Chapter 18

(Raven Darkholm)

 

Aboard the Samson
1000 feet from the Bayville road

Raven ejected the empty plasma cartridge from her sniper styled railgun, loaded another and crouched again. She looked on through her HUD at the fire wreathed form of Jean and when she suddenly morphed into another being under her eyes. The girl kept pulling power out of her ass somehow. *Or is it because she wants to be unpredictable?* 

The shapeshifter wouldn’t put it past Jean to do exactly that, if no one could model her behavior and fighting style, they can’t deal with her. Moving her rifle to her next target, Raven fired at Delgado’s head from two kilometers away. But obviously, something interfered as a blue force-field covered each member of the Acolytes.

“Shit, Magneto is protecting them.” Raven said in her headset as she loaded another plasma cartridge at a fast pace.

Raven fired anew, on Delgado who began laughing. She was about to shoot another salvo when Jean’s voice could be heard in the Tacteam channel. “Stop firing, Raven. Only do it when Magneto is distracted. Send Punisher and the Sergeant to harry them. Send the others to the X-Mansion.”

The fight began when she looked at Wanda firing a blast of something at the snowy ground and waves of snow traveled down like a tidal wave in an arc toward the Acolytes, covering them. Jean took flight at the same time Magneto did and fired a beam of fire so hot that it created vapor in its wake.

“Roger that Jean, keep my little girl safe.” Raven commanded.

Jean faltered in the middle of combat and Magneto sent two bolts of lightning at her with his electrokinesis. Brandishing her psionic sword, Jean absorbed the electricity with the construct. Magneto channeled more and more energy into the shot. 

As she defended herself, Jean said with an audible gritting of her teeth, “Anna is going to the Mansion to fight, I can’t stop her.”

Twin balls of lightning struck against Jean’s own forcefield, Raven then observed as Magneto extracted iron from the ground and shaped bladed constructs. She remembered that tactic, he often made the blade vibrate at ultrasonic speeds to cut into anything. It was the prelude to a gravity attack, he intended to slam Jean into the ground.

“I will have a word with her when this is done.” Raven said with finality, Jean was too busy to answer her.

The shapeshifter switched point of view and took another module for her rifle. Her weapon is a semi-automatic, gas-operated rifle that fires 14.5×114mm ammunition from a four-round detachable box magazine or special cartridge for pulse ammunition. She loaded the adamantium tipped bullet and put herself in position again, and targeted someone else, this time it was that Cortez gal who was firing her energy weapon at Wanda. Not wanting to kill her, Raven fired the weapon at the woman’s knee and fired.

Cortez fell over like a bag of brick on the asphalt and flailed as she held onto the stump of her right leg.

It was at this moment that Elektra intervened and shot Cortez with a tranquilizing weapon and stabbed the normal human she used as a mind controlled thrall to do her bidding. The woman in green fell in a heap on Cortez in a matter of seconds.

“Now for the rest...” Raven said, but the Samson shook as a man with a black and purple outfit with a cape billowing in the wind almost made them crash. Johnson and Castle threw themselves out of the way of Samson and engaged him, disrupting the telekinetic wave he was using. 

It was the Exodus clone that Magneto had liberated from Sinister, she should have known that Erik was going to create problems, he must have brainwashed him as well to listen to him. There was going to be no negotiating with him.

“Fucking clone.” Raven spat and she shot at the Exodus clone.

 

# # #

(Wanda Maximoff)

 

Wanda launched a hex bolt at Fabian Cortez that the man sidestepped, he sneered at her and was about to shoot her with one of those futuristic grey rifles the leader of the acolytes seemed to be using, but he hadn’t noticed the block of earth rolling behind his back. The collision threw him forward at high speeds into another wall of earth where he hit it with a crunch.

Jean had told her to not kill him, so she enclosed him into a porous stone ball. “Stay here and don’t move.” Wanda said in a nonchalant manner.

She floated toward the one legged woman with her mindfucked SHIELD agent and cut her pitiful mewls with a stasis spell that the Ancient One had shown her. The old woman was a good teacher, always adapting her lessons to the students, and in her case, making the lessons enjoyable. Like Jean, the ancient one had told her about how dangerous her powers were and that she needed to choose a Godly Patron. Somehow, Jean and the Ancient One had introduced her to Gaea, the Elder Earth Goddess who was the safest divine source Wanda could tap and channel energies from. 

Jean had told her relentlessly to not tap into Chthon, the guy was bad news and that she would need to take care of the demonic entity to free her from his ‘Patronage,’ something she intended to bypass soon.

“Little girl, I’m going to give you a lesson.” The giant bearded man in black and red outfit came forward, furious by her treatment of his allies.

“The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” Wanda said as she cut the extradimensional source of his power with a snap of her fingers and of her will upon reality.

Delgado suddenly shrunk in size. He looked at his hands, stunned. “What? How did you-” The man looked at and patted himself.

Wanda floated in the air before him, a red halo surrounding her body, looking imperious; just like Jean did. She loved Jean and how she acted, the redhead was her role model. Her red coat bellowed into the icy wind and her hands glowed with power, her foe faltered as fear gripped his heart.

Wanda began speaking with confidence and hints of theatrics. “We came with the knowledge of how everyone's powers worked. The moment Jean and I were out of this limousine, you lost.”

She was still working on her execution and bearing though, that’s why Delgado didn’t feel as threatened as he should be and mouthed off to her, “You bitch! Give them back.” His eyes were frantic and he strode toward her, ready to hurt her.

With a hand raised, Wanda locked up his muscles with wordless magic. “No.” She simply answered.

Delgado thrashed his body, his gaze filling with madness. “Give me back my power!!!”

Wanda didn’t know why the man didn’t give up, he should be staying still. Jean had told her to not kill needlessly and to de-escalate as much as she could if she didn’t want to end it for someone. “No, if you insist, I will kill you. You better calm down.” And she added as an incentive to listen to prompt the man to obey, “Jean was more interested in the Cortez siblings than you; some of your fellows are slated for execution. Please, make my day, your death will be swift.”

Finally the tall muscular man stopped moving and looked at her as if she had sprouted another head; then he chuckled nervously. “Girl… I thought that you were just a little thing but, you sure act just like your father.”

Her anger grew hot, and her eyes shone red and her aura enveloped everything around her, fortunately she avoided the limo. Delgado was lifted into the hair, his body stretching like taffy. “I AM NOT LIKE HIM. I AM NOT.”

Delgado screamed as his bones were turned into powder inside his body and blood ran from his nose, eyes and ears as Wanda turned his body into a ball of useless flesh. His head was still visible as she approached with hate in her eyes and Utter loathing. “TAKE IT BACK!! TAKE BACK WHAT YOU SAID, NOW!!”

He would have, if he wasn't made into something barely human. “Guuh…” was all he could articulate. 

The Scarlet Witch's anger was suddenly doused when she realized what she had done in her anger, she had lost control again. *Gaea! How can I fix this?!*

“Kill him, Wanda.” A voice said behind Wanda.

She jumped ready to fight only to see that it was Elektra who was toweling her sword and looking at her foe in pity. “Elektra?”

The Shinobi sheathed her sword at her waist and said as she looked at Wanda, “Kill him, put him out of his misery.”

Wanda looked at the man blob floating near her and encased into a bubble of shifting physics and she didn't blink when she made a twisting motion with her hands. Crack.

 

# # #

(Magneto)

“Two deaths, three captures. There's only you and your brainwashed toy left, Magneto.” The winged woman in silver armor with the voice of Jean Grey taunted as she sent Magneto’s own blast of electricity back at him.

He tanked them with his own force-field that colored in an iridescent shade when struck as proof of how powerful the energy battering his personal magnetic force-fields were. Somehow the girl amplified the electricity he threw at her and his magnetic rays that are able to destroy mountains left Jean Grey unharmed.

She was a threat, already his men on the ground had lost or were killed. Magneto’s face became ugly with fury as he shouted, “You'll pay for that!”

This wasn’t supposed to be like this, Magneto lamented. From the get go, nothing had gone like he had planned; this was supposed to be a shock and awe operation. Originally the plan had been to stop the limousine and open it like a tin can and take Wanda while the Acolytes occupied the powered children and adults. But the Limousine didn't float or stop when he used his magnetic powers on it, that had been a sign of everything going pear shaped. Nevertheless, he gave the order for  the Brotherhood to launch an all out assault on the X-mansion to make them unable to send reinforcements as well.

Magneto was brought out of his thoughts by the feeling of a portal opening in the sky, the size of a semi-truck, he didn't have the time to dodge when a powerful and familiar red kinetic blast slammed him on the asphalt on the road, creating a crater. Jean Grey hovered over him, looking at him with disdain. 

The sky cleared of its grey clouds and the bite of the icy wind turned as warm and refreshing as trade winds. 

"You ain't so dangerous, old man." Her voice was cold and dismissive. 

Magneto scowled and stood back up, he rose into the sky at the same altitude as Jean and his hands covered in dark blue lights. "I will show you then."

This time it was Jean’s turn to slam into the ground and for Magneto to smirk back at her, but instead of disarray expressed upon features, Magneto was greeted with an excited smirk, if he could see her eyes would have been disturbed by their golden shine.

"That’s more like it, old man!" Jean spread her wings wide, they glowed in an eerie green light.

Magneto put up his strongest force-field and just like he thought a pencil-thin beam of light struck his shield and simply cut through it and sliced his right arm. Magneto looked with horror etched onto his face as his arm fell on the ground. “Aaaaargh!!!” He began to clutch at it as blood drained from his shoulder, he kneeled and began to gather his fallen armored arm.

Jean began to laugh and vibrate on herself. She clearly wanted a fight. “Stop Whining! All I did was cut off your stupid arm! Cauterize the fucking wound! Stand up! Throw lightning at me and attack me! Do something! We have all day, and the real fun is yet to start! Hurry, HURRY!!! You can take it right? You can make me stave off my boredom!!”

Magneto used a localized force-field to stop himself from bleeding out. He looked at the girl that had become a thorn in his side, and said, “Monster! You think that this is it? That you won?”

The giant valkyrie shrugged and smirked nonchalantly. “I know that you are a sore loser, Magneto. But let me explain to you why your powers mean nothing to me right now. I’ve specifically come up with a sciency way to use my powers to negate yours; if you are smart, you’ll surrender, right now.”

Magneto was smart, smarter than he let on. And the way this green beam had interacted with his magnetic force-field like it wasn't even there told him a lot. He frowned and looked at his fallen arm, the clean cut wasn't due to heat or electricity or even kinetic forces. Then it dawned on him what Jean had told him, that she specifically sought out a way to render his powers useless. “Somehow…"

He said aloud as his eyes fell back on Jean, "Somehow you have found some way to halt wavelengths, specifically magnetism. Stillness, you weaponized stillness.”

The winged woman laughed evilly and when she was done mocking him, she said, “What a smart cookie you are. You know, you’ve been wasting your time as a terrorist.”

The backhanded compliment washed over him as he analyzed the situation. The girl was clearly stronger than him but he still had cards to play, factoring in those he said with confidence, “I’ve lost this battle since the start… at least I will bring down Charles with me. But no, Miss Grey, I won't surrender, I prefer to die a free man.”

She sheathed her sword construct at her waist and crossed her arms. “Ah, just like predicted, you sent your junior league after the X-men? We thought about that, don't worry, I sent my B-team to meet your shit troops.”

Magneto closed his eyes in frustration. *Is nothing going to work? How could I underestimate Grey so much? She's no longer the young woman I met in Central Park, she's even more terrifying than predicted. Now I understand Sinister's distress in his last message." 

Something fortuitous happened as he had lost all hope. He saw Exodus fighting against two airborne armored people firing blasts of energy from their arms and the turrets mounted on their shoulders firing the same green projectile that had reaped Katu Kath's life. They began to avoid Exodus' own energy blast and telekinetic waves. It should be impossible but they were managing it.

*Since when does she have people in flying suits of armor!?* Magneto shouted in his heart.

He tried to kill the pilots or crush the armors but nothing happened, just like earlier with the limo his powers had no effect on them. He glared at Jean Grey knowing that it was her doing. She tilted her head in curiosity as she watched the dogfight between Exodus and the two flying armors. The clone evaded a shot that would have killed him by teleporting next to Magneto who put up his force-field despite knowing it wouldn't do any good.

The plasma infused projectiles struck against the fields harmlessly. Magneto holding on as he directed the kinetic energy somewhere else, those new weapons packed up a punch. The two armored figures stopped firing and hovered at Jean’s side. Just like Magneto had guessed they were with her. “Ah, the little clone. This fight has become even more complicated. Round two, Magneto?”

Magneto boasted now that he had a powerful ally at his side, “I have taken your mesure now, I shall kill you, you are a threat to my agenda.” Still he wasn't confident in being able to fight all three of them. 

“To you and Xavier maybe.” Jean shrugged, her wings moving with her. She raised a hand and made a 'come on' gesture. “Come at me, I will show you how much of an antiquated relic you have become.” 

The fight changed yet again when at Jean’s side, Wanda appeared and she began to move her arms in a pattern and then suddenly they were not in the sky anymore but in a city, not a normal one, but an upside down city in what should be the sky.

"Welcome to the mirror dimension." Wanda said with a taunting smile.

 

# # #

(Logan)

 

X-mansion 

 

Logan stopped the Mini track loader, then he smelled the air: multiple scents were in the air despite this weather. Some of those scents were familiar, they came from the kids that often fought with the students of the institute. Logan’s body tensed, a fight was about to break out. He took his Talkie-walkie and said, “We have people incoming, I recognize some of the scents coming, prepare for attack.”

[R-roger that.] It was Bobby’s voice that answered him. The little guy didn’t like to have to fight but he could still throw down like a champ in the lower level simulations of the Danger Room.

The day was supposed to end on a high note. He has met his new kid and her hot mom that he planned to eventually seduce.

SNIKT. Logan deployed his claws and waited for the enemies to come; the alarm rang in the mansion and the defenses activated.

BOOM! Crash. The front walls and the gates to the Mansion simply crumble, tough and mean looking metahumans entered the property after having destroyed it. Logan recognized the Blob amongst them.

"Fuckers had to come in force, huh." Logan took a cigar from his winter jacket, put it in his mouth and used his Red Sox lighter. Breathing in and exhaling he started walking toward the intruders, he didn't care that he was outnumbered.

Fortunately, Ororo was there, landing at his side.  "Logan! What the hell is happening?!"

Logan turned to the black beauty and frowned. She wore the same clothes from earlier but she looked different, she was brighter. A new pendant hung at her neck, she smelled of earth, honey and ozone, her scent had changed somehow; in a way that Logan couldn't describe.

Nodding his head at the gathering of metahumans, Logan quipped, "Look for yourself, we are under attack."

From behind them some students ran toward them, some of them were in their X-men outfit or in their civies. Summers and Amara arrived at their sides, it was the blonde who spoke first.  "There’s at least fifty mutants coming toward us!"

"Meta-human." Logan corrected. 

Ororo looked at him with an expression that combined a raised eyebrow and a surprised gaping of the mouth.

Logan shrugged at the weather mistress. "My daughter doesn't like the M word…"

Ororo snorted. "Ah they got you too." 

Jean’s group was influencing them, they had the biggest numbers of powered people after the Brotherhood. Speaking of the Brotherhood, some smarmy bastard walked up to the front of the group. He was at least six feet and with brown hair and grey eyes. "X-men! Surrender and you won't be harmed!" He announced theatrically.

All the students finally arrived at Logan’s back and waited for his input. Charles Xavier was on the porch sitting on his mechanized wheelchair, looking tired and a bit scared by the number of metahumans who had come to wreck his house.

"Bub, are you serious?" Logan asked.

"Like a heart attack, Wolverine." The smarmy man laughed after passing a hand in his slicked back hair.  

Logan was about to laugh at that man's face but his radio beeped and a voice he learned to recognize called out to him from the device. [Dad!]

Instantly Logan took the radio and spoke into it. "Kid, is that you? How did you get on this frequency?"

He was worried, this was a short range radio and he didn't want the kid to be anywhere near this place. Laura dismissed his concerns and said, [That's not important, Jeanie is sending you reinforcements!]

This was good news, Ororo and Summers smiled at that. But would they be arriving in time? Logan asked that question aloud, "When are they arriving? The enemy is at the gate already."

The smarmy guy seemed to be impatient and ordered a charge.  Ororo floated into the sky and the sky became blanketed by grey clouds and it rumbled as lightning crackled in them.

[Now!] Laura’s childish voice rang and in a shower of blue light twenty people arrived, placing themselves between the Brotherhood and the X-men. The Metahumans in the brotherhood stopped their charges at the view of the newcomers.

Ten people in black armor with blue highlights and brimming with weapons on their shoulders, arms and legs. Logan recognized some of the kids who had been here earlier, but now they wore uniforms similar to the X-men but theirs seemed decently more armored. They also had gear with them that strangely reminded Logan of a flame thrower. They also had pistols but from what he could see by their outline they looked like no weapon he had ever seen before.

An armored figure detached themselves from the group and barked orders."Non-lethal takedown only, use Containment Foam." Her voice was filled with confidence and she reminded Logan of Peggy Carter on the field.

The armored woman then turned to the Brotherhood and shouted calmly and succinctly, “This is Commander Blue of the Ascendency. I command you to surrender and get on your knees, hands behind your head, if you don't you will not like the consequences.”

“NEVER!!” The same man who had been chosen as spokesperson shouted and ordered another charge. The brotherhood’s tanks were the first to start their stampede. The fliers were already in the sky only to be intercepted by the kids with power.

“You heard them boys, light them up.” She took her pistol from her thigh holster and in one smooth movement fired into the crowd. 

Blue electrical energy shot toward the Brotherhood and some of those confident in their power to resist energy weapons placed themselves in the way. A muscular man with yellow skin was the first to fall, unconscious after shouting in pain as the energy ran through his whole body. A force-field of blue energy encased the entire group, it was the redheaded sister of Jean Grey who created it while flying in the sky

"Miss Grey, create apertures now." Commander Blue ordered and just like she said, holes the size of baseballs opened.

The armored personnel ran to the force-field, placed the end of their sprayer, because Logan understood that these were sprayers. The woman ordered with a steely tone, "Foam them!!"

And just like that, dozens of the frontliners were sprayed by a yellow-white liquid. It was so sticky that some of the grunts were glued together and right on time, the liquid expanded into a foam-like substance, covering everyone who hadn't retreated. Everything seemed to be going well when the Grey girl responsible for the force-field was struck by a bolt of lightning shot by a woman with black hair and in a black skin-tight costume.

One of the fliers on their side tried to ram into her but she disappeared faster than the eye could see. The force-field crumbled.

“Fire mounted turrets capture those fuckers! And someone, go hunt that flying bitch with the lightning!” Commander Blue Hollered.

Two armored people let their sprayers fall on the ground, looked up, then thrusters in their boots and their backs deployed and they rose into the sky in pursuit. Surprising everyone at the feat. Logan spit the cigar and ran toward the metahumans and nailed a man with powers similar to Spyke’s, he had a boney armor and was naked. He stabbed him in the gut, swept out his legs under him and then slashed at his thighs. Screaming, the man began to bleed profusely. He left him there as he rolled to avoid a gout of fire directed at him, burning the man. Logan received some first degree burn, but they immediately healed.

A silver blur passed Logan and he immediately knew who it was. Pietro Maximoff, he stopped Summers from firing his eye beams at the flier who injured the force-field projector by punching him at high speed in the solar plexus. Summers was on the ground, breathing with difficulty. Standing over him, Maximoff grinned impishly and quipped, “Yo, Cyclops." He greeted his nemesis, but he looked more attentively at him and saw that he didn't wear his ruby glasses. "Huh, one eye, did you lose your shades?”

“Shut up, Pietro!” Summers fired his optic blast at Maximoff who simply avoided it by sidestepping. Summers got up and lunged at the speedster, intending to clock him but Maximoff took him into a cross counter and laid him out on the ground.  

“Leave him alone!” The ground shook, destabilizing most of the combatants as Amara aka Magma arrived at the rescue of her paramour.

Molten stones were fired at the speedster who simply walked to Amara by zigzagging between the projectiles. He arrived before the young woman who shone like fire in her magma form. Maximoff passed a hand through his hair and said with a confident tone, “Ah, Amy! Still with that stick in the mud, you know you could always upgrade with me?”

CRAKOOOOM!! A lightning bolt almost struck Maximoff, but before it did he simply backed away from Amara. The bolt ended up destroying a statue in the garden.

With googly eyes, Pietro saw Storm coming toward him with more lightning cracking in her hands. "Woops, Miss Munroe is on the warpath! Later, Amy!" He vanished like the speed demon he was and Amara growled at how infuriating he was.

It wasn’t good though as Quicksilver ran toward the Professor! Ororo who realized this, harried him by firing bolts of lightning at him or impeding him with strong gusts of wind.

Logan was fighting by disabling everyone by stabbing them or cutting something important. It was until he noticed that his adversaries no longer bled that he stopped. Someone was messing with his mind and his senses! The Wolverine turned on himself as he was thrown on the ground and when he looked up he saw Victor Creed looming over him. Rolling back and standing up in one smooth movement, claws first, Logan was about to fight his mortal enemy when he passed through Creed’s body.

The Wolverine looked surprised until another Victor appeared and kicked him in the guts this time, but Logan stabbed him at the same time as he collided with the fountain in the middle of the garden, destroying the cherubim’s statue in its middle. The water was frozen unfortunately and he landed with a grunt.

Logan looked as his clawed blades were covered in blood. He smelled Victor’s on them. *So Creed is really there and teaming up with a mind fucker.*

Speak of the devil and he shall appear, blonde hair, amber colored irises with vertical pupil, elongated canine in his mouth, and claws at the tips of his finger, the tall form of Victor Creed aka Sabertooth appeared in a haze of golden light, it was as if a shroud was being lifted from Logan’s eyes. 

“Ah, Logan. Funny seeing you in that state.” The suave and cultured voice of Creed that belied his savage appearance was always a strange dichotomy to Logan.

Logan spit to the side, not leaving Creed from his sight for a moment. He wiped his nose and sniffed in distaste as he said, “Vic. Didn’t know you needed someone to fight your battles for you, Bub.”

“Ah, none of that. I see the value of teaming up, after being beaten by you and your students the last time. Why should I restrict myself after all?” Creed smiled, playing with his claws, he slowly walked up to the fountain.

Logan extricated himself from the ruin of the fountain and stood up, dusting himself off. He had already healed the damage of being thrown into the stony decoration. He cracked his neck and placed his arms along his side and slowly made fists and let his claws contract and be out. They shone in the light of the fight around them. “You’re getting smarter, nice. You can read too? Because you should have seen the writing on the wall when you and your goons showed up. We aren’t alone, Bub.”

Logan jumped from the broken fountain to the ground covered in snow, still not letting Creed out of his sight. There was a shimmer and he saw exactly the moment when the illusion was applied to his foe. He tried to dismiss what was being fed to his brain and what was real, after all the fucker with the illusion couldn’t be that good. 

“Yes, I was somewhat surprised by the arrival of all the new Mutants and armored soldiers. Not that it will save you, Logan. I’ve come to settle our scores for good this time.” Logan heard the tiger man say as he finally located Creed’s real body by instinct.

Letting his body orient itself toward his foe, Logan boasted with a mocking tone. “As if you could. We’ve been at it for a long time.”

“Aaargh!” Logan jumped claws first at Creed who was solid this time, stabbed him in the flank but the tiger themed metahuman simply sliced his face off and kicked Logan from him.

The wolverine landed on the ground and suddenly lost sight of Creed. He tried to spot any depression on the snow or smells that closed in on him. But he was stabbed again by claws in his solar plexus and grunted in pain, he stabbed forward and tried to slice something. He saw a bit of blood fly, he barely cut the fucker. He was stabbed again on his left side, but stabbed back at Creed who was still invisible.

Logan could hear the grunts that Creed made each time that he stabbed him. The Wolverine disengaged from close combat and stepped back from the invisible foe as he avoided a swipe from him. Logan avoided a kick by lunging right as he felt the wind pressure come toward him. 

Fighting with someone who played on his senses was really annoying.

“Are your reliable senses betraying you, Wolverine?!” A voice announced from all sides. He recognized it, it was the same smarmy bastard who had spoken for the Brotherhood earlier.

“I have no idea of who you are, bub, but you are pissing me off.” Logan said as he avoided a swipe from Creed but stabbed into the foot that was presented to him. He could almost see it. The tiger themed man cried out. “I will get you for this Logan!”

“Come at me, bub!” Wolverine taunted.

But before Creed could charge at his ancient foe, three metal spheres rolled on the ground at his feet and green arcs of energy sprouted in a dome from them and Creed began to seize and his scream rang into the air. “AAAAAHHHHH.” Creed fell on the ground, his eyes, nose and ears full of blood running down and there was foam in his mouth.

One of the full black armored men from earlier appeared at Logan’s side as he said, “Try to heal from that you fucking tomcat!”

Then a familiar woman’s voice could be heard from behind Logan. “Foam the illusionist, Dragoon.”

Logan turned to see the armored woman’s black and blue armor and… was this a gold ‘A’ insignia on the right of her breastplate? Yes it was. They clearly had ranks, top notch and futuristic weapons like those grenades that took out Creed. He didn’t want to know how painful they were and was glad that they were his allies for now.

“Yes, Commander.” The ‘Dragoon’ turned to the left and took the sprayer from his side and pointed it to where the supposed illusionist was located.

With a purposeful stride, the Dragoon walked toward his prey. Suddenly, the same man with the smarmy rapey look appeared and in a panicky voice began to say as he stumbled back toward the destroyed gates, “What?! How can you see me?! No, I won’t be captur-”

“Shut up you bastard and get foamed!” and the Dragoon sprayed the man, sure he tried to dodge but somehow the armored soldier's reflexes were faster.

Smarmy man was covered in yellow liquid and then it began to expand into foam he was swiftly encased in a ball, trapping him quickly. “Ugh. No! Get it out of my clothes! You barbarian, this is an expensive suit!”

Logan laughed at how the man was handled. Commander Blue turned to the still seizing Creed and pointed a hand at him. “Foam Sabertooth as well.”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am!” The same soldier saluted, a marine salute to be accurate, then he proceeded to spray the metahuman, quite thoroughly.

Another armored soldier came at the Commander's side and handed her a tablet with some kind of electronic screen that Logan was curious about. “Pain grenades are working as intended, Ma’am.”

Meanwhile Logan looked at how his fellow X-men fared, and Ororo nailed Maximoff with a lightning discharge and made him skid into a tree. Summers, the boy scout, was fighting with the malodorant Toad and some other metahumans who had surrounded him. Obviously the young man was saved by Magma throwing molten stone at them. She didn’t care that she wounded them at all. The girl knew that sometimes you had to kill your enemy to live. Cannon-ball was protecting his sister and breaking a lot of faces.

Commander Blue kept giving orders from behind Logan who sought an opportunity to speak to her.“Good, now put that illusionist to sleep. His squealing is annoying.”

The smarmy man who had kept trying to speak and whining was silenced by a soldier pointing a gauntlet at him, then something shot at him. It was a hypodermic needle filled with some kind of glowing purple liquid. Smarmy man fell asleep almost instantly.

“How did you find him?” Logan asked Commander Blue.

The woman turned toward him, sizing him up and looking rather unkempt with all his clothes in a raggedy state. “Who?”

“That bastard with the illusion.”

“Ah. Him.” She snorted at the man who was now asleep. “He cannot influence us with our psionic blockers.” She showed him a rectangular box on the belt of her armor.

Logan nodded. The woman took her pistol and fired at one of the remaining attacking Metas. “Stop dawdling, Mister Howlett; there’s more of those rogue Metahumans to arrest.”

“Sure.” Shrugging the Wolverine spotted the perfect occasion to save Paige Guthrie from being burned by a fire manipulator with a canister on his back and a weird costume. He launched himself at the fire manipulator and simply cut one of the pipes linked to his hand sprayer.

The same flying metahuman female who had taken out Julia Grey was duking it out with the fliers, but she was too fast, she was tricky to fight as she blinded and shocked them with lightning. Commander Blue chose to call for backup to wrap this entire mission. “We need more bodies on the field! Send some powered as well!”

 

# # #

(Patricia 'Patsy' Walker-Jones)

 

She and Anna-marie teleported from the limo after she shared her power with her. They arrived to what could only be called chaos, this was beyond what they had expected to happen. They looked as metahumans fought against each other and Jean’s Dragoons were helping by not killing any of them. Patricia looked around her and saw Commander Blue, she took Anna’s hand and pulled her toward the woman.

“Miss Hi-” Patricia was about to call out the Commander by her real name when the armored woman turned toward her.

Her helmet's visor became transparent to let the woman’s doe-like brown eyes be visible. She pierced the young girl with her gaze as she said, “On the field, I am Commander Blue, we have call-signs, use them.”

Anna-Marie snorted at that and Patricia straightened her posture and stood ramrod with a salute. “Yes, Ma’am.”

Commander Blue fired her energy pistol at a big guy with a lot of fat, he was blonde and charging at the three women. He was hit by the energy bolt and began seizing immediately. Patsy could see that the Commander was tempted to double tap him, but as the big boy didn’t get up, a second hit might kill. Jean had invented those guns to be lethal when hit twice by the energy weapon. One of the nearby Dragoons went to foam him.

The woman looked at her energy pistol and placed it into its holster to charge it again to full, then looked up at Patsy. “Good, Anzu Moonstone, see that light show up there?” She said as she raised her hand.

Anzu was the name of the powered operator in Jean’s organization, they were represented by the Anzu bird, that was half-lion, half-eagle and it showed on the logo on their UMF uniforms. Patricia didn’t like the name Jean had chosen, but she wanted to be able to use her powers to help friends, so she accepted it. But that wasn’t important, Patricia raised her head and she saw the situation.

There was a woman glowing in white light in the sky wheezing between Patricia’s friends and the armored operators in the grey sky who had ranged options, couldn’t pin her down. She was fast and shooting lightning at everyone and cackling like crazy. “Oh, that’s not good. Where’s Julia? She could take out that bitch!”

The Commander sighed in frustration and told Patricia and Anna-Marie. “Anzu Julia was ambushed by that glowing bitch like you said, but as you can see she’s too fast, even for the propulsion of the Achilles Armors. After Jean and Hans, you are our fastest flier. Go take her out.” The woman ordered.

Patricia didn’t have to think, Jean had told her how you couldn’t hesitate in that kind of situation; Jessica, her big sister, hadn’t been receptive to the redhead’s talk about being decisive, but she was. The young woman asked the Commander, “How do you want her?”

“Alive if possible.” Was the only answer she received.

“Roger.” She mock saluted again.

Commander Blue turned to Anna-Marie. “Anzu Rogue, we have some problems with that guy right here. Even Logan cannot go past his shield with his Adamantium claws, can you help?”

She showed him a tall young man that was surrounded by some Dragoons who kept trying to spray him with containment foam; but it slid from some kind of field around the guy’s body.

“I will try. I’m not really good with Photokinesis.” The brunette closed her hands, and made them into fists. Silver light surrounded her hands.

Patsy looked with apprehension, Jean had made her one of the people Anna-Marie used for training her absorption powers and she was used to sharing her abilities with her. She generated blasts of concentrated photons from her fists, but flight still eluded her as it wasn’t her original ability. Patricia worried because this was the first combat situation Anna-Marie was in.

Commander Blue dismissed Anna's worry by saying. “He still needs to breathe and see, so it means that light can pass through. Simply throw a laser at him or something.”

“Taking off!” Patricia announced while Commander Blue spoke to Anna-Marie.

Patricia was quickly into the school’s airspace and could see some of her friends take out some of the enemy fliers quite brutally. But she could understand because they harmed Julia. *Jeanie isn’t going to like that either.*

She quickly arrived to support Jessica who got toyed with as she wasn’t flying as fast as the glowing bitch. Patricia’s sister dodged the blast of lightning and luminous concussive blast of the woman as she could see them coming. It was like watching two fighter jets dogfighting. The redhead was about to throw herself at the situation but remembered that she needed to think before attacking. 

“If that bitch is too fast, just attacking her with single target shots won’t work. Let’s go with Area of Effects.”

Patricia focused and did just like in training and remembered what Jean had told her.

 

***

 

“Patsy, is light a particle or a wave?” Jean said as she brought Patricia to the base’s shooting range where she experimented with her more exotic weapons.

It was a cavernous space with some level of armor made of this new metal Jean called Adamantium on the walls and ceiling. There was a lot of futuristic LED lighting through the walls and ceiling illuminating everything. The room was three hundred meters long and fifty meters wide. Far into the distance, Patricia could see big targets at the end of the cavern and some mannequins covered in armors resembling what Jean’s Dragoons wore. 

In comparison, Jean wore her blue lab’s bodysuit with her lab coat over it, while Patricia was wearing her star spangled black, red and gold armored UMF suit. They were similarly resistant to heat and impact like the Dragoon armors.

There were stands and a sort of metallic balustrade that served as firing lanes. Patricia turned to her best friend and said, “I have no idea, Jeanie.”

Patricia had never been good at science, she preferred biology to it. Jean looked at her young friend and Patricia almost missed the pity in her eyes. The older girl patted her cheek and said patronizingly, “Ah, it seems I need to give you a simplified lecture about what light is.”

Patricia pinched Jean’s right arm, making her laugh at the retaliation. Then they walked up to the balustrade in metal and plascrete. Jean leaned her bottom against it and looked into Patricia’s eyes. “Light can be described both as a wave and as a particle.”

Jean began to explain to her with diagrams made of  light, those were called constructs by the older redhead. Patricia hoped to show the same control of her powers. Watching Jean do it effortlessly made her even more determined to succeed. “When we’re thinking of light as being made of particles, these particles are called “photons”. Photons have no mass, and each one carries a specific amount of energy. Meanwhile, when we think about light propagating as waves, these are waves of electromagnetic radiation.”

Patricia had a thoughtful look pasted on her face after Jean's words. Then her eyes lit up with recognition. “I think we covered this in my science class!”

“Yes, this is basic 8th grade stuff, but I know that science isn’t your cup of tea, Patsy.” Jean said derisively.

Patricia stuck her tongue out and giggled when her friend tried to poke her with her fingers. They played a bit for another moment before they became serious. “As I was saying… It’s worth remembering, Patsy, that light — regardless of whether it’s behaving like a wave or particles — will always travel at roughly 300,000 kilometres per second. The speed of light as it travels through space or another vacuum is the fastest phenomenon in the universe, as far as scientists on this planet know.”

The younger girl frowned. “Where are you going with this? I thought we were going to train me in my Photon-whatyamacallit powers?”

Jean smiled at her and simply said, “Well, first you must know what Photons are, my dear. Light is made of photons. One of the components of your power.”

Cheeks reddening, Patricia averted her eyes, understanding that she should know this. “I feel so dumb…”

“Hey, don't sweat it.” Jean patted her shoulders and promised to help her with science as much as she could; this put a smile on Patricia's face and she was hugged because she was too cute. It was in those moments that she wished Jean was a boy, she's excellent boyfriend material. But Patricia was straighter than an arrow.

The older redhead then started to explain anew. She turned to the firing lane and said as she glowed with a red aura wrapped around her, “So, I want you to be able to use your ranged options like this: Single target and widespread swarm, similar to an artillery shrapnel shell striking the targets from multiple angles.” 

“Just like guided particle beams, watch.” Jean raised her two hands before her in the direction of the big target at the end of the shooting range. Thousands of hard light constructs in the form of birds appeared everywhere in the range, some even were as close to the firing lane.

There was an ominous humming noise coming from Jean’s hands as golden orbs of energy contracted into them. She seized the orbs of lights into her hands and her palm shone with the same golden light. Then all of a sudden, golden energy beams fired from Jean's palms, sending a widespread stream of particle beams to hit first the closest targets that popped like balloons by the same beam without stopping until it reached the big target at the end of the shooting range.

With a bang the walls began to heat up into orange incandescence; Jean eeped when she noticed that she didn’t hold back much with her widespread shot; she closed her hands and then the light show simply stopped.

Patricia looked at her friend, she was powerful and she wanted to never have to face her in a real fight. “Jeanie… you are scary.”

*And kinda impossibly cool.*

Jean’s face beamed and she hugged the little redhead. “Aww, thank you.”

 

***

 

Just like Jean had shown her she unleashed a stream of widepsread particle beams, but contrary to her best friend who was able to brighten the sky with thousands of streams, she shot one hundred of them. The bitch that was toying with Patricia’s friends noticed the salvo coming toward her and cockily avoided it and moved at high speed toward Patricia only to be hit in the back by a dozen particles beam powerful enough to burn her skin. Patricia rose into the sky at her fastest speed and  then lunged at the flying bitch with a kick that slammed into the woman’s abdomen until they crashed into the roof of the X-mansion.

Patricia looked down at the ravenette, and punched her two times before she could do anything at full force until she simply stopped to move. Sighing, the photokinetic looked around herself and saw that she landed into some kind of greenhouse with a lot of colored flowers.

“This looks expensive, I hope I won’t get in trouble.” Then she shrugged, Jean would fix it, she always did after Patricia begged her.

Patricia heard the familiar ringing sounds notifying her of someone contacting her on her communicator. She raised her arms and took the call by pushing a button 

[Anzu Moonstone, report.] This was the voice of Commander Blue.

“I got the bitch.” Patricia’s foot didn’t leave the neck of the raven haired woman, now that she looked at her clearly, the redhead noticed that she had streaks of silver in her hair. 

[Is she still alive?] The Commander asked for precision.

Patricia took her boot from the woman’s neck and crouched down next to her and checked her pulse. It was beating. “Yeah, she’s just knocked out, she’s tough.”

[Excellent work, we are mopping up the rest of them, but we are receiving heavy resistance from some members of the Brotherhood with the more exotic powers. Could you bring the woman down for us to foam her and tranquilize her?]

“I can do that, coming down in a bit.” Patricia loaded the woman on her shoulder and flew at high speed toward Commander Blue’s location.

 

# # #

(Charles Xavier)

X-mansion porch

Charles didn’t expect so much violence to come their way. The brutality with which the newcomers have fought Magneto’s force was shocking. The professor looked on as one young Peter Parker began to move through a throng of attackers and use some kind of web-like material to bind them. The futuristic armored people began to cover everyone in some kind of liquid that turned into foam and subdued the attackers non-lethally.

Amara Aquilla was setting fire to his garden and weakening the mansion foundation with her Earthquakes, Angel was helping the fliers in the sky and Wolverine was fighting a more cunning than usual Sabertooth.

Then he felt as his mansion rattled as something hit the roof and he sighed, Charles was going to have to fix the school again. This was another example of why people with powers such as theirs needed a firm guiding hand to make them… behave. The Brotherhood was being taken care of swiftly, this frightened and impressed Charles at the same time. Those armored people were clearly trained and had technologies and methods to subdue mutants; this was the future that he wanted to avoid, his people getting hunted down methodically like this.

A burst of white light surged in the sky and as if he was seeing through glass, an aperture opened into the air, fifty meters over the garden. An auburn haired young woman with a dark red coat passed through the aperture, she was followed by two other armored people. Then something that truly frightened Charles appeared; a nine feet tall winged woman held a familiar man with red armor with a purple cape by his long mane of white hair like a bag of trash.

Charles’ eyes almost popped out of his head as he saw his old friend’s hanging in the air and struggling like a madman. “Erik?!”

The giant winged woman began to speak in an eerily familiar voice. “Hello, members of the Brotherhood! Surrender! Your Leader has fallen! I will give you ten seconds to comply, if you don’t, you won’t like the result!!!” She showed all the mutants that were still fighting their leader dangling from her hand and screaming in pain.

Some of the mutants stopped fighting, others simply didn’t and that was a mistake. Green beam of lights shot from her wings only to strike at the non-compliant mutant who simply stopped moving and then fell on the snow or the stone wrought road.

“Miss Grey!” Charles shouted in horror at the scene.

Charles felt a hand holding his neck, almost strangling him, then Jean Grey looked down at him; or at least he thought so as she wore some kind of metal visor obscuring half her face. “Shush, Professor, the adults are taking charge of this.”

He felt a telekinetic hand on his left cheek two times, then he was released. 

The young woman slowly floated down, then walked toward her subordinate while pulling Erik by his hair. Erik tried to make her let go of his hair by beating on her calves, but it had no effect.

“Commander Blue, ask for backup, we need to foam everyone and bring them to Egypt base ASAP.” Jean Grey ordered.

The sharp woman in black and blue armor nodded. “Yes, Ma’am!”

Charles quickly wheeled toward the small gathering when the giant form of Jean Grey was tackled by a black and white missile, it was a young woman with a spider themed costume. She held onto Jean like a baby Koala onto her mother. “Jeanie! You won!”

“Yep, I did.”She said, dangling Erik by his hair.

The spider themed girl giggled at that; everyone looked at the sorry figure of the leader of the Brotherhood.

Cyclops, Amara and the other students gathered around and placed themselves at Charles' back. Some of the boys reddened as they watched the scene, some of the girls finally realized that Jean was clearly not a threat to them as they now understood that she was probably liking girls better than boys. Slowly, Jean made her winged form disappear like snow under the sun, only leaving her true form. She wore a black full body skin-suit with red accents.

The black haired spider girl was still clinging to her. “You’re so getting lucky tonight when all that shit is done with.”

Jean Grey let go of Magneto who slumped on the ground and held onto his shoulder where his arm should have been. Charles couldn’t believe that his friend had been reduced to such a state, but Jean Grey was obviously too strong for him; he had been defeated soundly, just like him in the Cerebro chamber.

“It better be! The shitstorm with Magneto here was bothersome.” She said as she made Erik float by just looking at him.

She walked toward him, hand in hand with the other girl as she asked her defeated foe, “Hey Magneto, you still hanging on?”

Charles looked on as his old friend was being toyed with, hanging upside down. Like a cat playing with a mouse, the two girls giggled at the man’s predicament. The professor found this treatment rather cruel, they trampled on his dignity as a human being casually.

“Unhand m-me… Monster.” Erik croaked, a bit of his blood flowed from the base of his shoulder where he missed an arm.

Jean Grey tilted her head and showed a predatory smile. “Oh, I am a monster now? That's rich from you, Magneto.”

Charles saw the expression of disbelief on his old friend’s face. “I’m certainly not a saint, but I’m not like you! You stole and devour-”

A red construct appeared into the air and it slammed on magneto’s mouth, silencing him. “Ah ah ah, no spoiler!”

Everyone looked curiously at Jean Grey, they wanted to know what she wanted to hide that Erik was aware of, Charle’s was the same. Ororo landed at his side at the same moment, not looking at him as she was glaring at Erik with venom in her eyes. Charles tried to read into her mind but to his shock, his psionic tendrils were rebuffed by a powerful force. The black beauty looked at him this time and he saw that he was going to have to explain himself later as hatred was on her face.

*What’s happening? Normally she’s an open book to me.* Charles thought as he averted his eyes from Ororo’s.

Jean Grey continued to speak. “You LOST, and now your ass is mine, Magneto.”

“No Jean, he is mine.” Wanda landed at Jean’s side interrupting her rant.

Wanda Maximoff, Erik’s daughter, walked toward her restrained and floating father. Charles could see how angry she felt, what Erik had done to her before had left a huge scar on her psyche, reeking of betrayal and broken parental love. Charles suddenly was afraid of what that young woman was about to do.

The spider themed girl looked between Wanda and Erik, asking, “Oh, are you going to kill him?”

With hands glowing, Wanda stopped before her father and she answered the other girl, “I want to.” 

Jean Grey took the construct that silenced Magneto and the leader of the Brotherhood breathed in, then looked fearfully at his daughter. “W-Wanda, darling please don’t do this.”

Slap! Wanda hit her father’s cheek with the back of her dominant hand, making the floating Erik turn on himself clockwise. “Shut up, daddy.” 

It was said with such dripping sarcasm that Jean shouted encouragement of ‘Atta girl!’

“Did she just PIMP slap her dad?!” Spyke, one of Charles' students, commented.

Jean Grey stopped the man from rotating any more and let him fall on the ground at Wanda’s feet. Charles was fearing for his friend and began to wheel to Erik, and stop this when Jean Grey surprised him by stopping Wanda.

The redhead put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Wanda, you don’t need that stain on your soul, you know. I know you hate him, but he is still your father. Remember what Miss Harkness told you about revenge?”

Wanda looked into the other girl’s eyes. “Jean?”

The redhead pointed her index finger at Erik and said, “Killing him… It won't make you feel better... You might be thinking that it will also provide great relief from the pain that you are feeling or some sort of satisfaction. Sadly, evidence shows that people who seek revenge instead of forgiving or letting go, tend to feel worse in the long run, Wanda.”

The auburn haired teenager then looked at Erik for a long time, Charles could see different feelings appearing on her face. The red light emanating from Wanda’s hands suddenly extinguished, then she said with venom in her voice, “No, no you are not worth it, Magneto. I won’t kill you, like you deserve. Seeing you at my feet, beaten and maimed is enough for me.”

The smile she made, chilled Charles' spine. Jean Grey passed an arm around the girl’s waist and kissed her cheek.

“Yo! That chick is hard core!” Charles heard Spyke from behind him.

Wanda turned to where Charles and his party were and scowled at them. Then there was a slapping sound as one other boy reprimanded Spyke. “Shut up Evan! You don’t want her to roast you, man!”

It was Bobby Drake who just saved Evan from a bitter fate, Charles was sure.

“Calm down, Wanda. They are not our enemies.” Jean Grey then began to whisper something into the scary auburn haired girl's ear. Then Charles heard her say more loudly to everyone, “Let’s show him that we can reach his goal, but with better methods, Wanda. That he had been doing evil and strayed from his path. ”

Wanda nodded and then briefly hugged the redhead. Charles could see the spider themed frown at this display of intimacy. *Maybe there's something I can exploit there. They are not as united as I thought.*

But that thought completely disappeared as more and more armored people appeared in a flash of blue light and flying vehicles looking like helicopters but with coaxial propellers landed in the garden with more troops. It was crazy, to see this many people appear out of thin hair and with a lot of weapons. Charles didn’t understand how a teenager could have gathered so many resources when last year she lived in a modest house while her parents were well off, but not rich like Cresus.

"Commander! Patch up Magneto for me." Jean hollered to the armored woman who was managing the prisoners and placing devices on them. 

Commander Blue looked at Jean and nodded as she heard her orders, next she turned toward the rest of her people and yelled, "Medics, you heard the boss! Get to it!"

People clad in white skin-suits with red crosses on their arms and wearing really compact backpacks ran toward Erik and began treating him. Charles looked as Erik was instantly put to sleep by a medic who shot a plastic gun that fired a tranquilizer dart at his neck. Then they began to stem the flow of blood coming from Erik’s shoulder. Charles chose this moment to wheel toward Jean and her entourage.

He stopped before her and said, “Miss Grey, thank you for your help. We would have been overwhelmed without you."

Jean Grey looked at him and with a dismissive shrug of her shoulder said, "Sure, prof. You're welcome." Her arm snaked back around Wanda’s waist while the other girl with the spider themed outfit held onto her other arm. She smiled mockingly at Charles, while looking expectantly at him.

Paige, who was behind Charles mouthed, "Why is that girl still acting like such a bitch?"

Slap! "Shut up Paige, don't be ungrateful." Samuel Guthrie reprimanded his sister by slapping her arm.

Worried that if she angered the redhead, she would retaliate. But his sister was rather stubborn… "But big brother…"

Samuel swatted his little sister's forearm again. "I said shut up."

"Fiiiine." Paige said as she rubbed her arm while glaring at her  brother.

Charles chuckled at this, noticing that everyone from his side laughed a bit at Paige. The tension in the air lightened with this comical interaction between brother and sister. Charles coughed in his hand and prepared his speech. "Miss Grey, I want to thank you as well for leaving Erik alive…”

The redhead shook her head and tightened her arm around Wanda waist, the scary auburn haired girl leaned against Jean while still looking at her fallen father. “That’s Wanda’s decision. I just... I don't want her to regret anything. She’s my family now, and she’s loved.”

It could be felt in her voice that Jean Grey was truthful, she cared a lot about the well being of this one girl. This reassured Charles, the girl was dangerous and unpredictable, but her heart seemed to be in the right place.

"I understand… Miss Grey, could you do me a favor?" Charles asked a bit hesitantly.

Jean made a sign to the two girls at her side to unhand her by rolling her shoulders, they quickly obeyed and Jean crossed her arms and said, "Let me hear it, it better be good."

“Could you… could you please leave Erik with me, I would remand him to the correct authorities.” Charles said as he looked at the sorry state of his friend, he had been crippled just like he had been. These kinds of changes tended to change a man, for the better, but also for worse.

Jean looked like she thought about it, then she nodded, giving Charles hope that he would save his friend from a dire fate at the hand of the brutal teenager until she said, “No.”

Just like that she had trampled on his feelings and hopes. Everyone looked shocked with how casually Jean had done so. Some of the girls and boys glared at her for being so disrespectful toward their mentor. Charles couldn’t help to ask her, “No? Why?”

Jean just shrugged. "Magneto isn't my prisoner, the one who defeated him is Wanda and he's her father she should choose what to do with him."

"What!?" Charles’ eyes fell on the Scarlet Witch. He wasn’t alone, everyone from the X-men looked at Wanda, they had thought that it was Jean who had fought Magneto because she’s clearly the strongest metahumans here. Wanda glared at everyone, not liking to be under the spotlight at all.

Jean turned to Wanda and asked her with a sickeningly sweet tone, “Wanda dear, what do you want done with your dad?”

The teen witch folded her arms under her chest and began to think for a moment before asking, “You finished the Birdcage right?”

*The Birdcage? This sounds like a prison…* Charles thought worriedly.

An hologram appeared from the wrist computer on Jean’s left arm, A construct of light showing a mountain and numbers. She then looked at Wanda. “Yeah, it was finished last week.”

That scared Charles even more, a teenager with her private jail and wasn’t shy about using it to throw anyone she didn’t like in it. He now understood that if he pissed her off even more than before, Jean Grey could just make him ‘disappear’ and no one would know where he was.

Jean Grey smiled at him, reading him like a book and waved at him; a sure sign that yes, she would do this without remorse.

Wanda looked at her father that was being taken care of and said, “Put him there, depower him as well and throw away the keys.”

“Very well, dear.” Jean grinned, this was a fitting punishment to her.

It was news for everyone in the X-men bar Warren that Jean could take away powers. Charles and Ororo now understood why Erik thought Jean was a monster, she was able to take away their powers. Of course they had no idea of what had happened for him to call her this, but they thought this was it. Some of the X-girls had stepped back further from Jean, understanding that they shouldn’t antagonize her anymore.

Charles must have lost some IQ points because of his fear because his survival instincts had gone off when he started shouting, “You’ve got no right to imprison or take his gift from Erik! Leave him-”

Like the crack of a whip, Jean interrupted him in his rant with, “Professor Xavier, why don’t you shut up right now and be useless somewhere else?”

There was Utter silence at Jean’s words. The young woman looked fed up with the man right now.

“Oh, burn!” Cindy exclaimed.

Peter Parker who was finally free from his prisoner wrangling and had been walking toward the gathering heard Jean and quipped, “Wooha. Old man, do you need the burn ward?”

Jean came before Charles, hands on hips as she loomed over him. “Seriously Charlie, the guy intended to kill you and you care about him that much?”

Charles sighed. “He and I we… are friends he wouldn’t have harmed me.” He tried to convince the redhead when someone else interrupted.

“I know my father, and he might not have harmed you, but what about the people around you?” Wanda said offhandedly. 

Jean continued that line of thinking and told everyone exactly what Magneto intended for them. “The guy gathered fifty Metahumans to ravage this place. Do you think any of your students would have survived, and not been taken and brainwashed by this dirty fucker Mastermind? This is what he had in store for your students and staff.”

The redhead looked into Charles’ expression, seeking any sense or disgust or remorse for this plan that Erik had. She found none, and she made an unladylike snort as she commented loudly, “Ah, yeah I forgot who I was speaking to for a moment, you’re still a hypocrite who believes in his own hype.”

This triggered some of the girls and boys of the Xavier’s institute to ask:

“Charles, why would you defend him? He went too far this time!” Ororo cried out.

"Wait, is that true?!" This was Warren Worthington asking, Charles didn’t have enough time to work on him and regretted it now.

He turned to his students and saw the incredulous and doubtful expression etched onto their faces, Ororo and Logan were judging him.

"Professor?" Amara asked for clarifications.

Charles raised his hands in placation and said calmly by emitting an aura of calm, “Everyone, please we will speak about this later.” It literally hurt him to do this but he bore on the pain, he asked himself why his body reacted this way, it had never done that before. He then turned to Jean and said with a painful expression on his face, “I assure you, Miss Grey, that Erik will be punished for his actions, I just don’t want him to...”

“You don’t care do you? About anyone but you and your lofty ideals.” Jean once again interrupted him, not letting him speak.

The professor showed his most earnest face, it would fool anyone, but Jean knew him like the palm of her hand, the man even with all his feelings and sins that she restored was still a snake. “I care, Miss Grey. Please, believe me.”

Charles hoped that his people would help him pressure the girl into surrendering Erik, but no one moved, for the first time, none of his brainwashed help were taking his side. 

With a dry chuckle, Jean argued, “It’s hard to believe in you old man. You broke my trust three times already. I can barely understand why the people around you still follow you. But somehow they do believe in you. What do you stand for again? What makes you different from Magneto?”

That took him by surprise, Charles wasn’t used to having to defend his dream this way, people either shut up or believed him thanks to his trust aura.  “It is the fact that I believe in equality, Miss Grey. I believe in humankind's capacity for kindness and compassion, I believe that mutants can eventually coexist peacefully with them.”

She laughed and waved him off. “Yeah, yeah I know this. You’ve been feeding that koolaid to everyone for over thirty years. But what have you done to support that goal? What have you done for our people, are you able to stop those fuckers in the government from experimenting on the weaker metahumans? Sure, you teach young mutants to hone their powers, kudos for that. But what about helping them when they graduate and leave this school?”

This was an excellent point, Ororo and Logan have been going around the country to gather kids and teach them control of their power and school them. Charles had only been writing books about genetics and participated in seminars, hinting about how mutations in the human genome were far reaching and nothing more. 

But nothing more was done, students have come and gone from the institute, certainly with more control over their abilities or able to have a modicum of normal life; but Charles had never gone out of his way to do more. This was why he found himself unable to say anything back to Jean when she asked her questions. “...”

“You take them from their parents, fill their heads with speeches of equality and kumbaya songs, then you leave them without structure in the end when they graduate from this place.” Jean accused with a cold glare.

This passionate speech had only one goal, to force the students to think about their future after they left this place. And to sow doubts in Charles; the professor wasn’t worried, he had time to work on everyone here to solidify their loyalty, but she was still more powerful than him and… the girl was blunt to a fault, but she had the uncanny ability to get her point across. Charles projected that one or two students might leave after this, but it was no skin off his nose, he could still find more of them with Cerebro.

Just like he had predicted the whispers already started. The girls and the boys started talking about their thoughts.

"I never thought about it… can he help us find jobs when we’re done here?"

“Maybe? But… we can’t all depend on one man to do stuff for us. Right?”

"But he keeps boasting about his contacts in high places, he should be able to do that at least."

Charles was stopped from listening to the students from the institute as Jean Grey began to say, “The answer to all of my questions is: still nothing, you have connections in high places, sure. But you do nothing with them beyond opening this school and gathering a following. This place looks more and more like a cult to me.”

The gallery commented at that revelation, and Charles closed his eyes in frustration. He was going to have to shuffle this current crop of students away from the school at this point.

One of the girls gasped in outrage as she said, “She’s joking right?!”

“She’s just mouthing because she’s pissed.” The distinctive voice of Paige Guthrie was heard and she reacted like Charles expected, like a good little brainwashed farm girl.

When Charles opened his eyes, he saw how disappointed Jean was from hearing the girl, but then again, so far none of the guests seemed to like the farm girl.

Amara Aquilla spoke in that commanding tone that Charles was trying to break her from using. 

“You know she may have a point… A secluded place, nine or so teens with barely three people on staff and the professor giving us classes of ethics, but not from other famous people like Lincoln or King, just his own. And the definition of a cult is: A cult is a group or movement held together by a shared commitment to a charismatic leader or ideology. It has a belief system that has the answers to all of life's questions and offers a special solution to be gained only by following the leader's rules. Now that I see it, it describes us to a T”

The Nova Roman princess was still considered the leader of the group even though he was grooming Scott for the position; a position that Charles now thought that the young man wasn’t going to get since he was more of a follower. Now that he had his normal vision back, he was going to be hard to work on. 

Him getting together with Amara had clearly made him become subordinate to her. Everyone listened to her and didn’t say anything, Charles felt a lot of gazes targeted at his back.

Jean Grey laughed as she heard the comment of the Roma Novan Princess. “You have some quick study here, I see. You know Charlie, I should thank you, let me tell you a little tidbit, everyone that you’ve trained so far, I found them and gave them work in my own organization. I thank you for training them. But just like I told you, Old man. You should just stick to training them on how to handle their power and not push your ideals on them. They are not going to be ready for what’s coming next.”

This startled Charles, was Jean Grey aware of a situation that concerned their people that he didn’t know was about to happen? He was afraid that it was something that the girl had put in motion. “What is coming? Have you put something into motion…?”

Jean raised a finger and said in a patronizing tone, “Ah ah ah, you’d like to know huh, too bad I’m done talking to you; If you’ll excuse me, I have better things to do with my time right now.” She waved at Ororo and… Amara who awkwardly waved back. Scott Summers sheepishly waved goodbye as well, then turned to his girlfriend and worried about her current state, Amara’s clothes were torn and she was bleeding from shallow wounds.

The redhead gave her back to everyone as she turned on her heels and gave instructions to her subordinate. “Commander, bring all those people back to the Birdcage. I will stay to stop them acting up. Some of them are waking up.”

And just as she said all that, all the foamed people who had been fitted with the device from earlier on in their yellow cocoon began to disappear one after the other to wherever this ‘Birdcage’ was located. Charles now understood that Jean Grey was going to make him long for the days that his only rivals were Magneto and The Hellfire club; she had technology and resource clearly well in advance from anyone he knows on Earth and she was clearly using normal human as well as mutant as her troops; she represented what he has been preaching about, cooperation between mutants and the mundane people. 

Right now he felt like a fake, what she had asked him earlier hurt him deeply *I did nothing but spout pretty words, but I still believe in the cause. I am not wrong, I have plans that I cannot take back, I went too far to back off from the promised Utopia that Lillandra and I have in mind. In the end, Jean Grey will have to join it when the time comes…*

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A/N: And that's Magneto and Charles dealt with.

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