Disclaimer: I own nothing, nada, zip

A/N: After two stories containing tentacle-y monsters I promise not to do the same again this time! This story is loosely inspired by Corrinth's brilliant What Might Have Been, which is set in our joint Movie-verse timeline.

Scene One

The sounds of a fight ricochet around the docks, distorted by the stacked shipping crates and by the gently lapping water. The dark night sky was occasionally lit up in shades of fiery orange or explosive fuchsia. Flashes of unnatural lilac completed the light show. Periodically tendrils of grey smoke appeared, marking the movements of a teleporting mutant named Kurt Wagner, also called Nightcrawler.

Kurt was one of five X-Men who had been tracking a renegade mutant through Bayville's industrial quarter. Alongside the blue-furred German boy were the Cajun thief and former Acolyte Gambit, Professor Xavier's grown-up animorphing daughter Ilehana, the feisty British redhead Blaze and Kurt's fellow Bayville High student Shadowcat. Ilehana, the Vixen, had led the team onto the docks in pursuit of their quarry. She had taken her favourite shape of a grey wolf, using the wolf's sense of smell to track their opponent. The other X-Men wore their uniforms proudly, albeit that Gambit was also sporting his traditional trench coat.

The team had pinned their opponent in a deserted corner of the dock complex. He was a scoundrel newly arrived in Bayville. The Professor had been watching his movements via Cerebro for several days, growing increasingly concerned each time the newcomer used his mutant powers. His chosen name was Paradox. Standing over six feet in height, lean, black skinned and with a smirking face he was a confident figure. So confident in fact he thought nothing of turning and attacking a team of five on their home turf.

The Professor had good reason to be worried. Everything the team tried to bring Paradox under control the newcomer merely deflected with blasts of his purple energy. Blaze's fireballs turned to ash on the air, or froze and dropped as ice to break on the deck. Gambit's playing cards turned into butterflies and fluttered away, or else changed into confetti that pattered into the water like rain. When the Cajun started forwards, resorting to his staff weapon to give Paradox a good beating, the extendable staff turned into a great green snake. Remy yelped, dropping the viper and stamping on it. The deck promptly turned to black tar and he started to sink.

"Blaze!" Remy shouted, "A li'l help here Cherie!"

"Hold your horses Rem," Blaze called back, torching a swarm of wasps that had appeared from her fireballs moments ago. "I'm getting to it!" Finishing the insects off with a flourish, she ran to Gambit's aid and burnt away the tar. Gambit found himself back on solid ground and surprisingly not charred to a crisp.

"A hand would have done Chere," he told Blaze drolly, brushing ash from the sleeve of his coat.

"Where's the fun in that?" was Blaze's reply, nudging her boyfriend playfully with her hip.

#If it's not interrupting your social calendar,# Vixen teased warmly in both her friend's heads, #there's a mutant here who needs teaching a lesson.#

Mildly chastened, Blaze and Gambit turned back to the task in hand. Ilehana had climbed up the packing crates behind Paradox. With a deft leap she landed on his back, biting down on his neck. He was suddenly wearing steel plate armour that then promptly disappeared. Vixen was deposited none-to-gently on the deck, whimpering at her sore mouth. Shadowcat tried to sink Paradox into the wooden planks of the dock, but found that she was the one who was falling through the deck.

"Kurt!" Kitty screeched, "help!"

Kurt saw Shadowcat slip through the floor and acted quickly. He used his teleportation to disappear below the dock, catching Kitty before she hit the water. In the same instant he teleported back to the dock. Depositing his disorientated friend, Kurt did a succession of three teleports to close the distance between himself and Paradox. His approach was jagged, so there was no way that Paradox could know which direction Kurt would arrive in. Yet somehow Paradox did know. The big man caught Kurt by the arm just as he reappeared.

"Hey!" Kurt objected as he was thrown across the dock, landing on the floor with a thump. "Play fair!"

"The rules are what you make them," Paradox replied with a smile. He lifted his palm and beckoned Kurt to attack again. "The truth can be scribbled out."

#Nightcrawler no!# Vixen ordered, but Kurt had already risen to the bait. He used his powers exactly at the moment when a purple blast hit him square in the midriff. Gasping from the force of the impact, Kurt teleported and disappeared…

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