The Quiet Before the Storm: Ch 3

Disclaimer: The X-Men belong to Marvel, the Coda to Wildstorm, and the story to me.

Charles Xavier is no stranger to pain, but this slow, sad ache in his heart is 
something new..something unexpected. He is unused to feeling any trepidation over
the fate of his students...his soldiers, but in the last few months, since the
reappearance of a woman claiming to be the true Elisabeth Braddock...well, you 
could say that things haven't been the same since then.

The woman they'd thought *was* Psylocke all along proved to be a Coda assassin,
called Kwannon Yashida, and though he'd made a simple exercise of trying to determine
Scott Summers' loyalty: to the Dream or to his heart...nothing had gone according to 
plan: it all backfired.

Jean Grey lay in a coma after being mind-raped by Psylocke's psychic knife, her 
fragile sense of self shattered, her psyche irreparably damaged. He couldn't 
spare the effort to reach her, so he allowed the one known as Psykeye to expend
her telepathic energies in that direction, because it allowed him to keep her
under discreet surveillance...and concentrate his efforts on restructuring the
team.

Warren was a shoe-in, as were Bobby, the Institute's accountant, Bishop--that
time displaced traveller, who nearly worshipped at Xavier's feet, and even Remy
LeBeau, whose criminal past would come to haunt him should he ever leave the
safe haven Xavier had offered him. Perhaps he could consider Scott's brother,
Alex?  The young man had always wanted a chance to step out of the elder's 
shadow...and with him came a young woman whose powers easily rivalled Magneto's.

<Now that would not be such a bad combination,> he thought, <Another Summers
with a great deal of power, and leadership potential. And the girl? She will
come because of her loyalty to Alex..with a little careful management she 
should fall into line just fine....>

He rubbed his tired eyes, <I must've reread this page a dozen times without
really comprehending it... I keep seeing Ororo's face when she saw I'd waited
up for her! I only wanted to be sure she was all right, to discuss what she
felt was wrong between us--instead she looked at me with cold, stranger's 
eyes! This is absurd! I'm acting like an over protective father. She *is* 
a grown woman. She knows her own mind and where her priorities lie...or so
I though. Her sudden, dramatic personality shift troubles me greatly! It has
been many years since I have seen this side of her...>

He extended his telepathic senses to the loft where the weather-witch lay 
sleeping. The more experienced of his current lot of students, and the only
leader of his "team" at the present...

<I could resolve this mystery in seconds by reaching into her slumbering 
mind...> he thought as he attempted a cautious probe, only to find it 
sliding off a powerful psiscreen that hadn't been there before, <That is
most odd...I have trained her to defend her mind against other telepaths,
but always left a "back door" to get in, should it be needed...>

And Xavier was oblivious to the "other" presence that nudged his attention
away from the weather elemental. He was tired...and he dozed off in the comfortable
wheelchair that he'd rolled up to his desk.

Upstairs, in her attic, Ororo slept fitfully, plagued by doubts and broken
dreams, until her eyes snapped open.

She saw faces, with kohl rimmed eyes, garbed in white linen staring down at her.
Dark eyes intently staring at her, waiting.

<Whu..where am I?> she thought to her self, <What is this place? Why can't I
move?>

Then she saw a reflection off burnished gold: she was being swathed in criss-
crossing strips of white linen, her hair coiffed in many tiny braids, and 
her own eyes rimmed in the same rich, black kohl...the crook and flail of
a priestess of Isis crossed across her chest.

A funerary mask was lying on a table near by, and the scents of frankincense
and myrrh were cloying to her nose as she became more aware of her 'surroundings',
<Who are you? What are you doing to me?>

One of the priests of Anubis shook his head sadly, <Come now...must you ask such
a foolish question? Ignorance of your condition is no excuse...>

<Condition?> the weather witch asked numbly, <What condition?>

<Really?> a priestess of Thoth, with white hair and lotus blue eyes asked, 
<You've only wasted your potential to change your world, Daughter of Isis,
misusing your Gift on costumed dramas while the world crumbles around you?
Worshipping a false messiah? This is the nature of your condition... You are
blinded by a funerary mask, and your soul is confined as one who lives in 
the Afterlife...>

<No... that's not true...> she replied with more strength, struggle to break
free of the confining mummy wrappings, now able to turn her head to see the 
stylised art adorning the walls of what appeared to be a Middle Kingdom burial
chamber...the art depicting her life with the X-Force, and then her earlier
life.. as a child in Cairo...but not as she remembered it!

The priestess of Thoth shook her head sadly, <Daughter of Isis, Child of Tefnut,
do you not see? You could have brought rain into parched lands, turned back the
marauding hurricanes, but you didn't. Thousands have died because of it... 
your condition is beyond treatment....almost...>

Ororo's eyes met those of her ancestress, pleading for help as she saw the tomb
paintings spring to life...

A white haired girl-thief, picking the pocket of a wealthy tourist... being taken
to a hotel, fed, bathed... and then clothed in something no ordinary fourteen 
year old would have wished to wear, but to a girl of the streets, it was finery
that she could never hope to own...

...and all she had to do was make the wealthy man happy... it wasn't the first 
time she'd traded her body for a meal, but it wasn't the last. He took her back
to America, and taught her to use her magick, taught her to read and write and
how to be a lady during the day, but every night, she paid the price for those
lessons, and the price she paid for her "freedom" was much greater...all she
had to do was what he told her....

...and to a lass from the streets of Cairo, it didn't seem to be such a high 
price... sitting on her knees, giving pleasure to a man in a chair. A man who 
couldn't walk any more. It was nothing new, after all...was it?

...hadn't she travelled south, to Kenya? Hadn't she been worshipped as a goddess?
Or had she?  Nothing made sense any more...

...or was it all in her head?

She screamed...trying to deny what she'd seen, but knowing in her heart that
it was the blinding light of truth...

"Noooooooo!" she cried out, unleashing the potent powers that reigned within her,
the lightning springing unbidden from her hands as the thunder rumbled outside.
It blew out the side of the mansion...and she was gone.

Warren wasn't the only one awakened by the blast, poking his head out the door to
his room, he asked stupidly, "Was that an explosion?"

Bishop led the charge up the stairs, plasma-pulse rifle in hand, "Yes, but none of the 
security systems were tripped, there's no register of an unauthorised presence on the premises..."

Remy and Beast were hot on his heels, "It came from Storm's room, either there's a 
problem, or she's doing some radical redecorating...."

Jubilee poked her head out, irritated at the commotion, <Hey, does the Bish-man sleep
with his gun or what?>

As they opened the door, the shattered brick-and-mortar, scorched curtains and the
pungent tang of ozone hung in the cool air, Beast was the first one to react, "Oh,
my stars and garters....."

Jubilee was awestruck, "Whoa... I'd better tell the Prof..."

Beast shook his indigo head, "Don't worry....I'd say he knows already."

Xavier had been jarred awake by the sudden outburst, and stared at the turbulent
sky through the window of his study...his world was crumbling around him...

Above the Manhattan skyline, she floated, like a sleepwalker...words failed her,
thoughts are random and chaotic as she drives herself on instinct alone, tormented
by visions, struck by uncertainty and plagued by guilt, she desperately turns to
the only one whom she feels understands the conflict warring within her.

Ororo sailed in through the open panels of the skylight, her white hair a halo
against the moonlight as she landed among the roses.

"Shinobi, I must talk to you..." she said, not yet registering the presence of 
the others as he guided her toward the table.

"Ms. Munroe, what a pleasant surprise!," he said softly, "I'd like you to meet my
colleagues, Baroness Emma Frost, Joseph von Lensherr and I'm sure you're acquainted
with her Grace, Elisabeth, the Duchess of Avalon?"

Emma nodded to Ororo, as though acknowledging an old associate, "So we meet again,
Ororo...."

And then the agelessly handsome man, with sky blue eyes and long silver white hair,
arose and kissed her hand, "A pleasure, Mistress Munroe."

There was something disturbingly familiar about the man, though in her current
state, the windrider couldn't place it, but Elisabeth, she recognised--and felt
a sudden surge of relief to find another familiar face here.

Emma, she remembered vaguely, as she gazed at the ice-blonde telepath who sat quietly
sipping mint tea, attired in a white tunic and slacks. The man in the white suit...
she couldn't place him, though his face was familiar. Had she known him?

She shook her head, trying to clear it, looking to Shaw as a source of strength,
"Please, Shinobi..can we talk privately?"

He steadied the disoriented woman, "You may speak freely in front of them, for they
think as I do."

"Very well," she said softly, "I had a vision.. a nightmare. My past... I was a mummy,
being unwrapped. The core of my being that bound me to those I loved and respected...
was a sham...a funerary mask that a priestess of Thoth and a priest of Anubis lifted
from my eyes...there were tomb paintings illustrating my life...and it is not how I
remember it. I don't know what to do, who to turn to...."

Shinobi smiled, "So you came to me? I'm touched. As for your dream? It's simply a
transitional effect of the neuro micro-toxin you were administered earlier...wearing
down the years of telepathic brainwashing you've endured..."

Ororo jerked away from him in shock, "What? What did you say?"

"I wasn't aware deafness was a side effect," he retorted, "You heard me..."

The Egyptian woman snatched his tie, wrenching his face closer to hers, "What
have you done to me?"

He steadied her with hands on her shoulders, "I've freed you from the shackles of
mental slavery enforced upon you... Given rein to the deep-seated feelings and
side of yourself that bastard buried deep inside you... such as your growing
sense of alienation from Xavier and the X-Force."

"No...you're lying," she faltered, not ready to accept the truth of what had really
happened to her, tears welling up in her azure eyes.

"Am I?" he replied softly, "I've simply held a mirror up to your true self, is it my
fault you dislike what you have seen? After your prior association with the Club, I
had hoped to free you, and "downloading" the psi-suppressant into our biochemical 
matrix simply made you more open to other alternatives... The potency is short-lived,
but you're no longer under his spell. Yet you came to me instead of Xavier for help?
Curious, no?"

She slumped into a chair, almost defeated, "Is this some drug induced manipulation, 
Shinobi? Or am I still dreaming?"

"No.. no...." he reassured her, smoothing white hair out of her eyes, "The cold truth
is that Xavier used you. Took you, and made you his whore, just like he did that red
headed girl. Made you feel indebted to him, and by isolating you, made him and his
"Dream" the center of your world, Ororo. I am offering you freedom...and protection
from him."

She shook her head as Emma continued to battle Xavier's blocks and conditioning, 
struggling to root out the decade old brainwashing. It was well done, almost too
well, the ice blonde telepath noted as she pulled out one, another took its place...

The weather elemental rose on a small breeze, "Your plan.....may seem to have 
succeeded...so far.....but..I...will die...before... joining..you!"

Shinobi shook his head, looking at Liz, "That choice is not yours.. that is Xavier
speaking... Liz?"

The Coda telepath's butterfly mask alight upon her friend's forehead as she blocked
Ororo's powers..for the elemental's own good, <<I'm sorry, 'Ro. I can play your 
nervous system like a fine instrument, I can block your powers, and have done so
for your own good.>>

Shinobi shook his midnight blue hair out of his face, "You came here for help,
Ms. Munroe, no flowers, no dinner invitation. You did something of your own free
will for the first time... You need help, and help you will have...because there's
a need in you that drew you here, to what we offer you."

She hit the ground as her powers were totally negated by the Fey telepath's blocks,
the wind knocked out of her as she struggled against the conditioning, against 
the blocks on her powers and the cool, incessant probing of her mind...

As she collapsed on the cool marble floor, Shaw's voice echoed gently in her ears,
"Oh, didn't I mention that the drug's side effects included inhibiting your powers?
Leaving us time enough to remove the shackles from your mind?"

And then Ororo Munroe's world faded to black....