(Author's Note: A heads up here- this is the beginning of the final season for my X-Men: Evolution series. To allay a few concerns—I've planned this to be the final season for quite some time, since about the tenth fic of this series or so, so you don't need to worry about the ending being rushed or anything. Plus we've still got a ways to go, what with this being just the beginning of "Season 8" and all. Plenty will happen between now and the end, I can assure you of that! Thanks to all of you who have favorited me, my stories, and/or left comments—it's always nice to know my writing is appreciated. Now, on with the final season!)

"This is so totally weird, bro… and yet kinda familiar at the same time."

"I know what you mean," Scott nodded back to his brother, looking out the front of the Blackbird at the positively alien view in the night sky outside the cockpit window, far on the horizon. "You're here with us again, helping us out—"

"—but if we win, this time I'm staying," Alex interrupted.

"True," Scott said back, though privately he thought grimly, That's a pretty big if.

"But I mean, all of us coming up on this… this Genosha place, and it's surrounded with a big energy dome. That's just… yeah."

"At least Apocalypse isn't behind it this time," Scott said.

"Yeah, it's just over a hundred Mutants instead," Alex replied back.

"You weren't there, Alex," Scott said, shuddering. "Apocalypse, he just had this presence, this… no, as much as I am not looking forward to the fight ahead—I really doubt any of these Acolytes will have that-that feeling of evil incarnate."

*This is the Velocity, registering five bogies exiting the energy dome,* cracked Beast's voice over the Blackbird's comlink. *Most are flying, though a few are being carried. No, scratch that—now there's twelve.*

"Understood, Hank," Xavier said from his position in the pilot's seat. "Everyone, get ready for anything. Stick to the plan, no matter how dire things may look."

"How can they get out of the dome if we can't get in it?" Magma asked.

"They've got to be temporarily lowering the force field to let them out," Maverick replied from his seat next to her. "We can't see it because, from what our instruments are telling us, there's a radiation dome UNDER the force field, the latter of which is translucent. I'm not sure WHY there's such a field around Genosha now, though."

"I still don't think they are going to do what we want them to," said X-23 as she pressed a button to lower the platform behind the cockpit seats. "There are so many holes in the plan, all they would have to do is—"

"Well, let's pray that they don't," Xavier interrupted, now yelling as the wind howled into the aircraft's interior. "Iceman, get out there, try to keep them at bay for as long as possible. Everyone else that doesn't have projectile-based powers, make sure your seat belts are securely fastened."

"On it," Iceman said, unbuckling his seat belt and stepping onto the platform, which raised up to become part of the Blackbird's "ceiling" again, with Bobby now standing on the roof of the aircraft. Seconds later he jumped off, turning the water to ice beneath him and beginning to construct the usual 'ice bridges' that allowed him to stay in the air.

"Looks like Storm and Angel are out of the Velocity," Sunspot said, pointing out of one of the Blackbird's side windows.

*Closing within targeting distance now, Charles,* Beast's voice said over the comlink again.

"Alright then," Xavier said, "Let's see just how well this goes. Cyclops, Havok, Magma—don't worry about the windows. Fire off if you think you can pick a target."

Within a few more seconds, it was absolute chaos outside. Hearing a projectile coming in from behind, Iceman promptly ended his ice bridge, letting himself fall as the fireball passed over him before beginning the bridge again and sending out an ice blast at the flying Acolyte wreathed in fire who had attacked him. It hit the Acolyte directly, but the flames covering his entire body incinerated the ice almost immediately.

Duh, of COURSE that would happen, Iceman thought to himself. You keep ignoring things like that and this whole mission will fall apart, Bobby. Stupid, stupid, stupid…

Iceman looked to his right as he felt a cry of pain emanate from Angel, who had taken a lightning bolt in one of his wings from… Storm?

It only took Bobby a few seconds to figure out what was going on. Storm's expression showed her disbelief, but he caught out of the corner of his eye one Mutant—being held aloft by another with the power to control wind—using short jerking motions with her hands. Given how closely the movement of her hands matched Storm's awkward motions, it was apparent that, somehow, Storm was her "puppet"—though it couldn't be through a direct psychic connection. Xavier had installed mental blocks in all of them to prevent just that sort of thing from happening.

Just goes to show you, against this many Mutants you can't be prepared for everything, Iceman thought to himself as he readied an ice salvo—only to have another lightning bolt crash into the "puppet master". With a scream she fell unconscious, though still held up by the wind-controlling Mutant's powers. Tracing the direction the lightning bolt had come from, Iceman saw that Surge was the culprit, standing at the edge of one of the Velocity's doors, her gauntlets primed and standing beside the Scarlet Witch, who was also sending hex bolts flying at passing Acolytes.

Okay, so maybe asking them to help us out WASN'T that bad of an idea…

One was down, but there were more flying Acolytes entering the fray almost every second. Iceman did a quick glance around and guessed at least twenty were now attacking them all.

Storm, now back in control of herself, sent a strong gust of wind at Angel, blowing him back towards the Velocity where those at the open side door took him back in and tended to his injured wing. Focusing, lightning bolts shot out in every direction from Ororo's body, catching two of the flying Acolytes in mid-air and sending them falling into the ocean a couple dozen feet below.

Iceman barely had time to admire the view before another fireball flew his way—this one he just barely managed to escape from. It was the same flame-wreathed flier as before, who now apparently had a bone to pick with him. Iceman decided to focus on another target, and this time picked a green-haired girl who was using some force—whether it was telekinetic or magnetic, he didn't know—who was trying to slow down the Blackbird, and was beginning to succeed. He flung a barrage of sharp ice shades at her, only to have them shot out of the air by a volley of sharp quills—another Acolyte that looked like a human porcupine was being held aloft by the wind-manipulator's powers, and had managed to intercept the volley.

Iceman turned around as he felt the sound of a loud impact come from behind him, and found that some female Mutant with insect-like wings had shot some sort of flaming blob of corrosive acid from her mouth at the Blackbird. The blob began to eat its way through the cockpit, and another blue crystal-skinned flier, this one flying through no obvious means, zoomed through the sky, punching a hole through the Blackbird Cannonball-style before emerging out of the other end, unharmed.

With the odds becoming more stacked against them each minute, it was clear that they were really starting to get overwhelmed, and fast.

"Yo, how much longer 'till we get to land already?" Toad urgently asked from his seat near the middle of the XM Velocity. "Given how few of us can fly an' all, we ain't gonna last long like this!"

"About two minutes," Beast said, "Though with the rate things on the Velocity are breaking down from all these attacks, our speed is starting to decrease."

"So in other words, we ain't gonna make it there in this thing."

"Doesn't look like it," Beast sighed.

"Alright, everyone cling to Freddy when we go down, then!" Toad yelled out. "Ultra-sized life raft, here!"

"Very funny," Blob said from his seat next to Toad, half-heartedly taking a swat at Toad, who easily dodged. "Hey Pietro, can't you or 'Riko just run across the tops of th' water to Genosha?"

"Not enough of a running start," Pietro said. "Need I remind you there's about a two-hundred-foot or so drop to the sea right now?"

"And electricity and water don't mix," Noriko yelled from her position at the side of the Velocity after letting loose another bolt of electricity at a passing Acolyte flier.

"We're getting killed out there," Storm said, flying into one side of the Velocity and landing rather haphazardly. "I can't muster up the weather in time to really start striking back—and even if I could, I don't know if I could get it localized enough to affect the attacking Acolytes, but not the Blackbird and Velocity as well."

"S-so should I get the backup generators going?" Multiple asked, splitting into two.

Beast winced as a glancing blow from some sort of plasma energy bomb outside caused the cockpit windshield glass to start to crack.

"Do it," Beast said. "Let's just hope this all works." Pressing the comlink button, he continued, "Mercury, go for it, and godspeed."

It all seemed to happen so suddenly—almost simultaneously.

One blast to the Velocity, a swift strike of wind at the Blackbird—and then a large explosion sounded from one, then the other. Trailing smoke, both of them began to spiral into the sea.

The Acolyte known as Chamber barely managed to dodge as a wing of the Blackbird broke off and spiraled towards his position in the air.

The 'birds are down! Chamber telekinetically "said" to the other Acolytes in the immediate area—at the speeds they were traveling to keep up with the aircraft, the winds were too high to make regular yelling audible to others. Chamber couldn't, anyways. His mouth—along with part of his body—had been destroyed by a telekinetic burst of flame when his powers had activated and which now surrounded his entire form. Ever since then, normal talking had been out of the question for him. Get the Iceman, he's still standing!

A few Acolytes still flew around, making sure that the planes did indeed hit the ocean—hard—and begin to rapidly sink, while the others focused on the sole X-Man still ice-bridging his way around the sky.

At first, it seemed to Chamber that Iceman had given up—just like the two aircraft, he abruptly let his ice bridging stop and, taking a diving motion, plunged into the water. Chamber looked in confusion at the other Acolytes who had turned their attention to the last X-Man, all of whom merely looked back and shrugged.

Then, as quickly as he had entered the dark nighttime ocean, Iceman emerged again on an ever-lengthening bridge out of it, and aimed a couple of ice blasts at them. Chamber barely managed to dodge the first one, being so surprised, though he and the other Acolytes quickly got their act together. With so many Mutants firing different forms of energy at him, Iceman couldn't dodge it all—a particularly large ball of flame Chamber launched at the X-Man hit its target directly, and Bobby simply exploded from the impact, small shards of ice raining down into the sea.

Hahah! Chamber "yelled" in triumph, pumping his fist in the air. So much for your "bluff", X-Man!

Turning his attention to the flying Acolytes that had been circling where the two jets were sinking—the very last bits of the aircraft now slumping into the ocean and out of easy eyesight—Chamber sent a quick telepathic message to them.

They gone? How are we looking, here?

*Not seeing any signs of them surfacing over here,* said the insect-winged Mutant into her comlink, who was hovering directly over where the Blackbird had crashed. *None of them can breathe underwater, right?*

Don't remember that in the briefing Magneto gave us, Chamber thought back. Tapping the heat-resistant earpiece he had on, Chamber "called" to the other Mutant who was closest to the Velocity's landing site. Wind Dancer, anything different there?

*Same story,* said the hovering Acolyte over her own comlink. *I'm not seeing any signs of a struggle.*

Alright, let me check in with the boss ladies to make sure they're down, Chamber thought back. Aiming his thoughts at a more distant, specific target, Chamber asked, Five-in-One, you all reading any more Mutant signatures besides us?

They've rapidly gone dark in the past fifteen seconds or so, said one of the Five back—Chamber never could tell which one was which. They even sounded the exact same. We're still detecting two- no, make that one now. Just one Mutant signature left.

What's the exact position?

You know we can't tell, Chamber. Our Cerebro is the same as the X-Men's—it can pinpoint Mutant signatures down to within a mile or so, but that's it. Whoever it is, it's in your vicinity. That's all we can tell.

Alright then, I'll tell the others to spread out and look for them, Chamber thought back. Probably just someone who managed to get a bigger gulp of air than the others before going down—but even if it isn't, it's just one Mutant. They won't be able to do much against all of us when we find 'im.

Still, make sure you do a thorough search. It's too dark and too far out right now to send our water-breathers out to check the wreckage itself, and it'll take a little while to fire up the few submarines we have. We'll tell you if that last Mutant signal blinks out.

Will do, Chamber thought back, and closed the telepathic connection. After telling the others the orders, they began to scour the surface of the ocean around where the two aircraft had gone down.

Practically invisible to them under the low red light given off by the Genoshan dome into the night sky, a slightly glimmery, thick-looking puddle of fluid in the ocean quickly floated towards the island in the distance.

Kurt didn't know what to feel.

There was shock, first, that Magneto had actually shoved a metal spike through Mystique's chest.

Once he yanked it out and Mystique fell to the floor, blood forming in a puddle around her, the shock slowly went away, replaced by….

Replaced by…

He wasn't sure yet.

Was it still shock? Some kind of different, hollow shock that he hadn't experienced yet?

Again, he wasn't sure.

He wasn't sure when Magneto turned back towards him, eyeing him with a mixture of pity and disgust.

He wasn't sure when Magneto kicked him in the face, sending him reeling back to the floor.

He wasn't sure when Magneto abruptly stopped, his comlink opening up and telling him… something. Kurt wasn't really paying attention. It stopped Magneto from beating up on him, though, so it must have been fairly urgent.

He wasn't sure when Magneto picked up the key to Kurt's manacles with his magnetic powers, opened up the cell door, and then shut it behind him with a loud clang.

A few moments later more important things popped into his mind, though, as he heard Mystique stir.

"M-Myst—mother?! Are you—are you alright?!" Kurt cried, scrambling on the floor and getting as close to Mystique as he could, with one of his arms and his tail still in the power-nullifying manacles.

Just a few feet more, and then they would've been able to touch.

"K-Kurt…" Mystique coughed, a bit of blood bubbling up through her lips. "Don't be a fool… I'm… I'm dying…"

"Is there anything I can do?!" Kurt asked. "Some way I can patch it up… some way your powers can maybe heal you from this, if you… if you assume another form?"

"You're… *cough* … grasping at straws, and you know it," Mystique said weakly. "Hit me in my aorta, punctured one of my lungs… I'm bleeding out, fast… You know my powers don't allow me to shapeshift like… *cough* …like that, I could only do that when I was… one of Apocalypse's…"

"There's got to be—"

"Shut up, son, and listen," Mystique gasped sternly, before breaking into a coughing fit that looked incredibly painful. "I'm already… already struggling to… keep awake… not much time…"

"No… no, don't say that!"

"The X-Men… my Brotherhood… they're all coming here, but… but you need to let them know. There's more… going on here than just… them defending their ground…"

"How do you know all this?! How can I—"

Kurt stopped himself as Mystique, a slight smile on her face, reached into her pocket and took out a key that looked exactly like the one she had used on Kurt's manacles, and slid it towards him.

"A bit of advice—always h-have a backup," Mystique said, her eyelids starting to flutter. "Now, there's a *COUGH* safe room… exactly two fl-floors up, twenty f-feet south of our p-position…."

"Mother… please… please don't die," Kurt said, tears starting to stream down his furry cheeks. "I already thought I went through this once, I can't—"

"You can," Mystique breathed, her voice now a mere whisper. "…and you will. Now… make sure that Magneto… pays for all this…"

"No… no, please don't…"

"F-for wh-what it's w-worth… I wish… wish things could have… worked out… diff….f…"

Then there were a long, wet-sounding wheeze, a shudder, and then Mystique was silent, her eyes still staring at Kurt.

Kurt just knelt there, weeping over his dead mother. He wasn't sure how long—it could've been a few minutes, it could've been half an hour.

Eventually the tears stopped, and that feeling… that unknowable, hollow feeling—it appeared again, in his stomach.

Kurt slowly lifted his head up, his eyes focusing on the key before him. Numbly, he took the key Mystique had slid towards him and undid the remaining two manacles before crawling over to Mystique. After a few moments, he quietly, softly, closed her eyelids.

Breathing out a long sigh, Kurt stood up, focusing on the key on his hands.

It took a few moments, but he finally realized what that feeling was.

It wasn't sadness, it wasn't rage, it wasn't shock. It was a feeling… a feeling of bitter resignation.

Resignation that before he left this island, he would have to kill Magneto.

Because if the events of the past few months had made anything clear, it was that Magneto had to die.

For the good of everyone. For everything. For there to be any hope for a peaceful future. There could be no mere capturing of him this time.

Kurt held the key Mystique had given him tightly, picked up the bloody spike of metal Magneto had left behind, then teleported out of the room.

"What's wrong?" Magneto said angrily, entering a room few Acolytes had seen. Those that had called it the "hub".

"Nothing is wrong," said the Five-in-One simultaneously, all of them connected to Cerebro Mark II headsets that, in turn, were connected by wires into the bright yellow "reactor" in the center of the room, which was responsible for supplying energy to the entire island. "We just wanted to report that the Blackbird and Velocity are both down. Our teams out on the water report no survivors."

"None?" Magneto said. He raised an eyebrow, but the facial gesture wasn't noticeable with his helmet on. "None at all?"

"Our Acolytes performed better than you expected," the Five-in-One said. "It took barely more than a minute to down the aircraft."

Magneto sneered. "Show me the visual."

The Five-in-One glanced at each other and nodded. With an apparently mental gesture, a large image came up on a large vid screen at one end of the circular chamber, showing the group of Acolytes hovering around where both wrecks had gone down.

Magneto strode up to the screen and glared at it, squinting his eyes.

"I don't see any bodies," Magneto said, turning back to look at the Five-in-One. "Where are the bodies?"

"Uh… there are not any bodies as of yet," said the member of the Five closest to Magneto. "They likely became trapped under the rapidly-sinking aircraft. However, the wreckage has been submerged far too long for any of them to still be holding their breath, and—with the exception of one, perhaps one who does not require oxygen to breathe—all of their Mutant signatures winked out shortly after they went down."

"You IDIOTS!" Magneto roared, backhanding that member of the Five down to the floor. The other four at first made a move to help their sister up, but decided against it at the time. "I've known Xavier for far, far too long—there is no way they would go down THAT easily. I know—and you SHOULD know—that these X-Men don't die like that. They'll fight to their last breath, no matter how hopeless the cause—if nothing else, they have endless courage, even if they are also hopelessly deluded as a result."

Beginning to walk out of the hub, Magneto said behind him, "Get our water-breathers down there, NOW. Same with all the subs. And have any fliers patrolling around the entire perimeter of the island. They're still out there, somewhere."

As soon as the door shut, the four immediately took off their helmets and helped their sister up, who wiped a bit of blood from her lip.

So, thought the one who had taken the hit from Magneto, Should we listen to him?

For now, Sister, the other four answered. For now.

"Are you SURE you've sucked all the moisture out of there? It's completely air-tight? Because if I open it and it's not…"

"I'm sure, Havok," Iceman gasped from the other side of the submarine's mostly see-through hull. "Now, open up the hatch before I suffocate."

Havok obediently opened the sub's hatch, wincing as he did so—but Iceman's "airlock" made out of ice formed from the ocean water held, and he climbed in, Alex quickly closing the latch behind him.

"Have the other subs already split?" Iceman asked, taking a seat.

"Yes," Colossus said back, his attention on the ocean view in front of him as he steered the sub slowly and carefully, paying attention to the sonar readings. Piloting a mini-sub in coastal waters at nighttime without any lights on was a bit risky, to say the least.

"Good, then we're ahead of schedule, I guess," Iceman said. "Good idea on that fake-out, Cyclops. Worked like a charm."

"Hey, you were the one who did it," Cyclops shrugged. "Though when you faked a duplicate of yourself during class that one time, that was actually what gave me the idea. Plunge into the dark water where they can't see you, then use your powers to send a 'fake' Iceman back out so that you could fake your own death."

"Who says playing pranks is a waste of time?" Iceman smirked, leaning back in his seat.

"You weren't the only one who faked your own death," Wolfsbane replied back. "All'a this would've been a waste o' time if Professor X hadn't commissioned those special X-Jets."

As the Professor had told them the previous night, the airships they had flown into battle were MADE to be destroyed—that was why additional, "normal" copies of the Velocity and Blackbird were back at the Institute. The ones they had flown in had two mini-subs inside each, with a hidden hatch at the bottom of each aircraft to let the mini-subs quietly out after the aircraft wreckage had begun to sink.

They knew they were at a severe disadvantage over the water, so such a faux pas was necessary for them to get to land, Xavier had said. The Acolytes would eventually figure it out, but since they had entered at the dead of night, it was too dark to see the subs escape. They were equipped with visual cloaking fields as well that made them nearly invisible to the naked eye, just in case Magneto had subs of his own.

"So, who's in charge of what?" Iceman asked.

"Well, obviously this sub has myself, Havok, Magma, Colossus, Wolfsbane, and you," Cyclops replied. "We're heading towards the south end of the island. Sub 'B' has Maverick, the Professor, X-23, Husk, and Sunspot—they're heading to the east side. Sub 'C' has Beast, Hisako, Angel, Avalanche, Multiple, and Quicksilver. They're heading to the west side, which leaves Storm, Surge, Moonstar, Toad, Blob, and the Scarlet Witch manning sub 'D', heading for the north end of the island."

"Divide and conquer, eh?" Iceman said.

"We've got to draw their resources in as many different directions as possible," Cyclops said. "We all come onshore in one place, they can concentrate every Mutant on Genosha at that spot and do away with us in no time. Plus, without… without any sort of information on the layout of Genosha that we were supposed to get from Jean's team, we're just not sure where the most important buildings are, anyways. This way at least one team is fairly close to that area of the island, no matter where they are."

"Aaand we just sit there?" Iceman asked quizzically. "I mean, it's not like we know how to penetrate the force field they've got around the whole island."

"That is not entirely true," Colossus piped in.

"Yeah, we're waiting for Mercury's report," Cyclops said. "Remember, the force field—whatever it's made of-has to let in air and a small amount of moisture, otherwise it wouldn't be long before they'd suffocate in there. It can't be absolutely impenetrable like Apocalypse's domes. Given that Mercury IS liquid, she just has to spread herself thin enough that the field will let her through. Then she can find out how to shut that field down."

"Yeah, IF some doesn't find her and IF she can figure it out within a few hours," Iceman whistled.

"Hey, it's the least risky of all the plans we came up with," Magma said. "Do you have any better ideas?"

"No… just sayin'," Iceman said.

An awkward silence overtook the sub as it moved forward slowly in the ocean, everyone turning their thoughts to all the different ways this risky endeavor could fall apart.

That….hurt.

It was a strange sensation, spreading herself so thin along a section of the force field out on the water that she could see—and feel—everything from the top of the water down to the ocean bottom. The shield had given off slight sparks when she had first touched it, again when she had tested it after spreading herself five feet longer, then again when she was another five feet wider….

Apparently she had eventually gotten through, but she had blacked out temporarily from the effort of stretching herself so far.

She had woken up on the inside shore—well, scattered in small blobs along the shore—but from the looks of things, she hadn't been out for long. It was still dark.

Slowly, and with much effort, she began to pull herself together, one blob of mercury flowing into the next, then another, then another…

It was incredibly confusing and disorienting, "seeing" so many different images—one from each part of herself—and having to orient the different parts to collide with each other. The stars above—even dimmed as they were through the odd red radiation inside the dome—helped quite a bit.

Cessily figured she was about halfway done pulling herself together when she heard a couple of voices coming her way, and immediately every bit of her collapsed into a shallow puddle on the ground in the hope of not being noticed.

"…telling you, I can see heat," said one of the Acolytes coming her way, a young white female with no discernible physical mutations. "There's nothing here."

"They don't have to be here," said another one, this one African-American with a yellow visor over his eyes. Flashlights pored over the area, but thankfully the little silver puddles of mercury hidden amongst the shore flotsam didn't get their attention. "You know how our Cerebro works. There's an enemy Mutant signature somewhere within a mile of this shore, maybe two. But they can't pinpoint it, so the Five need us to find… whoever it is."

"This whole thing is stupid, Prodigy," said a red, scaly Acolyte with webbed fingers and toes as he began to wade into the water. "Whoever it is, they're clearly outside the dome. There's no way they coulda gotten in. They're trying to keep us distracted."

"Well, even if they are, there's more than enough of us to go around," the one with the yellow visor replied. "Check out the cove anyway, Squid, just to be sure. We'll cover the ground area. My ability to absorb knowledge isn't going to matter here, since they're sure to have mental blocks in them, just like with the ones we captured."

"Yeah, yeah," Squid muttered before submerging beneath the surface, his flashlight apparently waterproof.

Cessily saw Prodigy gesture directions to the female—now several dozen yards off—who nodded back, and both of them ran further off from Mercury's position.

Figuratively breathing a sigh of relief, Cessily began to pull herself back together again—but this time, she made sure to keep flat against the sand.

After having to pause a couple more times over the next several minutes whenever a flashlight beam strayed her way, she finally pulled herself into one puddle.

Hrrmm, it seems like the pieces of material that Hank made my uniform out of—whatever it is—is grouping back together. That is impressive… I'll have to thank him for that later.

Quickly oozing into the grass and out of sight, she crept in the direction she had seen the three Acolytes come from.

Kurt grabbed another banana from the pile and unpeeled it.

He knew he couldn't stay here much longer—but he was just so hungry. After having been fed little more than water and a few stale pieces of bread for weeks, the plethora of tropical fruit from the island sitting here in Mystique's "safe room" was too much to resist.

This is the last one! Kurt reminded himself as he began to gobble down the fruit, wiping the bits of it that fell from his mouth off the small portable screen he was currently digesting information from.

His late mother had been up to quite a lot during the days she had spent in Genosha…

…And the days you spent in a cell half-starved to death, Kurt thought to himself—but quickly pushed such thoughts from his mind. She had eventually gotten him out, hadn't she?

And this safe room, it was WELL stocked. Plenty of food, weapons, a computer pad filled with Mystique's notes… it was apparently a large storage closet of some sort, but there was a file cabinet barricaded across the door to prevent anyone from crashing her party. Of course, judging from the two dead bodies in the room, her party HAD been crashed… but she had assuredly dealt with it discreetly. Judging from the records she had left for him if her plan didn't work—there was that last advice of hers, poking its head again—she had actually posed as the two she had killed at separate times shortly afterwards to allay any suspicions. A small blinking headset had been left behind with a note taped to it. It said:

Put this on. It'll keep your mind guarded from psychics.

Needless to say, Kurt had quickly done so.

There was also a small camera mounted on the inside of the door, but it kept jerking back and forth in an odd motion. Kurt wasn't sure what his mother had done to it- perhaps caused it to cycle back old footage?—but it clearly wasn't working correctly.

Regardless, Kurt had learned quite a lot about the layout of the island from Mystique's notes—far more than he and the others on Jean's team had learned during their brief, interrupted stay here. She had taken on several different personas, killed several different Acolytes—and yet still remained hidden, in the shadows, away from Magneto's apparent notice until she had tried to free him. Her resistance to any sort of telepathy had obviously helped her to blend in quite a lot, but still… Kurt had to admit he was impressed at the sheer depth of knowledge she had gained about the place. She had even managed to build a small sea-faring submersible in one of the island's shore caves in her spare time, big enough for two and no more—apparently what she had been planning to get them away in.

So much for that…

Mystique hadn't been able to find out everything about Genosha—such as what was generating all this electrical power for the island, and where—but it was certainly enough to help the X-Men, if they were coming like she said they were.

"If"…. Listen to yourself, Kurt. It's Mystique. Of course they are.

He also had to admit, Mystique's little wrench in Magneto's plan was rather brilliant—far more than simple sabotage, and more subtle—and as far as Kurt could figure out the Acolyte leader still didn't know anything about it, and wouldn't until it was far too late.

Still, that also meant the X-Men wouldn't know about it until it was too late, either. That could have disastrous consequences, too.

If only I knew where they…

Kurt almost jumped out of his fur as a small silver puddle trickled into the room from a nearby vent. He just barely kept himself from instinctively teleporting out of there.

"Cess—" Kurt began to shout, spitting out chunks of banana-but abruptly stopped himself, took a deep breath, and whispered, "Cessily?! Is that you?"

"Who else would it be?" Mercury smiled, the puddle quickly rising up and forming itself into her humanoid form. "Thank God you're al-alright, Kurt! I feared—we all feared—"

"How did you get in here?" Kurt asked. "Wait, forget that, how did you know where I was?!"

"I…. I dunno," Mercury said hesitantly, shrugging. "Once I managed to get through the force f-field, I just crept along until I found a building I saw a bunch of Acolytes coming from. There was one that seemed to have more Mutants guarding it than the others, so I assumed th-that was where you were. Luckily no one n-noticed me, I slid down into the vents, and it only take me a few minutes to find you. Guess I t-took the right turns."

"Well—good! Listen, we have to hurry—"

"—You know how to shut down the force field?"

Kurt grabbed Cessily by the shoulders, his tail absentmindedly picking up the bloody metal spike behind him as he did so. "Mystique… she's…. she's been busy, Cessily. She busted me out of my cell, and now I know everything she knows. Let's save the details of how we got here later, and get that field down before someone spots us."

Cessily nodded, and with a BAMF, they both vanished from the room.

A split second later, they both reappeared in a corridor that appeared like many of the others—however, a look out the window at the end of the hall revealed the sun coming up over the ocean on the horizon. It was a rather picturesque view—from the looks of things, they were in a tower near the middle of the island—but there was little time to admire the scenery.

"Hey, what the-?"a purple-skinned young male Acolyte that was in the hallway blurted out, turning from where he had been looking out of the window to see the unexpected visitors.

"It's here?" Mercury said, turning to face the incoming Acolyte as her arms reformed into scythes.

"No," Nightcrawler said, "The actual generator is too heavily guarded and electrified—"

"This is Indra to all available Acolytes!" the purple Acolyte yelled into his wrist communicator, protective plate armor quickly forming over his body as he rushed towards the two infiltrators. "Two X-Men in Central Tower, I need support ASAP!"

"Just take care of it!" Mercury yelled, running forward to engage the bulked-up Acolyte.

"Right," Nightcrawler said, and teleported onto the other side of a bulky metal door in front of him. Inside was a small room with a large bundle of wires running up the wall, and a detailed control panel in front of it.

"No doubt shutting down the power via the control panel would involve a bunch of safety protocols," Nightcrawler mumbled to himself, his tail depositing the metal spike he had brought into his hands. "Good thing there's an easier way."

Nightcrawler leapt up onto the wall, shielding his face with one hand as he readied the bloody spike over the wires with the other. "Now, Magneto, let's make sure that the weapon you killed my mother with… is also the same weapon that will be the beginning of the end for your 'empire'."

With a grunt, Nightcrawler plunged the spike into biggest wire he could find. Bolts of electricity immediately arched out all over the place, beginning to fry the blue Mutant—

-But he teleported out of the room the instant he had let go of the spike, landing smoking on the ground of the hallway outside.

Nightcrawler lay still for a moment, groaning, before pulling himself to his feet. "I think I'm going to… feel that one for a while…"

Rubbing his head, he looked out the hallway window to find the shield—which had been warping the view of the sky outside—flicker a bit, then finally drop. The red radiation field was still up, but… that was a problem they could deal with later. That would be considerably harder to shut down…

"Cessily, I—we did it!" Nightcrawler said joyously, turning around to congratulate his fellow X-Man—but he only found Indra slumped on the floor, unconscious.

"…Cessily?" Nightcrawler asked again, louder this time.

Still nothing.

"….Aaand I've just gotten the signal from Xavier that the dome's down!" Storm said from her position at the front of the sub. "Mercury did it!"

"Time to party," Surge said, rubbing her hands together as the sub began to rise up towards the surface.

"'Bout time," Toad said. "Staying this silent in th' water for this long… Claustrophobia was kickin' in."

"You don't have claustrophobia," Wanda said, irritated. "Out of us, only Storm has that, and even she was able to keep it together for something as important as this."

"Well fine then, just call it a phobia of death!" Toad replied back, exasperated. "Friggin' sitting ducks down here-"

"Be quiet! We'll be topside in less than a minute," Storm interrupted, her temper already short. "So listen up, because we haven't got much time and it won't be long until everyone on Genosha figures out what's going on. As soon as we reach shore and open up the airlock—Surge, do a quick survey of the place, report back as soon as you can with details of the layout."

"Understood," Surge nodded.

"Blob, you will lead the way, provide a protective front. Surge will join you there once she reports back. I will keep to the air, make sure no one tries to pick our group out from up there. Wanda, you stay in the middle as best as you can, direct your efforts to whomever needs help. Moonstar, Toad, you two cover the rear."

"'S what I'm best at!" Toad grinned, giving Moonstar a wink, who merely shook her head in response.

"What about the radiation field?" Moonstar asked as the sub broke the surface of the water. "That's still up. Is that going to hurt us?"

"It hasn't seemed to hurt any of the other Acolytes inside," Storm said, "But I'll admit we're in unfamiliar territory. Hopefully we'll get information on it soon, whenever Mercury manages to make it back to one of our groups and make her report on where we're supposed to focus our efforts."

Surge got up out of her seat and steadied her hand against the sub's hatch as the marine vessel passed through the edge of the radiation field, everything taking on a slight reddish tint as it did so. A few seconds later, the sub ground to a stop as its bottom began to strike sand.

"Alright, as soon as I get on shore, I'm outta here," Surge said, turning the hatch open. "See you in a few minutes… if you're lucky."

The Five couldn't help but twitch as the metal door to the Hub burst off its hinges, clanging to the floor as Magneto angrily stomped into the dome-like room.

Granted, they knew he was coming, but still.

"What is going on?!" Magneto yelled. "The force field has dropped, and no one I talk to seems to know why!"

"It would be much easier to converse with you if you would take off your helmet," the Five all said, turning to face their leader. "With it on, we can't contact you with updates."

"I shouldn't need updates," Magneto said, his volume lower but his tone still razor sharp. "We outnumber our opponents more than ten-to-one. We have all this technology—and you—at our disposal. Why should these X-Men be anything more than gnats to us?!"

"They've clearly thought this through," one of the Five said, turning back to look at the readouts on the virtual screen in front of her and her sisters. The other four also went back to work, visual images on the various screens changing almost constantly. "None of the Acolytes reported a breach in security in the actual room containing the power supply for the field generator, so the X-Man that somehow bypassed the force field must have destroyed the feed. Either that, or—"

"—Or what?!"

The one talking lowered her gaze to the floor. "We received a report about fifteen minutes ago—Nightcrawler is gone from his cell, all of his restraints unlocked."

"Mystique," Magneto seethed. "Even in death, she still manages to muck everything up."

"Given that Mystique was here for so long, it would stand to reason she found out at least some vital information about our network. She likely passed on that information to Kurt, somehow, and given his powers, it wouldn't have been hard for the teleporter to take out the power somewhere along the way. At least… at least he doesn't know about this room, otherwise he likely would have come here first."

"Why can't you track him? It took time, but you cracked Xavier's mental block in him, as well as the rest of the prisoners'. You should be able to read his mind easily."

"We checked as soon as we got the message that he was missing," the Five replied. "Somehow he's been able to cloak himself from us again. We're not sure how."

"Then tell Blink to search everywhere. I. Want. Him. Dealt with."

"Yes, Magneto," the Five all said in unison.

"And triple the security around the other cells," Magneto said, turning around and beginning to walk out of the room. "We can't have any of our other guests being freed because the teleporter is."

"Yes, Magneto," the Five repeated, "But—"

"But?!" Magneto sneered, turning back around towards the quintuplets. "What else is there?"

"We've just received word that four different subs have surfaced, at equidistant points around the island. Their Mutant signatures popped back onscreen at the same time. The X-Men and Brotherhood members—along with a few other Mutants who have opposed you in the past—have emptied and are making a run towards the largest central building—towards here."

"WHAT?!" Magneto bellowed, the entire room starting to creak and groan as the metal walls bent inwards slightly. "I had you send search teams everywhere. Their jets went down. You told me they were all dead, save one."

"We… we said their signatures went offline," the Five replied, refusing to meet Magneto's burning gaze. "That's… not entirely the same thing. The submarines—we imagine they were contained within the aircraft—are shielded somehow from our mental scans. They must have been waiting for the shield to go down to make themselves known."

"What about our water-breathers?" Magneto asked. "Why weren't they spotted then?"

"We're not sure," the Five said sheepishly. "A visual cloak as well?"

Magneto looked ready to explode in anger, but abruptly he stopped, took a deep breath, and calmed himself, his gaze drifting towards the floor.

After a few seconds of silence, Magneto spoke again, his tone once again more measured, but with a lethal edge to it.

"Alright. Here's what we're going to do. Get every available Acolyte. Divide them into four groups of roughly equal size. Send them at the four different invading teams."

"Yes, Magn—"

"I'm not finished," Magneto snapped, before his tone became softer again. Taking off his wrist communicator, he flung it at one of the Five, who caught it smack in the face before it dropped to the floor. She fumbled awkwardly for a second, then managed to pick it up. "I'm keeping the helmet on, but I will grab another one of these before I leave this building. You will keep me up to date the second something happens. Do. You. Understand?"

"…Y-yes, Magneto."

"You'd better," Magneto said before turning around again with a sweep of his cape, striding quickly out of the Hub.

The Five waited a few moments, making sure his footsteps receded in the distance, before they began to mentally converse with each other.

I don't think he's going to wait much longer. He's going to kill one of us if we let him down again, and with that helmet of his on, we can't do much about it. His magnetic powers are stronger than our telekinetic abilities. Should we tell him about—

No, Celeste. I don't think even that would calm him down at this point. Best wait until the X-Men are dealt with—or he is.

Do you really think the X-Men stand a chance?

They've made it this far… albeit not entirely by themselves.

You know he wanted to level the playing field. Just Mutant versus Mutant, he said.

Indeed. It is… fair, in a way. No force field to interfere with a real fight any longer.

Oh, please. What about this is fair?

She's right. We still outnumber them—

I know. But still—do we get involved yet?

Not until the outcome is determined either way, Phoebe. If we do it a second before then, we lose, no matter which side wins.

It was chaos, and getting worse by the second as more and more Acolytes arrived.

Magma planted her palms on the ground, and after a few seconds of increasingly loud rumbling, magma burst from a huge fissure that opened up, the force of the eruption pushing back both sides.

"Woah, Magma!" Havok yelled as he shielded his face from the intense heat with one of his arms, "Watch it!"

"Sorry, I…" Magma yelled back, her expression uncertain as she stood back up, "I… didn't mean to make it THAT large."

"It won't hold them back long," Colossus said, "Wolfsbane, do you think you can do the fastball move? Like we practiced, in the Danger Room."

Wolfsbane—in her half-wolf form—nodded, and leapt up onto one of Colossus' arms.

As the magma spewing out of the ground began to—oddly—freeze, Colossus reached back, Wolfsbane in his palm.

A moment later, the flying blue Acolyte with crystal-like skin burst through the frozen wall of lava, other flying Acolytes following her through.

Wolfsbane roared as Colossus threw her in the air towards the blue crystal Mutant, who got hit square in the face with a feral X-Man. Rahne began raking her claws into the flying Mutants' back, who screamed in response, struggling to stay in the air.

Cyclops aimed an eye blast at an incoming flying Acolyte, letting it rip when they got close enough to ensure he got a direct hit. Havok—directly to the right of him—let loose another salvo at the Mutant, sending him spinning back into the frozen magma wall and knocking the Acolyte unconscious.

"Y'know, bro," Havok said as they picked a new target with their powers, "I'm feeling a little bit… amped up right now, if y'know what I mean."

"I think it's just the heat of the battle," Cyclops said before letting loose another beam salvo. "You haven't had too much experience with this kind of action, Alex."

"No, I mean… I'm a bit more psyched-up, sure, but a bit… angrier… my hands don't hurt as much… my hand-beams are starting to pack a bit more of a punch…"

"Wait a minute," Cyclops said, connecting the dots to what Alex was saying. "You mean—"

"Yeah," Havok said, looking at Cyclops as he saw one of his brother's hairs abruptly turn a grayish white. "This… this radiation field… I think it's just like that nuke machine on Asteroid M, but on a larger—MUCH larger-scale."

"But it's still got to be coming from the same source—ugh—that gem of Cyttorak," Cyclops replied, interrupting himself as he rolled from a ball of plasma that had been tossed his way.

"…So it's taking a lot longer to affect an area this large," Havok finished.

"We're all still in danger," Cyclops said. Raising his voice, he turned on his comlink, "Listen, everyone! This radiation field—it's from the gem of Cyttorak, the same thing Magneto used on some of us back on Asteroid M! Since it's covering all the island, it's going to take a lot longer, but… he's nuking—super-evolving—all of his Acolytes at once! And now that we're here, it's going to start affecting us too!"

*It's been a long time since he took it from me,* X-23 replied back over the comlink. *I was wondering when it would show up again.*

*So what's the problem?* Toad's voice came on over the same channel. *We get stronger powers. I ain't seeing the downside.*

*Remember, it's also going to brainwash us,* came Beast's voice. *Make us loyal to Magneto, if it's anything like the last one. I imagine he hasn't told that part to his 'loyal followers'. This must be how he's going to deal with commanding such a large cadre of Mutants without worrying about insurrection…*

*I'm guessing the towers all around this island are what are powering this field?* Husk said. *Given that at the top they're all glowing a bright red, same color as the radiation around us… Should we focus our attention om the towers?*

*No- this changes little,* Xavier's voice came on. *By the time it really manages to affect us, we'll either have been victorious… or we'll have failed. If we've won, then it will be a fairly simple matter to turn it off and reverse its effects. If not… well, we'll be no worse off.*

*Wow. That was really inspiring,* Avalanche said sarcastically.

*Just keep up the attack!* shot back Storm.

"Alright. Cyclops out."

Before he could react, a large, blunt force hit Cyclops in the back, forcing him to his knees. Looking up, he saw a tall, lithe teenager with beams of multi-colored light swirling all around him briefly before they faded away. The teen also had organic steel skin—just like Colossus.

"Hope you don't mind that I synched up with your friend's powers," the teen said, "Not that it matt- aaGGHHH!"

Before either of them could react, a silvery liquid substance shot around Synch's face, little slivers of the liquid digging into his mouth, ears, and eyes.

"Get him NOW!" Mercury said, her appendages now all stretched around the Acolyte's body.

Cyclops and Havok both fired full-blast at Synch, who screamed as a hole began to be carved into his stomach. Mercury leapt off of the Acolyte, just as he fell to the ground, smoking and clutching his eyes.

"Should I finish him off?" Havok said, his hands glowing with energy

"Except for Magneto's A-Team, incapacitating them is as much as we're supposed to do, unless there's no other option," Cyclops said to his brother before turning to Mercury. "Cessily—THERE you are! Man, I was worried—how did you get the force field down?"

Cessily raised an eyebrow as her limbs solidified back into their normal proportions. "I was just about to ask you the same thing."

"Wait," Cyclops said, taking his hand off the side of his visor for a second and standing straight up. "You didn't figure out how to disable the force field?"

"No," Mercury insisted. "I don't even have a clue as to how it happened. I've been sneaking around this island for a few hours now, and haven't gained a single lead. I was just about to slither into another of those side towers when the field just… dropped."

"Then who…?" Cyclops began, before he was interrupted by a carbonadium tentacle snaking its way around his neck and pulling him backwards towards its owner—Omega Red had joined the fray.

Nightcrawler looked grimly at the scene unfolding at the edges of the island.

From his vantage point—near the top of the center tower of the island—he could see the entire coastline. In all four directions, the X-Men and their allies were trying to converge towards the center—and having a terrible time doing so.

It was a bit hard to make out at this distance, but he could see the Acolytes piling up on his friends. Even splitting Magneto's forces into quarters, their advance was starting to be repelled by sheer numbers. Kurt expected it wouldn't be long until the Acolytes began to outright turn the tide, forcing the X-Men back to the beaches.

Just as he expected—and just as his friends expected, to be sure.

After teleporting all around the tower and finding nobody except that unconscious Acolyte within the surrounding couple of levels, Kurt figured Cessily had either been quickly captured or had taken off of her own accord—perhaps some mission that took priority over making sure Kurt had disconnected the force field lines successfully.

As urgent—and serious—as such an objective would probably be, Kurt sure hoped it was the latter.

That still didn't explain why none of the other Acolytes had shown up at the tower, though. Kurt had heard the Acolyte specifically call for reinforcements—but none had every showed up. Why? His first thought was that they must have been too occupied attacking the invaders, but something told him it was more than that.

Since he had given up the search for Mercury, Kurt briefly considered a few other options.

He could return back to the cells and try to free his captured teammates, but he quickly scratched a mental line through that idea—for now, anyways. The cells were probably very heavily guarded by now, and he didn't want to risk his—or his teammates'—lives when he wasn't even sure if the key Mystique had given him would work on the others' manacles.

He could also try to shut the radiation field down, but according the Mystique's information every relay tower around the island was responsible for the field—the Cytorrak gem had been cracked into several pieces with one in each tower, so just shutting down one or two wouldn't work. He was sure that even teleporting, the Acolytes would catch on to his aims soon enough and stop him before he could destroy enough of those towers to make a difference. As for how the towers were getting their power—they all had to be activated by some single source, but Mystique hadn't been able to find out where such a potent energy source was, and Kurt couldn't just teleport around blindly.

He had just made the decision to teleport down to one of four teams to see how he could help when he saw a flash of purple light behind him and a hand clutch his shoulder tightly.

"THERE you are," Blink grinned. "Let me show you an even BETTER view."

"Wait, don't—" Kurt began to say before, in a blink of light, his view of the interior of the tower was replaced by—

No. Oh, no.

His eyes couldn't believe was he was seeing, but the feeling he abruptly began having—feeling like his eardrums were about to explode, instinctively letting out his breath because of extreme pressure that abruptly built inside his chest—

His eyes turned down towards the dark side of the globe, far, far below them both.

Blink had teleported them both into orbit.

Moonstar backed away a few steps onto the beach as one of Storm's lightning bolts—one of the largest and loudest she had ever seen—struck the ground right next to Chamber, temporarily toppling (and deafening) the Acolyte keeping him from throwing any more flames at the team.

Meanwhile, Wind Dancer sent a gust of wind at Toad, knocking the Brotherhood member off his feet. A hex field quickly surrounded the flier courtesy of the Scarlet Witch, however, and the wind quickly died down.

No sooner had the flier fallen out of the sky, however, then a humongous maggot-like creature—who appeared to be one attacking Acolyte's symbiotic pet, of sorts—bit into the Scarlet Witch's knee. Wanda screamed in pain, but Blob quickly yanked the giant maggot off of her and flung it away.

And so on it went. A power was countered by another power, which was countered by another power, which was countered by another, ad infinitum. Moonstar had sent more than a few Acolytes packing from induced mental nightmares, but with her powers spread so thin it just meant they came back a minute later. Surge had come back a few minutes ago, telling them that she wasn't able to break into anything that looked important—hardly surprising, as Moonstar was sure by now the island was on lockdown. In lieu of any real plan, given Cyclops' information they had soon decided to move towards the nearest radiation-spewing tower, in the hope Moonstar could get into its systems and shut it down. But, as more and more Acolytes joined the fight, anything their little team could throw at the enemy was being quickly countered—and it was showing, as they ceded more and more ground. Only a thin stretch of beach lay between Moonstar and the water.

"This is getting boring," muttered the sand right beneath Moonstar's feet.

Before she could even comprehend what was going on, Rockslide burst from the ground, his huge hand quickly gripping her by the neck and lifting her up as he assumed shape from the surrounding soil, a mix of condensed sand and bits of rock.

"Time to start from the back and work my way forward," Rockslide grinned.

Moonstar tried using her powers to creep into the elemental's mind, find his greatest fear and make him think it a reality—but she wasn't finding anything.

"Yeah, sorry I'm not running scared," Rockslide said, punching Moonstar full in the face, which broke her nose and sent a tooth spinning out into the beach sand. "But mental powers don't work on me. My mind's not… normal, I guess you could say."

"Moonstar!" Toad shrieked, spotting his teammate in trouble. "Hold on, I'm comin'!"

"Oh, please," Rockslide said, rolling the white pinpricks of light that passed for his eyes. Turning his head a little to the left, Rockslide launched the hand not holding up Moonstar like a missile, straight at Toad's position. The fist of sand hit Toad like a wet, heavy sack, downing him and leaving a pile of sand and rock on top of him.

"Let's take care of you quickly, before I get interrupted again," Rockslide said. Sinking his body into the ground to roughly his waist, Rockslide continued forward towards the water, seemingly traveling through the soil itself.

"No… no, please don't…" Moonstar managed to eke out, blood flowing down her lips from her nostrils.

"Yeah, that's not really gonna work," Rockslide smirked as he traveled down into the water.

Moonstar gulped what little breath she could as the elemental Mutant pulled her under the waves several feet—and then just held her there.

Moonstar kept it in for as long as she could, but eventually she let out a gasp reflexively, gulping for air and only sucking in sandy salt water instead.

Rockslide stayed there, a smirk on his face as Moonstar struggled, hitting at his arm to no avail, flailing… until she finally, slowly, stopped struggling.

Rockslide waited several seconds, still keeping a hold on Moonstar's neck just to make sure it wasn't a bluff. When he was sure she was dead, he let go of her limp form and disappeared back into the sand, heading back towards the shore where his other enemies awaited.

Nightcrawler felt Blink's hand muscles flex as she released him from her grip—but this time, he was prepared for it, wrapping his tail around one of her legs.

The light that began to emanate from Blink abruptly faded. She looked at Kurt in fury as he turned around in the weightless environment to look at her, a slight smirk on his face despite the pain he was experiencing.

Can't exactly leave me here when I'm still attached to you, now, can you?

Blink—the vacuum environment clearly affecting her too, as she let out a gasp of oxygen despite herself—dug her nails into Nightcrawler's tail in fury, little droplets of blood escaping into space.

Kurt nearly uncoiled his tail reflexively, but he grabbed Blink's right arm with his left, holding on for dear life as she tried to take a swing at Kurt, only to miss the first time as Kurt dodged.

The second time though, her shot connected, socking Kurt in the side.

Kurt's eyeballs felt like they were going to explode, and he was sure it wasn't going to be long until his eardrums burst.

Just hold on, she's dealing with this just as much as you are…

Nightcrawler kicked at Blink's hand still digging into his tail, but causing her to reflexively pull it back.

For the next several seconds, a weightless, slow-motion boxing match went with mixed results, Blink trying to knock Kurt out while Kurt just tried to dodge everything.

Still, Blink couldn't get Kurt to let go of her with his tail, even after she connected a kick right between his legs.

As little droplets of blood began to seep out from their eyelids, Blink apparently decided that she had had enough, and in a flash of light, they were both gone again.

They both reappeared on the Genoshan beach—at least Kurt was pretty certain it was the Genoshan beach, given the red tint everything had. Waves of water, sparkling in the morning sun, lapped at their feet and hands as both he and Blink collapsed to the ground, heaving and hacking from the effects of being in a zero-pressure environment. Neither of them had the strength to do anything but kneel there next to each other, alternating between breathing in deeply and coughing for several moments, Kurt finally uncoiling his bloody tail from around Blink's leg.

Judging from the faint battle sounds coming from his left side—Kurt was fairly certain his right eardrum was either punctured or simply not working correctly from the extreme pressure changes—Blink had teleported them both far away from the fighting. Kurt thought he heard the faint sound of what sounded like a helicopter nearby, but he simply didn't have the energy to look up and find out what, exactly, was causing that odd whipping noise.

After a few more moments of alternating between hacking and breathing in deeply, Kurt heard Blink gasp out, "You…. you're tougher… than I thought…. Blue Boy. But let's see… how you when handle it… when I teleport a boulder… right on top…"

A sudden metallic CLANG interrupted her, however. Looking over, Kurt saw Blink slump to the ground, unconscious. He saw a circular shadow fly back towards the ocean water in a boomerang-like pattern, and the splash of footsteps nearby.

"Ohmygod… Kurt! Kurt, are you alright?" he heard a familiar voice say before the interloper helped him to his feet.

Given his bedraggled, pain-ridden state, it took Kurt a few moments to realize who that voice belonged to, particularly given that the person holding him up looked a bit… different… than he remembered. The hair was different, the uniform was different, but it was obviously her.

It appeared that, as much as Kurt had experienced in the past few hours, the surprises were still going to keep on coming.

Coughing out blood, Kurt managed to shakingly gasp out a single, simple question, though he already knew the answer to it.

"….Kitty?!"

To be continued…
 

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