Disclaimer: You know, I really need to thank my reviewers. Not that there's that many. I really thank BobbyD12. If I gave a prize for the person who gave me the most reviews. It would be BobbyD12. But getting to the point, I need reviews, people! I'm sure everyone is laughing at me because of the extremely low amount of reviews I have. But, anyway, I'd like to say: SNARF! disappears mysteriously
Magneto stood watching Nucleo floating in a large tube of greenish liquid, still unconscious.
"If my experiment works, Nucleo," Magneto said, basically to the air, "I will not need your cooperation. I will have your power."
Magneto smiled.
"All I need is a test," he said.
As if he was waiting for Magneto to say that, Paste walked in, followed by Toad and Blob. Each of them were carrying a bundle of glue.
"We were attacked," said Toad as Magneto turned around, "By the X-Men."
"They took three of the hostages," Paste explained and indicated the bundles of glue, "We got one and found another on the way here."
"What's in the third bundle?" Magneto asked suspiciously.
"Er," Paste said, "We, uh..."
"It's a raccoon," said Blob.
"Let me out of here, mates!" the bundle said.
"It's a talking, Australian raccoon," Toad added.
"Drop the first two bundles," Magneto said, "Then take the third downstairs and free Pyro from it."
They did as they were told dragging the talking bundle away.
"Good," said Magneto, "We'll begin tomorrow."
"What's this Cory like?" Bobby asked Shawn the next morning.
"You might as well ask me," Aaron said sleepily, "I heard all about him last night."
"You'd like him, Aaron," Shawn said, "I told him about our pranks and he thinks they're fascinating."
"I know what he thinks, Shawn," Aaron said with a yawn, "You told me already."
"What did you guys do while you were in that tank?" Amara asked Kitty.
"Well, Shawn, like, started annoying the Brotherhood," Kitty began, "But that, like, didn't last long, so me and Rahne just talked about stuff every day, but that, like, got totally boring after, like, three days."
"Did they feed you dry bread and gruel?" Ray asked.
"Ray, that's gross!" Amara said, disgusted.
"Everything's gross to you," Ray said, irritated.
"Stop," Rogue said quickly, "This happens way too often."
Bobby's bacon flew through the air.
"This happens way too often," Bobby said as Bear smiled at him from his plate.
"Bakkin cunchy," Bear said chewing on one of the slices of bacon.
"Why does he always pop out of peoples' food," asked Roberto, who had fully recovered from his cracked rib.
"It's just what he does," said Bobby leaning on his hand.
Xavier had gathered the teachers in his office. They were all seated around him.
"I have not only discovered the whereabouts of Cory Sanders," Xavier explained looking around at them all, "I have discovered Magneto's plan for Nucleo."
"Let me guess," Logan said derisively, "It's real bad."
"Magneto is in fact going to experiment on Nucleo," Xavier continued, "He is going to try to steal Nucleo's power."
"I knew it!" Scott became angry with himself.
"Magneto has taken Cory to his new hideout so that he can test his experiment on him first," Xavier said, a little urgently, "I don't know how dangerous the experiment can be, but judging from Magneto's past experiments, this one could be just as deadly."
"We'll have to leave right away," said Storm.
"Yes," Xavier agreed, "His new hideout is farther away and will take longer to get to."
"I'll go tell the students," Hank said.
"I'll come with you," Jean insisted.
The two departed to inform the students of the coming trip.
"Should we take Kyle?" asked Scott, "He's still unconscious."
"We will take Kyle Grifford with us," said Xavier closing the issue, "We should go and get ready."
The X-Men got on the Blackbird reluctantly. It seemed like they had just gotten off of it. Kyle was placed in a seat next to Jean so that she could make sure he didn't fall over. Packrat, Mr. Kamon, and to everyone's surprise, Bear had come along to help.
"This is getting real old," Ray complained.
"Dude, you're totally right," Allen agreed, "I feel like this is my summer home."
Instead of staying quiet, like the preceding attack on the Brotherhood, the students were all talking to each other. Some were talking about the upcoming mission, other were talking about things of no importance.
"Everyone pay attention," Xavier said loudly, "I have found that Magneto's hideout is very complex. We will have to split up into groups. Brian, Mr. Kamon, and Bear will stay with me. I hope I can trust the students to be safe if they choose their own groups. There must be at least four to a group. The adults can go alone if they wish."
Everyone spent the rest of the trip choosing groups.
"Whaddaya say, Shawn?" Aaron said, "Should we join forces to form the ultimate group?"
"That sounds like a plan!" Shawn said enthusiastically, "Who else should we recruit?"
The twins began to look around for suitable teammates.
"Should we decline if they ask us?" Bobby asked Rogue.
"Yeah, we probably should," Rogue replied.
"We should probably join another two people before they do," Bobby suggested.
"Dude, you can't have Kyle," Allen said to them, "We already claimed him."
Allen indicated Ray and Max who were sitting near him.
"That's too bad," said Bobby, rolling his eyes, "We really wanted Kyle in our group."
"How about Amara?" Rogue asked Bobby, "You don't mind her."
"OK," Bobby said, "Sam can be our fourth person."
"Hey, Louis! Jubilee!" Kurt shouted, extremely close to Logan's head, "Join me and Kitty!"
"Quiet, Elf!" Logan growled, forcing Kurt back into his seat.
Shawn and Aaron had chosen Melanie and Siryn to be in their ultimate group. Evan and Travis decided on letting Ben into their group. Since Ben was old enough not to be considered a student, Evan's group only needed three people. Peter joined with Jean and Scott. Tom and Logan were going alone. Storm and Hank were in the same group. Roberto had just inducted Sarah into the group with him and Rahne.
"Um, Roberto," Rahne started, "There's something faulty about your decision."
Ruben had just spotted them and had begun to walk towards them.
"Hi, guys," Ruben said cheerfully, "You guys only have three people so if you don't mind, I'll join you."
Before Roberto could say that he did mind, Ruben sat down with them and made himself comfortable. The jet eventually landed near a large factory looking building. Everyone, including Xavier and Kyle, who was being carried by Max, moved down the ramp.
"Wow, the Professor was telling the truth," said Bobby, amazed, "This place looks like one of the most complex buildings I've ever seen."
"Gee, that's too bad, Iceberg," Aaron said, "That place is evil and we don't like it."
"Brian, Mr. Kamon, Bear, follow me," Xavier instructed. He disappeared with Packrat, Mr. Kamon, and Bear following behind him.
"I guess we should split up into our groups now," said Scott replacing his sunglasses with his ruby-quartz visor.
Everyone got into their groups and followed Scott towards an iron door set into the large building. Tom walked to the front and pulled the door off of its hinges without a sound.
"Dude, Mr. Fulke, that was so totally awesome," Allen said, his eyes wide.
Everyone crept inside to find a large basement-like room with various doors around it. The groups spread out to look around.
"What's this?" Ruben asked no one in particular. He touched a musty covered piece of machinery. He jumped back in surprise as it collapsed down into a pile of dust on the floor.
"Quit touching stuff, freak," Ray said to him quietly.
"Alright, people," Hank said as silently as he could but still making himself audible among the groups, "We're going to split up and go into these doors."
The groups did as they were told. Each took one door and proceeded to go through it.
Bobby's group entered a room with shelves full of vials. Most were empty, but Sam spotted three that were filled with a swirling, orange liquid. He picked them up.
"We might need these," Sam said simply.
"What are all these for?" Amara asked, looking around at all the vials.
"Maybe we should take a few more," Rogue suggested, "Just in case."
They each filled their pockets with as many vials as they would hold.
"There's another door," Bobby pointed to a metal door set into the side of the room.
"We might as well go through it," Amara said a little impatiently, "We can't just stop here."
Meanwhile, Kurt, Kitty, Jubilee, and Louis had entered a room with nothing in it except for what looked like spear sticking out of the wall.
"Don't touch it!" Jubilee said as Kitty walked up beside it, "It could spring a trap."
"Good thinking, Jubilee," Kurt said and then walked past the spear and towards the door on the other side. Jubilee realized, too late, that there was a nearly invisible beam extended from the tip of the spear to the opposite wall. As soon as Kurt had walked through it, the room began to shake. All four students looked up as the wooden beams positioned above them collapsed, burying them beneath the wreckage.
"Great," said Louis, muffled by the debris, "They probably know we're here now."
"I'm so sorry," Kurt apologized, "I didn't know it would do that."
"Like, Kurt, you're totally being too hard on yourself," Kitty said comfortingly, "Besides, you and me can get Jubilee and Louis out of here."
"Oh, yeah," Kurt said, rather embarrassed, "I forgot. I can reach Louis from where I am, so you can get Jubilee."
Kurt and Louis teleported out from under the rubble and Kitty merely phased through it with Jubilee. They then spent nearly ten minutes wading through the fragments of wood and stone to get to the door.
Shawn and Aaron had led Melanie and Siryn into a small hallway with two extended cages covering the length of the room. There were three figures trapped in the cage to the left.
"Hey, Aaron, it's Cory!" Shawn said amazed, "Uh, who are your friends?"
"Oh, them," Cory said from behind the iron bars, "Well, this is Frank Rogers."
Cory gestured to a boy with light brown hair and green eyes.
"Some people call me Toxin," Frank said, "My saliva is terribly hazardous to the epidermis. I'm a human biohazard."
"The guy sitting in the corner is Lorenzo Romero," Cory continued, "He's not in the best mood right now, so I wouldn't try to talk to him, but he's also called Geyser, self explanatory, he makes geysers just pop right out of the ground."
"I thought Magneto only had two hostages," Siryn said confused.
"How do you know about that?" Aaron asked, "Normally, we would find out about any extra information."
"Mr. Summers came and talked about it with Dr. Grey when she was taking off my cast," Siryn explained.
"Anyway, Lorenzo just came in this morning," Cory said.
"Couldn't you guys just bust out?" Shawn asked.
"Uh, well, we could, but, Magneto's experiment sort of deprives us of our mutations," Frank said, looking at the floor.
"So his experiment worked," Aaron said, raising an eyebrow.
"Who cares," said Shawn, hurriedly, "Just break them out, you vicious animal."
Aaron gave Shawn a look that said 'I'll break them out when I'm ready' and transformed into a horsefly. He flew between two bars and then transformed into a hippo, bending the bars into a large escape hole.
"Thanks, Shawn," Cory said to Aaron.
"Don't thank him," Aaron said, exasperated, "He just stood there watching. Thank me! Aaron!"
"Oh, sorry," Cory apologized, "I can't tell you two apart."
"He's the human zoo," Shawn explained, "I'm the guy in the camo suit."
Frank left the caged area followed by Lorenzo who turned to Aaron, saying, "Gracias, señor."
"Oui, Oui," Aaron said with an utterly bewildered look on his face
"He doesn't speak Spanish all the time," Cory said to Aaron, "Uh, I don't think I know your friends, Shawn."
"Oh, yes," Shawn said with a look of mock seriousness appearing on his face, "The clone is my brother, Aaron. He can be called Shift, but we don't really like it that much. The girl next to him, is Siryn. She, uh, screams real loud, or something, and I guess that's why they call her that. And, um, finally, this is..."
Shawn's face reddened, "This is Melanie. Some people also call her, er, Daydream."
"Let me take a guess why you call her that," Aaron said sardonically.
"Everyone calls her that," Shawn said, his face becoming redder.
"I don't know," Aaron replied giving Shawn a suspicious look, "Maybe it's because you always daydrea..."
Shawn had just elbowed Aaron hard in the ribs. Frank then gestured towards a door, opposite the one they had entered through. They all followed him, but in the process, Cory pulled Shawn to the back of the procession.
"So," he said so that only Shawn could hear, "That's the Melanie they were talking about in the tank?"
"Er," Shawn apparently didn't know what to say, "Um."
"I thought so," said Cory, smiling.
They followed the others into the next room, Shawn's face still red from Cory's statement.
A room away, Allen and Ray had walked through a door followed by Max, who was carrying the unconscious Kyle. The room was completely empty. The only unique thing about it was the strange tiles making up the floor.
"C'mon, guys," Ray said, bored, "Let's keep going."
"Dude, Max might drop Kyle if we go too fast," Allen objected.
"Max could carry all three of us if he wanted," Ray said pointedly, "Plus he could probably run while doing it."
Allen didn't say anything, so they moved further into the room. As soon as Max had stepped into the room, however, the tiles on the floor began to change color. The surprise of it stopped all three in their tracks. The doorways on both sides of the room were suddenly sealed with iron doors.
"Max," said Ray, looking at the floor, "You can take care of those doors."
Max began to walk towards the door on the far end of the room. He abruptly halted, though, when he stepped on a tile that had turned jet black. The instant he set his foot down on the black tile, the rest of the floor turned exactly the same color. Before anyone knew what was going on, all the tiles simply disappeared altogether. Allen, Ray, and Max found themselves falling down through where the floor used to be. They landed in another room, Kyle landing on top of Max in the process. Kyle stirred and opened his eyes.
"Where am I?" he asked, lifting his head and looking around.
"Dude, you just fell through the floor," Allen said as if Kyle had never been unconscious in the first place.
"We're in Magneto's new hideout," Ray explained rolling his eyes.
Kyle opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by the grinding of stone plates moving on the walls. The moving stones had revealed three holes on each wall. A ominous set of weaponry extended from each of the holes.
"Dude, there's no door!" Allen said, "We're gonna get toasted."
"Max, make a door!" Ray shouted.
Max walked to one of the walls. He ripped the artillery from the wall and set his hands against the stone. The other sets of firepower began to focus on the four X-Men. Ray took out two of the guns with his blue volts of electricity. Allen was hit by a laser fired by one of the guns. He let out a yelp of pain, but the laser was merely absorbed by his unique skin.
"Dude, that was weird," he said as Kyle transformed into the giant lizard behind him.
Ray and Kyle got rid of the rest of the guns with Allen painfully deflecting lasers. When the guns were destroyed, Kyle, Allen, and Ray turned to Max. The stone was becoming lava. Max gestured for them to step back as the molten rock flowed towards them. Max's mutated body temperature enabled him to withstand the extreme heat. Max lifted Ray, Allen, and Kyle who was still in his huge reptilian form. He carried them through the hole he had made and dropped them onto the cold stone floor.
Roberto and Rahne had entered a room followed by Ruben and Sarah. All four of them looked around in confusion. They seemed to not have stepped into a room at all. They were standing in a thick forest.
"It looks like we found the emergency exit," Ruben said to the rest of them.
"I don't think so," Rahne said pointedly, "The door we came through isn't there anymore."
They all turned to look for where they had entered. The door had disappeared.
"There's nothing to do except find our way through the forest," Roberto said, taking leadership immediately.
"Looks pretty safe to me," Ruben said looking around with a satisfied look on his face.
Roberto led the way followed by Rahne and Sarah. Ruben took the rear. They moved through the trees for what seemed like forever, when they caught sight of a large machine in the middle of a group of trees. Ruben walked up to it.
"Nice piece of machinery we got here," he said, tapping the metal skin of the machine, "What do you think it does?"
"Probably nothing good," Roberto said, looking suspiciously at the device, "I say we destroy it."
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the machine made a series of noises and several strange beasts appeared. One with an extremely elongated head and long claws began to make its way towards Ruben. Ruben whirled around to look up at the creature. Roberto, Rahne, and Sarah had to quickly cover their eyes to avoid Ruben's sudden brilliant flash of light. They put their arms down to see if Ruben had succeeded. The creature had stopped, but the light didn't seem to have affected it. Sarah swiftly sent one of her blazing, green beams at the monster. Once again, the creature only stopped in its tracks.
"Keep away from them!" Roberto shouted as two more beasts moved behind Sarah and Rahne.
Roberto took in the sun's energy and began to glow with strength. He then ran towards a blue creature with a huge under bite. He slammed into the beast with intense force. He looked at it to check how much damage he had inflicted. He stepped back in astonishment as he realized that the monster was unscathed and walking directly at him.
"Uh, Roberto," Ruben said as he dodged a swinging claw, "I don't think this is working."
Sarah attempted to attack another creature advancing on Ruben. The creature's silvery skin only reflected the beam, sending it shooting towards the machine. The beam struck the machine near the top. The metal casing suddenly cracked and collapsed to the ground. The creatures that were scattered around the trees abruptly vanished. The four students' amazement grew as the forest disappeared as well. They had been in a room the whole time.
"That machine must have created images or something," Ruben said, mainly to himself.
"Well, we can get out of here now," Rahne indicated a door on the far side of the room. The other three followed her through the door.
Evan, Travis, and Ben stared around at the large, iron spheres that littered the room. They each examined the spheres carefully.
"What do you think they're for?" Evan asked.
"Magneto probably uses them as projectiles to throw at people with his magnetic powers," Ben guessed.
"I wonder why he keeps them all in here then," Travis thought aloud.
Evan approached a smaller orb and called to the others, "Hey, look, it's an oddball!"
Travis and Ben were on their way towards Evan, when the undersized sphere popped open, revealing Pillbug, grinning sinisterly.
"Welcome to the orb chamber," Pillbug said in his terribly irritating voice, "Too bad that I have to make it so that you stay here."
With that, Pillbug curled back up into his iron globe and launched himself at Evan. Travis acted quickly and blasted Pillbug off course with one of his red bolts. Pillbug ricocheted off of the wall and clashed loudly with a number of the large, metal orbs. Ben reached out his hand and caught the ball of light that had been the energy powering the lights in the room. Ben hurled the ball at Pillbug, who had gotten up and was brushing himself off. The light hit him, sending him flying backwards into another wall. He then slid down the wall into one of the open spheres. Evan shot numerous spikes from his arms. The spikes punctured the open orb, trapping Pillbug inside it.
"Well, that takes care of him," Evan said triumphantly, while Pillbug struggled to get loose, "Those spikes should keep him there for a while."
Scott moved into a room followed by Peter and Jean. Peter was in full armor and Scott kept his finger on the button of visor just in case. The room had various tables scattered around with an assortment of different objects on them. Scott picked up a sheet of paper.
"Check it out," he motioned for Jean and Peter to look at what he had found, "This is his list for mutants to recruit."
"Nucleo's the last one on his list," Jean pointed out, "That means he has what he wants."
"I, uh, picked this up over on that table," Peter said, showing them an experiment log of some sort, "It has all of Magneto's test results in it."
"Nucleo isn't in it," Jean made another observation, "That means Magneto hasn't run the experiment on him yet."
"If we hurry, we can stop Magneto from doing whatever he's going to do," Scott told the other two, "We need to hurry!"
Jean and Peter followed Scott from the room. Storm and Hank were standing outside of that doorway.
"What are you guys doing here?" Scott asked, surprised to see them.
"We just came from that room over there," Storm pointed to a door a few feet away, "Apparently, Magneto's experiment robs mutants of their powers. We found out that one of these rooms has the powers located in it."
"Some of the kids would have had to have gone through that room, though," Hank expressed his thoughts.
"We can't let Magneto steal Nucleo's power," Scott said frantically, "If he does, he'll be even more powerful than he is now."
Logan looked around at the switches on the walls of the room that he had entered. He resisted the temptation to flip every one of the switches and began to look for some sort of manual. He ground his teeth as he stared around at the switches. There was nothing else in the room. He walked up to one of the walls. The switches were labeled, but most of the labels were faded and indistinguishable.
Logan looked at a switch with a legible label. The label read: Outer Door 8. Logan flipped the switch. He listened intently for any sign that it did anything. He heard a vague sound from far away, but he figured it was just one of the Brotherhood. He turned back to the switches. He scanned over them. His eyes came to rest on another intelligible label. It read: Light Switch. Logan snorted as he thought about who the idiot was who put the light switch in the middle of a wall full of toggles.
Logan turned towards the doorway opposite of the one he had entered. He figured that if the first switch didn't do anything, none of the other ones would. He opened the door and stepped into the hallway beyond the threshold.
Xavier had not entered the building. He had led Packrat, Mr. Kamon, and Bear around to the side of the building. He was now staring at a large, circular, iron door set into the wall. He knew it was locked without even checking it.
"What now?" Mr. Kamon grumbled.
"We shall wait until Logan is ready," Xavier said, while behind him, Bear was tugging on Packrat's long tail.
"That untamed animal doesn't even know what he's supposed to do in there," Mr. Kamon retorted, "You didn't tell him to do anything."
"You know as well as I do, Eugene, that I know exactly what Logan is doing right now," Xavier replied, "He may not know it, but he will let us in.
"No touching," Packrat warned Bear.
"Cromitaferaklyvitalipumongo," Bear announced and walked towards Xavier's wheelchair.
Suddenly, the circular door began to open. The iron had parted to expose a dank tunnel that resembled a large ventilation system.
"This is a secret tunnel, so we will have to stay quiet," Xavier looked at Packrat and Bear in turn.
Xavier moved forward into the tunnel followed by Packrat. Mr. Kamon hobbled along behind him with Bear waddling at his side.
Magneto stood in front of the large tube with Nucleo floating inside it. The entire Brotherhood stood behind him, excluding Pillbug.
"It seems that Charles has decided to pay us a little visit," Magneto said still staring at the tube, "I think we should give him a proper welcome."
The Brotherhood nodded and departed to head off the X-Men.