********************************************************************** DISCLAIMER 1) This material is not used for monetary profit in any manner. It is done solely for enjoyment purposes, and as homage to the great stories and characters of Marvel Comics Group 2) All the characters, events, and locations portrayed within are recognized as property of Marvel Comics Group should they so wish. 3) This story has been written by Samy Merchi . Any commentary in the form of compliments or critique is welcomed, and eagerly hoped for. So go ahead and drop me a line telling me what you thought, okay? It'll make my day. ;) 4) This story is being archived at least at my fanfic page at . Previous parts can be found there if needed. ********************************************************************** ************ * YOUR WAY * ************ Dedicated to Terri Hayes who was patient enough to wait while I wrote this Inspired by Louise Simonson's NEW MUTANTS #61 < Oh and Alara? Be gentle, if you say anything. > < I hope I didn't butcher Mags too bad. ;) > *** The chanting grew louder, like a thousand voices singing in perfect harmony. But whatever the voices were, they weren't human voices. Nor was the woman inside the flaming pentagram truly human. Long, pointed horns rose from her forehead upwards. A spade-ended tail. And the legs of a goat. The portrait of devilishness. All the way down to the astonishing beauty that could seduce almost any mortal. Glowing prismatic energy of all colors swirled around her, magical forces caressing her body like an intimate lover whose touch was the safest, most familiar thing in the world. She hissed in ecstatic pleasure as she felt the power swirling all about her, filling her, energizing her, her eyes squeezed shut tightly as she felt an almost orgasmic thrill rush thru her body, the pale skin flushing in excitement. Magneto watched the ritual, little intimidated or enticed by the literal magic of the moment. He was always a pragmatic man with little use for something as esoteric as what many called 'magic'. Over the years, he had had to acknowledge its existence, but it wasn't under his control. And he wasn't going to be under its control. Magic and Magnetism were two completely different things, and his interest lie solely in the other. "Ah", Illyana breathed, her hips moving, rising and falling, to the rhythm of the chanting as it flowed ever faster, ever more passionate. Sweat started flowing from her forehead, and breaking all over her scantily-clad both, making all the vast expanses of bared skin glisten enticingly. "Ah", she breathed again, her body shuddering. "Ah..." The glow around her grew brighter, more powerful. "Ah...ah...ah...ah...AHHHNNNGHHHHH!!!" She shuddered powerfully, her body flushing an even deeper shade of red, as a bright lance of light ejaculated from her, and shot at Magneto, suffusing him with power and energy. Magneto's expression didn't waver as the light hit him, and he felt energy fill his veins. He made a small motion with his hand, and it crackled with bluish energy. There was no smile on his face. It only meant that the war would go on, and that more and more people would end up dying because of him, just like Lee. But he knew it had to be. He was nothing if not Magneto, the Master of Magnetism. It was the only thing he could be. But he didn't have to like it. Silently, he gathered crackling energy around him, and his red-and-purple Magneto costume slowly coalesced onto him from thin air, complete with the helmet. Illyana grinned impishly from the floor where she had collapsed after the climax, as she saw the blue flare of energy flicker to life. She curled up into a little ball in her pentagram, and purred as she moved slightly, gyrating her hips slowly, lazily. "Was it as good for you as it was for me?" she smirked, baring her fangs in a lustful gaze. "This is no time for games, Illyana", Magneto stated in a tense tone, as he slowly walked over to her pentagram and blue energy crackled about his hand, leaping over to Illyana, and he raised her up by the iron in her blood. "I need to get back to Earth." "Anyone ever tell you how gross that feels?" Illyana asked, ignoring Magneto's words and wrinkling her nose after she got lifted up to her feet, shivering slightly, not at the afterglow of the climax, but the unpleasant feeling of Magneto's powers. "I apologize for any discomfort, Illyana", Magneto said with urgency in his tone. "But it is imperative I must be returned to Earth immediately!" "Why?" Illyana cooed softly, her eyes glinting mischievously. "The others can handle whatever the problem there is..." Her voice was an audible purr as she took a step from her pentagram, closer to Magneto. "'sides, I can 'port you right back to the time where I snatched you from... We're in no hurry. Kick your shoes off, ex-teach", she grinned. "Live a little." "Illyana, there is NO TIME for this", Magneto simply insisted. "You're forgetting where you are, ex-teach", Illyana smiled, and her left hand found its way to his armored stomach, rubbing over it in light circles. "This is Limbo. We have all the time in the world." She grinned. "Literally." Her other hand found its way to Magneto's ear, and slid along the edge teasingly. "Y'know, an earring would look so *cute* on you." "ILLYANA!" Magneto snapped at the last remark, almost fuming. "Send. Me. Back. To. Earth", he then growled. Illyana frowned, and pouted. "You're boring." With that remark, black eldritch fire danced once around Magneto, and then a circle of light materialized underneath him, swallowing him up... "The van's clear, Dani", Sam commented, as he returned from inspecting the vehicle with Douglock and Rahne. "No scents but Semyanov's in there. All the tech there seems to pretty much be either parts for the armor or the cannon. I think we should take'em back to base and put somewhere where they can't do any harm." "Me and Warlock studied the cannon. We've got its schematics. I say we just blow it up. It works on electromagnetically scrambling the section of brain that controls mutant powers, which means it inhibits just about any mutant powers, with maybe a few exceptions. Or worse, it causes those that need to constantly be under control to go haywire. And the worst part? It isn't like that guy's gauntlet. Its effect can last for up to *months*, depending on the power. It's too dangerous, and we can rebuild one any time we'd need one", Doug noted. "Self echoes sentiments of Selfsoulfriendcypherdoug", Warlock added. "You always do, Warlock", Roberto commented, standing beside Dani, the lamppost she was leaning against, and the unconscious Semyanov. "Hey, stop complaining, 'Berto", Dani grinned. "It's two minds for the price of one." "What're we gaunae do wit' him?" Rahne asked, nodding towards Semyanov. "We could turn'im over to Bridge", Sam suggested. Dani nodded. "My thoughts exactly. He and SHIELD've got the resources to deal with people like this. I know *I'm* not going to be making him food and changing his diapers while we chain him into some wall back at the Island." "Sounds good to me", Roberto nodded. "Self responds equivalently." "Me too", Doug nodded. "You need a quarter to call Bridge, or gonna make it collect?" he grinned to Dani. Then, they were interrupted by a bright circle of light appearing nearby, on the lawn of the church. X-Force turned towards it, only to see Magneto appear out of it. "Don't bother", he stated in his regal, proud tone. "I will take him out of your hands." "By the Holy Rood..." Rahne was the first one to gasp in surprise, her hand going to her mouth. "Now I've seen it all", Dani grinned widely. Roberto moved behind Dani, and placed his hands over her eyes. "Don't see too much", he commented dryly, but was hardly able to keep a straight face himself. "Uh??" Sam went, his eyes just going wide and his jaw dropping slightly. (( Don't smile. Don't smile. Don't smile. Don't smile. Don't smile. Don't smile. Don't smile. Don't smile. He'll be able to short this body out with a thought )) Doug thought to himself. Then, he just turned away, pretending to look at the horizon absently, while his shoulders began shaking in laughter he barely kept silent. "Is there some significance to Formerselfmentormagneto's attire?" Warlock asked curiously. At Warlock's words, Magneto looked down at himself, only to notice what Illyana's dark eldritch flames had done to him. Decked out in black leather bondage gear even racier than what he had discovered Tom Corsi and Sharon Friedlander in after Empath's manipulations [1], his eyes widened, and the top of a nearby-parked car suddenly tore off, flew over to Magneto, and morphed into a new red-and-purple armor around him. "Ahem", he then cleared his throat, but an uncomfortable silence seemed to persist. "Um...sir?" Sam finally broke the silence. "We're takin' this guy in to SHIELD for killin' Lee Forrester", he stated. Magneto nodded once. "A very gracious offer, Sam, but there is no need. I am taking him." Sam's eyes narrowed slightly. "I wasn't offerin', sir", he replied calmly. "I was tellin'." Doug grinned widely. "Yeah! You tell'im, Sam!" Roberto's eyes narrowed a bit more than Sam's, but he said nothing. Instead, he slowly moved to stand slightly between Dani and Magneto, already anticipating what would happen. Magneto's steel-hard eyes locked onto Douglock for a moment, causing the young man to quickly go silent, before he looked back to Sam. "I am taking Semyanov. He is responsible for killing...a close friend of mine." "No, you're not taking him", Dani interjected, stepping up from behind Roberto. "You'd kill him", she simply stated, in a level, confident tone. "And he killed Aleytys", Magneto replied sharply. "So?" Sam answered. "That doesn't give you the right to be like him." "Sam's right", Rahne nodded to Magneto. "Ye dinnae have th' right to become like him." "Some would say I already am", Magneto simply retorted. "We know you better'n that", Sam commented to that. "Back off, sir. We'll take care o' Semyanov." "If you do not relinquish him, I am prepared to *take* him, if need be, X-Force", Magneto stated, his eyes narrowing. "Stand back. Semyanov is mine." Blue energy crackled in his right hand, and Semyanov's metal armor suddenly rose into the air, hovering towards Magneto. "No", Sam said sharply. "We w--" SKA-POW! An explosive concussive blast of gravimetric energy had lanced out of Roberto's outstretched right arm, catching Magneto in the middle of his chest and sending him flying back several dozen yards, dropping Semyanov's unconscious body which clattered onto the sidewalk, before he caught himself and rose into the air, the energies crackling around him in an angry build-up. "I. Am. Taking. Semyanov", he hissed sharply, and then a car parked nearby suddenly launched itself at Roberto like a rocket. "Hardly", Roberto hissed back, and a quick solar blast from his other hand blew up the car halfway to him. "You've been needing a good lesson in manners since I've known you, Magneto, and I'm *just* the guy to teach you!" With that, he launched himself towards Magneto, leaving a streak of black energy in the air after him as he soared towards the Master of Magnetism. "'Berto!" Dani screamed. "What're you, NUTS?? You can't take on Magneto alone!!" "Don't worry, Dani! I can take him!" "So you think", Magneto growled at Roberto. "Arrogant pup -- I have defeated men a hundred times your better! It is YOU who need a lesson -- in respecting your elders!" "I'll show you who needs a lesson!!" Roberto snarled, and suddenly a tremendous amount of gravimetric concussive energy washed out from his right arm, his expression twisting into one of rage, as he kept pumping out power. "UNGH!" Magneto got flung back by the immediate ferocity of the attack, but quickly rectified himself, and fixed himself in place in relation to Earth's magnetic field, and stood there in midair, firm as a boulder, as his magnetic force field deflected Roberto's attacks. But there was a slight amount of sweat on his brow. "Most...impressive", he stated angrily. "But your arsenal is susceptible to my powers, Roberto." With that, the solar power Roberto kept pumping out towards Magneto suddenly changed direction, and lanced back at Roberto. "What I have created, I can destroy!" Roberto growled, as he simply reabsorbed the solar blasts to his body. "Your force bubble might be useful against physical attacks! But what do you do when..." Suddenly, the air inside Magneto's force field burst into flame. "...I raise the temperature inside by a few thousand degrees!!" "ARRGH!!" The force bubble suddenly dissipated, and the flames died down as the heat dispersed to the surrounding air. "You have just exceeded my tolerance for patience, Roberto", Magneto snarled, his eyes glaring at the younger man from the darkness of his helmet. "If that was supposed to intimidate me, you'll have to do better than that", Roberto snapped back. "Come on, Magneto! Show me what you're made of! You claimed I'd join you?? [2] I say NEVER! I'll never join a loser like you! I could accomplish more for mutantkind in one year than you've done your entire lifetime! You're a relic, Magneto! You've never been any good for anything, and you'll never be! What have you ever accomplished? Lot of good you were to the X-Men when the Marauders slaughtered the Morlocks! You let Frost con the New Mutants from you! You let Cortez infiltrate your camp, try to kill you and take your Acolytes! You had to hang out with the Hellfire Club, and you couldn't even use their resources to find Shan's siblings, or save Ramsey, or save Illyana! You even let the X-Men die! You're a loser, Magneto! You think you're so tough? Come on! Show me how tough you are!!" "Um...'Berto...that might not be the smartest move..." Doug stated hesitantly. Dani tensed, gritting her teeth nervously. "'Berto..." (( This is not good. )) Sam just *blinked*. "Shut up", Magneto said, and waved his hand, flinging Roberto out of Earth's atmosphere like a rocket. One moment he was there, ranting and raving. The next, he was shot out of the planetary atmosphere like a bullet, unconscious from the immense g-forces of the acceleration. "'I can take him.' 'I'll show who needs a lesson.' 'Show me how tough you are.' What's it gonna take for him to learn?" Doug sighed, placing a hand over his eyes Dani's eyes widened as she saw Roberto disappear, and she screamed, "NO!! 'BERTO!!" Her furious eyes turning to Magneto. "If he's hurt, I'm going to KILL you!" She pointed a hand towards him, and a glowing bolt of psionic energy blasted out at the Master of Magnetism. Doug gritted his teeth slightly. "Um...guys?" he interjected. "We won't be able to take him..." Then he sighed as Dani attacked. "This is going to hurt... I just *know* it is..." "NO!" Magneto cried in midair, as Dani's psi-arrow hit him, and unearthed his greatest fears within his mind, another holocaust with mutants as the victims and he himself forced to watch it all, helpless. The moment didn't go wasted. "C'mon, Doug!" Sam shouted. "We gotta take him down hard and fast, or we don't got a chance!" With that, he activated his blast field and rocketed towards Magneto. Doug hesitated, his eyes wide. "But...but...he..." He swallowed once, and then went on, in an inaudible whisper, "...controls metals..." Dani glanced to Doug, and realized the source of his hesitation. Then, her eyes widened slightly, and she suddenly yelled, "Over there!" pointing in a direction for Doug. Rahne bit her lip silently. There was little she could do on the ground. And even if Magneto was on the ground, there was little she could do against him...but as Dani shouted her order, Rahne knew she could at least try to protect Dougie... "I've got it, Dani!" Doug shouted, and started running towards Semyanov's van, Rahne sprinting beside him, hoping Magneto wouldn't notice them until it was too late. Sam, meanwhile, impacted onto Magneto, knocking the wind out of the older man, but Magneto remained conscious, and glared at Sam. "You, of all people, I would think more sensible than to attack me, Sam", he hissed. "You should have given me Semyanov peacefully!" "We won't let you kill a man in cold blood, sir!" Sam argued harshly, and threw a blast-field-reinforced punch at the Master of Magnetism, knocking the red helmet away, a spattering of blood spraying from Magneto's mouth. "Whatever punishment he's got comin' ta him, it won't be from you!" A circle of light blazed into existence beside Dani, Illyana appearing in it along with an unconscious Roberto lying on the ground. Dani's head turned around, and her eyes widened in worry for her boyfriend. "He's okay", Illyana answered Dani's question before it was spoken. "Just out like a light. Ironic, hm?" she grinned, not really caring whether anyone got her little joke, and then looked up at Sam going one-on-one with Magneto. "You *know* he's gonna get his butt handed to him, right?" "Mmmmaybe", Dani mused, and then cast an illusion over Semyanov's van to make it appear completely normal, without Doug and Rahne being there. But that would only protect them from visual detection. Doug was living circuitry, and Magneto sensed metals. "Self has activated cloaking systems, Selfsoulfriendcypherdoug", Warlock commented, as he watched the battle between Sam and Magneto unfold from Doug's shoulder as the blond kept running towards the van, and then jumped into it, kneeling beside the inhibitor cannon. "Self's systems are sufficient for maintaining complete electromagnetic invisibility for 67.3485 seconds at current reserves of Lifenergy --" "Cut the spectrum, Warlock", Doug said urgently, as his fingers started fiddling along the controls of the cannon. "My guess is Dani's taking care of the visible light spectrum. We won't be needing to cover that... Reroute 2/3 of the power we save from visible light to creating a power source six meters south-southwest from us. In case Mags *does* detect us, I want him to think *that's* us. Should buy us some time..." "Query: Purpose of remaining .333 of power?" "We'll keep it in reserve, pal. Never can have too much power..." He quickly wiped a hand across his forehead. Even though his symbiote body didn't sweat, there were some habits that just stuck. "Acknowledged. Instructions complied with. Exclamation: It is Miller time!" [1] NEW MUTANTS #39 [2] NEW MUTANTS #75 "I will not be stopped, Sam", Magneto commented sharply, and suddenly coalesced metal particles from the air to form an opaque shell around Sam's blast field, to prevent him from seeing anything. "Well, neither'm I!" Sam exclaimed, extending his blast field, and shattering the shell, returning his sight. "You just back off, Magneto! We're not givin' up!!" "Umm... Dani?" "Yeah, Illyana?" "Why are we just standing here?" "Because neither of us can fly?" "You wanna live forever?" Illyana grinned, and disappeared into a disk of light. "Then you are fools!" Magneto glanced towards the ground, and blue fire flickered from his hand to Semyanov's unconscious body, and lifted it into the air. "This battle is pointless. You can't stop me from leaving with him." A circle of light suddenly blazed into existence just behind Magneto, and two hands clamped over his eyes. "Guess who??" Illyana grinned, as her goat-legs locked around Magneto's waist from behind. "Illyana??" Magneto hissed, and wrenched his head from her hands, his neck craning to look around at the demoness. "Well, I sure as hell ain't the tooth fairy..." she grinned impishly in return. "By the way, your concentration's slipping." "UMPH!" Magneto groaned as Sam threw another punch at him while Illyana's distraction worked, boosted by his blast field, rattling the Master of Magnetism's skull. "I grow weary of this", he snarled, and suddenly magnetic force pushed outwards from him, forming a force bubble around him again. A motion of his hand, and Semyanov's unconscious body flew over into the bubble as well. "And now", he said sharply, "I'll bid you adieu, X-Force." "Not so fast!" Doug exclaimed triumphantly, and clenched his hand into a fist, slamming it down onto the 'START' button. ZAM! A blast of orange light bathed Magneto, Sam and Illyana for a fraction of a second, and then winked out of existence. Just as their powers suddenly did. "A've go' Sam!" Rahne shouted, and sprinted towards the falling forms, leaping high into the air, and catching Sam in mid-fall, landing deftly back onto the asphalt, carrying her teammate. "And I have the others", Roberto's groggy voice uttered, as he absorbed the gravimetric force pulling Illyana and Semyanov downwards, suspending their fall in mid-air. THUNK! "I thought you said you had the others", Dani commented dryly at Roberto, as he looked at Magneto, having gone unconscious from the fall onto the asphalt. "I missed someone?" Roberto asked with an innocent smile. *** HALF AN HOUR LATER *** "You'd better get outta here, sir, 'fore SHIELD gets here. Far's I know, Magneto's still one o' the most wanted people on this planet." "Very well, Sam", Magneto replied calmly, letting his eyes go over X-Force, narrowing slightly at Roberto, before getting back to Sam. "But don't delude yourself into thinking I will not come for Semyanov. You have merely succeeded in prolonging his life slightly." "Well, at least two months or so", Doug grinned. Magneto ignored Doug, and continued to Sam. "I will be back for him", he said, his tone becoming sharp, more confident than ever. "One way or another." He turned around, and walked off, disappearing to an alley. "You go your way, sir", Sam said sternly, "an' we'll go our way." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Samy Merchi 1998 samerc@utu.fi http://www.utu.fi/~samerc "I am about to commit a direct violation of our orders. Any of you who wish to object should do so now, it will be noted in my log." "Captain...I believe I speak for everyone here, sir, when I say... To Hell with our orders." Picard and Data, 'Star Trek: First Contact'