Authors Note: This story is continued from Excalibur #8

Marcus Raven plummeted to the ground with no way of stopping his descent.

Whatever had happened on the Helicarrier had damaged the Armory unit somehow and now it was about as technologically capable as rock. His head pounded with the neural surge that had filled his head and his passengers were still screaming as they dropped down ever faster. This was no way for someone to die, he thought as he contemplates his options in the moments he had left. Then he felt something else.

A voice in his head, speaking to him, panicked yet reverent and he realised that he could hear Tsunami's voice, praying to the gods. Except she was still screaming and it was then he realised what it was. His psionic powers were back. Which meant these two would have their powers if they'd stop screaming. He didn't like to tell them, but he didn't like what he had to do to save their lives either.

He psionically invaded their minds and using Savitar's powers to generate heat and slow their descent as well as pounding a hole in the floor beneath them, at the same he used Leyu's abilities to manifest a pool of water in the hole and they hit the makeshift lake with an intense splash, the impact jarring through him as the armour shook.

However the pain said they were alive and that they all knew the Commando's had made a mistake.

"How dare you?" blazed Leyu as she climbed out of the water, soaked and dripping but her temper was as fierce as anything Savitar could create.

"Save your life?" muttered Raven as Savitar pulled the armour from the water.

"You used me," she continued. "I have never been so..." Raven was tired, he hurt and he was not in the mood for this. Above his head a circle of psionic energy flared and Leyu was silenced. Her mouth kept opening but no words came.

"What did you do?" asked Savitar.

"Ah shut off her connection to her vocal chords," said Raven. "Can you get me out of this thing? Systems are dead."

"Sure," said Neal and focused his flame around the armour being very careful to burn a hole in it without going through to hurt Raven. It stung and he would have some minor burns but he'd be able to move freely. The suit was ruined as a tool for this operation, but they could always rebuild it.

"So what do we do now?" asked Neal, noticing Leyu was still trying to talk but couldn't.

"Me?" asked Raven.

"You're the SHIELD agent," reminded Neal. "You're the man."

"Great," said Marcus. "The plan was to level the mountain complex. That's what we're going to do." Then he pause a moment, thinking he felt something out there, as if the very atmosphere itself had a personality, or at least it was trying to tell him something. "That's odd," he said, and the other two looked at him. "I read in your heads that Darkstar was shielding this place.

"Right," said Neal, and then he noticed the rays of light around them. "Something's wrong."

"Tsunami, go and help them and then I'll give you your voice back," said Raven, thinking how Wisdom or even Maverick would handle this. She nodded and was gone on the crest of a wave. She couldn't really argue, and Marcus looked at Neal. "Wanna help me make a molehill out of a mountain?"

"LIVE, DAMN YOU!" said Siryn as she stopped the compressions on Shadowcat's chest and then filled the young woman's lungs with air and then she felt the trace of air being returned to her and broke off, as Kitty coughed and spluttered, her eyes fluttering as she awoke. "Yes," said Terry.

"Thanks," said Kitty as she helped herself up from the floor. Every part of her body hurt from the explosion and she felt light-headed. She looked at her uniform and she could see the burn mark around the heart she knew that had been a close one. "I think I'm out of this fight."

"You might not get a choice," said Terry. "Hellios went out there to fight off the oncoming Commando's, and that was a few minutes ago."

"Great," said Kitty. "Got a gun?"

"No," said Terry.

"I do," said Maverick as he entered the room, dragging Hellios behind him. The Greek was unconscious, bruised and battered and just about clinging to life from what the women could tell. He was followed by Hauptmann, USAgent and Union Jack.

"What happened?" asked Kitty when the others didn't appear.

"Things went from bad to worse," said Maverick. "Marcus and the two Excalibur members went outside, then the Commando's got their edge back and started attacking us. They ones fighting our friend didn't expect us and we hit them hard, but right now we're it."

"We're dead, aren't we?" said USAgent.

"Not without giving them one hell of a headache," said Maverick, then he noticed the state Kitty was in. "You okay?"

"No," she admitted. "But I don't think that matters now, do you?"

A continent away, Pete Wisdom lay in the forest glade, and he knew he was dying. Jessica had really done a number on him, but she wasn't to blame for that. Now she was gone and he was alone. He'd always thought he was going to die alone, but he never figured it'd be like this. A sniper bullet, or killed in battle yes. To lie on the ground while your lungs slowly filled with blood.

He'd taken a lot of bad hits in his time, but there'd always been someone to back him up and take care of it. Not this time and he began to reflect on his life. How he missed his sister Romany, how annoyed he was that he couldn't have died after his dad and how Harold would never let him live it down. Pete smiled at that thought, and then his thoughts turned to the women in his life.

He thought of Kitty, allowing himself to remember properly abandoning the rose tinted glasses of how badly she'd done him by and focusing on the good times and his own actions which had been less than spectacular in that respect. However, if he knew his people right, X-Force would have spoken to her and they'd have decrypted the files and she'd know how bad he'd felt about it all. Then his thoughts turned to Lydia.

He was attracted to her, and she'd become someone he could rely on after they'd been pushed together thanks to a long hospital stay. He knew she was attracted to him as well, but of late they'd never had the right time to talk about it and now they never would. That was aggravating. He had wanted to arrange a mission with Fury to go in to Genosha and find her father, as well as scope out Magneto's people and give Terry a chance to talk with the former members of the old X-Force. That and the prospect of getting in to a rumble with them was also enticing. Of course, Fury was a traitor being controlled by the Shadow King, so that was also out of the question.

He gave a little cough and could taste the blood in the back of his throat. He shook his head, and closed his eyes.

"Well it's all right, riding around in the breeze. Well it's all right, if you live the life you please. Well it's all right, doing the best you can. Well it's all right, as long as you lend a hand," he whispered and wondered how long he had left.

"Longer than you think," said a voice and Pete opened his eyes.

"Hello Farouk," he said. "Bloody took you long enough."

"Where is she, Wisdom?"

"Can't find her?" replied the SHIELD agent with a cough. "Too bad. Hope you didn't hurt Zola too much."

"Enough to ensure he won't betray me again," said the Shadow King. "You don't know, do you?"

"Reading my mind?"

"Such as it is."

"Touché."

"You think you've won," said Farouk. "Nothing as simple. I condemn, you Peter Wisdom. I condemn you to live. Take him away!" Several Hydra operative picked Wisdom up, causing some pain to the man and he looked up at the mass of psionic energy above him.

"No host body?" said Wisdom.

"I'm marshalling my power," said Farouk. "There has been a rather... unexpected development." Then the Shadow King was gone, leaving Pete to wonder what the hell he meant by that and if he'd keep enough of his mind to ever find out.

Aboard the SHIELD Helicarrier, George Washington Bridge surveyed the wreckage of the Armory command station. The fires had been put out quickly and Horton's blackened corpse had been removed, but the place was a mess and he was outside of the loop as far as his people went. With Horton dead he wasn't sure if the Armory unit could be rebuilt here and he had to wonder what condition the suit was in.

What was worse was the fact that the battle in Greece had also seemed to turn, and against the forces of SHIELD. They were losing the war.

"Bridge!" said a voice and he turned to see Nick Fury standing there.

"Colonel," he said.

"What the hell happened here? This is a cluster foul-up of gigantic proportions! This place is wrecked, there's a great big hole in my Helicarrier and half the systems are on the fritz!"

"We underestimated them and overestimated ourselves," said Bridge. "We blew it, Nick. I'm sorry."

"You ain't the only one," said Fury. "However there's one thing we can do."

"What?" asked Bridge.

"Lock an' load," replied the SHIELD director. "We use HERMES to get down to Kalymnos."

"The darkforce barrier?" said Bridge, wondering what the hell he'd missed in the chaos of the explosion.

"Is in flux," said Fury. "No clue why, but there are gaps in the barrier, which is how the Commando's are suddenly so better organised."

"We're the rescue squad?"

"Nope," said Nick. "We're the finale. Our people there are either dead or dying. We can't hope to rescue them so it's no longer a plan. We destroy the mountain and bury everyone in it."

"Oh," said Bridge. It was disheartening to hear, but he knew that in the end every one of the agents were expendable in relation to saving the world.

"If they can get out, they will," said Fury. "If not, then we've already lost them. Let's go get some heavy equipment and get to work."

Lydia del Ruiz was waiting for the information promised to her by the Hellfire Club and she wondered what the price would be for this. Pete Wisdom had been willing to pay it, but he was dead and the debt was now hers. Even if he weren't dead then there would still be a price for her to pay.

"Damn it, Pete, why couldn't it have been easier?"

"Because Pete Wisdom was always his own man," said Meggan Braddock, who was behind her. "He did what he had to do, whatever the cost."

"Yeah," said Lydia. "I just miss him."

"So do we," said Meggan. "He hasn't visited in a long time. I hope you can find him alive."

"Yes," said Lydia, and looked at the news reports on the screens. BBC News 24 had scenes from Greece showing the conflict between SHIELD and the Death's Head Commandos. The scenes horrified her, but seeing as how she was technically inactive, then there was nothing she could have done anyway but sit aboard the Helicarrier in the X-Force office.

"Ahem." Lydia turned to see Joseph Chapman behind her holding a very large file of notes as well as a briefcase. "The information," he said. "The file contains a brief summary, addressed to either yourself or on of the X-Force team and the case contains DVD-Roms of evidence. It makes for intriguing reading."

"You looked at it?" said Lydia.

"I admit the encryption was quite difficult to break," said Chapman, "however the Inner Circle is not without resources. However, how you will utilise this information remains to be seen. It is quite damning and you and your people are to be commended on such outstanding work."

"Where's Brian?" asked Meggan.

"Lord Braddock is on a conference call with the Home Office," said Chapman. "Apparently there has been some developments he needed to hear about."

"Thank you," said Lydia as she accepted the file and the case.

"I wouldn't," said Chapman. "You owe the Hellfire Club a great deal for this, Miss del Ruiz, and we will collect the debt. Not now, but at some point. Enjoy the rest of the party, Miss del Ruiz. Lady Braddock." Chapman turned and walked away, and Lydia wondered however someone who was supposed to be a hero like Union Jack had become such a cold and arrogant bastard. One man would know the answers - if they could find him.

"I'll go find Brian," said Meggan and Lydia nodded and opened the front cover of the file. There were a good few hundred pages to this and she knew she held in her hands the biggest piece of history since the Watergate tapes. She started to skim read sections as she turned the pages and she got the gist of it all. The evidence was conclusive. The traitor in SHIELD was Nick Fury. There was no mention of the Shadow King from what she read, and that was something they would never be able to prove.

After all that didn't help Wolverine much.

She closed the file and sighed. Her mouth was dry and she couldn't believe that after all their work, after all the searching and actions by the team and what they'd lost and gained in the process, that they had the Grail. She needed to get it to SHIELD and right away and prevent anything else from happening.

Then Brian entered the room.

"Lydia," he said and she looked at him. "We need to talk."

The Shadow King was surprised at himself.

In theory he should have been aware of this from the start, but then again he had been stretching himself hard over the last few months, turning Hydra in to a force to be reckoned with, manipulating the forces of SHIELD, as well as various other works across the world to ensure his plans gathered pace.

He also suspected that his enemy had been drawing energy from him in the process and because he was spread so thinly in his many host bodies he had not noticed. How else had Arnim Zola managed to perform his act of sabotage under his nose? However he knew that soon he would have what he needed to gain a full measure of power and that once in place his control would be absolute.

And yet this lack of awareness concerned him, which was why he was pulling his control of many of his subordinates. Hydra would be under the control of Viper for the time being, for if he endured this battle he would need to rest for the next trial. It galled him that the other global forces would be able to enact their plans without his prevention and he had to place his faith in the fact that the heroes of the world would often win.

If only they knew what he knew, they would strike now but there was no way he could tell them without compromising himself and so he would leave it. Right now he only needed one host body to get in close to the Supreme Commando and engage in a psionic war. Fury and Bridge would be the perfect decoys, as they were dressed in psionic blockers, which prevented their detection by telepathy and empathy. It was a variation of the ones created for the Muir Isle event. How well he remembered that one and how much it had taken to recover from that. He would have killed Xavier if it were not for the destruction of the Nexus and his power source.

Much had changed since then. He had regained his powers, and now both Xavier and Legion were gone. The enemy, in a way that had damaged the X-Men more than he could have imagined, had taken Jean Grey and Psylocke was not the woman she had been. He smiled thinking how much of his taint lingered in her soul after she had shut him down and trapped him within her mind. All his psionic foes but one were gone and now this one would be next. He had learnt much and gained a great deal of power from the psionic hatred that fuelled the world.

There was an increase in villainous activity, which had increased global violence, and his actions for the World Trade Center tragedy had increased the pain of the world. He had gathered that power and was ready to use it in this fight. It seemed unfortunate to use it all now, but he did not have a choice and his enemy was playing in to his hands.

He watched through Fury's eyes as both he and Bridge arrived on Kalymnos and before them were Raven and Savitar. Raven was keeping the Commando's distracted with his psionic powers, which he could tell was helping the heroes in the complex below and Savitar was blasting the mountain with his powers, increasing the heat within the place and making life uncomfortable for all inside.

None of the people suspected what was truly going on.

"Change of plan," he said through Fury. "We're goin' to get our people out."

"But you said..." started Bridge.

"I know, I know, but I've an idea. Raven's keeping the Commando's disorientated to help our people and if Savitar can get the heat up in there the lights should shatter, giving our people their powers back."

"What do we do?" asked Bridge and the Shadow king could tell this made him happy and therefore he wouldn't argue.

"I'm bettin' that the Supreme Commando's got too much to deal with directin' the battle in Greece. You get the injured out, I'll find him and deal with him."

"You guys do this?" asked Bridge of the two mutants.

"Sure," said Raven, "but don't take too long over it. I ain't 100%."

"Excellent," said the Shadow King. "Let's go."

The Supreme Commando was ready for SHIELD to level the mountain. They were doing well and the framework of the complex would not take much more of this punishment, however he was ready for what was coming. His people were on the verge of routing the SHIELD forces in Greece, the mutants below were soon to be overwhelmed for their weapons were finite and their enemy was not and all the pieces were in place.

He had failed in his previous attempts and he had taken time to marshal his strength. He had used his vast knowledge of genetics and the ideas of his former student to gift the Commando armies with psionic powers and the experiments he had gotten the scientists to perform had given him the data he needed to splice the psionic warriors with physical gifts and he would create a force of Infinites - based on mutant and alien DNA patterns.

He had thought to rule the world, then destroy it. Instead he would control it, he would subjugate the population and take to the stars.

"Finally," said a voice in his mind, "we meet."

"What?" he said and turned to see a flatscan standing before him. A flatscan he knew as Nick Fury. "Foolish human, you do not know my power."

"Really?" said the Shadow King; amused that his foe could not defeat the technological barrier, seeing as it was based on a device he had created. "You're pathetic attempts at deception have been apparent. A war against Hydra, the easy manipulation of the genetics of homo-superior, a way of counteracting their abilities using alien technologies, and finally your thoughts."

"You are not Fury."

"You always were a fool. You took my ideas and used them. You were a pale copy of me, always were and always will be."

"Farouk." The Commando at last recognised his enemy. "You are ahead of schedule."

"I decided not to wait." The psionic blocker suddenly ceased to work but the Shadow King had been ready for this and fired his guns at the Supreme Commando and removing the host body. In to the air floated a being of psionic energy, glowing with power.

"I will defeat you once and for all Farouk. This will be our final battle."

"I have fought you as both Xavier and Magnus and you have never truly bested me." The Shadow King left his host body and Fury collapsed to the floor.

"The combined might of the heroes of this planet could not stop me, you will prove no trouble."

"Really?" said Farouk. "You have been forced to act through technology, through armies. I don't believe you have fully recovered from your last manifestation."

"You are wrong."

"Then we will soon find out enough, Onslaught."

To be continued in Excalibur #9