Chapter 26- Ambush in the Jungle

Ancient Preserve, Antarctica- Northeast of the Citadel, 2008 February 13 (Noon)

Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto)-

Erik and Sam had been walking for the last couple of hours now, his son would stop by to warn them of any dangers ahead of them but otherwise, it was just the two of them. And she wouldn't stop humming a rather repetitive song. This not only was odd behavior for her, as she was usually the quiet type. Unless she was trying to convince someone to watch some show or movie she had seen. But what bothered him more than that was the overly cheerful nature of the song.

"Something I should know?" He asked her as they continued to walk. He pulsed his powers and only felt the metal of his armor, and the other two's safety rings pinged to him. Quicksilver's in the collar of his suit. And Basilisk's in the belt of her pants.

She was ahead of him, pushing or breaking the plants that were in their way when she needed to. She easily lifted a fallen log and tossed it aside as she hummed. “Mmm, no, not really.”

He took a deep breath, before saying. "I think you need to steady your expectations, Sam. Yes, Nath'aniel seemed to be a decent guy. But we've only known him for a couple of days. Don't expect it to all end in sunshine and rainbows."

She stopped marching when he said that. "You do think I'm good enough for him? That I'm ugly, a freak?" Her tone clearly tells Erik that she was offended by his suggestion.

"That is not what I meant and you know it." He snapped. She turned around and looked down at him since she was after all more than a foot taller than him.

Erik took another breath as he reminded himself that he had agreed to have to handle things like this when he formed the Brotherhood. So after letting his breath out, he continued to speak. "I only wanted to urge you caution. Exodus and I wanted to know if he sought revenge against Atlantis, and he clearly stated to me that his plans are to revive his people. That he seeks compatible women, plural. Which means even if you do get him to agree to go further with you, I am unsure that he will stop looking for others, and you need to ask yourself if you are 'ok' with that?"

Sam's face was always hard for him to read, her large beak-like nose covering much of her cheeks that he usually used to gauge a person's feelings. Basilisk's eyes however were very animate and her eyebrows said her mind was still made, but then they arched suddenly and she reached out and shoved Erik to the ground.

Anger was his first response. Nothing he had said justified her attacking him. But then something blurred between them. And then she raised her arms up to protect her head. Erik looked to his left and saw a primitive spear stuck in the ground. The dirt and tree root around it was singed like the stick was overly hot or something.

More spears flew near them and struck her. And while her flesh didn't seem to burn, her top did. Like the spears were oversized cigarettes. She turned to face her attackers but still held up all four of her hands in an effort to protect her eyes and face.

Erik reached into himself, letting his focus all pour into his powers. But still, he felt nothing new. Then it dawned on him that if their attackers were fellow mutants they wouldn't need traditional weapons to attack them. He kicked himself for overlooking that.

He used his powers to not only lift himself up by his armor but to also turn to his left. To try and see who was foolish enough to anger the master of magnetism. Once in the air, he saw them. Seven humans were in a scattered formation about fifteen meters from them. They were all very tanned, if not sunburnt, and those whose heads he could see had shaved the hair from their ears forward. As two of them wore animal heads atop their own heads. Besides the headdresses, they wore furs around their groins and feet and nothing else.

They attackers hooted and hollered at them. But with his helmet on, just like Nath'aniel had warned, the rune he wore stopped working, so it all sounded like noises and not words of any kind. Even when the mage had spoken to Exodus and him it was raw, while Erik didn't understand him he at least understood that he was trying to communicate. These men sounded little better than beasts rutting.

Magneto noted that some still had spears they hadn't thrown. The weapons used a black rock for their spearheads. But all had either wooden or rock-like clubs. The two men with headdresses seemed to be their leaders, one was large and muscular. Not as big as Basilisk, but was probably still intimidating for most men. He was armed with a club that would be better described as a tree branch, and his headdress was that of a cat with large long fangs that started by his temple and went all the way passed his jawline.

While the other one seemed more of an advisor. As he was the only one with any level of fat on him, as the others were all extremely fit. However, something felt odd, as he also had some decorative items on him besides his dinosaur headdress, a raptor if Erik had to guess. Lesser Headdress also had a necklace and several bracelets of stone tokens, made from the same black stone as the spear tips. And his 'spear' was more like a staff, with its engravings and the star-shaped spearhead.

"Are you alright?" Magneto asked while watching the ranting enemies. He assumed that it was one of the two in the headdress that was the mutant.

"Yeah well, you're all a bunch of wankers too. Hell, my step-brothers come up with better insults than you do." Instead of answering him, Basilisk yelled at the odd humans. She then used one of her lower arms to flip them the bird, as she answered him, muttering. "It stings but I am fine."

“You understand them?” Magneto asked as he landed behind her. He then willed his powers to make a thick magnetic field around them. He created a solid dome around the both of them, that wouldn’t completely stop the non-metallic weapons, but it should slow or deflect them enough to neutralize them.

"Yeah, I still got the rune stone Nath gave us." She said as she lowered her guard, before adding. "But they're different, I'm hearing both, it's like the stone's not completely sure what it is they are trying to convey. Honestly, it's kind of creepy." She shook her head for a second and then perked up, and added. "Wait, the guy in the back is speaking normally. But the words are even weirder. It's like some kind of prayer."

Erik tried to make out the words, but with all the yelling, he couldn't hear a word of this supposed prayer. Then lesser headdress raised his staff into the air. Simultaneously red symbols began to write themselves around the spear tips of the other tanned men. The wild men then readied themselves and prepared to throw yet another volley of spears.

“Prepare yourself, after they throw, they will probably charge in with their clubs.” Magneto said, as he also tried to focus and ready the barrier for the coming barrage.

Unlike the first volley, of pseudo cigarettes, the second one was closer to flying torches. As the spear haft's ignited during their flight toward them. And as he predicted, they readied their clubs for a second before running toward them. The barbarians screamed at the top of their lungs as they ran.

Magneto willed some of his decretive metal balls to fall off of his armor. While their spears flew accurately at them. But his dome did as he intended and they pivoted to the right and left, the flaming wood breaking apart against the ground, causing small fires to start around them.

At seven meters, he willed a trio of ball bearings to fly at the closest attacker, which turned out to be macho headdress. The muscle man's head and neck stopped as the force of a shotgun collided with it. His legs flew forward for a second before gravity overpowered the body and pulled it down to the ground.

After the impact, Magneto opened his hand as he willed the balls to fly wildly. He landed glancing blows among the crowd but didn't stop the charge. But when he closed his hand, all three balls flew back toward one another. Connecting in the chest of the slowest of them, his organs crushed till this caveman too fell to the ground.

Basilisk started her own charge once the big man was down. She slammed into two men, landing two punches on each man. The sound of bones breaking as Bass solidly hit their rib cages. Those two probably won't die, but they would be having breathing problems till their ribs healed. She then lifted these two up and dropped them on top of the last two. Their weapons impaled into the backs of their own comrades, before the total weight left all four in a pile at her feet.

Magneto watched the lesser headdress, who had continued praying while his allies moved to attack them. Erik let the dome fall away, reducing the strain on his mind, as he waved his hand toward their last enemy. As the ball bearings began to move, the man slammed the butt of his staff again. A series of red symbols appeared above the head of the man, and in an instant, they collapsed in on themselves. And in their place, a ball of light the size of a basketball appeared. In only a couple of seconds, the bearings would impact. However, Erik didn't have those seconds, as the ball shoot a beam of light at him.

The beam was strafing as if the wild man wasn't sure which of them was more of a threat. But it hit Magneto in the chest and shoulder. His dome had stalled it for all of half a second before breaking. Granting him the chance to fall, so he wasn’t hit dead on in the heart and lungs. Then the beam drifted towards Basilisk, but only the briefest of moments grazed her both her right arms.

Meanwhile, his own attack went wild as the hit made him lose focus. The ball bearings shot out as they had before, but it was too soon. So only two manage to hit headdress, and both were grazes. One broke the shaft of his staff halfway to its tip, and the other hit him in the thigh. Neither were serious hits.

Worse yet, Magneto could hear more shouts coming toward them. "You ok?" He heard Basilisk ask. He heard the grunts of the wild men he guessed were stirring as she struck them again.

His left side was hurting, but not badly. The shrapnel from their last mission had hurt far worse. “Only minor burns. My armor took most of it. But my left side’s metal is fused together, I can fix it, but I doubt they will give me the time to do so."

Lesser headdress had slammed his broken staff in front of him, and as he chanted wrapped one of his bracelets around the broken tip. Magneto could now see the spear tips being waved above the plant leaves and bushes behind the headdress. There were a dozen or more easily, it was hard to get an accurate count when they were not waving them uniformly. The real insult was the headdress's grin, forming around the words of his chant.

Not to be undone by some whack job in a loin cloth. Magneto pulled his other nine ball bearings. And had them begin to circle his head like a halo. Erik let his own grin form, as his headdress lost his.

“He’s asking some great beast of fire to aid him.” Basilisk whispered as she limped into Magneto’s line of sight. “Oh, and he is still calling us a false god.”

“Then let us show him our power then shall we." Magneto pointed his hand towards the chanting headdress. And the nine balls of stainless steel flew. Erik knew it would take a second or two for them to get there, so he reached out to find the first three balls as a backup plan.

Flames began to appear around the headdress, they seemed to be taking the outline of a lion headed man, but the image wasn't whole when the first ball impacted headdress. Erik was surprised to feel his magnetic field around the ball simply vanish when it touched the flame. But the image only stopped the first two balls before an opening was created. With it still only seven balls, the balls still hit hard. Three-centimeter things weighing only point zero six kilos, don't seem like much. But when you add that they are traveling at speeds of hundred thirty-five or hundred and forty kilos per hour, the amount of force can be disastrous.

The first one hit him in the hands, his index finger still only attached by the meat as the knuckle was shattered. The next one him in the elbow, causing his whole body to twist at the blow. The third, got him in the jaws, his teeth cutting his own tongue as out of his mouth and head jarred from the impact. It only got worse from there, as blood and bone flew into the air. A couple more hits and the flames that were behind the headdress began to vanish, but the remaining four just circled and tore into him.

The twenty or so spearmen and two more brutes circled the tortured man. Magneto was not idle while his balls slammed into and through the man in the headdress. He erected another dome, this one he spent more time with, making it stronger and thicker, so much so that even others would be able to see it. Then the four ball bearings fell to the ground.

The small horde cried out outraged at the mess that he had made of their 'leader'. Not that Erik cared, they had attacked first after all. They didn't wait for any of the red symbols or even any kind of orders, they moved across the jungle floor toward them. In the gap left by the wild men not wanting to step on or over the pulp of a man Magneto could see two more people wearing animal headdresses. A man and a woman, and the female held her arm out stopping the man from advancing.

‘She’s the smartest of them.’ Magneto thought. Either she had guessed this was a trap, or else she was smart enough to learn before attacking. Because the ball bearings did not fall because they had run out of fuel. He was their fuel. They fell because he wanted them to. And as one, all twelve balls rose again, hovering just around a hundred and twenty-five centimeters. Roughly below where the ribs should be.

The spearmen had enough tactics drilled into them to hurl a volley of spears before they closed in on them. Magneto used that moment to pull his fist into his chest and the balls along with the gesture. The spears parted as they were denied entrance by his dome. And the first of his balls tore through their unprotected flesh. The twelve balls alone would not stop the entire group on their own. But they weren’t on their own.

Basilisk ran out through the dome and started swinging lefts and rights, but mostly lefts. She used her lower arms to grab or deflect the spears that had longer reach than her. The flimsy things didn't last long as it only took a signal twist of her wrist and the things would snap. The fight looked entirely in their favor, but Erik knew if those other two with the headdresses could do what the first one could this would quickly devolve into a battle of attrition.

And two verses twenty-plus is not good odds. So he divided his ball bearings half would stay in the horde lashing out where they would cripple or kill while he sent the other half towards the two holding back. But without his other hand to help him focus his powers, the second set quickly scattered and slowed.

Then the battle suddenly shifted in their favor. As a streak of white was in and among the wild men, slowing for only a second to land only he knew how many blows. Both brutes suddenly dropped their clubs and cupped their groin, as if something heavy and impacted the very sensitive place.

Quicksilver was then beside him. Magneto thought to ask what had taken the speedster so long to report. When he felt tiny flicks of metal here and there on the boy. Looking at what he felt, he saw a series of bullet wounds on his right arm and shoulder, as well as in other places. They didn't seem deep or very large, like the enemy was using under-powered rounds.

‘Like they are trying to take us alive.’ That was Erik's first thought.

"We gotta go." His son said after taking several breaths to steady himself. "Thereislike threedozenmercs, and they're not alone." Quicksilver's words bleed together as his mouth moved faster than the sounds could form.

But the message wasn’t really necessary, because Magneto could feel it before he saw it. A stealth attack helicopter had just come into view from behind one of the strange rock pillars that dotted the horizon.