And so it was that Nightcrawler found Wolverine, fighting savagely to keep himself from being overwhelmed by five green-clad mutates. The X-Man’s khaki shirt was torn and his cheek bloodied. His claws lashed out this way and that, faster than Nightcrawler could follow, his eyes were wild and the only sounds to emerge from his throat were a series of guttural growls and grunts. Nightcrawler mumbled a quick prayer. Logan was his best friend-but when he surrendered all reason, when he gave in to his animal side like this, he scared even Kurt.
Ironically, though, it was when Wolverine lost control—when he allowed his finely-honed instincts to take over and guide him-that he was at his most effective in battle. Even the disapproving Nightcrawler had to admit that he was putting on an impressive display: the mutates couldn’t lay a hand on him, and every time they tried, they received new cuts for their troubles. Even as Kurt hesitated, as he tried to decide if he should intervene or not, one of the mutates let out a gargling scream, clutched his hands to his stomach and keeled over. An instant later, a woman with fire for her hair was felled by a roundhouse punch. A younger man leapt upon his foe with an angry roar—he was wearing no mask, and Kurt could see that his skin was a deep jet in color, glistening like crystal—but his own momentum was turned against him. Thrown clear of the melee, he hurtled into a tree-trunk, and Nightcrawler thought he heard a sound like glass breaking.
Wolverine was left with only two opponents now, but even his luck couldn’t hold out forever. He was tagged from behind by a young female mutate with long talons in place of fingers. Nightcrawler winced in sympathy as her nails slashed into his side, between his ribs, and Logan arched his back in pain. A broadshouldered man whose steel body had burst out of his combat suit seized his opportunity; he stepped forward and took hold of Wolverine’s head in his metal hands. When he failed to crush his enemy’s skull, he looked confused and irritated, and he increased the pressure. The adamantium in Wolverine’s bones was keeping him alive, but for how much longer? His expression was strained, his knees beginning to buckle. And the girl with the talons was moving in to strike again.
By the time she got close, Nightcrawler was sitting on the shoulders of the steel man, jamming his cap down over his eyes. He didn’t have the strength to break the mutate’s grip on Wolverine, but the distraction of his sudden, noisy appearance—and his cheerful cry of “Peek-a-boo !”-was enough to do the job. The mutate threw his hands up to his head, but Nightcrawler had already teleported away again.
In the meantime, Wolverine and the girl were fighting claw to talon-and Nightcrawler was alarmed to see that his teammate was losing. It wasn’t that the girl was good-far from it, she seemed undisciplined and inexperienced, her fighting style amounting to little more than flailing at her foe and hoping for the best-but Wolverine was uncharacteristically slow, even clumsy. He favored his injured side, and Kurt realized that the wound was deeper than he had thought. It was bleeding. Logan needed a breather; time for his healing factor to kick in.
The steel man bore down upon Nightcrawler like a runaway train, his roar like a warning siren. It was easy enough to avoid him with a standing somersault and a handspring off the mutates shoulder. But bringing him down would be another matter—and the flameheaded woman was already beginning to stir again.
“In this case,” he muttered to himself, “I think discretion is very definitely the better part of valor.” A space opened up between Wolverine and his opponent, and Nightcrawler teleported into it. He took advantage of the girl’s bemusement to land a punch to her head, followed up by a kick to the stomach that sent her sprawling away from him. “Pardon my feet, madam,” he said apologetically. Then he took hold of Wolverine and added, in a graver tone: “And pardon me for doing this to you a second time in one day, mein freund.”
Wolverine didn’t say anything. He fell into Nightcrawler’s arms like a dead weight. Fortunately, this tandem ’port was much shorter than the last-nor did it have to be undertaken blindly. Nevertheless, Kurt gritted his teeth and steeled himself as he visualized the open field through which he had recently passed.
Even as three mutates rushed them from opposite sides, Nightcrawler and Wolverine vanished in a puff of smoke.
Rogue had kept the aircars occupied for as long as she could-she had certainly given her teammates a valuable head start-but a few near misses had convinced her that it was time to think about herself now. She dropped back below the treetops and flew a random pattern around the trunks, hoping to shake off her pursuers. It was no use, though. She couldn’t reach her top speed, not without sacrificing maneuverability—even now, her gloved hands were raised to keep branches from whipping across her face—and no matter where she flew, the probing searchlights from above still found her. She suspected that the aircars’ onboard computers had locked on to her genetic pattern, that there was no escape for her now.
Suddenly, she ran out of cover. She shot past the last of the trees, out into the open, and the aircars swooped in behind her again, preventing her from turning back. Of the original four, only two had remained doggedly with her-but each held two uniformed mutates. And now that they could see her, they were using their vehicles’ blaster weapons again.
Rogue twisted and turned, making herself as difficult to hit as possible-but the very air around her was erupting in flames, and she was buffeted fiercely. Through a haze of smoke, she saw the lights of Hammer Bay ahead of her, and she wondered if she might find shelter among its buildings. But the capital was still too far away, and she was too exposed.
She changed tactics, flipping herself over and rocketing toward the foremost aircar, her fists outstretched in front of her. She wished she could see the expressions of its masked occupants, but their body language at least suggested that she was unnerving them. She had also given them the opportunity to take one point-blank shot.
She closed her eyes and grimaced as the fiery pain washed over her. It was almost unbearable, even to her. Her heavy clothing burst into flame, but she was determined to keep going. She heard a mutate cry out in alarm as she smacked into a warm body. She was in the aircar now, fighting blindly, lashing out at anything that touched her, feeling the crack of bones beneath her knuckles.
By the time her teary eyes had cleared, she was the only person left standing. She felt dizzy, and her jogger top was charred and halfmelted. An unconscious mutate lay at her feet; she must have knocked the other one overboard. The aircar was out of control, losing height as it screamed toward Hammer Bay. Fortunately, she had flown one of these things before.
Pulling back heavily on the joystick, Rogue wrestled the vehicle’s nose up; its undercarriage almost scraped the ground, but it began to climb again. She ducked as blaster fire sizzled past her ears. The second aircar was on her tail. Smiling maliciously to herself, she turned her vehicle around and set it on a head-to-head collision course with its pursuer.
The mutates in the second car tried to swerve around and below her, but Rogue threw her car into a steep right bank and effectively dive-bombed them. They leapt out of their cockpit an instant before the unavoidable impact, as did she. She flew as hard and as fast as she could, but she didn’t get very far before she was rocked by the explosion of two engines.
Winded by the blast, disoriented and hurting, it was all Rogue could do to keep moving, to put as much distance between herself and her hunters-whether they were alive or dead-as she could before she passed out. She didn’t even know which direction she had taken, how high she was, how far she flown already. All she was aware of was the pain in her body, and the blackness that was encroaching ever further upon her vision and then, after what seemed like a lamentably short time, the realization that she couldn’t control her muscles any more and the sensation of falling... falling.. . .
Rogue hit the ground in an untended field about a mile outside Hammer Bay. The earth itself shook with the impact. And there she lay, unmoving, in a crater of her own making.
Until somebody found her.
CHA
PTEI4
THE HELLFIRE Club’s New South Wales branch stood on the southern shore of Sydney Harbor. The building, of necessity, was
_conspicuously more modem than the organization usually
'avored. However, it was well situated in one of Australia’s most wealthy areas, and the famous Harbor Bridge bisected the view from the front windows of its main ballroom.
Behind those windows now, a fight was nearing its conclusion. The Hellfire Club had thrown almost thirty of its best mercenary agents, dressed in blue and red uniforms with dehumanizing blank flesh-toned masks, at just four intruders. They were losing.
Skilled and highly trained as they were-not to mention armed with lightweight machine-guns-the agents were no match for their genetically gifted foes. The Beast had the strength of several men, and his agility kept him three steps ahead of them; Phoenix snatched their weapons from them with telekinesis while Storm's control over the winds kept them off-balance; and Cyclops’s optic blasts could fell two or three agents at a time.
This wasn’t going at all how the X-Men had planned it.
Cyclops had hoped, in the first instance at least, to be able to talk to the man who had no doubt approved the order to attack. After dropping off their teammates in Madagascar, he, Phoenix, Storm and the Beast had taken the Blackbird on to Hong Kong, only to find that Sebastian Shaw was not in residence at the Hellfire Club’s headquarters there. An interminable wait had followed before some desk clerk, grumpy from being roused in the early hours of the morning, had finally informed them that they would have to travel even further east. It made sense, Scott supposed; Shaw had told Emma Frost that the solstice celebrations would begin in Sydney. It was just like him to want to be there.
They had reached their destination shortly after eight, local time. The morning sun had already been hot, and Cyclops had been glad of the cool air currents along the waterfront. His body had insisted that it was still five o’clock the previous evening.
They had been greeted by Shaw’s assistant, Tessa, which in itself had all but confirmed that the Black King was indeed here. She had informed them, in a brusque tone, that her employer had had a late night, that he was sleeping and that they should come back later. Mindful of his encroaching deadline, Cyclops had been just as insistent in return. Tessa had refused to discuss the matter further, slamming the door in his face—but he had shot out its lock with an optic blast and followed her into the building.
That was when the fight had begun.
It ended now with three sharp retorts. The figure of Sebastian Shaw was framed by one of the ballroom’s arched doorways. He was dressed in a black silk dressing gown, a golden dragon pattern running down one side. His black hair was ruffled, not yet tied into its usual ponytail, and his expression was an approaching thunderstorm. Tessa had adopted her customary position at his shoulder. The clapping of Shaw’s hands had been a signal to his costumed pawns. They ceased their attack and withdrew quickly, carrying their fallen with them. Their heads were bowed as if they had been shamed in the sight of their leader.
“Did my assistant not make it clear,” he said in a voice that dripped ice, “that I do not wish to receive visitors this morning?”
The X-Men lined up to face him, Cyclops bristling at Shaw’s easy air of superiority. He was about to issue a rejoinder when Storm spoke quietly: “We apologize for the intrusion, Sebastian, but our business here will not wait.”
Shaw sneered at her. “Do not presume upon the understanding that we once shared, woman. We could have been allies. We are not. That makes us enemies, now and forever.”
Storm withdrew as if stung. Even Cyclops hadn’t expected Shaw to be quite this irritable. Normally, he was inscrutable, his thoughts and feelings hidden beneath a cultured veneer. Perhaps he just doesn’t do mornings, Phoenix’s telepathic voice quipped inside his mind.
“If friendship does not influence you,” said the Beast, “then how about the plain, old-fashioned concept of a gentleman’s honor? You and I had a deal, Shaw. You could not have developed the Legacy cure without my experience in the field, just as I was reliant on your resources. We agreed to share it.”
“An agreement made under duress, and one that you are powerless to enforce.”
“We know you have the cure, Shaw,” said Cyclops, “and we’re prepared to take this building apart brick by brick until we find it.” “It would do you no good. It is not here.”
“You admit, then, that you took it,” said Storm pointedly.
Shaw shrugged. “I see no need to play word games with you. Yes, I have the cure. I took it from Selene’s throne room while you were otherwise engaged. And as you no doubt know, I have great plans for it: plans that involve a certain business acquaintance of mine.” “Magneto,” said Cyclops, tight-lipped.
“Indeed. Beyond that, I am not prepared to discuss the matter.” “What about this fireworks display of yours?” asked Phoenix.
“I have already been quizzed about this evening’s festivities by your associates, Frost and Hellstrom. I have no more to say. Now, if you will excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I have another busy day ahead of me.” Shaw smiled and bowed courteously to his visitors, but his contempt for them showed in his eyes.
Cyclops clenched his fists. “You don’t expect us to let you walk out of here, do you?”
Shaw straightened. “And how do you intend to stop me, Mr. Summers?” His tone had softened; now, he sounded genuinely amused. He crooked the fingers of one hand, challenging the X-Men’s leader to approach him. “Feel free to attack me if you must. Pit your mutant powers against mine. Beat me to within an inch of my life if you can. You will learn no more than I have already told you.”
“There are other ways of gaining information, Shaw,” said Phoenix. The Black King raised an eyebrow. “Ah, the X-Men’s resident telepath. Yes, Miss Grey, I have no doubt that you could tear my secrets from me if you so wished. I also expect that you would cause me much pain in the process, should I choose to resist-which, of course, I would.” He spread his arms wide in a gesture of helplessness. “So, the decision is yours. Will you do what your White Queen would not? Will you violate me?”
Cyclops and Phoenix exchanged a glance. They could have communed in secret through the permanent telepathic link that, as husband and wife, they shared—but there was no need. They knew each other well enough for each to know what the other was thinking.
Phoenix had always known how easy it would be to abuse her powers. When Shaw had talked of violation, he had chosen his words carefully, reminding her that she had pledged never to invade another person’s privacy, never to force her way into somebody else’s thoughts without good reason. Cyclops admired her restraint. He was a firm believer in the philosophy that a hero was only as pure as his or her methods. But he was also a pragmatist. He knew that, sometimes, when the stakes were high enough, compromises had to be made.
“Do it,” he said.
Closing her eyes, Phoenix tuned out the distractions of the physical world. She trusted in her husband and her teammates implicitly. She knew that if it came to it, if Shaw or more of his lackeys attacked her physical body, then she had the best possible protection.
The psychic plane was incomprehensible to human senses, but Jean Grey’s mind could translate it into images that she understood. She was standing in a white void, the only feature of which was a long, tall wall built from red bricks. She could not see its top, nor its end in either direction. The wall represented Sebastian Shaw’s mental defenses. For a non-telepath, it was impressive-but Phoenix could see the cracks in the brickwork, the crumbling mortar, that would allow her to force her way through it.
“I will not allow you to do this.”
The voice did not surprise her. She did not even have to turn to see who had spoken. “Unfortunately,” she sighed, “I must—and you cannot stop me. It would be better for all concerned if you talked to your employer, persuaded him to give his information freely.” “Sebastian will not pander to
such as you, X-Man.”
“Your Black King is a ruthless man, his partner even more so. We cannot ignore the fact that they have gained this advantage. If they intend to misuse the Legacy cure, then we have no option but to oppose them-and we will defeat them, Tessa.”
“Then you will have to go through me first.”
Phoenix faced her opponent at last. In the ballroom, Tessa had been dressed demurely in a neat black jacket, short skirt and high heels. Here, she wore the leather teddy, knee-length boots and cloak of a Black Queen, and she appeared to have increased in stature twofold. Phoenix wasn’t impressed. Here, both she and Tessa could look like anything they wanted to; it was no real test of their abilities. Jean chose to present her true form: it was not worth the waste of energy to cloak herself in a lie.
She let Tessa make the first strike. Black tendrils burst out of the white ground at her feet: dead and rotting plant matter, reanimated by hatred. They wound themselves around Jean’s ankles and held her fast. She made no move to escape from them. Her attacker’s features showed no sign of triumph, no emotion at all. Tessa didn’t even meet her gaze. Her concentration was reserved for the matter at hand.
The tendrils had bound her legs beneath the knees now, and they were pulling at her, tiying to drag her down. Still, Phoenix didn’t move. She reached out with her mind and felt the cold, dead creepers, as surely as if she had run her fingers across them. She tore at them, feeling resistance but overcoming it almost too easily. She watched as Tessa’s lips twisted into a sullen pout-then, the black-clad young woman gestured sharply with one hand, and the tendrils burst into flame.
That was when Phoenix fought back, putting the full force of her mind into a single, decisive strike. She gathered up the flames, sculpted them into a roiling, blazing fireball and hurled it. Tessa threw up her hands and screamed as she was suddenly engulfed. The fire was not real, but it could have killed her nevertheless. She blinked out of sight, having withdrawn from the psychic plane before her mind could be destroyed. Phoenix took little pleasure from her victory. Tessa's telepathic abilities were slight: she could not have hoped to match the X-Man, especially not after choosing psychic flames as her weapon. Jean’s most difficult task had been to shield her, to ensure that she was not harmed before she could retreat.
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 54
