X-MEN: tranz rupture! continues

ALL-NEW *Bite me fanboy, but this next scene w/ Logan and Kurt was cut from the next draft!*


Nightcrawler teleports Wolverine within a few feet of the gunman, while teleporting himself back in time to knock his victims out of the way; to his dismay, they, too, have been driven to fire as waves of fear meet the psychotic experience of their minds, both opened to all and flooded with random impressions of one another. The thoughts weave like a neural web, without regard for privacy nor concentration.
Without a word, the uncanny mutant launches himself towards disaster; he is all that stands between an unintentional massacre and reality. Gunfire rips and strips Wolverine, just before he unsheathes his Adamantium claws---and the hardest substance known to man brings a potential rampage to an end.
WOLVERINE: State these bo’ are in, one starts shootin’, it’s every man for his damn self.
Kurt: I am taking fighters out of the field---one Nightcrawler Express!
As the soldiers vanish, first one, then another, the surprise and distance lessens the indescribable feedback...while Colossus uses the psychic training of Professor Xavier to clear his head and demolish the stand of trees beside the all-consuming torch. Above, the gathered, strained, earnestly-summoned clouds at last yield their precious rain here in the desert wilderness...even a weakened monsoon, here, is no mean feat. As to their mistress who has called these drops:
HOLT: Look at how vulnerable she looks.
BLANCLEY: I can’t say for sure, but she resembles one of the X-Men. No one seems to know who they are or what they intend to do. Why would they risk their lives here? What are the consequences of what’s happening---and is this the world from here out?
HOLT: Can you even imagine: they’re at the center of this mind storm. No matter what things I’ve heard they can do, they can still die, right? They still have a heart that can stop beating, and lungs that can stop---
BLANCLEY: Is she choking?
STORM: Uhhh...I...feel the moisture gather on the wind...and the static of lightning building in the clouds. I am---awake! Here!
HOLT: Glad you can tell where “here” and “there” are, it’s getting hard to know!
STORM: At last the rains have come to quench the blaze---but now, have I done what most I could for you firefighters and soldiers?
BLANCLEY: What lurks within this plane of battle, I suspect has more to do with the realm we saw...
STORM: The plane we just visited, you---I see it in your eyes, you have both seen---there is some understanding passing amongst everyone.
HOLT: Are we becoming mind-readers?
BLANCLEY: It’s there the real war is fought; there’s nothing to do nor nothing, I suspect, to save us here besides one’s resolution to sheer courage, here in this wave-like schizophrenia!
STORM: My instincts ---my flesh wants to peel from the bones that choose to tread beside Cyclops and Phoenix in that cave! I feel the intense psychic pain and paranoia that has bitten like a prehistoric animal from the unreflective turmoil beneath them!
BLANCLEY: It is akin to quicksand...we resemble a mountain climbing team, jeopardized by the fall of those tied to their survival.
STORM: My thanks for your chivalry. Your courage fuels my own.
HOLT: Hope your friends can make it right.
BLANCLEY: Just don’t give up, eh? (Storm flies above.)
STORM: Wolverine---and smoky evidence of Nightcrawler. Here: my hand!
WOLVERINE to Storm: Kid’s tough! Thought that stunt ‘porting us out of the subconsciousness was pretty good---thanks for the lift, ‘Roro---but all we can do is back the play at the cave. Whatever’s out here, I can feel it--- but my senses only tell me the terrain's convulsing and it's nearly unbreathable, no other clues. It’s Jeanie's show now.

Follow this blog