24: The mists of memory
So that's the enemy, Logan thinks, hitching an eyebrow in surprise. Even on the security camera, chick's kinda pretty … long pale limbs spread wide, ass waving in the air … but there's something odd about her. Something familiar … sounds like a cat in heat, demanding little bitch … lost to the holes in his memory.
Something's different, he frowns. Usually, he doesn't know what he has lost – it's a void, a cold blackness when he tries to remember. But this is something pushing him away from memories he knows are there. His nose is reminding him of how she drenches herself in some sort of godawful perfume, and his hands are itching to slap her around a bit … all she wants him for, all they ever want ... but he doesn't know her name, or how he knows her.
Fucking inconvenient, considering Rogue's just nominated her as the enemy. Any other day, he'd be down there already, slicing and dicing on just her say-so, but … Rogue's eyes were still glowing green. And she was holding hands with the bucketload of crazy that killed Xavier.
Wolverine was growling in confusion. He just wanted to gut somebody already. Right there with you, bub, Logan snarls, but forces himself to dig up some details – anything – on who the fuck the woman in white might be. Instead, things grow fuzzier as they watch her progress through the house, towards the lift. Push the button for the medbay, and smile serenely as she begins to descend.
Pretty blonde. Wonder who she was coming to visit, Logan wonders with a grin. Who was that redhead with Rogue, though? She smelt – off. He needed to kill her. Now.
He lunges with a roar, claws out in front of him, as the Wolverine thrashes inside, terrified. His target simply raises an eyebrow and flicks her fingers at him, throwing him back across the full length of the medbay. Powerful, he thinks, groaning as he slides down the wall.
Why was Rogue with her?
“Marie?” he protests as he staggers to his feet.
He shakes his head as the world seems to mist again, then blinks. Who are these people? Are they pursuing him? Everyone is tense and worried, but there's no stink of murder, or rage. Just horror, and confusion.
Why are they confused? Who are they?
“Logan? Sugah?”
Concern, and annoyance in a voice that drips the South. (Something inside of him is howling a name. He swats it away.) The smaller of the two delicious women on the other side of the room is approaching him slowly, and he relaxesbecause she's a hot little piece, even if her hair is a little weird.
“Hey, sweetcheeks. What's an angel like you doing in a place like this?”
Her mouth drops open in shock, and he swallows hard. Those lips were … he shouldn't be thinkin' of a lady like that. But, still ...
“Really, Logan? Emma fucking Frost is dabbling in mass fucking murder and you've decided to turn into some sort of mutant frat boy?”
“Who you calling a mutant, sweetheart? And what in tarnation is a frat boy?”
Her eyes bug as she takes a step back. The other woman, all wild red hair and scary black eyes, strolls closer and tilts her head curiously.
“How very strange. She's blocking him, somehow. Leaving the barest essence of who he is. His feral side is completely locked up. He is … just a man.”
“A man trapped in the 1950s!”
“More probably the 1920s,” a cool voice intercedes from the other side of the room. “I couldn't take him right back … maybe another day, more time. But … Logan was always so sweet when that animal was out of action. 'Course – I did let it come back sometimes.” Frosted pink lips stretch into a parody of a smile as yet another gorgeous woman makes her way towards them. A blonde, dressed all in white. Why was he shivering?
“I did love to subvert that horrendous old saying about women. Just a little reorganisation, and even he was a gentleman at the table.” She lowers her voice into a coy whisper. “And an animal in my bed.”
The little one flinches as if the blonde had slapped her, and steps in front of him protectively.
“What sort of woman needs to use mind control to get a man,” she hisses.
“Oh, no, dear. That's not how it worked. He came to me. Just like you – he wanted control. He needed to learn how to control the animal, and I gave him that. Whatever fun we had … that was just incidental. It's not like he paid his debt that way.”
She leans forward, and Logan realises all the fancy clothes, all the diamonds in the world, couldn't pretty up that much malice.
“You, of course, never paid your debt at all. But don't worry. I've got a payment plan in mind.”
He had no clue what the blonde was talking about. But he could taste the threat, and something about the way the curvy brunette reacted, something about her flinch … his hands were fucking itchy, he realised. As if pressure was building behind the skin.
Pressure became agony, and James Howlett looks down in disbelief.
He has fucking claws!
*
Dr Henry McCoy stares at the implements in his hands, and wonders what to do with them. Why huge, ungainly paws such as his own would be holding them in the first place. He was made for bashing, crashing, crunching.
Roaring. Destroying. Carnage.
He rips off the labcoat and drops down on all fours, blindly moving towards the blood dripping onto the floor.
Taste. Good. More
Beast bares his teeth and leaps for Wolverine's throat.
*
Ororo Munroe feels the storm gathering long before it arrives. She reaches for it, tries to draw it down, but the clouds scud away.
She blinks in surprise, then wonders why she had tried. What human could command the storm?
And why is she here, so exposed, with these strangers? She is a creature of shaded doorways and dingy alleys, and there is nowhere to hide here, where the lights are so bright.
The woman once hailed as a goddess slinks backwards, sliding into Dr Grey's office when all eyes are elsewhere.
She folds herself in under the desk. Hidden. Safe, she thinks, staring blindly at the silver X on her belt. What could it mean, she wonders idly as she waits for the chance to sneak away.
*
Ilyana! The two beasts were snarling on the floor in front of her, and her terror had him completely armoured before the first gouts of blood sprayed across the pristine white floor.
It was a lab of some sort, he realises, looking around wildly. He has no memory of how he got here, only that he had been standing, staring at the dead man, and then he had heard her scream, his sister, his Ilyana.
Not the child he remembers, Piotr realises as he throws a red-eyed demon aside in his inexorable progress towards her. A woman grown, now, but her spirit still shines in her eyes, and her voice chimes inside his head the way it always had.
“Careful, Piotr. They have been keeping us prisoner, but I have the upper hand, now. The only threat left is the red headed witch. Come, deal with her for me, and we shall leave this place together.”
He throws himself at the witch, a missile of gleaming metal, only to find himself twitching at the end of her fingers. In mid-air. Completely suspended, and paralysed, able only to move when she forces him to.
“Phoenix. Let him go. He's not responsible for his actions.” That voice was usually sweeter, he thinks idly. Southern, he frowns, without ever wondering how he knows the woman. Even so, her clipped tones were positively warm next to the terrifying redhead's utter disregard.
“Child. Mercy will get you killed. A weapon is still dangerous, even if it doesn't choose to fire itself. And you are all her weapons, now,” the witch observes, her lips twisting with amusement as she forces Colossus' fingers into the shape of a gun, makes his thumb cock it, and then fire in the direction of the smaller woman.
Her witch's sardonic grin faded as the threat hangs heavy between them. “Except for you, Rogue. You seem unaffected. Why is that?”
Colossus quakes for her, but the girl tips up her chin, and there is nothing sweet about her cold, green glare.
“Let's just call me difficult, and leave it at that, shall we? And while we're being honest with each other? Quit pushing, Phoenix. I can feel you, scrabbling about in there. You ain't getting in.”
The horror blinks in obvious surprise, but the scrappy girl isn't quite finished.
“Way I see it, we got a problem needs solvin', and it'll get done quicker if we do it together. And then we'll see if you and me still got a problem,” she says, staring up at the redhead.
And suddenly, Piotr couldn't decide who was scarier. He holds his breath as the horror contemplates the deal, looking almost human as indecision lightens her black eyes. She nods, finally, and the invisible fingers at his throat vanish, dumping him on the ground in a trembling mess of tortured gasps and shaking limbs.
Colossus forces himself to his feet, and falls in behind the two women. Rogue, he remembers. His team leader. And Jean. Who was calling herself the Phoenix. And was apparently the lesser of two evils.
The thought makes him shake.
*
Her gaze had passed over him, straight to the warriors. Wolverine. Colossus. Even the good doctor. Gil Pryor had never been so glad to be ignored in his life.
He watched as their faces grew blank, and recognition faded from their eyes. Watched their minds submit to the newcomer, their bodies claimed for her service. He had begun to inch himself backwards, into the supply room, even before Rogue and the Phoenix started to fight back. He had no place there, could render no aid.
He forces his mind to work through the available options. Normally, he would seek backup in such a standoff, but this woman was using her powers to violate free will. She had already captured the X-men's three outstanding fighters and turned them back on their own team … the same fate surely awaited any newcomers.
The Phoenix had simply twitched her fingers to recover the giant Russian, pushed the illusions aside as if they were nothing. Could she do the same for the Wolverine, and McCoy? Was it in his power to make that happen?
No, Pryor decides. He has no agency here. And he has other responsibilities. “Find the culprit”, the President had said. “And I will stop this.” Twenty four hours had been and gone. The soldiers would already be filling the camps.
He has to try.
The President's private line is busy. He ends the call, and presses redial immediately. Busy again.
He keeps trying.
*
Three missed calls, from Gil Pryor. The guilt hissed and coiled in his stomach, writhing, bile under his tongue. It was the same colour, he fancied, as the poison in the vial sitting on his desk. Condemning him.
President Buchanan stared at the vial for twenty minutes before dialling the number.
“Pryor.” His tongue stuck in his throat, after that. He waited for the other man to speak.
“She's here. The one who caused all of this. Mind control,” Pryor whispered, his words barely discernible. “We're dealing with it. Cancel the orders.”
He didn't even say goodbye, Buchanan thought as the connection reverted to static. How could he have explained, anyway?
The camps were no longer an issue. Stryker's new plan had been set in motion six hours ago.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I was hoping this would be the penultimate chapter, but Brilliant Beta Ban (TM) has convinced me I was packing way too much in, and to take it more gently. On the upside, I should be able to post the final few chapters pretty much weekly from now on. Thanks again to Bancainte for her grammar skillz and good sense.