“While you talk, Storm, you die!” Scalphunter shouted, and lifted his plasma rifle to aim at the spot where Storm floated aloft.
Wolverine was about to dive forward, to slice Scalphunter’s weapons, and perhaps the man himself. He had barely turned away when he heard Arclight moving in behind him. He spun and slashed, and caught her a glancing blow that scored the mesh alloy metal armor she wore. He had noted her speed earlier, and vowed not to let her surprise him with it again. She had tried and failed, but her real goal had been to distract him from saving Storm. In that, she had succeeded.
When Wolverine turned back toward Scalphunter, the leader of the Marauders was already pulling the trigger.
Suddenly, a blast of energy slammed into Scalphunter’s chest. His shot went wild, completely missing Storm, and he was knocked to the ground. Two more energy blasts ripped into him, and Scalphunter shook and jittered with some kind of seizure as blue light rippled back and forth across his body. Wolverine looked up and saw Bishop taking aim at the other Marauders, and his nostrils flared with a low growl that built into a great roar.
The biggest threat, without question, was Riptide. He began whirling ever faster, and razor sharp projectiles flew from the dervish he had become. But before they could reach their intended targets, they were whipped up into an even greater storm, a minor tornado that seemed to suck both the weapons and Riptide into itself. As he blocked a Slayspear that Harpoon had hurled at his chest, Wolverine noticed that the tornado Storm had created was spinning counter to Riptide’s own turns. It effectively cancelled out his powers, for no matter how he tried to turn, Storm kept the wind moving in the other direction. In essence, he was hung in midair, completely immobile in the center of a tornado.
With one shot, Bishop took Riptide down.
Harpoon aimed a Slayspear at Bishop, and Wolverine shouted to warn him of the danger. Bishop turned and ran directly at Harpoon, screaming like a madman. Harpoon hurled a Slayspear and Bishop incinerated it in midair with his blaster. Wolverine moved in on Harpoon as well, and in a moment, the two X-Men had the Marauder trapped between them.
“Your move, Harpoon,” Wolverine growled.
With fantastic speed, Harpoon drew another Slayspear from behind him and hurled it at Bishop, who brought up his weapon as protection. The spear struck the gun, discharging its deadly energy, and the gun exploded, knocking Bishop back several paces.
“You still stand?” Harpoon said in astonishment.
Wolverine hung back on purpose, knowing what was to come. Bishop had not been with the X-Men at the time of the mutant massacre. To the Marauders, he was an unknown quantity. Bishop’s mutant power allowed him to absorb any form of energy directed at him and release it with destructive force from his bare hands. Harpoon had no idea what to expect, but he pulled another Slayspear from his quarrel and hauled back his arm to hurl it at Bishop.
Bishop didn’t give him the chance. He had absorbed the energy from his weapon’s explosion and Harpoon’s Slayspear, and now he rechanneled it, turning it back upon the Marauder who, even now, was attempting to kill him. A blast of crackling green power burst from Bishop’s fists and buffeted Harpoon’s body like hurricane winds, tossing him backward through the blacked out plate glass window of the strip club.
Harpoon did not come out, and Wolverine scanned the street for more opposition.
“This fracas is gettin’ downright boring!” Wolverine shouted. “Maybe you killers just don’t know when you’re beat.”
“You want a fight, Wolverine?” Arclight asked as she closed in on him. “Then stop moving out of the way.”
“I can take whatever you got, lady, and then some,” Wolverine growled, sliding the claws of his left hand against those of his right, creating a chilling sound like six knives being sharpened.
“Come now, Wolverine, you must allow your adorable hirsute amigo the opportunity for some merriment as well,” the Beast said as he leaped between Logan and Arclight.
“After all,” Hank added, “I was there in the Morlock tunnels as well. I have some demons of remembrance to excise.”
There was a look of smoldering fury on Hank McCoy’s blue-furred face that filled Wolverine with uncommon wonder. The Beast was the ever rational core of the X-Men, a good-hearted man who functioned on a practical, intellectual level most of the time. But not, apparently, all of the time.
Quickly, the memory of his run in with Arclight mere moments ago came back to Wolverine, and it hit him that the Beast did not have his unbreakable adamantium bones. If she got a hand on him, Hank could be in serious trouble. And she was fast.
“Hank, maybe you’d better …” Wolverine began, but too late.
Arclight lunged for the Beast, the way a wrestler would, but Hank simply stepped aside and slapped her on the side of the head, knocking her down.
“Come on, then, hit me,” the Beast said, tauntingly. “As politically incorrect as it may seem—brand me a sexist if you wish—I would never ordinarily pummel a woman. But when it comes to someone who slaughters innocent people, innocent children, I’ll make an exception.”
“Aren’t I lucky,” Arclight sneered with sarcasm and contempt, then swung a large fist at the Beast’s face. Hank caught Arclight’s fist in his own.
“Decidedly not,” he answered, and slugged her hard in the face.
Arclight’s legs collapsed beneath her. If the Beast had not been holding on to her hand, she would have crumbled to the ground. Arclight was a big woman, and with her armor on must have weighed close to two fifty. Hank picked her up, and without any visible effort, hurled her across the street where her body knocked a hole in the outer wall of an electronics store. She lay, unmoving, half in and half out of the hole.
When the Beast turned to face Wolverine, he was not smiling.
“I’ve heard revenge is sweet,” he said quietly. “That was a lie, wasn’t it?”
“Revenge doesn’t help anyone, Hank,” Wolverine answered. “It’s just something that needs doin’.” Storm and Bishop approached slowly, on guard for any other members of the Marauders team.
“You can relax,” Wolverine said. “It was just the five of them.”
“Then let us secure these miscreants and move on,” Storm decided. “We’re wasting time.”
“And we must catch up with Iceman,” Beast reminded her. “The Marauders are not likely to be the only old enemies of the X-Men roaming around Manhattan tonight. I’m beginning to think letting him go on alone was a mistake.”
EIGHT
THE conference room was vast and ornate. The door and window frames and the twenty-foot mahogany table were hand carved with elaborate floral designs. The high-backed chairs were upholstered with burgundy leather. There was a portrait on the wall of a man none of them recognized, but it was clear he was responsible for the splendor around them. The other wall was covered floor to ceiling with shelf after shelf of legal texts.
This, Amelia Voght thought, is the world that might have been mine had I not been born a mutant. She had rejected the pursuit of wealth and privilege as measured by human standards, and had instead decided to fight for acceptance on an individual level, for who and what she was. When acceptance was not forthcoming, she realized that obedience might be easier to obtain. To achieve that, she became one of Magneto’s Acolytes.
They sat around the conference room, and Amelia thought that almost all of them looked as uncomfortable in that opulence as she felt. Perhaps only Senyaka, whose background was a mystery to her, seemed at home there. The only ones missing were Javitz, who was still injured and whom Amelia sorely missed, and Scanner and Milan, both of whom Magneto had constant use for in the rapid construction of his new empire. Scanner was needed for communication and to pinpoint mutant bio-signatures as they approached Magneto’s new headquarters. Milan, of course, was online and had become the nerve center of the empire, as well as the monitor for media and other transmissions.
That left Cargil, Senyaka, the Kleinstock brothers,
and Unuscione. There were a dozen empty seats around the table, but Unuscione had taken the one with the tallest back, at the head of the table. As field leader, Amelia Voght had every right to that chair, and she knew without a doubt that Unuscione had taken it with every intention of rubbing it in her face.
Amelia ignored her, choosing instead to stand at the opposite end of the table. Their conflict, as they silently confronted one another across that expanse of wood, had never seemed more clear.
“Okay, let’s get down to business,” Voght said. “Dawn isn’t far off, and Magneto has asked that we forget about policing the city for the rest of the night. Things have calmed down some for now anyway. People are likely waiting to see who ends up on top.”
“Aren’t we all,” Unuscione commented drily, and it was clear to Voght that the woman wasn’t talking about the Empire Agenda at all.
“There were plenty of mutants in the city already, and more are coming in by the hour,” Amelia continued. “The Sentinels have logged and identified most of them, and it’s only a matter of time before they show up here. Magneto also believes that we’ll see an even larger wave in the morning.”
“So do we finally get some sleep, then?” Harlan Kleinstock asked gruffly.
Amelia shot him a withering look and shook her head.
“Sadly, no,” she answered. “We’ve got a few more important things to deal with just at the moment. Namely, the X-Men.”
“Those buffoons,” Unuscione scoffed. “I was wondering when they’d show their faces. Don’t worry, Harlan, you’ll be sleeping like a baby come dawn.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to laugh them off, Unuscione,” Amelia said, unable to stop herself. “You were, if I recall, defeated by Iceman, were you not? And isn’t he supposed to be the weak link in that team?”
“Don’t start with me you bitch!” Unuscione shrieked, leaping up from her chair and starting along the table toward Amelia.
Senyaka and Cargil were up immediately, holding her back. More accurately, she allowed them to hold her back, as her psionic exoskeleton could have tossed them both aside like rag dolls if she so chose.
“You cross me one more time—” Unuscione continued, but Amelia cut her off.
“Do not presume to threaten me, girl,” Amelia said, loading each word with menace. “Magneto has made me field leader of the Acolytes and until such time as he chooses to revoke that title, you will follow my commands as you would his.”
“And if I do not?” Unuscione asked defiantly.
“If you do not, then Magneto will never have the opportunity to correct you, for I will have disciplined you myself,” Amelia said curtly. “It is not something you would enjoy.”
“For all your talk, Voght, you have ever been the softest of us,” Unuscione said smugly as she sat back down. “Do not think your laughable new rank changes that a bit.”
“For the last time, keep silent,” Voght said.
This time, Unuscione acquiesced.
“The Sentinels have recorded the entrance into New York of five members of the X-Men aboard the same Blackbird jet they used as transport to Colorado,” she began. “While the Sentinels could not be spared to confront, or even trail, the X-Men, we have independent confirmation that the Blackbird landed in Central Park and was abandoned there.”
“How the hell do they think they’ll find us?” Cargil asked. “Unless they brought Professor Xavier with them.”
“Xavier is not in Manhattan,” Voght responded. “These are the same five we dealt with so unsuccessfully in Colorado—”
“Speak for yourself, Voght,” Senyaka snapped. “We did just fine against the X-Men.”
“We outnumbered them, Senyaka, but they handed us our heads,” Amelia corrected. “If not for Magneto, we’d be in federal custody right now, heading for the Vault. Of course, the situation is a little different now. We’ve got Magneto and the Sentinels on our side, not to mention all the new recruits that are pouring in even as we speak.”
“What I want to know,” said Sven Kleinstock, “is where are the rest of the X-Men? I mean, there’s at least ten of them, not even counting the various other mutants that are part of their little clique. Do you think this could be a setup?”
“Maybe it is,” Amelia admitted. “Magneto supposed just that. But even if they do have reserves on hand, they aren’t in Manhattan already or we’d know about it.”
“Unless there’s some new recruits that you don’t know are part of the X-Men,” Cargil suggested. “That’d be just the kind of thing they’d pull.”
“Enough chit-chat,” Amelia said finally. “We’ve got our marching orders. The X-Men have got to be on their way here. Lightning was just spotted in Times Square, and it’s a clear night otherwise. That’s got to be Storm. Unuscione, you and Cargil will take Magneto’s first recruits out to find the X-Men, while the rest of us remain behind and cover the building’s lobby.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding,” Unuscione spat. “The two of us and a couple of rookies up against the X-Men?”
“If you miss them, or they defeat you, the rest of us will be here to capture them when they reach the building,” Amelia explained, then allowed a small smile to turn up the corners of her mouth. “Unless, of course,” she teased, “you don’t think you can handle it?”
“You bitch!” Unuscione screamed. “You’re setting me up for a fall.”
Amelia sniffed dismissively. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Unuscione demanded.
“You’re a smart girl,” Amelia said. “You’ll figure it out.”
“That’s it!” Unuscione screamed, and used her high leather chair to stomp onto the mahogany table. With a loud, almost melodic hum, her psionic exoskeleton seemed to burst from her body in a three dimensional spray of green light. It enveloped her in a square-edged armor of energy that changed its shape to fulfill her every whim.
“It’s time you were taught a lesson about how you speak to your betters!” Unuscione declared, and began to stomp toward Amelia with murder in her eyes.
“All right, you little brat,” Amelia spat, “you’ve been living off your Daddy’s reputation for way too long. And he wasn’t much to speak of in the end, was he?”
“You’re gonna die, Voght!” Unuscione roared, and her psionic exoskeleton lifted huge glowing arms and brought them down to crush Amelia with their power.
But Amelia wasn’t there. At the last instant, she teleported out of the way, and appeared behind Unuscione. To one side, the Kleinstocks, infantile as they were, began to snicker, giving her away. A battering ram of psionic energy shot out from Unuscione’s back and slammed Amelia hard against the wall. Her breath was knocked out of her, but she teleported again. When she reappeared, she stood next to Unuscione, just beyond the electric green shell that protected the other Acolyte.
“You idiot!” Unuscione cried with delight. “Do you want to die?”
Unuscione reached out and huge psionic energy hands wrapped themselves around Amelia’s throat, and began to squeeze. Stars exploded in Amelia’s head as she instinctively fought for air. But this was what she wanted, to have Unuscione so close. The other woman was merciless and would pound an enemy to gory pulp without blinking an eye. But this close, Amelia had wagered that Unuscione would not be able to resist a more intimate attack, and she had been correct.
That was all Amelia needed, to get her hands on Unuscione’ s exoskeleton.
Struggling to keep from suffocating, even as Unuscione gloated and, more than likely, prepared to break her neck, Amelia slapped her hands over the monstrous psionic energy fingers that choked her.
Then she teleported.
As she reappeared, Unuscione was screaming, her psionic exoskeleton being drawn back into her in tattered ribbons. On top of the mahogany table, Unuscione doubled over in pain, holding her hands tight against her chest.
“What have you done?” she screamed.
“I’ve hurt you,” Amelia said softly, as she stepped toward Unuscione, still on top of the table. Around her, the other Acolytes stared at her in astonishment, as if she had suddenly become a total stranger to them. And in a way she had. None of them had ever really thought of her as a powerful or dangerous woman. Just transportation. That was about to change.
“I’ve hurt you bad, I hope,” Amelia whispered as she crouched by Unuscione, who knelt now, still holding her hands to her stomach. “I took hold of your exoskeleton and I teleported part of it away.”
“You what?” Unuscione asked, her face red with pain and fury. She began to get unsteadily back to her feet.
“I stole a piece of you,” Amelia said coldly. “I might just as easily have taken your head and teleported away with that. But Magneto would not have been pleased. I hope it hurt. A part of you is gone forever, though I don’t suppose it will prevent you from using your powers.
“Now,” Amelia continued, leaning in to speak through clenched teeth, even as Unuscione finally stood straight and tall once more, “you will not question my orders again. Is that clear?”
“Crystal!” Unuscione said, and slammed her fist into Amelia’s face with such force that Amelia fell back and rolled off the table. Cargil sidestepped to get out of the way, even as Unuscione dove at her.
“I don’t need my power to defeat you!” Unuscione screamed. “I’ll kill you with my bare bands!”
Amelia stood quickly and moved into a fighting stance. Unuscione came for her and Amelia ducked her blow, brought up her left leg and kicked the other woman three times in quick succession, twice in the face and once in the chest, sending Unuscione stumbling backward.
“Care to try that again?” Amelia asked, and was astounded when it appeared Unuscione was going to take her up on it. For the first time, she began to worry that she would have to kill the other woman to defeat her. Magneto would be sorely displeased, but she knew that if that was what it took, if she had no other choice, then she would do just that.
Marvel Classic Novels--X-Men Page 39
