Together We Stand
Author: Jenskott
Summary: A What-If where Xavier and Magneto elected working together instead fighting at each other. How would be the Marvel Universe?
Notes: I'll repeat: This is NOT based on the Evoverse. My only knowledge of X-Men: Evolution comes from fanfiction, since the show wasn't aired where I live. All right, Logan is a teacher -it seemed me a good idea-, but that's it. The Xavier's team is the original plus Wolverine, and the Magneto's team gets members of AoA, plus Psylocke. Two of the Horsemen showed in X-Factor and the remainder three in AoA.
Rating: PG-13. At least for now.
Disclaimer: They're Marvel's. But I'm treating them well.
Feedback: To But isn't necessary you wrote me telling me what you think or to correct my flimsy English. Really, don't take the effort to type a pair of lines... What do you mean with reverse psychology?
Part Three. Victory and Loss-
"EAT THIS, BITCH!"
A comet-like river of blazes struck a crystalline shield with vicious brutality. Candra, Horsewoman of the Death, recoiled with the impact and sucked air to stifle a whimpering moan.
When she had sensed mentally the presence of the three X-girls together, a predatory and mischievous grin had lit up her features and she squatted behind an empty shaft to lurk her preys. Her resentment regarding the insolent orange-haired brat had anticipated and parried her attack was swallowing her whole. She dwelt dejectedly on why an external was forced to waste one second of her prolonged life stalking infants behind of a wall. But when The Egyptian had summoned her to offer her a major pawn role, her only choices were obeying him or dying painfully. En Sabah Nur, the self-named Apocalypse, was as immortal as she was, but far older and way mightiest. She couldn't win that battle.
Nonetheless her plans had gone somewhat awry when she attacked her victims. And she wondered, as her telekinetic bubble withstood and deflected a power storm, if she could actually win this battle.
A flaming claw lifted her shield and herself in the air and smashed her in a column. With enough strength to bend steel like cardboard. She restrained a howl and tottered unsteadily. Candra shook off her dizziness quickly, clenched her fists and ignoring her aching joints flew forward with rocket-like surge. Boiling anger fueled her.
Jean and Betsy sidestepped swiftly, and with a fluid motion, spun around and shoot twin mental blasts.
Candra dispelled them in the last moment with other force shield, and gasped. Where had found Xavier that girl? The child was ridiculously young, barely one decade and half, but her power was massive. She needed her entire might to repel her mental attacks. And when she set careful traps, the child located them and incinerated them at once. And she never fell twice in the same trick. A quick learner besides mighty. She didn't recall any telepath capable of matching her. Perhaps Xavier or the Shadow King. They had to slay her here and now, before she reached her full potential and became a true bother. Regretfully she was aware of her chances were slim.
She wasn't her only trouble, though. Since her full power and skill were used against the redhead girl, the blonde kid took advantage of it, distracting her telepathically and attacking her with a weird fighting style. And she battled viciously, relentlessly, kicking the shield to shatter it or throwing barrages of punches when her defenses weakened. She didn't understand how two brats could muster power enough to corner her, but the thought boiled her blood with incandescent rage.
However she was more concerned with the third kid for some vague instinct. She rested quietly in an idle, nonchalant stance, perusing the fight with a grim frown. What was she planning?
A brutal telekinetic punch pummeled her shield with crushing strength, and the jarring impact shredded the field and forced her to kneel down. A violet-clad shadow lunged on her, swinging a leg to perform a roundhouse kick would have taken hers head off. Though Candra blocked the strike with the forearm, gripped the Betsy's ankle and telekinetically tossed away to the young fighter.
"Wanda, do it now!" Betsy shouted as Jean caught her in midair and cleared out hastily, carrying her partner in arms.
Abruptly the Scarlet Witch cupped together her palms and shot at the wrecked concrete's ground a crackling, ivory sphere had shimmered among her fingers.
Candra raised a perplexed brow, staring at the projectile sinking in the asphalt as if it was water and burying itself deeply in the land. A second later, the ground quaked slightly and some cracks fractured the pavement. Feeling safe, the external laughed. "What was that stuff supposed to do, child?"
Wanda shrugged, gazing past her. "I never know until I use my power. I scramble the probabilities. For example" She paused, sharpening her eyesight "how many probabilities are there of that tiny quake brings down the building behind you?"
"What-" It was all she could utter before a shadow covered her. With a rumbling uproar, the building crumbled down, spilling a hailstorm of boulders of stone and concrete and steel and glass, tons of debris dropped atop of Candra, burying her beneath a mountain of rubbish.
Clouds of grey dirt arose with the downfall and floated outwards, enveloping three victorious girls. Dust itched in theirs throats and eyes, and they began to cough and weep as the filth settled on the floor.
Wanda rubbed her eyelids to get rid of the powder, and through her screwed eyes peered alternatively at the construction's ruins and at her partners. A thin layer of whitish sand coated them.
"Is she dead?" She wondered. Feeling a sudden anxiety on the thought.
"No, she's alive" Betsy stuttered among coughs. "She managed raise her telekinetic cloak just in time. However she'll need plenty time to crawl out of that garbage."
"Oh." She felt elation wash anxiety and... guilt? Odd. She wasn't fond of fighting or harming people, but that mindwitch tried killing them. It'd have been self-defense. "Let's see what are the boys doing? It mustn't be very impressive."
"Sure" Jean muttered off-handily, gazing to the billows of smog now climbed skywards. "By the way, I hate admitting this, but we make a great team."
Her two partners nodded, smiling.
"Hasn't your bird eyesight spotted any enemy yet, Angel?"
"I'm sorry, big guy. There's nothing to report." Warren shouted back, smiling friendly before gliding over the wind with a brief twitch of his wings. He hadn't been very fond of Piotr at first sight, but he'd eventually learnt he was one of the most softhearted and most honest persons he had met ever. And he'd not mind be a farmer if it meant his parents talked him or cared for him, or he had friends who loved him. Before meeting Slim and the group he had become jaded of people who smiled hypocritically to get something out of him and throttle him afterwards...
A rushed updraft caught him off-guard, and with a curse he folded the wings to regain his balance with an aerial curl. As he rotated Warren berated himself for flying so carelessly over hostile territory...
His piercing eyes detected movement fluttering in the corner of his eyesight. A slick shadow, withdrawing behind a watchtower, down there. He completed the loop and soared swiftly downwards, in search for the shady stalker.
Of sudden he was struck by sharp pangs of pain, burning and flaring, as a fire gnawing him from within. He lost his balance and dropped downwards as a heavy stone. While he clutched his hollow belly in pain, and his skin lost color and stiffness, his eyes watched the tough ground nearing at terrific speed...
Colossus sprang upwards, caught deftly to Angel with his metallic arms, and landed neatly on the floor. The land quaked with the violent impact, and a long rift split the asphalt between his feet.
With a satisfied but startled expression, he rocked gently Angel, who was lurching and writhing as a feverish child. "By the white wolf, what has happened you, friend?" He asked with a thick accent.
"Me." A wicked voice sounded several hundreds of meters ahead of them. Out of a corner, the youngest of the Horsemen emerged. She wore a devilish grin, which the unhealthy hue of a skin glued to the skullbones turned in a really sinister and morbid feature. "I'm what happened to your buddy."
Piotr narrowed his eyes and growled inadvertently. "Who are you?"
"An anorexic teenager with power to turn anything organic into dust, before Apocalypse found me and fixed me. Before I was hungry. Now I am Famine, the embodiment of the Hunger, and hunger I'll spread throughout the whole world. My fingers will strip the flesh of the ones I mark, leaving them in their bare bones. I'll touch everybody and the entire world will suffer in the same way I suffered when I was desperate for slimming down. Do you want a taste of it, Ivan? Try this."
Before Colossus did some movement, she stretched out her hand. Mentally she sent a surge of power, visualizing simultaneously his inner body. Soon she'd burn his energy reserves, his fat and proteins, and to survive his body would burn himself, dying for starvation-
Except he had no flesh, but steel, organic but steel nonetheless, shaping bones, muscles, organs, nerves and skin. With nothing to find, the energy bounced off Colossus as light reflected on a mirror, and the backlash struck to Famine viciously. She screamed, feeling her own body betraying her, corroding her, killing her. The pain overload was so unbearable she fainted. Luckily to her, since her own power would have consumed her otherwise.
Piotr remained still and silent while his eyes regarded the thin and brittle girl sprawled on the land, barely breathing, knocked out by the destructive energies she wielded. "Have I mentioned" he said at last "in my steely form I don't need feed or oxygen? By the way, if you want knowing real hunger, you should be a farmer. In the motherland we worked hard to accomplish a respectable harvest. Never we threw out the food by an aesthetic issue." He shook ruefully his head and stared to his friend. In the meantime Warren had regained partially his bearings, and seemed more relaxed. "Are you feeling fine, tovarisch?"
Angel managed a weak and faint smile despite his sick and starving looking. Very slim and ashen. "I'll be when I eat something. Until then I'll cope with it."
"And then Hank glared at me, and I mean he GLARED. His eyes seemed about of spitting fire. And he threatened to tie me, gag me, lock me in a crate filled with scorpions and tarantulas, soak it in oil and lit up a match. I managed getting away by one hair's width, but I think he was overreacting. I must have done him worst things than write 'Beware: Mad Doctor' in the bad of his shirt when he was going to attend to an important scientific conference."
Nightcrawler rolled up his eyes in fed-up despair, albeit his partner was unable to see it. "I can understand that. Those people without sense of humor are very touchy. When I was in the circus a tamer swore get me in the lion's cage only because I teleported him in a trapeze and left him up there for two straight hours. My girlfriend said that bigot deserved it anyhow..."
"Hush. Have you heard anything?" Bobby whispered brusquely, bringing a finger to his lips.
"As a matter of fact, Bobby, yes." Kurt nodded. "Dodge!"
He faded in a cloud of dark brimstone and Bobby darted away in an ice bridge right before Pestilence jumped from behind as a tiger. The old woman hissed in fury, and glared up at them with her minx eyes. Bobby was crouched on his own ice toboggan-like tower, and Kurt was swaying back and forth on a flagstaff with a mocking and obnoxious smirk etched on his face.
"So you're one of the bad guys" Bobby stated coolly. His smile was goofy, but the sharp facial planes gave him a kind of icy sternness "Which is your special power? Trip on your own feet when you walk?"
Her burning leer had absolutely no effect. "No, little child. I'm Pestilence. My touch transmits sickness. A brush of my fingers, and you'll fell ill with a virus without cure, a malady without antibiotic, a disease without healing. But I call it a medicine. A medicine to heal the life!" She cackled as a nut. Her laughter was a hoarse and cracked screech. "Come on, children! It's time to go to bed!"
She opened her arms beckoningly, daring them to attack her, knowing a simple touch would kill them.
Nightcrawler somersaulted, perching on a ledge. "I'm awfully sorry, milady, but Kurt Wagner only take up relating-bed offers of his girlfriend. However we can go to catch air."
Brusquely he vanished in a cloud of sulfur and materialized behind of Pestilence. Being very careful of avoiding her skin, he gripped her armor belt and teleported with her. The German, blue-furred mutant faded in and out, on the air, on the ground, over a building, in a bedroom, on a roof, alongside a wall, hopping relentlessly until he finally landed on the ground, dropping his cargo as a potatoes sack. She remained slumped over the floor, stuttering groggily, dizzily. A saliva trail trickled out of her gaping lips.
Bobby spread outwards his arms and sent a gust of frozen humidity, a stream of vapor hardened on a crust of bluish frostbite around Pestilence. Enough soon she was encased in a diamond of solid ice.
"To preserve the food from the germs, call to Bobby Drake, the Wandering Fridge!" He crowed triumphantly, puffing his chest. "However I fear that meat is spoiled actually."
"Bobby!" Nightcrawler shouted indignantly, restraining his urge of bursting out laughing insanely.
Simultaneously to those battles, Magneto, Cyclops and Quicksilver rushed to invade the command center, in the core of the camp. Pietro quickened up his race, changing in a blur of speed to look around the headquarters while they waited. Two seconds later he was back.
"I've found War, Father. He's in the Control Room, pressing buttons." He voiced hurriedly.
"He must be setting off the missiles. Go forward!" Magneto roared. Pietro nodded and darted away instantly, followed by Erik and Scott. Still Pietro braked his speed to not leave them behind and tire them out before the showdown. However restrain his legs as that was excruciatingly hard, nearly painful.
He halted his tracks in front of a large and heavy door made of several layers of reinforced metal. Two labored and rough breaths sounded behind him, warning him his two followers had just arrived.
With ominous silence Magneto stepped forward flamboyantly. His gloved hand waved dismissively. And the hatch was ripped off its hinges. With a screeching sound of metal tearing, the thick sheet of titanium was propelled inwards, clearing the threshold. Brightness flooded the hall, and they burst in the chamber.
Crimson beams greeted their coming, and as Magneto ducked, Quicksilver started to dash forward. A pulse of electromagnetic energy washed over him, pinning him on a wall.
Scott sensed a tingle itching and crawling underneath his skin before something invisible and cold and hissing hauled him high on the air. Swiftly his strategic mind studied the scene.
The room they had barged in was a rectangular area, filled with computers, monitors, control boards and chairs. His walls, floor and ceiling were covered with metal plates and reinforced with thick layers of titanium, concrete and plastic. However the walls were riddled with holes the beams had drilled. Arcs of silver-blue light -the reddish hue matched that color- swept the chamber, licking and grating the borders. Gideon, Horseman of the War, whose body was pulsating and crackling with energy, and whose eyes were glowing with an unholy red light, unleashed them.
His claw-like hands were spread onwards, unleashing tendrils of sparkling energy towards Magneto. Erik was sending tongues of lightning in turn, which coiled and entangled with the Gideon's energy, probing for some weakness. If Scott hadn't been stuck and crushed on the wall, he could have appreciated the mesmerizing display of light and color and energy entwined and swirling as a whirlpool.
Suddenly, the War's eyes released the force stored on them in one beam. Magneto deployed instantly a flashing force shield, barely in time to divert a barrage of discharges almost pushed him backwards.
Gideon guffawed. "Have you seen now, Magneto? I copy my foes' abilities. I can reply any power of any mutant. You were fools for defying me. I'll defeat you with your own skills: optic beams, super-speed and magnetism."
Sharp spikes of energy sprouted around his fingers, and he flung them at Pietro. Magneto growled, and with a mere magnetic repulsion, he shattered the projectiles in harmless bolts before they touched his son. "Nobody will harm another of my offspring as long as I live, mutant. And you power consists in borrowing other super-beings' talents. You're deluded if you believe a paltry thief may beat me."
An idea dawned in Scott. "He's right!" He shouted suddenly. "You can lend the skills but you don't know how using them. And if you believe my beams can damage me, you're dumber than I previously thought."
Gideon gawked, ogling to Scott with stark disbelief. He couldn't believe a simple kid dared to mock from him. His slack-jawed mouth was gaping, opening and closing stupidly, and his body shook nervously. Trembling with simmering rage. Slowly he closed his fists, clenching them until his fingers drew hot blood of his palms. "How do you dare" He hissed. "How do you dare, puerile brat?" He shouted with wrathful voice, and a ruby blast erupted out of his eyes, slamming to Scott.
The ray's potency thrust to Cyclops in the wall, nearly putting him through, and shredded a wide tear on his vest, but otherwise he suffered no damage. Scott grinned smugly, looking at his baffled foe. His eyebrows were climbing up his forehead. "My optic beams can't damage me, jackass." He stated gleefully.
Gideon blinked, too stunned to keep his focus. It faltered a bit, hardly five seconds, but it was everything Magneto needed. The Erik's eyes glowed as burning pools, and he reversed the polarity of the magnetic currents fluctuated around him. The electromagnetic field shuddered, and with a start both energies repelled at each other, being thrown back to theirs generators. Magneto was ready to the backlash and his body reabsorbed fluidly the tide, but War was unprepared to the vicious feedback.
A huge lightning struck him, burning him with its blinding light and its sparkling electricity. Rays roamed up and down his body, sparks scorched his hide, and discharges stiffened his limbs. He howled in extreme pain. Blackened and injured, with his armor charred and his body numb and singed, he relinquished his hold on the two young mutants. Scott and Pietro slid slowly to the ground.
A fraction of second later Quicksilver had landed on him an aggressive rain of blows and punches. He was already blacked out, but Pietro was too angry to notice. Then a stern hand squeezed roughly his shoulder.
"Stop it, Pietro. If you keep this on, you'll murder him. He can't do us now any harm. We've won." The kind but steeled Scott's voice brought Pietro around harshly. With a gasp, he halted abruptly, ashamed of his frenzied and uncontrolled burst. With gradual and heavy movements he turned to Scott.
"Thanks, Summers. By the way, it was a good movement, get him angry like that."
Scott shrugged. "I've got a knack to piss off people. And an angry enemy makes mistakes."
Both chuckled heartily and turned to Magneto. He was in front of a monitor that displayed rows of missiles. Death's bringers resting in theirs sockets and waiting obediently the launching order.
"It was a brilliant tactic, Scott. We can leave him here. Without a mutant to thief powers from, he's nothing. The soldiers will look efficiently after him." As he spoke, metal shards were lifted of the floor and whirled around the Gideon's hands and feet, melting and blending in two manacles. With a grating screech bunches of thick wires were ripped off theirs computers and wound around his body like coiling snakes. As soon as he was securely bound and fastened, Erik spun around to observe him. Contemplating his chest swelling and lowering, he admired sincerely his vitality. It was a wonder he kept still alive.
"I've turned off the explosives. They won't detonate. Now we must get out of here."
His outfit was torn and smeared with blood and mud, his skin was bleeding through of dozens of cuts and slashes, and the itching ache of the flesh knitting mixed with the churning pain of his guts burning. Nevertheless Logan didn't remember the last time he was so thrilled with a fight.
His sparring partner wasn't exactly unscathed either. His claws were longer and sharper after all. The upper half of the Sabertooth's costume was shredded, and the zigzagging gashes went across his entire torso. The stabbing wounds on his thighs hadn't yet healed, and his nose was a messed pulp of blood and cartilage. Creed was stronger and more muscled, but definitely wasn't nimbler or swifter than him.
But Victor could be damned fast anyway. An angry sweep of his arm slashed the spot where Logan's head was one second before he ducked and replied with a double crossed slash on his midsection. Abundant blood welled up from his wounds, and Sabertooth stepped backwards before hammering Logan with a rage-powered fist. The tough hit squashed Logan facedown on the ground. His hoof-like foot tried stomping him, but Wolverine cartwheeled hastily and sprang up with insulting easiness. His feet landed on a rubble mound, and he stood up there.
Creed opened the mouth. An unsettling, inhuman snarl went out. He blinked, shook his head and chuckled. Logan observed the change with a watchful frown. His voice sounded now human and his eyes had lost partially the wild, blank glow. "Are you mellowing in your old age, runt? I hadn't tagged you with that cheap move years ago."
"Perhaps" Logan growled, rubbing obliviously his backhands and the thin edge of the claws. The more he fought with Sabertooth the more flashes he got from his elusive past. And the more he was sure of his enemy deserved being disemboweled. "Or perhaps I get best stuff to do that romping with you."
Logan descended with a leap and bolted at his adversary as an arrow, his claws fully unsheathed and shining with bloodlust. Creed grinned smugly, anticipating that movement already. He arched his fists-
And then two huge soles planted on his shoulders and two broad hands covered his eyes. "May I play too?" A voice quipped atop his head with a mixture of mockery and contempt.
Before he pried that nuisance off him, six razor-sharp daggers drilled his belly. He howled in pain.
The intruder hopped off him, and Creed stared downwards. With trembling and numbing incredulity. Logan had embedded his claws into his body and was twisting them in the wound.
He wished throwing an insult, but he only managed spit a spray of red droplets.
"How I've just said", Wolverine seethed darkly "I've no time to romp with you. So I'll cut this quick."
His fervent hatred cloaked his own chagrined shame. Resorting to such tricks was dirty and cheap.
Sabertooth wheezed slowly, struggling for staying awake. The pain was overwhelming, but he could cope with it. "Are you dumb, runt? I've a healing factor, just like you. These wounds will be closing when you pull out your claws. And then I'll gut you."
"No. If I sever your spine, you won't." Wolverine sentenced, before thrusting violently his claws and twisting his wrist. Creed's limbs turned limp and lost strength, and he dropped downwards heavily.
Logan lifted up his haughty chin and sheathed his claws. However, as he looked down to his fallen enemy lying still over the concrete as an insentient doll, he felt a pang of regret. "We'll fight another day, Creed. Until the end and without interruptions. And then we'll know who's the best." Beat someone like that lacked of glory, of style. Even if he yearned for cracking open his skull and seeing his brains oozing. "In those years you talked about, I'm sure we've bled till the death. Hell, I should probably slit your throat right now. However I'm a teacher. And I'm trying teaching kids to use their powers without becoming monsters like you are or like I might be."
He stared meaningfully at Beast, who was squatted on a parapet, looking slightly ill. Logan sighed plaintively. He rued having left Hank was not only passive witness but also active participant in the fight. It'd been bloody, and he'd rather save from such displays to the kids, even if he knew it was wishful thinking. But like he'd just said, they needed learn. Acknowledge that ugliness to reject it.
A prick perked up his ears and nostrils. A sound of quick footsteps and a hiss of air shifting. He lifted his head to see them coming.
From different directions were arriving Magneto and the kids, soaring or sprinting. Some looked more disheveled than others -particularly a pale-faced Warren, who was being carried by Pete, and seemed rather sick-, and he smelt fatigue blended with distress in everyone, but otherwise his partners were safe and sound. And it was the essential thing.
Magneto, who gave off an acrid sniff of charred ozone, regarded the Creed's bundle with a silent stare and checked his troops with another. Seeing them alive and victorious, a smile of pride lit up his stern countenance.
"I'm glad of seeing you've overcome successfully your enemies." He stated. "But our task is far from over. Now we must look after the monster that promoted this atrocity. We-"
Barely he had voiced that sentence when the air stirred and quaked with a thunder-like rumble, violent and deafening. However it wasn't a thunder or explosion. It was words, booming words emanated from the massive ship floating overhead and spread as ripples on the shuddering atmosphere. Words belonging to one voice so inhuman and hoarse gave shivers the ones listened to it. It spewed evil and hate.
"Vain are your delusions and phony your hopes of destroying my glory, Magneto." It rumbled. Angry. Spiteful. And still chuckling. "Though you and your soldier infants have triumphed over my Horsemen. No an overlookable feat. You had proved be strong. For that, only for this time, I'll placate my rightful ire and allow your existence. Still my patience is finite. You may be strong, but I am the Survivor. Stop your transgressions and accept my rule or you'll die. As we speak, one of your allies is already paying the prize of the rebelliousness."
"What?" Magneto breathed faintly, as he watched the ship engines starting off with a roar, and the aircraft moving slowly. The nagging dread he'd felt since the beginning clutched his heart tightly.
Of sudden Marvel Girl shrieked and toppled on the ground. Her hands clenched her head and she began tossing and turning on the floor, quivering and crying in excruciating agony. Scott crawled frantically by her side and hoisted her softly on his arms, sending soothing thoughts in her head. He ignored their friends gathering around them, focused exclusively on the shuddering girl who was opening laboriously her green eyes, bright and moist with tears, and gazing straight at his concerned, caring look.
"Scott..." She wheezed. "I was fine. Of sudden, pain... intense pain... No mine, though... Something bad has happened to the Professor. We have to go back to the mansion. NOW."
The glossy, black jet flew back to the mansion hastily. Its cockpit vibrated as its pilot strained the machine, hastened by an urgent and rushed dread. Fright stabbed theirs guts with icy splinters, spreading its tendrils inside them and choking them gleefully with an oppressive weigh. That grim sensation deepened when they arrived to Westchester and saw a wing of the mansion collapsed in blackened, smoking ruins.
Erik landed the flight as steadily as his agitation allowed him, and without waiting for anybody, released the hatch and dashed away hurriedly.
As he navigated over the broken walls and piles of boulders, looking desperately for a sign of his old friend, his mind screamed once and again his name.
Charles! Charles! If you're alive answer me, damn you!
Of sudden, a retort. I don't know whether feeling me thankful or affronted, Erik. I'm over here. Extricate me out of this, please
He felt in mood for witty replies. It couldn't be so bad then. Magneto breathed, relieved, even though he felt hurt and regret in his best friend's mental voice. Where are you? What do you need my assistance for?
You'll see when you arrive He replied ominously, and Erik felt his presence guiding him. He headed swiftly for the direction where he was sensing him. Finally he spotted him among four crumbled walls, trapped below a pile of rubble. When the walls collapsed, the ceiling had also fallen in, and the debris buried his lower body. He was now struggling for crawling out of it, but the boulders were too heavy.
With an impatient blink the pile of rocks was catapulted skywards, where they dissolved in charred and harmless ashes.
As he descended, the students gathered around Charles. Their faces blanched with muffled gasps of shocked horror. Scott and Jean kneeled on the floor littered with plaster and bricks, flanking him. Yet he hadn't turned around.
Why wasn't he moving?
Then they saw it. The way his legs were swollen and bent. The way bones were splint and twisted.
He had lost his legs.
"I was monitoring your mission" He panted weakly, struggling against the hurt "when one of his servants... a man named Nemesis... raided the mansion. He fought against me, but when my power struck his mind... His own energies went crazy. His hands fired flames at every direction, boring holes in walls and floor, and the structure crumbled down. He got away of the collapsing, but I stood stuck. He could have killed me when..." He gasped twice before continuing. "The Henry's experiment saved my life."
Xavier craned his neck sideways. The X-Men followed his glazed, drifting stare.
Standing over a pile of debris a rodent-like mammal was gnawing a waterspout. It resembled a chipmunk, but its fur was green, its eyes glowed with an unholy crimson glitter and its mouth was a fanged maw. It paused of chewing the plumber with its sharp fangs, and burped a stream of purple fire with an unearthly bellow. Satisfied, it snatched a bunch of wires and began to bite them.
Henry regarded it thoughtfully. "I believe I must stop of attempting against the nature laws."
The rest nodded, shuddering. Erik grimaced as he cradled sorrowfully to Charles. "Do it, please."
End Part Three.
In the next part, the X-Men rebuilt from the ashes. Scott and the Professor have a heart-to-heart chat. And we found what happened in Israel.