"Cyclops, wait!" Xavier called out desperately, chasing after him.
But Scott had not flown all the way to Egypt to be deterred as he entered the Mine Encampment, ducking behind a tent.
"Cyke, what the hell are you doing?!" Mort hissed as he caught up to him.
"I am not leaving without that Ruby Quartz. Nor am I leaving until I know why they felt the need to bring a knockoff Russian Power Suit here just after sunset..." Scott replied. "We need to get that Foreman separated from the rest so the Professor can imitate him."
"Absolutely not!" Xavier hissed angrily as he caught up to them. "Going up against even a knockoff Dynamo Suit is the same as going up against a Main Battle Tank that can fit in a living room!"
"Look, Professor, I know this ain't what you signed up for but right now, this may be the only lead we have. We gotta take the risk," Scott insisted.
"And if you kill the Power Suit Operator, hell, if you kill ANY of them, then you'll be classed as an illegal American Operative who killed Egyptian Citizens on their own soil. You could spark a war. If they can tie it to Mutants? You'll give humanity as a whole its first taste of Mutant potential on a really, REALLY negative note. It's too dangerous..." Xavier all but seethed in desperation.
"Do you have any other leads? Do you really see another way?" Scott asked.
Xavier was silent a moment, staring hard at Cyclops.
"No..." he finally admitted.
"Then we HAVE to do this," Scott hissed. "The more time we waste arguing, the harder this gets..."
Xavier's stare hardened even further.
"You follow my lead at all times when we are in that mine..." Xavier said quietly, resolve setting back into his gaze with a tinge of regret.
"First thing's first. That Foreman..." Scott said, looking at him as he headed back into his office.
"Mort, get him over here, whatever it takes," Scott told Mort, who immediately hopped very high, a leap that carried close to the office, where he landed silently, and watched as the portly Foreman shuffled papers in his office and drank a glass of water, while Mort, climbing and adhering onto the walls, slid the window open, watching as he began filling out forms related to the mine.
Mort spit two small glops of his quick drying mucus at the Foreman's face, covering his eyes and mouth, but not his nose, slipped in and with superhuman speed rushed him as the Foreman began to flail around in panic, blind and with his screams absolutely muffled as Mortimer clamped and held him in a sleeper hold. He didn't display it too often, but he DID have superhuman strength. A low-grade form of it, but still enough that no ordinary human was escaping his grasp. The Foreman passed out and Mortimer stopped, checking his breathing, The Foreman was still alive. Scott had showed him how to do that to someone once on a whim. Mortimer had never asked how Scott had learned how to do that.
Mortimer took a moment to check over the stuff in the office, looking for any information they could use. He gathered up the very papers the Foreman had been working on and searched the drawers, pulling out a weathered looking TT-33 pistol in a black shoulder holster, and a single clip of ammunition.
Mortimer raised an eyebrow. He didn't know much about Egypt, but he knew it was extremely difficult for Civilians to legally obtain even an out-of-date pistol in this country. Even being the operator of a profitable mine like this place supposedly was, it still should have been extremely difficult.
Something was wrong here.
He quietly looked around for more information or anything else that seemed out of place, and checked a locker...
He pulled out what appeared to be some sort of large, white ballistic vest with a large neck shield on the back of the collar. It had a lot of plating and looked really out of place for the whole region. He snatched it, tried it on. It was bulky, but it fit.
He hoisted up the foreman with little effort and gathered papers and a photo of the Foreman's family. along with the gun and its associated items, and hopped back outside, another long leap carrying back to a worried looking Xavier and Scott. He dumped the unconscious foreman at their feet.
"Where did you get that?" Xavier asked, gesturing to his armor.
"This guy is weird!" Mort said in reply, showing him the papers written in Egyptian Arabic.
Xavier glanced over them, his brow arching...
"VERY strange." he whispered.
"What? What is it?" Scott asked.
"Most of these forms are related to work accidents that have occurred very rapidly in the past week. Reports indicate some sort of structure has been encountered. Stranger still is that the directions he's been getting in response are not coming from the government, but from some outside entity, calling itself Clan Akkaba, whatever that is. They're the ones that sent him that vest you're wearing also. His name is Ahmed. One wife, one son. One cat..."
"He also had this..." Mortimer said, handing Xavier the gun, its holster, and a spare clip.
They both stared as Xavier, without a word or even asking about it, strapped the holster and its gun on, taking the clip. Scott eyed him but otherwise didn't comment on how casually Xavier had armed himself.
"What were his instructions?" Mort asked.
"Keep the mine closed and play up the injuries as an excuse. He's even been directed to lie about failing equipment, even ordered to sabotage it if necessary to play up the masquerade. Whoever this 'Clan Akkaba' is, they've got a ton of pull to make the foreman of a government operated mine do something like that," Xavier answered quietly, keeping as much an eye on the sentries as Scott.
"Are the other sentries in on it?" Scott asked.
"I don't think so. Not fully at least. Just that man in the Dynamo Suit. He's an operative of the clan. They must be loaded to be able to purchase power suits like that. But that's neither here nor there...wait here..."
Xavier finally turned on the holographic disguise vest and became the spitting image of the Foreman that Mortimer had just incapacitated.
"That Hank fella's worth every penny NASA was paying him..." Scott observed.
"If only NASA had agreed with your assessment..." Xavier lamented almost under his breath and walked out from the camp heading to the sentries, making a show of coughing heavily. The papers had the faces of all the workers printed on them in black and white, along with names to go with which face.
"Ahmed? What's wrong?" one of the sentries asked as Xavier walked slowly to them, coughing.
"Change of plans..." he said in perfect flawless to the region Masri, while coughing and speaking in a low voice to help disguise the fact his voice didn't sound the same as the Foreman.
"I just got a call. I need you all to leave. I'll handle things with the one in the Power Suit from here on out by myself the rest of the night." he said to one of the sentries as he waved everyone over to him from their positions.
"Ahmed, my friend, have you caught a cold."
"I think so..." Xavier answered back, feeling the power source on his vest heat up as the holographic disguise of the Foreman was generated longer and longer. Eight minutes of power left...
"You sure you can handle things? Maybe you are the one who should get some rest, friend."
"Very kind of you, Mohammed, but I have things under control. Go. You've earned the night off." he reassured the sentry.
"You're being awful nice for a change...you usually work us like dogs..." another sentry noted, causing the others to laugh. Xavier chuckled with them, though he made sure to keep up with the coughing fits in between. Six minutes left...
"I don't want to risk any of you getting sick..." Xavier said in a deliberately weak, croaking voice in Masri. "Please, let me handle this. I'll be fine."
"Alright then...stay safe, my friend..." Mohammed said in a kind manner before he and the others started heading for their off-road vehicles...
"You too, Mohammed..." Xavier replied through coughs as he watched them leave, the power source on the harness now uncomfortably warm.
He switched the disguise off, pulling off the harness. Scott and Mortimer came out of hiding.
"The vest is too dangerous to keep using at the moment. It's on the verge of overheating. All the dust in the air makes the system work overtime, as I feared..." Xavier said. "We need to get creative if we're going to disable that Dynamo Suit."
"I'm getting the feeling me giving him a sideways glance is off the table..." Scott muttered.
"I'm afraid so...I estimate even with that visor you're wearing, the blast would still punch clean through that armor, likely killing the occupant instantly," Xavier replied. "Let me check this camp...gotta be some equipment we can use..." Xavier suggested, beginning to search the nearby sheds for any sort of electrical equipment. Mort and Scott followed him, not wanting to be out in the open in case the Dynamo Suit Operator came out of the cave. When they found one, they immediately went inside, and locked it.
"I'll keep an eye out on the window," Scott muttered dryly, watching for signs of the Dynamo Suit.
"Now, if memory serves me, they often deployed these suits without sophisticated electronic countermeasures. They were designed for general infantry to be able to use easily and with a minimum of training..." Xavier said to them as he began unfastening the housings to certain parts, putting on a welding mask and picking up a blowtorch, handing Mortimer a spare welding mask in case he wanted to observe, which Mort did.
"So, it's not like going up against Stark himself," Mort observed, watching in clear fascination as Xavier put together...something. It looked like a miniature satellite dish with the grip of an electronic bull horn, various circuits and parts hastily welded together.
"No, and in that sense, we are fortunate. But against those electrical energy cannons, all it takes is one mistake..." Xavier said in a very grave tone as he finished making adjustments, adding dials.
"What is it?" Mortimer asked.
"Handheld Neural Uplink System Jammer. A crude facsimile, anyway..." Xavier explained, handing it to Mortimer.
"What does it do?"
"Even the Russian's power suits depend on a semi-sophisticated wireless interface with the occupant's nervous system in order to provide seamless mobility and freedom of movement for the user as much as it depends on micro servos," Xavier answered as he adjusted a few dials. "Of which, the expense of both systems working in tandem has fortunately blunted the deployment of these things on the battlefield except in limited numbers and for extremely specific scenarios, such as light bunker clearance, direct assaults on forward operating bases...or engagement of superhuman targets..."
All three perked up in that moment as the light bulb clicked on.
"Of course. There's a mutant down there. Someone very dangerous. Dangerous enough to deploy a power suit for..." Xavier said in realization.
"Like the white-haired fella?" Mort asked.
"Yes."
"Great. The Dynamo Operator is nothing but a canary..." Scott muttered, noting his visor seemed to slowly adjust the light level from his perspective so that he could see better on its own.
"Now, in order for this to work, we'll have to use it at knife fight ranges. Only a point-blank blast will do the trick. But we need to slow it down, possibly immobilize it momentarily if we can," Xavier told them as he finally finished all possible calibrations and adjustments to the ad hoc mechanism.
"Mort's got you covered on that front. His mucus is stronger than industrial glue," Scott said.
"It hardens quickly, also, I noticed. You could have killed the foreman with your method," Xavier said in a slight lecture.
"Nah. No way. I always know the amount of and the direction that my spit goes flying. Been practicing sense I was eleven." Mortimer boasted.
"Uh...right..." Xavier replied. "Forgive my assumption. Uh...how long is that mucus going to last on his face by the way?"
"Twelve hours..." Mortimer said happily.
"Twelve HOURS?!" Xavier exclaimed.
Mort shrugged, finally pulling off his own welding mask. "Fella's in for an interesting night before it disintegrates..."
Xavier took off the welding mask, pinching his nose.
"Indeed. Let's go disable that Suit before I start developing an anxiety attack," he ordered, heading out of the shed.
"I'll distract it in the tunnel and lure the operator to a better spot to hit him. Mort, you hurl enough mucus at the operator to immobilize their feet. Then Xavier can get in from behind and use the device." Scott suggested.
"Pretty sound plan. But we don't know the layout of the mine..." Mort replied as he hopped after them.
"We'll just have to improvise." Xavier said. "It may even be beneficial to simply try and lure whoever is using it back out here, so we won't have the misfortune of trying to fight inside the mine itself-"
There was a rumbling sound that shook the earth beneath them and the flashes of light in the mine entrance were extremely bright white.
"Party time..." Xavier muttered, charging in ahead.
The mine itself was dark first, but Xavier quickly found a hard hat with a mounted flashlight to it.
There was nothing but a long stretch of cavernous rock and sand at first...then they caught their first clue something was amiss when one passage transitioned slowly from dug out rock into passages that were polished to the shine and clarity of a golden mirror from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall.
"Wyndham's Gardens, what is this?!" Xavier exclaimed as he ventured forward cautiously, trying to shield the teenagers from a surprise attack.
"Whoa...is that gold?" Mort asked in astonishment.
"This structure bears no resemblance to any building method I have ever observed in the ancient Egyptian works..." Xavier trailed into stunned silence as he walked forward.
"Have you observed this sort of thing anywhere else?" Scott asked, catching Xavier's unconscious slip of the tongue.
"Later, when we aren't trying to take out someone in a Dynamo Suit," Xavier replied.
The passage opened up to a grand circular chamber made of the same golden, mirror-sheen material as the passage they had walked through, with veins of bright ruby colored ore veins exposed in certain alcoves, interspersed with large ruby crystals. Ancient hieroglyphs were indented into the golden material with some unknown method. Scott saw other passages leading to other unknown sections.
"Guys, I think it's long past time I say what we're all thinking; We are out of our depth," Mort said ruefully.
"Who Dares, Wins, Mortimer," Xavier replied, walking up to the alcoves of ruby rocks.
"This is it. Ruby Quartz..." Xavier said, pointing to it. "We'll secure a sample after we deal with the Suit. We must move quickly...whoever sent that suit is doubtless starting to wonder why there is no communication from the Foreman..."
A red flash, followed by a white one, drew their attention to the central passage directly opposite them and they were all running, the sounds of energy discharge growing louder. Xavier saw bodies in the tunnel and ran over to check for a pulse, noting their strange red robes and Egyptian hieroglyphs emblazoned on the cufflinks and labels.
"They're alive. They've been stunned by an electrical attack of some sort..." Xavier said.
"The Suit?" Scott asked.
Xavier shook his head. "Those arm mounted cannons don't have much difference from your eyes in practice. Even the lowest setting will disintegrate a body to ashes. I think this was the Mutant that the Suit Operator has been sent after."
Xavier crept to a split in the passages where he finally spotted the Dynamo Suit Operator firing blasts at a figure swathed in the robes of the deep desert, who released red blasts of lightning, summoning some sort of shield of red electrical energy to block the intense return fire in the golden mirror passages, which had the unfortunate side effect of refracting the light everywhere and creating almost blinding conditions that had the three shielding their eyes to prevent them from watering.
"Mort, glue him!" Scott hissed.
Mort hopped out of cover, his lower neck swelling as he built up mucus, before spitting it out as a massive globule of green mucus that impacted on the legs, splashing everywhere as Mort hopped onto the ceiling, scurrying across it on all fours as his lower neck swelled again, preparing to fire a shot that would blind his quarry as he got closer to him.
Unfortunately, the mirror like passages worked against him-the Operator happed to glance below during his struggle and spotted Mortimer coming from above and tore himself free of the mucus at the last moment to fire above him, forcing Mortimer to hop away from the ceiling a split second before he fired, barely dodging the white electrical blasts fired from the Suit's arm mounted cannons.
Scott rushed forward to distract the suit operator as originally planned, not daring to fire directly at him but pressed the energy release button on his visor, firing at the ground in front of the suit operator, the impact of which on the golden floor (Which, curiously, did not warp or deform) sent shockwaves that made the Suit operator stumble backward, allowing Mortimer to fire off another large glop of mucus, this time at the segmented helmet with two red angular lenses, blinding the operator, but the Operator managed to get off a blast that Scott and Xavier barely dodged, the air now smelling like ozone. The Suit Operator fired at both Scott and Mortimer at the same time, and that is when Scott's instincts from earlier paid off, for he finally used the backup Captain America Shield to block the heavy energy blast aimed at him and Xavier. Mort, having somersaulted over a blast at point blank range, firing a mucus glob at one of the cannons, which exploded when the now blind Operator attempted to fire it again, heavily damaging the armor underneath and creating flaming sparks where the cannons had once been, but the Operator was now blind firing his remaining cannon, and it forced Scott to keep the shield up, unable to fire another blast at the ground due to the intensity of the remaining arm cannons fire rate.
A red electrical blast from the target the Operator had originally been firing at hit the suit from behind bringing it to its knees, but it still kept firing as Scott was forced to stay behind cover. Mort, crawling low on the ground, shot out his tongue and forced the Suit Operator's good arm to the side, and Scott ruthlessly took the opportunity to throw the shield like a discus at the wall opposite the one the Operator's arm was forced against, and it managed to ricochet off and slam directly into the Suit Operator's blinded helmet, the shield wobbling in its flight back to Scott who caught it. The Shield Operator slumped, severely stunned from the weighted blow.
Xavier rushed in with his mechanism at close range, pointing it right at the suit and firing off a strange, pink ray of energy at the suit and instantly made it topple over, disoriented, now truly unable to move well, and heavily disoriented. They heard faint moaning from within.
"He'll be unable to recover from the neural scrambling for a few hours..." Xavier said, panting from the adrenaline like the others. "That was very close. Too close."
"No kidding...I really thought I was dead there, for a sec..." Mort muttered, wiping the sweat from his forehead, partly in disbelief he was still alive.
"Cyclops, that was an impressive workaround you came up with, exploiting the environment to give us an opening," Xavier complimented. "Captain Rogers himself would have been impressed."
Scott didn't reply to the compliment. "Get him out of there. If that device of yours doesn't last as long as you say and he wakes up early, I don't want us back at square one."
Xavier nodded and leaned down, searching for the release harness.
"Now let's see, is this a knockoff of the Cambodian Model or the Laos model...no...Korean. It's in the back..." Xavier said to himself under his breath as he hit a switch in the recesses of the neck plating on the back of the user. The plating on the front opened in segments, and Scott rudely yanked out the muscular Egyptian pilot totally incapacitated by Xavier's device.
"Mort..." Scott gestured, holding the Operator's arms together.
Mort spat mucus at the held together wrists, binding the hands together and repeating the process with his ankles.
"That definitely takes care of him now..." Scott observed.
"Yo, Cyclops!" Mort said, pointing to the other approaching person in desert robes. The figure had the outline of a female, and Xavier took a step back as she approached.
"Good thing I figured out you weren't one of these crazy bastards..." the young woman spoke with a Kenyan accent.
Scott perked up as she stepped closer.
"We mean you no harm, Miss. We came here seeking answers to an unrelated issue. We initially had no clue you were even here. Are you injured?" Xavier asked, taking note of the red eyes behind the veil.
"A little drained. But no worse for the wear. I'll feel better once I am outside..." the young woman said, slipping off the robes and revealing a very dark-skinned woman with a shock of black hair in a pixie cut wearing black and red motorcycle gear. She looked to be about the same age as Scott. Her beauty was extreme, and Mortimer hid how smitten he was instantly.
"I'm Professor Charles Xavier. These are my associates Mortimer Toynbee and...Cyclops..." Xavier said. "You possess a most remarkable gift, Miss-?"
"Ororo." Ororo answered. "I'm here on business too, from Harlem."
"Harlem? You're an awful long way from New York," Cyclops noted stoically.
"Yeah, well...I was tracking a lead..." she answered, stepping closer, hands on her hips.
"A lead?" Xavier asked.
"I've been chasing down a freak like myself...like...us..."
"Eh, Charlie claims he ain't a Mutant. Not sure I buy it myself..." Mort spoke up, heart skipping a beat at her gorgeous face. Scott remained unmoved.
"Why are you after them?" Scott said.
"That's my business. But I will tell you my search carried me all the way through the Cairo underworld...all the way to here, where my...objective...was last seen...unfortunately I wasn't anticipating these Clan Akkaba creeps. They ambushed me, got the better of me, and they took me deeper inside this screwed up place..." she said, the stress edging into her tone. She didn't look it, but she was almost at her breaking point.
"I just want to leave now, if that's alright with you."
"We have a Jet. You could come with us on it. Free ticket out of Egypt undetected," Xavier offered.
The woman seemed to consider it.
"Okay! You're on!" Ororo replied with a small smile. "Follow me...and mind the bodies. No matter how many of them I stunned into unconsciousness they never seemed to take the hint. Tough guys too. Took more blasts than it usually does..."
"How long have you been here, Ororo?" Mort asked.
"Four days. They kept some kind of collar around me that stopped me from using my powers-" she explained.
"What?! They had something that suppressed your powers?" Cyclops asked immediately.
Ororo turned, tilting her head in curiosity at the sudden forcefulness of his question.
"Yeah. Managed to undo its locking mechanism at the last moment... before they could force me into some weird chamber...why?"
"Do you still have it?" he asked...
Ororo reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a golden metal collar with some kind of blinking blue, gemstone like object at the center. He saw the dislodged, damaged fastening clips also.
"May I see it?" Scott asked.
Ororo handed it to him while the others watched.
"How does it work?" he asked.
"They just clamped it on me, and it started working automatically. All I know is how to undo the lock device that normally prevents you from removing it," she said scornfully as she looked at the device with displeasure.
"Can I keep this?" Scott asked.
'Sure. Was half thinking of tossing it anyway. I never want to feel that vulnerable again," she replied.
"I'll take that..." Xavier said, holding his hand out. "If anyone is going to figure that device out, its me."
Scott handed it to him, and they all continued following Ororo.
...
The chamber they entered was covered in the gold mirror material just like the rest of the underground structure, and their eyes fell upon more and more unconscious Clan Akkaba bodies closer to the strange machinery inside...
"The hell?" Scott said, holding the Captain's Back Up Shield a tad tighter.
"Amazing. None of this technology can possibly be of terrestrial origins..." Xavier whispered. "Don't touch anything. You could kill yourself."
"Gotcha..." Scott replied, following Ororo to a golden, altar like machine, that had a gurney like resting slab for a human to be fitted to and restrained.
"These guys weren't playing. You made yourself some dangerous enemies...and maybe we have too..." Scott noted stoically.
"They're connected, definitely..." Ororo admitted. "Only other people I've run into anywhere near this is the Hellfire Club."
Scott's mind went to his nightmare on the Jet instantly.
"Run by a guy named Sabastian Shaw?" Scott asked.
"Yeah? You met him?"
"Once."
"Huh...well then you can appreciate just how much more these Akkaba freaks are pushing their luck, and Shaw is one of the worst, most self-serving people I've ever met," Ororo spat out bitterly as she examined the machinery. "There's no crisis Shaw won't exploit, no opportunity he will ignore to make an extra buck."
"He scammed you, didn't he?" Cyclops asked gently.
"That's the worst part. He didn't. He gave me exactly what I asked for. But the price was so exorbitant...never mind..." she said, walking away, arms folded, deeply troubled.
"Making a deal with Shaw is like making a deal with the Devil," was all she said afterwards.
Xavier, meanwhile, was studying the hieroglyphs.
"Royal Sorcery Chamber of Rama-Tut, The Great..." he noted. "Though I think in this instance the term Sorcery may be inaccurate..."
"Who's Rama-Tut?" Mortimer asked.
"One of the very earliest Pharaohs. Maybe even the very first...no one is certain anymore...most records of Rama-Tut were deliberately destroyed for reasons archeologists that were much better than my father is, to this day, are still arguing over as to which is the most accurate," Xavier replied, reading the ancient wall. "I believe this may be the most anyone has ever found of him...it says here that he was deposed by...someone far too terrible to even name..."
He strode along the wall, carefully reading it, until he tapped three of the glyphs in a specific pattern and hidden chambers opened all around, each containing extremely complex looking machines., and others, seemingly innocuous things like jewelry or statues.
"My father would have given his left arm to have a chance to look at even one of these items. I hate to think what he would have done for all of it..." Xavier said quietly.
"So much wealth, and still he had a hunger that couldn't be sated, huh?" Scott asked.
Xavier nodded. "He had his unpleasant qualities when it came to his passions...and given all the money in my family, it made those passions too easy to indulge past the point of practicality..." the Professor admitted. "It eventually drove something of a wedge between us...""
"At least your daddy kept you..." Mortimer muttered bitterly under his breath as he explored the high-tech chamber as he went up to a golden box covered in hieroglyphs.
"Hey, Professor! What's this?" Mortimer asked, pointing to it on its raised pedestal, behind its once hidden entrance.
Xavier went over to examine it. He studied its symbols.
Well I'll be...This device, if I'm interpreting it correctly, 'improves whatever is created by the hand of man'..."
Xavier touched certain glyphs in an exact pattern, and one side of the box slid its wall open.
"Cyclops, would you come over here for a second?" Xavier requested.
Scott walked over.
"May I see your visor? I'd like to test something..."
Scott shrugged and took off the visor, revealing the golden glow at the center of his eyes, a portal to unlimited death and destruction, constantly threatening to unleash itself. To stare into the eyes of Scott Summers was to gaze on the face of the Basilisk.
He handed the visor to Xavier, who then placed it carefully into the Box, and tapped certain glyphs on its top and sides.
Scott and the others watched as the interior of the golden box seamlessly transformed its wall into the sharp points of complex tools that they had no name for, golden wires forming and snaking into its innards. A pair of golden adjustment dials was added to the side of his visor that also had the energy release button, and a strange, golden module was added to the side of the visor's monocle system, along with a golden, iris like mechanism fitted to the front of the monocle itself, directly over the lens, golden metal connection wires led from that iris to the side of the monocle on the newly installed module on the side.
"What did it do to his goggle-thingy?" Ororo asked.
"That's what I intend to find out..." Xavier said, pressing more glyphs on the box.
A strange, circular hologram containing golden hieroglyphs on front materialized above the box.
"Fascinating!" Xavier exclaimed like an awestruck child.
"What?" Scott asked.
"This device has applied a series of modifications to your visor, and it's listed for some reason as 'Unknown Horseman Technological Item'," Xavier translated. "The visor has been modified to have adjustable power outputs and beam width controlled by those new dials it just installed on the side, the circuitry of which is connected to this adjustment system mounted on the side of the monocle itself, and the new aperture over the lens. Internal imaging and targeting systems have also been improved...but it cannot improve it past this level without an administrative override from...Death..."
The other blinked as the disbelief crossed their faces.
"Death?"
"There's obviously a lot of the pieces of the puzzle we are missing here," Xavier replied, concern and deep worry crossing his features.
"We should take it. We might never encounter anything like this again..." Mort suggested.
"This is alien technology, Mortimer. Such a proposition carries with it its own risks..." Xavier warned...
"We gotta take something from here! We can't leave empty handed, not after finding something like this..." Mort said, gesturing to the box.
"I agree..." Scott said. "Anything portable might be vital."
"What are you three here for?" Ororo wondered.
"I'm after a scientist who treated me like their personal lab rat for over a decade..." Scott answered in a subtle, oh so quiet tone of rage. "Her name is Essex."
Ororo perked up. "The Witchdoctor?"
"Huh?" all three men asked at once.
"That's what we called her in Kenya. The Witchdoctor," Ororo answered with clear, seething rage at the name that matched Scott's own, and he instinctively realized she was a kindred spirit, at least, when the matter of revenge was the issue. "She's the one I'm after."
"Then you are among friends. We intend to bring her to justice," Xavier said. "Her crimes are horrifying from what Mort has been telling me."
"I got my own brand of justice in mind, and I intend to make good on it..." Ororo said, red lightning arcing up her fingers to the tip. "I'll fry her for what she did."
"Ororo, that's not justice, that's vengeance. Justice is making sure she is in court, held accountable by a jury of her peers." Xavier criticized.
"Who could be her peer in terms of evil?" Ororo shot back. "Even that bastard Shaw doesn't really hold a candle to her."
Scott held up his hands in a time out gesture.
"This bickering gets us nowhere. We have strength in numbers. As for what to do with Essex, we'll cross that bridge when we reach it," Scott offered to Ororo and Xavier.
Ororo and Xavier thought a moment, then nodded.
"Let's see if there's anything else we can use before we leave...emphasis is on all things portable..." Xavier said and they began searching the room, Xavier keeping track of the time that elapsed. No doubt Clan Akkaba was scrambling reinforcements...
Scott came upon a raised stand and saw a strange pink oval gemstone that glowed very softly at the center.
"Hey, Professor! What does this say?" Scott called out.
Xavier went over to examine it.
"Strange...if I'm translating correctly, this object is called the 'Love' Stone. It's categorized as something known as an...'Infinity Gem'...whatever that is..." Xavier said. "It looks important...here..."
Xavier tapped hieroglyphs on different sections of the display and the display lid slid open through unknown means. The large gem lay mounted on a small stand. Xavier hesitantly picked it up and felt nothing amiss.
"Huh...doesn't say what it does," Xavier said, examining the glowing gem. "I think we should take it with us anyway..."
"Might not be a good idea," Scott pointed out.
"Maybe but I don't like the idea of Clan Akkaba having anything labeled as 'Infinity'." Xavier said, handing the gem to Scott for safekeeping. "Here. Keep it safe, we'll run some tests on it back at my lab. Now, the last order of business for now, at least, is acquire a large enough sample of Ruby Quartz and pray we can get the hell out of here before more of Clan Akkaba can arrive."
"No arguments there. These people are some serious freaks. They worship someone called En Sabah Nur. For some reason just saying the name makes me shudder on the inside." Ororo admitted.
Scott filed away that information for now and put on the visor.
"Mort, grab the Box. Ororo, You're up front with me..." Scott said.
Ororo folded her arms. "Since when am I taking your orders?"
"Our ride out. Our rules," Scott replied.
Ororo sighed, her glowing red eyes rolling.
"Fine, whatever, Boy Scout," she complained.
Scott shrugged and began walking ahead.
"I think I spotted an ore vein a few meters from this chamber, should be easy to break a chunk off..." he said as they all stepped through the chamber entrance...
...and into a strange golden hall, with a throne shaped like a great tuning fork.
Seated on that throne was an extremely beautiful, buxom woman in a revealing, dark green t-shaped leotard made of metallic scales that hugged every curve, bare legs ending in golden stilettos whose color and sheen matched that of the horned tiara that crowned long, curly golden hair that fell around a heart shaped face with icy blue eyes. She was vivacious but muscular at the same time, one of her athletic arms clutched a golden spear. The weapon of one of the most famous, respected members of the Avengers, second only after Captain America himself.
She gazed at them with a bemused smirk as Scott stared at the message on the spear that could be clearly understood:
WHOSOEVER HOLDS THIS SPEAR, IF THEY BE WORTHY, SHALL BEAR THE POWER OF...LOKI.
"Greetings dear mortals. I am Loki, Queen of Asgard, and sworn Protector of Midgard. Goddess of Mischief..." she said merrily, gesturing the astonished group to come closer. The only one who wasn't astonished was Charles.
"We have SO much to talk about..."
"Loki..." he muttered, narrowing his eyes, as he walked with them to approach her...