It's Times Like This.
It's been 4 years since it happened: The death of Charles Xavier and the world hasn't been the same. He was a visionary, created a haven for mutants in pursuit of a common goal, to teach them how to use their powers for good and share his dream of a world where humans and mutants lived together in peaceful co-existence. Several times his dream had been challenged, be it by evil forces unlike anything on this world, or even his own darker side. But it overall prevailed and now at the pivotal point when his dream could come true, his life was ended. Not by an evil force, not by a long-time rival, but by a friend. The coexistence of humans and mutants was broken once again, and now no one knows if it can be re-attained.
The Xavier Institute lies near the suburbs of Westchester New York, a quiet place normally, secluded from the busy go-go life of New York City. Here Professor Charles Xavier trained his first 5 students, the original X- Men. Although the building itself has been destroyed and rebuilt several times over the past few decades, the history remains intact. Here Scott Summers, more commonly known as the X-Man Cyclops, walks throughout the forestry surrounding the Institute with a few pupils. No one speaks as they trudge through the previously trod path, listening to the sounds of nature with the warm spring sun shinning on them. Cyclops blinks, looking at the world in a yellow-highlighted perspective through his ruby contacts. Approaching the top of a hill, Scott turns around looking at his tired students and tells them they can rest.
"Take a break class," Scott sighs, sitting on a log and grabbing his backpack. His students do as they are told, sitting on rocks, fallen branches and grass, and take out their waters. As they begin talking to each other, Scott takes a sip of his water and calls out to his wife Jean, in his mind. Jean, also an X-Man and one of the most powerful telepathic minds on the planet is telekinetically baking with her Home and Career's class when she hears her husband call to her in her mind through their special link. Scott calls out again and he's met by a warm thought-voice. Hey Red. Scott thinks. This hike is going pretty smoothly so far but where's Wolverine? He was supposed to intercept for the training session at least 10 minutes ago? Jean responds calmly Sorry Scott, Logan had to take an extra few minutes with his mechanics class. He should be approaching you and the group fairly shortly though. Scott nods and takes another sip thinking again Alright Jean, I'll get moving again. Catch you in a bit. Scott breaks the thought and turns to his class, getting to his feet. "Okay class, let's resume training. Everyone get your things and let's go." Scott turns and begins walking down the path again.
A few hundred yards away, Logan, the unstable X-Man known as Wolverine, runs through the lush forestry with a pace that makes him unnoticed. He crunches no leaves, breaks no twigs, he leaves no sound that he is even there. His animal-like instinct guides him. Through the tree's Wolverine can see his prey, Cyclops and his class of Ranger Rick-kids. Wolverine chuckles to himself and stops his running pace. He has to approach this carefully, doesn't want to make this easy for the kids, but doesn't want to kill them either. He retracts his metallic claws and prepares to pounce on the unsuspecting group. With a snarl, Wolverine dives from the brush cover and tackles a particularly large student whose skin is apparently composed of a rock-like substance. The two hit the ground with a boom, making all the students turn around. Cyclops is the first to turn, making sure Wolverine didn't hurt the kid. The students are second to react, as one girls hands ignite in a black flame, darkening the area around her. She puts her hands together as a beam of this black fire blasts at Wolverine, who is still wrestling with the rock-kid. Wolverine rolls to his side as the blast misses and hits a tree, immobilizing all movement in the tree. Wolverine tosses the rock kid as he gets to his feet and turns around as about 4 concussive blasts from various kids fly at him. Wolverine dodges two and is caught by the other two, tossing him into a tree. Wolverine shakes his head and rolls out of the way of a barrage of a wave of spherical energy balls rolling at him. The balls collect at the base of the tree and form into a kid. As Wolverine gets to his feet, he's met by a girl flowing with white energy, trying to smack him around. He meets her blow for blow and then lands one in her stomach, knocking her back onto her butt. As Wolverine knocks the girl back, he senses a young man run up behind him, his arms formed into metallic blades and Wolverine back kicks him in the stomach. While retracting his kick, Wolverine spins around and all in one motion he trips, punches and kicks again another charging kid. Now with only two kids remaining standing, they both look at him a little panicked. Wolverine glares and makes a hand motion for them to "bring it". One kid nods as his eyes roll into the back of his head. With that, he transforms from his kid self, his muscles bulge out and he grows taller, his skin changes to a metallic form and a row of spikes line his back, down his spine. The other kid wraps her small, demon-looking tail around herself and jumps on to the metallic kids shoulders. She bounces off him and dives at Wolverine. He braces to catch her when she suddenly disappears in a familiar BAMF and the metallic giant rams into Wolverine. The girl reappears as the metal kid deals out his first three blows, grabbing Wolverine and tossing him as high as she could into the air. With that she grabs the metal kid and quickly BAMFS to the exact spot in the air, smacking Wolverine as hard as he could. Before he hits the ground, Wolverine smiles thinking he underestimated these kids. And then he hit the dirt.
-------------------------------------- Chapter 2
Logan wakes up in the Institutes Medical ward. His face is bandaged, leaving only one eye to look around. He turns to the side to see the two students that got him down standing above him with concerned expressions on their faces. He turns to the other side to see if anyone else is standing over him and finds a smirking Bobby Drake, known around these parts as Iceman, trying his hardest not to burst out laughing. Under his bandages, Wolverine mouths a few expletives and tries to flip Bobby off. That's when Wolverine realizes just how hurt he is. Peering at his right arm, he can see the flesh rebuilding itself from nearly totally crushed. Within minutes it'll be just as good as new, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Maybe I took it too easy on those kids. Wolverine thinks to himself as he cringes while his muscle rebuilds. Hearing a clank sound, Scott enters the medical center and shakes his head with a small giggle as if to say "shouldn't underestimate them. I taught them good." Wolverine feels the urge to slap that grin off Summers' face, but relaxes instead. It's been a while since Wolverine's been on a bed and he revels in the opportunity.
Meanwhile on the other end of the school, Jean Grey-Summers dismisses her Home and Career's class and moves with the students to her next class: Telepathy 2. Arriving at her door, she's pleased to find two of her students already there and practicing long-distance telepathic reading with celebrities in the nearby New York City. As she sorts through papers and organizes the room telekinetically, Jean reminisces about how far she's come as an X-Man and a teacher. She thinks back to the days when they opened the Institute up publicly, when she first began as a teacher.
She used to teach just about every psychic and telekinetic class in the school when she wasn't running around the Earth w/ Professor Xavier. Her classes were normally alongside Northstar's economics class, and she always would mock-complain about the amount of discussion his classes would bring up. Jean sighed to herself; it was a pity that he was gone now. Gunned down by a Sentinel of the newly established Weapon Programs known formerly as Mimic. It wasn't Mimic's fault though. As always he was just a tool for the Program, never acted on his own. Jean thought to herself she wondered where Mimic had gone off to now, since she hadn't heard or felt anything of his bio-signature in a long time. Returning to her mind set, Jean continued to remember the days of the beginning of the open to the public, Xavier Institute. A few months into the public announcement, former X-Men returned to help Xavier's cause, either to come and teach or to head to other countries to help protect mutants and everyone in trouble there. Either way they came back into the fold. It was around this time that someone once thought dead returned. Jean remembers the moment exactly; it had been a quiet day, not to many rumblings among students, and Jean and her Psychic 4 class were taking a nature hike. The very same path Scott and his students took earlier today in fact. As she walked with her class, observing the thought patterns of surrounding animals, Jean sensed an unusual thought pattern, clouded by an aura she had only minutely sensed before. She stopped in her tracks as the sky above her cracked open with a BLINK and out of the crack in the world tumbled a purple, pointy eared, teen age girl. Jean's class stood shocked, having not seen this kind of thing before as Jean studied the new girl. Something felt familiar about this girl, but she couldn't place her finger on it. She was about to perform a mind-scan to see who this girl really was when the girl stirred and got up on her feet, coughing and gagging a little. She looked at Jean with her intense yellow-tinted eyes. "Am I home yet?" she stuttered. Jean took the girl back to the Institute and to Xavier, seeing if he could deduce her identity. On the way to his room, Jean bumped into Paige Guthrie, known as Husk and the girl's identity was revealed. "Clarice?!?!" Paige exclaimed when she saw the purple girl. The girl's eye's lit up and she smiled broadly, breaking away from Jean and hugging Paige enthusiastically. The two held each other, smiling and crying and repeating how happy they were to see each other. After a while, Jean was able to separate them long enough for Paige to explain her connection to the mysterious purple girl. Paige explained and introduced Clarice, Paige's friend and would-be member of Generation X if it hadn't been for the Phlanx invasion that Clarice had apparently stopped by teleporting them all to hell or something, supposedly killing herself in the process. "If that's true Clarice, than how are you here now," Jean asks.
Swallowing, Clarice looked first to Paige, then back to Jean and began telling her story. "For the past few years, I've been living in a dimension no one in this reality has seen, ever. A place where since its creation, a sole being has dominated over all life there, nearly completely. This being is known as God, and has claimed to have created this dimension and everything in it. On the Earth of this reality, the people there who have never heard of mutation, totally and completely follow the religion based upon this God, only with their own little spins on it. They fight, live and die for theses beliefs of this being who controls their existence. The time I spent here, I was constantly hiding from the people of this world. No one would help me, fearing I was a demon and I had to kill several times just to stay alive and away from these wretched people. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of returning here, to fight for this Xavier guy." Smiling to herself a little, Clarice looks up at Jean. "Finally I'm home again. Please, take me to see the Professor." Clarice begged.
Faraway from the Xavier institute, on the memorial Island of Genosha, a young man with long spiked hair wanders around the long smoldered craters and observes the end result of all this destruction through his own eyes. He touches a rotted and deteriorated road sign, melded to an arm and memories flow through him. He sees the world briefly through green tinted eyes, surrounded by hordes of mutants, running and screaming. He looks into the sky and sees a monstrosity of Sentinels blacking out the sun. He screams and the vision cuts, finding himself still screaming amongst the memorial tomb of Genosha. The world around him reacts to his scream. Debris lifts from the ground and swirls around him, a fire ignites and the few living things within a hundred miles are paralyzed in their place. This lasts as long as he screams, and anyone who would have seen him would know it was a cry of a man in mourning. The scream ended and the young man settled down. "I let my emotions get the best of me again. But I must continue, I must observe what lead my father to open up his world to them." The main thought aloud as he walked on, picking up another object and again visions and feelings filled his mind. When he broke off, he was crying. Soon he would understand and then he could return to his father's home and hopefully join his father's family.
Back at the institute, a disappointed Clarice stood inside the former living quarters of a dreamer. She paced and looked amongst smiling pictures of the infamous bald man in a wheel chair, and then him on his feet. Xavier with the President, clip-outs of his articles in newspapers, and pictures of his family: The X-Men. On one lone shelf rested 4 pictures. One of his ex-wife Moira, one of his "widow" Lilandra, one of his son Legion and another of Moira's boy Proteus. Clarice studied all of them intently, looking over each picture as if she had known them. She then paused and wondered why she was so concerned with pictures of people she had never met before, mementos of a man she barely knew. As she pondered, Jean Grey Summers, walked into the room announcing, "Clarice, we have a room ready for you if you want to see it?" Clarice nodded and followed Jean out of the room and a few long hallways, passing students and teachers alike as they walked. Clarice could hear voices squeak "she new?" and "never seen her before." while they walked. Finally, at the end of a hallway was a large door marked with an X on it and below it read "R.2330: Clarice". Jean saw a smile broaden across Clarice's face as she walked in and looked around her new room. And it was a new room, built less than a month ago with the addition of new students and repairs from the last little squabble between the X-Men and a renewed group of Acolytes. If it weren't for the students, there probably could have been more damage to the school. Clarice lounged on her new bed, and a sudden need to rest overwhelmed her as she fell asleep. Jean smiled and wrapped a sheet around the sleeping Clarice, then turned off the light and shut the door on her way out; glad to see Clarice was going to stay.
One floor below Clarice's room, three confused students look on as a white outline of a girl wanders around their room. The outline stops at each bed, swiping a hand over the bedpost and then it looks and sounds like the figure sighs. After a while, one of the students peers at the figure and asks, "What kind of power is that? Are you our new room mate?" the figure doesn't respond. It turns to the students and it's "head" tilts to the side. With that, the white lines that make the figure start to squiggle and then the figure fades away. After the figure is gone, one of the students turns to his roommate, "Um, I've never seen a kid in this school with that sort of power." The roommate replies, "Well what do you think that was then, huh, a ghost?" "I'm not saying that, I'm just saying, maybe we should check the school computer for student listings? Maybe we can find whoever that was and ask him or her or whatever why they were here in the first place?" "Whatever, fine, let's do it?" With that, the three students turn to their room's computer and begin looking through the directory. 2 hours and 3 Cappuccino's later, the students find nothing. "There's no one listed with that sort of power and no one even in the visitor's file with that kind of power either! What the hell was that thing?"
The next morning, the three confused roommates barge in to an "Anomalies of Mutancy" class, a class where the students registered research and debate phenomena surrounding mutants with their teacher Kitty Pryde. Although none of the three roommates takes this class, they go in anyway, stopping all discussion and announcing: "WE THINK WE SAW A GHOST!" Half the class present laughs, while Kitty holds back a smirk herself. "Seriously Ms. Pryde, we think we saw one!" Kitty turns stern, she knows many things can happen, and begins thinking logically again, humor aside. In her late 20's now, Kitty's seen many miraculous and unbelievably weird things, ranging from reappearances of dead friends to little dragons, so ghosts should be cake for her. "Well, what did this 'ghost' look like?" Kitty asks. One of the roommates walks to the whiteboard and grabbing a marker with an extra arm draws a very convincing portrait of a white outlined girl. Kitty nearly drops her books, for the drawing, looks very much like one of her dearest friends Illyana. The student sees Kitty's reaction and asks "Ms.Pryde? Do you think we're right? Is it a ghost?" Kitty just closes her mouth, thinking of how it can't possible be Illyana. She's been dead for over 10 years. It just can't happen. Clearing her throat Kitty finally says, "Are you sure that's how she looked?" "Most definitely," one of the roommates replies, "my mutant ability is exactly recalling events and some minor psychic things like that, as well as my purple hair." Kitty nods. "I'll have a few teachers come look at that for you Joshua." Kitty replies as the three roommates smile relieved and leave the room.
A few miles away from the now-troubled mind of Kitty Pryde, the age old mutant named Xorn walks along a riverbed with his class of irregular mutants. Stopping to pick up a flower, the sun reflects brightly off his metal mask. He calls to his students telepathically "it's about time we head back to the mansion class. I believe the period will end in approximately 10 minutes, so we better get a move on." The class agrees and everyone begins jogging with Xorn, their backpacks strapped tightly to their backs as to not bounce and throw them off as they jog. As they move, it is apparent that this was not just a leisurely jog through the woods they were doing, but a field exercise as dummy's and other training equipments bounced up in front of them as they jogged. The machinery wouldn't allow anyone to pass if they didn't hit it, break it or fill whatever visible physical task that was before them. The students swept, bounced, dove, punched flipped and kicked into and over several objects, using their powers as necessary to keep up with Xorn who was moving a whole lot faster than the rest of the class. Punching, kicking and back-flipping over and under and through just about everything that came before him, it was hard for the students not to marvel how good he was doing and keep in mind their own job. Finally, with a bounce off a mock-sentinel head, Xorn completes his jog and waits for the rest of the class, smiling to himself in his mind, proud of how far his students have come.
Xorn and his students arrive on campus just as the bell rings, and swarms of mutant kids leave their classes and head to the next one. Xorn sits by a tree and prepares for his next class. An absent minded Bobby Drake walks past him, nearly running into one of his students for this block, a young man named Daniel. Bobby apologizes with a smirk and continues on, the young man following him to the class. As they walk, Bobby turns to Daniel and asks, "So how do u like the Institute so far Dan?" The young man looks down at his hand, opens his palm and his skin turn to metal than closes his hand and turns back to flesh again. "I think I like it. It's better than the Savage Land I'd have to say. No wonder my father died for this," Daniel smiles. Bobby returns the smile with a smirk and pushes open the "Powers Sculpture" classroom door.
Taking to the head of the class, Bobby slides on an iced floor to his swivel chair and sits down, watching as the kids file in. Each student takes a seat at their own individual tables, laughing and talking to each other even after the bell rings. Bobby let's them continue for a good 15 seconds before he interrupts the chatter with a colossal ice sculpture of a monkey, then proceeds to burst through it covering his students in snow. Howls of "COLD!" and "AH!" can be heard in quite a few of the nearby classes. Smiling, Bobby stands on an ice slide looking over his students and with a laugh says "I told you guys no talking after the bell." With that, the class settles down, brushing themselves off, or getting rid of the snow by whatever means their able of. Reorienting himself, Bobby looks at the class and begins his lesson on artistic manifestations of mutant abilities as another mutant wanders by the class, thoughts on something other than school and work.
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Chapter 5 Paige Guthrie is excited; her friend of year's way long ago has miraculously returned to the mansion. As she walks fast through one of the many courtyards on the mansion to her next class, she can't get Clarice out of her mind. She already has shown up at Clarice's room a few times, caught up and such, but she so just wants to hang around her old friend. Paige barely notices the indents she's leaving in her book as she arrives at the western wing of the Institute and sweeps past a few desks stealthily to grab a seat at her Chem. Lab table. This is a Master's course in Chemistry, as Paige felt after a year and a half of deliberation that she'd be an excellent scientist, and she needs to get some work in. She smiles to her table partner and turns to see Dr. McCoy writing an extremely large equation on the board. "He didn't even notice I wasn't here!" Paige thinks. Just as the thought crosses her mind, Dr. McCoy says with a humorous tone in his voice, "How was the walk over Paige?" Slamming her head on the table, Paige grumbles to herself, "Never underestimate those damn senses." The class stifles a laugh and Dr. McCoy returns to the equation. Hank smiles to himself, "that girl will be the death of me; be it by laughter or however, I swear that girl will do me in," he chuckles a little and continues on with his equation. Just as he begins to write the letter "E", standing for the amount of energy in an irregular substance, he hears the all-to-familiar thought speech shout of Jean Grey Summers. "HANK! QUICK, DROP WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING WE NEED YOU NOW!" Hank nearly falls to the floor due to the power behind the statement but recollects himself fast, excusing himself from the class and running on all fours to one of the Dorm sectors. He runs and jumps to tree's, flinging himself over one of the buildings, flipping off of a gargoyle and landing with a loud THUD on the walkway before the dormitory. He bolts inside, following the feel of the presence of Jean until he reaches the room. There, Hank slides to a stop and retains his balance and looks on in awe as the outlined figure of a girl turns to look at him. The room is cold, icicles are along the ceiling and Jean herself, one of the more experienced mutants on campus, cannot believe what she is seeing. Hank comes to her side, asking in a whisper "what is that thing?" Jean doesn't take her gaze away from the figure and in thought-speech replies, "we think its Illyana, Illyana Rasputin." Hank returns his stare at the figure with a hand on Jean's shoulder. The figure's still looking at him. The room grows increasingly colder and even Hank shivers. The white lines that make up the figure suddenly start to grow brighter. Jean shields her eyes with a hand as the room becomes bright white. A chilling shrill yell can be heard and with that yell, the light explodes, knocking Hank and Jean out of the room through the door into the hallway. There is no sound except heavy breathing; heavy breathing from Jean, from Hank and from something else. Something else? Hank gets on his feet again, giving Jean a hand up. As the walk to the room, they both hear breathing. Jean can't get a reading before entering the room, there's to much psychic backlash all around the room. With a gasp, the two enter to see a naked, long haired teenage girl shivering and breathing very very hard. "Illyana?" Jean asks. The girl looks up, revealing her light blue eyes, and then collapses on the floor. Without saying a word verbally or thought-speech, Hank immediately grabs the girl and runs with all his strength to the medical lab. Not far behind him is Jean, already prepping the nurse for their arrival and at the same time notifying Kitty.
Kitty was in the middle of a lecture when Jean called her. Without even excusing herself, she ran out of the room and phased through whatever she had to in order to reach the med lab. She ran through classrooms, through dorm rooms, through science experiments and finally through 15 feet of steel, reaching the medical lab just as Jean entered. "Where is she?" Kitty exclaims as she catches her breath. She runs to Hank and looks down to see her friend, one thought long dead, and cries. The tears flow through her smile, and Hank holds her reassuringly. A machine is hooked up to check the beat of her heart, her brain functions and such. All beep and click positively, and Kitty just cries happily. She thinks oh god it's a miracle! It's a freakin miracle! All the while the three gathered around their returned friend, darkness lurks in the institute, for no good thing can come without a drastic price for another.
--------------------------------- A few hundred miles away, about 4 miles off the former island nation of Genosha, a shadowed young man sits in a boat, doing no "physical" work whatsoever, but moves the boat through sheer force of will. His long spiked black hair barely moves in the slight breeze of the ocean air. He's taking into account all he has witnessed, all he's found out about Genosha and the world in the past 6 years since his return to existence; the mindless death and destruction caused by one "woman" and all the bigotry and such that lead to his father's death. He sits back in the boat, relaxing and reminiscing further. He thinks of how he came back into existence.
It had all been dark beforehand. Then there was a flash and he could see. He remembered lines of light, the life force of the general populace. He lived among those lines at this point, although you really couldn't call it living. He existed here, moved, saw, but it wasn't really living. He didn't feel, didn't breath, and didn't really think. He had previously lived however, with his father and a world so foreign to him, with people who actually cared and wanted him. But he threw it away in trying to be a "good son". He wanted life to be easier for his father, for a man who had endured so much yet had been denied his dream by the dream of another. So, he tried to get rid of this other dreamer, but in doing so, accidentally killed his father ceasing his own existence and creating a world severely different from the one he had lived in. So he "lived" with the lifelines then, for quite a while, but then the lifelines drastically changed, some ended, others floated into inexistence with him, but his father's lifeline was restored. Years passed, more lines ended and started and then one line in particular became distorted. The lifeline of a man known as Alex Summers, the X-Man Havok, brother to the leader of the X-Men. However, the psychic presence of his father came to return the line to normal after long periods of hard work. The young man came into existence with the aid of Alex Summers' return to life. Grasping on to his lifeline, as Alex came back into himself and to life, the young man known as Legion pulled himself back into life. Due to the immense psychic backlash of this however, Legion was sent halfway across the world, to the barren white wastelands of Russia, to rebuild himself physically and mentally.
Memories and personalities flooded his mind, for Legion had a torn mental state, thinking he was three separate people in order to maintain sanity and semi-control over different areas of his powers. In his previous existence, it was this mental state that drove him to what he did, and to the trouble he caused for the X-Men and Co. However, after his "life" amongst the lifelines, Legion's mind concluded that it no longer needed these personalities any longer. Somehow, his mind had established ways to discern these powers and how to activate them (however he could still use some training, not being able to use any of them to their full potential as he could previously...). Now with his memories and personal being intact, Legion for the first time in over 7 years breathed fresh air in the snow- covered tundra of Russia. Unclothed, he set out now to fulfill his basic human needs.
Now here he is, 6 years later, 21 years old, lying in a boat, waiting for the day he reaches America. He knows at just about any time he could just as easily as he is pushing this boat, he could transport himself to America, but he's waited a lifetime to get back here, he can wait a little longer. With a smirk David smiles, who am I kidding? He thinks. With that thought, David lifts himself from the boat and blasts across the cool Pacific Ocean water towards America.
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A lab bench explodes in the Medical lab, knocking everyone off their feet, some into walls, and others on to their asses. A horrendous laughter precedes the explosion, the laugh of a man known to just about all X-Men: Sinister. He's changed since their last encounter, metallic pants and upper armor replaced with a flowing, oozing substance. The substance spread, covering Sinister. Black and tar like, it looked like it was consuming him, forming to his body. And then, with another heart-stopping laugh, the true form of the ooze revealed itself: Venom, the Alien Symbiote! "Oh this day could not get any better." Kitty snarled. "I do not have time for this!" Hank yells aloud. He's the first to take charge at Sinister/Venom. With a wide-toothed grin, Sinister/Venom easily bats Hank away with one punch. Hank slams into and falls over another medical table, with a loud thump followed by a grunt. With that grunt, the next wave of X-Men attack. Kitty holds Illyana close as a barrage of mutants and mutant powers fly at the mad scientist mutant, several slamming into him, others he dodges via the symbiote. Jean doesn't waste time with the physical. With but a thought, she burrows into Sinister/Venom's mind, looking to shut it down. As she runs through their mind, tears well up in her eyes from the tragic, horrific memories of killing and using countless people and animals. She feels fire build up inside of her, rage overcoming Jean. With an animalistic cry, Jean unleashes a small portion of her vast ability onto Sinister/Venom, after they had already needlessly slaughter 2 students who had gotten in their way. Crying, a flare of fire surrounds Jean as a fire ignites in the collective mind of Sinister and Venom. They feel all the pain they've inflicted, all the torment and horror they've imposed on people. But they do not die. The symbiote melts away, unable to stay connected to Sinister now, resting like a big black puddle on the floor. Sinister on the other hand lies on the cold metallic floor, curled into the fetal position, groaning like he wished for death. Satisfied, Jean wipes a mascara run tear from her eye and calls in orderly-type people to take them away. Breathing heavily, Jean turns to look as Hank gets to his feet/hoofs, and returns to look at Kitty and Illyana, who are still holding each other and crying both still out of joy for seeing each other, and for the two deaths they just witnessed. "You two alright?" Jean asks telepathically. "We'll be okay Jean," Kitty says with a happy tear filled grin.
It's been 4 years since it happened: The death of Charles Xavier and the world hasn't been the same. He was a visionary, created a haven for mutants in pursuit of a common goal, to teach them how to use their powers for good and share his dream of a world where humans and mutants lived together in peaceful co-existence. Several times his dream had been challenged, be it by evil forces unlike anything on this world, or even his own darker side. But it overall prevailed and now at the pivotal point when his dream could come true, his life was ended. Not by an evil force, not by a long-time rival, but by a friend. The coexistence of humans and mutants was broken once again, and now no one knows if it can be re-attained.
The Xavier Institute lies near the suburbs of Westchester New York, a quiet place normally, secluded from the busy go-go life of New York City. Here Professor Charles Xavier trained his first 5 students, the original X- Men. Although the building itself has been destroyed and rebuilt several times over the past few decades, the history remains intact. Here Scott Summers, more commonly known as the X-Man Cyclops, walks throughout the forestry surrounding the Institute with a few pupils. No one speaks as they trudge through the previously trod path, listening to the sounds of nature with the warm spring sun shinning on them. Cyclops blinks, looking at the world in a yellow-highlighted perspective through his ruby contacts. Approaching the top of a hill, Scott turns around looking at his tired students and tells them they can rest.
"Take a break class," Scott sighs, sitting on a log and grabbing his backpack. His students do as they are told, sitting on rocks, fallen branches and grass, and take out their waters. As they begin talking to each other, Scott takes a sip of his water and calls out to his wife Jean, in his mind. Jean, also an X-Man and one of the most powerful telepathic minds on the planet is telekinetically baking with her Home and Career's class when she hears her husband call to her in her mind through their special link. Scott calls out again and he's met by a warm thought-voice. Hey Red. Scott thinks. This hike is going pretty smoothly so far but where's Wolverine? He was supposed to intercept for the training session at least 10 minutes ago? Jean responds calmly Sorry Scott, Logan had to take an extra few minutes with his mechanics class. He should be approaching you and the group fairly shortly though. Scott nods and takes another sip thinking again Alright Jean, I'll get moving again. Catch you in a bit. Scott breaks the thought and turns to his class, getting to his feet. "Okay class, let's resume training. Everyone get your things and let's go." Scott turns and begins walking down the path again.
A few hundred yards away, Logan, the unstable X-Man known as Wolverine, runs through the lush forestry with a pace that makes him unnoticed. He crunches no leaves, breaks no twigs, he leaves no sound that he is even there. His animal-like instinct guides him. Through the tree's Wolverine can see his prey, Cyclops and his class of Ranger Rick-kids. Wolverine chuckles to himself and stops his running pace. He has to approach this carefully, doesn't want to make this easy for the kids, but doesn't want to kill them either. He retracts his metallic claws and prepares to pounce on the unsuspecting group. With a snarl, Wolverine dives from the brush cover and tackles a particularly large student whose skin is apparently composed of a rock-like substance. The two hit the ground with a boom, making all the students turn around. Cyclops is the first to turn, making sure Wolverine didn't hurt the kid. The students are second to react, as one girls hands ignite in a black flame, darkening the area around her. She puts her hands together as a beam of this black fire blasts at Wolverine, who is still wrestling with the rock-kid. Wolverine rolls to his side as the blast misses and hits a tree, immobilizing all movement in the tree. Wolverine tosses the rock kid as he gets to his feet and turns around as about 4 concussive blasts from various kids fly at him. Wolverine dodges two and is caught by the other two, tossing him into a tree. Wolverine shakes his head and rolls out of the way of a barrage of a wave of spherical energy balls rolling at him. The balls collect at the base of the tree and form into a kid. As Wolverine gets to his feet, he's met by a girl flowing with white energy, trying to smack him around. He meets her blow for blow and then lands one in her stomach, knocking her back onto her butt. As Wolverine knocks the girl back, he senses a young man run up behind him, his arms formed into metallic blades and Wolverine back kicks him in the stomach. While retracting his kick, Wolverine spins around and all in one motion he trips, punches and kicks again another charging kid. Now with only two kids remaining standing, they both look at him a little panicked. Wolverine glares and makes a hand motion for them to "bring it". One kid nods as his eyes roll into the back of his head. With that, he transforms from his kid self, his muscles bulge out and he grows taller, his skin changes to a metallic form and a row of spikes line his back, down his spine. The other kid wraps her small, demon-looking tail around herself and jumps on to the metallic kids shoulders. She bounces off him and dives at Wolverine. He braces to catch her when she suddenly disappears in a familiar BAMF and the metallic giant rams into Wolverine. The girl reappears as the metal kid deals out his first three blows, grabbing Wolverine and tossing him as high as she could into the air. With that she grabs the metal kid and quickly BAMFS to the exact spot in the air, smacking Wolverine as hard as he could. Before he hits the ground, Wolverine smiles thinking he underestimated these kids. And then he hit the dirt.
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Logan wakes up in the Institutes Medical ward. His face is bandaged, leaving only one eye to look around. He turns to the side to see the two students that got him down standing above him with concerned expressions on their faces. He turns to the other side to see if anyone else is standing over him and finds a smirking Bobby Drake, known around these parts as Iceman, trying his hardest not to burst out laughing. Under his bandages, Wolverine mouths a few expletives and tries to flip Bobby off. That's when Wolverine realizes just how hurt he is. Peering at his right arm, he can see the flesh rebuilding itself from nearly totally crushed. Within minutes it'll be just as good as new, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Maybe I took it too easy on those kids. Wolverine thinks to himself as he cringes while his muscle rebuilds. Hearing a clank sound, Scott enters the medical center and shakes his head with a small giggle as if to say "shouldn't underestimate them. I taught them good." Wolverine feels the urge to slap that grin off Summers' face, but relaxes instead. It's been a while since Wolverine's been on a bed and he revels in the opportunity.
Meanwhile on the other end of the school, Jean Grey-Summers dismisses her Home and Career's class and moves with the students to her next class: Telepathy 2. Arriving at her door, she's pleased to find two of her students already there and practicing long-distance telepathic reading with celebrities in the nearby New York City. As she sorts through papers and organizes the room telekinetically, Jean reminisces about how far she's come as an X-Man and a teacher. She thinks back to the days when they opened the Institute up publicly, when she first began as a teacher.
She used to teach just about every psychic and telekinetic class in the school when she wasn't running around the Earth w/ Professor Xavier. Her classes were normally alongside Northstar's economics class, and she always would mock-complain about the amount of discussion his classes would bring up. Jean sighed to herself; it was a pity that he was gone now. Gunned down by a Sentinel of the newly established Weapon Programs known formerly as Mimic. It wasn't Mimic's fault though. As always he was just a tool for the Program, never acted on his own. Jean thought to herself she wondered where Mimic had gone off to now, since she hadn't heard or felt anything of his bio-signature in a long time. Returning to her mind set, Jean continued to remember the days of the beginning of the open to the public, Xavier Institute. A few months into the public announcement, former X-Men returned to help Xavier's cause, either to come and teach or to head to other countries to help protect mutants and everyone in trouble there. Either way they came back into the fold. It was around this time that someone once thought dead returned. Jean remembers the moment exactly; it had been a quiet day, not to many rumblings among students, and Jean and her Psychic 4 class were taking a nature hike. The very same path Scott and his students took earlier today in fact. As she walked with her class, observing the thought patterns of surrounding animals, Jean sensed an unusual thought pattern, clouded by an aura she had only minutely sensed before. She stopped in her tracks as the sky above her cracked open with a BLINK and out of the crack in the world tumbled a purple, pointy eared, teen age girl. Jean's class stood shocked, having not seen this kind of thing before as Jean studied the new girl. Something felt familiar about this girl, but she couldn't place her finger on it. She was about to perform a mind-scan to see who this girl really was when the girl stirred and got up on her feet, coughing and gagging a little. She looked at Jean with her intense yellow-tinted eyes. "Am I home yet?" she stuttered. Jean took the girl back to the Institute and to Xavier, seeing if he could deduce her identity. On the way to his room, Jean bumped into Paige Guthrie, known as Husk and the girl's identity was revealed. "Clarice?!?!" Paige exclaimed when she saw the purple girl. The girl's eye's lit up and she smiled broadly, breaking away from Jean and hugging Paige enthusiastically. The two held each other, smiling and crying and repeating how happy they were to see each other. After a while, Jean was able to separate them long enough for Paige to explain her connection to the mysterious purple girl. Paige explained and introduced Clarice, Paige's friend and would-be member of Generation X if it hadn't been for the Phlanx invasion that Clarice had apparently stopped by teleporting them all to hell or something, supposedly killing herself in the process. "If that's true Clarice, than how are you here now," Jean asks.
Swallowing, Clarice looked first to Paige, then back to Jean and began telling her story. "For the past few years, I've been living in a dimension no one in this reality has seen, ever. A place where since its creation, a sole being has dominated over all life there, nearly completely. This being is known as God, and has claimed to have created this dimension and everything in it. On the Earth of this reality, the people there who have never heard of mutation, totally and completely follow the religion based upon this God, only with their own little spins on it. They fight, live and die for theses beliefs of this being who controls their existence. The time I spent here, I was constantly hiding from the people of this world. No one would help me, fearing I was a demon and I had to kill several times just to stay alive and away from these wretched people. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of returning here, to fight for this Xavier guy." Smiling to herself a little, Clarice looks up at Jean. "Finally I'm home again. Please, take me to see the Professor." Clarice begged.
Faraway from the Xavier institute, on the memorial Island of Genosha, a young man with long spiked hair wanders around the long smoldered craters and observes the end result of all this destruction through his own eyes. He touches a rotted and deteriorated road sign, melded to an arm and memories flow through him. He sees the world briefly through green tinted eyes, surrounded by hordes of mutants, running and screaming. He looks into the sky and sees a monstrosity of Sentinels blacking out the sun. He screams and the vision cuts, finding himself still screaming amongst the memorial tomb of Genosha. The world around him reacts to his scream. Debris lifts from the ground and swirls around him, a fire ignites and the few living things within a hundred miles are paralyzed in their place. This lasts as long as he screams, and anyone who would have seen him would know it was a cry of a man in mourning. The scream ended and the young man settled down. "I let my emotions get the best of me again. But I must continue, I must observe what lead my father to open up his world to them." The main thought aloud as he walked on, picking up another object and again visions and feelings filled his mind. When he broke off, he was crying. Soon he would understand and then he could return to his father's home and hopefully join his father's family.
Back at the institute, a disappointed Clarice stood inside the former living quarters of a dreamer. She paced and looked amongst smiling pictures of the infamous bald man in a wheel chair, and then him on his feet. Xavier with the President, clip-outs of his articles in newspapers, and pictures of his family: The X-Men. On one lone shelf rested 4 pictures. One of his ex-wife Moira, one of his "widow" Lilandra, one of his son Legion and another of Moira's boy Proteus. Clarice studied all of them intently, looking over each picture as if she had known them. She then paused and wondered why she was so concerned with pictures of people she had never met before, mementos of a man she barely knew. As she pondered, Jean Grey Summers, walked into the room announcing, "Clarice, we have a room ready for you if you want to see it?" Clarice nodded and followed Jean out of the room and a few long hallways, passing students and teachers alike as they walked. Clarice could hear voices squeak "she new?" and "never seen her before." while they walked. Finally, at the end of a hallway was a large door marked with an X on it and below it read "R.2330: Clarice". Jean saw a smile broaden across Clarice's face as she walked in and looked around her new room. And it was a new room, built less than a month ago with the addition of new students and repairs from the last little squabble between the X-Men and a renewed group of Acolytes. If it weren't for the students, there probably could have been more damage to the school. Clarice lounged on her new bed, and a sudden need to rest overwhelmed her as she fell asleep. Jean smiled and wrapped a sheet around the sleeping Clarice, then turned off the light and shut the door on her way out; glad to see Clarice was going to stay.
One floor below Clarice's room, three confused students look on as a white outline of a girl wanders around their room. The outline stops at each bed, swiping a hand over the bedpost and then it looks and sounds like the figure sighs. After a while, one of the students peers at the figure and asks, "What kind of power is that? Are you our new room mate?" the figure doesn't respond. It turns to the students and it's "head" tilts to the side. With that, the white lines that make the figure start to squiggle and then the figure fades away. After the figure is gone, one of the students turns to his roommate, "Um, I've never seen a kid in this school with that sort of power." The roommate replies, "Well what do you think that was then, huh, a ghost?" "I'm not saying that, I'm just saying, maybe we should check the school computer for student listings? Maybe we can find whoever that was and ask him or her or whatever why they were here in the first place?" "Whatever, fine, let's do it?" With that, the three students turn to their room's computer and begin looking through the directory. 2 hours and 3 Cappuccino's later, the students find nothing. "There's no one listed with that sort of power and no one even in the visitor's file with that kind of power either! What the hell was that thing?"
The next morning, the three confused roommates barge in to an "Anomalies of Mutancy" class, a class where the students registered research and debate phenomena surrounding mutants with their teacher Kitty Pryde. Although none of the three roommates takes this class, they go in anyway, stopping all discussion and announcing: "WE THINK WE SAW A GHOST!" Half the class present laughs, while Kitty holds back a smirk herself. "Seriously Ms. Pryde, we think we saw one!" Kitty turns stern, she knows many things can happen, and begins thinking logically again, humor aside. In her late 20's now, Kitty's seen many miraculous and unbelievably weird things, ranging from reappearances of dead friends to little dragons, so ghosts should be cake for her. "Well, what did this 'ghost' look like?" Kitty asks. One of the roommates walks to the whiteboard and grabbing a marker with an extra arm draws a very convincing portrait of a white outlined girl. Kitty nearly drops her books, for the drawing, looks very much like one of her dearest friends Illyana. The student sees Kitty's reaction and asks "Ms.Pryde? Do you think we're right? Is it a ghost?" Kitty just closes her mouth, thinking of how it can't possible be Illyana. She's been dead for over 10 years. It just can't happen. Clearing her throat Kitty finally says, "Are you sure that's how she looked?" "Most definitely," one of the roommates replies, "my mutant ability is exactly recalling events and some minor psychic things like that, as well as my purple hair." Kitty nods. "I'll have a few teachers come look at that for you Joshua." Kitty replies as the three roommates smile relieved and leave the room.
A few miles away from the now-troubled mind of Kitty Pryde, the age old mutant named Xorn walks along a riverbed with his class of irregular mutants. Stopping to pick up a flower, the sun reflects brightly off his metal mask. He calls to his students telepathically "it's about time we head back to the mansion class. I believe the period will end in approximately 10 minutes, so we better get a move on." The class agrees and everyone begins jogging with Xorn, their backpacks strapped tightly to their backs as to not bounce and throw them off as they jog. As they move, it is apparent that this was not just a leisurely jog through the woods they were doing, but a field exercise as dummy's and other training equipments bounced up in front of them as they jogged. The machinery wouldn't allow anyone to pass if they didn't hit it, break it or fill whatever visible physical task that was before them. The students swept, bounced, dove, punched flipped and kicked into and over several objects, using their powers as necessary to keep up with Xorn who was moving a whole lot faster than the rest of the class. Punching, kicking and back-flipping over and under and through just about everything that came before him, it was hard for the students not to marvel how good he was doing and keep in mind their own job. Finally, with a bounce off a mock-sentinel head, Xorn completes his jog and waits for the rest of the class, smiling to himself in his mind, proud of how far his students have come.
Xorn and his students arrive on campus just as the bell rings, and swarms of mutant kids leave their classes and head to the next one. Xorn sits by a tree and prepares for his next class. An absent minded Bobby Drake walks past him, nearly running into one of his students for this block, a young man named Daniel. Bobby apologizes with a smirk and continues on, the young man following him to the class. As they walk, Bobby turns to Daniel and asks, "So how do u like the Institute so far Dan?" The young man looks down at his hand, opens his palm and his skin turn to metal than closes his hand and turns back to flesh again. "I think I like it. It's better than the Savage Land I'd have to say. No wonder my father died for this," Daniel smiles. Bobby returns the smile with a smirk and pushes open the "Powers Sculpture" classroom door.
Taking to the head of the class, Bobby slides on an iced floor to his swivel chair and sits down, watching as the kids file in. Each student takes a seat at their own individual tables, laughing and talking to each other even after the bell rings. Bobby let's them continue for a good 15 seconds before he interrupts the chatter with a colossal ice sculpture of a monkey, then proceeds to burst through it covering his students in snow. Howls of "COLD!" and "AH!" can be heard in quite a few of the nearby classes. Smiling, Bobby stands on an ice slide looking over his students and with a laugh says "I told you guys no talking after the bell." With that, the class settles down, brushing themselves off, or getting rid of the snow by whatever means their able of. Reorienting himself, Bobby looks at the class and begins his lesson on artistic manifestations of mutant abilities as another mutant wanders by the class, thoughts on something other than school and work.
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Chapter 5 Paige Guthrie is excited; her friend of year's way long ago has miraculously returned to the mansion. As she walks fast through one of the many courtyards on the mansion to her next class, she can't get Clarice out of her mind. She already has shown up at Clarice's room a few times, caught up and such, but she so just wants to hang around her old friend. Paige barely notices the indents she's leaving in her book as she arrives at the western wing of the Institute and sweeps past a few desks stealthily to grab a seat at her Chem. Lab table. This is a Master's course in Chemistry, as Paige felt after a year and a half of deliberation that she'd be an excellent scientist, and she needs to get some work in. She smiles to her table partner and turns to see Dr. McCoy writing an extremely large equation on the board. "He didn't even notice I wasn't here!" Paige thinks. Just as the thought crosses her mind, Dr. McCoy says with a humorous tone in his voice, "How was the walk over Paige?" Slamming her head on the table, Paige grumbles to herself, "Never underestimate those damn senses." The class stifles a laugh and Dr. McCoy returns to the equation. Hank smiles to himself, "that girl will be the death of me; be it by laughter or however, I swear that girl will do me in," he chuckles a little and continues on with his equation. Just as he begins to write the letter "E", standing for the amount of energy in an irregular substance, he hears the all-to-familiar thought speech shout of Jean Grey Summers. "HANK! QUICK, DROP WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING WE NEED YOU NOW!" Hank nearly falls to the floor due to the power behind the statement but recollects himself fast, excusing himself from the class and running on all fours to one of the Dorm sectors. He runs and jumps to tree's, flinging himself over one of the buildings, flipping off of a gargoyle and landing with a loud THUD on the walkway before the dormitory. He bolts inside, following the feel of the presence of Jean until he reaches the room. There, Hank slides to a stop and retains his balance and looks on in awe as the outlined figure of a girl turns to look at him. The room is cold, icicles are along the ceiling and Jean herself, one of the more experienced mutants on campus, cannot believe what she is seeing. Hank comes to her side, asking in a whisper "what is that thing?" Jean doesn't take her gaze away from the figure and in thought-speech replies, "we think its Illyana, Illyana Rasputin." Hank returns his stare at the figure with a hand on Jean's shoulder. The figure's still looking at him. The room grows increasingly colder and even Hank shivers. The white lines that make up the figure suddenly start to grow brighter. Jean shields her eyes with a hand as the room becomes bright white. A chilling shrill yell can be heard and with that yell, the light explodes, knocking Hank and Jean out of the room through the door into the hallway. There is no sound except heavy breathing; heavy breathing from Jean, from Hank and from something else. Something else? Hank gets on his feet again, giving Jean a hand up. As the walk to the room, they both hear breathing. Jean can't get a reading before entering the room, there's to much psychic backlash all around the room. With a gasp, the two enter to see a naked, long haired teenage girl shivering and breathing very very hard. "Illyana?" Jean asks. The girl looks up, revealing her light blue eyes, and then collapses on the floor. Without saying a word verbally or thought-speech, Hank immediately grabs the girl and runs with all his strength to the medical lab. Not far behind him is Jean, already prepping the nurse for their arrival and at the same time notifying Kitty.
Kitty was in the middle of a lecture when Jean called her. Without even excusing herself, she ran out of the room and phased through whatever she had to in order to reach the med lab. She ran through classrooms, through dorm rooms, through science experiments and finally through 15 feet of steel, reaching the medical lab just as Jean entered. "Where is she?" Kitty exclaims as she catches her breath. She runs to Hank and looks down to see her friend, one thought long dead, and cries. The tears flow through her smile, and Hank holds her reassuringly. A machine is hooked up to check the beat of her heart, her brain functions and such. All beep and click positively, and Kitty just cries happily. She thinks oh god it's a miracle! It's a freakin miracle! All the while the three gathered around their returned friend, darkness lurks in the institute, for no good thing can come without a drastic price for another.
--------------------------------- A few hundred miles away, about 4 miles off the former island nation of Genosha, a shadowed young man sits in a boat, doing no "physical" work whatsoever, but moves the boat through sheer force of will. His long spiked black hair barely moves in the slight breeze of the ocean air. He's taking into account all he has witnessed, all he's found out about Genosha and the world in the past 6 years since his return to existence; the mindless death and destruction caused by one "woman" and all the bigotry and such that lead to his father's death. He sits back in the boat, relaxing and reminiscing further. He thinks of how he came back into existence.
It had all been dark beforehand. Then there was a flash and he could see. He remembered lines of light, the life force of the general populace. He lived among those lines at this point, although you really couldn't call it living. He existed here, moved, saw, but it wasn't really living. He didn't feel, didn't breath, and didn't really think. He had previously lived however, with his father and a world so foreign to him, with people who actually cared and wanted him. But he threw it away in trying to be a "good son". He wanted life to be easier for his father, for a man who had endured so much yet had been denied his dream by the dream of another. So, he tried to get rid of this other dreamer, but in doing so, accidentally killed his father ceasing his own existence and creating a world severely different from the one he had lived in. So he "lived" with the lifelines then, for quite a while, but then the lifelines drastically changed, some ended, others floated into inexistence with him, but his father's lifeline was restored. Years passed, more lines ended and started and then one line in particular became distorted. The lifeline of a man known as Alex Summers, the X-Man Havok, brother to the leader of the X-Men. However, the psychic presence of his father came to return the line to normal after long periods of hard work. The young man came into existence with the aid of Alex Summers' return to life. Grasping on to his lifeline, as Alex came back into himself and to life, the young man known as Legion pulled himself back into life. Due to the immense psychic backlash of this however, Legion was sent halfway across the world, to the barren white wastelands of Russia, to rebuild himself physically and mentally.
Memories and personalities flooded his mind, for Legion had a torn mental state, thinking he was three separate people in order to maintain sanity and semi-control over different areas of his powers. In his previous existence, it was this mental state that drove him to what he did, and to the trouble he caused for the X-Men and Co. However, after his "life" amongst the lifelines, Legion's mind concluded that it no longer needed these personalities any longer. Somehow, his mind had established ways to discern these powers and how to activate them (however he could still use some training, not being able to use any of them to their full potential as he could previously...). Now with his memories and personal being intact, Legion for the first time in over 7 years breathed fresh air in the snow- covered tundra of Russia. Unclothed, he set out now to fulfill his basic human needs.
Now here he is, 6 years later, 21 years old, lying in a boat, waiting for the day he reaches America. He knows at just about any time he could just as easily as he is pushing this boat, he could transport himself to America, but he's waited a lifetime to get back here, he can wait a little longer. With a smirk David smiles, who am I kidding? He thinks. With that thought, David lifts himself from the boat and blasts across the cool Pacific Ocean water towards America.
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A lab bench explodes in the Medical lab, knocking everyone off their feet, some into walls, and others on to their asses. A horrendous laughter precedes the explosion, the laugh of a man known to just about all X-Men: Sinister. He's changed since their last encounter, metallic pants and upper armor replaced with a flowing, oozing substance. The substance spread, covering Sinister. Black and tar like, it looked like it was consuming him, forming to his body. And then, with another heart-stopping laugh, the true form of the ooze revealed itself: Venom, the Alien Symbiote! "Oh this day could not get any better." Kitty snarled. "I do not have time for this!" Hank yells aloud. He's the first to take charge at Sinister/Venom. With a wide-toothed grin, Sinister/Venom easily bats Hank away with one punch. Hank slams into and falls over another medical table, with a loud thump followed by a grunt. With that grunt, the next wave of X-Men attack. Kitty holds Illyana close as a barrage of mutants and mutant powers fly at the mad scientist mutant, several slamming into him, others he dodges via the symbiote. Jean doesn't waste time with the physical. With but a thought, she burrows into Sinister/Venom's mind, looking to shut it down. As she runs through their mind, tears well up in her eyes from the tragic, horrific memories of killing and using countless people and animals. She feels fire build up inside of her, rage overcoming Jean. With an animalistic cry, Jean unleashes a small portion of her vast ability onto Sinister/Venom, after they had already needlessly slaughter 2 students who had gotten in their way. Crying, a flare of fire surrounds Jean as a fire ignites in the collective mind of Sinister and Venom. They feel all the pain they've inflicted, all the torment and horror they've imposed on people. But they do not die. The symbiote melts away, unable to stay connected to Sinister now, resting like a big black puddle on the floor. Sinister on the other hand lies on the cold metallic floor, curled into the fetal position, groaning like he wished for death. Satisfied, Jean wipes a mascara run tear from her eye and calls in orderly-type people to take them away. Breathing heavily, Jean turns to look as Hank gets to his feet/hoofs, and returns to look at Kitty and Illyana, who are still holding each other and crying both still out of joy for seeing each other, and for the two deaths they just witnessed. "You two alright?" Jean asks telepathically. "We'll be okay Jean," Kitty says with a happy tear filled grin.