Chapter 21
At one of Magneto's bases...
Magneto watches, with a detached calmness, as Sinister examines Mystique. Alicia watches with her arms around herself as if trying to give herself reassurance as her emotions threaten to spill over with worry for her mother. The only person she has ever really thought of as her mother. The only person who really cared for her...unlike her so-called parents. The odd tear had already trickled down her cheek. She wipes another away.
Sinister was slightly annoyed at having his research interrupted. He is not at Magneto's beck and call. This is an alliance only. One that will only persevere for as long as he deems it beneficial to him and since Magneto and his cause brings new mutants for him to study it remains so for the time being.
Saying that, Magneto, of course, brought Mystique to the most qualified person here to treat her...but even Sinister must admit so far he was puzzled. The coma had no physical cause he could discern.
It was a puzzle and Sinister was intrigued.
Sinister always did love puzzles. That's why he's a scientist after all and he so rarely gets a real challenge.
Sinister places Mystique inside a scanner. He needs to see what is going on inside the shapeshifter.
Sinister's brow furrows as he watches the readout from his scans. If it was anyone else their scanner would never had even picked it up but Sinister built this device himself and what he is seeing wasn't right at all.
"You have something," Magneto assumes from what he caught glimpse of of Sinister's expression.
"An unusual energy waveform within her neural pathways."
"What kind of energy?"
The kind Sinister isn't fond of being a scientist. "The mystical kind."
"Magic. You mean magic," Magneto discerns that to be.
"I do."
"She's under a spell," Magneto can deduce.
"If you want an educated guess I would say a sleeping spell."
"Can you wake her?" Magneto wants to know because he needs to know if Mystique knows who is behind this. A telepathic scan is impossible due to the nature and strength of Mystique's mental defences.
"Possibly. It might entail risks," Sinister cautions as to the side-effects of forcibly trying to break a magic spell.
"Do it," Magneto decides almost instantly.
"As you wish."
Alicia moves over to Mystique, lying on the exam table, and takes one of her mother's hands into her own. "W-Will she be alright?"Alicia asks, not quite sure what is going on with this talk about magic.
"Of course my dear," Sinister humours the girl. "Your mother is in the best hands," he boasts as he moves about his lab, gathering together the equipment and drugs he will need.
Magneto simply watches as he carefully considers all of this. Magic. It's been awhile since Magneto last encountered magic. He has a rudimentary knowledge of the field. Enough to know that there is a larger game at foot.
The Brotherhood. He knows from the news feeds an impression of what has been happening. The girls whom he had hoped to keep their mutant status secret have been revealed on television. That's another one of his plans perhaps fatally damaged. Because of this Magneto is contemplating it might be time to wrap up that whole operation in Bayville and start over with something new...some other way to keep an eye on Clark Kent.
Magneto decides he needs to round up the Brotherhood before the police do. "I must go and deal with the situation in Bayville," he declares. "Let me know if you learn anything from Mystique," he tells Sinister.
Sinister gives a cooperative nod.
Magneto leaves Haze with Mystique. She is too emotionally distraught to be of any use.
In any case Magneto has made his decision that he needs to go and deal with this personally. He needs to go to Bayville and confront this head on. Whoever is behind this will know the price for crossing him and magic or no magic they will not be able to stop him.
Bayville...
"Magic?" Kitty queries sceptically. "There's no such thing," her more scientifically inclined mind dismisses what Logan has been saying as they try and make sense of their current predicament.
They had, by now, regrouped back to the Velocity with Storm on board caring for Puzzler while they hung around outside waiting for the Professor. He was was currently trying to smooth things over with the police, leaving the X-Men standing around basically because they had no leads to go on. The Brotherhood, bar the obviously traumatised Puzzler, had managed to scamper away, as usual, while they had been chasing after Clark and Lex.
"Oh trust me half-pint. Magic's real," Logan states his point in his gruffest, most serious, sounding voice. "And magic is deadly dangerous."
Kitty looks at Logan as if he's nuts...which he is but this is a different sort of crazy. Magic. Nope. That's just going too far. She looks up at Spider-Man hanging upside down from a streetlamp. Since he isn't making his usual jokes she figures this must be his serious mode...or brooding mode or whatever. Hard to tell when you can't see his face behind that mask of his.
Jean is watching Scott pace about like a caged animal. She hates it when he gets like this. He always blames himself for when things go wrong.
The Professor manages to smooth things over with the police and get them to agree that the X-Men take Puzzler with them. She needs medical treatment both physically and mentally to deal with the trauma she has suffered. However, the looks he gets from the police tell him that this situation can't continue where essentially they're only letting it go because they don't have the facilities to hold mutants. Sooner or later this will come to ahead and the Professor realises he will need to be prepared for that day.
This incident is also going to generate bad publicity the Professor can tell, just when they had managed small bits of progress on that front. One bad incident and all their progress is undone.
The Professor returns to the helicopter after talking to the police. Domino is with him, having been acting as his bodyguard of a sort.
"Professor," Kitty complains upon seeing him. "Will you please tell Logan that magic isn't real?" she requests of him.
"I am afraid I can't do that Katherine."
"Say what?"
"Magic is real. I have seen it."
"But...I...it's not..." Kitty is struggling for an argument.
"I'm not seeing how this makes any sort of sense," Evan complains.
"In fact it explains everything," the Professor says back. "It explains how the 3 girls are being controlled. Our memory loss. How we were affected at all during the party. A spell was cast by someone of great magical power. Someone who bears a remarkable resemblance to Lana Lang."
"What's that?" Scott asks, stopping his pacing for one moment at the Professor's words.
The Professor explains his experience inside Puzzler's mind and fighting the influence that looked like an older version of Lana.
"What if Lana is the one casting the spells?" Jean puts forward. She may be new to this revelation of magic being real but she doesn't have to believe it completely. Being logical from what the Professor says it makes total sense if Lana is responsible...and they invited her in to their home putting her in the perfect position to do all of this.
"She may be a conduit. She may be indeed be the one responsible," the Professor supposes. "The truth is we can't be certain of either possibility."
"Countess," Domino suddenly speaks up.
"What was that Domino?" Charles asks her to repeat.
"Pietro. He said he was doing this for his Countess...that she would reward him or something along those lines. I thought it sounded weird when he said it but I never really gave it much thought. Might be related to this though."
"You know if we want answers we have someone who can give us them," Logan points out, looking up into the helicopter at Puzzler.
"I would rather not," Charles says reluctant to do that again. "Her mind is in a fragile state after her experience."
"We don't have any other leads Chuck," Logan says grimly.
Unfortunately Logan is correct. They don't.
Charles rolls himself up the ramp and into the Velocity where Storm is caring for the teenage girl. He takes a moment to prepare his mind.
"Is this necessary Charles?" Storm asks, clearly unhappy at what she overheard Logan suggest be done. The girl was in no fit state for this.
"We are at a dead-end otherwise Storm. When the 3 girls vanished, as the others described them to, Rogue and Wanda completely disappeared from Cerebro. They either teleported out of range or are shielding themselves from scans. You know I would not do this if there was any other options."
Storm frowns. She can't think of any other options either, otherwise she would suggest them.
Charles reaches out and places his hand on Puzzler's forehead and, as gently as he can, sifts through her memories. There are no real indications of any place where the 3 might have gone so he focusses in on when Puzzler first met Lana. Images flash up of a purplish light and then an unquestioning loyalty welling up within Puzzler to what appears to be Lana Lang. Charles hears how the 3 girls explained their plans to the Brotherhood and how 'Lana' introduces herself. "Countess Margaret Isobel Thoreaux," he repeats the name.
"What?" Storm asks.
Charles ignores her and goes straight to the communications in the helicopter. He raises Beast back at the mansion "Hank. I need you to do a search for me on one Countess Margaret Isobel Thoreaux. Anything you can find," he requests of his blue-furred friend.
"Give me a moment," is Hank's reply. Wonderful thing technology. Once this would have taken hours of searching in libraries. Now all you have to do is input the name in a search engine.
The rest of the X-Men board the helicopter as they decide they need to hear this.
"I have something," Hank reports back.
"Go ahead," the Professor tells him.
"Countess Margaret Isobel Thoreaux. Born in France in 1574. Died 1604."
"How did she die?" Charles wonders, playing a hunch.
There is a slight pause as Hank reads up the details. "She was burned at the stake as a witch."
"Are there any images of her?"
"There's only a couple," Hank can report.
"Transmit them to the helicopter will you," Charles requests.
Everyone gathers in behind the Professor, eager to see what line of enquiry it is he is following. An image appears on the screen.
"No vay," Kurt says in denial.
"That's like impossible right?" Kitty asks, not willing to believe what her eyes are beholding.
"Not with magic it ain't," Logan rebuts that.
The images, the drawings, show a woman, almost identical in appearance to Lana Lang.
Charles has another hunch. "Hank. Could you get Martha and Jonathan for me? I have a few questions I need to ask."
It is only a short few minutes later the Professor is conversing with Martha and Jonathan. "I am curious if you know anything of Lana's lineage," he says. "Do you know where her ancestors came from before emigrating to America?" he asks either of the Kents to be able to give an answer.
"No," Jonathan replies.
"I don't eith...wait. Didn't Clark say something about that when they did that school project?" Martha can be heard asking Jonathan.
A pause as Jonathan thinks. "Maybe. Somewhere in Europe I think."
"France. It was France," Martha suddenly recalls.
"Thank you," Charles says. "That's helpful." He turns to the others.
"The same place as this Countess hails from," Jean comments.
"Correct," Charles confirms.
"So?" Kitty asks, not seeing the connection. "What does it mean? That's she's what? This Countess reborn?"
"Could be," Logan considers.
"With magic almost anything is possible Kitty," Charles tells her from his personal experience. "What you consider the normal laws of physics don't apply."
"How do you know about it?" Scott asks the Professor.
Charles smiles lightly as memories comes to him of an earlier part of his life. "I wasn't always confined to this wheelchair Scott. Once I was a young man who set out to explore the world. On my travels I encountered many unusual things, including magic, and had what you could call adventures. That was how I first met Storm and her sister after all."
Storm smiles slightly to herself as she remembers that. Her life was hard back then but it is meeting the Professor she remembers fondly. After all he did free her and her sister from the servitude of the Shadow King.
Charles pulls a phone out of his pocket. "On my travels I met someone with much experience of magic and we have, on and off, maintained a long distance friendship. I shall see if I can contact him to help us," he informs them of what he is doing.
The phone rings and rings and rings until he gets the automated message. "The phone you are trying to reach is currently...not on this plane of existence."
'Of course it's not,' Charles mentally sighs to himself. He should have known his friend would be busy.
The recorded message asking to leave a message starts. "You have reached the answering service of Stephen Strange. I am unable to answer at the moment. No doubt I am battling the dark minions of the Dread Dormammu. Please leave a message after the beep and assuming I survive I shall get back to you."
'Funny Stephen,' Charles dryly remarks inside his head at what is suppose to pass for Stephen's sense of humour. He leaves a message saying it is him and asking Stephen to call him back as soon as possible.
"Busy?" Logan queries at the fact the Professor had to leave a message.
Charles nods.
"So what do we do now Doc?" Domino asks.
"The only thing we can do until we get a lead. Go home," the Professor has to sadly regret that that is their only course of action possible at the minute.
"May not be a completely bad idea. We could search the car they came in and see if Lana or whoever she is left anything behind," the idea suddenly occurs to Domino.
That was a possibility Charles could concede. "Kitty. Would you please fetch Spider-Man in for us?" he requests of her as the arachnid themed hero was still outside.
Kitty nods and runs out to fetch him. "You alright?" she asks at his weird silence as he hangs upside down.
"Just thinking," Peter replies. Thinking of yet another screw up he's been involved in. Yet another friend of his in danger.
"We're like going," Kitty tells him. "There's nothing more we can do here until we get a lead."
Peter couldn't argue with that as much as it annoyed him. He drops down and lands on his feet next to Kitty.
"So...uh thanks...for saving me earlier," Kitty says as they walk into the helicopter.
Peter shrugs. "That's what we heroes do. It's in the code to save pretty ladies."
"Code?"
Peter puffs his chest out. "The superhero code," he says in a deep, manly, heroic voice.
Kitty shakes her head and laughs. "You're like...the goofiest person I have ever met...and I know an alien from another galaxy."
"I resemble that remark!" Spider-Man quips as he sits down.
Kitty grins at him as she takes her seat.
Domino looks at this and shakes her head. She can see a romance brewing between those two. Yet she is still single. She must be doing something wrong.
Elsewhere...
Clark's arms were really starting to hurt. It's been awhile since he last really felt pain. In the aftermath of the fight with Juggernaut is what springs to mind. This is reminding Clark how much he doesn't like it.
Clark was desperately trying to think of some way to get free and stop the 3 witches before they got their hands on the stone. He had 2 reasons. One; he doesn't really think they truly understand what the stones are and in the hands of someone who doesn't know what they are doing they are potentially fatal to them. Two; on the slim chance they don't seriously harm themselves is the worry they might just pull it off and gain access to the knowledge within the stones which would condemn the world to their rule.
He knows this because he has overheard them talk about their plans for the stones. It wasn't hard to overhear them because they were having an argument right now that had been going for 10 minutes solid.
Ok Isobel and Madeleine were having the argument. Brianna was back with that vacant stare again. That was really troubling Clark because of what he feared it meant for the state of Rogue's mind.
"What do you mean I and Brianna must remain here?" Madeleine demands to know, her voice incredulous.
"You must remain to watch those two," Isobel argues back calmly, referring to Clark and Lex.
"Why?"
"Because Clark has only touched and revealed the location of one stone. We will need him to help us find the other two. He is obviously connected to them in some fashion and therefore someone must remain here to watch him and make sure he does not escape and does Brianna look like she is any state to do that?"
Madeleine frowns as she quickly gazes at Brianna. "We need to find her another vessel. Something is wrong with that one," she concludes.
"And we shall. It is just more important to gain possession of the stone first. Clark's mutant friends will be searching for him and despite our protection wards I can't be certain they won't locate us. Time is of the essence," Isobel implores her sister witch to see the situation as she does.
"Say I understand why we need Clark. Why must I watch Lex?"
"Oh him. Well he was brought here for my amusement mostly. He's proven...disappointing so he may not necessarily still have to be breathing upon my return so you may have some fun with him," Isobel grants her permission.
A malicious smile comes to Madeleine's face at that prospect.
Lex's expression is stoic at overhearing that.
"Now assist me with the teleport spell will you?" Isobel asks of her witch.
Madeleine begins to do that.
"God you're stupid!" Wanda insults Madeleine.
"Excuse me? Did I say you could talk?"
"That was your first mistake...or was it your 3rd? Your first may have been hooking up with Isobel in the 1st place. After all how did that end?"
It ended with Madeleine being burned at the stake.
"You need to be quiet," Madeleine commands Wanda. "I have to concentrate."
"Bite me!"
"Perhaps I'll enchant Clark to do that later," Madeleine retorts salaciously.
"Ew! You're sick! I do not think of him like that!"
"Keep deceiving yourself if you wish but I dare you to tell me you didn't enjoy it when we were exploring his body earlier."
"There was no we sister. That was all you!"
"We'll see if you still think that after I have used Clark to 'break' this body in," Madeleine mentally smirks.
Oh yeah. Wanda is so hexing this bitch to hell...somehow.
Madeleine and Isobel soon have the spell ready. They chant together to achieve a teleportation spell neither could achieve alone to cover the distance to Smallville. Isobel vanishes in a flash of purple light.
"It's official. You're a dumbass!" Wanda insults her possessor.
"Am I?" Madeleine queries with a sudden calm confidence.
"You realise when she comes back she'll use the power of this stone to crush you like a bug. She won't need you any longer."
"You're assuming I sent her anywhere near the location of the stone."
"Say what?"
"You were right."
"Come again?"
"You were correct in comparing Isobel to your father. Once she has the stones she won't need me or Brianna so I'm going to get the stones first. I sent Isobel on a little diversion."
Bayville to Smallville. Distance: Approximately 1000miles.
Make a smell tweak in direction due north and you find yourself in the empty tundra of Canada where the Countess Margaret Isobel Thoreaux currently finds herself.
"Madeleine!" she screeches in fury into the sky the moment she realises her sister witch has betrayed her.
Back in Bayville Madeleine smirks to herself. "It'll take her awhile to teleport herself to Smallville," she tells Wanda confidently. "Her powers do have limits."
Wanda is rather speechless. Mostly she had just been venting her rage at having her body hijacked. She never really expected Madeleine to listen to her.
"Now then. We have much to do," Madeleine says.
"What's this we bit?" Wanda asks. "I'm not helping you."
"Oh yes you are," Madeleine says darkly. "Or at least your power is. I've had a chance to explore it more. One day you could have been an exceptionally powerful witch. Through me that day will be today."
"What are you planning?" Wanda is almost afraid to ask.
"You'll see my dear. You'll see," Madeleine says in such a tone to give Wanda a metaphorical cold shiver up her spine.
For the next short while Clark and Lex watch on as Madeleine works. She draws a hexagram on the floor in white chalk along with archaic pagan symbols. She lights candles and places them on each point.
Clark assumes that the 3 witches must have prepared this place for them during the missing time period when they were improvising their plan to capture him to have all this stuff here. What she is doing neither Clark or Lex can even guess having no experience with magic.
During this time Brianna's deterioration seems to be accelerating as she starts to rock back and forth on the spot muttering to herself.
Madeleine pauses when she sees the state her sister witch is in. She then notices the deep concern on Clark's face. She wonders...
Madeleine stops her work and marches over to Clark. She digs her nails in to where she previously marked him. "You know what is wrong with her. Tell me," she orders.
Clark grimaces in pain as Madeleine digs her nails into his flesh deeper.
"Tell me!" Madeleine demands.
"Alright!" Clark relents and Madeleine pulls her nails out. Clark takes a moment. "Do-do you know what Rogue's mutant power is?"
While her vessel has hidden any information about Clark from her, Madeleine does have access to many other memories, including the nature of Rogue's power. "She absorbs life energy."
Clark nods. "Yes but more than that. She absorbs an echo of their minds that never leaves her. There's probably dozens of them. Rogue is strong enough not to be overwhelmed by them. My guess would be your friend is not and she is losing herself to them."
Madeleine looks at Brianna. "Once I have the stone I can help her," she says. She is not like Isobel. She won't abandon Brianna. She then looks at Clark. "And once I have that stone you will help me find the other two," she tells him.
"Out of what? The Goodness of my heart?" Clark quips in gallows humour.
Madeleine smiles. "Very amusing. I shall enjoy having you as my slave farmboy."
"I won't help you," Clark avows.
"You shall because no-one is coming to save you. In a few short moments no-one shall even remember you exist and then I shall have all the time needed to break your spirit. Something else I shall enjoy immensely," she says with much anticipation.
"What do you mean no-one will remember he exists?" Lex asks her.
Madeleine turns to him. "There is no reason not to tell you because you shall forget him as well. I bet that will be frustrating. To finally know his secrets and then to lose them. You see I shall cast a spell and everyone will forget that Clark Kent ever existed." She looks at Clark and explains her plans. "Then I shall have all the time I need to extract the information from you I require about the other 2 stones...and you can thank this vessel for this achievement for I could not do this without the power she possesses."
"No," Wanda says in denial. "You can't do that!"
"But I can and I have you to thank. Without your incessant chatting I would never have realised what Isobel was planning. And more since it was Clark that saved you his erasure will also erase any memory that you ended up at the mansion. No-one will look for you either. Thank you Wanda. You've been very helpful to me."
'Oh good one Wanda!' she berates herself. Why did she have to choose now to suddenly become chatty?
Madeleine moves to the centre of the hexagram.
"Madeleine!" Clark calls out. "You don't have to do this."
Madeleine pauses. "Certainly I do."
"Do you even realising what you are doing?"
"Gaining the power that is rightfully mine."
"And what about Wanda? You are stealing her life," he argues.
"My life was stolen farmboy! I was burned alive!" she shouts at him.
"And that was wrong," Clark sympathises. "However doing this will not make it right Madeleine. It is only repeating the mistake. You can be better than them. Free us. Help us stop Isobel."
"And then what about me? Do I just go back off to limbo willingly?" she asks in a mocking tone. "All you want is your friends back. You don't care about me!" she cries.
"I care about everyone...but I don't have the power over life and death Madeleine. Extending your life at the expense of someone else is wrong."
Madeleine snorts. "What life? This vessel may protect your secrets but I've seen her pathetic excuse for a life. Trust me she is better off with me making much better use of it."
"Wanda's life was not pathetic," Clark argues forcibly. "It was stolen, like yours, by her father. She is only just now starting on her journey and she needs to be allowed to complete it and fulfil the great potential she possesses."
"Your words are touching farmboy but a waste of both our time. I did not suffer what I did just to give up now. Ultimate power is within my reach and I shall have it and nothing you can say shall dissuade me," she dismisses coldly Clark's arguments.
Madeleine closes her eyes and resumes her work. She begins chanting her spell.
"You were wasting your breath Clark," Lex says in a dismissive tone, thinking Clark foolish that he believed, for even a second, that his argument would have any sway. "You can't reason with these...witches."
"It's never a waste of time to believe there is a better way and that people can choose to take it," Clark argues back.
Lex scoffs. "Funny how that never applied to me and your secret isn't it?"
Clark wondered when Lex would get onto that. "This isn't the time for that Lex. Can you get free?"
"I've been trying since I woke up. I have to reluctantly admit that they know what they're doing when it comes to restraints."
Madeleine's chanting grows in its volume as she reaches the crescendo of her spell. She reaches deep inside this vessel and taps into its powers which rises up within her. Wind blows and she rises off the ground, hovering, energy emanating from her as it builds up to the release that will cast the spell across the world touching everyone and erasing any knowledge of Clark Kent from existence.
Wanda fights and scratches against her mental prison. She has to do something. Madeleine is ignoring her, her concentration fully on what she is doing...
Her concentration.
Madeleine has to consciously control the spell Wanda can pick up from her possessor's mind. But the power she is using is Wanda's. If Wanda concentrates hard perhaps...well she might not be able to stop Madeleine but perhaps she can alter the intent of the spell...like make it so certain people don't forget Clark exists.
Wanda puts all her effort into that single idea.
Looking at Madeleine the energy swirling around her glows brighter and brighter as her chanting reaches the zenith of the spell. For a moment it almost appears she explodes as scarlet red energy expands out in a wave.
It hits Lex and Clark watches him knocked out by the force. It makes Clark's head ring but he manages to stay conscious.
Outward the wave spreads all across Bayville. It sweeps over the in hiding Brotherhood.
"What was that yo?" Toad asks.
"What was what?" Pietro asks back, as he leans against the wall in the back alley where they are regrouping after their latest defeat.
"I..." Toad suddenly trails off. "I don't know. I thought I felt something."
Pietro looks at Toad as if he is crazy and then looks to Avalanche who shrugs. He doesn't know what Toad is on about either.
Plastique is muttering something in French, that from her tone sounds like it isn't anything good. Pietro shares the sentiment about this day.
Neutron too is muttering angrily at how he was stuck into that road by Spider-Man...Spider-Man! Again! If it wasn't bad enough the first time the loudmouth webslinger caught him and threw him in jail Neutron now gets humiliation added on top of it courtesy of the wallcrawler and the Pryde girl. Neutron swears he'll make the two of them pay! If it wasn't for Blob coming back and rescuing him he would still probably be stuck there.
Speaking of Blob Pietro looks at him and sees he has somehow found something to eat. Pietro just rolls his eyes at it.
If it hasn't been a bad enough day already he can't believe where they have ended up, standing here amongst the garbage cans. So far today he has been mocked and defeated by that Super-Loser, as Pietro calls him, and the x-geeks. God Pietro would give anything to know who this 'Superman' is. That would make it so much easier to get back at the guy for all the humiliations he has suffered.
The Institute...
The X-Men are disembarking from the Velocity when the wave strikes.
"Vhoa. Headrush!" Kurt says as he suddenly feels dizzy. He ends up leaning against the side of the helicopter.
"You alright fuzzy?" Evan asks his friend.
Kurt nods. "Ja. Just felt light-headed for a minute there." He then grins. "I just need sugar," he jokes blaming his high-burning metabolism for the episode.
"Oh god that sounds good right about now!" Domino agrees as her stomach growls.
"Yes," Storm agrees. "I think recharging the batteries would be advisable while we can."
"Well I am a growing spider-boy," Peter quips.
Kitty giggles at how he adds the spider prefix to everything. What a great guy he is. She wonders if she can hold him to that date he asked her out on on the tape they saw.
At this moment Hank rushes in, looking extremely agitated.
"What's up furball?" Logan asks, noticing the state Beast is in.
"Cerebro just exploded."
"What!" they all exclaim.
"Ok that might have been an exaggeration," Beast modifies slightly. "It overloaded. There was some kind of strange energy wave it picked up on and when it hit my jury rigging sadly went the way of Ben Franklin's famous kite."
"Can the last data be retrieved?" Charles asks, hoping to analyse this energy wave.
"It should have been buffered. I would need to pull the hard drives and plug them manually to the main mansion computer."
"I can help," Kitty offers.
"I'll help as well," Peter offers his expertise.
"You can assist myself with that," Charles tells them. "Hank, we need you to take care of Miss Van Haaften," he asks of his friend in regards to Puzzler while he takes care of retrieving Cerebro's data. "I am uncertain as to what physical damage may have been done to her when she was forced to become that dragon."
As for the mental trauma...well that will take much more time to heal. For now Charles can simply let her sleep.
Hanks nods and heads into the helicopter to retrieve the young girl and administer care upon her. He had gotten a brief summary of what had happened as they returned.
Before leaving to see if they can retrieve the data Charles brings his hands together and rest his chin on them as he thinks over everything. That was strange. This sudden energy wave. Let them hope they can get to the bottom of it. Perhaps it is even related to what has been going on so far today. Although he can't help but think he is forgetting something important.
Onward the wave travels sweeping over the entire country, battering a silver sphere travelling over the landscape at high speed.
Inside Magneto takes a moment to redirect his transport back on course. That was unusually severe turbulence he has to say. It only takes a moment to use the earth's magnetic field to ascertain he is back on course. That is how he knows where he is going without having to see. He is completely in tune with the Earth's magnetic field.
Magneto returns to his thoughts. He must find the Brotherhood and deal with whoever dared to try and usurp his own disciples from him.
His thoughts then drift to the future once this business is concluded. As he was thinking before he left it might be time to wrap this whole operation up in Bayville and start over.
After all it wasn't like they had made any progress in ascertaining the identity of this 'Superman' and they had been at it for nearly a year now. Magneto had been hoping to learn this to gain leverage over the boy. Since the day he first encountered him in Smallville Magneto believed he could be the key to the victory of mutantkind over humanity but has been frustratingly lacking means to persuade the boy to join him since he knew so little about him.
Magneto had his theories about what Superman was. Once this situation is resolved he will redouble his effort to find these stones. He knows Superman has one. However from Lionel Luthor's journal Magneto has recently learned that if you possess two, they will lead you to the 3rd. Therefore that is the priority and once he has all 3 he will have the means to bring Superman into line. That is the belief Magneto is working off.
Magneto concentrates and accelerates the sphere. The quicker he deals with this the better.
Elsewhere...
Back in the warehouse Madeleine gently floats back to the ground and drops to her knees, tired after her exertions. It starts off quietly but Clark hears her laugh. It slowly builds as she laughs louder and louder. She looks...giddy...almost drunk.
"Such power!" Madeleine exclaims. "I never imagined," she babbles as she looks at her own hands. "So much power! I could almost do this without the stones." She looks up at Clark, the look of raw power and authority in her eyes extremely disconcerting. She giggles. "Oh what I will do to you and no-one is riding to the rescue farmboy for no-one remembers you any longer. You are mine and mine alone!"
Clark's head drops. He tried to reach her but he failed and now, just, when he thought this couldn't get worse...it has and he has no idea how to save himself, Wanda, Rogue, Lex or the world. He is at mercy of the ghost that has control over Wanda and he thinks that mercy is probably not in her vocabulary.
Author's Note: Why I never wrote Rogue speaking to Brianna is given away in this in that she has become buried, become one voice amongst the multitudes of those she has absorbed, that are breaking loose inside her head. With Wanda's power at her disposal Madeleine was always the more likely to be the one who could be persuaded to rebel against Isobel so I needed Wanda to be able to talk to her. Thanks to everyone who wrote reviews. Next up; Has Madeleine truly succeeded in erasing Clark or did Wanda succeed in messing it up? And the race is on. Who will get to the stone first?