(Author's Note: This fic is dedicated to Boyd Kirkland, one of the head writers/producers of X-Men: Evolution, along with countless other great superhero cartoons. R.I.P. Also, any dialogue in brackets in this fanfic is in Ororo's native language.)
 
 

One more slight tap….

Careful, careful…

….There.

It had taken a long time—trips through several mines to find just the right diamond variant- but finally the jewel for his staff was exactly the right shape he needed.

Putting down his fine chisel and carefully taking a few reed strips from the thatched table next to him, the Hungan wrapped them around the base of the diamond to keep it secured to his staff, using a small, tight knot.

Sighing and laying back against the interior of his hut, the Hungan closed his eyes. At long last, he could rest until—

THUD.

The Hungan jolted out of his all-too-brief rest as he looked towards the source of the noise. Judging from the sound, something big had fallen just a few dozen yards from his hut. Surely it couldn't have been an elephant—the ivory poachers were rampant in this remote part of Kenya.

The events of the next few seconds happened so fast the Hungan barely even had time to process them. A brief scream was heard outside, followed by several shouts, and then a man he recognized as one of his personal guards was thrown through the mud-and-thatch wall in front of him, landing almost at his feet, the man's body beaten and bloodied, with at least a few bones broken—though not dead, at least not yet.

The Hungan leapt up, instinctively grabbing his freshly-made staff, as well as taking the spear the unconscious man at his foot apparently no longer needed.

Another shout, and a few loud stomps sounded from outside the hut, getting closer and closer until—

Instinctively, the Hungan hurled his spear at Juggernaut as the huge man crashed through another part of the wall of his hut. Of course, the weapon just bounced harmlessly off of Juggernaut's skin and only served to get his attention. Cain Marko looked briefly in the Hungan's direction, grinning—just as the hut's roof collapsed on top of them both.

The Hungan was buried under a small avalanche of mud and reeds, the sheer weight forcing him to the ground, barely able to move—that is, until a few seconds later when he felt a large hand grab him and lift him up out of the earthen rubble.

"Hey there, Skull Face," Juggernaut grinned maliciously, turning the Hungan around to face him directly. "Long time, no see."

The Hungan's eyes darted around the scenery behind Cain—the village of his followers was still mostly intact, with only one other hut besides his own damaged. All of his guards and tribesmen were scattering in every direction, though. So much for loyalty.

Sweat starting to pour down his face, the Hungan shakingly brought the staff up in front of him and started to chant.

"Oh, cut it out with that crud," Juggernaut said, haphazardly flinging a panicking Hungan to the ground, the diamond that had briefly started to glow with the chanting immediately darkening. "You ain't teleporting nowhere, and I know you can't do that possession bull without first breaking the person's will—and you'll find out I've got plenty to go around. Ya see, I walked halfway around the world just to see you, Skull Face."

"What… what do you want?" the Hungan stuttered, his eyes looking around for a way—any way—out of this.

"You helped me out once before," Juggernaut said. "It should be obvious. I want another… upgrade."

"It was through my chanting that you helped unlock your latent powers in the first place," the Hungan acknowledged, slowly staggering back onto his feet. "And you want more? Are you not already powerful enough?"

"Heh… I thought so," Juggernaut said, his face taking on a sour expression as he continued, "Until I ran into Xavier's band of Mutant kiddies. They humiliated me once, then twice… and then I got kidnapped by a buncha giant robots that almost killed all of us! No, no… I need more power. Now. And I'm gonna make Charles' kiddies pay."

The Hungan's brows narrowed, and he opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again, staring at Cain with a mixture of fear and anger.

Surely what I am about to say will make my life forfeit… but he is going to kill me anyway. Might as well.

"Why should I help you?" the Hungan finally said angrily. "The last time I helped you, you promised you would kill all the other local tribes in return… and you never even touched them! You only wanted the powers to take revenge on Xavier."

Cain laughed. "Why should you help me? Because if you don't, I'll kill you. That's why, stupid!"

"Clearly you are the one who has not thought this out," the Hungan said. "You betray me once, leave me to do the job myself—which I have regrettably failed at—and then you come back and wreck my village, send my followers fleeing! Why should I make you even more powerful? Maybe I should just take away the powers you already have, huh? For all I know, you will kill me anyway! As you said the first time you betrayed me, 'you don't make deals'."

"I know more about you then you think, Skull Face," Cain said, taking another intimidating few steps towards the Hungan to emphasize their height difference even more. "Even here, in the middle 'a nowhere, you'd have to have heard about the existence of Mutants by now. I'm sure you've put two an' two together and figured out that 'Wind Rider' wasn't a sorceress, or a goddess… she was a Mutant. Same as me… and same as you."

The Hungan would never admit it out loud, but Cain was right. He had found out accidentally during a teenager that by chanting with his father's staff, he was able to take control of someone weak-minded, as well as, by varying his pitch, do a few other things—such as awaken latent powers… create fog… teleport a group of people. He had thought it sorcery, the will of the spirits that they act through him, that he be given these special magical powers… but the somewhat recent public unveiling of the existence of Mutants had all but shattered his worldview. Seeing the Wind Rider identified as one of these Mutants, it hadn't taken him long to figure out that he wasn't some sort of demigod. He was a Mutant too, one whose voice could suppress or awaken certain parts of the minds of people around him. The vibrations of his voice were weak by themselves, but by speaking them through a particular rock—like a diamond—they could be strengthened by the rock's vibrations. Of course, he had never mentioned any of this to his followers—though he suspected a few of them now doubted him privately. A suspicion which seemed more likely now, given how quickly many of them had fled instead of trying to stop Juggernaut.

"So? What is the difference if I am a Mutant or not? That does not change the situation."

"A' course it does," Juggernaut grinned, "'Cause you know now that you ain't that special. You can't conjure up some spell to get rid of me if I don't do whatever you want me to, like you thought you could the first time I asked for your help. You know I'll pound your face into pudding the first time you try anything suspicious. But most of all, you know there ain't a special place reserved for ya in whatever afterlife it is you people believe in. So now you're afraid to die."

The Hungan stood there for a moment, staring at Cain. As much as the big Mutant seemed dumb, Juggernaut sure thought things through when he wanted to.

"Very well," the Hungan sighed, Juggernaut letting out a laugh of triumph. "I will do as you ask—but on one condition."

"I thought we already discussed this," Juggernaut frowned, crossing his arms. "I don't make deals."

"True," the Hungan said, a smile forming on his lips, "But I believe you will go along with this one."

"Oh, yeah? Why?"

"Because you will want to."

"Oh, wow."

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

"No—well, yeah, I guess—but I was talking about the heat, Auntie O. I mean, geez. It hits you like a wall."

"Evan, we're in Kenya. In the summer. You expected differently?"

"A little, yeah. How can you stand this?"

"I grew up in it, Evan. As did your mother."

"Yeah, but still…. Maybe the bone plating is insulating me even more, I dunno," Evan replied, shading his eyes against the bright sun as he and Ororo continued to walk across the small airport's parking lot towards their rental jeep. "I'm already sweating like a pig and it's been less than a minute."

"I still can't believe this is the first time you've been to Africa," Ororo said, shaking her head. "What was Vivian thinking, never bringing you here?"

"Hey, you know Mom and her attitude towards all this kinda tribal stuff," Evan said, "And you know me, I'm a city kid. Where you all grew up is about as far from 'city' as you can get."

"And now?"

"Well… let's just say the past year and a half I've been living with the Morlocks has been a wakeup call. Be grateful for what you have and all that. I guess I kinda want to see where and how you, Mom, and Uncle Mirambo grew up. Now, after walking out in this heat… I'm not so sure. Maybe I shoulda stayed with the Morlocks. You never know—"

"Evan, you've been guarding those poor Mutants for months and months now without a real break. They'll be fine. I've told you, the X-Men are checking up on them daily while you're away. But you need to get away. I see how stressed out you are, constantly on guardian duty down there, and I worry about you sometimes."

"So you're telling me this is as much for me as it for Uncle Mirambo?"

"Well, unlike your mother and I, Mirambo doesn't exactly get many birthday parties. We didn't even celebrate birthdays for the first few years of our lives until we started to be exposed to Western culture thanks to your grandfather. Given how much is going on back in Bayville….yes, I suppose this trip is serving double duty both as a birthday celebration for your uncle and as a getaway for you."

Evan fell silent as Ororo opened the jeep door and sat herself in the driver's seat.

"Uh… Auntie O…. hello, my spikes? How exactly am I supposed to sit down in this thing without poking a bunch of holes in the seat cushions?"

"Evan, you worry too much," Ororo smiled. "I've already paid the rental place for a set of replacement cushions. Sit."

"Well… okay," Evan said, gingerly taking his seat on the passengers' side, wincing as the spikes on his back dug into and ripped the padding. "Geez, and to think I left these same holes in our airplane seat."

"The pilot was very understanding. I was surprised that he actually thanked you for your 'service' to our country the past few years."

"Well, I think you guys sorta made sure it was that way. I doubt the Prof would've booked us on a flight with an outwardly anti-Mutant pilot. Plus, just like with this jeep apparently, you paid for replacement cushions on the plane. But yeah, that Mr. Kirkland was a pretty nice pilot. I wish more people were like him."

"Evan, you still… you need to understand that things aren't as black and white as you think. It's not simple as 'we're the good guys, they're the bad guys'. Humans fear us because… well, we do tend to leave destruction in our wake quite often. Especially when we fight each other."

"That doesn't explain why they're after the Morlocks."

"Well, they did go after a legitimate business without so much as a protest first… with you helping them, as I recall."

"Yeah, and then that 'legitimate business' turned its own product against us. And I hear they still haven't found that Guy Spear sleazeball."

Ororo merely sighed as she pulled up to the tollbooth.

"I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree for now. I don't want an argument to ruin our vacation," she continued as she handed the tollbooth operator her rental ticket.

"We're staying here?" Evan said, eyeing the dilapidated hotel they had parked outside of. "It looks kinda… run-down."

"As opposed to the sewers you usually live in?" Ororo smirked, glancing briefly at her nephew.

"Point taken, I guess," Evan said disappointedly, "It's just, I kinda expected our vacation to be more of a… y'know… vacation."

"Well, it's only one night, and I picked this particular hotel for a reason," Ororo said as she and Evan took their suitcases out of the back of the jeep and made their way to the hotel lobby. "Of course, I think you'll prefer it to the next three nights we'll be spending in our tribe's village. No air conditioning there."

"And there's some here?"

"Well, no," Ororo admitted. "But there's electricity. And fans."

"Well, that's something, I guess."

"Good… afternoon," said the attendant behind the main desk in the lobby, eyeing Evan suspiciously. "You do….have a, um, a….?"

[Reservation? Yes, we do,] Ororo said, switching to her native tongue to help the man who was clearly struggling with his English. She dug in her pockets for a second before pulling out a piece of paper and handing it to the attendant. [Munroe, party of two.]

The attendant took the document and looked over it thoroughly. [Very well. Room 28, at the far end of the hall ahead of you, to the right. The door sticks, it may require a bit of force. But I will require an extra security deposit first.]

[Why?] Ororo asked. [What for?]

[The mutant, of course,] the attendant said, motioning to Evan, whose eyes narrowed at the gesture. [Just a bit of… insurance in case any damage is done. You understand?]

[I was not told anything of the sort when I made this arrangement,] Ororo said, clearly unhappy but keeping her tone at least superficially pleasant.

[We did not know that you would have a Mutant with you. That… changes things.]

After hesitating for a few minutes, Ororo said softly, [He is sleeping on the floor. He won't be damaging the bed.]

[That is besides the point. He is covered in sharp spikes!]

Ororo sighed, digging in her pockets. [Very well. Here.]

Having received a satisfactory amount of money for his liking, the now-smiling attendant handed Ororo the room key. "Have a good stay."

"Let me guess," Evan said softly as he and his aunt took their baggage and headed down the hall. "He had a problem with me?"

"It's not important," Ororo said, a bit too abruptly.

"Y'know, Auntie O, I've been keeping this to myself, but considering this dump of a place, the fact that we'd likely be treated this way…. why the heck didn't we just drive straight to your tribe's village? We could've made it there before nightfall."

"Well, first, it would've been close," Ororo said. "And you don't want to be driving in the wilderness of Kenya when it gets dark. It's hardly a safe place.

"But, most importantly, there's something here I want you to see—something that our little village certainly doesn't have."

"Bathrooms?"

"Oh ha ha," Ororo said sarcastically, though she couldn't help but genuinely chuckle a little at her nephew's comment.

Opening up the door to their room, she said, "I'll show you after dinner tonight. Let's get our things unpacked first, though."

"Auntie O, where the heck are we going? We're several blocks away from the hotel, it's kinda run-down here, and… and I thought you didn't want us out after dark."

"I meant out in the wilderness," Ororo said, her eyes flitting around as she tried to identify mental landmarks to help her find her way to their destination. "Out there, there's no real light, no way to see what's coming. Here, there's some street lights on at night, and, well… obviously we can both take care of ourselves if there's any trouble. Which I don't think there will be, given that obviously you're a Mutant."

"Gee, thanks, I…. wait, what is this?" Evan said, surveying the scene before him as they turned a corner. "Auntie O, you can't…"

"Oh, I'm totally serious," Ororo said, smiling as she took a skateboard out of a backpack she had brought with her and plopped it at Evan's feet.

She had brought them to a small skate park. Well, not a skate "park" so much as a wooden half-pipe and a few rusty rails- but Ororo figured it would certainly be enough.

"Auntie O, I… I haven't been on a skateboard since I joined the Morlocks."

"I know that," Ororo said. "But on my last visit here, I discovered this little place. It wasn't hard to find, it's apparently a popular place for the local kids to come to during the day. All you had to do was follow the children and teenagers with the skateboards. And I figured it would be perfect for you."

"But my balance has changed ever since my body did! This bone plating makes me so much heavier, forces me to change my posture a little… any of the techniques I still remember probably won't work."

"Then come up with new ones," Ororo said, pushing the skateboard towards Evan a bit more with her feet, egging him on. "You'll adapt soon enough. And if you mess up, well, you've got that exact same bone plating protecting you! No more knee pads or helmet needed, that's certainly a plus. Come on, Evan. Please. You need this."

Evan stared at the skateboard in front of him for a few moments, mulling it over. Finally, he put one foot on it and pushed himself towards the half-pipe. "Alright…but I hope you didn't spend that much on this skateboard."

"Don't worry about that," Ororo smiled. "Just… try it out."

Evan overcautiously started to roll back and forth on the bottom portion of the half-pipe slowly several times, making sure he hadn't totally forgotten everything. After a minute or two, satisfied he was still doing well enough, he started to roll higher and higher, his grin getting wider the higher he got.

Finally, Evan seemed confident enough where he really began to build up speed, and finally launched himself and his skateboard off one end of the half-pipe, circling around in mid-air and starting a 360 before touching back down.

"Woo-hoo!" Evan shouted, in a carefree tone Ororo hadn't heard from him since before he left the X-Men. "Auntie—auugh!"

Just as he came back down on the half-pipe, Evan misstepped a bit, and he fell off the skateboard, crashing down onto the wooden structure and smashing right through it with his increased weight.

"Evan!" Ororo cried out in alarm, running up to the hole in the ramp and looking down it. "Are you okay?"

"Ugh," Evan said, shaking his head slightly as he stood up and slowly climbed his way out of the hole. "I'm fine… but the half-pipe isn't. See, I KNEW this would happen. And now I've destroyed this whole thing because of it."

"We'll fix it," Ororo said, helping Evan back down onto the ground and picking up his skateboard before giving it back to him again. "Let's try again."

"Um… hello?" Evan said incredulously. "I just SMASHED through the freaking half-pipe."

"So? Try the rails."

"What, and break those too? No, thanks. I'm done here. Let's get back to the hotel… er, motel… whatever, you know what I mean."

"Okay, let's make this simple," Ororo said, a smirk on her face as a small storm cloud started to form a few dozen feet above Evan. "You can give up now, and I won't stop you. But it WILL downpour on you—and only you- the entire way back. Very cold rain, too."

"Auntie O, come on, seriously! What the heck is the deal? So I don't want to skateboard anymore, what's the problem? That's not why we're here!"

"Evan, look at me," Ororo said, gently turning her nephew's face up to look at hers. "This isn't just about skateboarding. Ever since you joined the Morlocks, you've… changed. I realize in some ways it's a good thing, but you've gotten pessimistic. Fatalistic to the point where you won't even pursue anything new anymore, and that concerns me. You're stuck. You ENJOYED skateboarding up until the point where you fell, that much was obvious. I am proud of you for staying to protect the Morlocks… but you've got to get beyond this mindset you've picked up. Now. Try again."

Evan stared at Ororo for a few moments, his face a mixture of confusion and frustration, before he finally grabbed the skateboard from his aunt roughly.

"Fine, I'll give it ONE more shot. Then I'm calling it a night, raincloud or no."

"Fair enough," Ororo said, the cloud dissipating over Evan as he walked to the rails. "Now that you've gotten the hang of just moving around on the skateboard, perhaps grinding tactics may be a bit more useful than aerial tricks."

"Yeah, I suppose—wait, useful?" Evan turned his head back to face Ororo, his expression quizzical. "Useful for what?"

"Just… try it out."

"Fine," Evan said, throwing the board on the ground and jumping on it again. After making sure his footing was secure, he picked up speed, flipped up onto a small concrete step, and then from there did some pivoting and a jump, landing and grinding on one of the rails almost flawlessly before landing back down on the concrete. It was a bit unstable of a landing, but he still managed to keep himself upright.

"Hey… hey, I did it!"

"Keep it up!" Ororo smiled. "And try more movements where you end with the skateboard out in front of you as you jump up or down."

Evan looked at Ororo curiously for a second, then shrugged and did as she suggested. Within a few minutes, Evan was having a blast, grinding rails, performing tricks in the air with only one hand gripping something, and basically doing with ease every rail move he had learned before.

Ororo watched, her grin almost wide as Evan's as her nephew started to have the first bit of real fun she'd seen in more than a year.

It was more than a half-hour later when Evan finally skated back towards Ororo, clearly exhausted, flipping up the board into his hand with a quick flick of his foot.

"Thanks, Auntie O. You were right… I needed that. Here, here's the board back."

"Oh, no no no," Ororo said, shaking her head. "It's yours. And it's… one of a kind. None of us would know what to do with it."

"One of a kind?" Evan said, looking over the skateboard. "What, is my name engraved somewhere on it or something? Maybe the X-Men logo?"

"Oh, much better than that," Ororo smiled. "I didn't mention this earlier because I didn't want you to focus on it to the detriment of just having fun, but Hank and Forge custom-made it for you… as a tool, to help you out whenever you need it. Press together on the back two wheels, and be a little careful as you do so."

"O…kaaay…" Evan said, putting the board back on the ground and pushing together on the relevant wheels with his feet. Suddenly, a row of sharp, flat steel spikes unfolded out from all around the rim of the skateboard with a snap.

"Holy…!" Evan grinned. "Auntie O, that is AWESOME! So this is like a weapon or something?"

"If you need it," Ororo nodded. "We figured just because you're living with the Morlocks doesn't mean you should forgo any benefits you might have had as a former X-Man. And we figure things are going to get more tense as the Registration Act comes into effect. Just… not on any innocents, you hear? Only people who threaten your safety. As a last resort."

"Oh, yeah, definitely," Evan said, his grin still a mile wide as he kicked the rear wheels back out, the spikes folding back into the sides of the board.

"So, back to the hotel?" Ororo said. "It is getting rather late."

"Yeah, and that definitely wore me out," Evan said, picking up his skateboard before they both started to make their way out of the small park.

"Hey, Auntie O?"

"Yes?"

"…How the heck did you get this thing through airport security?"

Ororo laughed. "Oh, those spikes hide very well when they're retracted. Even from x-ray scanners.…Plus, not a carry-on."

"Ah."

"Auntie O, I've been meaning to ask you for a while… what is Mom's real name?"

"I'm sorry?" Ororo yelled over the sound of the loud motor on the back end of their boat, their vehicle speeding full ahead up the river stream. "Speak up, Evan!"

After a decent night's sleep, both of them had woken up fairly early the next morning. After all, they had to help patch up the half-pipe Evan had accidentally broken the previous evening with some wood planks they had purchased before they could take off for Ororo and Mirambo's home village. Now, with the sun getting high in the sky, they were making good progress. Ororo figured they would be at the village before noon.

"I said, what is Mom's real name?" Evan repeated, practically shouting now.

"What do you mean?"

"C'mon… Ororo, Mirambo, and… Vivian? There's no way my Mom's real name is Vivian."

"Well, it was the name your mother took when she moved to America," Ororo responded loudly. "Those were some… difficult times. Your mother was completely smitten with Western civilization, and wanted nothing more to do with our tribe. Mirambo was the exact opposite, refusing to have any real contact with modern society, at least voluntarily. I myself like parts of each, and so I've stayed in touch with both your mother and your uncle, and both cultures as well. As you've probably guessed, Vivian and Mirambo aren't exactly the best of friends anymore."

"Yeah, she hasn't really talked much about her past. Which is kinda why I'm asking you!"

"Hold on, we need to slow up," Ororo said, ceasing her yelling as the motor on their boat became noticeably quieter, the speed of the boat slowing down dramatically. "We're come up on some fog."

"Woah, kinda thick, too," Evan said as they began to enter the fringes of it. "I can't see more than thirty or so feet in front of me."

"This river isn't exactly known for being treacherous, but we'd still better be careful," Ororo replied. "You never know when a hippopotamus or the like is bathing—and don't be fooled by their looks, they can be quite dangerous when they're angry. Still, let me see if I can clear it-"

"Hold on a sec, you still haven't answered my question," Evan interrupted

"Hmmm?"

"My Mom's real name. C'mon, what is it?"

"Oh… oooh, I really don't think your mother would want me to tell you. She's thoroughly embarrassed by it now, thinks it sounds too 'primitive'."

"Aw c'mon. I won't tell her you told me."

"Nice try," Ororo smiled, "But you'll just have to keep on guessing. You won't get anything from me."

"What about a hint?" Evan grinned. "Maybe you can tell me it in Pig Latin."

Ororo considered for a few moments before responding. "It has the letter 'l' in it."

"Oh, c'mon! That's noth—"

Suddenly Ororo's head darted to the left as she immediately shushed Evan. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"It sounded almost like a… splash…" Ororo said, her expression growing more anxious by the second.

Evan turned immediately to his far left, having thought he saw a figure moving in the reeds among the edge of the river. But when he focused fully on the reeds, he saw nothing there.

"Okay, this is getting creepy. You don't think….?"

"It is very unusual to have fog this late in the morning, in the savannah," Ororo said, her eyes glowing slightly. "Let me go ahead and…"

The fog didn't move.

"As I feared," Ororo said, standing up in the boat. "I can't control this fog. Which means…"

"…The Hungan," Evan said, standing up as well. "We've got to get out of this boat, we're sitting ducks out here!"

"You got that right!" sounded a deep voice as a huge, helmeted figure suddenly broke through the water right below the boat, smashing it to pieces with one of his fists and sending both Storm and Spyke flying in opposite directions, landing near the shallow banks of the river.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me!" Spyke said exasperatingly as he stood up, the water roughly chest-deep where he had landed. "Juggernaut, too?"

"It would appear so," Storm said, standing up from her position on the opposite side of the river.

"Yup!" Juggernaut smiled, cracking his sizable knuckles. "And I think it's high time I paid some 'a you X-Freaks back for the trouble you've caused me!"

"Is it just me, or does he seem even bigger than he was before?" Spyke said, backing away from the advancing giant Mutant, throwing flaming bone spikes at Juggernaut in a vain attempt to slow him down.

"It is not your imagination, Mutant," came a powerful-sounding voice from several dozen yards behind Storm, on the opposite bank of the river. "Cain came to me wanting more power. I gave him to it- in exchange for his… 'assistance' in taking revenge on you both."

Storm didn't even have to turn around to see who it was—and it wouldn't have helped anyways, the fog being so thick. "Hungan! How dare you-!"

"How dare YOU, Wind Rider!" the Hungan responded, finally getting close enough where his silhouette could be seen through the fog, the gem on the edge of his staff glowing brightly. "You leave our tribe, refuse to provide rain when we need it in this dry place… you betrayed us!"

"And yet most of the tribe didn't turn on me like you," Storm said, rising above the water on an air current of her own making and turning around to face the Hungan. "They understood that manipulating the weather for so long a period of time was changing the very ecosystem in which we lived, and rapidly. I could not continue to do so."

"They were fools," the Hungan shot back. "We could have become the most powerful tribe in Kenya, had you the fortitude to use your power to its fullest."

"You mean like I'm going to do now?" Storm said, sending a bolt of lightning at the Hungan, who nimbly dodged it.

"Juggernaut! Protect me!" the Hungan commanded.

Cain growled, clearly not wanting to obey anyone's orders, but reluctantly obliged and waded across the river, the now twelve-foot-tall Mutant an incredibly imposing figure as he stomped towards Storm.

"Hey, get away from her!" Spyke said, desperately hurling bone spike after bone spike at Juggernaut to try to get his attention, to no avail.

"Stay back!" Storm yelled, pulling herself higher into the air so that she was out of even Juggernaut's reach and conjuring up high winds to hurl at him. Juggernaut didn't even budge though, as he began to unstrap his helmet.

"Good thing I don't have to worry about my brother getting inside my head this time," Juggernaut grinned before taking his helmet off his head and hurling it like a frisbee at Storm. It struck her in the stomach, hard, the pain causing her to fall back into the river.

"Auntie O!" Spyke cried, wading as fast as could in a circle around Juggernaut to try to get at his aunt before the giant could.

"Ain't gonna happen, you pointy freak," Cain grunted, stepping over and swatting Spyke aside to the opposite bank, who was unable to dodge in time due to being almost shoulder-deep in water.

"Enough with the child, he is of little consequence!" the Hungan said from the river shore. "Take care of the Wind Rider, Cain, she is the one who betrayed her tribe!"

"I'll 'take care of her' because I friggin' WANT TO, Skull Face, not because YOU ordered it," Juggernaut growled, before picking up Storm by the waist.

Spyke, having recovered from being thrown, watched in horror as Cain started to slowly, painfully squeeze his massive hand tighter around Storm's midsection.

But, seeing Cain's helmet now laying further down the river gave him an idea.

"Auntie O!" Spyke cried out, readying an incredibly sharp, flaming bone spike, "He still might have a weak spot—guide it!"

Storm, through the pain, saw what Spyke was getting at. As he fired off the projectile at Juggernaut's head, she used all her power to accelerate the spike even faster, faster, right into—

Juggernaut grunted as the bone spike impacted right on its target—his left eye.

Dropping Storm roughly, he backed up a few steps, clutching his head in his hands. Storm, catching her breath, looked approvingly over to Spyke, who gave a thumbs up.

Their victory was short-lived, however, as Juggernaut began to laugh.

Removing his hands from his face, he dropped the fragments of the bone spike to the ground—his targeted eye looking just fine.

"That might've worked earlier," Cain chuckled, a smirk on his face, "But with Skull Face's upgrade, even that doesn't bother me anymore! I'm even more unstoppable than I ever was!

"But I'll tell you what," Cain continued, roughly picking up Storm by the hair, who Spyke could see was trying her best not to cry out in pain. "I hafta admit, that was a pretty original move, you spike freak. So as a reward, I'm gonna make you watch as I kill your 'Auntie O' first!"

Spyke watched in horror as Cain slammed Storm into the river, holding her under. A few bubbles came up, and then a whirlwind started to surround where Storm was, uncovering her in the water.

Spyke knew he didn't have much time—he had to think quickly. Looking around, he quietly dove into the river.

Coughing and sputtering the water out of her lungs, the whirlwind holding back the river water around her, Juggernaut slammed Ororo roughly against the riverbed, causing her to let out a sudden cry of pain as she felt something break. Still, she could tell that Juggernaut was holding back, playing with her—he could've easily killed her with one hard smash had he wanted to.

Desperately, Storm summoned all of her remaining strength. Dark gray clouds started to roil overhead, and Juggernaut looked up—just in time to have a lightning bolt strike him right in the face.

He merely laughed, his form crackling with electrical energy for a few seconds as he pushed a bit more of his weight onto Storm, causing her to start gasping for air again, even with the water being held out of her face by sheer wind.

Another lightning bolt struck Juggernaut, then another and another. His expression continued to remain the same.

The Hungan watched from the edge of the riverbed. At long last, the Wind Rider would finally be dead at his hands! Well, indirectly of course, but it was still better than nothing.

He was about to step forward to get a better look—when all of a sudden a bony, spiky lower arm was shoved in his face.

Spyke had circled around quietly while all the attention was on Storm and grabbed the Hungan from behind in a headlock. A rather painful one too, given all the points Spyke had sticking out of him.

The Hungan started to cry out, but Spyke's forearm points grew quickly until they were less than an inch from the witch doctor's throat.

"You get his attention, you're gonna end up with a lot of holes in you before he kills me," Spyke growled quietly to the Hungan. "Now, undo what you did."

"Why don't you just destroy my orb like you did the last time and do it yourself, you porcupine?"

"That didn't take away Juggernaut's powers the last time I did it, I don't see why it would suddenly do that now."

"Ah. You are smarter than you look."

"Now, do it."

"That… will take time."

"How much time?"

"More time… than your aunt has left."

"Bull. Juggernaut isn't the brightest Mutant in the pack, and you know it. If you gave him his powers the first time like the Prof told me back when I was an X-Man, there's no reason you would give him more power and let him keep it—with you so close this entire time—unless you were planning to take it away as soon as he was done with us."

The Hungan said nothing, his eyebrows merely narrowing.

"Last chance. If you think I don't have the guts to take you down in an attempt to save my aunt, try me."

The Hungan thought for a moment, gulping as Spyke's forearm spikes grew a little longer, before he finally relented.

"Alright, alright! But you must let me go. I need to be able to speak at my full volume."

Spyke let go of him and shoved him forward. "You take off, you get a bone javelin through the head."

The Hungan glared back at Spyke before turning forward and starting to chant, the orb at the end of his staff beginning to glow as he did so.

"Wea ooo shea, oooo sher-ee…"

The chanting immediately caught Juggernaut's attention, who looked back towards the Hungan, Storm thoroughly beaten and bloodied below him. Her strength had been sapped to the point where the wind keeping the river away from her face was starting to weaken, the greenish-blue water starting to stream back over her body again.

"Hey! What the heck do you think you're doing, Skull Face?"

The Hungan said nothing, continuing to chant as sweat began to form on his brow.

"Oh, no you don't! Not now!" Juggernaut said, throwing Storm aside as he began to run back up the side of the river bank towards the other two.

Spyke immediately ran over to help Storm up from her position at the side of the river, watching as Cain continued to run towards the Hungan. As he did, however, a bluish light began to envelop him—and second by second, he began to shrink more and more.

"NOOOO!" Cain roared, his proportions growing less muscular by the moment. "You can't! We made a DEAL!"

Spyke fired off a flaming bone arrow towards Juggernaut, catching him in the leg and causing him to cry out in pain as he fell down, clutching at the wound.

Finally stopping the chant, the Hungan watched with satisfaction as Cain finally finishing shrinking to the size and proportions of a normal human, only about six feet tall now.

"You don't make deals," the Hungan smirked, before whacking the panicking Mutant with the end of his staff. The blow was severe enough that it rendered Cain unconscious, blood starting to leak from his mouth.

"I have been wanting to do that for a long time," the Hungan said, "I just needed you to be distracted by someone else long enough for me to do it."

Turning back towards Spyke, the Hungan looked him in the eye for a moment before responding calmly, "I have done as you requested. Your aunt, I should point out, is weak now. Weak in body and spirit. Thus, you will let me leave now and try to gather the remnants of my tribe."

Spyke glared back at the Hungan for a moment before nodding his head, watching for a moment as the witch doctor turned around and slowly walked away, quickly being swallowed up by the thick fog. A few moments later the fog dissipated, with no trace that the Hungan had ever been there.

"Let me out of here! Please!" Cain pleaded. "I'll do anything you want, just please don't turn me in!"

"You know, you should stop your incessant whining," Ororo smiled back. "It's very unbecoming for the unstoppable Juggernaut."

"No wonder the Prof hated him," Evan said, nodding his head at the man in ridiculously oversized clothes being held in a temporary cage made out of long bone spikes laced together with tough dried vines and guarded by two of the tribe's warriors. "The guy's a total bully—all he had was his muscles. Without that, he's just a brat."

"There," Mirambo said, finishing placing the final bandage around Ororo's stomach. "A very potent mix of our tribe's best healing herbs. You have a broken rib, but other than that you should be fine in a few days. Just be sure to take it easy—let our nephew do the heavy lifting."

"Isn't that what nephews are for?" Ororo said, laughing a little before stopping due to the pain from her broken rib.

"Speaking of which, when are the police coming for the totally stoppable Cain Marko?" Evan said. "The only reason I was even able to get both of you here is by pushing him along on my skateboard I fished out of the river. And that journey was only about a mile or two. I can't get both of you all the way back to the city without help."

"Mirambo said he contacted them," Ororo said.

"Well, I did not, really. It was our tribe's messenger—but yes, the police should be coming within a few hours to take Cain away. He will not be a thorn in our sides much longer."

"Alright, enough of that. No more about Cain," Ororo said. "It's your birthday, brother, and we're celebrating it, whether you usually do or not."

Ororo nodded to Evan, who went into one of the tribe's huts that had been temporarily given to their two visitors and came out with a roughly rectangular block of wood with several small cylinders of wood sticking out of it. The words "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIRAMBO" were carved roughly into the wood.

"What is this?" Mirambo said, an uncertain grin on his face as he looked curiously at the odd object being set on the ground in front of him.

"Well, it was SUPPOSED to be a birthday cake," Ororo said. "Unfortunately, the one we were bringing to you was ruined when Cain destroyed our rental boat. So I had Evan carve up a 'temporary one' from some chopped wood you had laying in a pile behind your hut. I hope you don't mind."

"Oh, not at all," Mirambo laughed as Evan heated up one of his forearm spikes and carefully set the ends of the wooden "candles" on fire. "But if I cannot eat it, I am not sure what I am supposed to do with it."

"It's more ceremonial than anything else, Uncle M," Evan said as he finished lighting the last "candle". "Tradition has it you're supposed to make a wish and blow out the candles. I guess the eating part, in this case, isn't recommended."

"Well, we have plenty of good food for you here," Mirambo said. "Some things I am sure Evan will have never tried before. But, regardless…"

Mirambo closed his eyes and blew out the candles, after which Evan and Ororo clapped lightly, a few other tribespeople joining in.

"Now, the rule is you can't tell anybody about your wish, or it won't come true," Ororo smiled.

"Some odd traditions they have out in the West," Mirambo said, quirking his eyebrow. "But regardless, I know it not to be true."

"Huh?" Evan asked. "What are you talking about?"

"Because my wish had already come true before I had even blown out the candles," Mirambo said, carefully embracing his sister and nephew.

The End
 

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