There was silence for a long moment as the X-Men considered that chilling statement. Then, finally, Cyclops said: “We should give her a dignified burial. It’s the least we can do.”
“And may God have mercy upon her soul,” added Nightcrawler.
“And the rest of us,” added Iceman under his breath. “And the rest of us.”
Even bound as she was, Storm was able to bring down lightning strikes to dispose of the remaining platform-mounted guns. They pivoted this way and that, unable to discern the origins of the attacks upon them until they had been blown apart. Shaw watched the spectacle, almost dazzled by the flashes of light, his nostrils full of ozone. The display of sheer power was awesome, and his respect for its wielder deepened all the more.
He had allowed the coils to catch him again, at least partly to prevent the more deadly guns from targeting him. He could have absorbed the concussive force of such a blast, of course, but its heat energy was another matter, and he didn’t relish the prospect of being burned. Now that it was safe to do so, he tore himself free once more. He saw that, likewise, Rogue was using her considerable strength to disentangle Storm. Most of the tendrils had been uprooted now: they lay on the artificial grass, sometimes convulsing and throwing off sparks.
Shaw turned his attention to Avengers Mansion itself and to the seething pile of mutates-at least twenty of them-in its hallway. As he watched, the pile erupted, bodies flying everywhere, and a furious Wolverine emerged from within. Several of the bodies didn’t stand up again.
Storm and Rogue joined the battle without hesitation. Shaw followed them, but paused in the doorway of the building and scanned the chaotic scene with calculating eyes. He was beginning to weaken again, having used up much of the energy that Rogue had fed to him. He set his sights upon one particular mutate: a young man dressed in dark blue, a head taller than most of the others, with wide shoulders, a barrel chest and overdeveloped arm muscles. He was lashing out with his fists, repeatedly finding Wolverine too fast for him, and it was a fair bet that his only power was his supernormal strength.
Shaw set out towards him, almost untroubled by the other mutates as they concentrated on defending themselves against the more aggressive X-Men. Only once did a spindly, aged creature leap at him with remarkable dexterity, to be repulsed by a casual but painful jab to her nose from Shaw’s elbow.
Shaw reached the muscular mutate, reached up and tapped his shoulder politely. When he turned around, confusion clouding the tiny eyes beneath his low brow, Shaw slapped his face. The mutate’s jaw dropped open in abject surprise. Then he frowned, drew back one meaty, gloved fist and returned the gesture with a hundred times its original force.
By the time his knuckles reached their target, they had lost all momentum: they brushed against Shaw’s cheek like the merest breath of the wind, and the Black King smiled as he felt the considerable power of the punch flowing into him. He raised his right hand and crooked his fingers, inviting his foe to hit him again. The mutate-like many of the people with whom Shaw had done battle, both physically and in the boardroom-must have been of pitiful intellect, because he did as he was bade. And he kept on punching even when it became clear that his blows were ineffectual, even as Shaw’s smile spread wider, because his limited imagination could come up with no better strategy.
By the time he had absorbed nine punches, there was liquid fire pumping through Sebastian Shaw’s veins. The tenth, he blocked with his palm, whereupon he closed his fingers around the mutate’s fist and squeezed until he could feel the crunch of breaking bones. He was still smiling, but he pulled back his lips and bared his teeth as the mutate howled and sank to his knees. The wretched boy clamped his free hand around Shaw’s wrist and tried in desperation to loosen his grip, but Shaw’s strength now exceeded his by far.
When at last he judged that his foe had suffered enough for his presumption in assaulting him, he brought up his knee sharply and made contact with the mutate’s head, rendering him unconscious. Then he surveyed the battleground once more to see how his allies were doing.
They had had a long day, stumbling from one fight to another-and unlike Shaw, they couldn’t simply recharge. They were also outnumbered, and their foes’ abilities were as varied and impressive as their own. Many of the mutates possessed enhanced strength and stamina, and some were incredibly fast or agile. At least two of them could deliver explosive bursts from their fingertips, while another appeared to generate electricity and conduct it by touch. One yellow-clad young woman could blow herself up and reassemble her molecules in a matter of seconds, and another spat a glistening poison, her neck swelling up like that of a puff adder as she collected each deadly payload therein.
The X-Men, nevertheless, were not easy to defeat. Rogue shrugged off countless blows with casual ease, while her own punches in turn proved devastatingly effective. The mutates could hardly lay a hand on Wolverine as he threaded his way between them, his lightning reflexes keeping him ahead of any attack as his claws struck out with surgical precision. Shaw’s gaze lingered longest on Storm: her powers were little use to her in close quarters, but she was more than holding her own. She had been trained in hand-to-hand combat by the best, of course, but she also possessed remarkable discipline, a complete self-awareness and focus that Shaw admired. He could see it in her confident but controlled actions—and he could also feel it in the back of his mind thanks to Phoenix’s psychic link.
He felt something else too: a warning from Rogue, unvoiced but plain in her thoughts. Caught unawares, he reacted almost too late. He pivoted to his right and ducked as an energy beam fizzled and crackled above his head. It was black—so black that it seemed to leech the colors from the world around it-and he felt a wave of intense cold as it passed. Only now did he see that Rogue was grappling with a dark-skinned mutate. The same black energy coruscated around his eyes, but the X-Man had her arm around his throat and she had pulled back his hairless head, causing him to aim high. “Best save the daydreams for later, sugar,” she called out loud to Shaw in her Southern drawl, a grim smile on her face.
Shaw narrowed his eyes, annoyed by the implied criticism-and all the more so because it had been justified. Whenever he had fought alongside others in the past, it had been a case of “every man for himself.” His primaiy concern had been his own safety, because he had known that nobody else would think to preserve it for him. He was still getting used to the fact that, with the X-Men, things were different. He was still getting used to trusting them.
In assisting Shaw, Rogue had left herself exposed: she was still wrestling with his erstwhile attacker when three more mutates rushed her from behind. Shaw took a powerful leap and intercepted the trio, a swipe of his left arm sending the first of them soaring above the heads of the crowd. The others charged and he braced himself, although it was hardly necessaiy. They rebounded from him, and he picked them up from the floor and knocked their heads together. At the same time, he put an earlier observation to use, directing a telepathic message at Wolverine: Female mutate at ten o’clock. She’s about to spit venom in three... two ... one...
Wolverine didn’t acknowledge the information, but he seized a particularly bulky mutate and pushed him into the adder-woman’s path at the very moment that she discharged her poison. He cried out in pain, falling to his knees and clawing at his face. As the woman’s neck began to swell again, Wolverine turned his attention to her and brought her down with a swift chop to the back of her knees.
Shaw had always exulted in the rush of combat, the cathartic release of his mutant energies. He often-not always, but often-denied himself that pleasure, knowing that true, lasting victories were gained by stealth, with prudent deals and secret handshakes in locked rooms. But he had rarely enjoyed a battle as much as this. He fought alongside Storm, knowing without having to ask that she would watch his back, doing the same for her in return. As the odds against them lessened, he felt a great thrill of achievement. He knew that as part of a team, he was accomplishing far m
ore than he had ever been capable of on his own.
The tide turned against them in an instant.
Wolverine sensed the new arrival, but not in time to act. All Shaw got was a vague telepathic sensation of something big and gunmetal blue at the top of the stairs. He whirled around as twin rockets whooshed towards him, blazing trails of fire. He resisted the urge to try to dodge them, realizing that they would pass to each side of him. They embedded themselves in the floor and exploded. Shaw gritted his teeth as he was caught in the center of a maelstrom of fire and falling masonry. Bricks and beams bounced harmlessly off him to collect in a pile at his feet, but his boiler suit was shredded and dust stung his eyes and tore at the back of his throat. He weathered the onslaught, aware of Wolverine and Rogue falling and of Storm’s desperate prayer that she would not be buried again. He heard the screams and dying gargles of the mutates, and knew that whoever had launched this attack had cared nothing for their safety, had desired nothing more nor less than total destruction.
He had closed his eyes to protect them, but he looked up as he heard a whine of servo-motors from above him. The lower half of the staircase had collapsed, but a huge armored figure simply jumped the gap. It passed through a newly created shaft of daylight before landing heavily and compacting a pile of debris, sending up another white dust cloud.
Standing untouched in the ruins of the Avengers’ hallway, surrounded by the injured and the dying, Shaw found himself looking into the face of his opponent. He was not at all surprised to see that it was the face of a one-time ally. When last he had seen Trevor Fitzroy, the young mutant had held the rank of White Rook in the Hong Kong Inner Circle. One look at his malicious, mad-eyed expression told Shaw that he felt no loyalty toward his Black King now.
Not that this was any great loss. Fitzroy had never displayed much potential, least of all intellectually. Shaw had put up with his arrogance and occasional petulance only because his origins had made him vaguely useful. The self-styled Technomancer hailed from a distant future: he had fled to the present day using his mutant ability to open portals through time and space. His bio-armor, which increased the bulk of his wiry form tenfold, came from that future too. It was presently configured for maximum offence, bristling with weaponry. The rocket launchers on its shoulders still smoldered, and five red-tinted, multi-jointed claws protruded from its right gauntlet, each of them as long as a man’s arm. Fitzroy’s exposed head, with its long hair and short beard dyed green, looked faintly ridiculous, dwarfed as it was by the metal suit from which it protruded. But Shaw knew better than to underestimate the technology at his disposal.
Outwardly, he betrayed no sign of worry: he was far too skilled in the art of bluffing. In his mind, however, he formed a telepathic message to the rest of the X-Men. I think, he told them calmly, we would appreciate that offer of assistance now.
“I don’t think that will be necessaiy,” said a woman’s voice.
Shaw raised an eyebrow in surprise as Fitzroy's expression went blank and his eyes rolled back into his head. He sidestepped neatly as the enormous suit of armor toppled towards him like a marionette with its strings cut: even with its kinetic force stolen, its weight would have crushed him. However, it never hit the floor. The air was rent around Fitzroy, screeching as it formed a flat circle of roiling energy into which he plummeted. As soon as he was out of sight, the gateway shut again, leaving only a dead silence in its wake.
It was broken by the slightest of sounds: the skittering of stones as Rogue shifted and began to pull herself out from beneath the rubble. It didn’t occur to Shaw to help her.
He was staring at the new arrival: the woman who had spared him from a potentially unfortunate encounter. He had recognized her voice, of course, as soon as he had heard it. The fact that she had tapped into his telepathic conversation and responded to his thoughts had been another clue. But her appearance had changed so much.
She stepped into the light now, and Shaw could see her properly. Her face was older than he remembered: it hadn’t just aged a year, it had become more lined and careworn. It was framed by her black hair, which she had let down. Most surprising of all, though, was her costume: she dressed in figure-hugging black leather, with one shoulder exposed. And around her waist she wore a red belt, the buckle of which displayed a familiar “X” logo.
“Hello Sebastian,” said Tessa with a cool half-smile. “Welcome back.”
Nightcrawler was the first of the reinforcements to reach Avengers Mansion. As Cyclops, Phoenix and Iceman hurried across Central Park back to Fifth Avenue, he simply concentrated on Sebastian Shaw’s thoughts until he had formed a clear picture of his surroundings. That picture enabled him to teleport directly to the scene.
There was no disguising the noise and smell of his arrival. However, he materialized in the shadows at the top of the ruined staircase and clung to the wall with his adhesive toes, hoping to give himself time to take in the situation before his position could be pinpointed.
Rogue had already emerged from the wreckage and was giving Storm a hand to do likewise. Some of the mutates were standing too, but their appetites for violence had been quenched and most of them scampered or limped away while they could. Shaw himself seemed blind to the activity around him. He was staring suspiciously at a black-clad young woman, who looked back at him with wide, guileless eyes. It took Nightcrawler a moment to recognize the Black King’s one-time personal assistant.
“You can show yourself, Mr. Wagner,” said Tessa. “There is no danger.”
Nightcrawler moved warily into the light. Tessa had long been an inscrutable foe of the X-Men, her telepathic ability complementing her computer-like mind. However, she had also been fiercely loyal to her master. Perhaps she was telling the truth.
He leapt forward, somersaulting to a graceful landing in the hallway between her and Shaw. “Then what happened here?”
“Fitzroy happened!” The snarled answer came from Wolverine, who was struggling to rise from beneath a heavy beam. Nightcrawler would have helped him, but his proud friend wouldn’t have thanked him for it. Glowering at Shaw, Wolverine spat: “You pick some pretty lousy friends.”
Tessa smiled. “He always did as I recall. But Trevor Fitzroy plays for Selene’s team now.”
“He has joined her Inner Circle?” asked Storm, brushing brick dust from her cloak.
“As its Black Rook,” confirmed Tessa.
Shaw hadn’t taken his eyes off her. “You shut down his mind,” he said evenly.
“His bio-armor was in full attack configuration. He should have settled for a few less guns and kept the psi shielding up and running. Taken by surprise, he made an easy mark.”
“Where is he now?” asked Nightcrawler.
“Teleported away. He’s made improvements to that metal suit since you last met him. In an emergency, it taps into his own mutant power and opens a gateway for him back home to the Hellfire Club. It makes him difficult to remove from the board.”
“We’re beginning to realize that a lot has changed in our absence,” sighed Storm.
“But you seem none too surprised to find us here,” said Rogue.
“We’ve been expecting you,” said Tessa.
“We?” repeated Shaw sharply, his gaze rooted to the “X” symbol on her belt.
“Times change,” she shrugged, “and needs must. I go by the code name of Sage now.”
“Indeed?” murmured Shaw.
“Where are the other three?” asked Sage. “Cyclops, Phoenix and Iceman.”
“On their way,” said Nightcrawler, wondering just how much she knew.
Sage acknowledged the information with a nod. “We need to leave this building before Fitzroy recovers and returns with more mutates, or with Hellfire Club demons.” She was already making for the door. “Tell your friends to meet us at the corner of 49th Street and Sixth Avenue. I’ll take you all to meet my group.”
Do you trust her? Phoenix’s telepathic message was meant for her husband only.
I don’t know, responded Cyclops. I get the feeling that even Shaw isn 't sure.
They had rendezvoused with the others as planned. Ever since then, Tessa—or Sage, as Cyclops supposed he ought to call her now-had been leading them through the near-deserted city. They were heading broadly south along Sixth Avenue, but their guide diverted them off the main road wherever possible, leading them down narrow alleyways and through neglected yards.
That’s because she’s wearing our colors, Phoenix pointed out.
An attempt to gain our trust at the expense of his? mused Cyclops. Shaw had stayed close to Sage throughout the journey, but the pair had exchanged no words. Looking at the Black King now, Scott couldn’t help but think how vulnerable he looked, his green tunic tom at last, all but shredded so that his bare chest was exposed. I’m not sure that would be logical.
And if there’s one thing we know about Tessa, it’s that she’s always logical.
I don’t think we have a choice, he concluded. We have to trust her. Look at us-we need a place to rest before we collapse from sheer exhaustion. And we need to take stock.
Phoenix let out the mental equivalent of a sigh. I’m not sure I even want to think about everything that’s happened. To have lost all that time, Scott, to have let Selene do all this . . . and our friends.... Hank, and who knows how many more...
We can't afford to dwell on regrets, Jean. We can only deal with the situation as it stands.
It’s just that it all happened so fast... we haven’t even had time to think about what Blackheart did to us, what he showed us.
Cyclops shivered at the reminder. Now that’s something we should forget. None of that was real, Jean. If we start to believe otherwise, then Blackheart has won. If you want to take something from it, then take this: we mustn’t ever compromise our ethics, no matter the temptation, no matter the cause.
You’re thinking about Hank, aren’t you? You think he did the wrong thing, choosing to work with Shaw and the Hellfire Club.
The Legacy Quest Trilogy Page 32