Though they would have accepted him no matter how he had changed, what Archangel had been through affected him so deeply that he could barely accept it himself. There was a new distance between himself and his old friends, and it was almost entirely his doing. He was healing, he knew. But he had been violated, and it would take some time to get over that.
At that moment, however, Warren felt more freedom than he had at any time since he had stopped being simply the Angel, and had become Archangel forevermore. Deathbird’s cruelty freed him. No matter what the nobility of purpose behind a war, its results were always heinous. Deathbird reveled in atrocity. She thrived on the vile, obscene thing that the Kree home-world had become, on the wretched lives of the people barely surviving there.
And now that they had dared to attack her, dared to act against her depravity, she butchered them, delighted by the carnage. Archangel believed that Deathbird was truly evil. Others might have called her insane, but in the time he had spent as a mental slave to Apocalypse, he came to know evil intimately. Insanity and evil, he believed, were inherently the same. One did not excuse the other.
Deathbird’s perversity gave Archangel the freedom to explode. If she was the victor, the X-Men would die. Warren wasn’t about to let that happen. No matter what it took, he was going to win.
She rose again, silhouetted against the artificial light streaming through the octagonal window from the square outside. Archangel could fly at, or at least very near, the speed of sound. There was no time for any of her sycophantic bootlicks to even call out a warning.
At top speed, he drove his right shoulder into Deathbird’s belly, and together they shattered the spider web pattern of the window. Broken glass cascaded down into the square beneath them.
“You’re sorely outmatched, X-Man,” Deathbird snarled as she shook loose from Warren’s grip, her strength outstripping his just as his speed eclipsed hers. That was his edge. And he had another. Her wings were attached, while his arms were free. He had to use those advantages, and his fury, or he would die.
They might all die.
* * *
THERE were a lot of things about his son that Corsair arrogantly assumed Scott had inherited from him. On the other hand, Scott was an optimist, and that was something Corsair had never been.
They burst into the Great Hall on a wave of vengeful fury. The Kree rebels shouted an uncommon welcome, testament to how badly they were losing the battle. Archangel exploded into the air and slammed into Deathbird, shattering a huge window and carrying both of them outside.
It felt good. But Corsair knew it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. No matter how good a leader his son was, or how courageously they all fought, they were, very simply, outmatched. Not by the Shi’ar troops, but by the Imperial Guard.
Yet, that was the story of Corsair’s life. He was always a pragmatist, perhaps even a pessimist. He’d gotten himself, and the Starjammers, into no-win situations dozens of times, and they were all still alive to tell of it. There was a reckless ferocity that overcame Christopher Summers when he expected to die. In a way, he thought that lady luck admired that in him, that she protected him when he abandoned all hope of survival, all concern for his own safety.
Either that, or he’d used up all his luck, and his number was definitely up.
“If we can keep the Guard busy, the Kree will have no problem with the Shi’ar shock troops that are left,” Scott said, running beside him.
“Good plan, son,” Corsair laughed. “Then who’s going to cover our asses on the way out?”
Cyclops said nothing, but Corsair noticed a grim set to his jaw that was unsettling. In anyone else, he would have assumed the look and the silence meant he didn’t expect to be able to get out. In Scott, Corsair figured it was just single-minded determination to save the Kree and everyone else as well. Corsair knew the Kree could not be saved. They had lost a war, and their conquerors were making their lives hell. They could fight back and fight back, but as long as they remained a conquered people, nothing the X-Men or Starjammers did would help.
But hey, Corsair wasn’t about to burst his son’s bubble. If they lived to see the sunrise, it would probably be because Cyclops never considered losing as an option.
“Starjammers!” he shouted. “Titan is ours, now! Concentrate fire!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Corsair saw Candide wade into the Kree rebels and begin to whip them into a frenzy with her battle cries. He’d never seen her as a warrior, and now he realized he never really knew her at all. He only hoped that her hatred for the Shi’ar did not prevent her from leading the Kree into a strategic retreat.
Corsair was firing his blaster in a seemingly erratic pattern, creating an arc of cover fire in front of him. Two Shi’ar soldiers ran toward him, firing wildly as they attempted to duck within the arc of his fire.
Suddenly, he stopped firing. He took a moment, their weapon fire singing his hair. He lined up his shot, and took them down with two concentrated bursts from his sidearm. His erratic fire had been a lure, one he’d used many times before to instill false confidence in his enemies.
“C’mon guys,” he said as he jumped over their fallen forms. “Would I have lived this long if I was really that bad a shot?”
“Die, faithless cur!” a voice shouted behind him.
Before Corsair could turn, he heard the pulse of blaster fire and the crackle of its impact. The Shi’ar soldier was already hitting the ground by the time he’d completed his turn, and Hepzibah stood over him, her weapon smoking.
“Learn to take cover, you must, if continue to live you wish,” Hepzibah said.
“What fun would that be?” Corsair laughed, even as they turned to defend against other attackers. “You’d hate not having to worry about me, and not being able to rub it in that I need your backup. And I wouldn’t have to pay you back with my own, personal services, later on.”
Even as her sword flashed for a bloody close-quarters conflict, Hepzibah was laughing. She shared her lover’s hopeless abandon in this struggle, as she had so often in the past. As she had that first time they met on the prison planet of Alsibar.
“Didst thou not issue a call to attack yon ogre, Titan?” Raza said as he joined his companions.
“We’ve been a little busy,” Corsair responded.
“The Kree hath rendered aid unto us,” Raza explained.
Corsair saw that he was right. Though Candide did seem to be leading the Kree in retreat, they were also drawing the concentrated response of the Shi’ar soldiers. The battle was splitting into two parts, the real war, and the elite one. One would affect the outcome of this battle, but the real war would go on.
He took a glance around, and was disheartened by what he saw. Cyclops and Rogue were double teaming Gladiator, but even with Rogue’s strength and endurance, and Scott’s optic beams, it was only a matter of time before Gladiator overwhelmed them. Gambit was dancing around Warstar, trying to keep out of range of C’Cil’s hands and B’Nee’s electrical charge. The Cajun was launching explosively charged debris at them every chance he had, but was not having much luck.
Then there was Jean. In many ways, Corsair considered her the most powerful member of the team. She was a superior psi-talent. Somehow, though, Oracle had gotten the drop on her. With Oracle on one side of her and Titan on the other, Jean spun wildly, lashing out at phantom sparring partners. Even as the Starjammers approached, Titan was reaching for Jean with one massive hand.
It didn’t look good. But that was when the Starjammers were at their best. With Raza and Hepzibah at his side, Corsair opened fire on Titan.
“Starjammers attack!” he shouted.
Their three blasters on full, the Starjammers did not let up their assault. Titan slammed back against the balconies, which crumbled under his weight. He fell to the ground, flailing his arms in an attempt to fend off their blasts. Beaten, he began to shrink, but the Starjammers poured it on. Moments later, Corsair stood triumphantly above Titan, the point o
f his sword just nicking the flesh of the Guardsman’s neck.
“Feel free to grow once more,” Corsair said. “Though I would advise against it.”
Hepzibah and Raza hefted the Guardsman to his feet, Corsair’s sword still dangerously close. Then Hepzibah swung a roundhouse kick at Titan’s temple, and the Guardsman went down, unconscious.
Corsair grinned. He didn’t know how she’d been taken off guard, but Jean Grey would have no trouble with Oracle now that the distraction had been taken care of. The tide was turning.
“No!” he heard a male voice scream.
Corsair turned to see that nearly all of the Kree had retreated through the hole in the floor from which they had invaded. The Shi’ar soldiers were down to a mere half dozen or so. But the remaining Kree had no chance. It was one, lone Kree rebel, and he was not even defending himself. Instead, he was kneeling by the bloodied corpse of a fallen comrade.
“God, no,” Corsair whispered to himself. “Candide!”
SEVENTEEN
EVEN combining their skills and powers, Cyclops and Rogue were only barely keeping Gladiator at bay. The Imperial Guard’s Praetor would slam Rogue to the floor, or batter her against one of the crumbling balconies, and Cyclops would let loose with an optic blast that would, at best, disorient Gladiator. At worst, it simply focused his attention on Cyclops.
Scott dove out of the way of Gladiator’s energy blast and scrambled for cover. Thankfully, Rogue recovered quickly. Before Gladiator could get to Cyclops, Rogue had grabbed Praetor by both legs and swung him, with every ounce of her strength, into the marble face of the second level balcony. It shattered on impact, and Scott had to dodge the falling debris. But for the moment, Gladiator was dazed.
But Starbolt was moving in.
“No more games, X-Men!” Cyclops shouted. “We’ve got to go, now. The only way to do that is to take the Guard down. Hard!”
Even as he shouted, Gladiator was rising to his feet in the second balcony. Rogue shot across his line of fire toward Starbolt, who blanketed her in his stellar energy. Rogue was not deterred. Once, she had stolen his power, and Cyclops knew she hated that aspect of her abilities. But the time for strategy was over. He’d said it, and apparently Rogue had taken it to heart.
In the center of the ruined Great Hall, high above the debris-strewn, cracked marble floor, Rogue and Starbolt clashed. More accurately, she jerked to a sudden stop just before barreling into him, and pummeled him in the face with one flashing fist. Starbolt’s left cheek seemed to explode, not with blood, but with uncontrollable energy that strafed Rogue, and the barely recovered Gladiator. And then Starbolt fell to the floor of the Great Hall and lay still.
“Sharra and Ky’thri!” Gladiator cried, dazed once more by Starbolt’s powers. “On my honor, X-Men, if Starbolt is dead, then so are you all!”
“None of this would be happening, Gladiator, if you would just sit down and shut up!” Cyclops shouted, and put all his will behind a massive optic blast which nailed Gladiator in the chest and sent him crashing through the rear wall of the room.
He did not immediately emerge, and Cyclops had a moment to regret his words. If Starbolt was dead, the X-Men were not to blame. But they would grieve nonetheless, for Starbolt, for the Imperial Guard, and for themselves. They had all once been allies, and the X-Men did not kill even their greatest enemies.
For the moment, perhaps not more than that, Gladiator was down. But he knew it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. Eventually, Gladiator would beat them. Unless they had help.
Jean! Scott thought, mentally pushing her name out of his head. We could use a little help over here!
Even as he completed the thought, Cyclops turned to see Jean and Oracle facing off again. Corsair and the other Starjammers were pressing an attack against Titan, who looked very near beaten. Scott realized they were doing better than he’d thought. Still, though, there was Gladiator. And why had Jean not taken Oracle out of the fight already?
I’m on it, lover, her mental voice whispered in his brain. With her thoughts, his brain was filled with her feelings, her recent experiences, as if they were downloaded directly into his own memory and passion. Oracle had gotten the drop on Jean while Titan momentarily distracted her. It turned out the Guard’s resident psi had indeed gotten more powerful. Oracle had been able to mentally manipulate Jean into seeing many multiples of herself and Titan, and though she knew most of them weren’t real, she had had to guard against them just the same.
She would have broken out of it, given a few more moments. But those moments might have been costly. Fortunately, the Starjammers intervened. With Titan out of the picture, she had focused her psi abilities, pinpointed Oracle, and now …
The two women stared at one another across a space of several yards. They were locked in a silent mental combat, but now that Jean had her focus back, it was no contest. She’d even been able to communicate with Scott during their clash. Oracle was sweating, her white face pinched with concentration, perhaps even pain. Indeed, the more he watched her, the more Cyclops realized that the Shi’ar woman was in severe pain.
Scott could have ended it there. One, quick, optic blast would have taken Oracle down and ended the fight. For several reasons, he chose not to do that. His energy was depleted, and he needed to conserve what he had left. It would be over in a moment regardless. And, most importantly, Jean would not take kindly to him interfering in her fights. She hated the thought that he ever needed to protect her. Which amused Scott, because more often than not, it was he who needed her help, their current situation a case in point.
As Cyclops watched, Jean gave an exasperated sigh, walked the few paces that separated her from Oracle, and simply decked the other woman. When she looked up at Scott, she was smiling. But her smile quickly faded as she looked past him.
Turning instantly, Scott saw that Gambit was having trouble against Warstar once more. The symbiotic mechanoids were going to be a problem. Their regenerative powers meant that the only way to stop them was to kill them. If they could be killed. Scott was happy to realize that they didn’t need to stop Warstar, only buy themselves some time.
Scott let loose with a weak optic blast that yet managed to free Gambit, for the moment, from Warstar’s clutches.
“That’s about all I’ve got, Remy!” he called. “Make it count.”
“C’Cil’s mind is almost too dense for me to manipulate,” Jean said as she jogged to his side. “But I might be able to confuse B’Nee for a few moments.”
She focused on Warstar, and B’Nee, the smaller biomechanoid who rode C’Cil’s back, shrieked with panic and begin to look wildly around.
“Rogue!” Scott called, pointing to where Gambit was still trying to get close enough to the flailing Warstar to do some damage. Rogue swooped low toward Remy and Warstar, but Gambit didn’t see her coming. He dodged a blow from C’Cil, popped up behind Warstar, and reached out for B’Nee’s back, both hands already glowing with an explosive charge.
“Gambit, no!” Cyclops yelled, but neither his warning nor Rogue’s aid arrived in time.
Remy’s hands landed on B’Nee’s back, and he was immediately electrocuted. His entire body was stiff, every muscle taut, and he shook from head to toe as electricity coursed through him. The charge passed from his hands to B’Nee’s body, and B’Nee shrieked once more as he began to glow.
“Remy!” Rogue cried as she pulled him away from Warstar, still jittering with the electricity induced seizure.
In a shadowy corner of the Great Hall, B’Nee exploded, throwing C’Cil forward onto the marble floor. Warstar had been separated. B’Nee’s head rolled toward Scott and Jean. As he stared at it in horror, Scott realized that where the head lay, debris and marble were being absorbed and subtly changed. Already, B’Nee was reconstructing himself. It was an extraordinary example of alien life unlike anything he had seen before. And C’Cil was already rising, prepared to help his other half with repairs.
It was only a matter of tim
e.
“Surrender, X-Men, or you will die! You have done enough damage this day!” Gladiator shouted from the shattered balcony above.
“What does it take to put this guy down?” Jean asked next to him.
Scott was about to reply that he didn’t think Gladiator could be put down. But another voice, crying out with pain, anger, and hatred, interrupted him. It was the voice of his father.
“Murderer!” Corsair screamed. “How dare you, Gladiator? How dare you?”
Scott turned to see Corsair, Raza, Hepzibah, and the Kree rebel Kam-Lorr, coming toward them. Corsair was carrying someone in his arms, but it took Scott a moment to realize that it was Candide. And what had Corsair said. Murderer? Which would mean that Candide was dead.
Scott Summers had never truly understood war. In his mind, he could still not comprehend it. But in his belly, where nausea and dread roiled into a terrible, noxious brew, he finally knew what war was.
The knowledge was unwelcome.
* * *
ONLY his speed had saved him thus far, but Archangel was tiring. He let off another flurry of wingknives, desperately hoping that several might slip past Deathbird’s enhanced body armor and tag her face or hands. The paralyzing effects of the knives might be his only chance. They cut the armor, but apparently did not make it all the way through. Several times, he’d cut her wings, but the paralyzing chemicals in his wingknives seemed to have no effect there. Archangel had bombarded Deathbird with so many, they jutted from her body armor like the quills of a porcupine.
Each time he would launch a new barrage, she would block and then attempt a physical attack. And each time she would fail. With her need to keep her arms extended, her every blow was telegraphed long before it would reach him. With his far superior speed, Warren was not an easy target. Each time Deathbird attempted to strike and failed, she would go into a dive. Twice he had tried to get her during these moments, but she recovered in time to go at him again. She’d almost had him last time.
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