Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. Ilehana Xavier belongs to Corrinth and is used with permission. Blaze, Shockwave, Gaia, Mercury and Iona belong to Lamby and should not be used without my permission.

Scene 18

"All set?" Cyclops addressed his team briskly, looking from Wolverine to the powerful, broad-headed, muscular jaguar with startling blue eyes. Ilehana didn't bother with a telepathic affirmation, simply nodding her huge head and making an assertive rumble in the back of her throat. "Stay in touch." Scott told his scouts, trying to hide his concern that he was, at first at least, sending Vixen and Logan in alone. It couldn't be helped; the terrain was difficult, the climate harsher than they were used to, and stealth was something they needed above everything.

Logan flicked the earpiece he wore on, stalking away over the rough forest ground as Ilehana bunched her huge muscles and headed for the boughs of the nearest tree. Her camouflage worked exceptionally well, if it hadn't been for his accentuated hearing and smell, Logan would have lost track of her in seconds.

No you wouldn't, I'm not risking you getting all the fun without me Titch. Ilehana retorted in Logan's mind, making him smile slyly and shake his head. But any reply he might have had was cut short as he crested a small rise and dropped to his belly, pushing the branches in front of him away. The slow rumble of feline awe in the tree above him was something to be noted in itself, it takes a lot to impress any cat, but the sight below was something else.

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"The pyramid's here, at the top of the compound as we'll approach." Logan told the rest of the team a short time later, sketching out a rough map in the red dirt of the forest floor. "The trees are cleared away around it for maybe a hundred metres, fresh logging, and there's plenty o' signs of that explosion…"

#Charred earth, burnt stumps, looks like the danger room after Blaze has been training. # Ilehana-jaguar filled in, making the fire elemental herself smile.

"Like I was sayin'," Logan continued patiently, "Below the temple, there's a pavement area, like an aisle up to the steps, lined on each side with this big spooky lookin' pillars…"

"Stelae." Storm filled in, "Mayan columns covered in glyphs and carvings. Gaia was trying to translate some of them last time we were here, but she'd not had much success."

"Then this is the really weird part," Wolverine was getting kinda used to the constant interruptions, came almost as a shock when he could complete the next sentence without someone butting in. "The flagged area opens out, big, and all over it there are tents, like an army barracks. There's a well in the middle, looks deep, and at the opposite end to the pyramid there's a big statue that's all weathered and broken. That's the end nearest us. To be honest, it looks like they're all set up to put the pyramid under siege down there, and they ain't budgin' till they get in."

"How many?" Cyclops asked, and Ilehana answered by #showing# them everything as she had seen it. It took the X-Men a moment to get past the richness of black and white vision that was the jaguar's window on the world, but as if one entity the mutants suddenly gasped. Not just a few tents, maybe a local or two out treasure hunting. No, Logan's barrack description was deadly accurate, rows of tents in formation, and many, many potential enemies between them and the temple.

"So what do we do?" Nightcrawler asked, looking from Logan to Cyclops to Storm, tail flicking through the air anxiously.

"We go take a closer look, non?" Gambit's eyes narrowed, sparkling as his adrenaline built. "Lets go see if Apocalypse home…"

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Knowing what they now knew, it wasn't difficult for the four X-Men most qualified in stealth to sneak right down out of the tree line and into the camp. The rest hugged the edge of the jungle, com. links open and battle ready, just in case. They had to find out now not only what happened to the missing marines, but also Gaia, and in Blaze's case at least her old alter ego Mercury. And of course, central to their aim, if this was Apocalypse and if so what was he planning?

The jaguar looked slightly out of place, slinking low to the ground, tail flicking more like a lioness' as she stalked through the tents. But she still seemed more at home than her companions as the team spilt up, Wolverine heading left, Gambit heading right, Blaze and Ilehana splintering away from the men and heading forward, listing away from each other as they moved.

The camp was eerily quiet, and Wolverine couldn't be sure, but he half-imagined his sensitive hearing was picking up shaking sobs and whispered curses as he moved along. Posture low and claws unsheathed, his intense predatory brown eyes roved almost everywhere at once, nose twitching as he concentrated for once on not getting into trouble. The sweat of the jungle, and the mixture of scents from those hiding inside the tents, distracted him, and he didn't even hear Mercury's approach until it was too late.

He'd been pinned like this before by the metal-dissolving mutant. Had his bones almost turned to liquid, his claws manipulated, his nerves set aflame with pain. If any part of him had ever rationalised that it couldn't be anywhere near as painful as he remembered, that part was silenced now like an obnoxious child sent to his room by his parents. Logan screamed.

At the scream, Ilehana's wedge-shaped head snapped up. Her muscles visibly contracted under her rich pelt as she prepared to leap to Logan's rescue. But in that moment of distraction, a clammy hand on her pelt brought her to her knees. The world swam, and the big cat thought she would heave and throw up. Ilehana the doctor knew that the sudden shivering, the aching joints, the cramped muscles was probably nothing more lethal than a heavy flu. Ilehana the X-Man wondered who wanted her alive so much this was the worse they would put her through, for now at least. Ilehana the jaguar slumped to her belly, groaning gruffly, eyes clouding over, as she smelt more than saw the individual stood over her, a person who smelt vilely unclean, like rotting meat, an embodiment of disease itself. The female Horseman known as Pestilence…

Gambit and Blaze did a little better than their teammates. At Logan's cry both reacted with a thief's instincts of self-preservation. Gambit ducked and rolled, narrowly missing War's crunching fist on the back of his neck. Instantly at such close quarters, Gambit's fist closed around the extendable staff that lived inside his trench coat pocket. Even as War readied himself for another crunching punch, Gambit took up a low stance, staff grasped in both hands. As War charged, the staff lodged itself in the dirt, and Gambit lifted himself up and over the mutant's oncoming attack. Twisting sharply the Cajun hit the overreaching Horseman across the back with the staff, knocking him forward. A quick succession of thrusts and Gambit had the staff in two hands again, a barrier across his body, whilst War lay stunned on the pavement.

But Gambit had forgotten that War was not alone out here, found himself unfairly jumped from behind by two mutants he had never seen before in his life, and one marine General who'd provided the in-flight entertainment on the way here. It really did seem Apocalypse didn't care about the differences between mutants and normal humans. If they could fight, and he could control them, they were all weapons just the same. Not that Gambit had chance to consider the ins and outs of the situation as he was flattened by the force of three full-grown men on his back, staff rolling from his grip as he slammed into the pavement hard.

Blaze became suddenly alert as Logan screamed, and so her attackers found themselves soundly toasted, like marshmallows over a campfire, as she broke into a run. Darting athletically between the smart rows of tents, she had the decision to make whether to escape back to the trees, to try and help her friend, or to put her head down and try and complete their primary objective. When a bear-like mutant emerged from between two tents to make a grab for Blaze's hair, the redhead dropped, rolling easily under the extended arm. Slow to react, the much larger female found herself clobbering a chasing marine across the jaw, whilst Blaze was back on her feet again and running.

And then she stopped. Stopped dead in her tracks, dust from the pavement dirtying her smart uniform boots, eyes widening as she saw what was up ahead of her at the base of the pyramid. The remaining two Horsemen, Death and Famine, stood to each side of a singularly impressive figure. Apocalypse himself.