000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
"I'm Herman the living weapon!" The giant pink skinned mutant with visible bones shouted as one of his fellow Omega Gang members used his fire powers to set Herman on fire, not that Herman seemed to mind. "I'm the Inhuman Torch!" He proclaimed as he charged at the Misfits and Sky High kids.
"Ooooww, he's gonna be feeling this tomorrow." Todd winced.
"Not as much as he'd gonna feel this!" Will Stronghold said as he slugged Herman with his super strength. The pink punk went flying through the wall and out onto the front lawn.
The Omega Gang and the Hellions took advantage of the opening to head outside where they'd have more room to maneuver.
"Waitaminute, aren't you our prisoner?" Fred blinked when he saw the Hellion Side-Splitter standing with his fellows.
"Evidently not." Phelan drawled as he created a small squad of clones.
"Hey that's my bit!" Penny, one of Royal Pain's henchmen, snapped as the pretty black teenage cheerleader created a small squad of clones too.
"A few traitors will not win you the day." Principal Powers said. "You're more than outnumbered!" She said, pointing to the students who spilled out of the school when the fight began.
Vladimir fleered. "You mean the same student body of heroes in training who allowed themselves to be beaten by a single opponent—" he indicated Royal Pain with a wave of his hand. "—and ran around screaming instead of thinking to try using their powers?" Vlad laughed. "Forgive me if I'm not afraid."
"You should be!" Pietro yelled as he took off for him. He made it nearly halfway to the Hellions when something hurled itself into his path and he tripped.
"Pietro!" Wanda shouted as Pietro went sprawling at high speed, leaving a long, shallow ditch.
"What the—heck?" Pietro said as he got up and saw what had tripped him: a large bone-like spike embedded in the ground. "Uh-oh."
"Oh yes." Evan said as he and the original Hellions stepped out into the open. "Been waiting a long time to take care of you Misfits."
"Let's take out the trash." Monet grinned as she took to the air.
"Fine, we'll start with you." Wanda shot back.
"I think we might be in trouble." Angelica said. "The Hellions and the Omega Gang have us outnumbered."
"Hopefully the Sky High kids will give us an edge." Althea said.
"I wouldn't count on it." Lance said as he pointed. "Look."
Sure enough, the Hellions were cutting through the Sky High students like a knife through hot butter.
"Learning how to instantly change your outfit behind a screen doesn't do you much good in a real fight, does it?" Bevatron laughed as he shocked a student with six arms.
One Sky High student attempted to blow the Hellions away with the power of wind, but was contemptuously hurled aside by Monet's telekinesis.
Another Sky High student turned himself into a gigantic rock-like creature, but was punched out by the Hellion Beef.
Here and there a few Sky High students managed to hold their own: unsurprisingly the super-powerful and flight-capable Will Stronghold was one. Layla Williams, the not-so original flower power child was another. And the pyrokinetic Warren Peace was a one-man army, never taking a step back and more then holding his own against the Omega Gang member called Redneck, who also had fire powers. A few others helped hold back the tide as well.
But though they fought bravely, the Sky High students fought as individuals with little thought towards their fellows and they paid the price for it. The Hellions, on the other hand, had under long training had the notion drilled into their heads that each member was part of a greater whole and used that to devastating effect, easily batting aside many weaker opponents from Sky High and working together to bring the tougher ones down.
The point was illustrated most graphically when Red Nova and Spyke teamed up to take down a powerful but untrained Sky High student with electrical powers. Spyke used his bone-spikes to cut off his escape and Red Nova blasted the student into unconsciousness.
Another batch of Sky High students was trapped in a barrier from one of Tarot's cards as others ran from the battle or got in each other's way. More than one student fell to "friendly fire."
In addition to their lack of teamwork, the Sky High students were handicapped by the fact that among the dozens of clashes available at their academy, none dealt with the kind of super-powered brawls that the Hellions, Misfits, X-Men, and the like found themselves involved in on a regular basis. Indeed, few of the actual classes at Sky High actually taught the students how to fight and frankly, it showed.
"What do we do now?" Todd asked Althea. The Misfits had been in the thick of fighting. Althea was spared from answering when the teachers of Sky High stepped up.
"Attack!" Principal Powers ordered as she and other members of the faculty rushed to their students' aid. They charged at the enemy line dead-on. The Omega Hellions (not to be confused with the Omega Gang) held the left wing, the Alpha Hellions were on the right and the Omega Gang held their center. They were the weak-link in the chain and the teachers knew it.
If they could break the enemy center, then they could roll up either wing at leisure and the fight would be over.
If they could break the center.
Vladimir knew as much, which is why he stopped fighting for a moment and shouted to Semira to 'Let it begin!'
Coach Boomer took a deep breath and prepared to stun the Omega Gang into submission with his super sonic voice. Just as he was about to let loose, someone else beat him to it.
"SHRRIIEIEIEEEEE!" A high pitch shriek cut through the air, forcing Boomer to his knees, covering his ears in a cruel twist of irony.
"Who—what—?" He asked as he looked up to see an avian-like girl hurtling from the sky and barreling right at him. Boomer was knocked out when she dive bombed him and delivered a savage kick to his head.
"Nice work Talon." A deep ominous voice congratulated her. "But watch me at work." As Principal Powers, Mr. Boy, and Medulla approached their fallen comrade, they failed to notice the unusual patch of darkness that could not be attributed to any normal shadow.
"Surprise, chumps!" The darkness said as it enveloped the teachers of Sky High in one move. The living shadow reformed itself into Ebon. He opened a dark swirling portal and dumped out the unconscious teachers.
"If you're going to play with fire." Hot-Streak grinned at Warren, better prepare to get burned!" He said as he shot blast after blast of fire at Warren.
"I always did like salads." The buck-toothed, large nosed Metahuman called the Ferret said as he munched on Layla's vines.
"It's the Meta-Breed! The Bang Babies from Dakota!" Wanda realized.
"Now we're really in trouble." Lance said as he fired off a tremor at Evasia, who nimbly leaped over it.
With most of the Sky High students out of play, the Misfits found themselves surrounded and enveloped by their foes: the two Hellion teams, the Omega Gang, and the Meta-Breed formed a circle around the embattled Misfits.
Besieged on all sides, it was all Althea could do to keep herself out of trouble, let alone help her teammates.
Beef and the metahuman Onyx teamed up on Fred as Hot-Streak and Redneck attacked Angelica and Warren. Pietro tried rushing to her aid, but was cut off by one of Royal Pain's lackeys, the ex-Sky High student called Speed; a stout teenager who also had the power of super-speed. The two speedsters collided midway in some macabre game of 'Chicken.'
His partner, Lash, used his ability to stretch himself to grab Spyder and hold her tight. His rubber-like body helped protect him from Spyder's electrical attacks.
Lance sent out tremor after tremor until the Bang Baby Kangorr decided to show what his gigantic, mutated feet could do. He leaped a distance Todd would've been proud to claim and nearly landed on Lance. While Lance was able to move out of the way in time, the shock from Kangorr's fall knocked Lance to the ground.
"Get away from me you creep!" Wanda seethed as she fired her hex bolts at Ebon.
"Damn girl, watch it with those!" He said as he snaked his way towards her, a living shadow. He enveloped Wanda and she vanished.
"Bring her back you Cloak wannabe!" Althea screamed at Ebon. Ebon managed to grin, despite not having a mouth.
"Here." He said. "Take her." He dumped Wanda out of his shadow body and ran off to another part of the battle, leaving Wanda, pale and trembling, on the ground.
"Wanda!" Althea shouted as she ran over. "Are you all right?" Wanda managed a weak nod right before she passed out. Althea looked out over the field.
Her sisters were busy battling the powerful telepath, Kid Omega; who was, as his name suggests, an Omega-class mutant. It took all of Trinity's power not to be overwhelmed and destroyed by his mental powers. Todd was holding his own against Roulette, Radian, and Royal Pain, but only just barely. Xi was in a duel with Metatak and Evasia, and not faring well. Shane had been laying down covering fire for his friends when the Bang Baby named Boom used his ability to generate high-decibel sound attacks to incapacitate Shane. Will Stronghold delivered a fierce punch that cracked the Earth beneath their feet, knocking several combatants down and Warren Peace was still battling Hot-Streak. The Joes were being kept out of play by Forceflow's telekinesis and the Bang Baby Slipstream was using his wind powers to incapacitate any flyers among the Misfits or the remaining Sky High students.
All in all, things weren't looking good,
"Hey you!" Althea looked up to see the Bang Baby called Puff, flying over her, Puff's lower body was a shapeless tail of gas, giving her a vaguely genie-like appearance. "If you aren't going to pay attention, what don't you take a breather? If I let you!" She said as she breathed out a long burst of gas. Althea coughed and gagged before she could hold her breath. The gas Puff released wasn't toxic, but it was too heavy to breathe. Althea couldn't see and she couldn't breathe.
Althea's vision started to swim when she suddenly saw something blow Puff's gas away.
"What—?" She coughed as air reached her lungs. Althea blinked as she saw Puff trapped within what looked like a small dust cloud. Puff passed out and fell to the ground. The storm moved on and enveloped Glob Herman and Hot-Streak suppressing the flames and robbing them of their fire.
"Hey! What gives?" Hot-Streak yelled as his flames went out.
"Flame out loser!" Warren growled as he hit Hot-Streak with a fire blast, lighting his pants on fire. As Hot-Streak screamed and started running across the front lawn trying to put out his pants, the dust cloud settled around Beef and Onyx, surrounding them in their own personal maelstrom. Althea heard them shout and yell as the fast moving particles actually cut them, allowing Fred to take advantage of their distraction and dropped Onyx with a blow to the jaw. Beef screamed as—was that a magenta hamster?—crawled up his leg and bit him on the butt. Beef hollered and cursed as he tried to reach around to grab it, leaving him open for Fred to lay him out too. The granular cloud responsible for this turn around now moved towards Althea.
She dropped into a fighting stance and prepared to summon what water she could when the dust rematerialized itself into the form of a person. Althea blinked as she realized that she had seen this girl in the halls of Sky High, she was the one garbed in a black head to toe outfit that Althea now saw was in fact a burqa.
"Thanks for the save!" Althea said to her. "What's your name? "The girl—Althea couldn't see anything of her save for her eyes and hands—raised her hands, palms out in a non-hostile gesture.
"Sooraya Qadir." She said shyly.
"Thank you." Althea said sincerely. "You're a good fighter. Ever think of doing this full-time?"
"I am merely defending my school. As for the future, it is not in my hands. Inshallah." Sooraya said. "As God wills it." Sooraya nodded to Althea before transforming back into her dust form and entered the fray once more.
Althea would have gone to help her but was ambushed by another Bang Baby. "You think you can stop me?" Aqua-Maria challenged her.
"I don't have to think. I know." Althea said. Aqua-Maria, her body made of water, should have known just how vulnerable she was to a hydrokinetic like Althea. Althea manipulated her body into a wave and directed it against her fellow Bang Babies—also incidentally putting out what was left of Hot-Streak's pants.
Despite these few victories, the tide was still very much against the remaining Misfits and Sky High students. Shipwreck—the one Joe not trapped by Forceflow—was in the midst of the fray, punching out the Omega Gang member Redneck and was going to try to help Trinity fight Kid Omega—albeit in a less telepathic and more physical way—when he found himself opposed by Megawatt and Bevatron.
"Do you know what happens to a sailor that gets struck by lightning?" Megawatt grinned as he and Bevatron readied their powers. "The same thing that happens to everything else." He answered as they blasted Shipwreck.
"AAHHHHH!" Shipwreck screamed as he was struck by lightning, not used to being hit by two electrical attacks at once.
Bevatron and Megawatt grinned. Suddenly the two of them became aware that the sky had suddenly grown very dark and the wind had picked up—which had nothing to do with Slipstream—and an ominous rumble was heard in the clouds.
They looked up and their jaws dropped. Floating in the air, hair and eyes white as oblivion and angry beyond measure, was one of the most powerful mutants on Earth.
"No one," Storm started to say in a deceptively mild voice that grew louder and angrier. "SHOCKS THE SAILOR BUT ME!" She exclaimed, her eyes blazing white, lightning crackling at her fingertips.
"Uh-oh." The two mutants gulped in unison as Storm blasted them.
"Stormy?" Shipwreck gasped in disbelief.
"What's going on over there?" Spyke demanded as he saw the lightning, but not the cause.
"Here's a hint!" A bright red beam hit Spyke in the shoulder, sending him spinning to the ground. He looked up and felt his face pale.
"Oh no…"
"Oh yes," His attacker grinned humorlessly behind his visor. "X-Men, move out!" Cyclops ordered.
"Right!" Came the answer, shouted from enough voices to be heard even above the din of battle.
The Hellions froze for a fatal minute as they tried to process the inexplicable arrival of the X-Men to the battle.
It was that minute that cost them.
The X-Men hurled themselves at the center of their enemy's line, much as the teachers of Sky High had tried to do earlier. But where they had failed, the X-Men succeeded. The center—guarded by the Omega Gang and the Meta-Breed—had been weakened thanks to Sooraya's intervention and the punks who made up those two groups were not solidly drilled into teams like the Hellions, the Misfits, or the X-Men.
They shattered under the X-Men's hammer-blow, cut down as if they were scythed. The collapse of their center meant the Alpha and Omega Hellions were separated from one another and allowed them to be hit from all sides.
Rogue, flying through the sky like a bullet, socked Monet in the jaw and sent her plummeting to the ground. Remy hurled his cards at Tarot's knocking them out of her hand and destroying them.
Scott fired an optic blast at one of the Omega Gang, striking across the face. "You broke my f&$# nose!" Radian bellowed as he clapped his hands to his face.
"Freddy, duck!" Tabitha said as she hurled her time-bombs in Fred's direction. Fred ducked just in time and turned around to see Tabby's bombs blow up at Forceflow's feet, as he'd been attempting to sneak up on Fred.
"Thanks Tabby!" Fred called. Tabby gave him a wink and a thumbs up.
Forge was using his own mutant ability to fashion a weapon to counter the one the technopathic Royal Pain had devised but Jesse appeared at the scene, but promptly got so unnerved that he ended up shorting them both out.
Paige ripped off her skin, revealing a layer of brick, which she used when she punched Jacques in the gut. Sam knocked Jetstream out of the sky with his own powers as Amara, Jubilee, Tim, and Everett teamed up to use their powers to do the same to Slipstream and other enemy flyers, effectively clearing the skies of enemy opposition.
Kitty took on the Omega Gang member Tattoo, who was able to phase in a way not unlike Kitty herself, and had been using it deadly effect among her fellow Sky High students, phasing through their attacks and threatening to—literally—pluck their hearts out.
Tattoo smirked and turned intangible and so was taken completely by surprise when Kitty did the same, managing to punch the arrogant Omega Ganger out with a single blow.
X23 leapt into the fray with a savage, feral fury as she unsheathed her claws. Rushing towards Xi, she sliced off one of Takashi's liquid-metal arms, which while not permanent, was still painful.
Rahne in her wolf form rushed at the Bang Babies Ferret and Carmen-Dillo. Ferret ran from her in an unthinking panic as Carmen-Dillo curled himself up into a ball. She looked around worriedly to see where her friend Catseye was, but couldn't find her or her scent anywhere on the battlefield.
"Why won't you die!" Shiv screamed in frustrated fury as he used the light-energy he could give off and construct into weapons to hack away at Dead Girl, with little to show for his efforts. Dead Girl just shrugged laconically.
"Eh. Tried it once. Didn't take to it." She grinned. "Now Penny!" Shiv turned around just in time to see the pink girl Penance or Penny (not to be confused with the cloning henchgirl of Royal Pain), tackle him.
"OWIE! THOSE CLAWS ARE SHARP! AAAH AND SO IS THE HAIR! OH MOMMY!"
Bobby used his ice powers to freeze Glob Herman in place as a herd of rampaging Jamie's tackled any Phelan or Penny clone they found, driving them both up the wall with frustration.
"Watch the hands you little pervert!" Penny screeched as Jamies crawled all over her.
"Need a hand?" Jean asked an astonished Trinity as she and Betsy appeared to help them in their telepathic/psychic duel with the powerful Quentin Quire.
"And do you?" A new voice—or was that a series of voices?—asked. Trinity thought the stress of their fight with Kid Omega was causing them to start to see things. They saw five girls, who looked alike and dressed alike, so flawlessly that they thought their vision was swimming and they were simply seeing one girl five times. They weren't.
"Who…who are you?" Trinity asked them. The five girls spoke in unison, in a creepy unsettling manner that reminded Trinity of "The Children of the Corn" or the Delightful Children from Down the Lane (Jean and Betsy were actually reminded Trinity).
"We are telepaths." The girls said as one, their eyes glowing. "We are the Five-in-One. We are…the Stepford Cuckoos." They joined their own awesome telepathic skills to Jean, Betsy, and Trinity and together managed to overwhelm Kid Omega, knocking him unconscious and out of the battle.
Professor Xavier was using his own prodigious talents to keep Monet, Celandine, and the Bang Baby Madelyn Spaulding's own telepathic skills at bay, wary of Celandine's toxic side effects to her telepathy. Logan was rallying the Joes as Hank and Warren, also known as Angel, assisted the teachers from Sky High recover from their ordeal and get back into the fight. Storm was still zapping Megawatt and Bevatron for shocking Shipwreck.
"I knew you cared Stormy!" Shipwreck said then regretted it when Storm turned her attention towards him and started zapping the big-mouthed sailor. "OWW! OWW! NOT THE LIGHTNING! NOT THE LIGHTNING AGAIN! OWWW! COME ON STORMY!"
"DIE SAILOR!"Roberto in his powered form took on Warpath as Ray took over for Storm in handling Megawatt and Bevatron. Roulette found herself getting blasted by Wanda's hex bolts as she recovered from her earlier ordeal with Ebon and Kurt teleported the still weak Wanda off to the sidelines.
"It's okay, we're here." Kurt said.
"Where'd…how did…" Wanda started to ask. Kurt smiled.
"We were in the neighborhood and it looked like you needed a hand."
"And we brought some friends." Peter grinned as he helped Wanda to her feet.
"Who—" Wanda started to ask.
"Look out!" Came Danielle's warning as several flaming bone-spikes flew through the air. Suddenly, the spikes impacted against some sort of force field that suddenly appeared and the spikes harmless bounced off it.
"What did that?" Spyke wondered. Some distance away, an invisible woman smiled.
Pietro panted as Speed chased him all over the field. He was getting tired and the renegade Sky High student apparently had a bit more stamina than he did. Just as he felt that Speed was about to catch up with him, a red blur flashed past his eyes. He turned around to look as it knocked Speed down. The villain lay moaning on the ground.
"The Flash?" Pietro asked. "Is the Justice League here?"
"No," The red-garbed speedster who just saved Pietro told him. "Close, but not quite. Not the Flash, but..."
Lash stretched out, intent on strangling Todd from afar when another pair of outstretched arms—garbed in red—grabbed his and started tying them in a knot, which also allowed Spyder to get away.
"What? Hey, quit…stop…don't do that!" Lash protested as his limbs were stretched out and wrapped around him, reducing him to a human ball that was kicked against the wall of Sky High by an elongated leg.
"What's going on here?" Vladimir demanded as he fired a blast at Everett, who was borrowing Tim's powers.
"I think I can answer that." A voice rang out as three figures stepped into the light. The ones on the left and right were very familiar to two of the fighters.
"Dad?" Will Stronghold asked. "Mom?"
"The Commander…" Royal Pain hissed. "Jetstream…" But for everyone else, the focus wasn't on the Commander OR Jetstream, but their companion in the middle. He was a large, muscular man. He was old…senior citizen old…but carried himself with the strength, bearing, and ability of a man half his age.
All around the field, combatants stopped to stare.
"No way…" Todd said, his jaw dropping.
"I thought he was retired!" Roadblock yelped.
"I thought he was dead!" Spyke exclaimed.
"This is…impossible." Takashi stuttered.
The man smiled and idly wiped some dust off his red uniform and smoothed out the symbol on his chest, a stylized lowercase 'i.'
"No, it's not impossible." He grinned. "It's Incredible."
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000