Author: Viral
Chapter Genre: Pure Action/Adventure
Author's Notes: I apologize for the extended wait. Some of the reviewers may have lost interest. However, I thank you for your encouragement up to this point. I am also ignoring the comic book deaths of several Inner Circle members.
-=-=-=-Cyclops narrates-=-=-=-
"Oh my word…" Jubilee said, her voice portraying deep fright. Her arm extended upward and her slanted, brown eyes widened and watered with tears of fear. She was pointing towards the hovering bodies of Magneto and the three horsemen of Apocalypse: Pestilence, War, and Famine. She was weak, tired, and worried about what was going to happen next.
"Storm, if you can hear me I implore you to respond, immediately," Beast said, frantically speaking into the communications device attached to his belt. His blue eyes were watching Magneto and his horsemen approach them with an attitude that showed they were not playing games. They were prepared to draw blood and inflict death.
War lifted up his hands and they began to glow a bright green. He entwined his fingers and pointed his palms towards the place where the X-Men were standing. Without a word or warning of any kind, he shot a ray of heat, light, and electrical energy at them. Bishop quickly moved his bulky frame in front of his teammates and dug his feet into the ground. When the blast hit his body he tumbled backwards, slightly, but managed to continue standing. His eyes turned white with energy and his fists were surrounded by a glow of power. He redirected the absorbed attack and shot it upward at War, who quickly dodged.
Everything began to happen quickly. The lines had been drawn and crossed and the initial attacks were in place. I immediately took position as the assignment leader and called out to the team, "Jean and Emma take Magneto! Wolverine and Bishop take War! Jubilee, Gambit, and I – we have to take the others down!"
Jean immediately took flight, her green eyes looking angrily at Magneto's shadow-covered face. He spoke to her with a deep voice, sounding almost like pity, but not close enough. "Jean, you know you're not powerful to face me," he said. "Why would you even try?"
"Maybe not when I'm alone," Jean said. She telekinetically removed his helmet and tossed it to the ground, revealing white hair and aged facial features. "It just so happens, I'm not alone." Jean and Emma sent a barrage of mental attacks into Magneto's mind, sending knives through his brain. Losing all sense of direction and control he began to lose altitude, the pain of the relentless psychic attacks making him forget every strategy he had planned.
"His mind is not vulnerable to probes at all, but it's very susceptible to simple confusion attacks," Emma noted. Perhaps the Master of Magnetism wasn't as deadly as he seemed.
War rode on his mechanical, flying horse, controlling its movements with his mind. He kept tabs on Beast and Wolverine as they tried to strategize and move around him. "Logan," Beast said, almost as low as a whisper, "How are we going to gain enough altitude to knock him down?"
Wolverine remained silent, but continued walking in a huge circle, never looking up at what War was doing. His heightened senses gave him a pretty good idea of what their enemy was doing and the movements he was making. Beast, sick of waiting, and worried that the impatient War would attack, propelled himself into the air, hoping he would be able to jump high enough to grab onto the horse. When he realized he could make it, he extended his arms upward and grabbed onto the horse's body. He scratched the horse, trying to get a grip, but his face met the sole of War's foot and he fell towards the ground.
"Beast! What're you doin?" Wolverine yelled, displeased and upset. A ray of green light quickly shot from War's hands and hammered into Beast's chest, propelling him to the ground with greater speed.
-=-=-
"Storm, why are we just sittin around?" Rogue whispered furiously over the communicator on a closed connection. "Beast is gonna be splattered! Ah could help him!"
"Rogue, trust me" Storm said authoritatively. "Now is not the time. The reason I forbade Cyclops to go any closer to land the jet because I knew Magneto would be ready to detect our presence. We are up against the greatest minds of our enemies. Now is not the time to play by their rules."
"How long are we gonna be sittin here, gal?"
"Some of us will be sitting longer than others," Storm answered. "Just be patient and watch."
-=-=-
"Hank!" Jean yelled, seeing his fuzzy, blue body plummet from the sky.
Upon hearing his name being called, Emma took her attention off of Magneto and yelled to Jean. "Catch him!" The next thing she felt was a deep cut made across her back and the last thing she heard was a sheet of metal dropping on the ground beside her.
Jean telekinetically placed Beast's injured body on the ground. She turned back to face Emma but only saw her body laying on face-forward on the ground with crimson blood staining her back and darkening her uniform. "What happened?" Jean said and gasped and she turned around to face Magneto. He was on his feet, obviously struggling to fight off the effects of the mental attacks.
"No more games, Jean Grey!" he said and she literally felt her blood pressure drop. Magneto was not joking. He was taking every bit of metal in her blood he could find and manipulating it: calcium, sodium, potassium, iron – every available metal substance in her bloodstream.
"Magnus!" she said, falling to her knees. "I won't go out by myself." Her eyes closed tightly and her face turned red as she strained to focus her remaining energy. Magneto began to shake as if he were having a spasm. A telekinetic field pulled on his heart and began to stop it from beating. Over the time span of a few short seconds he fell to the ground. She forced blood back into his veins, increasing his blood pressure, resulting in hemorrhaging. She felt her own blood pressure beginning to return to its normal pace as Magneto squirmed on the ground.
While Jean had been fighting Magneto, Wolverine decided to continue with his plan. He continued to walk around in a huge circle, dodging War's lazy attacks whenever he did decide to shoot. Then, the plan was fulfilled: he clapped his hands twice and Bishop threw one of his guns to him. Wolverine, an excellent marksmith from his training with the government, was able to quickly take the gun, aim it with the butt in his shoulder, and pull the trigger lucidly. All it took was one shot. When his body collided with the ground, War was completely dismantled. Pestilence and Famine were equally easy targets for Jubilee and I, even with our exhausted powers.
When all was said and done we had two badly injured teammates: the White Queen and Beast. "We have to keep moving," I commanded, "We only have forty-five minutes to stop that space station from hitting the earth's surface!"
"What do we do with them?" Jean asked, pointing to our fallen comrads.
"We have to leave them behind. Jubilee, call the professor and have him send a jet with medical facilities on it."
"But Cyke!" Jubilee began to complain.
"Stay here and watch them!" I said and motion for the rest of the team to move towards the NSWH where the only weapon that could repel the space station was located.
-=-=-
"Kitty and Piotr, I want you to join the rest of the team when Sebastion Shaw comes out of the building. He and the rest of the Inner Circle will be the next set of villians to fight," Storm commanded.
"Just so I know – why do you want us to go, then?" Kitty asked over the communicator.
"Jean's mind is exhausted and no one else would be able to take on Shaw. We can't risk the entire team being fully injured, for if my ultimate plan were to fail, Scott would have to do whatever is necessary to stop the space station."
"Lord knows Ah trust Storm, but I don't know what to expect," Rogue sighed when Kitty turned her communications device to mute. "Here we are, sittin in trees and waitin for God knows what to happen."
"Knowing that Magneto would crush us is proof enough for me," Colossus said, rolling his r's with his thick, Russian accent. "And she knows who we are fighting against next. Something tells me she has a plan."
"Aaaah!" came a high soprano scream near the NSWH. Rogue picked up her binoculars and caught a glimpse of Jean's red hair flying in the air. Blood was spilling from the corner of her mouth and when her body finally hit the ground her eyes were closed and her breathing harsh.
Rogue quickly looked for the attacker and saw Donald Pierce, standing with his cybernetic arm pointed to where Jean's body once stood. Smoke rose from the source of the plasma charge that had surprised the X-Men and knocked the redhead out of commission. Standing next to Pierce were Harry Leland and Sebastian Shaw. A lump filled in Rogue's throat as she looked at the healthy Harry, who had supposedly died from a heart attack.
"Kitty… Colossus… it's your turn," she said and before she knew it they were running towards the fight.