DarkWolf cried out in pain as the Alpha was skewered by Paramount's blade. Through his mental connection to Alpha and the other mutates he experienced what they experienced, and the psionic backlash of the Alpha dying threatened to drive them all insane. Tears of rage filled his eyes as he crawled back to his feet. How could the master have done this? What of their plan of creating a Golden Age of Peace?
"Someone would pay for this," thought DarkWolf. "Someone will pay dearly."
Paramount hovered above the heads of the group of mutates and Hellfire Club mutants. The only thing that could be heard was the static crackle of Paramount's newly found energy as it cascaded around the assemblage. Nobody stirred from their position. The very gaze of Paramount in his Alpha transformation was enough to freeze them in place.
"INCREDIBLE!!" laughed Paramount wildly. "The power of my creation was greater than even I anticipated. His power wents so far beyond the mere psionic that it's unquantifiable. The Alpha could actually touch and control the energy field that comprises the spirit aura of a person......and now that power is mine, and I have you to thank for that, my dear Nytshade. Without the magical attributes I gleaned from your DNA, this synthesis of mutant and magician would never have been possible....this perfection in the ability to tap into man's soul rather than just his mind would never even be feasible.....but then again, you always were excellent breeder stock."
SuperGrover jerked forward crying out in pain.
"So your much vaunted immunity to psionic power is allowing you to fight me, if only just a bit," scoffed Paramount. "But, as I've said, this power only begins as psionic. IT GOES MUCH FURTHER!!!"
With that, Paramount raised his arm and a bolt of pure white light streaked from his fingertips and into Grover. Grover's back arched as the bolt lifted him into the air and held him there.
"I can control your every move, mutant. I can snap you in two!!," raved Paramount. "I can make you dance like a puppet on the end of a string. MY POWER IS ABSOLUTE!!!!.....but let's get an opinion from the court....HAH!!!"
Paramount gestured again and Nytshade stumbled forward and then dropped to her knees in front of him. He cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her head toward him. She looked adoringly into his face. Grover grimaced as he saw the look of utter love that Jon displayed for Paramount. What sort of powers did this Alpha have to completely erase the hate that Jon had held for the insane former White King.
"Although its quite nice to bathe in your adorance of me, Jon," said Paramount. "What say I loosen my control just a bit and give you your own mind again. I always did love your spirit."
Jon's face instantly turned into a snarl of disgust, and she tried to draw her head away from Paramount's hand, but she couldn't move.
"You bastard, release me!!" she screamed. "I'll die before you touch me again!!!"
"Oh you'll die alright," said Paramount in a sickly sweet voice. "But only after providing me with days, weeks, maybe even years of amusement, if I don't tire of you by then."
"Never again," Jon spat.
"Never say never, my dear," said Paramount as he lifted Jon to her feet and floated her towards him. "You only hasten your own demise."
Paramount brought Jon's face inches from his own and flicked his tongue out toward her. He traced it along the line of her jaw, and down to her lips. She tried to pull away, but was held fast in the power that Paramount had assumed from the Alpha.
"What's wrong, Jon?" Paramount cooed. "Don't you like this body......maybe I should change to something else........perhaps...... more familiar."
Paramount's voice dropped to a low guttural growl and Jon's eyes went wide with terror. Her mind flashed back to the time she had been held prisoner here all those years ago. Once again, she relived Paramount's abuse as he subjected her to one horrific experiment after another...and then came the final indignity. On the last night of her capture....the night before her escape from his hellish world, he had decided to take more than just samples.
THE PAST: PARAMOUNT'S LAIR
Jon lay strapped to the table. How long had she been here? How many more of Paramount's insane experiments could she go through? When would she simply be allowed to die? She heard a noise from the foot of the table. A steady tapping......then a scrape of metal against another hard surface. She looked down the table to her feet, and there she saw her worst nightmare come to life. There stood the sociopathic serial killer Sabretooth. He looked at her, his guttaral breathing ringing in her ears. He tapped his clawed nails one by one along the metal table and then dug them in cutting deep scratches into the leather of her restrainig straps.
"Think what I could do to your soft skin, Frail," said Sabretooth as he traced his clawed index finger up Jon's bare leg.
She cried out, but it was too late. Sabretooth's razor sharp claws tore away the thin gown that was covering her and she was at his mercy. Later, when the beast had left her, she remembered Paramount's return. He held yet another one of his tortuous devices.
"Do you like Easter, Jon?" he rattled on insanely. "Well it's time for a little egg hunt."
Thankfully, she passed out after hearing that, and remembered nothing else of Paramount's examination and harvesting of her genetic materials and now fertilized eggs. Until this moment, she had successfully blocked out almost all of the entire experience, but now......hearing that voice again, she was sickened to the core of her being....That voice....it had been Paramount the whole time.....that voice Paramount was using again right now.........tap tap tap...scraaaaaape.....THINK WHAT I COULD DO......
THE PRESENT: PARAMOUNT'S LAIR
Paramount still held Jon's face in his hand, looking down into her horrified eyes.
"Like I said, Jon," Paramount said. "I always enjoyed your spirit.....a pity you weren't quite as fond of me in one of my more furry forms, but what a lovely daughter you produced."
Jon's mouth fell open and she began to scream.
"Daughter?..........YOU MONSTER! What are you talking about?" she raved.
"Why I would have guessed you would have figured it out by now," teased Paramount. "Her mother's good looks......her father's penchant for fur and fury....and my, I guess you could call me her other father, shape shifting ability? A pity she was just as ungrateful as her mother, and chose to leave me when I left the orphanage in the care of another."
Paramount gestured once again, and Sasha Cullen, A.K.A. Puma11, was lifted forward to join them.
"Say hello, to mummy dearest, Sasha," wheezed Paramount gleefully.
"NOOOOO!!!", came a voice from the darkness. "This is wrong, and I WON'T LET YOU DO IT!!!!"
DarkWolf came bounding into the room. The handsome youth swung his thickly muscled arm at Paramount knocking him backwards and busting the lip on the youthful face that he had taken on.
"Boy," Paramount spat. "What is the meaning of this? Have I not given you everything?....made you a part of my dream? Don't you see? These people before you are our enemies. It is these people that refused me and scoffed at my potential when forming this ridiculous Hellfire Club......these people that squander their genetic strength in petty squabbles....but I see as always, I am betrayed by those closest to me."
"Betrayed?" DarkWolf cried. "You killed the Alpha only to assume his form and power. Who are you to speak of betrayal?"
"Don't you see how limited the Alpha was?" Paramount questioned. "His power was held back by his own goodness of heart. He needed a mind such as mine to seize his true destiny as ruler over this pathetic mudball...He would never have been able to make the difficult choices it takes to destroy in order to create."
"I see nothing but a madman!" raged DarkWolf.
"THEN YOU WILL DIE LIKE THE OTHERS!!!" screamed Paramount. "only for your betrayal, you will not go easily into the night on a wave of tranquility like the rest of these sheep. I WILL TEAR YOU LIMB FROM LIMB!!!!!"
Paramount gestured once again and Jon and Puma dropped to the floor in a heap, but placid smiles soon returned to their faces. DarkWolf, on the other hand, was hurled across the room into a steel support girder. If not for his invulnerability and strength, he would have been mortally wounded. As it was, he almost couldn't rise. As soon as he reached his feet, however, he was hit by another attack as he felt his feet and arms fly apart and continue to be pulled. Paramount was literally going to try and rip him apart. A sharp pain shot through the youth's shoulder as his arm threatened to give way. DarkWolf cried out in agony, but in his last few moment's of consciousness, he reached out with his mind and made contact with the mutates he had abandoned earlier when Paramount had assumed the Alpha form. The confused mutates immediately began to come around and started moving in on Paramount. Paramount saw DarkWolf's attempt at defense and reached out with his own mind, but found nothing to latch onto within the mutates. His cry of rage, seemed to excite the wretched creatures and before he could move to stop it a bat-formed mutate slashed a claw across his face, opening his jaw like a ripe melon.
Paramount slapped the hand away, and immediately hit DarkWolf with his tranquility blast. The youth slumped to the floor with a peaceful grin on his face, but it was too late. DarkWolf's mental commands and the blood the bat-creature had drawn had driven the creatures into a frenzy and they attacked Paramount with full force. He didn't understand why he couldn't control them, so he took them out sometimes five at a time with his telekenetic energy, but as before the fallen ones were simply replaced by others. Paramount's concentration broke and the Hellfire Club members began to wake up from their utopian daze. The mutates began to notice the stirring of the others and attacked them as well. The HFC members fought back valiantly, but they too were becoming overpowered by the gene-spliced and multi-powered mutates.
DarkWolf struggled back to lucidity, and saw what was going on. He retook the minds of the mutates and they swung their attention back to Paramount. The Bat-Creature streaked down again and caught Paramount on the other cheek with his clawed wing. Paramount cried out in pain, but his scream was cut off my another mutate catching him around the throat with it's three fingered hand. Yet another mutate charged Paramount gnashing razor sharp teeth and clamping down on his leg with a sickening crunch. This drove the closest mutates insane with blood lust and they all attacked Paramount at once. A feral berserker lunged for Paramount's throat, biting the hand of the three fingered creature and the neck of Paramount simultaneously, mingling the blood of the two. Two more mutates pulled at the arms of Paramount and ripped them from their sockets, as his screams bubbled blood out of his gaping throat. The gnashing sound of teeth against bone and flesh and the screams and hoots of the mutates was sickening in thier fury, and when Paramount was no more, they once again turned on the other intruders in thier home. The lead creatures lunged for the HFC members with blood on their horribly mutilated bodies, but then suddenly and without warning all of the mutates fell lifeless to the ground.
"Whu...whu..what happened?" said Glittergirl letting the radiance fade from her hands. "They all just sort of stopped."
"I happened," said DarkWolf quietly. "I shut them off......they were never truly meant to be alive in the first place. That's why Paramount couldn't control them. What little semblance of human life they had, was just remnants of their component genetic matrices. They were just animals in the form of humans. They had no soul."
Glittergirl walked towards the dark haired youth. She placed an arm around him and hugged him close.
"Come with us," she said softly. "You have a home now... a real home....no more bein a lab rat for you."
"O.K." was all DarkWolf could manage to get out through the lump in his throat.
Suddenly the reptilian mutate with the flaming red hair burst onto the scene. Havok raised his arm to blast it, but Shockwave burst out from the corridor too screaming.
"Don't shoot, Havok!!!!!!", Shockwave wailed. "It's the Red King. He body jumped into that form when it destroyed his Toad body. He could have taken me, but he chose to leap into the body of the dead mutate."
"Well Ryan," quipped Nemesis coldly. "I never pictured you as a red head."
The mutate let out a ear shattering cry and drew back to breathe it's fiery breath on Nemesis, when Gomurr moved in between them.
"NO!" he said. "We have lost too much this day already, I will not have anymore senseless squabbling. Rahsas....Scott....take us home."
The mutate relaxed, Nemesis mumbled an apology, and the two mages prepared to make the transportals when Jon spoke up.
"Wait," Jon said. "This evil ends here.....now......FOREVER."
The White Queen concentrated and her entire body began to glow. She reached into the air and seemed to be clawing against it, as her magical aspect made contact with mother earth. The ground shook and the group was rocked to and fro.
"Now Rahsas...Scott...make the portals," she commanded.
The mages did as they were told and the assemblage stepped through one by one as the ground split in two and hot molten lava from the earth's core rushed up. Jon stepped through just as the angry earth swallowed the orphanage and the evil of Paramount forever?