The Return Page 9

  Bamf.

  Making a vertical jump was always harder than making a horizontal one, though it was far easier to jump down than up. And, for that matter, it was far easier to ’port north-to-south than it was east-to-west. Professor X had always suspected that it had something to do with the Earth’s magnetic field, which seemed reasonable enough to Kurt. It wasn’t as if it mattered, though. That was simply the terrain through which he moved. Just like a mountain climber rarely has to worry about the cause of gravitation, whether curved space-time or the presence of theoretical gravitons or what-have-you; all that mattered to him was that if he let go of a mountain side he would fall. So too did Kurt care little how his teleportation actually worked, so long as it did.

  As before, Kurt emerged from his almost-instantaneous teleport with the same momentum with which he’d gone in. And considering that he was now only three feet off the ground, that should have meant a very short trip and a very painful end to a long and distinguished career of adventuring. However, while Kurt had retained his inertia, he had reoriented his direction, so that on completing the teleport he was now moving horizontally, parallel to the ground. And, more important, directly toward the back of the pale-skinned, greeneyed man shooting black energy from his palms.

  “Heads up, Black Light,” Kurt quipped.

  Straightening his legs out, his knees slightly bent, Kurt slammed feetfirst into the back of the Exemplar. Kurt’s legs collapsed like a spring, cushioning the blow for him, but still imparting the majority of his momentum to the black-energy wielder.

  The black-energy wielder stumbled forward, falling face-first on the pavement, while Kurt tucked his legs, rolled in midair, and then landed gracefully on his feet, his tail outstretched for balance.

  “You are quite accomplished at harassing innocents, mein FreundKurt said, his smile revealing wickedly pointed canine teeth. “Let’s see how you do against someone who fights back, shall we?”

  The golden behemoth threw a punch, lightning fast, his huge fist catching Rogue in the abdomen. The momentum of the blow carried her backward, folded in half, soaring up in the air.

  Oof, Rogue thought. I’m nigh invulnerable, but even so, danged if that didn’t hurt/

  She straightened out in midair, hanging motionless above the gold mountain for a moment.

  “Not bad, sugah,” Rogue said, rubbing her chin with a gloved hand. “Now how’s about I take the next shot?” Without hesitating, she dove, pouring on speed, both arms straight out before her, hands curled into tight fists. By the time she connected with the Exemplar, she was moving just a hair slower than the speed of sound. That, coupled with her super-strength, meant that the impact really packed a punch.

  The golden behemoth, though, barely even flinched. “Automa isn’t sure, little one,” the Exemplar said, his voice rumbling like distant thunder. “Was that meant as an expression of affection, or were you intending to hurt me?”

  “Trash talk?” Rogue said, curling her lip. “Nice.” She landed on the cracked pavement a dozen yards away, taking stock of the situation.

  “Come, little one.” He motioned her forward with hands large as shovel blades. “Now let Automa give you a love tap in return.”

  “Why don’t Automa just stick it,” Rogue replied.

  In response, the Exemplar who called himself Automa rushed forward, impossibly fast, and it was all Rogue could do to dance out of the reach of his next attack.

  This ain’t goin’ nowhere good, Rogue thought ruefully. Try as I like, him and me look to be too evenly classed.

  There was another way, of course. A quicker path to victory. But it carried with it a kind of defeat, and Rogue wasn’t willing to surrender on that front just yet.

  Automa rushed again, and Rogue instinctively countered, sweeping her foot out in a whip kick, which connected with the back of his golden legs, and then following up with a bent armed hook and a jab.

  The kicks and punches raining on the Exemplar’s metal skin seemed to have a momentary effect, sending him staggering slightly back

  I suppose it’s just like Mikey always used to say, Rogue thought. Precision and speed win out over brute strength every time.

  She nodded, mulling over the truth of that, before realizing that the memory and the sentiment weren’t hers. -

  The kick-and-punch combination, she realized, were a savate technique, French kickboxing that a woman named Carol Danvers had studied a lifetime ago. The advice, and the instruction, had come from Colonel Michael Rossi, who was with Air Force Intelligence.

  But Rogue had met Mike Rossi only once, and he’d not been forthcoming with advice. It was because she’d met Carol Danvers once upon a time on a bridge in San Francisco that she now shared her memories.

  Rogue’s mutant power was the ability to absorb memories and abilities through physical contact. If she came skin-to-skin with another organism, for a brief time she’d know what they knew, and be able to do

  what they did. The exchange left the other person drained—literally—usually lapsed into unconsciousness for some length of time, but it wasn’t much easier on Rogue. She had trouble keeping her own memory, her own identity, distinct from the flood of new experiences.

  The transfer was typically temporary, lasting only about sixty times longer than the initial contact, so that for every second she was skin-to-skin, she retained the memories and abilities for a single minute. But there was the possibility, however slight, that if she remained in direct contact for too long, the transfer might be permanent.

  That’s what had happened with Carol Danvers, all those years ago. She’d been a super-heroine, once upon a time, superstrong, nigh invulnerable, and able to fly. And she’d tussled with Rogue, who at the time was a mixed-up kid who’d fallen in with a bad crowd. For all intents and purposes, that was the end of Carol Danvers. When she’d woken up, she’d become a blank slate, with no memories of her former life, and no powers.

  Of course, in the days and weeks to come, when Rogue woke up in the middle of the night, she sometimes thought that she was Carol Danvers. She had the woman’s powers, and all her memories, a lifetime of experiences, just as vivid and real as anything Rogue had experienced in her young life.

  Rogue had sought out help, going to the home of the X-Men, asking for the help of Professor Charles Xavier. And he and the X-Men had guided her back, step by step, from the brink

  Even now, though, while she was able better to control the transfer of powers and memories from another, and to keep the contact just long enough to get what she needed, from time to time Rogue found herself thinking another woman’s thoughts, remembering another woman’s life.

  Every time she touched her skin to another person, every time she initiated contact and transfer, there was a part of Rogue who worried that this might be the last time, that in the transfer what remained of the girl who called herself Rogue would be lost, swallowed forever in a flood of alien thoughts and memories. And when the other was actually alien, as this Automa seemed to be, the fear of losing herself was even greater.

  That’s why she preferred to solve problems with her gloved fists these days whenever she could. Better to err on the side of caution, she figured.

  So I’ll take my licks, Rogue thought, as she and Automa closed for another round. But what he don’t know is, if push comes to shove, then the gloves are off

  Kitty, Scott, and Logan leapt to the ground, as the Blackbird slowly rose back into the air. Its autopilot would steer it over the city, parking it out on the waters of the Hudson until the X-Men needed it once more.

  “Looks like Rogue, Petey, and the elf have already picked dance partners,” Logan said with a smile. “I’m thinking the green kid is about my speed.”

  He gestured toward the green-skinned shape-shifter, who even now was transforming from a bat-shark thing to some sort of oversize, taloned ape-creature, menacing a family of tourists who stood petrified on the spot.

  “Be my guest,” Kitty said, stepping aside
and motioning him forward.

  “Much obliged, squirt.” Logan bared his teeth, and from the backs of his hands adamantium blades popped out with an audible snikt. “Hey, green genes! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

  A short distance off, a woman dressed in black and yellow with a purple headdress was evidently using telekinesis to harass a bus full of schoolkids, levitating it off the ground and slowly rotating it end over end.

  “I guess I’ll take the telekine,” Kitty said with a shrug. “Scott, you got the half-man/half-sled over there?” She pointed at the Exemplar who’d identified himself as the Capo on the televised broadcast.

  “Yes, Kitty,” Scott said, his jaw set. “I’ve got him alright.”

  “Sounds good,” Kitty said, and set off on a jog toward the telekine. “Give a shout if you need a hand.”

  Scott turned to watch her go and marveled. Still in her teens, she’d seen and done such things that facing an invading army wasn’t enough to knock her off balance. She might be afraid, somewhere deep down, and was wise enough to be cautious, but clearly wasn’t going to let that stand in the way of doing her job.

  “Okay, jokers,” Scott said to the empty air, turning toward the Exemplar in the floating silver sled. ‘You picked the wrong planet to invade.”

  18

  Betsy held the silver headpiece in her hands. It was like a giant’s skull and seemed to reverberate with mental echoes, old dreams and hollow memories.

  “It’s a psionic amplifier,” Doug Ramsey explained. “Anybody can use Cerebro to pinpoint the location of nearby mutants, but a telepath like you can use it to communicate with specific mutants anywhere on the planet.”

  Cerebro itself was fairly unimposing—a bank of controls and electronics in a casing of brushed steel, with leads going from the casing to the wide helmetlike headpiece. In the empty space in front of the machinery was a simple office chair on casters. Betsy wondered why such an incongruously normal chair, and not a more permanent fixture, until she remembered that the machine’s designer had wheeled his own chair with him, wherever he went.

  Betsy settled into the chair, the upholstery squeaking slightly under her legs. She swiveled around, facing the machine.

  “So I just... put this on?” she asked, sounding uneasy, feeling the heft of the silver helmet in her hands.

  “Erm, I haven’t actually ever used it myself,” Doug said bashfully. “But if you can figure out how to use it to place a telepathic call, I can help you out with who to call. I’ve memorized the X-Men’s Rolodex . . .” He paused, and glanced over at Betsy, as though he’d said something he shouldn’t have. “Oh. I guess that sounds insufferably geeky, doesn’t it? The kind of guy who reads dictionaries and memorizes other people’s phone books for fun?”

  Betsy treated him to a slight smile, and laid a hand on his elbow.

  “No,” she said gently. “I think it’s perfectly charming.”

  She drew her hand back and, taking a deep breath and steeling herself, carefully set the headpiece on her head.

  “Hmm,” she hummed thoughtfully. “Nothing’s happening. Oh, wait...”

  And then, the world opened up before her.

  Betsy Braddock had been a telepath for some years, and had been “intuitive” far longer than that. She’d read countless minds, both intentionally and by accident; learned to project her consciousness onto the astral plane for brief periods of time; and caught quick glimpses of the near future, though maddeningly without any real degree of control.

  This was the first time, though, that she’d experienced anything like this.

  It was as though another world were overlaid on the one she saw with her eyes. It was something like the astral plane she’d visited psionically, but denser, more vivid, more real. She was seeing the world through her mind’s eye, but her mental “vision” extended far further than she ever might have imagined possible.

  It was an amazing experience, and Betsy was sorry that it took an alien invasion to make such a thing possible. If the news was to be believed, there were alien landers touching down all over the planet, and soon no corner of the world would be safe.

  A thought occurred to her unbidden—7 wonder what Brian’s doing in all this?—and before she’d had time to think again, she felt the sudden sensation of motion without acceleration, and suddenly she was looking at another place entirely.

  She’d wondered about her brother, Brian, and here he was. In the white, blue, and red armor of Captain Britain, he was standing in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, facing off against a quartet of Exemplar invaders, their metal-flower landing craft perched a short distance away. At Brian’s side was his fey companion, Meggan, her feet floating a few inches off the ground.

  The four Exemplar they faced looked formidable. A woman and three men, they were hovering in midair, miniature stars dancing around them, lightning flashing in their eyes. But as imposing as the quartet might have been, it was clear that Brian and Meggan were holding their own.

  It took the briefest moment for the reality of her situation to process through Betsy’s thoughts. Here she was, sitting in a quiet room in a mansion in New York

  State, peering with ease through the astral plane to see events unfolding thousands of miles away.

  Okay, then, Betsy thought. Now I’ve got work to do.

  Before she withdrew, though, she reached out with her thoughts, butterfly wings that brushed the edge of Brian’s mind.

  Take care of yourself, brother.

  Suddenly, Brian smiled, and straightened slightly, as though drawing on some inner reserves of strength, and Betsy knew he’d heard her.

  Time to go.

  Then she lifted the silver helmet off her head and the world shrank to just the space in front of her and the young man standing at her side.

  “Wow,” Betsy said breathlessly.

  “It works, I take it?” Doug said.

  “Yes, I believe you can say that.” Betsy blinked a few times and shook her head. “That was simply . . . wow.”

  Doug leaned against the brushed-steel cabinet that housed the Cerebro mechanism itself, crossing his arms over his chest. “Okay, I guess it’s time to start making some telepathic calls, then. You up to it?”

  Betsy thought for a moment and nodded. ‘Yes, absolutely. Where shall we begin?”

  Doug rubbed his lower lip thoughtfully “Probably best to start with the other New Mutants, make sure they’re doing okay out there. We haven’t heard from them since Illyana ’ported them ail out to Colorado yesterday to visit Dani’s parents.”

  Betsy nodded, lips pursed. “Very well, that seems simple enough.”

  She’d met Doug’s fellow Xavier students only a few days before, but had mind-touched each of them briefly, and had solid mental images of each in mind. She had only the vaguest of notions of how far and in which direction Colorado could be found, but if her experience with Brian had been any indication, she had only to think of the person she wanted to reach, and Cerebro did the rest.

  Settling the headpiece back over her head, Betsy closed her eyes.

  A brief sensation of rushing forward, and she was in Denver, Colorado. A trio of Exemplar, two them as tall as buildings and the other moving so fast he was almost invisible, were harrying pedestrians and drivers alike, while water shot up from a broken main and rained down on their heads like a summer torrent.

  Arrayed against them were more than half a dozen young men and women, each of them wearing the yellow-and-black uniform of a Xavier’s student.

  Can you hear me? Besty mind-called. It’s me, Elizabeth Braddock.

  “Betsy?” said the determined-looking Native American girl with the belt of turquoise and silver.

  Yes, Danielle, it’s me. I’m using Cerebro to communicate with you all.

  “How’re things back at the homestead, Ms. Braddock?” said the tall, lank young man with the short-cropped blond hair, his ears sticking out slightly on either side.

  As well a
s can be expected under the circumstances, Sam. Doug is here with me, and the others have gone to Manhattan to repel the invaders.

  “We’ve got our hands full with a few o’ the cursed spaleens ourselves, ma’am,” growled the werewolf with the voice of a young girl.

  As I see. Will you be needing any assistance, then?

  “It would seem not, mam’selle,” answered the young Asian woman with the shoulder-length hair.

  “Have no fear on our account, dear lady,” said the angry young Brazilian. “We’ll soon bring these demons to account for their actions today.”

  Fair enough. Try to contact us right away if you should need help. If I’m using Cerebro, there’s a good chance I’d hear a mind-call, but if I don’t answer, use the telephone, I suppose.

  “You got it,” said the young blonde woman, the faintest hint of a Russian accent beneath her American teenage bravado. She gave a thumbs-up, then pulled a sword out of thin air, eldritch armor appearing on her torso, arms, and legs, and she threw herself at the nearest of the towering Exemplars.

  Take care, friends, Betsy thought, and then removed the helmet once more.

  “Okay, that’s them sorted,” Betsy said. She briefly brought Doug up to speed on the situation in Colorado, and she could tell by the expression that flitted across his face that part of him wished he was out there with them, while part was grateful to be safely here inside the mansion. Betsy could see, without having to peer inside his thoughts, how conflicted Doug was

  about his powers. He often viewed his life with the Xavier students as one big adventure, but at the same time was plagued by the suspicion that he was terribly out of place, and that the team would be better served to be rid of him.

  “Come on, then, Doug,” Betsy said, and reached out a hand to him. “Let’s get to work.”

  19

  Even though he appeared to be completely immobile inside his sled, the Exemplar who called himself the Capo of the Judgment’s Watch was proving to be far more nimble than his motionlessness might suggest. For Scott, this was more than a little frustrating.