X-Men 191: Resolutions

Cover

The cover to this month’s issue is Colossus standing with Sunder and Callisto away from the rest of the X-Men. Kitty is pleading “Colossus, you’re joining the Morlocks?”. In a side box there’s a picture of Wolverine and Ms. Marvel with the legend “Also in this issue – Mission: Mindscape!”

Pages 1-2 (Storm)

Our splash page is a shot of Ororo on Chike’s boat on the Nile in the Sudan. The riverboat has pulled up the bank of the river and the scenery outside of the boat is shimmery and indistinct. Abdul, the man injured in the pirate attack last issue (whose arm is still in a sling), has apparently pulled off Ororo’s haiib as the headscarf dangles from his good hand – the same hand which is holding a pistol at Ororo. Chike is obviously trying to calm the crewman down.

Written by Myles "Nightcrawler" Corcoran
Penciled by Samantha "Rogue" Mullaney
Inked by Lisa "Colossus" Padol
Colored by Kris ”Ariel”" Keegan
Lettered by Joshua "Phoenix" Kronengold
Edited by Brian Rogers
Rachel Rogers, Editor in Chief

“I told you Captain! I Told You! The very land around us melts away!” Abdul screams, the gun wavering slightly, “This tributary is cursed by Allah to hold the white haired demon! Look! Look! She is his bride!”

“Don’t be a fool, Abdul.” Chike tells him calmly. She is our passenger, my guest. We have givern her hospitality, and she helped save us from those pirates..”

“To lead us here, where the sky will swallow our minds and the sun will bleach our bones!”

Meanwhile Ororo is standing stock still, waiting for her moment to act. She thinks, “The visual distortion field that’s hiding the river isn’t affecting me. It is because I’m a woman…or a Mutant?”

“You’re not making any sense, Abdul. Please,” Chike says, interposing himself between Abdul and Ororo, “Give me the gun…”

Abdul’s hand jerks and the gun fires, likely by accident.

We have a pair of twinned, long thin panels – the first capturing the heads of Abdul, Chike and Ororo – the first displaying the panicked terror of someone on the edge who just realized he made a huge mistake, Chike like someone expecting he is going to die, and Ororo looking shocked, but her eyes are angled downward, towards a spot between the two men.

The lower panel is showing the three figures at chest level, where the bullet is hanging in mid-air between the two men, encased in a glowing energy field.

Everyone looks up to see a figure in red and purple, floating about 20 feet away and 10 feet in the air, sans helmet so his stark while hair is visible. “Humans. Always so delightfully ready to murder one another.” He gives a little nod, “Storm, is this a social call?”

Before Ororo can respond Abdul yells “I told you, I told you!” and begins to fire indiscriminately in Ororo’s direction. The rest of the crew, Chike excepted, are also reaching for weapons.

Abdul’s later bullets fare no better than his first, and the injured figure is likewise yanked into the air, where he begins to scream.

“Magneto, let him go.” Ororo says.

“Storm, he did just try to kill you.” Magneto replies with a sardonic grin. “I promised Charles not to harm any more humans but seriously…”

“He is injured and panicked and your image inducer is confusing his brain.” Ororo informs him calmly. “The man who helped me catch the fish for dinner night before last would not have acted such without that last. Please. Put him down.”

Abdul is lowered to the deck, his pistol staying floating in midair, along with all the bullets already fired, as a graphic indication of the futility of further violence by crew members.

Chike looks from Magneto to Ororo, “And his other question? Was this river your intention the whole time?”

“Happenstance, Captain. My destination is as I told you, and I had no idea this place was here.”

“She’s telling the truth, ‘captain’. I was no more expecting to find her than you were to find me. The question now is what to do with you.” There is understated menace in his tone.

Ororo looks up at him. “Repair their boat, Magneto, and let them leave in peace. Captain Chike and his crew are men who do not take unnecessary risks. I suspect they would see angering the ‘white haired demon’ as such a risk, “she looks back at Chike, “Would you not?”

“Most assuredly.” Chike replies, standing next to the cowering Abdul. “You are staying here, Ororo?”

“Magneto?”

“You are always welcome,” Magneto replies.

“I think it safest for all of us,” Ororo tells Chike. “I free you of your obligations to me, Captain, and thank you for your hospitality.”

The engine has started on its own, all damage repaired unseen by Magneto’s powers. Ororo looks up at him and, catching the meaning of her glance, he uses his powers to lift her into the air.

“Fi Amanillah, Miss Munroe,” Captain Chike says as the boat pulls away. In the last panel the boat is back on the Nile and there is no sign of the tributary or Ororo. “Fi Amanillah.”

Page 3 (Everyone)

The New Mutants and the X-men, along with Professor, Scarlet Witch and Doug Ramsey, are all scattered about the Living Room. Everyone is looking tired and/or bruised, but there has been time enough for everyone to clean up as needed and fetch some food and or drinks. “So while we were facing a child kidnapping ring and being kidnapped into space you were dealing with a cross-time conspiracy*?” The professor poses the rhetorical question to Nightcrawler.

[*ED: Don’t tell us you missed New Mutants issues 21-22, New Mutants Annual 1 and X-Men Annual 8? If so, for shame!]

“Don’t lump me in with that, Chuck. I was too busy cleaning brandy out of my uniform,” Logan says from the corner, where he’s chewing on an unlit cigar.

“Given what happened I am not expecting a further incursion from Eric the Red, and based on your accounts I think reprisals from your adventure are equally unlikely.” Xavier turns to Wanda, “Thank you again for your assistance in this. As an Avenger I’m sure that you’re used to this sort of occupational hazard…”

Wanda replies "I will never get used to the various versions of Immortus* or his get and our jaunt to the past proved surprisingly emotional, when old friends are suddenly old enemies again. Ilyana however acquitted herself exceptionally. I do not imagine she will have need of a teacher much longer, either that or she will need a more accomplished practitioner to guide her."

Ilyana blushes at the praise.

“Now then, Mr. Ramsey, I understand that you’re interested in joining the school?”

Doug nods enthusiastically, “Yeah! I mean, yes sir. I’m not sure how helpful my mutation actually is in a crisis…” he glances over at the X-Men.

"It proved very helpful," says Colossus.

"Indeed," Kurt jumps in. "Mr. Ramsey's mutation may prove far more useful than he thinks. The X-Men have encountered enough aliens, androids and other life forms to make a translator almost as useful as a flamboyant ex-circus acrobat with impossibly good looks." He winks at Doug encouragingly.

"And," Rachel comments, "his abilities do have surprising ramifications.During our temporal excursion, he was both able to hack the Skrull computers and reveal things in Kang's body language that were the key to the entire situation. I can't think we've seen the limit of his abilities."

Xavier smiles, “I think you’ll be surprised, but as a new student you’ll be taking classes with the New Mutants, who are, recent events to the contrary, most emphatically not a field team….”

From their positions Kurt and Kitty can hear Danielle Moonstar give an almost inaudible snort.

Xavier certainly acted like he didn’t hear that as he continues “so the combat capability of anyone’s mutation isn’t an issue. I will call your parents when we’re done here and let them know you are eligible to file an application.”

Doug smiles, ‘They’ll jump at that. They’ve been searching for a private school since this summer when the Massachusetts Academy and I didn’t mesh. The fact that this will keep me in town will be a big plus.”

“Excellent. Katherine, if you could give Douglas a more formal tour of the operation?”

"Yes, Professor," Kitty says, and gestures to Doug to follow her into the kitchen.

Kurt checks both Kitty and Peter's reactions, thinking to himself. Ach, Peter, you have a rival. If you love Kitty you must respond.

“New Mutants, I’d like you to report to the infirmary. Miss Friedlander is waiting to give all of you a check-up to make sure there are no lingering effects of the last two days.”

Once the conversation has died down Nightcrawler feels a telepathic message from the professor Kurt, could you meet me in my office in a few moments?

Certainly, Herr Professor, replies Kurt via the telepathic link. He proceeds to the professor's office.

As the people in the room head off to do other things the Professor corners Peter (who might, or might not, be watching Kitty leave with Doug). “Peter, a moment please. Prior to being abducted by the Shi’ar the New Mutants and I were drawn by Cloak and Dagger into breaking a prostitution and slavery ring. The victims were all runaways whose faces and features had all been radically altered during a short time of unconsciousness…”

The Professor leaves that dangling, waiting for Peter to make the logical conclusion.

"That... sounds like... Masque's work," says Peter.

"That was my surmise as well. What I do not know is whether he is working alone or under Callisto's aegis. What do you think?"

"Was the letter of Storm's orders broken?" says Peter. "If it was, it... probably... isn't with Callisto's knowledge. Not without clear gain for the Morlocks. Otherwise..."

There is a panel of Peter remembering Callisto pouring drugs away, even though she could easily sell them to make the Morlocks' lives easier.

"Were there drugs involved?" he asks.

Xavier cocks and eyebrow at the question, "Yes... the victims were being controlled via heroin injections, and the men we captured are part of the smuggling cartel that created Cloak & Dagger. So yes, there were rather a lot of drugs involved."

"Then... I do not _think_ she knew about this. But, I could be wrong."

"These sorts of circumstances are why I asked you to establish diplomatic relations with the Morlocks. Since you know her better than anyone here I recommend you follow your instincts and raise the issue with her. Hopefully we can resolve this peacefully." Xavier smiles, "that would be a nice change of pace."

Page 4 (Ariel)

In the kitchen, Kitty smiles casually and tells Doug, "Want to raid the fridge? I'm going to go change clothes. Back in a sec." She ducks into the dining room and then up through the ceiling to her room, returning a few minutes later in jeans, sneakers, and sweatshirt. The longer part of her hair, which is still recovering from its brutal shearing not so long ago, is now pinned back with a decorate barrette. "Here," he says, handing her a sandwich. "I understand saving the world is hungry work."

"I'm not sure that counted as saving the whole world, but thanks!" she says, and decides which route to take while making short work of the food.

"Okay, I think you know most of the mansion's public areas. Now for some more of the secret ones!"

With that, we have a short montage of her showing him various important things: the drop chute to the lower levels (at the top, with Doug looking dubious, and at the bottom, looking surprised); various rooms and passageways, with Kitty announcing things like "Gym! Robotics lab. Medical wing is down there. Physics lab! Chem lab. Memory and power supply."

Then she's leaning against one of the magnetic rail cars, patting it. "And this goes out to the landing pad for our Blackbird." She pouts a little. "I'm not allowed to fly it yet."

There's a pause, and he can tell from her body language that she wants to say something and isn't sure how to start.

"Doug ... I'm sorry that we - I - kept thinking it wasn't the right time to tell you about being a mutant."

"Um, about that - how long have all of you known?"

"About six months. We have a device that picks up the differences in mutants' brain patterns. I don't think anyone was testing you particularly ... it has other functions."

"Anyway, with a subtle thing like your talent there's a real question, about whether you're better off knowing or not. The Professor doesn't like disrupting people's lives unless he has to.

"And ... well ... I wouldn't give this up for *anything* ..." She gestures, indicating the whole mansion and, by extension, the team. "But it's also been nice having a friend who *wasn't* part of it all." The look she gives him is a mix of apology and hopefulness.

He looks at her with a thoughtful expression. "I understand your not telling me. I...it's weird. I have such a sheltered life up here. I never bothered with taking French or Spanish in school - the colleges I was looking at didn't need them for a Comp Sci major, so why bother? My dad has a distaste for French cinema so that's out. I might never have known.

"But you? You're insane. All of you are insane, jaunting through time and space and fighting aliens and being there when Starcore was built and... Trying to change the world. It's crazy. Wonderful. Quixotic.

"You are glorious mad hero, Pryde. And I will be your Sancho Panza for as long as you'll have me."

Page 5 (Nightcrawler)

Inside the Professor’s study Kurt can see that Xavier has opening up his planning board – with photographs, notes, maps, links and pieces of string tying various elements together. He can see pictures of all the members of the Hellfire Club and their business interests, someone who is labeled as Henry Gyrich, a variety of images of Sentinels in various phases of construction, Nick Fury, someone in a SHIELD jumpsuit labeled John Allen Adams, a trio of people in the UK labeled Alison Double, Tom Maddox and Betsy Braddock, and even a perfect recreation of the Frost International’s interest map that Kurt spied in the tunnels under the Massachusetts Academy. Kurt surveys the images and notes with interest without trying too hard to poke his nose in. The professor will let him know what's relevant after all.

Professor Xavier enters a moment later “Thanks for waiting, Kurt. As we discussed earlier* I need a moral sounding board for my actions to date before I move forward. I’d like to bring you up to speed now, if you have the time.”

[*ED see issue 186]

"A poor sounding board I might prove, Herr Professor, but I will do my best. For you and for the X-Men."

[BR: from here in we have a lot of text running down the left third of the page with free floating images of people and events covering the remainder of the page.

Xavier takes a seat, “Since we last spoke I’ve set the members of Team America, armed with their individually undetectably small gestalt mutation, to tracking down the actions of Project Wideawake and its government appointed head, Henry Gyrich. Gyrich is an inflexible patriot who truly believes that if left unchecked mutants will destroy the stability of United States security. He’s also not a villain. However, I’m also fairly certain that he’s being used by other people.

“One of those people is Valarie Cooper. She’s the president’s National Security Advisor on Metahuman Affairs and is deeply involved in Project Wideawake. It’s an entirely off the books project and I suspect that she is either the president’s designated scapegoat should this come to light or she is actually responsible for singing off on its activities without the president’s knowledge. In any event her actions to date reveal that she is not above seeing mutant rights as something to bartered away for her own career improvement.

“The only member of her extended staff who appears to have any personal integrity is Raven Darkhölme who is her contact with the department of defense and acts as liaison between the DARPA and Storm’s friend Forge. For her integrity Ms. Darkhölme and DARPA have been cut out of Wideawake, though it looks like Cooper’s people have been raiding DARPA storehouses for supplies in their sentinel construction.”

The professor sighs. “I’d consider taking Ms. Darkhölme into our confidence but I don’t want to put her at risk. Better, I think to leave her as a free standing sympathizer. Mr. Gyrich and Ms. Cooper are too well monitored for any direct actions against them, but thanks to Honcho’s people we have a complete dossier on their movements and activities, and I have sufficiently compromised their intelligence gathering when it comes to the X-Men that while they are aware of our presence in this mansion they are no longer gaining meaningful data thanks to Shi’ar technology.”

Kurt muses. "Well monitored, yes, but beyond any reach or hint of scandal? We X-Men know how easy it is for appearance to rule reality, particularly in politics. If Cooper is the political animal you say she will doubtless have skeletons in her closet. Skeletons provide leverage, or so I understand."

Xavier sighs. "I have not probed her too deeply. She is venial, and self-serving, yes, but not with the sort of criminality that the Hellfire Club possesses."

“In regards to the Hellfire Club we have penetrated their communications from two different directions firs through the taps Ariel placed at the Massachusetts Academy and second through similar mechanisms Wolverine and Storm placed in Karma’s San Francisco computer systems. As a result I have a very good idea as to their day to day actions. Shaw Industries has clearly been contracted to construct new Sentinels for Project Wideawake. I have located one manufacturing plant and I suspect there are two more. Through telepathic reconnaissance of the plant it’s clear that these machines are more advanced than the ones Shaw and frost used to attack us eighteen months ago* but not up to the level of a Trask model. Dangerous, but not unstoppable.

[*ED see X-Men 151-152]

Kurt gives an involuntary shiver at the mention of the Sentinels. His past encounters and Rachel's account of the X-Men's future conflicts with the Sentinels leave little optimism in the German mutant's heart.

“Given the complexities of directly attacking those installations I instead used my psionic powers to slow their construction. Via telepathic suggestion I have inserted flaws into their design – untraceable to any one engineer so as to not place any of their lives in jeopardy, but sufficient to seriously delay production and degrade performance. Until we decide to take a more concrete action this is the best I can do without compromising my ethics concerning manipulating people’s minds.”

Kurt adopts a position sitting facing parallel to the Professor, unconsciously mimicking the Catholic confessional. He nods, agreeing that the manipulation of minds is a slippery slope.

“Attacking the Sentinel construction is more self-preservation than confronting the Hellfire club. To that end I asked Logan to make contact with Nick Fury and provide information that would not only clear Rogue but implicate the Hellfire Club. Based on what Storm related to me from Forge’s conversations with SHIELD I suspect that Director Fury is becoming aware of Wideawake and the hellfire Club connection. Given his personality type the illegality of this – and that he was not made aware of it sooner – should be enough to get him to investigate the club as a criminal enterprise.

“More directly, I’ve decided to isolate and attack the clubs weak link: Harold Leland. Under Shaw’ leadership the members of the club’s inner circle are supposed to be ruthlessly self-made individuals with additional abilities being an added bonus. Leland, I have learned, is the exception to that, a legacy to the old order. He inherited his wealth, joined the inner circle and parlayed his mutation into keeping that position during Shaw’s purges. A relentless need to prove himself to Shaw has led to him taking considerable financial risks to increase his personal wealth, gambles dependent on no one piecing together what he’d done before he could conclude the transactions.”

Xavier gives a thin smile, “A bad gamble. I’m in position now to feed information on Leland’s illegal financial activities to investigators in both the United States and the UK. Once news of this breaks Leland’s key commercial holdings, which went public last year in one of his attempts to bolster his net worth, will undergo a severe market shock. Leland personal finances will suffer a serious hit, audits will begin of all of his holdings and he’ll be up on criminal charges. I can make sure Leland realizes, or at least will very strongly suspects, that Shaw and Frost will see him as a vulnerability rather than partner.”

“That completed I can see to it that Leland is offered a deal and protective custody by Great Britain’s Resource Controls Executive if he provides evidence against the Hellfire Club. Given Jim Jasper’s status as a club member, and what happened with him*, the RCX will be very interested in taking the Club down.”

[*ED see Marvel UK’s Marvel Superheroes, #387-388, The Daredevils, #1-11 and The Mighty World Of Marvel, volume 2, #7-13. Or just buy the Alan Moore/Alan Davis “Captain Britain” compilation and marvel at how much Claremont stole from this for the Nimrod plotline]

Charles looks Kurt in the eye. ”The Hellfire Club acts as it does because not just their personal wealth but the privilege that their wealth and status provides them allows them to manipulate conventional authorities into defending their illegal behavior. I intend to turn those authorities back on them. The club as a reputation for being just scandalous enough to be risqué, a pleasant diversion for the wealthy; I mean to make them known as the criminals they are. I mean to make their strengths into weaknesses. I mean to dismantle their organization before they can further corrupt mutantkind without revealing them as being mutants – just criminals.

“But to do so I have to break Harry Leland. I have to make use of plans taken from his mind, and insure that he realize in time that his allies will turn on him, Worse, his allies will have turned on him, and I am gambling with his life. Harry Leland is not a good man, but I don’t know if this is a course I should take. I need an outside opinion before I move forward.”

Kurt pauses for a moment taking in all the Professor has said. "Herr Professor, I do not envy you your choices, nor the size of the task you have set yourself. The Hellfire Club is our enemy, yes, and worse, the enemy of mutant- and humankind seeking to profit from discord and internecine strife.

"But," and here he pauses and returns the Professor's gaze. "no man, high or low, good or evil, is a means to an end. To treat others thus is to split one's fellows - human or mutants - into tools to be used and those worthy of treatment as people in their own right. All are equal in the eyes of God, Herr Professor. Be very careful you do not take actions that blinds you to that simple truth."

Xavier looks concerned. "Do you feel that if I take this action I will have gone too far? I have been limiting myself to what an extremely well sourced investigative reporter or police investigator might be able to accomplish. Make no mistake - Harry Leland is guilty of criminal acts separate from the Hellfire Club. The Hellfire Club, as you know, is steeped in criminality. If you would advocate the searching of Ms. Cooper's past for leverage, what would we use that leverage for if not for something similar to this? Before we can properly confront the Hellfire Club we have to remove their carefully crafted social and political connections. This does that in a way that sheds no blood, doesn't implicate mutantkind and does not involve my directly controlling or altering the minds of any others."

"Kurt, I don't see a better path. But that does not make this path right. I cannot fully trust my instincts here, and I would not set us on the path to hell based on good intentions. If you feel this is a step too far then I will search for another way."

Kurt smiles gently. "Charles, your instincts are as good as any man I've known. Leland is a criminal and must make his own peace with his actions and conscience. I say that to confront the Hellfire Club is unavoidable and this approach will -- God willing -- save innocent lives. To confront them directly will only end in bloodshed."

He shakes his head. "Ach, I am not so good at this murky world of espionage and secret war. We must stop the Hellfire Club and Project Wideawake. Let them reap what they have sown."

"So be it," Xavier says. "As Holmes would say, the game is afoot. It's time for the Hellfire club to be on the receiving end of a conspiracy for a change."

Pages 6-7 (Colossus)

After the conversation with the Professor, Colossus returns to the Morlock tunnels. As usual, he is met before he actually reaches there.

"How'd that punching someone work out?" Callisto says from behind him as she steps out of the shadows. "Make everything all better?"

"It helped," says Colossus, after deciding that, despite the various twists in the timeline, it didn't technically not happen. "Time travel is... confusing."

Callisto snorts. "I wouldn't know." She starts walking, expecting Peter to follow.

He does. This seems to be becoming a pattern.

"I'll have you know that I have a half dozen morlocks up to their knees in crap and it's all your fault. Should be plenty of fertilizer, and we just finished rigging up the timer on the lights... What? You're way too anxious for a farmer checking out the land." She turns to him, "What's eating you?"

"Please," says Colossus, having expected this. "Let me do something simple like sticking my arms in... fertilizer (*) first."

His thought balloon says, "I wonder if it's tiring, noticing everything the way she does, all the time."

[* LP: Yes, we still can't say that naughty word, even though everyone knows what it is.]

"Your call," Callisto shrugs. "We'll get there, and the farm could use your attention. The Colonel wants to show off is work."

At the farm site there's the Colonel - a middle aged man in a yellow trench coat. "Oy, Colossus. You proved me wife wrong - I AM fit to manage a giant pile of..."

The farm room is coming along well, with beds set with soil and night soil ready for Peters supervision. We get a triptych of Peter praising people and suggesting something, one of him deeply involved in the work and one of him hitting a pump in order to make it work against the long single image of the garden. Callisto is visible watching him in the second panel.

"Well, it stinks to high heaven but I think it will be worth it," Callisto says, taking a swig from one of her long neck beer bottles. "Now, what's eating you? Something wrong with Storm?"

"Not as far as I know," says Colossus. "It's two things, really. The more complicated one -- while we were fighting Kang, who was pretending to be Immortus --" (*)

[*See X-Men Annual 8]

"--the professor took the New Mutants shopping." He tells the story, fairly close to the way he heard it, knowing that Callisto can figure out the implications as well as he can.

"That scar-faced son of bitch," Callisto whispers with dark anger. "I am going to..."

She stops, takes a deep breath, and asks Colossus "Ok, if you were in charge what would you do? Righteous beating? Exile? Lock him up for a while? Kill him? Assume he had just confessed to being involved in this and showed no remorse. What would you do?"

"Is this the first time he's done something like this? Something you can't ignore?"

"First time he's ever done it that I know of. At least like this." Callisto calmly finishes the bottle of beer, her composure back. "I'm guessing he's changed faces for the mob before, but he's too much of a mad dog for them to make a regular habit of it. He'd bite them out of spite."

"But he isn't a dog," says Colossus. "I don't kill people. Exiling him is asking for trouble. Locking him up, if there is some place that will hold him, that I could do. Beating a helpless foe? No."

Callisto nods, "Wouldn't ask you to. C'mon." She stands up and strides out of the room, clearly more tense and irritated than usual. She leads Colossus through the mass of the Alley, unerringly bearing down on a pudgy black girl roughly Kitty's age. The girl is cross-legged on the floor playing chess. As Peter approaches he sees the white pieces are moving themselves.

"Harvey?" Callisto says, and the girl looks up. "Harvey, this is Colossus. You met him before."

The girl smiles at him, friendly enough but there's something hunted, something scared behind those eyes. "Hi Colossus. They call me Harvey."

"Hello, Harvey," says Colossus, smiling.

"Harvey," Callisto tells her, "Something's going on and I need Colossus to be your friend for a little while. Is that all right?"

The girl looks a little worried, "Is something bad going to happen?"

"Not to you," Callisto says, "though I could get Caliban over here to cover."

Harvey looks like she's weighing something then decides . "No, I should be OK. I trust you." She looks at Colossus for a second and concentrates.

Callisto looks over at Peter, eying him up and down before sniffing the air. "Yeah, that ought to do. Follow me, stay in metal form and don't start talking until it's obvious you should."

Before Peter can say anything Callisto adds "Harvey here has an invisible friend. Right now that invisible friend is you. No one can see you until you break out of the illusion by talking or touching someone."

With that she strides off again, still clearly with purpose, until she gets to a train car that doubles as a platform in the center part of the room.

"MASQUE! Get out here!" her bellow echoes across the Alley.

There is some jostling as people move out of the hunchback's way. No one likes touching Masque - even less than they like touching Plague. "Yeeeessss?" He replies in an overly affected bored droll.

Callisto gives the robed man a steely stare "You got something you want to tell me?"

"Not really."

"Really. Seems there's been a crime spree going on surface-side, teenagers disappearing and showing up with whole new face, whole new bodies before being sold to slavery." There is a general murmur amongst the crowd and everyone backs a little further away from the hunchback. "So I'm askin' you again - you got something you want to tell me?"

Masque sneers back, "Any Morlocks kill any of these kids? Any Morlocks attack them for money or sport? Any of them stolen to swell our ranks? No? Then I guess no Morlock laws were broken."

Callisto ignores that, "So you took these kids, most of 'em straight off the bus, and you ripped their lives away from them? That what you did?"

"Look like no laws were broken." Masque responds.

"Young, confused, maybe on the run, and while they were asleep you stole their faces before you put them in chains? I got that more or less right?" The murmuring gets a little louder

"I broke no law, Callisto. You got no..."

"Did you hide the needle marks for the smack their new owners were addicting them to? Made it so they couldn't even recognize themselves in a mirror?"

"I DID THAT FOR ALL OF YOU, TOO!" Masque bellows back, "I gave you the faces you wanted!"

After a moment of silence Callisto says "Too?"

"Yes!" Masque hisses back "Those smooth faced pretty little brats all came to the city to be beautiful! I made them Beautiful! Just like I made you ugly, you one eyed witch!"

"Difference is, I asked for it," Callisto shoots back "Those that wanted it had you mark us so we'd feel like Morlocks. Them? You made them beautiful but then you made sure they'd hate it, didn't you?"

"YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT I DID!" Masque pulls his hood down, "They had no right looking like that and still wanting more while I look like this! None! But those humans up there, they attacked the kids, held them, maybe got 'em killed, but I didn't do any of that. I didn't break any of Storm's laws, did I?" He slowly spins to look at the entire assembly, "Did I?"

He turns back to Callisto, "You ain't the ruler down here anymore, Callisto. Storm is. And that mean your old laws don't apply. And she ain't here. Hell, none of her precious X-Men are here to even stand in her stead. So You. Can't. Touch. Me. No one dares to touch me."

Colossus clears his throat.

Everyone in the room freezes as Colossus appears.

"You've been too busy up above to pay attention, Masque. Storm made Colossus here her ambassador."

As this is de facto true, Colossus sees no need to add anything.

Masque looks panicked for a second, then very, very angry about how he'd just been set up. "The boy gonna fight me, no mutations allowed?"

"What, you think I'm an idiot?" Callisto shoots back. "How many people here think Masque would keep his word on that when he started to lose?"

There is silence in the Alley.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Besides, the no mutations was my rule, and my rules don't count any more, right? So it's up to Colossus here what to do with you." Calisto turns to Peter, "So, a fight or is he gonna do time in the cell for a while?"

Everyone looks at Peter...

"The cell," says Peter, trusting that if Callisto's willing to lock Masque in it that it will hold him.

"If you'll escort him," Callisto says, obviously expecting Colossus to restrain Masque since he is immune to his power. The crowd is backing away from Masque even more, not wanting to be in the path of his power decides to make a break for it.

The people in the crowd also clear a path, making it obvious the direction to the cell. Colossus moves quickly to restrain and escort Masque to his cell.

The hunchback doesn't try to run, or to resist Colossus' subtle pull. He does, however, fix Colossus with a hate filled stare. Peter sees something feral and cunning inside the man's eye before he sags a little, visibly losing the bluster that had carried him this far. To an outside observe it looks like the malformed figure had realized the enormity of his actions.

Sunder is waiting for them at the Cell - a thick stone door on large, over-engineered hinges that would take someone with superhuman strength to open or close. Colossus can see the space is lit, has a bed and elimination facilities that, while not great, are only a step below the rest of the Alley. Once Masque is in Sunder swings the door shut. The window is large but tightly barred which, combined with the eight inch width of the door, makes it highly unlikely that Masque could get his hands on someone outside.

"Sunder, tell Callisto I..." Masque chokes and coughs, the continues,

"Never mind. Don't say anything." The hunchback pulls his robe back over his head and drops dejectedly down onto the bed.

Pages 8-9 (Phoenix)

Last evening's snow crunched other Rachel's feet, providing a visible trail of her passage through the cemetery. When she reached it the stone was simple but elegant. Classical. Grandpa would have picked it out, certainly.

Not that Mom was really buried under there. She actually died on the moon, but here is where her memorial stands, commemorating today*. Resting place of the woman who saved the universe. But in this universe she couldn't cheat death twice.

"Mom died in this universe -- in my universe too -- two years ago. I miss her. I missed her for years, of course, after she was killed, but..."

Rachel pulls out a single orange Rudbeckia and lays it on the grave.

"...it all seems closer now. In my world--in this time, she was already alive again. But here and now...she isn't. Maybe she never will be. But I don't know why."

"Hello?" comes the questioning voice of Jonathan Grey as he approaches the woman standing over his daughter's grave. We can see his confused, concern look over Rachel's shoulder.

Elaine is already a few steps ahead of him, looking at Rachel's profile. "Oh my god...Jeanie?" she puts her left hand to her mouth "Jea...?"

Her right hand reaches out to touch Rachel's face, her fingers stopping several inches way, "Look at her John. Look..."

Rachel shakes her head. "I'm not...she's my...I'm not Jean."

Tears are streaming down Elaine's face. Mr. Grey catches up to her, puts his arm around her. "Jesus."

He takes his wife's arm and slowly lowers it to her side. "She's your what?" he whispers, like a prayer. The small bouquet of Black-Eyed Susan's in his hand is shaking.

Very quietly, but still audibly, Rachel responds the only way she can. "She's my mother."

Elaine Grey sobs once, and whispers "she told me. She promised me." Then she pulls away from her husband's grasp and throws her arms around Rachel.

We shift to the Grey's house - a comfortable suburban abode with a garden in the back yard, currently under an inch or so of snow - where Rachel is sitting in the tastefully decorated living room. Her grandparents are there as well, and everyone has cups from the traditional tea service, boon to maintaining sanity in strange social protocols everywhere.

Elaine is sitting close to Rachel on the couch, her body turned three quarters to her, her head swiveled the rest of the way to keep the woman in her sights, lest she vanish. John is sitting on the loveseat, glancing at Rachel and then looking away to one of the many family pictures around the room, and then back again, over and over.

"She promised me, you see. Four years ago," Elaine tells Rachel again. "She promised me she and Scott would get married, that we'd have a grandchild. Nathan, if a son, Rachel, if a daughter. And that's you."

Rachel smiles. "That's me. In my future -- in my past -- that's exactly what happened, Grandma."

John shakes his head a little, more in disbelief than in negation, "so you're from the future, but not our future, and now your future doesn't exist, but here in your past you still exist? I'm sorry if this is hard, but it's all so...Buck Rogers, isn't it? You're almost as old as Jean was when she died. How can we know?"

"John, hush. Next thing you know you'll want to check the condition of the girl's teeth. She's clearly Jeanie's daughter."

John Grey sighs and nods. He look at Rachel "and you can do the same," he waves his hand in the air rather than try to find the correct word.

Rachel lifts herself from the ground for a moment, then drifts back down. "I'm not as powerful as she was--not at the end. But I can do a lot of what she could do. I could show you show you my past -- maybe that would be enough to know that it's real--or it was. But I won't do that unless you want me to."

John shakes his head, "No, no that would be too...too much. And I don't think I want you to be as powerful as her in the end. I don't think anyone was meant to be."

Elaine reaches out and takes Rachel's hand again - Elaine has been very physically demonstrative of her affections - and asks, "Jeanie, your mom, from when you came from, she's dead again, isn't she? It's just you." Seeing the look on Rachel's face her tears well up a little, "No, don't tell me any more than you have. But you're here. We have that."

"They'll be a devil of a time explaining things on Monday, I can tell you that," John says, chuckling.

"You are coming to the new year's party, aren't you?" Elaine asks her, "It would mean so much."

Rachel nods. "I'd like that a lot."

"Excellent," John says, then adds "Let me get something together for dinner tonight."

He exits the room to the kitchen and Rachel hears the opening of the refrigerator and the clattering of cutlery.

"Took up cooking two years ago," Elaine confides in Rachel, "something to take his mind off... Anyway. You can do what Jeanie did - are you doing what she did? At Charles' school?"

Rachel nods. "I'm learning a lot from him. He was...he wasn't there to teach me, when I was growing up. I'm learning a lot. And the X-men...what they do--what we do--is needed. I like being needed. Are you sure I can't help with dinner?"

"No, no, he's fine," Elaine brushes the concern aside. "Rachel, that work, that's what got our Jeanie killed. Are you...sure...?"

Rachel blithely ignores the implication that it was being an X-Man that got Rachel killed, rather than going mad and eating a couple of planets*. "Yes, I am. The future I came from was one of the ones we're working to prevent, and it was bad. Bad for everyone--and worse for people like me. There's nothing I can do that would be safe. But I might be able to make a difference."

Elaine has a rueful smile, "That's what Jeanie would have said. It's what her dad would say too, God bless him. But I don't want to lose you."

"You stay right here," Elaine tells her as she gets up, bustling upstairs to get something.

Pages 10-11 (Rogue & Wolverine)

Carol Danvers shakes her long blonde hair out of her face. The arctic winds are fierce in Siberia, but the cold doesn't bother her. It hasn't since the accident with the psyche magnetron gave her these powers. Even still she's in a full body outfit, white and grey, both to camouflage her and in the snow and to prevent her identity from being discovered. She wasn't sure how Fury tracked her down in San Francisco, months after that disastrous event with the Avengers. She hadn't intended to play Ms. Marvel ever again, but Nick knew which markers to call in, and which buttons to push. And which partner to give him.

"Colonel." Wolverine called out to her as he appeared over the hill. "Good to see you." Like her he wasn't in any 'uniform', just a camouflage white suit. She also knew that he was holding the other half of the image generator that would reveal the full specs of their mission.

Carol: "Major! Just like old times." smiles, only slightly ruefully, "Do we hug?"

"Not on the job," Logan says back with a smile.

"I suppose we had better see what kind of party gift they have saddled us with this time." Holds out her half of the generator.

He attaches his to hers and the complete unit hums for a second before generating a small floating holographic Nick Fury head. "...this thing on? Right. Here's the job: 36 hours ago a small contingent of US and Canadian students disappeared from a school sponsored ? through Poland. This contingent included two of the SHIELD ESPer unit's people of interest - a Canadian boy named Peter Lombard whose mutation lets him psionically amplify existing energy sources," the screen changes to show a slightly overweight and unfortunately acned teenager," and an American girl named Anne Marie," the image shifts again to picture a cute teenage girl whose auburn hair is split with a white streak, with whom Carol feels an immediate, if confusing, connection "who is able to absorb the personalities and powers of anyone she touches."

"It is our belief that the students were taken to capture Lombard. Intelligence indicates that the Soviets are hoping to re-activate a West German plan that Iron Man broke up a couple weeks back: they have several dozen spy satellites that double as weapon platforms that slipped past original sensors and treaty restrictions by not having internal power sources. The plan was to broadcast power to them to activate them, and that power was supposed to be generated by a bozo named the Living Laser*. Shell head stopped that from happening, but Lombard would be able to serve as a back-up power source."

[*ED: see Iron Man 152-153]

Fury scowls. "I think the Reds hired this guy," an image appears of the Vanisher, "Telford Porter, to do the abductions for them. He's done that work before, but if he plays to profile he's likely long gone. I also don't think they know what they have - Porter grabbed all the kids just to be sure but they only needed Lombard. They're probably using the other kids to keep Lombard in line, and they don't even know what Anne Marie can do. They just want their weapons satellites operational. Obviously we don't want that to happen, and we want the kids back. "

"Our ESPer units were already tagged on to Anne Marie so she's our tracking target to know that the kids were taken to a remote base in Siberia, about 5 klicks north of your position - they clearly don't want any Western Super-Heroes messing this one up. If intelligence is to be believed they have this guy working as base security" The image changes again to a full body shot of a figure with long white hair, a white and red uniform and cables extending from his forearms under his hands. "He's a Soviet wetworks guy named Omega Red. He's able to generate poisonous pheromones that he calls 'Death Spores'. He channels them through the carbonadium tentacles for extra effect - being near him sucks, getting grappled sucks even more. He's superhumanly strong, fast and tough. He's a killer, but he's secondary. Get the kids out, and don't let him near them - just being around him will kill them. You two, with your Kree biology and healing factor, should be OK."

There's a tinted editorial box in the panel, maybe one of Wolverine's thoughts, that reads: "Death Spores? Carbonadium?"

"Here's a map to the complex," Fury says over a graphic image of the terrain which both agents immediately commit to memory, "and Wolverine has a clothes sample of each of the five kids to be able to track them. Your pick up is an arctic submarine 15 klicks to your west in 4 hours. Get the kids, get them out, blow up the tech if you can." Fury gives them what passes for a smile, "Good luck."

Carol says "Ha! Easy as very difficult pie! No numbers so we have to assume that the five with the samples are all we're after. Then drag them 9 miles through this cold. And "Death Spores" for added funtime. Sheesh!" pauses and looks grim "of course the chances of us still having all five to worry about ... sigh! ... " refocuses "Right! Anything on the sniffometer? ... Something about that girl rings a bell but I can't ..." makes a gesture as if throwing something away from her. "Logan?"

"This way," he says. "Vanisher may have 'ported the kids in, but not the rest of them. I'm picking up diesel fumes from that direction," he points in the way the map indicated, "but also human scents over there" his hand moves a few inches leftward. "So I figure there's a guard shack or somewhere we can either take out and question people or use as a side door rather than going in through the front gate."

As they're moving Logan adds, "That many kids I see our best play as sticking them and me in a truck and have you fly it over to the pick-up site. Faster'n driving, gives the kids some protection from the weather. Make sense?"

Carol says "Good! That's plan A. Here's hoping we don't need a plan B, but if we do I make the best choice for rearguard. If I can hold off tentacle-pits long enough for you and the kids to break away then I can fly out and damn to the sub."

After a short trip it originally appears that Logan's guess was wrong - there's no guard shack here - but Carol's instincts tell her otherwise, and after a second she spots a couple of cigarette butts buried in the snow. Wolverine, for his part, heads for a particular spot and after a few seconds of brushing snow aside reveals a meter-wide sealed hatchway.

"Ha. Smoke breaks. I understand those thing's'll kill ya."

"With any luck," Carol grins.

Logan extends a single long claw from the back of his hand and slices open a neat square into the hatchway and, with a few seconds work, overrides the door's lock. "And in we go."

He drops down the hatch, landing silently 15 feet down, and moves forward a bit for Carol to follow. At a crossroads he stops, sniffs the ground and looks back at her. "Four of the five are that way. Lombard's in that direction." He points down the opposite path from the first one. "All of them are still alive, but scared out of their wits. Split up to save time? And if so, which target do ya want?"

Carol hesitates. Somehow she is deeply reluctant to go after the four hostages. "No. If the hostages are the leverage on Lombard he won't move without them. We get the leverage kids first, then him. Besides, that way if one of us meets spore-boy we have backup." grins

"Makes sense, but remember that we can't let the kids get too close to Omega Red. If he shows up you get him away from them, I'll get the kids to a safe spot and then give you some backup."

With that Logan waves them forward, moving with speed and silence towards the kids.

The pair reach what is obviously a holding area buried another 40 feet into the earth, accessible only by an industrial design circular stairwell embedded in the top and bottom of the drilled shaft. The shaft has a sealed door at the top (easily enough circumvented with their skills) and is open at the bottom. Also at the bottom is a 10 meter square room (with a 3 meter high ceiling) are a half dozen Soviet soldiers engaged in the acts common to anyone on boring guard duty, save that they all have gas masks gangling from their necks, ready to be donned. Heat for the room is coming from space heaters that are set along the walls.

The room is halved by a thick Plexiglas wall that has a door in the center. Behind the wall are the missing kids. Anne Marie stands out from the group as while the others are all in clothing one would expect from high school students on a foreign trip - jeans, tee-shirts, sweat shirts, etc. - Anne Marie is more eccentrically fashioned with long opera gloves, a stylish red scarf that wraps around her shoulders and covers the neckline of her blouse, and a cloche that covers nearly all of her hair. The scarf is eerily reminiscent of Carol's original Ms. Marvel costume.

Wolverine gives her a serious look, and with a cocked eyebrow asks for her opinion of how to handle this. It goes without saying that these men have to be KO'd before they have a chance to raise the alarm.

Page 12 (Mystique & Destiny)

“Gyaaaaaah!” yells Irene Adler, aka Destiny, as she sits bolt upright in bed. She’s wearing a modest nightgown, one not inappropriate to both the season and her age (Irene is clearly of an age with Magneto and the Professor, so in her 50’s, albeit a woman who maintains a regular exercise regimen). She is also hyperventilating and sobbing. Seconds after she sits up Mystique sits up as well. She’s wearing a less modest, more fan-service-y nightgown and is in her natural blue form. “Irene, what… What’s wrong? Another migraine?” she says as she puts her arm around the other woman in a comforting gesture*.

[*BR: You know my normal level of fidelity to the mores and morals of mid-80’s Marvel in this game? Well, that goes out the window here. Claremont says he always intended for Destiny and Mystique to be lovers, so they’re lovers. Done deal.]

“It’s all breaking down, Raven,” Irene sobs. “It’s all breaking down, and we can’t stop it.”

“Shhhhh…” Mystique tells her. “Shhh… let me get some coffee and you can tell me the dream.”

Irene nods and gropes for a pen and her dream diary so that she can start recording this. The lack of coordination is much more from her emotional state than her blindness. Once she lays her hands on the book she flips to the first page without a downturned corner and begins writing things out, in German, in a tight, neat script*.

[*BR: Of course it’s in a foreign language – I wouldn’t want the readers to be able to read what she’s written!]

Mystique returns, having tossed on a translucent robe that does nothing to mitigate the fan service and bearing two cups of coffee. Irene takes one and gives it a grateful sip.

“OK,” Mystique says calmly, “what’s breaking down?”

We get a tryptich showing the women sitting in the bedroom, then the living room and finally at the peninsula in the kitchen where they’re eating breakfast; each room has a clock showing us the passage of time, taking us from 4 to 7 AM. Unfortunately there are no speech balloons to tell us what they’re saying, though Destiny is calming down some as Mystique grows increasingly tense.

Finally a shot of the two women at the peninsula, with Irene’s dream diary open and Mystique’s space filled with flowcharts of possible timelines. Visible are the words “Sentinel”, “Hellfire”, “James”, ”Frost”, “Academy”, “Nerve Gas”, “Dukes” and “Nightcrawler”

“So what are our options?” Mystique asks calmly. “Can we stop the first domino?”

“No,” Irene says. “That exposes you and makes Frost think Xavier has broken their agreement. That actually leads down a path to a worse backlash, and a more international response.”

“Dammit,” Mystique sighs. “OK, so we don’t divert there. Get the team out?”

“Yes,” Destiny nods, “I think so. That makes things worse in the short run for everyone but gives us the most flexibility to act. There are more successful paths from there than any other.”

“How come we didn’t see this coming, Irene? It was us, me, who partially got us on this path. What happened?”

Irene shrugs, “A temporal anomaly occurred. Something from outside the time stream bumped things, threw all my previous predictions off course. I think that it’s been growing for a while, which is why I’ve been getting the headaches at night as I’m trying to reconcile timelines. But something else happened yesterday – the anomaly jumped in and out of time – and that snapped everything into focus for me on the new future. Now were committed.” She swallows hard, “I’m sorry, Raven. I’ve failed you.”

“Never,” Mystique smiles back. “The world may fail me, but never you. And now we can correct things.”

The shot is of their hands holding each other over the peninsula. From this angle we can see the gold band on Irene’s left ring finger. Their hands are resting over Mystique’s notes, covering up most of them, with the exception of one word: “Nightcrawler.”

“I know you don’t want to hear this,” Destiny tells her, “but much of it is out of our hands. It all rests on him.”

“I know. Forgive me if that doesn’t fill me with confidence.”

Page 13 (Colossus)

It's nighttime, outside. Callisto and Sunder have snagged one of the Morlocks’ disused train tunnels somewhere out of the city - maybe the Meadowlands? - to the remains of an industrial complex that is now obviously abandoned. "OK, no powers." Callisto tells him as she drops her knife and slingshot down onto one of the Jersey barriers blocking the site off from casual drivers, and then stalks some 20 yards away. "Fight me."

Peter takes her at her word and shifts back to non-armored form, moving as he does. He's going to try for a punch and follow up by trying to grapple.

Peter closes and, without preamble, lays into Callisto. He hits her square in the jaw and knocks her into the dirt.

She smiles a fierce, bloody smile and kicks him right in the groin. Peter is able to shift position enough, and bull his way through enough, that it's not completely debilitating. Still, he's stunned for a few seconds. Callisto flips herself back to a stand and then delivers a spinning kick towards the side of Peters head. Fortunately he's able to bring an arm up in time to keep from being knocked flat. The impact still knocks him to one knee but he managed to grab hold of Callisto's leg. When he stands it's impossible for her to keep her feet, so she swings her other leg up, clenching both around Peter's head as she spins, sending both of them to the dirt and rolling across the construction site.

Despite her best efforts, Peter still has a solid grip on her leg and her legs are no longer clenched around his head.

Peter shifts position by scissoring his legs a few times in classic wresting style and gets his other arm around Callisto's torso. He stands up again, holding her by her thigh and midriff, denying her any contact with the ground or much by way of leverage. Callisto struggles against him for a second before he applies more pressure, then calmly says "Good. Very good."

There are a few seconds of delay with Peter holding Callisto in what is, now that the fight is over, an socially awkward position before she adds "Um, Colossus, you can put me down now,"

Reminded of this, and assured that she really is ending the fight, he drops her.

Once she's down she moves a few feet away and then jumps onto Jersey barrier set on its end, perching there. "You've been well trained, I'll give you that. Wrestling, judo, making use of that size. And you're faster than you look."

"Now then. Why don't you give him a go," she jerks a thumb at Sunder, who has been watching from the periphery. "Full mutation."

Colossus tries to shift form while moving towards Sunder, hoping to charge in and hit early and often.

Sunder moves faster, casually hefting a Jersey barrier and hurling it into Colossus as the metal mutant starts his charge. The shattering concrete doesn't do Colossus any damage but destroys his forward momentum, and by the time he reaches Sunder the big man is well ready for his attack, ducking out of the way of Colossus punch.

Sunder takes a step out of Colossus range, using the extra few inches of his own brutishly long arms to deliver a solid backhand that snaps Colossus' head back. His other hand grabs an abandoned, rusted portable cement mixer, hefts it up and slams it down over Colossus head, burying his head and shoulders in mucky wet sand and pinning his arms momentarily to his sides.

After a second to re-orient himself Colossus starts to flex his arms to break free when Sunder hammers on the cement mixer with what must be a steel bar, ringing it like a gong. Unlike the times when Peter uses his own sonic clap on people he was in no way braced for this explosion of noise and it seriously throws off his equilibrium. Still, he's able to push his arms outward, shattering the cement mixer in a small explosion and sending bits of rusted shrapnel flying through his immediate area. Any hope that this would discommode Sunder is quashed when he sees that the Morlock fighter is actually more than 10 yards away, having hit Peter with, not a steel bar, but a 40 foot length of I-Beam.

[BR: Sunder has a higher Intuition so he goes first. He hit with the thrown weapon attack, you rolled an 09 on your return strike. On his next action he made a check for multiple attacks with his Remarkable fighting, getting 2 attacks. The first barely hit, the second scored a one round stun, which was the bit with the cement mixer. That cost you the round when he hit you with the I-beam. It's you're action, but due to the sonic attack you're at -2 Column Shifts for this round only, so you're attacking at what works out to a -10% Sunder isn't in the same area so your own sonic clap won't work unless you close on him. He looks like he's getting ready to hit you with the I-Beam again.]

Colossus tries to duck and close. If that looks unlikely, he tries to grab the I-Beam.

Colossus ducks low and tries to barrel through, only to see the I-Beam swing towards him on the low end, near his legs. It clips him and he falls, but as he does he grabs hold of it and gives it a solid yank, pulling Sunder towards him. The two big men have a moment off balance before they both right themselves and have a chance to square off.

Before it can go any further Callisto yells "Stop!"

Still perched on her Jersey barrier she calls out "Colossus, you fight fine as a human, but as a mutant you fight for crap."

Colossus looks puzzled, as if he had expected it to be the other way around (which he had). "Then why am I still alive?" he asks.

"Because you're too damn hard to hurt," she tells him. "Most fights you get into the guy you're fighting lands what, two, three punches to your one? And unless the other guy is as strong as you are, and most aren't, you don't even feel it. Most mutants as strong as you just aren't as tough as you. Sunder's a little weaker than you and not made of metal. He'd probably have to tag you solidly four or five times to match what you do to him with one punch.

She starts ticking things off on her fingers, "You don't need to breath, you're pretty much immune to fire and electricity and cold, no normal weapon does more than throw off your footing. As a mutant you can afford to make almost any fight into a war of attrition, and that works right up until the point where the other guy is as strong as you and as fast as me. And then you get your ass kicked. Hard. "

Sunder grunts, "I was winning. You'd have won. Sooner or later, 'less I threw you away, buried you. You're tough. You're strong too, but you still think weak."

Callisto nods. "As a human you know you're strong and big and tough and you use it. You were better than I expected, got in close and used that size and strength. Against other humans, even meaner, faster ones, you probably do OK because you know your strengths. As a mutant you're way, way, way stronger than that but you still thinking with human strength. You don't remember you can swing a damn dump truck. Or throw one of these," she slaps the barrier she's perching on. "Or damn near anything else that isn't what you'd do as a human, except let yourself take more hits."

She hops down and picks up her various weapons, "You want to learn to fight better as Colossus, you gotta stop being a human. It's that simple."

"When you stop being a human," says Colossus, slowly. "When you stop thinking humans matter... Magneto did that." His thought balloon says, "And Jean did, too."

Callisto gives him a long, inscrutable look. "Your call," she says finally, with a shrug. "But I think you'd learn something if you and Sunder came out here and mixed it up more often."

Sunder grunts, "Sounds fun."

Pages 14-15 (Ariel)

The room is bright and loud and fogged, with the air having that tang that comes from fog generators. Pat Benetar is belting out the metaphorical combative nature of amorous affairs at great volume, and it echoes back from the gymnasium's high ceiling. Roughly a third of the hundred or so people present are gyrating to her assertions in the center of the room, while the remainder are loitering at the salt and sugar laden buffet, sitting at several round cafeteria tables that have been dragged in for the event or, in a sad number of the cases, are holding up the walls with their backs and sides, unsure of where to go or what to do.

Kitty is in the middle of a small scrum at the door, entering as she is en masse with Doug Ramsey and the New Mutants, who are, by and large, dressed up in their most fashionable clothes. Given that this is not their book they each have an editorial box over them to help the reader identify them.

Roberto DaCosta - Sunspot: the bi-racial Brazilian is sporting highly fashionable clothes - designer jeans, izod shirt and a lovely leather jacket - is beautiful and knows it. The only thing standing between him and total adoration from the local girls is his relatively short height.

Danielle Moonstar - Mirage: she has let her hair down, literally so that the pitch black mane is a waterfall down her shoulders past the small of her back. She's also stylishly dressed, having uncharacteristically donned heels and tight miniskirt, letting her height and lithe frame attract even more attention.

Ilyana Rasputin - Magik: She's also dressed to the nines in a corseted little black dress and strappy heels that compensate some for her own short stature. With her pale skin and blonde hair offsetting the clothes she looks just a little bit evil, but a seductive sort of evil.

Sam Guthrie - Cannonball: he's trying, he really is, but he's tall and a little uncoordinated and lacks Berto's fashion sense or confidence. The flannel shirt doesn't help him, but at least he's wearing something that suits him. he would be far worse off if he were trying to pull off what Roberto is wearing

Rhane Sinclair - Wolfsbane: It's clear that she let Ilyana help her get ready for this - she's well made up, her naturally short spikey hair has been styled to fit in with the current fashion and she's in a red dress that fits her well and falls to just her knees. They aren't her usual clothes, she's uncomfortable in them and it shows.

Doug Ramsey - Cypher: He's in chinos, a white shirt and a dress jacket. A little staid, a little conservative, a man who is not dressing for flash, perhaps because he knows that in the language of fashion doing so would not send the right message to the right person.

Kitty Pryde - Ariel: Kitty is wearing a knee-length, swirly, black-and-white striped skirt with moderately-heeled ankle boots and a flowy, ruffled white blouse, with a gold and black belt. Her hair has finally been trimmed to mostly one length - maybe three inches at this point (?) - and has not been tamed with any Product (TM).

"Thanks for scoring us the invite, Doug," Roberto says as they crowd into the room to escape the cold.

"No problem, Doug replies,."Kinda a last gasp for me before I change schools. Our principal is pretty keen on making sure there isn't any drinking and driving for the students on New Year's so they started holding this party."

"Yeah, but once you're in, you can't get out! Spooky!" says Frank, one of the other students, who approaches them, "So you Xavier kids are trapped in here with us local freaks! Wooooo!"

Di, the boy's girlfriend punches him in the arm, "Hey guys, good to see you. Lookin' sharp Rhane!"*

"Thanks," Rhane says, smiling a little at the external validation but probably still looking for a part of the wall to hold up.

[* ED: We last saw Frank and Di in New Mutants issue 2]

"We are *all* sharp! In our own special ways," Kitty declares. She grabs Rhane with one hand and Doug with the other. "C'mon, let's dance!"

Doug seems a little startled but more than game. Rhane even more startled and a little less in the moment, but she's carried along by Frank, Di and the rest of the New Mutants joining in with Kitty's charge - especially the whoop that Roberto gives as he hits the floor, quickly grabbing the attention of a pair of girls who are apparently otherwise unencumbered.

[BR: there's a whole other plot here that takes place in the 'not-Rachel-therapy' parts of the latest issue of New Mutants with 'Berto almost getting into a fight with one of those girl's dates. If I had a whole issue to dedicate to it someone would have spiked the drinks causing Mirage's powers to slip out of control and creating a bunch of monsters in the room, but I don't so it doesn't.]

The students at Xavier's dance more or less as a unit for the first couple songs before a combination of Frank and Di's presence and Roberto's two new friends causes them to intermingle a little. Rhane keeps trying to slip away to hold up the wall but never gets far before Ilyana steers her back into the social scene. There's no denying that Ilyana is stunning - the girl every teenage boy hopes will suddenly appear at the dance - and that Rhane is basking her reflected glory, but that's more light that Rhane has ever seen and little by little she loosens up in it. Roberto might be trying the same thing for Sam but the dynamic just isn't there, and after a bit Sam finds himself outside the crowd. He and Dani start talking to one of the other outliers - the town is clearly divided between the long time, lower income locals and the people who house their kids here while they work in the city - and the conversation spins comfortably enough to trucks and bow-hunting.

Through it all Kitty and Doug stay pretty close. She's doing well with the physical aspects of dancing - given the super heroics she's got more endurance than any of these kids, and with the ballet she has a good sense of balance and rhythm - and Doug is proving equally capable. His presence is immensely...comforting. So much so that Kitty almost doesn't notice when some of the other boys are paying attention to her, moving into her orbit during the run of fast dances that dominate the early part of the evening. But there they are, two of them, one much prettier than Doug, the other with a physique of a linebacker, very reminiscent of Peter's.

Woah, Kitty thinks. Are those guys trying to dance with me? Unsure of what to do about that, she puts an effort into not changing her cheerful demeanor or her attention to Doug at all - pretending not to notice, and watching to see what happens next.

For the remainder of the song there isn't much change, other than the fact that Kitty clearly has the three young men in her orbit. Doug is giving her his full attention and doesn't see what's going on. When the song end and the next in the queue is a slow Mr. Ramsey is unprepared for the linebacker moving in such a way as to box Doug out from Kitty, ostensibly during the general move of people from the floor to the wall since this sort of song requires a much higher level of either romantic commitment or social chutzpah than the previous group dance, but more likely it's a coordinated 'wingman' move.

During that moment the pretty boy extends a hand to Kitty, "Hi stranger. Can I have this dance?" His stance and voice make the request is open, amiable and unthreatening, though the longer Kitty takes to contemplate it the more awkward it will be with the two of them standing on the dance floor.

Unfortunately for him, Kitty's reflexes are better than theirs and she's already prepared a non-combat response of sorts. Even as the boy speaks, she's breaking into an exuberant trio of ballerina-style pirouettes, which relocate her to a point where the other boy's blocking is less effective.

"No thanks, I need something to drink," she says. "Doug? Oh, *there* you are!"

Several people on the floor give little woots or claps at the oddball pirouettes - it's hard to tell if they're satirical or not - and the rebuffed fellow takes it well enough. In fact, he manages to quickly snag another partner so as to not suffer any social indignity.

"Nice moves, Pryde," Doug tells her, "You spin with the best. C'mon, let's get you that drink."

He hits the punch bowl and produces a pair of oddly pink fizzy concoctions that, if they contain alcohol, they don't contain terribly much of it. One of the other students approaches them, "Hey Doug, I hear you're leaving us next year," she asks with just a touch of edge in her voice. The girl is Kitty and Doug's age, pretty, well coifed and clearly comes from the moneyed part of town.

"Yeah Terri. Scored a space at Xavier's," Doug adds with no pretense or concern in his voice. "Terri, this is Kitty, a student at Xavier's. Kitty, this is Terri, she's in my comp sci classes."

Terri gives Kitty a frosty look.

Kitty smiles in a completely friendly way and says, "Hi Terri! So you're interested in computers too?"

"MIT seems to think so," she says with a glare. She then turns back to Doug, "Doug, you know if you leave this school now that summer internship at IBM is gone, right? And without that the odds of making it into the elite programs MIT drop significantly. There's just no way to recover from this," she glances over at Kitty, "no matter what Xavier's has to offer."

Kitty looks surprised. "They give internships to the schools, not the students?"

Terri looks at Kitty like she's a bug, "Does Xavier's have two semesters of accredited AP Math and Computer Sciences classes to qualify for IBM's program? Why no, it doesn't because Xavier's barely has a freakin' curriculum on file with the state. Xavier's in its illustrious 15 year history of teaching the 'gifted'" there's dripping scorn in this, "has placed, what, two students into colleges? Oooh, I'm so impressed"

She rounds on Kitty, building up steam "So clearly your 'gift' isn't research, or even awareness of your school's history. I'm guessing it's a combination of the size of your trust fund and the gullibility of your parents." She's well inside Kitty's personal space now, fortunately hissing rather than yelling "A lot of people in this town are gulled by the fancy name and the big mansion, but I know better. The school posts no grades, places no students and in my book that makes it a great big fraud and I'll be damned if I let the... if I let Doug get pulled down by you and your sham of a school!"

Doug looks more than a little shocked and at a loss for words.

Kitty also is shocked and surprised. She thinks, *Woah. ... I guess this calls for, umm, a leg sweep?*

Aloud she says, "So ... I should abandon the patent application for my KX 32-bit coprocessor array and go back to a regular school?"

Damned if it doesn't look like Terri is about to take a swing at her when Doug interposes himself, "Terri, don't. Kitty, let's just..." and he lays a hand on her arm to lead her away from this.

Kitty lets herself be drawn away. "Did that go well, or badly?" she asks Doug quietly.

"It..." Doug pauses, looking up to the ceiling the way people do when they're realizing something even as they keep moving away from the scene, "Huh. It's just 'balloons' in German. This is so weird now that I'm paying attention to it."

He looks back at Kitty, "It was never going to go well, now that I think about it. I've known Terri for a long time and she always liked telling me what to do."

He's led them to a secluded, darker spot of the room. "Can we... step outside for a minute? There's supposed to be some awesome northern lights tonight." Since the purpose of the party is to keep the kids contained Kitty is sure Doug is asking her to pull them through the wall. They are out of sight, so there's no risk of being spotted in the crowd.

"All right," she says, taking a last glance to be sure they're unobserved. Taking his hand, she makes sure to peek out the other side of the wall before actually pulling them both through.

Without their jacket's it's very cold outside, but the building is sheltering them from the wind. Doug's watch starts beeping. "Any minute now."

Doug turns to her with a serious expression. "OK, my life just got really complicated in a Shakespeare comedy sort of way, so I'm going cut to act five. Terri, in there? She loves me. I never figured that out before now, but she does." He swallows then goes on, "But I never thought about her that way, because I've spent the last year in love with you. But you've been dating Peter, so I doubt you noticed."

"Now you're *not* dating Peter, but... you're so much bigger than me, Kitty. You're beautiful and smart and a superhero and save the world from time travelling madmen. I'm not in your league. I know that. So I have to know if I have a chance here. With you."

"Oh!" Kitty says, and it's hard to be sure whether she's more startled, happy, or dismayed. "Doug, I - I'm kind of determined to, to not get involved with anyone. For a while. 'Cause I'm good at hiding it but I'm still upset about Peter." The words of that last sentence run together as if getting them out of the way quickly will help somehow.

"But, umm, if I *was* going to get involved with someone, he would definitely be you."

She ducks her head to stare at the ground, embarrassed and uncertain. "So I guess that kind of adds up to 'a chance'? ... I'm sorry it's a mess, I just ..."

Doug holds up a hand, "No, it's OK. I understand. I'm kinda hitting you out of left field here."

There's a moment of silence and then he points up. "Here we go!" The sky lights up with a mad array of greenish blue color, warping and weaving through the sky.

Page 16-17 (Nightcrawler)

"Note to self," Amanda tells Kurt as they exit the airport, gazing around for their ride. "Anchorage is very cold in late December. Second note, do not trust boyfriend who was born with a stylish fur coat when he tells you otherwise."

Kurt expresses mock surprise. "I didn't say Anchorage was warm. I said *I* would keep you warm. Crucial difference, liebchen."

He embraces Amanda. "I may not be the Human Torch but I'll do my best."

"Hey you two, in Alaska people do that in _private_!" Scott yells from his truck. "Hop on in, the heat's cranking."

"Oh good," responds Amanda as she hustles into the truck, scootching over to leave space for Kurt to join her.

Kurt heaves the couple's bags into the back of the vehicle before following Amanda and pulling the door shut with a shiver. Amanda gives him an 'I told you so' look.

"Welcome to winter," Scott tells them as he pulls away from the curb, "at least the early stages of it. But on the plus side the Northern Lights are coming on strong, so you'll get the promised fireworks. How are things in New York?"

Nightcrawler smiles and relaxes as the truck's heater begins to thaw the newly arrived pair. "I was going to say that New York is cold this time of year, but it's balmy compared to this. We're surviving, Scott. Storm has taken a leave of absence, as you know, and I honestly don't know when we'll see her next. We've had our ups and downs, you know?"

The truck drives out of panel with Scott exclaiming, "Kang!?" and the editor's footnote: Ed: See the pulse-pounding, time travelling X-Men annual #8 for details.

Cut to the Summers house, well past the outskirts of Anchorage, set well away from anyone. Kurt and Scott are in the living room, and from the kitchen Kurt can hear Amanda and Maddy talking

"Sorry for Scott being a little late. We've been having this problem with an uppity moose..." Madeline says.

Inside the living room Scott asks the loaded question, "How are you holding up, Kurt? Sounds like you've been run through the wringer lately on field work."

"Ja, you could put it like that. I am, for what it's worth, the field leader of the X-Men. I never envisaged things turning out like this. Lord above, but it's given me a redoubled respect for you, Scott. How did you ever keep the team focused? I fear it may prove too much for me."

"It's not a matter of focus - not with this team. When I was a kid it was _all_ focus, all drills, all teamwork under the professor's direction." He shakes his head. "Cast your mind back and remember how well that worked with Wolverine. Or John. We drilled and trained and pushed and it didn't jell, and someone died as a result."

He gives Kurt a comforting look, though obviously still pained by that day five and half ear's earlier. "Too tightly focused is as bad as not focused enough. It took me much too long to realize that with the new team it's not classical. It's jazz. I'll lend you some books that might help. They're in the attic. Come on up."

As they head up the stairs Kurt says "With Storm and Wolverine away, we're under strength and, Colossus notwithstanding, lacking steel I fear. Things are coming to a head with the Hellfire Club and Project Wideawake." Kurt's voice trails away, the unstated implications of Wideawake well know to both men.

"An uppity moose?" Amanda replies. "Not one with mighty moose muscle, I hope?"

"Dangerously mighty. The damn thing kept trying to chew through our generator lines. Scott finally had a hunt the thing, stun it with one of his," she makes a Kapow! noise "and then we had to drag the poor thing into the woods. Hopefully he doesn't come back and challenge Scott again..."

The women's voices fade out as Kurt and Scott reach the 'attic' actually a small storage room on the second floor. Scott yanks some boxes around uncovers a cardboard storage box that he opens. Inside are several binders and books. "Tactics 101. I've got your Sun Tzu, your marine field journal, your memoirs of Samuel Sawyer, your copy of Csikszentmihalyi's ' flow in everyday life'. This ought to get you started. Plus I've got my notebooks of specific tactical training maneuvers I developed for the old team..."

Scott lowers his voice some to make sure they can't be overheard from downstairs, "Are you really concerned about team strength? Do you need me to come back?"

Kurt leans back against the door and shakes his head. "No, Scott. I want you to have your life. And Madeline to have her husband."

Kurt hesitates. "Ach! It's not strength. It's..." He struggles for the word. "It's experience I guess. Storm, Wolverine, you. You've learned by experience. Grown harder, if you'll forgive me, in the process. Kitty, even Peter, they're children. As leader of the X-Men I have to make them a team. As a man, I only want to keep them getting hurt."

His knuckles flex as he grips the door frame. "I don't want to see them become soldiers but fear there may be no other choice. Hard times are coming, Scott. Rachel's future is not so very far away."

He stops, realising that he strayed onto uncertain ground.

If he has, Scott hasn't noticed it, being more caught up in the original problem. "That's the perpetual struggle, isn't it? None of us signed n to be soldiers. But if you're going to lead there's a certain hardness that you have to adopt... and accept."

"There's something the Professor told me a long time ago: Courage doesn't have an opposite. Courage, like all virtues, is a point of balance, in this case between cowardice and recklessness." Scott holds out his hands on the same level to display that balance as he continues, "Leadership is the same. To effectively lead the X-Men you need to balance between caring too much about your teammates to make sure no one ever gets hurt and caring too little, so that your teammates are disposable. Except sometimes you have to risk losing one member of the team to save everyone else, and other times you have to make sure no one gets hurt."

"Jean really was the only one who could land that shuttle. She saw that, even if I couldn't make that call." Scott shakes his head a little. "John... John didn't have to die. But I couldn't get that through to him in training. I was too hard. I lost the balance, and as a result he didn't listen when I made the call to pull back. Getting that through to Wolverine was my biggest success as a leader. Do you remember how many times he yelled at me, called me gutless, because I pulled back from a fight where the odds weren't right?"

Kurt smiles, recalling the many times Scott and Logan butted heads. "Yes, Scott, how could I forget? Colossus may have a skull of steel but I don't know which of you or Wolverine has the hardest head in the X-Men."

"Logan did change though, and you helped make that possible. He has come so far from that berserker Professor Xavier first introduced to the team years ago. I don't know if I would have been able to make that connection. I worry that my inexperience as leader will cost us."

Scott smiles, "Your team is made up of very capable, highly versatile people, and the X-Men encounter endlessly odd situations. Rigidity isn't a plus. Everything about leading the X-men is balance and flexibility - especially the new team." He lays his hand on Kurt's shoulder, "and you , my friend, are the most balanced, flexible person I know. You'll do fine."

Kurt smiles again, a little reassured. "Thank you, my friend."

With sudden energy, Nightcrawler scrambles up the wall, hops to the bannisters and perches there with a grin. "Ach, enough of this. Show me you home! And the lovely array of beer in your fridge. We can raise a toast to Logan and all the other X-Men who have benefited from your guidance."

Later... in the kitchen with a few empties on the solid wooden kitchen table, Kurt looks reflectively out the window at the frozen landscape. "It is beautiful here, Scott. And quiet. I can see why Maddy and you chose this place. And yet, there's lots waiting for you at home."

There's a glance between Scott and Madeline at that.

Kurt looks up at Scott. "Xavier's new students are coming along nicely. Wanda - Scarlet Witch - has been helping Ilyana with her magic. I think they're making progress, much to Peter's relief. It would be good for them if you would visit. Good for all of us, perhaps."

He sighs. "At least you might get them to put the milk back in the refrigerator. I am rubbish as the stern parent and even Wolverine's growls haven't taught Roberto to clean up after himself. The professor seems a little distracted to be acting as their minder also."

"Scarlet Witch freely visiting the mansion? Things have changed a lot since I was sixteen," Scott says.

"No so much," Madeline adds. "Scott sometimes forgets to put the milk away here as well."

"It's good that the Professor is keeping on with teaching them," Scott continues, manfully ignoring his wife's dig. "It was the core of the dream. It'd be nice to see it as a teenager's school again."

Madeline looks from Amanda to Kurt to Scott and says, "Maybe we could squeeze out a few days for a short visit. I don't have anything booked until the 8th."

Scott looks surprised by this, "Are you sure?"

Maddy takes a drink of beer to buy herself a second, then says "Yeah. As long as the Evil Moosant doesn't follow us down there for vengeance."

Amanda does a little happy dance in her chair - the Guinness has clearly been hitting Amanda harder than wine does - and says "Yes! Let me call Candy, see if she can join us for a wild weekend in the city!"

A short while later the quartet are outside in the bitterly cold dark Alaska night.

"It should be starting any minute now," Madeline tells them, "The last few nights have been the biggest solar flare activity in the last five years. It's been amazing."

Amanda is huddled up against Kurt, and he can see that Madeline and Scott are comfortably holding each other as well. Madeline's timing was perfect, as just seconds after her comment an indescribable lightshow explodes across the sky.

"Unglaublich!" Kurts mutters under his breath, unconsciously squeezing Amanda closer.

Mein Gott! The lights, so like the solar flares that created the Phoenix. That took Jean Grey from Scott.

The German mutant cannot help but look at the face of his friend, uncannily lit by the awesome lightshow in the heavens.

Kurt sees the face of a man in the moment, holding his wife and sharing her look of pleased awe at the lightshow and the ability to share it with their friends. There's no reason to doubt that his love for Jean Grey is still in him, but its bittersweet nature isn't tainting what he has now.

Page 18 (Rogue & Wolverine)

Carol skinnies out of her coverall and superheroine-issue undies and hands them Logan. "I think I'm in shape for at least 20 seconds distraction time. Enough?" She throws herself down the centre of the stairwell falling as limply and silently as her confidence in her own invulnerability allows landing with a meaty thwack in the middle of the guard room in a pose that, if the guards have time to ponder, is rather more Playboy than roadkill. “C'mon Logan. Get down those stairs before they think to look 'up'”

"<What? Who?>*" The guards murmur as they stare down at her limp albeit provocatively posed form, forming a general circle around her. One pokes her with his rifle, and upon getting no response, "<Is she... Dead>?"

[*Ed Translated from Russian]

The men all glance at one another before one shouts "<Death Spores!>" As one the six men start fumbling with their gasmasks.

Again, the colored editorial box "Death Spores? Seriously?"

A second, differently colored box "You told me I should develop this."

The first color again, "Because I desired verisimilitude. But 'Death Spores?'

Back to the second "Shaddup and let me work."

Wolverine sprints down the stairs until he is close enough to the bottom to just jump down Carol's path - fortunately Ms. Marvel had arranged a 'bump' off the staircase to angle herself into the room, so Wolverine lands behind most of the room. He quickly dispatches two of the guards. The other four stand stunned for a second while the first two are falling.

Carol grabs nearest guard's ankle and uses him like a whip to whack whichever/however many of the others is close enough

The hapless guard yelps as he is yanked off his feet by the supposedly-dead super-heroine. He has no time to react before he is slammed into one of the other guards. Both men go down in a tangled heap.

Logan steps inside the range of one of the remaining guards, pummeling him with three jackhammer blows to the face with his right hand as his left clutches the man's hand around his gun barrel to prevent any shots from being fired. With the third blow the man slumps to the ground, his gasmask shattered and crumpled.

Ms Marvel is riding herd on any remaining guards, keeping them in the centre of the little room if at all possible and walloping anyone who looks like he's reaching for anything not a weapon. No communications!!! No alarms!!!

The remaining guard breaks for the communication panel on the wall, but Ms Marvel is too fast for him, flying around him and interposing herself between him and the communicator. There is a brief moment in which it is clear - but not shown on panel - that the man has his hand on a very impolite place before Ms. Marvel decks him. In the next panel we just see him flying past Wolverine who is watching the exchange with a bemused grin.

"Second base," he says with a chuckle before turning his claws onto the Plexiglas wall. In no time there's an opening for the teenagers to escape.

"He'd damn well better have amnesia!" Carol responds. "Where did you stash my skinnies Logan? It's draughty."

Logan tosses her a bundle of her clothes and he questions the kids as she shimmies back into them. He turns back to her when he's finished and she's dressed. "They don't know much about the layout but what they do know confirms what we thought. Some creepy bald guy appeared in their van and *bang* they were here in the motor pool. Lombard identified out of the crowd and pulled off upstairs. That matches the scent trails. One of them," he jerks a thumb at one of the boys, "wrote a note for Lombard to confirm with him that they're clear and he can escape with us."

Logan hands her the paper. The note is in an indecipherable cursive script that it takes Carol a moment to place - Tolkien Elvish. "I can't read it, but he swears that Lombard will." Logan goes on.

"Gasmasks - If the soldiers thought they'd work for them lets see how many are still functional," Carol responds. Logan smiles. Other than the one that Wolverine broke into pieces while pummeling one of the guards they are all operational. That's one for each of the four kids here and one for Lombard when they find him.

Logan hand her that mask. "So we get the kids to the motor pool and then grab Lombard?"

Carol responds as she bends some steel bars around the unconscious guards, "that's the plan. We'll see what 'the enemy' thinks of it. Let's move!"

As they move she thinks about that elvish note. can I remember enough to decipher it?

The trip to the motor pool is uneventful, and once there Wolverine silently removes the one guard. In a stroke of luck the van the kids were in is still there - a fully enclosed vehicle guaranteed to be able to hold all of them. "OK, Wolverine tells them, "Get in, stay low and don't get out. Keep the gas masks on, just in case."

The kids nod, and Anne Marie says "good luck" as she closes the door to the van.

Carol thinks “that girl gives me the creeps: like half-remembering a bad dream”

The two heroes turn and make their way back through the complex, keeping low and quiet, circumventing security where need be and making their way to the lab. There things are substantially more difficult. There are dozens of lab techs, about a dozen soldiers, several large pieces of machinery - including a large industrial laser aimed at the torso of Lombard, who is strapped, James Bond like, to a slab of metal inside a Plexiglas chamber. Absent from this scene is Omega Red, which means he could be anywhere.

"I say we eschew subtlety - you fly in, smash Lombard out, grab him and we go, fast as we can," Wolverine suggests.

Carol whispers 'Boom!' grins 'you hold the gasmask though. Don't want it to get smashed or lasered to smithereens.' with no further dallying Ms Marvel flies right at the plexiglass, aiming to get between Lombard and the laser first then either rip him free or else rip the table free and use it as a battering ram to get back out, whichever proves faster. Wolverine takes the gasmask and Ms. Marvel becomes a blur of motion, smashing a small hole through the door of the room. She shatters the Plexiglas with her first pass and then breaks as she turns in a tight arc to land in front of Lombard as all the other occupants of the room take cover from the transparent shrapnel. A precious second is lost trying to wrench off one of the manacles holding the Canadian teen down to the table before Carol thinks "to heck with it" and braces her feet to rip the whole metal table free from the ground.

During that second one of the techs has the presence of mind to turn on the laser and its searing power strikes Ms. Marvel square in the back. Gritting her teeth she ignores the pain and rips the table free, rapidly spinning it to use as a shield against not just the laser but any one in her way as she accelerates out of the room, leaving a large hole in the place of the small hole she entered through. She spins again and blocks the hole with the table.

Logan slashes down twice, cutting Lombard free of the manacles, and then slaps the gasmask over the kids face.

"No! They have..." Lombard starts to yell through the mask before Wolverine hands him the note. "Oh. I guess you knew about that..."

"Yup. Now move it kid," Wolverine tells him, giving him a push towards the motor pool. "We gotta go."

Before the trio can get terribly far (and before Carol can recommend grabbing the other two and flying) a silver-white tentacle whips down the hall and lashes around Carol's midsection (binding her left arm)up around her shoulder and around her throat. Given the speed they were running the visual is a shot of the three of them moving, then Carol getting hit, and then Carol's legs flailing off the edge of the panel as she's yanks back while the others keep running.

The tendril hasn't done any constrictive damage but Carl can feel something about it burning against her skin like some sort of chemical weapon as she's being pulled back to the tendril's owner, Omega Red.

"Struggle all you like, girl," A voice hisses in Russian, "Carbonadium is indestructible. I actually enjoy it more when you struggle..."

Page 19 (Phoenix)

Rachel heads into the kitchen. When she enters John Grey is busy chopping something - Rachel can hear the 'shunk-shunk' of the knife through some sort of vegetables. He has already set some bacon into the microwave as well as quartering and plating a head of iceberg lettuce, with a small container of blue cheese out next to it. He turns around with a bowl full green and red mince and tears streaming down his face. Rachel grabs a paper towel from a dispenser and presents it. "You should be more careful with onions, Grandpa."

John jumps at seeing her and drops the bowl.

Which falls perhaps a bit more slowly than one might expect, until Rachel steps in and "catches" it. "I'm sorry!" she says.

"Nice catch! " He assures her, grabbing a paper towel to dab his eyes, not having noticed the change in descent speed.

"Those sure had some bite. Just put that over with the rest of the salad," John adds as he moves to the refrigerator. "Is chicken OK? I do a mean apricot and fig stuffed roaster."

"That sounds lovely," Rachel says.

"So, now that you're here what are you going to do?" he asks her. "I can probably call in some favors; get you an internship somewhere in the city...?"

"I don't know," Rachel says. "It might be a good idea. I do feel at home at the school -- but with everything going on, I haven't really had time to put down roots, and it would be good to have something to rely on outside the academy."

"Great!" he tells her, pulling down the fruit and a bag of rice. "Could you pull the chicken out of the fridge? I was going to cook this tomorrow, but..."

"John! JOHN!" Elaine yells from the living room, "She's..."

Elaine hits the door, sees Rachel and sobs. "I thought you had gone. Vanished." She throws her arms around Rachel, "Don't do that!"

Rachel hugs her back. "I'm not going anywhere."

It takes Elaine a few seconds to pull herself together. "Just...don't scare me like that." She takes a deep breath and then adds, "when you're done puttering in here with J... with Grandpa why don't you come back in. I have something for you."

She moves back out of the room, clearly wanting a moment to pull herself together and overcome her embarrassment.

"She'll be OK," John tells her while handing her the knife and pointing at the fruit. "Coarsely chopped. She's just a little.... Jean's death hit her really hard. She was an incredible blessing, your mother. Smart, beautiful, graceful, there wasn't anything she couldn't do if she put her mind to it. And then after, well, after, she told us, promised us that she would get married, have a child. She was so certain, and..." he reaches up for a Vidalia and pauses for a moment.

"That day, in the garden, she was barely human. She was bigger than that. I'm not ashamed to say she scared me, for all that she was still my little girl. But when she said something, well, you just couldn't doubt her." John tosses his granddaughter the Vidalia to be chopped as well. "And then Jean died, and none of it happened. That really shook your grandmother up. But now you're here."

He starts washing the chicken and patting it dry. "And Jean was right. It's not how I expected to get here, of course..."

Rachel smiles. "Not much has gone how I expected it either. I don't think that's something we get to choose."

"Nope," he says, taking the chopped food from her and unceremoniously mixing it with some rice and stuffing it into the bird. "We never do."

He gives her a long look while he wipes his hands clean, "Looks like Jean and Scott did a good job with you. You make sense when you talk, at least, which is more than a lot of grandparents can hope for."

He pauses again, 'You know Scott remarried, right?"

Rachel nods. "I've seen pictures. But I haven't gone to see him. I want to--I think I should, now*--but it's awkward."

[*See X-Men Annual #8 for what changed Rachel's mind! -- Ed]

"You should. Elaine felt it was unseemly, especially since she looks so much like Jean. But the boy mourned, we all saw it, and he deserves to have a life." John pauses. "Just don't mention it to your grandmother."

Rachel smiles, wiping off her own hands. "All right. Not unless she asks, anyway."

"Now out, I have to work magic," John tells her, and shoos her back into the living room.

Back in the living room Elaine has composed herself and, on seeing Rachel, gestures to the couch. "Come here. I have something of your mothers for you."

When Rachel approaches her grandmother hands her a small jewelry box. "Your mother wanted you to have this."

Rachel looks at the box in her hands in a mix of curiosity and confusion, before she looks at her grandmother, then opens it.

Inside is a pendant on a matinee length chain. The pendant is slightly less than two inches long, made up of a line of stones set on three parallel gold lengths. The pattern is one stone, then two, then one, then two, the one, then two, then one. The two stone levels are close, nestling into the spaces between the four stone center line, which keeps the while from looking too broad or garish - good thing since the stones are all different colors.

Rachel had seen her mother wear this while she was growing up, and Jean had indeed promised it to her - alas, she was wearing it when she died and it was lost in the explosion.

Elaine starts as Rachel looks at it "We gave it to her when she graduated...she had been spending all that time in the Village and it seemed to suit her."

"Thank you, it's...mind if I put it on?"

“It's yours. Please do."

The necklace settles itself onto her cleavage, an unfamiliar weight.

Pages 20-21 (Rogue & Wolverine)

Carol goes limp. She concentrates on getting as much oxygen as possible without giving the whole game away as the tendrils pull her backwards into Omega Red's personal space, holding her aloft a few feet from him. The burning in her skin is still there and still hurts but not getting any worse. "Mmmmmm... The American's send the prettiest spies," he tells her in Russian. "I shall enjoy seeing the death in your eye...wha!"

Ms. Marvel's free arm snaps out and her fingers wrap around his throat. He gets a brief superior smile as he tenses his super-humanly strong neck muscles to ward off her attack...a smile which quickly disappears when Carol starts applying her real strength.

OK mister, she thinks, let's see who has to breathe first!

Seeing the tables turn on him he tries to force her away with both his own strength and the power of his tentacles but that's not enough to make Carol let go. In fact it just lets her free her other arm, which grabs hold of his ridiculously long pony tail to further prevent him from dislodging her.

He runs forward, his free tentacle lashing out to something so that he can add the force of it reeling him in to his velocity and slams her back first into and through a wall. She doesn't let go. He pulls himself up and repeats the slamming charge, shattering the Plexiglas wall that should send the two falling into the experimental chamber from which she just freed Lombard.

She doesn't let go. And much to Omega Red's surprise they don't fall either. The pair are suspended in midair by Ms. Marvel's flight, giving him nothing on which to gain traction to repeat his charging maneuvers.

Carol: *Big and dumb. Gotta love those Russian prejudices.* Ms Marvel grits her teeth and starts to lose height, slowly, unevenly, as if losing her stamina. Once she has as much of a gap as she judges optimal she puts all her Kree powered juice into flying UP hard and fast, taking advantage of Omega Red's superior height to make sure his head hits the ceiling first. She does not let go. And if opportunity allows she returns them to their previous pose in mid-tractionless-air.

She starts to drop a little, then zooms up just as Omega Red lashes down with his free tentacle. He anchors himself to the machinery, causing Ms.Marvel's move to jerk them offline, slamming her flat against the concrete ceiling even as it dislocates Omega Red's shoulder with a snap. The impact shudders through Carol's body, driving out her breath. Before she breaths in she sees the corpses littering the room - the entire technical staff laid low by the death spores filling the air. The same death spores eating into her skin through the cables around her body, into her ears and tear ducts. With that loss of breath she only has another few seconds to either flee... or finish this and then flee, as taking a breath in this room is something that even her Kree-Hyman biology could save her from.

Omega Red would scream the pain of his shoulder if it weren't for the steel hard fingers refusing to let anything through his windpipe. His left arm hanging limp at his side he can't alter their position unless he lets got of her with his other cable. His albino face has turned a blotchy red and there's the desperation of someone facing death in his eyes.

His bring his knee up into Carol's side, It stings, but unless he lands a really good blow he can't do more than that.

Carol: *Right. Time to cut out of here.* She releases her hold on his neck slightly and as he breathes in she brings her knee up hard into what passes for Omega Red's tender region, hopefully allowing him space to oof! out the last of his air and pulls away. If he does not let her go the next point of leverage will be that dislocated shoulder. *I need to breathe. I need to breathe somewhere that isn't here!*

She slams her knee into him as she pulls away, but he manages to twist enough that she misses her primary target. He takes a shuddering breath even as she starts dragging him away, her attempt to escape hindered by the all but indestructible tentacle linking the two of them. Her vision starting to go grey at the edges Ms. Larval lashes out with her foot, kicking Omegas Red hard in the dislocated shoulder. He screams again and passes out, but it appears that the cybernetic tentacles are on remote control - he is still stuck to her even as she tries to exit the room.

Finally there's nothing else she can do - her body's automatic systems override her mind and force her to take a gasp of air - at that very second Wolverine leaps into the room, his claws severing the Carbonadium cable, freeing carol from the grip of her now unconscious opponent. Omega Red falls to the floor below with a thump as Logan dangles from the art of the cable still wrapped around Carol. Clenching her teeth against breathing any further she flies at her best speed out of the room, trailing Wolverine behind her (where he bangs on at least one wall) before getting about halfway to the motor pool before collapsing and sucking in a huge lungful of air.

That clears her vision and her head, but she can feel the death spores rattling around in her lungs, spreading with the much needed oxygen through her bloodstream. The pain is intense but she manages to pull herself up with Logan's support and the pair limp their way to the Motor Pool. Carol can see that Logan has been busy, as they are walking over and around a long line of soviet soldiers in varying stages of unconsciousness, death and dying - that must have been what kept him out of the fight for so long

Finally they reach the motor pool. Alarms are going off everywhere, with klaxons and announcement sin Russian announcing that helicopter gunships are approaching the area.

Wolverine looks at Carol with clear concern - with his senses he probably knows better than her what's happening inside her. "Carol, this doesn't sound good. You have strength enough to get us clear?"

Something that could be focus or could be fever settles on Ms. Marvel's face. She uses Logan's shoulder to get to her feet but brushes him aside and does not answer his question. Instead she walks, with deliberate slowness towards Anne-Marie. "You." She says. "You weren't there. ... I'm not remembering. I'm *watching.*"

Again she brushes off Logan's hand as he tries to get her to stop scaring the kids. Fixing Anne-Marie with her best CO gimlet stare "Take it! Save them! Save as many as you can and fight as hard as you can and if you *dare* give up girl I'll make sure there is HELL to pay!" Before an increasingly alarmed Logan can pull her off she grabs Anne-Marie's shoulders and pulls her in, not to a kiss, but setting her forehead against her own ...

Carol shudders, but keeps her hands on the girl to prevent her from breaking the connection even as the entirety of her being pours out of her and into the startled teenager.

Page 22 (Colossus)

The scene is back in Callisto's cluttered office/living space. Little has changed since we've last seen it the work are is separated from her sleep area 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. The big change is that her blackboard has been flipped over, revealing a bulletin board holding up blue-line drawings of MTA tunnel specs, a sketch of the farm area and paperwork on potential crop yields. His time here with her before departing back to the surface has become something standard, almost ritualistic - part last chance to cover issues and part chance to unwind a bit after the daily torrent of questions that come from being the Morlock leader.

While it's hard to gauge when Callisto is more tense or more taciturn Peter can tell there's a strange vibe in the air since their exchange at the end of the combat practice. It's hard to tell if this is because of him or if she's chewing on something else.

Callisto bends over to snag herself her evening bottle of beer before turning to Peter, "Want one?"

"Yes." Peter drinks, then says, "Masque is going to be trouble. He knows how to pretend to be sorry, but... he isn't. He only hates."

"He ain't the only one," Callisto grimaces. "Your help there, with our little show, it bought me some time. No one's openly sympathetic to the child kidnapper working with drug dealers. But in a few weeks or months they'll be rumbling enough that I'll have to let him out. Mean as he is, he's got other people here just as mean but not as cunning."

She takes a swig of beer, "It'd be easier if I had just shot him and dumped him the North Forty."

"No," says Colossus, slowly. "It would seem easier at first. But it wouldn't really be easier." He shrugs. "You can let him think Storm's using me to force you to make decisions he could have talked you out of. If that will help."

"He'd never buy that," Callisto replies, "He's here because, for a while, we needed each other. Now we don't, but he's got nowhere else to go. He hates that. He hates the fact that I'm sticking to the rules that I made when Caliban and I set this thing up. He hates Storm, he hates the ja... Kitty-cat, he hates you. Making it look like I could get pushed around would just make him hate me more."

She shakes her head, "No, I bought some time today by hardening his hatred of me, but I couldn't let what he did slide."

Colossus nods. "You and Caliban set this up? I... I am not sure what to say to him. About... Does he still think that Kitty and I are together?"

Callisto shakes her head, "I doubt it. Caliban has a weird empathy; he sees how people are linked together, especially mutants. If you were sure that you two weren't together any more, he'd know it as soon as he saw you. He's infatuated with that kid, even though he can see she only feels pity for him."

She waves her hand angrily, "That whole mess just pisses me off. Your ex strings him along, emotionally threatens him until he does what she wants, makes promises she won't keep, and then gives him her innocent doe-eyes until he forgives her. And he keeps coming back like a kicked puppy - even when his mutation lets him freakin' see what she's doing! He deserves better. So do you."

"You mean she fights like a tiger for the people she cares about," says Colossus. "And does whatever she needs to do. Like you. Like I need to learn to do." He shakes his head. "We all deserve better."

"Think what you like about her, I don't like her methods. I may be a blunt, course witch who takes what she wants and asks no forgiveness, but I don't play with people. Neither do you - your feelings changed you flat out told her. You respected her enough for that. Would she do the same?"

"Yes," says Colossus.

Callisto snorts. "Based on her relations with Caliban you'll forgive me if I have a different opinion." She takes a drink, "Oh $#*^, I do not want to fight about this. Not today. #^%&."

She strides over to the bulletin board, standing facing it just a few feet from Peter's chair, so he would have to lift his gaze up to see what she's pointing at. "Do these look right to you?" she taps the crop yields with the bottom of her beer bottle. "I'm basing it off some old figures but we're way outside textbook agronomy here...."

"How old are these figures?" says Peter, doing some mental math.

"Textbook came from 1970. It's a bit out of date, but it's what I had lying around..." Callisto rolls her shoulders, trying to loosen some sort of internal tension. "The soil conditions and the rest were pulled yesterday from the Farm."

To Peter's eye these figures look good - his farm days were years ago, and Soviet science isn't what it ought to be in this area, but he had done a lot of reading for the garden he planted on the mansion grounds. There are a few things he could point out and correct, but….

"Your baseline's good, although --" He points out the things he's noticed. "But, we can still improve the overall vitamin intake. Also... have you ever considered the advantages of chickens?"

Callisto looks back over her shoulder at him with a cocked eyebrow, "Feathers? Very small brains? What other advantages to chickens possess?"

"Eggs, meat, and fertilizer."

"No, those are the advantages of _owning chickens_. Being full of edible meat is not an advantage to the chicken." Her smirk is not entirely evil. "You do have a point, though. If we're going to do this Green Acres thing we might as well go all the way. Hell, they might even keep the damn roaches under control. It'll give Mrs. P a project as well. Good thinking."

"Now we just need to steal some chickens."

"I might be able to barter for them," says Peter. "Stealing -- you never know what you're getting."

(Callisto doesn't have to be a telepath (even if telepathy worked down here*) to sense the unspoken 'and I don't want to encourage stealing' behind the not untrue face-saving practical disincentive.)

[*BR To be clear, telepathy works fine*inside* the Alley. It's using telepathy into or out of the Alley that is blocked for some reason. Not that Peter would know this, but I did want to point it out to the group. ]

"Barter? Oh, hey, maybe we could even use _money_." Callisto's voice has its usual playful acidity. "Of course, we steal that too.... Fine, boy scout, you get the chickens, and a book on their care and feeding for Mrs. P. Since I don't let you ask where I get stuff, I won't ask where you get this."

She turns to face him, "Don't you ever get tired of being so...upright?"

He blinks, and says, only half joking, "But, Callisto, I'm relaxed."

The next panel shows him smiling. "I am not fighting aliens or being sent to strange planets or to the past. No demons are coming out of my sister's eyes. It's... almost like home."

The next panel shows him looking up at the ceiling. "Although there is a little less sunlight. But, we can build that. It feels good to be building something instead of trying to stop something."

"I mean 'upright'. Relentlessly law abiding. Goody two shoes" She steps forward and is, rather suddenly, straddling him in the chair. "Not someone who would do this."

She grabs his hair to keep his head up and lowers her mouth onto his.

Page 23 (Everyone)

This page is a panel or two for each character showing the final events of the issue. In the crowded, loud gymnasium students are counting down to midnight – at the Happy New Year yell Doug takes the social opportunity to lean in and give Kitty a modest peck on the cheek. We can see past them, in the corner, a very distraught looking Terri.

In the Morlock tunnels Peter has wide eyes and a thought balloon that says "!". In the following panel he is grabbing hold of Callisto to pull her closer – this kiss the polar opposite of what’s happening in the panels above.

In the Alaskan wilderness we see a long shot of Kurt and Amanda, Scott and Madeline, watching the aurora borealis in a pair of comfortable embraces. Amanda gives Kurt a kiss and whispers “happy new year, hero.”

In the Grey’s tasteful Westchester County abode there’s a family and friends party going on which, for the first time, includes the long lost granddaughter. Elaine Grey gives Rachel a quick kiss while John has his arm around her shoulders, any oddity of her past and presence lost in the glow of good feelings.

In the secret Soviet Siberian base Anne Marie gives the rapidly fading body of Ms. Marvel a kiss on the forehead, whispering, ‘Thank you for saving our lives.” Carol’s consciousness goes black. There’s a moment where the scene fades away – which includes the hologram that made Rogue look like Carol Danvers – leaving Rogue and Wolverine in the Danger Room, Professor Xavier barely visible in the control room.

Logan crouches down over Rogue. “Time to wake up, darlin’”

“Wolverine,” she whispers in a voice that is clearly Rogue’s. “She ain’t fightin’.”

“Yup. And she gave you orders to not give up, so don’t piss her off.”

“A brilliant stratagem, Wolverine,” Xavier says from the control booth. “The Danvers consciousness now remembers volunteering for the transfer, and has entered the same quiescent state that yours and Storms did under similar circumstances. “

There is a brief pause and then “But still… Death Spores?”

[FIN]

[PS: and this purely fictional interlude is as close as we’ll ever get to something that is so purely crafted from the Stupid as Omega Red.]