Chapter 16
Krakoa's laughter shook the canopy as vines thick as towers ripped the earth open. The X-Men scattered, but still, the monster grew — more limbs, more roots, more hunger.
Cyclops fired another beam, ruby energy slicing across Krakoa's shoulder. "We're not even scratching it!"
And then, like a voice whispered into Scott's skull, came the calm weight of Charles Xavier.
"Scott. Do not lose focus. You're not fighting alone."
Cyclops staggered, clutching his visor. "Professor?"
"Yes. I've reached it. I am in its mind. But to cage a beast this vast, I must wage war within it. You must hold it in the physical realm while I press in the astral one. Hear me — you must guide the others. Now."
For a heartbeat, Cyclops could see flashes of the psychic battlefield: Xavier, seated in his chair, facing down an endless writhing landscape of teeth and roots. A titan consciousness, a forest of hunger and fire, slamming against his telepathic shields.
Then the vision vanished. He was back in his body, visor buzzing, storm winds tearing through the island.
He breathed deep, straightened, and barked his first order:
"Storm! Call it down — all of it!"
Ororo's eyes flashed white, her voice thunder over thunder. "By the sky's fury, by the storm's rage, I call you!" The heavens cracked wide. Lightning as thick as tree trunks slammed into the clearing, arcs of raw electricity grounding into the writhing roots. The monster shrieked — for the first time, hurt.
But Xavier's voice pushed harder in Scott's head.
"Not enough. The earth regenerates. We must strike its core — below. We must unmake it."
Cyclops grit his teeth. "Polaris!"
Lorna Dane hovered, arms trembling as the magnetic field around her vibrated with incoming power. The storm's lightning crawled toward her like snakes of light, slamming into her aura. She screamed as it filled her veins, body glowing green-white.
Havok shouted over the roar: "Scott, stop this! You're gonna kill her!"
Cyclops' jaw tightened. "We can't risk the world for one person!"
"Damn you!" Havok spun, rings of plasma spiraling around his body, ready to fire. But before he could unleash, a lightning strike ripped across the ground — Storm's storm still pouring. It stopped them cold, leaving only Polaris, wracked with energy, her scream splitting sky and earth.
Jean threw up a TK barrier around her, eyes wet. "Scott… this is going to burn her alive."
But Scott only said, "Then make it count."
---
Meanwhile, Logan was still climbing.
Roots swiped at him, boulders fell, vines stabbed — a dozen death-traps at once. He couldn't dodge everything, even with the Equalizer reflex. The world slowed, and he chose: slip left past the crushing root, duck under the rockslide — but let the thorned vine stab clean through his shoulder. He howled as it pierced muscle, blood hot down his arm. He ripped free, flesh knitting already, and kept moving.
Half his body was slick with wounds closing even as new ones tore open. But higher he climbed.
"C'mon, bub," he growled to himself, claws sparking in the stormlight. "Don't tap out now."
He reached the creature's neck. Vines lashed in from all angles — too many even for the Equalizer. For a split-second, the slowed world gave him three impossible paths:
Dodge right, fall.
Dodge left, get buried.
Or take the hits, all of them.
Logan roared, crossed his arms, and took them. Vines smashed his ribs, rocks shredded his back, blood poured. His healing factor worked overtime, skin sealing even as claws stabbed into the earth-flesh of Krakoa's neck. And then, with one last leap, he dug into the monster's skull.
"Gotcha."
With a primal scream, he drove all six claws straight into Krakoa's eye. The glowing pit burst, ichor and mud spraying like rain. For the first time, the island screamed not with laughter, but with pain. With a savage twist of his wrists, Logan elongated the claws inside, shredding deeper into the pulsing core of the eye until the monster howled and reeled.
"Yeah, that got your attention, didn't it?" Logan snarled through gritted teeth, hanging on as the giant thrashed like a wounded beast.
---
Below, Polaris staggered, her body a beacon of light, lightning and magnetism fused. Havok shouted again — "You'll kill her!" — but Scott snapped back, "If she doesn't do this, there won't be a world left to save!"
Jean turned away, unable to watch. Storm wept silently, still channeling the storm.
And then Polaris, voice raw but iron-hard, screamed:
"Then let it end!"
She thrust her arms downward, a torrent of magnetic force like a lance of green fire stabbing into the earth. It pierced the island's core, warping the planet's own magnetic field, tearing Krakoa's essence apart at its roots.
The entire island bucked. The X-Men were thrown into the air as the ground lost all weight.
The island started to tremble and rock, and Cyclops gave the command to escape.
"Move! Everyone out, now!"
"Hold on!" Bobby shouted, freezing the water into a raft as the XMEN scrambled to ride it
For a moment — the island floated. Gravity gone. Water peeled away from its edges in vast curtains, glittering in lightning flashes.
"What in the hell—" Thunderbird started, his voice drowned out by the rising roar.
The returning gravity directly launched it into space, torn from the ocean's cradle. And before the X-Men could fully escape, the water returned with rage to fill the vacant spot of the island, a flood that struck with apocalyptic force.
"On it!" Bobby shouted, freezing the air in panic as their raft lurched like a leaf in a hurricane.
But the water was faster. The raft spun, pulled toward the maelstrom. The roar drowned out their screams. Bobby cursed, then clenched both fists.
"Hold tight!"
A sphere of ice locked around them, a bubble against the crushing flood. The world became spin and chaos — a storm inside water inside silence.
And then… stillness.
When the ice cracked open, they floated on calm seas. Storm clouds gone. Ocean endless. And there — bobbing like a miracle — the Blackbird, watertight, waiting.
The team dragged themselves toward it, broken, bloodied, alive.
Logan pulled himself last from the water, body a mess of scars already fading. He spat out seawater, lit a cigar he'd somehow kept dry, and muttered,
"Helluva first day on the job."