Confrontations

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1st September 2005, Valley of Kings

(Jean Grey POV)

For the first time, Jean heard the man speak up, "It seems we have some uninvited visitors. Take care of them my Horsemen."

His voice was gravely, and strangely inhuman. Jean could honestly say that she was terrified out of her mind. This was so out of her depth. The Horsemen nodded and Apocalypse turned his back on them, trusting his enforcers to take care of them.

Jean knew that would be the hardest fight of her life.

The redhead noticed that she wasn't the only one who froze at the sight of Apocalypse. Pietro was practically trembling in fear, and she could hear gulping coming from Kurt and Blob. Even the older and more experience team looked cautious and very hesitant at attacking this foe. They too knew that they were out of their depth.

The only one Jean's age that wasn't terrified out of their mind was Scott who looked angry for some reason. There was something fundamentally wrong with that boy. The redhead had seen danger room simulations that had more self preservation than her so called leader. Now that she has a somewhat clear mind, there was no doubt in her mind that Scott was somehow broken and it boggled her mind how no one else noticed it. Jean felt like she should help him somehow but she's definitely not the right person to do it; she had her own issues to deal with and she doesn't need to add in someone else's baggage.

But that wouldn't matter much if they die here in this desert, forgotten by the world. Something that Jean feels is extremely likely in this god forsaken desert, fighting a fucking god of all things. Well, not technically a god but the point still stands. There was something fundamentally inhuman about Apocalypse and for some reason she felt insignificant in front of the might of the being opposing her. Some miniscule part of her felt indignant at his dismissal of her as a threat, but her more rational mind was mostly scared out of her mind.

It was Logan who broke everyone out of their petrified state by stating, "Everyone activate your comms," he waited for them to do so before continuing, "Alright, Nightcrawler, Quicksilver, get Blob, Cyclops and Avalanche above the hill, it's a good vantage point." They both nodded and disappeared.

"Storm, hold off Magneto while Mystique, Beast and I take care of the fire kid and the Angel guy. Jean, try to find Chuck. We'll need him to fight the blue guy. We need to take care of his Henchmen before getting a shot at the big guy."

Jean interrupted him, "Magneto and Angel are mind controlled, we could use their help fighting Apocalypse."

"Are you sure about that?" Asked Mystique.

Jean just raised her eyebrows, "I'm a telepath, I can tell who's under mind control at the very least."

To be honest Jean wasn't sure how she knew. It kinda felt like it was instinctive somehow. The way their eyes are blank, their movements are robotic, and their minds felt weird. Jean had briefly lost control over her telepathy during the plane crash and she could sense the mind around her.

It was very weird; it was like trying to explain sight to a blind person. Jean was now for some reason able to sense the minds of others. Each mind had a similar taste so to speak. Logan's was somehow feral, as opposed to Ororo's controlled and disciplined one. However, the Horsemen's minds were weird

It was hard to describe. She was still assaulted by her ally's thoughts but their opponents' minds were somehow enveloped with something stopping their thoughts from leaving out. She could still sense them and nothing more. But for some reason, the minds of Magneto and Angel felt blank, somehow bland. It felt instinctively unnatural to her and she knew deep in her gut that Apocalypse had done this to them.

"What about Fire Boy?" Logan asked.

"Yeah, he's nuts." Jean snarked back.

Mystique didn't share her humor, "Can you free them from the control?"

"I don't know," Jean responded, "and even if I could, there's something blocking their minds."

The shapeshifter nodded, "It's their helmets. They're like Magneto's."

Logan grunted, "Alright, new objective. Get rid of their helmets, and Jean break their control. We have no idea where Chuck is, maybe they'll be able to tell us."

Before any of them could agree, a giant fireball sped towards them. Jean could feel the scorching heat coming towards her, but it was intercepted by a wall of wind, courtesy of Storm. Coming from the fire, were two steel spikes racing towards her. Suddenly, Jean found herself a few yards away from the attack, Pietro having realized the danger and gotten her out.

Jean looked at the Horsemen. Magneto was fighting Ororo; bolts of lightning illuminated the sky as Ororo tried to fight Magneto's defensive forcefield, probably some sort of Magnetic force field. Mystique was fighting Angel by didn't have an easy time doing it. Angel flew up and Mystique surprised him by transforming into a raven and followed him. She kept fighting him to a standstill in the air, Mystique being too skilled for the winged mutant to handle and Angel being far more resilient to damage due to the weird armor he wore.

Jean hid behind a rock for cover and fully opened up her telepathy. She wanted to find any sign of the Professor. She started to focus her sensing even deeper, not only feeling the presence around her. It felt instinctive, natural even, like breathing. By focusing in her newfound skill, she noticed some sort of mental link between the Horsemen and Apocalypse. When she noticed the father of mutant's presence, Jean really wanted to throw up. There was nothing natural about him, he felt like a twisted version of what a mind is supposed to be. It was like someone cut up hundreds of shards from other minds and roughly taped them together. This was a true abomination and Jean wanted it gone. Something inside of her wanted to tear up the anomaly into thousands of pieces.

However, Apocalypse presence revealed something. There was a fourth connection, to the inside of the temple. It was faint and very well hidden but Jean followed it to the inside of the metallic Pyramid Apocalypse was building. Inside she found a familiar mind, it was the Professor.

Meanwhile, Logan was trying to fight the fire guy, who kept Logan at a distance using his flames that the feral mutant dodged perfectly every time. Suddenly, Logan ran into a fireball. It looked like a suicide move to anyone who didn't know about Logan's enhanced healing. Something that the boy didn't know, considering the widening of his eyes. Logan then stabbed the kid in the chest, a rather ruthless maneuver but this was a battle with a pseudo-god, and it was definitely not the time to be merciful if they wanted even a miniscule chance of winning.

Instead of showing any sign of pain, the Fire Boy just smirked and veritably turned into fire, going through Logan and burning him into a crisp. All that was left of Logan was a humanoid blackened figure. He was out of the count.

The fire elemental was maniacally laughing in triumph and turned towards the areal battle between Mystique and Angel. He was preparing for some sort of attack when a beam of red light hit him. He wasn't paying attention, so didn't have time to turn into fire and was thrown away. He got up seconds later as if nothing happened. Damn Scott, he must have been going easy with the beams. This was so not the time to be a pacifist.

Of course, this pointless attack revealed his position to their enemies, causing Kurt to teleport them away, in case they would be attacked somehow. Unfortunately, this had the side effect of making the fire mutant turn around and noticing her position. He smiled and then released a veritable wave of fire towards her. Impulsively, Jean raised her hand to protect herself and close her eyes, preparing herself for the pain this last attack promised her. It was a pain that didn't come as she had somehow created a telekinetic bubble around her, bending the fire away from her, melting the sand and stone around her but leaving her unharmed.

This was the first time she had done something like this. She usually could only move a few things with her mind, she never imagined doing something that impressive. She didn't have the luxury at marveling at her newfound abilities before her shield started to crack from the continuing attack from the pyromaniac. Quickly, a plan formed in her head. She spoke in her comms, "Kurt, when I give you the signal, teleport and take the helmet off fire boy."

"Yes, Jean." The teleporter answered.

Jean concentrated and strengthened the telekinetic shield before she abruptly made it grow with a pulse, pushing the fire elemental away at the unexpected attack. "Now!" the redhead bellowed.

She then saw Kurt teleport on top of the disoriented fire elemental, take off his helmet and teleport away. The fire elemental's eyes widened when he realized that his headgear was gone. Jean used the distraction to focus her telepathy at the young man in front of her.

Her opponent was already preparing a fire blast and Jean yelled at his mind, "Sleep!" hoping that it would work. She tried to somewhat imitate the telepathic pulse that she used in Ms. Sayre's class but in a more controlled and less deadly manner. She was realized that she was successful when the young man eyes rolled back and he fell unconscious in front of her.

Jean sighed in relief. That's one down, two to go.

She looked at her allied to find that Magneto and Ororo were still at it. Ororo was still hurling lightning at the master of magnetism who used some kind of magnetic force field to block his attacks and Magneto kept hurling metal at her but she protected herself with a wind and lightning shield that shredded any attack and stopped Magneto's control over them.

She's definitely isn't getting involved in that fight in any way.

Jean looked towards the fight between Angel and Mystique only to gasp as she found the shapeshifter stabbed in the abdomen with one of Angel's metallic wings. As she was falling to the ground, Kurt teleported towards her in mid air and got stopped her fall by teleporting away.

Enraged by Mystique's injury, Beast leapt into the air, punching the unexpected brainwashed winged mutant. Angel righted himself in the air, before being hit by one of Scott's concussive blasts. Angel then fell crashing into the ground. For a second, Jean hoped that he was unconscious. Unfortunately, when the sand cleared, the Horseman of Apocalypse was standing unharmed. When Scott tried to blast him once more, Angel's wings wrapped in front of him, shielding him from the blast. Jean noticed that it didn't just shield him, they completely protected him from the attack, something normal metals aren't supposed to do. What the hell are his wings made of?

Angel retaliated by throwing metal spikes from his wings in the direction of his attacker. Jean feared the worst until Scott confirmed that Quicksilver got them out of there and that they were safe. Angel then sent another spike towards Beast. Dr. McCoy tried tot dodge but was still hit in the thigh, causing him to groan in pain. Seeing him injured, Kurt teleported and got him out of there. Something that was very wise considering the wave of metal spikes that missed them by a millisecond as they teleported away.

The Angel then looked towards Jean and sent in an entire wave of spikes. Jean then raised her hand, praying that her telekinetic shield still worked. Fortunately for her, it did and was able to stop the spikes. However, the winged mutant kept throwing wave after wave of metal spikes, and Jean didn't know how much she could keep this up. Suddenly, the attacks stops and the redhead heard a small yell of pain from her attacker. As she took a closer look, she found a healed Logan stabbing he enemy in the thighs, he really was holding back because Angel in brainwashed.

With him distracted, Jean telekinetically pinned him in place, allowing Logan to take off his helmet. "Now, Jean!" Logan yelled to her on the comms.

Jean obeyed and sent another telepathic attack at him. With the shielding gone, she could clearly see into his mind. It was being chained somehow, blocked by some sort of telepathic chains. She could tell because she had seen that they weren't there in the fire mutant's mind when she put him to sleep. So that must have been how he was being controlled.

Not understanding what she should do, Jean took a chance by mentally tugging at the chains. She felt a resistance. That must be Apocalypse's will. She kept on tugging and pulling telepathically. Apocalypse's control over him was so strong, she now understood the Professor's words. Why he was scared so much. The Father of mutants wasn't even directly fighting her, yet she had trouble stopping his control.

Jean kept pulling and tugging, so much so that she was sweating in real life, until finally, the bindings began to crack and then broke. She heard a yell of pain and watched as the winged mutant held his head. She scanned his mind once more to find that it was fine. It started to work normally; Apocalypse's control over Angel has broken.

That's two down, one to go.

Unfortunately, that last one was Magneto.

Seeing the situation, Logan spoke on the comms, "We need a distraction. Quicksilver and Nightcrawler, get us out to regroup."

Lance spoke up for the first time, "I'm on it. One distraction coming right up."

"No!" Jean yelled.

However, she was unheard as the earth started to shake. It started slowly before it got very violent. Then, the mountain around the valley started to break and giant rocks started to tumble towards the battlefield and the giant metal pyramid. Jean was terrified out of her mind as a veritable Avalanche of rocks and sand was coming towards her. Dude really lives up to the name Avalanche, huh.