Gemini took a deep breath, and her summoned twin began running towards the conference centre. The rear portion of the building was almost entirely in ruins, and the back entrance was blocked by wreckage and debris. She'd have to find another way in. Luckily it didn't take her long to find a broken section of wall, and she was able to half-squeeze, half-crawl her way into the building's interior.

Inside it was just as much of a chaotic mess as it had been outside. What had probably been a corridor in front of her was almost entirely covered with fallen masonry, wooden beams and shards of glass. Underneath a blackened wooden door she could see a person lying unmoving, and she hurried over to check their vital signs. It was too late. The man was dead.

There were two more people lying on the ground a little further along the passageway. Both of them were dead too, one crushed by a ruined wall and another had bled out from multiple glass fragments embedded in her chest. Years of experience had trained Gemini to keep her emotions subdued while she was on a mission, but it still upset her terribly that innocents had died this way. She forced herself to stay focussed, and moved on.

If there were more explosives inside the building, they could go off at literally any second. She tried to think. Where would be the most likely place for them to be have planted? Somewhere out of sight, obviously. These bombs were part of a terror campaign, so presumably somewhere that would cause the greatest structural damage to the building and the greatest loss of life to those inside.

She thought back to her days in the Brotherhood. They'd planted plenty of bombs and waged plenty of terror campaigns back then. Now what she needed to do was put herself back in that mindset, and think like a terrorist planting bombs.

Where would I plant one in this building if that was my objective? Well, the best place would probably be on a structural join between sections. Chris showed us the plans for the building when we were prepping for the mission – the nearest one should be just down here...

She prayed: God, please let there be no more bombs! If there is one, please help me find it so nobody else dies!

The third explosion differed from the first two in two very significant ways. First, it occurred at the front of the building rather than at the rear. Second, it was at least three times as powerful. At this point the majority of the conference speakers and conference centre staff were being evacuated from the building out of emergency entrances at that very side.

The police and security staff were desperately trying to keep them moving quickly but calmly enough that they didn't degenerate into a stampede. Looking back afterwards, the X-Men were able to realise how ruthlessly the terrorists had planned and calculated the sequence of explosives. The first two had been small and had caused relatively little damage and loss of life. They were designed mainly to spread panic, and to prompt the official evacuation procedure which involved the use of the emergency escape doors at the front of the building. Now that section itself was targeted by a far bigger explosion.

The deafening eruption wiped out all other sound as it roared through the early morning air. The massive fireball vaporised over forty people as they hurried to escape from the explosive-rigged building. Flaming debris was sent flying in all directions. The shockwave struck an even greater radius, hurling to the ground anyone within fifty yards of the building. Windows shattered, vehicles were overturned, and every tree and bush was uprooted and thrown into the air.

And then, for a moment, then two, there was no sound. Flames still burned, the wounded still screamed for help, and debris was still collapsing from the front of the building, but after the deafening blast of the explosion, all of these sounds were like mere whispers.

Rogue was the first of the X-Men to re-gather her senses. She had been knocked to the ground by the force of the blast, like everyone else, and at first she was still too caught in shock to know what had happened.

"Guys?" she gasped, tapping her communicator. "Is everyone all right? Report!"

But before she could listen for any responses, a voice beside her suddenly gave a hoarse whisper, "Oh no..."

"Bobby?"

"Rogue! Look!"

She looked, and her eyes widened in horror. The explosion had caused even more damage than was immediately obvious. The front wing of the building was crumbling, creaking, leaning forwards, and was about to collapse at any second. Underneath it lay the bodies of scores of people, and she had no way of knowing how many of them were still alive.

"Guys!" she screamed.

"Do whatever you can!" Iceman yelled at the rest of the X-Men, as he hurried forward.

Twin jets of ice shot out from his hands as he did the only thing he could think of, piling together an enormous monolith of ice that would – he hoped – break the building's fall. At the same time, the other X-Men were moving into action.

A puddle on the floor suddenly coalesced into Shapeshifter. He and Shock hurried forward and began grabbing as many of the dazed, stunned bystanders as they could, forcing them away from the building. Two women were trapped underneath an enormous metal girder – Helios zapped it with a laser from the palm of his hand, melting through the metal and enabling Cassandra to pull the two injured women free.

The children played their part as well. Phobia and Byblos were comforting a crying toddler who had gotten separated from his parents. Accel and the two boys were grabbing hold of other children who had no adults with them, and pulling them as far away from the scene as they could.

Iceman realised with a growing sense of dread that his hastily-constructed ice shield was not going to be enough to stop the building's collapse. It would at best only delay its fall, maybe slow down the process. He didn't know how much time they had to identify and rescue those who were still alive and lying underneath it. Probably less than half a minute. A glance to either side told them that his friends were already doing what they could in that regard. He fired off a final jet of ice to strengthen the foundation of his structure, and then desperately began checking the unmoving bodies lying closest to him.