He knew he shouldn’t be surprised. Not really. After all, this was what Magneto had promised, mutants who had nothing in common but their genetic x-factor banding together to conquer humanity. But looking at these five most unlikely teammates, for the first time, the Beast truly believed that Magneto could fulfill that promise if left unchecked.
That was where the X-Men came in.
“Destroy them, Acolytes!” Unuscione shrieked madly half a block away, even as she tried to crush Bishop beneath her exoskeleton. “Death to the X-Men!”
Bishop dove to escape Unuscione’s blow, and his gun clattered to the pavement, out of reach.
“So much for Magneto’s open door policy,” the Beast mumbled, and tensed to spring to Bishop’s aid. A powerful hand clamped on his shoulder.
“Not so fast, McCoy,” a female voice said, and Hank tried to dodge the blow he knew was coming. He caught a glancing blow to the back of the head, and tumbled forward. The momentum and temporary disorientation threatened to leave him sprawled on the ground, a perfect target. But he had not trained for so many years to end up in such an ignominious position. Hank used the momentum to tumble into a somersault. As his feet came around to the ground, he sprang away, putting space between himself and his attacker. He spun in the air, and when he landed a dozen yards away, he was facing her.
Joanna Cargil, once known to the X-Men as Frenzy. She was a muscular black woman whose strength was multiplied exponentially by her mutation. And she was faster than the Beast had remembered.
“Joanna,” Hank sighed. “Once again you disappoint me.”
Cargil strode toward him, on guard but without fear.
“Once, that kind of thing would have hurt me, McCoy,” Cargil said. “I was so inexperienced, insecure, when we first met. That’s changed now. I know my duty, my destiny. I don’t care if you’re disappointed. The unenlightened often are.”
“Ah,” the Beast said with a purposely patronizing smirk, “a zealot. I shall look forward to thrashing you, then.”
“Why you pompous, overbearing …” Cargil began, and rushed at him, ready to deliver a blow capable of shattering his skull.
Hank had no intention of letting her connect. Once again, his good nature and his reputation had somehow caused an opponent to forget just how strong he was. The Beast felt it was time his enemies were reminded. Cargil moved fast, yes, but he was infinitely faster. He could have leaped from her path, escaped any number of ways, worn her down until she might have been subdued in less violent fashion.
But there wasn’t time for niceties.
Cargil swung at him, crouched low in boxing fashion to avoid a counterpunch to the body. But the Beast was out of patience. He put his left arm up to knock Cargil’s blow away, steeled himself for the pain that even that tangential impact was certain to bring, and struck. His massive fist curled into a ball of blue fur that looked as though it should be soft, but was like solid stone beneath the downy pile.
It was a testament to Cargil’s hardy constitution that she did not simply drop in her tracks when the Beast’s fist slammed into her cheek and nose. Her head snapped back at whiplash speed and blood burst from her left nostril. Eyes filled with rage, Cargil began to raise her fists again. A smile spread across her face, and she seemed about to say something, seemed confident that the Beast would give her the time to recover, time to taunt him, time to fight it out the way they had once before. Confident that, if he did, she would win.
The unwritten rules of a fair fight allowed time for your opponent to recover. But Hank McCoy had neither the time nor the inclination for a fair fight.
Before Cargil could speak, Hank hit her with a left, then a right to the gut, and a left again to the face. When she fell to the ground in front of him, nearly unconscious, several things occurred to the Beast simultaneously. He had stooped to a method of fighting he had always tried to avoid— two people standing toe to toe and pummeling one another. He had badly beaten a woman whose major crime had always been ignorance. And he was sickened by it. Sickened and ashamed, and wishing he was home, curled up with Shakespeare and cocoa. Anywhere but here.
He turned to walk away, to offer help to his teammates, who seemed to be at the very least holding their own. Then he heard movement behind him, and spun around to see that Cargil was trying to raise her head. Her eyelids fluttered as she fought unconsciousness. Though it seemed to cause her pain, she sneered.
“Just thought you should … know,” she said, her words staggered, slurred. “Drake whimpered like … a puppy when I … took him down.”
“What?” the Beast roared. “What did you do to Bobby?”
Cargil’s cheek hit the pavement with a wet slap, and she was completely out. He knelt over her, trying to get her to wake up, but it was no use. She and the others had ambushed Iceman, that much was clear. But Hank did not know if his old friend was alive or dead. When he turned back to the battle, it was with the single intention of discovering Iceman’s fate.
* * *
WHENEVER he saw Mortimer Toynbee, the Toad, Wolverine was tempted to underestimate him. After all, the man had always passed himself off as a benchwarmer, as the Peter Lorre character in a film, or Igor to Magneto’s Dr. Frankenstein. A loser. A third-rate coward who was little or no threat. But his heart was filled with evil and hatred, and he could do quite a bit of damage with those powerful legs.
So he was no third-rater. Still, he was second-rate at best. In any case, it was hard not to underestimate him at first. Wolverine was going after the Blob, eagerly anticipating the idea of putting Dukes on the adamantium claw diet, when the Toad slammed into him from behind. The impact, with the power in those legs, knocked Wolverine from his feet. He sailed across the street and slammed into a wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him, and loosen several bricks.
When he stood up, Wolverine was furious.
“Once again you ignore the terrible Toad!” Toynbee shouted, his righteous anger a poor mask for his fear. He couldn’t hide the fear no matter how brave he tried to sound.
Wolverine could smell it on him.
“You hit a normal guy like that,” Wolverine snarled, his claws popping out with a snikt, “woulda broken every bone in his body. Guess it’s lucky I ain’t normal.”
The Toad leaped at him again, with astonishing speed. Anyone else might have gotten overconfident, assumed Toynbee’s fear would have made him hesitate to attack again. But Wolverine was the best there was. He knew better. To Logan, the attack was telegraphed by the tiniest motion, the smallest change in scent. He ducked. As Toynbee passed above him, Wolverine raked his claws across the diminutive mutant’s legs and the Toad let out a piercing wail of agony.
Even as the Toad hit the ground, feeling his legs to check the damage, Wolverine had already moved on. The X-Men were prevailing, but the fight had not been won yet. And, given Magneto’s plans, it would hardly be the last battle they fought that day. Unless, of course, they lost.
The Beast was bounding around the dull-witted, quick-tempered Blob, getting a blow in here and there while avoiding the Blob’s enormous fists. He was going to need help, but Wolverine banked on Hank’s ability to keep dodging a few moments longer. He had to prioritize, and right now, Storm seemed to need him more.
Pyro would normally be no match for Ororo, but before he had gone up against her, the psycho had set fire to an old, boarded-up movie theater. The flames had kindled quickly within the dry wood and dusty curtains, and he had stoked them high. Now the theater was a raging inferno, and Pyro had the flames at his disposal.
He could not create fire, and Wolverine knew they had to be thankful for that. Pyro wore a complicated getup on his back that fueled the dual flamethrowers he held in each hand. His mutant ability was to control the fire once it existed, to direct it, shape it into whatever he wished. The key was, while Storm ought to have been using her weather control abilities to attack Pyro, she was forced to battle the blaze. Giant hands of solid fire shot suddenly from the t
heater lobby, reaching for Storm where she had suspended herself on the winds.
A gale force wind kept the flaming hands back, even as torrential rain began to fall on the flames. But the fire burned brightly still. Eventually, Pyro might actually be able to wear her down. And if Storm weakened, the hands of fire might be able to reach her. Fortunately, the X-Men were a team.
Wolverine approached Pyro from behind, with a predator’s silence. Allerdyce never knew what hit him. With one swipe of his claws, Wolverine severed the tubes supplying fuel for Pyro’s flamethrowers, making certain he could not create any new fires. With the second, he punctured the tank on the mutant terrorist’s back. The fuel began to spill out onto the sidewalk, and Pyro spun to face him.
“Wolverine!” Pyro said, his Australian accent tainted with false levity. “’Ow are ya, mate? It’s a pleasure to see ya as always. Let’s be gentlemen about this, eh?”
Logan said nothing. He brandished his claws before him, the sunlight glinting off the adamantium with blinding radiance, except in those spots where the Toad’s blood had dried.
“Come on, now, Wolverine,” Pyro pleaded, backing up several steps. “What’d I evah do to you, eh?”
Pyro tried to smile, but his smile faltered as he realized Wolverine was backing him toward the burning building, as the highly combustible chemicals he used to fuel his flames were pouring off his back. He began to move, to attempt to go around Wolverine, but Logan darted in and nicked his arm, very lightly, with one claw.
“You’re cornered, Allerdyce,” Wolverine said grimly. “You’d better hope Storm puts out that blaze before you get a little too close, or a spark jumps our way.”
“You’ll be killed as well, you madman!” Pyro shouted, panicked.
Again, Wolverine did not respond. With his peripheral vision, he watched as Storm lifted her hands and gathered the air itself into her control. Suddenly, a small tornado seemed to spring up from nowhere. The vortex lowered itself out of the sky to encircle the burning theater. It was there for a few seconds, no more, and when it lifted into the air and dissipated, the fire was out. Rain fell on charred wood.
Moments later, Pyro was doing his best to plead for his life without making it sound too much like begging. Wolverine bared his teeth but did not advance upon the mutant. Storm rode the winds at her command until she lightly touched down on the pavement. When Pyro turned to her, prepared to continue his pleas, Ororo lifted a hand, flicked her wrist in a dismissive gesture, and the winds whipped Pyro from his feet and slammed him through the display window of a GapKids across the street.
He did not emerge, and Wolverine had a moment to wonder if he was unconscious, or merely hiding. Logan and Storm did not speak, then, for they did not need to. It reminded Wolverine of the time they had spent on the road together, just the two of them, forming a bond of friendship that could never be broken. It was a pleasant memory amidst a barrage of hellish new events.
* * *
“I’M really beginning to enjoy myself, Bishop,” Unuscione ranted. “Thank you for being so cooperative, and giving so freely of yourself … and your blood!”
The shimmering green exoskeleton Unuscione’s psionic powers generated was completely at her command. She raised an arm encased in a giant block of glowing energy, and swung it down toward Bishop. He barely escaped being crushed by it, but could not save himself completely. Unuscione struck him from behind with her exoskeleton—the third time she had connected—and Bishop stumbled forward and slammed his head against the pavement.
When he stood, blood flowed from his nose and mouth, and from several scrapes on his right cheek.
“You are a madwoman, Unuscione!” he shouted. “Perhaps I sound as mad as you with my raving, but you must listen to me. You all must listen. What Magneto has built this day cannot stand. The Sentinels may be temporarily under your control, but that cannot last. They have but one purpose, to keep the human race dominant through the containment and eventually the destruction of mutants.
“I have seen it, don’t you understand?” he cried. “If Magneto should triumph, all mutants will suffer, millions will die!”
“Magneto is the savior of mutantkind, Bishop, not its destroyer!” Unuscione retorted, even as she swung at him again. “It is because of such blasphemy that the X-Men must die!”
Bishop was slowing down, becoming slightly disoriented. It was impossible for him to dodge Unuscione this time, and he was battered down beneath her onslaught. For the space of several seconds, he lay stunned. Unuscione likely believed him beaten, for she appeared about to move on to another foe. Bishop felt a strange tingling all through his body, and his hands felt as though they’d fallen asleep, all pins and needles.
To his great surprise, he found himself charged with energy. With throbbing in his head, he looked up at Unuscione. When he saw her, Bishop realized where he had garnered this power supply. Unuscione’s exoskeleton had dimmed noticeably, its glowing green a far lighter hue. In the sunlight, it was gossamer as cowebs. And the woman, overconfident in her abilities, did not seem to have noticed it as of yet.
Without either of them realizing it, Unuscione had, with each blow, filled Bishop with explosive energy. If he had a few moments to recover, he felt he would be all right. But Unuscione would not allow him those moments if she suspected he was not completely defeated, or even dead. Painfully, Bishop rolled over onto his stomach, facing Unuscione. Immediately, she lashed out again with her exoskeleton. But this time it barely fazed him. It was as if she had dumped a bucket of water on him, for all the harm it did.
And when she withdrew, the green glow had faded even further. Bishop felt it growing inside him, the heat stoked like a furnace.
“For the future,” he grunted, and released all the pent up energy he had unwittingly stolen from Unuscione.
Even if her exoskeleton had been at full strength, Bishop was attacking with the same energy, only re-channeled through his own body. His blast passed through her force field as if it were not there. Unuscione screamed and crumbled to the ground.
“For the future,” Bishop muttered again, then began to drag himself to his feet in order to help his comrades.
* * *
FRED Dukes was a little bit concerned. All four of his companions, including his old buddy Unus’s little girl, had been downed by just four X-Men. He wasn’t worried that he might lose. No, the thought never even occurred to him. After all, he was stronger than the Beast, Wolverine’s claws couldn’t penetrate his rubbery hide, Storm could not call up a strong enough wind to move him, and this Bishop guy … hell, all he had was a gun, it looked like.
No, the Blob was mainly concerned because he didn’t think he could capture them like Magneto had ordered. Sure, maybe he could keep them busy until the other Acolytes came around, that was possible. But just as he didn’t think they’d be able to defeat him without Professor X or Jean Grey, who might be able to get into his head, or Cyclops, who had once burned a hole in his body, he didn’t think he could do much in return. If he could get his hands on any of them, why, he’d snap them like twigs. But they were all much faster than he was.
Storm’s winds buffeted his body, but he did not even have to lean into the wind to stay upright. They started to whip around him like a tornado, and at first he thought she might be trying to lift him off the ground with it. Then it hit him—this was something she had tried in earlier fights. Well, actually, it had worked before. She was trying to cut him off from oxygen so he wouldn’t be able to breathe and he would just pass out.
Just before all air left him, Dukes inhaled deeply, filling his massive lungs. He’d be able to hold his breath like that for several minutes. That’s all the time he had to do something, something that would let him win.
Fred Dukes knew he wasn’t the smartest guy in the world. But he also knew a good idea when he had one. Rolling his eyes as if he was about to pass out, Dukes fell to the ground, sending a tremor through the street around them. As soon as Storm let up wit
h her winds, he sank his fingers into the pavement and tore a huge chunk out of the street. Sitting up, he threw it at Storm with all his strength. The pavement broke apart in the air, and one piece did clip her arm, enough to distract her for a moment.
“All right, Beast, Wolverine, come on,” the Blob taunted. “I’m ready for ya. I’m gonna take you guys down, then grab that Storm chippie and make like Kong. I’ll be the Blob, the Eighth Wonder of the World!”
Suddenly, both the Beast and Wolverine stopped moving toward him. For a moment, Dukes didn’t understand. Then he got it.
“Oh, no …” he began, but it was too late. The X-Men were laughing at him.
“Why, thank you, Fred,” the Beast said. “Without Iceman, we were going to have a decidedly difficult time finding Magneto. If I am not mistaken, and I do not believe that I am, you have just told us precisely where to look.”
The Blob was flustered.
“Okay, maybe so, but you rubes still have to get by me, and you know from experience that nothing moves the Blob!” Dukes said, sure he could still pull it off. He’d blown it big, that was for sure, letting it slip where Magneto’s headquarters were. But it wasn’t over yet. Not by far.
“We don’t have to move you, Fred,” the Beast said. “We don’t even have to get by ya, bub,” Wolverine added, lighting up a cigar that Dukes hadn’t even seen him produce.
“What are you …” he began to ask, then saw that the one called Bishop, who the Acolytes had said was from the future, if you could believe it, had slung his plasma rifle over his shoulder. He wasn’t even aiming at the Blob anymore.
“Indeed, Mr. Dukes,” Storm continued as she walked calmly to where the other X-Men stood. “In the past, you see, we have been forced to fight you to the finish because you were committing some crime, or endangering innocent lives. We were, obviously, after you.”
“This time,” the Beast continued for her, “you are after us, as it were.”
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