The last time I stopped, Psyche was comatose and was still the physical host of the Shadow King. This time, Psyche awakens, and with him the Shadow King. What will happen? Will someone else fall into a dreadful coma? Who is Veronica? Read on and find out!
Anyway, um... oh, yeah, intro. My X-Crew goes as follows: The X-Men are Professor X, Wolverine, Storm, Jean Grey as the Phoenix, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Shadowcat, Spyke, and Colossus. The trainees are Iceman, Jubilee, Cannonball, Sunspot, Psylocke, Multiple, Candle (Veronica Andrews, 15, a red-headed girl with the ability to create and control fire; she was one of the Shadow King's pawns in the previous story, and upon being released from his psychic control she decided to join the X-Men), Magnify (Jackson "Jake" Cattermole, 16, able to amplify any form of mutant ability; also decided to join the X-Men after being released from the Shadow King's psychic control), Psyche (Dylan Ecker, 15, an empath who can project his consciousness out of his body; he's still a trainee because throughout half of his test he was possessed by the Shadow King and it didn't count), Berzerker, Magma and the Scarlet Witch (because their test was influenced by the Shadow King, and as such, it didn't count).
New format of writing: all telepathic communication will be written in these brackets.
Please R&R. Enjoy the story!
-THE SHADOW KING SAGA 2-
Dylan Ecker lay on a bed in the X-Mansion's sick bay, comatose, for almost two weeks since the events that had revolved around him and a disembodied psychic entity called the Shadow King had occured. Dylan, a fifteen-year old teenage boy, with dirty-blond hair and black irises and features that neither attracted not repelled, gifted with the power of empathy (a version of telepathy that dealed with emotions instead of thoughts) and projection of his consciousness out of his body, had been possessed by the Shadow King, and had put other mutants under his control as they went all out to kill Charles Xavier. After losing a battle on the Astral Plane, Dylan fell into a coma. At that time, the Shadow King was in his mind, and that meant that he was imprisoned in Dylan's body until he woke up.
During the time that Dylan was comatose, quite a lot of things have happened. Veronica Andrews, known to the X-Men previously as Candle, and Jackson "Jake" Cattermole, known to the X-Men previously as Magnify, have both joined the X-Men after being released from the Shadow King's psychic control (they were two of the mutants to have been put under his control by Dylan) and are both waiting for their test to graduate from trainee-hood and become official X-Men.
Candle and Magnify, when together in combat, were unstoppable. Once, during a Danger Room simulation, they combined their powers together (Candle could create and control fire, and magnify could amplify any form of mutant power), and they had destroyed all the enemy robots before two minutes were even up. Out of combat, they were also just as compatible. They were also a couple, and they did almost everything together; they even shared the same timetable.
Shadowcat, under Professor X's tutelage, has mastered walking on air; Betsy Braddock, also known as Psylocke, a fifteen-year-old Chinese teenage girl with purple streaks through her otherwise black hair, has recently learnt how to launch telepathic attacks on the mind. This was a commendable achievement for a fifteen year old telepath who discovered her gift only two years ago; too bad it does not work in the Danger Room. Everything other than the walls of the Danger Room is a hologram surrounded by a force field, and seeing as force fields do not have minds, Betsy can only rely on her fighting skills in the Danger Room.
For the past two weeks, at four in the afternoon, Professor X would be by Dylan's side in the sick bay, probing his mind, trying to rouse him from his sleep. Today, it was no different.
Dylan! Professor X's voice echoed in Dylan's mind. Dylan walked out of the white mist that was abundant in the world that was his mind. Focus on waking up, Dylan. Focus on your friends. Your family. They want to see you. "I can't," Dylan whispered as he folded his hands across his chest; it was very cold in his mind. "I've tried before, Professor. Every time, whenever I try, he will bring me down again." No! Professor X replied. This is your body. You can take control of it. Don't you want to come out and see the world again? "Well," Dylan paused for a while before deciding that he wanted to try to escape the cold, cold subconscious mind that he was trapped in, together with the Shadow King, who keeped trying to kill him so that he could fully take over his body,and go back into the real world. "I'll try." Good, Professor X said, Now, concentrate on opening your eyes and waking up. Transcend beyond your coma and see yourself awakening again. Concentrate..., and Dylan did.
Dylan felt as if he was flying; he was filled with a floating sensation and he suddenly took in a huge breath and his view turned to darkness. Slowly, he tried to open his eyes, for his eyelids seemed so heavy. And when he succeeded, what he saw shocked him, for he saw Professor X looking at him concernedly, a tacky yellow blanket and blue-green hospital clothes. Professor X's face suddenly changed expression, from concern to happiness.
"Dylan!" Professor X said with a broad grin on his face, "you've made it!" "Yes, Professor, I have..." Dylan said with joy in his voice, until his voice trailed off into nothingness, and suddenly grabbed at his head. "Dylan? Dylan, are you all right?" Professor X said and made as if to go closer to Dylan. Dylan shivered as the harsh winter coldness inside his inner mind went forth and invaded his body, and as the image of the Shadow King, a cloaked Egyptian man who seemed to be surrounded by perpetual darkness, flashed in his mind.
"Get out," Dylan screamed inside his mind. "Get out of me!" The Shadow King merely laughed, saying, "Now, now, Dylan, what makes you think I'll do that?" Upon finishing his sentence, he disappeared, and Dylan's tense body relaxed, only to tense up again as Professor X said, "Dylan, are you all right?", only to see in shock as Dylan's skin darkened to the point of looking as if his skin were black, and then turn back to normal, as all the darkness went to his eyes. He looked at Professor X with a psychotic look on his face, and it did not take a genius like Professor X to know what had happened; the Shadow King had once again taken over Dylan's body.
The expression on Professor X's face turned from concern to shock, and, underlying the first layer of shock, was fear. Dylan, now under the Shadow King's control, jumped out of the bed and ran out of the room, knocking into Jean and Scott, who were walking outside the room.
Jean, Scott and Dylan all laid sprawled on the corridor floor, until Jean decided to sit up and see who the mysterious assailant who had crashed into them was.
"Dylan?" Jean said in surprise as she stared at Dylan, his wild, crazed eyes giving him the look of a deranged madman who was on the loose. By this time, Scott had sat up as well, and was equally surprised when he caught sight of the fellow X-Man who had been comatose for the previous two weeks. "Dylan!" Scott said in equal surprise as Jean had when she first looked at Dylan, who was now staring murderously at the couple. "Dylan?" Scott said, beginning to feel wary of Dylan, "are you alright?"
Dylan stared right into Scott's and Jean's eyes, and both of them knew something was wrong. One, Dylan was staring right at them with a psychotic look on his face, and Professor X had came out of the room from which Dylan had ran out, alarm written all over his face in bold.
Dylan's gaze moved from Scott and Jean to Professor X, and his eyes ominously turned black as the psychotic expression on his face turned to hatred, as the Shadow King launched a telepathic shockwave at Professor X, who had not blocked his mind in time, and moaned as the wave of psychic energy shocked his mind and he flinched for a moment before going into a headache, experiencing major discomfort as his head crackled with what seemed like electricity with a black tint.
"Dylan!" Jean screamed, not knowing what was going on. Professor X had never told anybody that the Shadow King was still trapped inside Dylan's mind. Turning around, not giving Jean a chance to finish her sentence, Dylan said in a voice that showed that the person talking was not him; the gay friendliness that trademarked Dylan's personality was not in the harsh tone of voice that was in the voice, full of anger and hate and unfeeling cold, that spoke.
"I'm not Dylan!" The voice screamed through Dylan's mouth. "Dylan is gone! Dead! I am the Shadow King!"
Downstairs, in the kitchen, Betsy and Bobby were eating chocolate chip ice cream out of baby blue vanilla bowls when they heard the commotion from upstairs.
"Let's go see what happened," Bobby said to Betsy, and as he was halfway out of the kitchen, Betsy said, "Let's not waste time, Bobby," and held on to Bobby's hand as she crawled into the shadow of the refridgerator and disappeared along with Bobby.
Upstairs, from beneath the bed where Dylan slept for a fortnight, sprang two shadows which formed into Betsy and Bobby, holding hands. Letting go of each other's hands and looking out of the room, Bobby and Betsy saw Scott and Jean standing away from Dylan, the former pair surrounded by a bubble of telekinetic energy, as Jean's face showed utmost concentration.
"What's going on?" Bobby asked Jean, who was not in the mood for replying as she had to keep the bubble up. When Bobby turned to look at Betsy, he saw that her face seemed to show some strain as well. "Jean and Dylan are fighting," Betsy said to Bobby. Being a telepath as well, she could sense that Dylan and Jean were engaging in psychic combat now.
Back in the corridor, Professor X had put himself back together. Sensing Bobby and Betsy in the vicinity, he sent a message to them. Bobby, Betsy, get out of here! Bobby looked around, looking for Professor X, but Betsy, knowing better, replied, No, Professor, we want to help, and she ran out of the room into the corridor where Bobby was. Deciding to attack Dylan, a blade that seemed to be made of shadows formed around Betsy's right fist, and she ran towards Dylan, intending to short-circuit his system like she did the last time.
As Betsy ran towards Dylan, the Shadow King decided to attack her before she attacked him, and he raised his left hand at Betsy, and black telepathic energy glowed from his hand. Everyone thought that he was going to form a blade just like Betsy's, but instead, the energy formed a curved handle that extended sideways till it took the form of a crossbow. A black bolt appeared in Dylan's right hand, and he fired the bolt at Betsy, who, a couple of seconds prior to Dylan's firing of the crossbow, decided to run, and she disappeared into the shadow of a potted plant a split second before the bolt came into contact with the plant, which exploded in a blast of crackling black energy.
Looking back at Dylan in astonishment, Jean set up the telekinetic shield again, just as Dylan had prepared another bolt. However, instead of firing the bolt at those enclosed in the shield, Dylan did the unexpected and turned to face Professor X, and let go of the bolt, sending it flying towards the Professor's head. The Professor, staring in utmost concentration at the black bolt, raised a hand at it, causing the bolt to harmlessly disappear.
Dylan's face contorted in rage as the veins in his arms and face turned dangerously black, and seemed as if he was going to scream, but it seemed as if he decided not to do that as he ran back into the sick bay. Jean followed Dylan, and as he was halfway through the room, she gestured as if she intended him to move as if he were a puppet attached to strings from her fingertips, and Dylan was lifted off the floor and slammed onto a bed. Looking as if he would kill, Dylan reached out a hand at Jean, and a few black darts shot from his hand at her, and they absorbed themselves into her body and she was thrown backwards as the migraine kicked in. Getting off the bed, Dylan ran towards the window and opened it, and when he looked out, the Shadow King realised that attempting to jump off was tantamount to suicide, and he turned around, only to face Professor X, Scott and Bobby.
Get out of Dylan, Professor X demanded. Dylan's face contorted in anger as his eyes glowed black, and all the darkness that had invaded his body went away as he collapsed onto the floor.
At the very same time, downstairs, in the entrance hall, a black humanoid shape sprang from the floor and took the shape of an Egyptian man with a beard and a brown cloak that covered his body, who promptly ran out of the mansion and into the city of Bayville, Massachusetts.
