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Post by sunofdarkchild on Jan 1, 2024 8:18:24 GMT -5
Magik and the New Mutants Season 1
Episode 1: The New Class
"To me, my New Mutants."
The telepathic call rang out through the mansion which constituted Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Heads turned in the direction from which the call was issued, and immediately all of the students stopped what they were doing and began to head towards the mansion's lower levels.
The man who had made the call, Charles Xavier himself, was sitting in his wheelchair in an advanced control room. He frowned as he stared at the seat that stood in front of the controls for the Danger Room. He was the only person who did not use that seat when overseeing a session in the X-Men's training facility.
This was a time for new beginnings, Xavier thought to himself as he put his hands on the sides of his wheelchair and began to push himself to his feet. With great effort, he stood up, taking a deep breath as he focused on his next task, walking the short distance to the other chair.
Xavier slowly lifted his right foot, and immediately collapsed to the floor with a cry of pain.
"Professor!" yelled the control room's only other occupant, a blonde teenage girl.
The girl bent down and helped Xavier up. The professor looked forlornly at the chair he had attempted to reach, so close, and yet so far away, before slumping back into his wheelchair with a sad sigh.
"Thank you, Illyana."
Though a student at the school, Illyana Rasputin was the only resident of the mansion who was not a member of either the senior team, the X-Men, or the new student team, the New Mutants.
"I don't understand," Illyana told her teacher. "I thought your legs were supposed to be fully healed."
Xavier nodded. "They are. My problem is psychosomatic. Ever since my original injury, I have used my psychic powers to block out the pain. But because of this, my body does not realize that it has been healed, and any attempt at walking will cause the very pain I did not let myself feel all those years ago."
He looked at Illyana. "Let this be a lesson for you, child. Do not repeat my mistake. Do not attempt to drown out your pain. The result will be that it will be much worse when you do finally feel it."
Xavier turned his attention to the Danger Room as the New Mutants began to enter the training facility.
Xuân Cao Mạnh, Sam Guthrie, Daniel Moonstar, Kitty Pryde, Roberto Da Costa, and Rahne Sinclair lined up in their new blue and yellow uniforms and grinned at each other. All except for Kitty, who crossed her arms and pouted at the control room.
Xavier spoke into a small microphone. "Welcome to the Danger Room. For most of you, this is your first time here. This facility is designed to be a safe place for you to practice using your powers, so if the need arises you will be prepared for any eventuality."
He pressed a button, and a series of obstacles appeared throughout the danger room.
"Your first exercise is a simple one. Avoid the obstacles and make it to the exit. Who wants to go first?"
"I will," Roberto declared confidently. He was a strong, handsome young man of Afro-Latina descent with a smile that made girls swoon. With a flex of his arms, he powered up, his body becoming covered in an aura that was at once black and glowing. It was an effect that earned him the mutant moniker Sunspot.
As Roberto stepped forward, a portion of the wall flipped open, revealing a large robot standing in Roberto's way.
"Is this the best you can do, Professor?" Roberto scoffed. He drew his right arm back and threw a punch at the robot, only for his arm to sink into the metallic surface.
"Hey, what's going on?" he yelled. "I can't get my arm out!"
Roberto's teammates shared a laugh at his expense, and in the control room, Illyana covered her mouth to hide her smile. Only Xavier was not amused by Roberto's failure.
"Rahne, would you like to go next?"
Rahne was the youngest member of the team. She had extremely short red hair and spoke in a thick Scottish accent. At Xavier's command, she transformed into a large red wolf known as Wolfsbane.
She proceeded slowly and cautiously, sniffing along the ground for any sign of danger. Her enhanced animal senses gave her a heads-up on any threat, allowing her to avoid most of the obstacles.
However, she was unprepared for a trap door to open up beneath her, causing her to fall into a deep pit and fail the test.
"Sam, you're up."
Sam Guthrie was the tallest of the New Mutants by far. He was a skinny blonde with a thick Kentucky accent.
Sam bent down as if he was preparing for a 100-meter sprint and blasted off. This power earned him the name Cannonball. While he used it, he was virtually invulnerable.
Unfortunately, Sam did not know how to maneuver while blasting, and the first obstacle knocked him off course. He began to bounce around the danger room, ping-ponging off of the various obstacles like a pinball until he finally, unceremoniously, collided with the floor almost exactly where he started.
"Professor," Dani called out, "how are Shan and I supposed to do this? Our powers are mental. They won't work on machines."
"You are correct, Danielle," Xavier answered. "However, your powers are not the be-all and end-all. To demonstrate, Kitty will run the course without the use of her powers."
Kitty Pryde was a brown and curly-haired Jewish girl from Chicago. With a roll of her eyes, she stepped forward and began the test.
Kitty faced all of the obstacles that had stumped Roberto, Rahne, and Sam, from robots to trap doors. But she deftly avoided each one, moving quickly, never staying still for even an instant, until finally, she was on the other side.
Most of the team clapped, but Roberto crossed his arms and hmphed derisively. "Sure. It's easy when your power is nothing can touch you."
Kitty matched Roberto's derisive expression. "It's because I'm a real X-Man, not an X-baby like the rest of you."
Xavier buried his face in his palm as the argument broke out below.
"What'd you call us?" Roberto demanded.
"Ah'm older'n you," Sam declared.
"Do you have any idea what we've been through?" Xuân asked.
An image of Xavier's head appeared in the air between them.
"Enough!" he declared telepathically.
"Kitty, it is true that your time in the X-Men has given you an experience your classmates lack. But they are still your peers, and you will treat them with respect."
"And when are you going to treat me with the respect I deserve?" Kitty demanded.
"Right now, you have not earned it," Xavier said as his image disappeared from their minds.
The New Mutants exited their locker rooms in their civilian clothes, Kitty storming ahead of them in a fit of rage.
Illyana quickly followed after her.
"Professor Xavier is a jerk!" Kitty said loudly.
"It isn't fair!" she complained to Illyana. "I earned my place in the X-Men! They all say so! So why does he keep treating me like a child?"
"Maybe because you're acting like one?" Illyana answered.
"Not you too! I thought you'd be on my side, at least."
Illyana looked down uncomfortably as she struggled to find the words to explain herself.
"I guess … I just don't understand … why someone would want to grow up … before they have to."
Kitty stopped in her tracks and took a deep, horrified breath.
"Oh my gosh. I-I'm so sorry, Illyana. I didn't mean-"
"What's done is done," Illyana said. "Wishing and griping won't change it. All you're doing is making everybody miserable."
"Why don't we go to the arcade? That'll cheer me up," Kitty suggested.
"But we've got dance lessons next," Illyana observed.
"I think the X-bay – sigh – the New Mutants and I need some space right now. Come on. I'm sure I can get Doug to join us."
The New Mutants met Stevie Hunter in front of the mansion. Stevie was an African American woman who had once held dreams of competing in the Olympics before a leg injury ended her gymnastics career. She ran a dancing school in town and was one of Charles Xavier's closest human allies who knew most of his secrets.
"Where're Kitty and Illyana?" Stevie asked.
"Her royal highness thinks she's too good for us," Roberto explained, making Stevie scowl.
They got into Stevie's van so she could drive them into town for dance class.
"What's her problem, anyway?" Dani asked.
"She's been through a lot with the X-Men," Stevie explained.
"We've been through a lot too!" Roberto said angrily.
Roberto had lost his girlfriend Juliana days after his mutant power manifested. A group of mutant haters had attempted to kill Roberto, and Juliana jumped in front of him, taking a bullet that had been meant for him.
Sam had been forced to leave school to work in the mines when his father suddenly died. His powers manifested during a cave-in which had nearly buried him and his coworkers alive.
Rahne was an orphan who was raised by a fanatical minister before he attempted to kill her when her powers manifested, claiming she was possessed by a demon.
Dani's parents had been killed by a bear, and shortly before her arrival, her grandfather had been beaten to death by mutant-hunters looking for her.
Xuân was a refugee from a war-torn nation who had recently come to America with her little brother and sister.
"Are you at least getting along with Illyana?" Stevie asked.
"We're not fighting with her, at least," Xuân answered. "But she never talks to us."
"There's something off about her," Roberto said.
"Is she a mutant like us, Stevie?" Sam asked.
"If she was, she'd be doing the same exercises in the Danger Room with the rest of you," Stevie answered.
Neither Stevie nor her passengers noticed another car hidden in the woods just off the road as they drove by.
The car pulled out onto the road and began to follow Stevie's vehicle.
"Alert headquarters that they're heading towards Salem Center," the driver told his passenger.
The passenger picked up a speaker: "Lookout one to Wideawake – status report: Vehicle registered to Stevie Hunter proceeding down Graymalkin Lane. Five occupants besides Hunter – all young people, presumably Xavier's new students. Unable to confirm identities without jeopardizing our cover. Request instructions."
A man with red hair and sunglasses appeared on a monitor in front of the passenger seat.
"Maintain discreet surveillance. Additional units will join you in town," their superior said.
"What then, Mr. Gyrich," the passenger asked. "Do we arrest them?"
"Let me make myself clear, until you receive orders to the contrary, you and your team will do nothing to alarm these children or their teachers," Gyrich said angrily. "Should that policy change, you will be notified. Wideawake out."
Xavier wheeled himself into his study, where the senior members of the X-Men had gathered.
"Are you ok, Professor?" asked the furry blue mutant Kurt Wagner, who was also known as Nightcrawler. "You seem even more stressed than usual today."
"Yes, acclimating the new students is proving difficult, and Kitty isn't making it any easier," Xavier explained.
"What did you expect?" asked Logan, who was also known as Wolverine. "The kid was in the majors, and you demoted her all the way down to high school varsity. In her shoes, I'd be throwing a tantrum too."
"Allowing Kitty to be part of the X-Men was a mistake," Xavier declared. "Now that we have more students her own age, we have an opportunity to correct that mistake. I won't have children risking their lives unnecessarily."
"You did not summon us to rehash arguments about Kitty's place on our team," said the X-Men's leader, Ororo Munroe, who was also known as Storm.
Xavier nodded. "That is correct. I asked you here to discuss Illyana's situation."
The X-Men all exchanged troubled looks, and the last member, the large Russian mutant Piotr Rasputin, also known as Colossus, glared at the professor.
"We agreed that we would observe her in case of trouble, but otherwise she would be welcome here without question," Ororo recalled.
"That was when it was just the X-Men living here," Xavier said. "Now that there are other children here, I believe it would be prudent to reexamine the risks of having her around."
Piotr slammed his fist against the wall. "If you kick out my sister, then you will have to kick me out as well," he declared.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Petey," Logan said. "Chuck's got a point. The girl's dangerous."
Piotr walked over to Logan and glared down daggers at him. The massive Russian towered over the diminutive Canadian.
"How dare you…" Piotr said under his breath.
"What do you mean, Logan?" Xavier asked.
"Just what I said. She's dangerous," Logan said, seemingly unfazed by Piotr.
"Could you explain why?" Ororo asked.
Logan shook his head. "'Fraid not. It's a feeling I get whenever she's around. She scares me a lot more than you do when you try to be intimidating, Petey. It's a primal fear. I've only ever experienced it two other times – when we fought Magneto and with Jean when she was at her worst."
Everyone flinched collectively at the mention of Jean Grey at her worst.
"You don't really think …" Kurt began.
"If I thought she meant us harm, I'd have already taken care of her myself," Logan said. "Being dangerous doesn't mean she's not trustworthy."
"Logan's animal instincts are almost always right," Ororo observed. "If he says Illyana is dangerous, then we have to assume she is."
"Stop it!" Piotr yelled. "We should be helping her, not treating her like a threat!"
"I agree," Kurt said. "We should do everything in our power to help her. But we can't be blind to the possibility that she's a trojan horse."
Xavier sighed. "Hopefully being around more children her own age will help her open up more."
Stevie drove the five to her studio in Salem Center, where she taught her dancing classes. They changed clothes again at the locker rooms and entered the dance classroom. Dani stopped in the doorway.
They were not the only ones there. Four other teenagers had arrived before them, a brown-haired boy and girl who looked like twins, a pretty blonde girl with curly blonde hair, and a red-headed boy with large glasses.
"You must be the new class at Xavier's," the blonde said with a sweet smile.
"Indeed we are," Roberto responded. He stepped forward with his own winning smile, confident in the way his tight dancing clothes highlighted his muscular and athletic figure. "I'm Roberto. This is Sam, Dani, Rahne, and Xi'an."
"Xuân," the Asian girl corrected him.
"Right. Sorry. I'll get it eventually. And you are?" he asked the blonde.
"Tandy," she answered. "These are Mike and Mindy, and Peter. We go to the School of the Holy Child."
"Nice," Roberto said. "I went to a private Catholic school as well when I lived in Brazil."
As the two groups of teenagers began to mingle Stevie turned to Dani, who had gone pale and not moved from the doorway. "What's wrong?" she asked softly.
"I didn't realize there'd be other kids here," Dani said, "normal kids."
"Charles thinks you should have more opportunities to meet and interact with other kids," Stevie explained. "But if it makes you feel uncomfortable…"
Dani nodded. "It does."
Professor Xavier was waiting at the mansion's main entrance when Kitty and Illyana returned from the arcade. Kitty had known there was no point in attempting to sneak past the most powerful telepath on Earth, so she did not try.
"Playing hooky? And here I thought your antics couldn't get more childish," he admonished them. "First me, then your new classmates, now you disrespect Ms. Hunter. I'm very disappointed in the both of you."
Turning to Illyana, he said: "You are going to help Ororo and Kurt prepare dinner, and then you are going to help your brother with the dishes. They're already waiting for you in the kitchen."
Illyana nodded silently and went off, giving Kitty an annoyed look.
"It wasn't her fault, Professor," Kitty explained. "I made her come with me."
"If you insist on being a bad influence, then there are going to be consequences for following your example," Xavier stated. "If this happens again, I am going to seriously consider moving you two to different rooms."
"No!" Kitty begged. "I promise, it won't happen again. Just let us stay roommates."
Xavier nodded. "Very well. See that you don't give me any more reason to reconsider this arrangement."
The New Mutants' return to the mansion in Stevie Hunter's car was recorded by a long-distance camera hundreds of meters from the entrance, far enough to avoid being detected by any telepaths who were not specifically looking for spies, it was hoped.
The live feed was received on a large screen in a command and control room underneath the Pentagon, watched by Henry Peter Gyrich.
Gyrich, with his expensive suit and dark glasses he wore even indoors, was as stereotypical as a government agent could get. Were it not for his bright red hair, which he kept short, he would easily blend into any room and become practically invisible.
As the head of the recently-created Commission of Superhuman Activities, Gyrich oversaw the military and clandestine aspects of the American government's response to the mutant issue. The fact that mutant powers usually manifested at puberty was an unfortunate complication in his eyes, as it meant that any policy would have to take mutant children into account, the one thing that he feared could lead to public backlash against attempts to contain the mutant threat.
"What the hell is Xavier doing?" he asked under his breath.
One of the technicians working at a console with another screen turned to look up at him. "Sir?"
"Nothing, Robert. Get back to work."
Gyrich turned to his assistant, a serious-looking woman standing in the corner behind him. "Get me Sebastian Shaw," he instructed her.
At the end of dinner, Nightcrawler cleared the table by performing a series of acrobatic feats, grabbing and stacking the glass plates with his feet and tail while balancing on one hand before leaping all the way to the kitchen sink without dropping or chipping a single one. This display, reminiscent of his past as a circus performer, delighted most of the teens. Even Illyana cracked a smile, while the others laughed. Except for Rahne.
"Tis no' right," she said to herself in her thick Scottish accent, "to break bread with and laugh at a demon."
Sam excused himself from the table first and went straight to his room, where he took out his cell-phone. This was a new iPhone, given to him by Professor Xavier, and was by far the most expensive thing he had ever owned.
"Hi, Ma," he said into the device, "I'm doing great, actually. Ah didn't realize how much Ah missed being in school while Ah was working in the mines. Ah do feel kind of weird being here, though. It's a very exclusive school, and there aren't that many students. But on the plus side, Ah can get a lot of one on one time with the Professor or the other teachers if Ah need any help with anything. Ah'm starting to think Ah might actually be able to go to college in a couple of years. How're things back home? Did you get the check Professor sent?"
Sam nearly dropped his phone. "It was how much? That's more than Ah made in three months in the mines. Ah don't think Ah implied we needed that much."
Kitty was woken up in the middle of the night by a sound from the bed next to hers. In her groggy state, it took her a few moments to recognize the sound of Illyana's voice.
"Nyet…nyet…" the other girl said, repeating the Russian word for "no" in her sleep as she tossed and turned.
Kitty arose and walked over to the other bed, stepping over a 'bampf,' a doll made to look like Nightcrawler.
"Ostanavlivat'sya!" Illyana screamed as Kitty approached, her mouth wide with terror. Her voice softened as she suddenly switched to English, saying "Please … stop …"
"Illyana?" Kitty said, putting her hand on the other girl's shoulder. The Russian girl shook with terror, and Kitty spoke louder. "Illyana, wake up!"
With a high-pitched scream, Illyana's eyes burst open and her hand shot out with lightning speed at the person standing over her. Kitty reacted on instinct, using her phasing power to save herself from serious injury as Illyana's flat hand passed through her neck nail-first like a dagger.
"Whoa!" she exclaimed.
Illyana blinked. "K-Kitty?" she stammered, slowly retracting her hand.
"Yeah. It's me."
Illyana seemed to want to look around the dark room, but her head merely shook in fear. "W-where-where am I?"
"You're home," Kitty assured her. She bent down, picked up the bamf doll, and handed it to Illyana. The other girl grabbed the doll and hugged it close as she sat up. She trembled and took deep, loud breaths as she buried her face in the doll.
Kitty wrapped Illyana in her blanket and then sat down to wrap her arms around the other girl.
'Shhh…" she said in a soft, comforting tone. "Everything's all right. You're safe."
Tears began to flow down Kitty's cheeks as she hugged Illyana like a mother cradling her child. "I promise, I won't let anything happen to you."
Some of the mansion's residents got up early, while others slept in. Dani was one of the late risers. While she had not woken up screaming in the middle of the night, she slept fitfully, beset by bad dreams.
As she washed up, Dani thought she heard a growling behind her. In the side of the bathroom mirror, she saw reflected in the window a pair of large, non-human ears. With a gasp, she spun around, but nothing but the morning sun could be seen in the window.
She found her teammates in the rec room, along with Illyana. Roberto was questioning the young Russian.
"So what, you just live here because your brother's an X-Man?" Illyana nodded, but looked confused at this line of questioning. "So, do you not have any powers?"
"What does it matter if I do or don't?"
Roberto threw up his hands. "I'm just asking."
Xuân was the first to notice Dani's arrival, and how troubled the Cheyenne looked. She approached in order to ask Dani what was wrong when an image appeared between them.
"Ma Mere! Ma Pere!" Xuân screamed in French at the image of herself in better days with her entire family. "C'est Impossible!"
The image of the happy family with two sets of twins, one in their teens and the other at preschool age, was replaced by the family screaming as the father was shot down in front of them.
"Stop this!" Xuân yelled at Dani. By now, everyone else in the rec room had stopped what they were doing to watch what was unfolding. The images had changed again, this time to the family attempting to flee their homeland on a boat, only to be stopped by pirates. What happened next, her mother did not survive, and for a while Xuân had wished she had not survived either.
"MONSTER!" Xuân screamed, leaping through the image and tackling Dani to the ground.
"I-I'm sorry!" Dani pleaded. "I didn't mean-"
"Liar!" Xuân accused, her fingers wrapping around Dani's throat. "I thought you were my friend, but you reveal my shame for the whole world to see!"
Two pairs of arms grabbed Xuân by the shoulders and Roberto and Illyana both lifted her off of Dani.
"Stop it! You'll kill her!" Roberto warned.
"Let go of me!" Xuân yelled. The pupils of her eyes disappeared as she activated her mutant power. A second later, Roberto's pupil's disappeared as well, and he loosened his grip and released her, his body no longer under his control.
Xuân turned her head to the left to glare at Ilyana. "Let me go," she said again.
"Not until you calm down," Illyana insisted.
Xuân's jaw dropped, and she took several deep breaths. Her eyes and Roberto's returned to normal as she deactivated her power.
"All right, I'm calm now," she said. Illyana let her go.
Dani struggled to get back on her feet. "I'm so sorry!" she said again. "It was an accident," she attempted to explain. But Xuân was not listening. Her attention had been completely refocused on Illyana.
"Dani! Xuân!" came the disembodied voice of Professor Xavier. "See me in my office right now!"
Both girls complied, leaving the others to stare after them.
"That was quick thinking," Sam told Roberto. "If you and Illyana hadn't been there…"
Roberto looked grave. "Xuân was ready to kill Dani, and with her powers she could kill us all with ease if she wanted to." He shook his head. "Hardly an auspicious beginning for the school, is it?"
Xuân and Dani had never been to a principal's office before. Dani had been homeschooled until now, and Xuân's schooling had been cut short by war. Neither had any idea what to expect.
"I wish I could say that I'd never had one student attack another," Xavier said, "but unfortunately, such things have happened with the X-Men before. Usually, though, it was because the attacker was under mind control or in some other way possessed."
Xuân looked to the side. "I see now that I overreacted. But to have my very soul laid bare like that is more than could bare."
"I know, I'm sorry," Dani said again. "I just – I can't always control it. That's why I didn't want to go have dance classes with other kids yesterday."
"Do these moments where your control lapses occur when you're upset?" Xavier asked. "When you're angry or anxious?"
Dani nodded. "Yes."
"You must be mindful of these feelings, then, and come to me or another member of the staff any time you feel that you are in danger of using your powers unintentionally."
"Your powers are a gift," Xavier explained. "They are not something to be feared. But they are dangerous if not respected, and can cause great harm. Being mutants means you will have to grow up sooner than other children your age and learn responsibility to control these powers. It is not fair, but it is the cost of being a mutant."
"I know," Dani said. "I'll do better, I promise."
"Very well. And Xuân? Dani has already apologized three times for this unfortunate accident. Do you have anything to say to her?"
Xuân sighed. "I'm sorry I attacked you and tried to choke you."
"No problem, I might've done the same thing, in your position," Dani said. "Can we forgive each other and go back to being friends?"
"Give me a little bit of time," Xuân said. "The pain's still fresh right now."
"I guess that's all I can ask," Dani said. "I think it'd be best if I was alone for a while. I also need time to calm down so this doesn't happen again with someone else."
Xavier nodded. "You are excused. I don't think any punishment is necessary this time. You are both showing maturity in admitting fault and coming to an understanding over this incident."
Dani left, but Xuân lingered at the doorway.
"Xuân? Is there something else you wanted to say?"
She turned back to him. "Who exactly is Illyana?"
A change seemed to come over Xavier, and she knew immediately that she had broached a topic that was distressing to him.
After a few moments, he said: "Just as you want others to respect your privacy, you should respect theirs."
The X-Men were preparing to depart for their latest mission in the Blackbird, their custom hypersonic jet based on the Lockheed SR-71 spy plane, when Xavier's face appeared on a monitor next to the pilot's seat.
"What is it, Professor?" Storm asked.
"You have a stowaway onboard," Xavier said.
"Kitty," Wolverine said.
"I'll find her," Nightcrawler said, teleporting away in a poof of black smoke to search the aircraft's compartments.
Xavier had his arms crossed when Nightcrawler brought Kitty to him.
"What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?"
"I was just trying to be with my team," she insisted.
Xavier glared daggers at her. "I have a lecture to give. We will discuss this when I return. Your antics have made me late and delayed the X-Men's departure on an important mission, and I am most displeased."
Dani was sobbing in her room when she heard a knock on the door. She looked confused for a moment.
"Rahne, is that you?" she asked, going to open the door.
In the doorway was a familiar red-furred wolf. The wolf barked happily and leapt onto Dani, licking the tears off of her cheeks.
"Hey, cut it out!" Dani yelled, but her sobs had turned to laughter.
Rahne transformed back into herself and got off of Dani. "How'd ye know it was me?"
"I'm not completely sure," Dani said. "I've always had this connection with animals. Maybe it's part of my mutant power, but I don't know. I guess it extends to you when you're in wolf form. It was like I could sense you there."
"Wow, that's neat."
Kitty was back with the New Mutants after her attempt to stow away aboard the Blackbird. With the X-Men and Xavier gone, it fell once again to Stevie to look after them.
"I want to punch something," Kitty said angrily.
"So what else is new?" Roberto asked sarcastically.
"I think you could all stand to work off some excess energy," Stevie said. "Does anyone object to using the Danger Room?"
They all gathered once again in the Danger Room, wearing their blue and yellow uniforms just as they had the previous morning. Even Dani had joined them for this session.
Illyana stood behind Stevie, who entered the program in the control room. It was Kitty who had chosen the specific program they would fight against.
The walls, floor, and ceiling of the Danger Room disappeared as the program initialized, becoming replaced by small, easter European town. Floating in front of them was an imposing-looking man in a red costume, cape, and helmet.
"Who dares challenge the Master of Magnetism and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants?" Magneto demanded. Behind him appeared five more mutants.
Blob was enormous in every way, and appeared to be one hundred percent fat. Toad, on the other hand, was shockingly small, all the more so with how he crouched menacingly. Mastermind looked plain in comparison to all of his peers, with a simple face and build and no costume beyond a large brown coat.
The red-haired Scarlett Witch and white-haired Quicksilver wore the flashiest and most colorful costumes after Magneto. Twins, they stood near each other, and alone of the villains did not seem eager for a fight.
Roberto transformed and put his right fist into his left palm. "The New Mutants are gonna cream your so-called 'brotherhood.'"
"Let us see if you can live up to your boasts," Magneto said. "Brotherhood, attack!"
Quicksilver moved first, running so fast none of the New Mutants had a chance to react. The wind from his passing knocked all but Kitty and Roberto over, the former using her phasing power to let the wind pass through her, while the latter withstood it through his own strength.
The Blob approached Roberto, seeing as he had stood up to Quicksilver's initial move. "Go on, hit me," the large villain said.
Roberto complied, not hearing Xuân's scream for him to stop, plunging his powerful fist into the Blob's round stomach.
"Oh, not again!" Roberto yelled as his hand was absorbed into the Blob's flesh. "That's disgusting!"
The Blob inhaled and popped his stomach out, sending Roberto flying.
The other New Mutants rose to their feet. Sam blasted towards Quicksilver, hoping for some payback. But the speedster moved out of the way at the last second. Sam, unable to stop himself or turn crashed headfirst into a building, causing the entire structure to fall on him.
"Did no one read up the Brotherhood?" Xuân yelled! "We're playing right into their hands!"
The scene shifted again, reality rippling as if the universe had turned to water, and when the world appeared solid again, everyone was standing in a different position.
"It's Mastermind!" Xuân yelled at her teammates. "He's using his illusion powers to confuse us! Wolfsbane! Transform and smell where he his and take him out!"
Rahne complied, turning into a wolf and sniffing. Her nose led her to what appeared to be Roberto, but smelled nothing like her friend. 'Roberto' suddenly screamed and cowered with his hands over his head as an apparition of Magneto appeared above him, electricity dancing around the Master of Magnetism as he glared with a frightening rage as his subordinate.
His concentration broken, Mastermind's illusions disappeared, revealing him where 'Roberto had just been. Rahne leapt upon him and transformed into her intermediate form to quickly dispatch him from the fight.
Turning back into a human, she looked at Dani. The Cheyenne had known where their enemy was from Rahne, just as she had sensed Rahne's presence earlier.
One of their opponents was down, but four more remained before they could face the real threat, Magneto.
Roberto was busy digging Sam out of the rubble. Sam was thankfully invulnerable while blasting, and so was uninjured from collision and collapse. Blob, having already had some success with Roberto, approached the Brazilian again.
"Go ahead, hit me again," he taunted.
"With pleasure," Roberto said. But instead of winding up his fist like before, this time he brought both of his hands together above his head and slammed them to the ground, creating a shockwave and causing the ground to crack beneath the Blob's feet. The Blob lost his footing and fell on his back with a massive thud. He hit his head and was rendered unconscious.
Toad had attempted to leap into the fray as soon as Quicksilver had launched his initial attack, but his first target, Kitty, was too fast for him to catch. She dodged each lunch of his while constantly taunting him.
"You're the worst villain ever, you know that, Toad? You don't even deserve to be called a supervillain!"
"Shut up!" Toad yelled, leaping at her once more. This time, Kitty phased to dodge, disappearing into the ground as he landed on top of her. Toad had no time to wonder what had just happened as Kitty reappeared behind him, grabbing him and wrestling him to the ground, where she promptly took him out of the fight.
With just the twins left to deal with, Xuân's eyes turned white as she possessed the Scarlett Witch, who began to gesture at her brother, causing him to trip and fall mid-stride.
Xuân then turned the Scarlett Witch's powers on their enemies' leader. Magneto and his most powerful underling were locked in a clash of energies, but the Master of Magnetism had the advantage, being far more experienced with his own powers than Xuân was with her puppet's.
"Cannonball, now!" she yelled.
Sam got behind Magneto and blasted off, striking the arch-villain from behind with his full force. Ordinarily, Magneto would have had a magnetic shield around him protecting him from all physical attacks, but with his attention focused on his duel with the Scarlett Witch, Sam had an opening in which to strike.
"Yes!" Roberto cheered as Stevie turned the Danger Room off. He high-fived Sam. "We won! We beat Magneto!"
"Don't get too proud of yourselves," Kitty said. "That was the easiest setting. Against the real thing, you all wouldn't have lasted ten seconds."
"Give us a break!" Roberto said. "For our first time, that was really good!"
"I'm afraid she has a point," Xuân said. "We were sloppy and careless, and most of us haven't done any research on the X-Men's fights with the Brotherhood. If our opponents had the capacity to act with more intelligence and teamwork, we wouldn't have stood a chance."
Stevie activated the loudspeaker in the control room. "Xuân is correct. But that's the point of the Danger Room. Here it is safe to make mistakes. What's important is that you learn from your mistakes so that you can do better in the real world. I'm sure the Professor will be pleased with your performances for your first time, but there is always room for improvement, even for the most experienced X-Men."
Xavier was indeed pleased when he returned and examined the results of the New Mutants' first Danger Room session as a team.
"I will be giving you all written evaluations of your performances later tonight, as individuals and as a team," he told them. "This has given me a greater understanding of what areas we need to work on."
"Professor," Roberto asked, "are we being trained be join the X-Men someday?"
"Not necessarily," Xavier said. "While I do want you to be trained in combat and to work as a team, that is for your own defense and well-being, not so that you can become X-Men when you grow up. What you do with your lives is up to you, and I will be just as happy if you find a calling other than joining the X-Men."
He turned to Kitty. "Come to my office, now. It's time we talked."
Kitty sat down on the opposite side of Xavier's desk.
"I've tolerated your behavior up to a certain point because it was understandable that you were angry," Xavier said. "But now this has gone too far. I do not normally use such terms, but you need to get over the fact that you are not on the X-Men anymore."
"I'm not getting over it anytime soon."
"I was going to make you the leader of the New Mutants, given your greater experience with the X-Men. But there is no chance of that happening if you continue to make them hate you."
"I don't want to be the New Mutants' leader! I want to be an X-Man!"
"Why?" he demanded. "Why are you so determined to risk your life instead of taking this opportunity to be with other kids your own age? Why is it so damn important to you that you remain an X-Man that you can't wait until you turn 18?"
"Because of what happened to Illyana!" Kitty screamed.
Xavier closed his eyes and sighed sadly. "What happened wasn't your fault," he said softly.
"Don't give me that. I've gone through the scenario in the Danger Room a hundred times. If I'd been a little faster, a little stronger, a little smarter, I could have saved her."
Kitty choked back a sob. "I could have saved her, and I didn't. That's on me."
She continued: "I also grew up a lot that day. I learned that when we're less than perfect when we make mistakes, real people suffer. So I've stopped treating it like a joke. I've given 110% to my training, so the next time a little girl needs saving, I won't fail again."
"If you were kicking me off the team as punishment for failure, I could live with that. But to do it like this, to tell me to just wait until I'm 18 after everything that's happened, it tells me that what I learned from this failure doesn't matter. My failure to save Illyana doesn't matter because of my age. But it has to matter. I need it to matter."
Xavier looked down in thought for several minutes. "I understand," he said at last.
"This is against my better judgment, and it may be a mistake, but I am going to trust that you are as grown up as you claim to be. However, there are conditions. This childish feud you have with the New Mutants must end. You will treat them with respect and as your peers. If I hear the word 'X-babies' or anything of the sort, you are off the X-Men again."
Kitty nodded excitedly. "Sure. I can do that."
"And you must keep your grades up. At the first sign being an X-Man is affecting your GPA, you're off the team. That means no more playing hooky without my explicit permission."
"Understood. Thank you, Professor. I promise I won't let you down."
Xavier gathered the New Mutants in his office that evening to give them their evaluations. Kitty was not with them this time, having been moved back to the mansion's other team.
"Based on your performances today," Xavier said, "I have decided that Xuân will be your team leader for now."
Xuân looked surprised and flustered. She did not believe her teacher could put such trust in her so soon after her attack against Dani.
"Are you sure sir?" she asked.
Xavier nodded. "I am quite sure. You should be, as well."
She looked around and her teammates. "What does everyone else think?"
Roberto smiled and raised his hands, clapping for her. The other New Mutants quickly joined in, giving their new leader a round of applause. Xuân looked to Dani, who was clapping and smiling as widely as anyone else.
She let herself have a small smile as well. "Ok. If you all think I can do it, I guess I'll be the leader."
"This calls for a celebration!" Roberto declared.
"I'm an X-Man again!" Kitty told Illyana. "Isn't it great?"
"Sure," Illyana said, not sharing Kitty's enthusiasm.
"I gotta go find your brother and the rest of the team. They'll be thrilled!"
As Kitty ran off, Illyana saw Roberto leading the New Mutants towards the front entrance.
"In honor of our new leader" he said, "we're going to the most expensive restaurant in town. It's all on me."
He phoned the restaurant to confirm there were available seats and then an Uber to take them. They talked excitedly amongst themselves, mostly congratulating Xuân and telling what a great leader she'd be. Xuân and Dani laughed together, their earlier feud forgiven and forgotten.
None of them noticed Illyana standing nearby or offered to take her with them. She watched silently as they exited the mansion at the Uber's arrival, moving one foot forward to follow before stopping herself.
When they were gone, Illyana turned around and went up the stairs to her room. After closing the door, she reached into her shirt and pulled out the necklace she always wore, but which no one ever saw.
Attached to the necklace was a palm-sized circular golden locket. She opened the locket and stared at the carving inside.
A blue pentagram was carved into the bottom part of the locket, surrounded by symbols in a pattern few on Earth could understand. At the five points of the star were small, circular grooves. In three of these grooves sat bright red stones, perfectly sized. The three stones glowed brightly like there was an electric light inside the locket.
Illyana's look turned into a glare as she stared at the inside of the locket. The room itself seemed to darken in response to her mood, until at last, she closed the locket, and the lights returned to normal.
I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me, and I walk alone
I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one, and I walk alone
I walk alone, I walk alone
I walk alone, I walk a-
My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes, I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then, I walk alone
Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Green Day
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Jan 11, 2024 8:38:52 GMT -5
Episode 2: Sentinels
"To me, my X-Men."
It was not yet 6:30 in the morning, and the sun was just beginning to rise as the X-Men filed into Professor Charles Xavier's office. Most had been hoping to be able to sleep in that day, and all but Ororo were still in their pajamas. Logan was not wearing a shirt.
"What is it, professor?" Ororo asked. They were on heightened alert, as Xavier not summon them all so early without a good reason.
"Is Magneto back?" Logan asked.
"It does not appear so, unless he is acting behind the scenes again," Xavier said. He stopped and looked at Kitty as she turned her head and covered her mouth to hide her gigantic yawn.
"Am I boring you, Kitty?"
"Oh, no sir. I'm sorry. I've just been up since one. Illyana had another nightmare."
Piotr started, his steely expression melting into one of deep concern, and Xavier nodded sadly, letting the issue drop and returning to the reason he had summoned them.
"It seems that in Magneto's absence, Mystique is attempting to reform his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. I believe I've determined which mutant criminals she will attempt to contact today. Your job will be to stop her recruitment efforts before she becomes as big a threat to human-mutant relations as Magneto, but this will require thousands of miles of traveling, so it is best that you depart as soon as possible."
Ororo nodded. "Send the names and the coordinates to the Blackbird's computer. We'll prepare to depart immediately."
Piotr found his little sister in the kitchen, using a canteen to pour herself a large 'cup' of coffee.
"That much coffee will stunt your growth, little snowflake."
Illyana took a large chug and wiped her mouth. "Kitty says that's a myth."
"I never drank coffee when I was your age, and look at me."
Illyana had to tilt her head pretty far up to look into her brother's eyes. Piotr was more than a full foot taller than her. He was in his X-Men uniform, an outfit of tight red spandex with a yellow center just like the yellow parts of the New Mutants' uniforms. The sides were cut out to show off his large muscles, which were impressive even when he was not transformed into his metallic form. The large, sharply-pointed should pads further emphasized his massive size.
"You're going on a mission?" she asked. It was very unlikely he would be in the kitchen in his costume if all the X-Men had planned for the day was training in the Danger Room.
"Da. I wanted to see you before I left. I heard you're having nightmares again."
Illyana put her canteen down and looked down and to the side. "They never stopped."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't want you to worry."
Piotr sighed. "Sometimes I wish I'd never heard of Charles Xavier or the X-Men."
"Don't say that!" Illyana responded quickly. "Look at all the people you've saved. You've even helped save the world!"
Piotr put his hand under Illyana's chin and looked at her with the saddest smile she had ever seen.
"I didn't join the X-Men to save strangers or the world. I did it to protect you."
Illyana's jaw dropped slightly and she blinked several times as she took a step back.
"What?" she asked in a voice that was little more than a whisper.
There was a cough from the kitchen entrance, and they turned to see Wolverine standing there in full costume. The mostly yellow spandex would have looked comical on anyone else, especially someone as short as he was, but the feral nature of his bearing and posture made the garish outfit seem threatening. Perhaps more than anyone else in the X-Men, he looked like a character from one of Kitty's comic books.
"We gotta go now, Pete," he said in his gruff voice.
Piotr gave a reluctant nod and with a final sad look at his sister, turned to head toward what promised to be a pivotal battle.
"I love Saturdays!" Roberto said happily. "No classes for two whole days."
"But we still have plenty of homework to do," Xuân pointed out.
"I'll tell you what," Roberto replied. "If we get all our homework out of the way this morning, can we call go to Salem Center Mall and see an afternoon matinée?"
"Why?" Dani asked. "I'm all for going to the mall, but there's nothing worth seeing at the movies right now."
Roberto smiled and held out his phone, which showed what was playing at the local movie theater. "Nothing current, but it so happens that they're showing E.T."
"Ohh, I've never seen tha,'" Rahne said.
"You really love anything 80s, don't ya, 'Berto?" Sam asked. As the tallest of them, he had the easiest time getting the breakfast and bowls down from the high cabinets.
Xuân shook her head and smiled. It was quickly becoming apparent that Roberto would usually get what he wanted thanks to his undeniable charm. And so far, he had never asked for anything unreasonable or which was only for him and not the entire group.
"All right. I'll talk to Stevie about taking us into town again if we all finish our homework before lunch."
In the end, their weekend homework took only a few hours, though Rahne needed some help from Dani and Sam from Roberto. Stevie was happy to take them out again.
Before leaving, Stevie went to the X-Men's wing of the mansion and knocked on the door to the room Kitty and Illyana shared. Inside, Illyana was working on a Russian-language math textbook.
"Hey," Stevie said. "I'm taking the New Mutants to the mall to see a movie. You want to come with us?"
Illyana shook her head.
"You sure? Charles is going to be holed up with Cerebro all day to monitor the X-Men. You'll be all alone."
"Maybe next time. I've got a lot of catching up to do today."
Stevie nodded sadly. "All right, next time."
When Stevie was gone, Illyana stood up and looked out the bedroom window. She watched with a regretful look as the teenagers excitedly got into the passenger seats of Stevie's car and drove off.
The New Mutants waited as Stevie bought the tickets. They were approached by a group of three other teenagers, all dressed in leather jackets.
The middle one, a boy with long brown hair, almost a mullet, spoke first. "You guys new in town? How come we ain't seen you at school?"
"We're students at Xaviers," Roberto explained.
"Really?" the other boy asked. "That's a change. Since when do you elite types mingle with us common folk?"
"What's that supposed to mean, Hombre?" Roberto said angrily. Sam grabbed his arm and told him to "relax."
"You simmer down too, willya Frank?" said the girl to his left. She had black hair which was cut short, though not as short as Rahne's. "You're acting like a jerk."
She turned to Rahne and said: "My name's Diana, but everyone calls me Di. We go to Central High."
"How d'you do? I'm Rahne Sinclair."
"'Rain.' I like it, but I love your hair. I wish I could get mine to look like that. Are you punk?"
"I'm Scotts," Rahne said.
"Really?" Frank asked. "The rest of you are foreign too?"
"Not quite," Roberto said, his good humor restored. "Sam and Dani are from the states. I'm Brazilian, and Xuân is Vietnamese. We're international terrorists."
"Roberto!" Xuân admonished him.
The exchange was watched on a monitor that was tied into the mall's security footage.
"The boy thinks he's making a joke, but he's closer to the truth than he realizes," said Henry Gyrich. "He and his fellow mutants pose as grave a threat to the United States and the world as any madman with a gun or a bomb."
Gyrich's companion, Sebastian Shaw, was a hard-looking man who wore his curly black hair in a style reminiscent of colonial or revolutionary times in the 18th Century.
"Do you believe Henry, as some of these so-called 'evil mutants' have boasted, that Homo Superior will eventually supplant Homo Sapiens, making humanity their slaves?" he asked.
"That is a danger, certainly," Gyrich answered, "but the boy unwittingly outlined the parameters of our immediate problem. Five children from four different countries, all of whom are mutants!"
"They're popping up like flies all over the world," he explained. "Suppose the Iranians or the North Koreans have a trained cadre of super-powered soldiers? Can you imagine what that would do to the balance of power? The smallest nation on Earth, provided it had the right mix of mutants, could bring the United States to her knees."
Gyrich glared behind his sunglasses. "We still have no idea how mutants are created, what DNA sequences trigger which powers. If we are to survive, we must have those answers, and it is my mission to provide them."
"What do you think Xavier is up to in gathering mutant children from around the world?" Shaw asked.
"That's another question which needs answering," Gyrich said. "The da Costa boy is what led us to Xavier's school in the first place. His family is among the most famous in Brazil, and his powers first manifested in a public setting, so many in his home country know he is a mutant. We've been monitoring the school and its inhabitants ever since."
"I know the boy's father, Emmanuel da Costa" Shaw revealed. "Like me, he is a member of the Hellfire Club. An ambitious man, but a good friend to have." He looked down in thought as he considered the implications of having the elder da Costa as a member of his organization.
Gyrich led Shaw deeper into the underground facility, into a large room designed to hold massive machines meant to combat dangerous mutants.
"Forgive me, Henry, but this equipment hardly seems necessary to deal with five children."
"They may look formidable," Gyrich said, "but in my book it's the results that count."
Shaw pointed at the machines. "You'll use these against Xavier's students?"
"Don't be absurd!" Gyrich said loudly, losing his composure a little for the first time. "My directive from the President is to keep this project completely under wraps. My hope is to never use them at all, and if I do, it'll be against adults, actual villains."
"A special team of agents should be enough to bring those kids in," he explained. "We're establishing a facility for the containment and examination of mutants. They'll be taken there. The movie will give us enough time to get our men in position to take them in."
Shaw looked away and smirked, as if he had his own plan in mind.
In a farm in Lake Baikal, Siberia, Piotr Rasputin gathered bundles of hay together with father. The son was not only much younger, but much bigger and stronger than the middle-aged Nikolai, and carried three bundles for every one his father carried.
After the bundles were loaded on their wagon, Nikolai looked back and smiled. His youngest child, a tiny blonde girl no more than four years old, often came into the fields after she came home from her preschool to watch the end of their work day because she wanted to be near her big brother. She kept out of the way, never made a nuisance of herself, and was always ready with a hug for her father and brother when they were done, so they never discouraged this behavior.
This time, the little one had been distracted by a bright orange butterfly that had landed on her finger and sat down facing away from them as she held the insect in front of her face.
A shape appeared in the corner of his vision, and Nikolai's eyes widened in terror. Their neighbor's tractor had crossed into their field at full speed without a driver, apparently having been set in motion by accident, and was bearing straight for his daughter. The little girl, focused entirely on her new friend, did not notice the approaching danger.
"Piotr, your sister!" he yelled. Piotr turned and saw immediately what had concerned his father. He ran forward, screaming "ILLYANA!" as his body changed. His skin hardened into a silvery organic steel.
With his strength increased, Piotr ran faster than he was capable of in his human form and quickly reached his sister, shocking her by snatching her off the ground. Her tiny figure seemed to disappear into his massive arms.
The tractor was too close now to get out of the way, so Piotr turned and let it smash headlong into his back, his sister completely protected by his steel body. The large machine broke apart upon impact, pieces of debris flying in every direction but forward. It stopped, the entire front half crushed and mangled.
Piotr stood up, completely unharmed except for a few tears in the back of his shirt. His sister looked shocked, as if the fear from what had just happened had not yet registered. Piotr expected her to start crying, but instead she put her head on his shoulder and hugged him tightly. She even smiled.
A voice seemed to ring through the air. "Piotr Rasputin, I wish to talk with you."
He looked around. "Who is there? Is this voice in my head?"
He saw two men approaching. One was bald and in a wheelchair. The other had a short beard and wore a long trench coat. The latter Piotr was familiar with.
"Mr. Vahzin?"
"Yes, today is the day you get the answers I promised you months ago. This is Charles Xavier. He is the 'guardian angel' I spoke of who made the government forget your family."
"You saved your sister's life. That was very impressive," Xavier said. "By now you know that you are different and special Piotr. That is because you are a mutant."
The little girl looked confused, as all of the men were speaking English, a language in which she did not know a single word.
Xavier continued: "You are part of the next step in human evolution, born with powers far beyond anything you could imagine."
"Why are you telling me these things?"
"He has a proposition for you, Piotr," Vahzin said.
"You must understand, the world is changing," Xavier explained. "More and more mutants are appearing every day. Humanity fears and hates what it does not understand. You and your family will always be in danger."
"Then I will protect them," Piotr declared.
"Of that I have no doubt," Xavier responded. "But you can do so much more. I'm putting together a team of mutants to become heroes, to show the world that they have nothing to fear from us, and I want you to join it."
"If nothing is done, mutants will be hounded, persecuted, even put into camps. Both humans and mutants will live in constant fear of each other. The most gifted will be turned into weapons, while the rest suffer."
"I do not know," Piotr said.
"If not for yourself, then for your sister," Xavier said. "Illyana too could have the X-gene that distinguishes mutants from regular humans. Please, help me create a world where children like her do not need to grow up in fear."
Piotr stiffened, this point of Xavier's resonating with him, and he looked at the toddler in his arms with the tenderness of a loving older brother. Before he could respond, he and all the other characters faded away. The fields disappeared, leaving only the Danger Room.
Illyana stood motionless in the middle of the room, just behind where the holographic recreation of her brother had been standing seconds earlier. Her eyes and mouth were as wide as could be. She had not understood a word of what had been said at the time and had completely forgotten the presence of the two who recruited her older brother.
"You shouldn't be in here alone," came the voice of Charlse Xavier. The X-Men's mentor was wheeling himself into the Danger Room.
Illyana trembled as he approached, her head not moving to face him.
"It's all your fault," she said softly. "You took Piotr away. You made me into a target."
Xavier winced at her words. He tried to reach for her hand. "Illyana, I-"
"Stay away from me!" she snapped, finally moving as she pulled her hand away. Xavier recoiled, not just from her accusation. There was a growly rasp underneath her voice he had never heard before. Something about it made what few hairs he had on the back of his neck stand up, and for a moment he understood what Logan had meant when he spoke of a 'primal fear.'
Illyana stormed out of the Danger Room, leaving Xavier to stare sadly after her.
Rahne sniffled as they walked out of the theater.
"It's ok to cry, Rahne," Stevie said. "Most people do."
"Och, Miss Hunter, it was so beautiful. I was so happy when the wee bairn was rescued."
"That's th' whole idea," Sam said.
"Did you really think E.T. was real?" Roberto asked. "It was just a puppet. Better than the CGI they use today, but still…"
"But he was so life-like!" Rahne exclaimed. "I'm sorry. I'm being such a silly. It's just, I've ne'er been to a cinema before. It was like magic!"
"You're really sheltered, aren't ya," Frank said.
"I told you to be nice, Frank," Diana admonished him.
"You guys want to get some ice cream?" Frank asked them.
"We'd love to," Xuân said.
Stevie smiled. "You kids enjoy yourselves. I need to use the restroom after all that popcorn and soda."
The kids headed for the ice cream store as Stevie went in the opposite direction. Things were going as well as could be expected. Their biggest concern had been Dani's powers activating inadvertently. Charles had determined that the times she accidentally manifested someone's fear when she was feeling nervous or anxious herself. Dani had decided to take a mild anti-anxiety medication from time to time so she would not have to live as a recluse while her teammates enjoyed themselves. And she did seem to be doing better.
Stevie's mind was focused on her young charges. Otherwise she would have noticed the maintenance closet door opening as she passed it and turned her head just enough to see the arms which reached out grabbed her, pulling her into the dark closet.
She struggled to scream against the hand now covering her mouth as the door closed, leaving her and her captor in total darkness.
"Stop struggling, Miss Hunter, I mean you no harm," came the voice behind her. It was string and rough, not cruel. "My name is Michael Rossi. I'm here as a friend, to both you and your students."
"I'll let you go if you promise to behave yourself and not scream. The children are in danger, and we don't have much time. Will you trust me?" Rossi said.
Stevie nodded, and he let her go. Her hand reached for her purse, where she had mace ready for emergencies, but she did not grab it just yet.
"Good. First, I think you'd better call Xavier. I'll let him know exactly what's going on."
The door to Illyana's room was locked when Xavier approached it. Inside, she lay on her bed, covering her head with her pillow.
Xavier knocked on the door. "Illyana?" He tried to stand up, but his legs failed him again and he collapsed back into his wheelchair.
He turned the wheelchair ninety degrees so he could lean against the door as he spoke. "I know you're upset right now."
Illyana pulled the pillow tighter over her ear.
"The truth is," Xavier continued, "you're right to blame me for what happened to you."
At these words, Illyana opened her eyes in surprise.
"What happened to you, that was my greatest failure." Xavier's voice cracked a little during the second half of that sentence, and trembled as he continued. "Jean Grey and John Proudstar, they were adults. They understood the risks they took and made their own decisions."
"You never had that chance. You were just a child. You still are just a child. You had every right to trust that I would keep you safe, and I didn't. Nothing I do can ever make up for the fact that you've suffered so much just because your brother is an X-Man.
He fought back tears. "Now, I want to help you get through this, but in order to do that, you have to want my help."
Illyana lowered the pillow and raised her head to look at the door. Her face had morphed from furious to sad.
"So please, when you calm down, just talk to me. You don't have to suffer alone."
Xavier looked down. His cell phone was vibrating in his pocket. He took it out, and saw that Stevie Hunter was calling him.
Most of the kids ordered plain flavors like chocolate and vanilla, while Roberto ordered pistachio.
"We're actually new at the school," Roberto explained. "I kind of get where you're coming from with that 'elite' talk. Some of the older students at Xavier's can be a little stuck up."
Frank's face scrunched up in disgust as four men in suits entered the ice cream shop. The three in front wore dark sunglasses, while the one in back was imposingly tall and broad like a wall.
"Head's up, cops," he said.
The men stopped at their table and the one in front flashed a badge. "Federal agents," he said. "Miss Manh, Miss Lonestar, Miss Sinclair, Mister da Costa, and Mister Guthrie, if you'll come with us, please."
Xuân noticed immediately that the agent's tone was one of command, not a question. "Is something the matter, officer? Are we under arrest?"
"Just routine," the officer said simply.
"Hey," Frank said angrily, "what're you hasslin' them for? They've just seen a movie and got some ice cream. Leave 'em alone!"
The agent glared at him. "You've got a big mouth, bot. Learn to keep it closed before it gets you into trouble."
"You don't scare me."
"Your mistake. Miss Manh, shall we go?"
"What about our teacher, Miss Hunter?" Roberto demanded.
"You can call her from headquarters," the agent assured him.
Roberto stood up. "I say we wait for her!"
Xuân put her hand on Roberto's to stop him from acting rashly. "Mon ami, let us not make a scene."
Roberto looked at her and nodded, realizing her intention to avoid a fight in the ice cream shop where innocent bystanders could be hurt.
"Fine," she said to the agent. "We'll go with you."
The agents led them to the mall's parking lot. The entire time, they wondered if they were making a big mistake in going along with the agents, Xuân most of all. She was very familiar with how corrupt so-called government law enforcement could be.
They were meters away from the agents' vehicles when Michael Rossi and Stevie appeared behind them. The former held a strange-looking gun and yelled "freeze!"
"Scatter, kids!" Stevie yelled at them.
"What th-!" Sam exclaimed.
Three of the agents drew their handguns, one of them screaming "ambush!" Meanwhile, the leader pulled out a walkie-talkie.
"Whoever they are, drop them hard!" he commanded before contacting his superiors. "Base – Team Seven, trouble! Potential emergency situation! Initiate contingency plan Beta!"
The three armed agents opened fire, forcing Rossi and Stevie to take cover behind a parked car. Rossi peaked over the trunk and fired his own weapon, an energy gun that struck the largest of the agents, the easiest target, and stunned him into unconsciousness.
"Run, kids!" he yelled. "I'll keep these bozos occupied!"
But he was still outnumbered three to one and quickly had to take cover again. The lead agent had drawn his own gun now and they were fighting smarter, with only one agent firing at a time to ensure there were never any gaps in their attack while one of them needed to reload that Rossi could take advantage of.
Rahne transformed into her wolf form and leaped on the closest agent, growling to scare him rather than biting him. Seeing this, the lead agent leapt into his car and turned on the engine with astonishing speed. He pressed the accelerator and attempted to run Rahne and his subordinate over.
Roberto transformed as well and stepped between Rahne and the approaching vehicle. He slammed his fist into the front of the car, pulverizing the engine and bringing it to a halt.
The last agent pointed his gun at Roberto's back, but his pupils suddenly disappeared and he dropped his weapon, now under Xuân's complete control.
With all of the agents taken down, Rossi and Stevie stepped out of cover.
"What've we done?" Sam asked. "Stevie, these guys are from the government!"
"That's all right son, so am I," Rossi assured him.
"Bullshit!" the agents' leader spat.
"Pretty strong language for someone from an outfit that's technically illegal," Rossi responded. "We've got a lot to talk about when Xavier gets here."
Dani looked to the side in frustration. The entire time, she had been trying to use her power to manifest the agents' fears, but nothing had happened.
They looked up as a strange rumbling sound filled the parking lot, and the leader smiled.
The ceiling suddenly collapsed, raining concrete down on them, as a hand the size of a full-grown man broke through the parking lot's structure.
"SENTINELS!" Rossie screamed.
The teens leaped to the ground to get out of the way of the debris and gaped as they looked up again. Through the new hole in the ceiling, they saw a large robot, maybe thirty feet tall. It was mostly grey with a few places of dull blue, and roughly human-shaped.
"Contact established, situation evaluated," the Sentinel said in an emotionless, computerized voice. "Contingency plan Beta now operational. Objective: capture of target mutants."
Rossi turned his gun to its highest setting. "Get out of here!" he yelled at the New Mutants. "They shouldn't follow you into the mall!"
He fired at the robot. This did not cause any visible harm, but it had the desired effect.
"Armed human is primary threat," the Sentinel said. "Initiating appropriate response."
"These things usually hunt in packs!" Rossi said as the Sentinel reached for him. A compartment in its palm opened, releasing a green gas that caused Rossi to cough and then collapse.
"No!" Sam yelled. He had intentionally kept out of the fight with the agents, as his power would likely kill anyone he hit with his current level of control. But against a giant robot he felt no such compunctions, and he blasted off, striking the Sentinel in the equivalent of its stomach and lifting it off of the parking lot roof.
Two more Sentinels were standing next to on the roof, proving Rossi right.
"Observation, Sentinel Lambda-Four has been unsuccessful in its attempt to secure its objectives," one of the robots said.
The first Sentinel fell to the ground outside the mall. Sam had punched a large hole in the metal skin of its torso, but its functions seemed completely unaffected.
"Negative data in memory banks regarding this mutant," it said.
"Key sensors to full record mode," the third Sentinel said. "Absorb all pertinent data regarding targets for future reference."
Inside the parking lot, Stevie was attempting to move Rossi. "You heard the man, we've got to move!" she said.
"You guys get him to safety," Roberto said. "I'm going to help Sam!"
"Roberto, stop!" Xuân yelled as he ran off. "You have no idea what you're dealing with!"
"Neither do these robots – HEY!"
Roberto was forced to stop in his tracks as a giant hand crashed through the wall in front of him. A second later, another hand burst into the parking lot from behind him. He made a three-hundred-sixty degree turn and, seeing no other way out, transformed again and leapt through the wall.
He landed hard on the ground after a two-story fall, but suffered no injuries more serious than a few bruises.
"Target da Costa unharmed," the Sentinel said as it climbed down from the parking lot and stood to its full height. "Evident byproduct of enhanced strength is increased physical resilience."
Roberto sprang back to his feet at the robot's mention of his last name. Now that he was outside, he could feel his strength growing as he began to absorb the sunlight.
The Sentinel stood over him, blocking the sun. "Bioscans indicate target has insufficient strength to damage this unit. Minimal defense required."
Roberto scowled and grabbed the Sentinel's foot. He had realized the fatal flaw in these mechanical monstrosities' programming. They always spoke before taking action.
"Maybe," he said through gritted teeth, "but you don't know that strength of human will and determination!"
With a scream echoed by the muscles of his arms, shoulders, and back, Roberto lifted the Sentinel's leg off of the ground and threw the robot into the air.
"No! I threw it the wrong way! Towards the mall!"
The Sentinel's head crashed through the wall of the mall, panicking dozens of shoppers and sending them fleeing and screaming. Miraculously, no one was hurt by the collision, but Roberto knew he had to end this quickly if the lack of casualties was to be sustained.
He climbed onto the Sentinel before it could rise and wrapped his arms as far around its massive head as he could.. His fingers dub into the metal casing, creating handholds he used to tear the head from its body.
The Sentinel's limbs collapsed and it ceased moving with the disconnection of its head.
Not far away, the first Sentinel seemed distracted by the loss of its fellow mutant-hunting robot.
"Sentinel Lambda-one-nine completely dysfunctional. Remaining units still executing primary operational directive."
Sam attempted to take advantage of this disruption, but the Sentinel had learned from his first attack. As he blasted towards it, a torrent of ice was released from the robot's eyes, enveloping him and freezing him in place.
"Target Guthrie neutralized by frigi-beam," the Sentinel said, grabbing the frozen teenager out of the air. "Returning to base."
Rockets activated on the bottom of the Sentinel's feet, slowly pushing its large frame upwards. Once it had achieved sufficient thrust, the robot took off, carrying Sam into the sky.
"LOOK!" Rahne yelled, pointing at the sky. They had moved to a walkway connecting the mall and parking lot with windows that provided them a good view of the action. "It's got Sam! What do we do?"
"If he's unconscious, Rahne, nothing, I fear," Xuân said gravely. Her pupils disappeared as she activated her power.
Hundreds of feet above them, the frozen suddenly took off like a rocket, his blasting completely overpowering the Sentinel's booster rockets.
Xuân's control of her own body diminished whenever she controlled the mind of another person. Now that she was in Sam's mind while he was frozen, her body experienced a sympathetic freezing and stiffened as if she was encased in ice as well.
The last Sentinel noticed them and fired an enormous energy blast from its hand, destroying much of the walkway between Xuân and Rahne. With the destruction of one of its companions, the robot's self-preservation functions had permitted it to use more lethal force to subdue its targets.
"Xuân's no' reacting! She's a sitting duck for tha' monster!" Rahne yelled.
Stevie was huddled with Rossi and Dani in a nearby corner. The man who would be their savior was stirring, beginning to recover from the knockout gas.
"Rahne, get back to the garage," he ordered. "Get the head agent back here. If your friend possesses him, she can have him order the Sentinels off."
"But then who'll protect Xuân?" she screamed. Ignoring Rossi's orders, she transformed and leapt across the gap to be by Xuân's side.
"Rahne, don't!" Dani yelled. "God dammit! My powers are useless against robots!" she complained.
"But not humans," Rossi said. "You go and see if you can scare the lead agent up here."
As Dani left, Roberto arrived.
"I got one, Stevie!" he yelled happily. "Did you see, I ripped its head clean off!"
"We've been busy, but great job, kiddo," Stevie responded. "Think you can go for a hat trick?"
The Sentinel approached, turning its head between Xuân and Rahne on the one hand, and Roberto, Rossi, and Stevie on the other.
"Target Manh in semi-catatonic state. Target Sinclair's powers represent no threat. Critical threat level represented by target da Costa after destruction of unit Lambda one-nine. Self-preservation program requires he receive primary response."
Rossi grinned grimly as he finally regained his feet. "Looks like you got their attention, kiddo. I hope you've got a couple more tricks, because Sentinels learn from their mistakes. You can never beat them the same way twice."
"'Fraid I can't even do the first trick again," Roberto said with an equally grim smile. "I can barely lift my arms after what I had to do to beat the last one."
The four agents had been initially pleased to see the Sentinels. But when Roberto had destroyed one of the robots, they began to feel that discretion was the better part of valor. Unfortunately for them, their vehicles had been destroyed, the first by Roberto and the second by the falling concrete caused by the Sentinel's first appearance.
Dani found them attempting to escape the parking lot on foot. "Oh no you don't!" she yelled.
As they approached the exit, the doorway disappeared, replaced by the image of the leader's greatest fear.
A large cloud appeared in front of them, rising towards the ceiling like an enormous mushroom. The agents all screamed and dropped to the floor, covering their heads as more and more mushroom clouds surrounded them.
The leader looked up first despite this being the representation of his fears, and his screams took on an even more horrifying quality than Dani had thought possible. The skin on his hand seemed to be on fire and was melting away, leaving only bone behind. All of the agents, oblivious to the lack of pain of the fact that they were still alive, were convinced that their bodies were being destroyed by the heat and radiation of multiple nuclear bombs.
When the fight was over, Dani would throw up all of the popcorn and ice cream she had eaten that day.
Now miles above the Earth, the friction of Sam's flight finally melted all of the ice covering him. At this distance, Xuân had already lost control of Sam and he had continued upwards because his power did not deactivate until he had fully regained his senses.
"Holy cow!" he screamed as he looked down, not understanding how he had gotten so high. He was still in the Sentinel's hand, but his main concern was how cold and hard to breathe it was at that height.
The Sentinel itself was in bad shape, its systems stressed to the breaking point by the unexpected flight.
With a deep breath, Sam blasted free of its grip and into its midsection again, hurtling it towards the ground with his full strength.
Now that he was blasting down instead of up, the force of gravity increased Sam's speed exponentially as he and the Sentinel hurtled towards the ground, pieces of the machine breaking off as they plummeted.
Their descent was seen from the ground, and Xuân reached out to possess Sam one more time, directing his to land where she wanted.
With a spectacular explosion, Sam collided the Sentinel he had been fighting with the last Sentinel, obliterating both robots with a single strike.
Xavier arrived at the mall at about the same time as the police and quickly got to work altering the memories of all those present who had seen the super-powered teenagers in action. Within minutes, all anyone would remember was that giant robots had attacked the mall before destroying themselves. Rossi assured them that any security footage would be dealt with by his people in a similar manner, ensuring there would be no evidence of the New Mutants' role in the incident.
The agents who had attempted to capture the teens were not as lucky. The leader surrendered himself to the police as soon as they arrived.
"My name is John Oglive," he told them repeatedly. "I am attached to the National Security Council. My superior is Henry Peter Gyrich. I summoned the Sentinels."
"He's been confessing nonstop since we got here, Captain," the arresting officer told his superior. "He can't get him to shut up."
"Take him and his men downtown, but don't book 'em just yet," the captain said. "Not till I've checked with Washington. I've got a feeling that the more we learn about this, the less we'll like."
Nearby, in Xavier's car, Rossi told Xuân to let Oglive go.
With his sunglasses on, none of the police noticed that Oglive had had no pupils for so long or when his pupils returned. He was shocked to find himself under arrest.
"What is this? Why am I handcuffed?" he demanded.
"Cuzz you're under arrest, ya dummy!" the first policeman said.
"Release me at once! I'm a federal agent!"
"You're a loon is what you are," the captain said. "Get him out of here!"
Xuân was not happy with what she had been forced to do. "Is he a criminal?" she asked.
"Are you?" Rossi replied. "He was prepared to send you to a prison camp just because of how you were born."
"Do two wrongs then make a right?"
"I'm not your enemy," Xuân."
"My apologies, M'sieu, but you do not act like a friend."
Xavier smiled. "The idealism of youth. Hopefully we will soon be able to live in a world where such moral compromises are not necessary."
"I see your point," Rossi agreed.
"I thank you, truly," Xavier said. "I had no idea the American government had discovered my school's secret, or that they'd take such action even before any significant mutant attack."
"Fear is governing the thinking of many in the defense establishment," Rossi explained. "A fear strong enough to make some of us forget the Constitution."
"What does that mean, Professor?" Xuân asked.
Xavier gave her a serious look. "It means we are in more danger than I had realized, and that all mutants in this country are imperiled. I have long feared that someone like Magneto may trigger a war between humans and mutants, but the humans may be readying to start such a war on their own."
"This is still America," Rossi assured him. "Those who would take such extreme actions are still a small minority, and the more the real leaders of the military and Congress learns of their activities, the more they will be brought back in line."
"I hope so," Xavier said sadly. "For all our sakes, I sincerely hope so."
After letting Rossi go, Xavier and Stevie drove the New Mutants back to the mansion. The professor expanded his awareness as he drove, ensuring that no more government agents were watching them within a mile radius.
Once they arrived, he gathered them in his office.
"I am so sorry this happened. I never wanted you to see real-world combat, and never dreamed it would happen so soon.
"However," he smiled, "you fought very well. To defeat even one Sentinel is a true accomplishment, let alone three. And while there was no small amount of luck involved, you did this with minimal civilian casualties. Even the X-Men do not always succeed in that."
"That's cause we're the best," Roberto said, and they all grinned.
"Don't get too conceited," Xavier said. "There was quite a bit of property damage. But you performed beyond my expectations in an unexpected situation, and I am very proud."
As the New Mutants left the office, they passed a figure who stood unseen in the shadows. Xavier was aware of her presence not through his telepathy, but through a strange chill he felt.
"Come in, Illyana. I was hoping you'd be ready to talk."
The young Russian entered the office with a sheepish expression, holding her arm like she was ashamed.
"I just wanted to apologize … for my outburst earlier."
"You have nothing to apologize for," Xavier assured her, "besides using the Danger Room without permission."
"I just … I guess I'm just looking to find some kind of meaning in what happened," she said. "But the truth is there is no meaning. A bad man just did a very bad thing, and that's all there is to it."
She looked down and her voice dropped to a whisper. "And that's so hard to accept."
Xavier moved his wheelchair closer to her. "Meaning in such tragedies isn't something you find by searching. It's something you create for yourself, by looking in here," he said, touching his heart.
Illyana looked at him, and her expression was so pained he was certain she was about to cry. But her eyes remained dry.
"I'm so scared, all the time," she said. "I'm afraid to open my eyes in the morning, because I don't know where I'll be. I'm scared every time I open a door and see what's on the other side … because I know he's still out there."
Xavier started and his eyebrows jumped up. A lump formed in his throat, forcing him to fight it down before he could respond.
"There is no shame in being afraid. Given what you've been through you have every right to be scared. Admitting your fears is a brave act, and it is the first and hardest step in overcoming those fears."
He took her hand. Unlike earlier, she did not pull away. "And if he does return, we'll be ready. This time, we will protect you, I promise."
Illyana gave him a weak smile and shook her head sadly, and Xavier felt his heart break.
Sebastian Shaw poured two glasses of wine and handed one to his companion.
"So it was a success?" Emma Frost asked. She was dressed in a white suit that cost more than most people made in a year. Everything about her, from her almost white blonde hair, to her perfect eyelashes, cheeks, and figure screamed 'femme fatale,' and practically every word out of her mouth was spoken seductively.
"Better than I dared hope," Shaw said. "Xavier chose his new pupils well. Not a single one was captured, and they destroyed all of the Sentinels quicker than expected. They will make excellent additions."
"Moreover, this proof that the government is after them will make them paranoid. When Xavier is dealt with, they will have no choice but to join our Hellfire Club when we offer them protection."
"Don't get too ahead of yourself," Emma warned him. "Defeating Xavier and the X-Men will be no easy task. We may need to have these children on our side before we can strike at the adults."
"If it comes to that, I'm sure you'll be more than up to the challenge," Shaw said. "Either way, they and their power will be ours."
They brought their glasses together.
"To the Hellfire Club!"
It was very late when the X-Men returned from their mission. Most went straight to bed, while Logan stayed up to get a can of beer from the fridge.
Piotr had just changed from his costume into a pajamas when there was a knock on his door.
"It's Illyana," came the voice of his sister.
Any fatigue Piotr felt after a full day of flying and fighting disappeared as he rushed to open the door. To his shock, Illyana leapt into his arms as soon as there was nothing between them.
"Please, can you hold me?" she asked softly in Russian. "Like you use to when I was little."
He laughed a little and answered in their native language. "Compared to me, you are still very small, little snowflake." He carried her to the couch he kept in his room in lieu of a chair which was not large enough for him and sat down.
Illyana leaned her head against his shoulder. "I always felt safest when I was in your arms."
"I can't say that I always felt safe when holding you. The first time I did so you grabbed my nose. I didn't know babies that young could even do that. You were always pulling my nose or my ears or my hair."
"Snowflake?" he asked when she did not respond. He moved some of her hair away from her face and smiled.
Kitty could not remember a time when she had ever felt so tired. The lack of sleep the night before combined with the aftereffects of the adrenalin of combat had left her exhausted. But she was not ready for sleep just yet. Something was missing.
That something arrived in Piotr's arms. He carried the sleeping Illyana from his room to hers. Kitty's jaw dropped as she took a closer look and saw her roommate's face.
For the first time in what had seemed like a lifetime to either of them, Illyana was sleeping with a smile on her face.
Kitty got out of the way so Piotr could put his sister in her bed. As he pulled the blanket over her, Kitty picked up the bampf doll and put it in Illyana's arms.
When Illyana was tucked in, Piotr bent down and kissed her on the cheek.
"Pleasant dreams, little snowflake."
Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends
Like my father's come to pass
Seven years has gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends
Here comes the rain again
Falling from the stars
Drenched in my pain again
Becoming who we are
As my memory rests
But never forgets what I lost
Wake me up when September ends
Wake Me Up When September Ends – Green Day
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Post by sunofdarkchild on May 11, 2024 13:28:35 GMT -5
Episode 3: Who's scaring Stevie?
Brring, bring
"Hello?"
"Hi, Stevie."
"You know who this is. You know what I want. Soon, I'll come to get it."
"Bye … for now."
The teenage students of Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters gathered in front of the mansion as they usually did when it was time for their dancing lessons.
Their instructor, Stevie Hunter, was not waiting for them in her van as she usually did, but was walking up the steps to the mansion itself. None of them had ever seen her so angry before.
"Is everything all right, Stevie?" Xuân asked.
"I'm fine!" the older woman snapped. She instantly regretted the harsh tone she had used. "I'm sorry, Xuân. I just need to see Charles right now."
"What about our class?"
"Cancelled for today. Go have fun, take a nap, whatever."
Stevie brushed past the teens, Xuân waiting a few moments before following her. The rest shuffled back into the mansion at a more leisurely pace.
Illyana was the quickest to the living room, grabbing the television remote and turning on a cartoon.
Roberto plopped himself down on the couch next to her. "You like Scooby Doo?"
"I like the talking dog, yes," she said simply.
"It's always nice to meet someone else who also appreciates the classics," he said. "Since we've got some free time, you feel like sharing what you can do?"
Kitty's eyes shot open and her head moved so fast it was practically a blur.
"What I can do?" Illyana asked.
"Yeah, you know, your power. There's no way you're going to school so far from Russia just because your brother's here."
"You keep asking about what I'm doing here."
"I'm curious.
Illyana tilted her head slightly as she thought of her response. "A while ago, one of the X-Men's enemies kidnapped a bunch of their loved ones to try to blackmail them. We were all rescued, but since I was the only kid who was kidnapped, it was decided I'd be safer here than back home in Russia."
"Oh," Roberto said, his smile flipping into a frown. "So it's just for your protection."
"That is the sole reason I came to live at the mansion."
Roberto stood up and turned to Sam.
"You wanna shoot some hoops?"
Henry Gyrich's eyes were hidden behind his dark sunglasses, but his face was so red with rage his head seemed ready to pop.
"Would someone please explain to me why I just spent thirty minutes explaining to the President that one of our agents went rogue and that we lost three pieces of American government property worth half a billion dollars each?!"
"What the hell was Oglive thinking?! I explicitly forbade the use of Sentinels against Xavier's students! If the media ever connects the 'mall-attacking robots' to the government, there'll be a Congressional investigation that'll shut us down!"
Gyrich's subordinates kept their heads down, not wishing to risk becoming the target of his wrath.
"Somebody, give me something!" he demanded.
"I can give you something Henry," came a familiar voice. Gyrich turned to the doorway.
"And what could you possibly give me that would be of any help at this point, Shaw?"
"Let's talk in private."
Gyrich took Shaw to an empty room. "All right, what are you offering me?"
"I believe I can arrange for your Sentinels to be replaced at no expense to the American taxpayer, if you're ok with off the books funding."
"Even you aren't that wealthy," Gyrich scoffed.
"On my own, no. But my associates in the Hellfire Club combined have greater wealth than some whole nations."
The red began to recede from Gyrich's face and he looked at Shaw from over the top of his glasses.
"I'm listening."
Sam held the basketball high above his head. He was nowhere near the athlete Roberto was, but he was so much taller than the other boy that there was no chance of the ball being stolen before he could take a shot or of Roberto blocking the shot.
The ball bounced off the rim and Roberto got the rebound.
"You seem pretty disappointed Illyana didn't say she has powers," Sam observed as Roberto took the ball back to the halfcourt line.
"I was thinking of asking her out," Roberto said. He began to dribble the ball, walking slowly at first. Sam attempted to get in front of him but even with his long arms, Roberto was too fast for Sam to block once he got moving. He spun around Sam's defense and took an open layup.
"Really? She your type?"
"Gorgeous, Russian, mysterious. If she was a mutant too, she'd be the total package."
"Why's it matter if she's a mutant?"
Roberto stopped. "After what happened to Juliana, I don't think I can date anyone who isn't a mutant ever again."
"Did it make you hate humans?"
"No!" Roberto protested. "It's just, everyone in Brazil knows I'm a mutant now. There's nothing to stop the next gang of mutant haters from kidnapping or murdering the next girl I fall in love with like they did to Juliana."
Roberto did not try to stop Sam from getting close enough to the basket for an easy shot. "Just going out with me is going to be dangerous, so I don't think I can risk putting another girl through that unless she can defend herself."
"Ah didn't think of that. No one knows or cares about me or my family, but it's different when you're rich and famous."
"I'd give away all my money if it meant having Juliana back. I'd give anything to feel safe asking another girl out ever again."
Stevie was even angrier than before when she left Xavier's office and spoke to no one as she left the mansion. Just outside the front door, her cell phone rang.
"Bring it on, you little weasel!" she yelled into her phone after a moment. "Let's see if you're man enough to threaten me to my face!"
Xuân watched from the ground floor window as her dance teacher got into her car and drove off at a far higher speed than usual.
Four teenagers were waiting for her when Stevie returned to her studio. Tandy, Mike, Mindy, and Peter stood in front of the locked door and looked up expectantly as she arrived.
"What are you kids doing here?" Stevie asked. "Didn't you get my message that class was canceled for today?"
The teens looked at each other. "You never sent us any texts, Miss Hunter," said the brown-haired boy, Mike.
Stevie put her palm to her temple and shook her head. "Right. Sorry. I meant to tell you, no class today."
"Is everything all right?" Tandy asked.
"Everything's fine," Stevie lied. "I'm just really busy today."
"Ok," said the red-headed boy. "We'll practice so we don't get rusty for the next class, Miss Hunter."
For the first time all day, Stevie smiled. "I wish all my students were as dedicated and hardworking as you, Peter."
"See you on Friday then!" the last girl, Mindy, called out as they left.
Now alone, Stevie unlocked the door to her studio and stepped inside, relocking the door immediately. She did not bother turning on the lights, instead leaning against the wall and collapsing to the floor as she buried her face in her hands.
"Come in," Charles Xavier said before his visitor had even knocked on the door to his office. Ororo Munroe and the other X-Men had long since gotten used to his telepathic detection of anyone who approached his place of work, and it was to be expected that he would be more alert for potential threats after the incident at the mall.
"You wanted to see me, Professor?"
"Yes. It seems we have a serious problem, and we need to be prepared."
Ororo nodded. "I agree. If the government has learned that this school shelters mutants, the threat to us has grown exponentially."
"From what my own sources in the government tell me, that can still be handled at the political level. The use of sentinels on a public mall showed that they are a threat to everyone, not just mutants, and it will be a long time before those who seek to harm us will be able to regain their political favor, which gives us an opportunity."
"If the sentinels aren't the problem, what is?"
Xavier looked out his window. The sun was setting, creating an orange glow over the treetops.
"The other day, Illyana revealed something I don't think she meant to."
"What did she say?" Ororo asked.
Xavier turned back to her, and his voice dropped to little more than a whisper, as if he was afraid he risked summoning the devil himself with his next words. "Belasco's still out there."
Ororo froze. Her eyes were as wide as Xavier had ever seen them. The sky behind him darkened as the sunset was covered by a thick layer of clouds that had suddenly appeared.
The X-Men's leader gripped the empty chair in front of Xavier's desk as she fought to undo the change her momentary lapse in control had caused in the weather.
To say Xavier was surprised at her reaction would have been an understatement. The woman known as Storm was the most fearless person he knew, surpassing even Wolverine in that regard. Watching her sit down in response to hearing four words told him that he had underestimated the threat he had summoned her to discuss.
"I had … I had hoped Illyana escaped by killing him in his sleep," she admitted.
Xavier audibly gasped. "You wanted that child to commit cold-blooded murder?" It was unthinkable for someone who loved all living things as much as Ororo.
"You weren't there, professor. You didn't … face him," she explained. "That monster, that kind of evil, has to be eradicated. If I could have done it myself, I would have without hesitation."
She leaned forward. "I think you should read Illyana's mind, find out everything she knows about him. If he is still out there, we need all the information we can get."
"I can't."
"Normally I'd agree, but this goes beyond the ethics of reading another person's mind."
"I didn't say I wouldn't," Xavier said loudly. He looked down, ashamed of what he was admitting. "I said I can't."
"What?" Ororo asked in shock.
"I've already tried to read Illyana's mind. At first, it was just a surface reading to try to gauge the extent of the trauma she suffered, so I wasn't concerned when I couldn't sense anything. But after this latest revelation, I did what you're suggesting, and her mind is completely closed, like Magneto, only without the helmet he uses to block telepathy. She has psychic shields so powerful I can't breach them no matter how hard I try."
Ororo sat down. "All this time, we've been worried that she'd take after her…"
Xavier nodded solemnly. "I promised her that if he does return, this time we'd protect her."
Ororo let out a sound somewhere between a sad chuckle and a sigh. "I don't know if it's even in our power to keep that promise."
It was well past midnight in London when a taxi pulled up in front of a nondescript house and Moira Mactaggert stepped out.
Moira waited for the taxi which brought her to be out of sight before she made her way to the front door. She was nobility, the daughter of a Scottish lord, and by far the most famous person on her home island of Muir. But it was her work in genetics that made her cautious, and her gut told her to obey the request that this summons be kept a secret.
Satisfied that she was alone, Moira approached the nondescript house and knocked on the door. Five seconds later, the door opened.
Ordinarily, Moira would have been surprised to see a foreign ambassador open her own door, but this was not an embassy or even the ambassador's official residence, and Gabrielle Haller had left her security behind for secrecy's sake.
"Please, come in," Gabrielle said, quickly shutting the door behind Moira.
Moira coughed. The house was full of the smell of cigarette smoke, and Gabrielle was still holding a lit cigarette.
"Thank you for coming all the way from Muir Isle," the ambassador said.
"I must admit, I am very curious why someone in your position would want to meet me of all people," Moira stated.
Gabrielle put her cigarette in her mouth for several second and blew out a puff of smoke. "Your reputation in the field of mutant genetics is considerable, as is my need. have a son, an autistic child."
"I'm afraid that's a wee bit out of my line, Ms. Ambassador," Moira responded. "I'm no' a psychiatrist."
"His autism is merely a symptom of his mutant abilities," Gabrielle explained. "I believe his abilities are primarily psionic – telepathy, possibly telekinesis. I've tried every means of helping him at my disposal, and now I turn to you as my last resort."
"I'm flattered," Moira said, "but my work is theoretical in nature, not practical. The man you need is my colleague, Charles Xavier."
Gabrielle's eyes flashed in anger, and she sucked on her cigarette for a full ten seconds before responding. "I want Charles kept out of this."
"Why? If your son really needs help that badly, Charles is by far the best qualified to do it."
Gabrielle approached her mantelpiece and put the used cigarette in an ashtray. She immediately took out and lit a second cigarette.
"I don't want Charles Xavier involved because he is my son's father."
"I'll see you very, very soon, Stevie."
"The sooner, the better, you creep!" Stevie yelled into her office phone. "So I can rip your heart out!"
Xuân appeared in her doorway. "Another call, just like the others?"
"YES!" Stevie screamed, slamming the cordless phone into its base.
"Have you called the police?"
"Of course I did! They say they can't do anything unless he makes a direct threat. Verbal harassment apparently isn't a serious enough crime."
"There must be something the X-Men or the New Mutants can do to help."
"You can," Stevie said, "by staying out of it. I'll handle this my way."
"But we're your friends," Xuân insisted. "We can't just sit back and watch you suffer."
There was a buzz as someone rang the studio doorbell. Stevie groaned at the prospect of yet another visitor when all she wanted was privacy.
Said visitor turned out to be Peter Bristow, one of Stevie's students from the School of the Holy Child. The red-headed boy looked sheepish as he held his hand behind his back.
"Peter? What are you doing here?" Stevie asked.
"All of us were worried about you, Miss Hunter," Peter said. "Mike, Mindy, Tandy, and me, I mean. So we made this for you."
He held out a small package. Stevie opened it, and her frown parted into a wide smile. Peter had handed her a coffee mug emblazoned with the words: "World's Best Dance Teacher."
"Thank you, Peter. I really appreciate this. Tell the others thanks from me as well."
Peter's ears went red. "It was nothing, Miss Hunter. You really are the best," he said before turning to leave.
Now in a better mood, Stevie began to regret some of the things she had said to Xuân. "Look, I'm sorry I snapped at you before. We'll talk later tonight, ok?"
Xuân nodded. "Ok."
The rest of the New Mutants were playing frisbee outside when Xuân returned to the mansion.
Dani called out Rahne's name and threw the frisbee far from the lupine mutant. Rahne was in her wolf form, and began moving before Dani had, somehow sensing her intention. With the speed of a wolf, Rahne easily caught up to the frisbee despite how far Dani had thrown it, and leaped to catch it. Her features morphed into a form between her human and wolf forms, allowing her to stretch out her arm and catch the frisbee in a hand equipped with an opposable thumb.
Rahne threw the frisbee while still in midair in the general direction of Roberto, who moved to where he believed it would land. However, Rahne wasn't done yet. She transformed fully into a wolf again and chased her own throw. With another leap, she grabbed the frisbee in her mouth like a dog playing fetch just before Roberto could catch it.
Rahne's leap caused her to careen into Roberto's chest, knocking both of them to the ground.
Dani and Sam burst out laughing. "Score one for the little lady, eh, Berto?" Sam said.
"I wish I had my camera," Dani added.
"I'm glad you don't," Roberto said. He did not try to get up, as Rahne was still on top of him and was licking his face.
Xuân smiled at her teammates' antics, but her smile turned into a frown when she saw that someone else was watching them. Illyana was sitting on the front steps of the mansion. Every minute or so, she would get up, take a few steps toward the New Mutants, then scowl and sit back down.
"Hey, Xuân!" Dani called out when she saw her leader, beckoning the Vietnamese girl to join them.
Dani's call alerted Illyana to Xuân's presence, and the Russian girl realized that she was being stared at. She got up and turned back into the mansion.
Roberto challenged Sam to catch the frisbee next, throwing it in the complete opposite direction of the other boy. Sam blasted off, easily overtaking the frisbee. He was so fast that he nearly overshot the disk before he had a chance to reach out for it. Once the frisbee was in hand, however, Sam could not stop, and crashed head-first into a large tree on the edge of the grounds, shattering it.
Dani had left the others to continue the game. She was now more interested in why Xuân was ignoring her and following after Illyana into the mansion.
She caught up with Xuân just inside the front doors. "Hey, what's up?"
What happened next shocked them both. When Xuân did not respond, Dani put her hand on the other girl's shoulder, causing her to jump at the unexpected touch. Dani flinched at the complete whiteness of Xuân's eyes. She was still not used to that side effect of Xuân's powers.
"Sorry," Xuân said as her pupils returned. "I didn't hear you."
"Were you trying to possess Illyana just now?" Dani asked.
Xuân nodded. "I was."
"Can I ask why?"
"Because I can't do it."
Dani looked back at the last place Illyana had been before she disappeared. "So you're trying to possess her because you can't possess her?"
"It's driving me nuts."
"Haven't other people resisted your power before?"
"Not like this. Professor Xavier can block my power with his telepathy. Storm and Wolverine can resist me through sheer willpower. But with Illyana, there's nothing. I don't think she even notices when I try to get into her mind. It's like she doesn't exist."
"Huh. That is weird," Dani admitted. "Still kind of a creepy thing to do."
"Whatever," Xuân said, changing the subject. "Can you ask everyone to come to the Professor's office? There's something important we need to discuss."
Professor Xavier was not surprised that the leader of the New Mutants wanted to see him. "I assume you want to discuss Miss Hunter's situation, Xuân."
"What situation?" Dani asked. "Is Stevie in trouble?"
"I think so," Xuân said. "Someone's been calling her, making vague threats. Neither the police or the telephone company have been able to find the culprit or stop the calls."
"Probably because he doesn't use the same phone number," Roberto said.
"I offered to help," Xuân continued," but Stevie refused. "I mean to go ahead regardless. We owe it to Stevie after she risked her life for us when the Sentinels attacked."
"You can count me in, whether or not the Professor approves," Dani said.
Xavier looked at each of the New Mutants. "Are you all in agreement with Xuân?"
Sam answered, "We are, sir."
"Very well," Xavier said. "Devise a plan of action and submit it to me for evaluation and approval."
Dani scowled. "This isn't a game, professor, or a classroom exercise. Stevie's life may be on the line."
"Exactly," he responded. "That is why good intentions are not sufficient. Any plan of action must be sound if it is to resolve the issue. In addition, every situation, especially when real, is an opportunity to learn. That is why all X-Men missions are uploaded to the Danger Room's computers, to study and learn from them."
Illyana stood in the Danger Room, holding a longsword at her side. Standing ten paces in front of her was the X-Man Nightcrawler, holding an identical sword in each hand.
The furry mutant was unnaturally still. "Are you ready to begin," he asked robotically.
Illyana thought for a moment. "I've got a bit more frustration than usual to work out today. Raise the difficulty level to the highest setting."
Nightcrawler's tail rose above his head, and another sword materialized in its grasp.
Illyana held her sword up and assumed a battle stance. "Now I'm ready. Start."
Nightcrawler leaped into action, swinging both blades in his hands from different directions. Illyana dove to the ground to avoid those first strikes and rose to one knee, bracing herself to block Nightcrawler's follow-up attack.
Kurt spun around, slashing at her with all three blades in succession. This attack allowed Illyana to block all three strikes with a single movement, but with each clang of metal on metal she was forced to stumble back. The tail sword then thrust at her, coming from an angle she had not expected, and she had no choice but to dodge rather than attempt to block again.
The third sword was proving to be far more of a problem than Illyana had anticipated. Not only did it give Nightcrawler complete coverage of his entire body, allowing him to perform moves and follow-throughs that would be too risky for an ordinary sword-fighter, but his tail could bend in ways no human arm could without breaking, giving his attacks an unpredictable nature.
In short, there was no space for her to make a single offensive move.
Illyana waited until Nightcrawler's attacks left him facing away from her again, knowing that his tail would slash at her as it always did to keep her from taking advantage of being behind him. This time, even as she moved her sword to block, she took her right hand off of the blade and used it to grab his tail.
This move had the immediate desired effect. In surprise, Nightcrawler dropped his third sword. But this did not mean that his tail was no longer a problem. Freed from the burden of carrying a heavy blade, the tail wrapped around Illyana's wrist, lifting her off the ground and throwing her across the Danger Room.
Illyana instinctively let go of her sword in midair so as to not accidentally impale herself when she inevitably landed. Even with her attempt to roll to lessen the impact with the floor, she landed hard.
She had no opportunity for a respite, as Nightcrawler threw one of his remaining swords at her. Illyana had not known that raising the difficulty to the highest level would allow her opponent to use such tactics, and she was more than just shocked when the blade crossed inches from her face.
Illyana let out an angry, guttural snarl, and a change came over her entire demeanor. Even her movements were different as her arms seemed to move on their own, grabbing the hilt of the sword that had been thrown at her and thrusting it under her right arm without her even looking at what she was doing.
Nightcrawler had teleported above her, holding his final sword high above his head. He came down right on top of the sword sticking out between Illyana's arm and side.
Illyana blinked at the gurgling sounds made by her opponent, as if she was snapping out of a trance. She slowly turned her head to look back, and her jaw dropped in a silent scream as she saw what she had just done.
She dropped the sword, and it and Nightcrawler collapsed to the ground.
With the match over, Nightcrawler's body disappeared, along with all four swords scattered about the floor of the Danger Room. There had not been so much as a drop of blood. It was as if the fight had never happened.
But it did happen. Illyana held a hand to her mouth and her body convulsed as she violently retched. She fell to her hands and knees as she retched a second time. She raised her head and finally, the third time, she mercifully began to vomit.
The New Mutants all gathered at Stevie's apartment, standing around Roberto attached a pair of small devices to her home phone and cell phone.
"The mansion already has all the technology we need," Roberto explained. "With this, even if our culprit is blocking caller ID, we'll not only be able to find the phone number he's using, but trace his exact location.
"I still don't think this is necessary," Stevie said, "but I can see there's no stopping you."
Roberto grinned in anticipation. "All he has to do is call, and we've got him."
And so they waited. The first time one of the phones rang, the home phone, they collectively jumped. However, it was a false alarm; a cousin of Stevie's was going on a vacation and wanted to invite her along.
The second and third times the phones rang were similar false alarms, a telemarketer and a parent concerned over their daughter's sudden abundance of free time with so many of Stevie's classes having been canceled recently. The fourth time, however…
"Hi, Stevie."
The combination of horror, anger, and disgust on Stevie's face told the New Mutants that this was it. Roberto instantly began the trace, a map of the area appearing on the screen of his iPhone. He nodded at Xuân, who silently gestured at all of them to come along.
"Just you wait," Stevie said into her phone as they entered her car. "This time, I'm gonna get you."
Xuân took the driver's seat and Roberto took the front passenger seat, directing her towards their destination. Stevie and the rest of the team crowded into the back seat.
Stevie was shocked when they reached their destination. "There must be some mistake. Our guy goes to the 5th street high school? I don't even know anyone from that school."
Roberto looked at the map on his phone. "He made the call from the sidewalk in front of the school. Rahne, he was there just a few minutes ago. Can you get the scent of the last person there?"
Rahne transformed into a wolf and began sniffing around.
"There's two people who were here at the same time," Dani said, relaying to the others what she gleaned from Rahne's mind. "Both are boys about our age. One went back towards the dorms, and the other started walking north."
"If Stevie doesn't know anyone from the school then I'll bet the one going north is our guy," Roberto said. "He probably borrowed a friend's phone in case someone tried to find the phone he used like we're doing."
"If he's on foot, then he can't have gotten that far," Xuân said. "Rahne should be able to catch up to him easily, and Dani can follow her. Go."
Rahne dashed off, the New Mutants right behind her. Stevie did not run alongside them. Instead, she went back to her car and followed from the safety of the vehicle.
They caught up to their suspect about four blocks from where he had called. Rahne let out a howl when she reached him, causing him to stop and gape in horror at the wolf that had appeared behind him.
The New Mutants found the suspect holding one of his shoes high in the air as a weapon as Rahne ran in circles around him, barking and growling menacingly, but making no move to attack, merely to keep him there. Xuân's eyes went white as she easily possessed him.
Stevie's car arrived seven seconds later, and she gasped as she stepped out and looked into the now-vacant face of her tormenter. It was a red-headed boy with glasses and freckles.
"Peter Bristow?!"
Stevie did not normally drink coffee so late at night, but tonight was an exception. The aroma helped calm her nerves.
Peter was sitting on her couch, surrounded by the New Mutants. He was not an athletic young man and likely could have been restrained by Sam or Roberto alone. The presence of five other teenagers eliminated even the thought of attempting to fight or escape.
Her coffee finished, Stevie returned to the task at hand. "We just want to help you, Peter. I want to understand why you've made my life a living hell for the past week. Why won't you cooperate? Why are you forcing me to call the police?"
"You can't prove anything!" Peter mumbled under his breath.
"Wrong," Stevie declared. "We have recordings of your voice and the caller's, along with an electronic analysis showing that they are identical."
It wasn't entirely true. The professor was running that very test now back at the mansion, even as he telepathically monitored them. But she had no doubt anymore what the results of the analysis would be, and she would much rather have Peter confess on his own than have a situation in which Xavier's powers coerced the answers out of him.
"What will your parents say when they find out about this, hmm?"
Peter snapped. "NO!" he screamed, rising up off of the couch and grabbing Stevie's arms. "You mustn't tell them! Please!"
Stevie was shocked by his reaction. "Peter, what is it? What's wrong?" Despite the way he had tormented her, she found herself reacting with genuine concern.
Xavier's voice appeared in all of their minds except for Peter's. "The boy is in near-mortal terror, a fear so great that it is blocking my psi-scans at this range. I suggest that the New Mutants use your own abilities to get to the root of Peter's problem."
"Meaning me," Dani said softly. She wondered if the professor was telling the truth or if he wanted her to test her power in a real-world situation.
"I understand your hesitation," Xavier said, speaking this time only to Dani. "You are right to fear violating the privacy of another's thoughts. But rest assured, I would not ask this of you without good reason."
"All right," Dani said sadly. She knelt down in front of Peter and reached out with her mind.
Peter did not feel his mind being touched, but he screamed with an unfathomable rage as an image of his heart's desire appeared in front of them, an image of him sharing a passionate kiss with Stevie.
"That's what this was all about? A student's crush on his teacher?" Stevie wondered. "Peter, you have a very strange way of showing affection."
Dani reached deeper into Peter's mind, this time pulling the source of his anxiety, his deepest fear.
The second image depicted on his knees, a man standing over him holding a belt in his raised hand, while an angry-looking woman stood behind them with her arms crossed.
"This is for your own good, Peter," the man said as the woman nodded approvingly. "You'll thank me for it when you're older."
"Y-yes, pop," the image of Peter whimpered.
Xuân raised her hands to her mouth. "Non, ah non! They are his parents! How can they do such a thing!"
The rest of the New Mutants reacted with similar horror. Rahne started crying immediately, while Sam and Roberto looked away.
"Dani, we've seen enough," Roberto said, "more than enough."
"I-I can't break contact," Dani said. Shock and horror had taken hold of her, again robbing her of her control of her power.
His deepest secrets now laid bare, Peter exploded at Dani. "You little witch! I'll kill you!"
With a madman's face and strength, Peter leapt off of the couch and tackled Dani to the ground. Sam attempted to grab him, but only succeeded in ripping the back of Peter's shirt.
Xuân reacted quickly. Peter's pupils disappeared behind his glasses and he froze in place. "Are you hurt?" the New Mutants' leader asked Dani.
"Other than being scared half to death, no," Dani said as she stood up.
Sam looked like he was the one who had been attacked. "Anything he does to us won't matter beans compared to what's already been done to him. Look at his back!"
Whatever horror they felt before was doubled at the sight of the red wounds and scars crisscrossing Peter's back, some recent, others mementos of whippings from years past.
Stevie held her hand to her heart. "Xuân, release him."
Peter collapsed as his mind and body were returned to him.
"Peter…" Stevie said sadly as he began to sob.
"What do you want?!" he yelled. "You've already got your pound of flesh, isn't that enough? Call my folks, call the police, I don't care anymore?"
The New Mutants all looked at each other. All of the anger they had previously felt towards Stevie's unnamed tormenter had gone.
"Your parents," Roberto asked, "do they really hate you that much?"
"Don't be stupid," Peter retorted. He was beginning to calm down. "They don't hate me, they love me. It's just, I'm a bad boy and I need to be punished."
He looked up at Stevie. "When I started dancing class, Miss Hunter, I thought you were the most beautiful woman in the world. I couldn't help loving you."
"You said you liked me, but when you wouldn't punish me, no matter what I did, I figured you were lying," he continued. "You didn't really care, because if you loved me for real, you'd hit me. I wanted to get even."
"Oh, you poor, poor boy," Stevie said, bending down to pull Peter into a hug.
"I'm sorry, Miss Hunter," Peter said, starting to cry again. Stevie cried with him. "I'm so sorry."
Xavier arrived soon after. He rewrote part of Peter's memories to remove the New Mutants and their powers from his mind. Next, he called for an ambulance and put in a call to the child welfare bureau.
It was with mixed feelings that they watched as the police took Peter away.
"I'm reminded of the old saying, 'You always hurt the ones you love,'" Stevie said. "I wish it weren't true, but it so often is."
"What will happen to Peter now, professor?" Rahne asked.
"It's difficult to say," Xavier answered. "The physical damage can be put right, though the scars will remain. The prognosis on his emotional and psychological well-being is nowhere near as certain."
"Sometimes, abuse can lead to a cycle of abuse," he explained. "A young child whose only role model is an abusive parental figure may find themselves learning more that figure than they realized. Peter never realized that what his parents did to him was wrong, and given his recent actions would likely have done the same to his own children if he continued on this path. Hopefully, now he will learn the truth about his parents as he undergoes therapy and emerge from this crisis whole and healthy. It is far from certain, but now, at least he has a chance for a normal life."
Xavier turned to his students. "The fact that Peter has that chance at all is thanks to you. If ever you seek a justification for who and why you are – both as human beings and as mutants – this is it. Not fighting villains or evil mutants, but simply helping people, helping children like Peter out of the darkness and into the light."
He sat up in his wheelchair as his tone switched from philosophical to analytical. "However, before you get too full of yourselves, I want an analysis of tonight's incident, what was done right, what was done wrong, and how you could have improved. And I want it ready for tomorrow's class. As I told you before, every situation is an opportunity to learn, and after seeing your performance tonight, you do indeed still have much to learn."
Stevie smiled and winked at them. "The man has a point, but for what it's worth, you kids kid good work tonight, real good."
Illyana sat alone in the darkness of her room, staring at the inside of her locket again. The X-Men were away on a mission again and would not be back until the morning. This time, she was glad they were gone, even her brother and Kitty.
Her eyes were focused on the red stone embedded at the top point of the pentagram the locket contained. Few people on Earth would have glared with such hatred at an inanimate object, especially not a gem of such radiance and beauty. But after what had happened with the fake Nightcrawler in the Danger Room, the three stones in her locket were all she could think about.
With the lights off, a visitor entering the room might of have thought Illyana was a statue of a young woman deep in thought, so still was she. The glow from the stones lent a slight red tint to her features, making her look more threatening.
Said visitor would have jumped in fright when, like a stone gargoyle coming to life, Illyana suddenly roared in anger and threw the locket at the wall. The locket fell open, the red glow now confined to the corner in which it lay.
Illyana raised her knees to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. She continued to glare, but not at any object in particular.
She was looking straight ahead, into the darkness.
Don't turn away, I pray you've heard the words I've spoken
Dare to believe, over one last time
Then I'll let the darkness cover me
Deny everything, slowly walk away, to breathe again
On my own
Darkness - Disturbed
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Jun 9, 2024 14:43:28 GMT -5
Episode 6: S'ym
The forest had lost much of its color when winter set in. The leaves that had been a rich green in the summer and then a beautiful array of colors in the fall had by now long since fallen, forcing herbivores to subsist on woody plants, twigs, and tree bark.
One such animal, a deer, was enjoying a buffet of twigs in the underbrush, far from any human settlement or road. It was a stag, with a magnificent pair of antlers adorning its head.
A bright light appeared in the sky above the treetops, shining brightly through the unleafed branches.
The stag had never frozen at the sight of a car's headlights before, but it froze now at the sight of this strange light. Had it been a typical human, it would have thought of aliens. Had a scientist seen this light, he would have thought it was a meteorite about to strike the ground and annihilate this portion of the forest. Both would have been wrong.
Something fell from the light and landed not far away. The light faded as suddenly as it appeared, and the deer, compelled by a natural curiosity, approached this object. At first, it appeared to be a large stone, purple and black and almost ball-shaped. But then the stone began to move.
As it uncurled, it became less ball and stone-like and more like a creature, but a creature unlike anything that had ever evolved on Earth. When it stood up, it was taller than the tallest bear and almost twice as wide. Its elephant-like skin was an unnatural purple, with a pig-like nose, large, pointed ears, two fangs sticking up from its lower jaw, and a rhinoceros-like horn sticking out of its upper forehead. Besides for its long, muscular tail, and long, sharp claws on its fingers and toes, its body was almost humanoid. And for some reason, it wore a black vest and green shorts.
The deer had no idea what this creature was, but it knew it was a predator. The animal that belonged on Earth turned and began to flee from this creature that so clearly did not belong.
The purple creature turned towards the sound of hooves moving away and grinned.
The stag ran at thirty-five miles an hour, more than enough to escape any natural predators in its habitat. However, this purple beast was anything but natural. While the stag attempted to leap over a fallen tree, its hind leg was grabbed in midair by a massive hand.
In the next instant, the creature's hand reached for the stag's throat. The grip was infinitely more powerful than a crocodile's bite, and the deer did not live long enough to suffer at the hands of its killer.
The New Mutants marched toward the baseball field, equipment in hand. Their opponents from the 5th street school had already taken the field and were warming up by throwing the baseballs to each other.
The team from Xaviers arrived at the bench which was to serve as their dugout. Sam, who had been designated team captain for the game began to make the batting order.
"Dani's up first, cause she's the fastest. I'm up second. 'Berto can go third to knock us in-"
Illyana appeared behind them, nervously walking towards Sam's team.
"Is everyone ok with the order?" Sam asked. "Good. Then lets play ball."
Seeing Illyana approach, Sam asked, "Do you need something?"
Illyana looked at the team. "I see you're a couple of players short."
"We are." Sam agreed.
"I was wondering..." Illyana began, fumbling over her words. "If you would...since you need another player...I was hoping...the game looks fun...what I'm trying to say is...I want to-to..."
"You want to..." Sam said to get her to finish her sentence.
Illyana groaned and said loudly, "End simulation!" The baseball field and the players disappeared, leaving Illyana alone in the Danger Room.
Illyana hit the nearest wall in frustration. For a second it looked like she was about to cry, but instead she merely sighed and walked out.
The New Mutants gathered at the entrance to the mansion's library. They stood around Amara, who looked nervous.
Dani put her hand on Amara's shoulder. "Professor Charles Xavier, allow me to present Lady Amara Juliana Olivians Aquilla, from the lost city of Nova Roma."
Charles Xavier smiled at his students. "Thank you, Danielle. Welcome, Amara, to my school for gifted youngsters, and to the New Mutants."
"Your gracious welcome does me honor, sir," Amara responded. "I shall endeavor to be worthy of it."
"Your pardon, Professor," she said, "but are you also what I am, a mutant?"
"Yes," Xavier answered, "which is why your father placed you in my charge. Come here. Let us talk and get to know each other."
The rest of the New Mutants left the library, leaving the professor and his newest student alone.
"This won't be easy for her," Dani said, "moving from the First Century to the Twenty-First."
The teens had met Amara during a visit to Italy with Roberto's mother, an avid archaeologist. While sailing on the Adige River, they had come across a lost city hidden in the mountains of the Dolomite Alps, a piece of the ancient Roman civilization that had remained cut off from the world and virtually unchanged for nearly two thousand years.
There they had met Amara Aquilla, the daughter of a prominent Plebian Senator in Nova Roma's version of the famous Roman Senate. Together with Amara, they uncovered the dark secret of why the city had remained unchanged for millennia. Nova Roma was secretly ruled by Selene, an ancient mutant sorceress who drank the life-force of young women to sustain her eternal youth.
It was during the New Mutants' battle with Selene that Amara's mutant power to control the forces of the Earth's crust and mantle had manifested, giving her the ability to create volcanoes and Earthquakes, as well as coat her entire body in lava and fire. Even with this incredible power added to their own, the teenage heroes had been completely outmatched by their ancient foe and only prevailed in the end because Selene, curious at finding others with powers like her and hopeful that she could make at least one of them into her apprentice, had not attempted to kill them.
Roberto, who had thrown Selene into a deep chasm created by Amara, stared at the empty space next to Dani. "I should be happy for Amara," he said. "But I cannot help but feel guilty, like we're replacing Xuân."
Dani, Sam, and Rahne all grimaced. The reason they had gone to Italy was to get away after what had happened to their leader.
Three weeks earlier, Dani had been kidnapped by an international terrorist named Viper. The New Mutants, disobeying direct orders from Professor Xavier to leave the matter to the X-Men and a group called 'Team America,' had launched a rescue mission. They succeeded in rescuing Dani from the terrorists' clutches, but Viper escaped and activated her island base's self-destruct mechanism, plunging them all into the sea. Roberto had been holding onto Xuân as they fell, but the impact with the water knocked her from his grasp and a current took her.
"Nobody can replace Xuân," Dani said. "And it's not like we're making Amara the leader."
Amara was fascinated by the mansion's library, comparing it to the legendary library of Alexandria.
Xavier chuckled. "You flatter me, but I'm afraid this space is more than a few thousand books short of what that ancient library held."
"Do any of these books explain what a mutant is?" Amara asked.
"There are a few that attempt to, though their perspective is, shall we say, biased. I have included them so that we may better understand what the other side says about us. There is one I wrote on the matter, which you will read as part of the required course syllabus. To greatly simplify the matter, mutants are people who are born with powers that ordinary humans lack. In your case, the power to manipulate tectonic forces."
Xavier's voice appeared in her mind. 'I, however, am a telepath.'
Amara recoiled in horror. She and Dani had heard Selene's voice in their minds when the witch had captured them, controlling their actions until Dani, using Xavier's training, was able to resist Selen's hold on her mind.
Xavier realized instantly his mistake. None of the X-Men or New Mutants had reacted that way to his telepathic powers, but then, none had had the same initial experience with telepathic powers as Amara had with Selene.
"You have nothing to fear from me Amara. I promise, I will not pry into your mind without permission. Privacy is one of the things I value the most highly."
Amara was about to respond when she noticed that Xavier was moving his head to look behind her. She turned around to see another girl she did not know standing in the library's doorway.
"Yes, what is it, Illyana?" Xavier asked.
Illyana regarded Amara with a funny expression, as if she could not decide whether to acknowledge the new girl's presence. It made Amara uncomfortable. Ultimately deciding not to engage Amara, Illyana asked the professor, "Do you know where Kitty is?"
"I believe she's out with her friend Doug Ramsay," Xavier said.
Illyana nodded in disappointment and walked away without another word.
"Who was that?" Amara asked.
"That was another one of your classmates."
"Is she one of your New Mutants like Dani and Sam?"
Xavier shook his head. "No, she is not."
Kitty was fuming.
"How can they kick us out!"
"I know," Doug said dramatically. "It's outrageous! It's unfair! How can you be a teenage geek and not be allowed in an arcade?"
"Oh, knock it off, you," Kitty said, but she laughed at his antics and began to calm down.
She and Doug walked down the street to a McDonalds. "The manager was probably waiting for a time Illyana wasn't with us to ban us from the store," Doug said as they stood in line to make their orders.
"What do you mean?" Kitty asked.
"You gotta admit, Illyana is kind of creepy, with how she usually just stands there and watches us play and never joins in unless you force her."
"I don't…"
"You don't have to tell me. I can see the signs."
They ordered their Happy Meals and sat down by the window. "That's not what I wanted to talk to you about anyway," Doug said.
"Well, don't keep me in suspense."
"I got an appointment next week at the Massachusetts Academy," Doug said proudly. Kitty stiffened. "I was hoping you'd come along to show me the school since you used to be a student there."
"Only for a week," Kitty pointed out. "I hated it."
"How come?"
Kitty paused before answering. "Let's just say I didn't get along with the headmistress."
"It's not like you always get along with your current headmaster."
"This is totally different. Emma Frost is … she's not a good person."
"This could be a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me." Doug put his hand on Kitty's. "It would mean a lot to me if you came."
"I…I'll talk to Professor Xavier."
Charles Xavier gathered the X-Men in the library to discuss Kitty's situation. The X-Men had a new member, Rogue, recently recruited from Mystique's new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants after becoming disillusioned with her foster mother's methods and the way her power prevented her from ever touching anyone.
They listened as Kitty described Doug's offer to join the Massachusetts Academy and his desire for her to accompany him to the institution.
"Maybe it's just a coincidence," Kitty said, "but I don't think a front for the Hellfire Club picked my friend at this time because of his grades."
"I agree," Xavier said. "Emma Frost is likely aware that Douglas is a mutant."
"He is?" Kitty asked in shock.
Xavier nodded. "His gift is languages, spoken, written, even that of computers. It is not as flashy as super-strength or weather manipulation, but it is a legitimate power nonetheless."
"Then that settles it," Kitty said. "I have to go. We can't let Doug fall into Frost's hands."
"I'm forced to agree with Kitty," Ororo said, speaking as the X-Men's leader. "In fact, I have to question how the Massachusetts Academy made Douglas an offer before we did. Was it because his power is not suitable for combat?"
Xavier scowled. "Between what happened with Xuân and … a personal issue, I was not ready to take on a new student. Amara's arrival seems to have made that a moot point."
Logan, who had been chugging a can of beer the entire time, joined the conversation. "What's done is done. The question is, what are we going to do about it now?"
"If the Professor monitors me telepathically the whole time, I should be fine," Kitty said. "Even Emma Frost doesn't want to bring the whole X-Men down on her head."
"There's one other factor:" Piotr said gravely. "You'll have to behave yourself and not give Emma any reason to act against you."
Smiles broke out across the room at the gentle giant's joke. "I would like to have Nightcrawler stationed nearby the academy for a quick extraction just to ensure every contingency is covered," Ororo said. "Otherwise, I approve of Kitty's plan."
"As do I," Xavier said.
That night, few of the mansion's female occupants slept well. Illyana actually managed to sleep until nearly two in the morning before she woke up screaming again.
For Dani, her sleep was interrupted by a loud bang. She jolted awake and quickly hid under the bed as something banged on the wall below her window, growling as it did so. She covered her ears as a sickening sound of something scraping against the window glass replaced the banging and the growling sounded even closer.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the commotion stopped. For ten seconds, Dani was completely still, not daring to move or to trust the silence. Finally, mustering her courage, she emerged from behind the bed and looked towards the window. The glass was completely unmarked, with not a single sign anything had touched it, let alone scraped it.
Dani sat down against her bedroom door, not daring to come any closer to the window. She fell back asleep while still in that position, and would wake up in the morning sprawled across the floor.
What Dani did not know was that the bang that had initially awakened her had been caused not by whatever had been growling at the window, but by Amara, who was sleeping in the next room over.
Amara's dreams were haunted by Selene, who had claimed the lives of so many of her friends and came so close to claiming Amara's life as well. As she awoke, her power activated involuntarily, causing a minor seismic event not far outside the building.
Amara took a deep breath to calm herself and looked out of her window. Her lapse in control had caused a tree to fall over, which was the bang heard by herself and Dani. But she did not hear or see anything else as Dani did.
Feeling ashamed at having destroyed an innocent tree, Amara put on her nightrobe and left her room. She walked to Xavier's office, hoping to find the Professor either still awake or already up and working.
Sure enough, Xavier was awake. Moreover, he was not sitting in his wheelchair. The Professor was too animated to sit, and was leaning all of his weight onto his desk as he spoke loudly, nearly yelling into his phone.
"I know what Gabby said, and I don't care! He's my son, and I should be there with him!"
Amara quickly realized she was intruding on a private conversation that was not for her ears. Whether Xavier sensed her presence or not, he made no effort to stop her as she turned back. Upon hearing the response from the other end, he slammed the phone down on his desk and crumpled back into his wheelchair, where Storm would find him sleeping three hours later.
Illyana stood on the cliffside a hundred meters behind the mansion.
The X-Men had another mission and had left early in the morning. The New Mutants were scheduled to have a Danger Room session before classes started, leaving Illyana alone with her thoughts.
Illyana was staring at her necklace again, looking intently into the three glowing jewels contained within. Her face scrunched up in rage, and she drew her hand back, readying to throw the medallion off the cliff and into the abyss.
Lowering her arm, Illyana closed her eyes and sighed sadly. The necklace remained in her hand.
She stood there alone for some time, so lost in memories that she did not notice that it had started to snow. A snowflake landed on her nose, breaking her out of her reverie, and she looked around in surprise.
It was cold enough that the snow had already begun to stick, and the snow was becoming heavier with each passing moment.
Illyana turned back towards the mansion. She had not gotten far when she heard shouts of joy coming from the front entrance.
The New Mutants stepped out into the snow, dressed in winter clothes rather than their uniforms. Even though they did not have to commute to school, Professor Xavier had seen fit to cancel both their Danger Room session and classes for the day so that they could enjoy the first significant snowfall of the season.
Roberto told Amara to watch him as he scooped up a handful of snow and patted it into a ball. He drew his hand back and transformed mid-throw, sending the snowball hundreds of feet straight up.
Sam blasted after the snowball, quickly overtaking it and catching it in his hand, making it melt instantly. He turned off his power and began to freefall back to Earth, activating his power in short bursts every twenty feet to slow his descent, letting off one final burst upon impact not to blast off, but to both completely cushion his landing and spray his teammates with snow, making them laugh.
Illyana stopped in front of the mansion and watched as her classmates began a full-fledged snowball fight now that Amara was familiarized with the concept. Rahne did not make or throw snowballs, as she had transformed into her wolf-form and at the moment lacked the hands required to do so. Instead, she kicked snow at her teammates with surprising efficacy.
No one outside noticed Illyana staring at them, looking as miserable as ever. But she was not completely unnoticed. From his office window, Charles Xavier could see how she was once again standing on the sidelines as the others played. Not for the first time, he put his fingers to his temple in concentration before frowning in frustration at his inability to read anything from Illyana's mind.
It was Dani who first noticed their teacher's moody disposition. "What's with the professor?"
"Man looks like grim death," Sam observed. "Ah wonder what's wrong?"
"I may know," Amara said. "His son is ill, and he is very worried about him."
Roberto put his hand to his cheek. "The professor, our professor, has a son? Will wonders never cease?"
Dani pushed Roberto over into the snow. "Give it a rest, shorty!"
"Ah declare, the boy hasn't got a respectful bone in his body," Sam said, and they all laughed again, including Roberto.
That group chuckle concluded, Sam turned serious again. "Ah wish there was something we could do to make the professor feel better."
"Maybe there is," Dani suggested. "How about we throw him a surprise party? We could call Stevie and ask her to take us into town to get supplies right now."
Stevie was more than happy to help once she heard their idea and came over surprisingly quickly given the weather. Unlike the New Mutants, when she arrived, she looked for the odd one out and quickly spotted Illyana.
"Hey, Illyana, you want to help us throw Charles a surprise party?" Stevie asked.
Most of the New Mutants looked shocked to realize Illyana had been there the entire time. Her light-blue clothes had seemed to blend in with the snow.
Roberto immediately began to remove his coat. "Here, take my jacket," he offered. "You must be freezing in such a light sweater."
"Cold doesn't bother me," Illyana said simply.
"You're sure?"
"I'm from Siberia, remember?" She turned to Stevie. "A party for the professor sounds nice. I'd be happy to help."
As they got into Stevie's car and drove off, a figure appeared out of the trees. It was steeped in shadow, but it was taller and wider than any bear. The creature was on the hunt, and it snarled in disgust as its prey drove away.
Stevie drove the kids to the Salem Mall, which they found surrounded by construction cranes.
"They're still rebuilding?" Sam asked. "Ah didn't think we did that much damage when we fought the Sentinels."
"Look on the bright side Sam," Stevie said. "We haven't seen those mutant-hunting robots since."
Once inside the mall, Stevie led them to the store where they would find the party supplies. After telling the New Mutants what supplies to get, she turned to Illyana. "Would you like to get any birthday supplies, maybe pick out a present?"
"Wait," Dani asked Illyana, "it's your birthday? Why didn't you say anything? If we weren't throwing this bash for the prof, you wouldn't have a party at all!"
"I don't mind," Illyana said in the same tone with which she had refused Roberto's jacket.
"Och, Dani, look who it is!" came Rahne's voice.
The red-headed girl had spotted Diana and Frank, the two teens the New Mutants had befriended at the movie theatre during their first visit to the mall.
"Who're the new faces?" Diana asked as they gathered around.
"This is Amara and Illyana. They're classmates."
"Wow, I am not going to remember those names. Where are you two from?"
"Um, Rome," Amara answered.
"And you?" Diana asked Illyana.
"She's from Siberia," Roberto answered for Illyana.
"That's much easier to remember."
With the students gone, Xavier returned to the library. He found the oldest copy he had of Dante's Inferno and took it out, hoping to find some answers in it.
Something touched his mind, and he looked up from the book. "Who's there?"
Standing in the doorway was a massive purple creature, the same one that had appeared in the strange light in the forest.
"G'Day, Prof," the creature said in a strangely accented English.
"What the devil!" Xavier yelled at the intruder.
The creature grinned. "You got it right. The name's S'ym. Hear on business."
Xavier put his hand on both of his temples and sent out a mindblast so powerful it would obliterate the mind of any human or mutant. Unfortunately, S'ym was neither.
S'ym held out an open palm and slapped Xavier on the head. The blow was nothing for S'ym, but it knocked Xavier and his wheelchair over.
"S'ym killed a fair number of your precious mutants in his time, prof," the beast said. Xavier attempted to look up at his attacker, but his vision was going black. He was unconscious before S'ym finished his next sentence. "He wouldn't mind adding you to that list."
The snow had stopped by the time they returned to the mansion, parking far away to avoid being detected.
"Looks like no one's home," Dani observed from the lack of lights. "Maybe the prof is taking a nap and forgot to flip the 'on' switch."
"The professor?" Sam asked incredulously. "Sleepin' in the afternoon and forgetting to do anything?"
Dani shrugged. "Or maybe he decided to go out to run some errands. I hope so, it would be a real shame if our surprise was ruined at this point."
"I'll go in and check," Illyana offered. "He can't read my mind. If he's here, we can hide the supplies in the garage."
"Until Stevie lures him into town for the hour we need to set up!" Dani finished.
Stevie raised an eyebrow. "I'm seeing a hole in this plan. Just because I'm an adult doesn't mean my mind is unreadable."
"Well, we'll figure something out."
As Illyana went off alone towards the front entrance, Sam leaned over to whisper to Dani. "Hey, did you know the professor couldn't read her mind?"
"No," Dani said, suddenly remembering Xuân's frustrations.
"She is very strange," Amara said as they watched Illyana walk off. "Is she a mutant like you?"
"We don't know," Roberto answered. "Her brother is."
"She reminds me of Selene," Amara said.
"Come on!" Stevie said. "Illyana isn't like that!"
All eyes were now focused on the back of Illyana's head with looks ranging from confusion to suspicion.
"Can you really be sure of that, Stevie?" Roberto asked. "You must have noticed, sometimes, even the X-Men seem afraid of her."
Illyana stopped halfway through opening the front door and looked down. With her back turned, none of them could see how her face morphed from sad to angry, then to furious, and finally back to sad again before she continued into the mansion.
She strongly regretted having spoken about the immunity she seemed to have to Xavier's telepathy. All of the X-Men knew after Storm had learned about it, and Kitty had told Illyana. But the young Russian had already figured it out. If Charles Xavier had been able to read her mind, he would have had far fewer questions about her, she was certain.
Her mistake was in not realizing that just because all of the X-Men knew, it did not mean that everyone in the mansion knew as well.
Illyana shut the door, no longer caring about the surprise party. Now all she wanted was to put as much space between herself and the New Mutants as possible. She hoped the professor was in fact home, as it would keep her classmates out for the time being.
The mansion was dark with all the lights off. The only sources of light were the windows, and that was not much with it still being cloudy out. But the darkness suited Illyana just fine at the moment.
"Professor Xavier?" she called out. But there was no reply.
Illyana headed towards the professor's office. The light was off there as well. It was empty. Next she headed to the library, which was where Xavier could usually be found when he wasn't in his office.
"Professor?"
As the entrance to the library came into sight, Illyana began to realize that something was wrong. It was too quiet. She decided to flip on the nearest light-switch, and nothing happened. The mansion remained as dark from before.
Illyana stared at the wrist of the hand she had raised. She had goosebumps. That was unusual. Yes, it was cold in the mansion with the heat off, but she had not been joking when she said cold didn't bother her.
She moved against the wall. Something was making her skin crawl, and she was certain it was coming from the library. Her fingers gripped the doorframe as she began to peak inside the library.
A massive hand grabbed her wrist and puled her inside. Illyana screamed as she beheld a nightmare from another life.
"S'ym greets you, Darkchild, in the name of your sovereign lord," the monster said. "Belasco misses you. He sent S'ym to bring you to him."
After all her nightmares, Illyana never looked as terrified as she did when S'ym's second hand reached for her.
The New Mutants heard a scream from inside the mansion.
"Was that Illyana?" Roberto asked, all suspicion replaced by deep concern.
Before anyone had a chance to answer, before they even had a chance to move, a disk of light appeared at their feet. This disk was massive, containing all of the mutants, Stevie, and even the van with room to spare. It was whiter than the surrounding snow, and its edge was lined with small, dancing white flames, preventing them from even thinking of leaving the circle.
The light seemed to rise and envelope them, and suddenly they were somewhere else.
"Where the hell are we?" Sam yelled.
"This must be the pit of Tartarus!" Amara exclaimed.
They were in a cave, but one unlike any they had ever seen. The rocks were more jagged than was possible in an Earth cave. To their left was a river of lava, flowing more like water than like magna should. All around were the skeletons of things that very obviously should not exist.
"Hey, who's there?" Roberto yelled.
Far ahead of them was what appeared to be a young girl, no more than ten years old. She was too far away for them to get a good look at her face, but her blonde hair looked very familiar.
The girl ran off, spooked by the sudden appearance of these strangers.
"Hey, come back!" Roberto called out. "Sam, Dani, that was Illyana!"
"It can't be, 'Berto," Sam said. "She's too young."
The circle of light reappeared beneath their feet again. "Oh, not this again!" Dani yelled as they were whisked away.
They reappeared, car and all, in the entry hall, where they got their first look at S'ym.
"Who the heck is that?" Sam yelled at the sight of the eight-foot-tall purple demon.
"Who cares," Roberto said with a barely contained rage behind his voice. "It's got Illyana!"
The Russian girl was being held in S'ym's left hand. He had carried her from the library, all the time squeezing her diaphragm. Illyana barely registered the mutants' presence. They're sudden arrival caused S'ym to squeeze even tighter, knocking all the air out of lungs and causing her to lose consciousness.
"She's all S'ym came for," the beast told the newcomers. For your own health, S'ym suggests you don't get involved."
Roberto roared, transforming and charging at S'ym like a bull at a matador. He put his hands together and slammed them into S'ym's face with everything he had.
Roberto had never unleashed a blow anywhere near that powerful before. The others shielded their heads as the concussive force shattered every window and glass structure in the entrance hall and the surrounding halls.
"Is S'ym meant to be impressed, boy?"
Roberto looked up in horror. S'ym had not so much as flinched from a hit that not even Colossus could have shaken off. The monster struck Roberto with the back of his free hand, sending the boy into the air in a horizontal position. Roberto sailed through one of the broken windows and landed in the snow outside.
Sam struck next, blasting off at top speed. His lack of control meant that he almost always hit as hard as possible, but that was with enough force to topple a skyscraper.
The others, having learned from Roberto's attack, ducked for cover as Sam made contact with S'ym's chest with a boom that nearly deafened them.
Sam crumpled to the ground. He could have blasted clean through a mountain and not felt anything, but striking S'ym's hide head-on had knocked him clean out.
With the others on the floor, Rahne was the first to move, leaping from all fours like her hands were paws, and transforming in midair so that they truly were.
"Rahne, don't!" Dani yelled. But it was too late to stop her. S'ym swatted the werewolf away with a flick of his tail.
"You children are beginning to annoy S'ym. Keep it up, and you'll make him mad."
"We're supposed to be a team, damn it!" Dani growled as she helped Amara and Stevie up. "Attacking solo is suicide!"
"Amara, wait for my signal," she whispered. "Don't do anything until I say so. I'm going to summon an image of his greatest fear, assuming there's anything he's even afraid of. You make your move when he's distracted."
Dani did not wait for Amara's reply, narrowing her eyes in concentration.
"It's working," she said as an orange smoke began to appear all around S'ym. "Oh no … what have I done?"
The devil appeared out of the smoke. Dressed all in a red cape and robe, he towered over all of them even S'ym. His face was covered in shadow, but they could see his glowing yellow, pupil-less eyes and the horns sticking out of the forehead of his silhouette. One arm reached for S'ym, an arm whose human shape and musculature made its deep red color even more frightening than the purple hide that adorned S'ym's monstrous form.
"You disappoint me, S'ym," the devil said. His voice boomed through the entire mansion, making their bones shake. "Can I no longer depend on you for even the most trivial of errands?"
"BELASCO!" S'ym terrified was far more frightening than S'ym confident, for what could possibly scare such a powerful creature?
"Have mercy, oh lord!" He begged. "S'ym is obedient to your will! S'ym is loyal!"
Only Stevie noticed that in his fright, S'ym had dropped his hostage. Dani and Amara could not look away from the spectre Dani had summoned.
The features of Belasco's face were not visible beside for his glowing eyes and horns. And yet they were aware of when he smiled.
"How sad, for that means you are truly doomed." The smoke became even thicker as the figure melted into something else. When the voice next spoke, it had long hair, its arm was now that of a woman and far more crimson, and its voice was almost snakelike.
"For if you serve the Dark Lord, you must therefore be the sworn enemy of his Darkchild," the now-female figure taunted. "Either choice means betrayal, my dear S'ym. Either betrayal means death."
Stevie snapped her fingers at Dani to get her attention. The older woman had Illyana's arm wrapped around her shoulders.
"Cover me while I get away," she ordered. "Then run like hell. No heroics, you understand me. S'ym's way out of your league!"
It was all Dani could do to nod. Stevie looked just as frightened, and was paler than any of them had seen her before.
S'ym was still cowering under the specter's gaze and did not notice as his quarry was dragged away.
Dani was knocked off her feet as the Earth shook beneath them. The specter and the smoke that accompanied it vanished, but S'ym had no time to wonder where they had gone, as a column of rock erupted from under the floorboards behind him, forming a miniature mountain more than ten feet tall. The top of this mini-mountain was hollow and belched forth a torrent of lava, enveloping him whole.
The lava cooled immediately on contact with S'ym's skin, forming a second column of rock in the middle of the entrance hall.
Amara was beaming when she turned to Dani. "How was that? I struck when S'ym was distracted, like you said. Our teamwork succeeded where the boys fighting by themselves didn't."
Dani did not answer. She was frozen in fear. Amara felt a sticky liquid land on her shoulder, and quickly realized it was something's saliva.
Stevie winced as she heard the girls' screams. There was nothing she could do for them, but hopefully she could still get Illyana to safety.
The mansion's entrance hall may have been built on solid rock, but the back had levels deep underneath it. Stevie was on her way down to those lower levels in an express elevator. Once there she hoped to find a rail-car that could get them to another hangar a mile away where she could call the X-Men for help.
The elevator doors opened, but before Stevie could take a step forward, the elevator began to rise again with a sickening crunching sound. S'ym was pulling it up.
With precious feet of room left, Stevie jumped for it. Shielding the still-unconscious Illyana, she took the brunt of the fall, and screamed about her knee.
There was no time to waste, so, fighting the pain, Stevie picked Illyana up again and hobbled forward. She did not get twenty feet when her knee gave out completely and they fell again.
"I'm sorry, Illyana," she said weakly. "I did my best."
She did not look back as the booming sound of S'ym's footsteps grew closer, closely followed by his voice.
"S'ym is out of patience." The beast was practically heaving with anger. "S'ym's sole interest was the Darkchild. But you just had to make things difficult."
He reached down for Stevie's leg. "Very well. S'ym shall repay you in kind. When the X-Men return, their welcome shall be the sight of your bleached bo-WHOUGH!"
S'ym screeched in pain as a bolt of white energy struck him in the face. The 1,500-pound monster stumbled back from a force unlike anything he had been hit with by the other kids.
"Don't make promises, you braggart," Illyana said with a calm hatred, "you won't be around to keep."
Stevie looked at Illyana in shock. The young Russian's hand was extended towards S'ym, a thing trail of smoke rising from her palm. But more than this sudden display of power, it was the look in her eyes that made Stevie question who she had carried down there.
"You finally decide to fight for yourself?" S'ym sneered, shaking off that first hit.
Illyana rose and looked him dead in the eye. "I'd have done so from the start, had I been able."
"S'ym's glad. The lesson he means to teach you is long overdue."
For all his bravado, S'ym was far more cautious now that Illyana was ready to fight and approached her slowly. So Illyana made the first move.
Chanting words in a language Stevie did not know and was not certain anyone on Earth knew, Illyana extended both of her arms at S'ym. Bands of orange energy shot out of all ten of her fingers, each band wrapping itself around one of S'ym's limbs, his torso, or his neck.
The demon grunted in frustration as his movement was completely stopped. The energy chains contracted as he attempted to move, threatening to choke him until with a mighty roar, he threw his hands out and shattered the chains.
S'ym was beyond angry now. He was enraged. In response, Illyana actually smiled. More than that, she licked her lips.
The beast rushed her, and she put both hands together, releasing an even more powerful version of the white energy that had temporarily stunned him less than a minute earlier. This struck S'ym in the chest and pushed him back.
S'ym dug in his toe claws and crossed his arms in front of him. The blast still hurt, but he could take slow steps towards his prey. He still did not realize that he was no longer the hunter.
Illyana stopped her energy blast and began taking steps back. S'ym, blinded by rage, took this to mean she was weakening and raised both hands over her head when her back reached the wall. "S'ym has orders to deliver you alive, but he wasn't told you need to arrive all in one piece."
If Illyana was worried, she did not show it. She raised her left hand, and a sword appeared in it.
As its appearance out of thin air suggested, this was not just any sword. It glowed with such intensity that it lit up the entire hallway and was too bright for ither S'ym or Stevie to look at directly. Neither of them could tell how long the sword was, though it was clearly long enough that it should have taken two hands just to hold it. Even so, Illyana had no problem holding the blade in one hand.
Illyana lowered her arm, bringing the very tip of the blade to the base of S'ym's neck. The demon gasped, and like a fencer touched once during a sparring match, the fight was over.
S'ym dropped to his knees, the sword still at his neck. "Mercy, Darkchild! S'ym begs you!"
The look in Illyana's eyes at that moment was by far the most frightening thing Stevie had witnessed not only that day, but ever.
"Were you as generous with the X-Men?" the young girl demanded, her sword hand trembling with rage. It was dangerously easy to slip. An inch, and S'ym would never threaten anyone or anything again.
"S'ym … S'ym is a demon..." He sounded pathetic.
Illyana closed her eyes, an internal battle waging within herself. She took a long time to exhale through her nose.
"And I am not. Thank you for reminding me."
She lowered her sword from S'ym's neck. The demon arose, but any thought of attempting to fight her now was inconceivable to him.
Even so, Illyana was not prepared to just let him go. "Your life has a price, S'ym. You must renounce Belasco … Serve me as you once did him."
S'ym thought about it for all of five seconds.
"A fair exchange. You drove Belasco from Limbo. S'ym doubts he will ever return. His throne is yours by right."
He turned to Stevie. "What of the woman? She has seen and heard more than she should. Shall S'ym dispose of her?"
Illyana's eyes flashed with anger again. "Begone, monster, before I reconsider and decide to avenge my butchered friends."
A disk of light, identical to the one that had brought the New Mutants into the mansion together with Stevie's car, only smaller, appeared beneath S'ym's feet. The disk rose above his head, leaving nothing behind where he once stood.
Stevie gaped at Illyana. "I-I don't understand. You said S'ym killed the X-Men?"
"In a way," Illyana explained. Her sword had disappeared as well. "Time moves differently in Limbo. Past, present, and future all converge, multiple timelines get tangled up. There were doubles of everyone but me. One group escaped." A lump formed in her throat. "The other … didn't."
Stevie had never wanted to scream so badly. "Illyana, what are you. What have you become?"
"Trust me, Stevie, you really don't want to know."
With those words, Illyana raised her right hand at Stevie and made a complex series of motions with her thumb, index, and middle fingers. Stevie blinked, then blinked again, then blinked yet again. She blinked twenty times, as if she was under a spell.
When the blinking was through. Stevie wasn't scared anymore. "What was that circle of light?" she asked.
"That's my mutant power. I summon those 'stepping disks' and they allow me to teleport."
"Teleportation, huh? So you sent him away? That's good. I don't think anything on Earth could have hurt S'ym or even slowed him down."
Illyana turned back to where S'ym had been standing.
"No. Nothing natural."
The X-Men had had a weird day. Dealing with a Pterodactyl man who wanted to turn all people into Dinosaurs qualified as weird even by the standards of the X-Men's hump days. Nevertheless, they were not prepared for the sight that awaited them when they returned home that evening.
"What did I tell you," Logan said, "you can't leave these flamin' kids alone for an instant!"
"Why Logan," Professor Xavier said with surprising cheer given the events of the day, "am I to assume that you don't approve of our redecorating skills."
Party decorations and balloons adorned the walls and crisscrossed the ceiling. That would have been surprising enough. The man-made mountain that dominated the entrance hall was a step too far, and they almost didn't notice the van indoors where it had no place being.
"Whatever happened, I bet it'll make a heckuva story," Rogue said.
"True enough," Kurt added. "And the sooner we join the party…"
"The sooner we shall hear it!" Ororo said, completing the thought.
"Sounds good to me," Logan said. "Hey Stevie, you got anything stronger'n cider?"
And so the X-Men learned of S'ym's attack and how the day was saved by Illyana's 'stepping disks.' Once S'ym was gone, Xavier and the kids had decided to throw the planned party and leave fixing the mess of the entrance hall to the following day.
Logan approached Dani. "S'ym, huh? That's one sucker I hope I never see again."
"Me too," Dani said, "We couldn't do a thing to him."
"Don't sweat it. The X-Men couldn't scratch his hide. You kids did no worse than we did against him."
Kurt took Ororo aside. "So, what we've been fearing came to pass."
"Yes. At least this time, it was only S'ym."
"'Only' S'ym," Kurt scoffed. "But I see your point. The big cheese won't be so easily banished. So what do we do then?"
Piotr, who had overheard their conversation, came over to them. "We do what we should have done the first time."
Sam climbed up Amara's mini-mountain. Roberto was sitting near the summit, looking down at the party. He was too deep in thought to enjoy the festivities that much.
"Looks like the New Mutants have another new member," Sam said. "You must be happy, Illyana's a mutant just like you wanted."
"Maybe," Roberto said, clearly not convinced.
"What's eating you?" Sam asked.
Roberto looked at Illyana, who was standing off to the side as usual and looking out the window S'ym had knocked him threw earlier. Like Roberto, she did not seem to be enjoying the festivities at all.
"I can't wrap my head around it. Why keep it a secret that she's a mutant if her power is just teleporting?"
Sam had no good answer, and was spared from having to spend an awkward minute attempting to think of one when Xavier summoned them and the rest of the New Mutants.
"You all put up a magnificent fight against S'ym," their mentor said. "I'm very proud."
"We were lucky," Illyana said, still staring out the window. Her brother and Kitty had attempted to cheer her up multiple times during the party, but nothing they did could get her to crack even the tiniest of smiles.
Xavier wheeled over to her. "Seeing S'ym again must have been difficult, a reminder of what happened, reopening wounds that perhaps never truly healed. If you ever wish to talk about it."
"Maybe … someday," she said softly.
Xavier nodded. He took Illyana's hand, causing her to turn towards him as he rose from his wheelchair.
"In the meantime, seeing as you are the birthday girl, would you do me the honor of sharing the first waltz?"
He put Illyana's hand on his shoulder and walked her to the center of the entrance hall, where they began to dance.
The X-Men and New Mutants stood back to give them room. All stopped eating and drinking to marvel at what was happening before them. Roberto touched Sam's shoulder and pointed excitedly. Kitty covered her mouth with both hands. No one spoke, afraid that if they broke the spell, this special moment would be over.
Illyana's mind was elsewhere during the beginning of the dance and she was the last to realize what was happening. As she came back to reality, her jaw dropped and she looked straight down, observing the movement of their feet. She looked up into her teacher's eyes and he looked at her with the most knowing smile she had ever seen.
They continued to dance for several minutes. Illyana kept looking at their feet over and over again to be sure she wasn't dreaming.
When they finally came to a stop, Illyana's face had lit up in a way it hadn't since she was in preschool. She threw her arms around Charles Xavier's shoulders, hugging him for the first time ever.
"Professor Xavier, your legs are all better!" Illyana yelled. "You can walk!"
Xavier laughed. "Do you see, child. There is always hope, for all of us."
The silence broken, everyone approached, cheering, stamping their feet, and congratulating Xavier. To them, the X-Men and the New Mutants, they had just witnessed history. But to Xavier and Illyana, this moment was something more.
For one night, for one moment, something even more impossible than Xavier walking occurred. Illyana's teacher had given her something too fleeting and fragile to last even into the next day, but worth more than all the diamonds in the world, the hope that maybe, just maybe, everything could be ok.
Some days I can't say why I'm feeling lonely
And some days I am too proud to ask for help
And I stumble through the noise trying to find some peace
A stranger in the crowd, I lose myself
So I walk down to the river
Where the troubles, they can't find me
Let the waters there remind me
The sun will be there when we wake
I walk down to the river
Though I might not understand it
It's not always as we planned it
But we grow stronger when we break
So I walk down to the river
I walk down to the river
River-Josh Groban
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Jul 12, 2024 8:20:24 GMT -5
Episode 7: Hellions
Sunrise was often at or after 7 in the morning in early winter. Even if the sun would come up earlier, teenagers have the ability to sleep long past the point it became light outside if they had no reason to set an alarm, such as having no school or work that day.
It was this early morning twilight that Illyana Rasputina took advantage of. At even 3 in the morning, there was the chance that one of her classmates would still be up, playing a videogame, glued to WhatsApp, or just mindlessly going through Youtube videos.
None of the mansion's other occupants knew she could do what she was about to do, a state of affairs Illyana was eager to maintain given the questions and suspicion already being whispered behind her back. She did not want anyone to see her floating in the air between the beds of the room she shared with Kitty Pryde, her legs folded as if she was on the floor. She did not want any of them to see the flames of pure silver that shot out of her hand, forming a circle on the floor around her.
Lines of flame crossed the circle, overlapping each other and forming a five-pointed star. Illyana floated above the silver fire, facing the base of the pentagram. Her eyes were closed and her hands were in a relaxed meditation pose.
The fire left no marks on the floor and created neither smoke nor heat. It served a different purpose, a purpose that was revealed as a phantom began to rise from Illyana's body. This phantom looked exactly like Illyana, wearing the same clothes and even the same ponytail the Russian girl was trying out for the first time. The only differences were that this phantom was translucent and standing in midair rather than sitting.
The phantom Illyana was in reality an astral projection, something that allowed her to project her consciousness to other locations. This astral form opened its eyes and floated towards and then through the bedroom window.
Illyana turned north, and her astral form rose high above the mansion's grounds. If Illyana had been a normal person who occasionally had dreams about flying, she would have been struck by the similarities of her current experience to such dreams.
The world turned into a blur of motion around Illyana, who was standing still from her own point of view. Had she moved at such speeds in her physical form, the residents of three states would have been woken up from a low-altitude sonic boom, and her body would not have been able to withstand the acceleration and deceleration. But her astral form had no such physical limitations.
The world slowed down above another school. This was a larger institution than Xaviers, with multiple buildings rather than a single mansion and several hundred students rather than seven. The architecture was of a similar old America style to the mansion.
Illyana lowered herself towards the ground and entered the nearest building. At this hour, most of the lights were still out, but a few were on in some of the hallways. Illyana did a quick fly-through of all of the buildings. She did not find what she was looking for, and settled just in front of the steps of the main campus building. Then, as if she was diving into a pool, she plunged headfirst into the pavement.
There was a lot of metal and machinery below the ground and nor rock or soil any deeper than five feet beneath the surface. At almost exactly the same depth as it would have taken had she done the same at the Xavier school, Illyana emerged in a high-tech hallway, virtually identical to those underneath the mansion.
Illyana stayed in the walls as much as possible at this point. Unlike the school above, all those in this underground facility were awake, forcing her to be much more cautious as she moved from room to room.
Finally, Illyana came to a large room that contained what she was looking for. The room was a perfect cube of metallic floors and walls, and completely dark except for the spotlight aimed at a metal chair in the center.
"You won't get away with this!" yelled the chair's occupant, Kitty Pryde.
Kitty had certainly seen better days. Her hair was completely unkempt, and she had a large bruise on her left cheek. She was dressed in a spandex costume of two shades of pinkish red, a darker and a lighter shade.
"Fair accompli, child," said the room's only other occupant. She was dressed all in white, a daring and revealing outfit that was overshadowed by the large cape flowing down from the heavy white fur covering her shoulders.
She placed a long tobacco pipe in her mouth for a few moments. Both the tobacco and the pipe were worth fortunes. Emma Frost only accepted the best. "It's already done. You are trapped here, without the ability to phase."
Kitty growled as she attempted to break free of the bonds holding her wrists to the chair, but it was as Emma said, she could not use her phasing power.
"Rage all you wish, Katherine," Emma taunted. "Resist with all your might. I enjoy a good challenge. But when this is over, when I've finished with you, you won't want to leave my side ever again."
"The X-Men-" Kitty began before she was cut off by Emma leaning over her and holding the tobacco pipe to her face.
"If your teammates were coming to your rescue, they'd have already been here," Emma said as Kitty coughed on the smoke coming from the pipe. "I know all about your little plan to have Nightcrawler stationed nearby. He isn't there. Nor is your precious professor. Face it, Katherine, you're all alone."
"Doug will-"
Emma laughed. "Douglas Ramsey won't ever notice that you're missing. Did you really think a telepath as powerful as I couldn't keep a naïve teenager in line?"
"Why are you doing this?"
For the first time, Emma's smile vanished as she focused on the business at hand. "You are a mutant. So is Douglass. That makes you both valuable commodities, commodities I and the Hellfire Club mean to control."
"You're pure evi-gasp!" Kitty exclaimed.
Emma spun around, her cape billowing impressively, and saw instantly what had startled her captive. Illyana, in her horror at what she was witnessing and desire to help Kitty, had forgotten her caution and even that she was not in a corporal form and had begun to approach Emma.
"A spy!" the telepath yelled, putting her free hand to the side of her forehead.
"Illyana, run!" Kitty screamed.
"Too late!" the woman known as the White Queen said as she launched a psychic bolt at this unexpected intruded. Illyana's form seemed to explode, the pieces fading from existence without a sound.
YEARGH!
The scream filled the entire mansion, waking up every single resident. Instantly, they bolted out of bed, their bedroom doors flying open.
"Who screamed?" Amara asked.
"I've never heard anything so frightful!" Rahne said.
"It came from the X-Men's wing," Dani realized.
"Illyana's the only one there," Roberto said.
All dressed in their pajamas, they ran as a group to the other wing of the mansion, where Sam attempted to open the door to the room Illyana and Kitty shared.
"Door's locked," he said, nodding at Roberto to join him. The other boy nodded, and together they kicked the door as hard as they could without using their powers, breaking the lock.
Roberto was about to ask if Illyana was all right when a face appeared in the door they had just opened. The face was green, with large pointed red eyes, nostrils that did not appear to have a nose attached to them, and a wide mouth filled with over a hundred tiny but razor-sharp teeth. Its skin was rough and bumpy, like a cross between a lizard and a human.
The creature flew past them, and they realized that the face was nearly all there was to it. Two small bat-like wings protruded from the side of the face where the creature's ears should have been, and two stubby legs and a tail extended from where there should have been a neck. In all, the creature was only a little bit larger than a housecat.
Only Rahne and Amara did not exclaim "What the hell?"
They had not recovered from the shock of the demon's sudden appearance when they beheld the state Illyana was in. The young Russian was still seated in the air above the pentagram of silver flames, but her head was turned upwards and her mouth was still wide open as if she was still screaming.
Two streams of white smoke were shooting out of Illyana's eyes, coalescing into a cloud three feet above her. More creatures like the first demon were emerging from the cloud.
"Lord have mercy, those creatures are coming out of here," Sam said. These demons were similar to the first in that they had large heads and next to no body, though their shapes and colors varied greatly.
The New Mutants ducked as four of these demons flew out of the room, following the first one.
Dani was the first to recover her wits even partially. "Go after them!" she ordered her teammates. "Don't let them out of the house! I'll try to help Illyana!"
The others ran off, Rahne, Amara, and Roberto transforming in order to use their powers. Dani entered Illyana's room and shut the door, ensuring no more demons would escape its confines. She stared at the scene in front of her, a girl younger than her frozen perfectly still in midair, shooting smoke and monsters from her eyes, and gulped.
"If I can figure out how," Dani whispered.
Rahne was the fastest of the New Mutants on the ground when she transformed. She caught up to the demons near the main staircase, leaping over the railing to catch a blue demon with squid-like tentacles sticking out from under its chin. The demon turned to smoke has her halfway-transformed hands passed through it, and Rahne landed hard on the bottom floor.
Another demon, this one the same shade of purple as S'ym, floated just above Rahne, letting out a terrifying screech that made her cover her sensitive ears. Roberto bounded down the stairs in his transformed state, throwing a super-powered punch at the demon that again met only smoke. The momentum of Roberto's punch threw him off balance, and Rahne had to catch him before he fell as she had.
Still on the second floor, Sam blasted off towards a group of three demons that were flying in the direction of the window at the end of the hall. He caught up to one of the demons in under a second, only for it to dissolve into smoke in his hands, and crashed through the window, shattering it.
Sam continued flying over the grounds until he reached a tree, reaching out and grabbing the large trunk as he deactivated his power so that he could stop without crashing. He looked back. The last two demons had flown outside through the window he had broken.
Amara stood at the window and fired a lava blast at one of the demons, turning it into smoke. Sam blasted off again, passing through the cloud of smoke left by the final demon when he hit it.
Demons continued to materialize from the smoke emanating from Illyana's eyes. Dani stood there frozen, with no idea of what she could possibly do about this situation. She looked down from the demons and focused on Illyana's agonized face. That was all she needed to decide to act.
Dani cautiously approached the cloud and threw a punch at the closest demon as soon as she was in range. Like the demons that had escaped the room, this one dissolved into smoke upon contact.
The rest of the demons, which had been ignoring Dani's presence until then, finally seemed to notice her and surrounded her. Her arms were grabbed by many small hands. Twisting her body to escape their grips, Dani fell over, hitting her head on a cabinet and nearly knocking herself out.
Groggy and barely conscious after the fall, Dani involuntarily activated her power, and a figure appeared above the demons. Shrouded in smoke and shadow, little could be seen of the figure beyond the fact that it was female and very, very angry.
The demons screamed in mortal terror and all vanished in puffs of smoke, enveloping the room in a thick grey mist. The apparition Dani summoned solidified and walked through the mist, picking her up in long, powerful crimson arms.
"It can't be…" Dani whispered, unable to raise her voice at all. "My spirit forms are illusions … They can't pick me up … That thing … was Illyana? But it was so evil … Illyana isn't …"
"Thanks for the vote of confidence."
Dani gasped. She was lying in bed with Illyana standing over her. The other girl now looked as if nothing had happened, and all the smoke and mist had disappeared from the room as if they had never been there.
"I feel awful," Dani said.
"You hit your head pretty bad," Illyana explained. "You stay here and don't try to move. I'm gonna go get some ice for your head."
Dani found her voice, and despite Illyana's instructions, raised her head off of the pillow. "What about the others?"
"We're fine, Dani," came Sam's voice.
Sam had opened the bedroom door, revealing the entire team. None of them looked happy.
"But we've got some questions for Illyana."
Many hours later, in an underground facility far below the Massachusetts Academy, a circular piece of metal flooring began to glow red. The red glow turned to white as the metal deformed from the heat before it began to melt away entirely.
In fifteen seconds, a hole six feet in diameter had been burned away in the floor, out of which emerged Amara in her molten form.
"We're in, my friends," the Italian mutant said. "And the villains seem none the wiser."
The rest of the New Mutants followed Amara out of the hole after the edges had cooled to the touch and no longer glowed with heat energy. They were all in their uniforms, including Illyana, who was wearing the blue and yellow costume for the first time. The costume Illyana wore was clearly not fitted for her, as the sleeves were too long and it was baggier on her than the costumes any of the others wore.
Rahne immediately shifted into her wolf form and began sniffing around.
"Problem," Dani said after communicating mind to mind with Rahne. "There are too many scents. She can't sort them all out to find which one is Kitty's."
"I scouted the entire complex when I was here earlier," Illyana responded. The room Kitty was held in before is right next door. Kitty's scent should be easier to pick out from there."
She led them to the door, which they found unlocked to find a perfect cube of a room.
They all stopped. This room was almost completely dark except for a single light that shone on a figure in the exact center. There was Kitty, sitting in the same metal chair wearing the same pink outfit as when Emma interrogated her earlier. The youngest X-Man was facing 90 degrees away from them, looking at another door leading into the room.
Dani grabbed Illyana's arm. "Something's not right," she whispered. "Why would they leave Kitty all alone in the same place you found her earlier?"
"Obviously it's a trap," Illyana responded.
Kitty turned her head at the sound of hushed voices. She grinned at her rescuers, though it was clearly painful for her to do so with the bruise on her cheek.
"About time you got here, Illyana. What took you so long?"
"The bus broke down," Illyana responded.
"You came to rescue me by bus?"
"What can I say, we're a class act," Illyana said, taking a step forward.
"What are you doing?" Dani demanded. "You're knowingly walking into a trap?"
"We don't really have a choice," Illyana countered. Dani scowled, but she could not argue. Kitty's calling out to them had likely already alerted her captors to their presence. The faster they freed Kitty, the sooner they could get out of there.
"Nice outfit," Kitty said as Illyana approached. "You're a real X-baby now."
"You should like it," Illyana said, reaching out to Kitty when she got close, "considering it used to be y-By the Abyss!"
Illyana's hands went straight through Kitty and the chair she was held in. Given Kitty's powers, this would not ordinarily have been a cause for concern. But if Kitty had been able to use her powers, none of them would have been there to rescue her in the first place.
"Hologram!" Illyana screamed. The figure of Kitty and her chair began to fade an instant after her hands passed through the image.
All of the lights in the cube room turned on at the same time, forcing the mutants to cover their eyes at the sudden brightness. When they lowered their arms, the figure of Emma Frost stood in mid-air above their heads, her hand on the shoulder of a defeated-looking Kity Pryde.
"Welcome, dear children, to my parlor," Emma said with a dramatic flourish. "I know most of you by reputation, and some, not at all. But I'm certain we're going to become great friends."
As she spoke, people began to pour through all of the doors leading into the room. These were the foot soldiers of the Hellfire Club, dressed head to toe in dark blue outfits that consisted of an experimental material that was both flexible and could serve as armor against bullets and knives. The blue was broken up by lines of red around the neck and waist, red gloves and boots, and a skin-colored and yet inhuman mask that only had slit openings for their eyes. Each and every one of these soldiers held a semi-automatic rifle or handgun.
The New Mutants did not bother attempting to fight Emma, as it was obvious she was just another hologram from the way she stood in mid-air. Instead, they turned their attention to the foot-soldiers surrounding them.
"Put your hands up!" one soldier who was most likely the leader ordered them. "Come along quietly, and no one needs to get hurt."
Sam gestured at Amara, who alone of the mutants raised her arms. Rather than come quietly as ordered, she transformed, glowing white hot like a miniature sun and blinding the solders the way the New Mutants had been blinded less than a minute earlier.
Magma did not stop at producing a lightshow, creating an earthquake the likes of which Massachusetts had never seen in recorded history, though localized entirely under the academy grounds. None of the soldiers could keep their footing as the entire underground facility violently shook, and a fissure opened up in the metal floor, forcing them to scramble away to avoid falling in. The lights failed, plunging them into complete darkness.
The soldiers' leader hobbled to his feet before the rest of his men. He knew this facility well enough to find his way in the dark, and when the shaking stopped, quickly found the lever that activated the emergency power. The lights came back on. Not all of the lights, only those connected to the emergency generator, but it was more than enough for them to see clearly again.
Unfortunately, there was no one there for them to see.
"The kids, they're gone!"
Emma Frost took a sip from her glass of wine. She was seated at the end of a long dining table in her personal residence on the Massachusetts Academy's faculty campus. The table, chairs, and every other piece of furniture in the lounge were priceless artifacts from the eighteenth century. A silver candelabra with five long candles that had been made by Paul Revere himself stood on the center of the table.
Emma's attention was focused on the person sitting at the other end of the table, the reason her school was being invaded by a band of misfit mutant teenagers.
"Fascinating. The group seems to have gained some formidable new members since Charles Xavier first gathered them. Miss Pryde, do stop struggling. As long as I'm here, you won't be moving an inch."
Kitty's hands were no longer bound. Emma would never dream of risking leaving so much as the tiniest mark on such a priceless historical artifact as the chair her captive was seated in. Her telepathic powers ensured that the only voluntary movement Kitty was capable of was moving her mouth.
"What are you gonna do?" Kitty demanded. "Brainwash them like you're trying to do to me?"
Emma's lips parted in a malicious grin. "Wrong, my dear, as I've succeeded with you."
Kitty gasped despite herself, and Emma rose. "As we have become such good friends, perhaps you could shed some light on a few details. Regarding Illyana Rasputin, for instance."
Kitty tensed as Emma set her wine glass down and approached her. "All our intelligence has shown that Colossus' baby sister had no powers whatsoever. And yet a phantom of her appeared in one of the most secure facilities in the world, and hours later, she appears for real, leading the New Mutants on a mission to rescue you. Why is that?"
She bent down in front of Kitty and placed her hands on the sides of the girl's head. "What is the secret of Illyana Rasputin?"
Kitty grimaced and grunted, her attempts to resist Emma's mind probe causing her physical pain.
After 15 seconds, Emma removed her hands from Kitty's head, which slumped forward in exhaustion.
"You really don't know, do you? Your best friend, your roommate, and you have no idea what she's capable of."
Many hours earlier
All of the New Mutants had gathered on one side of the kitchen table. Seated across from them on her own was Illyana.
"We're waiting girl," Sam said. He alone was standing, arms folded in anger.
"Sam, she isn't an enemy," Dani insisted.
"Are you positive?" Sam responded. Illyana just held her hands together in front of her mouth. The New Mutants continued to stare at her, as much in apprehension of what she would do next as in anger at what they had been forced to deal with because of her.
Finally, she spoke, her voice slightly muffled by the placement of her hands. "I'm not just a mutant. I'm also a sorceress."
"Gee, we never would have guessed," Roberto said sarcastically.
Sam rolled his eyes at him. "Smart-ass."
"Every chance I get." Roberto turned his attention back to Illyana. "So why were you casting a spell? What made it go wrong?"
Illyana lowered her hands so they were below her chin and she would be able to speak clearly.
The present
The New Mutants had retreated to a storeroom in the underground facility. Rahne held the door partly open, standing in her halfway form between human and wolf.
"I canna smell anyone nearby, Dani," she said. "The coast is clear."
"Great Rahne," Dani responded. "Keep your nose up and let me know if you smell anyone coming this way."
"What now?" Roberto asked. "Where do we go from here? We can't just stay in this storeroom forever."
"I know," Dani said. "Once they repair the damage from the quake, their sensors will probably detect us immediately."
"So we've got to make sure they don't get their main power back online," Sam said.
"And in the confusion, we slip in and grab Kitty and run like hell for home?" Dani wondered. "That might actually work."
"Only problem is the White Queen," Sam said. "We're on the run from a telepath who'll know out plans as soon as we think of them."
"Then we have to be smarter than her," Illyana said. "If we split up, she'll only be able to deal with one group at a time, even if she is a telepath."
The others grimaced at the idea of splitting up. "We don't have any straws to pick who goes with who," Roberto observed.
Left unspoken was the real reason they did not want to split up, no one wanted to be the one who was stuck with Illyana.
Many hours earlier
"My astral form is apparently more vulnerable to psychic attack," Illyana explained. "When it was disrupted, the psychic backlash stunned me and allowed some of my familiars to get loose. They're mostly harmless, despite how they look. I appreciate your catching them."
Her story finished, Illyana rose and turned to leave. "Where do you think you're going?" Dani demanded.
"I just told you. Kitty's in trouble, and since the X-Men are missing, I'm going to do something about it. I owe her that much."
Amara stood up. "Wait." She turned to her teammates. "Kitty and Illyana are our classmates. We are honor-bound to help them if they are in peril."
"You're talking about taking on the Hellfire Club, some of the X-Men's deadliest enemies," Dani countered. "Even if it is just the White Queen this time."
"I'll go myself if I have to," Illyana declared.
"Amara's right," Roberto said. "We can't do nothing. If the X-Men are abducted by aliens are something, it's up to us to step up."
"Fine," Dani said, "how are we going to get there? Stevie's on vacation, so she can't drive us."
All eyes turned to Illyana, who scowled. "I can use my stepping disks in an emergency, but it would be better if we found another way rather than risk it.
Visible signs of relief spread across the New Mutants' faces, and Illyana looked away. Roberto began counting on his fingers.
"Given how many of us there are, our best bet is to take a bus to Massachusetts.
"A bus?" Sam asked skeptically. Roberto grinned.
"Hey, if we're gonna be superheroes, then we should travel in super-hero style!"
The group broke up, each mutant heading back to their room to change and prepare for the adventure ahead of them. Amara lingered in the kitchen, her back to Illyana.
"Um, thank you," Illyana said with some hesitation. "I didn't think anyone would want to come with me."
"I thought you were like Selene, sorceress," Amara said angrily. "I didn't realize how much until now."
She turned her head to look at Illyana, and fire was dancing from her eyes. "We are classmates, so I will not let you go into danger alone, but don't ever expect us to be friends."
Amara followed the others upstairs, leaving Illyana looking and feeling like she'd just been hit by a sledgehammer.
The present
Two of the Hellfire Club's soldiers were doing their normal rounds, walking through the halls of the underground facility. They had walked the exact same route every weekday for more than a year without incident, but this time was different.
The two soldiers were grabbed from behind a split second after they walked past an unassuming storeroom, hands covering their mouths and preventing them from screaming for help.
They were quickly tied up on the floor of the storeroom and their masks were removed, revealing them to be a pair of middle-aged women. The mutants could only guess what sort of career would lead to them performing guard duty for the Hellfire Club.
The older of the two was also proved to be the feistier when they were interrogated. "Go screw yourself, punk," she said to Sam, "we won't talk."
"Wanna bet?" Dani asked, her face scrunching in concentration as she summoned the image of what their captives feared the most. To no one's surprise, it was the White Queen. In their imaginations, Emma Frost became a demon with long, sharp fangs and claws.
Illyana held the door shut to keep the women's screams from escaping the storeroom. When the illusion faded, they were shaking.
Roberto refused to give them any respite. Gesturing at Illyana, he said, "If you think that's bad, wait until to see the horrors she can summon."
"What … what do you want to know?" the soldier who had been so defiant only a minute earlier asked weakly. "Y-you kids … You may think … you're some kind of heroes … but you're just as cruel as the Queen herself."
Dani started and turned away. She walked to the other end of the storeroom and let the others take over the interrogation, leaning on a stack of heavy boxes. Her eyes were wet with tears when, some minutes later, she was tapped on the shoulder. She looked back to see Illyana, dressed in one of the soldiers' blue uniforms and holding the second uniform to Dani.
"I hope you don't mind us being partners," Illyana said, "but it looks like we're the only two these uniforms will fit."
Many hours earlier
The bus was empty except for the New Mutants. Sam and Dani sat in the very back, attempting to come up with some kind of plan for if they encountered the White Queen or other senior members of the Hellfire Club.
"If we make even one mistake, we'll be slaughtered," Dani said, her nose buried in notes taken from the mansion's computers
"The way I see it, we've got one advantage," Sam said. "They wouldn't know what Amara or Illyana can do."
Dani looked up. "Unfortunately, we don't know what Illyana can do either."
The present
The largest room in the underground facility, even larger than the cube room, was the room that contained the main generator supplying power to both the facility and the school above it. At all times, a small group of technicians watched over the generator to ensure it functioned at peak efficiency.
These technicians were experts at their craft, but nothing in their education had ever taught them what to do when the device they were working on suddenly became surrounded by a ring of fire and began to melt before their eyes. Even so, they did what any sane, rational person would do in such a situation. They ran like hell, screaming their lungs off as they did so.
With the generator and all of its backups destroyed, the Massachusetts Academy was plunged into complete darkness.
Kitty was delighted at this turn of events. "Score one for the kids!" she yelled. "Way to go!"
Emma lit a match and began to light the candles on Paul Revere's candelabra. "They are resourceful," she admitted, "but then, so am I."
"You just can't admit you're being beaten by a bunch of children!" Kitty scoffed.
Emma took the remark in stride. "My dear, the night has barely begun," she said calmly as she extinguished the match between he fingers. "Anything can happen."
Many hours earlier
After conferring with Dani, Sam made his way towards the front of the bus. He stopped when he saw Rahne and Illyana. The Scottish girl had chosen a seat across and one row down from the sorceress. Illyana stared out of her window, pretending not to notice the daggers Rahne was glaring into her.
"Hey Rahne, why the long face?" Sam asked.
"Shh, Sam," Rahne whispered. "She'll hear you!"
"Who, Illyana? So what if she does?"
"Sam, she's a witch!"
Sam scowled and took another look at Illyana, who gave no sign that she had heard Rahne, though he knew she must have. He forced a smile as he turned back to Rahne. "And you're a werewolf, so what?"
"You think I don't know that!" Rahne whisper-screamed. "Witch and were-thing are both the spawn of Satan!"
Sam felt the need to sit down in the seat right next to Rahne. "Hey, Ah'm as religious as you. The first book my daddy taught me to read was the Bible, and Ah was attending Sunday school before you were even born. If you're telling me that you're evil just because you're a mutant, then Ah say that's bull."
Rahne closed her eyes. "My reverend would say different."
"What's he know?"
"Sam, don't blaspheme!"
"Your reverend's a human being, just like you and me. None of us can know why the Lord gave us these gifts any more than we can know why good and innocent people suffer and die. It's just not possible."
Sam paused, taking a breath to calm himself down before saying things he had never revealed to anyone before. "Every day, Ah ask myself why my daddy had to go the way he did, coughing out his lungs and his life years before his time. He was a good man, he didn't deserve to die like that. But God thought different, Ah guess. You can't second guess him, and you can't say that people are born evil."
"No one's born a witch."
Sam grimaced. He had no response to that statement from Rahne.
The present
Hundreds of students poured out of the Massachusetts Academy's dormitories, unsure what they should be doing with the power completely out. Such a thing had never happened before in the history of the institution.
The crowd was a godsend for Sam and Amara, who blended in with all of the other teens. They had grabbed a couple of coats to cover their costumes, as inconspicuous a disguise as was possible on a cold New England winter night.
"Hey, nice job with the generators," Sam told Amara. "Real surgical. Professor Xavier'd be very proud."
"Save your compliments until we're safely on our way home, my friend," Amara responded. "The most dangerous part may still be to come."
A police car appeared at the far end of the crowd. "Attention, please!" the campus policeman driving the vehicle said into his loudspeaker. "As you may have noticed, there's been a minor accident. Stay calm, security will be distributing lanterns and flashlights. Everyone is instructed to go back to their dorms and await further instructions."
"That works in our favor," Sam said softly. "It'd be hard to pick out Doug Ramsey in a crowd this big in the dark, but we know exactly where his room is."
Dani and Illyana made their way through the underground facility. With Illyana's memory of the layout from her disembodied visit earlier, they faired as well as any of the soldiers they were impersonating would have in the dark,
"You're sure this is the right way?" Dani asked.
"Yeah. The White Queen's residence was this way, and she has her own entrance to this facility."
"If she is holding Kitty there, you know that means we're going to have to fight her to get Kitty."
"I know," Illyana said softly.
"Is that the real reason you wanted to split up from the rest of the team?"
Illyana did not answer. They continued on, stopping only when a bright light was suddenly pointed in their faces.
"Hey!" Dani yelled. Both of them were forced to cover their eyes from the blinding light.
"Sorry ladies," said a male soldier who stood at the intersection of two halls. "Didn't mean to startle you." He himself had been startled by the sound of footsteps and pointed his flashlight in their direction.
"Report to central operations for damage control assessments," he instructed them. "You'll get your orders there."
"Will do, sir," Illyana said, grabbing Dani's hand and leading her away.
Dani was breathing unusually hard, so they turned and went down the nearest staircase and removed their masks. Dani slumped against the wall and slowly exhaled.
"Whew. I forgot we were wearing their uniforms for a second. I nearly had a heart attack when that creep showed up."
"Worst-case scenario," Illyana said, "I'll teleport us out of there."
Dani was quickly calming down. "If you can do that, why are we sneaking around in the first place? Wouldn't it be easier to just teleport to the White Queen's residence?"
Illyana looked away. Most of her face was hidden in shadow. "Easier, maybe, but not safer."
"Why?"
Dani had never met a mutant who was so hesitant to talk about their abilities before. "Your power has its drawbacks, and so does mine," Illyana said. "I'll use it as a last resort, but not before."
She put her mask back on. Dani followed suit, and they resumed their march towards the White Queen's lair. In the dark, they did not notice the figure that followed them, slithering silently along the ceiling.
Many hours earlier
Sam was even more troubled than before when he left Rahne and made his way to the front row, where Roberto was seated.
"Getting restless?" Roberto asked. "I know the feeling. It's hard to stay seated for so long."
Sam sat down next to him. "Ah feel like a hypocrite. Ah tried to tell Rahne to be open-minded about Illyana being a witch, but truth be told, Ah'm not sure Ah disagree with her."
"A witch would have come in handy," Roberto said under his breath.
"Come again?"
Roberto looked back at Illyana, who was doing her best to ignore everyone else on the bus. "I was just thinking, if she had been honest with us from the start, Xuân would still be alive."
"You can't know that."
"Can't I?" Roberto struggled to keep his voice down. "Even if she wasn't a witch, if we had a teleporter with us, Xuân would never have been in danger in the first place. Having a witch on the team would have changed everything."
He looked out his window. "But no, little miss snowflake has to keep all her secrets. The only thing she cares about is Kitty."
The present
Roberto and Rahne headed in the opposite direction from Dani and Illyana. Their job was to find the facility's exit and secure the team's escape route. Rahne walked slightly ahead in her halfway state, which allowed her to smell anyone approaching while still being able to talk to Roberto.
She paused at a corner, sniffing the air.
"Anything there?" Roberto asked. Rahne shook her head.
"Sorry, Berto. My senses are no' as keen when I'm like this as they are when I'm fully a wolf."
"Can't be helped with Dani not here."
"Tha's true. We should be getting close now."
They came to a locked metal door. According to the information they had from the two soldiers they had captured, on the other side was a the bottom of an old well used during colonial times that had been converted into an off-campus entrance to the facility.
"Can you smell anyone on the other side?"
"I canna' tell."
"Better leave it to me then," Roberto said as he transformed.
"Be careful," Rahne warned him. "It's night, so you canna recharge."
"I know, furball, Why do you think I sat on the left side of the bus?"
With his enhanced strength, Roberto lifted the door off its hinges. While he was placing the door against the wall, a firecracker from the other side exploded in his face, stunning him and leaving him defenseless as a large fist collided with his head.
Roberto fell on his back, looking like he was out cold. Towering above him in the doorway was a giant of a teenager, a Native American boy in his late teens who stood at the same height as Sam, only with far more muscle. He wore the same pink costume Kitty had been forced to wear.
"Some test the Queen gave us," the Native American boy said dismissively. "I punched out a kid half my size, big deal."
Rahne leapt into action, jumping at this new attacker in her wolf-form with claws and fangs outstretched. The boy grabbed what seemed to him to be a snarling beast by the back of its neck, his long arms keeping it a safe distance from his head and body.
"A wolf?" he asked incredulously. "I didn't know Xavier's brats were allowed to keep pets."
Rahne shifted forms again, changing into her halfway state. The shock of this transformation caused him to drop her, giving her the chance to pick him up instead and throw him over her shoulder with her own enhanced strength.
"That'll teach you no' t' lay and hand the New Mutants, you brute."
A second figure appeared in the doorway. This one was a girl with extremely blonde, almost white hair. Like the first one, she too wore a pink uniform.
"Hey fuzzy, catch," the girl said with too much amusement for a combat situation, throwing a black disk at Rahne. The lupine mutant ducked as the disk seemed to harmlessly popped above her head.
"You missed," Rahne said, preparing to lunge at this attacker as well.
"That's what you think."
The door Roberto had torn off and placed against the wall suddenly shifted and fell, its heavy metal frame crashing down on top of Rahne.
The girl scoffed dismissively at Rahne's fate and went to help her teammate up.
"It's just like I told you, Thunderbird. Luck beats brute strength every day."
"You'd best hope your luck holds out," Thunderbird responded. "The Queen will have your head if the girl's hurt too bad."
"In that case, the White Queen is the least of your worries."
Roberto had risen and transformed into Sunspot again. He barreled into Thunderbird, pinning him against the wall and throwing him across the hall.
With the giant temporarily delt with, Roberto turned his attention to Rahne and lifted the door off of her. Wolfsbane was still transformed, but she was unconscious and had a terribly pained expression on her face.
A black disk burst above Roberto's head, and he screamed. The door was dropped on the floor to the side, and Roberto collapsed, reaching for his lower back with both hands.
Thunderbird returned from his flight down the hall, his enhanced strength and durability leaving him unharmed. He looked at Roberto writhing on the floor with pity.
"He's in agony, Roulette. What did you do to him?"
Roulette giggled. "Just gave him some really bad luck. With how heavy that door was, it wouldn't surprise me if he pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve."
"You don't sound very sorry," Thunderbird noted.
"Why should I? That was fun."
Dani let out a blood-curdling scream and collapsed to her knees. Illyana grabbed her shoulders, shocked by this sudden outburst.
"What happened?"
"Rahne … " Dani said between breaths. She took off her mask again. "Something … hit her … can't … shut out … the pain!"
"Pull yourself together!" Illyana commanded her. "We can't stay here. They're bound to have heard your scream."
"I'll … try…"
Illyana's hands disappeared from Dani's shoulders, causing her to look up. The sorceress hand been grabbed and was now being held against the ceiling by what looked like a purple panther with a the hair of a human girl.
Holding Illyana tight with its claws, the cat seized her mask in its teeth and ripped it off, letting the pieces fall to the floor around Dani. Then, amazingly, it spoke.
"Intruder go hushabye!"
A light appeared out of nowhere, illuminating the hallway and another teenage girl in a pink costume stepped forward. This one had long, red hair, and was holding a deck of cards. She put away a card with a picture of the sun.
"Splendid, Catseye! May the goddess grant that Tarot fare as well against her foe.
Dani was still crippled by the sympathetic pain she was feeling from Rahne and could only watch helplessly as Tarot held up a card with a picture of the devil, who stood up and walked out of the card into the real world, brandishing a long chain of metal links in its hands.
Sam and Amara had no trouble reaching the dormitory where Doug Ramsey was staying. They entered the building without hassle, but their journey up the staircase was blocked by a boy in a pink costume.
The boy leered at them from his higher position on the staircase. "I am Manuel Alfonso Rodrigo De La Rocha, greatest of the Hellions. To reach Douglas Ramsey, you must first get past me."
Manuel's eyes began to glow. "But you don't want to do that, do you? No, you wouldn't want to upset a friend you love so much."
"Th-that's right," Sam said meekly.
"You're our best friend," Amara agreed. "We love you."
"Sam, Amara? What are you guys doing in Massachusetts?"
They blinked, and Manuel turned around in shock. Doug Ramsey had appeared on the stairs above Manuel, his sudden appearance breaking the self-proclaimed greatest Hellion's hold on them.
"Thanks, Doug," Sam growled. He bounded up the steps and punched Manuel as hard as he could without his powers. Once Manuel was off his feet, Sam rolled him over and pinned his arms behind his back so that he could not look at them and use his power on them again.
"My heart and soul are my own, buster! Nobody messes with them and gets away with it, you hear me!"
Sam had no time to celebrate or explain the situation to Doug. No sooner had he gotten Manuel fully pinned than a blur burst through the nearest window, shattering it and taking Sam down the stairs and out the front door.
This disturbance was noticed by multiple students who were still outside and began pointing at the figures flying through the air. From the window of her residence, Emma Frost sighed in disappointment.
"Defeating one Hellion is far from defeating us all!" the flying boy holding Sam yelled above the roar of the wind in their ears.
Sam looked back and saw that he was being flown directly at a tree. "Holy crap!" he yelled, activating his power and blasting out of the other boy's grip a splint second before he crashed into the tree.
Back in the dorm building, Manuel was furious. "That dog dared lay his grubby, peasant hands on a De La Rocha?" His eyes glowed as he looked at Amara, who suddenly began looking at Sam with a hatred that far surpassed what she felt for Selene.
Amara's newfound hatred was so great she could not help but try to kill him. Sam and his opponent were flying headfirst towards each other then a lava blast exploded right between them. Sam, who was invulnerable while blasting, was shocked but unharmed. The other boy was not as lucky. He had reacted with astonishingly fast reflexes, turning away as soon as the lava blast came into view. Unfortunately for him, that quick action put the jet back on his back directly between him and the lava blast, and the little bit of lava from the explosion that struck the jet back was enough to render the device completely inoperable.
Sam's reflexes were not as good as the other flyer's, but he still reacted as fast as he could, diving down and catching the other boy, extending the protection of his invulnerability to him before they both collided with the ground. They left a small crater where they landed, a crater that was quickly filled will molten magma as Amara fired off one last lava blast.
Manuel stepped out of the dorm room and walked over to the filled-in crater, observing how the lava quickly cooled and hardened, replacing the soil that was displaced by the original impact. He grinned maniacally as he admired his handiwork.
Amara followed behind, covering her mouth in shock and horror at what she had done. She glared at the back of Manuel's head, her eyes burning with a new hatred.
"You'll be avenged, Sam," she whispered to herself, transforming an preparing to fire a lava blast of her own accord, one that would boil Manuel alive.
Manuel was saved when Sam burst from the ground underneath his feet, striking him in the chin and sending him spinning to the ground unconscious.
"Sam!" Amara screamed. "I thought I'd killed you!"
"It's ok," Sam assured her. "You scared me half to death, but my invulnerability protected me and the other guy. How're you?"
"I am-I am myself again." She looked down at Manuel. "Is he a mutant like us?"
"Mutant, maybe," Sam scoffed, "but nothing like us."
They drew closer, and for a moment, looked into each other's eyes. "You were very brave," Amara said. It was the first time she had ever praised Sam.
The moment was interrupted by Doug Ramsey, who had watched the entire fight and was now running towards them.
"I don't believe it!" Doug yelled as he approached Sam and Amara. "You two are real superheroes! Wait till I tell … Kitty …"
For an instant, all three of them saw the White Queen as she truly was. But by the time any of them blinked, different figures stood before them.
Sam saw a tall man, skinny-but rugged-looking and wearing mining gear.
"Pa?"
"It's me son. I'm sorry I've been away so long."
Amara saw a beautiful woman wearing a gown of the most luxurious Roman silks.
"Mother? This cannot be?"
"Why beloved, have you never believed in miracles?"
Emma put a hand on each of their shoulders. "Now, I think there's been enough commotion for one night, and you two have caused more than your fair share."
"Sorry about that, sir," Sam said sheepishly.
"Let's collect your friends and get you all tucked away in bed," Emma said.
"At once, mother," Amara agreed.
"As for you, Douglas," Emma said in a more serious tone. "Go back to bed and forget all about what you have just seen." Doug nodded and turned away with a glazed look in his eyes.
The devil summoned by Tarot threw the chain in its hands around Dani's neck. The Cheyenne girl grabbed at the chain, but to her surprise, it did not choke her. Rather, it deformed her, making her appear the same as the phantom of Emma she had used to frighten the two soldiers earlier. Her eyebrows rose like a Vulcan from Star Trek, long fangs stuck out of her mouth, and her nails lengthened into sharp claws, growing even longer by the second.
Above, Illyana screamed "No! Spawn of the abyss!"
In a desperate rage, the sword with which she had defeated S'ym appeared in Illyana's hand. She touched the tip of Catseye's fur with the glowing blade, and feline mutant yelped in pain and dropped to the floor.
Taking her sword in both hands, Illyana unleashed a powerful slash at the fake devil, which exploded and dissipated, taking its chain along with it.
Tarot screamed as she was hit by a psychic backlash from the destruction of her phantom. She stumbled back, rubbing her eyes. When she opened her eyes again, they opened wide.
Illyana was charging at Tarot, sword in and, and a feral rage in her eyes. The Hellion reached for another card, and Illyana stopped as a large figure, or rather figures, appeared between them.
The figures were a horseman and his mount, if a creature with a skull for a face could be called a horseman. The skull-faced horseman raised an absurdly long broadsword in one hand as the horse reared back.
Illyana raised her sword to block what she thought would be the horseman's strike. This was a mistake, as it was not the rider that attacked, but the horse, which struck her on the face and chest with its hooves, sending her tumbling back and rolling repeatedly on the floor before she came to a stop.
To Dani's amazement and Roulette's horror, Illyana was quickly on her feet again despite taking such a devastating hit.
"Does she not feel pain?" Roulette asked.
Emma appeared in the nearest doorway, her white cape billowing impressively as she held both arms out.
"STOP!" she yelled. "Come to me, children! Playtime's over!"
Dani gasped. She saw not the White Queen, but an elderly man with long white hair dressed in a mix of modern American and traditional Cheyenne clothing.
"Illyana," she said, "that's my grandfather. But I saw him die!"
Illyana looked between Dani and Emma and realized what was happening. "It's a trick, Dani! The White Queen's deceiving you! Don't look! Don't even listen!"
Emma scowled at Illyana. "Your mind is completely closed to me. No matter. I shall simply have to take a more direct approach."
Illyana raised her sword again and charged at Emma, but suddenly stopped as if she had run straight into a wall. Emma held one hand to her temple, the other hand outstretched at Illyana.
Dani saw her grandfather's features disappear, to be replaced by the figure of the White Queen. Emma was devoting all of her concentration to her telepathic attack on the sword-wielding girl in front of her.
Grunting with the effort, Illyana took a step forward, then a second, slowly closing the distance between her and Emma, whose eyes widened in fear.
Emma pulled back her arm and raised both hands to her temples, putting even more power into her attack. This time, Illyana froze completely.
Beads of sweat began to trickle down Emma’s forehead, while at the same time, blood began to drip from both of Illyana’s nostrils. The Russian girl’s sword disappeared, and she began to scream from an agony she had no previous experience of.
Dani crawled to Illyana’s side and gasped at the sight of the blood pooling and the sorceress’ feet as the drip from her nose became a stream. She grabbed Illyana’s hand, and the Russian girl started, at the touch. For a brief moment, she shut out the pain as she looked down at Dani. A disk of light appeared next to them, and Illyana jumped into it, dragging Dani along with her.
When the disk disappeared, Dani and Illyana were gone. Emma stood up straight, letting her cape fall over her shoulders so that it covered her completely.
“Run where you will, brats. There is nowhere on this Earth you can hide from us. Soon, you and all your will be mine.”
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Aug 25, 2024 10:20:34 GMT -5
"EMPATH!"
The other four Hellions started in shock at Jetstream's outburst. Their flying teammate had quickly moved across their training facility and struck Manuel De La Rocha and slapped him on the arm.
Thunderbird grabbed Jetstream's shoulder. "Take it easy! Accidents happen during a fight!"
"You weren't there, you didn't see what happened," Jetstream insisted. "If it wasn't for Cannonball, one of our foes, I'd be dead now!"
Empath turned away dismissively. "No great loss, Arab. Besides, what else was I supposed to do, since you had so obviously proven yourself incapable of dealing with your oppo-"
Manuel's breath left him as Jetstream tackled him to the ground. "Liar!"
"We're supposed to be a team! But that doesn't matter to you at all! All you care about is yourself!"
Manuel was unfazed. He knew that as a part-cyborg, Jetstream could have seriously injured or even killed him with that action. The fact that he did not was further proof in Manuel's eyes that the other boy was not worthy of respect.
"I warned you before, dog, never lay a hand on a Del La Rocha!"
Manuel's eyes glowed, and Jetstream froze in place. The lines of fury disappeared from his face, replaced by the smooth skin of a blank stare. He was a perfect statue.
"You don't wish to hurt me, Jetstream. I am your friend."
"I…I…" Jetstream stammered weakly.
"Apologize for striking me," Manuel commanded.
Jetstream's face melted into a portrait of remorse. "I'm sorry."
"Splendid, you be my forgiveness."
Those Hellions who were still standing spun around. Empath, stuck on his back, settled for turning his head to the side.
Behind them stood Emma Frost. Her usual flair for the dramatic was on full display as her white cape billowed impressively behind her as her students became aware of her presence. Some were awed, some were intimidated. All were silent.
"That's enough Empath, you've made your point." Manuel released his hold on Jetstream and both young men rose to their feet, seemingly chastened by their teacher's entrance.
Professor Xavier would have summoned Empath and Jetstream to his office after such a fight. Emma had more important things to do than to settle a petty dispute between two of her students. "I see in your thoughts, and from your actions, that you are all quite recovered from last night's activities. Take your seats for class, and we'll review your performance."
The Hellions filed into their 'classroom,' but Manuel was not done with Jetstream just yet. "Al-Rahman," he whispered menacingly, "I could easily make you loathe yourself so deeply that you would instantly commit suicide. Assault me again, or even cross me-"
'-and you will regret it.' Emma heard the thought clearly in her mind, though the whisper was too low for her ears to pick up. "Empath, I said enough!"
"As you wish, Senora," Manuel's lips said. His thoughts, however, said, 'Who are you to give me orders?'
Emma did not want to engage with a matter as petty as this, but Manuel was giving her little choice. "It is foolish to make enemies of those on whom your life may one day depend."
Manuel scoffed as he followed the other Hellions into their 'classroom.' "Rest assured, Your Majesty, that should the need arise, my teammates will do all I require of them."
Emma glared after him, but her attention soon turned to the purple cat creature that was walking away from everyone else. "Going somewhere, Catseye?"
The creature purred before it answered. "Sun's up. Sleepytime, yes?"
"No," Emma said. "Join the others, Sharon, and assume human form."
Catseye complied, standing up on her hind legs as her transformation began. Her fur disappeared, replaced by the Hellions uniform as her limbs changed shape from feline to human. When the transformation was complete, she looked almost completely human, with a head of curly white hair. Her eyes. However, remained cat-like.
Catseye was unsteady on her feet, clumsy even, as she attempted to walk on just two legs, making her way to her seat to join her teammates.
Emme took her place at the head of the table. "Scant hours ago, you faced what might be considered your opposite numbers, the New Mutants, Charles Xavier's novice students."
"What were they doing here?" Thunderbird asked as soon as she paused. It was obvious v=even without Emma's telepathy that he had been waiting impatiently to ask that question.
"That is none of your concern, James," Emma said, attempting to put the issue to rest without actually addressing it.
"Your pardon, Ma'am," Thunderbird insisted, "but I don't much like the idea of fighting kids. I want the X-Men. They owe me for my brother's life."
Thunderbird's real name was James Proudstar, the younger brother of John Proudstar, who also went by the alias Thunderbird during his brief and tragic superhero career with the X-Men.
"Rest assured, that debt will be paid in time. But first, you have much to learn. You all do. I had to personally intervene twice last night, which I am most displeased about. Manuel, you begin."
Manuel stiffened for a moment. The fact that he was called on first meant he was on thin ice with his teacher. "It was … wrong of me to lose my temper during our battle with Magma and Cannonball. Jetstream is correct. I did put him in unnecessary danger."
Emma raised her eyebrow in surprise, but quickly lowered it in the hopes none of the Hellions saw her immediate reaction to Manuel's out-of-character remark. "Manuel is a proud boy. His admission, I am sure, does not come easily, but it is the first step to learning from your mistakes."
"You are a team," she told them. "Survival and victory depend on your ability to work together, to subordinate your individual desires to the needs of the group."
Tarot raised her hand. "Yes?" Emma asked.
"I'm worried about the girl with the sword. She's not normal, even for a mutant. Who or what is she?"
Emma nodded in agreement. "That is something I aim to find out."
After their capture, the New Mutants were brought to a holding room where they finally found Kitty Pryde, the person they had attempted to rescue. At first, they were unsure that Kitty was real, given how Emma had fooled them with a hologram earlier. Once they had determined that she was as solid as any of them, their attention turned to their surroundings.
Amara was very impressed. "If this is the White Queen's idea of a prison cell, I'd love to see what she calls a palace."
Each of them had a decently sized bed with nice mattresses, comfy pillows, and blankets. The beds were spaced more than four feet apart from each other, giving them all plenty of personal space. There were even wooden cabinets with lamps on top of them at the side of each bed.
Kitty was far less impressed. Alone of the teens, she was wearing the Hellion's uniform, while the rest still had their blue and yellow uniforms. She lay on her bed her chin resting on the back of her hands. "For all the gilt, a cage is still a cage, Amara."
"Are ye all right, Roberto?" Rahne asked. The Brazilian boy was leaning against one of the bed posts, clutching a spot in the middle of his back.
"I don't know," Roberto said. "During our fight, Roulette made me do something to my back. I thought it'd get better after a few hours, but it hurts worse than ever now."
Sam stood in front of the door to their cell, rubbing his chin in thought. "The door doesn't look like anything special. 'Berto or me could probably break it down no problem."
"Do you think I'd still be here if I could phase through the walls?" Kitty asked. "They're pumping some sort of anaesthetic gas into the room that stops our brains from activating our powers."
"Maybe they could pump in more of that gas," Roberto suggested. "My back would thank them."
Kitty ignored him. "Even if we got out of this room, that would just be the start of our problems. The White Queen is a telepath on Professor X's level, and she already proved on me that the psychic defenses he taught us are no match for her. She'd know all our plans the moment we thought of them. She could be reading our minds right now and we wouldn't even know it."
"AHHRRR!" Roberto screamed as he attempted to stand up straight. "Someone, help me! The slightest move is agony?"
Kitty got up and walked over to him. "Then stop moving, dummy. You're not giving your body a chance to heal. Lie on your stomach. Stevie taught me some massage techniques. Maybe they can help."
Roberto followed her instructions without question, so desperate was he for relief.
"Do you think there's any chance the White Queen will let us go?" Amara asked as Kitty began to work on Roberto's back.
"There's a better chance Abraham Lincoln will walk through the door with an AK-47 under his hat," Kitty answered. "She's been trying to brainwash me ever since I arrived at this godforsaken academy with Doug Ramsey. I'm afraid you're all in for the same treatment. She's going to do her best to persuade and force us all to change sides."
Rahne leaned on Sam for comfort. "But why? What're we to her tha' she'd do such a horrible thing?"
"She sees mutants like us as commodities of great value, like gold or silver … or slaves."
"Whatever possessed you to attack the Hellfire Club?" Kitty asked. "Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the thought. But these are some of the X-Men's deadliest enemies."
"We'd have left it to the X-Men," Sam explained, "if they were around. We're starting to think they may have been abducted by aliens."
Kitty groaned. "Not again."
"Don't despair," Roberto said. He was feeling much better after his massage. "Dani and Illyana managed to escape. We're not beaten yet."
A familiar voice rang out, not from any speaker, but in their minds. "How desperately you cling to the most frail of reeds, Roberto," said the White Queen. "If your compatriots are foolish enough to return, it will be to share your fate."
An image of Emma Frost appeared in the middle of the room between them. Rather than a hologram like before, this was a projection made directly into their minds, a casual display of her power. The teens all reflexively took a step back, as this image of the White Queen was far larger than the real thing and towered over even Sam.
"In the meantime, why don't the rest of us get to know each other a little better? Katherine and I have already made a wonderful start."
"Witch!" Kitty spat. "My mind's still my own!"
Emma's image smiled as it began to fade away. "If you say so, Kitten."
Roberto sat up and turned to Kitty. "By the way, did you know? Did the X-Men? That Illyana was a witch?"
Kitty looked like Roberto had punched her at full strength. She instantly regretted her choice of words against Emma.
"We didn't," she admitted. "But I can't say I'm surprised either."
Three creatures skulked through a dark cave. The smallest and fastest was a blue lizard-like creature the size of a Komodo Dragon. Unlike the largest species of lizard on Earth, this creature had gecko-like feet that allowed it to cling to any surface despite its size, and its head was adorned with bat-like ears and a bird-like beak for a mouth. The middle-sized creature stood on two legs. Its green frame was hunched over from the weight of the enormous horns sticking out of the side of its head, and its mouth was perpetually open, revealing a set of teeth far too large for its mouth that jutted out from its lower jaw. The largest of the creatures was a mass of orange muscle and fur with a lion's mane around its demonic face.
The largest creature was the leader of this merry band of monsters, and this was his cave. The sheer size of him had been enough to scare off intruders for as long as any demon could remember.
The blue creature was startled when a burst of hot steam erupted from many of the holes in the ground of the cave and scurried up the cave wall. The larger creatures laughed at their smaller friend's reaction and continued towards the mouth of the cave. They could smell something none of them were familiar with, human flesh and blood, and the strange scent whetted their appetites so that they were already drooling.
Lying at the entrance to the cave were two teenage girls in blue uniforms. To the demons' eyes, they appeared to be dead. But they did not smell dead. Only one was bleeding, and that blood had a fresh scent.
The two smaller demons stood back and let the largest demon cautiously approach their uninvited guests. His attention was focused on the blonde girl, sensing something about her that made his fur stand on end. He did not notice the other girl's arm begin to move, reaching for a nearby stick he had dropped at the cave entrance the last time he went out into the wild to hunt.
"GET AWAY FROM US!" Dani screamed as she swung the stick into the demon's face. Her weapon shattered, but this monster was not as invulnerable as the last one she fought, ad yelped in pain from the unexpected impact.
"Uch," Dani said in disgust as she looked up and beheld the trio of demons. The two smaller demons were rearing to attack. Dani used her power, and an image of what they feared most appeared before them.
Dani gasped at the sight of S'ym, the demon who had easily picked the New Mutants apart at the mansion only days earlier. The three demons fled in terror, unwilling to face a demon who would kill them all in seconds.
As soon as the demons were out of sight, Dani dissolved her spectre. Her sigh of relief turned into a jump of fright when the voice of the demon whose image had just disappeared rang out through the cave entrance.
"G'Day, sweetheart." Dani slowly turned her head. Sure enough, standing behind her, was S'ym, not an illusion, but the real thing.
"Is this a visit, or d'you plan on staying?"
Like everything else the Hellfire Club built aboveground, Sebastian Shaw's office in Boston was a throwback to colonial times, with furniture and relics from the 1700s hundreds everywhere. Shaw himself usually dressed like he was about to meet George Washington.
Emma Frost, by contrast, dressed like she was a 21st Century aristocrat and not a 17th Century one, at least when she wasn't dressed for battle or for one of the Hellfire Club's many parties. The least spectacular of her white business suits put Shaw's entire wardrobe to shame, and he had long come to terms with the fact that he would never be able to compete with her in matters of style.
"Xavier taught his students well," Emma said. She stood with her back to Shaw, staring out of his office window. "It's not just Katherine. They all have learned rudimentary psychic defenses. Fully turning them without breaking them will take time."
"But it can be done?" Shaw inquired.
"Yes. We simply need to decide if we want to continue to focus on turning Katherine first or begin with the one with the most malleable mind."
"There's still been no sign of the X-Men, Shaw said. "But we cannot assume that situation will last indefinitely. But that's not what's troubling you, is it?"
"It is not," Emma admitted. "It is the escape of Danielle Moonstar and Illyana Rasputin that concerns me."
"They've done a remarkably good job of hiding," Shaw observed.
"I've learned from the minds of the New Mutants that the Rasputin girl is a sorceress in addition to being a mutant."
Shaw raised an eyebrow. "Magic wands and spells?"
"Something like that. None of them know precisely what she can do, which means we have no way of knowing what exactly we're facing with her ourselves."
"And you think this makes her a significant threat?"
"Her mind is completely closed. I cannot read a single thought or plant images in her head. The only thing I can do is attack, and even that is limited. I hit her with enough force to destroy the strongest of minds ten times over, and she was still standing."
"So telepathically brainwashing her is out of the question."
"Completely impossible. I can likely defeat her if I psychically attack before she can use her magic, but it will take all of my power and concentration and leave me vulnerable to attack myself."
Shaw put his hands together. "So it sounds like we need our own sorcerer, or at least a magical expert who would know how to deal with her."
When Illyana opened her eyes, she immediately wanted to close them again.
"I'd hoped … never to see this place again," she said weakly.
"Illyana, you're awake!"
Illyana struggled to sit up. She was lying in a fancy bed that made king-sized look small. Rather than a cave, they were in a large room of gray and dark purple stone, with lit torches adorning the walls to provide light. Dani was at the side of the bed, whole S'ym crouched at its foot.
"I'm even alive," Illyana said.
"S'ym brought to this palace and had his … servants … take care of us," Dani explained. "I don't understand. I thought he was your enemy?"
"Things, and loyalties, have changes. Isn't that right, S'ym?"
"You're the boss, cutie," the demon said, far too happily for Dani's liking.
"I was scared you'd never wake up and I'd be trapped here forever," Dani said.
"What's wrong with that?" S'ym asked. "S'ym would see to it you'd be kept amused."
Illyana glared at S'ym. "Vanish, beast. You've overstayed your welcome."
S'ym had just enough time to yell "Hey!" before a stepping disk whisked him away.
"Where are we?" Dani asked. "This is the place we went to for a moment when you teleported Stevie's car into the mansion, isn't it?"
"Limbo," Illyana said gravely. "My own personal hell."
She examined her face and chest where she had been injured. "You wanted to know why I didn't want to use my teleportation power. This is it. I don't teleport directly from place to place like Nightcrawler. Every time I use my stepping disks, I have to go through Limbo first."
Illyana finished examining her injuries and told Dani to "step away from the bed."
She closed her eyes and sat in the same style as when she had sent her astral form to Massachusetts. She began to float a foot off the bed as a circle of silver fire formed all around her, a pentagram of the same silver flames forming within the circle.
Dani reflexively raised her hands to cover her face, but there was no heat from the silver flames. She slowly lowered her hands to gape at Illyana, who sat in midair, facing the base of the pentagram.
The flames enveloped Illyana, coalescing in the areas where she had been hurt. Dani was amazed to see the injuries to her face be consumed by the fire, melting away until her skin was as pristine as a cloudless sky.
The flames disappeared, and Illyana floated back down to the bed. Dani was speechless as the sorceress moved to the edge of the bed and put her feet on the ground.
Illyana gasped as she unexpectedly leaned to her left side. Her knees wobbled for half a second before she tumbled to her left, bracing her fall with her hand.
Dani was quickly at her side. "What happened? What's wrong?"
"I ... don't know," Illyana said. She let Dani pull her to her feet, but had to continue leaning on the other girl so as not to fall over again. "I … guess I only know how to heal physical damage, not psychic damage."
"You can't fight the White Queen in this condition," Dani said.
"What choice do we have?"
Dani and Illyana appeared out of a stepping disk in an ordinary school hallway. "This isn't the Hellfire facility we were in before," Dani observed.
"We're in the school above," Illyana explained. "It's not just my balance that's off."
Dani looked down the hall. "I hear voices – oh no!"
She pushed Illyana into the closest room and covered her mouth. "Shh! Look!"
The Hellions passed them in the hall, all eleven of them. They were so engrossed in conversation that they had not noticed the two girls in blue Hellfire Club uniforms duck into an office.
"Kitty and the others," Illyana said when Dani let go of her. "They're wearing the same uniforms as Frost's students, acting like the best of friends."
Dani turned to the window. "That's not all. It was winter when you teleported us to that Limbo place."
Illyana looked out the window as well. It was a nice, sunny day, and all of the trees were covered in lush green leaves. "Summer? But that's impossible!"
Dani turned her attention to the computer on the office desk. "Look at the date. It's a year and a half since the night we came to rescue Kitty."
Illyana collapsed into the office chair. "No … no …"
"There's no denying it. Your 'stepping disks' move through time as well as space. We're in the future!"
"But, the Professor wouldn't leave Kitty and the others for over a year!" Illyana insisted. "He and the X-Men would've done something!"
"Maybe he did and failed. Or maybe he and the X-Men never returned. They were already missing when we came to rescue Kitty. They could be dead."
Illyana put her hands together in thought. After half a minute, she said, "If we go back, none of this will have happened yet. We might be able to stop it."
"Is that even possible?" Dani asked.
"Again, we don't have any other choice."
The office door swung open, revealing Emma Frost in her full White Queen costume, her cape billowing impressively around her. "Fortunately for you, girls, that decision has just been taken out of your hands."
Emma grinned maliciously when she was that both Dani and Illyana were frozen at the sight of her. "I thought I sensed a familiar mind. Your former teammates will be so relieved to see you. They've missed you terribly – as have I. Be sensible, children, resistance is usele-GOOD LORD!"
"That's cutting it way too close, Illyana," Dani said as they reappeared from a stepping disk in the same room. "I thought she had us for sure."
"I didn't want to teleport blind and end up in the wrong time again. I needed more time to concentrate."
"Fine, but next time, do that in Limbo, not when we're caught in the lion's den." Dani took a look around the room. It was the same one they had just been in, but now had two office chairs, since Illyana was still seated in the chair from the future. "The trees outside don't have any leaves. That's a good sign. It's winter again. Maybe it's even the same night."
Illyana looked at the computer. "Spit and Hades! It's almost a week after the fight!" She buried her face in her pawm.
"Then we might be too late," Dani said. "The damage may already be done. Do you want to try again?"
Illyana shook her head. "This is as close as I can safely get us."
Dani eyed a landline phone next to the computer and picked it up.
"What are you doing?" Illyana asked.
"Phoning home," Dani said. "Damn. I was really hoping the professor'd be back by now. I never thought I'd miss him so much."
"I know. My brother's missing too. But we can't do anything for them right now. We have to focus on helping Kitty and the others."
Dani nodded, and Illyana stood up. Her knees continued to wobble, but she did not collapse this time.
"We've still got those Hellfire uniforms. Do you think you can cast a spell that recreates their masks?"
"Maybe. If the White Queen is still around, it won't do any good."
Kitty and the New Mutants were fast asleep when Dani entered their cell. She quickly identified the bed with the smallest person and walked over to it.
"Rahne," she whispered into her friend's ear. "Psst. Hey Rahne, wake up!"
"Wha?" Rahne asked groggily. Her eyes lit up as she saw who was standing over her. "DAN!?"
"Not so loud, carrot-top."
"You're alive! I was afraid I'd never see you again!"
"Me too. Now hurry and help me wake everyone else up. We're getting out of here!"
Sam stirred, awoken by the sound of their voices. "Are you alone?" Rahne asked.
"Illyana's standing watch outside. Come on. Who knows how much time we-What the!?"
All of the sleeping teens were awoken by the scream Dani let out as the lights turned on. They looked to the doorway, where all of the Hellions had gathered. Three of the members of the other team were wearing their pajamas, while the rest were already in their pink uniforms. Thunderbird and Catseye held Illyana, whose mask had been removed. Thunderbird covered her mouth and nose with a cloth.
Sam, who had woken up before all of the others besides for Rahne, recovered his wits first. "You're taking a big risk coming in here. The gas they pump in will take away your powers just like ours."
Dani, who had been attempting to summon her phantoms, lowered her hand from the side of her head at this revelation. She scowled as Illyana's form went completely limp, removing the only powers that could potentially be used in that room and their only hope for a quick teleportation out of there from the equation.
"You put chloroform on that rag, didn't you?"
"We were instructed to take no chances with this one," Thunderbird explained. He sounded apologetic.
"How'd you know we were here?" Dani demanded.
Jetstream stepped forward. "Your use of the phone outside normal hours triggered an alarm, We answered it."
His expression softened. "Look, we all joined the Hellions by choice. Most of us don't like the idea of you being forced. Also, our first meeting ended inconclusively because of the White Queen's interference. We want to see how good you truly are, and how well we stack up against you."
"We propose a duel," Jetstream stated. "One of us versus one of you, in our combat room. If you win, you all go free. If we win, you stay willingly."
Roberto scoffed. "Your precious queen sanctions this duel?"
"She is in Boston and knows nothing about it. We won't repeat this offer. So decide now."
Dani stepped forward. She felt all eyes on her as she answered. "We accept."
The Hellions' combat room was modelled after an older version of the X-Men's Danger Room before the Danger Room had been outfitted with realistic hologram projectors. The Hellions stood on one side of the room, the New Mutants on the other. All members of both teams had changed into their respective uniforms, except for Dani and Illyana, who remained in their stolen blue uniforms.
Dani and Kitty sat on the side of everyone else, holding up Illyana, who was still out like a light.
"Pull yourself together, please," Dani begged. "We may really need you soon."
Jetstream and Sam, each side's chosen champion, faced off in the center of the room.
"The rules are simple," Jetstream said. "We continue until one of us yields. We do not try to maim or deliberately kill the other. Beyond that, anything goes. Do you agree?"
Sam put on his toughest voice. 'Ah'm ready whenever you are, mister."
Thunderbird pressed a control panel on the wall. "On your marks, now!"
Sam and Jetstream blasted into the air at the same time as hidden compartments opened all over the metal walls and ceiling, revealing dozens of weapons and other high-tech contraptions.
"Yow!" Sam yelled as several dozen foot-long metal rods were fired at him. Most of the projectiles struck. They did not cause Sam any physical harm as he was invulnerable while blasting, but they caused him to lose focus and he began to fall.
Sam grabbed onto one of the contraptions sticking out of the walls and pulled itself on top of it. Jetstream had stopped upon seeing Sam's predicament to taunt him.
"Quitting already? I was hoping for more of a challenge. Maybe you should get one of the girls to take you're-HEY!"
Sam gaped in surprise as metal arms from two different walls grabbed Jetstream in midair, punishing him for hovering in one place for so long. Sam had not expected the room to work against both combatants equally. Instead of repeating Jetstream's mistake, Sam said nothing and blasted straight at his opponent. Jetstream activated his Jetpack just in time, creating enough thrust to free him from the arms' grasp a split second before Sam would have slammed into him. The New Mutant crashed straight into the wall behind him instead.
"Clumsy oaf!" Jetstream yelled. "You may be more powerful, America, but at least I can maneuver!"
Below, the Hellions were enjoying the show, while the New Mutants were growing more frustrated.
"Bravo, Hamahl!" Tarot exclaimed.
"Sam! You can do better than that!" Roberto yelled.
"Be careful Sam," Rahne said. "I dinna want t' see you hurt!"
Sam was as angry with himself as he had ever been when he emerged from the hole he had blown in the wall. Unfortunately, Jetstream was waiting for him and grabbed him from the side and full speed before he had a chance to activate his power. The Hellion threw Sam across the room, where he was crushed between two square metal arms that came together like a trash compactor.
The metal arms exploded as Sam blasted through them, raining metal debris down on both teams and forcing them to back away.
Roberto had had enough. "Stop letting Jetstream control the fight! Use your head for once! Try maneuver seven!"
"Be quiet, dwarf," Jetstream yelled back at Roberto. "This is between me and him alone!"
"You're the one who said anything you didn't say was prohibited goes," Roberto said. "And watch your mouth if you don't want me to shut it for you!"
Sam nodded at Roberto and blasted past Jetstream, who followed behind him.
"Is this your stratagem? Running away?"
Sam was concentrating too hard to respond. He flew towards a series of rings and deactivated his power in midair as he grabbed one of the rings, using his momentum to spin himself around and land a kick straight to Jetstream's face.
The blow stunned Jetstream, who had no time to recover before Sam was literally on top of him as they both fell to the ground. His jetpack broke from the impact.
"HAMAHL!" Thunderbird yelled.
"Don't worry," Sam said. He continued to sit on Jetstream's torso. "He's not hurt that bad. The fall didn't even do more than take the wind out of him."
"Give up," Sam told Jetstream. "You've already lost. Don't make me hurt you any more than Ah already have."
"Never!" his opponent yelled.
"You already proved your skills and guts," Sam insisted. "You've got nothing to be ashamed of. But the better man won
"Then … you … surrender …" Jetstream spat through labored breaths. A large bruise was beginning to form beneath his left eye. "I … will die … before I yield."
"Would you talk some sense into this guy, Thunderbird?" Sam asked in exasperation. "We won fair and square, even if he won't admit it. That means we can go home!"
"Does it, now?"
Sam turned to look behind him. "Oh, crap."
Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw had arrived in their immaculate business attire. "It appears, my dear Emma, that we've arrived at a most awkward moment. I am Sebastian Shaw, master of the Hellfire Club Inner Circle. Young man, would you care to explain what you are doing on top of one of our students?"
"We made a deal," Sam said. "A one on one duel for our freedom. I didn't think they'd hold up their end of the bargain if we won, but it was worth the try."
"Fascinating," Shaw said, not betraying any anger in his voice or expression. "And whose idea was this?"
Thunderbird stepped forward. "We all agreed to it, sir. We share the responsibility."
"How noble, James," Emma said. Unlike Shaw, she was clearly angered. "Tell me, though, by what stretch of the imagination, by what right, do you dare usurp my authority?"
"You may promise what you like," she continued, "but in my school, my word is law. I do not recognize your agreement. All of you, return to your rooms. You will learn of what discipline we have decided on in the morning."
"Fat chance!" Sam yelled, blasting right at them. Shaw stepped in front of Emma and took the full impact.
"Most impressive, lad," Shaw said. "Such a blow would have stunned any normal man. He swung his first and sent Sam flying across the room into Roberto's arms. "Unfortunately for you, my mutant power is to absorb the energy of anything that strikes me and convert it into strength."
Dani put her hand to her temple and attempted to summon a phantom of the greatest fears of Emma and Shaw. Emma turned her attention to Dani, sensing her intention, and used her telepathy to turn Dani's power on itself.
A column of smoke appeared behind Dani, who screamed in absolute terror as the head of an enormous bear appeared out of the smoke. The creature's head was so large that its full body would have been several times larger than S'ym if they could have seen it.
Emma raised her hands to her own temples just as Dani had, but before she could use her telepathy to end this escape attempt, she and Shaw found themselves suddenly floating two feet off the ground.
They turned their heads to see that Illyana, still sitting on the ground next to Kitty, had regained consciousness and was holding her right hand towards them. The two adults flew back into the wall, where Illyana's spell kept them pinned.
The bear disappeared from behind Dani, who took a few seconds to recover from the shock. "Everyone, get over here! Now!" she yelled, knowing that if Emma attacked Illyana again, it would be all over for all of them.
Emma was indeed attempting to launch a devastating psychic attack on the sorceress, but she and Shaw were now being spun upside-down, making it difficult for her to concentrate.
The spinning stopped just as all of the New Mutants were gathered closely around Dani, Kitty, and Illyana, and Emma and Shaw dropped to the floor. By then it was too late, and before Emma had a chance to yell "No," Xavier's students were gone in a disk of light.
They appeared in the yard in front of the mansion.
"That Limbo place is freaky," Sam said. "You really have to go through there every time you teleport?"
"Fraid so," Illyana answered, breathing a sigh of relief at the cold night air, which showed that it was still winter and possibly the same night. She struggled to stand up, only doing so with Kitty's help.
"I'll phase inside and open the door," Kitty said, going on ahead of the rest of them.
Sam turned to Dani. "Ah just had a terrible thought. If the prof never comes back, we won't have anyone to teach us 'cept the White Queen. We may have no choice but to go back, like it or not. At least we held our own."
"We got lucky," Dani said. "We were great in our league, but we were high school varsity taking on the pros. If we'd stayed to fight under those circumstances, the adults, all two of them, would've slaughtered us."
The front door opened, revealing Kitty, and the New Mutants gratefully made their way back into their home. Dani stopped halfway, feeling a hot breath on her neck.
"Moonstar…" a growly voice whispered. "Make thy peace with thy friends, for I will soon come for thee…"
A large lump formed in Dani's throat, and beads of sweat poured down her face despite the coldness of the winter night.
The mutants were mostly too tired to even use the stairs after their ordeal and laid down on the couches, chair, and floor of the main living room. Only Kitty, Dani, and Illyana went farther into the mansion than the living room. Kitty went to the sublevels to attempt to contact or locate the X-Men. No one knew where Dani went.
Illyana had gone off to find a corner to meditate. When the first rays on sunlight began to shine through the windows, she stood up. Carefully she took one step, then another. There were no problems with her knees or her balance.
She returned to the living room, where most of the New Mutants were beginning to stir from their relatively brief slumber. As quickly as the sun had risen, it was already starting to become covered by clouds.
"Um…" Illyana said awkwardly. They all jumped at the sound of her voice. Whatever question she had been about to ask died in her throat at the sight of the terror they all displayed at her presense.
Rahne glared at the sorceress with a hatred she had never shown towards the White Queen during the week she spent as Emma Frost's prisoner.
"Just go away, witch. We don't want you here."
Illyana took a step back. Her eyes shot open and her lips quivered. In desperation, she looked around at the others. Amara did not seem to notice what Rahne had said and was in the process of falling back asleep. Sam and Roberto were struggling to decide if they agreed with Rahne or not. Kitty and Dani were nowhere to be seen as Illyana ran out of the mansion.
Illyana returned to the same spot on the cliffside where she had stood on her birthday before S'ym attacked. The early morning sky was not completely covered by clouds, and it was starting to drizzle. It was cold out, but not cold enough for snow.
She took out and opened her locket and stared at it. This time her brow was not furrowed in anger as she looked at the three glowing gems within. She trembled and shook, on the verge of tears.
The rain picked up, steadily growing from a drizzle to a downpour. Illyana closed her eyes and the locket, letting her hands fall to her side as she turned her head straight up, letting the raindrops crash down on her face.
Illyana had no idea how long she stood there in the rain, lost. She only opened her eyes when the rain seemed to stop, and then only because she could still hear the rain all around her despite no longer feeling it strike her face.
An umbrella was being held over Illyana, who turned her head slightly to see it was Kitty holding it.
The Russian girl was soaked to the bone, but the water streaming down her cheeks was not all rainwater. Illyana's eyes were puffy and bloodshot from the tears that had fallen nonstop and mixed with the rain. Her mouth was open in a pleading expression, but she could not speak.
Kitty was quickly becoming drenched herself. She held out her free hand, and Illyana just stared at it, standing there like an unmoving statue. It was becoming easier to distinguish the tears from the rainwater on her cheeks the longer she stood under Kitty's umbrella.
Finally, Illyana's free arm, the one in which she did not hold her locket, began to move. Slowly, with trembling fingers, she reached out towards Kitty's outstretched hand. She stopped when the tips of her fingers reached the inside of Kitty's fingers.
Kitty grabbed Illyana's hand and pulled the other girl close, holding her in a one-handed hug. They were now both fully covered under the umbrella, for all the good it did them with how soaked they were already.
Illyana buried her face in Kitty's shoulder and screamed, and screamed. The rain on Kitty's face began to mix with tears as well as she looked up at the umbrella above them.
And Illyana continued to scream into her shoulder.
The words I hear all alone
'Will you be fine all on your own?'
You told me as you walked away again
No comfort in your voice, I didn't have a choice
But I'm glad that you still say it each time
Echoing in my mind, all the memories, how they torture me
I plead, though it seems they won't forgive me
But when I close my eyes, I feel them growing as they're surrounding me
And far away, I hear you laugh at me
Where's the eye of this storm, when will all the rain stop
I've been cold, lost in all the dark darkness for so long
Tell me why did it choose me and now there's nowhere to run
I'll let it take me, and lose myself
I don't know where this ends, when will all the rain stop
Every day, right above me, it keeps pouring
Stay right here, if we brave together all huddled up
With this umbrella, I'll hold you close to me for warmth
Rain -SID Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Opening 5. English lyrics by Studio Yukari
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