A/N: Lost momentum towards the end. This one's mostly for set-up.
Crisis on Infinite Cyclops Daughters: She Who Watches the Multiverse Die
She had every detail all planned out.
She truly had.
No matter what some would say, it was not an impulse that fueled her decision to use McCoy's time-machine. No matter the excuses others would make for her in their attempt to comprehend why she did what she did, it was not grief over her father's sudden death nor rage at her mother's haunting mistake that brought her here.
She was better-trained than that.
Hers was a purely scholarly agenda: she needed to know what made this world so different that new mutants were born.
So she had suited up in her standard gear and… acquired additional weaponry from Old Man Stark. She knocked out McCoy when she snuck into his lab to use the time-machine, and she knocked out McCoy again when she arrived in her chosen world and time.
She made haste before anybody else could be alerted. With as much knowledge, skill, and technology she had, she was under no illusion that her biggest asset was surprise.
It was the element of surprise that allowed her to takedown all the vigilantes she found lounging in Avengers Mansion—one of the places she knew she could access the most information while leaving hardly a trace.
For this mission, she needed to be a ghost.
And like a ghost, she struck, and while the Avengers had an answer for how the X-gene was repowered, they did not have the answer to the resulting question that followed: why did the Phoenix Force appear here and not in her reality when both contained a Hope Summers?
There was a piece missing and she knew where to get the next one.
After much internal debate, she made her decision and steeled herself.
She needed to speak with this world's version of her father—an apparent terrorist according to the Avenger's records. Of course, she did not completely believe that which sounded like an opinion—such as labels.
If there was one thing her father had instilled in her, it was that one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. The world, hard as one might wish, was never black and white; only a childish mind could perceive it as such.
Thus, meticulously, obsessively, she made plans upon plans.
She made plans for every scenario she could conceive, and executed them, all so she could kidnap this world's version of her father. After all, if he truly was a terrorist, then maybe she could reform him without outside interference—after a thorough interrogation.
This choice, she could admit, was driven by emotion. It was a compulsion; a duty she needed accomplish in memory of a great man that was her late father.
Cyclops.
Scott Summers.
And thus, she had begun.
She activated the transmitter in her customized visor, and waited.
True enough, Cerebro had found her and her father appeared with his team.
The first one to go was the teleporter, Magik.
She remembered this woman vividly; her teacher in the darker aspect of the mystic arts. While she had not the talent to become Sorceress Supreme, her skill was adequate while her knowledge was vast. A quick distraction to disorient the X-Men and a triple-layered low-leveled binding spell later, Magik was out for, by her estimate, the next thirty minutes.
More than enough time—especially since, with her pride wounded, Magik would not think logically and would forego traveling to the past to pre-empt her.
The next was that new mutant she discovered in the Avengers database—the one called Tempus.
The Australian mutant's power was at an alarming threat-level, and her inexperience only made her that much harder to predict.
She had to take the initiative. It was just like a dance; she slipped through their defensive formation and scripted Eva Bell's movements for her and, just like that, Tempus was down.
At that moment, she was already within the range where her anti-telepathy shields were ineffective; a trade-off for the sentimental aesthetic she had chosen for her headpiece. Still, it was no matter for the Cuckoos were still disoriented at how swiftly their biggest hitters were defeated, and she had capitalized on it.
It was at that point when the truism that no good plan survives first contact proved itself.
A flash of color made her leap back just as two women smashed the spot she had been on.
Emma Frost, she had quickly noted the woman in all her diamond glory, And Ruby.
She recalled reading the scarce intel the Avengers had on her apparent half-sister from a different timeline.
The follow-up came as expected. The White Queen ducked low with a leg sweep intent on keeping her off-balanced while Ruby leaped over her alleged mother in a full-tackle—likely banking on her considerable durability to keep her down.
It was a good effort, she supposed. There was not enough data on Ruby's attack pattern so she really could neither predict how well the mother-daughter duo fought together nor how strong Ruby was.
Fortunately, she had thought up this scenario: where powers she had not fully grasped presented itself. Thus, she was not surprised—and that made all the difference in this skirmish.
She adapted swiftly—she had flipped backwards with one hand, kicking Ruby high up in the air while her other hand flew to her visor and pressed the trigger. At once, a beam of red slammed into the stunned White Queen and the recovering Cuckoos.
Needless to say, the small clan of Frosts were mostly out.
"I've had enough of this." Her father had angrily declared and she could only inwardly grin at what was coming. "This ends now."
It was then when the moment she had been waiting for arrived. Had she not been in her battle mindset, she would have grinned.
Her father was furious and no doubt would attempt to end the fight before it got further out of hand. Predictably, he reached for his mask and pulled it back, unleashing a beam of pure red destruction upon her, much too fast for her to dodge at this range…
Not that she had any plans on doing so.
She had then stood up to her full height and allowed her father's optic blast to consume her.
And, just like that, her gear was recharged back to full power.
Such was her parent's gift.
Her suit, made of specialized synthetic material, metabolized cosmic energy such as her father's far faster than even his body could. Effectively, not only was she immune to various forms of cosmic energy, she could do as she wanted with the power she absorbed—such as use her father's energy to recharge her discs.
It was a gift she was given when she was accepted into S.W.O.R.D.—when she proved to herself and to her parents that, even without any mutant gift, with only hard-work and a determined will, she would be strong. Key pieces of her suit were designed by both Old Man Stark, Dr. Pym, Reed, and her father to harness cosmic energy and turn it into the weapon of her choice.
It had never failed her.
Her father's assault had ceased when he realized that she didn't budge. As she had predicted, her father would need a second to comprehend just what happened to his optic blast, and she took full advantage of that second.
After swiftly setting her output to maximum while disabling her limiter, she had then returned fire—and ignored the crack she heard signifying that the disc—her ammunition—broke.
Everything became red.
Still, she did not relent. She had seen her father stagger—he did not fall.
The battle flowed just as she predicted. She knew that her father would not fall to her optic blast. Even if not as quickly as her augmented suit, her father could still metabolize the cosmic energy and minimize the force of his blast.
That was the reason why she had rushed him just as he tried to recover.
She had leapt, fist cocking backwards and an apology escaping her lips, all in preparation to pummel him into unconsciousness and take him away when yet another unexpected foe arrived.
A small blonde girl with glacial blue eyes had abruptly appeared between her and her target.
Still, she continued. Diverting more power into her suit, she stomped on the ground before the blonde hard and swung with all her might—with all the strength that had once sent even the Hulk flying when they fought, never even thinking of holding back because, after all, the girl must have been durable if she could survive 5 Giga Watts at ground zero.
Her bones in her fist broke upon contact with the girl's face.
"You think you'll take atyets from me?" The unflinching girl spat. In the blonde's hand, a Soulsword ignited. "I think not."
And, just like that, the tide had turned and drowned her.
-0-0-0-
"Eleonora…" Scott tested the woman's name. He glanced at the silent young woman seated across him and took in her defeated features. "Are you… how are you feeling?"
"…" She stared at him with dull chocolate eyes.
"I suppose I'll have to cut to the chase." He began. "I don't appreciate your assault on my team but I cannot really fault you."
It seemed the telepaths had peered into her mind while she was unconscious.
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…do you have a place to stay?"
She could not stop herself.
Her eyes glistened at her father's caring words.
"…no…"
"…this is awkward." Scott smiled at her sheepishly.
"…sorry…"
"It's alright, Elle." He comforted her—oblivious to the worsening effect his words had on his daughter's inner turmoil; it only reminded her more of her departed father. "It's alright. One step at a time. You wouldn't be the first of my line that's tried to kill me. Here, come. Let's go back to the others."
The tall brunette wordlessly followed him out the door.
It seemed she truly was still driven by her emotions.
Truly, she still was her mother's daughter.
Omake: You, too?
Ruby stared at Elle.
Elle stared back.
"So…" Ruby thoughtfully began, "I call dibs on dad. He died in my timeline too, after all."
"Can't we just, I don't know, settle this in a fairer manner?"
Ruby snorted—an act that caused the nearby Emma to inwardly swear at how Scott knew nothing of how to raise a proper woman—and rolled her eyes beneath her shades. "Little girl, you're really naïve, aren't you?"
"Can't you speak two sentences without being condescending?" Elle rolled her eyes. "And for the record, I only want to get information from Scott."
"I made three, and you and I know that reason's bull." Ruby fired back nonplussed. In the background, Emma choked on her drink at Ruby's rough language. "Anyway, Ana's been stalking dad since she arrived. I'm thinking you and I could tag-team her."
Elle nodded her head affirmatively; the diminutive Ana was a formidable obstacle. "I'm listening."
"It's elementary, really. One of us distracts Ana while the other spends time with dad. Given our mutual background, I don't mind sharing him with you."
With those words spoken, a pact was made and a quest had begun.
Both Ruby and Elle would look back on that time with both a grimace and regret at having unleashed the little horror that was Anastasia Rasputin-Summers.
A/N: If ever I was gonna write a serious story about Ana and Elle, I wanted to explore the theme of superiority and jealousy. I'll post the profiles I constructed so many months ago for Ana and Elle in my Just In Space forum in due time but, the tl;dr is as follows:
Eleonora Maximoff-Summers was born without any powers despite testing positive for the X-gene. Although both her parents were fine with that, Elle took it upon herself to prove her strength even without her parent's abilities.
On the other hand, Anastasia Rasputin-Summers became overpowered as soon as her powers manifested. She absorbed her father's ability to absorb cosmic radiation but, instead of turning it into optic blasts, it made her invincible. Like the Juggernaut, she does not need to eat, sleep, or even breathe. Think Incorruptible's Max Damage but trade sleep for radiation. To make matters worse, she developed a secondary mutation from her mother's lineage: organic metal armor that increases her already immense strength and durability further. As if that was not enough, Illyana's strict teaching and her own prodigious talent made her a master of the mystic arts even at her young age.
Naturally, Elle is jealous that Ana—this child—not only made all her years of effort meaningless, but also has everything she ever wanted. It would be the conflict between them.
I recall that superiority and jealousy were themes of the old X-Men; the idea where mutants, by simply being born, can do things that normal humans would need to devote their years learning. How would Elle cope with this harsh reality while she is already in a fragile state?
But, again, that's if ever I was gonna write a serious story with these two.
