"How you feeling," said Kate as Pete got up off the medical bed in the X-Mansion. It wasn't too long since they had been under the thrall of the Shadow King but now they'd been restored to themselves.

"Pissed off," the Brit growled at her.

"Because you and Warren fought to a standstill?" she said.

"That wasn't me, and you know how I know that wasn't me? Because I'd have capped the bastard from the stairs." He shifted his shoulders and felt the bones in his neck crack, and he knew he was stiff from the impacts he'd taken. "Put a hot knife right between his eyes and said 'see ya'."

"So who was it?" said Kate.

"Farouk," said Wisdom as he looked for cigarettes, but couldn't find any and his clothes were missing as well. "First rule of killing someone - don't talk to them first. We were sloppy, arrogant... Farouk all over."

"You're just saying that because you didn't win," said Kate, looking down at the bandages that surrounded her ribcage from the bruised ribs she had gotten from her fight. "I mean Bobby's become a lot more powerful and a lot smarter than anyone ever figured."

A shiver running down her as she thought of the Shadow X-Men and how they had come to the Xavier Institute to battle the originals. It had been a hard fight and they'd lost the fight, but in losing they had been restored to who they truly were.

"Yeah," said Pete, obviously not listening and continued muttering to himself. "I mean what the bloody hell was I thinking? I jabbed a hot knife in his neck. Through his neck would have been better. They put a great hole in the tin Russian..."

"You know nobody's listening to you?" said Kate as she looked for some clothes and smiled, because Pete was lost in his own little world.

"But no, I have to give him a slight jab," Wisdom continued as he searched the room. "What the hell was that going to accomplish, you bloody great pillock? And then when you were falling, did you do anything to slow yourself down? No. How many times have we been falling and slowed it with the hot knives? Bollocks to it, I want a rematch, and where the BLOODY HELL ARE MY CLOTHES!?"

"I'm guessing they're in shreds. Your jacket was pretty much it," said Kate, as she opened a cupboard and gave a gasp of triumph. "But there's this...

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," he said, seeing what she held up. "Please don't tell me that's all there is?"

"Hey, I grew up in these things," she said. "One size fits all. Unstable molecules and all that."

"Oh, come on..." Pete started but she shook her head.

"It's all there is," and she tossed it over to him.

"Someone is taking the piss," Pete sighed as he started to put it on. "I mean... blue and yellow?"

"Gold," Kate corrected as she got in to the uniform and smiled. It had been a long time since she'd worn one of these. "Now zip me up."

"Sod off, it's yellow, and anyone who says otherwise is colour blind or stupid," Pete said as he did as she asked, and then he looked down and saw the belt. "Oh, now you really have to be kidding." Shadowcat giggled as she zipped up Pete's tunic.

"You can't go around with it undone. It's not dignified."

"Dignified?" His tone was a mixture of astonishment and despair and he knew she was enjoying this. "I can't believe I'm doing this," he said as he fastened the red X to the clip and the uniform was complete and Pryde and Wisdom stood next to each other, looking very much like traditional X-Men, except for the dark scowl that Pete wore on his face.

"Just kill me now..."

X-Force: Legends

by David Wheatley

Earlier

"It's a holographic image," SHIELD Agent Michaels said as he looked up at where the bullet had ricocheted off something and back in to the ground. "Hiding..."

"Hydra," said David North and he looked at the seal of Hydra on the floor and fired his bio-kinetic energies at the skull image and his energies were redirected upwards and the image dispersed to show a new structure, built between the buildings and across the alleyway. "I think we found what we're looking for," he said to Michaels but then there was a noise above them and the structure opened, Hydra agents falling to the floor, ready for a fight.

"And then there are days," Maverick said, as they started to fire and he knew they had a problem. "ALL AGENTS ATTACK!" He didn't need to say it, but it helped and the agents knew they had someone to rally behind. He grabbed hold of one of them and threw him to the floor, then he fired his gun at another couple and they hit the floor as he emptied the clip.

"Where the hell are they coming from?" asked Michaels as he fought.

"It has to be some kind of tesseract generator," said Maverick. "God knows how many of them there are, and where they all are." This has been well planned and it had gone unnoticed, but then again they were dealing with the Shadow King and he had corrupted some of SHIELD's best and they'd never seen it coming. Well, maybe Wisdom might have done, but he was that kind of thinker. Maverick was skilled in black ops but he was more a solider than a spy like Pete was. Wisdom the kind who found the problems, Maverick was the kind who solved them.

Then again he'd found this problem and he'd no idea of how to solve it as more Hydra agents were coming at them.

"I hate teleporters," he said and he fired his energy blasts at the structure and it shook as the bio kinetic energy did some damage and they stopped coming out. "That worked," he muttered to himself and he started to lead the SHIELD agents in the battle with Hydra. Now this was something that had never been truly seen on such a scale in public, he pondered. They fired their weapons and the SHIELD uniforms managed to blunt the attacks and the agents fried back, ran at the terrorists and engaged them in hand to hand combat as sirens blared.

The police were on their way to assist them, but Maverick knew they were going to be more of a hindrance than a help and he pressed he button on the side of his mask and opened a direct line to SHIELD, hoping that whatever problems they'd been having thanks to the Sons of Set had been resolved.

"Forge, it's Maverick," he said, as the police took up their positions at started firing at Hydra, and Maverick hoped his people weren't caught in the crossfire.

"Yes, I know," Forge said and Maverick wondered how Forge knew what was going on that quickly, considering they'd only just been attacked themselves. "I am working with the authorities to pull the locals out and let us handle it. The upside is those are probably the only black and whites you will get and it is not just you either. This is a global attack, not just a localised one. Your timing appears to have been coincidence."

"That was what I was afraid of," North replied as he slammed his fist in to the gut of one of the terrorists who had gotten within his reach. This was the moment they had both anticipated and dreaded and he hoped they were ready. "How bad is this?"

"Hydra agents are appearing across the world. Tel Avia, Cairo and Istanbul are taking the biggest hits, though those are allegedly the places where the Shadow King was first sighted and so it makes sense that he would ensure that those places he calls home fall first."

"God," said North. "Farouk couldn't have timed it better."

"Agreed. Our people have been spread out dealing with the issues with the Sons of Set, the heroes have been fighting the Sons themselves and none of us were ready for this. It should have been expected, but we are doing what we can. I'm with the United Nations Security Council as we speak."

"This is a global assault?" Maverick confirmed as he ducked a bullet at the same time as he fired a blast of energy, sending the Hydra agent slamming in to the wall. "How bad?"

"There are numerous heroes and organisations taking care of things, though Fury himself is attacking Washington," Forge answered. "I have Excalibur on their way, but it just depends on how long we can hold him. The defences we installed after Doom's play at the United Nations should do it for now, but it is just a matter of time."

"Are you okay?" Maverick asked, thinking that Forge's voice was a little more mechanical than usual. He had thought it earlier, but this confirmed it. "You don't sound quite yourself."

"That is because I am not," Forge replied. "It will be explained once the crisis is dealt with and I have ensured that we do not let something like this happen again. I have every faith in you, David, and the rest of X-Force are on their way."

"Understood," North answered, though he didn't quite get what was going on. However he trusted Forge and he had always shown he knew what he was doing. "Good luck. North out."

He broke the connection and smiled. He felt a bit better knowing the others were on their way back from Xavier's, but there was one question that hung in his mind - if Hydra was making their big push what was happening with Wisdom and Shadowcat, and what would it cost them to find out. Maverick wasn't sure he wanted to find that one out, and he went to work.

"What's going on?" Marcus asked as they borrowed the Omnijet from Xavier's and headed back towards Greenwich. "Ah get that Hydra are attacking, but there's somethin' else."

"Yes," said Lydia. "It's bad out there. Europe, Aisa, the Americas... it's begun. It's a Shadow War, a war that's been planned and prepared for and we didn't see it."

"What else?" said Teresa, her voice trembling a little as she regained her strength after giving Jared Corbo a blood transfusion that seemed to be saving his life after being almost digested by the Son of Set called Talyn.

"It's Fury," she said. "He's attacking Washington. The United Nations, the White House... the city's under siege and the army and SHIELD are holding them at bay, but they've got Dawn operatives."

"The Apocalypse Dawn?" said Raven. "Again?"

"We need to go to Washington, but David needs us," Lydia said. "There's stuff we have to do first."

"You're thinking of Pete," said Siryn. "You're wondering if he's there."

"And Kate," said Marcus. "Farouk's got his people in place, making strategic moves and you know that this is the reason that he wanted them."

"Yeah," said Lydia. "I don't if we're ready. If I'm ready." There was a moment of silence only broken by the noise of the engines as the jet shot through the sky.

"We'll get him back," said Marcus. "Both of them, and then we'll take care of business."

"I've just got a feeling," Lydia said. "A feeling I've had since I saw them at the cemetery in London. I've managed to get past it, but it's hitting home right now. I think I've lost him, not as a person, but as someone I could have had a relationship with."

"If it's meant to be, it'll happen," Terry said, as she put her hand on to Lydia's. "For what it's worth, I think you two will be fine."

"So why am I so scared?" Lydia said. "Between Pete and my father..."

"It's love," said Marcus. "Plain and simple. Makes us scared, stupid. It's one of the few things that makes us do things we wouldn't normally do, say what we wouldn't normally say. Ah've been around a long time, ah know."

"So what do you do?" asked Lydia. "If you've been around."

"Lydia, if Ah knew that, then I'd have told the world years ago. Ah'm just a telepath."

"The heart knows what the heart knows," whispered Teresa.

"We're coming up on Greenwich," Marcus said and they got ready and for a moment Lydia looked out of the window at the skies. Somewhere out there, Peter was in the middle of something, maybe more than he could handle and she was worried for him.

"Have they forgotten us?" said Magma, the impatience in her voice echoed in the minds of the X-Men. They'd be in the Danger Room for some time and the systems hadn't come back on line yet. Jubilee made some small explosions so at least they had light, and Emma had insisted it was safer in here than it was outside, but time was dragging on. So far all attempts to rewire the Danger Room and let them out had failed and Monet had been unable to get Cerebro back online either.

The problem was it was quiet outside as well, due to the soundproofing

"Maybe they're dead," said Jared.

"Yeah because that's a likely outcome," said Emma. "The original X-Men versus the Shadow X-Men? They're not exactly team players."

"We didn't do too well against them earlier," said M. "It was... annoying."

"Well the Danger Room is offline," said Jared. "I'm through waiting."

"Ditto," said Jubilee. "Whatever's going on out there, we're better taking it to them than sitting around waiting. We're going to need a new door..." Jubilee focused, letting the anger she felt towards the Shadow King build for what he'd done to Wolvie and she unleashed her powers and the door of the Danger Room exploded in a shower of metal, Jared and Monet protecting the other three.

"You think that's coming out of your allowance?" asked Jared as the team went outside to find the mansion had been battered from the battle that had ensued and Jessica was helping Shadowcat bring in Wisdom from the outside and the X-Men got ready just in case.

"It's over," said Kate. "Jubilee, help us get Pete in the medbay. I want to check him out."

"Monet?" said Emma and M gave them a quick scan with her telepathy.

"They're who they are again," she confirmed.

"Help them then," said Ice and the X-men ran over to give the restored heroes a hand.

"How's Wolvie?" Jubilee asked and she could see Shadowcat was struggling herself.

"He's back to being himself," she said. "The poison's gone, and I'm guessing he's gone after the Shadow King one last time." Her breathing was laboured and Jubilee looked at her.

"You okay?" she said and Kate waved her away.

"Just a pain in my chest," she said as they made it in to the medical wing of the mansion and they laid Pete down on the bed. Jared waited outside as the girls went to work.

M shook her head, as she looked down at Wisdom, who was quite battered from the fight and she cut away his clothing so the scanner could take a better look and see if anything was broken. They shouldn't have moved him, but it was better than leaving outside and Kate had kept him partially phased so any damage wasn't made worse. The power was still down, but the medical equipment operated off a redundancy system so it was not affected by the loss of power. Meanwhile, Emma was examining Kate, while Jubilee took away her clothes.

"Your ribs are bruised, but you should be fine," she told her. "Magma will bind your ribs and I'd say leave off any physical exertion, but I guess that's not going to happen."

"Not a chance," said Shadowcat and she looked over to Monet. "How is he?"

"He's fine," M said after a moment. "He's bruised but that's it. I..." She stopped. "I have to go."

"Go?" said Emma. "Why?"

"I'm needed," she replied as a portal appeared. "The more telepaths..." She stepped in to the portal and it started to close.

"Gateway," whispered Jubilee, seeing the portal and recognising it. It was closing but it was also staying open a while as well and she knew what she had to do. "I'M COMING, LOGAN!" she shouted and leapt through the portal and then it closed. Magma and Emma looked at each other and Wisdom gave a slight groan.

"He's coming round," said Magma, stating the obvious but it broke the tension.

"Can we have the room?" said Kate. "I'm going to need to talk with him." Emma nodded and she and Magma left, leaving the two of them alone in the room.

"My head," Pete muttered as he came round and he winced in pain. "And the rest of me."

"How you feeling?" she asked him as he started to get off the medical bed.

"This is getting out of hand!" said Maverick as some of the Hydra agents were now displaying super-powers, and he suspected they were what were left of the Apocalypse Dawn. They were mixed in with the others and they'd waited for the rest of X-Force to arrive before they'd revealed themselves. They had started taking out the officers and now the squad cars were burning husks. People were screaming and the Hydra agents were starting to expand from the small place where they had been held and the battlefield was growing. "We're not going to be able to contain them."

"Tell me about it," said Lydia. All thoughts of their missing people had been forgotten as they'd seen how bad it was down there and then they Hydra agents had shot the Omnijet from the sky and it had taken everything they'd had to prevent it from crashing to the ground and now the team were in the thick of things. The interlude at Xavier's hadn't been much of a respite, but they'd had a chance to catch their breath and now they were in the middle of fighting terrorists. It was turning in to one of those days. "First Set's boys and now Hydra. Is it the year of the snake and someone forgot to tell us?"

"You'd think," Maverick answered, firing his bio kinetic blasts out at people. They were holding their own but the problem was they were outnumbered three to one, and there was little chance of reinforcements. He looked up at Siryn who was doing what she could against those Hydra agents that could fly, and he wondered how she was doing. Marcus had filled him when they'd arrived as to what had happened at Xavier's.

She said she was fine and recovering after the but he was sure that she was letting the nanites keep her going now, because she looked pale to him and he wondered how long she'd be able to keep going.

"You'll be fine," he muttered, hoping to convince himself of it, as his fist met the face of a terrorist, sending the man to the floor, but then he was caught by an electrostatic discharge. "AAHH!" he said as the energy coursed through him, sending him to his knees and his limbs felt like lead. Marcus had supposed to have been watching his back, making sure that nobody hit them with a sneak attack like that. "Dammit, Marcus," he said and he turned to see a portal opening and Marcus was walking towards it.

"I'm being called," he said, telepathically telling the others. "They need me. It's Farouk..."

"Go," said Lydia. If there was anything they could do to get back at the Shadow King they'd take it and she pulled her pistol and fired at the Electro wannabe and but a bullet in his chest, sending him to the floor.

"Cover me," Maverick said as he struggled to regain his motor control. Whatever he'd been hit with wasn't fading quickly and Lydia was there in a heartbeat, using her enhanced muscles to jump the distance, landing a with a roundhouse kick taking out a terrorist who'd thought to try Maverick while he was wounded. "Thanks," he said.

"This was a set up," she said. "They started with the powers as soon as we arrived. What if they did the same across the world, the Dawn going to work as soon as metas and costumes turned up."

"Took us by surprise," Maverick answered. "Guess it'd have done the same to them as well. DOWN!" Lydia ducked and he fired a bio-kinetic blast. It was off target but it was enough to knock the attacker to the floor. "We need to get better at this and quickly."

"Reinforcements would be cool," she said. "I'm guessing we're SOL?"

"When was the last time we weren't?" he said grimly and he was able to stand, though he was still shaky on his feet. "Oh hell…"

"What?" Lydia asked and then she saw it. The tesseract device was coming to life again and they were about to be joined by more Hydra agents…

"What do you bloody mean 'you can't do that'?" Wisdom shouted. "I'm a SHIELD Commander and I've giving you a sodding order and if you don't I will kick you arse so fucking hard…"

"Because that'll help," Kate said as she looked up from the console where she was working in the X-Men's war room. Pete was giving the SHIELD duty officer a hard time for not firing up the HERMES system and transporting them to the rest of X-Force.

"I was being controlled you dumb jobsworth, and now I'm not and… Hello? Hello! Son of a bitch…"

"He hang up?" Kate asked.

"Yes," said Pete, as he took another analgesic. "It's a shame I'm not evil Pete, I'd put him through a window."

"But you spoke to him so nicely," she said as she crawled under the console. "Did you expect them to listen?"

"I sort of hoped," Wisdom said, feeling better as the drugs kicked in. "You should sell this stuff to the drug companies," he said to nobody in particular. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to cross-link the X-Men's systems to those of Hydra," she said from under the console. "It's just with us taking down the mansion's systems, I'm having trouble."

"I thought Ice Queen and Fireball had it fixed up."

"They've got Cerebro online again," Kate answered, "and he's working on getting the mansion back properly…"

"Kit," said Pete and Kate steeled herself at the tone of his voice. This had been coming and she'd not been sure which of them would speak first. "About you and me…"

"It's like you said, we weren't ourselves," she replied, closing her eyes a moment. They'd been so good together, but there was too much history in the way. "I mean, it's not like it meant anything to either of us, other than sex?" She was glad he couldn't see her face. Getting over their relationship the first time had been hard on them both.

"Yeah, you're right," he replied. "It's just… I don't want it to get in the way. I want us to be cool, y'know?"

"And we are," she said. "It happened, forget it." And the Apocalypse thing as well, she didn't say but she knew it was on both of their minds. They'd come so close on their own, what did evil villains see that they couldn't? "But it's sweet of you to say."

"Thanks, Kit," he said and she brushed away a tear from her eye before she came from under the console.

"Okay," she said. "I think we're done."

"Done?" he said.

"I've patched in to the Hydra grid. The teleporter is good for sending a few people through, but it needs a tesseract generator to send in squadrons. I've accessed the gird using what I knew and the residual readings I could get from when we entered the Institute."

"In English, for the non-geek?"

"We can tap the energies and teleport to a tesseract generator. It'll put us in the middle of something."

"Greenwich," said Wisdom. "That's where Frost said the others were, that's where I want to be. It's time to get X-Force back together."

"Okay," she said. "Cerebro…"

"Okay," the computer replied. "You know after we kick the Shadow Krud's ass, we're keeping this tech? Why should the X-Men be the only team without a teleporter?"

"Who cares?" said Pete. "Open the damned portal."

"Ho-kay," Cerebro said. "Accessing… now!" A small portal opened, but it was big enough for them to go through one at a time. "Hurry," Cerebro said. "It's unstable at best." They went through, Pete first, Kate second and then the portal collapsed. "I'm so glad he's not on the X-Men," Cerebro said and went back to work.

Maverick was firing everything he had at the Hydra agents that were coming through the tesseract generator but he wasn't doing anything to stop those that were already here and the machinery was being protected by some kind of force field. He didn't know if it was something that had been put in place or if it was something that one of the Dawn was creating, but he couldn't take the machine out again. He cursed himself for not doing so earlier, but he'd not had chance and now they were being beaten back.

"This is not how it is supposed to be!" he shouted as the last of his bio kinetic energies fizzled out and he knew they were in trouble.

"Guess you need the cavalry!" said a familiar voice and through the tesseract fell Wisdom and Maverick's eyes went wide in horror and disbelief. Wisdom's hands had hot knives at the ready and North had no idea of what the hell would happen next. Pete was still one of the Shadow King's people - he had to be. Why else would he be wearing the uniform of an X-Man?

"Gotta have something left," Maverick muttered to himself as he drew on any last reserves, pushing his powers past the limit they had just reached and Wisdom fired his hot knives.

"NO!" cried Lydia who had seen him arrive and she tried to move but couldn't, such was the shock she felt. The hot knives flew past Maverick, striking several Hydra agents and sending them to the floor. "No…" she whispered, the feeling of dread becoming one of delight as she realised what was going on and then the tesseract generator exploded, trashing several bits of the buildings it surrounded and Shadowcat drifted to the floor.

"What's the matter with you people?" said Wisdom, with a smile. "I leave you alone for a little while and you seem to lose the plot completely."

"You bastard," said Maverick with a smile and came forward towards him, but Wisdom held his hands up.

"Hit first, hug later," Wisdom answered. "Kit?" She looked towards him as the flat of her palm hit one terrorist as the her foot met the chest of another.

"Tesseract's down. Phased through it and the system disruption blew it to hell."

"That's my girl, I love it when a plan comes together," Pete said and then he saw someone and smiled. "I'll be right back…" He hurried over to where he saw one of the Apocalypse Dawn hacking away at SHIELD agents with some kind of freaky claws on his forearms. "Hey!" said Pete and the Dawn member recognised one of the Shadow X-Men. "Not like that, like this!" He punched him square in the face and the Dawn member looked blankly at him before he fell to the floor unconscious.

"Nice shot," said Lydia, coming over as Pete crouched on the floor. "

"Thanks, babe," Pete replied as he went over the man's body.

"What are you looking for?" she asked. "Codes, a plan of some kind?"

"This!" said Pete, pulling a small box out of the man's jacket in triumph.

"You're kidding?" said Lydia, as he opened the box and pulled out a cigarette. "You're not serious?"

"After the day I'm having? Too bloody right I am." He lit it up and breathed in the nictotine. "Besides I really needed to hit someone."

"You're back alright," she said.

"We'll talk later," he said. "Right now, we've stuff to do." He looked up. "TERRY BEHIND YOU!" he shouted and a hot knife flew up striking her attacker in the chest and he dropped from the sky. "We need more people who can fly," he said. "I'll bring it up with Forge at the next team meeting."

"Thanks, Pete, good to have you back…" said Siryn as she landed and she looked at him, as Pete borrowed her gun and started to fire at people. "What the hell are you wearing?" He glared at her. "I just never thought I'd see the day…"

"As long as Wagner's not around I don't care," Pete muttered as he changed the clip. "Jesus, there's a lot of these bastards."

"Tell us about it," said Lydia, firing her own gun. "We're not doing too great and there's almost too many of them."

"I think I saw Spider-Man near by taking on some of the Hydra thugs that got by us," said Siryn, using her powers to knock someone back."

"Where's Marcus?" Pete asked as he fired off hot knives, giving a smile as they struck home, thinking that both Farouk and Worthington could fuck themselves.

"He said he was needed and stepped through a portal," said Lydia. "I'm guessing the tepes are doing something big to make sure that Farouk doesn't escape this time."

"As long as they do a better job of this than they did against Apocalypse," said Wisdom. "Wait a sec… telepaths… I've an idea. Terry… you look terrible."

"That's your idea?"

"No, my idea is for you to send a sonic signal to the Hydra guards and send them all out, but you look like that's going to be too much."

"I can do it," she said. "But how do we get them all at once?"

"Radio," said Pete. "It's going to be localised, but we'll deal with the rest of them later. Each of them has a miniature radio transmitter… Let's get Kate, she knows this stuff better than me."

"Down!" said Lydia and Pete ducked, rolled, twisted and fired a hot knife as she fired her gun and they both shot a terrorist.

"Thanks, babe," said Pete as he leapt to his feet and winced. The painkillers he'd taken back at Xavier's were starting to wear off, or the adrenaline in his system was countering them. Either way he was hurting again. "Let's get to Kate."

"You okay?" Lydia asked.

"Later," he said as they headed over, doing what they could. "Kate, the SDC things Hyrda's got implanted under their jaw…"

"The sub-dermal communicator devices?" she said. "You're thinking…"

"Phoenix overloaded the psi-network, what if we overload the SDC?"

"It'd be in this area only, and it'd leave the Dawn people alone. They don't have them. I'll think of something and quickly…"

"Maverick, you think we can take the Apocalypse Dawn?"

"I think we'll give it our best," said North, punching someone as he listened in.

"I'll tell out people to turn off their comms," said Lydia and she separated from the others to spread the word.

"Okay," said Pete as he looked at Siryn. "You sure you can do this?"

"Have I ever let you down?" she asked.

"Nope," Pete answered. "Kit?"

"Don't," she said, as she closed her eyes and struck. Two fingers hooked was all it took to strike and she was able to gouge the man's throat. Logan had taught her knew skills while they were under the thrall of the Shadow King. Before he had taught her to incapacitate, now he trained her to kill and she hated the knowledge she now possessed. The man fell to the floor, fighting for breath and from the pulp in her hand she pulled the SDC.

"Woah," said Maverick, not expecting that kind of move from anyone who wore the X besides Logan, or perhaps Creed, but not her and he could see the revulsion in her eyes at herself fro doing it.

"It gets the job done," she said quietly, "and they'd offer us no less." Then she looked at the device, squinting to focus on it, and she wished she had her glasses on instead of the lenses and she used her blood covered nails to adjust it and get a reading. "Got it," she said. "Terry, you need to…"

"Lydia!" shouted Pete as the two women made a plan. "We ready!" She gave him a thumbs up and Siryn let loose a sonic cry, which made everyone go to cover their ears, but Hydra had a bigger problem, the sound was in their jaws, being transmitted to them as well as being heard and they fought against it, but to little effect and they fell to the floor as the SDCs overloaded and sent a small electrical charge through them, but it was enough to stop their hearts.

"Was that supposed to happen?" said Maverick as he checked on the nearest agent. "They're dead."

"Not really," said Pete, stunned at what his plan had caused and he pulled out another cigarette. "Shit…" It wasn't the fact they were dead because this was a war, and in a war people died, but they'd have died in real agony and there was a cold-bloodedness to it that made him wonder how much of the Shadow King's influence was still in him. The remaining agents were all Dawn members, they had to be and they were really upset with what had just happened. "Now they look pissed."

"They're gonna be more pissed by the time we're done," said Maverick. "I'd say there's about a dozen or so."

"Five on twelve," said Lydia. "Not the best odds."

"I've seen worse," Shadowcat replied.

"Who hasn't?" Siryn said.

"So let's do this," Wisdom said as he threw the cigarette to the floor. "There's a lot to do today." He looked back at the other SHIELD agents. "Guys, this is our fight, stay back until we've won or we're dead. And if we're dead, shoot the fuckers."

Then the Dawn went on the attack but X-Force were ready, waiting for them to come. Wisdom and Shadowcat were the most wanting, the need to prove that they had regained their true selves and to prove something to themselves as well after the failed attack on the original X-Men, and they attacked with relish and gusto.

Maverick fought with the determination that an old trooper such as himself had picked up over the years. His powers were at pretty low levels, but he'd spent years being more than his powers after Weapon X. He was a fighter, good at making an impression without his mutant abilities and it was something he had proven time and again against many foes.

Lydia was ready for this fight and for the first time since the fight with the Hellfire Club she felt more confident in her powers, her purpose and why she had joined SHIELD in the first place. Yes, this wasn't exactly the best display of espionage skills the group had ever displayed but it this was a strategic hazard and they were intervening. This wasn't spy school, this was policing and that was something that hadn't been done of late.

Siryn's fight was something more personal because she was pushing herself hard after saving Jared Corbo and she knew that the nanites were keeping her going and that was about it. She needed rest, time to recover but she was feeding off the adrenaline and the technological advantages that the nanites were giving her and she wondered if the tiny robotic creatures had limits. She was going to find out soon enough.

Wisdom fired a hot knife at one of the Dawn who seemed to manipulate force fields and the kid was good, Pete admitted that, but a man who was ready for a fight was still pushing him. Added to the attack was a speedster who was keeping one step ahead of Pete's efforts, and Pete was keeping him on the offensive as well.

That left someone else who seemed to be just making weird hand gestures, but Pete figured he had enough to deal with for now, as he stuck out his foot and tripped the runner and sent him to the floor, face first, Pete's elbow connecting with his back as he fell and his foot connecting with his head as he lay there. The guy with the force fields then seemed to wrap Pete in a force field, keeping Wisdom trapped, but Pete wasn't worried, because he knew that Shadowcat would be able to phase him out of there whenever she felt like it, and it was keeping him safe enough to watch his friends.

Shadowcat was taking great care against someone who seemed able to mimic her abilities, much like the Taskmaster was able to mimic fighting styles and they fought with grace, as if in some kind of savage ballet recital. She was also choreographing her fight with a battle with someone who seemed to be made of what looked to be some kind of flexible metal, as if Reed Richards were wearing some kind of armour. It was an interesting match to observe as Kate took full advantage of her intangibility and her combat skills and it was going to be a good fight.

Maverick was taking a different approach against his foes, a brute who seemed eager to engage in a slug fest and someone using a psionic blades that seemed to manifest from the back of her wrists. North was keeping her at bay with his gun, firing shots when he could as he traded blows with the brute who seemed to want nothing more than cave in his skull, but Maverick was fine taking the shots as his mutant powers compensated for the blows, absorbing the kinetic energy. It was going to leave him bruised at the end of the fight but he was going to give the fellow a surprise by the time he was done. The thing that Pete noticed was that the one of the blades seemed to disappear and he wasn't sure what was going on with that.

Lydia was avoiding someone who fired a chemical composition from the palms of his hands as if they were hosepipes, but her increased speed and agility ensured that she was able to keep away from the highly toxic liquid, which was already eating through the concrete that it had impacted on. She was doing her level best to avoid it while at the same time she was being shot at by someone who seemed to be using psionic bullets, but the guy was a bad shot and this wasn't a crowd situation anymore.

Siryn though was holding her own quite easily, keeping the others at bay with her powers and they had taken a pounding earlier like everyone else had but this was a more focused attack and she was pushing herself. There was three of them and they could fly and they were basically trying to overwhelm her with air superiority in terms of numbers, but they were having trouble keeping their balance as the liquid in their inner ears kept being disrupted by the sonic assault and Terry was adept at fighting these people.

"You gonna keep me in here all day?" said Pete as he took a cigarette out and tried to ignite it but then he thought better of it. "Trying to deprive me of oxygen? Good thinking. Your problem is, you forgot, speedy…" The force field was on top of the speedster who was starting to get up. However he did so at a high velocity and slightly disrupting the force field, but not enough to completely disrupt it and it sliced him in half and at the same time Pete fired his hot knife burying it the mutant's lungs and the kid fell back to the floor, leaving just the speedster.

The force field failed and Wisdom was free and took a breath of the fresh air before putting the cigarette back in his mouth and then he saw the other guy had raised his hands up and the floor was starting to develop slight cracks. "That can't be good," said Pete and shot him with his pistol and the cracks faded and he looked over towards Lydia who seemed to have teamed with Maverick and Pete smiled as the chemical spray struck the brute that Maverick was fighting and the brute screamed as the chemicals began to eat through him and Maverick fired his bio kinetic blast at the psychic shooter and outgunned him, as the barrage of energy threw him back in to the other SHIELD agents, but for a fraction of a second he took his eye off the sword wielder and she struck at him.

"MAVERICK!" Pete shouted, seeing the danger and North turned and grabbed her wrist so that one of the swords missed him, but then something happened that none of them expected as the second sword fired from her wrist like a spear and struck Lydia in the stomach. It hadn't disappeared before, it had been fired.

"Jesus," said Pete running towards his fallen friend as Maverick grabbed the woman and forced the other sword up and in to her gut and the mutant's eyes went wide as her own power struck home and Maverick watched as the light died in her eyes and she went limp in his arms. Then Maverick looked up at Siryn and shot down one of the people she was fighting, leaving just one left and she easily dispatched him.

Shadowcat's battle was still going on, her ninja moves allowing her to keep from serious harm, and she heard Pete's shout and she knew it was time to finish the fight once and for all and as they lunged for her she leapt back out of the reach of the man she was fighting, landing on her hands and she pushed herself back, phasing through the metallic opponent, who grasped hold of the other fighter, smothering him and Kate restored her solidity and kicked him in the back and there was a snap as something broke and the two enemies fell to the floor, the metallic one covering the mimic, the former unable to move and the latter unable to fight out due to the malleability and however he reached, the body flexed with him. The fight was over, as they gathered around Lydia, who Pete was cradling in his arms.

"You do not die on me," he said to her, looking at the wound. It was deep and she was bleeding badly. "You hear me, Lyd, you do not die on me."

"May not get a choice," she said, her voice weak. "It's cold, Pete." A trickle of blood was coming from her mouth. "Find my dad, tell him… I love him…" She closed her eyes and her head lolled to the side.

"Get us out of here," Wisdom shouted to Maverick. "HERMES…"

"Do it now!" Maverick was shouting and the members of X-Force vanished from the battlefield and reappeared in the HERMES chamber, where medics were on hand and they lifted Lydia on to a stretcher and took her away, Pete following her and then he heard the voice of Forge.

"I know you want to be there," Forge said, a visual image appearing, "but I need you in Washington. Excalibur needs a hand…"

"But Lydia…" said Pete. "Forge…"

"We will do what what we can," the voice of Forge said, "but there's a loose end. Fury…"

"Pete," said Maverick. "What would she want?"

"To finish this," said Wisdom, looking at the door. "I'm guessing you've reactivated my commission?"

"Your commission and Shadowcat's," Forge answered. "HERMES is ready."

"Let's go," said Pete, looking at his team. "One way or another, we're going to end this."

TO BE CONTINUED IN EXCALIBUR #25