Dreamweaver: Part Eleven
Ororo landed the Blackbird beside the leveled cabin they'd seen on their first pass over the area. Securing the plane, she went to the hatch and summoned a wind to carry her back to her teammates. The stealth array went active as soon as the Blackbird's systems registered the absence of her bio-readings, but as she emerged into the pale light of early dawn, she quickly realized she was not alone.
"We must talk, Munroe," Sinister said warily, stepping out of a portal that closed behind him.
She reacted without thinking, directing a hurricane-force gale at the tall figure of Apocalypse's rogue geneticist. He barely flinched. With a snarl, she let her anger feed the wind, and it drove Sinister back, one step at a time. The customary arrogance was gone from his expression, she realized. He looked exasperated, even worried, as he tried to shout something at her. She couldn't hear him over the howl of her winds, but he persisted. Warily, prepared to impale him with a lightning bolt at the slightest provocation, she calmed the air and listened.
"Thank you!" he snapped crossly. "To think I had been under the impression that WOLVERINE was the one with no self-control!"
"Talk," she said icily, not prepared to put up with any further condescending remarks. The temperature of the air dropped noticeably, and Sinister scowled. "Talk, and pray I like what I hear."
"Now is not the time for idle threats, Storm," he said, the look in his eyes suddenly bleak.
"Idle? What gave you that impression?"
"Listen to me, Munroe. My Marauders are under the impression that I have come to some harm at Logan and Bishop's hands. As a result, one of their programming imperatives has been engaged. If they have not yet attacked your teammates, they will shortly. And due to the atmospheric ionization caused by--the events of tonight, I am unable to reach them over our com-link and call them off."
Storm went pale. "If any harm comes to my friends, Sinister, I swear you will not live to regret it--"
Cable's psionic scream ripped through her mind. With a cry of pain, she fell from the air. Disoriented, stunned by the impact, she heard Sinister curse. A moment later, he hauled her up off the ground and started to pull her with him through the forest. Once she recovered, though, she wrenched out of his grasp. It took every shred of self-control she had not to strike him down on the spot. Instead, she summoned a wind and lifted them both.
***
Logan reeled, going to his knees at the sheer power of Cable's scream. Blockbuster gave a roar of triumph and moved in for the kill.
#ENOUGH!# Jean snarled telepathically, the utter fury in her voice underlaid by a panic he'd never heard from her before. Blockbuster clutched at his skull with a howl of pain and toppled to the ground. Logan had no doubt that the other Marauders were doing the same.
Hank emerged from the bushes where Blockbuster had thrown him, looking battered but largely intact. "Logan, are you all right?" the Beast asked, hurrying to his side. Logan bit back the retort he wanted to make, and gave a brusque nod as he accepted Hank's offer of a hand up.
"It's not me you need to worry about," he grated, feeling his healing factor kick in. It was still accelerated, although not nearly as much as it had been when Cable had first enhanced it.
"I know," Hank said bleakly. "I heard." He retrieved his med-kit from where he'd dropped it behind a tree for safety. "Come on," he said, glancing down at Blockbuster for a moment. "I don't think he's going anywhere."
#Hank! I need you!#
Rushing towards the source of Jean's desperate call, they found her kneeling on the ground, a rosy glow surrounding her as she tried to restrain Cable, whose body was convulsing violently in some kind of seizure. Jean's face was twisted with strain, and she seemed barely aware of their arrival.
"Jean!" Hank said sharply, crouching beside her and opening his med-kit. "Jean, what caused this?"
She looked up at Hank, tears of effort coursing down her cheeks. "He tried to shield Scott and Sam," she said, and then doubled over with a groan. Hank reached towards her, but she straightened almost immediately, shaking her head. "I'm fine!" she growled. Blood trickled down her chin from where she'd bitten her lip, but fierce determination blazed in her green eyes and the glow around her intensified. "He tried to shield them, but he didn't have the strength left. Harpoon hit the shield with two of his energy spears, and it shattered."
"Psionic shock, then," Hank said grimly, removing a Shi'ar hypospray from his kit and pressing it against the side of Cable's neck. It had no effect, and Hank cursed. "This doesn't make any sense! Why is he reacting so violently? Jean, can you contact him telepathically?"
She shook her head. "I can't get through," she said raggedly. "Oh God, if only Charles were here--"
Hank pulled out one of the compact med-scanners Forge had invented years ago, and ran it over Cable's body. His eyes widened, and Logan could have sworn that the Beast actually went pale beneath his fur.
***
Sam sat up with a groan. What happened? The last thing ah remember-- Seeing Cyclops lying beside him on the ground, the side of his face covered with blood and his visor missing, Sam spat a curse that would have made his mother wash his mouth out with soap. He leaned over Scott, hurriedly checking for a pulse. Only when he found one, strong and steady, did he turn away to look for the visor. If Scott comes to without it on, thing could get kind o'messy--
"Sam?" Scott muttered.
"Keep your eyes CLOSED, sir!" Sam said sharply. "Ah'll get your visor for you, just hold on--" After a moment's search, he found it, and helped Scott put it back on. As soon as his optic blasts were safely restrained, Cyclops struggled stubbornly to his feet. "Ah, sir," Sam said hesitantly, "maybe you should rest for a minute."
"I can't," Scott said bluntly, swaying on his feet. "There's something wrong--I don't know whether it's Jean or Nathan--" He trailed off, a surprised look on his face, and as Sam got to his feet and followed the direction of Scott's stare, his jaw nearly hit the ground.
Sabertooth and Harpoon (Ah thought ah took care o'him!) were lying, unconscious or dead, on the ground a short distance away. Their bodies were surrounded by a soft golden light that dimmed and faded even as Sam watched. He knew that light, recognized the feel of it instantly after years of close contact with Cable. Its disappearance sent a chill through him.
He glanced sideways at Cyclops, who had gone chalk-white. "Nathan," Scott whispered, anguish in his voice, and broke into a staggering run.
Sam followed him on foot, not feeling quite secure enough to try and engage his blast field yet. In a few minutes, they had reached the spot where Cable and Taylor had been before the Marauders had attacked. Scott stopped dead, a stricken look on his face. Sam barely noticed the presence of Logan, Bishop and the girl Regina. It was like his field of vision had suddenly narrowed. All he could see was Cable--his teacher, his friend, the closest thing he had to a father--and the desperation on Jean and Hank's faces as they tried to help him.
"Jean!" Scott gasped, taking a few unsteady steps forward and going to his knees at his son's side. "What happened?"
She looked up for a moment, tears pouring down her cheeks, and a peculiar intensity overrode for an instant the desperate fear in her green eyes. Scott stiffened, and then a look of horror twisted his features.
Sam almost groaned as he caught the edge of the images she sent to Scott. Or perhaps she had intended him to see, he wasn't sure. Through her eyes, he saw himself struck down by Scrambler's attack. He saw Sabertooth's attack on Scott, and the shield that Cable had thrown around them--saw it shatter as Harpoon's spears struck it.
"No," Sam mumbled, caught between grief and self-loathing. My fault. If ah'd been more careful, if ah'd avoided Scrambler, none o'this would've happened--
***
Jean sensed Sam's reaction, nearly identical to what she was feeling from Scott. Under any other circumstances, she would have spoken to them both, reminded them that it wasn't their fault. At the moment, however, she couldn't spare the time. She probed into Cable's mind desperately, fighting the interference from the girl as she tried to reach Nathan and pull him out of this shock-state. But she wasn't the Professor, and had only a fraction of Charles' experiences with situations like this.
#Nathan, please answer me! Nathan! Nathan, it's Jean!# There was no response, and Nathan's body still convulsed violently, despite the drugs Hank had pumped into his system.
"HANK!" she cried, at the end of her rope. "Can't you do ANYTHING?"
He stared at her grimly for a moment and then picked up his medscanner, making a few adjustments before he held it over Cable again. "Jean, he's badly hurt. With injuries like this, it would be touch and go even if we had him back at the mansion. I can't risk giving him any more medication, not when he's in this condition. Unless you can reach him--WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?"
Jean had never heard that particular tone in Hank's voice before. "What is it?" she snapped, fighting the urge to rip the answer directly from his mind.
"His own reserves of psionic energy are virtually gone! The T-O virus should be out of control but it's not even advancing! It's--saturated by some kind of energy that my scanner doesn't recognize. Whatever it is, it's holding back the virus, but it's causing massive cellular damage in the unaffected parts of his body." Hank looked up at her and then over at Scott, his expression helpless. He would have said more, but Nathan shuddered and went limp. The medscanner shrilled an alarm. "He's going into cardiac arrest!" Hank snapped, starting CPR.
"NO!" Jean shrieked. "No, I WON'T let this happen!" Ignoring Scott's cry of horrified protest, she closed her eyes and entered Nathan's mind, fully and totally. In the distance, she felt herself collapse backwards into Scott's arms as she descended into a mindscape afire.
***
"Nathan?" Jean asked, almost fearfully. She stood in a barren, rocky wasteland, in the center of a circle of fire. It was cold fire, though, and as she strode towards it, it parted. He wouldn't allow her to be hurt, she knew, no matter how far down into the darkness his mind had slipped. Nothing here could harm her--
She bit back a scream as the air in front of her shimmered and parted to reveal a tall, silver-armored figure. "You!" she gasped.
Stryfe stared down at her for a moment, and then winced as he saw what he was wearing. "Really, Nathan!" he growled, staring up at the fire-lit sky. His whole body seemed to ripple for a moment, and when he re-solidified, he was wearing ordinary street clothes. "Is that better?" he asked sarcastically. "I would hate to offend your sensibilities, Jean Grey." His voice was sarcastic; he was baiting her.
She frowned, and he raised a defensive hand. "You'll have to forgive me," he said, a bitter edge to his voice. "My conversational skills have deteriorated, I'm afraid. I get so few visitors, after all."
"I thought you were dead," she said coldly, fighting for composure. Stryfe WAS dead. She herself had felt him die. She didn't know how to explain this apparition, but it couldn't be Nathan's clone. "Are you responsible for this?" she asked suspiciously, gesturing around at the devastated representation of Nathan's mind.
"Oath, no! Are you really that foolish?" Stryfe asked harshly. "I don't exist outside his mind, Grey. If he dies, so do I." He leaned over her, grinning almost fiendishly, and she couldn't stop herself from flinching. He looked so much like Nathan--on the surface. "As--frustrating as my existence has been lately, I'm not eager for it to end. After all, if I--ceased to exist, I couldn't watch my Legacy virus wreak merry havoc among my fellow mutants. And that, dear Jean, would be a pity." He stopped smiling. "I do so love to watch them die, you know. Infectia, Mastermind, the mutates on Genosha. And Illyana. Especially dear, precious Illyana."
"You're a monster," she whispered, appalled.
"Of course he is," came a calm, familiar voice. Familiar, because it was her own. Jean whirled with a gasp, and stared into her own face. Madelyne, was her first panicked thought, but as she saw the red and gold costume the other Jean wore, and the starlight that filled the other's blank eyes, Jean realized that this was not her clone. But it was another of her 'other selves', and Jean reeled at the implications of what the Dark Phoenix was doing here, in Nathan's mind.
"Oh, good!" Stryfe said with a roar of laughter. "The gang's all here." The ground beneath their feet shuddered, and Stryfe sighed. "Ah, well. I suppose I'll at least have the satisfaction of being here for the fireworks. All those years that I wanted nothing more than to watch him die--I suppose I should be satisfied." He gave Jean a sly smile. "You're staying, I trust. It's going to be one hell of a show."
"You must stop this," Dark Phoenix said, stepping between her and Stryfe. "This is not what is meant to be. His life-force must not end, not when his task remains unfulfilled."
"Oh, don't play the innocent, Phoenix!" Stryfe snarled. For a moment, Jean thought he was talking to her, but she realized that he was staring at Dark Phoenix, a look of real anger on his face. "YOU were the one who started this, dark angel! You couldn't be satisfied with your little corner of his mind, so you leaped on the first opportunity he gave you to enter the world again--"
"SHUT UP!" Jean roared, and Stryfe fell silent. "God help me, I NEVER thought I'd find myself saying this to either of you, but I need your help. Both of you."
There was a rumble in the distance. Stryfe stared intently at the horizon, and then sighed again, the anger gone from his face. He looked tired, almost afraid.
"We have no influence here any longer, Jean," Dark Phoenix said quietly. "And unfortunately, neither do you. You must find another way. You must--"
Jean opened her mouth to demand more information, to beg them to help it she had to, but the mindscape shimmered around her, and she felt Scott drawing her back through their psi-link, pulling her back to her body with every bit of strength he had.
***
"NO!" Jean cried, wrenching herself out of Scott's arms. "Damn you, why did you do that? I could have reached him!" Scott's expression was stricken. He opened his mouth and then closed it again helplessly, as if he didn't know what to say.
Hank was still performing CPR on Nathan, with Bishop's help. "Come on, Cable!" he growled. "Since when you give up this easily? Fight, damn it!"
"Perhaps I can be of assistance," came Sinister's voice. Jean looked up sharply, to see Ororo lowering herself and the geneticist to the ground. Sinister met her gaze unwaveringly, and her eyes narrowed as she probed his mind. The impenetrable shields that usually kept her out of his thoughts were gone, and she read the sincerity there.
It didn't matter. She would have accepted help from the devil himself at the moment, if it saved Nathan. "Scott," she said softly, meeting her husband's eyes. Seeing the hopeless, devastated look there, she cursed herself for her harsh words. "We have to let him try, honey."
"No!" Storm said sharply. "We cannot trust him, Jean! He could do as much harm as good!"
Jean glared at Storm so fiercely that Ororo took a step backwards, looking almost afraid. "We don't have a CHOICE!" she snarled. "You'd know that, IF you'd been here!" Ororo flushed at the implication, and was on the verge of a retort when Hank broke in.
"I don't think we have the time to argue!" he snapped. He glanced at Scott, who looked from Jean to his son's pallid face and then nodded, giving his assent.
Sinister muttered something under his breath and then knelt at Nathan's side. He glanced at the medscanner and frowned. "Do you have anything that can act as a neural stimulator, McCoy?"
Hank pulled another hypospray from his kit and handed it to Sinister. Sinister glanced down at it, raising an eyebrow. "Diprolazine? Good. Despite the problems I have with MacTaggert, I must admit she synthesizes an effective drug." He pressed the hypospray against Cable's neck and then checked the medscanner again. "Your mistake, McCoy, was in trying to treat his body rather than his mind," Sinister said, sounding like a teacher lecturing his student. "His mind is reacting to the psionic backlash by shutting down his body. If he had not drained himself so completely, this would have been nothing more than a regenerative coma." He raised his arm, and Jean's eyes widened as she saw what looked like a control pad strapped there. "So, the only solution is to increase the levels of psionic energy in his body."
"Wait just one damned minute, bub!" Logan suddenly snapped, and Jean looked up at him sharply. His claws had come out, and he looked positively menacing as he glared at Sinister. "You're NOT going to use that damned amplifier again!"
"The WHAT?" Jean demanded.
"There is NO time to explain this all to you," Sinister said impatiently. "It is the only way." He looked from her to Scott and then back again. "I will not lie to you. There are enormous risks. If he was not dying, I wouldn't dare to try this."
"Do it," Scott said faintly. Jean reached out and took his hand as Sinister touched the control pad. She sensed an overwhelming hostility and distrust from Bishop as well as Logan--and a surprising amount of fear from the girl--but she didn't probe them to find out what this was all about. Time enough for that later--
Nathan's body jerked, and his chest heaved as he took a deep, shuddering breath. His eyes flew open, full of disoriented panic, and he struck out wildly. Hank and Sinister tried to restrain him, but he continued to fight, and only their own enhanced physical strength saved them from injury or worse.
#Nate!# Jean said urgently as he nearly broke free of them. #Nate, it's all right! Take it easy!#
He stopped struggling abruptly. #R-Redd?# he answered, his mental voice faint and bewildered. Then he passed out.
"Hank!" Jean cried, but the Beast shook his head, giving her a quick look of reassurance as he checked the medscanner.
"Easy, Jean. His vital signs are stable, for now. We have to get him back to the mansion as soon as possible, though."
"Indeed," Sinister said heavily, rising to his feet. "His condition is far from stable. Your Shi'ar medical equipment is likely the only thing that will save his life. My installation here has suffered heavy damage, so I am unable to offer any further assistance."
"I think you've done enough for one night, bub," Logan growled. Sinister sneered faintly, and opened one of his portals. But as he stepped through, he looked back over his shoulder, right at Regina.
"I'll see you again, child," he said, the threat clear. Regina shrank back against Bishop, who glared fiercely at Sinister.
Jean didn't know what was going on, and she really didn't care. As far as she was concerned, part of the blame for this could be laid at the girl's feet. Hank gave Regina a troubled look, but then returned his attention to his patient.
"All right," he said briskly. "We need to get him into the med-unit on the Blackbird, but we have to keep him as still as possible. Jean?"
Jean nodded, and lifted Nathan telekinetically. The rest of the x-Men fell in behind them as they made their way back through the woods to the Blackbird. Scott walked at her side, still holding her hand.
"It'll be all right, Scott," she said softly, sensing the turmoil and despair in her husband's mind. "Nathan's strong. He'll make it through this." She tried to sound as confident as she could, but it was difficult when she could sense Hank's worry. She projected reassurance in Scott's direction, but the bulk of her attention was focused inward, on strengthening her link with Nathan's mind. Only twice before had their minds been joined this closely--both times on the moon, when he had been infected with the T-O virus as a baby, and when he and Stryfe had been sucked into the time vortex together.
Both times, she had made a promise to herself, to stay with him to the bitter end if neccessary--and both times, events had forced her to break that promise. Not this time, she swore to herself, squeezing Scott's hand tightly. #I'm here, Nate,# she projected gently into her son's battered mind. She got no response, but she knew that didn't mean he couldn't hear her. #Scott and I are both here, and we won't leave you alone.#
to be continued...
alicia's stories | [ARCHIVE] | comicfic.net