X-MEN ETERNITY

New X-Men #1: "Invictus"
Rated PG-13 for violence and language

by R. John Burke

DISCLAIMER: The X-Men are a copyright of Marvel Comics. I don't own them, but this is only non-profit fan fiction. No money is involved and no infringement is intended.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: X-Men Eternity started (in Uncanny #1: The Shattering) with the events at the end of "House of M" and went in a different direction. Nothing that happened after that is cannon for our purposes, and in fact a few things have changed. If you like, consider this Reality 777. No disrespect is meant to the comics whatsoever.

"New X-Men: Eternity" is a sister series following the adventures of a splinter group of X-Men whom the House of M reality-shift left trapped in the future.

--

The world had been fire; now it was darkness.

Ororo Munroe stirred, groaned, but could not bring herself to rise. Her muscles ached as though she had been run over by a truck-- or a rampaging homicidal telepath. Given her previous history, the mutant called Storm had an idea she knew which was more likely.

"Where...?" she groaned, not addressing anyone in particular, certainly not expecting an answer.

But she got one: "I don't know. I don't remember anything."

Storm opened her eyes. It was dark, but she could barely make out his outline: Forge lay beside her, Forge the Maker, the techopath, and her sometimes-love. Curiouser and curiouser.

He seemed to feel the same way, quirking an eyebrow in unspoken question. He sounded as bad as she felt, and mumbled, "Either I was very drunk... or something is very wrong."

"The latter, I think."

Storm forced herself to sit up. They were in a room, a long ward filled with beds. The beds were all filled with people, sleeping or trying to sleep. Some of their forms were misshapen, irregular; one, in a corner, read from a tattered paperback by the light of his glowing eyes.

"Mutants," Storm murmured.

"I noticed. Ororo, what's the last thing you remember?"

She thought back. "Genosha. The Scarlet Witch."

"Huh," said Forge. "Haven't seen Wanda in a while. How's she doing?"

"She's... been better..."

Before Forge could question, a siren blared. The lights came up. One of the mutants screamed; another jumped out of bed and ran right through the wall. The door imploded, propelled inward by a huge mutant with enhanced strength.

"Raid!" he cried. "It's a raid!"

Storm had not the foggiest notion what was going on, but in the middle of a panic, that's not really a problem: one follows the flow of the crowd, or one gets trampled. She grabbed Forge's hand and dragged him along beside her, while he tried to gawk at the crowd around them.

"We're lucky," he said. "They're giving us some space."

"Yes," said Storm. "But it's not luck. I'm chilling the air in our immediate vicinity, to discourage them. I don't like being crowded."

"I remember." Forge's teeth chattered. "Could you, erm, discourage them a little less? I live in Dallas; 80 degrees is a cold front..."

"It won't be much longer."

They followed the crowd into a hidden back room, then through a trap door into damp, dark tunnels that reminded Storm entirely too vividly of the Morlocks. Just when she thought she might not care to go on, she heard screams from the back of the crowd. She turned...

This time it was Forge who held onto her. "Ororo, you'll never get through!"

"But... they are suffering... I could fly to..."

"You try to kick up that kind of wind in this tunnel, you'll kill people. Come on, we'll deal with this when we're above-ground!"

She knew he was right; she followed. It didn't make it any easier when the screams grew louder.

Five minutes later, she began to fear she would never see "above-ground" again. The tunnels grew smaller, and seemed to close in on her with every step. Before long, she was hip deep in sludge, feeling... things... slither past her in the dark.

At length, though-- at interminable length-- she caught the scent of air, not particularly fresh, but air at least. She followed it along with the rest of the mutants, almost running at the end as the water receded, and finally emerged from a broad outlet pipe into a muddy river basin.

It was night when they emerged; at her first glimpse of stars, Storm shot into the sky, the Wind-Rider once again, reveling in sudden freedom...

And then, suddenly, she stopped. Spun around. Her mouth hung open. The landscape opened up before her, the river bed giving way to rolling hills... and a city like none she'd seen on Earth. It reminded Storm more of the Shi'ar; great buildings with flashing holographic displays, small vehicles flittering to and fro in the air, crystalline towers that did not appear new, yet would not-- could not have been built, even with technology Storm would have called state of the art.

She fluttered back to Earth, eyes wide, and took Forge's hand when her feet touched down.

“You're going to love this place,” she said.

“That your way of telling me we're not in Kansas anymore?”

“I do not know where we are,” Storm told him, “but I will learn.”

--

Colonel Matthew Gregson was a lucky man. Unlike most men, he had a purpose in life, and he knew what it was, and he was -good- at it.

Matthew Gregson was a “fixer.” In general terms, it meant he went into sticky situations and produced tactical victory from the jaws of defeat. In specific terms, mostly, he hunted mutants.

One of his soldiers ran up to him and saluted. “Colonel, sir! Our Hounds have swept the installation. It was a mutie-haven, all right. Estimate maybe two, three hundred. Some beta-levels, at least one alpha... but, sir, we killed only a few dozen. Most of them escaped.”

Gregson felt the silken material of his gloves between his fingers as his hands closed into fists. “Our... leak?”

“Sir, I don't know. They're gone, is all.” The soldier hesitated. “We... did capture a few, sir. Must've been blasted or something, because they didn't even wake up when we stormed the room. One of them's the alpha I mentioned.”

“Bring them here,” said Gregson, and the soldier departed.

It was nearly dawn. Gregson, a tall man in impeccable gray uniform with a neat fringe of blond beard, took a deep breath and exhaled a cloud of steam. Mutants, all right. Living in filth; he could smell it in the air. It suited them.
A moment later, the soldiers came back, with three muties in tow. They shambled along, still half-asleep. They -were- blasted, or worse, and seemed in a relatively harmless state.

Gregson's aide, a young brunette lieutenant, slapped a gene-scanner into his hand, and Gregson ran his own evaluation of the mutants.

“Get that thing out of my face,” said the first one, a huge black man with an 'M' tattoo over his eye that marked him as having been to the camps. He would likely go there again; his power appeared to be standard energy-based. Dangerous, but nothing special.

Gregson grabbed him by the chin. “You're going to want to watch your mouth when addressing me, son.”

“I am not your son and I'll watch my mouth if you'll watch your back. Second these clowns don't have me in irons, I'll break you in half.”

Gregson laughed; he admired spirit. He walked down the line.

The second mutant didn't -look- nearly so dangerous; she was a short, slight redhead with wide, nervous eyes and a skittish way about her. But the scanner came up red: She was an Alpha, TP/TK.

“Well,” he said, gazing down at her. “Hello, little girl. Does your mommy know you're here?”

She said a vile word that undermined her apparent innocence. Gregson laughed again.

“I like you,” he said. “I have that talent, I know instantly about people. Muties, too. We're going to be friends... once you're properly trained as a Hound.”

Well. You would have thought he'd gone and told the girl her pet died. They had enough inhibitors in the area to de-power the Phoenix herself, but that didn't stop the girl. She kicked and screamed and nearly bit the ear off one of the soldiers binding her; even her friends tried to soothe her, but she wouldn't be calmed. At length, a corpsman appeared to tranquilize her. She stopped thrashing, but the fury didn't quite leave her eyes.

“-Never- be a Hound again,” she mumbled. “Die first. -Never-.”

“We'll see,” Gregson said, and smiled. He walked down the line.

The third one, another girl, was only slightly larger than the first, but much more athletic. She was not a pretty thing; she was a fighter. Her long, dark hair half-covered eyes that smoldered. Gregson stepped away from her instinctively.

Then her story got even stranger: The scanner flashed, not red, but yellow.

Gregson frowned at the soldier who'd brought her. “You've botched it, son. This one's not a baseline mutie.”

“Sir?” the man frowned.

“She's got the X-gene, alright, but it's a pale imitation.” He allowed the youth to look at the scanner. “She's a Second.”

“What'd you call me?” the girl growled.

“You're a cheap knockoff, dear. A clone.”

“Damn straight,” said the girl. “Would you like to know what I'm a clone of?”

“Anyone special?”

“Your worst nightmare,” the girl said, and popped her claws.

The sound-- SHIKT!-- hadn't even stopped ringing in Gregson's ears before two of his soldiers were dead. The big man joined in the fight this time, perhaps recognizing an opportunity, but the odds were too great. A few moments later, they were both on the ground, unconscious.

“Well,” said Gregson, kneeling beside the girl, “that's better. It's good to get it out of your system, dear. You've nothing to lose.”

She looked almost peaceful with her eyes closed. She might have been any random innocent, save for the long, metallic implements she'd produced, still slick with the blood of Gregson's men.

“Adamantium,” he said, studying them. “Didn't you get the surgeon general's warning, girl? That stuff's no good for you.”

“She must have a healing factor,” his aide said. “It'll poison her bloodstream if we don't get her out of inhibitor range.”

Gregson quirked an eyebrow. “Yes, by all means, let's make her even -more- dangerous.”

“Well, sir, I..."

“Let her rot. I've no use for clones.” Gregson stood. “Bring the Alpha; ship the others down to Vicksburg. We're done here.”

There followed a flurry of activity, as his soldiers bundled up their captives and moved out. Gregson stared off into the hills, now visible in the first rays of the sun rising behind him. It would be a hot, sticky Missouri day; a good day, he judged. They'd cleared a town of muties.

If only there weren't millions of the bloodsuckers waiting somewhere west of those hills, mankind might be getting somewhere. But they wouldn't be talked out of existence; they would have to be pushed back, a town at a time, a state at a time, until the United States of America was once again a place where all -men- were created equal... with the beasts of the Earth where they belonged, at their feet.

That was Gregson's purpose, and he was not alone. Behind him stood the black flag with the familiar emblem, America clutched in a golden talon. It was the emblem of Invictus, the Army of the Sapien Race, and they were on the attack, with Gregson as the point of the spear.

He wouldn't have it any other way.

--

Hank McCoy, the blue-furred, felinoid mutant scientist known as the Beast, knew he had a formidable brain, one of the best on the planet. Unfortunately, at the moment that brain felt as light as a wiffle ball. Possibly a wiffle ball that had been pounded several times with a titanium bat.

He woke up in an alley, with a newspaper covering his face and rats nibbling his fur. It was, safe to say, the most humiliating experience of his life save for that time with the dingle ball... but Hank didn't like to think about that. He chased off the vermin and rose unsteadily to his feet, taking note of his surroundings...

Warm, perhaps early summer. Thin air. That explained it-- but he shouldn't be -this- light-headed, should he? With a final growl in the direction of the rats, Hank staggered out into blinding sunlight.

Almost immediately, someone bumped into him. A man-- a boy, really, perhaps eighteen years old. He sported long hair and well-worn clothing, and was much too thin to make an impression on Hank, although he tumbled to the ground himself.

Hank offered him a hand-- well, a claw up. "Are you all right, son?"

The boy flinched. "Please-- I'm sorry! Don't hit me!"

"It's all right. I know I look a little... peculiar... but I'm just a..."

"I know, sir! And I'm sorry, honest! I'll watch where I walk! I... I have a family, sir. Please don't report me."

"-Report- you? Gracious, boy, what's the..."

A heavy footstep, at his side. A rough voice said, "This punk botherin' you, Sir Henry?"

"Sir...?" Hank caught himself when he saw who he was speaking to: Fred Dukes, alias The Blob. Seven hundred pounds of antisocial tendencies. Only he had white hair now, and he was wearing... what looked like a uniform of some sort.

"Why... no, officer, I... merely had a small run-in, you might say, with the boy." Hank frowned at him. "You... don't recognize me, do you"
Dukes laughed. "'Course I do, Sir Henry. I see ya walk this way to the Institute all the time. You don't look so good, though; y'want I should call you a ride?"

"No, that's quite all right," Hank said, helping the boy up and scooting him on his way. "Thank you."

Dukes watched the boy go. "Eh, don't mention it. Ask me, though, shoulda let me run the little beggar in. We're gonna have to squish all the Normals pretty soon anyhow. What's one more?"

Hank watched his eyes while he spoke: he wasn't even a little bit joking. With a shudder, the Beast turned and walked away, hoping he could find his way to... The Institute. Presumably Xavier's, but the problem was, this wasn't Westchester.

It turned out to be-- judging by street signs and building names-- downtown Denver, Colorado. But not any form of Denver that he was familiar with. For one thing, all the technology was at -least- twenty years too advanced. For another, it was simply bizarre.

As in the last reality Hank McCoy had called home, the world known as the 'House of M' which he now realized to be false, mutants were on top here. But that dimension had been specifically created by Wanda Maximoff to be a worldwide mutant paradise. Here... Hank stopped in a park to watch the large holographic screen at its center.

"--fighting continues along the Mississippi basin today, as Loyalist armies continue to battle the human terrorist cell calling themselves Invictus for control of the nation's midwest and bread basket..."

"Invictus..." Hank sounded out the name. "Latin word meaning 'unconquered.' Also a poem: 'I am the captain of my soul.' Charming."

"...several vicious strikes against civilian targets in Missouri, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Thousands of mutants are feared dead. Minister of State Pryde today issued a statement denouncing the attacks as 'vile acts of murder' and calling for immediate reprisals, to take back the stolen territory..."

"Kitty?" Hank murmured, wishing suddenly for an aspirin. -The Institute. I'll have a better chance of finding answer there. Erm, wherever there may be.- He turned from the screen, toward the park exit...

"--and in Los Angeles, the hunt continues for the vigilante traitor calling herself 'Spider-Girl,' still at large after embarking on a cross-country terror spree last month..."

Locating the Institute didn't turn out to be as difficult as he'd thought: There was a computer interface on practically every corner, and after some experimentation, he was able to get one to respond to his voice-print:

"Greetings, Sir Henry. What can X-Net do for you today?"

"'Sir Henry' again," Hank muttered. "I'm not the Dark Beast in this reality, am I? I so hate being the Dark Beast... unrestrained evil makes my soul itchy..."

"Question not understood."

"Never mind," he said. "Just direct me to the Institute."

The Institute turned out to be the Xavier Memorial Institute, just off Essex Boulevard, next to what had been Alamo Placita Park and was now the Grey Plaza. Hank arched an eyebrow at that. Cabs practically lined up to take him to his destination, while humans who might have been waiting on the corner for hours with no response covertly cast him dirty looks.

The Xavier Memorial Institute turned out to be a crystalline building, shorter than some of the others but wider. A welcoming hologram displayed Hank's own beaming, bespectacled face. Hank reflected he was (for once) fortunate to have his fur, and that he hadn't gone gray except a bit near the nose; -he- could tell that he was at least a couple of decades older in that picture, but apparently those with a more standard appearance didn't make the distinction.

Indeed, the few people he ran into smiled and nodded; a few were surprised to see him-- apparently he was supposed to be out of town-- but nobody thought much of it. Hank made it all the way up to his office on the top floor without raising any eyebrows. And that's when it started to fall apart.

He found himself facing a wide, broad desk-- with an unconscious teenage girl on top of it. And in the chair, behind the desk, another woman: beautiful, exotic, ever-so-slightly sneering.

"Hello, Doctor McCoy. Or should I say, Sir Henry?"

"Monet St. Croix. You appear to have aged well."

"It's the skin cream," Monet said. "Also the fact that twenty or thirty years haven't passed for me as, apparently, they have for everyone else."

An ally! An insufferable one! But it counted!

"Nor for me," he said, with a sigh of relief.

"Really? I couldn't tell. You look just like your picture."

Hank snorted. "Check the snout next time. I'm a greybeard."

"They make a lovely blueberry dye for that; it's in all the shops here. Wherever here is."

"Let's start with the girl on my desk." He approached, studying her. "One of Emma's Cuckoos, yes? Which one is she?"

"I really couldn't be bothered to say." Monet shrugged. "When I woke up, there she was, so I brought her here. I assumed you'd be the man who'd know about this sort of thing; besides, you're ever so popular on this world. I couldn't make a move past those giant screens without seeing you shill for some product or other. Did you know there are two different Beast action figures? Ape -and- feline versions. With spring-loaded action."

"I'm honored."

"No doubt. -I've- never been an action figure, and my powers are so much more impressive." To prove the point, and her growing frustration as well, Monet picked up a vase off Hank's desk and crushed it to powder. "Where the hell are we, Doctor McCoy? And where, pray tell, is the exit?"

"I don't know." Hank reached out to the girl on the desk and shook her gently. "Oh, Sleeping Beauty? Come now, Princess, we can't have you snoozing the day away on my desk; it's unsanitary..."

No response at first; then, suddenly, she gasped and grabbed his wrist, hard.

"There's a girl," Hank said. "Erm, not to be rude, but... -which- girl are you?"

"All of them."

"Oh." Monet snorted. "-That's- helpful."

"But that's only my mind. The rest of me... is Esme."

Hank pulled his hand away. "That's... not possible. Esme is dead."

"What was it you said, Dr. McCoy?" the girl smiled and sat up. "Nothing stays buried."

"Okay," said Monet. "Enough."

She stepped around the desk, grabbed Hank's arm, and pulled him out of the office, glancing back at the teenager in irritation as the door closed behind them. Monet looked both ways down the corridor, found it empty, and demanded: "Is she really the dead one?"

"I haven't the foggiest."

"If she is, can I re-kill her?"

Hank pulled at his whiskers, thinking hard. "Perhaps... it's -this- timeline's Esme..."

"Oh, I don't think so, Doctor."

"I admit she looks young, but..." Hank trailed off as, in response, M grabbed him by the fur of his chin and pointed him at what she was looking at: A door had just opened on the other end of the corridor. In the room beyond, there was a TV screen, and the screen showed a press conference with the words "BREAKING NEWS" at the bottom.

Emma Frost was on the screen, somewhat older than the Emma he knew, but still looking well. In the background, Hank could see adult versions of the Cuckoos, all -five- of them, thus settling the whereabouts of this timeline's Esme. But none of that was what caught Hank's attention. What caught Hank's attention were the words of Emma's speech:

"Henry McCoy was a great man," she said, "probably our greatest ambassador for peace. His death this morning-- his -murder- by a ruthless enemy, under a flag of truce-- only points out the necessity of continuing this fight until the end."

By the time Emma had finished her statement, and the little graphic showing Henry McCoy's face, with a "Death Date" of 2032 had appeared on the screen, the corridor was no longer empty. A small crowd had gathered, all of them staring, wide-eyed, at the Beast who was supposed to be dead.

"Look at it this way," Monet murmured. "Your memorabilia's about to skyrocket..."

--

Lucas Bishop was not a happy man.

Bad enough the Universe had to go and hop the track on him while he wasn't looking. Bad enough he woke up in some slimehole on a world entirely too reminiscent of the Dismal Potential Futures he knew too well. Now they'd separated him from his teammate, loaded him on some kind of a damn hovering truck, and were cheerfully driving him someplace where he'd probably get killed. -And- that twerp in the funky uniform had called him "son." -Nobody- called Bishop "son."

To his mind, this meant something needed to explode, preferably soon. But first he had to take care of a junior teammate who was doubled over beside him. He ran a hand through her hair, comforting as much as he could-- which didn't seem to be much.

"How are you feeling, girl?"

"Sick as a dog." Laura Kinney, refugee of the Weapon X program with the rather simple moniker of X-23, couldn't even lift her eyes to look at Bishop. "They did something..."

"It's the adamantium lacing your claws. Your system can't handle it." Bishop looked around; the small chamber in back of the truck was empty save for them. "If you had a whole skeleton of the stuff like Logan, you'd be dead already."

"...Hooray for me?"

"We have to get you out of here. In the meantime, claws -out-. I dunno if that'll help much, but... can't hurt."

"No healing factor. Wounds'll bleed."

Bishop frowned. "Well, you popped 'em once already. That won't get much worse, either."

"Right," X-23 muttered. With a groan, she flexed her fists and... SHIKT. She winced when she looked at them. As predicted, her blood flowed. She didn't make a sound, though, until she said, "Should've hit 'em earlier, when Rachel went berserk."

Bishop shook his head. "Wouldn't have gone anywhere. Had no plan. She wasn't trying to escape, just to kick ass."

"I'd not adverse to the kicking of ass."

"I know it, but bide your time." Sitting there, looking at her, Bishop wanted to curse. She was a -girl-, should have been in high school, but she was trained to kill. No, born to kill, and mutilated 'till they turned her into a weapon. He shook his head.

"What the hell kind of world we livin' in?"

"I have a better question," X-23 said. "What the hell kind of world did we wake -up- in?"

Good question. Bishop steepled his fingers, making plans. "One I intend to live to see in my rearview mirror..."

--

Rachel Grey was drugged out of her mind. They had to keep her in that state; if she'd had full access to her teke for even five minutes... well, a whole lot of sorry humans would have regretted it. On the flip side, if they forced her to access her telepathy again, to be a Hound and work for them... an awful lot of mutants would regret it. Rachel wouldn't allow that... in her lucid moments. There weren't many of those.

She couldn't even move her head, kept staring at the gray ceiling of whatever transport they'd stowed her in. She kept thinking she saw her mother-- well, either her real mother or the Jean Grey of Reality 616, who were pretty much interchangeable in her mind. Half the time she dreamed her mother was somehow disappointed in her, and she thought that might be significant. Of course, the other half of the time she dreamed of purple tap-dancing clowns with green polka-dots, so maybe it wasn't.

And then there was the time when she woke up, perfectly sober for a moment, remembering a conversation she'd had with Logan once. He'd called her maybe the only X-Man besides Kurt who wasn't a hard case.

-He has no idea,- she thought. -I'm the hardest case of all. In a second, I would annihilate this planet and kill everyone on it before I'd let them use me again. In a -second-.-

As she fell back into hazy dreams, Rachel thought that maybe that was what made her a disappointment. Rachel Grey was far too much a Phoenix. Her mother might have hoped for a daughter somewhat further from the tree.

It was some time before she thought anything coherent again. She heard noises during this time, and screams, but couldn't be sure how much of it was real. When the vehicle lurched to a halt in reality, it kept moving for her, and when rough hands seized her to drag her out of the vehicle, Rachel wondered if they were her mother's hands, or just more clowns.

That was when she thought her last coherent thought of the evening, when she was out of the vehicle, under the stars, and the man with the glowing eye was peering down at her.

-Pretty-, thought Rachel, and she passed out.

--

Henry McCoy chuckled wryly, in the manner of a man who knows his own joke isn't very funny but has to tell it anyway, and hopes to coerce you into laughing.

"This is all," he said, "a perfectly innocent misunderstanding..."

"Yes!" Monet agreed. "By all means, do tell them about your... secondary mutation... which made you... immortal?"

Hank quirked an eyebrow in her direction. But it wasn't as though he had a better story. "Erm, you see, gentlemen, I have the ability to temporarily transform into a block of... invulnerable... Styrofoam..."

"You'd better come with me, sir," said one of the Institute's security guards, who was seven feet tall and whose tone brooked no argument.

Hank and Monet shared a look. "Do we want to go with them?"

"No, I don't think we do."

"Just checking," said Hank, and he knocked the guard down with a swipe of his claws.

Things happened fast. They were charging forward, Hank using his acrobatic skills to evade the people who tried to lay hands on them while Monet simply knocked them left and right. Fortunately, except for the security guard, all their assailants seemed to have, well, office-worker mutations, like the inhuman ability to work all day on a cup of decaf. But the sheer volume of them was daunting.

"The office!" Hank said, dodging a pair of hands. "We'll fetch Esme and escape out the window."

Monet leveled a would-be tough guy with about half a punch, then frowned at Hank. "I assume your invulnerable-Styrofoam form has wings, Doctor? Or will I have to carry both of you?"

"The latter, I'm afraid."

"I assumed as much. You have -no- idea what a burden it is to be so infinitely superior to everyone else."

"Are you joking?" Hank asked. "I can't tell."

"That's the fun part. Neither can I."

They ran for the office. Before they could reach it, however, something hard struck Hank in the side of the head. He dropped to hands and knees, the others gathering around him. Monet "tsked" to herself and doubled back for him, but even she might not have been able to defeat them all alone.

At least, not until they all froze in place, slack-jawed and docile.

"Huh," said Hank, climbing slowly to his feet. "Now, I enjoy a good -deus ex machina- as much as the next man, but I must say I'm feeling rather cheated."

Monet only stared at the office door, where Esme had emerged with eyes sparkling white, indicating the use of her telepathic power.

"It's all right," she said. "None of them will remember this. They won't even remember they saw the bulletin. It will be easier that way. Shall we go?"

She walked past them without waiting for an answer, and was halfway to the elevator before Hank could gather his thoughts.

"She has emerged from the grave More Powerful Than We Can Possibly Imagine," he whispered to Monet. "I have the overwhelming urge to hum something by John Williams."

"Dreadful girl," Monet muttered. "I knew we should have killed her."

"Are you certain you could?"

"Please, doctor, I'm allergic to self-doubt..."

Just then, however, the limits of Esme's newfound omnipotence were realized, when the elevator door opened, and a woman with a gun stepped through it. She was impeccably dressed, self-assured, with graying hair and tinted pink sunglasses, over the rims of which she peered at the others.

"Hello, Henry," she said. "Perhaps you'd like to step back inside your office."

"Sage?" he asked, frowning.

"It's just 'Tessa' here. Though perhaps you wouldn't know that." Tessa frowned at Esme, who seemed slightly put out that her telepathy wasn't a cure-all. "Won't work on me, dear. Where your skills are concerned, I am a proverbial island."

"How would you like to be a literal corpse?" said Monet, charging her...

"Don't!" Hank said. He nodded toward the office. "Let's hear what she has to say. If we don't like it... there's always the window."

"I hate the window. I'd never get those shards of glass out of my hair."

"Come on," said Tessa, gesturing with the gun. "I promise, it will be worth your while."

Monet still didn't like it. Neither did Esme. For completeness, it should be noted, neither did Hank. But it seemed to be an offer they could not refuse, so they followed.

--

-Must be careful, Ororo. Wait... wait... now, here they come!-

Storm waved her hand and a thick fog filled the alley, disguising her and Forge from the prying eyes of two passing soldiers. With a little smile, Storm slipped out behind one while Forge's bionic limb snared the other by the throat.

His startled "Urk!" caused his comrade to turn, and she felled him with a single, vicious hit to a pressure point. Logan's training did come in handy at times. They dragged him and his colleague further back into the alley, where Storm dispelled some of the fog.

Forge knelt beside them. The soldiers carried a small personal computer, an advanced PDA, and he spent some time making friends with it.

"Wow," he said at length. "I could absolutely build this."

"You probably invented it. Now, what does it tell you?"

"Three mutants," Forge said, frowning. "Captured not far from our location; from these power signatures, I'm guessing Bishop, Marvel Girl, and... possibly Logan, it's hard to determine."

Storm frowned at the readings. "No, that will be X-23. And we left them behind..."

"We couldn't know."

"Excuses are very convenient, aren't they?" Despite herself, Storm's lip twitched. "In all phases of your life."

Forge sighed. "We'll get them back."

"Where have they been taken?"

He studied the PDA-thing again. "Vicksburg, Mississippi. Looks like there's a prison camp of some kind. You up to a flight?"

"In airspace controlled by these... people? We don't know what's up there." She frowned. "But it -is- faster. Why do we never visit realities where things turned out -well?-"

"At a guess? There are none." Forge groaned and stood. "This is the part, isn't it, where we do something hopeless and stupid and call it heroic?"

"I do," Storm said. "You're better qualified to stay here and learn what we need to know. Get the lay of the land. Find out if we have any allies in this time and place... and whether it's possible to go home."

Forge reached out with his human hand to touch her shoulder. "It will be dangerous to go alone."

"You'd slow me down," Storm said, bluntly enough. Forge made a face and turned aside.

"Ororo... what happened? Did the Scarlet Witch do this?"

"No. The Scarlet Witch did enough, but this is... something else." She nodded at the PDA. "Give me one of those; you take the other. I will contact you when our friends are safe."

"Don't you mean 'if?'" Thunder rumbled in the sky overhead; a bolt of lightning smote the ground less than a meter from Forge's boots. "Right. Silly question..."

--

Laura Kinney struck, and struck, and struck again, but whatever substance their walls were made out of, it would not cut. She was too sick to go properly berserk, but she would happily have spent all day swiping at them with the twin claws from her hands and the single ones mounted on her feet, cursing at the top of her lungs, if Bishop hadn't finally grabbed her and held her back. She struggled with him, too, at first-- if she could have turned, she would have cut his throat-- but finally took a breath.

"Impossible," she said, looking at her claws. "They're -adamantium-. It -has- to cut."

"We're a long way from home," Bishop said. "Maybe not."

"-Damn- them. Twice. I..." She frowned at Bishop. "What're you lookin' at?"

He was, in fact, looking at her feet. "Sorry. I've just always wondered-- what're the foot-claws for? I mean, what possible good are they?"

X-23 snorted. "What? You never got the urge to kill a guy with your feet?"

"Done that. But if you need more than just the big toe, you're an amateur."

He said it so perfectly deadpan, she needed half a minute for it to sink in. Then she let out a single, sharp bark of laughter.

"There!" said Bishop. "You -can- laugh!"

"Sure."

"I wondered if you could."

"You were never funny before."

He released her, smiling himself, then turned to stare at the walls. No hint of a seam, or... anything. Which was wrong. Bishop's bull-- detector... like a Spider-Sense, but less friendly and handier for police work... started going off.

"What?"

"They didn't bind your claws," he said. "Unless they want to commit suicide when you come out sharp-end first, means they're planning to knock you out when we reach our destination."

X-23 nodded. "What... some kind of stun-ray or TASER?"

"Well, maybe... that'd be a complex setup for some random truck, though. Gas would be simpler."

"But if there's gas..." X-23 suddenly smiled, looking like a predator. "There's a vent!"

"Now you're thinking."

"But where? I don't see any..."

"Hold on." Bishop crawled on hands and knees across the chamber, slowly, feeling the vibrations through his hands as they traveled. He couldn't -see- anything but solid wall. Most of the time, he couldn't see fingerprints, either. Didn't mean they weren't there.

For about ten minutes he searched, patiently, a cop looking for clues. He could hear X-23 grumbling in the background, as her frustration mounted. Finally...

"Here," he said, indicating a slight indentation in the top, right-hand corner of a side wall. Nicely camouflaged, but nobody's perfect. Bishop moved back to let X-23 get closer. "See what you can do with that."

"Oh, yeah," she said, feeling around experimentally with one pair of claws. "Yeah. That's gonna cut good."

--

"Amazing," Henry McCoy said as he stared at the holographic globe Tessa had produced. It showed a world divided; mutant-controlled areas were highlighted in red, human-held land in green.

"As you can see, -our- period of mutant domination has brought us no happy endings. General Magnus won our freedom decades ago, defeating the combined forces of the United States and the Soviet Union. We then ruled the world unchallenged... for a time. Until Invictus came."

"I despise that poem, you know," said Monet, leaning casually against the desk. "Radical humans must have terrible taste."

"Regardless, you can see for yourself, they've been effective." Tessa gestured at the globe. "They've retaken Asia and Australia. Africa and South America hang in the balance. And now they've split this continent in two. We retain strongholds in Europe and the American West, but... the momentum is not with us."

Hank growled softly. "And you've been locked in civil war for... how long? Ten years?"

"Closer to fifteen."

"My Lord, the casualties..."

Tessa turned away. "We don't count casualties anymore, Henry. We gave it up."

"Whatever," said Esme from the corner. "Bored now."

"I'm actually with the strange little Stepford person on this," said Monet. "All we want is the exit."

"There is none," said Tessa. "We only build weapons here, not dimensional gateways."

Hank was still staring at the globe. "Your Henry McCoy... he was trying to stop it..."

Tessa nodded. "Henry was probably the last influential voice who still believed it could be settled without blood. Now they've gone and killed him and condemned us to... -this-... forever. So you can imagine my surprise when I come to clean out his office and find... -you-."

"How did you know I wasn't him?"

She laughed. "I'm still the living computer. The fur around your snout is three shades darker, your muscle tone is 7.5 percent better, and you're one-quarter inch taller. He barely showed it, but my Henry was getting old. You're not."

"Tell that to my bursitis," said Hank. He became thoughtful again. "Could... Henry McCoy... really have turned the tide?"

"I..." Tessa hung her head. "I don't know anymore."

"Would you like him to try?"

Even Tessa seemed taken by surprise, but it was Monet who pounded the desk. "Doctor, kindly stop being absurd. We have to go home."

"How can I, Monet? Charles Xavier's teachings... everything I have believed my entire life... they were all to prevent -this- from happening."

"Yes, but none of this is real! It's just an alternate version of what -might-..."

"If you expect the people you meet to prove themselves -real- to you, we may just have isolated your social problem."

"I don't believe this!" Monet said, and paced around the desk. She seemed to be giving serious thought to taking the window after all.

Hank couldn't afford to care. He turned back to Tessa. "Let me stay and help you. Let me -be- your Henry McCoy, for now."

She looked out the window for a long moment before responding. "It will be dangerous."

"I accept that."

"Very well." Tessa cast a look at the girl in the corner. "Esme, will you excuse us for a moment?"

"Yes, dear," said Monet. "Go play with your little statues in the hall."

Apparently unconcerned, Esme rose, walked to the door, and turned. "We know what you're going to say. We don't blame you. But it's going to be okay. You'll learn to trust us."

And she was gone.

"-Really- want to kill her," Monet repeated.

"That might not be the worst idea," Tessa said. "None of Emma's students ever developed such power in my world, even as the Five-in-One. She nearly got through my mental barriers, and that should be impossible."

Hank shrugged. "Since she failed..."

"For the moment. But Henry... is this the limit of her power? Can you trust her?"

"The answer in both cases is 'I don't know.' That's the first thing I'll need, Tessa; access to my lab. I'll want to study Esme... and to find out if Monet and I are alone here, or if others of our friends have followed."

"Fair enough." Tessa's lip twitched. "I wouldn't worry about it, Henry. Your friends are X-Men, yes? If they're here, they'll make their presence felt before long. If you'll excuse me..."

She started to leave, stopped, then stood on tiptoe to kiss the Beast on the cheek. She was gone before he could express surprise, but somewhere past all the fur, Hank knew he was blushing. And, somewhere that seemed very far away, Monet was laughing.

"What?" he grumbled.

"What, you don't see it? -My- Henry... the kiss... wait." Monet rummaged through the desk drawers for a moment, exclaimed when she found what she was looking for, and tossed it to Hank. "See for yourself! You're with Sage in this timeline!"

"I..." Monet's prize turned out to be a small frame, which held a picture of him and Tessa arm-in-arm on the beach... with a small, slightly blue-tinted boy running toward them. Hank cleared his throat his some dignity. "Well... I still don't see what's funny."

"Oh, nothing, nothing, Doctor. I applaud the lady's taste. You're an absolute fox; in fact, you sort of resemble one."

"I'm more than just a pretty face! Perhaps she loved me for my mind."

"Do you think so?" Monet fell into the chair, still chuckling. "How quaint."

Hank crossed his arms. "It isn't funny, Monet. The woman's just lost her husband."

"Not lost, Doctor! Traded up for a younger model!"

Monet laughed again. Hank briefly considered throwing her out that window; since she could fly, it seemed like wasted effort.

"More's the pity," he muttered, and decided to go have a look at his lab.

--

Storm felt that she'd been scanning the countryside for years, but it had really only been a couple of hours. It was at the tail end of the second hour that she met the Keepers.

There were three of them initially, fast, wedge-shaped interceptor craft, painted red-and-black and each about half Storm's size, and so presumably remote-piloted. Or maybe they were just programmed to key in on anything that smelled like a mutant. Whichever, they got on Storm's tail and wouldn't let go.

-And they tried to tell me flying is safer than driving...-

The Keepers opened up on her; Storm wasn't sure what they were firing, some kind of energy burst, but she knew she didn't want to be hit by it again. It made her feel weak; she wondered if there was something in it to disrupt her powers.

They'd have to do better than that. Storm blasted ahead at top speed, the air behind her afire, full of dancing lightning bolts. One of them caught a blast on the wing and shattered, fragments spinning off in every direction. The other two closed ranks behind her, firing even more rapidly.

Storm banked desperately, cutting through the clouds, flying low over cotton and rice fields. The Keepers followed her every move, blasting away. Storm glanced back at them...

When she faced forward again, three more Keepers were coming at her head-on. They'd be on her in seconds. Her eyes went wide; then, suddenly, she grinned.

-I can't really do this, can I? There's no way it will work.-

She let the Keepers approach, enduring their first few blasts, counting silently to herself...

-There is absolutely no way this will...-

She pulled up suddenly, riding a gust of wind. The three Keepers ahead of her smashed headlong into the ones behind her. The fireball knocked Storm for a loop; she struggled to recover...

-It worked. Goddess, that was close...-

She'd barely started to breathe again, when suddenly she found what she was after: A lone vehicle, some sort of truck, skimming low over the main road. It was them; it had to be. Storm took another breath and banked again, eyes glowing white as she summoned the clouds to her will...

ZRACK! A bolt of lighting incinerated the road just in front of the truck; it lurched and rolled, the electromagnetic field that allowed it to hover disrupted by the attack. Storm concentrated again...

KRR-POW! Another near-miss, knocking the truck to the ground, where it weaved dizzily for a moment, then rolled over in a cloud of smoke. With a satisfied smile Storm floated to the ground at the side of the road, as an arm reached out of the truck's cab...

"-Damn-, woman," said a deep voice. "Save it for the bad guys."

Storm whirled, her mouth forming a small 'O.' The doors to the back of the truck were wide open, the compartment behind them empty. Meanwhile, Bishop and X-23 were crawling out of the -front- cab, looking more than a little shaken.

"Am I to assume, then, that you'd already rescued yourselves?"

"Pretty much," said X-23. She was inspecting a nasty gash on her left arm, but the wound closed up before Storm's eyes. "Appreciate the thought, though."

"Think nothing of it. Where is Rachel?"

"We were separated," said Bishop. "They're taking her wherever they take their prize telepaths."

Storm whispered something vile under her breath. "That is her worst nightmare, to be used again. She won't allow it."

"She told 'em. They didn't believe her."

Storm frowned. "Then, my friends, we will have to convince them."

"Best news I've heard all day," said X-23, and she flexed her wrist experimentally:
SHIKT.

--

Rachel Grey was getting rather tired of waking up with a headache. She was wondering why she never had a normal day, like say, eating corn chips and watching too much TV and falling asleep on the couch, as opposed to days where she was lost in the time stream or telekinetically rewrote her own genetic code or... for example... woke up in a dystopian future, was drugged by a lunatic racist, and then kidnapped by her alternate-reality brother, who now sat in a tattered chair across from her bed.

At least, she thought it was her brother; the glowing left eye seemed to be a giveaway. It even looked like him, some. But the dark hair and smooth, unlined face were not what she expected from Nathan Christopher Summers, the mutant she knew as Cable.

She closed her eyes again; the room was lit by candlelight, fairly dim at that, but it was still a little much for Rachel at the moment. She murmured, "Please tell me you're gonna kill me."

"Wasn't planning on it. Tonight. Tomorrow's its own story."

"Well, then I'll just sleep 'till tomorrow, an' you can kill me in my sleep. That sounds peaceful."

"I'd rather ask a few questions." Cable stood, paced a bit. "Such as why you look the way you do."

"Natural beauty. Regular exercise. A really good conditioner helps."

Taking a single step forward, he grabbed a handful of hair and pulled. Rachel gasped.

"Who are you, girl? Why do you look like my mother?"

"I'm gonna say, because she was my mother? Actually, she was a clone of my mother. It's a really long story, involving time travel and destiny and freaky cosmic stuff. Can we just skip to the part where we tearfully hug?"

"My mother was no Second!" he snarled, and released her. "She was Jean Grey, the Phoenix. One of the greatest heroes of our time!"

"Really?" Rachel quirked an eyebrow. "That explains some of the difference, then. In my usual timeline, it was Madeline Pryor, who was... aw, but we're getting complicated again. I still want a hug."

He took a step forward. "Who are you, witch?"

"Rachel Grey. I'm from... well, several different timelines, actually, and... well, forget it. You won't believe me about that either. Our family is -so- screwed up..."

She could feel Cable striking at her mind; she deflected the attack, barely. He had much of the psychic potential of her Cable, and as best she could tell so far, no techno-organic virus to retard his progress. When she fought him off, the signature emblem of her telepathic power appeared over her eye...

Cable gasped and fell back. "The Phoenix force...!"

"Not exactly. Can we please talk about something -simple- now? My head still hurts." Irritated, she closed her eyes again.

-Click-.

Rachel quirked one eye open. The barrel of rather a good-sized gun was staring her in the face, with Cable on the other end of it.

"You want simple, girl? This is simple! No teke, no telepathy, no tricks. Tell me who you are, or I'll blow your head off. Simple enough?"

"Look!" Rachel snarled, knocking the gun aside. "My name is Rachel Grey, I was born Rachel Summers in a timeline entirely too much like this one. My known aliases include the Phoenix, Mother Askani, and That Weird Redheaded Chick Who Once Almost Destroyed the Universe On a Whim. Don't ask. Not important. None of it's important. What's important is: I'm your big sister. I held you in my arms when you were a baby. I -want- to help you, believe me."

Cable frowned. He put the gun away. "I can't but notice, big sister, that you're younger than me."

"Okay, so maybe it wasn't you, but it was a baby named Nathan Christopher Summers who looked just exactly like you, so it counts, dammit!" Rachel sat up in bed with a groan. "Look, I'm sorry. Really. But I cannot explain this in less than two hours. I might need a flow chart."

"I can't get you a chart." Cable scowed, sat down in his chair again, and crosses his arms over his chest. "But I'm not going anywhere."

"Okay," said Rachel, taking a deep breath. "Let's start from the beginning..."

--

Several hours later, with the girl asleep at last, Nathan Christopher Summers stepped into the next room and closed the door behind him. He felt, rather than saw, the shadowy figure approach... as ever, it stuck to the darkness at the very edge of his vision.

--You waste time with her, Nathan Summers.--

"My time to waste," he said quietly.

--It matters not who she is. She is one of them. She must be destroyed.--

"No," Cable told it. "She's my sister."

--She lies.--

"About a story that bizarre? Never. She's either telling the truth, or she's a lunatic. And I felt her mind; she's not a lunatic."

--It matters not,-- the thing insisted. --All must die. I will help you win this war, but all must die. Those are my terms.--

"You can have the others," Cable said, at length. "They don't matter. But Rachel stays with me. Those are -my- terms."

-- Have a care, Nathan Summers. Have a care. I have split reality itself to destroy these creatures. I have chased them across the very fabric of the Universe. I will not be denied.--

Cable whirled on the creature; as always, when he tried to face it directly, it wasn't there. The corner was simply... empty. It was another several minutes before it appeared again, on the edges of his vision.

"Why these?" he asked, when he knew the thing was listening. "You say you've traveled across reality; you must know a dozen different versions of these people. According to Rachel, there's even a version of -me- allied to them! But you don't want to kill me..."

--That you know of,-- said the creature, almost light-hearted.

"Why are they important?" Cable repeated, ignoring him.

--Because I am Slayer,-- the thing said.

"Somebody's been watching Buffy reruns. What the hell does that mean?"

--Guess.--

"Bite me," he replied, which created an impasse. At length he finished, "Fine. Slay 'em all, but -not- Rachel. That is our -new- deal."

--For now,-- said the creature, and it disappeared.

Cable stood in place for a moment, fists clenched and trembling. In a single outburst, he broke all the windows in the room with his teke. Then he took a deep breath and walked away. Tomorrow, he knew, he would be busy.

--

"Are you certain you want to do this?" Tessa asked.

Sitting in his darkened lab with her and Esme, with the results of his tests on the Stepford Cuckoo displaying on one screen and the ominous symbol of Invictus on another, Henry McCoy could only square his shoulders and sigh.

"It's what he would have done."

"It's what got him killed."

"Well... they say lightning can't strike twice."

Tessa smiled. "As a longtime associate of Ororo's, you should know better."

"Er...yes." They seemed to be too close, suddenly. He cleared his throat. "Erm... Tessa... about your relationship with... -your- Henry McCoy..."

"Think nothing of it," she said. "In fact, we divorced. He was no longer the man I married."

"But...I am?"

"Almost exactly," said Tessa with a sad smile. She turned quickly to the computer screen. "It's coming through."

The screen with the Invictus symbol blinked, becoming the image of an intent, sandy-haired main with dark glasses. "You have fifteen seconds."

"Mr. Murdock," Hank said, addressing the Attorney General of the homo sapien-controlled portion of the United States, "I'm sorry I couldn't make our meeting earlier today..."

"I don't mind getting stood up, Dr. McCoy. What I mind is the spin your side is putting on this-- or hadn't you noticed Emma Frost on TV earlier, telling everyone that the proper response to your near-death experience is to kill more humans?"

"Emma was... misguided," Hank said with a smile. "I'll have a talk with her. But you must understand, she thought I was dead."

"So did I," Murdock snapped. "How did you survive, anyway?"

"Good luck and clean living. Disappointed?"

"We didn't--" Murdock stopped short; he actually seemed to count ten before speaking again. "We don't assassinate people, Dr. McCoy. The President would never allow it."

"Then prove it," Hank said. "Don't let this end the peace process. We'll have our meeting as planned, in three days' time, in St. Louis, as agreed. Is that acceptable to you?"

Murdock hissed. "You're putting me in an awkward spot, Doctor..."

Hank stared at him. "Do you want this war to end, Mr. Murdock?"

"Yes," the human said at length. "Three days, Doctor. Don't be late."

The screen blinked off. Tessa made a show of checking her watch.

"I think that actually took twenty seconds."

"But he agreed," said Hank. "It's a beginning. Now, to our other problem..."

Standing from his chair, he made a slow, wary circle around Esme. A genetic scan had confirmed that she was who she said she was; furthermore, a psychic scan had told him something else: She was channeling the group mind of the entire Five-in-One, which had somehow been... spread across dimensions. Through trial and error, Hank had even managed to find out what happened. Somehow, a conflict between the Scarlet Witch and the reborn Phoenix had scattered the X-Men throughout infinity. (- EDITOR'S NOTE: As seen in "Uncanny X-Men Eternity #1") In the long run, Hank knew, -he- would be the best chance of reuniting them, with his access to futuristic technology. For now, he merely wanted to say hello.

"Esme," he said, "Are you ready to do what we discussed?"

She nodded. "You're making a mistake, though."

"You can't help me speak to Scott and Emma?"

"Oh, I didn't mean that. I meant about the peace talks with Murdock. It will end badly. There will be blood."

Hank exchanged a look with Tessa, who shrugged.

"Thank you for the warning," he said at length. "For now, I'd like to speak to your sister who is with Scott... will you help me do that?"

"Of course I will, Doctor. We're all friends here. I'll do anything to help."

So she said; somehow, the combination of her placid smile and glittering eyes sent a chill down Hank's spine all the same...

--

Forge never would have expected to admit it in a million years, but the simple fact was, he was tired of thinking about alien technology. He'd been studying the workings of this new world for 24 hours without sleeping, or even stopping to eat. At first he'd been like a kid in a candy store, excited by the possibilities. Then had come a deep fulfillment as he'd realized many of the principles he'd been pioneering in his own time would prove valid, and help build these wonderful things for the future. Then had come shame when he realized how many of those "wonderful things" were, in fact, deadly weapons.

Now, though? Now he was just beat. He flopped down on the bed of his rented room, shirt off, soaked in sweat from a warm Southern night. His eyelids fluttered, and he was just beginning to doze off, when his PDA device started beeping its fool head off.

Forge almost fell off the bed lunging for it; he was instantly alert, pumping adrenaline. For all he knew, Ororo might be...

But she was fine, and smiled at him from her end of the connection. "Miss me?"

"You have no idea, Ororo. How did it..."

"I've made contact with Bishop and X-23," she said. "We're going after Rachel now. Your help would be appreciated. Can you meet us?"

"Of course, just give me the place." Forge scrambled for the pencil and paper he'd been using to scrawl sketches of his wonderful toys. "Listen, Ororo, there was a news item about this timeline's Beast today. They thought he was dead and then he wasn't. I was wondering if..."

"Tell me when you arrive," Storm said. "We're at the..."

Forge never heard the rest; he was too feeling his nerve endings explode with pain. He looked down at himself; a jagged spear of bone was protruding from his stomach, wet with his own blood. He opened his mouth to speak, but could not.

"Forge? Forge, respond! FORGE!"

He dropped the PDA on the floor; a woman picked it up. Her outline, tall and slightly misshapen, fell across the bed.

"Lady Ororo," said a voice. Forge thought it sounded familiar. "Wonderful to see you again. And looking so... youthful."

"Marrow..."

"Oh, it's been years since I went by that name," said the woman. "It's only Lady Sarah now. I'd just love to hear why you and your dear heart have been skulking around human-controlled territory, today of all days."

"Marrow-- Sarah, it's not-- we're not who you believe we are--"

"Why don't we discuss it in person?" Her hand fell on Forge's shoulder. "I'll be sure to keep your equally-youthful love warm for you. Warm, in the sense of 'still alive.' But if you keep me waiting too long... no promises."

Lady Sarah, this timeline's version of the deadly mutant called Marrow, cut the connection before Storm could reply and dropped the PDA beside Forge.

"Don't worry, she'll come," Lady Sarah said. "And I won't kill you, at any rate. There are too many things I need you to explain for me, Forge. And you will... once Ororo is dead."

Forge tried to cry out, to protest, but none of his muscles wanted to work. With Marrow's blue eyes still burning into his, he passed out.

TO BE CONTINUED in Issue #2: "Tempting the Storm"

SEE ALSO:
Uncanny X-Men Eternity #1: The Shattering. Starring Scott & Emma's team. Online now!
X-Force Eternity #1: Starring Wolverine's team of lost X-Men. Coming soon!