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Chapters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
 
 
 

The Companion Picture - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Dandelion
Last updated: 12/03/2009 06:26:08 PM

Chapter 29

Amanda Sefton was in search of the perfect root beer float. The kitchen of the Muir Isle Mutant Research Facility held all of her tools for the job. Her malted glasses, her long spoons, her hand held ice cream scoop and, most importantly, the ingredients to her confectionery masterpiece.

"The trick of it is great ingredients," Amanda explained to Meggan, who was witnessing the event with considerable interest. "There's only two of them, so they both have to be first rate. If you only worry about one then you're wasting your time."

"How much time have you spent working on perfecting this drink?" Meggan scratched her fingernail against one of the frosted glasses.

"Since I was a girl," Amanda scooped out a generous portion of French vanilla ice cream and dropped it ceremoniously into one of the glasses. She continued to do so until both containers held three large helpings of the ice cream. "And let me tell you, there is an incredible difference between a mediocre root beer float and a great one." She paused. "A great one is like... well, it's like an incredible orgasm," a wicked grin curled her generous mouth. "Sometimes it's better than sex."

Meggan leaned her chin on one hand. "That doesn't speak very well for Kurt."

Amanda laughed wildly. "Kurt, of course, is an exception to every rule." She opened the refrigerator door. "The final touch, and quite possibly the best root beer in existence," she announced. With a loud >thunk< she hefted a substantial jug of dark brown glass onto the counter.

Meggan's expression seemed to be one of intense concentration. She appeared to be waiting for the jug to do something.

Amanda popped the stopper of the jug and the two women were hit with a wave of a spicy, rooty aroma. Amanda closed her eyes. "MmmMMMmmm."

Meggan smiled. "That does smell good."

"You think it smells good?" Amanda poured a small amount into a drinking glass and nudged it towards Meggan with her fingertips. "Taste it. You'll thank me for it."

Meggan dutifully took a drink of the sweet smelling liquid and rewarded Amanda with one of her megawatt smiles. "This. Is. Great." She stated firmly. "Where did you find this?"

"In the wilds of Lancaster, Pennsylvania," Amanda replied, tipping the jug so that the drink foamed and fizzed over the ice cream. "Amish country. You drive along those roads and there are hand-drawn roadside signs advertising homemade root beer. When I get over there I practically buy out every farmer in the area. They love me." She grinned. "I've thought about getting the recipe but I'm not a real talent in the kitchen."

She pushed Meggan's float to her and handed her a spoon. "Except when it comes to floats. Dig in."

Meggan's look of ecstasy with the first taste confirmed Amanda's opinion that she made a damn good root beer float.

<ting, ting>

Simultaneously, Meggan and Amanda reached up and scratched their ear.

"This is incredible," Meggan enthused. "Has Kitty tried this yet?"

"If I can pry her away from the odious Pete Wisdom I might offer her a nibble," Amanda replied good-naturedly.

<ting, ting, ting>

In unison, Amanda and Meggan cocked their heads slightly, as if trying to listen to a faraway call. Slowly, their eyes shifted to each other.

"You heard it too?" Amanda asked.

Meggan nodded. "What was it?"

Amanda held out her hand. "Let's find out."

Meggan nodded and clasped Amanda's hand as Amanda raised her other arm.

A flash of light came from her fingers and her eyes and their surroundings melted away into a landscape completely alien to anything Meggan had seen before. And yet, it felt to her to be perfectly natural.

Instead of walls there were shimmering webs of silvery metallic material. Wherever there had been something technologically advanced the webs were thicker.

Through the webs, Meggan could see the rocky island where they lived. It was more primal than she remembered and the wind howled like some wild beast.

"Meggan! Is that your true form?" Amanda voice was filled with admiration.

"I guess it must be," Meggan looked at her hands. "What is this place? I've never --" her words were cut off when she lifted her head to meet Amanda's gaze.

Amanda seemed taller. Her clothes had changed to those of a more ancient fashion. A long sapphire blue tunic belted at the waist and slit to her hips covered faun colored breeches. Her belt was a long string of amber that glimmered like a captured ray of sunlight. Around her neck she wore a necklace of glittering silver runes. Her hair was as thick and wavy as ever and she wore two braids entwined with more strings of amber. Amanda's eyes were older and infinitely wiser. Amanda herself seemed ageless.

Meggan clasped her hands together. "Amanda! What happened?"

Amanda smiled slightly. "This is what I look like when you see my Avatar within me. My Avatar is what makes me a magicienne. It's like a culmination of all my incarnations."

"It's incredible."

"Welcome to the horizon realms."

Mystique tapped her fingernails on the table she sat at and tossed an annoyed look towards Kitty Pryde. The young woman had taken it upon herself to play interrogation officer despite the fact that Moira and Kurt were in the room as well. "At that point, Forge decided to covertly disband X-Factor."

"And he just took off without telling you where he was going?" Kitty's expression was obviously skeptical.

"You haven't worked with Forge, have you?" Mystique inquired in a long-suffering tone of voice. "If you had you'd know what sort of person he is. When you work for the government you become accustomed to the term 'need to know,' not that I'd expect you to know this." Mystique's comment was pointed.

Kitty frowned and swallowed a dozen pointed remarks of her own before crossing her arms over her chest. "So you don't know where Forge is. Or, rather, you aren't going to tell us where he is."

Mystique sighed heavily and didn't answer.

"You show up breaking into a government facility, you scarcely say a word on the way back. You have all sorts of convenient papers backing up your highly unbelievable story. And you can't even offer a reasonable explanation for Forge?" Kitty shook her head. "You don't make it easy for us to believe you."

"You mean telling the truth makes it difficult for you X-people?" Mystique arched her eyebrows as a coy smile twisted her lips. "I thought you scions of Xavier were big on honesty. Apparently I need to do more research."

Kitty scowled again and silently raged at herself for letting this woman get to her. It had been several years since Mystique had posed any real threat to her, but the recent revelations regarding Kurt's parentage made the bitterness well up inside all over again.

When she looked at Mystique she saw someone who didn't deserve to be connected with Kurt in any way. And she saw someone she absolutely could not trust.

Moira had distanced herself from the questions as well. She had been pouring over Mystique's documents and becoming more disturbed with every page. Most of the records had some mention of virus-l and it didn't take any imagination to figure out that virus-l was the Legacy Virus.

<If it's not bad enough to be fightin' so for a cure for this disease, now we've got tae worry about other factions turning it into a weapon?> She pressed a hand against her forehead. "I want to go over ALL of this with you." She said looking at Mystique. "I'm quite interested in how far they've come in their research."

Moira didn't like any of what Mystique had described to them. The most unsettling thing about it was that it was all probable.

"I don't know how much I'll be able to help you," Mystique replied sweetly. "But I'll surely try."

Kurt stood near the back of the room silent as a stone and just as rigid. His questions had ceased as soon as Mystique had provided documentation of the X-Factor situation. He looked over the papers with Moira conversing in low tones about their options. He found himself wondering what the three Excalibur members in the observation room were thinking of the matter.

"I can understand why you don't believe me," Mystique said coolly, shifting her gaze between the three disapproving looks. "It would seem, though, that there are only two alternatives. Either I'm telling the truth or I've gone through a great deal of trouble and effort to fool you." She paused. "Which I might add, doesn't seem to have worked."

"She's dirty," Pete Wisdom grumbled, tendrils of smoke curling around his hardened and haggard features. "You can smell it on her."

"Aye," Rahne concurred. Her expression was troubled, though. Forge had gone through a great deal of time and effort to train the team to track Mystique down. The fact that the woman was here, and talking of danger to Rahne herself, gave her pause.

Piotr said little. His mind kept turning back to one of the times the X-men had dealt with Mystique and her team of evil mutants. He had come very close to losing his life and Kitty had saved him by offering herself to the Morlocks. "Kurt is unusually tense."

"Small wonder, her being his mum." Pete took a slow drag from his cigarette. "I'd be a bit traumatized over that myself."

Rahne tapped her chin thoughtfully as she watched the interrogation. "They aren't goin' to get any information out of her that she doesna want to give. I can tell you that right off. I tend to agree with what she said, though. Either she speaks true, or she's goin' to a lot of trouble for naught." She turned and looked up at Piotr.

He glanced at her with an almost imperceptible nod. "It's a logical conclusion."

Pete flicked a few ashes off his cigarette thinking that the word 'logical' coming from the mouth of the tin Russian might very well be a sign of the apocalypse. "I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw you," he muttered under his breath casting a quick glance to Piotr.

Piotr shrugged lightly with a heavy sigh. "Who said anything about trusting her?"

"This from the one what betrayed everyone, right?" Pete knew his goading Piotr was juvenile, but he never claimed to be anything other than he was. Truth be told, he enjoyed getting to the Russian. He felt reasonably sure that he was in no danger from the younger man anymore.

Only Piotr wasn't biting this time. He only stared into the room at Mystique, a dark look on his face.

"What if everything she says is true?" Rahne wondered, her words directed at no one in particular. "What if X-Factor really is gone? What are we to do then?"

<Pryde's well off her game,> Wisdom thought his eyes firmly set on Kitty. He recognized the stiff carriage she wore. It was similar to the stance she had when they had first met. It seemed as though everyone were walking on eggshells around this woman.

The most unsettling element, however, was Kurt's reaction. This was not the easy-going leader that he had grown used to. Nor was it the angry, out-for-blood leader that he rather liked. Kurt's posture was angry, but more than that it was hostile. Pete recognized the stance of a man who was just short of doing something drastic and he didn't like seeing it in Kurt at all.

It was then that he noticed that Kitty seemed to be placing herself directly between Kurt and Mystique's line of sight. <If looks could kill,> Wisdom stared down at Kurt and Kitty. <Pryde'd be history.> He narrowed his eyes. <As it is, she's probably getting the full brunt of Wagner's anger and that's probably why she keeps planting herself between the two.>

Rahne scarcely took her eyes off of Mystique. She shook her head. "Forge wouldn't disband for just anything. And even if Mystique has told us everything she knows I just have this feeling that there's something more."

"You think she's holding out on us?" Wisdom raised an eyebrow. "I wouldn't put it past her."

"Either that or Forge is holding out on her." Rahne replied quietly as the room dispersed.

Wisdom stared at Mystique's back as Moira escorted her out of the room and shook his head slightly. "She's dirty. She's just dirty through and through."

Piotr tended to agree and his dubious expression deepened upon seeing Rahne's worried face.

She looked up at him. "Forge has worked for the government for years. He had friends and allies there. Piotr, are we making any progress at all?"

He patted her shoulder. "I agree with you that there is more to this than what we see right now. But before we start predicting doomsday, let's look into it a bit more, hmm?"

"I don't trust her, I don't trust her at all," Kitty's voice was harsh.

"No one trusts her," Kurt replied, an irritable tone to his voice. "But I think we had better prepare ourselves for the fact that she is telling the truth."

They couldn't completely confirm any of it. There was just enough evidence from the files they stole in London to suggest that the Department of Defense did have some dealings with Black Air in regard to mutants. And Mystique's documents were just vague enough to cast a shadow of doubt over everything.

That just couldn't be good.

Moira returned to the room and nodded to Kurt. "Brian is with her in the lab. He's doing a scan of her and putting it all into the system. She won't be able to use that power of hers to fool us." She gave him a wan smile then turned to the mirror and scowled. "Wisdom!" She folded her arms. "Nae smoking you great English pratt!!"

"She's a witch, is what she is," Wisdom grumbled. "Listen, you harpy!" He shook his fist at the mirror. "This isn't your lab so quit your bloody nagging!" He blew a puff of smoke through his nose and looked at the others. "No wonder Cassidy's in Boston. I bet she looks pretty good from a few thousand miles away."

Brett sat at the table in the kitchen and doodled on a pad of paper. The sun beat down on the beaches of their Bermuda Triangle haven outside. In the other room Lee's loud and unrepentant singing beat on her from the other side. Lee was amusing herself as she dusted. Brett was amusing herself as well and remained silent, not wanting Lee to know she had an audience.

"The night they invented champagne!" Lee sang in a brazen voice. "It's plain as it can be, they thought of you and me."

Brett pressed a hand against her mouth to stifle a giggle.

"La lala la lala la la!"

The pen she played with scratched the paper as her mind focused on Lee's dubious singing talents.

"They absolutely knew, that all we'd want to do is fly through the night on champagne. Da da da dee dee dee dee DUM! That since the world began no woman or a man could ever be as happy as we arrrrre toooooo NIGHT!"

Brett smiled broadly as Lee's rendition of the lyrics gave way to breathless humming. Her mirth faded, however, when she looked down at the paper she had been writing on.

There was a list of names.

Remy LeBeau

Jackson Meske

David Bignardi

Remy LeBeau

Frank Collison

Gavin Forbes

Remy LeBeau

Joel Hawkson

Marcus Tilligkeit

Wayne Kriegler

Remy LeBeau

Remy LeBeau

Remy LeBeau...

"What are the horizon realms?" Meggan asked softly.

"It's a place between here and there," Amanda replied. "It's where magic flows a little easier."

"I've never seen you have any problems before."

Amanda grinned. "You know why? You all believe in it. It's much easier to send a bolt of energy lancing out of my hands when the people around me believe that I can actually do it. Otherwise, I have to be a bit more subtle."

"What do you mean? Why?" Meggan pressed.

"Magic is fickle. It's bending reality to my will. And reality is a perception, right? What people conceive it to be, it is. When something happens that is outside the norm all sorts of ugly backlashes happen."

"Why doesn't it happen to mutants then?"

Amanda stopped and sighed. "Believe me, I've wondered. There are an awful lot of opinions about that. With all the anti-mutant hysteria going on, though, how do you know it hasn't happened?"

She shrugged. "But that's the debate between philosophy and science. I don't get in the middle of it, quite honestly. I don't think it's worth the headache. All I know is when I send green bolts out of my hand around people who don't believe that it can happen I get slammed by what I like to call the cosmic balancer.

"Believe me, it's not a pretty sight. So, I don't do it."

Meggan was silent for several moments. "I feel whatever it was that called us. It's real."

"What do you feel?" Amanda asked, her eyes snapping.

"Anger. Fear. Sorrow. Longing. The feelings are so strong they're almost primal."

"Are you sure it's what we felt and not just some residual emotions left over from wanderers who came before?"

"I'm certain. I'm familiar with these emotions. They belong to something we know, or have known."

Amanda sighed. "That could be anything."

Meggan nodded. "Let's keep going, I can follow the emotions. If we can get closer to their source in this plane we should be able to understand more."

They walked in silence for several moments. Suddenly, Meggan gasped and Amanda stiffened. Before them a shimmering wall of arcane energy materialized. Both women were battle-ready in an instant.

"It's a manifest," Amanda whispered, realizing suddenly what was taking place before them. "It's profound but it's not terribly harmful."

The two women stood transfixed as scenes played on the energy field.

A medallion of gold spun through the air towards them. On it was a delicately beautiful design of a pentagram etched onto its surface. An indentation marked each point. All five were empty, waiting to be filled. The innocent eyes of a young girl came into focus in the background. The eyes were as blue as cornflowers. They shimmered with the sweet innocence of youth.

One indentation burned red. The eyes grew sad. Another indentation filled with the color of fire. The eyes grew fearful. The third indentation filled. The eyes grew angry. The fourth indentation filled. The eyes grew old. The last indentation filled. The eyes grew wise. And the scene descended into flames.

The scene shifted to show an armor-clad figure, half goat and half warrior maid hurling a blazing sword into the sky.

Amanda gasped as she recognized the scene she saw. Meggan's face paled as well at the memories.

The scene shifted again to depict a warrior maiden lying in state Her hands clasped over her breast and her sword secured between her hands. Her eyes were closed and her coloring was of stone. She appeared as an ornate carving on a tomb. The scene closed in on her revealing a face of exquisite beauty.

The carving depicted her hair splayed about her like a cloak. Her face was the perfect image of grace and wisdom. The sadness surrounding her was immense for she had learned so much and had died so young.

The scene closed in until her face filled the frame. It was a face that could inspire armies. It was a face that could launch a thousand ships. It was a face that was destined to remain as it was, for the face belonged to a dead girl.

Then the eyes opened.

The scene faded. Amanda and Meggan were silent for several moments.

"It...," Amanda struggled with her words. "It couldn't be what it looks like it is."

Meggan remained silent. But the expression on her face as she looked at Amanda spoke volumes.

"It couldn't be," a rich voice said behind them. "But it is."

They turned to see a tall woman dressed in deep blues and blacks. Her right eye glinted at them. It was made of a shimmering steel that seemed to have a soul of it's own.

"Shrill," Amanda spoke the name calmly despite the emotions that seemed to well up inside of her like a storm.

"Sefton," the woman nodded back. "I expected to find you here sooner or later."

Amanda swallowed the tart reply that was flitting about on her tongue and regarded Shrill cooly. As ever, when she looked at the other magicienne her eyes fell upon Shrill's soul-steel eye. <It makes complete sense. If this vision and all of those twinges I've felt have to do with the Soulsword then it's only right that Shrill would be aware of it too. They have similar properties.>

"How's your eye?" Meggan piped up sweetly.

Shrill turned her attention to the other woman. "I am well. The steel in my eye does not debilitate me as it did before."

"Why not?" Meggan asked, all curiosity.

Shrill nodded enigmatically to where the manifest had taken place. "Things are changing."

Kurt wandered around the grounds silently. His eyes were focused solely on the ground before him. His mind, however, was a whirlwind.

<I don't want to believe her,> he told himself. <I don't want to believe a word that comes out of her mouth.> He looked up towards the medical buildings, where inside Brian and Moira were engaged in the task of trying to counter Mystique's shape-changing abilities.

<I know better. Despite the woman's history as a deceiver my instincts tell me that every word she has told us about what has happened in Virginia is true.> Kurt cast mournful eyes to the sky. <God help us, it is true.>

Slowly, he made his way back to the medical facility. Mystique was seated at a table, sitting patiently through all of the scans that Brian and Moira were putting her through.

She was aware of him immediately and watched as he approached her.

Kurt glanced about the room to locate and summon Moira. She caught his eye and, adjusting her glasses, left Brian to stand near Mystique.

Moira watched him silently as he sat down across from his estranged mother. She saw the determined look in his eye and knew immediately what decision he had come to. She nodded slightly to him. Moira couldn't say for certain whether or not Kurt saw her, but she wanted to offer her support nonetheless. She was certain that Mystique was telling the truth about what was happening in the United States. She was just as certain that things could easily happen with Black Air in the same way.

Kurt gazed at Mystique for a long time in complete silence.

She returned his stare with a calm look in her eye. Calm, yet serious, he noted to some satisfaction.

He folded his hands together and spoke: "What do you need from us?"

"Changing?" Amanda regarded Shrill carefully. "Have you seen that manifest?" She gestured to the empty space where the vision had taken place.

"Visions are tailored to the one who is doing the viewing," Shrill replied. "I have not seen what you have seen, but I can tell you that the very object we were all fighting over not so long ago is stirring again."

Meggan nodded. "We've felt it, too. It just seems hard to believe the reasons for it."

Shrill chose not to reply, sensing a pain beneath the words of the changeling mutant.

"If the Soulsword is changing," Amanda said slowly. "The only explanation is the one we can't believe right now. Only the hand that created an object like that can reshape it."

"Indeed," Shrill replied. "The link between the two is tenuous, however. The weapon is on our earthly plane while it's creator is not. Add to that the fact that the weapon is bonded to another." She cast a pointed look at Amanda.

Amanda ignored the other magicienne's silent barb. "We need to remove it from my mother's influence," her voice was determined. "If we remove the bond between the sword and Margali then, theoretically, the path will be clearer for..." she could barely say the name.

"For Illyana," Meggan burst out. "Think of what Piotr and Kitty will say!"

Amanda preferred not to. She couldn't be certain what shape Illyana would be in if they managed to bring her to the earthly plane again. It was difficult to speculate on with all the variables involved. "First things first is my mother. She won't give up such a potent item easily. And I gather she'll be expecting me to come. She's undoubtedly aware of the Soulsword's changes."

"Undoubtedly," Shrill replied.

<Meggan will be very helpful,> Amanda thought glancing about her. <If it were just me going up against Mother I wouldn't last too long. She knows my weaknesses and exploits them unmercilessly. Meggan is terribly powerful in her own right... but I'd feel more comfortable with another magicienne. Mother is as paranoid as she is powerful and she's no doubt magicked up some beautiful protections and wards.> She looked at Shrill. "Will you help us?"

Shrill smiled sedately. "I do not follow the Winding Way, Walker," she told Amanda. "I follow the Way of the Soul. If there is work that need be done to free a Soul item from the grasp of one who should not have it, I will gladly lend my services."

 

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