Magneto's face was flushed with the foreknowledge of triumph. He'd hoped to recruit Nightcrawler, but it was evident that was not going to happen. This, then, was the next best thing; the defeat and certain death of a formidable opponent. Magneto was, in spite of himself, more than a little awestruck of Kurt's stamina – all of Magneto's power was focused on killing the younger mutant, and he was still on his feet. No-one had ever managed to withstand Magneto's power for this long before, especially someone who should have been so profoundly affected by it. Nightcrawler, it seemed, was truly a foe to be reckoned with.
But then, so was Magneto.
At last, after a reasonably drawn-out battle, he'd managed to bring the blue teleporter down. Kurt lay on his back, gasping for breath, six identical blades pinning down on his chest and throat, preventing him from moving. Now, Magneto walked up to the helpless boy.
"So much potential, Nightcrawler," he said, regretfully. "I'm going to be very sorry to have lost you"
At that instant, as he prepared to end Kurt's life, he was distracted by a movement above him. He looked up as this new distraction caught his eye.
Literally.
The Master of Magnetism screamed in agony as the swooping raven tore his right eye from his head, swooping away with its prize, landing a short distance from the half-blinded mutant. As he watched, his remaining eye screwed up with the incredible pain, the raven grew. An instant later, one hand still stained with Magneto's blood, Mystique glared at him.
"No," she spat.
Magneto stumbled onto one knee. "Wh... why... you"
"Sixteen years, Erik," she continued, ignoring his gasps. "Sixteen years ago, you cost me the one thing I believed no-one would ever be able to take from me. You doomed me to this fate – hated by my own children, the only ones who should have cared for me. You doomed him to an even worse one – my protection would have meant that the Genetex agents never took him. Sixteen years ago, you cost me my son." Her glare shifted up a notch, becoming so venomous that even Scott's optic blasts were rivalled by it. "You will not take that from me again."
With Mystique having distracted Magneto, the metallic shards pinning Kurt to the floor had dropped harmlessly away along with the pressure hampering Kurt's senses. The sense of disorientation hadn't gone away, however – he was listening to what Mystique was saying, and the shock was almost as effective in preventing him from getting up.
This is impossible, he told himself. She can't be my mother...
But it does explain an awful lot...
Kurt shook his head and scrambled to his feet, blood dripping from his injured shoulder. Maternal linkages or not, he could focus on the how and why of his situation later. All that was important was that his opponent was distracted, and the odds had improved considerably in his favour. Now he had to work with those odds.
Kurt Wagner still had a job to do.


Shortly after Simon had toppled to the ground, Kitty and Rogue had gotten to their feet, still half-expecting the unconscious mutant to rise once more and continue his attempts to kill them. Having convinced themselves that he was no longer a threat – at least for the moment – they had left the smaller side-room and entered the main hall.
Pandemonium greeted them.
Pairs of struggling figures rolled back and forth on the ground, trading blow for blow as they fought like wild animals. Old nemesis and new enemies battled one another as they watched, speechless at the violence before them. For a moment, they were too shocked to move or speak.
"Intense, isn't it?" asked a small voice beside them. Turning, they found a Jamie standing there, looking around with as much awe as the girls had felt.
"Jamie?" asked Kitty. "Like, what are you doing?"
He shrugged. "I'm the original, so I'm kinda standing back so my multiples can keep going. If I go down, we all go down," he said, by way of explanation. "The guys are over there -" he gestured toward a pack of Jamies who were subduing a bruised and bloody Todd "- and I was just going to see how you two were doing."
Rogue grinned. "Simon's not gonna bother us," she informed the smaller boy. "In fact, he ain't gonna bother no-one for a while."
Jamie shrugged again. "Okay. In that case, you guys wanna help take out some of the others?"
Kitty raised an eyebrow. "You want to beat people up? You've, like, been totally spending too much time with Mr. Logan."
"Probably," agreed Jamie absently as he resumed his view of the room. Jean... Amara... Hank... Evan... they were all either winning their respective fights, or Jamie wouldn't have been able to damage their opponents anyway... Kurt... who the hell is that helping Kurt?
"Hey," he gestured. "What's with the blue lady?"
Kitty and Rogue turned to see. "Like, don't ask me," replied Kitty. Rogue recognised Mystique, but shrugged too, and Jamie shook his head.
"Oookaaaaay... well, he's okay for the moment" he surveyed the room once more. "I'm gonna go help Scott," he decided aloud. He gave a little wave to the girls. "Bye!" With that, he ran back into the fray. Rogue looked at Kitty.
"So what are we gonna do?" she asked.
Kitty shrugged, looking around the room herself. "Mr. Logan needs help," she said slowly. She looked at Rogue. "Come on! We're gonna totally help him!"
"Kit! Wait! Aw, shiiiiiiit..." Rogue called after the valley girl's retreating back with no success. Grumbling, she followed. "The things ah get mahself into"
Blood and gore dripped from the hole in Magneto's face as he focused his energy once more. "ENOUGH!" he roared, his voice given energy by his incredible fury and the burning, blinding pain in his head. With one hand, he gestured; the six identical blades that had before pinned Kurt to the ground rose into the air and hurtled, spinning, toward Mystique. The shapeshifter hissed angrily and spun away, dodging the various blades as she went. Magneto turned, allowing the whirling knives to keep Mystique busy, and focused his attention on Kurt. As the blue teenager bounded toward him, snarling, Magneto simply pointed at him. Kurt stopped dead, unable to move as a bubble of magnetic energy pinned him down. Then his eyes bulged as the iron in his blood began to rebel against him. He tried to scream, a sound that was choked both by the fiery pain he was feeling and the anger driving him on. The sound that eventually found its way out of his throat was an animalistic snarl of pain and outrage. Magneto's lip curled in disgust.
"Goodbye, Nightcrawler," he grated. Blood began to drip from Kurt's nose as his blood tried to reverse its flow. Triumph flared in Magneto's remaining eye, turning his face into a grimacing mask of blood, terrifying to behold.
A mask that abruptly transformed, his expression changing from victorious elation to painful shock as he felt himself lifted bodily off the ground by Mystique's arm around his throat. Not an arm, precisely – it had been transformed into a tentacle-like appendage, and was rapidly choking the air out of his lungs.
"Quoth the raven," hissed a voice in his ear, "NEVERMORE"
Magneto, unable to answer, narrowed his remaining eye. A twirling sound came from behind him, abruptly cut off by a short scream from Mystique. The tentacle removed itself from around his neck, and he turned around to see the shapeshifter tugging at a metal blade embedded in her shoulder. He smiled coldly, concentrated, and suddenly Mystique lifted off the ground, her blood twisting in her veins much as Kurt's had a moment before. At that thought, Magneto's smile dropped away. Nightcrawler... damn it, I forgot to
Abruptly he was thrown forwards as Kurt crash-tackled him from behind, bringing Magneto down in an ungraceful heap. The older man grunted and began to focus his power; however, at the first hint of a magnetic field appearing around him, detected by his magnetic senses, Kurt smashed one fist into Magneto's good eye, causing the skin around it to swell instantly, shutting his other eye and leaving him completely blind – at least for the moment. Unable to see, Magneto roared in anger and threw himself backwards, crushing Kurt into the floor with his weight. Next to them, Mystique dropped out of the air, gasping for breath.
Kurt landed heavily with the older man on top of him, a magnetic field already hampering his senses. This time, however, he was too angry to let it slow him down. Kicking upwards, he pushed Magneto off him, flipping the older mutant onto his back. Kurt rose once more and pounced on the stunned Magneto. In an instant, he had him in a headlock. Looking up, he saw Mystique struggling to regain her feet, still panting.
Beneath Kurt, Magneto bucked furiously. Loosening Kurt's hold on his throat, he managed to speak. "Will†get†you†Nightcrawler"
Another blade suddenly whipped out from underneath Magneto's cape, narrowly missing Kurt as it spun past him. Turning in the air like some metallic boomerang, it curled not toward Kurt, but toward Mystique. Kurt looked at her, horrified, as realisation dawned – there was no way she could dodge it in time.
Magneto was going to kill her. There was nothing he could do.
No, there was one thing.
He couldn't do that.
He had to.
Gritting his teeth, Kurt took in his surroundings. There was only one way he could stop what was going to happen, and only a few seconds in which to do it. Tensing himself, he did it.
Tightening his grip on Magneto's neck, he threw himself forwards, rolling over one shoulder. Magneto, totally unprepared for this, rolled with him, his neck twisted at an impossible angle as the weight of his body pulled against the force of his fall. As Kurt hit the ground, a loud crack sounded at the motion.
The Master of Magnetism slumped to the ground, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle, lifeless. Not far away, Mystique rose swiftly to her feet as the spinning blade clattered uselessly against the floor some ten feet in front of her. As she looked at her son, Kurt released the body, trembling at the knowledge of what he'd done. In one moment he had saved a life and taken another. Did this pardon him? Would he go to hell for murdering another, or would God forgive him for his actions, since he'd saved another's life? He didn't know.
When Kurt fought down his inner turmoil enough to look up once more a moment later, Mystique was already gone.

Evan gritted his teeth as Pietro punched him in the stomach again. The attacks had been relentless, now – Pietro knew he had the advantage, and wasn't giving Evan time to fight back. Both hands were a blur of speed as they pummelled Evan's body, jolting him with every impact. Suddenly, the rapid-fire blows stopped.
Pietro smiled down at his helpless enemy. "You lose, Daniels," he said, speaking slowly enough for the woozy Evan to understand him. Drawing back his fist, he threw what was going to be the final punch, aiming it directly between Evan's eyes. He was on target, and a crack of breaking bone echoed through the air.
Pietro screamed.
His hand had struck a barrier of solid bone that had suddenly grown over Evan's face, catching the punch before it hit. The crack of breaking bone had been Pietro's wrist and at least three of his fingers.
Evan grinned.
Abruptly, the bony plate protecting the upper portion of Evan's face changed. A rhinoceros horn of bone grew from the centre of Evan's face, rapidly stabbing out into Pietro's damaged hand, impaling it on a spike of bone. Pietro's scream gained strength as his hand was run through, stumbled back in pain. Evan moved forward at the same time, knowledge of victory shining in his eyes. Kicking Pietro's feet out from under him, he pressed both palms to the speedster's chest as he fell, pressing his back firmly against the floor. He concentrated his powers, and a spider's web of bone straggled out from his spread fingers, expanding over Pietro's chest, stabbing into the floor on either side of him, thickening into solid plates.
When Evan finally stood, his adversary lay helpless, pinned to the ground beneath a solid breastplate of bone. He smirked.
"So much for you, Pie-pie."

Tabitha gaped at the sight before her. She'd been peppering Jean with a series of boom-balls, attempting to knock the redheaded telepath down, where she'd be easy prey. That plan, it seemed, had backfired.
Half a dozen balls of plasma energy hung suspended in the air between the two girls. On the other side of this explosive obstacle, Jean glared at Tabitha with her hands outstretched, exerting her control over the collective boom-balls.
"I've had enough of you," Jean growled. With a wave of her hand, she sent the balls of energy hurtling toward Tabitha. Tabitha screamed and tried to get out of the way, but ran up against a telekinetic wall. She couldn't move.
The balls of energy impacted on the ground all around Tabitha; as the last one detonated, Jean released her hold on the blonde, letting the blast of energy send her flying across the room. Tabitha hit the ground, rolled, came to a stop. Panting, she looked up at Jean, who simply put her hands to her temples. Moments later, Tabitha felt a mental probe in her mind. She had no time to react; she couldn't have reacted if she did have time. Either way, a blast of telepathic energy knocked her unconscious in seconds.

Wanda looked down at the prone Amara and grinned victoriously. She knew a fair bit about human anatomy; that knowledge told her that the Nova Roman was only a few moments from losing consciousness. Considering the length of time that Wanda had been choking her, pressing Amara into the floor with her entire weight, she couldn't have much energy left.
Which was why Wanda was so confused when the victorious grin was returned tenfold. However, she never had time to react; Amara's body suddenly shifted, becoming little more than a humanoid fireball, into which Wanda's entire body sank, a result of her having been pressing down on Amara so hard.
Wanda screamed in blinding agony as she felt the flames sear her flesh. Rolling off to one side, still screaming, she tried frantically to put out the miniature fires all over her body. She succeeded fairly quickly, although the pain nearly caused her to pass out. Then she looked up. And whimpered.
Amara, standing above her, glared back down. A smirk crossed Amara's features for an instant.
"Never forget your place, peasant," she informed Wanda. A moment later, a boot connected solidly with Wanda's head, knocking the girl unconscious.

Hank ducked out of the way as Fred thundered past, bellowing in anger.
Alright, he thought. Strategic planning evidently is not working. Attempts to meet him head-on will obviously end in failure. So, what to do?
Fred lumbered to a halt, spun, and charged once more, rather like a bull charging a matador.
Yes, Hank thought. Making me the matador... but I don't have a red cape... so how does one stop a charging bull with one's bare hands?
It was simple, really.
As Fred rumbled past once more, Hank sidestepped lithely. Waved his hands with a flourish. And spun ever so slightly so that he could slam a large blue fist into Fred's groin.
Fred's roar of fury was abruptly cut off by a strangled squeaking sound. He tripped, stumbled, fell, and with an 'Ulk' sound, assumed the foetal position. Hank scratched his head as he stood over the fallen behemoth.
"Crude, but effective," he mused. He bent down to speak quietly. "But if anyone asks, I'll say I used more traditional fighting methods"
After all, it wouldn't do for him to gain a reputation for fighting dirty.

Fighting dirty was, of course, Logan's arena. He knew all about fighting dirty, and while he usually tried to put up a fair fight, he had one specific exception to this personal rule. This exception was currently trying to tear Logan's eyes out with his enormous hands. Logan snarled and swung one set of claws at the offending arm; he felt a slight tug as two fingers on Sabretooth's hand parted company with the rest of his body. Sabretooth let out a roar at the sudden stinging pain and pounded his other fist into Logan's chest, knocking the smaller man back a few paces. Logan advanced again, claws raised, discounting Sabretooth's injured hand, the hand he couldn't possibly use because it would have been too painful, the hand Sabretooth wouldn't be fighting with.
The hand that Sabretooth slammed, with all of his considerable strength, into Logan's unprotected face.
The short, burly Canadian's vision exploded into bright colours as he felt himself fall onto his back. His healing factor kicked in, trying to heal the damage in time for him to get up – but too late. His starry vision cleared enough to see Sabretooth's form looming over him, raising both fists, sending them crashing down for what was going to be the final blow of their long-standing war. Logan was dimly aware, an instant before impact, of a slight tug on one arm. He was more aware of the faintly cool sensation that rippled through him as Sabretooth's fists were millimetres from his chest. And he was very aware of his confusion as both of Sabretooth's hands passed straight through him without a check, slamming into the solid floor beneath him.
"Now that's, like good timing!" announced a voice next to his head. Turning his head, he saw Kitty holding one arm, phasing them both and protecting them from harm. As he gaped in astonishment, they began to sink into the floor, out of danger. Sabretooth roared and snarled in utter fury, swinging and slashing at the two smaller mutants, but was unable to harm them. As they disappeared entirely into the floor, he noticed something else – someone else. Spinning around, he saw Rogue standing next to him. But he only saw her for a second; because as he turned, her bare hand pressed firmly onto the skin of one massive bicep. He was instantly paralysed by the sensation of being drained; a moment later, he crashed spectacularly to the floor, his mind in regression as his strength flowed into Rogue.
As Kitty and Logan swam up through the floor and solidified next to her, Rogue felt the unpleasant sensation of dank fur sprouting all over her. Kitty's sudden fit of giggling confirmed it – she'd taken on Sabretooth's physical characteristics as well.
"Shut it," she growled at them. "I just saved both of ya, so don't laugh."
Remembering that the fur came with considerable strength, not to mention Sabretooth's rather unpleasant disposition, Logan and Kitty did the wise thing. They shut it.

Scott grunted with pain as he was thrown onto his back, Lance diving on top of him a moment later. The enraged rock tumbler glared at him, a look that was made more menacing by his broken nose.
"Now you're fucked, shades," he spat. Pinning Scott's arms down with his knees, he drew back his fist and punched Scott savagely in the face. Then he hit him in the chest. Then he prepared to punch Scott's face again. Then he made his mistake.
He looked up.
He barely had time to register Jamie's hurtling form before the younger boy flying-tackled him, sending them both tumbling backwards with Jamie on top. For a moment, Lance was too stunned to retaliate – this kid was half his size, yet he'd attacked him full-strength. This just didn't happen, damn it!
Then he shook his head and swiped at Jamie. Jamie grinned at him and clapped his hands; a multiple appeared and took the punch on his shoulder. Another four multiples appeared from the impact of the punch. As five new opponents lined up next to the original, Lance's jaw dropped as he realised how Todd had been beaten by what he'd thought to be some wimpy little kid.
And, as he gaped at the small group of Jamies, he never saw Scott regain his feet. He also never saw the blast of kinetic energy that knocked him out cold. As he landed heavily, already out of it, Jamie rejoined with his multiples and turned to look at Scott.
"So†I saved you" he said slowly.
Scott grinned wearily. "Yeah, I noticed that too," he agreed.
"Does this put me in charge?"
Scott walked over and patted the smaller boy on the back. "I'll think about it," he replied mildly. "Now come on."
Together, they rejoined with the others.