As Hank would say, Whatever works.
Now, how to make the actor step off the stage? The inhibitor collar prevented her from attacking the construct directly. But psychic brute force wasn’t the only means to victory. Psylocke dipped into her trove of battle knowledge and strategy and concocted a plan.
But did she dare set a counterattack in motion just yet? The timing seemed propitious in that Sauron was still thoroughly energized. His repressed selves were clutching more bits of vitality from the matrix with each passing minute. A nudge in the right place, and they might be able to break loose. But was that desirable? If Sauron’s true self came out on top, he would be as deadly as this one, if not more so. If Karl Lykos emerged, the mutates would restrain him, and the X-Men would be no closer to liberty. If both rose up and engaged in a fight for dominance, the resulting lunatic might become so volatile and uncontrolled that he would kill the captives, either by accident or as part of some irrational, homicidal impulse he couldn’t control.
Let sleeping pteranodons lie?
Betsy. Warren’s mental voice interrupted her deliberation.
Yes? She glanced toward her lover, who tilted his head toward Iceman.
Bobby’s been trying to tell me something, but I can’t lip-read well enough, and the guards are watching us too closely to be more obvious with the attempt.
Iceman was still groggily holding his head up, spared another blackout thanks to the premature end to the energy pilferage. Betsy caught his eye, nodded at him, and eased open a telepathic channel.
My power’s not completely dampened, she explained. What is it? What can you tell us?
The initial contact swam with impressions of pain. Betsy helped him shift the worst of that aside and generate a clear transmission. Her mind filled with the whole story of the past twenty-four hours, from the fruitless chase after Amphibius to his own capture by the main horde of mutates. Her heart leapt when she came to the part about Hank and Sam splitting off to search for Sauron in the higher elevations. She knew from scanning Brainchild that that was exactly where this prison cavern was.
Thank you, Bobby. This is excellent news.
If help was imminent, that erased her questions of when to push Sauron. The time had come. She withdrew, composed her message, and prepared to alert her comrades one by one—her weakness still did not allow large-group telepathy—so that they would be ready to do their parts.
Her fists closed.
Warren listened to Betsy’s plan and knew exactly how to do his part. He bid her telepathic presence a fond farewell and watched the expression of the others subtly shift as she relayed her communique to each of them in turn.
Sauron, for his part, was not cooperating with their hopes. He turned from his consultation with Brainchild and the others and ambled back among his captives with confident, almost bouncy strides.
“Quite a refreshing development, when I stop to consider it,” Sauron declared. “My larder is so abundant, I have to go on a diet.”
Brainchild and Amphibius laughed with him. Stiffly, Warren thought. Like children whose abusive father has just made a joke, but who are never quite sure when the hand Will rise again to slap them.
“I hardly need to capture any more of you,” the villain continued. “It would only encourage me to overeat still further. Bad, very bad, for my health.”
“You won’t catch any more of us, bub,” Wolverine said.
“Now why would you say that?” Sauron asked amiably. “When I and my fine helpers have proven so effective against the rest of you?”
“Just a hunch.”
Sauron reached out with a talon and scratched the stubble on Wolverine’s chin. Logan lunged. The straps around his shoulders limited his head movement to mere inches. His teeth snapped shut just shy of Sauron’s retreating figure.
Sauron chuckled.
Logan spat. The glob landed squarely on his enemy’s beak, right between the nostrils.
Barbaras rushed forward and raised both right fists to pummel Logan. Sauron permitted the first pair of blows to land—
%-mm
one on the X-Man’s jaw, the other in his midsection—before he gestured his lackey away.
“When next I am in need of a repast, I will sup upon your lifeforce,” Sauron announced. “And if I do so more abruptly and painfully than usual, think of this incident.”
“You know, my cheek’s Weedin’ inside now,” Logan grunted, voice constricted by pain. Archangel estimated that Barbaras’s attack would have broken Logan’s jaw and three or four of his ribs, had his teammate’s bones been capable of breaking. What it had done to his flesh was ugly. Sometimes Warren could not comprehend Logan’s tolerance for bodily mayhem. Especially at times such as this, when his healing factor was negated. ‘ ‘Get in range again and what I spit will be red.”
“You are pathetic,” Sauron replied. His tone was still superior, his attitude generally unruffled, but Archangel sensed the first hint of impatience. A seed. Now to make it grow.
“You’re as worthless as when your mind was fried, green-beak,” Logan continued. “You need crib notes to figure out which is your tail and which is your—”
“Look who’s talking.” Sauron cackled exuberantly. “Over the course of your life, you’ve learned far more about losing your mind than I. Or do I have the reports wrong? Did you have a mind to begin with?”
“I had enough brains to outsmart you last time we tangled,” Wolverine said. “And—”
“Enough,” Sauron snapped. “You bore me.” He leaned forward, radiating hypnotic power from his eyes. “I command you to be silent!1’
Wolverine shut his mouth. His Adam’s apple quivered with the words he would have said, and his eyes pro-
jected a new stream of insults, but no sound leaked out of him.
Warren gnawed his inner lip, waiting for his opportunity. A little more patience. Just now, it was Ororo’s turn.
“Not everything has been proceeding according to your design, has it?” Storm asked. “I saw the frustration in your servant’s expressions when they brought Iceman in. You expected the Beast and Cannonball would fall with him.” Sauron’s pupils glinted. “And if I did? It is of no concern that they are free. Merely a nuisance to set the trap twice. Should I be afraid? The Beast is the least super-powered of all the X-Men who came to the Savage Land. Cannonball is but a stripling. I once popped his bubble just so.” The creature set the sharp, sturdy tip of a wing to Ororo’s bare midsection, pressing lightly enough to avoid drawing blood, but firmly enough to inflict pain.
“All the more reason to be worried over how he feels about you now,” Storm countered.
“I prefer enemies with whom I am acquainted,” Sauron retorted. “Look here.” He drummed his fingers along Archangel’s well-muscled belly. “The more I see of our special Mr. Worthington, the more I appreciate his nature. Here he is, blue and surgically altered, and yet still the same frightened child I met all these years ago.”
The villain had spared Warren the need to call attention to himself. “And you are the same old fool you’ve been all along. It takes two of you to make half a person.”
“So says the would-be hero with a plethora of extra identities of his own. Angel of Death, carefree playboy, bench player on a multitude of teams. You are nothing, Warren Worthington, when placed against me.”
The longer the conversations went on, the cockier Sau-ron’s boasts became. Like the old days. Like the enemy the X-Men had defeated more than once.
“Try me,” Warren challenged. “Here I am, drained and collared, and you still can’t take me down all the way, unless you kill me.”
“You think not?” Sauron asked ominously.
“Master,” Brainchild called. “He is only trying to agitate you. It is not... productive ... to let him do so.”
‘ ‘Keep your place,’ ’ Sauron commanded. ‘ ‘If you want me to ’relax,’ my friend, so I shall. In good time. When I have concluded the day’s entertainment. I
am not agitated.”
A lie, Warren heard Psylocke say in his mind. He didn’t need her input to know that the villain was feeling the stress.
He gave Betsy a non-corporeal hug. She would be with -him continually now, not just through the psionic link, but with her regular telepathy as well. As much as she could muster. What better support to inspire him to put his head into the lion’s mouth?
“I long ago took your measure,” Warren quoted. “And found you wanting.”
“You have earned yourself a new dose of humiliation,” Sauron hissed. His eyes danced with the slight wobble they exhibited whenever he used his hypnotism.
Warren would rather have endured one of Vertigo’s nausea-provoking assaults than have to face those eyes again. Spears of mental force jabbed deep into his brain. He fought to remember to breathe. His heart kept beating only because he concentrated on the rhythm. He couldn’t feel his extremities, much less command the limbs to do anything.
But the link to Psylocke held, a bright filament around which he could anchor his courage. He tried to send her a message, even a single word or image, but could not. No matter. It was enough to know she could send something to him, when the time came.
“You will do exactly as I say,” Sauron said. “I am going to release you. When you are loose, stand and wait for your next instructions. Do nothing else.”
“Master...” Brainchild began.
“Release his bindings!” Sauron insisted.
Brainchild cringed. He waved two of the guards forward. They tilted the slab to vertical and began unlatching the shackles that kept Warren trapped. As each curved metal band was lifted away, Archangel attempted to defy his instructions. He had been ordered to stand, so he would try to collapse. That was what he felt like doing anyway.
The resistance was tremendous. Warren’s spine remained straight as a board. His knees did not buckle. But he knew he was making some sort of headway. Psylocke’s voice murmured steadily deep down, not drowned out as he had feared would happen. He was conscious of wanting to disobey, even if he couldn’t get his body to accept his directives.
During his battles with Sauron, the hypnosis had been devious, sneaking up on him and causing him to do things before he was aware of the influence. This time it was stifling and twice as powerful, but he found it easier to fight back, because he could devote his effort entirely to the mental side of the altercation. In the thick of the airborne engagements, he had been unable to make full use of the psionic countermeasures Professor X, Jean Grey, and Betsy had schooled him in over the years.
His head dropped.
“Straighten up,” Sauron commanded.
Warren lifted his chin from his chest. When the guards set him on the stone floor and backed away, he remained upright, as requested. He couldn’t defy one of Sauron’s direct orders, but he had proved he could whittle around the edges of obedience.
‘ ‘Go to the well and fetch me a dipper of water,” Sauron commanded.
Warren set out for the side of the chamber where Pibah had acquired the supply with which she washed the captives. He searched for a means to resist. Ah, yes. Sauron had not said how quickly to travel. He slowed his walk to a tortoise shuffle.
“Faster!” Sauron yelled.
He sped up. But Sauron did not say by how much, so he merely doubled his pace. That was still as slow' as an old man with a cane.
Sauron did not demand another increase. Repeating the order would make the villain appear as though he lacked total control over his subject, and he didn’t want to fuel that impression. Warren chuckled inwardly, knowing his resistance was creating a fly buzz in the creature’s pterosaurian ears.
“Be sure you fill the bucket,” Sauron said. He had anticipated the X-Man’s next act of defiance, which would have been to fetch only a spoonful. No matter. Warren would just have to think of something else.
Ahead lay a discarded possum rib that one of the guards had been gnawing on earlier. Warren adjusted his gait so that he would step on it-—seemingly demonstrating that he was unable to direct his own actions, but actually reinforcing an advantage. The bone dug into his heel, cutting only slightly into his skin but producing a sharp twinge. The pain distracted him, thereby pulling him further from Sauron’s mental whispers.
He sensed the observation of his comrades, silently cheering him on. As agreed, they were not harassing Sauron, tempting though that might be. Far better to let any failure of his hypnotic coercion seem to come entirely from a single opponent’s rebuff. Assistance was only valuable if it were a secret, like Psylocke’s telepathic bolstering.
Warren lowered the bucket into the well and raised it again. He left it full to the brim, so that water splashed on the limestone, the messiness serving as a metaphor for Sauron’s handling of the situation.
“Fill a dipper and bring it to my lips to drink. Do so respectfully, spilling none, with a smile on your face.”
You don’t have any lips, Warren thought, but he did as asked. Sauron was growing careful not to leave room for sabotage in his instructions.
Sauron slurped noisily, dramatically, and turned to grin at his other captives. “You have been a dull audience, but I can’t tell you how gratified I am that you have witnessed this. Think of it as a demonstration of the way things will be for the rest of your pitiful lives.”
The mutates burst into applause. Warren was certain he heard a collective sigh of relief beneath all the clapping.
“Very good, Mr. Worthington,” Sauron said. “Now lean yourself back against your slab and let my assistants fasten you down again.”
Now, Psylocke said. Warren felt a pulse of new mental energy. It seemed to soak into his heart and grow richer.
Warren spread his wings. To do so required only an instant of control; Sauron could not possibly suppress him each and every moment. With the wings unfolded, the guards could not position him against his platform.
“Close your wings!” Sauron rasped.
He wanted to say, “No,” but that required strength he didn’t have. Keeping the wings apart, however, required only that he tune out.
On cue, Psylocke shut down Warren’s voluntary muscle control. It was something he could not have managed on his own, nor could she have done it without his cooperation unless she had wielded her psychic knife. But together, even as weak as they were, it worked.
It was a gamble. It risked tipping Sauron off that his enemies were commingling their efforts.
But Sauron did not pause to reflect. “Fold them! Now!” he shouted.
Warren could not have tucked his bionic appendages now even if he had wanted to. His body remained frozen even as Sauron leaned in and focussed his power to a pinpoint.
Agony. Warren recoiled mentally. The onslaught of compulsion came through in vivid, irresistible waves, unhindered by his paralysis. Within a heartbeat all he wanted to do was ©bey. Unable to do so, he could only suffer.
When he didn’t get the result he was after, Sauron screeched maniacally. He raised his talons.
We did it, Psylocke transmitted to Storm. He’s fallen into a chaotic mental pattern. Time to break off before he suspects what we ’ve been up to.
Betsy released the block in Warren’s hindbrain. Instantly his wings snapped shut. He flopped back against the slab. The relief was so acute he moaned.
Sauron’s hand slowed as it came down. His nails dug shallow gashes down Warren’s naked chest, but did not lay open his sternum as it would otherwise have done. The villain stepped back, regarded the blood on his fingertips, and scowled. His bushy eyebrows rendered the expression almost comical, but Warren wasn’t prompted to laugh. His enemy was shaking, on the verge of some sort of explosion, held back only by the absolute need to believe he was in command.
Should he follow through? It would be suicide. But if that’s what it took to finish the job ...
“I long ago took—”
“Be silentl” Sauron shouted.
Warren’s mouth closed. There was n
o defying the order. Had those few words been enough?
No. Sauron turned and paced down the row of victims, glaring. He jerked and mumbled in answer to inaudible conversation, but his breathing grew steadier. Brainchild’s apparatuses in the ceiling were emitting a psionic lullaby again, this time strongly enough that even a non-telepath like Warren heard the hum.
“What is wrong, O high lord and master?” Ororo mocked. “Could it be that Archangel was the stronger, after all? Are you so afraid of his mere words?”
Sauron clutched for Storm’s throat, only to bruise his hand against the inhibitor collar and the shackle that stood in the way. The obstacles saved her larynx from being crushed. “So it’s true?” she asked. “You are afraid.”
“Don’t listen to her, Master!” Brainchild yelled.
Sauron whirled toward his underling. “Do not use that tone with me! I am Sauron! I am the engineer of this victory! They cannot defeat me!”
“Then prove it,” Ororo said. “Let Archangel speak.” Sauron closed his eyes, shuddered, and flapped his hand and wing dismissively. “Very well. Speak if you dare, Worthington. Say whatever you wish.”
The manacles of the compulsion fell away. The ball of invisible cotton that had filled Warren’s throat came up in a huge cough.
Law of the Jungle Page 18