"Better than you," she sniffed.
"It's really not so bad on the inside," he said smoothly. "All those nice young mutants to ... *play* with." He smiled to himself. "So, will you all be fighting alongside me? It would be such a shame to have to hurt you. I'd like to have a future to go home to, you understand."
"Shut up!" Jean clapped her hands to her ears, aiming her telekinesis towards sealing his lips. Instead, she found herself hanging in midair, suspended by someone else's power.
Various mutants began appearing in the room's doorways, spurred there by Pietro's hysterical Paul Revere imitation.
"Did you hear that?" Smash asked sadly. "My own mother verbally abused me. What a cruel world!"
"Stuff it, kid." Logan darted forward with claws extended. As he swiped at Smash's gut, the artificial projections bent and crumpled.
"Oh!" Smash smirked as Logan stared at his normally indestructible blades. "How unfortunate. Your claws seem to be made out of tin foil today." He glanced up at Jean. "Don't bother. Your powers aren't even fully developed yet. You can't touch me."
The redhead chose to ignore that advice, pushing outward against his psychic bubble.
"I didn't really want to do this," he sighed, tightening the invisible force field around her.
*
"Hey," Lance swung around the infirmary doorway. Six eyes floated open in unison, and the Triad regarded him coolly from the floor. Refusing to be cowed by their collective power, he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "You guys are up. Go save the day. Or a whole bunch of days. Whatever."
The three mutants rose smoothly, joining hands and gliding calmly from the room.
Victoria peeped around the curtain. "It's starting?"
"Something big is going down." Lance leaned against the blank wall. "I'm going to stay right here."
The dark girl, nearly as tall as he, stepped fully from the partitioned corner. "Coward."
"Yeah?" The Brotherhood senior eyed her. "Come over here and say that."
"You don't scare me," Victoria said, crossing the room to stand inches from his face. "You're just some wimp out to save your own hide. Go ahead; be remembered as Wanda's escort service. I'm gonna go up there, laugh in the face of evil, and then whup its butt."
She stalked out without a backwards glance.
*
David was awake, and he was afraid. The cold attitude of Wa-wa and her new friends was doing little to make him feel better.
"Oh, really," the bad boy sighed. "I'm only here to kill the honorable Mr. Kelly. Let me be on my way and out of yours."
"You're really full of it, you know that?" Todd was guarding the central staircase with Kitty. "If you think we're gonna let you make a future where we live in cages, then ... man, I just don't know where yo' head is at."
Logan had sidled across the room and now presented his mangled claws to Kevin. "You. Fix."
Betsy skimmed the original properties of the implants from their owner's mind, passing them to the reality-manipulator. Concentrating, Kevin changed the claws to a more fluid state, drawing them out straight and sharp. The blades sparkled as they hardened back to adamantium.
"Not too shabby," Smash commented. "How'd you like to try something harder?"
As he spoke, small objects lifted from around the room, morphing weirdly as they floated through the air. A shoehorn whizzed over David's head; a model of the Eiffel Tower inverted itself as it sailed by. A piece of toast, previously a coffee table book, caught Safe Thing in the face.
That made him mad.
Above him, Jean seized Smash's moment of distraction for her own advantage. Expending all the energy she could afford towards hiding her activities, she reached towards Xavier's mind.
_Professor!_ she gasped. _Help! Smash too powerful. Need stronger telepath. Come quick!_
Kevin, under Betsy's silent direction, was busily transforming all of Smash's creations into paper airplanes. Wanda hexed the glass doors open, and the Triad's anchor sent the colorful battalion out on a psychic wind.
"Not bad at all!" Smash grinned. "This little roadblock might be more fun than I'd expected."
*
Lance stood, in what he believed to be silence and solitude. Computers hummed in electronic harmony, some program beeping to itself in steady rhythm. The ceiling fan whirred slowly through its endless circle.
"You should go up and join the others."
He startled, and finally noticed Evan, just visible beyond the parted curtains. "What? And risk my life? I don't think so."
"I would if I could." The wounded mutant lay on his stomach, neck twisted around on the pillow to look towards the other boy. "I'd rather die here than be tortured and experimented on."
"Well aren't you noble," Lance smirked. "I'm going to be discrete rather than valorous."
There was a soft fluff of settling blankets. Evan's gaze jumped to the cot where Ricky had lain not a moment before. He blinked, agape, then formed the words: "That can't be good."
Lance looked at the now-empty bed, careful not to commit himself to any particular emotional or action-oriented response.
"Lance," Evan said, all playfulness gone from his voice. "If you have any respect for me as a human being, if you have any social conscience at all ... go make sure my daughter is all right." At the other boy's hesitation, he added, "I swear I'll baby-sit for you any time you want."
"Done!"
*
Smash chose to release Jean then, carelessly dropping her where she was, the immediate result being that Kitty found herself much nearer the floor and underneath her teammate.
That was the absolute end of Todd's normally lengthy rope.
"You got something against my family?" he burst out. "I got up this morning, all alone in this world. I find out I have a teenage daughter, who I barely spend any time with before she dies. Now you're abusing my wife?" He paused. "Female partner?"
"There was an in vitro fertilization and a surrogate mother," Smash said calmly. "Neither of you had any contact with Nicole."
"Because of *you*!" Todd launched himself, shoulder-first, into his new personal enemy. Smash rolled with the attack, coming away to face his opponent.
After a moment of primitive psychological warfare, Todd thrust a fist towards the other boy's solar plexus. Smash grabbed the wrist and twisted it violently, the amphibious mutant following through a backflip to realign himself. He slashed into the fuzzy blue elbow with the side of his other hand, buckling the joint just enough to wrench the first hand free.
He pulled his knee to his chest, aiming a powerful kick towards the minimally-clothed torso before him. Smash caught Todd's ankle neatly, lifting it upwards to force the boy into a sloppy parody of his earlier acrobatics. He pivoted swiftly to bring his heel into his airborne enemy's exposed side, sending him sprawling ungracefully across the carpet.
Smash leapt forward then, crouching to yank Todd's shoulders off the floor. He bared his fangs in the helpless teenager's face.
*
"2 o'clock and all is well!" Bobby bellowed.
Kelly eased out of his duck-and-cover position behind the TV cart, replaced his heart in his chest, and tried to remember to breathe. "I must ask you," he panted, "not to do that."
"Stop torturing the principal," Sam admonished.
"I'm actually enjoying the show," Amara rested her chin on her fist, elbow propped on the chair-arm.
"Is anyone actually watching the *movie*?" Rogue asked.
"Someone sure isn't," Rahne indicated to Jamie, who had fallen asleep on his beanbag chair, head bent back to rest on the floor.
"The movie isn't the point," Scott said. "We just have to guard Mr. Kelly."
"Right, right," Amara waved her free hand vaguely. "Guard. Right."
"This is serious!" Scott said in a voice that bordered on a whine.
"I've been guarding him all day," the Nova Roman said petulantly. "Back at home, there were people who lived only to guard *me*."
"From what?" Bobby snickered. "A bad hair day?"
"Oh!" Her nerves, strung even tighter than usual, snapped then. She rose from her recliner, heat gathering around her hands.
"I wouldn't advise this," Rahne said, as the room's temperature rapidly polarized around the ice and fire mutants.
"Amara, butt in the chair now," Rogue said sharply. "Bobby, stop harassing everybody. Next person using their powers will get a free demonstration of mine."
Quiet settled back over the room.
"Who's that guy?" Scott asked almost immediately.
"If you'd been watching, you might know," Rahne suggested.
"Meaning you don't know either."
"Hey! Less talking, more looking!"
*
So intent was he on his target that he failed to notice the two forms converging on himself. They plowed into him with admirable synchronization, dragging him over backwards. The large blue one and tall fiery one held him down by his arms, their extreme physical strength catching him off guard.
Fred advanced cautiously, one elbow thrust forward for protection. He dragged Todd by his shirt collar, hiding his unconscious friend in the corner formed by the side of the staircase.
A psychic bubble slammed Beast and Roberto back against opposite walls. Smash stood, grinned, and said, "Who wants to challenge me next?"
*
Lance's long stride allowed him to easily overtake the Professor's wheelchair, whining in protest at its high-speed setting. He arrived in the front room doorway just in time for Smash's cold gaze to sweep over him, continuing across the other occupants of the room.
Pietro zipped over to his teammate. "What took you so long? The others got up here ages ago."
"I was thinking," Lance replied shortly. He surveyed the room, noting Todd sprawled to his left.
"Ooh," Pietro smirked. "So you hurt yourself and had to stay downstairs and recover?"
"Did he do that?" Lance demanded, clearly in reference to Smash and Todd, respectively.
"Yeah. You're not going to fight him, are you? Lance? You know you can't use your powers without flattening us all."
"Somebody give me a weapon." He held out his hand, as if expecting something to materialize in his palm.
Smash, tacitly accepting the challenge, began to advance on his new adversary.
"I really don't think you should .... That boy is dangerous!" Pietro's mind flickered between protecting Lance from his own stupidity and getting the heck out of the way. "Would somebody get him a weapon already?"
Thinking quickly, Forge wrenched a frilly lampshade off the lighting fixture on the wall. "Lance, Kevin, heads up!"
Lance pivoted towards the call, cupped his hands loosely, and caught the completely non-threatening object. Instantly, it collapsed in on itself, forming a tight, twisting cylinder. The weird form shimmered briefly before resolving itself into a switchblade.
"Took you long enough," Lance muttered, flipping the knife open. He wielded it underhand, as he'd learned on the streets, and edged towards Smash.
Xavier had gained the room by then, and watched with concern for all involved. Their common enemy, unarmed, overflowed with confidence as he circled his adversary. A flash of steel, a nimble sidestep.
"You do this often?" Lance eyed Smash's uniform. "Or did you stand on the wrong side of a lawnmower?"
"Ah!" The furry mutant laughed. "This one has a wit. Let's see if he has more than one about him." Feinting to the left, he jabbed at Lance's midriff with his right hand. Lance followed the first move, failing to block the second. "What a shame. Seems you only have half, after all."
"Think you're *so* funny," the seismic mutant grunted, slashing upwards towards Smash's ribcage.
Smash leaned backwards, matching the angle of the strike. He brought his foot up into Lance's crotch, smoothly continuing the motion into a backwards somersault.
The only thing Lance could think was, "Reasons not to fight with two-toed people, number one."
The knife flew from his hand as he fell, spinning through the air. He crashed to the floor with a whimper.
There was general cringing from the male contingent of the room. Ororo averted her eyes from the scene, and saw something possibly more disturbing.
Her glance was just in time to see Victoria's outline fade into thin air. She gasped, prompting Tabitha to follow her gaze. Social looking responses soon had everyone staring at the empty spot, most of them not having any idea what was supposed to be so interesting there.
Susan cursed, bringing her Nullifier-bearing wrist close to her face. "Batteries are wiped," she said. She clamped her other hand over the device, extending one of her bio-wires into it and feeding out her own energy. "Mom, Dad," she leaned up awkwardly to kiss each on the cheek, "I gotta go. Take care of each other. Bye!"
While everyone was staring at her hastily exiting back, Kurt crouched, swiped his hand across the floor, and stood again in a smooth, circular motion. "Nobody move," he warned in a low voice.
Automatically, they all turned to look at him. And then they froze.
Kurt was clenching Lance's discarded blade in both hands, poising it just above his breast. "If I die," he said in a controlled voice, "then this *vermin* can never disgrace my family."
Margretha took a tentative step towards him. "Daddy ..."
"Es tut mir leid, liebling." The knife trembled.
His daughter shook her head. "Not for me. I won't be born in the new future anyway." Her golden eyes shimmered with tears. "I love you, Daddy."
"I love you all." His tone was fearful and courageous at the same time. "That's why I have to -"
Then the knife was gone, torn from his grip by an invisible force. It flew, warped into a knee sock with a hole in the heel, and flopped onto the carpet.
Everyone looked sharply at Smash's surprised expression, then at Kevin, equally confused. David's head rose slowly from behind the couch.
"Don't do this to me," he said, his childish demeanor completely gone. "I will not suffer another loss."
*
Susan pounded down the hallway, crossed arms held stiffly in front of her. Unable to use them for balance, she was forced to slow down at the corner. She shouldered open the door to the staircase, feet stepping at an incredible pace. The door at the bottom, designed to open towards her, brought her progress to a halt.
The hand not occupied with using her powers grasped the looped handle, and she stepped backwards, shoving her foot into the aperture and widening the space with a violent twist of her ankle. Her other foot hopped forward, and she was off again, the heavy door slamming at her heel.
She met the infirmary door with her backside, nearly tumbling in her haste to get in. "Mr. Daniels! Evan!" She found the parting in the curtains and pressed through it. "Nullifiers are dying," she said breathlessly. "Victoria's gone. Her mom's name is Gabi Jorgensohn." She pronounced it slowly, carefully. "Find her, okay? So neither of us will have to be alone." She glanced around, as if making sure she hadn't forgotten anything. "Oh, and try not to kill any other important people, okay?"
Evan opened his mouth, but Susan Walkingbird was gone.
*
"Enough of this," Smash said, his tone also somewhat changed. "As much fun as you've all been, I'm through playing."
Charles Xavier was, perhaps, a strong enough telepath to block the forces gathering inside Smash. As it was, only his battle-trained protegee was fast enough to do anything at all.
Jean stretched tendrils of her power towards her friends and teammates, binding their psyches, placing her mind in front of theirs as best she could.
And then it came.
Nearly everyone was cringing, apparently believing that closing their eyes would ward off the invisible attack. A bright redness glared against Jubilee's eyelids, and she chanced a peek.
An enormous, fiery bird-shape hovered in the middle of the room. Smash stood expectantly below it. Jean was holding a defensive position, head bent and palms outstretched.
"I renounce my host body," said a calm voice in all their heads.
One by one, the mutants began to look, shielding faces with hands or arms.
"Attack them now!" Smash demanded.
"I choose this body." Everyone's attention was drawn to Jean by the quiet force of the being. "You are Jean Grey. You have no other name ... but now you are Phoenix."
The avian form drew upwards into a pillar of fire, bending over and spiraling into its new host. Jean lifted gently from the ground, hair fanning around her head, shining with a new strength.
"How does time unwind," she sighed, as the light faded, "that a mother must destroy her son? I *am* sorry ..."
Smash stepped backwards, fearful now of his mutinous power source. "You can never destroy me," he snarled. "There will always be -"
"Another." David stepped around the couch, his aura one of understanding, of shattered bliss. "In every age, one shall rise who is willing to fight against you. An endless battle." He crossed the room. "David Haller."
"Also David." Smash took the offered hand with his own fuzzy, pentadactyl one. "Wagner."
"This is my revenge-time," said the newly-risen one. "I was broken, and I was thrown away. And now I have returned, reborn in the same life."
Tabitha nudged Ray. "What is he talking about?"
"He knows," David said. "He knows of the evil deeds that were lost to me for so long. We both know now the crime. I have come to collect the punishment!
"And not only from him," he continued, "but from all those he has turned to his false cause. What right does he have to any sort of future, when he casts out his own son?"
The front hall of the Institute gave a great lurch, and fell into complete disarray. The coffee table swirled around itself and became an extraordinarily long abacus, capable of holding 72-digit numbers. The smooth beads clattered in their frame towards the front door, the pane of which melted from denim to radioactive waste to water, and back to glass. Ororo's cape turned itself around, becoming a frilly apron in a cheery shade of pink.
Xavier could feel David testing his powers, feeling out their potential before deciding on his final, destructive move. "Wanda," he commanded. "Bind him now."
"It's you, isn't it?" She was still clothed in dingy gray asylum garb, but looked at him with a clear sense of superiority. "You're his father. Why would I deny him the revenge I want for myself?"
Betsy telepathically nudged her companion towards complacency, but Wanda whirled on her.
"No!" She balled her fists, holding back her powers. "I hope Hell has a special place for them."
"Betsy ..." Kevin quavered. He dared not counter David without her control.
Wanda released blue tendrils of energy then, winding them around her other selves. "You can't sneak around me," she said, as chocolate chip cookies rose from the floor. "This right hand knows what the left is doing. I am you. You are me. And *you*," she tightened a coil, causing Betsy to growl in suppressed pain, "are no longer in charge here."
"She was abandoned by her father, too," David said, for the benefit of the many confused faces. "At least he did not have the audacity to bill himself as some saviour of the world. For that, he will live a while longer ... just until I hunt him down. You," he looked levelly at the man who had joined in conceiving him, "shall feel the fires of Hell, and *then* you shall die."
Without so much as a by-your-leave, light began refracting at a new angle, bathing everything in a sort of greeny-purple hue, with a hint of orange [1]. Tongues of flame began licking at the remaining pieces of furniture, painting black streaks up the walls.
Wanda's control, iffy at the best of times, weakened, her mind distracted and confused by the chaotic state of the room. Xavier sensed the slip, telepathically clapping his hands over her mental eye. The blue strings of energy snapped and died. Balling her fist and straining the muscles of her arm, Betsy focused her powers into a psionic knife, purple blade blossoming translucently from her knuckles.
"Cover me!" she shouted. A barely-discernible ripple shot past her, missing her target by inches. Smash, struck in mid-leaping-attack, crashed to the ground, his bare outfit changing rapidly to thick lead.
David thrust his hands forward, a roaring wall of flame rising to block his assailant. Without expending any energy towards defensive pursuits, or even so much as slowing down, Betsy charged through the searing barrier. She drew her arm back, plunged the insubstantial blade through David's forehead ...
The brilliantly white flash died away, the room fading back to normal colors. David lay beside a scorched patch of carpet, eyes rolled back in his head. Smash was flat on his face, his arm twisted back and over his head, his hand in ...
Well, technically it was Betsy's hand. The knife had faded, leaving an almost unrecognizable lump of charred flesh. The rest of her body was not quite so badly abused, torso swelling slightly, intermittently, but it was clear to all that she would likely make the greatest sacrifice.
On the other side of the room, Kevin was physically restraining Wanda, shushing her wails of loss. The fight was gone from her posture, her grief at being abandoned again nearly tangible.
"It's over," Margretha whispered. "We beat him." A slow grin split her face. "We won!" She ran, laughing, to Kurt. He swept her up and spun her around.
"You did it!" he said exuberantly. "You got it done!"
They slowed back to a more sombre mood. Margretha pushed away from him. "I have to go home," she said sadly.
"But your home won't be there," Kurt frowned. "Why can't you stay here?"
She shook her head. "No telling what new mess I could make in the timestream if I don't leave now." She pattered over to Smash, kneeling to touch his arm.
"Margretha?" Kurt tilted his head slightly, willing her to turn. After a moment, she looked, eyes reflecting both longing and determination. "If I never see you again, I'll still love you forever."
Her expression misted over at his words. "That's exactly what you said the morning your friend smuggled me out of the compound." She bit her lip, forcing the tears to wait until she was done speaking. "This is the first time I saw you since then ... but I never did stop loving you."
And with a delicate {BIMF}, she left him again.
Ororo touched Kurt's shoulder comfortingly, but he shrugged her off, teleporting from the room.
"Broken," Jean said suddenly. "I see the ... I can't! I can't!" She clamped her hands over her ears, shaking her head and babbling. "All fall down. Broken. We know too much!"
"Jean!" Xavier said loudly, forcefully. "What do you see?"
"End!" she cried. "Death! Can't ...can't fix ..."
"*What do you see?*"
The redhead struck out at the air, screaming unintelligibly.
Fred came up to her from behind, surrounding her with his arms, restraining her with a gentle hug. "Jean," he said softly, "what do you see?"
Tears tracked down her face. "Kelly," she sniffled, "is safe. But there are fractures ... holes in time ... we break everything, and fall through to blackness." She threw back her head against Fred's shoulder. "Phoenix! Make us all as we were this morning, and make us forget today, and abandon me as your host. This I command you!"
*
"Rogue," Kurt said as soon as he became material again. "Thank you for giving me such a beautiful daughter."
"I - what?" Her mind did some fast addition. "Margretha was mine?"
"Ewwww," Bobby, Sam, and Rahne chorused.
"The men who made us do it disgust me," Kurt agreed, "but I have no shame in our child."
"Aren't you supposed to be guarding the front door?" Kelly demanded.
Kurt turned to look at him. "It's over," he said simply. "Welcome to the rest of your life, Mr. Kelly."
*
"If that is your wish," said the almost-voice.
Fred released his hold, and the fiery bird-head poked out of Jean's chest, followed by a long neck and powerful wing joints. The effect was like watching Kitty phase, except that the being could not possibly have physically existed inside Jean's body.
The Phoenix divested itself of its host, moving into the centre of the room. Spreading its enormous wings, it shed a single crystalline tear for each of the wounded. Betsy and Evan were cured of their burns; Pietro's hand was whole again; scrapes and bruises healed to unflawed skin.
The apparition wrapped its wings around itself, roared upwards in white flames, and died away. A single golden feather floated down, alighting gently on Jean's outstretched palm. It sat only briefly before melting into her hand.
A supernatural wind swirled through the mansion, setting aright all that was out of place. It touched each hero, and they knew no more.
THE END
[1] Otherwise known as octarine. Read _The
Color of Magic_, Terry Pratchett's first Discworld novel.