Disclaimer: All right, thanx to the numerous bite marks I have on my body I know I'm not Wolfsbane… so how about Tabitha? Yeah, I love to play pranks like her!

"…"- conversation

'…'- thoughts

(…)- extra facts/actions (some)

((…))- author's/my own thoughts

'blah…' -telepathy/what people say mentally

Chapter 20: The Danger Room Siege: Part 4: X-Factor Men vs. St. John

Western Portion of the Danger Room, Xavier Institute, Bayville, NY- May 15, 12:21 AM

While the women of X-Factor and Roberto had been battling against Wanda, the remainder of X-Factor, led by Bobby, had run after St. John and cornered him in the western part of the Danger Room. John had his goggles down over his eyes so X-Factor was unable to read his moves, which would normally be shown in his eyes.

The men, without Bobby's consent, had decided to throw Bobby's plan of surrounding John and strategically attacking him at intervals and in waves to hell and just concentrate on surrounding and taking John down without much strategy for attacking in mind. To be honest, none of the men had a real strategy; actually, no strategy at all, and Bobby weakly conceded that his plan was a bad one, after receiving glares from some of his teammates.

As they surrounded John, much in the same way their teammates had done with Wanda, John was smiling, knowing he was about to have some fun. However, he decided to let them make the first move; and make the first move they did.

Bobby nodded, and the others took this as the signal to attack. Bobby once more shifted into his ice form, his eyes turning from their normally soft brown to lime green and shot beams of ice out of both his hands, aiming them at John's jetpack in hopes to freeze it so John would be unable to activate it. Sam took to the air, and using the kinetic energy around him coming from all of the battles taking place began to prepare to cannonball himself at John, who was still standing in his original position. Jamie clapped his hands and about 10 clones appeared in an instant.

John just grinned at this stupidly, lulling Jamie into thinking that he couldn't find the real Multiple, but John knew exactly where the real one was. He would just wait. Ray clenched his hands into fists and electrical energy began to snap and crackle around them and Alex's hands began to glow a bright orange, signaling that he was about to unleash a one of his lower levels of attack.

Alex smirked as he powered up, and thought, 'Man, this guy is goin' to be in a world of pain when I'm done with him.'

John, on seeing Alex's smirk, knew that he was too overconfident in his own abilities and thought John was too stupid to really think of a strategy and form a real plan of attack; that John was a weak opponent. The men began to advance on John, who was still smiling, waiting for the perfect moment.

"Now!" yelled Bobby as he intensified the ice beams he'd been firing at John's jetpack and began to lower the temperature around John, hoping to slow down the fire-controlling mutant enough to take him out quickly and go help the women with the Scarlet Witch. At the same time Jamie, not to mention all of his clones, got the same identical smirk on their faces and ran towards John and began hitting him on the legs, hands, arms, face, and anywhere else, even aiming for below the belt.

However, John stopped those punches with his own arms, but let the other punches land where they would. Ray shot streaks of electricity at John's flame-throwers, hoping to short-circuit them and render them useless, and Sam fired himself for John's stomach, which Jamie and his clones had conveniently left uncovered for him. Alex shot bolt after bolt of orange energy out of his hands, and when he found that his beams were having no effect switched to his dark green ones. Alex made sure to aim for John's face and legs, hoping to make him collapse and thereby make him easier to capture.

The attacks combined, along with Sam's volley made John stumble back, but still his smile remained; he took the hits like he didn't care about the pain the men were causing him.

After a few moments, with all of the men increasing the intensity of their attacks, including Sam flying into him time and time again, John thought, 'Okay, Oy think now is when Oy get to have some fun!'

John then mentally activated his flame-throwers, thawing the ice that had been on them and fixing the circuitry that had been a bit damaged from Ray's attacks, not to mention heating up the temperature around the six men to a level that he knew Bobby would have trouble focusing in. Then, concentrating, he threw up an enormous firewall around himself, thereby finishing melting the ice that Bobby had put on his jetpack, and preventing the men of X-Factor from launching their attacks at him.

The men then fell back, and huddled together to think of what to do next, not noticing that the firewall had started to slowly dissipate and John was slowly advancing, flame-throwers raised in attack position. They then broke out of their huddle and were shocked to be staring into the flame-lit eyes of one of John's favorite fire creations: a fire horseman with a giant spear and sword pointed at them.

Jamie backed up slowly, clapping his hands once more and created about 20 more clones, bringing the clone count to 30. Alex's hands began to glow a dangerous dark green, signaling that he was about to unleash the utmost strength his powers allowed. Bobby began to panic and fired off ice beam after ice beam. Ray's hands crackled more and more, clearly showing his anger with John and his intention to defeat him, and the metal surrounding them began to crackle and hum, signaling that Ray was trying to conduct his electrical powers through the metal and electrocute John. Sam was still floating in the air, waiting for an opportunity to launch one of his stronger attacks at him.

After a few minutes with no attack getting past John's horseman, the men once more huddled together, with John chuckling at how easy it was to beat them.

"Now what do we do?" asked Ray in disgust as he looked at Bobby, the other men following suit.

"Um…" replied Bobby while he frantically searched his mind, hoping to find some kind of plan in a drawer marked "Plan for Emergency Situation against Pyro."

After a few minutes, with the only sound in the corner coming from a still chuckling John, and with Bobby not coming up with anything, Ray snapped.

"All right, since our leader has no plan, I vote to follow my plan, which is to keep attacking, and use every bit of strength you can!" yelled Ray as he shot a disgusted look at Bobby, clearing showing how much he hated to have Bobby in power. Ray figured that all that was really needed was a head-on attack, and was thinking that his plan would work because the five men would all just charge at John and take him down quickly with the most strength they could muster.

"Who's with me?" asked Ray as he clenched his hands into fists and electricity crackled around them, and the metal floor underneath them began to hum once more as electricity ran from Ray's body through his feet and into the ground below him.

After a few minutes of silence, the four men on the ground were surprised to hear Sam say from above them "Ah'm in Ray. Tell meh what to do."

Ray looked at Sam in surprise, not really expecting the usual easy-going and pacifist Southern to agree to go into battle, but then Ray thought of why and felt a flash of jealously surge through him. He knew that he and Tabitha had broken up only two months ago, but he still had feelings for her, and hated how Sam had started to take an interest in her and how Tabitha had responded.

Ray pushed aside his jealously for the moment and shot a small smile of thanks at Sam, who slowly nodded in recognition, and then Ray turned to the remaining men and asked them, "All right, anyone else in?"

"I'm in," replied Jamie, and one by one all thirty of the clones in the vicinity said they were in. Ray then turned to Alex, who thought for a moment, and then nodded and said, "I'm in dude. Let's roll."

Ray turned once more to his leader and asked, "Well, Iceman, you in?" Bobby thought for a moment, irritating Ray even more, and finally smiled and said, "Yeah, I'm in."

Ray breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Right. All right, attack now!" When Ray and the rest of X-Factor turned to attack John they were shocked to find themselves surrounded in a fire cage, complete with a roof so Sam wouldn't be able to fly the men out or go for help.

"Damn, now what?" asked Alex angrily as he shot dark green beams at the cage, hoping to create an exit for him and his teammates, but the beams were absorbed by the fire. John's laugh became a bit more maniacal and louder, and the men of X-Factor looked at each other and knew they had lost.

The men kept trying to get out, and as John controlled the flames, he got an idea, and an evil grin appeared on his face. He suddenly cut the amount of flames and let a hole form in the cage, but still kept his goofy grin on, lulling his opponents into thinking he hadn't noticed the flaw in his cage, but John was simply waiting to launch a trap.

"Now!" screamed Ray as he ran towards John, discharging the biggest amount of electricity that he was able to, shooting it out of his hands as quickly as he could summon it. Bobby and Alex followed, shooting ice and energy beams, respectively, at John, who just stood there and grinned foolishly. Jamie and his clones ran to John and began to hit him once more, and Sam prepared to launch an aerial attack at John.

'Come on, mates, jus' a little closer…' though John as he watched the advancing men, taking especial notice of Sam, who had gathered up almost enough strength to launch himself at John at full strength.

'Now,' thought John as the five men, with the exception of Jamie, who with his clones was still pounding him, were within mere feet of him. John's laugh rose in volume and pitch, causing the men to look at him with expressions that went from determination to confusion and then to realization of the trap they'd walked into in a matter of moments.

"Shit," muttered Ray as he began to back up as quickly as he could, while still firing at John, but knew his plan had failed and it was too late. John suddenly encased himself in fire for a brief moment, causing Jamie to have to retreat and all thirty of his clones to disappear. Jamie then fell to his knees, overwhelmed with the feeling of all of his clones returning to him at once. Sam flew down and picked him up and while Jamie recovered Sam landed on the ground next to Alex and Bobby, placing Jamie on his feet, and watched as Alex and Bobby tried to cover their retreat by still attacking John with everything they had left.

Just when they had almost gotten away John increased the flames' intensities once more and encased them in a box of fire from which there was no escape, and made it almost impossible to breathe inside.

John began to laugh more, but then thought he felt Wanda in pain and quickly looked around for her and found her carrying the females of X-Factor and Roberto to a cage, which he assumed she had fashioned. Breathing a small sigh of relief he turned his attention back to the fight at hand and made sure to stop laughing so he could keep his guard up.

Inside of the cage, Bobby was having trouble keeping his ice form, and a few minutes after the cage had enclosed the men, Bobby was unable to hold his form anymore and collapsed to the ground in pain, clutching his throat as he started to choke from lack of oxygen.

All of the X-Factor men began to choke from lack of oxygen along with the addition of their powers starting to fail them from the intensity of the heat. Ray's electrical powers began to sizzle and spark; causing him pain as the electricity kept coming out of his hands at random intervals and burning his skin. Jamie tried time and again to create clones to try and somehow form a human ladder through the fire and out but no clone would appear, and after a few moments, both Jamie and Bobby collapsed. Ray soon followed. Alex's hands were shooting out random beams of energy and burning any part of him they touched.

Finally, Alex, although used to heat from having lived in Hawaii for most of his life, gave in to it and fell to the ground unconscious. Sam was struggling to open a hole in the ceiling of the fire, but was failing, as with each passing moment the kinetic energy available to him was lessening, until finally Sam fell to the floor and went unconscious, thinking before he went, 'Tabby.'