X-Men: The Raid (part 1) (Patreon)

It was a beautiful day for football at Cornell College. The warmth of summer was still lingering, allowing the fans to bask in the sunlight without jackets, cheering on their teams inside the university’s modest stadium. Cornell and their opponents weren’t well-known or respected football teams, and in fact this game wasn’t even televised locally, but that didn’t dampen the enjoyment of the players or spectators. Cornell was a relatively small university, known more for its scientific than athletic achievements, and its students and faculty merely relished the game for what it was: another way to show school pride.

In other parts of the campus, students were naturally studying or working with their professors on important research. Many pored over books on the grass, propped up against shady trees, or found places by windows where the sun shone through. Some worked in windowless labs, carrying out experiments and running tests to improve solar technology or even cure cancer. Still others merely played frisbee or stayed in their rooms, enjoying another Saturday. It was one of those rare days where no exams were on the horizon, when students could just take pleasure in their recently gained independence and the overall experience of college.

However, it was also a beautiful day for a raid.

Cornell was a fairly secluded university, which was part of its charm. It wasn’t set next to a large city, making the campus almost like a town in itself, surrounded only by trees and a distant water tower. This lent the campus an idyllic atmosphere, but also made it easy to surround, particularly by a force that could move at great speeds under the ground.

In the wooded areas around the college large sink holes formed, the grassy earth crumbling down in a broken ring surrounding the campus. Small chasms formed, trees tilting or sometimes crashed down as the earth shifted, wildlife scurrying away in fright. A few Cornell students noticed the faint tremors, but they ended almost as soon as they began, and the coeds simply thought it was their imaginations.

The real danger wasn’t from the holes themselves anyway. Once the ground had settled, hands grasped the edges and monstrous figures began pulling themselves up. Dozens crawled, floated, and sometimes slithered to the surface, like hellions escaping the underworld, then gathered in packs, grinning ravenously in the direction of the school.

They looked like a post-apocalyptic freak show. Almost all of them were noticeably inhuman, with features ranging from a faint green hue to their skin to compound bug eyes and tentacles, wearing clothing chosen for its garishness and often looking like it was made of trash. Their strange, scavenged outfits were all painted with red tribal colors, their faces often painted as well, bodies adorned with trophies from previous raids and a number of red ribbons that were tied where ever they could fit. They were raiders, a wild rabble itching to be let loose upon the college, but despite their hunger for plunder they waited to be unleashed.

Callisto, leader of the Morlocks, stepped to the fore of the group from her sink hole, regarding them proudly with her one good eye. A wiry woman with an eye patch and spiky black hair, wearing a chain for her belt and an outfit that looked like a cast off from a women’s biker gang, she would have stood out in any crowd, but she was one of the more normal-looking of her assembled warriors. In fact, she could have passed as human on the surface, but that world was not for her. She belonged beneath the ground, a queen of her own world.

A cool smile turned up her thin lips. Before her was what many would have thought were monsters and ghouls, but she saw proud warriors of the underneath. She looked from face to face, into the eyes of a brute made entirely of crystal, to a wild-looking woman with a mouth much too large for her face, to a mutant with the sharp teeth and dark scales of an angler fish. They were her army and she couldn’t have asked for better.

A dwarfish, blind mutant with buck teeth was one of the last to scrabble out of the hole, helped by his comrades. Out of breath, sweating from the effort of creating the tunnels and earthen portals for his tribesmen, he sank down to one knee and wiped his brow with a three-fingered hand.

Callisto saved a particularly warm smile for him.

“Good work, Mole,” she said to the mutant in a scratchy voice, “You will be rewarded.”

Then she turned to her comrades and keyed a small radio, bringing it to her lips to address the Morlocks before her, and all the others surrounding the school.

“Morlocks,” she simply said, “Plunder. Take captives. Show these surface dwellers who truly owns this world.”

The instant the command scratched out over the radio, cackles rang out, whoops and cheers, then a thunder of footfalls as the Morlocks raced towards the unwitting university. It was a ripe target, so many defenseless humans, so many things to steal, and each of the raiders wanted first pick. They didn’t go as far as to trip each other or cheat, but they did race, laughing joyously as they did.

Callisto’s group rushed past her like eager children, some taking to the air, one man who was made of some sort of ooze rippling along the ground like a mini mud slide. Again, she smiled proudly as she watched them go. They would turn that university upside down and strip it of everything valuable in less than half an hour. Before any other surface dwellers even realized something was amiss, they would all be long gone, the tunnels closed behind them.

Only a small, chosen group remained behind with their leader. One of them, a teenage boy with a face partially made up of machine parts, strode beside her. He pushed back his hood to look up at his leader, blinking quickly, a nervous tic.

“Techno,” Callisto narrowed her eye, “Is it still here?”

The boy swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment. The young Morlock’s technopathy allowed him to converse with machines and was essential to her plan. Although one of the more junior members of the tribe, his contributions are what had allowed so much of their recent expansion and improved capabilities, including the self-built communicators that allowed the tribe to coordinate their attack. He was one of Callisto’s most valued followers.

Techno frowned, the metallic components that grew out of his forehead clinking together as he concentrated.

“Yes,” without opening his eyes, he pointed in the direction of a distant gray building, “It’s there.”

“Good.”

Callisto laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder, then turned to the others.

“Lilith, Angler, Singularity,” she said to each in turn, “With me. Mole, stay here, see to the loot pallets. Ten percent of everything gathered today will be yours.”

Exhausted from such a gross use of his powers, Mole managed a shaky smile, then plopped down on his rump, panting and fanning himself.

Callisto and the others marched towards the gray building, deliberate and silent. Techno walked side by side with his leader, having to move his feet quicker to keep up with the woman’s long strides.

“It says there are other people with it,” he looked up at the cyclopic chieftain, “Lots of them.”

Callisto smiled down at him, “It won’t be a problem, little one. Focus on your mission and let us worry about the rest.”

Techno nodded slowly. He seemed satisfied by this answer for a moment, but then another thought came to his mind and his frown returned.

“What if this time…” he asked, “THEY come?”

Callisto’s smile stiffened at that. She knew who THEY were. She still had a grudge against them and one in particular, who was technically still the true leader of her tribe.

“They won’t even know we were here,” she growled, “And if they do… good.”

* * *

The fans roared as a Cornell wide receiver dodged a tackle and broke away, leaving the defenders in a desperate race to catch him before he reached the end zone. The players behind him were in no danger of closing the gap, but a particularly fast linebacker was moving to cut him off. It was going to be close.

On the sidelines, cheerleaders sprang up and down, shrieking encouragement, white skirts flipping up, heedless of showing their purple undershorts. The crowds joined in, yelling, clenching their fists, willing the Cornell player to run just a bit faster. Even the mascot broke from his clownish routine to shout and stomp the ground.

The receiver saw the other player coming and weaved to his left, hugging the sidelines to give himself as much room as he could as he poured on every last ounce of speed. It wasn’t enough. The linebacker was on a collision course with him, to either knock him out of bounds or slow him for a precious second for the other defenders to catch up.

He did the only thing he could. With a last burst, he dove, the ball outstretched with both hands, reaching towards the end zone.

The defender leapt as well and they collided in mid-air, knocking the receiver towards the sidelines. But as he fell, the football struck the small pylon at the edge of the end zone, knocking it over.

For an instant the crowd held its breath. It had happened so fast they couldn’t see what had happened. All eyes went to the ref, waiting for his rule.

The ref looked at where the ball had landed for an endless second. Then he raised both hands into the air.

Touchdown.

The Cornell fans erupted. Air horns rang out their nasal song, cheerleaders did handsprings and back flips, then waved to the crowds, flushed and delighted. The spectators roared, many of them spilling beer, slapping fives and jumping in the stands. The Cornell team itself rushed to congratulate the receiver, who was already dancing in sheer exhilaration as the linebacker picked himself up and jogged back to his own team to receive condolences for his great effort.

No one even tried to start the game again for almost twenty seconds.

And no one paid any mind to the yellow haze that started to drift across the stadium.

In the midst of the air horns and confetti, no one thought the thin, pollen-like mist was anything but a celebratory pyrotechnic. They continued to cheer, singing their school song, holding up signs they’d made at home.

But then, slowly, the fans’ enthusiasm began to dampen. The first ones passed by the mist felt it first, their cheers dwindling, suddenly less excited than before. They were even tired. Very tired.

As the yellow cloud spread over the stadium, a wave of torpor came with it, students and visitors blinking, looking a bit confused. It suddenly felt so exhausting to keep cheering, to raise their hands, or even remain standing. The cheers faded, not to be replaced with excited chatter about the continuation of the game, but with a silence that was unnatural for such a large group of people. Many plopped back down into their seats, groaning faintly, eyes fluttering as everything seemed to whirl around their heads.

Then, the first person collapsed. A young man with a beer hat, bare chested with a Cornell C painted on his chest, simply flopped back into the people behind him, unconscious. Rather than help him or even cry out in surprise, those people collapsed as well, followed by the people sitting in front of him. A few surrounding people blinked at them in surprise, then their eyes rolled back and they buckled as well.

One by one, then in groups, the entire stadium of people collapsed, the only sound being the flops and clatters of their falling bodies. Students slumped into each other, plopped on top of each other, from cheering to entirely, deeply asleep before anyone had the time to be alarmed. The football players collapsed on the field, the cheerleaders dropping into limp piles. The last one standing was the Cornell mascot, who wavered for a moment, then collapsed to his knees, before teetering forward to fall flat on his face.

For several seconds, the haze hung over the mass of sleeping students, ignoring the breeze that would have carried away any normal cloud of gas or pollen. It waited, making the stadium appear like it was being seen through an amber lens. Then, when it did begin to dissipate, it didn’t fade away or break apart, it… shrunk.

With a long hiss of displaced air, the yellow mist rapidly closed in on itself. It became thicker as it was sucked inwards and down, towards the center of the football field, where it congealed, clumping together to take on a solid form. Arms formed, then a shape that was clearly a head, then legs, and a torso. As seconds passed, the shapes grey more defined, the arms sprouted hands and fingers, a face appearing on the head, grinning wickedly.

When the transformation was finally complete, a bald, yellow-skinned man, dressed in rags adorned with red ribbons, stood in the center of the field. He was clearly a mutant, his skin covered with sickly green blotches, his left eye a startling jade, the right blood red, and both glinting as he turned to survey his great work.

The Morlock, Miasma as he was called, stood in the center of an entire stadium-full of his unconscious victims. The first row of stands was one person after another, sprawled where they’d fallen. A young man who had fallen face first into the grass, then a young woman who was nothing but a pair of legs sticking up from behind her seat, then a couple that had propped each other up as they’d fallen, every mouth gaping in repose, all eyes closed.

Miasma chuckled and rubbed his hands together. He’d already gotten a good look at the entire cloud in his pollen form, but it was slightly different seeing all the helpless students with his own two eyes. There was also one key demographic he was particularly interested in.

“Hello, ladies…”

Still rubbing his hands, the sickly-looking mutant swaggered towards the sidelines, where Cornell’s cheerleaders lay in insensate heaps. Like a child in a candy store, he looked to one girl after another, each one a delight. He simply couldn’t decide which he liked best.

So intent was he on the feast for his eyes, he didn’t notice a sprawled football player and tripped over the unconscious boy’s ankle. Irritated, he turned and gave the young man a kick, before continuing his approach towards the bounties lying before him.

Just as he reached the first girl, who had fallen across another in an interesting way that propped up her healthy chest, a crash rang out from across the field. Someone had smashed through a side door leading into the stadium.

Miasma ignored it, crouching down to smooth his palm over the young woman’s bare stomach.

“Ha!” a voice bellowed, “Stupid surface dwellers! Nice of them to cram together like this so we can take ‘em out all at once!”

A giant, golem-like mutant, made entirely of pink crystals, bent down to get through the doorway, then strode onto the field.

“Ah, yeah…” the crystal golem did his best approximation of a smile with his oversized lower jaw, “That’s a lot of women…”

Once the plodding giant was clear of the doorway, more Morlocks spilled out after him, laughing and whooping. They charged into the stands or across the field, digging through the piles of bodies, looking for loot and captives. They pushed unconscious figures over, rifled through pockets, spreading out to cover the most ground.

One of them concentrated and split into dozens of smaller versions of himself, their high-pitched voices giggling like gremlins as they scattered to peruse the stadium’s offerings. Another mutant lay down on his back, closed his eyes, and a transparent phantasm floated out of his chest, then swooped along the rows of stands, searching for anything valuable. Scavenging, looting, and raiding were the Morlocks stock and trade, and they had each become quite proficient at using their powers to those ends.

While the others were on their looting frenzy, the crystal golem plodded towards Miasma, who had turned a few cheerleaders over to compare them.

“Mmm, look at their little outfits.” The brute’s crystals scratched across each other as he stroked his chin.

Hands on his hips, the smaller mutant grinned down at his three “contestants”.

“Heh. Yeah.”

Miasma had planned to have a look at all of them, but so far he’d simply started with these three, each different but lovely in their own way. There was a blonde with features that looked cheery and rosy even as she slept, her hair like spun gold held in pigtails. Beside her was a more serious-looking brunette, hair straight and sleek, a classic, elegant beauty next to the more welcoming blonde. Last was a red head, fair complected and freckled, with curly strawberry hair that was held tight in a scrunchy. All three had the bodies of gymnasts, surprisingly toned in the arms and shoulders, thighs firm beneath their short skirts.

“Which do you think, Quartz?” Miasma looked from one to the next, “I can’t make up my mind.”

Quartz, the crystal giant, grunted. He shrugged and it sounded like a small rockslide.

“Why not all three?”

The smaller mutant crouched down beside the blonde, smoothing his hand over her legs. She had a healthy tan and it made her skin shine, highlighting the grooves of muscle on the side of her thighs.

“We have to be a little discerning, at least,” Miasma said, “I mean, look at them all! We won’t be able to fit them on the pallets!”

Quartz regarded the rest of Cornell’s cheerleading squad and his craggy features ground into a frown. He hadn’t considered that. There were at least twenty-five other athletic girls sprawled on the sidelines, long legs stretched out, piled on top of each other or lying flat with their chests heaving beneath their uniform vests. When he looked into the stands, other Morlocks had already gathered up a few other attractive girls and were in the process of carrying them down to the field. The pallets hadn’t arrived yet, but Miasma was right: they wouldn’t all fit.

While the crystal man sagely considered these facts, Miasma took the blonde’s ankle and lifted her leg. All her joints were supple and flexible, offering little strain as he brought her knee almost to her chest, then ran his hand up and down the back. The position made her hamstrings stand out, flexing her calves and deepening the dimples behind her knees. He ran his hand all the way down to the swell at the bottom, where her purple undergarment peaked out.

“This one’s a keeper,” he grinned.

He let go of her ankle and her stretched tendons swung her leg back down. The tanned limb bounced off the ground, then turned with the toe pointing out.

As Quartz continued to put his thoughts together, Miasma tugged a red ribbon off his wrist then looped it around the girl’s throat. He tied it gently into a bow, like he was wrapping a present for his favorite niece.

“So…” Quartz cleared his throat, attempting a pensive expression, “If you take the blonde… can I have the red head?”

With the ribbon in place, marking the girl as one to be taken with them, Miasma patted her rosy cheek.

“Maybe.” He stood back up, dusting grass from his knees, “I’m the one that caught them, so technically I don’t have to let you have any of them. It’s the law, remember? Maybe if you have something to trade…”

Quartz wasn’t necessarily the brightest, but he knew when he was being taunted. Arms still crossed, he turned towards the yellow-skinned mutant, casting a shadow over him, then slowly leaned down to look him in the eyes. His head was roughly the same size as Miasma’s chest and as he bent his joints ground together like shifting tectonic plates.

“Yeah?” he growled.

Miasma swallowed, “Or… you can help me carry them? I’ll give you the red head and a few others—t-to be negotiated—if you help me… organize them, kind of?”

Quartz thought about this for a moment, then nodded once.

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The bargain between Quartz and Miasma was a common one among the raiders, one that would play itself out numerous times at the college that day. The Morlocks were busy and there were many easy captives and much loot to be had.

The students and faculty of Cornell could never have imagined an attack like this. The few students that were walking on the campus’s paved paths or laid out on the grass, were only slightly alarmed when the monster people came charging towards them with whoops and cries. Thinking it must be some kind of prank, they stared curiously instead of screaming and running. By the time they realized the Morlocks weren’t wearing costumes and weren’t members of a fraternity, it was far too late to escape.

In the buildings themselves, it was the same story.

A Morlock covered in spines strode into the library, then into the main reading area, past students reading or having quiet discussions. A few glanced up at him and stared, thinking he was bizarre looking, but he made no threatening motions, simply walking into the center of the room and stopping.

Standing in place, the mutant took a deep breath and slowly bent over, clenching his arms over his stomach like he was in pain. With a loud grunt his spines exploded off him, firing in every direction. There were scattered gasps of surprise, a few yelps, then all the surrounding students slumped in their seats or fell to the floor, each pricked by at least half a dozen of the mutant’s spiny quills. After that, it was simply a matter for him to peruse his paralyzed victims to see if there was anyone or anything worth taking.

Other Morlocks went door to door in the dormitories, stunning students with controlled bursts of electricity or trapping them within a cocoon of organic cement. A shape shifting Morlock would simply slip a paper-thin up under the door, reach up to undo the lock, then before the occupants could even cry out they were incapacitated.

It was inevitable that eventually some would become aware they were under attack, but thanks to Techno none of their cell phones worked. They could flee, but they never got far. They could hide, but years of living in sewers made Morlocks experts at picking out hiding places, making it as ineffectual as running.

One group managed to skirt a team of Morlocks but were stopped by a young woman with blue skin and large black eyes. She spoke to them in a soft voice, telling them it was all right. And then it was all right. She said they could relax, and they were at ease. Then she recommended they sleep, and so they did, dropping down to curl up where they were, asleep in moments.

But as profitable as it was for the Morlocks’ treasure larders, the larger raid was just a distraction. It kept the tribe happy, ensured no one would be able to call for help, but they could have struck many other targets and had the same results. There was a reason their leader had chosen this college to ransack.

Callisto and her quartet strode into the applied sciences building and down the stairs to the private lab in the basement. With Techno leading the way, they knew precisely where they needed to go and it looked like they’d been there many times before.

A campus police officer, sitting at a desk outside the thick security door, smirked as he saw the odd bunch coming down the stairs. Years doing this job had taught him to be stern when he needed to be and jovial when he could be. The students at Cornell were easy to work with, not big partiers, and he could sometimes afford to play along with a joke, such as the one he thought was swaggering towards him.

“Nice,” he nodded in amused approval, “Rocky Horror Picture Show meets Mad Max meets… Fishmen of the Deep?”

The Morlocks stopped before the desk and one of them stepped forward. His fish-like face had a gaping mouth with teeth so pointed and long he could never entirely close it. He had tiny black eyes, his nose nothing but a pair of holes above his monstrous mouth, exactly like his namesake: Angler, as in the fish.

“Yep,” Angler said, his voice bizarrely normal in comparison to the rest of him, “Pretty cool, huh? Check this out.”

He held out an oily black hand, focusing his power, and a glowing, golden orb appeared in front of the cop’s face.

The officer flinched then laughed with delight, finding his eyes drawn to bright apparition.

“Okay, I’m officially impressed!” he stared.

The orb moved and his eyes followed, smiling broadly with child-like delight. It hovered one way, then the other and the campus officer’s head moved with. When it bobbed up and down, the officer nodded, and when it spun in a circle his head mimicked the motion, unable and unwilling to look away.

“That’s… really something!” he laughed.

“I know,” Angler waggled his hand, making the cop’s head bobble around to follow the zig-zagging orb, “Say, what’s the combo to the door?”

Giddy to the point of distraction, the officer noticed the question, but not it’s import.

“H-huh?” he laughed again, “Oh… u-um… 3727965!”

One of the others, a woman with ghostly white skin and hair but blood red eyes, floated past the euphoric policeman to the door. With a single, spidery digit, she pressed the corresponding numbers on the keypad.

The pad chirped, a light glowed green, and the door unlocked.

“Great!” Angler winked a beady eye at the officer, “You can keep that.”

“Wow!” the officer’s eyes widened, “Thanks!”

Lilith, the specter-like female, drew the door open for the others and they made their way through, Calliso in the lead.

Even without Angler focusing on the glowing ball, it remained in place and the policeman’s attention remained diverted. He was more than happy to do nothing else but gape at the disembodied bulb. Even not moving, maybe especially when not moving, it was fascinating and wonderous to him, filling him with every warm feeling.

The last Morlock in the room, Lilith started to follow the others through the door, but paused, her eyes settling on the entranced officer. Unnervingly still, she watched the man for a moment, then floated towards him, white skirts fluttering about her feet. She laid her hand on the back of the officer’s neck, like a gesture of reassurance.

The officer immediately went rigid, his blissful expression going slack with shock before his nervous system went haywire. He shook as if being electrocuted, the larger muscles in his chest and arms clenching against one another while his fingers danced like he was playing an invisible piano. He remained like that for several seconds, his eyes slowly rolling back into his head.

Lilith’s eyes were bright and big, like she was aroused. Her pale hand had phased into the back of the guard’s neck, disappearing inside, spectral.

“Not much there…” she whispered, “But I’ll take it.”

The eldritch mutant slipped her hand from the man and he immediately flopped down onto his desk, unconscious. There was no wound, not even a mark to indicate what had happened. If someone came by, they would have thought the officer had simply laid his head down to take a nap.

“Thanks, sweetie.” Lilith whispered, bending down to kiss the top of the guard’s head, “That was yummy…”

Then she turned and floated through the security door like the reinforced steel was just a mirage, following her comrades into the lab.

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In less than five minutes since the attack had started, the university had gone from quiet and pleasant to absolute chaos. Morlocks stormed out of various buildings carrying large flat screens, armfuls of nonperishable food, and even unconscious young women, laying them down outside only to rush right back in for more, laughing and roaring. Any Cornell students still conscious were screaming and running, often being herded like panicked animals towards Morlocks with powers that could capture them en masse. Glass was shattered for fun, marks and messages painted on walls. The mutants weren’t just stripping the campus of everything valuable they were making it theirs.

The university had a police force, but they were no match for the Morlocks. Occasional gun shots rang out, or panicked cries to “stop”, or the occasional whining of a siren before it was invariably smashed a moment later. The police were just as helpless as the students, and it wasn’t long before all resistance ceased entirely. No one could judge the officers for being overwhelmed, they simply were unequipped to handle monsters with supernatural abilities.

But unfortunately for the Morlocks, an unmistakable, reverse-winged jet of shining blue was closing on their location. The aircraft was the size of a mid-sized passenger plane and was sleek as a blade, slicing through the air faster and quieter than any commercial liner. Its engines were enhanced with alien technology, making it the single most advanced aircraft on the planet by a large margin. And onboard was a team who specialized in dealing handling the supernatural.

The ship, the Blackbird as it was known, came to a smooth hover over the university, with no more sound than a gust of wind. Its back hatch opened and several colorful figures flew out of it under their own power, while half a dozen others gathered at the edge, all staring at the pandemonium beneath them.

“Dang!” one said, “What rock’d all these roaches crawl out from?!”

“It looks like Black Friday on steroids down there!” a younger voice said, with a valley girl lilt, “Except, like, not fun.”

“This insanity stops now.” Their leader narrowed her eyes, “Rogue, Marvel Girl, with me!”

At her command, herself and two other figures swooped down into the bedlam overtaking Cornell College.

A large Morlock, with furry shoulders and a ram’s head, was in the process of carrying two refrigerators on either shoulder, when a voice called down to him with a husky southern drawl.

“Someone needs to teach you sewer boys not to take things that ain’t yours!”

He looked up to see a nothing but a yellow gloved fist. The Morlock was knocked from beneath his ill-gotten gains with such force that the heavy appliances simply dropped to the ground while he smashed into the side of the building behind him. His body crushed a dent into the brick then flopped down to lie still.

A woman with a skunk streak in her chestnut hair hovered over the fallen Morlock with a disapproving glare.

“Normally ah’d feel guilty about a sucker punch, but far as ah’m concerned, bushwhackers deserve what they get!”

Several other Morlocks, who had been carrying young women over their shoulders, found themselves relieved of their burdens by bubbles of pink energy. As they startled, looking around in bewilderment, their would-be captives were laid gently into the grass, before that same energy formed around them and lifted the entire group up into the air while they cried out in fright.

A redheaded beauty in a lime green skirt held out her hand, using her telekinesis to lift the frantic mutants up until they were level with the 3rdstory windows. She frowned behind a golden mask, using only a fragment of her concentration.

“They’re angry, filled with lust and aggression,” the woman said, “You could try talking to them, Storm. Technically you’re still their leader.”

Nearby Morlocks froze in their tracks. Others coming outside with more loot ceased their merriment and stared with the looks of children with hands caught in the cookie jar. They knew who these women were and knew what their presence meant.

The X-Men had arrived.

Rogue returned the Morlocks’ stares with her fists balled at her sides, her hip cocked impetuously as she hovered above the grass. She had the body of a swimsuit model and she displayed it to the Morlocks fearlessly, chest pressed out, hips back, every curve exaggerated in a show of defiance. Her uniform only made her pose more enticing, full body spandex that looked vacuum-sealed to her skin, a glossy yellow and green that highlighted all the grooves of her toned body. Her only accessories were a small bomber jacket and a loose belt that draped rakishly across her flared hips. Normally perky and cheerful, the beautiful powerhouse’s lips were curled, eyes narrowed, her alluring pose used as a taunt, even a weapon, daring the Morlocks to challenge her.

Her comrade was elegant and calm, settling for a lazy tilt of her hips; her stance was not as bombastic as Rogue’s, nor did it need to be. Marvel Girl was arguably the most powerful and experienced member of the X-Men, her casual stance the tip of an immense iceberg of will and force. Her red hair fell down in decadent waves across shoulder left bare by the low neckline of her green uniform. Her outfit was no less snug than Rogue’s, skintight until it opened at the hips into a small skirt, revealing long, bare legs. It was a testament to Jean Grey’s poise and powerful femininity that she made the outfit look formidable, her steely green eyes peering out from a wing-tipped yellow mask.

Thunder rumbled and the sky almost immediately darkened over the university. Black clouds formed much too quickly for them to be natural, swirling ominously, occasionally lit up by flashes of lightning. A storm was brewing, preparing to unleash its fury.

Some of the Morlocks backed away. The sudden change in weather could only mean one thing.

A third figure descended into their midst, riding winds that billowed her silvery-white hair, electricity crackling between her fingertips. If Jean was cool disapproval and Rogue was defiant truculence, Storm was sheer fury and judgement. It was easy to see why the wind rider had been worshipped like a queen as she glared at the assembled Morlocks, a two-part cape fluttering like wings around her scantily clad body. Beautiful and upright, with a crown-like head piece keeping her hair out of her face, Storm wore a leotard of black and gold that plunged low to reveal the top of her mocoa breasts, needing no pose to display her hourglass figure. Usually more stoic even than Marvel Girl, now her exotic features were contorted with anger, her eyes whited out as she called on her powers.

It was utterly silent as she stopped to hover between her comrades, regarding the assembled raiders like a vengeful goddess.

“Morlocks!” she called out, her voice powerful and true, “Listen to me now and heed my words! Many of you were granted power, power that you have honed into weapons! Now you turn those weapons against the defenseless! The innocent!”

A bolt of lightning lanced across almost the entire skyline, immediately followed by a crackling boom that rattled windows and made the mutant raiders jump.

“THIS is how you would use your power?!” Storm snarled, “To attack, pillage, kidnap those that have done you no wrong?! Like an invading horde?!”

Those words hung in the air as thunder rumbled, along with the smell of ozone from the electric charge.

Storm glared from face to face, utterly disgusted.

“I bested Callisto in single combat!” she declared, “I am still your true leader! And as your leader, I command you: leave what you have stolen, repair what damage you can, and return to your homes! NOW!”

Another crash of lightning punctuated that statement and the Morlocks shrank back.

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In the lab beneath the applied sciences building, the professors and students were having a delightful break from their toils. Many had been annoyed, even outraged when a group of costume-wearing intruders had marched into their lab. They clearly had no purpose being there and this work was far too important to be interrupted by sophomoric pranks. How had they even gotten in here?! And where, for that matter, was the guard?!

But then the young man with the fish mask had held out his hands and created a number of wonderful glowing orbs that they found fascinating. Even now, both professors and their assistants were giggling and staring at their own little floating bulb, completely enamored. A few followed theirs around the lab, their dim smiles and stumbling gaits making them appear like toddlers chasing the family dog. Their research and their work were suddenly not so important, and they didn’t mind at all what these friendly people were doing.

While the faculty of the lab made general buffoons of themselves, Callisto and her team set to work taking the item they sought.

“Take the red cable out first,” Techno was explaining, “Okay… now peel away that seal, carefully…”

Singularity, with his arms elbow deep in one of his portals, followed the instructions as the younger mutant directed. The machine the lab housed was massive, essentially a number of smaller, but still complex machines that worked symbiotically with one another. It would have been extremely unwieldly to try to move the whole machine, but Singularity’s power allowed him to create a portal on the outside of the larger device that opened next to the part that they wanted. With that, they could simply detach that part of the machine itself, without having to disassemble it entirely.

“You’ll need to undo those screws,” Techno said, looking through Singularity’s portal, “But don’t drop them. Undo them one at a time and take them out, okay?”

As those two worked and Angler kept the scientists distracted, Lilith leaned against the corner and sighed, making sure everyone knew how bored she was.

Callisto, on the other hand, stared at the pair’s work with her eye wide and intent.

Cornell College had a grant for cancer research and a unique way of curing the disease. Rather than killing cancer cells, the method they were testing was changing the cells on a basic level, even altering the DNA of a live subject. The key component, and the one Techno had been unable to replicate, was the genetic splicer. In the right hands, it could cure genetic diseases and adjust cancer cells back into a benign, healthy state.

In Callisto’s hands, the genetic splicer could copy mutant powers, alter them, and in time even create more mutants. With that device, she could amplify the powers of her subjects, including her own, build an army, and with that army she could turn the tables on the oppressive surface dwellers. She would create the age of the Morlocks, with herself as queen.

The mutant villainess allowed herself a small smile at that. Once she had this power, she would bide her time, build her strength, then the first thing she would do is crush the X-Men. She would perform a raid on their fancy mansion, take everything down to the doorstops, and grind the sanctimonious Storm beneath her heel. She would make the African goddess watch her destroy her home, make her beg, then put a leash on that pretty, arrogant throat, and show the rest of the Morlocks…

A sudden rumble disturbed Callisto’s revelry. Thunder, powerful enough for the sound to reach even into the underground lab.

The villainess looked up, canting her head. One of her mutant gifts was heightened senses and the others didn’t seem to notice the sound, continuing to work or, in Lilith’s case, simply stare around the room, looking for something to entertaining. It was possible, Callisto was hearing thunder that was miles and miles away.

But then she heard it again, even louder.

Callisto’s smile fell away, a frown creasing her brow. For a moment she hoped maybe it was simply just a sudden thunderstorm but that faded when she remembered the skies had been entirely clear when they’d begun their raid. No clouds could move in that quickly, not natural ones.

“Impossible…” she hissed.

Lightning crackled and crashed, loud enough this time that the others of her team looked up in surprise.

“Impossible!” Callisto snarled.

Taking up her radio, the Morlock leader was about to speak into it, when she noticed her team members were staring at her, bewildered by her outburst.

“Keep working!” she snapped at them, “Don’t stop! Get the gene splicer!”

Techno flinched at the sharp tone, then turned back to his work, “U-uh… so… um… hang on… that has to be disconnected before…”

Lilith frowned, a bit of concern on her child-like face as Callisto marched towards the lab’s door.

Once she was out of ear shot of the others, her back facing them, the Morlock leader hissed into her walkie talkie.

“Morlocks, report! What’s going on out there?”

All she heard was crackling and static.

“Quartz! Shiva!” she hissed again, “Any lieutenants, respond! What is your status?!”

More hissing and the occasional pop, but then a sound came through, a voice. It managed one word, “storm”, before it garbled into nonsense.

Callisto shoulders were heaving, her brow beginning to shine with sweat. This was her worst nightmare. As things were, her Morlocks, even en masse, had proven largely ineffective against the X-Men’s training, teamwork, individual skill, and sheer power. But matters were worse than that; her army was spread out, scattered, unable to even use their superior numbers to effect. They were also weighed down by loot and captives, no doubt taken by surprise. It was a perfect storm.

Callisto clenched her fists, struggling to maintain some level of calm.

More voices came over the radio then, but they were impossible to comprehend. Not only were they garbled and broken up with static, they were talking over each other, reporting in all at once. It sounded like someone was twirling the dial on an old radio, picking up only seconds of different, scrambled transmissions.

Callisto could only bear a few seconds of it before she shouted into her mic.

“Shut up! All of you, shut up! Now!”

She all but shook with fury and desperation. The idiots. She could give them radios, but she couldn’t teach them radio discipline.

To make matters worse, she didn’t even know of her transmission had gone through. The radio went quiet, except for the static, but she had no idea if that was because they’d heard her or they’d just finished transmitting.

Callisto wanted to crush the radio in her fist, but forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. What was done was done. The radios worked fine normally, but the storm, and no doubt being underground, was frazzling their transmissions. Like any good leader, she would have to adapt, work with what she was given and make the best of the situation.

Closing her eye, the villainess took another deep breath, then brought the radio back to her mouth.

“Listen,” she said firmly, “All lieutenants. All Morlocks. Take what you can carry and retreat to the tunnels. All Morlocks, take what you can and retreat. Do not, I repeat, do NOT engage the X-Men. Do NOT engage! I repeat again, DO NOT engage the X-Men!”

Hearing the word “X-Men” made Lilith and Angler glance at her.

Callisto didn’t notice; she was too busy praying. If any part of her transmission went through, she pleaded with the powers that be that it be this part.

“Do not engage the X-Men! Do NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT engage the X-Men!”

(to be continued)