Gaia's shriek rang throughout the Astral Plane. The Shadow King slowly withdrew his tendrils from her face.

"Stop resisting me!" he screamed. "Surrender to me or Xavier will die!!"

"Sp-spare the other's, too," Gaia answered feebly.

The Shadow King paused for a moment. Then with a small evil chuckle he said, "Fine."

Gaia surrendered herself to the monster. His snaking tendrils reached out again and this time when they touched her, she vanished from sight.

"Wh-what have you done with her?" I demanded, my astral form still weakened from the battering the Shadow King gave me.

"She is safe in her little cage," he answered. "Soon I will begin the process of consuming her, body and spirit. I will break down the last of her resistence and then I will use her to assimilate all the people of the Earth, starting with the telepaths. Everyone will be my slave!! HA-HA-HA!"
"Wh-what about the other X-Men?" I asked.

"I will kill you all," he answered coldly.

"But you said you would let us go!"

"I lied," he answered, amid more maniacal laughter.

Suddenly I felt all sense of reality ripped from me as the weird twisting landscape dissolved into nothingness.

When I regained consciousness, I found that I was still in the Astral Plane. My arms and legs were chained psionically to the corners of some kind of giant 'X'. As I looked around I saw the other X-Men with me, all looking about as bad as I felt and all as helplessly chained as I was. Emma Frost was the first to speak.

"I hope you're happy, Charles," she said. "That was really a brilliant plan. I am amazed the X-Men have lasted this far with you at the helm."

"Aw, give the Professor a break," said Cyclops. "He couldn't have known about that nullifying gun."

"We haven't lost yet," I said defiantly. Or at least, I started to say that. I only managed to get out the "we haven't" part when my mind was violently assaulted. Waves of pain tore across my brain. To my surprise, I felt that it was Gaia who was attacking me. I realized that the Shadow King was holding her somewhere nearby, using her as a weapon against me. If he is able to merge with her, then he may very well be able to take over the whole planet.

As my pain subsided, the giant form of the Shadow King strode through the purple-greenish mists of the Astral Plane. He stopped in the middle of our semi-circle.

"And now my use for all of you is over," he announced. "The girl will soon be mine for all eternity."

"Pardon me, Shadow King?" Emma said.

"What is it!?" he yelled with wild anger.

I saw Emma glance over to her side but couldn't see what she was looking at. "I was wondering if you could hurry this up. I have promised my students that I would take them to see the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tomorrow in England, dear."

The heat of the Shadow King's rage wafted over us. He gave her an intense look and I could see the energy being drained from her body.

Finally, he turned to the rest of us and said, "I can feel your powers returning. I can't have that. I'm sure you understand. So now it is time for all of you to die!"

Wild bolts of radiant energy leapt from his fingers, lashing through all of us at once. The pain was incredible. I could feel the life being blasted out of my body.

And then the bolts stopped. The Shadow King looked down at his hands in confusion. His massive form started to shrink in size as his black armor dissolved. Soon there was just a naked fat Egyptian man standing in front of us. Our chains had melted away, too.

"I didn't think you were ever going to send the signal, Charles," said Magneto as he walked up to me. Shadow Cat and Leech were at his side. "I thought I was going to have to take over the school myself."

"Thank you for having the courtesy to wait until you could confirm my demise," I answered, walking to him and shaking his outstretched hand.

"B-but . . wh-what . .?" was all Amahl Farouk, the former Shadow King, managed to get out. The look of sheer bewilderment on his face almost made all of our trouble worth it.

"I had my own power nullifier," I told Amahl as I pointed to the little green boy. "I knew you had some way to remove our powers, though I didn't know what it was. I also knew you'd have a trap set at the portal entrance. That's why I sent the cannon fodder, er, the um, first wave of attack in separately. I waited a few moments and entered through my own means some distance away. I knew this would give me the opportunity to find out what you were up to. Then I just had to wait for the right moment to signal Magneto to begin our main assault. With Leech here, all your powers are gone too, including your ability to conjure up those green wraiths. Looks like you're outnumbered, Amahl. I'd say it's 'game over' for you."

"N-no! This isn't fair!!" he screamed, this time in a rather girly voice. "I am the master of all the world!!"

"No, you ain't, bub," said Wolverine. Gaia, running through the mists, reached our group just in time to see Wolverine pull back his fist and then smash Amahl across the face. The fat man collapsed into a motionless heap.

"So what do we do with him?" asked Gaia.

"Kill him!" shouted Wolverine.

"Actually, he's already dead," I told the group. "This bit of astral form is all that exists of Amahl. It is his sheer force of will that has kept him alive thus far."

Then, right before our eyes, Amahl Farouk's astral body started to dissolve. In mere moments he was completely gone.

"Alright everyone, back to the portal," I announced. "Let's get some tea and biscuits back at the mansion."

"Make it beer and chips and you got a date," said Wolverine.

"And you didn't want us to bring the boy back from the Vault," Magneto said to me with a sly wink.

"Don't be silly. He was a part of my plan all along," I replied with a smile as I rubbed Leech's bald head. Magneto gave me a very disbelieving sneer. I winked back.