Author's Note: This story and all sequels/continuations are not meant to follow the storylines of the comics, movies, etc.
Strange Warrior: Part OneMagneto had been at it again. For a while, the X-Men hadn't had any problems with him or the Brotherhood. But that morning when the X-Men woke up, they turned on the TV and saw what he had done. It was on every news channel. An entire city block destroyed. People were in the buildings as they were torn down. People had burned to death in the now-smoldering rubble.
The news reporters were, of course, blaming it on all mutants, discriminating against not only their enemies, but also the very ones who provided their protection. People had heard of the X-Men, and hated their guts. As far as "normal" humans were concerned, all mutants were scum of the earth. It didn't matter what the X-Men and Professor Xavier did to help and protect them, the humans still hated and feared the very air the X-Men breathed.
It was time to put a stop to this. They had to put Magneto and the Brotherhood away for good. The X-Men had to find a way to keep them locked away, so they could no longer harm humanity.
"Everyone, please come downstairs with me." It was Professor Xavier. He was gathering everyone to a strategy planning session. All the X-Men went downstairs to a room called the "War Room". It was where they would all collectively think together about how they would handle whatever task was at hand.
As they all gathered in, Professor X started the briefing. "Magneto has struck once again, as you all know. And unless any of you know something I don't, we have no idea where he will strike next."
Wolverine spoke up. "Well, it's pretty impossible for any of us to know something that you don't, so let's get all the boring strategy stuff over with so we can go cut up some Brotherhood mutants."
"Patience, Wolverine. All in due time. Since we don't have any clue where Magneto will strike next, we will have to patrol the city. We will set up teams to patrol together." Xavier chuckled inside at Wolverine's anxiousness to use his claws. "Wolverine, you go with Gambit and Rogue. You three should do fine together."
Gambit and Wolverine started out the door, Gambit calling over his shoulder to Rogue, "Oi, cherrie, cummon. We ain't got all day t' do this thing." The three of them walked out to start their patrol.
Later, after all the teams were assembled and some were out running their routes (the rest were at the mansion, waiting for their shift), one team saw Toad bounding down the street, seemingly headed nowhere. They tailed him to see what he was up to.
The team was made up of Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Iceman. They followed Toad to some old warehouse where he entered in through a broken window, the only one on the building that wasn't all boarded up. That's when they heard it. It was a scream that could have only been caused by life-changing terror. A mixture of astonishment, surprise, and fear so strong that you could barely move do to tremors all over your body. That's the kind of scream they heard coming from that building.
Inside, Toad was experiencing that fear. There was minimal light in that building. The eerie moonlight wading in through the window, and a few bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The ceiling was rather low for a warehouse. It was only eight feet high, as the building was used for storage by one store, back about five years ago.
When Toad first jumped in through the window, he didn't notice anything amiss. He had gotten a call from Mystique telling him to meet her here. She had come up with some sort of plan to cause trouble with the humans. He walked around the one-roomed building, not really noticing the strange ornament hanging from the ceiling. Then he noticed it. It was Mystique!
She was hanging from a pipe on the ceiling by a noose. She had a note pinned to her shirt. "You shouldn't have come" was the message. Toad screamed a blood-curdling cry from deep inside of him. He turned to jump back out the window, to find the creator of his fear standing in front of it.
It was a man… or was it a child? Someone, about 5'11'', with straight, blonde hair combed down onto his forehead. He had a black coat, black pants, and large black boots, and what looked like a blue t-shirt on. He looked to be about 15. He had his head slightly bowed, causing his face to be shrouded in shadow. There was a length of rope laying at his feet.
He walked toward Toad, a strange tone in the way he walked. His walk had a… a purpose. Toad began to become even more afraid. The stranger kept advancing and Toad began to back up. As the stranger got further and further away from the window, Toad thought to himself, Just a little more…A little further, and I can run past him and out the window! As the stranger got halfway across the room, Toad made his move. He ran around the stranger and jumped out the window!
Wait… he wasn't out the window! He seemed to be frozen in midair. He felt himself being turned around to face the stranger. He felt the fear rise. His heart seemed to be beating so loud, people three states over could hear it. It began to beat faster. The stranger began to speak.
"Do you know who I am, Toad?"
Toad gulped and began to speak, still unable to move the rest of his body. "N-n-no, sir. I d-don't know who y-y-y-you a-are."
"My name is Blaine. A few hours ago, I saw your blue female friend over there sneaking around. I've heard of you Brotherhood mutants. I knew who she was, so I followed her here. I listened to her conversation with you and decided to stay awhile. I snuck up behind her with that noose and well… you know the rest."
"W-what are you going to d-d-do?"
Blaine stared at Toad with his intense blue eyes and told him exactly what he was going to do as he did it. "Well, Toad, first I'm going to smash your head against the wall a few times." He proceeded to use his telekinesis that he had been holding Toad in the air with to smack him up against the wall fifteen or twenty times, then stopped, while Toad was still conscious. "Now, I'm going to give you a little electric shock." White electricity burst from Blaine's hand at buried itself into Toad. Blaine stopped right as Toad was about to pass out. "Mystique didn't like that one too much. It's too bad I had to take her out. She was pretty good-looking."
Outside, Jean, Cyclops, and Iceman were waiting for someone to come out of the building. They hadn't heard anything since the scream. They were becoming impatient.
Inside, Blaine had just slammed Toad into the wall a few more times. He walked to the other side of the room, Toad still hanging, unmoving, in the air. As Blaine turned to walk back toward Toad, there was a sword in his hand. Toad was terrified. Even if Toad hadn't been frozen with telekinesis, he would have been petrified with fear. As Blaine came close to Toad, he explained what he was going to do.
"I'm going to stab you with this, Toad, and then I'm going to set you on fire and throw you outside." Toad knew his death would come anytime now. He counted down in his head, Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, th…
He never finished counting. He stopped at three with a longsword through his chest. Blaine removed the sword and held his hand forward, his palm facing Toad. All of a sudden, Toad caught on fire and was flung out the window.
"What the…?" Cyclops was amazed. There was Toad's burning carcass, lying there, right in front of him, Jean, and Iceman. The smell of burning flesh was too much for Jean, and she threw up in a bush. When she regained her composure, the three of them went into the building.
They saw Blaine wiping his sword off on Mystique. Jean was outraged.
"Who are you, and what kind of sick, twisted game are you playing!" she screamed at Blaine.
Blaine simply flicked his wrist and sent Jean flying into the ceiling, then to the floor. This clearly pissed Cyclops off, because he charged at Blaine, lasers flying from his visor, only for the lasers to be dodged and himself to be met with an electric shock. He flew backwards into a wall and fell to the ground. Iceman encased Blaine in a five-inch-thick layer of ice. Blaine's eyes glowed, as the ice melted so fast, it all fell to the ground at once. Iceman was thanked with a dozen or so slams into the wall.
"You three are from the X-Men, aren't you? I don't want to hurt you. You're not who I'm fighting against. Especially you, Jean. You're too hot to be damaged. But if you're going to attack me, well, I've gotta defend myself. By the way, to answer your question as to who I am, the name's Blaine. At your service."
Jean got up, coughing and sputtering. "Don't you dare talk to me like that! Hot! I should tear you apart!"
Blaine chuckled. "You could try, sweetheart, but I don't think you'd get anywhere. I can block your telekinesis. And your telepathy, for that matter. I can feel you trying to read my mind. Here's some advice: don't."
Cyclops was next to stand up, legs a bit shaky from the electric shock. "What did you do? Why did you kill them?"
Blaine looked at Cyclops like he was stupid. "They killed plenty of people in their time. And they were planning to do it again. Don't feel sorry for them."
Cyclops was still angry. "You set him ON FIRE! Isn't that a little extreme?"
"Not really," Blaine answered. "Besides, it's not like he felt it. He was already dead."
Cyclops pointed his finger in Blaine's face. "You're SICK!"
Blaine smacked Cyclops's finger out of his face. "Stick that finger in my face, and you're liable to lose it." Blaine was irritated. "What are you so pissed about? These two mutants were remorseless killers! There's no jail you could have put them to keep them from causing more death and destruction! The only way to stop them was to kill them. And that's exactly what I plan to do to the rest of the Brotherhood." With that, Blaine walked past them and jumped out of the window, while Iceman got up, holding his back.
The three started back to the X-Mansion, as it was the end of their shift. When they got there, they went to report what had happened to Professor Xavier. There was a surprise waiting for them when they got downstairs to the War Room. Blaine was there, talking to Professor Xavier. Xavier invited the three of them in.
"Come in, come in. Blaine here was asking me for help taking care of the Brotherhood. I heard you three had a bit of a scuffle with him."
Cyclops's anger returned. "We saw Toad's dead body burning away and Mystique hanging from the ceiling! What he did was sick!"
Xavier allowed Cyclops room for his opinion. "I agree, Blaine's methods were a bit questionable, but now is the time that we must consider that our own methods may not be entirely effective. Maybe it is time to resort to drastic measures."
Cyclops looked at the professor with disbelief. "The X-Men do not kill anyone! We can't go to these tactics! What he did had no respect in it at all!"
Blaine laughed as he spoke. "So now I'm supposed to respect these people? Where do you get that idea?"
Professor Xavier spoke up. "Scott, we will hold a vote whether or not the X-Men will help Blaine. We will decide together. I am telepathically calling everyone down here, so that we may vote on it as soon as possible."
As everyone gathered in the War Room, Professor Xavier told them what had happened and why they were there. He went around the room, asking everyone what they thought they should do.
"Cyclops?"
"There is no way I will help that kid."
"Jean? What do you think?"
"No."
"Iceman?"
"I think what this guy is doing is twisted."
"Nightcrawler?"
"I think we should help him. What we are doing now isn't working. We stand to lose many more human lives if we don't do something soon."
"What about you, Wolverine?"
"You know I'm always itchin' to cut somethin' up!"
"Psilocke?"
"It's not right, what he's doing."
"Beast?"
"We should keep doing what we've been doing. We can't just go around killing people."
"Gambit?"
"'Ey, I think th' kid's right. Kill'em all, dirty pieces o' crap!"
"Rogue?"
"Ah agree with Gambit. Let's git'em!"
"Colossus?"
"Ve shouldn't just go killing zem. Ve must try to reach zem. Teach zem ze love of humans."
"Jubilee?"
"We need to lock them away. Find a way to keep them there."
"Storm?"
"I agree with Jubilee and the others. We can't just kill them. They're fellow mutants."
Professor Xavier turned to Blaine. "I'm sorry, but we can't help you."
Gambit stepped forward. "Well, I guess we jus' gotta get'em ourselves, kiddo."
Nightcrawler joined Gambit. "The three of us, together."
Rogue stepped up. "Four."
Wolverine too. "Five."
Blaine smiled. "Thanks guys. Let's go."
The five of them walked out to start on their mission to kill all the members of the Brotherhood.
To be continued…