xp_logs | The Rictor Effect: Break

Magneto may have been beaten back, but the damage is done. Now the X-Men face a crisis of an entirely different kind -- a natural one. The first line of defense: Nathan, Jean and Haller.

Jim was a follower by nature; normally he was happy to take any order put to him without question. Major or minor, the knowledge that he could be of use was gratifying enough for him.

Now, standing with his two fellow psis on a virtually deserted strand of a San Diego beach and staring at the rapidly approaching sheet of water that was easily 70 feet tall and God only knew how many long, the telepath found himself seriously considering whether or not to ask if their commanding officer had gone insane.

"'Catch this tidal wave, please,'" Jim murmured.

Something that would have been a nervous laugh if it hadn't been so choked-sounding came from Nathan's direction. His hands clenched and unclenched on the staff of his psimitar. A considerable number of his teammates both past and present would have been startled and perhaps a little alarmed by how rattled he looked right at that moment.

Then again, Nathan had never actually faced down a tsunami before. Lots of other scary things, but tsunamis were outside his facing-down experience.

He gave Jean a quick sideways look, knowing that his anxiety probably was a small thing in comparison to hers. For him this was just mind-bogglingly impossible and a little terrifying. For her, it was the moment of her 'death' come back, times ten.

"Remember," he said, his voice low and ragged. "You don't have to stop it. Not this time." That would be his job, oh joy. "Fire. Boil as much of it away as you can, I'll catch the rest." The glow was spreading upwards from his hands, surrounding his body, as he tried to adapt the patterns of the exoskeleton for what he needed it to do.

Funny. A few short minutes ago he'd been wishing for a small-scale version of the firebird. Now, he needed it to be bigger than was realistically possible. Ah, the irony...

"Oh, don't worry," Jean said, her voice more than a little strained, eyes staring straight at the rushing wall of water, as much to keep her from turning away and breaking into a screaming ball of terror as to give her a focus. "Fire we can do. Am doubting I could avoid the fire." And, indeed, the air around her already shimmered with heat, the only thing keeping the fire her terror was trying in check to start was the iron control she was exerting on herself.

"In this case, I think instinct will work just fine." As he spoke Jim began to slip himself forward, creating a bridge between the two telekinetics. Responsibility didn't rest on them alone, but the proposition was still daunting. They were the frontline. He would have to do this just right; Jean and Nathan would need to be working in tandem, and given the enormity of the task at hand neither of them could afford to expend the extra amount of power and attention a devoted telepathic link would require. Facilitation was Jim's job. He set his mind to it as he moved to stand behind the two X-Men, weaving, patterning. Two spillways, a single channel -- force and flame moving as one. Create the path, and don't think about the shaking. Calm. Always calm.

We are what we think, Jim recited to himself, eyes shut and hands steepled as his mind wove connection between them. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.

We make the world.

It wasn't the first time Nathan had been linked to the two of them, of course. But it was the first time he'd been linked to them both at the same time, and there was a peculiar kind of comfort in it. Even with the wall of water rushing at them. Even with Jean and Jim's apprehension battering at him, mixing with his own despite the effort all three of them were putting into remaining calm, focusing on the task at hand.

None of them were doing this alone. That was important And still.. he wished, just for a moment, that Askani was here.

The glow surrounded him grew brighter and brighter, light spilling out of empty air, painfully bright as he forced it through his psimitar first, amplifying it beyond anything he'd ever have been able to manage himself. He shaped a channel for Jean's power, as well; they'd both need all the help that they could get.

#Jean... when you're ready.# He couldn't trigger the exoskeleton until the wave was almost upon them. He'd only be able to hold it for a moment, if that. Nathan closed his eyes, sparing a moment's focus and a flicker of telepathy to seal the links with Rachel and Moira. He didn't have the time, couldn't risk the energy expenditure to reach out to them. They know, he thought, and focused on visualizing the firebird as he felt the wave approaching.

It was the first time in a while that Jean had let her shields down enough to even touch another mind, and now she and Nate and Jim were almost as closely tied as they could get in order to work together, but she didn't spare a thought for it. Instead she was already feeding her power through the pathways Nathan showed her, feeling her power expand.

The tide had pulled back farther than anyone living had ever seen it, feeding into the massive wall of water that was now towering above them, and as Jean began to push her power out, superheating the air between them and the tsunami, the seaweed that had been left behind burst into flame.

#Now, Nate,# she thought as the edge of the water began to boil off. #Now!#

The first time he had used the exoskeleton, part of Nathan was thinking as Jean gave him his cue, it had been in the snow. Askani-directed instinct, in the midst of battle. When he had finally mustered his courage to try it again a year later, it had been another cold winter's night. Cold, but clear. He remembered the stars. The quiet. A deliberate choice on his part - he'd done it in the middle of the night, so that no one else could see. And he'd made jokes ever since about his big fiery bird and how it reflected a deep-rooted dislike of subtlety on his part.

But he saw Jean's power burning away the leading edge of the wave, sensed her pushing herself right to the edge and beyond, and bizarrely, with a tsunami bearing down on them and a broken city holding its breath behind them, he suddenly remembered sitting on coms watch with Terry weeks ago. Remembered what he'd tried to explain to her.

The X-Men were about fighting in the light of day, where the world could see you. Because winning the battle was one thing. But taking a stand, proving that it wasn't a twist or lack thereof to your genes that made you human but what was driving you, what you loved...

That was what won the war.

Magneto had wanted to destroy this city, and they were going to save it. Nathan breathed out, his mind calming at the perfect symmetry - and let go.

Power poured through the psimitar. The firebird swelled into immensity, its head soaring hundreds of feet into the air above them to match a wingspan that unfolded along the beach for thousands of feet in both directions. A breakwater made of light, interposing itself between San Diego and the tsunami.

And then the wave hit.

Jim sensed the impact more than saw it, striking him across the link between them like a physical blow. Through Jean and Nathan he could feel it crashing against the great golden bird of fire and light, felt the endless weight of it slamming against them, pouring, boiling, and he knew:

It was not enough.

They couldn't hold it. There was too much water, too much force behind it. Even now Jim could feel the virus beginning to stir in Nathan's lungs, the red pressure building behind Jean's nose and ears, and he knew in his heart that no amount of psychic deferment would save them from tearing themselves apart in the trying. They would die here, Scott's wife and Moira's husband -- die on this very beach in a noble, desperate attempt to save thousands of innocent lives.

Die, and still the wave would come.

And realizing this, something inside David Haller moved.

Maybe it was because of the years of relative quiet in his mind, or his time among so many other trained mutants. Maybe it was simply because, deep down, he had never been in a situation where he'd known there was truly no other option. It didn't matter. Without hesitation, without a thought to the consequences, Jim turned to the only tool he had. He reached for the carefully constructed psychic limiters around his power, and tore.

It should have been relief. It was, in most ways. A third source of power on the link suddenly - not just steadying, not just supporting, but actively helping. Like a rushing river of cool water, cascading through the composite mind they very nearly were. Not quenching Jean's fire, not disrupting the patterns of the firebird, but supporting both, a nearly limitless well of raw power.

Nathan, all but blind with the pain of feedback despite Jim's efforts to buffer them, seized on it desperately, widening the channel through the psimitar to accommodate it. It still wasn't enough. But combined, amplified...

Patterns fractured and the psimitar blew up in his hands, driven past the point of overload.

The shock of the psimitar exploding would have destroyed Jean's focus entirely, if it could have made it past the wall she'd wrapped around her fear of the water, using that to keep her mind centered, even if it was centered in fear. She felt Jim pushing harder, meshing their powers even closer with the psimitar gone, and felt the surge of hope as they realized that the wave had crested and was dying back, although not fast enough for Jean's taste.

The amplifier shattered beneath them and still he held their minds fast around the pattern, his skill and his gift. Power sang across the water, Jean's and Nathan's and his own, holding, boiling, commingling, and for the first time in his life it was right, it was clean and simple and right. As the wave began to fold back in a roiling curtain of foam and debris fresh power surged to meet the minds holding the brunt of the onslaught, high tide swelling to overtake the low, and in that instant there was harmony, pure and perfect.

And the world went white.

On the beach, the team and the rescued Julio watch as the first wave hits -- just as they realize Julio is moments away from the kind of attention a newly-manifested mutant who's just destroyed a major metropolitan area really does not need.

Rogue had stared, speechless, at the massive wave approaching the shore. She had remained speechless as Scott barked out frantic orders, her body reacting automatically as she adjusted to support Julio without Nate on the other side of the boy. But the sight of the huge flaming bird holding the wave – the sight that should have knocked her dumb - is what finally allowed her to speak. "Whoa."

Wrenching her eyes from the colossal wave, her gaze fell on the three telekinetics who were all that stood between it and the utter destruction of the city behind her. Finally, she turned to face Scott, barely able to keep the desperation off of her face.

Scott was staring at the three telekinetics. They're not going to be able to hold. The thought was as clear as crystal and remarkably without fear, given that if the three psis didn't hold, everyone on the beach was likely dead. But the wave was colossal. It was impossible.

Lorna was facing the ocean, the same as everyone else. But instead of focusing on the psis or the wave that approached with deadly speed, her focus was entirely on the fishing boats being sucked helplessly away from shore, gathered up on the run of turbulent blue and green. They would be caught up against the back side of the shield soon. Flimsy metal and fiberglass and fragile lives. There weren't many, three, maybe four. But she didn't think she could save them all. Didn't know if she could save even one when the barrier fell. Didn't know why she assumed they weren't all going to die anyway. She tried not to think at all and just concentrated on pulling back the boats to shore where their helpless passengers could escape.

Julio just stared dumbly at the encroaching wave. He was too tired and in too much pain to really think about anything else. He kept a firm grip on the girl's shoulder to keep from swaying. Please, let them stop it, he begged silently, to anyone that was listening.

Marie knew that she could save herself and even a few others by simply flying up and over the water. But they were not in some deserted area...behind her lay a city full of innocent people who wouldn't stand a chance if the wave wasn't stopped. She felt helpless. Useless. Powerless. She needed to do something, anything besides just stand and watch mutely as the wave bore down, straining against the firebird. Yet all she could do was silently swear that one day she would find Erik and stop him from hurting anymore people. It was a promise she had made many times before and a single tear escaped as she looked at Julio and blamed herself.

Kurt was watching the wave bleakly, not moving from Julio's side. He could have got out, could have taken the boy with him and come back for his teammates... but the effort would have exhausted him long before he could evacuate everyone in danger, so he wouldn't do anything of the sort. In any case, he knew the rest of the team wouldn't have agreed to go.

Scott swallowed, seeing the fiery light dancing along the inside of the firebird - Jean, boiling away the water, and the steam was incredible - flickering dangerously. The firebird seemed to buckle backwards for a moment.

And then something happened. What, Scott wasn't sure, but the telekinetic construct seemed to surge forward, the wings actually moving and gold bleeding away to pure white light. There was a flash of something deep inside the firebird's heart, but then the construct itself was dissolving into a cloud of white light.

Forcing the wave to retreat.

And at that exact moment, in a rush of relief and tiredness, Julio's eyes rolled to the top of his head and he finally, mercifully, passed out.

Moving to catch the boy as he fell, Marie turned and saw the sunlight glinting off of something. It took her a moment before she realized what exactly she was looking at...and then she let go a string of curse words not befitting a Southern lady. "Cyclops, we're not alone. Ah think we're about to become the evening special," she said, pointing towards several news vans and a clump of cameras that were being frantically arrange

If they saw the boy... "Polaris, take out those cameras," Scott snapped sotto voce into his com.

Lorna looked away from the boats, confused. It took several seconds to sink in. "Cyclops, there's..." no time. Not if she did this the slow way. She was painfully away of the sound of the news-copter above them, knew the cameras would pry into every detail. "Sir," she acknowledged.

She lifted her hands. It was rare that Lorna directed her powers this way but to reach all the cameras she'd need to. The world around her swam green and shifting as she drew in the fields, felt her hands tingle then buzz. Then her skin, then her whole self. Drawing it all in like a spring wound too tight. Potential energy. It almost hurt, the metal in her uniform seizing and writhing against her.

She let it go and her hands flung wide with the force of the pulse, driving her to her knees. Lorna had half a moment to gasp for a breath in the sudden quiet then reached up and caught the free-falling helicopter, shorted out like every electric device in range. Don't drop it, Polaris. We don't kill.

Scott's heart lurched up to somewhere in the vicinity of his throat as soon as the order was out of his mouth, but managed to pull it together enough for a quick, sharp warning to the team that the coms were going down. There weren't many times he'd sacrifice communications for anonymity. This was one of them. Bad enough that those cameras had probably broadcast footage of the telekinetics before going down.

He flinched visibly, however, as he saw Lorna catch the helicopter.

The psis have neutralized the primary wave, but in the aftermath it rapidly becomes apparent something has gone wrong with one of the participants. Very wrong.

He was falling. The wave wasn't there anymore, and that was good, but neither was his exoskeleton. It had collapsed, all the patterns billowing outwards and in strange directions, and was the beach tilting around him, or was that just his imagination? That was the sound of the ocean in his head, he tried to tell himself. But why did the sound of the ocean hurt? The waves hurt. Nathan tried to force his eyelids, which were impossibly heavy, to stay open. Not done, he thought dizzily. They weren't done, were they?

His hands hurt too. The psimitar had blown up. Gloves were... scorched? His head felt just as heavy as his eyelids, but as Nathan's knees hit the sand, he managed to turn his head just enough, remembering... "Jean? Jim?" he muttered dully. His eyes weren't focusing. There were shapes there, but...

First the smell, salt and wet, heavy at the back of his throat. The sound came to him next: steady susurration of waves over the shore, the gentle murmur of sand shifting with each roll and pass. Someone was speaking next to him. He paid it no mind. Vision was the last to come, swimming up dark and distorted from the end of a distant tunnel. Blinking, he squinted at the sun riding high in the sky, face raised to the strengthening wind.

David Haller took one uneven step forward, then another, and another. Away from Jean and Nathan, away from the last tattered shreds of the mindlink that had folded and collapsed beneath the weight of the waves. He fell to his knees by the resurging tideline, weak and shaking, and pushed his hands into the sand beneath him. White cascaded through his fingers as he raised them up again, staring at his clenched fists as if they held the grains of his own life pouring away.

He began to laugh.

Her mind wasn't actually on fire, in a literal sense, but Jean had to put a hand to her head to check and see that the red she was seeing flickering in her vision was just her hair in the wind, now. From what seemed like a far way off she thought she heard her name, and someone laughing, but she couldn't seem to think past the bright, intense pain in her head.

Focus. He had to focus. He could still hear the ocean, and in some dim, still-properly-functioning part of his mind, Nathan knew that they weren't done. They were still on-site, and despite everything, old instincts stirred. Focus. Check on your team.

"Jim?" That was Jim closest to him, he was sure of it. But... laughing?

It was the wrong thing. At the sound of the name the low, rasping chuckle slowed, then stopped. Hands dropping, white sand crumbling between his fingers like ash, Haller turned to Nathan and smiled.

And struck.

The off-hand blow at her head was almost secondary - Nate was the primary focus, Jean sensed, in the moment before she stopped sensing anything at all as her overloaded mind simply shut down under the assault and she dropped to the ground without a sound.

Nathan didn't see or even sense Jean hit the ground. He felt power surging outwards in an erratic wave and tried desperately to fling up a TK shield, his arm coming up in an instinctive shielding gesture he never would have made if he'd been clear-headed. Agony exploded behind his eyes at the effort - and even so, it wasn't enough. The flimsy shield shattered, and the additional pain as the bones in his arm snapped barely registered.

The shield hadn't stopped the attack, but it had scattered it, just a little. Unfortunately, part of what it had deflected happened to intersect the same area his head was currently occupying.

His teeth clenched against the telekinetic recoil, something deep in his nose breaking with the effort. Heedless of the blood pouring down his chin and without even a backwards glance at his fallen teammates, Haller staggered to his feet and began to force his way up the beach, hissing wordless curses as the sand under his feet buckled and slid. Can't put me back, the red thought snarled as it twisted between each painful throb of his heart, They're not fucking putting me back again!

It all happened far too fast. They had been giving the psis room -too much room! - and even though Scott had already been starting forward as the water receded and the firebird whited out and collapsed, he wasn't moving nearly fast enough to have a hope of intervening as Jim lashed out at Jean and Nathan, sending them both crumpling to the sand.

Jean! he 'shouted' instinctively, but she didn't answer. And Jim was moving, walking away, and all at once, the pieces fell into place and Scott knew what must have happened. "JIM!" he shouted, remembering what the younger man had told him and Ororo. What to do in situations like this. "Jim, stop!" It took an act of pure will not to run to Jean's side, but he went after Jim instead. The threat first. Then the wounded.

Lorna whipped around as the shouting started, heard them shouting for Jim, saw the crumpled forms on the beach and streaked off toward her friend without a moment's hesitation. "Jim!" She was further away than Scott but faster, then ground flashing a good six inches below her. "DAVID!" Anything to grab his attention. Get him to focus.

The world blurred and skewed for an instant -- in warning, in promise. His steps foundered as something tugged at the edge of his brain. Jim's friend, his friend, that woman that woman--

Lips curled around blood-reddened teeth. No. He refused to allow it. He refused to be taken this way. Furious grey eyes locked on the woman streaking towards him, head screaming with the strain, Haller braced himself in the sand and rasped a single word:

"Wrong."

Then, mind guided by one outthrust hand, he pushed.

The wild blow spun her hard back against a lifeguard's station. Her hair sprayed green as her head struck a glancing blow across the wood, one shoulder buckling beneath the steel-reinforced leathers, and Lorna was down.

As all hell breaks loose on the beach, it's up to Ororo, Bobby and Shiro hold the line as the second batch of waves hits. And unlike the psis, they don't have the convenient amplifier of the psimitar to help them.

There was a white flare on the horizon, spreading across the sky like lightning, but wider, faster, unimaginably more powerful. The 70-foot wave that had been approaching the city was gone, and Ororo knew that somewhere out were three exhausted people, three friends who had just put themselves up against nature itself to protect a city full of innocents. Dear Goddess, let them be all right. Let them live, and let us all see this through.

The fight was not over yet. Though the largest wave had been vaporized, smaller waves were still following in its wake, each large enough to do considerable damage to the already-battered city. Ororo hovered above the beach, glancing down to see the figures of Bobby and Shiro standing beneath her at the ready. Any moment now, and their part would begin.

At first the waves were nothing more than tiny white ridges on the surface of the ocean, crawling towards the shore. As they grew nearer their speed and size increased until it was plain to the naked eye that these were no ordinary waves. Ororo stretched her arms out, hoping that Shiro and Bobby were ready. And please let them be up to the challenge. Do not let them hurt themselves. Let them be safe.

When the waves were several hundred feet from the shore, another flare of light traced across the sky, this time followed by the loud crack of thunder. Immediately after, gusts of wind large enough to bend the lazy palm trees lining the shore all the way to the ground rushed out to sea, hammering at the waves. Now it is our turn.

The water was dark, restlessly churning and filled with silt from the sea bottom. Bobby stood, fists clenched at his sides, as he saw in the distance a flare of light, in the shape of a bird. It burned red, then white, and was gone--as was the huge wave that had been racing toward shore. Bobby had time to let out a small gasp of relief before the he noticed the secondary wave, coming right toward him.

Right. Showtime.

The wave kept growing, picking up speed and height as it came, and Bobby moved closer to the water, not wanting to accidentally flash freeze any bystanders. He was the only X-Man he could see in this stretch of beach, and while he doubted there was anything he could do to stop the wall of water surging toward him, he had to try.

Freeze. Just...freeze, he coached himself mentally, extending his hands toward the water and pushing as hard as he could, mentally grasping at every drop of water he could reach and hoping it would be enough. The air almost seemed to ripple in front of him, and then the surface of the ocean froze in an outward wave from where he stood, extending higher and higher into the air until there was a mass of ice the size of a city block in front of him that resembled nothing so much as an iceberg. It wasn't pure white--there were twists of green and blue and places where it almost looked black from the compression of the tortured water, a frozen sculpture that seemed to capture the tumult of the sea that day in a frozen instant of time.

Bobby gaped at the massive chunk of ice--solid ice, right down to the sea floor and probably farther, for it wasn't moving with the motion of the water on either side--and then shook his head. No time! He stared at the top of the wall, taking the structure he'd created and refining it, forming the thick wall into a concave scoop, something to catch the water and send it back the way it came.

It almost seemed he could feel the impact in his teeth as the wave hit the ice with a crash. The wall held, funneling the water back away from the beach. Bobby dropped to his knees, vaguely hearing the sound of crackling ice as the inch-thick coating on his leathers cracked and broke with his movement.

Holy jesus, what did I just do? was the last thought he had before he lost consciousness from overload and exhaustion.

There was no way he could do this. He wasn't one of the Three OMGWTF Godlike Psis that had just saved San Diego from a tsunami that would have made Hokusai weep. He didn't manipulate the water like Iceman or the atmosphere like Storm. He was the Sun, but he'd never felt as cold as he did now, watching yet another wall of water rush towards him.

Landing on a jetty, Shiro opened himself to the sun, pulling in as much energy as his body could handle and then some. But it wasn't enough. He needed to bring the sun down to Earth if he had any hope of kicking disaster in the face.

Kick.

Shiro reached into the pouch on his belt, and pulled out what appeared to be a normal, everyday asthma inhaler. And though his mind screamed at him, ordered him not to ingest the dangerous chemical that had nearly killed his friend by warping his mind and body, he knew that this was the key.

Shiro Kicked open the floodgates. Pure, raw power flowed through him, charging every fiber of his being with the strength and vitality of the sun. Everything was clearer, sharper, more focused. He had no doubts about what he had to do, and what he could do. Kicking off, he found himself praying to the kami for encouragement: Ryujin of the ocean, Susano-wo-no-mikoto of the storms, Ohoyamatsumi of the mountains, Kwannon the compassionate, the lucky Shichi Fukujin, and of course his patron deity, the Sun Herself, Amaterasu-omi-kami. He was not a religious man by any standards, but despite all appearances he was very spiritual. And with the looming threat, he gave himself up to the primal forces that had created this world, pulled them in, shaped them, and released.

It was like a new star blinked into existence over the Pacific Ocean. The explosion obliterated the tidal wave, spraying water and steam in every direction. As the rain fell, so did the star, burning out as quickly as it had appeared. Sunfire had just enough left in him to return and collapse on the beach.

Though his body ached, his head pounded, his batteries were empty, and his uniform was smoldering, Sunfire laughed.

Three X-Men down, and the threat shows no sign of slowing. It's time to take steps.

The relief that Marie had felt as she watched the wave collapse far from the shore had vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Her teammates, her friends were falling around her. Scott’s shout was the first clue that something was wrong, but watching Lorna be tossed like a paper doll in response to Haller’s outstretched hand put the puzzle piece firmly into place.

Looking at the boy passed out her arms, she whispered a silent prayer as she set him gently on the sand. Her heart warred with her mind, telling her to check on those that had fallen - but if Scott was running after Haller instead of towards Jean...that meant something even if she didn't know what. "Who the hell is Jim?" Rogue yelled as she followed Scott, flight allowing her to quickly catch up with him.

Scott flinched as Lorna went down. He can't possibly have that much energy left, not after helping hold back at that wave... "Just call the name! Jim, or David-" he called back, then tried it himself. "DAVID! David, stop!"

He wasn't going to fire. He wasn't. This was a teammate. They could talk him down from this...

Haller fell to one knee and hacked red onto the beach. Used up, worn out -- dealing with Polaris had taken all he had left. He was done. Fortunately, there were options. He fell back, and surrendered control to the one whose stake in this was just as high.

The world shuddered around him, then swam back into harsh focus. Green eyes widened, then snapped shut. Ow, oh ow it hurt it was bright and loud and it hurt what had that idiot been doing? Oh, crap! Now it was coming back and he needed to be out of here, like, yesterday. His booted feet scrabbled at the beach as Haller lunged into motion again, the air around him spaffing with erratic flame. Go, go! Away from here and into the crowd, where he could be lost in the chaos. A palm tree grabbed for support began to glow and crack a few inches above his hand, and despite pain and terror a peal of delight-drunk laughter rang out. Burn!

Kurt was still with Julio, trying to keep the boy warm as best he could. There was no possible way he could miss what was going on elsewhere on the beach, though, and he stared in horror as Haller struck. He hung back, though, uncertain if he would do more good staying with Julio or going to try to talk Haller down.

Marie had passed Scott seconds before the tree began to glow and then erupted into flames. Fire? Ah didn't think he was a pyrokinetic...what in the sam hill is goin' on? Slowing her approach as she neared, she called out, "David...Jim! Stop...it's over." She did her best to smile reassuringly, but this man had felled three X-Men already, didn't seem to be slowing down and he was laughing. She stole a glance at her gloves. No. That is the absolute last resort. This is David you're looking at. Sweet, caring David Haller who danced with you at prom. "It's ok sugah, just settle down, let's go home now," she said soothingly as she continued her approach.

The sudden halt brought a wrench of vertigo; Haller fought off the threatening grey and sneered up at Marie. "What, to Baldy?" he shrilled, the words high and utterly unlike his last. "Screw that! After what he did?"

He remembered. The horror pulled at his gut, thick and raw. Bars. Limits. The world around him contracted and stripped down to something cold and solid, immovable, unchangeable. Suffocating. He would never forget.

No. No way was he going back to that. Not now that he was free again. He had to get rid of these people. How? How? A memory stirred at the white-streaked brown hair whipping in the wind, and a wild grin split Haller's face. He raised his hands, heat-haze rippling around him.

"Back. Off."

Just a little push, a flicker of power that was as natural as breathing, and the air around Marie boiled with flame.

She screamed as she saw the air around her come to life. The next instant felt like an eternity and slowly Marie became aware that she was still alive. And she didn't feel like she was on fire, though she could see it all around her. She just felt warm. It must be an illusion...Ah'm ok, it's ok... She had almost calmed herself down until the smell hit her. A rolling wave of stench she couldn't recognize filled the air around her. And with a sinking sensation in her gut, realization dawned upon her - she was on fire and that smell was her hair burning. For a moment, she couldn't move as she watched her leathers burn too and begin to disintegrate. Then she dove for the ocean, terrified that at any moment her invulnerable skin would stop resisting the flames and begin to crumble too.

Jesus Christ, Scott thought, sickly, but stayed focused on Haller. Kurt was behind him still. If Marie needed help... "David!" he shouted again, desperately. "David, stop this - we're your friends!" Almost as bad as the X-Men falling around him was the knowledge of what this was likely to do to Jim when he was back to his senses and realized what he'd done. He spread his hands wide, palms up. "It's over," he said insistently. He was not going to fire. He wasn't. Not unless he had to. "We can go home." Inspiration hit him. "You need to stop this," he said firmly. "You're straining your powers, hurting yourself. Moira would tell you that you needed to stop, you know that."

"Newsflash, genius! You're not talking to the one who cares!" More fire danced; an abandoned beach chair to his left, a pile of driftwood to his right. Haller raked an arm across his nose, leaving a shining trail on the leather. Every muscle in his body was in spasm and it was all he could do not to throw up from the stabbing in his head, but he knew he had to get out of here now or he'd never, ever get another chance. Jim and Charles wouldn't allow it. He pointed a shaking hand towards the barricades keeping the crowds back, light swirling dangerously close to his own skin. "Back the hell off or everything on this beach burns!"

A heavy wad of wet sand smacking into the back of Haller's head was an unexpected answer. Nor was turning around to see the Juggernaut striding out of the surf, sand and seaweed caked onto his jet-black armor.

"Hiya, kid," Cain said, reaching down to scoop up another handful of wet sand and pack it like a snowball. "Want to calm down now? Don't need to be carrying another person home."

"Ow, fuck!" The blow almost pitched Haller face-first into the sand. Suddenly there was two of everything and it felt like someone had hit him with a frigging mallet. He clawed at his eyes, trying to get his vision to resolve itself as random spurts of flame flashed along the beach around him. "Oh, asshole," he sputtered, attempting to focus on the blurred shape in front of him, "did you just do that? That's it!"

And, because Jim's memories told him Cain was just as invulnerable as Marie, he let the fire come.

"Fire?" Cain felt the flames writhe up his arms, darting into the eyes of the helmet to coil around his head, down over his chest, burning over every inch of his impenetrable skin. Through the flame, he smiled with a predator's grin. "Oh, you just threw this Br'er Rabbit into the briar patch, son."

Rushing forward, Cain brought his fists down into the ground in front of a surprised Haller, sending up a blinding spray of sand and hopefully knocking some sense into the obviously confused kid.

... I swear to God I need a new job, was the thought of a tiny, very perverse part of Scott's brain. It was not, however, what came out. "Juggernaut!" he yelled from beyond the flying sand and the flames. "The water, damn it!" They couldn't let Jim do any more damage here.

Hearing Scott's order over the din, Cain reached out and grabbed a handful of Haller's hair. "About time for you to cool off, Dave," he growled as he clutched the young man's waist with his other hand, then spun like a discus thrower and heaved his teammate out into the crashing surf.

About a hundred yards into the ocean.

Suddenly silent on the beach, Cain raised his eyebrows and looked over at his teammates. "Uh... can he swim?"

Impact with the water hit him like a truck to the chest, knocking the breath out of him. Too weak to fight back to the surface. No air left to burn. Stranded and powerless to do anything more, the presence that had been dominating David Haller's mind shuddered and withdrew.

Leaving Jim.

Silence pressed around him like a physical weight. Cool water against heat-scorched skin. Body like lead. Threads of red billowed from his nose, then feathered into nothing as the silt-heavy current took them. Beyond the shadow of one outstretched arm he watched the white glow of the sun pulse through the waves, drifting, sinking.

Drowning.

Jim let his eyes fall shut and gathered all the energy he had left into one last whisper of telepathy, the simplest use of the power like wrapping his mind around a naked blade:

#Help . . .#

"NIGHTCRAWLER!" Scott's bellow would have cut through full-scale battlefield noise, and sliced quite nicely through the growing din of emergency vehicles and the like in the city behind them. "Get him out of there, NOW!"

He didn't hesitate, having been watching the whole thing in increasing horror from his vantage point. It was easy enough to repeat the trick he'd used to save Marie after she was sucked out of the plane, teleporting directly into the water, wrapping his arms around Jim, and they were gone, to the safety of the beach beyond the flames.

Jim wrenched away from the arms around him to roll onto his stomach, retching water and bile. Sand and salt-reddened eyes roved the beach as he heaved, scenes of chaos registering even through the encroaching blackness as his hold on his over-stressed powers began to disintegrate: the orange glow of burning debris, Nathan and Jean crumpled senseless on the shore, Lorna red-smeared and just beginning to stir beneath the lifeguard's tower, Marie emerging charred and dripping from the waves. Destruction. All around him, destruction.

And in his mind, a voice that was horrifyingly familiar.

Look who finally decided to join the party. Long time no see, Jemmy-boy. So tell me: did you miss us?

Kurt sat up where he'd landed, feeling the bruises from the various struggles, and looked warily at the other man - though he did seem indisputably calmer. "...Haller?"

"I . . . 'm . . ." Jim's words were swallowed by another retch. No assurance could make it past the mocking laughter in his head. The voice that was older than his, stronger. Gone, but never forgotten.

And now back.

They really think that's you, don't they? came the hiss in his mind. That's fine. Now that we're out of the cripple's convenient little cage we'll show them exactly what you are. That's what you wanted, right? No more hiding.

So smile and say it with me now, 'Jim': "My name is Legion, for we are many."

Just like old times.

Scott, stumbling in the sand a little, came forward just in time to see Jim pass out. There were times that unconsciousness was a blessing. He had the very strong suspicion that this was one of them.

He looked up at the X-Men still standing - Kurt, Cain, Marie emerging from the ocean. "Wounded first," he said, fatigue creeping into his voice. "Then we get moving. This isn't over."

Right now, though, he needed to check on his wife.