“The military can only stand by and wait. It’s the X-Men’s show, now. It all rests with them. If Magneto isn’t stopped here, he’ll be in your town next, that I guarantee. And as you watch for the next few moments in silence, as you watch what they are suffering for you, ask yourself one very disturbing question: What in the name of God would we have done, what would our fate have been, if the bigots of this nation had been successful in destroying the X-Men, as they’ve been trying to do for years? What would we have done without them?”
Trish signaled with her left hand, which was out of the camera frame, and the cameraman panned away from her and settled on the quickly dwindling war.
It stayed there a long time.
The world watched.
SIXTEEN
AS staid as his well-deserved reputation painted him to be, Charles Xavier was not above childlike excitement. That was the very emotion he had felt when he realized that Valerie Cooper, Archangel, and Gambit had succeeded in their quest to take the Sentinels away from Magneto.
It was a huge victory, a priceless one. For several entire minutes, Xavier was able to put aside his anxiety over the continuing war, his political spin-doctoring of mutant-human relations, his constant monitoring of all the major parties involved.
The smile hurt his face.
When Gyrich had come over to deliver the good news, Xavier had forced himself to stifle the smile. As Gyrich walked away, he had thought it would return, but it did not. The reasons quickly became apparent.
In his youth, Charles Xavier had been a man of action; a soldier, an adventurer, so many things. After he lost the use of his legs, all of that changed. In his lowest times, he considered himself the worst kind of voyeur. Not that he eavesdropped on people’s thoughts, or peeked in on the fantasies in their minds. That never interested him.
Instead, he lived vicariously through the X-Men, in so many ways. They did what, in almost every case, he could not. They went out into the world and fought for his dream. He did all he could, politically, financially, personally. He guided their every action. But it was the X-Men in the field, without their teacher, mentor, founder.
Sometimes, Charles Xavier, among the two or three most powerful men on the planet, felt completely powerless. Useless.
He might have asked Gyrich to bring him along, but the man would never have complied. Who wants to take responsibility for a man who cannot walk in the middle of a war zone? He might have forced Gyrich to take him, but that would have led to disaster.
In any case, that was not his role. Xavier was to direct, to command, to inspire, to plan. There were things he might have done to end the battle more swiftly, but his moral code would not allow him actually to undertake any of them. Under normal circumstances.
These were hardly normal circumstances. It was quite possible that, before dawn broke once more, Xavier would have broken even more of his own personal commandments, ignored his entirely subjective thou-shalt-nots in favor of safety, of life, of victory.
Part of his role was to see the big picture, to sense the danger the X-Men were in and try to guide them through it.
X-Men, beware, he thought, sending the message to each member of the team simultaneously. The deciding moment of this war has come. Magneto is on his way to you now. Enraged as he is, he is more dangerous than ever. Do not let your guard down for a moment, do not allow relief to diminish your readiness for battle. For everything you have done up until this moment has been but a prelude to this, the final battle with Magneto.
If you are not careful, he could destroy you all.
Message sent, and silently acknowledged, Xavier looked up at the night sky and breathed deeply. There was no pleasure in it, no relaxation of the grim set of his features. Only preparation for whatever might come.
For Charles Xavier had finally realized that he could remain on the sidelines no longer. The final battle with Magneto was his to fight. The X-Men might triumph without his help, but he feared that not all of them would survive.
Victory was his to earn.
He did not move from the spot where he had sat for hours in his wheelchair. Even so, Charles Xavier had gone to war.
* * *
GAMBIT and Val Cooper tore onto Fifth Avenue on another stolen motorcycle, with Archangel flying above. Mutants and humans alike were fleeing the field of battle—at least those that could still move under their own power. They seemed to sense that the end was near, and that none of them would have any impact over the outcome of the war for Manhattan.
“It’s like Times Square just after midnight on New Year’s Eve,” Archangel said on the comm.
“Or when de sun come up de morning after Mardi Gras,” Gambit agreed. “Nobody even want to look at anybody else, just get de hell out of dere and home to bed.”
It had come down to the X-Men and the Juggernaut against those Acolytes who remained conscious and some of their more powerful allies. By the time Gambit steered the bike through unconscious bodies he hoped were still alive, Archangel was already in the thick of battle. It would be over soon, he knew.
Or it would have been, if they had been the last of the enemy. But there was still Magneto to deal with. Soon. Very soon. But not yet. They could still finish off the others and present a united front against Magneto when he did get there.
“Valerie, get off,” he said grimly. “De toy soldiers are over dat way.”
She started to protest, even as she got off the motorcycle, but Gambit was gone before the first words were out. She’d done her part. Now the X-Men had to finish the job.
Cyclops was blasting away at a mutant who looked as if he were made of rubber, but the surface of his flesh rippled and shone like crude oil. Whenever Cyclops took a shot at him, the mutant’s body bent or opened to let the blast through.
Then he’d hit Cyclops again, hard, leaving a dark inky stain behind. It wasn’t much more than one on one, it seemed, and Gambit moved forward to help Cyclops, figuring his presence would make the difference, change the balance of power. It was so close to being over.
There was a small sound behind him, creeping cat’s paws, and he started to turn. Too late. Senyaka’s burning psionic whip wrapped around his neck, choking off his air before he could take a breath. Gambit tried to get his hands on the whip, to use his power, to use the whip against Senyaka, something. It moved side to side, snakelike, avoiding his grasp. He kicked out, taking Senyaka in the chest. The hooded Acolyte let out a grunt, but the whip did not let go.
Gambit tried once more to get his hands on the whip, then lunged for Senyaka himself. But the air was gone. Completely. He went down hard. When his face hit the street, he barely felt it.
* * *
FROM above, Rogue saw it all.
“Remy!” she screamed, and shot toward him out of the sky.
Rogue had never worried for herself. She worried about consequences all the time, worried for her friends, worried for the world. But never for herself. She was nearly invulnerable. Anything that might hurt her very badly would likely also kill her. Nothing she could do about that.
But Gambit was not invulnerable. Not hardly. Sure, Remy LeBeau knew how to take care of himself. That had been his full-time occupation before joining the X-Men, covering his own hide. Things had changed. He knew family now. Rogue flattered herself to think he knew love as well. She most certainly loved him.
Down on the street, the man she loved, the sharp-tongued mystery man whose Cajun charm had won her over from their first meeting … Gambit was dying.
“No!” she cried, shot like a bullet to street level, and didn’t slow down a bit before slamming into Senyaka.
Ribs cracked under her assault. She slammed through glass partitions and into a row of ATM machines. His cowled head clanged off the machines and he stumbled for a moment, unsure of where he was. A weak glow formed in the palm of his right hand, a feeble attempt to create his psionic whip. Rogue spun him around, and Senyaka’s cowl slipped down.
She recoi
led.
“My God but you’re ugly enough, ain’t ya?” she observed.
Rogue hit him in the gut hard enough to carry him off his feet and back out onto the sidewalk, then he rolled into the street. Senyaka held tightly to his belly, doubled over, and vomited blood in the gutter.
She went after him. As she reached to pick him up, a powerful hand grabbed her right arm, and she spun, lashing out at this new attacker.
Hank McCoy blocked her swing with the flash of one blue-furred arm.
“Ow!” he hissed. “Now, that’s going to leave a significant contusion.”
“Let go of me, Beast,” she demanded.
“Apologies, Rogue, but no,” Hank replied. “Another blow and you would have killed him.”
She glanced back at Senyaka. The blood was coming from his nose as well, now. The Beast relaxed his grip, but she didn’t go after her target again.
“In truth, he may yet die from the injuries you’ve given him,” the Beast said sadly.
“Let him,” she said, though she did not really mean it. She was no killer. Rogue said nothing as the Beast knelt to see what medical assistance he could give to Senyaka.
Across the street, Gambit lay very still. Rogue wanted to go to him, feel his pulse. That way she could breathe again. But she couldn’t drive herself through the night. It had all become surreal to her suddenly, and touching Gambit’s neck or wrist would bring them back to reality. If he were dead, she didn’t think she …
“Oh, thank God,” Rogue gasped.
She had seen his chest rise and fall. Even now, it continued to do so.
Rogue rushed to Gambit’s side, knelt by his unconscious form. They’d all been through a lot the previous few days, but Gambit had had it even tougher than the rest of them. She ran her gloved fingers over the stubble on his chin, pushed his hair away from his face. She longed to be able to touch him, her own skin to his flesh. But the pleasures of such simple contact were denied Rogue forever. With her personality-, memory-, and talent-absorption powers, she could permanently damage anyone she touched.
It was the worst kind of isolation. And yet, with Gambit, Rogue had begun to feel a little less alone.
“You rest now, sugar,” she said quietly. “You’ve done your part.”
She kissed the fingers of her gloved right hand, then pressed the kiss to his lips. Rogue didn’t even glance back at the injured Senyaka, at Hank McCoy, who was trying to undo at least part of what she’d done. It didn’t matter. In many ways winning didn’t even matter anymore.
The only thing that did matter was an end. Now, Rogue wanted nothing more than to go home, to bring Gambit back to Salem Center to heal.
She prayed that it would be over soon.
* * *
“YOU tried to kill my brother!” Harlan Kleinstock shrieked, more astonished than accusatory. “Oh, you’re dead, man.”
“Please,” Iceman said, sarcasm like venom from his mouth. “If I’d wanted to kill him, I’d have flash-frozen the air in his mouth and nose, or freeze-dried his chest and just shattered it.”
Harlan fired a blast of kinetic energy from his fists, but Iceman blocked it with a concave ice shield, deflecting it back at his attacker. Kleinstock was too angry to be impressed.
“Go down and stay down, pal,” Kleinstock snarled. “I’m getting a little tired of you, of this whole thing. Give it up, will you?”
“Wait,” Iceman said, flustered and angry. “You’re tired of me? You’re tired of me? Oh, that’s rich!”
Bobby formed the moisture from the air into a battering ram of ice that tore Harlan Kleinstock off his feet, drove him back several yards, and slammed him into a brown UPS truck parked askew at the corner. Kleinstock didn’t get up.
With a long sigh, Bobby sat down on the street corner, chin in his hands, not even bothering to look and see if his teammates needed help. He didn’t think they did. It was almost over now.
“I’m going to Disneyworld,” he said softly to himself.
* * *
WHEN Ivan Skolnick spotted Colonel Tomko standing with Henry Peter Gyrich, he froze in his tracks. His human allies continued to swarm from the battlefield toward the growing ranks of the media on the sidelines. But that was not Skolnick’s proper path and he knew it.
Approaching Tomko and Gyrich was the most courageous act he had ever performed. When he was only a short distance away, Gyrich looked up and recognized him. The man’s eyes went wide and he glanced nervously at Colonel Tomko, then at a blonde woman behind him, who Skolnick recognized as Valerie Cooper, the mutant affairs expert. Then Gyrich turned his attention back to Skolnick’s approach, and glared.
The look was an eloquently wordless threat. Skolnick ignored it. When he was ten feet away from Colonel Tomko, he snapped to attention.
“Major Ivan Skolnick, reporting, sir!” he barked. “Remanding myself into your custody, sir.”
Tomko looked at him quizzically, then at Gyrich and finally at Cooper.
“Custody?” he asked. “What for, Major? You aren’t in my command.”
“Yes, sir, I know, sir, but you’re the highest ranking officer present, sir,” Skolnick said quickly, every word a sharp pain in his heart. His career was over.
“Major, I think you should—” Gyrich began.
“You overstep yourself, Mr. Gyrich,” Colonel Tomko said, and Skolnick could hear the pleasure the colonel got from telling Gyrich off. He liked the sound of it himself.
“Colonel, sir, I was leader of Special Ops Unit One, orders to terminate Magneto,” he said. “But I’m a mutant, sir—”
“What?!?” Gyrich nearly shrieked. “No wonder!”
“I turned on my own unit and joined Magneto’s cause,” Skolnick said, eyes on the pavement.
Gyrich was fuming.
“But you led the human resistance in this decisive battle, didn’t you?” Colonel Tomko asked.
“Yes, sir,” Skolnick replied.
“Were any of your unit hurt?” the colonel asked.
“No, sir,” Skolnick said, “I wouldn’t have harmed a hair on their heads.”
“Colonel, this man should be court-martialed for treason,” Gyrich said emphatically.
“You’re not a military man, Gyrich,” Tomko said. “It’s none of your business. Besides, the major is hardly a traitor.” “But he—” Gyrich spluttered.
“He is a genius!” Tomko finished. “He used the fact that he was a mutant to construct an elaborate ruse, kept his men safe from harm by causing them to be incarcerated, and infiltrated Magneto’s infrastructure in order to position himself to usurp Magneto when the time was right. If anything, he is to be commended.”
“Commended?” Gyrich squealed.
“Mr. Gyrich, if you have a problem with my version of events, perhaps you’d care to discuss exactly whose orders SOU1 were operating under, in direct conflict with the President’s very specific instructions?” Colonel Tomko said.
Gyrich grumbled something Skolnick couldn’t hear. Behind him, Valerie Cooper had an enormous smile on her face.
“Good work, Major,” Colonel Tomko said, and held out his hand.
Major Skolnick couldn’t shake.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but it isn’t the way you—” he began, trying to explain.
The colonel held up a hand, gesturing for him to be quiet.
“Major,” he said patiently, “I don’t know what you’re about to say, and I don’t want to know. I know what’s going in my report, and I’m sure Gyrich’s report will reflect the same. You’d do well by yourself and all involved to just keep quiet.
“You have something you want to say to your unit, Major, you say it to them in private. You hear me?” the colonel asked.
“Yes, sir,” Major Skolnick responded, and offered a salute. The colonel saluted in return.
All of it had gone away, like an awful nightmare. Well, not all of it.
The guilt was still there.
* * *
TO Amelia Voght,
Wolverine looked like some feral beast, a warrior out of barbarian times, a stone killer. As far as she was concerned, he was all of those things. His adamantium claws were nearly black with blood. Moonlight and neon glinted off speckles of crimson on Wolverine’s face and chest.
Voght was terrified. The worst part was, she thought Wolverine could smell her fear.
“Come on, X-Man,” she said. “Try me. If I can teleport your arms back to Avalon, those claws would make great trophies.”
To her growing horror, Wolverine smiled. Voght wasn’t sure—didn’t want to be sure—but she thought she saw blood on his teeth. But no, she told herself, he wouldn’t—She stopped herself. She didn’t know for certain what Wolverine would or would not do, when pushed. And she prayed she wouldn’t find out.
“Back off, or I’ll take you apart,” she warned, weakly.
“Threats don’t mean much to me, little girl,” he said, taking several steps toward her, stalking her. “You try to ’port my arms off, that means you gotta get real close. Before you lay a hand on me, your guts’ll be painting the street.”
Voght shivered.
“You’d best surrender, now, or we’re gonna have to throw down. It’s gonna be messy too,” he promised.
She said nothing. Biting her lip, Amelia Voght considered all that she owed Magneto, all that his dream meant to her and to so many others. It had always seemed to her that Haven would be worth dying for, but here was her death now, taking another step toward her, and, by God, she didn’t want to die.
“Let’s do it,” Wolverine said, and started for her.
Voght steeled herself. No matter how much she feared him, she wouldn’t run. He was just another mutant. She’d beaten him before. If she had to kill him now, to save her own life, then that was the way it would be.
“Give it up, Voght!” somebody shouted to her left.
Wolverine slowed as Amelia turned to see who had spoken. Her breath slowly leaked out of her, and for several seconds, she forgot to take another.
It was the X-Men. All of them. Or nearly all, since Gambit was out of it. Jean Grey had spoken, and with her stood Cyclops, Rogue, the Beast, Bishop, Storm, Archangel, Iceman, and their unexpected ally, the Juggernaut.
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