Doom Foretold
Cyclops had to think fast or else he and the rest of the X-Men would be dead in just a few seconds. He twirled his body in a circle towards each and every one of his teamates, seeing if any of them were injured or worse, from either the explosion or the multitude of shrapnel created by it. Storm, Nightcrawler, and Banshee had cut’s on their limbs and were bleeding, Wolverine, Warpath, and Sunpyre had what looked like a few scrapes on them and their uniform’s but looked good, Colossus meanwhile had entered his armored form and seemed alright. Thank goodness for small miracles Cyclops thought.
“Storm!” Cyclops shouted, getting the women’s attention. “Grab Nightcrawler and Warpath, they’re the closest to you! Wolverine, grab onto Banshee’s leg’s! Sunpyre, grab a hold of me! Colossus!?”
It took a second for the youngest X-Men to understand that his leader was asking for his attention. “Yes Cyclops?”
“Can you survive the landing?” Cyclops said as he watched Wolverine grab onto Banshee’s ankles and shoot down towards the ground, before turning his attention toward Warpath as Storm pushed the man closer to hersef with the wind.
“I should be.” Colossus said not entirely sure of himself.
“Alright then,” Sunpyre rocketed towards Cyclops and grabbed a hold of the man before directing herself towards the ground.
Now Colossus was all alone, falling out of the sky. Colossus thought back to the exercise drills Cyclops had made the team do before they entered the Danger Room each day. He recalled the fall exhercises they had and feeling thankful that he had paid so much attention to them beforehand. He ducked his head down and cushioned it with his arms before bending his legs and hugging them close to his chest.
In seconds the human cannonball crashed into the ground below, cratering into the earth, with dust and filling the area.
Storm, Nightcrawler, and Warpath were not the first to land but they were the first to reach Colossus’ landing zone.
“Piotr!” Storm shouted as soon as her feet hit the ground, rushing towards the smoking, dust filled crater. “Piotr are you all right!”
“Da.” Came the Russian’s quick response, as his armored figure walked up the destruction he had caused. “Of course I’m all right, why shouldn’t I be?”
“Oh thank goodness.” Storm said, relief flowing through her voice.
“Colossus, mein friend. You had me worried sick.” Nightcrawler said as he helped his friend walk out of the crater.
“So was I, what kept all of you.”
With Colossus word’s finished, the other four arrived, Banshee and Sunpyre, delivering Wolverine and Cyclops to the ground before landing themselves.
“Hey bossman.” Warpath said to Cyclops. “In case we get another plane, I got a new strategy for us. Drop Colossus like a bomb.”
“Duly noted, but let’s cut the comedy act for now, we have work to do.” The X-Men huddled up to their leader as Cyclops grabbed a timer from one of his belt pocket. “We’ve got less than forty minutes to destroy the Doomsmith System before it fire’s off all the US’ ICBM’s. So now we need to get into Valhalla base immediately.”
“You said you had a plan for that before we began falling to our death’s?”
“Correct, Sunpyre. Everyone look over there.” Cyclops pointed to a nearby side of Valhalla mountain, where a strange rectangular patch of earth blared it’s presence to everyone’s eyes.
“That rectangular cut of dirt is where those missiles were fired from. Sunpyre I’ll need to you fly ahead and melt and entrance for us inside.”
“Can do.” Sunpyre said as she rocketed off to the rectangular patch of dirt.
“Finish by the time we get their I want no more time wasted with usjust standing around.” Cyclops shouted as she flew off, before looking to all the other X-Men. “You heard me let’s move!”
Finally the disk now had all of data downloaded into it. She pressed the eject button on the storage computer of the Valhalla base and grabbed the disk just as it popped out of the drive. She put it inside a pocket attached to her belt. She had everything she needed right now, a copy of all the information the US Government had on mutant’s. Biology reports, origin theories, autopsy information, known mutants, known powers, and known locations.
Everything she needed to begin her mission, all she needed to do now was to get out of Valhalla, copy the disk and give it to her employer, and she would have her prize as well as the funding she needed for it.
“Nefaira!” Slither spat out as he hunched over the computer monitor, “Camera’s are back online!”
“Perfect!” Nefaria roared. “This Sonic Cutter is a powerful weapon, but it’s certainly reserved for a last resort, fear I may have been to brazen in using it.” Nefaria walked over to where Slither watched over the security system around the outside of Valhalla, Crucible walking behind him, acting like a right hand man.
“Ah, there’s the wreckage.” Nefaria said as he pointed to a computer screen, showing the burning wreckage of the Blackbird. “Look for the bodies, are there any possible survivors.”
“After that?” Crucible sneered, “No way, no could sur-”
“They’ve entered Valhalla!” Occult screamed out.
“What!” Nefaria cried as he, Crucible, and Slither, snapped their heads to the monitor system Occult was stationed at. Nefaria rushed his way towards the exact monitor Occult was staring at, pushing the short man aside. “Damnable!” Nefaria’s took a look at the X-Men as they walked their way into the missile embankments of the Valhalla base. He took sight of Cyclops immediately. “Clever as always.”
“Who the hell are these guy’s!” Crucible shouted. “The only one I recognize is Cyclops! Who the hell are the rest of these punks?!”
“New recruits evidently.” Nefaria replied. “And that may just be to our advantage. The Neophyte X-Men are undoubtedly in-experienced, and that is how we will capitalize.”
Nefaria turned his head towards the security defense console. “My dear Meteorite, how much poison gas do we still have?”
“We’re nearly out. No way we’ll nail a single one of them with what we have.”
“How about knockout gas.”
“We have plenty of that.” Meteroite said after a quick check.
“Then once the X-Men get deep enough into the Valhalla base, seal them inside, and fill the room with that gas, once their all unconscious release the poison. The two toxins should work well enough to bring an end to that accursed team. At the very least they’ll be easy pickings for you and Mutant Force.”
“Anyone have the feeling that death is in the air?” Nightcrawler said to no one in particular. Cyclops shot his head to the man behind him, ready to say something when Wolverine shot first.
“Ain’t jus’ a feeling bub, I can smell it ‘n the air.” He said with a grin.
Cyclops glared at his current point man, “Now’s not the time for jokes you two.” Cyclops grit his teeth, the team’s second mission was going from bad to worse. The Blackbird was turned into wreckage, they had entered a mountain full of deathtraps, and now Nightcrawler’s attempt’s at levity were simply spooking half the team.
“How…how could six men murder an entire mountain of people?”
Cyclops turned his head to Storm, the woman was clearly not taking the situation well, he couldn’t blame her, going from exploding plane into mountain filled with dead bodies was not best second day on the job in his opinion.
“They probably used the base’s defenses against them Storm.” he said trying to make the woman’s mind focus on one possible danger instead of creating a hundred with her imagination.
“Hopefully they wasted the lot of it.” Banshee said.
“Do you think there’s any survivor’s?” Sunpyre asked.
“A few had to survive, probably won’t do us any good though with our luck.” Thunderbird said from the back of the group.
“Should we look for them? They may be of some help for us.” Colossus said to Cyclops.
“No, we have no idea where they are and we’re on a timer, besides we have no proof that were not the one’s who took over the base.” Cyclops realized the day was getting to him as well, he was feeling dizzy, and his breaths were getting shorter. “When we deal with Nefaria then the army can rescue them all but for right now-” Cyclops stopped as he noticed Wolverine take a big whiff as his back straightened up.
“Were being gassed!”
Cyclops looked up to the ceiling, Wolverine was right, he could see various nuzzle’s up above with gas leaking from them. Cyclops looked around the X-Men’s surrounding's they were still stuck in a tunnel connected to the missile embankments of Valhalla, the only directions was to run back where they came or head forward, down a stretch of road that looked it could go on for miles.
Cyclops realized that neither option would be good, instead they would have to make a third.
“Storm, keep that gas up above us as best you can!” He ordered before pointing to the wall right of the group. “Everyone else were making an exit right here!”
“How do you know there’s a room past that wall?” Warpath spat out.
“I don’t, now get moving!” Cyclops said as he let out an optic blast at the wall.
“Shit!” Crucible spat out as he watched one of the new X-Men blow away the gas with some type of wind power she had, while the other’s smashed there way through a wall to escape whatever she couldn’t disperse.
“Language, Crucible!” Nefaria shouted to him. “These new X-Men are versatile indead, what defenses can we put in between them and us.”
Meteorite looked over to the security panel he was stationed, and looked to a map of the base.
“Bad news, the X-Men just found their way down the best path to command room. No gas, no real defenses, best I can do is lock down the door’s to us.”
Nefaria looked to the monitor showing the X-men’s previous position, as well as the large hole in the wall they had created in seconds. “For what little good that will do us. Lock down the door’s anyway. Crucible!” Nefaria looked to the white haired man.
“It is time for you and your men to earn their place among the Maggia’s top operatives. Ready an ambush for the X-Men. It is time to finish this infernal group once and for all.”
Crucible remembered the first time he and his group had to deal with the X-Men. It was a couple of months after Crucible had put together the team. Some rich guy going by the name of the Mutant Master, Crucible wondered why guys like him always had ridiculous names, wanted to make a mutant mercenary outfit called Factor 3, also a dumb name in Crucible’s opinion. The Master had found Crucible and gave his dumb name and had him scope out the US for more mutants, that’s how he the rest of his little group.
Before Crucible and his merry group of rejects could return to Factor 3, the X-Men had already tore the organization apart. Go figure.
With nothing else left to do, Crucible made his own merc group, and used the first name he thought of while doing so. After some success stories, Crucible thought his little group had hit the big time after Magneto had contacted them needing some man power.
Magneto had a big plan, one that needed as much protection as possible which was why Mutant Force was brought into Magneto’s Brotherhood of Mutants. There were a lot more mutants back there as well, Toad, Mastermind, Blob, Unus, and a couple of others he didn’t recognize.
Magneto also kept his ultimate project under a tight lip, Crucible asked around but no one but Magneto had any idea what it was.
The X-Men apparently did though and they found the cave system they were hiding out in too, they even brought backup, the Defenders. Fuckers brought in a wizard, a super alien, Thor’s girlfriend, a batman wannabe, and the god damn Hulk.
Crucible thought they were all screwed. But then Magneto revealed his special project, he had made a mutant, the ultimate mutant.
Crucible still remembered how Alpha, as Magneto had dubbed it, ran roughshod all over the two hero teams. Seeing a buffed naked man with a big head beat up the fucking Hulk was fucking hilarious.
The good time did not last however, and Alpha decided he had no reason to follow Magneto’s orders. Magneto, angered his personal super messiah had betrayed him attacked the being that could beat down the fucking Hulk.
Fight didn’t last long, Alpha just toyed with Magneto, eventually Alpha turned the fucker into a baby. Crucible still couldn’t believe he wasn’t making it up but he saw it with his own damn eyes. He saw what had to be a ninety year old man age down into a newborn in seconds.
Occult threw up.
After that, Alpha fucked off into space while Crucible and Mutant Force ran off as fast as they could while everyone else fought the X-Men and the Defenders.
Crucible wondered if the X-Men had kept ties on Mutant Force, probably not he guessed, probably didn’t even remember them. Honestly, Crucible preferred it like that.
It kept him and his team safe, and made the X-Men all the easierfor when they entered they entered the trap Mutant Force had set for them. All the X-Men needed to do to spring it was enter the Valhalla Base’s cafeteria.
Cyclops ran through everything he knew about Mutant Force as he and the other rushed through the Valhalla base in search of the control room. He always kept as much tabs as he could on enemies whether he and the original team had fought them once or a hundred times. Cyclops wondered some days if he was being paranoid making sure men like August Hopper and Tom Regal were still in their holding facilities, but days like this he was thankful for it.
He had already informed his new team about the groups abilities. Byron Calley had pyrokinesis that seemed focused on his hands. Sunpyre and her brother were probably both more powerful than him but he wanted her to be the sole person to focus on him.
Aaron Saloman was half if not three quarters snake, like a cross between a constrictor and a viper. He didn’t know if common anti-venom would be able to effect a bite from him so his mouth must be avoided.
Peter Quin, various types of vision and a massively powerful blast of heat from his eyes. The X-Men are to avoid his blast at all cost, but if he has fired than he’ll need time to rest his eyes to fire another shot, and when that he must be everyone’s focus until he is taken out.
Randall Darby had a pair of insectoid/crustacean like arms that exerted powerful blasts of electricity. The strength of his blasts and his pincer grip was currently unknown so he wanted the team to be careful of him.
Finally Ned Lathrop had the ability to lift anything no matter what its weight. He wanted Colossus and Warpath to not engage with physical fighting with him and instead stop him from picking up heavy objects while the others focus on taking him down.
With this little info in the X-Men’s head’s, the group soon headed into the cafeteria.
The very second an X-Men opened the door to the cafeteria and walked through, Crucible fired out the most intense blast of fire he could from his hands. The giant wave of flame rushed over the poor soul that had taken the lead of the group and enveloped them in an inferno of heat. Crucible kept the flames going for a few more seconds until he began to feel his own hands begin to burn and sizzle before he let off the gas of his attack.
As the flames of the blast began to die down, Crucible smiled as he saw a figure in the middle of it, hoping that he had taken one of the stronger members of this new X-Men team out at the very first hurdle. His heart sank as the fire died down, and he saw Sunpyre staring him down, the man realizing his error the second he saw the flames on the woman’s own costume.
Once more Sunpyre was bathed in flame, this time her own as she leapt at Crucible smashing her fist into his face.
Slither was the first member of Mutant Force to help their leader but his charge was stopped as cloud of smoke and brimstone appeared above his head, as Nightcrawler slammed his hands down upon the reptilian's head. Before Slither could react, Warpath had ran up to him and tackled the snake man in his chest sending him down to the ground.
Meteorite gripped the large piece of metal debris he took from the Command Room in his hand and charged forward to the X-Men as they ran through the door. He attempted to swing the makeshift weapon at Storm as she flew in, but before he could strike, Colossus had rushed down to him and grabbed the other end of the weapon. Meteorite attempted to try and grab Colossus himself but a bolt of lightning danced from Storm’s fingers and slammed into his chest before a gale of wind threw him across the room slamming into some tables and chairs along the way.
Paralyzer watched as Meteorite hit the back wall behind him and Occult and fired of a few shots of electricity from his pincers as three of the X-Men began rushing towards him and Occult. His eyes widened as he realized that it was only a matter of time before Slither and Crucible were taken out and they had the whole of the X-Men heading for them. In desperation he grabbed Occult and pushed him in front of him.
“Occult clear the damn room!” He shouted to the diminutive man.
Occult looked back at Paralyzer, utterly panicked. “But the others-”
“It all of us or them, ya bald midget!” Paralyzer screamed.
Occult looked back at the trio of X-Men as they rushed down the hallway, he saw the two out in front, the one with claws and the other screaming in the air stop in their tracks as they saw Occult’s Eyes began to glow a hot pink.
“Get back!” Cyclops shouted to Banshee and Wolverine as he went in front of the two, readying an optic blast. The second Occult fired off his blast of heat, Cyclops fired his blast of force.
The two beams collided and massive clash erupted between them. Occult’s eyes were the first to waver as Cyclops poured out more power from his visor. Eventually the push back on Occult’s eyes proved to be too much, and just like an egg in a microwave, they burst.
Occult wailed as he covered his bleeding head, trying to keep the remains of his eyeballs in their sockets. Paralyzer looked out and saw that the three X-Men that had been hightailing towards them had all been sent backwards. Paralyzer gathered power in both his pincers and took a few steps forward, brushing past Occult, sending the wounded man to the floor. Paralyzer aimed his left pincer towards the X-Men still up and looked for his best target.
At the other side of the hallway he saw Crucible fighting off Sunpyre as the woman delivered a hard knee right into his stomach. Paralyzer aimed and fired a blast of electricity at Sunpyre, the woman not noticing the attack before it was to late.
As the electricity hit Sunpyre’s body she screamed as blue net of sparks wrapped around her chest as she fell to the floor completely still
Warpath heard Sunpyre scream as he held Slither’s fangs in both his hands. The veteran turned his head backwards to see what happened to his teammate and spotted her body lifeless, sparks still dancing off her.
“Leyu!” He screamed out before pushing Slither’s face back and turning his head towards Paralyzer, seeing more electricity from his right pincer. “You!” he screamed as he dashed to the chunk of metal Colossus had ripped from Meteorite's hands, lying on the floor.
Warpath heaved the piece of metal upwards before taking aim at Paralyzer who was doing the same to him. Warpath threw the debris just as Paralyzer fired his shot. As the bolt of electricity slammed into Warpath’s head, he grinned as he saw the chunk of debris slam into the chest of the bastard who hurt his friend.
Crucible got to his feet and spotted Sunpyre on the floor, he walked over to the woman and with a fury in his eyes he snapped out the word “Bitch!” before delivering a kick to the unconscious women’s head, firing the helmet off of her head.
“Fucking Bitch!” Crucible shouted as he raised a foot into the air and stomped down on Sunpyre’s head, breaking the woman’s nose in the process. Before Crucible could stomp again he felt drops of ice cold water spray onto his back as a chilling wind hit him next.
Crucible turned his head and spotted Storm glaring at him, lightning dancing on her fingertips. With a growl she said, “You and your miserable lot will learn your place!”
The bolt fired from Storm’s hand and caught Crucible right in the neck, causing a high pitched scream to escape his lips. With his hair sticking straight up, Crucible fell forward and hit the ground, his own nose breaking, as Storm watched on, before heading to check on Sunpyre.
Slither meanwhile once again tried to bite into Nightcrawler, hoping to fill his venom into the X-Man’s veins. But once again, the snake man was met by just more burst smoke and the taste of brimstone on his lips. Slowly Slither grew into a blind rage, snapping at everything he saw, wanting only to sink his fangs into Nightcrawler’s flesh.
Eventually, Slither’s teeth did strike an opponent. The man’s mind began to lose it’s animalistic instinct at his success, before he was met with the chilling reality that he could taste cold metal on his tongue.
Colussus grabbed hold of Slithers fangs from where they were clamped on his chest and clecnched tight. He freed his chest from the reptilian's bite before heaving Slither upwards, most of the snakeman’s body rising into the air before Colossus slammed him down onto the metal floor below.
Slither was unconscious the second he hit the floor, one of his fangs still in Colossus’ hand. The young Russian stared at the tooth, wondering if he had made the right decision.
Meteorite rose to his feet, his head still groggy, he looked around the room to check on his teammates, finding an unconscious Paralyszer bleeding from the head, while Occult held his face, screaming like ghost.
Meterorite grabbed the debris near Paralyzer, realizing that it was the same one he was wielding earlier. Before the big man could ready himself for another fight, he heard a deathly wail as Banshee’s sonic scream slammed into his right arm causing him to drop the debris.
With the perfect opportunity, Wolverine pounced on Meteorite, one of his claws popped and sent the two of them onto the floor. Wolverine snarled into Meteorites face as he readied a claw upward.
Just as Wolverine sent his fist down towards Meteorites head, he sheathed his claws. He rose to his feet, Meteorite knocked out below him.
“Scared me for a second their laddie.” Wolverine looked to banshee behind him. “Thought you were going to kill the poor fool.”
“So did I.” Wolverine admitted.
“Roll Call!” Cyclops shouted as he rose to his feet.
“Sunpyre and Warpath are unconscious!” Nightcrawler shouted back to him.
“We need to check if-”
“We need to get to the Control Room, Colossus!” Cyclops shouted out before the young man could finish.
“But what about, Leyu, and John.” Storm demanded. “We can’t just leave them here.”
“We can, we will, and we have to.” Cyclops snapped back. “I don’t like any more than the rest of you, but we need to destroy the Doomsmith System, and every second we waste talking is a second wasted. Lets get moving!”
“John.” John slowly rose from his sleeping state, “John, wake up!” His shot open when he heard the agency in Leyu’s voice.
“Sunpyre!” John said as rose to a sitting position, he was happy to see the woman but something about the women’s voice was off, she sounded stuffy. “What-what happened?”
“The two of us got taken out.”
“Shit!” John shot out.
“Luckily everyone took out the rest of Mutant Force.” Leyu said trying to calm him down.
“Oh,” John said still pissed. “That’s good.” He looked around the room they were in and spotted All the members of Mutant Force unconscious and on the ground. “Where’s everybody else?”
“They had to leave us here to get to the command room.”
“What?” John snapped.
“It was the best option, John!” Leyu said defending the teams decision. “They had to little time to take care of us.”
John took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. “How’d you find that out?”
“I called Cyclops on the Communicator.” Leyu said as she pulled the X buckle on her belt and raised it up.
“Oh yeah, handy thing huh?” John rose to his feet. “So now what should we join them?”
“No, Cyclops said that he and the others are going to spend their time destroying everything they can find in the Command Room until the time limit for the missile’s to go off ends. We won’t know if they’ve stopped the Doomsmith System until then.”
“So then what do we do?”
“Cyclops told me that the two of us should just keep an eye on Mutant Force.”
John once more eyed the bodies of Mutant Force, he was starting to wonder if that Paralyzer guy was still breathing. He hoped not.
“Well, that just takes the cake.” John said, his rage boiling up. “My powers are strong enough to keep me alive while my team dies, and the next thing I know their to week to keep up with the new one. Fucking Fantastic!”
The pair were silent, John stewing in anger, Leyu trying to think of what to say. With nothing coming to mind she simply said the first question in her head.
“Tell me how you lived.”
John glared at Leyu, breathing heavily. “Give me one fucking reason why I should tell how my friends died?”
“There isn’t one.” Leyu answered honestly.
John stared at her, not making any moves before he finally spoke again. “Heywood was like a father to me, he was the only one of us that had been in a war before. Drafted to Vietnam in its last year, he had two kid’s, twins, boy and a girl, don’t wanna remember their names. They were gonna be the first in his family to go to collage. I don’t know if they ever did.”
“Mike was the little shit of a brother you gotta love. Youngest of us, had a high school sweetheart he got pregnant before he joined the war. He was planning taken over his family’s ice cream shop, and marry her. Used to envy him, don’t anymore.”
“Sammy was a damn genius, just graduated Cambridge right before the war started. He was thinking of getting into the computer business. I remember him saying he had already had a job lined up with AOL. Wonder what bastard took his place.”
“Richard…” John stopped talking the second he said the name, concerning Leyu, he had been going nonstop before then, ignoring the tear welling in his eyes. “I loved Richard. Never told him, I knew what he’d say if he found out I did. Same thing my parents did probably. He was gonna get into comic’s. Planning on becoming a writer, wanted to work on Superman. It’ll be a dying industry without him around.”
“What happened to them?” Leyu asked, wiping a tear from John’s eyes.
“Iragi soldier with an RPG. Blasted our jeep while out on patrol. My squad died instantly, I survived. The doctors said it was a miracle, I knew better. Powers good enough to survive, but not enough to be worth a damn.”
“John that’s not-”
“We were two weeks away from Desert Storm Ending!” John roared at Leyu’s face. “Two Fucking Weeks!” John shoved a pair of fingers into Leyu’s helmet for emphasis. John was about to scream at her more when something caught his attention.
“I hear something.” Warpath said. “Sound’s like hanger bay doors.”
Nefaria needed to escape and that was exactly what he was doing. After witnessing those worthless fodder, Mutant Force, fail in their effort to defeat the X-Men, he knew he was defeated along with them. Luckily he had already found a good escape route for himself before Mutant Force and the X-Men had even come into contact with one another.
After making a swift escape to the Hanger bay of the Valhalla base he opened the Hanger Bay door’s and as they slowly created a hole in the mountain, he began boarding a jet inside the base, wishing that teleporter he had used earlier wasn’t just one way. As Nefaria began buckling himself into the plane, a roar bellowed out behind him.
“What the hell’s going on in here?!”
Nefaria shot his head back and spotted one of the X-Men, the second that Paralyzer had felled.
“The X-Men may have incarcerated Count Nefaria once, Indian, but not twice! I may not be victorious this day but I will not be defeated!” Nefaria yelled out as he closed the cockpit of the jet and began it’s takeoff procedure.
“Motherfucker!” Warpath screamed out as he rushed towards Nefaria’s jet, jumping onto its tail just as it drove out of the Valhalla’s hanger and began soaring the sky, with Warpath hitching a ride.
“Warpath!” Sunpyre screamed out as she rocketed behind the jet, “What are you doing jump off!”
“Hell No!” Warpath roared his voice barely audible over the Jet’s engines as they erupted behind him. “I failed this team before, but I’m not failing us now!” He climbed forward, digging his hand’s into the skin of the plane. The wind hitting him like a truck, the air around him freezing the spit on his lips, his eyes begging to dry up, his lungs barely having a breath to them. Finally he reached the cockpit of the Jet.
Cyclops fired off another Optic blast at a group of computer’s before aiming at another set, before he could fire a message entered his head along with the other five X-Men in the wreck of a room.
“X-Men stop what you are doing, I have scanned the mind of General Fredericks, the Doomsmith System has been destroyed. I repeat stop what you are doing!”
“Professor!” Cyclops shouted as he removed his hand from his visor. “What are you doing, you can’t psychically speak with us over such a huge distance, especially after the Z’Nox invasion. You know how much strain that puts on you!” He said utter shock at his voice over his mentor’s actions.
“I know that Cyclops but this important! Warpath is in danger, head to Valhalla’s hanger you see what’s happening! Warpath is going to get himself killed!”
At the psychic alert of Professor X, the six X-Men ran out of the Command room, heading towards the hanger hoping they could save their fellow X-Men.
From one countdown, to another.
“You Madman!” Nefaria screamed as Warpath’s hand crashed through the glass of the cockpit, before grabbing onto Nefarai’s collarbone, crushing it with his strength. “You’ll kill us both!”
“Keep talking Dracula!” Warpath spat out! Ignoring the fact that the Jet was racing towards the ground at full speed. Sunpyre desperately trying to catch up to the two but slowly losing distance with every second, tears boiling underneath her helmet.
“John Proudstar! For the love of god! Get off the Plane! Leyu can save you!”
Warpath ignored the desperate cries of his leader coming from inside his own head. “Shut It Baldy! It’s time I act like the man I want to be! To save lives like my father! Like my mother!” Warpath shot his other hand through the remains of the cockpit and onto the neck of Nefaria crushing the man’s windpipe as the Jet began nosediving towards the ground.
“Tell…” John said as he saw the ground below racing towards him. “Tell my parents, the X-Men, Leyu, and Jimmy…I’m sorry.”
Xavier stayed with John Proudstar as he died, he had brought him into the X-Men and sent him on this mission it was the least and all he could do. With his link to Proudstar, he feels force of the crash as the jet hits the ground. His body feels the pain that John has, the split second of his body being destroyed by the impact of the crash before his almost immediate death.
Xavier screams alone in his mansion, his body reeling from the psychic pain that John was thankful enough to not have linger on his body. As Xavier’s voice breaks from his pained wail, tears fill his eyes from pain, terror, and sadness. Inside of wheelchair he collapses falling onto the floor below him.
It is not the first time that Xavier has felt another’s death, but it is the first death of someone he would call a student, even if John Proudstar had the title for only a few short days. His heart is crushed, his soul is twisted, his body falls into a deep sleep from his anguish.
On this day, an X-Men has died.
October 19
“Mutant militia groups clashed yesterday, as an obscure group known as Mutant Force working under orders from Maggia crime syndicate took over a military base in Colorado. The other group was to many’s surprise, the returning X-Men, who according to some eye witness had an almost entirely new team. The attack on the currently unreported Colorado base is unconfirmed but said to be in the triple digits along with thousands of dollars in property damage. Eye witness to the attack, General Nelson Fredericks had this to say,”
She ignored the reporter on the bar’s TV screen, ignored the jeers from the other patrons furious at the mutants attack on American security, ignores the cries of how the X-Men were in on it, and ignores the ridiculous cover story the General gives to the media. Instead she once more takes a hard swig of her Jack Daniels and waits for her contact to arrive.
Eventually a sharp dressed Egyptian man enters the bar, and sits across from her at her booth.
“You have the data disk I hope.” He says in a cold voice.
“Of course,” She replies, pulling out a small container from her pocket and retrieving the disk from it. “As if you should have even bothered asking.”
“My master likes to be thorough.” He says as he grabs the disk and places it inside of a case of his own.
“And my pay?”
“Smart of you to ask.” He smiles as he places his briefcase onto the table. “Code is 3150.”
She grabs it and quickly puts in the combination to the briefcases lock and opens it, she smiles as her eyes are met with fifteen million dollars in unmarked bills.
“I assume you’ve already copied the disk for your own purposes.” he asks her before realizing he knows the answer already. “Why should I even bother asking.”
She smirks to him as she watches him rise to his feet and leave the bar. She closes the briefcase and finishes her drink before leaving as well. She now had all the capital and information she would need to create her own Brotherhood of Mutants, with her as its leader.