Dazzler #8
"Ignite"
by Pat Donovan
Dazzler feels a sense of deja vu, among other things given the circumstances, as she finds a familiar, yet misunderstood attacker charging forth. It was not much more than hours ago that Caliban, misguided and misused former Morlock, chased after our heroine through the streets of New York.
Alison Blaire has found herself trapped once more, helpless when it comes to her current surroundings again. After being chased by Caliban, she joined forces with a band of fellow mutants to take care of the evil work on Sinister, only to somehow be derailed into another situation with the blink of an eye. Alison is an X-Man, here, fighting alongside many against the threat of the Hellfire Club, but this place she resides in is just so different from her own world that reality is a far thing
"Pull it together, Ali," she thinks. "Gotta stay strong." A quick glance past Caliban reveals Emma Frost, White Queen of the Hellfire Club. Without hesitation, Dazzler lets loose a photon blast, aimed for a mirror. At immense speeds, the blast of light energy banks off the mirror and knocks the White Queen for a loop bringing Caliban to a stop.
"Score one for the Dazz," Ali thinks, then looking about the room still confused at the scene. Selene now challanges the Phoenix, leaving Shadowcat phased within a wall. Cyclops and Sebastian Shaw are buried beaneath rubble left as Phoenix made her entrance from above. Colossus and Multiple Man leap from the above hall in the ceiling left by that entrance. Quickly, afterward, Polaris hovers down with Jubilee in her arms.
Most of the team begins now to concentrate on Selene, as Phoenix does her best to clear the rubble in search of her husband. Caliban remains silent at Dazzler's side. "Caliban?" she asks, lowering down to the monstrous mutant.
"FriendDazzler...?"
"Hold in there, Cal. This isn't right, but I get the sense things are about to wrap up. So, stay out of sight, but be aware of what's going on around you," quickly orders Dazzler, before taking off in the direction from which Caliban and the White Queen had came.
"Something tells me there's gotta be something coming from here," thinks Dazzler, running just a few feet before noise reaches a high-point behind her. "What now?"
As she turns, Polaris' body is aglow with energy which begins to rip through the room, Dazzler doesn't shield her eyes from the intensity of the fight though. Ali looks back, turns towards her destination catching the glimpse of a figure cutting a corner a few feet ahead. She takes one more step forward, passing the limp bodies of Psylocke and Beast, until turning back. "Gotta make sure Caliban makes it out, if no one else."
As Dazzler leaps back into the action, the room the energies have simmered, as she finds the still bodies of Havok and Colossus before her. Magneto, master of magnetism, now hovers above the scene, as he lets the unmoving body of Polaris from his magnetic grip, having used her as a conduit to cause a magnetic explosion, of sorts. "CALIBAN! WHERE ARE YOU?!?!"
"Here," smirks the cyborg Pierce, as a backhand meets the jaw of Caliban. An uppercut follows, as Caliban is knocked back. Jubilee and Madrox do their best to hold off the emergence of Sebastian Shaw, while Selene meets Phoenix head-on.
"There is no time for this!" groans Alison, rushing for Caliban. With a deep breath, she grabs the mammoth-sized mutant, pushing him upward to rest on her back. Only seconds pass before Dazz releases Cal, the strain too much to carry her ally.
From nowhere a lightning bolt rips through Pierce's body, as something crashes through an above window, stumbling to Dazzler's side. "Seems we got here just in time, lightengale," grumbles Wolverine in a crouched position below. Storm, mistress of the elements, follows through quickly, as does Iceman and Angel. "The cavalry has arrived!"
Dazzler looks to Caliban long and hard, and must choose to leave what seems to be her only counterpart behind. Alison leaps through the hall once more, after whatever is keeping the duo of mutants here. Soon enough, Ali catches glimpse of a door slamming, in which she responds with an extreme amount of light ripping through that very door.
Bursting into the room, Ali finds a familiar man before her. A long trench-coat and grayish all she sees from behind, until the man shows his face to Dazzler. Ali questions nothing, recognizing the man and hopeful that she understands her current dilemma. Immense light gather about Dazz's hands, first in orbs, until they meet, then forming a large photon-blast, in which Dazzler holds back none. All disappears in the light around the woman, until her power is burned out to near nothing.
As the light clears, a funny feeling coming over Dazzler and her surroundings changing some, as does the person in front of her greatly. On the ground, a small petite woman lays on the ground where the old man had stood. "So, who're you and what's your agenda?" growls Dazzler
"I am no enemy, Dazzler," she strains to say, rising, nearly falling over at first. "My name is Mastermind and I have no agenda."
"Mastermind was the man I was chasing and then blasted, wherever I was two seconds ago. You're not old, ugly, or in a trenchcoat," quips Alison.
"I'm... his daughter," barely lets out the woman. "Please, heed your questions, though, before she escapes with your friend!"
Dazzler stops for a second, analyzing the information just presented to her. The original Mastermind was a villain she learned of quite a number of years ago, when she was first introduced to the X-Men. Though she never met the man in battle, the organization he belonged to, the Hellfire Club, was responsible for preying on Dazzler years ago* [[*As told in Uncanny X-Men 129-130 -Classic Pat]]. Alison learned the man to be a cold, calculating man like most in the group, no one she would expect to bear a child, not yet one seemingly so well-intentioned.
"I don't know why I'm going to trust the daughter of Mastermind, but lead the way. Don't think you're off the hook, though. We'll talk and walk!" exclaims Alison, chasing after the woman, having exited the room.
"I inherited my father's powers and took his name after he passed. I am a different kind of person than my father, I have chosen not to use my powers as he did. However, I was recently captured by this branch of the Hellfire Club to serve as a tool of their Black Queen," explains Mastermind, scurrying through the hallway her dizziness evident, as she then down a flight of stairs.
"Selene?" interrupts Alison, keeping up her pace.
"No. Ngh. She's known as Damask. We're in London. Where she is headed with your friend, I do not know. I do however know that she needed me to arrange a mental maze or game of sorts for you to be entrapped within."
"So, you've been the one messing with my head?!?!"
"No, again, Dazzler. Well, this Black Queen has the power to psionically tear apart a person's mind. My will was strong, but not strong enough. Ugh. Through me, she entrapped your mind, while I fought against it with all my will and help from you."
"Kinda makes sense. The ups and the downs of that mission kind of make sense, now. Not all the odds were stacked against me at once. Are you gonna be all right...?"
"Gone and no...," sighs Mastermind, who then goes to lean against a wall only to miss and fall to the ground.
The room is what seems to be a hangar, a door ajar, tracks left behind and the smell of fuel still fresh. Dazzler grabs Mastermind in her arms, rushing forward, then leaping out through the hangar door.
"I don't like hanging out in the enemy's lair when who knows what can be waiting for us. We've got to move. Gotta help Mastermind out. Gotta get some more info. Gotta contact some help. Geeze, helping Gambit in Siberia one second and the next in London helping out an old enemy's kid. The life of the Dazzler..."
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE DAZZLER ANNUAL: Dazzler faces off against the Hellfire Club, the very enemy the lured her into the world of mutants. Can she save Caliban? What's going to happen to Mastermind? Who'll come to Dazz's aid? And will Dazzler be able to walk away from a fight as she faces off one of the most powerful mutant organizations?
NEXT ISSUE: Dazzler blasts into Year 2 as she settles in a little, well if she makes it through the annual, of course.