SILVER RAGE---PART 2

     When the Blackbird landed on Muir Island Nightcrawler was prepared
for the worst. He'd received a message from Cyclops that the X-Men had
been ambushed by the Silver Surfer, but hoped that it hadn't been as bad
as Scott had made it sound, a faint hope given Cyclops' serious nature.
Scott had been wrong...it was worse.
     "Mein Gott!" he gasped as the wounded members stepped out one by
one.
     Storm was encased in ice and seemed fine, except for the huge hole in
her stomach. Bishop was also encased in ice but he could see that the
future X-man was horribly burned.
     "Betsy!" Brian Braddock howled.
     She managed to look up from her bed, "Hi Brian, I'm sorry if I look a
little messed up," she tried to laugh.
     Brian looked at her burnt skin, covering nearly a third of her body,
and was seized with a rage he'd not felt since his sister had been blinded. 
He'd hunted down the man responsible for her maiming before he could
kill her, then he'd smashed the man's head with a boulder. 
     "This can't be happening!" Kitty sobbed as she knelt next to Storm's
ice covered form.
     "Ach! Scott what happened to you, surely you weren't all injured in
the battle!" Moira gasped.
     Rogue staggered out of the jet, she'd indeed been restored when the
Surfer's power had left her. "'Fraid so Moira, we got our butts kicked but
good!" she groaned.
     "Where's Logan?" Kitty asked fearfully.
     Scott looked to her, "He stayed behind to gather allies. With the
Surfer as powerful as he's become we don't stand a chance."
     "That doesn't sound like you Scott," Colossus said as he stepped
into the room.
     "Well excuse me if I've got a heart! You all think of me as some damn
machine but I've seen too many people die in the last few days!" he
snarled at the huge Russian.
     Nightcrawler grabbed Cyclops to calm him, he'd never seen Scott so
emotionally drained.
     Moira had listened to the start then had set about getting the
wounded to the med labs. The Shi'ar technology was still light years ahead
of Earth's capabilities but even with it the wounded were not out of the
woods.
     Colossus carried the ice block that contained Storm with a heavy
heart. He'd long considered her to be one of his greatest friends, now she
was wounded to the brink of death. He watched the ice melt underneath the
lab's heat lamps then he put her into one of the many nanotech chambers
underneath Muir. Even with the alien tech it would take weeks, maybe
months for the wounded to heal...if they did.

     Later that day Scott sat at a conference table with Nightcrawler,
Cable, Captain Britain, Kitty, Cannonball, Rogue, Beast, Iceman, and
Colossus.
     "Thank you for your help Nightcrawler...for everything," Scott said.
     "Don't worry about the others Scott, Moira assures me that they'll
all survive. Except for Storm and Bishop they should be up and around in a
few weeks," Kurt Wagner said calmly.
     "We need to plan a stategy friends," Cable said firmly, "If the
Surfer could slice and dice the X-Men he might do the same to both X-Force
and Excalibur."
     Rogue slammed a fist down, "We need Joseph in here! He was the only
one to seriously hurt the Surfer, if he hadn't battled for us we'd all be
dead!"
     Scott looked up, "She's right, no matter if he was the devil himself
that earned his place with us."
     "So let's look at what we got left," Cable said firmly, "X-Force has
Meltdown, Warpath, Siryn, Shatterstar, Domino, Sunspot, and myself
present."
     Nightcrawler spoke up, "Excalibur has myself, Colossus, Captain
Britain, Meggan, Kitty, Peter Wisdom, and Wolfsbane."
     Scott grimaced from the aching lungs that still bothered him then
spoke, "Of the X-Men we have Rogue, myself, Cannonball, Gambit, Iceman,
and Joseph."
     "That's twenty total, surely that's enough to stop him!" Cannonball
growled.
     "I wish I was as sure," Cyclops mused.

     Somewhere over the Atlantic

     The Silver Surfer roared low over the Atlantic, he'd sensed the
X-Men's retreat to a small island off Scotland. Now with the Power Gem
attached to his brow he was as powerful as Galactus himself. They would be
easy prey for him, and then he could take Susan for his own.

     New York

     Logan knocked on the door to the office building, having tracked a
familiar scent. When a well-dressed Oriental man answered the door he knew
that he'd come to the right place.
     "Wong, I presume?" he asked while bowing.
     "And who might I ask are you?" the man questioned.
     "Logan. I know your friend Stephen," he said with a smirk.
     "Let him in Wong, we're old friends," came a man's voice.
     Wolverine entered the new sanctum of Stephen Strange with his
cigar...until it vanished.
     "You know I don't allow smoking in my sanctum," the sorcerer said
firmly.
     "I need your help Doc, the Silver Surfer ambushed us apparently for
what he believes we did to the FF. He seemed a lot more powerful than I
remember, and I smelled something on him...something old and not human,"
he growled the last.
     Dr. Strange frowned for a moment, "If he is being influenced it might
take my power to help him. I assume you came to recruit me?" he asked.
     Wolverine was already puffing on another cigar, "Yeah but since you
offered I don't have to."
     "Surely you don't expect us to stop him, we'll need others," the
sorcerer seemed puzzled.
     "Yep. That's why I came to you first, saves me all that walking,"
Logan grinned.
     They disappeared to find allies in a world without it's greatest
heroes.

     Muir Island

     When the Surfer attacked he was under the impression that he'd not
been expected. He was very wrong.
     Joseph lashed out at him once again, straining to tear him from his
board. Even as the Surfer fought the magnetic power he was hit by Rogue.
He was unaffected by the blow but it did allow the heroes a moment to
attack.
     As one Cyclops, Siryn, Joseph, Gambit, Sunspot, Cable and Iceman
blasted him. He staggered momentarily, the sheer power knocking him off
the board but not seriously hurting him.
     "Now Sam!" Cable yelled.
     "Eh!?" the Surfer questioned. He looked up in time to see Colossus
hit him like a bomb, having been flown down from above by Cannonball.
     The Surfer was driven into the ground like a peg by a blow that would
have knocked the Hulk senseless. Unfortunetly for the heroes the impact
had knocked the huge Russian out.
     "Now you have made this interesting," the Surfer grinned as he
floated out of the huge crater.
     "I...I don't believe it!" Nightcralwer gasped.
     "First let me melt your friend into a puddle!" the gleaming madman
laughed while pointing a blazing finger at the unconscious Colossus.
     "No!!" Kitty screamed. She tried to phase them both to safety but
the blast hit her even as she phased Colossus. She was solidified while
still inside the ground and the shock would have killed her had Cable not
taken over her mind and forced her  to phase herself to the med lab
below.
     Wisdom looked at Cable, "Is she...?" he couldn't finish the thought.
     "She's alive, but the shock has put her in a coma. I got her to
Moira, the rest is in God's hands."
     "How touching!" the Surfer chuckled, "You should have let her die,
it would have eased her suffering!" he laughed.
     Hot knives shot from Peter Wisdom's hands to spatter against the
silver skin of their attacker.
     The Surfer merely pointed and the ground before Wisdom exploded into
deadly scrapnel, nearly blowing the man apart.
     Quicksilver had just sped from the med lab, having recovered from his
wounds in the first battle. He caught the bleeding Wisdom and raced back
down, avoiding the blasts of the Surfer.
     "Your speed won't save you murderer!" the Surfer laughed. He began
to fire until someone punched him in the back of the head.
     He swatted Warpath aside like a flea, shattering the young Indian's
jaw.
     "Jimmy!" Siryn screamed, "You bastard I'll melt yuir brains ta
jelly!" she howled. Her sonic scream lashed out and the Surfer actually
staggered, until he blasted her in the chest. She fell with blood oozing
from a gaping hole near her heart, her gurgles driving the other heroes to
a rage they had never felt.
     Cyclops fired a laser-thin full power beam that sliced through the
Surfer's skin . The scream of pain made him grin, they'd finally hurt the
bastard!
     Rogue rocketed down from above and smashed into the Surfer like a
meteor, but he merely rose and threw her aside like garbage.
     Meggan caused a mini-volcano to erupt under the Surfer, but the
space-farer laughed and transmuted her into stone.
     Captain Britain wanted to attack in rage, but he knew that was what
the villain wanted. Suddenly he had a plan, maybe the only thing that
might save them.
     "Cable!" he yelled.
     The leader of X-Force had already seen Siryn, Shatterstar, and
Warpath gravely injured but he sensed the urgency in Braddock's voice.
     "What is it!?" he snapped.
     "We need to take advantage of Scott's blast. If we could get one of
Meltdown's bombs into that wound then detonate it perhaps we might stop
him!" he instructed.
     <Kurt!>, Cable mentally called.
     "Ja! What is it!?" Kurt growled while appearing.
     Brian spoke up, "Teleport Meltdown to the Surfer's side and have her
put one of her most powerful bombs into that wound Scott made!" he
instructed.
     Nightcrawler teleported to Meltdown and away a moment before she
would have been flash-fried by one of the Surfer's blasts.
     "I hope this works or we're all dead!" Cable told Braddock.
     Brian looked about. "We can only have faith."
   

     
     The battle was going badly for Cable, even with the massed forced of
three X-teams they were losing to one being, of course that being was the
Silver Surfer. He knew little of the Surfer himself but from what Scott
and the others had said this was not the actions of the Surfer they knew.
Whoever this madman was he'd butchered the X-Men without warning then
attacked Muir island and now fought a pitched battle with what had started
as a force of twenty mutants.
     Brian Braddock, also known as Captain Britain, had come up with a
plan, really their last hope....and now was the time.
     <Everyone attack! We have to give them a moment!>, Cable mentally
projected to them all.
     Sunspot blasted the Surfer even as Scott did, their energy doing
little more than annoy him. Iceman, in a moment of brilliance, froze the
outer shell of the Surfer to a point beyond what even space could feel
like. In that moment Sunspot upped his heat to full power, as did Cyclops.
Combined they blasted him with nearly the heat of the sun. The temperate
extremes caused his skin to weaken ever so slightly. 
     Gambit smashed a charged metal bar off the Surfer's head, actually
wounding the gleaming invader a little. The Surfer staggered for a moment
then grabbed Gambit and threw him like a dart at Sunspot far above. The
impact was enormous and Sunspot's ribs shattered even as Remy suffered
head trauma. Iceman snared them both and barely erected a shield before
the Surfer would have fried all three of them. The blast threw him to the
ground, his wounded friends falling to the dirt even as the Surfer loomed
above him.
     "Goodbye!" the Silver Surfer snarled.
     "Now!" Brian screamed.
     Nightcrawler teleported both himself and Meltdown right next to the
Surfer and she created the most powerful bomb of her young life, and fired
it into the small wound Cyclops had inflicted upon the madman earlier in
the battle.
     The blast was contained by the Surfer's skin...mostly. But a
softball-sized wound now gaped in the space-dweller's side. He reeled in
pain and saw Nightcrawler beginning to teleport with Meltdown to safety.
    "No...no.." he said with blood choking his words. He surrounded the
two in a bubble of energy even as Nightcrawler disappeared with the
woman.
     One figure appeared next to Cable and Brian Braddock, she was female
and wore Meltdown's clothes but had the blue fur, forked tail, and strange
eyes of Nightcrawler.
     "Oh my Gott!" the woman screamed..her voice a melding of Kurt's and
Tabitha's. She passed out from the shock of two minds forced into one.
     "Im....Impossible! He..he merged them into one form!" Brian gasped.
Now he knew that there was far more to all this than the Surfer.
     "At least they're alive!" Cable snapped.
     The Surfer staggered again as Cyclops fired a full power beam into
the wound, widening it even more. Not even the Surfer's own augmented
power would keep him alive now.
     Suddenly a figure appeared behind the wounded Silver Surfer, that of
Susan Richards.
     "But....we saw her die!" Cannonball gasped to Scott.
     "Cable! Is that her?" Cyclops snapped.
     "No...it's an old mind, I can't get in...." he groaned in pain then
severed the connection.
     "Su...Susan!?" Norrin Radd said in astonishment, "I'm dying my
love....help me!" he pleaded.
     She hugged him then he stiffened as it seemed his power was leaving
him.
     Suddenly it was a man in his arms, one he'd fought before.
     "Loki!?" he gasped. He wanted to attack the godling but wa so
weakened that he knew he was dying.
     "Ha!Ha!" the god of evil laughed, "You've been a worthy puppet
Surfer, look at all those who lie wounded at your hand!"
     The Silver Surfer looked at the carnage he'd wrought, now free of the
god's spell.
     "No!!!" he roared. He wanted to rip his own eyes out rather than
look at those he'd fought with...or might one day have...now fighting to
live.
     "I'll take that!" Loki grinned while plucking the Power Gem from the
Surfer's brow. Instantly all of Loki's power was increased a hundredfold.
     "Cringe mortals!" he laughed, "Now that most of your number have
fallen the Earth shall now fall to Loki!" he chortled in glee.
     "Don't count us mortals out just yet bub!" Wolverine growled as he
appeared with Dr. Strange, and quite a few others.
     Loki knew many of those arrayed against him. Dr. Strange, Earth's
Sorcerer Supreme was with the feral mutant Wolverine.
     But the others stunned him, one was the mighty Juggernaught....a
mortal of such power that even Loki had heard of him. Hercules, an
Olympian god, stood alongside them as well. Red Norvell, the human who'd
replaced his accursed step-brother Thor. The costumed hero Spider-Man
crouched in the ground, clearly not comfortable with these heavy hitters.
Next to the arachnid was the Hulk, a foe that Loki knew all too well.
     And last amongst these titans stood...a child. Loki knew of this
child, Franklin Richards was fated to be the most powerful being on the
Earth...someday.
     "This might be interesting after all!" he laughed.