There was something wrong with his ears-she not only sounded far away,but slightly muffled,the howl of the vortices barely audible,just a pinprick of white noise at the threshold of his hearing.

He felt funny too.There was no pain,but he felt a bit like a live wire,energy coursing through his veins like blood, and he felt strangely...light?Was that the word he wanted?

He felt Jean touch his face,heard her say his name again,adding,"Can you hear me?"

He wanted to say yes,but wasn't quite up to that level yet.In fact,he wasn't quite sure how his mouth or his eyes worked.What the hell hit him?

"Bob,"he heard Helga say,also distant."Hey,old man,come on.No time to be a lazy asshole."

Was he hit too?Shit.

He then noticed a more familiar noise,and heard a frustrated Scott say,"Nothing.I can't punch through."Punch through what?

"I'm goin' for him,"Rogue said.

"No you are not,"Jean immediately replied.

"Only-"One Sister said.

"-Bob-"said the other.

"-can get-"

"-through if-"

"-we're lucky."

"Yeah,well,it doesn't look like he's up to it right now,"Scott replied impatiently.He then hissed,"Where the hell is Amaranth?"

"Even-"

"-a-"

"-powerful witch-"

"-is no-"

"-match for a-"

"-god.
"
"But Bob is?"He replied incredulously."You aren't seriously implying he's a god,are you?"

"If-"

"-he-"

"-was he'd-"

"-be a-"

"-complete dick."

Logan wished he could laugh.Hadn't Bob told him that himself?

"So is that a yes or a no?"Scott asked.Score one for the one eyed guy.

Logan noticed a bright blue light seeping through his eyelids,which made him wonder what was going on.He didn't think he'd been out long-although he wasn't completely sure-but it seemed things had gotten even worse in that short span of time.Well,at least their luck was holding to its usual level.

He managed to remember how to open his eyes,and the air around him was a bizarre sight;veins of dull crimson hung in the air like spiderwebs of light,unreality bleeding into reality,while bright blue white accretion disks were becoming visible around at least a half dozen vortices surrounding the white lit Crayax.He could see the light surrounded Crayax like an oversized shroud,the hairline fractures of dimensional cracks rising high enough to 'protect' Volta,still on his far rock ledge.Scott was never able to hit him,which suggested he had his own protection spell in play.The ground was starting to tremble,but he didn't think that was Storm's doing,or even Amaranth trying to put a physical hole in the side of the cavern.

Helga looked down at him,and grimaced impatiently."Well,finally.I thought you were gonna sleep through it."

"Since when would I miss I pointless fight?"He asked,wondering what had become of Jean.

Helga stared at him strangely,not quite doing a double take but almost."Bob?"She asked doubtfully.

"Stop fucking around,Helga-this is no time for jokes,"he said,sitting up-

-and seeing himself across the cavern,partially cradled in Jean's arms.

What the hell..?

It was him all right-he knew his clothes and his generally unfortunate hair anywhere-face blood spattered and slack with unconsciousness.Jean knelt behind him,and he was partially propped up on her folded knees,one hand on the side of his face as if keeping his head upright.

He'd heard of so called 'out of body' experiences,but weren't you supposed to be dead then?He looked down at his hands-yes,he had hands-and noticed he was wearing a gold ring on his right index finger.He didn't wear a ring... but Bob did.

No fucking way.

He tried to pop his claws,and just made a muscle in his forearm twitch.

"What happened to your accent?"Rogue asked.Him?

"Oh,holy fucking shit,"Helga cursed.

Logan looked at himself again,and wondered if somehow he and Bob switched places.Well,that was totally fucking nuts.Maybe Volta had done something so he would think they had..?Did that make any more sense?

"What now?"Scott asked.He was just beyond Jean and...him?Bob?..and since he was now facing Helga it was hard to tell what he had been doing before-

-but just looking at him caused a litany of thoughts to flood his mind.

'-insanitytheprofessortrustshimbutcanwebelievehesnotbeinginfluenced insomewaybythiscretinIbethesnotevenaustralianiveheardbadcommediansdobetteraccents-'

Logan shook his head and closed his eyes,trying to banish that,and it seemed to shut it off,at least for the moment. What the hell was that?It sounded like Scott talking,but it clearly wasn't.Telepathy?Was that telepathy?

But Bob always claimed he wasn't a telepath-the Weird Sisters said he was better.

Better...no,that wasn't telepathy,because didn't you have to want to read people to do it?Bob had no choice;people were open books to him because he could not shut off their thoughts without intervening in some way.Ah shit. That meant every thought he had around Bob he heard.But hadn't he sort of figured that anyways?

Bob had to have some way of filtering this,regulating it so he didn't go mad,and since he obviously retained some of his abilities in spite of the body switch or whatever the hell it was,he tried to will it to kick in.

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes once more.Jean was looking at him now,concerned."Are you all right?" She asked.

He didn't get a litany from her,but he sensed a sort of power there,not much but enough to know she was a telepath,and if he got much closer to her mind he would hurt her.In Bob terms,"blow out the speakers",and he got an idea of how correct he was.Jean was like a candle flame to this sort of raging inferno he felt not only in his mind but his entire body.

He felt like he was standing back in his mind-well,this mind-and he figured the filter must have kicked in,because rather than an overwhelming litany where the information came too fast to make sense of it,he got a bigger picture on a short time delay.

For one thing,Jean did not like Bob;she didn't trust him because she felt he was hiding something-several somethings-and was possibly using Logan in a way she had been unable to determine.Also there was the fact that he seemed to know Helga was sleeping with him too and didn't care,which was morally suspect at best.

But Bob had harmed no one,as far as she knew,and therefore she didn't outright hate him,just disliked him."I think so,"he replied, trying not to react from what he was picking up from her-he felt like an eavesdropper."How's...he?"

He didn't think he should call him Logan since he was Logan...he thought.Oh man,this was so confusing.

Jean looked down at his-Logan's-face,and frowned.The concern coming from her was almost palpable.She hated to see him hurt,and he seemed to get hurt so much."Well,he's breathing,and his injuries have mostly healed,but that's almost always true for him,"she replied,gently cupping his face.It was then he realized she was thinking how many regrets she'd have if he died;she was sure there was a kernel of a good man in there somewhere-no,in fact,she knew it.It came out all wrong sometimes,distorted through a filter of anger and suspicion,but no one who would be willing to die to save someone else was anything less than an exemplary human being.She sometimes wondered,if she wasn't with Scott,what it would be like to kiss him,to make love with him,what it would feel like to be held by arms that strong,what it would be like not to have to control yourself so tightly all the time-

-she interrupted her own train of thought,mentally scolding herself.She loved Scott,and she was not some slut like Helga,who would casually betray a man she claimed to love by giving in to lustful impulses.She was a human being, not a rutting animal,although calling Helga that was probably disrespectful to most animals-

Oh wow,how catty was that?He found it hard to keep from smiling:Jean was jealous of Helga.But perhaps most importantly,she had confirmed what he had always suspected:she wanted him almost as badly as he wanted her.

He glanced at Scott due to a sudden sense of new negativity from him,and he knew then that Scott had seen the way Jean was looking at Logan,and  thought,with a bitter sense of despair,that even if they did live through this he was probably going to lose her someday.Logan actually felt bad for the Boy Scout until he began to think that could really never happen;Jean would never be crazy enough to hook up with a blood crazed Cro-Magnon like Logan-

"Who the hell are you call-"Logan exclaimed,and then slapped a hand over his mouth before he could admit he'd been listening to his thoughts.

But Scott gave him a funny look,as did Jean,before Helga hit him hard on the back of the shoulder.

"Hey,"he cried,turning to face her.

"Logan,is that you?"She asked.Her concern and fear that they were all so dead it was almost hysterical came through loud and clear.

He nodded."Yeah.What the hell happened?"

"You're asking me?"

"What?"Jean interrupted,thinking Helga had lost her mind and taken Bob with her.Some kind of demon syphilis? "Logan's right here."

As if on cue,Logan-Bob-stirred in Jean's arms,and Logan got the sense that Bob knew instantly something was very wrong.He felt not only different but cut off...just as Logan felt like he was the boundaries of a river of light even before he opened his eyes.They had traded light for dark,and dark for light.One was physicality,and one was power.

Bob seemed to jolt awake,startling Jean,and he instantly stared at him.It didn't matter that he could no longer read people;Bob knew right away.

Logan's green eyes stared back at him in shock,the blood spatters on his formerly torn open cheeks making him look a bit like the feral beast that Scott seemed to insist on believing he was,and Bob said,"Oh shit.Transference spell."Logan thought he heard his voice,but with a decidedly obvious Australian accent.After all,an accent was personal-it wasn't in the vocal cords.

"Is that what it was?"Logan asked.The cracks in the air seemed to be growing,one opening right beside Scott's head, but it was the fact that he didn't notice it at all that convinced Logan that nobody could see these things except him. No,strike that;it was Bob's eyes seeing this.He just had access to them.

Jean did a double take."Why are you talking like that?"She asked.She believed,adamantium lined skull or not,Logan may have taken a devastating head injury.

"You switched accents,"Rogue said,and it may have been funny,but it sounded slightly sad.Rogue was convinced they were all going to die here,and she wished suddenly she hadn't asked to come along,or that Bob hadn't agreed to it.

Logan got to his feet,feeling strangely off balance inside Bob's body.It was like gravity didn't effect him in the same way,until he realized that that wasn't it at all.Bob didn't have a hundred pound metal skeleton he was lugging around on top of everything else.It wasn't like Logan ever felt that weight-it was normal for him as far as he knew:it would be like asking a person with two eyes if they missed having three when they never did have three to begin with-but now that he had 'three eyes' (so to speak),he knew what he had been missing now.Normal people-if Bob could ever be considered normal-didn't need to exert a lot of strength to simply get up.No wonder he was considered strong;he constantly used muscles other people never had to.That was probably some natural adaptation to the burden of the adamantium in his system,since his body was so adept at adjusting to hardship.(And yet another reason why he was probably selected for the 'procedure',whether he liked it or not...)

"How do I stop this creep?"He asked,gesturing to the white light afterimage of Crayax in the center of the cavern. Reality was fracturing all around him,hair thin cracks becoming gashes,bleeding diseased light into the world that no one else could see.

Bob winced and seemed to shake his head,and Logan knew why-the sound he could barely hear was probably a screaming roar to his ultra sensitive ears.But Logan knew he had ways of filtering it out,just like Bob could filter out other's thoughts to a background noise,and Bob must have figured out how to trigger or it happened automatically,because he seemed all right after a couple of seconds.Climbing to his feet seemed to take some effort, though,and he nearly pitched forward,completely off balance,but Jean was there to steady him,still believing he had serious internal injuries that hadn't completely healed yet."Fuck,mate,how do you move so fast?"Bob asked, finally on his feet and steady,at least for the time being.

"It's normal to me."

"You're an evolutionary marvel then."

"Have you both lost your minds?"Scott asked irately.

"Yes-"

"-they-"

"-did.To-"

"-each other."The Sisters offered helpfully.

Scott looked between them,wondering why Logan had to hang around with the creepiest people in the entire world.

"I can't tell you,Logan,"Bob said,looking pained with frustration."It's just something I do.I can't explain the process."

"Well,what would it be?"

"Keep her back-once she's completely through the doorway,the dimensions will probably shatter;she has that power."

"How do I keep her back?I assume physically attacking her is out of the question."Logan now saw the reason no one had tried to leave the cave was that there was no longer any cave entrances;what looked like solid stone had taken their place.But Logan could see the sort of blurriness at the edges that he intuitively knew meant it was a spell,not real stone.No wonder Scott couldn't punch through it.The only hope there was Amaranth and maybe Bob....crap!

"Do you seriously expect us to believe you two have switched bodies or something?"Scott scoffed,shaking his head, thinking at best they were morons and at worst assholes for making jokes at a time like this.But what else could he expect from Logan and one of his con artist friends?

Wow,Rogue was right-he did blame him for everything.

Bob scowled at him,but the ignore him completely and shouted towards the otherwise unseen Volta (but Logan could see him:he was a lurid blackish green smear of energy in this field of crackling light,a native disease to this dimension):"You can have me if you want but let them go!"

Logan wanted to point out he'd keep his body in here even if there was the slightest chance Volta let them walk,but hell,maybe a trade wasn't such a bad idea.The fuckers that were after him wouldn't recognize him in his new body: he didn't even have the goddamn claws anymore.

"I don't want you,"Volta said,his voice everywhere and nowhere as it echoed throughout the cavern.His mind seemed currently unavailable to him,like a wall of black static."She does."

"She?"Jean asked,looking between him and Bob,thoroughly baffled.She might have done a quick scan of his (Bob's) mind, because she seemed to have no problem believing they were who they said they were.She was smart enough to know she couldn't even try to read whoever was inhabiting Bob's body.

Helga answered her before Bob could."Arakis."She was afraid for Bob,but not herself,or any of them really.She thought he (Logan) could take whatever was dished out.Theoretically Bob could too,but she still worried-and of course she would,because she loved him.

"The pain god or whatever?"Scott asked,in a manner suggesting this was the stupidest thing he had ever heard.And he felt it was,right up there with the first mention of demons.

But Bob didn't answer him;he looked completely lost in thought,and Logan knew that he was.After a moment,he turned back to Jean,and said,"Can you use your telekinetic powers to try and contain Arakis?"

She looked at him in wide eyed curiosity,not sure at all what he was asking.She thought of him as Logan,yet knew he was not.""Contain?How?"

"Just...imagine a vise,completely enveloping and closing in on Crayax.I don't expect it to hold,but maybe between you and Logan,we can hit the right combination for shoving her back.Ladies,Scott,Hel,you have to help me cause a distraction.I need to get a straight shot at Volta,without him throwing any more voodoo my way."

Massive,thunderous booms began to echo through the cavern,making the ground tremble,and it wasn't hard to guess Storm was hitting the outside of the cave with lightning bolts,trying to break through.Maybe she was coordinating with Amaranth,and maybe it could work,for all the good it could do (nil).

Bob stumbled,and then said,"Shit-we've got company,"just as Logan got the sense something was incoming.He took that to mean sometimes his nose was faster at catching a clue than Bob's nebulous sixth sense.

It was like a bloody scar opened up in the rocky floor of the cavern,and these things started boiling up out of the wound like maggots.They looked a bit like sand colored moray eels,only each was at least six feet long,and at least two feet thick,all surprisingly dense and supple muscle beneath tough,leathery hides,their gaping maws full of pointed teeth like crystals.And there were dozens of them coming through the newly opened fissure in the ground.

"Fuck,Raddocks!"Bob shouted,adding helpfully,"Try not to let them grab you.Snap their spines to kill them."

Scott was already shooting at them,and he seemed to stun several,but there were just too many coming out of the ground for that to work for long.It was like they had disturbed some massive nest of gigantic cobras.

The Sisters got to work,and seemed genuinely amused at the prospect of killing Raddocks,while Helga saw it as a time waster,to keep them from stopping Arakis from coming through,and Logan was sure she was right.

One made a grab for Logan with its surprisingly flexible lower body,and he simply grabbed it first,hefting the heavy reptilian demon up and snapping its spine over his knee like it was a piece of kindling...and man did it fucking hurt!The pain that ran through his (Bob's) leg was incredible,and as he threw the thing aside,he noticed, out of the corner of his eye,one of them grab Bob from behind and throw him down."How do you work your fucking claws?!"He shouted,as he flailed to get a good shot at them.

Although he hated to tell him he couldn't explain it,since it would sound bitter,it was true-he was never quite sure how he did it;it was second nature to him now,reflex.It would be like trying to explain how he walked at this point -one foot in front of the other was the best he could do."Clench your fists and hope for the best,"was all Logan could offer,hoping he didn't break his body up too badly before they could switch back (if indeed they ever could).

He moved to help him,but stopped.This was the point of the attack,distraction.If they didn't stop Arakis,this was all a moot point,wasn't it?

Jean had kept herself free from attack by keeping a sort of telekinetic barrier around her,but she dropped it the second he approached."Scott,cover our backs,we're taking on Arakis,"he shouted,looking to her for confirmation. She nodded,her lips thinning to a grin,determined line.She really wasn't sure how she was going to do it,but she was going to try anyways,and in that moment he loved her for it.He didn't know what the hell he was going to do either,but he had to do something.

Him and Jean,the last bulwark of humanity,and neither had the slightest clue what the fuck they were doing.It was sadly amusing,but in a way inspired a sort of suicidal confidence in him.If only he had his claws back,maybe he could cut the demon bitch's throat.

"Logan,"she said,in a very tentative way,as if still not sold it was really him in Bob's skin.She paused,not sure what to say after that:she couldn't admit she didn't know if she could do it,or for how long,or that she hoped they all saw the other side of daylight again.

To spare her the continued indecisive agony,he told her,"I know."And he did.She seemed to understand that too, and almost reached out to squeeze his hand,but at the last second realized she couldn't dare touch him. Great- another reason not to get physical with him.He couldn't win for losing.

He heard a familiar noise,though,the sound of his claws springing free,and figured Bob had finally gotten angry or hurt enough to trigger it automatically (that had happened before) or finally did trigger the mechanism himself.

"Ouch!"He cried,as he slashed a Raddock trying to crush him clean in half with a single sweep of his claw. "Those hurt,damn it!"

"You get used to it,"he told him.That was true enough.

Oddly enough,the Sisters (with more conscious help from Helga) were sort of protecting Rogue,but only because they were trying to avoid her.They looked at the rest of them like potential snacks,but seemed to know that Rogue would be the worst choice possible when it came to human prey.But one of the Raddocks must have grabbed her-or she grabbed one,he really didn't know-all he knew was she was making these loud sort of hissing noises that freaked the Raddocks out (how could human vocal cords even make that noise?),then began picking them up and tearing them in half like loaves of fresh bread,splattering their pale blue guts everywhere.Her eyes were all pupil (well,they were demons who spent most of their time underground-they didn't have the strongest eyesight in the world),and the only thoughts he was picking up from her were of a static-y "crush kill destroy" variety.He hoped she remembered to stop at just the Raddocks.

He stopped Jean before she walked into a dimensional rift,a diagonal gash bleeding black light that she couldn't see, and nodded at her to start as he closed his eyes,and concentrated on all the energy inside of him.

The funny thing was,even with his eyes closed he got a sense of blue light,and realized it was internal.It was some sort of reflection or visual equivalent of all the power he sensed inside him,a torrent of energy that seemed to swirl and eddy inside of him.A river of devastating power that he knew might be enough to shut this whole thing down, if only he knew how to use it.

He decided he couldn't force it.If this was unconscious for Bob by now it was reflex,and he should just let reflex take over.He felt the energy building in the hollow of his chest,accumulating,building strength,and as he opened his eyes again,he seemed to see everything through a filter of blue.He felt like a bomb on the verge of detonation,and wondered if Bob felt like this all the time.How could he?

Something changed-the sound at the edge of his hearing,the feeling in the room,maybe all of it-but Jean was having some effect against the emerging Arakis.When he opened his eyes,he saw the white glow around Crayax had faded somewhat,but then the most bizarre thing occurred:his right leg seemed to literally explode,the flesh,blood,and bone spraying all over the cavern like shrapnel,some of the fragments being sucked up into various vortices.But it was neither something he or Jean did:In the place of where his leg had been was something that looked as large and thick as a tree trunk,the skin like warty red leather,veins as big as ropes pulsing as if alive,and the three toed clawed foot on the floor of the cave looked just a tad smaller than a Yugo.He thought it was seeing a foot and a leg,but realized it was probably just her foot and one ankle.

Arakis was breaking through her doorway.It didn't matter that Crayax was smaller than her by a country mile,she was somehow coming through him anyways.Did Crayax know that when he signed up for this?Maybe Arakis promised to bring him back,like she had probably brought back Volta.

Logan told himself he could do this,and hoped Bob's power worked even while he was inhabiting his body.

His gut instinct was to try and knit the gashes together,including the rip in the dimensional fabric that Arakis was causing as she tried to come forward,so he decided to do just that.

He imagined the rips closing,sealing shut,and the one right in front him,the gash oozing black light,healed shut as he felt the power flowing from him,a straight shot even more potent than electricity.He was more powerful than electricity,than lightning,then the goddamn sun as far as he was concerned.He never felt this light before,this alive.
As he focused his energy on Crayax,he thought he heard a distant scream,and was peripherally aware that Volta was chanting something again.

He didn't know how to stop Volta right now,he had to focus on Arakis,but as luck would have it part of the ceiling chose that moment to collapse.

A lightning bolt had finally punched through,and while rock and rain both poured down,it all seemed to miss Crayax,who was protected by whatever black magic was birthing the doorway.Still,the intrusion seemed to shut Volta up,at least for the moment,and since the Raddock problem seemed to be taken care of (between Raddock Rogue,Helga,and the Sisters,they never really had much of a chance),Scott shot off an optic beam at the new sunroof,widening it and sending another quarter ton of rock crashing down.Again,it missed Crayax,but from the way Volta cursed,it barely missed him.

He heard a scuffle behind him-Helga and the Sisters had to subdue Rogue,who was still too far gone in her Raddock persona to be reasoned with-but he ignored it,focusing like a laser on Crayax and Arakis.Crayax's chest cavity seemed to ripple,expanding slowly like a balloon,a grotesque sight that caused Jean to make a noise of disgust,but it didn't matter.None of it mattered.All he cared about was bringing together the white light gash in the fabric of the universe.