Return to Sender

Posted on Sun Jul 13th, 2025 @ 7:15am by Kennedy Kelly & Shinobi Shaw & Kurt Wagner

2,516 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 6: X-Fernus Agenda
Location: X-Mansion
Timeline: January 27, 1991

It was the perfect time to exact his revenge. Everyone would be enjoying the celebration and the festivities afterwards. And then whoever was left would be too busy with Alex Summers and the Prime Sentinels to notice he was already deep within their walls. Shinobi Shaw stood there, dressed as he ever was with sophistication and flair, in front of the door to Cerebro. His helmet gleamed in the clinical lighting of the subbasement as he calmly murmured, “You broke into my house and ruined my celebration. You took what I once loved. And you destroyed my house. Now, you will feel my pain, my suffering, my hatred, as I have broken into your house. As I will take something you love. And as I raze your house to the ground.” He lowered his density and phased through the door.

Shinobi approached Cerebro with all the menacing calm of a serpent coiling before the strike; precise, patient, and certain of the damage to come. His plan was to sabotage the machine and incapacitate Professor Xavier, sending a personal, unmistakable message. This was not about killing Xavier. This was about proving dominance. And revenge. “You invaded my mind unbidden. Now I will invade yours without your consent.”

Now solid, he disabled what remained of the security system and opened the panel where the central neural resonance coil was located. At least according to the scientists in Madripoor’s psionics research division, where he’d commissioned the creation of this tech. In series with the coil, he installed his device, a neural distortion emitter no bigger than a matchbox and disguised as a coolant relay. The device was designed to inject targeted psychic feedback, causing Xavier pain, hallucinations, or temporary paralysis, trapping him in the trauma of his own mind. It would remain dormant until Cerebro was operating at full psi-output.

Then he stepped back, phased, and with a final look at the crown jewel of Xavier’s empire, he muttered, “And now the heart of the X-Men will beat off rhythm. So falls the house that Xavier built."

Shinobi still had the mission from Lord Essex to carry out, but he had one more thing to do while his Prime Sentinels and the new Omega Sentinel did their jobs. He phased through walls, corridors, rooms and closets until he came into the girl’s dormitory. He knew which room was hers. He’d been there before. He phased through the door and became his normal density for a moment. Shinobi switched on the light and looked around, smiling.

“You love your things, your materials. You always have, Kennedy. And now, I will take them.”

He ripped the covers from her bed and threw them to floor. Then he emptied the dresser drawers onto the bed, carelessly tossing the drawers on the floor. He opened the closet and shook his head. So many nice clothes and fancy dresses hung there, waiting for an evening on the town that they would never see. In the bottom of her closet, he saw her nail kit. Shinobi leaned down, picked it up, and threw it against the opposite wall. Anything that adorned the walls, he broke or tore.

Then he walked back over to the bed, strewn with the contents of her dresser. There, on top, were her undergarments from that night in the hotel. Shinobi smiled at the memory and reached into his inner jacket pocket, removing a silver flask containing high-proof Austrian Stroh and the letters “S.S.” on the center. With precision, he tipped it, letting the golden liquor spill across the clothes. He did the same thing to the garments hanging in the closet and the bedding laying on the floor.

Then he took a match and striking it, threw it onto the dresses followed by another one. The same was done to the bedding and the clothes on the bed. Except there, he threw the entire box into the flames. The fire was silent at first, creeping like a living thing. Then, as the liquor caught, it bloomed, brilliant and ghostly. Shinobi phased and stood in the midst of the fire, smiling the entire time.

---

Getting dressed as the battle began outside and Xavier's call pass through their minds was a challenge for Kennedy. Her sequin covered gown and opera length gloves were a terrible choice for defending the mansion in. "I can't wear this..." She grumbled while putting her underthings back on, she made her way over to Kurt's dresser. Rummaging through the former monk's was rather fruitless but Kennedy managed to find a spare uniform amongst his this. "I have a bow in my bedroom, we'll be quick about it." She said while reaching out for Kurt so he could teleport them to the other end of the mansion.

With a burst of sulfur and smoke, Kurt BAMFed into the middle of the dorm room with Kennedy slung in one arm. They were both greeted by the small inferno that was slowly overtaking the room from the bed to the closet.

"I didn't know they had attacked this side of the mansion." Kennedy doubled over and began to cough as they were greeted by thick black smoke and a wall of heat thanks to the fire that burned in her room.

"Mein Gott," Kurt muttered, eyes wide as he took in the scene. He instinctively dropped Kennedy back to the hallway with a light push. "Stay," he said plainly. Then he vanished again. Seconds later he reappeared, clutching a bright red fire extinguisher with a yellow tag still flapping on the handle.

"... pull pin, aim at base of fire..." he muttered quickly to himself, trying to recall the steps through the smoke.

He yanked the pin, aimed, and squeezed.

A thick white foam blasted forward, hissing over Kennedy's charred bed and the remnants of her wardrobe, smothering the blaze one heartbeat at a time. Ash and embers scattered across the floor like spent fireworks. The entire room was in a smoky shambles.

Only then, as the room quieted beneath the hiss of the extinguisher’s final gasp, did Kurt catch the shimmer of movement.

A figure stepped back from the edge of the firelight, phasing through the blackened closet door as if it were mist. Shinobi. He smiled, unbothered. His eyes locked with Kurt's.

"Teufelssohn..." Kurt spat, stepping between Kennedy and Shinobi. "Was hast du getan?"

Shinobi looked at Kurt and shook his head. "You ruined my bonfire. Shame on you," he said, disdain and condescension dripping from his voice.

He looked beyond Kurt, "A pleasure as always, Kennedy. You really should have gone to Paris." Shinobi kept His exchange with the two brief...for the moment.

Kennedy began to take a few gasps of air but the acrid smell still caused her to cough. She straightened up and saw the damage that had been inflicted on her possessions. "My clothes... my things..." He had burned everything she owned, all the beautiful things that had been purchased for her that had made her feel beautiful and loved. They were items that were impossible to replace now that her wealth was gone. A look that was a mixture of horror and sadness came over her. Shinobi saw a look of sheer anguish on her face and he knew he had managed to successful wound her. "My books!" She finally started to cry when she realized the collection of her favorite novels had been destroyed along with all of her designer clothes. "Why did you do this? You were free of me."

Shinobi tilted his head slightly, watching her cry. It wasn't with sympathy, but rather like one might admire a shattered sculpture. He relished in her emotional collapse over losing her things. And rather than yell, he remained eerily composed. Elegant. Cruel.

The Lord Imperial ignored Xavier's pet monkey and spoke directly to Kennedy. "Free of you?" he echoed softly, then chuckled, low and humorless. "Darling, you still don’t understand, do you?"

Still phased, he stepped forward, moving through the debris. Not one cinder or ash was carried along. "I wasn’t trying to escape you. I was waiting. Watching. Wondering how long you’d pretend all of this made you whole." He gestured to the room in general and her destroyed belongings.

"Beauty. Comfort. Illusions wrapped in silk and ink. You thought these things kept you together, kept you whole. But really, they were just the prettiest chains you let yourself wear. And now you see what they’re really worth." He walked up to Kennedy, passing through Kurt as if he wasn't even there.

"I didn’t burn your things to hurt you, Kennedy." He leaned in, his breath cool and steady. "I burned them to remind you. That I still know where it hurts." He lingered for a beat, whispering, "And that I’m the one holding the match."

Kennedy reached out for a charred and blackened book that had once been a worn and loved copy of ‘Pride and Prejudice’. Touching the ruined book made her sniffle into a sob that caused her shoulders to jerk in response. “I’ll remember that Shinobi… that you are cruel and you can hurt me… that you can twist a knife in my side whenever you please. Is that enough for you? Or will you just keep asking for more? Am I going to end up dead one day?”

Kurt's jaw clenched, tail coiling in a tight spiral behind him. For a moment, he said nothing. But he had heard enough. Now he simply placed himself back between Shinobi and Kennedy again, even knowing it was symbolic, as his body could do nothing to stop someone who could walk through walls.

But faith and will were another matter. He stood his ground and stared Shinobi down with a cold look that could've frozen hellfire.

"Do you truly zhingk zhis makes you powerful?" Kurt asked, voice low and firm. His glowing eyes narrowed. "You haunt ze voman's bedroom like a ghost who zhingks himself a gott. You burn silk und paper like ze Nationalsozialisten who ravaged my country. Zhey believed ze same as you."

He stepped closer, his voice now a quiet growl.

"Zhat zheir power gave zhem permission. Zhat vealth made zhem vise. Zhat fear made zhem strong." He pointed to Kennedy without taking his eyes off Shinobi. "Her grief vill pass. Yours never does. Zhat's ze difference betveen you." Then, tail flicking against Shinobi's chest in provocation enough to put him on the backfoot, Kurt added one last word. "Feigling." Coward.

The Lord Imperial allowed the symbolic gesture to stand. "It is enough, dear Kennedy," he said calmly. He didn’t flinch at her question. If anything, her broken voice only seemed to satisfy him. "For now, it is enough."

He then looked at Kurt, his voice still calm. "No. Those are out there," he said, gesturing toward the front lawn where the battle raged. "They, like you, are soldiers fighting in another man’s war. You all lack the vision. The will. The desire to take more than what you’re given. To take what you want." He paused and smiled. "Never again will I fight in their war. I swear to myself, never again."

“And that means hurting people?” Kennedy wiped away her tears, the motion left a smudge across her cheek thanks to her sooty hands. “It’s only worth something if it means taking it from another? There are different ways, better ways, to get what you want without hurting people.”

Kurt's fingers twitched at his sides. The flicker of anger passed through him like heat lightning. Then, slowly, that anger turned into something sharper. Cooler.

"Zhen ve vill take recompense," he muttered more to Kennedy than to Shinobi. In a puff of brimstone and sulfur, he vanished.

A second later—BAMF—he reappeared just behind Shinobi, arm extended and triumphant.

In his hand, he held Shinobi's helmet.

"Danke schön," Kurt sneered, baring his teeth.

Before Shinobi could react, Kurt vanished again and reappeared beside Kennedy. He planted himself squarely between her and Shinobi once more, fire in his golden eyes. He handed off the helmet to Kennedy. "A souvenir, Liebling."

Then he raised his voice. "Herr Professor—NOW!"

Suddenly, the lights flickered. A low, resonant hum rose through the floor. And then Charles Xavier's presence hit like a storm.

From the corners of the room, they began to appear. A multitude of projections of Charles Xavier, not in a wheelchair, but standing, resolute, encircled Shinobi, altogether terrifying in their symmetry. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Surrounding Shinobi from all angles like sentinels of pure psychic vengeance.

Each spoke in perfect unison in a deep, wrathful chord of words that echoed through mind and marrow.

"You speak of war, of power, of taking what you want.
But you do not understand power.
Not true power.
True power is restraint.
True power is the strength to preserve when you could destroy."

The legion of Xaviers stepped forward, enclosing Shinobi in a phalanx of psychic avatars. Despite their immaterial nature, they still obscured Kurt and Kennedy from sight. The full weight of Xavier's mind pressed against Shinobi's metaphasic resistance, not enough to break him, but more than enough to turn the tables. And then the voices continued.

"You entered my home.
You harmed my students.
You mocked the very dream that gives us breath."

One step closer in unison, just as with their words.

"Flee, Shinobi Shaw. Or you will come to know firsthand that true power is the one too terrible to be wielded."

The Lord Imperial gave a faint smirk at the end of Xavier's speech. He said nothing and walked through everyone, including Kennedy. He didn't pause, but retrieved his helmet from her hands where Kurt had placed it. Once it was back where it belonged, he spoke, not looking back.

"Wishing you a splendid evening." With that, he phased through walls and floors, departing the mansion.

Kennedy remained trembling and silent as Shinobi took the helmet from her hand. Kurt had given it to her to destroy, instead she stood there paralyzed by her own fear. It wasn't until Shaw left that she finally broke and began to sob.

"Libeling." Kurt replied with a return to his gentle nature, he reached out and embraced her. Holding Kennedy as she crumbled into his arms.

"He's going to kill me one of these days," Kennedy hiccuped the words through ragged jags of tears. "I hurt him and I remind him of his failure. The day he gets sick of these games... nothing will stop him."

"Nein." Kurt replied as his tail reached out and lifted her chin so that she looked him in the eyes, there was determination in their haunting glow. He squeezed her tightly before he spoke as if to punctuate his words. "Ve vill stop him, Ve X-Men. He does not realize zhe power of togezherness, and zhat vill be his downfall."

 

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