Chapter VI
"Everyone get down to the sub-basement, NOW" Surge yelled down the dorm hall. Just then she felt the air around her being pulled away, and then the bomb blew. She had just enough time to duck and cover, grabbing one of the younger kids and throwing him under her. Surge looked up to see a bright green bubble covering the walls and ceiling of the hall, shielding the students.
"We need a teleporter, I wonder if Blink would be willing to join the group" Hellion said. He floated three feet in the air, his telekinetic shield never even wavering under the force of the blow.
"Thanks Julian and I think that she might be dead" Surge said getting up and carrying the young boy down the hall. "Can you move the shield with us" Surge asked.
"Yeah but we need to have Rockslide and Mercury help out with the kids, it's just you and me up here" Julian said, wincing as another sonic bomb blew against the shield. Bullets started to constantly rebound off the shield.
"And they need to hurry" Julian said his voice shaking. He knew that if he didn't control the shield, he could unintentionally hurt one of the kids or his team. The other possibility would be for it to blow the walls and ceiling outward. That would be a great attack, but Frost did say minimal property damage. But hey the bad guys were doing almost 80% of the damage to the building.
Through the Cuckoos psychic broadcast, Julian sent thoughts straight to Cessily. "Cess, if you don't mind could you and Rockslide get up here to help with the student evacuation".
"Uh… Julian we are kind of busy, what do you need" Cess thought back.
"I... just get up here now" Surge thought to Cessily and Santo. Next thing they knew Mercury was slipping through a window and running to them. Julian made a hole in the shield for her to get through.
"What do you need" Cessily asked.
"Make yourself into a pallet so you can hold most of the kids on top" Surge commanded. She then turned toward the hole in the shield and fired an electric shot at the purifier crawling through the same window Mercury had come through. The bolt hit him straight in the chest; it traveled through to his skin, and went straight to his heart. The attack wasn't meant to be fatal, but it ended up that way. The purifier fell backwards, and out the window, to his death. Surge turned back to see Mercury flattening herself and spreading out to be nine feet long, three feet wide, and two feet high. Then Rockslide came running up the stairs.
"Hey we need to hurry, those crack heads got the sentinels backing them" Rockslide said. Just as he said that a beam of energy shot through the ceiling.
"Grab Mercury and take her and the kids down to the basement with the teachers" Surge said running past him to blast the three soldiers running up the stairs with bolts of electricity. When the third, really big guy didn't go down she ran up to him and planted an uppercut to his chin, breaking his jaw. The big dude fell to the ground crying, Surge ran past him and out the door. Hellion flew after her and blasted a sentinel to the ground with a telekinetic burst. The sentinel fell crushing five soldiers.
"Hey don't you know that you're supposed to run from the werewolf" Wolfcub howled pouncing on a soldier and nearly ripping him open in the process.
"What the hell are you doing, Nick, get your ass back with the teachers" Surge yelled when she saw Nick fighting.
"No can do boss, Frost just promoted me to X-Man status, and put me on your team.
"She thought that I might be some help too" Bling yelled. Roxy new that Wire was going to kick her ass for joining a team but that would have to wait. Roxy tackled a purifier and slammed her diamond hard fist in to his face. "Eat that, basterd" Bling yelled. Then she felt a bullet bounce off her back. She turned around in time to see Prodigy slam a spin kick to the back of the guys head.
"Sorry about that, I thought I had him" Prodigy said, blood trickling down from his lip.
"Thanks" Bling said, throwing a couple of diamond spikes at the soldier sneaking up behind David, they hit dead on in the both shoulders.
"Thanks, but I knew he was there" David said with a smile.
"Sure you did" Bling said sarcastically, jumping in front of a bullet to block David. "I'm sure you knew about that too" Bling said, counter attacking with wolverine like diamond claws.
"David, we can't get into their heads, we think that they are using the same tech that they were using the last time they were here" the Cuckoos thought in unison.
"Great, so there goes the one hi…" David replied, but was interrupted by the sound of falling sentinels, and Onyxx and Rockslide barreling through a group of purifiers.
Hey dudes, guess what, Frost put me on the team" Onyxx yelled. Sydney Green looked around and saw a couple of the purifiers sneaking around the corner of the building. He signaled for Rockslide to follow him, which he did. The two ran around the corner and found about ten soldiers crawling in through the windows.
"Hey you $*#ers come back here" Santo yelled, picking up three of the soldiers and lifting them as high as he could. He squeezed until their ribs started to brake, he then threw them out of the fight. Meanwhile Onyxx ran along the wall, grabbing the men that were halfway through the windows, he chunked them in the same direction as Santo, and the others that were on the ground were all but flattened. "I'm glad that Summers and Frost said we didn't have to hold back" Santo said.
"Yeah or we would be in deep $*&" Sydney said to his friend.
"If you two do not stop destroying the school, I swear that I will have the Three in One lobotomize you both, now get rid of the people before they bring the whole damn building in on us" Scott thought to the rock 'twins'.
Celeste, Mindie, and Phoebe were keeping the telecom open constantly. While acting as the phone line of the group, they weren't paying attention to their power usage. Emma walked into Cerebra to check on the triplets, she was shocked to find their uniforms turning red. Emma walked around to the front of the platform and noticed the Phoenix symbol burning into the fabric of Celeste's costume. Emma ran to the door of and yelled out for Scott.
"What is it, what happened" Scott came running down the hall. When he got into the room he saw what Emma was so hysterical about.
"We have to wake the girls up before the Phoenix takes over" Emma said. She reached out for Phoebe's shoulder; about to shake her out of the trance, but she was burned when her hand came close. Phoebe turned around and stared straight at Emma and Scott.
"Sorry mother, Mr. Summers, we have to stop this before anymore children die" Phoebe said, and turned back around and stared at the dome of Cerebra. Emma heard the motor shift into 'high gear' in the system unit of the machine. Cerebra's dome turned into a giant video screen. Scott noticed that they were looking through several of the other students' eyes. Each student had a phoenix-shaped haze over their line of sight. Scott and Emma couldn't help but sit back and watch as the girls used their new found telekinesis on the invaders. Through the eyes of the young X-Men the Cuckoos could see the whole battle field, and therefore use their t.k. without harm to anyone else but the Purifiers, and the sentinels. Emma and Scott watched in horror and awe as the girls controlled the Phoenix powers with amazing precision, and vaporized the enemy. The girls were killing without a second thought. Some of the Purifiers were atomized, while others were ripped to pieces. As long as it wasn't a student or any of the sentinel operators, they died.
As soon as the girls were done, their costumes changed back to their normal blue and white tights. The only difference was that the Phoenix emblem was burned into their uniforms.
The girls turned around with shocked expressions, lightly rubbing the burned symbol.
"Mom what's going on, why won't this thing go away" Mindie asked.
"I don't know honey" Emma said horrified she looked at the crack in the diamond shell covering over the girls' hearts. The Phoenix flame held in each heart burned brighter than ever. Emma was scared to death of what would happen if the girls were to use their powers again. What would happen if the Phoenix Force were allowed to gather the rest of its pieces? Jean could come back full force, or the force could take a new host. Rachel is still alive, so she would be the most probable host. Hell if it could find Psylocke then the earth would never recover. "Girls don't overuse your powers again, your diamond form is cracking" Emma instructed the girls.
"From now on only use your telepathy, and let Cerebra do as much of the work as possible" said Scott.
"Should we call Anole's team back" The Cuckoos asked.
"No the fight is over; you took out the rest of the enemy. Let's just hope that you left us one to interrogate" Scott replied. As it turns out there were three unconscious purifiers left lying just inside the front door.
Meanwhile in southern Nebraska, the Beast and his team were analyzing the blast site. Knowing the nature of the toxin was to take away the mutant gene, Anole and his team were wearing hazmat suits. Beast of course was taking every precaution, what with the students being mutants' last line of defense. Wolverine could handle himself, just as Beast could. But when it came down to it they were powerless to any threat higher than an average man.
"Amy, let me know if that meter gets near 800 parts per million" Hank said referring to the device Amy was using to take scans of the air "Your suits can only take about 750".
Syrine checked her scanner again to make sure it wasn't to that point "No sir, it is only at 200" Amy informed him. Amy couldn't bear to lose her powers. She had been mute before her powers activated. Before she turned 13, all she ever wanted was to be able to express herself verbally, to be able to voice her opinion, to be heard. She got her wish on her thirteenth birthday. Of course she didn't know that she was a mutant, she really didn't care. She had been around mutants all her life, her parents were pastors for a large non denominational church that accepted mutants. That is what she feared most, going back being mute, not being heard. Syrine was pulled out of her thoughts when she heard Beast calling everyone over to him.
"Hey fur ball can ya hurry it up here, I feel like I'm blind" Logan growled.
"Don't worry we are almost done here, I just need someone to help me pick up this shrapnel" Beast said. He then started to tell everyone his analysis of the bomb thus far. "It would appear that the toxin was held in a sphere, which would be what this shrapnel is from" he said turning the rounded piece of metal over with Logan's help. He continued with his analysis "Judging from the wet ground, it was raining during the blast, which was probably intentional, being that this toxin thrives on moisture" Beast finished.
"Fine lets' get this thing, and whatever else we found back to your lab, before I go $#%ing crazy being in this open field and not being able to tell if someone is going to ambush us" Logan snarled, completely paranoid as usual. They had actually been lucky, Caleb thought as he picked up the shrapnel. They had found the timing device; half burned, but Dr. McCoy still wanted to bring it. They had also found some emerald green powder under the shrapnel. Demon jumped when he felt a smack on his ass.
"Look at my big strong man carrying that big heavy piece of metal" Alex said walking up beside him batting those damn irresistible blue eyes at him.
"Hey Alex, Caleb, save it till we get home. We are in the field, act professional" Anole commanded from behind them. All Vic got in response was giggling. After stopping his giggles Alex whispered into Caleb's ear "we have got to get him laid, and soon, he is starting to act and sound way to much like Summers". Everyone climbed into the jet and started for home. They had a lot to tell everyone.
In New Orleans' Ghost's group was looking for a new mutant. This was a plain clothes mission, so they were not to make a scene. That pretty much went up in flames the minute the girls got out of the taxi.
They had left the jet in a clearing about four miles from the city. They had Pixie teleport them half a mile from the city. They then took a taxi into the city's French Quarter. Adrian laughed to himself as they failed part of the mission just by stepping out of the taxi. Believe or not, Megan wasn't the one to get all of the looks, what with her pink and black hair. Her wings weren't even hidden; she had them flitting back and forth. All of the weirdness about her could have been mistaken for some new fashion trend. Sooraya was the one who was stared at by everyone. Dust and X were about as plain clothes as Dust and X got. Dust was in her Abaya with the veil, and X was in her usual leather pants and tank.
"Megan can you sense his demonic nature, he would feel like Nightcrawler, would he not" Dust asked Pixie. Pixie cast out a net of consciousness, feeling for Nightcrawler.
"If you mean can I pick out one demon from the rest here in this city, not a chance" Pixie said defeated.
Ghost turned to the girls with an arrogant smile on his face and said "lucky for us Megan isn't the only magik on this team, and I have his mental signature".
"Then what is his location" asked Laura, sounding very bored. Probably from not being able to play in some baddies' intestines. Ghost turned toward to the east center of the French Quarter and used his telepathy to find the signature of Nightcrawler's son.
"He is on this street" Ghost said turning his head to scan buildings. "He is in that building". He pointed to a large two story building, the bottom was a restaurant and the top was an empty space waiting for a new tenant, or so a sign read in the window.
The group walked into an alley, and the girls held on to Ghost as he began to teleport. For the girls everything went cold, damp, and foggy. While moving through the soul realm they heard voices asking to be released, for them to commit unspeakable acts etc… Altogether it was a very unpleasant experience for Dust and Pixie. X just acted as if she never noticed the setting change.
When they fully came back into the real world, they were in a small closet, which felt very stuffed with all of them in it. The door suddenly flew open to reveal a very pissed off blue demon. He had very fine blue fur, and shoulder-length inky black hair. His eyes were scarlet with anger, his features were not like Kurt Wagner's, he probably looked more like his mother.