Chapter 11: Rescues

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

As Apocalypse awoke and rose, Sinister grinned at him.

"I had Rogue 2 infect you with a virus. If you disobey me, I will cause you to lose all of your powers. You thought yourself to be the master. Now I am the master. Call the Eye."

Apocalypse did as he was told. Suddenly a loud noise permeated the mountain.

"Avalanche!" whispered the original Rogue, who had regained her balance.

"Faster!" hissed Sinister at Apocalypse.

"It will come. Give it time!"

Suddenly the Eye appeared. This was apparently the device from Egypt that Magneto and the others had been sent to stop, Rogue guessed. Apocalypse clapped his hands and an energy wave traveled out from him, shattering the stone Rogue 3 into dust and knocking out the real Rogue and Evan. Apocalypse and Sinister levitated into the Eye and it disappeared as fast as it had come.

It was sheer luck that Bobby had just recovered from unconsciousness, and that a bank of snow had protected him from Apocalypse's energy wave. Seeing the snow and much of the mountain coming down upon them, he used his powers to create a canopy of ice, and then tried to mentally shout to the Professor to get Avalanche to stop.

Avalanche quickly got the message and didn't send any more shock waves through the ground. Fortunately enough, the mountain was not too badly damaged to stabilize again before it could fall over onto the mostly unconscious mutants, crushing the protective canopy.

The Professor managed to use the X-Jet to rescue the mutants fairly quickly, and no one being hurt in a life-threatening way, they all returned to the Institute.

Meanwhile, back in the Black Fortress Gambit awoke to find himself in an adamantium cage. This was one material (but not the only one) he couldn't charge, and he had been stripped naked, so he had no means of weaponizing anything to fire at anyone.

Slab came in with a meal for Gambit. The plate and utensils were made of adamantium.

After Gambit ate what he had been given, he found a key in the plate. Quickly he used it to unlock the cage and to get out. His clothes were in the room and he quickly put them on. Then he snuck off to find Slayer's room. She must have given him the key!

He managed to walk in on her as she was watching an "educational" film about genetic engineering that was in reality Essex spouting off his ideology with science intermixed.

"C'mon, chere, we go! Gambit got the key you left!"

Slayer turned around, stunned. Squinting to control the blast, she pulled down her glasses and blasted Remy into a wall. She hadn't controlled it that well. Without his body armor, he would likely have been killed.

"What the Hell? Who let him out? She walked up to Remy and grabbed him by the collar. Sinister had increased her strength as one of his modifications. Remy was conscious, though barely, and realized quickly that Slayer had just been bait. She wasn;t really trying to leave., But then who sent the key?

Slab walked in. "Lyssa, what's wrong?"

"Someone let Gambit out!"

Slab grew to full size. "I'll find them and crush them like an insect!"

"Do that!" hissed Lyssa. She turned her back to Slab for a second and began to scream at Gambit. "Now, who let you out? Tell me!"

Then everything went black for her. She had been punched by Slab in the back of the head. "I let him out!"

Slab turned to Gambit. "I heard her talking to Ms. Dexter today. She's the one that captured you. They want to kill me! Come on!"

Slab quickly led Gambit to freedom. He carried Lyssa Summers with him with the idea that she should be taken to Professor X, hopefully for some attitude adjustment. Unfortunately, as soon as they were outside, the external defenses activated. Morevoer, Gorgeous managed to grab Slayer and pull her out of Slab's arms. Gambit and Slab barley made it back to Gambit's motorcycle, where Slab shrank to the smallest size he could and got on the back. They sped off toward the institute.

Ruckus had suddenly disappeared from prison. That was all that was known at first. Then it came to light that there had been UFO sightings near the Bayville prison, and this was assumed to be somehow related. A little more than a year ago, no one would have taken these sightings seriously. But with mutants existing, who could be certain of anything?