Subject: [OTL]: (alt. Pryde/Wisdom/Marvelverse) Recoil Chapter 5/12 (R) Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 00:01:56 -0700 (PDT) From: Phil Hartman will1@earthling.net Recoil Chapter 5 by Phil Hartman DISCLAIMER: Jake and Jesse are mine. The rest are Marvel's. It's all fiction. No money is being made off of this. Etc. WARNING: Violence, thematic elements, imagery, language, etc. ------------------------------------------------------- 6/5/2004: 16:20 hrs EDT: X-Mansion Medlab Exam Room: ------------------------------------------------------- Jean and Madelyne looked as if they were about to literally attack each other - - until the exam room reverberated with a lion's roar. All eyes in the now-cramped exam room turned to Hank McCoy, who, despite his felinoid secondary mutation from months earlier, looked a bit embarassed for a moment. "WHOA," Jesse said, his green eyes wide. "Uncle Hank, you sounded just like Wild Kingdom!" Kitty couldn't help it, even with Sinister sitting across the room and Madelyne in the doorway - she broke into a snicker. After a second, Rachel, Nate and Illyana burst into laughter so forceful that they started to shed tears. Jesse giggled as well, and the X-Men shared a few laughs. Even Scott chuckled, and hugged Jesse and Jean again. "I apologize for the Cowardly Lion impression, but I am putting my foot down as chief medical officer of the X-Men, and ordering anyone who's uninjured to get out of this room," Hank growled, glaring around the room at the children and adults present. "I was trying to conduct an examination of a patient who was critically injured less than three hours ago, and I am tired of being interrupted. Jesse and Jean, please stay. The rest of you, please, leave." He glanced over at the unconscious Logan, who was prone on the other exam table with a scorched diary in his hands, and added in a sheepish tone, "Obviously, Logan and his new reading material also may stay." "Agreed, Henry. I apologize for the intrusion. Scott, Ororo, Kitty, Peter, Bishop, and Sinister, please accompany me to my office. Madelyne, if you promise not to try and kill anyone, you also may accompany us," Xavier said. Lockheed gave a small snort of flame, and Xavier chuckled as he added, "And you, of course, Lockheed." "O' course not. Can't forget the bloody dragon," Pete grumbled. "All right ... I promise not to try and kill anyone," Madelyne sighed. Scott and Jean traded relieved looks, and both of them frowned at Jake. "I couldn't leave her in Kansas! Sabretooth was after her," the youth said in a sheepish voice. "I've got the Marauders looking for Creed, Jacob. You can relax, Madelyne - I no longer wish you dead," Sinister said with what Kitty thought was supposed to be a friendly smile. "That makes me feel SO much better," Madelyne grumbled, as Illyana teleported the specified people and dragon to Xavier's office. The others left, but only after the older Summers kids gave Jean and Jesse another hug. "I'm sorry about acting like the proverbial alpha male, but I need to finish these tests. This won't take long, Jesse, I promise," Hank said as the boy slid off of his mother's lap. "It's OK, Uncle Hank. You were really cool," Jesse said as he beamed up at Hank. "Well, thank you. Now, please take a deep breath - we need to test your lung capacity. Once this is done, you can go," Hank said, catching Jean's expression of dismay as she ran a hand over one of Jesse's skinsuit sleeves. ~I suppose he would've gotten one of these in a few years anyhow, deafness or not. And now that he can hear ... Hank, is it wrong to want my little boy to have something to do in life besides fighting for Charles' dream?~ Jean asked her friend telepathically. ~Not at all, Jean. Not at all,~ Hank reassured her as he held a stethoscope to Jesse's chest. The boy flinched a little as the cold metal touched his bare chest, but he took a deep breath and let it out. "Ow," Jesse mumbled. Jean looked at him, then at Hank, with worry. "Nothing to fear - it's hardly a surprise that Jesse might have some aches and pains after major chest surgery. Your breathing sounds good, though, Jesse. We'll check up on you in a day or so. If you want, you can leave," Hank said, smiling at the boy. "Thanks, Uncle Hank ... but c'n I stay with Mom for now? I don't want her to worry 'bout me," Jesse asked as he put his arms back in the skinsuit sleeves and shrugged it back over his upper body. "It's all right with me if it's all right with your mother," Hank said as Jean helped Jesse zip up the front of the skinsuit. "It is definitely all right with your mother. C'mon - we'll read or something, or maybe we can just hang out together," Jean replied, levitating herself and Jesse back to her infirmary room. Jesse's giggles brought another smile to Hank's muzzle, and he looked over at Logan. "Hmph. YOU can't roar, 'best there is at what you do,'" Hank snickered as he put his stethoscope in the sterilizer. "'If I were king of the foooorest ...'" ------------------------------------------------------- Meanwhile, upstairs ... ------------------------------------------------------- "'I no longer wish you dead'? THAT'S supposed to be reassuring!?" "I am not the one who is being rude, Madelyne. The only reason I teleported into the medical laboratory was to check up on Jesse's progress," Sinister said as he sat in a Victorian-era chair. "His doctor is Hank. I STRONGLY recommend that you cease your interest in my children," Scott growled as he sat in a chair across the room. "I am a geneticist, Scott, and arguably better versed in your family's health care needs than even Henry. He is a gifted doctor, and more than adequate, but one who has a vested interest in you and yours is a better choice," Sinister riposeted. Scott looked like he was about to blast Sinister, but moved his hand away from his visor and just scowled. Pete and Kitty sat beside each other on the love-seat, with Ororo on the other side of Kitty. Madelyne sat on a footstool near Xavier's desk, as the telepath limped over to his seat, and Bishop stood at the door with crossed arms. "My cue to go, I take it?" Illyana asked Xavier with an impish grin. "Yes, please, Illyana. Thank you," Xavier said. The girl sighed with feigned hurt and vanished, before Xavier turned to Sinister and raised an eyebrow. "If you would, Sinister, please start at the beginning of Black Womb," Xavier asked. "The British or American project?" Sinister replied. Xavier shuddered, but said, "I suppose the British ... 'project' ... will do." "Don't act so squeamish, Charles. Your father certainly didn't. Then again, he was only tangentially involved, and his death was a true loss. As much as you loathe me, I considered him a true compatriot in the sciences," Sinister said in a too-cheerful tone. "Cut to the chase," Scott demanded. "Patience, Scott, patience. As you and Jean are already aware, from your little temporal excursion back to 1859 - caused by Miss Rasputin, I believe? - I was transformed by En Sabah Nur into the pale-skinned, red-eyed form I now possess. In exchange, I kept him informed of genetic advances I made ... even as I began to realize that I had sold my soul for slavery," Sinister said, a wistful expression crossing his face. Madelyne made a gagging noise, and Sinister glared at her before continuing. "Nevertheless, I was willing to accept the cost, given that I had nothing left to cling to in terms of human attachment. My problem was that I lacked sufficient test subjects. Even in the cesspool that was Victorian-era London, too many missing people tended to draw unwanted attention," Sinister said. "How can you be so callous!?" Kitty snarled, Lockheed growling on her shoulder. "Because, Katherine, science makes harsh demands. And, I was fresh from having lost my wife and children. If I might continue?" Sinister replied in an icy tone. Kitty restrained herself, letting Pete put an arm around her, as Sinister nodded and began to speak again. "In order to satisfy my need for genetically anomalous test subjects, I began to peruse London's upper class as a doctor. I found a surprisingly flourishing trade as an obstetrician, and one patient in particular proved to be most helpful - a young woman by the name of Amanda Mueller," Sinister continued. "In exchange for helping her deal with the unwanted products of her ... extramarital activities, she allowed me to keep her ... unwanted offspring. Unfortunately, the arrangement was outed by a London gossip columnist, and became known as the 'Black Womb murders.' "I helped dear Amanda vanish, and she became my most productive source of genetic material in the coming decades. She also served as a surrogate mother to - well, I'm getting ahead of myself." Ororo looked sick, and Kitty wanted to cry into Pete's shoulder. Scott, Pete, Bishop and Xavier all looked green, and even Madelyne wore an expression of disgust. "During an incredibly ironic encounter with one Remy LeBeau - time travel is a wonderful thing, isn't it? - I restored a portion of Remy's cerebellum which my present-day self had removed, in order to help the poor boy with his burgeoning powers. He was able to then travel home, with one of his more questionable business partners, known as the 'Courier'," Sinister pondered. "An examination of the Courier's genetic structure indicated that the Courier was a remarkably powerful metamorph. I was able to add that particular genetic code to my own, and gained my present-day physical powers - my energy blasts, immortality and psionics already had been triggered or placed by Apocalypse." Sinister cleared his throat as Scott glared at him again, and gave the first X-Man a dark smile. "Remind me to thank your boy Nathan again, Scott. He performed remarkably well back in 2001 when he vaporized Apocalypse. The dear lad proved to be every bit the weapon I'd hoped you and Jean would produce," the geneticist said. "Stay on topic, Sinister," Scott replied. "Yes. Well - after I helped Amanda hide from the London authorities, we decided to take our show on the road, so to speak," Sinister continued. "It was a time of great scientific curiosity on your side of the pond, so we decided that the land of opportunity would be a wonderful place to continue work. The melting pot would not let us down ..." "I assume that during this time, you founded your Nebraska base," Xavier asked. "Among others, yes, Charles. The technology available to us at the time was primitive, but after a particularly nasty break with Apocalypse, the fool gave me the technology I needed to bring my technical level up to its present extent," Sinister chuckled. "He needed me to harness the techno-organic virus of the extraterrestrial Phalanx into a form that would not transform the victim into a Phalanx drone. My research produced the T-O variant that Nur used to infect young Nathan, when the boy was but 4 years of age. "Remarkably, your son was able to use his psionics to restrain the virus, Scott - another testament to your bloodline and the boy's resourcesfulness. In any case, I digress ... "As I expanded my power base and broke free of Nur's control, I decided that I should try and gather widespread information on the genetic diversity of American mutants. But how to do so without causing a stir? And then I realized the perfect means: Your government was looking for anything that might help them advance their power on a global scale. "World War One was a terrible time, but it also gave me an opportunity to approach certain fellow members of the scientific community. It also allowed me an opening into your uppermost circles of power - my 'Nathan Milbury' persona first emerged during this time. "I used that persona as I accessed the American branch of the Hellfire Club to seek government funding for what I claimed was eugenics work. It wasn't that far off the mark, and was actually welcomed by the foolishly bigoted WASP power structure. What I was able to found was no less than Operation: Black Womb. "The project was simple: I would give your government tidbits of the promise of genetic engineering, and they would give me near-unlimited funding and access to less-than-desirable castoffs of society ..." "My God. You're alleging that they actually gave you victims?" Xavier breathed. "Charles, they were eager to do so! The mentally ill, racially-undesirable prisoners - prisoners of all kinds, actually - the disabled ... Black Womb hardly discriminated. I also was able to channel genetic data taken from socially acceptable people, culled from doctors' offices across the country," Sinister said. "The program began in 1927, or at least the first phase. Brian Xavier was assigned to work with me to examine the effects of radiation on successive generations of humans. I, of course, already knew the potential such mutagenetic energy could have ... but when he volunteered your pregnant mother for an 'accidental' exposure, I was willing to oblige." Xavier went very, very white. "Surprise, Charles. You and Cassandra were the first products of Black Womb research," Sinister said with another evil grin. His expression became somber as he looked out the window. "Dear Sharon evidently miscarried Cassandra, but I took your still-living sister and placed her with one of the first foster families in my network - people I had indebted to myself through various means. "Then, tragically, in 1936, Brian died in a laboratory accident. It was heartbreaking, really - he'd been such a benefit to the work. He was the one who had channeled me the adamantium bonding process from Lord Dark Wind of Japan, during pre-World-War-Two backchannel negotiations with the Japanese. "Dear God ..." Xavier whispered. "Oh, don't sound so surprised, Charles. Your father was terrified of the potential of mutants. That was part of the reason he wanted his children to be mutants - he hoped that you would be a defense against rogue mutations. The irony really is delicious," Sinister said with a chuckle. "Around the same time, I was asked to make my initial findings of mutagenetic advancement available to certain doctors involved in a very hush-hush project. When Captain America first appeared, I knew that my work had finally borne fruit." "You were involved with the Super-Soldier program?" Scott asked with a moue of disgust. "Tangentially. The doctors involved took mere theory and made it living, breathing flesh. I often wonder if the good Captain would see it that way ... but again, I digress," Sinister said with a sigh. "Black Womb funding became scarce as the war effort ramped up. I was reassigned to OSS work. The Americans were worried that the Germans would use concentration camp prisoners in genetic testing, and possibly have breakthroughs on the order of the Super-Soldier project. So, I became a spy in the camps, conducting my own experiments ... and making my own breakthroughs." Kitty's hands clenched at that, and Pete held her a little closer. "Believe me, Katherine, I was far more merciful to my ... subjects ... than many of the so-called 'doctors' in those hellholes. I was the one who killed and replaced a certain German officer in Poland, and I transferred a young Jewish lad who was demonstrating unusual control over metals," Sinister said, smiling again. "Magneto!? You were responsible for saving Erik Lehnsherr's life!?" Xavier gasped. "I'm not an idiot, Charles, as ghastly as I behave. I could tell that Magnus was something special. If I could have, I would have gotten him out of Auschwitz far sooner, but those damned Nazis were too attentive. The entire Holocaust was a sickening waste of potential," Sinister said with a scowl. "Is that all they meant to you? 'Potential'? They were people!" Kitty cried. "I'm sorry, Katherine. I am being a very poor guest, and I realize that pragmatism sometimes comes across as callousness. After I left Germany, just as Berlin was falling, I lost track of Magnus ... I still wonder what might have been. In any case, I returned to America in late 1945, and found Kurt Marko and Amanda Mueller still running Black Womb," Sinister continued. "The government had become quite aware of the potential of superhuman mutation, after witnessing the Invaders in action. The Super-Soldier program became its own project, spinning off into the hands of eventually-deranged madmen, but Black Womb was permitted a fair degree of autonomy. "Thanks to the precognitive advice of a certain British emigre' whom I had targeted as a 'genetic aberration,' we were able to isolate the foundations of several remarkable bloodlines. Part of that, of course, was for my own pet projects - I never took my eye off of your family, Scott - but I was gratified to be able to trace the Grey, Drake, McCoy, Worthington, and even Munroe bloodlines ..." "Goddess. You knew of my family?" Ororo said in a sickened tone. "Only your father, Storm. I regret that I had not had time to diversify my analysis systems to a global reach. That would not come until after a series of catastrophes began to spell death-knells for Black Womb," Sinister said. "The first was the passing of Kurt Marko. Amanda and I, being British emigres, were considered to be risky, at best, by our 'black-budget' overseers. Also, we had a lack of tangible achievements following World War Two. The occasional breeding success, masked as a 'miscarriage,' tended to be a low-powered mutant here or there, with one exception - a metamorph whom had to be given to a foster family because of security concerns. "The second was, sadly, Watson and Crick. When their independent work into the genome became public, it became fashionable for government moneys to go towards 'legitimate' genetic research - never mind the fact that I was already 50 years ahead of those showboats. "The third was the Red Scare. It's difficult to recruit top scientific researchers when they're being terrorized by obsessive right-wing paranoiacs. Also, military funding, which had been the foundation of Black Womb's financial support, was being shifted towards other biological research programs. "By the early 1960s, Black Womb had become something of an anachronism. That, and two of my most promising gene-lines had produced Alpha-class mutants, whom I hoped to divert to my then-nascent orphanage at my private headquarters in Nebraska." "Myself and Jean," Scott snarled in disgust. "Very good, Scott. However, I was still holding out hope that blunt interference in your growth would be unnecessary," Sinister replied. "After two bits of surreptitiously-gathered genetic material came into my possession, I was ready to try my first attempt at creating a superweapon to destroy Apocalypse. It didn't go quite as planned, and Amanda, the poor dear, died in childbirth in 1967. "That was the last straw as far as our handlers were concerned. After I evaded their ham-handed efforts to 'purge' me, I arranged for the Alamagordo facility to be consumed in an 'accident,' and eradicated all but the files in Washington. They were buried several years later in an tangentially-related incident, and my former confidants met various unpleasant ends ... "My own network was thriving by that point, and Black Womb could be allowed to die out - I simply transferred all that I had learned into my network. All that remained was the sticking point of a certain Acadian thief-lord, whose probes into Black Womb had uncovered too much to allow him to live. That thief-lord was known as the Antiquary. "Instead of killing the arrogant fool, however, I recognized that like myself, he was interested in acquiring knowledge. Instead of actual knowledge, I bought his silence by giving him the potential of knowledge ... Amanda's last child, a newborn infant with red-on-black eyes and latent mutancy," Sinster concluded. The entire room was dead silent for a long moment. "Gambit," Xavier asked without asking. "Precisely. I had an inkling of what young Remy's potential might be, but I had no idea that the infighting of the Theives' Guild would lead him to his career, nor that we would cross paths again someday," Sinister said, shrugging. "Then you know who Remy's true parents are," Bishop rumbled. Sinister grinned at him and replied, "Of course, Bishop. Let us just say that young Jacob is not quite the eldest of Scott and Jean's genetic offspring ..." "WHAT!?" Scott shouted. "Those genetic tidbits I mentioned earlier? I culled them from you and Jean, then combined them and implanted the result in Amanda," Sinister said, standing and grinning maniacally. "Congratulations, Scott. You're Gambit's father." ------------------------------------------------------- INTERLUDE 1: 16:45 hrs EDT: Location undisclosed: ------------------------------------------------------- The shooter was ... uncertain. Even with what they had gained in terms of technology from the raid on X-Factor's headquarters, combined with the teleportation technology taken from that HYDRA cell years earlier, the shooter wasn't clear that they could deal with Sinister head-on. The Marauders were laughably inadequate to stop the shooter; they were old news. But Sinister himself ... Sinister needed to be lured into a trap. And there was only one real way to lure the geneticist out. Threaten one of his "masterpieces." The shooter was NOT going to target the Summerses again. There had been too much needless suffering there, and the shooter still felt horrible about what had happened to young Jesse. The boy was, by all indications, recovering, as was Jean. No, something else had to be done. And then the shooter realized what - or who - would be a good choice. At least, it was someone the shooter could feel less guilty about targeting. ------------------------------------------------------- 13:50 hrs PDT: San Francisco, Ca.: ------------------------------------------------------- "... like, why I ever agreed to work with you on this -" "Shush, petite. We gon' get in trouble if we not more careful, non?" Remy LeBeau asked his partner in "crime" as they sneaked across the rooftop of the San Francisco Roxxon branch. "Paige is out of her corn-pickin' mind! We could deal with Roxxon just fine without this snatch and grab crap! But NOOOO - she wants hard evidence! So we hook up with the one X-Man most likely to end up in the slammer with a guy named Biff! I'm just glad I worked my powers to their max before I graduated!" Jubilation Lee said, glaring as she watched Remy try to undo a grate on the air conditioning system. Then she noticed the air ripple a few feet away. "Yo, Remster - teleporter," Jubilee warned, her 20-year-young eyes narrowing as a trenchcoat-and-fedora-clad figure materialized. The being lifted a rifle of some kind and took aim, ignoring the suddenly-screaming alarms. "Dat ain't Roxxon security, Jubes. Scatter!" Remy ordered, charging a card and tossing it at the newcomer. The intruder responded by firing, ignoring Jubilee as she leapt away and fired her trademark plasmoids towards the being. "No dice," she muttered, watching the sparks bounce off of some kind of force-field. ~Then let me try, gel,~ a familiar voice rang in Jubilee's head. She grinned as the air parted again, to admit three black-clad figures and a young blonde woman in a red miniskirt and jacket. "Generation X, get that guy! He's the one who shot Jesse Summers and almost killed X-Factor!" Paige Guthrie ordered, husking into a steel form. "Even more reason to nail this maniac, si?" Angelo Espinosa said as he stretched and tried to wrap the attacker in his distended skin. The attacker just teleported again, and fired some kind of energy blast at Everett Thomas. "I can keep this up all day, pal," Everett replied, teleporting again - he was glad one of his semi-permanent powers was the teleportation he'd copied from Blink before she'd left Generation X at graduation two years earlier. "I can't. I've got a ruddy concert at 3," Jonothon Starsmore said - with a long-restored mouth - as he opened the iris on the psi-solidifier implanted in his chest cavity. Raw telekinetic energy launched towards the attacker, slamming into the being. And scattering across its - his? Jubilee wondered - force-field, before the field started to spark. The attacker teleported yet again, and appeared directly in front of Remy, who had returned to working on the grate. Gambit tried to look into the attacker's eyes, but found only dark sunglasses - - and then a gun barrel. "Tell Jean and Scott I'm sorry," the attacker said in an electronically-distorted voice as it pulled the trigger. "You gotta be kiddin' - like Gambit gonna sit still an' get shot!?" Remy taunted, leaping away. He screamed when a miniature missile struck his left leg, sending flesh, bone and blood everywhere. "REMY!" Jubilee screamed, running over to her ex-teammate and friend. Remy had removed his trenchcoat and was trying to make a tourniquet, but was already starting to shake uncontrollably. Then the entire roof shook, and the attacker's coat erupted in flame. "That was for trying to kill me, jerk. This is for trying to kill Gambit," a voice called from behind another of the air-conditioning units. "FORGE!" Husk shouted as the Maker walked out from behind the AC-unit. He nodded at her, then cocked his energy rifle again and took aim at the attacker. The being vanished, leaving Generation X and Forge to rush to Gambit's side. "My teleporter can get two people as far as the X-Mansion. It's an experimental model, and I left an LMD at the townhouse to fill in while I tested it. After I heard what happened to the others, I hid at Falls Edge until the attacker's teleport-signature reappeared," Forge said, applying some kind of device to Remy's leg. The bleeding stopped, and the Cajun passed out as Forge injected him with a syringe from his first-aid kit. "I'd leave if I were you. Roxxon won't be pleased to find any sort of mutant activity up here," Forge told Generation X as he lifted Gambit in his arms. "Just get him to safety, Forge. We'll deal with these corporate weasels. An' tell the others we're thinkin' of them," Paige said as Forge teleported with Gambit. "No wonder the X-Men are all freaked by this maniac - he actually tagged Gambit," Everett said in a nervous tone as he teleported Generation X back to their Haight-Ashbury headquarters. "We better call Sage an' warn the others," Jubilee said in a nervous tone. "This is, like, actually scary now ..." ------------------------------------------------------- tbc ... -------------------------------------------------------