Nightcrawler was not having much fun. Teleporting around a forest was not his idea of a good time, even if it was for a good cause. Besides, it was a little offending when animals ran away from him out of pure fright. What, hadn't they ever seen a blue fuzzy mutant with a devil's tail before?
He kept hoping to hear on the com link that Storm or Angel or Cyclops had found Wolverine, but no such messages were given. How far away could Logan be, anyway? He'd jumped out of the Blackbird and been carried south, but how far south? He slapped his hand to his head. He was heading south! If anyone was likely to find their lost member, it was him. Wonderful. That just meant that Cyclops would be talking frequently on the com link. Kurt was tempted to turn his off.
He teleported to a nearby tree and rested there for a moment. Teleporting consistently was hard on the body, as he had quickly found out. What he wouldn't give for the tree he sat in to be an apple tree! He was dying of hunger, it seemed like. When was lunch? He unwisely decided to ask Scott. "Fearless leader, vhen is lunch time? I am growing hungrier each minute we continue our search."
The harsh reply was, "The minute you find Logan, we can pig out on our way to rescue Silverback. Till then, Kurt, live with it. Over and out."
Nightcrawler muttered a few uncomplimentary words under his breath and resumed searching. Leaping from branch to branch, he stopped suddenly. Footprints! Bless the Lord! A trail of footprints right in front of his face! Thank the Lord for soft mud!
"Cyclops, this is Nightcrawler! I've found some footprints, and I'm a monkey if they're not Logan's!"
"Yes! Give me your coordinates and we'll all be right over, Kurt. Good job!"
Pulling out his techno-map that all the X-Men were equipped with, he began to read them off. "I'm at __ and… aaah!!!"
His tecno-map suddenly melted into slag. The blue mutant dropped the device and whirled around in terror. He saw notrhing. "Vhat happened?" he asked out loud. Suddenly, he felt a burst of flame singe his clothes. He dodged in time for it not to do any serious damage, but he could see the whirling column of flame hit the tree two inches away from him.
"Who are you? Vhat do you vant?" he asked to his attacker. "The names Pyro, freak! I think you remember me!" shouted the evil mutant as he leapt out of the bushes. The two circled around each other, waiting to see who would make the next move.
As they circled, Pyro radioed in on his com link. "Magneto, I've found blue boy, but if it's okay with you, I'm not going to kill him. He knows where Wolverine is"
The answer came back instantly. "Of course. Subdue and capture him, but try not to do too much harm.
Nightcrawler radioed in his leader as well. "Scott, I've caught up with Pyro, so bringing in ze cavalry vould be a very good idea right about now!"
"We're comin' Kurt!"
Once both were done communicating with their leaders, Pyro made the first move. A giant dragon of flame dove down at Nightcrawler at break-neck speed. The demonic mutant teleported speedily away from its doom and watched as the dragon engulfed the tree he had been standing next to. Shuddering at what might have been his fate, he teleported to a nearby tree. Pyro caught a glimpse of him and his hands shot the flames right at the German mutant. There was no dodging this time for Nightcrawler. He felt the intense pain sear through him and fell to the ground in pain. Screaming over and over again, he watched as Pyro walked slightly away from his prey and radioed in again. "Magneto? This is Pyro again. Everything's going according to plan. Yes, I whipped him in a matter of seconds. Yes, I'll try to follow Logan's trail. Yeah. See you later."
Nightcrawler had lost.