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- PHOENIX
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- CYCLOPS
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- STORM
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- COLOSSUS
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- JUBILEE
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- PROTEUS
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- EMMA FROST
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- MYSTIQUE
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- NOCTURNE
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- RANCOR
SECRETS NOT LONG BURIED
By Ryan Krupienski
Central Lab
The girl’s much stronger than she remembers. Of course, she’s also very angry, so that’s likely the cause of it all. She remembers Jubilee as a sweet but sarcastic girl; always there when her friends needed her, yet always cracking a joke and putting on her game face when the situation called for it, or simply when she wanted to avoid being coddled by those around her. She figured Jubilee out a while ago, and really, it wasn’t hard to do at all. Like so many people in the world, Jubilee has a lot of issues she’s yet to deal with, a lot of pain that’s bottled away inside of her. Unlike most of those people, though, she’s never been one to brood about, making her pain obvious. Instead, she’s always done her best to make herself into some jolly old smart-ass who isn’t afraid of anyone or anything. Nothing bothered her, and if it ever did, she never showed it.
That’s not the case anymore.
Emma Frost is pinned to the cold, metal floor of the Weapon X complex’s main laboratory, Jubilee’s tense fingers wrapped tightly around her neck. The girl’s mind is completely closed off to her; she remembers Xavier once telling her that when Wolverine was in one of his ‘berserker rages’, it was pretty much impossible to probe his mind. Part of it had to do with his fractured psyche, of course. In Jubilee’s case, she has a natural defense against telepathy, a ‘psionic exoskeleton’ that protects her mind from hostile psychics. Coupled with how angry she is at the moment, which is only strengthening her defenses, her mind is near impossible to penetrate.
So Emma has no way out. She can’t fry the girl’s brain, and Jubilee’s hands are already starting to glow, with neon-colored particles of explosive energy forming around them. Would she really do it? Emma herself has no scruples when it comes to killing her enemies, but could the same now apply to Jubilee? Has she finally snapped? Has her pain finally reached its boiling point?
“I’m going to kill you,” Jubilee snarls at her. “You killed them… only fair, don’t you think?”
Emma folds her legs up to her stomache and then manages to push Jubilee off of her, using the heels of her white leather boots. “ENOUGH!” Emma shouts in retaliation as she gasps for air, sitting up as she brings a hand to her neck to rub the soreness. “You incorrigible whelp!” she yells as she slowly rises to her feet. “I have had enough of this.”
“You are so dead, Frosty!” Jubilee says as she jumps to her feet and prepares to charge towards Emma.
“Not so fast,” Emma retorts as she suddenly pulls a gun out from behind her. She trains it on Jubilee as she continues, “Looks like the tables have turned, my dear.”
Before either woman can speak another word or make another move, a stream of crimson red energy zips through the air and strikes Emma’s hand, knocking the gun out of it and onto the floor several feet away. The White Queen grimaces as she rubs her bruised hand and looks past Jubilee to see four more X-Men standing at the lab’s entrance.
“Game’s over,” Cyclops says as he lowers his hand from his visor and starts walking towards Emma. “You’re finished.”
“Not really,” Emma says as her lips curl into an evil smile. She looks down at the white gold ring on her finger, then over at Phoenix, and locks eyes with the woman, still smiling. “Such a shame your powers are dampened, my dear.”
Cyclops, Storm, and Colossus all grab the sides of their heads in pain, and defensively their bodies begin curling up and lowering to the ground. Phoenix tries to protect them, attempting to work her away around the dampening field, but it’s no use; her telepathy’s so weak, she can barely protect her own mind. Emma’s telepathy seems to be working just fine, though, and she can only wonder why.
“STOP IT!” Jubilee yells, and just as she dashes at Emma, the back wall of the laboratory is torn open, and an inhuman howl emanates throughout the room.
Emma absently ceases her mental attack on the X-Men and turns around to see a massive, inhuman-looking beast, covered from head to toe in slick green scales. Two small horns adorn the top of his head, and his eyes burn with an intense fire. A quick scan tells Emma that the creature’s mind is completely closed off; he was engineered to be impervious to telepathy. Clever, but very inconvenient.
“Scott…” Phoenix says as she helps her husband to his feet. “We can’t let Emma get away.”
“I know,” Cyclops answers her. “What about that thing?”
“If my telepathy was at full strength, maybe I could read its mind, communicate with it somehow…”
Before Phoenix can continue, the creature charges forward, heading straight in Jubilee’s direction. The young woman snaps her fingers and a blinding light show ensues, then she rolls to her side and gets clear of any danger. The beast’s advance is halted momentarily, but it doesn’t stop the other X-Men, recovered from Emma’s onslaught, from unleashing their powers on it. Optics blasts and bolts of lightning strike the creature, while Colossus’ steel fists pound into its side.
“I WILL NOT HAVE THIS!” Rancor bellows as his vision returns to him. He swats Colossus away and sends him crashing into a nearby computer console, then turns his attention to Storm, who hovers in the air around him, not letting up on her attack. “A woman as gorgeous as you… what a delicacy.”
Surprise registers in Storm’s mind but not on her face as she hears Rancor speak. She continues to send small bolts of lightning in his direction, and they hit him just fine, but don’t appear to be doing any damage. He grabs for the white-haired X-Man, but she’s too fast, and easily takes herself a bit higher up in the air.
Cyclops unleashes another optic blast, this time hitting Rancor square in the face. The creature howls in anger and frusteration, and even some pain, then sets his sights on the X-Men’s leader. He locks onto his target and suddenly, jets of flame spray from his eyes.
Cyclops yells out as the flames singe him ever so slightly; thanks to Phoenix’s telekinesis they quickly die out. Rancor smiles viciously as he looks at the married couple, then at Colossus, who’s now getting back on his feet, and then at Storm, who still hovers in the air nearby.
“You might as well all just line up and accept your fate,” Rancor tells them all. “None of you are going to make it out of here alive.”
Elsewhere in the compound
Mystique and Nocturne stand next to each other, looking at the young man in the X-Men uniform standing less than ten feet away. It’s not a very comfortable situation, having two people staring you down, dissecting you with their eyes as they wait for you to start talking. They asked him a question, and all he can think about is how much nerve they must have. Of course he’s going to answer them, but they probably won’t like what he has to say.
“No,” Proteus says as he looks right into Mystique’s eyes. “No way.”
“Really?” Mystique asks, cocking an eyebrow.
“Let me guess, now you’re gonna drag me away and brainwash me or something,” Proteus says somewhat sarcastically.
“That’s not my style,” Mystique informs the X-Man, and though he doesn’t let it show, he feels relieved. “Too bad, though… you’re headed for the biggest fall of your life, kid.”
“For the last time, I’m not a ‘kid’!” Proteus tells her. “And quit bad mouthing them already! They saved my life!”
“So they could have another soldier to condition for their human-loving army!” Mystique yells back at him. “You just don’t get it. As long as people like the X-Men exist, mutants are always going to be second-class citizens. But if that’s the way you want to go… we won’t stop you.” Mystique looks at Nocturne, and gives him a nod. “Shall we?”
A shadow begins to form underneath Mystique and Nocturne’s feet, and Proteus realizes what’s about to happen. “Wait! WAIT!” he says as he walks towards them. “How do I get out of here?!”
“You’re the brilliant X-Man, ‘Proteus’,” Mystique says in a mocking tone as she and Nocturne begin to sink down into the darkness. “You figure it out.”
Within seconds, the two members of the Brotherhood are gone, and Proteus is left alone in the small room. He lets out a desperate sigh, unsure of what to do next. He knows he can’t just stay here, but he doesn’t even knew where ‘here’ is. This whole complex is a maze, and he’s sure he’ll get lost trying to make his way through it.
“Okay, okay… shit,” Proteus mutters to himself as he walks towards the door. Not even thinking to radio into the X-Men, and not wanting to sit and wait any longer, he opens to door and peers outside. He takes a good look in both directions, and sees absolutely no guards anywhere. There’s still no alarms going off either. What could be happening?
Central Lab
One of Rancor’s massive fists crashes into the lab’s metal floor, tearing straight through it and almost colliding with Colossus. The armored X-Man takes another shot at the beast, striking it in the abdomen a couple of times then using all of the force he can muster to push it down to the ground. Cyclops and Phoenix stand behind him, and Storm just above him in the air.
As Rancor gets to his feet, Phoenix suddenly feels a sharp pain in her head. “Nnnhh.” She leans into Cyclops a little, who grabs her by her shoulders to hold her up.
“Jean?” he asks her, trying not to be too melodramatic about it. “Jean, are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m… fine. My powers are just coming back is all.” She looks up and straight ahead at Rancor, who’s returned to battling Colossus and Storm.
Cyclops gives his wife a knowing look before running forward and unleashing another optic blast on their enemy. Rancor swipes at the various X-Men, getting frusterated with their continued defiance. He’s growing weaker by the minute, and these ones are much harder to kill than those guards were. He’s sure some mutant flesh is just what he needs to get a major power boost.
Turning her attention away from the action for a moment, Phoenix looks around and notices that Emma and Jubilee are both gone. Her first instinct is to run after them; she hates the idea of Jubilee facing Emma alone. She can’t leave just yet, though; she has to make sure this creature is taken care of. She has to make sure her husband isn’tkilled. She has to wait, until she’s strong enough, until the dampeners finally shut down…
Bingo.
Phoenix feels a surge of energy and her body spasms for an instant as her powers return to her in full. She raises her arms to her sides and lifts herself into the air, and locks onto her target. Raising telekinetic shields around her teammates, she moves them out of the way and heads steadily towards Rancor, whose eyes burn with a fire that can’t help but remind Phoenix of her namesake.
Rancors smiles with delight as Phoenix approaches him. Changing his posture from an offensive attack position to a simple stand-still, he looks at Phoenix with a strange mix of admiration and disgust. “You’re one of us,” he says to her, allowing himself to laugh a little. “You don’t look like it, but you are.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Phoenix says as flames suddenly erupt from her body, “but I can assure you, I’m nothing like you.”
Helicopter Bay
Emma smiles to herself as she reaches the end of the hallway and arrives at the metal door leading outside. She can see the helicopter waiting for her, and honestly can’t wait to go home and have a nice soak in the bath. She didn’t get to destroy the X-Men like she wanted to, but her primary work here is done, and that’s all that matter. As Emma reaches for the door’s handle, she’s stopped by the sound of a small explosion just behind her. She jumps a little, then turns around and sees the cause of it.
“You again,” Emma says, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “Now what?”
“I want answers, Emma,” Jubilee says cooly from a dozen or so feet away, her hands balled up tightly into fists. “I want to know why you killed them.”
“My God!” Emma says with an exasperate gasp. “I didn’t kill them, you idiot!”
“You arranged for them to be kidnapped, you’re the reason they were in that building when it exploded!” Jubilee retorts. “I’m holding you responsible, Emma!” Jubilee looks at her former teacher, her face hard and angry, and tears begin to well up in her eyes. “How could you do that to us?”
“You want to talk about betrayal?” Emma says with a sneer. “I trusted Xavier, and he used me! He played with my mind, made me into something I’m not! Do you know what that’s like?”
Jubilee gives her an indignant look, and then a silly smile crosses Emma’s face. “Oh, I suppose you do,” she says with a small laugh.
“And that’s your reason? That’s how you justify yourself?” Jubilee asks. “You’re sick… you…”
“Oh shut up already!” Emma snaps. “For the record, I did not intend for your little friends to be killed. I don’t even know if they are dead!”
Jubilee gulps back a lump in her throat. “They’re alive?” she asks, a hopeful expression crossing her face. It quickly turns back into a scowl as she says, “No, you’re probably just fucking with me again. I am so sick and…”
“Jubilee!”
The young Chinese woman turns around for a brief moment and sees her teammate, Proteus, walking quickly towards her. She’s surprised to see him, and glad he’s safe, but he couldn’t have distracted her at a worse time. Jubilee turns back to where Emma was standing just as the door slams shut, and she runs up and watches through the small window as Emma climbs into her helicopter and it lifts off into the sky. She can’t be sure, but she could have sworn that Emma waved goodbye to her.
“Oh, shit,” Jubilee says, her back still facing Proteus, as a couple of tears stream down her face. The young man walks up behind her, and hesitantly places a consoling hand on her shoulder.
“Are you… okay?” he asks her, feeling guilty over Emma’s escape. “I’m sorry… I was lost in here, and when I saw you I…”
“Don’t apologize, dude,” Jubilee says as she turns around and gives Proteus a weak smile. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”
“Well I saw her,” Proteus sighs. “But… I’m sure we’ll get her eventually. You know?”
Jubilee nods, and wipes a small remnant of a tear from below her eye. “Okay, I’ll forgive you,” she says playfully, “but only if you don’t tell anybody you saw me crying.”
Proteus smiles and says, “Deal.”
Suddenly, a familiar voice rings through the two young X-Men’s minds. {Peter? Jubilee?}
“Jean?” Jubilee says, a bit startled. “Your telepathy’s back?”
{Yes, the dampeners finally died out,} Phoenix responds. {We managed to subdue that… thing, whatever it was. We need to regroup back in the main lab, I’ll guide your way back to us. There’s some stuff here we all need to see.}
Central Lab
Ten minutes have passed, and Jubilee and Proteus stroll into the complex’s main lab, which has been torn apart thanks to the battle with Rancor. The two young mutants are greeted by their older teammates, who are standing near what’s left of the central computer. Rancor is unconscious, and lays nearby on the ground.
“What happened?” Jubilee asks as she walks with Proteus to the rest of the group, surveying the damage around her. “I say damn.”
“Jean manifested a Phoenix raptor,” Colossus informs her.
“A what?” Proteus asks, not understanding the reference.
“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” Phoenix says, shrugging the topic off. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m worried about it,” Cyclops says, taking his visor off and looking his wife straight in the eye. “That wasn’t just some random power surge, Jean…”
“Hey,” Jubilee says somewhat solemnly, grabbing everyone’s attention as she hoped she would, “um, Emma… she got away.”
“I know, Jubilee,” Phoenix says as she walks to her younger teammate. “Try not to worry about it. Finding her will be one of my main priorities, I promise.”
Cyclops mutters under his breath, “You should worry about letting Hank run some tests.”
“Scott, please,” Phoenix snaps, turning to glare at her husband. “I’m fine.”
“Jean, what did you find on the computer system?” Storm asks in an attempt to cut the tension before it escalates.
Phoenix turns around and faces the computer, and uses her telekinesis to activate it. A log of files darts continuously across the screen of the large monitor above the console, showing everything from information on test subjects to different types of experiments being run to locations of other installations. She turns back around to her teammates, and a grim look falls on her face. “I’ve collected all the information that I could from the database… some of it was lost, but I managed to download most of it.”
“Where?” Cyclops asks. “You found a disk lying around?”
“No, Scott.” Phoenix taps the side of her head and says, “It’s all in here. I’ll have to have Hank review and decipher it all, but from what I can tell, it looks like this isn’t ‘GeneTech’ after all. It’s Weapon X.”
“What?” Jubilee gasps. “You mean those assholes that did all of those horrible things to Logan?”
“Goddess,” is all Storm can say.
“Wait, yeah,” Proteus cuts in, earning a puzzled look from the others. “That’s what she said this place was.”
“Who is this ‘she’?” Colossus asks.
“What was her name…” Proteus ponders for a brief moment, then he gives his answer. “Oh, Mystique! Her name was Mystique. She told me this place was Weapon X.”
“Mystique was here?” A look of concern crosses Cyclops’ face as he continues, “Where is she? What was she doing here?”
“She left,” Proteus tells him. “She and this guy… he had white hair, disappeared in and out of shadows. She was here to get some information, she ended up helping me out, and tried to recruit me.”
“Recruit you?” Storm asks.
“She asked me to join her team… the Brotherhood, I think?” He shrugs his shoulders; so much has happened, and there’s so much to remember. “I told her no… and she left.”
“Wonderful,” Cyclops says with a disgruntled sigh. “As if we didn’t have enough to deal with…”
“We’ll deal with all of this, Scott, don’t worry,” Phoenix assures him. She turns her attention to Proteus, giving him an undecipherable look that at first makes him uncomfortable.
“Did I… do… something wrong?” Proteus asks a big meekly.
Phoenix just smiles at him as she answers his question. “No, just the opposite. You did good… we wouldn’t have gotten in here, at least not so easily, if it wasn’t for you.”
“For your first mission,” Colossus adds in, “you did quite well.”
The others nod in agreement, but no one really says anything else. He doesn’t mind getting praise, but it doesn’t seem like now is the time or the place to be recognized for his ‘good job’. It’s actually a bit embarassing.
“Well, I think it’s time we head home,” Phoenix says as the computers behind her shut down. She looks over at Rancor and lifts him into the air with her telekinesis. “I’ve summoned the Blackbird to land outside the main entrance of the base, I’ll take our new ‘friend’ here and load him on.”
Phoenix heads to the lab’s door and walks out of the room, with Colossus, Proteus, and Jubilee following close behind. Cyclops and Storm remain for a moment, and Storm comes up next to her longtime friend, trying to find the right words to say to him.
“You’re worried about her,” she says matter-of-factly.
He shakes his head in disbelief. “I just… I don’t believe it, Ororo,” Cyclops says. “Her powers have been growing so much over the past several months… and nobody except me and Hank seem to be noticing. And now… this.”
“I’ve noticed it,” Storm tells him. “And I’m worried, too.”
Cyclops turns his head and gives his teammate a somewhat despondant look. She knows just as well as he does what could be lurking around the corner, and neither of them like it. It’s something that very few of the X-Men truly understand.
“Come on,” Storm tells him as she turns towards the door and motions for him to the same, “let’s go home.”
Somewhere over Russia
Emma Frost sits in the back of the helicopter, enjoying a glass of champaign as she looks out the window and studies the scenery. More accurately, she’s sort of in a daze, thinking about everything that’s happened. Her Hellions have returned… she knows they’ll be waiting for her when she returns home. Once she’s had a chance to train them all over again, mentally and physically, they’ll be in tip-top shape, maybe even better than before. Feverpitch could use some work as well, and Nocturne… who knows where that boy ran off to.
Most predominantly on her mind is Jubilee. The little girl she watched grow into a young woman, and a powerful and formidable one at that. She smiles to herself as she thinks that, perhaps, she played a role in making her into what she is today. She really never wanted the other students from the Massachusetts Academy to die… only tweaked with, their powers enhanced and all. She doesn’t know if they’re really dead, though she finds herself not caring very much. She doesn’t care about anyone or anything but herself; the compassionate, loving Emma Frost doesn’t exist. She was a lie, one of many created by Charles Xavier.
Emma turns her attention to the young girl on the seat across from her. Sophia lays on her side, sleeping peacefully, and her ‘mother’ smiles proudly. She has great potential, and Emma plans for her to realize it. She’ll be one of the greatest telepathic minds to ever walk the face of the earth, and of course Emma will have taught her everything she knows.
The woman’s thoughts stop abruptly as the helicopter suddenly freezes in mid-air. Emma looks around, wondering what’s going on, then looks up front and at the pilot. “What in the bloody hell is going on?” she asks him.
“I don’t know, Miss Frost, I…” The man’s words are drowned out as the roof of the helicopter is suddenly pried apart, split evenly down the middle. Sophia awakens from her sleep and screams at the sound of the shrieking metal, dashing into Emma’s arms. The former White Queen gasps as an older gentleman lowers himself down into the craft and takes a seat across from her. He’s dressed in a dark gray bodysuit, adorned with metal boots, belt, and a helmet that covers all of his head except for his face. He grins at her, seeing the expression of fear she wears.
“Hello, Emma,” he says in an obvious European accent.
“What are you doing here?” Emma demands to know. She just glares at the man, as she gently strokes Sophia’s hair.
“I’m here to issue you a warning,” the man says to her, his face contorting into something more cold and serious. “You’ve been a very bad girl, you know.”
“Get the hell out!”
“Or what?” he says, not feeling threatened in the least. “Are you going to shut my mind down?”
“Obviously, I can’t,” Emma says, referring to the helmet he wears. “What do you want?”
“I’m going to tell you this once,” the man says, “leave the X-Men alone. They are not to be harmed.”
Emma scoffs at the comment. “And since when do you care about the X-Men?”
“You heard what I said, Frost,” he says as he begins to rise up out of the helicopter. “Don’t make me come to see you again, because next time, I won’t be so polite.”
Before Emma can respond, the man is gone, and the helicopter is put back together, just the same as it was before. The blades start spinning again, and within seconds it’s flying through the air once more. The pilot looks back at Emma through his rear view mirror, an uncertain look on his face.
“Um… Miss Frost?” he says.
“Just fly,” is all Emma says to him. He does as he’s told and doesn’t bother her again.
A few minutes pass, and Sophia’s fallen back to sleep, this time in Emma’s lap. Emma looks out the window, an angry look on her face, and the rest of the way home, she is completely silent.
NEXT: We now return to our regularly scheduled program, as Uncanny X-Men resumes! The X-Men have uncovered some frightening evidence from the Weapon X facility, but that’s only the beginning of their woes! As the team tries to put the pieces of an ever-growing puzzle together, an old enemy plots against them, but all is not as it seems. The action continues, with more on Cecilia Reyes and the arrival of Proteus’ mother, in Uncanny X-Men 2.0 #6!
I didn’t get around to revealing all the things I had planned… the dish on Weapon X, what really happened to Generation X, what Mystique’s up to. These are things that will all be resolved at some point, trust me 🙂 Mystique and Weapon X are gonna be on the back burner for now, though; after Uncanny X-Men 2.0 #6, they won’t really come back into play until the middle of 2004. Emma’s gonna be back down the road too, and as for Generation X… wait and see 🙂
Of course I also dropped some hints about Xavier and Phoenix. I’ll be touching on those down the road as well, though one sooner than the other. And as far as that ending goes… ahem… wait for January. Just wait for it. That’s all I got to say about that!
Well, thanks for reading, thanks for everyone who gave feedback (especially Brent Lambert and his fabulous Loon Reviews), see ya over in Uncanny X-Men 2.0 #6! That issue is a must-read… why, you ask? Because my mom’s in it. Seriously! You don’t want to miss this one 🙂 Alright, I’ll stop babbling now… toodles!
~Ryan
06/10/03
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