Chapter Sixteen: Lies and Revelations
Wolverine sniffed the wind carefully, narrowing his eyes for a glance around. He'd gotten the transmission that one Maximoff had been found and the other was still inside and in need of a rescue about ten minutes ago. And he had no fucking intention of abandoning his hunt to sit around and hash out that battle plan. Leave that to One-Eye.
This was his way.
If he managed to get what he wanted, they'd have more information than they would need to bust into this joint and end this whole fucked up little game that Sinister freak was playing. He'd picked the wrong damn kids to fuck with.
Scalphunter wasn't moving so great. His tracks were erratic. He was favoring his right side and hunching something fierce—Logan hadn't laid eyes on the man proper, but he didn't need to see him to know that much. Logan also knew that Scalphunter was keeping tabs on him as well somehow—there was no other goddamn way the man would've been able to avoid him for so long. The terrain was working to his advantage… or had been.
Wolverine was done playing, though. He gave a sudden burst of speed and strength to his legs and started bounding over the rocks and around the scrubby trees on the mountain, directly toward the wounded Marauder he knew was leaning against that huge outcropping only a few yards ahead. He heard the man's footsteps start, heard him stumble and fall into the low brush. It only made him run faster, push harder. Smiling.
He rounded the outcropping and leapt toward his quarry, who was laying face down in the brush like some kind of goddamn animal that had laid down to die. He landed on the man's back hands first, and grabbed hold of his faggy little vest near the shoulder blades. There was a sickening, satisfying crack as the weight of Logan's adamantium coated skeleton cracked a few vertebrae (or something in there, anyhow). Logan's knee arrived on the scene and lodged itself firmly and forcibly against Scalphunter's tailbone, with the full force of Logan's beastly momentum behind it.
To the half-dead man's credit, he only grunted with the extreme pain he must've been feeling. Logan snarled. He knew it sounded like pure anger, but to his mind, there was a mild measure of respect in the sound as well. If the man hadn't already been shattered all to hell, he might've made a good opponent.
Logan tightened his grip on the faggy little vest (which was going to be his nickname for this fucker, if he lived past this little adventure) and jerked upward, bending the man's spine backward unnaturally, but not so much that he'd snap it. Yet. All this without removing his knee from its position against the now-cracked tailbone. Man smelled like blood and resignation. Like an animal who'd given itself up.
Wasn't no harm in trying, though. "You willin' to die for your boss's secrets?" he snarled, lowering his face so that he was almost growling in Faggy Little Vest's ear. "Or you wanna tell me how to get in there?"
This was what he'd come for.
The man coughed. His mouth moved like he wanted to say something but couldn't.
Logan let go of the F.L.V. and the guy slammed face first into the brush like a sack of potatoes. "What was that again?"
The man put his hands down on the ground slowly. Logan kept his knee in Scalphunter's back/ass area, but let him move. It proved to be a good choice as Scalphunter used the leverage to push himself upward just enough to pull his face out of the shrubbery. He turned his head sideways, let himself fall again, and looked up at Wolverine with already-dead eyes.
"Fuck you. Kill me."
Logan growled again, this time even lower and even more severe. He didn't want to kill the fucker. He just wanted the info. "Don't be a dumbfuck, Chief. Tell me what you know and you live."
"I'm dead already," the man glared as best he could.
Logan smelled no fear on him. Just blood. More and more blood, and it was mostly internal. He smelled like he was dying. He smelled like he knew he was dying, and couldn't fucking wait for it.
"The only reason I'd talk would be if I thought that Maximoff brat would die—," he coughed and couldn't finish his sentence.
"Son of a bitch…," Logan growled, sitting back against a rock and shaking his head. This guy wasn't going to talk. He was dead anyhow.
"Kill me," Scalphunter croaked, blood trickling out of his mouth and staining the brush below his head. "Don't be a pussy and leave me here. You know you have—."
He couldn't finish.
Logan sighed. He rose to his knees and released his claws, feeling the metal cut through his flesh with that familiar, horrible flash, feeling his knuckles re-knit immediately. Without another word or thought, he slammed the claws into Scalphunter's back. There was that familiar rush of resistance, then give. Logan knew all too fucking well how to hit the heart without having to bother cutting through rib. He didn't owe this bastard any extra work, after all.
Scalphunter didn't even twitch. He just rattled and died. Like a good little villain.
Wolverine pulled his claws out of the man and retracted. The blood was left on his knuckles. Still stooping low, he wiped it off on the dead man's coat, then stood and looked down at the guy for just a minute more, shaking his head.
Fucking asshole.
"Cyke, this is Wolverine," he said into his communicator. "Scalphunter's dead. I'm on my way back."
Jean turned as she heard the rustling behind her, a smile pulling at her lips for the first time in what felt like years. She'd been waiting just for this moment—for Warren Worthington to wake up.
She knew it was idiotic of her to put so much stock in the restorative powers of a loving boyfriend—and she never would've for herself. But Jeanne-Marie… Jeanne-Marie was the single most codependent human being Jean Grey had ever met. And Jean loved her for it, these past few weeks had proven that much to her unquestionably. But Jean… just wasn't sure how to help her. And she wanted with something bordering on desperation to help her.
Part of it was that it was all her fault. But she'd dealt with that now, and consequently retrieved much of the independence she'd felt slipping away from her in the post-protest days. She'd taken responsibility in her mind for all the things she'd let come apart, starting with her move to campus. All the thing she'd been trying to ignore. Her talk with Scott had somehow started her down the path of… acceptance, she supposed. It was impossible to ignore how lax she'd been with her relationships while she was breaking up with her boyfriend and best friend. The catastrophic events of the last 24 hours had fast forwarded the process—Jean simply hadn't the time or energy to divert into suppression and foolishness.
And now that she was there, she needed to do what it was she did. Which was move things forward. She knew damn well there was a lot of residual guilt and difficulty ahead for her… but there wasn't time for her to feel sorry for herself right now. She had to make things better.
She just needed a little help on this one. She could admit to that, when it was for Jeanne-Marie.
"Jesus… do you people use morphine…?" Warren raised one hand, a tad sluggishly, and dragged it through his cropped, golden hair. His eyes were drooping and his lips seemed to be moving slower than they should.
Jean felt that slight tug of a smile again. Warren K. Worthington III, on drugs. She never thought she'd see the day.
Maybe now wasn't a good time for jokes… but goddamn, she needed a few right now. She wrestled the unavoidable feelings of attraction and interest for Warren to the back of her mind, to suppress for another day. It was a quick enough job. The way to deal with this situation was to use business. So she decided that she'd be all business… as best she could.
"You've been sedated for awhile, War," she came to his bedside and looked down at him, still smiling faintly. "Your ankle will be okay and the other injuries are minor. Your ribs will just hurt for awhile."
"Don't cracked ribs hurt for months?"
Jean bit her bottom lip. She'd kind of hoped he wouldn't go there. "It could've been worse," she pointed out.
Warren sighed, but smiled back at her just the same. "So where's everyone else? And what the hell happened?"
Jean decided to answer the latter question first. The former was… complicated. She wanted to start this out easy… there was far too much Warren didn't know yet. She was glad she could be the one to break it to him—at least they were friends. (Even if they wouldn't be, if he'd known how she'd behaved for the past few weeks… a decided unbusinesslike thought that Jean pushed away quickly.) But part of her didn't want to have to break the news to him. Particularly the news about the Beaubiers.
"It was a Marauder attack, that much you know," she said, settling into the chair beside his cot and hugging her clipboard to her chest. "Preemptive—they'd assumed we were going to find them and attack. We figured that much out from a headful of Riptide that Rogue got and Blockbuster—the one Kitty, Kurt and Logan took out. Who's currently in the brig."
Jean waited for Warren to nod to continue. He'd just had a rough couple of days. She'd better take this slow. Once he obliged with evidence that he was following, she continued. "They were using dart guns juiced with the same serum they shot into Pyro when they took out Magneto—it dulls the powers, among other things.
"Scott took a team to Transia to look for the Maximoffs hours ago, now that people are mostly recovered. We just heard from them—they found Pietro and they're going after Wanda. It is Essex. He's Sinister. They're planning to neutralize him ASAP." Jean left out her misgivings on the subject. The report Storm had submitted roughly fifteen minutes ago had been woefully incomplete… but it was all they had to go on. She knew Scott could handle this, though.
"How's Jean-Paul holding up?" Warren asked.
Jean was… surprised. She'd expected him to ask about the other twin first… but for all he knew Jeanne-Marie was fine and dandy. Jean-Paul was the one who'd run off after Pietro in fits. "Alright—he's the one who recovered Pietro."
She debated on saying more. But he saved her the internal argument by pressing onward, "And Jeanne-Marie? I didn't see her after the fight."
Jean bit at her lip again.
Warren's eyes widened. "Jean…"
"She's okay, Warren," Jean insisted quickly. "She's just… she and her brother had a pretty nasty fall during the fight with Vertigo. Aurora and I were…," she closed her eyes as she trailed off, picturing the battle in her mind again, as she'd done over and over since it had happened. It had just been so horrific to see… "Jean-Paul showed up while we were fighting the bitch off," she opened her eyes and took a deep breath. No point in making it even more dramatic, god knew. "When Aurora and Northstar tried to connect to make their light, they both blacked out. The procedure…"
"Oh god," Warren turned white as his bedsheet and leaned back on his pillow with a thump. He understood. "But Langkowski said her powers wouldn't be affected—,"
Business. Business. "Hank and I looked at them both… and it looks like while her powers weren't affected, the genetic connection between her and her brother was. It was a gene altering therapy…"
Warren just closed his eyes, hissing through his teeth. He looked like someone had just stabbed him in the heart. And Jean felt very much like she had.
She stood and went to his side, taking his hand in both of hers. "She's not doing so well, War. Mentally."
She said it, even though she had to choke the words out to get it there.
"I need to see her."
Jean nodded. "I can bring her down. She's upstairs," she let go of his unresponsive hand, trying not to feel slighted or disappointed. She really wanted him to… be there. She turned to call Jeanne-Marie… but stopped. Looking over her shoulder at the ashen angel on the bed behind her, she asked, "War… can you handle this?"
He opened his eyes. They were bright and blue. And determined. "I don't think anyone else can."
Storm handed the last of the sports drink to Pietro and sank into the seat next to his. The speedster did not bother with pleases and thank yous, and for once, Ororo was not irritated in the least. She'd watched Pietro go through gallons and gallons of the rehydrating beverage in mere minutes. It was almost like watching a dry brittle sponge soak up water as Pietro had guzzled the drink faster than she could retrieve it for him—it returned a great deal of vitality and spark to the formerly dry and hallucinating child.
Between her trips to the cooler, Pietro had filled their company in on the developments of recent days. How his mother was behind the nightmares he and his sister had shared in Bayville—unbeknownst to them she was a dreamweaver of sorts. How she was in league with Sinister, though that part was strangely cloudy. Pietro tended to skip the bits he found unimportant. Several times, particularly once he'd gone through a few gallons of sports drink, Scott had to ask the boy to slow down and start from a given point of departure once more. Pietro had grumbled then obliged each time.
Ororo had found it most interesting to hear that the boy had fought several Marauders on his own and come out to tell the tale. That did not sound like the Quicksilver she'd come to know and understand—infamous for his lack of qualms about… well, running away. She watched him carefully as he spoke, but saw nothing but earnest intent to divulge his entire tale to them. The boy then moved on to how he'd escaped and how he'd been hunted on the mountain like some kind of fox or rabbit, in a way he clearly felt was for the sport of his would-be captives. Her heart went out to the boy at that, and she felt another twinge of regret that they at the Xavier Institute had not found a way to help these children. She understood Charles' thinking well enough—the protection of those students they already had was paramount and anyone or anything that might bring disaster on that establishment and those students entrusted to them must be avoided.
But as she watched the broken, still bleeding Pietro Maximoff tell this tale of extreme suffering… she was struck by how young he was. Those dark blue eyes, exactly like his sister's, were older than the rest of his face… but he was just a child. Was any child really worth sacrificing like this? Was any child beyond saving?
As she had the thought, Toad hopped to Pietro's side.
Ororo watched him silently, but thought to herself of that first meeting with him in the mansion, when Kurt was their only "new" recruit. And sighed. Maybe there was something to Xavier's philosophy.
But the thought was simply internal comic relief. She knew they'd been wrong. And she vowed to make things right as soon as she returned to New York. Xavier had been wrong one time too many. And no one was in a position to tell him so but her.
"We was worried, yo! How come you only told this fool," Todd whipped his thumb over his shoulder to indicate Jean-Paul, who had hung at the back of Pietro's chair since bringing him back to the Jet, "where you were heading?"
He then whipped his tongue out, obviously intent on intercepting some native insect he'd spied.
Pietro reached out at full speed so that the next thing she saw was that he held Todd's extremely large tongue captive between his thumb and forefinger. "Because you can't keep your nasty tongue from wagging, that's why," he wrinkled up his nose in prissy disgust, then let go of the aforementioned tongue.
It snapped back into Todd's head, sending him flying into a nearby Blob (who'd also been lingering and even more immovable than usual since Pietro had been recovered). Ororo did not fail to note the smile that appeared on Todd's face, however, as he readjusted himself to sit near Freddy's feet.
Apparently, business as usual was comforting for even the Brotherhood.
Lance stood just in front of her, leaning against the inner hull of the plane, arms crossed over his chest and staring at his injured teammate intently. He'd gone with Scott and Rogue to the nearby castle (the one Pietro now claimed to have been imprisoned in, which also had an underground passage to Sinister's Laboratory) and turned up nothing—but that team had returned the moment they heard of Pietro's return. Since then, Lance had been sullen and thoughtful and had refused to remove his eyes from Pietro for even a moment.
Ororo was reminded distinctly of a lion watching over his pride.
So young, all of them. And this journey was not over yet.
"We had to do what we had to do," Pietro continued, after finishing off the last of the sports drink. He was looking much better—his hallucinations and inane fever dream talk had ended with the influx of fluids. He still looked… well, horrible. He was cut and scraped and bruised and pale. Even more pale than usual.
But he looked better.
"And you guys couldn't help. But now we need you, so I guess it's good that you came."
Jean-Paul snorted, looking down at Pietro with one eyebrow cocked. Northstar had recovered admirably as well, since his return with the half-dead-seeming Quicksilver. Initially they'd been unable to pry Jean-Paul's hand from Pietro's even for half a second, and Ororo was quite certain that the boy had been crying before he'd landed back at the jet. But now he was returning to business as usual as well.
Her heart went out to all of them for different reasons, and Jean-Paul Beaubier was no exception. She hoped that Scott, with his seemingly special bond with Jean-Paul, could help him. Despite the… blow up at the last meeting, the boys seemed to be on the best of terms again.
And Storm truly doubted that all Jean-Paul needed was a hug and a mother figure, at this point.
Pietro ignored Jean-Paul's unspoken sarcasm rather conveniently and continued, "They have Wanda in there still, so we gotta go get her. I remember how I got in and out both ways—if you guys wanna take the pathway I can get Bova to let us back into the Citadel—,"
"You mean the castle over there?" Scott asked from near Lance.
Pietro turned his eyes to Cyclops. "Yeah. That one. That's where the Knights of Wundagore live. I'm totally a Knight too, cause I was born there, by the way."
Jean-Paul snorted again, "Perhaps a little more Gatorade. He's still hallucinating."
Pietro gave him a dirty look with absolutely no venom behind it. "I am not. There are animal-people that live in there. That's how Wanda and I got out—didn't I tell you that part?"
"You mentioned that you were there, yeah, but you didn't give us a name," Scott pointed out. "Or any details on how you got to the passage."
"There wasn't anyone there like twenty minutes ago, Pietro," Rogue threw in. She was standing near Jean-Paul, chewing on her nails. "Lance, Scott and I went over there and scoured all around the whole damn place—,"
"Oh right, because if you were a huge half animal half man you'd definitely answer the door when a bunch of geeks in spandex came knocking, I'm sure," Pietro scoffed, looking back to Storm for a minute. "You got anymore of that stuff?"
Rogue rolled her eyes, but kept silent as Pietro rolled right over her verbally. Ororo shot her a soft smile, then looked to the impatient Quicksilver. "No. But I can get you water."
"I'm good," Pietro shrugged and stood up.
"Pietro—," Jean-Paul tried to protest, reaching out as if Pietro might collapse at any moment.
Pietro was stretching his arms out now. Ororo caught his wince of pain, but the boy fought right through it, obviously determined to save face, "I'm fine, I told you! We just gotta go—,"
"Pietro. You just told us you're a half man half animal knight and we're supposed to think you're alright?" Lance suddenly spoke up, for the first time since Pietro had arrived. "You're more fucked up than I thought. Sit the hell down."
Pietro just stared at him for a minute, as if surprised that Lance had dared.
Ororo covered her mouth to keep her telltale smile at bay. She saw the previously silent and immobile Sam do very nearly the same thing in the front seat.
"Shut the hell up, rocks for brains," Pietro finally said.
Lance pointed down at the seat, but the smile had apparently moved Sam into action. He interrupted the scene by stepping into the circle of people gathered near Pietro and said, "He had a point before. We gotta get Wanda out as fast as we can, animal-people or not. Can you draw us the passage, Pietro? Or near as you can get?"
Ororo smiled at the boy, and saw Scott do the same as he agreed and attempted to further the plan. "That's a great idea. We'll take two teams—,"
But the plan got no further. Because the plan started to shake.
Bamf!
Nightcrawler appeared on the ceiling before Ororo could theorize about the sudden shaking, tail flipping about restlessly, mop of indigo hair hanging directly downward from his face. He looked rather like a furry blue… troll doll, really.
She'd keep that observation to herself. But it wasn't entirely inaccurate.
"Company!" Kurt announced through the acrid smoke that heralded his arrival.
Kitty's head suddenly appeared before her, through the side of the jet and just beyond Lance's still-leaning form. "And it isn't the friendly kind. Magneto at two-o-clock."
She pulled the rest of herself inside completely before elaborating with scrunched up nose, "And I swear to god, he's wearing Dockers."
Jean-Paul had rarely been under such strain of suppression in his entire life. And though it had not been so long at a mere eighteen years, he knew very well that there had been enough suppression in it for the average eighty-year-old. But today… today won the prize.
Scott had helped him, though when he thought of their little chat now it actually threatened to embarrass him. Rogue had been most supportive on the way here. But there was no one who wouldn't forgive him if he couldn't quite lose the thought of his sister and her cowardly betrayal. Her choice to lose what made her a mutant. A choice that meant that… that what? That she was no longer his sister?
That was what it felt like. And to Jean-Paul… she might as well have ripped out his heart.
With that torn out, what had been left to crack in half when he'd found Pietro hiding half starved and dying of thirst, huddled in a small crevasse to escape his hunters? Some small game animal who couldn't run for his life anymore, but couldn't bear to leave his family behind.
Jean-Paul felt for his position. But more than that… he felt for him. Seeing Pietro in such a state… cracked lips and bruised skin… ashen and shuddering and fevered…
He suppressed a shiver every time he though of it during Pietro's entire mock debriefing, once Pietro had recovered some of his stamina from Storm's blessed Gatorade Feed. He wanted to take Pietro and run, hide him somewhere no one could ever find him, then get him back his sister and take him home happy. The ferocity of this protective instinct was magnified beyond anything Jeanne-Marie had ever awakened in him. It was burning him up from the inside out.
But he stood still and forced out sarcastic comments. Even though every time Pietro's eyes connected with his, he saw something beautiful, familiar and horrifying there. Felt it add to the fire in his belly.
He was peripherally aware that the increased protectiveness was surely a byproduct of his estrangement with his sister and compounded by Pietro's disturbingly fragile state when he'd found him. But that knowledge really didn't make it any fucking easier to handle.
But his suppression was not for the benefit of his fellow X-Men. It was for Pietro. If one of them spoke, the other would break. And that was the beautiful, familiar, horrific thing he saw when he caught Pietro's glance. Until this was all over… they had to behave as if that terrible thing wasn't there between them. Wanda depended on it. And Pietro would not lose his sister today, Jean-Paul was absolutely certain of that. He'd handle that himself, if he had to.
When Pietro stood himself up to stretch and winced, Jean-Paul had almost cracked there and then. Luckily, Lance had verbally bitchslapped the stubborn little creature… but it was fairly telling, Jean-Paul supposed, that with the threat of Magneto (in Dockers? Good god…) imminent, he was more concerned about Pietro being able to stand up straight.
He pulled Pietro by the wrist until he was standing against his side, then slid an arm around his waist. The jet rocked around them, but Jean-Paul hardly cared. "Should I get you out of here?" he asked, not wanting to look Pietro in the eye just yet.
Pietro simply watched the hatch, which was shuddering violently. X-Men and Brotherhood were scrambling all around them, but the two of them stood, watching, Jean-Paul making sure Pietro kept his feet under him.
"No," Pietro answered, after an ungodly long pause for him. "I gotta stay."
Jean-Paul did not ask him again. Partially because he knew the answer was final—there was a rare assertiveness in Pietro's tone. One that was grounded rather than arbitrary and flaunting.
But also partially because the hatch was ripped off the X-Jet only seconds later. There was a great groan as it came off the hinges and a crash that sounded nearly a half a kilometer away as it landed. And then Magneto appeared in the gaping hole in the Jet's side.
Jean-Paul had never seen the man before, but he was instantly struck by the obvious genetic links between him and his children. Those eyes. Both of them had those eyes. But Pietro… he was a streamlined version of his father. Broad powerful shoulders, but instead of staying broad and overtly powerful, Pietro tapered off into a swimmer's physique. Magneto was simply… imposing. He had that same gorgeous shade of silver hair, but something about the set of his jaw, the expression of anger and demanding on his face was… so very, very Wanda.
Funny though—he certainly hadn't pictured him in khakis. Pleated ones, at that. Sweet Christ.
All fashion issues aside, despite the mad display of power and imposition before him, Jean-Paul was not afraid of this man. Magneto was not getting Pietro. And that was the end of the story.
"Come with me immediately, Pietro," Magneto boomed, completely ignoring the other occupants of the X-Jet scattered about in a vague attack pattern, prepared for a full onslaught of magnetism.
Pietro raised two silver eyebrows, like he'd never heard anything more insane/hilarious in his entire life. "You're out of your fucking mind, old man."
Magneto clenched his hands into fists and the Jet began to shake again. Jean-Paul kept watching him, sizing him up, trying to discover any immediate weaknesses… but he found none. He looked over his shoulder to Scott.
Cyclops stood with bent knees, hand to his visor switch, ready to let loose. He was not looking anywhere but at the threat before him.
Jean-Paul returned his attention to the angry old man before him just in time to watch his face curl up in anger as he replied to his son.
"You will stop this game immediately and come with me."
Jean-Paul felt his brow furrow. Something was… not right here. He'd never encountered Magneto before, but he now saw what Pietro meant when he said that he thought his father had been mindwiped. This was no egomaniacal supervillain bent on mutant supremacy. This was just an angry father whose son had disobeyed father and made him look a fool in front of his friends.
The confusion was not his alone. Lance was very near him, and Jean-Paul practically felt him relax. He threw him a glance and was met with one of similar, but far magnified confusion. Lance clearly thought they should be avoiding flying metal pointy things by now, from the look on his face.
"Magnus, please," Storm stepped forward, holding one hand out in front of her in a kind of vague sign of truce. "Hear what the boy has to say."
Magneto redirected his attention to Storm, brow knitting. "How do you know my middle name? Pietro," he now glanced back to his son, "what have you told these people?"
"Erik," she tried again, taking another step nearer to him. When he did not react with more than a look, she continued, "Things are not as they seem. We are not here to steal Pietro, or to help him harm you. We rescued him when he was being hunted by one of Sinister's henchmen."
"Hunted…," Mangeto seemed to chew on the word for a moment.
Jean-Paul snorted, unable to help himself. Christ, Pietro obviously didn't get his speed from the man.
Blue eyes, astoundingly cold for being so dark, whipped in his direction now. "You find this funny, boy?"
"I find it idiotic," Jean-Paul informed him, holding Pietro a little tighter with one arm. Pietro did not fight it. "Look at your son, for the love of god. I found him hiding in a crevasse on the other side of the mountain, being hunted by that animal of Sinister's." The words practically choked out of him. But he told himself it sounded more like spitting than anything else.
"Scalphunter…," Erik said, quietly. Then he looked up and over his shoulder as Wolverine entered behind him.
Logan leaned on the edge of the massive hole in the hull and crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't worry. He's no one's problem anymore. But we'd better look to that daughter of yours real soon."
Lance piped up then to say, "Pietro, maybe you and daddy should have a little talk."
And he walked right past Magneto and Logan, and out the door. Fred and Todd on his heels.
Scott nodded at Kitty, Kurt and Rogue, who followed Logan right back out the way he'd come in.
Magneto was still standing there, brow knitted heavily. Obviously completely flummoxed. Jean-Paul and Pietro stood facing him, arms around each other.
Storm ventured nearer to Magneto and put a hand on his shoulder. "Just listen to what he has to say… you have nothing to lose, only to gain."
Magneto eyed his son carefully. Shrewdly.
Jean-Paul could see that he was no fool. This man had misgivings about his position already, or he could and would simply destroy their plane and make off with Pietro—or, at least, attempt to. Pietro shuddered slightly and Jean-Paul instinctively looked over at him.
Their eyes met and Jean-Paul stopped breathing. Pietro looked positively terrified.
"You may go," Magneto said. Jean-Paul pulled his eyes off of Pietro's with something disturbingly like to pain and saw that the man had been speaking to him.
"I think not," he said, quite plainly.
Magneto started to look angry again, but Pietro spoke with a sudden and false bravado. "JP stays. Let's talk."
Charles rubbed at his temple with one hand and held the picture in the other.
Perhaps he'd grown far too cautious. Perhaps he'd lost all heart. Perhaps these past years had jaded him beyond what was acceptable. Perhaps… perhaps he needed to depend on his people a little more, lest he lose them.
He knew now that what Scott had tried to tell him was truth—the attack on their sanctuary here had been more preemptive than it had been purposefully entrapping.
He should have trusted Jean-Paul's instincts—but he knew the root of the boy's feelings in this matter. And that had made his instinct suspect. And now Magnus's children were out there, and Magnus himself was most likely mindwiped, according to the latest communication from Transia.
In retrospect, he'd made the wrong decisions.
He thumbed the image in his hand, running along the edge of the brass frame, feeling its ridges and bumps absently as his mind wandered through the events of the last few weeks. Caution had worked against him this time—he'd been so certain it could not be what it seemed, so certain they should wait to see what it was Magnus had planned for them before they leapt into his newest obvious trap. Cleverly laid, perhaps, but…
It would not be the first time Magnus had used his children against them.
There was a knock on the study door and Xavier put the picture to the side with a final glance.
David had his mother's eyes.
Come in, Jeanne-Marie, he swept across the surface of the girl's shattered mind to give her the message and collect his preliminary data. She grew worse by the hour, since she'd discovered what her genetic therapy had done to her joint powers with her brother. He'd noted her "talking to herself" in her head all day now, and felt the split there clearly. Charles was afraid there would be only one course of action in the end… but he was hoping there would be a way around that.
The door opened and Charles saw and felt Angel's presence with her. Warren kissed her forehead in goodbye and Jeanne-Marie turned to enter the study.
Charles caught Warren's eyes and felt the extreme sorrow hanging around the already somber boy's head. He opened up a little more and immediately saw that this crushing sadness surrounding Warren was indeed due to his feelings of responsibility and, yes, genuine affection and even love for Jeanne-Marie.
Xavier offered a soft, encouraging smile. I'm glad to see you up and around, Warren.
Warren managed a smile in return. But it was extremely forced.
Jeanne-Marie closed the door behind her and Charles put Warren out of his mind for the moment. The task at hand would require all he had. Jeanne-Marie sat herself in the lone chair before his desk and looked at him. Expectantly, but demurely. As if she felt it would be rude to meet his eyes, or ask him what he had planned for this session.
"Let's begin with you today, Jeanne-Marie," he said aloud.
She nodded, still silent, watching with those icy blue eyes the twins shared. "What should I begin with?"
"Tell me about your procedure."
She seemed to retreat back into her seat and shut down almost instantly.
They'd discussed this genetic therapy in her last session, both with and without her brother's adamant input. Xavier had tended to agree with Jean-Paul in the matter—however, Jeanne-Marie's fear was crippling indeed. The fact that she'd been willing and proactive enough to take steps to help herself… he had taken that much as a good sign. The girl was eighteen, however, and that meant she was no one's ward but her own. All he could do at the time was advise her to wait for some further developments with the technology and keep up with her sessions in the mean time.
It had not been enough for Jeanne-Marie, and Xavier had known it wouldn't be. And now here they were.
"Jeanne-Marie, I need you to—," he stopped abruptly when he felt her switch over. It was like a sudden turn of the page, as if someone had dropped a new slide into the projector. The backwardness, the shy tendencies, the guilt, the fear were all gone. Replaced with confrontation, pugnacity and pure… playfulness.
"Don't call me that," she smiled at him overly sweetly, suddenly leaning forward with one elbow on the arm of the chair, her chin resting on her fisted hand. "Don't mistake me for that sappy little creature, Professor."
Xavier kept his expression even, his tone calm and soothing. He'd never seen her make this violent of a switch, and with so little provocation. Now she was retreating from the smallest pressure into this "Aurora" persona—or this Aurora persona was seizing particularly weak moments as her opportunity to take control. What baffled Charles slightly was the knowledge Aurora had just expressed of another separate entity within the same body. That was… impossible. But there it was—Xavier could feel the truth of it just as surely as he'd heard it.
"Aurora," he said.
She nodded, still smiling. "I'm so much more fun."
This was his worst case scenario—the suppressed personas had both emerged wholly, separate and at war. And the more balanced Jeanne-Marie was nowhere to be found. He was searching her out, hoping she might be somewhere in there… but she had retreated so far behind the other two—the weeping Jeanne-Marie and the bold Aurora—that it would be quite the odyssey to retrieve her.
He would speak to Jean and Jean-Paul about it, upon the boy's return. In the meantime, he would have Jeanne-Marie Beaubier declared incapable of making her own decisions and remanded to his care.
All there was left to do today was to discover who this Aurora was.
Erik strolled into the Laboratory complex through the proverbial front door, hands in his pockets, face composed.
There was nothing for it but this, the plan of action they'd developed and the agreement they'd reached. The picture the X-Men and his son had painted for him was a grim one indeed—but not one he could definitively say was madness. Erik did not remember his children being such fine actors that their initial and violent reaction to his partnership with Essex could have been a show, but he'd accepted his partner's explanations. However… Magda had been plaguing him lately as well.
She seemed… off. Scared, somehow. This was not the brilliant gypsy witch he'd married years ago, this meek, frightened creature. She seemed suddenly not to know him, though he could clearly remember all events leading up to their sojourn here in Transia—the country the twins (and poor dear Anya, god rest her soul) had been born in. All his memories of her, in fact, seemed faded—photographs on someone else's wall.
He knew his love for her was real. But the X-Men had not denied that. They'd simply implied that their history with Essex had been… reengineered. Come to think of it, they'd implied that his history with Essex was fabricated… but they'd not said a word of Magda. In fact, Pietro had been decidedly tight-lipped about his mother.
Odd. The two of them had always gotten on easily. Hadn't they…?
Erik shook his head in frustration. He would know shortly, just the same. The plan was simple. He would return to the Laboratory and inform Essex that Pietro had escaped and Scalphunter was dead, then demand to see his daughter and discuss their deplorable behavior with her. If what the X-Men had told him could explain the wrongness he'd been feeling in nearly everything he'd encountered since their last experiment, then things would be, for lack of a better word, wrong. Pietro claimed that Wanda would let him know. Unless she'd been brainwashed "again."
His son had refused, despite the strictest admonitions, to explain the use of that term to him in this particular case. The interruption of his irritating little friend, identified by the X-Man leader called Cyclops as one Northstar, had irritated him into yelling. And made him change the subject entirely.
Either way, if things were amiss in the Laboratory, as they so vehemently and confidently claimed they would be, he would contact them and the plan would move forward. What that plan was on their end was not revealed to him—a prudent decision on the part of Cyclops. But they would help him to free his family from this influence and transport them back to reality, as it were.
And if they were lying to him, he would seek retribution of his own. But he could not imagine Pietro turning against him in this fashion. It was one thing that was not watercolor washed out in his memories… Pietro was a reliable source, despite their many arguments. The boy's devotion was dogged.
He was nearing the large metal doors to the laboratory, previously scarred and warped by his daughter's violent entry only a few short hours ago. Rather than step around the debris, Erik simply raised one hand as a guide and tossed it all against the right side of the entryway. It fell with an enormous clatter that sounded uncontrolled.
It was not, however.
Erik stepped past the pile of rubble and immediately felt his trepidation and anger rising. There on the ground was a very familiar, very scrawny dark haired man… dead. There was no mistaking the angle his neck was bent at—it had been crushed.
Essex's green-haired crony looked up at him. She'd obviously been trying to make a swift exit with the corpse of this unfortunate man when she'd heard the clatter of metal from the entryway. She looked caught between simply running on her own and trying to drag this man with her.
"What have you done to him?" Erik asked, quite simply. He was not accustomed to finding dead men in his Laboratory. But if this was how Essex operated, it certainly lent some credence to the wild tale he'd found himself believing so recently.
"Wasn't me," she snarled. Why she should be snarling at him was beyond Erik. Perhaps she was angry at him for what his son had done to her. Really, he was surprised she was up and moving again at all after that crushing blow Pietro had dealt her… she certainly didn't look as if she was in any kind of shape for it. "Talk to the boss."
"He made it past security," Essex's vaguely oily voice said from the other side of the room. Erik looked over to see him entering from the direction of his own quarters. "Your daughter must have hexed it into nonfunctionality. He's just some rabble looking to steal something of value."
"You killed him?" Erik asked, still perfectly calmly. Despite the man's unreadable red eyes and stony vampiric countenance, Erik had no doubt that he was lying. The story was simply ludicrous.
"You were not here to help me," he smiled apologetically. "I expected you would be gone longer…," his gaze shifted to the empty space behind Erik, "and with your son."
"He escaped," Erik replied. "I need to speak with Wanda to uncover his whereabouts."
"Wanda is out at the moment—she would not submit so we had to use drugs to calm her. She'll do you little good."
Erik felt his face growing hot. Little hairs on the back of his neck raising. It was bad enough he'd had to allow his children to be manhandled previously, but he'd assumed they were in the wrong. This was simply… preposterous. Who was this fool to inject his daughter with strange drugs and mistreat her on a whim? It was an outrage!
"She had the collar on, she was no threat."
Essex showed no sign of nervousness—he met Erik's glare head on with one of his own unnatural ones. "She would not stop screaming in Romani and we had an intruder," he gestured to the man being dragged away by the crippled Vertigo.
"I know that man," Erik watched the body disappear through a doorway, probably on its way to the crypts… if it was lucky. A strange sensation, almost tingling in his stomach, spoke of some sort of association with the man. Of an uncomfortable nature. Or, perhaps, of dislike. He was absolutely certain he knew him…
"You know nothing of the sort."
Erik snapped his eyes back up to Essex's, returning completely to the matter at hand. He would not be spoken to in this manner. "Tell me where my daughter is."
"Lensherr, you're tired. I told you—,"
"Enough."
He said it quietly, but the action that followed was anything but. Erik raised both of his hands to shoulder level, palms facing outward. And pushed.
There was a great screeching of metal as he rolled away the proverbial stone, ripping the doors on both side of the Laboratory apart. Both were Essex's "side experiment" rooms—smaller and less important than this main chamber. Erik had hardly bothered with them aside from his initial tour. But that was where the drugs, cots and containment chambers were kept.
He hurtled the doors toward the center of the room he stood in—directly toward Essex—and let them drop. One by one he ripped each piece of metal equipment out of its place, first on the right room, then the left. He hurled them toward the center of the room, directly into Essex. Huge chunks of metal followed the doors, machines and cages and cloning tubs flying through the air faster and faster, creating a huge pile up on top of Essex. Water, various chemicals from the vats spread out across the floor like small rivers in the cobblestone floor. Electricity sparked as wires were pulled out of the sockets or walls that held them. Faster and faster. Erik thought of nothing else but finding his daughter as he worked. He simply emptied the rooms of all metal contents…
And there she was. Lying pinned down to a bed by over-tight restraints. Head lolling to the side.
Erik stopped pulling things through the air at that instant and started toward her. Essex was buried—he certainly would not have survived such trauma. And if he had, it would take him ages to dig himself out. "Wanda," he almost whispered, his anger beginning to boil rapidly within him. That had been nothing. There was so much more damage he could do if she was injured…
"Father," she formed the word carefully. "He… kidnapped… you…"
His heart sank. Wanda closed her eyes and he undid the metal fasteners on her restraints with a thought. More carefully, he extracted her from the metal collar around her neck that had been choking her beautiful powers—
There was a sudden great explosion in the main Laboratory. Erik immediately whirled and grabbed hold of each and every piece of metal in the room. They had all exploded indeed—directly outward from the center of their pileup…
And there stood Essex, untouched and glaring. His eyes even brighter than before.
"Pietro…," this from Wanda behind him.
Erik hit the button on the telecom unit the X-Men had given him. He didn't need their help to finish this. But he thought that after what he'd been through for his family today, Pietro ought to know.
AN: … What? Did you think I was dead or something? I said I'd be back!
First things first—thank you thank you to the marvelous Sue Penkivech for her continued commitment to beta reading this story, despite the fact that it's been on hold for an ungodly long time. Whurd, yo.
I used to respond to everyone individually here, but if I did that this time we'd have about twenty pages of apology. So let me just kinda keep it short. If you actually stuck with this thing from back when it was seemingly abandoned, words fail me. Funny coming from someone who just wrote a big ass chapter wherein nothing happened (as seems to be my custom even after a disturbingly long hiatus), but true. It's been an age, but I love you just the same, if not more.
To those who discovered it in the interim and so kindly reviewed/emailed me asking where the hell I was, I am also extremely grateful. I was completely bowled over when I came back after nearly a year to check up on things here and saw the number of reviews for this third installment of my weirdass EvoVerse creation.
To those who might possibly have stumble into this for the first time after this update, if there are any, thanks for taking a chance on a really freaking long story like this one.
I hope I've become a better writer since then, but feel free to let me know if I just got more craptacular! I'd like to thank Keane and Snow Patrol for both releasing new albums, by the way. That's my TTW music, and they both had new albums within a few months of each other—the last of which I got the day I started writing this again.
Music is all important when it comes to these things, you know.