Author's note: It's been a little while, hopefully everybody remembers where we left off...
Magnus
"And where are they now?"
Magnus glanced up from the tablet in his hands to Sean, who sighed and ran a rough hand through his wiry hair.
"I took the lad, Gambit, to the guest quarters like ye asked," Sean answered. "Lorna was takin' the girl, Rogue, to get a wee bite to eat before she took her on a tour."
"A tour?"
"Aye," Sean chuckled, "that's what I thought. After all they been through, I would have wanted nothin' more than a shower and forty winks, but the lass seemed more concerned with fillin' her belly and takin' a look around."
A quick check of the clock indicated it was just after breakfast. Magnus had been so immersed in his work that he hadn't paused to eat. Nothing but an empty tea cup sat on the edge of his desk.
Hopefully, Magnus thought, Lorna had enough sense to keep the stranger away from the prying eyes of the younger students, at least until they had a chance to question her further to determine what threat, if any, she and her companion posed.
"Interesting." Magnus let his eyes drift to the tablet again. Onscreen was the data from the preliminary exams performed on the two newcomers. The young man, Gambit, was an energy converter. Further tests to push the boundaries of those abilities would be simple enough, as well as testing what appeared to be agility and dexterity that far outstripped even peak athletes. But, the girl…
"Interesting," Sean repeated. "That's all ye have to say?"
Magnus raised his eyes again, and Sean gestured to the tablet before crossing his arms over his chest.
"Have ye ever heard of a power like that?"
Magnus inhaled and shook his head. "A mutant who could theoretically commandeer the abilities of any other being on the planet? Never. The implications of such a gift are staggering."
The girl could duplicate mind and powers with merely a touch of her skin, the length of the transfer corresponding to the length of physical contact. She could become anyone. How far had she pushed theses abilities? How many could she absorb at any given time? Was there a way to make such a transfer…permanent? Too many questions, and welcoming such an unknown variable into their midst made Magnus uneasy. He wished Lorna had obeyed his orders to quarantine the girl and her cohort.
He leaned back in his chair and laid the tablet on the computer console before him. "We must begin further tests immediately."
"Tests?" Sean scoffed. "Not bloody likely. Did ye read through the rest of her examination?"
"Of course," Magnus snapped. The girl could not control her powers, and had been denied the simple human interactions most people took for granted since their manifestation.
"Doesn't sound like she uses her powers unless she has to," Sean continued. "It'll be hard to convince her otherwise."
"Nonsense." Magneto stood and tugged the hem of his jacket down into place. "First and foremost, we are a school. Who better to help her gain control of her gift?"
Sean shook his head and leaned a slim hip against the computer console. "There's where yer wrong, man. This girl hasn't been able t'touch another human being for years. Things you and I take for granted - handshakes, hugs, along with all the other things a young lady would be lookin' forward to when she becomes a woman - have all been off limits to her. I'm bettin' she's kept herself on a tight leash, and I don't foresee her changin' her habits to satisfy yer curiosity."
Magnus frowned. "One thing she doesn't need from us is our pity," he said harshly.
Sean's face reddened in response, and Magnus saw the muscles in his square jaw twitch. "Don't you be mistakin' empathy for pity. Tryin' to understand how she feels isn't pitying her in the least. Seeing things from someone else's perspective for a change could do ye a world of good!"
With that, Sean stomped from the room, reminding Magnus - not for the first time - of his late wife, Moira. Sean hailed from Ireland, Moira from Scotland, but the two had more personality traits in common than Magnus was comfortable counting. If the pair had ever had the chance to meet, he was sure they would have been friends and colleagues. At the least, their arguments would have been the stuff of legend.
He and Sean were hardly what you would call great friends, but the Banshee had been a much needed advocate in the years since Moira's murder, his insight invaluable to Magnus. Together, they had saved dozens of young mutants from the Shadow King, but Magnus couldn't help wondering if working to form the X-Men hadn't in fact saved Sean Cassidy.
When they had first met, Sean was a detective who had enlisted Magnus' help in locating his estranged daughter, a young mutant named Theresa. Their partnership unfortunately hadn't produced a happy ending as the girl had been killed in a car accident along with her mother. Instead of giving in to grief, Sean had thrown himself into helping Magnus continue the work of Moira and of Charles Xavier. The Banshee had saved countless other children where he had been unable to save his own, one thing he and Magnus had in common.
Magnus exited his office, the room perched high atop the tallest tower. From the wall of windows, on a clear day, he could catch a glimpse of the snowy carpet that lay beyond their jungle paradise.
He sighed. Sean had a large heart that often blinded him to logic, but that didn't mean he was wrong. Perhaps a little compassion would be warranted with the girl. She obviously had been through a great deal these last few days, if not years. Such a unique mutant power would hardly have escaped Farouk's notice, yet she had somehow evaded the King's slave pens. For the X-Men's safety, Magnus needed to find out how. He didn't much care for unanswered questions, and two mutants springing from nowhere certainly raised a few. Confronting this Rogue on her own would be preferable, Magnus reasoned, and set off to find her.
He didn't search for long. She and Lorna were strolling through the gardens that filled the center of the complex. His daughter's face brightened at his approach.
"Hello, father!"
Lorna tried so very hard, but if Magnus were honest with himself, she tried a bit too hard to gain his affection. It wasn't her fault. Lorna was an intelligent and capable child, and would make most fathers very proud. No, the fault lay entirely with him. Since losing Moira and Wanda, Magnus had kept his surviving children at arm's length. He and Pietro had never been able to repair the damage between them, but Lorna so desperately wanted something more than he was willing to give.
"Lorna, I believe Sean was looking for you. He requested your assistance while performing maintenance on the Blackbird."
It wasn't an outright lie. Sean had mentioned at the start of the briefing that he would need to look at the jet after its last flight, but Magnus felt a twinge at his twisting of the truth.
"Oh." Lorna's face fell, and she glanced between Rogue and Magnus before plastering a smile on her face that did not reach her eyes. "Of course, father. Right away. If you will excuse me?"
Magnus watched Lorna's hurried steps carry her towards the hangar. When he turned to face Rogue, the girl was leaning in to inhale the fragrance of the Allspice plant, one of many prehistoric florae decorating the gardens.
"Calycanthus occidentalis," he stated. His voice must have startled her. She jumped, and her cheeks flared a matching shade to the flower's pink petals.
"I beg your pardon?" Green eyes the color of the plant's leaves stared at him. Her voice held the faintest trace of a Southern United States' accent.
"Calycanthus occidentalis, from the Cretaceous Era. One of the few prehistoric plants to survive in the world beyond."
"Guess the dinosaurs weren't so lucky?" she smirked, and nodded towards the Pterodactyl swooping low circles along the forcefield blanketing them.
Despite himself, Magneto laughed. Strange that he couldn't remember the last time he had actually laughed. It had been so long the noise sounded foreign, a rusted engine in need of oil.
He held an elbow out to the girl. "Perhaps I could continue your tour?"
She hesitated, but took the arm he offered. He steered her along the flagstone path that wound its way through the manicured lushness of the gardens. The air was heady, thick with the perfume of the plants that once covered the Earth like a carpet. Magnus wasn't sure where to begin. He had so many questions that needed answering, but he didn't want to put her on the defensive. He wanted her to feel as if she could trust him.
Ahead, several of the younger students emerged from the dormitories and chased each other in circles around the base of a large palm tree. His first instinct was to direct Rogue down another path - if she was dangerous, he wanted to keep her far away from the others. The quarters he had chosen for Rogue and Gambit were purposefully isolated from the younger students, and he had intended to keep their presence quiet until he had a chance to interview them both further. But, she stopped, and the soft smile on her face gave him pause.
She was young, barely past twenty, and had never known a world free of Amahl Farouk and his murderous hatred. It was clear from the expression on Rogue's face that it had been a long time since she had seen children at play.
Magnus recognized Rahne Sinclair, Moira's ward, before the laughing girl jumped and transformed mid-leap, shifting to her lupine form and tackling Danielle Moonstar. Normally he would have frowned at such horseplay, but today it felt good to see Rahne enjoying life. The girl had loved Moira very dearly, and had never been the same since her death.
Why, Magnus wondered, was Moira in his thoughts so heavily today? For so very long, Magnus had done nothing but think of his late wife, of his failure. Time has a strange way of numbing the pain, and soon, he only thought of her once a day, then every other. Eventually weeks would go by, the guilt remaining the same despite the passage of time.
Tabitha burst from the building, followed closely by Roberto and Samuel. At the sight of Magnus, Samuel stopped abruptly, Roberto thumping into him and nearly knocking the pair of them to the ground. Roberto had opened his mouth to yell, but stopped and joined Samuel in staring their direction.
At least some of the children had enough sense to behave in his presence, Magnus thought. However, when Sam raised a sheepish hand and waved, Magnus realized he wasn't what had drawn the boys' attention. The pretty companion on his arm waved back, and Samuel's face darkened to the shade of a beet.
Magneto inclined his head towards the children and started them walking again at a leisurely pace. "Some of the younger students" he acknowledged. "In time, when their training is complete, they will join the rest of the X-Men in their work."
"Work?" Rogue uncurled her arm from the crook of his elbow and stopped. When he turned, her hands were on her hips and her eyes had narrowed. "Y'all said this place was a school."
"Instructing mutants in the use of their powers is but one facet of our mission." He started walking up the path again, and heard the huff of breath before her hurried steps followed after.
"And the other part?" she asked.
He mounted the stairs of the building nearest them, an enormous octagon in one corner of the complex that housed their research facilities. Diagonal from them across the massive gardens lay the building that housed the tactical arm, what they called the War Room, along with the hangar bay. The entire complex was connected by a network of underground tunnels, but he was finding the day and her company so pleasant that he hadn't bothered to use them. The sight of the children had inspired his first stop on their tour, the team's training facility.
"The other?" He allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch in what was almost a smile. "Making the world a better place." With a wave of his hand, he opened the doors and motioned her inside. Those green eyes followed him warily as she walked by.
"That's a tall order, mister," she countered.
Twin staircases flanked either side of the stories high vestibule, leading up to the control booth of the Danger Room – what the children called their state of the art gymnasium - or down to the research and hospital facilities. Rogue and Gambit had been examined upon their arrival in a triage infirmary near the hangar bay, merely a pared down version of the more extensive hospital housed below them now.
He moved to the stairs, but stopped when he realized she wasn't following him. Instead, Rogue stood in the entrance hall, transfixed by the flicker of a holographic display. Magneto took a deep breath before he came to stand beside her. The two stood in silence before Rogue finally spoke.
"Who are they?" she asked gently.
On a dais, a holographic imager projected the slightly translucent likenesses of dozens of mutants, one at a time, on a repeating cycle. At the projector's base, an inscription proclaimed 'We will never forget'.
Magnus cleared his throat. "Those we have lost."
Rogue inhaled sharply and he felt her eyes on him, but he found he couldn't look away from the display as first images of Moira and then Wanda materialized.
"So many," Rogue whispered.
Even though Magnus had begun to forget the sound of some of their voices, of their laughter, their faces still haunted him in his dreams, alongside the starved and lice ridden bodies in the concentration camps of his youth.
"Through grief, we find our inspiration," he stated, "our drive to carry on. Dreams sometimes require great sacrifice."
"And savin' the world?" Rogue's voice had an angry edge. "That was your dream?"
He closed his eyes and bowed his head. "No," Magnus conceded, "I cannot take full credit for such a folly. There was once a man named Xavier…"
"Xavier?" the voice was no longer angry, but sounded very small, frightened. When Magnus looked at her, Rogue's eyes were wide, her pupils dilated.
"Yes, Charles Xavier. A far better man than I, even now. This was all his dream, more or less. He sought to teach mutants and humanity to co-exist peacefully, but his contribution to the world remains only as a memory."
"He…he's dead?"
"Brain dead. Injured in a tragic accident many years ago. His body, at least what is left of it, resides in this very building. I confess I have not been strong enough to give him the peace he deserves."
Rogue's face paled, and Magnus noticed she was shaking. He reached a hand out for her, but she flinched away. "My dear," he asked, concerned, "are you feeling unwell?"
She forced a smile. "Y'know, I am a little tired. Maybe I should go to my room and get some rest."
The girl was a terrible liar, Magnus realized as he led her back outside. Whatever could have caused such an abrupt change in her behavior?
Remy
"You done, petite?" Remy snarled.
Jean Grey ripped a silver helmet from her head and tossed it to the floor, where it landed with an echoing thunk.
"Dammit…" she muttered, for the moment not really speaking to him. "I thought with Cerebro for sure…" She closed her eyes and pressed fingertips to her temples, Remy struggling at her feet against invisible bonds. Before he could shout at her for what felt like the hundredth time to let him go, icy telepathic fingers tickled his scalp. Like always, the intruder got nowhere. It hurt, but nothing more than a dull spoon scooping at the border of his consciousness.
"You just give me a headache," Jean muttered behind a curtain of flaming red hair.
"Likewise."
He swallowed another scream, trying to keep his temper in check and keep this girl talking. She was a telepath and a telekinetic, a dangerous rarity in their world, but Remy didn't need to be a mind reader himself to sense something was a bit off about her. She had been questioning him for nearly an hour, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle. Far from her playing the role of bad cop, their conversation had become less interrogation, more first date chat. By playing it cool, he had almost gotten more information from her than she had gotten from him. He needed to find Rogue, the worry in his stomach climbing white hot into his throat, but he was reluctant to end his and Jean's little tête-à-tête so quickly, even with the resulting migraine.
Jean had been with Magneto for nearly a decade, her parents seeking the main man's help before there were even X-Men. Jean was one of his first students, her out of control powers the inspiration for the earpieces he had seen the others wearing. The Bluetooth-looking devices blocked telepathy. The development of the technology had led Magneto to other, bigger advances, his work enabling their base to remain hidden all these years from the Shadow King. Still, their overconfidence made Remy uneasy. He doubted their sophisticated system had worked as advertised right out of the box, and wondered what other failures had cost them. Death, enslavement, torture, all of it was waiting for these do-gooders if there was just one tiny fuck up.
According to Jean, the X-Men's sanctuary was massive, capable of housing thousands of mutants, but Remy hadn't seen more than a couple dozen since their arrival. Across the world, hundreds of mutants were being slaughtered or brainwashed every day by Farouk's people. All the empty space here seemed like such a waste. Why would anybody come seeking refuge in Antarctica? And what crazy fool believed in the myth of the X-Men enough to look? From what Jean told him, most of the towers were filled with empty rooms just waiting to be filled. What Remy wouldn't have given in those lonely, desperate days after Jean-Luc's murder to have a place like this to call home.
Though they were smack dab in the middle of Antarctica, the jungle itself was kept tropical by a ring of volcanoes, and had been sheltered from the asteroid that had done in the dinosaurs on the rest of the planet. It had existed for ages, unspoiled until Magneto had found it and turned it into the X-Men's base. Remy didn't want to ask what had made the man look to the ends of the Earth for someplace to hide his students, but he had a few guesses. He didn't know if he should feel warm and safe, or trapped. A gilded cage was still a cage.
The older mutants did double duty as X-Men and as teachers. The younger kids trained to join their ranks when they came of age, put through their paces in something called 'the Danger Room'. According to Jean, there were other X-Men beyond those he and Rogue had been introduced to, most of these were out searching for strays to bring home. Mutants didn't get to the Savageland because the X-Men just happened to be passing by, despite what Polaris had said.
"We can't scan too deep, or too often," Jean looked to be giving up her efforts on his brain for the moment, though her hold on his body didn't slacken. She picked up the ridiculous bike helmet from the floor and inspected it, gesturing to the panel in front of her mechanical chair, which was covered in a rainbow of flashing lights. "We have to skim the astral plane to look for mutants in a passive way, reacting rather than probing, or Farouk and his telepaths would feel us and be able to trace the signal back."
"Sounds like risky business," Remy retorted. "But, Magneto found you all first. Not everybody else in the world so lucky."
The chair was on the floor in the center of a large, cylindrical room. Over their heads was a holographic projection of a globe, and he turned to watch the pinpoint red lights dancing over the Earth's landmasses. He shivered. The astral plane. Remy had always thought it was just a bunch of hippy-dippy garbage, but it was apparently the real deal – a separate realm of psychic energy where the mind readers of the world could get to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
"If you say so," Jean replied.
He spun and glowered at Jean.
"I need to find my friend," he said sternly.
"You care about her," she frowned and stared vacantly at the dancing lights.
Remy' stomach lurched and he stared at the girl. "Thought you couldn't hear me, petite?"
"I can't," she said, "but I'm not an idiot. Sounds like you two have been through a lot. I bet there aren't many people a guy like you gets close to, not for real anyway. But, something's holding you back? Stopping you from getting closer?" Jean frowned like she was trying to fit together the pieces of a puzzle. Girl looked like she might chase a butterfly straight off of a cliff, but Remy was finding Jean perceptive in different ways.
"Well, I just met her, and we been running for our lives the whole time, but…yeah," he confessed. "Her mutant powers are stoppin' us from getting closer, literally. She can't touch nobody wit' out absorbing their powers and minds, knockin' 'em clean out. She can't control it."
"Do you need to touch to be together?"
Before he could answer, Jean stood and headed for the door, pulling his body behind her like a child dragging a toy, his protests locked behind telekinetically frozen lips. His struggles got him nowhere. He had managed to kinetically charge his gloves, though he had the distinct feeling that if he let the charge fly, the blast would stay right with him and tear him to pieces.
In another maze of corridors, they paused before a large sliding door, its metallic surface a bright white. Alongside it, Jean punched a code into a control panel, and the door opened like Star Trek. His cries were little more than gurgles, though Jean seemed to get the gist.
"This is the White Room," she announced and floated him towards the open entrance. The room beyond was large - high ceilings, no windows, every scrap of everything inside a glaring, gleaming white, the walls, the furniture, even the area rug covering the tiles on the floor.
Remy managed a snort.
"I agree," Jean said absently, continuing to stare ahead. "It hits the nail a little too on the head for me - and I'm really more of an ecru girl myself – but, I find this place very…relaxing." Big green eyes and a smile that looked like the cat that ate the canary turned to him. "You've had a long day. Why don't you make yourself at home?"
She got into a batting stance and swung, a telekinetic smack sending Remy flying like a foul ball into the room , where he landed in an upside down heap on the couch. His head sank between the cushions and he thrashed his arms, struggling to free himself from the mountain of white, downy throw pillows. He flipped his feet onto the floor and pulled his head out of the quicksand in time to see Jean wave through the closing doors.
"Sit tight!" she sang.
"Wait! Don't -!" He scrambled for the doors, his hand closing around the nearest weapon, one of the white pillows, but when he tried to light it up, nothing happened.
Remy skidded to a stop. Ignoring the hiss of the doors locking him in, he held the pillow out in front of him and concentrated. When he tried to charge it, nada.
"What the…?" He tried again, but it was the same result. It had to be the pillow, Remy thought, some organic filled nonsense or something to prevent his charge. He pulled a playing card from his pocket, but was horrified to find more of the same.
He threw the pillow at the door. "What did you do to me, woman?!" he roared, the only answer the echo of his own voice.
Raven
"Wake up, darling."
Curtains thrown wide brought the horrible truth of daylight to Raven's eyes. Instead of embracing the warmth, she buried her face against the overstuffed feather pillow that reeked of gardenias.
The weight of a body dipped onto the bed beside her, and small hands tugged the silken sheet from her shoulder.
"You have to get up. Allison. We don't want to keep the King waiting."
Raven lifted her head, Emma Frost's waspish smile taking form in the blinding midday sun. It appeared that after days of Frost's humiliating interrogations, the Dazzler had finally been deemed worthy of a performance in the Shadow King's throne room.
Emma brushed the sleep tousled hair from Raven's forehead. "I've drawn a bath and laid out something for you to wear. We certainly want to make a good impression, don't we?"
Raven nodded, keeping the scared little bunny expression on her borrowed face. It had taken time, but she had convinced Emma Frost that she wasn't a threat, despite her Elixir induced immunity to telepathy. It hadn't been easy, but things like pride and principles hardly mattered anymore. Avenging Irene was the only thing that kept the blood flowing through her veins.
Emma leaned forward and pressed her lips to Raven's. One of her hands trailed under the sheet to caress Raven's bare thigh, and Raven had to remind herself not to snap the woman's wrist. Whatever it took, she told herself. She would make Farouk pay if it was the last thing she did.
"Mmmm," Frost pulled back and licked her lips. "As much as I would love to join you, darling, we must really hurry."
The water in the bath wasn't hot enough to wash away all the things Raven had been forced to do since her arrival. Silk sheets aside, she was a prisoner, and had been firmly caged in Frost's suite since her arrival. Part of Raven was kicking herself for getting into such a mess. She easily could have slit Frost's throat by now and headed off to do the same to Farouk, but she wasn't sure she could make it to the Shadow King before she was discovered. The job had to be quick, but there had to be no doubt the fat fuck would die on the end of her blade before one of his flunkies killed her in the process. She needed to stay the course, to let Frost bring her close enough to Farouk that there would be no mistakes, no room for error. She wanted to watch him twitch, to see him suffer for all he had taken from her.
The "outfit" Emma had laid out for her to wear was just one more humiliating objectification among too many to count. The teal silk dress was little more than a scarf that wound around her neck and draped down her breasts before spilling to the floor. Two generous slits ran up her legs, the sides of the dress held together with ornate gold clasps at her hips. Alone in the room, Raven concentrated, and her hair and makeup slid into place without her lifting a finger. One of many benefits of her shapeshifting abilities was a never ending supply of good hair days. She could look however she wanted, and took advantage of it when she could.
What she wouldn't erase were the scars that ran up Allison's arms. Those had been seen in public too many times for them to mysteriously disappear, a part of the urban legend of the Dazzler. Raven instead displayed them like a badge of honor. After all, Allison Blaire had died so Raven could stand in Farouk's presence, and she would never forget that. She owed Dazzler her vengeance.
Emma, dressed in a strapless white gown and flanked by two guards, led Raven from her chambers to an elevator. Raven cursed Scalphunter under her breath. There had been an elevator to Frost's rooms, but John Greycrow had instead hauled her up endless flights of stairs with her head slapping against his ass. He was a dead man.
At the ground floor, the elevator opened onto a spacious courtyard, every square inch decorated with ornate geometric patterns. In the center stood a large fountain surrounded by trees heavy with oranges and lemons. They began walking across the space, and Raven could see the halls and archways of the palace floors above that opened onto the center square. Swarms of mutants were buzzing along the walkways, some gathering in small groups around the fountain and beneath the intricately carved arches. Gleaming gold adorned most surfaces, mixed with a palette of blues - the colors of the sea. Raven hated to admit that something so beautiful, so serene and peaceful, could house the most destructive being the world had ever known. But, the building was old, almost ancient. Farouk hadn't built this palace, she reminded herself. He had stolen it, along with everything else.
She followed Emma through a massive archway, the room beyond capped by an enormous dome. Throngs of people circulated through the dimly lit space, the women as scantily clad as Raven, the men heavily armed, some guarding the entrances. Most present were mutants with obvious signs of their powers on display, but there were a few exotically beautiful humans serving trays laden with food and drinks.
The focus of the room was a dais upon which sat Amahl Farouk, the oversized slug stuffed into a set of strained silk pajamas and oozing over a backless embroidered couch. Raven had never seen him so close, only pictures and videos of him these last decades. She fought the urge to rush onto the platform and murder him with whatever she could lay her hands on. He deserved to die, but there was still no guarantee Raven could finish him off before someone stopped her. She would have to bide her time until she could get physically close enough. And, there was still the problem of what had happened to Rogue. There had been no sign or further mention of the girl, and Raven had been lucky enough to steer clear of Logan so far, if he had even survived the trip to Cairo, but she couldn't just leave the girl's fate up in the air. If she could, she needed to make sure Rogue was safe before the end. She owed it to Irene and the little girl they had both loved.
Standing behind Farouk was Storm, alongside a pale, purple haired woman Raven didn't recognize. There were a pair of buxom beauties with vacant eyes cooling the King with ostrich feather fans, and at his elbow, another young woman sat on her knees and fed him grapes.
Raven guessed the girl was barely older than Rogue, and calling the scant whisper of fabric she was wearing an outfit was being generous. The dark red color of her bikini complimented a mass of auburn curls, held back from a pretty but dejected face by a matching headband. Her wrists were bound together with heavy chains, and she wore an inhibitor collar around her neck that blinked electronic lights. Raven nearly threw up when Farouk sucked a grape from the girl's fingers.
The collar drew her attention again. It was rumored that Farouk's minions used power inhibiting technology as part of their 'rehabilitation', but the girl seemed to be the only one in the room wearing one. Why would the King bother keeping a de-powered mutant at his feet? If she was under Farouk's telepathic control, why would they need to lock down her powers? Could the girl still be free of his mind control?
Emma squeezed her hand, mistaking Raven's quaking rage for nerves. "Just as we practiced," Emma whispered. "Do not fail me."
Not only Raven's life depended on a successful performance. Frost had vouched for her and put herself on the line, but why? Without mutant powers – or rather without evidence of the Dazzler's working mutant powers - Emma had deemed her safe, but both of their lives depended on Raven's good behavior. Raven wished she could figure out Frost's angle, but was thankful she had been able to convince Frost of both her sincerity and the Dazzler's power loss, or she would have had a collar all her own, and Farouk's people would have gotten a blue-skinned surprise.
When she released Raven's fingers, Emma stepped forward. "Your majesty," she bowed low, "may I present - for your amusement - The Dazzler."
Stepping onto the platform, Emma took her place between Storm and the unfamiliar purple haired woman. The three of them together were Farouk's most loyal subjects, Frost and the other woman his prized telepaths. The King had made most psionic abilities illegal, and destroyed anyone sheltering a mutant with powers that could challenge his own. Rumor was he had kept women close to him that had such talents, and these women served as his protectors.
As Time Goes By was the song Raven sang acapella, pouring every bit of heartache and pain she could muster through her copied windpipes. The song was a favorite of Farouk's according to Emma, the bastard the Dazzler's number one fan, and Raven knew she had hit a home run when the fat fuck stopped eating long enough to watch her with greedy, piggy eyes. When the song finished, he clapped gleefully, the motions threatening to rupture the buttons of his pajama top.
"Splendid!" Farouk was unable to turn his head atop the rolls of his neck, but addressed Frost over the mound of his shoulder. "You were right, Emma. She will be perfect for…"
He was interrupted by a commotion behind Raven, and when she turned, the crowd parted to make way for an unnaturally pale-faced man flanked by two younger men - a brunette and a blonde. The brunette wore dark red glasses and carried a metal briefcase.
"Ahhh, Nathaniel!" Farouk purred and clasped his hands together atop his globular stomach.
Raven stepped to the side, and the young men stopped to stand beside her, but the pale man, his dark hair slicked back into a ponytail, continued forward. He stepped onto the platform and took a knee in front of the King.
"My Lord." The man, his mouth framed by an equally dark goatee, kissed the swollen hand Farouk offered him.
Farouk's beady eyes glistened. "I trust you have brought with you good news?"
The man's smile, even in profile, sent shivers down Raven's spine, and her mind raced to put a surname to the ghoulish face.
"My liege," Nathaniel's voice was honey over rusty razor blades, "perhaps that is a discussion better held in private?"
Farouk's laugh sent tremors rippling across silk. "Always my best interest at heart, eh doctor? Very well. Ororo?" Storm was at his elbow so fast Raven hadn't seen her move. "Would you…?" Farouk merely waved his hand, and Storm nodded. She stepped to the front of the platform and clapped, thunder booming overhead from the clear sky.
"Leave us," she commanded, and the room obeyed. Most of the mutants rushed to the exits in a wave, but those closest to Farouk stood in their place, including Frost. Unsure of where to go without her, Raven tried to catch Emma's gaze, but met Farouk's instead.
"Ah, yes," he smiled. "We cannot forget our little songbird." He inclined his head. "Wanda?"
The girl chained at his side got onto her knees and leaned towards him.
"Wanda, be a dear, and show our new friend where she will be sleeping."
Wanda nodded and rose, stepping gracefully towards Raven despite the heavy chains weighing down her wrists.
Behind Farouk, Emma's face colored, her thickly painted lips drawing a tight line. Raven wasn't her plaything anymore. Frost wasn't thrilled, but there was nothing she could do about it. Raven had to control the inappropriate smile that threatened the corners of her mouth.
"Come with me, please." Wanda's voice held the traces of an Eastern European accent, and she took hold of Raven's elbow with a firm grip.
As she was steered from the room, Raven tried to register as much of what was happening as she could. Farouk's telepaths and Storm had stayed, along with the doctor and his young beefcakes. The boys had joined their companion on the platform, and the brown haired one had presented the metal briefcase to the doctor.
"I am capable of delivering what you ask for," she heard the doctor say, but Wanda was pushing her from the throne room too fast.
Obviously the wheezing old slug could use a doctor, but something else was going on. Raven needed to hear more. To stop Wanda's hustle, Raven tripped on the hem of her own dress and fell onto her knees.
"Oh!" she whispered and clutched at Wanda's chains, dragging her down with her.
"We must go!" A panicked Wanda pulled Raven to her feet, but over the girl's shoulder she saw the doctor approach Farouk with an empty syringe.
"All is proceeding according to plan," he said. "There is just one more thing that I require…"