X-Men 194: Peace Love and Brotherhood (of evil mutants)

Pages 1-2 (Gyrich)

The splash page is Gyrich standing at a lectern in front of a group of obviously government-type people. On the wall behind him is a screen showing pictures of Storm, Forte, Syrin, Madrox, Equilibrus, Lorelei and Magneto.

“This is the group of mutants that has radically shifted the balance of power in the Sudan over the last two weeks. Storm is a member of the X-Men, apparently on detached mission. Forte is a South Sudanese native and mercenary soldier. Syrin has a history with both North Irish terrorist movements and with the wanted criminals Black Tom and the Juggernaut. Madrox vanished from the United States after a battle with the Fantastic Four only to re-emerge here. Equilibrus and Lorelei are members of a previous Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, under the command of Magneto, who I trust needs no introduction.”

Credits Box: The Usual Suspects are…
Written by Myles "Nightcrawler" Corcoran
Penciled by Samantha "Rogue" Mullaney 
Inked by Lisa "Colossus" Padol
Colored by Kris "Ariel"" Keegan
Lettered by Joshua "Phoenix" Kronengold
Edited by Brian Rogers
Rachel Rogers, Editor in Chief

Gyrich goes on, “Other than his complicity in leaving the United States infrastructure severely damaged in the recent Wraith War Magneto has not taken direct action in South Sudan. Even without him this unexpected element, this X-Factor*, has carved off a third of the Sudanese territory in the face of an army supplied with US-constructed armaments. Surely no one in this room believes that this group of international mutant terrorists, soldiers and criminals are interested in…

[Cue Issue Title Text]

Peace Love and Brotherhood” (of evil mutants!)

[* Ed: OK, I promise to stop doing that – it should be clear that this is the GLF-Verse X-Factor incarnation]

On the next page we see the table, with various suits present. There’s an empty chair where Raven Darkholm should be sitting but she is curiously absent. Val Cooper, the president’s special advisor on mutants, is heading the meeting.

One of the other people present, Greg Clay from state, speaks up “I received communication earlier today that the South Sudanese rebels – not your X-Factor – have made a plea for statehood based on these new borders. Wakanda and Japan have both stepped up and put forward a motion to that effect at the U.N. How do you recommend we respond to that, Mr. Gyrich.”

Gyrich gives him a harsh look, “Block it at the security council, while we get a presidential directive to the Avengers to have them step in.”

Ms. Cooper looks at him harshly, “You want the president to demand that the Avengers combat a rebel movement against an Islamist dictator fighting for nationwide Sharia law when the rebels have avoided war crimes, and when one of the Avengers own number has tacitly supported the rebellion? Try to stick with the realm of the possible, Henry.”

If Gyrich is upset at the familiarity he doesn’t show it. “A failure to act here will give Magneto, a man awaiting trial at the Hague for crimes against the world, a permanent legitimate base of operations. Does the president want to be responsible for installing the next Doctor Doom?”

“Of course not,” Cooper brushes that aside, “But the Avengers would simply defy the order, which would precipitate a standoff that would make the president look weak. What else do we have?”

“SHIELD…” someone starts with before another person cuts him off “Fury already has resources on site but has said that he’s not in a position to act yet, and might not be until the shootings over.”

“In other words, Brooklyn’s Ian Fleming is giving us a procedural brush off,” Gyrich says. “Cooper, if you don’t try to call in the Avengers you know what my back-up plan is. You know I’ve got nothing for or against the rebels. North Sudan stays as a Libyan counterweight, South Sudan gets their unworkable piece of property, I don’t care. I just want to make sure it doesn’t become Magneto’s new stronghold in his war against humanity.”

Valarie nods. “Start it up, Henry. Do what you need to move it to full production, and I’ll get a dossier of Fury’s intelligence for some of our own people.”

Gyrich nods, “Consider it done.

“None of this leaves this room, gentlemen,” she adds, unnecessarily.

In a safe house some way distant a blond-haired fellow in a cowboy hat is leaning over a black man listening at a recording device,

“Well, Wrench, is it a’working?”

Team America’s Ubiquitous Black Engineer nods, “Gyrich doesn’t even know he’s been bugged. He got all oblique at the end, but I have it all on record. Hopefully Honcho will be able to fill in the pieces.”

Page 3 (Nightcrawler)

Kurt is in the communication room, picking his way back through the transmission log. After locating the one he’s looking for the German mutant back tracks the call, and after a few frustrating failures finally finds a clear trail back to the source. After a few seconds the screen flickers on and Jamie Madrox appears to take the call.

“Hello?” he says, clearly surprised that a communication is coming in. When he sees Nightcrawler’s distinctive features his face brightens. “Kurt! How are you?”

"Not bad, Jamie. Are you well? And safe?"

Kurt scans the view behind Jamie, keen to form some impression of where he is.

The young man is in a computer room of some sort, but Kurt can't tell more than that. "I'm fine. They’re not armed with anything that could really hurt me, and I'm on support duty in any event. Things have calmed down over the last few days, but I don't know if that's because the North is giving up or planning a big push.

"Ach, so it is truly war then? What is Magneto trying to achieve with this?

"Storm, is she really standing with Magneto and his nation building, or trying to temper his aims with some of Xavier's dream?"

Or, thinks the young German mutant, has Ororo abandoned the professor's dream and at what cost?

"It's not Magneto - I haven't seen him since we got here," Jamie says, trying to reassure him. "It's Storm. She's trying to stop the war that was already here. She's got me all over the countryside delivering medical aid...you don't know how bad this was."

"I can imagine," replies Kurt. "We X-Men do seem to attract bad situations. At least you're trying to help, and we're not the source of the problem."

After a pause he continues. "Is Ororo at hand, Jamie? I'd dearly love to speak to her."

"I'll find her. He says and a second Jamie appears and leaves the room. The remaining Jaime asks "Is the quake damage bad in the states?"

"It's not good. We've been lending our help to rebuild where we can, but even with the New Mutants involved we're a drop in the ocean. Mexico... Mexico was terrible, Jamie. So many people have lost everything."

A few moments later Jamie returns with Storm, the extra body merging with the first.

Kurt pulls himself together and smiles at Storm's arrival.

"Thanks Jamie," Storm says, "Can I have a few minutes here?"

"Of course," Jamie tells her, getting up to leave “Talk to you later Kurt, say Hi to everyone for me."

Kurt can see that Storm looks tightly wound but not fraying, "Hello Kurt. I assume you're calling to yell at me as my team leader?"

"Hello Ororo. Can we assume the yelling is done and talk like friends? I'm not so good at the yelling part of leadership."

“Naturally,” she says, accepting his attempt at lightening the mood.

"So, can I ask you what the blazes is actually going on? What have you got yourself embroiled in?

His face softens. "And, how can we help?"

“While getting to Kenya I stumbled across one of Magneto’s bases,” she tells him, “And he was working on a plan to support the South Sudanese rebels in exchange for their new country being a mutant homeland. Part of it was just his trying to claim a mantle of legitimacy, but I’d already seen from Callisto how effective even a relatively weak group of mutants can be at helping support a society. Plus the repression of the South Sudanese was bad, getting worse, with no end in sight.

“It was a good plan. Something I was going to bring to the professor’s attention. And then the Wraithworld appeared. The Earth would have been devastated without Magneto powering his tectonic machine. So we made a deal – he’d save the world, I’d secure his country.”

She pauses for a minute, ‘It was a good deal, better than the ones he’s offered us to be his lieutenants and heirs in world conquest. It’s an attainable goal, and we’re already seeing tangible benefits for the people in the region, mostly due to Jamie’s skills and Magneto’s supplies. It hasn’t been without cost…”

Storm shakes her head, driving the thought away, “How can you help? Stay away, I think. It looks like Magneto’s actions improved Mutant’s profile across most of the world, just not in your back yard. Anything you can do to improve that will help. Ultimately we – my group here – are going to have to take this to the UN to get our nation recognized. It would be nice to not have anti-mutant sentiment too high in Manhattan when we do so.”

He nods. "Understood. The Avengers are likely the people to contact there. Captain America and T'challa are voices respected in the General Assembly.

"Anything we can do to help we will. The X-Men and the New Mutants have been working hard on disaster relief. I hope that's raised our profile in a good way. Mein Gott, but it pains me to be thinking of helping your fellows as a public relations exercise."

"Take comfort in the fact that you'd be doing it anyway," she tells him.

Kurt forces his features into a smile. "Image is everything, Kitty tells me. She's already working on our PR. Bless her, she's a smart kid.... She misses you, Ororo. We all do. Be careful."

"I will," she says, "You as well. Give Kitty my love, and let her know I have all faith in her. "

Ororo signs off, leaving Kurt alone, but with a little time before his scheduled meeting with Danielle Moonstar to go over the team's recovery efforts.

Kurt sits for a few moments in front of the blank viewscreen thinking of better times. Then he springs from his chair and shakes his head free of reverie of the past. "No dawdling, team leader, No rest of the wicked, Ms. Moonstar is waiting, and I surely need coffee first."

He makes his way to the kitchen to make two cups of coffee before meeting Danielle Moonstar as arranged.

When she joins him she looks tired and wrung out, as he could have expected, and deeply angry.

"New Mutants leader reporting as ordered," she quipped, "and despite Sam, Ilyana and I having to flee from an angry mob in St Louis - after they watched us rescue people - I am happy to say that the prof is right and we are definitely not a field team."

"Ach no, Dani. What happened? Nein, coffee first," he says as he hands her the steaming cup of strong black coffee. "Drink. Sit. Then we can talk."

Kurt deliberately sits in a armchair, resisting his urge to perch on the back of it, and leans forward expectantly.

She gratefully takes the coffee and sips at it. "What happened? Just what I said. The three of us were in St. Louis. I was using my powers the way Wolverine had been teaching me, reaching out to find animal minds and trying to get information from them, and was even able to feel some human minds, though I couldn't communicate with them. I'd tell Sam and Ilyana where they were, and they would clear the rubble with their powers. When we found people I was able to calm them down by focusing my power on 'hearts desires'," she grimaces at bit at that, "trying real hard to not to call up 'worst nightmares'."

"We'd pulled out five, maybe six people, and the emergency services were fine with our presence. Then we found a space where it was just...bodies. And someone in the crowd started yelling about how we muties must have killed them, since so many other people had been found alive. And then someone else started complaining about how Magneto caused these earthquakes, and how it was all the muties fault. The chief of the emergency services tried to calm the crowd down and that didn't work. And then someone heaved a brick..."

Kurt hunches his shoulders, remembering a night in the village of Winzeldorf long ago.

She shakes her head, "I was tried, frazzled, angry, and my power slipped and someone got tagged with a worst nightmare, which of course was another quake, which everybody saw and felt. Then some idiot took a swing at Ilyana and her sword came out and... well, it all went downhill from there. Sam managed to keep Ilyana from summoning a demon horde on them, which was good. He carried us away, somewhere people weren't freaking out, and then Ilyana got us home."

"We were saving people, right there, right in front of them, and they still hated us. They are _always_ going to hate us," She mutters.

"Danielle, we can make a difference. There will always be those who fear us, true, but we can help, can teach, and some will see, think and maybe change their minds. The alternatives are worse. Going into hiding or, God forbid, war? Nein, Dani, we can make a difference...for all people."

He recalls his recent conversation with Storm and honesty compels him to add. "But perhaps we will have a place of our own. Storm and Magneto, their crazy idea of a mutant homeland, who knows?"

She looks up and he can see the anger in her eyes as she holds back tears. "I am not going to run from those bastards!" she says with hot anger. "I'm NOT. I don't care it takes another fifty flamin' years, I WILL be equal in my own DAMN country!"

Kurt looks at the young Cheyenne woman and smiles proudly. "Damn right, Danielle. We X-Men are not made for running. I don't know how Ororo and Magneto's mutant homeland idea will pan out but we have a duty and responsibility to Xavier's dream, and to ourselves before God. We have to stand with those who need our help, regardless of those who hate. We must be true to ourselves."

He sighs. "All right, let's review the mission step by step and see what we can learn from it." He shakes his head ruefully. "And if you need reassurance in your leadership skills I can share some of my 'finer' moments leading the senior team, though I might require something stronger than coffee for that."

We have a triptych of them at the table as time passes, the accumulation of soda cans around Dani after the coffee is gone and the young woman's posture going from stuff and angry to more confident and finally at her usual casual level, indicating that she's back to 'normal' after the incident.

"Basically part of the problem is us..." she says, "or more precisely me and Magik. My control still slips when I get tired and either angry or scared and that leads to an emotional death spiral in an already tense scene. Ilyana still has the instinct of pulling out her sword when she gets worried and that thing's just brutal if you're not ready for it. Both of us together being tired and startled? Bad, bad juju."

She takes another sip of her soda, "And then there's Magma, who also slips when she gets angry or tense but her slippage causes earthquakes, and we can't even risk bringing her into the field for this. And that's killing her, since she wants to help. Maybe Xavier's right and we're just not ready. Maybe we should just let Rhane and the boys handle it, since their powers don't fail quite so spectacularly."

"Danielle, if there's one thing I've learned it's the best teacher is experience. All of us in the senior team have our share of mistakes to bear. We struggle through somehow."

He muses for a moment. "We wouldn't be the X-Men without our mistakes."

"You don't have this sort of problem right now, do you? No one on your team is an actual threat to the people around them? Must be nice..."

"Of course. After dealing with well-armed berserkers, hot-headed Apaches or out of control cosmic beings, Rogue's psyche stealing is a breeze."

"C'mon. Let's clean up here and kill half an hour in the Danger Room. Talking is good but I feel in need of some letting off steam."

Page 4 (Storm)

Back in Magneto’s base we see Storm shut down the communication link. She flicks a button to show the room where Magneto remains in the medi-chamber, being overseen by Jamie Madrox in a lab coat. “Bless you, Jamie. I’d be lost without you.” She flicks off that screen and leaves the room, nodding to yet another Madrox who slides back into the room after she leaves to man the communication center.

Storm heads back down the hall, turning into the private quarters where she stops to knock on one of the doors. “Maeve, if you aren’t up yet, rise and shine.” She then opens the door and steps into the room where we have just a moment of seeing three Madroxes in the room with surprised faces and Maeve Cassidy having just pulled a sheet up over herself. The next panel shows Storm desperately suppressing a wry grin and Maeve in an otherwise empty room, with a pillow that one of the Madroxes was using to cover himself falling to the floor.

[BR: these pictures look best if drawn by Kevin Maguire from the 1980’s Justice League run]

“A little warnin’ if ya please!” the ginger girl snaps at Storm.

“So very sorry,” Storm says, smiling. Obviously unable to help herself she adds “Doesn’t his power make that…difficult?”

“Nae, he just has to go real slow,” Maeve says. “I assume you want a rundown on last night’s operation?”

Storm nods, “If it’s not too much trouble.” She sets herself into a chair as Maeve pulls a robe around herself. For much of the rest of the scene we’re watching Maeve talking in the mirror which is also reflecting Storm sitting back in her room. Storm is sitting legs crossed, patient and smiling. “The pair of them deserve the companionship,” she thinks, “and Jamie might never have made a move had it not been for the stress of being here. I don’t think Sean will be too terribly mad at me.”

“Went well enou’h,” Maeve says, “Mostly a recon flight, an’ I called in the positions when I found them. Heard from Jamie that Lorelei and Equilibrus made sure those too close to the line did nae have a good night’s rest. But ye knew that, didn’t ye?”

Storm nods. “Tell me about the chopper.”

Maeve spits out her toothpaste then continues.

“It was nae a chopper, for all it was wearing its skin. Too quiet. Way, way too quiet. Like it was suckin’ in the sound. I thought it might be some special US ordinance so I gave it a wee nudge with me scream to get it back o’r the line and it just ignored it. Like it ne’re happened. So I fell back, and it fell back too, o’r the line on its own.”

“And…?” Storm says, still smiling a little

Maeve flips her hair back from her face and starts combing it, “Rules o’ engagement. It was o’r the line, I left it alone. Ye have the look of a woman who knows what it is.”

“I do,” Storm nods. “It’s nothing to worry about, just one of our foreign allies keeping an eye on us. Double the reason to make sure our local friends don’t do anything outside of our agreement.”

Storm stands up, gets ready to leave the room, then turns back “How’s your father likely to take you and…Jamie?”

“Ah, dad’s bite is worse than his bark, these days, but I expect he’ll just worry the lad a bit,” Maeve says with a smile. “But don’t you go tellin’ him.”

“Never crossed my mind,” Storm says. As she exits she thinks “I have my own young love to worry about. Keeping eyes on me, are you TChalla?

Page 5 (Phoenix)

Rachel Summers and her grandfather John Grey are in downtown Manhattan, standing in front of the twin towers World Trade Center, which has been quickly repaired from the events at the end of last year*. John takes a moment to flick an all but invisible piece of dirt from his collar before going in.

[*See recent issues of Thor and Rom for more details; and given the year it just doesn’t make sense for me to not have them around. Please let me know if this bothers anyone….]

“Maxwell’s a good guy,” Mr. Grey assures her, “And he owes me a lot of favors over the years, so that will get you in the door. Once you’re in there, young lady, you’re on your own. Got it?”

Rachel nods, her permed hair bouncing with the movement.

"I'll do my best, sir," she says, "What's he like?"

“Persistently jovial, and cunning as heck,” he tells her.

Inside at the security desk John says “John Grey to see Maxwell, Peterson, Van der Donk”

“You’re all set sir,” he says, handing over visitor badges, “He’s on the 75th floor.”

“Thanks,” John hands Rachel her badge and motions to the elevator.

“After you…”

"If you insist," Rachel responds, and leads with more confidence than she feels. Life in the twenty first century never prepared me for anything like this, she thinks.

The elevator moves noiselessly up to the 75th floor, and when it opens there are only two directions to go – right or left. The left is an office with deeply tinted windows, no logo and a security badge pad. To the right is a brightly lit office with “Maxwell Peterson Von der Donk Public Relations” written in an engaging logo on the front. Mr. Grey opens it for his granddaughter and the pair are ushered by a flawlessly coiffed secretary into a comfortable conference room with the promise that Mr. Maxwell will be right with them and the offer of the coffee and pastry already in the room. Maxwell is indeed in a moment later, giving the guests just enough time to get the proffered refreshments without feeling like they’re not paying proper attention to their host.

“John, how are you?” asks the blonde man in the bespoke suit.

“Adrian, good to see you. I’d like you to meet Rachel Summers.” Mr. Grey indicated Rachel and Mr. Maxwell extends a hand to her.

“A pleasure to meet you.” Rachel has an immediate affinity for the man; he’s clearly skilled at quickly engaging with people.

Rachel smiles, and takes his hand. "The pleasure's mine."

It's a gentleman's grip, with minimal force behind it as befits a young lady. "Now then, what can I do for you?"

"I was hoping you still had that internship we discussed a few months back open," Mr. Grey says. "Rachel would easily meet your qualifications and when I learned she was looking I immediately thought of your firm."

There's an unspoken conversation happening in John's words, one about a marker being subtly called in.

"Really?" Adrian says. "Why don’t you tell me about yourself. Where are you going to school?"

You may be likable, sir Rachel thinks, But you are entirely getting the short version

"I was moved around a lot growing up, so I did a lot of home schooling," Rachel says, "but my teachers were quite rigorous. More recently, I've been studying at Professor Xavier's school."

"O-ho, you're a Xavier Legacy?" he says with no small amount of enjoyment in his voice, as if this explains a John's interest. "That's a pretty exclusive school. In fact we already have a client who's an alumni of there. But you knew that already, didn't you John?"

"Might could," John replies. "Of course that keeps Warren from being a reliable reference for her."

Adrian waves that away, and then turns his attention back to Rachel. "So army family, autodidact, moved into an elite private academy. Multi-lingual? And why Public Relations?"

"English, French, and Spanish. Some Cantonese and Mandarin. I like dealing with people, and I'm good at it. I won't say there aren't other things that interest me -- research, for instance, but I don't have the math for anything really interesting, and I'd wilt if I was stuck in a lab for too long."

Mr. Maxwell presses, "But you've math training enough to handle polling statistics?" seeing the affirmative forming on her lips he presses on, "It's not rocket science but it will be necessary. French is useless to me but there are growing Spanish and Chinese language markets in the states that we're tapping in to. Pity you don't speak Polish. Or Romanian."

He looks her over again appraisingly - nothing sexual to it, but just how she's presenting herself, whether she'd give the right impression to clients. Finally he smiles, "I'll need to have your transcripts and schedule from the school and other hiring paperwork sent over, of course. Pay is a dirt pittance for an internship, and the work's not every day but when it's on it's on for late nights and early mornings. Are you sure you're comfortable with that?"

Rachel nods. "I am, although...Xavier's school does have the occasional long form pop quiz. I might not always be available on a moment's notice."

"Classes come first. I get that," Maxwell says. "Provisionally, barring a paperwork issue, welcome aboard, Miss Summers."

The remainder of the page is a series of panels with Rachel at the office with several people across several days, making it clear she's spent at least two weeks there with all people on the staff.

Page 6 (Colossus & Phoenix)

Editorial Box: Mexico City

We start with an above shot of the city, which is clearly in very poor shape. The gravity damage, exacerbated by the lax building codes, has devastated parts of the city and even now a people are being dug out, paths are being made for emergency vehicles and millions are mourning the dead.

We cut to a shot inside the rubble where Colossus, Phoenix. Sunspot and Wolfsbane are working through a building trying to find survivors - one of each pair hunting for thoughts or scents, the other moving or shifting debris.

Wolfsbane scrambles across the debris, leaping at one point where things might unbalance, and then shifts to her transitional form before waving to Colossus. "There's someone down here..." she indicates. "I smell fresh blood."

Some distance away Sunspot is standing atop a piece of rubble, shirt off, drinking in as much of the harsh sunlight as he can. Phoenix has watched him over the last few days visibly improve in how long he can run his powers off his stored energy and how quickly he can replenish it as the boy has been driving himself ceaselessly.

Colossus starts lifting debris from the area Wolfsbane indicated.

The concrete shifts in Colossus' grip, loose and ill constructed, and it nearly breaks apart and collapses right back over the same spot but he manages to toss it clear. He has to sift to smaller pieces, or pre-breaking the larger ones, in order to stop that from happening again. A couple of more pieces and he's made a very narrow opening.

"There's air flow, I can smell it. I think I can fit in as a wolf," Rhane tells him, waiting for permission to try. Of course there's no guarantee that the tunnel is clear all the way through, or that the pocket won't collapse under the continued excavation.

Meanwhile, Phoenix is talking to Sunspot. "You rest for a bit," she says, "I can scan the area from here, and can at least start a rescue while you recover if I need to."

The boy shakes us head, sweat flying from his hair. "No. I can keep going for a while yet. Have you sensed any more thoughts?"

"Not close by -- but I'm getting something a bit deeper." Phoenix smiles. "Up for some digging?"

"Heck yeah," Sunspot says. "You just point the way and I'll clear things!"

The Brazilian boy, following Phoenix's mental direction, starts heaving pieces of concrete and earth out of the way. He's athletic and nimble, with the grace and surety on his feet that you'd expect from boy being scouted by Brazil's professional soccer clubs before his 16th birthday. He slows a little bit once he's in shadow, making more cautious use of his prodigious strength. Phoenix can feel him getting closer to the thoughts, which are dim flickers. After a few more seconds he's broken into a spot with a small air pocket, and inside that is a girl, young woman perhaps, buried under the dirt, alive only through unpredictable creation of an air pocket and the luck that nothing pierced a major organ or artery.

"Madre de dios," Roberto whispers, abandoning his super strength as he starts brushing the dirt away. "Are you sure she's still alive?"

I just hope she stays that way, Rachel thinks. "Yes, but only barely." Rachel concentrates, using her telekinesis to shield the girl from anything more befalling her and help clearing off the dirt so they can see what they have to work with (or at least Sunspot can, unless it's safe enough for Rachel to approach as well)

The combination of Roberto clearing things away and Phoenix making sure she stays clear has the girl safely uncovered in short order. There's serious damage to her legs and possibly her spinal column but there's no visible bleeding.

"I don't dare move her... You'll have to lift her out."

Rachel looks over things and nods. "I'll get her." She focuses, visualizing the area thoroughly before trying to move anything, and trying to grab a smooth bed of the ground underneath the girl so that she won't be hurt when she's put down, either.

The woman and the ground underneath her is sheathed in a red orange glow as she is lifted gently out of the excavation and onto the ground with no additional damage. Sunspot leaps out of the hole and lands a few yards from her. He flickers back to a normal appearance as he shuts his power down and then takes the woman's hand, talking to her quietly in his Portuguese accented Spanish.

"If that tunnel isn't clear the whole way through," says Colossus, "will you be able to get out? And will you be able to get in and out without collapsing it?"

Rhane's shoulders slump, clearly taking this as being a no, "But we canno just sit here!"

"No, but you don't want to let a drowning man pull you under as well. We have to pick the right risks." He sighs. "It is not easy. But, I will risk trying to make the hole bigger."

Moving with great care Colossus is able to widen the tunnel, shearing off parts of concrete with his fingers, gently pushing aside with his shoulders, and in sort using his vast strength in a precision fashion. The no longer impossibly narrow tunnel opens into a sub-basement whose roof is miraculously intact, but the collapse of the building nearby set shrapnel through the room, leaving six people - children - who should have been safe dead and three more covered it cuts and blood. One of them moves when Colossus enters the room, lifting his head to see the light glinting off Colossus massive steel form.

He whispers something in Spanish and starts crying.

Colossus holds out a hand to him if he can move, and will carry him (and the others, sequentially, I suspect) if he can't.

The boy reaches out hesitantly, but bursts into high pitched sobs when he actually touches the solid metal. That noise rouses the other two youths, who likewise begin crying. Colossus gets ready to carry the first one out and Wolfsbane slips in through the hole in wolf form. She barks once or twice and licks the face of one of the kids, breaking the wail and distracting the two children. Colossus is able to easily get the child out and on the ground. It's the work of a few more minutes to get the other two up to the surface, where Wolfsbane is keeping them calm.

The four mutants spend a few brief moments planning, and then Colossus and Sunspot retrieve the bodies from the room, laying them out a distance away from where Wolfsbane is keeping the kids relatively calm. Phoenix takes to the air, her glowing presence a beacon to one of the many independently-organized groups who are working to clean up the wastelands while the government dithers and sends aid to their cronies. It is only a few moments before aid arrives in the form of a small group of locals. One of them collapses to his knees next to one of the living children and grasps her desperately weeping unashamedly.

"Gracias, my friends," their leader says, firmly grasping Colossus hand, "We would never have reached any of these people in time without your help. Can you help convey them back to our base? The Red Cross has a doctor there who can help."

"Of course we will," Rachel says, "Although, we're all exhausted, and I'm not sure how much use we'll be if we don't get rest. Including you, Susnpot! But there were so many lost here; so many we couldn't save; it's worth it to push ourselves if we can save just a few more--but not if it means that more are lost because we fail at a critical moment. Do you need us to help transport them? Or just to accompany them in case something happens?"

Colossus nods in agreement at, well, pretty much all of the above.

The Brazilian youth appears a little put out at that, but nods; he's clearly tired however little he wants to admit it.

"It is transport, Senorita Fénix," he says, "the senora, well, I don't want to risk moving her on a stretcher," he says. "But if you are tired, please, come with us. I can offer you some food, some shade. Not as much as if the PRE were doing its job for the people, but...."

Colossus looks at Phoenix and thinks to her I can carry her if you need the break. It is easier than all the digging.

"No," Phoenix says, "they are right; it is better if she is kept still as possible when moving her, and of all of us I'm the only one who can do that. I'll manage. If you have some coffee, that will help--and we're going to want to make this fast."

The last panel of this is the group heading into the camp, being treated as, if not heroes, then as allies in the long work ahead. Out here, in a place where the government has collapsed as much as the buildings, the distinction between human and mutant has dissolved for the moment.

[BR: I’m not 100% comfortable with how this just tapered out, but I’m afraid adding another plot point to it would make the current mess o’ plots difficult. I reserve the right to bring any of these Mexican locals back in a later issue.]

Page 7 (Rogue)

The bitingly cold February air is whipping around Rogue and Logan, who are both out of uniform on the Manhattan streets.

“Fury’s going to meet us here, all secret agent like,” Logan assures her as they continue to loiter in front of the FAO Shcwartz window. “Either he has great faith in you’re not startin’ a ruckus or everyone for a couple of blocks is a SHIELD agent. Take your pick.”

"I'll trust your nose for that one." Rogue turns to look in the window, aiming to do her best Carol Danvers use it as a mirror and scope out who is watching her but "Hey! Plushy Spiderman! Oh I gotta get one for Kitty."

"Head's up," Logan tells her. "Here he comes."

And indeed Nick Fury is walking up the street wearing a timelessly classic 1961 ensemble complete with fedora. "Logan," he nods to the shorter man, "Ann-Marie. C'mon, let’s walk."

Rogue: ducks her head and mutters "and that there's the rub ain't it"

He keeps heading along the moderately busy and windy Manhattan street where a combination of street noise, wind and mobility will prevent anyone from listening in. "So Logan here tells me you didn't pull the trigger on my man. Why don't you tell me what did happen?"

Rogue gives a basic account of the Garwood/Hellfire Club affair as she understands it. She was vaguely hoping that the Carol persona would emerge to debrief to her old Boss and spare her the embarrassment but Carol seems oddly dormant. She does not supply details of her conversation with Rossi but just says he was bitterly angry and she was too upset to stay and face the clean-up.

Fury is quiet through the whole thing, nodding occasionally. Rogue can see in his eye that while he seems distracted his steel trap mind is recording every detail.

"Where is Carol, these days?" he asks when she's finished.

"Space," Logan tells him. "She got sucked into our alien capers and decided to stay out there."

"Huh," Fury replies. He looks at Rogue, "That sounds like the sort of seat of the pants bull that Carol would've pulled, so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt. Next question, in one word - Apocalypse?"

Rogue can say without any lag or disingenuousness "Arrogant little pissant!" But then looks to Wolverine.

The smaller man takes a puff on his cigar to suppress a chuckle. "I can guarantee you no more problems on that score," he says. "That threat's been buried, or re-buried."

"Uh-huh," Fury says, 'I got the strongest feelin yer pullin' somebody's leg there. But whatever that little stunt was it made the whole situation with the lady here a heck of a lot more complicated. If I'm gonna get this cleared up now I need something a little more than your word and her statement. I need a witness."

"Rossi." Logan says.

"Yup," a car is idling on the corner, waiting for Fury. He steps into, "And I need you to bring him in," he says as he closes the door.

Rogue winces "Aw, shoot! ... And last time was so much fun for everyone."

Deep inside her psyche someone is crying. She's not really sure who.

Page 8-9 (Ariel and Phoenix)

The scene opens at the mansion (and will transition to the city in due course) with Kitty trying on an outfit for their trip into Manhattan to meet with the PR people. The shot is constructed with us seeing the hall outside her room, where Warren Worthington and Douglas Ramsey are waiting patiently for her to come out, and part of her wall magically ‘cut away’ to show her inside contemplating several different outfits trying to find the right combination. While fashion sense has never been one of Kitty’s strengths this situation is made worse by the men waiting outside and by Doug having vetoed her last few choices. Doug and Warren are, of course, in suits, and both perfectly turned out – Warren from his lifetime of working in this environment and Doug from an offbeat aspect of his unique mutation.

Doug is talking, “Remember Kitty, we’re trying to send a very specific message here. You have to be credible but not overstepping your age, confident without being arrogant, and it has to be immediately visible, but it also has to be uniquely you, so that it looks like you do this naturally.”

We see Kitty roll her eyes; Doug responds to the change in tenor of the silence.

“I have to see how it falls on you – the semiotics make a difference. It’d be faster if you’d let me help you dress…”

"You are helping!" Kitty yelps, grabbing a new set of clothes. "I think. I'll be back out in 10 seconds!"

Hearing the panic in her voice Doug blurts out, "wait, I didn't mean..."

Warren chuckles, "I think I've found the limits of your mutation, Mr. Ramsey."

He raps on the door, "car leaves in fifteen, Kitty. Get a move on or you're dressing in the limo. I'll be downstairs." He exits the pane, still chuckling.

Still a little flustered, Kitty finally emerges wearing a simple, black A-line skirt and low black heels, a light blue button-front blouse with a rounded collar, moderate shoulder pads, and three-quarter-length sleeves, and a fashionably wide belt adorned with red and blue tapestry flowers on a black background. The brown leather satchel-type bag over her shoulder probably spoils the effect a bit, but she's not going anywhere without the basics of her Ariel persona.

"Okay?" she says.

He nods several times noncommittally while looking at her. "Walk over there," he gestures to a chair, "and sit down." Kitty can see the same over-focused, almost lost look on his face that he gets when he's writing code.

Suppressing a sigh, Kitty walks to the chair and sits, all as gracefully as her dancer's training allows.

When she sits she's able to see Doug, who is still watching her intently. "Cross your legs at the ankles and don't let your back touch the back of the chair. But don't lean too far forward - too flirty. Good. When you drop the bag put it mostly behind the chair and out of sight, since we're not referencing anything in it. I have the art portfolio with the slides."

Doug gives a formal nod and a smile. "OK, I think we're good."

The limo pulls past the World Trade center, heading for the garage.

"OK Kitty," Warren says, "Go over the plan one more time. We've sat down, I've introduced the two of you, he asks for the pitch and..."

Kitty takes a breath and starts "As..."

"No," Doug interrupts. Too anxious, too deep an initial breath. Makes you sound unsure. Try again."

She stares at him for a moment, then nods. "Right. Dress rehearsal." Composing herself again, she conjures up a smile and says, "As Warren said, I'm speaking for the X-Men ..."

"Are you sure her make-up is right?" Warren asks over her.

"Yes. Hush," Doug directs the millionaire to pipe down with a wave of his hand. "Irritation at the interruption showing in the epicanthic fold, but well contained, good, keep going."

We cut to the inside of the elevator just before the doors open. Warren is speaking, "I think we're all set. Should go fine. Doug, if you try to give her any more instruction I will bean you in the nose."

Kitty favors him with a brilliant smile.

The doors open and they turn to enter the offices of Maxwell Peterson Von der Donk Public Relations. A professionally turned out woman with nicely cut bright red hair and slim build greets them just inside the door, and it takes a moment to recognize Phoenix outside of the mansion environment.

"Doug, Kitty—Mr. Worthington" Rachel hugs Doug and Kate, in a restrained, business-like fashion, and smiles at Warren.

Kitty hugs her back and then stands still, trying to stay calm.

"Mr. Von der Donk will be with us shortly," Rachel says, slipping back more fully into her corporate persona. "In the meanwhile, I can give you the tour, and there should be refreshments waiting for us."

"Thank you, Miss Summers," Warren says, and stands aside to let the women precede him. Doug and Kitty get a few moments to look at the glass and chrome design of the office and the stunning view from the windows before they're inside the comfortably appointed conference room with its glass table and one glass wall with a door in it. Phoenix knows from experience that despite the apparent design the rooms are acoustically muffled. One of the assistants has already laid out coffee and croissants which look expensively light and flakey.

Doug takes a quarter cup of coffee with a little cream and sets it to his lips for just a moment before putting it on the table in front of his seat.He then sits and unzips his portfolio to have ready access to the materials inside. He looks ready to offer Kitty some advice on etiquette when Warren gives him a look and raises a fist to his own nose in a warning gesture.

Kitty takes her coffee black, puts a croissant on a small plate, and chooses a seat that is not directly beside either of the men but is close enough that she's part of their group. At Warren's gesture she smirks, and breaks a bite-sized piece off her croissant.

Just after the visitors have settled themselves the door opens and a slightly portly gentleman with thinning blond hair comes in - Phillip Von Der Donk. "Good morning," he says. He holds out a hand to Angel, "pleased to see you again Warren. I understand from Ms. Summers that you have an interesting challenge for us."

"That's one way to put it," Warren chuckles, " Something like what you've already done for me but on a much larger scale. But let me introduce the brain trust for this idea," and he motions to the two teenagers who, to their credit, are looking very adult and professional in their business attire.

[OOC: Did you decide on using real names or code names for this. Phoenix has ascertained through contact and mild telepathy that the company can be trusted with the secret, but you might still want to keep your IDs under wraps - update the below as you wish, Doug will follow Kitty's lead. Up to you. Kris, you'll be happy to know that Kitty just made her Empathetic feat roll and so is successfully passing herself off as a skilled, capable and concerned person. ]

"This is [Katherine/Kitty/Kate Pryde and or Ariel] and [Doug Ramsey/Cypher], members of my particular genetic fraternity," Warren gestures to each in turn, and Phillip shakes their hands with professional appraisal. He clearly does not find the pair wanting.

"Well," he says, "We're here to help. Why don't you tell me what you have in mind?"

[BR: OK, now the spotlight is on Kitty, but others can feel free to OOC suggestions, or Rachel could break in with ideas.]

Page 10 (Rogue)

Rogue, following up on memories of a life not her own, finds herself in little Italy, tracking down someone she knows that both carol and Rossi used for cover identities in the past. The small office is in an ill kept building, accessible only via a side street, and a third floor walkup. By its signage – though you clearly have to know it’s here to ever see the sign – it professes itself to be “Sorvino Facilitations, Open 10-3 weekdays and by appointment”.

She enters the shop.

The a buzzer goes off when she enters, and Rogue is alone in the small room. There's a desk, two chairs, an end table and a minimal amount of light. Of the two other doors to the room one of them has a bright red light bulb burning over it.

"Ms Sorvino." well aware she is a stranger she approaches her/Carol's old contact directly.

"Be right out," a voice yells out. "Have a seat." About 30 seconds later the red light goes off and Mia comes out. She's little changed from the last time Rogue saw her - pretty, devoid of makeup or jewelry, wearing tight jeans that have seen considerable wear, a tight undershirt shirt and a very workmanlike shirt over that held closed with one or two buttons. It would be very easy for her appearance to quickly become flirty or standoffish with one or two modifications but right now she's in a transitional state.

Carol knows, and therefore Rogue knows, that the woman was doubtless taking a moment to size her customer up through a peephole from the darkroom, and that her movement to the desk is putting her near a concealed high caliber pistol in case things go wrong.

"Can I help you?" she says from behind her desk.

Rogue is dressed in that not-so-subtle X-man way of costume but not. Green and black. Leggings, jacket, headband. She is sitting, as requested, in Carol's 'Let's get down to brass tacks' pose.

"I need your Facilitation service. I have a message to deliver. Word of mouth. Will you listen?"

"925 to Prof. The Pirate says it's time to call home." Sorvino, will recognize the first 2 and an educated guess might provide the piratical cue.

Mia gives her another coldly appraising look. "Nine-twenty five isn't your area code, honey..."

Rogue's face smiles Carol's smile. "Too young for a 9 to 5 job right enough. ... But that's her message. You'll want to do your research of course. ... and think about your fee. Old debts don't transfer ... How long do you need?"

She gives Rogue a deep look then shrugs. "Two weeks. Two grand. No guarantees on response. Up front."

Rogue returns her stare with similar coolness. "Deal."

Rogue leaves with a prickling sensation of 'someone walking on my grave' making her want to shake. She had been hoping that Carol would show up and do the driving in that interview. Now it is done she is not entirely sure that she didn't. The extent to which the personnae are blending inside her skull gives her the chills. Carol's tradecraft wants to check for a tail, set up a false lead and stick to public spaces. Rogue suddenly loses patience with it all and takes to the air, heading for home.

Page 11-12 (Brotherhood)

[BR: Now, this ‘prisoner transport scenario” is utterly insane. No one would transport these people through a populated area, especially the streets of NYC. But it’s been a while since we really had a chance to wreck part of Manhattan – I barely did any damage at all in the Marvel Fanfare issue! – and that’s making people wonder whether we’re even still in the Marvel universe… In other words, please forgive the insanity.]

It’s a quiet late February afternoon and a barge has just dropped off several containers onto the Manhattan docks. Dropped isn’t really the right word, as they are maneuvered directly onto a waiting truck that then moves them to a larger, heavier vehicle. At no point are the containers allowed contact with the ground.

One of the containers –the largest one - jerks slightly in transit and the site foreman yells, “Hey, keep that under control! We don’t want to risk dropping anything!”

“Yeah, yeah, we got it,” Says one of the stevedores; the burly longshoremen brace the container with long staves and make sure it stays level until it’s secured on the truck. Once the four containers are in place they are strapped down and walls are quickly folded up around the truck. Within moments the vehicle is indistinguishable from any other battered waste removal truck that occupies the New York streets. No one would suspect that the drivers, or the people in the clandestine support car behind it, are highly trained federal agents, or that the cargo came from Ryker’s Island, or that said cargo boxes contained some of the deadliest people alive.

The truck makes its way down the New York streets. We have a panel of the passenger’s view showing that the interior cab is festooned with high tech equipment, sensors and other gear, all reading green. An electronic map is showing that the vehicle is still in contact with both its escort cars and the helicopter overhead.

“This is Charlie calling in. We’re on route to the Village. Mark 10:45. Callsign Gingerbread,” the passenger says into a radio.

“Roger that Charlie. Path still confirmed,” the radio squawks back

“We’re good for another fifteen minutes,” the passenger says, “Hard to think we’re taking these freaks somewhere even more secure than Ryker’s, isn’t it?”

“Got that right,” the driver says, taking one hand off the wheel to fiddle with one of the various dials on the dashboard. That hand drops to his side, where it plucks something off of his belt and drops it into the shift well between the two men. Once released it assumes its original shape, a small white skull, and gives off an inaudible hiss.

“What kind of name is ‘the Village’ anyway?” the passenger asks. “Why not something tougher, like ‘The Vault’ or the…”

He never completes his thought, slumping silently down into his seat. The driver smiles slightly then removes another skull from his belt, bringing it to his mouth and talking into it. “Phase one resolved. I wish I could just drive off in this and solve the problem.”

“The timestream give just this window – by the time you’re out of the city we can expect several Avengers to be in position to intercept, including that Alien Thor*.” Destiny’s voice comes back over the radio.

[*ED: Destiny means Beta Rey Bill – see recent issues of Thor for details!]

“Very well. Initiate phase two,”

There is a loud cracking sound as the pavement in front of the van erupts upward, as if pushed by an unseen force, and the driver – Mystique – slams on the gas to hit the sudden incline at maximum speed. The vehicle topples despite its weight, slamming down hard to the sidewalk on the passenger side.

Mystique, having returned to her normal form, slides out of her chair and extracts a third skull, this one transforming into a small laser torch, which she uses to quickly cut a hole in the wall behind her. Taking on the voice of the unconscious man she says ‘This is Charlie, this is Charlie, we’ve flipped over but we’re good on telltales – no sign that the cargo is loose. Maintain cover while we get in a new transport. Callsign beanstalk”

“Confirmed Charlie,” comes the voice over the radio, just as the metal falls way leaving a hole for Mystique to shimmy through.

Two of the cases are cracked, on leaking water all over the place. She uses the thermal torch to cut into the smallest case and tosses it in, saying “Pyro, present for you.”

The other cracked case breaks open and an unfamiliar figure climbs out, a thickly built man with a red bowl cut.

“Ox,” she says. ‘I’m Mystique from the Brotherhood of Mutants. I’m breaking my team out, you’re welcome to come along.”

“Where are we?” he asks

She motions for him to tear open the other cases and he does so almost without thinking, being the type to take orders. Avalanche and Blob both tumble out of their respective cases, covered in a viscous goo that had been keeping them from using their powers.

“Manhattan. The X-Men are on their way.”

“Good!” Blob says. “Let’s see if we can kill another one this time!”*

[*ED Blob is unaware that the X-Men were able to restore Colossus from the petrification they inflicted on him in their last encounter.]

“I dunno lady,”: Ox says, “I Got my own issues to resolve.”

“Of course,” Mystique says sweetly. “But you can see we take care of our own, and we could use a man with your mutation.”

Blob sneers at that, “Like fun we do.”

“Hey, I can whip you any day Tubbo!”

Mystique shoots Blob a look, and we can see over her shoulder that the case holding Pyro has been burned away, spreading even more of the goo on the ground. Avalanche is scraping it off of his hands.

“Best behavior Blob, you’re niece is outside,” Mystique tells him, “Try to make a good impression. Avalanche?”

The Greek mutant points his arms at the doors and they disintegrate, blowing outward in clouds of dust, and we see a shot of the freed Brotherhood almost posing in the dust, with flame lancing out from Pyro’s aura and the ground roiling up from Avalanche’s touch.

Page 13-16 (X-Men)

Kurt and Amanda are at a small place in Little Italy, indulging in a late lunch that is, to Amanda's body clock, a late dinner.

"Maddy told me that her meet and greet with Rachel went well enough," she's telling Kurt, swirling a bit of red wine around in her glass and contemplating another roll before the main course. "I think those wacky kids are going to be all right."

"I certainly hope so. They're due their happy ever after. Assuming any of us are so entitled.”

Amanda gets a serious look, "Are you still worried about Rachel's 'future'? Or are we past the threat of that timeline?”

"Yes, I am worried about Rachel's future or, God forbid, something even worse. It's clear her timeline is not our timeline, but who knows if that's for the good, or for worse?"

Amanda nods, “I ask because seeing Rachel got Maddy talking about kids again, and that got me wondering..."

Whatever Amanda's about to say gets tuned out by Kurt seeing something on the TV next to the pizza pick up counter, where a bored employee is passing the time watching afternoon programming, or at least was before the screen cuts away to something happening outside the NY Supreme Court, just a few blocks away. The image is fuzzy but there's no mistaking the profile of Fred Dukes, aka the Blob, on the screen.

"Hang on, darling. Look at the television! Verdammt! A fellow can't even enjoy his lunch with his beautiful girlfriend in peace. Where is that? The Supreme Court?"

Kurt broadcasts a telepathic shout for attention as taught by the Professor, hoping to pick up Rachel or Xavier and to rally the team.

Phoenix, Ariel and Angel are at the WTC building, concluding their meeting with Adrian Maxwell and Phillip Von Der Donk

Kurt? What's going on?

Rachel, we need to get the team to the Supreme Court soonest. I'd rather not tip my hand too soon, so a circumspect approach until we get eyes on the scene and can assess what's going on. I'm with Amanda not far from the court. I'm going to get some height and see what's up.

Kurt asks Amanda, "Dearest, would you mind if we take a rain check on dessert? I promise you Tiramisu and something more tonight if we get the Brotherhood under control."

Amanda picks up a bread stick and waves it at him, "You be careful - these people play rough."

"Ach, liebchen, I will take care. We've dealt with them before and know what they' capable of."

Kurt leans over to kiss Amanda and then with a quick check around the restaurant for prying eyes teleports away.

Once he vanishes she sighs, "I guess we'll finish that conversation another day...."

[Upon telepathic contact] Colossus is in Chinatown, haggling in Russian to a Polish distributor about arranging a delivery of Indian Brahma chickens. [BR: welcome to New York!]

[LP: Mira! Bagel con schmear! Mira! Schmuck!]

Colossus wraps up the bargaining, paying a bit more than he'd hoped, then (presuming he's not in all metal form) ducking out of sight so he can change to his metal form and get that lift from Angel.

Angel, Ariel, I've heard from Nightcrawler that something's going on at the Supreme Court -- can you wrap this up?

Good as done, Warren tells her.

He finishes shaking Von Der Donk's hand, "Sorry to cut short the coffee but something's come up. Something... unusual. Do you mind if we make an unconventional exit?"

"I've been working with you long enough to expect that. Mr. Worthington," Von der Donk replies.

Kitty is already rummaging in her bag.

Warren nods his thanks and hands his suit jacket to one of the office assistants before stripping off his shirt and unfolding his wings. Said assistant looks a little starstruck at this. "Ariel, can you get us through the window? They don't open this high up..."

Doug, meanwhile, looks at Kitty, 'The car's still downstairs. I'll be fine."

"No problem," Kitty tells Warren in a businesslike tone. She's taken a small electronic gizmo out of her bag and holds it against her wrist. In the next panel, her bodysuit - which had been set on 'transparent' - is now opaque and dark again. It only takes a few moments for her to get out her gauzy tunic (which folds up into a very small but wrinkle-free bundle) and exchange the clothes she was wearing for it.

With mask and utility belt soon in place - but no boots, unfortunately - and her street clothes stuffed into the shoulder bag, she's ready to go almost as quickly as Warren. "Hang onto this for me, please?" she asks Doug, giving him the shoulder bag.

She suddenly leans in to kiss him on the lips, and as suddenly pulls back and turns away. "Sorry to consult and run," she tells Von der Donk with a vivid smile.

Ariel takes Angels hand and the two walk through the window. Von der donk looks at Doug, “What a remarkable young woman.”

“Don’t I know it,” Doug tells the man. Rachel sees Doug’s pose shift slightly, looking less certain of himself, more a teenager in need of assistance, and spots that he’s subtly shifted his position in relation to herself. He then adds, “I hate to be a bother, but can I get someone to help me carry all this down to the car.”

Maxwell responds smoothly and naturally, “Of course. Rachel could you see the young man gets home?”

Rachel smiles, and gives Maxwell a quick wink where none of his employees can see. "I'd be happy to," she says, quickly gathering some of his materials.

Once they’re in the elevator Doug smiles. “I figured you needed a phone booth.”

"Much obliged," Rachel says, "now..this shouldn't take more than a moment."

She opens her briefcase, and her eyes glow red, and for a moment, her clothes and the straps and fabric from her costume stand suspended around her naked form, before her costume shapes itself around her in a single motion, and her clothes discretely fold themselves away inside the briefcase. [JK: Naked Magical girl transformations date back to at least the 70s; clearly, by the late 80s our illustrators were aware of them]

Doug discreetly looks away during this.

"There we are. Want a lift?"

"I'll stay with the car. I've got one of Kitty's encrypted radios so as long as you have the comms on that's as close as I need to be to help out." He takes her briefcase and tosses it into the trunk with Kitty’s bag and his own portfolio. "Good luck"

Meanwhile,

A series of quick teleports has placed Nightcrawler in one of the limited spots of elevated shadow overlooking the scene. He can make out the male members of the brotherhood, in an apparent stand-off with the authorities. Pyro has already downed a police helicopter and the flames from that have been formed into a giant wolfhound that is threatening the authorities, driving them away from a police assault vehicle. Alongside the men is a young woman in a red bodysuit with black trunks and collar – she is holding her arms up in an impressive manner but to no immediately evident effect.

Of Mystique and Destiny there is no sign.

Before Kurt can take any action a large man in prison garb with a red bowl cut sprints from the shadows towards the SWAT truck the police have been forced to move away from for fear of the flames. He wrenches the door open and climbs in, barreling the vehicle towards the brotherhood.

By the World Trade Towers Angel is now under his own power. Ariel, go help out Nightcralwer, I’ll pick up Colossus and meet you at the site, he sends through the link and then dips his wings to accelerate in an arc towards Chinatown.

Understood, Ariel says briefly. She moves up to her best current speed, listening to the telepathic chatter and building a rough mental picture of what's going on.

Angel’s speed and grace in the air are fantastic. Colossus, can you get some elevation for the pick up? I should be there in short order.

Yes. Colossus finds the nearest building where he can gain roof access. Peter has barely bade the roof via a rickety fire escape before Angel swoops down and grabs him under the arms, "First class, going up!" he says in a jocular tone.

Nightcrawler, we're en route. Hank's been teaching me physics, which says that if I throw a 250 pound Peter and in flight he becomes a 600 pound Colossus we'll get a nice big bang. I'm assuming no one in this equation has a problem with that at the right target?

"Math was never my best subject," says Colossus, "but that should work."

Understood. Aim for Pyro and take him out. He's wild and presents the most danger to the crowd and police. Avalanche is your secondary target.

Be careful though, I haven't got a visual on either Mystique or Destiny yet, and there's a new girl with them, powers unknown.

Of the X-Men only Rogue is unaccounted for. Due to her strange mental overlap it’s hard for Phoenix to pick her up, and by the time she does the young woman is already in route to the mansion.

Rogue, we've got a situation in New York. Phoenix sends, It's the Brotherhood, in a confrontation with the police

Holding his position Kurt watches the armored police vehicle crash through the debris from the fight and screech to a halt alongside the Brotherhood. The back doors are still swinging open and Avalanche and Blob clamber in (the latter making the truck sway dangerously. The Girl and Pyro are about to climb in when some police open fire to prevent the escape. The girl interposes herself and Kurt sees the sparks as the bullets spang off the air in front of her. Pyro responds by having the wolfhound lunge forward at the offending officer, getting ready to snatch him up on his flaming jaws.

Muttering an untranslated curse under his breath, Kurt 'ports down to grab the endangered police officer and tries to teleport away just as quickly, painfully aware of his weak and exposed position as he does so.

Nightcrawler can feel the heat from the beast as he appears next to the police officer, grabs him and teleports them away just before the jaws of solid fire close around their position. He drops the retching but unhurt officer safely behind the police's ragged line and then disappears again to an elevated, shadowy spot. Something - perhaps a long ago warning from Cyclops about how his tendency to teleport over people to attack from above leaves him wide open, or maybe just remembering he's facing a precog - flashes through his brain and he immediately leaps away from his landing spot, swings off of a nearby electrical cable and flips to a new hiding spot. As he's moving he feels something zip past him, missing by less than an inch, and hears it shatter on the wall behind him. The alcove in which he was hiding is now filled with a thick green-grey mist.

Pyro smiles, "There's the furry twit. I've got a surprise for him!"

The wolfhound changes to a huge pillar of flame, giving off blinding light in all directions. It has the added effect of sucking oxygen out of the air in all directions, causing the police nearby the flame to stagger and in a couple cases collapse.

Kurt finds his shadowy spot stripped from him as he is revealed in the harsh glare, and his vision is too blurry to try a teleport.

"There!" Pyro yells, grabbing Avalanche's shoulder, pulling him past the unidentified girl and pointing up at Nightcrawler's position. The Cretan raises his hand to use his mutant power to collapse the building over the stunned X-Man

Before he can do so Angel and Peter swoop in, with the winged mutant releasing his cargo at high speed towards the stolen police van. Rather than aiming at the van directly (which might inadvertently kill someone when Colossus passes through them) Angel targets the area just in front of the open doors. Per the plan Peter changes into Colossus in midair, translating the speed Angel was able to build up directly into his significantly more massive form. The street explodes from the impact, hurling debris into Pyro, Avalanche and the unknown girl. Avalanche is able to shift his targeting to reduce the stones that would have hit him to powder, and the debris bounces off the air near the girl. Pyro, on the other hand, is struck by several large rocks and collapses into the van.

Pyro's out, Angel sends, at least for the moment.

Colossus stands up from his position under the van, lifting it over his head and tilting it a little to keep anyone inside from getting out. The then tosses the van at Avalanche but his aim is thrown off by Blob's bulk bouncing around inside the vehicle. It ends up twisting in midair and moving to the left of its targets - well away from the unknown girl and Pyro's stunned body, and passing close to Avalanche, who again turns his power on the incoming missile, reducing the van to powder and debris that flies back towards Colossus. The driver and Blob are both ejected from the cloud to land near Avalanche -the driver stands up with some agility while Blob rolls several times and smashes ignominiously into a plate glass window before pulling himself up.

Nightcrawler - coming to move you, Ariel sends, about two seconds before reaching the stunned mutant and pulling him down and through the wall of the building. They pass through some offices and then into the kind of large, airy atrium space that even insanely expensive New York office buildings seem to have.

Ariel then drops them both rapidly down to the building's security/information desk. "Listen," she tells the security guards crisply. "Hit the fire alarm and get everybody out the back. Safety's at least a block away from here."

Nightcrawler nods at the girls brisk efficiency as his eyes clear. "Ariel, we need to be on the lookout for Mystique and Destiny. They're here but I haven't got eyes on them yet. Both are dangerous, Mystique especially, but Destiny is the Brotherhood's ace in the hole. Her precog powers give them a real edge. If you see Destiny, take her out of the fight. Use the techniques Wolverine taught us, remember? Action without thought or planning. Makes it harder for her to predict."

Phoenix, where are you? Can you pick up any sign of Destiny or Mystique? Be careful, they're probably wearing psy-jammers of some sort.

Cypher gave me an escape, but I don't want to blow my cover while I'm still working there, at least until we've got a more solid relationship with Maxwells' firm. But I'm in the air, and almost there.

Out in the street the Brotherhood picks itself up and prepares for round 2

The girl in the red bodysuit glances around uncertainly, wondering what to do next, "Uncle Fred, we gotta get out of here..."

"Just help me with the metal guy first," Blob tells her.

She runs forward towards Colossus, looking like she's intending to grapple with him, but instead she dives down, sliding impossibly smoothly across the uneven, rocky terrain to flank him. As she moves by Peter feels something broad and flat slam into him. It doesn't hurt him, but it does propel him through the air towards Blob, who is settling himself for the catch.

Pyro continues to not move

Avalanche blurs for a moment, the dust layer on him being reduced to less than dust, before he looks up at Angel. The winged mutant is rather wisely well out of reach of any of the conscious Brotherhood's powers.

"The kid's right, Blob - finish him quick so we can move outta here," he says. "I'll buy us some time."

He waves his arm and the ground roils up and over them, being reduced to dust at the same time and covering the entire area with a thick cloud of silt.

"Hey, can you pick up Pyro," Avalanche asks the fellow with the bowl cut, "and we'll get outta here."

Ox nods and scoops up Pyro with surprising grace. "You _got_ a way outta here?"

Avalanche grins back, "Right after Blob takes care of some unfinished business...."

Blob snags the flying Colossus out of the air and drags him in for a bear hug - Peter is facing away from Blob, both arms pinned but his feet are on the ground after a sickening moment of vertigo. With his feet firmly planted Blob wraps the curious nature of his power around Colossus, who quickly is hit with the sensation that the entire world is pressing down on him from all directions. The pain is intense and shocking.

Next round

AM Through the radio that Avalanche is carrying we hear Destiny's voice "Blob needs to incapacitate Colossus immediately and start moving or your chances of escape drop radically. We'll see to it you are undisturbed."

Colossus passes on what he's heard, via telepathy. I'll see what I can do, he thinks at his teammates, although his options are rather limited.

I've lost visual, Angel sends to the group, Avalanche created a sandstorm. Colossus is on his own for the moment

Phoenix, can you blow that away? Nightcrawler asks.

Blow away? Phoenix sends, I have a better idea

Phoenix spreads her telekinesis, intent on grabbing on to the miniscule particles of dust through the air -- and concentrating them in a thick cloud around the Blob and Colossus. [Peter, of course, doesn't need to breathe in his metal form. The Blob, on the other hand...]

Phoenix steadies herself and pushes the particulate matter the way she had recently at Cheyenne Mountain, trying to use it to encase the brotherhood.

At Cheyenne Mountain she had encountered the industrial version of the psionic jammer that Mystique had used to baffle Professor Xavier two years ago when the Brotherhood tried to assassinate Senator Kelly. While one group of engineers had obviously worked to make that jammer large enough to cover a key military installation, another group must have been weaponizing it.

The psionic scream feels something like a Taser being fired through her eyeballs into her brain, and it is being transmitted via the link to all of her teammates.

Ariel moves through the air behind the police line, trying to pick out someone acting like they're in charge - and keeping an eye out for Destiny or Mystique, in case luck is on her side today.

Ariel yelps, clutches at her head, and starts lurching awkwardly through the air, turning around as if she's trying to escape the pain in her head. What she's actually doing is examining the area, looking for someone (or someones) near the edge of things who is alertly watching the action in the sky, rather than what's happening on the ground.

Spinning in place she spots one police officer away from the others, out of the line of fire, holding a bulky police radio in his hand but not up to his ear. There's just something about the way he's holding it that reads to Ariel more like someone triggering a remote control than holding a communication device. Unfortunately her eyes lock with the police officer for just a second and Ariel knows that Mystique knows that she's been made.

Ariel abandons her pose of disability and shoots toward Mystique at her top speed, keeping her gaze fixed on her. This, she thinks, is where we find out if she also has a force field ...

Fortunately, she doesn't - the police officer flinches back from the rapidly descending teen, but Ariel shifts her path enough to swing her fingers through the 'radio', which shorts out immediately. The police officer drops it instinctively and Ariel can see that when it leaves the officer's hand it changes form to a small ivory-colored skull.

"Clever brat!" the officer snaps.

Nightcrawler reassesses the situation and decides to try to take down Mystique as the leader and most dangerous member of the Brotherhood.

Kitty, keep Mystique's attention occupied, I'm going in.

He 'ports close behind Mystique and grabs her, his tail wrapping around her neck in a choke hold while trying to pin her arms with his hands.

Kitty sees the cloud of smoke behind Mystique and Nightcrawler's appendages wrap around the ersatz law officer. Nightcrawler's arms are wrapped around her/him pinning arms, and his tail gains a death grip on the neck and squeezes hard, causing the officers face to redden and eyes to bulge from the surprise. Kitty is perceptive enough to spot that Kurt isn't trying to 'grab' anything but letting the clinging power of his fingers adhere to the target's body.

There is a very brief struggle - Kurt can feel the officer's body expand under him, and then contract, to no avail - before Mystique stops moving.

"Uncle Fred, stop messing around!" Una yells, even as she reaches her hands down into an Avalanche-created crack in the dirt and pulls. The earth ruptures open in an impossibly neat tube heading down into the darkness. She enters it, followed quickly by Ox (and therefore Pyro) who never saw an emergency escape tunnel he didn't like.

Colossus, his head still throbbing from the transmitted psi attack, continues to feel the vice like pressure of Blob’s arms around him. Another few seconds of this and he might very well be flattened across the chest, but he forces himself to go limp (not needing to breathe), hoping his crude deception is successful…and that Blob’s hatred of him doesn’t make the man betray orders.

“Come on, Blob!” Avalanche yells.

“I ain’t done yet!” Blob says, giving one last convulsive squeeze with his corpulent arms that very nearly dents Colossus osmium steel body before dropping the unresisting Russian to the ground. “I can’t tell if he’s dead yet,” he says, flipping Peter’s body with a kick, “But he ain’t getting up soon!”

With that Blob lumbers into the escape tunnel, with Avalanche taking up the rear.

Peter’s eyes narrow imperceptibly as he keeps track of the shapes in the dust. He sees Avalanche enter the tunnel and, seconds later, the entire passage collapse like sand, doubtless a manifestation of that mutant’s power. Even if he was in a condition to leap up and go after them his strength would not let him dig through such a diffuse substance.

Page 17-19: Rogue

Rogue spins in flight and starts flying back to southern part of the island.

Rogue thinks [Oh God. I think I'm going to be sick. Don't know when I've ever felt so messed up inside, even when Danvers was eating my head from the inside. She ain't exactly sitting quiet right now. And Mom and the others. ... The X-men have put their lives on the line for me. ... Kurt ... I owe him my loyalty. He and Kitty ain't been nothing but friendly to me. ... Kind ... Please God, don't let them get hurt.

Any of them. PleaseGodPlease!

... I don't suppose this is exactly what Logan had in mind for squaring things up with SHIELD.

Rogue feels a sudden, sharp pain across her mind, the feedback of some sort of mental weapon being used on Phoenix. Given her peculiar mental state there is no chance this will stun her, but it does bring her up short a couple of blocks away from the fight. Hovering in midair she can’t help but see a woman in a light blue cape with a distinctive piece of headgear standing atop one of the buildings in plain view.

Destiny waves to her. “Rogue, we need to talk.”

She sees Destiny and stops in the air. Rogue does not land but hovers near the edge of the roof, over the street. "I'm listening."

Rogue can see the very faint movement of Destiny's full face mask and knows from experience that she's giving a very slight, maternal grin. "It's good to see you," she says, with real warmth in her voice. "You sound good. It sounds like Xavier's been able to help you."

At Rogue's resitation Destiny looks towards the scene of the battle, "Don't worry, everyone comes out fine. There's a chance Blob might give Colossus a bit of a bruising but that's as far as it will go." He words are again comforting, reassuring, the voice of her mother who knew when she was going to skin her knee before she did herself, and was ready to deal with it. The one who was there to interrupt the first time her power manifested and save her from what would have been hideous consequences, and then who held her afterwards.

"But we need your help. Your friend Phoenix, she's a temporal fork in the road. Her being here put us on a collision course with something awful. And if you don't keep the X-Men from pursuing Avalanche and the others there will be no way to stop it."

Conflicted barely covers how Rogue is feeling: familial warm fuzzies feelings, tinges of regret and more than a tinge of suspicion that hurts her somewhere deep in her soul.

"Don't manipulate me. Please don't try to manipulate me, for my own good or anyone else"

Destiny tilts her head slightly, "I'm not manipulating you. I'm treating you like an adult. You know what my mutation is, Rogue, what it lets me see. I see something horrible coming. There are many branching paths from this point, but the one least likely to lead to disaster - to Mystique's death, to your death or madness, to the deaths of Xavier and all he holds dear - require Avalanche, Blob and Pyro to be free to act."

She pauses a moment, "This is the same thing I told Mystique. I'm asking you to trust me, just like we trusted you not to reveal everything you know about us to Xavier when you went there."

Rogue: "You know what I'm going to ask don't you? You know the only way they will believe me." She takes off her glove and holds out her hand, drifting down towards the roof.

Destiny takes off not just her glove but her mask. Rogue again sees the careworn face of Irene Adler, but the woman is smiling a happy smile. "I know. But please let me kiss my daughter's cheek just one more time."

There is a brief, warm intimate moment when Destiny reaches up and tousles Rogues hair, and the girl can feel the whisper of her adoptive mother's breath on her cheek. Then there is the actual skin to skin contact and Miss Adler stiffens for a second before collapsing like her strings had been cut. And Rogue's mind explodes. This is the first time that she's absorbed the powers and psyche of someone with truly different perceptions - the closest she'd come prior was her contact with Thor's mind, and her brain at that point was already psyche a jumble with the recent permanent absorption of Carol Danvers, plus Captain America, that it had almost instinctively walled off the experience coming into her consciousness.

And even Thor’s millennia of life was nothing compared to seeing the timeline branching in front of her in a dozen different ways based on what she does or what other people do. However, as with Storm, and Wolverine before her, Destiny's absorbed consciousness is trying to help her assimilate this, to see what's immediately happening, and to bring to the surface the relevant memories of her recent experience.

What follows is a two page spread showing a lot of overlapping images – it’s visually distinct from the time travel flashes in Annual #8 because each image overlaps itself several times with slight variations. Still, with enough effort the diligent comic book reader can make out the following:

The Avengers – including Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver – fighting off Sentinels in NYC with disastrous results

Reed Richards clutching the broken body of his son while Susan Storm Richards holds a look of such unfettered hatred as to shatter the world. Members of the youth super team Power-Pack are likewise scattered about, apparently from having tried to protect Franklin.

Nightcrawler is leading a mass of teenagers in reddish garb – the Hellions? – through the woods with a Sentinel on their trail. An eyebeam from one of the Sentinels has just struck one of the youths, but it’s impossible to tell which given the confusion of the image.

Havok, Polaris, Mirage and Wolfesbane are looking down at an enormous crater in the middle of the desert. There seems to be some sort of body in it, but again you can’t tell who.

Scott Summers is crying over the body of Magneto. Scott’s eyes are brown and normal. Corsair is standing behind him, holding off a crowd of soldiers with a blaster pistol.

Blob standing in the middle of a pile of rubble that was once the torso of a Sentinel. There is a ring of fire around the scene, but Pyro is not in sight.

Nightcralwer and Rogue standing over a grave, weeping. Unfortunately from the angle you can’t see who’s name is on the tombstone.

Rogue feels the altered perceptions leave her but struggles to hold on to some fragments of Destiny's memory in addition to her own memory of the experience and manages to repeat back to herself something that she thinks is important enough times that it settles in as a memory of her own.

As she's doing so she feels Destiny gently lifting her back to a seated position. The woman has restored her mask and glove but her air is clearly concerned. "Rogue? Rogue are you all right?"

Rogue struggles to get up but has to settle for sitting upright as her legs aren't doing quite what they're told yet.

"Oh God! Oh #%*#! It can't ever be fluffy kittens or ice cream in store for us." She reaches out her gloved hand to grasp Destiny's, gently. "How can you cope with all that? How can you balance that and not lose yourself? Just a taste and I'm ... "

"I have been living with it since I was 14. You adapt." The older woman sighs. "At this point I don't remember it any other way."

Rogue says. "So. X-Men. Stop. ... Right. Get right on that."

"They're over this way, if you want to give me a ride" Destiny points downtown.

Rogue puts her glove back on, offers something like her usual smile to Destiny, scoops her up with care and takes to the air. "I'm gonna head up high so they'll see us coming and I can see what we're flying into. Hold on tight."

She is as good as her word and takes to the air heading steeply upward and angled towards the conflict.

After a few seconds she can make out a pair of blue furred figures on a roof. Rogue hardly needs Destiny's sight to realize that's a good place to start.

Page 20-22: X-Men sans Rogue

Angel lands atop one of the police vehicles, gently placing Phoenix on the roof before bracing himself and flapping his wings with considerable force. The sudden blast of wind forces the remaining airborne silt far up the street, clearing the air and giving the X-Men a view of the scene.

“Yup. The X-Men have been here,” he mutters.

While Nightcrawler catches Mystique, Ariel dips down and picks up the skull-shaped gadget, then hovers in front of the captive watching developments.

Nightcrawler looks at Mystique - who has returned to a shape so eerily like his own - and then looks up to Ariel.

Kurt asks, "Ariel, is Phoenix okay? I'm not getting any contact."

"Angel has her safe," Ariel responds. "No thanks to you," she adds to Mystique's unconscious form. Then, without needing to be asked, she pulls a set of plastic handcuffs out and tosses it to Nightcrawler, keeping a wary eye on their "prisoner" the while.

"I don't think I recognize this style," she says thoughtfully, examining the gadget for a moment.

Nightcrawler quickly secures Mystique with the handcuffs and removes her skull-motif utility belt, then frisks her for any other hidden 'presents' she might surprise the X-Men with later. Not surprisingly, he finds none. After checking Colossus is back on his feet, Nightcrawler motions to Ariel. "Kitty, you're a better spokesperson than I am in front of the cameras."

He adds with a wry grin, "It's your lucky day, you're the team leader for any press interviews. Get over to the police and start explaining ourselves."

Kitty is looking past his shoulder and Kurt spins. Before he can make out the trouble Ariel yells "Colossus, the building!"

Colossus, going from a slow recovery to a galvanized jump, braces himself against one of the buildings - one whose foundation suffered distinct damage from Avalanche's power.

Angel, who had been helping Phoenix unsteadily to her feet, sends out the first message across her renewed telepathic link Kurt, I think you need to get Mystique somewhere you can question her. The rest of us can handle this. he looks up at the collapsing building I hope....

Phoenix, Ariel thinks urgently, can you tell if there's anyone still inside that building?

About three dozen. Phoenix response, I'll try to get them to group up so it's easier to evacuate them

Which ones are furthest up? Ariel asks, already moving through the air toward the building.

Can you reach Rogue? asks Colossus, telepathically. I need her help if this building's going to stay up long enough for the evacuation.

Kurt checks Mystique's cuffs before replying to Warren. Understood. I'll get her up on the roof on some building nearby and stay in contact. I hate to say it but we need to make this situation look good for the X-Men. A timely rescue would help us a lot in the media

With that Nightcralwer and Mystique vanish in a cloud of smoke.

I've made contact with Rogue, Phoenix sends, But she's in the middle of something; I'm not sure she can finish up before the building falls down

Colossus does his best to improve his grip on the building, shifting himself to fully replace the furthest outlying of the pillars that Avalanche's power had crumbled. The effort is incredibly taxing, especially on top of the damage he took earlier, but he's able to get himself more or less in place before his foot slips. If he were human this would have wrenches his ankle but he's able to recover, albeit in an uncomfortable position. Everyone can see the entire building sway slightly, and one person who had already fled to the roof slip and start a long fall to the ground.

Phoenix Reaches out and feels the panicked minds of the people inside the building. Her telepathy subtly suppresses their emotions as she directs them to either down around the emergency stairs or up into a central conference room large enough to hold the eighteen people and await rescue.

[A woman, in office attire, curled up under her desk] Sandra has been having had a very bad day. First, they were out of eggs, and her husband insisted she make a special trip to get them so he could cook the kids breakfast, making her late for work. Then, she got yelled at by her boss, and finally, there was a battle outside and the building started shaking. Since then, she's completely shut down.

However...Sandra? Sandra's your name, isn't it?

[A picture of Sandra, surrounded by scary pschyedelia---fading into her looking warm and comfortable in a bed and covered by blankets. Looking through the window is a large red and yellow (Like Rachel's in full Phoenix mode) eyeball] "Yes, I'm Sandra. What--what's going on?"

I'm Phoenix -- of the X-Men. It's going to be all right. "Ok, I feel...relaxed."

Good. It's been scary, but we're going to get you out. Now, here's what you're going to do.

[A small crowd of men and women screaming and shoving at one another in front of a collapsed stairwell]

Throughout the building, Phoenix touches the minds of the panicked residents. [The same crowd, now calmer and more relaxed, helping one another out through a door, a Phoenix aura hovering behind them]

Calming them, filling them with contentment and pleasant warmth

[A liveried elevator operator helping a businesswoman with her baby, the molding on the wall behind them outlined in Phoenix fire]

And directing them to help one another--and gather to where they can most easily be rescued.

Ariel, following Phoenix's instructions, flits through the building to find the mass of people who are filtering calmly into the conference room. Despite her young age her demeanor, added to Phoenix' telepathy, is more than sufficient to keep the office workers calm. Now she's left with the problem of how to best evacuate eighteen people when she can, right now, carry no more than 4 or 5 at a time. The building sways disturbingly, which focuses the mind.

Ariel is seen saying to a cluster of surprisingly calm office-building denizens, "And whatever you do, *don't let go.*" The people link hands and, dubious but generally trusting of the heroine who seems so sure of herself. She takes the front hand and concentrates, trying hard not to make it look like a struggle, and takes off at her best possible speed given the circumstances. There are several gasps from the assembled crowd as the first half of the room takes off through the wall with her. She drops them off just past the police barricade and turns around to fly back at her full speed, streaking away from the crowd.

I've got it, Angel sends across the telepathic link. He was already airborne looking to see if there was anyone who needed to be airlifted to a hospital, dives for the person falling off the roof. He catches him by the barest of margins and hammers at the air with his wings to keep both of them from slamming into the ground.

"Woah! A little too close for comfort," he says as he skids to a landing in front of an emergency services vehicle a block away, "But any landing you can walk away from, right?"

With a grin he takes to the air again, circling back to assist however possible. To the rest of the team he sends That guy needed a few less extra cream cheese bagels, I'm telling you.

Colossus, doing is best to hold the building up, and manages to get his feet braced underneath him. He can see some police running past him to the lobby of the building where they start escorting dazed people in the lobby out. Their faces are grimly determined as his, but there is a moment when one makes eye contact with a "I can't believe he's doing this" look on his face.

A bird made of yellow, red, and orange flames surrounds Phoenix, and she flies/levitates up towards the top of the building. As she approaches, the bird begins to push against the top, trying to level it out, and a fiery diffusion begins to spread out along the wall where it's pushing.

Colossus can't feel any change in the weight of the building, but the increasing rain of debris - rocks, glass shards from imploding windows, falling office chairs - stops dead, giving the emergency services workers greater freedom to shuttle people out of harm's way.

Ariel reappears through the wall into the conference room and holds out her hand. The remaining evacuees - all men, having let the women and interns out first - are ready for her and the front most one, clearly a sales executive with his chiseled good looks and bespoke suit, clasps her hand with a relieved smile. The group flit through the walls into the sunlight and as she lands with them Ariel hears something unexpected:

Cheering.

Peter gives a sort of yeah-that's-just-how-it-is-just-doing-my-job grunt to the cop, and will do his best to keep holding up the building. The fire wall at the Phoenix's feet extends downward covering the entire wall, as Phoenix strives to present it as a single surface that Colloseus and Rogue can push upon.

Colossus can feel the force field form around the building, and is able to go from being an ad hoc support to actually trying to right the lean now that he has a single object to push against. With an incredible heave he pushes the fiery wall upward and back into place. Colossus feels the building shift back onto its foundation, the sway at least temporarily halted.

"Well I'll be damned," The man in the bespoke suit next to Ariel says "they did it. THEY DID IT!"

Page 23: Nightcrawler and eventually Rogue

Nightcrawler appears on the roof of a nearby building, out of sight of the people on ground, and plops Mystique down before stepping far enough away that she can’t knife him, but not so far that she has time to shoot him.

The eerily physiologically similar woman is regaining consciousness from his earlier assault and recovering from the effects of the teleport. After a second she looks up at him and smiles.

“Good. I’m glad to see this is going to plan,” she tosses Kitty’s handcuffs to him. “I trust there’s a rescue effort underway?”

"Ja," Kurt returns the smile, all sharp teeth, as he catches the handcuffs. "We X-Men are predictable like that."

"Not so much with your Brotherhood though. What are you hoping to get out of this? Not the rescuing team members. I get that. But the rest?"

His voice trails off as he regards Mystique with undisguised confusion.

"If I were to tell you the collapsing building were just a fortune of war I almost think you'd believe me." There's a sense of disappointment in her eyes when she continues. "If I arrange a public opportunity for the X-Men to rescue people it might be because I need them to look good. You're currently working with my daughter, so I have a vested interest in your well-being."

"Come off it, Mystique. You want Rogue back? Talk it out. You want the X-Men's help? You ask. But this attack? It is madness and terror for the sake of it. With your powers taking back the prisoners would have been easier and less risky in transit, not in the heart of NYC."

"It's madness and terror, but not for their own sake," she replies. "Not that I have a problem with that, but it's madness and terror that will bump up the X-Men's public profile as heroes. You do want that, right? That's why you had teams all across North America digging people out of the rubble and getting bricks heaved at them for it? Well..." she gestures to towards the clean-up, "here it is. And that greater respectability will make Rogue safer in the long run."

"Things are about to get bad, Nightcrawler. Very bad. Don't believe me? Ask her."

And she points up to the approaching figures of Rogue and Destiny.

Kurt glances up at the airborne arrivals with a frown. "Bad? What do you know? What has Destiny seen?"

"Enough," Mystique says, then continues languidly, "You die, she dies. Everybody dies."

"Hello Rogue," she continues in a brighter tone. "You look well. Can you explain the situation to your teammate?"

Rogue approaches the group, still supporting Destiny. Addressed to Mystique "Mom." Their eyes meet for a brief moment but communicate a lot.

"Please, help Destiny. She's still very drained ... after ..."

Mystique holds out a hand which Destiny takes, gratefully.

Rogue turns to Nightcrawler "I saw what she saw. She offered. Let me share it. It's fragmented and layered with possibilities but right now the future isn't looking good. I can't sort it all out into a clear path. If the Professor could help ... I'd ask Phoenix but, ... well, ... given her traumas I'm not sure the inside of my head is a safe place for her to go digging right now. ... Destiny says Pyro and the Blob need to be free, the least bad outcome for everyone. She believes what she's saying is true, that much is crystal."

Mystique glances between Rogue and Nightcrawler and says "and with that we're leaving. Rogue, please take care of yourself."

As they're about to vanish into the shadows Mystique looks back at the X-men, "A future where mutants are hunted, killed and held in chains? That's what we're looking at since Phoenix interfered, and we're all going to pay the price."

Page 24: Forge

The page is cut in thirds, where the top third is two panels, the middle third is two panels and the bottom third is a single panel. The top four are all shots of Forge in dim light, with someone talking to him. The voice balloons talking to him are coming from the left in the left panels and from the right on the right panels, and Forge is being drawn from two different angles as well.

Panel One: Forge is pulling on a black boot. You can’t see anything of his outfit past that. Off Panel: “I’m surprised you hadn’t accepted an offer to work with us sooner. Your background completely fits our profile.”

Forge: “I’ve never been much of a joiner. More of a draftee. This outfit feels awfully tight.”

Panel Two: Forge is tying his longish hair back into a pony tail. Off Panel: “It symbolizes the age of the morality under which we have chosen to operate, when the gifted and powerful were more free to exercise that right.”

Forge: “Uh huh. And how does that symbolism work for the women?”

Off Panel: “I suspect they like the disarming effect it has.”

Forge: “Uh huh. I’ll refrain from asking tem – it seems dangerous”

Panel Three: Forge is removing a bandage from the back of his neck. Off Panel: “Are you sure you’re up for this? The organization can be very dangerous.”

Forge: “After seeing Gyrich in space it’s hard for me to trust that the warm fuzzies of ‘good’ mutants will carry the day. This is becoming a clandestine war, and I have to pick a side.”

Panel Four: Forge is shooting the cuffs on his coat. Off Panel: “Very wise of you to realize that. Many other men haven’t, to their dismay. But now Forge, let me induct you, now and forever…”

Panel Five: This is the whole width of the page, and shows Sebastian Shaw opening the door into an ornate chamber containing, Emma Frost, Tran Coy Mahn, Miss Tess and Emmanual DaCosta.

“Into the Hellfire Club!”

“And just in time to see to the demise of the X-Men!” Coy Mahn adds with an evil grin.