Chapter 92: Against the Master
1st September 2005, Valley of Kings
(Jean Grey POV)
Seeing the situation, Logan spoke on the comms, “We need a distraction. Quicksilver and Nightcrawler, get us out to regroup.”
Lance spoke up for the first time, “I’m on it. One distraction coming right up.”
“No!” Jean yelled.
However, she was unheard as the earth started to shake. It started slowly before it got very violent. Then, the mountain around the valley started to break and giant rocks started to tumble towards the battlefield and the giant metal pyramid. Jean was terrified out of her mind as a veritable Avalanche of rocks and sand was coming towards her. Dude really lives up to the name Avalanche, huh.
The humongous wave of rock and sand was on its way and Jean prepared herself for the inevitable. She raised her hands, ready to cast her telekinetic shield once more; she knew that it would be unlikely that her telekinesis would be enough to hold it back. But Jean wasn’t going down without a fight. She watched in silence as the sand get closer and closer and she found herself being at least glad to have lived a semblance of life for a day. She was thankful for Ms. Sayre for at least setting her free for at least a day.
The redhead telepathy watched as Magneto raised both his hands and some of the metal created by Apocalypse diverted itself towards the sand avalanche. He was controlling the metal as if it was clay, creating a giant wall of metal, protecting him and the pyramid. Jean marveled at Magneto’s the masterful control of his powers. And not for the first time today, she felt small, insignificant. This was what she was supposed to become, what she wanted to have. One day, if she somehow survived this, she would have a similar control over her powers.
Magneto kept reinforcing the wall until it met the sand. The impact almost destroyed the wall and Magneto yelled as he tried to stop it from moving. He took control over more metal and created pillars in front of the wall to stabilize it further. It wasn’t enough, since Magneto kept reinforcing the wall, and he kept creating more pillars. Jean was so enthralled at that display that she forgot that Magneto didn’t block the entire avalanche and that she was still being in danger of being flattened.
She could feel the rumbling, the earth shaking slightly, she could see the sand getting closer to her. Jean closed her eyes, ready to shield herself. She knew that she wouldn’t be enough but she had to try. She took deep breaths, preparing herself for the worst but for some reason the noise of the coming sand avalanche got a lost weaker. The redhead opened her eyes to find herself safe with her teammates in a different place. Jean sighed in relief; she was alive.
She looked around to find Logan growling in fury at Avalanche, “Are you out of your mind, Bub? You almost killed us out there.”
The young mutant didn’t respond and kept gasping in exhaustion. He had obviously overused his powers during this last attack and was too tired to pay attention to Logan. The guy could barely stay standing. Mystique noticed this as well, “Logan, what’s done is done. We don’t have much time before Magneto attacks. Lance bought us a couple of minutes with this last attack.”
Logan sighed and answered, “Alright, is anyone hurt?”
Beast spoke up, “I need some time to rest. I got injured fighting Angel and my healing factor is really minor. I’ll need at least half an hour before I’m in fighting condition.”
Logan nodded, “Alright, stay with Cyclops and Avalanche and make sure they don’t do anything stupid. Anyone else?”
At the silence that followed, he continued, “Alright, good job so far. But Magneto’s a lot tougher than these guys and we still need to find the Professor.”
Jean spoke up for the first time, “I already know where he is and it’s not good.” They all looked surprised at her knowledge. Honestly, did they really underestimate her this much? “He’s in the pyramid.”
Logan grunted, “So we have to keep Apocalypse occupied for you to get him.”
Quicksilver spoke up, “I’m fast enough to get in and out of the pyramid without being noticed. Even Nightcrawler could do it. We can get the Professor without having to fight Apocalypse.”
Mystique shook her head, “We can’t take the risk of Apocalypse noticing you. So far, he’s leaving us to Magneto. If we directly interfere or make too much noise, we’ll have to fight both him and Magneto and trust me Xavier will be pretty much useless against both. Especially because of Magneto’s helmet and Apocalypse’s mind powers. We need him to be too occupied to notice one of us get Xavier.”
I nod, “and to keep Apocalypse occupied, we need Magneto.”
“Yes, we do,” Logan said, “the plan seems to be working so far so let’s not change much. We need to remove his helmet for Jean to break Apocalypse’s control over him and considering how his powers can make him control it, he will need to be preoccupied. That’s our job. Quicksilver, Nightcrawler, you were great, keep going. Avalanche and Cyclops, try to distract him somehow. The rest of us will try to get up close. Storm, we’ll need a hole in that force field of his.”
“Will you need help with that?” an unknown voice asked.
The entire group turned around to find Angel standing up, ready to fight.
Logan just nodded and threw him a comms unit.
Suddenly, the slight shaking from the avalanche stopped. Their distraction was over which means that Magneto wasn’t preoccupied anymore.
“Time’s up,” Logan growled, “Quicksilver, Nightcrawler, get us to position.”
They both nodded, and the members of the team started to disappear in front of Jean’s eyes, being either teleported by Kurt of transported using Pietro’s super speed. When it was her turn, the redhead felt the world blur around her and found herself standing next to Logan, Storm, Mystique and Angel, looking at the famed master of Magnetism.
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Jean looked to where the sand avalanche was previously to find a veritable fortress made of metal. It was a wall, almost as thick as a castle’s. In front of it were hundreds of giant pillars supporting it. It seemed mind boggling that it was built in minutes as a way to shield a pyramid from what Jean assumes to be thousands of tons of rocks and sand.
“Alright, Cyclops, Storm, it’s time.” Logan spoke on the comms. Suddenly, a powerful beam of red light flew towards Magneto and splashing harmlessly into his Magnetic force field. Following him, Ororo sent in a giant bolt of lightning at the same spot as Scott’s concussive beam, blinding everyone.
As their vision cleared up, Magneto was still unharmed, floating in the air as if nothing happened. With that said, Wolverine ran up to him, trying to overwhelm him somehow. The master of magnetism just raised his hands and froze Logan in mid leap. Oh right, Logan’s skeleton is made of Adamantium and Magneto has control over metals. He closed his fist and Logan started screaming, he was controlling Logan’s body, bending his skeleton.
Scott noticed this and sent in another concussive blast at Magneto. It was still shielded by the magnetic force field, but the distraction made his concentration on Wolverine waver and Mystique was able to get to him, saving him. Magneto then raised his hands, sending spikes of metal at them, Jean countered using her telekinetic shield, protecting them.
She then expanded her shield to create a pulse, hoping to send her opponent flying back. However, the only sign of him being affected was a violent ripple over his magnetic shield. Jean then picked up a giant rock, and levitated it using her telekinesis and threw it as fast as she could at the master of magnetism.
Seeing the threat in front of him, Magneto chose to not take a chance and created a wall of metal and threw it at the projectile. The metal enveloped the rock like a liquid and when Magneto closed his hand, the pressure shattered the rock into a thousand pieces that harmlessly fell into the ground.
Before Magneto could do anything to retaliate, Angel flew up and sent in the metallic spikes towards their opponent. What an idiot, using metal against someone who controlled them. As expected, the spikes froze in mid air and were sent back at Angel who tried shielding using his wings but found himself unable to control them. Guess what genius, your wings are made of metal.
Jean couldn’t believe her luck; she was fighting the master of magnetism where two of her teammates were pretty much useless because they have metals in their bodies. And Mystique is kinda useless against her boss, what use is shapeshifting in a fight like this. What a joke.
With a wave of Magneto’s hand, Angel was thrown away, far into the desert. Well, that’s one of them down.
Jean didn’t know what to do and just kept levitating giant rocks and banishing them towards him. This served nothing more than tiring her out as the master of magnetism was able to counter her attacks effortlessly. Minutes later, Jean was gasping in exhaustion; she had never taken her powers this far before in her life. What the hell are the others doing, were they just standing there watching her or something?
Suddenlt, the redhead mutant had an idea, “Storm, keep him occupied!”
Jean then, decided to levitate the biggest rock she could find. It was almost the size of a building and Jean was making it rise into the sky, like an eclipse. When it was almost a mile high, she let it fall, making sure to accelerate it further.
“Pietro, Kurt, get us out of here!” Jean bellowed.
They must have listened because seconds later, all front line attackers were all far enough to witness Jean’s attack. The rock fell like a giant meteor and Magneto only had the time to widen his eyes before he was hit with the attack.
Jean was barely holding herself together, gasping and panting from exhaustion. Funny thing was, she still felt like she had enough energy to fight but her body just wasn’t handling it.
Jean’s attack was devastating, and the earth shook at its strength. The rest of the team were gaping at her. Mystique, however, wasn’t that enthusiastic about her attack. “Are you mad, girl. You could have killed him.”
Jean glared at the shapeshifter, “Well, nothing else was working.”
They were both interrupted by some sort of rumbling. The giant stone Jean was levitating crumbled into pieces and rising from it was Magneto. He was glaring at them, a large contrast at the impassive look he had during the whole fight. He was pissed and Jean was not above saying that the was scared out of her mind.
“Great,” Logan deadpanned, “You made him angry.”
In a matter of seconds, their opponent flew towards them, and with a wave of his arms, Logan was banished away, like Angel was a minute ago. Jean noticed that he was glaring at her. Shit, he was gunning for her. He raised his hand and a veritable tsunami of miniscule pieces of iron was heading towards her.
Jean had nowhere to go and just raised her hand, hoping she had enough juice for a telekinetic shield. The iron sand splashed against her shield and Jean felt like someone was hitting her with a truck. But the sand just kept coming and coming with no end in sight and Jean didn’t know if she could survive the onslaught.
Her savior came in the form of a flying Storm who hit the metal with lightning, electrifying it and nullifying Magneto’s control over it. With that attack, Jean noticed his magnetic shield waver slightly.
Suddenly, Jean had an idea. She took over control over a small part of the iron sand and found that Magneto didn’t notice.
Great, that was step one done.
“Ororo, when I say so, hit the metal around him with your strongest lightning bolt.”
“Yes, Jean.” Ororo confirmed.
Controlling even a small part of the metal was very difficult and Magneto wasn’t even directly fighting her. What kind of monster was he?
Jean slowly moved the few pieces of metal around Magneto, creating a circle of metallic sand. As she was doing this, Mystique tried to sneak attack Magneto was caught by the iron sand. She was bound in the air as Magneto created a spike out of iron sand, ready to drive it through her heart. Mystique tried to shift into something else but the restraints were very tight and she couldn’t do it without violently cutting off all of the limbs.
Before the spike could reach her, Quicksilver blurred and blocked the spike. Magneto readied another one but Pietro said, “Dad, please no!”
The man froze and visibly hesitated and it was the exact opportunity Jean needed. She arranged the metal and said, “Scott, After Storm’s attack, I want you to send in the biggest beam you got, okay.”
“Yes, Jean.” He replied.
“Now, Ororo,” the redhead bellowed.
Suddenly, the sky darkened, and a giant cloud was on top of the battlefield. From the cloud came an equally gigantic bolt of lightning that fell precisely on the metal ring I created around Magneto.
The ring absorbed the electricity and shape created a sudden Magnetic field that surprised Magneto and disrupted for a fraction of a second his magnetic shield. It was all that Scott needed to send in a concussive blast. Even then, the shield held temporarily, but the blast went through, sending Magneto flying into the ground.
With that done, Jean ran as fast as she could, not noticing that she was in fact flying using her powers for the first time, arriving towards the disoriented Magento. She telekinetically took over control over his helmet, lifting it from his face.
The helmet was off but Magneto’s eyes narrowed at her and tried to summon his helmet back to him. This caused a veritable tug of war, a fight that Jean was slowly losing but she didn’t need to win, she only needed to stall.
Magneto’s mind was unprotected and Jean delved towards his mind and similarly to what she did to Angel, she destroyed the bindings on his mind. As she did so, the master of magnetism overwhelmed her and successfully summoned his helmet to him and put it on. He groaned as he held his head, “Thank you, girl. You have freed me,” he said to her.
Jean sighed in relief, she had successfully broke Apocalypse’s control over Magneto.
(Apocalypse POV)
Close by, Apocalypse felt his control over his enforcers break. He sighed, “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”