"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" cried Marcus as he watched as Pete pulled the trigger and blow off the back of his head; as he watched the medics try and make Siryn live without success; as he watched the monitors at Maverick's side become straight lines; as he watched Lydia's body go limp and gently sway from the momentum of her body relaxing.

His psionic resistance failed and the Dragon Lord seized the moment and engulfed the very core of Marcus Raven, and he restored his consciousness to the real world.

"Five blank canvasses," he chuckled as he examined the vacant looks in the eyes of X-Force, "ready for the repainting!"

"You'd think," said Pete and kicked the man squarely in the jaw, sending him sprawling to the floor. As he lay there his facial features shifted and altered as the darkforce dissipated without his control over the energy, and his real face was revealed. Pete didn't smile at this though. The element of surprise had been with him as he placed his shot and the Dragon Lord was down, at least for the moment.

However it was only a moment they needed though to get themselves free from the wall. The bonds that held them broke easily under the pressure from Pete's hot knives, launched and directed from his fingertips in the locks of the manacles.

"Go, go, go, go, go!" he said to the others, and Siryn flew over, taking hold of Marcus and they headed out of the dungeon area. Not a word was spoken until they reached the throne room, where Pete quickly did a check of the area, thinking back to the layout of the place they had reviewed during the briefing. "Secret passage," he said as he started to head for the stairs, leading up to the throne. He knew that there was a button on the left arm that would open the door to the passageway.

"We're not leaving?" asked Maverick.

"Not a chance," said Pete, flipping the catch and the door opened. "We're finishing this. We regroup, we come down we kick the crap out of anyone who gets in the way. Trust me, I've a plan." He turned and started moving again, knowing the Dragon Lord wouldn't be down for long.

"Boss?" asked Bloodstrike, as he helped his leader to stand. "Sorry, I turned away for a moment."

"Imbecile," cursed the Dragon Lord as his face regained its shape and Bloodstrike was unsure to whom he was referring - himself or his employee and decided not to press the issue. He'd learnt after years of employment in the organised crime scene in America. In stead he simply bowed his head.

The Dragon Lord was angry.

"Get the others! Bring me their heads!"

"Yes, sir," said Bloodstrike and went to get the other members of the Circle. The Dragon Lord mused on what had gone wrong. X-Force had been captured, they were helpless and at his mercy. His powers had altered their perceptions; his darkforce constructs had eaten in to their minds, pervaded their souls and used their thoughts and memories against them. If he had made it up, they would have seen through the deception and it had worked, and then it had all collapsed around him.

"How?" he whispered. How had they gotten past his powers like that? He had broken them all, his powers overwhelming even the mighty telepath in the end, cutting through his psionic defences like they weren't even there. Then the Dragon lord laughed. He had overestimated his powers, the psionic resistance to him hadn't failed - it had simply stopped.

The psionic cry of 'No' was not a cry of anguish it was a psychic command to his colleagues. Marcus Raven had sacrificed himself in an all or nothing play, and his gamble had paid of. He stopped laughing and shook his head. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

"I should have just killed you outright," he murmured and turned and walked back towards the throne room. X-Force wouldn't have gotten far, he had seen that much in their minds. They had a mission to fulfil and they wouldn't leave until it was over.

The secret passage led to a small chamber where the team holed up.

"He awake?" Wisdom asked Siryn, who was looking after Marcus. She nodded. She hadn't said a word yet, and Pete hoped there was no permanent mental scars after this was done. He walked over to Raven. "Bloody good work, mate."

"Thanks," said Raven, his voice weak. "Bastard's touch... like death. Felt like someone was dying in my mind when he took me. Except the someone was me."

"You came through, though, and that's what counts." Pete was glad he'd knocked the Dragon Lord out, so that his hold on Raven had been broken. It had been one hell of a move and if it hadn't been for Raven's psionic warning they'd have been pawns of the Dragon Lord.

"We got lucky," said Maverick.

"Don't I know it," said Pete. "He took us apart, inside out. He used stuff so personal that it annoys me to think someone gave him that info."

"The traitor?" asked Lydia, knowing that someone in SHIELD had set them up earlier.

"Yeah, and that's my first priority when we get back to SHIELD," frowned Pete. He looked at Terry, walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder. "Love, it's over. It wasn't real, not matter what happened, no matter what he showed you."

"But it's there, inside me," she whispered.

"It's inside all of us," said Pete. "Believe me, I'm not happy with what I saw either, but I am not going to let him beat me with who I am. We need you, Terry. Get a grip." Theresa turned and looked at him.

"A'right," she said, her voice strong. "What do ye want us to do?"

"First up, let's see what we learnt. I saw his real face, anyone else catch it?"

"I did," said Lydia and Pete smiled knowing it would be her. "I knew him, even though I only caught a glimpse."

"Yup," said Pete, "He came up at the briefing."

"Casseas," said Maverick. "Diego Casseas."

"The Left Hand," said Pete.

"Who's dead," reminded Lydia.

"I've worked with teleporters," said Pete. "If falling down a hole wouldn't kill Nightcrawler, it sure as hell wouldn't kill another teleporter."

"Doesn't explain his powers though," said Siryn. "The briefing said he only had the ability to teleport and fire energy blasts. Elaborate constructs, darkforce manipulation and control, they weren't on the list."

"Best guess," said Lydia, "would be that Well of All Things gave him much better powers, enhancing him to incredible levels. It was an inter-dimensional breech and there are forces at work there that defy conventional notions."

"Best guess?" said North, shaking his head. "Great, so he's got godlike powers. So how do we stop him?"

"Davey," said Pete with a grin, "when we looked over the layout of this place, what did we not see mentioned?"

"There wasn't a damned great pit in the throne room," he said. "You don't think that's the Well of All Things, do you?"

"It's an extreme possibility," said Lydia, with scepticism. "It may be a replica."

"I don't think so," said Pete. "He's too damned powerful and too damned feared. I've money says it comes from that."

"Say yuir right, what do we do?" asked Siryn.

"Pour everything we've got down the hole. Kinetic blasts, psionic assaults, sonic screams, hot knives. Pour it on, see if we can do some damage."

"Assuming that works, there's going to be one hell of a mess," said Lydia.

"Should be a bloody great explosion," said Pete as he lit a cigarette. "And that'll be your cue, Davey. Out of all of us, you'll be the one who's most likely to be standing afterwards. We'll find out how good these SHIELD uniforms are."

"There's just one flaw to the plan I see," said North. "The Folding Circle won't just sit back and let us. Neither will the Dragon Lord. To stop them we have to destroy the Well, but to do that we have to stop them."

"Davey," said Pete. "We go out there, we hit people and then Lydia goes one on one with the Dragon Lord. With her enhanced musculature she's got the best chance of us all."

"I don't fancy my chances," said Lydia.

"You're the Shadow," grinned Pete. "He uses darkforce. Makes it even in my book."

"Wisdom," said Raven, sitting up, his eyes glinting with traces of power as he used his psionics. "The Folding Circle are coming. Must not have thought they'd be needing their blockers again, because I can feel them very easily."

"Nah, the Dragon Lord probably switched them off to go after you. You have to love it when they overestimate their powers." Pete shook his head as he took another drag on the cigarette. "We don't really have five minutes to kick their heads in," he sighed. "Marcus, what are you like with revenge?"

"How so?" Marcus looked at him curiously.

"They took you out with ease, seems only fair..."

The four members of the Folding Circle were scouring the building, looking for X-Force, and they all knew the price of failure.

Midnight's Fire was holding them back slightly, his leg injury courtesy of Peter Wisdom hot knife, meant he couldn't hurry along too much, though the others were making up for it. Silk Fever flew through the corridors, opening rooms with energy blasts. Bloodstrike was a little more regular in his search style, but it was Smiling Tiger who seemed to pick them up.

He unleashed a feral shriek that alerted the others to the secret passage in the throne room. Or at least that's what it had to be, if they could figure out how it opened.

"How do we get it open?" asked Bloodstrike.

"Eric," said Silk Fever, "with ease!" She smiled as unleashed her powers on the wall, melting away the stones, turning them in to molten rock that fell in a pile on the floor.

"Min," he said, "life sure is easy with you about." She chuckled and turned to her large comrade.

"Good idea. I'll unleash a blast down here and leave nothing but ash and debris to mark their passing."

"Works for me," he answered, rubbing his jaw, where Maverick has smacked him.

"As dishonourable as it is," said Midnight's Fire agreeing with Bloodstrike, "their leader is more so. I doubt many will shed tears." Silk Fever nodded as they spoke and fired but as she did so, red discs appeared above their heads, and she stopped the blast as she looked up.

"What the hell?" she asked and then they all grabbed their heads in pain, blood streaming from their ears and noses as the psionic barrage hit them, sending them to the floor. The discs faded, leaving four inert forms in the throne room.

"Got 'em," said Marcus, breathing hard. "Not used my powers like that before. Bit of a strain."

"As long as you've got strength left for the Well," said Pete, a feeling of satisfaction at what Marcus had just done for them. They'd felt the heat from Silk Fever's blast from here and they'd been lucky to strike when they did. "Okay, let's go and finish this."

The team got themselves together and headed out to the throne room, wading through the fallen forms of the Folding Circle.

"Cuff 'em," said Pete. "Don't want them to cause any more trouble." The specially designed cuffs had a mutant power inhibitor built in, so that it would create a low level energy field that would nullify their powers. Or that's what they'd been told. It was the mystic part of their nature that gave cause for concern in Pete's opinion. There was one of them who was dangerous and that was Silk Fever. Her long-range attacks could get them before they knew what was happening. "North, bring that bitch over to the edge Well," he said.

"Why?" asked Maverick, doing as his team leader asked.

"She gives us trouble," answered Wisdom, "I'll push her in."

"You're kidding?" said Maverick. "Right?" Wisdom just smiled as he looked down at the woman before them. "Jesus..."

"Right," said Pete, then noticed it getting dark, as it had done when they were at the docks. "LYDIA!" he called, letting her know she was on and that the Dragon Lord was here.

The rest of the team didn't need telling what to do next as they stood at the pit and fired their various energies in to the hole - kinetic, psionic, sonic and heat combining as one and flowing down.

"How long do you think we have to do this?" asked Maverick, knowing he had a fair amount of energy stored, but he knew it wouldn't last forever.

"Until it blows up or we're dead," said Pete, who had the same concern, and he also knew how tired Marcus was, and that Siryn could last forever either, but they had no choice and the job needed doing. "So keep firing..."

"LYDIA!" came the cry and Agent Del Ruiz went in to action, focusing on the area. The darkness was spreading that was certain, but it had to be coming from somewhere and she looked about the area. It was as intense at the edges as it was elsewhere, but she noticed that it was heading towards the team. She looked at the darkness, thinking on what they knew - that he had almost absolute control over the darkforce, but not in total. Otherwise he would have been able to defeat Marcus and not lost it when Pete smacked him in the head. Then she saw the ripple effect, the figure coming towards them, not just the darkness, but the master of it.

She pushed herself, using the strength of her leg muscles to run, pushing herself at a breakneck speed, far faster than the Dragon Lord could have anticipated, because she collided with him in a shoulder barrage. She knew she had connected with his body, as there was a gasp from the darkness and at the edge of the pit, the darkforce that had been slithering across the chamber recoiled.

"Your friends can wait," he said, as two eyes appeared in the darkness, looking right at her.

"Diego Casseas, by the authority granted me as an Agent of SHIELD, you're under arrest for violations of international law."

"I do not recognise your authority here," said the Dragon Lord, pulling himself up, the darkness around him lifting him up. There was also a waver in his voice, which hadn't been there when he'd first confronted Wisdom and herself for the first time. The second was that he was using the power to lift himself, not standing himself. That might not have meant anything in itself, but he had been knocked out earlier and just taken a rather nasty shot to the upper torso.

"Tough," she said, with a bravado that wasn't entirely false. Lydia knew she wouldn't last forever against him and that he would get the upper hand but she knew she could make it last a bit longer than she had originally thought.

Then she felt the tendrils of darkforce slithering up her leg, and she pushed herself upwards, attempting to tear away from the grasp of the energy, but the energies stretched up with her, and she grabbed hold of a chandelier and swung away, pulling the energies, making them follow her movements. Then, just before the light fitting could swing back, she let go and flew over the head of the Dragon Lord, his own energies getting in his way. She landed on the floor and rolled, pulling Casseas over as he tried to adjust the energy flow. She was on her feet, and pinned him to the floor before he could react.

"Gotcha," she said, her hand closing around his neck, cutting his oxygen supply to a minimum.

"No," whispered the Dragon Lord, as his energies enveloped her and propelled her up towards the roof. "I have you." Lydia tried to break free but at this proximity there was no way she could break the hold from the energy. She slammed in to the roof, once, twice, three times, each blow harder than the last and then he let her fall to the floor. She tasted blood in her mouth as she hit the floor and she couldn't actually get her body to move. Her enhanced muscles had protected her as much as they could but the punishment was intense as he barraged her again and again with solid blocks of darkforce.

She could feel the bones snapping under the pressure they were being put under, her uniform clinging to her as blood escaped from open wounds and then he turned her over, looking directly in to her eyes.

"I haven't killed anyone with a pure darkforce blast in months," he said, and she was unable to answer, to push through the pain. "But after what you have done, it will be a pleasure." From his left hand an energy blast flashed towards her and she closed her eyes, but felt nothing. She opened them to see the Dragon Lord being pushed back by four different energy types, using his darkforce to shield himself, but it was still pushing him backwards.

"Changed the plan," said Pete, as the team pressed forward. He broke off his assault, and looked down to her. "Damn, you're a mess," he said. "Sorry, love." He looked back up at the Dragon Lord, who was gaining a second wind against the onslaught. Pete focused and around him dozens of hot knives formed around his body and fired straight at the enemy. This method gave him no directional control other than straight ahead, but that was all he needed and he launched them all and the Dragon Lord staggered once again. Then Maverick's charge gave out.

"Uh oh," said Pete, as North shook his head. He knew Raven was pushing himself too hard as well, and Siryn… Siryn had been using her scream one hell of a long time. It was curious, thought Pete, but the two of them alone weren't going to be enough, and the Dragon Lord was already recovering, though he seemed to be a lot slower and his control not as complete as it had been.

"Marcus?" he said, and Marcus scanned the thought in his head to break of the attack and find out the problem.

"He's not sure," he shouted, giving up his psionic assault as per Wisdom's mental instruction. Pete looked down to Lydia.

"Lyd?" he asked, not sure if she was aware of anything or if she was just too badly hurt. Then he could hear the roar behind him. "GET DOWN!" he shouted, throwing himself over Lydia to shield her as the Well of All Things exploded in a barrage of energy taking much of the palace of Madripoor with it.

After the dust cleared, Pete found himself pinned down. He could feel the blood trickling down his face and when he tried to move he couldn't. Lydia was unconscious and he didn't know if anyone else was still alive or not. He looked up, his vision limited.

"Guys?" he shouted hoarsely. "Anyone?"

"Do you know," said a pain-ravaged voice, "what you cost me? What you did?" Pete lifted his head up, the movement causing an intense pain and he saw Casseas standing there. He was as battered as the rest of them, but even with his powers at their usual level, he could teleport.

"Got a good idea," coughed Pete, spitting blood. "Fucked you up pretty bad."

"Not as bad as I'm about to fuck you up. And your woman." The darkforce crackled at his left hand and he fired at Pete's head only for the shot to be met by another energy blast.

"Today just isn't your day," said Maverick, who managed to pull himself up. The powers of the energy hitting him as well as the building falling on them had recharged his kinetic reserves, and the Left Hand met North's blast with his own darkforce, in a battle to see who would fall first. It was a battle Pete wouldn't have liked to wager on and he looked at Casseas, trying to free his arm from under Lydia's chest.

"Damn it, Lyd, not now," he muttered and pulled. She gave a moan and shifted and he was able to free himself. He pointed a finger at Casseas who was focusing on North and whispered. "Bang, you're dead." A hot knife fired from his fingertip, arcing across the distance and ploughed it to the man's upper arm, shearing through muscles and cleaving through bone. The powers failed and the arm flopped as Casseas gave a cry of anguish at not only the damage done, but at the impact of the kinetic blast that smashed in to him, sending him flying back and leaving him inert on the rubble of what was the Royal Palace of Madripoor.

"Good work, Davey," said Wisdom as his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he slipped in to the darkness.

Maverick sighed as he looked about and wondered if he could find a working telephone to call in the rest of SHIELD.