Now, today, those two stones were coming together and somehow, there had to be a way to stop either Cain
X-NEN
or Robert Service from gaining control of both stones. And gaining that incredible power.
Somehow the Professor knew that the solution to all this was in the emerald. It had been broken into three parts at some point in the past. It could be broken again. But his problem was to find out how before it was too late.
If it wasn’t already.
Gary Service slowly came to. His head hurt and he felt as if someone was sitting on his chest.
He last remembered the Juggernaut picking him up, strong hands smashing the wind out of him.
Then Robert had stepped forward and hit the Juggernaut. And that was the last he remembered.
His brother had saved his life.
Amazing.
Gary moved on the soft sofa and a sharp pain shot through his side. He must have at least two ribs broken. Slowly he forced himself to sit up, the pain taking his breath away and causing his eyes to water. But he had to see what was going on.
Outside explosion followed explosion. Something was still happening, that was for sure.
But for the moment his biggest concern was what had happened to his brother.
Phoenix stood with the other X-Men in a circle around the two battling giants on the green lawn of the Service
m
estate. The day had been hot and sticky, but Storm’s microblizzard had reduced the temperature significantly.
The battle, however, had heated things up tremendously. The energy flowing from them ionized the air, forcing the X-Men to slowly back up, giving the two standing giants more and more room.
Phoenix focused her mind. The two gems caused psychic interference locally, but it didn’t seem to hinder long-range telepathy. She called out to the Professor.
I’m here, Jean. The Professor’s voice came back clear in her head. And I see what’s happening. You must get them apart if you can. I need more time.
We’ll try.
Phoenix turned to Cyclops. “The Professor says we must get them apart. He needs more time to find a solution.”
Cyclops frowned, staring at the two battling giants. Phoenix knew that the wheels had been turning in Cyclops’s mind since Juggernaut and Service started going at it. “Can you put a telekinetic shield between them the moment we do?”
Phoenix nodded. “Not likely to hold them long— especially with the interference.” She knew it wouldn’t hold them at all, and she knew Cyclops understood that. He knew the limits of her power almost as well as she did.
“It will if we keep them busy,” Cyclops said, reaching over and gently touching her hand in support. “We can only hope that the time we manage will be enough. How long did the Professor say he needed?’ ’
“He didn’t,” Phoenix said. She smiled at the frown on her husband’s face. She knew the X-Men were facing as hard a task as any they’d faced. Of all their foes, Juggernaut had proven the most difficult to defeat.
“X-Men!” Cyclops shouted. “Gather around.”
A moment later the various X-Men stood around him. Phoenix studied the combined team.
Gambit looked dirty and tired, his brown duster streaked with black. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him look so disheveled—and, for Gambit, that was saying a lot.
The Beast stood beside Gambit and kept studying the two giants, frowning, as if looking at a giant puzzle.
Storm looked unruffled and calm, as she always seemed. Rogue, on the other hand, looked quite ruffled and not at all calm, her white-streaked hair in bad need of combing. A large smudge of dirt marred one cheek.
Bishop and Wolverine stood side by side, also a stark image of contrast. Bishop stood like the perfect warrior, straight-backed and showing no emotion, while Wolverine crouched like an animal, a snarl firmly in place.
‘ ‘The Professor wants us to get them apart as quickly as possible,” Cyclops said.
Storm nodded in agreement. Phoenix knew that was the signal between the two team leaders as to who would take command in this instance.
Cyclops returned the nod. “First,” he said, “we have to blow them apart. Then Phoenix will put up a telekinetic shield between them.”
“That won’t hold them if they make a concerted effort to break it down,” Hank said. “And from what they are doing at the moment, it seems likely that they would.”
Phoenix nodded. She knew that also.
“Understood,” Cyclops said. “That’s why we have to keep them from making that effort in any fashion we can. What we’re after here, people, is to buy time. As much as we can.
“Bishop, I want you to thrust your hands into that energy field that building around the pair of them. That should short them out for a moment, and also charge you up. Rogue, once they’re distracted, I want you to smash into Service at the exact same moment that Storm and I hit the Juggernaut with everything we’ve got. Aim at the left shoulder. That should add extra torque and spin them. That should be enough to knock them apart.”
“Agreed,” Storm said, nodding.
“Once they’re apart,” Cyclops said, “I want Storm, Rogue, and Bishop to keep Service busy. The rest of us will do the same for Juggernaut, while Phoenix keeps up the telekinetic shield any time they start at each other. We keep that up until the Professor contacts us.”
All the team nodded.
“All right,” Cyclops said. “Take positions.”
The X-Men fanned out around the fighting giants.
Phoenix moved so that she was standing on a line that she hoped, in a moment, would be between the two. Bishop took up position in front of her.
Scott and Storm faced the Juggernaut behind Service.
Rogue floated a distance off behind Juggernaut, facing Service.
“Bishop, now!” Cyclops shouted.
The mutant from the future leapt forward, and thrust his fists into the ionized air around the two combatants.
Phoenix smiled a grim smile and prepared her tele-
zw
kinetic shield. As Cyclops had hoped, Bishop’s sudden intrusion distracted both Service and Juggernaut for a moment.
“Go!” Cyclops cried.
Almost instantly, Phoenix saw Rogue flash at Service. His left arm was in the air, preparing to hit the Juggernaut. She hit him solidly, head down, square in the left shoulder.
At the same moment Cyclops and Storm blasted the Juggernaut in his left shoulder with as much power as they could muster.
The sudden and surprising impact sent the two giants flying apart, head over heels through the air.
Phoenix almost wanted to clap for joy. The first part of the plan had worked even better than they’d hoped. The two were far enough apart that she didn’t need to put up a shield.
Service smashed into the side of his mansion and disappeared inside in a large cloud of dust and shattered lumber.
Cain landed a half a football field away on the wide lawn, crashing into a large oak tree as he came down.
“X-Men,” Cyclops shouted, “keep ’em busy!”
Phoenix stood her ground as Wolverine, Beast, Gambit, and Cyclops headed across the lawn at the Juggernaut.
In the other direction, Rogue and Storm flashed inside the house, joined a moment later by Bishop.
The fight was on. Phoenix just hoped it wouldn’t be their last.
Cyclops watched as the Juggernaut climbed back to his feet. He was angry, more than Cyclops had ever seen him before. And they had seen him angry—Cain was not one to hide his emotions.
Wolverine was first to arrive near the Juggernaut, who started back toward the mansion. Wolverine came in fast and hard, clipping the part of Juggernaut’s chest, just under the ruby, that was exposed by Service’s rending of his armor.
The impact caught the Juggernaut in midstride and knocked him off his feet. Perfect flying tackle, except that Wolverine didn’t get out of the way fast enough and Juggernaut smashed him aside,
sending Wolverine flying into a nearby oak tree.
Cyclops watched Wolverine hit and crash through the branches. He hit the ground and lay still for a moment, then slowly climbed back to his feet. There was no one tougher than Wolverine. He would be all right.
Gambit peppered the Juggernaut with exploding cards square in the eyes and chest as he tried to stand up. Even the Juggernaut had to hold up his hand for protection as hand grenade-sized explosions went off in his face, one right after another.
“The ground!” Hank shouted, pointing at the lawn in front of the Juggernaut.
Cyclops understood. Under Cain’s feet he blew a hole in the lawn. Caught off-balance by the explosion, the Juggernaut toppled into the hole.
“Keep digging!” Hank shouted.
Cyclops focused his hardest and tightest beam at the bottom of the hole, moving it quickly back and forth,
blasting away huge chunks of the earth under the Juggernaut and deepening the crater.
“Don’t stop,” Hank shouted. “It’s working.”
Cyclops kept the beam focused, going down, deeper and deeper, as the Juggernaut fought to grab a handhold, anything.
“Gambit. Help me dig!” Cyclops shouted as the pit reached twenty feet deep. Focusing his beam this intently was starting to give him a headache, and the help would be appreciated. Besides, Juggernaut was too deep for Gambit’s exploding-cards-in-the-face trick to be effective any longer.
“And blow the earth away from his hands,” Hank said, “to keep him from climbing.”
Instantly Gambit switched his aim, tossing one kinet-ically charged card after another at the ground under the Juggernaut as Cyclops continued pommelling the dirt and rock.
Every time Cain managed to grab a hand- or foothold, Gambit blew it out from underneath him. It was as if he was on a huge, exploding slide leading directly into the bowels of the earth.
In all their years of fighting against the Juggernaut, this was the first time they had tried this trick as far as Cyclops knew. For the moment, it looked as if it was working.
“Bete,” Gambit shouted over the sounds of the explosions coming from below, “I only got fifty-two o’dese t’ings. Remy, he need some ammo.”
Beast instantly scrambled toward a flower bed nearby. Then with expert aim, he used both hands and one foot
21.8
to lob rocks, the rubble of small statues that had been smashed in the fight, and bricks back to Gambit, who caught them, charged them with kinetic energy, and tossed them with deadly aim into the pit below.
Cyclops figured the hole they had dug was at least a hundred feet deep and thirty feet across when he shouted, “Stop!”
He cut off his own beam, then tried to study the bottom of the pit through the smoke and steam.
From what he could see, Cain stood on the bottom, staring upward.
“You’re dead, Summers,” the Juggernaut said, his huge voice rumbling out of the ground like it was coming from a gigantic megaphone.
“Y’look good down there, Marko,” Wolverine said, walking up and staring down into the huge hole.
“You won’t look so good when I get out of here.”
“I’m waitin’,” Wolverine said, smiling.
The Juggernaut growled and started back up the side of the hole, pounding his fists and arms into the sides of the dirt for handholds.
Cyclops was amazed at how quick he was moving. It was easy to forget that the Juggernaut was fast, given how massive he was.
“Gambit,” Cyclops said. “Let’s keep him down there. You take his right side, I’ll take his left.”
“Bete,” Gambit said, “keep de ammunition cornin’.”
Cyclops blasted the side of the hole under the Juggernaut’s left foot while Gambit blew away the ground under his right.
With a growl the Juggernaut tumbled back to the bottom.
Cyclops blasted the pit another ten feet deep under the Juggernaut, just for an extra margin of safety.
As the dust and steam cleared, Cyclops watched the Juggernaut stand and start up the side again.
Rogue and Storm found Robert Service near the front door of his mansion. The momentum from Rogue’s hit had sent him crashing through three rooms. He was just starting to get back to his feet as they flashed into the room.
“You’ll pay for that,” he said, “as soon as I finish with that red beast.”
“I’m so worried,” Rogue said, smiling at Service and slamming into him as he was starting to rise, knocking him to the floor again. She flew off before he could get his hands on her. She figured that if she got Service angry, he might go after her instead of Juggernaut. Not likely, but worth the chance.
Service tried to clamber up once again, but a hurricane force wind smashed into Service’s chest.
Clearly Service hadn’t been ready for that.
Storm’s gale knocked Service over backward and through the front wall of his home as if it were so much tissue paper.
Halfway down the driveway he landed and skidded, then managed to stand and stay standing against the combined force from the two women.
Service staggered two steps forward at the sudden stop. Both women floated between him and his mansion, smiling.
“That was fun,” Rogue said. “What’s next?” It actually had been fun. She enjoyed seeing someone like Service, who thought they were all powerful, get their just desserts.
“Twister,” Storm said.
Rogue knew instantly what she meant. They had pulled the same trick on the Juggernaut a number of years back.
“Laugh all you want,” Service said. “But you will—”
He took a step toward the two women and Storm lowered the temperature, bringing the blizzard back, forming a thick sheet of ice under his feet while Rogue rushed at Service’s right side.
The big guy moved to hit her, but she knocked his arm away, sending him spinning like a top on the sheet of ice.
Storm kept the ice thick under him while Rogue spun
him.
And spun him.
“Heck, sugar,” Rogue said, laughing, “you’re makin’ me dizzy just watchin’.” Sometimes, she thought, this job was actually fun. And spinning a killer like Robert Service was about as much fun as she could have. She just hoped Remy and the others were having as good a time pounding on the Juggernaut out back.
Service spun for a good fifteen seconds, during which time Bishop finally caught up and joined the group.
Then Service dropped to his hands and knees and smashed one fist through the ice, instantly stopping his spinning.
Rogue was impressed. It had taken him almost a full minute less than the Juggernaut to figure out the same thing. Finishing this guy off was not going to be easy.
When Service looked up at the three X-Men his face was red, his eyes bulging.
Slowly he climbed to his feet as the color returned to his face, replaced by the pale intensity of anger.
“He seems upset,” Rogue said, her tone laced with mock concern. “Normally he’s such a happy-go-lucky sorta guy. Always laughin’, an’ all.”
“Just keep joking,” Service said between gritted teeth. “I will have the last laugh when this is finished.” Rogue smiled at him sweetly. She would do everything in her power to keep him distracted from the Juggernaut. And making him mad at her was one way that seemed to be working just fine.
Storm looked at him sternly. “I doubt that. You have killed a man in cold blood. You will be punished.”
Service only snorted, then started back toward the house and the Juggernaut beyond.
“I have an idea,” Bishop said. “Rogue, bring me those power lines.”
Rogue knew what Bishop was going to try. “And do a little wrapping along the way?” she asked Bishop. Bishop gave Rogue a sharp nod.
A moment later Rogue had the hot power lines off the nearby poles and in her hands.
“A little water and ice, Storm,” Bishop said.
Service was shortly drenched in
water and the ground under him still layered in thick, hard ice.
As fast as she could go Rogue spun the thick, charged wires around Service.
Then she handed the hot end of the wires to Bishop. He held the wires with his left hand, channelling the charge through himself and blasting it—along with the energy he’d accumulated from Service and the Juggernaut earlier—back at Service. Again, he focused on the emerald. Rogue nodded in appreciation. There was still a chance, after all, that they could break the emerald in three. If they did that, it would make things much easier.
Service’s hair stood directly on end from the charge and his face turned red as he strained to break out of the wrapped wire.
Then, with an angry roar, Service did just that. A shower of sparks flew in all directions. Storm moved herself out of their path. Neither Rogue nor Bishop bothered doing the same. Her invulnerability protected her, and his mutant power allowed him to absorb the charge.
“You don’t look so good, sugar,” Rogue said coo-ingly to Service.
“Can you get him airborne?” Storm asked Rogue.
“I can try.”
At full speed she headed off to the side of Service, then came around behind him faster than he could follow and hit him low and upward, square in the back of his
legs.
It felt as if she’d run into a solid stone wall. The impact rocked her.
Her blow sent him about ten feet into the air.
Instantly a tornado formed under him and spun him upward.
Rogue landed next to Bishop and worked to catch her breath. That impact had almost knocked all the wind out of her and she felt the impact clear through to her bones.
“Are you all right?” Bishop asked.
She nodded and took another deep breath. “Just give me a half a minute before you ask me to run. That’s what I get for bein’ cocky ’bout bein’ invulnerable.”
For thirty seconds Storm kept Service spinning in the air. Then the big guy tucked his arms tight against his side, put his legs together, and twisted around slightly so his legs were aimed at the ground. There just wasn’t enough surface on him for the winds to hold that much mass aloft.
He hit the ground like a missile, going up to his ankles in the concrete.
“Now,” Service said, stepping out of the hole he’d made and glaring at the X-Men. “If you are finished playing around, I’ve got a red monster to deal with.”
The Jewels of Cyttorak Page 16
