"The Shadow King is an incredibly powerful mutant," Storm said, "who has abducted Dylan and is using him as a host. Our goal is to force the Shadow King out of him. Get into your uniforms and meet in the library at two thirty. Any questions? Yes, Kitty?" Storm said as she looked at Kitty, who had her hand raised up.
"What sort of powers does the Shadow King have?" Kitty asked.
"The Shadow King is a powerful telepath who is capable of mind control and possession," Storm replied, "like what happened to Dylan." Looking around, she asked, "any other questions?" Looking at the empty faces that stared back at her, Storm knew as much.
iShe doesn't even know we're working for the Shadow King/i, Kitty's voice echoed in Sunspot's head.
Later, at two thirty in the afternoon, everyone gathered in the library, as instructed, including Kitty, Sunspot and Wanda. Professor X's voice boomed into everyone's minds. "Everyone! Sit down. Remember, the Shadow King is not to be dealt with alone. Work as a team. As X-Men. Any last questions before I project all of you? Good. Sit down, everyone." Professor X turned Cerebro on, and everyone in the library lost consciousness as they were projected to the Astral Plane.
In a land where there was no sky, and there was no land, and everything was pearly orange-pink, the X-Men appeared.
"Wow! Where are we? Are we in Heaven?" These remarks could be heard amidst the X-Men, none of which have ever been to the Astral Plane before. "Silence," Storm said. "They're coming."
Everyone expected a group of people who rivalled the size of the X-Men, but out of the shimmering mist walked only one; Psyche.
"Psyche, where did you get your clothes?" someone asked. Psyche responded by firing a black energy wave at the X-Men, all of whom ran away just in time to escape the explosive impact of the energy wave.
Jean Grey concentrated on finding the real Dylan inside Psyche's mind. "Dylan... Dylan! I can help you! Concentrate!" Raising one of his hands, Psyche rebounded the telepathic probe back at Jean, who screamed and fell to the ground.
"Yes, I did that," Psyche said loudly, his voice echoing across the infinite space in the Astral Plane. "And Yes, Iceman, I can read minds."
Taking a step in front, Psyche boldly said, "among you, I have three helpers. Namely, Shadowcat, the Scarlet Witch, and Sunspot." When they were called, Shadowcat, the Scarlet Witch and Sunspot walked to join Psyche, to the astonishment of the X-Men. "That's it!" Nightcrawler shouted. "Somebody attack!" The X-Men went forth; Jubilee fired her light globules, Cyclops fired his optic blasts, Iceman fired ice beams, Magma fired magma balls, and everything hit their targets, but Psyche, the Scarlet Witch, Shadowcat and Sunspot were unharmed. Not even a scratch. The X-Men were astounded. "But how can that be?" Cyclops said in astoundment. Wolverine ran forward and thrust his claws into Sunspot, who did not even seem to notice, and then fired an energy ball in Wolverine's face, knocking him several metres back. Then it was revealed; Sunspot wasn't hurt at all.
"I told you this would make them attack first," Psyche said to the Scarlet Witch. "Alright! You win the bet!" she replied, before all four of them turned into balls of pink light which then promptly vanished.
"They're projections!" Spyke shouted in astonishment. "Grr... they're good," Wolverine said as he sat up from the ground.
Back in the Shadow Room, Psyche, Wanda, Shadowcat and Sunspot, who laid unconscious on the floor, suddenly jolted awake.
"That was fun," Sunspot remarked as they stood up from the tatami floor and walked out of the room and into the common room where everyone else was sitting down on the floor, including Pyro. Upon their arrival, the other mutants stood up as well.
"Shimmer, Magnify," Psyche commanded, "bring us to the X-Men." Shimmer held on to Magnify's hand, and everyone was cloaked in a golden light before teleporting in front of the X-Men.
The Shadow King's side looked at the X-Men with a deadly glare, and received an equally deadly glare back from the X-Men as well, as the X-Men went forth and attacked.
"Violet, now!" Psyche said, as Violet held her hands in the air and surrounded the Shadow King's pawns completely within a purple force field, and deflected one of Berzerker's energy bolts. Candle's eyes glowed red as a cloud of fire the size of a motorcycle appeared in the air above them; Pyro, being able to control fire, made it grow to the size of a van, as Magnify, using his ability to magnify the mutant abilities of others, made the cloud grow even bigger than it already was, as Candle made small balls of fire separate from the cloud and hurl themselves into the X-Men.
"We can't break through the force field!" Jean said to Storm, afraid that the battle would end very soon. Storm raised a hand, making a lightning bolt materialise in her hand, but nothing happened, and neither could she fly. "There isn't any weather in the Astral Plane, Storm," Psyche's voice echoed in her mind, and Storm turned her head to look at him staring at her with a roguish grin all over his face. "Your powers are useless here!" "Nightcrawler!" Storm shouted. "Teleport the X-Men in!" Nightcrawler nodded, and grabbed on to Cyclops and vanished amidst the smell of burning brimstone and smoke. Following Nightcrawler, Psylocke grabbed Iceman and Magma, who grabbed Cannonball, dissolved into shadow and appeared beside Nightcrawler and Cyclops inside the purple bubble.
Iceman and Pyro attacked each other by means of extremely huge projectiles from both sides, and Iceman was winning, as he slowly froze Pyro; the ice slowly coated Pyro, moving up from his feet to his knees, then to his waist, and in a few seconds covered his chest in ice and was threatening to cover his face just as soon as his neck was frozen solid. "Candle!" Pyro shouted. "Give me a fire!" Candle's eyes burned with the colour red as a fireball the size of a tyre appeared in front of her and she threw it at Pyro, who used it to melt the ice covering his body. "Oh, no you don't!" Iceman shouted as he launched an ice beam at the fireball to put it out, but Pyro, having foreseen that move, made the fireball grow in size and hurl itself at Iceman, and the ice beam cancelled out the fireball, but caused a great deal of water vapour to materialise, filling the force field in mist.
A shadowy blade manifested on Psylocke's wrist as she ran towards Psyche, but had to teleport out of the way when she dodged a magma ball, and reappeared in front of Psyche. "Do you think that you're the only one around here who can do that, Psylocke?" Psyche said softly, gesturing at Psylocke's wrist. "Yeah, can you?" Psylocke retorted, and then gasped in horror as a black sword appeared in Psyche's left hand and a shield appeared in his right. "How did you ever guess, Psylocke?" Psyche said, as the two engaged in a battle of blades as Cyclops fired an optic blast at Sunspot, who, unfortunately, did not dodge it in time, and he fell to the ground as the blast hit him.
"I never thought you would betray us," Cyclops said with anger in his voice, as he fired another blast at Sunspot, but not in time. Shimmer had waved a hand at him, causing him and his optic blast, halfway through the air on the way to Sunspot, to teleport outside the force field in a flurry of golden lights, causing his optic blast to knock into Multiple, knocking him to the floor, and a few seconds later, he disappeared in a flash of orange and pink, and his body stirred in the library; if a physical hit that would kill a person hit a projection, it would cause them to revert back to their body.
"Multiple!" Cyclops shouted as he disappeared. "Where did he go," as Jean landed beside him.
From outside the force field, Berzerker and Jubilee were incessantly firing projectiles at the force field, hoping that they could break through, but Violet's concentration has not wavered. The Scarlet Witch walked out from within the force field, in front of Berzerker and Jubilee, and her hands glowed blue as the projectiles fired at the force field changed course and fired themselves back at the X-Men.
"That's enough!" Jean screamed as she flew into the air, glowing a brilliant orange, and raised a hand at the projectiles, causing them to disintegrate. "Kurt!" Jean telepathically said to Nightcrawler, "teleport the purple girl out of there!" Kurt, responding to Jean's command, roughly grabbed on to Violet's hands as they teleported out of the force field, which immediately disappeared because Violet had lost concentration. Jean, channeling the power of the Phoenix Force, raised her hands, and a broad stream of fire flew at the Shadow King's pawns. Psyche, grabbing from within his midst Iceman, seized control of his powers and projected an ice beam that was the exact same size of Jean's fire stream and matched its strength as well.
Jean was winning; her fire was quickly eating up Psyche's ice beam, but Psyche's ice beam regained its strength as Magnify and the Scarlet Witch combined forces and made the ice beam become as equally powerful as the fire stream. Psylocke, taking advantage of the situation, sneaked up behind Psyche, and thrust her knife into his head, and for a moment Psyche stumbled. "Jean!" Psylocke screamed. "Help me!" Jean focused all her powers into creating a force field around herself to protect her from the impending blast of energy when she let go of the fire stream, and when she did, she was enclosed in a bubble, in the midst of all the smoke created by the explosion. Blue and red energy was piercing through the force field that Jean was enclosed in, and Jean was set on fire and disappeared in a blast of roaring fire.
Psylocke's knife was still embedded in Psyche's head; the energy on both sides was depleting extremely fast, Psylocke's to power her knife and Psyche's (and the Shadow King's) to keep his psychic grip on Sunspot, Shadowcat, the Scarlet Witch, Candle, Portal, Magnify, Violet, Pyro and Shimmer, and protect himself from Psylocke's powerful psychic knife, so it was not surprising that he psychically short-circuited; his psychic grip on all of his pawns disappeared and he fell to the floor, brain-dead, crackling in black, pink and shadowy energy, and so did Psylocke, but upon fainting, she vanished, going back to her body in the physical universe, whereas Psyche laid there, not moving, the Shadow King was trapped in his body and was not able to come out, for Psyche was comatose and could not come to, so till then, there would be peace.
The battle was over.
Looking dazed and just plain confused, Sunspot, Shadowcat, Pyro, the Scarlet Witch, Candle, Portal, Magnify, Violet and Shimmer all looked utterly shocked at all the things that they had done when they were controlled by the Shadow King. Looking at Psyche's lifeless body, Sunspot said, "how're we going to bring him back?"