Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business Raz's take on the X-Men! *LAST UPDATE 17 MARCH*

Hi all,

Hope nobody minds if I put this here as it's not Legion related...Ann has been writing an excellent alternative timeline for Marvel's X-Men which can be found here, and she offered anyone who wanted to take over the opportunity to do so. I thought it might be fun to give it a go, so I am gonna try and keep this going alongside my Legion fanfic and we'll see how it works out. I figured I'd start a new thread just so there's a clear delineation where I started writing it (and also so that if anyone else wants to give it a go it'll be easier to differentiate between us).

Bit of background for those who aren't super familiar with the X-Men from the 80s: mutants in the Marvel Universe generally develop powers around puberty, and live in a world that hates and fears them because the average Marvel Earth citizen is a jerk The X-Men are an outlaw team of mutants who exist to protect the Earth from evil mutants, but also to protect mutants from the many threats they live with every day. For more specific differences in this continuity, check out Ann's thread

Each instalment will be a new issue (I'm gonna try and stick to using the same titles for each issue as the published comic, but we'll see how that works out). I'm gonna try and keep it as new reader friendly as possible, so hopefully even if you don't necessarily recognise the characters you'll be able to read along. They make reference to Battleworld in this issue, which is a reference to Marvel's Secret Wars mini-series. All you really need to know about that is that it was an off-world adventure that the X-Men have just come home from.

Anyway, without further ado:

UNCANNY X-MEN #183
He'll Never Make Me Cry
In the ruins of the mansion that had served as home and headquarters to the X-Men since the team’s inception, six mutants stood boldly facing the trio of twenty foot tall Sentinels responsible for the destruction of the X-Mansion. Wolverine, Ariel, Rogue, Armor, Banshee and Cannonball were the current incarnation of the X-Men along with their absent mentor Professor X, and all of them were prepared to sacrifice their very lives if necessary to stop these killer robots from hurting anybody else.

“You all know the drill,” Wolverine grunted. “Pair off and take these things to the scrapheap.” The man named Logan wasn’t at all comfortable with his appointed role as field leader of these heroes, but grudgingly he had to admit he was the best man for the job. The rest of these kids were new and mostly untested; Logan was the longest serving X-Man here, and the most experienced scrapper by far. As indestructible claws popped out of his forearms, he turned to his teammate Armor. “Carmella, you remember the move I taught ya on Battleworld?”

“The Fastball Special?” Carmella Unuscione asked. “Of course.” The raven-haired woman activated her own power, and a shimmering green exoskeleton of psionic energy formed around her. Armor was the daughter of Unus the Untouchable, one of the X-Men’s earliest foes, and her power was a variant of his own impenetrable forcefield. Suspended a few feet above the ground in the energy that encased her, Armor grabbed Wolverine in an oversized appendage which mimicked her hand and hurled him at one of the gigantic humanoid robots. Her aim was flawless, and Wolverine’s claws ripped through one of the optical sensors in the machine’s face like it was butter. He tore and shredded his way into the thing’s artificial brain, and by the time it had raised a hand to pluck him away he’d effectively disabled it.

The second Sentinel raised its arm and fired a plasma blast at the remaining X-Men, and Rogue flew forward to take the brunt of the assault with the partial invulnerability she’d stolen from the former Avenger Ms Marvel. While Rogue’s mutant ability to absorb the power and psyche of her enemies was wasted on a robot, resistance to injury wasn’t the only thing she’d taken from Ms Marvel. She charged straight through the lethal onslaught of energy and punched her way through the thing’s palm and out the other side, smashing its hand to pieces.

“Target: designate Rogue,” the Sentinel announced in a cold monotone. “Class 50 strength, flight, enhanced durability, enhanced combat perception.” From the thing’s shattered wrist a glut of osmium cables spewed forth, too many for the Southern heroine to evade. In less than a second, she was encased from the neck down in swiftly constricting tentacles.

“Ah know muh own powers, you hunk o’ junk!” the young woman struggled fruitlessly before looking down at Ariel below. “Kitty, y’wanna teach this thing a lesson ‘bout how ta treat ladies?”

“Gladly,” the youngest X-Man beamed. Only 13 years old, Kitty Pryde had experienced more in her brief period as an X-Men than many people would know in their lifetimes. Her power was to shift her molecules between the molecules of everything else in the world around her, an act she called phasing. Not only did it make her intangible and therefore immune to conventional harm, but it had a unique effect on any machine she happened to pass through. “You like hugs so much, lemme give you one from the inside!” she taunted the Sentinel as she walked straight into its leg. A second later, the mutant hunting robot seized up and shuddered helplessly, its grip on Rogue going completely limp.

The final Sentinel had seen its compatriot’s success with Rogue and tried the same technique on Cannonball, but with far less efficiency. Sam Guthrie possessed the ability to blast off like his namesake, roaring through the air like an unstoppable projectile. While he was in flight Sam was surrounded by an impenetrable forcefield, and as the lanky blond teen careened across the night sky he tore the Sentinel’s cables loose from their moorings and they fell away from his forcefield and littered the remains of the X-Mansion.

Sam slammed into what had been the mansion’s kitchen, utterly destroying what was left of it while he himself was protected by his blast field. His mutation had only manifested recently, and he’d been an X-Man for even less time. He was still working on mastering his power, and as he extricated himself from the debris of the X-Mansion to find himself blinded by the floodlight of the Sentinel now standing over him, he wondered if that inexperience might cost him dearly.

“Don’t ye worry a bit, Sammy!” a young Irish girl’s voice lilted. “I’ve got ye back!” Theresa Maeve Rourke Cassidy was a couple of years younger than Sam Guthrie, but before she’d ever even heard of the X-Men she’d been an apprentice of sorts to her supervillain uncle Black Tom and that experience displayed itself with her confidence in battle. When Theresa had joined the X-Men in an effort to redeem herself for her criminal activities, she’d proudly taken the codename Banshee after her father who had been an X-Man himself once. Now she used the sonic scream which had inspired that name upon the death-dealing machine which leered over Cannonball. A high-pitched wail assaulted the ears of everyone present, but as uncomfortably loud as it was for the X-Men it was murder upon the Sentinel. Banshee pitched her scream at a frequency that vibrated the machine’s delicate innards to shreds; with no outward sign of physical damage at all, the Sentinel toppled.

Propelled through the air by the same sonic power, Theresa landed at Cannonball’s side. “Are ye hurt then, Sammy?”

“Just muh pride,” he admitted sheepishly. Like Rogue, Cannonball hailed from the USA’s south; in his case, Kentucky. “Ah’m invulnerable while ah’m blastin’ but ah sure wish ah had better control of muh power. All ah can do is blast off in one direction and wreck everything in muh path.”

“Don’t be beatin’ yeself up, boyo!” Banshee’s lips turned up in an encouraging smile. “It all takes time, an’ that’s why we got -- oh!” Everything except for the X-Men themselves abruptly vanished, to be replaced by the cold metal walls of the subterranean space that the heroes called the Danger Room. The Danger Room was the most advanced training facility on the planet with a blend of potentially lethal machinery and hardlight holography capable of replicating any environment and foe that its programmer could conceive, just as it had created this scenario with the mutant-hunting Sentinels. All six X-Men felt a subtle tingle in the occipital region of their heads, a polite alert that their mentor was about to enter their minds telepathically.

<To me, my X-Men!> Professor Charles Francis Xavier’s voice sounded inside their heads. <I apologise for interrupting your training session, but I have a mission which requires your immediate attention!> Professor X was the world’s most powerful psychic, and the X-Men existed because of him. Years ago he’d recruited five mutant teens to protect mutants and humans alike from evil, and to give the majority of good mutants some hope that there could be more than constant oppression in their future. His X-Men had evolved from that fateful day to the group who lived and trained here now, and all of them were steadfast in their loyalty to the man who’d given their lives a greater purpose.

Minutes later, the sextet stood gathered before Professor X in the Danger Room’s sophisticated control booth. The Professor was a bald man, wearing a very conservative business suit which ironically made him stand out among the colorful costumes of his students. He was utterly normal in appearance, but self-assurance and authority radiated from the man. He handed a crisply folded piece of paper to Wolverine, and as Logan unfolded it he saw that it was a handwritten letter addressed to Xavier. “An old and dear friend of mine in Colorado sent this almost two weeks ago but with our recent adventures on Battleworld I’ve only now seen it,” the Professor explained while Wolverine began reading to himself. “Black Eagle is one of the few humans whom I’ve trusted with knowledge of my powers.”

“Black Eagle?” Kitty raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never heard of a superhero called Black Eagle!”

“Black Eagle isn’t a superhero,” Xavier indulged the young girl with a smile. “It’s a Cheyenne name and he’s asked for my help; the kind of help that the X-Men were formed to provide.”

“It says here he thinks his grandkid’s a mutant,” Wolverine interjected before passing the letter on to Armor.

“That’s correct,” Professor X nodded. “Black Eagle tells me that Danielle has been experiencing strange hallucinations, hallucinations that are shared by those around her...and she has displayed an unusual rapport with animals. She’s just turned 16, which is certainly the right age for mutant powers to manifest. Black Eagle lives a life of self-sufficiency in the Rockies, and he says that Danielle joined him after her parents were reported missing a short while ago. I’d like you all to fly out there and assess the situation; if Danielle Moonstar is a mutant, she’s likely frightened and confused.”

“You don’t gotta convince us, Prof.” Rogue had the letter now, and read it with growing sympathy for the girl. “Ah’d still be scared and confused if ah hadn’t found the X-Men; and at least ah had Mystique and Destiny lookin’ out for me, must be hard on the poor kid losin’ her folks on top of everythin’ else.”

“Precisely,” Professor X agreed succintly. “I’m sure you’d all like to clean yourselves up before you leave but please don’t tarry. Black Eagle and his granddaughter have already waited long enough for our aid, I’d rather not have them wait any longer than can be avoided.”

**********
Ninety-five minutes later, the X-Men had landed their cloaked jet in an isolated clearing in the Rocky Mountain foothills outside of Boulder and Wolverine was leading his team through the woods. “I’m glad you’re here, Wolvie!” Kitty Pryde enthused. “I know Professor X gave us a telepathic map to Black Eagle’s house before we left the mansion, but I’m already lost!”

“You’re from Illinois, right Ariel?” Cannonball asked. “Ah guess y’all ain’t got much in the way of wilderness like this back home, huh?”

“Nope,” the young girl almost wiped sweat from her eyes with the back of a gloved hand, but she remembered at the last second that she’d adopted green circles of stage make-up around both eyes as part of her costume and stopped before she smeared make-up all over her face and gloves. “Closest I ever saw to mountains when I was back in Deerfield were the paintings at the Chinese restaurant I went to with my folks sometimes.”

“What about ye, Sammy?” Banshee turned Cannonball’s question back on him. “Is Kentucky very much like all’o this then?”

“Ain’t all that much diff’rent,” the tall skinny blond boy replied. “Ah kinda miss it, ta be honest. The woods around the X-Mansion are a lot nicer than ah always thought New York would be, but it ain’t the same--”

“We’re here,” Wolverine announced abruptly as they came out into another clearing, this one with a log cabin. He saw that the cabin’s front door was slightly ajar, and sniffed the air suspiciously.

“You think everything’s okay, Wolvie?” Rogue asked. From the way he’d tensed up, she’d already guessed what his answer would be.

“Gunpowder residue in the air,” Wolverine turned and scanned his surroundings as he spoke. “An’ worse. Stay here and keep your eyes peeled for trouble. I’m gonna investigate.”

“I’ll come!” Ariel volunteered cheerily. “You know what Professor X says about always having backup, Wolvie--”

He made eye contact with her and Kitty was silenced by the grimness in his expression. “Stay,” he repeated simply. He popped his claws, three 10” blades snapping forth from each forearm, then Wolverine stalked deliberately out into the clearing.


He’d made it halfway to the front door when his head suddenly jerked to the left. In a movement so swift the other X-Men were visibly startled, he slashed an arrow out of the air and it rained down around him in four distinct pieces. “Leave me alone!” a determined girl’s voice rang out from the woods by the side of the house. “Or the next one goes through your eye!”

Girl stayed downwind, Wolverine noted silently. Smart. “We don’t gotta be ya enemies, kid!” he shouted out loud. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Armor had activated her psionic exoskeleton and taken a defensive position along with Rogue to guard Ariel, Cannonball and Banshee. “You’re Danielle Moonstar, right?” Wolverine continued. “We’re the X-Men - we came to help ya!” Logan’s senses were enhanced far beyond those of a normal person, and he had almost narrowed down where the girl was hiding from the sound she made as she crept through the underbrush. Still, she was only 16; the fact that she’d come this close to taking him by surprise was impressive in itself.

“Liar!” the young Cheyenne girl shouted accusingly. “You killed my grandfather! Leave me alone!”

Bizarrely, a vaguely humanoid mass of fuscia energy suddenly coalesced before Wolverine. It was featureless save for two pink eyes in what passed for its face, eyes which burned with hatred and rage. For the first time ever, the other X-Men saw the man named Wolverine take a trembling step backwards in fear. “...Proteus..?” He asked in a tiny scared voice. “How..?”

“My apologies,” a distinguished man’s voice sounded. While Wolverine struggled to come to terms with the allegedly deceased enemy who’d abruptly resurrected before him, the other X-Men turned to see the rakish blond man in Victorian garb who’d followed them here. He was accompanied by a young black teen in a completely white sleeveless outfit which was cut so low that his athletic torso was exposed almost to his navel. A similarly white mask hid his eyes and was knotted together behind his head, long tails hanging down to his shoulder blades. Flanking the two men, six goons stood in dark bodysuits with red accents. These men all wore identical featureless masks, and they all wielded semi-automatic firearms. “No doubt the mutant thinks you’re with us, X-Men.”

“I don’t know who these two creeps are,” Ariel pointed a finger at the man who’d spoken and the black teenager, “But I recognise their goons! What’s the Hellfire Club doing all the way out here?”

“Such a precocious child,” the man smiled with no warmth whatsoever. “My name is Donald Pierce, and I suspect we’re here for the same reason you are; to recruit the girl to our cause. Of course, if killing that old Indian fool hasn’t humbled the mutant then I suppose we’ll just have to put her in the same mass grave you’re all about to get.” Pierce’s armed henchmen pointed their weapons toward Armor, and the extravagantly dressed Donald Pierce simply rolled his eyes. “Don’t be idiots, you’re not going to be able to get through her power with those things; go fetch the mutant girl. Rook and I can handle these children.” The goons mumbled something in obedience and ran off into the woods, and the dark-skinned teenage boy named Rook took a step toward Armor.

“I’m not hitting a girl for you, Pierce.” As he walked forward, Rook’s skin darkened dramatically until it was pitch black with small equally black spots popping in and out of existence all around his body. “But don’t worry, I’ll fulfill the mission.” He threw a punch not at Armor herself, but at the shimmering green field which surrounded her body. Surprising all of the X-Men, Carmella Unuscione’s power blinked out for a fraction of a second and glowed less brightly when it reformed around her. Psychic feedback from the blow made her stumble back a few feet, and she grunted in sympathetic pain.

“Y’all go help Wolverine an’ that girl!” Cannonball instructed. “Ah got these two!”

“Bring it, redneck!” the boy named Rook crowed. “You I won’t go easy on--” The sound of Sam Guthrie’s blast field drowned out anything else his enemy had to say, and Cannonball collected Rook before smashing his way deeper into the Colorado wilderness.

While Ariel ran to Wolverine’s side, Banshee took pursuit of the men with guns; Rogue on the other hand made a beeline straight for Pierce himself. “Somethin’ tells me Cannonball’s gonna have enough fun playin’ with that Rook fella -- how about you dance a round with ol’ Rogue, sugah?” With shocking speed, Pierce backhanded Rogue the moment she got close enough to throw a punch and she went flying through a couple of tree trunks. She was more surprised than hurt though, and recovered quickly enough. “Well now,” she smirked. “This just got interestin’. Guess ah don’t have t’go easy on you now at least!” The skunk-haired heroine charged him again, but was stunned for a second time when Pierce moved at lightning speed to close his hand around her throat before she could actually hit him. “Believe me,” Rogue warned her assailant, “Ah’m not any happier ‘bout this than you are but ah ain’t gonna let you kill me either, sugah.” She removed one of her gloves, and while Pierce’s goved hand closed around her throat she tore his jacket and shirt sleeves both to shreds and gripped his naked arm with her own bare hand. As his grip around her airpipe intensified, Rogue’s eyes grew wide. By now, she should have absorbed his power and psyche; instead, she had neither and now she was finding it hard to breathe…

A shimmering green appendage closed over Pierce’s outstretched arm and he looked up into the face of Carmelle Unuscione, murderous passion in her eyes. “Let Rogue go or I swear I’ll crush your arm to pulp, Pierce.”

The villain threw his head back and laughed. “Posture all you like, mutant trash. I know how you people work--” Before he could complete his sentence, she tightened her exoskeleton’s grip. True to her word, his arm caved in with a sickening crunch. Armor and Rogue were both shocked however to see that it was composed of microcircuitry and servos rather than flesh and blood and their shock became literal when the destruction of the arm sent electrical energy coursing through the two women. With her exoskeleton already compromised thanks to Rook, Armor found herself unable to keep it materialised around her and she dropped to her knees alongside Rogue in the dirt.

“Stupid cow!” Pierce was insulated from the worst of the electrical charge, but he was enraged nonetheless at the indignity of losing a limb like this. “I’ll kill you for this!” He kicked Armor in the stomach, and she screamed once before the pain overwhelmed her. Pierce raised his foot for another kick, this one aimed at her head; before he could end the unconscious woman’s life though Banshee’s distinctive high-pitched wail filled the air accompanied by multiple gunshots.

The second’s distraction was all that Rogue needed to act; she charged into Pierce, knocking him back over a dozen feet where he disapperead into thorny underbrush. The Southern brawler wanted nothing more than to follow the smarmy cyborg jerk and rip his other arm off, but Armor looked to be in a bad way. “Wolvie!” she looked up toward where he’d been confronted with that weird energy creature, but both of them were gone leaving only Ariel in their place.

“Oh gosh, is Armor okay?” Ariel ran over to join Rogue and Armor. “That Proteus guy or whatever - he was just an illusion, we think maybe that’s Danielle Moonstar’s power. Wolverine’s gone to find her, he told me to stay here with you guys.”

Rogue considered leaving Kitty alone with Armor so that she could take off after Pierce, but as her gaze fell upon the cyborg’s still sparking discarded arm she thought better of it. Who knew what other tricks he had up his remaining sleeve? And if he looped back around for Kitty and Armor while Rogue was looking for him…she hated the realisation, but she knew that she needed to stay here.

Rogue just hoped for Armor’s sake that Banshee and the boys fulfilled their part of the mission soon so they could all get the heck out of here.

**********
Danielle Moonstar’s heart was pounding from rage as much as fear. She’d come to live with her grandfather to get away from other normal people; she couldn’t control these visions she created, but they caused chaos and terror everywhere she went. She thought that living with Black Eagle all the way out here in the woods would be a way to protect others from her curse, but even he hadn’t been safe. A week ago, she’d found out that he’d intended on sending her away to some white man’s school on the east coast. Dani and Black Eagle had argued, and her power had shown her grandfather being gunned down by faceless men in blue bodysuits. He forgave her for the traumatic vision even when she couldn’t forgive herself, but things had not been the same between the teenager and the old man. And now he really was dead, and those men she’d seen in her vision were the ones responsible. She heard gunshots and a horrible high-pitched screech that scattered animals for miles around, and Dani knew that they were coming for her next. Well, I’m not an old man, she vowed silently as she took a hunting knife from its holster on her belt. And I’m not going down without a fight. She’d been running non-stop since those other weirdos had turned up at her grandfather’s house to finish the job, but she was done with running. Dani gambled that her greater familiarity with these woods would work to her advantage against the greater numbers, and she tried to let that thought buoy her spirits. Clutching her knife between her teeth, she climbed a tree and took position in a low sturdy branch. She’d not been overly careful in her escape, but if any of those freaks tracked her here, she’d make them regret it.

She didn’t have to wait long. The gunshots stopped abruptly, but that awful wailing sound continued for five or ten seconds more. Then it too stopped, and Dani heard footsteps crunching along her trail. “Danielle?” a girl’s voice called out. Her accent was strange; Scottish? Irish? Dani didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. The redheaded white girl walked out below her; she looked like she was only Dani’s age herself but she wore a bright green and gold bodysuit with a voluminous cape banded black and yellow catching on stray branches around her. “Danielle Moonstar, we’re the X-Men; we’re not here tae hurt ye, we -- oh, for--” She stopped to unsnag her cape from a particularly thorny branch, and Dani saw her chance.

The Cheyenne teenager dropped from directly above Banshee, winding her. Taking the advantage, Dani straddled her foe’s back and twisted one arm painfully behind her. Banshee yelped in shock, and that yelp soon reached a painful pitch. Dani’s eyes widened as she realised this must be where that horrible sound had come from earlier! Moving quickly, she held the sharpened blade of her knife at Banshee’s throat. “You keep doing that and you won’t be making any noise at all soon!” she bellowed over the noise. Banshee didn’t need to be told twice.

“Now,” Dani continued at a normal volume once the wailing had ceased, “Who are you people and why did you kill my grandfather?”

“We’re not yer enemies, girl!” Theresa protested, careful to keep her own volume under control. “F’r Pete’s sake, yer grandfather wrote to us an’ asked for our help, he did! An’ it’s a fine thing he did, because those men would have killed ye too if we hadnae been here!”

“You’re lying!” Dani shot back. “You all lie, tell me the truth damn it! What is this, those men find monsters like us and turn us into - into child soldiers?!”

“You ain’t monsters, kid.” Surprised, Dani looked up to see another of them, the man in the gold and blue costume with the flared cowl. “Neither of you. You okay, Terry?”

“Aye, I’m just peachy,” an embarrassed Banshee rolled her eyes.

“Stay - stay back!” Dani cried out. “I’ll kill her, I swear I’ll do it!”

“I don’t think ya will, kid.” Wolverine squatted so he could meet Dani at her eye level. “I think ya know how...ya don’t live in these mountains without knowin’ how to hunt an’ kill, but what ya do for survival’s a lot different than what ya do just ta win a scrap. An’ you an’ us, we ain’t even got a reason ta scrap.”

“Who are you people?” Dani demanded. “What is all this about? Why can’t I just be a normal girl?!”

“Normal’s overrated,” Wolverine grunted. “But not bein’ normal don’t mean ya gotta be a monster either. We’re the X-Men, kid. I’m Wolverine, and this is Banshee. These powers you got, showin’ people their greatest fears? We can help you learn how that works, learn how ta control it. And you can help us make sure that one day no other kid has ta lose what you’ve lost before they can learn to live with their own powers.”

“I can...I can control this?” It was an idea that Dani honestly hadn’t even seriously considered till now. “And what about those others? The men who killed my grandfather? Once I know what I’m doing, once I can use these…powers...I can make them pay for what they’ve done?” As she said the words, another vision came to life before them all; this time, Danielle Moonstar standing over the arrow-filled corpses of Pierce and his Hellfire Club goons while they bled out at her feet. She gasped and backed away against the trunk of the tree she’d climbed earlier; the visceral nature of the illusion shocked her, but at the same time she couldn’t deny it was what she wanted more than anything right now.

Banshee clambered to her feet once Dani released her. Nursing her aching arm, Theresa moved behind Wolverine and stared at Dani’s illusory scenario in horror. “...Saints preserve us…” Banshee whispered. The vision faded from existence, and all three of them shared a long moment of awkward silence.

Finally, Wolverine spoke. “Vengeance ain’t all it’s cracked up ta be, Danielle. Take it from me. But I can promise ya, the X-Men will give ya the training ya need to decide for yaself if that’s the road ya wanna walk down.”

The Cheyenne girl considered her options; her heart’s desire was to see her grandfather’s killers dead. She wouldn’t allow herself the luxury of grief or rest until that was done. She wouldn’t give his murderers the satisfaction of her tears.

But she had to admit, that task was beyond Danielle Moonstar. She’d heard of the X-Men, and she’d seen a little of what they could do today. Danielle Moonstar might not be able to avenge Black Eagle, but an X-Man could...and if she was going to be an X-Man, she’d need an X-Man’s name. “I’ll do it,” she stated firmly, standing up and brushing herself down. “But don’t call me Danielle; that girl died here today with her only family.

...From now on, there’s only Mirage.”

Hey Raz, loving your work here. I haven't read any Xmen in an age but this was fun.

Love how Armor and Cannonball basically have the same ability to create force fields but they're using them very differently.

Kitty taking out a Sentinel was inspired as was the fastball special.

Your description of Prof X was spot on to how I always imagined him.

Cannonball reminiscing about the forests and hills where he grew up was sweet.

It wasn't until Pierce appeared that I realised you were rewriting the New Mutants first story, though wasnt it Cannonball that was tricked into working with him originally?

Your take on Wolvie and Rogue is great too, both are confident and assured but still clever enough not to get too cocky, and supportive of the much less experienced team.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with next, more, more, more!

To quote the late, great Tom Petty,

"Oh, my, my.

OH, HELL YES!"

You knocked this one outta the park, Raz! Congratulations! I *loved* it! Suddenly I was 19 years old again, visions of Andy Kubert and Greg Capullo art dancing through my head!

I gotta run and take care of some stuff, but I'll be back in a couple hours to elaborate!

My Grade: 10 out of 10

Sooooo many great bits, but I got an especially hearty laugh out of Rook (I assume he's Roberto Da Costa) calling Cannonball "Redneck," and saying he won't hold back against him. If it is Roberto, then I'm intrigued to see where you go with this. If it isn't, well, I still got that big laugh.

And DANI. Oh my Gods, you have so got her voice and her personality down pat!

Really, everybody sounds like themselves and acts like themselves. The accents are an dicey prospect for any writer, but you totally pulled it off. I haven't read Marvel Mutant dialogue this snappy since the last time Fabian Nicieza wrote a mutant book.

I agree with Harbi, kudos for paying homage to the first New Mutants story while giving it your own special twist.

I also agree with her that your take on Charles Xavier is an exceptional one (I mean, talk about a challenging character to write! Again, kudos!)

Oh, I almost forgot -- Kitty's green eye makeup running because she's sweating: PRICELESS!

EDIT: Another thing I almost forgot -- I hope Carmilla gets payback with Pierce, and she *tears him to metallic pieces.*

High praise indeed, thanks y'all! I am very glad you both got the New Mutants homages!

Harbi, you're right that it was Cannonball working for Pierce in the graphic novel but as Ann already mentioned him being a new X-Man in her timeline I figured it gave me some room to play with events

And very perceptive pick; that is indeed Berto, and I am sure we'll find out exactly why he's in the position he's in at some point as well

I'm super glad that you rated it so highly Ann, I have never worked with someone else's ideas before (I mean obviously fanfic is all about developing other creators' ideas but you know what I mean) so I was a bit nervous about you liking it - the accents are such a corny thing but it's so ingrained in Claremontian writing I don't think you can not do it hahaha

Dani is gonna be getting some spotlight over the next couple of issues as I'm gonna be tackling a pretty iconic storyline straight out the gate!

Ooh! And might said iconic storyline involve a monster who looks like a big, smelly, belligerent, furry land mammal?

Either way, more Dani -- YAY!

Reports of supernatural ursine creatures can be neither confirmed or denied but I will say it ain't Bird-Brain

Danielle Moonstar sat bolt upright in bed in wide-eyed terror. A sheen of sweat left her face wet, long black hair matted to her defined cheekbones. It took the teenage girl a moment of shattered confusion to recognise her surroundings; this bedroom was almost as large as the entire house she’d shared with her grandfather until recently, and this bed more sumptuous than any she’d ever slept in.

Then, as the last vestiges of sleep fell away from her mind, she remembered the events of the past week; Black Eagle’s murder, meeting the X-Men and becoming a trainee member of their team, moving from a humble log cabin in Colorado to an enormous mansion in New York. Most of all she recalled the tests Professor Charles Xavier had subjected her to, both physically and telepathically. He’d explained to her that what till now she’d seen as a curse was in fact a mutant power; Danielle had the ability to project an image of someone’s greatest fear or their heart’s desire. He’d promised her that she would one day control this ability with his aid, that the horrific visions she experienced would only come when she wished.

Lightning flashed, and Dani flinched at her briefly illuminated reflection in the dresser mirror. The burst of light also illuminated something else, a black and yellow costume she’d hung over a chair. The costume reminded her that Danielle Moonstar no longer existed; her grandfather was gone, her parents were gone, Danielle Moonstar was gone. Now there was only Mirage of the X-Men.

A long roll of thunder followed the lightning, and it reminded Mirage what had woken her in the first place; a ferocious growl which she’d heard many times before and which never ceased to chill her to the marrow. She knew now though that it must have been the thunder, and her sleeping mind had only made her think it was anything else. She’d left behind Danielle Moonstar’s life when she’d become Mirage, and she’d left behind Danielle Moonstar’s fears.

She was still too worked up to simply go back to sleep and decided to go for a walk through this cavernous house to fetch a glass of milk. Summer in a stately Westchester mansion was far more forgiving than Winter in the Rocky Mountains, so she didn’t bother to wear shoes or don a robe over her pyjamas before leaving her bedroom. As she padded barefoot down the carpeted hallway, her eyes fell across giant oil paintings of people she didn’t recognise alongside photographs of various incarnations of the X-Men. Several of them wore some variation of her own training uniform but many more had their own individual outfits. Mirage pondered what her costume might look like when she was given the opportunity to design one. She heard a door creak open behind her, and remembered that it was the youngest X-Man’s room, the ghost girl called Ariel.

“Ariel?” Mirage whispered her name. “You couldn’t sleep either, huh?” As she approached the lit bedroom, she noticed odd marks along the open door. Some kind of gashes, like...claw marks? That couldn’t be right. “Ariel?” she called a little louder. She poked her head inside the door and shrieked in horror before she could stop herself. The walls were splattered in blood, and the young girl’s ravaged corpse lay still on the floor.

“No no no,” Mirage clutched her hand to her mouth. “It can’t be….it can’t be…” She backed away from Ariel’s door and ran to the next room, where Banshee slept. Mirage flung open the door just as lightning flashed again, and the stark light showed her Theresa Cassidy’s unmoving body in a bed coloured deep red with the girl’s blood.

Mirage had seen enough animals mauled by bears to know without a doubt what this was now. “Armor! Rogue!” she screamed. “X-Men! Wake up! Wake up!!” She burst into Armor’s bedroom, already knowing what she would find but hoping desperately to be proven wrong. The Italian woman had been mutilated so badly she was unrecognisable. Realising now that if anybody else was still alive they would surely have heard her by now, Mirage bolted from the room and toward the grand staircase that led down to the mansion’s expansive lobby. She was crying manically now, incapable of rational thought. Only one thing motivated her, one driving urge from somewhere deep in her reptile brain.

Run.

She fled down the stairs in a panic, stumbling on something and rolling the last half of the way. She was so filled with adrenalin that she climbed straight to her feet and dashed for the front door, only dimly aware that it was Cannonball’s dead body that had tripped her up. Mirage swung open the front door and lightning flashed once more. Violent thunder cracked, this time merging with the unholy roar of the impossibly black demon bear which filled the doorway before her. Glistening blood-soaked talons raised up, and in a flash--

“--Mirage! Danielle!”

Danielle Moonstar woke up screaming, slapped hysterically at the hands clutching her and skittered away until she was huddled in the corner of her bedroom hyperventilating. “Get away from me get awaygetawaygetawaygetaway--”

“Danielle, you’re safe! You’re safe here, it’s me - Armor! Carmella!” Carmella Unuscione was in her nightgown on one knee, reaching out to Mirage with a look of sympathy. Behind her stood Rogue, Ariel and Banshee with similar expressions of pity and concern on their faces.

Sam Guthrie barged in, wearing only a pair of faded boxers. “Get back!” he shouted chivalrously. “Ah’ll protect y’all!”

“In y’fruit o’the looms?” Rogue smirked at the blushing boy. “It’s okay, Sir Galahad...Dani just had a nightmare is all, ain’t that right sugah?”

Mirage gazed from one of them to the other, realisation slowly dawning on her. “You’re alive..” she sniffled. “You’re alive!” She launched herself at Carmella and hugged her as though she were never going to let go.

The young Italian woman responded with warmth instantly; though they barely knew one another, Armor wasn’t going to fail a young mutant in need. “It’s alright, Danielle,” she soothed. “It was just a dream...you’re safe here. You’re safe.”

In the pitch black skies above, thunder roared like an angry beast.

**********
In Dallas, the sun shone bright in a cloudless sky and two women found the temperature too warm for the stuffy business suits they were wearing to be at all comfortable. They gazed up at a massive skyscraper complex, its exterior surface covered in reflective tiles which showed mildly distorted reflections of the blonde Valerie Cooper and her dark-haired associate Raven Darkholme. “This is our destination?” Val asked, consulting her diary.

“Eagle Plaza,” Raven replied by way of confirmation. “When Tony Stark stopped designing weapons for the US Government, Forge saw an opportunity to pick up the slack. He was dissatisfied with any existing facilities though, so he decided to make his own. He designed this building to be state of the art, and his penthouse Aerie is...well, you’ll see soon enough.” Automatic sensors triggered the building’s main entrance, and the two women were immediately grateful for the air conditioning they discovered inside.

“No visible security,” Val noted curiously, looking around the spacious lobby as Raven led her to a private express elevator.

“Oh, I have no doubt we’ve been scanned fifteen different ways as soon as we crossed the threshold,” Raven remarked dryly. “And I can guarantee you there’s no way we’d be able to access this elevator if Forge’s devices had deemed us unwelcome.” They entered the surprisingly roomy elevator, the door closed behind them, and Val felt her ears pop as four seconds later the door opened again depositing them in Forge’s Aerie over a hundred stories above.

“This is...this is remarkable!” Val’s blue eyes widened in disbelief as she stepped out into a verdant mountain setting. Birdsong filled the air, green trees swayed gently and a small babbling creek ran past the two women. Massive floating platforms hovered before them, floating steps connecting each platform to its neighbour. “These holograms are so lifelike!” Filled with awe, Val crouched down to watch trout swimming in the clear waters of the creek at her feet.

“Not just holograms,” Raven smiled at the childlike wonder on Val’s face. “Feel that breeze? Smell the wildflowers? Forge has created the closest thing to a full-immersion virtual environment as exists. This space takes up the top five floors of the building, and Forge told me once that the five floors immediately below us contain the technology required to make all of this possible.”

The women heard heated conversation above them, and looked up to see two Cheyenne men storming out of a room they’d not noticed hidden among the complexity of the artificial landscape. The first of the men was the eldest, easily 70. He still had a full head of shiny black hair though, which fell over his shoulders and was held back from his wrinkled face by a red headband. The other looked to be in his 40s with a thick moustache and a receding hairline. One of his legs was obviously a prosthesis, all circuitry and bands of chrome; it didn’t seem to restrict his mobility in the slightest however. The younger man wore a leather glove on one hand, and it seemed to Val and Raven that whatever he’d done, it had royally ticked off the other guy. “Find others to take my place, Naze!” he shouted after the old man stomping away from him. “I’m done with that part of my life!”

“We tried!” the man named Naze raged without turning around. “They did their best, and now nothing remains of them save their bleached bones! You cannot hide from your destiny, Forge!” He charged straight between Val and Raven without so much as sparing the women a sideways glance, and entered the elevator that had just brought them here.

“I’m not hiding from my destiny!” Forge shot back. “I simply deny it!”

Inside the elevator, an angry Naze got the last word in before the door closed and separated him from the others. “Fool! Your cowardice will doom us all!”

Forge breathed a sigh of exasperation and then finally turned to the two women. “Sorry you had to see that,” he offered his hand to Val. “Dr Cooper, I presume? Raven mentioned she’d be bringing you. I’m Forge, in case you didn’t hear the crazy old man ranting my name on his way out.”

“Forge, what was that all about?” Raven raised an eyebrow.

“Old tribal business,” Forge brushed her off. “Very old tribal business which is no longer any concern of mine, nor should it be a concern for the Defence Department. No, I believe you two are here to see this.” He slung a rucksack from his shoulder and opened it, pulling out a unique handgun.

“This is the weapon you think will help us defeat the Dire Wraiths?” Val asked. He held it out to her and she turned it over in her hands, examining the firearm as she spoke. This was the reason Val and Raven had come here today; as representatives of the US Government, they’d been tasked with finding a more efficient way of combating mystical alien shapeshifters called Dire Wraiths who’d been slowly mounting an invasion of Earth in recent months.

“It’s only a prototype,” he clarified. “But once the design’s been perfected, my Neutraliser should do as the name says; neutralise any and all extra-human abilities. The Dire Wraiths’ shapeshifting, superhuman powers, heck, even mutant powers. So what do you think, Dr Cooper? Uncle Sam interested in funding me to test and mass-produce these babies?”

“What do I think?” Val snapped into a firing stance, testing the gun’s weight and centre of mass.

“Forge, I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

**********
The following day was a Saturday, and some of the younger X-Men had decided to take advantage of the pleasant afternoon to play a few games of pool volleyball. While Theresa and Sam played a round, Kitty paddled at the shallow end of the pool waiting for her turn. “You sure you don’t wanna join in, Rogue?” the young girl asked her teammate who was currently sunbathing on a banana lounge in a green and gold bikini, dark shades and a wide-brimmed hat.

“Y’all have fun,” Rogue gave her a smile which was perhaps a little too tight. “Ah’m good here, sugah.”

“Rogue, come onnn,” an oblivious Kitty nagged. “We can play doubles!”

“Leave Rogue alone, ya pest!” Sam teased. “If you’re that impatient, ah can whup you an’ Terry together! Ah bet ya’d still only come up to muh kneecaps standin’ on her shoulders!”

Kitty took the bait as Sam knew she would. “Oh, that’s it Mr Chauvinist Pig! Let’s do this, sister!” She swam up to Theresa’s side and the giggling girls gave one another a high five. Sam saw Rogue relax slightly and was glad he could defuse the situation before it really became a situation. He knew that Kitty had meant well, but he also knew that Rogue had good reason not to want to join them; as much as his own power control issues were a source of frustration, Sam couldn’t imagine what it must be like living in constant fear that even the slightest accidental brush of human contact could result in tragedy. Distracted by his thoughts, he was startled when the volleyball bounced off the side of his head. He soon joined the girls in laughter, and everybody resumed their afternoon of fun.

“These moments are so rare,” a smiling Professor X remarked while he watched the teenagers frolic through one of the windows in his parlor room. “We spend so much of our lives training to fight, I cherish any opportunity these children have to remember that they can still be children.”

Leaning against a bookcase, Wolverine guzzled the last drops from a can of beer and crumpled the can in his hand. “They’re good kids,” he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “But somethin’ tells me you didn’t call us in here ta discuss the state o’ the youth today.”

“Perceptive as ever, Logan.” The Professor turned away from the window to face Wolverine and Armor. “How do you two feel that Danielle Moonstar has been fitting in? I tried to talk to her about her nightmare last night, but she was quite tight-lipped about the whole affair.”

“I think she’s been through an ordeal,” Armor chose her words carefully. Though she hadn’t been an X-Man long, she was the only member of the field team aside from Wolverine who wasn’t a teenager. She appreciated that Professor X valued her input in matters such as this, and she intended to show him that he was right to do so. “Not just with her grandfather’s murder, but with her parents missing as well, and with having to uproot her entire life to come here; there’s bound to be some teething issues while she settles in.”

“Kid’s hidin’ somethin’,” Wolverine added bluntly as he cracked open another can. “We all got our demons, but hers I think have been around a while...and she’s got as much pride in her as anyone I’ve ever met, she ain’t gonna let anyone else deal with ‘em for her.”

“But we’re all mutants,” Carmella argued. “We’re X-Men. It’s our duty to be there for one another.”

“We’re also white folks,” Logan shrugged. “Kid don’t trust white folks and I can’t say I rightly blame ‘er for that. You want that kid to open up to ya, Chuck? You’re gonna have ta earn it.”

“Indeed,” Professor X agreed. “I just hope that she gives me the chance to try.”

**********
Day eventually turned to night, and with night came the bats of Westchester County.

Banshee had discovered a bat colony not far from the X-Mansion quite by accident one evening while flying home from Manhattan, and while she’d initially admired the nocturnal creatures simply for their quiet grace it hadn’t taken long before she’d started wondering if she could use her own sonic powers to replicate their talent of echolocation. The sonic scream which propelled her flight was intensely loud, and the first time she’d approached them from the air they’d panicked and flown away before she could come anywhere near them. Soon enough, Terry realised she was going to have to memorise the location of the bat colony and walk out there as the sun began to set rather than relying on her power to carry her to them.

She’d been coming out here for weeks now, a little too embarrassed about her failure so far to share with the others what it was she was doing out here in the woods so far from the mansion. She was making progress though, however slow that might be. The most difficult part had been finding a sonic frequency that didn’t alarm, hurt or disorient the bats; now that she’d done that, she felt like it was only a matter of time before she’d have a new trick to take home and show the other X-Men. She practiced for an hour, until it had begun to get so dark that she knew she’d have trouble finding her way back if she didn’t leave now. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about freezing out here; there was a chill to the night air that hadn’t been present while the sun was out, but she’d felt far worse in her native Ireland.

As she was walking back to the mansion, she heard footsteps approaching and stopped in her tracks. “Logan..?” she called uncertainly. For all that she was an X-Man with devastating sonic powers, Theresa Rourke Cassidy was still a sixteen year old girl and these woods could be awfully creepy late at night. “Wolverine, is that ye..?”

Dani Moonstar stepped out from behind a tree trunk, an arrow nocked in the bow she was carrying. “Saints above!” Terry placed her hand on her heart. “Ye scared the life outta me, girl. What are ye doin’ out here this late? An’ why are ye dressed like that?”

Danielle was wearing a loose-fitting fringed buckskin outfit. The knife she’d pulled on Terry when they’d first met was holstered at her waist, and a quiver full of arrows was slung over her shoulder. A headband held her lustrous black hair out of her eyes, and it fell in twin ponytails down her back. She wore an expression of fierce resolution, along with two stripes of paint smeared across her cheeks. “I could ask you the same question,” Dani replied. “There’s something I have to do out here. On my own.”

“Are ye out huntin’?” Theresa continued. “I don’t think the Professor will take very kindly to that, Danielle.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not hunting wildlife.” The Cheyenne girl’s head suddenly snapped up and she peered all around at every shadow and moonlit clearing. “You should go home. It’s not safe out here, Banshee.”

“I hope ye don’t mind me sayin’ so but ye sound like a bloody lunatic,” Theresa replied, clearly not impressed. “If there’s a problem, the X-Men will help ye. It’s what we do. But goin’ off on yer own like this, ye must know how it looks.”

“Go home!” Danielle exploded. “This has got nothing to do with you, nothing to do with Xavier or his X-Men, but if you stay out here it’ll kill you anyway! I thought I was free of it, I thought coming here was my escape, but for me there is no escape! The only way I’m ever going to be free of this thing is to confront it...and if I die, then at least I died fighting!” Theresa was surprised at the girl’s rage, but more surprised at the genuine terror beneath that rage.

“Danielle,” she began, “Listen, I don’t know what demons ye’re facin’ but ye don’t have t’ face ‘em alone. We all have--”

A primal roar filled the woods around them, an awful inhuman sound that turned Banshee’s marrow to ice. “What...what in th’ hell was that?!” Theresa exclaimed, her heart pounding.

“You wanted to know the demon I’m facing?” Danielle Moonstar asked coldly. “It’s right there.” With careful deliberation which belied her horror, she raised her bow and aimed at something above and behind the Irish girl.

Everything in Banshee pleaded not to look, but she forced herself to turn around. The woods were a lifeless pit and the stars seemed snuffed out by the silhouette of something black and impossibly huge. Blazing red orbs glared hatefully at them from what appeared to be a mile above, and Banshee’s breath caught in her throat as she realised that those orbs were eyes. That thing was looking right at them.

...and then the night roared again, and Theresa Maeve Rourke Cassidy felt all her futures die before they could bloom.

TO BE CONTINUED..!

(EDITOR'S NOTE: I decided to do away with using the original titles for these issues as it's too hard to make them fit the new story. I think this one might have worked if you squint, but in the actual comics #186 was Lifedeath and there was no way I was gonna do something worthy of that! So I'm just using the issue numbers moving forward)

In the privacy of her bedroom, an oddly fascinated Carmella Unuscione watched poorly shot videos of her father in the wrestling ring. Before he’d become a supervillain, Unus the Untouchable had simply been another gaudily clad wrestler. He’d also been a terrible and mostly absent father, and these videos were all Carmella had to remind her of him anymore.

She wondered why it was that she could only watch these recordings late at night when everyone else was asleep; she was far from the only X-Man with skeletons in her family closet, but for some reason her skeletons seemed so much more embarassing. A small part of her questioned if maybe the reason she found her family heritage so shameful was her father’s laughable track record in his villainous career. With a forcefield that rendered him incapable of being harmed, he’d still never managed to achieve anything other than making humans ever more antagonistic toward mutants. Unus had fought bitterly against the humans who’d made his life a misery, and the only thing he’d accomplished was to give them more ammunition in their efforts at oppression.

A part of Carmella understood her father’s motivation; if Professor X hadn’t found her when he had, she wondered if she might not have followed in Unus the Untouchable’s footsteps. Surely though, she would have found a more effective way to do so than constant public defeat. She suddenly heard Professor X’s voice in her head summoning the team together, and his tone left no doubt as to the urgency of the situation. Carmella leaped out of bed and quickly clothed herself in the loose-fitting costume she wore as the X-Man named Armor, then she ran out of her room to join Cannonball, Ariel and Rogue in the X-Mansion’s spacious lobby downstairs. Armor began to ask if anybody knew why they’d been called together when Wolverine ran past at full speed, pulling his cowl over his head as he ran. “Out the back!” Logan growled. “Now!”

The others knew better than to ask any questions, and followed Wolverine through the mansion while Professor X finally brought up the rear in his wheelchair. They heard Banshee’s sonic scream while they were still running through the house, and by the time they reached the formal living room at the back of the mansion the sound was deafening. The windows looking out over the back patio abruptly imploded, and everyone instinctively turned away and covered their eyes.

Carrying Danielle Moonstar, Banshee took a dive into the glass-strewn room from the dark night sky outside. She released Dani when she hit the floor, and both girls tumbled painfully across the room until they came to a stop at Wolverine’s feet. “Run!” Mirage screamed hoarsely. “Get out of here!”

Before anyone could act, enormous gleaming claws penetrated the wall and an obsidian arm that reeked of musk and ill intent followed suit. The hairy arm tore a gash in the wall easily eight feet across, and the X-Men saw some kind of gigantic ursine abomination outside the mansion. It leaned in and roared, and all of them felt like they’d just stared down Cerberus himself.

“What in heck is that thing?” Cannonball asked.

“Didn’t any of you hear me?” Mirage repeated. “Get out of here, go!”

“Sorry darlin’,” Wolverine dissented. “That ain’t how the X-Men work.” He popped his claws and leaped at the demon bear, ignoring Dani Moonstar’s protests. To his surprise, Wolverine was utterly absorbed into the black bear’s form. He vanished as though he’d just jumped into deepest darkness and a moment later he emerged, though his costume was replaced by a fringed buckskin outfit. His eyes were devoid of humanity and a black stripe of ash was smeared across his eyes in place of his mask. Shocking everyone present, Wolverine launched himself at Danielle Moonstar with the intent to kill.

“Ah’m sorry Sir, ah cain’t let ya do that,” Sam Guthrie drawled, tackling Wolverine in midair while he himself remained safe within his blast field. The two men crashed further through the building, coming to a stop just before they penetrated the outer wall once more.

Professor Xavier suddenly appeared while Wolverine stood over Cannonball’s recovering form. <Listen to me, Logan> Xavier’s voice sounded inside the Canadian’s mind.<You are better than this; you are the man I chose to lead my X-Men into battle. Do not let this creature sway you.>

Wolverine turned on the wheelchair-bound telepath, and there was a long silent moment of psychic battle between the two of them. Finally, Wolverine staggered back a step and shook his head violently from side to side. “Chuck! I was gonna--”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Professor X cut him off. “Clearly however, we cannot engage this entity in physical combat. Let us see how it fares against a more cerebral assault.”

“This Demon Bear only wants me!” Mirage protested. “The rest of you can still live if you get out of here now!” She nocked an arrow and shot it into the heart of the obsidian beast, followed swiftly by another. The Demon Bear roared, a sound that was more outrage than pain, and one giant paw came crashing down through the floor where Mirage and Banshee had been standing a moment ago. Suddenly, an invisible spear of agony stabbed into Danielle Moonstar’s skull and she clutched her head in both hands. “Not now...Great Spirit, not now!!”

The pain vanished immediately, only to be replaced by a larger than life image of a Cheyenne man and woman suspended before the Demon Bear in mid-air. The couple writhed in silent torture while bloody gashes appeared across the two of them like some awful stigmata. “I don’t...who are they..?” Kitty Pryde asked timidly.

“My parents,” Mirage answered, her voice choked with emotion. “This thing…” She couldn’t complete her sentence, but there was no need. Everybody in the room knew that this was Danielle Moonstar’s own greatest fear; this thing had taken her mother and father, and now it was coming for her.

“This has gone far enough,” Professor X commanded. “This creature has mental defences the like of which I’ve rarely encountered but I will not fail you, my X-Men. Wolverine, you must ensure Danielle’s safety; I think she is correct in one thing at least. This entity is focused almost entirely on her. It views the rest of us as mere obstacles in its path.”

“You heard the Prof!” Wolverine barked. He was still feeling groggy from his earlier transformation, but he couldn’t let the others sense his weakness. “Sam, you’re our best chance of getting Dani out of here in one piece, take her and fly as far and as fast as you can! Everyone else follow him!”

“Everybody else..? What are you going to be doing?” Armor asked while the others milled about waiting for his answer and Sam approached a protesting Danielle Moonstar.

“Knittin’ socks!” Wolverine exploded. “You got yer orders, go!” The Demon Bear abruptly roared once more, but turned towards Professor X this time. The others realised that their mentor must have launched his assault, and with no way to touch the bear themselves they reluctantly left the mansion.

His claws still extended, Wolverine stood protectively over Charles Xavier while the wheelchair-bound psi scowled at the Demon Bear. Beads of sweat formed on Professor Xavier’s forehead and ran down his face, and Wolverine could sense the power in the air like static electricity.

Wolverine hated this. He’d already taken this thing on once and failed; more, the Demon Bear had woken every nasty murderous instinct inside the man named Logan as easily as flipping a switch. He’d truly wanted to carve up that girl with every fibre of his being, and he wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to claw his way out of that void a second time. Like it or not, Charles Xavier was the X-Men’s best chance to beat this thing...and if Chuck failed, Wolverine wasn’t going to let him fail alone no matter what the cost to Logan’s own soul.

Professor X emitted a sharp sound and clutched his head. “The creature is too primal, too inhuman. It is rage personified, and driven solely by its need to slay Danielle Moonstar; I may as well attempt to use my power against the very concept of murder itself.”

“That’s interesting Chuck, but you can write a paper on it later!” Wolverine slung Professor X over his shoulder rudely and ran through the remains of the room as the Demon Bear’s paw smashed Xavier’s wheelchair to pieces. The two men found themselves trapped in a corner while the rampaging creature tore the rest of the room apart behind them, and Logan dumped Professor X on the ground as softly as he could manage before he turned to face the Demon Bear once again. “Now you listen to me,” Logan growled at the bald man on the floor behind him. “I’m gonna fight but if this thing turns me again, you gotta take me down Chuck. You’re the only one on this team who can. Ya hear me?”

“Wolverine--” Xavier began to protest.

The bear reared up to strike again but before it could bring its mighty arm down, the cabin of a red semi-trailer bizarrely came flying through the space that had been the outer wall of the mansion before the bear’s initial entrance. It slammed into the giant beast, and together they trashed several more rooms of the X-Mansion careening through it. “What do y’know, ah was right!” Rogue hovered directly outside the building, brushing dust off of her gloved hands. “Ah knew we’d be able to hurt it as long as we didn’t actually touch the critter!”

“I told you to get out of here!” Wolverine bellowed angrily at her.

“Ah’m called Rogue, sugah. Y’think ah’ve ever been any good at followin’ orders? Armor’s lookin’ out for Dani and the others but we couldn’t just let y’all hog all the fun back here.”

“You have a peculiar definition of fun, child.” Professor X gave his student a wry smile. “Still, you have no doubt saved our lives. Let us -- Logan? What is it?”

Wolverine sniffed the air, his head snapping from one side to the next. “Bad news is what it is.”

“...The bear ain’t here no more.”

**********
Between the roar of Cannonball’s blast field and Banshee’s powerful sonic cry, the remaining five X-Men could be heard a mile away as they shot through the night sky. This fact was lost on none of them and they were all on edge. “Are you sure I’m not too heavy for you, Banshee?” Armor asked, looking up at the young redhead whose hands she was clasping while she was being unceremoniously dragged through the air.

“I’m fine,” Theresa Cassidy replied, her mutation allowing her to talk and scream simultaneously. “If Sammy-boy there can carry two passengers, I can sure as manage with one.”

“Can you manage, Sam?” Kitty Pryde asked, straddling his back.

“Ain’t no problem at all, Ariel.” Sam replied with what he hoped sounded like easy confidence. “Y’all barely weigh a thing between ya both, an’ when ah’m flyin’ ah can carry a lot more anyway cuz o’ the thrust. Ah right think it’s time for us to find out exactly what in heck that thing back there is, Mirage.” He looked down at Danielle Moonstar in his arms.

“It’s my problem is what it is,” Dani pouted. “I told you--”

“Yeah, you’ve been telling us that a lot,” Kitty interrupted her. “But Rogue and Wolvie and the Professor are back there right now dealing with your problem, so I’d say that makes it our problem too now whether you like it or not. The Professor said it’s obsessed with you so you must know more than you’ve told us - spill!”

Dani sighed. She knew her stubborness wasn’t going to see her through this one, but there was a part of her that was relieved to finally be able to tell someone else if she was being completely honest with herself. “I started seeing visions of the Demon Bear just before my powers kicked in,” she explained. “I mean, I didn’t know I was a mutant back then obviously, I thought it was all connected. And the visions kept getting worse, then one night I had a vision that it had taken my parents. I was terrified. I ran to their room to tell them, to...to reassure myself that it was just a dumb dream, but...they were gone. Their bedroom looked like a wild animal had torn it apart, but there was no trace of my mom or dad at all.” Her eyes welled with tears, but she gulped her despair back down. “The cops never found them,” she eventually continued. “Nobody knew what had happened to them, if they were alive or dead...but I knew. My grandfather Black Eagle took me in, and he believed me. He used the old ways to protect me. For a long time the Demon Bear was gone. But Black Eagle’s gone now too and I’ve felt the Demon Bear crawling back, sniffing me out, getting stronger. And now he’s come to take me too!” Her steely resolve finally broke, and Danielle Moonstar buried her face against Sam Guthrie’s chest crying.

“Cannonball!” Armor’s panicked voice cried out. “Look out!”

The Demon Bear had appeared before them, blotting out the stars in its impossibly huge presence. It was far bigger now than it had been back at the mansion, big enough that its complete blackness this time of night must be all that was preventing it from being seen by any of the neighbouring townspeople. Banshee swerved just barely in time to save herself and Armor from the swipe of claws as large as themselves, but Cannonball was nowhere near as agile as she. Despite his best efforts he flew straight into the body of the beast, but unlike Wolverine back at the mansion he didn’t come back out.

“Give them back!” Banshee screamed, circling the enormous beast. She repeated herself but her last word stretched out into a secondary long piercing screech which made the very air in its path shimmer. Surprisingly, the bear recoiled slightly from Banshee’s sonic lance and roared hot air and death in her face.

“Banshee!” Armor called at the top of her lungs, though she wasn’t sure if the younger girl would hear; she certainly couldn’t hear herself above the racket Banshee was making. “Theresa!” She pulled on Banshee’s arm to get her attention. “Look!” Banshee followed Armor’s gaze, and the two women watched as Cannonball, Ariel and Mirage emerged through the other side of the Demon Bear and carved a ditch into a lonely road before they came to a halt in the woodlands beyond.

The two women followed their teammates, and saw that even with the protection of Sam’s blast field they were a little banged up. Their outfits had also been affected by the creature as Wolverine’s had been earlier. While still bearing the same design as their X-Men costumes, Cannonball and Ariel’s outfits were now made of fringed buckskin. “Blast field...protected us from th’ worst of it,” Sam Guthrie breathed wearily, “But even so...lord, that thing’s just plain evil.”

“It tried to corrupt us,” Kitty continued, too exhausted to even lift her head from the wet grass in which she lay. “Get us to...kill Dani for it...but we didn’t….we didn’t…” The young girl passed out from her ordeal, and Armor rushed to her side.

“I think they’ll both be alright,” Armor addressed the other girls, “But we really need Professor X to examine them both. We - get behind me!” Mirage and Banshee ducked down alongside Cannonball and Ariel even as Armor stood over them all. She projected her power around all of them and her feet left the ground as she hovered in her psionic exoskeleton’s centre a few feet in the air. The Demon Bear’s claws swiped across the surface of Armor’s psionic exoskeleton and the Italian heroine grunted in pain. That couldn’t prepare her for what came next however, as it pushed its claws against the shimmering green field.

The Demon Bear’s claws pushed inward, and with agonising inevitability slowly pierced Armor’s mutant energy. The proud young woman refused to give up though, and floated there in trembling defiance even when the tip of the deadly beast’s claw was less than a foot from her soft belly.

“Danielle, think!” Theresa grabbed the shaken girl’s shoulders roughly. “There must be a reason this thing wants ye so bad, what is it? It’s come after none of us until we started tryin’ to protect ye and even then it just tries to turn us against ye when it could just as easily kill us all! Ye must know what it wants or what it needs or--”

“...Or what it’s scared of,” Danielle Moonstar’s big brown eyes widened in realisation.

Banshee was confounded. “Lass, what..?”

“My power,” the Cheyenne teen said with more certainty. She stood up within the confines of the psionic exoskeleton and took her place at Armor’s side. The shifting energies of the field mildly distorted the world outside of it, but Mirage couldn’t mistake the burning hatred of the Demon Bear’s eyes glaring down at her from so high up. “I can’t hurt it, but I might be the only person who can reveal what it’s afraid of. Maybe that’s why it hates me so much!” She reached out toward the monster’s massive claw, only inches from herself and Armor now. Death wafted from this thing like a scent, and Dani was utterly terrified. But she knew now that she was right.

She’d only really just begun to train in the use of her powers with Professor Xavier and she hadn’t been able to reliably summon a particular image yet, but her life and the lives of her fellow X-Men depended on her doing it now. She would not fail them. She touched the very tip of the Demon Bear’s claw, and gasped in shock. There was some unspoken conduit between herself and the bear which existed on no conscious level, but it gave her what she needed. Standing over Armor’s exoskeleton, dwarfing the X-Men as it stood as high and defiant as the Demon Bear itself was a completely lifelike image of Danielle Moonstar. It wasn’t Dani as she was now though; this version of herself looked a few years older, stronger and harder. She wore a black and brown outfit with open sleeves, a belt composed of round metal discs with an X on the buckle, and a knife holstered at her side. In her arm she wielded a spear, and she pivoted back now to launch that spear at the Demon Bear.

For the first time that night, the X-Men saw the Demon Bear’s rage-filled expression change to one of fear. It withdrew its claws from Armor’s exoskeleton, and Carmella Unuscione collapsed in a heap at Mirage’s side while the Demon Bear took an apprehensive step backwards. It seemed to be almost shrinking in size now, and its threat definitely loomed less intensely. It suddenly threw its head to the night sky and howled a horrific sound that would stay in all of their nightmares for some time. Then, just as suddenly, it was no longer there. Mirage’s power popped out of existence and she gave the other X-Men a confused glance. “I...I don’t think I did that...”

“You did not, but you gave me the distraction that I needed to do so,” Professor Xavier’s voice replied. Armor, Banshee, Mirage, Cannonball and a still recovering Ariel looked up to see Rogue descending with Professor X in her arms. “I’m very proud of you all,” the Professor continued. “We faced a foe tonight very different to those we face in our normal misadventures and you all performed exceptionally. I’m especially proud of you, Danielle. It was your illusion which left the entity unbalanced enough that my own telepathic powers could finally penetrate its defences fully and release its hold on its victims.”

“Oh yeah!” Ariel held her hands out before her. “Sam and I are back in our normal clothes again!”

“You ain’t the only ones, kiddo.” This was Wolverine, who came forward from the surrounding woods now with a man and woman leaning on him for support. As he steppped into the moonlight, the X-Men saw that his costume too had been restored to normal. It was the identity of the people with Wolverine that caught Danielle Moonstar’s attention however.


“Mom! Dad!” The exhausted teenager found a new surge of energy and launched herself at her parents, hugging the both of them while tears streamed down her face. “But...how..?”

“We will need to investigate more thoroughly,” Professor X answered, “But I believe the Demon Bear may require human hosts to manifest fully on this plane of reality. He did not kill your parents, Danielle. He forced them to house his essence, and with your help I have now freed them. I have an...associate whom we can contact to ensure there are no negative lasting effects, but for now I think we should all have as good a night’s sleep as we can manage. What do you say, my X-Men?”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Rogue smiled. “Y’all reckon it’s too much to hope that our house went back t’normal when all y’all clothes did?”

The heroes gave a weary laugh and started back on their way home.

**********
In a highly secured private office in Washington DC, Henry Peter Gyrich reclined in his seat while he turned an exotic handgun over and over in his hands. “And you really think this is the tool we need to handle our mutant problem?” he asked the blonde woman sitting opposite. “Permanently?”

Dr Valerie Cooper gave him a cunning smile. “It’s only a prototype, and it was actually designed to deal with Dire Wraiths but the inventor of this neutralizer tells me that it’ll affect superhuman powers as well. I’ve done a little research and Agent Gyrich, I believe this man Forge may be just what we need to restore the balance of power in this country when it comes to superhuman relations.”

“Still, like you said it’s a prototype. We’ll need to see this gun in action before we can approve mass-production.” Gyrich placed the firearm back on the table.

“What do you have in mind?” Val asked. “Testing on one of our lifers at the Vault?”

“And have to deal with bleeding heart civil liberties groups?” Gyrich rolled his eyes. “Spare me. No, I think our best subject is someone who’s still at large; someone who’s been associated with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, who’s almost defeated the entire roster of the mighty Avengers single-handed and who’s even been brazen enough to launch an unprovoked assault on the SHIELD Helicarrier. In short, we need to target somebody whom not a single sane person could see as being anything other than public enemy number one.

Dr Cooper, we’re going to take down the mutant terrorist named Rogue.”

**********