Thanks for the feedback: raniatlw, Risty, Dusty, Steven P. P, Goofn1
RE: Magneto and brainwashing. His plans for Lance are a bit different than what he was trying with Wanda and Gambit. Also Magneto is having a slight problem with an external influance and that influenance has it's own agenda, which is not 100% inline with Magneto's goals. For example Magneto was disturbed by what he did to Lance, but believed it was neccesary for the greater good. The 'parasite' enjoyed torturing Lance in and of itself in addition to believing what was done would further it's purpose...
I'm not really going to get into dealing with what's happening to Magneto until the sequal (I'm definately doing a sequal ). NXM 150 sparked some really interesting conversations about Magneto plus I've been reading some back issues from Magneto's tenure as the headmaster at the Xavier Institute, all of which started plot bunnies hopping around my head about why Evo's Mags is so much darker than 616's ("Shadowed Past", "Caldren" and "Hex Factor" don't make Evo-Mags particularly sympathetic in my mind).
The courtroom shuddered. Kitty jumped to her feet. "Lance?"
The second tremor was more violent. Dust from the ceiling showered down on them.
Scott dug out a communicator. "Professor did you…."
"Yes we felt it too." Xavier replied. "If it is Lance I can't get a fix on him. I didn't think he was this powerful."
Another quake shook the building. Cracks appeared in the roof. The benches toppled. People were sent sprawling. A chunk of plaster smashed on the judge's podium.
"He's coming for me." Greg whimpered
"Kitty, Todd, find Lance, get him stopped." Cyclops ordered. "You've got a comm. right?"
"Got it." Kitty said.
"I'll have the Prof contact you if he finds anything."
The tremors were coming closer together now. Aftershocks filled in the gaps between quakes. Larger chunks of the ceiling were coming free. Greg stared around him with wild eyes. "They'll kill me this time, they're after me!" He screamed.
"The building's coming down." Todd cried.
"Go! Rahne and I'll take care of things here." Cyclops ordered. He activated his comm. "Professor, you better send out the whole team for damage control. Matt you should… Matt? Where'd he go?"
Out side Kitty looked around in shock. Buildings were crumbling for blocks in every direction. "What is Lance thinking?"
"Hell if I know." Todd said. "Damn, it's like he's gone nuts.
****** ****** ******
Officer Jensen glanced around making eye contact with as many policemen as possible. They were assembled outside of the collapsed police station. "The mutant responsible for these earthquakes is one Lance Alvers. A photograph is being circulated. He is eighteen. If you find him try to talk to him. If he desists do not attempt to arrest him. Call me; wait until I arrive. I will be working with Instructors from the Xavier Institute to resolve this situation."
Jensen paused for a moment. "If Alvers refuses to desist we are authorized to shoot to kill. If he's panicked or severely injured there is a possibility that he may lose control of his powers. As unlikely as this sounds that could make this situation immeasurably worse. Once again, remember this is an eighteen-year old kid we're dealing with. Unless you are in immediate danger, give him every opportunity to surrender."
"There will be other mutants present in the city. They will be working to contain the damage. Do not attempt to stop them. We do not want a repeat of the incident at the Xavier Institute. You've all heard SHIELD's speech: If we start a war with these kids we won't be able to control it. Right now they're trying to help us. Let them help. If they locate Alvers give them the opportunity to deal with him."
****** ****** ******
Jean levitated above the chaos, arms outstretched, eyes closed, head thrown back. She cast her telekinesis across Bayville like a web. She tried to reinforce buildings and bridges. Tried to give people the time to get to safety.
She could feel Xavier's presence like a steadying hand in the back of her mind. Scott was a solid point, focused, determine, her tether to reality. The other X-Men were fainter, an almost invisible network of familiar minds, like a net to catch her should she fall.
She had no sense of Lance's mind at all. The only evidence of his presence was the quake itself.
//Jean! Jean! Wolfsbane sniffed out someone trapped beneath a collapsed building. I need you to link Nightcrawler's mind with the person we're rescuing. If he can see through their eyes I think he should be able to teleport in.//
//Scott, I'm busy!// Jean's mental tone was abrupt.
//I have it Cyclops.// Xavier interjected. //Kurt can you manage this?//
//Check, Professor.// Xavier felt Kurt's mind abruptly disappear for a moment as he teleported. //I have them.//
****** ****** ******
"Freddy, yah mind if I borrow some muscle?" Rogue asked.
Fred held out a hand without hesitation. "This just doesn't make sense." He said. "Maybe it's a real earthquake. Professor X couldn't sense him. Lance wouldn't just…"
"We can worry about it later. Right now we gotta make sure no one dies!" Rogue exclaimed. She gave Fred a light shove to send him after Ray and Evan then vanished in a burst of speed.
"Hey, I hear something." Evan yelled. The other two boys hurried after him. They found a family trapped in their car by tree that had fallen across the roof. The tree's weight had bent the frame until the doors were jammed shut.
Fred heaved the tree trunk to the side then ripped one of the doors off as easily as he might have opened a soda can. Evan and Ray helped the family out.
Several blocks away Rogue skidded to a stop. She looked over the masked man in the skin-tight red spandex. "Yah better not be here to make trouble. Ah ain't got the time."
The ground lurched beneath them.
"I've got a bunch of kids buried with a broken gas line. I can't dig them out fast enough."
"Point-the-way." Rogue said as she kicked her speed into high gear.
"Chucky Cheese's." Daredevil answered and Rogue disappeared.
Daredevil stood listening. A few moments before he'd spoken with Rogue his radar sense had picked her up tossing boulder-sized chunks of concrete aside at lightening speed as she dug out the cars under a collapsed overpass. He knew she could handle the situation he'd pointed her toward, but there were still plenty of victims to be located and rescued.
Several blocks away Iceman walked through the city using his power to shore up cracked foundations and reinforce swaying walls.
A flash of fire caught his eye. He turned to see Tabby and Forge crawling over the ruins of a downed office building. "We better add some support before we blast anymore." Forge said as he studied the structure critically.
"I got it." Bobby said. "What's the sitch?"
"Rahne told us there were people in here." Forge explained as he pointed Tabby toward another pile of rubble. "Okay a little one here." He instructed. "Kurt teleported in but there were nearly two dozen people. They weren't in any immediate danger so Scott told him to let Tabby and I dig them out the slow way. This city really wasn't built to withstand earthquakes. Things are falling down left and right. I bet half these buildings aren't up to spec."
Another tremor shook the area. Bobby sent tendrils of ice through the rubble to brace and reinforce the loose rock. Beast bounded up to them.
"Common wisdom holds Bayville to have been build on a geographically stable site." Beast commented. "How goes it?"
Forge shook his head. "You've got to prepare for anything." He said. He sounded disappointed in the builders who'd trusted in the area's geological history.
"Anything eh?" Hank asked. "For example, alternate dimension dinosaurs?"
Forge colored with embarrassment. "It was a minor oversight." He said. "We're doing fine."
"Then I'll be on my way."
"Fire in the hole!" Tabby cried as she struck her fingers in her ears and turned away as her explosion pulverized their last obstacle.
Bobby created an ice staircase into the building's relatively intact basement and the shook up office workers started climbing out.
"The danger zone seems localized to the downtown area." Hank told them. "Your nearest safe haven is to the west. A Jamie will be along to guide you to safety shortly."
Beast hurried onward a few blocks. He found Sam and Logan tearing down a building that was on the verge of collapse before another tremor could send it toppling into it's better built neighbors. Sam was smashing through structures on the upper levels, reducing them to gravel while Logan slashed away at the supports so that the building would fall in on itself.
"Keep up the good work." Beast called as he hurried past.
He snatched a pair teenager from under a falling chunk of masonry. "Matthews!" He exclaimed as he recognized one of the boys.
"Get the fuck away from me freak!" Duncan shouted.
"Oh no, I think I'd rather take you back to the police. How did you get out anyway?"
"They let us out." Matthews snarled. "After Alvers killed Dom the police understood. They set us free."
Shock loosened Hank's hands. Matthews twisted free. He and Neal sprinted away. Hank prepared to leap after them but a yelp of pain called him away. He found a man trapped under a fallen tree limb. Beast freed him, sent him on his way and went to look for Matthews. Instead he found Amara sitting cross-legged in the center of an intersection. Her body was a contemplative statue of magma and flames.
"Magma, we could use some assistance if you're not too busy." Beast commented.
Amara's eyes opened and she looked up at him. "I am busy." She said distractedly. "All this is just a side effect of what Avalanche is really trying to do."
Beast frowned with concern. "And what, prey tell, is that?" He asked.
"He's forcing the Earth's crust down into the mantle. The pressure is upsetting the molten core… and my inner ear. I'm keeping it calmed down so we don't have an eruption or a really big earthquake. I didn't think Avalanche could do anything like this."
"Neither did anyone else." Hank murmured.
****** ****** ******
Lance knelt in the center of a lonely park. His hands were buried in the soil near his feet. His face was turned toward the sky. He stared up at the puffy white clouds through sightless eyes. His soul was sunken far beneath the ground where he knelt, immersed in the geographical forces he was bending to his will.
He remembered what the earthquake in LA had felt like. He tried to recreate that feeling. It wasn't enough to knock someone off their feet or to scare everyone by shaking things up a little. Even bring down a building wouldn't mean anything after what they'd done. He wanted to wipe Bayville off the face of the globe. He knew he might kill himself in the process but it didn't matter to him. Even Kitty's body was gone. Everything was gone.
He could barely feel the pain anymore, just pressure building toward inevitable release.
****** ****** ******
Pietro groaned as he felt his wheelchair jerked to a halt.
"Everyone told ye to stay put." Moira said with a dark scowl as she spun the chair around and headed him toward the infirmary.
"Even Berserker gets to help and his powers still aren't working." Pietro argued.
"But his legs are. Watch over Ororo if you want to help." Moira said. "There will be injuries. Mattie and I are needed in town."
Pietro frowned sulkily.
"I want your word that you'll stay here." Moira said sternly. "I don't want to leave Ororo, Pyro or Irene alone. Pyro has yet to wake, Ororo still needs assistance breathing and Irene isna familiar with the building, you know Rogue worries about her."
"You fight dirty." Pietro complained. "Yeah, I'll stay but you better tell me what's wrong with Lance as soon as you guys find him."
"I swear." Moira said. She snatched up a medical bag. Upstairs she paused in the den's doorway where Irene was listening to the news. "Irene, Mattie and I are leaving now. Pietro isna happy 'bout being left behind. Could ye keep him distracted?"
Irene turned toward Moira's voice and forced a smile. "I'll make sure he doesn't have too much leisure to dwell upon things."
"Thank ye." Moira said.
Irene turned back to the news.
"Once again Bayville is at the center of the world's attention." The reporter said. "Four months ago we watched as this quiet city was turned into a battlefield between a giant robot and a group of individuals with strange powers whom we now know to be mutants. We watched and we wondered what the existence of these mutants would mean for us. Today we turn to Bayville again for the answer to that question."
Irene sighed. "And so it begins."
****** ****** ******
Officer Rondell lifted his radio to his mouth. His eyes never left the teen kneeling in the grove. "I'm at Rodgers Park, about a hundred feet Northwest of the 9th street gate. I found Alvers."
As he drew his gun Rondell crept cautiously closer to the teen. He frowned in confusion as he noticed the rough metal helmet jammed over the teen's skull.
"Cease and desist!" Rondell ordered. He aimed his gun at Lance's chest. Lance gave no sign of having heard. Rondell took a couple of steps toward the teen "I said stop it!" He yelled. He took one last step to stand over Lance then gasped and aimed his gun at Lance's forehead from point blank range.
Rondell couldn't tear his eyes away from Lance's. The teen's eyes had turned a dark molten red as he pushed his powers to their limit. The officer tried to pull the trigger but it wouldn't budge. He shoved the gun back into its holster and grabbed his nightstick.
Rondell's gun floated free of his holster and aimed itself at him. "You don't want to do that." A voice from the shadows said. Rondell slowly backed away. The gun followed him.
More officers arrived. Their weapons were jerked from their hands and turned on them.
Kitty and Todd arrived a moment after the police. The guns dropped to the ground. Several of the officers dove at them.
"Toad launched me." Kitty yelled.
Todd crouched and offered her his cupped hands. As soon as Kitty's foot touched his hands he straightened, putting all of his leg muscles into throwing her. Kitty curled into a ball and used the momentum to back-flip over the ring of cops. As she landed she grabbed Lance's shoulders and phased both of them. Several bullets ripped through their insubstantial forms.
Xavier and Jensen arrived. //Everyone put down your guns.// Xavier ordered. "Kitty get that helmet off him. It's blocking my powers."
Kitty tugged at the metal. When it wouldn't come free she phased it then tossed it away from Lance. She shuddered as she realized that the helmet had been bolted to his skull.
Todd hopped to Lance's side. "Why the hell is he bleeding?" He demanded. He reached out to touch the streamer of scarlet running down the side of Lance's face. "What the fuck is with his eyes?"
Xavier touched his fingertips to his temples. //Lance!// He called as he plunged into the maelstrom of grief, rage and pain in the boy's mind. Once he'd pushed past those feelings Xavier found a wall of numbness protecting Lance from his emotions. The only thing that existed inside that barrier was his power. //Enough Lance.// Xavier ordered as he broke the barrier. //What they showed you wasn't true. It's time to end this. Your friends are waiting for you to come back to them.//
Lance's eyes blinked. The molten fire cleared to leave them their normal, deep brown. "Kitty? Todd? You're alive?" He asked. His voice was uncertain, raw and filled with disbelief.
Kitty laughed with relief as she hugged him. "You're alive?" Lance repeated. "Really?" He held Kitty tightly. He could feel her heart pounding against his chest. He reached out and pulled Todd to him. "You're alive?" He was laughing and sobbing. After a moment his breath hitched and he started hiccupping.
"Lance you're freaking me out, yo." Todd said uncertainly as he patted Lance on the shoulder. "We've got you. You're safe now. We've got you."
Kitty buried her face against Lance's neck.
"Is he under control?" Jensen demanded.
Xavier sighed and nodded.
"Lance Alvers, you are under arrest."
"Lay off!" Todd snarled as the police separate Lance from them.
As Jensen mirandaized him Lance glanced around fearful, his eyes were wild and disoriented. "Kitty? Todd?" He called. Panic was rising in his voice.
Kitty phased through the intervening bodies to Lance's side.
"Leave him be." Xavier protested. "He's too upset. He doesn't understand you. He barely understands that his friends are alive."
"Look around you." Jensen snapped. "Half the city is in ruins."
"Let Kitty and Todd stay with Lance." Xavier said quietly.
"It isn't procedure."
"Do you want another earthquake?" Xavier demanded.
"They can stay." Jensen conceded.
****** ****** ******
A battered pick-up truck slowed to a stop on the side of a narrow dirt road. Half a dozen yards ahead of the truck a small brown haired boy marched determinedly away from home. The boy towed a loaded wagon after him.
Andrew got out of the truck. A few moments later he fell into step beside Nicky. "Where are you headed?" Andrew asked.
"I'm gonna save Lance." Nicky declared.
Andrew glanced in the wagon. Nicky had packed a bag of cookies, a thermos, some rope, a crowbar, Band-Aids and a bottle of iodine. "Your mom said you saw Lance on the news." Andrew said.
Nicky nodded. He bit his lips and blinked back tears.
"Your Grandma and I called Lance's teachers." Andrew said. "They told us they were taking good care of him."
"Lance was hurted." Nicky said. He kept walking.
Andrew drew an unhappy breath. He didn't want to think about the devastation in Bayville. He couldn't stop thinking about the pictures of Lance, his face streaked with blood, as the police led him away. "Nick, I know you want to help Lance but you and I don't really know what's going on or how to help. How about we go back home? Your mom's worrying. Lance's Professor promised he'd let us know if there was anything we could do."
"I know how to help." Nicky insisted. He pointed to the contents of his wagon. "I brought stuff like from the TV to get Lance away from the people hurting him. And I brought the stuff Mommy puts on my owies. I don't like the stuff in the bottle, it stings, but Mommy says it makes me get healthy better. Cookies and chalk-o-late milk makes everything better."
"I guess you've got everything figured out." Andrew said. Nicky nodded proudly. "But it's an awful long walk to Bayville. It'll take you weeks to get there. No one would be able to find you. What if Lance's teachers called to say how we could help and you weren't here?"
Nicky frowned. Worry crept into his expression.
"Lance's school has that fancy helicopter. That'd get us there lickity-split if they need us."
"But… But, I wanna go now!" Nicky cried.
"Nick, Lance's friends know him a lot better than we do. They understand what's happened. We need to let them call the shots, even when we don't want to."