"Although it is quite useful, to be able to teleport one another on command, there are some… negative outcomes. For example, if Nightcrawler wanted to transport he and Kitty to… lets say, the West Wing of the school, and he did not concentrate hard enough, their bodies would—."

"I'm sorry, Professor Storm?"

"Yes?"

"Wolverine would like to see you. He says it's urgent."

Professor Xavier's office never saw a change since his death, and for that there were reasons. Ororo had been dubbed by Logan as the new head of the school, and no one seemed in opposition to Logan… or the fact that Ororo was the most capable out of all of them to organize and corroborate. Once her "official" appointing commenced, though, Storm barked at Kitty when she picked up one of the Professor's magiked pendulums from his desk. It had been decreed after that, that the Professor's stuff was not to be touched, removed, harmed, or relocated in any fashion. Storm held so steadfast on her mandate that even when Logan tried to wipe the dust off one of the cabinets, she electrocuted him to the other end of the Mansion.

It stood especially odd, then, when Ororo walked into the office, to see that everything looked aloof. Desks were slid half way across the room, and useless trinkets scattered across the bare hardwood floor. Gasping in horror, and somewhat anger, Ororo's head whipped around the room until it landed on exactly what she expected to see. A mane of brown and black.

"LOGAN! WHAT IN THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE!" Storm screeched as her eyeballs slowly turned white.

"Somebody found it. Somebody let it go, Storm. We're fucked." Wolverine's deep, guttural timbre echoed a worry Storm had never known from this man before.

"What?" She asked, hollow. Logan shifted uncomfortably and let the question linger a minute longer than Storm could bear until he snapped out of nowhere. "He told you about it, didn't he? The Professor told you about it. The bastard kept it from me, and from Scott, even from Jean for Chrissake! … But you, he told you!" Pointed claws started their ascension from Wolverine's knuckles as he made fists to contort his rage into something tangible. Something penetrable – something Jean would have been able to read right off his unspoken, un-parted lips. Something the Professor would have sensed a mile away; something even Scott could have seen under those sunglasses. But not Ororo; no, not Storm. That was her discrepancy, her downfall. She was blind to what the others were not.

"Wolverine—Logan, look, I have no clue what you're talking about." Her voice was tentative, on the verge of a whisper.

"Why did he do it? I want to know why," Wolverine growled, "did he think he could make some sort of… some sort of Super X-Man? What the fuck was that old man thinking… what the f…" He stopped, only to retract his claws, "Just stop playing stupid with me Storm. It's gone anyhow, so there's no point in you denying its existence, or defending its right to exist. Just tell me why and how."

Storm gave a wan smile and took a small step back. Of course she knew what he was talking about, and she could tell finally from the violent red of his face that… that it really was missing, but a small part of Ororo refused to give in so easy. The Professor had trusted her with this secret to such an extent that he asked if she would be willing to spare her life for it, if necessary.

Alas, wolves can smell fear, and deception. Logan's nose caught on like wild fire, and he flew at Storm with such force that it knocked her over the couch—the same couch she used to sit on while the Professor attempted to calm her raging thoughts as the room buzzed with snow and sleet. Yes… Ororo was like them once, too. She could not control her powers as well… No, they are not alone.

"Tell me, bitch," Wolverine spat, his cruel words singing Storm's pride as she reflected that Logan—the one she knew, would never call her that. Her lips trembled in response, and only after Wolverine clasped her forearms so hard that it left bruises, and shook her until she felt disoriented, did Storm's mouth cave and start speaking at will.

"It was after you first arrived, when you were still in our room for testing. The Professor had been building on the idea since he first created the school. Every mutant he acquired, he would instruct me to take a small sample of their blood—their DNA, and store it in a vial. He never let Jean Gray do this because he knew… he knew that her moral obligations would get in the way. Professor Xavier said that I was a scientist, and I understood him, whereas Jean was more of the humanitarian type," pausing to smile half-heartedly, the left side of Storm's lip twitched upward in bitter reminiscence, "Until one day, when I had a vile for close to every mutation we had seen, the Professor asked me to poor the vials all into a larger capsule, and give it to him in Cerebro. I did, but oh listen to me will you?" Storm finally acknowledged the unrest in Wolverine's dubious glare.

Pushing upwards, she forced him off and stood upright before continuing. "The whole thing seemed so harmless, and it was. It is! Well… actually, that all depends on what you told me when I first walked in here." Storm's face melted into a stoic expression as it was her this time to grab a hold of Wolverine's shoulders and force him into the arm of the couch. "What do you mean, somebody found it? Somebody let it go… what the hell does that mean?" Her eyes went from shocking blue to a milky white, as her neck craned to the side gently.

"I mean somebody broke into that stupid room the Professor made, and took the capsule. They TOOK IT, and they left the fucking paperwork behind!" Logan snapped, and his claws sliced out between the rivets of his knuckles; he felt wholly like Wolverine in that instant. In front of him, just inches away, their breaths intermingled and the taste of dread growing steadily, Storm's eyes dissolved into a color unknown to her. A color that reflected horror.

"Oh my god Logan. We're fucked."

Now it was her turn to swear.