This competiton is brutal. I just spent the last two hours trying to scrub Monkeyboy fur off my body. That stuff just gets everywhere. Perhaps I should have seen if Dark Jedi Kriss could help me with some Force power. Ah well.

Finally feeling human again, I was about to settle in for the night when a crack of electricity had filled the room followed very closely by dread filling my heart. I had been trying to ignore Mephisto's threats to destroy me and the X-Men if I didn't deliver him Jon's soul, that maybe he would just give up if he saw I wasn't going to play his game, but apparently it was not meant to be.

The Dark Lord stood before me. "You have failed me for the last time, Professor," he snarled.

"I will never do your dirty work, Evil One. Why don't you just go back to whatever hole you crawled out of and leave me alone."

"Bah! None my defy my will and live! Now you die!!"

And with that he raised his arms at me. Searing fire flew from his fingertips.

I dove out of my chair, crashing to the floor just under the jets of flame. I fired back a psionic force bolt, hoping to stun him, but his otherworldly shielding was strong. He resisted my attack and with a strange gesture of his hand, lifted me off the floor without actually touching me.

Floating helplessly in the air, I could do nothing as he started spinning me around. Faster and faster I went, getting dizzy to the point that I thought I was going to pass out. And then I did.