This is Xavier's brain, this is Xavier's brain on the floor, any questions?

I saw Professor Xavier’s brain fly through the air as I crashed to the deck of Nemonok’s ship. I felt the agony of defeat as gooey brain matter splattered all over. The walls, the deck, on the furniture, on Wolverine. It was a mess and I felt defeated in a way that I had never felt before.

Nemonok, still affected by the neural attack laughed giddily.

“You have failed to rescue your precious Xavier, you sillies! Evil will always win because good is clumsy!”

Then a most unusual feeling came over me. Something like my underwear being turned inside out with me still wearing it, but not quite. Something kind of like being a 7-year-old child and having an ice cream cone taken away, but not quite. Something like trying to swim up a current with a cinderblock tied to my ankle, but again not quite. It felt kind of like going back in time between 10 and 15 seconds, but that didn’t seem right, either.

Captain Koma shouted “Stop!”

“What the hell is it?” I shouted while holding up the brain pan with Xavier’s brain in it. “Are you trying to make me drop the Professor?”

“Ha! Just the opposite, actually!” he called out triumphantly. “It’s a good thing Nemonok has an Omega 13 installed.”

“An Omega 13?”

“It’s a device that sends everything back 13 seconds,” Koma explained.

“Well of course, I know that,” I replied quickly. “Still, 13 seconds? That’s not much.”

“It’s enough to redeem a single mistake,” answered Koma with a smirk. “Such as splattering Xavier’s brains all over the deck. Now let's go.”

“Thirteen seconds back into the past?” Wolverine stepped towards us while scratching the top of his head. “Big deal.”

“Well, it’s a pretty good defensive measure,” I replied. “You wind up firing at someone who won’t be there for another 13 seconds. There’s a certain element of surprise to it.”

“Yeah, well 13 seconds still ain’t a whole flamin’ lot, I’m sayin,” Wolverine harrumphed.

“Yes, well it was just enough to save my life,” Xavier’s brain called out.

“Charles, is that you?” Emma Frost asked.

“Yes, I am of course communicating to everyone psionically as I now lack a mouth to speak,” he answered. “Thank you for this daring rescue and thank you Captain Koma for preventing this clumsy oaf from dropping me.”

“Hey!”

“Ha ha ha ha! You still haven’t won, fools!” Nemonok’s brain tank careened past us. “I’m going to get all my evil psychiatrist friends together and we’ll make a band and then we’ll show you what evil’s all about! I’ll play the bongos, Dr. Membranos will bring the nachos, it'll be a cool time.”

Nemonok’s brain tank continued to spin out of control until it slammed into a computer terminal. Sparks flew and gurgling noises erupted.

“Wow, man what a ride.”

“This still isn’t over!” Nemonok’s main squeeze Gun Nut popped out of the shadows with a heavy blaster in hand.

“For you it is!” Chroma replied and sent the mohawked assasin sprawling to the ground with a steel-handed punch.

“And on that note, let’s go,” Koma smirked. He thumbed the controls of his teleporter and we instantly found ourselves back on board the Shi’Ar ship. Medical technicians rushed up and grabbed the Professor’s brain and body and hurried off with Koma rushing after them followed by Chroma and Emma Frost.

That left the rest of us with nothing really to do, Iceman and I looked at each other and shrugged.

“Now what?” Wolverine grunted impatiently.

I casually wandered off towards a gunner’s station and listened in on the operator’s conversation.

“Station Four reporting. I still have a weapon’s lock on the enemy vessel. The vessel is not moving.”

“Do not fire,” a voice crackled over the comm back to him. “That ship is still disabled and the Queen will not allow an intergalactic incident.”

“All loaded up and no place to go, huh?” I asked offhandedly.

“Pfft, yeah,” the gunner grumbled. “I got the thing dead to rights. And you just know that if they get an ounceling of power back, they’ll just go straight back to stealth mode and disappear.”

“Yeah, that’s what they always do, all right,” I chuckled. “This looks a lot like the M5 Powertron Pulse Cannon I used to shoot back in the ol’ space navy days. Pretty sweet.”

“Yeah, well it’s been quite a few years since we’ve had the M5’s,” he answered. “This thing’s got a heavier wattage + damage ratio, low dispersal rate, and a better cycling and cooling system.”

“Cool,” I replied with just a little awe. “And this readout shows your target lock?”

“Uh huh,” He nodded.

“And this is the fire button, right?”

“Yeah, but you don’t want to press that,” he replied quickly. “You know, Commander’s orders and all.”

“Oh yeah, you wouldn’t want to fire…” I said.

Quickly before he could stop me, I slammed my hand on the firing button. A blast of powerful energy lanced across space and slammed full into Nemonok’s ship. It instantly erupted into a ball of flame.

“…But I would,” I grinned.