The Matthias Chronicles
Vol. 1 Story 5: Smoke & Mirrors?
By Wraith and Shockwave

Jamal remembered last night as clear as crystal. He was unpacking from the road trip, and heard the alarm to go to the Ready Room. Like the good student he was he headed to the room in the first sub-basement immediately. When he got there he saw the whole school except Jono, Penance, and Sara. Jono was still with Prof. Xavier to help him adjust to his depression. Penance was sleeping in the biosphere, the only place in the complex she felt comfortable. Sara, however, was conspicuous by her absence. Then Emma explained the kidnapping.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN SHE WAS KIDNAPPED?!?"

"Jamal, please calm down."

"Calm down? Emma, how do you expect me to calm down? My girlfriend was just kidnapped and you want me to calm down?"

Sean Cassidy tried to get his student’s emotions under control. "Jamal, I think ye should head off to yure room until ye can get yure head straight."

"Frankly, I don’t care what you think!"

At this point Emma psionicly connected to Jamal’s mind. <<Jamal, I understand that you’re upset, but don’t do or say anything that you’ll regret later.>>

Jamal began to slow his breathing. <<OK Emma. I’ll chill out.>> "If anybody wants me I’ll be in my room."

********************

Later that night, Monet and Everett were making out on his bed. Monet, however, was having trouble keeping her mind on the "task at hand".

"Monet, what’s wrong?"

"Nothing, why?"

"Don’t front. I know that between Sara’s kidnapping and Jamal’s outburst you’ve been thrown for a loop; hell we all have. But just imagine how Jamal feels. You should go see him and cheer him up like a good big sister."

"You don’t mind?"

"Mind? If it weren’t for him talkin to you at the mall that daya , I couldn’t get you to hold hands with me, much less be in my room alone. I owe him one (at least)."

Monet kissed her loving, compassionate boyfriend on his forehead, and left to go talk to her half-brother. When she got to Jamal and Angelo’s room she noticed it was completely devoid of life. Neither young man was there, and all the lights were off.

"Jamal. Are you in here?"

A voice came from outside the 2^nd floor window. "What is it Monet?"

Monet walked through the pitch-black room without disturbing a single item. As she reached the window she was hit with a very unique smell. "Jamal, are you smoking--."

"Weed? Yeah," Jamal replied from his seat on the window ledge. "I tried stopping but I needed to do something to calm my nerves before I went to go save Sara by myself."

"What! How in the hell do you plan to do that? Ms. Frost and Mr. Cassidy don’t even know where she is."

"You weren’t paying attention in Psychic Manifestations 101 last week were you?"

"What are you talking about? You don’t mean the ‘Summers-Grey Link’ do you? For that to work you and Sara would have to be soulmates on all five levels of compatibility! You can’t possibly assume that this ‘puppy love’ is actually a sign that the two of you are soulmates. And even if you were soulmates, the chances of you two sharing the link are astronomical!"

"Well, theorize all you want sis, but I have a subconscious feeling that Sara is in a very familiar city. And since she’s stayed in Philadelphia her whole life, that’s were I’m going."

Monet began to take mental notes and repeat them out loud. "OK then, Philadelphia. Well, if I tell Frost and Cassidy now, they can arrange a strike team by morning."

Jamal took the end of his joint out of the roach clip, smothered the slightly lit end with his fingers, flicked the butt away and tucked the clip back into his back pocket. "Nope. Sorry Monet but I ain’t waiting for the X-Men to get their high-and-mighty asses down here just to shut us out of this mission. I mean taking us, inexperienced kids who are just learning to use our powers into a potentially life-threatening situation isn’t exactly covered by their insurance. Besides, I ain’t on the best of terms with Cassidy. I just couldn’t stomach crawling back to him."

"So this is all about your ego?"

"Of course not! I wanna save her and NOW! That thing about Cassidy was just an afterthought."

"Fine, but Angelo, Everett, and I are coming along."

"OK, but Angelo is in town tonight."

From the hallway came a voice offering his assistance. "Fine I’ll take Angelo’s place." The half-siblings turned in unison to see Chris Storm standing in the doorway; hands on his hips and eyes glowing a deep electric blue.

"Good," Monet broke in. "We have four fliers, If Angelo came along, one of us would've had to carry him. I'll go get Ev dressed and we'll leave ASAP." With that, Monet turned on her heels to leave the room; leaving the two boys alone in the darkened room.

Jamal looked at Chris skeptically. "Since when could you fly, sparky?"

"Well it's not really flying. It's more like gliding on static electric currents. It takes a lot less energy than flying. In fact it's almost passive."

Jamal let out a good-natured chuckle. "'Gliding'? It sounds like a fruity ass way of getting around! Makes it sound like you fuckin' ice skate or something."

"Yeah?" Chris said returning the hauntingly similar cynical smile. "What the hell kind of codename is 'Wraith' anyway? Sounds like something you come up with cuz all the cool names like 'Shockwave' are already taken."

The two shared another good laugh, and both young men knew this would be the beginning of a good friendship.

********************

That was last night. Today however, they arrived in the middle of what should've been a teeming metropolis, yet was utterly vacant. Not a soul in the streets, in the stores, in the homes, in the cars. Anywhere.

"Uh, Jamal."

"Yeah, Ev."

"I'll be the first to admit that I snooze through geography class often, but isn't Philadelphia supposed to be a large, highly inhabited town?"

"Um, yeah it is," Jamal replied nervously.

"So, assuming we're in the right city, where the hell is everybody?!?"

"I wish I knew man. I wish I knew."

During this exchange, Chris took time to survey their surroundings, and found something that would've been odd, even if there were people in the streets.

"Guys, I hate to bring this up and make an already weird situation even worse, but anyone care to explain something to me?"

"What is it Chris?"

"Well why is it a nice, balmy 70 degrees here?" He said pointing to the ground, to indicate the space the quartet currently was standing in. "With a blinding blizzard to the north of us; a typhoon swirling a mere 100 yards west of us; heatwaves rising from the ground to the south of us; and last, but certainly not least, total darkness to the east of us?" The others were so wrapped up in the non-presence of human beings around them, no one but Chris noticed the mutated greenhouse affect surrounding them like rotting corpses in a Romero flickb .

"Jesus, Chris is right guys."

"No shit! Any original ideas to share? Like which way do we go?"

Monet then spoke up. "The most likely place would be the east since it's unique; meaning it has no visible weather pattern."

"Everett looked up at the sky with his Synch-Aura active. Well then folks, either we're walkin' into a trap or we're saving Sara. No matter what the consequences, it looks like we go east.

********************

Franklin Legionnaire stood in his floating palace high above the Delaware River, east of where the four students landed. He loved the fact that everything was falling into place according to plan thus far. If everything continued according to plan, by this time tomorrow, all of Xavier's little kiddies would be dead, at the hands of two of their own! The terrified voice of Sara Kain broke through his serenity.

"You lying son-of-a-bitch! Let me the fuck out of here NOW!"

"Tsk tsk. Such language is unbecoming a young woman such as yourself. I placed you in that large birdcage for my own good, why if I didn't you would fly at me scratching and clawing the whole way. Now we just can't have that can we? Of course not. So I placed you into that mutant-ability-draining cage. While in it, you can not use any of your precious powers. Cliché, I know, but 'if it ain't broke'…"

"Look I don't know what you want from me but--"

"Just like a woman, thinking everything is you, you, you. Did it ever occur to you that you are simply bait? You are just a red herring."

"You sick FUCKKKKARGGGGGHHHHH!!!" Sara howled in pain as every cell in her body sizzled with Legionnaire's psychic energy feedback. Legionnaire's majestic hand (still radiating the residual energy from the blast) returned slowly and gracefully to his side.

"I told you I don't appreciate young women swearing."

********************

As the teens flew towards the fortress, Monet was sensing that they were flying into a trap. Yet she didn't say anything because, after all, it was just a feeling. However as they approached the heavily fortified building, she became extremely aprehencious.

"Guys, I hate to bring this up, but judging by the architecture of this place and the placement of the parapets; this structure could (and for all intents and purposes should) sustain up to fifty heavily guarded snipers. Yet, there is no one here."

"Well Monet, you never want to look a gift hours in the mouth."

"That's just my point Ev! If this guy went through all that trouble to get Sara, why the hell would he stop his precautions here?"

"You've got a point sis, but I'm wondering if this guy ain't all smoke and mirrors. I mean we've been in the city for at least an hour; and we STILL haven't seen a single living soul, besides each other. I figure this is a huge illusion. I mean the seasonal distortion alone would take a master mutant if it were real. But an illusion? Any asshole with the power and a little practice could pull that one off."

"W-what if it's not an illusion, Jamal? What if this shit is for real, man? Who the hell could make an entire city full of people vanish without anyone else noticing? Who could do this shit man?"

"Calm down, Chris…"

"Actually Jamal, we should be really scared. I've studied the Mutant Criminals database both at school, and on Cerebro, and nobody's MO or ability fits with this guy. Also from the tapes we saw, none of the faces on the database fit with his either. Which means, that Xavier, Frost and Cassidy have no idea who this guy is. He's a total mystery."

********************

Sara was dreaming, not voluntarily mind you; Legionnaire's psychic blast numbed her neural synapses rendering her unconscious. So, for the time being Sara was enjoying her little trip to La-La land. She was dreaming about her family. Her, her mother, her brother, her father; all of them living together as one big loving family. She dreamt about getting married to Jamal (God, she loved him! Ever since he saved her life that nightc ). She dreamt about making love to him. He was so gentle, yet so much in control. She felt--

"AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!"

As Sara opened her teary eyes after her numbed synapses were violently awakened, she saw Legionnaire staring at her grinning slyly. "Hope I wasn't interrupting anything too… erotic. Sorry my dear, but you simply must be awake for what happens next. I mean, what fun would it be convincing Jamal to kill you if you aren't alive to enjoy it?"

"You really are sick fu--"

"'Sick' what?"

"Sick freak."

"See little one, resisting the urge to swear isn't too hard is it?"

Under her breath Sara mumbled, "Go to hell fuckhead."

"I heard that." Legionnaire snapped his fingers and suddenly spikes made of solid gold surrounded the outside of the cage, so that if she moved from the spot she was sitting in, she'd surely be impaled.

The door to the room that Sara was being held in suddenly was blown to tiny electron charged bits. When the smoke cleared; Chris, Jamal, Monet and Everett were standing in the doorway. As they entered the grand hallway (which was about 80'x120'x160' by Monet's mental calculations) they saw Legionnaire sitting upon a solid gold throne. He was wearing a navy blue silk bodysuit with matching cape attached.

"Lady and gentlemen, welcome to my temple! As long as you don't disrespect me by attempting to kill me, you're welcome to stay as long as you want."

Jamal was quickly tiring of Legionnaire's games. "Hey, asshole! I have an idea. How about you let Sara go, and we allow you to continue breathing under your own power?"

Legionnaire's eyes rolled back into his skull, as he got up from his throne. "Dear Mr. Brown, why do you…" the whites of his eyes began to glow an eerie shade of red, and his hands did the same as he raised them and aimed towards the group. "TEST ME?!?!" At that he fired blasts of red energy simultaneously at Monet and Everett. As the blast surged through their bodies, Monet and Everett were paralyzed by fear. They were each experiencing two vastly different nightmares. Yet they both had the same effect, the teens were, quite literally, scared stiff.

"You son-of-a-bitch! What the hell did you do to my sister?"

"Please son, calm down."

"Calm down? Wha-- Wait a minute. SON? Did you call me son?

"Jamal, is this royal asshole really your father?"

"His and yours too, Chris. You see the three of us have been foreseen. We have the potential to rule the world and make the entire universe bend to our will!"

Jamal took what he was just told with a grain of salt. "And if we don't?"

Legionnaire's demeanor changed from "don't-worry-be-happy" to "don't-fuck-with-me-boys". "If you don't, then I'll have no choice but to make the lives of you, and anyone you care for a living hell!"

Jamal and Chris suddenly knew that Legionnaire wasn't screwing around anymore. Legionnaire saw from the look on the boys' faces that he was understood.

"Good. I'm quite pleased with the job that your mothers did raising you two. Both of you grew up to be stubborn with bad attitudes to match. Just the personality suiting future world leaders! However Chris, your mother didn't want to listen to reason. When the time came to abandon you, for the 'tough love' portion of your youth, she refused. Damned sentimental fool! She actually thought that just because she gave birth to you, she had ANY say in how you were to be raised. She just wouldn't listen to reason, so I had to make you an orphan myself. A cerebral hemorrhage is a rather effective, if not terminal, way to get your point across."

"YOU COCK-SUCKING BASTARD!!!!" Chris leapt at Legionnaire's jugular with both fists brandishing, at least, 2000 volts of pure electric energy; an amount that he never used before in his life, nor knew how his body was able to use it. Just before he reached Legionnaire's face, Jamal's hand grabbed his shoulder and dislocated it. Before Chris could ask Jamal what was going on, Legionnaire kicked Chris in the temple, and Chris began blacking out.

"Don't worry Chris, Jamal doesn't hate you…yet. Rather he is totally under my control right now. By the way Jamal, that whole 'power barrier' thing just has to go. How about I drop its effectiveness? That way you can use other's abilities with less practice," Legionnaire then waved his hand in front of Jamal and a black and white aura (similar to Synch's multi-colored aura) surrounded Jamal. "Good! Now the next order of business; the bitch," Legionnaire pointed at Sara, sitting in a fetal position across the room in her "gilded birdcage". "Kill her son. Slit her throat, and let her warm blood flow through your fingers. Strangle her and feel her life slip away into nothingness. I don't care how you do it, just do it!"

Jamal walked zombie-like b towards Sara. In between her sobs of fear she managed to spit out, "Jamal, please don't. I love you. I LOVE YOU!! Please don't do it…"

Three adamantium claws popped from the back of each of Jamal's hands, as he slowly, walked towards Sara's cage; with a wicked gleam in his eyes. In his claws shone the reflection of a frightened young woman, cowering in fear from her brainwashed boyfriend.