Weapons of Dark and Light

by Noyoki

Beaten, brainwashed, and broken, the boy once known as Harry Potter is transformed into Weapon IX, a monster of terrible power and inhumanity. Designed as the ultimate foil to the Mutant Menace, Weapon IX's destiny becomes intertwined with that of the X-Men as the darkness in the hearts of men proves that, sometimes, the only way to fight a monster is with a monster. *Slash*

33. Confessions

Edited: 3/6/16

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Chapter 33 – Confessions

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"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." - Oscar Wilde

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"Allow me to introduce Mutant 143."

Xavier forced his eyes to focus on the pitiful creature as it was pushed into the room. The body in the wheelchair was so emaciated, he first assumed the individual was old, with limbs arraigned so neatly he knew they couldn't move of their own volition; the way the head lolled to the side illustrated the lack of effective musculature. Near his mouth dangled a water tube, which he constantly licked to keep his tongue and lips moist. Nutrients and fluids dripped into him intravenously through permanent junctions in the major blood vessels of the leg up close to his groin. Thankfully, the sight was hidden beneath a blanket, but Xavier assumed permanent catheters were employed to dispose of his waste.

The stranger's head was macrocephalic, swollen to abnormal dimensions and marred by a scar across the temple as if the skull had cracked under the pressure of the growing mass within. Tubes sprouted like tentacles from implants embedded in the back of the man's skull, draining an endless volume of what had to be cerebrospinal fluid into clear containers mounted on the back of the chair. Xavier recognized the alien yellow liquid as the substance Stryker used to control the mutant woman, and Magneto, and Lord knows who else.

The man in the chair had duel colored eyes, one an electric blue, while the other mimicked the emerald green of spring grass. Looking into those haunting eyes, Xavier was struck by the cruel cunning that lurked in them. He recognized the vicious intelligence as a force to be wary of. The man knew exactly who he was, and he hated it beyond all levels of sane imagining.

Even with all the horrific changes, Xavier recognized him, could almost see the boy he'd once been like a ghost in the shape of the jaw and echoed in those unique eyes.

"Jason . . . " he whispered. And then, in the same horror laden tone, he turned to Stryker. "My God, William – what have you done to him? He's your son!"

"No, Charles. My son died long ago."

The icy look in Stryker's eyes was a perfect match to his mutilated son.

"Just like the rest of you."

---

They rolled into Quincy as the sun reached its peak in the sky, shining down on a street filled with neatly trimmed, respectable houses. Large oaks shaded the road, and had done so since before the Revolution. Logan followed Bobby's muttered directions, pulling into the driveway of a prim two-story home. The garage was locked, so they were forced to leave the car exposed in the driveway.

The same went for the house itself, but they were only on the porch a second while Bobby fished a key out of a daisy pot. Flashing a nervous smile, he let them in.

"Mom?" Bobby's voice called into the stillness. "Dad? Ronny? Anyone home?"

Logan knew the house was empty, his senses informed him of the fact while they were still outside, but he didn't bother letting the kid know. Better for him to establish it for himself. He was itching to move on, instinct whispered that staying put for too long was inviting more trouble, but he forced the feeling down. By nature, he was a loner, but he also understood the concept of responsibility and obligation. Zen would skin him alive and keep his flesh from healing if he let anything happen to the kids, so abandoning them was not an option.

"Looks like we have the place to ourselves," Bobby said. Hesitating, he reached out to snag the phone. "Maybe I should call—"

Logan's hand settled on the phone, he shook his head. "Leave it. You never know who might be listening."

Conflicting emotions flashed across Bobby's face, incredulity warred with paranoid suspicion. "You really think they tapped my parents' phones?"

"All I'm saying is we need to be careful. This isn't a game, kid." Logan swung his head around to allow his gaze to encompass all of them. "Those troops were serious, and they were good. If we want to have a chance of coming out of this clean, we have to deal with them on their own level, clear?"

Bobby bit his lower lip, indecision flashing in his blue eyes before he gave a sharp nod of agreement. Turning his attention to Rogue he said, "I'll see if I can find you some clothes," then to John, "don't burn anything."

Being young males, they traded gestures – a finger from John, and a smirking reply from Bobby.

Leading Rogue upstairs, Bobby took her to his room and gave her first dibs on the shower. She turned the water on, twisting the dial almost all the way over to H. The hot liquid cascaded over her trembling skin like a boiling monsoon. She closed her eyes, letting the hot water wash away the stench of fear. Forlorn hope filled her, perhaps when she opened her eyes, this would all turn out to be a morbid dream or a bogus training scenario sprung on them.

Once her skin felt scrubbed raw, she wrapped herself in a towel, swept her hair back from her face and tied it in a loose tail.

Some of the numbness faded under the pounding of the shower, and Rogue felt curiosity flare as she looked around Bobby's room. It was similar to his dorm room at school – emphasis on snowboarding posters and the mandatory Red Sox pennant. Her eyes were drawn to an autographed football from the 2001 Super Bowl that the New England Patriots won.

She flipped through his CDs, unimpressed with his choice of music – was she the only person in school with any taste? – when he returned with clothing draped over one arm. He must've thought she was still in the shower, because he paled almost whiter than the blouse in his arms when he saw her. Suddenly the towel felt as small as a postage stamp, and she thought of how much skin was exposed to his startled gaze.

Then a new thought slipped eel-like through her mind. Did he like her legs? While her figure wasn't much compared to some of the other girls, especially Siryn, his eyes kept returning to her, so there had to be something he liked.

Was his mouth as parchment dry as hers? Did his heart pound frantically in his chest? Usually she could read his every expression, but now he looked as frozen as the ice he created.

"Hey," he said in greeting.

"Hey," she replied in kind.

"I hope these'll work."

"Thanks."

"They're my mom's. From before I was born I think, but they should fit."

"Groovy," she teased.

Stepping closer, he handed her the clothes but made no other move until she motioned for him to make a U-turn and scoot. With that, his false composure melted, so much so he collided with the door twice while trying to make an exit. Closing the door, he stood in the hall waiting for her to finish.

When the door opened behind him, he turned giving her a brilliant smile. She tugged at one of the short sleeves, uncomfortable with the amount of skin showing. If possible, his smile grew another thousand watts. He had a solution.

Bobby held out a pair of full length opera gloves. The soft material would shield her arms almost up to the sleeves. Not a perfect solution, but still one that touched her.

As Rogue reached for the gloves, Bobby's hand darted out, attempting to capture hers before she snatched it back. She stepped back, a gasp on her lips as her other hand lifted palm up defensively toward him.

"You know I would never hurt you," he said, shifting closer.

"I know," her voice was so weak that she mouthed the words instead of speaking them out loud. Every fiber of her being ached to reach out, to bridge the gap and make contact. Her skin throbbed in desperate hunger for his touch, for the soft stroke of skin against skin, another human's touch. Rouge told him about her power from the start – everyone in the Institute knew the prohibition about touching her, one that came from Xavier himself – but she suspected no one believed it.

Right now, she didn't want to believe either.

He moved closer still, his face closing the distance between them, and tears filled her eyes as static electricity made the small hairs of her cheek rise. Her fists clenched, and she felt her body tighten from head to toe as if she were being stretched on a medieval rack.

Bobby's breath caressed her lips first – warm and tempting, then chill enough for her own breath to form a soft cloud between them, and then warm again. So inviting she couldn't hold back a second longer.

Her lips slid against his, arms circling his neck as his curled around her body. Sweet contact as their tongues touched, and she giggled as a burst of frost tickled across her skin.

For a moment, it was pure bliss.

Then she imprinted.

The sweet warmth between them morphed into a torrent of blazing lava, ripping across her nervous system, agony for him, ecstasy for her. The shock of contact made the veins bulge and pulse on his forehead and across his chest. His beautiful eyes went cloudy and rolled around the sockets like the eyes of a spooked horse. A jerky spasm twisted through him, once, twice, hovering on the verge of a grand mal seizure.

Rogue fought to release him. The initial stage of imprinting was all physical, like giving a car a jumpstart. It sent burning jolt of energy to her system that could keep her at peak condition for days. If she broke the contact then, it was over.

But, if she held longer, the second stage engaged, where she absorbed the parahuman abilities of the person she was touching. On Liberty Island, Magneto used her as a living power source for his wicked machine, even though he'd known it would kill her in the end. He'd deemed her life a noble sacrifice. X destroyed the machine and accidentally initiated contact with her. Even though she'd been unconscious at the time, her power was not. It kicked in automatically and brought her back from the brink of death. That's where she'd gotten the skunk-stripe forelock in her hair. It was also why she never attempted to hide it. That stripe was a personal badge of honor – an acknowledgment of what he'd done for her, and what she'd done to him.

There was a third aspect of her power, one that wasn't temporary. The energy boost faded with time, as did the powers, but if contact lasted long enough, she took into herself the mind and memories of her victim. Forever after, she held a residue of the other's personality, and she thought, feared, she gave a portion of herself over to them as well.

During her healing, she'd taken on some of the sharper aspects of X's nature. In the first few days, it was almost impossible to form words and not grunt or growl at people. In time, she got a handle on the new part of herself, and it appeared to vanish. Only she knew the truth, that X would always be a part of her.

If she held on to Bobby, he would become a part of her too. A sharp cry escaped her as she shoved him away. She collapsed on the bed while he reeled back into the shelter of the corner formed by the open door and wall. Rogue clenched her eyes shut, but it didn't matter. The look of pain and terror on his face seared itself across her heart.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. A different kind of ache filled her at the inadequate words. What do you say to someone you loved after stealing some of their life force? It was hardly the sort of thing covered in Miss Manners.

Bobby licked his dry lips. "It's—okay." She could hear him shuffling around the door like a zombie, and felt hate well up inside her. Not for him, but for her own power. She hated how amazing it felt to drain someone, and most of all how impossible it was to control and the bitter fact that she could never give back what she'd stolen. It was a one way street. She sat with the gloves across her lap, smoothing the delicate fabric over and over again as if she were ironing them, desperate to find something she could put to rights.

John heard Bobby totter down the stairs, but didn't bother to see if the other teen needed help. He stood in the family room, lighter flicking open and shut unnoticed in one hand. Pictures lined the walls, perched on shelves, and rested on top of the massive TV. Every photograph showed the same thing: a happy family, just what you'd expect to find in any corner of America.

He hated it.

The lighter vanished into his front pocket, and – against his will – the fingers of his left hand went to his right wrist, tracing the long scar there. Not one of those pussy slashes across the wrist, a whine for attention, but a proper line paralleling the veins.

It hadn't been life on the streets that drove him to it, or the nightmares he'd experienced during those terrible years. Instead, it had been his utter inability to cope with being safe. After Xavier took him in, he'd fallen apart, but skills mastered on the streets kept it all behind a neat façade of indifference. Under the mask, his world cracked under the strain of simple human kindness.

Years of dealing with the dredges made it almost impossible for him to accept that there were decent people in the world.

John still remembered that night. He hadn't been contemplating suicide, not in the front of his mind. In truth, it had been a moment of utter spontaneousness when the pressure overwhelmed him, swept away all his hard earned survival skills. Blood poured from the wound like a crimson waterfall, so hot it startled him. He hadn't expected the heat of it, and all he could do was stare dumbly at the life gushing out of him.

Of course, killing one's self in a school like Xavier's was a near impossibility, and the teachers broke down the door before he passed out from blood loss.

In the months that followed, he deemed the room they kept him in The King of Heart's suit, and how he hated that room. It wasn't like he was insane, he didn't need bouncy walls or all that bullshit. He just . . . his fingernail dug lightly into the scar. He slipped, that was all. Emotions got the better of him, and he'd given in to the impulse. Closing his eyes against all those smiling happy faces, he let his hands drop.

In the kitchen, Logan silently berated himself. He knew what transpired upstairs, but realized what was happening too late to put a stop to it. When he sensed what was going on, he'd headed for the stairs before hearing Rogue's faint cry and the soft thump of Bobby hitting the wall. He'd held his place on the stairs long enough to ensure the pair hadn't done each other lasting damage, then turned away. Logan didn't know how to help them, and the only advice his instincts and experience could offer was to give them space. Allow them to lick their wounds in privet and regain their equilibrium, the way he'd want to, if the situation was reversed.

Returning to the kitchen, he slid open the communicator he'd taken from John in the car.

"Hello," he spoke into the tiny grille, feeling like an utter fool. "Hello? C'mon, Jean, pick up the damn phone! Where the hell are you, woman? You're supposed to be a bloody telepath – if you can't hear my call, what about my thoughts? Where are you?"

The radio spit static in response, white noise in the confines of his skull. Snapping the communicator shut again, he stuffed it into his hip pocket. He opened the fridge and snagged one of the beers. Miller Genuine Draft, not the best, but acceptable. Half the bottle was drained in a long swig ending in a rumbling belch.

He crossed to the sink, turning the water on hot and hard to blast the blood away. Liberal use of the Dial dish soap cleaned away the residual stains. When he was finished, a sound behind him caused him to turn, claws extended. A fat marmalade tabby stared at him with the disconcerting stare of a feline. Then her liquid grey eyes blinked once, and she approached, tail up to give his outstretched claws a dainty sniff. She must've liked what she smelled because she gave one gleaming edge a lick.

A half smile curved his lips. This was why he preferred the wild to civilization. Life was less complicated; an animal trusted you, or it didn't. If they didn't, they attacked or ran. People could come at you any which way, whenever they pleased, for whatever reason or no reason at all. They excelled at entangling their lives, wrapping you up so tightly you couldn't think straight or found yourself being led the wrong direction.

Case in point, he heard the sound of a car shutting off in the drive way. Base scent similar to Bobby Drake's informed him that he was about to meet the kid's family. Perfect.

His claws vanished back into their flesh housing, making the cat hiss in surprise as she sprang away from him. A second later, William Drake stormed over the threshold, followed by his wife, Madeline, and Bobby's kid brother, Ronny.

"Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my house?" Drake demanded.

Logan couldn't come up with an answer that would improve the situation, so he bought himself a few moments more by finishing off the beer. The light thumps of feet on the stairs signaled the arrival of the cavalry as Bobby led the other students into the kitchen.

"Dad!" he said, a bright if slightly ridged smile tightened his lips. "Mom! You're home."

"Honey," Madeline said, "shouldn't you be at school?"

"Bobby, who is this guy?" Drake demanded, pointing a jerky finger at Logan.

"Professor Logan." A look showed his dad wasn't buying it.

Madeline didn't spare Logan more than a glance. All her focus narrowed down on Rogue, locking in on the white opera gloves covering the girl's arms.

"What is this girl doing wearing my clothes?" she asked. "Are those Nana's gloves?"

"Mom, uh, guys, can I talk to you about something?" Bobby stammered.

---

Mitchell Laurio's steps were accompanied by a cheery whistle as he came on shift. While he couldn't recall much of what happened in the ladies' can, he never felt better in his life after it was over. The memory of Grace's farewell kisses were enough to heat his blood and added an extra spring to his step. She'd left with a whispered promise to meet him again tonight, making him long for time to fly.

The guard at the last checkpoint was the latest officer to comment: "Mitchell Laurio, what is that on your face, man?"

"Sa-tis-fac-tion!"

He told the story again, and like all the others, the man didn't believe a word of it. Lard-ass Laurio actually scoring on some dame with a pulse? It was unimaginable. His trysts were almost nonexistent—the man was such a slob the pros charged double for a quickie. If he wanted more, they developed a headache. By all accounts, the bimbo didn't look half bad, which made the whole thing even more incredible. Drugs, it was the only logical conclusion. That or someone with a major twist to her psyche.

The one thing that couldn't be denied was that it happened. The bartender was his witness, his oath to God.

Of course, Laurio had to embellish the evening. All in all, it wasn't a bad story, even the way he told it, which was why neither man noticed the small blip on the scanner indicating the presence of metal. It wasn't a significant glitch; it didn't last more than a fraction of a second before the system returned a message of all clear. Even if the guard was paying attention, he might not have noticed. But he wasn't, and the inattention sealed Mitchell Laurio's fate.

"You're clear," the guard said, cycling the umbilical out to the cell in the center of the room.

Erik Lehnsherr was asleep when Laurio stomped over the threshold. Then, like a cat scenting a plump mouse, he came completely awake with a rush he hadn't experienced since his capture.

"Sweet dreams, Lehnsherr?" Laurio taunted. Even the best night of his life didn't mean he'd pass up the morning beating. After all, one was just as much a pleasure to him as the other.

Setting the tray on the table, Laurio gave Lehnsherr a nasty grin. The smirk wilted a little when the old man sat there staring at him. Something in his expression was off, as if there was a joke being played that only he was privy too. At the same time, his eyes lit with a predatory cast, making Laurio regret the fact that the internal monitors were off.

As was common of the guard, when he felt threatened, he got aggressive. This time, he wouldn't stop until the old bastard begged.

"There's something different about you, Mr. Laurio," Lehnsherr said in a softly questioning tone, as if he couldn't quite credit what he saw.

There was something different about the mutant, too. They'd often done variations of this dance. Lehnsherr knew what was coming. Before today, he'd always faced the inevitable with stoic resignation. But today, he was alert, watchful – almost amused. In the past, his strength was a passive thing as he endured each beating and refused to cry out. Now it had changed to an active force, like a coiled snake ready to lash out at the slightest provocation. It occurred to Laurio briefly that this time the old man intended to fight back.

Again the grin flared. Good, that would give Laurio sanction to do anything he wished in retaliation, which would be the perfect start to his morning.

"Yeah, I think I'm having a pretty damned good day."

Lehnsherr stood with eerie grace, belying the age marring his features.

"No," he said, "no, it's not that."

"Sit down," Laurio commanded. Instinct, akin to a junk yard dog, clawed at his mind. This wasn't going the way it should. He and his prisoner seemed to be reading from two different scripts. Locking eyes with the mutant, he made a show of putting one hand on his billy club. Lehnsherr had learned the hard lesson on how fast he was, how formidable. One quick snap of the wrist would send the club into the bastard's gut, forcing him to kneel, gasping for breath. Then, it would be Laurio's decision, his pleasure, where to apply his follow-up strikes for maximum impact. Every act of defiance on Lehnsherr's part would simply add to the punishment, yet the old man didn't seem to care.

He wasn't afraid of Laurio, had never been afraid of him. While they might have put the tiger in a cage, they'd failed to break him to their will. They hadn't even come close.

"No," Lehnsherr said.

Laurio's strike halted mid-motion.

"Well, well, well," Lehnsherr said with detached bemusement, an aged professor contemplating a difficult student.

With a flick of his fingers, the billy club dropped from Laurio's numb hand. He was desperate to call for help, but his jaw was locked around the cry. Every muscle in his body had seized up, and with the monitors off, no one outside knew what was happening in the cell. The guard in the monitor room at the opposite end of the umbilical cord wouldn't have a clue; from his position, he'd just see the two of them standing across from each other, and he'd be looking at Laurio's back.

He wanted to beg for mercy, Lehnsherr could see it in his frantic eyes.

Instead of giving the worm a chance to writhe, he made another slight motion with his fingertips, and the frozen guard rose six inches of the floor.

"Ah." Lehnsherr side, satisfaction coloring the single syllable. He'd found what he was seeking. "There it is."

Like a conductor, Lehnsherr made a sharp, slashing gesture at Laurio's helpless form. He arched as much as his invisible bonds would permit as a fine scarlet mist ripped violently from every pore of his body.

"Too much iron in your blood."

For Mitchell Laurio, it felt like hot needles were being drawn out of his flesh, flaying skin from muscle before being liberally doused in salt. He wished for death, anything to stop the pain, but Lehnsherr wasn't in a forgiving frame of mind.

The strange mist drifted to the floor, settling in tiny red specs. A cloud of metallic silver hung in the air, suspended by the mutant's power.

Lehnsherr's hand snapped shut, forming a fist. The iron particles merged into three perfect spheres, each the size of a marble. When he was young, the Nazis taught him to make ball bearings; it was fitting he adopt them as a talisman for his power.

Their size shrank as the last drops of Laurio's blood squeezed out due to the pressure. He used his power to bond the atoms together more tightly than nature would have, so they massed as much as depleted uranium. Unaided, he doubted a champion weight lifter could have picked one of the tiny spheres up.

Slowly, the balls began to move, forming delicate orbits over his upheld palm.

"A word to the wise, Mr. Laurio," Lehnsherr said with a smile, as if their relationship had been a genuine pleasure, "a little something . . . else to remember me by. Never trust a beautiful woman. Especially one who's interested in you."

Cutting ties to the power holding the big man aloft, Laurio hit the ground with a dull thump.

Lehnsherr closed his eyes, and his will directed the balls, flinging them at the walls of his cell. Satisfaction curled in his chest like a content cat as he watched the walls of his prison shatter.

Alarms began blaring, and he knew they'd use the remote-controlled miniguns mounted in the cavern walls, and that the vast cavern would soon be flooded with nerve gas. But the space was huge, and the guards had grown lax over time. They assumed he was safe, a lion who's fangs and claws were pulled. That gave him more than enough time.

With a low mechanical whine, the umbilical began to retract. Lehnsherr focused on one of the spheres, and it obediently flattened into a wafer thin disk wide enough to stand on. Stepping onto the makeshift transport, he directed it across the chasm to the main exit. A glance to the side showed the guard in the monitor room calling for help. One sphere silenced him while the second attacked the door.

They struck with the brute force of armor-piercing cannon shells. Stepping over the pulped flesh of the guard, he found a hardwire link that led from his computer into the prison's central network. He bared the cable and set his spheres rotating until an electric field worthy of a mainline generator was created. Then, backing it with all the furious passion, hate, and disgust he'd kept in check all these wretched months, he shoved the power into the cable. Sparks erupted all around him. The monitor screens flared with static before going dark. The darkness was a contagion, taking out the lights, which were replaced instantly with emergency spot lamps.

The facility was controlled by computers, and the surge of power killed the lot. Electric doors wouldn't work, nor electric sensors, or defenses. They wouldn't be able to track or find him unless he chose to reveal himself, and they had few resources to stop him. Fewer still were plastic once he got out of the no metal zones.

During his incarceration, they'd mocked him for the name he'd chosen for himself. Now he would refresh their memories; remind them again why Magneto was a worthy adversary. One deserving of both respect, and above all, fear.

---

Worry fought with irritation in Jean's gut.

"Professor Xavier, come in, please?" she said, repeating the call louder in her mind. "Scott, are you there, are you receiving, over?"

Static was the only reply.

Tapping another number, she switched the headset from radio to cell phone, and tried her luck at the mansion.

Static.

Next she attempted Scott's cell, followed by the Carphone in Xavier's Rolls-Royce.

Static.

With no better idea in mind, she ran a full-spectrum diagnostic on the Blackbird's communications array. Perhaps the water submersion damaged the antennae. A few minutes later, the computer reported all systems green, just as they'd been the last two times she'd tested them.

Changing channels, she listened to WBUR for a second before flipping to local and federal law enforcement frequencies.

To her dismay, the system was sending and receiving perfectly. A chill rose goosebumps on her arms as she acknowledged the truth. The problem was on the other end. It wasn't that the lines weren't connecting, no one on the other end was picking up, not even voice mail.

Jean rubbed her face with her free hand, then swept it over her head to smooth her long, unruly hair into momentary submission before letting it drop again. Closing her eyes, she let flexed her shoulders in a vain attempt to ease the growing tension.

A wisp of thought feathered across her mind, warning her that Storm had stepped up to the flight deck. Then her friend's hand fell gently onto her shoulders, kneading the tight muscles. Jean couldn't keep the smile from her lips when she felt a cool breeze tickle down the back of her uniform before washing over her skin.

"Mmmm," she moaned in delight. "If only you could bottle that and sell it. We'd be millionaires."

"Perhaps, but it wouldn't be as much fun."

In spite of their light teasing, Jean knew Storm was just as concerned.

"How long has it been?"

"Too long. Landlines, cell, radio are all down. There's been nothing on the news of a disaster in the area."

"Send an e-mail?"

"No, that would be too risky. Anyone capable of knocking the mansion off the grid would be able to back-track a computer link. I'm pushing things with the com devises."

"No telepathy, either? From the professor?"

"No," Jean bit her bottom lip.

"So?"

"I wanted to wait until dark before heading home, but I'm starting to reconsider."

"This may be the ultimate in stealth aircraft, Jean, but we can still be seen."

"That's where you come in, dear Ororo."

The weather witch snorted. "I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks, whatever you come up with, make it quick. Kay?"

"I'll see what I can do," she repeated.

"By the way, how's our passenger?"

"I'll go check on him."

---

Nightcrawler was praying.

He'd folded himself into one of the sleek leather chairs in the passenger compartment, his legs in the lotus position, hands clasped in his lap, and eyes closed. Storm expected to find him hanging from the ceiling. Though he stood six feet tall, you'd never guess it by looking at him because he spent so much of his time in a crouch. He seemed as comfortable upside down as not, using his big toes or tail to anchor himself in place.

For all his differences, he had a good strong face. Now that Storm could see him relaxed, it looked younger than she'd expected. Looking closer, she noticed his deep indigo skin was covered in tattoos.

"It's an angelic alphabet," he informed her. She raised her blue gaze to meet his yellow, "passed on to mankind by the Archangel Gabriel."

"They're beautiful," she said, even though the black etchings on his nearly black skin were almost invisible, like the man himself when he allowed the shadows to embrace him.

"How many are there?"

"One for every sin. So" – a quick flash of brilliant white teeth in what might have been a smile—"quite a few."

"That, I don't believe."

He looked at her with a disconcertingly level gaze. "You know, outside the circus, most people are afraid of me."

"I'm not."

He swallowed, looking away. She could tell from the slight shift in the heat gradient of his cheeks that he was blushing. Instead of acknowledging his embarrassment, his eyes tracked around the cabin, taking in the sleek configuration of the interior hall, while his hand ran over the material of the chair.

"You and Miss Grey – Doktor Grey – you're both . . . school teachers?"

"Is that so hard to believe?"

He gave a low laugh.

"Yes," she told him, "we are. At a school for people . . . like us. Where we can be safe."

"Safe from what?"

"Everyone else."

His tail twitched like a cat's. "You know, outside the circus, most people I met were afraid of me. But I never hated them. I felt sorry for them, do you know why?"

Strom shook her head.

"Because most people never know anything beyond what they can see with their own two eyes."

She snorted, shaking her head. "I gave up on pity long ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Reaching out, he stroked a finger along her smooth cheek. The gentle touch sent a surprising burst of heat rippling beneath her skin. He's flirting with me, she thought but didn't move away because along with the realizing came the knowledge that she enjoyed it. She liked him. Unlike most of the men she'd dealt with in her life, he had a serenity to his soul that was totally at odds with his external appearance. It was like he was a demon incarnate with the making of a saint in him.

"Someone as beautiful as you shouldn't be so jaded," he said as a simple article of faith.

"Sometimes anger can help you survive."

"So can faith."

"What did you do in the circus?" She asked, turning the conversation back onto him when she recalled the posters in his room. Before they'd left, he'd taken them down and packed them away in a single case.

"I was—" he started, only to be interrupted by a shout from up front.

"Storm! I've found an active come unit."

---

Logan would have let sleeping mutants lie, but this wasn't his territory, so he let the kid take point.

Bobby proceeded to inform his parents of what he was.

They were gathered in the living room, and the atmosphere would have put the Spanish Inquisition to shame. The layout of the room lent itself well to an interrogation, with a couch on either side of a coffee table.

Mom, Dad, and Ronny Drake sat stiffly on one while Bobby and Rogue sat on the other. John stood behind Rogue, his rump perched on the edge of an antique side table in blatant disregard for the sharp glances shot his way from Mom. His lighter was out, and as usual, he toyed with the lid as if the monotonous sound of the ticking clock wasn't aggravating enough.

Logan stood in the doorway to the kitchen, nursing a fresh beer. The casual attitude was as false as one of Zen's smiles. In truth, he was covering the room, ready to act if things went pear shaped. He'd expected Dad Drake to be the first to fly off the handle, but the man proved to have a lot more in common with his eldest than first impressions led him to believe.

"So, uh, Honey," Madeline said, slipping into a nickname used when he was a far younger boy in her confusion, "when did you realize you were . . . um . . . that you were . . ."

"A mutant?" John tossed out, flicking his lighter open, closed, open, closed—

"Could you please stop doing that?" she said with asperity. This was her home after all, and she'd had enough of the teen's insolence.

"You have to understand," William jumped in, "we thought Bobby was going to a school for the gifted."

"He is gifted," Rogue interjected, inspiring a smile of gratitude from the boy beside her, whose pale face had more in common to a man being marched up the gallows than a youth talking to his parents.

"Of course, we know that," William countered. "We just didn't realize that he was—" Then, without warning, anger flared in the man that was composed of equal measures confusion and pain bordering on grief. "Why the hell didn't you tell us? What were you thinking Bobby? We're your parents, for God's sake! How could you keep this to yourself? How could you not trust us—how could you lie?"

"Dad," Bobby's voice trembled on the word as he choked on his own guilt and shame. "You don't understand."

"Obviously."

"Dad!"

"You lied, Bobby. Xavier lied. To my face! He kept your secret. What am I supposed to believe about him now, or this precious school of his? Or you? How many other secrets are you keeping from us?" He turned an angry face to Logan. "Just what is it you teach my son, 'Professor'?"

"Art," Logan grunted, "and it's just Logan."

"You show up without a word of warning or explanation. Apparently without even clothes of your own to wear. What's that supposed to mean?"

"We still love you, Bobby," Madeline's voice overrode her husband's agitated words. Her hand rose, reaching out to her son, before falling back. The aborted movement was one Rogue knew intimately. It was how everyone acted around her. Seeing his mother's hand falter like that was a bitter slice to her heart.

Madeline looked at her hand, then her son, and her hand again, as though it had become an alien appendage. The thought behind the hesitation was painfully obvious to everyone in the room. Am I afraid of my own child? She struggled to find an explanation, some rationalization that would take back the aborted movement: "It's just that the mutant problem is very . . ."

"What mutant problem," Logan growled. The hair along the back of his neck prickled, reflecting his inner agitation.

". . . complicated," she finished, ignoring Logan completely.

Rogue attempted to lighten the mood and defuse the adults' anger. "You should see what he can do."

Everyone's eyes turned back to Bobby. He fidgeted on the couch for a second before reaching his hand out to his mother's teacup, ignoring how quick she jerked her hand away, and touched it with a fingertip. Instantly a layer of ice crystals grew around the rim and down the sides. Turning the cup over, he revealed the solid chunk of now ice tea. It fell into the saucer with a musical clink. The tabby twined between Rogue and him, using his thigh as a launching pad to the table, where she began licking daintily at the tea.

"I can do a lot more," he said.

A light filled William's eyes, a dad's classic instinctive My boy did that! Kind of glow. What hurt him most about the whole thing was being cut out of the loop.

Mom was not amused, and she wasn't proud of the boy's freakish talent. As for Ronny, he leapt up from the couch and bulled his way out of the room, deliberately slamming his shoulder into John's chest as he passed.

The stairs thumped under his stomping feet as he pounded his way up the stairs. A second later, the slamming of his door resounded through the house.

Ronny Drake was a teen obsessed with privacy and personal space. He'd marked out his territory accordingly, with a huge sign on the door that shouted RONNY'S ROOM. STAY THE F**K OUT! Mom wanted to tear it down, but Bobby defused the situation by snatching a pair of panda stickers – so cute they made Powerpuff Girls look like monsters – and used them to cover the middle two letters. Ronny hated him for doing that, Bobby always played the hero, but at least he got to keep the sign.

But there, in the center of his private domain was a torn, bloody t-shirt. Not his. Not Bobby's because he had his own room. That meant a stranger invaded his space to leave the disgusting memento.

The TV caught his eye, turned to Fox News – more proof that his space had been invaded. He never watched the news, until now. The reporter doing his stand-up on the White House lawn wasn't interesting to him, instead his attention was caught by what the man was saying.

". . . in the wake of the assassination attempt on President McKenna, there are unconfirmed reports of a raid on what's believed to be an underground training facility for mutant terrorists based in Westchester County, New York . . ."

"Authorities refuse to comment, but it's believed that a national manhunt for multiple fugitives from the facility is now underway . . ."

Watching, absorbing the information like a hungry sponge, his eyes darted from the screen to the stained shirt and back. His expression changed. Bobby was his big brother, but he didn't know anything about the strangers he'd brought home with him, except that they creeped him out big-time.

Ronny's eyes narrowed, and he picked up the phone. He was doing the right thing, but he could feel terror hissing through his veins like poison at the thought of the mutants down stairs realizing what he was up to before the police arrived. Sucking in his lower lip, he pressed 911.

Downstairs, Madeline put her head in her hands. "Oh, God, this is all my fault," she moaned.

Before Bobby could think of a thing to say, John leapt in to make it worse.

"Actually," he said, "they've discovered males are the ones who carry mutant genes and pass them onto the next generation, so I guess that makes it" – he jerked his thumb towards Bobby's dad—"his fault."

William ignored the snarky comment, though his son looked ready to make the other boy eat the words.

Madeline's lips pinched into a thin line before she took a slow breath, re-centered, and took another stab at being a proper hostess: "And you," she said, nodding to Rogue, "you're all gifted?"

Rogue's eyes cut to John, slashing him with their intense glower. Instead of flinching back like most of the other males in the school, he shot her a grin. "Some of us more than others," she responded tightly. "Others shouldn't be allowed out in public."

"What's that?" William asked when something gave a low beep.

Logan slipped the com device out of his pocket. "That's mine, 'scuse me." With that, he turned his back on the lot of them and slipped through the kitchen to the backyard porch. Madeline's next line felt like a phantom lash on his back, urging him out faster.

"Bobby," she said, "dear heart, have you tried . . . not being a mutant?"

John's laughter masked Bobby's tired sigh.

"Charley," Logan said, his face brightened at the voice that replied.

"Logan," Jean cried, "thank God it's you! We couldn't reach anyone at the mansion."

"No one's left," he replied bluntly. "Soldiers came."

In the Blackbird, all the strength ran out of Jean's body, making her sink into her chair. Even though they'd speculated over the possibility of hostile action; they'd always assumed the professors would be there to defend the children. They'd made the proper preparations for such an eventually, but none of them took it seriously. In their own way, they believed too much in their own press. Xavier's was a School. How could anyone find it threatening enough to throw soldiers at it?

"The children?" Getting those two words out was akin to coughing up broken glass.

"Some escaped," he reported, "but I don't know what happened to the rest."

Sparks flared around Jean as she shifted position, and she glared at Storm, whose anger supercharged the air inside the plane with electricity. Not good, generating a bolt of lightning while in flight was a recipe for death.

"We haven't been able to contact the Professor or Scott, either," she said. The conclusion was glaringly obvious to both of them. They were lost, too.

Storm's voice broke into the conversation over her own headset: "Where are you?"

"Quincy," he said. "Outside Beantown, with Bobby Drake's family."

"Do they—" Jean began, only to be cut off by the snort of amusement on the other end of the line.

"Oh, yeah!"

"All right," she said, leaning across to the center console to initiate the engine start-up sequence. "We'll be there soon."

"Storm?"

"Yes, Logan?"

"Make it quick."

The women shot each other a worried look, recognizing the subtle change in Logan's voice.

"Five minutes," Jean promised, locking her harness closed as she mentally told Nightcrawler to grab his chair and do the same.

"Make it quick," he repeated, signing off active radio, and leaving only the carrier signal for them to home in on.

Returning the com unit to his pocket, Logan patted his pockets for a smoke, sighed loudly when he couldn't find one, and reentered the house. Without turning, he snapped the lock shut on the door before stalking into the living room.

"Come on, time to go," he stated without preamble. "Now." The kids took their cue form him and leaped to their feet.

"What?" William asked.

"Why?" Rouge echoed.

"Now," he snapped. Sound and scent informed him that the clock had just run out. One assault team approached from the back, another out front, boxing the house in. Bobby's parents jumped, and William's arms wrapped around his wife, pulling her in close to his side as Logan's right-hand claws extended.

"What's going on?" Rogue demanded.

John mouthed a reply: "What do you think?"

"Follow my lead," Logan told them.

Two cops waited on the front porch, covering the door with drawn guns. They locked on Logan as the main threat. A cruiser had been run half up onto the lawn, another partially blocked the street, its officers taking aim from behind the cover of their car. Sirens warbled in the distance, signifying backup en route.

Anger flared over Bobby's face. He knew what brought the cops down on them.

"Ronny!" he hissed under his breath.

Upstairs, Ronny watched the officers take position, anxiety gave way to excitement. This was too cool, way better than TV.

"You," the cop on the right barked at Logan, "get down on the ground."

"What's going on here?" Logan asked calmly.

The kids were frightened, reasonably so after the day they'd had. It was the second time they'd been threatened with guns, only these wouldn't fire stun darts. No, this was the real deal, 9mm, Glocks with fifteen-round magazines, and one of the cops on the street had unlimbered his shotgun. Logan could hear the sharp click, click, click of John's lighter. Unfortunately, the cops heard it too, and the sound made them more jumpy.

"Put the knives down slowly," the cop demanded. "Slowly. Then get down on your knees, cross your ankles, and raise your hands in the air. You kids do the same. Right now!"

"Hey, bub, this is all just a misunderstanding," Logan said.

Inside, Bobby's parents were starting to understand what was happing on the porch when the glass in the kitchen door shattered beneath the brutal blow of a nightstick. They hardly had time to turn their heads before a trio of uniformed officers rushed into the room, guns up, all shouting at the top of their lungs: "Police!" "Nobody move!" "On the floor, on your knees, keep your hands where I can see 'em!"

Madeline's shriek cut across the shouts as William's protests were drowned out in the din. Bobby reacted like the good son; he tried to help. The cop on the left shifted his aim to cover the teen while his partner screamed louder: "PUT DOWN THE GODDAMNED BLADES!"

"I can't," Logan growled, in the back of his mind X paced restlessly, wanting to lash out at the threat. Gritting his teeth, he raised his hands to show the blades were a part of him.

The gunshot exploded in the confused space, taking them all by surprise.

The officer on the left had taken the shot, straight to Logan's temple. The close range blast threw Logan off his feet, twisting him as he fell so that he landed on his face, half sprawled on the stairs leading up to the door.

Rogue screamed and all the kids dropped. Bobby did his best to shield her body with his own, yelling as loud as he could for the cops to stop. "Don't shoot, don't shoot!"

Outside, a crowd of curious bystanders were gathering on the sidewalk across the street, drawn like moths to a headlamp by the cop cars flashing lights. The gun shot startled those close enough to see what happened, and they ducked as well. But mostly, folks continued milling uselessly about, intrigued, confused, like rubberneckers passing an accident. They were blissfully unaware of the danger they were in.

The cops were almost as startled as the children. The one who'd fired stood still as a statue, his weapon trained on Logan like he expected the dead man to spring back to life and attack. Or perhaps he was praying for him to do so, to take back the action of the last half minute.

"Easy," his partner yelled, in a voice meant to carry to the frightened civilians in the house as well as the ones loitering on the street. "Everyone talk it easy. Get a grip!" The last was directed at the shooter. His partner knew this was a bad scene, every shooting was for the officer involved, but under his breath he thanked God and all the saints that they hadn't popped the kids as well. That kind of mess would bring Hell down on the whole Department.

"All right, kids," he said sternly, "same as before. Stay calm, we'll get out of this just fine."

"We didn't do anything!" Rogue shrieked at him.

"On your knees, girl!"

More furious words spilled from her lips, partially to bury her own terror, but most of all to keep their attention away from Logan. His adamantium lined skull would have kept the bullet from destroying his brain. All it did was gouge the skin, making quite a mess and giving him a brutal headache. His healing factor would deal with both wound and headache in seconds. She wasn't sure what he could do once he recovered. If he sat up, he'd end up shot a few dozen more times before the idiot officers realized bullets wouldn't work.

Bobby's hand laced with hers as they knelt, but John had other ideas. He stood up.

"Don't be stupid, kid," the left-hand cop said. "This is no time to flash attitude. We don't want to hurt you!"

John's attitude was plain on his face: Like I give a fuck, his smirking lips said, Like, you could?

"Hey," he said, "you know all those dangerous mutants you hear about on the news?" He paused, letting his words sing in.

"I'm the worst one."

With that, he popped the lid on his Zippo, but this time, he ignited a flame.

From the wick, three snakelike ropes of fire twined sinuously around him. One flashed out to the right, the other left, and the third burned it way through the door to scorch the main floor of the house.

Both cops dove off the porch in a bid to escape the roaring flames. The blaze scorched the backs of their uniforms, leaving their shirts smoldering. Those inside weren't so lucky. One was hit head-on, with enough force to slam him into his companions, who were forced to scramble to save him as his clothes caught flame.

John's focus turned to the police cars. It all happened so fast, and the attack was so shockingly savage, that the officers on the street didn't know how to cope. The news reports hadn't prepared them for mutants. In truth, none of them believed the reports. Now they couldn't believe a kid was doing all this damage.

They'd get over it real quick, John knew, if he gave them a chance to recover. But he had a better idea.

While they were occupied by the two main streamers he'd manifested to keep their attention, he directed a pair of slender strands along the surface of the lawn until they reached underneath the cars to their tailpipes. This would be so much fun.

The timing was superb. He lit both gas tanks at the same time, pitching both vehicles up into the air, flipping them over like toys tossed by an angry toddler. A third car rolled onto the scene, and John's grin turned savage as he surrounded it with a cataract of fire. The driver scrambled to throw the car into reverse, but John melted the tires to the street. Then the officers attempted to bail out of the unit, only to retreat as he turned the flames into a wall so thick and hot they'd be cinders before they took a single step. He saw one of them shouting into his radio.

This would be the best. He'd let them roast slowly in their pigmobile until the fire department arrived. He'd give them the illusion of hope, and then – kaboom! Instant funeral pyre.

Logan's eyes snapped open as the shattered remains of the bullet were expelled from the wound. Rouge was right, the headache pounding inside his skull was blue murder. While healing was a great power, no doubt about it, there was one major downside: The full sensations of the healing process were condensed down into fractions of time and, as a consequence, intensified to mind melting proportions.

While he'd learned long ago to endure the pain, and it passed quickly, it always remained a brutal experience to be avoided whenever possible.

Some of the other cops, the mutants on the porch forgotten, desperately tried to save the two trapped in the unit. John toyed with them a little, letting them almost break the fire-line before generating a flash furnace to force them back.

He didn't feel Rogue's bare hand close around his ankle as she grabbed him from behind. She didn't hold back like she had with Bobby, trying to tame a power that was as rebellious as her chosen name. This time, she let the power roar through her. It slammed into him like an iron bar against the back of his head. Without warning, John's eyes rolled back, and he slumped to the porch. With a soft clank, the lighter fell from his limp fingers.

Rogue's mouth twisted with disgust as his psyche flooded over hers like an oil slick. She wanted nothing to do with it, so she called up a burst of flame within her hand to torch the images as they appeared.

At the same time, now that she'd successfully imprinted his power, she held up her other hand in a summoning gesture. Her breath came in ragged huffs, in and out to the same metronomic pattern John established with his lighter. Her visual perception seemed to skew far away from normal to embrace the infrared. Her world shifted to one defined by the heat it generated. She could see the primary states of being on a molecular level, and she understood instinctively how to sustain and manipulate fire itself.

The raw passion of his power left her breathless. By playing with this elemental force, she became it as well, tasting an unbearable hunger that made her long to set the whole world aflame. It would be so easy—so much energy to torch a tree, so much for a vehicle, so much for a person. To her, they'd all become mere objects, without value or purpose outside of their use as fuel for the flames. It was temptation, a glory she'd never known or could imagine existed.

But she'd picked her name for a reason. Rouges don't play by anyone's rules unless they chose to do so, and they never ever did what was expected of them.

Focusing, she called the fire home – not merely the streamers John created, but all the conflagrations they'd birthed. On the street, the trapped car whose metal began to throb an angry red became instantly cool to the touch. All the other smoldering vehicles cooled.

In that moment, she burned, shrouded in flames from head to foot, so hot-hotter than a blast furnace – that Bobby pushed himself clear in an awkward crablike scuttle, dragging John with him to keep from burning along with her. Then the flames dwindled like a candle under a glass, leaving her unmarked, although the porch hadn't been so lucky. The wood beneath her feet had been deeply charred, and the roof over head groaned like a dying cow.

She swayed, and Bobby leapt to her side. Behind them, John stirred as the shock of her imprinting on him wore off. As the shock faded, he grabbed reflexively for the lighter and frowned at the sight of dark ash where his fires once blazed. No doubt he would have done or said something foolish enough to get them all killed—except that Logan also regained his feet.

The boys had never seen him shot before, and they didn't believe it any more than the watching cops did. They were too caught up in the aftermath of the moment they hadn't realized their danger.

Now they knew what they were up against, and they were shaken to the core. As far as they were concerned, it was their lives or the lives of these . . . monsters. They were ready to shoot, and keep on shooting until they ran out of ammo.

That was the moment Jean chose to land the Blackbird about a minute ahead of schedule.

Storm announced their arrival with a base roar of thunder that rocked the very air and a gust of hurricane force wind that sent both cops and onlookers tumbling. Jean made a combat approach, a vertical descent straight down to the street in front of the house. Between the crazy weather and the sleek, deadly looking aircraft, the cops didn't know what to think. Perhaps it was the military riding to the rescue?

As soon as the wheels touched down, Storm lowered the boarding ramp and waved Logan and the kids inside. No one needed a second invitation. The kids rushed into the safety of the jet like a small pack of wolf pups diving into a den. Logan followed at a more leisurely pace.

Movement caught the corner of his eye revealed one of the cops from the porch. He was the one who hadn't fired and had done his best to keep the situation under control before John attacked. He was a total mess, uniform torn and scorched, hair burned off, and soot all over his face, but he held his Glock with steady hands, determined to do his job.

Logan glanced at him and held his hands open at his sides to show they were empty, no claws. He didn't want a fight, never had, but the implication was clear: You know what'll happen if one starts, is that what you really want?

Their eyes locked for a second, for those watching it felt like an eternity.

Then, with a tremble, the officer's barrel went upward.

Logan gave the man a somber nod before making his way up the ramp. Jean smiled, the one that always made his body respond as the air around her filled with pheromones, and he dropped a wink in return. As he was checking the kids over to make sure their harnesses were fitted properly and that Rouge had come through the ordeal unharmed Nightcrawler popped up from the row behind them. Rogue and John squeaked in unison – too many shocks over too little time. They'd reached their limit for the year.

"Guten Morgen," Kurt said.

"Guten Abend," Logan corrected. "Who the hell—"

Nightcrawler gave an artful bow, "Kurt Wagner, mein herr. But in the Munich Circus I was billed as "The Incredible Nightcrawler,"

"Yeah, whatever. Storm?" He called.

"We're ready to roll," the reply drifted back to them from the flight deck.

"Not yet! We're one short!"

Bobby lingered in the hatchway. He hadn't boarded yet; instead he looked back at his childhood home, thinking of life before, and realizing he wouldn't be able to go home again. Or if he did, it would never be the same. He'd never considered being a mutant in those terms before, never imagined the consequences of possessing powers might cost him his family.

As much as he hated the thought, he knew every memory of this house and his life here would be defined by this moment, the stink of burning rubber, wood, plastic, the weak moans of the injured, and the terrified cries of the bystanders, the sight of burned wood on the porch where he used to play, the burned hole where the front door had been.

In the upstairs window, he saw his parents and brother, and he know their faces would haunt him for the rest of his life. His father, shocked and hurt – not just by what happened with the police, but by his own sense of responsibility; if his son had come to this, then he'd failed as a father. His mother, sobbing, as if he'd been the one shot and was now dead to her.

He wondered if he could put an end to all that by going back. Like the old Cher song, "If I could Turn Back Time," he had to laugh a little at the childish yearning. Where was a useful mutant power when you needed one?

With an awkward jerk of his hand, he gave his family a final wave, and closed both ramp and hatch behind him.

Arrival to retreat took less than a minute. The engines screamed to life, and the Blackbird hovered over the roof tops for a few seconds to gain orientation before shooting away at an incredibly steep angle and speed that left those on the ground watching in stunned disbelief.

On the lawn, the officer holstered his gun, then thumbed the call button on his walkie-talkie to make sure the unit was working.

"Dispatch," he said when he got them calmed down enough to listen, amazed to find that he could speak after the afternoon he'd had. "All units are down. We have casualties. We need fire and rescue units onsite, ASAP. Perps positively identified as hostile mutants. Repeat, hostile mutants. They're mobile, escaping aboard some sort of high-performance aircraft, heading west and climbing fast. You'd best notify Hanscom Air Force Base. If we want these guys, they'd better scramble some interceptors right now! And tell them from us, good hunting."

But he couldn't help wondering, as he picked his way across the lawn towards the decimated squad car, if even the Air Force would survive against adversaries like these.

---

Cold radiated up into his flesh from the cement they'd been tossed onto. Around him, Zen heard the others beginning to wake. A shift of weight, the whisper of cloth against skin, a moan. His eyelids cracked open slightly, though he didn't move, keeping his body limp for those he knew were watching. The little he saw from his position confirmed his suspicions, and the smallest whisper of curiosity brushed across his cool thoughts.

Who had reopened this facility? Zen doubted it was his former Wielder, he'd never been fond of the place and deemed it a waste of resources. After they'd cleared it out the last time, it was shut down. Someone else must have taken over. But who?

"Damn it all to hell and back, what the fuck is going on?" Pietro's harsh voice echoed around the small room, drawing whimpers from some of the youngest children who were still fighting off the effects of the sedative.

Zen weighed the pros and cons of ignoring his roommate, but decided it was best to head him off before he got them all killed. Reluctantly, he sat up while the others started to stand and wander the large cement square that made up their prison.

Pietro's eyes seemed to burn holes in him as they locked on Zen's small figure. His features were a perfect replica of the frightened confused faces of the other children, so well-crafted Pietro almost couldn't find fault with it. He's getting better at that.

"Do not draw attention to me. I don't know who is leading this facility, but if they are connected to the previous owners it would be detrimental to the remnants of the school for them to figure out who I am." Zen's blunt words stopped Pietro's tantrum before it could get started.

His eyes narrowed, "Why wouldn't they recognize you just by looking?"

Now a tiny half smile flitted across his lips before it was gone, melting back into the frightened child mask. "Because they knew me as the emotionless killer, IX. They've never seen me afraid, or dressed like this, or only one among many scared children. Odd are eighty percent that I will be overlooked as long as we aren't examined face to face, unless you or the rest draw too much attention on me by attacking."

Pietro's glare intensified, and the other children started listening. "And why would I attack you? Were you behind this?" He raised a hand to encompass the cell. "Did you run back to your real master?"

"No, I am not to blame for this situation. However, I recognize this place."

Pietro took a step forward, forgetting the warnings.

"Stop." The word was as sharp as a bull whip cutting across his face, and he faltered. "I was created here. So was X. For now, Xavier is my Wielder. That will change if I'm confronted with my original Wielder. If that happens, you will all die, so will everyone else who'd been a member of Xavier's school. Die, or worse."

Fear encircled Pietro's throat like a snake, hissing taunts into his ear, and he could almost feel the straps closing around him again, making it impossible for him to move. Yes, he knew all about worse, though the kids with them didn't.

One of the younger ones touched one of the walls before Zen could stop him. Electricity shot up the kid's arm, making him yelp in pain and jump back. "Don't touch the walls, and whatever you do, don't attempt to use any active powers."

"Why not?" a young girl with frightened blue eyes asked.

"We are in a holding cell, and we're being observed. It is also a kill box." He nodded to the holes lining the wall at floor level. "If we attempt to break out, the room will fill with gas. It might be a sedative, or a poison. Either way, we will be rendered unable to act."

With his warning bouncing around Pietro's head, the speed mutant began to pace, forcing his body to remain slow. "Fine, I get all that rot. I don't like it, but it make sense. What doesn't make sense is why the fuck you're here. Why any of us are here. I thought you were some bad ass assassin, why did you let them take us?"

Zen looked at the scared faces of the children, watching him with hostile eyes. They needed someone to blame, and he'd always been the perfect scape goat. "I could have killed the soldiers I found, but it wouldn't have saved any of you. In a snatch and grab operation, if the mutant enclave proves too difficult to take, they shift to slash and burn. I'm good, I could have taken many of them, but not all. More importantly, not all at once. Even I can't be in multiple places simultaneously. When they realized what they were up against, they would have killed everyone they came across before torching the mansion."

He waited, letting his words sink in as he studied their faces. "I also wasn't trained in defending civilians while killing assailants. I couldn't protect the students and kill the soldiers at the same time."

Pietro snorted. "But you didn't do either! From what I can see, you just got caught. Just like the rest of us. Pathetic."

For half a heartbeat, the mask dropped, showing the yawning emptiness in Zen's eyes. Pietro flinched away from the look, remembering IX as he'd once been, back when he hadn't been leashed by Xavier. "I allowed myself to be captured, so that I would be able to protect the students who were taken. The ones who got away from the school will be safe as long as they don't stand out."

"So, what do we do?"

---

Charles Xavier loved the view from his office.

It was located up a level from the ground, creating a separation between the reception areas of the house and those rooms and areas where the household staff did their work. When he turned from his desk, he could look out through the massive bay window, across the tiled expanse of the terrace to the lawn and formal gardens below. When summer was upon them, it was the gardens that caught the eye, with its cavalcade of flowers and shrubs. Autumn, after the flowers faded and the leaves began to change, the trees beyond the garden became the centerpiece, painting the distance with a riot of orange fire, liquid scarlet, and gold. When winter came, if he awoke soon enough after a down fall, he could stare out at the unmarred yard, as beautiful and pristine as nature intended. Then of course the students of all ages would erupt from the house to embark on an endless succession of sled races down the far slopes, the construction of snowmen, snow beast, and snow angles, followed by the obligatory snowball fights. By the time the sun set on the first day, the snow was so trampled it reminded him of a beach under the onslaught of midsummer bathers.

But the moment he cherished most came in spring. The air, crisp with winter's last breath, began filling with the promise of new life, new hope. The garden would be scattered with dots of brightness and color. There would be green, but not if you looked at it head on. The color tickled the corners of perception, teasing the onlooker with hints of the coming glory.

A breeze ruffled the treetops, creating a low shushing sound he loved, and stirred his senses as it brought the heady mix of smells through the open window. While the pleasure was acute, it brought no smile to his face. Only tears. In the midst of this natural wonder that was so familiar and so comforting, he felt an inexplicable sense of loss.

There was a chess set perched on the windowsill, as if he'd been playing someone outside, although the terrace and grounds beyond – the whole school – was empty. The high laughter, raucous voices, and playful shouts of children were absent. Worse, the undercurrent of thoughts that once flavored the very air were missing. Not even a stray thought wafted through his mind.

He'd never known such aching silence, never felt so alone. For as long as he could remember, there were always other thoughts to reach for. Though he often refused to do so out of respect for the privacy of others, and to protect himself from being overwhelmed, it was still reassuring to know they were there. Just a thought away.

Now there was nothing.

Again his gaze returned to the chess set. He was white, and almost all the pawns were taken out. His king was in jeopardy, virtually checkmate, and while his queen remained on the board, she was too threatened to come to his aid. The only ally he had was a lone knight.

Thinking about the game made a headache throb in his temples, like heavy screws being twisted endlessly. He rubbed the spots to dispel the morbid image, but it did nothing to ease the pain. Perhaps a walk . . .

Xavier tripped over the unexpected thought, and realized he was standing up. Looking over his shoulder at his office, he was afraid to test the miracle, less it prove false. The room contained only normal furniture, nothing to suggest a wheelchair bound man worked here.

He closed his eyes and stretched his thoughts in an exercise he'd learned long ago to focus his abilities, the way he'd learned to float on the riptides of outside thoughts crashing around him instead of being pulled under by them. Gradually, as his control strengthened, he'd crafted a series of psychic levees to protect his fundamental personality, no matter how many minds washed around him.

When he'd waded through IX's memories, these levees were damaged, exposing his subconscious to the hatred and fear of both students and staff. Now they'd all been forced wide open, like gaping wounds in his mind. Xavier fought to keep his fury off his face when he recognized the source of his troubles.

"Jason," he said severely. "Stop it."

Jason's mind continued prying into his, digging with the cold relentlessness of a hungry badger. Xavier's arms jerked against the binds holding him in place. Clenching his eyes shut, he mentally clung to his most basic mantra, rebuilding the psychic foundations.

The first change was in perspective. The view out the window lowered, dropping by a third to the level of a tall man in a chair. Carved stone transformed into Sheetrock painted in institutional greens and beige and looked worse for wear. Natural sunlight brightened into a parody of itself, the low buzz of fluorescents. All his beloved things went away, replaced with a prison cell . . .

. . . and the monstrosity Stryker named Mutant 143 meshed painfully with the quiet frightened little boy sat across from him.

There'd only been one consultation. After the boy's DNA showed markers for the mutant gene, Stryker's contacts with in the American intelligence community led him to Xavier. He had no idea then that Xavier was a mutant, only an acknowledged expert in the field. He'd confirmed the boy possessed the requisite gene matrix and that it would likely be active once he hit puberty, he couldn't predict what form the child's power would take. Xavier suggested the boy attend his school during that volatile period, but Stryker refused to hear a word of it. He'd wanted his son cured. When Xavier told him it wasn't possible, the other man lost his temper. They left, and that was the last Xavier herd of Jason, even though, in the years that followed, he made a number of discreet inquires to determine what happened. Then word came that the boy died.

Sitting across from what the child had been twisted into, Xavier couldn't help thinking that would have been a kinder fate.

There was a shrill buzzing in Xavier's ears, rattling through his skull with the whining fury of a bone saw. The sound was pure murder, leaving his teeth bared and clenched in a perpetual grimace of pain. Stryker's neural inhibitor, doing its job.

To hell with the bastard and his insufferable toys.

"Jason," he said through gritted teeth, trying to avoid another burst of retaliation from the inhibitor, "you have to help me."

No response. Xavier tried again. And again. His eyes met the mismatched gaze of the poor creature in the other wheelchair, and ignored the boiling cauldron of emotion nakedly displayed there.

"You must help me," Xavier repeated. He had to crush the surge of elation he felt when the boy's mouth moved in concert to his words. No distractions until the job was done.

"You must help me," he said a final time. He could hear the soft echo from Jason, half a breath behind him.

With each repetition, Jason caught up with Xavier until their voices whispered in perfect unison.

At the same time, Jason's withered arms struggled up from his lap as his face contorted with rage. He extended them towards Xavier. His chair moved forward, bringing him within reach. Jason's hands settled on his shoulders like the skeletal talons of a large raven. Pulsing, burning eyes filled Xavier's vison. Then he felt those withered hands settle around his neck with such feeble strength it was like being grabbed by a toddler. Tears collected at the corners of Jason's eyes, sympathetic counterparts burned in Xavier's, but he couldn't read the emotions behind them, save for their primal, inhuman nature.

"Stand," Xavier said, putting the full force of his will behind the injunction.

"Stand," Jason repeated in the same tone, and again they said it until their voices synced.

His lips formed a wide O of astonishment and protest as Jason pulled himself erect. Liquid popping sounds added a disturbing counterpoint to the room when the junctions on all his connectors pulled free of their housings, allowing cerebrospinal fluid to leak from the port in his skull. His gaunt legs were as useless as his arms, but he managed to gain his feet. His hands rose with him, up from Xavier's throat, catching hold of the circlet of sophisticated electronics resting on his head like a crown of thorns.

The devise jerked off his head and clattered on the ground beside them, and the hornets' nest of bussing was silenced.

"Thank you, Jason," Xavier exhaled in relief as the pain vanished.

The boy's mumbled response came a heartbeat after his own, "thank you, Jason."

For Xavier, it felt like staring down at the world from Mount Olympus and watching all the lights flicker back into existence. First one thought came to him, and then the proverbial flood, the way the first drops of rain would herald in a hurricane.

For Charles Xavier, it was a rebirth of self, of purpose.

Jason's half dead fingers brushed his cheek gently, and he used the physical link to release the controls he'd established over the broken boy. It was like throwing a switch. All expression faded, and he lowered himself to his own chair. Xavier assumed the passion he'd witnessed earlier was only a reflection of his own.

"This shouldn't have happened to you," he told Jason. "I don't know what can be done to help you, but you have my word, I'll do whatever I can."

His mind filled with other things, blazing with excitement for his reawaked telepathy that he didn't see the flash in the boy's eyes that belied the quietude of his behavior.

Xavier wheeled himself towards the locked door, deliberately running the inhibitor over. He took rude pleasure in the sound of the delicate inner workings shattering under his wheels.

"Mr. Smith," he called, both with voice and thoughts, "are you there?"

Of course he was, his mind burned like a beacon to Xavier. The door clicked open as the guard's mind fell under Xavier's influence, and the restrains were removed from his arms. His companion guard stood where he was, ridged as a statue and as unseeing, as Xavier told him to.

"I arrived here with a friend," Xavier ordered, "take me to him."

Scott had been locked in a cell of his own, his optic blasters restrained with another one of the high-tech inhibitors. He was shackled to the bed, keeping him from removing the blinders.

"Remove his restraints," Xavier directed the guard.

Smith did as he was told, and his partner rushed forward with Cyclops's visor. Taking care to keep his eyes clenched shut, and away from any potential targets, Scott slid the visor on.

"Thank you," Xavier said to the soldiers before turning his attention back to Corporal Smith. "What's the quickest way out of here?"

"The helicopter, sir," came the reply. The man stood at attention, as if in the presence of a General.

"Take us there, now."

---

Over half the continent away, Bobby sat in the passenger cabin of the Blackbird and seethed. A few seats away, the focus of his righteous fury flicked his lighter cap open and shut with a smug grin.

"You think it's funny," Bobby hissed, refusing to give up even though the rest of the passengers stopped listening since they'd become airborne. "Let's go set fire to your house next time!"

"Too late," John said cheerily.

"You almost killed those cops, John," Rouge said.

"So?" John twisted in his seat too look her in the face. He spoke with exaggerated care, as if explaining the most basic of facts to the terminally dimwitted. "Logan would have," he shot a narrow look at the man across the aisle, "if he hadn't been shot in the head."

Logan ignored the children's spat, refusing to be drawn into their inane chatter. He wouldn't be forced into their discussion because both sides had valid points. John was right, given the circumstances, he would have charged the cops and used lethal force to protect the children. But he also sided foursquare with Rogue. Just because he was willing to shoulder the karmic burden didn't mean it was right for the kids to do the same. Hell, it probably meant the opposite.

Like an angelic deliverance, Jean saved him by calling him up to the flight deck. He clambered up to join her and Storm. Let the kids debate philosophy without him.

"They'll be all right," she promised. Unconvinced, his lips pealed back in a silent snarl. X flared in his gaze for a second before fading back. He crouched down behind the cockpit seats and examined the dials and display screens. Jean stared at him, first at his reflection in the window screen, then at him as she turned to face him directly. There was a time when he would have welcomed such attention, but the direct gaze made him shift on the balls of his feet. X rumbled in the back of his mind like a lion scenting a rival.

She picked up on the cue, from his body language or thoughts, and pressed further. Jean reached out and used her thumb to swipe at a streak of blood on his forehead where the bullet struck back in Boston. She didn't move her hand away, but continued stroking him with her thumb, a soft caress right over the healed wound.

Heat filled him, and he wanted to take her hand. He wanted to kiss her lips, and lose himself in the wild scent of her hair. He wanted –

Again X rumbled deep in his minds, a cold protest. In this they differed. Though X could taste the female's scent on their tongue, it did not move him like it did Logan.

Not wanting to battle his alter ego here on the jet, he settled back on his heels, moving away from the enticing touch. "So," he said, taking refuge in the proprieties, "any word from the professor?" Seeing a faint quirk at the edge of her lips when she shook her head, he remembered. "Or Scott?"

"Nothing," she confessed.

"How far are we?"

"We're coming up on the mansion now. Once Storm whips up a bit of cover—"

"I've got two signals," Storm's voice broke in, "coming in fast."

Accompanying her warning, a proximity alarm blared to life. Red lights flashed on the main console, and the display shifted channels to a radar field. There were two ominous blips approaching from behind. The plane's onboard computer informed them that they were F-16s, armed and attempting to paint the Blackbird with their target acquisition systems.

Turbulence rocked the Blackbird as the Falcons shot past to announce their presence. Then the matched pair throttled back to pace the larger aircraft, taking up flanking positions on either side. Both pilots gave the hand signal for the Blackbird to descend. Their point was repeated over the radio: "Unidentified aircraft, this is Air Force two-one-zero on guard. You are ordered to descend to twenty thousand feet and return with our escort to Hanscom Air Force Base. Failure to comply at once will result in the use of extreme force. Do you acknowledge?"

When they failed to respond, the fighter pilot repeated the instructions.

"Well, someone's angry," Storm pointed out.

"I wonder why," Logan muttered in response, throwing a glare over his shoulder at John. He remained in the shadows so the flyboys would only see the pair of women at the controls. Nightcrawler began praying again, and the kids aft demanded answers; they weren't shy about sounding scared, either.

Jean glanced over at Strom, then back at Nightcrawler. She made her decision.

Logan was about to ask, "what now?" when the lead fighter took the choice out of their hands.

"We're marked!" Storm cried as the Blackbird's systems confirmed the dire news. "They're going to fire! Strap in!"

Storm slammed the throttles to their firewalls and pointed the sleek black aircraft up toward the stars. Like an unbroken stallion, the jet shot skyward, and Logan was forced to grab hold of the back of Jean's chair with one hand while the other shot out to grab Nightcrawler with the other. Strangest damn feeling ever as a man a head taller than him wrapped around his arm like a God damned monkey and use it to climb up to his torso.

A minor shudder rocked through the jet as it broke the sound barrier. In their wake, the F-16s went to afterburner and tore after them. More alarms bleated on the display as two smaller blips separated from the pursuing fighters and began closing the distance between them.

"Who are these guys?" Bobby shouted from the back. "What the hell is happening? Why won't they leave us alone?" Panic laced his voice, making the words break.

No one up front paid him the slightest attention. They had enough trouble without attempting to coddle the children.

"What's the threat?" Logan demanded.

Jean nodded towards the display: "Sidewinders. They're heat seekers, and we give them minimal profile with our exhaust. We can't shake them."

"Everybody hang on!" Storm shouted as she and Jean swung the wheel over hard.

The Blackbird peeled off to the left, twisting over into a barrel roll that allowed them to reverse direction without requiring a wide turn. The missiles, closed in on where the plane had been, and triggered their own proximity sensors, detonating in a minor fireball to far behind the jet to do any damage. In response, the pursuing fighter shot off in opposite directions to take them in a pincher maneuver.

Storm spun them the other direction, turning headlong in the direction of one of the fighters, forcing both to maneuver to prevent a collision. Nightcrawler lodged himself deep into a corner, holding on with hands, feet and tail while praying for all he was worth. Aft, John finally ran out of smart ass comments as he scrambled for a barf bag.

"They're not backing off," Storm said, "And they're not giving me the opportunity to outrun them.

"Don't we have any weapons in this freaking heap?" Logan demanded while the fighters struggled to regain position. The girls were good, but the men were trained professionals at the height of their career. They weren't about to lose a dog fight. Storm shot a glance at Jean before releasing her hold on the controls, Jean had the aircraft now.

White crept over Storm's eyes, making her look blind as the air around her became supercharged with electricity. Jean flicked a line of switches to disengage the systems on her side of the cockpit to keep them from shorting out. The precaution wasn't quite enough. Performance on the main displays began to degrade as static began to snow across the screens.

Through the canopy, Logan watched the clouds grow and darken from soft lambs' wool fluff, to something with teeth as the storm built into a series of thunderheads. Lightning formed malicious eyes in the darkening sky as thunder gave the storm a voice to roar. On the ground, people would be scattering, wanting to get into shelter as they cursed the weatherman for another epic fail.

On the radar, in spite of the electrical interference, he could see the storm take shape. To his uneducated eye, it looked nasty. Yet, without hesitation, Jean dove right for its gaping maw.

The Falcon drivers couldn't know what to make of the freakish weather, and didn't care. They followed.

Then the midnight clouds began to twist, faster and faster as Storm played the pressure gradients and temperature like a master pianist at her instrument. She crafted patterns more common to the Great Plains than the northeast, and great rams of high-pressure cold blasted hot low pressure air. The volatile cocktail generated maelstroms of tremendous force that gave birth to airborne tornados.

Inside the Blackbird, the ride was anything but smooth. The aircraft jerked and jounced as if they were roaring over potholes the size of North Carolina. Wind crashed into the hull like a wave. One minute they were in clear air, and the next they were fighting their way through sheets of rain, then pelting ice. The only thing that remained constant was that visibility was nil and maneuverability worse.

As hard as it was for them, Logan didn't want to imagine how their Pursuers were fairing. He had to admit, the men's balls were made of steel. Here's hoping it wouldn't attract the lightning. There were over a dozen whirlwinds, twisting across the sky in impossible horizontal and vertical lines. They formed a near impenetrable gauntlet no aircraft stood a chance of surviving.

Still, the bastards gave it their best run. They squeezed out every drop of courage and skill they possessed to close in enough to lock on their target.

"We're marked," Jean cried out.

Storm responded by catching the nearest fighter between a pair of tornadoes, tearing the plane to bits. Wreckage glittered as it was thrown across the sky like a handful of confetti. In the blink of an eye, the pilot found himself ripped out of his craft and into the teeth of a storm fiercer than he could imagine, let alone remember.

The most amazing moment came after he was in free-fall. In those first seconds, his mind flashed on his wife and children. Then, like the hand of God, something reached out and enfolded him in a sphere of calm. Yes, he was still falling, but it was as though the storm lost interest in him. He could have been falling through a clear summer sky on a training exercise. The wind didn't touch him, nor the rain, even though he fell through miles through the darkest and most frightening pile of cumulonimbus thunderheads he'd ever seen. His parachute opened without difficulty, and he drifted down into a smooth landing a little outside of Syracuse.

His wing-man knew none of this. All he saw was his fellow pilot disintegrate, heard the final terrified squawk over the radio before all contact was severed. He made the logical assumption, and just like that the fight became personal.

Like great hunting beasts, the tornadoes came for him. He skirted around them with skillful daring, pushing his interceptor beyond the edge of its flight and combat dynamics in his determination to make the kill. He refused to yield, wouldn't lose them now, and as the increasingly desperate maneuvers progressed, he gained the height advantage.

All Jean wanted was to end the chase, to use the Blackbird's superior power to put so much distance between them that he'd never be able to catch up. But if she rolled to the side or turned tail, the Falcon would take its shot. If she attempted to play chicken with him, he had a shot.

Storm's temper got the better of her. Logan jerked back when small flickers of lightning began to spark from her eyes and the interior of the flight deck rumbled with the base growl of thunder. Outside, all the subordinate funnels coalesced into a single great mega-tornado that expanded until its cone engulfed first the Blackbird, and then the Falcon on her tail.

Swift as her power was, the pilot got his shot off before his craft went the way of his wing-man. He popped a pair of slammers: AIM-120 AMRAAM "fire-and-forget" air-to-air missiles. Even as he bailed, the storm around him abated to give him a smooth right to the ground, he knew had the target nailed.

Brilliant explosions high in the atmosphere confirmed the blast. When he was picked up over the Canadian border, he reported the confirmed hit.

Jean forced the Blackbird through a series of missile avoidance maneuvers. The jet twisted catlike in a vertical rolling scissors, snapping back and forth across her base course violently enough and often enough to break the radar lock the slammers had on them. She attempted to use a high speed, high-G barrel roll to flip up and over the missiles and come in behind them. Fat lot of good that did, the damned missiles were impossible to shake.

Without speaking, she slapped Storm's arm and gave the other woman the controls. They were leaving the storm behind, although the air and ride remained bumpy. It was of little use now. The rockets were too small and fast for her power to knock them out. Their survival depended on Jean.

The one blessing in the whole mess was that as Storm scaled her power back, the radar cleared up. Jean had a clear view of their foes. All she had to do was slide her consciousness down the invisible line connecting the Blackbird to the missiles.

Storm smoothed their flight pattern out, sacrificing maneuverability for raw speed as the variable-geometry wings folded close to the hull, creating an airfoil ideal for high-mach hyper-sonic flight. If they had an extra fraction of a second, they could have outrun the damned missiles, drawing out the chase until they ran out of fuel. But they were too close, and far faster than the planes that launched them. The time it would take the Blackbird to reach full speed was time they didn't have.

As the missiles struck the invisible barrier Jean threw up in their flight path, Jean's body jolted, responding to the impact. She gritted her teeth and threw another telekinetic boulder at them. For every obstacle she threw in their path, they blasted through, and the impacts translated themselves in physical terms so each one felt like a round house kick to the gut. But the succession of punishing blows only hardened her resolve. She wasn't using finesse in attempting to manipulate the missiles' flight-control surfaces or even trying to grab hold of them to toss them away. That was too great a risk. If her control slipped, they'd slide through her mental fingers like an oily marble.

Distantly, she registered a soft cry of elation from the seat next to her and felt a pronounced wobble on the trajectory of the nearest missile. Again she struck it, and again, cursing it in terms that would have impressed Logan had he heard them. She was furious with herself for not having the raw power she needed to get the job done with a single psychic slap.

Heat pulsed inside her, twisting in time with her frantic heartbeat. It filled her up, not like a physical sensation so much as a spiritual one. There was a strange sound in the distance, like a carillon fanfare, a call to glory that made her body ache to answer. It was like a window opening onto possibilities unnumbered. It registered to her as music on one level, but on another she understood it was so much more. It sang to her of fulfillment, but of what she couldn't know.

"Jean," Storm's voice came to her from a great distance away, in the opposite direction of the fanfare, and for a moment she was torn between the two. "How are you—"

The last shot did the trick, and the missile shot straight up so its proximity fuse, mistaking its fellow missile for the target, detonated. She'd been aiming for a double kill.

Aft, in the rear of the passenger cabin, John had long since run out of barf bags, and ruined his borrowed clothes. Bobby didn't feel much better, although—since his uncle was a Gloucester man who'd made his living fishing the Grand Banks and delighted in taking his favorite nephew on the occasional jaunt—he'd developed a cast-iron stomach in self-defense.

Rouge, on the other hand, had a lot more trouble than a queasy stomach. The Blackbird utilized a seat harness; a four-point military-style restraint system that required passengers to lock themselves in at takeoff. She'd been chatting with Bobby at the time, who'd been badly shaken by what happened at his house, and hadn't buckled in. In addition, her mind had still been clouded by what she'd learned from John to even think about safety. Once the dogfight began, she'd found it impossible to get the straps to close around her.

All the insane maneuvers forced her to cling to her seat for dear life, just to keep from turning into a hockey puck bouncing off the walls, floor and ceiling. Every time she got ahold of one of the blasted buckles, it wouldn't lock into the mechanism. She'd think one was anchored, but when she tried to close another, the first popped open. It happened so often that she was ready to cry and was forced to believe the plane was doing it on purpose.

Biting her lower lip, she forced herself to focus on Jean's training. She took big, deep breaths. Even though she was still terrified, she tried not to let it matter so much as, one by one, she gathered the buckles and stained to get them into place.

It would work. Everything would be all right.

Up front, three pairs of eyes – blue, brown, and green – stared as if hypnotized at the radar screen and the big white blotch less than a mile behind them. Things were looking good. They would be fine.

Then the panel bleeped in alarm, and the second missile tore free of the debris field, still locked and closing in fast.

There were only seconds to spare before it would hit.

Jean threw everything she had into its path, forcing her concentration to the point where time and space began to drift away from her, and the very fabric of the world seemed to ripple. Around her, the world faded, and she no longer perceived herself surrounded by the solid walls of the plane. Instead, she witnessed the glittering atomic and molecular materials that formed it. The world around her became a panoply of stunning pinpoint lights and colors, shot through with visuals of unbearable emptiness, as though reality were a mere illusion, with all the false substance of a dream.

A sharp copper sweetness tickled the back of her throat as her nose began to bleed.

The proximity alarms grew shriller as the missile closed the space between them. Jean gave a final brutal swing – and missed.

To her horror, the missile's course didn't waver.

"Oh, God," she gasped.

Inside the confines of the Blackbird it felt as if they'd been stepped on by a giant. The large plane bucked downward under the crushing pressure wave. Metal shrieked, echoed by the shrill almost human wail of shrapnel as it punched a series of holes in the roof.

Decompression finished the job, blowing out a major section as the plane's velocity tore the piece away. The cabin was invaded by winds greater than any hurricane. Rogue's botched attempt at harnessing herself held for half a frightened heart beat before, to her untold horror, the buckles disengaged and she was swept screaming up and out of the gaping hole, into the sky beyond.

Everyone witnessed the unbelievable situation, but only one had the power to act.

Nightcrawler vanished, the low bamf of his departure and the smoke were both swept away by the relentless wind.

Rogue's mind froze, even as her limbs flailed uselessly against the air. This was the sort of thing that happened in movies, real life didn't prepare a girl for a situation like this. That thought jolted something in her frazzled mind, and she remembered a documentary she'd seen once on sky diving. She got her shaking limbs under control and spread them out wide in a vain attempt at stabilizing herself. At the same time she howled with laughter at the absurd action. What was the point of stability now? So she could see the ground more clearly as it came up to crush her? She doubted even Logan's ability to heal would be able to save her when that happened. At least it'll only hurt for a second.

That's when the demon caught her. His indigo skin made it hard to see him against the dark clouds left over from the previous storm. He blasted out of nowhere with the sort of graceful skill that could only come with experience in skydiving. Then he wrapped himself around her, arms, legs, and tail. And teleported.

When asked later, she wouldn't have been able to describe where she'd been in the second they were in transit. The cold from the in between chilled her to the marrow, far colder than Bobby's power. It held a flavor of silence that had nothing to do with the absence of sound. There was a maddening disorientation that made her wonder if all her parts came along for the ride. It held a terrible nothingness, as though they'd traveled in the black spaces found between the stars. Then she was once again whole, and the pair dropped the last couple of feet to the wind-torn deck of the Blackbird's main cabin. Which, in Rogue's opinion, was the last place she wanted to be since the plane was still in the nightmarish process of crashing.

Over the chaos, Storm shouted their diminishing altitude as Jean strained to pull the plane out of the spin. The blast crippled the flight controls, and they had minimal hydraulics, which made the act of turning the wheel or controlling the yoke akin to bench pressing a small elephant. There was a flameout on one engine, and possible damage to the other, which was utterly ignored as they rammed its throttle past the firewall in a vain attempt to stabilize their descent.

Logan braced himself and took hold of the yoke, his hand resting beside Jean's as he added his strength to hers. They'd made it back into breathable atmosphere, which was good, however it also meant they were almost out of sky.

Again, Storm's eyes flared white as she attempted to bring the winds to their aid to check their headlong fall. But for all her passionate will, she was still bound by nature's laws. She wasn't able to create a wind strong enough to cushion their landing in the space they had left.

"You can fly," Jean said, "Grab the kids and get out!"

As she spoke, Jean attempted to use her teke, but the well was bone dry. While she had will to spare, her strength couldn't begin to match the terrible momentum of their descent.

Storm forced her harness open and shoved past them as she called to the kids.

Strangely, it was Nightcawler, still clinging tight to Rough, who replied.

"Um . . . Storm?" his tail twitched once, pointing up towards the roof.

Her eyes followed where he directed, and she didn't bother hiding the stunned amazement that filled her face as the fabric of the hull writhed in a parody of life. Dark tendrils of metal alloy polymer danced across the hull as if they were serpents on a mission. The spars themselves that had twisted under the force of the explosion, politely straightened themselves as the roaring wind in the hull diminished into a tired whisper before vanishing.

All around them, the hull repaired itself until the entire craft returned to level flight.

Logan shot Jean a questioning look, wondering if she'd done it. Her baffled eyes told the story, and she didn't even need to shake her head no. Still, she kept her hand on his, tightening the grip as she laced her fingers with his.

They were still a few hundred feet in the air, but the velocity had dropped down to less than a hundred knots. As they dropped, they lost nearly ten knots for every ten feet they fell, until eight feet off the ground, they came to a jolting stop. The plane hung above the ground in defiance of gravity for almost a full minute before anyone had the good sense to engage the landing great.

Jean broke her grip on Logan's hand to slap the big landing lever from the top to the bottom of its cradle. There was a low groan and a dull thump. A status light on the consul confirmed that the landing gear had successfully let down and locked.

There was another understated thump as they came to rest on the ground in the most peculiar landing any of them had ever experienced.

In the back, the kids let out a ragged cheer.

On the flight deck, the relief of not crashing into a massive fireball collapsed under the sight of who was waiting for them. The Blackbird had been set into a forest clearing hardly bigger than the plane. At the far edge of the clearing, tucked beneath the cool shelter of an evergreen, was a sleek black limousine. Hardly the sort of vehicle used for a camping trip, but then again, the pair waiting for them weren't the sort who roughed it, either.

Mystique waved at Jean and Logan from where they stood midway between the nose of the Blackbird and their car. Magneto once again donning his signature outfit of black and grey, held out a hand in welcome.

"I set you down gently," he said in a pleasant, welcoming tone, the kind you'd expect to hear from a beloved grandfather, "will you hear me out?"

---

Magneto had chosen an excellent place to hide, even without the stealth netting Storm and Logan rigged across the hull. Jean wanted to help, but her overused power took a physical toll as she'd discovered when she attempted to climb out of her pilot's chair. Yes, the spirit was more than willing, but the flesh . . . so was not. She hadn't had the strength to move, and Logan carried her out to the playful teasing of the students.

The encampment was ensconced within a line of large hills, or baby mountains depending on your perspective, that formed a sloping valley with a north-south orientation. The depression had been carved out of the landscape by plow like glaciers long ago. It was still technically wilderness, with no road access within a fifty mile radius. Rough going on foot, and impossible by vehicle. Magneto brought his limo in the same way he'd caught the Blackbird, with his power.

For both Storm and Jean, that proved a daunting revelation. The plane had been crafted with Magneto's specific power in mind, to make as impervious to him as possible, yet he'd grabbed ahold of it and repaired it with unbelievable ease.

The cliff formed a strong wall at their backs, and every other direction gave way to thick trees. It was an old-growth forest with timber that had never known the cruel bite of an ax. Some of the firs stretched up over thirty meters above their heads. The country was rugged, and made no concession to modern man or the amenities of modern society, as the children figured out when they decided to explore and immediately lost their way.

Logan tracked them with the ease of a hungry predator, and in the back of his mind he felt the alien thoughts of X sliding beneath his own, whispering of blood. He made it clear that the next time they wandered off, they'd be on their own.

"Think they'll listen?" Jean asked him when he'd returned.

He gave a low snort. "That'll be the damned day. Especially John. He'll do it again just to spit in my eye." Then his expression sobered. "How you doing?"

"Fine, thank you," she replied, twining her fingers together and stretching her arms up until the joins gave a satisfying crack. "Just being lazy at this point."

"You're entitled."

"Absent the circumstances, and the company," she added with a pointed flick of her eyes towards the limo, "I'd agree with you. I've been monitoring GUARD." She stated, meaning the military command frequencies. "Both pilots made it to the ground safely." Logan's lips curled in a dissatisfied snarl. While he could grasp her impulse to save them intellectually, he couldn't give a flying fuck. Guy tries to kill him, the guy takes his chances. No bitching, no tears.

"The second pilot reported us as a probable kill," Jean reported.

"They buying it, the brass?"

"Well, Ororo didn't entirely dispel the storm. It's still raining pretty hard over the probable crash site, zero-zero visibility, and no hope of flight operations until it clears, which she assures me," a hint of a grin curved her lips, "won't be for a while yet. The system seems to have stalled, leaving the meteorologists baffled."

"If it was me, I'd keep looking."

"Hence our precautions," she nodded towards the netting, shrouding the plane and car. "Even enhanced imagery won't spot the plane, and our heat and electronic emissions are near zero. By the time we've finished setting up, we'll look like a camping party, nothing more. There should be nothing here to merit a second glance."

"Except for him," Logan nodded, jutting his jaw in the general direction of Nightcrawler, who was carrying a tent pack over to where Mystique had cordoned off their campsite.

"No matter what happens, we'll deal with it," Jean said.

"Tell me, how many people are there in the world with that color skin and those eyes?"

"How many are blond and blue, or redheaded with green eyes?"

"I don't believe in coincidence."

Her tone grew sharp. "And I don't believe in judging someone without giving them a fair chance. You of all people might appreciate that."

Logan snorted, and had to bite the inside of his cheek to snap back: What about Zen? You're still judging him.

With a low grunt of effort, she regained her feet. Logan didn't offer his hand as Jean strode towards the open hatch of the Blackbird. He glared at her back before turning dark whisky eyes towards Nightcrawler. It wasn't that he had anything against the German, and could admit that he liked the strange mutant to a degree. But the attack on the mansion, now finding himself in close proximity to a man he'd cheerfully slaughter, had put his dander up. Jean was too much like Xavier, always determined to see the brighter angles of humanity, at least when the human wasn't Zen. Trust was a near impossibility for him because he'd walked too long and too far with killers. He knew, deep in his heart, the cost of betrayal.

In truth, he felt like he'd already failed once by being caught by surprise at the mansion. He wouldn't let it happen twice.

Mystique was playing task master, overseeing the layout of the camp. Logan was forced to admit the woman knew her stuff. She knew he was watching, and if she was bothered by the attention, she didn't let it show. In fact, she seemed to be amused by his heavy gaze.

The faint smell of a detritus striker generating a spark again and again came to him on the wind, and he gave a feral grin. The kidlets were playing Boy Scout. How cute.

Bobby failed to share that amusement as his repeated and failed attempts to use John's lighter to torch some kindling led to boundless frustration. He'd used paper, twigs, and dry leaves, but they all refused to hold a flame. In all that time, he could feel John's gloating stare as he sat on a log behind him, silently chortling at his failure.

"You know, you could help," Rogue snapped at John. All the expression melted from his face as he looked up at her with icy unreadable eyes. Still not as cold as Zen's, she couldn't help thinking. John might think he was a bad ass, and saw them all as little more than kindling, but he still couldn't match Zen for sheer serial killer coldness.

Forcing himself to ignore everything going on around him, Bobby carefully followed a couple sparks as they landed on a leaf. He knelt on the ground and gently huffed to help excite them into a true flame as they burned through the leaf and left a glowing boundary that slowly gobbled up the leaf. Then, he saw the smallest ghost of a flame and the embers glowed. He bit back a cheer as he grabbed more tinder to feed the baby flame.

Then, with speed enough to rival a striking snake, Rogue's hand caught him by the back of his shirt and jerked him clear. His subconscious goaded his muscles in that same moment in kinetic response to the threat his conscious mind wasn't aware of.

The tiny dancing flame exploded into a roaring pillar of hungry fire that leapt nearly ten meters before melting down into a cheery little campfire.

Bobby twisted around to face John, but lost his balance as he did so, ending up in an awkward sprawl on the grass. The fall kept John from being on the receiving end of a roundhouse punch to the face. Both Rogue and Bobby glared at John, only to receive a purely angelic smile in return.

Without a word, John held out his hand in silent demand for the borrowed lighter. Bobby was tempted to lock the damned thing in a block of ice so thick, John wouldn't be able to lift it. But, as he'd been taught at Xavier's, he regained control of his rage and dropped the lighter into John's palm. Then he and Rouge turned their backs on him and walked away. When they were back at school, if there was a school still standing when they returned, Bobby would insist on getting a new roommate. John crossed way to many lines this trip, and Bobby planned on washing his hands of the other teen.

Once everyone settled down, they ate dinner. Nothing too fancy, or in need of cooking since the fire was mainly for comfort than anything else. The seating arrangement belied their adversarial lines. Magneto and Mystique sat on one side of the fire, while Jean, Storm and Logan took their places on the other. Everyone but Logan was seated. He'd positioned himself behind them with a clear shot at Magneto. Though is stance was casual, no one was fooled. The question that hung in the air between them all was whether or not he could reach the older man before Magneto took control of him via the metal lacing his bones.

Magneto sat in a camp chair, his confidant posture making the lowly object almost regal as Mystique crouched beside him like a wild thing. Her movements were so liquid smooth it was hard to believe there were solid bones beneath her skin. Ice hung in the air, dancing on the wind in cold promise of winter, which made the fire more welcome. Magneto despised the cold, and had since his time in Auschwitz when the cold killed as easily as the Nazis. Mystique didn't appear to be phased by the fringed air. Instead, she walked around naked, using only modified ridges of decoration to hide her modesty while daring the world to comment.

Jean sat on her knees and heels in a Japanese stance that demonstrated her natural grace to perfection. She, too was playing a role, presenting herself in a submissive posture that was anything but. Like a lioness waiting in the tall grass, she could wait like this for hours, yet remain constantly poised to attack if prey wandered too close to the kill zone. She barely glanced at Magneto, yet Logan knew her focus was locked as tightly to the man as his own.

Of them all, Storm was the most natural as she tended the fire, feeding it measured lengths of wood while using her control of the winds to feed a continuous breeze through the base of the fire, keeping it hot. She sat cross-legged, in a position she'd learned as a child out on the Great Rift Valley, wandering with the Masai.

In a move that proved they weren't entirely without sense, the kids kept their distance, as did Nightcrawler.

Logan relayed the story of what happened at the mansion, and Magneto told them of Xavier's and Scott's capture.

"Our adversary," Magneto said, "his name is William Stryker. He was high placed in the national intelligence community before he went rogue. He specialized in clandestine operations and was ostensibly accountable to the President. Now that he's broken with the formal Government, we see he always had his own agenda."

"What does he want?" Jean asked.

Magneto graced her with a look that made his feelings plain: Isn't that obvious, child? But Logan interrupted before he could say anything too scathing.

"That's the question we should be asking you," Logan challenged.

Magneto bowed his head in lofty acknowledgement, as if they were little more than children to be catered to.

"When Stryker invaded your mansion, he stole an essential piece of its hardware."

"Cerebro?" Jean forced herself to ask, even as her mind tried to deny the truth. "Stryker would need the professor to operate it."

"Precisely," Magneto replied. "Which is the only reason Charles is still alive."

"So what's the deal?" Logan demanded. "Why are you all so scared?"

Magneto was the one who answered. "While Cerebro is working, Charles's mind is amplified by its power. He has the potential to connect with every living mind on the planet. If he concentrated hard enough on a specific group of people – let's say mutants, for example – he could kill us all."

"You've got to be kidding."

"Charles and I built Cerebro as a tool," Magneto continued as if Logan hadn't interrupted, "one I believed, we both believed, would unite the world."

"Liar!" Storm's voice cut across the conversation like a fork of lightning.

Magneto met her gaze and saw in her eyes the character of a woman who'd once faced down lions bare-handed.

"You wanted to use Cerebro as a weapon against non-mutants," she said in the same cold, devastating tone. "But the Professor wouldn't permit it."

He didn't bother trying to defend himself. "Now, I fear, he has no more choice in the matter."

---

"Can you hear anything?" Bobby asked Rogue from their place at the other end of the campsite.

"What?" she asked, shooting him a look that questioned his sanity.

"I dunno, I thought, y'know, since you imprinted on X-"

"His name is Logan," she snapped in a harsh whisper. Even though her senses weren't sharp enough to catch the adults' conversation, she knew Logan's were keen enough to hear them just fine if he wanted. Jean could no doubt hear their thoughts as well. "And I can't, okay?"

"Okay," he whispered, "Sorry I asked."

John, staring moodily into the campfire, snorted at the placating tone.

"I beg your pardon," Nightcrawler's accented voice broke into their whispered discussion, his yellow gaze the only part of him visible against the gathering shadows. "I can get a closer look."

Bobby and Rogue nodded eagerly in agreement, not liking the feeling of being left in the dark. The yellow eyes vanished with a low bamf of imploding air and a distinctive scent of smoke and brimstone.

"Nice," Bobby whistled.

John waved a hand in front of his face, "Yeah, sure. Mutant teleport farts. Real nice."

Nightcrawler didn't hear the last comment but even if he had, he wouldn't have been bothered by it. There wasn't a joke or comment he hadn't heard about the by-product of his power. Some even made him laugh on occasion. Regardless, he always smiled. Grace in adversity was an article of faith for him.

His target was a fir tree a short way beyond the adults' campfire. The challenge, of course, was getting close enough to reach the branch without accidentally impaling himself on it. On top of that, he needed to keep silent, so he didn't alert them to his spying.

Using his clever limbs, he slunk down the trunk like a squirrel until he found an ideal vantage point that kept him hidden while affording him a decent view. Then he wrapped his tail around one of the sturdy branches, and hung upside down to listen.

Magneto's hand traced along the inside of his left forearm while he thought. His thumb rubbed absently at the identification tattoo he'd received from the SS guard at Auschwitz, rubbing against the cloth of his shirt until he could feel the mark left in his skin through the heavy cloth. Then, with no expression, he lifted his hand to the back of his neck to trace the scar left by Stryker's injection. He'd been branded twice in his life. As a boy, there was no way to fight back that wouldn't end in death. As a man, he thought there was no way he'd allow such a thing to happen again.

Vanity, he mused, remembering the ancient Roman injunction to their Caesars: All is Vanity.

"I told him," he forced himself to admit, dragging the words out from the depth of his soul.

He locked eyes with Storm, before turning his cold gaze to Jean, not bothering to hide both the rage and shame that roiled just beneath the skin, hidden behind his mask of calm. Neither female flinched, earning his reluctant regard. "I helped design the system, remember? I helped Charles build it."

"Stryker has undeniable methods of . . . persuasion. Effective against me. Effective against a mutant as strong as Charles. Believe this, if Stryker has Charles, he will break him. And suborn him to his purpose. If he weren't absolutely certain of that fact, he wouldn't have acted."

"Who the hell is this Stryker?" Jean demanded.

"He is a military scientist with considerable ties to the clandestine intelligence community. He spent his professional life looking for a solution to what he considers the mutant problem. But if you require a more intimate perspective, why don't you as the Wolverine?"

Logan stiffened. While he'd been known by his handlers as Weapon X, the guards had a different name for him. Wolverine. It wasn't so much a memory as a bubble of half recalled voices bursting just below the level of conscious thought.

Look at Wolverine take after that bear! Bet he could eat a snake no prob . . .

Is the Wolverine ready for another battle?

Lock down Wolverine.

I can't believe you guys call him that . . .

"His name is Logan," Jean said, coming too quickly and sharply to his defense, causing Magneto to smile thinly as he turned his attention back and forth between them.

"Of course it is," he said. "But what's in a name?"

"Are you sure you don't remember—Logan?" In return, he got a bland look. "Mores the pity."

"The professor—"

"Expected you to find the strength to tame your wild side and merge. He gives you more credit than I do." Logan's eyes flashed, and he couldn't help wondering how the elder male knew so much about what happened in the mansion. A low growl tickled the back of his throat, so low the people around him couldn't hear, but he offered no other reaction to Magneto's barb.

"Please understand," Storm said from her place beside the fire, "if we don't take this all purely on good faith. You went to some trouble to save us for which we're all appropriately grateful. The question we need answered is, why? What do you want, Magneto? Why do you need us?"

"Mystique discovered plans of a base where Stryker's moved his operation. Unfortunately," he struggled, "we don't know the location."

"However, I suspect one of you might."

"I can't connect reliably with-" Logan began,

Magneto gave him a scathing glare before turning his gaze upward.

Nightcrawler's first instinct was to vanish, but he took strength from the smile of greeting Storm offered, and the wave of invitation that followed to join her. He dropped, twisting in the air like the circus acrobat he'd once been as he swung from branch to branch, ending with a triple summersault that landed him directly on the spot she'd indicated. He held the pose for a second out of habit, before remembering where he was. A blush burned beneath his dark skin as he crouched down next to her.

Her hand across his shoulders was a reassuring weight.

"I didn't mean to snoop," he apologized.

Storm's hand squeezed in soft comfort as Jean said "Relax."

She stood with a grace that was nearly a match to Mystique before taking position in front of him.

Her voice rang out again, both out loud, and in his mind, "Relax." He heard more than the simple word, however. Her telepathy enfolded him in a fluffy psychic blanket that left him warm, and snuggly and safe in ways he couldn't ever recall feeling. She'd given him a window into her own soul to reassure him that these sensations were true, and she meant him no harm; that she genuinely liked and cared for him. In turn, she found a soul that weathered the tempests of life with remarkable success.

Her lips formed a gentle O of surprise. Strangely, Nightcrawler was something she'd never encountered before, a purely physical mutation that manifested at birth. Every other mutant she'd met had their powers manifest during puberty. Before that, their lives had been wonderfully normal.

Not so with Kurt. He'd never had the chance to hide. That's why he'd taken refuge in the circus, even though he'd spent his earliest days there as a child in the freak show. Soon, his natural talent and the exuberance of childhood manifested in the ability to climb faster than anyone he knew. His tail provided opportunities to perform that left the others gaping in astonishment. He was more at home in the air than on the ground, and he found himself as one of the main attractions.

In spite of the unparalleled skill, the tumultuous cheers for every audience he'd ever performed for, he was never invited to join the world-class circuses. A scout from Ringling Brothers came once, admitted he'd never seen anything like the Nightcrawler, and invited him to the States for an audition. The bosses reacted with the same sentiment as their scout: Nightcrawler was unique. Unfortunately, that was the problem. No one at their level had willingly hired a mutant and no one wanted the risk of a backlash. Better he should remain a regional show.

Kurt didn't mind. He preferred the smaller audiences and the freedom to shape his own shows. It gave him a more intimate relationship with the crowd. In the bright lights of the big cities, where the big shows toured, he wouldn't be able to continue his quest for meaning, for enlightenment. While he found a measure of comfort on the trapeze, there were no answers there. Questions haunted him since he was old enough to gasp how different he was from everyone else, and he longed to know: Who am I? What am I? Why am I? What kind of God would create a creature such as me? What is my purpose in the world?

When she stared, Jean expected to find a person tormented by his appearance. In stark contrast, she embraced one of the most gentle, secure, and stable beings she'd ever encountered, who was at peace with himself – even if he still sought how he fit into the greater scheme of things.

He trusted her without reservation. In the face of his innate nobility, she was humbled. It was a faith she would cherish, and it made her determined to keep him safe as she sank into the vaults of his memories.

It was like looking into a broken mirror, images scattered and fragmented: flashes for all directions, strobing without number as every camera in the circus tried to take his picture. He was accustomed to it.

The scout and his bosses gave him a ticket home, but he decided to stay for a time and visit a country he'd only seen in movies.

He found the abandoned church in Boston and chose to make it his home. Most of his sightseeing was accomplished at night. He hadn't thought of the danger, after all, who would want a circus aerialist?

Ambush. Forms swarmed over him from every direction, men in uniform. They hit him in the face with a blast of pepper spray, then mace, destroying his concentration so he couldn't teleport, covering his mouth so he couldn't shout . . .

The sharp bite of a hypo . . .

Darkness . . .

There was a vague recollection of flying high above the ground, wind in his face, and the deep whup, whup, whup, noise he vaguely thought might be the blades of a helicopter . . .

There were trees, and a wall of gray concrete that filled his vision to the horizon on either side and up to the top of the sky, which vanished as he was rolled on a gurney into a long tunnel, plunging deep into the earth.

A maddening itch on the back of his neck, where he wore a sedative patch to keep him tractable. No energy, a room, a man with a syringe . . .

Soldiers held him down, and fire burned at the base of his skull. He wanted to scream, to beg, to curse, to die, but he'd forgotten how. He was empty, and only the man's voice could give him life again . . .

He remembered the White House, the Oval Office, the gunshot, running, teleporting until his strength gave out.

His church, his sanctuary . . .

And then Storm and Jean found him . . .

She gently severed contact, cradling his upturned face in both her palms and wishing she could borrow some of his power and tranquility for herself. Her lips brushed his in a kiss of thanks.

"Stryker's at Alkali Lake," she informed the others without breaking her eye contact with Kurt.

Logan stiffened, ghostly screams whispered in the back of his mind, and he could feel the phantom itch of blood covering his flesh. "That facility is abandoned."

"Was," Jean corrected him.

For the next hour they talked. Magneto led the debriefing as he mined Jean's memory for every scrap of usable data before his cool gaze turned to Logan. He was a skilled interrogator, examining the smallest nuance of dialogue or gesture into a means for extracting more data that the subject was aware they were giving up. Watching him, Jean began to understand how Charles Xavier and he became friends. She saw what he might have been if he hadn't embraced the inner demons bred during his childhood. He was an inspiring leader, as well as an intuitive teacher. He could recognize her nascent insights and for a moment between them, there were no barriers.

The most tragic part was, she knew he knew it too. All that could, and should, have been. And all that still might be. Knew it, and rejected it. Charles Xavier was energized by the potential humanity held in its hands, his life and purpose was defined by hope. Magneto emphatically rejected hope. His heart had been torn apart too many times to permit the vile weed of hope to take root again. Long ago, his spirit had been pared down to its barest essence, brought to white heat in the most awful of crucibles and pounded by adversity into the unyielding shape of a weapon. The hard metal of his being was folded a thousand, thousand times, as the classical sword smiths of ancient Japan forged their samurai blades. Thanks to that brutal tempering, he could bend without breaking, but regardless of what happened, he would never lose his edge. He would never be anything less than what he was. He was the living embodiment of the primal forces that formed the base of the universe. As a consequence, he was just as terrible as he was glorious.

Jean couldn't bear to be near him for another second. The bleak hollow at the core of his soul was whirlpool; if she wandered to close, she'd be dragged down into oblivion.

She broke back from the campfire and took refuge in the Blackbird, Returning to the purely mechanical tasks that had filled the afternoon and evening.

---

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