Crusade: Part Nine

by Alicia McKenzie

"I still can't believe this," Domino said, giving G.W. that nastiest look she was capable of delivering. *You sneaky son of a bitch,* she thought balefully. Maybe it was hypocritical of her to be angry at him keeping things from her when she regularly kept him in the dark, but this was different, damn it. "You're telling me that Irene came to see you, with possible news about Nate, and you didn't TELL me?"

"I didn't think you were ready to hear it," G.W. said a little lamely, looking almost pleadingly at Fury and Val. Neither one of them moved to intervene, although Val pursed her lips, her expression turning almost sympathetic for a moment. "You've got to admit, Dom, you haven't quite been--yourself, lately. I didn't want to upset you--"

Oh, that was lame. "Upset me?" Domino glowered at him. Irene had come to him, with evidence that she thought proved that NATHAN was behind all this little outbreaks of mutant terrorism lately, and he thought she hadn't been 'ready' to hear it? Damned thick-headed chauvinistic idiot! "I ought to kick your ass right here and now, Bridge," she grated, and tried not to flinch as her knee started to ache, suddenly and fiercely.

This was ridiculous. What the hell was going on? The whole time she'd been sitting here, these strange, inexplicable pains had been cropping up. The knee was the worst so far, but she didn't like any of this, not at all. It frightened her. She wasn't doing anything that would explain this, and the other possibilities were--

"Maybe when we get home?" G.W. suggested, far too meekly.

Domino glared at him for a moment longer, and then sighed. "Do you think she's right?" she asked tiredly, rubbing her knee beneath the table and willing whatever the hell was happening to stop. She needed to focus on the matter at hand, damn it. "You know him as well as I do. How he thinks, how he works."

G.W.'s expression tightened. He looked over at Nick and Val again for a moment, as if for moral support, before he answered her question. "I think it's a possibility," he said quietly.

"Shit," she muttered almost desperately. Was this what they'd been waiting for? His reappearance? She'd always expected it to be too loud and destructive to miss. But if he was creeping around setting up mutant terrorist cells--what the hell was going on? "Damn it, G.W., I can't--"

Pain and fear, a wave of it slamming into her with the force of a tsunami, and Domino doubled over, biting back the whimper that tried to escape her.

"Domino, are you all right?" she heard Val ask, sounding concerned.

The wave passed. Domino opened her eyes, and the table, the faces of her companions, the whole damned restaurant swam in her vision. "What's happening?" she whispered raggedly, holding onto the table with all her strength, trying to anchor herself here. Because this wasn't HERE, it was there--him, not her--

"Dom?" G.W. asked sharply, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Dom, what is it--"

Her vision blurred even farther. Blood, there was blood in her eyes, and she couldn't see--Domino moaned, fighting desperately for composure. "Not real," she moaned, feeling G.W.'s arm going around her, supporting her. "It's not--it's not real--"

But it was. It just wasn't happening to her.

She flinched violently as Fury suddenly appeared on her other side. She hadn't even seen him get out of his chair. "Should we get her out of here?" he asked G.W. bluntly.

"I think so," G.W. said tensely. "Whatever's happening, I don't think we need to deal with it in public--"

Another wave of pain hit her, nearly sweeping her away with it. She slumped against G.W., gasping for air. "Get me out of here," she choked out weakly. "Please--"

"Dom--"

"I--can't see--" She gasped and stiffened, the restaurant flickering around her, the comfortable dimness giving way to blazing sunlight and heat and pain--

*No--no, get OUT of my mind!* she thought fearfully, desperately holding to the feel of G.W.'s arms around her. She was in a restaurant, in New York, not--

Rough arms flung her against something hard, pinning her down, and she gasped for air, trying to make her lungs work. The sun beat down on her like a furnace, making the rock beneath her hot. Or maybe she was cold. She didn't know. Blood kept running into her eyes, blinding her, but she knew they were there. She could hear them. Laughing--

*Prey,* a voice whispered savagely, right in her ear. *How does it feel?*

Domino moaned, but there was something overlying the sound, a moan of pain in another voice that was too deep to be hers. Overlapping. Just like she could feel herself sitting in the chair, G.W.'s arms tightening around her, but feel the rock beneath her, the dark shapes on either side holding her down, laughing--

"Dom!"

"No--" Her voice, only hers. The other made no sound, only shuddered.

"Dom, talk to me! Tell me--"

*--what it feels like to be weak,* breathed that hate-filled voice in her ear. *Teach you, so you always remember--*

Another set of hands rested for a moment where they shouldn't, and panic jolted through her. *No, this isn't happening, it isn't happening--* she thought, her own thoughts crystal clear and razor-edged with terror. The other's thoughts were sluggish and pain-dazed, already beginning to spiral down into shock and threatening to take her with them--

*I can't wait to hear a paladin beg.*

Something tore, and she cried out in that strange twinned voice, the fear giving her a flash of desperate strength, enough for one last moment of resistance before she was stunned by a blow to the back of the head and slammed back against the rock.

The restaurant, G.W.'s voice desperately calling her name as he lifted out of her chair, all of it splintered, shattered in an instant by the pain. For a moment even the realization that she was only sharing this, not experiencing it herself, dissolved in agony.

And Domino screamed, thrashing wildly against the arms she couldn't recognize as G.W.'s, the arms trying to carry her out of the restaurant.

"Don't touch me, stop it, no--NO!"

There was a voice talking urgently to her, begging her to 'take it easy, Dom, it's just me, it's okay', but she didn't hear it. Words she didn't understand, words that would have been lilting, almost musical, if she hadn't been screaming them out, her voice breaking under the strain, spilled from her as she continued to struggle.

Laughter, she could still hear the laughter, and sounds from the one behind her, the one who was--who was--

A moan, in the deep voice that wasn't hers. Lip caught between teeth, to keep the screams back. Biting down hard, choking on the blood and the screams both--

But she could scream, and she did. Dimly, she felt tears pouring down her cheeks as G.W. swept her up in his arms and carried her out of the restaurant, out to the car. The closeness was beginning to fade. She could feel his arms, supporting her, cradling her against him, more keenly than she could feel the pain and the hands holding her down, and her screams trailed off into sobs as he carried her right to the car and got in, pulling the door shut behind her.

This wasn't happening. It wasn't--

G.W. was still holding her, rocking her. Domino clung to him, weeping as the car began to move and the sensations from the link faded to a distance. "Oh, God," she choked out as he stroked her hair, murmuring something so soft she couldn't understand what he was saying. "I--I--c-can't stop shaking--"

G.W.'s arms tightened around her. "It's okay," he said in a voice that sounded old and tired. "You're safe, Dom. It's all right. Nick, take us back to my place?"

"Sure thing," Fury's tense-sounding voice came from the driver's seat. "She okay, G.W.?"

"I'm not sure."

Not even registering Val sitting on her other side, Domino closed her eyes, squeezed them tightly shut as if she could block it all out. "Nathan," she moaned. "Oh, Nate--" Her eyes snapped open, a scream catching in her throat as she felt herself being pulled back down, sucked into the link until the line between them started to blur once more. "NO! No more, not again--please!"

"Dom!" G.W.'s hands fell on her shoulders, shaking her lightly. "Dom, shut it out--damn it, stay with me! Dom, don't you--"

*--pass out on us.* A blow across the back of the head, this one just to get her attention. *It's not sunset yet, Dayspring.*

Not sunset yet. Still light. Still light, and it wasn't over, not until the light was gone--

*You enjoy breaking my arm, you bastard?* grated another voice. *Not so tough now, are you? Are you?*

Another scream ripped itself free of Domino's throat as the pain tore through her again, coming faster this time, great unbearable waves of it smashing into her consciousness, one after the other. She screamed, struggling wildly as G.W. tried to hold her still against him, screamed and moaned and begged them to stop and swore revenge with every Askani oath she didn't know--all the things he wouldn't let out, everything he'd rather die then let them hear, bubbling up the link and out through her because they had nowhere else to go--

She screamed until she had no voice left, and only then did her mind do her the kindness of giving in to shock and shutting down. The pain chased her down into the darkness, and the last thing she heard was that deep, broken voice, his voice, whimpering steadily, the sound a wounded animal might make--

Blackness.

***

So cold. He was so cold. He laid there, his broken leg twisted under him, and stared blankly at the ant crawling over the rock just in front of his face. The ant was black. A black ant. It crawled up and over the fingers of his hand, and he watched the fingers twitch, then grow still again.

The ant vanished beneath the boulder. Beneath. It wasn't a very large boulder. Almost waist-high, nearly flat-topped. Not much of a boulder at all. But he'd remember it. The little streak of quartz on the top. He'd stared at that. It had been so beautiful in the sun. Sparkling in the sun--

The sun was still up. But he was so cold. The only warmth he could feel was the blood still trickling from here and there. Here and there and everywhere--

A broken sound escaped him, not strong enough to be a whimper, and he flinched, even that tiny movement sending pain and nausea sweeping through him. He thought some more about the streak of quartz. It didn't help, and his breath caught in his chest, broken ribs grating against each other as he tried to get his lungs to work.

Breathe. Tears started to mingle with the blood on his face and he stared numbly at the new ant. At least he thought it was a different ant. Another black ant. It looked the same. They'd all been the same, too, in the end. The Riders. Just black shapes, taking their turn. One after the other after the other.

Some of them had laughed and some of them hadn't. Some of them had been angry, and some of them had been--calculating. The angry ones had been easier. They'd left him racked with pain and gasping for air, shaking and battered, but there'd been something strangely clean about that. After a while, it hadn't been much different from a beating.

The calculating ones had been worse. They'd--taken their time. Made sure they got a--reaction. He closed his eyes at the noise that escaped him, the sound that was too soft and harsh and drawn out to be a moan.

Not in control. Not even of himself. So much for stoicism.

Nausea surged upwards and choked him, and somehow he managed to turn onto his side. His whole body screamed at the movement, but he was too busy vomiting to do more than register the pain. Blood, mostly. He'd swallowed a lot.

The spasms eased a little and he slumped back to the ground. That comfortable numbness came back and nestled inside his skull, shrouding his thoughts and dulling all the edges.

They'd gone away happy. He'd--cracked, if not quite broken. But he hadn't begged them to stop. That much he'd managed.

That should matter more than it did, he thought hazily. It really should. But it didn't. It was just--there. Part of it all. Just like Seth kicking his legs apart and tearing the skinsuit open and--

His stomach churned and he swallowed back bile as his mind skittered over the memory. Your mind was supposed to shut down at times like this. Not remember everything. And he remembered everything.

Every--single--instant. He could rewind his memory and review every thought that had crossed his mind. He'd done a surprising amount of thinking, while they'd--while he'd been waiting for them to--finish. All about being strong, and being weak. About memories that didn't agree with each other, and how little that really mattered, when your world had narrowed and become all about being pinned to a boulder and--watching a streak of quartz glimmer in the sun, trying not to--

Odd how his train of thought kept running off the tracks. Maybe that was for the best. Maybe--

Footsteps. He listened to them and wondered if the ants were coming to carry him away. That would be nice.

It wasn't an ant. Too big to be an ant. Looked too much like him, too, just without the scars. He blinked up at his almost-reflection, and tried to speak. Nothing came out, and his reflection's eye blazed as he reached out and laid a hand against the side of his throat. He didn't feel it. Too cold.

"Are we enjoying ourselves yet, Nathan?" his reflection asked.

There was a cloud up there that looked like a dog, he thought, staring up at the sky just to the left of his reflection's head. A dog. All alone in the sky.

He tried again to speak. "Iss-it--" It turned into a cough, a deep, racking cough that jarred his broken ribs and sent waves of pain through his chest. His reflection stared down at him expressionlessly. "S-Sun-set," he managed to wheeze. "Is--it--"

"Almost," his reflection murmured. "They'll come for you soon."

He flinched, his whole body spasming in protest at the thought, and his reflection reached down and laid a hand on his forehead, the light from his eye glowing brighter. The moment of panic eased and his muscles relaxed as the pain ebbed back down to a constant, steady thing. A sea on which he drifted, rather than drowned.

"To take you back, you idiot," his reflection said harshly. "Oath, you're pitiful. Look at you."

The dog was turning into something else. Stretching out, thin and strained and unrecognizable.

"The flonqing Chosen One, used like a camp follower and thrown away. I wonder what the Askani bitches would think if they could see you now." His reflection bent over him, jaw clenched, eyes burning. "How does it feel to be nothing, brother? How does it feel to be weak?"

Weak. Strong. The words seesawed back and forth in his mind like bells pealing or thunder cracking. Weak was one world, strong was another. Worlds in a word.

The dog was gone.

His reflection reached out and closed a hand around the wrist of his outflung arm, the grip tight, painful pressure against the bruises that were already there. "Stab your eyes, look at me!" his reflection snarled hoarsely, shaking him. Pain shot up his arm like a river flowing into the sea.

He looked. His reflection was between him and the sky, anyway.

"Do you see, now?" It was a hiss, harsh and shaking with something he couldn't put a name to. "It doesn't have to go on, Nathan. You don't have to let it. Just ask me, and I'll end it!"

End it? He stared up at his reflection and shivered, his breath catching painfully in his chest again. End it. Be weak. After this? End it and make them right, make himself nothing forever--

The cold inside him hardened into ice and he threw every bit of strength he had into turning over onto his side again. The pain rose up and crashed back down on him again like a vicious wave, and he gasped, his vision going white.

The grip around his wrist tightened. "Don't be a fool!" he heard his reflection rasp. "I can show you the truth, Nathan."

The truth? Truth like Ozymandias had shown him, truth that was a lie, that only confused the issue? That wasn't truth. Truth was what had happened here, what he'd learned--that was the only truth--

"Nathan!"

He shut the voice out. One hand, flat against the rock. The muscles in his arm trembled, nearly strengthless, but he tried to push himself upwards anyway, willing the arm not to buckle. His other wrist was suddenly released, throwing him off balance, and he fell face-down on the rock, nearly blacking out at the pain.

"What are you going to do?" that voice rasped "Crawl back to him on your hands and knees like a whipped dog, begging for forgiveness? Is there that little of you left, Askani'son?"

Forgiveness? The thought seemed absurd, and he let it go, let it slide into the haze with nearly everything else. His leg was dead weight; even if by some miracle he managed to get back to his feet, he wouldn't be able to walk.

Crawling, he thought faintly. He could crawl, though. Clawing blindly at the rock, he pulled himself forward a few inches before his strength gave out and he collapsed, fighting for air.

"Where are you going, Nathan?"

Back. He had to go back. The other choices were so clear. Crawl out into the desert and die, defy Apocalypse and die--or go back. Only one way to survive. He'd--learned that much. Apocalypse was right. Weak, strong. That was all there was.

No such thing as pride. Not anymore.

"Nathan."

But the voice was quieter, less angry, and even as it spoke, he knew somehow that he was alone again. He reached out, found a handhold and hauled himself forward. Each inch was agony, and soon the pain was so bad that he could barely force air into his lungs. Downhill--closest entrance to the base was downhill.

He wondered how far he would get before they found him.

***

He was about ready to pick up the bedside phone and call Xavier when Domino's eyes fluttered open and fixed on him, half-focused and hazy.

"Hey," Bridge said softly, reaching out to take her hand. She shivered and curled up more tightly under the blanket he'd pulled over her when he'd carried her in here to the bed. "You had me worried there. How are you feeling?" His voice came out calm and soothing, which was amazing, given that he was feeling anything but.

"Cold," Dom said in an almost childlike whisper. Her eyes moved away from his face, roamed the room almost aimlessly. He bit back another stab of worry. She'd been sleeping in this room every night for weeks, and yet she looked like she didn't have any idea where she was. "Where--"

"Back home," he said, squeezing her hand gently. "It's just us--Nick and Val are gone." She swallowed, turning her face against the pillow, and something twisted painfully in his chest. "Talk to me, lady," he said, his voice breaking despite his best efforts to keep it steady. "What happened?"

"Nathan," she murmured, her voice almost inaudible.

"I'd guessed that, Dom." Bridge took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. Part of him was afraid to press her, she seemed so fragile. But he had to know. He'd let it slide far too often, these last few months. When she drank herself into a stupor, he knew damned well that she was trying to block the link, to drown out whatever she was sensing from Nathan. He'd even seen a few of the little--episodes she hadn't quite been able to cover, but this was by far the most violent.

He'd been afraid that this was it, that Nathan, wherever he was, had realized she was still at the other end of the link and lashed out at her. Jean Grey, Xavier--hell, even Madelyne Pryor had warned him of the possibility. There was no way to shield Dom, they'd said, if she insisted on keeping the link intact.

So he'd watched her like a hawk, waiting for any sign that their dire predictions were coming true. Fearing that moment, more than he'd let on to her or anyone else. Despite the problems they'd had, Nathan had been his oldest friend, and the knowledge of what had happened to him was almost too much to bear. The idea of losing Dom, too--

"I know it was Nathan," he repeated softly as she went back to staring at him--or through him, he wasn't quite sure which. "Dom, please tell me what happened. Did he--" He tripped over the question, but forced the words out grimly. "Did he--attack you through the link?"

"No!" Domino said almost violently, sitting bolt upright and nearly flinging the blanket off. She was shaking almost convulsively, but smacked his hand away when Bridge reached out to steady her. "Don't touch me, damn you!"

Bridge leaned back in the chair, distressed by her reaction. "You kept saying that," he muttered. "'Don't touch me' and 'stop'. I don't know what you thought I was going to--"

The words caught in his throat, and he stared at her, his mouth still working despite the fact that there were no words coming out. "You weren't talking to me," he finally managed, his voice hoarse. "It wasn't--you, was it?"

Tears were trickling down her face as she shook her head, back and forth, over and over. "No," she choked out, hunching over, her shoulders slumped. "It wasn't me. It was Nathan. He was--they were--I FELT it, G.W.--"

He thought he was going to be sick. "Dom," he said numbly, trying to resist the way the pieces were falling together in his mind. "Dom, don't--"

"Damn it!" Domino shrieked, seizing the pillow and throwing it at him. He tried to avoid it, and nearly sent himself over backwards in the chair. "Don't WHAT, G.W.? Don't say it? You think if I don't, that'll mean it didn't happen?" He shook his head and got out of the chair, reaching for her, but she pushed him away, those violet eyes blazing at him, full of fury and pain.

"Dom--Dom, it's okay," he said pleadingly.

"Okay? It's not okay, G.W., It's never going to be o-okay--" She bit her lip, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Damn him," she said, her voice cracking, and Bridge wasn't sure for a moment who she was talking about. "It's too much, G.W., I just can't--" She trailed off, hugging herself, and he put her arms around her, cautiously at first. But she didn't try and push him away, not this time.

"You don't have to," he said hoarsely. "Go back to Xavier. Have him take the link out--"

Domino shook her head slowly. "No," she said painfully, and leaned her head against his shoulder with a shuddering sigh. She was still tense, almost vibrating with emotions he couldn't even guess at. "I told Xavier, I told Jean Grey, and I told you, Bridge. I won't do it. Not now, not ever. Not even after this."

"But--"

"No," she said, her voice soft but fierce, almost a hiss. "I said no, Bridge."

"I don't understand you sometimes," he growled, the ache in his chest so badly he could hardly breathe. He wasn't surprised at her answer. He'd been trying to persuade her to get rid of the link ever since he'd seen what it was doing to her, and she'd resisted him all the way. "So what do you intend to do, then?"

She clung to him, still trembling, and didn't answer.

***

The healer was surprisingly content with his life, such as it was. It didn't really matter to him that he was as much a piece of furniture as a person, a useful tool with no value beyond his meager skills. He healed wounded Riders when he was told, and let them die when Apocalypse decided replacement was more efficient than repair. It didn't matter to him. He hadn't sworn the Hippocratic Oath, and he disliked the vast majority of the Riders enough that he wasn't troubled by any lingering compassion for them. Very little touched him anymore, as a matter of fact.

But the alarm he felt as Longrifle and two other Riders carried Dayspring's battered body into his small infirmary hit hard, and surprised him with its intensity. "Over here," he said in a neutral voice, directing them to put their burden down on one of the bio-beds.

His alarm changed rapidly to a strange, frustrated anger he hadn't felt in a long time as the bed's diagnostic unit assessed Dayspring's condition and started bleeping and flashing several alarms.

"Did you enjoy yourself?" he snapped coldly at Longrifle, who backed away to give him room and then stood there staring grimly at Dayspring. The healer ran his hands through a sterilization field and then leaned over Dayspring and started to cut the bloodied skinsuit away as carefully as he could. "You're lucky he's not dead already, you idiot." The diagnostic unit was registering serious injuries--broken bones, a collapsed lung, a fractured skull, major internal damage. Even his equipment couldn't heal some of this rapidly.

Longrifle paled. "I should have stayed," he muttered, as if to himself.

The healer made a disgusted noise, his stomach churning slightly as his mind slowed down for long enough to process some of the information the diagnostic unit was giving him. He didn't need to guess at what had caused some of these injuries, even if the visual evidence hadn't been staring him right in the face. "Get out of here," he growled at the Riders. "You've done your work. Let me do mine."

"If he dies," Longrifle said, his voice strained, "I'll find the time to deal with you before Apocalypse kills me, healer, I swear."

The healer didn't give him the satisfaction of reacting. He didn't even look up from his patient until he heard the infirmary door open and close again. It was with some surprise that he noted that although one of the Riders had left with Longrifle, Tal, the woman, was still there. Watching him--no, not him. Dayspring.

Some of the healer's irritation faded. "Are you staying?" he asked neutrally. She nodded. "Then come over here. I don't dare sedate him yet, so if he wakes up and starts fighting, I may need some help."

Tal came over obediently. "He's not unconscious," she said softly, taking up position on the other side of the bio-bed.

The healer looked down to see Dayspring's eyes were indeed wide open, staring at nothing. He shuddered slightly at the emptiness there, and then kept cutting away the skinsuit. "What happened?" he asked calmly. "I thought you all had orders not to kill him."

"Seth and some of the others got a little carried away," Tal said quietly.

"So I see. I don't think Apocalypse will buy the excuse that it was an accident."

"Do you really think he'll die?"

The healer looked up, surprised by the infinitesimal note of--something unexpected in her voice. There was no trace of it in her expression, though, and her eyes were as cold as ever. "I don't think he's that lucky," he finally muttered, and dropped his gaze back to his patient. "But he's in bad shape. If he was anyone else, he probably would be dead already."

Tal laid a hand on Dayspring's shoulder for just a moment, and the healer frowned at her. She turned those strange amber eyes on him, as if sensing his gaze, and he shook his head at her as he started to prep the surgical unit.

***

Sitting cross-legged on the rock, Stryfe watched the ants. They were really quite fascinating in their insect-like way; they went about their business, lived their lives, and were remarkably untroubled by such things as immortal Egyptians, insane genetic templates, and a bewildering, late-blooming sense of ethics. He rather envied them, as a matter of fact.

The rock wasn't very comfortable. He supposed he could have sat on the boulder over there, but there would have been something decidedly inappropriate about that, even if the sight of it hadn't made his non-existent skin crawl. Ever since he'd made the transition to this form, he'd found himself almost painfully sensitive to the ambient astral atmosphere, and this place, especially that flonqing chunk of rock, was shrouded in a sickly haze of pain and despair and other things he didn't want to examine too closely.

"Stryfe?"

Stryfe shook his head absently. "Out for lunch," he murmured, staring at one particularly determined ant who seemed to want to drag one of his comrades off for food. Persistent little thing. "Taking the dog for a walk, gone out to the corner store to get some milk. Come back later."

Madelyne strode around and knelt down in front of him, her eyes a little wider than normal as she studied his face. "What are you doing here? Did Sinister--" She went pale as she looked around, clearly sensing the same thing he had. "What the hell happened? I can feel--"

"Have you ever realized there are some things we just can't do?" Stryfe asked inquisitively, watching the ant give up its cannibalistic efforts and wander away. "In the form that we're in, I mean. And what's with all these scruples? Is it a prerequisite for astral ghosthood, mother dearest, or am I just deluding myself?"

"Stryfe--" Madelyne's voice was uneven. Her gaze lingered on the boulder, half-fascinated, half-repulsed.

"I suppose the easiest thing would have been to teleport him away," Stryfe murmured. That had been his first thought. Too bad that he hadn't been able to get a good 'grip' on him. It was almost like there hadn't been anything there to grasp, like Nathan's mind had been remade in ice-slick glass. "But I couldn't, and I'm beginning to think it was because he didn't want to go--"

"Stryfe, WHAT are you talking about?" Madelyne demanded, fear in her voice. "Did Sinister get in touch with you? Was Nathan outside the shielding?"

"At the very least, I should have gotten rid of all those pesky false memories whether Nathan wanted me to or not," Stryfe said, and shrugged. "I'm probably making it sound more simpler than it would have been," he confided, hearing the faint tightness in his voice and knowing Madelyne would as well. Not really caring, though. "Powers or no powers, it still would have triggered the mindwipe if he'd fought me. That's the key, you realize--"

"Stryfe--"

"And then there was the whole issue of whether or not I wanted to try the telepathic equivalent of what the Dark Riders spent the afternoon doing to him," Stryfe said calmly. Madelyne, who'd been in the process of leaning towards him, probably to try and slap some sense into him, jerked away and fell on her rear, her face nearly gray and her eyes boring into him, round and horror-filled. Stryfe shrugged again. Making it a casual gesture took a surprising amount of effort. "The idea didn't work for me, for some reason. He may have gone crawling back to kiss Apocalypse's toes and promise to be a good little paladin from here on out, but at least what's left of his mind hasn't given up the ghost completely."

Madelyne's mouth was still moving. There was no sound coming out. Stryfe considered patting her on the head and telling her that it would all right, only it would be one of the more despicable lies he'd told in his life, and he'd told a lot of them--

Moving like an old woman, she half-crawled over to the boulder and laid a shaking hand against the rock, as if communing with it for a moment. She withdrew it sharply, almost doubling over.

"I--really wish I could be sick to my stomach, sometimes," she said very faintly. "You didn't--think to call me?"

"Oh, I thought," Stryfe said as cheerfully as he could manage. "I thought about a lot. Then I decided none of it was worth thinking about, and I decided to watch the ants. Want to join me?"

Madelyne looked over her shoulder at him. "The ants," she said slowly, her green eyes glowing with a light of their own, some feverish fire from deep within.

Stryfe nodded.

Madelyne stared at him.

"You know that Sinister's been lying to us?" Stryfe asked, willing her not to cry. That would be--tedious, yes, that was the word. Very tedious. Weepy maternally-inclined astral ghosts were very tedious. "He keeps telling us Nathan doesn't go outside the shielding. I'm surprised his nose doesn't grow a little every time he gets in touch with us." Stryfe thought of the training sessions he'd seen, the little cells of mutant terrorists all over the world. At least Nathan was staying true to form. "I should have seen through it, I suppose. I mean, what good is a paladin if you keep him in the house all the time?"

Madelyne was still staring at him. "How," she said in a hard, seething voice, "can you be so flippant?"

"Oh, is that what I seem like to you?" Stryfe thought for a moment. "All right, then. I say we leave, then. There's nothing more we can do here. You can go torment your ex-husband or some such thing, whatever you need to do to vent, and I'll start thinking about exactly how we can lure Sinister out from behind the psi-shielding and make him scream until he promises to stop being such a nasty, deceitful mad scientist." He smiled thinly at Madelyne. "Sound like a plan?"

The muscles along Madelyne's tightly clenched jaw trembled. "Did they--really--"

"Yes," he said flatly, willing the silly bitch not to cry. Sympathy really was such a wasted emotion. Like the Askani said, 'what is, is'.

"But--why," Madelyne whispered. "H-How did--"

"Oh, come now, mother dear, you don't really need me to describe the mechanics to you, do you?" He heard the edge to his voice, knew that his eyes were giving away more than he wanted them to, but kept speaking. Wanting, in a petty way, to hurt her. "Or were you just looking for a quick summary of how many and how often?"

A telekinetic slap rocked him backwards. "Damn you," Madelyne snarled softly, tears gleaming in those glowing emerald eyes.

"Been there, done that," he said through gritted teeth.

They glared at each other for a few moments longer. She was the first to look away, the first to vanish, in her customary flash of green light.

Stryfe lingered. He got up and walked over to the boulder, laying a hand on it, just like Madelyne had. Soaking up the darkness and storing it away. Reminding himself to hate.

Not that he'd forgotten, but it never hurt to bask in it a little. Apocalypse had it wrong, had always had it wrong. The survival imperative was nowhere as strong as hate--or the other side of hate.

But what was behind door number two was generally best left to those who were fond of their illusions.

And there was no room for illusions anymore. Not in his life, or in Nathan's.

*We're going to have a lot to talk about, brother,* he thought, and teleported away.

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