X-Men 189: Red Skies at Morning

Pages 1-2 (Everyone)

[OK, I want to get this out of the way now that we’re finished with all the scenes from lastish.]

The X-Men are at the New York dockside, where Ororo is preparing to board a liner to Casablanca. Everyone is in normal clothes, and Ororo is carrying a single large army duffel. She looks at the boat, then back to her friends, before moving to give the Professor a hug.

“Thank you for everything, Charles. You’ve shown me a very wide world.”

Xavier responds, “I’ve ever so grateful for your presence, and wish you a speedy return,” only looking a little awkward at the informality that a few years ago would have been unthinkable.

She hugs Peter as well, “Dosvidanya, little brother. Thank you for taking on my burdens.”

"I -- am trying," says Peter, hugging her back.

She moves to Kurt and ruffles his hair for a second, “Too cute. Thank Amanda for arranging the open ticket back for me.

"Be safe, Ororo. Come back soon. I'll keep the chair warm for you."

She pulls him into an embrace and whispers in his ear. “You will excel Kurt. You always do.”

She gives Rachel a long look, “I see her in you. Make her proud.”

"I...I'll try. Thank you". Rachel leans in for an embrace that is more an indication of a hope than anything else.

Ororo moves to Logan, and her face becomes a little more serious. “I have called Forge to let him know I’m leaving. He’ll still be using the cut out to send along his progress. I know you are unsure of him, but he’s a good man.”

"If you say so, I'll buy it."

“I also had a thought about Rogue. When both you and I _let_ her take out powers there was no conflict in her psyche. Perhaps we could convince Carol to do the same, when she’s back? I don’t know if that would help or not, but I think the girl needs absolution.”

His eyebrows go up. "That's... something to work on. Yes. None of us gets out of here without needing that, eh. A good thought."

She gives Logan a hug, “Take care, send Mariko my love.”

"Will do." He hugs her back, hard. Flamin' goodbyes. Hate them.

Finally, she’s at the end of the row, looking at Kitty, her eyes filled with love and a small amount of regrets.

“I will be home as soon as I can. I promise.”

Kitty flings her arms around Ororo, thinking, Not going to cry. Not! And in fact she doesn't cry. "Be safe," she says aloud, though quietly. "I love you and I'll miss you."

“And I you,” Storm says, giving her a quick kiss before ending the hug, shouldering her bag and heading into the embarkation area.

Ultimately we see Storm staring into the bright red sunrise as the ship pulls away, taking her to Africa and parts unknown.

[BR: anyone have anything they want to say amongst themselves on the dock after she leaves? Logan, we know, is about to hop on a plane for Belize….]

An Issue of Ominous Portents…
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

Page 3-6 (Rachel, Kitty, Peter, Kurt)

The scene is a crowded street in New York City, one bustling with shoppers. Several members of the X-Men, in their civilian identities, are mixed with the crowd, following the signal of a portable cerebro. An entirely new mutant contact of considerable strength has appeared in midtown, and the X-Men’s objective is to locate him or her, ascertain their intentions and respond accordingly.

The first thing Rachel notices is that the flooding thoughts of the mass of holiday shoppers act as a crude effective psychic barrier, limiting her telepathic powers.

At the moment, Kitty is about ten feet ahead of Rachel, moving easily with the flow of human traffic.

Kurt, well disguised in a woolly hat and a high-collared jacket, moves through the crowd as a winger, mirroring Kitty's position. He scans the faces of the crowd surreptitiously.

The cerebro's pinging leads the team down the crowded street to a moderately sized, highly upscale women's clothing boutique. From the window the place is 'crowded' for the upscale boutique definition of the word, meaning that there are customers. No one is glowing, flying or on fire, nor is there any sign of panic, so it's hard who the mutant might be, or if they're even in the front room.]

Rachel attempts to set up a mental link between the X-men through the crowd "noise." [I'll give Kurt a chance to set the marching order. He is the leader, after all]

Rachel has extensive experience with maintaining telepathic contacts, and is able to cut through the psychic clutter to link the team together. Doing so is taking enough of her concentration that, for now, it's the only thing she can do telepathically.

Kitty loiters at the window of the boutique, studying the display - and whatever is visible behind it. Are we ready for recon? she asks.

Kurt replies I believe so. While we don't have visual contact, the location suggests a woman. Colossus, please hold position near the entrance. Kitty, my apologies, but you look the most harmless of us, so please proceed inside. Rachel, if I may accompany you, we can follow Kitty and keep an eye on things. I want to be in position should an extraction become necessary."

Thought bubble Please Lord let this be straightforward. I don't want anyone hurt on my first day as leader.

He slips his arm through Rachel's and nods towards the door of the boutique. He inclines his head to her and says in a quiet voice. "And maybe later when things are resolved her we can look for a replacement flying jacket, nicht wahr?"

Rachel blushes. "That sounds like a good idea," she says.

Kitty enters first, the ships bell jingling as she does so. She has a few seconds to check out the room from the inside the shop has a narrow storefront but considerable depth, and is clearly divided into at least in half with additional stock to the back, separated from the main floor by the dressing rooms. The clothes are fashionable and clearly expensive.

There are three women between the ages of 20 and 40, all fashionably dressed and well coifed, who are clearly the sales staff. One of them is helping an elegant, sliver haired woman of obvious means in selecting a blouse. Another is assisting a Latino woman in perhaps her late 20’s to early 30’s who is trying one of the shop’s dresses. She is there with a girl likely a year or two younger than Kitty, who again is dressed in a very stylish outfit. The pair have several outfits set aside for the older woman to wear, while a stack of boxes indicates that they have set aside considerable purchases already.

This is all she can make out before the third member of the perfectly turned out staff greets her with a charming smile. “Hello and happy holidays! How can I assist you today?”

Kitty smiles back, refusing to give any room to a feeling of being under-dressed and under-financed for this place. "I think I'll just look for now, thanks."

The woman gives Kitty an every so slightly sour look, obviously less than thrilled at the thought of an under-dressed teenager looking around unsupervised, but the tinkling of the bell over the door prevents her from hovering.

With that taken care of, Kitty drifts toward a display of skirts then looks at her "watch," trying to see if the mini-Cerebro can give her a better fix now that she's closer. She chose a direction that gives the largest possible angle between the two groups in the front of the shop.

Unfortunately the mini-Cerebro isn't precise enough to pinpoint a person, even out of this small a space. She (and it must be a she, given the shop's population) is in this room or one of the dressing rooms, but that's as far as Kitty can tell without modifying the thing on the fly, which would attract attention, or until the mutant actively uses her powers, which would register a spike on the machine even if it's an otherwise invisible ability.

Kurt and Rachel enter a moment later; which makes the whole of the boutique feel a trifle crowded.

The saleswoman moves over to the couple who just entered, politely engaging Rachel over Kurt - not just because Kurt is strange looking but because she expects Rachel to select something and Kurt to pay for it. Her, both can see, is ever so slightly split as she keeps half an eye on the lone teenager.

"Happy Holidays. And how can I assist you this evening?" she asks Rachel.

Kurt, relatively free from interference for a second, gets a chance to glance around the room. Discounting the people, there's a small pile of things just outside one of the dressing rooms - an overstuffed backpack that has sticking out of the edge of a pleated plaid skirt. The backpack is sitting on top of a padded winter jacket that has clearly seen better days.

Kurt registers the presence of the backpack, and thinks to the group There's someone in the changing room, cubicle 3. A runaway? Overfull backpack and worn clothes. Kitty, perhaps a casual trip over the backpack as you pass?

Kurt separates himself from Rachel for a moment and pretends to examine a rack of blouses with a sight line to the changing rooms. In a thought bubble he thinks Must come here again to get something for Amanda. If only it wasn't all Shi'ar illusions. He shakes his head. Keep focused, Kurt!

I see it, Kitty says after a moment of moving closer to the changing rooms. Concern and suspicion come across the link. How'd she talk her way in *here*? Watch out for mental influence.

Moving even closer, she "accidentally" lets a blouse slip off a hangar. Stooping to pick it up off the floor, she shoots a quick glance toward the changing room and presumably the feet and lower legs of its occupant.

There are none. Nearby the older woman tisks quietly at Kitty's clumsiness and the general lack of distinction amongst the younger generation.

From this vantage point the room is empty. Having changed position a few things are clear: first, the jacket is sized for teenager, second, the pleated skirt is clearly part of the uniform of one of New York's many parochial schools, third, the boxes of clothing the woman and child have set aside have an open box on top, and it's contents are also sized from a teenager.

Maybe just a student? Kitty sends, puzzled. Some kids do carry a lot of stuff in their backpacks. Or are those clothes the two are wearing new from this store?

Meanwhile, Rachel gives the saleswoman a request to try a half dozen types of shoe and keeps an eye out while she waits for her request to be fulfilled. [JK: let’s try a stunt here to see what Kitty is seeing] Ok, so we're looking for a teenager; Kitty, can you get an idea of what she's wearing from the label?

The psychic clutter is just too much for her to handle with adding the sensory inputs. In fact, she nearly loses the telepathic link but manages to keep it together.

Kitty gives the couple a longer look and, and while it makes sense for the woman to be wearing clothes from the shop as she is trying something on, the girl's clothes are _also_ ones from the shop. In fact, she's wearing another copy of the blouse Kitty is holding.

The woman, having finished being fussed over by the girl and the saleswoman, heads back into the dressing room. Both Kitty and Kurt, likely on the lookout for that, get a glimpse inside and see a half dozen other outfits to be tried on and, hanging on a hook, a distinctly more worn, less fashionable dress and coat.

Kitty can hear the saleswoman talking to the girl, "Your mother has an excellent bone structure - dresses just fall so well on her! But what she needs are some nice shoes...."

'''''

Outside Colossus is keeping watch on the crowd. Everything appears normal for a crowded Manhattan night as the city gears up for the holidays.

At least it does until he spots a delivery truck up the street that’s idling in a parking place but making no move to unload anything. All the other vehicles on the street are moving as much as traffic will allow or are parked and off; but this one is just… waiting.

Colossus moves closer to the truck, letting Rachel see, and tries to figure out who's with the truck.

Maybe it's just making a delivery, but I don't think so.

He's not able to spot anyone outside the truck who appears connected to it, though there is someone in the driver's seat.

Colossus crosses the street, getting closer to the truck.

Peter, is there a teen anywhere nearby? Someone wearing new clothes?

Rachel starts seeing through Colossus’ eyes, seeing the parked, idling delivery truck and his cautious approach towards it, but her focus is elsewhere, scanning the street scene for teenagers in fancy clothes. It’s hard to tell, since everyone is wearing winter coats.

Peter moves to the back of the truck first, then to the passenger's side, keeping an eye out for anything interesting. The truck is the driver's cab attached to a rectangular, windowless storage space with a roll up back door. The logo for "Rime Frozen Goods Delivery" is emblazoned on the back and passenger side, but thrown slush and mud had rendered it illegible on the driver side that Peter originally spotted.

The truck is more or less parked in, having pulled very close to the car in front of it, presumably to make unloading the back of the truck easier. Peter would have a very awkward time crossing in front of the van.

'''''''''

Nightcrawler, Kitty says, I'd like to try starting a casual conversation with this girl.

Nightcrawler nods slightly and thinks Fire away, Kitty. We're here to get to know the mystery mutant after all.

Without further comment, Kitty looks at the girl and the pile of boxes more obviously for a moment, then sidles over and says (in a hushed voice intended to not to be overheard in the changing room), "Are you really going to buy *all that*?" Her tone and expression are definitely envious.

There is a brief flash of fear in the girl's face but she recovers quickly, "Yeah. We decided we needed to update our look for Christmas. Mom came into some money." Her eyes flick over Kitty, taking in the X-Man's relatively downscale clothing, and she relaxes a touch.

Kurt begins to grow anxious. This is taking too long, and I'm not getting the team to work smoothly. Scott would have found and contacted the mutant by now. Perhaps this was a foolish idea in the first place.

Rachel can't help but pick up on Nightcrawler's agitation. He signals strongly at Rachel. It's likely to be the child, given a newly manifested mutant. Perhaps if you dropped the mindlink to the rest of us and concentrated on scanning the child?

Kitty is focused on cozying up to their quarry. "Coming into money is good," she says, showing awareness of the saleswoman's continued presence. "'Specially if you can spend it on clothes."

You got it, though if we hear a big noise from outside it's probably Peter brawling with the deliveryman Rachel sends, before dropping both the sense link and the group link, and turning her mind to scanning the girl.

She drops the links and tries scanning the girl but has real problems with the outside crowd noise, as well as the sudden sensory shift, and has a few seconds of being out of contact with everyone.

To Kitty, the girl says "Yeah, well not just clothes." Kitty can see the nervousness behind her facade - the girl is clearly feeling guilty about some aspect of this and trying to cover it. It also looks like she's buying the idea of Kitty being some sort of scammer, but this girl doesn't read this way. Her stance is more that this is a first time thing.

Rachel penetrates the static and feels the professor's thoughts in her mind - good as the room is it can't replicate whole functioning minds. Good, Rachel - you have entered her surface thoughts without her awareness. She is concerned that Kitty is aware of her recent activity and might do something to get her in trouble. Said recent activity was using her mutant power of electro-conscious projection to create a prepaid line of credit for her mother in several computer banks. She is contemplating whether to terminate the conversation with Kitty or offer to buy her the blouse she's holding in order to make her go away.

'''''''''''''

Peter reaches the driver's window. "Here to make a delivery, sir?"

"Naaah, I'm on break. I gotta keep the engine running to keep the freezer working." The man tells him with practiced smoothness. Peter can just make out a second uniform under the collar of his coverall. This one is deep red and thicker.*

Peter feels his link with the others go down, but knew this was coming. For a few seconds, at least, he's on his own.

"Is this how you usually spend?" says Peter. "No coffee, no reading, just -- sitting and listening to the engine?" He's not trying to be subtle here. Indeed, he lets the driver see that he sees the second uniform under the first.

"It's very 'zen'," the driver responds, and then yanks up a high tech looking pistol and discharges it into the general direction of Peter's face.

Peter changes into Colossus and the energy blast ricochets back into the truck, blowing a hole in the roof.

"Is this the part where I hit you to make you enlightened?"

"Go Go Go!" yells the driver, who is hurling himself sideways across the seat to get out of Colossus reach. He also pulls up an armored hood and mask of the sort the Hellfire Clubs goons wear - red hood with flesh noted flat masks containing eye and mouth slits.

Peter hears the back of the van open up and four "Hellfire Knights" - trained operatives in suits of specialized heavy armor - leap out of the van. Three are heading for the shop while the fourth turns to face Colossus with a big energy projection device built over one hand.

'''''''''

Rachel drops the link with the girl as soon as she's got info on her from the Professor, and attempts to re-establish the team mindlink, hoping to sureptiticously brief the team on the girl's status.

She succeeds in doing so, snapping back to the shared link just in time to sense Peter's surface thoughts [which are along the lines of 'why, that looks like a very large gun]. Everyone gets her short burst confirming that the teenager is the target mutant and that the Hellfire Knights are coming.

The girl's an electrokinetic; don't know how strong she is when she isn't hacking. Rachel sends, then telekinetically flips the fire alarm, hoping to get the customers and staff out of the shop before someone gets hurt, and activates her wards (and starts glowing -- so it goes; guys with guns and scary armor are about to come in).

Nightcrawler thinks orders at the group. Kitty, protect the girl. Get out the back of the shop if needs be.

Colossus, disable the vehicle and try to corral the attackers in the shop to avoid injuries to passers-by.

Rachel, keep low. Use the clothes racks for cover! See if you can get them off balance.

"Oh golly, what are *they* doing here?" Sprite (or maybe Ariel) says. She turns to face the front of the shop, and also backs into the electrokinetic girl, starting to push her toward the back of the store. "Let's back up, get away from the front, come on!" And at the same time she yanks a short tube out of her purse, which she gives a twist to extend it to full baton length.

The girl stares at the baton for a second, then Kitty's words register and she yells "Mom, Mom, grab you coat and come on!" The girl also grabs her jacket as Kitty pushes her, and the youngest X-Man directs the pair down the corridor to the stock room while keeping her eye on the fight.

Rachel, glowing and very non-stealthy, gives a shrug that's more mental than physical. You got it. She starts to damp down her shields to a level where they no longer glow but has already made herself the most visible target of the Knights. The leader aims his built in arm blaster at her and fires. A cone of ultra high frequency sonics blows a hole in the shop window before it slams into her, shattering her concentration. Everyone feels the mental link drop.

Kurt has seen this weapon before - the Hellfire Knights shot him with one, scrambling his concentration and preventing him from teleporting for several minutes after he was hit.

Kurt scoops a handful of clothes from the nearest rack and 'ports rapidly point-to-point around the intruders, trying to drop the garments over their heads to obscure their vision.

He appears over the one attacking Rachel, neatly covering the domed head with a designer coat, then vanishes again. The Knight loses his targeting on Rachel, giving her a chance to duck for cover under another clothes rack. Her limbs feel like jelly, but now that she's out of the direct path of the beam those are recovering quickly. Mentally, however, she's still staggered with a killer headache.

Kurt appears over another Knight in line, dropping a coat over that one as well, but the Knight brings an arm up catching the cloth before it can Block his vision and, in the process, clipping Nightcrawler with his oversized, armored fist.

"Not so fast you freak," The Knight says,

The acrobatic X-Man twists away from most of it, but still feels the blow and has to alight for a moment to catch his bearings. He's painfully aware that the guy who just hit him is also armed with a big gun of unknown function.

The Knight facing Colossus fires his gun, catching his opponent in a magnetic repulsion beam. Colossus feels himself being forced backward and is able to lean into the beam, digging his feet in, to buy him a few seconds to respond.

"Gotcha, mutie!" the Knight says triumphantly. "You're not getting out of this."

The truck driver, now clearly feeling safe from Colossus, grabs a communications unit and begins broadcasting through speakers built into the truck, "Attention citizens! Federal agents are working to prevent mutants from performing a kidnapping. Please leave the scene immediately. I repeat...."

"Nightcrawler, beware!" Colossus yells, then fights the magnetic repulsion field to slam his hands together. The sound is like crash of a hundred church bells being rung at the same instant.

Colossus feels the magnetic repulsion stop as the Hellfire Knight in front of him screams and claps both arms over his ears in a futile attempt to block out the sound before falling over. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the truck driver likewise grab his ears and slump over, and he can hear the hideous feedback over the driver's intercom as it attempted to transmit the sound.

More distant the fellow menacing Nightcralwer with his weapon drops to one knee, staggers a few paces forward and slumps face forward against a parked car.

The Hellfire knight who first fired on Rachel, while he's forced back a step, isn't incapacitated by the sound - doubtless he has some sonic buffers to protect him from his own weapon.

Kurt slams his hands over his ears and ducks his head down just in time, avoiding being stunned from the sound. Even still the shockwave of the clap is bone rattling.

The second Knight in line steps into the shop, shattering the rest of the shop window. "Kidnap victim located," he says, "A Mutant is blocking the rescue." He levels a gun at her.

Sprite prays that the girl gets clear, knowing that if she phases through the attack it will strike the people she's supposed to be protecting. She hears the click of a door behind her, proof that the girl and her mother have reached the nominal safety of the storage room seconds before the figure fires.

Rather than an energy blast or projectile, the gun generates a sphere of coruscating crimson force around her. The attack carved a hemisphere out of the floor under her feet, making Sprite pretty sure that she's completely incased.

Rachel sneaks around through the aisles, until she can see Hellfire Knight #4 without his being able to see her, her mouth tense with staying focused through her headache. She stares at the gun for a long moment, then attempts to telekinetically disconnect/disable its power supply.

Once she has a visual fix on the weapon she's able to spot the leads heading back to the armor's power pack. Focusing her fractured concentration she gives it a strong a yank as she can without attracting attention, causing the weapon to short out.

She ducks back under cover, and it doesn't look like the Hellfire Knight even noticed.

"Kidnap victim?" Kitty sputters loudly. "You goons are advertising your intentions now?"

"Mutant, you're under arrest for the attempted kidnapping of that girl," the Knight replies, obviously playing for the cameras of the boutique's security system, though Kitty is sure she can hear a sneer in his voice.

At the same time, she phases and pokes her baton at the field - on the side away from the Knight. Finding that it doesn't zap her, but also doesn't let her through, she takes a quick breath, concentrates fiercely, and attempts to phase through the field (again, away from the Knight).

Her captor is still monologuing, obviously intending to move past the field towards the storage room, and the girl. "I am required to warn you that your containment sphere contains sufficient air provided you don't exhaust it trying to escape. If you come quietly... What?"

She preps herself to pass through the field only to have it disappear.

Instead she bounces off of him.

"Stupid Mutie," he says, quieter now, "If the queen built this armor to contain you didn't you think it would have its own force field to prevent your little tricks?"

And with that he swats her with a vicious backhand, the force field on his armor preventing her from passing through it. She goes flying backward through the back wall of the shop, past the girl and her mother who are cowering in the store room at the locked back door, through the door and into the alley before she recovers.

After struggling with the cinched coat for several seconds the lead Knight finally manages to get the thing off of him, and spins around looking for a likely target.

"There you are you blue furred menace!"

Nightcrawler thumbs his nose at the Hellfire Knight and 'ports to one side, then the other, trying to lead the knight to line up with one of the other knights before pausing slightly longer than before to draw his fire onto his fellow goon.

The angered Knight spins from place to place, trying to get a bead on his target and Nightcrawler realizes that he's coming way too close, aiming to the target zone before Nightcrawler gets there. As such Kurt keeps his pause to a bare minimum, barely avoiding the sonic blast the Knight eventually launches. Unfortunately, that means that the sonic blast doesn't hit Nightcrawler's intended target either, instead shooting past him and shattering a three fold mirror inside the shop.

Seeing the situation apparently well in hand Colossus looks into the truck. The driver is still hanging on to consciousness, and is still gripping his extremely dangerous gun.

Colossus yanks the firearm away and with a gentle cuff renders the man truly incapacitated.

Rachel takes a moment to gather herself, then telepathically blasts the remaining Knight through her cover.

Unfortunately the mental shielding built into the Knight's armor prevents her attack from penetrating. She has, however, attracted his attention.

The knight, already turning to see the source of the energy blast that shattered the window, continues to rotate almost comically at the psionic attack, but is unable to spot Rachel hiding in the clothes rack.

Sprite quickly looks around - does it appear that the goon squad has left the back alley uncovered? (She knows what Logan would say about that ...)

There is no evidence of the goon squad in the alley.

Kitty steps back through the door, one eye warily on the interior door as she speaks to the two in a conversational tone, as calming as she can make it. "The alley's clear, amazingly ... is this door really locked? I think that's against fire code. Anyway, let me pull you through it. You should be able to make it to the next street over and disappear ..."

Her other eye is on the woman and girl. It has occurred to her that they might have been witting bait, as opposed to unwitting. She's definitely staying phased.

The pair, who were startled when Kitty flew through the room, look downright stunned when she walks back through the door. "Who _are_you?" the mother asks.

Kitty doesn't get any sense of guile or deception from them. Indeed, her first encounter with the X-Men occurred when the Hellfire Knights ambushed them, and her, during Xavier's recruitment pitch for the school.

The girl looks at her mother, "Mom, I think she's a super-hero – the Vision or something. We have to go with her."

"The men out there said she was trying to kidnap you!" her mother counters, still staring at Kitty.

"They're liars," Kitty replies steadily. "They've kidnapped *me* twice - trying to recruit me into their band of criminals. Yes, even though they claim to be anti-mutant. I think that's a crazy stupid tactic, by the way, but then I'm smarter than most people."

"What *I'm* going to do is help you get away, and either lead you back to our car, or give you a business card. It *would* be helpful to have you on hand to defend against kidnapping charges, though." She casts an annoyed look back towards the front of the shop.

“Mutant?” the mother sputters.

The girl grabs her mom’s hand in one of hers, and then extend the other to Kitty, “Mom, we’re going. It sounds like a war out there, and we have to get through this door, at the very least.”

[Hellfire Knight #1][In the street, undamaged, active, armed with a sonic blaster]

Something shifts inside the Knight's gun, realigning the targeting cones. as he again scans the area for Nightcrawler's heat signature. "You can't get away! I can see you in the dark, and the more you teleport the better my systems get at detecting that too. It's just a matter of time."

He fires and the cone of sound has been greatly expanded. Kurt nearly manages to dive out of it, but the blast still catches his legs, rattling his bones and turning his tail, thigh and calf muscles into so much useless weight for a second.

His fabled agility saves him and while he's barely able to control his fall he keeps from landing on anything sharp and angles himself behind a parked car to get out of the direct range of the cone. Still, better this than the blast encompassing his head, which would have left him much worse off than a few more bruises.

The Hellfire Knight continues to train the gun where Nightcralwer landed, the sonics rattling the cars windows and metal frame, not to mention Kurt's teeth, but he can focus through it.

[Nightcrawler][In the street, mildly damaged, active]

Nightcrawler calls out to Peter and points to HfK#1. "Colossus, take him down, now!" He teleports inside the shop and tries to assess the situation, and draw the HfK#4's attention from the rear of the shop where he assumes the target mutant and Kitty have retreated.

Once inside the shop and away from the sonics feels much better. In his position he can make out Rachel taking cover in the clothes racks and the Hellfire Knight, having just completed his search of the room, is again about to step towards the back of the shop.

Nightcrawler scans the shop, preparing his moves before he picks up a sizeable boot with a weighty heel and hurls it, spinning end over end, at the back of the Hellfire Knight's helmet.

• Klunk*

The boot bounces off and the Knight turns around again, looking more and more like a child’s top. “You!”

He instinctively aims his gun at Nightcrawler, who starts ‘porting around the shop, filling it with noise, smoke and confusion.

Much better balanced than before, Colossus again slams his hands together in a deafening thunderclap. The two already stunned Hellfire Knights twitch slightly at the second onslaught, but his intended target shrugs it off.

"I got sonic bafflers, mutie," the Hellfire Knight scoffs. "All the better to fry your little blue pal."

Knight #4, unable to get a track on Nightcralwer, turns and picks up the large circular clothes rack that Rachel is hiding behind and under. “This ought to slow you down!” he yells and lobs the rack in Nightcrawler’s general direction. Kurt tires to teleport clear but his timing is fractionally off and the thing is on him before he can visualize a clear landing site in the increasingly wrecked store.

This being Nightcrawler we get a somewhat humorous shot of him tangled up in the rack and clothing, with a tasteful red silk blouse over his head.

“Aha!” the knight says, seeing the new revealed Rachel.

Rachel throws a psi bolt at the knight, and braces herself to dodge the expected blow.

This time her psi-bolt, even with the rapidly fading problems the sonics caused, strikes home. The Hellfire Knight staggers back a step, but is clearly not down for the count.

In the alley

"Okay, I suggest you close your eyes, this is really weird if you're not used to it," Kitty says, even as she catches the girl's hand and makes all three of them intangible. "Whatever you do, don't let go. Nothing can hurt you in this state. Nothing normal, anyway."

While she's talking - assuming the mother, at least, has closed her eyes - she draws them gently out into the alley, so they're through and clear of the wall by the time she's done.

The three slide through the wall, the girl wide eyed with wonder, the mother with eyes squeezed shut with terror, until they’re clear.

Once they've stopped moving the two speak at once, "You said you had a car?" "You said you had a card?"

Seeing that his target is entangled inside the clothes rack the Knight exults "Gotcha now, ya freak!" and fires his cannon at Nightcrawler.

Not having anywhere to go or time to move Kurt is pummeled by the sound, which is just as bad as he remembered it from years ago. He's struggling to hold on to consciousness.

Kurt scrambles about, trying to get clear of the clothes, racks and general sense of loss of dignity. Get up, you fool, the X-Men need leadership, not a clothes horse!

Colossus strides forward and, with little ceremony, lays a devastating punch on the Hellfire Knight whose sonic cannon is pinning Nightcrawler. The blow produces a resounding clang as his fist breaches the armors power pack. Colossus can feel the energy surge through him but ignores it, and once he extricates his hand the man drops, either unconscious or pulled down by the weight of his now inert armor.

Nightcralwer regains full control of his limbs once the sonics ends, but is still in a less than dashing position.

Rachel, finally restored from the sonic attack, restores her shields and begins glowing brightly again. "That's better," she says, "Now...take a nap." This time, she turns her undivided attention on the remaining Knight, trying to send "him" unconscious.

Already staggered from the previous attack the man's psyche crumbles under the second blast and he drops.

"Let's get further away from this," Kitty says. "Hold tight, okay? And close your eyes again." With that she starts them moving along the alley, in the direction of the car, indifferent to any inanimate obstacles in their path.

Once they're moving ... Rachel? she thinks loudly.

Kitty? What's up? The enemy's down

Oh? Good. I've got the targets clear, pretty much. Stand by.

Near the end of the block, Kitty brings the trio to a halt. "Okay," she says, making them all tangible again and moving closer to one of the walls. "*We* were trying to find out if the newly detected mutant was an immediate threat to the public. What you were doing isn't that." She gives the girl a stern look. "But if you don't already know, mutants caught using powers for unlawful purposes generally get *very* long prison sentences."

"Kimberly?" The mother looks at her daughter, "What is she..."

"Mom, OK yeah, we really didn't just inherit a lot of money from you lost Uncle Juan in Tijuana, OK. Can we just go?"

The mother looks back at the carnage and says " We have a lot to talk about." She reaches out her hand to Kitty, "Card?"

"Moooommm!"

"No. We will talk, and then I will call these people, or not. But we are not making this decision in the middle of a war zone."

Kitty hands her the card for the school. "I'm sorry we had to meet this way, ma'am," she says. "We really prefer quiet conversations."

"Thank you." The mother says, pocketing the card and taking her daughter's hand.

Kitty watches them go - taking an extra look around for possible trouble, just in case - then turns and starts back toward the shop, while working to return her baton to its compact state. Dunno whether we'll hear from them or not, Rachel, she sends. I'm on my way back.

Nightcrawler pulls the last of the blouses from his head with some annoyance, but smiles when he sees the 4 Hellfire Knights down for the count.

"Well done team. And now we do some tidying up, ja? While we wait for Kitty to report on the child and her mother."

Colossus, please destroy the knight's weapons and power-packs.

He looks around at the mess in the clothes boutique and starts righting toppled display racks. "Um, Rachel, could you lend a hand?"

The scene freezes, then fades, and the four X-Men are standing in an empty Danger Room.

Mission Completed. Please clean up and report to the conference room for debriefing.

Page 7-8 (Danger Room Debrief)

The steam and shower curtain carefully conceal Kurt's more masculine traits as he stands under a powerful hot shower, slowly working out the aches in his muscles. Danger Room or not, I'm going to hurt in the morning.

Ach, Kurt, you're going to have to do better than that to lead the X-Men. A simple mission ended up trashing a shop and very nearly lost the girl we were supposed to protect. How am I supposed to fill Storm or Scott's shoes?

He hangs his head under the shower jet and tries to drown his worries.

'''''''''''''*

Kitty is sitting on a bench in the locker area, wearing a tank top and jeans, her wet hair (still only a little grown in) temporarily slicked back. She's applying a salve to a darkening bruise on her arm, her expression abstracted. There's got to be some way to counteract that kind of force field ... starting with not bumping into it like a green kid ... Tech or power? Maybe if I ...

Rachel in the same locker room panel -- wearing a towel and flip-flops. She is thinking. "I'm not sure how we managed that one; Probably Peter's clap, if that's what happened. But I was almost out of the fight before it began. Could I have stopped the sonic attack if I hadn't taken down my shield? Should I have started out being subtle?"

'''''''''''

Peter has one towel wrapped around his waist and is drying off his hair with another towel.

We achieved the mission goal, but... the people who saw would have thought we were the danger, which is what the Hellfire Club intended. Is this what the professor meant about winning a battle while losing the war?

'''''''''*

Inside the debriefing room Xavier is going over his notes on the exercise as everyone files in and takes their seats.

“First, and foremost, the exercise was a success, with the stated objective met,” Xavier says. “No civilians were injured and the target mutant and her mother were left with a favorable impression of our organization. There was some damage to the surrounding area, but it was kept relatively contained. ”

The screen behind him displays a score of 30 for “Make Contact/Prevent Kidnapping”, another 40 for “Protect Civilians”, and a -10 for “Property Destruction”

“You were also able to defeat all of the Hellfire Club’s agents despite their specialized weaponry.”

The screen adds “Defeated technologically advanced opposition: 140” The score then splits to the four team members, with the 200 points being divided among the four, 50 for each.

“On to the individual specifics,” Xavier says, and somehow managed to emote that while they succeeded in their goal he has concerns with their individual performances. “I’d like to hear your individual assessments of your performance before going in to my observations.”

Kitty, now wearing an unbuttoned button-down shirt over her tank top, looks to Kurt. Lockheed has appeared from wherever he's been and is standing with his head resting on her thigh, being scritched.

[KK: Figured we'd better establish that Lockheed still exists for now, eh?]

"I started out doing nearly everything wrong," Rachel says. "Nightcrawler was right that stealth was my best early option, and I should have started there -- though pulling the fire alarum was very effective. But when he told me to take cover, I followed his order immediately rather than noting that it was effectively impossible once I lit up -- so I ended up both making myself a target and then damping down my defenses so I couldn't stop the sonic attack--although I'm not certain I could have had I used my full power; the worst of both worlds.

"Once I'd gotten hit, though, I think I was pretty effective, given that the knights weaponry was unfamiliar to me and it was hard to concentrate; knocking out the force field weapon, freeing Kitty, and taking out a knight. We could use a backup communications channel -- if I'm the only one we have in the field, I'm too vulnerable to disruption."

"Would radios work?" says Peter.

The professor holds up a hand to forestall that line of thought for the moment, not wanting things to get off track.

Kurt speaks up. "Rachel did very, Professor. She followed orders - even if they were less than stellar - and kept her cool even when stunned.

"But I feel like a fool. The Hellfire Knights were ready for us, right down to their weaponry. I should have realised, and had us swap targets. It's not like we haven't faced them before." His brows are furrowed with annoyance.

"I was too unfocused," says Peter. "But... the real problem is that the people would believe the Hellfire Club's version of events."

The Professor nods, then looks to Kitty, "Sprite, your thoughts?"

"I should've thought of the force field being a defense, too," she replies. "But Peter's right - this accusation and counter-accusation thing isn't a winning strategy." She purses her lips. "Maybe we need a, a publicist or something."

Peter looks at her in surprise, as this is probably the most she's acknowledged his presence in some time, let alone in any positive way.

Professor Xavier looks at his own notes before speaking, “Thank you for your candid assessments of your performance. Here’s what I saw:

“The initial location and contact was very smoothly handled. You located the general area with no difficulty and Nightcrawler’s plan of investigation was sound – both unobtrusive and well defended. Remember that this, not the defeat of the Hellfire Knights, was the goal of the mission. First contact with any new mutant is fraught with potential problems in the mutant’s behavior, power and past experiences, never mind outside influences. Sprite’s instincts were sound in identifying the target that fit the emergent mutant demographic, and Rachel’s minimal use of intrusive telepathic scans on the basis of evidence is exactly the sort of behavior I want to see.

“Rachel’s mind link was well maintained despite the interference I was producing, but I do want to stress one thing which you have already noted: that mindlink is key. It is an enormous advantage. Don’t drop it unless you have to. The Danger Room is a place for experimentation, so no demerits for trying to implement ancillary effects like sharing Colossus’ vision, but don’t do that in the field unless you are sure you can maintain the mindlink, and your decision to drop the link to perform the scan of the mutant wasn’t wise.” Xavier gives Rachel a serious look, “In the past I was able to maintain such a link for the field team at a great distance, but due to Magneto’s interference those days are past. Once you are cleared for field work you will be the team’s communication lynchpin. I agree that we should consider alternate communication devices for the times when you’re not present, but nothing is as fast, effective or untraceable as telepathy.”

“Outside the shop Colossus’ correct identification of a potential threat was very well done. His approach was perfectly in keeping with a clandestine situation – ultimately defensible if his intuition has been incorrect – and forced the Hellfire Knights to spring their trap before they were prepared.

“Essentially, the location pre-combat situation meets with very high marks.”

As he’s speaking additional scores are being tallied for the individuals – 10 points for Nightcrawler’s plan, 10 for Kitty’s intuition, 10 for Rachel’s scan, 10 more for Rachel’s use of the mind link between the group over the static, 20 between Peter’s Intuition and approach. Finally it records a 10 point demerit for Rachel for dropping the link to perform the scan.

“Sprite’s communication with the target mutant and her mother was also well pitched – confident without being forceful, generating an sympathetic connection with the target but ultimately leaving the decision to her and her mother.” The professor’s face expression a little as he continues, “Keep in mind, however, that this was a very favorable situation for a first contact: there was no apparent animosity between the target mutant and her parents, there was an outside force that you could contrast yourself to and the mutant herself was aware of and in control of her powers.

“In regards to the Hellfire Club’s broadcast messaging, yes, we do have a concern in regards to mutant-kinds ill reception amongst the populace. I will stress that our best line of defense against that is our actions – saving the bystanders, minimizing the damage, being relatively open in our activities – but that is clearly not enough. Again, when it was a question of our approach of integration vs. Magneto’s for conquest we were able to draw a clear distinction. Now the Brotherhood is explicitly trying to provoke fear in the misguided belief that if mutants are sufficiently fear they will not be attacked, while the Hellfire Club is relying in infiltration rather than integration and using that fear to misdirect people against us. We do need a clearer way of delivering our message.”

“Does anyone have any comments about my review thus far before we go on?” The Professor asks.

"If we can go back to the public relations thing ..." Kitty says. "I mean, radios for backup is almost trivial, really. The hardest part is the encryption. The public image thing, though ... I don't know. I don't understand how people can love the Fantastic Four, say, but get all scared about any other mutants."

Nightcrawler looks sideways at Kitty. "Well, speaking as a blue-furred, demonic-looking - though devilishly handsome - mutant, I can readily see why the Fantastic Four, or three of them, get better newspaper headlines and photo opportunities.

"Also, ordinary folk see their children at risk of being mutants and, right or wrong, fear that possibility. The Fantastic Four gained their powers through their own actions, but anyone could be a mutant."

The Professor nods, "Little as I have to do with popular culture, I find it useful to analyze it. The number of horror movies in which ones children turn out to be something unnatural shows how primal that fear can be. That's the first, personal, familial fear. People expect their children to be 'like them', and mutants are, in a clear way, not.

He continues, "In addition, we mutants are also living evidence against America's anti-Darwinist movements. It's no coincidence that Reverend Stryker cloaked his crusade in evangelical robes. That fear of change, of the lack of divine primacy, still burns deep in the American psyche.

"Finally, there is the political, balance of power, fear. Nearly all other American super-humans received their powers, in one way shape or form, through advanced technology, even if it was just exposure to technology's after effects. Since World War Two the United States and its allies has held a significant advantage in that field, and as such have had a much higher number of super-humans than the rest of the world.

"But Mutation simply is - as we once explained to the Sentinel leader the Sun is the main source of it, and that shines on the Democratic and Communist states equally. Geopolitically speaking we're a destabilizing element. Inside any country we're just as common among the poor and disenfranchised as the well connected and technologically adept, between men and women, and among all political persuasions, so we are seen as being just as risky among the existing power structure.

"In short parents fear us because we are not the children they expected, religions fear us because we are 'an affront' to a narrow definition of God, Repressive governments fear us because we might undercut their internal authority, and Western governments for being used as weapons by opposing nations."

Distressed, Kitty says, "So yeah, we need professional help."

"Ja, perhaps," Kurt muses, "but we are not a product to be sold, nor a flag to wave for the USA or any other nation. Hank may have found some public acceptance as the Beast in the Avengers, but I do not see us gaining acceptance in such a fashion, not would I think that some of us want to achieve it that way."

"No, we aren't," Rachel says, "But we do have something in common with the Avengers, with the FF. We're heroes. They're looked up to, not feared, because people see them stopping disasters, saving the world, trying to help people like them. A lot of our battles are private--they're important to fight too, but the X-Men represent the good that mutants can do. What we do--what we can do--can be better PR for mutants than anything we can say. But only if people know about it."

"Perhaps Warren or Hank would have contacts that could help?” Kurt replies, “Warren's certainly got industry PR connections, and the Avengers must have a press officer. Neither is exactly what we need, but I suppose we must start somewhere."

Kitty nods at Kurt's suggestion. "What we can't do is nothing. Helping other mutants is important, but so is trying to oppose the ideas that lead to Rachel's future."

The professor nods, "Agreed. I think it was worthwhile to air this. I'll start on my end with opening a communication with Dr. Richards. Fantastic Four Incorporated has a PR and Licensing department so we can get some ideas from him. Kitty, please schedule some time for developing the independent, encrypted communications devices, and when that's done I'll ask you to act as part of our focus group for the US communication. Kurt, if you could contact Warren for suggestions I would appreciate it."

"Now then, on to specific combat critiques." He goes back his notes. "Colossus, while the new use of your strength and metallic body was indeed effective I have two concerns: first is that the initial use, while successful, was done with such precarious footing that failure there would have had more severe consequences. Given your inherent durability one of our opposition's most effective paths to neutralizing you is removing you from the scene. You must be cognizant of that risk. Relying on the attack a second time after you could have inferred the Hellfire Knight's defenses was a more serious slip that wasted valuable time."

Peter's score goes up by 15 points for the new maneuver, and is then demerited 5 for the lapse in judgment.

"Your doubling back to confirm that the driver had been removed from the situation was excellent thinking. He had been programmed to take a sniping position with his rifle and could have killed the target mutant or her mother."

Peter scores another 15 points, this time with no corresponding demerit. His final total is 75

"Sprite, once the fight began your removal of the target mutant from the direct line of fire was acceptable, but could have been better handled. If the Hellfire Knight had possessed damaging weapon you were not in a position to protect the targets - indeed the nature of your power meant that in all likelihood the attack would have passed through you and potentially struck the target. If you had stayed closer to the target, or had simply grabbed them, you could extended your power to them, both protecting them and more rapidly remove them from the scene."

Kitty scores 15 points, but then a 10 point demerit for a non-optimal response.

"Instead you left the target, engaged the Hellfire Knight, were temporarily removed from the conflict and, once freed, allowed yourself to be goaded into attacking a foe that had already displayed technology designed to counter your powers. That was exceedingly dangerous to you, and an unnecessary risk."

Kitty gets another 10 point demerit, lowering her total score to 45

"Rachel, you did draw attention to yourself early, but that had a mixed result on the conflict - Hellfire Knight 1 had weaponry specifically designed to counter Nightcralwer, and it was significantly less effective against you. Hellfire Knight 2 was designed to target you and never even had a chance to attack.

"Still the luminescent display that accompanies your telekinetic powers at anything above a minimal level means that when you decide to use them you must know in advance if you are to be subtle or overt. Both can be equally potent, but you must commit. I advise you to rely more on your telepathic and physical gifts at the start of a conflict while maintaining your telekinetic shields at a subtle level. Given your overall potency, that will protect you from most conventional attacks without drawing attention, while the transition to full power later can confuse or intimidate the opposition. In this instance you were neither fish nor foul, and ended up seriously hindered as a result."

Rachel receives a 10 point demerit.

"Once you recovered from that error you stayed effective despite your diminished power by staying out of sight. Your action let Sprite resume the encounter and kept Hellfire Knight #4 off balance long enough for her to escape with the target and for you to recover, and were then able to eliminate him. It was a good recovery from the poor position that you had placed yourself in."

There's a 15 point score to Rachel, leaving her at 55

The professor turns to Kurt. "Nightcralwer. Once the conflict started your initial set of orders was sound: Sprite was to extricate the targets, Colossus was to corral the Knights to protect civilians, Rachel was to stay low, hidden and subtle. As I discussed with the others there were failures of execution there, but the plan was sound. We need to work more as a team about the acceptance of your leadership position, but that will come."

Nightcrawler gets a 5 point bonus for the planning.

Xavier gives him a stern look, "The problem was that you failed to adapt to the loss of imitative and the fluidity of the situation. As you pointed out, you also failed to ascertain that the Knights were armored in the same method as before - specifically targeting one X-Men a piece. This technological specification is their Achilles heel once you have an opportunity to seize the initiative and change targets. As the field leader these are serious errors."

Nightcrawler takes 15 point hit on his score.

"Your abilities do not lend themselves to direct conflict with an armored opponent, so you must lean to obfuscation, misdirection and impairment. Your attempts at this were mixed, but at one point you allowed yourself to be predicted by one of the Knights in teleporting over him. As Cyclops informed you before, that can leave you wide open. Then you let yourself get cornered in range of an area attack.

Nightcralwer get a 5 point boost for some impairment delivery and then anther 15 point demerit for the other errors.

His final score is a 30.

"These are errors, I suspect, you wouldn't have made if you weren't also trying to lead the team," Xavier counsels him. "It's a new and confusing role, and one that will require a lot of effort. My immediate advice is not to think about what Cyclops or Storm would have done. Think about what you would do. The X-Men's current membership lends itself to stealth, subtlety, surveillance and surprise. These are your strengths, Nightcralwer. Use them."

"Ja, herr Professor. You are right. It is hard not to make comparisons, but I will try to focus."

I must talk to Wolverine; he will know how best to make stealth work for a team

"All right, so one thing I'm curious about," Rachel says, "I'm sure the Knight designed to combat me would have been more effective; it didn't occur to me that they would have one in this exercise, since I haven't been active with the team for long. But would the sonic attack have hit me like it did if I'd not dampened my shields first?"

The Professor smiles, "Likely not. The sonic attack relies on a kinetic component vulnerable to your defenses. Your mother once commented to me that listening to people through her telekinetic screens made them sound like they were underwater. While some of the sound would have made it through it would have had minimal effect."

He looks around the room. "I caution you not be disheartened. This was a first session with a new team member and a new team leader. There were bound to be some rough edges but nothing that we can't hammer into shape with continuous practice."

"Does anyone have anything else to add?"

"Well," Kitty says, sitting up straight and flushing a little, "I do have kind of an announcement. I've been thinking about the code-name thing. A lot.

"And I've decided to definitely go with 'Ariel.'"

The Professor nods, wearing his best 'I promise not to say I told you so' expression. "An excellent choice, especially since we'll have to approach our own branding and marketing in the near future. Consistent names and images are important."

He wisely leaves any comment about Kitty's perpetually rotating costume design unsaid.

Kurt speaks up. "Practice makes perfect, ja. But I have learned something from previous leaders of the X-Men. After hard work we unwind. Who is up for ice cream in town?"

Page 9-10 (Colossus)

Once again Peter finds himself in the tunnels under Manhattan, approaching the Morlock’s Alley. He makes it slightly father than he did last time without seeing anyone until a pale, large-eyes figure comes out of the darkness.

“Steelpeter. I felt you coming,” Caliban says. The mutant is still dresses in his tattered clothes but this time the outfit was once more fashionable, assuming your sense of fashion ended in the Victorian period, and accepted felt and velour as acceptable materials for a frock coat. “How is Spritechild? Is she well? Did she speak of me?”

"She is well," says Peter. "She hopes that you are well, also."

"Caliban is glad. I hope that Spritechild and Steelpeter are very happy together."

Perhaps as much to change the subject as because he is curious, Peter asks, "When you know I am coming, what is it you... see? Sense?"

Caliban looks at him quizzically, "I sense Steelpeter. I don’t understand."

"When I look at Callisto," says Peter, trying to feel his way towards asking Caliban to describe an entire sense beyond Peter's range. He describes Callisto, as she appears to the eye, and then says, "But, you sense more than I can. And when you sense me -- even if I could sense the way you do, I could not sense myself."

Caliban continues to stare at him, obviously not having much luck wrapping his brain around Peter's requests. "I see Bearcalli too, like that. I also see inside Bearcalli, and her web."

Caliban starts walking, gesturing for Colossus to follow.

"Web," says Colossus, half to Caliban, half to himself, as he follows.

"Caliban is happy that Steelpeter is coming to visit. Caliban knows that the X-Men mean well, and think that friendship is better than not, as long as Steelpeter knows that Caliban and the others are not well suited for the aboveworld," Caliban says, leading them through a different set of dark twisty passages* to the Alley. "Callisto asked Caliban to bring you here."

[*BR All Alike!]

'Here' turns out to be a smallish room filled with antique wooden filing cabinets that, have, to be charitable, seen better days, but are still serviceable, an industrial grey 1950's metal desk straightened on one leg with a copy of the 1971 Manhattan phone book and a leather back chair. Sitting behind the desk is a mole like man - his skin if deep brown, his hair is grey, black and ill kempt, his nose long, thin and holding up huge coke bottle spectacles - looking at a ledger.

Callisto is sitting atop one of the filing cabinets, her arm shows no evidence of its previous trauma. She dismisses Caliban with a wave and then gives Peter a thin smile, "OK Colossus. Make your pitch.

"Pitch?" Peter blinks, then thinks of a joke. "Ah... would you like to buy an encyclopedia?"

"Ha flamin' Ha." Callisto responds. "You were gonna tell us how we can survive the winter without raiding the surface. So make your pitch. Specs here will check the logistics and I'll either OK it, modify it or drop it."

"You can't," says Colossus, bluntly. "I don't know enough about the Morlocks -- how many you are, what your resources are, any of it. I have ideas, but at best, some of them might be good enough to mean you can raid less."

Specs sniggers at his statement, his glasses slipping a little down his nose, and he pushes them back up with a hand that's wearing old fingerless gloves.

Callisto nods, "Good. If there's one thing I hate it's a know it all. Specs here helps me with our logistics and forecasting. Anything you need to know about our numbers is in this room. If you want to walk around and get a real tour we can do that too."

"Let me start with the numbers," says Colossus, switching to unarmored form. (At least, I suspect it's more convenient to turn pages that way, even if it's perfectly possible to do it in armored form.) "And then, the tour, thank you."

The artist is a fan of the time lapse triptych, so we see Peter sitting next to Specs, listening to him as they run through numbers, with Callisto still perched on the filing cabinet in panel one. In panel two some of the books have been moved from pile A to pile B as Peter reads, Specs is drinking coffee and Callisto is listening to a complaint from some other Morlock. In panel 3 Peter is pointing at something in one of the books to Specs (who looks doubtful) while Callisto leans over Peter's shoulder - well inside his personal space - to see what he's talking about.

[BR: OK, I'm guessing that you want to spend Karma to guarantee at least a Yellow, and turn it into a Red if feasible?]

[LP: Yes, that makes sense. I'm fine if this doesn't happen until after the tour.]

[BR: I'll do it now to get it out of the way, because it will effect the tour. Roll is a 56. 4 Karma turns it into a 96 and a red result. If I'm reading your style write I think you'd rather go with seeing something complex that Peter has to keep returning to help implement? Mechanically speaking that gives you a social commitment to meet, meaning you get a Karma point every time you can make it and lose a Karma point every time you can't (Keep in mind you're about to get yanked into the Savage Land for 2.5 issues). The alternative is three things he can spot that the Morlocks can implement on their own, which is just a one time thing. Being a player you will now ask if you can split the difference with one immediate thing and a less complex thing that could be implemented later, yes, I'll grant that too.]

[LP: A red result is lovely. Splitting the difference is the way to go, thanks. After all, given that Colossus figures he really had better tell Callisto that Storm's up and gone to Africa, having something useful done first might be a really good idea.]

[BR: of course you want A and a half. Players always want A and a half. Since I don't have an actual map of the Alley and the full logistics of the Morlocks at my fingertips. My estimation is that the easy suggestion is taking advantage of the pressurized water flow through some of the pipes as a power source via a water wheel - Peter did help build one of these back at his farm once, long ago (I have so ruled, don't look for a page reference). They do have a room that is big enough and has enough earthen ground cover to be used for farming (right now they just grow mushrooms) if they got some brighter lings in there and made proper use of their night soil. These are just my ideas, you can float your own, under for improving things for a subterranean primarily scavenger society. Once I hear your suggestions we'll settle on something and I'll describe the tour triptych to accommodate.]

[LP: You did ask. I'm not sure if it would've occurred to me. I like your ideas. One tricky longer term thing that Peter's thinking is that it would help if the Morlocks had more surface allies. I don't know how feasible this is. Like, for example, runaways who don't want to live underground, but don't mind working with people who do, sympathetic shopkeepers -- you know, maybe they don't want to deal with official charities, but don't want to throw out extra food -- I don't know if any of this is workable, or, if it is, if Callisto& co have already thought about it. Like you said, the average runaway in a semi-sucky situation may not consider a hole in the ground to be an improvement, and sympathetic social workers who aren't already part of the Morlocks may have this urge to move them somewhere, which Caliban just made clear isn't an acceptable thing.]

[BR: Callisto is really big on self sufficiency (though she considers raiding to be a perfectly valid form of that, since it's under her control and she's good at it). So organized Charities, which would stifle their independence and risk the community, are right out, but she might be persuaded to consider some sort of non-official food sharing that would make the raiding less illicit. (Maybe she'd consider it a Danegled?) Peter could start trying to set such a thing up, but he really has no experience with that or contacts with anyone who does. It would take a lot of work on his part to get there, or the hope that he could find someone to help coordinate that isn't a safety risk from Callisto's perspective.]

[LP: Fair enough. Peter was figuring more non-official stuff, given the complications with official charities, but yeah, that's not his area of expertise. It can be an idea she shoots down.]

[BR: She might also consider accepting a large influx of supplies in a single, no strings attached, tit for tat transfer that would let them upgrade a lot of their existing materials. She could easily be making money through a criminal element by smuggling things through the tunnels, so the fact that she doesn't makes it clear that she has some morals about these things (or perhaps a deep distrust of the criminal element that would call upon their services). To be fair, BTW, this is a pretty nice hole in the ground. OK, it's not a hobbit hole, but it's not squalor either.]

[LP: Materials to set them up for fishing -- er, farming (you know the joke I'm referencing) might be plausible, if not now, at some future point, sure. There'd need to be a good trade there so it wasn't something that felt like the Morlocks were either being cheated or accepting charity. But, yeah, farming's the thing to focus on, between the earth and the water. Okay, there's this element of sunlight that's in short supply, but that can be worked around.]

The next panel is a page width shot of the Alley, where you can barely make out Callisto and Peter on a balcony high overhead getting a view of the whole place. Then we have another three panel triptych of looking at the water pipes that tangle through one of the Alley's side spaces, then one of Peter crouching down in the mushroom farm, running the dirt through his fingers, Callisto standing behind him watching thoughtfully, and finally one of the pair talking to four people inside the ad hoc machine tool shop.

Finally the pair are in what is clearly Callisto's office, which very likely doubles as - or is at least only separated from by a not-quite-reaching-the ceiling bookshelf crammed with various fix-it books, how-to manuals, political monographs, civil engineering text books and business management guides - her living space. She's sitting on a repurposed barstool with a bottle of beer in one hand.

[BR: There are three or four chairs of various sorts in which Peter could settle himself, as well as a blackboard with chalk that he could decide to stand in front of. Your call.]

"OK, so you've clearly got something. Spill."

Peter sits in one of the chairs.

"You have pressurized water here, but you're not using it," he says. "We could build a water wheel. Also, you could do more farming. You don't have the sun, I know, but if you had some brighter lights, and if you, ah..."

The next panel shows him addressing the floor with a small word balloon and smaller words, saying, "used the fertilizers you already have... it may not smell very good, but they work.

Callisto is giving him a sardonic stare at this point.

"Also... if you have people above you trust... maybe arrangements could be made that don't require raiding?"

"Yes, yes, no, in that order," Callisto says, ending that last without explanation. The tone and hesitation in Peter's voice made it clear that he was offering this out of a pro forma surface dwellers instinct, knowing it was going to be shot down, so she shot it down.

"The water wheel is pretty clever. I think we never considered that with the issues of getting the thing in place without flooding us but it's eminently doable." She takes a swig of beer. "You are now officially in charge of getting our farming up to snuff. Let me know what we'll need for lights and I'll acquire them. Of course, make sure that the high and mighty Storm clears this first...."

Callisto suddenly stiffens. "What happened? What aren’t you telling me?"

Peter braces himself, but meets her eyes and says, without hesitation, "Storm's gone back to Africa."

Callisto stares at him for a minute and then starts laughing.

After she recovers herself she asks "So what're you then? Her viceroy? What a flamin' joke. I knew she didn't take this seriously but this? Really?"

"I'm not her viceroy," says Peter. "I just thought there might be something I could do to help. But -- I'm not here under Storm's orders."

The next panel shows a chagrined expression on his face. "Is that why you let me walk in? Because you thought Storm sent me? I -- Callisto, how do I ring the front bell? Or phone ahead or -- _ask_ to visit, instead of just barging in?"

Callisto gives him a look that's very hard to read. "Peter, I let you in because we could have done jack all to stop you, at least until you got close enough for me to sic Leech on you. I could'a hit you with Sunder but that would have really messed up the Alley on a fight that is, best as I can tell, a coin toss. Plus, the last time you'd seen any of us we'd just saved your life. If you were me would you think that you were coming down here to pick a fight? And if you weren't, then you clearly had something to tell me. So I spent last time you were here finding out if you were worth listening to, and this time finding out what you had to say."

She takes another swig of beer, "As for having to ask to visit, you aren't listening - you're now in charge of improving our farming. You have pretty much free reign of the place. Come in whenever." She drinks again, "Of course, we've also hacked into a Ma Bell line, so we have a phone down by the auto shop."

She's still eying him with that hard to read look, as if she's weighing something.

"I wouldn't think I was coming to pick a fight," says Colossus. "You'd smell it on me if I were. I was asking how not to be rude."

[LP: At least, that's what I'm assuming, given she has ill-defined mutant senses.]

"You worry too much," Callisto tells him. She takes another drink, then asks, "So, why'd you break up with the jailbait?"

Peter stares at her in surprise. His thought balloon reads, "How did she know?"

"Oh please," she replies to his expression, "You used to always carry the aroma of the mid range perfume that, I'm guessing, her mom got her for Hanukkah every year that she wore to feel all growed up. It ain't there now, was barely there last time. So she's not hanging on you. She's such a teenage romantic that she was ready to sacrifice her freedom for her 'one true love', so she didn't end it."

She takes another drink, "Now, you're gonna tell me about it because I'm the first person who bothered to ask who isn't gonna judge your decision against their emotional investment in the squirt. Am I right?"

Peter's thought balloon: "I feel like Watson."

He looks at Callisto, conflicted, but finally says, "I... My feelings changed. I don't love her."

Callisto shrugs, "It happens. Better you own it rather than jerk her around. Your feelings likely to change again?"

"I... didn't think it would happen the first time," says Colossus.

"I mean are you sure about it. You get some sorta shock that might'a thrown you off for a bit and then you change your mind, try to go back to happily ever after. Romance novel crap. Then you'd be doing yourself more harm than good by breaking it off and then restarting, and you'd be jerkin' her around too." Callisto finishes her drink. "You want one of these?"

Peter nods.

Page 11-12 (Peter, Kitty and Kurt)

Leaving Amanda’s apartment on a brisk December day the gypsy witch/stewardess leads her mutant charges {BR: who’s coming with? I’m assuming all three] into a taxi and informs the driver “Eight-Ninety Fifth Avenue, please”

“You got it,” he says, eying his passengers to see if it’s anybody famous.

“Are you sure about this?” Ilyana asks cautiously. “I mean… her?”

Amanda smiles reassuringly, “It’ll be fine. As long as Kurt doesn’t pull her braids like he did last time we saw her, that is.

Kurt assumes a hurt expression. "I will be -- as ever -- a complete gentleman." His protests are somewhat blunted by the tickle he administers to Amanda with his prehensile tail.

The cab pulls up to a venerable, indeed storied mansion that rests next door to the Frick Collection. “Couldn’t we go there instead?” Ilyana pleads half jokingly. “Check out a Vermeer or two, call it a day?”

“Come on, it’ll be fine.” Amanda insists as they climb out in front of the mansion’s sealed gate. Amanda presses the intercom button and waits patiently.

"You didn't call first?" says Peter.

“Um, sometimes surprise is best…” Amanda says with a touch of forced levity. Ilyana strains against Amanda’s grip in a mock attempt to escape.

“May I help you?” comes a cultured British voice through the intercom.

“Yes, could you tell Wanda Maximoff that Jimaine Szardos is here to see her?”

“Of course,” comes the reply. Please wait a moment.”

“Jimanie!” exclaims a female voice through the speaker, “It’s been so long! Please come in!”

The gate pops open and the X-Men enter the grounds of the Avengers Mansion.

"Do you think that the professor's budget would stretch to a British butler for the X-Mansion?" Kurt asks with a smile. "You have to admit we'd get more callers than we do when Wolverine is on door duty."

"Do we want more callers?" says Peter.

Wanda is waiting for them at the front door, “Jimanie, you look wonderful,” she looks over at Nightcrawler, and adds in sotto voce “Kurt, you haven’t changed at all.”

Amanda waits a beat and then cracks up, Wanda joining her, and then she ushers them into the mansion. Yes, the X-Men also live in a mansion, but the feel is very different, with the Professor’s old puritan Spartan style replaced with the Gilded Age, Astor-esque opulence of the Starks. The place speaks of power.

The fact that Thor is in the anteroom when the X-Men enter doesn’t hurt there. Standing at least an inch taller than Peter, his presence is unmistakable, deific, and for Ilyana, a touch overwhelming.

“Oh My God,” she whispers to Kitty, grasping her arm, “He is the hottest man I have ever seen.”

Kitty bites her lip. Is that the 10th or the 30th time she's said that?

“Ho, Wanda, and what guests bless our doorstep…” the he spots Kurt’s distinctive appearance and takes a half step forward, pointing with his hammer “by Odin’s Beard, it is the X-Men!”

Kitty fixes a smile on her face and gives a little wave.

Kurt sketches a bow, in spite of himself. "Greetings, Thor of Asgard. You are looking hale and ... built."

"Make not light with me, X-Man, afore you answer this query: are thou still fighting alongside Magneto, as you were on the world of Beyonder?"

Kurt gives him an earnest look and replies, "we are not."

"Aha!" Thor gives them a serious look, "While I and my allies have from time to time had to ally with my own untrustworthy brother such alliances are always short lived and end in his betrayal. I am heartened to hear that thou hast not repeated the mistakes of the gods."

"Now then, I fear that my concern has pushed me to ill manners, as I know not any of the women in your party. Greetings and welcome to the house of the Avengers, fair ones," Thor says with a smile and a twinkle in his eye, and Kitty feels Ilyana's fingers dig into her arm to prevent the girl from swooning.

Kurt turns and gestures politely with his hand, identifying the women in turn. "Please allow me to introduce Ilyana Rasputin, Peter's sister; Kitty, no, Katherine Pryde of the X-Men; and Amanda Sefton, friend to the X-Men and accomplished sorceress."

Kurt's tail curls possessively around Amanda's waist briefly as he makes the introductions and he watches his companions' expressions as discreetly as he can.

Thor nods to each in turn with a smile of greeting then looks to Kitty, laying his hand on her shoulder and pinning her with his ageless eyes, "So young to have joined warriors of such renown, but I know that the title of X-Man is not given lightly. I look forward to the day that we do battle together Katherine, so that I might see another facet of the strength of Midgard."

Oh, golly, Kitty thinks, getting a bit dazzled-looking herself. "B-bound to happen sooner or later, I guess," she manages. "I'm more the sneaky type, though."

[KK: Can't believe I keep having to say "golly" ... grumble grumble comics code grumble grumble ...]

Peter frowns, more worried about his sister swooning than about Thor greeting Kitty as a fellow warrior.

Ilyana looks absolutely stunned just by Thor's proximity. Amanda wraps her arm around Kurt's waist.

"Would that mine duties did not prevent me from sharing mead and bread with you, but I have obligations elsewhere upon which hang the fate of two worlds." He looks to the Scarlet Witch, "Wanda, please convey to your husband and the others the substance of our previous talk, as in the chance that mine and Beta Rey Bill's strength does prove insufficient to the task the Avengers be ready to tip the scales."*

[*Ed: see recent issues of Thor for more on that exchange!]

"Of course, Thor. Good luck," the Witch replies.

With a wave to the X-Men Thor exits the building and commences spinning his hammer before disappearing in a blinding flash back to Asgard.

Amanda looks at Wanda incredulously, "Is he always like that?"

Wanda shrugs, "You get used to it."

She leads them into the living room, where Jarvis has laid out tea and cucumber sandwiches. "What brings you here, is it 'Amanda' these days?"

Kurt takes up position perched on the back of a beautifully upholstered chair, seemingly unconcerned with the incongruity.

Ilyana perches on the edge of the one of the chairs, in between Kitty and Peter.

Peter sits close to Ilyana. If he has a thought balloon, it's contrasting this setting with Callisto's office. (This is more mental whiplash on his part than deep social commentary, I think.)

Kitty sits on the edge of a chair also, watching Ilyana in case she needs looks or touches of support.

"I anglicized it when I got a job with TWA," Amanda tells her, "Made climbing the ladder a little easier. And what brings us here is Ilyana."

Once again the tale is told, and Wanda listens with great interest. During the retelling Ilyana again bites her lip. Both Kitty and Peter see that she has drawn blood in doing so, which Ilyana quickly catches and blots with her napkin.

Peter catches, in his sister's mouth, the ever so slight glimpse of a sharpened canine tooth that did the deed. Before he can act on it Amanda finishes the tale and Wanda begins speaking.

Peter just gives the hand holding the napkin a light squeeze to let his sister know that he's noticed, but won't mention it if she doesn't want him to.

"Belasco..." she says, "The name isn't familiar."

She gives Ilyana a serious look, "But I can tell you this, Ilyana - I too was the target of the old gods, specifically Chthon, due in part to the advantages my mutant power would have provided him in his actions. It is exceedingly unpleasant, but it can be borne, and it can be beaten."

At this revelation Ilyana brightens. The existence of not just sympathy but a shared empathy - that someone has been where she is - lifts a bigger weight than anything that her friends have thus far been able to shift.

"What do you need me to do?" Wanda asks.

Kurt look encouragingly to Amanda. "Tell her what you've found so far, my love."

Peter also looks at Amanda, the hopeful expression on his face matching Ilyana's.

"We need you to unravel part of his plans," Kitty adds. "Amanda's worked out that he intends to control Ilyana by threatening *me.*" Then she looks to Amanda to explain further.

"There's an enchantment that Belasco set up on Kitty where if Ilyana dies, or tries to break the bloodstone spell, Kitty's skeleton will explode," Amanda says, and Wanda looks a little shocked at the gross brutality of it. "And I'm no where near skilled enough to try to break it."

Wanda nods, "Right. Well, neither am I, but I can do this: Ilyana, I'd like to take you on as an apprentice. I know chaos magic, I know Chtonic magic, and I can teach you defenses against either. I think I can also break you of the mental boundaries that Belasco might have put into your training."

"I highly doubt Belasco anticipated _that_," Wanda continues, "and one thing I've learned over the years is that it doesn't take much for a villain's master plan to unravel."

"Is there..." Peter hesitates, then dives in. "Is there a way to... make the skeleton stronger? To... not fight the curse directly, but to make it useless? Not that we plan to let Ilyana die." He squeezes his sister's hand again.

Both the witches shake their heads before Amanda says, "I don't think so. You saw the runework on her skeleton - he invested a lot of time and effort in that, and I don't think we can get underneath it."

Wanda adds "If Belasco's plan was to hold Kitty hostage to Ilyana's good behavior he _planned_ to have you know that Kitty was threatened. Which means he would have spent a lot of time making sure the threat was believable, and would have gamed out various ways that you could free the hostage and moved to block them. The better bet, in my experience, is to figure out how to arm the hostage - the loophole with her being able to hold the sword sounds like your best bet there."

Kitty was disappointed that they can't just make the malign enchantment go away, but stays engaged with the problem. "Is the thing really a 'soul sword'? I think we never followed up on that."

Kurt's eyes light up at the mention of the sword, something in his own experience. It might not be solidly real, but it's more tangible to him than demonic sorceries.

"I'd be happy to train you in fencing, Kitty, should it become necessary," Kurt says.

Wanda nods at that, but then turns to Kitty, “Those sorts of names are just totemic. It’s not a spell I’m familiar with, so it’s likely something unique to her and her training. Lots of spellcasters have such ‘ultimate manifestation’ spells – it’s the focus of all of her magical potential, but it’s not really her ‘soul’. The gemstones, however, are perversions of her essential self, complex enchantments that increase Belasco’s influence over her. And since they’re his, they probably will rely on him to break them without triggering his hostage contingency plans.

“Ilyana, If you have time today I’d like to start teaching you some emotional warding spells that my teacher gave me; they should help reduce the strength of Belasco’s influence through the gemstones, and the exercises for them should start paving new personal attitudes for approaching your magic to reverse some of his training.”

Ilyana glances around to everyone before nodding, “Yes, please, thank you. Anything you can do.”

Peter says to Wanda, "We appreciate any help you can give."

"You're welcome," she says. "I may have had some... sketchy relations with your team in the past but I don't think any of us could sit by and let this happen. My work with Ilyana today will take about an hour. You're welcome to wait, or we have some free passes to the Frick if you're interested."

"I'll wait," says Peter.

Kurt looks slightly miffed at missing the Frick Collection but solidarity wins out. "Ja, I will wait too. If only to stop Peter from writing collectivist slogans on the Captain America memorabilia."

Kitty shrugs. "Well, I'd like to go to the museum," she says. "Something to do besides sit around worrying," she adds with a half-smile for Ilyana.

Ilyana returns it, then gives her brother a hug. She whispers to him, “Go on, go. I’ll be fine.”

Kurt sees Wanda whisper something to Amanda before the Scarlet Witch leads her new apprentice into another part of the mansion.

Page 13 (Logan and Kurt)

We have an establishing shot of the two of them standing near the construction site that replaced remnants of their old favorite tavern, reduced to bricks and flinders during a classic brawl between Juggernaut and Colossus a few weeks back*. The two look at each other, shrug, and head down the street looking for another place to drink.

[* See issue 183]

The end up in a place called Chumley's at 86 Barrow Street in the West Village. It's an old writer's haunt with their pictures on the walls and any number of dimly lit tables and booths. The waitress drops off a pair of German lagers and leaves the two alone until they ask for more.

That doesn't take long. For all that he's trying to put on a light air, kidding Kurt about his "promotion," tonight's bar visit is Serious Business.

Kurt takes a generous drink from his beer and sets it back carefully on the dark wooden table. Grateful for the poor lighting and general air of people minding their own business he nonetheless keeps his hat on and his collar up.

He starts cautiously. "So..., your trip?"

Logan's response is half-grunt, half-growl. "It's done... for what that's worth. Not the way it should have gone."

[RS: I'm going with "ironic death" or at least the appearance of same.]

Kurt nods. "Is there any good way it could have gone, Logan? James is gone. Is Heather..., well how is she taking it?"

"She's a flaming wreck, what do you think?" He finishes the beer. That he has been here before, in this dark-souled place, helps nothing, and Ororo's departure is weighing on him as well. "Maybe it's time to pack this whole business in."

Kurt winces. "I've had such thoughts myself, on darker nights. When Jean died, I had to wonder about the point of it all. When I heard Kitty's future self tell of the hateful fate of mutant kind I feared that all our actions were for nothing.

"But, Rachel is here now. Only God knows what our future holds, and we have a better future to make, my friend."

He drains his beer and adds with a wry smile.

"It is selfish of me, God knows, but I don't think I can take on the leadership role without you, Logan. The fuzzy elf as field leader? What the hell was Ororo thinking?"

"She knows exactly what she's doing, and you'll do fine. You don't need any help." Not the kind of help I'm best at, anyway. And what kind of good does it do, anyway?

Kurt nods to the barman who begins to pour two fresh beers.

"It's gratifying to know you think I'm up for the job, I think." Kurt says. "It's not time to quit. Not for either of us. There are people who need us. Kids like Kitty or the New Mutants, growing up in the world we helped shape; friends and lovers tangled in our bizarre lives; frightened mutants just coming into their powers in a confusing and dangerous world; They all need our help. But more than that, Logan, we need each other. Brood all you like,”

He is interrupted by a divisive snort

“…but I said it to Ororo and I'll say it to you: we're family and we stick together. We're the best kind of family as it happens: the kind you make not one from some accident of birth."

Logan downs another beer with a scowl that breaks into a half-smile. "See, you won't have any trouble with this. I just get damn...tired... of all the blood sometimes. Always the wrong damn people."

"Tired? We're all tired, Logan. All of us would rather live our lives in peace and quiet, without fear."

He grins. "You know I am by inclination and nature a lover, not a fighter. But I'll take my stand with the Professor and help him build a world where mutants, young and old, can be free from fear.

"Speaking of young mutants, I understand the Professor wants you to take a hand in the New Mutants' training. You see, Logan? You can't walk away or you won't get an apple. Or is a bottle of whisky a more traditional teacher's gift where you come from?"

"A cunningly-baited trap," Logan answers dryly, "but don't think I don't see what you're doing." His dour look does lighten a bit; the cloud is moving on. It doesn't hurt that Kurt makes an excellent point. Those kids need some help, need a way forward that lets them find the best in themselves, when so much of the world is counting on the worst. If it's a tough world for us, it's even tougher to be young in it. "See? I told you'd be fine at this. No problem."

The waitress - clearly yet another actress waiting for her big break - clears away the empty and brings over another round, and for a moment we follow her back to the bar, and past that to the back of the tavern, where she confers with a casually dressed man, "Yeah, he looks kinda blue. Is he from Senegal or something?"

"No need to worry about it," The man - square of jaw and taught of limb - informs her. "I was just curious."

And with that he slips further back into the bar, downstairs into the office basement, and there into the former speakeasy's hidden catacombs. He nods to a few other people in green and black jumpsuits whose epaulets are gold with black circle split by a black line. He quickly locates a shadow figure hunched over a piece of complex electronics.

"Sir, there are a pair of your most hated enemies up above. Should we attack?"

"Describe them, and tell me what they are doing," the figure responds, not breaking away from his work.

"It is Nightcralwer, and a shorter, stockier man. Perhaps Wolverine. They're drinking and talking."

There is a heavy sigh. "We run a bar, Jenkins. Let them drink and talk. It is a coincidence, nothing more. And don't even subject them to additional surveillance, as they might detect that."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I am. I have been playing this game for a very long time. There is nothing to link me and our organization to this place. I know for a fact that their most recent haunt was reduced to rubble in a mutant altercation. I would not see our nerve center meet the same fate."

"As you say, Sir," Jenkins looks a little relieved, but also a little disappointed at not having a chance to use his Taskmaster honed combat skilled against the X-Men.

"Trust me Jenkins. When it is time for us to unleash our master stroke no one, not the not the Avengers, not the Fantastic Four and most certainly not the vaunted X-Men will have any chance to counter it!"

'''''

Meanwhile, back upstairs...

... Wolverine says "See? I told you'd be fine at this. No problem."

Kurt inclines his head acknowledging Wolverine's compliment.

"You're practically gushing, Wolverine. I guess that makes it my round."

page 14-15 (Logan and Kurt)

"Wakey wakey! Up and at 'em, fearless leader." Logan is grinning, his mood altogether improved since the previous night. He has always enjoyed this game, and the chance to introduce new elements adds to the fun.

We get a frame of Kurt fuzzy head (in both senses) lodged under a pillow and a word balloon with *tiny* writing. "Go away! Please, leave me to die in peace."

Later, after much coffee and the application of fried pork products, Kurt is feeling more himself and sits in the kitchen with Wolverine, Rahne and Dani.

"So, run us through the rules again, Wolverine."

"We'll give you 15 minutes. Anywhere on the grounds. You two," he looks at the youngsters, "see if you can find him. First touch wins."

"Och, but he can vanish. He wilno' leave a trail" Rhane protests.

Dani smiles, "Neither do birds, and they don't make that dreadful stink. I think we can find him."

"Dreadful stink, is it?" Kurt assumed a mock-hurt expression. "I'll have you know that Brimstone for Men is a popular fragrance in New York, London _and_ Paris.

"Breathe deeply!" he grins and disappears in a God-awful stinking cloud of sulphurous fumes.

He smiles. "I'll be keeping an eye on things." This first excursion will be by way of seeing what the kids can do unaided, where their strengths and weaknesses lie, what they'll need to train hard on. If they get hopelessly lost he'll give them a pointer toward the right track, but no more than absolutely necessary.

Doing that while tracking down Kurt himself should be sufficient challenge.

[MC: Kurt makes first for a vantage point outside where he can watch the building exits as best possible, and waits for some sign of activity.]

Logan glances at his watch, then at the other two, with raised eyebrows. He's hoping that Kurt won't make it too easy for them.

Rhane is getting ready to sprint out after Nightcrawler when Dani stops her, "We have to give him fifteen minutes. But that doesn't mean we can't use some of it ourselves."

She reaches under the table and pulls out her bow and quiver, and from inside the quiver extracts a rolled up piece of paper, which she hands to Rhane. As the other girl unrolls a topo map of the grounds onto the table Dani moves to the window and checks the weathervane on the boathouse.

"Blowing off the lake," Dani says, "And it's chilly out too. I know he's got fur, but let's let him cool down a bit."

The girls scrutinize the map for a few minutes before Rhane says, "with the wind, he's going to end up in the woods."

"Yah, but not right away. We gotta remember he's not a bear or a rabbit. He's smarter than that. So I figure he's gonna go somewhere that he can see where we go, let us get his scent, and then head the other way. Change to Wolf Form, I've got an idea."

Dani looks at Logan to see how he's taking this, then closes the kitchen door and moves to crank open the window. She's waiting to see if this violates the fifteen minute lead time.

He nods that they should go ahead, interested to see their thought processes working out, and entirely amused by the image of Nightcrawler with bunny ears.

He's going to let them run by themselves for a while and see how well they do. He's pleased to see that they work together so readily and naturally -- operating as part of a team not being something that always comes easily to him -- and by their eagerness to do well, and is already thinking ahead to things that would make the exercise more challenging.

Dani cranks the window open and Rhane sniffs at the incoming lake breeze. It's clear from the look on Dani's face that she's in psychic rapport with the wolf, and Logan can see the girl thinking. She heads to the map and points to a rough spot.

Logan can also catch Kurt's scent blowing in from the lake direction, albeit at an angle so that he can see the two whole sides of the house - Kurt has doubtless done what Dani anticipated, and is, at the moment, not too far away from where the girl is pointing.

Rhane changes back to herself to look at the map. "Aye. But he won't stay there."

"No, he'll move away from where he thinks we're going, and probably wait until we're kinda close to him so we waste energy doubling back. But maybe..."

Dani checks the clock and sees that Kurt's time is nearly up. "Ok, let's try this. Rhane, you really want to catch him, right? Really, really, really?"

Outside Kurt is in a shadowy spot keeping an eye on the house and, seconds after his fifteen minutes are up, he sees the girl and wolf exit the building at a run, heading in his general direction. His keen eyes spot something however, even at this distance: the girls are mildly translucent, barely visible in the early morning sun.

Nice try, Dani. But it's not going to be that easy, kids.

Kurt ports in a methodical sequence through the trees surrounding the trail up to the mansion, seeding the place with the stink of brimstone.

Enjoy the smell, ladies. Kurt mutters before taking a longer port to the summit of the comms tower near the edge of the grounds. From here he has a bird's eye view of the property. He waits.

Inside the house Rhane is perched at the kitchen window while Dani has moved to the front door, where she expects to have to move to have the fastest route to what she expects to be Kurt's new position.

The breeze suddenly reeks (at least to Logan and Rhane's senses, and Dani says something out loud to Rhane "yeah, he's not going for it. Lets get to where the wind helps us and start again."

She looks at Logan, "Most of the time Rhane and I talk psychically. Should I keep talking out loud so you can hear our plans, or..."

"No, do what you would normally do."

"OK" Dani nods, and then the two girls head out of the main house and upward, getting some elevation in the hill that's over the concealed hanger to the west. Along the way Rhane keeps sniffing the air, but clearly isn't picking up anything. Over the stink Kurt deliberately left behind. Once they have some height Dani shimmies up a tree for a better view. A few seconds later Rhane adopts her transition form and, looking at Logan several times for some indication that they're doing things right or wrong, climbs up and joins her.

He gives a slight shake of his head. Given the size of the grounds and Kurt's familiarity with their hiding places, line of sight is not likely to net them anything; he won't be moving around where he can be seen.

"Try to think like him. What things do you know about him, the way he acts under pressure."

Dani snorts, "Under pressure he tells self deprecating jokes. I'm not sure that helps."

"That, too, but if you watch enough, you'll notice certain patterns." Among them that Nightcrawler loves to hold the high ground, to observe and then strike.

Rhane, once she's settled on a branch near Dani, changes back to full wolf form with Dani holding her. The look of a wolf up in the middle of a tree worth a photograph, but after a few seconds scenting the air she changes back to hybrid form and points, "That way. It's faint, so I think he's closer to the road. At least that's where he last landed."

The pair scramble down, and Dani gives Wolverine a look, "He's spying on us again, isn't he? He got somewhere high and is keeping a lookout for us. That's what people do when they're being hunted but aren't sure their hunter knows where they are, right?"

Logan gives her a slight smile. "Good."

Dani leads the pair down the hill, trying to keep the house between them and their target, and then moving up to the property line and skirting the wall to the street, trying to keep out of sight while trying to get a fix on Nightcrawler's scent.

Dani's not bad at being sneaky, Logan sees, lots of experience, but there's plenty of room for improvement. Rhane, likewise, is good at it, but her human brain keeps getting in the way of her wolf instincts and that too is tripping her up. Her tracking is similar - she has the nose but not the experience - and Logan is sure that she hasn't tagged Kurt's scent on top of the tower even as they get closer to where they suspect he once was.

Despite their inexperience they've gotten pretty close to Nightcrawler's perch before he spots them closing in by stone wall around the grounds.

"Gut, gut," Kurt murmurs. He whistles a couple of bars of "Somebody's Watching Me", long enough to draw their attention and gives a jaunty wave from the top of the radio mast.

Rhane and Dani both lift their head at the noise - the wolf with a little confusion, but in Mirage's case she knocks, pulls and smoothly fires an arrow at the source of the sound. It flies a little low, banging into the communications tower some fifteen feet below Nightcralwer's perch, but one might blame that on the drag of the blunt arrowhead.

He 'ports away, back to the house. Into the kitchen in fact. He puts the coffee maker on and 'ports to the roof behind the various vents and chimneys to take a look at the approach in the direction of the girls. Then, feeling a little guilty he 'ports down to the deck by the swimming pool and crouches on the end of the high board where he waits for the pursuers to appear.

"Aaagh!" Dani grunts. "Now he's gone again." She looks to Wolverine, "we needed more overhead cover, didn't we?. He's always going to be looking down towards us."

He nods approvingly. "It's an easy advantage for him, and he'll use that." It's not just about hunting *or* being hunted, but about both, at the same time, all the time. The sooner they take that lesson, the better.

"OK," she says, clearly kicking herself for not getting it sooner, "Which means we need to either take him totally by surprise or flush him out somehow."

She sits cross-legged for a minute and Rhane puts her head in Dani's lap. The two are clearly plotting.

"He's like hunting the worst deer in the world, with that teleporting. Any suspicion and he's gone in an instant, and he doesn't even leave a trail." Dani shrugs, "But he's also a person."

Dani checks her watch, "We're almost out of time. OK, if it were _me_ I'd run out the clock. Go somewhere really hard to reach and hide. I'd want to win. But he's not like me, is he Rhane. He's more like you. He's nice." She scratches the wolf behind one ear. "So where'd he go?"

There's a moment of silence in the woods before the pair get up and start moving, slowly, cautiously taking a circuitous route that maximizes their coverage from above.

Eventually the pair get back to the house, and Rhane sniffs under the kitchen window. Dani smiles, "He's there. Made us hot coffee and everything. So if we sneak around...."

From Outside Logan can tell through the glass, the remnants of brimstone and the perking coffee that Kurt isn't there any longer.

Logan is trying hard not to chuckle at Kurt's joke. Nice, indeed. "When's the last time a deer made you coffee? He's good at indirection."

He doesn't want to dampen their enthusiasm yet. Next time they run the game, things will be more serious.

Dani stops to ponder this then sneaks a look up into the kitchen. She see's he's not there. She takes three steps back and eyes the building's edifice. After a second she shifts her bow to across her back and then starts climbing the ivy up to the roof.

Rhane changes back to her transitional form, glances down at her lupine rear paws and shifts back to being fully human. She then looks at the snow on the ivy. "I'm not sure about this Dani."

"Take the stairs," comes the reply, "so if he's up there we can get him in a crossfire. But if he's not up there than I want to be looking down on him for once."

[MC: As I read this, Kurt's still waiting by the swimming pool. Unless he picks up on their movements or some other sign of their presence I don't see him moving again, partly out of guilt at 'porting hither and yon.]

Logan watches Dani climb up the side of the mansion. Under normal circumstances this would be easy for her given her background of living rough in the Rockies, but it's obvious she's pushing her limits given that's she's still recovering from the incidents of a few weeks back*. Yes, Ilyana magically accelerated her healing, but she's still not at her best - she's just too stubborn to quit.

[*ED: see New Mutants 18-20 when she was mauled by a demon bear]

[BR This isn't canon - I don't recall this but apparently Healer was called in to help her out, but since we know that Ilyana has healing magics, was there, and is her teammate I'm going with this.]

About halfway up she slips, falling several feet before her hands recover their grip on the ivy, and Logan can hear the bone jarring impact as she hits the house. There's the scent of blood - one of her stitches must have given way - but she barely hesitates before hauling herself back up and over the top of the roof.

Logan follows her, hopefully without the slipping bit.

He scales the wall without a problem, and finds Dani up on the roof, lying down with just her head over the peak. She's scanning the area, and after a second looks back to Logan and gives him a thumbs-up. Logan can pick up Kurt's scent from below, and once he gets to Dani's position he can see Nightcrawler waiting on the diving board.

The elf doesn't seem to have noticed them yet.

There's a scrape that sounds extraordinarily loud and Rhane opens the trap door to the roof, shifting to her transitional form and moving as quietly as she can over to her teammate.

On the diving board Kurt hears a scrape of wood on metal overhead, but can't see anyone approaching.

Kurt disappears in an instant. He reappears by the front steps of the mansion close by the wall, hoping to use the eaves to make line of sight difficult. As quietly as possible he scoots up the wall to hide in the shadows under the eaves and pricks up his ears, listening for any further sounds.

Above Dani shoots Rhane a look that would melt lead, and Rhane looks extremely sheepish before shifting to her fully lupine form.

Once their mindlink is restored Dani's face clears, and she rolls over silently, knocking an arrow and aiming towards the entrance-side lip of the roof, not far from where she climbed up. It's clear to Logan that Rhane caught Kurt's scent and now he's in for a duel of wills - is Kurt going to pop his head up to see what's happening or are the girls going to slip and make a sound and alert him.

In the shadowed eaves Kurt can only hear the wind...

Well, this is going nicely, Kurt thinks. I'm sure they're up there. But do they know I'm here? Only one way to know for sure.

He slips off one of his odd white socks and threads his tail into it. Gingerly, expecting a tennis ball impact, he snakes the sock over the parapet, imitating as best he can the motion of someone throwing a leg over the overhang before levering themselves up onto the roof.

Dani fires, even as the wolf gives an almost inaudible yip in trying to stop her. The arrow cleanly takes the sock right off of Kurt’s tail without touching him.

"Yow!" Kurt yelps. He disappears with a *bamf* and reappears in his bedroom. He begins rifling through his sock drawer to find a replacement for his newly missing sock. "Got to keep up appearances, eh, Kurt?"

"All right," Logan says, so that both the girls can hear him. "We'll call a stop here. No second chances on the field. That wasn't bad, but it could be better." Taking a page from the Professor's book, his glance invites their analysis before he gives them his own impressions.

Rhane returns to her human form, "I dun'ah*. We kept getting close but he's just too fast. Dani was good in she kept figurin' how to think like him, and I hardly helped at all. An' than Dani would'a had him if I hadn't made so much noise." The girl is a little down on herself, but from what Logan is seen Rhane is burdened with a crushing under confidence in her abilities, so this is no surprise.

[*BR: I've really got to reread the New Mutants to catch all the insanity of her accent in type.]

Dani, on the other hand, is just pissed, entirely at herself, "Don't be silly Rhane. You got us back on his trail when I blew my first shot. I told you to take the stairs, I'm the one who got us noticed. And then when we had finally flushed him to come to us I blew the shot like some stupid kid, even when you tried to stop me." In her case the self chastising is based entirely on her own hyper-competitive perfectionist streak.

"You'll have another chance in a few days. We'll make this a regular event around here--with Kurt or somebody else." Sprite maybe? She presents her own challenges to a tracker. "So be prepared for anything." He grins.

They head back into the mansion and find Kurt in the kitchen.

The two girls enter, clearly a little downtrodden at their loss. Upon seeing Kurt Dani steps forward and holds out her hand for a congratulatory handshake. Neither man needs to be a telepath to see that it's costing her something to do it.

Kurt accepts the handshake without a grin or raised eyebrow, keeping his face serious. "Thank you. That was good. More real, perhaps, than the Danger Room."

"Um, has anyone seen my sock?"

The girl's both shake their heads, and Dani says, "I hope it didn't make it to the road."

Rhane takes a second to pour everyone some coffee before the girls sit, waiting to hear the analysis.

Kurt accepts the coffee gratefully and cradles the cup in his hands.

"I'm sure Wolverine has already asked you this question, but let's begin the way the Professor does. What are your impressions first? What did you make of the exercise?"

"We got our butts kicked," Dani says bluntly. "Because I kept screwing up. That's what happened."

Rhane is looking sheepishly into the cup. After a second she adds "I can smell ye, and follow ye if you're on the ground, but its all instinct. I dunno how I know, at least not yet. And that means I make mistakes."

Kurt laughs aloud. "With that stink that accompanies my teleports I didn't doubt that you'd sniff me out."

He tries to console Dani. "It was but one experiment, Dani. We learn and we improve. Think about it; what would you do differently the next time?"

"Wolverine, give us the benefit of your expert eye. And nose. What would you have done in Dani and Rahne's place?"

Logan is happy to give them a couple of pointers, but doesn't want to hammer on the kids, particularly Rhane.

"Instinct is where it starts. It points the way, and it's something to build on, but instinct can be used against you. When you're up against an enemy who thinks, you *need* to out-think them. We'll do some work in the Danger Room later this week." As they're finishing up Logan hears and smells someone approaching the house, so he's well prepared with the doorbell rings. Rhane, ever the domestic, jumps up to get it.

The girl steps back a little when she opens the door, surprised by the visitor. "Hello," Kurt hears in a familiar voice, "I'm hear for Ilyana's lesson...?"

Rhane ushers the Scarlet Witch in, still dumbstruck.

"Hello Kurt," she says with a smile, while giving Logan a polite nod. "And you two must be some of Ilyana's teammates."

"Yeah, we're the New Mutants," Dani says with just a hint of 'and what's it to you'? in her voice.

"Wanda!" Kurt cries. "Welcome to the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Or the madhouse, if you prefer."

He gestures at the teenagers. "Please allow me to introduce Rahne Sinclair and Danielle Moonstar, of the New Mutants. Dani, Rahne, this is Wanda Maximoff, the Avengers' very own Scarlet Witch."

Rhane does a little curtsey. Dani sticks out her hand, which Wanda shakes. "You're going to help Ilyana?" she asks.

"I'm going to try," is the Witch's earnest reply.

Dani gives a sharp nod. "Good. Thanks. I'll bring you to her."

Wanda gives a wave to the others and is led off. By the time Nightcralwer and Wolfsbane turn around Wolverine is gone. Rhane gasps in surprise and Kurt knows that sometime today Logan is going to jump out of nowhere and scare the dickens out of him.

Page 16 (Rachel)

Inside the medical lab the Professor is seated with Rachel next to Rogue’s bed. The Professor is dressed in his usual semi formal fashion with a coat, but has forgone the tie for the occasion.

I will be attempting to do some additional bolstering of Rogue’s fractured psyche, and will need you to maintain the wards around the New Mutants as I do so, the Professor tells her. In addition, try to monitor what I’m doing inside Rogue’s psyche on a purely superficial level. Her dual consciousness forms an impressive barrier to mental contact so it would serve as good practice for you on for both maintaining separate telepathic functions and keeping up a contact through an adverse barrier.

Rachel nods her head. All right...I-I'll try. "Mom," she thinks, "was a hard teacher, but nowhere near as demanding as the Professor!"

As she senses the Professor's psyche dip into the maelstrom of Rogue's mind Rachel is able to successfully maintain the ward around the new mutants. Her attempt to follow his actions inside Rogue's psyche are a total failure, however - her two overlapping, warring personas generate so much psychic noise that Rachel's repeated attempts at a superficial probe go nowhere.

"I can't see past her shields", Rachel says aloud, "There's just too much noise."

As she speaks she's able to see the clock - amazingly, more than half an hour has gone by since they started. The Professor's unearthly focus is drawing her into the same singular awareness of Rogue and her condition.

"That is the result that I expected," The Professor tells her in a neutral tone. "Nonetheless, please continue to attempt the superficial scanning."

Rachel slides back into the multi-tasking, and after some time actually starts to make some sense of the thoughts coming through the shields. There's a blurring transition as she moves from thoughts to images, actually seeing the inside of the girl's psyche, watching the professor painstakingly reconnect the mirrored shards of Rogue's initial mind inside a protective wall of his own creation. Outside the translucent barrier it's nothing but a war zone, with a battle going on between a pair of superhuman women - one Rogue, one a blonde woman Rachel has never seen before. The ferocity of the conflict is laying waste to other parts of her consciousness.

Eventually Rachel snaps out of this reverie. Another two hours have passed, and she feels mentally strained. She's certainly never pushed her telepathy in quite this way before, the equivalent of holding both hands perfectly still with her arms at full extension. Neither task is challenging in itself for the short term, but simultaneously in the short term? Exhausting.

"Rachel, continue superficial scanning," The Professor says in the same neutral tone.

"I can't keep this up," Rachel thinks, "I'll burn out..or collapse. But...I have to try; the Prof believes in me. And...he's Professor X! I have to trust that he won't let me go too far."

She's not able to regain that penetrating awareness, but she continues to scan, unaware of what's happening inside. Another thirty minutes pass before she has to drop the scan, her mind unable to focus on it for a moment longer.

Throughout it all her warding of the New Mutants continues, her consciousness split between the light touch on Rogue's mind and the diffuse awareness of the mansions grounds and occupants.

Rachel comes out of the at this point intense concentration slowly, letting herself regain equilibrium while continuing to maintain the wards on the New Mutants, and letting the relaxed perception involved act as a rest until she feels able to do...to think...anything else. She opens her eyes. "Who was that other woman--the one inside of Rogue?" [JK: Ok, it's only been an issue since the readers were last reminded of Carol Danvers, but Rachel doesn't know that]

"Her name is Carol Danvers, once known as Miss Marvel. Rogue's condition is a prime example of why one must understand and slowly develop ones powers before using them." He has clearly stopped his scanning, and she feels him take over the wards around the mansion. The ones that he has been maintaining night and day, almost without interruption, for weeks.

"Rogue's unique power carries with it a unique curse: that the powers and, more importantly, the memories that she absorbs will stay with her permanently. Carol Danvers is now, and I suspect always will be, a presence in Rogue's mind. But while Rogue is a girl constantly being pulled by many emotions and obligations, Carol was a mature woman of amazing focus, special training and remarkable drive. Without knowing the ramifications of her actions Carol is trying to seize control of this body. He two are so evenly matched that it is tearing Rogue apart."

The Professor lays a hand on Rachel's. "You presence here today was invaluable. A large part of Rogue's mental shields come from Carol's training in resisting telepathic scans, training nearly as effective as the X-Men's. Your constant superficial scan gave those defenses something else to focus on, allowing me the freedom to begin truly repairing Rogue's psyche."

"Your mother trained you well," he tells her. "we have an excellent foundation on which to begin."

Rachel's cheeks color. "It didn't even occur to me that I was the distraction; all I could think of was that I couldn't get through--well, mostly couldn't. "I still don't feel adequate to learning from you -- to being an X-man. But I'll try."

"I ask nothing else," Xavier says, "at least in regard to your training. I do have a question for you, however. As I'm sure you've surmised your mother has not returned to us in this timeline, and I suspect she never will. But your father..."

Xavier pauses, giving her a chance to brace herself, "your father is still alive. He has resigned from the team, and married. I am curious as to your wishes in regards to contacting him."

Rachel flushes. "I'm...I need to think. Please don't contact him for now."

Xavier nods, "I think that would be best. It's a sensitive issue. And speaking of sensitive issues, I'm also curious what you'd like for a code name. Your performances in the Danger Room, as well as your previous life experience, make me comfortable with sending you into the field, but I'm afraid that security dictates that we can't simply call you 'Rachel' while on operations."

Rachel smiles. "I think I chose my code name some time when we were escaping from the Sentinels. I knew I could die -- we all could die, but I wouldn't let it stop me."

She begins to glow with the characteristic bird of prey outline, the glow somewhat obsuring her form, as she continues, "My mother returned in our timeline, but she didn't return return here -- and I think a part of me knows why. I have taken her place. I don't want to; I want her back--but it's not something I can do anything about; not now."

The glow fades, revealing that Rachel, red hair (as it was at the beginning of the scene) about an inch long and framing her face, is now wearing the green and gold phoenix costume. "Call me Phoenix."

Page 17 (Kitty)

Kitty is looking both animated and exasperated as she talks to Doug: "And then he said 'Ooooh, I didn't know it would do that!' What a jerk."

Doug laughs loud enough for the ice cream shop proprietor to give them a look. "Joker. If he didn't know it would do that he had no business turning the thing on. What are we going to do, Pryde? Fools on the left of us, jokers on the right."

"Hah!" she replies, grinning, then sobers a bit. "Keep our heads down? I mean, some of those guys seem like they *want* to get caught."

"Some of them probably do. I figure there's a not-insignificant population in our hobby who really are just confused people acting out and hoping to get caught. Not all of them are cunning masterminds with plans of world domination like we are." He takes another spoonful of ice cream, then adopts a serious expression, "You haven't told anyone about the world domination thing, have you?"

_snicker_ "Of course not," Kitty says with very wide, innocent eyes. "You'd change all my passwords if I did!"

While Doug tries to smother another loud laugh, Kitty thinks, It's so nice to just sit around and laugh with someone ... like normal people do.

Doug snorts, "Yeah. That'd stop you. So now what? Gorged on ice cream and banned from every public video game console in town after the four-hours-on-one-quarter incident, what are our heroes to do? There are no dragons left to slay! We could go catch _Amadeus_ at the theater, but I'm not sure we can empathize with the tribulations of child prodigies."

Kitty grins. "Speak for yourself! But I hear the costumes in that flick are amaaaazing. D'you think you could stand it?"

"Ply me with real butter on my popcorn and I'll suffer through," he replies. "Oh, and I need a favor. My mom's throwing a dinner party Saturday and my great aunt's going to be there. Mattie is a wicked stickler for tradition and will insist on a balanced table. Any chance I can convince you to turn up to round us out?"

Kitty has met Doug's parents several times before when she's gone over to his place for hacking sessions (doing those at the mansion, while it has better gear, might end up exposing Doug to stuff he really ought not see) and gets along with them fine.

"Dinner party? Sure, I guess," Kitty says, intrigued but also a little nervous about the idea. "If the school's okay with an evening outing, anyway. I'll have to let you know."

"Do it quick," Doug pleads. "If I can't find someone on my own Mom's gonna rope in Sue Derkins, since Mom plays bridge with Mrs. Derkins."

Kitty knows Sue from town, and more disagreeable specimen of high school humanity - puffed hair, extreme makeup, lack of any intellectual curiosity on any subject of merit, and not even the motivation for cheerleading or other 'popular pursuits' - would be difficult to locate. She would, however, be very presentable at a party.

Kitty winces sympathetically. "Well, then, I'll have to be as persuasive as I can. I'll find out as soon as I get back this afternoon."

Page 18 (Rachel and Logan)

At a request from the Professor, Rachel and Logan have joined him in a trip to the city, which for the purposes of narrative no one will start questioning as to why until they’re standing in front of the city morgue.

"Not on most of the tourist lists," comments Logan, who had assumed this was part of the acclimate-Rachel-to-her-new-world effort until now.

"No," Xavier responds, heading up the steps, "But it is an obligation of mine, and I appreciate your help. I came across a news report that I had missed during the events of the last few weeks."

"I can't say," Rachel says, "that it was a place I'd expected to visit more than once, but all right."

Inside there are several state government figures, and Xavier approaches one, projecting to Rachel, Please observe the technique.

"May I help you?"

"Yes, we're here to view a body in the secure area," Xavier says with calm authority, and Rachel can see how he is adjusting the clerk's perceptions to see them as people who naturally have such authority.

"Of course, sir. If you'll follow this guard," the clerk says, pointing to a security officer who steps forward.

Xavier opens up a telepathic link with his students so they can talk privately as they head through the warren of the city morgue. The antiseptic bleached cleanliness of the place is an irritant to Logan’s senses. Eventually the guard leads them to an isolated room behind a sealed vault door. The guard at the door accepts a nod from their guide and punches in a combination lock on a keypad.

“You been in here before?” he asks as the door’s magnetic lock unseals.

“No,” Xavier tells him, “Not here.”

“This is where we keep the real weirdoes. The monsters we’re not sure are human or animal, the muties, the super-villains. Anyone we can’t be sure won’t hop back up. I have to re-seal the door behind you, but I’ll be watching through a closed circuit. Sign the waiver here.”

Both the guards think that Xavier has done just that.

The trio of X-Men enter the room, with their original minder looks a little less than comfortable. He says “Who’re you looking for?”

“Bain,” Xavier tells him, “His name was Gunter Bain. When he was alive, he was untouchable.”

"Literally?" Wolverine asks.

Yes, Xavier replies telepathically. He called himself Unus the Untouchable, and used his force field to make a minor career as a professional wrestler. Then he turned to crime petty crime, came to my attention and Magneto's, decided to become an 'evil mutant' and never even recovered that small carnival life for himself.

"Yeah, that's what I heard," The guard says, pulling open a drawer to reveal the body within. "He was some sort of third string super villain. Died when his force field got so strong it didn't let any air in. Asphyxiated right in the middle of Madison Square Garden. Killed by his own power going out of control. Kinda ironic, really."

Rachel puts her hand in front of her mouth, horrified despite herself. "That's...a horrible way to go."

Logan nods agreement. Villain or no, asphyxiation was a bad way to go out.

The body is very well preserved, and there's no sign of an autopsy scar, "Even dead the coroner couldn't get a knife into him," the guard continues, checking the chart. "He's down for a twice a week invulnerability check to see if we can do a proper autopsy. Apparently last week they actually cut skin a bit. Should be able to finish it up by next Thursday."

Logan, can you confirm that he'sThe Professor asks. To Wolverine's enhanced senses there's no doubt that the figure on the slab is dead: there's a slight scent of decay, as if he'd only been dead for a few hours rather than weeks, no breathing, no pulse. Were it not for the scent the figure might as well be a wax manikin in its combination of perfect appearance and lack of life signs.

Dead as they get. Slow, though. He does a slow half-circuit around the slab. How is that possible? He's dead, he can't be generating any force field now.

Xavier ponders for a second, I can't be one hundred percent certain, but I suspect that Gunther's mutation developed the energy for the force field inside each individual cell, acting as a million mitochondrial storage batteries. Even if his metabolic processes have stopped the energy is still there, and while it is not regenerating it is taking some time to dissipate. I had hoped when I learned if his condition that this ongoing process might be evidence that he was still alive, and I'm not altogether willing to abandon that theory. Rachel?

Anything you want me to do?, Rachel sends.

Take control of this mindlink Xavier informs her, Simple human nature will have the guards continue to accept our presence now that we're here so there's no reason to influence them any further yet.

Once Rachel has control of the link Xavier attempts a deep probe of the corpse, looking for any sign of life inside the man's brain.

There's nothing there, he says after a moment. He's gone.

Xavier looks at the guard, saying "We may have to come back and speak to the corner one he's succeeded. Thanks for your time."

The guard see's Xavier push in the morgue drawer - an event that doesn't actually happen - and says, "No problem. I'm just glad nothing weird happened here."

Rachel, please disrupt the recording devices on the closed circuit television camera, then begin levitating Gunther's body to bring it with us.

So that's what we've descended to now Rachel sends, Body Snatching? But as asked, Rachel follows the Professor's mental direction to the Recording device's base unit and shuts it off, erasing the last few minutes of recording*, then begins levitating the body along with the group, the drawer silently closing behind them.

[*ED: if you read the original run of X-Men, the Prof's psychic ability includes a lot of stuff like knowing where machinery is or where weak spots in walls are. This gets toned down in the Uncanny restart but he can still do it]

She can feel the professor's silent disapproval of her comment through the link, but he sends nothing.

So this is on us because...? Logan looks at the professor.

We, no, I failed Gunther Bain, Logan. We all know mutants who died because their powers grew beyond their ability to control them. Finding and training mutants to avoid just such a fate is one of the X-Men's prime duties. But if I failed him in life the least I can do is properly honor him in death, not consign him to a narrow bed in a potter's field.

Didn't he turn down your training, though? Not that he isn't owed this; he didn't die because of his villainy, but because his own body turned against him. That's the thing people miss -- when they gloat over our powers or fear us because we have them; we don't choose our mutations; sometimes they're beneficial, other times...although I'm not one to talk, I guess Rachel sends.

As they're leaving Rachel can feel the professor editing the perceptions of everyone around them and erasing the memory of them as they pass. You must understand Rachel that when I first started the X-Men I was much more stern and domineering than I am today*. That was a suitable attitude when I was attempting to mold teenagers, but many other mutants we encountered, like Unus and Blob, were adults. Gunther had survived a childhood in war-ravaged Italy before making is way, alone to the United Sates. He was unwise, perhaps, and ill-educated, but possessed of a will born of necessity. My approach was entirely wrong.

• [ED: Rachel may find this hard to believe]

It took me years after the formation of the new X-Men to realize the error in my approach with adults, to which Wolverine can well attest. Gunther Bain might have made an error when he turned down my offer, but it is as much my failure as the messenger, and that led him to this.

Fair enough, Rachel sends, And even if his problems were rooted in hubris, a telepath might have been able to help with that before things went too far

Once the group are outside Xavier trusts Rachel to place the body inside the limo, but casually lays his hand on Wolverine's arm to keep him out of the car for a moment. A few seconds later a black car and black van, both bulletproof to Wolverine's trained eye, pulls up in front of the morgue, just a few car lengths away. Stepping out of the car is a man with red hair cut into a flat top and an official bearing, leading several other equally 'government' looking people up the stairs. "I can't believe this screw up," he fumes to one of his men, "We should have been notified the moment Bain's body was brought here...."

There. Gyrich.

Rachel reaches out with her mind -- trying to get a feel for a man working for a future very much like her own.

Behind them, Logan is hunter-still, memorizing Gyrich's scent, his posture, mannerisms, ascertaining his potential as a physical threat, likely weapons.

His mind has impressive natural defenses - confident, sure of himself, strong willed - that would make it difficult but not impossible for her to read it. There is a fundamental decency that forms the core of his personality, but it's one that's been blunted by decades of accreted bureaucracy, law-is-justice philosophy and patriotic fear for both the American experiment and the man on the street.

Logan can tell right away that he is a man accustomed to wielding the authority he's given, seeing that as a power that can be as blunt or subtle as need be, and while he has a gun (and no doubt checks out on it quarterly) his boot camp days were a long time ago followed by a succession of desk jobs. Physically he's no threat at all.

The X-Men get into the car and drive away, carefully avoiding notice.

Page 19 (Asides – Mystique and the Black King)

Inside the Pentagon, there’s an army lieutenant working at night in a room full of technical equipment. He’s deeply engrossed and doesn’t even notice the arrival of a ramrod straight, clearly straight from field ops army major wearing mirrorshades and a black beret.

“Any luck, Lieutenant?”

“Aaaaah! Yessir. I mean Nossir,” the lieutenant snaps up and salutes, relaxing not at all with the major returns it. “We’re trying but I haven’t made any progress.”

The Major, whose ID badge reads “Major I. Black”, nods sharply. “Try with this.”

He hands over an envelope stuffed with photos, technical printouts and disks. The lieutenant takes it and looks through it quickly, “Where did you…” but he wilts under the major’s glare.

“Memorize it. Transcribe the data into your team’s reports. Destroy the originals before dawn. Congratulations, Lieutenant, you just had a career changing breakthrough.” Major Black heads to the door, turns back and adds, ‘It goes without saying that I was never here.”

“Yessir!” says the lieutenant.

We follow the Major out of the room and during a point where there’s an absence of security cameras major Black disappears and is replaced by Raven Darkholme, who has a small smirk. She passes by another room labeled “Strategic Threat Analysis Biological Systems” We see a word balloon coming from the window “Any luck, Sebastian””

Following the word balloon inside we see Gyrich talking with Sebastian Shaw through a video-phone. “Of course, Henry. When Shaw Industries promises, it delivers. Watch.

Shaw steps aside from the video to show a smaller (i.e. 1.5 times human sized) Sentinel robot on a factory floor, standing alert. An industrial laser is moved into place and fired at the robot, which collapses with a hole blown through its midsection.

The computer in the middle distance starts displaying a lot of blinking lights, and after a few moments the collapsed Sentinel pulls itself to its feet.

Shaw comes back on screen, beaming. “We’ve mastered the self repairing concepts that Trask incorporated into his designs but with none of the instability. The Sentinel has a communication link back to its master computer that analyzes the attack used to bring it down and directs the self-repair as a modification program that includes a defense against the attack.”

Gyrich claps once, “Perfect.”

“I must warn you, Henry, this sort of independent breakthrough and technology* doesn’t come cheap.”

[*BR: why yes, he is taking full credit for the stolen Shiar technology]

“Money isn’t an issue, Sebastian. Not when the future of the human race is at stake.”

Pages 20-22 (Everyone)

Inside her room, Ilyana sleeps. We watch her toss and turn and finally settle, and then we step into her dreams. There she's in a primeval forest, with jungle drums in the background. After a few seconds she starts running from something, her composure turning to fear and heading to terror.

Something jumps out at her and she screams, long and loud.

[BR: another 'someone wakes up screaming in the night' scene. How cliché a hook is that? Sheesh!]

Everyone can hear the sound echo through the house.

Kurt gets blearily out of bed. "Was ist...," he mutters as he throws on a rather nice dark blue silk dressing gown he got as a present from Amanda. He hurries out into the hall trying to identify the source of the screams.

They're clearly coming from the New Mutants wing, and from one of the girls.

"Wuh?" Kitty says, pushing herself up off her bed. "Ilyana?" A short frame later, she's stumbling toward the door in her green flannel pajamas, an agitated Lockheed on her shoulders.

The problem with having good reflexes sometimes....Wolverine is there, alert, and ready without being entirely conscious yet.

The New Mutants are tumbling out of their rooms to see what's going on.

"Ilyana!" says Peter, suddenly wide awake and a split second later, in armored form and moving to reach his sister.

Logan is getting ready to open, or perhaps just remove the lock, when Kitty goes though/past him, phasing through the door into Ilyana's room. This slows him down a second, and then he has to take a quick step out of the way, shielding some of the New Mutants with his body, as Colossus reduces the doorframe to splinters and steps over the collapsing door into the room..

Rachel moves quietly, if quickly, through the rooms of the school in her nightgown, after the initial shock of the scream acquainting herself with the situation by scanning the minds around her. She arrives a panel or so after Colossus might, or might not have broken down the door of his sister's room.

It's dark inside the room, but in the moonlight coming through the window Kitty can see Ilyana on the bed, preternaturally still. Having kicked off her covers at some point she's clad in her pajamas, a mirror image of Kitty's in red rather than green.

There's the splintering crash behind her and Colossus is present.

"Ilyana?" Kitty says fearfully, reaching to turn on the bedside lamp.

Lockheed hisses and takes off from her shoulders, hovering protectively over her head.

In the hall, Logan can smell blood.

Bunched up -- vulnerable. Idiot kids. He scans both ends of the hall for any additional threats, querying Rachel with a glance as to any dangers visible only to her abilities.

Nothing, Rachel sends.

Behind Wolverine, Dani, reading disapproval in his stance, turns to the rest of the New Mutants, "OK, back up. Clear a little space, get back to your rooms. We don't know what's going on but bunching up here isn't helping."

Sam follows her lead on this, ushering the New Mutants back. Dani, on the other hand, moves to stand next to Nightcrawler.

Inside the room, with the light on Kitty and Peter can see Ilyana with blood on her lips where her longer, sharper canines have cut them. In this light, and against her pajamas, there's no denying that her skin has lost its blonde winter pale to a warmer, almost red tone.

There's no way not to think of the Dracula incident with Storm from more than a year ago*

[*ED See X-Men 159]

"Oh, dear," Kitty quavers, hesitating to go any closer just yet.

Peter moves to his sister's side and puts a hand on her shoulder.

She's warm to the touch, but doesn't react to the contact. Peter can see her eyes moving under her eyelids, but not in the jerky, random fashion of one whose dreaming.

"Peter, Is she hurt?" Kurt asks, thinking of the infirmary downstairs.

Before Peter has a chance to respond Professor Xavier arrives on the scene, his presence clearing a path to Ilyana's side. Logan feels Dani stiffen a little as he passes her - either she was steeling herself for a rebuke or fought off a telepathic one - but the girl stands her ground.

Rachel hears the professor in her head I'll need you to take over the wards for a few moments, Phoenix. Kitty decides to clear more space by floating up toward the ceiling, where she can look down on things. Deprived of his usual perch, Lockheed moves to the back of Ilyana's desk chair.

Rachel concentrates for a few moments before she feels confident enough to respond. Got them "Peter, Kitty, how is she" the Professor asks as he sits down next to her.

"I don't know," Kitty says worriedly. "Should we try to wake her up?"

"Ilyana, please wake up," says Peter (possibly in Russian).

(Presuming that Ilyana no longer considers her situation secret, you know, having brought Nightcrawler, Amanda, and the Scarlet Witch in on things, Peter will deal with the professor's question by opening his mind, rather than trying to find the words. If there's any of this Ilyana does still consider "please don't tell" territory, he'll stick that behind a door, which basically means Xavier can still get it.] The Professor accepts this, pulling in the information. It's clear from his stance that he knew much of this already just from casual observation.

Rachel is in the hall, now probably finding somewhere to sit down so as not to crowd the center of action.

"I'll take a look outside," Logan says, with the hint that Dani ought to go as well, to get her out of the way. If there has been a fanged visitor, it might have left a sign on the roof, and it will give the rest of them more room to deal with Ilyana, whose room is awfully crowded right now.

"Good thinking, Wolverine," Kurt says. "I'll check the windows and the wall outside."

Kurt takes a few steps away from the door to Ilyana's room and teleports outside to the roof, where he silently pads down the wall to Ilyana's window, looking for signs of entry or an intruder as he does so.

Dani hesitates for a moment, clearly wanting to stay here in the loop, but Kurt's disappearance settles the issue. She says, "I'll join Wolverine." She runs to her room to grab boots, knife and bow before taking off after the Canadian mutant.

Once they're outside, she asks him, "Do you think we'll find anything?"

"Never hurts to be careful. You know her a lot better than I do -- what would you say happened?"

"Something to do with Belasco, I'd guess. When she first brought me into Limbo I had to use my powers on some of its residents. What they were afraid of was Ilyana, but her with red skin, fangs and a tail. I hadn't really noticed it until now but her skins getting more reddish... and not like mine, but _really_ red."

The pair find no unusual tracks or scents outside, no sign of an intruder.

On the roof and outside wall Kurt looks carefully for signs of intrusion and finds none. Her window is tightly sealed and there's no evidence that anyone preceded him here.

Back inside the Professor says, "Phoenix, I need you in here. Ariel, Colossus, I'm concerned enough that I'm going to attempt something extreme."

Rachel comes in.

"Phoenix, I need you to replicate what we did with Rogue - occupy Illyana's mental defenses while maintaining the wards over the New Mutants. Colossus, Ariel - Ilyana's magical defenses are sufficient to thwart a single direct attempt to read her mind and see what's happening to her, but we should be able to circumvent them with a multi-state attack. Therefore Phoenix is going to directly engage those defenses and I will use that opening to project your psyches into her mind. Her natural affection for both of you is vastly greater than for anyone else, making your acceptance into her mindscape much more likely, such that your powers will 'function' for your projected forms. Locate her sense of self and free it from its current circumstance. If this works at all I will be able to monitor your progress."

He stops, realizing what he's asking and continues, "Are these any concerns on this course of action?"

"Yes," Rachel says. "Magick's mental defenses aren't passive, like Rogues are; she may not be a telepath, but she's a powerful mage. Should I be expecting to be repeatedly bouncing off defenses like I was with Rogue, or something more active to deal with?"

"What will we be fighting?" asks Peter. "If we are inside her mind, are we fighting part of her? How dangerous is this for her?"

The professor glances between the two. "To be honest, Phoenix, I'm not positive, but I would assume that there will be some active interference, likely with a psionic or psychokinetic manifestation. Be prepared. Colossus, she's facing either a current magical invasion into her mindscape or the remnants of an existing enchantment - in either case likely triggered by her taking a more active hand in her own defenses. They are definitely not a part of her. What she's undergoing here is the equivalent of an abuse survivor being assaulted by her original abuser again. If she fails to resist him here she might never recover. If she wins his hold will never be as strong again. We must do what we can to tip that balance."

Nightcralwer, Wolverine, please return to Illyana's room to support Phoenix the case of an external manifestation. Mirage, please prepare your team and station them in the upstairs foyer and downstairs lobby - you will represent the last line of physical defense should Phoenix, Nightcrawler and Wolverine need assistance in containing any manifestation. Kurt appears in the room in an instant, ready to defend the Professor. He looks anxiously at Peter and tries to reassure him with a smile.

While Xavier explains, Kitty drifts down to the floor and perches on the end of the bed, joined a moment later by her miniature dragon. "Ready, Professor," she says now, finally looking properly awake, alert, and determined.

Once Wolverine joins them in the room the Professor says "Then let us begin."

He takes Ariel and Colossus' hands in one of his, lays the other on Ilyana's brow and nods to Phoenix to begin her activity. When she does so, Xavier closes his eyes, causing Ariel and Colossus eyes to close at the same time. The other men can feel the room's atmosphere change - the shadows deepen even as the light doesn't change, and Nightcralwer feels his fur stand on end.

Phoenix feels the force of Ilyana's wards - slick steel rather than the broadcast static of Rogue's overlapping personalities - and presses against them, In her first attempt she gets no traction, but the second time she finds a metaphorical hairline fracture in the defenses that she can lay her power against and secures a toehold. Her own perceptions shift, seeing not inside Ilyana's mind but inside the ward - dark, hot and agoraphobic, a whole alien world tasked with holding her out. There is a split second when she feels the Professor slip a psionic tendril through an imperceptible crack into Ilyana's actual mind.

Ariel and Colossus materialize in their costumes rather than their nightclothes, and their bodies are their idealized self-images rather than their clumsy flesh and blood. The landscape is a shadowed, sultry jungle. Through the trees overhead they can make out a mountain range that describes an arc across the horizon. There is a loud, tree shaking roar from somewhere and Colossus knows to his bones where they are. It's the Savage Land - but it's inside his sister's mind.