Months Ago…
The Byron Agency, Undisclosed Location.

Her mouth was filled with blood.

She tried too breadth, but instead, all Karen Barnes could do was cough and spit, trails of her own, crimson fluids rolling down her chin. She continued coughing, her body almost hacking up her pain, her slender frame shaking as she was forcibly pinned against the wall.

For a moment she was blind, the pain drowning all her senses, her every muscle taunt and twisting like phantom serpents beneath her skin. She could feel the blades turning in her torso, the trio of adamantium claws, cold and heartless, threatening to tear her right in two.

She couldn't move through any means of free will, the blades of righteous vengeance planted through her chest and into the wall behind her. She tried too breadth, her lungs could only shudder, her each attempt too inhale brushing her vital organs up against those vicious blades.

She could smell his breadth, a terrible stink, mixed in with the fowl odour of an unwashed man, one forced to suffer months of torture. For a moment she could see, her dark eyes finding the beast not an inch from her features, his own a twisted mix of rage and murder.

He was an inhuman thing, neither animal nor man, a thing made from blood and killing.

Karen cried out as the blades buried deep within her torso twisted a little further, the thing called Logan leaning closer too her tormented features, sniffing at her hair and neck. She could feel his breadth brush against her flesh, he could feel him breathing in her fear, smelling of her sweat.

"SHIELD!?!" the beast named Logan demanded harshly, a snarl and spit echoing in his tone as he twisted his blades a little further. Karen Barnes would fall if she were able, her blood slowly draining from her body, and yet she remained pinned against the wall. Pinned by the very man she had set free.

"Fury!!"

Karen answered with a spitting venom of her own, her anger finding voice through the pain that gripped her every fibre. She would die for doing what she should, and no-one would remember why.

The beast called Logan held her there a little longer, his claws buried deep within her torso, his eyes alight with fury. For a moment longer he took the time to smell her flesh and hair, too drown himself in her every scent, too learn all there was too learn.

Without another word, the blades slipped free from her torso, Karen Barnes collapsed too the ground and stayed deathly still. The beast called Logan did not linger, disappearing too secure his freedom, leaving Karen Barnes too her fate.

Leaving Karen Barnes too live in a pool of her own blood.

Months Ago...
The Massachusetts Academy.

"Oh Everett..." Emma Frost knelt before her former student and sighed in disappointment "...you bright little fool".

The young man didn't answer, nor did she expect him too, bound and unconscious as he was, the fallout of his confrontation with the X-Men. He stirred a little every now and then, the smallest murmur of life escaping him, the cold breeze that swept in from outside slowly bringing him around.

He looked so young, Emma Frost decided, ignoring the creaking of the weakened floorboards beneath her knees. They all did, her former students still much younger than they believed themselves to be. Much younger than they were now behaving.

"And you young man..." the former Headmistress turned her disapproving gaze too her other former student, Angelo Espinosa, whom was similarly restrained "...should know better".

Angelo was in no more condition too answer her disappointed tone than Everett, it was probably best that they couldn't. She hadn’t parted with her former pupils on the best of terms, which was probably why they had been drafted in the first place.

It was perhaps fitting that they would meet here once more, former teacher and former pupils, parted by betrayal and reunited in the ruins of her old office. How quickly the world could change, how quickly dreams could die and the proud could fall.

Everett flinched as the tips of Emma's fingers brushed against his forehead, the young man instinctively pulling away from her touch as best he could.

"Oh hush now, young man..." her tone became much sharper, laced with anger as she firmly gripped the forehead of Everett Thomas between her fingers. Her patience was running thin, her disappointment in her former charges all too clear. She gripped his forehead and closed her eyes, holding him still like the disobedient child he was.

And to think, he had been the most dependable of her students.

She took a breath and focused, her mental might pushing through the barriers of the boy before her, overcoming his defences as though they were not there. Emma Frost had trained them all too resist such invasions, and yet, clearly, she had not trained them well enough.

With focused thought she forced her way deep into his mind, ignoring the young mans protests as she delved into his memories, plucking away the ones she desired. She had failed these students once, allowing them too stumble into the hands of others, but such errors would soon be undone. As much as they may hate her, they were her students and hers alone, the White Queen did not like to share, and she had no intention of doing so.

Not even with Cassidy and the Byron Agency, the latter of which, the vile group the two young men had allied themselves with, was being systematically wiped entirely from his mind. An entire chapter of his life erased.

"You still have quite enough time to ruin your lives..."

Now...
The Byron Trust, Level 8, Imprisonment and Confinement 1.

"DAMN IT!!"

Everett Thomas cursed as he slammed his fist into the nearest wall with a satisfying thud. He regretted it almost instantly, not because of the self inflicted pain it caused, but because he'd lost control, he'd let his temper get the better of him. He had turned to an act of violence for his answers.

His parents had taught him to be a better man than that, or at least they had tried to. In the end, Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters had taught him little else.

The young man took several deep breadths to calm himself, slowly ebbing the tension away from his fists, forcing them to relax into open hands and loose fingers. Slowly, carefully, the anger drained away.

Frustration remained; there wasn’t much he could do about that.

With a deep and troubled sigh, Everett swept his hand across his forehead, roughly massaging his brow as he remained at the very centre of this former prison. He could still feel them, the former inmates, mutants like himself that had been held captive by the Byron Agency. He could still feel them due to his own genetic gift, his aura reaching out and touching the lives that had been trapped here.

He could feel their torment, he could feel their suffering, he could feel their despair. It was little more than a memory for some, for Everett Thomas, even with the victims now long gone; it felt like so much more.

What was worst though, what hurt the most, was that the man that had helped it happen, the man who was as much responsible as anyone else, was still here. Sean Cassidy, his former mentor, a man he had respected, held prisoner just a little ways down the hall.

A man who had let his friends be tortured.

Even now, after meeting him face to face, after confronting him over what he had done, even now he was still no closer to understanding why. He couldn't understand how a decent man could do the things he’d done.

How he could have failed so utterly.

How Everett could avoid doing the same.

The young man sighed as he continued to rub his brow, his eyes closed and blocking out the world, focused entirely on his breathing, on the constant throbbing of his aching knuckles. The world around him slowly slipped away, ignoring, as best he could, the lingering screams of the Mutants lost months ago.

He ignored the feeling of frost like fingers creeping across his brow, needling into his memories.

He ignored the flickering lights above…

The Byron Trust, Level 8, Imprisonment and Confinement 1, Red One.

Karen Barnes didn't like this.

She stood at the centre of Red One, the nervous system of the Byron Trust, the eyes and ears of the underground facility, her already sour mood plummeting into sub zero temperatures. The lights above, usually providing constant illumination of the vital chamber, were flickering on and off, behaving erratically just like every other piece of electrical equipment. Too her left and right, technicians of every rank were murmuring in various states of distress, consulting, hypothesising, adapting and utterly failing to grasp what was happening.

Karen Barnes didn't like this at all.

The searing pain behind her eyes, the constant thumping of her temples, was only getting worse, irritated by the flickering lights above. Her skull was cracking open, or so it felt, some vile thing bursting too get out and set her nerves on fire.

That bitch was doing this, Karen Barnes knew it, that little bitch buried down in the deepest bowls of the facility. That little bitch who wormed her way into her mind at night and unlocked the dying screams of others. The little bitch who would never let her forget.

That would never forgive.

"Sir!" one technician alerted his soupier, the man with greying hair starring at his station. His monitor was unhelpful, his headset a mass of static, the systems becoming as unreliable as the rest of the Byron Trust. The urgency in his tone, the directness a contrast too the panicked mumblings that surrounded him, cut through Karen's savage migraine and quickly drew her too his station.

"We have reports of a disturbance," he reported, slamming his hand against the monitor and no doubt rattling its components. It was hardly standard procedure concerning faulty equipment, but it was an outright act of aggression that Agent Barnes approved of, especially since it seemed too work. For a good few moments the image on the monitor lurched into clarity, bathing the two of them in a shade of green.

Karen Barnes leaned over the shoulder of the older man with greying hair, squinting her dark eyes too get a better look. The pain behind her eyes was searing, burning at her retinas with savage malice.

"Thomas, Everett..." the older man with greying hair clarified dutifully as the two of them watched events as they played out "...one of the St. Croix guests".

"I know who it is!" Karen snapped and mostly lied, her dark and burning eyes glaring at the images. It was a recording, replaying events from just before, the young man with dark skin just outside the holding cell of Cassidy.

As Karen Barnes watched the events replay on the monitor before her, she ignored the fact that she was finding it difficult too breadth. A hand absently found its way too her torso, just above her breast where a set of three white scars were prominent upon her flesh. She found it difficult too breadth as the pain was flaring, the pain of being impaled by a savage beast with savage claws. The pain of almost dying.

The dark skinned man upon the monitor was getting angry, shouting at Sean Cassidy as he slammed a hand against the cells containment wall. She watched it more than once, letting it replay time and time again, the burning behind her eyes growing ever worse as she stared at the boy before her, the man who wore the uniform of St. Croix, who argued with the prisoner called Cassidy.

His former mentor.

His former...

"...Shit..." Karen Barnes barely whispered, recognition dawning in her searing eyes, the colour draining from her features.

"SHIT!!" Karen Barnes cursed more sharply, standing tall and drawing the attention of everyone around her.

"SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!! ROUND THEM UP, ALL OF THEM!!" she demanded with a sudden fury "DO IT NOW!!"

"Sir?" the older man with greying hair dared too question, the dark eyes of Karen Barnes spinning back too the replaying image of Everett Thomas before her. The replaying image of young Mr. Thomas arguing with Sean Cassidy.

His former mentor.

His former employer.

Both former agents of the Byron Agency.

"I'VE SEEN THAT LITTLE BASTARD BEFORE!!"

The Byron Trust, Level 10, Classified.

Technically speaking, this was a no smoking zone, fortunately for Michael Meachen, no-one ever came down here to enforce it. Truth be told, no-one came down here period, not unless they had to. Even God herself, Agent Karen Barnes, head of this facility, avoided this particular pit as though Michael were watching over the ten deadly plagues.

"Well..." Michael muttered too himself as his lit up his cigarette, the burning tip reflecting off the metallic walls, "...someone’s fucking up, that's for damn sure".

Michael took a deep breadth of smoke and nicotine, holding it for a moment as he looked too the ceiling high above. The fixtures that provided light were behaving erratically, stuttering on and off without rhyme or reason. He stopped as soon as it began too hurt his eyes, a stabbing pain behind his pupils, and exhaled his breadth, the cloud of grey slowly dissipating into the air.

"Just glad it's not me," Michael continued commenting too himself, the only reply coming from an echo. His voice bounced around the walls, his hollow tone repeating many times, rippling down his vast and cold surroundings.

He never used to talk too himself, the blonde haired and blue eyed medic had once been quite the socialite. These days though, his only company was the silent type, but at least he was never at a loss for female company. Too bad they were a little young for him.

The flickering lights above were rapidly becoming a pain, but at least he could thank his lucky stars that the erratic power hadn't impacted the life support capsules that dotted the circular walls. The last thing he needed was any of the twenty-five, man sized containers popping open and letting his guests breadth some fresh air. The one upstairs could be volatile enough, these little munchkins, all kept under lock and key, were downright hostile.

He couldn't blame them really, not as he stood before one such capsule and wiped a hand across its frozen surface. The layer of frost gave way, revealing the transparent casing and the girl slumbering within. A girl with midnight hair and identical too twenty-three other occupants stored within this chamber.

Michael could only imagine that he would be pretty pissy too, if someone had welded an alien life form into his scalp as well.

At times he could feel sorry for them, two dozen girls who hadn't asked to be what they were, forced too sleep away their lives. It was for the best though, until they could be tamed, the only alternative was too put them down.

Which was probably the only smart thing they could do with the final guest of the Bryon Trust, his eyes always wondering towards the largest capsule of them all. Michael took a deep breadth, inhaling a lung full of smoke and nicotine, as he stared at that single chamber, one that stood alone, the light of his little world flickering on and off around him.

The devils own fire made in human form.

Michael exhaled, the smoke that had filled his lungs rising lazily towards the ceiling high above, the cloud of poison slowly scattering somewhere above his head. It wasn't often that he agreed with Agent Barnes, that women and her blunted viewpoints belonged too another era, but he couldn't disagree with her on this one.

Some things in this world should just die, even if he wasn't sure what could kill it. The rage that lay behind its sightless eyes, peering out from beyond its tiny prison, was never meant too live...

His thoughts were suddenly cut short, as was his endless staring, as pain suddenly ripped through his fingers. With a startled yelp he dropped his cigarette, the ash silently scattering across the floor, as he quickly realised that its inflamed tip had burned his fingers.

Just how long had he been standing there?

He didn't have long to consider his lapse in time, nor the alert that had flashed across his console, not as the elevator blew open with a gasp of air and shifting doors. A single man stood inside, one he had not seen before, and certainly not the man who would ordinarily relieve him.

"Should you...be here...?"

Was the only thing Michael could think too ask, as a pair of sightless eyes, from far behind, peered deep into soul...

The Byron Trust, Level 7, R&D.4, Genetic Storage.

Monet St. Croix had not stopped to consider if this was possible.

Aside from the constant blast of the air conditioning high above, an endless stream of frigid air being pumped into the room, her surroundings were in silence.

The young woman, her noble features the mask of calm, sat without word between a pair of metallic beds. Her posture straight and perfect, her eyes were bright and open, filled with thoughts beyond most men, eyes that looked beyond the mundane world around her, and deep into something that defied convention. She did not speak, not as both her arms were outstretched at either side, both her hands resting upon a different forehead, her elegant fingers gently grasping a different mind.

This had not been done, what she was about too try. This had not been done, in any lasting sense that she was aware of, not even by the most powerful of her kind, both past and present. This had not been done, neither attempted, failed nor succeeded, but she would not shy away.

She was Monet St. Croix, heir apparent too the Mutant World, a living Child of Destiny, she would not shy away from such mundane realities as the 'unknown'. Such notions were beneath her.

The body to her left did not stir beneath the gentle probing of her fingers, the skin upon the forehead cold and lifeless. This body wasn't strictly human, nor could it really be called alive, one of the many bodies that had been cloned from the genetics of Paige Guthrie. True, the body did breath, a gentle rise and fall of its torso, and its heart did beat, and yet its mind was entirely blank, for all intents, it was an empty shell, a husk with no living soul.

One she had a purpose for.

The body too her right, one that flinched as she probed its far more active mind, belonged too Jonathon Starsmore, physically at least. Unlike the body to her left, this one's mind was far too full, a body that occupied the thoughts and soul of two entirely different people, and it was a body that was dying because of it. If both were too live, then one of them had to be removed.

Fortunately, Monet St. Croix knew exactly where too put it.

She had not stopped too consider if this was possible, at least not until this moment, the separating of two entangled minds and inserting one into another body. She had not stopped too consider the possibility of failure, even as the lights above both flashed and died, such things did not matter.

She was Monet St. Croix, heir apparent too the Mutant World, a living Child of Destiny, she would not fail.

To even consider such a notion was absurd...

The Byron Trust, Level 9, Imprisonment and Confinement 2, Cell Block.

"State of the art my butt!"

Jubilation Lee felt the need too grumble as her world was suddenly plunged into all consuming darkness. The lights above had finally gone out, after several minutes of being utterly irritating, and temporarily removed her sense of sight. Her eyes were slowly adjusting too the depressing gloom that surrounded her, vague shapes taking form, but frankly, she was no Canucklehead with super senses...so this just wouldn't do.

Patience was not her strong point.

With a flick of her wrist, and an open palm, several lights suddenly burst into life all around her, the multi coloured bangs and pap’s lighting up the walls like an ever shifting rainbow. It wasn't perfect, everything being cast in an ever changing range of short lived colours, but it would have to do.

"Ugh!" Jubilation groaned, her shoulders slumping and her mood only getting worse.

"This is totally not my fault…” the young woman complained to no-one in particular, especially since no-one else was there.

"I'm missing X-Fest for this, stupid secret underground facility..."

Jubilation took stock of her situation between gripes; turning from left too right and being sure too bring her open palm too bare as she pivoted. The lights that burst and popped above her hand illuminated the world in front of her, the brief sparks allowing her too see down the empty corridors.

Nothing.

No screams, no cries, no hustling, no scampering, not even the uttering of harsh language. If everything really was going to hell in a hand basket, it was being considerately quite about it.

She paused for a moment, one hand in pocket, the other outstretched and open palmed, as her head was tilted too the side. Young Jubilation Lee squinted, trying too see a little further down the gloomy corridor, and yet there was still no sign of impending doom. Not even a half naked Canucklehead or other, similar little lunatic, making a mad dash for freedom.

Speaking of which...

Jubilation Lee looked too her right and at the girl, one whom remained locked within her cell turned lavish playpen. She seemed content enough, the tiny girl with raven hair clutching a multi-coloured puzzle box between her hands. At least she wasn't growling anymore, which had to be a bonus.

For a moment Jubilation dropped down too her knees, so she was eye too eye with the girl, one that was nonchalantly sitting on her rump. Her dark eyes were darting this way and that, tiny flicks that seemed entirely random. The girl with raven hair wasn't concerned with the sudden loss of light however, nor the terrors that could be hiding at either end of the darkened corridor, she only seemed too be interested in one thing.

She only seemed too be interested in the random bursts of light that were being created by the young, Jubilation Lee, her dark eyes wide with interest.

"Oh, hey..." Jubilation Lee sat up straighter, suddenly realising she had a captive audience "...you like that huh?"

The girl with raven hair didn't answer, one that sat on the opposite side of the reinforced glass, surrounded by her countless plush toys and other play things. Instead her head tilted too the side, her eyes forever tracking the ever changing lights before her, almost hypnotised by the strange occurrence.

"You're not so bad," Jubilation decided, bringing both her open palms too bare and doubling the number of random sparks that burst and popped around her. "Easily impressed...but not so bad..."

Suddenly the girl with raven hair shot backwards, her puzzle cube forgotten, her face twisting into a savage snarl. Blood burst free from her tiny fists, with blinding speed, a pair of bone claws ripped out from between her knuckles. She spat, snarled and growled, a savage streak overcoming the girl with raven hair, her wicked claws bared menacingly before her.

"Yeah, yeah..." Jubilation rolled her eyes and sighed, waving a dismissive hand at the girls sudden, violent, outburst "...alright already, I get it, badass..."

Too her credit, it only took young Jubilation Lee another moment too realise that it wasn’t her that the girl with raven hair was growling at…

The Byron Trust, Level 10, Classified.

Everett Thomas couldn't help but feel that he was forgetting something.

His eyes were closed as icy fingers spread throughout his mind, clawing through his memories and picking at his very soul. Something was burning, beneath that freezing touch, lighting up his nerves with sparks of fire, flashing images across his mind. Images that defied rhyme or reason, memories he did not have, a life he did not live.

A life frozen within a tomb of ice.

He opened his eyes too a world of flickering lights and copper tinted air, a pair of diluted pupils staring into the features of a sleeping girl. She was not alone, the girl with raven hair forced to slumber within a capsule, her many sisters lined up beside her. All of them the same, some twenty four in total, each one buried and forgotten.

He felt pain ripple across his forehead as he looked intently upon her sleeping features, as he looked upon the patchwork of metal that criss-crossed her youthful features. It held a golden tint, the metal that was welded into her flesh, a smooth, metallic surface that flashed beneath the flicking lights.

He had seen this girl before, this girl and her sleeping sisters, although his mind insisted that he hadn't. His mind that was trapped within a frozen prison, his memories being liberated by a pair of burning talons of. A phantom that was slowly searing clarity through his thoughts.

Liberating him from deception.

His hands were wet, and the smell of copper continued too invade his senses, his knuckles slick with blood. Some of it was his, and some of it was not, although he struggled too remember how it happened, he struggled too understand the body at his feet. The body that was now without a soul, its body punctured by some object, a burned out cigarette laying silently by its side, its eyes long dead and gone.

Inevitably, his world was sent plunging into darkness, the flickering lights above finally entirely failing. For a moment he stood in silence, his eyes adjusting too the all consuming shadow, the pool of blood that slicked around his feet no longer glittering in the absent light.

He felt light, as though he was all forgotten, as though the world no longer knew that he was there. He felt light, unable too connect his thoughts with his feelings, unable too recognise that a silent body that lay upon the floor, a body he had stabbed and killed for reasons that he didn't know.

He felt light as the prison within his mind, one of ice and frost and the freezing cold was slowly burned away, a pair of searing talons grasping tightly about his heart. He felt light, and he didn't know why, forever falling towards a burning sphere that was suspended in the sky above.

An orb of igniting fire.

An orb of rage.

One that burned behind a pair of sightless eyes, dragging him deep towards the pits of hell...

Another Place...

This was not the memory she was looking for.

Monet St. Croix was not alone, suspended in the air while the sharp chill of the sweeping wind cut deeply into her bones. She made not a single movement, her mane of hair whipping in the currents of its own accord, her dark and focused eyes observing the ground below.

The trees were thick, a multitude of branches creaking in the wind, the endless rustling filling the air with its mournful song. There was a boy, no more than five, darting between their massive trunks as fast as his little legs would carry him. He was desperate, the boy with panicked breadths, pushing his tiny body for all it's worth.

The sun was gone, obscured behind an endless span of dark and angry clouds, the greys and blacks sucking the light and life from the very world. Rain fell, a few drops at first, cold and harsh as it pitted against her flawless features. Thunder rumbled in the skies high above, echoing the shouts and cries of desperation far below.

She was before him now, the oldest of the St. Croix sisters, although she hadn't moved. The boy was stumbling with his panicked steps, his running interrupted as pain gripped his boyish features. He fell, tumbling forward with small and ungainly limbs, striking the hard and muddy ground with a painful thump.

With a mournful whimper, the boy with chestnut hair pushed himself up onto his knees, his clothes caked in mud, his cheeks stained with tears. He was crying, the boy that was no more than five, lost and alone, cold and abandoned by those who should have loved him.

He looked at her, the boy with tear stained cheeks, peering across the endless void and at the women before him. His hands were shaking, his eyes alight with fear and pain, confusion in his features and he cried for those who had left him. He cried in the cold and stinging rain.

This was not the memory she was looking for.

Not even as she reached for the boy before her, the boy wrapped in misery and despair, a boy abandoned by his loved ones. She reached for him, a boy within a moment that had come and gone long before the here and now, a boy that did not want to be alone. She reached for him, as the thunder rocked the heavens high above, an angry scream and a vengeful fury as boundaries were torn and broken.

The boy was screaming, just as her hand touched his shoulder, the boy with chestnut hair clenching tiny fists and echoing the cries high above. He was shaking; his tiny body was on fire, an inferno that was burning within his torso, a howling beast of pain and fury.

A vision flashed, one that tore through her very senses, a sphere of blood and wings of fire, one that ripped and tore at her very mind like a savage beast.

He was screaming, the tiny boy that was lost and all alone, a tiny boy wracked with pain and inhuman fury. He screamed and died and his world exploded, bathing the form Monet St. Croix with blinding light…

The Byron Trust, Level 10, Classified.

Clarity.

Everett Thomas had never seen so clearly, even though he was wrapped in darkness. The tome of ice that had imprisoned his mind and memories had been wiped away, a second life liberated from it's confines. A second life that both was, and was not, his own.

His eyes pierced the gloom that surrounded him with inhuman ease, his genetic gift tapping into and replicating the heightened senses that belonged too the sleeping girls all around him. He could see the multitude of man sized capsules as clear as day, her could feel the bodies beating silently within them, waiting too be awakened.

He could feel the pull of one greater than any other.

He felt at ease, the young man unconcerned by the blood that stained his knuckles, by the sharp scent of copper that filled his senses. His breathing was slow and even, his heart beating to an ever constant march.

He remembered everything, Cassidy and the Agency, the screams and the pain, the missing eye and its erratic partner, the foul breadth and a handshake that sealed his fate. A single moment that had stolen his morality, that had swept away his soul, and replaced it with something else.

Something else that had been buried deep beneath his stolen memories, left too fester beneath denial. Something else that had been reborn.

Everett Thomas, or the young man that posed as him, the former and renewed agent of the Byron Agency, walked with purpose towards the largest capsule, one that peered deep into his soul with sightless eyes. He could feel the power within, a cancer that gnawed at the confines of reality, a blemish upon the soul of humanity.

His eyes never wavered, peering through the dream world into the here and now, as he raised a single hand to the console, silent as he entered a single code. It was one he both did, and didn't know, his fingers tapping into some programmed memory, his mind unable to recall the number.

With a twisted shriek and a blast of air, the capsule squealed as it slowly opened. The grinding gears and shifting metal tore against each other, the coffin for a living being cracking at its hinges. With a god awful crack, the snapping of some great bone, the capsule shot open with an unholy cry. Gas and fluids escaped into the world, a hiss and a squelch and a stench that poisoned the very air.

A body tumbled forward, one decrepit and mostly dead, its sickly flesh and misshaped bones suddenly jarred by the several cables that brutally halted its collapse. There was no life in the broken body, its flesh blistered and slick with blood, its head entirely bald, its eyes black and shriveled, its lower jaw was mostly gone.

Something stirred deep within the lifeless husk, the corpse that housed some unholy thing, a foul and spitting gurgle pouring from its ruined throat. A sound of hate and murder.

Light lingered behind the black and shrivelled eyes, a light that filled the air with pestilence, it was a corpse that infected everything it touched.

A single breath filled those empty lungs, a sucking sound that squealed and hissed and shuddered, a breadth that was both liberated and free.

A single breath filled its lungs and was released; it’s first and only act upon finding freedom.

It screamed.

The Byron Trust, Level 7, R&D.4, Genetic Storage.

Monet St. Croix was screaming.

All composure was lost as a psychic wave of unrestrained rage ripped throughout the entire complex. People died as the ripple effect tore its way up through the ten levels and burst its way towards the surface. Vessels burst and eyes bled, hundreds of men and women simultaneously blinded by a psychic canon to the brain.

The fortunate ones survived; left to whimper from the sudden backlash of psychic venom.

Monet on the other hand was telepathic, and did not fare nearly as well.

The seat she sat upon was hurled backwards through the air, the piece of furniture crashing into the wall with an obliterating crash. She gripped her head between both hands and screamed as best she could, trying desperately to block out the foreign anguish that drowned her nerves in blood. She could barely keep her feet as she stumbled into a table, her entire body wracked with pain as the psychic scream tore away at her very mind, trying desperately too strip away her sanity.

Monet was not the only one, Jonathon Starsmore all but leapt from the metallic cot he lay upon and howled a roar of pain with equal vigour. He gripped his head and fell to his knees, his every sense awash with blinding pain, a knife of misery cutting through his cortex.

The oldest of the St. Croix sisters could see the psychic world twist before her very eyes, the ripple of destructive force that had shot through the facility and tore a hole in the astral plane. It made her sick as the world of thought twisted down upon itself, a myriad of grotesque colours and otherworld profanities disrupting what should be calm and focused.

She almost lost all sense of self, her very thoughts being torn asunder as that psychic scream echoed throughout her very being. The young woman barely kept her feet; her overwhelming will of pride refusing too let her powerful limbs too fall.

Her dark eyes found Jonathon Starsmore, the young man bent on knees and fists clenched before him. He howled too the heavens as the same scream that tore through her mind, ripped through his unprotected senses as well. His body was on fire, the psionic fire that burned within his torso now slipping down his flesh in waves, bathing him in telepathic fire.

It was breaking free, the flame and fury buried deep within his heart, unrestrained by his tortured mind, the psionic bomb forever eager to burst out from his ribcage.

"Jonathon..." she tried too say, barely able to whisper as the Astral Plane twisted and distorted all around her. Paige Guthrie was within her grasp, the soul of a lost friend plucked from his body and held delicately between her mental fingers.

"Jonathon..." she tried to reason, barely able to hold herself together, but too no avail.

With a final, spirit breaking howl, the unprotected mind of Jonathon Starsmore, one pushed beyond the edge by the unleashed rage of another, his fragile human body burst and broke.

The explosion of Psionic might, one that ripped out through his all too fragile torso, was monstrous too behold, consuming the entire room, and shaking the underground facility, the entirety of the Byron Trust, throughout its foundations.

Monet lost of sense of vision as she was blinded by Psionic light, and could only watch as the very soul Paige Guthrie slipped helplessly through her fingers...

TO BE CONTINUED...

NEXT ISSUE: The final sin of the Byron Agency has been unleashed, and after a lifetime of misery and captivity, it wants out, regardless of what stands in its way. With the Byron Trust going into lockdown, there's only one way it can go, but with Generation X scattered too every corner of the Facility, are they in any condition too oppose it?