Thor woke to find that Helion was getting dressed with his back to him. Moving off of the bed they had just shared, he took the smaller man into his arms and kissed along his throat. The prince turned around and melted into his embrace as they looked into each other's eyes
"What is it?" Helion asked.
Thor kissed his forehead. "I was so distracted with all that has happened, I had forgotten about the Destroyer."
"Destroyer?"
"The being that pursued you to Doom Empire. The one that was taken away by the green beast. It is from my home."
Helion listened intently as he was finally given some background information on the mysterious and indestructible stalker. "Why was it after me?" he asked.
Thor shook his head. "I do not know. The Destroyer is beholden to the will of my father, Odin. Why he would send it to Midgard to find you is beyond me. Unless you are an enemy to Asgard and I simply do not know it yet," he said with a flirtatious smile.
"I had never even heard of Asgard before you," Helion asserted.
Thor grew silent as he pondered why such a thing could be taking place. Why would Odin send one of its most powerful weapons to Midgard and order it to kill the prince of another world? He couldn't fathom Helion being a threat to Asgard. The facts should have told him that there must be something about Helion that was dangerous to Asgard. The Thor of yesterday wouldn't have questioned this; he would have taken Helion for an enemy. But a deeper intuition told him that the beautiful prince in his arms was no danger to him or his people.
"Are you trying to decide whether I'm a threat to you or not?" Helion asked.
Thor cupped his face in his hands and stared into his eyes. "I do not question anything about you. It is...strange...feeling this way. I have lived for centuries and never felt this connection before. I do not know why or how. I only know that I do not want to be without you."
"So...what's the plan?" Rogue asked as she, Colossus and the psychics stood together on the forest.
"We need to get to Cerebro..." Xavier said.
"If it's actually around," Kyle added.
Rogue nodded. "It is."
The others regarded Rogue and Colossus with hopeful expressions.
"If we can secure Cerebro, I can use it to reach every mind on the planet," Xavier explained. "I can free everyone from this...delusion Magneto and his friends have impressed upon everyone."
"Where does he keep it?" Emma asked.
"It's in his quarters," Colossus revealed. "He keeps it in a locked room built from a metal he called Vibranium. It can only be accessed by him."
Emma smirked. "We'll see about that." She turned to Xavier. "Well, Charles. It seems you and I have a date with Cerebro."
"The rest of us will cause a nice little ruckus," Rogue said with a tense smile. "Get their attention."
"Once the others start to move in on us, the telepaths can bring them back," Kyle said.
"All except for those already loyal to Magneto," Colossus cautioned.
Kyle shook his head. "I'm not really worried about them. They should be worried about us."
The team approached the edge of the sleeping city and watched for a heartbeat.
"Alright, Piotr," Jean said with a bright smile. "You ready to do your best Hulk impersonation?"
"Dah," Colossus said. His skin rapidly shifted into organic steel once more with a metallic clang.
Psylocke conjured a large blade of psychic energy while Emma shifted into her diamond form.
"Emma, Rogue and I will sneak into the castle and get into position. Once we're inside, I'll send a telepathic message to the rest of you," Xavier explained.
"Then we'll make as much noise as possible to distract everyone," Jean added.
With this agreed upon, Xavier, Emma and Rogue departed, leaving the rest on the edge of the city.
"Even if this whole situation sucks, it feels good to be with you again," Jean whispered as she reached over and held Kyle's hand.
Kyle could feel emotion choking his throat and found he was unable to form any words. He stared at Jean as tears filled his eyes. Finally, he managed to say "I'm sorry."
"Oh, Kyle," Jean sighed as she pulled him into a hug. "Please don't be sorry. You were grieving and angry. And you had a right to feel the way you did. Just...don't go away again, okay?"
Kyle matched his friend's smile and nodded. "Deal."
"When all this is over, you and Captain America are going to have to join Scott and me on a double date."
"We'll have to make that a triple date with Dean and Thor," Kyle chuckled.
"What are they like? The Avengers?" Jean asked.
Kyle smiled fondly. "Amazing. I can't wait for you to meet them. You, Dean and I are going to be so much trouble together. I don't think Scott, Steve and Thor are ready for us."
Jean grinned. "Something to look forward to."
X-Men, Xavier's voice echoed in all of their heads. We've made it to the inner sanctum. We recovered Lorna and Hank and have sent them your way.
That's good, Jean responded. We can use them. Especially Lorna.
Kyle reflected on his friend. Lorna was young and quite timid, with powerful magnetic abilities beneath the meek surface. Though not on par with Magneto, Kyle knew she had every chance of becoming just as powerful.
X-Men...move in!
Without hesitation, Colossus started to run full-speed into town, his powerful body cracking the pavement underfoot and shaking the ground. Psylocke began her own stylish and agile dash for the city while Jean and Kyle flew through the air, their telekinetic auras lighting up the sky around them.
Kyle landed in the middle of the city square as everyone awakened and Magneto's forces assembled.
"I thought we locked him up!" Toad shouted before leaping through the air and firing a blast of slime from his mouth.
Kyle raised a hand and the projectile was obliterated with a burst of telekinesis. Before Toad could land near him, Psylocke had launched herself through the air and dragged her psychic blade across his torso.
"Nice one," Kyle called out as a pillar of flames shot up from nearby. He spun around and raised his hands, displacing the incoming flames as Pyro began to walk toward him.
"We finally have our way and you want to try and mess it all up!" The fiery mutant accused.
Kyle didn't respond, instead focusing his power. He could feel sweat breaking out on his forehead as a result of the stifling heat. Pushing back against what was quickly turning into a wall of flames, his telekinesis formed a veritable tidal wave as it exploded in front of him. The flames were immediately sniffed out as Kyle covered Pyro in a barrier of telekinesis. The mutant fell to his knees, weak and powerless from a lack of oxygen. At the last possible second, he threw a fist and a huge explosion of power smacked into Pyro's stomach, drilling into him and throwing his weakened body across the square and through a nearby store window.
"You two are pathetic," Avalanche groaned from far away. He raised his hands and pried the earth apart, causing Colossus to stumble into the abyss. The metallic mutant reached out with his arms and legs, slamming them into the opposite ends of the fissure to stop his descent.
Jean moved closer and Avalanche directed his attention to her, hurling huge chunks of earth at her.
Toad, having recovered from Psylocke's attack, leaped to his feet in a crouch that was evocative of his namesake. He opened his mouth and his prehensile tongue rushed out of his mouth toward the psychic.
Psylocke threw a flawless spiraling flip to the side as the tongue passed by. "Your aim's almost as bad as your breath."
Toad lifted a taunting finger, then pulled with all his might. His tongue, connected to some scaffolding, broke away as pieces of nearby construction began to rain down on Psylocke. Kyle rushed in and tossed a wave of telekinesis up at the hazards, knocking them off-course before throwing another at Toad, striking his backside and throwing him into the path of a handful of Pyslocke's well-placed psychic daggers.
Jean raised her hands as the pieces of concrete and earth approached. Avalanche gritted his teeth as he watched the projectiles freeze in midair. Then, in an impressive display, Jean pulled all of the pieces around her and smiled at Avalanche. "Did you really just throw stuff at a telekinetic?"
Avalanche snarled and clenched his fist, causing the ground beneath Jean to burst. But rather than be felled by the attack, Jean flew up into the air and began to hurl all of the debris back at Avalanche. The mutant attempted to manipulate the ground around him to form a defense when Colossus suddenly grabbed him by the arm and then spun and threw him with the ease of a discus player. The earth-bending mutant cried out as he was thrown against the onslaught of Jean's projectiles, his body battered and rocked by the impact.
Pyro jumped out of the broken window and prepared to throw another volley of flames when Lorna landed right behind him and unleashed a magnetic force bolt upon him. He went flying through the air and into the waiting hands of Hank, who was dangling by his feet from a street light. He took hold of the airborne mutant, then flipped off of the light with the prowess of an Olympic athlete, landed on the ground below, and cracked Pyro's face on the ground, rendering him totally unconscious.
"Where are Magneto and Mystique?" Kyle asked as Lorna, Hank, Jean, Psylocke, and Colossus moved near him.
Seemingly summoned by Kyle's question, Magneto floated down from above and hovered several feet away from them. "It would appear you're more formidable than I gave you credit for, Kyle," he said in a testy voice.
"Get into his head!" Kyle shouted.
"We can't," Jean warned. "His helmet insulates him from psychic attacks."
"I had hoped it wouldn't come to this," Magneto spoke in a regretful voice. "Mutants fighting mutants."
"You arranged these terms," Kyle pointed out. "It's no one's fault but your own."
Magneto smiled. "Be that as it may, my intentions are pure."
"I don't see how feeding the people you claim to protect to a sentient island is pure," Jean fired back.
Magneto shook his head. "You know, the government was developing weapons to use against us, despite Nick Fury's promises. He was actually creating contingency plans in the event any of us became troublesome."
The sound of multiple panels opening caught the attention of the group and they watched as several large, robotic figures broke free from the ground in the distance. They flew in perfect formation before landing on either side of Magneto. They had the features of a human and stood almost as tall as the buildings around them. Their dark purple metallic exteriors gleamed in the street lights and their unfeeling eyes blazed as they sighted the X-Men.
"They're called Sentinels. And each of them is programmed to detect mutant DNA. In the reality we abandoned, they sit in a warehouse in disuse," Magneto went on. "Waiting for the order to become active and hunt mutants down. But in this reality? They are under my control."
Kyle took in the overwhelming number of Sentinels- far more than he could count- and scowled up at Magneto. "You'd kill your own kind? Just like that?"
Magneto's eyes were sorrowful but his tone was all steel. "I would do anything to keep this reality intact."
All at once, every sentinel looked down at the six of them and lifted a palm, taking aim.
"Stand down. Stop this foolishness. And the Sentinels will have no reason to attack you." Magneto smiled. "Where are Xavier and Emma? Surely you would have freed every psychic? Oh! They must be on their way to Cerebro. They'll have quite a time attempting to gain access."
"I can't believe I ever looked up to you!" Kyle shouted. "You want to fix the world but you're what's wrong with it!"
Magneto faltered for a second, then glared at him. "Goodbye, Kyle."
Before the Sentinels could begin closing on on them, a great and terrifying roar ripped across the sky. Everyone looked to the East and watched as the familiar shape of Hulk descended.
"Is that...?" Lorna asked.
"Hulk!" Kyle cheered.
"And it looks like he's carrying someone," Hank added.
Kyle squinted as the figures came into closer view and his eyes widened. What on earth was Hulk doing carrying the being that had once attacked Thor and Dean on Arizona years ago? Before he could think of any reasons, the Hulk landed on the island, his massive body creating a crater beneath him.
Kyle looked back up at Magneto and smiled at the look of shock in his eyes. "What? Was that not part of the master plan, dickhead?"
Magneto hid his alarm and scowled. "Sentinels...kill them!"