Memories
Tissue of Lies
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Tigress shook her head.
"I've checked with all the others. All they say is it either defaults to me or… the ones who are better at this –like the pro computer hackers as opposed to those who just surf the net- say there's fog. Visibility is so low they can't even get a reading. Sorry."
Logan turned to Rachel who shook her head.
"Vanished off the face of the Earth. It's like when she locks herself down. Can't feel her thoughts, her signature, her essence. Can't even find the pinprick in the astral plane, not since Emma showed her how to shield that. That's the most worrying thing though. The 'pinprick' is her alternate vision. If that's happened, it means she can't reach out to the others. If she can't reach out to the others, we don't know where she is. And if we didn't have Tigress, we wouldn't even have that."
Logan slumped into the table, burying his face in his hands. Rachel coughed.
"Yeah, Ray?"
"I… I know you probably don't want to be reminded of this… But when… When Phoenix was corrupted, it was because people messed with her mind, loosened her grip on reality. Logan… What if that's happening to Tora?"
The Avengers on the screen stared at Logan.
"Explain."
He sighed.
"It was years ago. We all thought it was Jeannie. Wasn't. It was the Phoenix, who had tricked itself into believing it was Jean. A thing like that… It's not meant to feel human emotions… And Mastermind… He made her believe she was Jean's ancestor, that she was living in the past. Emma was there as well. They played with her mind, tried to make her one of them. But they thought she was Jean Grey, Marvel Girl. Not the Phoenix, not the Star Child. It drove the already unstable Phoenix insane. And when the Phoenix becomes insane, it forgets that its purpose is to burn away 'what doesn't work'. It simply burns."
"And… And you think… You think that whoever has Tora is playing with her mind, just like what happened to Phoenix?"
He nodded.
"That's the thing. If she turns… We don't know what could happen. Dragon heals. That's what it does. But… But she might decide that to heal the world she has to have a blank sheet. Or maybe she'll freeze everything. No advancements, no births, no deaths. Just living in one moment for ever and ever and ever."
"She…could do that?"
"Frankly, Stark, I reckon Tora could do almost anything she felt she wanted to. But she doesn't, because she's human and she wants to stay that way."
"So finding her is even higher priority than we thought it was?"
Logan laughed bitterly.
"Who cares if Doom gets to rule the world? If we don't find her, there won't be any world for him to rule."
There was a hurried consultation from the Avengers side of the link, then Cap and Cage filled the screen.
"We're putting all but the skeleton Avengers onto the search. We will find Tora."
"Did they? Or did she find them?"
"Bit of both. Took them long enough."
"What the hell are you doing here?"
The Scarlet Witch sighed.
"I'm here to help my friend, okay?"
"No. That's not okay."
She whipped around.
"I know what you're all scared of and let me ask you this. Do you have anyone here whose powers have been manipulated by someone else until you do something terrible on a worldwide scale? Oh look, no. Only me. And also, I need to help her because she helped me."
"And?"
"Also, you're dealing with another nexus being. And I'm the only one who has a clue what that means, being one myself."
"A what?!"
"A nexus being. A being who exists in all realities in some way, shape or form. A being capable of altering probabilities and the future. A nexus being who links all realities, a living nexus, an alignment, just like the Braddock Tower or the Nexus –which are the two on Earth. So if you cut her off from the others, you're basically tearing right through the multiverse."
"You think you can find her?"
"No. But I can help."
There was silence as Logan stared at her. She gulped.
"Please…"
And he made up his mind…
"Please tell me he didn't refuse…"
"He wouldn't be that stupid, would he?"
She sat on the bench, just taking in the wealth of colour. The garden was beautiful, made to look like a still clearing in a forest, a tricking stream down one end, wildflowers littering the floor. But at the same time… It felt wrong. Everything was too perfect, too neat to be natural.
"I see you've found our garden."
"Our? That doesn't sound like this is a public place. Should I…?"
"No. This is your garden. The only people allowed here are you and your Voice."
"You."
It was a statement, not a question.
"Yes."
"You're Iain."
His face lit up.
"You remember me?"
"Not… Not really…"
His head dropped.
"We… We think we can help you remember…"
She blinked.
"That's…good…"
"Yes. Yes, it is."
She turned back and stared at the waterfall.
"I… I didn't realise I could do this…"
Her hand stretched out and a thin trickle slid towards her, coiling up into the air and coalescing into a serpentine body with huge wings. And then they both spoke, in a deep, crashing voice.
"I never felt…so strong before."
And then her face fell and she reached up to touch the scars.
"I can't… How did I get them?"
She sensed him tense up.
"You were injured… There was an assassination attempt…"
She knew, with a deep and sudden realisation, that he was lying. She stared back and let the water crash to the ground. Standing up swiftly, she turned to him.
"Let's get this out of the way."
She marched off. Iain waited a few minutes and then she crept back sheepishly.
"Where exactly do I go?"
"That way."
He pointed in the direction opposite that which she had taken and she flushed.
"Lead the way."
"Idiots."
"Yes, you've already said that, Jean. Multiple times."
"I can't understand how you're so calm about this!"
"I was always better at existing everywhere and everywhen at once than you were. You were always hopeless at anything where time wasn't linear. At my height, I existed in all moments of time, all parts of space. I was omnipresent. You were always…too human. I was too far removed. And one of the interesting things I saw was that to remove any one thing from her life –no matter how small, how trivial- would change everything."
"Show-off."