'You don't have to do this, think about it first Rich,' yelled Java, pretty pathetically, considering the circumstances. Diablo smiled at the girl as she struggled to free herself from the chains that bound her.
'I don't have to think about anything,' he rasped, grinning horribly, and with the press of a button, the turbine below her began to whiz. She gasped in horror. He leaned over the bar just in time to hear the satisfying crunch as each bone in the teenager's body, every single tendon and ligament, each muscle and organ was compressed into cosmic dust. The only remains of Claire "Java" Turner were the traces of blood flying from the propellers that had so horribly consumed her.
'Don't you love it when the good guy wins,' he could be heard sighing, to no one in particular.
Wolverine roared in anguish as he crashed through the door, too late. Behind him Nightcrawler popped into view, only to crack out again. He reappeared on the bar Diablo rested on and ferociously lunged for him, pinning him to the floor.
Diablo closed his eyes calmly as Wolverine sprinted for him, bellowing viciously and Nightcrawler held him down. His eyes remained closed but his brow furrowed angrily as he concentrated on his retaliation move.
And it happened; the energy he'd been building up exploded with such force that Nightcrawler was blasted towards the turbine only to flash out of view, seconds before he would have been killed. Wolverine was barely hasted and continued to leap from bar to bar over the mechanical monsters that roared beneath the floor.
Slashing mindlessly he tore into Diablo, who was still recuperating from his last move. Nightcrawler popped back into view as Wolverine gathered an unconscious and bleeding Diablo and leapt for the door.
'He's coming to,' said Wolverine.
'Where am I?' Diablo mumbled as he woke. His eyelids fluttered open and he became aware of an ugly man peering down at him above his aching head.
'Welcome to my Academy young man,' A voice came from the corner of the room. 'My name is Professor Xavier. Tell me, who are you?'
Diablo blinked his red eyes and sat upright, causing the strange creatures around him to back away. He frowned and simply muttered 'I'm afraid... I'm afraid I don't know.'
A large man with dark hair and really bad looking sideburns snarled and clenched his fists angrily. 'I know exactly who you are, Diablo. Don't you play dumb with me or I'll be forced to knock some sense into you, gottit?'
Suddenly it all came back to him.
FLASH--A terrible storm
FLASH--Running for shelter
FLASH--A lightning bolt in the back
FLASH--The unbearable pain
And then... blankness.
'W...what happened after the storm? I can't... I cant remember.' He cringed as a surge of pain shot through his stomach, causing him to buckle in agony. As he shook off the intense stinging sensation, he could see that he was in what seemed to be a living room, with a fire burning. He was lying in one of the sofas. It was just him, a man in a wheelchair, and the guy with the bad haircut who kept clenching and unclenching his fists, somewhat unnervingly.
'It was obviously Electroid,' the man, X-something said.
Diablo wasn't sure what that meant, but he could tell from the look on burnsie's face that it wasn't good. And he had an irresistible urge to tell the grumpy bollocks to get a haircut. Which he thought to hold off until...
'DAMMIT,' he was shocked suddenly, and all thoughts left his mind. Blackness enveloped him, and then began to swirl into some sort of vortex. The vortex formed a ladder. He was on it. And he knew he had to keep climbing no matter what. 'Go Richard GO!' lots of familiar looking people urged him on from nowhere in particular. He could sense from their voices that it was important that he kept going. He scrambled, trying to keep climbing, but the ladder was escalating quicker than he could move.
Suddenly, the blackness faded and he was standing in the ruined living room. The walls were charred black at either side and the fireplace was a crumbling wreck. The only thing in the room that wasn't black and broken was the red velvet sofa that he then collapsed into, exhausted, as the chandelier hanging above the door fell and crashed into smithereens.
He turned as there was a knock on the door, only to see it fall flat on the ground off of its hinges. Professor X, who was now smiling, appeared in the doorway and was closely followed by the other guy. 'You're possessed,' he said vaguely. The guy brandished a syringe and leapt for him with the agility of a cat. He felt a prick in his arm as the needle pierced his skin, and remembered no more.
Nightcrawler buried his head in a pillow. 'Why had she to die because of one stupid mistake she'd made in her life? She should not have cheated on us, but God, did she pay a price for it in the end...' his thoughts were interrupted by a knock at his door. He flicked to the window and grabbed a tissue to dry his tears before popping back into his bed as if he'd been sleeping all along. The door creaked softly open. He pretended to sleep as Wolverine could be seen peering his head around the door. 'I... I'm sorry for your loss,' the huge man began awkwardly, 'I've just come to let you know that... that it wasn't Diablo who killed Claire. It was Electroid.' Nightcrawler stopped pretending to be asleep and shot bolt upright before disappearing. He reappeared clinging on to Wolverine's shirt in anxiety and could be heard hissing 'I weell keel heem.' Wolverine growled and shook off the boy whose long blue tail whipped off the ground as he disappeared and reappeared on the wolf-man's shoulder. His brown eyes narrowed as he spoke again into Wolverine's ear, 'he weel die tonight.' And in a flash, Nightcrawler had disappeared once again...