The Phalanx Sanction

"Who died and made you two pilots?!" Cable yells, as he and Logan are sent tumbling as their plane abruptly dives. "Are you both trying to get us all killed before we even get to the Phalanx Citadel?"
"Lay off 'em Bub! They're doin' all right without yer backseat drivin'." Logan tells him.
"Butt out, Logan!" Cable replies.
"No, you butt out! I've about had it with you, Cable!" Logan yells.
"The both of you had better lighten up, or I'm going to have to put psionic muzzles on you." Jean tells them from the cockpit.
"Cut us some slack, Fellas. We've been piloting this antique with radar and instruments shut down ever since we entered Tibetan airspace." Scott adds.
"You think that's good enough to escape Phalanx's sensors?" Cable asks.
"They're not expecting anything as low-tech as this fifty year old DC-3." Jean replies.
"There it is." Scott says, as the plane exits from the clouds and they behold the massive Phalanx Citadel.
"Ugly ain't it?" Cable remarks.
"And big, too." Logan adds.
"But not so big a nut that we can't crack it." Cable tells him.
"Are you all ready for this?" Scott asks, "Remember what's at stake here. We're the last hope. If this desperate measure doesn't succeed--"
"Let's just get on with it!" Cable interjects.

Within the Citadel, in an antechamber of the womb the being once known as Dr. Steven Lang converses with the X-Man know as Psylocke on two levels.
"Do not fight it...Let it take over...The absorption is just a prelude to a boundless ecstasy. Psylocke, you are about to penetrate a veil of mystery that is denied to me until Phalanx rules the earth." Lang tells her for all to hear. But telepathically, via the techno-organic tentacles that imprison her Lang communicates a different message. "I must communicate with you on a shielded psi-wavelength. You must give no outward indication of this communication. The others must not suspect. The Phalanx have mutated beyond my expectations. I thought they were going to save humanity...not destroy it."
"Why do you say 'they'? Are you not one of them?" Psylocke asks.
"I am the interface designate. He who must retain his integral humanity to maintain out foothold in the human perception of reality." Lang replies.
"Then you still have it, Lang?" Psylocke asks.
"What?"
"Your soul." Psylocke replies.
Before Lang can answer, they are interrupted by the totally converted Hodge. "Lang! We have a security anomaly. An unidentified aircraft has penetrated our sensor screen."
"What? That's impossible, Hodge. You know we are able to detect the most sophisticated electronic arrays and all manner of passive cloaking devices." Lang replies.
"It just appeared! It is emitting no radar or infrared or even microwaves. As if it were some sort of primitive pre-nuclear device." Hodge explains.
"Reformat! Spread the Citadel away from the point of impact! Now!" Lang orders.

The sudden intrusion of twenty-six thousand pounds of steel and aluminum traveling at a terminal velocity exceeding three hundred miles per hour would be traumatic by itself. But the jettison cocks of the fuel tanks have been opened by psionic means to spill high-octane aviation fuel across the wing surfaces and fuselage. The result is volatile to say the least. The Citadel is rocked to it's foundation by the the Kamikaze attack.
"Lang!! Where are you??" Hodge screams in the aftermath of the explosion.
"I am safe, Hodge." Lang tells him, as he steps forth from the flames holding Psylocke in his arms.
"The mutants must be desperate if they are resorting to Kamikaze tactics. I must see to the reorganization of the collective for damage control, Lang. Did the ballistic intrusion trauma terminate the subject designate, Psylocke?" Hodge asks.
"No. She still functions as a carbonite entity." Lang replies.
"Not for long. It's too bad we can't assimilate these filthy mutants as easily as we co-opt the pathetic, humans." Hodge says as he leaves to handle damage control.
The being who was once Dr. Steven Lang feigns agreement on the broad psionic spectrum. But the encapsulated core of his individual consciousness, shielded by countless blocks and psi-baffles, rages in direct opposition. He has extrapolated along the present curve of Phalanx's deviation from it's original purpose, and postulated an Earth devoid of all life forms other than techno-organic. He has resolved to forestall this doom. To this end he has concealed all he knows from Hodge. Including the fact that the mutants who were in the plane are still alive.

A thousand feet below the Citadel, on the unassailable North Face.
"You must have spent your whole Honeymoon practicing, Jean. To spot a two-foot-wide ledge from a speeding plane, half a mile away. And put us this close to it with one psi-blast." Cable compliments her.
"I was aiming for one a lot closer to the Citadel, Nathan." Jean replies, as Nathan pulls her up to more solid footing.
"You did fine, Jean. We're outside the range of their localized psi-scans. And, hopefully, outside the cone of their high-resolution directional sensors." Scott adds, as Nathan pulls him up.
"In other words, we're sneaking up on their blind side." Cable says.
"Got a lot o' experience with that, huh?" Logan sneers, as he, too, is pulled up by Cable.
"We could settle our differences right now, Logan." Cable tells him, lifting him off his feet and holding him with one arm, smiling into the smaller mans face as he does it.
"You know you won't do it, Bub. This mission is too important. The team comes first." Logan replies.
"It always has, Logan." Cable tells him.
"So what now, Cable? You're the mission leader on this fiasco. Why don't ya just Body-Slide up into the Phalanx nest and drop a rope down for the rest of us. An' while we climb up, you can run amok with that gun o' yours." Logan remarks with a smile of his own.
"No!" Jean interrupts. "That's too dangerous. Nathan's techno-organics make him too vulnerable to absorption by himself. If they assimilate him, they'll know everything we know."
"Furthermore, if Cable or Jean or any of us were to use our mutant powers or any technology the Phalanx would detect us immediately. We have to get up there with our headlights off, so to speak. With stealth." Scott adds.
"No way around it, then." Cable says, uncoiling a rope. "It's fingers and toes. Handhold by handhold, crevice to crevice to crevice. Straight up one thousand feet."
"Piece o' cake, Bub." Logan says.
"Right." Cable replies.

In the core of the Phalanx Citadel known as the womb.
"It eludes my comprehension. If we cannot absorb these mutants, we should terminate them." Hodge says, and not for the first time, as he and Lang observe the captive X-Men. "They may yet find a way to neutralize these psionic stasis fields that imprison them."
"We need living specimens if we are to solve the problem, Hodge." Lang replies.
Deep in a psi-blocked and compartmentalized sector of Lang's consciousness, plans are formulated, tested against his own extrapolated probability templates and rejected. Each viable plan involves the liberation of the X-Men. The very core group of mutants he had set out to destroy.
"At the very least, we should nullify this one!" Hodge says, indicating Bishop. "He is an energy drainer." Think of the havoc he would wreak if--"
"Go see to external security, Hodge. This is my area of expertise." Lang calmly replies.
"I'm running a scan down the mountain. I don't believe that the X-Men would suicide-bomb the Citadel as their sole tactic." Hodge informs him.
"Don't bother with the North Face. It is unclimbable." Lang tells him.

On the North Face.
"This climb would be impossible for a normal human and nearly impossible for a mutant in top shape." Cable says, as he anchors the others and helps them make the ascent. "I know you haven't been up to snuff lately, Logan, so if you need a hand, just let me know."
"My adamantium may be gone, my healin' factor may be a little faded, and my body may be feelin' it's age. But there sure ain't nothin' wrong with my will. Keep climbin', Bub. I'll keep up." Logan replies through gritted teeth.
"Jean, I look at Cable and all I see is the child we spent twelve years raising in the future." Scott whispers to her, "I'm afraid for him, Jean."
"No parent should ever have to go into battle with their own child by their side. It's hard enough to do your own job in the heat of a fight." Jean replies.

In the Citadel, Lang thinks to himself of his options.
"They are coming. But are they enough to overcome Hodge and the rest? Will I be able to aid them? No, partitioning my thoughts and putting up blocks to hide the covert partitions diverts too much energy and...partitions! That is the key!" Lang turns towards Psylocke, "Psylocke"
"Yes, Lang?"
"You are going to submerge your consciousness and allow an override system to assume command. The override system will be pre-programmed with an attack agenda as well as fall back options. Your primary target will be Cable, and your mission will be his complete assimilation into the Phalanx matrix." Lang says aloud, but on the shielded psi-frequency he explains, "This procedure will be impossible without your complete cooperation. Submitting to an override will nullify your main block against assimilation. You will be totally vulnerable to complete absorption, but it is the only way to place you in a strategically advantageous location. I am creating a partition within the override that will be triggered by your attack on Cable. This will free you to help the X-Men. Do you trust me enough to submit? Will you do it?"
"There's no way that I will submit to that!" Betsy answers for the others, but telepathically she replies, "I don't trust you. But I have no choice. Go ahead."

On the North Face, Cable turns to the others, "Looks like this is the end of the line. This overhang stretches all the way across this face. It'd be tough enough if we had pitons and ice-hammers. But with bare hands...not easy."
"Get outta the way an' let me take a whack at it!" Logan growls.
"Do you think you're Spider-Man, Logan? Guts and bull-headedness can't overcome gravity." Cable tells him, "But...if Jean were to use her psi-power to push me out and up and I could grab the edge of the overhang--"
"Phalanx would be on us like white on rice!" Logan interrupts.
"Not necessarily." Scott chimes in.
"You got an idea, Scott?" Cable asks.
"What if Jean limited herself to a micro-short concentrated burst?" Scott explains. "It will have to be accurate and there's no second chance. If Cable misses and falls, we'll have to let him go or endanger the mission and thereby doom the rest of the world. A short burst might go by Phalanx undetected."
"Scott!! What the blazes are you asking me to do?!" Jean yells furious at the very idea of so risking Nathan.
"We don't have any choice." Scott replies softly.
"What's your problem?" Nathan asks her.

The memories flood back into her mind. All the time she playfully tossed the young toddler, Nathan, up with telekinetic boosts, how he would laugh and cry "Up, up Momma, up!" All the joys and the love she now feels for this man...her son. But they are remembrances of things yet to come. Glimpses of a future still unborn.

"Jean," Nathan takes her hand, very softly, and looks into her tear filled eyes and whispers, "We're losing time. I trust you."
"You can do it." Scott takes her other hand and squeezes it, a squeeze she doesn't return, "I'm right here with you."
"I'm ready when you are." Nathan tells her.
"Nathan, don't you dare let me down. I'm trusting you to grab that ledge." Jean steels herself and at Nathan's signal, "Now! Stretch for it, Nathan!"

"Lang!! Did you feel that?" Hodge yells. "There are mutants on the mountain! The plane was but a diversion!"

"UHHHHH...ARGGHHH!" Nathan curses, as he grabs the ledge and hunks of ice and frozen rock break loose under his grip.

"Where are these mutant intruders, Hodge." Lang calmly asks. "Did you get a directional reading?"
"They're on the North Face!!" Hodge screams, livid with fury.

Another huge chunk of ice breaks loose, and Nathan slides another precious inch.
"NATHAN!!" Jean screams, and makes to give him a telekinetic lift.
"Jean, no!" Scott throws his hands over her eyes and turns her away from Nathan, and just as quickly finds himself looking at nothing but sky as his wife neatly flips him over her shoulder.
"Damn you, Scott!" Jean curses and turns to rescue Nathan and is stopped short by one look from Nathan.
"No! Don't do it! I...ARRRGGHH...will..not...fall!" Nathan yells.
"Your damn straight you won't!" Jean replies, casting a quick glance towards her husband, who finds the ice and snow beneath his back much warmer than the look in Jean's eye.
Nathan raises his left arm high and even as he slides the last few inches slams it down into the rock itself with the sound of a magnum blast echoing off the mountain. "Listen, I have an idea..."

"I tell you, there are genetic anomalies scaling the North Face!!" Hodge screams. "I felt a burst of mutant--"
"That is an illogical assertion, Hodge." Lang tells him, "The North Face is impossible--"
"Impossible to normal humans!! These are mutants and they are either masking their powers, or they are deliberately not using them!" Hodge rages.

"Logan's a lot lighter than me without the adamantium." Nathan explains, "I've got a firm grip, but I can't climb further. Can you jump and grab my legs and climb up from there, Logan?"
"Hang on tight, Twinkle-Face, here comes the ol' Canuckle-Head!!" Logan laughs as he makes the leap and grabs Nathan's legs.
"Twinkle-Face!?!" Nathan grits out.
"Hope ya got those steel fingers imbedded real good, Nate." Logan says, as he climbs up Nathan's back.
"They'll hold. Get moving!" Nathan replies.
"On my way." Logan replies.

"Hodge, you have stated yourself that the mutants can't use their mutant powers, or we will sense them. That reduces them to normal human level. And normal humans can't climb the North Face." Lang tells him, "If you insist on empirical evidence--"
"No. Your reasoning is sound. I will conduct a physical scan of our perimeter, however." Hodge replies.

Logan secures a rope and Nathan maintains his hold to swing the rope over to Scott and Jean, who swiftly climb up.
"We have to get Nathan up--" Jean says as soon as she has made the climb.
"You just catch a breather and let me handle it." Logan tells her. "Gimme yer hand, Big Guy." Logan says as he leans out towards Nathan.
"Hope you had your Wheaties this mornin', Logan." Nathan replies, taking Logan's hand.
"Relax, Natie Boy. I've got the situation under control." Logan tells him.
"Easy for you to say. You're not the one hanging on the edge." Cable replies.
"Lissen up, Cable." Logan whispers, "I gotta have some words with you--"
"Just haul me up, Hair-Ball" Nathan growls back.
"I never saw Jean look as scared as she did when she thought you was takin' the long drop. You hear what I'm sayin'?" Logan whispers.
"Yeah, I hear you." Cable replies, himself touched and secretly thrilled by Jean's concern.
"Lemme tell ya somethin', Bub. That lady back there is real special to me. And I don't know what the hell is goin' on between you three, but it sure as blazes looks like you're special to her...So..as far as I'm concerned...the slate is clean between you and me. No more grudges no nothing, alright?" Logan asks.
"Fine with me." Nathan replies, amazed at Logan's reaction.
"That's good, Nate. 'Cause we've still got a long climb ahead of us. But just one thing, you ever break her heart, I'm gonna finish what we started in Madripoor." Logan growls, trying to regain more of his natural demeanor. "Well, I'll be hanged." Nathan thinks as Logan turns and walks away. "The little Hair-Ball's got a heart after all."

"What is this absorption designate doing walking about free?" Hodge demands to know upon seeing Psylocke free, near where the plane crashed into the Citadel. "Brick, Dymphna restrain her and--"
"There is no need." Psylocke tells him. "You can verify with a scan--"
"You have submitted to an override program?" Hodge asks her. "You are no longer consciously resisting the absorption process?"
"As you can scan. I am now a totally submitter pre-programmed tool of the collective consciousness." Psylocke answers in a lifeless monotone. "As such, I must regretfully report that Lang has partitioned his own consciousness and is blocking certain unknown thoughts from the general pool."
"Impossible! That would be a deviation in logic. He would not risk betraying himself by reformatting you if this were so." Hodge replies.

While in the womb of the Citadel, Lang ponders his plan.
"We close in on the end game. Now is the time for precise and deliberate moves. Ah, the one called Bishop strains at his prison. Does he know? It would be so easy if I could simply free them all. But the stuff of the spheres, the fields that neutralize the X-Men's powers, are being generated by all the Phalanx entities in a consciousness net. Just as they all contribute to the physical being of the Citadel itself. That's why the field is so strong. If anything were to disturb the field, all the Phalanx entities would know immediately. No, there has to be another way, but how can I even let the attacking X-Men know that I am willing to aid them?"

While at the crash site.
"Why reconstruct the aircraft, Hodge?" Psylocke asks.
"There is always a chance that we overlooked a clue. Aha! The remains of a techno-organic tendril. This aircraft must have been on Muir Island. It contains memory! Or at least fragments of memory. Now, we can find out everything that happened." Hodge explains.

"I got us here, Cyclops. I hope your little plan for this outing works." Cable tells him.
"It should, Nathan. Let's go over it once more. I blast a hole through the bottom of the Citadel, and Jean tele-flings Nathan and me through the breach. We go in blasting. Jean follows up with a concentrated psi attack, but it is up to Cable and me to spearhead this charge. You know what to do, Logan?" Scott asks.
"Let's get on with it." Logan replies.
"Here goes!" Scott replies as he cuts loose with the awesome power of his optic blast and creates and opening in the Citadel.
"Be careful!" Jean says, as she lifts the pair up and into the opening.
"We ain't winnin' this shootin' match by tip-toein' through the tulips, Darlin'!" Logan tells her.
"They're coming out of the walls!" Cyclops says, as he and Nathan enter the Citadel and Phalanx appear from everywhere.
"They are the walls!" Cable replies as he blasts the Phalanx with his duel plasma rifles. "We gotta move out! You take the point, Cyclops!"
"This way! Jean! Back us up!" Scott orders.
"I'm right behind you, Boys!" Jean answers.

"The mutant filth have violated the Citadel!" Hodge screams. "Structural integrity has been compromised on the lowest level along the North Face! And Lang was insistent that we ignore the North Face! I will absorb Lang myself and I will eat his consciousness!"
"I hope you choke!" Logan whispers, as he drops down from his hiding place when Hodge and the others have left. "The path is clear. Here goes nothin'!"

"Brick, Dymphna come with me!" Hodge orders as they enter the scene of the battle. "Psylocke, you will detain Lang when he arrives!"
"Oh?" Lang says as he enters the scene. "Am I sent to Coventry? I suppose so." And Lang...smiles.

"Jean!! Scott!" Cable yells, as he sees his parents overcome by Phalanx. He breaks his, now empty plasma rifle over a Phalanx head and rips the techno-organic entities away from Scott and Jean and stands over their unconscious bodies, now facing the horde of Phalanx alone.
"Relinquish yourself, Cable. You are halfway to being ours anyway. Merge with the new order and be absorbed into virtual immortality." Hodge offers.
"So who wants to live forever?" Cable replies, as he reaches behind his back for the plasma pistol secreted there and draws and fires in a single motion, mowing down the Phalanx flocked before him.
"DECONSTRUCT HIM!!!" Hodge screams.
"Can't take a joke, huh?" Cable laughs as he continues to blast Phalanx.

Above the battle, Lang begins to worry.
"This is going badly. My plan was too complex. Too dependent on a protracted series of precise events. How can I salvage this?"
"What are you blocking, Lang?" Psylocke asks.
"You are quite submerged, aren't you?" Lang replies.

"Hodge, do you feel that?" Brick asks, in the thick of battle.
"Yessss! The containment fields in the womb! The X-Men are escaping! Brick and Dymphna, see to the mutant prisoners in their stasis fields. Terminate their life functions if necessary!" Hodge orders.
"What's holding up that little Hair-Ball?" Cable wonders, as the charge on his plasma pistol begins to run low. "We are down to the wire, here."
"Lighten' up, Cable, the X-Men are here, and we're down to kick butt and take names!" Logan yells as he leaps into the fray.
"I wouldn't have put it so crudely." Hank McCoy tells him.
"Okay, Beastie, let us pummel these louts severely about the head and shoulders!" Logan replies.
"Allons-Y! A L'Attacque!" Gambit yells.
"Yeah, what you said, Gambit." Logan laughs.
"Psylocke!" Hodge screams, "Can you hear me?"
"Yes, Hodge." Psylocke replies.
"Attack the X-Men!" Hodge orders.
"All the X-Men?" Psylocke asks.
"Concentrate on Cable first, he's doing the most damage, then--" Hodge begins.
"That's the trigger! Thanks, Luv!" Betsy says as she lays into the Phalanx. "The override system has been dumped. I'm free to help the X-Men. Jean and Cable--Channel your psi-energies through me!"
"I'm giving it all I've got, Braddock!" Cable replies.
"I see what you're doing, Psylocke!" Jean adds, "You're funnelling our combined psi-powers, concentrating them all on a focal point...to destroy the Phalanx psi-net!"
"Without their psionic communication link, they are unconnected entities! Effectively lobotomized!" Betsy explains.
"For a flashing moment, during Psylocke's psi-blast, her memories were open and I saw!" Hodge yells, "It was Lang!! He set this all up! He has betrayed the Phalanx!"
"Lang can't really be on our side, can he?" Jean asks Betsy.
"I doubt it. There were blocks within blocks and who knows? Perhaps I am even now being used to further Lang's aims, whatever they are!" Betsy replies.

Outside the Citadel, Lang looks down upon the chaos.
"Yes, I saw the truth in time. Now I can destroy the Phalanx and survive to start all over again! Next time I will destroy all mutantkind and save humanity from their polluting curse."

"It's all over!" Cable yells, "Look at the Phalanx, the very walls, the techno-web is starting to dissolve. Bishop is absorbing the little remaining Phalanx energy and when he lets it go, it'll be real explosive!"
"Phalanx is not beaten yet!!" Hodge screams, "We have reserves that are as of yet, untapped! I can access the Phalanx global net and drain the power from our nests in--Paris--London--Tokyo--and the rest of the Earth!! The massive power drain will destroy the nests and all the Phalanx entities within them, but what do they matter if the Citadel and the womb are no more?"

And outside,
"Hodge did what I expected." Lang smiles, "He drew the power from the nests and eradicated every Phalanx outpost on the planet. But it's too late, because now, I can rid the Earth of the remainder of the Phalanx and top it off with killing the X-Men. Hodge has probably already forgotten that I had taken over the entire psionic task of maintaining the structural integrity of the citadel. It is a simple matter for me to cease holding it all together and to allow it to plummet from the highest peak in creation."

"The Citadel is collapsing!" Storm yells, "Jean, envelop all the non-flying X-Men in a psionic field and I will call up a mighty gale to hold them against the rock face of the mountain."
"It's working, Storm!" Jean yells.

"LAAAANNNNNGGGG!!!" Hodge screams, as he plummets into the abyss, and extends a techno-organic arm stretching...stretching..."I shall NOT perish ALONE!!" And he hand reaches it's target.
"No!" Lang screams, "You don't know what you're doing, Hodge yo--AIEEEEEEEEE

"Looks like the whole Phalanx is taking the long ride down the steep side of Mt. Everest!" Logan observes as he lights a cigar.
"How many living, thinking entities were in there, Jean?" Storm asks.
"Oh, Storm--They are like lights blinking out...one by one." Jean replies softly.
Nathan places his hand on Jean's shoulder, "Don't feel too sorry for them...remember what they were trying to do." "But..oh, Nathan.." Jean turns and weeps for the lost lives of her enemies on the broad shoulders of the man she raised as her son.

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