Elisabeth Braddock writhed in torment as she felt the weight pressing down on her. Sebastian Shaw's hot, ragged breaths beat down on her face, a stark contrast to the cool breeze that wafted between her legs, prised open by the strength of Shaw and she was unable to resist, his hands tearing at the leggings of her jump-suit. Her legs were open, inviting entry and she knew that was what would be thrust upon her...thrust in to her.

This was not like anything she had ever experienced before. Even in her experiments with Pete. She readily admitted it. She liked it rough. For that gave it a dangerous edge that she craved with all her soul, but when all was said and done, they both loved and cared for each other and both of them knew how far was too far. This was neither love, nor care. This was lust fuelled by anger and suddenly she was with a man who knew no such thing as too far.

She could hear the fabric tearing away, his fingernails scraping the skin below her panties as they worked their way underneath them, causing her pain as they drew blood but she would not cry out, as the scratches grew longer. She could feel him pushing the thin fabric away from the bridge of her legs, giving him the access to her genitalia that he was going for. The air was cold on her naked skin, brushing through her pubic hairs, as little more than a whisper, but it was enough to raise the goose bumps on her skin, though not from the cold but the fear of what was to come.

"No," she said again, the tremor in her voice more evident now as her fears were slowly being realised as she felt him pressing on her thigh, edging up towards her waiting cheeks. If he wanted he could take her quickly, but he was doing this slowly to torment her. However he did not answer her plea.

"Please," she begged almost a whisper, "don't."

"Feel free to cry out," he sneered as he approached his target, and Elisabeth closed her eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks as she braced herself for the forced violation and in the darkness the Shadow King laughed.

Elsewhere in the Savage Land, Pete Wisdom - unaware of what was happening to his lover - was engaged in a battle for his life with Ka-Zar, the lieutenant of the man they had come to get the 'Children of the Atom' from. Ka-Zar was a mutate. He had been altered, turned in to a creature akin to a humanoid version of a sabretooth tiger. Pete knew of the assassin 'Sabretooth', but this creature here was much closer to the animal Victor Creed had chosen as his namesake.

To Pete this was not just a matter of his survival, for every moment he spent with this clown, Shirohana was not breathing. Something was seriously wrong with her and he didn't have time for this. There were two main problems. First Ka-Zar was bigger, faster and stronger than he was, with razor sharp claws instead of hands. The second was that Pete had spent a long time in a dark cave and his powers weren't up to their proper level. They were charging slowly but there wasn't too much he could do here. It didn't look good, and he knew it.

"Come on," demanded Ka-Zar as he danced around his prey. "You can do better than this." Pete didn't answer; he was concentrating on staying alive. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"

Pete stayed silent though he dearly wanted to shove the words down Ka-Zar's throat. Except at the moment he was little more than a flatscan with some fancy street fighting moves and this was an enhanced savage animal. His clothes were shredded and his skin was bleeding from various different cuts and he knew unless he came up with something and quickly he was going to die. Which meant Shirohana would die. Which meant Beth and Shaw would die. None of those were an option, and Pete knew there was a way out of this...there just had to be. As he ignored Ka-Zar's latest jibe, he suddenly had a flash of inspiration and for a moment he knew what he was going to do and then something happened he didn't expect, could never have expected. A psionic jolt of horror, disgust and fear forced him to his knees with its intensity and Wisdom cried out.

"ELISABETH!"

"Ah!" cried out Elisabeth in pain as Shaw penetrated her, and her psionic cry of anguish came from the depths of her soul, calling out to Pete for help. With her powers dampened by the Shadow King it had no effect on Shaw, but Pete would know, Pete would come, but she knew now he would be too late to prevent her from being raped. There was nobody who could help her, and then the pain stopped in its intensity, leaving only the hurt of the injury inflicted on her.

"Get off my sister!" cried Jamie stepping from the shadows that had hidden him. His eyes glinted in the half-light as Shaw struggled in the air, held aloft by Jamie's reality warping powers as their prison melted around them.

"Jamie?" whispered Elisabeth, seeing her brother alive for the first time in many years. This was not exactly the touching reunion she had been expecting, but it was a welcome one nonetheless.

"God in heaven," said Shaw as he realised who and what he faced here.

"Not even close," Jamie answered and reached his hand out in front of Shaw and made a 'S' in the air. Shaw started to scream as he began to turn to stone before them, but never got to finish his cry, for in a second it was over and he was a statue. Jamie dropped the block of granite to the floor where it shattered and he turned to his sister.

"I thought you were dead," he said, as he helped her up from the floor.

"Jamie," she said, forgetting her semi-nakedness in her joy at seeing her brother, and then the horror of the moment came back to her. "Oh, Jamie," she sobbed, holding on to him and the tears flowing from her eyes.

"There," he said, holding her as gently as possible, knowing how fragile she was and his fingers twitched, altering reality once more so that her wounds were healed, her clothes repaired and that the physical damage was gone, but he knew that the mental damage remained. Then he released her.

"No," he moaned, grabbing his head. "Please, master, no!"

"Jamie!" she cried and pushed her own discomfort aside, trying to reach his mind with their link as brother and sister but only getting a vague impression the man. "Jamie what is it?"

"You should really be asking whom, my dear," said Garokk appearing before her.

"Let go of my brother, Farouk!" she cried out at the man currently possessed by the Shadow King.

"He goes too far in his task," sneered the Shadow King. "He has done what I knew he would do when Shaw did what he did. I thought I would have to command him to do it, but he only needed a slight push."

"No," she whispered, her defiance gone and the tears returning to her eyes. "You did this to me?"

"Oh yes," he said, as he caressed her cheek. "It is just the first step to breaking you, my soon to be concubine."

"Oh God," she said, stepping back.

"Sebastian was just the first of many who will take you, break down your defences, sap your very will, drain your soul." As he spoke Jamie stood, his face blank and he gestured so that she was now totally naked and her arms and legs manacled to the wall. "And soon, you and your brother will be come closer than you ever dared dream."

"Jamie," she pleaded as he walked closer towards her.

"As my next host body, he belongs to me," said the Shadow King as Jamie kissed her, and his hand rubbing on her inner thigh. "And, now, so do you."

"What has that scab done to you," muttered Pete, as the psi flash faded as quickly as it had came.

"Worry less about your girlfriend," said Ka-Zar, pouncing on his prey. "And more about yourself." His clawed hand grabbed Wisdom by the throat and pinned him down. "Oh, too late," he grinned, his fangs showing.

"Do it," said Pete, looking up in to the blood crazed eyes that towered over him.

"Got a better idea," said Ka-Zar, his tongue brushing over his teeth. "Y'see, I just worked up an appetite." His teeth clamped down on Pete's shoulder and Pete cried out as they tore through the fragile body, ripping off a tiny piece, which he chewed the meat off and spat out the fragments of bone. "But not all at once. I like to savour my meal."

"Kitty wanna play?" came a voice from behind them, and Ka-Zar looked up. He'd not sensed anyone, there were no scents in the air nor had he heard movements

"What the hell?" he asked and then a creature formed from the soil around them. "Krakoa?"

"Not even close, Kitty," the creature said and vines shot out from the ground, pulling Ka-Zar off of Pete. The vines hoisted him up in the air from a giant tree then looped around his neck. Ka-Zar's eyes went wide as he hung from the impromptu noose, and he struggled to be free, and sliced away the vines. Then he realised his error as he fell, and he wondered if he could survive. As spikes rose from the floor beneath him, he knew he would not and he closed his eyes as he was impaled and his body torn to shreds.

"Pete! Are you okay," said the creature, slowly lifting him upright.

"Shiro?" asked Pete, recognising the voice. "But you're dead."

"No," she said. "Krakoa is the Savage Land, and by touching him I replicated his powers. Except I seem to have left my real body."

"What about Krakoa?" asked Pete. "Where is he?"

"He was coming for me but he's gone in the other direction now," she said. "So we don't have much time." The ground behind Pete rolled, bringing the inert body of Pale Flower out as he used what little power he had gained from the sunlight to activate his hot knives and cauterise the shoulder wound.

"Let's go get the others," she said.

"You know where they are?" Pete asked, still unable to forget what Shaw was doing to Elisabeth. Shirohana nodded. "Then get me there. Now."

Shirohana didn't know why there was so much urgency in his voice, but she nodded and she absorbed the two human forms in to her body. The she was absorbed back in to the ground and carried them on her way to where she somehow knew they were being held.

"So you thought that you could hide from me, Farouk?" echoed a voice around the cave, to the surprise of everyone.

"Impossible!" said the Shadow King, fear showing in the eyes of Garokk. "It cannot be."

"When last we fought, we were as equals and I only just managed to best you," the voice continued. "You were supposed to have died then, but you did not. I will rectify that mistake." Before them a figure manifested itself and Elisabeth recognised him as their employer, the man who had sent them after the Children of the Atom.

"The Doctor?" she asked.

"Clever," said the Shadow King. "Except I see you as you really are...Onslaught!"

{Your shielding is very good, Farouk,} said Onslaught. {It kept me from finding you for many years. But the attack on Miss Braddock was a mistake. She gave out a psionic cry, which I was waiting for. Your foolishness gave you away, 'Shadow King', and now we will battle for the final time.}

"I have the Children of the Atom," said the Shadow King. "And you will never keep them." Jamie gestured and the Doctor took solid form and shape as Onslaught himself. "I think that it is you who are the fool, old friend."

{Such power,} said Onslaught. {However I have planned this from the start.} The chains around Elisabeth snapped and suddenly her mind was free. {You have the power to release your brother. Do so.} She nodded and then abandoned her body to confront her brother within his mind and break the shackles that held him to the Shadow King. Suddenly Onslaught's body was pinned to the rocks around them.

"Another mistake, Onslaught. Meet Krakoa," said the Shadow King. "As he destroys your body, I will destroy your mind." With that the astral plane echoed with the battle between the two most powerful psions on the planet.

Garokk shook his head as the Shadow King departed his body, but the vestiges of his presence still remained, and he knew that female Braddock had to die, for if she freed her brother the battle would be over. He was the Sun God of the Savage Land and he would use one of his optic blasts of pure solar energy to fry her where she stood. Outside of her body she was defenceless and he fired.

"I don't think so," said Pete, standing in the way of the blast, appearing as if from nowhere. The blast struck him and forced him to the floor, his clothing burned and his body scorched.

"You live?" asked Garokk, stunned at what had happened.

"Yup," said Pete. "Thanks for the recharge, though." Then Onslaught's body was released as a great roar echoed around them. "Uh oh," said Pete, as the place began to reform around them.

"Pete, get out of here," said Shirohana as Krakoa took form. "This is a battle you can't win."

"Nowhere to go, Shiro," he said as Krakoa and Pale Flower began their fight for control of the Savage Land. He was barely aware of Garokk when the Sun-God fired another blast at him, which Pete met with his hot knives. The energies met and neither gave ground. It was a battle of wills to see who won first.

{Jamie?} said Elisabeth. {Jamie, do you hear me? Please answer.}

{Elisabeth?} came the reply, faint but distinct to her. {Help me, Elisabeth}

{What can I do?} she asked running through the empty landscape that was his trapped mind.

{Free me. I don't have the power or strength. The Shadow King is too powerful.}

{I can't stop him. Without Onslaught I wouldn't even be able to do this.}

{Please. I'm so afraid of losing you again.}

{Not going to happen.} she swore. {You're my brother, I love you --} There was a flash of colour on the landscape and Elisabeth could see where the power to freeing Jamie laid. It was the love they shared as brother and sister; combined they were a match for the Shadow King. She surrendered herself mind and soul to her brother's mind, merging with it, and becoming one with it. The symbiosis of their minds met the blocks put there by the Shadow King and the blocks began to break down as the power of the siblings met it and matched it.

Jamie saw Elisabeth's true power, a potential she had repressed over her guilt at the loss of her brothers, a guilt now released as she saw that he did not blame her and her raw psionic power freed his own potential that the Shadow King had kept from him for in doing so he would have lost control over him. The two of them were almost forces of nature and they could not be reined in so easily. The blocks broke down, their minds separated and in their own way, they were both free.

On the astral plane, the ultimate in psionic battles raged between two old enemies who had changed much since their original encounter, both had grown, both had learnt much in the years that separated encounters and now it uncertain as to who would win in terms of raw power.

{This moment has been prepared for, Onslaught.} said the Shadow King. {You cannot defeat me the same way twice.}

{How right you are.} replied Onslaught as the psionic weapons smashed and parried against each other. {I have prepared for this moment.} and they both felt the Shadow King's psionic hold on James Braddock falter and break.

{NO!} cried the Shadow King as the feedback staggered him, weakened him momentarily. It was a moment that Onslaught used to his advantage.

{This little game...} he announced {...is over!} The Shadow King felt Onslaught's psionic blade cut in to him and he felt himself being drained.

{What are you doing to me?}

{Absorbing you in to myself, making your powers my powers.}

{NOOOOOOOOO!!!} cried the Shadow King as he faded away to nothingness. His powers were all that sustained him and this time he would not be coming back.

{The King is dead,} said Onslaught. {Long live the King!}

Garokk felt the Shadow King die in his mind and as that death sent his body in to paralysis at the psychic shock. His eye beams stopped, and Pete's hot knives were no longer blocked and surged forward in to Garokk's head as the sun-god fell forward. Pete's hot knives fizzled out and he looked at he dead man, holes cut through the man's skull, cauterising the various tissues as they went.

"That had to hurt," said Pete and turned to see Elisabeth coming round. "Beth!" he said, racing to her side. "Oh, God."

"I'm fine, Pete," she said, though the look in her eyes told a different story.

"Where's Shaw?" he snarled. "I want a piece of him."

"Here," she said, and tossed him a stone from the floor. "That's his right index finger."

"Huh," said Pete as he caught it. Jamie had also awoken and seen the devastation being wrought around them.

"Let's get out of here," he said as he gestured, taking hold of the three of them and the inert form of Pale Flower.

"How?" asked Pete, but by the time he'd finished the words they were safely away. "Never mind. You must be Jim," and Elisabeth smiled.

"Pete, this is Jamie, my brother. Jamie, this is Pete, my lover." The two men shook hands. "Where's Shirohana?" she asked.

"In there," said Pete. "Fighting the island."

{I cannot allow that,} came a voice as Onslaught appeared before them. {You have done well, Hellfire but your usefulness is at an end.} Elisabeth and Pete found themselves held in a magnetic grip. {You two shall not die, but your other member is a different story. She will die in my service - there is no greater honour.}

Onslaught focused himself and seized control of Garokk, using his powers to amplify those of the living landscape and Shirohana was cast back in to her own body, her battle lost.

{At last, I have the Children of the Atom,} declared Onslaught and the ground swallowed Jamie and him up.

"Jamie!" cried Elisabeth as the magnetic force that held the two of them faded, but Onslaught, Jamie and Krakoa were gone.

"Beth," said Pete, softly. "Shiro."

"Oh, no," she said as she used her telepathy to scan her friend. "The shock of being forced back in to her body - it's devastated her mind. I'm trying to keep it together, but I don't know how long I can hold it."

"It isn't over yet," said Shiro, softly. "Onslaught took them back to his island. You can get to them there."

"How?" said Pete, taking her hand.

"I can still muster enough power to take us as Krakoa took the others. He is linked to the planet and through it, I am to him."

"You'll die," said Pete.

"I'm already dying," she said. "My mind is breaking down. Elisabeth?"

"Yes?" she answered, knowing what was about to be said.

"I..." she whispered to her and Elisabeth nodded.

"I know," she said. "Close your eyes." Shirohana did so and formed a bubble around them and began to take them to Onslaught Island, pushing her powers and will to live to the limit. While she did so, Elisabeth knelt beside her, lifted her upper body up and pressed her lips on Shirohana's. Shirohana responded her embrace and their tongues briefly touched and Elisabeth felt the tremble go down Shiro's body as they kissed.

They arrived at their destination and Shiro's body went limp in Elisabeth's arms.

"She's gone," she said to Pete.

"What did she say to you?" asked Pete, who'd watched in stunned silence.

"She told me how much she loved me," she answered softly, "and I gave her what she needed to die happy." A tear rolled down her cheek.

"God, I love you," said Pete as he hugged her.

"I know," she answered. "Now let's go find my brother."