Ch. 16 – Adversaries
Slash and Shadowcat had been gone a week on their
honeymoon to Hawaii, paid for by Xavier. Slash had been assigned once on temporary active duty on the Hawaiian
Islands, so he took Shadowcat to all the places. They went to Diamond Head, they flew to Kilauea, but it wasn't
all fun and games. Slash also took her
to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial to show her the price of her "freedom" in
America. This was what Slash had been
fighting for all of his life. Now, he
was being persecuted for being "different."
They returned late one night to the Diamond Head Hotel,
they received a message from Xavier on the video message:
"Slash, Shadowcat, I trust your honeymoon has been an
enjoyable one. However, I have bad news
for you. It appears as if Sinister has
created a new mutant from the genes of the mutants he abducted. It appears as if the mutant, named Nucleus,
may be headed out to Hawaii. I'm
sending this as a warning to you, so he will not surprise you if he does show
up. You have one more week, so make the
most of them." Xavier nodded, and the
screen went black.
"Hmm." Said
Slash. "We may have trouble in
paradise." With those words, a
ferocious scream broke the window into a million pieces. "DOWN!" as Slash threw himself on top of his
wife. Slash looked up as a huge mutant
was hovering outside. "Who are you ya
piece of mutant trash?"
"There are some who call me…Nucleus. I have been engineered to kill you by a man
who hates you now…Sinister." Slash flew
up to challenge Nucleus.
"Come on punk, gimme your best shot." Suddenly, five Nucleus appeared and began to
pound the life out of Slash. Slash took
quite a few blows, and many of his ribs snapped. Slash managed, painfully, to duck out of the line of fire to
return to Shadowcat. He was grabbing
his ribs, and slowly stood up. "Let's
get back to the Mansion. I need some
medical treatment. AAOOWWW!" It hurt to breathe. Nucleus still floated outside, but flew away
to Sinister's new hideout. Shadowcat
strapped Slash into the small jet they took to get to Hawaii. They were back at the mansion in a matter of
hours.
While Slash got his broken ribs tended to by Beast, the
rest of the team interrogated Shadowcat as the strength of Nucleus.
"He was incredible. Slash did all he could to challenge him. Nucleus multiplied like Multiple Man, he flew and screamed like
Banshee, and he told me of incredible strength much like Strong Guy. I can only think Sinister took the genes of
our captured allies, and engineered a super mutant. What are Shaman's powers?" Xavier looked at his computer screen.
"He has mystic healing powers, very similar to
Wolverine's healing powers. It appears
as if Sinister has created a mutant to stop us. We will have to find a weakness…" Xavier's voice trailed off as
Beast entered…closely followed by Slash, gasping for air.
"I advised him that it would be unwise to leave the
infirmary so soon after receiving such blows, but he would not listen. I told him that I would not be held
responsible for any further injury." Slash waved him off.
"I want this bastard. I lost one wife to mutant haters. I'm not about to lose another wife to some obsessed mutant freak." He looked over at Shadowcat and smiled. She came over to him to try and persuade him
to return to the infirmary, but he refused. The team returned to the mission at hand: finding a weakness for this new creation. Suddenly, alarms went off.
"Intruder alert. Someone has appeared on the lawn…" Xavier punched up the screen. Slash's eyes grew wide. "Nucleus." The team ran out, and
Slash was headed out. Xavier stopped
him. "No Slash, you are to weak to take
him. I forbid you to go out." Slash was disgusted, but grabbed Shadowcat.
"Now…you go get him for me, but don't get yourself
hurt." She scurried outside to join the
team, and Slash headed off to his quarters.
Beast, Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Psylocke, Jean Grey,
Gambit, Rogue and Nighcrawler arrayed to fight Nucleus. Morph was unfortunately down with the flu,
so was unable to fight. Shadowcat
joined them outside, having been detained by her husband. They stood to fight Nucleus. Storm and Rogue took off to deliver an
aerial attack. Nucleus just screamed,
throwing them back. Only Gambit
catching Rogue and Nightcrawler catching Storm saved them from certain pain
from falling out of the sky.
"You alright chere?"
"Yeah…ah think so Remy. My head's spinnin. Go get him
for me sugah." Gambit carefully set her
down, and turned and charged a card meant for Nucleus.
"Alright
bub." SNIKT! "Nobody does that to my
friends, and gets away with that. AARGH!!" Wolverine, joined by Beast, rushed him. Suddenly, there were six Nucleus instead of one. Three each ganged up on Beast and
Wolverine. Wolverine managed to slash
and cause one to disappear. Beast was
not so fortunate. The remaining Nucleus
picked their victims, and tossed them across the lawn. Jean managed to "catch" them with her mind,
and safely set them on the ground. Cyclops began blasting them all. Suddenly, one of Cyke's optic blasts cut off Nucleus's left arm. Then, just as soon as it was cut off, the
bleeding was sealed, leaving only a stump instead of an arm. Nucleus turned and screamed so loud, he
knocked out everyone except Shadowcat, who was tending to Beast and Wolverine. She stood to face her attacker. She was about to jump through him and rattle
some of his inner organs when a familiar voice yelled above the din of the
battle.
"KATE! GET READY TO PHASE!" She immediately felt huge bullets fly
through her and into Nucleus. She
turned, and saw Slash up in the Rotunda on top of the house. He was brandishing his huge sniper rifle,
and plastering rounds into Nucleus. His
healing abilities were good, but not that good. Nucleus flew up.
"You
X-Men have defeated me for now. I will
come back, and destroy you for good." He took off. Slash was in hot pursuit. Shadowcat watched in horror as he flew off
after Nucleus, with Wolvestopper strapped to his back, fragementary grenades
around his waist, and his trusty MP-5 strapped to his shoulder. She had nary a second to cry out to him.
"I
love you!" He turned his head back to
her.
"I
love you too! Take care of them! I'll eliminate this menace!"
How bout that? Thanks to all you guys for your
reviews. It is for you (and the
restoration of my mental sanity) that I write these stories.