"Alex?"

Twister sat down beside the small cot where his sister was lying. "I'm right here, Kimmy."

"Where am I?"

"The Blackbird. It's...an airplane."

"Airplane? Are we moving?"

"No."

Kimmy sat up, holding her head. "I feel dizzy."

"It'll pass in a minute."

"Alex, what are you doing with a human?" Kimmy asked. "You don't trust her, do you?"

"Agent Fury? Of course I trust her. She's a friend, Kimmy."

"Humans can't be our friends. They only want to harm us. They're afraid of us, and they want us all to die."

"Mackenzie Fury isn't going to hurt me, you, or any other mutant. She doesn't hate us."

"Magneto says all humans hate all mutants."

Twister reached down and stroked his sister's face. "Magneto is wrong. You have to trust me here, Kimberly. War between humans and mutants is not the answer. So much progress has been made already without war, and continued peace is the only way to make that progress go any further."

"I don't know, Alex. What Magneto says about fighting back against humans and their oppression—it seems to make so much sense."

"But it isn't the best way." Twister took a deep breath, then asked, "Have you ever heard of the X-Men?"

Kimmy looked at her brother with wide, shocked eyes. "Magneto says the X-Men are just as much our enemy as humankind. He says they turned their backs on their fellow mutants."

"That's not the truth."

"How can you be so sure about what's truth and what's not?"

"Because I'm an X-Man."

Kimmy gaped for a moment before setting her jaw tightly and narrowing her eyes. "Then you're the enemy."

"How can you say that?" Twister asked in outrage. "You're going to believe some delusional demagogue over your own brother?"

"He came back from the dead to save us, Alex! How can I not put my faith into that?!"

Twister found that incredibly hard to swallow. Who did that guy think he was, the Mutant Messiah? "Kim, I can assure you that Magneto has not risen from the dead. I've seen the man's grave, and trust me, unless he took the time to replant the grass, no one's climbed out of it recently."

"Maybe he was never in there to begin with."

"I don't think so, kiddo."

Kimmy started to cry. "But he has to be Magneto! He has to save us! I can't be a mutant if it means being hated!"

Twister sat beside his sister and pulled her into his arms, trying to comfort her. "It's all right," he said. "It's going to be all right. Being a mutant doesn't necessarily mean being hated. But people like whoever this is claiming to be Magneto don't make things any easier on us. Threatening war on humanity is a good way to convince humans that we are something to be hated and feared."

"I...I need to think, Alex," Kimmy said. "Can I have a couple of minutes alone?"

"Yeah." Twister kissed her on the top of her head before getting up. "Holler if you need me."

"I will."

As soon as Twister was gone, Kimberly broke down and sobbed.

*** *** ***

"I don't know what you're talking about," Cable said. In all honesty, he wasn't even sure who he was talking to. The man looked like Sabretooth, but Cable knew Victor Creed had been killed over a year before.  How could that man possibly be him?

"I have a daughter. Victoria Creed. Sorta tall, blonde, green eyes—y'know, basically me if I was a woman. She was in boarding school down in Olympia, but apparently she left without tellin' her old man. So, I got to lookin' for her, and well, my sources said that she'd gone and enrolled herself at Xavier's Mutant High. When I found that out, I started thinkin' where could my little girl be stayin' if she's goin' to school in Westchester, New York, and then suddenly I remembered the nice little set-up you people got goin' on here. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized Vicky's probably tryin' to hide from me, seein' as she got herself kicked out of the nice school I spent all that money to send her to, and what better place to go than the one place Daddy' ain't gonna want to come look? So the question remains, boyo—where's my kid?"

Cable blinked a few times, trying to take in all the information that had just been thrown at him. "I honestly don't know," he said. "I've been away from the mansion for the past month, and when I got back, the X-Men were gone. If your daughter was here, she most likely left with them."

Normally, Victor would've knocked the guy around a bit, even though his heightened senses told him he wasn't being lied to. This time, however, he was too worried about his daughter to care about much else. "Do you know where the X-Men are?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Look, I'm not here to hurt them. I'm not into terrorizin' superheroes anymore. I just want my daughter back."

Angela stepped in, moving Cable out of the doorway. "Mr. Creed, why don't you come in and have a seat?" She tried to push back all the hatred that seeing his face stirred in her. She was, after all, fully aware of what Sabretooth had done to Psylocke, her mother. "I need to speak to Nathan alone for a moment, and then we can see to helping you find your daughter."

Victor nodded and followed Angela into the house. "Have a seat," she said, gesturing to a chair that appeared large until Victor's frame filled it. "Nate, come with me to the kitchen, please."

"Hey, wings," Creed called out as Angela and Nathan started to walk away.

Angela turned around, still forcing a slight smile. "Yes?"

"You the Braddock woman's kid?"

"Yes. Why?"

Victor gave her a grin that made her stomach turn. "Just wonderin'. Ya look exactly like her, frail."

Angela couldn't suppress her shudder as she turned around and walked with Nathan to the kitchen.

*** *** ***

"This is not possible," Nathan said as soon as he and Angela were in the kitchen. "There is no way that man can be Victor Creed. Sabretooth is dead!"

"Technically, half the people we know are dead, Nathan. Our lives are like a soap opera. Death is never final."

Nate sighed. "I know. And from the little information I picked up from the small mind scan I attempted, he doesn't appear to be lying—about his identity, or his concern for his daughter."

"I picked up the same thing," Angie said. "The question is, what's really going on here? We both know Adanya killed Sabretooth—or so we thought—yet here he is asking about a daughter no one even knew he had."

Cable frowned, thinking for a moment. "It looked like we're going to have to accept the possibility that whoever Addie killed wasn't Sabretooth—although who it really was is a mystery to me. It makes more sense that it wasn't him if you think about it. I mean, for several years no one heard anything out of Creed, save for the two times he kidnapped Addie to get to Wolverine. Then, out of the blue, he reforms the Brotherhood and attacks random people in abandoned warehouses in New York, taking humans hostage, and generally making a nuisance of himself. The pieces don't fit there, Angie. It would've made much more sense for him to just stay in Seattle with Victoria and never come here to build up the New Brotherhood."

Angela looked at Nathan quizzically for a moment. "You're sound as if you knew about his daughter before hand."

Nathan paused. "I did."

"How?"

"You can't repeat this to anyone, Angela. It's one of the darker secrets of the X-Men, and I promised my father I'd take it to my grave."

"I won't tell, Nathan."

"I know because, well, Victoria's mother is Jean Grey."

Angela started at him blankly. "What? Could you repeat that, because I could've sworn I just heard you say Jean Grey and Victor Creed have a child together."

"I did."

"How can that be?"

Nathan took a few deep breaths. "About nineteen or so years ago, right around the time Rachel was born, Jean started to, well, suffer from a mental breakdown. The stress of her telepathy got to her, and, for lack of a better term, she lost it. Her behavior was so erratic, so senseless, that she actually drove Scott away. Somehow during that time, she managed to have a short affair with Creed that resulted in a pregnancy.

"She wanted to get rid of the baby, but Scott wouldn't let her. He insisted that they raise the child as their own. They lived in Alaska for a while—basically cut off from the other X-Men—raising both Rachel and Victor's baby. This went on for about three months, with Jean hating the child the whole time. Scott said that one day he woke up to find both Jean and the baby gone. When Jean got back, she said that she'd taken the child where it belonged, which, looking back now, must've meant she took her to Victor."

Angela was in shock. "I think...I think I remember them being gone for a while, when I was a little girl. No one talked about them, and I thought it strange even at the time. But Jean's okay now, isn't she?"

"Yeah. Scott sent her to Zander Hayes—a world-renowned mutant psychiatrist. Dr. Hayes helped Jean get back in touch with reality, and to deal with her powers in a way that would keep her from loosing her mind again."

Angela pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. "I can't believe this..."

"I know," Nate said, kneeling in front of her and taking her hands. "But Jean wasn't herself then. If she had been, she never would've done any of that."

"I know." Angela sighed. "So apparently, Victoria Creed has been here—or at least her father thinks she was. What now?"

"I'm going in there to talk to Creed. I want you to leave the mansion, though. I don't want you to be in the same house as that madman."

"No," Angela said, shaking her head. "I'm not leaving you with him. Besides, I didn't really sense any violent hostility from him."

"With Creed, that can change at any moment," Cable said. "You of all people should know what he's capable of. Just think about what he did to your mother."

Angela winced. "Believe me, Nathan, I have been. But that doesn't change my mind. We're both going in there."

"Angela..."

"You're not stopping me, Nate."

"You're the most stubborn woman I know."

"And you love me for it."

"Sometimes."

Angela stood up, bringing him up with her. She stood on tiptoe, kissing his cheek. "C'mon, big boy, let's go talk to the homicidal maniac in the living room."

*** *** ***

Kimmy came out a little while later, her eyes puffy from crying. "I'll tell you where he is," she said.

"Magneto?" Rebecca asked.

"Yeah."

"You are doing the right thing," Rebecca told her.

Kimmy wasn't sure if she agreed with that or not, but she kept on reminding herself that blood was thicker than water. If she had to betray someone, it should be Magneto and not her brother. "There's...there's something I haven't told you," Kimmy said. "Magneto's holding a rally in Tyler in three days. His plan is to entice the humans there to riot so mutants can move towards more violent action, while claiming self-defense."

"We can't let that happen," Rachel said.

"And we will not." Rebecca crouched down so she was eye level with Kimmy. "Thank you for speaking up. Hopefully, you have saved many lives."

Kimmy nodded, then looked away.

*** *** ***

"So have you decided what you're gonna do with me yet?" Victor asked with a cruel smile as Angela and Nathan came back out from the kitchen.

"We're not sure where your daughter is," Cable said. "Like I told you, Angela and I have been gone for a month now, and somewhere during that time the X-Men—and presumably Victoria—left."

"And they wouldn't be in Texas by any chance, would they?" Sabretooth grinned at Angie and Nathan's surprised looks. He held up his hand, a small piece of paper dangling on the end of his index talon. "You dropped this."

"We're going to try to contact the X-Men," Cable said. "If Victoria is with them, we'll let you know."

Creed moved so quickly that Nathan and Angela barely had time to even register it. He grabbed Angie, digging the tips of his claws into her throat. "You let me be with you every step of the way, or I make what I did to her mama look like a flesh wound."

Nathan contemplated trying to take Victor out right then and there, but he wasn't sure how successful he'd be with Creed's healing factor and reflexes, and he didn't want to take any chances when it came to Angela's life. "Fine. Whatever you want. Just let her go."

Victor threw Angie into Nathan's arms. "Never thought I'd see the day when you of all people turned into such a softy over a frail, Summers."

Nathan glared at Creed over Angela's head. "Come on, let's get this over with so you can find your daughter and get the hell out of here."

Victor grinned, making him look very much like the predator he was. "Sounds like a plan t'me."

*** *** ***

Rebecca led a scouting team comprised of herself, Rachel, Warren, and Vicky to the place Kimmy had indicated as being Magneto's hideout. There, they found an area full of old, rundown trailers, shabbily-built shacks, and an eclectic group of mutants.

"Looks like something off the X-Files," Vicky muttered. Rachel gave her a look, obviously wanting her to be quiet. Vicky just glared right back.

The X-Men looked on for a while, trying to observe all the could about Magneto's people. "They're making weapons," Vicky said after a few moments.

"Where?" Warren asked.

"Over there," Vicky said, discreetly pointing. "Where those guys are welding. They're repairing old guns."

"Do you think they've actually been able to arm themselves successfully?" Rachel asked.

Warren felt a cold gun barrel up against the back of his neck. "I'd have to say so, Ray."

"All of you turn around and put your hands on your heads."

If it hadn't been for the fact that the men were holding guns, Vicky probably would have started laughing. They were a ragtag group of mutants, all wearing old jeans and white T-shirts with the words "Magneto Is Neato" written on them in black permanent marker. "And I thought life with Dad was absurd," Vicky thought. "This brings absurdity to a whole new level."

"They're mutants, I think," one of the armed men said. "Look at the one with the white hair."

"And the blonde girl's got fangs," someone else said. "Lookit the way she's snarlin'."

Vicky raised her eyebrows, offended that that man would have anything to say about her. One glance at his and she was sure she could hear "Dueling Banjos" in the background.

"You are here to hurt our master," one of the men said. "Our Seer has said so. We do not wish to harm our fellow mutants, but for you, we must make an exception. Magneto cannot be allowed to die again."

One of the men closed his eyes. "They are the X-Men. I can see it in my mind."

"As if the huge X's on our uniforms don't give it away," Vicky mumbled under her breath.

"They are enemies of Magneto. Capture them!"

Magneto's soldiers began shooting at the X-Men. Rachel tried to use her telekinesis to grab their weapons, but she found she couldn't. "My powers won't work!" she called out.

"Neither will mine!" Rebecca said.

"Of course they won't!" one of the men said. "My powers take yours away!"

The X-Men tried to fight, but it was next to impossible for them to fight the men while unarmed and stripped of their powers. Suddenly, a bullet whizzed by, lodging itself in Rebecca's shoulder. She cried out and fell to the ground.

Vicky saw Rebecca go down. She surveyed the fighting and knew it was a losing battle. The X-Men were overpowered and outnumbered. Vicky could tell even from there that Rebecca's wound wasn't fatal, but she was losing blood, and without medical attention it could become infected. Then things could get serious.

Vicky calculated the risks and knew what she had to do. Granted, if someone was blocking their powers, her healing factor wasn't working and a bullet wound could kill her. But for how long could her powers be gone? If she went through with the plan of action that was going through her mind she might take a bullet or two, but if she could get away from the "Magneto Is Neato" crew, wouldn't she be all right?

I didn't matter. She had to get Rebecca out of there, and that was that. She didn't care what the other X-Men thought of her, she wasn't about to let someone die when there was a chance she could save them.

Vicky jumped up, and ran towards Rebecca. A bullet hit her in the thigh, causing her to fall forward, but she immediately got back up, telling herself pain was only a temporary state. She worked her way to Rebecca and hefted her off the ground, into her arms. "I'm getting you out of here," Vicky said.

"What about the others?" Rebecca asked.

Vicky looked behind her to see Magneto's men surrounding the remaining three X-Men. She grimaced. "We're going to have to come back for them. You're losing a lot of blood. I need to get you to safety—now."

Rebecca just closed her eyes and nodded. She wanted to stay, wanted to fight, but knew she couldn't. The pain was so bad and there was so much blood...

Vicky slipped into the woods, using everything her father had taught her to stay hidden—to stay alive.

"Hey Bruce," said one of the men holding Rachel, Warren, and Twister at gunpoint. "Ain't there supposed to be two more girls? One with blonde hair and one with white?"

The leader—Bruce—frowned. "Yeah. Where did they go?"

"I think they took off."

Bruce thought hard for a minute. "Let them go. With the one woman bleeding the way she was, they aren't going to get  far."

Twister wasn't sure if Bruce's statement made him feel calmer or even more uneasy. He's seen Rebecca shot, had tried to get to her, but he hadn't been able to. If she was really as hurt as Brice had said... But at least she'd gotten away, and, presumably, Vicky was with her. Twister prayed to a god he'd long-since stopped believing in that Victoria would get Rebecca to safety.

Twister felt a gun barrel pressed against his back. "C'mon," a gruff voice barked. "We're takin' y'all t'see Magneto."

The X-Men went along, knowing that they had to surrender then, but as soon as an opportunity to escape presented itself, they would take it.