Shadow of the Past

by Unknown Author

  Please, said Xavier, I cannot do this without you.

  Then he felt something-not through Jeffrey's body or

  i-m

  Jeffrey's senses, but through his own faculties back in the Nameless Dimension. A fire was sweeping through his blood, invading even the tiniest capillary.

  But it wasn't a fire of agony. It was a fire of awakening, of inspiration, eliminating all traces of fatigue and imparting to the professor a vigor he hadn't known for years.

  You have to go home, Jeffrey iterated.

  And this time, Xavier understood. His host wasn't just encouraging him to take advantage of his opportunity to escape. He was giving the professor the tools he needed to do it.

  Xavier didn't know how Jeffrey had learned to do such a thing-how he had acquired the ability to channel his youthful vitality back along what had till then been a one-way link.

  But somehow, he had learned. And now the mutant had become the beneficiary of that vitality.

  Still, the professor thought, he didn't dare race Lucifer to the gate. Not when he had only a vague idea of the Quistalian's iocation. Not when so much was at stake.

  Suddenly, as if in response to his concern, he heard a voice in his head-and this time, it wasn't Jeffrey's voice. It was Lucifer's, colder than any ice Bobby had ever conjured.

  Give up, the voice advised him. I have already won, Earthling.

  The message was clearly meant to demoralize Xavier, to panic him. And as the professor used it to home in on the alien's location, he saw that Lucifer was indeed closer to the gate than he was.

  But not by all that much.

  If Xavier swam as hard as he could, drawing on the youthful strength Jeffrey was making available to him, he might be able to reach his goal ahead of Lucifer. He might be able to regain his freedom without allowing the Quistalian to do the same.

  Left to his own devices, he would never have made the attempt. But under the circumstances, he would have to. His host wasn't going to allow the toggle to be depressed otherwise.

  But if it's clear I'm not going to make it, the professor insisted, we must shut down the passageway.

  Jeffrey's answer to his demand was instantaneous. We'll shut it down, he agreed. Just hurry.

  Having made the best bargain he could, Xavier struck out for the gate.

  n the days before Lucifer robbed him of his ability to walk, Charles Xavier had been a decent athlete. He had even won a medal in the hundred yard dash as a teenager.

  Then his legs and spine had been crushed beneath a ponderous block of stone in a Tibetan mountain village.

  Some human beings, faced with the prospect of a lifetime of paralysis, might have decided to embrace sedentary pursuits. They might have stopped making any real demands on their bodies.

  But not Charles Xavier.

  He hadn't discontinued his physical training. In fact, he had put more effort into it than before. He had honed those parts of him that still worked, knowing that the rigors of his personal crusade would require him to use every last tool at his disposal.

  The professor was glad h^had been so foresighted as he swam for the transdimensional gate with all the strength at his disposal. Off to one side, he could see the scarlet and purple figure of Lucifer plowing through the Nameless

  MED

  Dimension with the power of his mind alone, his path lying at an oblique angle to that of his adversary.

  The Quistalian was still noticably closer to their common goal, a series of concentric ripples that resembled the disturbance a stone made when it was dropped into a still pool. But there was no doubt in Xavier's mind that he was moving faster than Lucifer, slowly but surely closing the gap.

  After all, Lucifer's progress was powered by one mind, one heart. The professor's was powered by two. And if his means of propulsion was more prosaic, it didn't mean it was any less effective.

  What's more, the Quistalian knew it. Xavier could tell by the way he kept glancing in the mutant's direction, as if he were concerned about the outcome of their race.

  Extending his purple-gloved hand, Lucifer sent a bolt of ionic energy sizzling at Xavier. However, the professor had plenty of time to see it coming and slither out of its way. The alien unleashed a second bolt, but it too failed to hit its mark.

  You must be desperate, thought Xavier, to fritter away your energy on futile attacks.

  Lucifer's response was tinged with fury. We will see who is desperate when I beat you to the gate.

  The muscles in the professor's arms felt as if they were burning up, but he continued to stroke for all he was worth. You mean if you beat me to the gate, he rejoined.

  Xavier wasn't normally inclined to trade taunts with an opponent. But then, this wasn't just a race for survival anymore, was it? It was the last event in a death match the alien had begun many years earlier, in a remote, walled village in Tibet.

  Lucifer had crushed his spine without a second thought, as if the mutant were nothing more than an insect underfoot. He had condemned Xavier to a life of pain and pity and limitation, and the professor would be damned if he was going to let the Quistalian get the last laugh.

  The pattern of ripples was getting closer to Xavier. It was taking on added definition with each urgent stroke.

  You cannot beat me, Lucifer insisted, his thought ragged and full of anger. You never could beat me.

  I beg to differ, the professor thought back at him.

  The gate loomed ahead, visible now within its expanding web of ripples. It looked like a hole in the dark fabric of the Nameless Dimension, roughly circular but changing with each pounding heartbeat... and he could see a crimson light burning inside it.

  The same light he had seen before Lucifer dispatched him to this reality in the first place.

  Xavier took into account their relative positions, knowing how much depended on his decision. He did his best to gauge their respective distances from the gate. And he came to the conclusion that if nothing went wrong, he would reach the passageway first.

  I'll destroy you yet! the Quistalian roared in his brain.

  Again, he fired a series of ionic energy bolts. They were harder to avoid at this closer range, but the professor managed it. Lucifer fired a third time, his mouth twisted in a curse beneath his helmet-and Xavier wriggled out of the way as he had before.

  At that point, the gate wasn't much further ahead of him-a dozen meters at most. Smelling victory, the professor arrowed through the thick, liquid atmosphere with the last of his borrowed energy reserves, pulling with arms that had gone all but numb ...

  And plunged through the shifting, seething egress mere seconds ahead of his frantic adversary.

  Impaled on the point of crimson light, Xavier felt the same terrible sensations he had experienced in his last passage through the gate. His arm and leg muscles cramped painfully, his skin blistered and cracked, and it seemed as if a fiery poker were turning his insides to jelly.

  But through it all, he clung to one thought, one responsibility that had yet to be carried out.

  Close the gate! he demanded of Jeffrey. Close it now!

  Then the professor felt something hard beneath him and opened his eyes, and saw that he was lying in a fetal position on the floor of the Quistalian facility back on Earth. The bizarre machine that Hank had constructed was towering above him, its single projector glowering down at him like a monstrous, baleful eye.

  Jeffrey was standing there too, his hand poised over the toggle switch. He looked drop-jaw amazed that their gambit had worked.

  "The gate!" Xavier rasped-out loud this time, no longer a voice in Jeffrey's head.

  Assured that his grandfather's friend was safe, Jeffrey flipped the switch-but not before the professor saw a purple-gloved hand materialize in the cone of energy projected by the apparatus. Its fingers outstretched, it seemed to be reaching for freedom, refusing to be denied after all its long years of imprisonment

  But it would be denied once again-because with Jeffrey's flip of the
toggle, the passageway between dimensions slammed shut The hand in the purple glove twitched once, then constricted into a painful-looking claw and receded into the nothingness from which it had come.

  Xavier heard a scream in his brain-a long, heartfelt cry of anguish and despair that cut across the dimensions like a knife. Then even that last vestige of his enemy was gone.

  SHMIIiS If HE PfiSI

  The professor looked up at Jeffrey. "Thank you," he said, his voice hoarse from all he had been through.

  His former host didn't say anything. He just stood there gazing wonderingly at Charles Xavier-trying to cope with the unexpected feeling of loneliness in his head.

  The professor, too, felt as if he had suffered a loss. After sharing a consciousness with someone for a considerable length of time, it was difficult to exist on one's own again.

  But somehow, they would manage.

  When Jean Grey saw her husband fall victim to Warren's energy duplicate, she felt as if her heart had fallen out through her ribs.

  Scott was her anchor, her rock, her reason for living. And for ail the gentleness he showed her when they were out of uniform, he was one of the most powerful human beings she knew.

  But Jean wasn't just any woman. She was a member of the X-Men, someone who had sworn to defend her world from its enemies at any price. And even with her husband and her friend Bobby lying senseless on the ground, she still had a duty to discharge.

  She might not have liked it, but that was the way it had to be.

  Ail this passed through Jean's mind in the space of a pounding heartbeat, as a ragged-looking man with a tangled, gray beard hurled a blinding white blast of energy at her. Ducking the ionic stream, she jerked the man into a tree with her telekinetic power.

  Then she looked around. Get a handle on the situation, she thought. That's what Scott would have done.

  It seemed to her that half of Lucifer's assault force had been knocked for a loop already. So far, so good. But that left the other half still standing, still scratching and clawing their way up the mountain.

  And then there's the counterfeit Warren, Jean reminded herself with a flare of anger. We can't forget him.

  Just as the mutant thought that, she saw a red and white streak plummet from the sky. The imposter, she told herself, coming back to take a shot at me and Hank.

  But a moment later, she saw that she had guessed wrong. The doppelganger wasn't rejoining the fray at all. He was bypassing it, heading up the steep, wooded side of the mountain.

  Then Jean realized what "Warren" was up to. The Quistalian facility they had discovered ... it was open, unguarded. And Hank had already turned on the transdimensional transport machine.

  If the imposter got his hands on it, he might be able to pull Lucifer out of the Nameless Dimension-bringing the Quistalian's machinations to fruition after all. And if that happened, the professor might be trapped in that alternative reality forever.

  Jean couldn't let that happen.

  However, before she could make a move to stop it, she saw an energy bolt whiz by her face and strike a tree, cracking its trunk in half. Knowing she had to respond to the attack or suffer another one, she raised a swarm of pine needles and cast it in her antagonist's face.

  Then Jean started up the slope. But before she could get very far, another ionic energy beam sliced past her, cracking some branches off a pine. Half a second later, a third one speared the ground beside her foot.

  Lucifer's troops weren't very good shots, she mused, but they were getting closer with each attempt. And with their ionie-energy-fueled strength, they could climb a lot more quickly than she could.

  At the moment, it seemed, there were two of them after her. I can handle two, she assured herself.

  Lashing out telekinetically, Jean sent one of her attackers tumbling down the incline. She was turning her attention to the other one when something smashed her on the bone of her ankle-hard enough to make her cry out in pain and lose her footing.

  As she fell, she worked hard to maintain her focus. One of Lucifer's soldiers felt the result of that as she harried him with dirt and loose branches. But another beam came out of nowhere and punched her in the shoulder, leaving her arm numb down to her fingertips.

  Jean had been in tough spots before and had gotten past them. She would do it again, she promised herself.

  Blocking the pain of the shots she had taken, she took hold of one adversary and spun him into a second one. Then she lifted another one and sent him hurtling over an outcropping.

  But it wasn't enough. Jean knew that even as she applied the force of her mind again and again. Lucifer's pawns were coming back at her faster than she could bat them away.

  As she buffeted a balding man in a red flannel shirt, a skinny one in a white shirt and pants toppled a tree in her direction. She managed to ward it off before it could fall on top of her-but the distraction allowed a third man to blast her square in the chest.

  Suddenly Jean was lying flat on her back, gasping for breath, striving hard to keep the shadows on the edges of her vision from overwhelming her. Breathe, she insisted. Don't let Lucifer beat you.

  Catching sight of one opponent, she clenched her jaw and cast him away from her. A second one came at her and she did the same. But she never saw the one who had outflanked her until it was too late.

  His energy beam dealt Jean a glancing blow in the temple, but it was enough to make her world shiver and go dark. As her head lolled, only one thought went through her mind...

  Forgive me, professor. Please forgive me....

  Hank McCoy had a feeling he was battling alone.

  It began when he saw Warren's duplicate use Bobby as a battering ram, knocking both Scott and his icy ally for a loop. And it grew worse when Hank failed to find any sign of Jean.

  Then he noticed that there were at least three of Lucifer's puppets stalking him at any given time, no matter how many he knocked down. At that point, he was reasonably certain of it-of all his teammates, he was the only one still fighting the good fight.

  What's more, Hank told himself, the counterfeit Warren was lurking somewhere, getting ready to finish what Lucifer's other pawns had started. So as the furry X-Man dodged energy blast after sizzling energy blast, he had to keep one eye open for a winged assailant.

  It wasn't at all his idea of a good time.

  Catching sight of an adversary down the hill and to the right, Hank leaped for the trunk of the nearest tree and swung around it twice, gaining centrifugal force with each revolution. Then he let go at just the right moment and slingshotted himself at Lucifer's pawn.

  The energy zombie released a blast of ionic force from his fingertips, but it barely came close enough to singe Hank's fur. Then the mutant bowled the man over with enough force to knock him out.

  One down and an indeterminate number to go, the X-Man thought wryly, wishing he were as devil-may-care as he pretended.

  Suddenly, the woods around him began sizzling with silver energy beams, each one coming from a distinctly different direction. Hank was forced to vault one way and then another, bouncing around on hands and feet in order to elude the web of destruction.

  Obviously, he thought, he had maneuvered himself into a carefully laid snare-one that Lucifer himself must have masterminded. The trick for Hank was to find a way out of it.

  To his credit, he had logged extra time eluding multiple energy blasts in Xavier's danger room in Salem Center. The mutant put that investment to good use now, managing to stay half a step ahead of his opponents.

  However, Lucifer's foot soldiers were gradually closing in on him, narrowing Hank's already narrow margin of error with each whizzing energy bolt they cast at him. The mutant had to bob and weave with increasing urgency just to keep from getting hit.

  And though it sometimes seemed to others that Hank's energy was boundless, that was hardly the case. Already, fatigue was laying its claim to the X-Man's powerful muscles. If he was going to make his move, he would have to do it
in the next couple of seconds—or not at all.

  Here we go, he thought.

  The one clear edge Hank had over Lucifer's puppets was his ability to climb. Capitalizing on that advantage, he chose a sturdy-looking fir tree and swung his way to its highest branches.

  Then, as his adversaries sliced through the greenery with one blistering silver bolt after another, the mutant abandoned the fir and launched himself at one of its neighbors. But he didn't stay there for long either. Instead, he took flight and found purchase in a third tree.

  Littk by little. Hank began to put some distance between himself and his tormentors. He began to enjoy some breathing room. And he used that buffer to think about going on the offensive again.

  Then his luck changed, suddenly and irretrievably.

  As Hank vaulted from one tree to another, a series of rotten branches collapsed precipitously beneath his weight. The effect was to sabotage his leap, leaving him short of his destination.

  Of course, he wasn’t called the Beast for nothing. It would be simplicity himself for him to get his feet beneath him and land unhurt-that is, if there weren't a pack of human hounds dogging his trail.

  Even before Hank reached the ground, he felt an energy beam singe the air in front of his face. He had barely landed when another one kicked him in the ribs like an angry stallion, knocking the wind out of his lungs.

  Fighting for air, he tried his best to scamper away. But instead of running from his enemies, he ran right into one.

  The fellow was overweight, with a baby face and greasy blond hair. And his eyes were blazing with a terrible splendor as he drove his white-knuckled fist into the mutant's face.

  The monstrous impact sent Hank flying into the base of a tree. As he fought to clear his head, he saw the blond man advance on him again, eager to land another blow for his alien master.

  And this time, he wasn't alone. There were four other men with him, each of them spilling light from their eye sockets as they approached, regarding the X-Man as if he were a pestilence that had to be stamped out.