X-Men 188: Xavier Goes to War

Issue 188: Xavier Goes To War

Page 1-3 (Nightcrawler and Kitty)

Snow Valley, Massachusetts. Nestled in the Berkshire Mountains, the town is best known as the home of the elite Massachusetts Academy, one of the oldest and most respected college preparatory schools in the United States. A nondescript limo pulls up onto a hillside overlooking the school – in such a community the car would be noted, but never remembered.

Inside the car are Professor Charles Xavier, Kurt Wagner (aka Nightcrawler) and Kitty Pryde (aka she who has yet to settle on a code name), members of the Uncanny X-Men, and they’re here to settle a few scores.

Kitty has gotten her hair neatened up, and has a bunch of the longer hair on the right side combed over the left to cover the shortest patch (which is presumably held in place with Product borrowed from Ororo). She is apparently not wearing her costume, but jeans and a sweater, the better to blend in to the student population.

Nightcrawler is dressed in his usual X-Man costume. It's not like he's likely to be mistaken for anyone other than himself. Snugly fastened about his shoulders he wears a dark fabric backpack, carrying the necessaries for the task at hand.

“Here should be fine, Kurt,” Xavier directs Nightcrawler into pulling the car along the side of the road. “Please go over the timer mechanism with Kitty again. I’ll be maintaining a link between us during the mission but better if we’re prepared.”

"Certainly, Herr Professor." Kurt pulls the car discretely off the road and draws a dark fabric backpack from the footwell under his seat. He unzips the back to reveal a neat assembly of wires and plastique.

“I’m certain that Ms. Frost won’t be able to detect any of us during this; my greater concern is the Hellion, Catseye. Based on Kitty’s description of her there’s a high likelihood that she possesses enhanced senses even in her human form. Don’t let her catch your scent, lest she raise an alarm.” The Professor’s brow furrows, “I truly do not want to engage any of her students in this.”

"I've gotten some advance from Logan about that, Professor," Kitty says. "I don't want anyone else involved, either."

Kurt smiles and pulls out a pair of small canisters marked Scent-B-Blocked with a picture of confused bloodhound on the label. "I love America. You can buy anything here."

“Kurt, I’m giving you the visual of somewhere close to where you need to be that is currently unobserved,” the Professor says, and Nightcrawler does feel the mental tingle giving him a precise fix on a location inside the school.

Kurt confirms the visual from the Professor and proffers a hand to Kitty. "Now, Katchen, we have a job to do."

Sprite-or-maybe-Ariel grabs a backpack of her own, a standard student version with a few books (as camouflage) and other useful things inside, then accepts Kurt's hand.

With an apologetic glance to the professor Kurt *bamfs* from the car, leaving an unpleasant whiff of brimstone behind.

Kurt and Kitty appear in the out-of-the-way place selected by the Professor. The dark-furred mutant releases Kitty. "Good luck, Kitty,"he says before disappearing in a fresh burst of brimstone.

Blending perfectly in with the crowd Kitty keeps as a casual stance until she gets to a sheltered spot above the computer core. She then drops through the ground.

Written by Myles "Nightcrawler" Corcoran
Penciled by Rebecca "Wolverine" Stevenson
Colored by Kris "Sprite" Keegan
Lettered by Joshua "Rachel Summers" Kronengold
Edited by Brian Rogers
Rachel Rogers, Editor in Chief 

Emma Frost, as a person, exists in three emotional states: sensual satisfaction, ill concealed irritation and cold calculation. She’s in the first at this moment, having just closed a business deal to steal a top flight executive from Stane Industries to head up the West German branch of Frost International. Her mood is about to change.

She strides into her private office, having already stripped out of her business clothes and replaced them with a white silk robe. She’s already halfway to the liquor cabinet and her well deserved brandy before she notices someone else is in the room.

“Good evening, Miss Frost. We need to talk.”

Charles Xavier is dressed casually, leaning backwards against her desk, and on seeing her he puts down the book he’d been flipping through.

“Xavier!” The White Queen’s response is instinctive, a psi bolt designed to stun her opponent and take advantage of his ill founded arrogance and improve her position.

Xavier swats it aside with a wave of his hand, and continues talking as if nothing happened. “Please, have a seat.”

'''''''''''

Kurt appears upside down, clinging to the ceiling in the shadows of a corridor corner. Checking to make sure he hasn't been observed he works his way down the corridor. The hallway itself is lush - carpeted, artwork on the walls - and obviously private. Kitty saw this passage just once from the room where Frost was holding her.

In less than a minute he's at the door, whose oak façade is marred by a complex electronic lock.

Kurt examines the lock for a good minute before thinking to himself, "An electronic lock will doubtless have an electronic alarm. If I set it off the Professor plan could be foiled. Right, Kurt, I guess it's a blind teleport."

Taking his courage in his hands, he disappears from sight, hoping to arrive intact at the far side of the door.

Inside, the room is as opulent as the hallway, but much of the space is taken up by what is obviously a Cerebro unit, albeit one that is significantly more bulky than the one at the mansion.

The room also holds a globe and several maps showing Frost International locations around the world.

Xxxxxxxxxxx

Fifty feet down Kitty comes comes out in a corridor just a few paces from her target. The door to the computer room is closed, but she can hear the hum of the mainframes behind it.

Remaining intangible, and therefore silent, she drifts to the door, crouches down low, and carefully puts her face through it - just far enough to see in.

Past the door is a security vestibule, with a clearly bored looking security guard noodling away on a computer terminal. There's a clear plexiglass wall keeping the mainframe room relatively sterile and temperature controlled. The banks of machines are facing her end on through the plexiglass, minimizing her hiding spaces.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Inside Frost's chambers,

To give her credit, Emma recovers quickly. "I prefer to stand," she says, and pours herself that drink. "To what do I owe the honor?"

Charles smiles, "I wanted to discuss the hospitality you extended my students when I was out of town a few weeks back."

"You mean when they broke in to my school?" she purrs, leaning back on the bar, her robe slipping slightly.

"Don’t try to vamp me, Emma. It's unseemly," Charles replies. "And don't dissemble. It's just you and me here."

Inside her mind, Frost sends out a telepathic feeler, making contact with her chief of security. "Blake, send a quiet alarm and start a crew searching the perimeter...."

From inside Blake's mind she hears Xavier's voice. "And don't be an idiot. I said it's just you and me here."

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Stay bored, fella, Kitty thinks to herself, and drops down again. She comes up a little past the mainframe bank that's closest to "behind" in the guard's field of vision - no sense in accidentally destroying the system she's here to mess with! - and takes a moment to familiarize herself with the space she has to work in.

Then she carefully slides out of the backpack and takes several items out. Two, which she places in easy reach against at the end of the mainframe, are a gas mask and a sleepy-gas canister. The others are unusually small (for the time) pieces of computer equipment that she starts connecting to the lowest available ports on the mainframe - keeping a wary eye on the security guard as she does so.

No sign that the guard has spotted her, so Kitty is able to quickly access the system and download the same virus she'd helped write that eliminated all information on the X-Men and other mutants from the Pentagon's database. The data here will be irretrievably corrupted in minutes, and its worm-like nature means that as soon as the school's databases link to any other Hellfire Club system those will be infected too.

Kitty thinks, But first, a *copy* of those files so we know what they knew ...

The system tap proves tricky - their security is really good, but from her position inside it's much easier than it would be from outside the network. After a few minutes she's set up a secondary line on the Hellfire Club systems that goes to a ghost mainframe Kitty and the Professor had designed previously.

Okay, one back door built in. Cover my tracks, and - done! She closes up her mini-computer and gently yanks her connecting cords loose rather than risk being seen by reaching around to get them. It's not like she cares if the ports get damaged.

That done, she packs her things away (gas mask and canister last) and exits downward.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kurt unships his pack, scanning the room for cameras and for the best position for explosives to wreck the most damage to the machine. He regards the maps with interest, filing away in his memory the more intriguing locations for future reference. Kneeling he begins to place the plastique discreetly out of sight near the memory core, and then primes the detonator. If uninterrupted, he will check in with Professor Xavier for timing details and Kitty's progress before setting the timer.

Set it for five minutes, The Professor tells him, "and then get to the combat room. It's currently empty.

Kitty, check out the mystery spot when you're finished.

Yes, sir, Kitty replies.

Understood, Herr Professor. Nightcrawler deftly sets the timer and tucks the whole assembly out of sight under the main core and returns to the door with the electronic lock. Listening carefully at the door to see if there's any sign of life in the corridor, he 'ports past it again into the corridor space beyond.

He zips up the wall and begin to move swiftly along the ceiling towards the Hellions' Combat Room, thinking "this has been remarkably easy so far. Wolverine would tell me this is just when to be most on my guard."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Anyway," Charles continues from his primary manifestation, ignoring the cross look on Emma's face, "Your attempts to suborn Kitty Pryde, or any of the rest of my students - they’re over. In return I won't actively undermine any of your students. Let’s just keep this between you and me."

"And if I refuse?" Frost answers coldly.

"Miss Frost, you misunderstand the nature of this meeting. I'm not negotiating. I'm stating."

He picks up the book again, leafing through it, "Do you know that when I founded my school a main goal was just to have a means in which to counter Magneto? It's true. For decades now trying to find a way to mitigate his power and philosophy has eaten up a lot of my time and effort."

Frost sneers, "I couldn't care less about how you've spent your life, Xavier. If you're done making demands, get out."

Xavier looks up at her again, "You should care, Miss Frost, because while you were kidnapping my students Magneto and I came to an accord of sorts. Do you understand? I no longer have to worry about him."

There's a very brief pause while he lets that sink in, "For the first time in your little club's existence you have my undivided attention."

xxxxxxxxxxxx

The Combat Room is easy enough to find, and Kurt can see that it is almost identical to the Danger Room the X-Men had when he was recruited - incredibly advanced for the time, but hopelessly primitive compared to their current model.

There's still no sign of opposition or observation, but Kurt's task here will take several minutes of setting small charges on all of the concealed weapon systems that will destroy them without undermining the room's structural integrity, followed by more designed to destroy the computer controls.

Kurt begins priming and setting explosive charges on the vital components of the Combat Room, careful to keep an ear open for unwelcome intruders. "Don't rush now, Kurt," he mutters to himself. "Do the job well and you only have to do it once."

[BR: another Karma point down]

He's three quarters of the way through the job when he hears footsteps outside the room's door which stop. The person clearly intends to enter.

Kurt grabs up his backpack, slings it onto his back, and shoots up the nearest wall for the shadows between vents and ducting. He pauses still as cat, his attention on the doorway.

[BR: just to describe this, Kurt is clinging to the wall with one leg behind him and both arms behind the small of his back. His other leg is bent so that his shin crosses behind the knee of the clinging leg.]

A teenage girl with auburn hair and a slender build enters the room - Nightcrawler recognizes her from Kitty's memories as Tarot, a member of the Hellions, real name Marie-Ange. Her stride is uncertain, but she's clearly looking for something

"I know you're here," she says, "The cards tell me I should wait until the Hanged Man revealed himself to me." and with that she moves to the center of the room and sits cross legged in the floor, unwittingly in a room full of ticking bombs.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kitty likewise has no difficulty departing unobserved, and takes a moment to orient herself before her next move.

Joining a scattered flow of students heading toward the cafeteria, she mentally compares her location to the building plans. Dropping right into it might attract attention ... let's see how close I can get to the edge of it ...

She looks for an empty classroom, a closet, or perhaps a girls' bathroom that seems to be right next to the edge of the mystery space.

The mystery space is towards the service end of the cafeteria, nearing the kitchens and foodservice loading bays, which is also near the girl's lavatory. It takes her only moment to get there and somewhere totally unobserved.

Dropping through the ground she reaches the space, moving to keep herself inside a support wall for a few seconds while she scouts. There are two men inside the room working with a drafting board, some autocad machines and small manufacturing plant. She clearly recognizes the plant, as its of Shi'ar design - she disassembled one of them the first time she was on a Shi'ar ship.

Around the room are several other items of that advanced alien tech, all intimately familiar to her.

Kitty thinks, Ooh, that *thief* Frost! No wonder I kept dreaming about tech stuff while I was stuck here!

Let's hope the explosions draw them off ...

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Nightcrawler swears something suitably Germanic under his breath and 'ports behind the girl, landing in a crouch as he clamps one hand firmly over her mouth. "Apologies, fraulein, but it's not safe to stay here."

Bamf

He and the girl reappear in the out-of-the-way location originally chosen by the Professor for their initial insertion. "But the Hanged Man? My dear, surely I must be the Knight of Cups."

The girl collapses into post-teleport exhaustion. Kurt snatches up her Tarot deck and pops it in his pack. He scoops up the stunned girl and ports again, first to near the limousine to get his bearings and then as far from the academy as he can manage by line of sight, to place Tarot out of the proceedings for long enough to allow the demolitions to take place uninterrupted.

Professor thinks Kurt clearly, *we must be getting close to the detonation. Shouldn't we give a warning to keep people away?*

That won't be necessary the professor sends. The charges are small enough that there's no risk of structural instability, I'm monitoring access to Frost's Cerebro and as long as you secure the doors to the Combat Room and its Control Center no one will be close enough to the explosions to risk any damage. No please complete the combat room and be ready to bring Kitty out when she finishes her exploration.

Understood, Professor. I have the charges placed in the Combat Room and stand ready to extract Kitty on your word. We have a little complication in the girl, Tarot. I've dropped her well outside the Academy. She shouldn't be able to return in time to raise the alarm.

Kitty, do you not think you'll be able to incapacitate the men and remove them from the room prior to the scheduled detonation? Xavier asks. He clearly wants to keep to the established timetable.

I'll give it a try, she responds.

Standing inside the wall, Kitty pulls the gas mask out of her backpack and puts it on at well-trained speed, then gets the gas canister out. Popping the top, she puts her face back into the room (where it is partially obscured by a storage cabinet) and tosses the canister into it - deliberately not between the two men and the door. Once it leaves her hand, it becomes solid and clatters to the floor, spouting a stream of gas.

Then she pulls a short baton out of her backpack, in case it's needed.

It’s not. The two men, upon discovering that the room is filling with some noxious gas, make a break for it. They reach the door, where one opens a Plexiglas case and pushes a big button. That starts a security bulkhead door closing to seal off the room. Kitty sees nozzles descend from the ceiling, clearly about to start spraying some fire resistant foam.

Clearly they’re worried about the effects of errors in Shi’ar power source duplication…

Left on her own it’s no difficulty for her to solidify and set the bombs, though at the end her student mufti is covered in a thin white flame retardant foam. Spare charges do for the computer and the blueprints.

Okay, that's it, Kitty sends, her eyes narrowed above the gas mask as she surveys the room one last time. Mind the fire suppression, Nightcrawler.

A moment later, the odor of brimstone adds to the chemical stink.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

“For a decade or more,” Charles informs her, “You’ve been playing on the sidelines. Four years ago you decided that you wanted to play the real game. Since then you’ve been scavenging my technology, assaulting my students and, though your manipulations, as good as killed the woman who was like a daughter to me.”

“I’m not afraid off you,” Frost says.

“I wonder why you decided to target my work rather than Magneto’s. He was missing for years, his hidden bases around the world containing a treasure trove of mutant technology. Could it be that you were more afraid of him than you were of me? Is that because you know I’m not a vengeful person? Did you hang your plans on that? Or is that you started to believe your own reputation? I keep hearing Kitty’s thoughts that you’re a telepath almost on par with me.”

“You think so? Try me. Right here, in your center of power. Try.” Xavier looks almost demonic, and Frost hesitates.

“No?” Xavier gives a thin smile. “I once coordinated the mental energy of the entire planet to hold off an alien invasion, Miss Frost. I can occasionally pick up thoughts from another galaxy. Keep that in mind. But I’m not going to kill you. I’m not a vengeful man. But you wanted to play at my level? Fine. The game is on. I’ll leave your students out of it, since I’m confident enough of my philosophy to not have to force it on anyone. You will return the favor.”

Frost seems to have regained her composure a little, “The game is on.” She says grimly. “And the Hellfire Club doesn’t intend to lose.”

“Of course,” Charles adds, “We have to start on even terms – show me what you’re really capable of without lurking in my shadow. The Cerebro technology you’ve stolen from me? I’m taking that away.”

There is a small explosion nearby, and Frost flinches.

“The ersatz Danger Room you built from my designs? Gone.”

Frost doesn’t have to hear the explosion since she can see a second small light blinking on her desk indicating a security alert.

“The alien technology you excavated from Miss Pryde’s brain that you’re struggling to decipher? You don’t get that either.”

A third light appears on the desk. Frost’s face is now a snarl of incoherent rage.

Xavier looks at her, “and any memory of how to rebuild those? I’m taking that too.” A lance of mental energy hits Frost, whose shields are already worn wafer thin due to her lack of focus. She staggers but keeps her feet, which is more than can be said for the techs outside of the room Kitty bombed, who both drop like stones.

“It’ll be possible for you to rebuild them from base principles if you can do it on your own, the way I did,” Xavier tells her. “Remember Miss Frost – you decided to make me an enemy. Any time you want to honestly restart this relationship, know that I will never turn my back on any mutant. It might take you years to realize that’s a better course, but the option is always there.”

“Be seeing you.” And with that Xavier’s astral form disappears.

Frost’s enraged scream “Xaaaaaaaavier!” can be heard some distance away, but above ground the Massachusetts Academy, indeed all of Snow Valley, remain as placid as ever.

Back at the limo Xavier addresses the students – presumably as Kitty steps intangibly out of her damaged clothes while keeping her costume with her.

“I believe that was successful,” Xavier says.

Kitty peels off the gas mask and says, "Yeah. Think she'll take the hint?"

"It took nearly three decades for Magneto and I to come to an accord, Kitty," Xavier responds. "One must never give up hope."

Page 4-5 (Everyone)

From inside the library Ilyana and Kitty hear the sound of a motorcycle coming up the drive. Glancing out the window they’re able to see someone pull up to the front door, park his bike, and remove his helmet, revealing the chiseled, classically handsome features underneath. He’s wearing a red leather jacket*, blue jeans and a traditionally tailored white shirt, unbuttoned at the neck.

[*Ed: it was the 80’s. These things happened. The girls are likely in leg warmers.]

He walks up to the front door and gets there just in time for the teenagers to open it at his knock.

“Hi!” Ilyana bounces at him, “Can I help you?”

[BR: Kris, anything to add here? I’m taking liberties with your character of course, but imagine a teenage girl in the 80’s having Tom Selleck show up at her house, or, if you want a closer approximation of his physical appearance, Cary Grant just dropped by in 1940.]

“Mr. MacDonald to see Professor Xavier,” he replies with a smile.

“Kitty, can you tell the professor….” Ilyana asks her, before she sweetly turns to the visitor “Can I get you anything while you’re waiting? Coffee?”

MacDonald’s smile is indulgent, not that this processes for smitten girl, ‘No thank you.”

“The trick to the wards is to be diffuse,” he tells her, “let your subconscious attention be a like a fog surrounding the students. Good, like that. The fog won’t hinder the attack but it had to pass through it, and when it does you’ll feel it and can produce a stronger shield then. Later we’ll work on identifying whether it’s an assault or subversion and how you should respond to either.”

“Thank you Kitty. Please bring him in here.” The professor says, “and tell Ilyana to get back to her studies.”

The rest of the team then hears the Professor in their head, “X-Men, we have a visitor. Could you please join me in my study?”

[Single pan shots of where everyone is and what they’re doing]

A few minutes later the team is assembled along with their visitor. Xavier does the introductions, “Everyone, this is Jim MacDoland, also known as Honcho of Team America. You may remember that I was assisting them in coming to grips with their shared mutant power around the time that Miss Coy Mahn went missing. Since then they’ve been spearheading the investigation into her disappearance.”

“Honcho, what do you have to tell us,” Xavier asks.

Honcho pulls out a small notepad, “We first conclusively identified that she was still alive two months ago. We learned that a month prior to that she had made contact with Father Bowen, the family friend who was taking care of her siblings while she was a student here. According to Bowen she approached him and said that she’d had a falling out with you, Professor, and was moving to the West Coast. She made it very clear Father Bowen that he was not to reveal that she had contacted him or that the children had moved. He has been taking the money you’ve forwarded for the care of the children and placing it in a trust fund until Coy Mahn gave him clearance to return it to you.

“The children are now in a private academy in Oakland, where the sister visits them every weekend; they are apparently thriving. It’s a well-structured curriculum and a broadly diverse student body. According to the Academy records, Miss Coy Mahn has a job as an executive assistant and translator for a company that trades with Pacific Rim nations and spends much of her time travelling.

“While that company exists, and has a Miss Coy Mahn on its payroll, the woman doing it isn’t Xian. She’s a Vietnamese immigrant sans papers borrowing the identity.

“The real Coy Mahn is visiting the children however, and from long distance observation seems hale and healthy. Following her back to her place of residence revealed that she’s living in one of her Uncle’s buildings with a man, Tran. The two of them are never seen together however.”

Honcho pulls out two photographs, one of Xian visiting the children, one of “Tran” in a business suit. “’Tran’ works for Coy Mahn’s uncle, and I’m embarrassed by how long it took us to realize that he and Xian were the same person.”

Looking at the two photos it’s easy to see how the mistake could be made. Aside from the easy issues of how the hair is worn, Tran’s penchant for dark glasses and the clothing, the lines of the face are strongly different, as are the way each holds their body.

“Eventually I was able to secure access to a government photo ID system and get positive confirmation. Xian is masquerading as Tran. Tran has full papers, is Xian’s brother, and was working for General Coy Mahn before Xian even entered the country. I strongly suspect that the original Tran is dead, and Xian has replaced him.”

“Having hacked into the Generals computer systems Wrench thinks Xian is getting ready to replace her uncle as well. There’s been considerable manipulation of his corporate funding, reminiscent of an internal coup. Xian would end up one vote on a three-person board who will replace her Uncle when he is removed. Of course, with her powers that’s a meaningless distinction. The General would also end up serving time for his human smuggling and drug-running business.”

Honcho looks up at everyone, “Reddy and Cowboy think that Xian is engaging in an elaborate sting of her uncle, turning the tables on him and cleaning up his business before she makes contact with you again. Wolf, Wrench and I disagree. I think she’s taking over his business just to take over his business. There’s a ruthless calculation to this which I don’t care for.”

He looks back at his notes, “In any event once we made the connection we started tracking back through Xian’s travels as Tran. She doesn’t get out much, but she’s been out to the East Coast three times since she started the impersonation. Once she spent two weeks at a school in the Berkshires, a place called the Massachusetts Academy, ostensibly to look into it as a school for the children as they get older. Prior to that she spent three days in Manhattan visiting… the Hellfire Club, a private organization of entrepreneurs, old money, movers and shakers near Central Park, and that’s where she’s been for the last week as well, she flew back to California yesterday.

“Wolf wanted to project the Black Rider into someone on the premises to do some snooping while she was there, but I felt that was unwarranted.”

The Professor looks grim, “And unethical, as you’re putting an innocent at risk, and extremely dangerous given what you don’t know about the Hellfire Club.”

Kitty speaks up from her seat near the Professor's desk. "The other catch is that we think it's Tran who's impersonating Xian, sort of. They were *both* in her mind for some time ... but now it's Tran who's dominant, not Xian. And that explains a lot about 'Coy Mahn's' behavior and goals."

"Good." Logan is frowning, but not particularly displeased. "Although it does seem to confirm the most unpleasant of the theories." Her brother has completely subsumed her personality, then?

Perhaps, the Professor replies. I won't know without a more thorough investigation. The other option is that they have reached an accord of sorts based around the safety of the children.

Kurt speaks up. "We need to know the truth. If Xian is trapped in her own head, dominated by her brother, we have to act. If Xian is now dominant, we need to stop her plans, if only to protect ourselves, and more particularly the children here. Herr Professor can't be expected to shield them indefinitely."

"I think I'll have enough training to spell him," Rachel says, "but you never win a war by waiting for the enemy's attack."

"Well put," Wolverine approves. "So, research, but not too much of it. California?"

"Yes. And soon. Wolverine, Storm, I'd like you to accompany me on the trip. Rachel is capable enough to guard the children from mental attack for a few days."

Storm nods, "Of course," and while it's unsaid there is a challenge in her stance warning anyone from saying something like 'but without your powers…'.

Page 6-7 (Wolverine)

No sooner said than accomplished, Xavier, Storm and Wolverine are in San Francisco's airport.

I've sent Honcho and his team into hunting Gyrich's organization, the professor projects, They have no logical connection to us, and their mutation is so subtle and so weak individually that they shouldn't register on any mechanical Cerebro analogue.

Makes sense. He's itching to take a personal hand there, but this is a sensible approach.

The school seems like the best place to catch her -- predictable schedule at least, but in case things go badly, we don't want to provoke any trouble near the children. No sense giving Tran a building full of hostages. Better to take it from the uncle side. Wrench got us a starting rundown on the security there -- not that we're going to get too close to it, of course. His half-smile includes a whole book's worth of "best laid plans."

He is watching Storm throughout, to see what clues as to her state might fall from her body language before risking any conversation on the topic.

She's obviously tense, but also proud, and is not about to display weakness. And unlike the situation between Storm and the Invisible Girl Logan is not so much more skilled that he can play a trump card to keep her out of things.

Not that he would dream of doing that. With or without her powers, she's formidable, and he certainly understands something about pride. He will keep on eye on her and be ready to offer swift support if she needs it -- but not a moment before then. It doesn't do to embarrass a former goddess, or a friend.

I agree, Storm adds.

Pondering their maps and the available alternatives, eventually Logan says, I think the office is the best bet. We can start off at a distance, and if Charlie can't get a fix, we'll be in position to move in closer quickly. The longer we spend hanging around in her vicinity, the higher the odds that someone will notice us. She's wary, and with good reason; Tran even more so. The last thing we want is for him to get the wind up and kite.

The miracle of panel breaks lets the X-Men skip the torturous car rental and street navigation requirements, arriving in an instant in front of the closest hotel to Coy Mahn’s offices. Once there the professor settles himself into a chair and starts probing for Coy Mahn’s mind – for all of his bluster with Emma Frost last week he really had exerted himself there and is just now recovered.

After a few minutes he says “I have found her. Him. It’s clear that Tran’s is the dominant personality, but his is so fully insinuated into hers that they’re hard to separate. To make things more difficult the dual psyches here form almost as impressive a barrier to mental probing as they do for Rogue. I fear I will have to take larger risks if I’m to truly ascertain the extent of the damage.”

“In addition, his recent induction to the Hellfire Club is in his thoughts. I have had the good fortune to capture some passwords, but they would have to be run from the dedicated machine inside his office.” The Professor looks at his two students, “I’d like your opinions on whether you feel that is worth the risk.”

"I'm amazed that you even bother to ask." Logan grins.

"Since you and two will be the ones physically on premises I thought it best," Xavier responds, "I will, of course, be monitoring you from here."

The Professor gets a look that Logan recognizes as Charlie Having A Dangerous Thought, and then goes to the phone to place a call back to the mansion. “Kurt? Yes. Could you please take the hickory box from the second to the top shelf in my office and mail it out to our hotel express overnight?” The Professor reads off the address, then rings off.

"Ahem." No need to belabor it, they've known each other a long time.

Holding back information in the middle of a mission can too easily bite everyone involved if things go sour.

Charles looks at him, "It occurred to me that Tran's dominance may be too difficult to undo, and we're not in a position to kidnap Xian's body without serious legal complications. I'd like an alternative in that case. You recall the Shi'ar Holempathic Matrix?"

Storm nods, "Of course. Lilandra provided Jean's parents with one as a memorial to their daughter. It contained an imprint of her personality and memories."

"Exactly," Xavier says, "I was fascinated by the concept so Lilandra provided me with a blank one for study. I am confident that I would, with proximity and a few moments time, be able to use it to take a 'snapshot' of Xian's conflicted brain, as a doctor would take an ex-ray of a patient before surgery. That would allow me the time to make a proper examination of Xian's condition and how to undo it without damaging her."

"You're the expert. The less time we have to spend in the area, the easier this ought to be."

Later that evening:

Once Storm would have been able to land her and Wolverine on the roof of the building for easy access, but now they face some more difficult challenges.

Later that evening:

Once Storm would have been able to land her and Wolverine on the roof of the building for easy access, but now they face some more difficult challenges.

That evening after twilight the pair find themselves on the roof of the building across the street from Coy Mahn's offices. Here the city's geography works in their favor, since the hill's downward slope increases the height difference between the buildings, giving them more space to make the audacious jump.

Wolverine goes first, running the length of their roof to get momentum and then hurling himself across three lanes of traffic and three stories down, never worrying about the precipice below him because if you did you wouldn't be able to make the jump.

He slams into the roof slightly off angle, his shins clipping the edge of the building, but he manages to turn it into a tuck and roll with no damage done and little noise.

Once he positions himself Storm follows, likewise hitting the wall but Wolverine, with his enhanced reflexes, is in position to grab her before she can bounce off. She takes a second to recover herself, nodding her thanks but saying nothing.

If that's as bad as things get... ah, who am I kidding. Better get in and out of here fast.

A moment later Storm tackles the lock on the roof access door – much more intricate than it has any need to be, and with a hidden charge to boot. Her technique, Wolverine notes, is flawless, and she has the door open in seconds.

From here it is a short trip down a couple of flights of utility stairs to Xian/Tran's office. Unlike the opulence of the top floor offices used by the General Tran's office space is relatively sedate, although still befitting an executive in a multi-national construction firm. From the schematics Wrench provided plus their line of site from the stair door way the pair know that down the hall to the right there's a vestibule for his executive assistant (and covered with laser beam motion sensors), a primary office and a smaller, "secure file" room. That room, obviously, is where they need to go and, just as obviously, is the one that is best defended.

Wolverine can smell one off the security guards on this floor, moving in his rounds. Unfortunately, he's dedicated to this floor, so he's not going anywhere.

Professor? Storm queries, and in a few seconds, they hear the creak of the guard lowing himself into a chair.

The guard is unconscious, Charles informs them. I will need to rouse him so he can report in at 1 AM. You have 23 minutes.

Good. He glances at Roro, indicating with an economical movement that he'll go first -- if things go south now, if there's an unexpected line of defense, he wants her to be in position to be the one who gets away. A smooth, cat-like glide across the heavy corporate carpeting follows, ending with him at the file room door.

Having to pass through the motion detectors to reach the file room is a challenge for even his compact, highly agile form, but it's nothing he hasn't done before....

Storm is at the vestibule door while Wolverine makes his torturous way through the lasers. She follows him seconds later, contorting her lithe frame through the horizontal maze to confront the next obstacle: the dual keypads on opposite sides of the file room door.

Logan has had enough time looking at them waiting for Storm to sort out their construction: a multi-digit code needs to be entered into each pad simultaneously to reveal a pair of key-locks, each of which has to be turned simultaneously to open the door without setting off an alarm...and possibly a bomb.

Of course, the two pads and two locks are too far apart for a single person to make such an entry.

Fortunately, Xavier's probing revealed the keypad codes. Unfortunately, the physical Keys are keys with Tran, so Wolverine and Storm will have to time their lockpicking perfectly.

Of course Storm thinks through Xavier to Wolverine, Coy Mahn would always be able to procure a second set of hands to enter the codes. You could always just cut the door open, but that would keep this from being a secret mission

And we do want this to be a secret mission, Wolverine responds, so... on three.

You're enjoying this, aren't you? Storm smiles at him as the pair silently and swiftly pick the dual locks at the same instant. Wolverine's enhanced senses pick up the click of the lock disengaging.

Aren't you? Allow me. He applies the gentlest of pressure on the door, aware of the minutes falling away into the past, on high alert for any hint of something amiss.

The door opens easily, and Wolverine gives the room a once over to see if there is any additional security. He spots none and slips into the room. He finds the files that one would expect to find in a secure filing room for a construction company (so in addition to regular file cabinets there are large flat file cabinets for maps and blueprints. There is also a comfortable collapsible chair. Nothing looks amiss, but there's also no computer terminal.

That's... not good. He mentally reviews their exit route, just in case. No mysterious wires, no heat sources? Wireless computers in the cabinets?

To Wolverine's enhanced senses Coy Mahn's scent is all over one of the flat file cases.

Wolverine glances at Storm, to see if she wants to apply her skills.

She leans over the lock and quickly picks it.

Time check?

We have fourteen minutes remaining. It took you four minutes to get through the motion sensors so you have ten minutes in here. Xavier tells him.

Storm slides the drawer open and inside is a remarkably slim (for the 1980s, though it is very wide compared to a contemporary laptop) computer with imbedded keyboard and monitor that silently slides up once the drawer is opened.

aha, Storm thinks. you install the hard tap while I check the files she tells Wolverine as she keys in Coy Mahn's stolen password.

Now knowing where to look Wolverine is able to trace the cable into the wall and track its likely path. In his hand is a small wireless Shi'ar tech tap that will send encoded transmissions to a nearby receiver on folded gravity waves. Plus, it will melt if opened or removed from the cable once installed.

He slices neatly into the wall to place the tap, where it is unlikely to be noticed... well, ever.

His estimates are accurate, and the tip of his claw makes an invisibly thin slice into the wall, freeing the cable and allowing him to insert the tap.

Unfortunately, this is not an easy procedure given the size and complexity of the tap. four minutes left in the room Xavier tells them as Wolverine reseals the wall.

Storm is busy on the computer when Wolverine stands up, her face illuminated by the laptop's glow. I've duplicated her personal files, which are, alas, all in Korean.

I do have access from here to the Hellfire Club's mainframe, but I don't know how much I could do. Kitty, alas, would be better at this....

We'll give it to her. Time to close up and be on our way.

Storm carefully shuts the system down, closes the drawer and re-locks it. The pair reverse course, relocking the door and restoring everything to its original state in the security system before working their way back through the laser sensors.

Page 8-10 (Peter, Kitty, Kurt)

Later, at Amanda Sefton’s Central park West apartment.

Amanda has, of course, agreed to help, but has requested that the three X-Men come over to discuss things with her before speaking to Ilyana directly.

"Please, have a seat, and drink some tea," Amanda directs everyone to her living room, where a samovar was set up with some strange smelling brew.

Amanda settles next to Nightcrawler, focusing mostly on the other two. "Kurt gave me the basics, but I'd like all of you to run through what you remember of the first encounter with Belasco, the recent events and everything Ilyana's told you. The tea you're drinking contains a variant truth serum in it that will enhance your memory of everything you're talking about and serve to strip away any magical falsifications that you might be laboring under. Once I have that I'll be able to better assess what I can do to help."

Kitty looks dubiously into her cup, then says, "That's ... a very good idea." And takes another sip.

Peter sips the tea cautiously. It tastes a little like Anise.

There's a panel triptych of the four drinking tea and talking for several hours.

"OK," Amanda says, consulting a legal pad that now has six or seven pages covered with notes. "To recap a few things that jumped out at us. First, the Limbo Storm said that when she got too old to use her powers she turned to 'the other half of her heritage - sorcery'. That makes no sense. OK, so Storm mentioned once to Kurt that her mother was the daughter of a Kenyan Rain Priestess, but I'll tell you from hard won experience that sort of connection is hardly sufficient. Storm has never had any training in magic, so where did she learn it? The only possible mentor was Belasco, and why would he train Storm is a set of magics that are totally alien to what he trained Ilyana? Why would he train her at all rather than warp her psyche like he did Limbo Kitty and Limbo Kurt?"

"Was everything some kind of illusion to fool Ilyana?" says Peter. "Or was the timeline of the Limbo people she met very different from ours?"

"Time itself seems to have been different in Limbo," Kurt ventures. "Clearly, Ilyana's lived through years we didn't experience on Earth, but who's to say that it was all at an even tempo, or even linear. Belasco is a demon. He lies. We should try as suspect everything he told Ilyana, and possibly everything she thinks she knows from Limbo. How can we know what was reality or just an illusion formed by that demon?"

“While I’m not an expert in parallel dimensions I did learn some things before interfering in my mother's attempt to throw Kurt into Dante’s Inferno*.” Amanda inches a little closer to Kurt, “That wasn’t the real hell, but a Limbo that mother had molded to her purposes. As I understand it there are an infinite number of Limbos – it’s a term, like Island – and not a specific place. They’re these little pocket dimensions, each of them formless and timeless until someone takes control of them and starts shaping them.”

[*ED: it was in Annual #4]

“At the very least we have to assume that all the physical aspects of Limbo were things Belasco shaped, including the speed of time’s passage” Amanda says, “But the ability to jump back and forth inside that space and time? I think Kitty’s right that it originated with Ilyana. It’s entirely possible that Belsaco already knew everything that was going to happen while you were there, since he was relying on the stepping disks that his eventual disciple Ilyana was making 7 years in the future of her timeflow under his command.”

“For the other people,” Amanda shrugs helplessly. “I just don’t know. Maybe that Storm’s mother had survived, or she’d visited her Grandmother and received instruction in her youth. There’s no way to tell. Maybe she wasn’t real at all.”

"Or none of them was real," Kitty says tiredly. "But they were real enough to mess with Ilyana, and that's what matters right now."

Kitty gives a nod of agreement.

"Not entirely," Amanda says. "With your permission Kitty, I'd like to cast a divinatory spell on you to see if there are any lingering enchantments on you from your time in Belasco's custody."

Kitty gives a nod of agreement.

Amanda concentrate, holding her hands in an odd position as she does so, and those hands are surrounded by spheres of blue-green light, tendrils of which extend over to Kitty and surround her with a luminescent ovoid of similar hue. Inside that everyone can see her skeleton glowing through her body, covered in extensive red and black runes.

"Umm," Kitty says. "Is it s'posed to look like that?"

Amanda, who now has one hand over her mouth in shock, shakes her head back and forth.

"What does it mean?" says Peter, staring at Kitty in shock.

Amanda recovers herself. "It means that Belasco took the opportunity when Kitty's skeleton was separated from her body to seriously enchant it, and not in a good way."

She stops and looks through the legal pad, "Here it is. Kitty said that Ilyana's sword was able to cut her even when she was phasing, and that it actually cut her when Ilyana insists that the sword has no effect on non-magical things."

"I think," Amanda puzzles for a minute, "looking at the spells carved on her, I think Kitty is linked to Ilyana's curse. That if I try to break the curse on Ilyana, and maybe even if Ilyana dies, something horrible will happen to Kitty. Her skeleton will catch fire, or explode, or both. And since Ilyana's soulsword would normally work to break that enchantment, instead the spell makes sure the sword affects you like, well, a sword. Instead of breaking the curse it would cut you."

Amanda takes another sip of tea to steady herself. "I think Kitty is Belasco's hostage for Ilyana's good behavior. Ilyana might be willing to kill herself rather than see Belasco's plan move forward, but if that meant sacrificing Kitty?"

"That's ... well, demonic," Kitty says, grimacing, and covers her face with her hands. "What about taking this off me?"

"Yes, Amanda darling," Kurt says, visibly shaken, "can you remove those runes? And if not you, who could?"

Amanda looks sympathetic and shakes her head, "I don't dare. I'm nowhere near skilled enough to even consider it. But I'll certainly need to see you and Ilyana together to get a better idea of what it is."

"As soon as we can," Kitty promises.

Kurt ponders, his blue eyebrows squeezed together like friendly caterpillars. "Doctor Strange, then. The Professor knows him and surely there's no better... magical person, I guess, to help us."

"I'll ask my mother as well," Amanda says.

Kurt moves forward and takes Kitty's hands in his own. "We will fix this, Katchen. You and Ilyana both will be free of this demon. I swear it."

Kitty bows her head and says, "I hope so, Kurt."

"And since I don't want to lose track of anything," Amanda flips through the pad some more, "There's the matter of S'ym. One thing that he did - snapping the limbo Wolverine's claw off - more than anything else makes it look like some or all of the Limbo X-Men were fakes. He shouldn't have been able to do that, right?"

"No way," Kurt replies. "Adamantium is about the strongest material there is."

"I suspect that a lot of his apparent invulnerability and power comes specifically from being inside that Limbo. He's been seen outside of it, so we know he wasn't just a shaped part of it. The Limbo itself might be designed to support and enhance him. I know mother did things like that to increase her power in the shaped Inferno-Limbo." Amanda looks up, "He's almost certainly still a servant of Belasco, however. I don't think Ilyana should trust him, sword or no."

"Hmm, that's gets me thinking," Kurt says. "Ilyana's teleportation discs, are they restricted to one dimension, or can you teleport _between_ dimensions? Could come in handy if S'ym, or anyone else, is powerful in one place and not in another."

Amanda shrugs, "I don't know. I'm not the expert on mutations. But it might be that Belasco's curse is linking her Limbo, so she has to go there…."

"She can manifest them without going there," Kitty says. "I had her do that as a test. But I don't think trying dimension-hopping is a good idea till we've got a handle on the rest of it."

Finally, clearly tired, Amanda adds one other thing, "Kitty, something to keep in mind is that a sorcerer can't cast a spell without leaving some link back to him. If we look hard enough, we might find a way to turn this curse to our advantage.

Kitty, determined: "We'll look hard, then."

Page 11 (Rachel)

For the first time the young telepath finds herself in the X-Mansion without any of the X-Men present. Peter, Kitty and Kurt are in the city on some errand, the Professor, Storm and Wolverine are on the West Coast. The New Mutants are all here, as are any number of memories from her childhood. Plus, the boxes of her mother's memorabilia. She knows she's not in her mother's room - Rogue was placed there when she joined the team - but the spare room she has come to occupy has a closet full of boxes and hanging clothes wrappers labeled under various students names: Drake, Rankin, Dane.

Summers.

Grey.

"I never got to grow up with my parents," Rachel thinks, "barely knew them when they were killed, never even had any memorabilia of them." She pulls down the wrappers with Scott's and Jean's clothes and looks at them. "Until now. Now, I have all too much, only...this isn't my past. Maybe it was once, or would have been if things hadn't changed. But this timeline's Ilyana Rasputin spent 10 years in Limbo, and is now sixteen. And in this timeline, Jean Grey never came back."

Much of the clothes are woefully out of style - the outfits they wore as teenagers when they first came to the school - and her father's stop there, the remnants of his early life, long outgrown, but that Xavier for some reason has not discarded. Her mothers, as she already knows, extend further than that, including the stretch when she was a fashion model during one of her times away from the school.

Past those there are cardboard storage boxes, bearing the names of the departed or deceased; students at a school for the gifted who had no home to which they might return.

"They were all so young," Rachel thinks. "Like the New Mutants -- young, sure of their power, and in deadly danger. And my father...or the person who would have been my father, had things gone differently...is out there somewhere." She looks through the boxes, finding a pair of diaries, one in the box labelled S. Summers, the other in the box labeled J. Grey, pocketting them. "All right; enough wallowing for today. It's a shame for some of clothes to get stuck in a closet forever, and some of Jean's are pretty stylish for their day.

Rachel ignores a pantsuit and a miniskirt, and tries on a patterned floor-length dress [something like this:

>> http://www.samayalingvintage.com/index.php/shop/products/vintage-1970s-lime-green-dress-with-print-ossie-clark].

"Mom was certainly...not quite my shape," Rachel thinks, "but hmm...fabric is just threads, right?" She concentrates, and the dress partially disintegrates around her, the threads hanging in a cloud about her before it reforms under her direction, this time a perfect fit. "Better."

Eventually heading out into the rest of the mansion she hears the New Mutants in the kitchen. There’s some sort of argument taking place.

“Berto, it’s your responsibility. Quit ducking it,” Dani is saying in her best ‘I’m a team leader’ voice.

“I have accepted my responsibility. You just don’t like my decision.” Roberto replies with a devil may care flip in his voice.

“No, you’re offloading the work to someone else,” Sam says in return. We all agreed to this and you’re ducking your part.

“Personally I feel that Roberto is within his rights The gentlemen of my homeland often did the same,” Amara adds in

“Ha! See?” Berto cries triumphantly.

Amara continues, a smile obvious in her voice, “and I learned the hard way that any man who would go to such lengths to push their work of their words of honor onto servants should never be trusted with any matters of import.”

“Ha!” Dani and Sam say simultaneously.

"So, what's the problem," Rachel asks.

The New Mutants stop for a moment, surprised, but then loosen up - Rachel falls into a nebulous realm of being an adult but not being a teacher that makes her social status with the younger students a little difficult - as Sam responds "We' all made a cooking schedule for dinners and every time it's Berto's turn he just orders a pizza."

Dani continues, "We've got nothing against pizza, of course, but he can't even be bothered to boil water and drop pasta in it."

"Speaking personally, I still side with Roberto," Amara adds, "I am also fearful of his cooking."

"If I may," Rachel says, "My opinion is that without an agreement to the contrary, ordering pizza would seem to be within bounds. That said, cooking is a useful skill, and well worth practicing."

"Ha!" Roberto says again. "Cheesy Goodness it is!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Sam and Dani say at once, before Dani adds, "She's not a voting member!"

Ilyana finally speaks, "If we're going to get all legalistic about it, the schedule," she points to the document on the kitchen's bullet board, "Says 'New Mutants Cooking Rota.' Cooking. That certainly implies something other than ordering in."

Berto looks at Rachel, clearly imploring for further help.

Rachel shrugs. "She's right, I don't get a vote. Looks like you're stuck cooking. Can I help? I haven't had a chance to cook in...a long time."

Everyone looks around, trying to figure out the complex legalistic structure of teenage team kitchen dynamics, when Rhane pipes in "Aye, of course you can."

Roberto looks relieved at this, then turns to the others, "Ok, ok, if you expect us to produce a culinary masterpiece then you have to give us space. Out, out, shoo!"

They filter out of the room, Sam telling Rachel, "Don't let him make you do everything," as he leaves.

Once they're gone Roberto turns to Rachel, "So you're old enough to drive. You can get out through the window, get into town and as long as we hide the pizza boxes they'll never know!"

Rachael laughs. "One, of course they'd know; we can't make a decent pizza in here. Two, I don't have a valid license. And three, I meant it; I haven't had a chance to cook in a very long time. Come on, let's look over the cookbooks and the fridge and see what looks possible and fun to make."

One panel [no dialogue]: Rachel, wearing an apron over her flowered dress, sits at a table, a cookbook hovering at eye level, while Roberto unhappily chops vegetables, a bowl apparently stirs itself, and a pancake is being flipped without apparent human intervention.

One panel (no dialogue): Rachel sits at a table with the students while Roberto brings out a wheeled tray containing a pile of pancakes, a sauce, and a casserole of some sort.

One panel: Rachel, her eyes closed in bed, thinking. "They're so alive -- so young. So happy. But then, so were..."

(from off panel) "aAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

[new full-page panel] Rachel, shocked, and her short hair artistically standing on end, is now sitting up, her nightgown now revealed, as the scream continues.

[Has Rachel been woken? Or merely woken to danger? To find out what happens next, go read New Mutants #18 - ed. ]

Page 12 (Wolverine)

Late the next afternoon, back in their hotel room, Xavier hangs up the phone after talking to people at the mansion, “Apparently the New Mutants faced a magical extra-dimensional incursion last night, Miss Moonstar is in the hospital and her long-dead parents were revealed to have been turned into a demonic spirit bear, but they’re better now.”

Xavier stares at the phone for a moment, then continues, “We live a very strange life.”

"I hadn't noticed."

Storm gives Wolverine a wry look

“In any event, Kitty confirms that the tap is working, and the matrix arrived in today’s mail.” Xavier says. “Now we just need to get me into Xian’s presence while she’s unconscious, preferably not due to mental influence. That circumstance gives me the greatest with the repairs or, barring that, to get a clean view of her psyche.”

"No mental influence? Swell. What about drugs?"

"Troublesome," The professor says, making a face of distaste while acknowledging that Logan is right to ask. "If they disrupt the brain chemistry it might cloud things, but less so then my other intervention would. The larger issues are delivery and dosage calibration, given the baseline Mutants increased strength and resilience. Still, Kurt should be able to fax us Xian's medical profile from our records....

[BR: just to move this along]

Later that day Wolverine effortlessly slips into Coy Mahn’s apartment while their target is at work. Storm is hanging back with the Professor to be able to sneak him into the room once Coy Mahn has been neutralized.

The security on the apartment, both the building as a whole and Coy Mahn’s specific rooms, are good, but not enough to impede someone of Wolverine’s skill. It’s a spacious place, tastefully furnished in a Korean-American fusion. There’s a bedroom with sizable closets holding both “Tran” and “Xian” outfits. There’s a spacious bathroom with both a soaking tub and a shower/ Connected to that is an exercise/practice room with wooden striking targets, bokken and weights, making it clear that while his/her power may be purely mental Tran isn’t skimping on his physical training.

The kitchen is small and obviously seldom used, with some left over or take out containers in the garbage can. However, there is a well-attended sideboard, and one decanter of very fine brandy has Coy Mahn’s scent on it as something he uses at least daily. The drugs go into the brandy decanter, where the dissolve instantly.

That accomplished, Wolverine slips into the closet of the apartment's spare room and waits.

She's approaching. Xavier tells him some time later. Wolverine hears the key in the door, followed by the entrance of not one but two individuals. The other, judging from the scent and the sound of his tread, is large and exercises frequently. That man starts a security sweep of the apartment while Coy Mahn takes off his coat but otherwise stays in the foyer. Wolverine had picked up the scent inside the apartment earlier as a relatively frequent visitor, especially in the training area.

I have him, Xavier tells Wolverine calmly, just don't move.

Right. He exhales silently, relaxing into still readiness.

The security guy continues his sweep, entering the guest bedroom and approaching the closet.

Back in the other hotel, Storm sees Xavier straining, but stays quiet, not wanting to break his concentration.

Coy Mahn is possessing the security guard, naturally. There's no reason I can't edit that man's senses telepathically, but doing so without alerting Coy Mahn in an already crowded mind is...delicate. The Professor informs Wolverine.

Huh. Just don't drop anything? Not for the first time, he's glad not to have to deal with such fragile matters as the mind, human or otherwise.

The security guy opens the closet and goes through it, with Wolverine totally still within. Even if the professor weren't editing his perceptions there's still a chance the Canadian mutant might have gone unseen, but the combination of skill and psychic powers means that the closet door is again closed.

After a few minutes the bodyguard exits the apartment.

He's going next door. There's an unlocked access door between his apartment in this one, Charles informs him.

Of course, Storm adds through the link, given their power Coy Mahn wouldn't want to be anywhere without a familiar body for physical backup.

It's of no consequence. Once she's either unconscious or attacking I'll render the bodyguard unconscious from here. Charles transmits.

Wolverine spends a few tense minutes with his enhanced senses tracking Coy Mahn's movements through the apartment - some exercise, several mundane business phone calls and a meal follow. Several times Coy Mahn stops, going still, and Wolverine feels something bump against his mental shields. It occurs to all of the team simultaneously that while Coy Mahn has no latent telepathic power it's entirely possible that Tran might have learned to sense the minds he controls.

Wolverine clears his mind and enters a meditative trace stolen from the Ninja and adapted for his own peculiar psyche: for all practical purposes his mind is more akin to a sleeping animal than an awake human, his limbs relaxed, his entire being still.

After a second, he hears the sounds being outside again with no evidence of suspicion in the movements.

Eventually the clink of the glass the scent of alcohol lets him know that the postprandial brandy is being poured. Fifteen minutes later and the sound of her breathing changes, becoming more regular and deeper.

Looks like we're good here.

Wolverine has time to confirm that their target is indeed unconscious, passed out in a living room armchair, while waiting for the others to arrive. His luck even held to the point where Coy Mahn wasn't holding the brandy glass when the drug hit.

Storm escorts Charles in a few minutes later, having led him through the security gauntlet with relative ease since she'd already 'seen' Wolverine penetrate it earlier.

The professor looks at the young woman, his student, her features softened to their natural look while she's sleeping, and both Wolverine and Storm can see the heavy tension settle into his shoulders as he contemplates another failure on his part.

Finally, he seats himself next to the bed, takes Xian's hand and goes to work. In a disturbingly short period of time he turns to his students. "The personalities are too deeply intertwined. I'll be able to undo it given time and study, but not in the time we have available."

Wolverine confines his comments to an almost silent sigh. Nothing is ever simple, is it?

He reaches into his coat pocket and removes the spherical crystal. After staring into it for a second Xavier places it in the woman's hand, cupping it with his own to keep it there, and goes to work. To Wolverine's keen senses the air seems to thicken, and time to slow. He's able to see the individual flaps on the wing of a fly outside the apartment window. He can smell the effusive aroma of napalm in the morning, the sickening scent of defoliant and the undercurrent of blood that made up Coy Mahn's childhood. His inner ear can detect the rocking of the boat that carried Xian at least part way from her home, but also the lurch in his stomach that marked the rapid ascent of the helicopter that carried Tran out of Saigon.

It's not pleasant, but at the same time it feels like something that should be witnessed and acknowledged--if only because understanding this strangely twinned consciousness might become a deadly necessity.

Storm doesn't appear as deeply affected by this, but she does take several quick steps away, and the change in her face makes it clear she's now outside the range of the embarrassing intimacy.

Eventually, hours later, Xavier finishes, slipping the crystal - which now contains an image of Coy Mahn that shifts eerily between male and female faces - into his pocket.

Once the threat of further altering her psyche was removed, I was easily able to edit her memories of the evening, Charles informs them as they leave. She will remember developing a mild headache, taking some painkillers and going to be early. That should resolve any mental discrepancies that the drugs might have otherwise created. Out of necessity for Xian's mental well-being I have also edited her brother's plans concerning their uncle, moving him away from 'assisting' the general's suicide. I dislike this sort of manipulation, but I don't want that act hanging on her conscience once she's restored.

Is there nothing else we can do? Storm asks through the link.

Not now. Charles grimaces, But rest assured we will not forget her, nor abandon an opportunity to assist her once we're better prepared.

Page 13 (Kurt)

A few days after Storms return from San Francisco, once everyone has had a chance to piece together what happened with the New Mutants, Kurt finally gets to have his breakfast with Storm.

Storm is sitting on the other side of the kitchen counter, watching Kurt put together the meal. As she does so, she is flitching pieces of melon from the serving bowl that Kurt had prepared before moving on to the parts that required cooking.

Kurt passes a knife from his right hand to his tail and picks up a pan of bacon with the newly freed hand and shakes the strips of bacon onto a large white plate.

“I’ve missed this,” Storm says. “I used to help Jean cook in this room, and I had fallen out of the habit since her death. I started helping Forge, however, and that felt, right, somehow.”

Her face is full of nostalgia – an improvement since previous discussions about Jean had always been tinged with melancholy – before she goes on, “Do you think that Rachel is really her daughter?”

Kurt puts down his implements and turns to regard Storm, his serious expression belied by the 'Kiss Me I'm Irish' apron that once belonged to Sean Cassidy, now drafted into service for Kurt breakfast extravaganza.

"Yes. Yes, I do, Storm. She might not be the daughter they would have had in our world, but I can't look at her and not see both her parents. The poor child has a weight of history on her shoulders she didn't even life through, not to mention a life lived that we can't begin to imagine."

"At least, I hope we don't have to imagine."

"Verdammt, the toast!" He 'ports across the kitchen to fish smoking toast from the huge chrome toaster."

[BR: Can I tell you how much I love the inclusion of the apron? Because I love the inclusion of the apron.]

"Kurt!" Storm admonishes as she drapes a tea towel over the melon bowl, "Don't teleport in the kitchen! The brimstone gets into everything!"

"Think of it as hickory smoke flavouring, straight from Bavaria!" Kurt retorts. He does at least have the good grace to look guilty as he waves a kitchen cloth in tight circles to disperse the brimstone odour.

Later, as they're at the table, Storm picks up the conversational thread. "Too many of us have lives others can't begin to imagine. You, Logan and I, at the least. Hunted, drafted, worshipped. But her story? It ranks with Magneto's."

"You said the Morlock, Memento, _ate_ her future? Why do I have the feeling that you think that will merely make something similar happen?"

Kurt puts down his cutlery carefully on his plate and pushes it away, though the food is unfinished.

"God forgive me, Storm, but I do. I hope that mankind - both mutant and the majority - can put aside their differences, but I fear the future. We have fought, you and I, as X-Men for some time now. We do the Professor's work and we help our fellows, but in my darker moments I cannot say that we are winning.

"Rachel's future is a potent reminder of what awaits us should we fail, but..." Kurt pauses, a pained expression on his face. "Storm, I was not born a warrior. I don’t know if I can face such a future. I know I must, but fear I will be found wanting."

Ororo looks at him sympathetically. "You're not a warrior, Kurt. You're a swashbuckler. A hero. You save people. It's what you do. It's what you always do. Focus on that."

"For me," she adds, "right now I find I am nothing."

Now it is Kurt's turn to look sympathetic. His brows narrow in concern. "Ororo, you could never be nothing. Powers or no, you are an X-Man, a leader... and a friend."

He moves to place his curious two-fingered hands on Ororo's hand. "Your heart is troubled, yes, but you will find peace, Ororo. I am ready to help you whenever you wish. And if that wish is to be left alone to find your own path I'll wait patiently for the day of your return, and throw the biggest damn party you ever did see.

"You can't find all the answers at home, sweet lady, but you will always find your family here."

She laughs and then says "Well, I'd hate to miss the party."

"I'm sorry if I was melodramatic Kurt. I have defined myself by my roles - goddess, mutant, team leader - and now none of those titles fit, and I find myself at loose ends. Fortunately, the title of friend is one that I will never surrender."

Kurt smiles. "It is good to see you laugh, Ororo. Don't be so quick to give up the title of team leader though. I worry who will fill your shoes in your absence. The professor is ... well, he's not suited to field work. Besides, it's hard to see him in a role other than as mentor. The shared challenges we've had a team - they build the team and the leader too."

"And to whom would you hand the job, Kurt?" Storm asks, toying with some bacon. "Peter lacks the temperament. Kitty is too young. Logan, well, Logan has always refused the leadership role, even before he came here...."

Kurt gulps and shakes his head. "Hang on. I know where this is going. I've never seen myself in a leader's role. I wouldn't know where to start..."

Nightcrawler's features settle into a pensive expression, as though considering the idea of the leadership role for the first time. He thinks Ach, it is madness to think of me leading the X-Men... isn't it?

Storm sees his confusion and smiles slightly, "I know that look. It's the same one I had when Scott told me he was leaving."

A wordless panel of Kurt with ‘that look’ on his face ends the scene.

Page 14 (Peter)

After her return from San Francisco Peter finally has a chance to speak to Storm. His teammate is dressed in a warm coat, looking out over the mansion’s grounds covered in the early, unseasonal snow.

“Yes, Little Brother,” Storm asks as he approaches. “Your face has the look of a question.”

It’s easy enough for Peter to see that Ororo expects him to ask about romantic advice concerning Kitty, having seen their behavior towards one another of late.

Yes," says Peter, mentally squirming and studying the ground. "This is... awkward." He looks up and says, "It is about the Morlocks."

Storm's face loses the open, sisterly camaraderie it had, becoming all business. "What has Callisto done?"

"Followed your rules," says Peter. "Protected the Morlocks. But... you had to ask that question."

Storm's face hardens, "What are you driving at, Peter?"

"I am not sure," says Peter. "We did not start a quarrel with the Morlocks. We finished one. You won. But... now what? What are they to us? What does it mean to be the ruler of the Morlocks?"

Storm sighs, and some of the tension goes out of her. "The professor told me he'd sent you to talk to them. The honest answer to your question is that I don't know. Callisto had backed us, me, into a corner with her demand for a duel. Warren's, indeed, all of our lives were in the balance. So, I did what I had to do."

"I know."

She brushes the snow off of the stump of a tree that the team had felled some time ago, then sits. "After that the rulership was... expedient. I could order them to stop attacking people, and then for them to release Kitty when they had kidnapped her, or to use Healer to save your life. I had all of the perks of being a leader but assumed none of the responsibilities. I don't know what happens down there."

She sighs again, "and I find that at the moment I lack the energy to care."

"Callisto cares, but..." Peter struggles to find the right words. "You had to do what you did. You were not assuming the responsibilities, but they did not ask you to. They never came to you for help, for advice, for guidance. They could have warned you about Memento, but they did not. Neither of you want this, but it is like having a tiger by the tail. You cannot let the tiger go, or this will be a problem again."

"Ah, Callisto. It comes down to her, doesn't it?" Storm leans her head back and absorbs some of the early winter sunshine. "I think I once said that we were enemies from the moment we met and would remain so until we died. Now I struggle to remember why. Oh, she's a foul, brutal woman, but that depth of hate?"

She shakes head, "You know, I think I envied her."

"Because things are simpler for her?" says Peter. "The Morlocks are her family, and she has responsibilities to them, but... that is all. I know it is difficult, complicated, but outside of that, she does not feel anything is owed to anyone. Is it like when you were a child? Struggling to survive, but owing nothing to anyone?"

"No, it's not that," She says. "I envied her certainty. At the time we met her we had just returned from fighting the Brood, and I found that the long absence from Earth, as well as the events there, had left me shaken. The bond I had long maintained with the world, and the serenity that came with it, was shattered. It was worse, it its way, than the incident with Dracula. There the cause was so clearly external, but this was all inside me."

"Without that link I didn't know who I was, but to maintain it I had given up real passion. It came seeping back into my life, and I didn't know what to do with it. I was lost." Storm smiles ruefully.

"Callisto, when we first met, was everything that I wasn't. Her life is full of requirements, of duties and obligations from the society she forged down there, but she knew who she was, she took what she wanted, she never questioned."

"She was a monster of course, kidnapping Warren, nearly killing Candy, but she was certain, and I was anything but. Of course I hated her."

"Do you want to know what I saw when I went down there?" Peter asks

She thinks for a minute, and then shakes her head, "Not right now, no. I spent years defining myself as a goddess communing with the earth. When I lost that I fumbled about into defining myself as the leader of the X-Men, tough, coldly calculating. Now..." she pauses for a moment, "Now without my powers I don't feel I can do that. It would be easy to instead define myself as the leader of the Morlocks."

"But I don't want anything easy, Peter. I need to define who I am when I'm not anything else."

"I think... I want that too," says Peter, with a quick montage of Zsaji, Kitty, and Callisto representing his conflicted feelings. "How do we do that?"

"In my case, I think I will have to leave for a while," she admits. "I love you, I love all of you, but I need some space."

"For you, Peter, I think you need to acknowledge that what you need is space and time to work things out. And then you need to tell her that."

"What if I am someone very different when I have worked them out?" says Peter. "And... if you are going away... " His thought balloon reads, "What do we tell Callisto?"

Storm shrugs, "Then you are someone different. She will be someone different too. Life is change. I have had a hard time convincing Kitty of that, even as I ran from stasis to stasis."

She pauses for a minute, lost in thought, and then continues, "When I look at my own life I find that I have been an aloof goddess to any man who might love me as a woman save those who were as unobtainable as I. Did you know that Arkon - beautiful, noble, Arkon - proposed to make me his queen? An offer made because, I suspect, we both knew that I could not accept."

"I have been afraid, Peter. There have been men with whom I might have pursued something, but what if it did not work out? So I remained distant, from them and loved only those who were unobtainable."

She looks at him earnestly, "I hope that you are not making the same error. But if we both have been, then perhaps we can both recover."

"Perhaps," says Peter. "Things... are complicated."

Page 15 (Aside – Forge)

Forge is at a firing range outside of Dallas, blowing targets to smithereens with an obviously prototype plasma rifle. A car pulls up and Raven Darkholme climbs out and approaches him.

"Forge!" she yells over the sound of the rifle, shading her eyes from the plasma's light.

He lowers the gun, pulls the glare goggles and looks at her, "Do you have my neutralizer back?"

She shakes her head, "No, but…."

He cuts her off, "Then we have nothing to discuss."

Insufferable man, Raven thinks, Whether he knows it or not he's part of the Brotherhood's plans, and can't get out of that.

She then says, "Forge, be reasonable. I'm putting my career on the line trying to help you here - at least acknowledge that."

Forge stares at her for a minute, then stalks over to put the gun down on a nearby table. He disconnects the power pack as he says "You built the last few years of your career out of your access to my work, Raven. So you're not on my side. You're on your side, which for the moment means keeping me happy. And I'm not happy Raven."

I should kill you, Raven thinks, but holds her tongue.

"I'm not happy either, Forge," she says, showing a sympathetic temper, "Never mind anything else, that Neutralizer is untested. If it blows up in the field suddenly everyone and their brother will forget taking it away from us and pin the whole thing on us. I need to get it back. But I need something to work with. Let me have the Analyzer and I can trade it for the…."

Forge barks a laugh at her, "You're trying that tack? Really? 'give me something to pitch to them'? Not a chance Raven."

"Damn it Forge, our leverage window is shrinking. The DOD has a separate team working to construct one based on the theory you put forward. When they crack that you won't have anything to trade - then what will your principles have bought you?"

Forge looks at her flatly. "A clean conscience. Especially since you know that they have no chance of duplicating my work."

"Fine," She turns and heads back to the car, "I'm your partner in this, Forge, whether you see it that way right now or not. I'll make sure your sudden project cancellations won't spell the end of your company, and I'll work to get that Neutralizer back. Eventually you'll understand that."

She closes the car door and drives away. Once she's out of sight we see her features ripple as Mystique changes from her Raven Darkholme persona back to her own shape.

Perfect, she thinks, I've planted the seed I needed to, which means I can safely do this. Her features shift to Forge's as she pulls in front of his building.

In the next panel we see her at the entrance to Forge's private lab, with the scanner registering her face. "Forge, security code seven one three."

"Facial, retinal and voice identification confirmed" states the computer as the door opens. Mystique moves to exactly where she needs to go, taking just seconds to photograph all parts of a disassembled Analyzer before downloading all the schematics, experimental, data and notes onto a portable hard drive. (It's even one of her little skull shaped tools). After that Forge's security footage is edited, his cameras are programmed to go silent for three minutes with no lapse in the time codes to cover her escape and she's out the door.

Back in her car she's driving away, Now that the Analyzer is fully under my control I can make sure that it won't detect any member of the Brotherhood before the government gets it. One step closer….

Page 16-17 (Rachel and Kitty)

At a clothing store in Manhattan Rachel finds herself shopping for an appropriate outfit for meeting her fiancées parents. This is complicated by her fiancée currently being six, and his parents being Reed and Sue Richards of the Fantastic Four.

Kitty says, "So what kind of look do you want?" She herself is presently wearing a knee-length skirt over leggings, and a big sweater, under a ski jacket.

Rachel, also in a ski jacket, with leather pants visible below it, responds, "I want them to know I'm taking this seriously -- so not formal, exactly, but a 'nice girl' look. Old fashioned enough to not be threatening, but not enough to be unexpected. How do I do that, here and now?"

"Same as since the 1950s," Kitty says. "Nice jeans, or slacks, or a longish skirt, with a blouse and sweater on top." She stands on tiptoe and peers across the store. "Not a cardigan, though. This way!" She grabs Rachel's hand and pulls her along.

Some time later, Rachel is pulliing on a peach sweater over a black skirt and a white button-down inside a woman's dressing room. Other skirts, sweaters, and shirts hang nearby. "How does it look? What's going on with you and Peter, anyway?"

"Nothing much, right now," Kitty replies with practiced casualness. "I don't think peach is really your color - try the blue."

"But." Rachel bites back whatever she was going to say, "Never mind. That's the future--no, the never was. I don't know that the blue is me--what about the red?"

_Never was,_ Kitty thinks. Yeah.

Aloud, she says, "Okay, here. But try it with this patterned blouse. That'll be a little less 'Catholic school,' I think." She hands over a red V-neck sweater and a blouse with a semi-abstract floral pattern in light blue.

'''''

Thirty-four stories above, inside the world famous Baxter Building, Susan Richards is looking in her closet, trying to figure out what to wear for today's lunch. Reed, wearing his Fantastic Four uniform, is having no such trouble.

"Honestly Reed, I wish that you were being a little more formal for this," She says, holding up first one blouse and then another. "This is important."

"Yes," Reed acknowledges, "But it's not like there's a protocol for this kind of meeting. Besides, this is what I was going to wear today regardless."

"Men," Susan fumes, then settles on a somewhat formal looking white blouse.

'''''

Shortly thereafter the pair is in the reception room when an elevator door chimes in anticipation of their visitor.

The elevator door slides open to reveal Rachel in her newly purchased outfit.

Rachel -- nervous, but due to having had some time to prepare -- relatively collected, appears in the elevator, her hands, with effort, hanging at her sides.

"Good afternoon, Miss Summers," Reed says with a friendly tone, ever so slightly elongating his arm to be able to shake her hand. "Welcome to the Baxter Building. I understand that you're from a parallel future?"

"Reed, please," Sue whispers to him before saying, "It's nice to see you again, Rachel. May I call you Rachel?" seeing how inane that sounds she adds "would you like something to drink?"

"Yes to both, please, Mrs. Richards," Rachel says, shaking Reed's hand. "To all three, really, although I was trying to go into my own past. I guess it's possible that my arriving here--or sending Kitty back--changed things so that it was never my past, though."

"Fascinating," Reed says, "The equations in time travel theory are so complex that Koenig speculated that the computers needed to properly analyze it will only be available at the very end of this universe's time stream."

As he's talking he's gracefully indicating that Rachel should follow him into a sitting room while Susan gets some water for them.

"For example, I can gather from the security footage that our roof was not your intended landing zone when you appeared here. Calculations suggest that you didn't use a time platform to initiate the temporal shift," Reed gestures to one of the chairs.

Rachel sits, staying on the edge of a her chair. "No, I didn't. Franklin told me how the time platforms worked when we conceived of the idea of trying to change the past, but we didn't have one, or a way to build one. So I did the work myself. Sending a mind back was easier, but the same principle."

Reed looks thrilled, "You sent an individual consciousness back? I had never even contemplated such a thing!"

He pauses for a second, then continues "Presumably not your own, since such a maneuver would require a neurologically compatible host body to hold the consciousness and, judging from your age and previous statements, your appearance predated your initial biological incarnation in this timeline. Was it a self maintaining transition or one that required consent psionic pressure to keep the consciousness below its original chronal state?"

"Reed," Susan warns again as she the room with a tray containing both a pitcher of ice water and a small tea service.

"I wasn't sure which you'd prefer," she says to Rachel. She places the tray on the table in everyone's easy reach and then sits, straightening her skirt. Rachel can't help but notice that Miss Richards is also sitting on the edge of her chair.

"Tea would be lovely, thank you," Rachel says,

Susan asks "So, how did you and Franklin meet?" The look on her face makes it clear that on some level she knows this is pathetically awkward, but she can't find any other way though it other than traditional protocol.

"We were members of the New Mutants -- the third New Mutants team, put together after the mansion was destroyed and the X-Men were scattered and dead. Franklin...was nice, and smart; we spent a lot of late nights talking when we should have been sleeping. One thing lead to another, and...we fell in love. Even though it was never the right time and place for it."

"Oh," Susan says, and her tea cup rattles slightly against its saucer. It doesn't take telepathy to see that she is thinking about her own courting of a nice, smart older man for whom the time looked like it would never be right.

"How old was Franklin when you met him?" Reed asks.

"Twenty," Rachel smiles. "I was twelve. I had a huge crush on him at13, but I got over it."

Susan has to put her cup down.

Reed smiles back at Rachel, "Yes, well we know something of that in this family."

"How long ago did Franklin...Your Franklin..." Susan gropes for the word, can't find it, and trusts that the pause will serve as well.

"About six months," Rachel says. "We'd just escaped from the interment center, but the Sentinels had traced us. Franklin was amazing -- he destroyed one sentinel instantly and almost destroyed the one behind it -- but another Sentinel managed to catch him with a blast at point blank." There wasn't anything left."

"Oh," Susan says again, her hand going to her mouth.

Reed looks somber, saying "Your presence in our timeline before your own birth will make sure that sequence of events can't happen in our timeline, however. Any part of it. Since you said he was aware of this work in my field Franklin would have known that by sending back a new variable he was, at the very least, creating a new timeline, quite possibly eliminating his own adult existence to make a better world. I think we have to honor that sacrifice."

There is a moment of silence before Reed continues, "Still, our son has left us with a conundrum. Rachel, Susan said that Franklin recognized you?"

Rachel a hand across the corner of an eye. "Yes, he did. "Franklin -- in my timeline -- did have flashes of the future sometimes. But I can't say what this means."

Reed responds, "Franklin's mutant powers are extremely potent, and extremely unpredictable. Unlike other mutants his powers emerged well before puberty, and a year ago Franklin consciously put dampers into his mind to prevent his powers from emerging before he was old enough to handle them. His apparent exocognitive ability in your case means those dampers are either breaking down, or his mind is slowly releasing them. In any event it's something we have to be aware of."

Rachel nods. "So, what now? May I have some more tea please?"

"Of course," Susan says. She seems to have steadied herself, perhaps lulled a bit by her husband's analytical tone. "As far as what now, well, I'd very much like for you to consider us as friends. I'm not sure how... comfortable you'll be with seeing Franklin, but as for us, well, I think we have too much in common to ignore."

"I'd like that," Rachel says. "I haven't had many chances, since I've been back, to make friends outside the X-Men, and you are both close enough to understand what I've been through and not so close that have to keep reminding myself that you aren't the people I knew in the future.

Reed adds "I would like to schedule a time for you to come and visit with Franklin present. I'd like to be able to see how he interacts with you."

"That...", Rachel answers, her voice controlled "I think that's a good idea. I don't know how I should be approaching Franklin -- this time's Franklin, assuming there's a distinction, but I don't think he's someone I can safely avoid. And God help me, I still love him; hopefully if I spend time around him that can become love of the child he is, not love of the person he could be."

"This will have to wait, however," Reed says. "We're getting ready for a family trip to California to tend to my Father's estate*. We should be back in a few weeks."

[*Ed: see the events starting in Fantastic Four #271 for more time bending fun!]

Page 18 (Wolverine)

Logan is in the mansion garage fiddling with his motorcycle when Rhane approaches him. She's exhibiting her usual shyness but nothing worse, meaning that Charlie hasn't enlightened her to what she did while under Karma's control.

Good. Kid doesn't need that kind of memory. He's got too many.

"Sir? There's a phone call for you," she says.

"Be there in a sec." He dusts himself off sufficiently to not leave an actual trail of grease spots. Presumably it's something significant. Casual phone calls don't happen here.

On the phone he hears the recognizable voice of Dr. Michael Twoyoungman, aka Shaman of Alpha Flight. "Logan, I have some bad news."

It must be bad, because Michael's using his Doctor Giving Bad News voice.

"Jimmy's dead."

His hand tightens on the phone, but that is the only outward sign of emotion. "What happened?"

"Jerome Jaxon figured out his secret identity, and was able to get Roxxon Oil to fund a conspiracy against him. Jaxon lured Heather and Jimmy to New York City with a job offer and then attacked him with a group of former Beta and Gamma Flight trainees recruited into Jaxon's Omega Flight. Alpha followed of course, and were easily able to defeat the trainees, but not before Jaxon separated Jimmy from the group and attacked him with a giant robot."

"Jimmy beat Jaxon's robot, but his suit was badly damaged." Michael swallows, then continues, "Heather had been trying to escape her own confinement and stumbled on him as he was trying to detach the short circuiting power pack, distracted him. She watched him incinerate into less than ashes."*

[*ED: see Alpha Flight #12.]

"She's in a bad way, Logan."

The animal is already planning its stalk, the inflicting of a wound to balance this one; Mike's words snap him back harshly. That can wait. It will wait.

"I can be on a plane in two hours."

"Thanks," Michael replies, then he gives Logan the name of the hospital that Heather's recovering at after a recent reckless attempt to play hero.

Both men know that Logan is persona non grata in Canada, and not legally allowed to enter the country.

Both men know that his status won't matter at all.

[ED: see this story continue in Alpha Flight #17 and a future issue of Marvel Team-Up!]

Page 19-20 (Peter, Kitty and Kurt)

The planned meeting between Amanda and Ilyana was delayed, as these things often are, by one of the participants being transported to an alternate magical dimension and being forced to face a demonic spirit bear. Once she’d recovered from that, however….

Amanda arrives at the school, driven by Kurt, and exits the car carrying an enormous carpet bag and carrying an umbrella against the icy rain. The effect makes her look just a little like Mary Poppins.

“Hello, everyone,” she says when entering as she shakes the rain from her umbrella. “Ilyana.”

“Hi,” the blonde girl replies. “Are you going to be able to do…this?” Ilyana’s voice has a defensive edge, something that’s clearly trying to stave off her uneasiness.

“I’m going to try, though I understand you managed to use these abilities to help your friends a couple week’s back?” Amanda responds.

“Yeah,” She says, “They’re not all bad. I was actually able to do some good, but the whole time I was afraid I’d…”

"Afraid you'd do what, Ilyana?" Kurt asks.

Peter takes his sister's hand in silent support.

Kitty, on her other side, gives her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

She shrugs, "Fail them, I guess. I had to use a lot of magic; Wardings as potent as I've ever crafted, the sword, the armor. In the end we won, and I saved Dani's parents. I was able to use my magic to help people, and you'd think that was great, but..."

She pauses, then pushes on, "I couldn't get the wards to go up at first. I was thinking I had to help my friends, and the wards wouldn't go up. But when I thought about how I had to protect my forces to kill the rival, the bear, well, that worked fine. I had to think of my friends as tactical assets, expendable tactical assets - worse, _easily_ expendable tactical assets - in order to make the spells work."

"In order to help them, I had to act, think like I was evil." She shudders.

Kurt leans forward in concern. "'We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be,'" he quotes, almost unconsciously.

"That sounds like a mental block," Kitty says. "I've read about mutants who had trouble with their powers that way."

Amanda nods, "It's true for sorcerers as well - mental state is very important for spellcasting, so if Belasco taught you this way that would make sense. Worse, Kurt's right: the more comfortable you get in those modes of thought the more ingrained they become."

"I think we should move this discussion somewhere more comfortable," Amanda says.

The Danger Room, under Kitty's direction, looks like a comfortable stylish living room.

Amanda pulls out a small leather notebook and a fresh yellow legal pad from her carpet bag, along with a steaming teapot and the rest of the tea service. This does not do much for dispelling the Mary Poppins image.

The tea is again poured and drunk, and Amanda asks Ilyana to run through her experiences for the group, just as she had asked the others to confer with her. The girl hesitates a moment and then plunges on. Kitty and Peter get to hear the whole story again, while Kurt hears the whole horrific tale of deceit and corruption for the first time. Ilyana seems stronger this time, having broken through the dam it's easier for her to recover the ground. Amanda scribbles notes furiously on the legal pad, sometimes conferring with the notebook, which obviously contains the transcription of their last meeting.

Under the influence of the tea, Kitty can't help but notice something - Ilyana skin is a shade darker, no, redder, than it was just a couple weeks ago. Surely she must have gotten a slight sunburn in the parallel 'badlands' dimension she and the New Mutants were in, as any other explanation is too horrible to contemplate.

Kitty thinks, Why does her skin look ... redder? Oh, she must've gotten a sunburn over there.

[BR: insert responses here to hearing her run through this again.]

Once she finishes Amanda says, "OK, I have a couple of notes here based on this, and a lot of this corroborates what I already knew."

"First, and this is new: you said you were the Sorcerer Supreme of Limbo?"

"Yes," Ilyana answers "That's what Belasco was, and I took the title. S'ym acknowledged that."

Amanda shakes her head, "Well, you can't be. It'd be like proclaiming yourself the Sole Sovereign of Hoboken. The scale of the real estate doesn't mach the title. Limbos aren't _proper_ dimensions. They're just unclaimed spaces."

Ilyana looks a little put out at that, "Then what am I?"

Amanda meets her gaze head on, "Lied to. I think Belasco set that up to increase your ego, inflate your sense of power. I have no idea how powerful you really are, but I can all but guarantee that since he trained you, you are not more powerful than him. I think he wants you to think that because he needs you to think you can face him and defeat him later."

Ilyana's face breaks at that, as if this is just one straw too many.

Kurt looks helplessly to Peter and Kitty, expecting one or both ofthem to comfort the distraught girl.

Kitty puts an arm around her. "It'll be all all right, Ilyana. We'regoing to help you."

"How?" she snaps back. "Even my defeating him is apparently part of his plan! How are you going to help me?"

"By taking away his weapons," Kitty says steadily. "Starting with his lies."

[BR: give yourself a Karma Point, Kris. Nice line.]

Peter takes his sister's hands. "Ilyana, he told so many lies that we have to sort them out from the truth. And he didn't give you any time to think, or you would have known he was lying. And then, he focused all his power on making sure your senses told you only what he wanted you to know. So, when you had time to think, your memories were too full of his lies.

"But, now that you know this, you are stronger than those lies. We will find the truth, Ilyana, and we _will_ defeat him. We will show him that he underestimated you."

This puts some steel back in Ilyana's spine. "OK," she says. "So now what?"

Amanda looks at her notes, "I think we need to test something. Ilyana, can you summon your soulsword?"

The girl does so, and again everyone can feel the palpable evil coming off of it. Amanda leans back in her chair, and it's clear that for a second she's struggling to keep her breakfast down.

[BR: I'm curious as to Kurt's response here.]

"OK..." Amanda says, "Now hand it to Kitty."

"But I'm the only one who can...? Ilyana questions, and then does so

[BR: space for Kitty's response, but I'm assuming she takes it.]

The sword feels remarkably light in Kitty's hand, more like one of Kurt's epees than the heavy piece of steel it appears to be. Once she's holding it the sense of evil goes away, popping like a soap bubble.

"Does anyone else feel that?" Kurt asks. "It's ... different when Kitty holds it."

"More manipulation," Kitty says. "Does it feel much too light for its size when you hold it, Ilyana?"

Ilyana nods, "That's part of the design. It weighs as much as you'd think in real life but feels much lighter when you're holding it.Helps me get some force behind the edge."

Next, Kitty turns and thrusts the sword into one of the extra pieces of furniture (in a picture-perfect lunge that shows she's had some sword training).

The sword, as predicted, as no effect on the chair, passing through it as if it weren't there.

Kurt frowns. "Handy in a close fight, I guess. And no one else can wield it?" he adds unnecessarily (though possibly helpful for the readers).

"Kitty, try to hand it to Kurt," Amanda recommends.

The hilt, rather than fitting into his hand, passes through it, striking the floor with a clatter.

"Amanda? What steps do we take next?"

"Lets check Kitty," Amanda says, and recasts the spell that she had used previously to reveal the enchantment on Kitty's skeleton, extending it to include Ilyana.

The spell blackens and shrivels where it directly touches Ilyana, but it does reveal a clear tie between the two girls.

"Drat," Amanda says.

"What?" Ilyana asks.

"There's some sort of divinatory masking spell on you. I think it's probably the same thing that keeps telepaths from reading your thoughts," Amanda replies, "It extends to your amulet - I can't tell a thing about it."

She then tells her what the enchantment on Kitty and its ties to Ilyana mean. The girl blanches at this, but instead of losing her composure again she takes Kitty's hand and squeezes it, an unspoken promise being sealed between the two to see this through.

"But he's made a mistake, right?" Ilyana asks. "I wasn't supposed to talk to anybody. We weren't supposed to figure out that Kitty can hold the sword. And because of that I was never supposed to learn that the swords aura of evil wasn't intrinsic to me, but something tacked on to it?"

"Think about this," Kitty says. "If you really were evil, he wouldn't have to work so hard, would he?"

"OK, Amanda says. Here's the last thing. I did some research on Belasco," She pulls a copy of Spates Catalogue out of her bag. "Allegedly he was a sorcerer in 13th century Florence who sold his soul to the chthonic elder gods, gaining immortality, magical power with the promise to bring the elder gods through to Earth with his bloodstone amulet. He became a half demon himself, and was supposed to populate the earth with a new demon race. He kidnapped Beatrice," she looks at Kurt, "That's right, Dante's Beatrice, and tried to use her as the mother of that race. Dante tracked him down and, surprisingly, got medieval on him.* Belasco got his arm cut off and was trapped inside a cave on an Atlantean island, having lost his amulet. This is according to Dante's journals, in any event."

[*Ed: that line is so anachronistic for the mid 80's but I couldn't resist.]

"I don't know what happened to him after that, but I'd hazard a guess that he escaped at some point, tried again, failed again and was banished to Limbo for his failures. Then he got you to claim control of Limbo and banish him from that, which set him free, though maybe only till his old bosses find out." Amanda looks around the room, settling on Ilyana "I don't think he intended you to be the mother of his new race*. I think he needs your dimension travelling powers to help free the elder gods. Clearly the initial bloodstone enchantment is shot since he had to start again with you. Assuming Dante's account is accurate however, we know what he wants: he wants to free the elder gods, and he wants someone to use as the mother of his demon race."

[*BR: Because that goes to really icky, not comics code certified places]

[Responses? I hope this will spark some discussion.]

"He's twisted and clever," Kitty says thoughtfully, "but he's also not all-knowing."

"And he has a history of failure," says Peter. "He underestimates people."

"Overconfidence," Kitty counters. "All that time manipulating Limbo has distorted his view of things, maybe."

"I do not like the implications of this," Kurt says slowly, "but leading Belasco to his demon masters to face punishment would be a fitting end for the villain. I would be more comfortable if we could uncover his Atlantean prison, perhaps."

"Much better than dealing with demons," Kitty agrees.

Kurt forces a smile and tries to reassure Ilyana. "He has been beaten before, more than once if Dante is to be believed. You can do it again, Ilyana. And we are going to help you."

Finally Ilyana asks "But what about me. How can I learn to beat him? Can you train me?"

Amanda shakes her head, "I don't think the Winding Way is a particularly good fit for your training to date, and I'm little more than a journeyman myself. But I have made contact with an old childhood friend who might be able to help...."

Page 21 (Kitty)

Storm is standing in the medlab, looking down at the still comatose Rogue. Dressed in her leathers Storm is able to safely lay her gloved hand on Rogue’s forehead.

“Poor girl,” she thinks. “It’s strange that of the two of us targeted by that attack I should be recovering my center faster than you.”

“I’m not sure you can hear me,” she says aloud, “But I don’t blame you for what happened. I hope you can forgive yourself.”

She turns, eventually, and heads back up to the residential levels, eventually reaching Kitty’s room, knocking softly.

"Come in," Kitty calls. She sits up on her bed, setting aside her book, when Storm comes in. "Ororo," she says, smiling.

"Kitty, how are you?"

Ororo looks around the room, seeing in her mind's eye the changes in decorations, clothes and ephemera over the last two years that have marked Kitty's natural transition from a child to a young woman.

Kitty can tell that something has Ororo... not quite upset, but clearly off kilter.

"Okay," she says. "Taking a break from staring at the screen over there... How are *you*?"

Ororo seats herself next to Kitty. There's an awkward pause where the woman is nearly crying before she says "Leaving. I'm leaving. I'm going back home, to Africa, for a while."

Kitty's eyes open wide, and she catches Ororo in a hug.

Ororo returns it fiercely, and Kitty has the feeling that Ororo is on a knife's edge - if she asks her not to go, she may very well stay.

After a moment Kitty pulls away a little, and she's crying. "You have to do what's best for you, Ororo."

"Oh, I shall miss you, Kitty," she too is wiping tears from her cheeks. "But I shall be back, and soon, for Kurt has promised me a party."

After a moment Ororo pulls back from the hug and looks at Kitty with a serious expression, pushing the girl's hair away from her face as she does so.

"It's strange," Ororo says. "I keep thinking of you, on some level, as being the age you were when we first met. But you've grown so much. When I was little more than your age I was already on my own, in the Serengeti, and I had just met the first love of my life. I was so sure I was an woman then, just as I am sure you becoming one now."

"Umm," Kitty says, staring off toward some spot on the floor. "I wish I could just skip the 'becoming' part!"

Ororo chuckles "Don't, because you can't. Just because I was so sure at the time doesn't mean I was really any closer than you are now. I made my share of grand mistakes that I did not even comprehend, so be sure, and suffered my own embarrassments that I felt were the end of the world."

Kitty looks thoughtful for a moment, then bites her lip and sighs.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm two people - one a serious student, and the other one trying out for a role on a soap opera."

"Don't think I haven't felt the same," Ororo says. "That's the nature of life. What I've learned at great expense is to not let anyone define who you are, or limit your options. Not even yourself. We are vast, Kitty, We contain multitudes. Try to be the whole you, the one who studies and loves, who is serious and who cries, the one who excels and the one who laughs. We can do nothing else if we want to be fully human."

Kitty sighs. "Okay," she says, marshaling her strength - for Ororo's sake as much as her own. "I can do that. One day at a time."

Page 22 (Aside)

Emma Frost is in New York, stalking into the Hellfire Club building in New York in her sever white business suit and an attitude of extreme irritation. She blows past wait staff in their Victorian themed costumes and heads for elevators to the meeting room of the inner circle.

Shaw, Tessa and Leland are waiting for her, and Shaw is wearing a grim expression. “You look well,” Shaw quips while handing her a drink.

“Hardly,” she replies, taking a sip and setting it aside.

“What was so critical that you needed us here in person?” Leland asks her, clearly slightly put out.

“Xavier,” Frost replies. “He made a direct attack against me at the Academy. His X-Men – Nightcrawler and the Pryde brat specifically – destroyed our Cerebro, the Combat Room, and all of the Shi’ar tech. Xavier erased the memory of the engineers who have been analyzing the technology. And he threatened me, and all of us, with further attacks from the X-men in the future.”

“I knew it!” Leland says, “I knew it was an error to rile them up with recruiting Coy Mahn! At least until the manufacturing was finished!”

“Calm down, Harry.” Shaw tells him, “if this were connected to Coy Mahn’s assault I suspect they would have been much less subtle. I suspect this has to do with the initial technology acquisition scheme. Emma?”

“I agree,” Frost says from behind a dressing shade. Her clothes are hanging over the shade and after a moment she steps out in her White Queen garb. “His focus was much more on our confinement of his students, and our past history of informational acquisition.”

“How great was the technological loss,” Leland asks, somewhat mollified.

“Total,” Frost grimaces. “We lost all of it.”

Shaw crushes his glass in his hand, clearly irate at the setback. There’s a change in the room, a sense that for the first time the Inner Circle had lost the initiative, and then Tess speaks, “Not completely.”

“What do you mean, Tessa?” Frost asks icily. “I would think I know the state of my own facility.”

Tessa, obviously used to the inner circle’s dismissive attitudes, continues confidently. “Mr. Shaw had placed me in charge of the secret logistical transport of materials to the Wideawake-designated manufacturing facilities. We had a construction flow opening in Scotia open Thursday last and with Mr. Shaw’s standing authorization I cleared a small transport of Shi’ar materials from Show Valley to Scotia.”

Frost’s eyes glitter dangerously but Shaw ignores her obvious temper at his perceived overstepping her authority, asking his aide, “And what was transported?”

“A small manufacturing unit with class four Von-Neumann capabilities that had been duplicated from the original design and a miniaturized gravetic wave power plant and associated control AI,” Tessa crisply informs him. “I received a receipt of property by the site manager and they’ve already begun work.”

Shaw smiles broadly, “Excellent.” He turns to the others. “A setback, certainly, but also an opportunity. Xavier clearly thinks that he has destroyed all of the Shi’ar technology, since even Emma’s staff was unaware of the transport. And as luck would have it we salvaged two of the key components in duplicating the Trask designs.”

“Let Xavier revel in his apparent victory this round. The Hellfire Club’s plans continue unabated.”