Disclaimer: I do not own any of this nor am I making money off of it. They are the property of their respective owners and associated companies.

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One Week Later, The X-Mansion, Morning

Life IS good! He thought to himself as he lay back on his towel and soaked up the sun's rays while looking at the tableau of beauty before him.

To his right was Jubilee trying desperately to prevent Ice Cube from dumping her in the lake and looking mighty fine in her bikini. In front of him, reclining on her towel and being pestered by Maggot to put on some suntan lotion, was Storm in a nice black and white bikini that definitely flattered her figure. Last came probably the most spectacular thing he had ever seen in the form of Rogue floating on her back, wearing a one piece suit that he'd swear was about one or so sizes too small for her. All in all, it was a definite array of eye candy before him and, thanks to his schooled expression as well as his sunglasses, none of the women knew he was checking them out. The only one who'd be able to tell them was Logan and he was off someplace checking on a potential intruder to the school grounds. Until then, he could just enjoy the view, soak up some rays and maybe later swim a bit in the lake to cool off a bit.

Definitely not something I expected to see in the middle of winter. He thought as he looked to the left and saw the snow-covered trees in the distance, One of the benefits of having a mutant who can control the weather as a friend, I guess.

The only thing he could honestly say was souring his mood was the fact that Marrow, Deathbird or Doc Reyes had chosen not to come down to the lake with them. The first he could kind of understand because Sarah was probably still a bit leery of being anywhere near Logan after their botched 'discussion' in the remains of the Danger Room. Logan probably felt the same way, even though it was his 'unique' method of getting through to her that caused the screw up in the first place. Marrow was a Morlock, she had lived the majority of her life underground as a survivor, so she was no stranger to fighting for everything she wanted and, thus, violence would be ineffective in changing her. In his opinion, they needed to use methods that the young mutant would not expect, would not know how to handle, and for the most part that was a combination of talking as well as kindness. However it would also require the right person to reach out to her and, sadly, the senior X-Men were not the right ones for the job. Most of them had gone up against Sarah as enemies and were known to most Morlocks as having lived here at the mansion for a long time. From a Morlock's point of view, the X-Men were living in the lap of luxury compared to them and so the traditional poor-people-vs.-rich-people mindset kicked in. That being the case then, the only people who might be able to change her for the better would be the newer X-Men, Maggot, Doc Reyes and him.

As for Deathbird, he knew that she had a swimsuit since it was one of the things that Rogue and MJ had gotten during their little shopping spree with his money. However having everything she needed to go for a swim in the lake and actually doing it were two different things. While he'd like to think that her time among the X-Men on Earth might have put a dent in that 'I-AM-ROYALTY-HEAR-ME-SCOFF' attitude of hers, it was apparently still solid enough that she had declined the invitation to come swimming. Oh, she used more pompous, aristocratic words, but that was the basic point she managed to get across to the rest of them. Still the fact that she was actually wearing something other than her battle armor was a good sign and, unless he was imagining things, she had watched some TV the night before last. There had been no sign that anybody had been in the room aside from the fact that the TV had been left on, but his senses had been keen enough without Kung Lung's assistance that he was able to sniff her out. So while he was disappointed that she wasn't going to be joining the rest of them, he had faith that he'd make her into a half decent person eventually.

As for Doc Reyes, he still had hopes that she'd eventually show up after she got back from Salem Center. The woman was doing her level-headed best to get her old life back and wasn't about to take any variation on 'no' for an answer. She also wasn't going to let herself get too attached to life at the X-Mansion because, while she was almost always polite as well as friendly to everyone, she was a long way from making any friends. She'd been told before she'd headed out that they'd be down by the lake if she wanted to join them when she got back. All they'd gotten in response was a half spoken that she'd think about it before she got into the rental the mansion residents had been using lately.

The only other no show was Remy, but that was more because his less than perfect status among the rest of the X-Men at the moment. Even though it was two weeks since the proverbial cat had been let out of the bag concerning his connection to the Morlock Massacre, the only people who acted friendly around him were Storm, Jubilee, Cannonball and Maggot. Wolverine, who said he'd join them after dealing with a trespasser, was content to put things at blank slate status between him and Gambit. However 'blank slate' didn't just mean that the Cajun's past crimes were tossed away, but also the past trust he may have had with Logan. Between the two of them, trust would have to be re-earned from scratch and that could take a while depending on what the future held for everyone.

"BOMMMMBS AWAAAAY! WHOO-HOOOOO," yelled Sam Guthrie as he swung from the rope hanging from a tree overlooking the lake.

Looking in the blonde kid's direction, he could only smile at this moment of peace that the people he was rooming with had been allowed. While he seriously doubted he fully understood what it meant to be an X-Man if their schedule was anything like what the Scooby gang had to put up with back home, then moments like this had to be cherished.

"Aren't you supposed to be at your father's, Drake?" Jubilee asked between efforts to keep from being tossed off the senior X-man's shoulders.

"I was. Now I'm back, and you're going under Lee!" Bobby replied as he stepped up his efforts to dunk the Asian-American teen.

"Says you, cold miser!" Jubilation shot back as she upper her efforts as well.

However it turned out that throwing someone off one's shoulders was easier than staying on someone's shoulders since, ten seconds later, Bobby successfully managed to toss Jubilee into the lake head first.

"He shoots! He SCORES! Jubilee is doused!" Iceman crowed as his victim surfaced, "'Bobby Drake! How do you stay dry?' By dunking everyone else in the pool, Bob, and—"

That was about as far as the Ice Cube got before Ororo decided that a little of her own brand of divine intervention was in order by conjuring a rain cloud right over the arrogant asshole. With all the water that came out of the cloud, it was safe to say that Drake reached 'drenched' status in the first five seconds.

"Yes, mommy!" Bobby whined back in defeat.

A minute later he heard the sound of feet crushing grass heading towards the lake so he leveraged himself up on his elbows and looked back to see that Logan had arrived. The problem was there was a serious 'something is bothering me' look on his face and, while it didn't look like the reason was a big deal in terms of life or death, it was definitely not something to be ignored.

"Logan, you look angry. The intruder?" Storm asked with obvious concern at the expression on her friend's face.

"Department of Education inspector. We got problems Storm. Big problems. I'll tell ya later." Wolverine replied before taking a quick glance around, "Where's Gumbo?"

"I tried to talk him into coming earlier but I think he knew he'd receive a chilly welcome if he came here." He replied as he got to his feet.

"He shouldn't let Frosty over there—" Logan began to say before a seriously slushy snowball nailed him right in the face.

"Uh-oh." Was Storm's only comment to this and he had to agree with that sentiment one hundred percent.

Playing around with Jubilee and getting her wet against her will was one thing.

Smacking Wolverine in the face with a slushball was definitely something else.

"Yeah! Drake scores from thirty yards out and the crowd goes wild!" Iceman crowed from his place on the dock.

Idiot does NOT know the crap he just stepped in! Xander thought as he watched Logan wipe the slush off his face.

"Oh yeah, Drake? How 'bout I go for the field goal then?" Wolverine asked with a dangerous tone in his voice.

This apparently was enough to pierce even Ice-for-Brains' cranium as he looked at the miffed mutant glaring at him with new eyes.

"Hey! Calm down, Wolver-mean! I was only—"Bobby began to say in his own defence before karma decided to slam into him.

One Canuck tackle later and both Logan and Drake were in the lake.

When the two of them surfaced, though, it was clear that the menacing mutant man named Wolverine was taking things just a little too seriously.

"Or maybe I should go for a hole-in-one!" Logan said as he kept a grip on Iceman with one hand and popped three bone claws on the other, "Or better still, a hole-in-three!"

"Nice to see you don't just pick on little girls," growled a voice that could only make the situation worse.

Looking in the direction the comment had come from he spotted Sarah lurking in the tree by the lake and cursed himself for not sensing her coming earlier. Given the rough 'sparring session' the two of them had gone through a week ago, it was plain to see that having the two come into contact was a recipe for trouble with a capital T.

"First the one you don't like, then the ones you do? Is that it?" Marrow asked spitefully from her branch.

"You better go back in the basement and hide there, girl, or I'll give you another dose." Logan growled making it clear he was being completely truthful in his threat.

"You don't have the—" Sarah began to reply before a ground shaking bit of thunder cut through the air catching everyone's attention.

"Stop it this INSTANT! We came to this place to enjoy the serenity of nature." Storm yelled imperiously as the weather showed signs of mimicking her mood, "Let us not have it disrupted with these childish vendettas!"

This seemed to take the wind out of most of the troublemakers' sails but it looked like Logan was going to go cool off someplace else.

"Fine. I'll go make my own party," growled Wolverine as he stalked away with a foul tempered look on his face.

"Wolvie?!" Jubilee asked tentatively sounding like she wanted him to stick around.

"Not now, Lee. I'm not in the mood. Leave me be." Logan said a bit more softly but still showing signs of his lingering bad mood.

Shaking his head at the problem that had just narrowly been avoided, Xander knew that even if he resumed his babe watching, the funk left over from this would linger for an hour. After some debate on where to go and what to do he decided he'd try and talk to Marrow and see if he could convince her to make up with Logan or at the very least keep her sniping with him to a minimum. It would probably take some creative thinking, phrasing it in a way that would make it look like she was the top dog, but fortunately dealing with Snyder back home had provided him with some excellent experience.

"I'm gonna go see if I can find Marrow and convince her to up her behaviour to barely polite," he said as he headed in the direction he'd seen her scamper off too. "It might keep things from breaking down to another one on one between her and Logan."

"Very well. However be cautious." Storm said reluctantly.

"This is me we're talking about, Storm," Xander said with a playful grin.

"I think that's what she's worried about," Rogue chipped in as he left.

Building up to jogging pace, he used what better than average senses he had to lock onto Sarah and follow her, since he didn't think the situation warranted tapping into Kung Lung. While not as sharp as Wolverine's probably were, his sniffer was good enough that he managed to pick up her scent nonetheless. True, that might have more to do with the fact that she pretty much lived in the basement, visited the sewers and probably only bathed when absolutely necessary but hey whatever worked, worked.

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Fifteen Minutes Later, Entrance to the Mansion, Marrow's Perspective

Stupid X-Men! Piece of shit weather BITCH! Marrow thought as she silently fumed as she approached the front door of the mansion, If it wasn't for Callisto wanting me to be here, I'd never set foot in this place again!

That was pretty much the focus of her thoughts as she roughly opened the door and walked inside. It almost amazed her how quick things had gone down the crapper since her and Callisto had decided to come out of the tunnels to deal with some upworlder in charge of something called 'Operation: Zero Tolerance'. They had heard a lot of yammering about it from the upworlders they'd overheard in the subway tunnels and the beaten up radio she'd found years ago. It had pissed her off that a bunch of upworlders were starting another mutant hunt because she knew it was only a matter of time before they came parading through Morlock territory looking for trouble. So they'd gone topside and ambushed a car carrying the mouthpiece of Zero Tolerance, Henry Peter Gyrich. From there things had gone from bad to screwed when the flatscan's bodyguards transformed into killer Prime Sentinals with some serious firepower. With that upworld hero Spider-Man involved, things had rapidly spun out of control and ended with Callisto getting badly injured, taking a shot meant for her. Once she decided that her priorities lay with getting her mentor to safety, she descended back to the safety of the sewers to an area secluded enough for her teacher to heal in peace.

She didn't stay down there for very long.

Morlock honor demanded that she repay the upworlders for what they had done to Callisto.

Once she was certain that her mentor's condition was stable enough, she had climbed her way out of the tunnels and surfaced in an upworlder law enforcer building. She had wasted no time making her presence felt, beating the crap out of two cops, but then more of those human sized sentinels showed up as well as that X-Man Drake and his whiny mutant skank of a sidekick. After a brief tussle in the building, they went outside to look for someplace to hide only to run into a small army of human-sized sentinels. Oh, they were saved all right, by having some foreign bitch drop a building on them, and from there came a long trip to some out of the way upworlder dwelling to save some upworlder kid. That was finished easy enough when Bastion's allies showed up to take him away for good. Apparently the jackass' backers in the country had decided to do a complete one eighty on him and booted his forces outside their boarders.

It had been then that she should have walked away the moment they got within running distance of the upworlder city known as New York. She should have returned immediately to the tunnels and cared for Callisto until she got better, but instead her curiosity about the home of the mighty X-Men prodded her into sticking with Iceman. That pretty much led her to where she was right now, cursing her curiosity and wondering what the hell she was still doing with these weaklings. Not one of them really interested her and she was pretty sure there was nothing any of them could teach her besides from how to be weak and vulnerable. That was something she would never allow herself to be because she'd learned long ago that those that were weak and vulnerable died at the hands of the ruthless and the strong. In fact, the only one of the mansion residents that she might actually miss was Xa—

NO! Don't think about the lizard-eyed idiot! She scolded herself with a growl and a shake of the head, I don't know what Callisto was thinking a week ago but the only thing I feel for that moron is revulsion! There's nothing else there! Nothing!

As she passed by the entrance to the living room, though, she came upon a sight that made her pause in order to decide on a course of action. Lying still on the floor was the white haired man called Joseph. She could tell with a glance that he wasn't sleeping. Most likely it meant that he was dead or dying but since there was no blood around the body, that meant there was no external reason for his current state. That meant something internal had gone wrong, maybe a heart attack or a stroke, and that left her with a choice. Do I leave him here to die? Do I go back to those losers at the lake and bring back someone to help? Do I dare try to do something myself?

"Looks like we got a bit of a situation here," came a voice that took the choices right out of her hands.

Turning around she finds Xander standing in the doorway behind her, still in his swimming trunks and only a pair of sandals added from what he had on down by the lake. For a moment her mind was frozen, her eyes taking in his muscular form, and she began to wonder what it felt like to touch him. However it was only for a moment and, once her brain comes back online, she felt like stabbing herself for even going soft for a moment, especially since HE was the cause. Putting on her best 'I hate all upworlders' look on, she leaned up against the nearby doorframe with a look of indifference on her face.

"Looks like something's wrong with blondie over there." She said making it sound like she thought Joseph to be some brainless airhead worthy only of contempt, "I'll leave you to deal with him. I got better places to be."

With that she walked out of the living room and headed to the basement, the only place that felt like home in this godforsaken mansion, confident that her rep as a tough as nails warrior was still intact.

Oh yeah! I'm the thing that darkness fears! She thought with a feral smile and much confidence.

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Living Room, Mansion, Xanders P.O.V

Was I imagining things or was Marrow checking me out just now? He asked himself mentally before shaking his head, Nah! That girl has a mad on for just about everyone living above ground and is only here 'cause her sorta-mom told her to be here.

After all it was the only safe stance he could take on the whole thing that wouldn't be causing him to have either headaches or nightmares for the next few days.

Turning to Joseph, who was still motionless on the floor, he wondered what exactly he should do next. Should he do the whole CPR thing like he did for Buffy that time in the Master's lair? Should he run back at top speed to the others and get someone a bit more qualified to handle this? Running back to get someone might use up whatever time was available for bringing back Joe to the land of the living but giving him CPR ran the risk of someone walking in and seeing him liplocked with another guy. Both had the potential to turn into complete disasters but the latter held the possibility of someone dying and despite his ego's protests to the contrary getting embarrassed wasn't worth a death on his hands. With that in mind he walks over to Joseph and rolls the nig idiot onto his back before doing the standard set up procedures for mouth-to-mouth. When it came down to actually doing it though a mega freeze caused by memories of that whole incident with Larry the Linebacker during Oz's whole werewolf coming out party. It wasn't that he doubted his whole sexual ortientation and all that but rather he was afraid that others might doubt his sexual orientation if they caught him mouth-to-mouth with Joe.

Shake it off, Harris! He thought to himself with discipline from his Halloween soldier personae, A man's life is on the line, an X-Man, and you've got a job to do!

With that the heart compressions and blowing of fresh (sorta) air into the lungs began with just the right tempo between each for someone Joseph's height, weight and build. For about three minutes this went on and each time he failed to receive an encouraging reaction from the prone man he began to worry that he might have been too late. Fortunately though the fates have deemed his efforts worthy of reward and with a shudder as well as a cough Joseph takes a breath of air unassisted. Moving back to a safe distance he waits for the man to get his head screwed on straight before he does anything at all.

"Cough unhh…what are you…doing…?" Joseph asked as he managed to place himself in a sitting position.

"Oh nothing much, just doing some C.P.R on a guy that wasn't breathing a moment ago, that's all." He replied honestly with only a little humor in his voice to lighten the mood.

Joseph seemed to take this into consideration before nodding and slowly began to get to his feet.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" He asked, not sure that the blonde man should be moving just yet, "You literally just came back from the dead a few moments ago."

"I'm fine. Whatever hurt me is gone." Joseph replied immediately in an effort to hide his momentary bout of weakness.

"If you say so, but you should still have Doc Reyes look you over when she gets back from Salem Center." He said making it clear he would fight the man on this point if he didn't do what he was told.

For a moment it did indeed look like the guy might actually start arguing but a moment later something popped into his head to make him reconsider.

"Very well." Joseph replied reluctantly.

"Good. Now if you'll excuse me I am suffering the first stages of eye candy withdrawl, so I'm heading back to the lake." He said before heading out the door to leave the older man to his own problems.

Once he hit the open air though he catches a series of scents on the air, most of them he recognized as belonging to the X-Men by the lake, however two of the scents cause him to double time it to the lake. The first is a living being that is not quite human, actually leaning more towards lizard, and the other is human blood. Add it all up and you got some unknown being attacking his roommates and doing a good enough job to draw blood. He couldn't tell whose it was, but it doesn't matter because at the end of the day, all of the X-Men were his friends and that meant anyone who hurt them was in for a world of hurt.

Deciding that the situation warranted it, he summoned his armor and then tapped into the power of Kung Lung in order to boost his physical capabilities to at least ten times the normal level. He doesn't know precisely how much the increase was because each time he tapped into the Black Dragon King's power he did it more by feel than any precise measurement. Still, it would help him take down the intruder quick and clean as he could get back to the mansion and inject some of the serum into his body before the enhancements and Kung Lung's spread of essence became permanent. It took about three minutes at sprinting speed for him to make it to the lake and when he got there, he set eyes on a being that is neither man nor pterodactyl, but a combination of the two. Decked out in a loincloth of some kind and ammo belts, he didn't look dangerous enough to be a problem for the X-Men but that just meant that he had a more subtle power that evened up the odds.

"You hurt some friends of mine, beak breath! I suggest you surrender while I'm still feeling charitable enough to let you walk away from this with a few bruises," Xander growled with some definite threat in his voice, threat which was only amped up by his James Earl Jones / Darth Vader voice.

"It is not I who will be begging for mercy, armored one! I have managed to defeat a team of X-Men with ease! What chance do you possibly have for defeating me?!" Beak Boy asked with the tone in his voice making his arrogance come through loud and clear.

"Oh, I admit that it's pretty impressive how you managed to take them down but there's a big difference between them and me." He replied as he extended the claws on both his hands and his feet, "They were probably trying to take you in alive. I have no such compunction."

That said, he charged in at top speed, determined to strike the first blow and seriously limit the beast's options. The beast brought up a handgun and fired but the bullets don't even scratch the paint on the armor, much less slow him down, so when he finally got in range he made his move. Most people pat this point would have expected him to aim for Beak Breath's torso but that would have been too obvious and well-guarded. Instead he attacked the beast's wings with the intent of slicing them to ribbons, thus removing Beak Boy's ability to fly. He managed to score a solid slash on the right wing but his attempts to go for the left one failed, getting him a mean left hook to the jaw instead, sending him tumbling along the ground a couple of feet. It took more than one shake of the head to get his brain working right but at least his head was still attached to his body and that was saying something, considering the power behind that hit. It was like the first time he took a solid punch from a vampire back in Sunnydale before he became the container for the essence of Kung Lung. Now, just like back then, though, it would take more than one of those hits to keep him down for good.

At least ten or so at the very least, he bet.

Getting back to his feet, he looked at Beak Breath and saw, much to his dismay, the slash wounds on the monster's wings closing at an accelerated rate. In less than a minute the beast would be completely healed and he would be back to square one as far as defeating him went, so that meant that either he had to up the level of damage he was doing to Beak Boy or use the power level he was at and keep pounding until the beast went down. His choice was made for him when Beak Breath charged him and brought things back to close quarters so fast he didn't have time to change anything. And so it began, a clash between two beings using fist and claw to harm each other, with neither side showing any sign of slowing down. However that began to change as he began to see signs of the creature's healing factor lose strength and wounds that would have healed up in moments were taking whole minutes to close up. As for him, his armor was still holding up pretty well with only a few slight dents here and there to show that he'd been hit at all.

Definitely going to have to compliment Doc Strange on his workmanship, Xander thought to himself as he tried to bury the talons on his fingertips in Beak Brain's stomach.

Unfortunately for him Bird Brain managed to catch his hand before it could pierce flesh and threw him like a ball and chain into the nearest collection of trees. He counted three trees that he ploughed through before his mind lost the coherency to count any higher. He didn't know whether it was weeks or only a few minutes before his mind cleared up, but the one thing he did know was that his current level of effort was barely slowing Beak Boy down. At the rate things were going, he'd probably lose consciousness before the beast finally went down for the ten count. That left him with two choices: tap into Kung Lung's power even more or get his ass kicked some more.

Man, I hate multiple choice questions!! He thought as with a little less finesse than he would have liked he got back to his wobbly feet.

Looking back the way he came, he saw that Beak Boy had apparently decided that he was a goner. Not exactly far from the truth if his unstable legs were anything to go by, but he figured he still had enough left in him for one last exchange before he just rolled over and let someone else handle Mr. Beak.

With that in mind, he moved forward as fast as he could across the grassy forest floor towards Beak Breath, only stumbling once or twice along the way, and once he was confident he was close enough he leapt forward tackling the creature from behind.

"Piece of advice Polly! Never assume an enemy is defeated unless you've inspected the body yourself!" He yelled as he managed to land in the top position, "It'll make you less vulnerable to little surprises like this one!"

With no further need for words, he began to wail on Beak Break like there was no tomorrow, delivering hammering blow after hammering blow, in order to make sure there was no chance of his opponent counterattacking. It was about three minutes later that he realized that the human-dinosaur was no longer resisting anywhere near as much as it had in the beginning. In fact it would be accurate to say that the struggles were little more than floppy gestures rather than actual efforts to get free. It was then that two courses of action warred with one another: one being a decision to get off his enemy to see if it is truly down for the count and the other being to wail on it for a little while longer just to be sure. In the end, though, he chose the former in the hopes that the battle really was over and done with so he could go check on the person he'd smelled bleeding. Once off the dinosaur-human and on his feet, he looked down at the creature searching for any sign that its weakened state was a deception. However the floppy movements continued and the monster's eyes were shut so unless the thing was a superb actor, it was indeed down for the count.

"Not bad kid. A little rough near the end but you pulled it off," stated Wolverine's growly yet weary-sounding voice.

Turning in the feral man's direction, he was happy to see that most of the X-Men were with him and none of them looked too badly banged up. The one that looked the worst off was Storm, who looked like she had a nasty gunshot wound on her left hip but it didn't look life-threatening. As for the rest, it was mostly a case of torn clothing and maybe a few bruises marring their otherwise flawless features.

Nothing to be overly concerned about in his opinion.

"Yeah, well, I would've done better if I'd known who or what I was going up against." He said as he banished his armor in a flash of light, "Who was this guy anyways?"

"His name is Sauron and he is a foe the X-Men have encountered on various occasions. Despite his current appearance, he is actually human and only transforms into his current state when he absorbs the lifeforce energy of mutants." Storm replied, although there were signs of strain on her face, "We thought him to still be in the Savage Land but it would appear that he was not content to linger there."

"No kidding, Storm! So what're we gonna do with him anyways?" Jubilee asked with a look in her eyes that might be a slight concussion.

"I'll give Fury a call and have him send someone over to take Sauron off our hands." Wolverine said, still looking fatigued but doing his best to hide it.

"Well if that's all done, I think I'm gonna go and soak in the tub for awhile because, accelerated healing or no, being thrown through a couple trees leaves some nasty bruises." Xander said as he turned and began a less than steady walk towards the mansion.

By doing this, though, he missed the grins of respect from some of the X-Men and the speculative looks from the unattached X-Women.

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X-Mansion, One Hour Later, Living Room

"Ahhhh! Nothing like a nice cold one after getting the stuffing kicked out of you." Xander said quietly to himself after swallowing a mouth full of Pepsi.

When he had gotten back to the mansion, he'd gone immediately to the upstairs bathroom and the tub located there to make good on his statement of soaking in it for a while. Once his fingers and toes were on the verge of pruning on him, he got out, dried off and then began gathering things for a veg session in front of the replacement TV. Fortunately for him, the X-Men had seen the wisdom of keeping a spare on hand just in case something happened to the first one. That pretty much brought him to where he was right now and that was enjoying a Xena: Warrior Princess marathon with his favourite flavour of chips in hand as well as a six pack of Pepsi. Needless to say the Scooby way of winding down after a battle was definitely of the good as far as he was concerned.

When things went to commercial he got up and was about to head to the bathroom to heed the call of nature when one of those news show previews came on. For the most part he wasn't too interested but that changed when the news anchor began talking about some sort of mutant rights rally to be held in New York within a few days. He could tell it was scheduled to take place at noon at some kind of convention hall but all of the remaining details the news anchor was talking about vanished when a face appeared on screen. It was of a young woman on stage talking to a large audience about mutant rights from a wheel chair. She had red hair. She had green eyes. Her face was almost elfin in appearance.

He would recognize it anywhere.

It was Willow.

According to the line of text beneath her name, she would be one of the main speakers at the rally. His Willow would be criticizing all the mutant haters and bigots of the world. She would be raising the ire and the blood pressure of people who did not look fondly on 'race traitors' and tended to deal with such betrayal in a permanent manner. There was only one way he could respond to this turn of events.

"WHAT THE HELL IS SHE THINKING!?!?!?!?!?!"