I decided to post early due to my guilty conscience and my two eager reviewers demanded it...and it's longer than the last chapter...so you'd better be happy! Or else! It'd be nice to get some more reviewers too...(seeing as how Pyrotic is 'too cool' to review anymore)...but I can't really count on that...bummer...
It was lunch at the Xavier Institute. Everyone except the twins were surprised that Nucleo's newest member was Massacre.
"How convenient that you forgot to tell us the part about Nucleo hiring the dagger guy!" Roberto grumbled.
"Hey, there's a lot to remember here," Aaron protested, "We just figured that part was unimportant."
"Nothing's unimportant," Bobby insisted.
"Dude, I think I lost my contact lens in my water," Allen announced.
"Except for that," Ray muttered.
"Allen, why is your water fizzing?" Siryn asked, "Are you drinking club soda?"
"That stuff's nasty!" Amara shuddered.
Allen took a sip and immediately spit it out and Kyle received a face-full of club soda, "Tastes bad. Hey, my contact lens."
Allen took the lens out of his mouth and put in back in his eye, while Amara closed her eyes.
"Cub sofa!" Bear rocketed out of Bobby's salad, "Eww, vegytofles!"
Bear shook off the vegetables and picked up a leaf of lettuce. He walked across the table to Ruben and shoved the lettuce in his face.
Ruben stared at the lettuce for a moment and began to sing, "Doncha tell me you're full! Just, eat iiit! Eat iiit! Open up your mouth and feed it!"
"NOO!" Bear screamed, "I's not likin' vegytofles! Theys ikie!"
"Ruben, stop singing!" Rogue shouted.
Ruben paused for a moment and took up a rapper pose, "Ya'll gonna make me lose my mind! Up in here! Up in here!"
"Yay," Ray groaned, "Even better."
Jean walked up to their table.
"Bear, come with me," she picked up the veggie covered ball of fuzz, "What is that?"
Jean hadspotted one of the open letters laying open on the table. No one said a word for a moment. Ruben's hand suddenly darted out and snatched the letter.
"Song lyrics!" Ruben exclaimed, "Risin' above the city, blockin' out the noonday sun and dwarfs, the mighty redwoods and it towers over everyone!"
"I'm sorry I asked," Jean turned and walked from the room.
"That was close," Cory sighed from relief.
"Quick thinking, Ruben," Sarah complemented.
Jubilee took the letter from Ruben, "We should put these in new envelopes and rewrite the addresses as soon as possible."
Jean walked from Bear's room after putting him to bed for his nap. She sent out a thought to the professor and the X-Men to meet her in Xavier's office.
Minutes later, the X-Men were assembled in the office, waiting for Jean to explain.
"The students are up to something," Jean began.
"When aren't they?" Beast laughed quickly before diverting his attention to Jean again.
"They had a letter from some company about anti-mutant devices," Jean continued, "I asked what it was and they tried to cover it up."
"Why was the letter sent here?" Storm asked.
"It wasn't," Jean explained grimly.
"That's convenient," Alex said, mainly to himself.
"I'm not even sure why they have it," Jean shrugged.
Xavier sat in silence with his eyes closed.
"Brian took the letters," Xavier said, his eyes still closed.
"There's more than one?" Logan asked.
"Some of the students traded a few items for Brian's stolen letters," Xavier opened his eyes, "Apparently, our twins had already known something about the letters."
"They think we don't know, right?" Ben asked.
"Yes, I didn't press the matter after their cover-up," Jean replied.
"We will keep that charade," Xavier instructed, "For now."
"I think we should investigate this, Professor," Scott voiced his opinion.
"Yes," Xavier nodded, then frowned, "We have visitors."
Carl finished putting his socks on and glanced out the window.
"Uh, you guys should probably see this," he gestured for Nucleo and the rest of the team to look.
Nucleo smiled, "So he has come to me instead. Get yourselves ready."
He gestured for the rest of the room inhabitants to follow him as he left the room.
The Brotherhood stood assembled on Xavier's lawn. Magneto stood with his arms crossed while the rest of the Brotherhood waited impatiently.
"Ah, here they come," Magneto smiled slightly as Nucleo walked from the Institute followed by the rest of his followers.
The Brotherhood began to advance towards Nucleo and his followers.
"Leave Magneto to me," Nucleo instructed.
Carl clenched his fist which began to give off a blue glow. He opened his fist and tossed the newly created ball of electricity into the air, catching the chain of voltage trailing after it. He swung it around above his head as he charged the nearest Brotherhood member. It just happened to be Blob.
Because of his lack of knowledge of any of the Brotherhood, Carl was surprised when his sphere of energy bounced harmlessly off of Blob's stomach. Blob laughed and took a swing at his attacker. Carl luckily recovered from his shock quickly and ducked under the huge fist. Carl clenched both of his fists and created two more globes of voltage. Jumping back from another of Blob's swinging fists, Carl got an idea. He held the two energy chains in his left hand and created a third sphere with his right hand. He quickly applieda pastime skill and began to juggle the sparking orbs.
Blob paused for a moment. Carl's juggling seemed almost as if he was taunting him. Blob clenched his teeth in anger. He hated being taunted. He let out a bellow of rage and charged the juggling mutant.
Without hesitation, Carl flicked his wrist, sending one of the spheres into Blob's face. The orb bounced off and landed back in Carl's hand. Carl had continued to juggle the other two globes at the same time.
Blob suddenly felt his face being pelted with hot balls of electricity. He stopped his forward charge and began to walk backwards.
Max pummeled Zombie in the face with his fist. Zombie staggered back and shook his head to clear the stars from his vision. Max took hold of Zombie's shirt and lifted him into the air. Moments later, Max's mutated skin temperature ignited Zombie's shirt. Max threw him aside and looked around for another member.
Nearby, Pyro spotted the blazing inferno which was Zombie. Pyro grinned maliciously. Zombie soon found himself free from the flames as they rose into the air.
Max turned around and looked into the air and saw the ball of fire take the form of a giant hand. The hand waved at him and curled itself into a fist. He had no time to run as the burning fist hurtled towards him. He suddenly found himself engulfed in flame.
Lorenzo stared at the ball of fire. The fire lifted forming back into the fiery hand. It then seemed to spot Lorenzo. What seemed to be a nose formed from the flames. The fiery hand then thumbed its fiery nose at Lorenzo. Lorenzo gritted his teeth and looked down to see Pyro laughing, almost insanely, at him. Lorenzo clenched his fist. There was a slight trembling in the ground.
Pyro suddenly found himself being launched into the air by amassive column of water. Keeping slight control over the fire, he split apart the burning hand, sending balls of fire raining down on the battle scene.
Roy received a kick from Locust, sending him staggering backwards. He recovered quickly and began to approach Locust again. He suddenly stopped in his tracks. Unintentionally. He looked down to see his feet glued to the ground by a blob of some substance. He looked up to see Locust grinning as usual and Paste standing nearby getting a good laugh.
Locust, being the closest, became Roy's target. Roy's long tail whipped forward and struck Locust in the stomach. Locust coughed as the air was knocked out of him. Simultaneously, one of Pyro's balls of fire passed right in front of Locust's face. Locust's cough had released a cloud of his toxic breath. Roy fortunately didn't have to endure inhaling the haze of pestilence. He did, however, have to endure the sudden mass of flame in his face as Locust's breath reacted with the falling ball of flame.
Mike ducked as a laser was fired at him. He glanced up in time to see Photon fire another laser at him fromagun on hisshoulder. Mike dodged the attack and rubbed his hands together. As he continued to rub them together a metal disc began to form in his hands. It soon became as large as a circular card table. As Photon continued to fire his glowing projectiles, Mike held up his metal creation, shielding himself from the attack. He began to walk towards Photon blocking his repeated gunfire. He stopped as he saw a glowing playing card land at his feet. He stared at it, puzzled for a moment. The next moment, he was thrown backward from the card's explosion. The giant metal disc was flung into the air.
"Looking for something, monsieur?" Mike looked up to see Gambit waving the large metal disc in his hand, "It belongs to you, no?"
The metal disc began to glow as Gambit hurled it at Mike. Mike jumped up, pressing his hands to the ground. Mike raised his hands creating a pillar of steel in front of him. The glowing disc exploded on impact, sending pieces of metal everywhere and contorting the steel pillar.
Towards the middle of the battlefield, Nucleo was unleashing his furyon Magneto. Magneto was mainly lifting himself with his metal suit away from the whip-like beams extending from Nucleo's fingers. Every time Nucleo released another beam at Magneto, one of the pieces of the landscape would explode with a deafening bang.
"You can't fly around like that forever!" Nucleo shouted, "You'll getwhat you deserve!"
Magneto merely raised his eyebrows as a large portion of the metal gate surrounding the mansion property lifted from its position. The gate wrapped itself around Nucleo, pinning his arms to his sides. Nucleo staggered and fell to the ground. Magneto let himself float to the ground. He bent down to Nucleo.
"Whenever you are ready to give me what I deserve," Magneto said, mockingly, "Let me know."
In the next instant, the combatants of both sides ceased their fighting as a voice rang through their minds.
"Stop this at once! Not only are you destroying the property of the mansion, but you are disturbing the peace without an acceptable reason!" Xavier's voice echoed through their heads.