Things are deteriorating quickly. I don't have anything else to say right
now.
... More Questions Are Made Apparent
In a small Cobra outpost, Cobra soldiers rushed to defend a hangar door. The head Cobra officer at the base, Destro, was barking out orders to various officers and soldiers.
"You, you and you get the blast doors closed with the manual winch. You, take six men and get the auxiliary generator working. The rest of you get ready. When he comes through that door I want him dead!"
The huge adamantium doors began to close, just as a glowing sword cut through the outer doors.
"That ought to do it. There's no way he's coming through those doors," smirked Destro. Not five seconds later, the glowing sword was rammed through the blast doors.
"That's not possible! Those are solid adamantium! It would take Magneto to get through!"
"Maybe it is Magneto," said one of the soldiers nervously. By this time the sword had cut a man-sized hole in the door, and it was being yanked out. A man dressed entirely in silver armor, and wielding a glowing sword stepped through.
"Magneto..." he snorted, "you should be so lucky," and then he was on them like a whirlwind. Before the first row even had time to fire he was among them. When they finally brought their weapons to bear, he leapt into the air and they ended up shooting each other.
Destro turned and ran. He reached the elevator, and stuck his pass card in. The door slid slowly open. He turned, and looked over his shoulder. The man had finished off the soldiers and was stalking slowly towards him.
Destro lunged into the elevator, and hit the button for the top floor. The door slid closed, and the elevator started up.
A few seconds later, the man in the silver armor cut away the door. By the time he walked into the elevator shaft, it was empty. He dug his sword into the wall and began to work his way up.
Destro ran out onto the roof of the building. Three soldiers were stationed up there.
"Sir, what's going on?" One of them asked.
"There's no time for me to explain. But there's a man following me up here. When he gets to the top of the elevator shaft, kill him."
"Where are you going?"
"I need to report this man, whoever he is, to Cobra Commander. I'll be taking the new hovercraft."
"Yes sir."
Destro climbed into the hovercraft, and took off. He pushed it to its speed limit, in order to get away as fast as possible.
Behind him, on the roof, the man in the silver armor had finished off the guards, and was watching the rapidly shrinking speck that was the hovercraft off in the distance.
"You have escaped this time, Destro," he said, "but you will not be so fortunate next time. I will avenge my village's destruction. This I swear. This I swear upon my honor as a samurai."
Cobra Commander threw back his hooded head and laughed, "I love it! This is magnificent. We don't have half of Washington in our pocket, we are half of Washington!" Suddenly his mood changed.
"But it's not enough! We have, for all our efforts, been unable to penetrate that pesky G.I. Joe! Well, it is time to begin another kind of campaign, then this prolonged infiltration. We have enough of the Jugglers. Let operation DP begin!"
"I'm sorry sir, but we'd need someone in the actual attack, to keep the troops under control. We'd need a high ranking military officer to be specific," said one of his aides.
"Hmm. What about that fool Whithalf?"
"No, a shapeshifter wouldn't be able to duplicate his personality well. He's too erratic."
"Hmm. The man who turned in that fool Bragg, find out everything about him. He should do nicely."
"All right X-men. Spread out. I want you to search every cave, every nook and cranny on this cliff face. Find that disk," ordered Scott to the assembled team of X-men, and a few of the more advanced New Mutants. The New Mutants had been included because Xavier was considering which ones to move up to the regular X-men team.
The X-men were in the Danger Room. Kurt teleported and Kitty phased down into the ground. The rest of the X-men began to climb down the cliff face. Suddenly, out of the sky, zoomed down one of the probes that Arcade had used when he had taken control of the mansion.
Scott fired a blast at it, as the others scattered to find cover. It zoomed to avoid Scott's blast, and fired electricity bursts at him. He dove out of the way, but the last one hit his leg, instantly numbing it. As he attempted to drag himself away, it switched weapons to a buzz saw. Armara and Ray blasted at it with their powers, but it simply dodged them, and sent back stun bursts, which knocked them out. Bobby managed to freeze it in place long enough for Scott to drag himself behind a large cluster of rocks. Then it gave off an electric burst, which traveled along the stream of ice, and shocked Bobby. He screamed, and was thrown violently backwards into a huge boulder.
Then it generated large amounts of heat, and melted the ice. It advanced on Scott again, and the buzz saw, which proved to be adamantium tipped, sliced through the rock. Scott ducked, and the saw flew over his head.
"Jean, can you stop telekinetically, long enough for me to hit it with my eye blasts?" He yelled.
I don't know. I can try. She said telepathically. Suddenly the device froze in midair. Jean had her hands to her head, and was obviously concentrating extremely hard.
Scott lined his visor up with the drone and fired a beam of minimum range, and maximum intensity, straight into the center of it. The power source shorted out, and the drone dropped to the ground.
Jean and Scott smiled at each other, just as at least forty more drones rose from all around the cliff face.
Scott used his eye beams at maximum range, while Jean used her telekinesis to shut down their power cores. But eventually one drone hit Jean with a stun blast from behind, and two more used mechanical arms to hold Scott in place. The final remaining drone produced a buzz saw, and slowly advanced on Jean. Scott struggled, but was unable to either free himself from the robots holding on to him, or to shake his visor off.
Finally he sighed. "Computer, end simulation."
Nothing happened. "Computer, end simulation, override code one three five four two," he said with a little more urgency.
"Override code not valid."
"What?" Scott watched, horrified, as the drone that had the buzz saw slowly advanced on Jean.
Kitty, Kurt, Roberto, and Tabitha were also having problems. A group of drones had cornered them in a cave in the cliff face. Furthermore, the simulation had created a rare element in the rock wall that prevented Kurt and Kitty from using their powers to escape. They were just barely able to keep the drones from advancing into the cave.
"All right," said Kurt, "I have a plan. Tabitha, use your time bombs to block the entrance to the cave. Roberto, you need to make us a path through the rock wall with your strength."
"Easy," said Tabby, and caused rocks to fall down and block the entrance. Roberto changed into his Sunspot form and smashed a hole in the ceiling.
Before long, they were out of the area where Kurt and Kitty were unable to use their powers. Kurt grabbed Roberto's shoulders, and teleported, while Kitty took Tabby's hand and floated up towards the surface.
They reached the surface just in time. Kitty grabbed Jean and phased her so that the buzz saw cut harmlessly through, and Kurt teleported Scott away from the drones that were holding him.
Then Roberto and Tabby used their powers to destroy the remaining drones. Scott blasted a hole in the danger room door with his eyebeams.
"Let me guess what you're thinking, who could have possibly sabotaged your precious danger room?" Laughed a figure in a dark room, watching the proceedings on a view screen. "Only someone with an intricate knowledge of your machinery, or complete domination of metal could have sabotaged your precious danger room X-men. Only someone like me, Polaris, daughter of the great Magneto, and the mistress of metal, who thanks to an inside source, has the right information on your technology! And I promise you this is only the beginning of your troubles with machines."
Darkshadow watched the Misfits train. Beside him on the roof lay a dead Greenshirt, one of the troops assigned to G.I. Joe. The man's throat had been cut. The knife with which Darkshadow had killed him, was stuck it the man's chest, pinning a note in place. He waited until the Misfits had headed inside to shower, then silently dropped down, and propped the man against the door.
Then he left, onto the roof, along the wall, over the watchtower, and into the surrounding swamp.
Fred was the first to come out. He noticed the Greenshirt, and immediately called out, "guys, you better come here!"
Toad came out next, and was shocked at the sight of the dead man. Then he saw the note. Leaning closely, he read out loud,
"To the Misfits,
This man is a warning to you of what will happen if you interfere in my business. My conflict is with Toad, and Toad alone. If you want to avoid a fate similar to this soldier, I suggest that you do not attempt to fight alongside Toad when he faces me.
If you comply, you will be spared. I may even let Toad live.
Think on it, very hard. Remember, next time, this could be you. It might happen while you're sleeping. I may track you down on your next mission. But you'll never see it coming until it's too late.
Darkshadow."
The other Misfits had come out while Toad was reading.
"That guy must be insane if he thinks we're going to let Toad face him alone," snorted Lance, "we're with you all the way, buddy."
"No," said Toad.
"What do you mean no?" asked Pietro. "No one ever said it was your decision. We're your friends and we are going to stand by you. It doesn't matter against who, or what. We're by your side, and watching your back all the way."
"Thanks, but still, no. If you try to help me with this fight, you'll get yourselves killed. He wants me. I'm not sure why, but he's not interested in any of you. I won't let you get hurt by trying to help me. I'm sorry, but I have to go this one alone."
Lance drew Xi, Pietro, Wanda and Blob away, "three guesses why Destro wants Toad."
"The destiny stone." Said Xi.
"And we can't let him get it, or the world is in serious trouble," said Wanda.
"So we have to stand by Toad, no matter what," finished Lance, "but for now let him think otherwise."
They all nodded.
"I don't like it, but it's your call." Said Pietro. The others nodded, except Althea.
"I don't know about you, but I'm standing with Toad all the way on this one," she said.
"Babe, I don't want to see you get hurt because of me. You know I couldn't take that."
"And I don't want to see you get hurt because I stood by and did nothing."
"I can handle myself, Al. Besides, your team leader, we'd be lost without you. Me, I'm just the guy with the long tongue and the slime. The team could go on without me."
"But I couldn't. Toad I'm standing by you."
"Al, you need to watch the babies. You know how ruthless Darkshadow is. He's not above taking Beaky or Claudius hostage," he wrapped his arms around her.
"I love you Todd," she whispered.
"I love you too babe, you know I do."
"Then let me help you. Please, don't do this to me."
"I have to. But I swear I'll survive. Just for you."
"Promise me you'll walk away from this alive."
"I promise you. Without me, who would you spy on the shower?"
"And if that doesn't give you enough incentive to kick Darkshadow's butt, maybe this will." She kissed him.
"OK, is anyone else embarrassed by this unbridled show of affection in front of us?" asked Pietro.
The rest of the Misfits raised their hands, except for Xi.
During all this, on a nearby rooftop, Darkshadow was watching the proceedings.
"Perfect. You don't know it yet, Toad, but you are playing right into my hands."
"I'm telling you we can't tell them now!" yelled Shipwreck.
"If we don't, we'll tell them how?" Asked Roadblock.
"He's right," said Lifeline. "With what's going on, they'll find out about it soon enough. Its better if we just tell them."
"I'm worried about how they'll react though," said Cover Girl. "Lance and Wanda are just holding onto their powers. News like this might send them off the deep edge."
"The longer we hold back from them, the angrier they'll be when they find out about it. More so because we've been lying to them." Said Psyche Out.
"Well, what do you want us to do? Just walk into the living room and tell them?" Asked Shipwreck.
"I'll start dropping hits, and changing the drift of my sessions with them to prepare them for something like this. That way, when they actually find out about it, it won't come as such a shock, and they'll be somewhat prepared. But we need to make it soon. Otherwise they're likely to think that we've been holding back information from them. And we want to avoid that happening."
"I hope you know what you're doing," said Cover Girl, "because if you don't there's going to be big trouble here at the Pit."
"I'm also worried about Low Light," said Roadblock, "It affecting him is not just a might."
Well, this is interesting. Who is this strange swordsman? Why is he after Destro? What is operation DP? What is Darkshadow's plan? What is going on between the adults? Who is Polaris's source inside the mansion? Well if you read Mirrorverse you might be able to answer that last question, but as for the others, you can find out next time, as soon as I get at least one review. But for know suffice it to say that event have been set in motion here, that will have far reaching affects on this story.
... More Questions Are Made Apparent
In a small Cobra outpost, Cobra soldiers rushed to defend a hangar door. The head Cobra officer at the base, Destro, was barking out orders to various officers and soldiers.
"You, you and you get the blast doors closed with the manual winch. You, take six men and get the auxiliary generator working. The rest of you get ready. When he comes through that door I want him dead!"
The huge adamantium doors began to close, just as a glowing sword cut through the outer doors.
"That ought to do it. There's no way he's coming through those doors," smirked Destro. Not five seconds later, the glowing sword was rammed through the blast doors.
"That's not possible! Those are solid adamantium! It would take Magneto to get through!"
"Maybe it is Magneto," said one of the soldiers nervously. By this time the sword had cut a man-sized hole in the door, and it was being yanked out. A man dressed entirely in silver armor, and wielding a glowing sword stepped through.
"Magneto..." he snorted, "you should be so lucky," and then he was on them like a whirlwind. Before the first row even had time to fire he was among them. When they finally brought their weapons to bear, he leapt into the air and they ended up shooting each other.
Destro turned and ran. He reached the elevator, and stuck his pass card in. The door slid slowly open. He turned, and looked over his shoulder. The man had finished off the soldiers and was stalking slowly towards him.
Destro lunged into the elevator, and hit the button for the top floor. The door slid closed, and the elevator started up.
A few seconds later, the man in the silver armor cut away the door. By the time he walked into the elevator shaft, it was empty. He dug his sword into the wall and began to work his way up.
Destro ran out onto the roof of the building. Three soldiers were stationed up there.
"Sir, what's going on?" One of them asked.
"There's no time for me to explain. But there's a man following me up here. When he gets to the top of the elevator shaft, kill him."
"Where are you going?"
"I need to report this man, whoever he is, to Cobra Commander. I'll be taking the new hovercraft."
"Yes sir."
Destro climbed into the hovercraft, and took off. He pushed it to its speed limit, in order to get away as fast as possible.
Behind him, on the roof, the man in the silver armor had finished off the guards, and was watching the rapidly shrinking speck that was the hovercraft off in the distance.
"You have escaped this time, Destro," he said, "but you will not be so fortunate next time. I will avenge my village's destruction. This I swear. This I swear upon my honor as a samurai."
Cobra Commander threw back his hooded head and laughed, "I love it! This is magnificent. We don't have half of Washington in our pocket, we are half of Washington!" Suddenly his mood changed.
"But it's not enough! We have, for all our efforts, been unable to penetrate that pesky G.I. Joe! Well, it is time to begin another kind of campaign, then this prolonged infiltration. We have enough of the Jugglers. Let operation DP begin!"
"I'm sorry sir, but we'd need someone in the actual attack, to keep the troops under control. We'd need a high ranking military officer to be specific," said one of his aides.
"Hmm. What about that fool Whithalf?"
"No, a shapeshifter wouldn't be able to duplicate his personality well. He's too erratic."
"Hmm. The man who turned in that fool Bragg, find out everything about him. He should do nicely."
"All right X-men. Spread out. I want you to search every cave, every nook and cranny on this cliff face. Find that disk," ordered Scott to the assembled team of X-men, and a few of the more advanced New Mutants. The New Mutants had been included because Xavier was considering which ones to move up to the regular X-men team.
The X-men were in the Danger Room. Kurt teleported and Kitty phased down into the ground. The rest of the X-men began to climb down the cliff face. Suddenly, out of the sky, zoomed down one of the probes that Arcade had used when he had taken control of the mansion.
Scott fired a blast at it, as the others scattered to find cover. It zoomed to avoid Scott's blast, and fired electricity bursts at him. He dove out of the way, but the last one hit his leg, instantly numbing it. As he attempted to drag himself away, it switched weapons to a buzz saw. Armara and Ray blasted at it with their powers, but it simply dodged them, and sent back stun bursts, which knocked them out. Bobby managed to freeze it in place long enough for Scott to drag himself behind a large cluster of rocks. Then it gave off an electric burst, which traveled along the stream of ice, and shocked Bobby. He screamed, and was thrown violently backwards into a huge boulder.
Then it generated large amounts of heat, and melted the ice. It advanced on Scott again, and the buzz saw, which proved to be adamantium tipped, sliced through the rock. Scott ducked, and the saw flew over his head.
"Jean, can you stop telekinetically, long enough for me to hit it with my eye blasts?" He yelled.
I don't know. I can try. She said telepathically. Suddenly the device froze in midair. Jean had her hands to her head, and was obviously concentrating extremely hard.
Scott lined his visor up with the drone and fired a beam of minimum range, and maximum intensity, straight into the center of it. The power source shorted out, and the drone dropped to the ground.
Jean and Scott smiled at each other, just as at least forty more drones rose from all around the cliff face.
Scott used his eye beams at maximum range, while Jean used her telekinesis to shut down their power cores. But eventually one drone hit Jean with a stun blast from behind, and two more used mechanical arms to hold Scott in place. The final remaining drone produced a buzz saw, and slowly advanced on Jean. Scott struggled, but was unable to either free himself from the robots holding on to him, or to shake his visor off.
Finally he sighed. "Computer, end simulation."
Nothing happened. "Computer, end simulation, override code one three five four two," he said with a little more urgency.
"Override code not valid."
"What?" Scott watched, horrified, as the drone that had the buzz saw slowly advanced on Jean.
Kitty, Kurt, Roberto, and Tabitha were also having problems. A group of drones had cornered them in a cave in the cliff face. Furthermore, the simulation had created a rare element in the rock wall that prevented Kurt and Kitty from using their powers to escape. They were just barely able to keep the drones from advancing into the cave.
"All right," said Kurt, "I have a plan. Tabitha, use your time bombs to block the entrance to the cave. Roberto, you need to make us a path through the rock wall with your strength."
"Easy," said Tabby, and caused rocks to fall down and block the entrance. Roberto changed into his Sunspot form and smashed a hole in the ceiling.
Before long, they were out of the area where Kurt and Kitty were unable to use their powers. Kurt grabbed Roberto's shoulders, and teleported, while Kitty took Tabby's hand and floated up towards the surface.
They reached the surface just in time. Kitty grabbed Jean and phased her so that the buzz saw cut harmlessly through, and Kurt teleported Scott away from the drones that were holding him.
Then Roberto and Tabby used their powers to destroy the remaining drones. Scott blasted a hole in the danger room door with his eyebeams.
"Let me guess what you're thinking, who could have possibly sabotaged your precious danger room?" Laughed a figure in a dark room, watching the proceedings on a view screen. "Only someone with an intricate knowledge of your machinery, or complete domination of metal could have sabotaged your precious danger room X-men. Only someone like me, Polaris, daughter of the great Magneto, and the mistress of metal, who thanks to an inside source, has the right information on your technology! And I promise you this is only the beginning of your troubles with machines."
Darkshadow watched the Misfits train. Beside him on the roof lay a dead Greenshirt, one of the troops assigned to G.I. Joe. The man's throat had been cut. The knife with which Darkshadow had killed him, was stuck it the man's chest, pinning a note in place. He waited until the Misfits had headed inside to shower, then silently dropped down, and propped the man against the door.
Then he left, onto the roof, along the wall, over the watchtower, and into the surrounding swamp.
Fred was the first to come out. He noticed the Greenshirt, and immediately called out, "guys, you better come here!"
Toad came out next, and was shocked at the sight of the dead man. Then he saw the note. Leaning closely, he read out loud,
"To the Misfits,
This man is a warning to you of what will happen if you interfere in my business. My conflict is with Toad, and Toad alone. If you want to avoid a fate similar to this soldier, I suggest that you do not attempt to fight alongside Toad when he faces me.
If you comply, you will be spared. I may even let Toad live.
Think on it, very hard. Remember, next time, this could be you. It might happen while you're sleeping. I may track you down on your next mission. But you'll never see it coming until it's too late.
Darkshadow."
The other Misfits had come out while Toad was reading.
"That guy must be insane if he thinks we're going to let Toad face him alone," snorted Lance, "we're with you all the way, buddy."
"No," said Toad.
"What do you mean no?" asked Pietro. "No one ever said it was your decision. We're your friends and we are going to stand by you. It doesn't matter against who, or what. We're by your side, and watching your back all the way."
"Thanks, but still, no. If you try to help me with this fight, you'll get yourselves killed. He wants me. I'm not sure why, but he's not interested in any of you. I won't let you get hurt by trying to help me. I'm sorry, but I have to go this one alone."
Lance drew Xi, Pietro, Wanda and Blob away, "three guesses why Destro wants Toad."
"The destiny stone." Said Xi.
"And we can't let him get it, or the world is in serious trouble," said Wanda.
"So we have to stand by Toad, no matter what," finished Lance, "but for now let him think otherwise."
They all nodded.
"I don't like it, but it's your call." Said Pietro. The others nodded, except Althea.
"I don't know about you, but I'm standing with Toad all the way on this one," she said.
"Babe, I don't want to see you get hurt because of me. You know I couldn't take that."
"And I don't want to see you get hurt because I stood by and did nothing."
"I can handle myself, Al. Besides, your team leader, we'd be lost without you. Me, I'm just the guy with the long tongue and the slime. The team could go on without me."
"But I couldn't. Toad I'm standing by you."
"Al, you need to watch the babies. You know how ruthless Darkshadow is. He's not above taking Beaky or Claudius hostage," he wrapped his arms around her.
"I love you Todd," she whispered.
"I love you too babe, you know I do."
"Then let me help you. Please, don't do this to me."
"I have to. But I swear I'll survive. Just for you."
"Promise me you'll walk away from this alive."
"I promise you. Without me, who would you spy on the shower?"
"And if that doesn't give you enough incentive to kick Darkshadow's butt, maybe this will." She kissed him.
"OK, is anyone else embarrassed by this unbridled show of affection in front of us?" asked Pietro.
The rest of the Misfits raised their hands, except for Xi.
During all this, on a nearby rooftop, Darkshadow was watching the proceedings.
"Perfect. You don't know it yet, Toad, but you are playing right into my hands."
"I'm telling you we can't tell them now!" yelled Shipwreck.
"If we don't, we'll tell them how?" Asked Roadblock.
"He's right," said Lifeline. "With what's going on, they'll find out about it soon enough. Its better if we just tell them."
"I'm worried about how they'll react though," said Cover Girl. "Lance and Wanda are just holding onto their powers. News like this might send them off the deep edge."
"The longer we hold back from them, the angrier they'll be when they find out about it. More so because we've been lying to them." Said Psyche Out.
"Well, what do you want us to do? Just walk into the living room and tell them?" Asked Shipwreck.
"I'll start dropping hits, and changing the drift of my sessions with them to prepare them for something like this. That way, when they actually find out about it, it won't come as such a shock, and they'll be somewhat prepared. But we need to make it soon. Otherwise they're likely to think that we've been holding back information from them. And we want to avoid that happening."
"I hope you know what you're doing," said Cover Girl, "because if you don't there's going to be big trouble here at the Pit."
"I'm also worried about Low Light," said Roadblock, "It affecting him is not just a might."
Well, this is interesting. Who is this strange swordsman? Why is he after Destro? What is operation DP? What is Darkshadow's plan? What is going on between the adults? Who is Polaris's source inside the mansion? Well if you read Mirrorverse you might be able to answer that last question, but as for the others, you can find out next time, as soon as I get at least one review. But for know suffice it to say that event have been set in motion here, that will have far reaching affects on this story.