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Thanks to all my reviewers, sorry about the update delay, been busy archiving new stories elsewhere!


Chapter.9.


The X-Men entered the building with a confidant stride, in belie of the sense of trepidation that was settling over the entire camp---even Wolverine. Sure, they’d fought formidable foes before, none more so than Magneto. But this was different and they all knew it, they’d never gone against a telepath that was almost every bit as strong as Professor X himself, and that was a cause for concern for even the most cast-iron stomached amongst them.


As they all stood in the centre of the cavernous, flame-lit space, Bobby started to nod to himself in what appeared to be recognition. Scott caught the action out of the corner of his eye, “What id it Bobby?”


He continued to eye-up the space carefully as he said, “This is a Mastaba.”, smiling at his recognition of the structure.


“Of course.” Ororo whispered to herself, wondering why she had not been the first to pick up on it.


“What the hell’s a ‘Mastaba’?” Logan asked, momentarily taking his mind off sniffing for any presence, looking first at Bobby and then at his wife.


“A Mastaba,” Bobby began, pleased that at least some of the information that Ororo had taught him in Ancient History class had sunk through that thick skull of his. “It’s an underground tomb, with an above ground structure---it’s Old Kingdom.”


“It may look ‘Old Kingdom’,” Logan began as he strode over to the left-side wall. “But this place certainly ain’t old---I can smell the fresh mortar.” He ran his gloved index finger along the indented space between two bricks, some of the still slightly damp cement inside rubbing off on his, instinctively bringing the substance close to his nose and giving it a little sniff.


“So how does that help us?” Jean asked, not sure of the relevance of this information.


“It means this building was built specifically for a purpose,” Ororo began, looking up at the ceiling that was lost in a thick blackness. “He built it for a reason---ceremonial perhaps?” She shuddered internally as all sorts of dark possibilities ran through her mind---each scenario worse than the one before.


“Look, let’s not jump to conclusions,” Scott interjected, ever the voice of reason. “Jean, are you picking up anything more---anything clearer?”


Jean shook her head, her high red pony tail swaying to and fro, “Not yet---I’ll contact Charles, get an update on those guard positions.” Her head was pounding worse than ever, but she didn’t want to worry Scott unduly. Pushing the pain as far from her immediate attention as she could, Jean concentrated her mind on the dark void that led out into the astral plain.


* * *


In Cerebro...


# Charles? # Jean’s voice seemed to reverberate around the vast metallic space, coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once.


# Yes Jean? # The Professor replied in his usual measured tone as he watched a physical picture of his fledgling telepath form before his eyes from a haze of distorted white mist.


# Can you see the guards? # As she spoke, the rest of the room began to assemble itself inside Cerebro, bringing the rest of the team into Xavier’s unique view.


# There are none on the upper levels, Jean---but their lack of presence disturbs me more than if they were actually there. # Charles admitted, he’d been searching ever since he’d picked up on Scott’s plan of action. # I can only suggest that you proceed as planned, either Wolverine or I will pick up something as you get further in, I’m sure of it. Just concentrate your energy into finding Catherine---before it’s too late. #


*


Jean was about to ask him what he meant by that last comment, did he know more about the Shadow Kings plans for Catherine than he’d dared to let on? But he broke their connection before she had the chance to question him on the matter. Without further delay the X-Men forged on into the heart of the tomb to meet whatever awaited them.


* * *


The Shadow King sat in his reconstructed temple, on his reconstructed throne, decked-out in all his finery, the softest, smoothest of cobalt blue silks, the purest of golden chains and symbolic rings around his bony white fingers. He sat stock still as his mind traced the path of his pray, edging ever closer to him, all too willingly. The time was almost upon them, written in the stars and in the pages of ancient text, emerging from the suffocating mists of time and lost history---yes, the day had come indeed.


~ “Rashid!” ~ He called to one of his elite guard, eight loin cloth clad men with the latest in weapons technology clutched uniformly to their chests. He turned, standing to attention immediately, with the look of a well trained drone in his eyes. ~ “Get the girl, I need her to be with me for when the Windrider comes to me.” ~ For he was confident that with his plan put into action, she would come to him with the minimum of fuss.


~ “Yes, your Grace. At once.” ~ Bowing obediently, the tall muscular man left his post, taking the man to his immediate left with him to retrieve the ‘bait’.



* * *

They’d been wandering for nearly half-an-hour now and still nothing, not even a mouse. Professor X had been unable to detect anybody near to them, Logan could neither smell nor hear even the faintest indication of human presence and that disturbed him more than he was letting on. He led the team now, down yet another narrow, dark stone-walled passage way, the only sound in the stuffy and restricted area being the crunching sound made by several pairs of heavy-duty leather boots on sandy floors.


Suddenly Wolverine came to a halt, putting his hand up to stop the others, which they did summarily.


“What is it Wolverine?” Cyclops asked as he stood just behind the taller X-Man, first looking at the back of Logan’s head in anticipation of an answer, then around the seemingly empty hallway.


“SHUSH!” Logan admonished as he took a couple of short steps forwards, then turning slowly he looked past Cyclops, past Storm, struggling to ignore the quite distinct scent of fear that was literally pouring from her and to the red head, stood close behind her. “Jean?”


He knew she could feel it too, her own psychic ability would have picked up the early warning signs of immanent contact, as had his enhanced senses; he didn’t quite know why but his keen neuro-sensors seemed to be able to pick up on these things, almost as swiftly as a telepath, but through a physical stimuli rather than a mental one obviously.


“I can feel it Logan.” Jean said with a slight tremble as her eyes wandered around the space with nervous movements. Then they all began to feel it as a particularly intrusive form of telepathy forced its way into contact, not just their brains buzzing with the sensation, but their entire being almost, down to their very core. Unfortunately for Logan, with his gifts, the feeling was actually making him physically nauseous and he had to lean himself against the wall to stop from falling.


“Well, so you are finally here Windrider.” A deep and rumbling voice bounced around inside their minds, causing an unscratchable itch somewhere at the back of their skulls and throats. “And I see you’ve brought company.” He laughed then, rich yet infuriating, just like on their first encounter Ororo thought, with an anger that took her mind away from her immediate concern for Catherine and the fear of this enclosed space that had been threatening to consume her more and more by the second. She knew Logan would be aware of this and was extremely grateful that he hadn’t tried to interfere, trusting her to overcome this problem herself. It really did prove to her that he had faith in the magnitude of her strength and funnily enough, that alone had given her the courage to get this far without breaking down.


“WHERE ARE YOU? YOU COWARDLY BASTARD!” A quickly recovered Logan roared, trying to look around everywhere at the same time as gleaming adamantium broke free of its housing in the heat of the moment. He continued to stride to and fro as he shouted into the air above, “COME AND FACE ME YOU FU---.”


“It would appear your animal needs to be put on a leash, Windrider.” The Shadow King cut across the impending expletive, that same laugh colouring his tone. But his voice came from the outside now, pinging from the walls, an echo following it closely, but it was still telepathic somehow. Jean quickly realised that he was astral-projecting his voice, which meant his physical projection could not be too far behind. It was something she and the Professor had only ever theorised about before; they’d never actually attempted it, not even Charles was sure he could manage to do it at the moment. But she didn’t have long to ponder this because coming into being right before the X-Men’s very eyes was a tall, pale man in robes and various fineries of gold and gem stone, like a ghost, he appeared to have been made of nothing more than a translucent mist.


Even though the rational part of Logan’s brain told him the figure was nothing more than an apparition, that side of his mind couldn’t seem to get the message across to his much more dominate instinctual side and he found himself lunging at the image with a resounding roar, claws first; only to go straight through it and crash into the wall at the end of the corridor, his artificially-enhanced weapons digging into the soft brick right down to their base at his knuckles.


The Shadow King didn’t even bother to look behind him to see what had become of his would-be attacker, he just watched Ororo, his unshaded bloodshot eyes bearing into her very soul and she found herself utterly paralysed for a moment, rooted to the spot.


“What do you want with the girl?” Scott was the first to speak up, not showing one bit that he was as fazed by all this as the rest.


But the King ignored him, preferring to address Ororo directly, “If you wish the girl to live, you will come directly to me this instant.”


“The hell she will!” Came Wolverine’s response on his wife’s behalf as he strode back over to the group having finally managed to pry his claws from the wall. There was a tense stand-off for a moment as Ororo and the Shadow King’s facsimile exchanged unwavering gazes, for the first time since September 27th 1988. Although it wasn’t physically the same person, there was still that tyrant apparent in his eyes, looking back at her in the exact same way as on the night Karima had died. And then she knew that she was Catherine’s only hope.


At first Storm only nodded her head at her enemy, before whispering, “Yes.”


“What the hell do ya think yer doing darlin’?” Logan shouted with a voice full of anger and concern in equal measures. He had to physically grip and turn her away from the King’s gradually disintegrating image in order to make her look him in the eye. “‘Ro, I’m not just gonna stand here and let ya hand yerself over to that demented freak!”


Ororo finally brought her full attention to what her husband was saying to her, shaking her head at him, her eyes covered with a thin film of tears. “Logan, you don’t understand, I’m her only hope. If that monster wants me, I’ll gladly exchange my life for hers.”


“‘Ro, you don’t know what your saying sweetie,” Jean came in as Logan released her and she took hold, turning her best friend to face her. “We will work something out here; let’s just carry on trying to find her O. K?”


“Jean’s right Ororo,” it was Scott’s turn now, but he kept his distance. “Come on, time’s wasting.” Bobby was the only one not to give words of encouragement as he skulked at the back of the group, still in shock at what he’d just seen and amazed that the older X-Men seemed to be taking it in their stride, like they saw ghost-like men appear and disappear every day of the week. Not even living at the Institute had prepared him for that one, and they were receiving students with odder and odder mutations almost every week now!


“Come on then.” Scott resumed charge and even took up the mantle at the front of the group now, but Logan didn’t protest, he just followed, glancing down at Storm every five seconds, keeping an eye on her. They didn’t get too far though, when Logan ordered everyone to stop once more; he could definitely hear someone coming now or ‘someones’, as it sounded, the thunderous stomp of a frog-march making it’s way from far-off to his sensitive ears. They rounded the corner into a suddenly much more open space, not a room as such but it was certainly over double the width of the previous corridors, allowing the team to fan out in preparation for the ensuing battle that they felt sure was coming straight for them.


“O. K, team, this seems like a good place to hold our ground.” Cyclops started as he turned to face them, knowing he only had a brief amount of time in which to give his last orders. “We know that they can’t start firing indiscriminately, they obviously need Storm alive. So no rash actions that could set off itchy trigger fingers people.” Everyone knew who that last command was aimed at. With that, he turned to the front once more and in a regimented line; Storm, Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Iceman, the X-Men faced the direction of the oncoming horde.


*


~ “THEY ARE HERE! THEY ARE HERE!”~ The commander of a small troop of armed guards shouted back to his men as they entered the space where the X-Men were stood fast, awaiting their aggressors. ~ “Remember our orders men!” ~ The fifteen strong unit broke into two lines, one behind the other, crouching to the floor and kneeling on one leg whilst readying their weapons on the other, like a firing squad. It was clear that they were all well trained in marksmanship, but their guns seemed strange.


“What the hell are they holding?!” Iceman whispered out of the corner of his mouth toward Jean who was stood next to him. They looked far to rounded and bulky to be normal guns,


She shook her head, “I---I don’t know Bobby.” But she had a terrible feeling that they were about to find out, but then she had an inspirational if somewhat risky idea. #Scott! # she called out telepathically, # I’m going to try the manoeuvre we’ve been working on. #


#If you’re sure, you’ve only done it once or twice, honey. # Scott was most unsure about this being the appropriate testing field for Jean’s latest move with her telekinesis, but he trusted her. “Do it!” Scott gave the order and Jean reacted quickly, concentrating all her mental energy into building a force field of pure telekinesis from the very particles of air, mentally grasping their elusive solid form and sealing the corridor in front of them from wall to ceiling. And as it turned out it was just as well she did it at that exact moment because it was then that the guards opened fire, thin beams of electric blue coloured light emitting from them. They looked just like Cyclops’ optic-blasts, but artificially generated through this clearly cutting edge weapons technology. The second they hit Jean’s shield, that looked just like a plate of glass with rivulets of rain dancing about it, not giving a care for the laws of gravity, they ricochet right back off it, hitting and instantly killing twelve of the fifteen men. The others shouted in panic and ceased firing as they scrambled up from the floor, amiss at what to do now.


“Let it down Jean.” Scott shouted over the noise of the scared men, “Let’s go!” The whole team began to advance forwards onto the remaining guards, fully expecting them to scatter, but Cyclops had his hand ready at the dial on his visor, just in case. When more running and stomping feet could be heard coming in from a corridor just off to the left of them in a clever ambush tactic. Not even Wolverine had sensed them coming and when Professor X had finally given the warning cry, it was too late and they had been set upon. A blast, similar to the other ones was the first thing to come from this new team, but it was yellow this time and it crashed straight into Storm’s chest just as she was lifting from the floor on a light current, sending her into the wall.


“STORM!” Logan cried out, filled with unbelievable rage and horror at the sight of his beloved slumped against the wall, blood rapidly staining her beautiful white hair as it seeped from an unseen wound. He tried to make his way over to her, slashing at anything in sight as pot-shots were fired from all directions from these different guns and they were returned randomly in the form of red optic-beams, telekinetic blasts of pure force and streams of ice.


Two guards, one of which had been the man to pull the trigger, reached Storm first, hastily dragging her down the passage way they had only just emerged from and once they were clear the rest of the attacking forces suddenly pulled back without warning, firing shots back at them to cover their retreat.


“This way!” The team were about to take off in the direction that Ororo had been taken when they heard a strange *tinking* sound bouncing down the corridor, like a small drinks-can scuttling down a pavement in the wind. Whatever it was it had been thrown by one of the last soldiers to leave the scene and now it was coming to rest at Logan’s feet. He recognised what it was immediately.


“GET CLEAR!” Wolverine shouted to the remaining X-Men as he hurled himself on top of the small, round object, his midriff landing squarely over it. And then it went off.


-TBC-





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