The XXX-Gene (Marvel)(Mutant OC)

Chapter 82: Mister Sinister

A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story! I also have an announcement about my Patreon at the bottom of the post! Please read it!

Trying to pull one over on poor old Sinister…

-x-X-x-

"What… what do you mean by that? That I was a failure?"

Even as Madelyne asks that, Thaddeus is figuring out a way of communicating to her to play along a little bit more. If Sinister's affection for her was genuine, then they might be able to use that to get more out of the madman than they otherwise would.

Fortunately, while telepathic communications might currently be down on account of the psychic dampeners… Thaddeus still had the next best thing. When Sinister turns away from them all for a moment, sighing and looking over his laboratory, Thaddeus immediately takes advantage. Not to attack, because it's an obvious trap, but rather… to inform.

Taking a step closer to Madelyne so that he's right beside her, Thaddeus reaches out and places a comforting hand on her lower back even as he speaks very, very quietly… as quietly as he possibly can.

She shoots him an appreciative look, only to jolt when she no doubt hears Cessily's voice in her ear for the first time. Having already conveyed what he wanted to the other woman, Thaddeus has now delivered a piece of Cessily to Madelyne, who will in turn hear his directives through Cessily's relaying.

All the while, Sinister is answering Madelyne's question.

"You were braindead my dear. A vegetable from start to finish. You developed no signs of life… nor any mutant abilities as you grew inside of your incubation tube."

Madelyne freezes up at hearing that, while Thaddeus' lips thin out into a line. Not exactly the kind of thing anyone wants to hear… but at least she was here now. The question became WHY was she here now?

Turning back to them all, Mister Sinister smirks.

"Like I said, I allowed myself an appalling amount of sentiment with you, my dear Madelyne. Instead of simply recycling you as I should have, I left you there in that incubation tube, moving on but never forgetting the lost potential. Imagine my surprise then when you suddenly woke up. After months of all but discarding you from my mind, you opened your eyes."

Madelyne cuts in here, hands clenched into fists at her sides.

"Why? Why did I open my eyes? Surely you must have theories… father."

Sinister's face lights up as Madelyne calls him by the title. He takes a step forward, causing all of them including her to tense up.

"Well yes! I do indeed have theories. Even a leading theory, at this point. You see, something very interesting happened the day you woke up, Madelyne. In fact, something very interesting happened the very minute you woke up."

They all wait as Sinister, clearly a fan of both grandstanding and dramatic pauses, utilizes both. A long stretched out moment passes before finally; he claps his hands together.

"The moment you woke up, my dear Madelyne… was the moment after Jean Grey breathed her last breath."

A ripple of shock goes through them all as they take that in. Madelyne in particular looks stricken and stares down at her hands.

"T-Then… what? What does that mean? Am I just Jean Grey after all? She died and… passed something on to me?"

It would have been better if Madelyne remembered to call Sinister 'father' again while asking her questions, but Thaddeus can't exactly fault her for forgetting. This was… big. Even Thaddeus didn't really understand what it might mean and a shared look with Emma had her shaking her head ever so slightly as well.

The thing was, Madelyne Pryor couldn't just be some sort of continuation of Jean Grey because they'd been in her head and already uncovered everything there was to uncover… right? They'd unveiled Madelyne's suppressed memories and cataloged the fake ones for her.

Together, he and Emma had explored every metaphorical inch of Madelyne's mind and while Thaddeus could acknowledge that HE might have missed something due to inexperience, he didn't think Emma would have.

So she couldn't just be Jean Grey in a new body, because they would have found Jean's consciousness somewhere in Madelyne's mind if that were true… right? Fortunately for Thaddeus' fraying sanity, Sinister confirms this with a shake of his head.

"Not quite my dear. You are not simply Jean Grey born again… but I do believe she passed something onto you when she died. A spark, if you will. It truly is fascinating, but admittedly I've been unable to observe much more. Especially since you were needed for this new task."

With his hand still on Madelyne's lower back, connecting the two of them via Cessily, Thaddeus risks whispering right in front of Sinister, his lips barely moving as he sends another message to Cessily for Cessily to in turn send to Madelyne.

To her credit, the red head manages to temper her reactions much more this time, taking a deep breath before regurgitating his words for him.

"Why would you use me for the Black Queen's purposes, father? If you cared about me, if you were fascinated by my circumstances… why would you send your 'pride and joy' away for a simple honeypot scheme like this?"

Sinister's eyes flick to Thaddeus, making him stiffen up and worry that the mad scientist has seen right through their ploy already. But if he has, he doesn't call them out on it. Instead, he lets out a dark chuckle… and shrugs.

"Selene has been around for over seventeen thousand years, my dear. She's not the kind of woman who you say no to when she comes knocking. Currying her favor is as valuable as incurring her wrath is foolish."

That was fair, and yet part of Thaddeus couldn't help thinking there was something almost… false about Sinister's words. Like he was saying an immutable truth that would apply to pretty much everyone else, but maybe didn't really apply to him. Or at least… it wasn't the core reason he'd done what he did. There was something more. They just had to push.

"… There's something more than that though, isn't there? S-Someone like you could have whipped up j-just about anything to satisfy her needs. But you used me instead. Why, father?"

There's a pause… and then Sinister's smile drops as he lets out a drawn out sigh.

"As nice as it is to hear you call me that my dear, I grow tired of hearing the whelp's questions from your lips. You must learn to speak for yourself, or you will only ever be someone's puppet."

Madelyne goes stiff, even as Sinister turns his full attention onto Thaddeus.

"If you have something to ask, young Thaddeus… you should simply ask it."

Thaddeus' jaw clenches and his eyes narrow. Removing his hand from the small of Madelyne's back, he takes a step forward, planting himself squarely between her and Sinister.

"The Black Queen wanted me watched. She no doubt suspects something regarding Shaw's death and has questions she wants answered."

Mister Sinister's grin returns, though it's a lot more like he's bearing his teeth this time, rather than actually smiling.

"I'm not exactly hearing a question there, young man."

The madman is extremely unsettling to interact with, but Thaddeus holds his ground.

"That's because I wasn't asking one, simply stating facts. It doesn't matter what Selene does or doesn't know at this point… I'm not going to give her what she wants. She thinks of me as an 'all you can eat' buffet that's been steadily building up until she can chow down. Well, she should be careful, because when she finally comes for this meal, she just might choke on it."

Silence reigns for a moment as Thaddeus' words hang in the air. Sinister stares at him quietly… before throwing his head back and laughing even harder than before.

"Bahahaha! Listen to you! Full of spit and vinegar! Ready to take on the world for you and yours, aren't you? Still, one questions why you're telling me all of this. It's almost as though you expect this conversation to get back to Selene. Aren't you going to try to stop me? Won't you silence me before I can spill all of your dirty little secrets to the Black Queen and ruin your carefully constructed plans?"

Thaddeus' jaw clenches as Sinister grins at him. In the end… he has to shake his head.

"No. I already know we can't stop you. You've been waiting for us to attack all this time just so you can show off your teleportation, likely dodging every single blow we might be able to lay on you while tossing out breadcrumbs and hints before finally teleporting away altogether."

Thaddeus raises an eyebrow as Sinister stares at him with an unreadable expression on his chalk-white face.

"… Am I wrong?"

A different kind of silence falls over the laboratory this time, but it doesn't end with Sinister laughing. If anything, he seems a strange mixture of irritated and reluctantly impressed.

"Careful there, young man. History is littered with those who made the mistake of thinking they were the smartest in the room."

Thaddeus lets out a slow breath at that… and then smiles.

"That's not a concern for me. I don't tend to think I'm the smartest in the room. But you know what I am? I am the luckiest."

That's when he acts. He's very careful to make sure there's no intention behind it. He doesn't pick a specific spot or anything like that, nor does he aim for anything that looks particularly important. He just whips his arm out and lets Lady Luck take the wheel as said arm unwinds into liquid diamond, stretching and elongating across the space.

Sinister disappears in an instant, popping up a half a dozen feet to the left… but that's just it. Thaddeus isn't aiming for Sinister. He's not aiming for anything at all. And yet, his liquid diamond arm hits the wall all the same, slamming into it with immense force and drilling through into whatever lies behind it in an instant.

He feels something technological break under the blow and watches sparks fly as something rather important is shattered.

In an instant, telepathy is back on the menu as the psychic dampeners fail due to that precision, luck-based strike. Thaddeus hadn't known for sure that he would managed something like that… but he'd certainly hoped.

Emma, of course, doesn't hesitate either. Her own diamond form flows off of her and she concentrates every fiber of her being onto Mister Sinister in that moment.

"STAY STILL!"

Sinister freezes up as Laura bounds for him with lightning speed brought upon by countless moments of intimacy between them. Thaddeus moves with similar speed, both of them crossing the distance between themselves and the frozen mad scientist in mere moments.

He would have liked to ask Sinister more questions, of course. But the madman was right. If they had a chance to silence him, they needed to take it. Even if Sinister likely had contingencies in place, it was still better than letting him get away to report to Selene directly.

With a dual roar between them, Laura and Thaddeus strike at the same time. Thaddeus drives his liquid diamond hand through Sinister's chest like a spike, skewering his heart in an instant while Laura's claws skewer up under the madman's chin, traveling through his mouth and into his brain.

Sinister chokes on his own blood even as Thaddeus, not willing to leave anything to chance, immediately activates Rogue's power, absorbing Sinister's vitality as fast as he possibly can.

Those glowing red eyes stare at Thaddeus as the life fades from them, errant twitches and involuntary shudders the last movements that Sinister manages to make before he's finally, mercifully dead.

Thaddeus lets out an explosive, shuddering breath… before stiffening up as the entire laboratory goes red.

"Adorable. Simply… adorable."

He and Laura pull their hands back from Sinister's body, letting the corpse fall to the ground as they look around themselves with the others. But a counterattack never materializes.

"Your lack of understanding is… cute. Alas, you cannot kill me. There is no 'me'. Sinister… is a system. An institution. Sinister is a process."

Shit. They should have guessed that the cloner might have cloned himself. Killing one Sinister was never going to be enough. Unfortunately, Thaddeus can't sense the mind of this new Sinister anywhere nearby. A glance towards Emma shows that she can't either.

Worst of all, there's a flash and the corpse of the Sinister they'd killed vanishes, teleported away blood and all. They're officially up shit's creek without a paddle.

"Don't worry. I won't tell Selene about this."

Wait, what? There must be cameras watching them, because Sinister immediately reacts to Thaddeus' incredulous expression with a laugh.

"She paid me to insert dear Madelyne into your life… she didn't pay me to keep tabs afterwards. No, Madelyne's role is that of… a long term undercover agent. Eventually, the Black Queen will come calling, aiming to pilfer Madelyne's mind for the information she seeks, using the triggers that you've already removed. I do hope when that finally happens that you'll all be ready for her."

As Thaddeus processes this, Madelyne cries out, her hands to her head.

"W-Why are you doing this?! Why me?! I still don't understand!"

There's a pause, and then Sinister's voice returns with a sickening coo.

"Ah, my dear Madelyne… telling you THAT would ruin all the fun."

Before any of them can respond to that, Sinister continues.

"Ah, but what I should probably tell you is that I initiated the laboratory's self-destruct the instant that you attacked me. Which means at this point… you only have a minute to escape."

Every monitor in the lab flickers on then, revealing a sixty-second countdown that immediately starts dropping. Thaddeus' eyes widen and though it could be a lie, he's not about to test that. Grabbing the others, they all bolt out of the lab, Mister Sinister's cackling laughter following them as they flee 'Dr Essex's Clinic'.

The place does indeed explode as soon as a minute ends, causing them to keep moving so as to avoid being tied to the blast. But while they'd successfully confronted Essex and uncovered the truth about him, Thaddeus has to admit… he doesn't feel victorious. He doesn't feel victorious at all right now…

-x-X-x-

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