* DISCLAIMER * This is a non-profit work of fan-fiction involving characters created and owned by Marvel Comics Group. * MATURE CONTENT * Nudity but no sex. Implied homosexual relationship. Mature language. If you have a problem with any of the above, please do not read this story. * WRITTEN BY * Samy Merchi * ARCHIVED AT * http://mash.yok.utu.fi/corona.html * STARRING * CYCLOPS! SCARLET WITCH! PHOENIX! ANGEL! POLARIS! FORGE! DAZZLER! Old friends and older friends alike, they have decided Charles Xavier is wrong in his credo of teaching humanity to co-exist with mutantkind by hiding the latter from the former. Instead, they have banded together to try and make the highest-profile effort possible to make mutants public heroes, and an accepted part of humanity at large. Currently, they continue the work of Freedom Force and the previous incarnation of X-Factor as a group of highly ranked operatives for the United States government. Samy Merchi presents: THE MYSTERIOUS X-FACTOR in ****************** * PLAY WITH FIRE * ****************** * GUEST STARRING * Pietro "QUICKSILVER" Maximoff * AND STARRING * Jeremy Irons as "MAGNETO" * CONTINUITY * + Shadows of the Future timeline. (http://mash.yok.utu.fi/corona.html) Roughly 3-5 years in the future. *** Genosha. A small island nation halfway between Madagascar and the Seychelles, it is a haven for mutantkind, ruled by one of the most infamous mutants of all -- Magneto, the Master of Magnetism. An economy built on the powers of a precious few, it is one of the world's most hi-tech nations, alongside other miniature giants like Latveria and Wakanda. The capital city of Hammer Bay has been rebuilt in recent years almost completely after it was all but entirely demolished by the civil war raging between the human, mutant and unitarian factions. The city sleeps, as much as it ever does, underneath pale moonlight as warm tropical winds blow thru the city, the glittering waters of the Indian Ocean surrounding the small island on every side. In the middle of the city, in the top floors of the newly erected administrative building of the Citadel, a troubled silver-haired man sleeps in his chambers, the soft ticking of a clock watching over him as it inevitably tocks towards the morning. *** "I suggest haste", Pietro Maximoff wrinkled his nose as he stood beside a huge twenty-foot diameter circular steel door, not alike many massive vault doors. He was dressed in a three-piece gray suit, the businessmanlike appearance of which was rather obviously contrasted by the Nike sneakers on his feet. The other foot was impatiently drumming against the marble floor of the finely polished stone corridor populated only by himself and five other figures. "It's working as fast as it can", Forge replied as his narrowed eyes focused on the little deciphering device he had attached to the door's locking mechanism, little symbols, images and text flashing on the flat LCD screen of the hi-tech skeleton key as it played a feverish game of tag with the cybersecurity systems of the lock. "You should just let me cut thru it", Dazzler smirked, crossing her hands and holding the index fingers straight out to mimic a pistol, letting her fingertips glow brightly with light that wavered in all prismatic colors for a moment, before she brought the fingertips before her lips, blew a puff of air at them, and let the light vanish. "Can't risk triggering security systems, Alison", Cyclops pointed out, sharing Pietro's anxiety and frowning slightly as he listened for any sounds in either direction down the corridor. His jaw tightened slightly, and he glanced at the woman beside him. "I sense them, Scott", Phoenix nodded as she kept mental tags on a squad of Magistrates -- Genoshan security officers -- half a dozen strong, exiting a barracks room some distance down the corridor and around a corner. "They're..." Her forehead furrowed slightly, before her eyes opened and she brushed some bangs of raven-black hair behind her ear, a worried expression on her face. "Coming this way." "Plan B?" Scarlet Witch asked, exchanging a brief glance with Cyclops, who gave the go-ahead nod. She moved over to Forge, raised a hand, and a scarlet glow surrounded it and Forge's deciphering device. Instantly, the LCD screen turned green with 'OPEN' flashing on it in large block letters. With a little hiss of air, the hermetic seals opened, the door no longer airtight, and then with an almost impossible silence for something of its massive size, it slowly swung open in a 180 degree arc, almost brushing against the opposite wall of the corridor. "Bring up the rear", Cyclops voiced quietly to Scarlet Witch as he hopped in thru the circular doorway, closely followed by Phoenix, the pair peering around carefully in ready stances as they took the point. Gray lightning flashed thru the gigantic doorway, and a fraction of a second later, Quicksilver was standing beside them as well. "Told you so", he stated with an upturned nose as his eyes scanned the sight before them. Inside, a huge factory hall opened up. The three mutants taking the point were standing on a metal grill catwalk several stories above the floor of the hall. The hall was square-shaped, roughly the size of half a football field. The far wall was lined by several storage silos of some kind, stretching from the floor several dozen feet up, almost reaching the ceiling. They were separated from the rest of the hall by some kind of transparent plexiglass wall. The rest of the hall was filled by machinery that was running even at that very moment, echoing a low rumble off the rough-hewn stone walls. "Holy shit", Dazzler gasped as she entered thru the doorway onto the catwalk, her eyes locking onto the storage silos on the far wall for a moment, then glancing over her shoulder as Forge, having detached his device from the lock, followed her. "It's true, isn't it?" she whispered to him. Forge's eyes narrowed and he walked over to the railing keeping the occupants of the catwalk from plummeting a few dozen feet down to the hard stone floor. He placed his hands onto the railing, and gripped a bit too tightly as he noticed his non-cybernetic palm starting to sweat against the metal. Slowly, he looked over to Cyclops and Quicksilver, and gave a nod. "I'll have to get in close to analyze and confirm, but those are the exact same kind of storage tanks the Chinese used to store the gas in." He let his eyes fall from the storage silos to the machinery spanning the floor, tubes running from the machines thru the plexiwall to the storage tanks. "Let's go." Scarlet Witch was the last to enter, waiting for the vault door to swing back shut and hopping inside just before it closed. She swallowed slightly at the sight her teammates were admiring. "Dear lord, father..." she murmured under her breath and bit her lip hard. She had hoped with all her heart that it wouldn't have been true -- that they would've found a medicine factory, or anything -- anything but this -- a plant for manufacturing the deadliest gas known to man. The gas that had been used to annihilate eighty percent of the population of former China. Cyclops glanced to Wanda, frowning sympathetically, letting his eyes linger on the woman for a few moments, before he started descending the metal grill stairs leading down towards the floor. "Let's move, X-Factor", he said as the vault door behind them hissed as its airtight seals locked back into place. *** Outside the door, a lithe brown-haired female figure drifted out of the shadows, her eyes narrowing. Then, she whirled around, and stalked towards an elevator, the doors swishing open before her, and swishing back shut behind her. *** "Pietro!" Cyclops shouted as gray lightning zoomed past him down the metal grill stairway, and he noticed a minute movement from the corner of his ruby quartz visor. A fraction of a second later Quicksilver stopped at the last steps of the stairway, and glanced up at Cyclops. "What?" he snapped irritably, standing in place as he waited for X-Factor to follow him. "Look OUT!" Scott shouted as a bright red optic blast lanced out of his visor at the very same moment as a pencil-thin beam of bright whiteness zapped out of a socket on the left-hand wall, high up near the ceiling. "ARGH!" Quicksilver shouted as the beam penetrated his left shoulder at the same moment that the optic blasts hit their mark unerringly, the impact exploding the socket into a cloud of powdered stone dust and metal wreckage. "Pietro!" Wanda shouted, taking a sudden step towards the stairs leading down to the factory hall floor from the high catwalk, and then gasped as another beam of bright white cut thru the air right where she had been. "There are more!" "We're out in the open!" Forge hissed as he started running down the metal grill stairway clattering underneath his weight. "No cover! We need to take them out before --!" "Taking things out is my specialty! Watch this!" Dazzler shouted and pointed her two index fingers towards the small, almost imperceptible socket in the wall which had fired towards Wanda. Two laser blasts shot out of her fingers, and an explosion destroyed the socket in a small detonation, the beam winking out of existence. Even then, two new beams shot out, one from the left, one from the right. "HEY!" Dazzler gasped as one of them hit her in the chest without any effect, while Phoenix blocked the one aimed at her by raising a telekinetic shield first in the beam's path, and then quickly sheathing herself entirely with the shield. "Lasers", Forge realized as he glanced over his shoulder at Dazzler's gasp and noticed the beam stopping onto her chest. "Static", he noted a moment later on observing the beams fixed on Dazzler and Phoenix, even as a second set of beams zapped out, towards him and Cyclops, the former impacting onto the air beside him as a telekinetic shield rose around him. "They're not moving." Cyclops turned his head quickly, glancing all around as bright laser beams suddenly started filling the air all over, one socket after another firing up and fixing another beam in place. "Of course", Forge said as he watched a webwork of lasers form around them as Phoenix shielded all five X-Factor members inside a telekinetic cocoon. "Laser web. The beams staying in place restricts our movement as the web tightens further and further until --" "We get the point, Mr Science", Dazzler pointed out. "Until they slice and dice us like that thing on the Home Shopping Network." "I can shield us", Phoenix said, "but if we've triggered a security system --" "Then security's probably already on the way", Cyclops nodded, then glanced towards the floor a few dozen feet below, where Quicksilver was standing, unpestered by the beams. "What if we just go down the stairs --?" "It'll follow us", Forge replied. "I've seen this technology before, it focuses on the largest concentration of intruders and tries to lock them down, slowly expanding outwards to encompass --" "It'll follow us is all I needed", Cyclops nodded slowly. "You've seen this before? Power source? Main control panel? Can we target either?" "Decentralized", Forge shook his head. "The laser cannons are both powered and controlled individually, only linked together by the network which allows them to share data and concentrate efforts -- but it's spread all over, not in any one location. We can't target any thing except the individual cannons." "Or the program itself", Cyclops's forehead furrowed in thought. "How does it track us?" "Sonar", Forge answered with a frown, and then blinked as something occurred to him. He glanced to Cyclops. X-Factor's leader gave a simple nod in return, and his head snapped over to Dazzler. "Destroy their targeting systems, Alison. They're bouncing sound waves off us." Dazzler blinked, and then smiled slightly. "Let me out", she said to Phoenix, who lowered the telekinetic shields around the blonde. Several lasers were focused on the spot where she was standing, but she was unharmed. Then, she cast her arms up high, and a perfect silence fell over the entire factory hall. The machinery sound was absorbed along with the sonar waves inaudible to the human ear as she converted it all to fuel for her light-projecting powers. The laser web winked out of existence. ((You can get us down there now, Jean)), Forge spoke telepathically, Phoenix relaying his words to the rest of X-Factor as regular speech would get absorbed by Alison just the same. X-Factor were swiftly lowered down thru the air to the floor by Phoenix's telekinetics, and glanced around to make sure there weren't additional threats as their feet touched to solid ground. ((And you can stop absorbing the sound, Alison)), Forge then said. By this time, Dazzler's natural radiance had brightened quite a bit from the absorbed energy, causing her to glow as intensely as a light bulb, making her hard to look at. She sighed in relief, slumping a bit, and the factory rumble flowed back into existence. Cyclops glanced up at the stairway and the catwalk. The laser web didn't spring back to existence, and everything remained quiet except for the background rumble of the machinery. He glanced over to Forge. "The program thinks we vanished", Forge explained. "It couldn't track us while Alison deprived it of its sight -- when it got its 'eyes' back, we weren't there anymore. It figures we teleported away and went back to an inert state -- until whatever we triggered, is triggered again. Probably a pressure sensor somewhere on the bottom of the stairway, since it targeted Pietro first." "Speaking of which", Cyclops turned his head towards Quicksilver, glancing to the silver-haired man's injured side. "I will live", Pietro mumbled, holding his side with one hand. "A lot of people will not, if this facility is allowed to remain." "He's right", Wanda nodded at her brother's words. "We don't have a lot of time. If the security are on their way here, so is --" Phoenix's face tightened. "Magneto." *** She stood in the middle of the darkened bedroom for a few moments, nibbling thoughtfully on her thumbnail as she watched the older man turn restlessly from one side to the other, his breathing quickening slightly, his sleeping face turning slowly into a frown, then tightening a little bit further as he sank deeper and deeper into his dark dreams. "Magnus?" she said, flipping the light switch on the wall beside the doorway, banishing the darkness in an instant. Then, she just stood silently in place, waiting for his reaction. He gradually stopped moving. Then, without warning, a trio of electrical cords snaked thru the doorway like living beings, and in a whiplash motion, wrapped themselves around the woman's throat. "You", Magneto hissed as he opened his eyes and glanced at the lithe woman in short brown hair. He rubbed his eyes briefly, and then frowned with a sharp glare. "Yes? What is it, Chief Magistrate?" "There are intruders in the Pyrrhos Plant", the woman replied, and watched Magneto instantly tense and wake up fully. "I've dispatched two squads of Magistrates, but --" She quirked an eyebrow. "It's X-Factor, Magnus." "X-Factor", Magneto said darkly, and got out of bed, the sheets falling from around him and revealing his nude body. He extended his arm towards his wardrobe, and his red and purple Magneto armor flew out, sliding over him in seconds, his helmet placing itself in his hand. "Who?" "Cyclops, Phoenix, Scarlet Witch, Forge and Dazzler", the woman replied, and then hesitated a brief moment, her expression turning hesitant. "The minister as well..." Her face darkened a bit. "Pietro." "I'm not surprised", Magneto said, levelling his eyes onto the woman. "We all knew he wouldn't stand for the plant's existence. It was only a matter of time until he would find out and call upon allies to help him destroy it." He raised his helmet, and slowly lowered it over his head, his eyes crackling once with blue electricity as the helmet slid into place. "Summon...Exodus." "Exodus?" the woman blinked, eyes widening a bit. "But --" "I *know*", Magneto decreed, and stalked out of the room. *** "Pyrrhos gas", Forge said, indicating with his laser pointer the chemical diagram projected onto the wall. "One of the most lethal substances known to man, most of you are familiar with it from its pivotal role in China's civil war last year. Used by some rural rebel factions, it became a horrible weapon of mass destruction when it ended up being used in rapid succession -- over the course of only a few weeks -- against most of China's major cities, all but annihilating their populations overnight without the destruction of any buildings in the --" Six other operatives of the US-sponsored 'X-Factor' intervention team listened in tense silence as their unofficial briefing unfolded before them. Only two days ago, their member Wanda Maximoff had been contacted by his brother Pietro, holding a high governmental position in the African island nation of Genosha. Pietro had allegedly discovered where the Pyrrhos gas used in China's civil war had been manufactured -- and worse, where it still was being manufactured. "-- of Pyrrhos' most interesting aspects in addition to being able to multiply and rapidly blanket large areas of inhabitation, is its ability to completely annihilate any forms of organic life, including micro-organisms. This slows down the decomposing of the massive amounts of bodies created by the gas. As we all know, this was part of what caused the rise of cannibalism in post-war China, as human bodies were the most widely available source of food. Fortunately for all of China, the gas doesn't permanently pollute or render unusable --" Wanda's hand absently rose in front of her mouth and she looked ill for a few moments. "-- area of effect grows geometrically but thankfully, the gas has a failsafe in its short lifespan. Any traces of it vanish from the affected area within weeks, preventing it from becoming a part of the food cycle and causing untold ecological disasters --" "Uh", Alison blinked slightly. "A billion dead people isn't an ecological disaster?" "In the specific case of the Chinese civil war, it certainly was", Forge gave a little nod. "I'm talking on a general level, though, Alison, in which case the short lifespan of Pyrrhos is an incredible advantage making it the equivalent of such anti-personnel weapons as the neutron bomb, killing people but leaving the buildings intact." "Sorry, Forge, but *nothing* that killed a billion people can be referred to as 'advantageous'", Jean shook her head disapprovingly. "We're going to find the plant that manufactured the gas that killed those people, and we're going to *destroy* it. I'm not here to admire the gas, I'm here because I want to make sure it isn't ever used again. End of discussion." "She has a point", Scott nodded slowly as he stood up and walked over to the front, taking the laser pointer from Forge and nodding to the older man to dismiss him back to the seats. "As far as the technical specifications of the gas go, we know all we need to know. Let's move on to the tactical side of this operation. I've talked with Pietro and he's arranged a way for us to get into the country incognito so we can try to pull this off without creating a diplomatic incident. The target area is on a subterranean level of the Citadel --" *** "It's Pyrrhos", Forge nodded grimly as he stopped in front of a rumbling machine and inspected its various displays, dispelling any last hopes and facing X-Factor with the reality of the situation. "These machines are manufacturing it, it's conducted through those tubes", he motioned to a series of tubes running from the machinery filling the room thru the plexiwall into the silo compartment, "into the storage tanks. Whatever you do, do *not* touch or damage the tubes." "Joy", Dazzler mumbled slightly, walking as far away from the tubes as she could manage without being left behind from the others. Then, she froze in place as there was a hissing sound that she couldn't quite place. "The seal!" Forge looked up from the machinery. "The door is opening. Someone's coming in!" "I'll take care of it", Cyclops replied. "Forge, Wanda, neutralize the gas, what*ever* it takes. Jean, Alison, watch over them!" he said as he dashed off, heading back across the factory hall towards the stairway leading up to the catwalk. At the same moment as Scott ran up from behind the row of machines closest to the stairs, a pair of Magistrates leaped thru the opened doorway into the catwalk, pointed their rifles at him, and opened fire. Cyclops broke to the right, snapped his eyes not towards the Magistrates, but at the stone ceiling above them. Red optic blasts lanced out of his visor, smashing into the ceiling and pulverizing a crater into it, a massive cloud of stone dust exploding out and enveloping the catwalk for a moment. A moment was all Cyclops needed, as he dashed over to the stairway, and crouched underneath it, quickly inspecting the last dozen steps or so while the cloud slowly dispersed. Again, fire was opened at him, as the Magistrates' vision cleared sufficiently to make him out at the bottom of the stairs. He ducked and rolled to the other side of the stairs, letting the rifle shots impact to the stairway for a few moments, before he reached out, and slammed his hand down on the sixth step up from the floor. Almost instantly, a bright beam of light zapped thru the air about halfway down the stairs, roughly at chest-level of an average person. Scant moments later, another beam cut thru the air higher up, shimmering in the slowly dissipating dust cloud and bringing out a cry of pain. Two more beams sprang into existence as the laser web started finding its targets and focusing onto the group of Magistrates up on the catwalk. They were soon followed by two more, then by four, eight, sixteen, as the air up on the catwalk grew thick with the web growing tighter and tighter. "It's the laser web!" "Somebody shut it the fuck off!" "MEDIIIC!" "Pull out! Pull out!" A hushed silence suddenly fell. The laser web winked out of existence. More silence. No Magistrates in sight, the dust cloud had dissipated. Cyclops crouched at the side of one of the front-line machines, taking cover behind it as he kept a close watch on the open doorway. And then, the figure in red and purple, his cape cascading behind him, eyes crackling in the shadows of his helmet, entered. Magneto stood on the catwalk, imposing, larger than life. The Magistrates weren't behind him, backing him up. He didn't *need* them. He just stood there, rigid as steel, immobile as a statue, and seemingly completely unworried about anything. "Scott", he spoke, his voice booming from inside his helmet and echoing easily over the low factory rumble. Finally, he moved slightly, his chin gradually lowering as his eyes surveyed the factory floor opening up underneath him. "I know you're there somewhere, ready for me. Just as I'm ready for you." He held a slight pause, before walking off the catwalk, the railing parting before him and letting him step into midair. "I offer you *one* chance to leave. Now. You will be escorted out of the country, unharmed." Cyclops frowned silently as he watched Magneto hover high in midair. Then, he stood up, and walked forward. Magneto's eyes locked onto Cyclops as soon as the younger man stepped forth. Inside his helmet, he quirked an eyebrow minutely. "You're not going to accept my offer", he simply stated, not even bothering to ask. "Don't be an idiot, Magneto", Cyclops replied. "Don't start a battle in here, or you'll end up killing us all. A battle between you and us would be destructive enough to destroy the storage tanks and release the gas." "Why battle?" Magneto simply asked, and suddenly Forge's form was yanked up into the air from the back of the hall, flying in a high arc towards Magneto, dragged by his bionic leg. "I have you, Forge", he said, turning his attention to the man dangling upside down in the air only a few feet in front of him. "None of the others have the technical expertise to neutralize the gas." "Yeah?" Forge hissed, yanking a pistol from its hip holster, and pointing it straight at Magneto's face, the barrel mere inches from the helmet. His eyes narrowed, his hand tensed, his index finger tightened on the trigger -- to no effect. "Yes", Magneto simply replied. "And you can stop squeezing the trigger. No matter how strong your bionic hand is, it's no match for my magnetic powers holding the trigger immobile." VAM! Magneto left a little smoldering trail behind him as he was blasted backwards right thru the circular doorway, slamming into the wall on the other side of the corridor outside the doorway. "Who says that was the only trigger?" Forge said as he, now unheld by Magneto's powers, plummeted towards the floor. THOOM! The vault door smashed shut as Phoenix soared into the air and yanked the huge block of metal into place. Metal gnashed and grinded as she twisted and wrenched it around to destroy any locking mechanisms. "I've got you, Forge!" she shouted as she telekinetically caught the inventor and lowered him to the floor. "Good work, Forge!" Cyclops called out. "But we're not going to catch him off-guard a second time! Get back to your work! Figure out how to neutralize the gas! We'll keep Magneto occupied as long as we have to! Alison!" "Ready and willing, handsome", Dazzler replied as she ran up to Cyclops. "What do you need?" WHOOM! "Plan Justice!" Cyclops shouted to Alison as the vault door blasted in as easily as if it were a soccer ball, and Scott quickly glanced over his shoulder. "Jean, the door!" "On it!" Phoenix growled, and used her telekinetic powers to brace herself in midair as she placed herself in the path of several dozen tons of flying metal. Her fiery bird aura flared into existence behind her, and then focused forward, energy flashing brightly as telekinetic energy blasted out. BOOM! The twenty-foot diameter, several feet thick disk split in half in the path of Phoenix's fury, the halves knocked to the sides and with jarring crashes embedding them in the walls at the height of a couple dozen feet. "Since you refuse the friendly approach", Magneto snarled as he hovered in thru the destroyed doorway, "I'll use my official position as the ruler of a sovereign nation. As representatives of the United States government, Cyclops, you and the rest of X-Factor are ten seconds away from causing a diplomatic incident unless you leave, this instant." "We're here strictly as private citizens, Magneto!" Cyclops replied as he cut loose with his optic blasts, jerking backwards slightly as red energy screamed from his eyes thru the air towards Magneto. "Yeah, and the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of our actions!" Dazzler smiled as she unleashed all the energy she had stored up from the sonar and the factory rumble in one tightly focused blast aimed to hit the same precise spot as Scott was targeting. "Fine", Magneto gritted his teeth as waved an arm, raising a magnetic shield to meet the attacks. "Remember, Cyclops, you brought this on yourselves --" ((Great)), Forge thought to himself as he zigzagged among the machinery towards the far back of the factory where he had been working until Magneto's interruption. "Wanda!" he waved an arm out as he approached his teammate rapidly. "Get ready to --" "-- to be taken down!" a woman shouted as she emerged thru the floor like a ghost right underneath Forge, holding hands with a figure in purple, black and gold as they soared up intangibly thru him. "ARGH!" Forge gasped as his cybernetic leg sparked and short circuited, locking up in place and becoming paralyzed as its circuits were fried. He stumbled forward, crashing to the floor but managing to catch himself with his hands. "Home is the warrior", white teeth flashed a grin from the darkness of a shadowed face framed by short brown hair. Chief Magistrate Pryde let go of the hand of her purple-black-gold companion and dropped to the floor in a catlike crouch as her companion soared higher. "Behold now -- the Exodus!" *** "Scott!" Phoenix gasped, her eyes widening, her head turning to glance over her shoulder as she sensed something on the other side of the hall while she was facing off with Magneto Magneto wasted no time eliminating his most powerful foe. As soon as Phoenix looked away, blue lightning crackled in his hands, and then streaked thru the air towards the redhead. "AIEARRGHH!" Phoenix screamed as her body spasmed from the electricity coursing thru it. Everything went black in her eyes, and she plummeted towards the floor, unmoving. "Jean!" Cyclops shouted, glancing up at his wife, and then snapped his head to the side. Gray lightning flashed up the metal stairway just as bright red optic blasts first missed the stairway, hit the wall behind it, ricocheted back, and finally smashed into the stairway at a point about a dozen feet from the floor. "UNGH!" Magneto stumbled forward slightly as a blur of a fist impacted to the back of his helmet as Quicksilver had used the stairs as a launchpad, having accelerating up them and then streaked into the air towards his father to administer a blow with the momentum of one of the fastest men on Earth. "Whoulff!" air escaped from Phoenix's lungs as the lower third of the stairway was blasted apart from the rest by Cyclops's optic blast and knocked to rest upon a piece of machinery, just so that it would catch the falling redhead. Phoenix rapidly tumbled down the stairs, until she lay still at the bottom. Quicksilver continued his course after attacking Magneto from behind, and ricocheted off a wall once before landing in a crouch atop a piece of machinery. "Now!" Cyclops shouted to Dazzler as he rushed towards Phoenix. Dazzler spread her arms, and a blinding lightshow sprang into existence, aimed straight towards Magneto, with her at the very center. Magneto instinctively raised his hand to shield his eyes, but too late. Spots swam in his eyes, everything was a multicolored blur as his eyes tried to cope with the sudden overload. Cyclops, crouching beside Phoenix, two fingers placed at her throat to search for a pulse, turned his eyes towards Magneto and unleashed an optic blast. "Sorry", a familiar voice spoke as the optic blast impacted onto something invisible in mid-air. "Can't let you hurt him", Exodus said as she hovered high in the air looking down on the battle. Scott's jaw fell as he turned to look at the erector of the telekinetic shield that had blocked his attack. Dressed in Exodus' purple, black and gold costume was a familiar redheaded woman. "Rachel", he whispered. "That's me, dad", Rachel Summers replied as a fiery bird erupted into existence behind her. "Surrender." *** VAM! VAM! VAM! Chief Magistrate Katherine Pryde tossed her head back and laughed as the blasts from Forge's gun passed thru her intangible form without effect. WHOOM! An explosion tore thru the factory hall as the blasts hit their true target -- the machinery behind Kate. The fireball erupting from the point of impact momentarily clouded her from sight, and when it subsided, a cloud of yellowish gas had billowed out by several dozen feet. Kate's smile quickly vanished as she was right in the epicenter of the cloud, and clutched at her throat, starting to choke. "FORGE!" Scarlet Witch screamed with horrified eyes. "We're all going to --" "No", Forge quickly shook his head as he pushed a button on his cybernetic leg, detaching it, and stumbled up, bracing himself against a piece of machinery as he started hopping towards Wanda. "The gas isn't toxic at that point yet. It has to run through the final process in the last machine before it becomes lethal." He glanced over his shoulder at Kate. "Take her out. Now." Wanda raised her hands above her head and scarlet energy grew in them. "She isn't invulnerable -- one hex bolt should be enough", she hissed, and cast her hands forward, a bolt of energy lancing out. Kate coughed and wheezed at the gas surrounding her, and hissed a glare in Scarlet Witch's direction, her eyes watered up, just barely clear enough to let her notice the preparation for the hex bolt. SHOOM! The bolt hit the floor right behind where Kate had been standing. She wasn't there anymore, though. Having leaped to the side, then flipped forward and up, she had landed outside the gradually dissipating gas cloud, and perched in a crouch atop a piece of machinery. With a swift motion, she pulled a pistol from a hip holster, and aimed at Wanda. VMMP! VVMP! "Kate!" Wanda shouted as she whirled towards the younger woman and raised a hex shield in front of her, causing the charge of the pistol's plasma blasts to dissipate into thin air before hitting her. "This gas *has* to be destroyed! Don't you see? It was created for one thing, and one thing only -- to annihilate entire *areas* of human inhabitation!" "I don't like it either, Maximoff", Kate hissed as her blasts dissipated, and without missing a beat, swung her arm in a wide arc, sending the pistol streaking thru the air. "But we weren't the ones who used it. It's not our fault it was used. *Guns* don't kill people." "UNGH!" Wanda gasped as the pistol whacked her in the forehead, knocking her stumbling back a few steps, disoriented for a few precious seconds Kate used to leap down from atop the machinery, her leg poised straight in a leap kick. Before Wanda could react, everything went black for her as Kate's heel smashed to the side of her head. "*People* kill people", Kate said grimly as she stood over the unconscious Scarlet Witch. "And we weren't those people." POW! "GNH!" Kate wheezed as a silver blur streaked past her and a furious impact to her jaw sent her hurtling thru the air, smashing into the plexiwall separating the gas tanks from the factory hall. "No", Quicksilver snarled, his fists clenched as he towered over the downed Chief Magistrate who wiped a trace of blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. "You merely supplied the means for that mass destruction. Are you *mad*, Katherine Pryde?" *** "Magneto's right, dad!" Exodus gritted her teeth, the firebird behind her growing in intensity as she strengthened the telekinetic shields in front of her blocking the bright red optic blasts blasting out of her father's visor. "None of us like it that so many people had to die! But China was destroying itself anyway! The rest of the world has much better chances of surviving without it being a drain on our resources --" "*Everyone*'s a drain on resources, Rachel!" Cyclops shouted as he kept shifting the aim of his optic blasts, moving the beam all over the shield as if probing for weaknesses. "We don't have the right to choose who should get to be a drain and who shouldn't!" With that, his optic blasts suddenly intensified, as if having found the right spot. "AGH!" Rachel gasped as the optic blasts smashed into her side after ricocheting off her shields, to she shield Magneto had up defending against Dazzler, and back to Rachel herself. Smashing her into a piece of machinery, she bounced off it, to lie immobile on the floor. "Shield yourself from every side, Rachel", Scott said with a faint frown of worry. "Not just against frontal assaults." "And you, Scott", Magneto spoke as Cyclops' visor suddenly flew off his face and into the air, landing gracefully in Magneto's hand, "should learn to control your optic blasts without electronic crutches, if our paths are going to keep crossing as they have in the past." "Great!" Dazzler growled and pointed her arms towards Magneto. "Let's see how you like a concentrated light dazzle-blast!" Her body pulsed with light, growing bright as a star, and then all the light drained into her arms, focusing in preparation for being unleashed. "Now that I can fully concentrate on you, Alison", Magneto said as he turned his eyes onto the woman and stared at her blinding light unwaveringly, "you'll excuse me if I end this quickly." Dazzler's photonic blast lashed out, and then ended in mid-air as if cut with a knife. Alison's eyes widened in confusion, and then closed with a facial spasm as something hit the back of her head, and she collapsed limply onto the floor. Magneto dissipated the spherical lump of metal hovering behind where Alison's head had been, back into the air from whence he had condensed it. "Really, Scott", he said a bit wearily. "A light projector against the master of electromagnetic energy?" "I know", Cyclops responded, and opened his eyes.