2017-09-22 - Atlantic City Showdown

It has been months since Bobby's spectacular departure from the mansion, and not-coincidental damage to Cerebro. And without that tool, finding him has been a challenge. Even after repairs to the big round room were completed, there was no indication where to look. But all that changed with a simple but disturbing turn of events. News reports started mentioning the unseasonably cold weather Atlantic CIty experienced over the summer. A little bit of searching turned up other indicators. A spike in violent crime in that already troubled town, among other things, And then, of all things, a viral video. showing a man made of ice. Taken together, the signs are pretty clear Bobby Drake is in AC.

It's that most dangerous of things. Getting ready for a group meld. But the team is going to do it. Jean is taking a breath, in battle uniform. "We're going to only get one chance at this. We have to take it. And Shadow King is going to have booby trapped him mentally and we're going to only have one way to get in and go for it."

Emma requisitioned the Blackbird to bring the team to Atlantic City. She doesn't dare to try reaching him psychically just yet, even though she is confident she could. The trouble is that that is a two way street for one such as the Shadow King. For now, she is more concerned with finding the physical foothold that is Bobby.

Logan shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "We sure we need to meld for this Jeanie?" he asks Jean from his seat on the Blackbird. "Can't just slug him real hard in the head or something like in the movies?"

Jean Grey takes a breath and nods to Logan, "Yes. You're the most stubborn of us all. Scott can handle things on the ground. BUt we need someone to be an anchor. And you have more experience with telepaths than any of us but Charles."

Betsy is actually working with Charles right now. The two are aware that the group has an utterly ridic level of psychic power, but also that the target is a crafty fighter. Thus, Betsy will be holding

Charles' power in her psychic knife. She's the least powerful, and will be expected to be the least threat. Until she drives her astral blade with both her power and Charles' into the link. that's the plan anyway. They sit together, preparing.

Rachel Summers is quiet, clearing her mind, holding her rage at bay..so much rage..so much delicious rage. Rachel takes another deep breath in through the nose, out through the mouth Logan grunts in reluctant agreement. "Guess I can't argue with that," he says crossing his arms. "Still don't like it though."

There is something very wrong with Atlantic City. And it goes beyond hurricane damage or failing casinos. There is a malaise about the place. Even the tourists seem on edge, and the workers' smiles seem particularly forced. The streetwalkers seem to be the only ones doing a brisk business, but even they seem more downtrodden than usual. To the psychics, it only confirms the worst. Shadow King is most definitely here, and most definitely active beyond what Bobby could be doing. But the psychic activity has one benefit, it makes it easier to track down its source, and it seems to be emanating from a shut down casino that has seen better days.

The sense of edge has Jean on edge. "Too obvious." She takes a breath, and turns to Betsy and Emma, "How you want to take this?" The two being far more skilled telepaths than she isin her mind, whether they're going in stealthily or with brute force.

Emma Frost glances to Jean from her focus. The ambience is oppressive, and does a good job hiding their target from her perspective. She'll reply after a moment,"How I want to take this is with high explosives. However, we are going to have to settle for either finding Bobby or drawing him out."

Betsy is smiling. "I could just go knock them up," she offers in her mild British accent. "It's not like we aren't expected. The least we can do is try the path that they would never think we'd be insane enough to attempt." She motions to the front door with a smile and a whimsical hand. Rachel Summers smiles and nods. "I agree with Betsy, let's give them a present, surely with all of us we can handle it."

"I'm with Betsy, front door, no messing around," Logan opines succinctly with a nod to Braddock. Afterwards he unbuckles his harness and ready to move out when the decision is made.

Jean Grey nods over to Logan, "All right, front door it is." She gives a nod, "So Logan, you care to take point with Betsy? Me and Emma will go next. Ray, you go in full power when he goes to counter us."

Betsy smiles, then offers Logan her hand. "I'd be honoured to arrive on the arm of a gentleman," she says, without even cracking a joke about it. Oddest lady in a group of odd people.

Either the air conditioning is still working in a building that has been out of business for years, or the Iceman is in the house. But he's not the only one. THe lobby shows signs of recent occupation. Disturbingly, blood stains are among those signs. Moving further into what was once the casino, banks of slot machines have been replaced by what can only be called a throne room. Its focal point is something that does not, at first, seem alive. An intricate blue-white throne supports a jagged figure that would probably stand near 12 feet in height. It looks more like a small frost giant than any form Bobby Drake ever took. But it turns its head when people enter, and its eyes blaze with violet light. A deeper version of Bobby's voice says with a sneer, "IT took you long enough."

"Yer weird," Logan remarks to Betsy but takes the offered arm the leads her to the ramp of the Blackbird and hits the button when they land. Stepping out of the Blackbird, Logan pauses by the edge of the ramp and lets his senses adjust to the sterile environment inside the jet to the exact opposite to be found outside. The smells and sounds hit him in a rush distant conversations, the tang of salt and desperation in the air, the puke in the gutter, the half-eaten burger in the trash bin the unmistakeable scent of ice. "That way," he says pointing to the run down casino. When he enters and see what's waiting for him snorts. "Like what you've done with the place, now let our friend go now and we won't have to hurt ya."

Jean Grey is going to try and put up a psychic jamming field now, to give Betsy and Logan some cover. "Give us our friend back." her words are firm. "Rachel, take the moisture out of the air." She's trying to give Emma an edge then to try and break the link between Shadow King and Bobby, her eyes flaring up as she readies herself for psychic war.

Rachel Summers gives a thumbs up to Jean's orders, and her eyes go flaming, her hound marks rip across her face, as she floats in the air, red energy surrounds her as she starts to draw the moisture out of the air. Emma Frost brushes Jean's cheek with a smile as she follows the short man and his british partner for the moment across the pleasant scenery and into the renovated room. Resting her hands on her hips she'll proceed with taking stock of the situation. Items that can be maneuvered, the form of their opposition, and the level of ambient energy in the vicinity. That done, her eyes will flicker as a burning diamond flashes briefly into existence over her brow as her force amplifies drastically in accompaniment of Marvel Girl.

Betsy isn't doing anything telepathic at all. Aside from her normal background scanning that's actually unconscious to her, she's just a person here. She lets the others talk, happily beaming at seeing Bobby. Real joy too, she's glad to welcome her old friend back, and that's not any form of pretense.

The fact that she's already sent out her astral form is irrelevant: she can do that and walk around a bit. It's a talent.

Laughter like the grating of a glacier over rocks, and the figure starts to rise to its feet. It replies to Logan "Please, what could you possibly do to harm me. No, I think not. It raises its hand, and a blast of freezing fog leaves a rime of frost across the room, "NO, I'm quite enjoying myself here. There's so much... pain in this city."

Jean Grey is going to blast over at.. Bobby with whatever psychic energy she can, giving the others cover to go astral. "I don't know. Our Bobby would never do this!" her eyes flash ass he calls out, "So what's your plan?" Trying to throw out telekinetic blocks. Speaking of the team mindlink << And we still don't know why he went for Bobby. He's always gone for psychics before.. Get him talking >>

Betsy's thing isn't power. It never has been; she's the sneaky one of the group. Possibly the most skilled telepath, she manages to keep up with the VASTLY more powerful members on skill and craftiness. So she's doing what she does best. Gathering information, going around the problem and looking at it from all sides. Her astral self has been keeping a low profile and just looking at the background, trying to see if there's anything that needs to be noticed. While her physical self makes a target and lets anyone with evil intentions try something on her. Sometimes you need to be the target, to learn something useful. She smiles, and holds Logan's arm gently, trusting him to keep her from getting shot.

The Astral, being the realm of the mind, is a very different scene indeed. All that seems the same is the Throne. Only in the astral, it has a palace around it. A many roomed castle of ice that somehow seems light and airy, and warm. Or, at least it should. There is a great web of psychic energy around and through it, like a snake coiled around its prey. That purple tendril of energy trails off into the distance, leading away from Bobby. The White Queen is second only to Xavier in her powers of telepathy, and her powers are presently directed to tearing down the miasma of negativity that the being has crafted. As she labors at this, she sets up her own field. Emma expands her psychic aura to enshroud the group from the Shadow King's ambiance while setting up a weight against it. Her power is being wielded much like its own over this city, that is to stifle and oppress the being controlling Bobby. She does this try and determine once and for all exactly how the Shadow King has accomplished this. Her diamond glyph of power burns brightly over her brow as her energies are exherted to the task, hands raised and pointed to it as her eyes narrow coldly at their enemy.

The icy mist is met with a snort from Logan. "Really, bub, that's the best you've got?" he says with a shake of his head. "Back home, we call this summer. As for what we're going to do, I dunno, always wanted to try ice sculpting," he pops his claws with a snikt. "Wanna let me take a little off the top?" <>

Jean Grey is trying to keep Bobby focused on the physical realm, even as she's letting Rachel try to get all of the moisture out of the air and try and weaken him. "So what's your game, Robert? The Shadow King? Whichever it is. This is pretty sad even for you. Shouldn't you at least be insulting us? Normally by now at the very least Bobby would have started talking about how he was going to give the chill and the deep freeze to bring about a new ice age." Jean's smack talk needs work.

Betsy is trying to learn. That link that leads away, it's got someone on the other end of it. That's how these things work. So as her body ducks and tries to find cover, her astral self is weaving it's careful, slow and patient way through the web of protection...with a goal of giving Logan the scent of the real target. Once she touches it, she should be able to do that. And since she was touching Logan's arm, she'd set up a small link with him to deliver that information.

Sneaky, eh?

Rachel Summers continues to draw the moisture out. "Want to heat the place up, maybe someone hold his lungs so he'll pass out, or you know Force choke him," what's Rachel been watching lately.

The icy figure frowns. The shift in air moisture made his gesture much less impressive than intended. He flings a hand out towards Logan. Which is not to say that he merely gesticulates. THe hand actually detaches from his arm and launches over towards the Canadian, trying to grip him around the throat. tAT the same time he speaks, "You cannot fight me in the physical, and you cannot defeat me in the Astral. You have come here in vain, X-men." In the Astral though, in that palace of icy, a tiny voice wails, "Nooooo!"

Logan is taken off-guard by the sudden hand thrown at his throat and is knocked backwards when it impacts with crushing force and tries to choke the life from him. Logan snarls breathing as deeply as he can before he punches both sets of claws through the hand and his throat trying to shatter the icy claw that grips him.

The scent Betsy delivers is noticed, but at the moment he has other things on his mind. Jean Grey is keeping up the pressure along with Rachel. Launching continuous psychic assaults to try and disrupt whatever coordination there is between the King and the physical body he's taken control of. "Come on Bobby! Let us know you're in there. At the very least.." Jean starts trying a different tact. Bombarding the Iceman with memories. Friendship. Pranks. Jokes. Chaos. From when they were all new to the team. "Remember the time you iced up Hank's shoes and he whipped up something that made you turn pink next time you changed to your snow form?" Giving images of Bobby's original snowman body. <> Trusting Betsy and Emma to break through the other side.

In the astral, the White Queen continues to labor in establishing her presence as the dominant. She will relentlessly work at her foothold in the vicinity, which would appear as a massive diamond as she begins to concentrate her energies. To those ever present entities and intelligences on that plane, it might resemble a pale shifting obelisk. She is beginning her lock down.

Emma finally utters,"Yes. Your intrusions are at an end, darling. Better run along before I rip that pathetic tendril of yours off and spank you with it."

Emma is speaking to Shadow King, right?

Betsy could be slashing at this point. She isn't. The longer that the being keeps control of Bobby, the more she can learn from the link. She keeps herself to an absolute minimum presence, her shields all about not being there. No thought, not even allowing her mind to have an intention of what she's doing. She places her astral fingers on that silver linking cord, and listens.

Rachel Summers continues doing what she does...drawing moisture out, and waiting to unleash hell.

The ice figure turns hits head, looking towards Emma. There is an odd lift-off one side of its face, as if it fleetingly tries to smile. "You threaten Shadow King with Pain? You Know nothing of pain. Allow me to teach you." In the astral, that serpent of violet energy wrapped through the castle that is Bobby's mind rears up and lashes out, striking the obelisk that is Emma. She is assailed with images of horror and death, with centuries worth of cruelty. Although the other psychics are not targeted, the mental spillover of that blass is like an open sewer. Emma Frost is one who has inflicted plenty of that for one lifetime. As if that's not enough, she felt the suffering of the world during the crisis. For this reason she is able to hold against the Shadow King's assault. At least for the moment, but her expression betrays the effort it takes. Her reinforcement of their battleground has been halted as her efforts are now directed to simply holding against the astral terror.

"Jean, it's now you and Rachel. I've got him..." Emma states in a fashion more terse than usual. Jean Grey calls out along the mental link << Roger. Rachel, hit him with everything. Betsy..>> Jean is hoping that a combination of engaging him at full power astrally and physically will be enough to hit the link enough to brutalize it..

And let Betsy go in for the kill.

<> She lets Logan coordinate the two teams astrally and physically.

He's the best there is at what he does. And what he does isn't nice.

Jean Grey's eyes blaze and she launches her full power telepathy, trying to hit one end of the control with everything she has while throwing objects across the room!

The ice hand shatters in a fountain of blood as Logan tears apart his throat to destroy it. The stocky mutant tumbles over, breathing hard as his throat knits itself back together. << Everyone on the physical side, duck and cover, then up and hit him with whatever you got when Rachel's done >> he says through the link while his senses home in on the scent Betsy sent him.

Rachel Summers launches into the air unleashing a large sustaining explosion of psychic energy focused right behind Jean's. Energy crackles, the air itself feels unnatural and being ripped apart by Rachel's mind.

Giving Logan what information she can, Betsy hopes that he can do something with the scent she's picking up. Unfortunately the overflow from this being's attack on Emma, and it could only be called an attack even though it is really just honesty, is making it hard for her to listen here. <> she says, trying to figure out the essential details from inside. Not to attract attention, through her psychic knife manifests. Given that she has no other way, she plunges the focused totality of her psychic abilities into the link itself, like stabbing it with a blade.

And let's Charles and herself together at that, grabbing ahold and trying not to kill it. No, no. This one needs to give up it's secrets. The knife buried in the silver cord has to be agony, but what Charles and Betsy are doing to the vulnerable fleshy meat is worse.

There is a screech from the Shadow King/Bobby as Betsy attacks the link, and then, while he is distracted, on old bar stool flung by Jean catches him square in the face, shattering his head. The screeching stops, but the withing continues. He seems much less phased by the loss of his head than by Betsy's attack. In the astral, that big purple snake recoils, but parts of the ice palace come crashing down in the process. The tiny voice in the astral yells, "That's it, keep going!" But another voice yells "No!" Then Shadow King's booming psionic presense rings out, "You will regret this!" He turns his attention on Betsy, swamping her with images of everything, and everyone, Bobby has done in the last few months. Cruel, heartless interactions that hurt people at every turn. Things she could never picture the real Bobby doing.

Jean Grey keeps on hurling things. She's going to try and amplify those memories, those senses of belonging. Trying to give Bobby -back- what he has lost, to hurl and shatter those feelings of isolation. With memories. Of shared traumas. Of shared celebrations. Of pranks. Knowing that the King works by putting someone in isolation, she tries her best to give Bobby that sense of FAMILY one more. While hurling everything in the room she can at him. Now she's shattering slot machines, and is hurling tens of thousands of small coins over at him like shrapnel.

A foot in each world through the link, Logan sprints off after the scent, his dim presence on the astral battlefield dimming all the more as he focuses on the physical and what his senses show him. << Rachel protect Betsy. Jean take the lead here, I'm after the other end of the tendril >> he orders through the link.

The White Queen doesn't miss the sudden relief of the Shadow King's attentions being diverted. Nor the scream that came in advance of it. Her inner sadist compels her to seize the moment.

Emma's eyes glimmer with latent malice as her psychically manifested diamond obelisk shifts dramatically. The hardened astral superstructure goes from being a fortress to a weapon as it sunders with calculated deliberation on the turned serpent to crash upon it in with a fierce intensity made possible by all the energies stored up from the time it took to construct. The obelisk shivers, lines forming upon it before it splits. The astral shards rain down upon the turned Shadow King in an avalanche of large astral particles. No One turns their back on the White Queen.

Charles is buried in the link. He can't help, and Betsy is left alone to handle the Shadow King's attack while protecting him. She's a combat telepath, while he is their best. So she reinforces her shield as much as she can, and loses it nearly immediately. She is not a powerhouse, which is why she sneaks. Confronted by a great force such as this, she's in serious trouble and begins to fail. Betsy Braddock isn't strong enough for this.

Too bad she's not the one that the Shadow King has to get through. As Kwannon, the ninja Elite of the Hand, looks out from Betsy's eyes and grins. Then licks her lips, saying, "Nice try. Rookie."

She's still in trouble though, the damage to her astral form is serious, and she's about to pass out when Emma's power slams down.

This place has such a mix of human odor to it that it is hard for Logan to follow. But one scent does stand out as particularly fresh... and particularly pungent. It takes him out of the casino and up a staircase, to a room in the abandoned hotel. What he finds there is both sickening and dangerous. He has a few moments to glimpse the recumbent form of Paolo. Or what used to be Paolo. AFter most of a year indulging in the pleasure of feeding a human body, there's an awful lot more to Paolo than there once was. But then the psychic assault hits. And of course, LOgan is a particularly easy target to isolate, as the Shadow King seeks to throw him back to his own memories of fear and pain and death. Memories of Weapon X.

Meanwhile, Downstairs, the battle with Bobby's body continues. The arms lift, and the whole body becomes something different, a sharp geometry not unlike what Emma summoned on the Astral, impervious to flying coins and even larger projectiles. But the link is weak now, the energy writhing on the astra,l, trying to hold onto its prey. Jean Grey is trusting Rachel to cover Betsy as Logan said, and she's blasting out with as much energy as he can, lashing out with mental and telekinetic bolts to try and keep Bobby on this end on the edge. "Robert! You're in there! Help us!" She's glowing with energy as she keeps on hurling things as fast as possible as she tries to keep up with what's going through the links.

Rachel Summers pulls back her blast, creating a shield to cover Besty, Rays on this.

Logan flinches from what he smells as he enters the room. "Damn it kid, he sure did a-" Logan's words stop as he's suddenly underwater pain running like nothing he's felt or even dreamed of running through his body, pain so hard and sharp it almost whites out his vision. Now, like when he went through it the first time something deep in Logan's mind awakens, something old, feral with a deep need for violence. He bellows out a primal scream of rage and pain that reverberates through the link while on the physical realm he throws himself at the nearest outlet for his rage: Paolo.

With the bulk of her astral presence having smashed into the Shadow King, Emma is now resorting to more old fashioned tactics to capitalize on the situation. She lashes out with telepathic bolts, arms and fingers splayed as her energies flood forth with psionic radiance.

The White Queen is merely building up to another of her psychic creations. This next assault draws upon her own inner turmoil, mobilizing it into an empathic lance of sorts as her emotions twist, purposefully widening the gulf between her perpetual frustration and compassion to build the energy necessary for this assault. Within the astral, it would manifest as a bolt of white lightning lashing out from her fingers at the entity's coil about Bobby. Betsy has lost consciousness. The person inhabiting her astral form, Kwannon, is not impressed, and slaps her awake. The shock to her system is enough to keep her busy, trying, while her split personality manages to keep things alive.

"Look there, you fool. Your team is shielding you now, it's not even that bad anymore. I've seen worse than this in the bath."

"I haven't. But thank you, I needed that."

"You certainly did. Perhaps you should let me drive for a while."

"...you know what? Do that. It's all yours."

And Betsy's grin goes wide, as the hand Elite ninja takes full control of the knives. She turns the blade, sending a wave of hell along the line to the host body trying to crack it open like a stuck pig.

The psychic -reverb- from Betsy and the sudden rage from Logan and the tranquility and focus of Emma hits Jean like it's own sort of backlash << What is going on there? >> It's hard for her to maintain the separate links - between trying to maintain the pressure on Bobby, assaulting the link, and trying to keep her teammates together. She trusts Rachel to keep full power on,and Jean goes to close her eyes.

In her psyche, fire builds. There never was the Phoenix within her. That was someone else's. Someone else's soul. Someone else's memories. Someone else's destiny. But she remembers it. In little bits and pieces. But she remembers one thing above all else.

How it felt.

And Jean takes those memories, that projection, and blasts out with that aura at her best impression. And along the link there is the full firey flame of the Phoenix. Hollow and a shell forged of memories, but burning bright, lashing out. It's a fake out.. But hopefully one surprising enough and terrifying enough to draw the full attention of the Shadow King onto her. Just as Emma's attack lands, that tendril wrapped around Bobby's mind vanishes like a soap bubble pricked by a pin. Every piece of ice in the room shatters at once,, and left in the rubble of it, curled into a fetal ball, is Bobby Drake. He groans, not used to being in control of his own body, but then his eyes snap open and he points to the stairs, "Oh God! Logan. I think... he's gone feral..." And then Bobby, overstressed by the whole ordeal, and not least the psychic backlash of emma's last attack, quietly passes out.

Upstairs, the Shadow King finds himself disembodied once again as he makes the great miscalculation of attacking Wolverine's mind without first containing his body.

Evil Betsy stays in the astral. Why? Because she can move faster that way. Also, she's really not looking forward to giving the body back. And she smiles at the Shadow King, a blade in each hand, and waits for him to notice that she's there. It's no fun if they aren't scared of you.

Oh, nevermind. Let's just stab him in the lungs. When anyone shows up mentally, she's already trying to kill the guy. Not capture, not disable. She's aiming for brutal murder and isn't holding back.

And as Bobby passes out, Jean is rushing towards him, "Bobby!" Going to quickly check for a pulse even as she goes to try and keep a link with the rest of the team. She senses Betsy going in for the kill. And doesn't remotely move to stop her. Her tone is hard. <> Once Logan is finished with Paolo, blood spattered and gore soaked, Logan moves on swiftly for the next target, he rips through the walls of the hotel and emerges onto the street. Sniffing the air he goes in search of new prey, aka anyone unfortunate enough to get in his path. In the Astral, Logan's form is distorted and bestial and even fainter still, with only the barest connection to the link, still though he screams <>

In the Astral, the Shadow King is not even remotely human in appearance. Black and oily flesh, distorted features with huge razor teeth. He's also not remotely ready for Betsy after being thrown out of a body in the most violent means possible. He screams as Betsy's blade cuts into him, then starts to shudder and dissolve into acrid smoke.

And as she -feels- Logan going feral, Jean goes to cut the connection sos he can focus, leaving Rachel to tend to Bobby and make sure that the Shadow king is blocked. Jean goes towards Logan. "Logan, you are -better- than this. You are not the animal. Control yourself." It's -HARD- to get through all the rage when he is a hunter. Even For her she can't get telepathically through. So she just talks to him. Soothing. Voice calm as she heads in his direction

Emma Frost smiles in reply to Jean's instruction. The redhead's telekinesis should be plenty up to that task, so she goes to finally step fully into the Astral herself.

Emma's form in the other plane hovers within a full body, silvery blue and diamond shaped aura swiftly darting towards the briton's location. She is familiar enough with her presence that it isn't hard for the powerful telepath to locate. Being fully in the astral, she shines brilliantly with energy as she is now completely on her favored playing ground. Her eyes match her aura, dancing with psychic potency.

<< Shadow King, your reign is at an end. >> Emma declares telepathically, her jaw set with focus.

Emma will be reinforcing Kwannon/Psylocke for this moment, knowing well the nature of her power AND the Shadow King's. She is the biggest threat to the entity here. That doesn't mean she doesn't want a piece of him for herself, however. As her energy flows out to the other woman, her hands will dance silvery with energies lancing out at him. No reason not to divide his attentions at the least. Her bolts will fly out like diamond spears from all over her aura!

The dark Psylocke, freed of anything like morals and gentleness, isn't done with him. She hauls back and then drives her psychic blade deep into what's left of him, giving him the full meaning of 'the sum totality of her mental power'. It isn't about telepathy. it's about being willing to turn your entire brain into a living weapon in order to accomplish a goal.

She slams the blade in and then uses it to channel a psychic blast, literally shutting her own brain off from the effort. Everything she has, all at once. The darkness of the Hand, the power she's gathered from his own assault, and the ability that turns that into a chisel. Right onto the weakest point of his psyche. She flares, her body's butterfly flashes brightly, and then she collapses. Nothing left, and Charles is cast out to his own body with a pounding headache.

Logan stops mid run as the he hears Jean's voice in his head. He snaps his attention left and right trying to find and kill the intruder in his mind. Unable to see them he screams in rage and slices through a nearby bench and kicks the remains out of the way. Somewhere inside of him though Logan fights trying to regain control. Telling himself it's not real. It bleeds over to the link interspersing his mad raving with 'It's not real' over and over. Still the rage keeps its hold. The first time he went though Weapon X's treatment he went berserk for the better part of a day.

Jean Grey closes her eyes, "Forgive me Logan." She goes to focus her eyes, going to try and hit him over with a psychic bolt if she can. The phrasing is simple. << Sleep.>> Not blast unconscious. Not overwhelm into catatonia. But to sleep. To let the lull of nothingness hit over. To an animal, the contentedness of after the hunt and filled with meat and deep in a burrow wash over.

The psychic "substance" of the Shadow King is shredded by the comined assault until there is little left. For the moment, he is defeated as thoroughly as he can be. What this means in the long run for an entity that has claimed to predate ancient Egypt remains to be seen.

Logan blinks when the bolt hits like it washed away all his previous thoughts and replaced them with the sense that all was done. Once again he was transported to Weapon X, his claws buried in the last scientist's skull before he made his way through the door into the wild and cold that called to him like home. Both in his mind and in the physical he smiles, contented and drops down to his knees and then forward, laying down asleep. Before it claims Logan, the man, utters two words through the link to Jean: "Thank you."

Jean Grey goes to take a breath, and checks the resto the team. Bobby, Logan, and Betsy are unconscious. "Let's get out of here." Before the authorities arrive. And to get the rest of thier comrades to the medbay and stable and make sure they're all right. The Shadow King will be back. He always does. But they've humiliated him for now. And most importantly they have thier friend back.