"Mmmm. This is one tasty burger."
"Glad to see you're enjoying it," glumly remarked Blob. While Unuscione was sitting across from him in the mall food court, feasting on a large cheeseburger with the works, the only thing Blob had on his tray was a salad.
"You're the one who thought I'd prefer the salad," Unuscione chided.
"Most chicks do."
Unuscione paused in between bites and glared at Blob, secret sauce dripping from her chin. "Call me that again, I'll cut out your stomach and use it to keep my car dry when it rains. You don't want the rabbit food, fine. Toss it and get some real food of your own."
Giving a shrug that made the rolls of his neck jiggle, Blob grabbed the tray and stood up. The chair he'd been sitting on gave a noticeable creak. Three minutes later, the chair groaned in protest as Blob sat back down. His tray was piled high with cheeseburgers, French fries and curly fries, all smothered in barbecue sauce.
"It's a good thing you have the heart of a elephant," Unuscione deadpanned. "Anything less would burst from all that."
"Haven't had a heart attack yet," Blob bragged. "Haw, it must be my mutant power."
"That and putting Little Debbie's kids through college," the brunette shot back.
"What's with the fat jokes all of a sudden?" Blob asked through a mouthful of fries dripping in sauce.
Unuscione sighed. "Sorry, it's the anticipation talking. And no, it's not to be trapped forever in those thunder thighs of yours. For five days now, we've known where the X-Men went hiding off too. Even if Toad won't admit it, he must be scared. Why else would he postpone an attack on Magneto for this long?"
"To tell you the truth, I'm a little intimidated about taking him on. The X-Men are one thing, but the first time I met Magneto, he threw missiles at me."
"Please, he's not a god, you know." Unuscione threw the remains of her meal down in fury. "He doesn't even care about any of us! Everything he ever said was a lie, and I have the corpses of dead friends to prove it! Magneto is every bit as soft-hearted and weak as the X-Men, and for that they should all die together!"
As Unuscione was delivering her angry rant, Blob was inhaling his fast food. When they'd both finished, he spoke up. "Yeesh. You're still burning down there, huh?" The sharp, invisible pressure Blob felt against his sternum led him to quickly continue talking. "I was talking figurative like. Take it easy, will you? When we get back, you can take out this aggression out on McCoy!"
At mention of her favorite toy, Unuscione smiled. "He was the first one to make my father's powers uncontrollable. Figured it was only right to show him how well I could use mine." Her smile grew, as Unuscione remembered the Beast's screams rammed the five-inch thick extension of her force-field up further and further into him. Then her smile vanished, and Unuscione shook her head. "But no, not even McCoy's suffering will make up for what Magneto did. I want him, Freddy."
"So does Morty," said the little bald man that suddenly appeared standing over the couple. "It's all the little runt's been ranting about." Alternating his gaze from Unuscione to Blob, then back again, Vanisher grinned. "It's funny, the three of us here, it makes me think of the old Factor Three days all of a sudden."
"I remember dad talking about that little failure," Unuscione replied, while giving Vanisher a dirty look. "Whatever happened to that Changeling guy anyway?"
"Praying he never meets me again," was Blob's response. "There a reason you're interrupting our meal, baldy? I was just about to get seconds."
"Get it to go. The plans have been finalized, boys."
In glee, Unuscione rubbed her greasy hands together. "It's about time. Let's get in character."
"That's the second time!" Blob bellowed as the three mutants vanished in the middle of the food court.
__________________________________________________________________________________

A little over an hour later, Blob and Unuscione were several thousand feet in the air. She was on his back, with her arms wrapped around his neck. Also wrapped around him was her force field, protecting them both while they plummeted in free fall.
Far below them was the only city in the Magneto Territories.
Slight indentations in Unuscione's force field allowed her to control their fall, to an extent. They weren't slowing down. If anything, they were accelerating, in a dive that was becoming somewhat angled.
Like a massive cannonball, Blob and Unuscione crashed into the spire that rose up from the center of the city. They struck it at a sharp angle, just below halfway up. They went straight through it, crashing to the earth on the other side. Immediately after, the upper half of the spire began to fall.

Observing from a short distance outside the city, Pyro took the cigarette from his mouth with two fingers and blew out a cloud of smoke.
"Bloody show offs."
Gently, Pyro tapped the cigarette. Fiery ashes fell to the ground. Normally they would die, but at Pyro's command a small fire formed. As he stepped back, the fire grew. Then it spread, widening in a curve. In seconds, a ring of fire had formed around the city.
Slowly, the fire began to flow inward.

The city inside the Magneto Territories was very well built. It even had a sewer system. Avalanche was in the middle of admiring it. Ignoring the stink, he placed his hands against the walls and concentrated. He through the tubes were non-metallic, thanks to Mastermind. When he'd known they were metal, he'd refused to do it. Something about what Magneto would do the instant he realized what was happening, and Avalanche's lack of faith in Toad's abilities.
Safe in the illusion that Magneto wouldn't be able to get to him, Avalanche generated his vibrations beneath the city. Soon, the ground above began to shake. Later, the earth would move.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Despite the precautions Toad had made, Magneto sensed the attack moments before it struck. All the iron in Blob's blood, he would say later. He had time to scream out a sudden warning, which Professor Xavier took and broadcasted to all his students.
"Get out now!"

The sudden warning shocked Shadowcat into becoming intangible. This was fortunate, as the plummeting Blob and Unuscione combo passed directly through her. The experience left her shuddering. She'd had a split-second glimpse of Blob's arteries, and that was enough. Still, Shadowcat had retained the presence of mind to phase through the floor, as everything over her head began breaking apart.

Nightcrawler was higher up, several floors below the top of the spire. He heard the mental warning, and an instant later felt the entire building shake. Acting quickly, Nightcrawler teleported sideways to get outside. Then teleported down to the ground he could see, before he even began to fall.
When he got to the ground, Nightcrawler didn't even have a chance to react when Vanisher appeared in front of him. The bald little man's body was strapped with scores of small explosives.
"Hey there, fuzz," greeted Vanisher. He indicated the explosives. "Nuclear. I'm worried about going sterile. Each with a ten second fuse. You see, Toad wants us to-hey, watch it!"
While Vanisher had been talking, Nightcrawler had been popping two swords from the forearm compartments in his uniform. With a blade in each hand and a growl in his throat, Nightcrawler had leapt at Vanisher. But, at the last second, Vanisher disappeared. Landing on his feet, Nightcrawler turned around sharply to find Vanisher a few feet behind him.
"Don't bother teleporting to me," clucked Vanisher. "I'd smell the sulfur and hear the implosion before you'd even be all the way gone. Then I'd be gone. Maybe to Paris, or I was thinking a county fair in Wisconsin. Maybe both. I've got plenty of explosives to plant."
Close up on Vanisher's wide smile.
"Catch me if you can!"
"Nooooo!"
It was a desperate lunge that Nightcrawler made, his hands outstretched. As he fully expected, Nightcrawler caught only air. Vanisher had teleported, and did not reappear nearby. Falling face first to the ground, Nightcrawler made no effort to get up. What would be the point?
Vanisher was gone, and Nightcrawler would not be able to follow.

Magneto and Charles Xavier were in the same room, on the top floor. They'd been in the middle of one of their many philosophical discussions when Magneto had screamed the warning. A magnetic force field was erected around the two. As the broken half of the spire began to fall, Magneto extended his area of control. At his command, the spire would slowly fall to the ground and gently rest against the ground of the park. Anybody in the immediate area would be warned away by the Professor.

Colossus was in the upper, broken half. He jumped out a window and fell to the ground, unharmed.

When she heard the warning, Blink took up baby Charles in her arms and teleported him to a safe place. Then she herself teleported out of the spire. Outside, Blink saw Nightcrawler and a little man she recognized as Vanisher a short distance away. Nightcrawler was lunging at the villain, who seemed to be wearing a lot of gear. Then Vanisher was gone, and Nightcrawler lay sprawled on the ground.
An instant later, Blink was standing over Nightcrawler. "What just happened?"
There were tears forming in Nightcrawler's eyes when he looked up. It was the look of a defeated man. "Vanisher has gone, to plant bombs around the world. I can't follow him! The bastard taunted me about it!"
"Shh, let me concentrate." Blink had closed her eyes, focused her abilities. Teleportation was a minor aspect of her power, which was actually to manipulate space. Displacement of objects, or pieces of objects, switch things around like a jigsaw puzzle, create rifts that could tear through space itself and thereby cut through anything. When Blink opened her eyes, they were a deep black. "I've locked onto him. Get ready for a ride."
"Vas?" All of a sudden, Nightcrawler felt a tug, as though he were suddenly tied to a motorboat. In the blink of an eye, he was gone.
To where Vanisher had been.

Of all the players, only Archangel and Ice were in the lower half of the spire. They'd been sparring against one another, mainly to test out Ice's limits. Both heard the warning, and soon after felt the tremors.
Down from the ceiling dropped Shadowcat. "Blob and somebody else. I think it was a woman." She extended her hands to Archangel and Iceman. "We need to get outside."
Archangel took one hand, Ice the other. Shadowcat couldn't suppress the shudder that went through her body at Ice's touch. He was just so cold.
With contact, Shadowcat was able to phase her two teammates as well as herself. The three ran at the wall, then through it. Then the next wall, and another, until finally they were outside.
"There's a fire outside the city," was the first thing Archangel said. It didn't matter which direction he was peering, as Ice soon informed him.
"The entire city's surrounded. I can feel the heat." Sharp and angular, Ice's face was a constant mask of cold rage. "Pyro. The tremors must be Avalanche. I'll kill them both."
Wrenching his hand out of Shadowcat's grasp, Ice's entire body grew in length and shrank in width, until he was nearly ten feet tall and as thin as a stick. His fingers and toes were sharp daggers of ice. Snarling scrapes of ice out of his mouth, Iceman took a long stride, and then another with greater speed.
"Wait!" Archangel cried. But Ice ignored him, increasing his distance with every loping stride. "Shadowcat, we've gotta help-"
"I'll get Avalanche," cut in Shadowcat. "Blob and his playmate must be nearby. Find the others and help them against those two."
Before Archangel could reply, Shadowcat had released his hand and sank into the ground. Watching her disappear, Archangel was speechless. Then he grinned, and found the right words to say.
"Yes, ma'am."
__________________________________________________________________________________

Flowing like liquid, the metal wall of the spire opened up. Encased in a magnetic field, Magneto and Professor Xavier floated up and out. As he gently directed Xavier to the ground in his wheelchair, Magneto flew higher and higher up. Majestically, he hovered over the city, reaching out with his magnetic abilities.
A ring of fire entrapped the city. It was closing in, soon to threaten innocent inhabitants. Already, foundations were being stressed by the ever-strengthening tremors. Soon it would be a full-out earthquake. That and the fire would succeed in utterly destroying the city in the Magneto Territories.
Though the fire would be difficult, Magneto had an easy solution for the tremors. He could feel the vibrating metal of the sewers from which they originated. Avalanche was there was well, but not for long. Taking hold of the magnetic fields below the earth's surface, Magneto prepared to kill Avalanche where he stood.
From four points, the fire jumped. Arcs of flames flew across the sky, to join in the center and form a cage of fire. In that center was Magneto, and he was unprepared for the sudden assault. Effortlessly, the flames passed through is magnetic force-field and engulfed Magneto's body. Though his armor afforded him some protection, the pain was excruciating.
"Aaarrgh!"
Like, a stone, Magneto plummeted to the ground. Professor Xavier observed this, and anxiously wheeled to the spot of his friend's landing. If he'd been able to maintain the force-field in spite of the pain, Magneto should have been all right.
"My god. Erik!" Xavier screamed at the sight of his old adversary's tattered form. On the ground, Magneto lay, his armor charred and torn. One of his arms was in an unnatural angle, and his eyes were glazed over. At the sound of Xavier's voice, Magneto could only give a soft groan in reply.
"Oh dear, that looked like it hurt," remarked a voice from behind Xavier. He turned quickly, and thus only received a glancing blow on the shoulder. It knocked Xavier from his wheelchair and to the ground beside Magneto. Standing over the them, grinning like a little boy at Christmas, was Toad.
"Damn, I mean, that was just so unexpected," Toad continued. "Who knew, huh, that intense heat weakened magnetic fields? Oh, wait." Toad barked a rough laugh. "I did!"
With a fantastic leap, Toad vaulted over Xavier and slammed down on top of Magneto. Crouching low, Toad sprayed Magneto's face with spittle as he screamed.
"Now we'll see who the weakling is!"
Dazed as he was by Toad's assault, Professor Xavier should have been able to use his telepathic abilities. He should have been able to invade Toad's mind, read his thoughts, control his actions. But for some reason, Xavier wasn't able to do anything.
All he could do was watch as Toad went to town on Magneto. The entire time, unable to do anything, Xavier felt helpless.
But not have as helpless as when Toad shifted his attention to him.
__________________________________________________________________________________

The ground was sluggish. Very much like swimming through water, Shadowcat thought to herself. A vast, roiling sea in the center of a great storm. Though she moved through the ground, Shadowcat could feel it pressing in on her, threatening to crush her at any second.
It was the result of the vibrations, Shadowcat knew. They were increasing in intensity. If she didn't get to Avalanche in time, the earth beneath the Magneto Territories would crumble away. Numerous buildings would collapse. Hundreds of people would die as a result. Unless they're first killed by the fire Archangel and Iceman saw.
But that wasn't Shadowcat's problem. Hers was Avalanche. Only she could get underground fast enough to reach him in time. Judging from the churning of the rock as it passed through her, Shadowcat didn't think there was much time left.
Much to her relief, Shadowcat completed her fall through the bedrock and found open air. Filled with a foul stench, but air nevertheless. Thick with vibrations. The focal point, Avalanche, was near.
Though still intangible, breathing was not a problem for Shadowcat. Her uniform came equipped with oxygen tanks and a breathing mask that all phased with her, allowing for her to breath while in her intangible state. The uniform also came with several daggers, one of which Shadowcat held in her hand as she stalked down the sewer tunnel.
After the first turn, she caught sight of Avalanche. He was just standing there, his back to her, his arms stretched out to touch the tunnel's opposite walls. Silent, because even the air passed through her with no force, Shadowcat crept up behind him, her dagger raised. Too risky to become tangible the moment before striking, she decided. Better to phase the blade in up to the hilt, then go tangible.
The closer Shadowcat got, the more the air trembled. Even in her phased state, she could feel it, her molecules vibrating. Light itself was being affected. Her view of Avalanche was somewhat skewed. Between that, and his whole body vibrating so that he was one huge blur, it was difficult for Shadowcat to decide where to stick in the dagger. His voice even sounded like an annoying buzz.
His voice?
Oh sh-
"Oh kitty kitty, can I feel you now? How about you feeling me?"
Though widely dispersed so as to allow for intangibility, Shadowcat's molecules were still connected. They had to be, else she would just fade away. Strings of energy kept her together.
Avalanche was vibrating those strings.
If Shadowcat could have screamed in her intangible state, she would have. Lord, the pain was excruciating. Curse her for being an idiot, if Shadowcat was feeling the vibrations, of course Avalanche would be detect the disturbance. Now he was focusing on her, on the molecular level, and it was threatening to tear Shadowcat apart.
Only one chance out, Shadowcat knew. Needed to disperse further. Big risk though, spreading the strings out when they were already under so much pressure. Could just snap, and then Shadowcat's molecules would be spread out across the earth's crust.
Only way though. Just had to hope that…yes! So extreme had Shadowcat's intangibility gone that gravity was no longer a concern. Like a rocket, Shadowcat went up through out of the tunnel and through the rock. Out of Avalanche's sphere of influence. As she went up, Shadowcat hurled the dagger. It became tangible the moment it left her grip, and shattered.
"And stay out!" he called after her.
Sunlight! Returning to tangibility, Shadowcat collapsed onto the grass. The strain of holding herself together while keeping herself to spread apart had been colossal. The ground beneath her was shaking noticeably. There was a doubt in Shadowcat's mind that she'd be able to stand upright. Soon, Avalanche would be toppling buildings. If Shadowcat wasn't able to get close enough to stop him, who could?
Then Shadowcat looked up, and saw Magneto lying in bloody grass. Next to him was an overturned wheelchair. Professor Xavier was nowhere to be seen.
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Duck honey," Unuscione cried. "We've got company!"
Metal feathers bounced off of Unuscione's force field. Archangel was soaring at them, his wings poised to deliver another volley.
"Honey?" Archangel smirked. "If you're the best he can do, Blob must be even more fat and disgusting than I'd thought."
"Take that back!" Blob roared. He charged at the low-flying Archangel. Right into that second volley. Though the razor sharp feathers didn't do more than shred Blob's clothes and leave shallow scratches in his skin, that was more than enough. Each feather was coating with a paralytic substance. Almost before the volley had passed, Blob fell to the ground, unable to move.
Sweeping up, Archangel held his hands to his face. "Oh, that was way more than I wanted to-"
Before Archangel got too high, a metal hand took hold of his ankle.
"Colossus, what are you do-"
Without a word, Colossus slammed Archangel to the trembling ground. His ankle was shattered, and the impact made his left arm go numb. Before Archangel could to anything to defend himself, Colossus grabbed the back of Archangel's head with on hand, lifted him up again, and slammed him face-first into the ground. Archangel did not get up.
"You couldn't have done that sooner?" asked Unuscione with a snarl. "Look what he did to Fred! When I get through with that rich brat, he'll be sorry he ever-"
"You'll have all the time in the world," Colossus replied. "This one's going back with us. Toad's orders."
"And the metal man?" Unuscione asked, nodded at Colossus.
He smirked. "Dead or alive. Me, I'd rather leave him suffering." A brief moment of concentration, and Colossus went from living steel to flesh and blood. Then he screamed in agony as another man leaped out of him. Mountjoy landed on the heel of his foot and turned, smashing his other foot against the side of Colossus' head. He went down hard, and didn't get up.
"Now let's go find his girlfriend," Mountjoy told Unuscione with a fiendish grin. "I can't wait to see the look on her face when I tell her who's been screwing her brains out these past few days."
__________________________________________________________________________________

Heat was the most dangerous thing in the world to ice. Heat was excited molecules, rapidly moving and widely dispersed. Cold was slow moving molecules, tightly packed. These were best illustrated with water. In the middle, it was ever flowing, liquid life. Boiled down, it spread out to become steam, to become the air. Frozen, it became tightly packed ice, solid and hard.
On the outskirts of a city in Canada, heat and cold collided. Fire and ice clashed.
Combating fire was no problem for Ice. Reduce the temperatures around the blaze, freeze the air around it. Trap the oxygen so that the fire could feed off it, and as the surrounding ice melted it would be come water to drown the flames. The only problem was that this fire was sentient, controlled by the mind of one man. Pyro fed the inferno with the power of his own mind! However cold Ice could make it, Pyro countered with intense heats. The droplets of steam that filled the air couldn't even be coalesced into water, let alone ice.
The only thing Ice could hope for was that he was slowing Pyro down, preventing the ring of fire from getting any closer to the city. His body was more liquid than solid. Ice flowed along the ring of fire, freezing the air again and again. A ring of Ice over a ring of fire, halting the frenzied advance.
Some distance away, Ice could see the thermal image of Pyro. He thought about sending spikes of ice through that skinny little person. Of freezing every molecule and then shattering the body. Or maybe just freeze pieces, limbs that Pyro would miss.
So why didn't Ice do any of these things? The ring of fire was still some distance from the city, he could afford to divert a little energy, allow the ring to advance a little.
If Pyro was attacked directly, he might divert some of his energy too. Maybe abandon the ring altogether to use the fully fury of his powers against Ice. Engulf himself in a flame so intense that Ice wouldn't be able to go near him. Then he'd engulf Ice. Melt him down again. Maybe this time, Ice wouldn't be able to reform his body.
That was the nagging doubt keeping Ice from engaging Pyro directly. Better to maintain the stalemate, Ice decided. Hold Pyro in check, until he eventually becomes to tired to maintain his flames. Ice isn't alive, not really. It doesn't get tired. Once Pyro did, that would be it.
He would die.
The latest spin around the ring of fire, Ice slammed into something. A barrier. He could feel it, not just against his frozen shell, but in his mind. There was no heat to it, light passed right through it, Ice couldn't see what was barring his path.
The barrier, it was circling over the city on Ice's path. All around his serpentine form it was forming, constricting. Desperately, Ice tried to bring the temperature down to sub-zero levels. If he could freeze the force field down enough, slow its energy lattice to a crawl and form a shell of Ice right through it, then he should be able to go right through. Then find whoever was making the field, deal with that person before…
No! Ice's own mind was dulling. The force-field, it was psionic in nature. The consciousness of the ice was itself becoming trapped. Unable to send commands, to even comprehend what was happening!
CRUNCH!
Like a hand closing into a fist, the force-field pressed in on itself. Shrank down into a small, perfect sphere. Inside that sphere, a brilliant blue-white in its dense mass, was a perfect sphere of ice.
The psionic force-field floated in front of Unuscione's face. She beheld the ice, and smiled.
"You know," she told Pyro, who stood next to her. "That was easier than I thought."
"Thanks to me keeping the wanker occupied," Pyro remarked as he took a drag on his eighth cigarette of the day. "That make all of them?"
"Yep. As soon as Vanisher gets back, we'll be able to head home."
Without Ice to slow him down, Pyro sent the ring of fire blazing towards the city again. "Looks like he's already starting. Buildings have stopped tumbling." Indeed, Pyro thought he could see the little bald mutant in the distant, appearing over Mountjoy just as he was advancing towards Shadowcat. "Hopefully I'll be able to singe a few blokes before he gets around to- Say, did you just hear something?"
As a matter of fact, Unuscione did hear it as well. Impossible as it must have been, she could swear that it was the sound of an eyelid-
BLINK!
In the space between instants, the ground immediately under the ring of fire had disappeared. The flames had disappeared into one long shallow trench of a circle. Immediately over the trench, the missing dirt had reappeared, instantaneously transported. The dirt dropped into the trench, smothering the flames.
It all happened in the blink of an eye.
"Interesting."
The woman's voice was coming from behind Pyro. He turned suddenly, spraying a gout of flame from one of the nozzles on his wrists. Standing there was a woman, Blink. The flames leaped towards her, then disappeared in a shimmering circle that appeared in mid-air.
"I've never heard of the two of you," Blink stated. Her eyes were alternating between red and blue, almost appearing purple at instants. "You seem familiar." Blink nodded at Unuscione. "But that was a man."
"Was probably her then," Pyro replied, displaying a wicked grin. Unuscione shot him a dirty look before shifting her gaze back towards Blink. The alternate reality mutant gave a lilting laugh.
"My point is, if I never heard of you, then you must not have been survivors." A circle appeared behind Pyro. Flames licked at his back. Unprepared for the searing pain, Pyro screamed. Blink smiled. "See. For all your power over them, you still need to be wary of fire."
"That's enough!" Unuscione screamed. Shaping an extension of her force field into a giant fist, she jabbed at Blink.
Again, a teleportation circle appeared. This time, it appeared across the force field extension. Impossible, the circle sliced right through Unuscione's force field. The psionic energy on Blink's side simply vanished. And, far more painfully than Pyro, Unuscione screamed.
"Sounds like you just lost a piece of yourself." There was no sympathy in Blink's voice. It was only the cold statement of a fact. "This would be the moment where I talk about my own experiences, and how they make your actions deeply personal. But to be honest, I'd rather just kill the two of you and be done wi-oomph!"
The ground had suddenly shifted under Blink's feet, forcing her to struggle for balance. Her concentration momentarily distracted, Blink didn't have time to react as a crossbow bolt struck her in the thigh. She fell and rolled along the trembling earth, avoiding a second bolt that had been meant for her head.
Behind the burnt Pyro and stricken Unuscione, the ground exploded upward at the arrival of Avalanche. The armored mutant appeared from beneath the earth, even as Mountjoy jumped down from a nearby tree. There was already a third bolt in his crossbow, and it was aimed at Blink.
"Still talked too much, purple girl." He gave a malicious grin. "Now that poison is going to be the reason why I've never heard of you."
However, much to Mountjoy's surprise, Blink rose to her feet.
"What? That should have paralyzed you!"
"Oh, I just shifted it out of my blood." Tilting her head to one side, Blink raised a hand and waggled a finger at Mountjoy. "That was a very, very bad thing to do."
"As bad as Magneto dropping fifty-thousand feet to his death?" Avalanche pointed up in the sky. "Because that's what Vanisher just did to him!"
Blink didn't have to look up in the sky. She could feel the spatial distortion of Vanisher's teleporting. There would be no way she could displace a plummeting Magneto from such a distance, and the longer she waited the more likely he would die from the velocity.
With a hard glare at the four Evil Mutants, Blink leapt sideways into a displacement circle. She appeared high in the air, where she'd felt the distortion. As she began to fall, Blink saw Magneto, and opened a circle beneath him. He fell into it, and appeared falling up from a circle close to the ground. He went up only a few feet before crashing back down. By that time, Blink had teleported to the ground near him.
In the same period of time, Blink was aware of multiple spatial distortions within a few feet of each other. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants had escaped.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Around the world in eight tenths of a second. Never before had Nightcrawler felt so helpless, trapped in a situation in which he had no control. The power at Blink's possession was both awe-inspiring and terrifying.
One instant he was in Canada. The next, he was in Seattle. At the base of the space needle, just in time to see Vanisher teleport from sight. Remembering the evil mutant's task, Nightcrawler leapt into action. Blink had said he would be piggybacking off of Vanisher. There wouldn't be much time. Vanisher had said each nuclear explosive had a ten second timer, but exactly how long was the delay between his teleportations and Nightcrawler's. There wasn't time to think about that. He just had to find the bomb.
There it was, pressed in the crook of building and sidewalk. Acting fast, Nightcrawler grabbed the explosive and worked his fingers over the casing, praying that it wouldn't be too difficult to disarm. Finding nothing that Nightcrawler could take immediate advantage of, he began to panic.
Then he was displaced through space again, holding the explosive. It was in that window between seconds that Nightcrawler realized he was outside of space, outside of reality. With that revelation, Nightcrawler relaxed his hold on the nuclear explosive, and caught the faintest glimpse of it in the infinite whiteness before reality rematerialized around him.
And so the chase was on. From Brazil to Atlantis to Moscow to the Savage and a score of locations, Nightcrawler would appear just as Vanisher was disappearing. The explosives would be nearby, Nightcrawler would vanish as soon as he took them in hand, and he would release them out into the nothingness of in-between.
Seconds in one place, even less time in another. As Nightcrawler raced passed five minutes, he figured that there would be only a handful of explosives left. In that instant, Nightcrawler harbored the hope that he could stop Vanisher from detonating one of them.
The landscape materialized around Nightcrawler, and he saw a battle-torn field. Splintered trees creaked moodily in the wind. Dry, dead grass crunched under Nightcrawler's feet. A short distance, the field ended at a cliff, and Nightcrawler saw Vanisher standing there, his back to Nightcrawler. Much to Nightcrawler's surprise, he wasn't gone immediately.
Instead, Vanisher stayed for a while. He turned to look at Nightcrawler, and sneered. "I told her it was a stupid idea. That there wasn't any way for you to follow me. She insisted, though."
"On what?" Nightcrawler snarled as he approached, fangs bared.
With a smile, Vanisher pointed out at what the cliff overlooked. "I stopped off here first, before our little chase. Have fun stopping it."
Vanisher was gone, vanished. With him out of the way, Nightcrawler had a clear view at what was spread out below the cliff. It was the city of Hammer Bay. Nightcrawler was in Genosha.
Shaken by what he'd just been told, Nightcrawler imagined the flash before actually seeing it, and immediately averted his eyes, certain he'd just been blinded. It was that which in fact saved his eyesight, as the flash occurred immediately thereafter.
Even with his back to the city and his eyes shut tight, Nightcrawler's eyes throbbed at the sudden glare of light. In the distance he heard a great gong that reverberated through his skull and all sounds were lost in its wake. A searing heat could be felt across Nightcrawler's skin, and his nostrils were drenched charring death. So overwhelmed with his senses that Nightcrawler could not even imagine the skin melting off of children, or the after images of victims closest to the explosion, or the screams of those mutates unlucky enough to survive the devastation.
There was nothing, save the assault upon Nightcrawler's senses from the distant explosion, and the dreading anticipation and it's destructive power cascaded towards him.
Then nothing.
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"Is anybody alive?"
It was Kitty Pryde, in a scared little girl voice, who called out with that question. The woman called Blink was nearby, hunched over the bloody form of Magneto. Though Kitty couldn't see his injuries past Blink's body, she could see the progressing transformation of the grass from green to red.
"I think his back is broken," Blink replied in a soft voice, barely perceptible past the suppressed sobbing. "He needs to be somewhere safe." Blink turned to look over her shoulder at Kitty. "I think everybody's gone, but Nightcrawler should be back. Look, I'm sorry…I-I need to go. You're on your own."
"No, wait-"
But Kitty's pleas fell on no ears. Blink had teleported away, with Magneto. To where, Kitty had no idea.
"-don't leave me," she finished, tears welling up in her eyes. The hardened veneer of a woman seeking vengeance for her father had been broken apart. What remained was the reality of a frightened young girl who had lost her father and more.
Anxiously, Kitty whipped her head about, searching for someone, anyone. Many of the buildings that she could see were still standing. Some were leaning precariously, and one or two had fallen completely. If she strained, Kitty imagined that she could hear people yelling for help. Rather than rush off to the rescue, Kitty remained at her respite. Everybody was gone, maybe dead. She was alone.
Behind Kitty and to the left, a loud roar sounded. Air had suddenly been pushed aside, by the sudden presence of matter. Hopeful, Kitty turned, and her hopes were not unfounded, not dashed. Lying there on his hands and knees, breathing heavily, was Nightcrawler.
"Kurt!" With this joyous cry, Kitty rushed towards the man whom she affectionately called a 'fuzzy elf'. But Nightcrawler raised his hands up in front of his body and backed away, a fearful look on his face.
"No! Kitty, please, don't come any closer!"
"Kurt, what's wrong?" Kitty asked, a perplexed look on her face. "Everybody's gone. I just saw Magneto, beaten to a pulp. There's no telling what's happened to the Professor, or Peter."
"Ka-Katya." The voice was coming from behind a section of rubble. Apprehensive, the form of Peter Rasputin crawled into view. On the side of his face was dark blood drying inside a long cut next to the eye. At the sight of him, Kitty gasped with concern and rushed towards him.
"Peter! What…were you flesh when the attack came?" She reached to touch his head. "That looks bad. Here, I'll just take a look-"
"No!" Roaring with a deep pain, Peter swept his arm out, striking Kitty in the chest and forcing her back several paces. Immediately after doing this, Peter turned his back to Kitty, his breaths becoming rapid and shallow. "I'm sorry. So sorry. Oh Katya, I'm so sorry…."
On steady feet, Kitty stared at Peter. He'd just curled up on the ground, muttering about how sorry he was. As though looking for answers, she turned to look at Kurt. But he was on his hands and knees, vomiting.
More alone than she'd been a few minutes ago, Kitty began to cry in despair.
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Next Issue: The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants haven't finished.