Chapter 8 Collage

Disclaimer: It all belongs to Marvel, except Krull, which belongs to Columbia-Tristar

A half-man, half-pterodactyl creature flew into the small passageway that had opened up upon his arrival. He would activate the vessel contained in the pyramid, and when Apocalypse awoke, he would transport it to him. After Apocalypse had turned it on, Sinister would take it from him and begin to make the proper modifications.

"And I, Sauron, will rule beside him!"

At sunrise back at the Institute, Magneto and Charles had formulated their plan. Wanda and Beast would stay back at the mansion, making certain that little Talia was cared for and using the Danger Room to defend her if the Nasty Boys came calling. Mystique would also be there, in the infirmary. Of the rest, Kitty, Kurt, Jean, Cain, and Magneto would check up on the pyramid in ancient Egypt. The rest would go to the Himalayas to stop Apocalypse from being released. Charles figured that a skeleton crew was enough to explore the pyramid, but that both teams ought to have a telepath to insure that there was a defense in case there were telepaths working for Sinister at either site. As Jean was weaker than the Professor, Cain went with her, as he now had his helmet back (Magneto had brought it from the wreckage of the previous base) and so he could clobber any telepath attacking them.

Mystique had been put up in the infirmary. Her wound was serious - a punctured lung -but not likely to be fatal. Apparently her metamorphic abilities served as a somewhat temporary healing factor, enabling her to shape-shift her lung into a healed one for long enough so that she could be given the proper treatment.

Sabertooth was going to go out looking for Graydon, but Charles insisted that he stay here, as he was going to be needed. They all were.

Kurt, Kitty, Jean, Cain, and Magneto were sent off, when suddenly the master computer system received a message.

Professor X's special pager was buzzing like mad, and so he went over to the nearest terminal and checked his email. It gave him a website to go to in order to get a real-time audio-visual two-way communications feed. He checked it, and a face that he immediately recognized from the team's description as Slayer Summers appeared on the screen.

"Help me," she pleaded. "I have decided that I cannot stay with Sinister any longer! I want to join you, and I have a secret to tell you... I can help you to defeat him for good!"

Professor Xavier could not, unfortunately, read her mind at this distance or through a computer screen. This could be a trap, or it could be real. But did he have time if he were going to try to defeat Apocalypse? On the other hand, if he could defeat Sinister, then Apocalypse might never escape and so he would kill two birds with one stone. He still had a few days with which to rescue Slayer before Sinister would reach the tomb. But he needed a few days to catch up to him, as Sinister had a good head start.

For their part, if Ms. Dexter, Ms. Summers, and Ruckus known that the teams were mostly going top be away from the mansion anyway, they would have forgone their massive distractions and just waited to go after little Talia when everyone was away. But then again, these distractions might give Sinister more of a head start than he had had, wouldn't they?

Charles sighed. He decided to send Gambit in to check out the situation. He would be the single team member of the X-Men/Brotherhood/Acolyte union who would have the best chance of sneaking in, and Xavier felt that he could spare no more than one man.

The Professor gathered most of the members of the teams who were still present together and explained the situation. After Gambit was sent on his way, suddenly Tabitha, who had been absent, came running in, breathless. "Professor, Professor! Come quick. Look at the news!"

They ran into the TV room, and what they saw frightened all of them. It was Ruckus, in the middle of Bayville, screaming so loud that he was shattering windows and causing cars to run off the road.

"We gotta stop him!" whispered Tabitha.

"No," said Pietro, who felt it his place to voice what his father would say if he were there. "It is not our concern. If he is going to destroy Bayville, that is the wild-type's problem. We must stop Sinister from releasing Apocalypse or it will become the problem of mutants and wild-types alike."

Before anyone could comment on that, Wanda walked into the room, with Beast behind her cradling Talia. Wanda was rather out of it, as she had been drugged heavily so that she wouldn't go off the handle like she had earlier. Talia was mostly on solid food now, and even before that her appetite had outpaced Wanda's production capabilities, forcing her to use formula and so Wanda didn't need to worry about the drugs getting to her through breast-feeding.

"What is going on? Who's on the TV?"

"Ruckus."

"Isn't that one of Sinister's men? Oh, I hate him..." she collapsed into a nearby empty chair.

Suddenly a bright laser-like light appeared on the TV screen. Someone had shot Ruckus! He fell over for a second, but before he could get up, three burly guys had grabbed him. He screamed, but one of the men was behind him and did not take the full force of the bellow. He snapped something on Ruckus's neck, and the mutant started for a second. Ruckus turned around and screamed at the third man, but when he screamed, it was a normal scream. Nothing special. He was knocked out with one punch.

Suddenly a reporter was on the scene, and she asked the man who he was.

"Why, I'm Darren Redman [A/N: original character]. I'm with the Friends of Humanity. We plan to protect humans from the mutant menace."

"Wild types," growled Beast, who hated people using unscientific terminology. "Protect wild types from the mutant menace."

Logan chose to ignore the fact that Beast had corrected the grammar on what was essentially a bigoted statement, much as he had sometimes corrected misspelled racial or other epithets written as graffiti on walls. It's not that he was insensitive, to insults it was just that he couldn't bear sloppiness, and he was a little too compulsive about correcting mistakes and forgetting about everything else.

"Why do you consider mutants a menace?"

"Because they have too much power. I mean, regular humans only have the power others give 'em, right? I mean, Hitler only gained power 'cause people were willing to follow him. If he were deserted by his followers, he'd be nothing! But mutants, one mutant who is powerful enough could take down an army! A mutant could become a dictator with only a few followers! We gotta stop them before they conquer us!

The man paused for dramatic effect. "And you know what? They ain't natural! I have heard rumors that they are the product of alien experimentation. Some other race from the stars wants to use them against the earth to conquer it. That's why we need to stop them."

In New York, J. Jonah Jameson watched this with interest. And with anger. Real, terrific, bursting-veins-on-the-forehead sort of anger. "Stop them? Stop THEM? Why you little! Dirty vigilantes! I'll show them! I'm going to find out who they really are, their real agenda, and expose them to the world." He turned around to see a young free-lance photographer watching the TV over his shoulder. "Parker! Can you believe the bigotry there? The morons think they're protecting us! Why don't they join the FBI or CIA then, and take a stab at protecting us from mutants that the government thinks are dangerous? No, the imbeciles think that all mutants are the problem, and that they can solve everything by killing them all! It's like the people who say that inner-city crime justifies racism!"

"I thought you didn't like superbeings," said Parker.

"I don't like vigilantes. Trust me, Parker, there are mutants who I think should be brought to justice. I don't trust these X-Men I've heard about at all. Not after that incident with the robot or the strange occurrences in London. But the thing at the dam was - government okayed somehow, so maybe they work for the government. They don't seem to be looking for trouble, like that web-slinger, so I'm suspending judgment for now. But if they get out of line," Jameson spread out his left hand and hit it with the back of his right, "wham! Justice just like everyone else."

"But you don't dislike mutants, per se?"

"What have I been saying, Parker?" foamed Jameson. "I didn't endorse civil rights in this newspaper and fight like hell for it just to turn away when a new oppressed group shows up! Hell, I have mutants working for me! Maybe you're a mutant, that's how you can get those photos no one else can. But you know what? I don't give a flying fig as long as you're law-abiding and don't take the law into your own hands! Wanna be a hero? Investigate and bring out the truth to the people. I helped to eradicate several crime-rings in this city, and I did it the old-fashioned way! Reported on it like Thomas Nast!"

"Wasn't he a cartoonist?"

"You know history and you know what I mean!"

Parker thought to himself. "You know," he said to himself "that's not such a bad idea!"

Meanwhile a young man was watching the scene with interest as it unfolded before him.

The Friends of Humanity. That was what he needed. To get even with the mutants once and for all. To show them who the freaks really were.

Graydon felt a slight twinge of guilt as he thought these things, remembering how nice his half-brother had tried to be. But no matter. He still needed to be shown his place. They all did. And how fortuitous that he had wandered right into downtown Bayville in time to watch it happen, in broad daylight.

Ms. Dexter was upset at the turn of events. Now she had to arrange a jailbreak and the X-Men would not be otherwise occupied if she were to invade the Mansion. She would have to put her energy instead into trying to capture or kill any X-Men who went into the base to rescue Lyssa.

Later, around noon in Bayville, but nearing sunset in Egypt, Sauron heard a sensor go off. He stared at the view-screen in front of him and saw one of Magneto's personal flyers, one for long journeys where a metal ball would not do, coming toward the pyramid. He activated the automated defenses that were in the nearby Sphinx, and set to wait. After the jet was shot down, he would drain them one by one.

An inhuman laugh escaped the pterodactyl-man's beak.