of them, could get onto his back. He would serve as her shield.

Juggernaut turned to the others. "Let's kill some humans!" his voice boomed. A cheer went up and Juggernaut ran ahead of them and plowed through the wall.

Quicksilver slipped past him through the opening. Almost out of nowhere, a group of camouflage-clad humans with very large guns slipped in after them. They fired and took a few of the less prepared ones out. One, two, three. They could never hit Quicksilver, even if they could see him. He knocked a few of them out, and took their weapons and put them where they would no longer be accessible. They had Cure weapons, he got rid of those, but kept the guns, which proved useful later on.

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"You alright?" Juggernaut called over his shoulder to Jaida. She had some plaster dust in her black hair, but seemed otherwise unharmed.

"Yeah, I'm fine!" she yelled back.

"Hold on!" he called, "here comes the bloody cavalry!"

He knocked men and women out of his way as they fired at him, the bullets ricocheting off of his skin. Jaida clung tighter to his back, burying her head between his shoulder blades.

He heard the strangest sound, just then, like a whistle, or a hiss. Something, something very larger, slammed directly into his helmet. He heard it crack, just along his ear and split. Another, less strong blast came from the same direction and he fell to his knees. He hit the ground hard, and he was…crying out in pain? He was in pain?

Bloody fucking hell, he was!

Instinctively, he reached for the helmet. He felt the split and he felt the blood. His blood. "Fucking hell!" he screamed.

So surprised was he by this pain and agony, that Juggernaut did not notice Jaida had left him.

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Eden held tighter to Juggernaut and hid her face, when suddenly, a screeching sound came from the right and took him down.

"Cain!" she cried. But he fell, as another blast from the same direction slammed into his head. "Cain!" She leapt from his back to the wall and crawled up it, narrowly avoiding a bullet and a Cure weapon blast. She looked back briefly, and saw him screaming in pain, a deep, tremulous cry, that turned everyone's heads for a brief moment in the battle.

She could not help him. Afraid and weak and terrified, she clung to the wall and slithered up it as high as she could go, as far from the battle as she could be. The lab was huge and wide and cavernous, not unlike the Lair, though more square. Whoever had been shooting at her became distracted as Pyro directed a fiery blast his way and he burst into glowing flames.

Eden eased her way up the wall and looked down from a loftier perch at the battle beneath her. Magneto and Weir were untouched and watching as she was. Then, her eyes caught something else on the other side of the warehouse. A room, with glass doors, and a man, screaming silently at nothing, pulling at the straps that restrained him, trying to get out, trying to be heard.

"Toad…"

There was a long, wide pipe reaching from one side of the lab to the other, along with wires and other, thinner pipes. She reached them and began to slide across them. The battle raged on beneath her. The dead lay still, and the dying cried in pain. She went on.

A machine gun targeted her, and she moved to the topside of the largest pipe, and hid, the bullets flying around her and opening the pipe, spilling forth its contents.

A great deal of water burst through the underside of the pipe and splashed down directly onto the field surrounding Magneto and Weir. It hit the field and washed around it, down the sides, like a waterfall, not touching them. She crawled on, her would-be killer busy with someone other mutant.

Past the half-way mark and closer to the foremost wall, she stopped, barely breathing. Her chest felt like it was on fire and her lungs were closing on her. She forced air through her nose and out of her mouth. It wheezed out like a boiling kettle. She went on.

When she reached the other side, she eased her way, headfirst, down the wall. She flipped onto the floor and came to the glass doors. Her breathing worsened.

Desperately, she looked around her and the first thing she saw was a fire hydrant. She grabbed it and with what little strength she had, threw it at the doors. It bounced back and nearly took her head off!

A woman in a lab coat rushed towards her. "Get away from there!" Eden wasted no time. She flew towards the woman's neck and bit into her until she died. She turned back to the doors and pounded on the glass. "Toad! Toad!"

"Print not recognized," said an automated female voice.

Eden stepped away from the doors and saw that she had been pounding a small console with buttons, a tiny screen, and a rectangular pad, no longer than an inch, just enough room for a thumbprint.

She dragged the dead woman in the lab coat to the door. She grabbed her lifeless hand and pressed the thumb onto the pad and held it there.

"Print recognized," said the automated voice, "Dr. Anita Taylor."

Eden thrust the hand away from her as the doors slid open.

"MAGNETO!" Toad was screaming.

She ran to him and grabbed his wrist. "Get the fuck away from me!" he screamed.

"Toad!" she cried. "It's me! It's me!"

He stopped screaming. He stopped moving. "Eden?" he asked doubtfully. "Eden…?"

"Yeah! Yeah, it's me! I'm here!" she ran her fingers through his hair and over his face and kissed his face and his lips.

"I can't see you, Eden! I can't see you!"

"I know! I know…it's alright."

Tears spilled out of his blank, white eyes. "I can't see you…I can't…"

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Pyro watched Eden drag the body of a dead woman to the glass doors and use her fingerprint to open them, the room doubtlessly holding the man she loved. He watched as she ran to him, as she kissed him, as she cut away his restraints.

It was only mere seconds, all of this, but it was like his life walking away from him in slow motion. As soon as Toad was free, she was in his arms and he was touching her face and her hair. It was only then that Pyro realized that the guy was blind. He couldn't watch this…but he couldn't not watch. A bullet whizzed by him, and the world snapped into quick and violent focus once again.

He spun instinctually and the flames erupted and took out whoever stood in the way. Your power is amazing…

His heart was sick and he backed up against the wall. Eden led Toad to the wall on the other side and they crawled up it together. He followed her, though he could not see her, trusting her. The battle was waning, the mutants seemingly victorious. He would make sure she was safe. He had to do at least that.

Then, it would be over.

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Juggernaut raged against the pain that threatened to consume him. Whatever they knew about him, about his physical composition, they had not only known where to hit him, but what to hit him with, and they had hit him hard. He forced himself off the ground, the blood spilling into his eyes and light spots dancing before him like vindictive faeries. He threw his weight into his powerful arms and swung at nothing—and hit something. People, men, women, came into contact with his iron arm and cracked and broke on contact before flying out of his way against walls and into tables.

He used his other hand to mop away the blood. It didn't stop, but he could see partly now, the rest of his vision obscured by pain and shock. He was soaked, water pouring from the ceiling, making the blood flow thin and free.

It was at this point he realized the absence of Jaida's weight. He reached behind him automatically to see if she were alright and she was not there. "Jaida!" he called out. She did not answer.

Christ, had he got her killed?

He couldn't think about that now. The battle went on, whether she were alive or not. Bullets flew towards him and he deflected them with his arms, keeping them away from his vulnerable skull. He was on the defensive now, a place he had never before been.

He had surprised them though with his comeback, that was clear. They cried in fear and doubt to "Get out of his way!" and to "Take cover!" Perhaps, they thought, he was truly undefeatable and that the blow to his head was merely a setback rather than the immense advantage it actually was. They could not tell and he wasn't about to reveal it to them.

Juggernaut was near the place, the forcefield, that contained Magneto and the Voice. The water dripped down and around it, pooling like a moat. He tried, but could not enter it. He looked around him, searching for Jaida, without letting his guard down.

There she was, on the other side of the room, climbing up a wall, another man following close behind her. That must be him, the mutant she called Toad. And there was Pyro, not so far away, dodging death and administering it. Magneto was behind Juggernaut, watching him, something like concern evident in his creased faced. Juggernaut gave him a wink. I'm alright. She's alright. He nodded towards the wall and Magneto looked up at it and saw Jaida and Toad.

They were on the ceiling now climbing over the battle. Magneto looked up at them. The Voice followed his gaze and pointed a Cure weapon at Magneto. Magneto smiled and said something. And then the Voice tilted his head to the side, as if asking a question, and fired up at the ceiling.

Juggernaut's eyes went immediately upwards, he was calling her name and the man called Toad came crashing down right into the forcefield.

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Eric saw Juggernaut on the floor, clutching the sides of his head as his helmet broke away in his huge hands and water cascaded on top of him like some kind of paranormal baptism. Weir turned and looked also. "Oh, Cain," he said, as if seeing an old friend from across a room at a party. "I'm very glad to see that that worked. I've been developing that weapon for some time now. No way to test it, of course."

Eric felt his heart drop. Where was Eden? He could not see her. That was probably a good thing. If he did not see her body, then she was not dead.

Weir turned back to Eric. "He's a good sort of fellow, Cain is. Horrible temper, though."

Eric stood there feeling helpless, desperate to join the battle that raged around him. "Weir, are we in some kind of field, you and I?"

Weir nodded and shrugged, clasping his hands behind his back. "In a way," he explained generously, "only humans and," he gestured to Eric, "people like you can get inside of it."

"People like me? Those that have been hit with the Cure?"

Again Weir nodded. "Yes." He smiled and a look of realization swept over his face. "Ah, you're wondering about the Cure, aren't you? If you want to know, I admit, I had a great deal to do with it. You don't think that a man like Worthington could come up with something like this, do you?" He removed a Cure weapon from an inside pocket.

"It doesn't work, you know," Eric said.

"Oh, but it does. It doesn't last, of course, if that it was you mean." He held onto the weapon and pointed it at the ground. "And that it because it is not a Cure. It is a weapon. It debilitates so that one can kill one's enemy." He grinned. "Do you wonder where that boy, Leech, they called him, do you not wonder where they found him? He was mine. I had him and I gave him to Worthington labs. Worthington was a sentimental man, he wanted to save mutants from a life of persecution, make them normal. I, on the other hand, want to persecute mutants to save the normal." He went on, telling his story as if he were giving a tour or talking to a student. "I gave Worthington Leech so that they could mass produce the Cure in a way that made it seem…" he shrugged, searching for the right word, "humanitarian," he said, "but, I knew that you could not resist the chance to turn it into something else, into the war I wanted. And so, I could make my weapons as a seemingly 'last' resort."

Juggernaut was off the floor, blood pouring out of a gaping wound in his head. He swung wildly and a group of armed men and women went flying in all directions, slamming into the wall and becoming bloody heaps of broken bones and flesh. He got the blood out of his eyes and turned and looked at Eric. He winked and nodded his head towards the wall to the left and Eric followed his gaze. He looked at the wall and upwards. Eden and Toad were on the ceiling, nearly just above them. They were moving slowly, as Toad was blind. A look of relief must have flooded his face, if even for a moment, because Weir was suddenly pointing the weapon at Eric.

Eric smiled. "We both know you can't hurt me with that," he said.

Weir tilted his head. "Oh no?" he said and fired twice upwards.

Eric reached forward futilely. "No!"

Toad came crashing down into the forcefield, twitching and shaking and crying out in pain.

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"We're reaching the top of the wall now. We have to climb on the ceiling."

Toad followed her instruction and felt his way onto the cold, steel ceiling. "What's going on down there?" he called to her.

"A battle," she said back to him.

"Are we winning?" he yelled.

"I think so!" she said.

He felt her foot against his hand. "Where are we going?"

"Try to get to a window up a bit and get out of here."

"I hear water running!"

"Burst pipe," she replied.

And then there was pain. He was falling and just above the sound of his own screaming, he heard her calling his name.

It was no more than a pinprick at first, a needle like any other needle. Twice he felt them, one right after the other. A second's thought had him thinking it simply ricocheted plaster or metal. Another second, and it was something completely different.

His entire body shuddered and he lost his grip on the ceiling, not like he had slipped and fallen, but rather like he was not able to hold onto it anymore, as if he had no business crawling on a ceiling. As he was plummeting downward, the world came into screeching focus and he saw white lights and fire all around him.

He hit the floor and his vision went black and red.

And then…he felt…himself…his body change…and change and change again. His eyes, his tongue, the webbing in his fingers, between his toes, it was as if he were being turned inside out. When he realized he could see again, he saw his own hands first, the webbing gone and his skin was white like the light around him. White like Weir's lab coat. White like…normal.

His tongue was so short! And his gums stretched painfully upwards and he could feel his teeth widening and lengthening. He screamed against it! Stop, stop, stop! His strength, he felt it disappear! And he knew, without knowing, that he was…human. He was normal. He was Mortimer.

Eden was calling his name. Magneto was staring at him and the Voice was smiling as if all of this were so simple and pleasant. He crouched down beside Mortimer and the smile widened.

"Pity," he said, "I missed completely. I meant to hit the girl."

It was nothing short of a visceral reaction, one that bore no thought, no consideration. Mortimer jumped at the Voice with what human strength he bore, and coupled with his anger, it was enough to knock the man to the floor and the weapon out of his hands.

And it gave the Voice enough time to shoot him in the chest.

A bullet, steel-cold, hot as hell—oh my God. He fell to his side and blood came out of his mouth, gentle, dripping, like a quiet stream…like a pool…like the pools in the Lair. He could hear water running all around him. He would swim now, if he could have anything in the world. Swim in the cold pools.

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The Cure weapon slid out of the forcefield. Jaida leapt from the ceiling, and splashed down on to the watery floor, her hair and clothes already soaking. She picked up the weapon.

And turned it on herself.

Juggernaut grabbed her. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"It's the only way I can get in there!" she said. "Don't you see? Mutants can't get in, but humans can!"

Juggernaut realized the truth of this assertion. It made all the sense in the world. But her desire to destroy herself in order to get in did not.

"Give it to me then," he said. He took it from her. "Even if I'm cured, I'll 'ave enough strength in me to get 'im out of there. We can try at least." He opened the weapon and took out a vial.

He gave it a moment's glance before jamming it into the wound in his skull.

It hit him like a kick in the gut.

He almost threw up.

He fell to his knees and Jaida was holding his face her hands, speaking to him, tears gathering in her eyes and water pouring over both of them.

It came and passed and he felt the death inside of him. Death, but he was still alive. He took her wrists in his hands and brought his face up. "I'm alright, s'alright," he said hoarsely. "Be back…in a minute."

He struggled to his feet and walked into the forcefield.

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Weir fired his weapon once. It was all he had time for.

He had not counted on this, on Cain striking himself with the Cure in order to get to him. Cain had him, he was strong, humanly strong, but strong.

Weir struggled and they fought, but he was not a match for him, even if he was no longer the Juggernaut.

Cain pulled him by his arms out of the forcefield. Eric followed.

Eden knelt on the ground. Her eyes were hungry and her teeth were bared.

Cain forced Weir's head to the one side and Eden stared at him. She stroked his neck. "Remember me?" she asked him, like an old lover.

Weir looked directly into her eyes. "My Jaida," he said. "You've come home."

She nodded. "I've come to kill you. I always knew I would."

"Do it then, darling Jaida, do it. It all comes full circle," he looked at Eric. "Isn't that right, Twenty-one Forty-seven Eighty-two?"

"What did you say?" Eric asked. His stomach froze, his heart was motionless, his mind swooned. Weir did not answer. He looked only at Eric, even as Eden bent down to bite his neck. "No, Eden! Stop!" he yelled to her. He got onto his knees and grabbed Weir by the collar. "What did you say!"

"Twenty-one Forty-seven Eighty-two," Weir repeated.

"How do you know that! How!"

Weir's free hand reached up and pulled at Eric's sleeve, revealing the numbers etched into his arm. "We've met, Eric Magnus Lensherr, in another life perhaps, but, oh the stories my father told me, about the boy who could fire a gun just by looking at it."

Eric let him go, not because he wanted to, but because his hands went slack and had lost any strength they may have had.

"My father? The officer in charge of your interrogation, the one man who knew how to control you…only because you were a boy, though, Magneto. He could never have controlled you, not as I can, now, when you're," he laughed, "all grown up."

Eric's whole body shook. He was filled with anger, new and old, anger from here, and from another life. He could taste it in his mouth…everything that had ever haunted him in his worst nightmares, he saw it all in Weir, the descendant of the man who had tortured him…who tortured him even now.

"Let me kill him!" Eden cried.

He kicked Weir in the face without even realizing he had been thinking of doing so. He might have broken his jaw, because Weir seemed to have run out of things to say.

Eden took this as a clue to kill him at last. She revealed not two, but four fangs, the bottom two flipping into an upward position, all dripping with the pumping green poison.

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She knelt on the ground and looked up at him, at Magneto, whose face was whiter than Weir's white coat. He shook with anger. She could sense it, see it. Just behind him she could see Toad, struggling for air, blood collecting on his bare chest and dripping out of his mouth, his life spilling out onto the floor.

"Let me kill him!" she cried.

And Magneto kicked him in the face. She heard the bones in his face break, his jaw snapping backwards with the force of it. The look in Weir's eyes was not one of fear, though, or even one of pain…rather, it was peaceful, as if, as he had said, everything had come full circle and now that it was over, he was satisfied with all that he had done.

She could not wait any longer and she let her bottom fangs rise. They were not necessary, but she wanted them, she wanted him to feel them all, feel a double dose of her poison.

Eden bent and smelled his neck, the sweat, the skin. And she bit. She bit long and wide and hard, her mouth encompassing the left half of his pulsing throat. She tasted his blood briefly before it was filled with her poison. And she held on.

She had given him enough. He would die.

But she wanted to feel it! Feel him die!
His artery pulsed strong as a natural resistance to death filled him, it was hard and fast…then, the poison came, her lips felt his pulse lessen, vibrating against her lips, slow, and then, it disappeared all together. She held on a little longer and then let go.

Weir slumped onto the ground, as Cain released him, wide-eyed and lifeless. A thin, quiet, smile played on his lips as the water poured into his open eyes and through the edges of his mocking mouth.

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She breathed in wheezes and wiped the blood droplets from the corners of her mouth. Magneto stood above her, holding out his hand. She took it, got up and rushed to Toad. The forcefield knocked her backwards and she fell. "Cain!" she called.

"On it," he said to her. He took a short moment to get to his feet and look one last time at the Voice. There lay justice and he needed to remember what that looked like.

Then he was through to Toad and lifting him up. The man was breathing, but struggling to. It might have been a bullet in his lung, collapsing it. He held the man and came out of the field. "On my back Jaida, let's go."

"But you can't—"

"I can still protect you," he said. "Let's go. Magneto?"

Magneto was staring at the Voice's body. He had one hand on his chin, the other around his stomach. When Cain called him, he turned, slowly, reluctantly, and his eyes were glazed and full of wrath, and shock, and strain. "Let's go," said Cain.

Magneto only nodded and followed him around the forcefield. The other mutants, who still lived, finished off the resistance and followed suite, dragging the wounded, and leaving the dead. No one pursued them.

Toad's eyes were fixed on nothing, he saw nothing now. He wasn't blind, but he couldn't see. "Eden, Eden," was all he said. Even as she reassured him that she was right there, that she wasn't going anywhere and that he was alright, he still called her name.

Magneto walked a little ahead of them. "Oy, where's Pyro?" asked Cain.

Magneto stopped and looked around. "I don't see him," he said, slightly confused.

"I did see him," said Cain, "where the hell did he go?"

His body was no where to be seen, dead or alive.

And then, he heard them.

The sirens…the whines of the alarms, the calls on the megaphones, and the guns firing as some of the mutants in the lead walked out into an ambush. "Ah, shit," said Cain.