A/N ~ Happy New Year, everyone. And woo for unimaginative titles.
Hootild; Cool Spidey shiznet, at your service.
Ice Princess; Fear for Pietro. Fear for him. Mwahahahaaa…
FrickinEvilPoptart; Uh… wotcher. Yeah. Pyetro? Not really my thing, but different floats for different boats. And just for the record… FUBAR!
Gerri; 'But still, I suppose, in his defence... a man and his grief aren't easily parted.' How very, very true.
UnknownSource; Author Alert! Woot! And yes, Grasshopper holds a special place in my heart, too. It's steel-lined, though. I need that heart to… y'know, survive and stuff.
The Son of Logan and Ororo; Des Moines – c'est tres bien. Glad we got that one right.
The Phantom; Long live LoTR! And I hope you like the little bit of spotlight Alvin gets in this chapter. It made me laugh when I saw it.
Nessie6; Not so picky, darlin'. We all have our preferences. It's our prerogative as fanwriters. Magneto needs a Prozac tab. Badly.
Amarth Obstreperous; Word jokes ahoy. Little Spidey humour in here, to boot. And some answers to those questions of yours, I hope.
Yma; I think you're thinking of Yodelbean and/or Id(sunki). Greg never wrote JD, but he commented throughout. I miss him T^T.
Cheesy Monkey; Happy little monkey indeed. You're worse for character deaths than *I* am. And who knows, maybe some of the other canon characters will put in appearances. Stranger things have been known to happen. Especially in this fic.
sPoOkZ13412; Thank you. Short but sweet. ^_^
*******************
Thirty-third Fragment ~ Battle
*******************
Peter chose his target carefully. The short hairy guy looked mean, and Wolfsbane had already picked him out as hers. The insect, for some unfathomable reason, seemed determined to attack Magneto.
_Perhaps some sort of leadership thing. They seem to both have an Alpha Male deal going on…_
Dazzler had decided to go for the human, which left him the blue, furry... well, whatever it was made Gonzo from the Muppets look *normal*.
Peter leaped towards his target, sending a length of webbing spinning away, meaning to catch the creature off guard. He failed. The blue-furred monstrosity gave an impressive back flip, flying clear of the webbing. It landed on one of the walls and stuck there just as well as he could.
Then it leaped towards him, fangs bared, and Peter was forced to duck hurriedly to avoid being tackled. He succeeded, the blue monster flying over him and landing smoothly a few meters away.
"What the hell *are* you!" Peter cried. "Some sort of goblin?[1]"
The blue goblin creature seemed to grin at this. Or grimace. Peter wasn't sure which. At least his face wasn't quite so savage as the mask Osborne had worn when parading as the green variety.
Then it leaped again.
This was going to be *hard*!
*******************
Kurt was thinking much the same. It seemed as if he and the guy in the gaudy red and blue suit had compatible powers. So much so that, despite best efforts on both sides, it seemed that neither could actually win in a tussle.
As he dodged another of line of what appeared to be super-strength *silly string*, Kurt went over the points in his mind, trying to think up some strategy and trying to work out their respective strengths. And weaknesses.
In his favour, he seemed to have superior fighting skill, was better trained - _Thank you Logan!_ - and could, in a pinch, teleport.
Yet the gaudy dude had that web stuff, seemed stronger, and had more stamina. Plus, Kurt doubted he'd been starving, chased by hunters, and beaten pulpy by a deranged witch recently.
The stamina was the key, he figured. Kurt hadn't had a good, full, proper meal in a long, long, long time. His body had adapted to live on less food than it used to, but he was still on low amounts of energy. If this *did* turn into a battle of stamina – which, given their equality in other aspects, it could well do - then he was sure to lose.
Which meant he needed to take his opponent down quickly.
Besides, the comments he was making were beginning to annoy him.
"Come on Gobs," Gaudy-Dude jeered. "Why so blue? Aren't you enjoying our little dance?"
"If you call this dancing," Kurt shot back, "then you need to learn some new steps. Here, let me show you - "
He aimed a flying kick, and for a moment he thought he had him. However, at the last second the arachnid ducked, and sent a plume of white webbing spinning forth. Kurt couldn't move fast enough, and was caught by some of it. It wasn't enough to immobilise him entirely, but it made movement all the more difficult.
"Looks like you're in a sticky situation there," Gaudy-Dude joked.
"For that pun alone you deserve to get your butt whupped!" Kurt spat, and made a snap decision. It was a risk, it'd probably take him out of the fight for good, but it had to be done.
Concentrating hard, he teleported.
*******************
Peter's eyes widened in shock. One moment the goblin had been there, the next it was gone!
_What the hell...?_
Suddenly his spider-sense went into overdrive. Yet, before he could do anything, it was too late. You can't react to what you can't see.
The goblin reappeared right on top of him, fists balled. Both arms came crashing down on Peter's head, pounding him again and again until the rush of pain and adrenaline was lost to the darkness of unconsciousness.
*******************
Kurt sighed and collapsed on top of the guy in the outfit that would've screamed kitsch four years ago. His nose was bleeding severely, his joints ached, and his head throbbed. He never should have teleported on such low energy reserves, but he'd had little choice.
He strove to remain awake, and succeeded, but he knew that until he had recovered a bit he could not aid any of his friends in their battles as he'd so planned.
Left with little other option, Kurt began to pray they did better than he.
*******************
"So," Logan muttered to Grasshopper, as they strode towards Magneto and Wolfsbane, "we got a plan?"
Grasshopper didn't even look round. "You gotta be kidding me," he replied, still watching their opponents warily.
Logan stopped walking suddenly in mid-stride, with one foot still poised in the air, and Wolfsbane grinned viciously.
"Logan, I really, truly despise you, and ordinarily I wouldn't even dream of asking you this," Grasshopper began, murmuring rapidly and slowing down so as not to get too far ahead, "but I'm about to get fricasseed by a man who is, technically, my lord and saviour and all other kinds of babble, so I would appreciate if you would - hlk..."
Magneto had both hands outstretched, using one as a focus to hold Logan in place, and the other using Grasshopper's necklace to strangle him.
Logan had his eyes screwed shut and his lips drawn back, evidently in great pain but unable to open his jaw. Blood started to drip from those parts of him where his skeleton was close to the skin - his knuckles, his elbows, his cheekbones. A red line started to soak through his trousers at the shin.
Grasshopper fell heavily into a crouch, grappling at his neck with three hands.
Wolfsbane began to stride towards them purposefully.
Grasshopper gave up on trying to breathe and jumped. From his crouch, he was easily able to clear her, and his second bound took him behind the distracted Magneto. He hooked one arm around the man's neck and took his legs out from under him, forcing him to release his hold on Logan.
Grasshopper's enhanced strength and extra limbs gave him an unassailable advantage as they grappled, and he soon had Magneto in a nelson hold.
"You know," he commented, grunting, "your devout worshippers are going to kill me for this."
Magneto's eyes rolled back in his head, and Grasshopper's necklace again pulled on his neck, jerking him sideways and sending him flying to land unceremoniously in the dust a few feet away.
"Worshippers?" The words were incredulous and unbelieving. Obviously Magneto thought Grasshopper's talk the babble of a doomed man. "Don't worry about that," he growled, getting to his feet. "I'm -"
"- Going to save them the trouble, yes, yes, I watched that episode of Star Trek," Grasshopper retorted, having rolled into a crouch. His secondary set of hands reached up behind his back and snapped the thin silver chain that held the necklace in place, and then rubbed his throat. He didn't bruise, but he was certainly going to feel that come morning.
Magneto sneered and made a grand, sweeping gesture with both arms. Grasshopper was assailed with debris from all sides - hubcaps, unidentifiable pieces of machinery, bottle tops, a few razorblades.
In reply, he simply shut his eyes and walked forwards. Most of it just bounced off his exoskeleton. A few of the sharper things pierced it shallowly, ichor oozing around the cuts. Grasshopper ignored it.
Magneto did not relent in his battering, and did not show any sign of panic as it showed no sign of even slowing Grasshopper's approach. Just before Grasshopper reached him, he floated up into the air.
"Oh no, you fuckin' don't," Grasshopper growled, and leaped up after him, grabbing firmly onto the man's knees and pulling himself up.
Magneto tried to dislodge his grip, but Grasshopper easily batted his attempts away and continued climbing up until he once again had wrapped his arm around Magneto's neck. The older man began to choke, and grabbed at Grasshopper's unyielding arm ineffectively.
"For a saviour," Grasshopper panted into Magneto's ear through gritted teeth, "you sure shit on your chosen people an awful lot."
Magneto grimaced fiercely, and the pair suddenly shot up into the air at great velocity. Grasshopper's hold on his neck started to slip, but he hung on with fatalistic determination.
Once they were a couple of thousand feet up, the sudden drop in pressure and temperature leaving them both gasping for air, Magneto let go, and they fell. They hovered for a second, before both started to plummet, and Grasshopper's grip slid loose even more.
That was enough for Magneto, who twisted around and kicked free of the stranglehold, then slowed his own descent.
Grasshopper continued falling unchecked.
*******************
Logan saw Kurt fall, but couldn't do anything to assuage the protective urge rising inside him, for the short and simple reason that he was a little busy.
There wasn't a word to describe the thing he was fighting. It was female, at any rate, but looked like the evil grandchild of the Wolfman. On steroids. With her rather spindly limbs and the obvious age deficit between them, he'd assumed the fight would be over quickly. A few quick slashes, a punch or two to take her out without killing her, perhaps.
He'd assumed wrong.
The wolfgirl was swift but deadly, hugging the ground with her belly and snaking towards him on all fours before he had time to blink. Logan barely had time to get clear before she leapt, claws aiming to tear out his midriff.
And what claws they were. Honed and long, they seemed to be extensions of her fingers rather than too-long nails. One glance and Logan popped the adamantium counterparts on his other hand without hesitation.
She snarled and leapt again, deftly avoiding his calculated slash with a handspring Elf would've been proud of, then barrelling forward to butt him in his solar plexus. Her skull may not have been made from the ultimate metal, but it was still pretty damn hard, and Logan's lungs whooshed as the air was driven from them.
Yet, if she expected the move to take him down she was sorely mistaken. _The many pros of healing factor,_ he thought grimly, chancing a step backwards and letting her gain ground before thrusting his left claws out and taking a chunk from her shoulder.
The wolfgirl screamed; a wild, feral sound that put him in mind of an injured Sabertooth. For a moment Logan was back in battle with his arch nemesis, despite knowing full well that Creed had died long ago from a combination of X-Virus and a mob beating him to a pulp while he was down and still healing from the former. He saw the familiar claws and fangs, heard the roar of fury and rage that simultaneously raised his hackles and made him smile.
Then he snapped back to the present, fending off another close-quarters assault by the bleeding wolfgirl.
As opposed to making her back off, her injury only seemed to make her even more eager to fight, and she drove at him full tilt with an array of combat moves and wild slashes that flickered from style to style so fast it would've made any lesser fighter dizzy.
But not Logan. He'd fought the Hand before, and they were the best. Better than the best. No way some punk kid was going to succeed where they'd failed so many times to kill him.
Unlike many fighters, Logan knew the value in backing off to gain an advantage. Many were the rookies he'd seen press and press and press, only to be toppled by a simple move their constant attacking had made them too blind to see. So it was that, after delivering a swift uppercut that sent the wolfgirl reeling, he turned and pelted towards the abandoned bus.
In seconds she was after him, snarling, and Logan smirked to himself. _That's it, mutt. Follow me._
He hopped on board, dashing down the aisle and taking the stairs to the second deck two at a time.
The girl paused at the entrance, obviously cautious about walking into a trap. The bus was Logan's turf; he knew it and she didn't. She sniffed around, pacing for several minutes and kicking up a cloud of dust in frustration.
{CRASH}
{THUNK}
She whipped around as something heavy struck the ground mere inches from her hind leg. It appeared to be a seat, torn loose from its place and thrown clean through the window, with not so much intent on hurting her as just plain getting her attention.
She looked up, and, sure enough, Logan grinned down like a gargoyle. The shards of smashed window framed his face, and he openly leaned on them, nonchalantly letting them knife the undersides of his arms until streaks of blood tracked down the side of the bus. She goggled, and he smirked again, picking out the pieces and letting her watch as the cuts and gashes healed themselves.
"Whassamatter, mutt? Too scared to come up an' face me?"
"No," she spat, in a voice like cracking bones.
"Yer a fool, then."
Her eyes blazed, and she snarled. But still, she did not enter the bus.
Logan frowned, especially when she spoke again.
"If you're so sure of yourself, then why don't you come back down here and face *me*?"
"I got bored. Yer too easy to beat."
A faint quirk of the lip, but nothing more. She actually sat down and yawned. Not exactly the response he'd been going for.
"That sounds like a bluff to me, old man. I know what you're up to. Magneto trained us all, and trained us well. I know how to spot a trap at fifty paces, and you couldn't make this one any clearer if you posted a neon sign." Her smirk mirrored his own, and Logan frowned.
"So. Looks like a stalemate, then."
"Hardly," she snorted, rising and turning towards the cluster of mutants positioned just beyond the line of fighting. "If you won't face me, then I'll just have to tear the rest of your party to pieces instead." Then she took off at a run, arrowing towards where Raven, Kitty and Rogue stood in a protective huddle over the children.
Logan loosed a savage cry, and with it he felt his wilder instincts pushing to be freed. He beat them back down again, clinging to his human side. Now was not the time for him to turn into a beast.
Knowing that a leap from the window would incur broken bones and extended healing, he instead chose the stairs again. Yet this cost him precious seconds, and by the time he ran out of the door the wolfgirl was nearing the kids.
"Raven! Duck and cover!" he yelled, and was rewarded with the shapeshifter throwing herself across the others, shoving them to the ground and out of harm's way.
Kitty reached out, keeping one arm around Hope, and grasped Daisy's hand, saying something that made all of them hold onto what they could of each other. Their outlines seemed to shimmer for a second, and when the wolfgirl leapt she passed straight through them at a gallop. She whirled in surprise, but before she had time to launch another assault Logan had reached them, and he tackled her with all speed.
The pair hit the earth with a solid, meaty 'whump', rolling several yards until a pile of bricks that had once been a wall prevented them going any further.
The wolfgirl reached around and scored deep scratches down Logan's back, making him grunt with pain. But he didn't let up his hold on her, instead tightening his arms, trying to squeeze her into submission. Yet when she dug her talons deep and ripped out chunks he was forced to relinquish his hold, and the two of them backed off, breathing hard and surveying each other.
"You're good," Logan said between breaths.
"Shut up and fight me," she snapped, but made no move to attack again. Her chest heaved, and the fur that protected very little of her decency was slick with sweat.
"What's yer name?"
She blinked, obviously not expecting the question. "Rah- Wolfsbane."
"Poison. Might've known." Logan shook his head.
"Hey, fuck you, Pops."
"I don't do that sorta thing to kids. 'Specially not measly little things like you."
"If you're trying to bait me, it won't work," she said, raising her head and regarding him with a critical eye. "But since we're getting so pally-pally, mind telling me who you are?"
_She's playing for time, trying to get her breath back,_ Logan thought wryly. _I can live with that._ "Surprised ya don't already know it. Most other folks seem to. Logan or Wolverine. Pick one._
She blanched, if only for a second, and Logan knew in that instant that his reputation preceded him. Good or bad, the hesitation gave him the opening he needed, and he thrust forward, claws outstretched and feet going like pistons.
Wolfsbane side-stepped, like he'd known she would, and he compensated, landing a slice along her side that splattered a good amount of red onto the ground without being a fatal wound. She screeched, outraged at him getting a hit in, and Logan suddenly found himself tripped by the short stubby thing she counted as a tail.
Pain erupted in his shoulder blades, warm liquid slinking out and over his back. He smelled blood, both hers and his own, and the feral side of him shrieked to be released. Almost as loudly as Wolfsbane was shrieking on his spine as she sent gobs of bloody flesh and leather jacket flying into the air.
Logan tried to throw her off, but she planted a foot either side of his body, trapping him with her knees and a strength akin to his own. He couldn't turn over, and flailed his claws backwards with every new wet rip she took out of his hide.
_How the *hell* did she turn this to her advantage? She goes any deeper and she'll reach my spine. I'm good, but I can't come back quick enough if she damages *that*._ His bones were adamantium, but his nerve endings and blood vessels were not. And she was giving him no time to heal.
Wolfsbane seemed to know it, too, because she renewed her efforts with added vigour, and Logan howled with pain as she reopened all wounds his healing factor sought to mend, each time faster than it could knit him back together.
She was *killing* him, however much his pride didn't want to admit it.
"HIIIIEEE-YAAAH!" Something flew overhead, and abruptly the weight atop his back was gone.
Logan's body didn't register the loss for a moment, and it wasn't until his exceptional hearing caught the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and then the solid and satisfying whack of a body on the ground that he realised what was going on.
He turned his head at the flurry of movement to his left, and saw what appeared to be a large purple monster akin to the Alien pick up a struggling Wolfsbane and hurl her against the floor. It happened several times, gouts of blood spurting from the wolfgirl's snout as her face connected again and again with the ground, cheekbones almost certainly crushed and claws leaving helpless furrows in the dirt.
Finally, she ceased struggling, and the monster flung her away like so much unwanted garbage. Dead or alive was uncertain, but Wolfsbane landed in a claret-ridden heap and didn't get up.
The monster advanced, purple armour giving way to blue skin as Raven knelt by Logan's side.
"Logan?" There was a slight tremor to her voice he'd never heard before, and he realised with a start that she was actually worried for him. Him, the 'unkillable' mutant. Although, he had to admit, his condition didn't exactly inspire much confidence in his continued living, and he quirked a wry smile in her direction to let her know he was still inhabiting his body.
"That could've gone better."
"You'd better believe it, buster." Relief washed over the shapeshifter's features, and she shucked her coat, throwing it over his back to disguise the terrible wounds, lest Daisy or one of the other children catch sight of them past Rogue and Kitty's shielding arms. Seeing their most invulnerable guardian half torn to shreds wasn't something they needed at that age.
Logan grunted gratefully, eyes shifting to take in the ongoing battles around them. Their small moment of peace seemed incongruous, but he was concentrating too much on not tossing his cookies with pain to dwell overmuch on it.
A shaft of light near to the bus caught his eye, and he saw the words 'I don't want to fight you, flatscan' appear as glowing letters in the air. A splash of movement ripped his eyes from the strangeness of it, as Grasshopper flew past on unshelled wings, pursued by a floating Magneto, resplendent as always in his billowing cape.
Raven followed his gaze, speaking as she did so. "And people say women are the weaker sex."
"Never again, Blue. Never again."
*******************
Alvin glared ferociously and lifted his fists, as he'd seen in the movies long ago. He let out a shout, which, due to his proximity to Dazzler, became a series of sparkling squiggles and blots.
Casting about helplessly, the silent mutant took a step forward and slapped her untried adversary across the cheek.
Alvin ducked belatedly to the side. He then launched into a series of actions which he believed to be ducking and weaving, but which were later described by observers as sloppy head-banging, drunken wobbling, and some kind of odd tic, variously.
Dazzler crouched low, sweeping out one leg and causing the robed man to take an unexpected seat. He was clearly feeling the effects of age as he lumbered back to his feet.
He balled a fist again, swinging weakly in his foe's general direction before aborting the effort. He tried again, and then dropped his hands with a sigh. The words 'I can't hit a lady' glowed in the air beside them.
'I can't fight a norm' appeared as the previous statement faded.
There was a moment of mutual staring.
Alvin's mouth moved again. 'You stand in the way of all that is good and right. I was taught to oppose evil. Morality must come before courtesy.'
Dazzler was still reading the last sentence when a fist connected with her gut. A hubcap, snatched up from the liberally littered ground, whanged noiselessly across the back of her head.
Dropping the impromptu weapon, Alvin knelt beside the unconscious girl. "Goddess, forgive me for my act of violence. May this misguided woman turn to your path of joy and healing. Amen."
*******************
_Just a bit further,_ Magneto thought. His cape billowed behind him as he chased the irritating insect.
He raised an arm and gestured quickly to the left. Grasshopper, expecting a magnetic pull, overcompensated to his right and flew off-balance when the force never came.
Magneto allowed a small smile to grace his lips as he gathered a small bit of energy to fling the lesser mutant into the wall of a nearby building, hearing a satisfied crack resound off his chitinous plate.
Grasshopper sucked in a scream as he hit the wall - hard. He could feel the exoskeleton on his back broken and bleeding through, as he slid down the brickwork to the ground. He tried to push himself up, but was only rewarded with a shooting pain from his legs up to his spine.
He realized with a start he had lost Magneto's location a moment before something solid struck him, and all went black.
*******************
Kurt staggered over towards Raven and Logan, holding his head as tendrils of strength returned to his aching muscles. He felt weak and dizzy, but the all-encompassing urge to help his teammates far outweighed personal weakness, and he toiled on.
Then there was something in front of him - something furry and brown. For a second he thought it was Robyn, and dropped into a fearful crouch beside it.
"Liebling?"
One savage amber eye flickered open, pupil cold and hard.
_Not Robyn,_ Kurt thought, jumping backwards and wobbling slightly.
The bundle twitched, grimaced, and pushed itself up on bloodied arms. Thick red coated her face, and she licked at it, spitting out several broken teeth that gleamed dully in the dirt. They were all impossibly sharp, and Kurt stared at them for a second before the creature snarled and made a drunken lunge.
"What the – hey!" he cried, slipping out of her grasp.
"C'mere," she slurred, and another tooth bit the ground minus herself. "Magneto say kill 'nyone who tried t' defen' hisson. Pitooey!" Bye bye canine number whatever. "'At's you. Good a target as 'nother."
_Wunderbar,_ Kurt thought dryly, taking in her readied claws and steely eyes.
He broke and ran, hearing her drop to all fours in pursuit and running up a wall in hopes of escape and counter-attack.
*******************
"Wake up."
He struggled to open his eyes, and a vision with green eyes and flame red hair danced into focus in front of him.
"Wha... who?"
"C'mon, Tiger, get up. You're not done yet, are you?"
Peter sat up with a groan and rubbed his head. "MJ? MJ, is that you?" He looked up to find her fading into the distance, laughter tinkling after her.
"MJ!"
He awoke more fully with a start, battle once again renewed around him. Magneto, the man with the claws, and a blue-skinned woman seemed to be in the middle of a strange stare-down. The flatsc... human seemed to be treating Dazzler's wounds, and the strange blue... goblin ... thing was leading Wolfsbane on a merry chase.
Everyone was injured in some way, except Magneto. He had a strained look on his face that had nothing to do with his opponents in front of him, and everything to do with the rest of the town's populace being held down magnetically, unable to interfere. Of the four-armed insectoid mutant, there was no sign.
"Spider-Man!" Magneto shouted. "Take care of these two. I have more important matters to deal with."
Peter nodded and shook his head to clear it. He was still dizzy, he probably had a concussion and... he was suddenly in front of the two, trading insults with them?
"So Magneto's sending a child to deal with us? The old man's gone senile," hissed the blue woman.
"I may not be as old as you two, but I was trained by the best there is, and you aren't it," he said defiantly.
"Bub," said the man, taking a step forward, "I'm the best there is, and what I do ain't pretty."
Inwardly, Peter gulped. He really needed to have a word with his subconscious about provoking blade-wielding psychopaths while he wasn't paying attention. Spider-Man, however, crouched into a defensive stance, hoping his webs would slow one or the other down.
He knew he'd have to go on the attack quickly. The world was spinning in front of his eyes; he doubted he'd be that good at ducking or dodging for a while, so he had to hope that his first few blows would bring his adversaries down.
Hah, yeah right.
He sent twin cords of webbing spinning towards them. The woman leaped away, but the hairy man, hindered by his back injury, wasn't quite fast enough and caught some on his arm.
For a moment Peter dared hope he had an advantage, but the man just growled, unsheathed metal claws from his knuckles, and with a hearty 'snikt' cut though the strong webbing like it was butter.
_Imagine what fun those blades would have with flesh,_ Peter's treacherous subconscious prodded.
He barely had time to ponder this before the woman charged at him, changing shape into some sort of horned purple monstrosity. Peter managed to dive out of the way, but was still caught by one of her spikes. It ripped though his costume, drawing blood from his side.
The sudden sensation of pain seemed to clear his head somewhat, and the renewed rush of adrenaline allowed him to dodge the other blows from the two psychopaths, albeit sloppily. Still, things weren't looking good. For anyone. At least he wasn't alone in being butt-whupped by the people they'd come to whup the butts of.
*******************
Kurt leaped, ricocheted off the side of the bus and flipped with near-unmatched agility over Wolfsbane's head. He saw her start to turn, but she was still groggy from her tussle with Raven and the split-second she wasted was the one he took advantage of, stretching out a foot and letting the momentum of his jump send it crashing into her shoulder. She cried out in pain and went down.
Kurt landed, stumbled, and clapped a hand to his own head. For a moment the world spun, and some small part of his brain told him that, had this been the old Danger Room, the sim would've stopped for his injuries to be treated by now. As it was, he'd been forced to fight doggedly on despite his own weakness.
He almost smirked at the terminology his brain chose to use. Still, at least his opponent seemed to be injured too. That was always a plus when you weren't feeling on top of the world yourself. Logan had always taught him to turn the enemy's weakness into your own strength, and it was a lesson Kurt recalled with perfect clarity now.
A sudden childish scream split the air, and Kurt's blood ran cold. Taking his eyes from Wolfsbane, he whipped his head around to see Magneto hovering not three feet from the children. Kitty was shielding them with her body, while Rogue stood in front, a look of intense concentration etching her features. It looked for all the world like a standoff between her and the Master of Magnetism - except Rogue had nothing to fight with, and certainly posed no threat to him unless he floated within touching distance.
A feral growl snapped Kurt back to his situation, and he turned just in time to take Wolfsbane's leap, diverting the energy she used to execute it by rolling backwards and jamming his feet against her exposed belly. She flew over as he cut into a perfect backward tumble, and the two of them sprang up almost in unison.
"You're good," she said grudgingly. "For a wee imp."
He didn't answer.
"You'll still lose. Lose and die."
"We'll see."
*******************
"Rogue, what're you *doing*?"
Kitty was aghast, but dared not leave her post protecting the three cowering kids and baby. She heard the sounds of battle, but her blindness prevented her from knowing exactly what was going on around them.
Rogue was heedless of her cries, and stared coldly up at Magneto. It was beyond Kitty why he'd stopped at all, since he seemed pretty intent on getting past them to Mutie Town. Certainly he could just float right over them. They posed no threat, as compared to the others, and *they* were all otherwise engaged.
Yet stop he had, very abruptly, as if caught by some invisible lasso. Before she could be halted, Rogue had left their protective knot, striding forward as if to face him in battle. She hadn't said a word, but he'd raised an eyebrow at her. It wasn't a particularly nice sight, as anyone would later testify.
Thus, now they watched each other like circling tigers, minus the circling. Rogue's expression could only be described as strained, as if she were exerting a great amount of effort at something, yet she didn't move a muscle. Even blinking was suspended in that eternal moment of locked eyes and odd gazes.
"Your parlour tricks won't work with me, child," Magneto said at last, and tapped the side of his helmet. "Charles taught me how to shield myself from such attacks long ago, and you are no Charles Xavier."
Rogue's frown deepened, but the beginnings of a smile quirked her dark lips. "Who said I was tryin' to be?"
For a second he looked surprised. Evidently, this wasn't the answer he was expecting, and the eyebrow shot up again.
Right before he rocketed backwards, as if hit by a great force. He tumbled head over heels through the air, then brought himself up sharply. In the centre of his chest armour was a large dent.
Rogue smiled again, her breathing quickened ever-so-slightly. Beads of sweat had formed on her brow. "Figures you'd wear metal, don't it?"
Kitty cocked her head at the voices, not truly understanding what was going on. Beyond, she could hear Raven, who, in an undefined monster guise peppered with horns and ugly bony protrusions obviously designed to inflict pain and maximum damage, was doing battle with the one called Spider-Man. Logan was getting a few licks in here and there where he could. Yet he moved jerkily, and seemed to be protecting his back more than taking his more usual offensive tack.
Daisy clung to her, watching as a flash of blue flecked the broken landscape when Kurt and Wolfsbane clashed once more, until a resounding clang gashed the atmosphere around them wide open.
The very air seemed to freeze as Magneto went spinning again, this time touching down on the ground and sliding a few metres before coming to a halt. Clouds of dust billowed up around him, and he glowered, another large dent now gracing the side of his helmet.
"How dare you!" he boomed. "How *dare* you!"
Rogue altered her pose, spreading her feet a little wider and clenching her fists. "I dare like this!" And then she squeezed her eyes shut, shaking visibly and *pushing* with all her might.
Magneto threw up his hands, bracing himself against the vaguely discernable shockwave that swept towards him. Thus it was that, while still sent skidding backwards, he maintained his feet.
Not so Rogue. She fell to her knees, panting and streaked with sweat of exertion.
Kitty heard her fall and started forward, then remembered the children and stopped. She was caught between the two needy parties, and bit her lip until blow flowed as she turned sightlessly toward each.
Though she couldn't see it, the three kids looked up at her with frightened eyes, and Robyn sniffed openly. They were so vulnerable, yet Rogue mirrored the need for protection just as much. Whatever she was doing to fight Magneto, it was taking so much out of her she could barely stay upright. Kitty wasn't especially well versed in the ways of fighting, but she knew that going down was definitely a Very Bad Thing.
_But what can I do?_ Never had she felt so helpless, so unutterable *useless* in all her life - including the time before turned blind. _Shield them,_ the pragmatic part of her brain told her. _Rogue knows more about fighting than you do. The kids need you._
She took a step backwards and fumbled for Daisy's hand again, calling up her own power to make them all intangible. The children linked arms as they had done before, but watched in misery as Rogue struggled and failed to get to her feet.
Magneto walked. He could've flown, but instead he walked, and when Rogue attempted to blow him backwards again, her weakened control over the blast allowed him to brush it off relatively easily.
Upon reaching her, he laid gloved hands on her shoulders and hoisted her high into the air.
"You knew you couldn't hope to beat me," he said in a strangely calm voice. "So why try?"
Rogue gasped with a mixture of pain and need for oxygen. "...Children..." she managed to get out, sucking in sweet lungfuls. "...Protect..."
"So you'd let them watch you and your companions die?"
"They're my... my family... y'bastard," she gritted, drawing her legs back and kicking him squarely on his breastplate.
"That tickled." There was a new spark in his eyes at the mention of the word 'family'. Something akin to sadness and grief, yet tinged with anger and the indomitable urge for vengeance.
Rogue recognised it. She'd seen it enough at the lab, in the eyes of the specimens before they had their spirits broken. Her heart contracted once on instinct, but trying to manipulate the forces she had been had left her drained to the point of exhaustion, and she hung limply in his iron grip.
"One last question," Magneto said, and went on when she didn't answer. He seemed in no hurry, which was disconcerting in itself, and not a little worrisome. "How is it you're able to use my own powers against me? I'm fully aware of who you are, child, and what you're capable of. Your mother kept her secrets well, but not *that* well. I know that you need to touch to steal."
Rogue dredged up enough energy for a small smirk. "It's called evolution, bucket-head. You should look it up sometime."
Magneto curled his lip and made as if to fling her aside like so much unwanted garbage.
Daisy cried out, and Robyn did likewise, though not for exactly the same reason.
Wolfsbane, escaped from Kurt and with the elf in hot pursuit, had come running to aid her leader. She bounded on legs bruised and bleeding in hundreds of places, leaving a splashy trail of blood in the sand and dirt. Her eyes were wild, rimmed with bloodlust, and when she perceived the true nature of the situation she transferred her attention to the nearest available targets instead.
It would have been fine. With Kitty using her powers, no harm would've been done, and Kurt would've gotten there in time to intercept Wolfsbane's next move before she had time to execute it.
It all happened so fast. One second Wolfsbane was bearing down on the untidy huddle, claws and teeth flashing. The next a tiny bundle of the same had leapt from behind Robyn's legs, snapping at the mutant and sending her off balance in mid-flight. Wolfsbane, not expecting the miniscule attack, lashed out. Her accuracy was true, despite her injuries, and Clive went spinning off, split from throat to tail, to land in a crumpled heap not three metres distant.
Robyn screamed.
Kurt howled in anger, slamming into Wolfsbane's side without a thought for his hurts. His tail snaked forward of its own accord, wrapping itself around her throat and tightening with a force he'd never used before.
Her eyes bulged, she scratched scores in it, but he didn't let go.
"No, Kurti! No!" Robyn wept, and tried to break away from Ariel's grip. "Kurti, *no*!"
*******************
He was alone with the echoes. Alone with himself. It was a bit like being alone with dead people; only you heard hollow reflections of yourself rather than saw them.
Were those echoes really him? Himself? His voice singing, sobbing? Or were they something else? Were they his sister, singing with him? Was she still here? Was she just sleeping? Was he sleeping and having nightmares? Having her nightmares for her?
Something was wrong.
A certain tang in the air alerted him, a sound to those hollow echoes, a certain tincture to the sky seen thought broken stone.
Something was wrong.
Pietro moved off his stone throne. Every muscle ached still. His ankle felt unbearably sore, especially; but he needed to find out what was wrong, needed to find Wa... Ro... oh, what to call her? He needed to find *her* anyway, tell her that something was wrong. Different. Off. She'd know what to do. Both of her always knew what to do.
He took up a broken and splintered beam of wood, leftover from the repairs, and, using it as a staff, he hobbled outside. Strangely, no guards tried to stop him this time, as they had done the last time he went looking for her.
The guards were gone.
The streets were empty.
_Why?_ he wondered. Shouldn't there be singing or dancing at his emergence back into the light? Shouldn't there be wailing and crying at what his return meant for their other Child of the Messiah? Shouldn't people be screaming and attacking him? He deserved all those things and more. Probably all at once. With ice-cream, too!
As he stumbled alone he became aware that something was very, very wrong out here, too. The people were gone, and vague chuntering filled the air the further he went.
He strained his eyes and, in the distance, saw the fight.
He saw his father, holding Rogue like a rag doll, then flinging her to the ground like so much trash.
Pietro wasn't sure of much. The world was a tangled muddle, full of shadows and ghosts and images of things and people past. He didn't know precisely who he was anymore - wasn't sure who Rogue was either. But he knew that she was now the closest thing to a sister he had.
Knew that she was the closest thing to Wanda he would ever have.
Knew that he wouldn't fail her as he had Wanda.
A scream rent itself from his chest. Discarding his stick, ignoring the agony in his ankle, he rushed forward.
A few moments previous, the magnetic shield would have prevented him from reaching them, but Rogue's battle had caused Magneto to lose his concentration and briefly stretch his power beyond its limits.
So it was that Pietro was free to charge blindly into the mêlée.
Magneto heard the cry, but Pietro was so fast he barely registered the speedster until his charge was over. Pietro ran past the line of downed people and skidded up his body, punching him in the jaw through the slit in his helmet with such momentum that it sent Magneto falling to the floor.
"Don't you dare touch my sister!"
Had they been in a room, the air would've been sucked out of it.
Magneto looked at his son, and Pietro stared right back. If one was at all surprised to see the other alive after so long, they didn't show it. Instead, hot anger coursed along an electric line between them, crackling almost audibly in the fervent, battle-torn atmosphere.
*******************
Kurt felt something tugging at his sleeve, but the red curtain that had fallen across his vision also blurred his sense of touch. Yet when Pietro's screech reached his ears he couldn't help but look up, and he found himself gazing into teary pools of brown.
"Kurti," Robyn said brokenly. Her sleeve was torn, part of it still in Ariel's hand.
Kurt's mouth opened. Then it shut again. His expression faltered for a second, and he gritted his teeth as she touched the tail wrapped so tightly around Wolfsbane's neck.
The lycanthrope's struggles were feeble, to say the least, so it was a short matter to bang her head against the floor and send her all the way into unconsciousness before uncoiling the serpentine appendage and letting her breathe once more.
Robyn sniffed and fell into her brother's arms. Kurt caught her, whispering about how she should have stayed with the others where it was safe.
"I couldn't," she snuffled into what had once been his shirt. "You would've done a Bad Thing. It would've made you sad. No more Sad Times. No more. I don't want you to be sad anymore, Kurti." She was so childishly matter-of-fact about it, it made his heart wrench, and Kurt considered for the first time what he'd been about to do.
"Gott im Himmel..."
"S'alright, Kurti," she said, wiping her snout and patting his arm. "You didn't do it. You're not a bad person. You stopped, and that counts - it does. You... you stopped before... before..." Her words dissolved into snivelling sobs, and they rocked together in the dust with inexplicable tears tracking their furry cheeks.
*******************
Magneto shifted and got to his feet. Pietro tensed, but anyone with a grain of intelligence could see that doing so caused him pain.
"Your sister," his father said with deliberate slowness, "is dead. This... creature," he waved a careless hand at Rogue, "is not her."
Pietro blanched, going paler than normal but retaining his place. "She's as much as I have."
"You know why I've come." Both voices were calm, each word calculated and given only because it was needed.
A flare of lucidity broke through Pietro's oncoming madness, and his eyes became clear and icy. "Oh, I dunno. Perhaps to experiment on us some more? Got a few hypodermics hidden under that cloak, *Pops*? Some drugs taped to the inside of your helmet, maybe? Or are these jokers you brought with you here to cart me off to the asylum as well, now?" His voice held a sneer, and Magneto blanched far more than he had.
"I... I..." he stuttered, momentarily thrown. Past ghosts haunted all those gathered on that battleground. It only made sense his own would catch up with him someday.
Today.
After all, he'd already found the corpse of one, and was confronting the other.
Her murderer.
Drawing himself up, Magneto pointed at what had once been his son. "My sins are my own, but yours far outweigh them, Quicksilver."
Pietro seemed confused at the use of his code rather than real name. Even more so at the word next uttered.
"Murderer."
"Me?" He glanced around, as if by doing so someone would step forward and claim the mantle.
Magneto didn't look away. He didn't even blink. "I've done a great many things I regret in this life, but never have I stooped so low as to kill my own flesh and blood." The other hand joined the first. "Even now I'm not tarnishing myself with the same brush. I renounce you, Quicksilver. Never again will you be called my son, and no blood on my hands will ever be attributed to my kin."
At that, a concussive blast of unimaginable force flew from his palms. It tore up everything in its path, finding the hidden iron in each scrap of material and crushing it to dust. Pietro took a step to run, stumbled because of his ankle, and remained in its way too long.
There was no time for anyone to suck in breath, let alone scream, and Kurt was still in the process of reaching to cover Robyn's eyes when it hit.
A portal opened up beneath Pietro's feet, swallowing him milliseconds before Magneto's magnetic blast would've rent him limb from limb. The wavering light it emitted blurred and scattered in his stead, flung every which way and fizzling into nothingness in the air.
Everyone stared.
They were still staring when a similar portal opened several metres distant, and the skeletal form of Bairn stepped out, followed by a very disorientated Pietro. The child didn't say a word, but wagged a finger at the Master of Magnetism like he was some kind of naughty child and she his reprimanding teacher.
"What audacity is this?" Magneto thundered, angered beyond comprehension that someone would deny him the vengeance so rightfully his.
"I told you," said a raspy, agonized voice. "The council doesn't take kindly to intruders. Especially those who insist on killing town-members, which these folk now are."
Kurt turned at the voice. "Grasshopper," he breathed.
Grasshopper dragged his torn and bloodied body across the battlefield, wiping yellowish ichor they assumed was blood from his eyes. He staggered, obviously in a great amount of pain, but clinging to him was still the indescribable aura that made him what he was - a leader.
"There are those more loyal to those of us who've kept them safe the past four years than some angry deity in the sky with a penchant for crapping on them out of the blue."
Magneto frowned at the insignificant insect, and raised his hand as if to treat Grasshopper to the same blast meant for Pietro. However, a white-hot burst of energy knocked his hand away, leaving the metal smoking.
An unnamed mutant covered in dark brown quills and little else stepped from the freed crowd of Mutie Towners, glowering at the man professed to be his saviour. Several identical-teenagers did likewise as Jamie formed a protective circle around Kitty and the remaining children. The floral bulk that was Layla loomed over Rogue, pudgy face grim as she could manage.
One by one, the inhabitants of Mutie Town peeled themselves away from their collective mass and positioned themselves around or beside the different adversaries. Alvin looked up as a child dripping green slime crouched next to the fallen Dazzler, and the trio of Spider-Man, Logan and Raven blinked in surprise as more Jamies and other mutants poured onto the field, choking the battles with their numbers and hard gazes.
Silently, Magneto fumed. Rogue's efforts at mirroring his powers had cost him his concentration at holding the town members back, and now they were too widely dispersed for him to deal with in the same manner.
Grasshopper knew this, and grinned lopsidedly. "You're strong, Magneto. You're a survivor. You stand for hope, for the fact that mutants can make it against terrible odds. That's why we raised you on that pedestal, made you practically a *god*. But you're not a god. You're mortal, just like the rest of us. You make mistakes, and taking us on was a doozy and a half." His coal black eyes danced. "Can you fight a whole town of mutants, Magneto? Can you?"
Magneto stared at them. Magneto was strong, like oak or iron.
So it was Erik who shed tears. "My *son*... *KILLED* my *daughter*," he said, voice gone thick. "At least give me *justice*."
"It's not true! It's not *true*!" Daisy shrieked. "She nearly kill't Pie-Pie. An' she kill't Lance an' she almos' kill't Kurti an' *all* of us... but she stopped." The little lizard-girl was crying. "She stopped an' she threw herself inna river... 'cause she knew she'd hurt everyone. She kill't *herself*..."
Pietro stood like he'd been defeated by the girl's words. "I couldn't stop her," he said throatily. "I couldn't run... I still can't run. Not properly. Feet faster than light - and they won't go anymore. I wanted to die because all I wanted was for us to be together. Pie-Wa and Wa-pie. Whole an' complete..." Then he laughed. It was the singular most frightening sound in the stillness there could ever be. "She's not gone. Not all the way. She's in Ro-Ro... We can still be together. We can still be complete."
At that moment, it dawned on Magneto that *both* his children were insane. Long ago he'd made them strong, and that strength had introduced the flaw of madness.
Or maybe it was genetic.
Genetics…
"She'll live again," said Erik suddenly. "I have the way. She'll live again. We'll be a proper family. I can fix it. I can fix it..." He took off his helmet. Undid his cloak. "No more needles. That I can promise. I can fix it. They'll live again. All of them. No more death. No more..."
But the boy he'd once called son just looked at him through wounded eyes, and when he addressed him he did not use the word 'father' or anything of that type, and Erik knew that the damage had already been done, and nothing he said could ever undo it.
"There's always gonna be death, Magneto. Always."
And on the grounds of that pyrrhic defeat, a small child cried over her dog.
*******************
To Be Continued…
*******************
[1] You have no idea how long I've wanted to write that.
Hootild; Cool Spidey shiznet, at your service.
Ice Princess; Fear for Pietro. Fear for him. Mwahahahaaa…
FrickinEvilPoptart; Uh… wotcher. Yeah. Pyetro? Not really my thing, but different floats for different boats. And just for the record… FUBAR!
Gerri; 'But still, I suppose, in his defence... a man and his grief aren't easily parted.' How very, very true.
UnknownSource; Author Alert! Woot! And yes, Grasshopper holds a special place in my heart, too. It's steel-lined, though. I need that heart to… y'know, survive and stuff.
The Son of Logan and Ororo; Des Moines – c'est tres bien. Glad we got that one right.
The Phantom; Long live LoTR! And I hope you like the little bit of spotlight Alvin gets in this chapter. It made me laugh when I saw it.
Nessie6; Not so picky, darlin'. We all have our preferences. It's our prerogative as fanwriters. Magneto needs a Prozac tab. Badly.
Amarth Obstreperous; Word jokes ahoy. Little Spidey humour in here, to boot. And some answers to those questions of yours, I hope.
Yma; I think you're thinking of Yodelbean and/or Id(sunki). Greg never wrote JD, but he commented throughout. I miss him T^T.
Cheesy Monkey; Happy little monkey indeed. You're worse for character deaths than *I* am. And who knows, maybe some of the other canon characters will put in appearances. Stranger things have been known to happen. Especially in this fic.
sPoOkZ13412; Thank you. Short but sweet. ^_^
*******************
Thirty-third Fragment ~ Battle
*******************
Peter chose his target carefully. The short hairy guy looked mean, and Wolfsbane had already picked him out as hers. The insect, for some unfathomable reason, seemed determined to attack Magneto.
_Perhaps some sort of leadership thing. They seem to both have an Alpha Male deal going on…_
Dazzler had decided to go for the human, which left him the blue, furry... well, whatever it was made Gonzo from the Muppets look *normal*.
Peter leaped towards his target, sending a length of webbing spinning away, meaning to catch the creature off guard. He failed. The blue-furred monstrosity gave an impressive back flip, flying clear of the webbing. It landed on one of the walls and stuck there just as well as he could.
Then it leaped towards him, fangs bared, and Peter was forced to duck hurriedly to avoid being tackled. He succeeded, the blue monster flying over him and landing smoothly a few meters away.
"What the hell *are* you!" Peter cried. "Some sort of goblin?[1]"
The blue goblin creature seemed to grin at this. Or grimace. Peter wasn't sure which. At least his face wasn't quite so savage as the mask Osborne had worn when parading as the green variety.
Then it leaped again.
This was going to be *hard*!
*******************
Kurt was thinking much the same. It seemed as if he and the guy in the gaudy red and blue suit had compatible powers. So much so that, despite best efforts on both sides, it seemed that neither could actually win in a tussle.
As he dodged another of line of what appeared to be super-strength *silly string*, Kurt went over the points in his mind, trying to think up some strategy and trying to work out their respective strengths. And weaknesses.
In his favour, he seemed to have superior fighting skill, was better trained - _Thank you Logan!_ - and could, in a pinch, teleport.
Yet the gaudy dude had that web stuff, seemed stronger, and had more stamina. Plus, Kurt doubted he'd been starving, chased by hunters, and beaten pulpy by a deranged witch recently.
The stamina was the key, he figured. Kurt hadn't had a good, full, proper meal in a long, long, long time. His body had adapted to live on less food than it used to, but he was still on low amounts of energy. If this *did* turn into a battle of stamina – which, given their equality in other aspects, it could well do - then he was sure to lose.
Which meant he needed to take his opponent down quickly.
Besides, the comments he was making were beginning to annoy him.
"Come on Gobs," Gaudy-Dude jeered. "Why so blue? Aren't you enjoying our little dance?"
"If you call this dancing," Kurt shot back, "then you need to learn some new steps. Here, let me show you - "
He aimed a flying kick, and for a moment he thought he had him. However, at the last second the arachnid ducked, and sent a plume of white webbing spinning forth. Kurt couldn't move fast enough, and was caught by some of it. It wasn't enough to immobilise him entirely, but it made movement all the more difficult.
"Looks like you're in a sticky situation there," Gaudy-Dude joked.
"For that pun alone you deserve to get your butt whupped!" Kurt spat, and made a snap decision. It was a risk, it'd probably take him out of the fight for good, but it had to be done.
Concentrating hard, he teleported.
*******************
Peter's eyes widened in shock. One moment the goblin had been there, the next it was gone!
_What the hell...?_
Suddenly his spider-sense went into overdrive. Yet, before he could do anything, it was too late. You can't react to what you can't see.
The goblin reappeared right on top of him, fists balled. Both arms came crashing down on Peter's head, pounding him again and again until the rush of pain and adrenaline was lost to the darkness of unconsciousness.
*******************
Kurt sighed and collapsed on top of the guy in the outfit that would've screamed kitsch four years ago. His nose was bleeding severely, his joints ached, and his head throbbed. He never should have teleported on such low energy reserves, but he'd had little choice.
He strove to remain awake, and succeeded, but he knew that until he had recovered a bit he could not aid any of his friends in their battles as he'd so planned.
Left with little other option, Kurt began to pray they did better than he.
*******************
"So," Logan muttered to Grasshopper, as they strode towards Magneto and Wolfsbane, "we got a plan?"
Grasshopper didn't even look round. "You gotta be kidding me," he replied, still watching their opponents warily.
Logan stopped walking suddenly in mid-stride, with one foot still poised in the air, and Wolfsbane grinned viciously.
"Logan, I really, truly despise you, and ordinarily I wouldn't even dream of asking you this," Grasshopper began, murmuring rapidly and slowing down so as not to get too far ahead, "but I'm about to get fricasseed by a man who is, technically, my lord and saviour and all other kinds of babble, so I would appreciate if you would - hlk..."
Magneto had both hands outstretched, using one as a focus to hold Logan in place, and the other using Grasshopper's necklace to strangle him.
Logan had his eyes screwed shut and his lips drawn back, evidently in great pain but unable to open his jaw. Blood started to drip from those parts of him where his skeleton was close to the skin - his knuckles, his elbows, his cheekbones. A red line started to soak through his trousers at the shin.
Grasshopper fell heavily into a crouch, grappling at his neck with three hands.
Wolfsbane began to stride towards them purposefully.
Grasshopper gave up on trying to breathe and jumped. From his crouch, he was easily able to clear her, and his second bound took him behind the distracted Magneto. He hooked one arm around the man's neck and took his legs out from under him, forcing him to release his hold on Logan.
Grasshopper's enhanced strength and extra limbs gave him an unassailable advantage as they grappled, and he soon had Magneto in a nelson hold.
"You know," he commented, grunting, "your devout worshippers are going to kill me for this."
Magneto's eyes rolled back in his head, and Grasshopper's necklace again pulled on his neck, jerking him sideways and sending him flying to land unceremoniously in the dust a few feet away.
"Worshippers?" The words were incredulous and unbelieving. Obviously Magneto thought Grasshopper's talk the babble of a doomed man. "Don't worry about that," he growled, getting to his feet. "I'm -"
"- Going to save them the trouble, yes, yes, I watched that episode of Star Trek," Grasshopper retorted, having rolled into a crouch. His secondary set of hands reached up behind his back and snapped the thin silver chain that held the necklace in place, and then rubbed his throat. He didn't bruise, but he was certainly going to feel that come morning.
Magneto sneered and made a grand, sweeping gesture with both arms. Grasshopper was assailed with debris from all sides - hubcaps, unidentifiable pieces of machinery, bottle tops, a few razorblades.
In reply, he simply shut his eyes and walked forwards. Most of it just bounced off his exoskeleton. A few of the sharper things pierced it shallowly, ichor oozing around the cuts. Grasshopper ignored it.
Magneto did not relent in his battering, and did not show any sign of panic as it showed no sign of even slowing Grasshopper's approach. Just before Grasshopper reached him, he floated up into the air.
"Oh no, you fuckin' don't," Grasshopper growled, and leaped up after him, grabbing firmly onto the man's knees and pulling himself up.
Magneto tried to dislodge his grip, but Grasshopper easily batted his attempts away and continued climbing up until he once again had wrapped his arm around Magneto's neck. The older man began to choke, and grabbed at Grasshopper's unyielding arm ineffectively.
"For a saviour," Grasshopper panted into Magneto's ear through gritted teeth, "you sure shit on your chosen people an awful lot."
Magneto grimaced fiercely, and the pair suddenly shot up into the air at great velocity. Grasshopper's hold on his neck started to slip, but he hung on with fatalistic determination.
Once they were a couple of thousand feet up, the sudden drop in pressure and temperature leaving them both gasping for air, Magneto let go, and they fell. They hovered for a second, before both started to plummet, and Grasshopper's grip slid loose even more.
That was enough for Magneto, who twisted around and kicked free of the stranglehold, then slowed his own descent.
Grasshopper continued falling unchecked.
*******************
Logan saw Kurt fall, but couldn't do anything to assuage the protective urge rising inside him, for the short and simple reason that he was a little busy.
There wasn't a word to describe the thing he was fighting. It was female, at any rate, but looked like the evil grandchild of the Wolfman. On steroids. With her rather spindly limbs and the obvious age deficit between them, he'd assumed the fight would be over quickly. A few quick slashes, a punch or two to take her out without killing her, perhaps.
He'd assumed wrong.
The wolfgirl was swift but deadly, hugging the ground with her belly and snaking towards him on all fours before he had time to blink. Logan barely had time to get clear before she leapt, claws aiming to tear out his midriff.
And what claws they were. Honed and long, they seemed to be extensions of her fingers rather than too-long nails. One glance and Logan popped the adamantium counterparts on his other hand without hesitation.
She snarled and leapt again, deftly avoiding his calculated slash with a handspring Elf would've been proud of, then barrelling forward to butt him in his solar plexus. Her skull may not have been made from the ultimate metal, but it was still pretty damn hard, and Logan's lungs whooshed as the air was driven from them.
Yet, if she expected the move to take him down she was sorely mistaken. _The many pros of healing factor,_ he thought grimly, chancing a step backwards and letting her gain ground before thrusting his left claws out and taking a chunk from her shoulder.
The wolfgirl screamed; a wild, feral sound that put him in mind of an injured Sabertooth. For a moment Logan was back in battle with his arch nemesis, despite knowing full well that Creed had died long ago from a combination of X-Virus and a mob beating him to a pulp while he was down and still healing from the former. He saw the familiar claws and fangs, heard the roar of fury and rage that simultaneously raised his hackles and made him smile.
Then he snapped back to the present, fending off another close-quarters assault by the bleeding wolfgirl.
As opposed to making her back off, her injury only seemed to make her even more eager to fight, and she drove at him full tilt with an array of combat moves and wild slashes that flickered from style to style so fast it would've made any lesser fighter dizzy.
But not Logan. He'd fought the Hand before, and they were the best. Better than the best. No way some punk kid was going to succeed where they'd failed so many times to kill him.
Unlike many fighters, Logan knew the value in backing off to gain an advantage. Many were the rookies he'd seen press and press and press, only to be toppled by a simple move their constant attacking had made them too blind to see. So it was that, after delivering a swift uppercut that sent the wolfgirl reeling, he turned and pelted towards the abandoned bus.
In seconds she was after him, snarling, and Logan smirked to himself. _That's it, mutt. Follow me._
He hopped on board, dashing down the aisle and taking the stairs to the second deck two at a time.
The girl paused at the entrance, obviously cautious about walking into a trap. The bus was Logan's turf; he knew it and she didn't. She sniffed around, pacing for several minutes and kicking up a cloud of dust in frustration.
{CRASH}
{THUNK}
She whipped around as something heavy struck the ground mere inches from her hind leg. It appeared to be a seat, torn loose from its place and thrown clean through the window, with not so much intent on hurting her as just plain getting her attention.
She looked up, and, sure enough, Logan grinned down like a gargoyle. The shards of smashed window framed his face, and he openly leaned on them, nonchalantly letting them knife the undersides of his arms until streaks of blood tracked down the side of the bus. She goggled, and he smirked again, picking out the pieces and letting her watch as the cuts and gashes healed themselves.
"Whassamatter, mutt? Too scared to come up an' face me?"
"No," she spat, in a voice like cracking bones.
"Yer a fool, then."
Her eyes blazed, and she snarled. But still, she did not enter the bus.
Logan frowned, especially when she spoke again.
"If you're so sure of yourself, then why don't you come back down here and face *me*?"
"I got bored. Yer too easy to beat."
A faint quirk of the lip, but nothing more. She actually sat down and yawned. Not exactly the response he'd been going for.
"That sounds like a bluff to me, old man. I know what you're up to. Magneto trained us all, and trained us well. I know how to spot a trap at fifty paces, and you couldn't make this one any clearer if you posted a neon sign." Her smirk mirrored his own, and Logan frowned.
"So. Looks like a stalemate, then."
"Hardly," she snorted, rising and turning towards the cluster of mutants positioned just beyond the line of fighting. "If you won't face me, then I'll just have to tear the rest of your party to pieces instead." Then she took off at a run, arrowing towards where Raven, Kitty and Rogue stood in a protective huddle over the children.
Logan loosed a savage cry, and with it he felt his wilder instincts pushing to be freed. He beat them back down again, clinging to his human side. Now was not the time for him to turn into a beast.
Knowing that a leap from the window would incur broken bones and extended healing, he instead chose the stairs again. Yet this cost him precious seconds, and by the time he ran out of the door the wolfgirl was nearing the kids.
"Raven! Duck and cover!" he yelled, and was rewarded with the shapeshifter throwing herself across the others, shoving them to the ground and out of harm's way.
Kitty reached out, keeping one arm around Hope, and grasped Daisy's hand, saying something that made all of them hold onto what they could of each other. Their outlines seemed to shimmer for a second, and when the wolfgirl leapt she passed straight through them at a gallop. She whirled in surprise, but before she had time to launch another assault Logan had reached them, and he tackled her with all speed.
The pair hit the earth with a solid, meaty 'whump', rolling several yards until a pile of bricks that had once been a wall prevented them going any further.
The wolfgirl reached around and scored deep scratches down Logan's back, making him grunt with pain. But he didn't let up his hold on her, instead tightening his arms, trying to squeeze her into submission. Yet when she dug her talons deep and ripped out chunks he was forced to relinquish his hold, and the two of them backed off, breathing hard and surveying each other.
"You're good," Logan said between breaths.
"Shut up and fight me," she snapped, but made no move to attack again. Her chest heaved, and the fur that protected very little of her decency was slick with sweat.
"What's yer name?"
She blinked, obviously not expecting the question. "Rah- Wolfsbane."
"Poison. Might've known." Logan shook his head.
"Hey, fuck you, Pops."
"I don't do that sorta thing to kids. 'Specially not measly little things like you."
"If you're trying to bait me, it won't work," she said, raising her head and regarding him with a critical eye. "But since we're getting so pally-pally, mind telling me who you are?"
_She's playing for time, trying to get her breath back,_ Logan thought wryly. _I can live with that._ "Surprised ya don't already know it. Most other folks seem to. Logan or Wolverine. Pick one._
She blanched, if only for a second, and Logan knew in that instant that his reputation preceded him. Good or bad, the hesitation gave him the opening he needed, and he thrust forward, claws outstretched and feet going like pistons.
Wolfsbane side-stepped, like he'd known she would, and he compensated, landing a slice along her side that splattered a good amount of red onto the ground without being a fatal wound. She screeched, outraged at him getting a hit in, and Logan suddenly found himself tripped by the short stubby thing she counted as a tail.
Pain erupted in his shoulder blades, warm liquid slinking out and over his back. He smelled blood, both hers and his own, and the feral side of him shrieked to be released. Almost as loudly as Wolfsbane was shrieking on his spine as she sent gobs of bloody flesh and leather jacket flying into the air.
Logan tried to throw her off, but she planted a foot either side of his body, trapping him with her knees and a strength akin to his own. He couldn't turn over, and flailed his claws backwards with every new wet rip she took out of his hide.
_How the *hell* did she turn this to her advantage? She goes any deeper and she'll reach my spine. I'm good, but I can't come back quick enough if she damages *that*._ His bones were adamantium, but his nerve endings and blood vessels were not. And she was giving him no time to heal.
Wolfsbane seemed to know it, too, because she renewed her efforts with added vigour, and Logan howled with pain as she reopened all wounds his healing factor sought to mend, each time faster than it could knit him back together.
She was *killing* him, however much his pride didn't want to admit it.
"HIIIIEEE-YAAAH!" Something flew overhead, and abruptly the weight atop his back was gone.
Logan's body didn't register the loss for a moment, and it wasn't until his exceptional hearing caught the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and then the solid and satisfying whack of a body on the ground that he realised what was going on.
He turned his head at the flurry of movement to his left, and saw what appeared to be a large purple monster akin to the Alien pick up a struggling Wolfsbane and hurl her against the floor. It happened several times, gouts of blood spurting from the wolfgirl's snout as her face connected again and again with the ground, cheekbones almost certainly crushed and claws leaving helpless furrows in the dirt.
Finally, she ceased struggling, and the monster flung her away like so much unwanted garbage. Dead or alive was uncertain, but Wolfsbane landed in a claret-ridden heap and didn't get up.
The monster advanced, purple armour giving way to blue skin as Raven knelt by Logan's side.
"Logan?" There was a slight tremor to her voice he'd never heard before, and he realised with a start that she was actually worried for him. Him, the 'unkillable' mutant. Although, he had to admit, his condition didn't exactly inspire much confidence in his continued living, and he quirked a wry smile in her direction to let her know he was still inhabiting his body.
"That could've gone better."
"You'd better believe it, buster." Relief washed over the shapeshifter's features, and she shucked her coat, throwing it over his back to disguise the terrible wounds, lest Daisy or one of the other children catch sight of them past Rogue and Kitty's shielding arms. Seeing their most invulnerable guardian half torn to shreds wasn't something they needed at that age.
Logan grunted gratefully, eyes shifting to take in the ongoing battles around them. Their small moment of peace seemed incongruous, but he was concentrating too much on not tossing his cookies with pain to dwell overmuch on it.
A shaft of light near to the bus caught his eye, and he saw the words 'I don't want to fight you, flatscan' appear as glowing letters in the air. A splash of movement ripped his eyes from the strangeness of it, as Grasshopper flew past on unshelled wings, pursued by a floating Magneto, resplendent as always in his billowing cape.
Raven followed his gaze, speaking as she did so. "And people say women are the weaker sex."
"Never again, Blue. Never again."
*******************
Alvin glared ferociously and lifted his fists, as he'd seen in the movies long ago. He let out a shout, which, due to his proximity to Dazzler, became a series of sparkling squiggles and blots.
Casting about helplessly, the silent mutant took a step forward and slapped her untried adversary across the cheek.
Alvin ducked belatedly to the side. He then launched into a series of actions which he believed to be ducking and weaving, but which were later described by observers as sloppy head-banging, drunken wobbling, and some kind of odd tic, variously.
Dazzler crouched low, sweeping out one leg and causing the robed man to take an unexpected seat. He was clearly feeling the effects of age as he lumbered back to his feet.
He balled a fist again, swinging weakly in his foe's general direction before aborting the effort. He tried again, and then dropped his hands with a sigh. The words 'I can't hit a lady' glowed in the air beside them.
'I can't fight a norm' appeared as the previous statement faded.
There was a moment of mutual staring.
Alvin's mouth moved again. 'You stand in the way of all that is good and right. I was taught to oppose evil. Morality must come before courtesy.'
Dazzler was still reading the last sentence when a fist connected with her gut. A hubcap, snatched up from the liberally littered ground, whanged noiselessly across the back of her head.
Dropping the impromptu weapon, Alvin knelt beside the unconscious girl. "Goddess, forgive me for my act of violence. May this misguided woman turn to your path of joy and healing. Amen."
*******************
_Just a bit further,_ Magneto thought. His cape billowed behind him as he chased the irritating insect.
He raised an arm and gestured quickly to the left. Grasshopper, expecting a magnetic pull, overcompensated to his right and flew off-balance when the force never came.
Magneto allowed a small smile to grace his lips as he gathered a small bit of energy to fling the lesser mutant into the wall of a nearby building, hearing a satisfied crack resound off his chitinous plate.
Grasshopper sucked in a scream as he hit the wall - hard. He could feel the exoskeleton on his back broken and bleeding through, as he slid down the brickwork to the ground. He tried to push himself up, but was only rewarded with a shooting pain from his legs up to his spine.
He realized with a start he had lost Magneto's location a moment before something solid struck him, and all went black.
*******************
Kurt staggered over towards Raven and Logan, holding his head as tendrils of strength returned to his aching muscles. He felt weak and dizzy, but the all-encompassing urge to help his teammates far outweighed personal weakness, and he toiled on.
Then there was something in front of him - something furry and brown. For a second he thought it was Robyn, and dropped into a fearful crouch beside it.
"Liebling?"
One savage amber eye flickered open, pupil cold and hard.
_Not Robyn,_ Kurt thought, jumping backwards and wobbling slightly.
The bundle twitched, grimaced, and pushed itself up on bloodied arms. Thick red coated her face, and she licked at it, spitting out several broken teeth that gleamed dully in the dirt. They were all impossibly sharp, and Kurt stared at them for a second before the creature snarled and made a drunken lunge.
"What the – hey!" he cried, slipping out of her grasp.
"C'mere," she slurred, and another tooth bit the ground minus herself. "Magneto say kill 'nyone who tried t' defen' hisson. Pitooey!" Bye bye canine number whatever. "'At's you. Good a target as 'nother."
_Wunderbar,_ Kurt thought dryly, taking in her readied claws and steely eyes.
He broke and ran, hearing her drop to all fours in pursuit and running up a wall in hopes of escape and counter-attack.
*******************
"Wake up."
He struggled to open his eyes, and a vision with green eyes and flame red hair danced into focus in front of him.
"Wha... who?"
"C'mon, Tiger, get up. You're not done yet, are you?"
Peter sat up with a groan and rubbed his head. "MJ? MJ, is that you?" He looked up to find her fading into the distance, laughter tinkling after her.
"MJ!"
He awoke more fully with a start, battle once again renewed around him. Magneto, the man with the claws, and a blue-skinned woman seemed to be in the middle of a strange stare-down. The flatsc... human seemed to be treating Dazzler's wounds, and the strange blue... goblin ... thing was leading Wolfsbane on a merry chase.
Everyone was injured in some way, except Magneto. He had a strained look on his face that had nothing to do with his opponents in front of him, and everything to do with the rest of the town's populace being held down magnetically, unable to interfere. Of the four-armed insectoid mutant, there was no sign.
"Spider-Man!" Magneto shouted. "Take care of these two. I have more important matters to deal with."
Peter nodded and shook his head to clear it. He was still dizzy, he probably had a concussion and... he was suddenly in front of the two, trading insults with them?
"So Magneto's sending a child to deal with us? The old man's gone senile," hissed the blue woman.
"I may not be as old as you two, but I was trained by the best there is, and you aren't it," he said defiantly.
"Bub," said the man, taking a step forward, "I'm the best there is, and what I do ain't pretty."
Inwardly, Peter gulped. He really needed to have a word with his subconscious about provoking blade-wielding psychopaths while he wasn't paying attention. Spider-Man, however, crouched into a defensive stance, hoping his webs would slow one or the other down.
He knew he'd have to go on the attack quickly. The world was spinning in front of his eyes; he doubted he'd be that good at ducking or dodging for a while, so he had to hope that his first few blows would bring his adversaries down.
Hah, yeah right.
He sent twin cords of webbing spinning towards them. The woman leaped away, but the hairy man, hindered by his back injury, wasn't quite fast enough and caught some on his arm.
For a moment Peter dared hope he had an advantage, but the man just growled, unsheathed metal claws from his knuckles, and with a hearty 'snikt' cut though the strong webbing like it was butter.
_Imagine what fun those blades would have with flesh,_ Peter's treacherous subconscious prodded.
He barely had time to ponder this before the woman charged at him, changing shape into some sort of horned purple monstrosity. Peter managed to dive out of the way, but was still caught by one of her spikes. It ripped though his costume, drawing blood from his side.
The sudden sensation of pain seemed to clear his head somewhat, and the renewed rush of adrenaline allowed him to dodge the other blows from the two psychopaths, albeit sloppily. Still, things weren't looking good. For anyone. At least he wasn't alone in being butt-whupped by the people they'd come to whup the butts of.
*******************
Kurt leaped, ricocheted off the side of the bus and flipped with near-unmatched agility over Wolfsbane's head. He saw her start to turn, but she was still groggy from her tussle with Raven and the split-second she wasted was the one he took advantage of, stretching out a foot and letting the momentum of his jump send it crashing into her shoulder. She cried out in pain and went down.
Kurt landed, stumbled, and clapped a hand to his own head. For a moment the world spun, and some small part of his brain told him that, had this been the old Danger Room, the sim would've stopped for his injuries to be treated by now. As it was, he'd been forced to fight doggedly on despite his own weakness.
He almost smirked at the terminology his brain chose to use. Still, at least his opponent seemed to be injured too. That was always a plus when you weren't feeling on top of the world yourself. Logan had always taught him to turn the enemy's weakness into your own strength, and it was a lesson Kurt recalled with perfect clarity now.
A sudden childish scream split the air, and Kurt's blood ran cold. Taking his eyes from Wolfsbane, he whipped his head around to see Magneto hovering not three feet from the children. Kitty was shielding them with her body, while Rogue stood in front, a look of intense concentration etching her features. It looked for all the world like a standoff between her and the Master of Magnetism - except Rogue had nothing to fight with, and certainly posed no threat to him unless he floated within touching distance.
A feral growl snapped Kurt back to his situation, and he turned just in time to take Wolfsbane's leap, diverting the energy she used to execute it by rolling backwards and jamming his feet against her exposed belly. She flew over as he cut into a perfect backward tumble, and the two of them sprang up almost in unison.
"You're good," she said grudgingly. "For a wee imp."
He didn't answer.
"You'll still lose. Lose and die."
"We'll see."
*******************
"Rogue, what're you *doing*?"
Kitty was aghast, but dared not leave her post protecting the three cowering kids and baby. She heard the sounds of battle, but her blindness prevented her from knowing exactly what was going on around them.
Rogue was heedless of her cries, and stared coldly up at Magneto. It was beyond Kitty why he'd stopped at all, since he seemed pretty intent on getting past them to Mutie Town. Certainly he could just float right over them. They posed no threat, as compared to the others, and *they* were all otherwise engaged.
Yet stop he had, very abruptly, as if caught by some invisible lasso. Before she could be halted, Rogue had left their protective knot, striding forward as if to face him in battle. She hadn't said a word, but he'd raised an eyebrow at her. It wasn't a particularly nice sight, as anyone would later testify.
Thus, now they watched each other like circling tigers, minus the circling. Rogue's expression could only be described as strained, as if she were exerting a great amount of effort at something, yet she didn't move a muscle. Even blinking was suspended in that eternal moment of locked eyes and odd gazes.
"Your parlour tricks won't work with me, child," Magneto said at last, and tapped the side of his helmet. "Charles taught me how to shield myself from such attacks long ago, and you are no Charles Xavier."
Rogue's frown deepened, but the beginnings of a smile quirked her dark lips. "Who said I was tryin' to be?"
For a second he looked surprised. Evidently, this wasn't the answer he was expecting, and the eyebrow shot up again.
Right before he rocketed backwards, as if hit by a great force. He tumbled head over heels through the air, then brought himself up sharply. In the centre of his chest armour was a large dent.
Rogue smiled again, her breathing quickened ever-so-slightly. Beads of sweat had formed on her brow. "Figures you'd wear metal, don't it?"
Kitty cocked her head at the voices, not truly understanding what was going on. Beyond, she could hear Raven, who, in an undefined monster guise peppered with horns and ugly bony protrusions obviously designed to inflict pain and maximum damage, was doing battle with the one called Spider-Man. Logan was getting a few licks in here and there where he could. Yet he moved jerkily, and seemed to be protecting his back more than taking his more usual offensive tack.
Daisy clung to her, watching as a flash of blue flecked the broken landscape when Kurt and Wolfsbane clashed once more, until a resounding clang gashed the atmosphere around them wide open.
The very air seemed to freeze as Magneto went spinning again, this time touching down on the ground and sliding a few metres before coming to a halt. Clouds of dust billowed up around him, and he glowered, another large dent now gracing the side of his helmet.
"How dare you!" he boomed. "How *dare* you!"
Rogue altered her pose, spreading her feet a little wider and clenching her fists. "I dare like this!" And then she squeezed her eyes shut, shaking visibly and *pushing* with all her might.
Magneto threw up his hands, bracing himself against the vaguely discernable shockwave that swept towards him. Thus it was that, while still sent skidding backwards, he maintained his feet.
Not so Rogue. She fell to her knees, panting and streaked with sweat of exertion.
Kitty heard her fall and started forward, then remembered the children and stopped. She was caught between the two needy parties, and bit her lip until blow flowed as she turned sightlessly toward each.
Though she couldn't see it, the three kids looked up at her with frightened eyes, and Robyn sniffed openly. They were so vulnerable, yet Rogue mirrored the need for protection just as much. Whatever she was doing to fight Magneto, it was taking so much out of her she could barely stay upright. Kitty wasn't especially well versed in the ways of fighting, but she knew that going down was definitely a Very Bad Thing.
_But what can I do?_ Never had she felt so helpless, so unutterable *useless* in all her life - including the time before turned blind. _Shield them,_ the pragmatic part of her brain told her. _Rogue knows more about fighting than you do. The kids need you._
She took a step backwards and fumbled for Daisy's hand again, calling up her own power to make them all intangible. The children linked arms as they had done before, but watched in misery as Rogue struggled and failed to get to her feet.
Magneto walked. He could've flown, but instead he walked, and when Rogue attempted to blow him backwards again, her weakened control over the blast allowed him to brush it off relatively easily.
Upon reaching her, he laid gloved hands on her shoulders and hoisted her high into the air.
"You knew you couldn't hope to beat me," he said in a strangely calm voice. "So why try?"
Rogue gasped with a mixture of pain and need for oxygen. "...Children..." she managed to get out, sucking in sweet lungfuls. "...Protect..."
"So you'd let them watch you and your companions die?"
"They're my... my family... y'bastard," she gritted, drawing her legs back and kicking him squarely on his breastplate.
"That tickled." There was a new spark in his eyes at the mention of the word 'family'. Something akin to sadness and grief, yet tinged with anger and the indomitable urge for vengeance.
Rogue recognised it. She'd seen it enough at the lab, in the eyes of the specimens before they had their spirits broken. Her heart contracted once on instinct, but trying to manipulate the forces she had been had left her drained to the point of exhaustion, and she hung limply in his iron grip.
"One last question," Magneto said, and went on when she didn't answer. He seemed in no hurry, which was disconcerting in itself, and not a little worrisome. "How is it you're able to use my own powers against me? I'm fully aware of who you are, child, and what you're capable of. Your mother kept her secrets well, but not *that* well. I know that you need to touch to steal."
Rogue dredged up enough energy for a small smirk. "It's called evolution, bucket-head. You should look it up sometime."
Magneto curled his lip and made as if to fling her aside like so much unwanted garbage.
Daisy cried out, and Robyn did likewise, though not for exactly the same reason.
Wolfsbane, escaped from Kurt and with the elf in hot pursuit, had come running to aid her leader. She bounded on legs bruised and bleeding in hundreds of places, leaving a splashy trail of blood in the sand and dirt. Her eyes were wild, rimmed with bloodlust, and when she perceived the true nature of the situation she transferred her attention to the nearest available targets instead.
It would have been fine. With Kitty using her powers, no harm would've been done, and Kurt would've gotten there in time to intercept Wolfsbane's next move before she had time to execute it.
It all happened so fast. One second Wolfsbane was bearing down on the untidy huddle, claws and teeth flashing. The next a tiny bundle of the same had leapt from behind Robyn's legs, snapping at the mutant and sending her off balance in mid-flight. Wolfsbane, not expecting the miniscule attack, lashed out. Her accuracy was true, despite her injuries, and Clive went spinning off, split from throat to tail, to land in a crumpled heap not three metres distant.
Robyn screamed.
Kurt howled in anger, slamming into Wolfsbane's side without a thought for his hurts. His tail snaked forward of its own accord, wrapping itself around her throat and tightening with a force he'd never used before.
Her eyes bulged, she scratched scores in it, but he didn't let go.
"No, Kurti! No!" Robyn wept, and tried to break away from Ariel's grip. "Kurti, *no*!"
*******************
He was alone with the echoes. Alone with himself. It was a bit like being alone with dead people; only you heard hollow reflections of yourself rather than saw them.
Were those echoes really him? Himself? His voice singing, sobbing? Or were they something else? Were they his sister, singing with him? Was she still here? Was she just sleeping? Was he sleeping and having nightmares? Having her nightmares for her?
Something was wrong.
A certain tang in the air alerted him, a sound to those hollow echoes, a certain tincture to the sky seen thought broken stone.
Something was wrong.
Pietro moved off his stone throne. Every muscle ached still. His ankle felt unbearably sore, especially; but he needed to find out what was wrong, needed to find Wa... Ro... oh, what to call her? He needed to find *her* anyway, tell her that something was wrong. Different. Off. She'd know what to do. Both of her always knew what to do.
He took up a broken and splintered beam of wood, leftover from the repairs, and, using it as a staff, he hobbled outside. Strangely, no guards tried to stop him this time, as they had done the last time he went looking for her.
The guards were gone.
The streets were empty.
_Why?_ he wondered. Shouldn't there be singing or dancing at his emergence back into the light? Shouldn't there be wailing and crying at what his return meant for their other Child of the Messiah? Shouldn't people be screaming and attacking him? He deserved all those things and more. Probably all at once. With ice-cream, too!
As he stumbled alone he became aware that something was very, very wrong out here, too. The people were gone, and vague chuntering filled the air the further he went.
He strained his eyes and, in the distance, saw the fight.
He saw his father, holding Rogue like a rag doll, then flinging her to the ground like so much trash.
Pietro wasn't sure of much. The world was a tangled muddle, full of shadows and ghosts and images of things and people past. He didn't know precisely who he was anymore - wasn't sure who Rogue was either. But he knew that she was now the closest thing to a sister he had.
Knew that she was the closest thing to Wanda he would ever have.
Knew that he wouldn't fail her as he had Wanda.
A scream rent itself from his chest. Discarding his stick, ignoring the agony in his ankle, he rushed forward.
A few moments previous, the magnetic shield would have prevented him from reaching them, but Rogue's battle had caused Magneto to lose his concentration and briefly stretch his power beyond its limits.
So it was that Pietro was free to charge blindly into the mêlée.
Magneto heard the cry, but Pietro was so fast he barely registered the speedster until his charge was over. Pietro ran past the line of downed people and skidded up his body, punching him in the jaw through the slit in his helmet with such momentum that it sent Magneto falling to the floor.
"Don't you dare touch my sister!"
Had they been in a room, the air would've been sucked out of it.
Magneto looked at his son, and Pietro stared right back. If one was at all surprised to see the other alive after so long, they didn't show it. Instead, hot anger coursed along an electric line between them, crackling almost audibly in the fervent, battle-torn atmosphere.
*******************
Kurt felt something tugging at his sleeve, but the red curtain that had fallen across his vision also blurred his sense of touch. Yet when Pietro's screech reached his ears he couldn't help but look up, and he found himself gazing into teary pools of brown.
"Kurti," Robyn said brokenly. Her sleeve was torn, part of it still in Ariel's hand.
Kurt's mouth opened. Then it shut again. His expression faltered for a second, and he gritted his teeth as she touched the tail wrapped so tightly around Wolfsbane's neck.
The lycanthrope's struggles were feeble, to say the least, so it was a short matter to bang her head against the floor and send her all the way into unconsciousness before uncoiling the serpentine appendage and letting her breathe once more.
Robyn sniffed and fell into her brother's arms. Kurt caught her, whispering about how she should have stayed with the others where it was safe.
"I couldn't," she snuffled into what had once been his shirt. "You would've done a Bad Thing. It would've made you sad. No more Sad Times. No more. I don't want you to be sad anymore, Kurti." She was so childishly matter-of-fact about it, it made his heart wrench, and Kurt considered for the first time what he'd been about to do.
"Gott im Himmel..."
"S'alright, Kurti," she said, wiping her snout and patting his arm. "You didn't do it. You're not a bad person. You stopped, and that counts - it does. You... you stopped before... before..." Her words dissolved into snivelling sobs, and they rocked together in the dust with inexplicable tears tracking their furry cheeks.
*******************
Magneto shifted and got to his feet. Pietro tensed, but anyone with a grain of intelligence could see that doing so caused him pain.
"Your sister," his father said with deliberate slowness, "is dead. This... creature," he waved a careless hand at Rogue, "is not her."
Pietro blanched, going paler than normal but retaining his place. "She's as much as I have."
"You know why I've come." Both voices were calm, each word calculated and given only because it was needed.
A flare of lucidity broke through Pietro's oncoming madness, and his eyes became clear and icy. "Oh, I dunno. Perhaps to experiment on us some more? Got a few hypodermics hidden under that cloak, *Pops*? Some drugs taped to the inside of your helmet, maybe? Or are these jokers you brought with you here to cart me off to the asylum as well, now?" His voice held a sneer, and Magneto blanched far more than he had.
"I... I..." he stuttered, momentarily thrown. Past ghosts haunted all those gathered on that battleground. It only made sense his own would catch up with him someday.
Today.
After all, he'd already found the corpse of one, and was confronting the other.
Her murderer.
Drawing himself up, Magneto pointed at what had once been his son. "My sins are my own, but yours far outweigh them, Quicksilver."
Pietro seemed confused at the use of his code rather than real name. Even more so at the word next uttered.
"Murderer."
"Me?" He glanced around, as if by doing so someone would step forward and claim the mantle.
Magneto didn't look away. He didn't even blink. "I've done a great many things I regret in this life, but never have I stooped so low as to kill my own flesh and blood." The other hand joined the first. "Even now I'm not tarnishing myself with the same brush. I renounce you, Quicksilver. Never again will you be called my son, and no blood on my hands will ever be attributed to my kin."
At that, a concussive blast of unimaginable force flew from his palms. It tore up everything in its path, finding the hidden iron in each scrap of material and crushing it to dust. Pietro took a step to run, stumbled because of his ankle, and remained in its way too long.
There was no time for anyone to suck in breath, let alone scream, and Kurt was still in the process of reaching to cover Robyn's eyes when it hit.
A portal opened up beneath Pietro's feet, swallowing him milliseconds before Magneto's magnetic blast would've rent him limb from limb. The wavering light it emitted blurred and scattered in his stead, flung every which way and fizzling into nothingness in the air.
Everyone stared.
They were still staring when a similar portal opened several metres distant, and the skeletal form of Bairn stepped out, followed by a very disorientated Pietro. The child didn't say a word, but wagged a finger at the Master of Magnetism like he was some kind of naughty child and she his reprimanding teacher.
"What audacity is this?" Magneto thundered, angered beyond comprehension that someone would deny him the vengeance so rightfully his.
"I told you," said a raspy, agonized voice. "The council doesn't take kindly to intruders. Especially those who insist on killing town-members, which these folk now are."
Kurt turned at the voice. "Grasshopper," he breathed.
Grasshopper dragged his torn and bloodied body across the battlefield, wiping yellowish ichor they assumed was blood from his eyes. He staggered, obviously in a great amount of pain, but clinging to him was still the indescribable aura that made him what he was - a leader.
"There are those more loyal to those of us who've kept them safe the past four years than some angry deity in the sky with a penchant for crapping on them out of the blue."
Magneto frowned at the insignificant insect, and raised his hand as if to treat Grasshopper to the same blast meant for Pietro. However, a white-hot burst of energy knocked his hand away, leaving the metal smoking.
An unnamed mutant covered in dark brown quills and little else stepped from the freed crowd of Mutie Towners, glowering at the man professed to be his saviour. Several identical-teenagers did likewise as Jamie formed a protective circle around Kitty and the remaining children. The floral bulk that was Layla loomed over Rogue, pudgy face grim as she could manage.
One by one, the inhabitants of Mutie Town peeled themselves away from their collective mass and positioned themselves around or beside the different adversaries. Alvin looked up as a child dripping green slime crouched next to the fallen Dazzler, and the trio of Spider-Man, Logan and Raven blinked in surprise as more Jamies and other mutants poured onto the field, choking the battles with their numbers and hard gazes.
Silently, Magneto fumed. Rogue's efforts at mirroring his powers had cost him his concentration at holding the town members back, and now they were too widely dispersed for him to deal with in the same manner.
Grasshopper knew this, and grinned lopsidedly. "You're strong, Magneto. You're a survivor. You stand for hope, for the fact that mutants can make it against terrible odds. That's why we raised you on that pedestal, made you practically a *god*. But you're not a god. You're mortal, just like the rest of us. You make mistakes, and taking us on was a doozy and a half." His coal black eyes danced. "Can you fight a whole town of mutants, Magneto? Can you?"
Magneto stared at them. Magneto was strong, like oak or iron.
So it was Erik who shed tears. "My *son*... *KILLED* my *daughter*," he said, voice gone thick. "At least give me *justice*."
"It's not true! It's not *true*!" Daisy shrieked. "She nearly kill't Pie-Pie. An' she kill't Lance an' she almos' kill't Kurti an' *all* of us... but she stopped." The little lizard-girl was crying. "She stopped an' she threw herself inna river... 'cause she knew she'd hurt everyone. She kill't *herself*..."
Pietro stood like he'd been defeated by the girl's words. "I couldn't stop her," he said throatily. "I couldn't run... I still can't run. Not properly. Feet faster than light - and they won't go anymore. I wanted to die because all I wanted was for us to be together. Pie-Wa and Wa-pie. Whole an' complete..." Then he laughed. It was the singular most frightening sound in the stillness there could ever be. "She's not gone. Not all the way. She's in Ro-Ro... We can still be together. We can still be complete."
At that moment, it dawned on Magneto that *both* his children were insane. Long ago he'd made them strong, and that strength had introduced the flaw of madness.
Or maybe it was genetic.
Genetics…
"She'll live again," said Erik suddenly. "I have the way. She'll live again. We'll be a proper family. I can fix it. I can fix it..." He took off his helmet. Undid his cloak. "No more needles. That I can promise. I can fix it. They'll live again. All of them. No more death. No more..."
But the boy he'd once called son just looked at him through wounded eyes, and when he addressed him he did not use the word 'father' or anything of that type, and Erik knew that the damage had already been done, and nothing he said could ever undo it.
"There's always gonna be death, Magneto. Always."
And on the grounds of that pyrrhic defeat, a small child cried over her dog.
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To Be Continued…
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[1] You have no idea how long I've wanted to write that.