[NOW: Weapon X...]
Kavita Rao sat huddled against the corner of the support post, drenched in sweat and blood. Her chest rose and fell rapidly beneath the wrist she pressed against it, her heart thundering in her chest, fright pumping adrenaline into her system. She could hardly think, so all consuming was her terror.
In her mind's eye, she saw her father, ever the scientist, urging her to think the problem through. "What is the most pressing problem here, Kavita?" he would ask her when she was feeling overwhelmed.
"There is a monster after me," she said, her voice scratchy and broken. She laughed now that she heard herself say it out loud. It sounded so ridiculous, but that didn't mean it wasn't the truth. "I am buried alive in a top secret research facility, I think I may have inhaled a few kilos of dust and debris, I have a head wound, my wrist is certainly fractured, perhaps broken, and I have no idea if anyone else is alive in this wreckage, but the biggest problem I have right now is the monster that is trying to kill me."
She laughed again, this time a louder croak of a laugh, and then slapped a hand over her mouth. A crumbling sound echoed through the remains of the hallway outside, a shifting in the tonnage of rubble that this portion of the base had become. She slowly peeked her head out from behind the column, but she saw nothing in the hallway.
What horrors had this Makah Greycrow unleashed with his heathen magics? Apparently the son of one of Weapon X's first subjects had come to take vengeance upon them for taking his father away. Had the elder Greycrow any kind of magical affinity when he was first tested? Kavita didn't know. That side of the equation baffled her. It wasn't science. Not that it wasn't real; she had seen enough of it to know that it did exist. But it refused to follow scientific rules, so Kavita wanted nothing to do with it.
Only now it was in her lap, and if she continued to ignore it, she'd be dead before long. Her mind brought her further back to the rational side of thinking. What had become of her colleagues? How many had survived? Worse yet, how many had survived the collapse, only to be devoured by whatever ravenous Hell-beast Greycrow had set loose upon them? She had not gotten a great view of it, but she saw enough to frighten her out of her mind. It was enormous, and almost featureless, like a living shadow, and it had hefted a block of concrete that looked like the size of a mattress without much effort.
Her thoughts turned to Charles. She had seen him going back towards the lab, where his step-brother had apparently been the last of the new recruits to leave. As that was the epicenter of the original blast of magic, she had little hope that either man could have survived.
Colonel Stryker and his men, with the exception of Sergeant Magnum, had all been in the control room, and she had no idea if the explosion had taken that part of the complex down or if they were working to get to her at that very moment. There were a few lab techs who had been nearby, but of them she saw no sign.
Who was left? She was having a hard time remembering who had even been present that day, which she attributed to the knock she had taken on her head. Dr. Leftwich had left weeks ago. Fred Duncan was a vegetable. Charles was still here, but his status was currently uncertain. What about the other doctor? The one whose name she found she couldn't quite remember. Now that she thought about it, she couldn't remember what he looked like, either, just that there had been another scientist on her team. She touched the wound on her scalp tentatively and winced. Although there was a lot of blood, she didn't think it was too serious, but why were there holes in her memory? Why, when she tried to think about the subjects she had helped augment, could she only think a handful, when there must have been more, given the length of time she had been working here?
There was another crumbling sound out in the hallway as the debris shifted, and Kavita froze again. She began shaking uncontrollably as her mind kept screaming the same thing over and over.
The monster had found her.
Kavita Rao sat huddled against the corner of the support post, drenched in sweat and blood. Her chest rose and fell rapidly beneath the wrist she pressed against it, her heart thundering in her chest, fright pumping adrenaline into her system. She could hardly think, so all consuming was her terror.
In her mind's eye, she saw her father, ever the scientist, urging her to think the problem through. "What is the most pressing problem here, Kavita?" he would ask her when she was feeling overwhelmed.
"There is a monster after me," she said, her voice scratchy and broken. She laughed now that she heard herself say it out loud. It sounded so ridiculous, but that didn't mean it wasn't the truth. "I am buried alive in a top secret research facility, I think I may have inhaled a few kilos of dust and debris, I have a head wound, my wrist is certainly fractured, perhaps broken, and I have no idea if anyone else is alive in this wreckage, but the biggest problem I have right now is the monster that is trying to kill me."
She laughed again, this time a louder croak of a laugh, and then slapped a hand over her mouth. A crumbling sound echoed through the remains of the hallway outside, a shifting in the tonnage of rubble that this portion of the base had become. She slowly peeked her head out from behind the column, but she saw nothing in the hallway.
What horrors had this Makah Greycrow unleashed with his heathen magics? Apparently the son of one of Weapon X's first subjects had come to take vengeance upon them for taking his father away. Had the elder Greycrow any kind of magical affinity when he was first tested? Kavita didn't know. That side of the equation baffled her. It wasn't science. Not that it wasn't real; she had seen enough of it to know that it did exist. But it refused to follow scientific rules, so Kavita wanted nothing to do with it.
Only now it was in her lap, and if she continued to ignore it, she'd be dead before long. Her mind brought her further back to the rational side of thinking. What had become of her colleagues? How many had survived? Worse yet, how many had survived the collapse, only to be devoured by whatever ravenous Hell-beast Greycrow had set loose upon them? She had not gotten a great view of it, but she saw enough to frighten her out of her mind. It was enormous, and almost featureless, like a living shadow, and it had hefted a block of concrete that looked like the size of a mattress without much effort.
Her thoughts turned to Charles. She had seen him going back towards the lab, where his step-brother had apparently been the last of the new recruits to leave. As that was the epicenter of the original blast of magic, she had little hope that either man could have survived.
Colonel Stryker and his men, with the exception of Sergeant Magnum, had all been in the control room, and she had no idea if the explosion had taken that part of the complex down or if they were working to get to her at that very moment. There were a few lab techs who had been nearby, but of them she saw no sign.
Who was left? She was having a hard time remembering who had even been present that day, which she attributed to the knock she had taken on her head. Dr. Leftwich had left weeks ago. Fred Duncan was a vegetable. Charles was still here, but his status was currently uncertain. What about the other doctor? The one whose name she found she couldn't quite remember. Now that she thought about it, she couldn't remember what he looked like, either, just that there had been another scientist on her team. She touched the wound on her scalp tentatively and winced. Although there was a lot of blood, she didn't think it was too serious, but why were there holes in her memory? Why, when she tried to think about the subjects she had helped augment, could she only think a handful, when there must have been more, given the length of time she had been working here?
There was another crumbling sound out in the hallway as the debris shifted, and Kavita froze again. She began shaking uncontrollably as her mind kept screaming the same thing over and over.
The monster had found her.
“MONSTERS”
[FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: A U.S. Army Triage Unit, Baghdad...]
The world was on fire. Screams of pain bombarded the walls of his mind, both from within and without. His own screams were fighting to well up out of him like lava from a fissure, but he willed himself not to give in.
It transcended mere physical pain. The I.E.D. that had set off the ambush had taken him out, but he was still alive. The rest of his patrol could not say the same. The medic, a nice-enough kid named Ellis Garvey from Redmond, Washington, had saved his life and was radioing for evac when his helmet- and with it, the top of his head- was removed by a piece of shrapnel. He watched as the heavy weapons expert, a massive mountain of a man who went by the nickname D-Rock, bled to death in front of him, trying to claw his way in the dirt to cover. Eventually, air support had arrived, but by the time reinforcements arrived, only Makah and the sarge, a burly man named Kowalski, were left alive. By the time they were in the Humvee and bouncing over the cratered roads back to the forward operating position, it was only Makah.
His anguish at seeing those he had come to love as brothers slaughtered before him hurt almost as much as the searing, maddening burning at the end of his leg, which was now a stump located just South of his pelvis. He felt as if the entire limb were still attached, drenched in napalm, and then besieged by fire ants from Hell.
Several times he had tried to claw at the bandages, only to find that his fingers couldn't feel the fabric. It took him a few tries to realize that it was because his fingers, along with the hand they had resided on and a good portion of his forearm, were all blown off in the blast.
He felt his own sanity slipping. A scream, suppressed for as long as he could manage, began to build in his chest. He couldn't fight it, not when his defenses were besieged on all sides by the screams of the other wounded soldiers. He decided to let the madness that was building inside him take him. He didn't know how quickly reality would cease to mean anything to him, but the quicker the better. He drew in his breath to give voice to the scream and was about to release it when he heard a voice.
"Greycrow."
He stopped, breathing out in a harsh burst that sounded almost like a chuckle, and opened his eyes. Lifting his head, he saw a man who couldn't possibly be standing before him. Not that he knew who he was, or where the man should have been; he just knew that a man wearing buffalo hide pants, a ceremonial headdress, and nothing else, had no business standing in a MASH unit in Baghdad.
"Who- who are you?" Makah stammered.
The mystery man did not answer.
Makah laid his head back. "That was quick," he said, and began to laugh.
[NOW: Weapon X...]
Kavita scrambled to the end of the hallway. She still had not gotten a good look at the thing that was stalking her, but she hoped to keep it that way. She focused instead on trying to locate a way towards the entrance of the compound, and hopefully, more survivors.
She caught sight of a pool of blood lying beneath a pile of rubble, and she dropped to her knees beside it, working with her uninjured arm to try and clear some of the rubble. Within a short time, she found the source, the arm of one of Stryker's men. The hand was limp, and she grabbed it by the wrist to try and find a pulse. It was there, but it was weak. She continued to shift what rubble she could, and eventually pulled a semi-large piece of concrete away from his head. His face was still, almost serene, and Kavita was convinced that the heartbeat she had felt must have been the man's last when he suddenly shifted within the rubble, his eyes flying wide with fright.
"What happened?" the soldier gasped. He tried to move, but winced in pain. "Oh, God, I'm hit."
Kavita continued to try to free him. "What is your name, soldier?"
"Van Patrick... Michael van Patrick, ma'am." He tried to shift again, and realized he was pinned. "I think my legs are broken."
"Stay still, Michael," Kavita said, estimating by the blood that his legs were a lot more than broken. "My name is Kavita, I am a Doctor. I'm going to try to get you out of here, but I need to know if you have a weapon on you."
"Yes ma'am," he grunted. "I think I'm laying on my rifle. I have a- a sidearm on my belt, right side. Why do you need a weapon?"
His entire right side was currently under more concrete than Kavita thought she'd ever be able to move even with two good arms.
"There is an intruder in the base, Michael. I don't know how it got in here, but it does not look friendly. I need you to see if you can get either of your weapons free."
Michael tried half-heartedly to lift himself, but Kavita could see that the boy had lost too much blood, and that the life was ebbing from him slowly. "I... can't, ma'am. I'm sorry."
"It's okay, Michael," she replied. "I'm going to try to shift some more of the rubble, maybe-"
"I'm sorry," Michael whispered. "I'm sorry, Pop. I let you down. Poppa, I'm sorry. Pop..."
Kavita cast aside the small piece of rubble she had been lifting and felt for a pulse. There was none. She set down the hand and stared at it for a brief moment.
[FOURTEEN YEARS AGO: Walter Reed Army Medical Center...]
Makah looked down at the place where he used to have a right hand for what felt like an eternity. Attached to his stump of a right forearm, a crude plastic receptacle connected him to an ugly pair of hooked metal tongs. There were others in the hospital who had the same prosthesis, and they all seemed to simply accept that this is what passed for an artificial hand. There were distant rumblings of advances in robotics, miniaturization, and additive manufacturing and machining by private companies and visionaries like Dean Kamen, but most of the advanced tech he was looking for was still being used exclusively by the government and shadow organizations.
So why not use his own brain to create what he needed instead? He had always been smart kid, and with the pension the army would be providing and his own insurance, he wasn't going to need a day job. He could dedicate all of his time to create a new hand and leg for himself. The leg would be relatively simple compared to the hand; he already had an idea about a prosthetic leg that was similar to a leaf spring.
"We're gonna miss you, Makah," the nurse said, giving him a warm yet still appropriate embrace, "but we're glad you get to go home."
"Thanks, Tanya," he said, smiling at her. "I'll miss you too." He watched her look back over her shoulder and wrinkle her nose as she left. Tanya was one of his favorite nurses. She was intelligent, well read, and confident about her job. She also had a cute little habit of wrinkling her nose up at him when he made a joke that she deemed inappropriate to laugh out loud at. Best of all, she didn't treat him like an invalid, even though he had become one. He debated calling out to her as she turned the corner into the hallway, perhaps asking her if she'd like to get a drink, but froze at what he saw.
"What are you doing here?" Makah hissed. "I told you to go away."
The mystery man stood, silent.
"You're not really there," Makah said.
The mystery man stood, silent.
"Stop it."
Tanya stepped back into view, and Makah shook his head rapidly to clear his vision.
"You say something, Makah?"
Makah shook his head and grabbed his duffel bag. "No, just saying goodbye to this room," he lied. Tanya wrinkled her nose and stepped back down the hall.
The mystery man was gone.
[NOW: Weapon X...]
Kavita looked down at her wrist. It had begun to swell, and there was a nasty purple bruise forming. The task of taking off her lab coat, arduous with only one good arm, hadn't helped the pain; in fact, it had only exacerbated it, but she felt that covering poor Michael's face was the decent thing to do.
She looked around again at the rubble that choked the hallway. Sparking wires dangled down from the ceiling, casting eerie flashes of light on the now alien landscape of the demolished lab complex. She was originally disoriented by the complete transformation of the normally pristine area into this smashed Hell-scape, but she was starting to get her bearings back. She stepped tentatively towards the main hallway. The South stairwell should be somewhere beyond the considerable but not insurmountable pile of concrete and rebar rising from the floor like a mountain ridge, and she knew stairwells tended to be stronger in construction than the other parts of a building.
She managed to summit the rubble pile without banging her aching left arm, but her head was beginning to throb. She once again touched the wound to her scalp. The bleeding had stopped, which was a Godsend, but the pain was deepening. A concussion would explain the memory problems she was having, but something didn't add up. She had heard that traumatic events were often a cause of short term memory loss, but the event was not hazy in any way. She still remembered very clearly what had happened just a few minutes ago... or what is an hour? The things she was having trouble with were seemingly specific. Wasn't there another doctor on the research team? Why couldn't she remember him? Why did her memories of the tests she performed on subjects show conspicuous empty spaces in the onlookers gallery? Why were the gaps in testing so oddly spaced when they were usually like clockwork?
Could Makah Greycrow's attack have wiped some of her memories? Greycrow... she didn't remember seeing him move after the... explosion, for lack of a better word, and that meant he'd still be in the epicenter. She turned on her perch on Mount Rubble and looked back at where the lab should be. If he hadn't moved, that's where she'd find him. And perhaps Charles and his brother.
She looked once more at the juncture of hallways, where the doorway to the South stairwell stood. That creature was still somewhere in here. Even if Greycrow had summoned it, and knew what it was, that didn't mean he would be able to control it, or do anything to stop it. The stairwell would at least take her further from the last known position of that beast, but she needed to know. If Charles was still alive. If Cain Marko was still alive. If Makah Greycrow was still alive. She made her way back to the covered body Michael van Patrick and shoved hard against the block pinning him. The rubble shifted slightly, but wouldn't give.
It was then that she noticed that young Mr. van Patrick couldn't have been laying on top of his rifle, because it had clattered to the ground beside him and was resting under a light layer of concrete fragments. She picked the rifle out of the debris and set out, hoping to all the Gods in Heaven that she wouldn't have to use it.
[ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Dallas, Texas...]
Makah walked through the sliding glass doors of his office with a smile. The new prototype hand, the Skywalker, was ready, and he had come in under his budget as well. He held up his hand, examining the old prosthesis that had replaced the hook he got in Walter Reed. This model, nicknamed The Rotwang for the mad scientist in Metropolis but officially christened the Dextrous by the Marketing Department, had been on the market since he perfected it, and his company had blossomed from a garage tinkering start up to a successful business because of it. They could have become a Fortune 500 company had he followed the advice of his financial adviser, but Makah knew the hand was destined for obsolescence the moment he had finished it, because already the ideas for improvements had stormed his brain, and he insisted that the price be kept affordable for everybody in need.
The Skywalker would make the Rotwang look like a hook on a stick. This one would cost more, but thanks to the advent of what some were calling 3-D Printing, Makah was confident it could still be kept affordable. He was a firm believer that things like this, something that could help make the world a better place for so many, demanded to be shared.
He depressed the tabs on the Rotwang and twisted it away from his body, the hand disconnecting with an audible clink. He set it down in the small cradle and closed the box. He would donate it to a veteran's hospital so that another soldier wouldn't have to deal with the hooks that hadn't quite become extinct yet, at least not until his manufacturing was able to crank out enough hands to fill every need. He then picked up the new hand and smiled as he admired it in the sun streaming through his skylight. The hand was lighter, more durable, and had better sensitivity than the old one, and it looked more like a natural hand. He set it into the receptacle on his wrist and twisted it into place. The hand powered up, its fingers cycling through their start up sequence, the servomotors quickly and quietly calibrating. At last, the hand flexed twice in rapid succession and was still, the sign that it was ready for use.
Makah smiled as he turned his new appendage over, marveling over the simulated skin texture that had created, twiddling the fingers in the beam of sunlight. As he turned to walk behind the desk, his eyes looked beyond his hand and he stopped. "You," he said, letting his arm drop to his sides and turning to sit behind his desk. "Look, old man, I told you I'm not interested in spirit visions, or whatever else you're trying to sell me."
The mystery man stood, silent, as he had almost every day for the past four years. In all that time, Makah had only heard him say one word; "Greycrow." He had become a silent, constant companion that Makah neither needed or appreciated.
Makah looked up again, and this time, there was a second visitor. This one was dressed in a charcoal grey suit with a crimson shirt and a purple tie.
"God!" Makah said with a start.
"No," the other person said, "but I like to think I understand him better than most."
Makah stood. "Who are you? What do you want?"
"Rest assured, Mr. Greycrow, I mean you no harm. My name is Erik Lensherr. I am- was- an acquaintance of your father, John Greycrow. And as for what I want... Well, what I want is to tell you a story. A story about what really happened to your father."
[NOW: Weapon X...]
Kavita saw Makah lying on the ground not far from where he had dropped to his knees after his initial attack. It appeared that he had simply fallen unconscious; Kavita could see no trace of external injury or cause for loss of consciousness. She grabbed him by the shoulder and rolled him roughly onto his back, and his eyes fluttered open.
"Did it work?" he whispered.
"Whatever it was you did, it destroyed the lab!" Kavita said angrily, picking up the rifle and pointing it at him. The weight of it was unfamiliar to her, and her lack of a second functional hand made the barrel waver wildly in front of him. "I know at least one person is dead because of you and your demon."
"Dead? Wait, destroyed? No, that shouldn't have happened. That spell wasn't supposed to have any destructive elements," he said, rising to a sitting position.
"Well, it did, you evil bastard! Who knows how many you've killed in your attack!"
"Point that somewhere else," he said. "Or, at least if you want to threaten me, take the safety off."
She stared at him for a few seconds, her eyes betraying her inexperience, and looked down. He smacked the barrel to the right, and Kavita lost her grip on the rifle, uttering a dismayed cry as it clattered to the ground next to him. He scooped it up deftly and rose to his feet, sliding the safety to the live position. He stared at her for a long moment, and then reversed the rifle, handing it back to her. "And if you want to kill me, go ahead. I know that's what you and Xavier's other cronies do best!"
Kavita stared at him, dumbfounded for a moment, and then grabbed the rifle's grip. She didn't point it at him, however. "I don't know what you are talking about. But I know one of Lensherr's zealots when I see them."
"I'm not Brotherhood, lady. Magneto and his stooges are almost as bad as your organization."
There was another crunching sound as the rubble around them shifted again. Kavita swung the rifle in that direction, but winced when it over swung and wrenched her good wrist. "Listen to me!" she said. "Whatever it is that you summoned is stalking me! I've seen it! Call it off, or I will shoot you!"
"What are you talking about, lady? I didn't 'summon' anything. That spell I cast was not designed to blow things up or bring monsters from the under world. It was an energy dispersal spell."
"And all of this was just a coincidence?" Charles spoke from the doorway.
"You!" Makah sneered. "You killed muhk-"
"I know what you think I did, Makah Greycrow," Charles said, violently seizing control of Makah's motor functions. "I see it as clearly as if you drew it on your forehead with a magic marker. But I can assure you, my association with your father ended when he left Weapon X." He stepped over to Kavita and held out his hands. "Give me that rifle, Kavita. You're hurt."
Kavita handed the weapon to Charles and slumped, relieved to be rid of its burden. "I think it is only a fracture," she said. "Charles, there's something loose in the base."
"I see it in your mind. He is not responsible for it, though, at least not that he is aware of. Makah, I did not kill your father. The man who told you that is Erik Lensherr. He was a test subject here, just as your father was. The only difference was that Erik's test was successful, but traumatic. He blames me for that, and will say anything to get someone to do his dirty work for him, so he seeks out kindred souls, those who have a connection to Weapon X and uses them as a weapon. I didn't kill your father. If anyone in this organization was responsible for his death, it was Fred Duncan, the former director, but he has been punished far worse than you can imagine. Killing me will achieve nothing."
"I didn't come here to kill you," Makah said, laughing. "I'm not a murderer. The spell I cast did not have any destructive elements. No, Xavier, that spell was designed to bring down Weapon X figuratively, not literally."
There was a sudden tremor through the building. They all looked at the ceiling and watched as little clouds of dust and particulate debris drifted down. A pile of rubble in the corner began to shift. Charles took a tentative step towards the pile, his hand at his temple. "My God, it's Cain! Cain, can you-"
The pile exploded outward, shrapnel flying at incredible speeds. Makah was knocked back by a flying chunk of debris to his chest. Kavita screamed, ducking her head under her good arm, and dropped down to the ground. Charles ducked his head, and was pelted with tiny fragments of stone, but escaped any serious damage from the burst. He turned back and his blood ran cold at what he saw.
Cain Marko rose slowly from the rubble, emerging like a volcano being driven up from the sea floor. A tall and well built individual to begin with, he now stood at least seven feet tall and weighed in at over four hundred pounds. His uniform was in tatters, hanging off his frame like the sail of a shipwreck that had come to rest on a massive stone. When he finally reached a full standing position, his eyes snapped open.
They glowed orange, like coals from a fire.
[TEN YEARS AGO: The Arizona Desert...]
Makah stood looking at the tremendous plateau before him. It seemed absurdly large, and he thought that if there really were something this large in the United States that he would have learned about it in history class.
"The plateau exists, but not entirely in this realm," a voice spoke from behind him.
Makah screamed, turning around suddenly. His silent companion had finally spoken. "Damn it, you have to stop doing that! You gave me- wait, did you just talk?"
The stranger, still wearing the same ceremonial headdress and hide pants, merely stared.
"What only one sentence every five years?" Makah said, laughing as he shook his head. "Why do I bother, when you're not really here?"
The stranger held out his hand reaching for Makah, and poked him in the chest. Makah flinched as if a bullet had nearly struck him.
"Jesus, you're real? Who are you?"
"My name is Naze," he spoke, "and I am your teacher."
[NOW: Weapon X...]
Marko held out a hand. In it was the Cytorite fragment, now looking like a mere chip in his massive hand. "This," he said, his voice sounding deep and rumbling, like the cover of a stone crypt being slid back. "You were going to expose me... to this."
"Cain?" Charles said, staring in wonder. "My God, Cain, what-"
"YOU," Marko interrupted, his voice increasing in volume while still remaining an impossibly low pitch, "WERE GOING... TO EXPOSE ME... TO THIS."
Charles put his hand up to the side of his head. "Cain, you have to calm down," he said, trying to send it telepathically as well.
"Your tricks... will not work... on ME!" Marko bellowed, reaching out and grabbing Charles with his free hand. "This thing... it is more ancient than you can possibly fathom. I see its origins, from the moment it fell to Earth, right to the moment I liberated it from its prison. It is an ancient evil, and you were going to shine it on me like a flashlight!" he screamed, holding Charles up to his face. Heat baked off him like a furnace. "You were my brother, Charles! I took care of you! I stood up to my own father to protect you! I trusted you! I loved you! And you betray me! Damn you, Charles!" He spun him around, holding him out in front of him by the back of his collar like a kitten, and impaled him through the lower back with the Cytorite fragment.
[ONE YEAR AGO: Arizona...]
"There are worlds within worlds within worlds, little crow. You've lifted the veil between them and glimpsed at what lies beyond. You have seen dimensions only dreamed of, and manipulated energies that come from the Gods themselves. You are now ready to act as the gateway for these energies."
"I am ready," Makah said, "to do what must be done."
"Excellent, little crow. Now you are ready to fly. And to be the first of your murder into the skies."
[NOW: Weapon X...]
Marko ripped the fragment out of Charles and held him up like a trophy. "I am done protecting you, brother. I am going to do to you what I should have let my father do years ago." He reared his hand back, meaning to smash Charles' skull to pieces with a single blow, when a dark shadowy blur rocketed from the rubble and grabbed Charles, tearing him from Marko's grasp.
Kavita was instantly filled with terror at the sight of the monster that had been chasing her since the explosion.
"Back away!" the monster screamed.
Now that she had a good look at it, she realized that it only appeared to be black and featureless in the dim lights of the ruined lab. It was actually more of an indigo color, and its hazy outline was because the creature was coated in fur.
Marko charged forward, but the indigo creature leaped at him, swinging a conduit pipe that it had grabbed from the wreckage and connecting with the side of Marko's head.
Marko sneered at the new-comer, his teeth gleaming the flickering lights. "You. Step aside."
"Marko," the creature hissed, "I can't let you do this."
"Juggernaut!" Magnum called out.
Marko spun at hearing his old nickname, and straightened his posture when he saw his old army buddy standing in the doorway. "Moses," he seethed.
"That crystal has you all hopped up, my friend. We have to take care of that," he said, pointing his hand at Marko's hand that was clutching the Cytorite. The air itself seemed to ripple, as if wafting from an oven, and the crystal began to vibrate rapidly.
After a few seconds, it fragmented, piercing Marko's hand. He screamed in agony and let go of the pieces, which dropped to the floor. Suddenly, the room began to shake again, and a large crack opened up in the floor. The crystals rattled on the shaking surface until they tipped over the edge, plummeting into the giant chasm that had opened beneath it.
"NO!" Marko screamed, diving after them.
Sergeant Magnum slumped, visibly exhausted. The creature looked at them cautiously, and then pointed at Charles. "We need to help him."
"Who are you?" Kavita gasped.
"This is going to sound strange, but you know me. My name is Hank McCoy. I was a scientist at the lab here, but I have been wiped from your memory. I can explain everything to you later, but we need to get Charles some help."
"He's telling the truth," Charles said, his teeth clenched in pain. "I see it in his mind. I don't remember him, but he knows us. He means us no harm."
"Charles," Kavita said, "can you move?"
"My back," he said quietly. "Cain must have broken it."
Hank looked at Magnum. "How did you do that?"
"I... I don't know," he said. "I started to see all sorts of lines in my vision. There were a ton of them emanating from that crystal, and they were cycling into Cain's head. I just reached out and grabbed them, and the crystal snapped."
Charles looked at Magnum for a moment, puzzled, and then at Makah, who was getting back to his feet.
"What was that spell?"
Makah looked at Charles and shook his head. "You think you can play God," he said, "decide who gets to live, and who gets to die. You don't have the right to make that choice. You don't have the right to decide who gets God-like powers, and who doesn't."
"What have you done?" Charles said, a slow, creeping comprehension dawning in his mind.
"I shared it," Makah said, "I shared the power with everyone in the world."
"My God," Hank said. "Cytorite... without the harnessing technology... without the controlled environment... Charles."
"The entire world has just been exposed to the Cytorite radiation without the benefit of preparation or precaution. It will be bedlam." He turned his head to Makah. "You may have succeeded in ending all of civilization."
"What are you talking about?" Makah asked. "The Brotherhood doesn't have the same preparation that you do, and their followers are fine."
"The Brotherhood?" Kavita questioned. "I thought you said you weren't with them!"
"I'm not," he replied, "but I know that their powers come from the same source as yours; Cytorite radiation."
"The Brotherhood uses Cytorite..." Charles began, his question becoming a statement as he realized the full impact of what he was hearing. "That means it isn't the Weapon X treatments at all. The Weapon X treatments only serve as a way to control those powers. And we accomplish the same results as the Brotherhood, so the extensive prayer and meditation isn't required either. There must be some other purpose to it."
"We can work on that later," Hank said. "We need to get out of here, and get Charles to a hospital."
"Just a moment, Dr. McCoy," Charles said. "If you were erased from our memories, it must have been for a reason; why are you still here?"
"I couldn't leave you, Charles. I came back to get you out of here. If you stay here, Stryker will lock you up, turn you into a weapon."
"I can confirm that," Magnum said. "He's determined to turn any remaining volunteers into trained killers."
"We can't stay," Hank said, "but we can't leave."
"I can get us out," Magnum said, reaching out with a tentative hand to stroke lines that only he could see. "I think I'm starting to understand how to control this. I won't go back to Stryker now, with what I can do. He'll put a leash on me."
"They'll still hunt us down," Makah said.
"Not if you're dead," Kavita said. "I saw you all vaporized in the blast; or at least, I will remember it that way. Right, Charles?"
Charles smiled a sad smile at her, placing his hand against his temple. "That's just the way you'll remember it, Kavita."
[LATER: Medical Triage, Outside The Remains of the Weapon X Facility...]
"Dr. Rao," Stryker said, his anger apparent on his face, despite the bandages on his cheek, "You mean to tell me that a magical explosion killed Xavier, Marko, the terrorist Greycrow and Sergeant Magnum, but somehow spared you?"
Kavita turned to Stryker with intensity in her eyes, the medical team splinting her arm. Her head was shrouded in bandages. "I don't know why I was spared. I can only tell you what I remember."
Stryker looked at her for a long time, taking in the woman's face. She wasn't lying. He had interrogated enough people in his life to know that this woman was telling the truth. Besides, Magnum was a good soldier, which is why he was on the security detail in the first place. If he was still alive, he would have made sure the doctor had gotten to safety, but she instead came crawling out of the stairwell alone and broken. But still, something didn't sit right.
He turned as another soldier walked up to him. "Colonel Stryker," he said, snapping off a quick salute. "The deep cover Weapon X Agents have been recalled, and are waiting for you in the command tent."
Stryker nodded and strode to the tent. "Charles Xavier could have changed her memories," he thought to himself. "He could still be out there." He ducked into the tent and six agents were waiting for him.
"Gentlemen," Stryker said, "You've been recalled because there has been an attack. As of right now, Weapon X is officially off the grid. You work for me now. You six are now the last remaining active agents that we have, and for the time being, all covert operations are suspended. Your new primary mission is the location and apprehension of the terrorist Makah Greycrow, and any and all accomplices. I believe he may still be alive, and Charles Xavier may be in league with him; if so, you are authorized to use any necessary measures to neutralize him. Now, I need a briefing, and my laptop is currently under sixty tons of rubble. So sound off, and let me know what you can do."
"Christoph Nord. Code name: Agent Zero. Absorption and conversion of kinetic energy."
"John Wraith, Kestral. Teleportation."
"Frank Simpson, a.k.a. Nuke. Cybernetics, secondary heart that increases my adrenal response."
"Garrison Kane. You can just call me Kane. Cybernetic weapon-adaptable arms."
"Wade Wilson, Deadpool, Leo. Likes: long moonlit walks on the beach, trip-hop, and reading comic book fan fiction; Dislikes: women who are taller than me, people who misuse the word literally, and the British."
Stryker looked at him for a long moment, a bemused smile on his face. "You're a real smart-ass, aren't you Wilson?"
"Indeed, Sir. It's something they've tried to beat out of me, but I just heal faster than they can injure me, so it doesn't work."
"He'll get the job done," the final agent said.
"And you are?" Stryker asked.
"James Logan," Logan replied, "but you can call me Wolverine."
[EPILOGUE: Above the Weapon X Offsite Containment Facility, Code Name: The Alley...]
Just yesterday, Tommi Teuten had been so excited that her hair, normally growing exclusively in alternating bands of pink, yellow and robin's egg blue, had begun to grow in lavender. She was living in a small apartment in Queens, she had a job, and she had just met who she thought was an amazing, really nice guy. She had almost gotten to the point where she could set aside her past as a lab rat for Weapon X, and her subsequent incarceration in the Alley for the crime of having odd oscillating colored skin and hair, which made her useless as a covert operative. Like the others from the Alley, she would never pass for normal, but so long as she wore long sleeves and gloves and a heavy dose of foundation, her hair could just be an elaborate dye job, one that actually got her a lot of complements. Lavender was a change, and it was a welcome one. Her days of being Silk had been far behind her. How foolish that feeling seemed now.
Now she was running for her life back to the festering sinkhole prison she had escaped two years ago. She had let her guard down, and the nice guy turned out to be someone not so nice. She panicked, and in her panic, fled to the last place she had felt completely protected, even if it was at the cost of her personal freedom. She ran as fast as she could muster, which was not very, given the length of time she had been running. Her beautiful hair flowed behind her, looking mostly gray in the pale moonlight. She knew there was a chance that he was following her, but she was operating on instinct.
Would they even let her back in? Callisto had been merciful in letting her go, but Masque was livid. Callisto argued that Tommi could get out without difficulty, could pass for close enough to normal to avoid detection, and that she deserved to live a better life than the Alley could provide. Masque had angrily promised that she would be back, Tommi swore that she never would.
She stopped, gasping, at the hidden entrance to the air shaft that she had used so long ago to escape. Flattening herself, she slipped between the bars, and clambored down the tunnel.
"Who's there?" a voice said, and a man turned the far corner. He stopped short when he saw Tommi, and took a step backwards before pausing.
"Zeek!" Tommi said, "where's Callisto?"
"Silk?" Zeek said, calling her by her Morlock name, looking her up and down. "Jeez, girl, is that you? Hey," he said, pointing at her hair, "is that lavender?"
"Zeek, please, there are people after me, I need to talk to Callisto!"
"Masque said that you weren't allowed back in. I can't-"
There was a shrill whistle as something sliced through the air near her head. Zeek suddenly stumbled back, looking down. A shuriken was embedded halfway in his chest.
"T-Tommi?" he said, and collapsed.
Tommi turned, her eyes wide with fright. "Idiot," she thought to herself, "you led them right to it. How could you? You promised them."
A man emerged from the shadows. "Scalphunter, this is Riptide, I'm in. Any significant resistance has been neutralized. Move in."
Tommi turned to run, but suddenly the tunnel swam away from her, and she collapsed to the ground.
"Ah, ah ah," Questad said, "can't have you running away to warn the rest of the urchins. Vertigo has you seeing all sorts of pretty sights right now, I'm sure."
Tommi lay in the muck, unable to focus, watching as the world cartwheeled in her vision. She vomited her lunch up. As she looked up, she saw the hazy outline of a woman with green hair. These were the friends her nice guy was talking about. "D-damn you," she said, spitting clumps of vomit from her mouth. "God damn you, Remy."
"Aw, chere," her nice guy said, emerging from the shadows, "it's nothin' personal. I'm the advance man, it's my job to find out where to go. If it means anything to you, I really do think your hair is tres jolie."
"Nice job, gumbo," Creed said, stepping up and resting a claw beneath Tommi's ear. "Say goodnight, papergirl!"
Tommi instinctively activated her power, flattening herself into a two dimensional form, but Creed drew his claw hard, slashing her. Her head, now just a picture of a face drawn out in an eternal scream, floated down, coming to a rest in the sewage, while her body draped over Creed's arm.
The remaining Marauders emerged from the shadows of the air shaft.
"Okay, Marauders," Greycrow said, "Leftwich came through for us, now we hold up our end of the deal. We go in, and we don't leave until the Morlocks are dead!"
[To Be Continued!]
The world was on fire. Screams of pain bombarded the walls of his mind, both from within and without. His own screams were fighting to well up out of him like lava from a fissure, but he willed himself not to give in.
It transcended mere physical pain. The I.E.D. that had set off the ambush had taken him out, but he was still alive. The rest of his patrol could not say the same. The medic, a nice-enough kid named Ellis Garvey from Redmond, Washington, had saved his life and was radioing for evac when his helmet- and with it, the top of his head- was removed by a piece of shrapnel. He watched as the heavy weapons expert, a massive mountain of a man who went by the nickname D-Rock, bled to death in front of him, trying to claw his way in the dirt to cover. Eventually, air support had arrived, but by the time reinforcements arrived, only Makah and the sarge, a burly man named Kowalski, were left alive. By the time they were in the Humvee and bouncing over the cratered roads back to the forward operating position, it was only Makah.
His anguish at seeing those he had come to love as brothers slaughtered before him hurt almost as much as the searing, maddening burning at the end of his leg, which was now a stump located just South of his pelvis. He felt as if the entire limb were still attached, drenched in napalm, and then besieged by fire ants from Hell.
Several times he had tried to claw at the bandages, only to find that his fingers couldn't feel the fabric. It took him a few tries to realize that it was because his fingers, along with the hand they had resided on and a good portion of his forearm, were all blown off in the blast.
He felt his own sanity slipping. A scream, suppressed for as long as he could manage, began to build in his chest. He couldn't fight it, not when his defenses were besieged on all sides by the screams of the other wounded soldiers. He decided to let the madness that was building inside him take him. He didn't know how quickly reality would cease to mean anything to him, but the quicker the better. He drew in his breath to give voice to the scream and was about to release it when he heard a voice.
"Greycrow."
He stopped, breathing out in a harsh burst that sounded almost like a chuckle, and opened his eyes. Lifting his head, he saw a man who couldn't possibly be standing before him. Not that he knew who he was, or where the man should have been; he just knew that a man wearing buffalo hide pants, a ceremonial headdress, and nothing else, had no business standing in a MASH unit in Baghdad.
"Who- who are you?" Makah stammered.
The mystery man did not answer.
Makah laid his head back. "That was quick," he said, and began to laugh.
[NOW: Weapon X...]
Kavita scrambled to the end of the hallway. She still had not gotten a good look at the thing that was stalking her, but she hoped to keep it that way. She focused instead on trying to locate a way towards the entrance of the compound, and hopefully, more survivors.
She caught sight of a pool of blood lying beneath a pile of rubble, and she dropped to her knees beside it, working with her uninjured arm to try and clear some of the rubble. Within a short time, she found the source, the arm of one of Stryker's men. The hand was limp, and she grabbed it by the wrist to try and find a pulse. It was there, but it was weak. She continued to shift what rubble she could, and eventually pulled a semi-large piece of concrete away from his head. His face was still, almost serene, and Kavita was convinced that the heartbeat she had felt must have been the man's last when he suddenly shifted within the rubble, his eyes flying wide with fright.
"What happened?" the soldier gasped. He tried to move, but winced in pain. "Oh, God, I'm hit."
Kavita continued to try to free him. "What is your name, soldier?"
"Van Patrick... Michael van Patrick, ma'am." He tried to shift again, and realized he was pinned. "I think my legs are broken."
"Stay still, Michael," Kavita said, estimating by the blood that his legs were a lot more than broken. "My name is Kavita, I am a Doctor. I'm going to try to get you out of here, but I need to know if you have a weapon on you."
"Yes ma'am," he grunted. "I think I'm laying on my rifle. I have a- a sidearm on my belt, right side. Why do you need a weapon?"
His entire right side was currently under more concrete than Kavita thought she'd ever be able to move even with two good arms.
"There is an intruder in the base, Michael. I don't know how it got in here, but it does not look friendly. I need you to see if you can get either of your weapons free."
Michael tried half-heartedly to lift himself, but Kavita could see that the boy had lost too much blood, and that the life was ebbing from him slowly. "I... can't, ma'am. I'm sorry."
"It's okay, Michael," she replied. "I'm going to try to shift some more of the rubble, maybe-"
"I'm sorry," Michael whispered. "I'm sorry, Pop. I let you down. Poppa, I'm sorry. Pop..."
Kavita cast aside the small piece of rubble she had been lifting and felt for a pulse. There was none. She set down the hand and stared at it for a brief moment.
[FOURTEEN YEARS AGO: Walter Reed Army Medical Center...]
Makah looked down at the place where he used to have a right hand for what felt like an eternity. Attached to his stump of a right forearm, a crude plastic receptacle connected him to an ugly pair of hooked metal tongs. There were others in the hospital who had the same prosthesis, and they all seemed to simply accept that this is what passed for an artificial hand. There were distant rumblings of advances in robotics, miniaturization, and additive manufacturing and machining by private companies and visionaries like Dean Kamen, but most of the advanced tech he was looking for was still being used exclusively by the government and shadow organizations.
So why not use his own brain to create what he needed instead? He had always been smart kid, and with the pension the army would be providing and his own insurance, he wasn't going to need a day job. He could dedicate all of his time to create a new hand and leg for himself. The leg would be relatively simple compared to the hand; he already had an idea about a prosthetic leg that was similar to a leaf spring.
"We're gonna miss you, Makah," the nurse said, giving him a warm yet still appropriate embrace, "but we're glad you get to go home."
"Thanks, Tanya," he said, smiling at her. "I'll miss you too." He watched her look back over her shoulder and wrinkle her nose as she left. Tanya was one of his favorite nurses. She was intelligent, well read, and confident about her job. She also had a cute little habit of wrinkling her nose up at him when he made a joke that she deemed inappropriate to laugh out loud at. Best of all, she didn't treat him like an invalid, even though he had become one. He debated calling out to her as she turned the corner into the hallway, perhaps asking her if she'd like to get a drink, but froze at what he saw.
"What are you doing here?" Makah hissed. "I told you to go away."
The mystery man stood, silent.
"You're not really there," Makah said.
The mystery man stood, silent.
"Stop it."
Tanya stepped back into view, and Makah shook his head rapidly to clear his vision.
"You say something, Makah?"
Makah shook his head and grabbed his duffel bag. "No, just saying goodbye to this room," he lied. Tanya wrinkled her nose and stepped back down the hall.
The mystery man was gone.
[NOW: Weapon X...]
Kavita looked down at her wrist. It had begun to swell, and there was a nasty purple bruise forming. The task of taking off her lab coat, arduous with only one good arm, hadn't helped the pain; in fact, it had only exacerbated it, but she felt that covering poor Michael's face was the decent thing to do.
She looked around again at the rubble that choked the hallway. Sparking wires dangled down from the ceiling, casting eerie flashes of light on the now alien landscape of the demolished lab complex. She was originally disoriented by the complete transformation of the normally pristine area into this smashed Hell-scape, but she was starting to get her bearings back. She stepped tentatively towards the main hallway. The South stairwell should be somewhere beyond the considerable but not insurmountable pile of concrete and rebar rising from the floor like a mountain ridge, and she knew stairwells tended to be stronger in construction than the other parts of a building.
She managed to summit the rubble pile without banging her aching left arm, but her head was beginning to throb. She once again touched the wound to her scalp. The bleeding had stopped, which was a Godsend, but the pain was deepening. A concussion would explain the memory problems she was having, but something didn't add up. She had heard that traumatic events were often a cause of short term memory loss, but the event was not hazy in any way. She still remembered very clearly what had happened just a few minutes ago... or what is an hour? The things she was having trouble with were seemingly specific. Wasn't there another doctor on the research team? Why couldn't she remember him? Why did her memories of the tests she performed on subjects show conspicuous empty spaces in the onlookers gallery? Why were the gaps in testing so oddly spaced when they were usually like clockwork?
Could Makah Greycrow's attack have wiped some of her memories? Greycrow... she didn't remember seeing him move after the... explosion, for lack of a better word, and that meant he'd still be in the epicenter. She turned on her perch on Mount Rubble and looked back at where the lab should be. If he hadn't moved, that's where she'd find him. And perhaps Charles and his brother.
She looked once more at the juncture of hallways, where the doorway to the South stairwell stood. That creature was still somewhere in here. Even if Greycrow had summoned it, and knew what it was, that didn't mean he would be able to control it, or do anything to stop it. The stairwell would at least take her further from the last known position of that beast, but she needed to know. If Charles was still alive. If Cain Marko was still alive. If Makah Greycrow was still alive. She made her way back to the covered body Michael van Patrick and shoved hard against the block pinning him. The rubble shifted slightly, but wouldn't give.
It was then that she noticed that young Mr. van Patrick couldn't have been laying on top of his rifle, because it had clattered to the ground beside him and was resting under a light layer of concrete fragments. She picked the rifle out of the debris and set out, hoping to all the Gods in Heaven that she wouldn't have to use it.
[ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Dallas, Texas...]
Makah walked through the sliding glass doors of his office with a smile. The new prototype hand, the Skywalker, was ready, and he had come in under his budget as well. He held up his hand, examining the old prosthesis that had replaced the hook he got in Walter Reed. This model, nicknamed The Rotwang for the mad scientist in Metropolis but officially christened the Dextrous by the Marketing Department, had been on the market since he perfected it, and his company had blossomed from a garage tinkering start up to a successful business because of it. They could have become a Fortune 500 company had he followed the advice of his financial adviser, but Makah knew the hand was destined for obsolescence the moment he had finished it, because already the ideas for improvements had stormed his brain, and he insisted that the price be kept affordable for everybody in need.
The Skywalker would make the Rotwang look like a hook on a stick. This one would cost more, but thanks to the advent of what some were calling 3-D Printing, Makah was confident it could still be kept affordable. He was a firm believer that things like this, something that could help make the world a better place for so many, demanded to be shared.
He depressed the tabs on the Rotwang and twisted it away from his body, the hand disconnecting with an audible clink. He set it down in the small cradle and closed the box. He would donate it to a veteran's hospital so that another soldier wouldn't have to deal with the hooks that hadn't quite become extinct yet, at least not until his manufacturing was able to crank out enough hands to fill every need. He then picked up the new hand and smiled as he admired it in the sun streaming through his skylight. The hand was lighter, more durable, and had better sensitivity than the old one, and it looked more like a natural hand. He set it into the receptacle on his wrist and twisted it into place. The hand powered up, its fingers cycling through their start up sequence, the servomotors quickly and quietly calibrating. At last, the hand flexed twice in rapid succession and was still, the sign that it was ready for use.
Makah smiled as he turned his new appendage over, marveling over the simulated skin texture that had created, twiddling the fingers in the beam of sunlight. As he turned to walk behind the desk, his eyes looked beyond his hand and he stopped. "You," he said, letting his arm drop to his sides and turning to sit behind his desk. "Look, old man, I told you I'm not interested in spirit visions, or whatever else you're trying to sell me."
The mystery man stood, silent, as he had almost every day for the past four years. In all that time, Makah had only heard him say one word; "Greycrow." He had become a silent, constant companion that Makah neither needed or appreciated.
Makah looked up again, and this time, there was a second visitor. This one was dressed in a charcoal grey suit with a crimson shirt and a purple tie.
"God!" Makah said with a start.
"No," the other person said, "but I like to think I understand him better than most."
Makah stood. "Who are you? What do you want?"
"Rest assured, Mr. Greycrow, I mean you no harm. My name is Erik Lensherr. I am- was- an acquaintance of your father, John Greycrow. And as for what I want... Well, what I want is to tell you a story. A story about what really happened to your father."
[NOW: Weapon X...]
Kavita saw Makah lying on the ground not far from where he had dropped to his knees after his initial attack. It appeared that he had simply fallen unconscious; Kavita could see no trace of external injury or cause for loss of consciousness. She grabbed him by the shoulder and rolled him roughly onto his back, and his eyes fluttered open.
"Did it work?" he whispered.
"Whatever it was you did, it destroyed the lab!" Kavita said angrily, picking up the rifle and pointing it at him. The weight of it was unfamiliar to her, and her lack of a second functional hand made the barrel waver wildly in front of him. "I know at least one person is dead because of you and your demon."
"Dead? Wait, destroyed? No, that shouldn't have happened. That spell wasn't supposed to have any destructive elements," he said, rising to a sitting position.
"Well, it did, you evil bastard! Who knows how many you've killed in your attack!"
"Point that somewhere else," he said. "Or, at least if you want to threaten me, take the safety off."
She stared at him for a few seconds, her eyes betraying her inexperience, and looked down. He smacked the barrel to the right, and Kavita lost her grip on the rifle, uttering a dismayed cry as it clattered to the ground next to him. He scooped it up deftly and rose to his feet, sliding the safety to the live position. He stared at her for a long moment, and then reversed the rifle, handing it back to her. "And if you want to kill me, go ahead. I know that's what you and Xavier's other cronies do best!"
Kavita stared at him, dumbfounded for a moment, and then grabbed the rifle's grip. She didn't point it at him, however. "I don't know what you are talking about. But I know one of Lensherr's zealots when I see them."
"I'm not Brotherhood, lady. Magneto and his stooges are almost as bad as your organization."
There was another crunching sound as the rubble around them shifted again. Kavita swung the rifle in that direction, but winced when it over swung and wrenched her good wrist. "Listen to me!" she said. "Whatever it is that you summoned is stalking me! I've seen it! Call it off, or I will shoot you!"
"What are you talking about, lady? I didn't 'summon' anything. That spell I cast was not designed to blow things up or bring monsters from the under world. It was an energy dispersal spell."
"And all of this was just a coincidence?" Charles spoke from the doorway.
"You!" Makah sneered. "You killed muhk-"
"I know what you think I did, Makah Greycrow," Charles said, violently seizing control of Makah's motor functions. "I see it as clearly as if you drew it on your forehead with a magic marker. But I can assure you, my association with your father ended when he left Weapon X." He stepped over to Kavita and held out his hands. "Give me that rifle, Kavita. You're hurt."
Kavita handed the weapon to Charles and slumped, relieved to be rid of its burden. "I think it is only a fracture," she said. "Charles, there's something loose in the base."
"I see it in your mind. He is not responsible for it, though, at least not that he is aware of. Makah, I did not kill your father. The man who told you that is Erik Lensherr. He was a test subject here, just as your father was. The only difference was that Erik's test was successful, but traumatic. He blames me for that, and will say anything to get someone to do his dirty work for him, so he seeks out kindred souls, those who have a connection to Weapon X and uses them as a weapon. I didn't kill your father. If anyone in this organization was responsible for his death, it was Fred Duncan, the former director, but he has been punished far worse than you can imagine. Killing me will achieve nothing."
"I didn't come here to kill you," Makah said, laughing. "I'm not a murderer. The spell I cast did not have any destructive elements. No, Xavier, that spell was designed to bring down Weapon X figuratively, not literally."
There was a sudden tremor through the building. They all looked at the ceiling and watched as little clouds of dust and particulate debris drifted down. A pile of rubble in the corner began to shift. Charles took a tentative step towards the pile, his hand at his temple. "My God, it's Cain! Cain, can you-"
The pile exploded outward, shrapnel flying at incredible speeds. Makah was knocked back by a flying chunk of debris to his chest. Kavita screamed, ducking her head under her good arm, and dropped down to the ground. Charles ducked his head, and was pelted with tiny fragments of stone, but escaped any serious damage from the burst. He turned back and his blood ran cold at what he saw.
Cain Marko rose slowly from the rubble, emerging like a volcano being driven up from the sea floor. A tall and well built individual to begin with, he now stood at least seven feet tall and weighed in at over four hundred pounds. His uniform was in tatters, hanging off his frame like the sail of a shipwreck that had come to rest on a massive stone. When he finally reached a full standing position, his eyes snapped open.
They glowed orange, like coals from a fire.
[TEN YEARS AGO: The Arizona Desert...]
Makah stood looking at the tremendous plateau before him. It seemed absurdly large, and he thought that if there really were something this large in the United States that he would have learned about it in history class.
"The plateau exists, but not entirely in this realm," a voice spoke from behind him.
Makah screamed, turning around suddenly. His silent companion had finally spoken. "Damn it, you have to stop doing that! You gave me- wait, did you just talk?"
The stranger, still wearing the same ceremonial headdress and hide pants, merely stared.
"What only one sentence every five years?" Makah said, laughing as he shook his head. "Why do I bother, when you're not really here?"
The stranger held out his hand reaching for Makah, and poked him in the chest. Makah flinched as if a bullet had nearly struck him.
"Jesus, you're real? Who are you?"
"My name is Naze," he spoke, "and I am your teacher."
[NOW: Weapon X...]
Marko held out a hand. In it was the Cytorite fragment, now looking like a mere chip in his massive hand. "This," he said, his voice sounding deep and rumbling, like the cover of a stone crypt being slid back. "You were going to expose me... to this."
"Cain?" Charles said, staring in wonder. "My God, Cain, what-"
"YOU," Marko interrupted, his voice increasing in volume while still remaining an impossibly low pitch, "WERE GOING... TO EXPOSE ME... TO THIS."
Charles put his hand up to the side of his head. "Cain, you have to calm down," he said, trying to send it telepathically as well.
"Your tricks... will not work... on ME!" Marko bellowed, reaching out and grabbing Charles with his free hand. "This thing... it is more ancient than you can possibly fathom. I see its origins, from the moment it fell to Earth, right to the moment I liberated it from its prison. It is an ancient evil, and you were going to shine it on me like a flashlight!" he screamed, holding Charles up to his face. Heat baked off him like a furnace. "You were my brother, Charles! I took care of you! I stood up to my own father to protect you! I trusted you! I loved you! And you betray me! Damn you, Charles!" He spun him around, holding him out in front of him by the back of his collar like a kitten, and impaled him through the lower back with the Cytorite fragment.
[ONE YEAR AGO: Arizona...]
"There are worlds within worlds within worlds, little crow. You've lifted the veil between them and glimpsed at what lies beyond. You have seen dimensions only dreamed of, and manipulated energies that come from the Gods themselves. You are now ready to act as the gateway for these energies."
"I am ready," Makah said, "to do what must be done."
"Excellent, little crow. Now you are ready to fly. And to be the first of your murder into the skies."
[NOW: Weapon X...]
Marko ripped the fragment out of Charles and held him up like a trophy. "I am done protecting you, brother. I am going to do to you what I should have let my father do years ago." He reared his hand back, meaning to smash Charles' skull to pieces with a single blow, when a dark shadowy blur rocketed from the rubble and grabbed Charles, tearing him from Marko's grasp.
Kavita was instantly filled with terror at the sight of the monster that had been chasing her since the explosion.
"Back away!" the monster screamed.
Now that she had a good look at it, she realized that it only appeared to be black and featureless in the dim lights of the ruined lab. It was actually more of an indigo color, and its hazy outline was because the creature was coated in fur.
Marko charged forward, but the indigo creature leaped at him, swinging a conduit pipe that it had grabbed from the wreckage and connecting with the side of Marko's head.
Marko sneered at the new-comer, his teeth gleaming the flickering lights. "You. Step aside."
"Marko," the creature hissed, "I can't let you do this."
"Juggernaut!" Magnum called out.
Marko spun at hearing his old nickname, and straightened his posture when he saw his old army buddy standing in the doorway. "Moses," he seethed.
"That crystal has you all hopped up, my friend. We have to take care of that," he said, pointing his hand at Marko's hand that was clutching the Cytorite. The air itself seemed to ripple, as if wafting from an oven, and the crystal began to vibrate rapidly.
After a few seconds, it fragmented, piercing Marko's hand. He screamed in agony and let go of the pieces, which dropped to the floor. Suddenly, the room began to shake again, and a large crack opened up in the floor. The crystals rattled on the shaking surface until they tipped over the edge, plummeting into the giant chasm that had opened beneath it.
"NO!" Marko screamed, diving after them.
Sergeant Magnum slumped, visibly exhausted. The creature looked at them cautiously, and then pointed at Charles. "We need to help him."
"Who are you?" Kavita gasped.
"This is going to sound strange, but you know me. My name is Hank McCoy. I was a scientist at the lab here, but I have been wiped from your memory. I can explain everything to you later, but we need to get Charles some help."
"He's telling the truth," Charles said, his teeth clenched in pain. "I see it in his mind. I don't remember him, but he knows us. He means us no harm."
"Charles," Kavita said, "can you move?"
"My back," he said quietly. "Cain must have broken it."
Hank looked at Magnum. "How did you do that?"
"I... I don't know," he said. "I started to see all sorts of lines in my vision. There were a ton of them emanating from that crystal, and they were cycling into Cain's head. I just reached out and grabbed them, and the crystal snapped."
Charles looked at Magnum for a moment, puzzled, and then at Makah, who was getting back to his feet.
"What was that spell?"
Makah looked at Charles and shook his head. "You think you can play God," he said, "decide who gets to live, and who gets to die. You don't have the right to make that choice. You don't have the right to decide who gets God-like powers, and who doesn't."
"What have you done?" Charles said, a slow, creeping comprehension dawning in his mind.
"I shared it," Makah said, "I shared the power with everyone in the world."
"My God," Hank said. "Cytorite... without the harnessing technology... without the controlled environment... Charles."
"The entire world has just been exposed to the Cytorite radiation without the benefit of preparation or precaution. It will be bedlam." He turned his head to Makah. "You may have succeeded in ending all of civilization."
"What are you talking about?" Makah asked. "The Brotherhood doesn't have the same preparation that you do, and their followers are fine."
"The Brotherhood?" Kavita questioned. "I thought you said you weren't with them!"
"I'm not," he replied, "but I know that their powers come from the same source as yours; Cytorite radiation."
"The Brotherhood uses Cytorite..." Charles began, his question becoming a statement as he realized the full impact of what he was hearing. "That means it isn't the Weapon X treatments at all. The Weapon X treatments only serve as a way to control those powers. And we accomplish the same results as the Brotherhood, so the extensive prayer and meditation isn't required either. There must be some other purpose to it."
"We can work on that later," Hank said. "We need to get out of here, and get Charles to a hospital."
"Just a moment, Dr. McCoy," Charles said. "If you were erased from our memories, it must have been for a reason; why are you still here?"
"I couldn't leave you, Charles. I came back to get you out of here. If you stay here, Stryker will lock you up, turn you into a weapon."
"I can confirm that," Magnum said. "He's determined to turn any remaining volunteers into trained killers."
"We can't stay," Hank said, "but we can't leave."
"I can get us out," Magnum said, reaching out with a tentative hand to stroke lines that only he could see. "I think I'm starting to understand how to control this. I won't go back to Stryker now, with what I can do. He'll put a leash on me."
"They'll still hunt us down," Makah said.
"Not if you're dead," Kavita said. "I saw you all vaporized in the blast; or at least, I will remember it that way. Right, Charles?"
Charles smiled a sad smile at her, placing his hand against his temple. "That's just the way you'll remember it, Kavita."
[LATER: Medical Triage, Outside The Remains of the Weapon X Facility...]
"Dr. Rao," Stryker said, his anger apparent on his face, despite the bandages on his cheek, "You mean to tell me that a magical explosion killed Xavier, Marko, the terrorist Greycrow and Sergeant Magnum, but somehow spared you?"
Kavita turned to Stryker with intensity in her eyes, the medical team splinting her arm. Her head was shrouded in bandages. "I don't know why I was spared. I can only tell you what I remember."
Stryker looked at her for a long time, taking in the woman's face. She wasn't lying. He had interrogated enough people in his life to know that this woman was telling the truth. Besides, Magnum was a good soldier, which is why he was on the security detail in the first place. If he was still alive, he would have made sure the doctor had gotten to safety, but she instead came crawling out of the stairwell alone and broken. But still, something didn't sit right.
He turned as another soldier walked up to him. "Colonel Stryker," he said, snapping off a quick salute. "The deep cover Weapon X Agents have been recalled, and are waiting for you in the command tent."
Stryker nodded and strode to the tent. "Charles Xavier could have changed her memories," he thought to himself. "He could still be out there." He ducked into the tent and six agents were waiting for him.
"Gentlemen," Stryker said, "You've been recalled because there has been an attack. As of right now, Weapon X is officially off the grid. You work for me now. You six are now the last remaining active agents that we have, and for the time being, all covert operations are suspended. Your new primary mission is the location and apprehension of the terrorist Makah Greycrow, and any and all accomplices. I believe he may still be alive, and Charles Xavier may be in league with him; if so, you are authorized to use any necessary measures to neutralize him. Now, I need a briefing, and my laptop is currently under sixty tons of rubble. So sound off, and let me know what you can do."
"Christoph Nord. Code name: Agent Zero. Absorption and conversion of kinetic energy."
"John Wraith, Kestral. Teleportation."
"Frank Simpson, a.k.a. Nuke. Cybernetics, secondary heart that increases my adrenal response."
"Garrison Kane. You can just call me Kane. Cybernetic weapon-adaptable arms."
"Wade Wilson, Deadpool, Leo. Likes: long moonlit walks on the beach, trip-hop, and reading comic book fan fiction; Dislikes: women who are taller than me, people who misuse the word literally, and the British."
Stryker looked at him for a long moment, a bemused smile on his face. "You're a real smart-ass, aren't you Wilson?"
"Indeed, Sir. It's something they've tried to beat out of me, but I just heal faster than they can injure me, so it doesn't work."
"He'll get the job done," the final agent said.
"And you are?" Stryker asked.
"James Logan," Logan replied, "but you can call me Wolverine."
[EPILOGUE: Above the Weapon X Offsite Containment Facility, Code Name: The Alley...]
Just yesterday, Tommi Teuten had been so excited that her hair, normally growing exclusively in alternating bands of pink, yellow and robin's egg blue, had begun to grow in lavender. She was living in a small apartment in Queens, she had a job, and she had just met who she thought was an amazing, really nice guy. She had almost gotten to the point where she could set aside her past as a lab rat for Weapon X, and her subsequent incarceration in the Alley for the crime of having odd oscillating colored skin and hair, which made her useless as a covert operative. Like the others from the Alley, she would never pass for normal, but so long as she wore long sleeves and gloves and a heavy dose of foundation, her hair could just be an elaborate dye job, one that actually got her a lot of complements. Lavender was a change, and it was a welcome one. Her days of being Silk had been far behind her. How foolish that feeling seemed now.
Now she was running for her life back to the festering sinkhole prison she had escaped two years ago. She had let her guard down, and the nice guy turned out to be someone not so nice. She panicked, and in her panic, fled to the last place she had felt completely protected, even if it was at the cost of her personal freedom. She ran as fast as she could muster, which was not very, given the length of time she had been running. Her beautiful hair flowed behind her, looking mostly gray in the pale moonlight. She knew there was a chance that he was following her, but she was operating on instinct.
Would they even let her back in? Callisto had been merciful in letting her go, but Masque was livid. Callisto argued that Tommi could get out without difficulty, could pass for close enough to normal to avoid detection, and that she deserved to live a better life than the Alley could provide. Masque had angrily promised that she would be back, Tommi swore that she never would.
She stopped, gasping, at the hidden entrance to the air shaft that she had used so long ago to escape. Flattening herself, she slipped between the bars, and clambored down the tunnel.
"Who's there?" a voice said, and a man turned the far corner. He stopped short when he saw Tommi, and took a step backwards before pausing.
"Zeek!" Tommi said, "where's Callisto?"
"Silk?" Zeek said, calling her by her Morlock name, looking her up and down. "Jeez, girl, is that you? Hey," he said, pointing at her hair, "is that lavender?"
"Zeek, please, there are people after me, I need to talk to Callisto!"
"Masque said that you weren't allowed back in. I can't-"
There was a shrill whistle as something sliced through the air near her head. Zeek suddenly stumbled back, looking down. A shuriken was embedded halfway in his chest.
"T-Tommi?" he said, and collapsed.
Tommi turned, her eyes wide with fright. "Idiot," she thought to herself, "you led them right to it. How could you? You promised them."
A man emerged from the shadows. "Scalphunter, this is Riptide, I'm in. Any significant resistance has been neutralized. Move in."
Tommi turned to run, but suddenly the tunnel swam away from her, and she collapsed to the ground.
"Ah, ah ah," Questad said, "can't have you running away to warn the rest of the urchins. Vertigo has you seeing all sorts of pretty sights right now, I'm sure."
Tommi lay in the muck, unable to focus, watching as the world cartwheeled in her vision. She vomited her lunch up. As she looked up, she saw the hazy outline of a woman with green hair. These were the friends her nice guy was talking about. "D-damn you," she said, spitting clumps of vomit from her mouth. "God damn you, Remy."
"Aw, chere," her nice guy said, emerging from the shadows, "it's nothin' personal. I'm the advance man, it's my job to find out where to go. If it means anything to you, I really do think your hair is tres jolie."
"Nice job, gumbo," Creed said, stepping up and resting a claw beneath Tommi's ear. "Say goodnight, papergirl!"
Tommi instinctively activated her power, flattening herself into a two dimensional form, but Creed drew his claw hard, slashing her. Her head, now just a picture of a face drawn out in an eternal scream, floated down, coming to a rest in the sewage, while her body draped over Creed's arm.
The remaining Marauders emerged from the shadows of the air shaft.
"Okay, Marauders," Greycrow said, "Leftwich came through for us, now we hold up our end of the deal. We go in, and we don't leave until the Morlocks are dead!"
[To Be Continued!]