Eclipse

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Disclaimer: see previous chapters for details.

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Chapter 5

'They had no choice but to kill Eclipse.' This was unacceptable to many in the warroom. Gambit had left hours ago to find more information on Jubilee or rather Eclipse as she was called now. Gambit entered the room with a very sober look on his face. Iceman could tell that whatever the Cajun had found was not good. The file he carried was embossed with the S.H.I.E.L.D. standard.

"Dis is all I could find but it is enough." He said as he tossed the file onto the table. A disc slid out. Cyclops picked it up and slid it into the viewer. There was no picture but there was a long list of Eclipses activities. Many of the X-men were shocked. Gambit, Wolverine, and Psylocke weren't they didn't doubt that Jubilee had the skills but the number of offenses was staggering. The info scrolled over. There were several camera shots of Eclipse in her nightcloak with Sabretooth, one with Shinobi Shaw, and another with a terrorist named Ashbir Sahed. She was also attributed with several deaths.

Cyclops swallowed as he looked over the dossier. Iceman jumped as Cyclops voice exploded out of nowhere, "Hank, what do we know about Jub…Eclipse's powers?"

"When we first knew her, she was a capable energy wielder with a latent telepathic ability." Beast hit a button on the table and a diagram of her nightcloak appeared. "She is now an Alpha level energy wielder and telepath with empathic abilities. Her blast although still plasma based are able to explode or implode things at the atomic and subatomic level. She uses her empathic ability to enhance her blasts' potential destructive force. The nightcloak is a most remarkable tool. It has a visual and electronic cloak coupled with psionic multipliers much like the Cerebro head unit. Add to that an internal teleportation array this equipment makes for a quick and stealthy adversary. From what Logan gathered we know that many of the pieces of her nightcloak were scrounged from here and several others are from Stark Industries. That means that they are of Shi'ar and Skrull origin."

Gambit whistled. "Dose are gonna give da petite a serious advantage."

"I agree Gambit. That's why we must prepare for every eventuality. A couple members of various teams have volunteered to assist us. But for now, Gambit, I want you Logan and Psylocke to search out possible entry points into the mansion. Iceman you, Cannonball, and Marrow check out the lower levels. Bishop, you and Kitty run a diagnostic on the security system especially the teleportation protocols and those on Cerebro. Remember everyone who we're dealing with. We trained her and she knows us." They all left about their duties. The Professor, Cyclops and Jean just sat there wondering how things had come to this, once again defending themselves against one of their own and contemplating taking extreme measures.

~*~

Elsewhere another conference was being held. Claudia walked slowly into the room her body still weak from the retrovirus in her system. It had flushed the excess genes from her body but had left her groggy. Jubilee offered the young lady her seat. She didn't break stride as she continued to explain her plan. "…As I was saying they probably expect me to be coming with Jono but not with Monet, Claudia and Nicole. You may not be a psi anymore but you're still good in a fight."

"How do we get in?" Jono asked. Monet looked over at her old friend a very familiar smile on her face. She'd seen that smile many times and it was never a good thing.

"Let's just say I left a few surprises behind on my last visit. It should get us in but things could go south real quick. My last encounter with Wolverine and Gambit made it clear they'll ghost me if worse comes to worse."

"Jubilee are you sure you want to do this? Maybe there's another way to go about. If the files Sinister had are wrong what then?"

"I'm sure and you don't want to know. Once we hit Cerebro I want you to do a shutdown and lock out of any X-types near us. Got it." Monet nodded.

"Nicole…Claudia…. Can you handle what we talked about?"

"I'll be ready by then Jubilee."

**Jubilee you hear that gel.**

"We have incoming kids. Grab hold." The group grabbed Eclipses arms as she activated the teleporter. The five of them disappeared leaving a wake of electric discharge. The tang of ozone and the tapestry tearing sound of a plasma rifle blast filled the empty room. Sabretooth and several marauders entered the house. Sinister followed at a brisk pace. No one was to be found within.

"There's no one here boss. They musta ported out." Sabretooth said as he sniffed the air.

"No matter. Eclipse cannot elude me for too long." 'Too bad about that information she took from me. The specimen no longer exists.'

The group reappeared outside an abandoned airstrip in New Mexico. She glanced around and motioned them into the old hanger. "You have to do that a lot Jubilation?"

"Yeah somethin like that. Grab a bunk we're leaving early."

~*~

In the early morning hours Eclipse and her small group teleported a mile out from the Xavier Institute. They slowly made their way towards the grounds. "Okay people it's time." She smiled as she removed a large remote control from a bag slung over her shoulder.

Inside the mansion a small toy whizzed down the hall sticking to the shadows. It stopped behind a potted plant as it neared the main foyer. A barely measurable electronic signal filtered through the mansion knocking out several minor systems. 'By themselves these systems aren't all that important but together they make up the systems that many of the alarms are wired to.' Jubilee laughed at the thought of all the alien technology in the mansion and all she had to do was burn out a few wires. 'No bells no whistles no little blinky lights saying Jubie is here.'

**Magneto would be pissed if he ever knew how easy that was.**

"What do you expect? Every megalomaniac that visits either tries to knock the place down or blow it up. They have no subtlety." This left everyone rolling around on the ground laughing. "Alright let's go."

They moved stealthily across the grounds avoiding the remaining defense systems. Monet and the twins split off from the group and disappeared into the woods. "Alright they're in position. Let's give em a silent 20 count. You know what we gotta do don'tcha English?"

**Act like shiten super powered megalomaniacs.**

"Right. So let's knock." She flicked a switch on the remote and fired off a blast. The front doors of the mansion buckled and imploded sending a shockwave through the building setting off the remaining alarms.

~*~

X-men all over the mansion went battle ready. Wolverine, Gambit and Psylocke were the first on the scene. Cards exploded around Eclipse several exploded against a wave of plasma. Wolverine went flying from the blast. Psylocke dodged the wave unsheathing her sword in one fluid motion. Her body shifted into the dragon's tail stance. She pounced of her back foot swinging the blade up, down, and across. There was the sound of metal on metal. Psylocke looked the other lady up and down noticing the blades protruding from her. 'That's new.'

**What this old thing? I've had it for years.** Eclipse moved Gambit's staff barely missed her head. He readied to swing again only to be caught by a bio blast that sent him over into Wolverine. Razor sharp ice darts struck out at Jono. Several struck home but didn't phase him as his psi-fire began to cover his body.

**Why are you doing this?** Synch's voice filled Eclipse's head before she noticed the rainbow aura entering the battle.

**You know the answer to that already.** She flung a psi blast his way although to have it absorbed. Eclipse felt another presence creeping up on her and dialed up the nightcloak. Phoenix appeared off to the side of Synch.

**Hello Jean. I was wondering where you were.**

**Jubilee, please stop this now.** She answered by firing a blast at Jean. As it reached Jean it split striking Cyclops in the back, as he was about to blast Jono. Cyclops flew two feet and skidded into a tree. Out of nowhere Rogue slammed into her knocking the wind from her.

"Get off Daisy May!" She said as she blasted wrong in the face making her drop her. As she hit the ground Marrow swung bone daggers at her throat. Eclipse flipped out of the way until she and Jono were fighting back to back.

**So how are things going so far luv? **

Blast

Duck

Kick

Punch

Blast

Slice

Dodge

**It's been better. They're beginning to get on my nerves** She just started firing everywhere.

"Hey Logan you tink maybe we piss 'er off." Gambit said as he dodged a barrage of blasts. He looked over at where Hank was tending to a dazed Cyclops. Clouds began to roll in and rain splattered the battlefield. Lightning hit the ground near Jono.

Storm yelled over to Synch, "You and Bishop fall back and regroup with Shadowkat."

~*~

'Jubilee was right. They did pull everyone out to fight her. I just hope she doesn't get herself killed in the process.'

"Monet are we almost there?" Nicole asked as she stopped to lean against the wall of the ventilation access tunnel.

"We've arrived." She said as she peeled open the wall. They fell through and headed for the Danger Room. 'The easiest way I can think of to deactivate the teleportation protocols is to bypass them through the Danger Room's controls.' She and the twins sat down at the controls. The twins did a quick mindlink and began to furiously rewrite computer codes.

~*~

**Jubilee it's down.**

**Jono it's time to go.** He grabbed her arm and they vanished. The X-men were stunned as they disappeared. A portal slowly opened onto the grounds admitting Sinister and the Marauders. Another battle began in earnest. How all this was happening didn't register until the mansion started to go on lock down. The blast doors were closing across the windows and the damaged doorway when Gambit, Iceman, and Sabretooth slipped through.

~*~

The twins followed Monet as they made their way towards Cerebro. Shadowkat was using everything she knew to slow them down. The three ladies barreled their way through the obstacles before them until finally coming to Cerebro. Eclipse and Jono joined them outside the room.

"Shadowkat, Synch, and Bishop are here. How do you want to handle this?" Monet asked. 'Since joining up with her brother she'd done some pretty distasteful things. She wondered just how far Jubilee wanted to go.' Monet waited with bated breath as did the watchful eye of the Gamesmaster.

"Quickly. Take em down if you have to." They rushed the room. Bishop fired bio blasts and his plasma rifle. Jono took cover as the beams were deflected off of Monet's invulnerable skin. She tossed a dart at Bishop's neck dropping him like a dead moose. Synch synched up with Eclipse and was firing blast waves at her. He had the upper hand until she used her empathic ability to dump Claudia's memories of being an emplate directly into Synch's mind. He let out an ear-piercing scream.

The room seemed deserted. They all knew better though. Shadowkat came through the floor and vaulted off the wall. On the way down she caught Monet in the head with a kick and ghosted through her. Claudia and Nicole swung at her and caught only air. They received a backhand landing them across the room. Kitty's back carried her away from them.

"Nice moves Kitty."

"Thanks." She said as she unsheathed her claws. Eclipse threw a ball of energy at Kitty. It passed through her stopped and exploded sending several darts of energy into Kitty's unphased back. They all sidestepped Kitty and Monet began to work on the Cerebro interface.

"Nicole, Claudia, Jono you're up." Nicole and Claudia began to glow. They reached out to Jono their powers connecting their body coalescing into one being. It was a solid mass of psionic energy. Monet placed the interface on its head. Eclipse poured her energies into the being maxing out the psi multipliers on her night cloak. There was a great roar or maybe it was two. A great black boiling orb like a lake of raw psionic energy appeared. The energy pouring out of it felt like an open wound or a bone grinding into a raw nerve before it exploded. Then there was nothing.

~*~

TBC