If Rogue had learned one thing in the Danger Room, it was that hesitation could be fatal. She threw herself at Holocaust even as he was turning and stooping to fit his bulk through the doorway. She didn’t-couldn’t-think about how powerful he was, about the fact that he and a colleague had once given even Earth’s most powerful team of super heroes, the Avengers, a run for their money. She cannoned into his golden armor, but it was like colliding with an ocean liner. She felt as if she had put her shoulder out.
Still, she must have taken Holocaust by surprise, because she got past him. Either that or he thought he would have more room to fight her in the huge, white, brightly-lit laboratory than in the narrow corridor outside. Rogue was still unsteady on her feet, still hardly aware of her new surroundings, when a mighty, metal-encased fist struck her from behind. She fell to the ground beside a lab bench, and Holocaust extended his left arm toward her. In place of a hand, he had a huge, dome-shaped attachment dotted with holes. Bright energy roiled inside it: the essence of Holocaust himself. His containment suit allowed him to channel his very being through this appendage, turning it into a devastating weapon.
“I am honored,” said Holocaust mockingly, in his crackling, sizzling voice. “One of the X-Men themselves has come to challenge me. Any more of you lurking out there?”
“Just little old me, sugar,” said Rogue, scrambling out from beneath his blaster. Holocaust didn’t fire: he was toying with her. She had to take advantage of that. She vaulted over the bench and ducked down behind it. She heard her foe’s footsteps pounding toward her, but she tried not to let that unnerve her. She slipped her fingers beneath the heavy wooden block and, with a strain, she lifted it and threw it. It shattered as it hit Holocaust, glass beakers smashing on the floor and papers fluttering everywhere.
That gave Rogue a second to get her bearings and glance around the room. There were shelves and cabinets everywhere, and all manner of equipment-most of which she couldn’t even name-spread around the perimeter. She flew at the nearest cupboard and yanked open its doors, revealing rows of chemicals in vials. She batted the first rank aside, letting the vials fall and break where they may, but she couldn’t see anything that looked like a cure. As if she would recognize it anyway, without a clear label.
She hadn’t forgotten Holocaust. He had waded through her obstruction by now, and raised his weapon to fire. Rogue took to the air just in time. There was a tremendous foosh of energy, which seemed to set the world alight. And suddenly, the cupboard was burning, its spilt contents igniting easily, and that was one avenue of exploration lost to her.
Holocaust couldn’t do that too many more times; not without a recharge. Even so, Rogue was no physical match for him. She had to keep out of his reach, keep baiting him, make him fire again and again. With each blast, he would become weaker. Unless, of course, he hit her. Then, he would replenish himself by absorbing her fading life force.
“You’re working for Shaw again, right?”
“I'm working with Shaw.”
“And here I thought you’d decided not to be anyone’s poodle any more.”
Holocaust came at her like a runaway tank. Rogue took to the air instinctively, but there wasn’t enough clearance between his head and the ceiling. He filled her field of vision.
She threw a punch at him, aiming for the transparent part of his containment suit over his chest, hoping to crack it. The blow didn’t seem to hurt him, but it forced him to take a step back. Rogue saw clear air beside him and hurtled into it. She wasn’t the most maneuverable of the X-Men, but in his cumbersome armor, Holocaust wasn’t quick enough to catch her.
She took shelter behind another lab bench, but he blew it apart with an energy blast. He was losing patience, thought Rogue. Either that was very good or veiy, veiy bad indeed.
“I was the heir apparent to a world once,” he roared as he bore down upon her again. According to the X-Men’s files, Holocaust hailed from an alternative version of Earth, although the details were sketchy. He had been the protege of the man who had ruled that world, a powerful being known as Apocalypse. “I will have that again!”
“Sure,” Rogue mocked him, “just as soon as you find the right set of coattails to ride to the top, huh?”
Holocaust’s enormous fist left a dent in the wall behind her as she twisted past him again. But this time, he was ready for her. He caught her with a sideswipe from his arm, and she went into a tailspin and collided with another cabinet. Holocaust picked her up by the front of her sweater before she could get her breath back, and he batted her across the face with such force that it felt as if her neck were going to snap. She writhed in his iron grip, but she couldn’t break it. He swung her around and threw her into a set of shelves. Rogue heard glass breaking behind her as, winded, she slid to the floor.
And then, Holocaust had her pinned, one giant foot resting on her chest, his hollow eye sockets seeming to glow as his lipless mouth twisted into a sneer and he brought up his weapon arm, slowly, tauntingly, and leveled it between her eyes.
“One less person in my way now,” he growled.
And Rogue’s vision was seared by a tremendous explosion of heat and light, for an instant before the world went dark.
CHAPTER 10
^EIN!” EXCLAIMED Nightcrawler. “Under no circumstances!” “Listen to me, elf,” croaked Wolverine urgently, reaching up to squeeze Kurt’s hand. “I’ve lost all track of time in this sickbed, but I know we’ve been here more than a few hours.”
“It’s almost five pm, local time,” mumbled Kurt.
“Right. That means it’s getting on for nine in Hong Kong, and-what?-eleven in Sydney. All points east of here, the Hellfire Club parties are already in full swing.”
“I know,” said Kurt, nodding ruefully. “Whatever Shaw and Magneto are planning, it could begin at any moment. But-”
“But nothing! You’ve got better things to do than nursemaid me.” As if to undermine his argument, Logan was gripped by another convulsion. His body went rigid, his spine arcing. Kurt’s heart ached for the pain he must have been going through, but there was nothing he could do. He had watched this happen three times before, and the attacks were getting closer together. “Looks like this is it,” Logan had said after the first convulsion. “The fight’s stepped up a gear in there. Kill or cure, it’ll soon be over.”
He lay back now, panting, his face glistening with sweat. But as soon as he got his breath back, he continued as if nothing had happened: “Rogue and the kid might have reached Hammer Bay, or they might not. I’m still in no condition to hit the road again. You could be our last hope.”
Kurt sighed. “I know you are right, mein freund-but the mutate Priest is suspicious of us already. If he finds I’ve flown the coop, he’ll turn his attention to you.”
“I can deal with old Skull-Face—and I won’t let this damn virus take me out either. I’m a fighter, Kurt. I’ll still be here when you get back.”
Kurt forced a bittersweet smile. “You’d better be!” But he couldn’t escape the nagging fear that he was talking to his best friend for the final time.
He felt he ought to say something more. A last goodbye, just in case? But Logan withdrew' his hand, and said gruffly: “Go on-get out of here!” Kurt nodded gratefully, an unspoken affection and understanding passing between/the two men.
And then, he heard the searing sound of an energy discharge, and a scream.
Rogue was teased back to consciousness by a smell like ozone and an insistent buzzing in her head. Opening her eyes, she gasped to find a familiar face in front of her: Magneto, dressed in his full battle robes and helmet. He must have shocked her awake.
For a second, she saw her old foe in a new light. Magnetic force rippled around him, almost visible and quite intoxicating. And she knew he would wield that force against anyone or anything that dared threaten his people. He was the only man who could protect her.
She realized that a lingering trace of Aidan Morgan had resurfaced inside he
r, distorting her perceptions, and she fought it down with a shudder.
“Fancy... running into ... you here ...” she murmured weakly.
Her face felt as if it had been sunburned. She didn’t know why Holocaust hadn’t killed her: whether he had been under instructions not to, or whether he had simply not had enough power left. Either way, she was grateful. She was in a small cell with a heavy door, which stood open behind Magneto. Her arms and legs had been spread behind her and clamped to the wall by thick metal tubes, leaving her to hang in an uncomfortable X shape.
“I did not spare your life to engage in small talk,” said Magneto tersely. “I suspected, when I saw that only four of Xavier’s children had made the journey to Sydney, that I would find more of you here. How many X-Men have invaded my country?”
“Actually,” lied Rogue, “this is a solo mission. The Professor must have thought I was best placed to talk a bit of sense into you.”
Magneto’s eyes flashed. “We have discussed this tiresome subject before. You think we share a histoiy, but we do not. You are, thinking of another man.”
“The man you used to be.”
“That man has gone forever.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that, sugar. I’ve seen into your mind, remember? I’ve seen how twisted, how screwed up with hatred, you’ve let yourself become.”
“Think yourself lucky,” Magneto growled, “that you-like my naive doppelganger-have never had to witness the horrors I endured, never had to bathe in the fires that tempered me.”
Rogue rolled her eyes. “Oh, here we go again! I’m sick of hearing how you can’t be blamed for anything, how one bad experience in your childhood gives you the right to murder and maim as you please!”
Magneto’s expression was incandescent. He slapped Rogue hard across the face, then tore back his sleeve to reveal a number tattooed on his arm. She winced at the sight of it. “You call this ‘one bad experience’?” he blazed. “Do you think we should just forget that one race attempted to commit genocide against another?”
“I’m sorry,” said Rogue, bowing her head. “But,” she insisted, “it was normal human beings who fought against the Nazis and beat them!”
“And yet they continue to slaughter each other over land disputes, grievances so old that they don’t even remember the causes and don’t understand, or simply in the name of so-called ‘ethnic cleansing’! No, we must never allow ourselves to forget humanity’s potential for destruction, Rogue—for that way lies extinction!”
“And you think mutants are so much better?”
“We are a higher form of life, that much is unquestionable.” Rogue shook her head. “You don’t think Apocalypse is as bad as any human war criminal? What about Stryfe, the mutant who released the Legacy Virus? Or Selene? Or for that matter, your new friend Shaw, a man who builds mutant-hunting Sentinels for the government? I’ve been in enough scrapes in my time to know that scum comes in all shapes, sizes and colors.”
“Our kind has been systematically mistreated since we began to emerge. We have each had to fight back in our own way. You are not so different yourself.”
Rogue was wrong-footed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You belonged to the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, did you not? A group of freedom fighters-some would say terrorists-which I myself founded and christened ironically.”
“I... I was young, then. I didn’t know better. Mystique ...”
“You were a victim of circumstance,” said Magneto triumphantly, “a product, as we all are, of your upbringing. You experienced only hate, and you gave it in return.”
“Until I chose to take responsibility,” said Rogue. “Until I went to the X-Men.”
“You had no choice,” laughed Magneto scornfully. “You needed their help to control your abilities. And Charles Xavier indoctrinated you just as surely as Mystique had.”
“That’s not true!”
Magneto’s face softened into a confident half-smile. “We shall soon see who is right and who is wrong. Oh, I don’t imagine I can solve all our problems overnight—you are right about that much—but it will be interesting to see how our race develops without the weight of human prejudice upon us, don’t you think?”
Rogue narrowed her eyes, feeling ice in her stomach. “What are you planning?”
“Let us simply say,” said Magneto, “that I will not see another generation of mutants shaped by abuse!”
The mutates had captured a human being.
She was young and slender, with short, brown-black hair and a heart-shaped face. She was wearing a magistrates’ uniform, but her weapons had been taken from her. A livid burn stood out on her temple from where, Kurt gathered, she had been winged by a blast of bio-energy while trying to break free. She was not struggling any longer.
They were taking her to the end cellar—a whole crowd of mutates, so thick that their captive was virtually carried aloft on the tide. As one woman said to Kurt, with a chilling certainty, “Our Priest will tell us what we ought to do with her.”
Kurt tagged along with them as they poured into the chapel, because he had a very bad feeling about this. The Priest, already standing behind his altar, received his visitors with a serene expression, as if he had foretold their arrival. Not that it would have been at all difficult to hear them coming. The woman was pushed to the front of the crowd to allow the Priest to examine her. Despite her injury and his imposing height, she straightened her back and looked him mutinously in the eye.
“They were sniffing around Jasper Street,” offered one of the mutates.
“Six of them, there were-all armed to the teeth!”
“But they ran like cowards when they saw us.”
Everybody was talking at once now, offering their own version of events, and Kurt couldn’t hear what anyone was saying. He began to make his painstaking way through the throng, slipping into gaps where he saw them. He had to be near the front. In case he was needed.
The Priest held up a hand for silence, and the clamor ceased immediately. He walked around the altar and drew closer to the prisoner, looming over her, his thin lips twisting into a smirk.
“So, young lady,” he said in a quiet but threatening voice, “what is your name?”
She spat in his face.
A few people gasped, but the Priest’s expression didn’t flicker. He turned away and wiped his cheek with a white sleeve. “It hardly matters anyway,” he said, “except perhaps to your next-of-kin. We know you well enough. We call you Oppressor;' We call you Murderer. We call you War Criminal!” His tone sharpened further with each insult-and by the time he had finished, he was back behind the altar, his blue eyes as cold and hard as ice. “And soon, in the eyes of the Great Lord, our Savior, we will call you Dead.”
“What has she done?”
Kurt Wagner's question cut across the general murmur of approval, and turned it into whispers of discontent. The Priest glared at him, his eyes narrowing as his brow furrowed. The front two lines of mutates parted to allow Kurt forward, and he found himself by the human woman’s side. She looked at him quizzically, perhaps even hopefully.
“What has she done,” he repeated, “to deserve execution?”
“If you were truly from Carrion Cove as you claim,” rumbled the Priest, “then you would not ask such a question. You would know how the humans have treated our kind.”
Kurt forced himself to ignore the ominous reaction behind him. He looked the Priest squarely in the eye as if challenging him to prove his suspicion. “Not all humans,” he contested. “From what I hear, it was our people who struck the first blow in this case.”
“We walked into an ambush!” the woman spoke up, obviously unwilling to let Nightcrawler do all her talking for her. “We were looking for food, and for that a good friend of mine was killed in cold blood! How dare you try to paint me as the murderer here!”
Her tone of righteous indignation did not sit well with the mutates. “Jasper Street is ours!” somebod
y made himself .heard over the general hubbub. Somebody else added: “You walk into a mutate area, you deserve everything you get!”
“Since when did Magneto start divvying up streets?” the woman spat back at them. “I didn’t see any signposts or fences out there!” She was only riling them further. Kurt tried to calm things down.
“Magneto doesn’t want our two races to fight,” he reminded the mutates reasonably. “Those days are over. He wants us to work together to rebuild Genosha.”
He felt he might have got through to some of them, had it not been for the Priest. “And yet, this woman wears the uniform of a magistrate!” he announced with theatrical intonation. “She carries the weapons with which her people once subjugated and beat us!” “For self-defense!” the woman protested angrily, but her words were lost beneath the roars of the crowd.
The Priest’s raised voice, on the other hand, carried easily. “The Savior has forgiven many flatscans, that much is true. So long as they show repentance, He allows them to work for our country’s greater good. But there are those who still feel nothing but contempt for our kind-and to those sinners, Magneto would have us show no mercy!”
The mutates were pressing forward now, gathering around the woman as if they intended to kill her there and then. Nightcrawler was left with no choice. He flung an arm around her, visualized the street above him and teleported. There was a moment of nothingness. Then, Kurt reappeared in exactly the spot he had just left. Beside him, the woman fell to her knees with a sickly groan. He was feeling the pain of another tandem ’port himself, but it was nothing compared to his horror at the failure of his ability, at finding that he was still surrounded by baying mutates.
“You are forgetting, Mr. Wagner,” said the Priest, “that I channel our Savior’s powers. He allowed me to detect your movement through the magnetic lines of force and, by redirecting them, bring you back to us.”
“Traitor!” somebody shouted, and Kurt felt hands tearing at his hair from behind.
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 64
