Hank McCoy sat on the edge of his Lincoln Navigator in the parking lot of the Salem Gardens apartment complex, wearing a trench coat to cover his form once more, though he had left his fedora inside. His yellow pupils were focused on the object before him; a handheld Cerebro unit.

Towards the rear of the car, the returning X-Man* Alison Blaire a.k.a. Dazzler, who was wearing a leather jacket with a light blue "X" insignia parting from the jacket's opening, and a pair of sunglasses tucked at her center waistline, leaned against Hank McCoy's mode of transport. Testing the cold air around her, as sunset began to dawn upon the two, Alison sighed calmly... breathing a cloud of cold air before her.

( *Check out X-Men Alpha #5 to see Dazzler's return - Dino )

"Cerebro find anything yet, Hank?" Alison turned her head to her furred team mate, hunching her brows lightly.

"It seems that the source of my hallucination has left the area," Hank took his eyes away from the handheld Cerebro, cocking his head to Alison. "Cerebro can't find any trace of a mutants' benefactor within 300 meters."

"So what are we doing now?" Taking her hands out of her jacket pocket, Alison turned fully to Hank and walked towards him.

"I suppose we should return to the mansion. But first, I'd like to give Bobby a visit," Hank tucked the portable Cerebro under his arm, as he stood down from the car's hood. "He should know that there may be a potentially dangerous mutant around Tanya and Sherry's apartments."

The furred X-Man placed the fedora hat on his head, reaching for the door of his Lincoln Navigator. Alison nodded, before moving around the vehicle to it's passenger side.

"Giddyup."

A small, icy blue haze faded from the air around the orchards. Bobby Drake took a glance up and down the street, before he slipped across the street and made his way to the parking lot in front of his apartments.

He scratched his brow gently, as he strode across the parking lot. Man, did it suck not having a car for the time being.

Wonder if I could borrow some more money from Xavier's Account, Bobby thought to himself, before he grimaced at the idea. No way. I need to stop doing that. But then again, it's not like I'm not going pay it back...

Bobby's train of thought was shaken, as he heard the honking of a horn behind him. He turned his head to the source as he stepped aside, taking a moment to recognize the driver of the white vehicle.

"Greeeeting's Bobb-o," Hank exclaimed in a playful tone, as he came to a stop beside his pedestrian friend.

Alison ducked her head down to see out the driver side window, smiling a bit as she saw Bobby. "Geeze popsicle, you would have been road kill if it wasn't anyone but your loving, ex-team mates."

"Aww.... Whatchoo up to gurl?" Bobby smiled as he leaned against the car, ducking his head down to see across Hank to Alison. His voice was ever playful. "Been awhile"

"Yeah," Alison flicked a piece of her recently shortened, strawberry blonde hair.

"New do, too," Bobby pointed out. "I like. It's sooo... '80s like. When growing up was growing up to rock music."

"Speaking of the times when we go through our stages of growing up," Hank interjected, catching Bobby's attention.

"Whassup?"

"Alison and I have just arrived from Tanya's apartments, and I think there's something you should know...."

Sherry gradually sat up from her spot on the couch, her shoulder length hair in a tangle. Gently, she rubbed the tired feeling from her eyes. It would take her a moment to recollect her young thoughts before she fell asleep, and what her current feelings were at the moment. But when she did, she would stiffen her nose and frown.

"About time you're awake," Tanya smiled, as she picked up the living room. "I thought I was gonna have to get a bucket of cold water."

Blinking, Sherry stretched out her small body and leaned into the couch tiredly. Tanya looked back to her, and stood up right.

"Something wrong, babe?" Sherry shook her head, and scratched her nose. Tanya simply smiled, and went back to work on the front room. "Okay. Spaghetti's for dinner."

"Now something's wrong," the young girl scrunched her face up, resisting a smile. Tanya threw Sherry's sweater over her head, smiling herself.

"A-Heh... uh-Heh-Heh..." Bobby tried his best to not laugh as he looked to Hank. He had parked in Bobby's old parking spot, and the three of them have positioned themselves against the car. "You saw a gorilla..."

Alison rolled her eyes a bit and smiled, as did Hank... minus the Gilroy smile. "Yes, Bobby."

"On top of your car?"

Hank nodded, though noting Bobby skeptically.

"Sleeping."

Hank blinked.

"On top.... of your car... with a bunch of... " Bobby snorted, coughing a dry laugh before beginning to turn red and bursting out into a low chuckle. "Bananas around him..."

Hank bit his bottom lip, shaking his head as Alison did the same, though in somewhat of an amused matter.

"It was obviously some sort of a hallucination, or something else, Bobby," Hank reassured, not taking the situation as lightly as Bobby.

"I didn't think you drank much, Hank," Bobby grinned, looking up and down Hank's blue furred face. "Maybe it has something to do with those chemicals in your lab..."

Hank rolled his eyes, and looked away. "I highly doubt that."

"Okay, I hear ya Hank," Bobby got up from the car and walked away from it a bit until turning back to Hank. "I'll keep an eye on Tanya and Sherry. Make sure there's no Gorillas running around Salem Center, or performances by David Copperfield."

Hank shook his head once more, and again rolled his eyes. Alison waved to Bobby as she moved around the car, and moved back into the passenger's side.

"That guy Copperfield man, he is SUCH a phony," Bobby grinned, stepping away from the car in a backpedal towards his apartments as Hank and Alison got situated.

Later that night...

{{ Hello? }}

"Hey-ey, Sherry." Bobby assumed, smiling to himself as he propped his feet up on the coffee table before him.

{{ Oh.... Hi, Bobby. Mom's uh, busy right now. }}

"No problem-o, can ya tell her to call me back? I wanted to talk to her about something."

{{ Okay. Sure. Bye! }}

"B-- "

*CLICK*

Frowning a bit, Bobby glanced to his cordless phone and shrugged, before tossing it to the side of his couch. Maybe it was just him, but Sherry's tone was a bit... off. Like she didn't want to talk to him, maybe?

Bobby leaned his head back into the rest of the couch, spreading his arms out and closing his eyes. He would have to go to work in a few hours, so he might as well get some sleep. Sherry's behavior on the phone was probably just apart of being a kid...

Sherry set the cordless phone back on the end table, breathing a bit of a forced sigh. The sound of Bobby's voice had startled her for the moment. Though she knew he wasn't at all a bad guy, it was just the thought that would excite her young mind.

"Who was that?" Tanya projected from the kitchen, having heard the phone ring.

"Huh?" Sherry mumbled, before turning her head in the direction of her mom's voice and replying. "Oh, wrong number!"

"Okay. Dinner's going to be ready soon."

"'kaay!" Sherry's attention returned to the television set, and she began kicking her legs back and forth off the edge of the couch to wear down the sudden anxiety of having lied to Bobby, and then to her mother.

Various bubbling and clicks filled the laboratory of the Beast, a.k.a. Hank McCoy -- world known mutant scientist, and former Avenger. The laboratory was structured to aid the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, base of operations to X-Men Alpha.

While one experiment took it's course, Hank McCoy found himself starting on another to keep occupied. With the passing of Professor Charles Xavier months back, he found his time enveloped with experiments. Experiments that are still in the process, even as of late.

Recently he's found himself with less and less free time to finish the various experiments started in the passing of Charles Xavier. That's why he finds the bits of free time he has this evening to be a relief. It would be time to continue on with his waiting his experiments....

But with the summoning beep of his computer setup, the scientist's free time would be even more limited then he would like to believe.

Casually dropping from the support bars he had crafted onto the ceiling of his laboratory, the Beast moved across the tiled floor to his console. With a gentle push and click of the mouse, he brought up the message that had been sent to him from Cerebro's Big Brother network... which would allow the X-Men Alpha faction to know of any mutant activity. In this case, the reactivation of an unknown mutant's powers in a certain area of Salem Center.

The recent incident occurring around the apartment building where a new found friend lived forced Hank into programming Cerebro to keep scans open to the entire county of Westchester -- just in case. And it looks like he may have made the right choice in precaution. With a few effortless bounds, he would make his way from the laboratory into the corridors of the mansion's lower levels.

A creak at the front door of his apartment woke Bobby Drake. Standing up from the couch with his arms outstretched, Bobby yawned as his eyes came to focus. Light shined into his dark apartment from outside, followed by a nonchalant voice.

"Hooooneeee, I'm hoooome...." A shadowy figure stepped through the doorway, his outline strangely familiar.

"Huh...?" Bobby arched a brow, as he leaned down to turn on a lamb.

When he looked back to his uninvited visitor, his eyes grew in shock and curiosity. For those brief moments, it was like looking into a mirror... Until the Doppelganger raised an open hand with that suave grin, causing an explosion of ice to launch Bobby through the sliding glass door in his apartment's den.

Bobby crashed through the sliding door, shattering the glass and tumbling over the edge of his balcony. Ice and snow began encasing the air outside of his body as he spun in the air, creating a tunnel of ice and snow that was meant to carry him to the ground below in better condition then he should be.

Though his reality was distorted in that moment, Bobby's reactions were purely out of instinct. Years training as a member of the outlaw band of mutants known as the X-Men will do that to you.

His Doppelganger would continue to grin, as he put on a pair of blue tinted sunglasses that were sitting on Bobby's coffee table and proceeded to the balcony.

"Oof!" Bobby muttered, tumbling out of the poorly constructed tunnel of ice and rolling against the grassy park's ground. Though Bobby was thrown from the impact of the ice, the cold didn't phase him one bit.

As he moved to his hands and knees, coughing from the sudden shock to his ribs from the impact of the fall, his Doppelganger would slide down smoothly on a sled of ice with little noise. Bobby had overslept obviously, since it was dead night. Even more so, if the sound of shattering glass wasn't well noticed by his surrounding neighbors.

Kicking his feet into the ground, Bobby moved up to his feet with a stumble. The Doppelganger before him stood, posed in the moonlight with a bit of hair draping across his forehead. Having caught his breath, Bobby was able to make a logical stance against his attacker.

"Let's get one thing straight, buddy...." Bobby took a moment to breath, trying his best to remain calm after the sudden attack by 'himself'. "I'm Bobby Drake."

The Doppelganger's brow folded into a crease, as he looked across the grass to meet Bobby's gaze through tinted sunglasses. It took him a moment to respond, but he did so in such a challenging voice. "I'm... Bobby Drake."

"No no, I don't think you understand..." Bobby breathed once more, his brow folding as he spoke out in a disciplinary tone. "I'm Bobby Drake."

"No no, I don't think you understand..." The Doppelganger repeated, his own form of a disciplinary tone echoing through the night. "I'm... Bobby Drake."

There was silence.

"...You want an ass whoopin', son?"

"Heh..." The Doppelganger grinned once more, before the two launched themselves across the field of grass towards each other in unison.

Next Issue: Iceman vs. Iceman!! Plus, more on the Grizzly and Gibbon. Don't you just love those two goofballs?

FROSTBYTE

As we all know, the creative process is indeed, always swishing back and forth. That's why again, my plans for an issue have changed. It's not that Iceman taking Grizzly and Gibbon under his wing won't happen -- it's just it won't happen this issue. These two will have their spots as supporting characters in the story for a time, that time just doesn't happen this issue. Uhh... yeah, before you wanna kill me for not being able to make up my mind, and being so confusing, let's get to some letters.

First one's from writer of... a lot of stuff, here at M2K, Dino Pollard.

Y'know, I just noticed that this issue wasn't mentioned as released on M2K's main page... eh, oh well. Least I got a review by Dino!

Great job by Cory. I liked the references to "Be Like That," although, I'd probably have written the actual lyrics in the issue as opposed to describing them.

Y'know, I actually had thought about that. But when Russ went and did it in Scarlet Spider, well... I didn't wanna look like I was stealing anything from him. Now that I think of it though, who cares? >=D

It's nice to see Grizzly and Gibbon struggling to try and become heroes.

Which is how it should be for guys not actually thrown into it by fate. These two are ex-villains, and not really the brightest couple out there.

The scenes with Beast, Sherry, and Tanya were very good.

I try. ^_^

At first, I thought maybe Sherry told Hank to go home because she was beginning to dislike him or something, especially when she told Tanya that she had a nightmare about a gorilla (since Hank has a simian mutation). But now, I'm left wondering if Sherry is a mutant herself with some sort of precognitive abilities. Nice way to intro that, Cory.

Shh! You'll ruin it for those like Adnan who haven't picked up on why the Gorilla was actually on Hank's car!

All in all, a very good down-time issue.

Thanks, and congratulations again to you for being accepted into Northern Illinois University.

Next, is from possible future writer of Iron Man here at M2K (that is, if he ever gets an issue in), Franky Bigoski.

First off, lets point something out: Cory uses great characterization, and he works the whole Gibbon and grizzly sittuation quite well. Legion of Losers reference was a plus(they rock!). And again, Bobby's performance is phenomenally written by everyone's favorite fiend(that'd be Cory).

Cool. I get to be a fiend... hehe. But seriously, the Grizzly and Gibbon can be fun characters to play around with. Though they're not quite in-depth of characters, and it may not fit right to try and make them so in-depth, they still make fun comic reliefs. Even though one of the comic reliefs of this title is Iceman, of course.

The Way Cory wrote Bobby in to the middle of Gibbon kicking Grizzly in his ribs was humorous, but the ending was excellent, playing on what he then believed to be the comment of a Drunk super hero Mr. Frosty the Snowman himself lights up his fingers with a little illuminescent Cryo Blue after saying he was a hero too, and ending the issue with "Cool Huh?" was great fun... I salute your story mister Wease... I mean Wiegel.

.... I will personally hunt you down, and hurt you for that. Seriously. Do you know what kind of scarring it does as a child to be called Cory Weasel? Much! That's why I write fan fiction. >=D

Thanks for the nice words, you two. Hopefully this issue will get some too. Of course, maybe I should be umm... more nicer and review other people's stuff more often... heh heh... like that's gonna happen. Goodnight everybody. ^_^