Hey there, X-Fans! Before we go on, we have to step back a few minutes as in the late night revisions of last Part, some scenes relating to a minor plotline were left behind.
You'll recall just after the acolytes left for Trask Industries, Magneto said to Mystique "do your part well."
The missing sequence was to involve Mystique, in her shapeshifted disguise as a Trask Industries security guard, facing off against the acolytes and allowing herself to go down -after sneakily assisting with the take down of any other guards in the immediate vicinity- to buy the acolytes more time and maintain her cover (for what ultimate purpose, who knows except for her and Magneto!)!
Trask was supposed to make mention on the news of "injuries to personnel" --though maybe he did before we joined the broadcast!
Now back to our regular programming!
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Nightcrawler and Wolverine have BAMFed back from the mission they've been on all this time -arriving in the X-Men's hanger in the basement.
Nightcrawler: "That is the last long distance travel I vill haf to do for a while, I hope."
"Beats flying."
Moving on to the equipment area, the pair are just unzipping their suits when a voice sounds in their heads. 'Logan. Kurt. Welcome back. I'm afraid your debriefing will have to wait. Things have transpired which take precedence. Allow me to bring you up to speed ahead of your joining us in the Ready Room.'
Wolverine: "Hardly back two seconds."
And so we go into the Ready Room.
When Wolverine comes in, he takes in the look of Scott: "They really did do a number on you, didn't they?"
Scott responds only by meeting Wolverine's gaze.
As Wolverine and Nightcrawler take their places, Beast launches in:
"Based on Scott's supposition of this being the work of one Mr. Sinister, I was able to discern a cypher key in the recording Jean found. The important parts are that Sinister has what he calls the 'Summers Gun', which he intends to test in some capacity where total obliteration is a possible result."
Kitty: "Obliteration of what?"
Colossus: "Scott?"
"No. It sounds as though Mr. Sinister wants to keep Scott away from the Summers Gun presuming he can simply absorb its blast."
Cyclops supplies: "When he had me in the facility I was always blasting down into some specialized section of the floor. It must've been designed to both absorb and contain my blast power."
Wolverine (I can't believe this): "So who is this 'Mr. Sinister', anyway?"
Cyclops: "Someone who experimented on me when I was a kid, at the orphanage I wound up in. He posed as the doctor I went to. It's been coming back to me in pieces since he experimented on me again."
Wolverine: "And now he's got a gun with your blast power?"
"With all my blast power, likely augmented." ". . .Alright. So where's this facility he just had you in?"
Xavier: "Scott and Jean don't believe Sinister will return there. But Jean has an idea of how to locate him."
Jean gives a nod. "When I was searching for Scott, I picked up a sample of Sinister's mental signature. It's unique. Beyond the usual, I mean. I think by making use of Cerebro, we can send him a message."
Wolverine: "A message? Aren't we locating him to ambush him?"
Jean: "His signature is...shadowy. I don't think we can get his location exact, and we can't risk how he might use the gun if he sees us coming."
Nightcrawler: "Und this message vill be saying vhat?"
Cyclops: "That I'm not out of comission so let's finish the experiment --see if I can absorb the blast from his gun. We'll lure him right out into the open."
Wolverine seems satisfied by this, unleashing his claws from an upturned fist: "Then just point me in the direction of what needs slashin'."
Cyclops: "No."
"What 'no'?"
"The plan isn't a bait and switch. I'm gonna' to go through with it."
Retracting his claws, Wolverine sets his hand on the table in disbelief: "You're gonna' just stand somewhere and wait 'til he shoots you?"
"He's not gonna' stand around for you to come slash 'im. If he sees this as a ploy he might reneg and aim the gun elsewhere." His brows go up as he gives a nod, "obviously with obliteration on the table we can't have that."
Wolverine gives him a look, but says only: "Fine. So you lure him out and let me step in at the last minute to take the blast."
Cyclops' brows furrow like he's narrowing his eyes: "I can absorb it."
Wolverine (like 'are we really going to do this dance?'): "And I can recover from it."
Cyclops reacts like Wolverine's kidding himself: "You've never taken my blasts at full power nevermind the concentration point this would be, you don't know that."
"And you don't know what I have taken."
"It's going to be me. That's final."
Wolverine scoffs. "Right. And how much energy is it taking for you to just be here?"
The narrowed look from Cyclops again - he's not that worn down.
Jean: "Logan." Though she'd prefer another option herself, she voices the fact, "Scott knows what he's doing."
"Does he?" He looks from Jean back to Scott. "You're regaining your strength for the second time in about as many months. You certainly don't look like you're up for it."
"When Sinister had me, intermittently he'd redirect my blasts back at me. As weak as I got otherwise and as much as he seemed to be amplifying them it never felt like I couldn't take it. Regardless of that, it has to be me."
"Has to be? You really think it's the time to play hero?" He looks around at the others. "You've got a good team here, Scott, use 'em."
"It has to be me, Logan. Sinister's been experimenting on me since I was a kid, he won't be able to turn down--"
"Like I haven't proven I can draw mad scientists' attention?!" He lets his claws out again.
Xavier (firmly): "This matter has been settled. The X-Men will be standing by, but this is Scott's burden to bear."
And so, following a search with Cerebro, the message is transmitted successfully.
Sinister is intrigued.
We next join Scott, suited up, as he's about to enter the Danger Room to begin his reconditioning. Beast pauses him, having some new gloves he wants Cyclops to try. They're designed with buttons inside so Cyclops can fire his blast without having to touch his visor. "Based on how you described your captive situation, if you'd had these, things might've been different." Cyclops (like 'that may be so, but'): "I can think of multiple ways buttons embedded in my gloves could be dangerous." "I'm hurt by your underestimation. They're pressure plates more than buttons. They won't engage unless the specific amount of pressure is applied in just the right way. You could high-five someone without having to worry, if that were a becoming thing for an X-Man to do."
Cyclops seems to consider them still, but then accepts. He goes into the Danger Room proper while Jean stands at the controls.
After, once he's completed a couple runs of one of the pre-programmed sessions. "Let's run it again, dialed up a notch."
"I'm not going to push you that far today, Scott. You shouldn't be reconditioning this soon."
"Jean. Dial it up."
She looks at him through the glass. Her eyes fall back on the controls: "I'll switch-up the sequence but I'm repeating it at the level you just were." She restarts the session. He'll just have to deal with that.
In between his physical work-outs, weight is added to Scott's mind.
Jean comes to find him at one point when it's taking him a while to return from the lockers. "Scott?"
He hasn't switched from his visor back to his glasses. The glasses are in his hand.
"He gave me my first pair."
Jean thinks of who he's meaning: "Sinister did?"
Scott nods. "Under his guise as the doctor. He gave them to me right before my optic blasts starting coming out permanently. How did he know what would work and when it would be needed..." He says this less like a wonder and more like he's realized something.
"What if it was never from the crash," his free hand goes to his visor.
As time draws closer to the arranged date and time, the tenseness can be felt across the X-Men. They deflect any questions about it by their students; talking now in quiet tones at the staff table:
Beast: "No setbacks in Scott's training, though we haven't had enough time for him to come very far."
Nightcrawler: "On taking the blast, he is confident. Vhy has it been important he train?"
Jean: "He's confident on absorbing it, but it's still a force to endure. Even his own blasts were throwing him off balance. And Scott's never had to absorb so much at one time. . Though apparently Sinister did some tests to that effect, as well."
Storm: "Where is Scott? His recovery regime is incomplete without meals."
Jean: "I talked him into sleeping in. Being the day just before, rest should be his priority."
Wolverine: "I'm surprised Sinister hasn't struck early."
Beast: "Apparently the creature has some standards."
Breakfast concludes. Jean goes about her day as normal -as do the others- until that brings her to a particular hallway where, outside one of the classrooms, students are crowded.
A couple shrug, reasoning with some others to go, while two more are talking with Storm at the door of her classroom across the hall.
Jean: "What's going on?"
Storm: "Scott has not arrived for his class."
Jean's heading for their room when she seems to dial into something.
Her look turns serious as she changes course.
Down in the Danger Room, we see Scott has been running it alone. He looks tense, intense, and by his visible level of exertion he's been down here a while.
Jean reacts with concern, confusion -not waiting for his current session to finish; she shuts it down.
Scott doesn't protest, instead going to his knees to catch his breath.
Jean exits the Control Room to join him in the main area. "Scott! I thought we'd agreed," she gets down with him, taking in the state of him. "Why have you been doing this?"
"Something else came to me," he speaks between breaths, "he was more than the doctor. .
. .I think he made sure Alex and I didn't stay together."
Jean is taken aback by this. She's on the cusp of questioning when Scott speaks again:
"Sinister is the reason I was denied a life with my brother." His jaw tightens. Feelings from this realization mixing with the ones still fresh from the recent loss.
Jean shifts to comfort him, but Scott is getting up. "It's time to change the story of which one of us gets to hurt the other." Standing firm, his visor flashes. . . .
. . . .and so does our scene into the next.
The sky of the following day appears as though we're all viewing it from behind a ruby quartz lens, as the sun sets on the last day of Summer....
The X-Men are gathered in a far out spot on the acres of land that surround the Mansion.
Cyclops: "So we all know the plan. If you can get at him after he discharges the gun, go hard. But not before."
Xavier is with them, through Cerebro: "Sinister has arrived. I still cannot discern specifically where, but he's in our immediate area."
A disembodied voice rings out somehow; its location as undiscernible as the man to which it belongs: "You were meant to be alone."
Cyclops gives a look to Nightcrawler. The teleporter BAMFS him about a half-football field's length away from the other X-Men, then Nightcrawler rejoins them. Cyclops: "No. I was meant to be your sole target."
"Clever."
There's no more delay. --The gun is discharged seemingly from the sky, a huge blast coming almost straight down at Cyclops --He is completely engulfed by it, the force knocking him down onto one knee, patches of his suit getting pulverized away --It's intense: the absorption of it --like he's going beyond capacity and is going to overflow, or explode, if he doesn't let off some steam. --yet he's too overcome even blast....at first.
--planting his upper leg firmly into the ground, Cyclops rises up-- clenching his fists the way Beast showed him to activate his blast via his gloves, throwing his head back--
His blast is more intense-- we see it smash Sinister's gun on some weather balloon contraption in the stratosphere-- but the power surging through Cyclops is still too much --it obliterates Cyclops' visor, the raw blast changing--pure white--as it goes beyond the mesosphere-- thermosphere-- exosphere!
--Back down on Earth Cyclops falls in a seizure-- his blast going wild now as his eyelids only flicker but do not close.
Trees are brought down.
Wolverine: "Jean! Can you get a handle on it?!"
Jean makes a pained sound. "It's like his brain is short circuiting -I can't touch it --Logan!"
Wolverine has been hit; he's down but not out.
Of the mind to get near him so she can protect him by phasing, Shadowcat makes her way and narrowly avoids the same fate if not for her powers.
Jean only just manages to guard against the same beam, with a telekinetic shield, and her attention there, narrowly misses getting nailed by another tree Colossus blocks before pushing aside.
Storm (with urgency): "Kurt! Grab another visor!"
We join Nightcrawler as he BAMFS to the equipment room of the X-Mansion, grabs a spare visor then BAMFS back to the field where Cyclops hasn't stopped--blasting or seizing.
Jean takes the visor and, advancing, uses all her power to try and keep the blast in --managing at least to restrict its range.
She manages to get the visor on, which is able to hold given it's been uncompromised by wear and tear and the blast force lower than it was when the previous visor got destroyed.
Jean races the rest of the distance to Cyclops and comes down beside him as if in one movement, slipping her hand underneath his head to stop it from hitting against the earth; she's concerned for how long this has gone on and sends out a desperate thought:
'Charles!?'
Xavier (via Cerebro): 'It's halting.'
In Jean's arms, Cyclops body arrests, as if suddenly registering exhaustion.
Xavier grows concerned, unable to tell something from his mental readings: 'Jean, is he breathing?'
Having removed one of her gloves, Jean both checks for his pulse while she brings her face close to his; feeling breath against her cheek. "His vitals are weak, but steadying."
Xavier: 'His mind feels taxed yet, miraculously, not damaged. . . .'
Jean nods, concurring with palpable relief.
Xavier shifts attention: 'Ororo, how is Logan?'
Jean concernedly looks across to where Wolverine lies; near Storm, Nightcrawler and now Shadowcat.
Wolverine grunts out an answer himself: "Nothing a healing factor, can't.." *grunt* "..fix."
Relieved by that as well, Jean's attention returns to Scott. Her hand shifting to one of the areas of his chest where his suit had been blasted away.
Storm has come to them now. "Will Scott be alright?"
Jean taps into Scott's mind; not something she makes a habit of unpermitted, but this is a special case: "He's partially conscious. Trying to figure out what's happened."
Logan has walked over with the assistance of Kurt: "Well if he can't hear me you can tell him he destroyed Sinister's weapon, and then nearly the rest of us."
"Sin..is..ster," Scott speaks, coming to completely.
Xavier answers the question in Scott's voice: 'Gone as well. His mental signal vanished once you destroyed the gun.'
Jean fills in the final gap: "All the power was nearly too much for your body," she moves her hand just slightly over his chest, her other hand cradling his head just that much closer, aware of how close she might've come to burying instead of holding him.
Nightcrawler: "To medical, I vill take you all."
He gets positioned so he can have a hand on both Wolverine and Jean -hers on Cyclops completing the connection- and BAMFS the three away.
Left behind, Collossus, Shadowcat, and Storm taking to the air, survey the environmental damage.
Besides the felled trees, going out from where Cyclops stood is a radius of pulverized earth.
Shadowcat: "I'm glad we're usually on the same side as Cyclops' blasts."
Collossus nods.
And, finally, we cut-back-to Xavier, who concentrates a moment longer before disengaging from Cerebro. Despite what he communicated to Scott, a rather inconclusive expression sits on his face.