“I don’t know what to say.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Forge.  Am I doomed?” The examining table was cold against her thighs.

Forge frowned. “It’s hardly a death sentence.  But…” He held the microscopic samples up to the oversized goggles on the bridge of his nose, then angled them slightly in the light.

“Well?” Emma Frost flailed her hands in the air.  Briefly looking at her manicured nails, then around at the massive equipment that littered Forge’s laboratory like a children’s playground.  Biting into her gleaming lips, she said, “I went to three of the best geneticists in North America before I came here.  Just spit it out.”

Forge didn’t feel any easier about the news he’d learned.  Examining Emma, in her white leather skirt and tube top, to match her pale skin and the white knee-high boots she wore, Forge even felt pity for the woman.  But she was still Paige Guthrie’s killer.  So Forge didn’t mind being blunt:

“You have hepatitis, Emma.”

“I bloody well know that!” Emma spat. “That much was explained to me.  I wouldn’t be here for a routine check-up!  Forge, you are an authority on mutant science.  How the hell did I get this disease?”

Forge removed the misshapen goggles, and sighed, “I can’t figure that out.  I can’t explain anything more that simple fact.  Even if I was Hank McCoy, I can’t pinpoint when you were infec--”

“I haven’t had sex in three years.” Emma didn’t look at him when she said it.

Forge sighed, and rubbed his sinuses. “Emma…”

“I’m serious.” Emma continued, “I’ve never been overwhelmingly pleased with men, and women…get in the way.  I don’t do drugs.  I’ve never done anything with a needle.  I’ve never used a public restroom.  I don’t work around blood—”

“Emma!” Forge shook his head. “Think about your life.  Everything that you’ve been through, with the Hellfire Club and everything…you don’t think you could have—”

Emma scoffed, “Oh please.  Don’t tell me you believe those Hellfire Club orgy stories.”

Rolling his eyes, Forge said, “That’s not what I meant.  Hepatitis is not exclusively an STD; this could have come from anything.  Even when you were a child.  There’s no point wondering how you got it, you just need to focus on living a healthier lifestyle now that you’re aware—”

“Bullshit, Forge!” Emma scowled. “Things like this do not happen to women like me.”

Forge’s frown deepened. “On the contrary, you’ve brought me proof that it does.”

Emma slammed her fists down by her side, sending crashing echoes off the metal examination table where she sat.  She quickly regained her composure, and sighed, pulling a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear with her fingernail. “I’m sorry, Forge, but you’re not quite inspiring Xavier-style hope within me.”

Forge slumped, and turned to a surprisingly normal microscope behind him.  Gazing into it, he said, “Emma, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have hope.  True, I can’t identify this type of mutant hepatitis—its unlike any documented strand sample I’ve on file here in my lab—but I can say safely that you’re in great health, and most cases of hepatitis are not so severe that they can’t—”

“Ugh!” Emma hopped down off the examination table.  She grabbed her long, white fur coat from where it rested near her, and stamped away from Forge. “Thank you for what little illumination you’ve brought my mind.  I’ll show myself out.”

“Emma!” Forge raised a hand.

She stopped, but didn’t turn around.

“I want you to get help.” His voice was tender. “This is a massive discovery you’ve brought me.  Couple that with your mysterious…‘secondary mutation’ and well…I think you need to go to the Institute.  Hank McCoy is the only man who can help you.”

When Emma Frost spoke, Forge couldn’t see her sneer, but it was evident on every word she pronounced. “I will die a painful death from this disease before I ever ask the X-Men for help.”

Forge didn’t say anything, and certainly didn’t stop her from leaving the laboratory.  He knew he didn’t have the answers she was looking for, and with the recent upheaval in his own life and profession, this wasn’t something he could focus on.  But if Emma wasn’t going to inform the X-Men, then Forge certainly had to.

Years Ago

“Emma…I just wanted to say, you look stunning this evening.”

She smiled.

“Oh, Charles.  And here I thought you’d never notice.”

She felt the silver, silk sheath glide along her shins as she took a step.  Her matching kitten heels clicked sharply along the marble, with only the pointed toes revealed from under the gown.  Emma joined Harry Leland, placing her hand on his shoulder to join his circle of hangers-on, who were all listening to another joke by the boisterous Black Bishop.  But Emma wasn’t listening to him.  She glanced over her shoulder.

Charles Xavier was at the center of an even larger grouping of people, at the other end of the ballroom.  Emma could barely see him through the on-lookers.  Most of the people around him, Emma didn’t recognize.  But there were those few geniuses who were unmistakable:  Stark, Pym, Byrne, Cockrum, Richards…she could have named a few more.  Though the others took turns talking, they were all hooked and poised around Xavier.  He was the center of attention--something Xavier always excelled at being.

Of course, Moira MacTaggert was letting Xavier take the spotlight, as she did every year at this gala.  The various donors for the Muir Island Genetic Research Center were all invited to learn what their hard earned cash had uncovered, and to donate more money to cover the next year or so.  MacTaggert knew all she had to do was let Xavier do everything.

But none of them knew Xavier the way Emma knew him.  Save Pym and Richards, who had also close encounters with the X-Men, none knew Charles Xavier for the freak he really was.  To see them fawning over a supposedly human defender of mutant rights…Emma struggled to swallow her sip of champagne.

“Emma.  Is that really what you think of me?”

Xavier’s words rang through her mind, and he wasn’t even looking at her.  He was pretending to be listening to his own conversation, while, really, he wanted to talk to her.  She smiled at his mockery of human communication.

“I thought we would get a more private moment together, Charles.”

“And what could be more private than this?”

Emma frowned.  But it wasn’t like Charles Xavier actually saw it.

“Emma…I’ve heard you’ve recruited students.”

Emma’s frown was quickly replaced by the smile again.  She wished Xavier could see it.  For all his elegance, he was worried about this?  Had Emma really gotten to Xavier with her ‘Hellions’ idea? “Indeed I have.  Are you going to tell me to stop encroaching upon your territory?”

Emma waited for something, anything.  She watched him, and she knew sooner or later, he’d give something up.  He’d show her how much she’d unnerved him, made him sweat.  The great Charles Xavier, and she made him nervous.  She knew it.  Now all she wanted was to see it.

But he kept his chin toward his party, and one would expect it was a different voice in her head altogether that said, “Certainly not, Emma.”

“Then perhaps you could cut to the point, Charles?  You may be impressing the sapiens, but the Hellfire Club is not interested in rhetoric.”

Again, Xavier seemed unnerved in his wheelchair.  A few long seconds of silence passed through their craniums, but finally Xavier said, “I’d like to offer you a job at my institute.”

Emma gasped.  Loudly.  She didn’t realize she had let go of her champagne flute until the glass had already shattered across the floor.

But Xavier didn’t give her a chance to compose herself.  He wasn’t even looking at her.  His words rang out, “Come on, Emma.  You know I can give you a credibility the Hellfire Club will never let you have.  You’re so much younger than those crotchety men--younger than me!  Train the next generation with me, Emma.”

“No!” Emma yelled.  Her face was burning red.

“Ma’am?” The voice belonged to a young man, in a white tuxedo, who was holding a tray of replacement champagne flutes right in front of her.

Harry Leland had turned around.  He placed a hand at her hip. “Emma?” He whispered.

“I’m fine.” Emma shook her hand at the young waiter, and walked away from Harry Leland’s circle, and even farther from Charles Xavier, still as ever.  Yet--

“Think about it, Emma.  This type of…decadent lifestyle the Hellfire Club gives you--do you think that’s going to be enough to satisfy you later in life?  Why don’t you work with me?  Make a real difference.”

Emma made it to the ladies’ room.  She rushed to the sink, pulled off her long white gloves and splashed cold water on her face.  She answered Xavier then, “It’s not going to work, Charles.  I know what I have.  Besides, you couldn’t handle me at your little schoolhouse.”

Xavier was quiet then.  Emma was able to leave the ladies’ room, and rejoin the party with no interruption whatsoever.  But now she had tired of the festivity.  She was about to tell Leland it was time to leave.

“Fine, Emma.” Xavier sounded exhausted. “When I heard you were recruiting students, I thought maybe it was goodwill from somewhere deep inside you.  Maybe I was wrong.  But my offer still stands for you to join the X-Men.  It will always stand.  One day, I know you’ll take me up on it.”

“One day?” Emma couldn‘t take it anymore. “And when that day comes, I’m sure you’ll stand up and revel in your ego, wont you? You and all your X-Men!” She couldn’t help but stare fiercely over at him one more time, as she rejoined Leland’s side.  She craned her neck to get a better view.

Again, an echo of his voice, “No, Emma.  When that day comes, I promise the X-Men will do something even worse than that.”

Emma smirked. “And what is that?”

Then Charles Xavier, from his wheelchair, on almost the opposite corner of the ballroom, though dozens of people whisked between them, turned his head and looked straight at Emma Frost.  Their eyes hooked like intertwining lightning.  He even mouthed the words as they flew through her mind:

“We will forgive you.”

Emma slammed the massive, wooden door.   Forge’s little hiding place was a derelict building on the Harbor, boarded up and vandalized, probably given to him when he was still director of SHIELD.  Emma had to cash in some old favors within the organization to find him.

Her long, white limousine stuck out in drab, gray surroundings, but she wasn’t worried about being noticed in New York City.  She stepped quickly.  Her long boots echoed off the concrete.

Slamming yet another door, Emma was inside her limousine.  She peeled off her coat; the evening was becoming much too hot for a coat.  Or maybe the disease was making her feel that way?  Emma angrily threw her purse across the limousine’s stretched insides.

So this is how it ends? Emma thought. Done in by a fluke.

She clinched her teeth, trying not to suffocate on the irony.  It still hadn’t been long since her Frost Enterprises had acquired X-Corp*.  The move exploded her back onto the scene with the big money-movers of the mutant underground.  She was finally beginning to regain some stature, after that…debacle with her former students**.  But then this had to happen.  It couldn’t be coincidence…could it?  Was this really what fate had in store for the White Queen?  Emma clinched her teeth a little bit harder.

(*-in the finale of Brad Horton’s seminal X-Corp series, right here at M2K! – Bryan)

(**- You remember Generation X issue 12, right? – Bryan)

But Forge was right.  A previously unknown form of hepatitis was certainly not a death sentence…was it?  And what did it have to do with her so-called ‘secondary mutation’?  Emma was clinching her mouth so tightly, she was amazed she hadn’t cracked a tooth.  She looked down at herself and saw why she hadn’t.  Her skin was smooth, and reflected the setting sun into her eyes.

“Why?” She gazed at herself.  She stretched her arms and her legs, watching the sunlight roll off them, watching her own smooth, diamond face reflected.  “What does this mean?” She asked it aloud the same way she had a hundred times before.  With but another thought, the gleam of diamond lost its luster, and her flesh returned to normal.  With that came a wave of something akin to euphoria—her psychic abilities also returned.

But did it matter why this had happened to her?  Did Emma have time to waste figuring it all out?  Could she let herself, and her plans, be derailed by a fluke?  Emma certainly had other things to worry about.  Quarter earnings for Frost Enterprises were not good, in part because she was weighed down by a humanitarian organization she didn’t have the first clue how to run.  Warren Worthington wasn’t happy with Emma’s eventual decision to put X-Corp up for sale.  No buyers yet…but one surprisingly interested party…

Something needs to change in my life, Emma thought.

Her limousine smoothly wound down the narrow street leading away from New York Harbor.  Emma gazed out her window, and saw what looked to be a storm somewhere in the distance.

What am I to do?

Sighing, she flicked her fingers upon the tiny numbered pad along the seat to her left. A flat-screen television revealed itself from inside the leather-lined walls across from her.  It burst to color.  Emma frowned.  She was watching the evening news.

A man stood in front of the camera, clutching a large microphone in his hand.  He wore a thick coat, which made him look like a fireman, and it billowed at his ankles.  Over his mouth, obscuring his face, he wore a paper mask, to protect him from the smoke.

Emma peered closer.  The smoke hung all around the reporter, like a curtain.  Words scrawled across the bottom of the screen:

‘FIRE AND VIOLENCE IN MUTANT TOWN’

‘Emergency Crews Unable To Penetrate Chaos’

Emma heard the reporter himself now:

“—too much for emergency crews to handle, so they’ve been called off.  I repeat:  the fires have spread over the Middle East Side with an incredible intensity, and it looks like the lightning storm that started earlier still hasn’t subsided.  It’s just too much for emergency teams from the NYPD.  They’ve called off their operations, for fear of losing more crews than they already have.  FEMA, and the Maria Stark Foundation to our knowledge have not yet dispatched emergency units.  Please, if you are living anywhere from Hamilton Park to 6^th Street, from the river to the Bowery, if you can hear my voice, please evacuate now.  Don’t take any chances!  This—this is just horrible!

The fires aren’t stopping anytime soon, and—and…I think there are people fighting back there.  Mutants and humans.  I don’t know if this storm started the fire, or if it was some kind of hate crime but, they’re fighting each other.  They—they were all fighting each other.  Good god, there’s always glass breaking--”

Emma switched off the television.  She pressed another button on her control panel, and then spoke.  Her lips were pressed into a smile.  “Morrison, take me to Mutant Town.”

Tires squealed as they changed direction.

She was falling backward.  That wasn’t the reason she was screaming.

Since the day puberty had started, Bling was not afraid of falling down.  With the way diamonds sprouted from her skin like lesions on a leper, Bling had been spared the pain of most blunt trauma.  So she fell, head over heels, all the way thinking about how bothersome stairs were.

Bling hit bottom, hard, and lay there catching her breath.  It was noticeably cooler where she was now, if not at all noticeably safer.  In a dash, she was back up on her feet.

“Hold it, girl.” There was a hand on her shoulder.

She spun on her heel.  The man was handsome, devilishly so.  His hair, damp with sweat, framed his face.  His long brown coat covered him like the smoky haze covered the streets above her.  But his eyes…they burned red with a fire that was not physical.

Bling grabbed the man and pulled him tight against her. “It’s the end of the world, man.  For you and me.” She panted, and stared wide-eyed into his red irises. “They’re just letting us die.  Have you heard the screaming up there?  Have you heard the glass breaking?  Our world’s crumbling down, man.  We gotta get outta here.  You and me.  Only one way to go.  If we gotta die, we gotta die together.”

Remy LeBeau pushed Bling down hard to the concrete of the subway station.  She gave little resistance, less than a gasp.  Getting closer to her face, Gambit gently pushed Bling’s eyelids back, giving him a good look at her pupils.  No resistance now.  He frowned, and stood.

“Callisto!” Gambit didn’t take his eyes off Bling, who just sat there, mumbling, drool collecting in a corner of her mouth.

Over his shoulder, he could hear footsteps, coming from the narrow passage that led from the subway to the Alley.  Callisto revealed herself on a furious pace.  Within seconds, she was at LeBeau’s side.

“Bling!” She sighed easy. “Well, there’s one more drug-addled teen who managed to survive this carnage.  I’m starting to think all the survivors of this mess are gonna be the ones who don’t really want to survive.”

Gambit scoffed. “She’s stoned outta her mind, Cali.  Look at her eyes…bloodshot, dilated.  She’s outta her mind on unity right now.”

Callisto shook her head. “That doesn’t matter.  What matters is that she’s alive.”

Gambit snarled and whipped his chin over his shoulder. “An’ for how long?  She could be dead tomorrow ‘cause you let this t’ing infest your underground!  When dey wake up tomorrow and see what’s left of d’ere lives, survivors’re only gonna live long enough to overdose!”

Callisto pursed her lips, before replying, “It was never my underground, thief.  It was theirs.  They did what they wanted.  They always did.  If they want to let it die then it will die.” She moved closer to Gambit, and her words were quieter. “But it survived a massacre before, and it’s not dead yet.  You want to know what I know about unity?  Then help me save our people.”  She waved behind her.

LeBeau’s attention returned to the masses that were crammed in the narrow space behind them.  Callisto and he had collected many strays on their sprint through the Alley.  Some were injured.  Some were lost.  Some were pumped so full of drugs, Gambit couldn’t believe they were conscious.  But two things bound them all:  they were mutants, and they needed help.  Same story, same song and dance.

Luckily, they were able to come by a few Morlocks who were actually of some use:  Glob Herman, Lorelei, the Dead Girl, a fish-faced boy named Sammy…but they weren’t enough.  There were dozens of mutants littering the halls toward the Alley now, so many that Remy couldn’t even see.

“What’re we s’posed t’do?” Gambit sighed.

Callisto’s answer was quick. “What would Xavier do?  Lead them.  He would lead them.  That’s all they’ve ever wanted.” Callisto was careful with her words now: “You know these tunnels by heart, LeBeau.  Once, you led death to the Alley, and now you have a chance to help lead people to life.”

Gambit shuddered.  This was not a role he wanted.  This was not why he came to New York.  But--and this thought made him shudder even more--what if this was always what was waiting for him?  What if this was God’s plan for him?  What if this was fate?  Would he turn around and start running again?  It was time for a decision.

Bling sprang to her feet.  Her eyes were bulging and her lips smacked as she spoke. “Fire.  Fire to purge us of the original sin of our births!  Don’t you see!  This was always what God meant for us!  We have to be purified! ”  Bling was already halfway up the stairwell by the time the last sentence left her mouth. “I want to be cured!  Lord, can you hear me!”

“Bling!” Callisto called to her, but did not follow.

But Gambit dashed after her.  For some reason, as the smoke billowed through his nostrils and around him, as he felt the temperature rise, Gambit felt a rush of relief.

Callisto screamed after him, all the while knowing Gambit would ignore her. “LeBeau!  Come back!  You ready to die, like she is?!  You gonna follow her to your death?!  Huh?!  LeBeau!  Dammit…”  She let her voice fade the same way Gambit faded into the haze of the streets.

Callisto trotted back to her collective, just around the narrow corner.  Shaking her head, Callisto decided that she had too much to worry about to be distracted by a displaced Cajun.  She muttered to herself, “Where are the X-Men when you really need them?”

Patience.  Deep breaths.  Close your eyes.  Do not rush.

These things she said in her mind every time she dived.  It was not her voice however.

Charles Xavier had told her, one day, during one of the many tutorials in his study, “Think of it, Kitty:  avalanches, open ocean, the very sky above our heads!  You can reach through it all.  You can save so many lives.  All you have to do is breathe deep, and never doubt for a second that you can save them.”

You can save them.

Concrete was cold, and gave way to damp soil.  Kitty had to be careful when phasing through solids like this; the tendency was to flow much too quickly.  She had to control herself, have patience.  Soil gave way to solid stone and metal foundation.  She could see it all as she phased through it, she had the eyes of a cat who never left the shadows.

The temperature was warming up.  She was coming to the surface.

Kitty kicked herself up, in much the same way a swimmer would kick herself to the surface.  But she didn’t stop phasing.  The basement of the building was in much the manner she had expected:  dark, steaming with water from burst piping.  She quickly realigned her body ever so slightly with the thick, humid air, to glide gently to the pipes.  Realigning her hand’s molecules, Kitty phased through the metal of the pipes.

She could feel the people.  Or more accurately, Kitty could feel their screaming.  The vibrations, distinctly human, pulsed through Kitty as they flowed through the metal.  She didn’t know which floor they were on, but it was distant.  It had to be one of the higher floors of the building anyway; the firemen had penetrated through the lower levels already.

But it was good to know they weren’t all dead.

Kitty was linked to the metal, and it pulled her like she was hanging on the rail of an escalator.   It wound and twirled through the floors, mostly showing her nothing new.  Flames engulfed all.  Kitty saw more than a few fiery bundles that looked human.  Still she pressed on, the echo of screams growing stronger through the pipes, through her, growing as strong as the voice already in her mind.

You can save them.

A sudden shock went through Kitty, as her molecules burst through solid brick into open air.  Slowly she fell, her hands tugging at the children, like they were kites on a string.  They touched the street delicately, and felt a slight rush through their temples as their molecules were returned to normal.  And Kitty let go of them.

“Jesus!” there was a yell from behind her.

Firemen, in complete jackets, helmets and masks, swarmed her.  Before the siblings were whisked from her line of sight by the fire fighters, Kitty saw them.  They were alive.  Dirty blonde hair, sweat-soaked, they looked almost identical, thanks to their terrified shaking and the third eye in their foreheads.  But they were alive.  She had saved them; two more to the list of anonymous mutants Kitty had simply grabbed and pulled to safety like a lifeguard against an undertoe.  And then the children were gone.

The chaos returned to her.  The heat was immense, making it almost hard to breathe, even without the smoke.  The distance was hazy, but Kitty could see an ambulance--only one ambulance--a fire truck, which was taking water from a leaking hydrant, and people.  Dozens of people, wandering in and out of the haze, some shouting, some screaming.  Only six of these people were actual firefighters.  Two were paramedics.

One of the firefighters approached Kitty.  His face was obscured by a breathing mask.  His voice could barely pierce through it. “That’s it!  We’re pulling back!  The place is lost!  We saved who we could!  Thank you for helping us, but we’ve got to leave now!  If you see anyone just tell them to go east!  With any luck they’ll find us, or anybody that can help them.”

Kitty frowned.  She knew this news was coming.  It hadn’t even been an hour since the storm had started, and even with the four X-Men to help the overstretched fire department, there was no stopping the inferno now.  They needed more help than just water and fire fighters.

This was a disaster.  This was a state of emergency.  Kitty had worked for SHIELD, and numerous other agencies, and she knew this place was now a federal disaster area.  These fires were not snuffing themselves out in a matter of hours.  Hadn’t somebody--the Mayor, the Governor, anyone--declared this a state of emergency yet?  Weren’t they watching television?  Where the hell was the National Guard?  Where was FEMA?  What about the damn Fantastic Four?

“Have you made radio contact with anyone?” Kitty shouted at the fireman.

The fireman shook his head. “The radio’s still just static.  I don’t understand it.  We don’t know what’s going on.  I have to pull my men back.  We need to get help.”

“He’s right, Kitty.” It was Alison, calling from behind her.  Her skin-tight concert repertoire was darkened and burned.  Her makeup was running.  She stood tall on impractical platform heels.  Her thumbs were working a glowing rectangle in her hand.  Alison said, “Something’s blocking cell phone reception.  I can’t get internet access or texting through right now.  I haven’t even seen any television crews.  They’re probably all broadcasting from outside the town limits, where they can actually get through to someone.”  Her shoulders slumped and she said, “I don’t think Rogue’s doing any better right now.”

Both Kitty and Alison turned to look over their shoulder.  Crouching, in the middle of the abandoned, smoky street, Rogue kept her fingers at her temples.  Tiny flashes of luminous brilliance would occasionally ebb and flow from the pores around her hairline.  It was clear by the way Rogue grit her teeth, that her telepathy was not penetrating the storm either.

Alison quickly looked back at Kitty.  Her chest was heaving, her hair was damp and curly, she was shivering, and biting at her thumbnail. “Who did this, Kitty?  Somebody did this on purpose, didn’t they?”

Kitty walked over to her and grasped her shoulder. “Are you okay, Alison?”

Dazzler nodded quickly, “Yeah yeah yeah.” Shrugging Kitty’s hand off her shoulder, “It’s just--” Running a shaky hand through her damp hair, “Oh, just look at this place…”

Kitty reached again and gently shook her by the arm. “Stay with me, Dazz.  Please.  We can save them.  Never doubt for a second we can save them.”  Kitty looked right into Alison’s eyes, so red and so dilated.  Alison looked hardly like the idol she was meant to be, but Kitty couldn’t blame her; Alison was probably feeling somewhat responsible for what was happening.  At least she looked relatively calm now.

Kitty coughed, closed her eyes, and started to rub her sinuses, thinking of the next step.  Then, she looked up quickly.  She turned on her heel to face the raging inferno behind her that was once a building.  She whispered, “Where’s Peter?”

The top floor of the building suddenly burst with an incredible explosion, sending even more smoke and flame roaring toward the crimson clouds above their heads.  Alison and Kitty both looked toward it even as they cowered from it.  A giant fireball seemed to leap from the building, through the explosion itself, falling fast to the streets below.  As it fell, the flames faded away, and Kitty saw it wasn’t a fireball at all.

Colossus landed on his feet.  Shockwaves pulsed through the street, and there were small craters under his soles.  Smoke cascaded along the metal of his arms, shoulders and back.  His arms were wrapped tightly around his chest, for he was clutching something.

The baby was layered in a smoldering wrap that looked like towels or blankets.  In the arms of Colossus, she looked small as a rose blossom.  She wailed, as she every right to.  Peter held the child in the palms of his two hands, and walked toward Kitty.

For some reason, Kitty felt her hands move to her abdomen, as though some dormant pain was awakening there.  She caught herself, and put her hands down to her side.  Her feet tread slowly toward him.

Heat poured in waves from the metal enveloping him.  Still, Kitty found herself drawn closer and closer.  She reached out…she could feel the energy just flowing from him.  She phased, but only a little, and felt the heat slip through her very molecules, caressing her.  Still, she had to get closer.

His eyes were pearls of black. “Nyet, Katja.” His voice was heavy. “You’ll burn yourself.”

Colossus motioned the baby toward her.  The bundle slid down his gleaming massive fingers, into her waiting arms.  The poor girl’s face was purple from wailing through the inferno.  Slowly, gnawing, the pain in Kitty’s abdomen returned.

“That’s my baby!  Oh my god my baby!  Oh god!  That’s my baby there!  Let me have my baby!”

The shriek came from behind her.  She turned, and saw the mother, damp and curled hair sticking to her face and neck, blackened pajamas barely clinging to her wiry frame.  The mother got so close to Kitty when she took back her child, Kitty could see the relief in the mother’s bulging eyes, despite the ragged exhaustion in every other part of her body.

“Thank you thank you thank you.” But the mother’s cries were drowned into one noise with her daughter’s.  One of the paramedics was quick to take them both aside.

Kitty was left standing there, watching them go.  All around them, buildings, homes, and the people in those buildings and homes, were burning.  Her chest felt suddenly heavy, and the ache in her bones was apparent.  The tears were already dripping from her chin by the time she realized she was crying.  She tried to wipe at her eyes quickly, but they kept coming.

Strong hands--Peter’s hands grasped her shoulders. “You can save them.”

Kitty turned around to him. “What?”

“Isn’t that what he said to you?” Peter asked. “The Professor?  Isn’t that what he told you?” He gently squeezed her hand. “Katja…I know you can.”

Kitty pulled Peter into a hug, pushing her face hard into his chest.  He smelled of smoke, and rust, but when Kitty held him she felt stronger.  As long as he was there, she really could believe the X-Men were going to save everybody.

Peter pushed her away, still holding her by her shoulders.  He said, “I have to go.”

Kitty gulped and said again, “What?”

Peter suddenly looked scared, his frame thin in his stretched and ripped clothes.  He was even shuddering a bit. “From here, I can usually see my home…but the smoke, it’s so thick…I have to--”

“Oh!” Kitty closed her eyes and her stomach dropped as she thought of Peter’s wife and son. “Go!  Right.  You have to go!  What were you--you should’ve left a long time ago!” She couldn’t understand why she hadn’t thought of them before.

Peter took a few steps, like he was ready to go, but he turned back, “You know I’ll return if--”

“Just go!” Kitty yelled.

Then, Colossus was running.  With every step he took down the street, Kitty could feel the rumble beneath her heels.  Soon, the gleaming reflection of the flames was absorbed by the smoky distance.  It was a bit longer before the rumbling of the street faded.

“Damn…” that was Alison.

Kitty turned back to her, just shaking her head.

Alison gave a nervous laugh. “This used to be easier, right?”

Kitty closed her eyes, trying to shut out the chaos for just a second, to think clearly for just a second.  It was no use.  When she opened her eyes, there was only the clouded sky, and the lightning flashing inside it.  In each flash, Kitty saw a silhouette outlined, and safe from the fire.  It was a cross, perched on a high tower.  She was staring at it, not quite really seeing it, until finally--

“Of course!” Kitty jumped like she had been struck by lightning. “Alison!  Do you see that!” She pointed wildly at the cross, barely visible in the distance. “Kurt!”

Bling barely noticed herself falling again.

She had run as fast as her legs could carry her up the steep stone steps of the old church.  She got a bit ahead of herself, and the uppermost set of stairs was steepest.  Again, head over heels she was tumbling before she knew it.  But again, she scarcely felt the blunt trauma.  She barely felt anything.  In her mind, Bling was rehearsing a tune by Alison Blaire.

Like the moon over tides

They pull us together

Like full moon nights

It don’t last forever

Round and round

Up and down

Light and sound

Can’t touch the--

BAMF~!

The sound was in unison to a burst of light, like from a strobe light more than lightning, and smoke--awful smoke that made the sting of the fire seem like a barbeque aroma.  Bling felt her stomach gag, and her world straighten.  She had been caught.

Bling felt him lift her under the knees and at the shoulders.  When her eyes could focus, she saw him.  He was a devil, handsomely so.  His yellow eyes scanned her body, like a doctor’s eyes would over a patient.  His hand, she saw, when he grasped to lift her at her shoulder, only had two fingers and a thumb.  A cold compress wiped at her cheek, held not by a hand, but a pointed, furry tail.

At his neck, the devil wore a collar of the Catholic church.

He leaned in close to Bling, and when he spoke, she watched his fangs and darted tongue.  His voice was a whisper. “Welcome, child.  Welcome to the New Age Kristalnacht.  Hang on to me.”

Bling put her faith in the demon she found at church.  She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her ear hard against his chest.  His heart was beating so fast.  Alison Blaire started up in her mind again.

This unseen force

Can’t hold this energy

This collision course

Can’t help but set us free

We’ll fall to Earth

And we’ll rise above

We’ll fall to Earth—

BAMF~!

“And we’ll fall in love.”

Longshot realized he had said it in unison with Layla Miller.

She looked over her shoulder and smiled.  He could see her face, though her big cheeks were only slightly illuminated in the dim glow of a flashlight.  She said, “You got that song stuck in your head too, huh?”  She kept striding down the narrow concrete passage of the Alley.

Longshot frowned.  He did have a song in his head.  He said, “I don’t know who sings it.  But it’s…I can’t get it out of my head.”

Layla laughed, “Yeah, that’s how she’s stayed popular for so long.” She continued down the stretch, and Longshot kept to two or three paces behind her.

“Who is she?” Longshot probed.  It felt like something he needed to know.

“Duh!” Layla called behind her, “Alison Blaire!  You know--Dazzler?  Look, I know you just came back from the dead and all that, but honestly, where have you been?”

Longshot didn’t answer.  He turned over his mind, and tried to keep from tripping into the sewage beside him.  It occurred to him that hers was a decent question, and did deserve an answer.  So, he said, “Was that really death?”  The sudden sullen feeling inside his ribs told him the word was truth. “I feel like…” and his voice faded, his boots now in a nice rhythm with Layla’s sneakers just ahead.  Longshot said what he had felt since Layla awoke him just a few minutes before:  “I feel like I’m supposed to be dead.  Like, right now.”

Layla stopped, suddenly, almost shockingly, and turned to him.  The floating, green creature over her shoulder, whose name Longshot understood was ‘Doop’, held up the flashlight over them, like a lumpy floating lamp.  Layla scowled. “You don’t feel…alive?  What, like a zombie?”

Longshot shrugged.  He gazed upward toward the light, shining on his face from an open manhole.  Heat poured through the opening, along with the sound of shattering glass.  When his shoulders drooped, Longshot felt them drop with all their weight.  “It’s like life is a drug…and I’ve built up a tolerance.”

Layla’s scowl turned into something more akin to a grin. “You mean…it’s just like that song!”

Longshot sighed at Layla’s misunderstanding .  He could feel the emotion in his chest, just threatening to pop through his clavicle.  But he couldn’t make sense of anything, except the here and now, his life in the moment.  Whenever he would shut his eyes, his mind would show some blur, some abstract graphitti of colors, smells, tastes, wars, loves, pain and all that was just one thing, wasn’t it?  Now, here he was, it seemed, right where he left off:  abstract violence, a blur of nonsense and fire.  Was this what fate had in store for him?  Was this all that life offered?  Or was this all that death offered?  Longshot just wanted to scream, laugh, write, dance or--

“What song?” Longshot perked his head up.

Layla pondered. “I don’t know the name.  It’s on the tip of my tongue.  But, you know, it goes, like…we’re all martyrs, we’re all monkeys--ba!-bum!-bum!--we’re all heroes, we’re hero junkies!  You know that one?”

“Yeah…“ Longshot started bobbing his head. “Yeah!  I know that one…like--one for the blood, two for the brothers, three for me, and four for the others!”

“Yeah!  That’s it!” Layla laughed.  And Longshot laughed with her.  It was long, and carried.  Doop merely floated, content.

After a few seconds, the echo of their laughter faded.  Layla spoke, “We gotta get going.”

Longshot was deadpan. “Where are we going?  Why are you doing this to me?  Why am I alive?”

Layla’s smile returned.  Longshot noticed Layla never seemed to be long without it.  She said, “I guess I can let you in on a secret.”

Longshot bit his lip. “I am all about secrets.”

Layla rolled her eyes.  But, she looked like she was controlling some kind of excitement from inside herself. “You’re the first of my X-Men, Longshot.  You’re my very own Cyclops!”

Longshot’s face was still a blank.  He said, “Wait…what are the X-Men?”

Now, Layla turned around and started to head back down the passage.   She called over her shoulder. “The perfect place for a new beginning.  I just hope they haven’t started without us.”

Longshot felt a familiar twinge when he thought of the name ‘X-Men’.  It was almost the same feeling he got when he thought of Allison Blaire and her music.  Longshot took a few steps, because Layla was already a bit farther ahead down the way.  He said, “Layla, you are so…so…”

“Uncanny?” Layla’s voice echoed into the darkness.

And it was darkness.  Doop had not followed.  He had remained, steady, peering down the opposite direction from where Layla was leading them.  Both Layla and Longshot peered at Doop.

“Yo!  Doop!” Layla shouted, “What’re you looking at?”

Caliban had ran a skewed direction from Callisto and Gambit quite a few minutes ago, and he was still only just arriving to his stopping point.

For a good little while, he’d felt a tiny throbbing in his mind.  Caliban was used to the affliction at this point--something was in his mind.  It was in his mind.  Sweat poured in steady streams down and around his contorted face.  It wasn’t just from the temperature; Caliban was worried.  Not about Callisto, or even his fellow Morlocks, or their strife in the fire above him.

Caliban was worried the Golgotha might show him something worse than all that.

A familiar scent started to overwhelm the smell of fire and smoldering life.  It stunk of skunk and mold, but Caliban had smelled it so many times now, it was oddly appealing, even arousing.

The brain throbbing had increased now.  It was to the point where Caliban could touch his temples, and feel the blood being pumped at a heavier pace through his mind.  Along with this came flashes of vision--brilliance showing Caliban’s own confrontation with the Cajun X-Man, Gambit, and then Gambit’s confrontation with Callisto.*  As Caliban relived those moments, he knew this was merely the Golgotha’s own way of letting Caliban know that he had been caught.

(*- last ish!- Bryan)

Caliban eased his pace, but he still continued forward in the darkness of the tunnel.  He didn’t need light; his eyes functioned perfectly at this level.  He didn’t bother speaking.  He merely thought, “Mistake!  Accident!  Caliban--err, I didn’t mean it!  What should I do?”

No answer save darkness.

Now Caliban could see it in the short distance.  It was pulsing…breathing.  He couldn’t help it every time he was here, from the very first time he had discovered it, Caliban just had to touch it.  Lush, fresh…it shuddered as he ran his index finger across it’s breast.  Just breathing in the fumes that lingered from its pores, Caliban felt reinvigorated.  It was so huge now, it almost filled the tunnel in this deep, abandoned part of the Alley.  He took a few steps back to take in the entire mass.

When Caliban would shave off the outer layers of this creature, divide it up into small plastic baggies, and sell it to the denizens of District X, mutants would give it a different name from the one Caliban knew it by.  They would eat it, or smoke it, and equate it with the feeling they always wanted to get from the world, a feeling they thought they’d never feel.  Mutants called it ‘Unity’.

But to Caliban, it would always be Golgotha.  It was the name that blared through his mind when he had first found it those many months ago.

Then there was pain.  The Golgotha did not appreciate Caliban’s visit, not now.

Immediately, light consumed Caliban’s senses.  His skin seared, like flame was leaping from his pores.  Stink and mold were replaced by rot and blood.  He heard breaking glass.  He kept his eyes squeezed shut.  But that never kept him from seeing it.  He wasn’t underground, but suddenly saw all of New York, like some omnipotent eye.  Vast skyscrapers crumbled, streets and ground upturned, smoke darkened the sky.   Mutants, he watched them run over streets, over rubble, over each other, before their heads or their chests or their guts would explode over the landscape.  Blood went from dark, to red, to black.  Bodies withered from flesh, to infested, to bones just.  That.  Fast.

And there were Sentinels.  Sentinels were everywhere.

One was right above him, colossal hard plastic boots crushing bones into rubble into dust with each step.  Red burning eyes glanced downward, precise, emotionless.  A gauntleted hand glowed gently, deadly, and it didn’t even have to move that much.  It bathed Caliban in more fire, and Caliban felt his skin sear and split once more.

Then nothing but the darkness.  Cool, soothing darkness.  Caliban knew he could open his eyes now.

He was back in the Alley, as he hoped he would be.  Every time Caliban saw the place Golgotha showed him, he was never sure if Golgotha would ever let him return.  Maybe it would leave him there, in that future world.  No…was it really the future?  Was it Caliban’s own fate, own future?  Or was it nothing but a trick?

He could see light in the distance…in the distance away from the Golgotha.  He went in that direction.  Caliban didn’t need to look back to know the Golgotha was still there, in its monolithic slouch, stinking, growing as big as its secrets.  Caliban knew he’d be back.

Vance Astrovik awoke to a thunder in his temples.  Blood was pumping so hard, so fast, he was nauseous.  He was laying on his stomach, with something warm flowing from his forehead.  He knew he was bleeding, he didn’t need to touch it.  He’d been hit with something.  With what?  No time to worry about that.  He pushed himself up, feeling the gravel of the street scrape his palms as he did.  But he was too nauseous and, just as he was rising from his knees, fell back into a slump.

“Time for you to wake up, Vance Astro.”

By its tone, the voice was almost panicked.  Vance knew enough to realize the voice had spoken though his brain.  Who could have done that?  Vance didn’t recognize the voice.  How long was he out?

He tried to stand again.  As he regained his balance, he realized the voice wasn’t the only thing in his brain.  He’d been drugged before, and it was a feeling Vance couldn’t forget.  There was something else swimming in his blood stream, but Vance unfortunately didn’t have enough experience to assume which drug this was.

Vance opened his eyes.  His vision came in blurred waves.  The flames of Mutant Town danced like jesters.  The noise of the disaster was amplified like fireworks remixed with a drum machine.  His pores were tingling.  He heard voices in his brain.  One voice projected more than the others.

“Vance, thank God you’re still alive, boy.”

Vance steadied himself.  “Who are you?” He knew he said it aloud, because he wasn’t even going to try to concentrate enough to respond telepathically.  It took enough concentration to stand at that moment.  Vance didn’t wait for an answer, and moved on to the more important question.  “What did you do to me?”

There was a shimmering darkness ahead of him, like the flames were parting.  A figure was there, or at least Vance thought it was a human figure.

“I’m sorry I had to do that to you, Vance.  But this was the only way I could get…a private moment with you.  Have you ever heard of unity?”

“Oh shit…” Vance was shivering.  He rubbed his arms and panted, “The fire…” His right hand, as he rubbed his left shoulder, came across a thin dart, like a pine needle, sticking in his flesh.

“The fire is not going anywhere, I promise you.  Listen to me while we have time, while our minds are connected through the drug.  I need your help.”

Vance pulled the dart from his arm, and threw it to the ground.  He tried to focus on the figure in the distance, if there really was anyone there at all. “Who are you?” Still his vision kept coming in flashes, in some terrible euphoria.  “What do you want?”

The figure approached Vance, and suddenly, along with nothing else in Vance’s frame of vision, became clear.  He wore a long flowing robe, which was made of some kind of mesh.  Underneath the robe, he wore a chitinous armor which stretched down his legs, the whole thing looking worn but hardly worthless.  His boots were plastic and they reminded Vance of…Sentinels?  The pike clutched in his right hand was not of this Earth, Vance knew.

But it was the mask that hooked Vance more than anything else.  It hung over his face like a shroud, with some kind of vision technology lining the eye sockets, sizing up Vance.

“I am the X-Cutioner, boy.” He said, hurriedly.  “And I need you to help me save the world from the X-Men.”

NEXT CHAPTER:  Layla’s uncanny team starts to take a bit more shape…though a few pieces might not fit as well as she hopes.  What is the X-Cutioner afraid of?  And Warren’s body had to land somewhere…be here next time, when I take the X-Men to church.