ULTIMATE X-MEN: ETERNITY

Issue #5: "Things Past, Forging Ahead"
Rated PG-13 for violence and language
by RJB

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: A reviewer noted that the constant "last issue" citations in this story are annoying-- it's a fair point. Those footnotes are a relic of the time when I was writing several series and posting them all on my website: Each chapter was then available as a separate file, so it was conceivable you might read one chapter without seeing all the rest. Also, I was liable to reference something that happened two months ago in a different series, so they were important if you were only interested in following a certain group of characters.

Now that I think about it... erm... they're really not very useful now. I kept doing it out of habit, the vague idea they might get posted separately again someday, and because they reminded me of the system used in the comics of my youth. (The Vulture was defeated by Spidey in Imaginary Team-Up #183- Smilin' Stan!) I'm still thinking of this as a serial rather than a single, finite story.

But the notes probably are superfluous. I'll try to cut down.

-------

Jean Grey soared high over the desert, witnessed the world passing beneath her, and for the first time realized how very small it was.

A part of Jean thought she ought to feel silly, clad as she was in a form-fitting green-and-yellow bodysuit adorned with the symbol of a fiery bird. Who did she think she was, Wonder Woman? Had she finally lost her mind entirely? But another part felt like the costume was joined to her, like it was real in a way nothing else she'd experienced in her life could be. Like she'd finally found herself-- not in a touchy-feely, daytime talk show kind of way; like she'd really and genuinely been missing, and now she'd figured out where she was, at last.

The land flew by, faster and faster, becoming a blur. With a thought, Jean divorced herself from it, arcing up through the clouds-- through the upper atmosphere-- and then to the stars. Billions of them, surrounding her, all silent darkness and peace and beyond that... life. Dozens, maybe hundreds of civilizations, each calling to her in its own, distinctive voice, an infinite chorus. Jean felt tears stinging her eyes. This was right, this was how she was meant to be. All the noise and confusion that had been crowding her mind all her life melted away. She could think again, she could remember her own name...

Phoenix, Arizona
Alternate Reality #170

"I'm... sorry," Jean Grey said, blinking at the placid-looking man on the neighboring barstool. "What were you saying?"

Her visitor, the mysterious Dr. Jason Wyngarde, stroked his black mustache in a way that would have seemed quite nefarious if he hadn't been such an ordinary-looking fellow.

"Take as long as you need, Jean. I'm here for your benefit. I have all the time in the world."

"How did you know...?"

"That your name isn't Jenny Winters? That you're not a drifter floating from job to job as a waitress, a maid... etcetera? Don't you think it's obvious? That's not your true self, Jean. Anyone can see that. The key is... what do you see in yourself?"

"I..." Jean drew back, eyes narrowed. "I've got no use for pop psychology."

"That's not what I offer." Wyngarde's smile skirted the line between oily and sincere. "I offer nothing but to help you find the truth. What could have been. What will be... if you'll trust me?"

Jean knew she ought to leave. She didn't trust this man, and didn't see any reason why she should. But coming, as they did, on the heels of her fantasy... the words struck home. More than anything, Jean wanted a place, a reason to trust. She hadn't known anything like that since...

The bartender returned and fixed Wyngarde with a hard-eyed glare. "This guy bothering you, Miz Winters?"

Jean frowned, wondering why he cared. Even in her present state-- disheveled hair, threadbare clothing, living from hand to mouth-- she'd never wanted for male attention. She didn't just clean up nicely, as the saying went, she could be downright beautiful at her best, as anyone with eyes could tell. But that didn't seem to be the source of the bartender's interest: He almost sounded protective, which was strange because Jean hadn't come into this dive more than a couple of times.

Maybe he was a genuinely nice guy, concerned for the welfare of others. Stranger things had happened. Not to her, but...

She finally shrugged. "I'm fine."

"You let me know if you're not."

He walked away. Jean returned her attention to Dr. Wyngarde, who seemed not the slightest bit put out by the other man's suspicion. Something about that little smile...

"You know what?" she said. "We don't know each other. Let's keep it that way."

She pushed away from the bar and quickly stood--

--but when she turned toward the exit, it was gone and so was the bar.

She was in a forest, or... a grove of trees. The wind kicked up; Jean's red hair fluttered as though it had a life of its own. The chill bit into her skin. She certainly wasn't in Arizona...

She walked, crunching fall leaves underfoot. She knew this place; knew every twist and turn of the path through the trees. She spied a few last rays of sunlight peering through their branches up ahead...

Jean pushed through into a clearing. No, not a clearing... a cemetery. A little distance away, a large brick building... a mansion, really... loomed over everything. Jean walked among the tombstones, knowing the names on them without knowing how she knew them. Proudstar, Cassidy, Espinosa...

One in particular drew her, and she approached it by small, wavering steps... she could barely make out the lettering, but she didn't need to-- she knew what it would say.

JEAN GREY-SUMMERS.

"You see, Jean," said a voice that seems to come from every corner of the little cemetery at once, "the truth will set you free. Sooner... or later..."

-----

Somewhere

Mortimer Toynbee crouched in the doorway, barely visible in the shadow. He knew the young woman in the next room was watching him-- he could hear her breathing, far too quick and shallow for the state of half-sleep Mystique had ordered for her. The sedatives would kick in soon enough; they were programmed to administer automatically when her heart rate quickened.

The young woman's skin, barely tinged with lilac at first, had deepened to a shade near to purple, and a diamond-shaped marking, like a rash or birth mark but strangely regular, had appeared on her forehead. Destiny said that meant her mutation was nearly complete. If so, she could blink out of the restraints that held her to their lab table at any time, if she could only get her wits about her.

Thanks to the sedatives, she probably wouldn't, but if she did, Mort was supposed to go to work. He was "guarding" her, the last line of defense before she rabbited and ruined the old woman's cryptic plan.

In truth, if she did blink out, Mort thought he'd probably just stand there and let her pass. He'd lived a hard-luck life, had the Toad, and he'd unashamedly done some nasty things to survive. But he wasn't a bad sort, or so he told himself, and he couldn't imagine hurting anything so lovely.

Mort crouched there in the dark, watching her, wondering what quirk of mutation made Clarice Ferguson into such a strange, exotic beauty, and Mortimer Toynbee into... what he was.

It's enough to make a bloke give up on a Higher Power, Mort thought, and on Darwin, too. Evolution's supposed to make things better, innit? So what's the story, mate? Where's my survival of the fittest?

Mort sighed; normally when he started to dwell on such thoughts, he'd chase them away at the nearest pub. But now, as Project Magnus neared completion, Mystique had instituted a lockdown. Nobody was supposed to leave the facility except on her explicit say-so. It was making Mort a touch stir-crazy.

Speaking of stirring, Clarice Ferguson struggled against her restraints. Mort wondered if something had gone wrong with the mechanism; he could trigger the sedatives with a manual switch. That didn't mean he cared to.

"I know you're out there," Ferguson whispered. "I've seen you moving around. What do you want from me?"

"I don't want anything," he said.

"Then why are you doing this?"

Mort thought about the question. "Mystique-- th' bird you met-- she took me in. It's a place ter be."

"You think that justifies kidnapping?"

Clarice seemed to be trying to look him in the eye, so Mort shuffled forward a little-- hopped forward, he thought disgustedly. Just like a Toad.

"There's nothin' else," he said quietly. "You screamed when yer saw what I... what I do. You're not th' first, or in the first hundred. Freaks belong with freaks."

Clarice looked at her own hand as though she didn't recognize it. "And now I'm a freak, is that what you're saying?"

Mort's gut twisted. He tried not to show it. "No... I wasn't sayin' that at all."

Silence. Mort was glad of it. The damn sedatives ought to have kicked in. Maybe he wouldn't have to explain the...

"What's she going to do to me?" Clarice whispered.

Mortimer Toynbee sighed. Dammit. But he couldn't find it in himself to lie to her.

"Well, y' see... when Mystique an' Destiny hatched this plan... turned out th' main thing they needed was a teleporter. Th' boss lady knew where to find one... set a trap that fetched 'im back from Europe. Her own son, the Nightcrawler. Only bloke in th' room makes me look handsome. He disappointed her."

"How's that?"

Mort laughed. Then he shrugged. "Lots o' ways. Mainly... short-range teleporter, is all. His powers weren't up to what she needed."

"And my powers?"

Clarice's eyes glittered in the dark-- with anger or tears, it was impossible to say. Mort looked at the floor and didn't speak. According to Destiny, Clarice Ferguson had potential to be one of the most powerful teleporters in the world. Supposed to be perfect for what they needed. With luck, she'd even survive, although it would be... excruciating.

Destiny probably wasn't infallible, but Mort had to admit he'd never seen her proved wrong.

"I'll get out of here," Clarice whispered. "I will. I managed to... to blink once. I can do it again. I just have to... have to remember... uhhnnn... have to..."

She trailed off. Her breathing turned slow and steady. About damn time.

"You do that, luv," Mort murmured, and hopped back to the door, shaking his head.

-----

A few rooms away, Raven Darkholme-- Mystique-- stumbled into the kitchen half-asleep, which meant she might have needed as many as three seconds to disembowel the room's occupant, had it been an intruder. But Irene Adler was no intruder, and she was probably the only person on Earth dear Raven had never considered disemboweling. She smiled, knowing her companion expected her to speak first. The woman called Destiny thought briefly that it might be nice to be surprised sometime, or at least to be capable of it. She smiled and kept silent.

"You need your rest," Raven said.

Irene didn't shift in her chair. "We're on schedule."

"Yes."

"You'll leave in the morning?"

Raven 'hmmed' affirmatively. "For Dallas. One more pin to knock down."

"I'd wish you luck, but you never seem to need it."

"Because I have you." Raven sat down at the table and didn't speak for a moment. "The other night... at the Baxter Building. I envied you seeing Anna. How was she?"

"Like her mother," Irene said. "Stubborn as nails."

"Good girl. Will this play out as we expect?"

The old woman shrugged. "You have to ask?"

"Not for my part, but details have a way of shifting; we both know that." Raven hesitated. "I have a hard time believing she'll change her approach..."

"She will," Irene Adler said. "I have seen it."

The old woman exhaled a long, slow breath and started to stand, but she soon felt Mystique's hand on her shoulder. She shuddered; this was the part she'd been dreading.

"What aren't you telling me, love?"

Destiny squared her shoulders... then let them drop, defeated. "Anna's return means the success of our project... and the end of you." She saw her companion flinch, unhappily taken aback, and that wasn't even the bad part. "The only way to avert it is to remove Anna."

"You're saying... one of us has to die?"

Most people, even those who fancied they knew her intimately, would never see anything approaching sincerity from the mutant known as Mystique. For Destiny, who knew every line on Raven Darkholme's face regardless of physical blindness or even shape-shifting, it was easy to sense the transition from smirking skepticism to disbelief to grim certainty. It was probably the hardest two seconds of Irene Adler's long life.

"How am I supposed to make a choice like that?"

Destiny shook her head. "I don't know. I couldn't."

"But... you'll guide us through it, Irenie? You'll bring us together. You always have."

"No," she said, wincing at the pain in the other woman's voice. "I guided us through the night; now dawn is breaking, and my power is at an end."

"I can't lose both of you..."

Mystique grabbed her hand and squeezed it. Destiny squeezed back, a final reassuring touch. The pressure increased as all of Raven's apprehension and doubt and regret turned to cold, hard anger. Irene Adler allowed herself a small, private smile. She'd told Raven only half of what she'd been holding back; the same half she'd revealed to their young Rogue. The other half... well, that was something neither of them would expect, a sort of joke she was playing on the Universe.

Destiny, after all, had a twisted sense of humor...

-----

They gathered in a conference room that was carefully designed to be indistinguishable from all the other rooms at the Baxter Building. That this one was guarded by DNA and retina prints, psi-shields, and a forcefield or three... nobody had to know that except the departed Reed Richards, who'd designed it that way, Moira MacTaggert's team, which maintained it, and Warren Worthington, who'd paid for it.

Now Charles Xavier was added to the list, along with the two mutant soldiers he'd handpicked as crucial to this endeavor: The energy projector, Scott, and the brawler, Logan. He'd seen these two in his vision from Irene Adler-- seen them as being prominent in the Universe that could have been. Only they weren't exactly what he expected...

Xavier looked from one to the other, then past them at Worthington, whose presence was most important of all. He sighed, gathering his thoughts, and then...

"You should be the leader," Xavier said to Scott. Then, to Logan, "You should be the rebel. Your circumstances in this Universe appear to have altered your personae. Scott: You have the ability to control your optic beams, making you more dangerous, perhaps, but also... less repressed. Less controlled. Logan: You were always linked to Miss Pryde, I believe, but the additional responsibility you took on in this timeline... all but adopting her, then seeking to assist other mutants like her... it's changed you."

Scott looked at Logan and frowned. "Did you sign up for a round of psychoanalysis? Because I didn't."

"Hell, no," said Logan. "Bet I can shred the fancy security 'fore you can blast it, Slim."

"You're on." Scott reached for his glasses...

"This is important!" Xavier jolted both their minds, hoping they'd pay attention and not force him to take over-- taming two such strong-willed individuals would not be an enjoyable task for an out-of-shape Psi. "This is how we'll beat Mystique."

Warren cleared his throat. "By rampant speculation about an alternate Universe that may or may not exist?"

"Yes," Xavier said, "because that's precisely what Destiny is doing. That's the foundation of her whole plan. We had a long talk, she and I: She believes the other timeline was meant to be. That it was the proper one and ours the mistake. Look at what she's done: She sent Scott here from the FBI, presumably to bring us all to justice. If he'd acted the traditional hero, as she expected, he might have done so. She thought her pyrokinetic friend could best Miss Pryde, although his powers were poorly suited to the engagement. She may have been ill-prepared for the ferocity of Kitty's response."

Logan growled. "Suckered me easy enough."

"Yes, because you gave in to the Wolverine: your desire for a fight, which seems to be a constant. I am suggesting, Logan, that you might want to stop doing that. We cannot fight an enemy who anticipates our every move-- or rather, the every move our other selves would have made. The more we embrace our differences from them, the better."

The short man made a little sound in the back of his throat, but lacking any better ideas, he said, "So what's the plan, bub?"

"Part of the plan is that I won't be making it. Irene Adler knows me far too well." Xavier half-turned to Warren Worthington. "These are your X-Men, Mr. Worthington. I believe you were not as prominent in the other world--"

"Thanks loads," said the Angel.

"--but you've taken the initiative here; you must have had your ideas where you wished to lead. Anything you can do to take her by surprise is to our advantage."

"Maybe." Warren considered. "Most of the best ideas were Moira's. Where is Moira, by the way? She was supposed to be here..."

Xavier stretched out with his telepathy. Moira wasn't far away, and at first he thought he caught a hint of distress in her sense. But it was gone before he could gauge it, so he tried gently: Moira?

What? I... yes, Charles. Sorry, I was... somewhere else.

He frowned. We're waiting for you in the conference room. Are you alright?

Yes... I'm coming. Thank you.

Moira broke the connection, and Xavier didn't try to sustain it. He did wonder, however. Her sense had felt so strange, and it occurred to Charles Xavier that he was making fundamentally the same mistake he intended to exploit in Destiny. He was assuming Moira was the woman he'd known years ago, when in fact things could be quite different by now.

Something to remember. Charles Xavier had been taken by surprise once of late, by an entirely new world he'd never expected. He did not intend to be surprised again.

-----

Concealed in her private clean room off the main lab, Moira MacTaggert wiped tears from her eyes for the third time in a matter of hours, blew her nose on a handkerchief, and tried to pull herself together.

For the third time, she tried to rebuild the house of excuses and justifications that surrounded her history of mutant research, but it mostly just came out as: Damn Frost damn Frost DAMN FROST.

She did this to punish me... giving me the ability to forget, with the caveat that I must always... always remember eventually, and feel as betrayed by myself as Charles surely will when I tell him. She cheated me, though! What good does her shielding do me? How can I even face him like this?

Moira took a deep breath, let it out without feeling any better. She ought to have known there were reasons, sound reasons. After Charles let us down, Weapon Plus was the only game in town-- only they believed in mutants, let alone funded research to study them. Without their help, the files I managed to procure, we'd never have made this operation work. We'd never have found Henry or Monet or...

It wasn't evil at first! The promises they made me... no one said anything about the sort of experiments they did on the Pryde girl, let alone madmen like Creed...

But there had been a line there, hadn't there? Somewhere along the way? Hadn't there been a time after she'd known what Weapon Plus stood for, and before she'd gone rogue? Hadn't she hopped merrily over that line, and all for the sake of...

"Mum?" said a voice behind her. "They're waitin' for ye."

Moira whirled; Rahne Sinclair stood at the door in human form. Moira hastily wiped her eyes.

"Aye, Rahne. I've already told Charles I'm coming."

Rahne hesitated. "Mum, what is it? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, it's... I'm tired, lass, that's all."

"It's not." Rahne wrinkled her nose. "I know it's not. I can smell it."

"Ach, leave me be, girl! 'Tis none of yuir--" Moira caught herself, though not before the hurt appeared in Rahne's eyes. "Sorry. I'm sorry. It's-- thank ye, Rahne. I'm coming."

Rahne nodded once, started to turn. Her fingers clutched around her cross. "I'll say a prayer for ye, Mum. For strength. I know what ye think o' such things, but..."

"It's fine, dearie. Ye do tha'."

I may need it, Moira thought wearily as Rahne walked away. She pulled herself together and followed, and soon enough the pain hid itself again behind the white clouds in her mind.

By the time she reached the conference room, she was in a fine, optimistic mood. She dismissed her nagging doubts as baseless pessimism, and hurried to share with Charles and Warren the benefit of her expertise.

-----

Emma Frost was beginning to wish she'd used that mindwipe on herself instead of Moira MacTaggert. She sat in the sub-basement at the Baxter Building, all but under guard and effectively a second-class citizen. If Logan or his new friends didn't display some good sense soon and realize this wasn't their fight, she was prepared to do something drastic. MacTaggert and her fellow gene-splicing Frankensteins were the real enemy, and the more Emma contemplated the things she'd seen in the doctor's mind, the angrier she got...

BAMF! Suddenly she was angry and choking on brimstone. Lovely.

"Sod it all, you might warn a person before--"

"Entschuldigen Sie bitte," said Kurt Wagner. He crouched on the conference table at which Emma was seated. "I'm concerned about you, leibling. It is not that I expect a genuine 'thanks for the rescue' from Emma Frost-- Heaven forbid such a thing!-- but I did not expect to see you brooding about the place in a manner reminiscent of... well, me..."

Emma scoffed. "I'm a spoiled rich girl, remember? No one sulks like I do."

"Indeed. You do it almost as well as you hide behind insults."

Kurt's yellow eyes could be uncomfortably piercing. They reminded Emma of the glowing, catlike eyes in Kitty Pryde's memory. She stared at the tabletop until she could look up without wincing.

"Just because they're affected doesn't mean they aren't true, darling." She tried her nastiest smile, which had the advantage of suiting her mood. "I steal thoughts, Kurt, I don't share them. And shouldn't you be fussing over your stray kitten? She'll be ever so grateful, I'm sure of it."

Kurt shifted uncomfortably. "She said, I quote, 'It's about damn time,' before phasing as far away from me as possible."

"Pity. And here you've carried your torch in such an Olympian manner."

"Emma!" Kurt hissed, but he refused to be embarrassed so easily-- another pity. "Why do you do this? Does it mean nothing to you that your friends are concerned about you?"

Emma shook her head, thinking of the things in Moira's brain-- in Kitty's-- in Logan's. Even in Kurt's and Rogue's and Remy's. Nobody was clean, not in a world where mutants were accorded all the respect of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster in the world community. The things you did to survive could be worse than the things done to you. In the face of all that...

She sighed. "Go away, Kurt. I've no need of optimism today."

The Nightcrawler climbed down off the table, but instead of leaving he pulled out a chair and sat down beside her. When he spoke again, it was in a softer tone and only after some time had passed.

"Do you know what strikes me about you, leibling?"

Emma scoffed. "If you're like every other heterosexual male on Earth, I think I can guess..."

"It's your determination to trump those around you. A genuine cynic... Logan, for example... accepts the world as it is. He doesn't care if others share his view; if they don't, so much the better, since he is effectively competing against them to survive. You don't sound like you're trying to survive something; you sound like you're waiting to be talked out of it."

"Well," she said with a thin-lipped smile. "You've obviously learned everything there is to know about me. Do you want a gold star for that?"

Kurt shrugged. "I wish to understand. You're so determined to stand apart, to trust nothing... yet you have a dozen friends in this building alone."

"Don't confuse a temporary alliance with friendship," Emma said. "In your eagerness to forgive, you seem to have forgotten Warren's people threw me out a window. You'd have me trust Logan, the killer, or Gambit, the thief? Or Rogue's personality of the week?" She watched carefully, but apparently failed to offend Kurt with even this. "And Scott's a stranger, and Miss Pryde despises me. So..."

"Kitty saved you! She jumped off a building for you! You don't do that for someone you despise!"

"If you need them, you do," countered Emma. "If you feel obligated."

The Nightcrawler frowned at her for a moment. Then he sighed. "Is that all life is to you? A web of self-interest and obligation?"

"Well, there's also lust. Or, as you call it, True Love."

Kurt laughed. "Ah, leibling... we see very different worlds, you and I."

"Yes. Mine's called 'reality.' I'd invite you to join me here, but it's a dreary place. You wouldn't care for it."

"Perhaps." Kurt pushed back his chair and stood. He must have been disillusioned, since he turned for the door instead of teleporting. Then he stopped. "You know, Emma, you've eliminated all your friends save one. I've given you no reason to distrust me, have I?"

"No, you haven't." Emma frowned. "That's precisely why I distrust you."

Kurt stared at her, wondering if she was serious. Emma kept a straight face, although she wasn't sure herself. Then the Nightcrawler left, shaking his head. Score one for the dogged pursuit of the worst-case scenario.

The thing was, his visit had lifted Emma's mood-- enough to allow her to cast off the shadows, at any rate. Kurt Wagner's eternal hopefulness might not have been very rational, but at least it was persistent. She was going to need persistence if she intended to defeat the things in Moira's mind.

One person worth trusting, and perhaps a few more tied to her by obligation. In the scheme of things, Emma thought that was probably more than she had a right to expect.

It would be enough.

-----

After a brief, frustrating search, Monet St. Croix found Ben Grimm on the roof of the Baxter Building, leaning on the railing and looking out at the city skyline.

"There you are, Ben! Come on-- Warren's been in conference all night, leaving our guests with the run of the place. I can't be expected to ride herd on them all by myself, can I? I need you--"

She stopped. Ben's sense hadn't even shifted to take notice of her. He was slumped forward, head in hands, barely present. Monet was tempted to throw something at him-- she hated being ignored. But she stepped up behind him and waited instead, tapping her foot with hands on her hips.

"Hey, kid," the Thing said at length. "Sorry. I was--"

"Feeling sorry for yourself?" Monet guessed. "I'm sorry, I try not to be perceptive, but you make it very obvious."

"Heh." Ben sighed, a sound like wind rushing through a canyon. "Been years since I been in an old-fashioned scrap. Guess I'm a little outta practice."

"Bad memories?" Monet guessed.

"Great ones." Ben laughed. "You shoulda seen us back in the day, kid. We had fights then. Great, big Technicolor fights, with the fate of the world hangin' in the balance. Those fights mattered."

Monet frowned. "Having been nearly incinerated by a card-dealing Cajun earlier, I can tell you thisone wasn't exactly forgettable. If it's a cause you want, what Warren intends to do for our people is--"

"Your people, kid," Ben Grimm said. "I ain't a mutant."

"Well, you might as well be, now. There aren't enough... what did Richards call you, 'altered humans?' Of course, I can't imagine what it's like to have ordinary looks, let alone... well, yours. But I think if I did, I'd throw my lot in with us. It's the best of a bad lot of choices. At least we won't run away screaming."

The man who looked like a rock monster shrugged his massive shoulders. If there was anything Monet hated more than being ignored, it was people who showed unanticipated depth. It always reminded her how much of her persona was only skip-deep.

"Is that all there is?" Ben growled. "Lookin' for the best place to hide? Hell, I didn't even pick you people; I was here when Worthington bought the building. He keeps me on outta pity!"

"Don't be absurd," said Monet. "Your combat training has been invaluable to Henry and Rahne. You've even taught me one or two useful things. I admit it! And my skills are exceptional."

The Thing laughed. "I just had a Torch flashback. That attitude'll get you in a world a' hurt, Princess. Yeah, you got some skills, but what do I always say?"

Monet rolled her eyes and recited: "'It starts with the powers, it doesn't end there.'"

"Damn straight. Powers'll fool you, anyhow. I remember when we founded the FF, we thought Suzie was a weakling.. 'till it turned out she had forcefields. You don't got forcefields, do ya, kid?"

"Not yet." Monet grinned. "Give me time."

The Thing glowered out from under heavy eyebrows for a long moment. Then he burst out with rumbling laughter. "Think yer pretty good, huh? Okay, quiz time: Villain weaknesses fer a hundred. Mole Man."

"Bright sunlight. Too easy."

"Sub-Mariner."

"Dry him out," Monet said. Then, in Ben's bass rumble, "Damn Sub-Mariner."

The Thing laughed. "Juggernaut."

"Rip off his helmet."

"Rip off his freaking head if ya can," Ben stressed. "But yeah, the helmet. Doc Doom."

"Erm..." Monet frowned. "I... huh. There goes my innate superiority. I don't recall a strategy for Doctor Doom."

"Aw, that's simple, kid. When yer fightin' Doom, what ya do is, ya bend over, ya put yer head between yer legs..."

"And kiss your ass goodbye," Monet finished with him, and they both laughed. "I'll remember that one. Will you join me downstairs?"

Ben turned back to the skyline. "Yeah, I'm comin'."

"Feeling better?"

"I guess." Ben shook his head. "Ignore me, Princess. I'm just gettin' old. This hero biz ain't my game anymore. I'll get over it."

Monet took a step away-- then shocked herself by crossing the roof in three steps, stending on tiptoe, and bestowing a kiss on Ben Grimm's craggy cheek.

"Once a hero, always a hero," she said, and walked away, leaving a stunned Thing still holding a hand to the spot.

-----

Dallas, Texas

If anybody out there ever kept track of feats of superhuman daring, perhaps for a Guinness Book of Mutant Records, Mystique thought she deserved a special notation for bypassing more than 20 levels of independent, fully-realized, lethal security at the high-rise penthouse without setting off a single alarm. That had to be some kind of record.

Okay, so she got tripped up somewhere between Level 22 (the DNA-imprinted robot seekers) and Level 23 (the smartass talking computer.) Nobody was perfect.

Although, Mystique thought as she leapfrogged over a laser blast from a robot resembling a flying mouse, if I'm ever going to be perfect, now's the time. Margin for error must be...

"Input security clearance within ten seconds," said the cheerfully annoying computer voice.

"Dammit!" Mystique dove behind a sofa; three of the seekers converged on her, blasting away, and converted it to so much smoldering upholstery. She dove for the keypad on the wall and punched in her stolen combination, then ducked away as one of the seekers made a strafing run at her head.

"Combination accepted!" the computer voice said. Then, "Aggressive approach detected. Responding..."

ZRACK! A port opened on the wall and blasted the seeker at point-black range. The thing exploded with a sickly squeal.

"Hah!" said Mystique. "Didn't even plan that one..."

But the computer voice wasn't done. "Additional authorization required: Input fingerprint match within fifteen seconds."

This time, Mystique was ready. She snagged the next seeker out of the air, then turned it on half a dozen of its companions while it blasted away. In seconds, the seeker threat was done.

"Input fingerprint match within--"

"Yes, yes!" Mystique snapped. She reached into her pocket for a specially-designed glove with the proper fingerprints already in place. She didn't even like to think about how she'd borrowed those...

"Fingerprint match accepted," the computer said. "Thank you!"

"Screw you," she growled back. "Now, where's--"

"Additional authorization required: Security question #0198, Dataprint: Forge."

Mystique sighed. Fortunately, memorizing useless trivia was another of her little talents. A good metamorph needed to know her targets down to the smallest detail. "Proceed."

The computer clicked to itself, then said: "Query: What did I have for breakfast on January 3rd?"

Mystique blinked. "What--"

"Please input response within ten seconds. Restating query: 'What did I have for--'"

"--the HELL?" Mystique drew a pistol with each hand and aimed them at the computer screen, resolved to just blast the thing and see what happened.

She never got the chance. The next thing Mystique knew, an arm wrapped around her neck and held her tight, pressing her against someone's muscular torso, while another arm-- with a gleaming metallic hand attached-- held an even bigger pistol to her temple.

"Forge," she sighed. "Have you lost what mind you ever had? What kind of security question is that?"

"The point," the Cheyenne Indian growled, "was to ask a question only I could answer."

"You actually know that answer? You freak."

"Please input response within five seconds," the computer said. "Restating query: 'What did I--'"

"Oatmeal," Forge said. The computer whirred to itself and then shut down, satisfied.

"Boring freak," Mystique concluded. She could feel the warmth of Forge's flesh-and-blood hand against her neck, and smiled. "Not that I'm not enjoying this, but could you see your way clear to release me? Or at least scratch my nose for me?"

"I think what you're really itching for is a little mayhem. Why should I give you the chance?"

Mystique batted her eyes. "Forge, you make it sound as though I kill everyone I meet. I'm highly selective."

The Cheyenne grunted. "And why have you selected me? Is this about Weapon Plus? I told your Brit friend I was done with--"

"Why would I work for Weapon Plus?" Mystique countered, genuinely offended. "This is about the future for people like us. I'm no race traitor."

Forge tightened his grip. "What are you on about, Raven? We have no race. I've got less than two hundred mutant files in the world. Unless you know where to find several thousand more--"

"What if I said I did? What if I needed your help to retrieve them?"

"Then I would ask why the hell I should trust you, of all people."

Mystique shrugged in his grasp, conceding the point. Then she smiled. "I suppose I'd reply, if you really didn't trust me, you should have touched me with your other hand."

"Why, I--"

Even as he spoke, Forge's aim was starting to droop of its own accord. Mystique took advantage of the lapse: She wrenched his arm away, turned, and doubled him over with a knee to the breadbasket. It wasn't really necessary: Forge was already wavering on his feet. He sank to hands and knees.

Mystique bent over to whisper in his ear. "Because your metal hand wouldn't have succumbed to the neurotoxin on my skin."

"Tox-- toxin?" Forge murmured.

"I know most girls just go with eyeliner and rouge, but I think it suits me." She ran a hand over her blue-tinted skin. "You have no idea how much difficulty I had finding a shade that was both flattering and harmless to my unique body chemistry. I'm playing for keeps this time, Forge. You'll help me whether you like it or not."

The Cheyenne didn't respond. He was already passed out on his floor. Mystique sighed; her dates always seemed to end like this. Carrying him out was going to be fun...

Before she started on that, Mystique thoroughly trashed the computer. That was part of the plan, but also, the thing really annoyed her.

-----

Phoenix

Jean Grey stared at her own, grinning corpse, which levitated above her coffin as natural as you please, mocking her from depthless black eye sockets. She tried to turn, to run away...

But she was behind herself, too, leering. Dressed up in some kind of black costume, borderline-indecent but not nearly as frightening as the look in her own eyes, the unrestrained jealous glee of a monster unleashed. A goblin from her own mind.

"This isn't happening," Jean whispered. "This isn't real."

"It's as real as we make it," her self replied. "We can do anything, don't you know that? If you'd rather waste yourself on the rubbish heap of life, you could at least step aside for someone with more ambition. That's a valuable life you're living, Jean. If you don't want it--"

"You're not ME!" Jean screamed. She was still unable to run, trapped inside the nightmare. "Who ARE you?"

"I'm Madelyne," the woman smiled. Her outfit shifted to a red bodysuit, the mirror image of the green one Jean remembers. "I'm Phoenix. Does it really matter? I'm what we should be. You're the mistake."

"No no no NO NO!" Jean blasted with her mind, driving the phantom away, burning the flesh from its bones until it resembled the corpse again. It kept smiling at her with her own face, her own life, until--

THUD. Jason Wyngarde was unconscious before his head hit the bar. He started to slide off his stool, but the fellow who'd just decked him caught him and lowered him surreptitiously to the floor.

Jean Grey blinked. The visions were gone, but not the terrifying chill that seemed to penetrate to her bones. For a moment she was confused...

It didn't help when Wyngarde's assailant looked up and smiled at her, then turned and nodded to the fellow behind the bar-- to himself, for the two men who identical.

"What-- how?" Jean gasped.

"Relax!" said the bartender. "I'm a friend. Hold on, I can explain better when..."

He reached out and tagged himself, and the version of him in front of the counter... disappeared, as though he'd stepped right into the bartender, been absorbed by him somehow...

"This is--!" Jean couldn't even come up with a word that meant 'so far beyond crazy as to make crazy appear sane.' She leaped off the stool, looked around, praying someone else had seen that.

But there wasn't anybody else; the bar was empty, the sky outside several shades darker than she remembered. Jean looked from it to Jason Wyngarde's prone form, at a loss...

The bartender touched her shoulder. "Sorry, Miz... I mean, Miss Grey. You've been here all night; when I said 'last call' and nobody answered, I figured I'd better take a hand."

"Who-- how?"

"I'm on your side. Name's Madrox. Wait, here--" He opened his wallet and showed it to her. "See? P.I. license and everything. I was hired by a friend of yours to keep you safe."

"Scott!" Jean breathed. If this fellow was from Scott, maybe she really could trust him--

But Madrox shook his head. "That wasn't his name. He was a little guy, kind of fuzzy, bad temper. Ring any bells?"

"I--" Jean searched her fragmented memory. She did sort of recall a man like that, half from her visions and half... she blushed. "Oh. Yes. We had a... thing... a couple of years ago. I think I stole his car."

"And his heart," said Madrox, "I guess. Anyway, he's been trying to catch up with you ever since."

"I don't want trouble," Jean said.

"Neither do I, lady." Madrox frowned down at Jason Wyngarde, who was starting to groan and twitch. "But if we wait 'till that guy wakes up, I think we'll have some. He's not a shrink. He's... I dunno what he is, but I think he was... hypnotizing you, or something."

"Yes." Jean shuddered; whoever or whatever Wyngarde was supposed to be, the terrors he'd unleashed upon her could not be easily buried.

"Hey," said Madrox. He squeezed her hand. "It's gonna be okay. Will you trust me?"

Jean looked at him; a throughly average-looking man, but not in a bland way, like Wyngarde. Madrox had strange, deep eyes, as though a thousand lifetimes of experience were staring out from one face. Jean didn't exactly trust him, but he didn't give her the creeps, either; a distinct step in the right direction. She took his hand.

"Let's get out of here," he said, and turned for the door.

"One second," Jean said.

She turned to the unconscious Wyngarde, drew back, and administered a swift kick to the stomach. He gasped and groaned, but did not wake. Jean restrained herself from spitting on him while she was at it.

"Now we can go," she said to Madrox.

The private investigator looked from her to Wyngarde and frowned. "Remind me not to piss you off, okay?"

"Mr. Madrox, that is a very sensible attitude. Make sure you keep it."

They ran from the bar together; Madrox kept glancing at Jean out of the corner of his eye, made extra wary. So much the better.

-----

Logan walked away from the conference room wondering how he was going to sell his people on this one. A plan had been made, but not one in which he had a great deal of confidence; an unhappy change from his usual state of affairs, in which he possessed plenty of confidence and no plan.

Scott walked beside him, which helped Logan's mood one little bit. But at least they were both equally annoyed with the world, so the odds they'd actually talk were low...

"So... Logan..."

Crap.

"Look, Slim, you don't like when I pry into your business and you sure as hell won't like prying into mine. Let's just get this done."

"But I'm curious. And, after all, turnabout's fair play..."

"So's homicide."

Scott frowned. "That's not the saying."

"Is, in my world."

The four-eyed dude laughed. "We really are too much alike. That's what makes me wonder: The Professor said you'd been helping mutants in trouble. Does he know about some of the more...extreme things in your file?"

Logan growled. "Don't give a damn if he does. I'm not tryin' to win his approval or convince people I'm a good guy. I do what I figure is best. Anybody doesn't like it..."

"I can respect that," Scott said. "It's just hard for me to imagine you willingly helping people."

"You ain't been where I been."

"So enlighten me."

Logan took a deep breath. He'd have walked away from the dude, but Scott's strides were twice as long as his. Finally, he exhaled.

"You know why I call my outfit th' Brotherhood, Slim?"

Scott shrugged. "Considering that half of them are female, I'd assumed you were a misogynist in addition to your other flaws."

"It's a 'band of brothers' thing. Honor, loyalty. Like that. You ought to get that."

The other man was uncomfortably silent for a moment. "Suppose I do."

"Well, honor's got a price, doesn't it? Everything you do, everybody you hurt... someday you gotta pay that back. Gotta square things... or try, anyway."

"You're suggesting you had a lot to pay back?"

Logan laughed. "Hell, man. You have no idea. Tell you one thing, you woulda loved me in Afghanistan. I would'a been your best friend ever. That was my job, see: They'd land me in a country with a compass and a sidearm, and in two weeks it'd go from 'Death to the capitalist imperialist Yankees!' to good ol' fashioned regime change."

"Yankees?" Scott asked. "I thought you were Canadian."

"You're assumin' I did it from patriotism." His laugh turned to a scowl. "I did it 'cause the only thing I'm good for is killin' people who deserve killin'. That's what I do, an' I liked it. I liked what they did to make me the best at it. And then they showed me a girl... couldn't have been more'n sixteen at the time... said they were gonna make her the best at it."

"And that's when you bailed?" Scott guessed.

"Not right away," Logan said. "That's the hell of it: I can live with everything I did before that. I can accept it. It took me 137 days after I met that kid to do anything about it. To stop 'em torturing her. And I knew I coulda done it anytime."

"Let her go, you mean?"

"Or killed her." He hesitated for a long moment, lost in memory. "Y'know, Slim, ears like mine... they can hear screamin' from a hell of a distance. I figure I'll burn in Hell about a thousand years for every night I heard her scream."

They reached a cross-corridor; Logan's people were on the opposite side of the building from the room Scott had been assigned. They nodded to each other and parted without a word. Logan couldn't tell if that was wary respect or disgust on Four Eye's face. An equal mix of both would be about right.

Logan turned down the corridor, but didn't return to his own room. Instead, he climbed the stairs a level and followed the trail he wanted to a larger room with better security. Not good enough: Logan popped one claw and picked the lock.

He waited in the darkened room for probably half an hour before he heard the doorknob click. He was already waiting in the shadows by the time the door opened.

Moira MacTaggart closed the door behind her and turned toward the bed. From her body language, she was pretty shaken up already. Good.

She passed in front of Logan--

SNIKT! He drove her against the wall and popped two claws, one on either side of her neck, with the center claw poised to pierce her windpipe.

Moira was terrified, but she didn't scream. She looked-- surprised, at first. Then her features clouded over and she all but slapped her forehead.

"Agent Ten," she said by way of greeting.

"That's your name. I always liked t' say it the way it spelled: Weapon X." Logan drew close and sniffed her shock of red hair. "But hell, names don't matter. Call me what ya like, Doc. Just tell me one thing...

"You didn't really think I'd forget your scent, did you?"

END

Next Week: Rogue and Gambit! Plus: Wolverine attacks? And Project Magnus kicks into gear...