‘TIL THE SUN GROWS COLD

By David Wheatley

“This is no good,” said Brian as he looked about at the faces of the remaining members of Excalibur. They’d been in a funk since the death of Khaos on Otherworld. Of all of them, he felt the best, because he was Captain Britain once more, without the suit. The powers he’d never really wanted made him feel much more of a person. “We’re supposed to be having a good time.”

“Woo.”

“Yes, that’s the spirit, Pete,” sighed Brian. Meggan looked at him and shook her head. Her empathy let her know what Pete was feeling and what was truly the matter with him. They’d been here an hour and he’d had a whiskey and after that he’d barely touched his pint.

Martinique was over in the corner, playing pool and hustling the crowd with her powers, while Kylun was looking out of the window at the falling rain on the hills around them. This was a quiet little place, just outside the village close to the manor.

“It is just after all we did, it still feels as though we lost,” he said as his fingers caressed the cold glass, as if reaching for a better world. “Think about it, Brian. For all we did, it wasn’t enough.”

“We can’t win them all,” said Brian, walking over to the window, a pint glass in his hand, holding simple cola. “I know the pain of loss, of being helpless for all my might. Nobody here saw me after I heard that Betsy died with the X-Men, except for Meggan. I surrendered to the pain and helplessness of it, and found relief in the bottom of a glass. It almost cost me everything.”

“So what words of wisdom you got?” snarled Pete, making the people closest to him turn their heads to hear such ferocity in his voice. “How do you get by?”

“Because surrendering dishonours their memory. It took me a long time to realise it,” said Brian.

“Pete,” said Meggan. “We’re here, if you want to talk about it.”

“That someone gave their life for mine, a life I should have lost long ago, a life that’s being wasted? Talk about it is the last thing I want to do.”

“Pete,” said Brian, getting ready to defend his wife from Pete’s unprovoked verbal attack.

“Get outta my face, Braddock,” said Pete. “This was your idea, not mine.” He pulled his coat up around him and walked out.

“Damn,” said Brian as he watched him go and wondered whether or not go after him.

“I’ll do it,” said Meggan.

“You sure? I know that you’ve not been too good of late.”

“There’s been trouble on the Alshra,” said Meggan. “Something bad happened but I don’t know what. The negativity may have subsided and I may be fine but something is still wrong. But Pete needs someone to understand what’s happening to him, in him.”

“Be careful, love,” he said and she closed her eyes in acknowledgment then went out after him, leaving him alone with the other two and all of a sudden he felt very alone and he wished Betsy could have joined them. She hadn’t and now he was there with Kylun who was especially sombre and Martinique who seemed to be more interested in taking the money of the locals. Excalibur wasn’t the same as it had once been and he wondered if the team would make it through this one.

Pete Wisdom made his way through the rain, thinking he’d visited that pub when the trouble began. It had been the last place he’d visited and it was on his way back to the manor where he had met Captain UK and popped a hot knife through her attacker’s head.

It would have been better, he thought ruefully, if he’d let her die. Sat-Yr-Nine had raped her repeatedly and it was still something Pete was having a hard time getting his head around.

His thoughts went back to Kitty and how close she and Sat-Yr-Nine had been when she was masquerading as Courtney Ross. She’d bought Kitty gifts, taken care of her, changed her clothes, and lovingly caressed her, held her tight and how she had special plans for Kitty Pryde.

His imagination began to run riot again, cutting loose with dark thoughts. He’d not had images like this in his mind for a very long time. Not since the death of his mother, not since his first encounter with Nightmare. Now there were new demons he was having trouble fighting and they all revolved around his most recent nightmares.

He shivered at the ideas floating through his head and he wondered if there had been things Kitty hadn’t told him about her relationship with ‘Courtney’. Or if there had been things that not even Kitty knew of, for she had slept and not noticed when ‘Courtney’ stripped her. What other things might have happened to her while she slept?

“Damn you, Sat-Yr-Nine,” he said silently. “Damn you for making me think these thoughts, damn you for making me think of Kitty like that and damn you for making me kill you.” The anger and rage began to build inside him.

“DAMN YOU TO HELL!” he shouted to the heavens, unleashing hot knives sending them as far and as high as he could, until there was nothing left inside him. The knives fizzed, sparkled and died and he fell to his knees, a tear coming from his eye and he was glad it was raining. “Damn us both.”

He’d killed many people in his life. Some of them he’d enjoyed killing, others it had been a job and something that needed doing. Sometimes they’d clashed with each other making a much more darker feat but this was the first real time he’d killed like this.

He’d looked in her eyes whilst touching her, seeing her prepared for what she’d been dishing out, and not seeing the murder in his eyes until it was too late. He hadn’t used his hot knives, he’d used his bear hands to snap her neck as their eyes met and each gained an insight in to the other. Even if she would have cried out, he didn’t give her chance. One swift move and it was over, the life bleeding from the eyes as he watched, making certain that she died.

She lay dead in his arms. She’d deserved it, but had he killed her for the right reasons? He knew he’d not killed her out of justice, but the wearing of the other Kitty Pryde’s face, for the thoughts she had provoked in him. It was a killing of anger and vengeance for himself. He’d dropped her dead body on the floor and walked away, knowing he’d killed her in cold blood, and that on some level he was no better than she was.

He had wandered through the fortress in a daze as the thoughts of her danced around in his head, taunting him and making him doubt himself and the actions he’d taken since quitting Black Air, until Khaos had stabbed him. From there on in, the fates were with him, and he wanted to die but whoever was in charge wasn’t that kind and he had lived in the place of Khaos. It did nothing to help him for now he was in a living hell instead of a proper one.

Meggan walked through the rain, her empathy connecting with Pete, who was shining like a beacon with his emotional turmoil. She was hurting inside more than she was letting on to Brian. She knew he suspected but there was nothing she could do. The pain and the shame were hers and hers alone to bear.

Her connection to the Alshra meant she knew what had been done to the spirit plane by a dark force. It had used the powers of the spirit plane; it had caused murder and mayhem. It had killed and used the powers to devour souls, to corrupt the innocent and cause a great tragedy.

She knew what it had done, but not how it had done it. She knew that because of it there was a good man now dying because of a corruption from a place so beautiful that it took her breath away and there was nothing she could do about it for she did not have the ability to fix it. At least not yet.

She had winded when Logan had driven the honour sword of the Clan Yashida in to the Dark Neuri’s chest, her empathy and connection to the Alshra making sure she felt every cut, gash and wound as if she were a telepath in it’s mind. She had not been physically wounded but marks had appeared on her body for a day or so where the damage had been done and the psychic hurt still remained.

However she took a sense of satisfaction that the creature was dead and would hurt nothing and no one ever again. It was what happened next that worried her. She had been practising her abilities on the Alshra, trying to teach herself control over it, but so far to no avail. She had pushed out her concerns for her friends so that she could right a wrong that only she could repair.

She knew that she had made a mistake and now Pete was suffering because of her neglect. She could have helped him earlier but she hadn’t and now she knew it was too late. Then she heard the cry and saw the hot knives shoot up in to the sky like fireworks. For a moment she stood and watched as the bright red lines cut through the darkness of the rain clouds and she thought how pretty they were but then she realised her friend was in trouble and flew over to where the knives had come from, just in time to see him sink to his knees.

She could sense something coming from him that she had never expected and she gasped. He was crying, something she’d never imagined he could do. Even when he broke up with Kitty she thought it impossible even though she had felt what was inside him as he walked away from the team for those long months. But there he was, kneeling in the rain, his tears masked by the rain and she knew that he was hurting on levels he didn’t even realise.

“Pete?” she asked as she approached. “Pete.”

“Go away, Meggan,” he said, not even turning to look at her.

“You know I can’t, silly man,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder, feeling him shaking in the cold and wet. “Let’s get inside, you’ll catch your death.”

“What if I want to?” There was a tone in his voice that said he meant it. Meggan shrugged and used her elemental powers to redirect the rain so it didn’t hit him. The rain responded to her tentatively as the Alshra was still sensitive after its violation.

“I want to help,” she said. “Please?”

Back in the pub, Brian and Kylun were talking about things as Martinique joined them. She was bored of tormenting the local flatscans.

“What’s going on then?” she asked as the two of them stopped talking as she came towards them.

“We’re discussing the future,” said Brian. “Kylun was only visiting and uncertain if he’ll stay, you don’t want to be here and Khaos is dead. Pete’s not exactly in the greatest shape of mind so that leaves myself and Meggan.”

“Back up,” she said. “Who says I don’t want to be here?”

“You’re not exactly a team player,” said Kylun.

“Maybe I’ve not found the right team. Until now.”

“So what are you saying?” asked Brian. “You want it?”

“Look, recent troubles aside, you people are much more active than working for WHO. Plus, you’re not bound chapter and verse by the saviour of mutant-kind Xavier.”

“What do you have against the X-Men, anyway?” asked Kylun. “Of those I met, they were a noble and decent people. Xavier himself…”

“Xavier is a fool,” snapped Martinique. “He used to mind wipe people left right and centre and then he decided it was wrong of him to do so. How magnanimous of him. Except on those terms he can change his mind whenever he makes an error and his brood just accept it. He’s one of the few mutants who could make a difference if he used his powers to their fullest but he doesn’t dare. He hides behind his ‘humanity’ and preaches from an ivory tower. That was what led to the Onslaught debacle.”

“Huh,” said Kylun. “So what would you do?”

“I’d use my powers to convert my enemies. Instead of having them work against me, I’d have them work for me. Imagine all of them – Xavier, Magnus, Apocalypse, and Sebastian Shaw all preaching the word of Xavier. Maybe then he’d have something worth listening to, but at the moment it’s nothing but hollow words from an empty man.”

“Is this what your father taught you?” asked Brian, curious as to the insight in to Martinique.

“No, though I loved my father and I shared his disdain for the X-Men, our reasons were wildly different. He worked for Magneto for his own reasons but the X-Men defeated him time and again when he was part of the so-called Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. He had more than enough power to take on Magneto, but he dared not and eventually he branched out on his own.” She shivered in disgust at the ease with which he had been beaten then, due to the desire to prove himself the better than the others.

“Away from them he did more damage to the X-Men than any other has with Dark Phoenix, the destroying of the X-Men’s reputation and the breaking of Wolverine’s heart by sabotaging his relationship with Mariko Yashida. He also sowed the seeds of destruction in Cyclops’ marriage. All out of the desire to show that he was better than Magneto ever could be.” Away from the Brotherhood he gained the confidence to use his powers, his intellect to their highest levels and in allying himself with the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club he had gained the ability to influence many more than he ever did under Magnus.

“However he was still beaten eventually and succumbed to the Legacy Virus. I always took his tales of the X-Men with a pinch of salt as he was bitter with his defeats, but Xavier’s changes that annoyed me. He was dishonest, thinking that his idylls were better than those of others. Yet what has he changed? Nothing. Hatred increases, there are more threats to mutants than ever and his X-Men are plagued with in fighting and are constantly caught on the back foot. Xavier’s ways may be nice for them to go to sleep at night, but they pretend to better than they are. The villains they fight never go away. They come back, and more are added to the list. My disdain for the X-Men is at their ineffectiveness, their inability to effect any real change due to their moral inhibitions. It’s those kind of inhibitions that they’re supposed to be fighting against, crusading for openness between mankind but they aren’t prepared to do the same and that’s why they’ll never achieve their so-called dream.”

Kylun and Brian looked at each other, realising that the passion with which she spoke had gone more or less unnoticed. They knew that she was using her powers to make it look like they were talking about something else, otherwise there would have been trouble. Brian felt something at her words, that the passion behind them stirred something in his soul at the legacy of King Arthur, for it was the secrets that had destroyed Camelot and ended that dream in blood and death.

“So what would you do?” he asked.

“Take the fight to the enemy,” she said. “The politicians are nothing more than men with loud voices and fear in their hearts. Take away what they fear and you take away their weapons. Let’s face it, Excalibur have been in the public eye since they started and have always been very popular with the media, the politicians and such and it’s not because they had the Captain Britain icon at the head.” Brian flushed as she spoke. “It’s because they’ve not hidden themselves from the public. They’re recognisable as heroes, as people doing the right thing for the right reasons. It doesn’t matter that they’re mutants, or whether they hide their identities. People know them because they keep in the public eye and have the respect.”

“So what would it take to make you stay?” asked Kylun.

“Simple,” she said. “We do something to make people know who we are properly. Do something that the X-Men wouldn’t dare. Reveal who we are.”

Meggan had explained to Pete what was happening in her head and he had opened up to her. As they had done so the rain had stopped, which Meggan took as a sign.

“So that’s it,” said Pete as he finished explaining what was going on in his head. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

“Pete,” she said, looking at him. “Have you ever considered that you’re thinking about this too much?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“In the past you’ve done stuff and moved on,” she said, and Pete nodded. “What’s different?”

“It’s more personal.”

“Is it?” she asked. “I told you about the lights. Let’s see what they say about you.”

“Huh? Look, love, I’m not really in to this metaphysical stuff, I mean…” The he saw the sparkling lights around Meggan and he realised that she tapped in to the Alshra every time she changed shape, and that the sparkles were extensions of the spirit plane. “Oh, bloody hell,” he said as he realised he was getting into it after all.

“Don’t worry,” she said with an impish grin. “It’ll pass.”

“How’d you know?”

“It’s a side effect of taking my true shape. It heightens understanding due to the peace of the small openings in the Alshra.”

“And you know that because?”

“I… I don’t know,” she faltered. “Hmm. I wonder what else I know and don’t know about.” Then she saw the taint in Pete’s form. “Oh, I see.”

“What?” he asked, wanting to know what she saw.

“When you looked in her eyes when you snapped her neck she gave you a hypnotic suggestion of guilt. A final revenge.” Her memory of what the Dark Neuri did to Logan came back and she turned back to her regular form.

“So what do I do to break it?” asked Pete, wanting Sat-Yr-Nine out of his head and knowing it made sense.

“I don’t know,” said Meggan. “I just tell what the lights show me.”

“Looks like I have to work this out on my own then,” said Pete, taking a cigarette from his coat. They were a little damp from the rain but still capable of being lit up. “Tell Brian I’ll be back. Gotta see someone about this.”

“Where will you be if we need you?” she asked.

“Let WHO know you need me an’ I’ll be back,” he said, putting a lone stick in his mouth. “Until I work this out, I’m not of much use to the team.”

Meggan nodded. It was similar to what Brian had done when he lost his powers and she knew it had done him a world of good.

“Take care,” she said and kissed him on the cheek.

“Soppy cow,” said Pete and nodded, his way of saying he would. Then he turned around and began walking away. Meggan gave a little grin and headed back to the pub, where Psylocke had joined Brian, Kylun and Martinique.

“What’s up?” she said.

“Logan just called from Canada,” said Betsy and Meggan’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of Wolverine’s name. “He’s coming to the UK. For his wedding.”

In Excalibur 2000 Annual: The wedding of Wolverine and Elektra starts here with a reunion of the X-Men and Excalibur, for the first time in months. With all the recent upheaval in the ‘family’ anything can happen and all bets are off!

Then, in Excalibur #19: The team have a decision to make about the future, as Brian gives serious consideration to Martinique’s words.