X-Men(tm) The Last Stand

by Chris Claremont

  He heard a chuckle deep inside his skull, caught a flash of scarlet amidst the woods, where Jean was watching both Magneto and him.

  He should have been more careful, but knew in the end it wouldn’t have made any difference. He was on his way to her, quick but silent…

  …when he was bounced back off his feet by an invisible wall. He thought for that first moment he’d been attacked by Jean, especially when he found himself pinned spread-eagled to a tree, unable to even wriggle.

  “Here we go again,” Magneto said amusedly as he approached to set him straight. “I know the stench of your adamantium from a mile away.”

  Logan struggled, and then grew very still as Magneto idly brandished the pistol taken from Mystique’s guard. Magneto flashed his eyes from the gun to Logan, his smile broadening as they returned to the weapon. Then, obviously enjoying the moment immensely, he tucked it in his pocket.

  “I didn’t come here to fight you,” Logan told him.

  “Smart boy.”

  “I came for Jean.”

  “And you think I’m keeping her against her will?”

  Jean turned her back on them both as Magneto pulled Logan close, using magnetic fields both to hold him in midair and to keep the X-Man utterly immobile.

  “She is here,” Magneto said, “because she wants to be.”

  “You have no idea what you’re dealing with!” Logan cried out.

  Magneto shook his head, battling an unhappy memory that Logan knew he was prepared to accept. A price to pay, for the old man’s greater good. “I know full well. I saw what she did to Charles.”

  “You light that fire, what makes you think you can put it out?”

  “Perhaps I’m like Prometheus, bringing that sacred fire to the masses?”

  “I’m thinkin’ more like Icarus. I don’t give a rat’s ass how far you fall, Lensherr, but damned if I’ll see Jean fall with you.”

  “You truly love her.” The older man shook his head, surprised by the revelation, and clearly saddened.

  “I’m not leaving without her.”

  Magneto pulled Logan right up to him and the look he gave the other man was actually sympathetic.

  “Yes,” he said. “You are.”

  He placed his hand flat against Logan’s chest and gave a gentle push.

  Logan finally came to rest just this side of the horizon from where he’d started, close on twenty miles, through an entire forest and a fair share of boulders and quite likely a mountaintop. He’d lost track of his progress early on, and when he landed he didn’t move. His body was brutally torn, flesh as much in rags and tatters as his clothes, and while his bones arrived unscathed, the rest of him was as close to the end as could be imagined. His spleen was ruptured, liver speared by a broken branch. His lungs were intact within the rib cage but the diaphragm needed to pump them was savagely torn. His heart could still beat but what was the point, since a huge gash across the top of one thigh had severed the femoral artery. Any one of those injuries was an absolute guarantee of death. The combination of them all…

  …only made his healing take quite a bit longer than usual—it was also a real pain.

  Miles away, hearing him scream, knowing how he felt—both in terms of the healing and, far more importantly, about her—Jean Grey hugged her knees to her breast and stared into the heart of the campfire.

  She wept.

  Logan looked like hell when he returned to the Mansion. He felt a whole helluva lot worse. He hadn’t waited for the healing to run its full course. As soon as he’d woken, as soon as he could move, he found his bike and hit the road, stopping at a biker dive just long enough to pull a Terminator and relieve one of the gentlemen present of his leathers. And then, once the dust settled, he put in a quick call to the feds to come deal with the crystal meth lab percolating out back.

  He’d ridden all day, all night, and he was just getting warmed up.

  “Storm!” he bellowed, slapping the double doors of the formal entryway open so hard he damn near popped them off the hinges.

  “We have problems,” he announced.

  “You found her,” Ororo said, assuming things hadn’t gone well. Hank joined them as Logan shook his head, indicating that was an understatement.

  “I sure did.”

  “Still with Magneto?”

  “Locked at the hip, but I’m not sure they’re walkin’ the same road. ’Ro, she led me right to her. She knew I was coming, she wanted me there—but when Magneto caught me, she walked away.”

  “I told you!”

  He shook his head violently. “It’s not that simple.”

  ’Ro shelved the argument for another time and her thought echoed Logan’s: If we make it that far. “Where are they, Logan?”

  “On the move. Sonofabitch has raised himself an army!”

  “You’re saying you saw Magneto?” asked Hank, who got ignored for his trouble.

  “I know where they’re going, ’Ro,” Logan told her. “We’ve gotta get there. We’re the only ones with a chance to stop him.”

  Storm nodded, understanding the double meaning to what Logan said, that the struggle with Magneto wouldn’t be the one that truly mattered.

  As they left the foyer, Hank McCoy pulled out his cellphone and tapped 1 on his speed dial. Originally, that slot had held Xavier’s number, but as Hank came to realize when he accepted his cabinet post, there are certain phone numbers, and certain people in this country, who take second place to no one.

  It rang once, and was answered by the best switchboard in the world.

  “This is Hank McCoy,” he said, even though they knew that already with caller ID. “Patch me through to the president.”

  David Cockrum was in the Situation Room with his senior security and battle staff, monitoring in real time an ongoing military special op.

  “Seven minutes to contact,” Bolivar Trask told him.

  The president nodded as Trask gestured towards a satellite image of Magneto’s encampment. “Magneto’s base of operations.”

  A straight line ran northwest through the trees from the vicinity of the camp to a distance of over twenty miles. Cockrum asked about it.

  “We’re not altogether sure, sir,” Trask replied. “The original best guess was some kind of projectile, consistent with something being kicked out of a rail gun. It’s a stunt that’s certainly within Magneto’s power and capabilities. But when we checked out the terminal point with a recce team, they reported finding a fair amount of blood, and what they tell me was a trail of physical evidence. Near as they’re willing to hazard, somebody landed there, got up and walked a couple of miles down to the highway, where it seems a bike was stashed. Next we hear, there’s been a helluva bar fight nearby, one guy versus the local outlaws. Seems he wanted some clothes. Seems he also found a drug lab the DEA’s been after for quite a while.”

  Cockrum quirked his eyebrows. He was tired of waiting for Trask’s punch line.

  “It was the Wolverine, sir. Start to finish. We lost track of him at the bar, but I just got a flash from the NSA that our Keyhole surveillance satellite tasked to monitor Xavier’s mansion got a photo of him rolling in about ten minutes ago.”

  “Jesus” was all Cockrum could say, considering the ramifications of what Trask just told him, thinking first What the hell is that guy made of? And then, with relief, Thank God he’s on our side. And then last, anxiously, Dear God, I hope he’s on our side. Finally, as a way of covering those worries, he asked, “Bolivar, how did we find Magneto’s base?”

  Trask indicated another subordinate display, presenting a quite lovely, well-dressed woman, Caucasian, blond. She sat in the conference room of a United States attorney, her lawyer at her side, and signed an affidavit.

  “She gave us everything we wanted, and more.”

  Almost as if she’d heard Trask speak, the woman looked directly up at the monitor. Mystique may have lost her ability to change shapes, but Cockrum still couldn’t shake the certainty that she could
see him through the video feed.

  “‘Hell hath no fury,’” he mused to himself, “‘like a woman scorned.’”

  An aide whispered in Trask’s ear and the secretary picked up the phone.

  “Not a great time, Hank,” he said brusquely.

  “I have reason to believe Magneto is en route to attack Worthington Labs,” Hank told him. “He intends to destroy the source of the cure.”

  Nice of you to call, old buddy, Trask thought. You’re just a day late and a dollar short. Aloud: “We’re well aware of his plans, Hank, we’re taking all appropriate measures.”

  “Bolivar,” Hank demanded, “what does that mean?”

  You’re out of the loop, Henry, Trask thought, you quit the team. What gives you the right to an answer? But aloud: “We’re moving on him as we speak. It’ll all be over soon.”

  He hung up. The president looked, obviously catching enough of the conversation to guess who’d called. Cockrum gave a shallow nod that told Trask he trusted his judgment in dealing with it.

  Trask pointed to the main screen. “It’s starting, sir.”

  Technology gave them a multitude of perspectives. From a network of satellites overhead came real-time streaming video. Direct imaging was useless after dark, and the natural cover of the forest canopy made it even worse. However, enhanced infrared presented the scene in eerie shadings and surprising detail. Targets were coded red, incoming troops in blue, with the overall scene neatly and comprehensively labeled by the attending computer.

  At the same time, there were a whole host of secondary displays projecting a multitude of feeds from minicams attached to the soldiers’ helmets, each labeled with the identity and rank of the wearer and his or her position, which in turn was repeated on the master display.

  The army had fielded an entire brigade of special ops, totaling over three thousand troops in a multilevel cordon around the encampment, to ensure that—regardless of powers—none would escape. Because intel, courtesy of Mystique, told them women and children were present on-site, the rules of engagement called for nonlethal force. However, as with all military plans, there were built-in escalators. The president knew when he signed the orders, even though it made him heartsick, that if things went south, people were going to die.

  “No contact,” came a scratchy voice out of the room’s main speakers, the computer identifying the officer as Colonel Simon Kinberg, leading the attack. “All units in position.” One of the secondary screens relayed the data from his on-scene scanner. “I mark one hundred plus unfriendlies.”

  “That’s the number Mystique gave us,” Trask crowed. “Everybody’s home.”

  “Tell them,” said the president, “it’s a go.”

  “This is Team Leader to Bravo One,” said Kinberg. “We are green. Repeat, we are greenlight to go. ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ on the flip.”

  “What’s that mean?” Cockrum asked.

  “Hit ’em hard and elegant and with a smile, like there’s no tomorrow.”

  The first wave charged from every side, each approach angled so as to avoid clashing with the others’ fields of fire. Laser sights traced myriad lines of scarlet and green through the air, questing for their targets, finding none.

  In the Situation Room, they heard a hoarse profanity from Kinberg and saw on their display the same thing he did: one after another, the target heat signatures were disappearing from the screen.

  The speaker filled with a chorus of startled voices, radiating confusion and alarm. No one was sure what was happening, and everyone suspected a trap.

  One contact remained, utterly solid, holding up his hands and grinning ear to ear to find himself dotted with scores of laser points.

  A soldier shoved a lens in his face, popped the flash, and within seconds the prisoner’s identity card dominated the main display: James Madrox, code-named the Multiple Man.

  True to form, he remained nonviolent to the last.

  “It’s a goddamn decoy!” Kinberg bellowed in complete frustration.

  Cockrum could see that Trask was in an altogether opposite mood to their lone prisoner, looking like he wished to indulge in a lengthy session of ultraviolence.

  The president spoke to him in concern: “Bolivar, if Magneto’s not there, then where the hell is he?”

  Trask looked at the phone. The president looked at him. Trask grabbed the handset, but all he got was Hank’s voice mail. And when he called Xavier’s school, it was the same.

  A crowd waited at the entrance to the hanger: Bobby, Kitty, Colossus, Angel, even McCoy. Storm was a bit behind, waiting by the Blackbird.

  Logan rolled his shoulders, trying to settle his uniform more comfortably. He preferred not to wear it, so it had never been broken in. Not like Ororo’s, which felt like kid gloves. The others were all suited up as well.

  Kitty was grinning—she’d obviously saved a quip for this special occasion. “Remember how you told Bobby our uniforms were on order?” Little girl, he thought, you weren’t even flamin’ there! “Well, guess what just came in the mail!”

  “We’re coming with,” Bobby announced.

  Logan snorted, his way of telling them in no uncertain terms, The hell you are!

  “We trained for this,” Peter Rasputin said, backing up his friend. “We’re ready.”

  “Best offense is a good defense, right?” Ororo smiled from the plane, clearly enjoying every moment of Logan’s comeuppance.

  Warren III stepped forward, visibly shy but refusing to give in to his fear. “They say Magneto’s going after my father,” he said, his voice shaking as much with outrage as nerve. “My father! He may be wrong, sir, but he’s not evil. I’m not going to leave him out there alone.”

  Serious now, Ororo added to what Angel said, “This is our fight, Logan. Not just yours.”

  He sighed. He didn’t want them to learn the realities of his life this way. Or ever.

  “This isn’t gonna be like class,” he told them, looking one after the other in the eye, hoping they could see on his face, in his own eyes, what he was talking about, “or the Danger Room. It’s gonna be real battle. With blood and tears…and death.”

  They were kids. Even if they thought they understood what he was talking about, they had no proper frame of reference. Hell, deep down inside, they knew they’d live forever; that’s why armies preferred their recruits young. Things like this could only be learned the hard way. It was a part of life that mirrored Worthington’s cure, in that once you crossed this Rubicon, you could never go back. What you saw, what you did, would stay with you forever.

  “As much as we’ve lost in the last few days, that’s nothing compared to what’s on the line.”

  Nobody moved. Nobody even blinked.

  “We get on that plane, we’re not students and teachers anymore. We’re not kids and grown-ups. We’re soldiers.”

  “We’re X-Men,” Bobby corrected. “All of us.”

  He nodded, gestured to the Blackbird.

  “Get in, then. Let’s go.”

  He had to look twice at McCoy’s uniform. He’d seen pictures in the archives and was thankful the school had moved on to something better. The design was form-fitting, akin to spandex, a dark brown leather pants- and-jacket combo, although the top was short-sleeved, with yellow bands on the shoulders. The X symbol was stitched in yellow and brown on the left front breast of the jacket.

  Logan had reviewed the specs. The old suits had environmental properties similar to the current ones, protecting the wearer from extremes of weather and environment. They were in fact body armor, proof against a significant array of projectile and edged weapons; they could even handle shots from directed energy beams. All told, they were remarkably efficient uniforms. They were just incredibly, unforgivably ugly. And as a chaser, in case he thought it couldn’t get any worse, it was clear that McCoy had outgrown the whole thing; the jacket looked like it was holding on for dear life, barely zipping over the Beast’s massive furry chest. The pants were so tight
that a belt wasn’t necessary, and his huge blue feet protruded from the flared pant legs. Unfortunately, even Logan had to admit to himself that McCoy looked pretty formidable in his outdated uniform, despite the trouble he was having fitting into it.

  “Christ on a cracker,” Logan exclaimed, still wondering how McCoy put the damn thing on, and also how he kept his fur from binding, “is that a joke?”

  Hank actually looked offended. He’d apparently worn this proudly in his day. “My old uniform. Still fits…almost.”

  “And I thought black leather was bad.”

  He scented her, even though she hung back out of sight in the hallway. She wasn’t trying to hide from him—she knew better—just from the others aboard the plane.

  “You almost missed the flight, darlin’,” Logan told Rogue, rounding the corner to join her. “C’mon, girl, get suited up, we’re on a clock here.”

  She shook her head. “No, Logan, I’m not goin’.”

  He looked down, having heard from Ororo what Bobby had seen in Manhattan the other day. But her hands were still gloved.

  She smiled, like she’d lost something precious.

  “Couldn’t go through with it,” she told him with a shake of her head.

  “So,” he prompted, suggesting with the gesture that she head into the hangar.

  “You don’t know what it’s like, Logan, to be afraid of your powers…afraid to get close to anyone…to know you can never go home again—”

  He held up his right hand, showing it to her the way he had when they’d first met. She’d asked him then, “Does it hurt?” Meaning, when the claws come out? His reply, for the first and only time in his life, for reasons he still couldn’t fathom, allowing someone outside to see what this had cost him: “Yup.”

  “Yeah, Marie,” he told her very quietly. “I do.”