X-Men 2

by Chris Claremont

  To her horror, Jean saw that the clusters closest to the darkness exploded apart in a fireworks shower of sparkles, and just like fireworks, these flaring embers vanished before they reached what she thought of as the ground. But unlike sunset, where the night came from a single horizon, this darkness closed on her from every side, not simply along a horizontal plane but lowering from above and rising from below. She tried to catch hold of the memory clusters, to carry them to some place of safety, but couldn’t find one. With each that vanished, she found that less and less of a cohesive sense of Annie herself remained.

  She called her friend’s name, but the word echoed through a space where it had no more meaning. Annie was going, and there was no way Jean could call her back.

  Jean embraced the final cluster, her own heart so full of grief she thought it would explode while her noncorporeal cheeks burned with tears. She thought if she could push her own strength, the essence of her own will and soul, into this last fleeting scrap of her friend, she’d still be able to save her.

  The last of the light went out. All around her, save this last scrap of Annie’s self, was darkness.

  But paradoxically, as this final night fell, the cluster that Jean embraced blazed more brightly than before, more brightly than any radiance Jean had ever seen, so bright it put the sun to shame. She beheld colors she had no name for, that reached out to all her senses, manifesting themselves as tastes and scents and textures. It was a warm and welcoming light, pure in a way that poets strive for and only lovers attain, and that, rarely.

  The last cluster, the last scraps of Annie, broke apart in Jean’s grasp and slipped through her fingers, rushing away into the core of this new light. There was such peace and such beauty that Jean’s first impulse was to follow so that her friend would not face this new place by herself.

  That would be so easy. No more pain, no more fear. She could avoid the crushing weight of grief that awaited her the moment she opened her eyes for real, the memory of her friend, the awareness of the bloody rag doll she’d become.

  Someone was yelling, in a voice raw with horror and with fear, and Jean was a little bit shocked to realize that she wasn’t simply hearing the words her mother spoke as she cradle-crushed Jean in her own arms as Jean had done Annie, as heedlessly as her daughter had been of the blood that soaked them both. She could feel her mother’s emotions as well, and her thoughts, relief that it was Annie lying there and not Jean, shame at that acknowledgment, fury that either girl had been so careless, a terrible and welling rage at the driver for not stopping.

  It’s okay, Mommy, she remembered saying, sure for years afterward that she’d spoken aloud, which was why she was so startled when her mother fell backward in stark and visible shock. There’s no need to cry, I’m okay. Only much later did the understanding come that she hadn’t said a word with her voice but had spoken directly, mind to mind.

  And much later after that, the comprehension that she’d been quite wrong in what she’d told her mom: Nothing for Jean after that fateful moment when her psi catalyzed into being, years before it was supposed to, would ever be truly “okay” again.

  “It’s okay, darlin’,” Logan said softly, brushing tears from her cheek. “There’s no need to cry. You’re okay.”

  She shuddered again, as though the surface temblers had given way to a deep and lasting tectonic shift, from the kind of quakes that level buildings to the ones that reshape the face of continents and raise mountains to the heavens.

  She kissed him on the lips, on the cheeks, and he stifled a smile at the realization that he was crying, too.

  She took a deep, calming breath but said not a word. Logan followed her lead. There was nothing that needed saying between them, not now, perhaps never again. It would be easy if her heart told her one thing and her head another; scientist though she was, empiricist to the core, she knew she’d follow her heart.

  But her heart felt equally, passionately torn between them, and she couldn’t see any way yet to heal the rift.

  It made her head hurt and her soul ache, and she knew she wasn’t likely to feel better anytime soon. Logan wanted to kiss her again, so much and so hard it was an ache within him. He wanted her more than his life, more than his past.

  But she shook her head and pulled away.

  “Logan, please—don’t.”

  Against every instinct and every desire, he nodded assent and did nothing but watch as she strode away. That wasn’t like him at all. His solution to every problem was direct and invariably physical. No hesitation, less regrets.

  Until now. Until her. Somehow she brought out the best in him. Even more, she fanned in him a desire to be better, to transcend the person and life he was accustomed to. That would be a lot easier if he knew that at the end he’d have a shot, a chance to gain her as the prize. What made him smile at the wicked joke fate was playing was the realization that winning her wasn’t guaranteed. It might not even be possible, no matter how he proved himself. Whatever they felt for each other, her love for Scott was just as strong and could not be denied.

  Knowing that, why make the effort?

  Knowing that, he found himself wanting to try anyway. Because, even though it made him crazy, he liked the way it made him feel.

  Nightcrawler couldn’t take his eyes off her, but how she reacted to his interest Logan couldn’t tell.

  “They say you can imitate anybody,” Nightcrawler said to Mystique as the shape-shifter’s gaze followed Logan across the campsite. “Even their voice?”

  She looked over her shoulder at him and replied, in perfect mimicry, “Even their voice.”

  Nightcrawler couldn’t help a grin of delight that stretched from ear to ear, and he clapped his hands together in one performer’s appreciation of another.

  “In your case,” she told him, speaking as herself now, “the voice is easy. The tail, now, that might take some work.”

  “It would be like mine—ach, what is the word—”

  “Prehensile,” Logan said.

  “Ja, ja, ja, that’s it, like a monkey!”

  Mystique searched once more for Logan and thought back briefly to their battle on Liberty Island. Her morphing ability had allowed her to generate a set of facsimile claws that were almost as good as the real thing. As well, it had enabled her to survive three of his own adamantium blades that had gone right to her heart.

  “It isn’t polite to ask a woman’s secrets, mein herr,” she said gently. “Or expect the woman to give them up, just for the asking.”

  “Forgive me,” Nightcrawler said hurriedly, recognizing the undercurrent of emotion flossing through the other mutant without knowing quite what it represented, “I did not mean to offend.”

  “Not even close,” she assured him.

  “I was wondering, though,” he continued, “with such an ability, why not stay disguised all the time? You know . . . look like . . . everyone else.” What he meant, and it was heartbreakingly plain to see, was “like normal people.”

  Her answer was direct: “Because we shouldn’t have to.”

  His expression showed that he liked that. He just as obviously liked her, for reasons that had nothing to do with her appearance.

  Logan should have been sleeping, but he didn’t even try. From the moment he crawled into his tent, he’d been fingering and staring at his dog tags, as though physical contact—or glaring at them—might inspire some miraculous revelation. Charley had told him to be patient about his past, that his mind demanded the same opportunity and time to heal as his body would. Clear implication: This was a journey they’d take together. Now Magneto comes along to imply that Charley knows more—a lot more—than he’s let on. Truth? Or was the bad guy just screwing with Logan’s head?

  The faint scent of Folavril—her perfume—announced her presence a moment before Jean opened the tent flap and crouched inside. Suddenly, his heart rate kicked into high gear, and he could see from the pulse on her throat, the faint flush to her skin, that the at
traction was as undeniably mutual.

  He started to speak, without the slightest idea of what he wanted to say, but she stopped him with a finger against his lips. Her eyes were laughing with anticipation and delight as she crawled closer across his sleeping bag. His own eyes couldn’t help but follow the line of her shirt, more open than she usually wore it, to the shadows between her breasts. She straddled him and settled her weight on his hips. The touch of her was electric, the scent intoxicating, as she slid her hands across his chest, up the thick column of his throat to take hold of him along the line of his jaw and bring his lips to hers.

  There was no hesitation this time. The kiss was dynamite, fulfilling all the promise of the first, and he returned better than he got, moving his left hand up to cup her neck and his right beneath her shirt to caress her across the ribs and belly. She trembled against him, catching her breath with the sparkling overload of physical sensation.

  That’s when he popped his claws. The outsiders from his left hand, to bracket her throat right beneath her chin, forcing her to hold her head erect and at attention, or risk slicing skin—and likely bone—on the razor-keen adamantium blades. The middle claw was the kicker, the final incentive to behave: One false move, she’d be done.

  At the same time, he tore open her shirt to reveal three scars right below her left breast, the indelible legacy of his claws stabbing through her rib cage to her heart.

  “Busted,” Mystique said, sounding not at all dismayed. If anything, her smile was broader and livelier than ever, as was the light in her eyes. She danced with danger, it gave life spice and meaning. As he watched, green eyes turned chrome yellow, that color expanding to subsume the entire eyeball. Then, in the kind of dissolve animators love to use, the transformation spread outward from her eyes. Her hair shortened and turned a darker, more angry shade of red; her clothes faded into her skin, which in turn morphed from pale to indigo blue.

  As an acrobat, she was in Nightcrawler’s league. Logan knew from experience she could give and take a serious punch. Whatever her appearance, her strength demanded respect. Now she used that strength to gently but firmly push his blades clear of her neck. She did a good job; with barely a millimeter to spare, the edges never touched her skin.

  At the same time, she melted against him, as Jean had beneath the Blackbird, kissing her way from mouth to ear.

  “No one ever left a scar quite like you,” she said.

  “You want an apology?”

  She chuckled, much as he might. “You know what I want.”

  She bit him, on the lobe, hard and sexy, and when she sat straight up before him she shifted position just that little bit needed to make her intentions and desires unmistakable.

  “But what is it,” she continued, her voice going as sultry as her manner, “you want?”

  She changed in his arms, skin turning brown, hair turning silver, eyes turning blue, gaining height and majesty until it was Storm sitting there, spectacularly naked. She lifted her arms to spread her hair wide across her shoulders, allowing him an unobstructed view . . .

  . . . and then she changed again—shrinking in size and stature, skin paling, eyes turning green, hair going brown with its distinctive skunk stripe down front, covering her nakedness demurely with crossed hands as she presented herself as Rogue . . .

  . . . and then she was Jean again.

  He’d had enough. He hit her, palm of the hand, flat to her chest, with force enough to pop her off his lap and almost to the opposite wall of the tent. He’d caught her off guard, and there wasn’t time for her to recover. She landed in an inelegant sprawl, which only made her more amused than ever as she rolled over onto her belly and levered herself up on her hands.

  By the time her arms were at full extension, Logan was staring at William Stryker.

  “What do you really want?” Mystique asked him in Stryker’s voice.

  Face and body carved from stone, claws held in a defensive fist between him and the shape-shifter, Logan replied, “Get out.”

  She shook her head with a sneer and did as she was told.

  Only when he was alone did Logan withdraw his claws. He hadn’t been fooled from the very start—there was more to Jean’s scent than her perfume, and elements of Mystique’s that couldn’t be hidden, more differences between them now than the other woman could possibly suspect. He told himself there were all manner of sensible reasons for indulging in the fantasy, but he knew they were lies. It was a glimpse of what might have been, if life were more fair.

  Problem was, he’d already made a commitment and he would be true to it, no matter what, to the end. He’d been betrayed many times in his life. He swore he’d never be party to betraying another.

  He rubbed his left hand with his right, over the space between the knuckles where the claws extended, while the pain of their use faded away. There was never any visible scar, his healing factor saw to that, but each time the claws came out the pain was as fresh, as shocking, as the first. On one level they were as much a part of him as his natural senses. He accepted their presence wholeheartedly. But on another, they were close to the ultimate violation. Someone had put them inside his body, someone had stripped him of even the pretense of humanity by making him a hybrid cyborg construct. A literal machine.

  From a man like Stryker, if he was indeed responsible, it was no less than Logan expected. But if what Magneto said was true, if Xavier knew the truth and kept it from him, how could Logan trust the man ever again? Because the answer to that question begged an even darker one—was Xavier somehow involved in the process? Was he somehow responsible?

  What then, he wondered. And with a thought, triggered his claws once more.

  Snikt!

  What then, indeed?

  Chapter

  Thirteen

  The ladies worked straight through the night, and by morning the Blackbird was ready to go. As Logan finished zipping his uniform closed, he caught Rogue and Bobby eyeing him discreetly. They’d spent the night together, tangled up with each other in a pose that managed to be incredibly intimate while remaining wholly innocent. Rogue had taken great care to make sure no stray skin showed, other than her face, and she pulled her hood close around her head to minimize the risk of contact. Bobby wore his own gloves. Nightcrawler hung batlike from a branch above, as though he were the kids’ very own swashbuckler gargoyle saint.

  Only John Allardyce remained awake the whole night, sitting opposite Bobby and Rogue, staring at them across the campfire, continually flicking his lighter open and closed, open and closed.

  The kids weren’t interested in their classmate, though, which Logan knew was part of John’s problem. It was the uniforms they wanted.

  “Where’re ours?” Bobby demanded.

  Logan responded with a gruff snort that was echoed (in his ears or in his thoughts, he couldn’t tell) from up front by Jean.

  “On order,” he told them. “Should arrive in a few years.”

  Logan supervised the breakdown of the campsite, mainly to keep tabs on Magneto and Mystique. Magneto boarded the plane as if he owned it, but Mystique paused just a moment in passing and flashed Logan a secret little smile to remind him of what had happened during the night. As Logan closed the hatch, she made sure he caught her flashing the same smile at Jean, most likely to make him wonder if she’d pulled the same trick with her. And, of course, to imply that Jean had fallen for the masquerade.

  Even as their allies, she and Magneto were always trying to play the X-Men, to find the edge that would give them a tactical advantage. You could never let down your guard with them, on any level, because every encounter had to be some kind of challenge—and they always had to win.

  That’s what Rogue discovered right after takeoff, as she made her way back to her seat from the bathroom. Magneto was sitting across from John Allardyce, and he smiled at her as she passed. It was a genial smile, the kind you’d expect from family.

  “Rogue,” he said, by way of greeting, but when she di
dn’t respond, when she tried totally to ignore him, he continued without missing a beat, “we love what you’ve done with your hair.”

  Her lips, her whole body, went tight as a drawn bow, but she kept walking. She wouldn’t look back, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. The device he’d intended to use months ago on the United Nations delegates had required his specific power to activate it. But doing so would have killed him, so he came up with what he felt was a far better idea: Allow Rogue to imprint his abilities, thereby enabling her to wield magnetism and take his place as the catalyst. Regrettably, she would have to die in the process. A tragic but necessary sacrifice for a noble cause.

  She didn’t see it that way. He didn’t care.

  Logan had saved her, first by destroying Magneto’s device and then by allowing her to imprint his healing factor. But the energies that had burned so fiercely through her system had left a lasting mark, her skunk stripe, the distinctive widow’s peak of silver hair springing from her forehead.

  John watched her strap herself into her chair, realized that Logan was glaring back at Magneto from the flight deck, and turned to observe that Magneto wasn’t bothered in the slightest by Logan’s fury. Indeed, he seemed to enjoy it.

  John was impressed, though he made sure not to show it. He sounded almost bored as he noted, “They say you’re the bad guy.”

  That amused Magneto, who kept his gaze on Logan.

  “Is that what they say?”

  John started flicking his lighter, the reassuring click going almost unheard against the sound of the Blackbird’s swift passage through the morning sky.

  “That’s a dorky-looking helmet,” he said. “What’s it for?”

  At last he’d caught Magneto’s attention—an interest, though John didn’t know it, that he’d had from the start—and as that noble head turned toward him, he suddenly wished he hadn’t.