Back to Gatefold#9 - "Children of a Lesser God - Part IV"
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EDITOR'S NOTE: This story may contain scenes of graphic violence and sexual situations. It is recommended for mature readers.
In Case You're Just Joining Us: Sunspot and former teammate Karma attempt to convince a woman who may be pregnant with a mutant to come to Genosha to have it, rather than aborting the fetus. The result is a messy confrontation with the woman's husband. Meanwhile, Meltdown introduces some old friends to Genosha, Feral and Rictor have a quiet moment, and comatose Siena Blaze awakes in the middle of being raped. The subsequent outburst of Siena's power devastates the Genoshan hospital in which she was being cared for, killing the man who assaulted her and the other patients in the building.
Mother of Hope Medical Center. Hammer Bay, Genosha. 17 June. 0200L.
The fires were still consuming the north wing of the Mother of Hope Medical Center when the former Acolyte named Harry Delgado decided that he'd had enough waiting. There was some sort of electromagnetic firestorm at the center of the destruction, pouring out radiation and heat, but there might still be people -- fellow mutants -- alive in that mess somewhere.
Harry pushed through the crowd of gawkers and approached the perimeter of the rubble, ignoring the calls from the crowd to stop. Harry had been a SHIELD agent once, before joining the Acolytes, and he'd done some time with SHIELD's medical corps. He couldn't just stand by when he might be able to save someone. Anyone.
He activated his mutant powers, growing to just over ten feet. Not his full height or power, but enough to increase his resistance to the radiation without sacrificing speed and agility. He pushed forward, sifting through the rubble, calling out for survivors. Nothing. The incandescent bubble of electromagnetism lit the devastation like a spotlight, but there was no movement, no indication of life.
"Damn it," he hissed, grabbing his head. The radiation and heat were starting to get to him, making his skin burn, his vision swim. No way anyone could have survived this, especially patients in a hospital wing. Harry Delgado was strong as an ox in this form, but even he wouldn't last much longer in this storm.
"Delgado."
He looked upward at the sound of his name. A majestic figure in a blood-red helmet and matching cloak was descending from the sky, lowering itself to a spot directly between Harry and the magnetic storm. And Harry felt a wave of relief sweep over him.
Magneto had arrived.
"Lord Magnus," Harry began, "I'm looking for--"
"Survivors, I know." Magneto looked back toward the incandescent bubble of energy that had apparently caused all this. "Stand down for now, Delgado. The rescue workers will be here soon. Join them and await my further orders."
"Lord Magnus?"
"Before any kind of rescue operation can be conducted, I must deal with the source. Now return to the perimeter before you collapse."
Delgado bowed his head. Like the other Acolytes, he was still confused, hurt, by Magneto's forced disbanding of that organization... but the man was still Delgado's lord and master, whether he chose to operate under the title of 'god' or not.
Delgado turned away. And when Magneto was sure his follower would make it to a safe distance without collapsing, he turned his attention back to the electromagnetic bubble. For a moment, his eyes glazed over, as if looking into a world only he could see.
In a way, this was completely accurate. One of the lesser-known side effects of his complete mastery of magnetism was the ability to "read" electromagnetic wavelengths. He had learned, over the years, to screen his vision, to see the world as others saw it, but he could still see the web of power that held the planet together when he chose.
He chose now. And he wasn't at all surprised by what he saw.
"Siena," he sighed, and, hovering nearly a foot above the jagged rubble, he began to push forward into the bubble of power. He wondered how many had been in the north wing when this power had obliterated it. How many mutants had died, helpless in their beds, because he had miscalculated?
Little more than a week ago, he had used the power of a mutant named Siena Blaze to 'jump-start' his own floundering abilities. The process had been similar to the one that had caused his gift to go into remission in the first place, so he had assumed that Siena would suffer a similar power loss.
He had obviously been right... somewhat.
At the peak of her abilities, Siena Blaze wielded electromagnetic power sufficient to level a small country, with almost no fine control over that power. Every time she activated her powers, it punched a hole in the Earth's electromagnetic field, threatening to rip the planet to pieces. If all she'd done was level a hospital wing and a chunk of the surrounding block, she had indeed suffered a power loss.
But not as dramatic a loss as Magneto had presumed. He had been the one to order her placed in the hospital wing when she'd fallen into a coma following the power transferal. All the dead here were his responsibility as much as they were Siena's. Possibly more so.
Which only left the question of why she had done it. Had the trauma of waking been so terrible--?
Magneto pushed, unharmed, through a final cloud of electrostatic ball lightning and flying debris. He'd finally reached the center of the bubble.
Kneeling down in the center of a crater, even her clothes blasted away from her, was a very naked, and very deranged Siena Blaze. Red power licked out of her eyes as she screamed into the sky she couldn't see. Her hands were clenched into claws and were digging furrows into her breasts.
"Siena."
The screaming ended so suddenly it might have been severed with a knife. Her head darted around, quickly, like a cat's.
"Where am I?" she demanded, her voice audible even over the storm around them.
"Genosha." Magneto hovered closer, surprised at the amount of effort he had to expend to resist the storm. "Among other mutants, whom you are endangering with this childish display. Power down immediately."
"Who the fuck are you to tell me to power down, old man? Why am I here? Why was that spider fucking me when I woke up?" Siena screamed again, as if just speaking the memory forced her to relive it. At the outburst, a bolt of lightning streaked down from the upper perimeter of the bubble and struck her, but she simply absorbed its power. "He raped me!"
Magneto's lips curled in distaste. He knew what had happened now, even suspected he knew the man who had caused it -- a Puerto Rican mutant whose unfortunate burden was to go through life with the head of a spider. Magneto couldn't remember the man's name, but suspected he'd already been punished for his crime.
"I am sorry, Siena. Sorry for my part in it. I will help you deal with this in whatever way I can, but you must power down."
"Help me? Help me?" She grinned suddenly and got to her feet, her eyes clearing. She had obviously started to come to her senses, but it didn't look like that was going to improve the situation. "You say we're in Genosha? I always wanted to destroy that place, and every mutant-hating, slave-trading flatscan in it." Magneto stared at her impassively while she licked her lips and slid her hands over her bare, bleeding breasts. Naked body and naked power incarnate... she was magnificent.
"Like what you see, old man? Enjoy it... and then kiss your ass and your little island gulag goodbye!"
She raised her hands, ready to punch another hole in the earth's electromagnetic field, ready to consume all of Genosha.
Magneto reached out and, with a mental twist, stopped the flow of blood through Siena Blaze's carotid artery.
She collapsed like a rag doll, crumpling into a heap in the center of the crater while the storm dissipated around her. Magneto used his own power to speed the process along, dispersing and reversing the polarity of the charged ions electrifying the air. When radiation levels had fallen to an acceptable level, he dropped to the floor of the crater. Removing his cloak, he draped it over the unconscious woman's body and lifted her in his arms.
And then he turned and strode across the rubble of his hospital, wondering how he could ever make this right.
Avalon Tower, Living Quarters. Hammer Bay, Genosha. 17 June. 0200L.
Julio Esteban Richter woke in the wee hours of the Genoshan morning. His head felt like it had been used as the pigskin in a particularly lively game of football. His mouth tasted like the football team in question had then marched barefoot through it on their way to the showers. And he was... sore. All over.
He got up, somehow not succumbing to the wave of light-headedness that hit him at the movement, and stumbled to the bathroom. Flicking on the light, he leaned over the sink, ran some water, and splashed it onto his face.
Only then did he allow himself to look in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, sunken low beneath great sacks of purple skin. His hair was all over the place and there were... scratches all over his chest and stomach. He turned his head to either side, noting similar scratches -- some of them could better be described as bloody gouges -- in his arms and legs. He pressed a hand to his crotch, which made its own pain and discomfort known at the pressure.
"Fuuuuckk," he breathed, pulling his shorts open. His manhood was intact, but his entire groin was red and raw. That, at least, explained why his stomach and back muscles were in so much pain. What -- or rather who -- had he done last night...?
And then he remembered -- a view of a silky orange-furred back, its owner bent over in front of him, an animal howl of pleasure, a large bottle of tequila lying empty on its side next to his bed, feline claws digging into his shoulders and chest and somehow, impossibly, making the fucking even better.
"Feral?" he asked his reflection. "You slept with... Feral?" Dios... that's like... bestiality. Hell, it had been bestiality, from what he remembered...
An alarm sounded in the room, making him jump so badly he nearly put his head through the mirror. When he'd stopped cursing with surprise and embarrassment, he realized that was the civil distress alarm, notification that something very bad was happening down in the streets of Genosha. Something worse, even, then the standard Magistrate assaults.
Turning and walking gingerly back into his room, Julio decided he'd better get some water and aspirin and get his clothes on.
God willing, he wouldn't have to look Feral in the face today.
Beijing, China. 17 June. 0700L.
"This is the place?" Roberto asked.
"Yes," Xi'an Coy Manh replied, pushing a lock of black hair back over her ear. They stood across the street from a 30-story office building, all glass and gleaming metal reaching for the slate gray sky. They ignored the sideways glares of the crowd shuffling past on the sidewalk. "When Mei first told me about the abortion, I went out and found the place. The clinic occupies the 15th, 16th, and 17th floors."
"Nice place. Obviously killing little mutant babies pays well."
Xi'an sighed. "Look, Bobby... I don't like where this is going. I understand you're with Magneto now, and you think that somehow gives you license to--"
One of Bobby's fingers stabbed toward the building angrily. "Don't preach to me, Shan! They kill babies in there... babies whose only crime is that they might grow up to be mutants in this backwards fucking country! That is the kind of bullshit we should be stopping, the kind of stuff we should have been fighting all those years we were wasting time chasing around after the White Queen and Mr. Sinister and the Hellions and all the others!"
"And how are you going to stop them, Bobby? Bring your mutant militia in and kill a bunch of doctors and nurses? Is that how you're going to win equal treatment for mutants?"
"I don't want equal treatment, Shan." He pulled out a cellphone and dialed an 11-digit number from memory, barely looking at the buttons. "I want payback for all the years we've been shit on. If you haven't figured that out yet..." He sighed, seeming suddenly disappointed.
"This isn't the way to handle this, and you know it."
"Oh yeah, you're right... the way to handle it is to let them keep killing our people for being better than they are." He turned his attention to the phone. "Pipeline, this is DaCosta. Have Voght pick me up in Beijing. Out." He snapped the phone shut.
"Bobby, this isn't you."
"It is now. Last chance, Shan. Are you in or are you out?"
Xi'an looked uncertainly at the glass and steel tower across the street. Then she cast her eyes downward and shook her head. "Do this, Bobby, and you're no better than the people who ran those planes into the World Trade Center."
Bobby was silent for a moment. She almost expected him to strike her, as wound up and angry as he was -- a night of restless sleep on the floor of Xi'an's hotel room had obviously done little to calm him. Instead, he said in a very quiet, almost regretful voice, "I'm sorry you feel that way."
She started walking away from him then. He didn't try to stop her, and she didn't look back.
Somewhere Beneath Hammer Bay, Genosha. 17 June. 0600L.
Shatterstar sat in the darkness, his legs crossed in a lotus position, his shoulders pressed against the cold stone of his cell wall. He had moved from this position rarely in the last four days, dividing the time that he did move between eating the slop his captors left for him, shitting and pissing in the lidded bucket in the corner of the room, and short bursts of intense sleep. He never responded when one of his jailers tried to speak with him, never moved, and even though he was deeply embroiled in his own thoughts, he could sense that his hosts were growing impatient with him.
Shatterstar was torn. It was an unfamiliar feeling for a lifelong warrior, a one-time slave who had been forced into a never-ending series of split-second, life-and-death decisions from around the time he'd learned to walk.
His warrior's eye could pick out minute details of his surroundings, and play them back with startling accuracy and immediacy. "Instant replay" was how he thought of it, still stuck using the television terms from the world he'd grown up in. Let's see that one more time for the fans, Benjamin, this time in slow-mo.
"This is how we live," the Magistrate named Talib Singh Chauhan had told him. "Once we ruled this land with an unjust, iron hand, and this is God's judgment visited upon us."
The Magistrate had brought the completely unfettered Shatterstar into a massive manmade cavern carved into the bedrock beneath Hammer Bay. The area was the size of several square city blocks, and from his vantage point, 'Star could see families huddled together in defensive little pockets around the perimeter -- mostly children, the few adults gathered with them obviously too old or too injured to fight as Magistrates. Long rows of tables had been set up, away from the pockets of refugees. The men and women at some of these tables seemed to be engaged in cleaning, maintaining, and repairing handheld weaponry, while others were doling out food rations to long lines of people.
"Is this supposed to inspire sympathy in me?" Shatterstar had asked. "You did worse to this country's mutants before Magneto pre-empted you."
"Agreed," Talib nodded. He gestured, "Come."
He led Shatterstar -- who was busily noting the layout of this place in the event he decided to make a break for it -- toward an area blocked off by walls of dirty white linen. Talib pushed through one of these hanging sheets, nodded at a young woman in a blood-stained white coat, and motioned for Shatterstar to follow him.
"This is our hospital ward," Talib explained. There were bodies everywhere, perhaps half a dozen piled on a dolly and covered with a single, dingy sheet. The others were gravely injured, propped up in narrow cots, some occasionally moaning in pain. Talib weaved through this charnel house confidently, and stopped at a certain cot, where a grim-faced young man was lying on his back. By the shape of the sheets, the man had lost both legs at the knee.
"Hello, Henri."
"Hello, Talib." The maimed Henri gave Shatterstar a long, accusing glare, but he did not speak to him.
"This is Henri Diesing," Talib explained. "Henri lost both legs when a hurled plasma bomb took out a foxhole he and several others had dug in Hammer Bay several days ago. That was the day that the top floors of Avalon Tower were obliterated."
Shatterstar nodded, his face betraying none of the recognition he felt. This man's injuries were Tabby's -- Meltdown's -- doing. She'd told him how she, Rictor, and Feral had landed their aircraft in the middle of a street war in Hammer Bay, and how she'd off-handedly created a massive time bomb for Harlan Kleinstock to hurl into the mass of Magistrates they were fighting. Tabby had laughed about it. And he had too.
Talib was looking at him intently. After a moment, he nodded and pressed on. "Henri's brother disappeared recently. How old was young Gerard, Henri?"
"Ten years old," Henri growled, never taking his eyes off of Shatterstar.
"He is the fifth young child to disappear from our care in the last several weeks."
"Perhaps they're running away."
Talib cocked an eyebrow at him. "To where?"
"Out of this country. A strong boat could reach mainland Africa in about two days, if the wind and the seas were with it..."
"And you think children are piloting these boats!" Henri demanded, slamming his fist angrily on the cot. A vein had appeared, pulsing in his pale forehead. The attending nurse began to move in their direction, but Talib shot her a warning look and she backed off.
"Perhaps not," Shatterstar allowed. "But it begs another question." He turned to Talib. "Why don't you all just leave? Why not build a fleet of boats and all of you -- men, women, children -- just get in and never come back? Genosha is lost to you... you know this, I know this. Why do you stay?"
Henri opened his mouth to reply, but Talib raised a hand to silence the younger man. "Do you truly believe that is possible?"
"Much moreso than your fruitless efforts to regain this land."
Talib nodded. "Perhaps. Perhaps we could remove our people in small waves, but if you truly think a mass exodus of former Magistrates would go unnoticed and unchallenged, you truly do not know the man you work for."
"Magneto wants you out of here."
"Magneto wants us punished!" Talib insisted, and now it was his fist coming down on the cot, his eyes that filled with flame. "Do you know how long it has been since the Magistrates initiated any contact with the mutants who walk Genosha's streets? Months! Every battle that has taken place in that time has been the result of Magneto's forces engaging us on sight. We can't even peek out of these blasted bomb shelters without some mutant's power being thrown at us! That is why the fighting continues, Shatterstar. Because Magneto will not let it end until we are all dead."
"You brought this on yourself," Shatterstar said between clenched teeth.
"And did ten year-old Gerard Diesing bring it upon himself? What about seven year-old Rhiannon O'Brian? What about my son Adnan, barely 5 years-old when he vanished three weeks ago? Did they bring it upon themselves?"
"You have no proof that a mutant caused the disappearance of your children."
"You are right." Talib straightened, his eyes taking on the enlightened calm Shatterstar had become accustomed to. "But the fact remains that we are trapped in this land, Shatterstar. And a trapped man is a slave to his captors. You know something about being a slave, do you not?"
Shatterstar winced. Yes, he did.
"Help us, Shatterstar. Help us leave this land. There is nothing in Genosha for us any longer, we know this. Just help us leave before any more of us are stolen in the night, or become victims of the casual twitch of a mutant's finger." Talib indicated Henri. "Help us."
"I have sworn loyalty to Magneto."
"An oath to a slaver is no oath at all. You know this. Or you knew it once."
"How do you--?"
"I know much about you, Shatterstar. I know about you and your teammates. I know about each and every one of the Acolytes. I was an officer in the Ministry of Defense when Genosha was a green and pleasant land, and we kept our eyes on all of you." He lowered his eyes. "I tell you this with the knowledge that we were wrong. Please, we have learned our lesson. We have lost much. Let us leave."
"I--I must think about this."
Talib nodded, as if he had expected no less. "You will have sufficient time. But you must understand that we cannot allow you to leave, or to walk around unescorted in the meantime."
Shatterstar nodded. "And if I refuse to help?"
"I would like to think we could take you, blindfolded, back to the place we found you, with no hard feelings, and no fear of further reprisal. But we are both realistic men, are we not?"
"Yes, we are."
Talib snapped his fingers, and two armed guards appeared from behind one of the sheet-walls, their weapons instantly trained on Shatterstar. He considered them both, the hard-edged glint in their eye a surer sign of their fugitive status than any physical scars they may have bared, and thought he could probably take them. He could probably disarm one, take out the other, and make his escape before the rest of the complex woke from its false feeling of security.
But he wasn't sure of it. Long ago, he may have taken the chance -- Talib had been right about one thing: Shatterstar knew what it was like to be a slave, and a slave will do anything to break his shackles -- but he had grown since. He knew his death would serve no purpose at this time, and he had spoken truthfully when he'd told Talib he had much to consider.
Silently, Shatterstar had nodded and let them lead him away.
And he had been meditating in this hole ever since. Shatterstar thought of his friends -- true friends now, not just convenient allies in their mutual persecution -- and he weighed this against his memories of slavery. Wondered at the righteousness of what was being done to the Magistrates.
Someone had brought in food while he'd been reminiscing. Unfolding his legs, he got up to have some before sinking back into his own thoughts. He had not yet reached a decision, but he was close.
Somewhere Beneath Hammer Bay, Genosha. 17 June. 0800L.
Feral had been playing with the dead boy's corpse -- batting the body around, occasionally picking it up in her jaws and shaking it by the neck -- for nearly half an hour before she realized what she was doing.
Her feline eyes went wide, and she dropped the boy from her bloodstained jaws. She looked around, guiltily, as if she expected someone else to have been watching her in this forgotten prison cell deep beneath Avalon Towers. Then she turned and slunk into a corner, pressing herself into it and looking with fright back at the body of the dead boy.
She hadn't killed him. She remembered that much. Well... yes, to be honest she had killed him, but only because she'd frightened him so relentlessly his little heart had given out. But it wasn't like she'd walked in here and snapped his neck with her own hands, or slit his jugular open. No, she hadn't done that.
And, god, she'd made sure he had food and water. The cell didn't have creature comforts, and she'd put the boy through every psychological torture this blackened room offered opportunity for, but--
Maria Callasantos tucked her head down into the hollow between her breast and her drawn-up knees and shuddered. What was happening to her? She'd walked in here, found the boy dead, and it was like instinct took her over completely. Like a tame cat, she'd played with the kill instead of doing anything practical with it, turned the dead boy into her plaything.
And last night with Ric? What had that been all about?
But that was a stupid question. She knew exactly what it had been about. She was in heat. And she was a fucking cat.
She was losing control, kidnapping and torturing flatscan children for no good reason -- this was number five she'd killed -- fucking and killing and playing just like a domesticated cat. She had even started becoming more comfortable on all fours. She hardly ever moved around on two legs anymore.
Feral put her head down and, for the first time since she was a very small girl, allowed herself to weep.
Mother of Hope Medical Center. Hammer Bay, Genosha. 17 June. 1000L.
Gomi had been working for hours alongside dozens of other volunteers to clear the rubble and remove the bodies from what was left of the medical center. The place looked like the federal building in Oklahoma had after its bombing -- half a building, exposed and still entirely sound amid the rubble of its other half.
A final count wasn't in yet, but the current estimate was 90 to 100 missing and presumed dead.
And he thought he'd gotten away from this kind of stuff when he left New York.
His ability to project a destructive psychokinetic burst wasn't of much use here. He'd helped to punch through some concrete covering an air pocket earlier, but too much brute force risked causing another collapse, endangering other rescue workers and possibly killing any survivors.
Not that he truly believed there were any survivors. That Blaze woman had decimated the place. But he wanted to help, wanted to prove he could earn a place here even if he wasn't truly a mutant.
So he worked with his hands. Just like the flatscan he was. Beside him, Bill the Lobster did his own part, hauling away chunks of debris twenty times his size with his cybernetic-enhanced strength, his bulging eyes glaring angrily the whole time. Ariel and Chance were also nearby, using their more subtle abilities to hasten the cleanup.
He heard a wail of grief nearby, the sound of fragile hope shattered over the remains of a loved one's corpse, but it moved him no more than the dozens of cries before it had. He couldn't let it. He could only work. Or his heart would break again like it had in New York last September.
Rubbing the sweat out of his eyes, Gomi pressed on.
Beijing, China. 17 June. 2030L.
<"That is all the mutant said to you, Colonel Fong?">
The Chinese man shifted uncomfortably in his wheelchair, regretting for just a moment that he hadn't taken his doctor's advice and stayed in bed. His ribs pained him, his braced neck was a constant torment, and the shoulder that had taken the impact the final time the mutant had hurled him across his bedroom would never function properly again.
<"Yes, that is all.">
<"And you believe Beijing may be in danger from this mutant?">
<"My wife said they claimed to be from Genosha. If that is true, we have much more to worry about than just the mutant who did this to me.">
The man at the head of the table -- a fellow colonel in the Chinese armed forces -- nodded. <"Which begs the question, Col. Fong, of how these mutants knew about your wife's... condition.">
Fong's face darkened. Even trussed up like he was, he was still a formidable man, and the colonel who had spoken immediately regretted doing so. <"My wife knew neither of the mutants who entered our home. I have explained as much. Many mutants can read minds, colonel. Perhaps they did so and picked my wife at random.">
The four men at the table suddenly found other things to occupy their eyes than the face of the injured Colonel Fong. They didn't believe this, he could see -- there was a part of him that didn't believe it either, no matter how Mei insisted it was so -- but they weren't about to challenge him without further proof. He'd already proven his honesty by telling this assemblage about his wife's mutant pregnancy, and further groundless needling would be seen as an insult to a great and powerful man.
<"Very well,"> the colonel who had originally questioned Fong finally said. <"We will take precautions against an assault from Genosha, and will prepare a retaliation should it become necessary.">
<"What of the clinic itself? That will surely be their primary target if an attack does come...">
<"I have arranged certain... paranormal safeguards in that instance. I have spoken to a contact I have in Japan, specifically with the Giri Industrial Corporation, that, if it works out, should solve all our problems. In the meantime, I have arranged for the clinic to be personally protected by one of our country's greatest heroes.">
Fong's eyebrows went up. He was amazed at the amount of pain this simple movement caused him. <"Just one?">
The other colonel chuckled. <"Well, five actually. Don't worry, Colonel. This council is taking this threat very seriously, and should Genosha and its inhabitants further provoke us, they will find that China is no man's political statement.
<"Thank you, gentlemen. That is all.">
TO BE CONTINUED...
In Case You're Just Joining Us: Sunspot and former teammate Karma attempt to convince a woman who may be pregnant with a mutant to come to Genosha to have it, rather than aborting the fetus. The result is a messy confrontation with the woman's husband. Meanwhile, Meltdown introduces some old friends to Genosha, Feral and Rictor have a quiet moment, and comatose Siena Blaze awakes in the middle of being raped. The subsequent outburst of Siena's power devastates the Genoshan hospital in which she was being cared for, killing the man who assaulted her and the other patients in the building.
Mother of Hope Medical Center. Hammer Bay, Genosha. 17 June. 0200L.
The fires were still consuming the north wing of the Mother of Hope Medical Center when the former Acolyte named Harry Delgado decided that he'd had enough waiting. There was some sort of electromagnetic firestorm at the center of the destruction, pouring out radiation and heat, but there might still be people -- fellow mutants -- alive in that mess somewhere.
Harry pushed through the crowd of gawkers and approached the perimeter of the rubble, ignoring the calls from the crowd to stop. Harry had been a SHIELD agent once, before joining the Acolytes, and he'd done some time with SHIELD's medical corps. He couldn't just stand by when he might be able to save someone. Anyone.
He activated his mutant powers, growing to just over ten feet. Not his full height or power, but enough to increase his resistance to the radiation without sacrificing speed and agility. He pushed forward, sifting through the rubble, calling out for survivors. Nothing. The incandescent bubble of electromagnetism lit the devastation like a spotlight, but there was no movement, no indication of life.
"Damn it," he hissed, grabbing his head. The radiation and heat were starting to get to him, making his skin burn, his vision swim. No way anyone could have survived this, especially patients in a hospital wing. Harry Delgado was strong as an ox in this form, but even he wouldn't last much longer in this storm.
"Delgado."
He looked upward at the sound of his name. A majestic figure in a blood-red helmet and matching cloak was descending from the sky, lowering itself to a spot directly between Harry and the magnetic storm. And Harry felt a wave of relief sweep over him.
Magneto had arrived.
"Lord Magnus," Harry began, "I'm looking for--"
"Survivors, I know." Magneto looked back toward the incandescent bubble of energy that had apparently caused all this. "Stand down for now, Delgado. The rescue workers will be here soon. Join them and await my further orders."
"Lord Magnus?"
"Before any kind of rescue operation can be conducted, I must deal with the source. Now return to the perimeter before you collapse."
Delgado bowed his head. Like the other Acolytes, he was still confused, hurt, by Magneto's forced disbanding of that organization... but the man was still Delgado's lord and master, whether he chose to operate under the title of 'god' or not.
Delgado turned away. And when Magneto was sure his follower would make it to a safe distance without collapsing, he turned his attention back to the electromagnetic bubble. For a moment, his eyes glazed over, as if looking into a world only he could see.
In a way, this was completely accurate. One of the lesser-known side effects of his complete mastery of magnetism was the ability to "read" electromagnetic wavelengths. He had learned, over the years, to screen his vision, to see the world as others saw it, but he could still see the web of power that held the planet together when he chose.
He chose now. And he wasn't at all surprised by what he saw.
"Siena," he sighed, and, hovering nearly a foot above the jagged rubble, he began to push forward into the bubble of power. He wondered how many had been in the north wing when this power had obliterated it. How many mutants had died, helpless in their beds, because he had miscalculated?
Little more than a week ago, he had used the power of a mutant named Siena Blaze to 'jump-start' his own floundering abilities. The process had been similar to the one that had caused his gift to go into remission in the first place, so he had assumed that Siena would suffer a similar power loss.
He had obviously been right... somewhat.
At the peak of her abilities, Siena Blaze wielded electromagnetic power sufficient to level a small country, with almost no fine control over that power. Every time she activated her powers, it punched a hole in the Earth's electromagnetic field, threatening to rip the planet to pieces. If all she'd done was level a hospital wing and a chunk of the surrounding block, she had indeed suffered a power loss.
But not as dramatic a loss as Magneto had presumed. He had been the one to order her placed in the hospital wing when she'd fallen into a coma following the power transferal. All the dead here were his responsibility as much as they were Siena's. Possibly more so.
Which only left the question of why she had done it. Had the trauma of waking been so terrible--?
Magneto pushed, unharmed, through a final cloud of electrostatic ball lightning and flying debris. He'd finally reached the center of the bubble.
Kneeling down in the center of a crater, even her clothes blasted away from her, was a very naked, and very deranged Siena Blaze. Red power licked out of her eyes as she screamed into the sky she couldn't see. Her hands were clenched into claws and were digging furrows into her breasts.
"Siena."
The screaming ended so suddenly it might have been severed with a knife. Her head darted around, quickly, like a cat's.
"Where am I?" she demanded, her voice audible even over the storm around them.
"Genosha." Magneto hovered closer, surprised at the amount of effort he had to expend to resist the storm. "Among other mutants, whom you are endangering with this childish display. Power down immediately."
"Who the fuck are you to tell me to power down, old man? Why am I here? Why was that spider fucking me when I woke up?" Siena screamed again, as if just speaking the memory forced her to relive it. At the outburst, a bolt of lightning streaked down from the upper perimeter of the bubble and struck her, but she simply absorbed its power. "He raped me!"
Magneto's lips curled in distaste. He knew what had happened now, even suspected he knew the man who had caused it -- a Puerto Rican mutant whose unfortunate burden was to go through life with the head of a spider. Magneto couldn't remember the man's name, but suspected he'd already been punished for his crime.
"I am sorry, Siena. Sorry for my part in it. I will help you deal with this in whatever way I can, but you must power down."
"Help me? Help me?" She grinned suddenly and got to her feet, her eyes clearing. She had obviously started to come to her senses, but it didn't look like that was going to improve the situation. "You say we're in Genosha? I always wanted to destroy that place, and every mutant-hating, slave-trading flatscan in it." Magneto stared at her impassively while she licked her lips and slid her hands over her bare, bleeding breasts. Naked body and naked power incarnate... she was magnificent.
"Like what you see, old man? Enjoy it... and then kiss your ass and your little island gulag goodbye!"
She raised her hands, ready to punch another hole in the earth's electromagnetic field, ready to consume all of Genosha.
Magneto reached out and, with a mental twist, stopped the flow of blood through Siena Blaze's carotid artery.
She collapsed like a rag doll, crumpling into a heap in the center of the crater while the storm dissipated around her. Magneto used his own power to speed the process along, dispersing and reversing the polarity of the charged ions electrifying the air. When radiation levels had fallen to an acceptable level, he dropped to the floor of the crater. Removing his cloak, he draped it over the unconscious woman's body and lifted her in his arms.
And then he turned and strode across the rubble of his hospital, wondering how he could ever make this right.
Avalon Tower, Living Quarters. Hammer Bay, Genosha. 17 June. 0200L.
Julio Esteban Richter woke in the wee hours of the Genoshan morning. His head felt like it had been used as the pigskin in a particularly lively game of football. His mouth tasted like the football team in question had then marched barefoot through it on their way to the showers. And he was... sore. All over.
He got up, somehow not succumbing to the wave of light-headedness that hit him at the movement, and stumbled to the bathroom. Flicking on the light, he leaned over the sink, ran some water, and splashed it onto his face.
Only then did he allow himself to look in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, sunken low beneath great sacks of purple skin. His hair was all over the place and there were... scratches all over his chest and stomach. He turned his head to either side, noting similar scratches -- some of them could better be described as bloody gouges -- in his arms and legs. He pressed a hand to his crotch, which made its own pain and discomfort known at the pressure.
"Fuuuuckk," he breathed, pulling his shorts open. His manhood was intact, but his entire groin was red and raw. That, at least, explained why his stomach and back muscles were in so much pain. What -- or rather who -- had he done last night...?
And then he remembered -- a view of a silky orange-furred back, its owner bent over in front of him, an animal howl of pleasure, a large bottle of tequila lying empty on its side next to his bed, feline claws digging into his shoulders and chest and somehow, impossibly, making the fucking even better.
"Feral?" he asked his reflection. "You slept with... Feral?" Dios... that's like... bestiality. Hell, it had been bestiality, from what he remembered...
An alarm sounded in the room, making him jump so badly he nearly put his head through the mirror. When he'd stopped cursing with surprise and embarrassment, he realized that was the civil distress alarm, notification that something very bad was happening down in the streets of Genosha. Something worse, even, then the standard Magistrate assaults.
Turning and walking gingerly back into his room, Julio decided he'd better get some water and aspirin and get his clothes on.
God willing, he wouldn't have to look Feral in the face today.
Beijing, China. 17 June. 0700L.
"This is the place?" Roberto asked.
"Yes," Xi'an Coy Manh replied, pushing a lock of black hair back over her ear. They stood across the street from a 30-story office building, all glass and gleaming metal reaching for the slate gray sky. They ignored the sideways glares of the crowd shuffling past on the sidewalk. "When Mei first told me about the abortion, I went out and found the place. The clinic occupies the 15th, 16th, and 17th floors."
"Nice place. Obviously killing little mutant babies pays well."
Xi'an sighed. "Look, Bobby... I don't like where this is going. I understand you're with Magneto now, and you think that somehow gives you license to--"
One of Bobby's fingers stabbed toward the building angrily. "Don't preach to me, Shan! They kill babies in there... babies whose only crime is that they might grow up to be mutants in this backwards fucking country! That is the kind of bullshit we should be stopping, the kind of stuff we should have been fighting all those years we were wasting time chasing around after the White Queen and Mr. Sinister and the Hellions and all the others!"
"And how are you going to stop them, Bobby? Bring your mutant militia in and kill a bunch of doctors and nurses? Is that how you're going to win equal treatment for mutants?"
"I don't want equal treatment, Shan." He pulled out a cellphone and dialed an 11-digit number from memory, barely looking at the buttons. "I want payback for all the years we've been shit on. If you haven't figured that out yet..." He sighed, seeming suddenly disappointed.
"This isn't the way to handle this, and you know it."
"Oh yeah, you're right... the way to handle it is to let them keep killing our people for being better than they are." He turned his attention to the phone. "Pipeline, this is DaCosta. Have Voght pick me up in Beijing. Out." He snapped the phone shut.
"Bobby, this isn't you."
"It is now. Last chance, Shan. Are you in or are you out?"
Xi'an looked uncertainly at the glass and steel tower across the street. Then she cast her eyes downward and shook her head. "Do this, Bobby, and you're no better than the people who ran those planes into the World Trade Center."
Bobby was silent for a moment. She almost expected him to strike her, as wound up and angry as he was -- a night of restless sleep on the floor of Xi'an's hotel room had obviously done little to calm him. Instead, he said in a very quiet, almost regretful voice, "I'm sorry you feel that way."
She started walking away from him then. He didn't try to stop her, and she didn't look back.
Somewhere Beneath Hammer Bay, Genosha. 17 June. 0600L.
Shatterstar sat in the darkness, his legs crossed in a lotus position, his shoulders pressed against the cold stone of his cell wall. He had moved from this position rarely in the last four days, dividing the time that he did move between eating the slop his captors left for him, shitting and pissing in the lidded bucket in the corner of the room, and short bursts of intense sleep. He never responded when one of his jailers tried to speak with him, never moved, and even though he was deeply embroiled in his own thoughts, he could sense that his hosts were growing impatient with him.
Shatterstar was torn. It was an unfamiliar feeling for a lifelong warrior, a one-time slave who had been forced into a never-ending series of split-second, life-and-death decisions from around the time he'd learned to walk.
His warrior's eye could pick out minute details of his surroundings, and play them back with startling accuracy and immediacy. "Instant replay" was how he thought of it, still stuck using the television terms from the world he'd grown up in. Let's see that one more time for the fans, Benjamin, this time in slow-mo.
"This is how we live," the Magistrate named Talib Singh Chauhan had told him. "Once we ruled this land with an unjust, iron hand, and this is God's judgment visited upon us."
The Magistrate had brought the completely unfettered Shatterstar into a massive manmade cavern carved into the bedrock beneath Hammer Bay. The area was the size of several square city blocks, and from his vantage point, 'Star could see families huddled together in defensive little pockets around the perimeter -- mostly children, the few adults gathered with them obviously too old or too injured to fight as Magistrates. Long rows of tables had been set up, away from the pockets of refugees. The men and women at some of these tables seemed to be engaged in cleaning, maintaining, and repairing handheld weaponry, while others were doling out food rations to long lines of people.
"Is this supposed to inspire sympathy in me?" Shatterstar had asked. "You did worse to this country's mutants before Magneto pre-empted you."
"Agreed," Talib nodded. He gestured, "Come."
He led Shatterstar -- who was busily noting the layout of this place in the event he decided to make a break for it -- toward an area blocked off by walls of dirty white linen. Talib pushed through one of these hanging sheets, nodded at a young woman in a blood-stained white coat, and motioned for Shatterstar to follow him.
"This is our hospital ward," Talib explained. There were bodies everywhere, perhaps half a dozen piled on a dolly and covered with a single, dingy sheet. The others were gravely injured, propped up in narrow cots, some occasionally moaning in pain. Talib weaved through this charnel house confidently, and stopped at a certain cot, where a grim-faced young man was lying on his back. By the shape of the sheets, the man had lost both legs at the knee.
"Hello, Henri."
"Hello, Talib." The maimed Henri gave Shatterstar a long, accusing glare, but he did not speak to him.
"This is Henri Diesing," Talib explained. "Henri lost both legs when a hurled plasma bomb took out a foxhole he and several others had dug in Hammer Bay several days ago. That was the day that the top floors of Avalon Tower were obliterated."
Shatterstar nodded, his face betraying none of the recognition he felt. This man's injuries were Tabby's -- Meltdown's -- doing. She'd told him how she, Rictor, and Feral had landed their aircraft in the middle of a street war in Hammer Bay, and how she'd off-handedly created a massive time bomb for Harlan Kleinstock to hurl into the mass of Magistrates they were fighting. Tabby had laughed about it. And he had too.
Talib was looking at him intently. After a moment, he nodded and pressed on. "Henri's brother disappeared recently. How old was young Gerard, Henri?"
"Ten years old," Henri growled, never taking his eyes off of Shatterstar.
"He is the fifth young child to disappear from our care in the last several weeks."
"Perhaps they're running away."
Talib cocked an eyebrow at him. "To where?"
"Out of this country. A strong boat could reach mainland Africa in about two days, if the wind and the seas were with it..."
"And you think children are piloting these boats!" Henri demanded, slamming his fist angrily on the cot. A vein had appeared, pulsing in his pale forehead. The attending nurse began to move in their direction, but Talib shot her a warning look and she backed off.
"Perhaps not," Shatterstar allowed. "But it begs another question." He turned to Talib. "Why don't you all just leave? Why not build a fleet of boats and all of you -- men, women, children -- just get in and never come back? Genosha is lost to you... you know this, I know this. Why do you stay?"
Henri opened his mouth to reply, but Talib raised a hand to silence the younger man. "Do you truly believe that is possible?"
"Much moreso than your fruitless efforts to regain this land."
Talib nodded. "Perhaps. Perhaps we could remove our people in small waves, but if you truly think a mass exodus of former Magistrates would go unnoticed and unchallenged, you truly do not know the man you work for."
"Magneto wants you out of here."
"Magneto wants us punished!" Talib insisted, and now it was his fist coming down on the cot, his eyes that filled with flame. "Do you know how long it has been since the Magistrates initiated any contact with the mutants who walk Genosha's streets? Months! Every battle that has taken place in that time has been the result of Magneto's forces engaging us on sight. We can't even peek out of these blasted bomb shelters without some mutant's power being thrown at us! That is why the fighting continues, Shatterstar. Because Magneto will not let it end until we are all dead."
"You brought this on yourself," Shatterstar said between clenched teeth.
"And did ten year-old Gerard Diesing bring it upon himself? What about seven year-old Rhiannon O'Brian? What about my son Adnan, barely 5 years-old when he vanished three weeks ago? Did they bring it upon themselves?"
"You have no proof that a mutant caused the disappearance of your children."
"You are right." Talib straightened, his eyes taking on the enlightened calm Shatterstar had become accustomed to. "But the fact remains that we are trapped in this land, Shatterstar. And a trapped man is a slave to his captors. You know something about being a slave, do you not?"
Shatterstar winced. Yes, he did.
"Help us, Shatterstar. Help us leave this land. There is nothing in Genosha for us any longer, we know this. Just help us leave before any more of us are stolen in the night, or become victims of the casual twitch of a mutant's finger." Talib indicated Henri. "Help us."
"I have sworn loyalty to Magneto."
"An oath to a slaver is no oath at all. You know this. Or you knew it once."
"How do you--?"
"I know much about you, Shatterstar. I know about you and your teammates. I know about each and every one of the Acolytes. I was an officer in the Ministry of Defense when Genosha was a green and pleasant land, and we kept our eyes on all of you." He lowered his eyes. "I tell you this with the knowledge that we were wrong. Please, we have learned our lesson. We have lost much. Let us leave."
"I--I must think about this."
Talib nodded, as if he had expected no less. "You will have sufficient time. But you must understand that we cannot allow you to leave, or to walk around unescorted in the meantime."
Shatterstar nodded. "And if I refuse to help?"
"I would like to think we could take you, blindfolded, back to the place we found you, with no hard feelings, and no fear of further reprisal. But we are both realistic men, are we not?"
"Yes, we are."
Talib snapped his fingers, and two armed guards appeared from behind one of the sheet-walls, their weapons instantly trained on Shatterstar. He considered them both, the hard-edged glint in their eye a surer sign of their fugitive status than any physical scars they may have bared, and thought he could probably take them. He could probably disarm one, take out the other, and make his escape before the rest of the complex woke from its false feeling of security.
But he wasn't sure of it. Long ago, he may have taken the chance -- Talib had been right about one thing: Shatterstar knew what it was like to be a slave, and a slave will do anything to break his shackles -- but he had grown since. He knew his death would serve no purpose at this time, and he had spoken truthfully when he'd told Talib he had much to consider.
Silently, Shatterstar had nodded and let them lead him away.
And he had been meditating in this hole ever since. Shatterstar thought of his friends -- true friends now, not just convenient allies in their mutual persecution -- and he weighed this against his memories of slavery. Wondered at the righteousness of what was being done to the Magistrates.
Someone had brought in food while he'd been reminiscing. Unfolding his legs, he got up to have some before sinking back into his own thoughts. He had not yet reached a decision, but he was close.
Somewhere Beneath Hammer Bay, Genosha. 17 June. 0800L.
Feral had been playing with the dead boy's corpse -- batting the body around, occasionally picking it up in her jaws and shaking it by the neck -- for nearly half an hour before she realized what she was doing.
Her feline eyes went wide, and she dropped the boy from her bloodstained jaws. She looked around, guiltily, as if she expected someone else to have been watching her in this forgotten prison cell deep beneath Avalon Towers. Then she turned and slunk into a corner, pressing herself into it and looking with fright back at the body of the dead boy.
She hadn't killed him. She remembered that much. Well... yes, to be honest she had killed him, but only because she'd frightened him so relentlessly his little heart had given out. But it wasn't like she'd walked in here and snapped his neck with her own hands, or slit his jugular open. No, she hadn't done that.
And, god, she'd made sure he had food and water. The cell didn't have creature comforts, and she'd put the boy through every psychological torture this blackened room offered opportunity for, but--
Maria Callasantos tucked her head down into the hollow between her breast and her drawn-up knees and shuddered. What was happening to her? She'd walked in here, found the boy dead, and it was like instinct took her over completely. Like a tame cat, she'd played with the kill instead of doing anything practical with it, turned the dead boy into her plaything.
And last night with Ric? What had that been all about?
But that was a stupid question. She knew exactly what it had been about. She was in heat. And she was a fucking cat.
She was losing control, kidnapping and torturing flatscan children for no good reason -- this was number five she'd killed -- fucking and killing and playing just like a domesticated cat. She had even started becoming more comfortable on all fours. She hardly ever moved around on two legs anymore.
Feral put her head down and, for the first time since she was a very small girl, allowed herself to weep.
Mother of Hope Medical Center. Hammer Bay, Genosha. 17 June. 1000L.
Gomi had been working for hours alongside dozens of other volunteers to clear the rubble and remove the bodies from what was left of the medical center. The place looked like the federal building in Oklahoma had after its bombing -- half a building, exposed and still entirely sound amid the rubble of its other half.
A final count wasn't in yet, but the current estimate was 90 to 100 missing and presumed dead.
And he thought he'd gotten away from this kind of stuff when he left New York.
His ability to project a destructive psychokinetic burst wasn't of much use here. He'd helped to punch through some concrete covering an air pocket earlier, but too much brute force risked causing another collapse, endangering other rescue workers and possibly killing any survivors.
Not that he truly believed there were any survivors. That Blaze woman had decimated the place. But he wanted to help, wanted to prove he could earn a place here even if he wasn't truly a mutant.
So he worked with his hands. Just like the flatscan he was. Beside him, Bill the Lobster did his own part, hauling away chunks of debris twenty times his size with his cybernetic-enhanced strength, his bulging eyes glaring angrily the whole time. Ariel and Chance were also nearby, using their more subtle abilities to hasten the cleanup.
He heard a wail of grief nearby, the sound of fragile hope shattered over the remains of a loved one's corpse, but it moved him no more than the dozens of cries before it had. He couldn't let it. He could only work. Or his heart would break again like it had in New York last September.
Rubbing the sweat out of his eyes, Gomi pressed on.
Beijing, China. 17 June. 2030L.
<"That is all the mutant said to you, Colonel Fong?">
The Chinese man shifted uncomfortably in his wheelchair, regretting for just a moment that he hadn't taken his doctor's advice and stayed in bed. His ribs pained him, his braced neck was a constant torment, and the shoulder that had taken the impact the final time the mutant had hurled him across his bedroom would never function properly again.
<"Yes, that is all.">
<"And you believe Beijing may be in danger from this mutant?">
<"My wife said they claimed to be from Genosha. If that is true, we have much more to worry about than just the mutant who did this to me.">
The man at the head of the table -- a fellow colonel in the Chinese armed forces -- nodded. <"Which begs the question, Col. Fong, of how these mutants knew about your wife's... condition.">
Fong's face darkened. Even trussed up like he was, he was still a formidable man, and the colonel who had spoken immediately regretted doing so. <"My wife knew neither of the mutants who entered our home. I have explained as much. Many mutants can read minds, colonel. Perhaps they did so and picked my wife at random.">
The four men at the table suddenly found other things to occupy their eyes than the face of the injured Colonel Fong. They didn't believe this, he could see -- there was a part of him that didn't believe it either, no matter how Mei insisted it was so -- but they weren't about to challenge him without further proof. He'd already proven his honesty by telling this assemblage about his wife's mutant pregnancy, and further groundless needling would be seen as an insult to a great and powerful man.
<"Very well,"> the colonel who had originally questioned Fong finally said. <"We will take precautions against an assault from Genosha, and will prepare a retaliation should it become necessary.">
<"What of the clinic itself? That will surely be their primary target if an attack does come...">
<"I have arranged certain... paranormal safeguards in that instance. I have spoken to a contact I have in Japan, specifically with the Giri Industrial Corporation, that, if it works out, should solve all our problems. In the meantime, I have arranged for the clinic to be personally protected by one of our country's greatest heroes.">
Fong's eyebrows went up. He was amazed at the amount of pain this simple movement caused him. <"Just one?">
The other colonel chuckled. <"Well, five actually. Don't worry, Colonel. This council is taking this threat very seriously, and should Genosha and its inhabitants further provoke us, they will find that China is no man's political statement.
<"Thank you, gentlemen. That is all.">
TO BE CONTINUED...