Storm hit Rogue again, her lightening burning in Rogue's young body. She screamed in agony and thrashed in the confusion of the hurricane force wind around her.

"Storm! Why are ya doin' this? Stop it, please, ah don't want ta hurt you!"

Storm struggled, pitting her will against Xavier's mental stranglehold. *Why are you doing this to me!* she raged to him as he continued to use her powers to batter Rogue.

*A deal I made, to sacrifice some to save the rest, Vashkin compared it to an amputation...* Xavier replied, not loosening his grip on her one iota.

Then Rogue was there. Battered and burned but still alive and kicking. She punched Storm and Storm felt her ribs cave in on her left side, puncturing the lung. She responded by hitting Rogue with an even stronger bolt of lightening. Rogue screamed and fell in flames to the ground below.

"Release the woman, Xavier, now it is time for the second part of our plan." Vashkin ordered.

"Isn't there another way..." Xavier pleaded.

"Weak as always. If you don't co-operate then they will all die, I guarantee it. You will be the first to go, you have my word on it." Xavier was always a weak man when it came to physical violence and he caved into the Russian Colonel's demand. Vashkin pressed a button and a dozen nuclear weapons were launched from remote vehicles surrounding the Savage Land. Xavier focused on screening them from observation.

Wolverine woke slowly, his healing factor as hyper charged as it had ever been. He looked up at the battle raging around him. He quickly took in the casualties. Cannonball was fried to a crisp and Rogue had burns over her body, burns made by lightening. Psylocke was lying at an odd angle, bleeding from her nose and ears and drooling. Archangel lay next to her; he had been battered to pieces by debris and was barely breathing.

Magneto was standing in the centre of three attackers. Bishop was turning his energy back on him while Cyclops continued to batter him with optic blasts and Storm sucked the very air from his surroundings. He was unnoticed. Maggie had killed Sam and struck down Rogue with lightening, and if he had done this then maybe he had killed Jean as well. Wolverine went Berserk.

Lila Cheney deposited the prone body of the Black Widow on the deck of the Helecarrier. She looked up as Colonel Vashkin approached her. "Hiya big guy. I rescued this gal from the fracas below and I'll be back in an sec with some more wounded."

"I think not," Vashkin said and drew his pistol. "Good- bye, Lila. I would have liked to study you, but your power doesn't permit it." He fired as she desperately teleported. When the flash cleared, she was gone but the deck had blood and bone fragments splattered on it. He had no way of knowing if the shot was fatal or not but it was unlikely she would have survived that much damage.

Wolverine crouched as Cyclops fell before Magneto's onslaught of debris. Bishop kept firing but his shots only added to the storm of material battering the X-Men senseless. Only Storm resisted, continuing to suck the very air from the Master of Magnetism's lungs. It was affecting him even more than it should; he wasn't going to win this one. Wolverine was certain.

But too many times Wolverine had failed to strike when he had the chance. If he had finished it back on Asteroid M then perhaps Jean would still be alive. He stepped forward. Magneto saw him and gestured; for a brief second Wolverine felt a tug at his bones, but just for a second.

"A degaussing field built into your new adamantium? How..." Magneto's surprised outburst was cut off as Wolverine drove his claws deep into Magneto's chest. Magneto felt his heart and lungs being sliced and realised he wasn't going to survive this one after all.

Scanner stepped unto the bridge, her mind still reeling from the horror of what she had endured and the awful revenge she had taken on her attackers. She had heard enough to know what Xavier was doing, enough to loathe him with her very soul. She did a running jump at Xavier while she flung every mental resource she had into breaking his deception. Caught by surprise he lost contact for a moment, but that was all that was needed.

Suddenly Magneto sensed them coming; Nuclear Warheads shielded against magnetic pulses. "Ah Xavier, I never suspected you of such ruthlessness." He activated his newest ability, telepathy, and force fed the knowledge of what their mentor had been doing to the X-Men. Then he encased them in magnetic bubbles and launched them to safety. He sunk down

onto the hard rubble; his talent barely keeping his chest intact.

"What is happening here?" Major John Holden shouted as he led a squad into the clearing.

"It appears your superiors feel you are expendable," Magneto observed. "They have fired nuclear weapons at us."

"What? Why should we believe you? Is there anything we can do?"

"We can die together. Die together and achieve the only lasting peace humans and mutants will ever experience... that of the grave."

Vashkin pistol whipped Dani across the face, hard. She collapsed to the deck. The little witch had been freed by Scanner when she had fried his men. Idiots! Didn't they realise the dampeners had been turned off! Scanner herself had already been beaten into submission by his men after the psionic dampeners had been reactivated. Leave the bridge for a moment and this is what happens. "Okay, Xavier. One last job and then it is all over."

"What?" the battered and crying Xavier sobbed.

Rogue struggled inside her bubble of magnetic force. There wasn't time to stop the nuclear weapons but there might be enough to save Magneto. With a blow she hadn't realised she was capable of, she broke free and headed back.

Magneto was cradling Jean's body in his arms when Rogue came out of nowhere. She grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and began to fly him out of the target zone.

"Rogue? Are you insane, girl? There isn't time to get clear!"

"Just drop the bimbo, Maggie, and ah'll get us outta here."

He saw the missiles impact and put up the strongest shield of which he was capable. Then the world ended in a burst of white light.

"Here's to many more such happy occasions!" Vashkin toasted. The battered X-Men had put up little struggle. He strutted across the deck. Everything had worked out perfectly. So some deadwood soldiers had been killed and some primitive tribes exterminated. This was scant price to pay to be known as the man who killed Magneto... and the man who brought the X- Men to justice.

"Sir! We are registering a ship in the vicinity; it matches some of the specs on the freedom but... it seems really odd... almost like..."

"Like what?" Vashkin snapped.

"Like it had been turned into a Celestial Battleship?" a young woman on the view screen inquired. "I hear you have some of my friends aboard. Ship's sensor recorded what happened. They better be okay or you'll get a lot worse."

"I know who you are you little bitch," Vashkin fumed. "You realise you are threatening an officer of the UN engaged in a lawful mission against terrorists..."

"Who nukes his own men? Hardly sounds like a lawful mission to me. I wonder if the media would agree with you, or would they see things my way?" A purple dragon crawled onto the woman's shoulder and hissed.

"What do you want?"

"I think you had better surrender... NOW. I'm not really happy and from what Ship has told me, well I'm kinda hoping you will resist."

Vashkin shrank before her glare. He would kill her. She would die screaming for mercy, mercy that he wouldn't give. He gave the order to surrender, even though it almost choked him. He had one surprise left.

I didn't think we were going to make it. I am still hurt worse than I have ever been and dying of this damned virus, but I am home at last. I send both of the women to sickbay immediately, at least one should benefit as a result. I hold off going there myself and endure the wounds in my chest. Instead I look at a blue-green globe and I wonder... wonder if I could have done anything differently. I was given a second chance, somehow. and I swear a deep and personal vow; I will make this chance count.

Brian Braddock stepped off the deck and headed down, bringing the last case of anti-radiation treatment. It was going to be sorely needed down below. Cannonball followed him down, being an External he had recovered from mortal wounds in recorded time.

On the deck Kitty Pryde was embracing her friend Storm. "It doesn't matter Ororo, we have done all that we can and we can only hope it is enough. I share your grief but we are X-Men and we endure, no matter what."

"Thank you, child. It means a lot to me right now to have somebody to turn too. Some things happened... that I am not sure of... and the implications frighten me. But please, be careful of my ribs. Bright Goddess, I never realised Rogue packed such a wallop, or that she cared bout Magneto enough to go back for him like that."

"The only thing I don't understand is why Magneto let you live."

"Perhaps, at the end of his life, any life had meaning to the poor man. We'll never know for sure... LOOK OUT, KITTY!"

Vashkin pulled her head back and went for the throat hoping to slice it before she could phase. Unfortunately for him, Storm's warning gave Kitty time to phase. Before he could do anything else he was struck by a bolt of lightening and flung across the deck by a sudden wind.

Ororo strode across the deck and looked down at Vashkin as he clung to the side of the ship. "I thought you were safely locked up little man. Is there no end to your evil?"

"I had friends..."

"Who will help you no longer."

"You're not going to kill me are you?"

"No. Whatever else has happened we X-Men don't kill. No, I will send you over to Ship and you can try escaping from him!"

"X-Men don't kill? Really? Ask Xavier about that sometime."

"Worm." Storm enveloped Vashkin in a tunnel of air and sent him towards ship.

"Don't let him get to you, Storm," Kitty advised.

"I'm afraid he already has," Storm replied.

I stare off into space and I wonder what it is all about. When I joined the X-Men I was a loner and a rebel; without friends and family. I loved that feeling, knowing that you could rely on other people. But what do you do when the family falls apart? When the father to us all proves to be weak and have feet of clay? When the dream is betrayed by it's founder.

I pop my claws and I stare at the new Adamantium that I have acquired and I wonder, why did Apocalypse do this to me? What am I to him? So many questions and too few answers.

What are we going to do with Scanner? I don't particularly like the idea of locking her up in the basement and throwing away the key; I wonder if Chuck is just a little too revenge minded to make this decision. His actions with Storm, good reasons or not, will come back to haunt us yet. Storm is tough, she'll get over it; but I'm gonna have to decide if I can ignore what he's done. I'm proud of Kitty though, she showed me that our hopes for her would come to fulfilment: she truly is a leader of tomorrow. If only she didn't collect such odd pets; first an alien dragon and now a sentient battleship!

I can take Solace in the low casualties. Externals are tough and Ship has some pretty advanced medical technology. The only X-Men we lost were Rogue and Jean. Jean, just thinking about her brings pain into my breast. I loved her so much. Me, the feral berserker who could take on anyone, reduced to a schoolboy whenever she was around. Losing her is a wound that will never heal.

I have learned of honour since I joined the X-Men. Of duty. Of giri. I am bound to them by as many lines of obligation as there are stars in the sky. There are my family and I will stand by them no matter how dark the days become and no matter how tough it gets.

It is my path and I am content with it!