Disclaimer: They're Marvel's. Pity them. This is the fifth story in my "Satan and Lucifer" series, following six years after the events in the previous story, "Admitting Imprediments". Thanks goes to Luba Kmetyk for beta reading.
Meggan caught the updraft and wheeled in synch with the Canadian geese she'd befriended. Life was so much simpler when she was a bird. Her thoughts went quiet and all the pain and loneliness went away.
Jean was taking Scott away. No, she hadn't said it, hadn't even let the thought slip, but she couldn't hide her feelings from an empath like Meggan. Jean had loved Scott for the longest time, but now it was different. Now they were getting married. Leaving the team. Going to college. Starting a family of their own.
Magneto flew up beside her, catching her in one hand. He could always find her. She could sense his anger at her, mixed with love and concern. "Change back this instant, young lady. We don't solve problems by running away."
Meggan changed back to her true form, maintaining a stoic expression. She didn't want her father to see her cry like a baby.
"What possessed you to masquerade as Jean for an afternoon? Your reaction when she showed up at the pool suggests it was more than a prank."
Meggan couldn't trust her voice.
"I want an answer, Meggan."
"T-they…" Meggan cleared her throat and tried again. "They all like her better! All the boys!"
"They don't like her any better or worse. Just differently."
"I'm tired of being the tagalong!"
"Meggan, they're all ten years older than you," said Magnus gently.
"I just wanted to see if they liked her better because she's pretty or because of who she is."
"Meggan, you're a very pretty little girl, and someday you'll be a very beautiful woman. You just have to be patient."
"I'm not pretty. Not really."
"You are exquisite in your true form, or in the form you normally wear. You're only unattractive when you insist on looking as the gypsies saw you. That's not who you truly are." Magnus kissed her forehead. "Remember, I love you more than I love Jean, and I always will."
"But you were happy! You were happy that she was taking Scott away!" Meggan protested.
"I'm unhappy that Scott and Jean are leaving. I'll miss Jean as much as I miss Hank, and I'll miss Scott terribly. But I'm glad that my son has a better chance to lead a normal life than I ever did. And someday I'll be just as happy for you, and miss you just as much, when you grow up and fall in love."
Magnus stopped talking as Bobby's ice slide drew near. Bobby gave Meggan a tentative smile, and Meggan blushed. She'd acted like an idiot, pretending to be Jean like that.
"You okay, Meggan?" asked Bobby awkwardly.
"She'll be fine," Magnus answered for her, giving her shoulder an encouraging squeeze.
"Professor Xavier says he wants to talk to you alone, Pop."
Magnus frowned at the old joke. He'd legally adopted Meggan and Scott, but the other students insisted on calling him Pop or Dad instead of Professor. "I'll be there in a moment."
Though he shared a mind-link with Charles, Magnus insisted that Charles never speak directly to his mind unless it was a dire emergency. Hence Charles used the other students as go-betweens like any normal person would.
Magnus flew through the window of Charles's study, where he found Charles sitting behind his desk. "If this is about Meggan," Magnus started.
"Sit down, Magnus. This has nothing to do with the prank Meggan pulled." Charles pressed his lips together in that gesture he always used when trying to delicately phrase some volatile piece of information. "I just received a call from Hank McCoy. Apparently the Avengers had an altercation with Doctor Doom, who has recruited a number of mutants and sorcerers as his minions. Hank said that one of the boys his age had silver hair like yours. There was some sort of falling out, and the leader of the crew, a gypsy woman, separated from Doctor Doom and escaped, taking the others with her. The Avengers managed to defeat Doctor Doom, but Hank insisted that they call us before trying to find the gypsy woman and her followers."
Magnus's jaw tightened. "Margali."
"She probably enchanted you in some way to make you believe her claim that Meggan was your true child, while she went off in search of your son." When Magnus's head snapped up to stare at Charles, he continued, "Apparently she has five children under her control, including a white-haired boy who moves at super speeds."
"When I met her, she had three children with her already," said Magnus. "Which probably means she's kidnapped my son and someone else's child as well. We have to find them and take them from her."
"That shouldn't be too hard," said Charles. "We can make a rough search with Cerebro, then program a mini Cerebro to look specifically for readouts similar to yours. Your son will be genetically similar to you, even though his powers work differently. I'll call the team."
Charles had no qualms about summoning the X-Men telepathically, and as soon as they were all assembled in his study, Magnus quickly outlined the situation. "There is a gypsy woman who has kidnapped several young mutants and made herself an army. Our object is to free the children and return with them."
"Going to adopt them, too?" asked Bobby, grinning.
Magnus shot him a look that stopped the boy cold. "The children are not to be harmed," he continued, ignoring Bobby's comment. "Restrain them if you have to, but I want them unharmed." With that, he strode out of the room and down to the hanger with the other X-Men in tow.
Bobby hurried to catch up to Magneto. "Pop? You know I was just joking, right? I didn't mean to make you mad."
Magneto pressed his lips together. "Bobby, I swore when my first child was born that my children would lead happier, more peaceful lives than their parents. Instead, one child burned to death, and the other was stolen from me and has grown up in the care of a power-hungry madwoman. In the search for that child, I've endured years of humiliation, fruitless quests and roadblocks. Please tell me, Mr. Drake, what about this seems funny to you?"
Scott leaned back in his seat next to Jean. Xavier and Magneto were piloting the plane, which left the X-Men unsupervised in the back. In earlier years, that meant an opportunity to horse around and get rid of their pre-battle jitters. And certainly Bobby and Warren were joking and playing around. But Scott, Meggan and Jean all sat in silence.
Scott didn't have to be a telepath to realize how embarrassed, ashamed and isolated Meggan felt after the incident earlier today. She sat alone in the back and made no attempt to join in Bobby and Warren's antics. Scott suddenly unbuckled his seatbelt and made his way to the back of the plane. "Hey kiddo," he said, plopping down in the seat next to her.
"I'm sorry," she said in a tiny voice.
"Why did you do it?" he asked. "I mean, it's a sort of weird prank. Are you jealous of her?"
When she stared even more determinedly out the window at the rain-spattered darkness, Scott continued, "Even if I get married, I'm still going to be your big brother." That thought sparked another that made his insides twist with fear. Before he clamped down on it, Meggan turned, confused, and at the front of the plane, Jean twisted around in her seat and shot him a puzzled look.
*Nothing,* he thought at Jean, hoping she would pick it up and leave him alone. To Meggan he said, "That had nothing to do with you."
"What was that? You were really scared and sad," asked Meggan, her earlier embarrassment forgotten.
"It's nothing," he said. She was feeling scared and left-out enough without him adding to it.
"Come on, tell me. I'm your sister, aren't I? We help each other out."
So if he didn't tell her, she'd still feel miserable and left-out, and she'd assume he'd told Jean telepathically what he was feeling no matter how hard he tried to convince her that it wasn't the case. He was damned either way. "I spent months with Dad searching this part of Europe for his real kid. I'm betting that's what this is really about. You've never seen him like this. You don't know how driven he gets, how obsessed he gets."
"You think he might stop loving us when he finds his real kid?" Meggan asked.
"Well, he didn't stop loving me when he thought you were his real kid," said Scott. But he wasn't sure. He'd never seen Magnus this angry. Rage like that could scald all emotion from a man. "One way or another," said Scott, "this is going to get ugly. If this is the gypsy woman who tricked us, then that means she probably raised his kid, knowing he'd come back someday and try to take the kid away from her. She's probably made that kid think they have to kill Magnus to stay alive. If he has to fight his own kid … well, you know what his nightmares are like, with Magda and all that. One way or another, this is going to get ugly."
Meggan turned and hugged him tight. Scott held onto her, trying to project the calm reassurance he couldn't conjure for himself.
Suddenly the plane lurched and began to plunge. "Mechanical failure!" Xavier yelled, "I don't understand, the craft is foolproof--"
The plane steadied itself again. "I cannot hold this for long, Charles," said Magnus. "Clearly, Margali is more powerful than we had thought. I can feel forces battering the edges of my shields, trying to break down my powers. Everyone out!"
With that, he burst the cargo bay doors open, flinging everyone out of the unresponsive plane and into the rainstorm raging outside. His magnetic bubble protected himself and Xavier, Warren grabbed Bobby around the waist, and Meggan tried to grab Scott at the same instant that Jean telekinetically lifted him out of the plane.
"Bobby! Warren!" Magnus yelled.
Scott turned to see Bobby and Warren, encased in ice, hurtling through the rain towards the ground. How had Bobby lost control of his power like that? Jean abandoned him to Meggan, diving to slow the fall of the two boys.
"There!" Xavier yelled, pointing through the dark to a patch of darkness in the forest. "I can feel their minds there!"
From long practice Meggan moved easily through the air with Cyclops in her arms, and he adjusted to the swoops and curls of her evasive maneuvers and fired at the patch of woods Xavier had pointed out. His blasts were meant to rattle their attackers, not kill anyone, and if someone down there was screwing with powers, they couldn't do anything to Scott's unless they wanted to risk his killing them, and his eye beams could only focus straight ahead, not at any other member of the group.
Magneto's shields were bright blue and crackling as he dove beside Scott, heading for the forest floor. "They have witches and sorcerers," he yelled to Scott, "Charles is scrambling their thoughts so they can't cast any more spells, but we still need to take out the mutants."
The ground was closer now, and even through his visor Scott could see four people on the ground, clutching their heads and rolling around senseless. That left two threats still active, from what Xavier and Magnus had said. Meggan landed and let go of Scott. Then she shrieked in agony, her body shifting wildly, sprouting rotting tentacles and pustules.
"Fight it!" Scott yelled, "They're controlling you somehow!" He fired at the older gypsy woman, trying to hurt her without killing her. The blast fired uncontrollably fierce, but it didn't save Meggan. She stumbled off into the woods, clutching blindly at trees and screaming incoherently at the agony of her melting flesh.
Before Scott could follow her, Jean yelled his name. "I can't get this ice off them! They're going to suffocate!"
Scott turned to blast the ice off Bobby and Warren, but before he could, something hurled into him and knocked him breathless, slamming him into a tree.
The world went black.
Meggan tripped and fell to her knees, but got up and kept going, desperate to get out of range of whatever was causing this blistering, rotting pain. She felt a trace of something peaceful and sheltering up ahead and forced herself onward. A church. A little chapel made of rough stones, set away in the woods. Blindly she pounded on the door, unable even to scream now.
Soft, strange fingers caught her, pulled her gently inside. "Mein Gott," she heard a choked voice cry, "Vas machen mein bruder?"
She could feel the stranger's compassion and guilt - guilt? - blocking the force that shaped her body so callously. The stranger felt no revulsion upon looking at her, just gently eased her to the floor and took off his shirt to cover her raw-nerved skin. "Shhh. Gei shlufen, gei shlufen," he said. It was obvious from his emotions and body language that he was trying to get her to calm down. When not in full control of her body, Meggan tended to echo the thoughts of the people closest to her. She expected the stranger to be so frightened and disgusted that he made things worse, but instead she felt healthy skin and hair returning, soothing her scalded nerves, and the soft, remembered prickle of fur erasing the last of the nauseous pain. She looked up and saw a boy her own age kneeling over her with a look of awe and grief etched on his beautiful, blue-furred face. "Vunderbar," he whispered.
"So are you," she said.
They'd taken out Margali, but it was no use. Magnus's son was still determined to fight, and even with Margali gone, a large, wicked-looking young wizard urged the two witches to keep fighting, and they seemed too frightened to disobey or listen to reason.
One of the witches gestured, and Magnus's EM shield buckled and warped, going halfway through Charles's head. Fish-sticks beestings up his nose roses stabbing his eyes and always twirling, twirling…
Black.
Meggan sat up and noticed for the first time the mutilated little girl on the floor by the altar. "She's dead."
He followed the line of her gaze and winced at the sight of the corpse, shame and grief and agony coiling inside him. So far they hadn't needed a translator.
"Mein bruder…" he made vicious pantomime.
"Your brother did that?" Meggan was horrified.
"Ja. Und," he held up both three-fingered hands, then held up two fingers. Meggan hoped she had misunderstood him, but she held up eight fingers just to make sure. When he nodded, his heart sick with the pain of it, she forced herself to accept that this demon with the heart of an angel had a brother who had hurt eight girls as terribly as the corpse in front of her.
Miserably, he continued. "Und," he whispered, touching one thick, gentle finger to Meggan's blue-furred chest.
His brother done this to her, made her power turn against her in the most nightmarish way possible. "How could you let him do that?" she whispered.
His eyes filled with tears, and she suddenly understood that he'd come to the church to pray for guidance. She could feel the love and hate he felt for his brother tearing him apart inside, and she hugged the weeping boy close, trying to comfort him.
Magnus wiped the blood from his face and forced himself to stand again, as the X-Men made one last stand against their attackers. Suddenly there was a stench of sulfur and a bamf! sound. Then another. Then the battlefield was silent, both sides freezing in horror at what they saw.
A little blue demon had appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Margali's second-in-command. The boy's head was now halfway through a large oak tree. The X-Men stared in horror, as did Margali's children, and the demon himself. The demon stepped back a few paces, and the two witches and Magnus's son all started screaming at him in German.
"How could you, Kurt, he's our brother! He was trying to protect us from these people!"
"You know what he was, Jmaine! And these people aren't evil."
"How would you know? Where were you while we were fighting for our lives, you little monster?"
"It doesn't matter where I was, Pietro. This girl is with them, she told me a little of what they're here for. I can't understand them too well, but I recognize the white-haired man and the boy with the red eye-piece. Think, Jmaine, you remember when they came, when we were little. He was searching for his child, remember? And Pietro, Wanda, Margali found you just after they came. Look at that man. Look at his hair, his face."
"You're right," said the blonde teenager he called Jmaine. "I didn't pay that much attention the first time I saw him, but I remember him now."
"Please," said Magnus in German, stretching out his hands, "I didn't come here to fight. I came looking for my son. I've been searching for him for years, and she lied to me, hid him from me."
"What about me?" asked the brunette, Wanda, beside the white-haired boy.
Magnus bit back an angry retort when he saw the angles of her face. It was his own, transformed through the alchemy of genetic heritage into an awkward, female beauty. "Twins?" he asked. "You're twins? I didn't know. But I want you both to come back with me. I want to make up for the years Margali has stolen from us."
Jmaine knelt beside Margali's body, scarred by Scott's optic blasts. "You killed her. You killed our mother!"
Kurt touched Margali's eyes, closing them, and hugged Jmaine. The two of them grieved silently together, and a little blue demoness who had to be the missing Meggan touched Kurt's back gently to comfort him.
Much as he was tempted to take his children and go, Magnus could hardly leave Kurt and Jmaine alone in the rain. He fashioned himself a shovel out of part of his metal cloak and began digging a grave. The teenagers all stared at him for a moment, then Meggan grew a pair of clawed, paddle-like hands good for digging, and Scott used his optic blasts to start clearing a second grave. A few hours later, when they had buried the two bodies and Charles had regained consciousness, Magnus repaired the Blackbird and loaded the X-Men and the four new recruits inside.
Scott was clearly anguished, having never killed anyone before, even accidentally. Jean touched his back lightly, but it was clear he needed his father, not a teenage girl as new at this as he was. Pietro and Wanda watched Magnus warily, still grieving for the mother and brother who had called Magnus the enemy. Meggan was trying to comfort Kurt, Jmaine and Scott all at once, so overwhelmed by the task that she was shifting randomly from her true form to the form she normally kept, to one that echoed Kurt's, even shifting to her ugly foundling form in her misery over not being able to help the traumatized, grief-stricken teenagers more.
Unsure where to turn his attention, which of his children to help first and how, Magnus fled to the cockpit, piloting the plane home and hoping that respite would give him the time to form some sort of plan.
End.