The Return Page 11

  It hung on the side of a theater, above the marquee. The giant’s struggles had carried them farther up Broadway, away from Times Square, so that now they were in the theater district.

  A giant metal lightning bolt, it was a promotion for the new Arkon: The Musical. It was easily twenty-five feet long, made out of a skin of aluminum over a skeleton of steel.

  Da, Peter thought. That should do.

  Peter grabbed the giant woman’s earlobe, steering her like a horse on a lead. As he’d hoped, she pulled to one side, coming closer to the theater and the giant lightning bolt. When they were only a short distance away, Peter leapt off jumping as far and as fast as his legs would propel him, launching like a missile at the theater.

  He landed with a shower of sparks on the top of the marquee. The lightning bolt was just within reach, and with little effort he was able to wrest it from its moorings.

  “Over here!” he called out, and the giant woman spun around.

  Before the Exemplar could react, Peter swung the lightning bolt like a baseball bat, its end connecting with her chin.

  As the giant fell to Earth, insensate, Peter felt a pang of guilt. It somehow didn’t seem right, doing violence to any woman, however dangerous she might be.

  Muttering a brief apology to the unconscious giant, he carefully returned the now-mangled lightning bolt prop to its moorings. From his vantage point atop the marquee, he was unable to see the street directly below, but it appeared that all pedestrians had cleared the area, and so, shouting down for anyone below to stand clear, he leapt to the ground.

  He landed, still armored, with a deafening thud.

  From behind him came a slight moaning sound.

  “Bozhe moi!” Peter shouted, alarmed. “Have I hurt someone?”

  He spun around, and behind him, only a half-dozen feet away, stood a pale-skinned, green-eyed Exemplar, who held his hands out before him, palms forward.

  Before Peter could react, twin beams of black light lanced from the Exemplar’s palms, striking him point blank. And then the world went black.

  Knocked unconscious, Peter was unable to maintain the levels of concentration needed to sustain his armored form, so that by the time his body struck the pavement, he was merely flesh and bone.

  The pale-skinned Exemplar slowly stepped closer, raising his hands to finish the task.

  “Cornin’ through!”

  The Exemplar glanced over, mouth opened lightly in the barest hint of confusion, and before he could respond Logan barreled into him like a freight train, knocking the Exemplar off balance and sending the black light beams shooting harmlessly off into the night sky.

  “Nightcrawler!” Logan shouted, wheeling around and facing the giant green scorpion lumbering close behind him. “Front and center!”

  Kurt teleported in, appearing just a couple of feet from Peter’s side.

  “Get Petey out of here, will ya?” Logan said, and scrammed himself, just in time to avoid being impaled by the scorpion’s tale. Behind him, the pale-skinned

  Exemplar regained his footing, and raised his hands, palms first, menacingly.

  “What about you?” Kurt said, kneeling down beside Peter.

  “Don’t worry about me, elf,” Logan said with a smile, turning to the pair of Exemplar advancing on him. “These two’ll keep me entertained for a little while, at least.”

  22

  Kitty Pryde wasn’t sure what time it was. Sometime in the early morning hours, she guessed. She felt like they’d been at it all night and really, she supposed, they had. It had been right at sunset that the Blackbird had brought them from the Xavier mansion, and Kitty wouldn’t be surprised to see the sun pinking the eastern sky any minute now.

  Oh, boy, is tomorrow going to be a heck of a day, she thought ruefully.

  This was going on all over the world, whatever the hour, whatever the time of day. A while back, Betsy Braddock had checked in with the team, telepathically, with Doug Ramsey riding shotgun, psionically speaking. Betsy had been busy coordinating the resistance to the Exemplar invasion, redirecting the X-Men’s allies from places where they weren’t as needed to places where they were. The only problem was, as the night wore on—or day, on the opposite side of the planet, if you wanted to get technical about it—there were fewer and fewer places where the defenders weren’t needed, and more and more places where they were.

  Kitty wasn’t one to use pessimism as a first resort. Heck, her outlook was so sunny she could practically have starred in her own animated musical, complete with cute little anthropomorphized animal sidekicks and a dreamy Prince Charming to win over. But she was beginning to suspect that this might be a fight they couldn’t win.

  At least, the fight she was in was one she couldn’t win.

  It must have been hours that she and the Exemplar telekine in the yellow-and-black getup and purple headdress had been going at it, but to Kitty it felt only like days.

  I’m beat, she thought, as she phased through an airborne motorcycle, flying riderless and end over end through the air. I wonder if this chkk will agree to a temporary ceasefire, potty break, and snack time?

  The motorcycle crashed into a city bus, and burst into flames.

  I’m guessing not.

  Kitty had been fighting a mostly defensive battle so far. Her strategy had been to get the civilians out of harm’s way first, and then see if there was any way of neutralizing the threat posed by the telekine. That meant that, for the first few hours, she’d been grabbing hold of hapless tourists and pedestrians, phasing them down through the city streets, and depositing them safely on the subway platforms below. Then she’d swum up through the stone and soil and concrete once more, and done the whole thing over again.

  There’d not been hide nor hair of a civilian above ground in close to thirty minutes, and Kitty hoped that the last of them had cleared off to safety. Of course, that meant that, as a result, she was the sole remaining focus of the telekine’s attention, and target of her displeasure.

  Delightful.

  A short while before, their battle had carried them into and through the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Kitty had felt her strength begin to flag, her body weak and weary, but there was nothing to perk up your spirits like dodging a city bus thrown at you at high speed. Adrenaline rushing, Kitty had led the telekine on a merry chase, back out of the Port Authority—and away from the civilians Kitty herself had phased into the underground passage beneath it—and down toward the docks.

  Now, the Hudson River was just a block or two away, and Kitty could feel the slight drop in temperature as they approached.

  The temperature started to rise again, unexpectedly, and Kitty turned to see the fiery twist of wreckage that had moments ago been the motorcycle and the bus, slowly drag across the pavement toward her.

  She glanced over at the telekine, who hovered a few feet off the ground, advancing from a hundred or so yards away.

  “Are you kidding me with this?” Kitty said, hands on her hips. “Not just a bus, but a bus onftre?”

  “Surrender, degenerate,” the telekine said, her voice flat and affectless. “Resistance is pointless.”

  “Bite me,” Kitty snapped back.

  In response, the bus-and-motorcycle flaming wreck

  picked up speed, sending up showers of sparks as the metal scraped cruelly across the pavement.

  Kitty barely had the energy to phase, too tired to move left or right, and as the flaming wreckage passed through her body, she could feel the heat prickling the flesh of her cheeks and hands.

  “Cripes,” Kitty said under her breath. “Does this chick ever get tired?”

  Kitty turned and looked at the telekine, her shoulders slumped. The telekine raised her arms, and Kitty knew that she was going in for a killing blow.

  Just then, a streak of black and green blurred in from one side, stoppingjust behind the Exemplar.

  “Hey, Kitty, mind if we switch partners for a sec?” Rogue said.

  Before Kitty
could answer, Rogue reached around and covered the Exemplar’s eyes with her bare hands.

  “Guess who,” Rogue said, as the telekine suddenly went limp, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

  Rogue let go, and the Exemplar collapsed to the ground.

  “Hey, good job with ...” Kitty began to call out.

  Rogue looked up, and casually interrupted. “Hey, watch out there, Kitty.”

  Kitty felt a breeze on her cheek, and phased just as a towering figure with huge muscles and golden skin barreled through her.

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” Kitty said mirthlessly.

  The golden behemoth was clearly confused, stopping short and looking underfoot for the girl he was

  sure he’d just plowed under. That hesitation was all the advantage Kitty needed. Drawing on some unknown reserves of strength, she took three running steps forward, and then vaulted into the air, just like she’d practiced in Stevie Hunter’s dance class.

  She was pretty sure, though, that Stevie hadn’t had anything like this in mind for the dance step.

  Landing gracelessly on the golden behemoth’s back, Kitty wrapped both arms around his thick, golden neck, and then phased both of them.

  “Giddy up,” Kitty said, and hung on for dear life.

  It was a tricky proposition, of course. Even though Kitty and the Exemplar were both phased, and so could pass harmlessly through people and objects alike, so long as they remained in physical contact they could still touch each other, which meant he could still do her some serious damage. It was all Kitty could do to keep from getting swatted off his back, while keeping him phased so that he couldn’t hurt anyone else.

  It was just like riding a bucking bronco, Kitty guessed. She’d never ridden a bronco, but she’d seen it on TV a time or two. Of course, she didn’t have a rodeo clown there to help her, should she fall of the Exemplar’s back.

  What she did have, though, was a superstrong friend, which was almost as good.

  “Thanks, Kitty,” Rogue said, hovering in midair just in front of them. “I think we can switch back, now.”

  Kitty sighed with relief. “He’s all yours!”

  Still phased, Kitty pushed off the metal man’s back The instant they broke contact, the Exemplar was solid once more, while Kitty gently airwalked back down to earth, slow as a falling leaf.

  Rogue, who now possessed the abilities of the telekine, crossed her arms over her chest.

  “No point’n getting my hands dirtied,” she said with a sly grin.

  As though in the grip of an invisible hand, the golden behemoth suddenly lifted up off the ground, and before he could do more than bellow wordlessly, was sent flipping end over end, high in the air, finally splashing down far out in the Hudson River.

  Kitty slumped to the ground, exhausted.

  “This has been fun, Rogue,” she said wearily. “We should do it every night.”

  “Rogue, Shadowcat!” shouted a voice from somewhere nearby. “Let’s go!”

  Kitty rolled her head around, looking in the direction of the voice.

  It was Scott Summers, running at a healthy clip toward them, a barefoot Hank McCoy following close behind.

  “Hey, look,” Rogue said, pointing languidly, “Scott’s found hisself a Beast.”

  Scott skidded to a halt just before them, breathing heavily. Hank joined him a moment later.

  “Good evening, Rogue,” Hank said mannerly, sounding scarcely out of breath. He turned, and nodded in Kitty’s direction. “Ms. Pryde.”

  “So,” Kitty said, “how’s your evenin’ been, boys?” Scott gave her a sharp look, his expression taut. “This isn’t working,” he said. “We’re managing to

  fight a holding action, and nothing more. We’ve occupied the invaders long enough for most of the civilians in the area to get to shelter, but the longer we stay and fight, the more collateral damage there will be, and the greater the risk of the deaths of innocents.”

  “It would seem,” Hank put in thoughtfully, “that a different approach is in order.”

  “You took the words out of my mouth,” Kitty said. A faint whine sounded from out over the Hudson, and Kitty leapt to her feet, wheeling around, expecting to see the return of the golden Exemplar or one of his fellow invaders.

  Instead, the Blackbird hove into view.

  At the controls sat Kurt, wearing a pilot’s cap on his dark curls, a white scarf wrapped around his neck.

  “Did anyone call for a taxi?” his voice boomed over the spy plane’s external loudspeakers.

  “Okay, everyone,” Scott said. “Pile in.” He pointed to the unconscious telekine laying a short distance off. “Let’s bring her with us. We might just be able to get some answers from her.”

  “What kind’a answers, Scott?” Rogue asked, using her temporary powers of telekinesis to lift the unmov-ing Exemplar into the air.

  “Just how to defeat these Kh’thon, one imagines,” Hank said.

  ‘Yes,” Scott said seriously. “For starters.”

  23

  The sun was rising over the waters of the Sargasso Sea, and within the high tower cell, signs of life were beginning to stir.

  Lee had slept fitfully on the cold stone floor, if at all, but if their snores were any indication, Paolo and the others hadn’t had that problem. She’d finally fallen asleep, sometime shortly before dawn, only to be awaken in short order by a babble of voices from outside the high, narrow window.

  A babble of voices?

  Lee sat bolt upright. She was hearing voices.

  Normally I’d expect that to be a sign of madness, Lee couldn’t help thinking, smiling slightly. I suppose it depends on what they tell me to do.

  But it was clear that these voices had nothing to do with Lee. At least, not directly. And judging by the annoyed and worried expressions of her crew, the others were hearing them, too.

  Lee stood and moved closer to the window. From her vantage point, all she could see beyond was clear blue sky, but if she titled her head and strained her hearing, she could make out individual voices, sounding as though they were coming from below. She picked out a few words of English from one, a smattering of German from another.

  “That there’s Portuguese,” Paolo said, raising up on his elbows, eyes squinting sleepily.

  “Come on over here, old man,” Lee whispered impatiently. “Give me a leg up.”

  It had taken some maneuvering, and more than a little complaining on the part of the old man, but in short order Lee was standing on Paolo’s shoulders, stretching her legs, neck, and back as far as she was able.

  “Almost... got it...”

  With the final fraction of an inch her neck was able to extend, her pulse roaring in her ear, Lee was able to peer out the window. She could see only a small segment of the courtyard below, but that was enough. Down there, in some kind of enclosure, were men, women, and children of all races and nations. Individually or in small clusters and groups, they moved randomly around their small enclosure, desperate to find a way out, and failing.

  Lee couldn’t make out much of what they were saying, but the expressions on their faces were plain enough. They were terrified.

  “Ah, you waken,” said a voice from behind her. “This one is pleased.”

  Startled, Lee barely managed to avoid falling flat on her back which starting out five and half feet up in the air, would have been none too comfortable. As it was, she was scarcely able to maintain her balance, and she lurched gracelessly to the ground, landing with a sickening thud on her left leg, her foot twisted at a wrong angle.

  She stifled the bloodcurdling scream that rushed to her throat, but tears stung the corners of her eyes. Lee was sure that she’d sprained her ankle, if she was lucky, perhaps even broken it, if she weren’t.

  Hobbling painfully, she collapsed into something like a sitting position against the wall, just beneath the high window, and looked up into the smiling face of Vox Septimus. He had brought with him a tray, on which were ar
ranged bowls of some sort of greenish sludge. He set the tray on the ground, and when he backed away, his crystal rod held casually before him, Richie crawled over and grabbed the bowls, sliding one to each of the crew.

  “Mornin’, Vox,” she managed, not a trace of warmth in her voice. She picked up the bowl that Richie had slid over her way and sniffed. It smelled profoundly unpleasant, but Lee was hungry enough not to mind too much. She took a bite, and discovered the stuff tasted even worse. It was, at least, filling. Around bites, she continued. “Something... we can do for you?”

  Vox Septimus tilted his head to one side, and turned his ear toward the high window.

  “Ah, so you have heard the sounds of the new arrivals. Splendid.”

  “Just what you doin’ with all them people, anyway?” Merrick asked, his tone a mixture of fear and anger.

  “These are those in whom the randomizing element is present but not yet expressed,” Vox Septimus said simply. He turned from the window to face Lee. She noticed that no matter who spoke, he always addressed his answers to her. It was the product of living in a deeply hierarchical society, she assumed. “They have been culled from those population centers the Exemplar cohorts have pacified since yesterday, and brought here to the city of Dis for closer examination.”

  The pain of her injured ankle throbbing in her head like a kettle drum, Lee tried not to think about all that the word “cull” suggested. She tried to puzzle out the servitor’s circuitous, obfuscated meaning instead. He had said “randomizing element.” Lee had established in earlier conversation that the servitors used the phrase to mean the X-gene.

  “'fou mean . . she began, then paused, weighing the implications for a moment before continuing. “These are all mutants?”

  Vox Septimus glanced at the ceiling, considering his reply. “Whether these are ‘mutants’ as you term them— congenitally modified—or ‘mutates’—modified in later life through accident or design, each of these specimens is in some way gifted, when compared to unaugmented individuals such as this one. Some of them may even have capabilities that they don’t yet know themselves. Living feral, as you have, your people have bred without any limitations or controls. There is no way of telling what characteristics these may have. But there is a chance that they could be of use to the Kh’thon.” There was that suggestion again, implicit in the servitor’s words, but never said outright.