Chapter 35 – FUBAR
"Hello darkness my old friend. I've come to talk with you again." – Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel
All thoughts of hiding his presence died with the scent of Zen. X didn't try to skulk and dodge detection. Instead he went with his first instinct. Bullets carved hot paths through his flesh, but the wounds healed faster than the soldiers could pull their triggers. Dark satisfaction filled him as their faces morphed to terror when he kept coming on, tearing through them like a demon who'd escaped the deepest pits of hell.
Sweet copper scent filled his nose, mingling with the sharp under tang of perforated bowels. The scream of alarms warbled up and down the corridors, filling X with a fierce joy. Let them come. Let them all come. He would dance in their entrails as he cleaned out the infestation of humanity that had once again taken root here.
Stryker didn't waste time questioning how the breach occurred or who was to blame. That would come later, once his task was complete.
Reaching Xavier's location, he finished giving his orders to the stationed strike teams to find the intruders and eliminate them.
The hallway in front of the mock Cerebro was crowded with Lyman's fire team. They'd be the final level of defense if the infiltrates made it this far. Not that he expected them to, then again, he hadn't believed anyone could approach the base without his knowledge, let alone get inside without. No, he wasn't going to take any more chances.
He looked the men over with an approving eye. The reinforced squad contained over a dozen men, all carrying automatic and heavy weaponry. With their weapons and positioning, they'd be able to hold off ten times their number or more.
"Mr. Lyman, position your men," Stryker ordered. Leaving Lyman to the task, trusting him to do it properly, Stryker entered the chamber. He stalked along the gantry extension to the circular platform, a hastily constructed replica of the one they'd found in the mansion.
The contraption wasn't a thing of beauty, but looks weren't important. What mattered was that the stolen components all functioned in the same manner they did in the real Cerebro chamber. Xavier was positioned in front of the console. Behind him and slightly to the left, 143 waited. It brought a hint of a smile to the older man's face. The most powerful mutant mind on the planet was aware of nothing beyond what Stryker permitted. Charles Xavier, relegated to the status of a trained monkey. Stryker almost laughed.
He bent down to his son's ear and whispered his instructions.
Xavier turned his head slightly, thinking he heard something, but the low persistent buzzing in his mind muffled the sound. Why wouldn't it go away? The distraction faded when the girl reached out and touched his arm. She stood on her toes and whispered in his ear.
"Is it time to find our friends?"
Xavier's heart fluttered in his chest with excitement. Finally the emptiness inside of him filled with purpose. He'd never felt such joy, it was rhapsodic.
"Yes," he crooned back, meaning it with every fiber of his being.
Stryker whispered to his son . . .
. . . and mutant 143, via the image of a little girl . . .
. . . whispered to Xavier.
"All the mutants? Everywhere?"
"Oh, yes." Xavier breathed. The path opened up before him, promising fulfillment, and yet . . .
Always, and yet. No matter how he tried to embrace this stunning moment, something kept tugging him back, worrying at him like a puppy with a slipper. It couldn't be ignored or denied.
Thankfully, the childish piping voice was stronger.
"Good," she said.
"Good," Stryker whispered to himself. He reached out to grip 143's shoulder, came so close that he could feel the heat of the mutant's flesh lick at his palm before pulling his hand back. He curled his fingers into a clenched fist. For a second, he'd almost forgotten 143 was nothing more than a tool, a weapon in the battle to save humanity. Instead, he'd seen him as his son. That was unusual for him. It was a sign of weakness. It wouldn't do, he couldn't afford to let his clear thinking be clouded with foolish emotions.
With crisp military bearing, Stryker turned on his heel and marched out of the chamber. He refused to look back. After this, he'd never have to look at mutant 143 again. The only image of his son he'd keep would be from Before. Back when a mahogany-haired boy with soft cheeks and an easy giggle begged his daddy for horsy rides and who Stryker loved more than life itself.
The world that was, the world that would have been if Xavier and those like him hadn't existed. A world he would make real for everyone else, all the other fathers out there who would have healthy, human children, and not monsters.
If Jason was aware of his father's thoughts, he didn't appear to care. What intrigued him was his new toy, and his strange, mismatched eyes widened in delight as he began to play.
Xavier offered a smile to the girl as he finished the last of his preparations.
"Don't move," he warned, keeping his tone gentle so as not to frighten her. Xavier slid the helmet into place and shifted a little so he sat more comfortably in his chair.
All around them, the thrown together walls fell away, and Xavier's mind expanded outwards, filling the chamber. He jumped, terror spiking though the fog in his mind because next to him wasn't a little girl at all, but the mutilated horror Stryker made of his son.
The jolting fear washed away as he looked again. No, that wasn't right. It was the girl. Strange how he hadn't noticed her eyes before now. One shined a pale husky blue, while the other flared poison green, a shade that reminded him distantly of Zen.
A holographic representation of the globe sprang up, filling the empty space of the chamber with its soft brilliance. They floated in the heart of the world.
Taking a steadying breath, Xavier's conscious fragmented, creating countless versions of himself that raced through earth, water, stone, concrete, steel, molten rock, stretching to all points of the globe where mutants could be found. Not just the active manifestations, or the ones on the cusp of coming into their power, he targeted the latents as well. Every person who possessed the mutator parings in their genome, even if it was only the potential and wouldn't manifest themselves but who might bear offspring who would, were captured by him. He'd never thought there would be so many.
He found one lounging in a New Orleans bar, shuffling cards – Remy, I should let him know Zen is well, the thought was there and gone in an instant, buried under endless impressions. Another drifted through a Scottish field, picking heather for a decoration at Moira MacTagger's dinner table. A stunningly beautiful woman serving as a lifeguard on Bondi Beach; an ancient aborigine perched in the highest branches of a tree. A young boy with feathers and a quintet of white-blond psychics who were exact replicas of each other yet entirely unrelated. He found mutants with strength, others with skills, those who could fly or run faster than a cheetah, and still others who lived in the depths of the oceans. One young lady could flatten herself thinner than a sheet of paper and another who could become any substance in the periodic table by tearing off her skin. He found mutants who were born to be predators like X, and others who were prey, and a vast array of those who had yet to come to that crossroad.
Xavier observed a world poised on the brink of war, balanced between what was and what might be, and he knew in a brilliant flash of understanding that he held the reins of change. It was his responsibility to shape this change, to determine whether the future was one of bright and unparalleled possibilities or one where the planet drowned in a sea of blood.
Every mutant stood apart as a scarlet drop of light against the darkness of forever, yet, beside them flared countless white lights, the lights of those who were not mutant. They flared with equal light and must be cherished equally. The lights banded together, forming a single whole, both sides bound together, the children of Mother, and Xavier found in this moment poised between action and inaction, what he'd always known in his heart, what he'd always attempted to show Erik Lenhsherr, you could not safeguard one without protecting the other.
With a thought, Cerebro came fully on-line, making itself known in the low thrum of power that gradually increased in intensity.
Hearing the hum, Stryker smiled. He stood next to Lyman. "Guard this post, Mr. Lyman. That's an order."
"Yes, sir."
"From here on out, kill anyone who approaches. Even if it's me."
"Yes, sir."
"God bless you, men. God give us this day!"
Stryker returned Lyman's salute with the same crispness he would have used if they were on the parade ground at West Point before doing an about-face and striding away with Yuriko at his side.
After watching his superior walk away, Lyman turned to his men to review their positions and ammo loads. He had no doubt that the upcoming battle would be a bear fight, but he also knew that he and his men were trained to handle it. They were ready, no matter what came at them, and they would prevail.
"Hold up," Jean said, holding up a hand to stop them. They'd ventured deep into the twisted corridors of the complex and were in a portion carved out of the rock beneath the dam. Taking a breath of the dank air, Jean closed her eyes and focused. "I feel something," she confessed before her eyes sprang open in a relieved grin. "It's Scott," she shouted, unable to contain her excitement.
Her joy was met with fire, a beam of scarlet energy erupted out of the darkness and gouged a chunk out of the wall between Jean and the other two with enough force to fling shrapnel like stone at them. As Jean dove out of the beam's path, she threw a telekinetic cloak over them to deflect the stone.
"My dear," Jean heard Magneto call out, "this is the sort of lover's quarrel we can ill afford."
"Go!" She shouted back, "I'll take care of him." Fear settled in her gut as she caught sight of Scott's face. His blank, empty face made her heart spasm in horror. It was an eerie echo of IX face when he'd first come to them, before the Professor ordered him to play human. Oh, God, no. Please don't do this to him, let him be okay. She didn't know if she could stand it if they'd destroyed his mind, turning him into the same sort of weapon as IX.
No expression marred his features as she shouted his name. He gave no reaction to her voice. When she reached for him with her thoughts, fighting through the cutting agony of the psy dampeners, all she found was an empty void whose only awareness was an icy oblivion whose source radiated out from a spot at the base of his skull. Relief almost made her dizzy. She didn't need to see the scar to know what happened to him, and since both Kurt and Magneto recovered, Scott would too.
Another beam of light shot towards her, reminding her that until the drug wore off, or she managed to break him free of it, he'd be as implacable and relentless as IX ever was.
As one, Magneto and Mystique backed away. The movement caused Cyclops to fire a third time. Jean was ready for it, deflecting the optic blast to her left, letting it carve a shallow path out of the far wall. While she did that, she made a hand gesture, needing the physical action to help direct her telekinesis outwards to slam into his chest. The blow threw him off his feet.
Her focus narrowed as she ran forward, shoving him as she went. His speed accelerated with her own, and Jean had to grit her teeth as he fought with single minded strength against her hold. It appeared that the chemical cocktail Stryker used on his victims allowed them to utilize all their previous knowledge and skill to fight. When she'd first started training her abilities for combat, Scott practiced with her. Together they'd learned the best ways for her to use her gifts, while at the same time he learned how to defeat them. Now he used that knowledge against her.
The hall they were in ended in a stone wall. Phantom pain flared along her nerves as she slammed him into it as hard as she dared. Unfortunately, he was wearing his uniform, and it absorbed most of the impact.
Without uttering a word, he fired at her again. Jean ducked, and the blast hit a Humvee parked in an alcove behind her. The force lifted the four-ton vehicle up and slammed it into the one parked next to it. Rattled by the loud crunch of shattering glass and folding metal, Jean lost her grip on him. Scott flipped over the balcony railing, falling down into the darkness below.
Jean bit back a curse ran forward. Grabbing onto the railing, she stared down into the unrelieved darkness. The space below her was entirely enclosed in shadows, hiding the room's dimensions from her. Digging her nails into the metal, she started to contact the others, to let them know she'd lost Scott only to realize she'd lost her com unit in the tussle. Her mind already felt like it was bleeding in half a dozen places, and she knew she wasn't strong enough to try and force her thoughts through the psy barrier again so soon. At least, not when she had no idea where her targets were.
Stepping back from the railing, Jean knelt to reduce her size, making her less of a target while she thought out her options. If she focused, she could still sense Scott's corrupted thoughts, but only enough to know he was unhurt and mobile. Not enough for her to get a lock on him. As if that wasn't bad enough, now that she was so focused, she could hear the deep grumble of gears and motors below. No doubt that would complicate the hunt when she went down after him.
"Oh, Scott," she whispered, fighting back the sting of tears. He was the strategist, the combat leader, not her. Training wasn't enough, especially when she avoided combat training as much as possible. Her heart wasn't in fighting, it was in healing. Now she regretted all the times she shirked. She swallowed hard. Every time they'd sparred, loser buys lunch, she ended up forking out the cash. Every single time.
Stealing herself, Jean stood. It wasn't like she had much of a choice.
The static filled silence ate at the kids. Anger bubbled just beneath the surface at being left behind, at the lack of information, and the certain knowledge that one of Stryker's goons would find them any second and fill their little escape craft full of holes before they could do a single thing to retaliate.
John decided he'd had enough. "That's it," he snapped, pressing the switch to extend the ramp.
"Where are you going?" Bobby challenged.
John couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Where do ya think, idiot? I'm sick of this little kid table bullshit."
Bobby jumped up. "You'll freeze before you make it to the spillway."
"I doubt it."
"But John, they told us to stay here," Rouge said.
For a long second, the two boys glared, ready to use each other as a distraction against their fear and boredom. Rogue wondered if Bobby would use his ice to stop their class mate, and how hard John might fight back. In her heart, she knew which of the two boys was more ruthless.
"John!" Rogue begged as she took a measured step forward, placing herself between the two.
The moment broke like splintering ice. John threw Bobby a look of dark warning, but what he offered Rouge was a boyish grin, like the ones the old Johnny used to give, complete with a teasing wink.
Then, before either of them could react, he was gone. John trotted across the ice swept landscape as if he were strolling through a park on a hot summer day, utterly ignoring the blistering cold. Rogue eased past Bobby to the controls, but made no move to raise the ramp. Part of her knew how John felt, and longed to follow where he lead.
Jean took the stairs at a run. When she made it to the floor, she dove in a roll that took her into the cover of the endlessly spinning generators. While she knew Scott was waiting for her, she had no clue where he'd concealed himself. But it didn't matter, she knew what he'd do, and of course he did.
As she regained her balance and rose to a crouch, he fired. The optic blast came at her from the right. Usually, by the time a target saw Cyclops's unique red light, they were already hit by it. Jean had an advantage others lacked. While his weapon was the speed of light, her parry was the speed of thought. Concept and execution occurred simultaneously, allowing her to erect a telekinetic shield an instant before she would have been struck.
Her body jolted as the beam crashed into her shield, making her clench her eyes shut to focus all her strength on holding him back. It didn't work out the way she hoped. While the shield held, her feet began a slow backward slide. With each foot she was pushed back, Cyclops advanced, as unstoppable as an automaton. He adjusted the visor, narrowing the beam down to maximize its intensity.
Where the two powers clashed, energy sparked and began to glow, blazing hot and glaring bright enough Jean could see it through her closed eye lids.
Jean screamed at him, not out of fear, but in defiance, shouting his name again and again as she tried to break through the drugs to reach him.
"Scott!" she roared, "Remember who you are. Please, remember who I am. Stop this!"
His power began eating through her shield, eroding the bonded energy that kept her safe. Jean knew she could beat him, all she had to do was split her focus enough to throw her teke at him, using it to burrow into the vulnerable places of his body. As a doctor, she knew all the places to strike that would inflict the most damage – both to incapacitate or eliminate a target. There were so many areas to choose from; she could block his airway, one of the valves of his heart, or even interrupt the smooth flow of neural transmissions along his central nervous system.
But his first attack had been too strong for her to split her focus without losing control of the shield. She might have been able to take him when he rushed her after she came out of the roll. Fear kept her from acting then. She'd hesitated, afraid her lack of control would do more damage than intended. Trying out such maneuvers in the relative safety of the danger room, where the subject was hooked up to multiple different monitors and people were on standby to revive them if things went wrong was one thing. Performing the dangerous attack here against Scott? Unacceptable.
It didn't matter anyway. Scott continued upping the power level faster than she'd believed possible. Jean was forced to use every scrap of her teke to keep him from breaking her. What could she do?
She couldn't kill him.
She refused to be defeated by him.
The desperate conflicting urges warred inside her until something woke in her mind. A bright string of celestial music that had always danced at the outer reaches of her awareness from the moment her powers came into being, shifted from a distant whisper to a roaring symphony, a crescendo that rolled through her like a tsunami. At first, she thought she'd be swept away, but with a pureness of joy she'd never known existed, Jean rode the crest of the unbelievable wave, surfing creation in the same way she'd always dreamed of cutting through the ocean.
All around her, the air twisted and rippled, like fabric in a high wind before it began glowing. The roseate cornea grew around her before it flowed down her outstretched hand, following the path her teke forged until it slammed into the blazing needle of energy that made up Cyclops's optic blast.
Bearing her teeth, Jean straightened to her full height as raw emotion made her face a haunting mask of contrast against Scott's blank features.
Around her, the blazing light shifted as the battle continued, creating the suggestion of fire instead of mere light and a hint of wings flaring outward from her back, not those of an angel, but the flare of a predatory bird, a raptor rising from the nest to attack an enemy.
As the energy between them grew in intensity, the fabric of reality began to twist and buck, unable to contain it. Cyclops's power was immense, but was ultimately a thing of reality. It came with limits. Jean's power was limited only by her imagination and will.
Focusing all her will on defeating him, she took a step forward, pushing both with thought and power. Her heart gave a silent shout of jubilation when the brilliant red light was pushed back towards him.
Her triumph didn't last long. They weren't the only factors with limits in the battle. Reality itself could only take so much before something gave. In a fight that played on levels from the paranucular to the subatomic, Jean's strength surged to unbearable levels, and the energy being used increased exponentially until the heat and pressure the combined forces created triggered an equal and opposite reaction.
In a literal sense, they created a molecular protostar, a localized version of the Big Bang.
For the smallest fragment of time, they tasted the power of creation. Thankfully for all the residents of the known universe, the fabric of reality – weakened immeasurably by their fight – split wide open under the unbearable strain, allowing the energy to vent into a random, and wholly unfortunate plane of existence.
Unaware of the cataclysmic near miss, the two combatants were only aware of the surging radiance that made the sun's glow dim to that of a firefly before an explosion more impressive than one of Storm's better efforts sent them both flying.
Scott was thrown, backside over top, the full length of the massive room. Jean's flight path wasn't as clear, and she crashed into one of the bulky machines. Agony speared up her leg as the bone crumpled under the brutal force of her landing.
They weren't the only ones affected by the blast. Energy radiated out from its source, shaking the entire foundation of the dam. The generator room bucked like a ship in the midst of a killer storm, causing the machines to rattle and moan as they were put under strain never considered by their creators. Dust wafted like snow down from almost every ceiling, and a resounding bong sounded from somewhere deeper in the complex as a segment of iron railing pulled free.
A crack skittered up one wall, allowing water to leak through.
The ground came alive under Stryker's feet, shaking itself like and irritable donkey trying to rid itself of an unwanted rider. He would have gone flying if it wasn't for Yuriko's strong grip. After the shaking settled, he stood and dusted himself off while muttering darkly under his breath.
Water dripped onto the top of his head, freezing him mid word. Tilting his head back, Stryker saw the network of cracks in the ceiling. Fear skittered down his spine at the sight, and he stomped down the halls until he came to one of the dam's monitoring stations. All it took was a single glance at the numbers to know the dam was doomed.
Long ago, before Jason, before marriage, before his promotion, he'd been a field agent. Black ops. One of the areas he'd been trained in was sabotage. Dams had been covered in the course material. There were two primary methods for taking out a dam. Drop a very large bomb on it in the right place, like the British did to the Germans in World War II – or set off a far smaller explosion in just the right place, and let the integral pressures of the dam destroy itself. What it all came down to was the dam's structural integrity since the water it held back was unrelenting.
The explosion created a chain reaction, creating hairline cracks that wouldn't remain so for long. No matter what else happened, the complex was doomed. Stryker's only concern was how long before the whole structure came down on their collective heads. Focusing, he performed several calculations and had to give it up. There were too many unknowns.
Stryker made a conscious choice, the dam would last as long as he needed to complete his task. He'd worked too hard, sacrificed too much, to see it undone now. His cause was just, ergo he would prevail.
"Let's go," Stryker said, leading Yuriko swiftly away from their current position.
The sharp, robotic clank of his footsteps drew Jean out of her agony induced stupor. A low keen broke from her throat, not due to the pain, but because from his footfalls alone, Jean knew Scott wasn't free. He was coming to kill her, and she couldn't stop him.
Trying to sit up, she fell back as another wave of unrelenting pain seared up her shattered leg. Jean couldn't dredge up enough energy to try and muffle the pain or stop Scott. Screw that! Martialing what was left of her flagging strength, she dampened the pain in her leg, dulling it down to a low angry mutter before calling out to Scott. She didn't bother using her voice, instead she flung open her mind in a final desperate bid to reach him.
SCOTT! It was a single word, yet so much more. Every touch, all the emotion they'd built together, unfolded from her mind to his. She shared with him the world and how it felt when they were separated, and then contrasted it with how it was like to be together. The difference flavored the space between them like the difference between a wasteland and paradise. He was comfort, passion, need, joy. Together they were stronger, they forged a bond without parallel, and were two kindred souls married into one, a whole that far outshined either of them separately.
Her soul spilled open, and she only held back that dark sliver of her that even now thought only of Logan, and realized as she did so that this piece of her would be the blade she called on if she was forced to do the unthinkable and kill him.
As he reached for his visor, she was overtaken with a ridiculous memory of watching one of Scott's favorite movies, Robert Wise's classic The Day the Earth Stood Still. She recalled the instant when Patricia Neal was trapped, faced with the robot Gort and how his visor glowed the same way Scott's did as it opened to reveal the deadly beams within.
Scott!
His hand paused, then began to tremble as his lips twisted. Jean watched the smooth easy breaths quicken as his hands clenched into fists, and in his mind she saw light flash through the dampening fog as he fought against it. Distantly, his own mental voice called back to her.
Then, like a wire pulled too taut to bear the strain, the shout exploded out of his chest, roaring free in a desperate, incoherent sound a man might howl as he clawed his way free of a shattered pit that culminated in an awful scream of agony that made her pain pale beside it.
Scott crumpled to his knees and sobbed, each breath ripping out of him in rasping gulps like a man who'd finally broken the surface of the ocean when he'd thought himself lost.
When she reached out to touch him, he jerked away, curling in on himself like a beaten dog. Anger sizzled along her nerves, not at him, but for him because he was her man and he wasn't the beaten creature huddled before her.
Reaching forward again, she lightly stroked the side of his face while her thoughts sank into him, enveloping him in warmth, strength, love. She gave to him the reflection of himself as she saw him, the man she knew he was, who made her complete. It'll be all right, Scott, she soothed in his mind as she spoke aloud, "It's okay, it's me. It's me!"
The tortured look on his face faced slowly into a thing of relief, and she drew him to her as she buried her face into the hollow of his neck. Her own relief filled her with a giddiness she'd never found in alcohol.
"You're hurt," he murmured.
"Indeed," she said. "Here, help me up."
Scott snorted, a little of his old personality shining through. "I don't think so, I'll carry you."
"Like hell you will, I'm a telekinetic, remember? I'll make myself a splint and crutches all in one."
"Yeah?"
"Love, you'll be the first to know if I'm wrong."
"Jean," he began before hesitating. "Look, I'm-I'm so sorry." His voice broke on the words as she reached up and brushed a loving kiss along the side of his jaw.
"It's okay. I thought I lost you," now her voice was the one choked with tears as she remembered the horrifying sensation of being unable to shake him from the fog.
"Thanks," he whispered, but she felt the enormity of emotion hidden in the word and hugged him harder.
Before they could both break down into well-deserved hysterics, Jean's face changed as she glanced around the room. "Something's wrong."
Bodies littered the hall behind X, irritating the mutant even more since the stink of blood mixed with the cordite odor left behind from their fruitless attempts to shoot him masked the faint trail he'd been following.
Idiot! Stop casting about like a blood hound and think. Where would prisoners be kept? Are there cells?
Bearing his teeth at the voice in his head, X turned and stalked through an open doorway. Logan surged forward, shock and disorientation forcing him back into control as the vast room tore at his senses. X almost attacked, but the jolts of pain he felt radiating from the other stayed his claws. Instead he took up the same position Logan had, hovering in the back of his mind, ready to retake control.
A slight tremble made his hands shake as he forced his legs to move forward. His eyes darted everywhere, lightly touching the different objects in the lab. It was a surgical suite, at the center, in isolated glory, was a tank. There were carts that held the typical compliment of surgical interments; scissors, retractors, scalpels, and clamps. But that wasn't all the trays held, not by a long shot. There were strange objects he couldn't find a name for, but looking at them sent a jolt of terror down his spine.
One of the walls was made up of numerous light boxes covered in various X-rays. Silvered bones mocked him from the dark sheets. While he knew on an intellectual level that X had been created here, he hadn't made the mental leap that this was where he was destroyed.
X's birth. His death.
It all started and ended here. Something brushed over the edges of his mind, and Logan's breath came in a low shuddering sigh. It felt like a fearsome predator who, instead of tearing him to pieces, rubbed its massive head against his back instead.
He couldn't understand what had gotten into his inner feral, but he decided to accept the comfort instead of trying to pick it apart with questions. It wasn't like X could answer anyway.
Bracing himself, Logan approached the tank. At first, he'd thought it was empty. It was full of a greenish tinted liquid. Above the tank hung interments that looked like they'd be more at home in a slaughterhouse than a medical lab.
Beside the tank, at the head, was a tall cylinder made of transparent polymer whose clarity could rival pure glass, yet was much stronger if the bubbling liquid it contained was an indicator.
Taking a slow, deep breath, Logan took in the place where he'd last been whole, where he'd been shattered, where they thought they'd killed him.
He clenched his fist and felt the almost comforting sting of his blades tearing free.
"You know," Stryker said from across the room. The sound didn't make Logan jump since he'd scented the man's approach. "Adamantium is a tricky substance to work with. If you're able to process its raw form into liquid, you're forced to keep it hot. Once it's cool," a pregnant pause, "it's indestructible. But you already know that, don't you" Stryker said, careful to keep plenty of space between them. "I once thought you were one of a kind. I truly did. I'd thought the Director found the only one like you in the world," a dark smile flared across his lips before vanishing. "I was mistaken."
Hate flared, and before Logan could stop him, X surged back into control. Stryker's gaze sharpened. "Stand down!" The shouted command jolted the feral into stillness as protocol tried to overwhelm him. Logan shoved back from the other side, this time using his own mental claws the way X often did to him.
A roar, first mental, then physical tore from X's throat as the pain grounded him, freeing him from the mental compulsion. His claws tore free and X charged.
Before he could reach his intended target, Yuriko stepped into his path. With skill that would make Zen arch an eyebrow in appreciation, she caught his extended left arm and used his own momentum as an impetus to slam him head first into one of the support columns. Cracks erupted at the point of impact, but X didn't even stagger as he rounded to attack.
Stryker gave Yuriko a look that held unspoken command. At her nod of understanding, he disappeared through a different doorway, taking a second to lock the door behind him even though he knew the motion was less than useless. There wasn't a door in the facility X's claws couldn't cleave through.
A low rumbling snarl escaped him at the sight of his true prey escaping, but when he tried to follow, the female again placed herself in his path. The empty features of her face struck a chord him, reminding him vaguely of Zen, yet . . . not. While his little mate held little emotion, he was still fully present. The female wasn't. Something about her was lacking.
His nostrils flared as he drank in the scent of her. The feminine scent held a sharp tang of bitterness he knew to be foreign, one he recognized off the new mutant who also stank of sulfur. It had been faint in the male, barely there. This woman stank of it so much so it almost eradicated her base scent.
Yuriko gave him a bored look, as if she dealt with mutants like him every day before she took a stance and spread her fingers wide. The long slender digits elongated into eight-inch stiletto spikes.
Shit, Logan thought as he looked out of their shared eyes. Now he knew what Stryker was babbling on about, and he had the sinking feeling that it wasn't just the adamantium extras the two had in common.
Without a word, her lips pulled up into a foxlike smirk that held nothing of humanity in it. She was like some strange other, one forever gazing at the world from the outside. Instinctually, he knew he was looking at a fellow predator, one who saw all others as her prey.
Her hand darted out faster than a striking snake, leaving a sharp line of pain across his cheek. The wounds healed before a drop of blood slid free, and X's lips mimicked hers in a wolfish grin.
Hours upon hours spent fighting Zen flowed through his mind as they moved. Like Zen, the woman was about speed and using her opponent's body against them. Pain cut through him in half a dozen places as he learned her movements. She twisted around one of his strikes, and popped up behind him to unleash a savage kick to the lower back that pitched him forward, sending him crashing into one of the trays of random surgical tools. That was another difference between her and Zen, because her skeleton was equally reinforced, she hit a hell of a lot harder.
With a screech that would make a bird of prey proud, she leaped after him, slashing with both hands only to find her savage attack blocked by his larger blades. Adamantium screamed off adamantium, creating a unique brand of sparks as they fought to break through each other's guard and only managed to wreck the lab around them.
The ruckus clatter of battle chased Stryker down the hall and he allowed himself a smile as he quickened his step. Time was of the essence.
X never fought someone with his healing factor, but neither had Yuriko. On that, they were equals. However, he did have an edge over her. He'd fought Zen extensively, and by fighting with the tiny male, he'd learned all the ways his mate could incapacitate him. He used that extensive knowledge against his opponent.
Instead of going after her tender organs, the way she kept attacking, he targeted her ligaments. Her left arm went limp, claws still imbedded in his chest, as he cut the connections again and again. His free hand gripped her wrist, binding her to him so she couldn't escape.
Bleed her! Logan shouted in his mind.
Growling under his breath, he drove his free claws into her again and again, slashing through her heart, severing her abdominal aorta, scoring her throat open to the spine. No matter how hard she fought and squirmed, trying to break his hold, he kept at her, tearing her apart faster than she could heal.
Each wound spilled a little more blood, until they were both soaked in the liquid. Her dagger like fingers tore into his lower abdomen, trying to gut him but he didn't even flinch against the pain. It was no worse than the sharp kiss of Zen's daggers when he'd annoyed the smaller male too much.
As the bloody minutes passed, the fight began draining out of the woman along with the sharp stink of drugs. Each slash drained away a little more of the taint until she cried out and tried to pull away from him.
The blank look was gone, replaced with one of horrified pain. He couldn't understand the shrill almost birdlike language that spilled from her frightened, bloodstained lips, but he didn't need to. Instead he released her. Jerking away, she stumbled and almost fell on the slick floor. Her wide, terrified eyes never left him.
"Get out of here, you're free," Logan growled after stealing back enough control to speak. X refused to relinquish more, not when Zen still needed to be found. Rolling their eyes in almost fond exasperation, Logan stepped back, allowing the feral to regain control. The switch wasn't missed by Yuriko, and she did as she was told. Without another word, she turned and ran.
The mental link between Xavier and all the mutants on the planet was solid, and had been from the moment he'd made contact with them via Cerebro. He'd never attempted to run the machine at such a high level before or used his powers to such an extent. It wasn't safe for those he connected with or for himself. Already, the first stages of a monstrous headache dug its claws into him, whispering of damage being done.
But he'd accomplished the task and knew what needed to be done, yet he found himself unable to inform the little girl.
"How strange," he murmured. "I'm having trouble focusing on anyone." It wasn't a lie, not exactly. Out of all the connections he'd made, he still couldn't feel his X-Men or his students. They were out there, he was certain of that, but he couldn't see them, and the lack bothered him, considering how intimate he was with all their minds. They should have resonated with him most of all.
"Perhaps you should concentrate harder," she offered.
Nodding, Xavier increased the gain, making the hum Cerebro gave off deepen into a dull roar.
"Twenty says they don't show," one of the soldiers, Grierson, muttered to the man next to him.
"You're on."
Lyman didn't silence the low chatter, used to the men's antics used to help ease the mental strain of waiting for danger to come to them. He eyed their position. Grierson squatted behind a concrete abutment. Near his feet rested a small mountain of spare magazines, as well as spare weapons. He was on the younger end of the scale for Stryker's men, but still had an exemplary personnel jacked, capped with a year spent as a platoon sergeant in the 82nd Airborne, humping the boonies in Afghanistan.
Once he was sure the men were well stocked – for the sixth time – he sighed. What he really wanted was a smoke. Lyman never smoked when he was home, but he indulged in one before an engagement. As much as he hated to admit it, he knew it was nerves. Even after thirty years of service with combat tours the world over, he still felt the bite of nerves before the shooting began.
One more time, Lyman found himself walking the lines, checking all the sight lines and kill zones, ensuring each soldier had an abundance of weapons and ammo. In a fair battle, against an adversary like themselves, no matter how well trained, he would have called it in their favor, no doubts. They had the superior positioning, anyone coming down the corridor wouldn't make it through the kill zone intact.
Once he was certain everything was in place, he moved silently up the corridor and turned the corner, stealing a moment of privacy. He'd broken the unspoken rule of clandestine ops: He'd brought personal items. Only photos, his wife, children, grandchild on the way. His dogs. Lyman hand raised the pair from pups, two mixed-breed shepherds that kept his wife company while he was away. The children were off building households of their own, and he knew their home had begun to feel too empty without them. She was lonely; he hoped the dogs helped keep that loneliness at bay.
What would his children say if they could see him here? Unwillingly, his thoughts turned back to the kids they'd taken from the mansion and the callous way Stryker condemned them. In a way it was funny, he'd always known the broad outline of Stryker's ambition, but he'd always assumed – no, always chose to assume – the targets would be adults. Fully grown mutants.
Lyman did a dangerous thing for a soldier, he put himself into the enemy's boots and wondered what he'd do if someone broke into his home and stole his children away.
Taking a slow breath, Lyman forced himself back into calmness. He had to take a second since the first was too shuddery and his men needed to see him in complete control. Then he was forced to take yet another because the fear wouldn't be banished so easily. Its hooks dug into his mind, and he was forced to dig them out one at a time. Lyman wasn't a brilliant man and didn't care much for concepts. His expertise lay in the execution. Give him a mission, and he'd accomplish it.
"Time for me to go, sweetheart," he whispered down at the pictures in his hand before kissing each in turn. One daughter, her belly rounded with a grandchild he knew he'd never see, three fully grown sons, his two dogs, and his beloved wife, the heart of his life. Closing his hands over the photographs, Laymen prayed.
His meditation was interrupted by the sharp hum emanating from the Cerebro chamber. Sliding the photographs away, he returned to his men. The Cerebro machine sounded like an alien craft coming to life, a sound so deep it vibrated through their bones more than bounced around their ear drums. As the strange machine came to life, the ground under their feet shuddered. They all looked around nervously, expecting a horde of mutants to come bursting up out of the floors.
"Remember the briefing. This is part of the process. It might feel odd for us, but I guarantee you it'll be a thousand times worse for the muties. Keep alert."
"Ten more says this gizmo nails 'em before we get a shot off!"
"Save your money, Manfredi," Lyman snorted. "I'll win it from you in poker tonight."
He didn't get much of a laugh, but it was enough to ease some of the tension. Lyman checked over his weapons. If the muties had a lick of sense, they'd be headed this way on the double. No doubt they knew the score.
"Target sighted," Grierson stated as he leveled his sniper rifle.
Lyman brought up his binoculars, focusing in on the approaching targets. Magneto and Mystique were a hundred meters away. The elder mutie was in the lead by half a step as they marched up the hallway as if they owned the whole facility. He didn't appear to be phased by the sniper sight painting a dot over his heart.
"Clear to fire," Lyman ordered. A resounding boom echoed around the hallway, so loud the men flinched in unison.
Not only did the shell fail to destroy its target, it didn't even come close. Magneto halted it midflight without so much as a twitch of his elderly fingers.
No one waited for further orders. They all opened fire, and the air around Lyman became choked with the stench of cordite as spent casings rained down all around them. To even be considered for this team, a soldier had to be a superior marksman, and they were basically at point blank range. Even an idiot who didn't know which side of a gun was which would be hard pressed to miss.
The only time the deadly rain halted was when someone had to pause long enough to replace an empty magazine. It only took a few mindless minutes to drain over half their munitions, and they found themselves with nothing to show for the relentless barge.
Not a single bullet got within three feet of the targets. It hadn't mattered that they'd been crafted out of nonferrous materials that most had been made of compressed plastics. If he couldn't manipulate the shells directly, he warped the magnetic fields around them as well as himself, using the force of pressure to redirect them into the walls around them.
Too stunned to be frightened, the soldiers stopped firing. One or two glanced at Lyman, waiting to see if he had a plan B tucked up his sleeve. Unfortunately, he couldn't help them. He was too entranced by what was happening in front of them.
They'd thrown thousands upon thousands of rounds at the two mutants and instead of dropping the bullets or flinging them back at the soldiers, Magneto was compressing them, reshaping them into a wall that fully obscured the pair.
Why do they need a shield, Lyman wondered. He knows we can't do anything to them –
A faint click answered the unspoken question.
The bastard had pulled the pin on his grenade.
Grabbing the bomb, he pitched it clear of him and his men, thankful for the seven second delay on the fuse, but even as he threw it, he understood the gesture was meaningless. All around him came the fateful clicking sound. There was a whole case of grenades behind them, all the men carried a standard allotment, and they'd all been triggered.
In his mind's eye, he saw his wife and reached for her . . .
Then there was nothing but light.
The massive explosion ignited the remaining rifle ammunition and setting off an impressive conflagration of bullets. Curling her lithe body around Magneto's feet, Mystique planted her back directly against the shield in an effort to avoid the ricochet bullets buzzing around the room like a kicked hornets' nest.
Finally, the shrill pings, pops, crackles, and booms died down. Mystique fought not to choke on the heavy stench of smoke, torn flesh, and ripped bowels as she stood. The cacophony left her ears ringing in a way she doubted would fade anytime soon. It was so bad she barely heard the clatter as Magneto released the disk like shield.
Of the men who'd been set to guard the door, little remained. There weren't many chunks left that were large enough to identify as a specific body part, let alone specific individuals. At the entrance to the chamber, Magneto paused near the shredded remains of a man. In one of the odd quirks of war or natural disaster, a photograph survived the massacre. Though its edges were singed, Mystique could still make out the charming older woman hugging two bright eyed dogs. She knelt to get a better look, but Magneto stopped her with a glance.
Opening his hand, he released all the pins he'd pulled from the grenade, burying the photograph in steel.
His eyes jerked up from the mock burial and narrowed on the door as the hum from inside the chamber deepened, growing in intensity. Mystique gritted her teeth and brought her hands up to clutch at her temples. It felt like someone had slammed an ice pick into her skull.
A light appeared in front of Charles Xavier. The light formed the molten core of the holographic globe displayed by Cerebro, and radiating from it were countless tether lines, each reaching out and locking onto the crimson dots, the visual representations of active or potential mutants.
"No," Jean gasped, then yelped in agony as she lost control of her power. The teke splints disappeared from around her shattered leg. Dampening the pain psychically didn't make the pain go away, it simply allowed her to ignore it. However, the downfall was that it made the pain so much worse when she was forced to notice it. But the injury didn't matter now as she clutched at Scott's shoulder with a grip so tight he flinched as the bone groaned under the pressure.
"Jean," he demanded, sliding an arm around her waist before guiding her arm over his shoulders so he could hold her weight easier. "What's wrong?"
"So many voices," she choked, "Can't you hear them? No, of course not, how stupid. Charles, oh God, Charles, what have you done?"
"Jean!"
"It's Cerebro," she sobbed, and Scott felt ice trickle down his back as he heard terror and despair in those two simple words. "We're too late."
A scream tore from her throat. It was a primal sound, something he'd only heard once before. Back when he'd been young. It was one of the only memories he had from before the orphanage where he'd spent the bulk of his childhood. He was in the mountains, a chain of them that filled the sky around him on all side. Though his dad carried a gun for protection, today they'd been out to shoot pictures. There'd been an idiot in a different hunting party who'd stepped into a bear trap. The metal teeth bit so deeply into the man's leg it almost took the limb off. His echoing howls had bounced off the mountains in the same lunatic way Jean's echoed through the room.
She fell to the floor, clutching her head, and screeching in inhuman pain. The awful pain in her voice drove him to his knees, desperate to help, but unable to do a thing to alleviate it.
A deep, alien thrum filled the air around him, almost making it feel alive before Scott lost all rational thought. Overwhelming pain exploded in his mind; his eyes boiled with it, spilling the power back into his brain, down the cord of his spine, and down his limbs. Fire blazed through his nervous system in uncontrollable waves.
The last conscious act Scott performed was to throw himself clear of Jean, wrap his arms around his head, and roll his body in on itself as tightly as possible. His power couldn't penetrate his own flesh; by doing this he hoped, prayed, he wouldn't lose total control. He refused to hurt Jean any more than he already had.
Nightcrawler and Storm raced through the stone corridors, searching for the holding cells where the children were being held hostage. Like the first warning streak of lighting in the distance, Storm felt the psi wave before she felt the effects. The air, and the energies it held, bulged and rippled, the first tiny waves that Harold an approaching tsunami.
She wasn't the only one to sense its approach. Nightcrawler dropped down from the ceiling and braced a hand against the wall. Dizziness swamped the teleporter. He'd never tasted the unfortunate effects of vertigo before, and now he was glad he'd been spared the unpleasant experience for most of his life. He tried to focus but failed. It was getting more difficult for him to hold on to a solid thought. Every cell in his body seemed to have acquired minds of their own and were attempting to teleport off to unknown destinations.
Trying to turn and warn Storm, to call out for help, Nightcrawler staggered over his own feet and flailed in a desperate attempt to keep his balance.
"Storm!" He shouted with the desperation of a dying man, but he wasn't the only one in need of saving.
Agony drove her to her knees. Storm clutched her head, caught in a whirlwind of her own power. Lighting danced around her, exploding from her eyes before circling around to slam into her back. Before today, she'd been immune to her elements, but that was no longer true as blistering arcs of electricity roiled around and through her. She twisted and writhed on the ground with each impact, and although the wind tore the smoke away, they couldn't dispel the stench of her burning uniform. Nor could they erase the knowledge that in a very short amount of time, it would be her flesh burning.
"Stop it! Please, stop it! For the love of God, STOP!" Nightcrawler tried to scream, but no sound escaped. He'd lost the ability to speak. This was only the beginning of the nightmare, they both knew. It was a prelude to what awaited them all. He prayed, not only for himself or those with him, but for the souls of those responsible.
Forcing one hand in front of the other as if he were scaling a wall, Nightcrawler fought to reach Storm, to offer whatever shelter and comfort he could. He forced his arm forward, the distance seemed insurmountable. It was becoming almost impossible to move, to think, and an unbearable pressure throbbed behind his eyes, threatening to jolt them from their sockets. He feared his brain was swelling from the unbearable energy pulse.
Then the humming wave crashed over them, sweeping away all that came before.
Nightcrawler's final though was one of agonizing wonder. He'd always believed one had to die before they were forced to endure the pits of Hell.
X tried to snarl, but it morphed into a scream of agony as Logan was torn to the front as their body reacted violently to psychic wave. He couldn't hold it, nor could X, both personalities crashed against each other, a pair of boulders tossed headlong into a dryer.
Claws erupted from their hands, only extending an inch before retracting. Instead of the wounds healing, as they'd always done, blood sprayed from the cuts. It wasn't just the claw wounds, it seemed like all his past hurts were coming home, carving themselves across his flesh and painting the floor around him in thick splashes of blood. Many of the wounds were random, messy things, the legacy of knives, bullets, and the cruel hand of nature. But those weren't the only injuries to make a reappearance. Deep, careful incisions, the remnants of men who'd abandoned all allegiance to the Hippocratic Oath they'd taken to do no harm.
They'd laid Logan's body open to the bone, now in the hell where X was born, it all began again.
The psychic pressure wave crashed over Magneto with the force of a hurricane, and he forced himself to stand against it. Step by hard won step, he forced his way towards the bastardized version of Cerebro.
"Erik," the word rose up from behind him, Mystique's shattered voice, twisting between the letters, a mangled mass of voices. "Hurry!" Feminine for one, masculine for the other, the tone tore up from soprano before plunging down to brass and back up again.
Fear gripped his half dead heart in its bony raven claws, and he dared not turn to see what Charles's power was doing to her. For reasons he couldn't comprehend, Cerebro appeared to be using their own power against them, transforming that which made them unique into the very weapon that would destroy them. Mystique was a metamorph, possessing the ability to shape-change, to mimic any human form to perfection. Age, gender, size, nationality, none were beyond her talent.
Now, as with Logan, her past returned to try and tear her apart. Cerebro turned her flesh to warm putty, and she lost control of her ability. Change after involuntary change was pulled out of her, flipping through every face and form she'd ever played in. Even though she'd perfected her skill to the point that the transformations looked effortless, it wasn't. It had taken endless years of training, practice, and preparation for her to transform with such ease.
Every transformation took effort. The more she changed, the faster she did it, the greater the toll. To grow taller, she had to bulk up to provide the raw material. Shorter meant an equivalent burning off of mass. Flesh was easiest for her to shape, bones were trickier, and internal organs the most difficult of all. Because of that, most of her gender shifts were cosmetic only.
All the rules were thrown out the window now. The shifts came so fast she appeared as multiples. Her coloring with Jean Grey's face, Robert Kelly's torso, Zen's legs, Xavier's face, Magneto's hair, Scott's torso, Bobby's face rose up from her belly, someone else's from each breast, arms became legs and feet grew fingers, all the mad alterations were made more hellish by the rising chorus of maddened howls from mouths that sprouted all over her body, each capable of independent speech and all screaming in agony under the relentless pressure of the wave.
Before long, the transformations would come so swiftly that her consciousness – that fundamental self she'd never lost to all her many transformations – would splinter. On a cerebral and cellular level, Mystique would forget who and what she was, resulting in her becoming little more than a puddle of discorporate, mindless cells.
Magneto understood what was happening to her, and what the fate would be for both her and every other mutant on the planet – unless he stopped it.
The puddle in the corner they were reduced to using as a latrine had grown in the hours they'd spent trapped in the cement room, creating a stench that permeated everything. It wasn't the worst thing Zen had ever smelled. Compared to cleaning up after some of the Doctor's more volatile experiments, it was as pleasant as strolling through a field of wildflowers. But he could tell by the disgusted look on the other children's faces whenever one of them had to go and add to the mess how revolted they were.
So weak, he mused, knowing they were the stone around his neck, holding him back. If they were stronger, he could have used them to aid in their escape, but they were weak. Foolish children who'd believed nothing bad would ever happen to them in spite of what the news showed and the precarious place mutants held on the world stage. They'd thought themselves safe behind Xavier's elegant walls when it was those very walls that kept them soft and untried.
His sharp eyes studied Pietro as the speed mutant passed by him in another circuit of endless pacing. Unlike the others, he'd been touched by the horror of the real world and lived to tell about it, though through no skill of his own. Blind luck saved him, and the conscience of a man who'd also been weak. Zen expected to have to track down and eliminate Wrath at some point in the future, so he hadn't been surprised when he learned of the teleporter's foolish attempt at saving the children after he'd been ordered to aid in their destruction.
Still, Pietro at least understood the stakes. He'd seen the carnage they both were a part of and knew how dark the real world was outside of the shining halls of Xavier's Institute. His Wielder wasn't helping the children by keeping them locked away from the truth, he was only making them into easier targets. So much lost potential because one foolish old man thought that mutants should be treated like civilian children instead of the weapons they were.
Cold radiated up into his bones from the cement, bringing with it the memories of the mountains and his own taste of weakness. Reluctantly, he longed for X, wishing he was curled up in the feral's lap and held in his strong arms, listening to the steady thrum of his heart and not sitting here alone with the impossible task of getting all these useless sheep out alive.
"I'm hungry! I wanna eat, I don't wanna go potty on the floor anymore and I…I wanna go home and see Kitty!" Malcom's shrill young voice cut through Zen's useless thoughts, drawing his narrow green gaze. The child was even more useless than the rest. With useless powers and the utter weakness of his age, he was the biggest liability of the group. Already, two of the girls were cuddling the small boy, cooing at him and trying to sooth the brat before he brought the guards down on them. Not that the guards would bother with one crying child, but they didn't know that.
His sobs grew louder, more grating as their attempts failed to console the boy. The sound was like a spike being driven into Zen's skull, and he longed to silence it. Crying wouldn't solve their problem, and it only proved how pathetically weak the child was.
Still, he remained seated and silent, ignoring the noise. Instead of getting up the throttle the boy into silence, he closed his eyes and focused. Something tickled at the back of his mind, some growing power that felt familiar but twisted at the same time.
Wielder? He focused on the thought, sending it out as strongly as he could, but got no response. The throbbing power grew, pressing against his eardrums like a sharp shift in altitude and it was only as the wave crashed over them that he understood Stryker's endgame.
As if a bomb went off in their cage the children dropped. A cacophony of screams rang out around him. No. Weak though they were, pathetic, foolish, blind children, he had a duty to defend and protect them. He would not allow them to die, not even by Xavier's hand.
Standing, Zen picked his way through the writhing bodies until he made it to the center of the group. Pietro lay twitching on the ground, his limbs thrashing so fast they were little more than a blur of color while his mouth gaped open in a hellish scream. Jubilee flailed on the ground as sparks danced and bit over her skin like a boiling tide of fire ants. Zen gritted his teeth as one of the tiny bolts of electricity arced between them as he passed and jolted through his leg.
Closing his eyes, Zen focused. A shield, spherical in shape to protect the children from all angles, bloomed around them. He pumped power into the shield, making it strong, stronger than wood, stronger than stone, stronger than steal, stronger than adamantium.
It didn't work.
The screams took on a more desperate pitch around him as the children's power began to burn them out.
"NO!" he snarled. Without a thought to his own safety, Zen threw open connection between him and his power, tore it open, allowing power to gush directly from his core to the shield.
His eyes glowed an inhuman green, sending strange shadows to twist and dance over the walls as power blasted through him. A sharp crack sounded as the intangible shield cut through the stone in a perfect circle around the tormented group. The very air could no longer escape, and the power continued to strengthen the barrier between them and the threat as Zen stood against the strongest psychic mutation the world had ever known.
A harsh blue glow began to emanate from the shield, its fierce light reflecting Zen's unbreakable will.
Magneto lifted a single hand in an imperial gesture that wouldn't be denied. A new sound rose to challenge Cerebro's sharp droning wave: the guttural whine of metal forced to endure stresses beyond its tolerances. Back at Mount Haven, he hasn't been able to employ his power to its fullest since the complex he'd been housed in was constructed of non-ferrous materials and revolutionary plastics. However, Alkali was far older, built in the days when the likes of him hadn't been considered. There was an endless amount of mental here for him to do with as he pleased, and even though the Cerebro wave was a near insurmountable obstacle, he would not permit himself to fail.
He'd survived Auschwitz and lived to see his tormenters in their graves, some he'd put there himself. This would be the same.
With teeth bearing effort, the metal began to warp. He could hear the shift in the timber of sound emanating from the Cerebro as the wave slowed.
Charles Xavier heard nothing outside the false world Mutant 143 created. His gaze remained on the globe circling around them, captured by the firefly dance of the crimson dots. The color was mimicked in the blood trickling from his nostrils, ears, and the corners of his eyes as the strain began rupturing the pinpoint capillaries feeding his brain.
These were only the first symptoms of being the origin of the wave, the focal point of the unleashed power, and as of yet, would not result in permanent damage.
That wouldn't last, Mutant 143 knew in the deepest pits of his shattered psyche. Soon, once the pulse reached its peak, the larger blood vessels would rupture, and he would be consumed by an all-encompassing cerebral hemorrhage. Xavier would die from the ultimate stroke, but not before he witnessed the merciless slaughter of all the people on earth who were connected to Cerebro.
Stryker's revenge would be complete then. Not only would Xavier die along with all the other filthy mutants, but so would the future they represented. The slaughter of his dreams would be the true death of Xavier, and before he met his own end, Mutant 143 would ensure Xavier understood the full import of what he'd done.
And then 143 would also die. Cold satisfaction filled Stryker at the elegant resolution. All the loose ends would be neatly cut. In one stroke, he'd removed not only the threat to the world, but the weapon used to deal with it.
The truth of his impending death didn't bother 143. Part of him didn't actually believe he could die. Throughout his twisted life, he'd managed to hold on to the childish belief in his own immortality. He couldn't envision his own end. What mattered for him now, as it had since his mutation first became active, was playing with his toys. They were mortal, fragile.
He was God. And He had work to do.
143's demonic eyes pulsed, spilling their damning light into the heart of Xavier's being. All around them, the once soft whispers of all the thoughts Cerebro allowed Xavier to hear, rose up in a cacophony of screams.
Fear made Scott's heart flutter like a trapped bird in his chest. He felt sick when he realized he wouldn't be able to contain his power for much longer. As the power built, he could feel the ruby quartz visor reaching its containment capacity. Tiny pinpricks of light were beginning to escape through the spaces between his fingers. Small enough to do little damage, but they were a frightful harbinger of the coming devastation.
Jean clutched her ears in a futile attempt to block out the howling madness that enveloped Xavier. Screaming, she slammed her broken leg against the wall, not caring if she permanently crippled herself if it meant she could use the physical pain to create a bulwark against the psychic devastation.
To her shock, it worked, though not in the way she'd intended. Her teke shifted into high gear as it latched on to the memory of Logan's power. The memory of his healing ability made her own flesh recall what felt like on a cellular level to be whole and her power stove to make it so. Each shard of broken bone, large and smile, visible to microscopic, jolted from where they'd splinted throughout her flesh and rearranged themselves back into their proper place.
Jean thought she understood pain, she'd experienced a great deal of it both directly and vicariously through her power as she sent her mind into those she healed to help ease their suffering, but now she learned the true depth of agony as all those bone fragments tore new paths through her body to reach their appointed positions. She shrieked, fighting against the pain, yet grateful for it too as it jerked her out of Cerebro and her vain attempt to fight her way through the impassible lake of acid thoughts to reach Charles so that she could join her strength with his so that together they could neutralize the wave.
Fire blazed inside her, and Jean assumed it was her power attempting to find a way to fuse her bones back together, but as the blaze grew her thought splintered, fragmenting and turning to fear when she realized she couldn't control it. The heat bled into an astonishing radiance whose power was beyond measure. It bloomed inside of her like a star bursting into creation.
With a wild shout of joy, Jean Grey spread wide the arms of her imagination and reached out to embrace the stars.
Madness stalked the edges of her mind, but she refused to give in. Not to the madness, or the pain. If this fire was the heart of her power, she would find a way to ride it, to use it to save all those she loved. If she was truly dying, then she'd find a way back from the ashes. Jean refused to go quietly into the dark night of eternity.
Back on the Blackbird, Rogue fought to reach the controls, to complete Storm's last command, but she fell short. She couldn't drag herself up from the floor where she'd fallen. Tears slid down her cheeks as she watched Bobby reach for her, and she didn't have the strength to pull away. His grip froze her all the way up to the shoulder the same way he'd coated the area around him with a sheet of sparkling hoarfrost.
His skin had morphed into transparency, allowing her a horrifying view through him. She could see the deeper blue of his bones, the lighter hints of what had to be lung and heart both working. No blood appeared to move through that strange frozen flesh, no visible nerves, and every time he moved, there was a faint crackling sound. When he spoke, it was an arctic breeze that sounded nothing like his normal self.
The soft tinkle of ice shattering filled the air around them as he wrenched off her glove. Silently, she begged him to stop, but she couldn't force her lips to form the words. A wave of people were crashing around inside her head, every person she'd ever imprinted on rose up inside her skull, howling with rage at what she'd done to them. They ignored her stuttered apologies, her feeble explanations as they demanded she yield her body to them.
He was trying to save her, she knew, offering his strength to give her a chance to survive. She didn't want it, couldn't bear it if she lived by draining him, but she knew he didn't care.
Without a word, he took her bare hand in his, initiating contact and imprinting. Her eyes bulged wide as her hand turned the same liquid ice as his while his flesh melted back into its normal human coloration.
"Stop it Bobby!" She screamed, a plume of icy air escaped with her words, their tone as cold and remote as the outer reaches of space.
Twin tears of ice slid from her eyes and his, freezing into diamonds on their cheeks.
Rain pelted the cement around Storm as thunder roared only to be answered by the howling winds. Lightning continued its relentless assault. She lay face down in the center of the storm, no longer moving as endless bolts of electricity pounded her body.
In contrast, Nightcrawler couldn't stop moving as his body teleported in place over and over until it created an odd strobe light affect.
John's trek through the white waste between the jet and the dam ended abruptly when the wave felled him. Unable to move, he gasped for breath, hyperventilated as he gulped down air in a desperate attempt to fuel the raging conflagration in him. His skin glowed as the snow around him melted under the heat radiation out from his flesh.
Kitty and Siryn were out on a shopping trip, gathering up as much food two teens could buy with the handful of cash they had between them. Between one breath and the next, Kitty found herself at the end of the aisle. Another half breath saw her inside a tree and lodged up to her knees in the ground. She fought to move, but to her horror, found her feet unable to gain purchase on the now insubstantial earth. That's when understanding sank terrible claws into her mind. She wasn't moving. The Earth was spinning on its axis and leaving her behind because she was no longer solid enough for gravity to hold her.
What was worse, was that the planet was also moving around the sun. How long would it take for her and earth to part ways as she remained stuck in place and her home planet went off on its merry celestial way?
Siryn had no idea what was happening to her friend. She'd heard a squawk of surprise, spotted Kitty disappearing through the back wall of the store, and then her world exploded into sound. She shrieked up and down the full range of her accessible frequencies, inspiring a lunatic choir of yawls from every dog within earshot. All around her, glass rained down as it shattered under the strain of her piercing voice.
The sweet scent of clover smoke drifted up from the back room at Delamain's on the Rue Rogue in New Orleans's Vieux Carre, the French Quarter, as a high-stakes game of power played out. While the casinos had the flash, this game had substance that had nothing to do with the size of the bets and everything to do with the quality of the players.
Even before his forced vacation, Remy LeBeau was one of the best, and after leaving Xavier's behind he'd found his way home, back to the card tables he loved. It was said the cards themselves loved him the way he loved the women who inevitably found their way into his life, which was often a wild and risky place to be. A thief by trade, he was better at it than cards, which said a lot.
One item he loved stealing above all others was hearts. They were by far more fun than jewelry or artwork since the greatest trick of all was to ensure the heart he stole was never broken. When it came to the game of hearts, he had no equals. Once an affair was ended, his lady loves loved him more than when they met.
That night was fair in terms of winnings, but only because he had been testing his fellow players, feeling out their tells. Now it was time to get serious.
He was the dealer and the deck yielded up the joker and the jack of hearts to complete his full house. With a shark-like grin, he flicked the cards down but as they left his hands, a spark leapt from between his fingers to ignite the cards with energy. They blazed with crimson light and split the table down the middle when they struck. At the same time, while the other players leapt back in shocked fear, all the other cards began to ignite.
Shock flared over his face as he looked at the others, his hand reached out for help, but all they saw were his blazing eyes, red as freshly spilled blood, and none of them reached back. Then the cards exploded, shattering the remains of the table into splinters and slamming everyone into the walls.
Mystique had stopped moving which wasn't a good thing. Much like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz after she'd gotten a face full of water curtesy of Dorothy, she was melting. Her flesh began to liquefy and form a puddle beneath her. Like a poorly filmed horror movie, her skeleton began to press against the skin in macabre lines that would soon be exposed to the open air once her flesh finished the liquefaction process.
Would she still be able to think at that point, be aware of her body's total deterioration? Would her conscious remain until the end? A shudder rippled through the oozing flesh, whatever happened, she feared it would be her end.
Magneto kept his hawk like gaze locked on the door, refusing to look back even after the nightmarish howling ended in a low gurgle. Instead of focusing his power at the door, he changed tactics. He put the sharp edge of his strength against the energy patterns making up the Cerebro wave. Energy manipulation was one of his strongest points, though few people knew or understood that. Most believed his only talent was with metal. Drawing on all his considerable skill, he unwove the frequencies and signal characteristics of the wave.
Once he was certain he'd properly mapped the wave, he released an equivalent pulse and watched the two collide. Not good enough. Magneto carefully modified the counter wave's frequency before releasing it. It formed a wall of white noise around the chamber, a resonance field that fully neutralized the Cerebro wave at its source.
Silence enveloped him.
Beautiful silence.
The harsh thrum died around them, causing Charles Xavier to sit up straighter in his chair while Stryker's Cerebro began to cycle down.
"Strange," he mumbled. The word echoed oddly in his mind, and he felt like it had two different meanings for him. First relating to why Cerebro had shut down on its own. While the other, disturbingly, seemed to relate to the itching sense of wrongness that wouldn't leave him since his escape from Alkali Lake.
Turning his head, he gave the little girl a sharp eyed look, as if trying to catch her by surprise. Worry flared over her young face, showing that she wasn't expecting the shutdown either. Xavier's lips forced themselves upward in a comforting smile to reassure her. He was still in control, and everything would be all right.
The smile seemed to help ease her anxiety, but her mismatched eyes still glowed with a feral brightness.
Back to work, he thought. All he needed to do was identify the problem and fix it, then things would be back on track.
Still, as he returned his attention to Cerebro, he hesitated, his eyes returned to the girl while his thoughts reached out to her through the veil sounding him. Something about her felt . . .
Xavier shook his head, dizzy from the afterimage of her eyes blazing in his mind. He knew now what needed to be done, and his hands moved without his mind consciously directing them. Someone had jammed the scanning wave. It wasn't hard to deduce who'd done it, and from there, Xavier knew how to break free.
Seeing her toy once again working hard to fulfill his duty, the girl looked away, towards the massive door that stood between them and the strangers. That wasn't part of the deal, and she hated it.
It took a few minutes for Magneto to gather his strength. In its own way, his battle against Cerebro was as difficult for him as it was for the others, taking a heavy toll on the aged mutant.
Finally he turned, and because she was no longer able to see him and was unaware of anything beyond her own suffering, he permitted sorrow to show on his face at Mystique's condition. In the countless years they'd shared, he'd become accustomed to her at his side. She'd been strong and absolutely without fear, indomitable in will and curiously indestructible in form. Seeing her in such a weakened condition hurt him in ways he hadn't believed possible. He hated seeing her hurt and vulnerable.
Taking a steadying breath, Magneto knelt beside her and feared what he would find. Her once beautiful liquid gold eyes were opaque, blind and lifeless as a doll's. Her form looked like it was made out of wax that had been exposed to raw flame, leaving a great deal of her in congealed folds beneath her straining skeleton.
Then something changed in her eyes. Though they were still opaque, the blankness began to fade. Instead they took on the otherworldly depths of a shark's liquid gaze. With unbearable slowness, she blinked, and to his secret relief, color returned to both her eyes and her body.
With unbearable slowness, Mystique flexed and stretched as if to remind herself how each part of her fit into the next. Her flesh returned to its customary position around her bones and with a low groan, she flowed upward into a sitting position and looked her companion in the eye.
No words passed between the pair, and none were needed.
Magneto stood, and with a flick of power, the massive door between them and their prize swung open.
Together, they stepped over the threshold. Magneto's eyes roved over the space, and he was forced to silently commend their enemy as he took stock of each part of the huge circular room. Stryker had achieved a startling amount of accuracy in the time he'd had between the raid and the implementation of his plot.
Xavier sat mindlessly on the dais, facing a revolting creature. Its outward appearance wasn't what made Magneto's lips curl in disgust. Over the years, Magneto had seen a number of mutations that did not conform to that baseline norms of human physiognomy. He'd also come face to face with the living embodiments of true evil, and that's what he responded too. No matter what had been done to the monster seated across from Xavier, Magneto instinctively knew that he would have been right at home working alongside Josef Mengele.
A sardonic smile touched his lips. Considering what Magneto had in mind, the comparison was quite apt.
"Hello, Charles."
The hauntingly powerful song drew to a close, leaving Jean alone in her mind once more. She was whole, alive, and fulfilled in a way she couldn't recall ever feeling before. Yet a painful hollowness remained and thrummed with a need more primal than she'd ever known and no clue how to answer it.
Instead, she woke up.
Glancing to the side, her gaze found Cyclops and relief filled her at the sight of him – battered, but unbroken. She greeted him with a radiant smile as he stirred awake. While he gathered himself, Jean too stock of her surroundings. Unfortunately, the telepath inhibiters were still active, so she still felt isolated inside her own mind. She could sense the others in a vague way, just enough to know they were relatively unharmed before the pain pressed against her mind in warning against pushing farther.
When she turned her thoughts towards Xavier, she felt a growing sense of disquiet. Whatever stopped the wave hadn't put an end to the situation they found themselves in, not in the least.
Jean bent her broken leg experimentally and winced against the pain that lanced up the limb. While her subconscious had done an amazing job realigning all the bone fragments the task was unfinished. Each bone bit still needed to knit together, and her internal medical caution kept her from attempting to rush the process even though her power whispered in the back of her mind that she could, she wasn't willing to risk permanently maiming herself by experimenting.
For a mutant whose gifts were purely invisible to the naked eye, Jean preferred tangible solutions to tangible problems, like a broken leg.
As Scott sat up she thought, Thank heaven I have you to lean on, baby. Shame flooded her at the thought.
Worry about that later, if there is a later.
Nightcrawler prayed, curled up in a ball of deep indigo, his shape was almost indistinguishable from the shadows as he lay with his hands curled protectively around his head, which in turn pressed against his knees in a pose of abject supplication.
Storm allowed the foreign words to wash over her, mentally picking out a mix of French, Latin, and German.
Our Father, who are in Heaven . . .
Perhaps prayer was the best response to a situation as messed up as the one they found themselves in, Storm didn't know. Indeed, she was thankful, thankful that her powers were no longer attacking her, thankful to be alive, just . . . thankful.
Gritting her aching teeth, she crawled to her feet and fought to ignore the horrific smell that wafted around her from the mutilated uniform on her back, burnt to a crisp by the lightning. Her nerves jangled like broken wires in a high wind, dancing with tiny sparks of remembered pain. It felt like she'd died and maggots were feasting on her, crawling through her flesh and leaving a God forsaken itch too deep to scratch. Even her bones seemed to itch with the squirming pain.
She moved with the same cautious steps of an old woman afraid of overbalancing and breaking a hip. Every step and gesture was executed with care. A wary moan escaped her as she knelt beside Nightcrawler and slid her fingers down his back. Delight flitted up her arm as she felt the soft luxurious skin. It was soft, plush, and more of a textural pleasure than new born lion cub fur.
"Are you all right? We need to get to the children," her voice held a far huskier edge than usual, roughened by pain and almost unbearable exhaustion. Part of her wanted to curl around the teleporter and sleep, forget duty, the children, the unstable dam. Forget everything but the softness of his skin and her desperate need for rest.
No, she wouldn't forsake her duty.
His tail came up and wrapped gently around her wrist, inspiring another small thrill to pass through her, briefly distracting her from the lingering pain.
"Ja, lass uns gehen," he muttered, still too shaken by his near demise to remember English. With her help, they both managed to regain their feet. No words were spoken, but Storm didn't protest when he slid an arm around her waist, offering his silent support and taking hers in return.
The escape tunnel exited in a small clearing just off the edge of the main complex, roughly a mile downriver from the dam. Stryker's lips turned up in a triumphant grin when he spotted the helicopter, knowing it was all gassed up and ready to fly.
Without looking back, Stryker marched forward, his mind already moving on to the after math and the best way to consolidate his power structure and ensure that the world he'd saved from the mutant threat continued to head in the right direction.
His pleased look evaporated when a familiar shape stepped out of the shadow of the aircraft.
"Yuriko."
Magneto gave a low, dark chuckle at the look of aggravation that crossed the wheel chair bound mutant's face.
Tapping the helm, Magneto said, "You can't come in here."
Then he drew a magnetic field around himself and rose into the air until he came to rest at in the heart of the holographic glob. He couldn't withhold his grin as he did a slow pirouette, observing all the tiny blood red dots. Not in his wildest dreams had he imagined there were so many, and he couldn't help remembering the concentration camps after the war, how it had been a soul deep wound to realize how many had met their ends there, yet the choking joy restored by the discovery that in spite of the Nazis' relentless efforts, there were survivors. Enough remained alive to form the core of a new nation.
Taking a slow breath, he thought of Moses standing on the shores of the River Jordan, as he stared longingly at a promise land barred to him.
How would future generations judge him?
As long as those future children were mutant, he didn't care. All that mattered now was his success, that in the end it was his kind who survived and prospered. If it wasn't, then it didn't matter because that meant he'd failed and the future of mutants would continue hanging by the thread of human kindness, a thing he knew from hard experience was a false hope at best. Either way, Magneto resolved to do what had to be done.
Xavier remained oblivious to his company, ensnared as he was by Stryker's monster.
Shaking his head in mock sorrow, Magneto sighed. "How does it look from there, Charles?" Even though there was a flare of pity in his chest for his old friend, the words still held a razor edge, contempt for Charles's weakness. And irony of ironies, if it hadn't been for Xavier, Magneto wouldn't have been captured and used by Stryker to ferret out the secrets of Xavier's School and Cerebro.
And yet, that single act led them to this point, where Magneto was handed the tool required to ensure the continued survival of their species.
"Still fighting the good fight?" He mocked as he turned to study Stryker's work. Eyes narrowing, he reconfigured Cerebro. The air around the groaned as the massive machine began to deconstruct and realign. Metallic panels took to the air like oddly shaped birds only to be joined with metal braces, cabling, conducts, and all the other components that were needed to create the mockery of the device they'd created long ago.
"From here, it don't look like they're playing by your rules," he mused as the last pieces slid neatly into place. "Perhaps it's time we started playing by theirs."
Once the reconfiguration was completed, Mystique smirked and strode into the chamber. It took less than five steps for her shape to change so that, when she reached the small group, a perfect replica of William Stryker stood in her place.
A cruel smile quirked her stolen lips as she glanced at Xavier, who was still blind to everything but what 143 was feeding him. Kneeling beside Mutant 143, she took pains to avoid touching the deformed man as she started whispering in his ear. "There's been a change of plans . . ."
She spoke with Stryker's face, in his voice, and 143's eyes bulged as the poisoned words slid eel like through his mind. A string of saliva slipped out of the corner of his mouth and something akin to excitement flared in his exotic eyes. Still pretending, Mystique turned and left the way she came.
Magneto stayed behind and tried to find something to say to his old friend. Back at Ellis Island, he'd been prepared to sacrifice the life of a child to achieve his goals, and now he was going to take the life of a friend. What was there to say? Nothing, no word or deed would undo what had to be done, and he knew that it wasn't the lives of the untold billions who would die with Xavier that would be unforgivable.
Using Xavier like this tipped the scales in a way that could never again be balanced, and Magneto accepted that. If there was a hell, he would know its fires, but it was a fate he could accept as long as mutant kind lived on in peace.
"Good-bye, Charles."
Zen didn't know what was happening outside the sphere of his shield. All his power, everything he was, poured into the defenses to the point where he couldn't sense what else might be going on. Had the wave dissipated? Were they safe?
No way to know. So he kept pouring and pouring.
Agony tore his mind as he felt the last flare of his strange power drain out of him. No! The shield faltered. Before it could fail, he found another source of power, his life force. With reckless abandon, he spilled his life down the line with a single thought pounding away inside his skull.
Protect the children.
Tiny trembles darted over Pietro's skin. He felt like a horse covered in flies, and desperately wished the random twitching would stop. On top of that, he was almost blinded by the phosphorescent blue light blazing all around them. It felt like he'd been dropped into some sort of black light hell, and it wasn't helping his head ache one little bit.
As if the world heard his mental complaints, the alien light snuffed out. Blinking back spots, his eyes fell on Zen's frozen form. He stared incredulously at the streaks of pure silver that now decorated the hated mutant's once black mane. Then he saw Zen's eyes, and looking into those dead green orbs, he felt like he'd swallowed an ice cube.
Before he could react, the short teen's body toppled forward, and Pietro winced when Zen didn't put his hands out to catch himself. Shit, he's dead. He's so fucking dead.
Zen stood in an empty black field that reminded him of the white one, once spatter with blood, where he learned how to kill. In front of him stood a doorway, one he couldn't see through.
A slender finger of curiosity brushed over his numb thoughts. Zen took a step forward. Something around him gave a low rattling sound, and he was jerked to a halt. Looking down, he saw chains wrapped around his nude form. Each link alternated between deepest ebony and blazing white light.
You could break free. The strange though hissed along the edges of his awareness, and he flexed a little, testing the strength of the bindings.
Then his eyes were drawn down to the only thing of color in this between place. His right hand was free of the chains holding him back, and Zen brought it up to touch the slender red thread that seemed to exit his chest just above his heart.
Instinct told him the thread was weak, a connection so fragile he could snap it with ease. His finger brushed over the thread, twanging it lightly.
Images flooded his mind, and with them, the soft heat of emotion.
X pinned him for the first time, the sharp tang of defeat, the first taste of his teeth in his flesh when it should have been his throat torn open.
Bitter cold, the shared warmth of two bodies resting beside a fire.
The first taste of hot meat cooked over an open flame.
Something hard, yet soft pressing into his stomach, the low rumble of X's growls, the sharp bite of teeth in his throat, not to kill but for . . .
The sharp sting of fury when Logan kissed the woman, and wanting to be in her place.
Want, need, lust, love . . .
He could break the thread.
He could break the chain.
He could be free.
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