Major Skolnick stood on the steps, watching the commotion. Gabi thought he looked like a man with nowhere to go. She could not help but approach him.
“That was a courageous and unbelievably stupid thing you did,” she said. “Why did you?”
For a few moments, Skolnick didn’t respond. Then, finally, he looked up at her as if waking from a daydream.
“It was my only choice,” he said cryptically.
“There are always choices,” she said. “We just have to be brave or stupid enough to make them.”
Her brother was calling for her from within City Hall. She looked through the shattered doorway and saw him with Lamarre and Miguelito, talking to Commissioner Ramos about something. She ignored them, turning her attention back to Major Skolnick. That he was a mutant did not upset her. That he had been on Magneto’s side did not turn her away. She was fascinated by his actions, and profoundly affected by his despair.
“I guess you’re right,” he answered, after she’d begun to think he had forgotten she was there.
For a long time, the day had been growing more dull, less vibrantly alive. Now, finally, the sky was beginning to darken.
“It’s not over, you know,” he said suddenly, still watching the sky as if waiting, at any moment, for the judgment of God to thunder down from the heavens.
“What isn’t?” she asked.
“The war,” he said. “Magneto could take back City Hall in an instant, and he will, the moment it pleases him to do so.”
“If he gets the chance,” Gabi said offhandedly. “But I don’t think the X-Men are going to allow that to happen.”
Skolnick sighed. “The X-Men are already his prisoners.”
“Wrong,” Gabi said happily. “Not only is Iceman around, but the guerrilla news stations that are running out of MTV’s offices have reported that the X-Men have escaped and are fighting Magneto’s stormtroopers … no offense …”
“None taken,” he said softly.
“Anyway,” she continued, “there’s a big battle near the Empire State Building. Of course, with these odds, they don’t have much hope.”
But even as she said it, she saw Major Skolnick’s eyes light up with joyous energy.
“They’re free?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I heard. But with the odds …”
Major Skolnick looked at her for the first time, really looked at her. Gabi smiled at him, so infectious was his sudden enthusiasm.
“What’s your name, ma’am?” he asked, with perfect military politeness.
“Uh, Gabriela Frigerio,” she answered.
“Well, Ms. Frigerio, the odds might be impossible, but we can change the odds, can’t we?” he asked, glancing around.
Gabi scanned the rubble on the steps, the ragged doorframe, looked at Commissioner Ramos talking with her comrades inside the building.
“Yeah,” she said in realization. “Yeah, we can.”
* * *
“YOU gotta be kidding me,” Sven Kleinstock said, and he and his brother began to laugh.
“Shut up and fight, you morons!” Amelia Voght snapped, and the Kleinstocks responded.
She knew they didn’t like her very much. Actually, they didn’t like her at all. But they’d seen what she had done to Unuscione, and at least for the duration of the war, they didn’t seem like they were going to question her anymore. Magneto had chosen Voght as field leader. She’d done the job, and dealt with the consequences.
She believed in the dream. No question. She had believed in Xavier’s dream first, until she came to understand that it was only a dream. That no matter how hard he fought, no matter how clever he might be, or how brilliant, Xavier would never be able to make that dream a reality. It depended on the intelligence, the reason, the goodwill, of humanity. It was a joke.
Magneto’s dream, on the other hand, was one that required nothing more than power and the will to use it. Voght understood that, and believed Magneto had the power to make it real. And here it was, right in front of them, the actualization of a dream that had taken years to come to fruition.
The execution had gone smoothly. Haven had been founded with a minimum of trouble. But conquest meant taking land and keeping it, and the latter was far more difficult. They had reached the crisis point now, the time when they had to give everything they had to keep the sanctuary that they had so quickly won. It would not truly be theirs until the challenges had been met and overcome.
But Voght was in it all the way. She pitied Charles Xavier, whom she had loved in a once-upon-a-time past when she had been little more than a naive girl. She pitied the X-Men, who, like their mentor, only wanted the best for the world. But that was their problem. As much as Voght might also pity the humans who weren’t ignorant savages, she knew that the choice came down to the same one it always did: them or us.
With those options, Voght knew that she was always going to choose “us.” Anything else was foolish. And Xavier the biggest fool of all because he believed there was a third choice. A belief that, if Voght was correct, was being strongly challenged by Magneto’s triumph.
And it would be a triumph, of that she was certain.
The X-Men had no chance. Were there twenty of them, or thirty, or fifty, rather than a mere eight, they would not have defeated Magneto’s combined forces. No matter how long the X-Men might hold out, no matter how many mutants they might take out of the fight, it was the eight of them against hundreds of enemies, plus Magneto, and the fleet of Sentinels waiting in the wings if they became necessary.
It was hopeless for them. Voght only wished they would realize it, and surrender. Or run away as the Juggernaut had seemed to. Which was, of course, what the Kleinstocks had been laughing about. Cain Marko, the Juggernaut, one of the most powerful and destructive superhumans in the world, had seen the odds against them and taken off. Voght didn’t blame Sven and Harlan for laughing. They saw Marko as a coward, but Voght thought the man was just smart. Against impossible odds, the best bet was simply to retreat.
But not the X-Men. They would never retreat. Voght was saddened to realize that, in all likelihood, this would mean that the Acolytes would be forced to kill Xavier’s followers to put a stop to them. A waste that would greatly displease Magneto. But if necessary, Voght would not balk at ordering that execution.
Her train of thought was broken by a plasma blast which cut the street dangerously close to where she stood, and Voght realized how foolish she’d been. She’d cussed out the Kleinstocks for less, and here she was playing walking target for whoever might want to take a shot at her. Well, no more. It was time for the final push. Magneto and the Sentinels would keep the army busy. She had another job.
“Acolytes!” she cried, her upraised arms drawing the attention of Magneto’s entire army of followers. “Take them!”
Those who could not hear her words over the din of battle would not fail to understand her meaning.
“You’re making a terrible mistake, Voght,” Cyclops shouted from behind her.
Foolish of him. Before he could take her out of the fight with an optic blast, Amelia teleported behind him. Cyclops rolled down and away, and was quickly swept up in the tide of battle, which seemed to roil all around Voght like sea currents.
Then she was in the maelstrom again. A blue-furred hand landed on her shoulder, spun her around. It was Hank McCoy, the Beast, and even in the thick of battle, he was attempting to be reasonable. It was obvious that he was hoping for the same from Voght.
“Amelia,” he said, using her first name though they had never been anything but enemies, “you never appeared as barbarous, as zealous, as the others are. Do something! You must see that no benefit can come from this. Magneto is leading us all to a war that will tear the world apart, philosophically, and quite possibly, literally.”
“Magneto is not going to let that happen, McCoy,” she said. “You’re wasting your breath. The time for talk—”
Voght launched into a side
kick aimed at the Beast’s head. She had no great strength, but superior skill, and despite his speed, she caught him on the temple and he stumbled back, more surprised than fazed by her attack.
“—is at an end.”
“Apparently,” the Beast said, muttering to himself.
Another kick missed completely, and then the Beast grabbed her in a painful, implacable grip, and lifted her from her feet.
“Drop me if you want to keep your hands, McCoy,” she snapped. “I’ll teleport your arms off your body without a single regret.”
In one smooth move, far too fast for Voght to react, the Beast threw her.
“I never intended to hold on, madam,” he said, his tone disturbingly genteel.
Voght tumbled through the air, all bearings gone, unable to teleport without any sense of place or destination. She hit someone, or several someones, hard, and went down in a jumble of limbs. The breath knocked out of her, she wheezed in an attempt to get oxygen, and still could not focus as McCoy picked her up again. She didn’t have the voice to threaten him again, or the concentration to follow through.
“My chivalry has been sorely tested these last few days,” he said whimsically.
The whimsy was what did it. It really pissed her off.
Behind him, she could see the Kleinstocks getting to their feet. The Beast had aimed well, taking the twins down with their own leader. McCoy hesitated, though Voght could not pinpoint exactly why, and in that moment, she knew what to do.
Harlan and Sven were trading fire with Bishop. Each time they buffeted him with their plasma blasts, the future-man would take a step or two back from the brunt of the attack, smile, and return fire. Sven and Harlan were both bleeding. Sven was limping and Harlan was holding one arm to his ribs. Bishop was going to hold his ground until he destroyed them.
Voght couldn’t afford to lose. And as much as she hated to admit it, she couldn’t afford to lose the Kleinstocks to their own stupidity either. They knew what Bishop could do, had faced his power before. Every time they fired at him, he simply absorbed their power and threw it back at them. While it didn’t harm him, it did them severe damage.
The idiots.
“Wolverine,” the Beast shouted, “catch!”
Amelia did not want to face off against Wolverine again. She’d gotten lucky the last time they’d clashed. Chances were, he would hold a grudge. Unlike the other X-Men, the diminutive Canadian was just as likely to kill her over it as just try to take her out of play. Killing was more certain, and this was war, after all. But once they started killing, either side, it was going to be a bloodbath.
If only Magneto didn’t want the X-Men alive.
The Beast hauled back to toss Voght to Wolverine, who might even use her life to end the conflict. The idea amused her. As if the others would hesitate for a moment before consigning her to execution. Her life meant nothing to them. Less than nothing. But the X-Men didn’t know that.
Fortunately, Voght got her voice back.
“Sven!” she shouted.
The Kleinstock brothers looked her way, scoped out the situation, and reacted. War was a function of the lizard brain, the primeval intellect, and required no real intelligence. Voght thanked God for that. The Kleinstocks worked best on instinct, and reacted that way in this situation.
Sven blasted Hank McCoy in the back. The Beast howled in pain and dropped her on the street. The twins began to buffet the Beast and Wolverine with plasma blasts until the two X-Men were driven back into a crowd of less powerful mutants, who nevertheless swarmed over them.
Bishop nailed them. Sven and Harlan went down, hard. They were trying, weakly, to rise, when Bishop moved in for another shot. Here was another X-Man, Voght thought, who might not hesitate to kill if that was the only way to assure victory.
A quick teleport took her behind him. She grabbed Bishop around the waist, teleported twenty stories up, where Rogue, Storm, and several other mutants with the power of flight were struggling with one another. The winds were extraordinary, and Storm was wiping out Magneto’s airborne followers.
Voght knew strategy. The moment she appeared with Bishop and began to fall, Storm and Rogue saw her. She teleported back to safety, and watched with interest as Bishop plummeted to the ground with Rogue in pursuit and Storm staving off their other attackers.
Rogue was making a good effort, but Amelia seriously doubted she would catch up to Bishop in time. Which was okay. Of all the X-Men, she knew that Magneto had the least attachment to Bishop. He was an unknown quantity, hostile and dangerous. Magneto wouldn’t mind if Bishop died, not at all.
He was expendable.
* * *
A warm July night, and dusk over Manhattan. Two lone stars twinkled above and a pale sliver shadow of moon hung above the city. A time for quiet, for calm, for small children to crawl into bed, for lovers to swing their clasped hands between them as they go off to dinner, or the theater, or window-shopping up Fifth Avenue.
That was how it was supposed to be. Magneto knew it, and in the rare moment when he relaxed his mind, took a tiny respite from the burden of empire, it saddened him greatly. He wanted to bring all of those things, the quiet moments, back to the city. But as his city. As Haven.
Instead, he reached out with his mind, bending the Earth’s magnetic field to his will, and tore the George Washington Bridge apart. The matrix of steel beams that forged the upper portions of the bridge broke away. Magneto carried them with him, their weight barely an encumbrance.
Across the Hudson River, American military forces fired again and again upon the Sentinel that stood on the island’s shore. Moments earlier, it had been guarding the bridge; now it had nothing to guard. The military had massed on the Jersey side, preparing to cross. Magneto had been astounded at the audacity and foolishness of the move. And at his own foolishness, for not having believed they would invade.
And they were invading. Or at least, attempting to do so. The Sentinels would be a bloody deterrent. Already, soldiers were dying in the attempt, distracting a Sentinel here and there by the bridge and tunnel routes, so their fellows could get across the river.
The center span of the George Washington Bridge collapsed into the Hudson. There would be no invasion via that route. Traditional tanks and those with plasma weapons fired upon the Sentinel still. From gun emplacements on the Jersey shoreline, the shelling continued. Many of the more modern weapons were not made, specifically, of metal, and so were harder for Magneto to latch on to.
Instead, he hovered above the tanks and guns, weapons fire dissipating harmlessly the moment it came into contact with his force field. With his magnetic power, he held the crisscrossed structure of the top of the bridge so that his intention was clear. He was going to drop it, destroying the armored vehicles below.
Silently, he counted to ten, giving the soldiers the opportunity to run. He wasn’t certain if his hesitation saved the lives of brilliant men or cowards, and frankly didn’t care.
Then he let the massive metalwork fall, crushing the tanks, destroying the guns. Lives probably were lost. Regrettable, he knew. But it was a war. A war that the American military was pressing, unwanted, on the emperor of Haven.
“My lord?” Scanner said, shimmering into view. Distracted by the battle, Magneto had not heard the telltale buzz of her arrival.
“What is it, Scanner?” he asked. “I’m a little busy.”
“We … I thought you should know that the X-Men are free,” she answered.
“Free!” he snapped. Then sighed. “Once more, my good will is flaunted by Xavier’s little puppets. No matter, what can four X-Men do?”
“Eight, actually, Emperor,” she said, obviously unhappy to be the bearer of bad tidings. “We are fighting them now, in the streets.”
Magneto said nothing. So the other X-Men had returned. It was to be expected, he assumed. But he vowed he would not allow it to hurt morale. The X-Men didn’t have a chance to win, and he wanted his people to know that he was not going to
let it happen.
“One other thing, my lord,” Scanner said. “Milan wanted me to pass on to you that one of the Sentinels has reported an attack by mutants, in addition to the human invasion.”
“Thank you, Scanner,” Magneto said, flying downriver toward the next Sentinel. “That will do.”
Scanner flashed out of existence, her disappearance leaving Magneto to blink away bright spots from his eyes. But he could not as easily rid himself of his concern and suspicion. Mutants attacking a Sentinel.
Which mutants?
More to the point, which Sentinel?
THIRTEEN
A small flame blazed up in Professor Charles Xavier’s gut. It wasn’t an ulcer. Another had formed in the back of his head, where all the worst headaches started. Two more, one behind each eye. But in the center of his heart, it was brutally cold, agonizingly painful, without the promise of merciful numbness ever setting in.
The world was collapsing around him. The world he lived in every day, and the one he had envisioned for the future, his future, the future of his friends, colleagues, and students. Falling in a bloody massacre of large-weapons fire and volatile words.
The fire and ice in every inch of his being, in the depths of his soul, were anger and despair. He was a spectator, and it disgusted him. He ought to be in the thick of things, he could most certainly have been of use in the X-Men’s battle against Magneto’s forces. If he’d had legs. Which he didn’t. Instead, he had two choices. He could monitor the fight, help where possible, continue to attempt some kind of spin control; or he could stop Magneto once and for all.
God, it was tempting. Xavier had never felt such grand temptation to perform an act that his conscience told him was so completely wrong, so utterly indecent. It frightened him, that temptation. He pushed it aside, but it didn’t go away. It nagged at him, like childhood guilt or romantic infatuation.
He could not bring himself to do it, to take Magneto out of the game. But without that as an active role, he had begun to feel ever more useless.
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