Kurt drifted in a sea of infinite blackness. Occasionally he would feel flutters of lucid thought and awareness only to find them swallowed up again, almost as quickly as they occurred, by the numb and forgetful darkness.

A mental inversion had taken place, supplanting Kurt's own personality with the literal Devil of Kurt's childhood nightmares (See "It only hurts a little all the time" by the same author). His nightmares had told him that in the future he was destined to undergo a mutagenic treatment to extend his life and then to be transported in to the distant past. From there he was to age forward again to the present day, mutating and losing his mind steadily along the way.

His nightmares had told him that he WAS the Devil of myth, scripture and legend. The one and only.

While awake he had written it off to a fear of his own strength in a time when he measured his strength by comparison in a classroom and not through the standard of achieving ever higher levels of personal achievement.

But in that time, when this was merely nightmare and naïve fear, it was also overwhelming and threatening on all available emotional levels. It had taken years of friendship and trust for Kurt to finally reveal such a nightmare to Wolverine in its entirety. He had spaced out the most gruesome details, sometimes years apart in the telling, as it would have hurt Kurt too much to duplicate such a personal horror so completely at any one time.

And although he did finally disclose all the details to Logan, he had made him swear never to divulge a word or speak a syllable of the narrative. However, he had never explained how good it had felt to be Evil. He had remembered that quite fully. When he was doing evil deeds in these dreams HE FELT WONDERFUL! The Evil itself and the action's he committed FELT WONDERFUL!

While sleeping, every longing and desire for a monastic life of dedication that Kurt had ever felt were answered and rewarded through the act of worshipping his own indulgence and dementia. Truly, in those dreams Evil was his salvation, his art, his muse, his God, his path and his cross. A strange new emotion had ruled his dreaming self. It was a mixture of deep personal intimacy and satisfaction coupled with or resulting from a total detachment from emotional investment that kept him in a constant state of amusement no matter what atrocity he was engaged in.

And after a lifetime of confinement and subservience to Kurt's more altruistic pursuits, the Demon had been let out to play.

At first the demon 'Kurt' had merely immersed itself in the wonders of being free and alive. He had done back-flips in the living room and crept the walls like a lizard. He took great delight in crouching in the shadows and waiting in a menacing fashion. Occasionally he threatened the furniture and the ceiling; He knew where they lived.

Sometimes he would find himself insulted, as he was by the view from his bedroom. For just a moment he had believed that there was no glass in his windows and that the sea was bowing in silence before him. And insult became outrage. The great windows broke, tore and shattered before the freshly oiled blade before finally collapsing under their own weight and crashing down like an ocean of diamonds upon the outer rim of the room.

And Kurt stood before the great crystal downpour. His arms were extended out to the sides as though welcoming the adoration of millions. His sword was clenched firmly in his hand, so that he might kill those millions, now, while they still worship purely, should any dare to foolishly venture too near.

And the roar of the ocean filled the room in a great violent wave of sound. And Kurt knew in his heart that he had made the ocean scream. He threw back his head, raised his arms in a 'V' and reveled in wicked victory. He smiled at that ocean, threateningly and mockingly. "Scream on." He told it. "Because ven I he-ar you stop screaming," He licked his lips in anticipation "Den I come for you." He let the words roll out in a serious, smooth tone. Then, to demonstrate his contempt for this particular enemy, he turned his back on it and walked slowly away, tempting it with every step to attack.

The inner hallways were dark now that Kurt had smashed all the bulbs. He liked the small, enclosed, inner rooms of the lighthouse. There was no where for anyone to hide and no way for anyone to escape. He silently longed for a lighthouse full of victims.

And he heard that noise again. "Bee-Beep!"

Kurt cocked his head and sniffed the air. It smelled like salt. The ocean was probably bleeding from where he had cut it with the windows. He smelled nothing more.

"Bee-Beep?" Kurt called out questioningly.

"Bee-Beep!" Came the mocking reply in a tone far too chipper for it to have realized whom it was dealing with.

"Bee-Beep." Kurt told himself. "Bee-Beep." He said again, feeling the anger rise. "Bee-Beep." He hissed through his clenched teeth. "Bee-Beep!" He screamed at the top of his lungs in to the darkness of the hall. "Oh, vait, don't vorget, Bee-Beep!" He was spitting in rage as he spoke now, jerking his body wildly in a desperate attempt to expel the torrent of anger he felt coursing through him.

"Bee-Beep!" Cried the chipper voice from down the hall.

The reply ran through Kurt like a chill. He drew himself up to a proper posture and composed himself as he glared down in to the darkness. For a moment the voice seemed to grasp it's peril and it said nothing. All that could be heard were the muffled screams of the sea in the next room. And the screams were a comfort to Kurt. They were a reward for striking first and meaning it.

"Bee-Beep!"

Kurt was shaken from his brief respite. He was filled with a moral outrage. "Oh, dat's eet." He spoke calmly and rationally to the darkness. "You are over!" He told it in no uncertain terms.

Kurt raised his sword in a two handed grip. Kurt put his back to one wall and cast his eyes again in to the darkness. He stepped cautiously along the hall, favoring the wall so as not to squeak the floor by accident.

His movements became quick, fluid and decisive. He found doorway after doorway, all leading to empty rooms. He caught no scent in the air and saw no trace of prowler.

"Bee-Beep!"

Kurt jumped out of skin. Shaken, but not for long, Kurt turned his attention toward the sound once more. It was in the room across the hall.

Kurt leapt and rolled down the hall to take up a position off to the side of the door. He lifted his blade and edged it out past the doorframe so that he could use its reflection to survail the room.

It looked completely empty and quiet. Kurt smiled. "Eet's alvays da quviet vones." He told himself in a whisper.

"Bee-Beep!" Kurt's blade reflected a red burst of light.

Kurt poked his head around the corner just in time to see the red message light flash on the communications system blink out. Although this demonic version of Kurt had his memories and experiences at its disposal, this information existed mainly as instinct.

He stood dumbfounded before the machine. Vaguely he knew that there was a sacred motion he had to make over this strange altar in order to reveal the spirits and their messages. He reached out with his double-thick index finger and keyed the message replay button.

For a moment nothing happened and he dropped his eyes to the panel's controls so that he could select again.

Then the image blinked to life. It was Kitty.

"Hi, Kurt. I don't know when you'll be getting this message, or where you are. I hope you're okay and that you'd call if something's come up and you need back up or anything."

She was nervous and kept casting glances around the room she was in.

"I've just been in to see Hank privately and he let me use his Comm. But I don't know how long I have to talk privately so I'm just going to blurt this out all at once."

She took a deep breath and steadied herself.

Kurt was enraptured. He reached out and touched the image on the screen. Who was she?

"Kurt, we have a son together. Or rather, we will have. He's here at the mansion with me now. He's from the future. The DNA checks out Kurt. Hank says it's 99% for sure. Well, he was hurt, and he's recovering."

She shook her head sadly and Kurt felt a swell of indignity. Who would dare to hurt such a woman? Couldn't they see that she glowed in her own light?

"I've seen him, but he was unconscious." She bit her lip. "I wanted to talk to you about this and get things prepared first, but it looks like I'm going to be bringing him home with me to the lighthouse. He's got a teammate here too. She hardly leaves his side. I think they're in trouble Kurt."

She looked truly distressed. Magnificently and radiantly so. She turned her gaze so that she was speaking more intimately and directly to the Kurt she knew.

"I love you. We'll be home soon."

The woman vanished from the screen in a blip of light.

Kurt stood listening to the sea scream and the furniture cower in fear. Somewhere inside his there was a distraction. It was something he didn't understand and couldn't name. The distraction turned and rolled through his mind like a cloud of confusion.

He shook his head and felt it clear.

People were coming. That was all this meant. People were coming to fill the twisted halls because he had asked for it. This meant nothing more.

But inside that head clouding distraction, the real Kurt had heard Kitty's words, and he had begun to laugh with joy, spinning weightless and wildly in celebration.

He was a father. It was a boy.