X-Men: Dark Mirror Part 26

Jean frowned, looking at her counterpart. She touched her head. "You may not have much of a choice," she said, and Scott gave her a curious look. There was something in her eyes that felt like a promise. Maguire did not notice. He looked at Logan again and held out his hand.

"Make me," Logan said, and reached behind to tuck the bear between his belt and lower back.

Maguire narrowed his eyes.

"Enough," Scott said. "You can't fight all of us, Maguire. Your head is too full."

"That's all right," he said. "This has gone on long enough."

He snapped his fingers. Their counterparts jolted into wakefulness, like watching windup dolls.

"Well," said the impostor Cyclops, sneering. He gazed at Jean. "Isn't this surreal. I never knew what I looked like in real life, outside a mirror."

This was getting too complicated. Scott had a.s.sumed that the transfer was a simple crossover, that the woman he now inhabited would inhabit him, and that Cyclops would be quiet, so quiet.

But that would never be believable. That would never work.

Scott gazed at their counterparts and noticed one of them staring at her feet. Rogue. There was no mistaking that quiet avoidance, the shy phobia. An interesting choice. Very calculated. Rogue's power did not require any action on her part to work. All someone around her had to do was drag a person over to be touched.

Wolverine had his claws out, sharpening them on each other like steak knives. He looked at Rogue, their Crazy Jane, and winked. "My body treating you well, darlin'?"

Rogue cracked her knuckles. Logan said, "You better put that focus on me, bub. I'm the one you need to worry about."

"Really. Is this body yours?" Wolverine smiled. "I like it. I like what it can do to people."

Scott watched terrible rage pa.s.s through Logan's face, and he thought of jubilee on that infirmary bed. Oh, yes. Someone was going to pay for that. Dearly, and on many different levels.

Cyclops touched his visor and let off a blast at Scott's head. Scott had never thought anyone could be a bad shot when all you had to do was look at your target, but Jean was right. His aim went wide.

"When I get you?" Cyclops said. "You're dead."

"Maybe," Scott said. "Or maybe you'll be surprised."

The thing about fighting crazy people, Logan thought, was that they behaved in crazy ways. Crazy, unpredictable ways that nonetheless could be counted on for certain constants: Crazy people fight crazy, fighting crazy means fighting the unpredictable, and if you can't predict your opponent, you better stay the h.e.l.l away because he will take your sorry b.u.t.t.

Unless, of course, you were just as crazy as he was.

Being all kinds of crazy, Logan was fairly certain he qualified, which meant that he had every confidence the fight would turn in his favor. It had to. There was no way he would let this sc.u.mbag keep walking after beating the c.r.a.p out of a friend.

Wolverine flashed his claws, striking a pose like some wannabe martial arts fanatic: arms over his head; one leg in the air, poised to kick. The Crane, maybe. Logan thought he looked like a fool.

Wolverine sneered. "You scared to come at me?"

"Sure," Logan said. "I'm real terrified."

"Good," he said, too crazy to understand sarcasm. "I'm gonna gut you like a pig."

"Come on, then," Logan said, and kissed the air between them.

Wolverine snarled and lunged. The first time Logan moved fast enough.

The second time, he did not.

Rogue saw the impostor's claws come slas.h.i.+ng down against Logan's side; she forget her own obligations, her priority to take care of herself, and ran to him. Around her there was chaos in miniature: Scott, dodging the wild, ill- aimed strikes of his impostor, which also threatened to take out some of the team. She saw Scott get close enough to ram his shoulder into Cyclops's gut; both men tumbled to the ground, grappling with each other.

She came up fast behind Wolverine, the impostor, the real Crazy Jane, and grabbed his head and neck. She remembered the hospital when she touched his bristly hair, the sensation of killing someone by breaking open the skull. She had spent the last few days trying so hard not to remember, to bury it deep like she did most of the unwanted things in her mind, but touching Wolverine brought it back because he moved with the same crazed abandon, the same rage, and he flung her off before she could get a proper grip and take him down.

Wolverine turned on her, claws flas.h.i.+ng. Logan rushed him from behind; his face was red and blood streamed down his ribs. For a moment he looked into Rogue's eyes and the message was clear: Get away. Right now.

So she did. Scott and Cyclops still wrestled on the ground, while Jean and her counterpart appeared locked in a staring match. Rogue did not see Maguire anywhere.

She found her impostor standing in the rooftop corner, a lonely slender figure who stared at her feet. Rogue wondered if she had ever appeared so whipped; it was not a good look on her. She stood for a moment with some distance between them, and said, "Hey."

Nothing. Rogue knew quite well what her impostor was capable of; it scared her, she scared herself, but she stepped even closer, and still there was no eye contact, no movement, not even when she nudged her with the tip of her shoe.

"Come on now," she murmured to the impostor. "Sugah, I got better things to do than this."

Still, nothing. Rogue suspected she might be able to put a gun to this woman's head and pull the trigger, all without a single reaction or attempt to escape. Shaking her head, confused, she turned her head and spied Kurt. He stood in the middle of the rooftop, watching Nightcrawler teleport.

With one last glance at her counterpart, she turned and ran to him.

"h.e.l.lo," Kurt said to her. "No luck with your impersonator?"

"She won't lift a finger against me," Rogue said. "You?"

"I won't let you catch me!" cried the impostor, as he continued to bounce in and out of the sky. Rogue waved a hand in front of her face. The air smelled horrible.

"Doesn't teleporting like that make you sick?" she asked him.

"Ja." Kurt smiled. "Just wait."

She did, and several teleportations later, Nightcrawler dropped out of the sky like a rock and landed between herself and Kurt. He vomited. Rogue nudged his tail with her shoe.

"I expected a little more," she said.

Jean felt as though her brain was on fire. Truly, with flames licking the inside of her skull, little fingers searching the soft tissue for a place to push down burning roots.

The woman across from her said, "I love this."

Jean said nothing at all; if she opened her mouth it would be to scream, and she refused to give her the satisfaction. The impostor was already far too satisfied with the abilities that had been given to her, and Jean knew with quiet certainty that she was being played with. There was nothing subtle about the way that woman used her telepathy. She slapped it about like a great big bat; but she was still kicking Jean's b.u.t.t, so there was no way for her to feel too superior.

For a moment, though, Jean felt something cool wash through her head, a different kind of fire, and it felt familiar, like home, like all those little touches that had accompanied her on the long journey from Seattle.

And then her counterpart made a flicking motion with her hand and threw Jean off the side of the building. Jean imagined she heard Scott cry out her name, but the wind was strong and the roar like a train, like that rolling mountain train, and she looked down and the city was rising to meet her like a city parting from the sea, and the fire was gone from her head but she felt those light fingers again and then something deeper, something that made the force of her heart swell and then draw away, sucked outward until a new fire kissed her face, old as the universe and catching her arms like wings, and she cried outa"

a"and then she was on the roof again and her body was engulfed in fire and her mind felt the touch of the universe singing down into the root of her soul, that old soul, those voicesa"six billiona"rising in a symphony, and she threw herself off the building, the Phoenix diving to earth, and she reached out her hands and caught Jeff's limp empty body, caught him just yards from hitting the packed crowds, and she cradled him in flame and returned to the roof, and began calling for Maguire.

Rogue saw Jean fly off the roof. She raced to the edge of the building, running so fast she caught her foot and skidded hard until she hit the low barrier wall. Tears streamed down her face; she scrambled to her knees to peer over the buildings edge and saw a tiny figure hurtling toward the ground. She forgot that she had no powers because the urge to jump after her friend was so great she almost followed. A hand touched her back; Kurt, looking at her with a question in his eyes. She sagged against him.

And then Rogue felt heat and she turned to see wings of fire stretch bright around Jean's impostor. The woman threw herself off the building, streaking toward earth to catch that tiny body before it hit the ground, and Rogue watched, breathless, as they returned to the rooftop.

Kurt said, "Do you think it is possible?"

"I don't know," she said, but the Phoenix alighted beside them and lay down Jeff s body, and Rogue looked into the woman's face and saw something more familiar than simple flesh: a softness in the mouth that did not reach the eyes, those blazing radiant eyes that held a fa.r.s.eeing gaze, the same that had peered out of a man's face for almost a week now. Rogue heard an equally radiant voice, familiar and strong, call out to Maguire. She looked and finally saw him; he stood on the other side of the mini-jet.

Jean went after him. Their Jean, back inside her body. Rogue knew it. She touched Kurt's hand and gazed out across the rooftop. She did not like what she saw. Logan was down on the ground, holding his side while trying to dodge the fast strikes of bright claws. Scott's left arm had scorch marks all over it. Cyclops had thrown him off and the distance between them was dangerous; the man danced away, his hand on the visor like it was a lifeline.

Rogue ran to help him. Halfway there, clouds of smoke surrounded her and two strong arms engulfed her waist. She heard Kurt yell out and then the world disappeareda"

a"and reappeared a quarter of a mile over the city.

"I'm tired of playing games," Nightcrawler said.

He dropped her and disappeared.

She fell to earth, screaming.

Jonas Maguire had one of the most powerful minds Jean had ever encountered. He was not, she thought, a particularly strong telepath in the most basic sense, but the things he could do, his capacity for holding vast amounts of information, staggered her. She peered into Maguire's mind and saw that Renny had returned, but that he was fighting to break free of the trappings that contained him. Renny had tasted Jean's power. He remembered, and he wanted more.

"Return them to their bodies," Jean said, and it was her voice again, her body, and oh what a feeling to come home to familiar flesh, that beautiful sh.e.l.l that was hers and hers alone. "Do it."

"I won't," Maguire said, backing away from her.

"Then I'll force you," she said, and burned past his mental s.h.i.+elds. She caught glimpses of his life: a woman stretched beside him on a bed of gra.s.s with a baby sleeping between and the sun so soft and warm on their lovely faces, and again, his wife, his Maria, dancing in the kitchen to sweet lullabies as the baby crooned, and later, hugging a teddy bear, and later making love on a quilt, and later, dropping them off for a day of shopping while he went to the hospital, suffering terrible nausea at lunch, awful doom, looking out his office window to see smoke rising and oh, he tried, but he could not take just any body, not that mother over there with her own child, not that man, not that one, or that one, and Maria slipped away into the darkness, the darkness singing to her baby and then he was gone, too, gone from that life until Maguire became something new, something darker, somethinga"

"Stop," he croaked, tears running down his face. "Please."

"Fix them," she said, and still he hesitated. Jean returned to his mind and found the tendrils leading to Mindy who was in Rogue, Rogue who was in Jane, and forced his mind upon the task and watched him make the switch.

Someone caught Rogue before she hit the ground. Dazed, heart thundering, she stared into green eyes and found herself, that shy face that was so familiar. Relieved, she hugged the girl and forgota"she of all people, forgota"and her skin brushed skin, and suddenly she knew what it was like to die from her touch, that black hole made of skin as Rogue fed on Rogue. A sucking sensation, as though every pore in her body pushed outward and shriveled. She imagined what the impostor must be feelinga"power and memory, a disparate personality folding over her mind, trying to take control.

The impostor cried out, eyes rolling green into white, and suddenly Rogue was in the air again, free-falling. She saw herself, the woman she had been, floating in the air above with her hands on her head, and all her good will disappeared as she thought, I hope I drown you.

And then, abruptly, she was that woman. She was herself in that body that only seconds before had seemed so far away. Rogue hovered in the air and the transition was so seamless that at first she did not realize, did not believe; only, this floating sensation was her still falling, hallucinating.

But she looked down and saw Jane rus.h.i.+ng away from her, flailing in the air. Rogue moved on instinct, dropping like a stone, and it was beautiful to have a body that obeyed her when she wanted to defy gravity.

She caught Jane, but the woman barely breathed. Rogue remembered her dying self, caught in the web of her skin. It was not a good memory. She returned to the rooftop.

Mindy now waited inside Maguire's brain, but she and Renny both were burst from the seams of their confinement, flooding into that place where Maguire kept his own sacred s.p.a.ce, and Jean could not stop the flow of their spirits, or how they overwhelmed. She tried to help him, buta"

a"Logan was next.