Title: Sinister Shadows

Author: Kate R.

abelard950@aol.com

Disclaimer: X-men belong to marvel, Dark Shadows belongs to Dan Curtis and the idea belongs to my twisted, over caffinated mind.

Rating: PG-13 to R

Pairings: Logan/Remy

Summary: This is an AU take on what could be Mr. Sinister. He has been around a long time so this is me playing with that. On that note, crossover with Dark Shadows.


Sinister Shadows
by Kate R.


"Charles, you need to see this," hank McCoy said as Professor X wheeled into the Med bay. He rolled his chair over to the microscope and looked in.

"Whose is it?" he asked after a moment of silence. He knew what he was looking at was one sample but it was all wrong.

"Rogue," hank said sadly as he looked over at the bed where she was resting. No one was happy with her since she had blinded Gambit but she had saved someone and been injured in the process so they had to treat her before Logan threw her out on her ass.

"She's been mumbling in her sleep," Hank said. "She keeps calling for her "Father" and Charles, I'm beginning to have a terrible idea I know who her father is. And so do you."

"The markers do show signs of his genetic tampering. Still, what is he trying to gain? What is he doing? What does he want that he thinks our files can tell him?"

"Why don't we ask her?" Hank said as he looked at the professor. And Charles Xavier knew what he was suggesting. He thought a few minutes but he knew he really had no choice.

/Rogue/ he said into her mind. And in her mind his voice became Mr. Sinister's. /Rogue, what is your mission? Repeat it for me so I know you have not forgotten it. /

"Find files," she whispered. "Have to figure it out. You want to figure out why you can't recreate him so you want all files of all geneticists so you can figure it out. I got Xavier's. Alicia Silver was to get Cut Connor's files and I was also to get Hank McCoy's."

/Who do I want to recreate, Rogue? / Xavier, asked.

"Your son," she said. "Your first born son. The one you thought was perfection in all his gifts except he said no and he rejected you."

/What is his name? /

"Barnabas," she said. "You damn him every night. Every night for saying no. For blocking you then and mocking you now even as a vampire. You still can't get what you want from him. He won't give in to you."

/Why do I want him to give in, Rogue? Just so I know you remember. /

"Because no one says no to you," Rogue said. "No one says no to Joshua Collins. Not even his own son."

Xavier broke off the mind contact and he looked at Hank.

"Joshua Collins?"

"Ask her how old you are and see if she knows," Hank suggested.

"Find out how long Sinister has been trying to do this."

"Two hundred years at least, Chuck," a voice said. "If it's who I think it is, at least that long. I knew a man once who wanted perfection in everything. Including his children. I didn't ever figure out how he managed to do what he done did but he spliced DNA into his pregnant wife that affected the child. He used some of mine I think. I got flashes when she said his name. They're filling out now into a whole story. Joshua Collins was a shipping magnet in the 1700's. He was the best at that and everything else he did and he wanted perfect children. Not children people said were perfect but children that actually were perfect. To that end, he did something, made a deal with something heinous to get the knowledge to do it. He took my haling DNA and mixed it with others. No idea where he got them but he did. I think, some of those I've met, yours, Magneto's, mine, Mystique's, Jean's. He made them all into one thing and he put them in the baby his wife was carrying. He got his perfect and powerful son, all right. But he got something else too.

Mixing all of those DNA strands made for a child who was also stubborn, strong, powerful enough to tell him no and mean it, and with the ability to protect his siblings. The son grew into a man and Joshua told him, or tried to tell him, about this glorious destiny because see, he could never recreate his first son in any of his other children. They all had bits and pieces but it lead to deaths and insanity and instability in his heirs. The only one who had a chance of having a stable heir was the first one but he was…changed before that could happen. However, Chuck, I got your answer as to what would happen if the DNA of the world's most powerful mutants was mixed together and man, it scared me until I realized the boy had been born with none of his father's cruelty or ambitions. Until I realized something else as well. What Joshua Collins got was someone powerful and strong and everything else he wanted but with one thing he did not want the child to have: A heart.

"Barnabas Collins was born with a very large heart and capacity to love and care. He got a shit load of compassion in there somehow. And. Chuck, no matter what Joshua did o him to try to erase it, it's still there.Joshua is still trying to recreate his son but he can't. Especially not now. Barnabas Collins was turned into a vampire 200 year ago. I bet the reason Sinister wants someone equal to him is he knows Barnabas is the only person alive
who can stop him."

"Who is Barnabas?" Xavier asked.

"The man he's been trying for 200 years to recreate. His supposed son, Barnabas Collins. You'll find him in Collins Port Maine. He protects that Town like we protect the world. You go into that town looking to start trouble, you better not even think you're gonna walk out of it. He'll kill for that town, same s it will for him. Sinister's plying this game again, trying to figure out what he did wrong then we had damn well better be sure he never finds out why he can't make another Barnabas only this one more malleable and likely female so he can have more children made by it."

"That's just sick," Hank said. "And, Logan, what was it? What did you realize and why can't he recreate Barnabas?"

Logan chuckled and led them out of the lab before he told them: "Because, he didn't make Barnabas in the first place. He ignored his wife in his quest for perfection. She took a lover. Me, Chuck. He can't make another son like that one because none of his children have what's needed to safely incorporate all those things. None of his children belong to me. None of his children..."

"Have your healing factor," Xavier finished, as he understood.

Logan's healing factor in his own child would allow the child to heal and incorporate any and all oddities into his own body and make it part of his own genetic make up.

"Just so, Chuck," Logan, said. "If we're to have a prayer of stopping Sinister once and for all, we need the only person in the world who is stronger than all his attempts at recreating something that was never his in the first place: We need my son. Barnabas Collins. And I know where he is."

"Where?" Hank asked.

"Little town in Maine, fur-ball," Logan said. "A town called Collins Port."


Part 2

One day later and the team of Storm, Colossus, Professor Xavier, Wolverine, Gambit, Kitty Pryde and Jubilation Lee arrived in the small town of Collins Port Maine. Logan went to the inn immediately to ask after Barnabas Collins and was told he did still live at the Old house of Collinwood but that he was more a recluse than anything. Unless of course, something happened in the town.

Then, he responded.

They were walking around, just talking, when the attack came. Of course, they just couldn't have one day of quiet.

"Get Mr. Collins," Logan heard a shop Keeper yell to a child.

"We need him!" He saw the child run and he grunted as he faced Magneto. He knew he was vulnerable but at this time he really had no choice in the matter. He was between the Master of Magnetism and the normal human's in the town.

"Oh, damn," he muttered as it started and soon all he felt was pain. He saw the others in the same boat when suddenly; a bolt of magnetic power from someone else hit Magneto. Logan's head turned and he stared as there, standing in the middle of the street in a battle ready position, was the one he recognized as his son. He carried a silver wolf's head cane and wore a long cloak, which told Wolverine he was used to fighting and knew he needed his arms unhindered.

"Would you care to try that on someone who can actually fight on your level?" he asked.

And Wolverine found himself proud of his son's honor. Although, he knew the honor would only hold him back to a point. He could see in his son's stance a man who had fought and bled for this town and was willing to employ any means necessary to take down those who had hurt what was his.Logan watched as Magneto redirected his attack on the man who had knocked him away from Logan and realized as he fought this was the mutant of exceedingly great power he had detected. And the mutant was angry. He was furiously enraged.

"Who...what are you?" Magneto asked angrily as he realized none of his attacks were touching this man.

"I am The Ultiman," Logan's son said. "I was made with all of you and most of them. I was born with the powers of the most powerful of your kind. I am the Alpha Mutant to end all Alpha Mutants. And I have about had it with you people, mutant and human alike, thinking I have to do a damn thing for any of you. Now, Get Out!"

A ball of white lightening slammed Magneto. It hurtled him backwards into the wall of a nearby empty building.

"Take your master and leave my town," he said to the members of Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil mutants. The scrambled to obey him and once they were gone, he turned to the X-Men.

"You want something of me, Father?" he asked looking at Logan.

Logan choked as he realized....

"Yes, I can hear your thoughts quite clearly. You all think extremely loudly. I'm not even trying to scan and I can hear what you all are thinking. No, Miss Grey, that does not say anything about the people in this town being weak minded. I have their permission to search their thoughts if something attacks and they cannot find words to describe it. I need to see what I'm facing so they allow me access. I do not go near their minds otherwise. I can make it background noise if I must. It's only when new people, people like you all, arrive here that I have to refocus and accept you as those who belong which you do not. Not yet at any rate. Now, what is it you need of me?"

"Joshua is still trying to recreate you, son," Logan said. "He doesn't understand that he can't."

"He never realized I wasn't his?" Barnabas asked with light sarcasm. "How unsurprising. Father never was the sharpest tool in the shed as David says. Still, what is it you need of me?"

"His attempts have gotten out of hand. One of them, while she can absorb powers, she can't control what she takes and how to turn it off. She's become seriously dangerous and there is no one else who has a prayer of stopping her. Also, after 200 years I've realized something: The only person who can stop Joshua Collins is the person he's trying to recreate. You are the only one who can stop him. You are the only one with a prayer of stopping him. And I think you know why."

"My heart," Barnabas said softly. "You think because I am exactly what he wanted but also not what he wanted its what he didn't want that can stop him?"

"I don't know exactly how you can, son," Logan said. "I just know he was terrified of you. He was afraid of you and that's the only thing we have on our side. See, he can meet each of us on the field of battle but you? You are the one who.."

"What happened to him?" Barnabas asked as he saw Colossus leading Gambit to them.

"The one I mentioned," Logan said. "I don't care what he did in the past. I love him but she hurt him and I don't... I can't fix him."

"I can," Barnabas, said as he walked towards Gambit and laid his hands on his face. This glow was different then the ones preceding it as it was soft and warm instead of cold and bright.

"This is going to hurt for a moment," he warned Gambit. "I'm sorry but I have to repair everything and the nerves are going to feel like they are on fire when they come back on line."

Gambit nodded so Barnabas applied the energy to his eyes. Gambit cried out but no one interfered. When the glow faded and Barnabas removed his hands' Gambit's eyes were healed.

"Logan?" the Cajun asked. Logan moved forward as his son started to move back. Logan caught his arm.

"Gambit," he said. "This is my son. I guess he's your stepson. His name is Barnabas and he just healed you."

"Nice to meet you," Gambit said in a thick Cajun accent.

Barnabas smiled and nodded.

"One of his did this to you?" he asked. Logan nodded since Gambit didn't know everything yet. Barnabas looked up at the sky for a few moments and sighed before he finally reached his decision.

"We will have to bring him o me, father. I have to fight him on my own ground."

"You'll do it then?" Professor X asked.

"Yes I will," Barnabas answered. "By the way learn patience. I heard you the first time you called me, I heard you the second time you called me and I heard you the third time you called me. I was somewhat busy at the time though so in future if I do not answer it usually means I am in the middle of something. Come up to the house with me and we'll discuss this plan or whatever it is. I will stop him but only because it has to be as Logan has said. I have no reason to help nay of you bar my father. I am going to do this only because it needs to be done."

Then, he walked away. He led them up to the New House at Collinwood where he resided more often than not now that he was the only one left. He led them in and told them which rooms they could use and then he walked down to the library. When the professor made as if to go after him, Logan stopped him.

"Let him be, Chuck," Logan said. "He needs to think."

"About what?" Kitty asked.

"Everything, darlin'," Logan said. "Everything."

END PART 2