(Six)

Gambit was still behind the stage when his cell phone vibrated again. He swore impatiently and answered it, figuring it was Molly. The Rally had begun and they were much too busy right now for him to be wasting time on the phone. He was a bit startled when it wasn't her at all, but someone quite different. "Bonjour? Eh? Who's dis? I ain't got no time for some kinda prank, petite. Eh? 'Shay, dat you? Jesus Christ, where y'all been! Gambit's been worryin' his'self half to death 'bout all of you! Is Kimble okay? What?" He snapped his fingers at Logan to get his attention.

Logan shook his head, but looked up when he heard Kimble's unmistakable garble shouting from his end. He couldn't make out what was said, Lakotashay was hysterical and her childish voice just made Kimble's drawl even worse, but it must be bad because Gambit went white as a ghost.

"Wait! Paisible maintenant. Stop cryin', Gambit can't hear you! What? Cloaks? Dey got what? Cloaks, choppers, bombs? What? Okay, okay! I got it! I'll see what I can do. What's wrong wit you? You hurtin', I can hear it." Remy closed his eyes and covered them with a trembling hand. "Oui, chere. Gambit knows. Where are you? Oui, I know where dat is - Don' go nowhere! You stay put, comprenez? Gambit's gonna be right dere!" He clicked off and looked at Logan with eyes full of fear. "Dey gonna bomb de stadium!"

"When?"

"Maintenant! Right fuckin' now! Dey comin' in wit choppers or sumpt'in'. Dey gonna be cloaked, Saby make Kimble build dem. Cloaks, same as us. Tell Fallen to change everyone to settin' five! We do dat, we can see dem comin' in!"

"Why me? Where you gonna be?"

"Kimble's hurt. 'Shay said it ain't bad but I know better. I gotta go take care of 'im! Gimmie de keys to the Jeep!"

"We ain't got no time fer any of that shit! We gotta take care of this first!"

"Kimble's alone, unprotected! We can take 'im, we ain't never gonna get another chance! Gimmie de fuckin' keys now!" Remy shouted, his trembling voice betraying his concern for his lost friend.

Logan swore and tossed him the keys, letting Gambit go only after the thief had told him where he expected Kimble to be. He would send backup if he could.

Wolverine clicked his com link and told the others what was going on. He stepped away from the ramp and looked around him at the bleachers, expecting anything. As he looked up to the sky, the first of the helicopters blinked into view and the mules poured out, loaded for war.

"They're here!" he screamed into his headset.

He cursed again when he saw the mules blink away as soon as they avoided the chopper blades. The choppers, now empty, vanished as silently as they had come. "Fuck!"

(break)

Ten minutes into his speech, Terrel Jacobs was on a roll. His large audience of agreeable mutant haters hung on every word, new converts to his terrible cause. He had sold them on the idea of containment camps and forced registrations, soon enough he might even have them on board for mandatory sterilization of all mutants. Terrel would see those monsters wiped out, each and every one.

"There will never be a safe place here for us, for normal humans, if we do not take measures to protect ourselves!" Terrel proclaimed loudly to another surge of loud agreement from the crowd. "Give generously to our cause! The cause of freedom!"

The crowd roared and he raised his hands, basking in the glow. He threw his head back, eyes gazing to the heavens, certain that the Lord on High was one with his mission. He got an answer to his gaze, just not the one he had expected - he had looked up just in time to see three cloaked helicopters blink into view and unload their army of mules. He took an awkward step back, "What the hell is that!"

(break)

"Everybody move!" Jean screamed into her headset.

Fallen was up high, obeying but now fumbling with a controller box for the cloaks. She hadn't needed Logan's message to see what was going on. She had seen the mules spill out of the choppers and then disappear into thin air as the helicopters had done. She had been close enough to one of the mules to recognize the bracelets they wore. She changed the frequency on her own cloak until she saw the mules blink back into sight. She shouted orders into her own headset, "Everyone! Change your bracelets to setting five! We can see them! Shit! Kimble must have made the bracelets!"

One by one, the X-men all winked back into sight as all the cloaks became as one and all the combatants could see one another.

"Fallen! This way!" Jean shouted, waving her new teammate along. "We have to stop the bombs! See, they're dropping their packs! Together, you and I can make a telekinetic net! Now!"

Fallen nodded and combining with others that followed, they formed a telekinetic shield very close to the ground and over the heads of fleeing people. The bombs exploded uselessly against the shield, toppling people as they fled, but not killing them. Some of the packs made it through, but nowhere near as many as would have without their protection. There were explosions all about and the screaming of the injured was loud. Fallen ducked as someone began firing on them with automatic weapons in retaliation.

"Warren! You and Iceman cover us!" Jean was shouting. Her teammates were close by.

Iceman couldn't fly, but he could create large iceslides and zoom about, especially with all this dampness here. He swooped in close and made some walls of ice to block the shots from the innocent while Warren used his speed and agility to attack the men with weapons and disarm them. He wasn't alone. Rogue had joined the fray with some of the other telekinetics, now freed as the last of the bombs fell. The battle was in full gear.

People were screaming and running about in a panic but the uniformed SHIELD agents were there, herding the crowd towards the exits, leaving the grunt work to those mutants best capable of handling it. These were well trained men and women, but they were for the most part normal humans, they were neither telekinetic nor could they fly. Besides, it looked like Xavier's crew was making short work of this mess, due to the quick prompting from Gambit and Wolverine. It looked like the casualties would be light. The warning had come just in time.

(break)

Lakotashay came away from the phone and staggered over to one side of the convenience store. She didn't care now if Creed found them and dragged them away. She would go willingly and take whatever Creed dished out to placate his wrath. She had done the job that needed to be done. They all had, working together. She laughed softly, impressed with her work. The bombs would be stopped, everyone would be safe. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. The pain washed over her in a red rain, but she didn't mind. It was kind of nice actually, and she knew it wouldn't last. Sooner or later, the Master would come and Mary would make it all go away.

She jerked back to reality with a startled grunt when the suddenly ground shook beneath her. She leaned to one side and looked around the side of the building. A huge cloud of smoke was billowing up to the sky from the direction of the stadium. The bombs had still fallen. She had called for help and still Kimble's people had died. Remy was dead, Fallen, too. She could almost hear them screaming to him, accusing her of being too slow, not strong enough, not good enough. She had failed.

We done a bad thing! the pilot child screamed and Zander shuddered as another one of those terrible bolts of lightning rocked them from within. This new one was gaining power, the shattering that had started from Creed's savage beating was close to becoming real.

Lakotashay rose once more onto her broken, battered feet and shuffled away, sobbing. People stared at her, seeing her wretched condition, but she didn't care. She bumped her way down the street and into a nearby alley. She tripped and fell into a pile of garbage. She didn't care. Not any more. She didn't get up, just lay in the stink like the filth she believed she was.

(break)

Rogue was having a blast. She had always been a scrapper and there was nothing like a good brawl to flex her muscles. However screwed up she may have been in her personal life, out here she was the picture of control. She swooped gracefully among the mules, grabbing folks and flinging them about. She was invulnerable which meant their bullets could do little more than bruise her and then only if they fired on her in close range. All it did was piss her off and make her more dangerous to her foes. Many of them were now falling bonelessly to the ground, stunned by the force of her heavy fists.

She wasn't alone in the skies. There were other flyers about, notably Storm who was carefully firing lightening bolts to startle the weapons from the hands of mules. A large pile of guns and rocket launchers were falling from the sky. What seemed like a blessing was only making things worse as some of the braver humans began grabbing at them and firing up into the battle above, heedless of who they might injure. One dead mutie was as good as another to these guys.

Sabretooth's mules were admittedly confused. They had been told they would be cloaked, all they had to do was drop their packs of explosives and flee. They hadn't expected to be seen much less fight. The helicopters that had brought them in had just as quickly teleported out, the mules were on their own and not doing so well.

Wolverine joined the fray along with some of the heavier hitters among the SHIELD team, using his brute force to finish off and subdue any of the mules that fell down to the ground. He was also doing his best to take down any of the civilians who had grabbed loose weapons. He had a tendency to react both violently and quickly towards anyone damaging his teammates so it was hard to remind himself to be gentle — or what passed for gentle for him anyway. Most of these folks were just frightened regular joes, not army men. They were easy enough to subdue and Wolverine made a show of demolishing as many of the weapons as he could find, not wanting anyone he might have missed to pick them up.

Cyclops was beside him, shouting orders in between fistfights and dodging bullets. He was a good commander for this well oiled team. He was directing traffic skillfully and they were making serious headway. His hand was constantly at his visor, firing small, low grade beams when necessary. Like Logan, he was doing his best not to damage the locals while trying to get this out of control situation back under wraps. Quickly now, he could see that most of the people were streaming towards the exits and would soon be evacuated. Good, the sooner this was over the better for them all.

Henry was on the sidelines, leading his own team of SHIELD medics as they swiftly attended the wounded. A makeshift triage center had been set up in Monument Park as a precaution, a concern that seemed to have been well founded. The wounded began pouring in almost immediately. Maylee was with him, doing her best to keep up. Both were wearing image inducers so as not to frighten any of the humans around them as they scrambled about, getting everyone situated.

Jean and Fallen were exhausted by their labor, but exhilarated by their level of success. They accomplished a lot considering they'd had almost no warning beforehand. It was a testament to all their hard work and training. They and the other telekinetics had managed to catch the vast majority of bombs that the mules had dropped. Some strays fell into the stands, but not where any people had been. Any unexploded ordinance was carefully removed to bomb squad trucks waiting outside the stadium.

Not all the mules were handling their failure happily. One of them also had the ability to cause spontaneous combustion and was now merrily setting the empty stands alight. He was succeeding in spite of the damp and before long the stadium was going up in flames, only adding to the overloaded X-men's woes. Storm did her best to conjure rain to quench the flames, but he was outburning her while being covered by his teammates. Bullets and rockets were being fired through the sky adding to the mayhem. Fallen and Jean joined in the continuing battle and were doing their best to shut those guys down. They were mostly successful, but it was clear the stadium would be lost. At least most of the people had gotten out before the fire got out of hand. The few stragglers were being airlifted out by X-men.

The battle didn't contain itself to the stadium. A very brave and cloaked Nightcrawler had managed to teleport aboard the last of the helicopters before it blinked away. He never would have been able to pull it off if it hadn't been for Lakotashay's phone call. Kurt was a quick reactor, always had been, and when Logan screamed into the headset, the first place he had looked was up into the sky. He couldn't 'port into the helicopter itself, his jaunts were accompanied by a telltale puff of smoke, but he managed to land on one of the struts and hung on for dear life. This wasn't his first risky maneuver like this, he was famous for getting into trouble. The hero in him was often bigger than his own capabilities. In this case though, he managed both the jaunt and to hang on without falling off. The fact that the flight was short because the teleporters had brought the craft right back to the barge was a plus. He was silent on that barge now, using his own cloak as a tracking device, knowing that SHIELD would use him to follow Creed's men back to where they had come from. His cloak was still on its original setting, he couldn't be seen, and he was doing his best to keep it that way. Once helicopters all returned to the original barge, Kurt got busy silently placing tiny tracking devices on as much as the equipment he could safely get to.

SHIELD didn't take long to respond. They had been prepared in case such an opportunity presented itself. Patrol boats and attack helicopters were dispatched and after a brief but bloody fight, they swarmed the boat and captured most of Creed's men before they could escape. Kurt was happy to see his rescuers, no doubt dreaming of how good his boasts were going to sound around the drinking table this night.

In spite of all Sabretooth's planning, this raid was turning into something of a bust for him, mainly because of Lakotashay's quick phone call. It had been enough to get the X-men's attention so their swift and well co-ordinated training could boost that of their SHIELD counterparts. There were casualties, but very few dead. Most of those were SHIELD agents and a couple of lesser X-men that unfortunately caught bullets in the fray. If they hadn't been alerted in time, well over half of the twenty thousand or so folks that had gathered here would have died.

Word of Kimble's preemptive call was spreading quickly through the network of agents and X-men as they finished up their work at the stadium, they had all wondered where that first alert had come from. Not many of them even knew who Kimble was or knew of his situation, some of them were wondering just who this guy was and just where he was now. They weren't the only ones, one very distressed Cajun thief was on the hunt.