Then she saw them. Hank and Logan, far below, waving at her with beckoning arms. It took her a moment before she realized their intent. The Kleinstocks would be right behind her, in hot pursuit. Wolverine and the Beast were not engaged in combat, at that particular moment. Storm was happy to provide them with playmates.
Turning toward the Kleinstocks, she summoned all the strength of the winds, raised her arms and brought them down swiftly. Hurricane gusts threw the mutant twins at the ground with devastating force. If that did not take them out of the battle, and Storm doubted that it would, then Logan and Hank most certainly would.
Now, she thought, to aid Iceman.
• • •
"You are a fool, Bishop!" Unuscione cried. "Don't you see you are hopelessly outmatched?"
The woman was right, Bishop had no doubt about that. But he did not relent. She had stripped him of his weapon in seconds. Now it was all he could do to simply survive the onslaught of her psionic exoskeleton. It surrounded her, enveloped her in a green glow, its edges shining brightly and showing the outline. It was constantly changing, its shape molded by her mind second by second. She was deadly.
Bishop tried to duck as Unuscione's exoskeleton morphed into the shape of a huge warhammer, and descended toward him. Try as he might,he could not escape. She pummeled him to the ground. Were it not that his mutant abilities absorbed some of the energies of the blow and the exoskeleton itself, it might have killed him where he lay.
He struggled to his knees and let loose with a blast of energy, siphoned from her own powers. It dispersed harmlessly against the exoskeleton, might even have been absorbed back into it. Bishop wondered whether he might absorb enough of the exoskeleton, without returning it through energy blasts, that Unuscione might be drained dry of power.
Then she hit him again, and he had to shake his head to clear his thoughts. Disoriented, he had neither the time nor the mental cohesion to consider a move against her. He'd been put almost completely on the defensive. He still had his wits, though, his experience and his fear. That he could share with her, and hope.
"You are the greater fool, Acolyte!" he cried. "No matter whether the Sentinels are slave to your master, or another. Eventually, they must employ their prime directive, which is the subjugation of all mutants on Earth."
For once, he was able to avoid her attack, and Bishop thought she might actually be listening. And if she would listen, he might actually have a chance.
"You know who I am," he called to her. "You know I come from the future. The Sentinels will not only subjugate us, they will attempt genocide! Unuscione, the Sentinels must be destroyed if my future is not to come about. If they are set upon the world, you and the rest of the Acolytes will be destroyed."
"Liar!" Unuscione screamed, and slammed Bishop to the ground again, a loud crack telling him that this time, he had not been so lucky. When he moved, there was a stabbing pain in his side.
"It's history to me, don't you see?" he shouted at her, clutching his side.
But clearly she didn't. In her eyes, Bishop saw only madness. Her exoskeleton flared and he let off what saved energy he had in one blast at her head. It barely made her blink. He knew then that Unuscione was going to kill him.
• • •
Iceman had fought Joanna Cargil before, back when she'd gone by the name Frenzy. He hadn't had much better luck then. She was an Amazon, or at least, that's the way Bobby thought of her. He figured her to be about seven feet tall, with the muscles to match. None of that counted, though. It was her sheer strength that made her a threat. Raw, unadulterated physical power.
Cargil had a constant scowl on her face. Otherwise, Bobby thought, her African features would have been strikingly attractive. Her black hair had white streaks on the sides, but he thought they were dyed rather than natural.
"Great," he mumbled. "Here I am playing hairdresser while she's trying to kill me. You need a date, Drake."
Bobby often talked to himself during a battle. Particularly when none of his teammates was close enough to hear, or to help.
"Time to say goodbye, Frosty," Cargil sneered, and shattered the block of ice he had imprisoned her in. "I'm getting a little numb, but otherwise, you're only slowing me down."
He encased her again, and poured on the ice, hoping it would hold her a bit. But he built her cage too slow, and she shattered it again. There was only so long he could keep her away from him. When she caught him, he worried that she might shatter him as easily as she did the ice that he whipped up around her.
Unconsciously, he began to build an ice platform beneath him, and he moved away from her on it without taking a step.
"That's right, human lover, you run away," Cargil laughed. "But don't run far. I'll have to kill you eventually."
With a half-hearted punch, she smashed his platform to bits and brought him crashing to the ground amidst hundreds of pounds of ice chunks and shards. Cargil stomped toward him, and Bobby glared at her.
Bobby Drake had never liked to fight. His parents had instilled that in him at a young age. He was going to grow up, get married, have two point five kids, own a house, be an accountant. American dream. The word mutant had never entered the equation. In truth, he didn't think he'd ever heard the word before his first day at Xavier's School. He'd never really been in a fight in his life.
Until the X-Men first went up against Magneto. He held his own in battle, did fine as the Iceman, learned to use his powers. But he never, ever, wanted to fight. For a long time he secretly worried that he might be a coward, but as he'd matured he realized he was just smart. That nobody in their right mind wanted to fight. So he held his own.
But the X-Men quickly learned that, despite the way he belittled himself, if they were really in trouble, Iceman would rise to the occasion. Many times he had surprised even himself. If his friends were in trouble, he became a whole different class of warrior. If his friends were in trouble ... or, if he was really pissed off.
And Joanna Cargil had really pissed him off.
"Enough, you lunatic!" he snapped.
Bobby Drake was never entirely sure what happened when he became Iceman. Was he flesh still, under the ice, or did his entire bodv transform? Sometimes, he was certain the latter was true. When he was fed up enough to strike out in true anger, Bobby had a subzero heart. His eyes crackled with breaking ice as he moved and his breath turned to mist as it hit the air.
The power built in his head and chest, it thrummed down his arms and into his fingers. It felt ... huge, within him, bursting from his body in a torrent. Wave after wave of cold emanated from him. Unlike Wolverine's berserker rage, Bobby was not blinded by his fury. Rather, it focused him in a way that was unfortunately rare.
By the count of two, Cargil was frozen in a block of ice more than twenty feet high and nearly as wide. Her head poked from the top of the block, and she screamed in fury as she tried to escape. She couldn't move a muscle.
"Bishop! No!" Storm screamed above him, and Iceman spun to see that Unuscione was about to crush Bishop with her exoskeleton. He looked injured already, and maybe even a little scared, as hard as that was for Bobby to believe.
Still with the surge of power that had come from fighting Cargil, Iceman acted without thinking. He had gone against Unuscione before, to no avail. Her exoskeleton was impenetrable. Or at least, it was in some respects. But just because Bobby couldn't blast a torrent of ice at her did not mean that he could not freeze the air between her body and the exoskeleton.
Which is precisely what he did.
Unuscione stood, frozen in an instant, at the center of a bizarre caricature of the human form. Part of the ice shattered as she fell to the ground and Bobby ran to her side to make sure she didn't get up again. Inside the clear ice, he could see her eyes.
And then he realized his mistake.
"Oh my God," he said, stunned. "She's suffocating. I'm killing her!"
Bobby's eyes locked with Unuscione's, and he saw the fear and horror there
though she could not even blink.
"Somebody help!" he cried finally, and turned to see that the chaos was not over yet.
Bishop was rushing to his side, and Storm was drifting down to where he stood in a panic. Suddenly, beyond Bishop, Bobby saw Senyaka running toward them, roaring in anger. The Acolyte brandished his psionic whip, and Bishop turned to face him.
The whip lashed out, and Bobby was startled when Bishop didn't even try to move. Instead, he lifted his hands to be sure the whip caught him around the wrists rather than the neck. There was a moment when the two froze in place, perhaps both paralyzed by the psionic power of the whip, and then the backlash hit Senyaka, who dropped unconscious to the ground, the whip disappearing.
"Stand aside, Robert!" Bishop said, and unleashed Senyaka's energy at the ice that encased Unuscione.
It shattered into pieces, but the woman was already unconscious. Maybe even ... but no, he wouldn't let himself think that. No matter how terrible the enemy, the X-Men would not knowingly kill. Perhaps Gambit, or Wolverine had made exceptions in the past. But not Iceman. Not Bobby Drake.
A thin layer of ice was still covering Unuscione's face, like a shroud. She wasn't breathing. Bobby knelt to wipe it away, even as Storm stepped up behind him. Without a thought to his own safety, he transformed into flesh and blood once more, and began giving the Acolyte mouth to mouth resuscitation. In seconds, she was breathing again, and Bobby sighed with relief.
He looked around to see that Hank and Logan were still trading blows with the Kleinstocks. Otherwise, they seemed to have won.
"It looks like the fight is almost over," he said.
Both Storm and Bishop looked down at him.
"Despite their greater number, the Acolytes have fallen," Bishop agreed.
"I fear that their defeat does not mean we have won, however," Storm added somberly. "For I am forced to wonder, while we have been busy fighting his followers, what terrible plot has Magneto been hatching. Why has he not emerged to rescue the Acolytes?"
"Maybe he just isn't here," Bobby suggested, but even as he said the words, he didn't believe them.
• • •
Magneto stood alone in the silo. The floor under his feet leaped with the thundering power of the Sentinels.
"Alpha Sentinel, do you know me?" he asked, tilting his head slightly as he watched the monstrous robot, waiting for its response.
"I do," it said after a moment. "You are the mutant known as Magneto."
Now was the moment of truth.
"And do you have programming regarding this particular mutant?" he asked, prepared to defend himself if necessary.
"I do."
"And that is?"
"To obey your every command. "
Magneto smiled.
Chapter 14
Lamps burned with false light in the courtyard between the two extended wings of the Capitol Building and the main structure. Starlight danced in ethereal hues off the crystalline spire that housed Deathbird's aerie. Citizens strolled arm in arm, talked quietly together on benches, stood in a circle around the stout Rigolletian piper whose music filled the night.
Hushed whispers carried across the courtyard and the populace stiffened slightly. Children craned their necks to get a good look and one small girl said, "Look, Mama!" in her high, sweet voice.
The Royal Elite of the Imperial Guard was passing by. They were not royalty, merely soldiers. But this moment might be as physically close as any of Hala's Shi'ar citizens would ever come to their Majestrix. They would tell their grandchildren about it.
And about the chaos that followed.
• • •
Gladiator was filled with doubt and self-recrimination for his earlier behavior. He knew his duty. In truth, he had carried out more grievous tasks under both Deathbird and D'Ken, Asmall voice inside him suggested he might be maturing, or growing a conscience, but that was the kind of psychobabble he had always despised. Finally, he was forced to assume that age had begun to make him volatile. It was something he would have to watch for in the future.
On the other hand, Deathbird was not helping. She had sent them on this fool's errand, to hunt the X-Men in places they would have to be imbeciles to hide. Now she had failed to notify them that she would be holding court, and so they were significantly late. Of course, the Viceroy would show no mercy in denouncing them for the insult of their tardiness. Very typical.
What was worse, they had not had time to dress in proper court regalia. Instead, they wore their Guard uniforms as always. Titan and Starbolt whispered conspiratorially together, lagging behind the others. Gladiator sometimes envied them their friendship. The two symbiotes that made up Warstar were socially selfsufficient. They needed no one. And Oracle, lovely Oracle. She walked beside Gladiator in silence, not even favoring him with a glance. With all of the voices in her mind, she could never be truly alone.
Though he allowed no outward sign, Gladiator became frustrated with himself again. His was a soldier's life. There wasn't room in his perspective or his existence for such nonsense. And yet it seemed to come to him all too often of late, thoughts that he considered foolish and pointless.
What was it about the X-Men? The Guard had fought them before, several times. Certainly, the Majestrix had an interest in keeping them safe, though she dared not order them protected. Gladiator had to keep her concerns in mind. But without her direct order, he must follow Deathbird's commands. He didn't know why that should concern him so. Yet he knew the others were reluctant as well.
Perhaps, it occurred to him, it wasn't solely that they had been sent against the X-Men. Perhaps there was something more. Though the Kree were the most hated enemy of the Shi'ar Empire, Gladiator had been deeply disturbed to see firsthand how their homeworld had been reduced to little more than rubble, how their once-proud people, a warrior race not terribly different from his own, had been driven to an almost primitive lifestyle.
None of which mattered in regard to his duty or his loyalty. Even so, he hoped that he and the rest of the Guard would be off Hala as quickly as possible.
At the first scream, he looked up, frowning. The doors to the Capitol Building burst open, and Hala's tainted Shi'ar nobility came streaming out in a frenzied rush. Some were screaming, even crying. Gladiator knew that the game of political cat and mouse Deathbird had been playing with the Guard had backfired.
"Oracle," he commanded. "Scan them."
The nobles flew past them, barely noting the presence of the Guard. Several seemed to make an attempt to regain their composure, but they didn't slow down in order to do so. Anywhere else in the Imperium, simple courtesy would have forced Gladiator to ascertain their condition, to see them all to safety. But they were of Deathbird's court. On Hala, Gladiator would fulfill his duties to the letter, but no further.
"Oracle," Gladiator snapped. "Report."
Her eyes closed as she scanned the frantic minds around them, but his harsh tone was enough to snap her back to reality.
"Kree warriors, Praetor," she said, a grim set to her white features. "I imagine it's the rabble Deathbird has been prattling about, the so-called rebellion."
"The Kree may be there, but I'd gladly wager we'll find the X-Men inside as well," Gladiator declared.
"No sign of them in the scan," Oracle replied, "but I'll continue to scan the Capitol as we enter."
When Gladiator didn't reply, Oracle frowned and cast a sidelong glance in his direction.
"We are going in, aren't we, Praetor?" she asked.
"Hmm?" he mumbled, then gave her his full attention. "Oh, yes of course we are. We will do our duty. I will personally reprimand any of you who do not fully execute Deathbird's orders, unless arid until the Majestrix countermands them."
Asly smile crept over Gladiator's face.
"But that doesn't mean we have to like it. Nor does it mean we have to hurry," he said.
Gladiator was a stem leader, rarely given to humor or warmth among his charges. The Guards respecte
d him, but he doubted very much that they liked him. Oracle smiled with mischief at his words, and both Titan and Starbolt laughed aloud. It felt good. Yet he wanted to be certain they did not misunderstand him.
"We will capture the X-Men," Gladiator announced. "With every bit of power and cunning at our disposal, we will follow our orders. Most especially, we will see that the three prisoners scheduled to be executed in the morning do not escape Hala alive."
Gladiator knew they would hear his unspoken words, implicit in his earlier humor. He hoped the X-Men would make good their escape before the Imperial Guard arrived. And if not, he hoped that they at least caused great agitation for Hala's Viceroy. Deathbird deserved that, and much more.
"Now, attack!" he commanded, and the Guard obeyed.
The pair of huge double doors that opened onto the high-ceilinged entry hall of the Capitol Building were of the finest, heaviest wood in the Imperium. Warstar stomped through one, and Gladiator streaked, fists first, through the other, splinters flying around his head.
Starbolt followed quickly, in position to torch anything or anyone who stood against them. Gladiator had worked out this attack strategy years earlier, and it never failed. No matter what Guard members were involved, Gladiator had the appropriate attack scenario in his head. This time, Oracle brought up the rear, scanning the building, with Titan as rear guard. The ceilings were high enough that he had already grown to at least sixteen feet. In the Great Hall, he would have almost unlimited room to grow and maneuver.
Ahead, sounds of blaster fire erupted from beyond the colossal doors to the hall.
"Starbolt! Your turn for the doors!" Gladiator shouted, and despite his reservations, felt the adrenal surge of battle as Starbolt vaporized the doors with one enormous blast.
Then they were inside the Great Hall. Deathbird's sentries had not lasted very long against the Kree rebels, but a squad of Shi'ar foot soldiers had also been at court. It was they who were holding the rebels at bay, even as Deathbird swooped down from the balconies above, picking off the Kree rabble one by one.
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