And with that realization, Betsy also knew, though she wished it weren’t so, that nothing would ever be truly right from this day forward . ..
“I’m fine,” she lied.
Warren stared into her eyes for a few moments, as though searching for some kind of evidence to refute her claim; he found nothing. Slowly, he smiled.
“Okay,” he said, and brushed away a few loose strands of lavender hair from her eyes. “You hungry?”
Betsy’s stomach gurgled in response, and she giggled as she placed a hand over her mouth. “I’m absolutely famished.” She rolled off the bed and onto her feet. “What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know,” Warren replied. “What do you feel like?”
Betsy rolled her eyes. This was the same conversation they always had whenever they decided to stay home for an evening, and she knew how it would end: with her foraging through the kitchen for whatever food could be turned into a quick and easy meal. One of these days, Warren was going to have to learn how to cook...
“You know,” Betsy said, wrapping an arm around his waist to lead him from the bedroom, “dining would be much simpler for us both if you’d kept the servants around.”
“Oh, so now you think I should’ve kept the staff here,” Warren shot back, slipping an arm around her in kind. “What happened to all that talk about wanting to avoid living the oh-so-cliched pampered existence of the rich and famous?”
Betsy sighed. “Well, that was before I realized you were forcing me to live a life that revolved around an almost steady diet of Ramen noodles and grilled cheese sandwiches.”
Warren’s face slackened, and his eyes glazed over as he stared into the distance. “Mmmm ... grilled cheese sandwiches,” he moaned, in a fair approximation of Homer Simpson.
Betsy laughed, and they exited the bedroom, bound for the kitchen. As they passed through the living room, she spotted the message light blinking on their answering machine.
“That your call from before?” she asked.
“One of them is,” Warren replied. He changed the course of their direction to bring them over to the machine, then pushed the replay button.
“You have ... TWO ... messages,” the answering machine stated in its flat, mechanical voice. “Message One: ‘Hey, Betts, it’s Warren. I’m running a little—’ ” Warren pressed the erase key.
“Message Two,” continued the machine. “Betsy, sweets, it’s your old pal, Arcade. You there? Pick up, please.” Pause. “Betsy? Hello?
Pick up pick up pick up!” Pause. “Okay, so you’re not there. I won’t hold that against you. Probably whooping it up with Studley over there, right? Anyway, here’s the reason I’m calling, and you ain’t gonna believe it: Purely by the greatest coincidence, it turns out ol’ Vic von D wasn’t exactly thrilled by the thought of the Wayouts trashing the stage at the Arts Center during their act—at least, that’s what his Press Secretary was telling me. So, here I am, stuck with a gap in my events schedule and nobody to fill it.” Pause. “Or am I wrong .. . ? Gimme a call, babe, and let’s make some magic! Later!”
For some odd reason, Betsy found it incredibly difficult to catch her breath. The reason for her condition, though, became readily apparent— she’d been holding it throughout the playback of Arcade’s message.
Smiling, Warren leaned close to her ear. “Betts,” he whispered, “it’s okay to exhale.”
The air came flowing out of her in a rush, and her knees quivered. She latched onto Warren before she wound up doing a header into the carpet.
“Did . . . did he . . .” she said breathlessly. “Did he just. . . just say . . .”
“Say what?” Warren asked. From his expression, it was clear he was taking some sort of sadistic pleasure in watching her reaction.
Betsy inhaled deeply, summoning all her strength. “Did he just say I’m in the show?” she blurted out.
“Sounded something like that,” Warren replied with a shrug. He reached for the replay button. “Want to hear it again?”
“No!” Betsy cried, slapping his hand away. “Not just yet.” She placed a hand over her heart; it was galloping like a racehorse. “I don’t think I could take the strain.” She stepped away from Warren as a warm feeling—a sense of tranquillity—slowly spread through her body. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she placed a tremulous hand over equally trembling lips to try and calm herself before she collapsed in a nervous heap.
It had finally happened.
After all the years of struggling with her career and trying to make a name for herself and swallowing insults about her relationship with Warren, she had finally gotten a chance to prove her worth—to make her mark on history. And she had gotten that chance by using her strengths, her determination, and her talents.
Her talents.
Betsy began to grin, and the smile was so wide, so full of joy, she was almost afraid it would cause her face to split.
And then, with a scream of sheer delight, she ran through the apartment, turning cartwheels and bouncing off the furniture like a giddy child on the first day of summer vacation.
“I think,” Warren commented, “this calls for more than a grilled cheese sandwich . ..”
The Emperor was not in the mood for dining.
Slouched in a high-backed leather seat behind his desk in the Oval Office of the White House, Victor von Doom sat alone in the dark, brooding.
Spread across the executive desk were over two dozen color photographs, and a set of reports compiled by S.H.I.E.L.D., the Psionics Division, and the Imperial Agency for Superhuman Activities—all of them documenting the attack on the Salem Center prisoner center from the night before, and the battle that had erupted in midtown Manhattan that very afternoon between Imperial Hunters and a group of unregistered, superpowered men and women. It had been during a cursory examination of the pictures—when, to his great surprise, he had recognized the faces of the I.A.S.A. prisoners—that the Emperor had lost his appetite.
“The X-Men..von Doom muttered to the darkness. “To think that—for all the preparations made, all the minor details attended to, all the potential... problems that were eliminated at the very start—a group of self-righteous cockroaches like Ororo’s former teammates could have escaped my notice is unconscionable, for Doom is not a man given to mistakes.” He frowned, staring off into space. “How, then, could they have avoided being affected by the improvements that I have brought to the world?” He mulled this question over for a while, chin resting in the crook of one hand between thumb and forefinger. Then his eyebrows began to rise as a theory slowly took shape in his mind. “Unless they were not on this world when the transformation occurred . .
A soft knock on the door roused him from his reverie. He turned toward the portal, teeth bared in anger.
“Who dares disturb the thoughts of Doom?” he barked loudly.
“His loving wife,” came the reply from the other side of the door.
“Ah.” Slowly, von Doom relaxed, and a pleasant smile came to his face. He rose to his feet, adjusting his red silk tie and smoothing out a wrinkle in his dress shirt as he did so, and pressed a button on the desk that activated the room’s lights. The Oval Office was bathed in a soft, white glow.
“Enter,” he said, with a gentleness that would have shocked even those who knew—and feared—him well.
The door opened, and Lancer stepped aside to allow Ororo entry to the room. The Empress looked resplendent in a black gown that complemented her figure as well as her snow-white hair. A tiny smile bowed her lips as she met the imperious gaze of her husband.
“My liege,” Ororo said, with a slight bow of her head.
Looking past his wife, von Doom nodded to Lancer, who quietly shut the door. Now alone with Ororo, the Emperor smiled broadly and stepped around the desk to properly greet her, embracing her and pulling her into a deep, loving kiss.
When they at last parted, Ororo paused a moment to regain her composure.
“I was not away from
you all that long, Victor,” she said breathlessly. “A mere two days while I visited the children at their school in Switzerland.”
Taking her hands in his, von Doom lightly kissed her fingertips. “Each moment without your shining presence, my beloved, is an eternity spent in Hades.”
Ororo placed a hand to her cheek as the blush of embarrassment colored her face, then smiled broadly. “If that is true,” she replied, “then I shall have to see how receptive the great Victor von Doom is to his Empress if he is left to his own devices for an entire week. ”
The Emperor laughed heartily. “The Earth itself would tremble from the strength of my longing.” Tilting his head downward, he kissed her on the top of her head.
“Then, if only for the sake of the world,” Ororo said solemnly, “I shall do everything in my power to never leave your side for any lengthy period of time.”
“A wise choice,” the Emperor replied. He smiled. “But enough about the safety of the world—surely it can run properly without the need of Doom’s guiding hand for one evening. Would you care for a drink? I have recently received an excellent Latverian Merlot from my mother; we can speak of the children as we share a glass.”
“All right,” Ororo replied.
With a slight bow, von Doom strode across the Oval Office to a small cabinet set into an oak-paneled wall. Opening its door, he reaiched in to extract the crimson-hued libation and two crystal goblets.
“What are these, Victor?”
Von Doom froze at the sound of papers being shuffled, his hand still resting on the bottle of wine. Slowly, he turned to find Ororo standing at his desk, a look of mild interest on her comely features as she inspected the photographs.
“Simple affairs of state, my dear,” he replied quickly, walking back to join her. “A band of misguided souls who had foolishly allowed themselves to be swayed by the inflammatory propaganda of that murderous scum, Magneto. My agents have already taken them into custody.”
“Then, they are mutants?” Ororo asked. “Like myself?”
Von Doom waved a dismissive hand. “They are nothing like you, My Lady. Mutants they may be, but Magneto’s rebellious curs are no more your equal than a lump of coal is to a diamond. Mark my words, though: One day soon, they—and their cretinous master—shall learn the price for opposing the rule of Doom.”
“Still,” Ororo said slowly, gazing down at the pictures, “there is something about these people that I find .. . hauntingly familiar.” She picked up a close-up photograph of Phoenix—her head bandaged, her normally pale skin looking deathly-white from the loss of blood caused by her head injury—as she was being loaded into an ambulance. “This woman in particular—I know her from somewhere . . .”
As he watched his wife struggle with a memory she could not quite bring to the surface of her mind, von Doom’s lips curled back in a fearsome snarl. This sort of behavior on her part would not do at all. . . “Ororo,” he said firmly, “look at me. ”
The Empress glanced up from the pictures to discover, much to her surprise, that her husband’s eyes were glowing. “Victor, what is—” she began.
“Silence,” von Doom commanded. Immediately, Ororo became quiet, standing stock-still as though rooted to the spot. A glaze settled over her eyes as she found herself unable to look away from those troubling orbs that blazed hotly from beneath knitted brows.
“I know what is happening to you, my queen,” he growled. “Now that you have been confronted by reminders of the rabble which whom you once associated, your mind is struggling against my control, attempting to make you aware that, in days past, we were not the closest of lovers, but the bitterest of enemies. Warning you that all you have experienced of late, all that you have come to know as fact in this world of my making, is but a sham. ”
Von Doom frowned. “You are a strong-willed woman, Ororo; in time, you would be able to free yourself from my influence. But, having at last made his dream a reality, Doom will not allow anyone—not even his lovely bride—to awaken.” His dark eyes flared even brighter. “You will forget having seen these photographs, forget we have discussed anything but the welfare of Kristoff and Qadira.” He pointed a commanding finger at her. “But always remember this: Your will belongs to Doom. Your mind, body, soul—all these belong to Doom.” He gestured toward the bay windows of the office, balling his hands into fists. “This entire world is Doom’s, to do with as he sees fit. And there is nothing you—or any of your former meddlesome associates—can ever do to change that.” He leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Ororo replied softly, eyes wide but unseeing. A slight tremble ran through her body.
The Emperor smiled malevolently. “Excellent, my love . .
By the time Ororo’s mind cleared, the photographs and reports had been locked inside a bottom drawer of the executive desk; the Emperor possessed the only key.
“And Qadira?” von Doom asked pleasantly. “She is doing well, also?”
Ororo opened her mouth to answer, then stopped. She looked around, to find herself seated on an leather couch, Victor sitting beside her. Two glasses of wine stood on the table before them.
“Is there something wrong?” the Emperor asked.
“I-I am not certain,” Ororo said hesitantly. She was obviously confused; it was also obvious that she couldn’t quite figure out just what exactly was troubling her. “What were we talking about ...•?”
“You were telling me of our children’s exploits in school,” von Doom prompted. “I was pleased to hear of Kristoff’s excellent grades and high intelligence quota—the future of the Empire rests squarely on the boy’s shoulders. You were about to tell me of our daughter.”
Ororo nodded slowly. “Oh . . . yes.” Her knitted brow relaxed as she turned to focus on their conversation. “Qadira is quite well, though she seems to have something of a rebellious streak in her, according to the headmaster.”
“Like her mother,” von Doom commented, with a hint of a smile.
Ororo laughed softly. “And her father.”
The Emperor nodded solemnly, and opened his mouth to reply— only to be interrupted by the unkingly rumbling of his stomach.
“Victor, have you dined yet?” Ororo asked. Her tone was somewhat akin to that of a mother worried about her child’s eating habits.
Von Doom shook his head. “No. But, now that you are here—” he smiled, a wicked sparkle in his eyes “—I find myself absolutely famished . .
“You call this slop food? I’ve had roasted camel that tasted better!”
With an angry growl, Erik Lensherr sent the gold-trimmed serving plate flying across the dining room. It shattered against a pale blue-colored wall on the far side, just missing the fiery-tressed head of his hostess—a blue-skinned woman named Raven Darkholme—as she stepped from the kitchen. Bits of tuna fish and pasta curls stuck to the wall as canned peas and smashed pieces of pottery rained down on the stark-white carpeting. Raven stared at the mess, then turned to her guest.
“I am not cleaning that up,” she said coldly.
As one of the mutant overlord’s field agents, Darkholme was more often referred to by her codename: Mystique—an appropriate name for a woman whose past was as mysterious as the unique powers she possessed. Clad in white leather boots, white gloves, and just enough white, gauze-like material to provide a modicum of attire for when she stepped out in public, she was every bit the modern-day equivalent of Mata Hari—beautiful, strong-willed, deceptive, and not above using her sexuality as a lure to get what she wanted. She was an expert in her field, able to create explosives from simple household items, crack any government computer system, slip undetected into some of the most secure military facilities in the world, eliminate any target from as close as five feet away and still manage to escape some of the Empire’s most highly-skilled Hunters, and wire every inch of her home to keep prying “mentos” from eavesdropping on her thoughts.
Unfortunately, her years of hard work as a s
ecret agent meant that she had never had the time to master certain skills—like the basics of Home Economics.
“How can one of my finest operatives live like this?” Lensherr muttered over the rim of his wine glass.
“What do you expect from me, Magneto?” Mystique snapped, pointing to the mess hanging on the wall. “I’m a spy, not a gourmet chef— I’m rarely here in South Beach most of the time. If you want a five-star meal, go down to Ocean Drive—I’m sure one of the restaurants there would have a board of fare suitable for your delicate palette.” She paused, and a shark-like grin slowly crept over her features. “Oh, but you can’t do that, can you?” She nodded, in complete agreement with herself. “That’s right—you’re a wanted man. The ‘Butcher of Paris,’ I believe the Ministry of Information has tagged you. Were you to set a single foot outside this modest home, it would only be a matter of seconds before one of my less-than-trustworthy-but-always-nosy neighbors notified von Doom’s stormtroopers that you were back in the States.” She tapped a slender index finger against her chin and gazed at the ceiling, deep in thought. “Mmmm ... I wonder what they’re serving as a last meal at The Vault—” her eyes lowered to fix on Lensherr “—if you were to make it that far without ‘accidentally’ being killed while trying to escape.”
Lensherr said nothing, opting instead to meet Mystique’s haughty gaze with one of cool indifference. Idly, he wondered how quickly he could smash that look from her face were he to cause the iron in her blood to form a clot in her brain—and then have it burst.
“I, on the other hand,” Mystique continued, “have no such fears of being discovered.” Instantly, her face, her body, even her clothing, began to blur and twist and assume a new form; within seconds, she had become the spitting image of Victor von Doom, right down to the Mandarin power rings worn on each finger. “When one is a shapeshifter,” she said, her voice a perfect imitation of the Emperor’s, “who can say what one’s true face really is?”
Lensherr applauded without any trace of enthusiasm; obviously, his roundabout trip to Florida from Mauritania hadn’t done anything to improve his mood. “Bravo, Mystique, bravo,” he said sarcastically. “I’m certain such useless displays of your abilities make you extremely popular in the circles in which you travel; as for myself, I refuse to be goaded into childish brooding by false images of a man who will soon be slain by my own hand.”
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