1985

Jean was reading up in her room when she heard them talking.

Nice ride, she thought, seeing it through the mind's eye of some neighbors, pulling a memory from one of them to more properly identify it as a Mercedes-Benz Maybach salon car, evidently some kind of classic. She didn't much care for cars. But she caught a resonance from one of the occupants that made her quirk an eyebrow in fascination, a surprisingly adult gesture for a girl of such ostensibly tender years. Given his history and the emotional memories held on a very tight leash, she wondered why he'd possess a German-made car. Spitting in the face of the past, perhaps? She considered probing further but even that cursory stroke of his thoughts had left her with a skull-splitting headache. Neither of the men, she realized, much liked psychic intruders. They were expected. She picked that up from her parents right away, bothered a little that she hadn't noticed earlier. It was second nature to pry; minds for her had quickly become so transparent that it was like walking through a world made of glass. Almost nothing could be hidden from her, and so much of it was stuff that was so banal, so beyond boring- occasionally so disgusting- that she'd had to remind herself, then force herself, more and more often lately, to mind her own damn business.

She heard a voice, in her thoughts, not her ears, although the man in the car spoke aloud. "I still don't know why we're here, Charles. Couldn't you just make them say yes?"

She didn't much like that, and stepped to her window to see for herself who'd come to meet her parents.

She saw as man, thirty-something and prematurely bald, eminently respectable in a bespoke suit. Hawk like with the features, piercing eyes, a born hunter. He carried himself with the easy grace of an athlete, comfortable in his strength, confident of his abilities. There was a twist of sorrow to what little of his inner self she could divine, a sense around the edges that he had been places and done things substantially at odds with his upright demeanor. He'd been to war, she realized, when he was very young; he'd needed to prove something to himself, and it had left its mark. First impression, she liked him.

His words cemented the feeling. "Of all people," he said to his companion, "I would expect you to understand my feelings about misuse of power."

The second man emerged and the contrast couldn't have been more pronounced. Dress and manner, as well as accent, suggested a European background. The color of his suit made Jean smile. Not many men would dare to wear royal purple, but he made it work.

"Power corrupts, and all that," said the taller man, the European, with the air of someone who'd had this discussion too many times. "Yes, Charles, I know. When will you stop lecturing me?"

"when you start listening?" Charles replied easily, using a very slight smile to take the edge off words that he meant seriously.

"We're not going to meet ever one of them in person are we?"

"No, Erik. This one is special."

Jean didn't much like the sound of that. Ghosting her perceptions over the periphery of her parents', she caught all the appropriate introductions: the bald man was Charles Xavier; the other, his friend and colleague, Erik Lensherr. Mom ushered them into Dad's study, where she'd already set out a fully laden tea tray.

"Your school looks wonderful," she said, once everyone was settled, gesturing towards the pile of brochures that had arrived much earlier. "What a beautiful campus. And Salem Center's only an hour and change down the Taconic; it's not like Jean's going very far away."

"The brochure is great," her husband agreed. He was standing behind his desk, so that their guests couldn't help seeing the wall of diplomas and awards that went with being a tenured professor at a major independent college. "But I'm concerned about Jean. What about her… illness?"

"Illness?" Lensherr said, so quietly that both John and Xavier got the message. The one bridled while the other raised an eyebrow in what he hoped was a subtle but unmistakable warning.

Sensing the spike in tension, Elaine Hurriedly intervened: "Now, John!"

"You think your daughter is sick, Mr. Grey?" Lensherr asked in that same silken tone, choosing to ignore Xavier's caution. On cue, as if to complement his undertone, the tea tray shifted ever so slightly.

"Erik," Xavier said, speaking both aloud and with his thoughts, "please."

"Call it what you like," John Grey continued, refusing to be cowed. "What's been happening to Jean is not normal. No one can explain it- not medical doctors, nor psychiatrists- and none of them have been able to help. All we know for sure is that she is getting worse."

"Are you afraid of her?" Lensherr asked, almost as if he assumed they were.

"She's my daughter," John flared, "I want to help her."

"As do we," Xavier interjected, playing his usual role as peacemaker, biting back the flash of irritation he felt whenever Erik let his growing antipathy towards baseline humans get the better of him. "The whole point of our school is to help people like your daughter. Perhaps, it might be better for us to talk to her. Alone."

"Of course." Elaine Grey said, stepping into the hallway, "Jean," she called, "can you come down a moment, dear?"

Jean was fairly tall for her age, but lean and rangy despite the first curves of womanhood. Her hair was a dark red, like a fire seen in the heart of the deepest forest, where the flames are mostly hidden by trees and shadow. Her beauty was self-evident; by the time she was full-grown, it would be breathtaking, with the foundation of bone structure that guaranteed it would only improve with age.

"We'll leave you, then," John Grey told them.

Jean sat on the couch opposite the two men, her demeanor as polite as it was guarded. She'd decided on the way down to let them make the first move.

Xavier obliged her.

"It's very rude, you know…," he said-but his lips didn't move.

Her breath went out of her all in a huff. It never occurred to her that he could do what she did.

"…to read my thoughts, or Mr. Lensherr's without our permission."

He was sending her more than words; there was a vast and complex texture to their communication that told her she'd been busted from the first fleeting telepathic contact as they drove down the street. While she'd been spying on them, Xavier was taking her full measure as a psi, without her being the slightest bit aware of it.

Lensherr picked up the conversation from there- only he spoke aloud, suggesting to Jean that his abilities differed markedly from Xavier's. "Did you think you were the only one of your kind, girl?"

She intended to keep her response to herself, and bridled ever so slightly when Xavier "heard" it anyway. What kind is that? She thought.

"We are mutants, Jean," Xavier said. "We are like you."

She felt a flicker of irritation, like the striking of a match within her soul, heralding a flash of temper that was coming more and more often lately, more and more intense, no matter how hard she tried to keep it under control.

She smiled in a way that promised trouble, a warning.

"Really?" The thoughts and emotions that accompanied that single word were raw and rude. "I doubt that."

Xavier reacted first, to a volley of psychic alarms, Lensherr, following his gaze to look out the study window towards the street.

The next door neighbor, Mr. Pash, was running headlong down the length of his front yard, partly dragged by his lawn mower, partly chasing frantically after it, as the old machine launched itself skyward as if it was wearing blue tights and a cape and was bent on leaping tall buildings in a single bound.

At the same time, the stream of water from Mr. Lee's hose decided to rebel against the reign of gravity and see what it was like to pour up instead of down. From him, Xavier and Jean heard a muttered expletive, while Pash's initial frisson of startlement gave way to a bark of incredulous laughter.

Then the laughter faded as he caught sight of what else was floating. All along the street, every car in view had suddenly levitated more than ten feet into the air. Nothing else had changed; it was as though they'd been lifted on invisible platforms.

All told, better than ten tons of metal hung suspended, yet Jean wasn't even straining.

Lensherr couldn't help a smile, or a comment. "Oh, Charles, I like this one."

Xavier wasn't amused. "You have more power than you can imagine, Jean."

Her thought, instinctive, defiant. I dunno, I can imagine quite a lot.

She met his gaze.

"The question is, "he continued, refusing to rise to her unspoken challenge, "will you control that power…"

She lost focus, just like that, and the cars crashed at once to the street. She kept her eyes locked on his, realizing that somehow he'd slipped into her mind and blocked the connections between desire and response. She understood immediately how this had happened; with no one but herself possessing psychic powers, how would she have developed any defenses against another with those same abilities? She didn't like that, hated the thought of being vulnerable; she liked even less the peremptory way he'd acted. He could have asked; sure, she was showing off, but if he'd treated her with respect she'd have listened.

"…or let it control you?" he finished.

She didn't give him an answer because deep down inside, where the answer really mattered, she didn't have one to offer, not which had any value. She suspected it was a question- a challenge- she'd hear often in the days to come.

She knew she'd attend his school. She'd learn from him all that he was prepared to teach- if only to be able to stand on her own two feet, free from anyone's control.

X

1995

Father was at the bathroom door, knocking politely. Warren refused to listen.

"Warren?" called Worthington Jr. Top tier of the Forbes 100, one of the few American billionaires who wasn't head of a computer giant or a dot-com, one of those rarer still who'd taken the modest inheritance of his own father and built it into something of tangible and lasting value. "Son?" Pause, another knock. "Everything okay?" Another pause, another knock, voice creeping up a notch in the anxiety index. "What's going on in there?"

"Nothing, Dad," called Worthington III, railing inside at the tremor in his voice. "Be right out!"

He was twelve and had the features of an angel. Blond hair, face to die for and a body of whipcord muscle, without a spare ounce; he was far stronger than you'd expect of a boy his age. He stood bare to the waist before the big mirror in his bathroom. In his left hand he held a boning knife, swiped from the kitchen just the other day, right after the cook had done the weekly sharpening. The blade was tungsten steel and sharper than a scalpel. There was blood on the blade, blood on the sink, blood on the floor. Warren knew he should have done this in the tub, where he could wash away all the evidence, but there was no view of the mirror from there and he had to be able to see what he was doing.

Sweat coated his face, and he had to force himself to take deep, slow breaths in a vain attempt to calm his racing heart. His metabolism had always been hyper as far back as he could remember; he ate more at meals than most sumo wrestlers and had to struggle not to lose weight. Reactions were the same; that's why he couldn't play baseball anymore. Every at bat was an intentional walk, for his skill at making contact with the ball, if it was even marginally near the strike zone, was uncanny. Likewise his fielding. No matter how fast the play, for Warren everything happened in slow motion. And magnificent as his reflexes were, his eyesight eclipsed them. He drove his optometrist to distraction, because there wasn't a test that could accurately measure his vision. He never told anyone of the test he'd tried on his own, slipping onto the open air observation deck of the World Trade Center and looking out towards Kennedy Airport, a dozen miles away. With the tourist binoculars, you could make out the planes taking off. Warren, with his naked eyes, could read the serial numbers on their fuselage. Looking across the East River towards the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, he could see the details of people's faces and clothing as they strolled- he could even read the banner headlines on their newspapers.

But, that wasn't why he kept the visit secret. While there, he had heard a high rising screech a little below and to the side, and looked down to see a red-tailed hawk soaring effortlessly on the thermals generated by the giant HVAC fans atop the Wall Street skyscrapers, cooling the offices within while creating a perpetual heat sink a thousand feet above Manhattan's streets. It was the most wondrous sight he'd ever seen and, without thinking, his head and upper body began to move in tandem with the hawk, as though Warren could also feel the swirls and eddies of the atmosphere. He imagined what it must be like to feel the rush of air across its wings, to plunge headlong towards oblivion, only to snap the wings wide at precisely the right second to save itself and bag the prey. To Warren Worthington III that seemed like Heaven.

And Heaven was likely where he'd have ended up had a young woman's strong hands not caught him by the shoulders and pulled him back from the railing.

With a start that left him speechless and trembling, he realized that he'd had one foot and both hands on the rail, and his next move would have been to climb over. Yes, it was only a modest fall to the roof below-thank God the observation platform had been set well back from the edge of the building itself-but for Warren it was the thought that counted most. Or rather, the lack of it, because he couldn't remember much except wanting more than anything to soar with that hawk.

"Are you all right?" the woman asked, quite calmly, as if this sort of thing happened to her all the time. She was taller than he was, more beautiful than any of the myriad faces that stared out from the newsstand walls of fashion magazines, but the most striking thing about her were her eyes, so golden that they were almost glowing, and the way she didn't quite look at him, almost as if she were looking right through him. She didn't look too much older than him, but she had the look of an old soul, one who had seen and done far too much. She wore a long strapless white dressed that billowed around her with the winds that accompanied the high altitudes.

"I…I…" was the best he could stammer.

"It's all right to envy them," she said, with a smile that washed over him like the sun after a spring rain, just as a cry from the access door heralded the arrival of his parents. She gave him a wink and a gentle squeeze on his arm that let him know this was their secret. "We just have to remember we don't have wings." She looked past him and reached out to pluck a feather out of the air that was streaming past. Offering the pristine feather out to him, she smiled slightly, taking care to not let her hand touch his.

Her words made perfect sense- and yet, there was something to the way she said them, the way she looked out across the sky towards that spiraling bird that told him she knew far more than she was saying.

Except-when he and the family had reached the doorway, and he'd turned back to wave good-bye, she was gone. Quickly, he swung his eyes across the entirety of the outdoor deck, but she was nowhere to be found; as if she'd never been.

Warren winced with pain, knew there'd be more blood, the memory banished by the tears that started unbidden from his eyes. He was crying like a baby. But he steeled himself against the tears, against the pain, against the fear. This had to be done.

He scraped the blade across his back, so intent on his purpose that completely missed the latest round of knocks on the door and the call of his father's voice.

"Come on, Warren," his father said, close to the end of his patience, "it's been an hour. Open his door." He still wasn't angry, although that would be soon in coming. At the moment he simply seemed concerned by his only son's increasingly strange behavior.

"One second," Warren Cried, trying to buy as much time as he could, unaware of how clearly his pain and tears and terror radiated through those two simple words. He moved without thinking, grabbing for his tools to stuff them into the lockbox he'd secreted in the drawer.

Too late

The door burst open and in came Warren Worthington Jr., tall as his son would someday be, the fulfilled promise in maturity of the boy's crisp beauty, yes broadly muscular in a way that Warren would never reach. Whatever emotions the father felt going in the door vanished the moment he beheld his son, standing before the mirror where Warren could see reflected what this father saw directly- a pair of ridged protrusions, as though the boy's shoulder blades had burst upwards through the skin. Only it wasn't those ridges that had torn the boy's flesh. That culprit was the length of gleaming steel in his hand.

None of that was what made Worthington Jr. gasp and gape, in shame and horror and disbelief, his mind suddenly flooded with rage at the hand God had dealt him, not directly but through this child he loved more than his life. The objects of those emotions were scattered on the sink and floor, and some still protruded from Warren's back, where the blade had missed them, or the boy hadn't quite been able to reach.

Worthington Jr. took a step forward. Without his glasses, the scene wasn't quite as crisp as he wanted it, the objects on the sink and floor just out of focus enough to require a closer look. Warren misinterpreted the action-small wonder given the expression of horror and disgust on his father's face- and tumbled himself into the corner, hands held up before him as though he expected to be hit. That alone was enough to break the father's heart…

….but he couldn't bring himself to touch his boy, even though his pain and misery were palpable.

Instead, he reached for the objects and had been cut from Warren's back, refusing to accept what his eyes reported until he had them in his hand.

Feathers.

"No," the father breathed, in denial.

His son was sprouting feathers.

"Please God, no!"

His son, God help him, was growing wings!

"Not you, Warren. Not…this."

And there were tears on Worthington's face now, to match those on his son's. One in a corner, the other on his knees, both in desperate need of comfort, neither with any to offer.

X

2000

Five years hadn't changed the father much. He wasn't quite as rich as he'd been before, but that was because he'd divested a fairly significant portion of his holdings and personal fortune to endow a number of rather esoteric research establishments across the world. He was still handsome, he was still charming-but that day in his son's bathroom had left its mark in more ways than one. There was a haunted quality to his eyes that told of a commitment to a cause.

"You asked me to come to Bangalore, Dr. Rao. I'm here. What do you have to show me?"

In terms of size, this was a modest lab, a small part of an industrial estate that was accommodating India's burgeoning software industry. The reason for placing it here was mainly to have access to dependable power and state-of-the-art computing facilities, not to mention the geeks to tweak the systems. Kavita Rao was both an MD and a geneticist, rated on a par with Moira Mactaggart of Edinburgh University and considered just as likely to someday claim a Nobel for medicine. The team she'd gathered in Worthington's name was nearly on a par with her, and the clinic she'd built with his money was worthy of them all.

One wall consisted of nothing but a giant flat-screen display, which would have cost a decent fortune in and of itself but for the fact that another company in the park specialized in making them. One meeting between Kavita and their managing director, the promise of medical care for their employees, and with that quid pro quo goods and services were speedily and regularly exchanged.

What Worthington Jr. saw on the display was a succession of double helices, which he knew were representations of someone's DNA, the genetic building blocks of life. He hadn't a clue what they meant, despite voluminous reading over the past half decade.

Kavita indicated a rail-thin boy, far younger than Worthington expected, lying in an isolation room. The room had been decorated with an eye to the boy's comfort and peace of mind-it was as much a boy's space as it could be given the circumstances, with games and stuffed animals sharing the venue with monitors and IV stands. He was reading a stack of comics; sensing Dr. Rao's attention on him, he offered up a wave.

"His name is Jimmy," she told Worthington. "It will take some considerable time to explain, and even more to bring matters to fruition, but the initial tests look quite promising. I the fates are kind, all our work may not have been in vain."

"Time is of no consequence," Worthington Jr. said, pulling up a chair beside her. "Tell me everything."

The not so distant future

War zone, pure and simple.

Officially it was night, but the darkness only served as a backdrop for a fireworks display of incredible lethality. The setting had once been a fair-sized town, decent central business district, buildings of some substance, two to five stories tall, built to last, of brick and stone. Spreading outwards in a grid pattern, residential streets, single-family homes, everything from Arts and Crafts bungalows to modern "McMansions." Couple of parks, one mostly green space, the other intended for kids and recreation-playgrounds, baseball diamonds, bikeways and running tracks. Schools, of course, and churches.

All gone.

The battle lines had surged back and forth over the town, in a manner more reminiscent of the Civil War than modern warfare, but played out with weapons that made the rifles and cannons of that bloody conflict look like toys. Not a building in the town had been left whole and hardly any of the ruins that remained were still standing. The trees had been reduced to shattered stubs, trunks and branches either blown to wicked-deadly splinters or scorched beyond recognition. The earth was so pockmarked with shell holes, the streets so chocked with debris, that vehicular transit was out of the question. Moving on foot was no fun either, since the piles of rubble afforded ideal hidey-holes for snipers and ambush parties, as well as for booby traps of every shape and description.

It was a rat's nest, a meat grinder that would chew up any force fool enough to take it on.

So of course, the X-Men had been tasked to do just that.

Laser fire was everywhere as Robert Louise "Bobby" Drake- Iceman- and Katherine Ann "Kitty" Pryde- Shadowcat- dashed for cover. Above all the chaos, a familiar figure who wore black leather, just like everyone else- minus the silver cape- swooped down. Using her ability to sense air displacement, Ororo Munroe- Storm- made a safe landing then dashed for cover.

In the distance, the sky lit up with a line of tracers, curving gracefully through the night as the gunner tracked an airborne target, and a few seconds later the sound of firing followed. Both sight and sound were then overwhelmed by an ugly fireball as the falling bombs hit their target.

Logan's eyes narrowed to slits as he watched from the minimal shelter afforded by the intersection of a house's two stone walls. His senses were more acute than any hunting predator's but in a scrap like this the advantage became a liability. He could see clearly in almost total darkness, yet a surprise burst of tracer rounds could strip him of that night vision in a flash. The healing factor that was his main mutant power would deal with the loss of a couple of heartbeats, but in a firefight those seconds usually made the difference between survival and disaster. Logan's sense of smell allowed him to follow trails that bloodhounds couldn't trace, but there were so many scents to choose from here that it took conscious effort to process them. Suddenly, he had to use conscious thought to direct processes that were normally backbrain second nature. Didn't matter that he still did it with a speed and accuracy that left everyone around him in the dust, whether mutant or sapien. It blunted his edge-and that was unacceptable.

He sniffed the air, to catalogue who-or what- was in his immediate vicinity, and smiled at one smell he recognized

Somebody had been kind enough to lose their cigar.

Cuban. Vintage. Hand-rolled. He caught just the smallest residual flavor of the woman who'd made it enough to recognize her if they met, smiled as he considered the possibilities.

He cupped his lighter to shield the flame from view, aware as he did that this habit from previous battlefields wouldn't help in the least against a heat-sensitive thermal imager; on the other hand, such a device would have nailed him right from the start. No response suggested no such device, which gave him leave to indulge, he didn't get the opportunity very often these days. Too many falmin' rules, too many flamin' busybodies hellbent on enforcing them, too much flamin' aggravation.

Harsh snaps through the air off to the right caught his attention and he sank a little deeper into the building's shadows, instinctively hiding the glowing end of the cigar with the hollow of his hand as multiple pulses of laser fire burned their way overhead, clipping a nearby building and creating a shower of heat-fused masonry. Like hail, only harder. Had it hit something more significant with a more powerful pop, he would have had a spray of shrapnel to contend with.

Logan didn't move; there was no point. Given the lay of the ground, the intensity of the strafing fire, they had nowhere else to go but right past him.

Bingo

Two figures, male and female, in the black leather uniforms of the X-Men. The man was in the lead, big sucker, but moving with surprising grace despite his evident bulk, bare arms standing out from the rest of him in the glow of various explosions. The skin of those arms and of his head reflected the light in a way that told Logan he was metal-even his hair gleamed as though cast from chrome. This was one of the newbies, Piotr Nikolievitch Rasputin. Colossus.

Logan spared him only the merest glance; his focus was mainly on Rogue.

She used to flinch at loud noises; now she kept pace with her companion, bobbing and weaving with practiced grace, presenting a random and unpredictable target for the opposition-showing excellent instincts for dealing with any trouble that came her way.

"How long do we have?" the man called to her.

"Two minutes, tops," she replied, as she dove with him to cover.

Smart girl. The obvious place to hide was the shadowed corner where Logan himself stood, yet she realized that any infantryman worth the name would recognize that as well, and probably drop a brace of rounds on the location just to make sure. She'd chosen a nearby shell hole instead, part of a string of depressions that afforded a messy but relatively secure means of slipping across this open patch of ground.

The moment Rogue hit, she turned her back to the way they'd come, every one of her senses on high alert. Rasputin was a step behind, his attention still on whatever might be chasing them; he hadn't yet twigged to the possibility of a threat from anywhere else. His wasn't as artful a landing, either. Downside to all that bulk was, despite his relative ease of movement, Colossus still landed like a falling bank safe. Slid all the way to the bottom and made a deeper hole of his own.

Logan couldn't help a grin. The girl was pretty damn good. All it had taken was a whiff of his lit cigar.

Better yet, he realized she was looking right at him.

But that was when she made her mistake, standing straight up to greet him, all thoughts of the mission banished behind her smile of welcome and pure delight.

"Logan," Rogue cried.

"I'm away for a while; the whole world goes to hell." He should have known better. They had both breached battlefield discipline, had forgotten for a fateful split second what was happening all around them. And nearly paid dearly for the lapse.

He heard footsteps, the kling of a grenade pin flipping free, but never saw the bomb until it blew on the far side of Rogue. No time to pull her clear, no chance to cover her body with his own. She was too far out of reach.

But Colossus wasn't. His view wasn't masked by Rogue, as Logan's was – he saw the grenade- and in the instant it took to fall, the fraction of a heartbeat before it exploded, he grabbed Rogue's bare hand in one of his.

Back in the day, when Logan first knew her, the assimilation process was gradual. It took a definable length of time, enough for Rogue to have second thoughts, for the subject to pull away, as he felt his life literally pouring out of him. This was virtually instantaneous.

From the point of contact, Rogue's skin flashed chrome as armor rolled up her arm across her body – while Peter's reverted the other way, from organic steel back to normal flesh – so that when the spray of anti-personnel shrapnel reached her, it deflected off…

…to clip Logan instead.

It hurt like hell, both from slashing open a stretch of his side – which bled freely – and because the metal was red-hot, burning him as well. That's why he favored T-shirts and clothes older than most of the junior X-Men; the way he generally got himself torn up, they were the most easily replaceable. Made him smile inside and shake his head, to wonder at the replacement cost of the custom-constructed X-Men uniforms.

Logan pressed his hand against the wound, but no more blood was flowing; there'd been just enough for that first, glorious, indelible stain before the skin regrew. It was still tender, but in a matter of minutes there'd be only a scar, and by tomorrow nothing at all. No sign whatsoever that he'd been wounded.

If only he could dump the sense memories of those hurts as easily. One thing to be a man who's almost impossible to kill; totally another to remember pretty near every one of those quasi-death experiences.

He took another puff of his cigar. They'd been here long enough. "The whole world's going to hell, and you're just gonna sit there?"

"I didn't see you at briefing, bub," Rogue sassed him back, giving as good as she got, which cheered him. "D'you have the slightest idea where we're goin'?"

She had the knowledge from the briefing, but he had the experience. As a brace of searchlights speared down from some hovering platform to illuminate the scene for the enemy gunners, he gestured towards a squat and ugly structure some distance away, across what had been the town's central square.

"I'm thinkin' that bunker."

The look she gave him told Logan he'd scored, and also that if she had just absorbed Cyclops's optic blasts instead of Colossus's steel, the frustration in her eyes might have propelled him all the way over there in a single shot!

He felt a tremor through the ground, saw ripples in a pool of water pulse inward to the center.

Another pulse, establishing a steady cadence whose spacing suggested the march of something massive.

"Time to go, children, "he told the others, noting that both were reverting to their original states; Rogue human, Colossus in armor. She'd way improved since he saw her last.

"We get to that door," Rogue announced, stress making her Mississippi accent a bit more pronounced, breathless from the double-sided transformation, "we're clear."

The two younger X-Men began moving from cover to cover, just as they'd been trained.

Logan started walking, right out in the open, as though he were out for an evening stroll- making himself a stalking horse for anyone dumb enough to take a shot. Watching him, Rogue didn't know whether to admire his courage or shake him silly for being such a damn fool! Logan, she hissed to herself, don't you realize, dummy, that the price of havin' friends, people who truly care 'bout you, is that when you're hurt, we feel it, too!

XXX
Rogue wasn't the only one thinking along those lines. On the far side of a nearby hill, Storm also watched him take his walk and confined her spoken comments to a single word: "Logan!"

Thinking to herself, she used terms that would have given even him pause and made any telepath with access to those thoughts sever the connection instantly. He wasn't supposed to be here, and while his presence was always welcome in a firefight, she really didn't like surprises when lives were on the line.
This was when Storm's apprentice, Hawk- Ashley- came in. Hawk winced and put up her blocks as Storm's thoughts came unwittingly came to her. This was not groing to end well. "What's wrong?"

This was one of those times when she hated the fact that Hawk had empathy. Always getting into other's business when it wasn't her own. Storm looked again through her binoculars, this time checking the integral display. Logan was fifty meters ahead, the bunker some two hundred plus beyond. Then she handed the binoculars to her and pointed straight ahead. Hawk looked up to see why Storm went all dark. When she found her answer, she was shocked. "What's he doin' here?" she demanded. "He's not supposed to be in here, is he?"

"No," Storm replied looking at their time. "And right now we don't have time." Twisting around, she used hand signals to alert the rest of her team, under cover of their own a few dozen meters back and to the side. Kitty Pryde was already on the move, body low to the ground as she sprinted in a zigzag towards Bobby Drake. The maneuvering wasn't really necessary; of all the team, she was the closest to Wolverine in her practical
invulnerability to harm. Not so much like Colossus, whose organic steel armor could actually be breached with the right weapons, but because neither bullets nor energy beams can have much effect on a girl who was
essentially a ghost.

Storm could feel the tremors in the earth as well, could sense the displacement in the air that told her something massive was moving through the night, closing on them with every giant step. Hawk gasped as she turned around. Her perceptions weren't quite as sharp as Storm's, but she knew when danger was near, and danger was certainly nearby. Time had just joined the opposition.

XXX

"You okay?" Kitty called to Bobby as she slid down to join him, misjudging her angle just enough that she arrived half sink into the ground. He didn't say anything, but his look was eloquent: she new the casual way she walked through walls really creeped him out.

"Yeah," he replied. "You?"

"A little dusty."

He reached out and brushed her shoulder clean. She'd invited the contact, and he'd responded, both operating on instinct. That was as far as either was prepared to take things. Now.

Still, he couldn't help giving her a smile. It was clear he liked her. Problem was, while Kitty was a free spirit, Bobby already had a girl – Rogue.

"Storm's signaling; she wants us to catch up. Your lead?"

She grinned and took off, and Bobby had to scramble to keep up. She was as dangerously arrogant as Wolverine when it came to getting hurt. She didn't believe it was possible. Kitty didn't even have to worry much about being taken by surprise, because for the most part her power was always "on." Her natural state, according to Professor Xavier, was to be phased; she stayed coherent by an act of will.

Laser pulses sought them out, and Bobby blocked them with a wall of ice that was porous enough to allow them through but filled with enough impurities – namely dirt – to diffuse the beam to the point of harmlessness.

But those beams weren't the only threat. A brace of
rockets shot in from another direction. Bobby was only aware of them after Kitty suddenly grabbed him, crushing her body against his in a hard embrace that allowed her
to phase them both so the missiles passed through them as if they were air. His insides tingled as they did, reminding him of a joy buzzer-pen his brother had once blown his allowance for on Halloween.



Across the field, Rogue had also seen the approaching missiles – they'd passed her on the way – and in the moment before impact, when she saw Bobby so vulnerable and unaware, her heart stopped and leapt up to her throat. He was happy to see him survive unscathed, but a lot less so when she noted that it took way too many extra moments for him and kitty to break apart.

"Keep movin' kid," Logan told her. He'd seen what she'd seen, damn him; he didn't miss anything. "And keep you eyes dead ahead."

Storm missed it all. She was focused on their objective, and the handheld display which presented her with a map of the battlefield, complete with the disposition of her team and a counter that was just passing ninety seconds.

"Time, people," she told Kitty and Bobby as they arrived, using the comset clipped to her ear to alert the others. "No more margin for error. Iceman, Shadowcat – get in position." This was to Bobby and Kitty directly, using their code names. "On my mark."

The moved forward at a jog trot, quick but careful, in a V-formation led by Storm, with her younger teammates trailing by a couple of steps, covering her flanks while she concentrated on the way ahead. Hawk was just behind them, taking flank with her white wolf, Isis; black horse, Midnight Storm; and her hawk, Sky.

The last bit of cover was a pile of junked cars; beyond was nothing but open ground, an ideal killing field. Somebody with a mortar got their range and began bracketing them with rounds as they approached the checkpoint, inching closer with every shot, the last forcing them to pitch forward in an undignified scramble that brought them with a crash down beside the other assault team, who'd gotten there first.

Logan was leaning against one of the cars, apparently without a care in the world.

"What are you doing here?" Storm flared at him, letting a bit more of her feelings show than she'd actually intended. High above, a complement to those emotions, came a blinding flash, gone almost before it had time to register, accompanied by a basso drum roll that was instantly recognized. A bolt of lightning, a trill of thunder; the elements were echoing Storm's emotions

That wasn't good. The fact that she had to take a moment to master herself didn't help her mood. Chances wee, when this op was over, someone, somewhere might have to deal with some very nasty weather.

"Enjoying the scenery," he suggested, choosing the completely wrong moment for levity and then making it significantly worse by using a piece of flaming debris to relight his cigar.

For a moment, Storm seriously considered going "Zeus" on his insubordinate ass and using her next bolt of lightning to knock him flat. Perhaps a very near miss would knock some sense into his thick Canadian skull. Or at least inspire a modicum of respect.

She dismissed the inspiration even before it was fully formed, because she knew it would do no good. "We're gettin' killed out here!"

XXX

Hawk dove for cover with Rogue and Colossus- who were already there. There was a trill of thunder and lightning. Hawk automatically dove into Storm's mind. "Oh!"

"What's she thinkin'?" Rogue asked.

"Storm's thinkin'- No, no." Hawk cut herself off, then growled. "She was thinkin' about goin' 'Zeus' on Logan, but changed her mind last second".

XXX

He looked down at her with his ever-present quirked brow and replied in an Omni-potent manner, "Yeah, I know! They're not ready storm". He looked back up as the earth started to quake, the sound of gargantuan footsteps could be heard coming up from behind them.

Storm looked in the direction of the sound and saw two round eyes far above where they were hiding, "Logan?"

He rolled his eyes, "Don't get your panties in a bun-"

And suddenly, there was no time for conscious thought at all as she sensed movement in the air – that same massive shape she'd noticed before, only much, much closer. How had it crept up on them so quickly? Realization and action came as one as she grabbed for her friend and teammate and yanked him bodily clear of the car, just as a massive armored foot the size of a semi-trailer squashed it flat.

Logan looked over to the now thoroughly destroyed car that had been their hideout, back at Storm and finally, looking half-heartedly at his hand, he sighed and said,

"That was my last cigar!"

"I got this," said Storm, as the foot moved on. Through the smoke and the shadows, the literal fog of battle, none of them was in a position to see what it was attached to. The younger X-men weren't sure they wanted to. Except for, maybe Hawk.

"Watch my back, okay?" she told him.

"Not a problem," he replied.

XXX

It was a spectacular back, Logan thought. Even masked as it was by the cloak of her uniform. To call Ororo Munroe was beautiful was merely to state the obvious. There was no one- among the X-men in the world - who even came close. Except, the thought came to him, a memory of a wound still fresh enough to hurt: Jean Grey.

"Hey bub," Rogue chided gently, "eyes front right?"

He slid her a look her way, which made her grin and Hawk giggle. Logan subvocalized a growl that set hackles rising on the backs of their necks of both the boys and Kitty, but seemed to make Rogue grin wider, and Hawk giggle harder.

XXX

"Logan!" Storm said after she landed, as he walked through the open air. A bus exploded right beside him as he walked tot he kids.

So obvious a target couldn't be ignored. Their adversaries opened up with everything they had. So foolhardy a friend couldn't be abandoned. Bobby and Peter exchanged quick glances. Then Peter rose to follow.

"Peter!" Storm snapped, genuinely furious now. "Get back here!"

The raw edge of command in her voice actually got through to him, and to Bobby as well, who'd been caught halfway to his feet. Peter stopped, torn between wanting to follow the Wolverine and his responsibility to Storm as mission commander.

"It's getting closer," Rogue said.

Storm, all business, instructed, "Stay in formation. Wait to make your move."

They knew whatever cues she was talking about, but Storm knew Logan didn't. "Hey, Tinman," he called to Colossus. "C'mere." Colossus did. "How's your throwing arm?" He asked, unsheathing a single hand of razor sharp, adamantium claws.

"Logan," she snapped, "we work as a team!"

He smiled tolerantly and she thought more seriously this time about that lightning bolt. "You let me know how that works out for you, darlin'," he replied, and resumed his evening stroll.

As Logan knew, as the others were about to learn, in battle a single moment can swing the balance. Thus far, they'd operated mainly in shadow and anonymity. Their foes had occasional glimpses of them, and a general sense of where they were, but no clearly defined fixed on their position.

Right then, right there, that changed.

Bobby was the first to see the light, attracted by the commotion. He screamed a warning.

"Peter!"

Too late. Even as Colossus turned, the searchlight found him, and that contact brought all its fellows to bear. Just like that, the team's position was illuminated in a flood of light that defined the scene as bright as the day. A moment later, the bad guys opened fire. With everything they had.

"Move out," Storm yelled. "Stay together!"

Instead, they scattered.

"Does no one understand what stay together means?" Hawk asked to no one in particular.

Momentarily forgotten amidst the suddenly target-rich environment, Logan kept walking, the personification of calm amidst growing chaos.

With a multitude of small, fast-moving targets to choose from, however, the gunners found themselves facing a completely different challenge than when the teams had been clustered together. The X-Men couldn't share their abilities to cover one another, but at the same time, they were individually facing a smaller array of weapons. They all began making quick progress towards their final objective.

In the lead, Storm's glance kept flicking between the battlefield and the countdown clock strapped to her wrist. Time was the inflexible adversary here, not the guys with the guns. The X-Men had a deadline, and they couldn't be late.

"Storm," called Bobby, indicating the bunker, like the kid with the winning touchdown in hand, a step from the goal line, "we're almost there!"

It blew up in his face. Hawk, who was behind Storm, screamed, reflexively holding her hands in front of her face.

Storm wasn't sure whether it was a shell from outside or some hidden sapper charge; what mattered was the spectacular explosion that would have knocked her off her feet had she not used her won innate control of the winds to shunt the pressure wave around her. Bobby wasn't so fortunate. He not only went flying, he got clipped by debris for his trouble. Bad landing as well, that left him in a twisted, crumpled, unmoving heap.

Something passed over Colossus, moving on the bunker and Bobby. He wrenched the door off a ruined car and hurled it like a discus at the oncoming figure.

Metal clanged on metal…

…and the door, suitably crushed, thudded back to the Earth at his feet.

Logan, still playing the role of nonchalant observer, was impressed.

"Good arm."

He looked the other way, saw Bobby fallen, Storm unable to reach him, the remaining two girls isolated and under considerable and growing fire. Things were out of hand.

Kitty summed it up, from her perspective: "We're screwed."

Logan had other ideas.

"Throw me," he told Colossus.

"Shto?" replied the young Russian. He didn't get it.

"Logan," Storm called, racing to join them. "Wait-"

"Y'understand baseball?" Logan demanded, popping his claws, darting quick, repeated glances over his shoulder at the source of the mighty footsteps, which could now be heard as well as felt. Colossus nodded. "Y'know, like a fastball?" Again, he nodded. "Then follow where I point and throw me! Now!"

The armored Russian scooped him up, cocked his arm and let fly.

"Darn it, Logan, don't do this!"

"Logan!" Hawk cried.

Logan disappeared into the low cloud of smoke that provided a quasi-roof over the town roughly a hundred feet overhead.

The firing slackened, enough for the X-Men to hear the sound of rending metal, followed by an almost unendurably high-pitched squeee! It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what that meant – the Wolverine had used his claws, pure adamantium, unimaginably and perpetually sharp, wholly unbreakable, on something that didn't much like it.

Confirmation landed before them with a thud that shook the ground, momentum rolling it over two complete revolutions before it came to rest in front of the kids. It was a big, giant head, belonging to some kind of equally impressive robot.

They then heard an explosion of such force that the airborne shock wave struck them like a lesser punch, staggering them on their feet. Some seconds later, whatever the head had been attached to crashed and blew itself to bits.

That was when Logan made his entrance, before any of them had a chance to worry about his fate. He looked a bit the worse for wear but, even as he approached, his injuries were healing with every step. He appeared far more concerned about his leather Jacket, which was both torn and scorched.

"Class Dismissed".

He popped a single claw, forefinger for once, instead of the middle claw he generally tended to favor, and made ready to carve his initials into the crown of the robot's head…

…when a klaxon sounded…

…and the head dissolved before his eyes.

Same applied to the scenery. Night vanished, replaced by the institutional illumination of a vast and sprawling concourse the size of a commercial jumbo jetliner hanger. The lay of the land was "real," as the floors realigned themselves to provide for a flat and featureless surface, but the town itself was not. On every side surrounding the X-Men, huge panels of photon imagers – capable of generating constructs that were not only three-dimensional but significantly tangible as well – withdrew into their housings.

Storm looked at him, then continued on out.

Logan shook his head. Not a lot got his full attention but the Danger room snagged it every time.

"If you find a way to market this to Hollywood and the theme Parks, 'Ro," he said, speaking mainly to himself though he used Ororo's name, "your collective fortune is made!"

He twisted his back, shoulders, finally his neck, gradually working out the kinks, as he did after every scrap, then looked expectantly at the others.

"I'm starved," he announced. "Who's up for pizza?"

Bobby pushed himself up, Kitty hanging back as Rogue slipped an arm through his, visibly and intentionally reminding all of their relationship. He wasn't hurt. The Room's core programming wouldn't allow it. Death held no sway here, and the worst the room would do to anyone was stun them and then use its projectors to paint the most horrendous wounds imaginable on the body.

As they all started for the exit, Logan threw an arm companionably across Peter's shoulder.

"Hey, Tinman," he said, making Peter roll his eyes. The Russian didn't much care for the nickname and pretty much knew what was coming after. "gotta tell ya – you throw like a girl."

Storm stopped Logan dead in his tracks, her eyes flashing a dangerous cerulean blue – a precursor to them going white and her turning loose the extreme weather.

"I am a girl," she said simply, throwing down the gauntlet as hard as she knew how before turning on her heel and beating them through the doorway, as a metallic voice filtered throughout the intercom system, echoing,

"Simulation complete."

She was waiting in the hallway beyond, with such electricity in the air surrounding her that her team- including Hawk, who, for once decided it was not a good time to hang around- beat a hasty retreat into the locker room, figuring to take their time changing in the hopes that the "storm" will pass quickly.

Logan took a moment to look fondly at the stub that remained of his cigar, then tossed it into the disposal.

"What the heck was that?" Storm demanded.

"Danger Room session."

XXX

Hawk and Kitty listened to the conversation being exchanged. Kitty blanched, and Hawk's eyes widened in shock at Logan's responses. "Does that Caknucklehead want to get turned into a crispy critter?" they asked the others.

XXX

Surprisingly, Storm kept a leash on her emotions. "You know what I mean."

"Oh, lighten up Storm-"

"Look you can't just change the rules whenever you feel like it. I'm trying to teach them something."

"Well I taught'em something."

"It was a defensive exercise."

"Yeah, best defense is a good offense. Or is it the other way 'round."

Storm stopped and spun on her heel to face him. "This isn't a game, Logan."

"Well, you sure fooled me." Awkward pause. "Hey, I'm just a sub. You got a problem, talk to Scott."

XXX

Scott Summers- Cyclops- was locked in his room. Alone. Cold. But the cold wasn't physical. It was spiritual. In the core of his being. The grief over his beloved Jean Grey was overwhleming him.

Suddenly, he heard her. Heard her scream his name. Scott!

Then, he was staring at a body. A woman. Clothes and features obscured, wreathed in a crown of dark red, the fiery auburn of leaves turning in fall.

Quick as it came, the image vanished. Scott soon realized that he didn't quite feel so hollow anymore. Things had changed. The best part of his soul had come back to him.

He quickly packed a bag. This wasn't a moment for rationality or explanation; but for action. Make a move, worry about the consequences later.

The only things he knew for certain were that this had to be done, and that this was right.

And with that thought, he was gone.

XXX

Hawk waited outside the locker room for Logan. Judging from the emotions she picked up from her, Storm was ticked . Usually, she would try to talk to Storm; but, when things were that bad, she knew that needed her time- and space- alone.

When Logan stepped out of the locker area, she fired. "Dude, you've got to work on your lady skills."

Logan stopped dead and looked at her. "What?"

"If you want to win a woman's heart, that's certainly no way to do it."

Logan continued to give her the quizzical look. "I have no idea what you're talkin' about."

Hawk rolled her eyes. "I'm talking about Storm. Don't think I didn't pick up your thoughts when she asked you to watch her back. They were a little... interesting ."

Logan scowled at her. That was the one thing she got in trouble for the most- which was surprisingly more often than eavesdropping- was using her telepathy when she wasn't supposed to. It suddenly made him wonder-

"Don't worry, I backed out as soon as Jean was mentioned."

That's a relief, he thought.

"But, seriously, you need to work on it. I wouldn't be surprised if I confused New York for Florida once I get back up there."

"Why don't you just talk to her? It's not like I'm the one who caused this."

"Usually I would , but I know when it's not a good time and to just give her her space. And technically you are. Kitty and I heard the entire conversation."

"Hey!"

"What?" Hawk called over her shoulder. "It's not like he's going to tell Storm." She looked back at him. "And if he does- which I'll know - I'll tell Storm about his thoughts, and then we'll see who's in more trouble."

Logan had heard rumors about Hawk being a blackmailer, but didn't think they were true until now. "You wouldn't..." he said as menacingly as he could.

"I would."

"She really would, Logan," Kitty said coming out of the locker are. " Trust me when I say that."

"And I'll tell the entire school too. Man, you gotta love telepathy at times like this."

Logan certainly didn't.

"See ya around, Kitty," Hawk said.

"Bye, Hawk."

Hawk turned back to Logan. "Usually I charge to keep things quiet, but you also have something against me; so that spoils it."

"Storm upstairs?" he asked.

"Yeah, we all took our own sweet time changing. She got in and got out."

"That bad?"

"Dude, I've known Storm since I was eight, and if there's one thing everyone around here knows, it's that Storm hates surprise appearances in the Danger Room. We all know that Scott was supposed to come, and we knew that it was unlikely that he'd show. If you had been on time for the debriefing, she probably wouldn't be in this mood. Or not in the mood where I couldn't talk to her."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Well, the least you could've done was apologize. At least then there probably wouldn't've been a heated discussion between you two." She sighed. "I'll be upstairs reading for the next hour if you need me."

"Hey, Scott, they were looking for you downstairs. You didn't show," Logan said.

"Obviously," Scott replied tonelessly, not stopping or even slowing as he brushed right by Logan. "What do you care?"

Logan tried to bite back the annoyance that was already starting to surface. "Well, for starters, I had to cover your ass."

"I didn't ask you to," he said simply, stopping and turning to Logan with his arms crossed.

"No," Logan agreed, matching his stance. "You didn't ask. The professor did. I was just passing through."

"So pass through, Logan. Isn't that what you do best?"

Logan held himself in check, not letting on how deeply that statement cut. Would he always have that hanging over his head? He'd left once, damn it! For a month and a half! And he'd been back for over a year! "Hey, look." He grabbed Scott's wrist, pulling him back as he tried to leave.

The taller man looked down at his wrist before his gaze slowly and threateningly traveled up to Logan's eyes. It was a gesture that clearly said, please give me a reason to fight you. "I don't like being touched," he said flatly.

Logan let go. He didn't want to start a fight. Not with Scott. Softening his tone, he said, "I know how you feel."

"Don't," Scott immediately snapped.

"When Jean died – "

Scott gave Logan a quick shove. "I said don't!"

Logan's mouth snapped shut. He wanted to tell Scott that he too felt partly responsible for Jean's death. He too missed her, and he too wished that something – anything – could be done to bring her back. He wanted to tell Scott that he still had nightmares of her death too, some of them quite vivid. But Scott didn't want to hear it. Logan was, however, going to say what needed to be said. This had to stop. "Maybe it's time for us to move on," he told Scott.

"Not everyone heals as fast as you do, Logan."

XXX

It was a modest office black by federal standards, left over from a more decorative age, like the Old Executive Office Building and the Smithsonian. But, what it lacked in modern aesthetics it more than made up for in proximity to the one building in town that really mattered. The one with the address 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The offices housed the youngest of the President's cabinet departments. But, the reason both for its importance and for its being treated as a bastard stepchild could be found on the official identification plaque out front:

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF MUTANT AFFAIRS

As usual, despite the constant surveillance of CCTV cameras and patrols by the DC metro police and federal security, someone had still managed to tag the sign during the night, using spray paint to cover Affairs with the word Abominations.

The third floor front suite, with a view of the White House, belonged to the Secretary of Mutant Affairs. Alicia Vargas – former secret service bodyguard to the previous president, now employed by DOMA as unofficial bodyguard and thoroughly official executive assistant to the Secretary – strode down the elegant wood hallway and with pro forma knock, opened the door to her boss's office.

The room was exquisitely furnished; whatever else you could say about Henry McCoy, DSC, PhD, he had excellent taste. At the moment, he was also hanging upside down from the suitably reinforced chandelier, thoroughly enjoying the latest issue of the Economist.

Alicia was a lovely woman, the kind you would expect to be chairing a PTA meeting. She was as professionally turned out as her boss, them both wearing quality designed suits. The major difference was that hers was cut to hide a SIG, while his was built around his six foot, nearly 300 pound, immensely athletic body completely covered in rich blue fur.

He had fangs, too – a mouthful. And claws that became quite evident when he neglected to keep his nails properly trimmed. He had a leonine mane of hair which was a discernibly darker hue than his body, swept elegantly back from a dramatic widow's peak, as well as sweeping side whiskers that bore an uncanny resemblance to one of the major villains of a world-famous comic book. He could bench press twice his body weight without trying, and had reflexes that were almost a match for Alicia's – only because she too was a mutant, just not quite so obvious a manifestation, thank God – and agility that could send the most madcap of monkeys back to school. He was, in fact, everything implied by the nick name he'd been given back in school – The Beast.

McCoy could also speak a score of languages fluently, was one of the more respected genetic anthropologists on the planet, a demon dancer, and apparently an even better lover. He enjoyed fine wines with his brother, the Jungion psychiatrist, preferred cooking to eating out because he was a better chef than most professionals, and had an unfortunate weakness for karaoke bars. His speaking voice was wonderful, but his singing tended to recall cats congregating on a backyard fence.

What endeared him most to Alicia, however, was the fact that he needed reading glasses. He wore a classic pair, perched on his rather dramatic nose.

McCoy raised an eyebrow over the spine of the magazine as she snared his jacket off the back of his chair.

"The White House called," she told him. "They've moved up the meeting. Something to do with Bolivar Trask."

"Hmnh" was Hank's only comment as he flipped through a crisp, confined somersault to land on the floor with feline grace. He frowned as he slipped on his shoes - Alicia was the only one who ever saw those reactions, the only one he truly trusted here - he muched preferred to go barefoot. His feet were designed for it, not for being strapped in. But, people were spooked enough by his appearance as it was; dressing respectably was the first, big - necessary - step towards winning their tolerance, if not their acceptance.

"Your car's waiting downstars," She told him as he donned his jacket, taking a moment for their usual exit ritual as she smoothed the shirt across his shoulders and straightened his tie.

Then, twitching her own suit jacket to make sure her gun was in ready reach, she followed him out the door.

XXX

Another surprise awaited Hank and Alicia when they checked in at the White House: The meeting originally scheduled for the Oval Office had been moved downstairs to the Situation Room. It was a small and select meeting: The President, his national security advisor, the director of the FBI, a pair of uniforms, one representing the Joint Chiefs, the other the national Security Council, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, Bolivar Trask.

Big as Hank was, Trask matched him in every dimension, tall and broad and radiating the impression that he remained as powerful and dangerous now as he was in his youth. They'd come out of Detroit, served a career in Army Special Ops before confounding everyone when he turned in his papers and built a new life for himself in disaster management. Trask had barely made it out of high shcool, yet over the course of his two careers he had amassed more practical knowledge than a roomful of certified academics, possessing an eclectic mix of street smarts and on-the-job training. He was a brilliant manager, as gifted in the military and defense aspects of his department as the civil, and seemed soundly determined to protect the country from natural disasters and terrorist threats.

"Sorry I'm late, Mr. President," Hank apologized, as he strode into the darkened room. Display screens were already active, filling the wall at the far end of the room, where everyone at the table could easily see them.

President David Cockrum indicated the open chair to his left. "Have a seat, Henry. Sorry for catching you short, but things have been happening."

Trask sat opposite McCoy, at the president's right hand. From everyone's body language, McCoy knew this was Bolivar's briefing.

"Homeland Security was tracking Magneto. . ."

With that cue, surveillance images appeared on the display wall, showing a tall and handsome man of natually aristocratic bearing. Some time in the recent past, he must a grown a beard, neatly trimmed of course, which gave him the air of a shakespearean warrior king in exile. A lion in winter, McCoy thought, with a pang of regret at the memory of brighter, younger days, and all that might have been.

Trask was speaking, using a laser pointer to highlight his bullet points with the appropriate image. "Homeland Security has been cooridinating with all the relevant alphabet agencies - CIA, NSA, DIA - Plus their counter parts overseas. As you can see, we got hits on him in Lisbon, Geneva, Montreal. NavSat lost him crossing the border. But we did get a consolation prize. . ."

Different screen now, the biggest in the aray, with a crawl at the bottom to inform everyone that they were watching in real-time streaming video. The setting was obviously an interrogation room of some sort, with a double-door security airlock and double-paned observation glass, suggesting something more appropriate to a biohazard containment facility than a standard lock up. There were two figures in view, interrogator and prisoner. No guards - that could be seen.

The object of all this attention lounged in a chair as though she owned the place, and hadn't a care in the world. She was naked and flaunted a perfect body as proudly as any other woman would a new designer gown. Her skin was as blue as McCoy's fur, her hair the color of blood, swept straight back from her forehead and face to end in an impossibly precise blunt cut at the base of her neck. Her body was decorated with ridges, down the arms, breasts, stomach, and groin, with a scattering along her legs. Hank had always been curious whether they were decorative or had some functional value, and the scientist in his soul wondered, How hard would it be to get a cell sample?

Her eyes were a gleaming chrome yellow, The woman on the screen's eyes glowed in the dark, Hank knew, where the rest of her could become effectively invisible. The way they flicked from camera to camera, the way she allwoed herself the smallest of smiles, told Hank that the she knew she was being broadcast, and probably who was watching.

She called herself Mystique. She'd been by Magneto's side for almost as long as he had been in active opposition to Charles Xavier. No one had ever been able to fathom the precise nature of their relationship, beyond the obvious fact that she was utterly devoted to him and to his cause, and that Magneto cared for her as he did for few others in his life, past or present.

She was a metamorph, a shape-changer able to transform herself with a thought into any other human form she pleased. What they were viewing now was supposedly her default form; it was certainly the skin she was most comfortable wearing, the one she always returned to.

The main screen was complimented by an array of lesser display windows, showing different perspecties on the scene. Looking at he one aimed at her eyes, McCoy couldn't hake the sense that she was looking right back at him through the lens. that she could actually see him.

With an inner wrench, he turned his attention back to Trask, who was still speaking. "We picked her up breaking into the FDA, of all places."

"Do you know who she was imitating?" the President asked in an aside to Hank, "Secretary Trask."

That must have been a sight to behold, Hank thought, and almost as if he'd heard the comment aloud, Trask cued an archival shot of the scene in question, showing Mystique before, and then right after, the takedown. Hank looked from the man himself to the screen and back again - as did everyone else present. The match was flawless.

"Yes, sir," Hank told the president. "She can do that."

"Not anymore, she can't," Trask said with pardonable satisfaction. Smart as she may have been he had found a way to nail her: "We got her."

"You think your walls can hold her, Trask?"

"We have some new walls, Henry." came the reply, with the hint of an edge. Trask's tone indicatied that he thought that Hank's question was utterly foolish. What was the point of taking the woman if you didn't have the means to keep her? "We'll be a step ahead this time."

Hank was about to press him on that point when Trask gestured with his remote and added sound to the streaming video from the interrogation room.

"Raven," the agent with her said softly, and was ignored.

"Raven," he repeated, 'I'm talking to you"

She flicked her eyes dismissively. "I don't answer to my slave name."

"It's on your birth certificate. Raven Darkholme, or has he convinced you that you don't have a family anymore?"

No one needed to be told which 'he' was being referred to, but the question did provoke a response. Mystique swung round in her chair to face the agent. Her look promised mayhem. the interrogator took it in stride.

"My family tried to kill me, you pathetic meat-sack."

"So, now he's your family?"

She sniffed, haughtily as a queen, and half turned away striking a glamour pose that flaunted her body to him and to the cameras.

The interrogator's tone hardened.

"Are you playing games with me?"

She gave the agent a smile as overtly sexy as her pose, and then morped into a mirror image of him.

"What makes you say that?"

The interrogator leaned forward, "Is it worth it, all this, to protect him?"

"You really want to know where he is?" He didn't need to reply. He didn't have to, the answer went without saying. "All right then, I'll tell you . . ."

She leaned forward. Inviting the interrogator to meet her halfway.

Hank's eyes flickered a warning to Trask. Both men were on the same wave length. This was too soon, too easy. Way to good to be true. Trask already had a phone in hand, a direct line to the holding cell, but never got a chance to warn him.

Even as Hank heard the ringing phone through the main display, Mystique struck, grabbing the interrogator by the ears and delivering a vicious head-butt that would have him in the hospital for the better part of a week with a wicked concussion.

Now the previously unseen guards made their entrance, hard and fast and in no mood to paly. Their adversary was faster than they were, stronger as well, likely more skilled in the martial arts. She'd stopped herself free of every restraint, making her hands momentarily boneless so that they'd slid loose from her cuffs, but the room was too small and suddenly filled wall-to-wall with muscle. She had no room to maneuver, and when she tried morphing into one of them Hank saw that they'd been biotagged. External surveillance systems told the team outside who was who so that they always knew who to hit.

It was a gallant, desperate struggle that reminded Hank too much of a wild animal being caged. It was doomed from the start and quickly over.

Trask shut off the feed.

"One down," he said quietly, "one to go".

Hank stared at him. "You know her capture will only provoke Magneto."

"So? Do we forgo the capture of terrorsit lieutenants because we're scared of their boss? If that's our policy, why don't we just hand over the country to him and be done with it?"

Trask gestured to the screen. "Henry, be real here. You see what we're dealing with here."

"All the more reason to be diplomatic."

"You expect me to negotiate with these people?" asked the president pointedly.

Hank's first reaction was thankfully an unspoked thought:

And what people precisely would you be referring to, sir? The 'terroristst' mutants or mutants in general?

Aloud, he chose to follow his own advice and speak diplomatically: "All due respect, sir, I thought that's why you appointed me."

Hank shook his head, realizing from the look on the president's face and the way the other man's eyes shifted ever so slightly, that the venue for this meeting hadn't been any last minute change, nor had it's earlier start.

"This isn't why you called me here, is it, sir?"

The president shook his head. "No," he said, his tone conveying what was surely meant to sound like a sincere and heartfelt apology. He slid a file towards McCoy.

"This is what she was after."

Hank used a ritual with his glasses to regain his inner composure: he removed the bifocals, puffed on the lenses, wiping them clear on the thick luxurious fur protruding from his cuffs.

When he was done reading, when the axis of the Earth had finished shifting beneath him, he didn't know whether he felt rage or terror, but assumed that it was a decent measure of both. He pressed his hands together, resting his face against them, like a man assuming an attitude of prayer, determined not to allow them to tremble and hoping his voice wouldn't betray him when he spoke.

"Is it viable?" He asked.

"We believe it is, yes."

"Do you have any idea of the level of impact this will have on the mutant community?"

The president nodded, choosing his words very carefully.

"Yes, I do. That's precisely why we need some of your 'diplomacy' now."

Hank closed his eyes, his inner child hoping against hope that this was merely some wild flight of fancy, and that when he opened them again he'd be back in his old room at Xavier's, young and carefree, with no thoughts for the days ahead other than charming the daylights out of Jean how to slow-dance.

And then came a darker image, of a movie he'd watched far to often, one to compliment the books and files he'd commited to memory while researching his first doctoral thesis, which hadn't been on medicine of any kind, but history. In 1942, there'd been a conference in Wonnsee Villa, a resort outside Berlin, chaired by Reinhard Heydrich, who'd go down in history as "Hangman Heydrich" (his fellow Nazis called him 'The Blood Butcher'). He was then Deputy Reichsfuherer, a handsome, powerfully commanding presence whom everyone assumed would claim the leadership of the Third Reich if and when Hitler passed from the scene. He'd gathered the top bureaucrats in the Reich, from all the key departments of state, and in a meeting that lasted ninety minutes, they'd resolved the 'Jewish question' in Europe. In terms both barbaric in their racial virulence and damnably chilling in their institutional banality, these men signed the death warrant of millions.

XXX

"Power corrupts," Charles Xavier told his ethics class, "and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is a lesson every one of us must learn and live. Why? Because we are mutants.

"Will it be for the greater good," he continued, "or personal, destructive, and tyrannical? This is a question we all must ask ourselves. Why? Because we are mutants."

Kitty answered him with a sigh and briefly considered relaxing her hold on her power, just for a heartbeat, her phased form remaining at rest while the Earth continued merrily spinning on its axis. Just that little burst would put her outside the building. If she held her breath for a couple of minutes, she could be miles away.

It was tempting, but it would be wrong. Like it or not, responsibility had become her second nature. She had Xavier to thank for that.

"Riiight," she agreed. "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Xavier shook his head. He didn't like it when she was intellectually lazy.

Kitty, that's not an argument, it's a cliché and a generalization. And like all generalizations, it's only partly true. Unfortunately, students" – he explained the colloquy to embrace the entire class – "There are no absolutes when it comes to questions of ethics. For psychics, such as myself. . ." As he said this, Kitty felt his thoughts jump into her mid: and as well for those who can walk through walls. She got the message, sitting straight up while her cheeks flushed tomato scarlet, pursing her lips in embarrassment at being busted. Xavier continued, ". . . this presents a particular problem. When is it acceptable to use our powers and when do we cross that invisible line that turns us into tyrants over our fellow men?"

"Professor," Kitty countered, seizing the opening with a question that was actually pertinent, yet also just that faintest bit of naughty, "if the line is invisible, how do we know when we've crossed it?"

Some of the others grinned, and even Xavier permitted himself an itsy-bitsy quirk of the lips that might be interpreted as a smile. His game of choice had always been chess, but Kitty's was tennis, and she served to win.

Behind the professor, a flat-screen display revealed a hospital room, together with a legend that identified the source as the Muir Isle Research Facility, Scotland. It was an isolation cubicle, marked with the international biohazard trefoil and an M stamped in the middle to indicate mutant biohazard. A man lay on the single bed, clearly not in the best of health. Beside him stood a woman, Dr. Moira MacTaggart, old friend of Xavier's, a former lover, and partner in many of his current researches.

"This case was forwarded to me by a colleague, Dr. MacTaggart."

Everyone took notes. Kitty couldn't help sneaking an envious peek over at Jules, who was merely running a pair of fingertips along each line of her notebook page. In their wake, every word Xavier spoke what transcribed automatically from her ear to the page, although it seemed to be going to be going smoothly now, it wasn't always as easy as that; when she got distracted, Jules' transcription power tapped into her thoughts and her notes became a stream-of-consciousness exercise that put Joyce's Finnegan's Wake to sham. Then, of course, it was all hands to the rescue among her best friends at school, Kitty included, to try to separate out what was supposed to be there. This morning, though, she looked totally on track.

Dr. MacTaggart was speaking, the screen obligingly providing subtitles for those who found her Highland accent a bit hard to fathom.

"The man you see here," she said, indicating her patient, "was born with no higher-level brain functions. His organs and nervous system function normally, but he has no consciousness to speak of. That has been confirmed both by the most comprehensive medical scans available to us, and telepathic examination as well."

Xavier paused the transmission.

"What if," he asked the class, "we could transfer the consciousness of one person, say a father of four with terminal cancer, into the body of this man?"

Kitty couldn't help muttering, "Sounds like someone wants to play God."

Jules giggled.

Xavier ignored them both.

"How are we going to . . .?"

He paused, looking off to the side for just a moment, then tried to move on.

"How are we to decide what is within the range of ethical behavior and what is . . ." His voice trailed off again as he put his hand to his brow, closing his eyes.

"Professor . . .?" Kitty started.

"We'll continue Tomorrow," Xavier announced suddenly, to the surprise of very few. You didn't have to be a student at Xavier's very long to figure out what moments like this were all about. "Class dismissed".

XXX

Hawk was reading Harry Potter: and the Chamber of Secrets, when the sky suddenly grew dark. Being younger, she didn't have the class schedule some of her older friends had- which meant sometimes she had classes with them, and other times she didn't- so she just read this hour. She got up and went to the window. She knew that she was the only other weather manipulator in the mansion, and she wasn't the one doing this.

XXX

Charles tried reaching her telepathically as he rolled his wheelchair through the halls, but, as was usually the case when her powers were this active, there was so much charged electrical energy coursing through her system that it coated her mind with a sleet storm of psychic static. Even the fleeting contact necessary to determine her location threatened a nasty head ache. The only telepath he knew who could penetrate the static without consequence was Hawk.

By the time he had left the shelter of the doorway, windwas whipping enthusiastically across the Great Lawn and the scattered figures of students were racing for cover.

The cause of the sudden weather change stood alone, staring off into the trees, so lost in thought she had no idea what was happening around her.

"Ororo," Xavier called quietly, when he'd approached close enough for her to hear him and not be startled, or he hoped so. Taking Storm by surprise at moments like this, he risked a close encounter with one of her lightning bolts. Not a happy experience. Then he noticed someone behind the plants. Someone he should've known would be out here...

XXX

Hawk was out by the plants near the entrance to the mansion. Storm was actually on the balcony at the railing. "Trying to decide whether or not to disturb her?" Professor X asked, rolling up behind Hawk.

Hawk looked at him as he came up next to her. Then back at Storm. "She doesn't even realize I'm here. She's too lost in thought. "

"Have you tried calling to her?"

Hawk looked at him. Being a telepath also, she knew what he was thinking. "You want to get struck by a lightning bolt, be my guest."

Professor X chuckled and rolled forward. "The forecast was for sunny skies."

Storm gasped and as she turned around to see Charles. "Oh," she said. "Sh-" Storm began under her breath.

Oot, Hawk sent telepathically. She wasn't one for adult foul language, and got a brief glare by Storm.

"I'm sorry," she said turning back to Professor X. Her eyes turned as silver as her hair. No sign of Iris or pupil. Indicating that her power was under her active control. The sky cleared and Storm's eyes reverted to brown again.

"I don't need to be psychic to see that something's bothering you," the Professor said.

Seeing that the adults needed to talk, Hawk decided to go back inside. "Well, I'm gonna go back inside," she said. "See ya, Storm."

"What? No eavesdropping this time?" Storm asked.

"Storm!"

The adults chuckled. Hawk looked at them mock-incredulously. "I don't think this conversation has anything to be eavesdropped on. Besides," she held up her book that she was holding. "I'm on a good part."

Storm rolled her eyes amusingly. "Get in there, Hawk."

"Later."

XXX

"My Grades are down from A's to D's. I'm way behind in History. I've lost myself in fantasies, Of you and me together. I don't know why-iy-iy but dreamin's all i do-do. I won't get by-iy-iy on mere imagination." There was a sudden knock on the door. "I got it!" She called, since she was closer. When she opened the door, she gasped in surprise when she saw a blue lion standing in front of the door.

"I'm sorry if I scared you-"

"No, no," Hawk said reassuringly. "It's alright. I'm just not used to seeing mutations quite like that. I mean, I'm used to seeing them on Shape-shifters and Wolfsbane, but not actually seeing them automatically..." Hawk knew she was probably going over the edge. She hated her social awkwardness. "Uh...are you here to see anyone specific?"

"I'm just here to see a couple of old friends."

"Follow me then," Hawk said, waving him inside. Professor you have a visitor, she sent out. Then she continued to sing softly. "Upside down, bouncin' off the ceilin.' Inside out, stranger to this feelin'. Got no clue what I should do I'll go crazy if I can't get next to you."

"What's that?" the guest asked.

"Bouncing off the ceiling by A*Teens," Hawk replied. "By the way, I never caught your name."

"Hank McCoy," Hank replied. "And you?"

"Hawk."

"Nice name," Hank said.

"I know, it's a little weird, but I like it." They reached the Professor's office. "The Professor and Storm are talking right now, but they should be in in a couple of minutes."

XXX

"I don't understand," Storm said, as she and the Professor crossed the threshold into the main foyer and on to the Professor's office. "Magneto's a fugitive, we have a mutant in the cabinet, a president who understands us- so why are we still hiding?"

"We are not hiding. But we still have enemies out there, and I must protect my students, you know that."

"Yes, but we can't be students forever."

Charles laughed. "Storm, I haven't thought of you as my student in years..."

They reached his office.

"... in fact, I thought that perhaps, you might take my place someday."

XXX

Storm wondered is she had heard correctly. "But, Scott's..."

"Scott is a changed man. He took Jean's death so hard. Yes things are better out there, but you of all people know how fast the weather can change."

"There's something you're not telling us."

He opened the door and she found her answer inside, looking at one of the paintings.

"Hank," she said, following Charles into the room.

"Ororo, Charles." Hank greeted Storm in the same manner as she came over and hugged him.

She ran her hand through his hair. "I just love what you've done with your hair."

"You too."

"Thanks."

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice."

"Henry," Charles replied, "You are always welcome here, you're apart of this place."

"I have news."

"Erick?" Charles asked, fearing the worst.

"No," Hank replied, shaking his great, shaggy head. "Although we have been making progress on that part. Mystique was recently apprehended."

"Who's the furball?" challenged a new arrival from the doorway.

Storm and Hank looked up to see Logan leaning against the door frame."

"Hank McCoy," Hank replied. "Secretary of mutant affairs."

"Right, right, the secretary," Logan replied, stepping into the room. The way he said Hank's title, it wasn't a compliment. "Nice suit."

Xavier sighed, mainly to himself. Not a great beginning. "Hank this is-"

"Wolverine," Hank finished. "I hear you're quite an animal."

"Look who's talkin'."

Storm was done watching this display of testosterone.

"You know going to come for Mystique, right?"

"Hope your prison has plastic screws," Logan offered.

"Magneto's not the problem. At least, not our most pressing one. A major pharmaceutical company has developed a mutant anti-body. A way to suppress the mutant gene."

"Suppress?" Logan asked after a very awkward silence.

"Permanently. They're calling it a cure."

Logan snorted in disgust, which took care of his opinion.

Storm spoke up. "Well that's ridiculous. You can't cure being a mutant."

"Well scientifically speaking-" Hank began, but she allowed him no further.

"Since when have we become a disease? How can anyone in their right-"

"Storm," Charles interrupted. Storm looked at him. "They're announcing it now."

XXX

On Alcatraz island, Warren Worthington Jr. was making an announcement to the press. "These mutants are people just like us. Their affliction is nothing more than a disease. A corruption of healthy cellular activity. But I stand here today to let you all know, that there is hope. And this site-" he pointed to the building behind him- "Once the world's most famous prison, will now be the resource to freedom for all mutants who chose it..."

XXX

Over in Washington D.C., President Cockrum and Bolivar Trask, wathced from inside the oval office. "Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the answer for mutation..."

XXX

Back at the Xavier Institute, all the kids gathered in the common rooms to see what all the fuss was all about. "Finally, we have a cure." Rogue let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. Can they really cure us? she thought. Only one person had the answer.

Over in another common room, Hawk stood by the door until the announcement was over. What? She ran over to the Professor's office.

XXX

Storm looked ready to hit something, radiating a violent fury that seemed to secretly impress Logan, and Hank thought it was probably because it reminded the Wolverine of himself.

"Who would want this cure?" She demanded. "I mean what kind of coward would take it just to fit in?"

"Is it cowardice," Hank asked, next to her on the couch, "to save ones self from persecution? Not all of us can fit in so easily. You don't shed on the furniture."

Storm, Charles, and Hank smiled amusingly.

"Well, for all we know the government helped cook this up," Logan said, ruining the moment.

"I assure the government had nothing to do with this," Hank said defensively.

"Well, I've heard that before."

"My boy I have been fighting for mutant rights since before you had claws."

Storm looked at Hank and Logan, then sighed inwardly. Logan looked at her. "Did he just call me boy?"

There were the sound of footsteps headed their way. "Is it true?" Two voices asked. They all looked up to see Hawk and Rogue coming in. "Can they cure us?" Rogue asked.

Hawk looked at her friend, shocked at what she just heard. "Rogue..."

Charles looked at Rogue. "Yes, Rogue, it appears to be true."

There was an awkward silence. The Storm spoke up. "No, Professor, they can't cure us." She looked up at Rogue, got off the couch, and walked toward her. "D'you wanna know why? Because there's nothing to cure; nothing's wrong with you." She looked at the others. "Or any of us for that matter."

Rogue nodded, but Storm knew that her words had fallen on rock. Rogue heard, but would not listen.

Storm turned to Xavier, and this time the thunder wasn't shy. It came in a burst that shook the house like the end of the world, and the sunny day gave way to rain that fell in torrents. "Whoa," Hawk said.

Storm held Xavier's gaze. "Guess you were right about the weather," she said softly, then turned to leave. She stopped briefly when she reached Hawk. "Don't follow me." Then left.

"Wasn't going to," Hawk replied.

"I know you Hawk, don't."

XXX

When Hawk looked back into the room, Logan and Rogue were looking at her. She didn't have to be a telepath to know what they wanted. She sighed exasperatedly. "I'll go talk to her." Then secretly added. A little later when the storm has calmed down.

"Have you met our guest, Hawk?" the Professor asked.

Hank nodded. "Briefly."

"I brought him in here," Hawk added.

"What did Ororo mean when she told her 'not to follow her', and that she 'knew her'?" Hank asked.

"Hawk's the residential eavesdropping all out troublemaker," Logan replied.

"You know I can hear, you, right Logan?" Hawk said.

"Speaking of which, Hawk," the Professor said. "We're going to have a little talk about sending your animals to eavesdrop for you."

Hawk got a guilty look on her face. "Oops."

Logan and Rogue still had that look on their faces to go and talk to Storm. She sighed again. "I'll go talk to her." As she left, she started to grumble silently about that. Geez, guys, you act like I'm the only one who can come in on her bad moods. I might cross the line once in a while, but I know when it's a good idea not to.

Storm went to talk to Scott about the mutant 'cure'. When she reached the door, it was closed. She knocked. "Scott," she called. "Scott! Scott, it's Storm." When she received no answer, she opened the door, and was surprised to find it was unlocked. Scott had kept his door locked all the time ever since Jean's death. "Scott?"

The hope that he was finally through his period of grief left her immediately when she saw his room empty. "He's not here," a voice said behind her. She turned around and saw Logan standing at the entrance.

"Then where is he?"

Logan shrugged. "Last I saw he was going for a ride on his bike. With an overnight bag."

"He's probably going back to Jean's grave," Storm said, reaching for her necklace that she didn't have on out of habit. "I'll be in the greenhouse if you need me."

She pushed by Logan as she went out.

XXX

As Storm came up to her loft, she felt a pair of eyes on her. Hardly anyone in the mansion spied, minus one person she knew. "Alright, Hawk, what do you want?"

There was a snap of fingers. "How did you know it was me?"

"You're the only one in the mansion who would ever dare to come near me after a storm like that."

"Hey, I was forced, two pairs of eyes begged me to."

"Rogue and Logan?"

"Bingo."

Storm sighed. She knew Hawk probably wanted to talk to her also, but wanted to blame Logan and Rogue so that she didn't look like a puppy following her master.

"So, what's up Storm?"

XXX

Scott traveled as far as he could by bike, and went the rest of the way on foot. He had gotten to Alkali lake far faster than he should have.. With his motorcycle, even with the custom engine, it should have taken him at least three days to get to Alkali Lake from Xavier's. But he didn't care, all he could think about was her. He could hear her calling him, constantly now, her voice ringing in his ears.

Alkali Lake hadn't changed. Scott had assumed that the lake would be well on its way back to its original state of being, a wild and untamed river. But, Fate wasn't done joking. Turned out there was a sharp bend about a mile downstream from the dam that formed a natural choke point, preventing the water from draining completely. The level had dropped by more than half since the breach, but had finally reached a kind of equilibrium that still left the industrial complex beneath the dam's face significantly underwater. Worse, the clearing where the Blackbird took off, where Jean had died, remained likewise buried.

He looked haggard, his lean features gaunt, as he stood at the water's edge, staring at nothing. Maybe now he could find some peace. Maybe now he could say goodbye…

Once more, he heard her call.

"Stop," he pleaded. "Stop it."

But she wouldn't.

"Scott," he heard, "Please. Help me!"

That was the last straw.

With a cry torn from the deepest part of him – "Jean!" – Scott tore off his visor and opened his eyes wide.

Scarlet glory erupted through the air, as though someone had opened a window to the surface of the sun, and raw concussive energy gouged a momentary trench directly to the bottom of the lake, parting the waters like the hands of God through the Red Sea. Unchecked for once, wholly unrestrained, the bolt hammered at the rock along the opposite shore, following Scott's line of sight so that when his gaze flicked towards one of the remaining towers of the dam, the entire structure shuddered with the initial impact, as though struck by a battering ram. Then, with breathtaking suddenness, it shattered, not into rocks and boulders but powder, allowing the implacable beam to strike the mountainsides beyond.

And then, just like that, the beam was gone, and the only sign marking its passage through the lake was the crash of water filling space, coupled with the rise of vapor.

Scott collapsed to his knees, although even then – spent and exhausted as he was, in spirit and mind and body – he still reflexively groped for his glasses and snugged them back into place.

Then the water started bubbling in front of him, almost boiling as he rose to his feet for a better look.

As the display built to a crescendo, water shot skyward in a magnificent fountain easily a hundred meters across, rising three or four times that into the air, generating a shock wave that bent the evergreens around Scott almost double and knocked him off his feet.

He picked himself up, stunned, senses kicking into proper gear, reacting now from his training and experience. And he found himself facing a radiance as welcome and comforting as the morning sun.

"Jean?" He didn't believe it as he spoke, certain that somewhere along the way he'd stumbled headlong into madness, and he was beholding what he yearned for rather than what was.

Her laughter convinced him otherwise.

"Scott," Jean called, laughing with delight at the sight of him, yet still unsure as to how she had somehow found herself alive once more. Those last moments were still vivid in her thoughts. The wall of water had struck like it was made of steel, shattering her on contact; she didn't even have the chance to drown. Everything was over in an instant.

Or so she'd thought

"How?" he asked, reaching out in surprise to her hair, which now fell in glossy waves to the small of her back.

"I don't know," she told him truthfully, staring at his eyes through the visor covering them, her hand caressing his haggard face.

And for a while there were no more works, nothing at all save for two lovers holding each other close, savoring the joy that comes with finding your heart's desire. Neither had ever been more happy, or at peace.

XXX

Two thousand miles away, Charles screamed.

For Logan, it was a spike through the skull, a lance that not even his healing factor could mitigate.

Hawk screeched as the pain exploded in her head. Not even her blocks could keep the pain out- partly because she couldn't get them up; she just couldn't concentrate. Storm just grabbed her head, as she was more immune to telepathic phenomenons than anyone else, thanks to her ability to control the weather. She knew that there was nothing she could do for Hawk, but she also knew that there was something wrong and dashed out of her room, where she and Hawk were talking.

Logan threw himself out into the hallway, staggering slightly because his head was so screwed up, he couldn't walk straight. Storm caught up with him at the base of the grand staircase. She had farther to come, from her attic loft, but she could always move faster.

"What happened?" She demanded, running on adrenaline, her headache gone.

"No, clue," he replied. Logan beat her to the office, and burst in through the door. "Professor, are you alright?"

"Get to Alkali lake," the Professor ordered.

XXX

Storm noticed how silent Logan was. She knew he was probably thinking the same thing as she punched in the coordinates. Jean. "You know," she said. "If you ever want to talk..."

"Oh, yeah," he retorted, "absolutely. That's what I want."

The look she tossed his direction spoke volumes.

Darn, he thought, She's alot less of a princess than when I first rolled in the door. Still a long way from "just plain folk", but she still got possibilities.

"Look," he said, the best he would offer in explanation, "talk is not what I do."

Her sigh was even more devastating the look. "Right," she said, her tone assuring him that this conversation is most definitely not finished. "Same old Logan."

He wasn't, really, any more than she was the "same old Storm." But the oldest habits are the hardest to kick.

"So what do you think happened at the lake?" Logan asked.

Storm was silent for a moment and Logan thought she wasn't going to answer. Then she spoke up. "I don't know," she said. "I think that it has something to do with Scott. Whatever it is though, something horrible just happened." Despite her despairing tone, Logan could tell that she was still mad at him.

"'Ro," he said, trying to make amends. But, she didn't give him the chance, throwing the Blackbird into a tight descending spiral that pinned him to his chair and made him suddenly wonder if she was going to land the aircraft right on its pointy nose.

She flattened out a hundred meters, shifting to vertical flight mode and skimming the treeline like they were flying a helicopter. Logan had taken his turn in the simulator; if the need ever arose, he could take the controls. But with Storm it was different; she handled the plane as if it were part of her. She could dance it through maneuvers the others wouldn't dream of trying- except maybe Scott and Hawk. He was as much of a natural flier as she was, and the only one to ever match her skill in the air. Hawk, being fourteen and a bit of a reckless teenager, was about to outmatch him, having a knack for flying also- as one of her powers included the air element- and with a teacher like Storm, it was probably hard not to catch up.

Smooth as could be without even a bump, she eased the ebony aircraft down from the sky. "In preparation for landing, please restore your seats to their upright and locked positions, store all carry-on items and tray tables, and make sure your seat belts are securely fastened."

He gave her a look; she gave him a smile.

The moment passed. They got ready for business.

With his first step off the ramp, Logan knew it was bad. Every sense screamed alarm- the air smelled wrong, the ground felt wrong. There were no natural sounds, nothing to indicate a slight breeze between the trees, or water lapping against the shore. Not the slightest hint of animals of any kind. Logan wasn't surprised at the last; the part of him that was most like them was shrieking to flee this accursed, haunted place. And Storm, whose sensitivity to the world around her was just as acute, seemed spooked as well.

"You don't want to be here," Storm said more than asked. Logan knew that she was just trying to make small talk to shake off the feelings they felt. It didn't really help though.

"Do you?"

They walked through the mists for a few minutes, then Logan spoke up. "I can't see a darn thing."

"I can take care of that."

Storm looked up as her eyes went white and cleared the mist from view. Logan appeared at her side. There were floating rocks all over the place. "What the?" Logan asked. He tapped one of them and looked at Storm. She looked back, and then they went opposite ways. Storm moved on ahead as Logan homed in on another object, spinning lazily through the air, like a gyroscope that hadn't quite wound all the way down. He hunkered down to watch, unsure if wanted to break the spell, by reaching out to touch the object. No damage that he could see, nor any sign of violence. Nothing at all out of the ordinary- except its presence, and what it was doing.

With an almost convulsive grab, he gathered Scott Summer's ruby quartz glasses into his hand. He was about to call out to Storm, when she beat him to it. "Logan!"

Despite the flatness of the air, the urgency in her tone was plain. Shock, disbelief, fear, those reactions came through plainly and pulled him to her at a run.

XXX

Storm was exploring the area closest to the trees when something whispered inside her head. Storm, Storm! She grabbed her head again, and the voices faded. What struck her odd though was that the voice in her head sounded like Jean's. As she walked farther in, she saw some red hair blowing around in the wind. The color was very similar to Jean's. She blinked her eyes, but the hair was still there. "Oh my gosh," she said to herself. As she got closer, she saw a body in between the stones. Jean's body.

"Logan!" she screamed, rushing to Jean. She knelt down and checked for a pulse. She found it faintly along Jean's neck. Logan appeared one minute later. "She's alive," she said as Logan knelt down next to Jean.

XXX

He found Storm on the beach kneeling over a body.

"Jean," Logan said, dazed.

XXX

"Jean Grey was the only Class Five mutant I've ever encountered," Xavier told the trio a day later, back in the mansion's infirmary. "Her potential was practically limitless."

She lay on the examining table. Her body was dotted all over with direct sensors, surrounded by the information panels of their remote scanning counterparts. They projected on a phalanx of nearby flat-panel displays. Her vitals were totally nominal, and had been since they found her, wholly consistent with her last physical, not long before her death.

"Her mutation was seated in her limbic system," Xavier continued, taking refuge from his own deep feelings by adopting his most professorial tone, "the unconscious part of her mind. And therein lay the danger."

Logan snorted, gaining him a sharp look from both Xavier, seated in his wheelchair at Jean's head, and Ororo, flanking him opposite Logan. Hawk was just sitting on one of the tables, being quiet for once.

Logan didn't bother explaining aloud; it wasn't his way. He was still trying to figure things out himself. Out loud, he said: "I thought you were treating her," and got another warning glare from Ororo about his tone. He didn't much care.

"I tried…"

An unbidden image came to Logan's mind mixing moments from the mission that led to Jean's death – Magneto's quiet, constant jibes about Xavier's failure to treat the mutant son of William Stryker, Xavier's own very real regret, and worst of all, the very real consequences that arose from that failure. Jason had been made by his father into a weapon; their attempt to stop the use of that weapon had lead to Jean's death.

If Xavier sensed Logan's thoughts this time, he gave no sign as he laid his hands gently on Jean's head and closed his eyes. The monitors flickered; charting his progress ad he resumed treating her.

Logan paid him no attention. His concentration was locked on Jean's face, as if his own senses could tell him what Xavier's telepathy and devices could not.

"I created a series of psychic barriers, many years ago," Xavier said, "to separate her powers from her conscious mind, until such time as she could integrate the two properly and safely. However, in doing so, she developed a split personality . . ."

This was news to Logan and, by the look on her face, to Ororo, too. Neither of them took it well.

Logan spoke for them both. "What?" he demanded.

"The conscious Jean, whose powers were always under control, and that dormant side, a personality that, in our sessions, came to call itself The Phoenix. A purely instinctual creature, all desire, and joy and . . . rage."

He checked the monitors, made some notes.

Logan had grown ominously still and quiet, in a way that would clear even the most roughhouse saloons the world over.

Then, "Jean knew about this?"

xXx

Ororo watched Xavier shake his head, so engrossed in his work that he missed the cues and warnings this feral was radiating. Even she, who had just met the man, could pick up on his cues. She shifted her stance just a little. But knew her options were limited. The infirmary was no place for lightning, and Logan was so quick that she'd likely have no time to use her powers if things went south. Ororo knew that Logan was a creature of primal passions who fought to keep them in check with his own rigorous code of honor. Now, with Jean, both elements were in play – his feelings for Jean combined with the growing outrage at Xavier's revelations. It was a deadly mix, more volatile that matches and gasoline.

"It's unclear precisely how much she remembered," Charles told them. "The more pressing issue is that I'm not sure whether the woman we see in front of us is the Jean Grey we know, or the phoenix, violently struggling to be free."

Logan took a step closer, and Ororo tensed.

"She looks pretty peaceful to me Chuck."

"That is because, I'm keeping her that way," Xavier replied, not rising to the bait. Though, for all the attention he paid them, despite their ongoing conversation, it was as if Logan and Ororo weren't even there. "I'm trying to restore those psychic blacks and reenergize them, and cage the beast again."

Logan's nostrils flared, and this time Xavier seemed to react to the sub vocalized grown that issued from deep in the other man's throat.

"What did you just say?" Logan demanded.

"Logan, try to understand – "

"We're talking about a person's mind here, Charles, about Jean! We could be talking about her goddamn soul! How could you do this to her?"

"She has to be controlled. She isn't safe."

"'Controlled,' Professor, controlled? You know, sometimes, when you 'cage the beast' the beast gets angry."

"You have no idea what she's capable of."

"No, Professor, "Logan spat with finality, and he made Xavier's title sound like the most profane of epithets. "I had no idea what you were capable of."

After this last comment, Logan knew that, had Xavier still possessed the use of his legs, the professor would be right up in his face, probably challenging him to do his worst. Logan never denied the man had balls, but this was the first he'd ever considered that Charles Xavier might be lacking something essential in the way of a heart.

Damn it, Logan," Xavier flared, "I want her back as much as you do!

Logan shook his head: "Not even close."

XXX

Xavier couldn't stand Logan's glare for more than a few seconds. It wasn't that he lacked the strength, but – being a more intensely private man than even Logan – Charles couldn't bear to reveal to them the depths of his own pain. Or the concern that walked with it hand in hand, growing with each and every step into a very real and present fear.

He turned his back on Ororo and Logan and motored his chair towards the door, pausing at last to tell them, "I had a terrible choice to make, Logan. I chose the lesser of two evils."

Logan wouldn't – couldn't, Charles knew– let him go without saying something. "Sounds to me like Jean had no choice at all."

Logan looked away from the departing form of Xavier, briefly to Ororo, and then once more rested his eyes on Jean. He had a hunter's patience. He'd wait as long as he had to.

And after that . . .

. . . after that . . .

He met Ororo's gaze, then flicked his eyes toward the door, now closed, Xavier long gone, and back to Jean.

More gently than Xavier's touch, more gently then Ororo's lightest breeze, he stroked his rough palm from the crown of Jean's head back across her hair, and breathed in the scent of her. Not a lot of great things happened in his life, but he knew with certainty, this woman was one of them. Likely the best of them.

He repeated to himself what he's sworn the moment they met, what he'd failed to do at Alkali Lake.

I'll save you, Jean, he promised silently. Whatever the case.

I'll save you!

Ororo walked through the infirmary doors the next morning. She was wondering if there had been a change in Jean's condition, when she saw Logan sitting on a table opposite Jean, watching the red-head intently. This concerned Storm a little. It'd been almost a full day since she and Logan had found Jean, and Logan probably hadn't slept yet. Too late to turn back now, though; she knew Logan would've heard the doors, and, for some reason, she was just as concerned about him as she was for Jean. "Has there been any change?"

Logan looked her direction. "No," he replied, shaking his head. He looked tired.

"Have you slept at all, Logan?"

"No. I have to stay awake. In case she wakes up."

Storm sighed. Same old Logan, she thought. She looked at her watch. "I have to go to class. I'll... I'll stop by a little later." As she made her way out, she stopped by the door, and turned toward him. "You should get some rest." She held up her hands defensively, before he could say anything, but said softly, "just a friendly suggestion."

XXX

About an hour later, Storm stopped by the infirmary again. This time, she had food with her. Logan looked up as she placed the small bag by him. "Figured you hadn't eaten, so I brought you something."

"Thanks," he said, not really sure how to respond to that.

"How's it going down here?"

"About the same as it's been since we brought her here. Chuck comes in once in awhile to work on his psychic voodoo or whatever it is he does-"

"I meant how you were doing," Storm interrupted him gently.

"About the same as usual," he said. He could tell that she was feeling slightly awkward about this. Truth be told, he was too. After a moment of awkward silence, Logan broke it. "Thanks for comin' down, 'Ro," he said, covering her hand with his. "I'm sure Jean appreciates it."

Storm shrugged and gave a small smile. "She's my friend too. Can't let you have all the fun in watching her."

Logan laughed a little.

Storm slid her hand out from under his, and pulled back a strand of her hair behind her ear- despite how short it was. "I should go back upstairs," she said after a moment. "Plants. Let me know if there's any change, okay?"

"Sure."

With that she left him.

XXX

Logan hadn't left the infirmary since they'd brought her Jean home. He watched her with his senses intently as the machines did with theirs, and probably came away with as accurate an assessment of her condition. When Xavier came in to perform his own examination, plus whatever else he did to her in the way of his personal psychic voodoo, Logan stepped aside, staying close enough to intervene if needed but otherwise deferring to the professor. He also took each opportunity to keep tabs on Xavier as attentively as he did on Jean. The couple of times Ororo had visited, she was actually as concerned for Logan as her best friend. Logan wasn't used to that, wasn't sure how to deal with it.

Occasionally, he'd talk to Jean, as though they were sitting in a saloon or bar, having a normal conversation, telling her of all that transpired with the school and the world since she'd gone. Mostly, he just sat, with the infinite patience that was one of his hallmarks. He watched, and he listened. When she needed him, he'd be there, he'd be ready.

He saw that a few wires seemed to be tangled and, on impulse, he reached over to smooth them out...

...and she grabbed him by the hand.

XXX

Hawk jumped at the sudden movement. In the air vents, she had less chance of being detected, and, as Jean sat up, to make sure it stayed that way, Hawk kept her thoughts to herself.

XXX

She looked up at him with that same long lazy smile he remembered and yet, something was new, something... more. He couldn't help returning the smile in kind.

"Welcome back," he said softly, unable to hide his relieved smile.

"Back where we first met," she said dreamily. "Only I was in your place and you were in mine."

He couldn't help thinking, you're wearin' a lot more clothes than I was, darlin', which made her blush and grin wider. So there was nothing wrong with her telepathy, he observed, although she was keeping her own thoughts to herself. He half-expected to hear her from the professor, who Logan was assumed was monitoring his thoughts or Jean's at this very moment. Thus far, though, they had complete privacy.

She swallowed, mouth dry, and he held out a glass of water for her to sip from its straw.

"How long was I...?" she tried again.

"Too flamin' long," he told her more gruffly than he'd intended, not from anger, but because seeing her awake and all right made him suddenly admit to himself just how much he'd missed her.

"You feeling okay, Jeannie?"

She sat up with surprising ease and grace for someone who'd been (a) dead and (b) flat on her back in the hospital. Jean was still smiling, radiating more happiness than he'd ever seen from her. But then, he realized, he'd hardly ever seen her truly happy- save for a couple of instances when he caught her by surprise, just off guard enough that he got that special smile of hers, the one that came without any filters of duty and responsibility that Xavier had layered on her. He wondered if things had been any better with Cyclops.

Logan had never felt this way; his heart was full to bursting brightness and best of emotions yet, at the same time, was on the verge of breaking, how can any moment seem so wonderful, and potentially terrible all at once?

XXX

Hawk flipped through her book, she wasn't interested in hearing their conversation, just making sure Logan didn't take things too far and risk hurting Storm. She secretly knew that Storm was in love with him, but still had no way to prove it. She suddenly picked up his thoughts, which sometimes happened when minds were in turmoil, or they were filled with too much emotion.

How can any moment seem so wonderful, and potentially terrible all at once? She picked up.

Uh, because you like Storm and just lust for Jean because she was the first woman you saw before Storm.

She quickly put up her blocks to keep him out, that was certainly one way to get caught by a powerful telepath. Luckily for her, Jean was too engrossed into taking off the sensors to notice her.

XXX

"Yeah. More than okay." She began pulling off the sensor leads. Logan thought to suggest she wait, but she gave him a look that said, Trust me. I'm the doctor here, bub, I know what I'm doing.

She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, even more stunning than before. He couldn't help staring.

"Logan, you're making me blush." Logan liked that, and all it implied, and she seemed to as well.

"You're reading my thoughts?"

"Can't help it."

"Sounds like one of Hawk's lines."

She took his face into his hands and pulled him close.

"It's okay," Jean whispered, both out loud and in his mind. "There's nothing wrong with what you want, Logan. It's what I've always wanted too."

XXX

"Ew!" She said inaudibly, covering her eyes as Logan and Jean started. And after all that time he spent getting over her and secretly having an eye out for Storm. Maybe she would just tell Storm what Logan had thought in the Danger Room and see how that turned out...

XXX

Her lips brushed against his, an invitation that didn't just send tingles through his body, but unleashed a lightning bolt that rocked him from his head to the tips of his toes. It as though he'd been plugged into an emotional supercharger, every sense kicked into overdrive, all of them centered on Jean. The sight of her eyes so close to his, the impossibly smooth touch of her skin, the scent of her hair, the sound of her voice, the very taste of her… All those things combined to fan his desire to white-hot incandescence.

The last time they'd kissed- a stolen interlude beneath the Blackbird- he'd been the aggressor, trying to stake his claim to her heart before it was too late. But she'd made her commitment to Scott, much as either of them wished differently. And he'd respected that.

Now, by contrast, there was no holding back. His lips crashed into hers and she moaned eagerly into his mouth as she wrapped a scalding hot arm around his neck, pulling him closer. Her legs tightened their hold around his waist and he used the opportunity to run his hand across the smooth flesh of her thighs. She tugged his shirt down, smoothing her hands over his broad shoulders. He grabbed her and lifted her with ease, laying her back down on the table and eagerly climbing on after her as he continued exploring her body. He settled his heavy weight on top of her, but she only let out a happy gasp and locked them together with her legs. Her grip was so tight, in fact, that he had to struggle to release his arms, which were pinned between her chest and his own.

She racked her nails down his shoulders, tearing the skin. He pulled away momentarily, groaning as he lost himself in the duality of pleasure and pain that coursed through his body and straight to his center. He returned his lips to hers, kissing her harder and breaking his arms away to feel every inch of her skin available. And a lot of it was available. She battled him for dominance, both of them knowing that it had nothing to do with who was on top.

XXX

Unseen by Logan, just for a flash, Jean's eyes flickered, and burned with a heat that had nothing to do with their wholly human passions that claimed the otherwise full attention.

Logan sensed heat radiating through Jean's body and into his, but chose not to notice, not to care.

Anyone walking on them now...

And then he remembered what had spun past him through the air at Alkali, a belt buckle forged in the shape of an X. The one Scott wore.

"Jean," he said, pulling away a little and finding it among the hardest things he'd ever done. "Wait!"

"No," Jean moaned. Her gaze flew down to the waist of his pants and his belt ripped off, colliding with the wall clear across the room and almost taking his pants with it.

He looked down in horror before hopping off completely and pulling his shirt back on. She sat up just as quickly, a fierce and frisky look in her eyes. Logan frowned, shaking his head. "Jeannie," he protested, "this isn't you!"

"Yes. Yes, it is me," she insisted.

He held her by the shoulders, finally able to put some distance between them, but caught in a fit of trembling as she stroked with telekinesis the parts of him he wouldn't let her reach with her hands.

"Stop it," he warned.

"Make me."

XXX

Hawk opened her eyes to see them talking. She heard Jean say "make me," and secretly thought, Hey, that's my line! Then Jean looked around in confusion. The electronics started going crazy, and Hawk wondered if this was a good time to scramble.

XXX

"Jean, you've been through hell. Maybe you ought to take it easy, eh? The professor said you might be…" The wild desire in her eyes disappeared at the very mention of the professor and she stopped everything she was doing to him, her expression suddenly a chilling calm; the kind of calm that a person radiated when they wanted to break something. And if Xavier had been right about her, she could break every adamantium bone in his body if she wanted to. Her blank stare raised the hairs on the back of his neck. "…different," he finished lamely.

Though her face was devoid of emotion, her voice dropped a few octaves. "Well, he would know, wouldn't he?" Logan pulled away from her, kicking his own ass for mentioning the professor. Perhaps Jean was aware of what had been done to her.

"What?" she demanded. "You think he's not inside your head too, making little adjustments here and there? Look at you, Logan." She shoved him away, disgust and accusation in her suddenly darker eyes. "He's tamed you," she hissed, her eyes darkening further until they were nearly black.

"Where is Scott?" He asked, taking out Scott's glasses.

She didn't answer.

"We traced the beacon on his bike to Alkali Lake. I found his glasses there." He chose not to mention the belt buckle, or the weird physical manifestations they'd encountered, and considered that she might pluck them from his thoughts regardless.

Still no response, so he called her name again. "Jean!"

She blinked, sniffed, shook her head, blinked again, as though waking from the deepest sleep, not comprehending why her eyes were filling with tears. "Where am I?" she asked suddenly, catching him by surprise. She meant it. She had no idea where she was. He took her by the hand, willing his strength into her slim frame, hoping that by taking it she'd be able to use him as an anchor against the chaos swirling inside her mind.

"You're in the mansion," he said in his calmest voice. Jean had control for the moment. All he had to do was make sure that he kept her calm so that she kept that control. "You need to tell me what happened to Scott." She huffed and looked away, and Logan then felt her confusion as though it were his own. Logan pulled Scott's glasses out of his back pocket, surprised that she hadn't pulverized them as much as she'd been crawling on him. "Jean, tell me what happened to him," he coaxed, holding the glasses up for her to inspect.

She looked down at the glasses blankly, as though they meant nothing to her. But Logan watched as recognition dawned in her eyes, as well as horror. An image of a whirlpool flashed before his eyes and he watched as Jean closed her eyes, close to tears. "Oh, God," she whispered.

Another image hit Logan, this time of Jean and Scott heatedly kissing and embracing. Logan looked around him and saw the machinery was falling apart, screws spun from their holes and shot through the air, cabinets opened and shut, tables trembled and moved around, and Scott's glasses broke, crumbling into nothing as tears began streaking down Jean's face. Everything began shaking and Logan suddenly felt Jean's panic as acutely as if it were his own.

He framed her face again, this time of his own free will. "Look at me," he commanded, shaking away the image of Scott's neon red eyes. "Jean, stay with me," he tried again. But the shaking in the room only got worse, and the images she pressed at him only came faster: Scott's red eyes fading into an ice blue. His shock. His wonder. His desperate kiss. His scream of terror as he tried to pull away. His furious struggling and fear as he realized that Jean was holding him with no trouble at all…

Logan shook it all away, knowing that it had to hurt Jean more than it hurt him. "Talk to me," he begged. "Look at me!"

She was looking everywhere but at him, even going so far as to close her eyes. "No," she gasped. "I can't! He… I…"

"Focus, Jean!"

She was whispering, so softly he couldn't make out the words. He read her lips as they moved, and suddenly he didn't want to know what she was a saying. He gave her a rough shake and everything stopped. "Kill me," she breathed, making sure he heard this time.

Logan's heart stopped. "What?" He still didn't want to believe that he'd heard correctly.

Her eyes begged him. "Kill me before I kill someone else."

Logan numbly shook his head. "Don't say that," he said flatly.

"Please, I'm begging you! You're the only one who can…"

"Stop it!"

"Kill me!" The room began shaking again, everything rocking and breaking. Glass from the cabinets shattered and everything lurched towards them, as though Jean were drawing the objects to her for protection.

"Stop it! Look at me." She stopped crying momentarily, her eyes lifeless. "Jean, it'll be alright," he told her. "Look inside my head; deeper than I can go, likely deeper than Charley. You can see where I've been, can't you? I've lost it too, Jean. But you can climb out of that abyss. We can help you, okay?" She hiccuped and gave the tiniest of nods. "The professor can help, he can fix it."

Everything stopped moving and for a painful second the entire room was dead silent. Jean's eyes became black as night, her face twisting in a frightening rage that Logan had never seen.

She leaned in close to him and rubbed her nose delicately against his. "I can't go back to the way I was," she whispered gently. "I'm free now. I thought you, more than anyone else, would understand that and love me enough to let me go." She leaned in closer still, as though to kiss him. Their lips brushed almost tenderly, but her voice was suddenly as hard as steel. "I don't want to fix it!"

He felt a small pressure in his chest and his feet left the ground. He hardly knew what to think of it until he was hurtled into the wall with the full force of a Category Five hurricane. He was out before he could even register the pain.

XXX

Suddenly, Jean pushed Logan back- hard- against the wall, knocking him out cold. As Jean go up, Hawk covered her mouth to muffle her scream; but it was like Jean heard it, nonetheless. She looked up directly at Hawk. Hawk tried to scramble out of the air vents, but Jean caught her and pulled her down- hard, like Logan.

Hawk, however, managed to soften her landing, but Jean knocked her out cold in a motion too quick for Hawk to counter.

XXX

"Logan!" Storm said, rushing up to him. Logan groaned for a moment, the realized something.

"Jean!" he cried.

"What happened?" Storm asked.

"I think she killed Scott."

"What?" Storm said, not believing what she had just heard. "That's not possible."

"I warned you..." Professor X said, closing his eyes. "She's left the mansion, but she's trying to block my thoughts. She's so strong... I fear it may be too late."

Hawk moaned, and that was when they all noticed her. "Don't everyone come rushing up at once."

"Hawk," Storm said, "what're you doing here?"

"Whaddya think?" Hawk replied.

"You were spying on me?" Logan demanded.

"I got bored. Don't worry, I closed my eyes."

"Hawk, how did you get knocked out?" Storm asked.

"Same way Logan did. Except, she pulled me down from the air vents, and then saw that I was telekinetic so she knocked me out somehow. That parts a little fuzzy."

"Now do you understand why you shouldn't eavesdrop?"

"A little."

"How much do you know?" Professor X asked.

"Everything."

Professor X sighed. "Come with us, Hawk. You know too much as it is, might as well let you help out."

XXX

Hawk got out of the car with Storm, Logan, and Professor X. She'd never seen the Grey's house before, and was amazed at how old fashioned it was. "Wait for me here," Xavier said as they walked forward.

"What?" Logan asked.

"I need to see Jean alone."

"You were right, Charles," a familiar voice said. Hawk looked up to see Magneto there. She and Storm quickened their steps slightly. "This one is special."

"What the heck are you doing here?" Logan demanded. Hawk glared at him for his use of language- he used the severe version of "heck"- but he ignored her of course.

"The same thing as the Professor. Visiting an old friend."

"I don't want any trouble here," Charles said.

"Nor do I, Charles-"

"Why do I get the feeling you want to cause nothing but trouble," Hawk said, glaring at him. Storm shot her a look.

Magneto ignored her statement, and continued. "So, shall we go inside?" They started to walk away.

"Shouldn't we go with him?" Hawk asked. "He's just going to cause a rift between them."

Storm looked at her sadly. "No. Charles said he'd handle this. I trust his judgment."

Judgment Smudgement. Hawk thought. There was a huge mutant up ahead, he was probably the muscle in this mess. But she didn't know how or what to think of the others. She could just hope that the Professor knew what he was doing.

XXX

"I came to bring Jean home," Charles said. "Don't interfere Eric."

"Just like old times, huh?" Eric said.

"She needs help, Jean isn't well."

"Funny, you sound just like her parents." Eric stopped and turned to Juggernaut. "Nobody gets inside."

XXX

Hawk saw Magneto stop and murmur something to the larger mutant. She easily emerged herself into his thoughts. "Nobody gets inside."

Hawk almost started forward, but Storm held her back. "No."

"But what if the Professor needs help?" Hawk asked desperately. "I don't think they're gonna stand down for us."

"Hawk, I said no. This is one of those times when you're just going to have to listen and not find a loop hole."

Hawk turned and scowled. This was not going to be pretty.

XXX

Hawk saw the mailbox start to tremble, and winced as she felt Jean's outburst. "'Ro," she heard Logan say as he pointed at the mailbox. "I'm goin' in." Storm grabbed his wrist.

"The Professor said he'd handle this." Hawk knew she meant different. It was clear in her expression and her thoughts. She's my friend to; for longer than you've known her. Don't you dare screw this up.

Hawk was itching for a fight though, and so was Juggernaut. Logan noticed this, and extended his claws. One hand, three blades.

"I hear your claws can cut through anything," Juggernaut challenged. "Want to take a shot?"

"Don't tempt me, bub," Logan cautioned. To Storm's great relief though, and to Hawk's amazement, even though they both knew how close to the edge he was, Logan retracted his blades. Storm knew for dirtbags like this, there'd always be another time. What mattered now, all that mattered now, was Jean. Hawk agreed with this, but she also knew that if they didn't get in there fast, someone was going to get hurt- or, more likely, die. She shot Logan a dirty look, wondering why he didn't choose this one time to disobey Storm's orders.

XXX

Hawk sensed, then heard the explosion in the house. She grimaced this time. Jean's outbursts were getting worse and worse. Logan, having better hearing than most of them, heard it to. "That's it," he said, pausing as Storm called his name.

"Logan, wait for me."

Hawk was glad that they were finally going to fight. Juggernaut sensed the challenge and put on his helmet. As Logan charged, Storm went airborne. Hawk stayed where she was. Flames in either hand. The adults could handle the breaching, she would just rush in and get the Professor, and possibly take on Phoenix. Storm would probably kill her for the latter though; but, she didn't really care.

Juggernaut head-butted Logan in the chest, causing Wolverine to flip through the air and land hard on the pavement. He looked over his shoulder, and cursed under his breath. "Talking mushrooms, Logan," Hawk muttered.

Logan got up, and tried to slice through the Juggernaut's arm. They just went through. Juggernaut picked Logan up then, and threw him through the window.

Storm, on the other hand, held herself still in the heart of her vortex that she was creating; while intensifying the winds to the point where she generated a localized, but formidable, tornado. The mutants left outside, Kid Omega and Radian- although Hawk thought Porcupine, or even Quill, was a better name for the spiky mutant as he popped his spikes to shoot at Storm- didn't know which way to turn as the funnel descended, striking faster and more accurately than a cobra accompanied by a lightning strike, knocking them out.

Callisto got ready to fight, but Storm shot her lightning bolts, breaking the door down and knocking Callisto in. Hawk raced to the entrance.

XXX

Storm walked through the doorway. Callisto was on the floor, and Storm thought she would be smart enough to stay that way after those bolts. Instead, Callisto got up, and literally, in a split second was by the fireplace. She laughed. As Storm was trying to comprehend this, Callisto raced up and punched her in the face. That was when Hawk came in. "Storm," she cried as she saw the punch.

Callisto looked up and saw her. From the look on her face, Storm knew Callisto thought that this was going to be fun, beating up a little girl. She noticed Hawk wince again, like she did earlier when the mailbox started to shake. This obviously had something to do with Jean. Callisto took advantage of the moment, and tried to knock her out, but, instead ended up spinning as Hawk ducked.

Even though Storm knew what Hawk was capable of with her powers, she also knew that Hawk was terrible at fighting when she was in pain. Callisto must've figured that also, as Hawk ducked behind a couch, then turned back to Storm, rushing her into a head-but, and giving Storm a headache; then grabbed Storm and smashed her face into the glass table.

XXX

Hawk grabbed her head and tried to put up her blocks. The closer she got to Jean, the worse it got. Both Wolverine and Storm were getting their butts kicked out there, and here she was, cowering in pain. That made her angry, and she forced herself to concentrate harder...

XXX

Callisto slammed Storm into a wall, and Juggernaut threw Logan into the same wall from the outside. Then Callisto threw Storm against the floor, and Storm skidded to the other side of the room. Callisto went to attack Storm more as Juggernaut picked Logan up, and Logan tried to slice threw Juggernaut's arm; Juggernaut retaliated with a punch. Callisto threw Storm against some shelf, and that was the final straw; while Juggernaut continued his series of punches, Storm's eyes turned white and she threw a thunder micro-burst behind her- acting like a punch- then went for the face. Callisto was stunned for a moment, but after the second one, she deflected the third, causing it to hit and create a hole in the ceiling.

Logan stabbed the Juggernaut from behind. "Storm!" He cried, holding out his claws to her. She somehow managed to get Callisto's hands in some kind of lock, then shot a lightning bolt to Logan; electrocuting him and Juggernaut. After a few seconds, Logan retracted his claws, and the Juggernaut fell to the ground with a loud thud.

Hawk finally managed to get the blocks up and stop the pain. The warning signals of Phoenix's next move came by and Hawk was able to establish a telekinetic grip onto the ground, while everyone else was pinned to the roof. Hawk walked slowly- at a rate which she would later think was far too slow- to the study where Jean and the Professor were. Logan- not surprisingly- was crawling along the roof. When they reached the study, Logan didn't even notice her. He used his claws and opened the door.

Everything was floating in some sort of telekinetic vortex and Jean and the Professor seemed to be having a stare-down, with Xavier in the air. Hawk saw the skin starting to flake off of him. Logan started to scream. And then Magneto cried Xavier's name. Hawk looked at Jean, horrified as Xavier exploded. She screamed as she was knocked back, putting up a force-field to protect herself from the debris.

XXX

Logan helped Storm up. "You alright, 'Ro?"

"Fine, Logan," Storm replied, looking around fervently, as if she lost something. "Where's Hawk?"

A movement near a crashed wall got their attention, and they quickly found out where she was. Storm had never seen her look so scared in her life. Then, the thought about the Professor struck her. "Logan, where's Charles?"

Logan dashed off to the direction of the study; Storm on his heels. For once, Hawk wasn't so eager to follow. Logan stopped dead when they saw the Professor's chair and sank to his knees. Storm couldn't hold back her tears and joined him. Hawk stood back, hand covering her eyes, thinking that if she had just followed her instinct, and not held back, things might have been different.

After a few minutes of grief, all three headed to the car. Hawk in the back, Storm in shotgun, and Logan driving. Hawk was nervously nibbling at her nails; Logan noticed this. "What's gotten into you, kid?"

Storm looked up when Hawk didn't answer, and saw a slightly haunted look on Hawk's face through the rear view mirror. "Hawk?"

Hawk looked up at Storm's call. "What?"

"Logan asked you a question."

"Oh, nothing Logan. It's just... never mind. It's nothing."

Neither adult believed that for a second. "Come on, now," Logan said.

"Look," Hawk flared, "I said it was nothing. Just drop it."

Storm turned slightly, to face her. It was a shame she didn't have telepathy. If she knew Hawk, she would have her telepathic blocks up to prevent any conversation. Hawk looked up when she felt Storm looking at her. "What?"

Storm gave her a look that told her that they were going to talk about this later.

It was a glorious day, with only a scattering of clouds to gentle the sun with occasional moments of shade.

One in all, though, the students thought it should be raining. Something torrential, biblical even, would be far more appropriate to how they felt.

This was the private ceremony to what Charles Xavier considered his true family, the students he had gathered and mentored throughout the decades, all of whom- regardless of age- were feeling more than a little bereft, like ships that had lost their moorings.

There'd been the equivalent to a town meeting. Xavier had left some instructions in his will, but the faculty felt it would be best to give the students their own voice on how to proceed.

The decision was made to establish a memorial in the garden, because that was where he always where taught the hardest cases that came to him. He would take the offending parties and set them to work doing what was always difficult for him- caring for his roses. And because he was never one to pass up such an opportunity, those sessions turned into seminars of extraordinary variety and depth. A course on how to properly transfer a plant evolved quite naturally into a discussion on the nature of structure and balance, and how natural selection was affected by human engineering, which in turn led to a discussion of philosophy and a measure of history. And since he was he would not let anyone get away with just spouting- oh no, they'd had to buttress it with citations going back, invariably, to the dawn of writing- that would often lead to a course in Latin or Greek, or who knows what else. The deeper into this seemingly makeshift curriculum one went, the harder one wanted to work. A lesson learned, a life saved, roots put down- and not just for the rose. There was perhaps only one case who couldn't do that out in the garden with, thanks to her ability with the earth, and that was Hawk. But he always managed to find a way to make her useful.

He had an infectious love of learning, and a respect for knowledge that inspired the same for those around him.

Losing that, for these people, was like stealing the sun from their sky.

There were two stones, the greater cenotaph as tall as Xavier himself, emblazoned with a bas-relief of his face in profile, along with his name and the words Father*Mentor*Teacher. Beside it was a second pillar, slightly smaller, bearing Scott's name.

The air was still- Ororo had seen to that- yet the temperature quite comfortable. Each breath brought them the rich and varied fragrances of the garden, and their ears were touched from time to time by the buzz of honeybees and the occasional trill of bird-song from the surrounding trees. Farther off in the distance could be the keen of a hawk, calling for its mate.

Only three were painfully conspicuous of their absence: Jean Grey, Hawk- which surprised a lot of people, especially since no one could find her anywhere when she wasn't out riding- and Logan. Neither he nor Ororo had spoken of the events at the Grey household beyond the fact that the professor had been lost during a confrontation with Magneto, and for the moment, they were content to let the blame fall entirely on him. She also never had the chance to talk to Hawk, because Hawk was strategically avoiding her. No matter how hard Storm tried to find her, she was either busy or in the stables getting ready for a ride. Storm didn't push it for long, hoping Hawk would find some need to talk to her, but the girl was far too stubborn for her own good to let herself be caught emotionally, so Storm could do nothing but wait and hope. But Jean's manifestation of power had sent ripples through the aether that were felt by every student in the school with even a smidgen of psychic awareness. Ororo had to admit, when talking about it alone with Hank, that Jean's actions had likely been sensed by darn near every psi on the planet! In a school full of active, inquiring minds, encouraged to think outside the box, it wasn't long before the kids began putting the pieces together and drawing disturbingly accurate conclusions. So, now, they weren't just shaken by the loss of the man who'd recruited every one of them, who'd been their guiding light as they explored this strange new world of their powers; they also had to deal with the inescapable fact that one their own- perhaps the most power out of all of them, as well as the member of the staff who was second only to Xavier himself as a nurturing parental figure- had gone rogue.

Nobody had to ask where Wolverine had gone. The only questions were what he'd do when he found her, and whether or not he'd come back.

Ororo strode to a space on the grass just in front of Xavier's stone, and took a moment to compose herself- and, in that moment, she inadvertently allowed all present to see, and understand why, during her youth in Africa she'd been considered a goddess.

"We live in an age of darkness," she began. "A world full of fear and anger, hate and intolerance."

XXX

Messages of sympathy had come, not only from the President Cockrum, but from his predecessor, who'd laid groundwork for all the advances in mutant-sapien relations since. A discreet video feed had established that allowed these proceedings to be viewed from the Oval Office.

David Cockrum sat at his desk, his wife of many years at his side. He was idly sketching- which is what he did when he was stressed, to center his thoughts and ease his minds- a rough drawing of Xavier as he knew him best, from younger happier days. No staff were present, as this was a private moment; and presidents never liked anyone outside the of closest family to see them cry.

"For most of us," Ororo said, "this is the way things are and always will be. Some maintain it's hardwired into so-called human nature. But in every age, there are those who fight against it."

The news had been a body blow. None of the students had needed to be told that the professor was gone. They'd felt his passing the moment it happened- in a class, in dorm rooms; everywhere on the great sprawling campus- as shocking and undeniable as a blow to the gut. And yet- though the initial reaction of many was tears- discussion after the fact revealed that the predominant emotion, what they'd actually felt from Xavier, wasn't pain or sadness. Quite the opposite: they'd been aware of a fierce hunger to see what the lat over the next horizon, an eagerness to embark on the wonderful adventure. They felt a sense of grace and peace- and strangest of all, they felt joy.

XXX

"There was Moses, who led his people out of slavery, but never reached the Promised Land himself; Abraham Lincoln, who saved the Union and freed the slaves, but never lived to see his country at peace; Franklin Roosevelt, who led America through the Great Depression and the Second World War, yet died before the final victory; John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, struck down cruelly before their time, their promise unfulfilled."

Hawk went out riding during the funeral. It wasn't that she didn't want to pay her respects, funerals just weren't her thing. She felt bad for avoiding Storm at a time like this, since Storm had lost a father for the second time. But, if she didn't she was going to end up talking about what she saw during the fight at the Grey's. She was sooo not ready for that. As she looked up, she saw Logan out on the balcony. Whether he saw her or not, she didn't really care. Hawk turned Midnight towards the forest, and galloped off.

"Martin Luther King Jr. who fought for equal rights but was struck down by an assassin's bullet."

Logan stood just inside the treeline, downwind so that he couldn't be scented. He didn't have a great view, he didn't really want one, but he heard every word that Ororo had to say.

"It wasn't something they asked to do. They were chosen. And he was chosen too."

She looked up, and her eyes found his at once, as though she'd known precisely known where to look for him. The pain in her eyes mirrored his, only more so- and Logan knew that she mourned not only the friends she had lost, but feared as well for those about to follow.

He understood completely, but turned away nonetheless. A figure caught his eye off in the distance, and he recognized it as Hawk on Midnight Storm. Obviously she knew he was there, and the look in her face said she didn't care if he saw her or not- probably if he told Storm her whereabouts also- then turned Storm and galloped off.

"Charles Xavier was born into a world divided; a world he tried to heal – a mission he never saw accomplished. It seems the destiny of great men to see their goals unfulfilled."

Rogue sat at the end of the front row, Bobby beside her, Kitty beside him. None were shy about their tears. Seeking comfort, Rogue reached for Bobby's hand, her sadness at the necessity of being able to touch him only through a glove. Some instinct, perhaps a minimal shift in the way he sat on his chair, prompted a sideways glance and she caught her lower lip between her teeth at the realization that he and Kitty were holding hands as well. Only, the other girl's hands were bare. None of them noticed Peter Rasputin sitting behind Bobby, with eyes only for Kitty. They'd been an item, once, and after they'd broken up, she'd spent a sabbatical year abroad getting over it. Problem was, he hadn't.

"Charles was more than a leader, more than a teacher. He was a friend. When we were afraid, he gave us strength. And when we were alone, he gave us…" – Ororo swallowed a lump in her throat – "a family. He may be gone, but his teachings live on through us, his students. Wherever we may go, we must carry on his vision. And that's a vision of a world united."

That was it. One by one, led by Rogue- whose idea this was- each of them walked to the cenotaph for a moment alone, to say their own farewells, and leave a long-stemmed rose at its base.

XXX

Marie headed for the door, a traveling bag in her hand and her long trench coat on. She was going to get the 'Cure', and no one was going to stop her.

"You need a lift, kid?" someone asked behind her. It was Logan.

Startled, she waited a beat before she turned to face him. Clearly, she knew that he knew where she was going, and she was prepared to tell him off if he tried to stop her. "No."

Logan slowly stepped up to her with a knowing look. "Where are you going?"

She sighed. "You don't know what it's like to be afraid of your powers, to be afraid to get close to anybody."

Logan shook his head wearily. She'd never know just how wrong she was. "Yeah, I do."

She shook her head too. "Not like this. I want to be able to touch people, Logan. A hug, a handshake… a kiss." She blushed furiously and looked away. It wasn't like she couldn't do it like everyone else- minus the kiss- but Marie, could only do it through a layer of clothing. It was driving her insane.

"I hope you're not doin' this for a boy."

She gave him a strange look, like she wasn't sure if she ought to believe him. "Shouldn't you be telling me to stay? To go upstairs and unpack? Or to at least bring someone with me?"

"I not your father I'm just a friend. Just make sure it's what you want. See ya around, Rogue."

"Marie," she corrected, and with that, she was out the door.

XXX

Hawk walked past Logan's room, to see him moving the beer cans. Despite her mood, Hawk grabbed her book, and went into the air vent. He was packing. Hawk rolled her eyes at him. How can you leave us when Storm needs you now more than ever?

"Where are you going?" a new voice asked coming in. It was Storm.

Oh, this is going to get interesting.

"Where do you think?"

"She's gone, Logan. She's not coming back."

"You don't know that."

"She killed the Professor."

Duh, Doofus. What more evidence do you need that Jean's gone insane in the membrane?

"It wasn't Jean. The Jean I know is still in there."

"Listen," Storm said, blocking his way. "Why can't you see the truth, huh? Why can't you just let her go?"

Logan suddenly grabbed Storm by the shoulders and pinned her against the wall, causing Hawk to jump. Cozy, she thought bitterly.

"Because... because..."

"Because you love her."

And you!

He nodded.

"Logan," Storm told him, "Jean made her choice." He started to protest, but she stopped him by laying her fingertips across his lips, a gesture that seemed to him very much a caress. It came to him at that instant that he wasn't the only one held by the grip of primal emotions. "Now it's time to make ours, so if you're with us, then be with us."

Ooooohhhhh, this is gettin' good.

She shifted her grip, sliding her hand down from his lips to cup his jaw in a way both tender and achingly intimate, revealing far more of herself with these few small movements than she'd done in all the time he'd known her.

I knew it! I knew she liked him!

"I've now lost two of my oldest friends, and the only father I've ever really known. I don't want to lose you, too."

With that she left him.

Logan turned toward the air vent. "She's gone."

Hawk sighed, kicked the air vent open, and landed. "I don't see you don't just let her go and move on."

"What?"

"Look, you're attracted to her, she's attracted to you... get the picture?"

Logan still gave her that puzzled look, and she rolled her eyes. "Look, if you wanna-"

"I don't want to; I need to."

"Whatever. If you wanna go, then go. But don't expect a warm welcome from me when you get back."

XXX

"So, what now?" Bobby asked. "What do we do?" It was the following morning after Xavier's memorial. A bunch of kids had gathered in one of the common rooms after breakfast, to be joined by Storm, Hank, and ultimately- to a smile of relief that wasn't returned- by Logan.

Storm shrugged. "I don't know Bobby."

Hank knew that none of them had thought that far ahead. They were all still too much in shock. Especially the youngest one there, Hawk. Everyone was surprised to see her downstairs, since she had hardly been out of her room since she got back from her ride yesterday. She was listening to 'Those Nights' by a band called Skillet while reading.

Hank spoke up, reluctantly, the doctor delivering the worst of news- news that seemed just about what everyone was expecting.

"Professor Xavier started this school, perhaps it's best that it end with him," Hank said. "We'll have to tell the students that they're going home."

"Most of us don't have anywhere to go," Bobby pointed out, looking at Hawk's direction.

"What?" she asked when she felt Bobby's gaze on her. "I ain't goin' back to that orphanage. I'll survive just fine on the streets like I have done before."

"Hawk," Storm said quietly. "If we were to ever close down the school, then you'd be coming with me."

"I can't believe this!" Bobby exclaimed. "I can't believe we're not going to fight for this school."

Storm didn't say anything, looking deep in thought. Hawk turned around in her chair and began a telepathic conversation.

XXX

Just tell them, Hawk said.

Tell them what? Storm replied.

You know what. About how you're the heir; how you're going to take Xavier's place.

How do you know about that? Storm asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Hawk turned away slightly, looking guilty as she began to twirl her hair around her fingers. I uh... sort of used Isis for a little eavesdropping.

Storm gave her a dark look.

What? I got a talking to after wards. The Professor gave it to me after you left the room.

XXX

There was a creak in the floor as someone stepped towards the room. Storm looked up, as did everyone else, to see a boy in his late teens- early twenties tops- standing in the doorway. "I'm sorry," he said, "I know this is a bad time. I was told this is a safe place for mutants."

"It was son," Hank said.

"And it still is," Storm said getting up. "We'll find you a room." Then she turned to Hank. "Hank, tell all the kids that school stays open."

Hank and Bobby smiled; Hawk pumped her fist, saying "yes" inaudibly. Logan just continued to gaze out the window.

XXX

Storm watched from her room as Logan went to Xavier's grave. Hawk knocked on the door. Storm didn't have to see who it was to know. "What is it, Hawk?"

"How'd you know it was me?"

"You're the only one who comes up here."

They laughed. "I was wondering if you were going to the Danger Room?"

Storm shook her head as she continued to look out the window. "Not today."

Hawk shrugged. "Okay."

Storm suspected that she was up to something."I don't want anyone in the Danger Room, Hawk," Storm said as she walked to the door.

"Wasn't going to. I'm for toward the stables."

Of course you are, Storm thought. "Be back by dusk."

Hawk waved in acknowledgment. Storm returned to the window, and saw Logan coming in. She sighed and walked to the carriage house- which was right below her room. She grabbed the keys to his bike and waited.

XXX

Logan was surprised to see Storm in the carriage house. He had started to look for his keys,when he sensed her, and then saw her standing behind him. She had his keys.

Logan could tell by the sadness he saw in her face that she wasn't going to try to stop him. She gave him the keys and turned to leave.

Logan caught her wrist though, and she looked at him. They parted with an embrace that carried with it an acceptance of what was, but also a promise of a of a future not yet dreamed of. Then, with a roar that woke the house as he opened the bikes throttle wide, he hit the road. Logan had a lot of miles to go before he slept- and a promise to keep.

XXX

Storm blinked back the tears, not really knowing why she had them, as she walked back into the mansion. Probably because she was afraid of losing one of her friends- again. Hawk met up with her in the corridor. "I thought you were going out?"

"That was before I saw Logan," Hawk replied. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine,Hawk," Storm said, looking out the window. "It's dusk, too late for you to go out now. You can go tomorrow."

"Okay," Hawk said, a little puzzled by Storm's behavior. "'Night."

"Good night, Hawk."

The streets were crowded as Bobby and Hawk looked for Rogue. "Getting the cure so that you can go home to your mommy and daddy?" someone sneered behind Bobby. They turned to see Pyro there. This could only mean trouble. Pyro looked at Hawk. "Oh, that's right, you don't have any."

That set off the emotion spell that she was prone to when things like that were brought up. Hawk had lost her parents to a car accident and became an orphan when she was eight. It still hurt to this day, and if you brought it up in a taunt, someone was bound to get hurt.

She was about to wipe the smirk off his face, but Bobby stopped her.

"I'm looking for someone," was all Bobby said as he began looking again. Hawk did the same.

"Oh I get it," Pyro said. "You're girlfriend. Figures she'd want the cure. She's pathetic."

Hawk knew what Pyro was doing, and Bobby was taking the bait. As he sized Pyro up, his fists clenched and ice started to cover them.

"Bobby," Hawk said stopping him, "let it go. If anyone's going to take him out, it's me."

At the same time, Pyro lit his Zippo. "Come on, Iceman."

Bobby looked down at the flame, then back at Pyro.

"Bobby!" Hawk called. "Let's go. I think I see her up there."

Bobby looked at Pyro, then shook his head as he turned to join Hawk.

"Same old Bobby," Pyro taunted. "Still afraid of a fight!" Then, he launched a flame at the building, blowing it up.

Hawk and Bobby turned instantly and started to look for Pyro. "He's not getting off my radar that easily," Hawk declared as she telepathically searched for him. Then she snapped her fingers. "Shoot! He's too far for a clear attack." That was when she saw that a score of people were burning, clothes ignited by the outrush of flames. "Kriffing Stang," Hawk muttered. "Bobby!"

"I see 'em!"

But, even as they started to move towards them, a series of sharp secondary blasts shattered windows on the upper floors, sending a cascade of glass shards towards the crowd like searing-hot shrapnel.

Their responses were just as quick- while Bobby generated cocoons of ice to extinguish the folks who were burning, Hawk put up a large force-field to shield the rest from the flying glass. They could hear screams from inside the building. The fire had spread with fearful speed along the ground floor, covering the elevators and the stairwells, trapping everyone who was upstairs.

XXX

"Today's attack on your 'cure' was only our first salvo..." he said on the television.

Hawk looked up when she heard, then saw Magneto on the screen. She dropped 'the goblet of fire', and rushed to the door. Storm! Hank!

They both came rushing to her call. "What is it?" Storm asked quietly, joining her in the common room with Hank.

"Look." Hawk pointed at the TV.

"Oh, my..."

"So long as this so-called cure exists, our war will rage. Your cities wuill not be safe; your streets will not be safe; you will not be safe. You want a cure, we are the cure. And to my fellow mutants, I make you this offer: Join us or stay out of our way. Enough mutant blood has been spilled already.

"Yeah, whatever," Hawk said when he was finished.

There was silence. A silence that reigned for two or three seconds, before one of the younger kids stook out his forked tongue and delivered a rousing Bronx cheer.

He got the laugh he wanted- but only for a moment, before the broadcast switched over to the newsroom and began to present a series of reports around the country.

The incident in Lower Manhattan hadn't been an isolated attack, but part of a coordinated simultaneous strikes throughout the nation. There'd been no X-man present to protect the others and the results were ruin after gutted ruin, and a casualty list- including a body count- that made many watching weep.

Hawk quickly turned away and left the room, not bearing to take another second of this. Hank was about to follow, when Storm stopped him. "It's best if we leave her alone when she's like this. She'll calm down soon enough."

XXX

Hawk paced in the loft. Nightmares of Xavier exploding had left her in a bad mood. Storm saw this. "Hawk," Storm said, indicating that they should talk in her living area. Hawk followed, sitting on the couch with one leg tucked under her.

"Hawk, what's going on?" Storm asked gently, sitting down next to her.

"What do you mean?"

Storm quirked an eyebrow. "You know exactly what I mean. You haven't been yourself. You've been...I don't know...distant...ever since-"

"Don't mention it."

"Why?" Storm asked curiously.

"Just... don't." Hawk should've known that this conversation was going to pop up.

"Hawk, what happened? What did you see back there that you're not telling me?" She reached out to push some of Hawk's hair back from her face.

"I don't want to talk about it," Hawk said, getting up and going to the window.

"Hawk, we're going to talk about it whether you like it or not. Look at you, you're a wreck. Was it something in your nightmare?"

Hawk spun around in surprise. "Ho-"

"The weather went crazy last night."

Hawk looked down and clenched her fist angrily. It was rare that the weather went crazy with her nightmares; it was only when they were at their worst that the weather would respond to her emotions. Storm took a step towards her. "Hawk, please," Storm pleaded. "Tell me what happened."

Hawk couldn't hold back the tears any longer. "It was awful. It was like watching him explode from the inside-out. And Jean..." she shuddered. "She was ugly! Her eyes had gone completely black, and her skin was..." she trailed off, not knowing how to describe it.

"Can you show me?" Storm asked.

Hawk looked at her in shock. "Are you sure you can handle it? I mean this is you best friend we're talking about. Someone who was like a sister to you."

Storm gave her a cold stare. "Jean lost that right when she killed the Professor."

"Okay, it's your funeral."

Hawk brought up a freeze image that seemed to stick in her brain to her mind's eye, and projected it to Storm's. Storm gasped and Hawk stopped it immediately. "I told you it was bad."

"Yeah," Storm said a little shakily. "I just didn't realize until now how bad it was."

"Yeah, well, now you know what I'm stuck seeing just about every night."

She tensed a moment, sensing someone coming to the mansion. What does he want now? Hawk thought, after figuring out who it was.

"What is it?"

Hawk decided to take advantage of the moment. "Someone you probably don't want to see."

There was a loud bang from downstairs as someone threw the doors open. Both females got up and started going down the staircase, Storm first, Hawk next.

"Storm!" Logan called from downstairs. "Storm!"

"What are you doing back here?" Storm asked bitterly.

Logan looked to Hawk briefly.

"I did tell you not to expect a warm greeting from us."

"I need help," he said turning back to Storm.

"You found her," Storm said, assuming things hadn't gone well.

"Yeah, she's with Magneto. Locked at the hip, but I'm not sure they're walkin' the same road. 'Ro, she led me right to her. She knew I was coming, she wanted me there- but as soon as Magneto caught me, she walked away."

"I told you!"

Yup, she did, Hawk added. But no one ever listens to the girl.

Logan shook his head violently. "It's not that simple."

Storm shelved that argument for another time and her thought echoed Logan's. If we make it that far. "Where are they?"

"They're on the move. I know where they're goin'."

"You're saying you saw Magneto?" Hank asked coming in.

"Yeah, we gotta go now."

Storm and Hank looked at each other and turned to follow Logan. Hawk started to follow, but felt like someone was watching her, and went up into the air vents unnoticed.

"They're going to attack Alcatraz," Logan said.

"They are troops stationed on that island," Hank pointed out.

"Not enough to stop him."

"Let's suit up," Storm said.

Behind them, a certain Angel heard every word. As he turned around, Hawk was standing behind him. "Whoa!"

"What are you doin'?" she asked.

"How do you get in here?"

She pointed up. "Air vents are my specialty around here. I reign over all of them. Plus, my shape-shifting ability allows me to attain the abilities of the person I'm copy-catting, real or not." Then she crossed her arms. "Now you answer my question."

"I was wondering who it was that came in here screaming Storm's name... and incidentally heard the conversation."

Hawk laughed. "That's just Logan- aka, Wolverine. Has a healing factor and foot long adamantium claws. Not someone to mess with. Anyway, I'm not going to tell. I'm the ultimate eavesdropper around here."

"Has anyone seen where Hawk went?" Storm said.

"Over here, Storm," Hawk said, stepping out into the corridor.

"Let's go."

"See ya around, Angel," she said, dashing off to catch up to Storm.

XXX

"If Magneto gets a hold of that cure, they'll be no stoppin' him," Logan said as he and Hank walked to the Hanger

Logan rolled his shoulders, trying to settle his uniform more comfortably. He preferred not to wear it, so it had never been broken in. Not like Storm's, which felt like kid gloves. The others were suited up as well- Hawk was wearing a cape like Storm, except hers was black and removable; unlike Storm's, which was silver and stayed on her uniform.

"Can you estimate how many he has?" Hank asked.

"An army. And Jean."

"His powers have limits, hers do not.

"Kitty was grinning- she had obviously saved a quip for this special occasion. "Remember when you told Bobby and Rogue that our uniforms were on order?" Little girl, he thought, he weren't even flaimin' there! "Well, guess what just came in the mail!"

"There's only seven of us, Logan," Bobby said when they reached the hanger.

Logan looked from the kids to Storm, and back. "Yeah, we're outnumbered," he said, stepping toward Bobby. "I'm not gonna lie to ya. But we lost Scott; we lost the Professor. We don't fight now, everything they stood for will die with them."

Bobby was silent.

"I'm not gonna let that happen. Are you?"

Bobby shook his head.

"Then we stand together. X-men." He looked at Hank and Storm. "All of us."

Storm blinked.

Logan turned back to Bobby, who looked at the other three, then turned back to Logan. "Alright."

"Let's go."

Bobby nodded at the others, as they and Hank stepped through the doors that just opened. Storm looked at Bobby, then turned back as Logan approached her. "They're ready," he said.

"Yeah," Storm replied. "I know. But are you ready? To do what you need to do when the time comes." She stared at him for a long moment, then turned toward the hanger, only to see Hawk in the pilot's seat in the cockpit. "Hawk, get away from those controls, now!"

"Oh, come on..."

Logan stayed where he was for a moment then followed Storm.

The jet took off with a sonic boom. Then they set their course for Alcatraz. Storm in the pilot, Logan co-pilot, Hank behind Storm. The kids sat in the passenger seat. Bobby and Kitty took the first two seat, Peter and Hawk took the last two. Everyone was tense, no one hardly breathed.

Alternate scene #1:

A crowd waited at the entrance to the hangar: Bobby, Kitty, Colossus, Angel, even McCoy. Storm was a bit behind, waiting by the Blackbird with Hawk.

Logan rolled his shoulders, trying to settle his uniform more comfortably. He preferred not to wear it, so it had never been broken in. Not like Storm's, which felt like kid gloves. The others were suited up as well- Hawk was wearing a cape like Storm, except hers was black and removable; unlike Storm's, which was silver and stayed on her uniform.

Kitty was grinning- she had obviously saved a quip for this special occasion. "Remember when you told Bobby and Rogue that our uniforms were on order?" Little girl, he thought, he weren't even flaimin' there! "Well, guess what just came in the mail!"

"We're coming with," Bobby announced.

Logan snorted, his way of telling them in no uncertain terms, The heck you are!

"We trained for this," Peter said, backing up his friend. "We're ready."

"Best offense is a good defense, right?" Storm smiled from where she stood, clearly enjoying every moment of Logan's comeuppance. Hawk was enjoying it even more, from the way she giggled behind Storm.

Warren III stepped forward, visibly shy, but refusing to give in to his fear. "They say Magneto's going after my father," he said, his voice shaking with as much outrage as nerve. "My father! He may be wrong, sir, but he's not evil. I'm not going to leave him out there alone."

"Angel's right," Hawk put in. "I lost both of my parents because of a car accident, and I would do anything to know who caused it. I'd hate to see someone lose their father- or any parent for that matter- the same way I did."

Serious now, Storm added to what Angel and Hawk said. "This our fight Logan, not just yours."

He sighed. He didn't want them to learn the realities of his life this way. Or ever.

"This isn't going to be like class," he told them, looking one after the other in the eye, hoping they could see his face, in his eyes, what he was talking about. "Or the Danger Room. It's going to be real battle. With blood and tears... and death."

They were kids. Even if they thought they understood what he was talking about, they had no proper frame of reference- minus Hawk, who lost her own sister in a fight with Sabretooth before she joined the X-men when she was eight. Heck deep down inside they knew they'd live forever; that's why armies preferred their recruits young. Things like this could only be learned the hard way. It was a part of life that mirrored Worthington's cure, in that once you crossed this Rubicon, you could never go back. What you saw, what you did, would stay with you forever.

"As much as we've lost in the last few days, that's nothing compared to what's on the line."

Nobody moved, nobody even blinked.

"We get on that plane, we're not students and teachers anymore. We're not kids and grown-ups. We're soldiers."

"We're X-men," Bobby corrected. "All of us."

"No matter what age we are," Hawk added.

Everyone looked at her. "What? I'm the youngest one here."

They chuckled and the kids and Hank boarded, Storm and Logan hanging back. "They're ready," Logan said.

"Yeah, I know," Storm replied, her eyes going hard. "The question is will you be ready when the time comes to do what's right?" She turned toward the jet, seeing Hawk in the pilot's seat in the cockpit. "Hawk, get away from those controls, now!"

"Oh, come on..."

Alternate scene #2

"What the heck is that?" Logan asked Beast as he came out of the dressing area.

"My old uniform," Beast replied. "Still fits... mostly," he added chuckling.

Logan met up with Storm, who was waiting by the hanger. Hawk was standing next to her, and Colossus, Shadowcat, and Iceman were standing off a little ways further back. "They're not coming," Logan said to Storm. Hawk gave him one of her sassy "oh no" looks, and she looked like she was about to say something, but Iceman beat her to the punch.

"Hey! We trained for this."

Storm and Logan turned to him. Logan finished putting on his glove before he spoke. "This isn't the Danger Room, Bobby," he said, stepping towards him.

"Logan, we're ready to fight."

"Fight for what?"

Bobby didn't answer right away. He just looked at Logan and thought about his response.

"You better have an answer because you go to war, you may not come home." He indicated Kitty. "She may not come home, are you ready for that?"

"We're not kids anymore, we're X-men."

"What does that mean? Puffing that X on your chest?"

"It means we fight to protect those who ha-" Kitty began.

"Hate and fear us?" Logan cut her off. "Yeah, I heard that one before, but they're just words."

"No, it's not what it mean," Bobby said. "It means we're a family, all of us. And we fight as one or not at all. That's what it means."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Hawk said, "but I think he's speaking for all of us."

"Nice of you to join in, Hawk," Kitty said. "Why didn't you do it earlier?"

"Uh, usually when we have have a 'talk'," she pointed between Logan and her, then used her fingers as quotations, "it usually escalates. And right now, we don't have time for an escalated argument."

Logan looked from Hawk to Iceman. "You have no idea what's waiting out there; Magneto's got an army this time."

"And Jean," Storm added.

"His powers have limits, hers do not," Beast said. "If we don't stop them now, then no one else can."

"No offense to anyone," Hawk said a little tentatively, "but I think I can handle Jean."

Storm shot her a look, and she looked away biting her lip. "Shutting up."

"Well, then," Bobby said, "sounds like you're going to need all the help you can get."

"Let's go," Logan said.

"Yes!" Hawk said as the doors opened up to the hanger.

Storm and Logan hung back as the kids and Beast walked toward the jet. "They're ready," Logan said.

" Yeah, I know," Storm replied, her eyes going hard. "The question is will you be ready when the time comes to do what's right?" She turned toward the jet, seeing Hawk in the pilot's seat in the cockpit. "Hawk, get away from those controls, now!"

"Oh, come on..."

Alternate scene 3: Boarding the jet: Beast quotes Shakespeare

"We few," Beast said. "We happy few. We band of brothers. For he who sheds his blood with me this day, shall be my brother. And in this vile day, this day gentle his condition. And Ben and England, now are dead, count their manhood's cheap! They were not here with us, to fight with us on Crispin's day."

Hawk gave him a puzzled look, and- since she was a drama kid and all- she could only guess who wrote that. "Ease up on the Shakespeare Beast, there'll be plenty of time for that later."

"I'm surprised you know that, Hawk."

"Actually, I guessed."

"But we get the point," Logan said. "Let's go."

Everyone crowded up front for a view of the Golden Gate Bridge – or what was left of it – crudely bridging the mainland and Alcatraz, likely for any other mutants that decided they wanted to join the fight. Phoenix could've done it with little to no effort, but something told Logan that it had probably been Magneto. In fact, he was almost certain of that, as he could clearly picture the flat look that Phoenix would give him if he'd ordered her to move it. The bridge was massive and it had probably taken a great deal of effort for him to move (he wasn't in his prime anymore), but he probably hadn't been too weakened by it.

Hank whistled softly at the destruction below. "Oh my stars and garters."

"We're being painted," Kitty announced. Logan turned around and saw her at the tech station, adjusting knobs here and pushing buttons there, all at a rate that told Logan that she knew what she was doing. How, though, he wasn't sure. He knew that Kitty was tech savvy, but he'd assumed that all teenagers were. Obviously not. "Let's see," she continued, "we've got TraCon Doppler radar from Oakland and San Francisco International. But I'm getting some Q-band activity, high range, reads as an E2C Hawkeye AWACS off the Teddy Roosevelt, establishing a target portrait for possible air strikes."

Ororo tapped in a code on the center control console, between her and Kitty. "Going to stealth mode."

From outside, the great black aircraft, already difficult to see in the gathering darkness, shimmered and vanished, both to the naked eye and to all forms of electronic detection.

"On your toes people," Storm said quietly. "Everyone back to your places and strap in. Henry, Kitty," she added, "we're depending on you now. This airspace is more than likely to get more than a little crowded and since we can't be seen, we can't be evaded. It's up to you two to keep us from any collisions."

"A circumstance most devoutly to be avoided, ma'am," Hank agreed with mock solemnity, while Kitty, in the midst of tossing him a slightly jaundiced look, simply nodded. Hawk secretly rolled her eyes.

"Hawk," Storm said catching her attention. Hawk hoped that she didn't notice. "You're choice: Are you coming with me or are you going with the others?"

"Are you kidding? This is the first time I get to use the Crystal Hawk! I'm going with you!"

XXX

Hawk flew out of the hatch with Storm as the jet landed. She crossed her arms with her cape, then released herself and became the Crystal Hawk. Storm flew out with lightning bolts, and Crystal Hawk was nothing but dazzling light shaped like a bird that forced everyone to cover their eyes.

They all landed and Hawk transformed back into her normal self to stand beside Storm.

XXX

While this was happening, in those precious seconds that their adversaries were reeling from Storm's and Crystal Hawk's assault, the X-Men took the field.

Hank McCoy leapt impossibly from roof to wall to roof to wall to wall, bouncing effortlessly back and forth as he made his way to a landing in the yard.

Peter Rasputin simply dropped, full metal body, like a solid steel rock- despite the risk that represented against the powers of Magneto- to make a nifty crater of his own,

Logan slid down the face of the building, using his claws to thrust into the masonry wall and slowed his descent.

Kitty Pryde came down with Bobby Drake in her arms, phasing the pair of then so that when they reached ground level, they simply disappeared into the earth. A moment or so later, they popped right back up, like corks on a wave. Kitty, with Bobby by her side, clambered to the surface. She was grinning with delight. He looked ready to hurl.

"Don't ever do that again."

She rolled her eyes. Some guys were just plain useless.

You can say that again, Kitty, Hawk said.

The lieutenant commanding the force on Alcatraz recognized McCoy, despite his outlandish getup, and couldn't help staring. Presidential cabinet officers don't generally take the field of combat, much less clad in formfitting costumes.

"Pull back your troops, Lieutenant," McCoy told him, with the full authority that only someone used to having the ear of the president can muster. "Let the X-Men handle this."

"Sir," the lieutenant swallowed, well aware of what McCoy was asking and not altogether sure his men would follow, "This is our post, sir. Six of you, sixty-five of them? Those odds suck!" There's a lot more than just sixty-five, Logan thought grimly. "We can help!"

Hank acknowledged the offer, knowing what it meant for sapien troops to volunteer to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with mutants, allowing himself the hopeful thought, Perhaps some lasting good might come from this mess.

"You've done your part and more, Lieutenant," he told the young man. "Go. Now. That's an order."

Hank had no place in the officer's chain of command, but such was the natural force of his voice that the lieutenant responded with a crisp salute and did as he was told.

"Mind you," Hank mused to Logan by his side, "given those odds, he does have a point."

Logan snorted. Hank considered that for someone like the Wolverine, with his temperament and capabilities, he probably thought of this as a fair fight.

Logan raced across to the others that were by the door. "Fall back! You men cover the doors."

Storm and Hawk landed- most people having to cover there eyes as Hawk changed to default, including the brotherhood. Well, that's one way to win one, Logan thought. Blinding them.

"Any way you can change the brightness?" Storm asked her.

"Probably not. I haven't been able to do that since before Crystal died."

"Side by side, everybody, get together," Logan shouted, "and hold this line! Whatever comes, we defend this place, and the people in it, at all costs!"

Storm and Hawk stepped forward, Storm coming to stand next to Logan, Kitty, Bobby, Colossus and Hank. He caught each and every one of their gazes.

Kitty nodded to him when he looked at her, an expression that was probably meant to tell him that he ought to worry about himself. They would be alright. He nodded back to her and sent a silent prayer to the heavens that that would be the case.

XXX

Magneto shook his head.

"Traitors to their own cause." Forgive me, Charles, he thought. For the cause we both champion, I must destroy these children you hold most dear. "We must finish them," he told his mutants, and both tone and expression left no doubts as to what he meant by "finish." As far as he was concerned, this battle would be to the death. He would ask no quarter, nor grant any in return. "Every last one."

XXX

Hawk probed Magneto's thoughts, to make sure everyone knew what they were in for. That last one brought her to looking at Storm nervously. "What is it?" Storm asked.

"We're in trouble. Fight to the death."

XXX

Magneto turned his eyes to Jean, who met his gaze but made no other move.

"Finish them!"

At Magneto's signal, his mutants charged. A phalanx of almost forty against a line of seven.

XXX

"Five people per person," Hawk said. "This is gonna be fun."

"Now's not the time for your sarcasm," Storm said as the first wave got closer.

"Wasn't being sarcastic," she said with a lopsided smile, "this is going to be fun for me."

XXX

Logan didn't wait for them to reach him; for him best defense was offense.

Ten came for him, and he took them down without even breaking a sweat, without even popping his claws.

He was quick, but that was just the start of it. His healing factor gave Wolverine a reaction time that was far greater than the average sapien, or the average mutant. He rarely needed to think as he fought, on any conscious level; his body- working through backbrain, instinct, and memory- did that for him. He reacted to the slightest of cues, on levels more subtle than hunting dogs. which allowed him to begin his counter at virtually the same time, so it seemed to his adversaries as though he were reading their minds, anticipating their every attack.

For his opponents, it was worse when their bodies actually made contact. The Wolverine's skeleton was laced with adamantium, and striking him was akin to hitting metal bars far stronger than steel. Punching him in the jaw invariably broke a hand and the same applied to any blunt force object like cudgel. When he struck back, it usually only a single blow for lights-out.

The claws were a last resort, his ultimate weapon. He finished this engagement without them, save for a sideways slash through a lighting stanchion to drop it as a temporary barrier between one group of combatants and the next.

McCoy was even faster in speed and reaction time. Unlike Wolverine, he possessed an unnatural grace that made him seem almost weightless. He seemed utterly at home on any surface, floor or ceiling, vertical or horizontal, stationary or mobile. Even masonry in mid-collapse could be turned into a momentary perch or pivot point that allowed McCoy to move from one opponent to the next without the slightest pause, as though the entire engagement had been choreographed. Combined with an acrobatic agility that rivaled Nightcrawler's, and would make an Olympian gymnast weep, the Beast was nearly untouchable, definitely unbeatable.

Beast caught a punch in one hand, flipped the man head over heels into the two beside him, leapt for a wall, bounced off the head of another mutant, yanked him into the air, grabbed a pole, and used the momentum to make a 360-degree pivot in time to slam a foot into the heart of the now-falling mutant's belly before dropping back into the heart of the fray. And all the while, his face was split into a grin of true delight, as he reveled in a true and outrageous physicality that had been a straitjacketed far too long within his bespoke Savile Row suits, strapped down was cruelly as young Warren Worthington's wings.

Twenty of Magneto's crew in as many seconds. That was the score when Logan and Hank came together, back-to-back, skirmish's end.

"We've cut their number by a third," Beast crowed.

"Thought you were a pacifist," Wolverine growled, looking for Magneto, crying out in his mind for Jean, thinking, This was way too easy.

"As Churchill said, 'There must come a time when all men must-'"

A second wave, as many as the first, but much nastier to look at.

McCoy shrugged. "You get the point," he said, and leapt back into the fray.

As the first wave came along, both Hawk and Storm went airborne. "Hawk!" she cried over the winds. "Help me!" Thunder shook the rocky island, and a series of sympathetic, almost electronic twangs, like the plucked strings of an untuned guitar, sounded along the length of the bridge as the boom- which Hawk jumped at and covered her ears out of reflex from- established a cascade of vibrations across the suspender cables.

In the space of a few heartbeats, Storm had upped her storm to better than a category five on the Suffir-Simpson Hurricane- living in hurricane state, Hawk has only seen up to a category four, hurricane Charlie- and quite possibly Francis or Jean- and watched in awe- and unleashed its full fury into the heart of the attackers, striking them with wind-driven rain that knocked some off their feet and left the rest too dazed to cope with the storm surge that followed- with the help of Hawk, using her rarely used water ability- a wave that rose to twice their height and swept the battlefield clean of debris and combatants.

XXX

"Storm, look out!" Hawk cried. Her danger sense had gone off, and she looked to see Callisto going for Storm. But, it was too late, Callisto grabbed Storm, and they fell to the ground.

Because of closed quarters of the combat, Storm had to come down low to wield the weather- which helped Hawk's aim a little- with the necessary precision of force and placement. There were no fliers left among Magneto's troops, no sign yet of any energy casters like Pyro, so she thought her position fairly secure.

Callisto proved her wrong, demonstrating a strength and agility- and daring- on par with Beast as she scrambled up one of the suspender cables and hurled herself at Storm with headlong abandon.

Storm sensed the shift in the air, and heard Hawk's call that heralded the other woman's approach, but had to make sure her weather was safely under control- since Hawk couldn't take over weather while someone else was- costing her the split second needed to properly respond to Callisto's attack.

Hawk watched as Callisto kicked Storm in the stomach, causing her to double-over; then kicked Storm in the nose- thankfully not breaking it- punched her in the right cheek, and spat on the ground.

Storm was angry now. As Callisto came in for another attack, Storm spun and caught her in the throat.

Hawk wanted to help Storm out, but there was too much combat for a precise strike. All she could do was watch, and pray that Storm made it out while Hawk searched for a victim...

XXX

Callisto tried an upward thrust, but Storm blocked and twisted Callisto around, and somehow got her in a headlock. Callisto tried to strike again, but Storm grabbed that hand also, spun around, and threw Callisto onto a fence, where Storm brought down a lightning bolt and electrocuted her on the spot.

She'd come of age in a war zone, in a place and at a time where girls were generally considered of no consequence, dead or alive. She'd had to learn to defend herself long before her mutant powers had fully manifested themselves.

She'd learned that killing was easy.

That's why she always strove to find a better way. But sometimes there wasn't a better way.

XXX

Further along the line, Bobby found himself confronted by a behemoth who called himself Phat for reasons that were grossly obvious. The files at the Mansion mentioned a mutant who worked in a carnival, with a similar physique, who called himself Blob, but Fred J. Dukes was a matinee idol compared to this guy. Phat's footsteps set off tremors through the rock and threatened to bring down whatever walls remained upright.

Bobby tried freezing the ground to upend him, but Phat was so massive that the ice merely shattered underfoot.

Fortunately, he was no speed demon and Bobby had little trouble ducking and dodging his grabs. There wasn't a whole lot of wiggle room and the fight around them was delving into a madcap melee. None of the X-Men could afford to devote themselves overlong to a single adversary, for fear of becoming vulnerable to someone else.

Desperation, it seemed, produced inspiration and, instead of a sheet of ice, Bobby chose to form a pillar of ice around the mutant to enfold the other man. This way, except perhaps by tripping, the mutant couldn't bring his weight effectively to bear. And if he should fall, Bobby was determined to build an ice mountain on top of him, to make sure he wouldn't get up too soon.

Phat still managed two or three more steps before the ice locked him in place. Despite Bobby's efforts, he was still struggling. Hawk even came by. "Need some help?"

"That would be great, thanks."

"No problem. We're all in this together, right?"

But even with her help, Phat was still struggling and Bobby knew that if they eased off even a little, the other mutant would easily break free. Made sense, darn it, that a creature of such obscene bulk would have muscles to match; how else could he move, how else could he get his heart and circulatory system to function properly?

"I can't hold it much longer!" Hawk said. Bobby looked to see that her arms were trembling slightly, and he remembered that it had been awhile since she used ice. Her favorite was fire, like Pyro, but unlike him, she could create it.

Then Colossus was there, landing a single punch to Phat's jaw that broke the foot-thick ice encasement as if it were nothing, and still connected with enough power to shatter the mutant's consciousness before he hit the ground.

The Russian turned at once to aid Kitty, who didn't really need it against the woman with an axe.

"Aw, man," Hawk said. "I would've loved to see how well she could use that axe against a lightsaber."

"Snooze, ya lose," Iceman said. Hawk backhanded him.

"C'mon, let's go scope out another victim."

Time and time again, the woman slashed her blade through the girl's ghostly body without doing her the slightest harm, while Kitty bobbed and weaved and backpedaled until she came within Peter's reach.

A single backhand, not even full force, knocked the woman back twenty feet and out of the fight. Three more took her place, surrounding Kitty. Always accepting of a challenge, she went solid for them, spinning side kicks to the face. The blows were backed by the strength of a dancer's leg, bouncing from one guy to the next, shaking both up enough for her to complete the pivot and punch the third in the belly, dropping him at last with a knee to the nose.

There were a couple of quick glances from side to side and the briefest exchange of smiles back to Logan, who acknowledged that they were doing well.

At Logan's signal to the lieutenant, the soldiers moved onto the scene, taking the fallen mutants into custody.

XXX

Up on the bridge, Pyro glared the way at Bobby, chomping at the bit to confront his former roommate.

Magneto would have none of it.

"Not yet," he said to the young man that stepped forward, in a tone that allowed neither argument nor defiance. "Stay by my side."

Instead, Magneto turned to the Juggernaut.

"Mr. Marko," he called out. "You have the coordinates from Callisto. The boy we seek is in the main cell house." He pointed to the very top of the Rock. "Up there. Get inside. Find the boy. Kill him."

"What about her?" he asked, pointing to the girl who had blinded them earlier.

"If Callisto can handle Wolverine's favorite weather manipulator," Magneto said, "then she can handle the shape-shifter as well-"

"Callisto's dead," Jean said. "Storm took her out."

"We'll take care of her after the boy."

Age didn't matter, the fact that they were mutants didn't matter- no more than it had when he was prepared to sacrifice Rogue years before at Liberty Island. If it was necessary for the cause, that was all that mattered to Magneto.

As for Cain Marko, he really could care less. He just loved to smash things.

Buildings were fun, people were better- and X-men would be best of all.

He dropped his head, angling his torso forward as best he could so that his conical helmet appeared a bit like a massive cannon shell plowing through air. The sloping roadway allowed him to build up a decent amount of speed, and he was fairly confident that nothing below would be able to even slow him down, much less bring him to a halt.

Squads of troops were first to fall, solid hits that made him feel the same satisfaction as when he threw a strike in bowling, with bodies flying as wildly as tenpins.

A Humvee rolled from cover and deployed its water cannon, which had about as much affect as a kids water pistol. Juggernaut struck the vehicle more solidly than any battering ram, shattering it on contact and bouncing all the bits and pieces off the surrounding walls.

XXX

Logan popped his claws out, figuring they might do some good against the onrushing giant- what good was unstoppable momentum if you had no legs to run on?- but he was at the wrong end of the yard with too many bodies to fight between himself and Juggernaut.

Colossus was much closer, and he made the interception on his own, without a signal from the others, setting himself right in the charging mutant's path. Hawk saw the mutant also, and tried to stop him with her telekinesis, only to find out that she couldn't handle it by receiving a massive headache, which ticked her off.

Juggernaut accepted the challenge and picked up the pace, hardly feeling the tug from Hawk's TK. Colossus set himself, and cocked a fist.

He threw a great punch, but it never got a chance to land. Juggernaut body-slammed him right off his feet, turning the massive strength of the X-Man against him teammates, deflecting the armored Russian into a nearby wall that was already on it's last bricks, forcing Beast to scramble and to yank Iceman clear as the entire edifice crashed to the ground.

By then, of course, he was on his way to the cell house.

"He's going for the boy!" Beast yelled.

"Not if I get there first!" Kitty and Hawk yelled back over their shoulders, for they started running the moment Juggernaut bounced Colossus aside.

"Kitty!" Logan shouted after her.

Juggernaut couldn't be stopped. Neither could they- only they were a lot less messy about it. Kitty grabbed Hawk's wrist, and phased themselves straight into the body of the rocky island, and the hill that formed the foundation of the cell house.

XXX

The girls had no time to spare. They were surrounded by three mutants of their own. Kitty let go of Hawk and went solid for them, spinning side kicks to the face, backed by the strength of a dancer's leg bouncing from one guy to the next, shaking both up enough for her to complete the pivot and punch the third in the belly, dropping him at last with a knee to the nose.

Others made uncoordinated grabs for her- ignoring Hawk- but she stepped right through them and turned solid from behind to give them her version of the Vulcan neck pinch. Everyone was down but breathing. There was no time to do more because the sound of smashing walls was far too close for comfort, and their lead over the Juggernaut's was perhaps a wall away from vanishing.

"Nice job, Kitty," Hawk told her on the run.

"Thanks."

As if on cue, he thundered into view below, scattering chunks of masonry, bars that were more like spears, into his path as he lumbered the legnth of the tier.

Saving grace- the boy he was after wasn't on the ground floor.

Up he came, without slackening pace, each step bowing the metal stairs as if they were tin, while Kitty and Hawk sprinted along the gallery to catch him.

Kitty phased him with her, so that his next step- instead of landing solidly on the metal grating- plunged him right through. She'd meant to leave him there, dangling from his midsection, deck and body inextricably merged until she and Hawk came back to pull him free, but he proved more quicker and more on the ball than they had anticipated.

The instant he sensed the unique tingling that came from her nervous system interrupting his, he slammed his great hands down in the gallery with enough force to tear this entire section loose from it's mountings and pitch both girls and himself to the main floor.

They landed close enough together for him to make a grab for them, which failed as Kitty grabbed Hawk and reflexively went ghost- only to discover that was precisely what he wanted, as he used the momentary tangibility to wrench himself free of the deck grating.

Not only quick, but cunning. And now really ticked off.

Thank heaven, Kitty thought, at least something's going right!

Hawk looked at her, but then caught on, as she also likes to use a similar tactic.

They bolted. As hoped for, he followed.

They couldn't give the others an update; one of the major repercussions of Kitty's power was that it shorted out any electric circuit board she passed through. Total murder on circuit boards, which was appropriately ironic for a natural gearhead. Advantage, she could neutralize surveillance systems, electronic locks, even people, with just the right touch. Problem, put a radio on her, it died.

Hawk would have to slow down to concentrate to get even the slightest thing through to the others. Advantage to having her telepathy was pulling out directions from Juggernaut, which was luckily his surface thoughts, and locating him- along with her Danger Sense in case he was too close. Problems, risk Phoenix finding out, and try using it on the run- especially since she wasn't athletic like most of the others- and you get a grouch with a headache. Which she usually forgot until too late.

They couldn't call for help, which meant that they were on their own.

Kitty considered a Wile E. Coyote stratagem, maybe leading Juggernaut in circles until he'd undermined the body of the prison so much that it collapsed on top of him, while Hawk got the boy. Then decided, from recent experience, that not only was he a tad too smart for that, but the crash wouldn't stop him.

Now she understood the nickname. His power made Cain Marko unstoppable.

They'd reached a wholly refurbished section of the prison that managed to make the great, gray edifice to look quite comfortable. Fresh paint, modern furniture, total climate control; it reminded them of the wealthy of days gone by who transported stately manors or castles- or London bridge- from Europe to rebuild them brick by brick over here. In this case, if they hadn't known better they would have figured they were standing in any top-flight lab in the world.

The floor trembled, the echo of collapsing walls reached them, and they were galvanized into action. They'd lost their lead again.

Kitty phased them through the nearest doorway, then raced from room to room, assuming that sooner or later she'd get lucky.

Figures. The room they wanted was the last, at the end of the hall, with a spectacular view of the now-empty straits. Kitty made a face; Hawk pretended to gag. It was some interior designer's vision of what a kid's room should look like, with all the personality of a magazine layout. "Kitty," Hawk said.

The boy was huddled under the bed, clutching a stuffed animal that was almost as big as he was to his chest. Hawk smiled in amusement, as he remind her of herself when she was younger.

They really didn't have time though, but Kitty spared him her most reassuring smile anyway.

"I'm Kitty," she said, holding out her hand, "And this is Hawk." Another crash. Wouldn't be much longer. "I'm one of the X-men, and so is she. We're the good guys."

"I know," he said, "I've seen you on TV. I'm Jimmy," he continued. "But they call me Leech."

Nice name, Kitty thought, casting shame on the person responsible for it.

"Well, it looks like all of our nicknames come from nature itself," Hawk said, trying to help encourage him.

"What's happening?" he asked, terrified through and through.

"We'll tell you later," Kitty said, motioning him towards her and Hawk. "Right now, Jimmy, we've got to get you out here."

She caught his hand and yanked him into her arms, shoving herself into the nearest wall. Hawk could shape-shift anyway, so she wasn't much of a concern. Until...

Major mistake. She led with her head and for a moment, as stars did a fandango across her mind's eye, she thought she'd broken it for sure. Cracked it wide, just like Zeus, only instead of Athena springing forth full grown, she was losing brain cells by the multitude.

Darn- the shock actually made her cry.

"What happened?" she yowled, pressing the heel of her free hand to her battered forehead.

"Your powers won't work around me. That's my power."

She couldn't help grinning. "Honey-bunny," she told him hurriedly, "Rogue's just gonna love you."

"I know, I do," Hawk said, "no headache this time. Uh-oh..."

Enter Juggernaut, beyond rage.

"Come over here," Kitty said loudly to Jimmy, making a show of putting him behind her, and Hawk went beside him. They looked trapped.

Jimmy dropped to his seat on the floor, staring through Kitty's legs at the man-mountain who faced them.

Juggernaut savored the moment.

"Two for the price of one," he growled delightedly, forgetting that Kitty could always phase herself to safety. Or perhaps that she'd run out of gas, that she couldn't play ghost any longer. Or maybe she was staying solid to protect the brat.

The reason didn't matter to Juggernaut, only the result, which in this case would mean blood- theirs.

"I'll deal with you later," he said to Hawk, who was standing ready to protect the boy, not realizing the full extent of her powers. If the boy died, that would mean that she would get her powers back, and she'd make him sorry.

He dropped his head to ramming position and and kicked himself into gear.

Kitty waited until the last possible moment as he barreled towards her, building up an impressive head of speed for such a small space. She couldn't afford to misplay this in the slightest. She had no illusions about her ability to face Juggernaut in a fair fight. For all her strength and skills, she'd be a toothpick in his hands. She looked at Hawk, who nodded, preparing to dodge to her right.

Hawk sprang to her right rolling as she landed.

He was almost on Kitty when she dropped, a boneless puppet with severed strings, right to the floor to cover Jimmy's body with her own as Juggernaut...

...crashed full tilt into the wall.

Put a hole in it too- right through the Sheetrock that formed the outer wall of the refurbished room to the two-foot-thick granite underneath, reinforced by concrete, brick, and steel.

"You alright?" Hawk called.

"Fine." Kitty gathered Jimmy close against her and shoved them both along the floor between Juggernaut's legs until they were well clear of him. She'd heard a monstrous crack! on impact, but wasn't yet willing to put any faith in that as she levered herself back to her feet, keeping hold of Jimmy, ready to start running again if needed.

Juggernaut was starting to wobble. Stiff legs turned spongy, his butt popped a bit back from the wallas gravity exerted its hold, and he was done. His eyes were open, wide as could be, but the pupils were wholly dilated. Nobody home at all inside that skull.

Hawk got up and high fived Kitty as she pumped a fist and laughed aloud as Jimmy echoed them.

"Okay, I'm gonna go back to the others," Hawk said. "Can you manage without me?"

"Sure can," Kitty replied.

She started towards the entry hole Juggernaut had made, then changed her mind. She had a better idea, something that she hadn't been able to do since she turned thirteen.

Leading Jimmy by the hand, she reached for the handle...

...and opened the door.

Hawk went out through the hole, her powers finally back as she shape-shifted into Kitty and phased through the walls.

"Incoming!" Logan yelled as as a vehicle shot over his and Storm's heads. "Take cover!"

Hawk rushed to get to cover with Logan, but stumbled a little. As others rushed for cover, she shot flames at the cars to divert them from hitting anyone.

Storm hid behind a wall as the firestorm began. She timed the intervals, then rushed to join Logan and Hawk behind a fallen car. She just barely managed to dodge the car that was coming directly for her.

XXX

Hawk took cover with Storm and Logan as the cars started to come at them, full blaze. Storm was terrified, and Logan- who would never admit it- was just as scared as they were. Logan looked down at the ampules that survived Arclight's attack. Storm looked down, then at Beast- who was right across from them.

Logan looked at Storm. "We work as a team."

Storm picked up the cue as if they were both telepaths.

"Best defense is a good offense."

He grinned and thought she looked good enough to kiss, and she thought about how much she liked to see him try.

Hawk rolled her eyes. "Can you guys get a little mushy later?"

They ignored her. "Bobby!" Logan called. "Think you can take out your old friend?" Bobby nodded and rushed out from cover.

"Furball," Logan turned to Beast who wasn't handling the ovenlike environment well at all, "can you still move in that suit?"

"If it'll take me off of this griddle!"

"'Ro," and he reached to lay surprisingly gentle fingers against her cheek, thumb stroking an invisible piece of grit from beneath her eye, in a gesture so light and tender that she barely felt it, yet which sent an unexpected surge of electricity the length of her spine to the core of her being. "I'll know it'll be hard, but we're going to need some cover."

Her eyes danced back at his, accepting the challenge. "Right," Storm said, taking a deep breath to compose herself. Her eyes went from a warm welcoming brown to a blue that started as deep as the most magnificent sky, before paling to an arctic blue-white. He felt the hairs on his body rise, saw that McCoy felt the same- although there was a special undercurrent to the sensations that he felt that he would always keep to himself- unless Hawk was prying his mind right now, which he had no doubt that she was- as Storm brought her energies to bear, smelt and tasted the faintest hint of ozone.

Fog started coming in all directions.

"I'll help Bobby," Hawk said. Without waiting for a reply, she went over to help one of her best friends.

XXX

After Pyro was taken care of, Hawk went back to cover Storm. You never knew in this crowd. She peered over the cars and saw the troops surrounding Jean. She felt Jean go into a rage and cried out in pain. "You okay?" Storm asked.

"Yeah," Hawk strained. "Just need to put my blocks up." After putting up the blocks, she looked over the cars again and gasped in horror as she saw the soldiers get flayed to bits. Hawk turned away, and Storm saw it to, holding Hawk close as tears started coming to Hawk's face. "That's what happened to Xavier," she whispered.

Knowing they couldn't stay there, both females made a run for it. Storm stopped not too far from Logan, and looked at Jean, and back at Logan. Hawk just went from Jean to Storm, to Logan, and back to Storm. "I'm the only one who can stop her," Logan said. Hawk could've sworn that the look on his face was fear for everyone. Especially Storm. "Get everyone to safety. Go."

Both Storm and Hawk took to the skies. While up there, Jean destroyed the X-jet. "Great," Hawk muttered to Storm. "Now how are we supposed to get home?"