A number of screams sounded in the crowd down the block.
Without letting go of Magneto’s throat, Sabretooth, under Xavier’s directions, turned to see where the shot had come from.
Magneto laughed throatily. He had fired at point-blank range into the face of one cop, then had stopped the bullet just as it touched the man’s skin. The bullet was still hanging there, the heat from it burning the man’s forehead. The cop’s eyes were huge, and Magneto had no doubt the poor fool had wet his pants from the fear.
The sound of the shot echoed off into the distance, and again the area was deadly quiet.
Charles, through Sabretooth, still hadn’t let go of Magneto’s neck.
“You want more?” Magneto asked.
Every gun floating in front of every cop cocked.
Two or three of the policemen dropped to their knees. The guns followed.
Two others dove and rolled, trying to get away. The guns followed, pointing in their faces when they stopped.
“Care to press your luck, Charles?” Magneto asked. “I can fire them all at once, but I don’t think I can stop all the bullets.”
The man with the bullet pressed against his forehead looked as if he was about to faint.
Sabretooth let go of Magneto and staggered back.
Toad looked around, half stunned.
“Still unwilling to make sacrifices, eh, Charles,” Magneto said. “That’s what makes you weak.”
Sabretooth stiffened. “No, Eric,” Sabretooth said, directed once again by Xavier. “That’s what makes me strong.”
Then Sabretooth slumped as the professor let him go again.
“Feeling a little used?” Magneto asked Sabretooth.
Sabretooth only growled.
Magneto looked around him at all the cops. Their guns were cocked, ready to fire.
Over the trees on the other side of the train station his helicopter flashed into sight. Mystique took it in a wide arc, then set it down expertly in the open area beside where they stood.
Magneto kept all the guns pointed at the cops as Toad loaded the sack containing their prize into the helicopter. Then he and Sabretooth climbed in.
Magneto waved to the cops, smiling. Then he climbed in and took the copilot’s seat, still maintaining his hold on the guns. “Good-bye, Charles,” he said.
He had no doubt that Charles could hear him.
Then, as they lifted off, he waved again, letting the guns drop to the ground.
Half the cops slumped. Two started throwing up.
All Magneto could do was laugh.
Jean pulled the Bentley onto a short side road and turned off the engine. The professor knew that his three people were just coming out of the trees. He had directed them away from the station and the authorities. They weren’t in any shape to deal with the police, and the police weren’t in any mood to deal with any more mutants at this point. Better to just let them think that Magneto and his people were the ones who did the damage.
“You better help them,” he said to Jean as three figures stepped out from among the trees.
Cyclops was in the center, eyes still shut, with an arm around Storm on one side and Logan on the other. Though he supported them, Storm was directing him, acting as his eyes. He looked as if he was barely keeping them all walking. The professor knew that was exactly the case. Storm was very bruised, and Logan was barely alive. Any other person would have been dead after the beating Magneto had given him.
Jean climbed out and took Storm from Cyclops, helping her into the backseat of the car. Cyclops supported Logan as he got in beside her, then with Jean’s guidance he crawled in the other door. Finally Jean got behind the wheel.
In silence they turned and headed for the mansion. There was nothing any of them could say. They had faced the first battle with Magneto and had come up wanting. They were lucky to be alive.
And they had lost Rogue.
Chapter Seventeen
X-Men Mansion
Logan’s quarters felt more like a tomb. The school’s students were still all asleep, but Storm, Jean, Cyclops, Logan, and the professor were all very much awake.
And Logan was mad. Madder than he had been in a long, long time. He had promised Rogue he would take care of her, then moments later he had been helpless. That ate at him, right in the core of his stomach. He wasn’t going to rest until she was back, safe and sound.
Logan stood near the door while Jean and Storm dropped into chairs. Cyclops paced. Logan was becoming more and more disgusted with this Scott Summers kid. And he wasn’t real happy with the professor, either.
“You said he wanted me,” Logan said, sneering at Xavier, letting the contempt show in his voice.
“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” Xavier admitted, nodding.
“I’d say,” Logan said, showing no mercy.
“Magneto’s helmet,” Xavier said, going on. “It is somehow designed to block my telepathy. I couldn’t see what he was after until it was too late.”
“It’s not your fault,” Cyclops said.
“No?” Logan challenged. “Why blame the biggest brain on the planet?”
“Hey,” Cyclops said, turning to face him. “I sure didn’t see you stop him.”
“How could you, blind man?”
The hotshot’s face got red around his visor, and he charged like a bull elephant.
“Scott!” Jean shouted. But it was too late.
Logan laughed and ducked easily under Scott’s fist, grabbed his arm, twisted it up behind his back, and slammed the kid into the wall, face first. Then, holding him there, Logan extended a claw right up to the back of Cyclops’ head.
“Logan!” Xavier said firmly.
A lock of Cyclops’ hair fell to the ground.
Logan flipped Cyclops around and sent him stumbling back. Then he faced the professor, angry and disgusted. “See, it’s this kind of thing that makes me wonder how you’re gonna outwit Magneto.”
With that he turned and slammed open the door. He stormed out into the hall and turned toward the front entrance. As far as he was concerned, he would get Rogue back on his own, or die trying. It was finally something worth dying for.
He started off down the hall.
“What are you doing?”
He stopped and turned to face Storm. Her neck was still bleeding slightly where Sabretooth had held her. And her white hair was streaked with black from the lightning strike she had brought down, very nearly on herself.
“I’m going to find Rogue,” Logan said. “What’s it look like?”
“You can’t just leave,” Storm said.
“Why not?” Logan asked. “Should I wait for good old Xavier and his fanatics—you included—to make everything all right?”
“We’re not fanatics, Logan,” Storm said, her voice low and even and controlled.
“No?” Logan asked, glaring at her. “Then just what are you? Why are you doing all this?”
“Because humanity needs us,” Storm said.
Logan took a step back toward her. “Oh, humanity needs you? How have they lived all this time without you?”
“It’s a different world now,” Storm said, standing face-to-face with him. “As a new species, we have a responsibility to protect them, to teach human beings to accept our presence here.”
Logan snorted and turned, then headed into the foyer. Behind him he could hear Storm following. She wasn’t going to give up, so in the foyer, near the front door, he turned on her.
“This is what pisses me off about you hypocrites,” he said, moving back a step to be right in her face again. “All your high-minded ideals, and you still hate them just as much as they hate you.”
She started to object, but he held his hand up for her to stop.
“Look,” he said, going on. “I dislike everyone equally, but you . . .” He shook his head in disgust. “You talk about human beings like they’re children, waiting for you to punish them for their ignorance.”
He ste
pped even closer to her, looking her directly in the eye. “They did hate you, didn’t they? Hey, it’s not like I don’t understand.” He raised his fist and extended a claw. “They cut open my body and turned me into this. What did they do to you?”
Storm looked flustered, but Logan wouldn’t let her turn away. “I’ve overcome the trials of my past,” she finally said.
Logan just sneered at her, retracted his claws, and turned toward the front door.
At the door he glanced back at her. “Good for you.”
He started to open the door, then stopped. “You know, I think your professor’s right. I think there is a war coming. You sure you’re on the right side?”
She looked at him, stiffly refusing to drop her gaze as the silence in the foyer seemed to stretch.
“At least I’ve chosen a side,” she said then.
Again they stared at each other, then, with a shake of his head, he turned and opened the door. Rogue was out there somewhere, and he had to find her. He was wasting his time here.
As he opened the door, Storm gasped.
Standing there in front of him was a man wearing clothes that clearly didn’t fit, looking just about as pale and sickly as a man could look and still stand. His clothes were soaked, and a puddle had formed around his feet.
“What the hell happened to you?” Logan asked.
Storm stepped up beside Logan. “Senator Kelly?”
“The Senator Kelly?” Logan asked, actually shocked. “The guy who hates mutants?”
The man nodded, then, very weakly, he said, “I’m looking for Dr. Jean Grey.” At that the man’s eyes rolled up into his head, showing only whites, and he pitched forward, right into Logan’s arms.
It was like holding onto the slime covering a Jell-O mold. Logan barely got him to the ground without dropping him.
“Professor! Jean!” Storm shouted.
Logan stood up. Well, he thought, it looks as if I’m not going anywhere just yet.
Professor Xavier glanced at the figure lying on the bed as he entered the medical lab. It was clearly the same man who had chaired that hearing just a short time before, yet it wasn’t the same man. The man in that hearing had been healthy, cocky, sure in his beliefs. This man looked as if he was burning up with a fever and melting at the same time.
Logan and Storm were standing against a counter on the other side of the bed. Cyclops was sitting on a second medical bed. Jean was standing over the senator.
“So what has happened to him?” Xavier asked her.
Jean shrugged. “I can’t explain it, but he’s a mutant. Or better put, he’s become one.”
“What’s his mutation?”
“He’s extremely adaptable,” Jean said. “He can effectively change the shape of his body.”
“So why does he look like this?” Logan asked.
“Something’s wrong with his mutation,” Jean said. “His cells are losing their integrity. They’re liquefying. He’s literally falling apart.”
“Any way to reverse the problem?” Xavier asked.
Jean shook her head.
At that moment the senator moaned and opened his eyes.
Xavier caught fleeting feelings of fear, panic, and extreme anger. He moved his chair up to a position head-high with Senator Kelly as Jean lowered the bed.
“Senator Kelly, my name is Professor Charles Xavier. This is my school.”
Kelly nodded. “For mutants?”
Xavier glanced at Jean, then back at Kelly. “Yes.”
Kelly half nodded. “I was afraid that if I went to a hospital, they would—”
“Treat you like a mutant?” Xavier said. “We are not what you think. Not all of us.”
“Tell that to the ones that did this to me,” Kelly said.
Xavier nodded. Then he moved closer and looked directly into the senator’s eyes. “I need you to try and relax. I’m not going to hurt you. But I need to find out as best I can what happened to you, to see if we can help you.”
Kelly nodded and took as deep a breath as he could.
Xavier looked into the man’s eyes, then put a hand on Kelly’s wet forehead, letting Kelly’s thoughts pour out and into his own mind.
The memories were jumbled, like flashes of light. Xavier was used to it. It was the same with most people. Memories weren’t clear, streamlike movies depicting logical sequences of events, but were more like flashbulb images of scenes hooked together, often not even in the right order. And they were always colored heavily with perceptions and feelings.
Flash:
His aide turning into Mystique, her blue face and yellow eyes clear, like the image of a monster. The pain from when she kicked him colored the memory in red.
Thus Magneto had captured the senator. Mystique had done it.
Flash:
Vision fading in and out of pained awakening as Magneto moved into the circle of light, illuminating what looked to be a clearing in a type of cliff-surrounded forest.
Kelly clearly had no idea where he was. And Xavier didn’t recognize it either, from anywhere in Magneto’s past.
Flash:
Kelly sitting on the chair near a massive machine, fighting to get loose.
Flash:
Magneto rising up inside the machine. He is laughing down at Kelly, toying with him.
Xavier could feel the hatred for Magneto flowing from Kelly. Hatred like nothing he had ever felt before.
Flash:
The light, alive, is crawling over him, through him, inside him.
Flash:
Flash:
Flash:
Extreme bright light and pain, then nothing.
Flash:
Kelly dropping through the air into the ocean.
Xavier pulled back out of the senator’s mind as the images began to repeat. He really didn’t want or need to see them again.
Or feel that kind of hate again. Once was more than enough to disgust him completely.
Xavier wiped his hands and took a deep breath. It was clear that his old friend was no longer the person he had known.
“Well?” Logan asked as Xavier opened his eyes and wiped his hands again, as if doing that was going to clean away any of the filth he got from the senator’s mind. He felt as if he’d touched something really dirty.
He had. The senator was a walking, talking ball of hate and self-loathing, with more disgusting habits and deeds buried in his mind than would be found in a war zone. Losing this man would be no great loss to the world in general.
Xavier was surprised to feel that way.
“Professor?” Jean asked, stepping toward him. “Are you all right?”
He nodded. He was going to be all right as soon as some of the memories went away. “Not here. In my office.”
The senator’s head lolled to one side, and his eyes closed.
Jean quickly checked him. “He’s just sleeping, at least for the moment.”
Xavier nodded, then turned his chair toward the door. “Someone needs to stay with him.”
“I will,” Storm said.
Xavier could hear Logan, Cyclops, and Jean following him.
“Call me if something changes,” Jean said.
“I don’t think anything will,” Xavier said, “at least not for the better.”
He meant that in more ways than one.
Chapter Eighteen
Professor Charles Xavier’s Office
The mood was different, more focused than it had been, only an hour before. It had been a long night, but Logan was far from tired. All he wanted to do was get Rogue back, and this Senator Kelly had given them their best clue. He was going to stick around until they worked it out. And since the professor had been tap dancing around inside the senator’s brain, Logan hoped there would be all sorts of help forthcoming.
“So?” Logan asked as Jean closed the door and the professor moved in behind his desk. “What does Magneto want with Rogue? You get that much?”
“The senator doesn’t know
,” Xavier said.
Logan waited, watching. The professor clearly looked upset by what he had seen and felt in the guy’s head. But Logan figured, you go dancing inside any politician’s head and you’re not going to like what you find.
“It seems that Magneto has built a machine that emits radiation that triggers mutations in normal human beings,” Xavier continued. “And it seems to draw its power from Magneto.”
“But the mutation is unnatural,” Jean said. “Kelly’s body is rejecting it. His cells began to break down almost immediately.”
“I don’t think Magneto knows that,” Xavier said. “Kelly escaped before Magneto ran any tests.”
“What kind of effect does the radiation have on mutants?” Cyclops asked.
The professor thought for a moment, then said, “None, from what I can tell.”
“But it will most likely kill any normal person exposed to it,” Jean said, “if Senator Kelly is any indication.”
Logan sat, listening, thinking. None of this made any sense. If this Magneto had such a machine, why would he need Rogue? Unless it was to store his own powers.
“Hey, Chuck?” Logan said.
The professor glanced up, and he almost looked annoyed. Logan guessed that no one had called him Chuck in a very long time—if ever.
“You said this machine draws its power from Magneto?”
“Yes,” Xavier said.
“What exactly did it do to him?” Logan asked. “Did you get that much from the senator’s brain?”
“It clearly weakened him,” Xavier said, then paused for what seemed like a very long time. Then he went on. “In fact, it nearly killed him.” Sudden awareness swept across his face. “Oh, my God. He’s going to transfer his power to Rogue, so next time, the machine kills her—not him.”
“And his power will return to him naturally after a short time,” Jean said.
Logan froze there, stunned along with the rest. Now that they knew why Magneto wanted Rogue, the situation seemed even worse. Much worse, actually.
Storm stared in the mirror, dabbing some antiseptic on the scratches on her neck. She was going to be bruised, that was for sure. She was lucky to have come out of that fight with only a few scratches and bruises, and she knew it.
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