Jean and Beast were the last to arrive, and they despaired to discover that the situation had gotten far worse.

Jubilee was writhing on the grass, moaning in agony. Her hands were clasped behind her back, her legs bent behind her at a painful angle. The skin on her wrists had been fused together. Her boots had been torn off and her ankles given the same treatment. The palms of her hands were scorched and blackened by futile, half-maddened attempts to use her plasma bursts to free herself from her own skin. Cyclops, Storm, Gambit and Rogue were standing helplessly by.

“Now you regret meddling with my daughter, do you not?” Ala was laughing. Lynette — now Allegra — stood over Jubilee’s churning form. Ala’s daughter’s girlish body created a powerful contrast with the blank look of apathy she was giving the tortured X-Man.

“Let her go,” Scott cried hoarsely in what he knew was a fruitless attempt. “This display of power is unnecessary. We acknowledge that we are… defeated.”

Jean looked at Beast. Where is Wolverine?

The answer came with a fierce and vicious cry as the X-Man in question burst out of the nearby forest, claws bared, mouth fairly dripping with rage and spittle. “What have you done to Jubilee, you… you…! RAAAARRGGGH!!” He threw himself at Allegra, truly a fearsome sight. Allegra lifted one arm, palm outwards, almost derisive. Wolverine stopped dead in his tracks.

He stared down at himself, his face contorted in rage mixed with confusion, and oddly, fear. He snarled, clawing the air, then made a low rumbling noise of pain, staring down at his torso again. “What trick are you tryin’ to pull, girlie?” he growled, but for the first time anyone could remember, there was uncertainty in his voice.

He snarled again, his breath quickening. Then they began to see it. Blood, staining the front of his uniform, welling up from his chest, from a wound no one could see. When Logan caught sight of it, he tore off the top of his uniform to find a slice in his chest. There had been no incision, no stabbing; his skin had merely parted like the waters of the Red Sea.

With a roar fueled by panic, Logan launched himself at Allegra. A cry escaped from the girl’s lips, soon muffled by Logan’s stocky body.

“Don’t kill her!” Scott shouted, but the shout was almost lost as the X-Men immediately flew into action, some literally. Those who were airborne certainly had the advantage, for the moment sight of Allegra had been snuffed out by Logan’s pouncing form, Ala had shrieked in rage and the earth had begun to shake again.

“You call yourself an Earth Goddess,” Storm cried, her regal voice resonant on the air, “but you are nothing but a vile imposter!” Lighting bolts flew from her hands, hitting the dark, thick woman straight-on. Ala continued screaming, her arms flung over her head. The distinct odour of singed flesh with a hint of burning wood rose on the wind.

“How dare you defy me! You owe yourselves to me! I am the Mother Goddess, I am Earth!” The ground rumbled its agreement.

“Yeah, sugah? Well, it’s time to meet your Maker.” Rogue delivered a powerful blow to the head, and Ala sprawled on the ground. It stilled as soon as she hit it.

A roar of fury split the air, and all heads turned to Wolverine. Blood was everywhere; it was running down Allegra’s body as she lay pinned beneath the crazed Logan. Her eyes were closed tightly, her palms held out, her wrists raw and red. Wolverine was wildly slicing them over and over, and each time the cells would part and fuse together again, proving his efforts futile. He was beyond thought now, however. His pain had overcome him, his torso split nearly in two.

Gradually, his efforts slowed, his eyes rolling back in his head. Beast loped over to help him, but Allegra’s eyes turned to him and he hesitated. Everyone was unnerved, to say the least, by the girl’s seeming invincibility, and the threat of her power.

Finally, Wolverine collapsed, falling backwards onto the grass, unconscious and moaning.

Allegra’s eyes narrowed. She moved to pick herself up–

–and the Cajun stood over her.

She blinked once, and extended a hand to him, palm outward.

Gambit didn’t flinch.

Bo staff raised, he brought it crashing down on the girl’s head and knocked her cold.

Beast continued on his path, examining the extent of the damage to Wolverine’s body, as everyone else gathered around Gambit in astonishment.

The Cajun shrugged, a smirk on his lips. “De girl an’ I, we had a lot in common. My powers didn’ work on her, her powers didn’ work on me.” He failed to mention that the reason for this was that they essentially had the same power, and they cancelled each other out. There was no need to explain. There was no way he would ever be powered up to the point where he could split apart body cells at a whim, but if he spoke any further about it, people would suspect him of it anyway. He didn't want any more suspicion.

It was satisfying to him, to know that even with his charm power cancelled out, he had macked that girl good. As usual, the Cajun walked away, leaving a trail of unanswered questions.

Beast pulled back from the examining table. “Well, Logan, I would think that you should thank the fates once again for your healing factor. It would seem that without them, to paraphrase the great Bard, you would have been ‘unseamed from the nave to th’ chops’ in, and I approximate, two seconds flat.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Logan muttered gruffly. He was groggy from anaesthetics, and his pride was hurting more than his wounds. “Where’s the girl?”

Beast frowned a little. “They’re holding her here. After she recovered from that nasty blow to the head, she appeared to have recovered her wits as well. She has only vague memories of what transpired in that field after Ala showed up. Xavier is helping her with that. As for those vicious powers… Xavier theorizes that she is suppressing them out of guilt for her actions. Otherwise, she doesn’t seem to have them at all.

“As for the alleged goddess, Ala… she is being kept restrained and sedated. She’ll be dealt with once Lynette is healthy again.”

Logan grunted again. “And the team…?”

Beast patted his hand. “Fine. Everyone’s fine. And you will be too, if you get some rest.” With that, he left the room.

In solitude, Logan shuddered quietly at the memory of Allegra’s look of cold, disinterested viciousness, and the feeling of being torn apart from the inside. As the wave of nausea passed, he commanded himself to sleep. Somewhere in the building, that girl was sleeping too… and he’ll just have to live with that.

Jubilee was having a little more trouble “dealing”. She lay in the room across the hall from Wolverine, Beast’s careful surgical work having separated her wrists and ankles once again.

“Fortunately,” he had told her, “Allegra manipulated only your skin cells. Other tissues would have made things more complicated.”

Jubilee didn’t feel too fortunate. Her burnt hands were greasy with ointment, and she had been told not to use her powers until her hands had fully healed.

Shopping partner indeed, she thought darkly. That bitch.


Please please PLEASE email me (Alienne4@lycos.com) with ANY kind of suggestion. I'm a total X-Men newbie and I barely know what I'm talking about. Constructive criticism PLEASE regarding:
PLEASE! I need all that! I want to make this story good.

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