Exiles Desperation

Earth 86695

Blink smiled as she stood upon a windswept hilltop. Behind her a large group was setting up for a picnic.

"Cable!" reprimanded Scott Summers, native to this earth. "Stop pulling your sister's hair!" a six-year-old boy with silver hair and a glowing eye sulked away from a four-year-old girl with red hair.

"Sorry dad," Cable Summers muttered. Like most young boys, one of Cable's favorite pastimes was harassing his younger siblings. Blink walked back to the group. The Exiles team had been sent into this reality to encourage the meta-human population to have a large "family" picnic. Assuring them that if something were to go wrong, the Exiles would deal with it.

Jean Grey-Summers spun in a small circle with her youngest son, Nathan. Nathan was only two but looked for the most part like his father with silver hair. Nathan wriggled and she set him down to go play. Nathan toddled off a short distance to plop down by his "cousin", TJ.

Seeing that family brought a tear to Blink's eye. Kurt and Wanda were playing with their daughter TJ and Wanda's two boys from her first marriage, Tommy and Billy. Tommy and Billy were off following their Uncle Victor around like they always did.

The families were as such: Scot and Jean Summers with their three children Cable, Rachel, and Nathan. Magneto and Magda brought along with their two adult children Pietro and Wanda. Wanda was present with her second Husband Kurt, her ten-year-old twin children from her first marriage (to the Vision) Billy and Tommy, and her four-year-old daughter with Kurt, Talia Josephine "TJ" Wagner. Janet Van Dyne had come at the insistence of her "grandson" the Vision and her "great-grandchildren" Billy and Tommy. She was not related to either of them by blood, but all looked up to her as if she were. She was divorced from their father and grandfather, Henry Pym. Hank Pym was also there along with his eldest grandson, Victor Mancha, who had flown up with his mother Marianella. Pietro had convinced Crystal to come with their daughter Luna. Black Bolt and Medusea also decided to come as well. The Fantastic Four were also in attendance with Valeria and Franklin Richards. May and Edwin Jarvis were there along with May's nephew Peter, Peter's wife MJ, and MJ and Peter's daughter May "Mayday" Parker.

The Exiles roamed around the grounds playing with the families, making sure all had a good time. Blink stood off in the distance, pensive. She couldn't help but worry about the "replacements" as they had come to be called, the dark group lead by that boy, Wilder. Since his ultimatum roughly two weeks ago, nothing had been heard from him.

She felt a tug at the hem of her dress and looked down. There was four-year-old Rachel Summers. "Hello little one," she said with a smile. "How can I help you?"

"Do you have a special friend?" she asked.

Puzzled, Blinks mind immediately drifted to Craig Hollis, but she didn't reply. She and Craig had patched things up since their blow out over his Weapon X missions. She understood that he didn't want her to see the dark things he had to do, but it took him a while to understand that she didn't care, and that she understood the need for those missions. "Um… not really," she said.

"Well… Billy Maximoff was telling me about his special friend Teddy, and I was wanting to know if you'd be my special friend because you're really pretty."

Blink's jaw dropped as she smiled, trying to figure out how to answer that. "Sweetie," she said. "I'm afraid that girls who want other girls to be their special friends are rather rare. But you'll find one some day. She'll be very pretty and she'll tell you how wonderful you are."

"Okay," Rachel Summers said. "Maybe Ms. Kitty will be my special friend."

Blink couldn't help but suppress a laugh.

I watched the families playing, wondering if somewhere out there, my family was playing like this. Maybe, perhaps, there was a world where I was a happy normal kid. I turned back to kids I was supposed to be entertaining. I turned into a big purple dinosaur and they ate it up. Shape shifting was easy, especially in this body. I wondered if any of my team suspected about me.

My name is Kevin MacTaggart. The Exiles don't realize I know that. They think I'm still under the assumption that I'm Kevin "Morph" Sydney. I'm not going to change that yet. I don't know why I should. I almost wish I had never 'awakened'. It didn't happen all at once. I noticed inconsistencies; they excluded me claiming it was only for big brains when I was highly intelligent myself, some of the way Power Princess talked about me, and an object I found in the sick bay, one of the Squadron's B-Mod helmets. I slowly realized that no one had every really explained how we had won against Proteus.

From that point on it didn't take me long to realize what had happened. Once I came to the inevitable conclusion that I WAS Proteus, the memories came flooding back. I felt that old rage for a moment… but then I felt something else. Home. As Proteus I had been searching for a body that could sustain me, and this one would do more than that. But, deeper down, I was searching for a family. My father had abandoned my mother and I at an early point, and my mother had locked me away in a metal room… metal burns me. But…

Now here with the Exiles I didn't need to worry about any of that. I didn't need to run, or to take revenge… they had given me something, not taken anything. They were my friends. I touched them, and they didn't flinch, I stood clowned for them and they laughed… after three weeks of wondering whether or not to kill them all, I chose to let go of that rage. To take up the oath left over from Cal's memory. The other never to kill again would be mine. I would carry it on for him, just as I carry his love for Clarice, Morph's love for Mariko, and the loves of all those who had gone before in my mind.

It's so strange deciding to go from demon to angel. I can't help but wonder if this was Morph's doing; if his heart, deep down in my memories, is guiding me. I couldn't help but wonder how gone my former hosts really are.

Panoptichron

Forge pulled up a couple more files. He had chosen three more recruits. Parker Robbins was a two bit thug who possessed a pair of mystical shoes that let him walk on air, and a mystic hood and cloak that allowed him unlimited invisibility. He was joining the Weapon X team. Starlight was a former Herald of Galactus. Her real name was Tandy Bowen. Her light and life force generating abilities had been increased by the power cosmic she now possessed. She would be the First of the Infinity team. The other new recruit was going on the Bruiser team, probably replacing Juggernaut as team leader. Dr. Sampson was a scientist who had been exposed to gamma radiation and developed super-strength that was proportionate to his hair. His strength level was stabilized when he absorbed the gamma-energy of the Hulk. Of course his strength level was stabilized at a level where he could punch a hole through a mountain. He had exiled himself to the Blue Area of the Moon, where he lived with Uatu the Watcher.

Forge had Lil' Crusher showing Doc. Sampson around, and Craig Hollis was showing both Starlight and the Hood around. At that moment the Exiles returned.

"Can we have more missions like that?" asked Blink.

"I think not," growled Zarda. "If that man… that… Pym propositioned me ONCE MORE…" she crackled her knuckles.

"Relax Zarda," Forge said. "You've been bugging me to build up that Infinity team," he said.

"You have found one?" she asked. He waved the Exiles over to his console.

Forge counted down for them, "In three… two… one…" the image of the world they had just left behind jumped for a moment and all of a sudden the children they had met there were all grown up. "That world was preparing to experience a quantum-temporal anomaly. Relative to other realities they sped forward through roughly sixteen years. So we had to fix the problem fast or you would have spent a great deal of time on that world."

"What does this all have to do with an Infinity team member?" Zarda asked boredly.

"This," Forge said as he beamed someone out of that reality. There standing on the Exile's excursion platform was a red-head with green eyes. She was roughly 21 years old. "Where am I?" she asked. A tattoo began to glow over her right eye.

"Please relax Ms. Summers," Forge said. "You are in the Panoptichron and may be returned to your world at any moment. We are asking you to join a special team designed to take on world threatening missions."

Rachel looked around. "Where were you people when my mother and brothers sacrificed themselves to save the planet from Apocalypse?"

"Sadly…" Forge said. "That was something that needed to happen for your reality. "Had it not the Phoenix Force would have corrupted your mother and caused her to kill thirteen world by devouring their suns."

"What?!" she asked.

"With your mother's death the Phoenix Force learned grace and humility and sacrifice. So in it's new host it was happy to work and be a tool more than a dominant mind."

"Well… who is it's new host?" she asked.

"You are Ms. Summers," Forge said. He stepped from around his console. "Please, come with me, I'll show you to your quarters if you'd like to join us. If not, say the word and I'll send you back right now."

"No… I'll stay," Rachel said distantly. Her mother and brothers had just died saving the world from the menace that had taken over her father… basically they had died killing her father. Her best friend from youth, TJ, had rejected her after she'd come on too strong (TJ was straight). She felt there was nothing left on her world to return for. "I'll fight with you."

Forge smiled. "Welcome, Marvel Girl. I don't really have time to show you around it turns out," he announced as his console began beeping. "I'll have… AH!" he grabbed Mary Jane who was passing by at the time. "Mary, would you show our new Hinge around? She has the quarter's just opposite yours."

Mary Jane and Rachel regarded each other for a moment and blushed. The two redheads left the operations room.

"You're trying to start something," Blink said with a smile.

"More somethings than you realize, Dear Clarice," he said with a smile. He gave the girl a pat on the head and sauntered back to his console.

Zarda smiled, "Heather chose wisely with him."

"aye, she was a smar' lass," Morph muttered with a grin.

Only Captain America was close enough to hear it. Morph cleared his throat and moved on quickly. The gorilla watched Morph shrewdly, wondering if… possibly if…