Marvel Novels--X-Men

by Alex Irvine

  Ororo tried to get up, but her legs weren’t responding. She turned her head and locked eyes with Peter. He didn’t need telepathy to know what she was thinking. It was there on her face, the same expression Rachel had worn when he’d set her down in the subway tunnel. Ororo knew she was going to die.

  Her gaze bored into Peter, and already he mourned her loss—the leadership they had come to take for granted ever since Cyclops’ departure, so many years ago. But she was not afraid. She was angry. Her anger blazed out in the form of static charges, short-circuiting equipment throughout the control room. Electricity flared from console panels, and Storm’s hair stood on end. She grasped the shaft protruding from below her sternum, teeth bared. Then the electricity flickered out. Peter saw the light fade in her eyes, as well.

  Peter roared, a pure animal sound that rejected everything he had ever stood for. Peace had died. Faith had died. Franklin, Logan, Ororo. Soon, Rachel…

  And what of Kate? Alone in the street below, or fighting a doomed battle in the past, forever unreachable. She, too, was gone—or soon would be. Peter was the last. The last X-Man, the last mutant, the last soldier in a lost cause—fighting a future that existed only to destroy him and those he loved.

  So be it, he thought.

  He had known anger before, but now he knew hate.

  FIFTEEN

  WHILE the X-Men were still picking themselves up off the ground—and Angel was still reorienting himself from the violent tumble through Storm’s pocket hurricane—a second blast sounded from inside the Senate building. No wall collapsed this time. The sound was not an explosion, but a punch of such force it registered on the Richter scale.

  Colossus shot out of the building in a high arc. Before Storm could slow him down or Angel could try to catch him, he landed flat on his back. The impact sent up a small explosion of turf, dirt, and shattered concrete from the plaza between the Senate building and the grassy part of the Mall.

  A moment later, the Blob leaped through the same opening. “I told ya, Russkie!” he shouted. “Nothin’ can move me ’less I wanna be moved! But I can move myself no matter how heavy I am! And you’re about to find out just how heavy—whoof!”

  A crackling boom sounded from the military position a hundred yards away, and Blob’s boast was cut off by the force of a concussion beam. Storm recognized the sound and, belatedly, the mobile artillery piece that had produced it. It was part of a Stark Industries advanced project, based on Tony Stark’s repulsor technology. Stark must have licensed it to the military some time ago, before he’d gotten out of the defense-contracting business.

  Blob’s immense mass absorbed most of the beam’s impact in mid-air. But when he was not in contact with the ground, even he was not immovable. The beam deflected him ever so slightly—just enough that when he came thundering back to earth, his feet punched a hole through the concrete of the plaza instead of Colossus’ chest. Scrambling to his feet, Colossus immediately charged to exploit the Blob’s momentary disadvantage—but a second concussion beam hit him squarely in the back, blasting him across the plaza. He skidded to a halt in a plowed-up hill of shattered concrete, stunned by the impact.

  “No!” Storm cried out. “We are your allies!”

  Even as she said it, she knew the effort was futile. The Army forces would not take the trouble to distinguish one group of mutants from another, no matter what proclamations they might have seen from the Senate chamber. The Brotherhood had won that battle and successfully turned all mutants into perceived enemies. What remained, then, was to save Senator Kelly, subdue the Brotherhood, and escape to begin the counteroffensive against Kelly’s pernicious bigotry.

  The third concussion cannon fired, its blast crushing Avalanche against the Senate building’s destroyed front wall. He disappeared in the falling rubble.

  Storm heard cheers from the soldiers. She wanted to cheer, too. The more of a pounding the Army inflicted on the Brotherhood, the more likely the X-Men were to accomplish their goal.

  Blob charged after the recovering Colossus and pried up a huge slab of concrete, using it as a lever to tip Peter over backward and then crush him beneath it. Even in his organic-steel form, Peter was taking a terrible beating. He was going to need help.

  No more salvos followed from the concussion cannons. Perhaps they needed time to recharge. That gives us an opening, Storm thought. But then a line of soldiers stepped forward with flamethrowers and began to lay down a wall of fire. Storm started to warn them away, but decided to save her breath. They wouldn’t listen.

  “Bad idea, gentlemen,” Pyro said, almost crooning as he stepped forward. With a gesture, he brought the flames under his control. “Using fire against me? I do hope your armed services provide you with adequate pensions. Your survivors will need them.”

  The soldiers cut off their flamethrowers, but it was far too late. Pyro took the fire and shaped it into an immense demonic creature, reveling in the terror he caused. He could just as easily have deployed a simple wall of fire, but giving his creations a face and an impression of sentience made them so much more menacing. The creature loomed over the soldiers, who stumbled back, fleeing before it—but there was no way they could outrun it. Scorched footprints the size of a small car, spaced twenty feet apart, measured its progress across the plaza.

  Angel swooped down in front of the flame creature. The creature turned its attention to him, giving the soldiers a few precious seconds to get away. Pyro muttered a string of profanities, struggling to maintain his creation’s cohesiveness. The flame creature flailed and batted at Angel, who hovered and dipped just out of its reach. “Can’t do this forever, gang!” he shouted. “Someone give a guy a hand and take Pyro out!”

  After pounding on Colossus, Blob had turned to Wolverine—but this time, he’d bitten off a little more than even he could chew. Wolverine didn’t care how heavy an opponent was. Adamantium claws were not affected by mass.

  “Whatsa matter, bub?” Logan taunted. “Thought you were invulnerable. You’re not scared of these little ol’ claws, are ya?”

  Blob didn’t answer. He was too busy heaving his bulk out of the way of Logan’s claws. He ripped up slabs of concrete and held them up to protect himself, but Logan tore through them as fast as Blob could pick them up. Blob didn’t dare get close enough to Logan to take a shot at him. He knew Logan would claw his immovable mass apart before he could even throw a punch.

  Neither Blob nor Storm wanted that to happen, for different reasons. “Logan, stop!” she shouted, but Wolverine wasn’t listening. The X-Men could not be seen killing people here. Logan, in his red fury, wasn’t thinking of that. Storm was.

  Help arrived from an unexpected source: Pyro, who had regained control over his fire creation. With a two-handed motion, as if he were pulling taffy, he divided it in half. “Presto!” he proclaimed. “Parthenoflamesis! From one fire monster, I give you two!”

  The two halves of the first monster grew in stature until both were larger than the original. Waves of heat shimmered off them, buckling the plaza below their feet. One of them continued to pursue Angel, but his powerful wings beat at it and blew parts of it away. He was using its own nature against it: Air was vital to fire, but too much air was lethal.

  The other fire monster was a greater problem. It flowed suddenly across the expanse of the plaza and rose up to seize Logan in one incandescent claw. Logan cried out in uncharacteristic agony. He could handle a lot of pain, and he healed faster than just about any person on the planet, but even he could not survive being burned alive for long.

  Angel’s windy sparring with the other fire monster gave Storm an idea. “Hold on, Logan!” she shouted. Storm flew straight up, gaining hundreds of feet of altitude in seconds before jackknifing down to dive straight toward Logan. The fire monster was drawing him in for what surely would be a fatal embrace.

  “Haw haw, lookit that!” Blob said. “Not so tough now, are you...bub?”

  Logan roared and sliced uselessly at the flam
e creature’s arms, in the grip of an adversary even his claws could not harm.

  But wind could. Storm had spent years investigating every potential use of her mutant powers; she knew that while lightning and hurricanes were the best blunt instruments at her disposal, more subtle methods of manipulating the elements also were available to her. Storm gathered the wind about her as she arrowed down, accelerating to more than two hundred miles per hour. When she slammed to a halt ten feet above the ground, she carried with her a bolus of wind that hit the fire monster with the power of a tornado concentrated into a single blow. It disintegrated into wisps.

  Logan fell to the ground, his arms and torso visibly charred. The burns were bad enough that a normal man would have fallen instantly into fatal shock. But Logan stayed on his hands and knees, gritting his teeth as his flesh began to heal itself.

  “We’re right back where we started, Storm!” Pyro called out, goading her. “But I fear your animalistic friend is a bit worse for wear!”

  Pyro returned his full attention to the surviving fire monster, using it as a vanguard to get closer to the endangered soldiers. Angel darted in behind him and landed a two-footed kick to his back, but retreated quickly as the fire monster nearly burned his wings off. Spiraling back up out of range, Angel saw the monster continue toward the soldiers’ line. They fired at it with everything they had, but apparently Stark Industries had not supplied them with advanced anti-fire-monster weaponry.

  Nightcrawler, having finally arrived in the chamber, bamfed over to Logan’s side. “Logan, mein verruckt freund, are you all right?”

  “I’ll live,” Logan growled. “But a few more seconds…I owe Storm, that’s for sure. Man, ’Crawler, this hurts.”

  “For you to admit that, it must—what the devil?!”

  Nightcrawler looked up, shocked. Logan followed his gaze and saw another Nightcrawler leaping toward them. “Wolverine, beware! That’s not me!” this second Nightcrawler warned. “One of the Brotherhood must be a shapechanger!”

  The two Nightcrawlers collided and grappled across the ground. Still reeling from his burns, Logan looked from one to the other, mystified.

  “Whoever you are, villain,” one of them said, “you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. I’ve spent a long time growing comfortable in this skin, and I like being unique. I don’t take kindly to doppelgangers.”

  “Neither do I!” said the other.

  Under normal circumstances, Logan would have been able to tell the two Nightcrawlers apart. It was mighty tough to fool his sense of smell. But his nose was still recovering from inhaling fire, and the two figures looked identical. So he opted for a more direct and decisive approach. A shapechanger might be able to look like Nightcrawler, but it sure wouldn’t be able to teleport like him. Logan unsheathed his claws.

  Storm flew over, alarmed. “Logan, what are you doing?”

  “Figuring out which one of these twins is the real Nightcrawler,” Logan said. “He oughta be able to teleport away when he sees these coming.”

  “Sheathe your claws,” she said.

  “We’re in a fight here, ’Ro,” Logan said. “It’s not debate time.”

  Ororo stepped in front of him. “Logan, either sheathe your claws or use them on me first.”

  Wolverine lowered his head and leaned into her, keeping his claws back but poised. “That can be arranged, babe.”

  The two Nightcrawlers were still pounding each other. Angel was taking drastic measures against Pyro’s fire monster, pulling individual soldiers up and over the barricades to safety—despite one of them taking a shot at him. Blob was tearing up chunks of the plaza and throwing them at the soldiers—or maybe at Colossus; it was hard to tell. Smoke from small fires in the Senate building and on the Mall obscured the battlefield.

  None of that mattered. Wolverine needed to settle a thing or two with Ororo.

  “I am the leader of the X-Men,” she said, keeping her tone level and holding her position. Wolverine’s claws were inches from gutting her. “You will use your claws when I tell you to use your claws. No other time.”

  “I wouldn’t take that from Cyclops,” Wolverine growled.

  “What matters is not what you and Cyclops would do, but what you and I will do,” Ororo answered. “If you go slashing away at every problem, what will the image of mutants be?”

  “They’re gonna hate us either way,” Logan said. “I’m not in this for the gratitude.”

  “Then—if you do not care about the humans—care about your fellow mutants who will suffer if you turn public opinion against them. You are strong. You are fast. You are nearly invulnerable. Use your claws only against the deadliest and most powerful foes.”

  Wolverine held her gaze a moment longer, then retracted his claws with a snap. “Okay, Storm,” he said—using her X-moniker, she thought, to let her know just how angry he was. “We’ll do it your way for now. But this conversation ain’t finished. Not by a long shot.”

  Then the ground bucked and heaved under them, throwing Logan off balance and flinging Storm into the air. Avalanche, looking at the undulating strip of concrete and earth he’d raised, quipped, “Lady, since you and your hairy pal would obviously rather feud than fight, it seems only fair I should give you a ride to somewhere you can do it in peace!”

  “Logan, grab my hand!” Storm reached down and barely missed Logan’s grasp. He fell, sprawling, on the face of Avalanche’s debris wave.

  “Too late! If you hadn’t gone and got squeamish, we wouldn’t have this problem!” Logan shouted back. “Now who’s gonna help Nightcrawler?”

  “I want no help, Wolverine!” one of the Nightcrawlers said.

  The other seemed to agree. “I intend to finish this fight on my own!”

  The force of the seismic ripple carried Logan away from the Nightcrawlers and brought him to a rolling halt in a rain of concrete chunks. A flying metal trash can struck him in the back of the head. He looked up and saw Colossus running toward him, carrying a thirty-foot section of I-beam in a pole-vault position. “Wolverine, come with me! I need your assistance to handle the Blob!”

  “I’ll handle him, all right,” Logan said, showing his claws again.

  “No! I have a better plan. It takes him out and leaves him alive.”

  “You call that better?” Logan sighed. “Okay, Petey, ya peacenik. What do you want to do?”

  The Blob threw another huge concrete chunk, like a discus. It hit one of the concussion cannons and smashed it over backward, breaking off its barrel and scattering its crew. The other two cannons had just about powered up again, if the crackling along their barrels was any indication. Blob tore up another discus and snarled, “Think ya can zap me? Try this, instead!”

  Clouds began to roll in, too fast to be natural, and Logan saw a dust storm kicking up across the Mall. Then Avalanche came running out of the storm, raging against Ororo and heaving the earth randomly around him in pure incoherent fury.

  Near the military position, Angel was still lifting endangered soldiers away from Pyro’s fire monster. The soldiers’ remaining heavy equipment had begun to burn and melt from its approach. Pyro followed, playing tricks with the secondary fires his monster created—and playing cat-and-mouse with Angel. The airborne mutant flapped his wings furiously, creating powerful downdrafts to extinguish the flames as fast as Pyro could fan them.

  “I knew I shoulda skewered that limey when I had the chance,” Wolverine said. “No matter what ’Roro said.”

  “You will not be surprised to learn that I disagree,” Colossus said. He nodded at a point on the ground. “Quickly. Kneel.”

  Wolverine did, and Colossus laid the I-beam across Logan’s right shoulder. “I get you, pal,” Wolverine replied. “Like Archimedes said: Gimme a big enough lever, and I can move the world.”

  The Blob cocked his arm to throw again, and Colossus heaved down on the end of the I-beam. “Blob!” Avalanche shouted. The Blob started to react, but it was too late. With Wolverine as
its fulcrum, the beam tilted—its other end rising up to catch Blob like a see-saw just as he was releasing his next missile. The I-beam lifted him up, the principles of vector physics imparting tremendous angular momentum to his mass, and flung him high into the air.

  “Yeeeooowwww!” he screamed, amazed that he’d been lifted off his feet. Wolverine had felt his Adamantium bones grind together from the force the beam had pressed onto his back. Even when he wasn’t making himself immovable, Fred J. Dukes was one massive piece of work.

  “Now comes part two,” Colossus said, eyeing Blob’s arc through the air.

  “I’m curious,” Wolverine said. “Did we move him, or move the earth out from under him? I’m gonna need a chiropractor.”

  “I am not sure any chiropractors work on Adamantium, my friend,” Colossus said.

  Avalanche was about to create another seismic event. Storm, in the air above him, began to gather wind and rain—but she had already depleted the immediate area to create her spray inside the Senate building. Late October in Washington, D.C., was not a humid time, but as Storm concentrated moisture and energy, clouds began to roll in from over the Potomac. A bolt of lightning wouldn’t fry Avalanche, she knew, but it would make him uncomfortable enough that he could not muster another serious attack.

  She struck him with sleet and snow, coming down out of the seventy-degree sky. She kicked up dust devils around him to interfere with his vision. He struck out furiously in all directions, sending shock waves across the Mall. If they’d been inside a building, it would have shaken itself to gravel.

  * * *

  THE TREMOR bounced the brawling Nightcrawlers up into the air, separating them. When they returned to Earth, they faced each other again.

  “You are not me,” Kurt said. “So who are you?”

  His double sparred, feinted, spun, and kicked just as he did—as if the other had lived in Kurt’s body all his life. Who was this? Kurt struck fast and hard, disdaining his teleportation out of a sense of mingled anger and fair play. On the one hand, he wanted to kill this impostor. On the other hand, something about the situation piqued his vexing tendency to test himself both physically and emotionally. Could he meet this doppelganger and fight him—without using abilities the doppelganger could not have?