Main Entry: sloth
Pronunciation: 'sloth, 'släth also 'slOth
a : disinclination to action or labor : INDOLENCE
b : spiritual apathy and inactivity

Xavier Institute.
The War Room.

"Aren't you going to go get them?" Jean Grey asked her husband as she stared down at him from her spot over his chair. Scott Summers steepled his fingers in front of him, appearing as if he was considering a response.

"No... honey," He replied in a relatively faithful tone, though not without it's coming sarcasm. "I think I'll just let them... y'know... screw like bunnies for a while, and when they wake up the injuries to their teammate can fall on their heads."

"It's not like I rarely have to say this to you, Scott, but grow up." Jean shook her head in disgust as she crossed her arms and drew a hand up over her face. "Do you honestly believe that they would have made any difference with the intruders?"

"Cannonball was clocked at 124 m.p.h. in under six seconds yesterday morning in the war room," the leader of the X-Men commented as he leaned back into his chair and used his index finger to rub under his chin. "I think he could have arrived in time."

"Don't tell me pressing guilt on Sam is some kind of lesson he should learn in order to become a better functioning member of the team," his wife retorted. Just then one of the war room monitors across the room flashed alive with an alert of some sort.

Jean looked over the war room's metallic round table at the monitor as it beeped. She then turned her attention back to her husband, letting the beeping sound of the monitor's hail echo in the back of her head as she awaited a response from her husband.

After what she unconsciously counted as the eighth alerting sound, he gazed up towards her expectantly through his ruby quartz visor and finally responded to the empty stare she had been giving him. Just not in the way she wanted.

"Are you going to get that?"

Jean nearly exploded in rage at his response. She shook her side to side vigorously as she unfolded her arms and made her way from Scott around the war room table and to the hailing monitor.

"I can't believe you would say something like that," Jean said as she approached the panel of controls and activated Cerebro's alert. "Sam is a fine member of the X-Men, and was a great leader in your absence with the team"

Scott looked away from her, paying attention to really nothing in particular. "Yeah, Jean. I'm sure they took that into deep consideration when the First Annual Hero of the Year Award came around."

"Like you have ever made hero of the year by going up to Anchorage to mourn your brother's death, or by falling into a coma," Jean said, looking away from the control counsel and back at her husband.

Scott looked back to her as well, meeting her eyes through the red visage of his ruby quartz visor. After a brief stare down and a moment of silence, he flashed her a cheesy grin as a glare ran off the lens of his ruby quartz visor.

Jean rolled her eyes and looked back to the counsel, reading the report that had come through.

"Cerebro's reporting some kind of strange weather manipulation, possibly of mystical origins, somewhere in Salem Center," she summed up in the mass of data the sophisticated technology had fed her.

"There's major energy fluctuation of some sort in a mutant's power, as well."

"Hmm..." Scott murmured in response, steepling his fingers back together. "Bobby's in the area. Having left the X-Men so many times in order to pursue his career as a super-hero, I'm sure he's all ready on the situation."

"That's enough, Scott!" Jean barked as she shut off the monitor and stood to her full height, sending a deafening gaze across the war room at her husband as he sat there like a moron playing with his fingers.

"You know..." Scott pointed out, tilting his head her way though not bothering to meet her fiery, yet cold emerald eyes as he spoke. "He's a certified accountant, too..."

Jean ignored his sarcastic comment, having reached her full of the conversation. "If you want to sit around and act like a stubborn jackass just because Xavier's dream hasn't gone your way since you took up leadership... then go right ahead."

With those words, Scott looked away from his wife and broke the childish steeple he made with his fingers as she hit close to home.

She's right, he thought to himself almost immediately with a sigh. He didn't see it, but there was a sound of pressurized air break as Jean went through the heavy metal doors and left the war room.

Why am I acting this way when everyone needs me the most? Scott asked himself as he rose a hand to his forehead and let his body sink back into the chair he was sitting in. Behind him in the shadows of the war room, two glowing pupils watched on.

Jean Grey -- Phoenix -- strode out of the briefing room into the halls underneath Xavier's, letting out a frustrated sigh. She loved Scott, there was no doubt about that. But it seemed like he was becoming more and more stubborn as things got worse, even about reconciling their marriage.

Whenever problems like the ones coming up lately were affecting the team, Professor Xavier had always ceased control, stopping it at the foot and acting as counselor and mentor to his troubled students. He was great to all of them, though he's gone now and it was hard for any of them to talk to each other without stepping on a nerve.

It had looked as if the Omega faction was holding it together, as well as any of the other branch off teams making a difference. But there was a difference in the ranks. Scott, Jean, and Hank had all known and lived with Professor Xavier for so long that he had made more then a small difference in their lives.

He was what had kept their lives in order since adolescence. Though all of them had thought they had grown up as well as any other "well adjusted" mutant adult, maybe they all still had one weakness; without Xavier, they didn't know what their place was in the world.

Jean had stopped at the corner of the hallway to take all of the thoughts running through her mind into consideration, crossing her arms over her torso and leaning back against the metallic wall that line the walls. If all of this true, what would be the next step for the team to take in order to rectify all that troubles them? Was there even one to take?

She took in a calm breath and looked down to her abdomen, placing a hand there. Apocalypse's child was slowly growing inside of her. Was it possible that something destined for such evil could find redemption in the world? To Phoenix, it had to be true. If not, then what did that mean for the rest of the world?

"Jean?" a familiar voice called out to her from a distance. Jean lifted her emerald colored eyes from her stomach to meet the concerned yellow iris of the Beast, of Hank McCoy.

If it was one thing about her teammate and long time friend, it was that his brutish and simian like appearance, complimented with blue fur, actually somehow brought out more of his charming and intellectual side.

Especially with the book he clutched in his hand.

"Hi Hank," She replied softly, giving off a faint smile as she stood up right from the wall behind her. At the corner of her eye past him, she saw the elevator lift doors just closing. "Forget something upstairs?

"Oh, just some reading material," Hank said as he approached her, lifting up the book he had been reading earlier for presentation while still studying her facial expression. "I gave Ororo a sedative for the pain, and now she's out cold. Apparently, the assault was more painful then expected."

"So you're going to the medical bay then?" Jean asked, hunching her brows a bit in curiosity. Hank nodded in response and both moved in its direction. She wanted to see how her friend was doing. "I'll come with you."

"The more the merrier," Hank said with his trademark cheery smile. Things were stressed right now between the team, not to mention with the infiltrators, but he tried to keep an upbeat attitude. "I'm sure Storm will appreciate the company."

Main Entry: glut·tony
Pronunciation: 'gl&t-nE, 'gl&-t&n-E
a : greedy or excessive indulgence
b : excess in eating, drinking, or use of narcotics

Ororo Munroe awoke in one of the infirmary bay's beds, startled by a flash of pain overtaking her. Storm sat up quickly and let out a gasp, followed by a moan from the sharp pain in her head. When she reached to the back of her head, she felt that her silky white hair was tied back and the where was a bandage around her head.

The source of the pain was leftover from one of the intruder's attackers. Little did she know that Hank had deduced earlier that there was no concussion from the blow and she could be left for observations until she woke.

Either way, to her the pain felt severe for unnatural reasons.

"Hank...? Scott?" Ororo called out as she took a look around the room. No one was in the room with her, and the pain from Envy's attack was lasting. She suspected it may have been a side affect to his attack.

Lifting her legs over the side of the bed and casting the white sheet over her lower body aside with one hand, Ororo found that she was still in her night gown and that her sandals had been set at the head of the bed.

She kept a hand to the back of her head, putting pressure where she was wounded as she dropped off of the bed's edge onto her feet, the cold tile floor sending a bit of a sensation through her, but she ignored it as she moved to a nearby desk.

Having been with the X-Men for a good run, Storm learned a lot about the medical bay and it's instruments, as well as how to treat minor injuries. She knew what it was that she had needed to relieve the pain once more.

Ororo reached up to the cabinet hanging on the wall over the desk, opening it's swinging metal doors. It was never locked. Inside she saw viles of purples, greens, and clears all lined up in a wooden casing, and a syringe gun lined up next to them.

Ororo took the syringe gun and pulled a clear injection vile from it's spot and slid it's end into position in the gun's chamber. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and pressed it against the inside of her elbow, a hissing sound coming from it's decompression as she injected the chemical into her blood stream.

It felt as if the pain was already subsiding... and she felt tired again.

Pulling the empty vile from it's chamber, Ororo set the syringe gun back in it's place in the overhead cabinet and carelessly set the empty vile on the desk. Storm's vision was steadily growing blurry, and she knew it must have been because of the pain killer. It would soon put her to sleep, and the infirmary bed was calling out to her.

Just as she walked back to the bed and slid easily beneath the covers, she heard a much louder hissing sound as the Medical Bay's sliding doors opened and her two teammates had walked in. Their voices were growing distant however, as she felt the warmth of sleep overcome her.

"-- When we got back into the mansion, I used Cerebro to input images from my memory of the two infiltrators," Jean said as she walked into the medical bay along with Hank, who nodded in response to her statement. "It's conducting a search of photo databases all over the world right now for a match."

"That's actually quite fascinating," Hank rubbed his chin with a brow rose as he walked over to the desk near Ororo's infirmary bed and set down the book, his eyes glancing to his sleeping teammate before they went back to Jean. "I was never aware that Cerebro could be used for something like that."

"Professor Xavier originally designed Cerebro mainly for the purpose of enhancing his telepathic abilities, cataloging mutants all over the world, and detecting specific psychic presences," Jean stated, placing her hands on her hips and gazing around the medical wing nonchalantly. "But over the years, he and Forge have made many other additions to it's program."

Hank nodded his head respectively, wondering for the first time about the possibilities of the vast resources of technology the mansion's lower levels held as he thumbed through the book he had set on his desk.

Despite his delving curiosity in science, it had never occurred to him to test the limits of the X-Men's technology and go beyond their everyday use. He looked up from his book and thought to himself for a moment, then glanced over his shoulder to Jean.

"Jean, if Cerebro is capable of detecting the precise location of damage within the brain and can exploit terminal brain functions..." Hank began to say, but paused to fully think out what he was attempt to say. "Do you think it may be possible to repair the damage in Scott's brain that is preventing him from --"

"Hank!" Jean shouted in a startled breath, cutting him off. Hank turned around quickly to see Jean rush to the side of Ororo's bed. The former Weather Goddess of Africa had begun to convulse wildly, and gasping sickly for air.

"What the hell?" Hank barked, bounding off of the wooden desk's edge to reach Ororo's side faster with his simian like prowess. "Restrain her with your telekinesis while I check her eyes," he said as he reached into his white lab coat pocket and pulled out a small flashlight.

Atop the desk, the empty injection vile Ororo had used in the syringe gun shook loose from it's spot and fell to the floor...

"Hmph," Cyclops muttered to himself after coming to the end of his earlier train of thought. Maybe he was acting a little immature and sarcastic, and in a situation like this the team didn't need it.

He rose from his chair at the War Room table and sighed before beginning a stride towards the metallic sliding door leading to the hallway. "Alright, Jean. You win."

Before Scott Summers could reach the doorway, it's two metal plates slid apart and Cyclops leapt back at the sight of three figures standing before him. The lead one's appearance sent chills down his spine, looking remarkably familiar.

"What the --?!" Cyclops began to say as he reached for his visor and was going to unleash a wide spread optic blast onto the new set of intruders, but a barrage of red energy blasts sent him flying over the War Room table he had sat at. "ARGH!"

The impact of the blast had sounded a loud bang against the metal table, and the leader of the X-Men bounced off of it's surface and crashed into a group of monitors near the control console behind the War Room table.

"That isn't too important right now, Mr. Summers," the lead assailant said with a confident yet overly proud tone of voice, his hazel eyes piercing Scott Summers' fallen form. "The important thing right now is that you've been suckered the moment you and your team let your guard down."

He flicked his index fingers like gun barrels towards the computer consoles, and the two men behind each of his shoulder's went to work. "Get to work, boys."

"That sounded like Scott," the Beast exclaimed, Phoenix and him both looking to each other at the sound of the battle cry. Jean closed her eyes, reaching out to her husband with her mind and making a sweep of the mansion at the same time.

She sensed that there was no presence other then the resident X-Men, and she had felt her husband clearly even though their rapport was barely there since the mission into outer space.

"Stay with Ororo," Jean said and Hank nodded to her in response as she turned away and jogged out through the infirmary bay's sliding metallic doors.

When she reached the hall, the lights had dimmed and there was a flashing red signaling an alert and to her stunned surprise the doors to Cerebro's main system Chamber at the end of the hall had been breached.

There was no way anyone but a telepath or a team leader with the door override codes could get past the reinforced barriers. Plus the War Room entrance near by was left hanging open as well.

"Scott?" Jean called out as she moved to the War Room's doorway quickly, and she looked in horror with emerald green eyes her husband lying there toppled over the briefing table.

All around her the vast technology that had occupied the room had been stripped and removed from it's place in the consoles surrounding the vast bunker. Phoenix wanted to see to her husband, but froze when she saw a holographic message over the briefing table.

You've been had by the Seven Sins.

Interlude

"Mmm...." Alison Blaire cooed playfully as she lay her head on her partner's bare chest and took a moment to run her hand down his muscular torso, thinking over all they had just done. She then looked up to him with a flirtatious smile and asked, "Sam?"

Sam Guthrie opened his eyes at the sound of his name, looking down to Alison with an intoxicated grin and lifted brow. Bringing his arm out from under his head, he replied simply with, "Yeah?"

"This isn't too..." Ali trailed off as she looked away from his blue eyes and that drunken nice guy expression on his face, looking out her large window overseeing the mansion's crisp morning lawn. "Oh, I don't know," she feigned ignorance to her feelings and thoughts, wanting to pick the right words and voice tone carefully for such a situation and question. "This isn't too fast... is it?"

Sam tilted his head back and looked up to the ceiling, his lip curling to the side of his face out of uncertainty. For some reason he had never thought about that question until she had just brought it up.

"Ah really don't know what t' say about that, Alison," he said finally in response, his hand finding it's way down to her short cut, strawberry blonde hair and he began to stroke it thoughtlessly.

"Well, we've known each other for a few months now..." Alison stated matter of factly, thinking back to when she returned to the mansion after her bad break up with Longshot. It felt like she may have been on the rebound.

However, the thought of Alison being on the rebound and wanting to simply get over the thoughts and feelings regarding her ex-husband hadn't crossed Sam. He simply nodded in confirmation. "Right."

"And then there's no denying the attraction we've had..." Alison bit her lip as she smiled to herself, her sapphire eyes still gazing out the window, studying the green grass and listening to the distant sound of birds chirping in the morning.

"Noooo, that there isn't," Sam almost began blushing as he swallowed back a chuckle, one hand remaining on the side of Alison's head as the other ran over his shortly cut vermillion-blonde colored hair.

"Maybe it's just because of the bad breakup I had with Longshot, but this feels a little weird..." Alison announced, taking the risk of bringing up Longshot to Sam, but she didn't expect him to be bothered by it. Snorting, she looked up to him and wrinkled her nose with an embarrassed grin. "Am I rambling?"

"Of course not," Sam replied, looking down to her with a playfully patronizing grin in return to her embarrassment. Alison giggled and looked away again. She hadn't felt this lighthearted in a long time. For a while there, she was afraid the Mojo Rebellion and her divorce to Longshot had hardened her, but maybe the two events hadn't. "Hmm.

Well, Ah tell ya what Alison," Sam said, starting to gently stroke her hair again as he thought about a way to ease the shifting uncertainty she was expressing. "First things first, we get dressed, and then we go an' find ourselves a coffee shop in Salem, where we can spend th' morning talkin' and havin' some quality time t'gether, and then if th' awkward feeling is still there... you'll know whether or not if this was a mistake."

Alison thought about the proposal for a moment, and realized it made sense. In fact, she very much approved of it. She sat up with the bed sheet on them pressed over her chest, and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, a faint smile appearing on her face as she cocked her head to the side.

"I'd like that," she said as she turned away and reached over with one hand to the floor and gathered her clothes. Alison set them on the bed and separated the articles before she would put them on, while keeping an eye over her shoulder and on Sam attentively. "After all, there's nothing wrong with what we did?"

"Naaww..." Sam shook his head reassuringly, sitting up from the backboard of Alison's bed and reaching down on the other side of the bed for his own set of clothes. He pulled on his pair of leather jeans first and then reached for his boots.

"We're both adults, right?" Alison made a point of saying, handing Sam his shirt from her side of the bed as they both dressed. He glanced back to her and shook his head again with a the same reassuring grin.

Sam stood from the bed and moved around to Alison's side, who stood up with him and looked to him with a kind of twinkle in her eye. She locked her arms with his and kept eye contact as she took the lead and headed both of them for the door, opening it for them. "We don't have to answer to any...body..."

Alison's enthusiasm faded in her words as the form of Cyclops appeared on the other side of the door, standing with his arms crossed over his chest and looking severely pissed off. Her and Sam both froze in their tracks, the hallway light sending a glare off of their team leader's ruby quartz visor.

Main Entry: anger
Pronunciation: 'a[ng]-g&r
Date: 14th century
a : a strong feeling of displeasure and usually of antagonism
b: RAGE

"I hope you enjoyed yourselves," Cyclops said, in such a calm and reserved voice that it didn't at all match his body language, and almost frightened them both. "Because the rest of the team's waiting for you two downstairs."

NEXT ISSUE: Finally, it's the blow out conclusion to SEVEN SINS!! Is it just me, or is X-Men Alpha cursed with deadlines?

ALPHA READINGS

Be sure to send in any and all of your mutant activist comments.

What's this? Wasn't Storm killed in A2K #6 by Apollyon? Didn't Jean lose her powers, and Cyclops disband the X-Men Alpha team? Believe it or not folks, all that is indeed true, but the X-Men Alpha team is up for just one more outing set before The Twelve and A2K miniseries'. It's just I've gotten behind due to "technical difficulties." Never fear though, it's all coming to a head very soon. In just one more week, the long awaited X-Men Annual 2002 will be released and it's bound to be dynamite!

- Cory Wiegel
January 16th, 2003