Chapter 34- The X-men Gather

  Savage Lands – Northeastern Jungle - Oct 24, 2008 (08:10)

  Ororo Munroe- (Storm)

  It bothered her every time she stepped on a stick or other fallen thing and made some noise as they marched in the general direction of their destination, because the rger wider man behind her was like a ghost and made absolutely no noise as he followed her, and just as she was about to compin about it, someone else made them come to a halt first.

  “Wait up.” Wolverine requested, and then he took two deep sniffs of the air, before muttering. “It can’t be.”

  "What can't be?" Thunderbird asked in the dry tone that he usually had.

  Just before a rge muscur man in blue white and red painted armor jumped down from a tree ahead of them and nded in the middle of the path that they had been following. Storm squinted at the man as something about his design tickled at her memory.

  It was the short hairy man’s words that found the missing piece from her memory, as Wolverine hesitantly asked. “Cap, is that really you?”

  “It is Canadian. Oh, right, you have a new name now… Wolverine, sorry about that, old habits.” The armored man replied.

  The way the tall man stood, and the smile he was showing them made Storm certain too, that this was the world's first super soldier, Captain America. Despite his armor not looking like what she had seen from the comics and cards that she had seen in the streets of Cairo growing up. Or that his shield was also wrong. It looked more like a metal buckler, rather than the ft round shield with a matching paint job as his suit, but he looked very simir to what was in all of the images from the past.

  “Did we just walk straight into an ambush?” The X-men leader heard Dazzler ask, as she and Morph joined them in a small trio facing off against the possible enemy.

  “Possibly.” Thunderbird agreed.

  Storm had to agree that it was a possibility given the stories and tales of the war hero before them. Regardless, they were on a mission. So Strom then stepped forward and announced. “We didn’t come here to fight.”

  “And yet, you brought over a dozen powered people to the middle of nowhere.” The super soldier argued, as he pointed at the growing crowd behind her.

  "We haven't had the best history with the Brotherhood, Cap," Wolverine stated as their justification.

  Strom however quickly added. “That’s not the only reason. Look, Captain, I am their leader, they call me Storm. The truth is we were hoping to talk to Exodus.”

  “He can hear you.” Captain America told them, making some of the X-men look around confused or tense up more as they thought that the Brotherhood was just outside of their eyesight ready to attack them.

  “How?” Thunderbird asked the slightly smaller man opposite them.

  The super soldier shrugged before stating. “Not sure what they were using, but they had eyes and ears on you even before you came in on approach, or circled their base. They watched you disembark and get your marching order set, before they agreed to send me out, since there was always the chance that you came peaceably.”

  The X-men leader nodded and trusted the man so she continued to expin their reason for being here. “Alright, well a few months back he, that is Exodus, stopped a terrorist attack at a roadside motel. A group of thirty or so men armed with suppressed guns and had a mutant tracking device with them.”

  From above her, she heard someone admit. "I recall the incident." Storm looked up and saw that Exodus was flying above them. He was in his usual bck costume, with the cape and golden harness on his shoulders. She also noted a pair of shields made out of light circled him as he hovered.

  The sight of him didn't worry her, rather it was the thoughts of where the other members of the Brotherhood were that did, still the X-men leader continued. "Right well unfortunately they were not alone. At least another team is active in America. They were caught on some kids' phone camera, killing a mutant teen with the power over fire. Luckily the boy's father loved his son, and used his service weapon to finish off the attackers.'

  "Unfortunately their tracker was destroyed by the boy's use of his powers. And the motel owner sabotaged his before the police could recover it. We were hoping that you still had the ones you took from your battle…oh, and Shei wanted us to pass on her thanks. She and her son made it to the school thanks to your suggestions."

  “Shei?” Exodus asked confused.

  “The mother of the boy you saved.” She told him. He nodded at her when he remembered her.

  “Mystique checked them, and found no IDs, and the vehicles had no registrations or other papers that could be tied back to someone. Additionally, we looked into the trackers ourselves, and the results were rather depressing. However, I don’t think out here is the best pce to go over the details.” The light maniputor expined.

  After he did the jungle behind Captain America shimmered like water, and one of Pyro’s female humanoid creations walked out of thin air, Storm had to admit the man had gotten better, the woman looked to both be real and wearing clothes.

  Wolverine and Thunderbird moved to shield her from the creature, as Dazzler asked. “One of Pyro’s?”

  “Pyro is not here.” The flying knight admitted.

  “He’s right. I can feel thoughts and feelings coming off her. She’s is a being of pure energy.” Prestige told everyone, before touching the focusing stone on her forehead. Strom and those looking could see faint pink and purple energy in said stone being emitted as she used her powers, and while most of the teen’s conversation was lost to them, they did her the telepath mutter. “What leader? No, I can’t speak for everyone here, only Storm can.”

  Then Storm looked back at the fiery woman, as she watched the woman reach into herself and pulled out a stone oddly enough. Then she pced the stone on her forehead before a fsh of light enveloped the woman, as she changed in shape and appearance.

  As the light faded away, a middle-aged man with long brown and slightly greying hair stood before them in grey and bck robes. His glowing yellow iron eyes, however, grabbed everyone's attention. When the older man spoke his voice was rather cold. "Greetings, the woman before you is Curha, and I am a simuted personality. My name is Master Cragean, an architect and weapons designer of the Magi.” He then bowed to them, before pointing at Storm. “Your neckce marks you as a member of the Inheritors and an ally of the Magi, and would normally grant you admission.’

  “However,” the man started with, but paused a moment before continuing. “The young master’s sight also spotted signs that you are also in league with the Sky Tribe and thus are enemies of this world. So we have some questions for you.”

  Captain America looked towards the robed man, and asked. “The race that came and conquered the Earth long ago?” Hearing that question caused Strom a new kind of worry.

  ‘A race once conquered the pnet? How could we have missed that happening?’ She thought surprised.

  Yet before the odd creature could answer the sound of things breaking around them caused both the X-men and the New Mutants to look around them. On their left and right were two trios of men made of silver. The first trio was shaped to look like knights in full-pte carrying swords in one hand and shields in the other. While behind them were poleaxe-wielding men atop simir steads made of silver. She frowned when she noticed the steeds had six legs instead of four.

  Yet those leading them grabbed her attention more. Leading each group of metal men was a young man. The one on their right Strom recognized as being Quicksilver, a current member of the Brotherhood. Meanwhile the other was a stranger. He had a muscur build young man with shaggy blonde hair, unlike most everyone else he was wearing only shorts, a belt, and boots, but he carried a pair of odd metal knives. Storm so desperately wanted to wipe that smug smile off the speedster's face, when he winked at her.

  "Yes, while we won the Great Rebellion, it is not like we beat all of them. Or were even certain what stars they came from. In the end, it was other races coming to investigate the disturbance our Rebellion caused that drove them away." Cragean answered the super soldier.

  “What other races?” Thunderbird asked the robed man.

  “First it was Heliopolitans, then the Olympians, and then it was the coalition of members from Vanahiem and Asgard.” The odd man announced.

  “History recorded them as the gods of old.” Exodus crified for most of them.

  This all happened so fast, so when Cyclops ordered. "New Mutants form up." Many of them readied themselves, including members of the X-men, before she could counter-order the junior team's leader down.

  "X-men, New Mutants stand down!" Storm ordered before reminding them. "We are here to talk, not fight." While many of them rexed a little, it took her asking. "Logan, what alien tech is in the Bckbird?" For all of them to fully shift their stances from aggressor, back into defensive so that a dialog could continue.

  The short hairy man rubbed his chin, before he snapped and muttered. "Right, you were in the infirmary when we installed that equipment. It would have been about fifteen years ago. Storm you had just joined the team, so you may have forgotten, but we were sent to investigate rumors of sabotage on one of the space shuttles.'

  "Turns out the crew had all been brainwashed and mind-controlled, by a vilin calling himself Erik the Red. When we first fought him, I thought he was some rogue super soldier from the Soviet Union or something. But when he and his strange crew of warriors, and the mind-controlled astronauts boarded his ship we couldn't deny him from being an alien from outer space.'

  "You tried to bring them down with her powers, but this Erik,” him saying this reminded her of that day, but still her fellow leader continued to speak. “, well he opened a side hatch and shot her out of the sky. Agni had to fly up and grab her before she hit the ground. To keep them from getting away I had Strong-guy pull a fastball special with Iceman, the big man threw the ice maker right on top of the thing, and he first tried to cover the ship's short wings in ice, but that didn't do nothing, so instead he just covered something like their exhaust port in ice."

  "Oh yeah, I remember that, they crashed into the side of the warehouse, causing all of the fireworks inside to go off," Morph added. As he was the only other member of the current team, who was still an X-man back then.

  The shorter man nodded in thanks to the other X-man, before continuing. “During the following tens of thousands of small explosions, Erik the Red and most of his crew got away, the astronauts got some burns, but we managed to rescue most of them. We then hid their wrecked ship before the authorities got there, and after Beast went through it. He took the only working systems. Some sub-system that helps the pne’s power regution, and other ship’s sensor suite.”

  The middle-aged robed man rubbed his chin before asking. “This Erik the Red, what did he look like?”

  "It was hard to say, he wore an armored mask on his head. Yet his actual armor didn't really protect his body." Wolverine said trying to recall the enemy they faced so long ago.

  "I can tell you his eyes were wired. They were completely white with no pupils or irises." Morph added, and a moment ter the man shifted and changed his shape and appearance. Strom unconsciously shuddered in fear at the sight of the man.

  The man was tall, almost as tall and muscur as Captain America was, but not quite as tall as the hero. He wore red metal shoulder pads, bracers, armored trunks, and combat boots, besides the mask that her hairy berserker could remember. The armor left his abs, biceps, and knees completely exposed and unprotected. The metal also had, not quite spikes, more like decretive fangs sticking off of them.

  She didn't know what it added, but the X-man leader added the only thing she could recall from the fight. "His weapon's gun barrel was hexagonal not round." Storm had seen him exit a hatch and had been staring at the odd pistol that he aimed and shot her with. It hadn't been a bullet, but rather a red pulse of some kind of energy that struck her in the left breast.

  “Is that…” The super soldier started to ask.

  Cragean answered him before he could finish. “Possibly. Eyes are wrong for the high born, but the ck of body hair and the eyes could mean that he is a member of the Shi’ar, one of their servant races.” The middle-aged man rubbed his chin some more.

  Then the scenery behind them rippled again, as Basilisk and another robed figure stepped out to join Captain America and Cragean. As they did Exodus stated. “They could be lying.”

  “They’re not.” The younger robed man said first, before crossing his arms over his chest and speaking to her. “In’hern ater’rum (Greetings One who Inherited)…Na’bum Re Nath’aniel (I am Nath’ainel)”

  Storm returned the gesture, but not the words instead asking. “You speak Wakandan, how?" Now the greeting was over, the rge four-armed woman held out her hands to shield the smaller-robed man.

  “He speaks Inheritor.” Cragean corrected.

  Wolverine sniffed the air twice, as Nath’aniel said. “It has been over five thousand years Master Cragean, should it surprise even they would forget and change their name. Besides…”

  However, before he could add whatever it was the robed man wanted to. Her short hairy ally unsheathed his cws, and the infamous sound of them scrapping against his other bones silenced everyone. So they could clearly hear Wolverine shout. "What are you?! The closest thing you smell like are the demons I fought against during in the war."

  Storm was about to remind her ally that they were here to talk and not start a fight, but this Nath’aniel instead requested. “Take two steps to your right.” Everyone blinked at such a casual reaction to the short man’s incomplete accusation.

  “I’d do it Canadian.” Captain America suggested.

  He did, not exactly do the way the robed man asked, first Wolverine took a step forward before taking a couple of steps to be on Storm's other side. She could clearly hear his surprised gasp, before the feral man announced. "Your scent has completely changed, now it's closer to a winter's night. And… no offense, but you smell like a girl."

  Nath'aniel chuckled at that, and raised his left arm, his right hand pulling back the sleeve, revealing several tattoos on his exposed limb. He then pointed at one and said. "You're smelling Psylocke, a part of her is in me ever since we bonded."

  ‘Bonded?’ Storm thought confused.

  Then gasps drew her attention to New Mutants, as the woman in question had appeared out of a cloud of purple sparkles, she immediately grabbed Prestige's hand and pulled it away from her focusing gem. "The warnings are there for a reason child." The purple-haired mutant told the other telepath.

  “Step away from her!” Cyclops ordered, as his hand drifted towards his visor’s controls.

  Both Spike, her nephew, and Colossus transformed into their combat forms. The young bck boy grew spines and spikes all over his arms and back, and the taller Russian teen increased in size and weight as his muscles transformed into organic steel.

  Again Storm was about to shout at them that they hadn't come here to fight, but as she opened her mouth, a wash of purple light shot out of the redhead's focusing gem before she started screaming. When the light faded, she was on her knees and was still screaming towards the sky.

  “Ah the Abyss, not the most stable of realms to look into for your first time peering into the vaster universe.” The younger robed man muttered, before all hell broke loose.