First Team

by Robbie MacNiven

  What had once been a fight in the most open space in the church now resembled a battle in some collapsing subterranean cavern. The detonation of the sacking had completely choked the air with dust, and the spotlights the Purifiers had triggered had served to turn that dust into a near-impenetrable wall, shifting but too dense to see more than a dozen or so paces in any direction. Cipher’s world had been reduced to the pyre stack and the jagged rocks that Santo had driven up around it. Dan struggled desperately against his bonds, trying to shout something to her.

  Purifiers had started to scramble over Santo’s rocks. One hastily recharged an energy rifle from a perch atop a newly formed crag. That had to be the one who’d shot her.

  They could see her. Cipher realized that as soon as the sacks had blown. It was a simple enough trick, but effective. Dust coated her body, highlighting her despite being nominally invisible. If she phased fully, she could lose the particles, but then she would merely become a negative imprint in the swirling clouds, picked out by the very absence of a presence.

  In a training exercise she’d probably have withdrawn and reassessed, but this was all far from a training exercise. Shrugging off the last of the dissipated energy, she willed herself back onto the pyre. Dan Borkowski stared at her, eyes wide above his gag. She wasn’t sure he was aware of what was happening around him, but she trusted he knew he was being rescued. Judging by his frantic efforts to free himself, he was as eager to help her as she was to help him.

  Another energy shot passed her by, followed by a whip-crack she recognized as the close passage of a hard round. If the Purifiers had been trying to take them alive before, they certainly weren’t any more. Cultists swarmed over the rocky barricade on all sides now, firing as they came. She saw impacts in the timber around Dan, one striking splinters off the stake above him. She realized she wasn’t going to be able to get him untied without drawing fire down on them both, not while she was even partially visible. Cursing, she launched up into the air once more and away, energy bolts darting through the surrounding dust cloud like bright fish through murky waters. She had to draw them away until the dust settled.

  Below her Santo was engaged in his own struggle. The hulking X-Man was the focus of much of the Purifiers’ ire. Energy blasts sizzled around him and hard rounds cracked chips and sparks off his stony frame. Cipher saw him lash out with his mind once more, tearing free a fresh spike of geological stratum from underneath the church and slamming it up into the midst of a knot of cultists. The golden-masked one, Xodus, was among those thrown aside by the fresh upheaval. The whole church shook again. As she swooped down to Santo’s side, Cipher found herself wondering how much longer the aged building could endure.

  •••

  Xodus was slammed sideways into one of his Choristers as a pillar of rock burst forth to his right, tearing part of his robes and making him lose his grip on his sword. The weapon clattered across the flagstones as the prophet struggled to right himself, impeded by his robes. A second Chorister helped him to his feet.

  “My blade,” Xodus snapped at the black-masked devotee, ignoring the Purifiers who had been injured in the rock burst. The Chorister hurried to retrieve the sword and knelt before his prophet, offering it up to him hilt-first, head bowed. Xodus snatched it and waved him away, looking beyond him at where the infernal rock monster had just pulverized two more Purifiers as they charged him, their weapons chattering.

  Closing with these filthy mutants was proving more difficult than he had hoped. Still, preparations had been made. He raised his sword, the blade catching the beams of the floodlights above the apse, shining brilliantly in the swirling dust.

  “Strike them down, my Choristers,” he bellowed, his mask’s amplifiers making his voice boom through the embattled space. “Shatter that horror into a thousand blasted shards!”

  The Choristers obeyed. While a trio had accompanied Xodus down from the apse, the others had remained there. At the prophet’s command they turned and drew back the black and white banners covering the makeshift altar. It was revealed to be a heavy crate, newly installed by the faithful. Its contents were just what Xodus needed – a brace of rocket-propelled grenade launchers and the corresponding ammunition. The Choristers loaded them with practiced ease. Xodus dropped his sword so that its bright tip pointed squarely at the rampaging rock beast. As he did so he roared a single word, voice riven with raw fanaticism.

  “Purify!”

  •••

  Cipher realized the danger too late. The dust was too thick, and the attacks on both her and Santo were too continuous. The first thing she knew of the Chorister assault was the whump of air displacement, and a streak of white contrails billowing by. The RPG corkscrewed wide of Rockslide and impacted in the center of the main doors to the church, right across the nave. They blew out in a blizzard of shattered oak.

  “Santo, watch out,” she screamed. Rockslide had spotted the threat too, but before he could plant his fist or summon up his geokinetics, the second and third grenades had been loosed. Neither of these missed.

  There was a hideous double crack, and smoke and flame engulfed the X-Man. Cipher threw herself down towards him as it dissipated, oblivious now to the small arms fire still slicing through the air around her. She dreaded what she might find.

  Santo was shattered. One of the rocket grenades had taken out his right leg. The second had split much of his torso and dislodged one shoulder. He was on his side, smoke rising from scorched stone, parts of him reduced to rubble.

  “You’ve got to get up, Santo,” Cipher urged, kneeling by his head. She fully materialized so he could see her, forcing his glazed eyes to focus on her. “Vic still needs you. I still need you.”

  It was hopeless. She knew that, if she wanted, she could still simply phase and vanish. She didn’t entertain the idea, even for a second. Not this time.

  Santo didn’t reply. Cipher looked up as a shout rang out. A pair of Purifiers charged through the dust and smoke, their rifles levelled. Their hellish masks had lost the silver luster and their black robes were caked gray with dust. Their weapons flashed and barked in the gloom, bullets striking and ricocheting off Santo’s back as they rushed in.

  Cipher met them with a roar. She phased completely as she did so, passing right through Rockslide and the bullets tearing into him. She dropped the ability the moment she reached the two Purifiers, blinking into existence between them and slamming her forearms into their heads. Her momentum scythed them both down onto their backs, masks as broken as the faces underneath.

  More Purifiers emerged through the smog ahead, backlit by the unyielding light of the lamps rigged up to the apse. She glanced back at Santo. He’d managed to drag himself up onto one elbow. She didn’t know how great his powers of regeneration were, but she knew she had to give him a chance to get back onto his feet. If not, they were finished.

  The sound of shattered glass turned her attention back to the apse. She didn’t realize it immediately, but the brilliant beams of the floodlights were beginning to go out one by one. The reports of the individual gunshots were almost lost amidst the wider firing, but someone was shooting out the lights in the apse, slowly and accurately.

  As the last of the beams blinked out, Cipher smiled. Trust Graymalkin to work out a solution to that particular problem.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Graymalkin centered the rifle’s open sights and took the last shot, squeezing off two rounds for good measure. The shots blew out the final light above the apse with a crash and a hail of fragmented glass. The weapon clicked empty.

  He had been more than impressed by the precautions taken by the Purifiers thus far. They did, however, seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that none of the Institute’s students knew what a firearm was. Graymalkin wondered what effect half a dozen such weapons would have had if they’d existed around the time he was born. Nothing good, he imagined. Still, he’d
managed to find a use for the one that had been carried by the Purifier who’d tried to outflank him earlier on, and it was certainly a sure sight more accurate and more rapid-firing than the old flintlock fowling piece his father had forced him to learn to use when he’d been a child.

  The floodlights bathing the center of the church with illumination were now gone. Sunlight still gleamed through the broken dome, but the huge amount of dust and smoke unleashed had diffused it. Graymalkin’s power built within him, something akin to a rising vibration that made his heart tremor and his limbs quiver. It was all he could do to contain it, and it was still a long way from its peak.

  He could have waited for longer, marshalling his strength in the shadows, but his friends could not. He tensed and unleashed the darkness.

  •••

  Xodus advanced through the dust-choked shadows, holding his sword aloft.

  “Rally,” he bellowed at the faithful around him. “Rally and strike them down, my children! They are there for the taking!”

  The lights had failed, but there was still enough illumination coming through the shattered dome overhead. Xodus strove to make out the two pyres on either side, directing the Choristers flanking him to open fire.

  Before they could, the dust before him swirled. He swung his sword at the shade materializing before him, driven by instinct to lash out. The blessed steel hit home, just as Xodus caught an impression of deathly-pale skin and terrible eyes.

  Exultation filled him, followed by a horrifying realization. He had not cut down one of the vile mutants, as he had supposed. The blade of his sword quivered. Somehow, the mutant had blocked Xodus’s razor-sharp blade with one hand. Xodus cried out and tried to wrench the sword out of the horror’s grasp. It held on with almighty unnatural strength, like death incarnate in the gloom.

  Then, the horrifying creature struck – not him, but Xodus’s sword – by hitting the flat of the blade with the palm of its other hand. A dull clang rang out, followed by the clatter of falling steel. Xodus’s shattered weapon fell to the flagstones, leaving only one remaining shard of metal sticking out of the prophet’s grip. The demon wasn’t even cut or bleeding.

  Xodus remained frozen, struggling to find the words of a prayer for protection. The creature was a true demon from the depths of some infernal realm. It showed no hesitation though and slammed its palm against Xodus’s chest. Xodus was pitched backwards into several Purifiers behind him.

  By the time he’d recovered and gotten to his feet, struggling for breath, the Choristers had finally opened fire. The thunder of gunfire assaulted the prophet’s ears, but the demon was already gone, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared into the swirling dust and shadow.

  “The pyres, you fools,” Xodus managed to grunt as one of the white-robed fanatics helped steady him. “We have to secure them, before they free the prisoners!”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Vic slammed back into the cloister pillar behind him, feeling loose masonry crack and tumble as his vision flashed with pain. He wasn’t able to recover in time to avoid the second blow, or the third. The fourth put him down on his knees, blood from his nose and lips messing his face.

  “So fast,” Lobe said, becoming visible once more as he stood over him and cracked his knuckles. “I really could get used to this. Get up.”

  Vic spat blood onto the flagstones, shook the stars from his eyes, and slammed his head upwards. The same blow that had sent Prophet Xodus reeling almost caught the CEO of Sublime Corp as well, but Lobe’s apparently new-found reflexes allowed him to dodge the worst of it. Vic’s spiny skull caught him in the side, driving him back with a grunt and giving Vic time to regain his feet, but no more.

  Lobe came in with another flurry of punches, their positions now reversed – Vic was being driven back along the cloisters towards the stairwell, his footing uncertain on the debris-littered floor. He managed to block Lobe’s blows this time, but the supposed businessman was far faster than he should have been. Lobe paused, still smiling, clearly relishing the confrontation.

  “What are you?” Vic demanded, taking another step back and cuffing the blood from his nose.

  “I’m you,” Lobe answered. “Why, just look…”

  He held an arm out, and it changed. With a ripple it shifted color, becoming a near-flawless mimicry of the dark sandstone behind it. He moved and flexed it, the limb now little more than a distortion of its background.

  “Blink and you’ll miss me,” Lobe said. “Almost as much fun as the wall-crawling, or the tongue!”

  Lobe dropped his jaw with the final syllable and lashed out with the muscle – it was forked, and it snared and wrapped around Vic’s left wrist, whipcord fast. Vic let out an exclamation of disgust and ripped his arm free, but not before it had left him off balance and allowed Lobe to close the distance again. He was forced to parry another pair of stinging punches, giving ground again.

  “You’ve stolen my abilities,” he snapped, equal parts outraged and horrified. “How? Why?”

  “Oh, I doubt a country kid like you would understand much of the how,” Lobe mocked. “Suffice to say it took a great deal of financial investment, and a particular breakthrough in the form of one severed arm.”

  “You used my arm?” Vic asked, the memory of Graymalkin’s findings in the Revitalize facility flashing through his thoughts. “You’ve done something with my DNA. My genetics. You’ve… cloned my powers.”

  “Isolated and replicated specific strands of your personal mutant gene,” Lobe said with relish. “The first fully successful experiment of such a nature in the history of the world! And as is only right and proper, I’m the first benefactor. Behold the future, Victor Borkowski. Mutant powers, just a serum away!”

  “But why me?” Vic asked. He was desperately trying to keep the egotistical maniac talking while he backed off towards the cloister stairwell. He had to get word to the others. What if he’d done something to enhance the Purifiers as well?

  “I’ll admit, I thought I could do better for the first trial run,” Lobe said, stalking after him. “I wanted real powers, not some reptilian gimmick. But the clever people I pay a great deal of money to were insistent. Mutants with particularly malleable physiology are by far the best test subjects. Your genetics are some of the most pliable, the most adaptable. I needed you, and mutants like you.”

  “That’s why you hired the Purifiers?” Vic asked, taking another careful backwards step.

  “Something like that,” Lobe smiled, and attacked again. Vic avoided his punches, but this time the crazed CEO was pressing him forcefully, getting inside his guard. Lobe managed to grab Vic’s left arm and flung him with brutal force into one of the alcove statues. The worn idol collapsed. Vic grunted with the impact and felt broken stone shatter and bounce off his head carapace. He sprawled, trying desperately to get to his feet as Lobe pressed his advantage. Another fist cracked against his cheek, more striking his raised forearms and shoulders. He kicked out, thumping a foot into Lobe’s thigh and doing enough to drive him back.

  “Why do you hate us?” Vic panted, managing to get up again before Lobe came in for another round. The words had the desired effect, checking Lobe.

  “Oh, I don’t hate your kind, Vic,” he exclaimed, laughing. “On the contrary! I want to be you! Everyone wants to be you! The X-Men, brilliant heroes with fantastical abilities! And everyone will be you, once I’m finished. For a price, of course.”

  “That’s what this is all about? Money?”

  “Money and power,” Lobe clarified. “The power to beat the X-Men at their own game.”

  Vic had dropped back again. There was only one more alcove left between him and the stairwell. With all the speed he could muster, he snatched the head of the statue and dragged it down, splitting it across the cloister corridor. Then, skin rippling and shifting, he turned and bounded into the stairwell.

  H
e didn’t get far. Purifiers scrambled up from the ground floor like gray phantoms, caked in dust. It looked like he wasn’t going down then.

  He ran up instead, towards the belfry. As he went, he heard Lobe snapping at the oncoming cultists.

  “Leave him! He’s mine.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Santo was up, but Cipher didn’t know how much longer that would be the case. He’d managed to reform enough rock to bind a new limb, but his injuries were telling – a latticework of cracks was steadily spreading across his body as he fought, driving back a fresh wave of cultists with another burst of stone shards.

  The crossing at the heart of the church was now a shattered, uneven mess of dust, jagged rock and scattered bodies, but still the cultists came, seemingly endless in number and driven into a frenzy. This was their hour of reckoning, and none wished to be found wanting. Cipher was tackled as she rounded the broken remains of Santo’s pyre, the impact of the robed figure almost throwing her over. She grappled with him before phasing, leaving him clutching nothing but air. A strike to the back of the neck felled him.

  She winced. The wound in her arm had reopened – her bicep to her wrist was red with blood, a dark contrast to the dust caking her. She was starting to lose feeling in the limb too. There was no time to dress it, though. She turned just in time to see a Purifier, lowering his rifle at her, thwacked from existence by a vibrating blur of inky blackness. Graymalkin darted to her side, his expression grim.

  “They are numerous,” he said as he looked towards where Rockslide threw off a cultist who had leapt onto his back and was trying to wedge a knife into a crack between his shoulder blades.

  “Where’s Vic?” Cipher asked. “He must’ve caught Lobe by now? We need him if we’re going to call these lunatics off.”