Chapter 19
Lightning Fervor
Helltanz's notes: Batman's assignment, cough babysitting cough, does actually play a relevant portion to the story, not in the current arc, but in the interlude between the Anubis conflict and what comes after.
Chapter begin
Saki nodded in agreement to the system lord's commentary. "Such would be very bad especially with the war brewing Anubis's only Hok'tar," To their knowledge at least, "are his own offspring," That was one subject Raiden really didn't want to touch on. "if the Tauri were to inadvertently provide Anubis with additional empowered help, or worse Baal were to gain the Hok'tar." Saki remarked leaving the statement to hand ominously in the air before activating the next recording.
Again the drone presented the location of the start of its observation in this case once again centering on the Xavier institute. Raiden's fingers tensed irritably, as he quirked an eyebrow at Saki, who gestured for him to wait and keep watching.
A 'ninja' was sneaking into the mansion, an act which caused the system lord to look on with some interest considering the prowess in stealth. Storm attacked him and ended up knocking him into the danger room. The ninja managed to take out some machinery before Xavier calls for him to stop. As it turns out the ninja proves to be in fact Wolverine giving a demonstration for the students. He tells Storm that the mansions defenses were too easily breached and they talk about ways to boost security.
Kitty asks if any one else if freaked out by the whole thing and Kurt ports over to try and cheer her up. Rather than reassuring her he ends up scaring her more and she phases away. Kurt is upset and Jean tells him just to give Kitty time. Xavier arrives and tells Scott to assemble the team to go after Rogue. The assembled team head out in the Blackbird.
During the flight Kitty talks to Jean about how she thinks Scott is so "together" and cute. Kurt overhears them and acts jealous. He 'ports out to the front of the Blackbird trying to show off. He loses his footing and 'ports back into the Blackbird but slams into Kitty. Xavier tells him that the plane is, obviously, no place to be goofing off, and that he scared Kitty. Kurt apologizes but Kitty tells him to stay away from her.
The slide ends.
As far as things went the place was concerning but as it stood there were more pressing issues. "Those claws are adimantium. I can understand the reason for the warning notification from the brotherhood," He commented with some disdain. Adamantium was unique in that gods were vunerable to it. "The others seem little better then petty children, with advanced powers. He may be interesting, discover what you can." By interesting he meant a prime candidate to recruiting into the Dark Brotherhood, and that was the problem clearly they knew of him, so the question was why had they not acted.
"Yes my lord." Saki activated the projector again.
Storm is at a high school basketball game watching her nephew Evan play. The coach makes Pietro pass the ball to Evan and Evan makes the winning basket but gets knocked down. As he falls spikes grow out of his arms. He covers them and they disappear but not before Storm and Pietro both notice his power. Storm watches Pietro walk off the court.
Pietro and Evan argue in the locker room about who's the better ball player. Storm walks into the locker room and talks to Evan about his powers. Later at home she tries to talk him into coming to Xavier's school. He asks her to wait until the next morning before talking to his parents about it. Xavier contacts Storm and tells her Jean and Scott are coming to help. He also tells Storm that Cerebro picked up another mutant at the ball game.
The drone footage fast forwarded to the next day at school Evan finds out that his locker has been broken into again. Pietro comes along and offers to loan him money as bait to catch the thief. At home Jean, Scott and Storm talk with Evan's parents about Evan joining the X-Men.
Evan is rude, to Raiden's irritation, to them and takes off. He heads back to the school where he finds out that Pietro is really a mutant too. Pietro wrecks the lockers and leaves Evan to take the blame.
Everyone shows up at the jail to get Evan. Scott says that Xavier will use his influence to get him out if Evan will join the school. He agrees. Next morning at breakfast the X-Men talk about Evan wanting revenge. Magneto talks to Mystique about how they can get Pietro to join the Brotherhood. They arrange a basketball game between Bayville and Evan's old school.
Evan is training in the danger room with the other X-Men. Kitty ends the session to tell Evan that a last minute game has been scheduled and he's needed at school. Evan confronts Pietro and Jean and Scott show up to help. Pietro ends up wrecking Main Street. The three X-Men end up taking him down. Evan is cleared of the charges and Magneto shows up to break Pietro out of jail. Pietro agrees to join Magneto.
At the mansion the X-Men are hanging out in the pool. Kurt cannonballs in and knocks Kitty off of her float. Xavier talks to Evan about how they're happy to have him. Evan jumps in the pool, lands on Kitty's float and pops it with his spikes. Xavier tells Storm that Evan fits in just fine.
A frown crossed the system lord's face at Evan's power, "That looks a little to familiar." Raiden remarked, since it was quite similar to one of his own Hok'tar program's results. "Continue with your briefing, Saki." If this drew the attention of certain Goa'uld there would be problems.
Despite Earth gaining access to not only Gordannian and Thanagarian technology in recent months that would not help them. Both races in question were quite primitive in comparison to base goa'uld technology as far as weapons and shield technology went though with regards to hyperdrive they were a little further along, but that wasn't the point.
Point in case with regards to weapons was what the Gordanians called a cruiser specifically what they called a plasma cannon were strictly speaking the level of the weapons carried by Alkesh. A state of technological parity existed between the Thanagarians and the Gordanians and while their fighter craft could possible go toe to toe with the Death Gliders that remained in service with most system lords their capital ships would be sorely lacking if pitted against Ha'tak. Earth would be able to reverse engineer Thanagarian, and their mortal enemy's for that matter, technology but it would do them little good against a goa'uld force of Ha'tak, which was what they would face if the goa'uld became interested enough to act.
"Yes Lord Raiden." The Shredder complied and again a probe displayed the location of the recording's started at the Bayville High School
Kurt, Scott, Jean, Evan and Kitty were occupied talking about going to Duncan Matthew's party. Everyone but Scott seemed quite eager to go to the party and while they try to talk him into it Evan steals and drinks everyone's milk. Scott says that it's just too dangerous for them to chance it; someone could get too close to Kurt and feel his fur. Kurt makes a remark about "chicks digging the fuzzy dude" and makes eyes at Kitty, the girl immediately takes off.
They continue to argue over the party and Kurt jumps onto the table and says it's time to "party, party, party". His tail pops out while he's dancing and Scott grabs it and yanks him off of the table, saying that it's exactly the sort of thing he's worried about.
Kurt and Scott really get mad at each other. Kurt says Scott needs to loosen up, Scott says Kurt needs to quit goofin'. Kurt ports away and lands on a pile of boxes in the basement in the process smashing his image inducer.
Rogue hears, and smells evident by her nose wrinkling, Kurt port in, and goes down to find out what she heard. Kurt runs into a back room to hide and finds a lab. He trips an alarm and the lab self-destructs. Rogue runs in to find out if he's okay, and when she's looking around she finds a gizmo that wasn't destroyed in the blast. Kurt tries to take it from her, and during the struggle she accidentally zaps him with it and he disappears. Kurt ends up trapped in "Middleverse" where he can sometimes see ghost like images of other students. Effectively the device trapped him out of phase with the usual reality inhabited by humans.
In the school parking lot, Toad is chasing a bug presumably to eat it given his appearance and powers. Mystique pulls in and runs over the bug to which toad Toad groans and complains"ah man, my lunch". Raven tells him if she finds one spot of slime on her new car that he'll be in permanent detention. He wanders away to find Rogue dumping the gizmo in a dumpster. He asks why she's so jumpy and she says there's one less X-Men to push them around. She tells him to leave the gizmo alone and walks off. He pulls it out and zaps the dumpster.
Jean and Scott are talking about how he handled the situation with Kurt. Two kids run out of the boys bathroom screaming about seeing a blue demon ghost. Scott tells Jean to contact Kurt and tell him to knock it off, but she can't find any trace of Kurt anywhere him being out of phase and all.
They run into the Blob and Avalanche. Scott asks what they've done to Kurt and when they don't tell him he jerks up Avalanche and slams him into the lockers. Blob pulls Scott off Lance and Jean and Lance face off. Mystique shows up to break them up and takes Jean and Scott to her office.
Kurt is freaking out in Middleverse trying to get free. Meanwhile Toad is already in her office, zapping every bit of furniture into the alternate phase of reality.
He jumps out of the window when he hears Mystique, Jean and Scott coming. She opens the door and runs back out again, screaming about her furniture. Jean and Scott wander to the window in time to see Toad zap the principal's car. When Kurt ports out of the way of the falling car in Middleverse, Jean and Scott see him for a split second in the office, due to the fact Kurt's teleportation causes him to travel between a separate phase of reality.
They put two and two together and the X-Men go after Toad. Kurt runs into Forge in Middleverse. Forge explains about how he created this "pocket dimension" which he's named middleverse and how he was trapped there back in the 70's. He creates another gadget that will allow Kurt to port back for a couple seconds to tell the others how to save them.
The X-Men catch Toad and ask about Kurt. Rogue shows up to tell them that she did something to Kurt. She takes them to the lab. Kitty and Evan study the gizmo and figure out that Kurt is trapped in a separate dimension. Scott wants to destroy it, but Forge tells Kurt if they do then the two of them will be trapped forever.
Cyclops gets ready to blast the gizmo to nothing and Kit asks why she can't just phase through it and quietly short it out. Spyke and Cyclops look at her like she has two heads and she says forget I said anything, and then mutters something about guys and explosions.
Kurt uses the gadget that Forge made for him and ports in to say "Reset. Don't..." before he disappears again. The X-Men thus forth proceed to argue over what he meant. Spyke still wants to destroy it, but Scott says he meant for them to reset it. Scott does precisely that, but Forge and Kurt need more power to be able to port back through the portal to get home. Kurt ports them to Raven's car.
Blob, Avalanche, and Toad show up looking for Rogue. Scott is surprised that Rogue is working for Mystique. Avalanche asks who's side she's on and Rogue says it's not my fight and leaves. The rest of the Hok'tar fight over the gizmo after she departs.
Jean and Scott put the Blob down. Avalanche knocks Kitty through a wall, but she phases back through and calls him a loser. Toad tries to get past Spyke and reach the gizmo, but Spyke puts up a wall of spikes and knocks him down.
Kurt and Forge use the battery from Raven's car and drive it right through the portal. They run over the gizmo smashing it and then straight into the Blob. The 'Brotherhood', Lance, Toad and Blob, take off since the gizmo is smashed. Rogue watches the X-Men and Forge leave the lab. Scott offers Forge a place at Xavier's, but he just wants to go home.
The file ends. "A pity the device was destroyed," Raiden remarked considering dimension technology was fairly advanced, and critical in most cases for superluminal travel. "though it is fortunate, this Forge person was trapped, for a long as he was his addition the Tauri Stargate Program, would be… annoying."
"I doubt you will like this next file." States the Foot leader as the projector activated again.
The X-men were apparently infiltrating a base at night. Kitty and Spyke did their part of taking out the guards, who looked suspiciously like US military troops. Nightcrawler ports Cyclops into the base. Jean lowers them to hover over laser alarms crossing the floor. Cyclops and Nightcrawler are supposed to free Storm. They find her laying on the floor covered with a cloak and chained to a post. Scott blasts the chains. Jean is surprised by a guard and drops them. They fall to the floor and set off the alarms. Scott rushes over to Storm, but it turns out to be Rogue in disguise. She grabs him and absorbs his powers. Scott freaks out and stops the simulation. The base disappears, as the holograms dissolve, and Rogue shuts down and drops to the floor.
Xavier comes through Danger Room doors and tells Scott that he's never to stop simulation unless he's been hurt during the course of the simulation. Scott tells Xavier that Rogue was not supposed to be part of the simulation. Xavier said he added her as an element of surprise and that they have to get used to that during missions. He tells them the training session is over and that perhaps it was best to go to school.
The Projection shuts off. "That occurred this morning, master." The Shredder proclaimed, "it is thus why the recording covers a far shorter period of time than the others."
"Well that's rather interesting," He murmured, though it would have, in his opinion, made more sense to have 'Wolverine' teach them infiltration. "am I to understand such infiltration practices occur often?" The System Lord inquired to which the Shredder gave a nod of confirmation. "I may be paranoid but increase security on all installations in form our compatriots in the United States Navy to do the same." He'd chosen a more discreet, and reliable method than simple brainwashing. Raiden prized honest loyalty, valued duty and true dedication as the epitome of the samurai spirit.
The ties between the USN, and Raiden were in truth were a recent development, one
"My lord, concerning the United States Military we have records indicating the fighting of Shinso during the Vietnam conflict," Raiden's eyes narrowed at the mention of the species in question. "I believe the information may be relevant to the search for locating the source of this continued infection. With your permission please allow me the task of compiling such data in order to secure this data and review."
The system lord frowned "How soon will you be able to complie this information and if it does prove to be of use in the search can you act on it?"
"A few days before the next meeting with the Tauri." The Shredder proclaimed, "as to acting on the information it would be within my forces capacity though direct conflict would not bode well for my forces."
Whatever he was going to respond to the comment was cut off abruptly drawing the shredder's attention. All discussion of the Shinso menace collapsed in, as Raiden shook inhaling sharply, he grabbed his side and cradled keening to one side as he hit the ground with a thud. SIthis's soul began to push to the forefront as the foreign magic tugged at the Daedra. Raiden's eyes bled slightly shifting rapidly between black and normal.
"Master?" Saki was getting worried Raiden, future supreme ruler of the System lords, did not get dazed looks on his face and most certainly roll out of a chair.
Raiden supressed another series of dry heaves, as his eyes flashed. "Move Saki," He snapped at his retainer, even as the sky darkened. The pain was nigh unbearable, he could not even begin to consider what was the cause of this.
-scene break-
Chapter Conclusion
Helltanz's notes: Since I haven't gotten any votes as to the names for the two new Prometheus class vessels:
Mnemosyne Titan who represented Memory
Crius represents the power of the Sea One vote (Mine obviously)
Tethys mother of the water deities
Oceanus Father of Rivers
Themis Represents law and justice
Eos goddess of the Dawn
Atlas Carries the heaven's on his shoulders
Epimetheus Titan who married Pandora One vote (Mine obviously)
Nereus wise old man of the Sea