Friend or Foe by Unknown Author

Author:Unknown Author
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: greg cox

How long can she hang on to Cyclops’s mutant power? he wondered. Indefinitely, like the Super-Adaptoid, or is there a time limit? They had already completed two circuits of the circular hallway; he estimated that Rogue had been in possession of Cyclops’s eyebeams for close to five minutes now. Long enough for them to start wearing off? He wasn’t sure, but it looked as though her incandescent firepower was already weakening in intensity. The ruby effulgence gushing from her eyes seemed dimmer, less brilliant than before. Good news for everybody, he thought, except maybe the Leader.

Iron Man decided to test her by going in closer, until he was flying right above her heels. She tracked his progress with her eyes, but the beams radiating from her eyes flickered and dissipated before they even came close to the magnetic force field shielding his armor. Her eyes glowed crimson for a few heartbeats more, then returned to their previous sea-green shade. “Easy come, easy go,” he taunted her, unleashing a blast of concentrated repulsor rays along her spine. Careful, he reminded himself. Despite her dubious past, he didn’t want to injure her permanently. She’s not responsible for her actions right now.

Rogue slowed down suddenly, causing Iron Man to shoot past her before he could reduce his own speed. Accelerating once more, she climbed steeply toward him, turning the beam-projector on his chest into a bull’s-eye. A pair of super-strong fists crashed into his chestplate, shattering the lens of its central beam projector. Fiery blue sparks erupted from the chest-unit, without burning a single hair of Rogue’s unprotected hands. Her powerful blow did not smash all the way t'lrough his armor to the man inside, but it made mincemeat out of the layers of intricate circuitry beneath the crystallized iron and high-temperature enamel. Reports of system failures and major malfunctions flashed before his eyes, dutifully reported by his armor’s diagnostic programs. vari-beam capacity OFF-LINE, a lighted display announced. No kidding, he thought sarcastically.

The obvious moral: Eyebeams or no eyebeams, he underestimated Rogue at his own risk. She was a handful even without any extra powers.

He expected her to follow up her brutally effective sortie with further attacks, but instead Rogue pulled away from him, zipping ahead at top speed, so that all he could see were the soles of her bare feet as she left him in her slipstream. The strong breeze generated by her breakneck flight blew against Iron Man’s armor as he put on a boost of speed in hopes of catching up with her. Where’s she going in such a hurry? he worried. Where’s the fire?

Activating the telescopic lenses in his eyepieces, he scanned the corridor ahead of Rogue, spotting a confusion of colorful costumes just before the next bend. Jagged streaks of lightning, accompanied by scarlet flashes, tipped him off; he realized that he and Rogue’s airborne battle had once more brought them full circle to where the rescue team had first confronted the Leader and his thralls. His audio receptors picked up the sound of booming thunder, crashing ice, and bestial howls.

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