X-Men 185: Memento Mori

Pages 1-4 (Logan, Kurt, Peter, Kitty)

Ushering in a NEW ERA of GREATNESS!
Written by Myles "Nightcrawler" Corcoran
Penciled by Rebecca "Wolverine" Stevenson
Inked by Lisa "Colossus" Padol
Colored by Kris "Sprite" Keegan
Lettered by Joshua "Rachel Summers" Kronengold
Edited by Brian Rogers
Rachel Rogers, Editor in Chief

Our opening scene is Professor Xavier's office in Xavier's School for Gifted Youth in North Salem, NY. Built in book shelves live the east and west walls, broken up with pictures of the various X-Men teams and a door on the east wall. The north wall holds several pieces of artwork, including a stark lovely Wyeth. The south wall holds a window where the light from the sunset is just barely visible to the right. The professor's large oak desk dominates the western part of the room, while several comfortable leather-bound chairs, end tables and standing lights give the room a human comfort.

Xavier himself is leaning against his desk facing the rest of the room, dressed in grey slacks and a black turtleneck. His expression is serious and weary, like a man who has the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Kitty is perched on the edge of one of the visitor's chairs, wearing jeans and a plain black T-shirt, her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She regards the Professor with a mix of seriousness and anxiety, and is oriented so that she doesn't have to see Peter. Lockheed is on the floor under the same chair, looking inscrutable.

Peter is in costume, standing a casual parade rest. He's several feet behind Kitty, so she probably doesn't have to work that hard at not seeing him. He's looking serious, and it is, no doubt, just an accident of positioning that his gaze takes in Kitty as much as the professor.

Kurt is perched on the back of one of the high-backed leather chairs, effortlessly balanced as he listens to the Professor's words. He is dressed in costume, the vibrant red on black out of place in the conservative furnishing of the Westchester house. Even on his dark furred face the expression of worry and concern is clear.

Logan is seated, leaning back in the chair with his arms folded. He is in jeans and a dark sweater.

"Storm is Missing," Xavier says (in disturbingly large type; the rest of the word balloons are normal).

"Something happened yesterday when she was searching for Rogue. I am certain that she managed to locate Rogue somewhere in Mississippi, but shortly after that a catastrophic event occurred that severed my telepathic rapport."

Kitty presses one hand to her mouth, looking horrified.

Logan doesn't move much, but the sudden intensity of his frown belies his outwardly casual pose.

"Could she be dead?" says Peter, unconsciously clenching his hands.

The professor responds "No, I am certain I would have sensed her passing; indeed, I have all too much experience with that."

"I am stymied, however. While Mississippi is still within the range of my abilities I have been unable to locate either woman. Rogue's overlapping psyches make her very difficult to detect at long distances, but Storm must either be inside a psychically shielded area, have been moved outside of North America, or have undergone some significant psychic trauma to block her from my probes."

"Are we going to go look for her?" Kitty asks.

Peter looks at the professor, waiting for an answer.

"Of course. Unfortunately outside of "Mississippi" we have very little to go on. Our clandestine contact with the various national intelligence agencies, Michael Rossi, is out of contact*. Kitty, could attempt a media search on the computer? And Wolverine, do you have any contacts in US Intelligence who might be able to assist us?"

[* See issue 182 for why, not that the Professor knows that. - Editor ]

Kurt looks to Wolverine for his response, curious to see if his friend will acknowledge his past intelligence service dealings.

The other man shakes his head. "Got nobody down that way. Wish I did; this is...." He shakes his head and sits forward in the chair, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Time for a road trip?"

Unvoiced Kurt knows what the others must fear. "A psychic capable of taking out Storm, who was trained by the Professor, and Rogue, with her natural psychic resistance? Unglaublich!"

"Herr Professor, even if we have only a vague starting point surely we have to start somewhere. I'll gladly make the trip to Mississippi to begin the search."

"I think you and Wolverine will have to go down and start looking...." The professor starts before getting a distracted look on his face.

While this is happening Wolverine's enhanced senses pick up something approaching the manor from the air, with speed.

"Get down!" Xavier yells, dropping to the floor with the desk between himself and the window.

Wolverine of course not only fails to "get down" but launches himself off the chair in position to shield the professor from the attacks explosive aftermath, having determined the objects vector, speed, landing zone and likely effect on the floor.

The window shatters inward as Rogue, clearly barely in control of her flight, explodes into the room at close to 60 miles an hour and half buries herself in the steel-reinforced floor. Shards and splinters of hardwood and broken end table fly everywhere. She stands immediately, her face clearly showing that her loss of control was more than just her flight. To complicate the matter she is wearing a string bikini with most of her skin exposed.

Kitty, her chair, and Lockheed all become intangible, sparing her a nasty cut from a large shard of wood that passes through her arm, the chair and imbeds itself in the bookcase.

Peter transforms into organic steel and moves to block the splintering wood and glass from his comrades. This is partially successful, with much of the debris slamming against his armored form.

Kurt instinctively 'ports, disappearing in a cloud of sulphurous smoke and reappearing behind the imposing figure of Colossus, thus protected from the flying debris. He assumes a crouched position ready to spring but is momentarily startled by Rogues unorthodox appearance.

Kitty stares blankly at Rogue, on the cusp of choosing to drop through the floor, and painfully aware that she's probably the person Rogue will see first. "... Hooray for training?"

Rogue's face is twisted in a confused agony, her eyes unfocused. She manages to pull herself together enough to speak, her yes filled with tears "Kitty...Storm...shot..." her face contorts again during the word "explosion... Gyrich..." before calming again but with subtly different features "you Kree sons of..." before she lowers her head, shaking it, obviously trying to clear her head.

Kitty takes a grip on herself, becomes tangible again and lifts her chin, looking directly at Rogue (meeting her gaze if she looks up again), and trying to project confidence. "Rogue, you made it. You're here. You *did* what you needed to do, Rogue. And now you *need* to talk to us. Tell us what happened. You *can* do that, Rogue."

Kitty, exuding confidence in her gambit and the least combat experienced member of the team, is the only one who doesn't see the slight shift in Rogue's bearing that indicates increased hostilities.

"Rogue? If the option is betraying my own people you're Damn Right I'm a Rogue!" she snarls with no trace of her southern drawl, and brings her arms down in a smash that, if she completes it, will shatter the already damage floor and send everyone plummeting downward into the debris.

Seeing her legs still partially buried in the floor Colossus aims for her midriff with a wide kick. There's a confused tangle of limbs as his kick instead catches her arms as they come down to the floor, disrupting her attack with no damage to either side. Rogue's counter strike produces equal mixed results as she attempts to grab Colossus' leg to use him as a bludgeon against her assailants. The young Russian is much to savvy for that, yanking himself free of her half completed hold.

Professor Xavier, seeing the situation, leaps across his desk to the far side, using it for cover against any future attacks. X-Men - Rogue's conflicting psyches are at war with themselves. We must restrain her without another personality being added – that would shatter her mind, perhaps permanently.

Well that's a great fat help, Wolverine thinks with a grimace. Hoping that a decrease in the immediate threat level would help her mental turmoil, he stands with hands spread in what might be considered a non-threatening pose (for anyone else), though he's ready to intercept her if necessary. Perhaps an appeal to her currently-dominant personality will help, painful though it may be.... "Carol! You're with friends. Let's let the lady catch her breath...?"

Sprite phases out again, leaving the chair and Lockheed out of it this time. Cautioning Lockheed not to flame at anything, she moves into a runner's crouch on the floor. If Wolverine's gambit doesn't work, she'll look for an opportunity to distract Rogue by making part of the floor under her intangible.

Wolverine's soothing words seem to have the desired effect, with Rogue standing down "Logan? What? Where am I..." as her voice trails off Logan sees the problem - his successful calming of Carol's trained psyche has weakened its footing in the internal war, giving Rogue's weaker but biologically dominant one room, throwing the situation off balance again, "No! I ain't her! I ain't!" the girl screams, her face contorting again "Logan, they got Storm!" It twists again, her accent fading out in mid sentence as she continues “I couldn't do nothing...Gyrich and the others...shut us down, shut the whole mansion down!"

Painful as it is to watch, it has bought everyone else a few seconds to plan. The professor's mindlink has everyone aware of each other's thoughts, as the idea of using the danger room to contain her flows from Peter to Kitty to Kurt.

Kurt *bamfs* out of the room to the infirmary, grabs the largest blanket he can find and *bamfs* back as quickly as he can, appearing beside Logan to offer the blanket as a covering for Rogue, and not incidentally a barrier to any skin-to-skin contact.

When the blue skinned man disappears in a cloud of smoke Rogue starts, and it's clear to Wolverine that Carol is once again in control of the body. Indeed, she is already swinging a punch at the air near Wolverine as if guided by a precognitive sense.

Logan has time enough to interpose himself before Nightcrawler appears behind him, taking the half completed swing to his chest, staggering him back into his friend. If the blow had been completed it might well have staved in Kurt's ribcage - not an issue for him with his adamantium laced bones, but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt.

Logan grabs the blanket with an approving nod for Kurt's quick thinking, and moves in to tackle her with it. He's not strong enough to bring her down, but she is momentarily covered.

Kitty says, Try to get her to the Danger Room, and disappears through the floor. She then takes a straight-line fast approach to the control room, passing through floors, furniture, and people as necessary.

Colossus tries to coordinate with Logan, rather than at cross purposes. Through the Professors psychic link that coordination occurs with an almost eerie precision. The small Canadian leaps up and over the still embedded Rogue, draping the blanket as he goes. Before she has a chance to respond Colossus is there, his arms wrapping around her, pinning the young woman's limbs to her sides and effectively immobilizing her. Rogue's response - a vicious head butt that slams the back of her skull into Peter's jaw - produces nothing more than a very loud clang. Rogue, for all of her strength, cannot easily damage her steel teammate.

Once again there is a moment of relative calm that will last as long as Colossus can keep his hold or until Rogue remembers she can fly.

Kurt leaps back from Colossus and Wolverine to give them room for the blanket and grab manoeuvre, and ends up clinging high up on the wall as a vantage point.

Rogue seems to have recovered from the rather sound knock on the head she just gave herself, and the voice coming from under the blanket is clearly her own, for the moment, "Ye-ow Peter, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I can't think... She won't let me think...they took it away from her, they took it all away, she showed me and they took it away."

"I am sorry," says Peter (likely sounding more sincere than he did when -- if? -- he apologized to Kitty.)

Kitty has the room prepared, Xavier projects to the team, and with that Nightcrawler drops to the ground next to Colossus and grabs Rogue's leg at the ankle. The two of them disappear in a cloud of smoke with a rush of imploding air, leaving Colossus holding an empty blanket.

They reappear in the Danger Room, with Nightcrawler dropping Rogue full length onto a bed of bright red poppies illuminated by several spotlights. He's prepared for her leg’s reflexive kick, letting go at the top of its arc to fly across the room and land gracefully against the wall, vanishing into the shadows. Rogue -- her stance again showing that the Danvers persona is winning the battle -- rolls up to her feet, takes a couple halting steps forward and then falls unconscious.

Back in the library Peter folds the blanket as the Professor projects Well done, everyone. I was loathe to intervene with my mental powers given the disordered state of Rogue's mind. Kurt, if you could move her to the infirmary where I might make a more thorough assessment?

I'll get some of her clothes, Kitty thinks over the link, while entering commands to shut the poppies function down again.

Pages 5-6 (Aside)

The scene is a dark room, inside a place lit by ground level lighting. Open with a head sized close up of a young woman whose a grimy, punkish look belied by her sensitive eyes. She yells "Memento!"

There's no response as we take in more of the room, which is grey stone, slightly moldering, lit by some small braziers and possessed of scattered items hung from the walls or placed up against ad hoc supports -- an electric guitar whose body is shaped like a stylized X, several popsicle shaped knives, a half dozen yellow belts of various sizes covered with pouches, etc -- and some furniture that is wildly out of place -- an egg chair alongside a heavy wooden table, with a shiny art deco bedframe holding a tatted quilt covered mattress along the wall -- which make it clear that while we are in the Morlock tunnels we are also not uncivilized.

The girl calls out again "Memento?"

She turns and leaves the room at a walk so fast it approaches a jog, all the while muttering "Callisto's gonna kill me. Callisto's gonna kill me."

When she passes a "Property of Central Park" picnic bench occupied by a quartet playing a board game she stops. "Any of you guys seen Memento?" she asks with false casualness.

"Wasn't it your week to watch him?" one of the players, wearing a heavy, yellowish military coat and an army hat asks her, with just a hint of a friendly smile on his face.

"I know, I know, did you see him?"

The youngest of the players, a teenage girl whose bright crimson skin clearly marks her as a mutant, points off into one of the tunnels, "He went that way Anya."

"Thanks Lettie!" She waves and runs off to follow her quarry. (The other two players, if you're interested, are wearing a cast off Busby Berkley era be-plumed ball gown and an ill fitting banker's style suit, respectively, and from their age and positions it certainly looks like they're a couple.)

Anya emerges from the track shadows of Grand Central station, joining the people moving out into the night. It doesn't take her long to find her quarry - a bear-like man with huge hands standing stock still in the middle of the sidewalk, staring upwards at a building with a distinctive silhouette at the corner of 42nd and Madison: the Baxter Building, home of the Fantastic Four!

The large man is enraptured, and Anya grabs his arm to try to pull him back into the tunnels. In Polish he mutters "It's up there. I can feel it. Humming, whirring, spitting off delicious fractures…."

"Yes, I know," she replies, the same language, "But we can't get to it, so let's go home." Meanwhile she thinks "I don't think he's fed on anyone, so no harm; Callisto doesn't need to know, and I don't get stuck on grease trap duty."

Memento is willing to get pulled along, adopting a twisted walk that lets him keep the top of the Baxter Building in sight for a long as possible. When he stops dead in his tracks Anya nearly falls, then looks up to see what made Memento stop. The whole of the Grand Central area, is bathed in an orange light from an enormous, fiery bird of prey erupting from the roof of the Baxter Building!

"What the?" Anya gasps while Memento yells "So much! I must have it!"

"No Memento," the younger woman pleads. She is still trying to pull him down into the tunnel, but the look on Memento's face is an ecstatic hunger. It's clear he doesn't even realize what he's doing when he pushes her away, or see her when she falls down the stairs, or hears the loud crack when her head hits the tile. He is too busy running into the night.

Pages 7-8 (Rachel)

The act of traveling through time isn't as bad as you would expect. The physical sensation is indescribable, and without either personal shields or the protection afforded an outside mechanism might cause some entropic damage, but it's not deadly.

It can be disorienting, however, especially if you do so as a last moment life-saving maneuver. Or you're moving to a place where your frames of reference are wrong. Or you can't be certain that if you moved back one day or a hundred years. Or you’re a telepath going from being virtually alone in an abandoned burned-out husk of a mansion to being surrounded by the eight million minds of the naked city, all screaming at you.

If you're all of those things, then yes, travelling in time would be as bad as you would expect.

Rachel Summers finds herself atop the Sentinel's North American headquarters - the layout of the building with the launch pod on the northeast corner is distinctive enough for her to recognize it even from this angle. Rather than arriving in Westchester County to save her friends, fate has instead tossed her to the site of their deaths. How many times had she dreamed about holding the unconscious Kate/Kitty in her arms, staring up at this hated building feeling Logan, Ororo, and Peter die one by one during Kate's failed attempt to change history? How could she have thought that her second attempt could go any better?

Even in her stunned state Rachel can't help but notice pods - scanners certainly, but perhaps also weapons platforms - silently emerging from the roof's three sharp angled corners. Even if her arrival had gone unnoticed, the Sentinels will be aware of her shortly unless she acts now.

"No," thinks Rachel, "I won't be taken by them!" She runs for the roof ledge. Before her, a small, vaguely anthropomorphic robot probe that might be carrying advanced weaponry levitates up from a rooftop accessway. She disassembles it with a thought right before she jumps.

"Squack!" goes the droid as its individual metal pieces separate at their joints, its head flying away from the body before collapsing into scrap.

She fall freely for a few moments, letting her momentum carry her away from the danger above, then concentrates to take control of her own fall, slowing it as she approaches the ground, to land in a crouch.

The crowd of normally blasé Manhattanites is just beginning to get moving again after being momentarily diverted by the lightshow of a few moments earlier and as such more than a few notices Rachel's landing. The lights are brighter than she expected, and there are more actual cars, burning actual gasoline, which means she's moved somewhat back in time -- the Sentinel's energy rationing began more than a decade ago.

The crowd gasps and pulls back but their thoughts pummel her

"Is that her? Did she cause it?" "Sign of the end of the world?" "Fireworks" "Woah, cute. I wonder if she's free?" "Are we going to be able to close this deal?" "Kill her, that's what I'll do""Sell a photo to the Bugle!" "Aaagh! I'm Late!" "There she is, one giant fracture" "Hey, I'm walkin' Here!" "Callisto's gonna kill me...Uhg!" "Did the Four Just get a new member?" "Super-Villain" "Hope my train’s not late" "Someone ought to do something" "if he finds out she'll kill me."

The thoughts are staggering, but the overall lack of fear, the sense that someone else will take care of it, are ample evidence that the locals expect someone to resolve this situation make it clear that a Sentinel response is immanent.

Between the painful noise of the crowd and the inevitable Sentinel, there's nothing for it but to keep going. The noise of people is deafening, but there are patches of comparative quiet towards the west, so Rachel begins making her way that way -- slowing her pace a bit and trying to blend in with the crowd while keeping an eye out for Sentinels.

She moves quickly, years of experience as an anti-Sentinel subversive letting her blend into the ebb and flow of the city. Her concentration is still weak at best so the street noise continues to surround her, but within a few minutes of motion she has ceased to be its focus.

“I’m tellin’ ya this cities going to hell…” “I love New York in June, how about you…” “I wonder if that Stryker crusade donation is still tax-deductable after the cops shot him?” “Fractured, too many people, so hungry, keep moving” “What if she says no? Maybe I shouldn’t ask her in the restaurant, what if she says no?” “Ain’t no way I’m getting a taxi tonight, lookin’ like this…”

Her drift is westward with no real destination. At Penn Station the thought crosses her mind to take the train, to get out of the city, but the overwhelming mass of humanity, pushing and shoving and pounding on her psychic shields sends her fleeing up Eighth Avenue instead. The streets of the Garment District are much quieter after hours, giving her a chance to recover as she keeps moving, keep moving. “Isn’t the Port Authority up ahead?” she thinks. “A bus. I can handle a bus.”

“Fracture. Huge fracture. All alone now.” Behind her, the bear of a man with the huge hands moves closer.

"Hunter. So tired of being hunted," Rachel thinks, "not a Sentinel, but can't afford a fight, don't want to get noticed; just want to disappear..." she tries to push against the large man's mind--to blur the vision of herself in his mind--but still weak due to her jump, can't overcome his single-minded hunger.

"Fracture!" She realizes he's right next to her, and, panicked, blasts his mind with hers, then runs -- her body, shrouded in a green jumpsuit and jacket, fleeing into the relative safety of the Port Authority.

Her awareness doesn’t blur from exhaustion so much as it is momentarily severed: she has no recollection of covering the distance to the Port Authority, but is suddenly aware of being there, mid faltering stride, amidst a tangled mass of people. That doesn't mean the exhaustion isn't there. It's overwhelming, and while her psychic shields are shredded there's no way she can differentiate any one thought from another.

A pair of small, weak arms offer her support. "Miss, you don't look so good," The young woman's thoughts are clouded, or perhaps its Rachel's fatigue, but they are also guileless and clearly well meaning. "Tired, hungry, running from somethin'. I been there. You need help?"

Rachel has no time to respond before the severing happens again, the second wave of it that's she'd been holding off through force of will, and the world goes black.

Pages 9-10 (Logan, Kurt, Peter, Kitty)

The four active X-Men are sitting in various locations around the infirmary while Professor Xavier sits next to Rogue, who is lying out, now dressed in her familiar green costume (with gloves on and hood up). He holds her hand and is clearly engaging in a psychic scan.

Kitty sits cross-legged on one of the adjacent beds, watching Rogue with a sober expression. Wolverine is in costume now, scowling, and clearly itching to *do* something while the professor talks. Nightcrawler takes up a position hanging from a light fitting, watching the patient and the assembled group. Colossus is still in costume, standing, the blanket from the earlier scene folded over one arm.

"Rogue's situation is dire," Charles says when he releases the girl's hand. "Clearly the act of flying from Japan to the US taxed her physical reserves too much, leaving her mentally vulnerable. She experienced something that, while it would not have mattered to Rogue, was deeply affecting to Carol, allowing her to wrest complete control for the first time. Carol-as-Rogue broke into a SHIELD installation to rescue Michael Rossi, her former partner in intelligence work. Rossi's obvious confusion at that, having never met Rogue before, gave the natural personality a chance to reassert itself and she fled.

"Storm did find her, and they were attacked by what appear to be government soldiers armed with some sort of disruption weapon. Rogue was hit once, causing further damage to her psyche given how that is linked to her powers. Storm was struck by the weapon, apparently at a higher power level, causing her mutant elemental powers to explode, which then detonated the fuel supply on a nearby boat. Rogue lost consciousness at that point. When she recovered she had been swept downstream and thus eluded capture. She then made her way here and again, exhausted and stressed, Carol's psyche started to reassert itself." [End of flashback panels.]

He pinches the bridge of his nose between his eyes as he continues. "All of this is painfully unclear since there's no part of her memories that aren't part of this battlefield. Now that she's unconscious I can take the steps to bolster Rogue's natural psyche. Once that's done I'll be able to get a clearer picture of what actually happened to her and Storm."

"One thing I don't understand: while the Carol-memories are mostly unintelligible since the events in Mississippi they are adamant about the presence of someone named Gyrich. Rogue has no idea who that man is, and he wasn't an important enough part of the actual Carol's memory set that I recall helping her restore him."

"Beast mentioned a Gyrich," says Colossus, slowly.

"Hank? In what context?" Xavier asks, eyes fierce with interest.

"Little while back," Wolverine says. "Some government guy?"

The phone rings. Logan, clearly irritated by events, snags the phone, "yeah, what?"

"Good evening, this is Roberta, the Fantastic Four's receptionist. Am I speaking to Professor Xavier, a Mr. Summers, a Ms. Munroe, a Mr. Rasputin, a Mr. Wagner or <ahem 'Wolverine'?"* The voice is professional, quick but engaging.

[*The X-Men assisted the Fantastic Four in repelling the Badoon from Arkon's world in a previous annual whose number I'm not going to look up because it's pretty damn irrelevant. Trust that they're friends. - Editor]

"Wolverine here. Ahem."

"Your voice print confirms. I'm sorry to bother you at this hour but Dr. Richards left a protocol that you were to be contacted if the Baxter Building's sensors picked up certain events. One of those occurred tonight: a telekinetically generated light display in the shape of a large bird of prey. Is that meaningful to you?"

"Uh...." Uncharacteristically hesitant. "Yeah. Yeah it is." He glances at the professor. "Anything else you can tell us about the, uh, event?"

Noting the tone in Wolverine's voice, Nightcrawler drops to the floor and moves closer to Logan and the professor. He has a clear expression of concern on his face.

Roberta never falters in her professionalism “It occurred atop the Baxter Building, and was accompanied by the materialization of woman on our rooftop. Since she wasn’t displaying any immediate violent intent our robotic tutor went to communicate with her. She disassembled him before leaping off the rooftop. She landed without injury on 42nd street having slowed her descent. That was when our scanners lost her. If you open a computer communication channel to the Baxter Building I would be happy to transmit our images of the event to you, or you are of course allowed full access to the event area if you wish to personally investigate.”

"Flamin' right we're going to personally investigate." It can't be. Just... can't be. But then what gives? He realizes that the rest of them should hear this as well, and pushes buttons. "We'll get you that connection, too."

Everyone can now hear Roberta's voice* through the phone's speaker, but alas she doesn't have the courtesy to repeat everything to the room. "My records note that we have made data links to the school previously, so our system will be ready to transmit as soon as you dial in. When you arrive at the building please come up the main elevator to the reception floor."

Kurt blurts out, "Building? What building, Wolverine? Is there news about Storm?"

"Not Storm. It's... Well, take a look yourself." He may actually be shaken. "Let's get the nice folks at Baxter their hookup."

"Baxter Building?" the professor says with some confusion. He would likely ask more but it's clear from Wolverine's stance that whatever he's doing will make things clearer.

"Two minutes," Kitty says, already getting the infirmary's terminal out of hibernate mode.

The screen flickers to life as Roberta says "I have your link. I'm downloading the security footage now."

The initial view is a single camera shot of the Baxter Building's roof taken from the southwest corner. It angles upward to show the distinctive "Phoenix Effect" lightshow from the rather odd view of inside and underneath, but for the older X-Men there is no mistaking it. When it reaches peak brightness a figure materializes in the center of it, collapsing onto the roof.

Once the light dies she stands up, and at that point the screen breaks into three separate views with a technical data stream running across the screen's fourth quadrant. The woman is relatively young - in her 20's - thin with short red hair. They witness her panicked yell, her violent dismantling of HUBERT via an orange-red telekinetic claw and her ultimately throwing herself off the building.

For all save Kitty there's a confused recognition. Her coloration in skin, hair and eyes match Jean Grey's but her figure is too slender to be hers. Her features are Jean’s but sharper, angular, more reminiscent of someone whose tall thin build earned him the childhood nickname Slim.

For Kitty she had seen that face before, for a moment, keeping her safe at the end of the world.

The Manor's computers begin flashing something over the Baxter Building's analytical feed "Mutant Energy Signature Match: Jean Grey.

Jean Grey

Jean Grey

"Unglaublich!" utters Nightcrawler. Under his breath he continues, "Gegrüßet seist du, Maria...."

"Woah," Kitty says.

Pages 11-12 (Aside)

Storm wakes up, or more precisely wakes up again. She knows she's woken up and faded out several times since the event, with each period of consciousness ending with spasms of grief fueled tears. She has had her powers suppressed before -- on Magneto's island, for example -- and knows what that feels like. It is not this wretched emptiness.

"Enough" she mutters. "They are gone. Accept that. Move, woman. Get up."

She swivels herself to a seated position and takes stock of her situation. She is dressed in green silk pajamas. Her clothes are neatly folded in a box on the floor, but it's clear even at this distance that they are charred, melted, un-wearable. On the bedside table are her lockpicks, salvaged from her vest and boot. The door to the room is almost but not completely closed.

"Clearly someone is going to great lengths to convince me I'm not a prisoner. These clothes are expensive, but feel new." She stands up, checks the rest of the room. Inside the closet are a half-dozen outfits not unlike the clothes she had been wearing, all still bearing tags that indicate that they too are newly purchased. "And I'm to be made to feel the guest. Very well. I shall play along."

A few moments later and she is dressed and exiting her room into a comfortable hallway. Light and sound are coming from her left, so she heads in that direction with caution. At the corridor's end is a balcony overlooking a large, two story living space - the walls are hardwood with modest windows at regular intervals, curiously devoid of artwork. The stairs to her right are free standing, touching no walls, and lead down to a platform before turning again to reach the flood - strangely, they lack any sort of railing for all that they are solid, wide and safe. On the floor below are a modernist couch, table and chairs. In one of those chairs is seated a man she's never seen before, but whose skin tone and dark hair marks him as a Native American. He's dressed in casual clothes and reading a book in the light coming from the ceiling, but not, she notices, from any ceiling fixture. Just from the ceiling.

He looks up then stands up "Oh, you're awake. I'm sure you're hungry. I have some food down here for you."

There's no denying that, but Storm pushes it aside for the moment "Who are you and where am I?" she says, her voice displaying just a touch of danger.

"My name is Forge, and this is my home - my apartment in Dallas, Texas. You're my guest here for as long as you want to be." He hasn't moved during this, but his voice is not unkind.

"I see. And if I wish to leave now?"

"If you come downstairs that drawer," he points to a side table near the door, "contains a billfold with enough funds to get you back to wherever you live. I'd tell you the door's unlocked but based on the tools you were carrying I suspect that even if it were locked it wouldn't stop you." He sees the look on her face and rushes on, somewhat embarrassed, "My assistant, Caroline, was the one who undressed you and put you to bed." He pauses for a second then adds "She's a licensed nurse," as if that would further take the curse off. "But for now please come down here and eat something."

"Very well, 'Forge'. Let us see." Storm works her way down the stairs, a trace of unfamiliar vertigo making her wish there were railings. Her host directs her out of the room into a professional level kitchen, all gleaming and chrome and spotless.

"Salad, bread and mushroom soup," he indicates the things on the table. As she's sitting he mutters "Oh damn, the soup’s gone cold. Hang on," and totally ruins the effect of the master chef's kitchen by opening a panel to reveal a less than gleaming-new conventional microwave for a one minute warm up.

Storm suppresses a small grin at the realization that the microwave and fridge are likely the only two pieces of equipment that see use, then grimaces a bit. "This smacks of classic interrogation; he is trying hard to quickly establish a sense of trust but who is he really? And who does he work for? Wolverine always said that in these circumstances one should reveal a little as possible, and yet…"

"Thank you," she replies when he returns the bowl to its place on the table. "Next question: why am I here?" That she had been shot and captured by a special forces unit is left unsaid.

"That's a little complicated," Forge says. "First, let me get things out of the way. I know you're an X-Man, code named Storm, and that you had a recent altercation with agents who were attempting to apprehend the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants member Rogue. You were shot while trying to rescue a barge full of people from the fight. The government agents are just a little embarrassed by that, so I was able to get you remanded into my custody."

He holds up a gloved hand to forestall her question, "Before you ask why I have to digress just a bit: are you familiar with the urban legend called Rom?"

Seeing no point in denying her identity Storm replies, "Hardly an urban legend, sir. The X-Men worked with him once, over two years ago.*"

[*It's true! See Rom 17-18!]

Forge smiles, "That makes things easier to explain. The government has finally started taking Rom and the Dire Wraiths seriously. Three months ago they arranged for me to meet him. Like you, I'm a mutant. My power is technology. Invent things, I can see potential energy sources and detect tools - that's how I found your lockpicks. Plus I'm very good at reverse engineering things I've seen. Like Rom's analyzer and neutralizer. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency asked me to figure out and reproduce that technology, to recreate Rom's anti-Wraith weapons for our soldiers."

"I've made progress, but my analyzer picks up anything that's not human, which could be a mutant or a Wraith. The neutralizer is even more of a prototype, completely untested, not cleared for field use AT ALL …." He looks ashamed.

"You built it. The gun they shot me with," the fury is clear in her voice.

Pages 13-14 (Logan, Kurt, Peter, Kitty)

We see the X-Men’s limo in Manhattan, pulling onto 42nd Street east on its way to the Baxter Building.

"No way it's her," Wolverine says for the fourth or fifth time. "Turn here--it was 42nd street they lost her."

Peter turns as instructed, trying not to think too loudly, lest Wolverine have suddenly developed telepathy.

In the rear passenger seat, Kitty (finally in costume) peers out the window, alert for any sign of Morlocks. ”I hope this goes quickly ... we should be looking for Ororo!"

Peter pulls the car onto 42nd and manages, by sheer luck, to snag an on street parking space a block down from the Baxter Building.

"I'll scout ahead, Wolverine, ja?"

Kurt 'ports from inside the car to the roof of the Baxter Building leaving a sulfurous cloud behind him that encourages the other to exit the car promptly.

Ignoring curious looks from the passersby, Wolverine conducts a methodical search pattern, quartering the area in a hunt for any familiar traces, scent or otherwise. Hope Pete does the right thing. The good humor lasts only a moment; this impossible not-Phoenix apparition has him thinking dark thoughts. Hope we can get this sorted soon, find 'Roro. Not that she can't handle just about anything, but... maybe not? Would hate to find that out. With the government involved.... he shakes himself with a low growl and returns his attention to what he's doing.

[SFX: Elevator Muzak.]

Kitty positions herself close against the side of the elevator, checking the calibration of the Cerebro device on her wrist. She is standing straight and strong and balanced, the way her mentors have taught her.

Peter looks at her, seems to consider saying something, then watches the elevator doors as they ride up.

The doors open to reveal a traditional office lobby, with a glasses-wearing blond woman seated behind the just-a-shade-away-from-high-tech wrap-around desk. “Hello, and welcome to Fantastic Four Incorporated. The elevator over to your right has been summoned to take you up to the roof. If you need any additional assistance just ask – the roof’s monitors will convey your request back to me.”

"Thank you," Kitty says.

The rooftop provides a lovely view of the city from 35 stories up. There’s a small pile of detritus that was clearly once HUBERT the robot.

Kitty approaches the robot remains, to get a close-up look at how it was disassembled.

Every individual piece was removed from every other individual piece at any weak point – every weld has been shattered, every screw stripped, every microchip yanked from its place. This is a shame because even with this glance Kitty can see that it’s a brilliant design.

On her wrist Cerebro is registering the presence of four mutants – herself and her teammates – with no sign of their mysterious intruder. Wherever she ended up she’s well away from the portable unit’s four block radius.

Peter looks at the roof to see if anything else stands out as useful, then walks the perimeter, looking over the edge

Peter encounters Kurt as the blue-furred mutant completes his own perimeter scan.

"Nothing obvious, Peter. You saw the robot? Or what's left of it?"

Peter nods, looking at Kitty looking at the remnants of HUBERT.

Everyone on the roof can feel something is out of joint, but they can’t place it. The roof has the sense of calm immediately after a cloudburst, the echo that something monumental and strange just happened there, but with frustrating little evidence of what that might be.

A few loose strands of hair blow across Kitty's face as she contemplates the sad wreckage. "She really believed it was a threat. No hesitation. Total commitment ... and great precision."

"Combat experience." She turns to look at her teammates, pitching her voice to be heard by them. "Whoever she is ... she knows fighting. Expects it. We'd better be careful."

On the ground Wolverine is able to locate a scent that just fell out of the sky. Once he has it it’s not hard for him to lock on to it, since it carries an ozone/energy discharge aroma to it that masks the person’s individual scent. He’s well familiar with it, since to him it was Jean Grey’s perfume just as much as any shampoo or Chanel she decided to wear. Whoever this is, she landed here then headed east on 42nd.

Nightcralwer is able to make out Wolverine’s wave – their costumes are rather distinctive, after all – indicating that he’s found some the trail.

"Wolverine has the scent of something. Look." Nightcrawler points at the figure far below. "Kitty, if I may have the honour?"

He makes a bow and proffers a hand gallantly.

She smiles slightly at Kurt's manner and takes his hand.

Kurt 'ports Kitty and himself to the ground in an instant, arriving in the usual cloud of smoke and brimstone. "I'd better see if Peter wants a lift," he says after checking that Kitty is ok after the trip. He disappears again to reappear by Peter's side at the top of the Baxter Building.

"Ah, Peter, do you fancy the Kurt Wagner All Singing All Dancing Teleporting Elevator," he continues with a grin, " or the stairs?"

"That would be much appreciated, da," says Peter, smiling, despite his worry.

Once the group is all gathered on the sidewalk, Kurt asks Wolverine what he's caught scent of. "Logan, is it...?" The question dies on his lips.

"It's... Like her. But it ain't her." Hard to tell if it's a statement of fact or faith. He glares in the direction of the trail. "This way."

"We should be careful," Kitty says, "not to alarm her. If possible. Whoever she is."

The quartet head down 42nd, then up the empty streets of Eighth Avenue when the Cerebro on Kitty’s wrist starts to blink madly. *Two* new contacts, one being their target. Up ahead Penn Station explodes with light – not just the normal light of the streetlamps that illuminate the twenty-four hour locus of humanity but also a red orange glow extending like a spotlight from the third floor window of a nearby tenement.

Kitty peers at the Cerebro unit and says worriedly, "I've got *two* contacts!

Wolverine assesses the building -- entrances, exits, likelihood of interference from the inhabitants -- while heading for the nearest route to that window. "What the.... Hey Petey, want to give me a hand up there?"

Peter nods. As requested, Colossus lifts Wolverine and hurls him toward the window.

The spotlight glow is occluded when the X-Men see someone – a bear like hulk of a man - lever himself in front of the window. The second Cerebro contact flashes as brightly as the first, showing that he's actively using his powers.

Kitty informs the others, "That guy's the second contact - active!" just as Colossus releases Wolverine.

The red orange glow dims significantly, blinks out for a second and then explodes into the characteristic Phoenix Effect centered on the building, the bird of prey reaching a hundred yards into the night sky over the theater district…

And Wolverine is flying right into it – and right at the huge figure being propelled through the window away from the explosion!

Pages 15-16 (Rachel)

Rachel wakes up. She's lying on a bed that has seen better days in a room that has seen better years. She's been stripped out of her prisoner's jumpsuit - which is tossed haphazardly over the radiator - and is all but naked under the sheet.

The door to the room opens just as she gets her bearings and a young woman walks in. She's wearing impractically high heels, an unseasonably short skirt and a bolero jacket over a tight shirt. But more importantly, she's carrying a bucket of fried chicken and a carton of juice.

"Hey, you're up. I gotcha something to eat. I tried to wash out your clothes but given how it looks like you just got outta prison you might could be better off wearing some of my or Socorro's or Ruby's clothes until Gabe can getca something better. I'm Wren."

"Rachel. Sorry to be such trouble."

"Hey, no problem. I been there. Well maybe not _there_, since it looks like you just jumped Bedford*. But fallin' off a bus into Port Authority with no money, friends, or food? Yeah, I been there. Gabe helped me, so I figure he’ll help you." The young woman speaks with world weariness, but on longer assessment Rachel can't help but think Wren's age doesn't exceed 15.

[* Bedford Hills Correctional Center in Westchester county. - Ed]

"I don't know what you scored on the bus, Rachel, but it wasn't good. You pretty much blacked out slack jawed lost in space while I was bringing you back here," Wren tells her, nibbling on one of the wings. "It wore off by the time I got that thing off you and you just passed out on the bed."

"I figured I'd have to wake you to get you cleaned up before Gabe got here." She balls up the green jumpsuit and tosses it into the back of a very messy closet full of three women's clothes of various sizes.

"It's not like that; there's nobody looking for me," Rachel says, "well, not the law. And I was just tired -- I think.", "The Fracture Guy?" she wonders. She looks in Wren's mind, and finds only good intentions, then scans the area while she looks through the pile of clothes, eventually bundling her selections -- all red and black -- up in her arms, and takes them into the bathroom to put on after she showers.

Rachel glories in the feel of water splashing past her hair, and lets herself, for the first time in what seems like a long time, relax. "Wren seems nice. Not too bright, and I think she's been taking drugs, but she's really honestly trying to help, to 'pay it forward'. Poor girl, but her heart's in the right place."

She turns, and soaps up her back, arching in the stream. "That feels good. I almost feel human--except I'm not human; I'm a mutant. If I start thinking of myself as human, I'll let my guard down and they'll kill me. Only...there wasn't a Sentinel response, and nobody even thought the word...could I have succeeded? But then, why didn't the world change, after?

Finally, for the first time in a long while, clean, Rachel turns off the water and dries herself off with an almost-clean towel. "No sign of 'Fracture' guy, but so many people awake, at this hour. Guess New York really is the 'City that never sleeps' in this era."

When Rachel emerges, she's wearing a red, form-hugging strapless micro-dress with a pink sequin trim on the top and bottom, red heeled boots below black stockings, and a gauzy, black glittery throw over her shoulders.

“Hey, you clean up OK,” Wren says, then jumps a little when the apartment door opens. “Gabe!” she yelps

Striding in is a large Caucasian man wearing blue jeans, a blue tee-shirt, red cowboy boots and a white leather trench coat. Behind him is a tall thin black man with green parachute pants a yellow jacket and an afro that escaped from a 1970’s blaxploitation film and has been on the run ever since.

“Wren, darling, Ruby told me you quit work,” the large man says, “You gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

“I found someone who needed help,” Wren says, with some of her confidence noticeably leaking out of her voice. “Gabe this is Rachel. Rachel, this is Gabe, I was telling you how he helped me out right? And how he should be able to help you too, right? Rachel just got into the city and doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

Gabe smiles a big crocodile smile, the faint tinge of threat in is voice being replaced with pure honey. As he talks he gives Rachel a full up and down with his gaze, “Well that’s just fine Wren. I wish you’d come to me first but you done good.” Wren beams at this then looks at Rachel with a big smile on her face.

“Mickey, can you escort Wren back to work while Rachel and I talk?” The thin man motions Wren to the door with a gesture of mock chivalry.

“Rachel, eh? I’m Gabe. Like Wren said I kinda make it a habit of helping out kids who get into the city with no where to go.

"Hi, Gabe," Rachel says, easy, but opening a channel into his thoughts anyway. "I think I know where this is going," she thinks, "and I can't say I like it. Or him."

Fatigue is still working against her, and Gabe’s mind is much better defended than Wren’s, and her initial attempt to read his surface thoughts fails.

“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need,” Gabe goes on, still smiling. “I recommend you stay in the apartment or around me or Mickey until you have a chance to get your bearings – the city can be a confusing place, and a lot of kids like you are on the run from something. “He holds up his hand “I don’t know, and I don’t need to know, but I’ll keep you safe from that.” He’s sat down on the arm of a chair at this point, very comfortable, very reassuring, “You’ll probably need new clothes, since those look like Ruby’s, and food, and to pitch in for the rent, but you and me can work out an arrangement for you to pay for that once you’re settled in.”

He sounds avuncular, strong, confident, friendly, and reasonable. Just what a runaway might hope to find to help them out in a strange new city. And if Rachel were 14 instead of 26*, and from a sheltered town rather than a hellish landscape she may well have believed him. But her second attempt to penetrate his psychic barriers proves successful and reveals that his mind is a highly calculating cesspool. His perception of her is as a product, something to be broken in with emotional, physical and sexual abuse, to be controlled through addictive drugs, to be sold, used, traded and eventually discarded.

[BR: This is displayed in the comic of one of those black on red overlapped images of debauchery and horrific faces.]

Rachel leans back, stretching, "An arrangement? What kind of arrangement? Actually, let me guess. It will involve something sexual; a favor for one of your friends, just to earn my keep. And maybe they'll even be something in it for me; something that makes me feel better, takes the pain away. But they're be more 'payments', walking the streets because you tell me I'm not worth any more than that -- and after a while, I'll need the drugs, need them even more than I need the food and shelter which you're so generously providing." Rachel stands, moving easily on the balls of her feet despite the heels, like the trained fighter she is. "And if I try to get away, or try to show resistance, well, you'll tell me how worthless I am; show me how weak I can be against your strong hard fists. But I'm not weak, and I'm not helpless, and I'm worth a thousand of you. So I've got another idea. How about we have a short discussion, and then we'll see if you can make a suitable 'arrangement'." And that's when she decks him, punching with all her physical strength.

She can sense the shift in his thoughts as she keeps talking, relaying in his mind what he might have said that could be considered a criminal act since this lady is now sounding like an undercover cop. He also stands up, which is the only thing that stops him from going arse over teakettle when she decks him.

In his mind she sees the realization that since she didn't declare herself, he doesn't see a badge and she swung first that maybe this crazy lady ain't a cop. Older than she looked, stronger too - maybe some angry mom or big sister on a revenge spree - but if she's not a cop....

His counter strike is a wide sweeping backhand, faster than Rachel expected so her duck actually meant his forearm caught her on the side of the head rather than his fist striking her jaw.

Rachel's eyes begin to glow yellow, the room behind her darkenning in the contrast. "No, I'm not a cop. But then, you don't really understand. You shouldn't be fighting back right now. You should be running." And her outline suddenly flairs into an outline of a firey bird of prey, as Gabe is telekinentally slammed back against the far wall.

Gabe flies backward in the claws of a bird of prey, rather wishing that he had listened to what his mother had told him when he was small. And inside that self preservation instinct is the dark thought that if he lived through this he's going to get even with Wren for bringing this super-human Cloak and Dagger lady here.

"No, you won't. That's not how it works, Gabe. Because we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. The easy way is that I kill you before I leave the room. The hard way? Is that you're going to make a real resolution to change your life, to find something else to do with yourself, and you're going to succeed, or we'll do this again in a few weeks, only I won't give you a choice. Personally? I'd prefer the easy way."

The realization that she’s inside his mind, that he’s completely totally helpless, in a profound shock for Gabe, who feels a blossoming of true fear in his heart.

Rachel feels that, and just a second too late she feels another thought pattern behind her, in the window. “Fracture.”

The severing is immediate, but fortunately for Rachel Gabe takes her sudden dropping of him and her vacant expression as something intentional, that knowing that her point was made the burning woman no longer considered him worthy of notice. He slams the door open and sprints out of the room, taking a hard tumble down the stairs.

Rachel hears or sees none of this, however: her consciousness has been struck down by a mutant ability of either overwhelming power or to which she has an acute vulnerability. Unlike earlier, however, she’s moderately rested and fed and has a chance to defend herself with the ultimate manifestation of her powers.

Rachel, feeling the nature of the assault, fights back, breaching time itself to overwhelm her attacker. Her loss of awareness is only a few seconds long before a counter strike from the core of her being flares out, shattering her attacker's psychic grip on her timeline.

Feeling herself suddenly free, and very scared, Rachael strikes back telepathically, trying to overwhelm her attacker and prevent him from getting another grip -- this one perhaps one she cannot repel.

Pages 17 (Aside)

Storm stands abruptly enough to send her chair crashing to the floor. “You bastard. If I still could I would fry you where you stand.” With that she stalks to the door, to the promised money and casually proffered freedom.

“Storm, wait!” Forge pleads as he follows after her, “I just want to help. Think about it – I built the thing, who has a better chance of undoing its effects?”

He makes the mistake of grabbing her arm to dissuade her. She spins and catches him square in the jaw with a brutal swing, sending him down with a loud thump. From the look in her eye this ability to inflict some measure of pain on him seems to have calmed her, or at east made her fury more tactical than raging.

Forge continues in the face of the raging one time goddess, “Yes, I built that gun I built it to arm our troops to kill the soul-eating shape-stealing aliens that obliterated Clairton, West Virginia*. Aliens you know exist! Someone stole it from me and fired it at the wrong target - I’m to be condemned for that? Yes, an aspect of my own mutant power went outside my control – that’s never happened to any of your X-Men?”

[Yup, pretty much the whole town in Rom #49]

At that Storm remembers the clinical recitation of Dark Phoenix crimes by Empress Lilandra – the casual obliteration of not just a Shi’ar battle cruiser but also an entire sun, and the world of billions of living thinking beings orbiting it. Her temper cools, “No, I can’t say that. Very well, Forge. What do you propose?”

He stands, rubbing his jaw, “Stay here while you recover. Let me get some readings – what the gun did, how it did it – so that I can see about undoing its effects. By all means call your friends, let them know where you are, as far as I’m concerned you’re free to come and go as you please, but you’re still obviously hurt, Storm.”

She can’t help but notice the shaking in her hands, the weakness in her knees as the adrenaline surge wears off. She slumps into a chair. “As you suggest. Hand me the phone.”

When he does so Storm stares at it for a moment ”I still don’t trust him, or his handlers, not to have the phone tapped. After our effort to erase the school from government records I dare not contact the mansion, or Warren. While we just spent weeks fighting alongside the Avengers I never committed their number to memory. But there are some friends I can contact who are both beyond reproach and whose number is impossible to forget.”

With that she dials 1-800-555-4444

“Good evening, Fantastic Four Incorporated,” chirps Roberta, “How can we assist you.”

“Good evening, this is Storm. May I please speak with Doctor or Mrs. Richards?” Storm asks

“I’m sorry Storm. None of the family is in at the moment.* I’ll be happy to take a message for you, or would you like to speak to your teammates?”

[* See the tragic tale in FF #267! – Editor]

“Excuse me?” Storm says. “My teammates?”

“They’re on the roof investigating an incident that occurred tonight.” There’s a brief pause, “Excuse me, they _were_ on the roof. Apparently they’ve left. Would you like to leave a message for them in case they call back?”

“This,” Storm thinks, “Is decidedly bizarre.” She then says “Yes, please. Please tell them, or relay to the Richards’ to pass along to my team, that I’m with a man named Forge, apparently in Dallas, Texas. I’m safe for now, but recovering.” There’s a long pause then, “I’ve lost my powers. I’ll keep in contact, but Forge may be best situated to assist me in the short term. Can you pass that along?”

“Of course, Storm. I hope your situation improves. If I don’t hear back from your teammates or the family by tomorrow shall contact them directly.”

“Thank you,” Storm says, and hangs up before thinking “What incident could they be investigating at the Baxter Building?”

Pages 18-22 (Everybody)

Rachel spins to face her assailant, preparing to lash out psychically, only to find that he is no longer there – based on the state of the window her last ditch defense hurled him from the room. Looking outside she sees the bear like man collide into a second flying figure above the street before both plummet to the street.

Wolverine, in mid flight from Colossus’ throw, sees the woman from the Baxter Building’s surveillance videos, now dressed in a red and black outfit, explode with Jean’s characteristic Phoenix Effect before hurling the large, unidentified man directly at him. “Cripes!” is all he has time to yell before the two of them slam together in mid air. The impact is worse than expected – the large man is on fire or covered with acid or something that burns his skin, and he lands in a heap.

Stung by the unexpectedly painful impact, Wolverine gets back to his feet, eyes locked on the woman in red. "Who are you?!"

When the other man hits the ground it explodes into powdery silt – Sprite views this in from her airborn position Kitty’s rational mind can’t help but notice that the ground began to dissolve before the man hit, as if he were surrounded by some sphere of entropic energy. He rises, the silt breaking down into dust and then less than dust as he emerges from it.

Kurt's curiosity gets the better of him and he 'ports to the room above to see for himself the source of the phoenix effect light-show. He appears in the room with a *bamf* and cloud of smoke, landing on the balls of his feet, ready to react.

The earlier discussions of their target didn't prepare him for the sudden shock of seeing a red-headed woman, familiar but different, wreathed in the terrifying phoenix effect. "Unglaublich!" he utters, momentarily frozen by fear and hope.

"Jean? Can it be?"

The large man, standing in his ragged Morlock-style clothes and wreathed in the smoke generated by his peculiar fall, sees a handful of costumed individuals approaching him, "No! Not again! This time she is mine!" And with that there is a bizarre white light surrounding him followed by an explosion of, well, people out from his location.

[BR: geeky enough readers will recognize his stance and visual as that Rick Jones took when he summoned the heroes of yesteryear to assist at the end of the Kree-Skrull war. Not that this is terribly relevant.]

The four individuals materialized are as follows: a young woman with blond hair in a pony tail wearing a stylized X-Men costume, another young woman in a purple bodysuit with fur and fangs that looks vaguely like Wolfsbane in her wolf/human hybrid form, save that she has a long feline tail, a third young woman with black hair, a black bodysuit, pale skin, a black makeup circle around one eye and an obscenely overlarge science fiction gun and a thin, acrobatically muscled young man with spiked blond hair, one glowing eye and a sword that, rather illogically, has two blades, one next to the other.

Wolverine growls, "City gets more crowded all the time." Take out the big guy, maybe his friends will go home...?

He launches himself at Memento, claws out -- seems like the fellow can take it....

While he's in mid-charge the lavender-suited cat lady leaps at him, her own claws glistening in the pale glow of the streetlights. Wolverine is simply too experienced an opponent for this to throw him too far off stride as he shifts his targeting from the big man to her, and in so doing moves so she and he fly past each other rather than her bringing him to the ground.

He claws are now red with blood – as are his, but his cut was significantly deeper.

Sprite wafts through the air, aiming generally toward the blond woman, and thinking some more: "Okay, so, physical manifestations ... but real enough for me to affect? ... Is Cerebro picking them up?"

The readings on Cerebro are very strange, but Kitty has no difficulty adjusting its display on the fly to get some clarity. The unit is still clearly picking up her and her teammates, the woman in red and black and the Morlock-dressed man but it's also capturing three of the four other figures as having mutant thought patterns, and all four as having an overlay of the Morlock's power signature. According to Cerebro they exist and are self-sentient and free willed but also extensions of the Morlock's power.

Thought balloon: “OK, 3 out of 4 are mutants ... real but part of the Morlock's power too ... I wonder what happens if ...”

"Sorry, but no, I'm Rachel, her daughter. I haven't been born; not yet, anyway, it's complicated. You must be--" Blue's father, Rachel thinks, what's his name? "Nightcrawler, right?" She walks to the newly all-window opening and looks down on the scene, her form still outlined in the Phoenix effect. "Kate, Peter, Logan -- they're alive! At least, here and now."

She sees Logan stand up and glare at her, but can't make out what he's saying, so spares enough attention to open a telepathic link to him "You don't know me yet, Logan, but you taught me how to fight; sorry, but I think I have to concentrate on the bear guy; explanations will have to wait!", with overtones of joy, affection, and regret. Then she gathers up all her rage, all her desire to be the hunter, and no more the hunted, and her desire to protect her friends, and hurls it in a single telepathic strike at Memento.

She gets back a flicker of bewilderment -- not entirely devoid of suspicion-- before Wolverine’s concentration is entirely focused again on the street-level fight.

The attack slams into Memento's psychic shields, staggering him for an instant, but a combination of being full to bursting with power and his own singular focus keep him from going down

There is a brief opening, but before Rachel can capitalize on it the pale skinned woman rolls into position to fire at her, the gun unleashing a devastating flare of coherent plasma that, had Rachel's shields not blocked it, would have vaporized the whole of her upper body. As it stands the shields collapse under the strain, leaving her temporarily defenseless.

Colossus has roughly the same idea Wolverine did so he charges Memento, but he’s expecting one of the others to try an intercept

Just as he expects the sword-wielding man moves to intercept him with superhuman swiftness, strength and grace, diving in with an over-handed slash that would have added both men's momentum to the force of the blade into Colossus' skull... had Colossus not turned his run into a forward leap the moment he saw his foe commit. Their tactical positions suddenly reversed his foe is caught completely off guard by the expertly delivered strike.

He flies up from the blow and the impact with a nearby building's cornice only marginally impedes his progress. Colossus loses sight of the figure as he arcs over the tenement's roof. Based on the smash a few seconds later it's clear that his opponent cleared the block and hit anotherbuilding somewhere on 43rd street.

In the midst of all this confusion the small blond girl has stayed quiet, eyes alert for potential threats. Finally she generates a small glowing sphere of energy in her hand and lobs it at Sprite. It produces a violent explosion exactly three seconds after she created it, but has no effect on the airborne mutant.

"Nice kitty. Hope I didn't hurt you, miss." Wolverine slows his movements, circling to one side -- hoping to draw her into an attack, which he will then ignore in favor of going after Memento. This is no time to be messing with the sideshow.

None of them have spoken yet, wondering if they can....

The cat-woman does as Wolverine expects, trying to catch him with a pounce. He dives under it and her, coming up from his crouch to launch himself at their main target. His claws cut a deep gash in Memento's side without coming close enough to take any damage from the man's entropy field. This elicits a roar from the big man "Aaaaargh!" and a lightning fast counter strike that slams Wolverine's skull into the pavement, leaving his ears ringing.

From his new position, flat on his back on the ground Wolverine can see the look of shock on Memento's face as he stares at his hand – he clearly didn't expect to be as strong or as fast as he now is.

"I never realized I could... The raw power she..." His moment of astonishment lasts just a moment before he stares up at where the redheaded girl is. "Bring her to me

Sprite unexpectedly puts on a burst of speed, rushing toward the blond girl, behind whom the big Morlock is now staring up at the window. ”Aha! That's more like it!”

Once in hand-to-hand range, Sprite touches one foot to the ground, and becomes tangible again for just long enough to swing her other foot up and kick her target in the chin.

Timebomb sees her coming and tries to dodge, but the attack is so unorthodox - a combination flying charge ballet kick that ends with the attacker passing completely through her target after the impact – that her defense is unsuccessful. There's a solid *crack* as impact shudders up Kitty's leg but it's clear that her target takes by far the worse of it. The blond girl's eyes cross and she staggers backward, bumping into the Morlock.

Sprite's kick is not enough to take the girl out entirely, and she again creates a small sphere of energy in her hands, holding it for a second.

Confused by Rachel's stream of information Kurt pauses for a moment only to be surprised by the blast of plasma from the street below. Looking out at the unfolding battle he spots the source of the blast, and teleports behind Domino, hoping to wrest the plasma cannon from her grasp.

There's a rush of imploding air near Rachel and Nightcrawler appears behind her assailant, taking her by surprise with a well orchestrated grab as she recovers from her weapons recoil. Nightcralwer finds himself in the possession of an absurdly tricked-out gun withthree barrels, multiple flashing lights and chrome. He's also on the receiving end of a glare from the pale skinned girl, but she was so surprised by his appearance that she lacks the time for a counter strike.

Hearing Memento's words, Colossus calls up, "Kurt, get her out ofthere, far away," making a guess that, whoever the red-haired woman is, if she's what's making Memento more powerful, separating the two might make him less powerful.

The bond girl completes her action, and everyone watches in adrenaline charged slow motion as her toss sends the energy sphere through the shattered window, where it bounces just past the still staggered young redhead.

Rachel sees it land near her and knows it can't be good, but before she has a chance to restore her shields from the previous assault theenergy grenade explodes, pummeling her with concussive force and sending her flying out the window into the street below. She lands justa couple yards from her hunter and Wolverine.

"No way," the redhead says, recovering her focus. "Whatever he did earlier, he was trying to -eat- me. I'm not powering him up just by standing here. Now, as for you," she takes telekinetic hold of Timebomb, lifting her off the ground, "you can go meet your maker," And she sends Timebomb, hard and fast, at Memento.

The blond girl stands no chance in this exchange, being the focus of a fast tight arc that ends with slamming headlong into the large man. This renders her unconscious and appears to hurt him, though he's still standing

"Not eat you..." Memento says, "The fracture inside you, splitting and shifting and severing and ending, so many streams, so much that will never happen. I _NEED_ That!"

He reaches out to her and everyone can see a kaleidoscopic array burst from Rachel to Memento’s outstretched hand. She feels the severing crowding up on her again but as adrenaline hyped as she is she’s able to avoid the sense of unconsciousness; with that gone there’s no actual pain in his attack – just a discomfort in the core of her being. Memento starts glowing during this, surrounded by a sort of lightning storm and cloud effect.

During this Colossus charges Memento again, still expecting one of the others to intercept.

Domino does just that, rolling away from Nightcralwer and ratcheting together two halves of a battlestaff that had been strapped over her back. Once it's together she fires some sort of sabot round at Colossus. Not surprisingly, this has no effect, ricocheting off into the street....

...where it penetrates a fast approaching taxi on its way to pick people up at the bus station. This severs the taxi's break lines. The driver has time enough to leap free from the vehicle before it plows into Colossus and then bursts into flame.

This isn't enough to actually _hurt_ Colossus, but it is enough to halt him for the moment as he has to either tear the twisted taxi apart or pick the whole thing up.

He hefts the taxi to clear his path.

"Nice little dance we've got going here -- switch partners?" Wolverine does not take kindly to people shooting up even New York cabbies; Domino can be the next target.

The Canadian mutant executes a backward flip roll from his prone position and totally ignores both Memento and Feral and closes with impressive speed on Domino. Feral appears confused by this change in tactics, but ultimately bounds after him in an instinctive ‘chase the prey’ fashion.

The pale skinned woman is clearly a canny combatant and smoothly shifts her stance to parry his attack, catching his swing on the wrist with her staff and deflecting his initial attack without having his claws shred her own weapon. Logan continues to press, however, getting inside her defensive range and landing a head butt with his adamantium skeleton on her forehead, sending her staggering backward for a second before she recovers, turns the stagger into a move back out of his grapple range and executes leaping, double legged snap kick that Wolverine blocks by crossing his forearms. Domino turns the kicks momentum into a leap and roll away, ending the exchange a few feet away from Wolverine.

The cloud and lightning lightshow around Memento grows, and Rachel continues to feel the hollowing out inside herself under his assault. Cerebro is beeping like crazy.

Nightcrawler tosses the ridiculously large weapon away, and *bamfs* across the battlefield to grab Rachel and port her away, hoping to break Memento's energy drain connection. "Excuse me, miss," he apologizes as he grasps her around the waist. He's aiming to get some height and picks a destination atop a nearby building overlooking the scene.

Rachel feels the stomach churning, full body ache of teleportation for the first time but manages to keep her feet. The hollowing out sensation stops. Once she refocuses her eyes she can see Memento in the street below, raging at the broken connection, the absorbed chronal energy seething around him.

“Noooooooo!” The big man yells, lightning and smoke cracking around him, with figures beginning to materialize in the smoke.

Sprites pocket Cerebro is going nuts, picking up dozens of forming mutant brainwave patterns.

"Colossus, he's summoning an army!" Sprite yells, then, still unsure whether her phasing will protect her from the energy storm around him, nonetheless dives down and hovers right in the middle of Memento's head, completely obscuring his vision and giving Colossus a free shot.

A free shot being even rarer than a free lunch, Colossus swings the cab at Memento.

The cab slams into the big man, and it wraps around him just as much as it had around Colossus a few seconds earlier. Unlike Colossus Memento is unable to ignore the damage. Despite his entropy field reducing some of the metal to rust as it approached him it was overwhelmed. The lightshow, clouds and ghostly figures vanish without so much as a *pop* the second after the impact. Memento is lying, clearly unconscious, in the wreckage of the cab.

Wolverine sees his sparring partners likewise vanish from existence at that moment.

Even in her achy post-teleport state Rachel can't help but notice that there is another set of thoughts on the roof of the Catholic Church to which Nightcrawler removed her....

"Who's there," Rachel calls out.

From the shadows near Nightcralwer and Rachel comes a sardonic clapping as Callisto, the acerbic former leader of the Morlocks steps into the light. "Always fun to watch, you are. Memento slipped his minder earlier this evening. Good thing you made sure he didn't hurt anyone."

"Her mind...she's blocking me," Rachel thinks, and asks, "Who are you, what are you doing here, and what connection do you have to -that-," she points down at the melee.

"Him?" Callisto shrugs," He's kind of a reverse precog - he can see everything that isn't going to happen. Sometimes he has to feed on people - he's got a trick that lets him blank people out for a few seconds to a minute and then, according to him, he eats all of the futures they now won't have because of that. I figure it's harmless, but Storm says we can't bother the surface folk at all, so we keep him pent up.

Nightcrawler pulls a face. "Callisto, if that's what you call harmless then Storm was absolutely right."

Callisto smirks, "I'm sure she was. Every one of her leadership decisions for my people has doubtless been spotless.

"Well, you didn't do a good job, then, did you," Rachel says, her eyes narrowed, "he was waiting for me at the Baxter Building, tracked me down and attacked me, then climbed up this building to attack me! How can that be harmless?"

Callisto gives Rachel a 'hey, the grown ups are talking' look, but eventually deigns to respond, "He's got a fixation on the Baxter Building for some reason. Maybe Richards as a time machine up there or something. As far as his attacking you, you look fine to me. He caused you to, what, black out for a second? Yeah. Right."

"How can his powers ever be harmless, if he's eating people's futures?"

"How the hell should I know?" Callsito responds, "Maybe he messed up the day of the guy who was otherwise gonna cure cancer. Maybe he stopped the birth of the next Hitler. My math is that every time he messes someone's life up he stops the next guy from stepping in front of a bus."

The one eyed woman draws a wry face, "He doesn't like targeting Morlocks because he says most of us have no future, but if he can't snag the occasional stockbroker or tourist he hasn't got a choice. Every once in a while he slips out, hovers around the Baxter Building, makes someone miss their train and comes home. Something about Red here seems to have sent him over the edge." She gives Rachel an appraising look.

"That part," Rachel responds, "is easy. I come--I just came--from a future where mutants are hunted, where it is a crime to be a mutant, and the punishment is death, or worse, slavery. I tried to change it before, and my presence here is itself a change; my whole past is a future that maybe now will never happen."

Nightcrawler look anew at the red-headed woman. "Der futur? Ach, we need to talk to Kitty. She may recognize you. What is your name,fraulein?"*

[MC *Ed note, see Uncanny X-Men 141-142]

"Rachel. Rachel Summers."

“Ach," Kurt winces. "This is going to hurt my head. I can tell now."

Callisto breaks in, "Where's Storm? As our beloved leader this is really her problem."

"I wish I could answer that," Kurt replies. "She's... out of contact at the moment."

Kurt's thought-bubble: "Callisto may wish to profit from Storm's absence. We must be on our guard."

Again the wry smile, "So she's ignoring her responsibilities with you too. Glad to see she's true to form. Well, this has been fun and all, but I have a community of people that are worried sick about the big idjit down there."

Callisto pulls a walkie-talkie from her belt "Sunder, pick him up."

The Morlock strongman lumbers out of the subway entrance and, after giving Colossus and Sprite a dirty look, frees the unconscious Memento from the remains of the taxi.

Sprite backs away, glancing around a bit apprehensively for signs of other Morlocks.

With surprising gentleness he lifts the man up and, with a passing grunt, returns to the subways.

Callisto gives Nightcrawler one more look, “Tell Storm her loving subjects miss her, and ask her how she’s going to handle our food issues this winter if we can’t raid the surface. We’re all dying to find out .”

With that she leaps from the roof of the church, executing a few bounces from ledges and telephone wires to land next to her hulking companion and their charge. As she’s about to vanish into the shadows Callisto looks back at the X-men, “A future where mutants are hunted, killed and held in chains? I sure hope Memento here finished obliterating that before you interfered, or we’re all going to pay the price.”