"I'll speak with Miguel," said Xi'an. "This will not stand. I won't let it."

"You and me both," said Morphine. He would meet Bryon Tate again, and the S/F legal man would not be as fortuitous this time.

"As leader of the council it is up to me to find a solution," said Xi'an, his tone firm and his eyes locked on Morphine. "It is not solely my problem to deal with, but I am the voice."

"I wasn't saying that," said Morphine. "You have your methods... I have mine. Stark/Fujikawa will regret the day they set their sites on Xavier City."

"Morphine," said Shakti. "We don't need you escalating this in to a war."

"Shakti," said Morphine. "You know S/F as well as I do. If they say in seven days they will control Xavier City, then in seven days they'll control Xavier City. Unless we do something, and there's not a great deal of us these days. We've not heard from Bloodhawk or Junkpile since the Exodus incident, and we don't have an..." He could see the strange look on Shakti's face and in an instant, Xi'an was with her.

"What is it?" he said, holding her hand, concerned for both her and the baby she carried.

"I don't know," she said. "My powers don't work anymore, but for a moment, just a moment..."

"What?" said Victor.

"I thought I felt the X-Men." The other members of the council looked at each other. The X-Men had been lost in a dimensional rift and not even Doom had been able to locate them. They were, to all intents, dead. Was it possible that they could come back from whatever dimension they had been lost in?

"There are always possibilities," said Victor as he went over to the consoles and linked in to the main systems. If the X-Men had returned he would find them.

"Oh that hurt," said Henri, as he picked himself up from the floor. While they had been rescued by Doom they had also been rather unceremoniously dumped in the middle of the Lensherr Park area of Xavier City, then he went to give a hand to Krys.

"There are times I'm glad I'm not totally corporeal," said Tim, hovering as he gave Luna a hand up. "You good sweet thing?"

"Yeah," she said. "Remind me to thank Doom, next time I see him."

"Ah'm getting' too old fer this," muttered Dust as he picked his hat up from where it had fallen and brushed the dirt from his coat.

"We're home," said Eddie as he looked about. It was slightly different but that was all that was to be expected considering the battle that had happened before they left. "Guys, we're back..."

"So this is Xavier City," said Tim, getting his first proper look at the city. "Didn't see much of it last time I was here."

"Looks like they've done some remodelling," said Krys. "Guess we left it a bit of a mess."

"Council buildings?" said Henri, as there was now quite a crowd gathering to witness the return of the missing heroes.

"Yeah," said Tim. "Time to let them know we're back."

"Not me," said Eddie. "Gotta find Rosa. She' was comatose when I left, I want to know if there's been a change."

"Dust," said Tim, and the old man nodded. If she were still comatose, maybe a telepathic presence would help rouse her. The two men went towards the medical wing, and the rest of the team headed for the council buildings.

"Wonder what time it is?" said Luna as they made their way to their friends.

"Dunno," said Tim. "The sun's still up, but then again after Morphine's little deal with Mephisto that's no change."

"We'll find out when we get there," said Krys and then she stopped dead. "Victor…" The Xavier City Council stood there, waiting for the X-Men to appear. "VICTOR!" she shouted and the two of them ran towards each other and they embraced. "Hi," she said.

"Hi," said Victor, relieved to see the woman he loved alive. He hadn't realised how much he missed her until she'd gone. Now, against all odds they were back.

"Welcome back, my friends," said Xi'an standing there, and he shook the hands of the returning X-Men. "We didn't know if you were alive or dead. I'm glad to see it's the former."

"Touch and go," said Tim, "but we made it. How's it going here? How's the baby doing, Shakti?"

"Getting close," she said. "Any day now they reckon."

"But other than that we're in trouble," said Morphine. "Stark/Fujikawa have announced their intent to take us over."

"Can they do that?" asked Tim. "Doesn't seem possible."

"They think so," said Shakti. "We were going to call Alchemax and see if Miguel had any ideas about how to resolve this, but you came home…"

"Then we've got work to do," said Tim. "What do you want from the X-Men, Xi'an?"

"I want you to go and rest," said the leader of the council. "There's nothing you can do yet, because we don't know what we can do and short of taking out Stark/Fujikawa as Morphine wants, I'm not sure…" He looked up. "What the shock?" Helicopters flew over the city dropping things from the sky.

"Henri!" said Tim and the two of them were gone in a flash to see what was being dropped and a moment later both returned.

"Food packages," said Henri. "They're dropping food down to the city."

"And these," said Tim and passed Xi'an a piece of paper.

"Courtesy of Stark/Fujikawa. A real force for the people," muttered Xi'an and he crumpled the piece of paper in his hand. "So it begins."

"Crafty bastards," said Morphine. "The city has no corporate sponsors, and we don't have all the resources like they do."

"We're low on food?" asked Krys.

"No," said Victor. "But we don't have the supplies stocked up like the corporations did. Real steaks and such… we rely on what we can get from the forest. Luckily there are some dumb dinosaurs out there, so we're never short on meat."

"But I'm guessing there's nothing beats a good ol' Texan stake?" said Tim, suddenly remembering he didn't need to eat and feeling sorry for that fact.

"Yeah," said Victor.

"I'll call Miguel," said Xi'an. "Welcome back," he added and then he turned and walked back to the council buildings.

"Good timing," said Shakti and slowly followed him.

"Gotta love the way the world works," Morphine said. "I'm guessing S/F didn't factor you guys in to the mix. I suspect this will get so much more interesting the end of the week."

"We've seven days to save the city," said Victor, then he looked at the time signal on top of the council buildings. "Or six now."

"When did you add that?" asked Henri.

"As soon as we knew it was never going to get dark," said Victor. "In the morning, I'll give you a tour of the city."

"But not too early," said Krys. Victor nodded, and Luna winked at Tim. It was time to get some rest. It was going to be a very long week.

"Rosa," said Eddie as he held her hand. The young woman was still no better than the last time he had seen her. The children, Maddie and Joaquim were being looked after by a family in the city, because they had lost their mother and their father in a short space of time. "Anything?" he asked Dust.

"Yeah," he said, as he focused his psychic powers. "There's a presence in there…"

"A presence?" said Eddie, his concerns suddenly rising. That wasn't what he expected.

"Somethin' sharin' her body, using her as a gateway. That's why she's asleep, she's using her strength to fight off something in her mind."

"Did Brimstone Love do this?" asked Eddie.

"He did something," said Dust. "His attack on her… opened a doorway somehow. Ah'll try and go deeper…"

"Please," said Eddie. "Help her… I… Dust!" They looked at her eyes, seeing the energy glowing from beneath the closed eyelids and then it was gone. "What was that?"

"Ah don't know," muttered Dust, but Eddie could tell there was something that Dust wasn't saying. "Ah'm goin' in…" Red psionic energy sparked over the heads of Dust and Rosa and Dust entered the astral plane, but the image was not the image he had thought he would see. He was in Genosha.

He hadn't been to Genosha since the disbanding of X-Force, after the rise of the Shadow King, which had caused the unleashing of the sentinel army, that had gone on to take over the world. They'd gone to find Lydia's father and had been drawn in to a battle with the remainder of the Acolytes and the group known as the Exiles, under the command of Exodus. Exodus had gone mad, and decided that Magneto was unfit to lead mutantancy to the future and the battle had been vast, Dust helping Magnus put Exodus down.

"Hello, Marcus," said a voice and Dust turned to see a familiar figure.

"Wisdom," said Dust. "You died. This ain't real."

"Everything's real on the astral plane," replied Pete as he lit a cigarette. "You know that."

"You're an avatar, used by whatever force is in here to keep me off guard. It ain't gonna work."

"Really?" said Wisdom. "How about this?" He fired a barrage of hot knives, but Dust waved them away. "Impressive. You have grown stronger."

"Don't," said Dust. "Ah don't know you."

"Yes," said Wisdom, fading away to become a vision of Lydia Del Ruiz. "You know who I am Marcus Raven. We've battled twice now, and this will be our final battle."

"This isn't possible," said Dust, unleashing his own powers at the height of his capabilities and the psionic fire washed down over the image of Lydia, but it had no effect.

"You couldn't save them then," said Lydia, becoming Siryn and unleashing a sonic assault at him, which Dust pushed away. "You'll not save them now."

"That was then," he said. "Ah'll not fail my friends again."

"You don't get it," said Maverick. "You already have." Energy flashed from his hands, striking Dust and sending him sprawling to the floor. "I will rise again, and there is nothing you can do to stop me. The die is cast."

"Not yet," muttered Dust, picking himself up. "Ah ain't finished with this yet."

"You never were a match for me, telepath," said Maverick, becoming another figure and Dust raised his psionic defences. "And you will never tell what you have learnt here this day…" Another barrage hit Dust, breaking through his defences as if they were made of glass and there was nothing he could do to stop his mind being invaded, attacked and broken.

"DUST!" shouted Eddie as the old man fell to the floor, the energy around him fading as fast as it had appeared. "Dust!" he said, kneeling at the side of the telepath, but he could see that whatever had happened to him wasn't good. "Speak to me, brother," muttered Eddie.

"Gaaaaaaa… ff…" said Dust and then his eyes rolled up and his head lolled to the side.

"Medic!" called Eddie, but eh couldn't help but thinking whatever was wrong with Rosa, whatever was inside her mind and causing her to be like this, had just claimed a second victim.

"Miguel!" said Xi'an. "Thank God."

"What is it, Xi'an?" asked the former Spider-Man. He'd been on a tour of the new space programme facilities that were being created in a joint venture between Reed Richards and Latveria and had been out of New York for a while.

"We're in trouble. Stark/Fujikawa have issued us a First Civilisation protocol."

"Shock," said Miguel, sitting back in his chair. "I'm sorry I wasn't about last night. You need help on this one, all right."

A First Civilisation protocol had been created when Alchemax went global. It meant that the corporation who wanted to expand in to a certain area, they went in and bought the 'area'. At first the area was just a small village, but as the world expanded, it began to include cities, towns and then the various metropolises over the world. Some had even been country wide, but that had only been in the smaller countries.

The corporation used their vast resources to oust the local governments and put their own people in charge, make changes, build the infrastructures that they wanted in place and turn the area in to a corporate area, which they would then build in a headquarters. Alchemax had managed to do it to New York several decades ago and it had led to the way the future was shaped.

"What can you do?" asked Xi'an. "They've given us seven days. Well, six now."

"Six days?" said Miguel. "Jammit, that's fast. Reno Kaine's fingers are all over this…"

"You sound like you've been having problems with him yourself," said Xi'an, seeing the tiredness on Miguel's face.

"Just a little. He's tried to takeover Alchemax in the last few months."

"I didn't know that," said Xi'an, surprised how little publicity that had garnered.

"He's not even close to getting to us," said Miguel. "I'm keeping it from the newsfeeds, because there's other things that have priority, but he figures we're an upstart company that survives only because of Mjolnir."

"Ouch," said Xi'an. "And because Stark/Fujikawa is a company that dates back to the First Age of Heroes, he figures he should be the one in charge of it all…"

"Something like that," said Miguel. "The fact that there's nobody from either Stark or Fujikawa in charge over there anymore is beyond him." He looked down at his console and pressed a few keys. "I don't know what I can do to help in six days," he said, "but I'll think of something. Stark/Fujikawa need to realise this isn't the same world it was a year ago. Corporations have a duty to the world, not just ourselves."

"Maybe I should have agreed to an Alchemax office," said Xi'an.

"And have me looking over your shoulder?" said Miguel. "We both did what we thought was best."

"Yes," said Xi'an. "Oh, I do have some good news though."

"Shakti?" asked Miguel.

"No," smiled Xi'an. "The X-Men are back. They returned last night."

"That's great," said Miguel, smiling. "What happened to them?"

"They were trapped in another dimension and Doom brought them back," said Xi'an. "That's the gist of it anyway. I'm hoping that we can use them to somehow resolve the crisis."

"You do know if there's violence or such, I can't get involved," said Miguel.

"I know," said Xi'an. "And I'm hoping it doesn't come to that."

"Good," said Miguel. "I'll get my people on to it at this end. We'll sort this, Xi'an."

"Thank you," said the Desert Ghost and Miguel's face vanished as the link between the Savage Land and New York was cut.

Reno Kaine sat in his office over at Japan, looking at the schedule of takeover. The food parcels had gone over well and that had been enough. By now they'd have contacted Alchemax for aid, but with seven days on the clock, there was little even they could do to stop the takeover from going ahead.

Miguel O'Hara would find out just how limited he really was. He was no CEO, he wasn't cut from the cloth that he was, or any of his predecessors at Alchemax were. He was Spider-Man, a loner, a man who solved problems by hitting them and making them go away that way, rather than buying them off and making them someone else's problem. Herod had shown the way to deal with heroes when he had wiped out half their number in his ousting of President Doom.

"Sir!" came a voice and Kaine pressed a button to open the door for his secretary.

"What is it?" he said. She was not the kind of personal assistant to just burst in like this. He'd trained her well enough and she'd disposed of the body of the last person to do so.

"A report from Xavier City. Bryon Tate reports that the X-Men have returned." Kaine's eyes narrowed. This was unexpected. He'd been told that those mutants were dead, killed in a battle with the mad sorcerer Garokk.

"The X-Men are alive?" he said to himself. "I see… Get me Department H. I think it's time we made some changes to the plan."

"Yes sir," she said and left the office and Kaine considered his options. Department H, named after the shadowy government agency in Canada almost a century ago, they were the Stark/Fujikawa special operations unit. They had developed the hero clones, and the various armour's based on the original Iron Man designs. However the X-Men were a special case. He needed something special and he pulled the file from the computer. Only one organisation had ever been truly effective against the X-Men and he had been planning this for a while and he reviewed the images on the screen.

It was time to unleash the Theatre of Pain on Xavier City and Stark/Fujikawa would be there to pick up the pieces.