Chapter Thirteen

...Demon...

...Freak...

The harpy-like voices were calling to him, clawing at him with long, ghostly fingers. Swirling faces mocked and teased him, rocking his narrow cage with derisive laughter and terrified shrieks. The rain fell, neverending: black and slick and cold. It was accompanied by a howling wind that blew the harsh taunts around and through him, filling his heart with bitter pain.

...Mutant...

...Teufel...

...Mörder...

He was alone, abandoned. A prisoner in a cage, condemned to serve an eternal sentence. Just what his crime was, he had forgotten. The swirling mists of the midden mire had stolen the details from him, leaving only searing guilt and the impression of a horrible wrong. He had been running, running...running from something. There was intense pain and panic—a blinding, animalistic terror. A cold chill had clutched his stomach, freezing his mind; a dreadful certainty unlike any he had felt before. He had done something then, committed a crime he could no longer recall. Whatever he had done, however it had happened, he knew he had earned this fate. His punishment was just.

If he could only remember his name...

"You sound so sure of that," Scott frowned. "She was nearly burnt out when we arrived here. Belasco was about to—"

"I've strengthened her connection with her body and reestablished her escape route," Xavier explained brusquely, his hands flying over the keypads. Then he paused, glancing up a Scott with a reassuring look. "She'll be able to pull herself out now if Belasco proves to be too much for her to handle on her own. But my main concern now is finding Kurt. Without him, there is no way to stop Belasco from dominating once more."

Ororo furrowed her brow. "But, Charles, it is Kurt's mind. I don't understand how he can be pushed aside by this implanted personality so easily. What prevents him from fighting back?"

Xavier sighed, closing his eyes for a moment in order to better steel himself for the difficulty of what he was about to say. It was always hard to witness the scars of telepathic abuse, especially in one so close to him.

"Kurt has been a victim of massive psychic tampering, Ororo," he explained, "deliberately performed by a telepath with powers that rival my own. It seems that Kurt's brain has been 'rewired,' as it were, to support the implanted personality at the expense of his own. From what I'm seeing here, it's nothing short of a miracle that he has been able to fight back at all. For all intents and purposes, his personality should have been erased long ago. Look here."

He pulled up a colored diagram of a human brain with a few taps at the keypad. Ororo scooted past Scott to stand in the tight space between Erik and Charles.

"Note these even, orange lines," the Professor said, tracing a few of the straight, parallel stripes with his finger. "See how they are stacked together in a specific pattern? Now look here at these green lines."

He traced one of the few craggy lines that shot through the orange stripes seemingly at random. Ororo nodded.

"Very pretty," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "But what do they mean?"

"No living organism can have thought patterns this ordered and precise," Erik spoke up with a gesture to the orange section of the diagram. "What we're seeing here is more like a computer program than the workings of a human brain."

"Precisely," Xavier agreed. "This pattern was designed to inhibit Kurt's control over his own mind by forcibly suppressing certain memories, then overwriting them with a simulated personality. In other words, Kurt's mind has been infected with the mental equivalent of a computer virus—Belasco—the purpose of which is to re-write Kurt's personality according to its specifications."

"And the green lines?" Scott prompted.

"Those are Kurt's thought patterns," Xavier said. "And as you can see, they're getting weaker."

Ororo glared at the overwhelmingly orange diagram, her jaw clenching in frustration and a deep fear she refused to show. "So," she said, "what can we do to help Kurt?"

"Despite the damage the Belasco 'program,' as it were, has done, Kurt's own memories should still be there," the Professor assured her. "It's just a question of retrieving them."

"You mean like the way you can retrieve files from a computer's hard drive after they've been deleted?" Scott asked, his brow furrowed over his glasses as he struggled to wrap his brain around what the Professor was saying.

Xavier considered. "Essentially...yes," he nodded. "If we're ever to have a hope of reconstructing Kurt's mind, we're going to have to isolate the invading 'Belasco Virus' and cage it off until we can find a way to safely destroy it without harming Kurt."

"And how do we do that?" Ororo inquired.

"Well," the Professor said, "to extend the computer metaphor, first we're going to have to 'defragment' his mind."

Ororo looked confused. Xavier chewed his cheek for a moment, searching for a clearer explanation.

"Instinctually, Kurt's brain 'knows' how it is supposed to be configured," he said. "Unfortunately, it's not simply a matter of repairing the damage. If it were, I could probably do it from here." He shook his head with a tired sigh. "No, he'll have to rediscover the configuration on his own. But he'll need our guidance and support if it's to work.

"Right now, he's scattered: a fragmented psyche lost to chaos and uncertainty—what he calls the 'midden mire.' In order to regain his control, he's going to have to uncover and re-integrate his forcibly repressed memories into his consciousness. Until he has recovered his complete personality, Belasco will always have the upper hand.

"Jean has already helped him a great deal, even if she was unaware of it, but she has only started him in the right direction. What he needs now is careful guidance from a person he trusts implicitly."

Xavier turned slightly in his chair, looking up at Ororo with intense eyes. "And I believe that person is you."

The demon stood up carefully and extended his tail behind him, stretching out the kinks. His son's mind was well in hand. Now, it was time to see to his body. Casting one last glance around the grounds to be sure he was alone, Azazel teleported from the old oak with a BAMF of sulfurous smoke. The alarmed flutter of a songbird's wings was the only evidence of his departure.

...Demon...

Blank nothingness surrounded and clung to him like a plastic bag coated in glue. Here and there, ghostly swirls of freezing mist curled and floated; colorless flecks within an all-encompassing cloud. He followed them with his eyes, fascinated by the shifting patterns of their whirling dance.

...Abomination...

All too soon, the delicate wisps faded away and a turquoise rain began falling up from the clouds below him. The color was alarming after the blankness. Kurt sighed, leaning back against his narrow cage and stretching a hand through the bars, catching a crystalline droplet in his colorless palm and letting it weave and roll through his fingers of its own accord. The blue spread up his arm, deepening in color until it was almost black, then faded away into smoke.

...Schreckgespenst...

...Ungeheuer...

...Alpdrücken...

It would be so easy to just give into those painful taunts and let the clawing hands take him. It almost be a relief to allow those harsh, mocking voices to sway him as they had so many times before, to let himself fade once again into the cold, aching obscurity of his own subconscious...

...Kurt...

What was that?

...Kurt?...

A new voice was rising above the howling din deadening his ears, cutting through the caustic noise to slip straight into his heart.

...Kurt? Where are you?...

This voice was low and soft, deep, yet completely feminine. He pressed against the bars of his cage, straining to see through the searing blankness that enshrouded him.

There! The dancing mists were coalescing into a human form, a form of sparkling light magnificent to behold. He held his breath, awed by the vision as it continued to solidify, turning from light to shadow to living flesh and blood right before his eyes.

Once she had taken form, the woman looked around herself, taking stock of her surroundings. Her crystal blue eyes fell on him almost immediately, and a warm smile graced her deceptively delicate mocha features.

"O—Ororo?"

The name was like a burst of sunlight in his heart, bringing with it a myriad of images and emotions, a wild torrent of memory too strong for the narrow cage to hold. The bars burst open and Kurt stepped through, his golden eyes wide as he drank in her presence. He reached out a tentative hand to touch her cheek, but pulled back with a jolt before making contact.

"You can't be here," he whispered, dreading that his words were true. "This must be a dream, or a trick of some kind..."

Ororo shook her head, a lock of snow-white hair falling over her shoulder. "No trick, my friend," she assured him, stepping forward to take his hand in hers. "I am as real as you are. I've come to help you."

Kurt stared at their linked hands, secretly admiring the contrast of chocolate against indigo as he had countless times before...a lifetime ago. Slowly, he raised his eyes to meet hers, tilting his head slightly in curiosity.

"Help me how?" he asked.

"I am to be your guide—to help you help yourself."

Kurt furrowed his brow. "You never used to be so cryptic," he said with the smallest of smiles. "Why don't you just say what you mean?"

Ororo cocked a wry brow at him, but didn't respond. "Break yourself out of this place," was all she said, "and you'll begin to understand. Then we can talk as plainly as you wish."

"But I can't—" Kurt started to protest.

"Then get me out of here," Ororo suggested. "Take me to the place you remember best. The place where you feel safest."

Kurt opened his mouth, but his excuse died in his throat as Ororo stepped closer to him, looking him straight in the eyes.

"I trust you," she told him, her voice solemn and sincere. "Do you trust me?"

Kurt blinked his golden eyes, then straightened. "Implicitly, meine Dame," he said with a courtly bow, sweeping the hazy ground with a playful flourish. Then he sobered, his expression darkening.

"You do realize the danger, don't you," he said. "The midden mire is not to be traversed lightly. One strong gust, and we could both lose our minds."

Ororo looked affronted. "What kind of a guide would I be if I allowed something like that to happen," she said. "I told you that I'm here to help, but if you want that help you're going to have to be prepared to take some things on faith."

A broad smile spread slowly across Kurt's face, brightening his eyes with humor and affection.

"Faith I can do, Liebchen," he said. "Take my hand. We'll be out of here before you can say klitzekleine Kinder können keinen Kirschkern knacken!"

Ororo blinked. "What?"

Kurt chuckled, secretly adoring the befuddled look on her face. "Just a tongue twister, meine Liebe. You can say Peter Piper, if you prefer. Either way, we're still busting out of here. Let's go!"

The journey through the midden mire was even more difficult than Kurt had anticipated. Ororo's hand was like a leaden weight, dragging him ever downwards, but he never once considered letting her go. Horrible, ghostly voices screeched past him, laughing in mocking derision, screaming in abject terror, taunting and pulling and scratching, shunting him from here to there as they tore at his soul with words. Still, he held on, kicking his way ever upwards as he swam against the rushing current of loathing and hate.

There was a light up ahead—dim and hazy, but warm and real. Kurt swam for it with all his might, stretching out a hand to sweep aside the roiling fog.

To his surprise, his hand rammed into something solid. He winced in pain, stopping their progress and turning to Ororo, who floated like an angel in the nothingness beside him.

"I can't get us through," he told her apologetically. "There's some kind of barrier in the way."

Ororo frowned at him in disapproval, causing his heart to sink. "What is a barrier to a teleporter?" she asked. "I thought nothing could hold you if you did not want to be held."

"A teleporter?" Kurt repeated quietly, narrowing his eyes as he struggled to remember. "Yes... I think I was a teleporter once. But I haven't been able to teleport for centuries..."

Ororo's frown melted and her eyes softened. "Kurt," she said, "can you remember the first time you teleported? Not the first time your power manifested, but the first time you teleported on purpose, just for the fun of it?"

Kurt ran an agitated hand through his hair. "I—I don't know..."

Ororo clutched his hand tighter. "Please, Kurt, try? It's the only way you can get us out of here."

"But the voices," Kurt said, suddenly looking very small: a child with wide, frightened eyes. "If they find out I can teleport, they'll think I'm a demon for sure. They'll try to kill me!"

Ororo made to move closer, then stopped short, staring around herself with wide, amazed eyes. The nothingness had faded away. Now, Kurt was standing just inside a sawdust-covered circus ring, a small, skinny, fourteen-year-old boy staring up at the trapeze platform high, high above. He was wearing a tight costume she had never seen before, sparkly blue with golden wings sewn across the chest. As Ororo watched, the bleacher seats filled with ghostly faces and a bright spotlight flashed on, causing all eyes to turn to Kurt. It was all very disconcerting, and for a moment Ororo wasn't sure how to react. Then, she felt the Professor's nudging at the back of her mind. Suddenly, she knew what she needed to say.

She bent down beside the frightened boy, leaning in until her lips almost brushed his pointed ear. "They won't fear you," she whispered, "if they think it's all part of the show."

Kurt turned his head to face her, a familiar confidence spreading over his impossibly young features as he took her hand firmly in his and gave it a brief squeeze.

"And now," came an announcer's voice, echoing over the heads of the spectral crowd, "the Szardos Bavarian Circus is proud to present—in his first solo performance—the Amazing Blue Lightening!"

Kurt grimaced slightly in embarrassment, but the excitement and anticipation of performing did not fade from his golden eyes. "Kind of a hokey stage name, nein?" he chuckled in his young voice. "I changed it to Nightcrawler after we joined the Munich Circus." He looked up at her, nervous, but ready as the band sounded his cue. "Hang on, now," he said with a rather shaky laugh. "I've never teleported up with another person before."

And suddenly, Ororo realized: this seemingly inexplicable scene was the memory she'd asked for. This performance was the first time Kurt had used his powers for his own enjoyment, without fear.

The young Kurt led her out into the spotlight and bowed to the cheering crowd. When he turned back to her, however, she found herself looking into the familiar, handsome features of the adult Kurt she had known for so long. Without a word, he pulled her into a tight embrace, twining his tail securely around her waist. Then, with an upwards glance and a quick, whispered prayer, he activated his power.

BAMF!