by Len Wein
Banshee didn’t answer at once. “I sure hope Peter isn’t gettin’ tired . . .”
The place where his fists had struck repeatedly was finally beginning to buckle and crack when the same force that had seized the plane took hold of Colossus. One moment, he was maintaining his determined assault on the dome. The next, he went flying rapidly toward the wall of the crevasse, his expression one of complete surprise.
Gaping after him, none of the X-Men saw the minute seams appear, parting the surface of the dome, their edges rolling back to create a large opening.
Colossus struck the ice wall at high speed, becoming partially embedded in it. “Peter, are you all right?” asked Nightcrawler anxiously.
“Oh. I hope not,” came a voice from behind them. “Dealing with you has been such a nuisance already, I don’t want to have to start repeating myself.”
The X-Men turned back toward the dome. “Cyclops,” Storm breathed, “there was no sign of any opening before. Where did the doorway come from?”
“I don’t know, Ororo,” Cyclops admitted, then raised his voice. “Whoever you are, come out here where we can see you.”
“ ‘Whoever you are?’ ” the voice mocked. “I thought surely when you arrived here that you must have guessed my true identity.”
Colossus, still covered with snow and a trifle dazed, whispered in Cyclops’ ear, “Let me go in there. I will make him come out.”
Scott nodded cautiously, watching as the Russian advanced on the dome. When he was only a few yards away from it, the invisible power took hold of him again, whipping his steel body through the air in a dizzying series of loops and turns. This time Cyclops was ready for it. “Flesh and blood, Colossus!” he yelled. “Turn back to flesh and blood!”
Colossus obeyed, making the transformation to his more vulnerable state. Instantly the force lost its hold on him, and he began to plunge toward the ice. Banshee, wailing, caught him in midair before he struck.
“Excellent, Cyclops,” the voice from the dome mocked him. “You have guessed who I am.”
“Come out of there, Magneto,” Cyclops ordered again.
“Oh, very well,” the voice agreed, in a tone that indicated that their mysterious foe was going to obey Cyclops only because it suited him. Slowly, majestically, he strode forth from his shelter. Magneto was a mature man, older even than Xavier, but he was tall and powerfully built. He wore a red-and-purple costume, with a helmet that hid most of his face and made his voice ring hollowly when he spoke. His cape, flaring and fluttering in the Arctic winds, cast a dramatic shadow before him. “How did you find me?” he asked at last. “I’ve only used my powers in the subtlest fashion, hoping no one would suspect.”
“Actually, we didn’t know it was you,” Cyclops admitted, watching Nightcrawler out of the corner of one eye. Unseen by Magneto, the German sidled around behind him, edged over to the dome, and vanished. “We merely came looking for the source of the missile disasters.”
“For trouble, you mean,” Magneto corrected him, “Let me assure you that you are going to find it, unless you swear allegiance to me, here and now.”
“To you?” Wolverine repeated scornfully.
“Yes, to me! To Magneto, Master of Magnetism and the rightful leader of this planet’s mutant population. The days of mere humans are drawing to a close! We are the wave of the future! Join me!” he exhorted them.
“That’s a pretty speech,” said Banshee.
“Yeah, Bub,” Wolverine agreed. “Blow it out your ear.”
Magneto’s face, shadowed by his helmet, darkened with rage, but before he could reply, Nightcrawler’s voice was heard from within the dome.
“Cyclops! Mein Gott, Cyclops!” he exclaimed in a panic. Then he reappeared beside his leader and continued, “We have to stop him. At once! You cannot believe what he has in there.”
“Oh,” Magneto laughed, as he gestured behind him. “You mean this?”
Slowly, ominously, it crept out of the dome, tilting until it stood upright in the snow, a gleaming metal cylinder, nearly forty feet long. There was silence for several minutes.
Then Cyclops whispered, “The third missile.”
“Precisely. By now the Chinese must regret having gone ahead with their test. I doubt they have any notion of what became of their rocket. I didn’t know if I could bring one down unexploded until I tried it. Now that I can, this rocket will just be the start of my collection.”
“But why are you doing this? What do you want?” Cyclops demanded.
Magneto shrugged. “What does any man want? Power, world conquest . . . I intend to step in and take over after I’ve set all the major nations at each other’s throats. In the meantime. I’ll remain isolated with this shelter to protect me from fallout and . . . other unpleasant consequences.”
“Fat chance!” Wolverine scoffed, extending his claws and launching himself at Magneto in one swift motion. Before any of the other X-Men could react, Magneto had caught him.
Unbelievably, Wolverine found himself hanging in the air, several feet off the ground, supported only by the magnetic hold on his claws and metal skeleton.
“I remember you now,” Magneto remarked. “The homicidal maniac. What shall I do with him, now that I’ve caught him?” Magneto addressed the other X-Men, who’d started to rush forward. A signal from Cyclops checked them all, afraid to act while their teammate was hostage. “Perhaps I’ll fling you against the valley wall, as I did your companion, or let you drop through a hole in the ice.
“Or,” he added, more harshly, “I could simply rip the living skeleton out of your body.” Wolverine dangled, quiet and tense, waiting for Magneto to make his move.
With a swift, sudden motion, the mutant villain flung Wolverine, claws first, directly at Peter Rasputin. Colossus changed at once back into his metallic form, so that the Canadian struck him with a resounding clang that did little harm to either one.
“Everyone hit him at once!” Cyclops yelled immediately. “Keep him off balance! Don’t let him concentrate!”
The rest of the X-Men obeyed, Banshee and Storm taking to the air and launching a dual assault of energy blasts, sound, and lightning, at their opponent. Scott opened his visor and concentrated his optic beams on Magneto, but somehow, none of their power seemed to be reaching the older mutant. He stood, laughing and unhurt, at the very eye of their attack.
“Scott, what’s wrong?” asked Storm. “Why aren’t our energy blasts reaching him?”
“He’s set up a magnetic field around himself,” Cyclops shouted. “It’s acting as a damper against all other forms of energy. That must be how he kept my eye beams away from the dome.”
“What can we do about it?”
“Just what we’ve been doing. Keep hammering away. He can’t maintain the shield forever.”
“No,” Magneto agreed, “but I’ll wager that my shield will outlast your pitiful assault.” As if to emphasize his last statement, the empty space around him suddenly expanded, driving their three-pronged attack farther back. He’d expanded his protective field.
“The more of us making the assault, the worse your chances of outlasting it,” Colossus announced, rising from where he and Wolverine had fallen into the snow.
“Peter, stay back,” Nightcrawler implored him. “Magneto may seize hold of you again, and, in his hands, your body would become a powerful weapon against the rest of us!” So far, he himself had hovered uneasily about the perimeter of the fight, aware that he was out of his class in power and watching for a chance to help the other X-Men.
“Do not worry, friend Kurt,” the Russian replied. “I will not make the mistake of approaching Magneto again.” He picked up some of the wreckage that had been thrown clear when their plane exploded. Using all of the strength in his powerful frame. Colossus threw heavy sections of the rubble at Magneto, over forty feet away.
The wreckage shattered against the protective field, but the mutant villain appeared to be slightly staggered by the effort o
f maintaining his defense against such an impact.
“Everyone watch out for shrapnel!” Cyclops warned. “Good work, Colossus! Keep it up! I think we’re getting to him!”
Nightcrawler had watched his companions long enough to gauge how far the magnetic field extended. He teleported inside of it, right next to Magneto and hit his enemy with both fists. Before Magneto could strike back, he’d teleported back outside of the field.
“You fork-tailed annoyance!” Magneto yelled. “You . . . coward! Traitor to Homo superior . . . !”
“Cyclops,” Storm whispered urgently, hovering near her team leader, “his field is weakening. Look!”
Following her gaze, Cyclops realized that she was right. A portion of the invisible barrier was rippling inward, buckling under their assault.
“Good!” Cyclops replied. “That’s where we’ll concentrate our fire. Banshee! Colossus! Aim for his weak spot—where the field is thinnest!”
They followed his orders. Magneto frowned with the effort of concentration as he tried to fortify his field against the siege. “Fools!” he shouted. “We should be working together, not fighting each other! What has humanity ever offered any of us but fear and torment, and the lot of the outcast? Why do you side with their ignorance and prejudice, against me? My order will be our order, the rule of the mutants. I offer you freedom and power.”
“Strange words when spoken together,” Storm observed. “We are not fooled, Magneto. The only power you are interested in is your own, and the only freedom other mutants will find under your tyranny is the freedom to obey your will. We reject your offer!”
“It’s hard to consider an offer of peace seriously when it’s made under the shadow of a nuclear weapon,” Nightcrawler agreed. Once more he teleported inside the invisible shield and struck Magneto. The villain glared at him, more outraged than hurt. Then, unexpectedly, he dropped his magnetic field. Nightcrawler was standing between him and the rest of the X-Men, momentarily preventing his own teammates from striking.
Magneto used his power to snatch up a piece of discarded metal from Colossus’ attack, and brandished it at Kurt, who barely teleported away in time. Then he flung it at Banshee, before the Irish mutant could renew his sonic assault.
Banshee wheeled upward, flying out of range of the metal, but, upheld by Magneto, it only followed him at a faster pace. When he saw that it was about to strike him. Banshee turned on it, altering the pitch of his scream and shattering the metal into fragments.
The cliffs, shaken by the sonic blast, began to crumble a little at the top.
“Look out, Irish!” Wolverine yelled, still unable to take an active hand in the battle. “You sing too loud, and you may bring the walls down.”
Storm, hearing the warning, abandoned her attack for the moment. She flew up toward the tops of the cliffs and summoned rain down from the skies, casting it onto the area damaged by the sonic blast. In a matter of seconds, the intense Arctic cold had frozen the water, sealing the cracks and repairing the damage.
Meanwhile, down on the snow. Nightcrawler was being pursued by a swarm of what appeared to be small metal bees. Magneto, safe once more behind his shield, had seized the shrapnel created by Banshee’s blast and was directing it at the German. Almost as fast as he could teleport from place to place, the swarm was following him.
“Where is your bravado now?” Magneto gloated. “Your boasts and your insults? You’ll find it hard to launch another sneak attack on me while you’re running for your life.”
“Cyclops!” Colossus exclaimed, horrified, “Kurt is nearly exhausted. The teleportation power cannot be used indefinitely.”
“I know, Peter,” Cyclops replied, “but . . .”
Before he finished his answer, the problem was solved. Storm swooped down from the sky and bore Nightcrawler out of range of the flying metal fragments.
Unfortunately, because she was looking over her shoulder to be sure they’d escaped the swarm, she didn’t see the portion of their plane’s wing that suddenly rose off the ground, into her path.
“Look out, lass!” Banshee cried, dipping in flight as he cut off his scream long enough to warn her.
Ororo was alerted to the danger too late. She slowed lightly and swerved but still flew into the barrier with a force that stunned both her and Nightcrawler. Together they plunged toward the snow. Streaking through the air. Banshee was able to reach them before they struck the ground. Their combined weight was too much for him to support alone. He slowed their descent enough to save them from serious injury, but all three fell heavily.
“That’s a pretty follow-up to your speech about mutant solidarity, Magneto,” Cyclops observed. “You’re a fine one to talk about treachery!”
“A man does what he must,” the older mutant replied indifferently. “You’d be valuable as allies, but I cannot afford the luxury of mercy when dealing with my enemies.”
“Neither can we,” Cyclops answered. “Not when the safety of the entire world is at stake. We’re going to stop you . . . cold.”
Now Magneto turned the swarm of metallic shrapnel against the X-Men’s leader. Cyclops turned his force beam on the fragments and vaporized them. “You’ll have to do better than that to stop me.”
“So I see,” Magneto agreed. “I wonder . . . would you be able to use that power against a teammate?”
It was almost too late when Cyclops realized what Magneto meant. He heard Wolverine yell and leaped aside, just in time to avoid being ripped open by the Canadian’s claws. The villain was right. As long as he wielded an X-Man as a living weapon, Cyclops couldn’t defend himself.
“Look out, Summers!” Wolverine yelled, as he flew at his teammate again. “I can’t stop myself!”
“But I can,” Colossus announced, throwing his armored body in front of Cyclops and letting Wolverine strike him, absorbing the impact without injury. “Do your own fighting and let Wolverine alone,” he added, shaking a fist at Magneto.
Something strange happened to that fist. It dipped sharply to the right and then to the left as Colussus struggled to control it; then it struck Wolverine smartly.
The little Canadian fell to the snow. Colossus was aghast. “Wolverine! Are you all right?” he exclaimed, bending over his comrade. “I’m sorry! It was Magneto! He made me . . .”
Before he’d completed the apology, Wolverine rushed up out of the snow and hit Colossus. They fell together in a tangle of limbs and metal.
Five of the X-Men were down now, stunned or unconscious.
Cyclops rose from the snow and aimed his optic beam at the protective magnetic field again. “Okay, Magneto,” he announced, “now it’s just you and me.”
“And soon it will only be me,” Magneto agreed calmly. “What can you hope to accomplish alone that the rest of your team couldn’t do?”
“Stop you.” As he spoke, Cyclops opened his visor a little wider and began to advance, a pace at a time, on his enemy.
The villain’s complacent smile faded. Slowly, inexorably, the crimson force beam from Cyclops’ eyes was getting closer, gradually penetrating the field. Magneto glanced about desperately. There was nothing for him to seize as a weapon, no way for him to go back on the offensive. Diverting any energy away from his defense now would be fatal.
And, to make matters worse, the other X-Men were regaining consciousness and beginning to rise.
Then Magneto smiled, as inspiration came to him. Careful not to relax his shield too much, he reached out with his magnetic powers, taking control of the mechanism that operated his young opponent’s visor. Cyclops frowned, not understanding at first what had happened, when his visor began to open wider. Not wanting to waste his remaining power all at once, he reached up to close it. Then, just as he realized what Magneto was doing, the older mutant used his hold on the visor to swing Cyclops around and outward, so that the optic beam was directed against Cyclops’ own teammates.
“No!” Cyclops yelled. “Everybody look out!”
Colo
ssus and Wolverine, still lying where they’d fallen, were safe. Nightcrawler ducked, saved only by his own agility, and the two flying X-Men, warned by the cry, soared upward a little out of range.
“Magneto, stop!” Cyclops persisted. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
The mutant villain ignored Scott’s warning, arrogantly mistaking it for an ineffectual threat. It was only after the damage, was done that he realized, to his horror, what a mistake he’d just made.
The force beam struck the frozen cliff that rose above them all, shearing through it at the base. With an ominous rumble, the ice began to topple inward. Before any of the mutants in the crevasse could get clear, the avalanche had buried them.
Where, moments before, there had been a small valley, filled with a flurry of activity, now all that remained was an expanse of still, silent whiteness. Of the dome, the missile, and the seven mutants, there was no sign.
The snow hadn’t quite finished settling when Nightcrawler appeared on its surface with a pop, shaking it out of his fur. He turned around miserably, looking for some sign that his friends had survived. “Cyclops? Banshee? Peter? Please, someone answer me,” he called, through chattering teeth. Without Storm to control it, the weather was already getting worse.
At first, the only answer to Nightcrawler’s cries was the lonely wail of the wind. Then a patch of ice about fifteen feet from where he stood blasted outward. He rushed over to see who’d survived to cause this explosion. As Kurt reached him, Cyclops climbed out through the hole he’d created.
It took him a second to get his breath. “That . . . was the last burst I had . . . Lucky . . .” he murmured. “Kurt, where are all the others?”
“There are no others,” Nightcrawler replied unhappily. “I think . . . maybe we’re the only ones who survived.”
“No!” Cyclops contradicted him firmly. “Except for Magneto, I was the closest to the cliff when it caved in. If I survived, the rest of the X-Men must have, too.”
“But . . .” Nightcrawler looked helplessly at the snow beneath his feet, “they may be hurt or trapped, low on air. Storm has claustrophobia. How can we get them out, before . . . ?”
