They ran through the crowd of fleeing people. A booth came flying in their direction. Scott stopped moving only long enough to vaporize it with a look. He rejoined the others and they formed a line between the two creatures and everyone else.

"What the hell?" Scott exclaimed.

"Oh my," Henry said with worry.

"No, no, no," Peter repeated as he looked at creatures from his nightmares. Katherine took his hand in hers to remind him he wasn't alone.

The creatures were almost twice Peter's height; their muscles so ridiculously massive that anywhere other than here it would make them laugh. Their flesh was a jumble mass of skin and metal. Even through all that, there was no way to miss the resemblance.

"Jean, can you make them go to sleep?" Scott asked without looking away from them.

"No, there's no consciousness there to take the orders," she replied. "They're in immense pain," she added sadly.

One of the colossus screamed; the sound was completely inhuman.

"I've called reinforcements," Thomas said, "we just need to contain them until they arrive."

"Alright, Jean, Katherine make sure there no one in the area," Scott ordered. "Peter, are you going to be ok?"

Peter took a moment before replying, "yes, I am."

"All right then, let's subdue these things."

Katherine and Jean went to the side, away from the coming fight. Peter charged the closest creature with a scream of anger. He threw his shoulder in the impact, sending the creature reeling and then falling back.

Before the other creature could lumber to its help Henry was jumping on it, throwing a punch and then jumping out of the way of the replying swipe.

"Summers," Bishop yelled at him, "you've got to power me up."

Scott looked at the man, astonished he would even ask. "You're joking right?"

"No. I'm unarmed, without a charge I can't do anything."

"Good, then stay out of our way." Scott turned to go help his friends, but Bishop caught him by the arm.

"Damn it Summers, I'm trying to help here!"

Scott turned to face him again and pushed Bishop away. "We don't need your help so get out of here and go back to faking being a normal human being."

Bishop's entire body tensed; his eyes narrowed, he ground his teeth and closed his fists in anger. He'd had enough of the sideways glances Scott had been giving him and of the things he said about him. He was going to teach him a lesson.

Before he could do anything Ororo's voice resounded, "enough!" It was underscored by thunder and a lightning bolt striking Bishop. Scott's ears rang and all he could see for a few moments were spots. "You two are going to stop it with the testosterone." She said firmly. "Right now we have more important things to do, so get to it!"

Scott nodded, when he looked at the fight again Peter was being held on the ground and being hit repetitively. He unleashed his beam on the creature. He had expected it to be strong enough to send it flying back, but it stayed right where it was. It did lift its head and look at him. The creature's eyes sent a shiver down Scott's spine. They were the same colour as Peter's but they had no life to them. It stood and ambled toward him.

Scott fired at it again, increasing the beam's strength and it did stagger back for a moment, and then pressed on. Scott stopped firing as he backed away; all he was doing was exhausting himself.

The colossus was half a dozen steps away when it stopped. It looked back over its shoulder at Peter who was groaning has he forced himself up. It turned and walked back toward him, having completely forgotten about Scott. Peter didn't move, he waited for it; when it swung to hit him he caught the fist, spun and threw it in the air. It flew hundreds of feet away before crashing to the ground. Peter only took a second to catch his breath before running after it.

Henry was still jumping about the other creature and punching it, but now he'd get out of the way every time Ororo said to, and a lightning bolt would come down from the sky to strike it. Unfortunately it only seemed to anger it; it grabbed what ever was nearby and sent it flying at them. Its aim was rather poor and most flew over their head. Thomas was on his cell screaming at whoever was on the other end that they needed the backup right now.

^Scott!^ Jean's telepathic scream hit him with so much strength that he yelled in pain as it brought him to his knees. When he looked up a fish and chip cart was flying directly at him. He knew he had to blast it, but his mind couldn't move away from the fact that Jean was in trouble to defend himself.

Bishop happened to turn and see the cart flying toward Scott and that the man wasn't blasting it away. He didn't even think about it; he raised a fist and fired at the cart with just enough strength to alter its course so that it flew beside him and crashed further back. When Bishop turned to the creature again it was walking away, leaving everyone perplexed.

"You ok?" Thomas asked Scott as he helped him stand.

Scott nodded, "what's going on?" he asked pointing at the creature's back.

"I don't know, I think it's heading to where the other one fell."

"Backup?"

"They have a helicopter in the air; it should be here within fifteen minutes."

"Something happened to Jean, do you think they'll be ok without me?"

"Yeah, we'll keep it busy until the helicopter's here; they'll have what's needed to take them down. You go see after her."

Scott nodded and looked at those going after the creature. He focused his beam as narrowly as he could and fired it at Bishop's back with all the strength he had left. The black man didn't even slow as he was hit, but the glow around his hands went up in intensity.

* * * * *

Peter was slugging it out with his nightmare. From the moment he'd returned to his house he'd forced himself to think the memory he had of those creatures weren't real, that they were a side effect of what ever had been done to him by Genietech. To think otherwise meant that there might be part of himself out there, driven insane by the experiments they had been put through.

Right now he hated Genietech for what they had done to him and he put that hate behind each strike, forcing his nightmare to back up each time. He was also angry at himself for abandoning them to their fates when he escaped. He had known they had been there, their screams had echoed as he ran down the cavern toward his family. If he hadn't ran away, if he hadn't been so scared. Maybe he could have helped them. Since he hadn't he added his anger to the strength behind his fist as he struck this twisted reflection of himself.

"Peter!" Ororo's voice finally reached though his anger as the colossus stumbled back and fell. He turned and saw the other creature walking toward him. Behind it Ororo was motioning for him to join her and the others.

For a moment he thought about fighting it also, but he heard the one behind him stir. He went to Ororo, giving the oncoming creature a wide berth but always watching it. As he moved passed it, it stopped walking and simply turned in place so it was always facing Peter.

"What is it doing?" Henry mused to himself

"Why isn't it helping the other one?" Bishop asked, "isn't that why it came here?"

"Obviously not," Henry replied.

Ororo looked from Peter to the creature and then back. "It wasn't following the other creature," she stated. "Peter, you're going to have to become organic so I can send you flying pretty far from here."

"Is that wise?" Henry asked.

"We can't beat them, all we can do is play for time until the Agency gets here. How long Thomas?"

"Around ten minutes."

She looked at Peter, "I'm going to create a cyclone to lift you, and I'm going to try to send you over the forest, try to wait until the last minute before ironing up again."

Peter nodded and his skin regained its slightly tanned hue. Ororo had the others move away and the wind picked up around Peter. Quickly he had trouble remaining where he was as the wind buffeted him around. Suddenly he lost his footing and he found himself spinning, the ground moving away.

He was turning too fast to make out anything, he couldn't even figure out how long it had been since he started moving up. Then something in the wind changed and he wasn't spinning anymore, he was being pushed. It took him a few seconds to regain enough of his senses to realize he was flying through the air. And he few more before he turned around to see where he was headed. He could see the trees under him, for just a moment they seemed to be moving away, and then they started becoming larger.

He ironed up barely a second before he hit the first one. As he crashed through trunks and branches he promised himself he was going to let Ororo know this hadn't been one of her greatest ideas.

* * * * *

Scott ran past what was left of a game booth; it looked like it had come crashing down. Behind it was a group of people forming a semi circle around the two men tending to Jean.

"What happened?" He asked as he knelt next to her.

"She was guiding us to the exit when that thing came flying out of the sky," said the one opposite him, pointing to the game booth. "It looked like it was going to land right on top of us, but then it just stopped and fell short. At the same time she screamed and lost consciousness."

Scott nodded and checked her pulse; it was strong. "Jean, honey, can you hear me?" ^Jean?^ he tried to send to her. He couldn't read her mind like she could his, but they had discovered early that if he concentrated on it he could send to her. ^Jean?^ he asked again, and very softly, as if coming from very far away, she responded

^Scott?^ his name came. She stirred, "Scott?" she asked opening her eyes.

"Are you ok? What happened?" He asked worriedly as he cradled her head.

"I don't know, I saw something come toward us and got angry that I hadn't been able to get everyone to safety. Then it felt like someone hit me over the head with a baseball bat and everything went dark."

"Everyone's safe now. How's your head?"

"Do you have any Excedrin?" she asked with a smile.