Chapter 10 The Himalayas and Egypt
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The rest of the crew (minus Mystique, Beast, and Wanda) were heading off in various jets and other flying devices to the Himalayas. The plan was to find Sinister's Essex-flyer and to land right next to it, on the assumption that it was the landing spot nearest the tomb of Apocalypse. Presumably if there were a nearer landing spot, Sinister would have landed there, so trying to head him off at the pass would not be a workable idea.
According to calculations that Magneto had given Xavier, Sinister would reach the tomb of Apocalypse in another eighty hours. So a team consisting of Sabertooth, Wolverine, St. John, Piotr, Scott, Rogue, Ororo, and Amara set out. Following in reserve, about a mile behind them, were Freddy, Warren, Todd, Bobby, Sam, Ray, Tabitha, and Evan. Xavier, Jamie, and Roberto would stay behind in the X-Jet. Pietro would zip on up ahead to see if he could locate Sinister. Lance was staying behind as a doomsday weapon. He would track the movements of the rest, and if called upon, he would take a personal flyer as close as he possibly could to Apocalypse's tomb, crash-land and then use his powers to bring the snow down on it. He probably would have to land two or three miles below the tomb, closer than he was now but also in a place far less suited to making the trek to the tomb (or they would have landed there in the first place) but that would be close enough to bring the mountain down.
For three days, very little happened. Pietro kept reporting on Sinister's location, and they kept getting closer. Then, as they got to the last few miles of the trek, Pietro stopped coming back. They tried to go faster now, even as they reached the exhaustion point.
Now, back in time a few days and in Egypt:
Kitty, Eric, Cain, Jean, and Kurt looked in disbelief at the charred remains of Magneto's utterly destroyed personal flyer. If not for Kurt's teleportation, they would all be dead now, well except for Cain, of course. Lasers had sprung up around the Sphinx, firing on the flyer and causing it to explode. Now on the ground Magneto reached out magnetically and managed to turn off all of the defensive lasers that had sprung up in the Sphinx. All except for the ones in its eyes. Cain solved that problem by running up to the Sphinx and then climbing up its face to knock out both of its eyes. Now the Sphinx's face was even more damaged than it had been already, but the way in looked to be safe, if it could be found.
It took only a few seconds for Magneto to detect the secret entrance and to open it. Everyone went in, Cain first. Things went fine for the first few minutes, until a trapdoor opened and swallowed up Juggernaut. Then a huge pterodactyl swept down from an opening in the ceiling and grabbed Magneto.
"Look into my eyes," it cackled.
"Sauron! Nooo...."
Jean tried to telepathically stop the beast, but something in its brain protected it from telepathic attacks. She then tried telekinesis. She managed to push Sauron back, and Kurt teleported right onto his back. A series of bamfs drained Nightcrawler of energy, but weakened Sauron to the point of absolute exhaustion, as he slumped into unconsciousness. They quickly tied him up, and gagged and blindfolded him. Magneto appeared to be okay, so they left him for the time being.
Jean tried to lift Cain out of the pit telekinetically, but was shocked to discover that she could not sense anything inside the pit, let alone move it.
"Cain? Cain?" she hollered. No answer.
"Quick! Try to go on! Magneto said the device Apocalypse plans to use is this way!" As they ran in that direction, they were confronted by animated statues of Egyptian gods.
"This is, so like the Sentinel!" screamed Kitty.
"Retreat!" hollered Jean, and they ran back in the direction whence they had come. Picking up Eric, Kurt teleported them outside. In the nighttime, they would be safe from the desert heat, but they had no supplies, as they had been destroyed with the flyer.
Kurt teleported back in to check on Sauron. He decided to teleport the creature back with them. It appeared that Magneto had known the creature's name. So when Magneto woke, Kurt would have to ask who he was. But when he got back, Sauron was not only awake, but free. Kurt teleported outside as fast as he could.
For his part, Sauron decided not to go outside to confront them. He was unused to being defeated so easily, and decided to concentrate on internal defense of the underground complex. There was absolutely no sense in risking his life when he could achieve the same results by just making certain that the internal defenses would not permit them to come in until it was too late.
Juggernaut, for his part, wandered alone in a pitch-black dungeon. Upon discovering a wall, he tried to barge through it. Eventually, he discovered a spot where the wall gave way to a tunnel. The tunnel appeared to have a little light, so he followed it to see if he could find a way out.
A little more than three days later, Magneto had fully recovered, and the mutants were recovering in a nearby town. Cain was still gone, but together they would get inside the facility and stop Sauron from activating whatever device it was that Apocalypse needed.
This time, it was quite easy. Magneto managed to magnetically shield them from detection by the statues, which were apparently robots of some sort, and they got all the way to the inner room where the device was.
"So, you've found the Eye. Impressive," said Sauron, who was sitting on it. But I am afraid that in this room, it gives me the ability to nullify your powers. At least, energy powers like magnetism, phasing, teleporting, or telekinesis or telepathy. Or," he smiled - "sticking to walls. But you are still agile, Kurt. But I can break you of that!" He lunged at Kurt, and quickly drained him of power further, putting him to sleep. In short order, all four mutants were put to sleep. Now Sauron would finish them off.
Back at the Himalayas, Sinister and the two Rogues had just reached the entrance when the first team of the X-Men/Acolyte/Brotherhood alliance caught up to them.
"Hold it there, Bub!" hollered Wolverine. Sinister turned around. Ruby quartz covered every inch of him except his face, which suddenly gained covering when he pressed a button on one hand. He had an unconscious Pietro in his arms. "So, you are the ones he told me were coming. Well, told isn't the right word, I suppose. When you read someone's mind, you are - taking the information. But the point is, I am ready for you!"
The two Rogues scowled at the team. Sinister would have had them split into an army, but that would destabilize their powers, which he needed if his plan was going to work. Suddenly, the Rogues fired off a series of energy charges at the first team. Fire, optic blasts, lightning, charged snowballs a la Gambit.
But from the X-Jet, Charles used a mini-Cerebro unit to mentally get in touch with the two Rogues. He couldn't read their minds beyond surface emotions, or in any way get through to reason with them, but he could blast their minds so that they couldn't use their powers. The two Rogues began to clutch their heads and scream.
Sinister recognized what was happening and called off their attack. "Go! He said. You know what to do! I'll take care of these pikers!"
Scott tried to attack Sinister, but his optic blasts were harmlessly diffused by the quartz armor. He was quickly knocked out. Sabertooth and Wolverine followed suit. With St. John amplifying her powers, Amara tried to burn Sinister and the two Rogues, but one of the Rogues used Wanda's powers to cause the maneuver to backfire. This led to Professor X knocking her out, but by this time Sinister had used his energy bolts to knock the fiery duo out cold. Ororo tried to use the wind to push Sinister to, and then off, a nearby cliff, but he managed to knock her out as well before he had moved ten feet.
The original Rogue quickly bared one of her hands and touched Scott's lip with it. Piotr, meanwhile, ran at Sinister in metal form, and managed to knock him to the ground. Piotr smashed his fists into Sinister, quickly destroying the quartz armor he had covered himself with. Finally, Sinister managed to pump enough energy into Piotr to knock him out as well. He regretted that he had no samples of Professor Xavier to use on his Rogue clones, as that might have made them immune to the Professor's power and therefore able to use their powers without opening themselves up to attack.
Then the original Rogue came into view. She opened her eyes and concentrated on firing as steady a beam as she could muster at Sinister's midsection, pushing him back into the mountainside, just to the right of the gate. Sinister responded with a tremendous energy blast that put Rogue down for the count. He looked at the green, gooey mess inside his chest, and shuddered. He then ran to Rogue 3, who had been knocked out by the Professor and woke her. "Go! Now! With your sister!" Rogue 3 ran to meet Rogue 2. Sinister used all of the mental powers he could summon to block Charles' use of the mini-Cerebro in this area. Rogue 3 turned herself into a snake using Mystique's powers and moved through a small hole in the last unopened gate. Once inside, she grabbed a pedestal and was turned to stone. The third gate began to open just as the second team got there. They stared in horror as the gate opened completely and as Rogue 2 walked calmly inside.
Now Rogue 2 was safe from mental attack. Inside Apocalypse's tomb, Charles could not get to them. Sinister took down his mental block.and began to deal with the mutants of the second team. It was harder than it looked, especially when Tabitha managed to shoot her "bombs" into the damaged area of his midsection. Once weakened by optic blasts, Sinister was much more vulnerable to other harm, and he began to back up.
Freddy was the first to go down, then Bobby, Ray, and Sam (who first managed to barrel right through Sinister). Then Warren and Todd were knocked out. Tabitha and Evan managed to dodge Sinister's blasts a while longer.
Then Tabby had an idea. She grabbed a hold of the unconscious Rogue and let herself drain into her. Rogue woke up with a start. Then she realized Tabitha's plan. She created an explosive charge and threw it right into Sinister. Only, it wasn't one of Tabby's. It was red like Scott's optic blasts. When it exploded, Sinister was nearly blown apart. Evan shot a bone through Sinister's chest, further weakening him.
Just then, Rogue 2 took off a glove and touched Apocalypse. Suddenly she began turning into everyone she had recently absorbed. Each time, she would split in two, with one of her turning into someone new and with the second one being bodily absorbed into Apocalypse. Finally she herself lost her form and was absorbed into him. Rogue and Evan gaped in astonishment, and Sinister took advantage of this to shoot them both. He was too weak to knock them unconscious, but he managed to knock them down hard enough so that they were too disoriented to attack him.
Sinister ran into the tomb, quickly ridding his body of the sludge and shifting his mass within his body to make himself appear whole again. He pressed a button on his belt. Apocalypse, who had begun to rise, groaned slightly.
Back in Egypt, Sauron was about to finish off the four mutants in the Eye Room when the floor underneath him gave way and he had to jump up and fly to avoid a nasty fall. With a tremendous jump, Juggernaut grabbed the creature's leg and dragged him into the basement.
"The Eye don't affect my powers!" he boasted. "I kept walking until I found a room directly under the Eye. I guess the sound-proofing only went as far as the pit I was in originally, cause I could hear you talking to yourself and figured the device we was lookin' for must be wherever you was. So ya call it the Eye?" Slowly Juggernaut began to crush the head of Sauron. "Well, I waited until I heard my friends come here to attack, figured we'd have a better chance together rather than alone against you, and so I'd attack when they got here. I didn't count on them being powerless."
"You were right to be wary of taking me on alone!" hissed Sauron. He pressed a button on his belt and a beam of light shot from the eye. Juggernaut's helmet flew off of his head and Sauron began to hypnotize him. Juggernaut slowly began to lose focus, but Sauron was also beginning to weaken in Juggernaut's grip. With all of the will he could muster, Juggernaut threw Sauron into a wall, breaking eye contact and thus breaking Sauron's telepathy. Sauron groaned in pain.
That would have been the end for Sauron, except that the Eye began to glow. Sauron was immediately revived by a beam shooting from the Eye. "Apocalypse is awake!" he chortled, as he rushed to the eye and opened it. He got inside, and then it closed again, and disappeared.