Aaaand, this is it, folks -- the third and final in what I'm calling "The Barrage Trilogy".

In Part One, Scott "Barrage" Summers and a few other Powerswapped X-Men dealt with the Brothrhood at the train station. In Part Two, more of that particular universe's history was revealed, from the point of view of a fresh-from-prison Magneto. Now, all hell breaks loose.


STARTLING
Wyzeguy


I remember the first time I met Scott.

It was almost a decade ago, when I returned to Xavier's upon completing med school. I'd heard on the news that Charles and Erik Lehnsherr (who was living at the mansion at the time) had gone to California some weeks before to take on the case of a high school senior whose mutant manifestation had caused quite a media stir. That stir involved quite a bit of collateral damage to his school, several injuries and even some deaths.

But when I found the boy in question, putting together a jigsaw puzzle in the rec room despite the limitations inherent in wearing thick gloves, I didn't think he seemed harmful at all. In fact, he looked more than a little lonely and frustrated, as if he had no idea what to do with himself anymore. So I struck up a conversation, introducing myself and telling him that I'd heard what'd happened. He tried his best to tune me out, and said nothing for quite a while.

Finally, he muttered, "I didn't dance with my prom date."

I didn't quite know what to say to that. "You didn't?"

His eyes didn't leave the puzzle. "Nope."

"Sorry to hear that."

"Actually, that's the good news. Relatively speaking."

I studied his features for a moment. He had defined cheekbones, a thin face, unruly brown hair, and pouty lips. He was attractive ... and that was putting aside the startling blue eyes that were evident even though he wasn't even looking at me. It's not often I use the word 'startling' to describe someone's eyes, but in his case it was the only way to describe them. Finally, I mustered the nerve to ask, "what's the bad news, if I may ask?"

His face gave way to an ironic smile, and he glanced at me. "Everything else." Then he went back to his puzzle. It turned out to be of a private airplane -- the same kind that had exploded and claimed the lives of his parents, I later found out.

Scott Summers was definitely a puzzle I've spent the rest of these nine years trying to figure out. It hasn't been easy.

It's even less so, now that Scott has left the X-Men to join the Brotherhood of Mutants. He was quite honestly the last X-Man I'd have expected to make that change. But I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. He latched onto Charles Xavier's dream of human/mutant coexistence pretty tightly, because it had come to his attention in a time when his world had just come crashing down around him, and he needed something to believe in. He also needed something to concentrate on besides his own thoughts.

So it's logical that in order for him to turn his back on the Dream, his world would have to come crashing down on him again. That happened recently, when Scott and Hank McCoy went to Boston to retrieve a mutant who'd taken up residence in an abandoned church. A winged 'angel' named Kurt Wagner, it turned out. Unfortunately, Kurt had attracted the attention of the local concerned citizens, who weren't exactly pleased with the idea of a mutant who pretended to be an angel. Scott managed to usher Kurt back to the jet safely while Hank held back the crowd, but they all underestimated how violent the lynch mob would become.

Scott watched as his best friend was beaten to death. Then he unleashed a flurry of explosive plasma energy befitting of his codename Barrage. Unlike the incident when he was seventeen, he didn't regret the number of people he killed with his power. He believed they deserved it, and it drove an unimaginable rift between himself and Charles, who was like a father to him.

Scott quit the team shortly after returning from Boston with Kurt. He also resigned as a teacher, despite the fact that there were few things he enjoyed more than explaining math to students. We all knew that he wasn't going to be at the mansion for much longer; Scott doesn't sit idly well.

But even worse, it was obvious he was going to leave me as well. Our time spent together since the Boston Incident consisted almost entirely of arguments and silent treatments.

So he left one night without saying goodby to anyone. He simply packed his things and left on his motorcycle. We can only guess that sometime shortly thereafter, he made contact with Warren Worthington, a telekinetic who was one of the students who had left with Erik Lehnsherr years before to form the Brotherhood. Shortly after that, we learned that Scott was one of the mutants who broke Erik -- Magneto now -- out of prison. And a Canadian military installation overseen by Colonel William Stryker was subsequently gutted by the Brotherhood, apparently for heinous experiments conducted on mutant test subjects. That had Scott's handiwork written all over it.

Scott, you see, is a strategist. A tactician. He thinks of the world in terms of numbers, and he revels in finding new ways to apply that view to battlefield situations. He's John Nash meets Sun Tzu, and I quite honestly believe the only thing standing between his name and an entry in the history books is about a decade or two of experience. Maybe it's his energy-emitting hands, which have to be regulated with specially-made gloves or else he can't control what comes out. They always demand release; they always want to create colorful explosions. Maybe that's why he can't stay away from a battlefield of any kind for very long. He goes stir-crazy otherwise.

I'm guessing that's the case, because the front lawn of Xavier's school looks like a battlefield now. Scott, Magneto, and the rest of the Brotherhood arrived at the crack of dawn, less than five minutes ago, and proceeded to try penentrating the mansion's defenses.

They have to get through the X-Men, who are currently co-led by Silver and myself. I've created as many copies of myself as I can manage, while Silver has converted her skin into organic steel and led the rest of the team onto the lawn. My copies busy themselves with ushering the students -- with the exception of the few who have chosen to fight on the front lines -- to the relative safety of the hidden passageways.

Even so, I spare one member of the Chorus -- Jean Six -- to accompany the rest of the team and help turn the tide. They need all the help they can get, considering the Brotherhood currently consists of Erik Lehnsherr, his son Pietro, Scott Summers, Raven Darkholme, Victor Creed, Warren Worthington, and ... one of Stryker's former mutant operatives known only as Deathstrike.

Not that the X-Men's lineup is shabby. Besides Ororo and myself, we have Kurt, two seniors named Piotr Rasputin and Marie D'Ancanto, Magneto's daughter Wanda, and of course Logan, who returned to us right before the Brotherhood attacked Alkali Base. We pray they will be enough.

Wanda is the fastest of all of us, so she's the first to arrive in the Brotherhood's midst, disabling Mystique and Warren before they know what's hit them. Unfortunately, she makes a point to avoid confronting her brother Pietro, even though her speed would allow her to get to him and take out his probability control before he has a chance to use it. But her reluctance has allowed him to remain on the sidelines and have great fun affecting the outcome of the battle. So while Silver and Sabretooth are busy pounding on each other, and Piotr transports the fallen Brotherhood members someplace a few states away, my duplicate is charged with the task of reaching Pietro even when I had originally planned to get to Scott and talk some sense into him.

I experience everything Jean Six does, so I see that Scott (is he still calling himself Barrage?) has reached the mansion's front porch, with Magneto right behind. Kurt, the newly-dubbed Seraph, doesn't last very long against them. Neither does Silver, as Magneto launches her steel body straight through the mansion like a missile. I can hear Wolverine and Deathstrike slicing at each other, their adamantium blades clanging together loudly. And I see that Pietro has probably done something to Piotr's teleportation ability, because Warp hasn't made it back from his last trip. But at least Pietro isn't concentrating on me. I use a few trees as cover and make my way around to his back.

Now he notices me. He whips around just as I (or Jean Six; it doesn't matter) approach him, and he gestures at me with a glowing hand. A flash of light and agony flares across the senses of all of my duplicates, and ... and I realize something unexpected has just happened. Maestro's unpredictable power has apparently caused Jean Six to generate a duplicate of her own, because I'm seeing him from two points of view. Each POV glances at the Jean next to her, confirming this, then they return their attention to Magneto's son, who has a priceless look on his face. I don't think he quite knew what was going to happen to me, and he certainly wasn't expecting that. Neither was I; Charles locked away my own duplicates' potential to make copies years ago.

In any event, Maestro's surprise allows me/us/them to make short work of him, which I honestly don't enjoy too much; I'm a pacifist who still can't get her pronouns straight when she sees the world through her duplicates' eyes. But I'm also an X-Man who's long stopped caring about the sex/gender semantics in the team's name, so it has to be done. A quick survey of the front lawn reveals that Magneto and Scott have entered the mansion, Wanda has managed to hyper-pummel Sabretooth into submission, and Wolverine's fight with Deathstrike isn't likely to end any time soon, even though they both look like they've been through a paper shredder. "Flurry, Rogue," I call to Wanda and Marie respectively, "help Wolverine; I've got to intercept Scott and Magneto!"

Two of my other duplicates have finished evacuating the students, so they check on Ororo. They find her in the library, which now contains an impact crater the size of the Blackbird. At the center of it is Ororo, who seems to be reverting to her human form, as usually happens when she's been knocked unconscious. The duplicates try to rouse her, but are interrupted by an all-too-familiar voice: "Worry about saving yourselves instead of her, my dears." It's Magneto, and I/we turn around quickly to face him as he stands with Barrage in the hallway. But he blindsides us with a pair of long metal rods made airborne by his power, wrapping us up with them and restraining us against a wall.

Barrage blasts open the hidden hall elevator with a plasma burst to the control panel. Magneto strides into it with as much showmanship as he can muster now that he has a captive audience, but as Barrage is about to enter it, he's stopped by a loud bellow: "Summers!"

It's Logan, and he's pissed. The two men he hates the most are several yards from him. Well, he's never had a reason to like Magneto, but he's learned to absolutely loathe Scott far beyond anything as simple as an initial rivalry. The Wolverine looks like he's gone every bit of the twleve rounds with Deathstrike, but he still has his claws extended and is ready to cleave into both of them.

"Take care of the nuisance," Magneto tells Barrage, who does exactly that. He emits a larger plasma burst than usual, and a severely-burned Wolverine is sent flying on impact. He crashes into a grandfather clock, breaking it open while drifting into unconsciousness.

"Been wanting to do that for quite some time," Barrage remarks as he joins Magneto in the elevator.

They're heading for the lower levels, which is where I am now. By "I", I mean Jean Grey Alpha, the originator of all the duplicates. I stand by Charles Xavier's side in the only place that offers true protection against Magneto: the Danger Room. This stadium-sized room, while composed of dense metal alloys, is designed to withstand heavy attacks by mutant powers as well as inhibit them. Magneto's immense control over the Earth's magnetic fields causes him to be a problem just about anywhere in the world but here, because this place was designed with him in mind. Scott Summers, pragmatic strategist that he is, designed any number of anti-Magneto safeguards into the room's design.

But that's what worries me: Scott is with Magneto.

Feeling my worry, Charles places a soft hand on mine in a soothing manner. ~We have prepared for this,~ he reassures me in fatherly telepathic tones. ~We changed all of Scott's access codes, and revamped the system in case this ever happened.~

That isn't good enough. ~He knows this room like the back of his hand,~ I reply. ~Charles, we may be able to outsmart either Scott or Magneto, individually, but not both of them at once.~

~I have faith in you.~

But all that sentence does is expose how raw and vulnerable I really feel. "They should be here any moment," I inform the professor, steeling myself for what's about to happen, even if I have no idea what that might be.

The Danger Room doors are forced upen by what looks like a combination of plasma explosion and magnetic exertion. When the smoke clears, Magneto and Barrage walk in and survey the room like prospective apartment tenants. They spot the two of us at the center of the room, surrounded by a protective forcefield. "Barrage told me I'd find you here," Magneto tells us. "You might want to consider changing your tactical planning once in a while."

"Wait," Scott mutters, hot on the heels of Magneto's statement. "That's not them." He whips around roughly forty-five degrees to his left and unleashes a plasma bolt in the direction of one wall. The illusion of the wall shudders and dissolves on impact, revealing myself and Charles in our forcefield just in front of the real wall. The holographic images are incredibly lifelike, but leave it to Scott, I suppose, to notice that his favorite room is three feet shorter on one side than he's used to.

"Ingenious," Magneto comments with a sly smile. "Cowardly, but ingenious." He strides toward us and gestures with his hand, seeing if he can affect the electromagnetic nature of the forcefields. He can't. "Is this what you are reduced to, Charles? Hiding behind a forcefield because you are too cowardly to face the future?"

"Are you reduced to declaring war on a school full of young mutants just to prove a point?" Charles snaps, leaning forward in his wheelchair. "You attack us without provocation, then dare to accuse us of cowardice when we defend ourselves?"

"I don't expect you to understand, Charles," Magneto replies. "I have come to put an end to our rivalry, once and for all."

I can't believe I'm hearing any of this. "Scott, are you going to stand there and let him kill Xavier?"

Scott just regards me with this expression I can't begin to read. "That's why I'm here. I want to watch him do it."

I'm sure my mouth is hanging open. He sounds so bitter, so angry, that he doesn't even sound like himself. I glance at Charles, who concentrates on Scott, probably trying to figure out what's going on in Scott's head.

But it looks like Charles and I aren't the only ones surprised at his statement. Magneto turns to Barrage, obviously puzzled. "You want to watch me kill him? Why?"

Barrage doesn't answer. When he speaks, it's not to Magneto. "Danger Room Computer," he tells the room itself, "override current command settings and revert them to Barrage's security protocols; authorization Bravo Charlie Alpha Two Zero." The computer seems to follow these instructions even though we'd altered the security codes after Barrage had quit the team. "Run Forcefield Configuration Two Five Nine Bravo," Scott instructs, and the forcefield separating Charles and me from Magneto is removed, while another forcefield barrier is erected between all three of us and Scott. What is he doing?

Barrage turns his glare on Magneto. "I want to see how it's done. I want to see if it's really possible for someone turn his back so completely on a longtime friend that he's willing to take that friend's life. I want to see what it's like to bury a hatchet forever."

Magneto regards him in silence for I don't know how long. Silver and Wolverine are up and around, and they're making their way down here as fast as possible with my duplicates. But I'm barely even paying attention to the sensory input I receive from them; I'm way too riveted by what's going on here.

"I'm waiting," Scott continues, breaking the silence. "I was promised a 'stunning climax' to this, after all."

Magneto narrows his eyes. "I see you still have loyalty toward your would-be father." He indicates Charles, lacing his words with more venom than any three snakes would need.

"Loyalty? Not the word I'd use, but one way you could look at it is, I just handed you over to him on a silver platter. Look around you, Magneto: you're not victorious, you're trapped."

Magneto echoes my thoughts. "So this was an elaborate deception, then. You were on Charles' side all along."

"I wouldn't go that far. I still don't think his way will work, just as I'm convinced that your way won't, either, Magneto. They're extremes. And the thing about extremes is that everything and everyone else is caught somewhere in the middle." He sweeps his gaze over both Magneto and Charles. "You are both so wrapped up in your ideologies -- in proving yourselves right -- that you can't see what's under your noses: Some of us just want to be normal. Some of us don't want to fight humans or mutants to get by in the world. Some of us just want to get by, period."

"And you include yourself in that statement?" Charles asks, somewhat skeptical. I don't have to be a telepath to know he's been stung by Scott's words. He's always thought his views and dream were reasonable. Then again, I realize, so has Magneto.

"I'm done with this," Scott answers. "I'm done fighting long and hard for dreams that're too extreme to even work in the long run. I'm done fighting." He turns his back on us -- on all of us -- and walks to the room exit. "Do whatever you want to each other; maybe you'll get it out of your systems."

"Scott," I plead with him, "don't do this."

He stops and turns slightly to look at me. "Do what? Get all of you in the same room so you can think about some kind of resolution?" And I have to admit he's right; now that he's given us that lecture, we're standing in the same forcefield enclosed area with Magneto and none of us are even thinking of fighting. Scott has given us something else to focus on.

I plead anyway. "I don't want you to go, Scott."

Almost imperceptibly, a hint of emotion crosses his face. I'm the only one who'd know how to recognize it. "It's too late," he tells me, with less confidence in his voice than he had a moment ago. "It's too late. I've made up my mind." He turns and walks toward the exit door.

I sink to my knees and close my eyes, fighting back tears. I know what's waiting for him on the other side. When I said, 'don't do this,' I wasn't just pleading with Scott.

The heavy hydraulic doors hiss open. Scott stops in his tracks, immediately aware that something is wrong. He raises his gloved hands, but it's too late to stop an enraged Wolverine from charging. Logan's adamantium claws sink into Scott's ribcage.

Even with my eyes closed, I can see it happening because two of my duplicates, with Silver, are standing behind him. They're just as helpless to stop this as Charles and I are from our side of the forcefield. The look of pain and horror on Scott's face is something I don't believe I'll ever get over.

Finally, they both separate, and Scott slides to the floor, lifeless. Logan stands over him, the faintest hint of remorse crossing his face as he realizes the enormity of what he's done. It's a painful thing for any of us to see, even Magneto. And in his own way, especially Magneto.

None of us dares to speak or do anything. The shock is too enormous. All we can do is mourn in the face of this startling turn of events. Christopher Scott Summers is a puzzle I'll never be able to solve.

END




Here are the characters I changed, using their real names and their new codenames, followed by their new powers and the characters whose powers I based them on in parentheses:

Scott "Barrage" Summers - plasma 'fireworks' (Jubilee)
Jean "Chorus" Grey - duplication (Multiple Man)
Ororo "Silver" Monroe - bio-steel conversion (Colossus)
Henry "Kilowatt" McCoy - electrostatic generation (Electro)
Kurt "Seraph" Wagner - winged flight (Angel)
Piotr "Warp" Rasputin - spacial teleportation (Blink)
Marie "Rogue" D'Ancanto - absorbed magnetism added to tactile bio-energy absorption (Magneto)
Wanda "Flurry" Lehnsherr - superspeed (Quicksilver)
Pietro "Maestro" Lehnsherr - probability control (Scarlet Witch)
Warren "Psion" Worthington - telekinesis/latent telepathy (Jean Grey)

And here are the characters I left the same for the sake of simplicity, because swapping everyone's powers could easily turn into a three-ring circus of exposition, and I was already dropping too much exposition as it was. But here I've included the powers they likely would have had if I'd 'swapped them as well:

Charles "Professor X" Xavier - psionic illusion (Mastermind) "Visionary"
Logan "Wolverine" - shape shift (Mystique) [different default form] "Hunter"
Erik "Magneto" Lehnsherr - sonic scream (Banshee) "The Speaker"
Raven "Mystique" Darkholme - invisibility (Invisible Girl) "Fadeout"
Victor "Sabretooth" Creed - dense rocklike hide (Thing) "Mountain"
Mortimer "Toad" Toynbee - flame manipulation (Pyro) "Scorch"
Marie "Rogue" D'Ancanto - mutant power amplification (Fabian Cortez) "Touch"
Yuriko "Deathstrike" Oyama - lycanthropy (Wolfsbane) "Savage"

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