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- CYCLOPS
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- DOMINO
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- COLOSSUS
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- KWANNON
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- ICEMAN
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- JUBILEE
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- PROTEUS
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- CAMERON DALIN
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- EVER
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- MASTERMIND
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- THE BEAST
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- CECILIA REYES
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- FUSION
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- MYSTIQUE
PAST TENSE
Part V: Cold and Calculated
By Ryan Krupienski
The Xavier Institute; Six Weeks Ago
Martinique Jason walked by herself around the perimiter of the large, olympic-size swimming pool that rested in a fenced-in area behind the mansion. That mansion was, for now at least, her new home… she still laughed at the irony, the idea that she was now one of the X-Men. Both of her parents were sworn enemies of her new teammates, and earlier in her life she had vowed to continue in her father’s footsteps – she, too, wanted to destroy the heroes.
Life had always had a way of changing the rules without notice on Martinique, however, and her move away from a life of villainy had been no exception. She saw the error of her ways and it had truly shaken her to her core. Even after the fact she continued to shun the X-Men and anyone even remotely associated with them for a long while, until she eventually found her way onto the roster of Excalibur. Brief as it was, her tenure with that team gave Martinique just enough of a taste of fame and reverence to leave her wanting more.
It all ended not long after Meggan died; the magic of it all seemed to die with her, and Martinique decided to leave the new life she’d found behind. She had grown too accustomed to the superhero lifestyle and was certain that she had to control the situation herself by leaving lest it be tragically torn away from her. She’d lived a life of bad choices, bad luck, and a whole lot of deception. Expecting and thus preparing for the worst was the only way she saw fit to go about in the world.
Joining the X-Men wouldn’t change her any, and she certainly hadn’t signed up just because she wanted to help protect the world. Cyclops had made a good case and truly convinced her to come onboard, but she of course had an ulterior motive, which she made no effort to hide – plain and simple, she intended to find her mother, Emma Frost.
{We want to find her too.}
Martinique turned her head sharply as the presence of another person registered behind her, thanks to the voice in her head. Standing at barely five feet tall mere feet away was a blonde girl, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, who was almost too beautiful for it to be all natural. Martinique had been doing her best to avoid the girl – or was it girls? – since her arrival and up until now, she’d succeeded.
The girl’s name was Sophia Frost, and according to her she was the daughter of the former White Queen of the Hellfire Club. Who her father was remained a mystery, and Sophia didn’t seem to either know nor care. She’d came to stay at the mansion little over two months ago, and had been aiding the X-Men in their search for Emma Frost as well as Mystique until Ever and Martinique had arrived. Martinique hadn’t known about Sophia until after coming to the institute, and like the rest of the X-Men, she barely knew anything about her aside from the fact that the girl was a high-level telepath. Apparently, she didn’t have any problem poking around in other people’s minds.
“Uh… hullo,” Martinique said, unsure of what exactly to say or do. “Could you… please not read my mind?”
“I’m sorry I startled you,” Sophia apologized, looking somewhat embarassed. “Sometimes the others get a little out of hand… they don’t have a lot of manners. I’ll try better to make them behave.”
Martinique studied Sophia curiously as she asked, “Oh, your… sisters, right? Well, no harm done.” At that moment she decided that she was done, and looked down at her watch. “Oh, goodness, the time… sorry, I’ve got to be off. Bye.”
Just as Martinique started to walk away, Sophia called out, “Aren’t you my sister too?”
“We have the same mom!”
“We know that maybe it’s weird…”
“But isn’t it kinda cool?! Like, come on… we should so hang out! We’re all family!”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
Martinique stopped and looked back, and now she saw that there were four more girls identical to Sophia standing with her. Though they all looked the same, each one stood out by their demeanor and posture; they each had a role, from ‘big sister’ to ‘dumb blonde’. Martinique wondered about the exact nature of Sophia’s powers… were her ‘sisters’ simply physical manifestations of different parts of her personality, or were they each individual beings? More than that, she wondered what she was going to say to get out of this conversation – she hated being unprepared.
“Girls, I…” Martinique sighed and paused for a moment. Obviously they were trying to reach out to her, but she was in no hurry to return the favor. “No,” she finally said, “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“But you have the same mother as us,” Sophia said as she took a few steps forward. “It’s true. You can hate us if you want, but it’s true.”
“Why would I hate you? Don’t be ridiculous.” Martinique scoffed at the idea, but at the same time realized that she’d been the victim of some very subtle reverse psychology. “That’s not the case at all. It’s just a bit… awkward. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry,” Sophia told her, again becoming remorseful. Her twins, even the normally loud and obnoxious ones, had decided to stay quiet, for which she was grateful. She was trying to make a good impression on her long-lost sister, but she wasn’t quite sure how to go about doing that.
“Look, Sophia,” Martinique started, looking at the girl and then glancing at each of the others, “all of you… don’t take it to heart, my reaction to you. Yes, I will acknowledge that we have the same mother. Yes… we’re sisters.”
Sophia smiled upon hearing the words, and the other girls displayed similar emotion. “However,” Martinique continued, “I don’t even know how long I’m going to be here. I could leave at any time, for any reason… I don’t know what the future holds. So perhaps it’s best we shelve the family bonding to avoid any sort of grief down the road.”
Martinique knew it was cold to shun the girls like that, but she didn’t feel as if she had a choice. She didn’t intend to leave anytime soon but she hadn’t come here to become a teacher, big sister, or any other sort of ‘mother hen’ offshoot. She was here to find Emma, and to be an X-Man.
The other girls disappeared in a brilliant flash of white and blue light and then it was just Sophia standing there. She was disappointed, but this was only their first meeting; there would be more times to try. She’d do whatever necessary to break through to Martinique.
“Do you think they’re going to find her, at least?” Sophia asked.
Martinique shrugged, opting to be honest instead of giving the girl any false hope. “I don’t know. We’re using every resource available, though, and we’re not giving up.”
Sophia nodded. “I hope we find her soon.”
“Eventually,” Martinique told her sweetly but sternly. “But I doubt there’s going to be any sort of excitement around here for a while…”
Three Days Ago
“We’ve found them.”
The words sent chills through each member of the X-Men that was assembled in the War Room. Colossus, Kwannon, Iceman, Jubilee, Proteus, Cameron, Mastermind, and Ever each occupied one of the chairs that sat around the large conference table, while Cyclops and Domino stood at its head. This is the day that most of them had been looking forward to for months; it didn’t mean there was going to be any sort of final resolution to the situation, but it was definitely a step in the right direction.
Domino pressed a button at the edge of the table and a large holographic globe appeared at its center. “Cerebro has detected Mystique and four other mutants in North Korea,” she explained as the globe zoomed in to become a map of the Asian country. “Sabretooth, Mesmero, Unuscione, and an unidentified male are with her.”
“What are they doing in North Korea?” Colossus asked more or less rhetorically. “Or must I even ask?”
A grim look crossed Cyclops’ face. “I know, Dom and I came to the same conclusion, based on the exact location Cerebro’s pinpointed them at.”
“They’re at a nuclear weapons factory,” Domino said bluntly. “I don’t think any of you need me to tell you how bad this can get.”
“Okay, is it just me, or does this seem like a setup to anyone else?” Jubilee chimed in as she raised her hand. “I mean, come on. It’s a trap! They just all of a sudden pop up on Cerebro after we’ve been hunting for them for, what, more than half a year?”
“My thoughts exactly, Jubilee, but regardless, this is an opportunity we can’t afford to miss. We’re going to approach this carefully, believe me, but we have no choice. Especially if they’re acquiring nuclear warheads,” Cyclops said.
“She’s really lost her mind… she could destroy the world,” Iceman commented, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Just another in a long line of would-be megalomaniacs,” Mastermind sighed. “I think her time’s come.”
“I’ve just got one question,” Cameron said. “When do we leave?”
Domino answered, “Twenty minutes. Everybody suit up and get to the jet, ASAP.”
The Present
The perfect biological double of Bobby Drake sat back and relaxed in one of the two seats in the cockpit of the Blackbird jet as it soared through the air, guided by the auto-pilot system. The plane was on a direct course for the Xavier Institute, and it wouldn’t be long before it would land in the X-Men’s hangar bay. It would be then that St. John Allerdyce would put on his final act as the Iceman and shortly thereafter begin killing the rest of the mutant do-gooders.
Allerdyce had taken the flight to reflect on his brilliant deception, his near-flawless imitation of the frosty X-Man who Sabretooth had slained more than six months ago. He knew he had slipped up a few times at first, as the shock of the transformation and the situation had taken some time to settle in, but he had truly grown into the part. The mansion’s systems hadn’t known the difference; he not only looked like Bobby Drake, but his very genetic structure had been remodeled down to every last specification. Hair and eye color, height, body odor, voice, even Drake’s mutant powers had all become St. John’s, and he’d put it all to good use.
His best performance had to have been the night he proposed to Jubilee; he relished in the thought of her finding out it was all a lie. He hated the X-Men with every fiber of his being, and though he wanted them dead, he wanted them to suffer, physically and emotionally, as well. He was going to do his best to make sure that happened.
Pyro moved a hand up to his ear and removed the small, almost invisible device that rested inside of it; it had been what kept the telepaths from discovering who he really was. It had also been a pain in his ass, at times causing him headaches of astronomical proportions. No longer, and certainly not now, not when he was about to have the time of his life.
More than anything, though, he couldn’t wait to be himself again; he didn’t want this body or these powers anymore, and he certainly didn’t want the horrible American accent. He at first had absolutely refused to go along with the procedure and infiltrate the X-Men, but Mystique had convinced him, and had also promised that the process could and would be reversed when the job was done. He had decided to trust her; though they’d had differences in the past, she’d never given him any real reason to be wary of her.
[Approaching destination,] the robotic female voice said suddenly, and Allerdyce perked up as he felt the landing gear lower. As the aircraft began its vertical descent, the imposter took a deep breath and readied himself for the final salvo.It was show time.
The jet touched down on the circular platform that rested at one end of the Hangar Bay, and as the ramp began to open up, Henry McCoy and Cecilia Reyes rushed towards it. They had been surprised to find out that the jet was on its way back, as no one had radioed in, but nonetheless they were relieved that at least one of their teammats had returned. It had been days since the X-Men left for North Korea, and they’d literally vanished off the face of the planet.
As the man presumed to be Bobby Drake slowly walked down the Blackbird’s ramp with a perfectly-faked limp, Henry and Cecilia approached him with extended arms. “Bobby, good word,” Henry said as he and Cecilia each took to supporting him on either side, “what happened to you? Where’s everyone else?”
“Hank,” Bobby replied, his voice shaky, “they… they got the others. Mystique has them.”
“Where?” Cecilia asked, just as concerned as her husband. “What exactly happened?”
Bobby stopped walking – or hopping, as it was – as crocodile tears welled up in his eyes and almost instantly began streaming down his face. “They… they…” he started to say, but he was trembling so much that he could barely speak. “They… they killed her…”
Hank took on the full weight of his best friend as Cecilia gently placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder, and it was at that moment that he almost collapsed to the ground, consumed by his phony grief. All of the pent up stress and frustration was really being put to good use.
“Bobby, what did you see? What happened?” Hank asked again, more delicately this time. “We can still save them, we just…”
“If any of them are still alive,” Bobby said as he wiped the tears from his eyes. “God, Hank… they… they were like animals… they shot Scott in the head, tore Piotr’s chest out… they… they slit Cameron’s throat…”
Henry exchanged a despondant look with his wife, and Cecilia knew full well that her husband wanted to scream; it was unbearable, the thought of losing anymore of their friends. However, Cecilia also knew that Henry would keep it together long enough to mobilize a rescue effort and do whatever necessary to bring the Brotherhood to justice. For his sake, and for her friends, she would be doing the same.
“Bobby, listen,” Henry said, looking the Iceman square in the eye. “We must put our grief aside for the moment. Please… I know it’s hard, believe me I know, but we can’t do this without you. We have to stop her before it’s too late.”
Bobby nodded and with Henry’s help got back to his feet. “Hank, she’s insane… she’s literally lost her mind this time.”
“Bobby, you come with me, I want to make sure you don’t have any serious injuries,” Cecilia told him, taking him from Henry.
“I’ll get Dani and the others gathered for a meeting,” Henry said, and Cecilia nodded. As his wife and best friend took off towards the hangar’s exit, Henry started on his way towards the Blackbird; he wanted to do a quick assessment of the damage it’d sustained. How much repair it needed would affect their mode of transportation to wherever Mystique was located.
As Henry began walking up the ramp a voice suddenly manifested in his mind. {Doctor McCoy! Like, omigod!} the voice, a girl’s, said.
Henry blinked a few times before responding, “Ah, yes… this is Terra, I’m presuming?”
{Yeah, how’d you know?!} the girl affirmed, but instantly her focus shifted back to the reason she’d contacted the school’s headmaster. {Okay, so, me and my sisters are freaking out, Doctor McCoy… something really bad is about to happen.}
“What’s going on, girls?” Henry asked, curious and now even more worried than before.
{It’s Mister Drake… he’s going to kill us all.}
The War Room
He wondered, should he slowly turn his body into an icicle and watch him freeze to death? Behead him with a giant ice scythe? Or maybe a hail of razor-sharp ice shards all over his body… perhaps that would be the most painful, and most fun, way to do it.
He’d been thinking about it for the longest time – how he would kill the annoying blue hairball he had to pretend to be best friends with. Henry McCoy had been one of the most annoying people Allerdyce had contended with during his stay at the mansion, and he was elated that today would be the end of it all. No more vomit-incuding pep talks, no more practical jokes, no more newly-revised lesson plans. It would all be over, and then he’d move on to Cecilia, then to the rest of the teaching staff, and finish it all with a trip to X-Corporation headquarters in Chicago.
‘Iceman’ waited impatiently at the conference table by himself; he’d thought the back-up team would have been there by now in such an urgent situation. If he’d come to truly discover one thing about the X-Men, it was that they weren’t quite always as organized as they liked to think. He couldn’t necessarily blame them in this situation, especially since they had a couple hundred of students on their hands to deal with.
The door to the War Room slid open and as Henry stepped inside, carrying two porcelain mugs in his hands, Allerdyce muttered under his breath, “It’s about time.”
“Bobby, sorry to keep you waiting. Dani and Neal are on their way… things are just a bit unsettled upstairs, the students are terrified thanks to this Noh-Varr gentleman,” Henry explained as he walked towards the imposter.
One couldn’t tell from looking at him, but Henry’s heart was beating a thousand times a second, and while he was calm and collected on the outside, he wanted nothing more than to unleash his fury on the man before him. He knew what this ‘Iceman’ was, though deep down he couldn’t bear to truly accept it. The girls had told him everything they knew, but he had to find it out for himself.
“Here,” Henry said, offering a mug of hot tea to Bobby. He took a seat on the other side of the table and let out a sigh before continuing, “Now, Robert… I need to know everything. What happened, where Mystique is… anything and everything you can remember. Quite frankly, we don’t have much to go on right now.”
“Well,” Bobby said, pausing momentarily to take a sip of his drink, “they’re still somewhere in North Korea… they had some kind of machine that wiped the jet’s memory clean, I’m sure you noticed the flight logs have been erased.”
“Were they holding you at the weapons base?” Henry inquired.
“No, somewhere else… somewhere smaller,” Bobby answered. “They…” He stopped and looked down at the contents of his mug, then a small smirk formed on his face.
“Bobby? What is it?”
“I just remembered,” he replied as he stared directly into the Beast’s eyes, “Bobby Drake hates green tea.”
In an instant Allerdyce saw Henry’s mug being flung at his head full force, and it just narrowly missed the imposter. The blue-furred X-Man leapt out of his seat and lunged at his newly-unmasked foe, but the younger man moved out of the way in time. Allerdyce grimaced and cursed silently as his body became covered with a layer of freezing-cold ice, and at that moment it hit him that if McCoy knew, then the rest of them knew as well. He’d have to move fast if he wanted to succeed.
There wasn’t a whole lot of room to manuever inside the room, so Allerdyce opted for a flurry of icicle shards hurled at Henry; Beast gracefully dodged every last one of them and moved with lightning-fast speed across the room, springing from wall to wall until he met up with Allerdyce, and he proceeded to slam his massive feet into the side of the imposter’s head. Allerdyce went flying backwards and hit the wall behind him, and was disoriented long enough for the X-Man to grab ahold of him and throw him against the wall a second time.
“What have you done to my friends you MONSTER?!” Beast demanded to know as he held Allerdyce by the collar of his uniform. He growled as he continued, “What have you done with Bobby?! WHO ARE YOU?!”
Allerdyce grinned and started to laugh, something which Henry did not take kindly to. “Wouldn’t you like to know, freakshow…”
Beast suddenly felt a sharp chill rush through his veins, and didn’t have time to make another move before ‘Iceman’ elbowed him in the face and then tossed him across the room. As the X-Man shivered and struggled to get to his feet, Allerdyce approached him and held a hand up that was quickly remolded into the shape of a giant spike. The blade came down on Henry with no mercy, piercing him between his shoulder and his heart; any closer to the organ and he’d be dead.
“I think about fifteen stab wounds will do,” Allerdyce said as he retracted the blade and prepared to repeat the process. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long, long time…”
“GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY HUSBAND!”
Allerdyce was caught completely off-guard as an invisible force struck him from behind. He cried out as the object, the forcefield of Cecilia Reyes, connected with the back of his head, and he stumbled forward towards the room’s exit.
“You filthy piece of…” Cecilia started to say, her eyes burning with rage.
Allerdyce turned around to see Cecilia standing there, with Dani Moonster and Neal Shaara behind her. “Well, I guess this is goodbye,” was all he said before launching an onslaught of ice shards at the trio and then running out of the room.
Cecilia deflected the shards easily with her forcefield and cursed herself for letting the imposter get away. As she rushed to her husband’s side, Dani tapped the comm-link on her uniform and said, “Rahne, Xi’an, he’s headed your way, I think…”
“Just blew right past us, Dani,” came the response from Xi’an Coy Mahn. “What’s going on down there, is everyone okay?”
“Hank’s beat up pretty bad, but we’re handling it. Just keep the kids calm,” Dani replied, and immediately she moved to the other side of the injured headmaster. “Let’s get him to the med-lab, Cece.”
Cecilia nodded, and without a second though she extended her forcefield underneath her husband and slowly lifted him off the ground. “I’ve got him,” she said.
Dani gave Cecilia’s shoulder a gentle squeeze then moved out of the way as the doctor made her way out of the room and towards the infirmary. Neal approached, and shook his head in disbelief. “Danielle… what are we going to do?”
“What us X-Men have always done, Neal,” Dani told him, clenching her fists tightly. “We’re going to win…”
Location Undisclosed
Mystique stood watching the news broadcasts displayed on the enormous monitor that more or less covered one of the walls in her command center, moving her attention casually from one report to another. The world was going insane, what with all the prison breaks and the impending arrival of the Kree, but Mystique wasn’t phased at all; she’d accomplish her goals as intended and deal with the alien delinquent later.
“Mystique,” came another woman’s voice, and the shape-shifter turned her head slightly to see Unuscione walking towards her. “We’re ready. Nocturne’s moved the bombs into place.”
“Excellent. It won’t be long, I’m just waiting for confirmation from Pyro that the rest of the X-Men are dead. There can be no variables this time,” Mystique told her.
“I need to ask,” Unuscione said, as she glanced between Mystique and the news broadcasts on the wall, “how are we going to deal with that? Even with our cells around the world…”
“We have plenty of nuclear warheads to go around, now don’t we?” Mystique said, a sly smile forming on her face. “I think we can send one up to the boy as a… going-away gift. We’ll just blow up Australia another day.”
Unuscione liked how Mystique thought, and she was unafraid to show it. Unlike their male teammates – or the straight ones, at least – Unuscione actually had respect for Mystique. Her one-time lord and savior, Magneto, had gone soft, and for a while she’d lost her way in the world. Mystique had given her a renewed sense of purpose, and something to truly aspire for. Though, like the others, she didn’t at all appreciate being implanted with a device that gave Mystique the power to kill any one of them in an instant, Unuscione at least understood why it was necessary.
“Well, as I said, it should be long, so…”
“MYSTIQUE! RAVEN, ARE YOU THERE?” came a loud man’s voice from the communication panel at the other side of the room.
Mystique quickly moved to the station and activated the link on her end. “Allerdyce, is that you? What’s going on – are you done already?”
“You bet your ass I’m done!” Pyro yelled back at her. “I’ve been had – somehow they found out.”
“WHAT?!” Mystique exclaimed as she slammed her fist down on the control panel. “You stupid, idiotic…”
“Who are you calling an idiot? You’re the one who came up with the idea! Besides, there’s nothing we can do about it now…”
“Well I hope you’re on your way to take care of Worthington,” Mystique told him. “If you can’t do the whole job, at least finish the most significant part of it.”
“You must be out of your mind! I’m not doing anymore shit for you until you change me back! I’m sick and tired of looking like this pansy!”
“You will finish the assignment you’ve been given and then we’ll talk about reversing the process…”
“Talk about it? There’s nothing to talk about, you gave me your word!”
“I never guaranteed anything,” Mystique said coolly.
“YOU FUCKING BITCH! I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! I swear to God I will kill you for this!”
Mystique laughed as she replied, “No, I think you’ll do exactly as I say if you ever want to be John Allerdyce again.”
“GO TO HELL!”
With that, there was nothing but static on Pyro’s end of the comm-link, and Mystique sighed in frustration. She was incredibly disappointed in her old friend, but there would be time to deal with him later. She would not and could not lose focus on the task at hand.
“Well, that takes care of that,” Mystique said matter-of-factly as she turned to face Unuscione. “No more delays… it’s time to go.”
“What about the X-Men?” Unuscione questioned.
“I’ve set the systems here to wipe them out once we’ve departed, and honestly, the left-overs at their mansion aren’t anything to worry about,” Mystique explained. “No mater what, they’ll all be dead within the next few hours.”
The Xavier Institute
Henry’s eyes slowly opened and the first thing that came into focus was the beautiful face of his beautiful wife, Cecilia. She smiled warmly at him, a smile that said she was glad he was awake, but also said she was afraid. Cecilia was tough and being an ER surgeon had truly allowed her to learn how to keep her emotions in check in times of crisis, however, she found it difficult to truly hide her feelings from her husband – he knew her better than anyone.
“Cecilia,” Henry said, swallowing back a lump in his throat as the throbbing pain in his shoulder fully registered. “Where is he?”
“He got away…” Cecilia said, remorseful even though she knew it wasn’t her fault. She held her husband’s hand as she stood next to the bed he was lying in. “I’m sorry. We still don’t know how this happened. We’re also still trying to figure out where the Brotherhood are.”
“What’s going on out there? What has Mystique done?” Henry asked her.
Cecilia shrugged. “Nothing yet. Just more superhuman jailbreaks and the threat of a Kree invasion. We have no idea what she’s planning.”
“Blast her…” Henry said as he attempted to sit up. In any other situation, he’d be a good patient for his wife, but there was too much going on for him to sit back and do nothing. “We’ve got to find her, and stop her. We’ve also got to find the rest of the team.”
“But I thought…?” Cecilia trailed off for a second before continuing, “That… that clone, or whatever he was, he said they were all dead, Hank.”
“My dearest love, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years with the X-Men, it’s that dead doesn’t always mean dead,” Henry quipped. “Until I see bodies, I won’t believe it. And even then I’ll be skeptical.”
“Hank, just rest for a while, you need to regain your strength,” Cecilia told him, but as expected her husband was now actually trying to stand up. “We’re dealing with the situation. Yes… we need you. But please, just rest at least a little while longer.”
Henry sighed and decided to cave in to the request for the time being; his shoulder really did hurt, but hopefully the pain would subside shortly. “Have we managed to contact anyone at all?”
“No,” Cecilia affirmed with a shake of her head. “Dani’s tried the Avengers and the Fantastic Four again, and I think it’s a safe bet they’re tangled up with this Noh-Varr guy. We’ve contacted Warren and he’s got almost every capable X-Corporation employee out trying to round up the prisoners that have been escaping. We can’t get in touch with X-Factor either. She’s tried everyone she can think of… I really think we might be on our own.”
“An old colleague of mine is in New York City this week for a medical conference, her name is Astrid Bloom,” Henry said. “She’s a telepath, she might be able to help us.”
“Okay, I’ll take care of it,” Cecilia promised.
“What about Genosha? Have we tried contacting Jean?” Henry asked.
“That was one of the first calls Dani made,” Cecilia told him. “No luck yet.”
Henry shook his head; it was taking every ounce of self-control he had not to scream in frustration. “Alright. I will rest… thirty minutes, not a second longer. We don’t have much time. Keep me updated.”
“Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine,” Cecilia assured him as she leaned over to kiss Henry on his cheek. She took one of his hands in her own and looked him square in the eye. “I love you.”
Henry squeezed her hand and responded with, “I love you too.”
As Cecilia exited the room, Henry sat there, unable to fully absorb everything that was happening. The X-Men, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four and the like had all beaten impossible odds before, but this time he had to wonder… could this truly be the end of the world?
Palais de Nations; Geneva, Switzerland
The grand conference hall was filled to the brim with delegates and news reporters from all around the world, even ones that weren’t part of the United Nations. The desperate times had made enemies into allies, albeit temporarily, as to everyone assembled inside the building, nothing was more important than the safe return of their world’s leaders and the survival of the human race.
Less than a day had passed since Noh-Varr had broadcast his message to the world from the Omphalos station, informing the human race of his intentions to remake the Earth into the capital of a reborn Kree empire. He’d sent a shiver down the world’s spine, and while what was left of all the governments were not only trying their best to keep their countries’ citizens calm but were assessing individual retaliation efforts as well, there had been a unanimous call for a gathering of the nations. Everyone knew full well that if they didn’t pull together as one to repell the alien threat, the world as it was wouldn’t exist for much longer.
The hundreds of people inside the large stadium room waited impatiently for the proceedings to begin, chattering amongst themselves in all of their various languages. There were at least fifty armed-to-the-teeth guards posted evenly about the room, including two at every exit/entrance and four directly behind the podium where the UN’s Secretary General would address the gathering. They were dressed from head to toe in a dark navy blue and were armed with the latest in technology; many privately wondered if the firepower would be enough should a band of escaped criminals or the Kree army decide to crash the party.
A voice on the loudspeaker signaled to everyone in the room that the proceedings were about to begin, and the noise died down as the UN’s Secretary General, a tall African man with curly gray hair, walked up to take his place at the center podium that was set against the stadium’s main wall. The man adjusted the microphone’s position and cleared his throat to indicate he was ready to begin.
“Ladies and gentlement let’s not waste anymore time,” the Secretary General said, his deep voice echoing throughout the room. “Let this emergency session begin.”
“Fellow human beings, there is still no change in the situation for our world leaders, and there has been no more word from Noh-Varr since his address approximately nineteen hours ago. We must assume at this point that he still has every intention of invading our world with the Kree army.”
“There is also the growing threat of escaped superhuman convicts from maximum security prisons around the globe. We have confirmation that every major prison has now been compromised, including the Vault, Ravencroft, the Cage, the Void, and naturally the Cube where our enemy was originally being held. The situation is only worsening, as our armed forces and super-powered allies are being stretched thin, and the jailbreaks are spreading to our regular penitentaries as well. Not only super-powered terrorists but now everyday murderers, drug lords, and rapists around the world are being set free and there is no end in sight for this chaos, which is why we must act swiftly.”
The Secretary General took a sip of his water before continuing, “It is obvious at this point that Noh-Varr is not open to dialogue and intends to wipe out those of us who do not submit to his will. The threat of his people, the Kree, is a very real and very powerful one, and is not something we are equipped to handle. Because of the direness of this situation, we must consider the most extreme measures in dealing with this enemy. We can not afford to hold back.”
The man paused for a moment and just glanced around the chamber, his eyes finally landing on the delegate from North Korea. “Some of us here today are not a part of the United Nations for any number of reasons, including the continued proliferation of nuclear arms programs.” He turned his gaze to one of the American delegates and continued, “However, many of our member nations are in fact guilty of operating those same kinds of programs but are able to… get away with it.”
The American delegate, an elderly caucasian man, almost jumped to his feet and yelled, “How dare you! What is the meaning of this?”
“Just saying what I’m sure everyone already knows, ambassador,” the Secretary General snidely replied. “You Americans think you can get away with anything.”
At that moment the members of the UN’s security council that sat in a row directly under the Secretary General all rose to their feet and turned to face him. “You are out of order, Mister Annan!” one of the female council members declared.
“No, humanity is out of order,” the Secretary General continued, and he slammed his fist down on the podium. “Humanity is also about to become extinct.”
There were gasps of horror as the visage of the Secretary General more or less melted away into the form of Mystique, who had become known the world over for her past crimes against humanity. All of the guards in the room immediately readied their weapons and began moving in on Mystique save for the four that stood behind her; in a split-second, they weren’t guards any longer, instead they were Sabretooth, Unuscione, Mesmero, and Nocturne.
Unuscione seemed bored as she targeted and knocked out each of the guards with the translucent green exo-skeleton that extended from her body, while at the same time walking up to stand next to her group’s leader. The rest of the Brotherhood did the same, and Mystique was nothing short of delighted as she watched fear overtake her audience.
“I’ve got nuclear warheads planted and ready to detonate around the world,” Mystique said as she held up a small remote control for everyone to see. “Let’s take a vote, ladies and gentlemen… who gets blown up first?”
NEXT ISSUE: Past Tense – the conclusion! While the world around them is on the brink of interstellar war, the X-Men – what’s left of them – must not only mount a rescue mission and face a deadly foe from the past, but find a way to stop the Brotherhood from plunging the world into a post-nuclear future! Time has run out and it’s up to the mighty mutants to do what they do best – save the world!
I’ll keep this short and sweet, hope you all enjoyed the issue. And thank you to everyone who has given feedback, I greatly appreciate it!
~Ryan
06/26/05
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