Chapter Fourteen

Even though Ororo was well aware of the fact that everything she was seeing was in Kurt's mind, the experience of teleporting with him through the screeching coldness of the midden mire was as real as anything she had ever felt. The warmth of his body, the strength in his arms and tail where he held her close...these were not mere illusions. She squeezed her eyes closed, burying her face in his fuzzy neck in a vain attempt to stave off the sickening vertigo that clutched at her stomach. This teleport was definitely real.

Striving to keep her calm center despite her dizzying nausea, Ororo took a deep breath through her nose. Kurt smelled just as she remembered, warm and musty with a sharp undercurrent of strong soap.

That made her smile. Kurt had always been so self-conscious about the smell his teleporting left behind, secretly terrified that the reek of brimstone lingered in his fur. And it did, but only very slightly. Ororo had never admitted it aloud, but she had always rather liked the way he smelled.

She took in another discreet breath, her eyes still closed as her mind filled with warm memories...strolling through her garden in the moonlight as they talked over their latest assignments; sitting on his bed as he told her colorful tales of his years with the circus; the priceless look on his face when she sprayed him with the hose in an uncharacteristic fit of childish silliness; the security of his arms as he held her close in the elevator, soothing her claustrophobia with the kind words of friendship. Suddenly, Ororo had the strange, irrational wish to melt into him so they could stay in each other's arms forever.

Despite the difficulty of the trip, the turbulent teleport only took a handful of seconds to complete. All too soon, Ororo felt Kurt's embrace loosen, and she stepped away, quickly schooling her features into a mask of professionalism. Kurt needed her to be strong. If she allowed her confusing emotions to distract her from her duty as a guide, it was entirely possible that she would lose her friend all over again—this time for good. So, instead of praising him for the way he'd broken them away from the realm of howling chaos that had ensnared him, she took a moment to drink in their new surroundings.

They were standing in the center aisle of a very small, very ancient stone church. There was one round, stained-glass window at the back, and a very ornately carved wooden crucifix hung over the meticulously kept marble altar. A highly polished, upright piano stood in the space just below the altar, opposite a stone basin of holy water. The remaining windows were thin and narrow, and the thick, wooden rafters that made up the ceiling sloped to a sharp peak. A glass display case filled with archaeological artifacts lined the wall beside the only door that led outside, and the double rows of hard, wooden pews strewn with dog-eared hymnals made the small space seem full even though they were the only ones there.

"Where are we?" Ororo asked, feeling slightly uncomfortable and out of place in the oddly occupied atmosphere of this empty church. Even her voice sounded muffled.

When no answer was forthcoming, she turned to face her companion, only to cry out in concerned alarm at what she saw.

Kurt was crouched on the last pew, his shoulders hunched and his head down. His colorful, threadbare clothes were torn and grass stained, and his fur and hair were matted with mud, grass, and what looked like blood. Ororo rushed to his side.

"Bright Goddess!" she exclaimed. "Kurt, are you all right? What happened?"

Kurt didn't look at her. He just kept staring at his bloodstained hands, his golden eyes wide with shock and pain. When he spoke, his voice was haunted, distant. The sound of it chilled Ororo straight through to her marrow.

"I—I had to stop him. I had to. I'd gotten the knife away from him...everything should have been OK. But he...he punched me, lunged for the knife... What else could I do? God help me, Father, what else could I have done?!"

Ororo spun around, but no priest was there. Only her and him and whatever horrible memory was eating at his tortured soul now. Slowly, Ororo crouched down beside him, gently taking one of his scratched, blood-matted hands in hers.

"Kurt," she said softly, "tell me why you brought me here. What did you want me to see?"

Kurt took in a shaky breath, his shoulders trembling as his golden eyes filled with tears.

"I used to feel so safe here," he whispered hoarsely, choking back his sobs. "The monks at Neuhertzel had always been so kind to me. After our circus was bought by that millionaire Texan, they were the only ones who would give me a place to stay. Sabu..." He took in a shaky breath. "Sabu was d-dead, and Amanda couldn't leave with me, so the monks let me live in their monastery while I searched for my brother. And they were the only ones I could come to after..." he turned his head to the wall, hunching himself into an even tighter ball, "after I found him."

He shivered, closing his eyes for a moment as he struggled to find the strength to go on. Ororo lowered her head in understanding, her thumb soothingly stroking the back of his fuzzy hand.

She was well aware of the tragedy he was referring to. It was the event that had first brought Kurt in contact with the X-Men. After the man who'd bought his circus threatened to put him in the freak show, the nineteen-year-old Kurt had left the only home, the only family he'd ever known and gone off in search of his older foster brother, Stephan Szardos, who had left the circus several years earlier. He'd found him some weeks later just a few short miles from the monastery at Neuhertzel, living in the small, isolated town of Winzeldorf.

At first, everything had been wonderful, but after a while Kurt began to notice something...off...about his brother. He seemed unnaturally obsessed with the mysterious string of child murders that had been taking place in the area, claiming that the victims weren't children at all, but demons in disguise. As time went on, his words and actions became more and more peculiar until, finally, Kurt began to track his brother's movements in hopes of proving his suspicions to be wrong.

One night, he followed him to a cemetery, where he'd watched from a tree as Stephan pulled a long knife on a small child. Horrified, Kurt leapt to the child's defense, grappling with his raving brother for control of the knife. Kurt finally managed to grab the weapon with his tail and toss it out of his brother's reach, but Stephan socked him across the jaw and lunged for the knife. Kurt leapt after him, kicking him hard in the chest. Stephan was hurled backwards like a rag doll, snapping his neck on a gravestone. He was dead by the time his brother reached him.

Kurt had fled the scene, appalled and sickened by what he'd done, but he'd returned several hours later, resolving to take his brother's body home and explain what had happened to his mother and sister. Unfortunately, he had only just found the knife and was leaning down to lift his brother when he was spotted by a groundskeeper. The old man misunderstood his posture and his intentions, and before he knew it, Kurt was under attack by a raging mob, all accusing him of being the demon responsible for the deaths of their children. If Professor Xavier hadn't been there to stop them, Kurt would never have escaped alive. And even though his mother and sister had later forgiven him for the death of Stephan, Ororo knew that Kurt had never been able to forgive himself.#

"I've always loved this place," Kurt continued after a long moment. "I've never felt more protected than I did while I was here. This monastery was a place of peace, of study and contemplation devoted to charitable works and the simple love of God. And once I left, it was only to find a world of violence and hatred...a world I've never been able to escape from since."

"Is that why you chose to come here, Kurt?" Ororo asked. "To escape?"

Kurt looked down at her with dim, hollow eyes, then rose to his feet, pacing up the aisle until he was standing before the altar looking up at the large, ornate crucifix.

"I killed my brother, Ororo," he said bluntly. "I was a murderer in my own right long before I'd even heard of Belasco. I've harmed so many people in the name of justice. Since joining the X-Men, I've led a life of violence and bloodshed. I called myself a righteous crusader, yet how often did I allow my anger to influence my actions?"

He sniffed sharply, his features clenching in anguish. "Xavier's words seem so hollow now," he whispered to himself, "seeing them from this darker side of the looking glass. I never should have left Neuhertzel."

He sighed, turning his face in shame from the crucifix on the wall. Ororo started to move towards him, then froze in place, her mouth agape as the red blood that dripped from Kurt's thick fingers began to pool up his arms and down his torso, altering his clothes and features as it spread. The whole time, he continued speaking, apparently unaware of the transformation taking place.

"I know now that the old saying is true," he ground out, his hoarse voice harsh with bitterness. "It was my good intentions that led me on this path to Hell."

"Kurt, stop this!" Ororo cried out, rushing over to take him by the shoulders. She gasped in alarm as she felt that, beneath his long, red cloak, his right arm was now missing. The russet-skinned demon sneered at her expression.

"Stop what?" he snapped, gesturing fiercely with a five-fingered hand to his horns and spaded tail. "This is who I am, Ororo. This is what I always was. It doesn't matter whether I kill Belasco or Belasco kills me. In the end, we're both guilty of the same crime."

"You know it's not the same thing, Kurt," Ororo protested vehemently. "And Stephan's death was an accident! He was the aggressor. You never meant for him to die!"

"Do you think that matters?" he snarled, his golden eyes narrowed into cold slits. "The fact is that he is dead, and at my hand. God's law commands that we shall not kill. It doesn't say 'you shall not kill unless it's in self defense or in defense of another'. If you add addendums to the rules whenever they don't suit you, you only end up justifying the very crimes you were trying to prevent!"

Ororo shook her head, frustrated by Kurt's sudden attack of philosophic pigheadedness. "We're wasting time with this argument," she stated, running a hand through her long, white hair. The Professor's presence was itching at the back her mind, urging her to press harder, to cut through this protective rigmarole of blocks and excuses he had constructed straight to the festering blackness his unconscious was struggling so hard to conceal.

"There's something else here," she observed sharply, advancing on him with such purpose that he actually took a step back. "Something beyond your brother and even Belasco. It's a gnawing guilt that you refuse to acknowledge, even though it is eating your soul alive."

Kurt stared at her in confusion, backing up even further.

"What is it Kurt?" Ororo pressed, getting right up in his face. "What is it that you did that's so terrible you can't bring yourself to remember it, even now?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Kurt snapped back, starting to grow defensive. "I already told you why I deserve this fate—"

"No, you haven't," Ororo countered. "You haven't given me a single good reason why a man as decent, as caring, as forgiving as you should be condemned to this half-life, controlled by some heartless demon who should have died centuries ago!"

"I murdered my brother!" Kurt screamed back, the veins in his neck close to popping. "I used my power to teleport myself away from the Gray Gargolyle's grasp, when I should have tried to get my team out instead! I stood by while Belasco used my body to torture and maim X-Men from dozens of alternate realities. I watched him kill you again and again, Ororo, and rather than try to stop him, I slipped away into my subconscious, hiding like a craven coward from your screams and from the screams of everyone else I held dear. Scott, Jean, Hank, Logan, the Professor, Rachel...even Kätzchen! I was the instrument Belasco used to achieve your deaths, a willing slave to the Lord of Limbo! Your blood is on my hands!"

Ororo raised her chin, her crystal eyes sharp as she replayed the start of Kurt's rant in her mind. He had mentioned the Gray Gargoyle, his last mission before his capture. Could that be it? Could there be a connection between that mission and the memory the Professor had sent her to find, the one the demons had repressed, shattering his psyche so the implanted Belasco personality would have a chance to take root?

The Professor was still urging her to press harder. They were getting close, but Kurt was still fighting to keep the memory buried. She would have to push him to his limit, squeeze him into such a tight corner that remembrance would be his only way out. Reassuring herself that this harsh approach would ultimately help Kurt to heal, Ororo continued her attack with renewed passion.

"That's still not good enough!" she snapped, fixing Kurt with her most imperious glare. Her eyes whitened and her hair began to rise as she menaced him back until he was forced to stop by the worn basin of holy water. "None of that was your fault, Kurt, especially Belasco's crimes against the X-Men! They were all forced on you by Azazel! He implanted Belasco's personality and memories into your mind without your consent—"

"NO!" Kurt exclaimed, his voice cracking as a flood of tears burst from his burning eyes. "Ororo, you don't understand...!"

"What don't I understand, Kurt?" Ororo demanded, refusing to let up on him even though the sight of him in tears was tearing her heart to shreds. "Tell me! Explain what happened to you after the Gray Gargoyle attacked."

Kurt shook his head, collapsing to the floor in soggy heap of misery and shame. Black tears as thick and slick as crude oil streamed down his russet cheeks, staining his cloak and pooling on the uneven stone floor in a viscous puddle. Ororo's heart jumped with alarmed concern at the startling sight, but the Professor seemed glad. At last, he appeared to be whispering, his ghostly voice bending around the corners of her mind. At last, the painful memory that had been locked away for so long was starting its rise to the surface.

Ororo lowered herself to the floor beside her friend, reaching out with a tentative hand to gently touch his shoulder. He flinched away, but she only moved closer, wrapping her slender arms around him until he finally gave in to her tender embrace, carefully leaning his horned head against her shoulder.

"My sweet Kurt," she sighed, brushing her lips against his pointed ear as she ran her fingers through his short, red hair. "It's time for the truth to come out. No matter what it reveals, I will never think any less of you. You know you can trust me."

Kurt pressed his nose against her snowy hair, breathing in the clean scent of her herbal shampoo as he struggled to control his wracking sobs. "With my life, Liebchen," he assured her, twining his tail loosely around her waist. "With my very soul."

#I made up some of this backstory, but it's mainly based in Comicverse fact. For more details on Neuhertzel, Winzeldorf, and Stephan's death, see Giant Size X-Men #1: Second Genesis, King-Size Annual X-Men #4: Nightcrawler's Inferno, Part the Second (NOTE: Ororo gives Kurt a birthday kiss in Part the First!), and the animated DVD X-Men: The Legend of Wolverine. (The episode's name is Nightcrawler.)

Hank looked up from his office computer at the soft sound that had broken the silence of the medbay, his furry brow wrinkling in confusion—an expression which quickly turned to alarm when he saw the two red-skinned demons standing just before his desk.

"Oh, my stars and garters!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet and backing up against his over-stuffed bookcase.

"And greetings to you, my good doctor," the taller of the two smiled, his black goatee providing a disturbing border for his sharp, white fangs. "I see from your expression that you've guessed who I am, but I believe you have yet to meet my son." He gestured for the other demon to step forward. This one was clean-shaven, sporting meticulously styled red hair and a haughty expression that bordered on smarm.

"Henry McCoy," said Azazel with a theatrical flourish, "I'd like you to meet Mephistopheles."

"Mephisto, for short," the red-haired demon nodded politely, holding out a clawed hand for the doctor to take. Hank stared at it for a long moment, then looked into the demon's craggy face with wary curiosity.

"Surely you're not the same Mephistopheles—"

"From the famous history of the damnable life and deserved death of Doctor John Faustus?" Azazel broke in. "Of course he is. Not all my children have proved to be disappointments, after all."

Hank narrowed his eyes. "If I remember my Goethe correctly," he said, "wasn't Faust redeemed in the end?"

Mephisto scowled darkly. "That is a lie," he growled. "No matter what Goethe may have written in his vaunted play, that fool Faustus paid for my services with his soul, just as we'd agreed. I escorted him to our dimension personally, where the renowned scholar now serves as one of my father's slaves in retribution for his hubris."

"Ah," said Hank with a nervous smile. "So, I take it you prefer Christopher Marlowe's version of the story, then."

Mephisto's cold, amber eyes flashed. "Are you mocking me, mutant?" he spat, leaping up to crouch menacingly on Hank's desk, scattering his papers in all directions. Hank dropped to the floor with an involuntary cry, falling into a defensive crouch of his own. Azazel held up his hands.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, please!" he placated. "We're wasting time with this childish behavior."

He turned to Hank, placing a firm hand on Mephisto's shoulder as he climbed down from the desk.

"I know you are holding my son, Kurt Wagner, in the other room," he said.

"Kurt Wagner is my patient, yes. And he's currently in terrible shape, no thanks to you," Hank glared, hauling himself to his feet and crossing his long arms over his thick chest. "His genetic code is in a state of violent flux, and he's in constant pain."

"I know that too," Azazel said calmly. "In fact, that's why we've come."

"Why?" Hank snapped. "To gloat?"

"No," Azazel smiled, his pointed teeth clenching slightly with the effort of holding Mephisto back. "To help you restore your friend to his proper form. When my son awakens, I want it to be to his own face, his own body, and his own powers."

"Pardon my frankness, but neither of you seems to me to be of the philanthropic sort," Hank frowned, trying his best to ignore Mephisto's freezing glare. "Why would you go to all this trouble for a son who has repeatedly rejected everything that you stand for?"

Azazel's thin lips twitched slowly upwards in a small smile that showed no teeth. Hank shuddered despite himself.

"Mephisto," the black-haired demon ordered, striding past Hank through the open door to the medbay, "hand me my plasmotic alternator. We have a great deal of work to do, and not much time in which to do it. Doctor McCoy," he called over his shoulder, "you can either stand there or you can assist us. It's up to you."

"Of course I'm assisting," Hank declared, heading the demonic pair off before they reached Kurt's bed. "But I'll be damned if I'm going to let you two anywhere near my patient before you first give me a full and detailed account of exactly what you intend to do to him."

Azazel and Mephistopheles exchanged a look.

"We will provide you with a brief overview of the procedure," Azazel allowed. "As we work. But I'd advise you to be more careful about how you phrase your thoughts from now on, Doctor," the demon smirked, his burning eyes cold. "The next time you threaten your own damnation, I just might take you up on it."