Hey there! Thanks for all the reviews again :)
I'm off to Cambridge for the weekend with my boyfriend and his family, so I thought I would post this up before I went, because I'm nice like that. lol
Now for a bit of shameless promo... I've been writing another story called Sooner Or Later. It's a love story and doesn't have much in the way of action, fighting and blowing things up (not like this one lol) but hopefully plenty of drama and romance. I'd love for you guys to take a look at it and tell me what you think because it's so unlike anything I've ever written before.
Hope you enjoy chapter nineteen of Starbright!
"Magnificent, isn't she?" Magneto said, looking up at the Statue of Liberty then back down at her.
"I've seen it," she replied.
Her hands were caught in handcuffs, and already sore from where she had tried to pull loose from them. He was going to kill her. He had never been after Logan, it was her he had wanted all along.
"I first saw her in 1949. America was going to be the land of tolerance. Peace," Magneto spat the word 'peace' out.
"Are you going to kill me?" She asked fearfully. She had to know.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because there is no land of tolerance. There is no peace. Not here, or anywhere else."
No there wasn't, not now, but she would make it so there was. It was what she was born to do. Her gift, her right.
But before she could do anything she had to wake up. She had to be dreaming, because these memories didn't belong to her.
Wake up!
Jack woke with a head full of thoughts that were not hers. Thoughts of Logan, a home she had never seen before and thoughts of Bobby.
"Rogue…" Jack murmured as she winced, trying to contain all these stray thoughts.
She tried to remember what had happened. She had been at a restaurant, dining with the Worthingtons. There had been dancing and then…
Jack didn't remember much after that. She had been shot, she thought, but there was no mark on her body where a bullet might have hit her. But then, she didn't know how long she had been out – she could have been in a coma for months. And why was her head full of Rogue's thoughts?
She lay back down in bed, wondering where everyone else had got to. The mansion was extremely quiet. She couldn't hear a sound except that of a radio, playing quietly to itself in the corner, presumably to keep her company, and an insistent beeping that was coming from somewhere within the medical room she was in. It was starting to annoy her so she sat up and took a look around. She assumed it was coming from some piece of medical equipment, something she could hopefully unplug.
As soon as she sat up to take a look she knew something was wrong. The familiar weight of her necklace was no longer around her neck. She looked round to the table at her bedside, knowing what she would see there. Her necklace, the unusual symbol wound around a spherical orange gemstone, was sat on a tray. The orange gemstone was flashing in time with the beeping.
Jack's eyes widened in horror. She swung herself out of bed, dressed quickly and, grabbing the necklace, made a run for the door. In the background the radio repeated the alien message over and over again.
Rogue came back, reading the paper as she walked, heading for the living room where all the kids were gathered.
"It's still being funny!" Siryn complained as she walked in.
"I know," Rogue said, "Every TV in the world is."
"Even my Dad's in Ireland?" Siryn asked.
"Yep," Rogue said, turning back to the paper.
"How is that possible?" Jimmy asked.
"The TV is tuned into a satellite," the blinky kid said, "if someone hijacked that signal or something it could work, right Rogue?"
"Yeah, I suppose," Rogue said. She didn't really have a clue, but thought the kid would be happiest if she just agreed with it, "I'm just looking to see what the paper says."
"What does it say?" Jimmy asked.
"I uh…" Rogue looked at the picture and wondered if the truth would scare them, "Not much," she said in the end, "Pretty much what he said." She nodded over at Blinky.
"This is annoying!" one of the younger kids said.
"Well, why don't we put a DVD on," Rogue suggested, taking a box out of a nearby cupboard, "You all stay in here, choose one – and no fighting about it! I'm just going to go down to the basement."
"Ok Rogue," Siryn said, then began mediating a discussion about which movie to watch.
Rogue smiled at them all, then headed down to check on Jack. When she found the medical room empty she forgot all about the kids, ran straight to the garage, grabbed a set of keys and drove off to find Storm.
The newspaper vendor was still rubbing his greedy hands together when a girl with ratty brown hair pushed through the crowd around him, grabbed a paper and marched off again.
"Hey!" he called after her, "You're supposed to pay for that!"
She didn't even look back and soon vanished among the crowds that were milling around.
"Bloody kids…" he grumbled.
Storm looked around the area. People were gathering in their thousands, and there was no way that the combined efforts of the army and the police force would ever be able to keep them away. They had only managed to set up a shaky perimeter, and as soon as the riot police were overpowered, everyone would swamp into the park to get a closer look.
Humans… They couldn't accept mutants but they were ready to accept aliens with open arms.
"Do you think we can expect Magneto to make a show?" Logan asked.
Storm turned to him.
"I don't know," She admitted, "I think it is safe to say he had some sort of plan in mind. His movements have never been random – the attack on the school, springing his Brotherhood from jail, you can guarantee there's a reason behind it all. But, I don't think Magneto anticipated this. It might just throw a spanner in the works of whatever it was he had planned."
"In other words you don't know," Logan said with a smirk.
"Basically," Storm said.
"I'm sure our magnetic friend will have something to say about all this before too long," Hank said.
"What are we doing now then?" Bobby asked.
"We wait," Storm said, looking skyward.
"What for?" Kitty asked.
"For something to happen," Storm replied.
One by one the other X-men followed her gaze, staring up through the buildings and clouds, looking for any sign of the approaching ship.
Jack marched purposefully towards the clearing where Magneto was still hiding out with his Brotherhood. Pyro was the first to see her.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, but gave her no chance to answer. He just shot a jet of fire out at her.
Jack turned to him and held up her hand. Pyro felt something in his body tug suddenly, and his control over the fire died. Jack pulled it towards her hand, shrinking it down until it fitted in her palm, then closed her hand over it, extinguishing the flame.
"Don't," she said coldly.
Pyro flicked his hands, the contraptions on his wrists producing a spark, but he was unable to control it.
"My power…" he said with horror, "You've taken my power!"
"Yes," Jack said, "And if you want it back, you better take me to Magneto, now!"
Pyro looked at her fearfully and did as he was told, leading her through the trees to where Magneto's camp was located, flicking his hands disbelievingly the entire way.
"Magneto!" she called, "I want a word with you!"
Magneto stood up, a look of amused surprise on his face. His Brotherhood didn't look quite so amicable.
"What is she doing here?" the Juggernaut demanded, starting his charge towards her.
Jack shot out a beam of her immobilising energy, stopping him dead in his tracks. With her other hand she manipulated the spark that Pyro was repeatedly producing and used it to create a flamethrower to push back another mutant that had moved to attack her.
"Call them off Magneto!" Jack called, "Or do I have to go through them all before I'm granted an audience?"
Magneto chuckled and called his Brotherhood off. He looked down at the girl before him. She had changed. Gone was the light-hearted indifference, in its place a darker, colder look. She looked entirely serious and exuded power, a force to be reckoned with rather than the minor irritation he had always considered her in comparison to some of the other X-men. The rest of her demeanour suddenly matched the depth of her eyes. Magneto was intrigued.
"I do believe there are many things you haven't been telling us about yourself, Jack my dear," he said walking over to meet her.
"I can sense her," Callisto said, surprise echoing through her voice, "Careful Magneto, I don't trust her one bit."
"I don't make a habit of telling my enemies my deepest, darkest secrets," Jack said.
"If we are your enemies, then what are you doing here?" Magneto asked.
"I need your help," Jack said, coolly looking him in the eye.
"Why not ask your precious X-men?" Magneto said with a smile, "What can we do that they can't do better."
"Because the X-men don't kill people," Jack said.
Rogue all but crashed the car into a parking space. It was actually just a gap between two generators, but for now it would have to do. She didn't have the time to find a legal space, and with all the people running around she would probably run someone over.
She got out and locked it, running towards the line being held by the riot police, trying to keep the crowds back from the park. Rogue pushed through, her distinctive white hair granting her a fairly fast passage to the front.
"That's Rogue, the X-man," people were whispering all around her.
"Hey!" she called, banging on the shield of one of the police, "Let me through, I need to get to my team mates!"
"We can't let anyone through, boss's orders," the police officer called back.
"I'm not just anyone," Rogue said, "I'm Rogue, I'm an X-man!"
"We can't break the line," the officer insisted.
"Fine!" Rogue snapped.
She took a step back then ran at the officer, using the strength and agility born of many a danger room training session to vault over him. She pushed down on his shield and flicked her legs over her head in a graceful flip. As she landed the crowds stopped pushing to applaud. She bowed with a wide grin on her face before running off to find Storm.
Suddenly she heard a collective gasp. People stopped running around and one by one turned to look skyward. Rogue followed their gaze and looked up. Bursting through the clouds was a space ship, not unlike the jet the X-men flew. All around people cheered and applauded, but Rogue's stomach sank again, that ill feeling intensifying again. She had to get to Storm before it was too late.
"Well, I've never had a problem with killing people," Magneto said, "But before I agree to help you, I would like to know why, and why I should help."
"Why, because this whole planet will be in danger if you don't, and if that isn't enough to satisfy why you should, then you should because I told you to," Jack said.
"No one can tell me what to do," Magneto said, "Least of all a skinny little girl who is one against my entire Brotherhood."
"What good are your Brotherhood if they don't have powers?" Jack asked, holding out her hands.
All around random members of the Brotherhood gasped as something deep inside of them wrenched. They all tried to use their powers and found, like Pyro did, that they had been robbed of them. Magneto felt the same rip as Jack took his power from him.
"How do I look now, Callisto?" Jack asked, her voice echoing strangely within her own throat.
"Of the scale," Callisto murmured fearfully.
All the metal tent pegs were wrenched from the ground and ripped apart into tiny pieces of metal. The fires from the campsite all shot to the sky, surrounding the metal.
"Imagine it, if you will, Magneto," Jack said, "A rain storm of molten metal falling from the sky onto your Brotherhood. You try to run and a shockwave of energy released when I clap my hands together knocks you all to the floor, and you are left defenceless, writhing on the ground in agony as my fire descends upon you."
She closed her eyes and breathed out. All around the Brotherhood felt the shove of something returning to them.
"Or you can agree to help me," Jack said, tears running down her cheeks from the intense effort it had taken to sustain so much power, even for a few moments. The death trap in the sky fell to the floor, harmless.
"What do you want us to do?" Magneto asked.
"I presume you've seen this?" Jack asked, holding up a newspaper. On the front page was a satellite picture of the approaching spacecraft.
"Yes," Magneto said, "They come in peace!" He read the headline of the paper.
"No," Jack shook her head, "They don't."
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