The Ties That Bind

The Ties That Bind
9/9

Really, these sorts of things never come when you expect them to. Storm was outside, working in her garden when it happened. She was watering the plants, the drops sparkling in the sun as they fell, when she felt a presence above her. “Yes?” She asked, looking up.

She threw herself to the side just in time to avoid the knife arcing down towards her. As her attacker struggled to disentangle his weapon from the rose bush, she hit him with a gust of wind, watching as he landed against a tree.

She soared up into the air, surveying the grounds.

A loud clap of thunder rent the silence. “X-Men,” she called. “We are under attack.”

She counted eleven figures out in the open, including the one who had tried to kill her earlier. Goddess only knew how many more were under the cover of the woods, or already at the Mansion. If they’d managed to breach the perimeter security, then they could probably get into the house.

//There are nineteen in total,// came the Professor’s voice. //They’re wearing neuroinhibitors of some sort, so I can’t tell more than that. Unfortunately, that also means that I can’t knock them out.//

Storm’s mind started to race. Nineteen of them. She had Wolverine, Bishop, Betsy, Gambit, Bobby, and Marrow. Seven of her people, eight if you counted the Professor. But he wouldn’t be much of a help if their assailants were blocked from telepathic interference.

//I’ve communicated the information to the others,// Xavier continued.

Sweeping her hand out, she let a blast of lightning down at the group that she could see. They scattered. She followed it up with another bolt, forced to duck when one of them stood into its path and held up his arm, reflecting it back up at her.

//Professor, they are either mutants or are well enough equipped to posses reflective technology.//

//Understood.//

A pink blade took down one of the attackers, and Betsy bounded off looking for a new target.

//Ororo, Remy is on his way back. He was up in the...// Storm lost the rest of what the Professor was communicating, as she was dodging from the fence spike which had come flying towards her head. It came hurtled past her before correcting its course and arc back towards her. She dodged again, this time leaving her hand trailing to the side. She let it brush her skin, then fed a bolt of lightning into it, watching as the pieces fell towards the ground, gravity reasserting itself.

There was a thump on the roof from behind her.

//Sam and Dana’s plane is only ten minutes or so out, so back up will be arriving soon.//

If she’d had the choice, the two of them wouldn’t have been the reinforcements. Dana couldn't even beat the simplest Danger Room simulations, and her control over her powers was splotchy.

Storm turned to the roof, rotating gracefully in the air.

Sam was like Bobby. He wasn’t ruthless. He hated to hurt people. It made him a great person to be around, but right now she wanted someone like Pete Wisdom, or Cable.

Magneto was standing on the Mansion roof.

It figured.

*

Sam’s face was white beneath his golden thatch of hair. His fingers tapped against the control panel, the clicking of his nails audible over the jet’s engines. Dana finally slapped her hand down over his, pressing it against the cool metal. “That’s not helping us get there any faster, you know.”

He barely spared her a glance. He stopped tapping, however. He sat even more rigidly in the copilot’s chair.

“Look, by the time we get there, they’ll probably have the upper hand anyway. The way you guys tell it, you’re pros at this. They don’t need our help.”

“No offence Miss Scully, but that really doesn’t make me feel much better.” He watched her as she leant back against the bulkhead. “Not that ah don’t appreciate the effort, though.”

“Five more minutes guys,” the pilot said. “We’re almost there. Hang on for just a little while longer.” She looked, by the blue-ish tinge to her skin and purple eyes, to be one of the more obviously mutated beta or gamma glass mutants employed by Frost Industries in various positions.

Silence filled the plane until the Mansion came into sight.

“Look, Miss Scully,” Sam started, then paused. “Look, it might be better. . . What I’m trying to say is. . . Do you think that you can handle a fight?”

She started to reply angrily, tell him that she’d logged more field hours than he had, that her experience far outstripped his.

“It’s just that you haven’t had any training with the team, and the last time you ran simulations, you kinda... lost.”

She stopped herself from replying, turning his words over in her head. Did she have anything to add to a fight, or would she merely be in the way? Guns weren’t exactly the most useful things in these types of fights, due to the prevalence of powers that could interfere with the functioning of the weapon, or hijack the wielders body. “Sam,” she said finally, as they crossed over the fence that separated Xavier’s property. “I don’t think that I’m the same woman as the one who lost those sims, not really. Not anymore.”

And he smiled at her, a roguish grin that she would have been more likely to expect out of Remy. Then he led her out of the cockpit. As he hit a button on the control panel, the hatch opened, air rushing around them. “See you on the ground,” he told her as he stepped into thin air. She watched with no little jealousy as he arced down to the earth, which seemed so very far away.

She waited impatiently as the scene below her grow ever closer, resisting the impulse to lay her hand across her gun as the pilot spotted the landing area out back. And as the ground drew closer, she hoped that everyone was all right.

She was out of the plane the second that they’d slowed enough, rolling as she hit the ground. She could all ready see a few scattered figures lying on the ground, but none of them seemed to be the X-Men. Then something hit her from behind, and she was knocked flat to the ground. Twisting, she tried to throw the man off of her, but he outweighed her by several hundred pounds. She wondered how anyone that massive had managed to sneak up on her, even against the noise of the plane.

But now he had an arm around her throat and he was leaning into the back of her neck, and her breath was caught. What she could see of the world with her face pressed into the ground was going black, spots dancing across her vision.

She reached behind herself blindly, arm waving. Her hand caught bare skin, and she felt a pulse leave her fingers and enter her assailant’s system. She rolled out from under him as he gave one a shudder, lying on the grass until her wind returned.

“Not too bad, Remy?” She turned her head to look at the Cajun, who was standing off to one side, panting as if he’d been running for a long distance.

“Not too bad at all, Dana. Here I was, charging in on my white horse, and you had to go and rescue yourself.”

“It was a near thing,” she said, rubbing her throat. Then he offered a hand, pulling her up when she took it, and they headed towards the middle of the fight.

*

Charles Xavier sat in the kitchen, monitoring the progress of the fight.

These were the times he felt more useless than he ever did in the rest of his life.

“Hello Charles.” A voice came from behind him, chilling in its blankness.

“Erik.” Xavier said, turning his chair as he spoke, facing the man standing in the doorway. “I assume that this little attack is your doing.”

Magneto pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table, apparently unaware of the blood running from a cut in his forehead and down over the silver device attached to his temple. “You don’t know, do you?” he said with a laugh. “Oh yes, that’s right, this little baby does a very good job of keeping prying minds out.” He pointed in the general vicinity of the small silver disc. “This entire thing was Raven’s idea, actually. Her brain child. She was going to do it without me, but circumstances changed. You have yourself to thank for that, actually.” He paused a second, then a smile lit his face. “But enough of shop talk. How are you, Charles? It’s been forever since we’ve caught up.”

Xavier approached the table carefully, keeping off his face that when Magneto’s mood had changed, the neuroinhibitor had flickered, letting his thoughts through for a short time. “I’ve definitely been better,” he said, trying to keep the man he had once called a friend occupied.

He hoped that what had come through in the flicker was mangled by interference.

“What’s wrong, old friend?” Erik asked, unconsciously mirroring Xavier’s thoughts.

“As you no doubt know, I’ve lost a few of my students lately.”

“It’s always hard.” He paused again. “I really am sorry about Hank. It never should have gone that far. You have to understand, it wasn’t my intention. I didn’t plan for it. I had harsh words with Victor afterwards. The man really does need to learn to control that killing impulse. I just do hope that he can keep his senses about him. I left him and Mortimer in charge back at home. I’d hate to return to a slaughter.”

Xavier kept his face steady, and waited for another flicker. There had been one already, but it had been so short as to be useless. The neuroinhibitors were probably cheap, not made to withstand blood being dripped all over them.

But Magneto was waiting for Xavier to speak, so he pulled thoughts out of nowhere and began to talk. “He was one of my first, you know. He’d probably been through more than any of the others, the transformations, the loss of his science. Losing him, it was like the foundation of my world started to crumble. In the beginning, there were five. I spaced them around my dream, they were my pillars. They held it up, and the other students as they came built on top of them. A building can stand with two supports, Erik, but with one it becomes a miracle if it stays up. Losing Rogue set the entire thing wobbling, and I don’t know how long it’s going to be before it comes crashing down around my head.”

“Charles,” Magneto started, sympathy written across his face. The flicker started, and Xavier coiled his mind to strike.

Then Ororo appeared in the doorway, sweating and beaming. She didn’t see Magneto sitting at the table, and before Xavier could warn her, she called out to him. “Professor!” But before she got any farther, Magneto shot up from the table and pointed a hand at her. Her skin started to darken, and she screamed in pain. She loosed a lightning bolt from her hand towards her attacker, but he ducked and all she succeeded in doing was destroying the table.

And in a split second, Xavier realized what was going on.

He was pulling at the iron in her blood.

He was going to kill her.

Time seemed to slow down as the neuroinhibitor flickered, opening a small gap into Erik’s mind.

Xavier watched a bead of sweat roll down Erik’s face. He was aware of the smell of burning wood from the table that had survived everything until now.

Then he reached out and into the mind of the man who had once been his best friend, and twisted.

After it was done, Xavier moved over to Ororo. She was sitting against a wall, looking shaky. “It’s over,” she whispered. “We won.”

We won.

“Are you all right?”

Did we? Did we really?

“I’ll be fine,” she said, smiling. “I could use something to drink, though.”

Xavier rolled over to the counter and took a glass from the low cupboard. As he filled the cup with water, he scanned the grounds. All of the mercenaries, marked by null spots, seemed to be out of commission.

//X-Men, we appear to be done for the day,// he sent. //I’m in the kitchen with Storm, so if you could regroup here, perhaps.// He hoped that the last part had gotten through to Dana. He wanted someone to take a look at Ororo.

He handed the team leader the glass of water, then tried again to contact Dana. It was always so hard to know if he was getting through to her.

He half heard a door open, and returned to his attempted conversation as soon as he saw that it was only Bobby.

Later, he would try to tell himself that even though he hadn’t initiated contact with the doctor yet, his attention was being eaten up. He had no way of knowing.

He was just about to reach out when an aborted female scream from some where nearby broke his concentration. He snapped his eyes open, expecting to see a mercenary, expecting to see Ororo writing in pain.

But Bobby was lying unconscious by his feet, holding a knife. He looked as if he’d fallen asleep, save for the small drops of blood trailing their way down his face.

Raising his eyes, Xavier saw Bobby standing a few feet away, one hand coated in melting frost, face full of shock. “I had to,” he said. “You thought she was me, she was going to kill you. I had to.” Ororo used the wall to haul herself up, and she staggered over to Bobby. She put an arm around him, and led him to a chair at the island, sweeping small chunks of wood off of it.

Bobby on the floor, Bobby by the door.

The Bobby on the floor was turning blue, changing shape.

Bobby’s back was straight in his chair by the island. His eyes looked curiously empty.

Xavier steepled his fingers and rested his head on his hands.

*

“Here’s to a job well done!” Remy hooted, raising his arms above his head. Dana laughed as Sam took one of his hands, and the two bowed in concert.

“Come on, Toni, celebrate a little. You performed admirably for your first fight.” Sam was grinning widely.

“The hick’s right. You did better than I thought you would,” Logan growled as he dropped from a tree.

Sam extended his hand to Dana. “I don’t dance,” she said with a raised eyebrow. But he grabbed her hands anyway, and led her in a jig. Pretty soon she had started to laugh, and wasn’t trodding on Sam’s toes quite so often. Just when she started to think that she’d gotten the hang of it, he spun her out and she tripped over her own feet, sprawling onto the grass. “Thank you,” she called from where she lay. She propped herself up on her elbows and tried her best to scowl. It must have worked, because Sam came over to her, smiling ruefully. He offered her a hand up, and when she took it, she twisted her arm and raised her knee, sending him over her head.

She scrambled upright, laughing, feeling giddier, happier, than she could remember being in a long, long, time. There was nothing wrong in this world right now.

Sam mock snarled at her, and as he stood, she sprinted towards the Mansion. He took off after her, trying to snarl as he ran. The effect was something like a cross between a pig and a car engine badly needing a tune up. She thought that she heard Remy say that this was something that he had to see, but she was busy dodging Bishop and Betsy, who seemed to have come out of nowhere.

She heard what sounded like Sam colliding with and then apologising to someone, and she knew that she had enough of a head start to make it to the Mansion. She slowed a bit as she hit the door, swinging it wide open. When she turned the corner to the kitchen, she stopped dead in her tracks.

Sam hit her from behind, not having seen her around the corner. His hand tightened around her arm as she heard the rest of the team file in behind them.

Smoke drifted in the kitchen air, painting charcoal whorls on the ceiling. Xavier was sitting with his head in his hands, looking very defeated. Mystique was lying unmoving by his feet, a small amount of blood pooling around her head. The huge kitchen table was lying in charred pieces around the room.

An rather unhealthy-looking Storm was sitting at the island with Bobby, who wouldn’t look at them. Logan was at her side in an instant, talking in a low voice.

Mystique’s still form drew Dana to the shape changer’s side. Dana reached out a hand to the woman’s neck, knowing before she even touched her that she was dead. She seemed at peace, something that she never had in life. Tears of blood dripped slowly down her face.

Dana sent a feeler, none the less. Mystique had suffered from a major cerebral hemorhage. The pattern didn’t feel natural, though.

Everyone learned at an early age that water expanded when frozen.

The brain, the entire body for that matter, was composed mainly of water.

She looked up at Bobby, who was staring into space, his eyes vacant. The freezing of water within the brain would have ruptured the cell walls, causing a major hemorhage.

“Elizabeth,” Xavier said. “Could you please take a look at Magnus?” With a concerned expression on her face, Betsy walked over to where the table had originally stood. Dana noticed what she hadn’t before. A white-haired man was lying on the ground, staring up at the ceiling with empty eyes. But she didn’t have time to examine him closely, as Logan was calling her over to Ororo.

She examined the woman, smiling slightly as she looked at Logan’s anxious face. “You’ll be fine,” she told Storm. “There was a bit of stress on your heart and brain, but it’s nothing that I can’t just heal right up. You’re going to have to take it easy for a week or so, though, just to be safe.”

“Don’t worry about her,” growled Logan. “I’ll make sure that she gets lots of rest.”

“Guys?” Betsy said. “There’s a police car at the gate.”

Sure enough, a buzzing filled the room, signalling that someone had rung the doorbell out front.

“I’ll take care of it. You just look after things in here,” she said as she headed out the front door.

The minutes that Betsy were gone were the most nerve wracking that Dana had spent all day. She followed the other woman out into the front room, and watched through the window as Betsy talked to the uniformed officers who sat in their car halfway down the long driveway.

One of the assassins was lying no more than three feet from the car. There were unconscious men sprawled all over the yard.

But the officers were just talking calmly to Betsy, smiling and nodding their heads as she tossed her hair. Then the one driving waved his hand as he put the squad car into reverse, turning to go. Dana winced as he missed the man on the drive by scant inches. Betsy waved goodbye, then headed back into the house.

“How...” she started as soon as Betsy was in the door. Then she stopped and gave herself a shake. “Never mind, I figured it out. Telepathy, right?”

Betsy nodded, and they walked back into the kitchen.

“One of the neighbours complained about hearing noises,” she told the others. “So then sent a car out. I told them that we’d had a bit of a problem in the science lab, but it was under control.”

“This is the third time in the past five months that some one’s had them send a car out,” Ororo said. “Betsy, you’ll find out which one it was this time, and wipe them?” Betsy nodded an affirmative. “We should start cleaning up,” Ororo continued when no one said anything. “Keep all of the neuroinhibitors that you can find. You all know the drill.”

As the others started to file out of the kitchen, she moved to join them, but Logan grabbed her and sat her back down. “You’re coordinating.” She sighed in exasperation, but remained seated after Dana pointed at her and told her to stay. Betsy walked into another part of the house with Magneto in tow. Eventually, Storm and Xavier were the only ones left in the kitchen. She watched him move over to where the table had stood. He picked up a piece of charred wood, stared at it for a long time.

“I’m sorry about the table,” she said as she walked haltingly over to him. “I’ll make sure that we get a new one.”

“It’s all right,” he said, still playing with the wood. Streaks of charcoal darkened his fingers. “It’s my table. It’s my responsibility.”

Something about how he was talking struck a wrong chord. “We can fix the damage,” she said, surveying the burn marks that scarred the kitchen. “It’s not that bad.”

Xavier continued to stare at the piece of the table, his eyes focused on it.

“I don’t know, Ororo. I really don’t know anymore.” As he spoke, the shard fell from his fingers, sounding hollowly as it struck the ground.

And there was nothing more to say.

~Fin~

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