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[Assistant]
“The Ward” – part one
Cyclops has called Kitty Pryde into his office and asks her to be the liaison between Hope’s team and him. Kitty begins to ask about Rogue, who held that position, but Cyclops interrupts. She has enough duties already. More importantly, she’s proven herself unreliable as far as Hope goes. She’s repeatedly disobeyed orders. It’s turned out for the best, but… Hope seems to engender extreme loyalty seemingly from nothing. He’s not sure Rogue has proved entirely resistant. He needs someone who has some distance… better for Hope and better for them. He wants Kitty to watch her closely.
She’s not going to spy! Kitty announces. Cyclops clarifies that he needs Kitty’s opinion on Hope. He’s worried. He doesn’t give her anything more than that because he doesn’t want to color Kitty’s impressions. He needs he unbiased which is the other reason why Rogue couldn’t…
Kitty interrupts: she isn’t wondering about Rogue, but why her? Cyclops explains that to build a nation from nothing the foundations are bloodier than they like. They had to act questionably to save them all, but for the future… Kitty is the best of them. They need the best of them. With a smile, Kitty calls him a suck-up and asks where the Lights are.
Laurie is in the lab to have her power tested with the help of Storm. Dr. Nemesis and Idie watch. Nemesis announces a theory: that by pushing Laurie with extreme conditions they’ll see a morphic cha… He stops in midsentence as he recalls that Idie is only 14 and her intellect couldn’t hope to comprehend, so he orders Storm to increase storminess. “See, girly-lady goes goo goo,” Nemesis patronizes Idie, who tells him that, if he were as clever as he thinks, he wouldn’t be examining how they were sick. He’d help them get better!
In his room, Kenji begins to draw and cackles. On the beach, Wolverine and Teon are sparring. In the student kitchen, Gabriel is happily making up a song about Hope, unaware she is standing in another part of the kitchen. In the Cerebra chamber, Emma Frost checks the readings.
Under the pressure, Laurie’s features begin to change, seemingly melting. Kenji giggles gleefully as he begins working. Is she doing okay? Logan asks Teon after the session. Woof, the boy replies. That’s good, Logan decides.
“ And then she took me to Japan,” Gabriel sings. “And we fought a tentacled man! I was so scared I nearly died! And then she kissed me.” Let her guess, Hope remarks. Not the original lyrics. Not strictly 100 percent faithful to the original, he admits embarrassed. It’s from Goodfellas. Never seen it, she admits. She’s probably never seen a movie, he realizes. She should go to one some time, she agrees. He asks her if she wants company.
That moment, Cerebra has a mutant signal as Hope’s eyes flare and all of them sense it. She orders Gabriel to get the others. He runs to Idie and tells the girls to get dressed for a mission except for Laurie. He bursts into Kenji’s room telling him mission is go! He knows, get out! Kenj orders and walks out soon with his uniform on. What was he doing in there? Gabriel asks. What he’s doing now, comes the reply. Going wherever his muse leads him.
The kids gather in front of a Blackbird. Rogue congratulates Hope on being right, then explains she is not liaison any more. Cyclops said she had enough going on with the other young ones. Does she believe him? Hope asks. Nope, Rogue admits, but he’s not wrong either. She promises Hope that she’ll be there whenever she needs her. She knows that, right? Yeah, she does, Hope agrees, isn’t that strange?
After the kids leave, Rogue asks Cyclops that he didn’t tell them. It can wait until after the mission, he replies. They can worry about the family’s lawyers when they get back.
Aboard the plane, Kitty Pryde (still in her uniform) puts the plane on autopilot. OK, time for the awkward silence, she announces. She wishes they had more time to get used to the idea, but they’ve just switched one shouty woman who can’t touch them for another shouty woman who can’t touch them. Are they all cool?
Hope admits that she likes her. Kitty has been kind to them since they got here. But it doesn’t matter if she or Rogue are the liaison, because they are a liaison. They are the team and the mission they’ve been training for hasn’t changed. As long a Kitty realizes that, all is cool. What have they been training for really? Kitty demands. She’s seen them on the firing range. They train for everything, Hope explains. All options are on the table.
That moment, Cyclops hails them from Utopia and explains they’ve been in contact with German authorities and advised them assistance is in transit. There appears to be a problem. Surprise, surprise, Kenji smirks.
The jet lands outside and some distance away from a Berlin hospital. Police cars are stationed at a certain distance around the building. No movement inside, they explain. No one picking up calls. People have collapsed. They sent in a bomb disposal robot to have a closer look and they all appear to be asleep. When they heard specialists were on the way, they backed off. Though they didn’t know they were children…
Hope orders Gabriel to take a run. When he almost reaches the hospital door, Gabriel falls down unconscious. Kenji creates goggle eyes and announces he is asleep. Hope orders Laurie to try and retrieve him nit Laurie protests. Scientific method, Hope decides, they need to be sure. Grumbling, Laurie complies and falls down next to Gabriel.
Two members down already, he is impressed, Kenji mocks. What now? Tell Teon to fetch? Teon does just that, too late to hear Hope’s protest. He jumps up to his two teammates and carries them out of the danger zone without any problem whatsoever. Soon they recover.
Hope suspects they are dealing with a telepath of sorts and for some reason they are not registering Teon. Maybe he’s protected by something, she suggests. Kitty points out that Emma had no problem with him. She scanned everyone. It’s something else. Gabriel, who’s up again, doesn’t like the idea of Emma Frost knowing what he was thinking when she first walked into the room. Idie informs him he is deeply immoral.
Unexpectedly, Kenji offers help. There’s a philosophy that art is about making life tolerable, to protect you from the psychic trauma of life. He thinks he can make a work to do that here. His finger tentacles grow. He can protect himself from telepathy? Hope asks. He believes so, to some degree. Over the disgust of Laurie, he connects his tentacles with the backs of their heads to protect them. He warns them that if his constructs dissolve away from him, they only have a few seconds before his protection fades.
Hope announces they are going in and Idie is to stay with Kitty, who promises to deal with the authorities and arrange for backup. Getting Emma here, for starters. Hope doubts there will be time for that. Gabriel agrees. They need to lock this down before whoever’s in there pulls a Kenji.
They walk inside the lobby where everyone has sunk to sleep where they stood. He objects to characterizing any mutant creating widespread havoc as “pulling a Kenji” Kenji protests. When someone else on the team destroys the heart of one of the world’s greatest cities, he’ll stop, Gabriel offers. Hope orders them to cool it.
Laurie kneels down next to a victim, observing she doesn’t think they are asleep. The breathing is wrong. Hope decides they need to go room by room until they find the Light. Teon interrupts with a woof, his way of saying he knows the way. Hope tells him to take the lead and show them the quickest way. So, he literally jumps through the ceiling, after which Kenji creates a spiral stairways for them to follow.
As they leave, they do not notice as in the lobby the people get up zombie-like and empty-eyed. One of them bites into a table’s surface.
In the upper story, Laurie remarks her mother wanted her to be a doctor, but she was always scared of hospitals. But now, more so. Gabriel adds that in the movie version of this there’s a creepy orchestra following them, dropping sinister chords. Diminished fifths, they are called, Laurie corrects him. Even Kenji admits he despises hospitals, then points out the sleepers are starting to move.
Ahead, they see someone standing at the entrance of the maternity ward. They run towards that person and see a highly pregnant, empty eyed woman shouting “Unself. Wombsafe reject womb reject!” They begin to realize that the woman is not the Light, but her unborn child.
Hope announces she needs to touch him and she doesn’t think he wants to be born. Laurie protests at the automatic assumption of the child’s gender. Kenji cynically suggests he could manage a Caesarean, but he couldn’t guarantee either’s survival. While Hope is about to chew him out for his tactlessness, Laurie shouts a warning as a whole army of zombies shouting “unself” storms in to attack them.


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[Assistant]
“The Ward” – part two
While the others are inside the hospital, Idie remains back in the Blackbird with Kitty Pryde. Idie asks Kitty a question. Kitty was her age when she joined the X-Men. Has her life been blessed? Kitty wouldn’t often put it like that, she replies. It’s better than the alternative, but… after so much, that Peter and she are together… to be able to wake up every morning with him… yeah, she supposes she does feel blessed right now. It must be good to be married, Idie declares and looks at Kitty with expectant eyes. Kitty is thrown for a loop, not sure what to say. Idie finally understands. Disgusted, she jumps up, accusing Kitty of being an immoral woman. They left an immoral woman in charge of them! These X-people are crazy! She’d have been safer going with the team into the hospital!
The team would probably see that different, having found that an unborn mutant baby is to blame for the chaos and controlling everybody in the hospital. All the other people in the hospital are now about to attack Hope’s team in their zombie-like state.
Hope orders Kenji to hold them back without hurting anyone. Shooting out a construct from his arm, Kenji calls her an optimist. He’s hitting them with steel and gristle. Of course, he’s going to hurt them, just not much.
Hope orders Teon to secure the mother. As he tries to grab her, she shouts unself, then reject. At her scream, all the windows in the hospital shatter. Hope tells Teon to release the woman. The baby’s scared. He’s scared? Laurie mutters. She’s scared! Gabriel fears the kid’s going full-on Kenji.
Outside, the radius of the infant’s mind control widens, reaching the people behind the police barricade and also Idie and Kitty. Shouting reject unself, as one they all storm towards the hospital.
Looking out of the window, Gabrile announces that’s a textbook example of maximum scale total-lunatic-Kenji-ing it up. The real Kenji is actually using his power to keep all the zombies out of the hospital room the team is in. Hope suggests they back off. If they are not a threat, maybe she’ll leave them alone. She orders Teon to knock them a hole through to the next room.
She then turns to Laurie. Idie under control is the main danger. She must get her out of control range. Straight up. Gabriel points out that the second Laurie snaps Kenji’s ick-cord, she will lose her protection. Not the second, Laurie corrects Seconds. Plenty of time! She flies lose of the cord, grabs Idie and flies high up with her. So high until the control effect doesn’t work anymore. Idie awakes, looking down at an amazing sight, she turns around to see Laurie having transformed into a kind of flying mermaid. She is amazing too, Idie admits.
In the hospital, the others have backed off away from the pregnant woman to the next room. Nevertheless, crowds of mind-controlled zombies are running towards the hospital. Hope closes the door on the zombies from one side while Kenji defends the hole.
Hope notices that the zombies are bleeding from their eyes. The kid is burning them out! The hospital is going to become an abattoir! No one is going to survive! She asks Keenji if he can plug into everyone and protect them. He’s an artist, not a factory, he scoffs. Does he have time for one more commission? Gabriel asks from the window. Laurie is coming in fast carrying little miss burny and self-hateful. Kenji plugs both Idie and Laurie in, grumbling about it.
Laurie announces her theory. The kid doesn’t want to be born, and why would he want to be? There’s all those iffy theories about early memory loss being due to birth trauma. Even if that’s not true, he’s an immature hyper-intellect in the womb. What’s happening to him is like his world ending. So she thinks they need to convince him that it’s worth being born. Worth fighting through the fear and there’s no alternative. That life’s worth living, she guesses.
Hope asks Kenji to take one more brain link to the kid. He is not a period-drama telephone operator either, he protests. Art is the great communicator, Hope shoots back. He lectures her that her trademark cuteness doesn’t work on him, but nevertheless extends a tendril to plug into the mothers’ back.
Hope is surrounded by whiteness, the infant floating in front of her. “Hi” she greets him and assures him she knows he’s scared. She’s scared too. She wants to just curl up in a ball, but she can’t. You have to go forward. You have to believe it’s worth going forward. If anything, the baby looks even more scared after that.
Hope asks Laurie to try, certain that smart as she is she’ll find something. Laurie rattles down all the advantages of growing up in Germany. Its economic strength, its excellent education system and labor friendly work life and culture. Predictably, the baby is not convinced at all.
Laurie holds back Kitty, as one of the zombies while Idie is next to talk to the child. She tells him that, if he is born, he can get christened and then, when he dies, he may not go to hell. Now the child is really panicked.
Hope orders Kenji to try next. Idie tells Hope she’s subtracted all the heat from the surroundings. There is no more. She can release it or take heat from the people if she wants. Hope forbids it.
Kenji stands in the whiteness, looking sullenly at the baby who scrutinizes him. Please, Kenji scoffs, as if he’s going to talk him into this world. Smirking, he announces to the others that nihilism finds an unreceptive audience in the preborn.
Hope tells Gabriel she hopes he has some kind of heartwarming message to… Woof, Teon interrupts. Hope orders Kenji to plug Teon in. Sighing he complies.
In the whiteness, Teon stands before the baby and smiles at him.
In reality, with the zombies about to overwhelm them, Kenji decides it’s time for some scalpels. But, at that moment, all the possessed stop moving and clear a pathway for Teon, who takes the mother’s hand and leads her to a bed. The others have no idea what just happened or how to deliver a baby.
In the whiteness, Teon cradles the scared child who repeats, Reject womb. Reject. Reject… To this, Teon offers a correction with a smile. Not flight, Teon tells him. Fight.
Hope’s team and the zombies have gathered around the mother whose hand Teon is holding. This is the most unnatural birth of all time, Gabriel announces. And Laurie states the baby isn’t fighting them now, but helping. It’s like a psychic epidural or something.
In the whiteness, the baby admits he’s scared. World end. No, new world, Teon tells him. Eat. Fight. Mate. Live. It’s enough!
And almost magically, the boy materializes in Hope’s hands. With her touch, she stabilizes his mutation and everybody wakes up again. It’s a boy, Hope tells the mother and she thinks he’s going to grow up to be very special.
Content, the kids leave the hospital, their work done. So in thirteen years or so, when he’s the right age, the X-gene will reactivate? Gabriel summarizes. Hope confirms. Until then, everything is back to normal. The extremely bloody miracle of birth, Kenji remarks. Gabriel protests that he likes kids. Kids are cute! Yuck, Laurie announces, whereas Idie reveals that she definitely wants children when she’s older. Like when she’s seventeen!
Back at the Blackbird, Kitty congratulates them but also puts a damper on their celebratory mood. She reveals that Teon’s family has started legal action. They want him back…


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[Assistant]
“The Ward” – part three
In the X-labs on Utopia, Dr. Rao tries to test Teon’s intelligence with several puzzles for young children. Currently he is utterly baffled by solving the equation “2 + 2.” They are making progress, Kavita wryly informs Hope. He is no longer eating the pencil. But he shows no ability on any of these tests and they are supposed to find evidence to prove that Teon shouldn’t be returned to his family’s care. Really, they are just gathering evidence that he should be.
Hope dangles a chocolate bar in front of Teon and asks if he is hungry. Immediately he solves the equation and all the other tests to get the chocolate. He just needs the right motivation, Hope tells Rao. Why can’t anyone see that?
They are going to lose the case, Cyclops tells Hope in his office. Then they’ll need another lawyer, she spits. Cyclops explains that Evangeline Whedon is a mutants rights specialist. She’s the best lawyer the X-Men have ever had. If she says it’s a bad case, it’s a bad case. This is a bad case, Vange agrees. She can play all sorts of delaying actions but she’d think it unethical and beneath the X-Men. Looking at the evidence, she can only agree with the family. Teon should be with them.
He can look after himself, Hope protests. Yes, but he’d do it by sleeping in alleyways and eating trash, Vange states. Surely that’s his choice, Hope points out. Looking at the evidence, is it his choice? Vange smirks. Not this again! Hope protests. It’s this again, Vange points out, because it’s still an issue. When the jury looks at Teon and Hope, they’re looking at a master and a pet.
Hope’s eyes glow angrily for a moment. Yes, he’s imprinted on her, but he was doing even worse stuff before she got to him. She’s calmed him down. She’s good for him. This is just who he is. Who are they to judge him? They’re a court, Cyclops reminds her. Judging comes with the territory. Now if he can talk to Evangeline alone…
Hope meets the rest of her group (without Teon) on the beach and announces they need codenames. Shouldn’t they be worrying about Teon? Laurie asks. Hope claims she isn’t worried about him and nobody’s taking him. When this has all shook down, they’ll need names for the next mission.  Gabriel compliments Idie on her new Afro hairstyle. She wanted a change.
Hope still tries to explain why they need codenames when Gabriel interrupts her, shouting “Velocidad!” Spanish for “speed,” Laurie criticizes, which makes it nonsense. He controls time. He doesn’t move quicker. Gabriel doesn’t care. It’s an awesome word and more super heroes should have Spanish names. But mostly it’s an awesome word. Velocidad, he shouts again as if to prove it.
Hope turns to Kenji. She assumes he’s going to be awkward about this. Quite, he agrees. How come she doesn’t have a codename? She’s already called Hope, she replies. Like, duh. Okay, if he must… how about “Derivative?” Kenji suggests bitterly. He was one of the most feted artists of his generation but, when it came down to it, when his body warped… his imagination failed him. And now he’s stuck like this. How about “Whiny”? Gabriel suggests.
Hope tells Kenji he needs something that won’t get Gabriel mocking him, which doesn’t leave much. Rei… he suggests in a small voice. He knows Rei, Gabriel muses. Japanese for “Zero,” Kenji translates. Isn’t it a character in some old anime? Gabriel muses. On second thought, best make it Zero, to make it easy for the team simpletons, Kenji decides. Talking of which, what about their soon to be repatriated Teon?
Laurie begins that “Instinct” is the most logical name and is again interrupted by Gabriel, who shouts “Primal.” That also makes no sense, Laurie shouts.  What scares the bad guys more? he asks. “Sic ‘em, Instinct” or “sic ‘em, Primal”? They are X-Men. They go with bad-assery. While Hope wouldn’t put it exactly like that, she’s with him. He needs a name with teeth.
Laurie’s Transonic and Idie is the Girl Who Wouldn’t Burn… Idie doesn’t want that name. She is Oya. Yoruba goddess of fire and magic. Isn’t she Igbo and Catholic? Laurie asks. She is no longer of her people, Idie replies, and if she is to be this, she’s this. She is a witch child. She is a blasphemy and a heretic. What choice does she have but to embrace it? And besides “The Girl Who Wouldn’t Burn” is not true. She can’t burn in this world. She’ll burn in the next. The others look at her shocked. Sighing, Hope suggests they should get ready for court.
Later, they are all dressed in formal wear. Evangeline binds Teon’s tie. When he suggests “mate,” she informs him that she can turn into a dragon and is fine with defending a slightly singed client. “Flight,” he decides. Glad they understand each other, she agrees.
Hope leaves to get Kenji. When he doesn’t reply she opens the door to his room over his protests. The first thing she sees is a lovely portrait of herself. Kenji destroys it with one of his tentacles. It wasn’t right, he announces, it wasn’t right. They better go, Hope tells him.
Later at the San Francisco district court:
Teon’s father is asked to speak. He explains that Teon lived at home. He’d left school, but was always in his room. He was very good with his computers. It was beyond his father. Then he was sick. He had a fever and made the most horrible noises. He couldn’t speak he kept on saying how hungry he was like “Eat, eat!” And, in the morning, he was gone.
Next a young woman describes how she heard a noise in the basement. She went down and found Teon in a kind of nest. A couple of mattresses and stuff and tub upon tub of that pure protein stuff.
She and the more bulked up Teon hit it off and he stuck around for the night. In the morning, they were watching TV, images of scantily clad young women at the Miami spring break and Teon just went straight out of the room. That was the last she saw of him.
Next, a lawyer explains that all the charges against Teon are dismissed due to his proven diminished responsibility at the time. He is asked to list the main charges: petty theft while in the Ukraine, mainly from fitness retailers, breaking and entering, bypassing airport security and stowing aboard a 747. More theft in Miami. Plus a half dozen cases of sexual harassment and assaults, against women and men respectively.
Evangeline asks if there have been any further unfortunate incidents since the X-Men were able to rescue Teon. Not that they are aware of, is the reply. So he’d say that Teon has improved since entering the X-Men’s custody?
Teon’s mother is called to the stand. She wouldn’t know. They didn’t see him. The X-Men contacted them to tell them Teon was safe. They are grateful to the X-Men, but he is their son. The lawyer asks what she says to the argument that only the X-Men can help Teon. Mrs. Macik cries and insists that the X-Men don’t get to make that decision. He needs to be with his family, so they can care for him and find a way to help him. She pleads they want their son back. Is that too much to ask?
The judge thanks her and asks Evangeline if she is ready to start her case. Absolutely not, she mutters. Teon suddenly jumps up, over Vange’s protest. “Fight,” he announces. Fearing the worst, Evangeline explains Teon would like to take the stand.
Teon jumps on top of the witness stand and then begins to talk, addressing the whole crowd. He is different from them, Teon tells them. He is not sentient in the way they are. He is a deeply and profoundly separate way of approaching existence. If humanity recognizes alien and machine intelligence, they must also recognize him. He is a primitive, yes, but he is, as Gabriel said, a modern primitive.
Beyond those traditional primal urges, he is a creature who uses instinct to process the modern world. He cares little for politeness, but his hyper-instincts find solutions to the problems of civilization. Given suitable motivation and an understanding of the social context, he finds optimum if often unconventional routes to their achievement, purely instinctively. Present him with a fridge and he will eat its contents precisely in the order to satisfy his present nutritional needs, normally weighted towards sustaining maximum muscle growth. Present him with a courtroom and you get this.
As much as he regrets his parents’ loss, their child is gone. He will never be that boy again. He has two comforts for them: First, he sprouted from their child like a seed. He is still their boy and in his own way still loves them. But he can’t be with them. The second comfort is more profound and hopefully will help them come to terms with this change: He is happy. In fact, he is probably happier than anyone in this room. He doesn’t suffer any of the alienation of the intellect. He has no angst, no lasting doubts, no regrets. He lives in the second and revels in it. He is the pursuit of happiness embodied. All this court can do is curtail that.
He swings off the desk and walks back to his place. Everybody in the courtroom is dumb struck. “Mate?” he hopefully asks Evangeline, who tells him not now.
Later, after Hope’s side has won, Teon kisses his parents goodbye. Laurie and Kenji sit on the court’s steps. That was something alright, Laurie admits. Teon is a complicated guy for someone who tries to smell her butt whenever they meet. Just needs the right motivation. Appears so, Kenji agrees, but asks her to consider the following: If Teon does exactly what he said… he finds solutions. In this case a solution how to stay with them, with Hope. What they saw there was his most effective solution. Doesn’t mean any of that is true. He could be miserable. He’d lie about it to achieve his goal. Hesitantly, Laurie agrees.
Kenji reveals that he’s been painting a picture of Hope. A pretty picture of a pretty girl. This is not the sort of thing he does. Laurie in turn reveals how, in Tokyo, she went into the middle of a warzone before she had any training. Back home, you couldn’t even get her onto the soccer field without full body armor. This isn’t right.
Kenji recalls the situation with the codenames earlier. There was another he was considering spitting back at their little messiah: Judas. He gets up and offers Laurie his hand. She takes it. What’s the plural of that? she asks. Judases? That’s a terrible sounding word for something that’s not exactly the worst idea in the world. There’s got to be something better. He suspects there is and suspects they can find it together…


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[Assistant]
“Better”
In the Cerebra chamber, Hope and Gabriel thank Phoebe Cuckoo for running shifts with the other telepaths. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have a heads-up on any new Lights. They figured they’d keep her company. They figured it’d be lonely. And there’s nothing else to do, Gabriel adds. Phoebe thanks them, but tells them she isn’t alone. She and her sisters are the Three-In-One. She’s watching Glee through Irma’s eyes, while Celeste calls them names and tries to talk them into turning over to something a little more self-improving.
Hope thanks her and the two of them leave, somewhat weirded out. Gabriel remarks he thinks the Cuckoos make him feel the way Hope’s group makes everyone else feel. So, why are they down here? One of her feelings, Hope admits. She’s tense and it might mean something. But they can’t know. They can only be ready. They have to wait. Gabriel suggests making out while they wait. No, she warns him.
The university of Sheffield, United Kingdom:
In a dorm room, three students, two boys and a girl, are playing “truth or dare.” No way, the girl refuses. So she wants a dare then? one of the boys asks. She’s not going to snort chili powder, she replies. The other boy, Zee, holds his nose and grimaces, assuring her she does not want to snort the chili. The first boy tells her Zee already did, but they have a whole bunch of dares to work through here.
Okay, she tells them and looks away ashamed, as she reveals the truth to the question asked before. Her. On a beach. Middle of nowhere, with someone she barely knows. The two boys laugh at her and the first one, Luke, calls her a bloody liar. It’s true, she insists. What about him?
Okay, he reveals. He wants to have sex with a mutant. “Oh, Luke,” Zee sighs. He means, make love to a mutant. Even worse, the girl chides. He wants to make love with a mutant as a mutant. He’s insane, Zee tells him. The girl isn’t so sure, at least about the first part. That Cyclops guy is kinda cute… Firstly, Zee tells her, that is 300 % freakier than her beach thing. Secondly, Cyclops didn’t get to look like a superhero because he’s a mutant. He gets that look because he goes to the gym and eats properly and all the things they will never do. He heard the mutant part of him killed his family when it activated. If that’s true, he walks around carrying that. Knowing one bad glance can kill anyone he cares about. And Cyclops is one of the lucky ones!
When he was a kid, he had a book. “Portraits of freaks. 500 mutants you must see before they die.” Just page after page of what could happen to you if you get the bad roll of the dice. One day you’re you. Next day you’re sentient saliva. And what you get, that’s it! That’s your life forever! Living as a lump of mucus, being feared and hated and laughed at for the rest of your days. And at the best, the very best, you end up a fetish object to people like Luke. That’s being a mutant!
For a moment, the three are silent. Okay they get it, Luke laughs, breaking the silence. Zee’s turn. What’s his freakiest sexual fantasy? He’ll take the dare, Zee replies.
In Utopia, Cereba activates and Hope’s team gets ready.
In Sheffield, Zee suddenly screams in pain and holds his nose. He’s fine, he assures the others, until he looks into his hand and sees his nose has come off.
Horrified, he gasps. His features seem to melt. Luke takes his picture with his smartphone, announcing he has to get this for posterity. They’ll need it for his entry in that book…
The Blackbird is en route to the UK.
Luke has uploaded the picture to the internet, announcing they won’t believe how many hits they’ve got. Zee has locked himself in the bathroom calling him bastard. Horrified, he looks at himself in the bathroom mirror. He seems to be melting all over.
He gets out again and walks into the kitchen. Luke tells him to stop. He wants to get some update footage. Zee grabs a knife from the kitchen drawer. Man, don’t! Luke shouts, terrified for a moment that he will be attacked. But Zee walks past him and locks himself in the bathroom again.
Aboard the plane, Hope and the Lights suddenly all suffer a wave of pain. Kitty Pryde asks if they are okay. What happened? Hope addresses Laurie, who tells everyone to fasten their seatbelts. With that done, Transonic gets out of the plane and flies ahead at such a speed that her body transforms into an aerodynamic arrowshape as she heads toward Sheffield.
She kicks in the dorm’s window, just asking “where?” Luke points toward the bathroom door. Laurie orders him to get out of the way and kicks in the door. She is too late.
The plane with the others lands. Laurie tries to keep them away. Hope shoves her aside, to see paramedics bring out the covered body. Kitty looks at her computer and shows the others that Zee’s plight was put online under the headline “Sheffield liquid-face boy”. Hope turns to the other students, especially Luke, and shouts abuse at them. Kitty and Gabriel get her to calm herself. They have to be better, Hope decides.
Two weeks later. Night time. Kenji is back in Sheffield. He stares up at the dorm. From his right hand, a small, techno organic spider emerges and climbs up the building to the sleeping Luke’s room. When it has reached him, the drill that is its tail begins to move towards his head.
He doesn’t want to do that, Wolverine warns Kenji. What is he doing here? Kenji demands. He smelt of murderous rage for weeks, comes the reply. He gets a ticket to the UK. Logan put two and two together. No, what is he doing here? Kenji clarifies. He thought Wolverine of all people would understand. He does, Wolverine agrees. That’s why he’s saying, don’t do it.
This world isn’t right, Kenji replies. If he’s to live in it, he needs to do something about it. Without thugs like that, the boy would still be alive. Maybe, Wolverine concedes, but putting a drill through that idiot’s head isn’t going to bring the boy back. Platitudes won’t miraculously resurrect him either! Kenji snarls.
Wolverine replies that if he could click his finger and make the guy not ever have even existed, he’d do it. But that’s not killing. That’s not the same thing at all. Some people deserve to die, Kenji insists.
Wolverine agrees. But him up there? He’s not one of them. He made a stupid mistake. Like the one Kenji is about to make. The kid deserves to live. Because having that hanging around your chest and weighing you down… that’s the heavy thing. He touches Kenji’s shoulder. If he kills him, he carries all that. And more as well. He knows about that too.
This world, Kenji mutters, drawing away. This world… His mother suspected his father was having an affair. Followed him. Turns out she was right. He was seeing a man. His father killed himself rather than have to come out. At first, Kenji wanted to kill him. Later, he wanted to kill everyone else. This world is not right. Why would they live in it?
It gets better, Wolverine assures him. Not for him, Kenji refers to Zee, it doesn’t. He withdraws the killer spider. What now? he asks. Wolverine asks about his age. Nineteen. Well, that works, Wolverine decides. They are in the UK. He doesn’t know about Kenji, but he needs a drink.


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“Schism” – part 1
The members of Hope’s team (with the exception of Zero) are watching the X-Men deal with Sentinels on TV. Laurie, as usual, is reading and Hope is practicing assembling her guns. Gabriel angrily summarizes that one mutant anarchist makes all those leaders tell their dirty secrets on live TV and it’s “time to drag all our Sentinels out of storage?” Overreact much? Of course, now all their Sentinels are going crazy because that’s what robot death machines do when they’ve been stuck in a box for too long. Hell, that’s what robot death machines do, full stop! Never trust robot death machines! he pronounces. It’s the first rule of robotics!
It’s not, Laurie replies unimpressed. And adds the paranoia is insane. Less than 200 mutants left and they are still spending money on all these Sentinels. When the austerity measures are as bad as they are, that they are paying for this, is simply ludicrous!
Idie mutters she doesn’t see why they shouldn’t have them. “Excuse me?” Laurie asks. Idie explains that governments have to protect their people. They need Sentinels to protect their people from people like them. They are dangerous.
That’s not what Sentinels are for, Laurie protests. She recalls that the opening of the mutant museum is tonight. Idie is going there with her, she decides. She needs to understand. Hope agrees with the idea. Laurie insists they all come. She was reading about the program online and it’s very progressive.
Hope apologizes. She’ll go later; she’s busy. Gabriel is coincidentally busy, too. Mate? Teon asks suspiciously and growls at him. Just a movie, Gabriel explains. The new Captain America biopic. It looks sick. Hope orders Teon not to growl at Gabriel, he will be a perfect gentleman.
Laurie asks about Kenji. Has he locked himself in his room again? Hope informs them he went to the mainland. She doesn’t know what for. Oh, isn’t he so arty and mysterious, Gabriel mocks. Also, sticky. Okay, just her and Idie then, Laurie decides and promises it will be educational.
Later in the evening, they are at the opening with several other students while a group of X-Men are also present. Laurie talks excitedly about each exhibit. Mutant history is her new passion. Idie is aware, though, that many of the ideas she pronounces aren’t hers. Laurie complains about the crowds. At least it proves the museum is popular, she argues. Idie silently observes she’s wrong. It’s busy in this room and that’s because the X-Men pose for photos. They are the exhibition. When she looks at Magneto and Colossus and the rest with all their power, she thinks “mutant rights?” Surely they have all the rights they want! How could anyone try to stop them?
Laurie leads her to another exhibition room where they find Kenji sitting in front of a giant Sentinel head. He came here early, he informs them. He wanted to see the classic design. Bitterly, he remarks that a boy makes their leaders tell the truth and their response is to parade genocidal machines on television. They may as well be showing a schematic for a death camp. Mutant history! he scoffs. How appropriate. As the news quite clearly shows, they’d be much more comfortable if mutants were history. If they weren’t tied to Hope, he thinks he’d be like this Quire boy. Or Magneto. Or his old Brotherhood. As he sits in the shadow of this, he knows he won’t turn the other cheek.
Laurie informs him that turning the other cheek isn’t about being stoic. It’s a form of protest. By not resisting you show the other exactly what they are and you are not. The violence only demeans. Because turning the cheek means the striker can’t hit backhanded and to strike normally in Christ’s period admits social equality. He interrupts that he thought she was on his side. It’s not about sides, Laurie retorts. It’s about freedom! Idie walks away, realizing that they are really talking something other than what they’re actually talking about. They think she doesn’t know, so she’ll leave them to their argument.
In another room, she sees an exhibit about Reverend Stryker. David Alleyne aka Prodigy remarks that he knows people like Stryker have to be in here. It’s part of the story. Doesn’t mean he likes it much. Does he know him? Idie asks. Yeah, he replies. The last school. Out East. Stryker’s people came for them after M-Day. A bus full of students was leaving. Stryker had his men fire a rocket in it. They all came to Xavier’s to learn. He learned what his friends smell like as they burn. They weren’t even mutants anymore. They were depowered! She’s sorry, Idie tells him. David thanks her. But the sickest thing of all? It could be worse.
Idie learns about “worse” in a room dedicated to alternate timelines. She watches an interview of Rachel Summers. Rachel introduces herself and states she was a Hound. Hesitatingly, she explains that, in the future she’s from, they gathered mutants and put them in concentration camps. They didn’t go willingly. They had to be forced. And before they could force them, they had to be found. Hounds did that. She did that. Because she was scared and they beat it into her, in so many ways. They trained and conditioned her. But mainly she was so scared and she just did it.
And when she talks about it, she can see people just looking at her like it’s not real. Because to most people it’s an alternate future. A world that hasn’t happened, that doesn’t exist. But it did exist. It was reality. It happened. And… she doesn’t like talking about it. But she has to. Because if she does and people realize where they can end up, maybe they can stop it or anything like that happening again.
Crying, she shows her face tattoos. She explains she masks them psychically, because she doesn’t like feeling like crying every time she looks in the mirror. But even if you can’t see it, it’s still there. It still happened. Like her timeline. And if it happened there, it could happen here.
Laurie catches up with Idie and apologizes. Kenji left. What is she doing? Idie explains she was watching the lady. She seems very sad. She looks a bit like Hope. No, she doesn’t, Laurie insists. They’ve just both got red hair. Not everybody with red hair looks the same. Does she look like Hope? A little, Idie teases her. As they walk towards a door a detonations shockwave throws them down.
There is utter chaos. People flee, the X-Men fight a new version of the Hellfire Club. Laurie shouts at Idie to run. Idie loses her. In the corner of an abandoned room, she kneels down and prays.
She sneaks around and hears the fighting has stopped. She sees the X-Men have lost. They are paralyzed with brainslugs on their faces. She observes the Hellfire Club guards priming a device that could be a bomb.
One of the Stepford Cuckoos telepathically contacts her. Idie tells her what she sees. The grown-ups argue what to do, Mr. Summers and Mr. Logan. Wolverine promises he is coming. He says he can get there in time to stop the disaster. Cyclops thinks there isn’t time and then tells her to do what she feels she has to.
She thinks is a monster, but those people are too. And they would kill her friends and her; everyone. She sits down and thinks. She knows she is doused in sin and guilt, but they must be worse, she is this way, they chose to do this. And given the chance, they would be the men who build robots or the men who fire rockets at buses packed with children or the men who turn girls into dogs and fill camps with corpses. She remembers what she said in Tokyo when Kenji had his madness upon him. “Monsters should fight monsters.” She thinks she was right. And so she does what she feels she has to by killing all the Hellfire Guards with her heat and cold powers.
A little later, she is still in shock. She is outside; someone has put a blanket on her. Cyclops and Wolverine are arguing about Cyclops’ order. The rest of Idie’s team has arrived. Hope blames Laurie for abandoning Idie. Laurie explains she didn’t do it deliberately. She thought Idie was following. She should have checked! Hope shouts. Leave no man behind! Laurie shouts back she is no soldier. Yes, she is! Hope insists. She’s fine in the field! Tokyo, Berlin, she was the best of them when things went bad in England. It’s different, Laurie insists. When Hope insists it wasn’t, Laurie cries that Hope wasn’t there. She’s not like that unless she’s around Hope. They aren’t normal when they are around Hope. The two girls glare at each other.
Kenji asks Idie how she is. She’s okay, she announces. Is there anyone else she needs to kill? she asks her shocked friends. Because if not, she thinks she’d like to sleep a little.


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“Schism” – part 2
Sitting on the shore of Utopia, Idie Okonkwo aka Oya holds up her fingers trying to measure the distance of the hulking Super-Sentinel that is walking towards the island. Maybe she could do something with the sea, she tells her teammate, Gabriel Cohuelo aka Velocidad. Subtract all the temperature from the water. Freeze it. That’ll keep the Sentinel locked still, then hit it with all the heat! She could do that? he marvels. Idie agrees, but isn’t sure she’d survive. But it would certainly solve the problem. Gabriel doesn’t like the idea. It’s okay, he tells her, trust Gabriel. Nothing to worry about. If there was something to worry about, would he be speaking about himself in the third person? Gabriel thinks not! And besides – it’s at least twenty minutes away.
The rest of the team sees thing differently, at least Laurie Tromette aka Transonic does. She tells Hope the real X-Men won’t make it back to Utopia in time. It’s just the students and Cyclops. Thirty minutes ago that thing was a suitcase, she refers to the Sentinel. Now it’s that! She insists they evacuate. They are children, not soldiers! Laurie stresses. She wants to begin the evacuation plan.
Hope points out that Laurie is eighteen. She’s old enough to be a soldier. If she wants to be. She holds out a gun to Laurie. Angrily, Laurie reminds her that Idie is only fourteen. And think what she’s already done! Forget how he looks. Gabriel’s sixteen! She takes the gun, explaining she is not a pacifist. She believes some things are worth fighting for. But this? It’s a stupid rock in the ocean! It’s not worth it! She hands the gun back.
Kenji Uedo aka Zero points out that while it is a stupid rock, alas, it is their stupid rock. Didn’t anything in the museum sink in? Those dark futures are based around people just accepting it. Thinking it won’t get worse. Thinking about surviving without thinking where that eventually leaves them. The world’s watching. They run, and it says: “hey—you can build machines to hunt and kill mutants.” In other words: “Build machines to hunt and kill mutants -  it works!” And they’re one step closer to X-genocide. They stand and fight? They show them what’s theirs is theirs. And get to punch a death camp on legs in the face!
Since when has he been so political? Laurie asks. Since he saw a kid commit suicide because the world had made him so scared of what he was becoming! He looks to the Sentinel. This is a hellish world. But running will only make it worse.
Laurie tells him they can all stay, but this isn’t a decision Idie gets to make. She helps Idie up. When Laurie ran last time, she left her behind. She’s not doing that again. She begins to drag Idie away. Hope orders her to stay. Laurie turns around as if slapped. “You total bitch!” she states, fists clenched. Hope knows she can’t say “no” and is doing it anyway.
Hope just tells her, it doesn’t end here. They don’t end here. It can’t end here. She turns to Idie, telling her to make up her own mind. What does she really think? She puts her hand on Idie’s shoulder and the young girl announces they should stay together. They’re family, right? Hope hugs her and thanks her. They fight, she tells Laurie. And unless she wants to leave Idie, she fights with them.
Laurie reminds Hope that she’s only like this when she is around her. The next moment, she decks Hope, who looks at her in shock. The only surprise, Laurie adds, is that Hope is surprised that people want to do this to her.
She kicks Hope, who grabs her leg and drops Laurie. The next moment, she is on her, warning Laurie to stop. She is no fighter. Laurie flies with Hoe atop her and lands both of them hard, laying another blow on Hope. She informs her she is what Hope made her.
Gabriel wants to intervene but Primal holds him back. Hope catches Laurie’s fist and hits back. Teon still tries to keep Gabriel from joining the battle, but he tries to break up the fight with superspeed. Teon joins the fight as well.
Suddenly, Idie shouts at them to stop it. In a quieter voice, she continues that, when they came for her, her parents resisted. When they turn on a witch child, that doesn’t always happen. No matter how bad the world gets, she tells them, it’s always worse, when we fight themselves. The others look ashamed. She’s in for this, Laurie agrees. But it doesn’t end here.
In the meantime, some of the New X-Men – Prodigy, Dust, Anole and Rockslide – have come out. They were wondering which way the new kids are leaning, Prodigy remarks. The debating process looks kind of similar. What are they doing next? Hope announces they are going to tell Cyclops he has himself some X-Men. Kenji agrees, repeating his argument: it’s stupid rock, but it’s our rock. Sounds familiar, Anole agrees, including the “stupid rock” thing.
Rockslide recalls he said “what’s wrong with stupid rocks” and Dust points out everyone thought it was terribly inappropriate timing.
Prodigy muses that he wondered why they haven’t mingled much. When it’s clear they are not too different. Hope asks if everyone is going to fight. If it comes to it, Prodigy agrees, then amends, he thinks so. Hellion is pretty angry with the situation, but Hellion is angry about everything.
He’s got a good reason, Pixie who has joined them points out. Because Hellion knows the cost. Normally, she could save the day with a little magical teleportation. Bring the X-Men back here in a blink. But… she holds up her bandaged hands. Without painkillers, it hurts too much to concentrate. With them, she is all muddled. And she can’t do the finger wiggles anymore. Hellion’s down on this because he knows the cost. Pixie was out with the team and, if one of the old Sentinels had been a little closer to her, she’d be paying what he did. She’d be the amazing no-hands girl. And that thing? She points towards the Sentinel. It’s going to be messy. This is going to kill some of them.
Is she going to run? Hope asks. Hell, no, she’s going to fight, Pixie replies with a smile. She’s an X-Man. But everyone needs to remember what that means. Silently, the youngsters look at the Sentinel. Hope announces she’s going to tell Cyclops.
Gabriel tells Pixie that was cool. And what’s that accent? Welsh. She’s from Wales. Gabriel tells her he’s sorry her princess died. He doesn’t know much about Wales, does he? she smiles. And she was like two or whatever.
Laurie reminds Hope that, after this, no matter what, Idie’s out of here. She won’t let Hope make that girl more collateral damage of her lunatic cause. They can talk about that then, Hope brushes her off and walks away.
Kenji tells the angry Laurie to leave it for tomorrow, assuming they are graced with one. He agrees with her but today is not the time. Tomorrow? If it comes to it, he can kill Hope in her sleep. They can be villains then… but today they are going to have to be heroes! And right now, he’ll be surprised if anyone can tell the difference.
Together they wait for the hulking menace.


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“Half As Bright”
Utopia, shortly after the X-kids beat back the Sentinel. “Fiero!” Primal shouts to the sky, as he crouches on the destroyed Sentinel’s head. Hope, Transonic and several other young X-Men are having an impromptu barbecue at the beach. Fier-what? Hope asks. “Fiero” is Italian, Laurie informs her. An emotion they don’t have a word for. It means something like “the intoxicating thrill of achievement over strong adversity.” So there’s a word for a feeling like that? Hope asks. Cool. “Fiero!” she shouts as well.
Not so fast, Laurie advises and points towards Idie Okonkwo, who is sitting at the beach, looking forlorn. She takes the edge of the fiero doesn’t she? Idie can’t be here anymore, she begins again. Hope refuses to talk about this, claiming she doesn’t want to spoil tonight.  She suggests they argue about it tomorrow. Oh believe it, Laurie promises grimly.
Gabriel Cohuelo (aka Velocidad) is in the infirmary due to injuries sustained during the battle. Missing the celebrations? Pixie asks him. Yeah, he jokes, what’s a victory party without a few injuries for people to gawk at. He goes and gets a fashionable flesh wound and now he’s stuck here? Sorely disappointed. He does look very fashionable, Pixie tells him. Well lush.
They both sit down and she hands him her stripe of pills. Her hands hurt so much she needs to be properly munted and she needs some help. What does “munted” mean? he asks as he frees the pills and gives her one. Broken, she explains as in drugged out of her little head. And what’s the other one? Lush? Gorgeous, she explains. He loves how she talks. Time for his next dose and, if he could have a couple of the munting pills? Try again, she teases him. Can he have a couple of her munting pills, please? Politely wrong, she tells him. He laughs. And “lush,” he likes that. She looks lush, too. Is that how it’s meant to be used? That’s right, she agrees.
Outside, Kenji has altered his own body into a barbecue grill, barbecuing burgers. Surge announces they are great. But they are not beef or any other meat she knows. What meat is that? Me, Kenji replies.
While Surge runs over to the rocks to throw up, Rockslide asks Laurie if she is naked. She is naked, but not naked-naked, she explains. Her flesh becomes her costume. So if she is not naked-naked, he insists, why doesn’t she go around like this all the time? Why wear anything? Beginning to cover her breasts with her hands, she replies the same reason he doesn’t wear a swimsuit all day. So, she can get more naked? She is not going to demonstrate! Laurie seethes. She doesn’t need to. He thinks he’s getting a secondary mutation. An overactive imagination!
Hope orders him to quit hassling her troops. She suggests Laurie come with her to get Gabriel a burger. Surge tells her, for the sake of all that’s holy, not one of the burgers! Oh please, Kenji sighs dramatically. As if he’d really feed people his flesh… and then actually admit it, he adds silently when the others are out of earshot.
A grinning Hope steps into the infirmary. Her smile fades one moment later as she sees Gabriel and Pixie making out. Her eyes begin to flare with anger. Then, without another word she turns around and leaves.
Are Hope and he…? Pixie asks. Yeah, Gabriel admits. Megan calls him a “tosser” and slaps him, then leaves. No translation needed, Gabriel figures.
A little later, Cyclops informs Hope that he and Logan agree that it would be better for Idie to leave for Westchester. Over her dead body! Hope shouts as she stalks out of his office where her teammates are waiting. This is her team!
Laurie glares. She opens the door to Hope’s room where Hope is sulking on her bed. She has taken a pretty broken fourteen year old girl and found a way to smash the pieces even more, Laurie announces. Hope orders her to shut up. Idie has to be here! She has a problem, Laurie announces and points a gun at Hope. And she is not going to get away with it anymore!
Hope doesn’t react with aggression or fear. She just muses that she never told them about her dad, did she? She means, he wasn’t her dad-dad. But he raised her, protected her, took her to the end of time and back. He taught her how to punch to break a guy’s nose, he taught her how to be cut without crying. Anything worth teaching, he taught her. And he died in front of her. Like two months back. She lies back. Him and a bunch of other people, all because of … she doesn’t know.
They thought she was some kind of messiah. That she could save everyone. She thought it was insane and stupid. Her, a messiah? No way! Look at the way she acts. She is no messiah.
But she comes back and the Lights all appear and she touches them and cures them and they are all bonded together… And she thought that her dad must have been right. It’s all for a reason, like fate or something.
Laurie interrupts that this isn’t about Hope. It has to be for a reason, Hope goes on. Because if she is not this messiah, her dad died for absolutely nothing. They are together for a reason. They have to be!
Laurie goes down on her knees. She babbles that she didn’t realize. Hope is so strong and together and… A total bitch, Hope continues. Yeah, she knows. She wants to save people? Laurie asks. There is only one person she can save for sure.
And so, a little later, Hope brings Idie to Wolverine, announcing she should go. She asks him to take better care of Idie than she did. Idie promises she will be there for Hope when she needs her. She knows, Hope replies. She’s so sorry, but she knows.
The morning after, Hope claims she is fine again, as she does some therapeutic training on the firing range. She’s going to have to speak with Pixie, she tells Laurie.
She enters the room of Pixie, who is just packing. Holding up her hand defensively, Megan assures her she didn’t know. She didn’t break girly-code. It’s not about that, Hope assures her and asks if she is with the other old students who are leaving for Westchester. She was planning to, Megan begins.
Hope asks her to stay. They are a rescue team. When a new mutant emerges, they are all kinds of messed up. Their power goes mad until Hope’s touch stabilizes them. The longer they take, the more chance is that something goes wrong. Pixie is a teleporter…
Megan still hesitates. Hope continues that the last mutant who emerged killed himself before they could get him. He thought he was becoming a freak but, really, he had no idea what he was becoming. They’ll never know. The failed him. They need to be better. They need to be quicker. They need… She begs Megan to help them be better.
Won’t it be awkward? Pixie asks. It’s not like they were serious, Hope replies grimly.
Gabriel hobbles out of the infirmary on crutches. Kenji is waiting for him outside, having converted part of his body into a wheelchair. Nice going, he mocks. Kenji was working so hard on being the most hated member of the team but all the while Gabriel was quietly crafting a masterwork. He is almost envious. There is probably a word for people like Gabriel. “Tosser” apparently, Gabriel replies grimly as he sits down. Much as he can’t control himself, Kenji remarks, he has to ask, “why?”
Gabriel hesitates, then remarks does he know what everyone isn’t talking about? It doesn’t matter if he uses them or not, his powers are killing him. They think he doesn’t know, but he does. He’s aging to death. And even worse, he thinks he is losing his hair.
Always the jokes, Kenji observes. He wishes he was, Gabriel insists. He’s going to be bald by the time he turns 17. For so long, he wanted to e a grown-up. He wanted to be famous and hot and powerful… he wanted this! And now he’s got it and it’s going to be all snatched away. He tries not to think about it too much. By which he means he thinks about it 24/7. But when that Sentibot hit him, it almost took his leg off and he realized he could be dead right now. He needs to live as hard as he can!
They arrive at their part of the complex. Gabriel gets up. The opportunity arose, and… Kenji sighs. “I don’t want to die a virgin!” he mocks. Who said anything about being a virgin? Gabriel protests.
They join the rest of the group. Hope informs them that Pixie will be joining the team to help with their transport problem. But what about…? Gabriel begins to ask. It doesn’t matter, Hope replies and dismisses everyone.
They walk in different directions to their rooms. Kenji and Gabriel pass Kenji’s room (sporting an autographed “Magneto was right” poster on the door) and head to Gabriel’s. That means “I will remember this and hold it against you forever,” right? Gabriel translates Hope’s words. Kenji agrees. Or he may be wrong, he grins as they enter Gabriel’s room. It seems someone’s left a “welcome home, Gabriel” gift. Has Teon pooped in his bed? Gabriel screams. Good boy, Hope tells a grinning Teon.
Hope informs Idie that her rid to Westchester is ready and has Teon carry her bags. When she tries to say goodbye, Idie hushes her and hugs her. It’s for the best, Laurie assures Hope. But if it makes her feel better, they can have a shouting match later. Hope thanks her and leaves.
Kenji reminds Laurie this changes nothing. Laurie disagrees. It’s only an inch, but that’s still a change. There’s always hope. He hates her name so much! Kenji exclaims. His life would be infinitely more bearable if she weren’t so on the nose. He hates “Hope” so much! He’s a nihilist Gabriel remarks unimpressed. They know he hates Hope. See? Kenji shouts.
In Cyclops’ office, he tells Kitty Pryde they are sorry to be losing her. Only he could make this sound like she’s walking out of a retail temp job, Kitty laughs. Scott apologizes for not being demonstrative. But he wasn’t lying to her when he asked her to be liaison. She is the best of them and he’s lost her. There’s not much to say apart from that. Help him one last time: The Lights and Hope: What does she think?
She thinks his concerns are justified, Kitty admits. The kids are all tied together, to each other and the emerging mutants. They went crazy when the poor student in Sheffield killed himself. And Hope’s got some kind of low level control over them and from what she’s seen some are aware of it… and increasingly chafing under that yoke.
And there’s the big problem. The “city in Arizona.” Why doesn’t Scott talk to Hope about it? When Jean first handled the Phoenix, she was unstable. That ended badly, Scott reminds her. Hope has lost her father, she’s under enormous emotional stress. If he told her about Dark Phoenix? That she could wipe out an entire world? He thinks that would precipitate an incident or more likely cause her to kill herself to avoid the chance. They help hold her together until she’s ready.
Ready for what? Kitty asks. And Scott admits he doesn’t know. Whatever she’s here for, these children are their future. Of course they are, Kitty smirks. What does he think everyone’s afraid of?
Hope has huddled up in her room. Leave her alone! she shouts when someone enters. It’s Teon. What’s wrong with her? she wonders. Idie’s gone. Gabriel’s a jerk. She left Kenji as a monster and Laurie thinks she is one. Some messiah she is. Her dad would…
Teon open his arms to hug her. Don’t worry, he assures her. It’s going to be okay. Her dad would be so proud of her. She’s doing the right thing. All of this Teon tells her while his eyes are completely empty.


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untitled
Utopia:
Hope’s team is about to start a training session against a group of senior X-Men including Storm, Magneto, Colossus, Magik, Namor, Psylocke and Boom Boom, while Cyclops, Emma Frost and Danger watch. Cyclops asks Danger to record and Emma is looking forward to the footage of Hope’s humiliating defeat next time she indulges in an arrogance bender. While Scott believes Hope’s team doesn’t stand a chance, he wouldn’t count on her being humiliated.
As they rush into battle, Hope reminds her team how to pick their opponents. Pixie blinds Namor and reminds her they are six to seven X-Men… And one of them is Magneto! Transonic adds. Yeah, but one of them is Boom Boom Velocidad points out while hitting Magik at superspeed. On Hope’s order, Pixie teleports Colossus away.
Emma expresses disappointment at Pixie playing Tinkerbell to Hope’s band of Lost Boys. Cyclops thinks it’s a good idea. Hope needed a teleporter and, unlike the other kids, Pixie has had a few years of X-Men training.
It doesn’t do her any good, however, as Magik hits her in the back, telling her it’s bad form to use magic against her brother when Illyana taught her to do it.
In the air, Transonic tells Storm this is an honor. Storm suggests she call her ‘Ororo’ after they test her combat skill. Transonic tackles Storm.
Still suffering the effect of the pixie dust (and believing he is fighting a carnivorous clown fish), Namor protests that they drugged him. He pays them the honor of his combat and they resort to trickery and cowardice!
Having decided he is the alpha male, Teon attacks Namor, something that does not sit well with Cyclops.
Boom Boom asks Psylocke to stop Velocidad but he is moving too quickly, not through space but time. Cheater! Boom Boom shouts. What has Hope told them? he asks nervously and stumbles as Namor throws Teon against him. Hope orders him to stop fooling around as she trains her weapon on Namor.
Magneto observes she has fire. Zero calls up to and points at him. Magneto used to be the bogeyman. Even back home in Japan, he was the symbol of all that is to be feared about mutants… and here he is, playing with children!
Cyclops orders Danger to pay attention. This feels bad. They are already harboring Kenji after his mutation killed all those people in Tokyo. Magneto may not be the best mentor…
Magneto tells Kenji that every man is infinitely more complex than his image. He has often chosen to teach young mutants in need of a lesson… He knows what they say, Kenji retorts, as he forms tentacles that burrow into Magneto’s eyes, ears and mouth, those who can’t do, teach! Magneto instinctively lashes out and his magnetic power tears Kenji into two halves.
The fight comes to a standstill with everyone shocked. Hope calls him a bastard, while Magneto points out the boy provoked it. A moment later, Kenji recollects himself and his body stitches itself together. He is about to attack again.
Hope asks him to stop. He is okay. Kenji apologizes. Cyclops sharply asks Magneto what the hell is wrong with him. Magneto tells him to calm himself. The boy is a self-healing uniform system. He doesn’t have to breathe or organs to--
Cyclops reminds him this was a training exercise. And he just trained him, Magneto shoots back. For what a child among the X-Men can expect of their future!
Scott declares the exercise over and orders Hope to take Kenji to the infirmary. She can take care of her team, Hope snaps and suggests Cyclops try to control his.
Kenji assures her he will be fine. Did he know he’d be able to survive something like that? she asks. He admits to suspicions. He feels and the doctors confirmed that he is no longer made up of pieces. Once Hope matured his mutation, the whole of his self became one. Fluid. His mind, his will, they exist not in part of him but in every bit. So he has grown curious. Can he separate from himself? Become more than one? Or will he be carving out pieces of his soul? Leaving them to rot in the sun…
Velocidad interrupts, announcing he has a better question: do they like his beard (referring to his stubble)? Does he rock it or does it look gross? Hope tells him not to be a jerk. Kenji has a legitimate concern. So does he, Gabriel retorts. Every time he uses his power, he burns faster and further into his old age. She’s got them training so often, he now has white hairs and a beard!
Laurie takes Kenji aside, telling him if he ever want to talk— He turns away and orders her not to embarrass herself. She is not his type!
This training is literally killing him! Gabriel protests, and she doesn’t even--
Hope is far more interested in where Teon is. Currently, he is harassing the Stepford Cuckoos in Cerebra with his insistent suggestions to mate. When they peek into his mind, they announce eww and telepathically call Hope to collect her pet.
While she leaves, Kenji sees Surge and Martha Johansson, the living brain. He introduces himself. Surge sullenly reminds him that they met at the cookout of horror, like, four days ago. Kenji apologizes, but he was talking to her breathtaking friend. He informs Martha it is a pleasure to be in her company. Noriko translates that Martha can’t talk to him the way she normally does telepathically. Kenji explains he must invite people into his thoughts, but he would give her access to all of him.
Within the Cerebra chamber, Irma and Celeste Cuckoo ask Hope to take her rabid hump puppet away from their fresh pedicures. She’s sorry if he was rude, Hope begins, but assures them he is harmless. Phoebe tells her it’s okay. It’s not okay, her sisters insist. The things he was imagining could qualify as assault! Hope retorts plenty of people have probably imagined assaulting them.
She breaks off and points at the world hologram. There’s a light. Why didn’t they tell her there’s a new mutant? Phoebe wants to explain but her sisters hush her. They are aware of that one. He isn’t an issue.
She wasn’t aware! Hope snaps. She’s been studying the dossiers of all known mutants and there haven’t been any there. So why is that? Not an issue, the Cuckoos insist. Hope sees things differently. She copies Celeste’s power to get the coordinates and alerts the team.
Kenji is still chatting up Martha, asking if he could make a piece of art based on her, when he, Laurie and Gabriel receive a telepathic message from Hope, who tells them to gather at the training site. She then suggests the Cuckoos not make her do that again. Phoebe tries to apologize and her sisters ask what is wrong with her today.
The youngsters meet and Hope gives Pixie the coordinates.  Zero comes a bit late, dragging along Martha in her casing. He introduces her as Martha Johansson or No-Girl. When he tries to introduce the team, he asks if they have come up with a better name than “the Lights.” Maybe Martha can find one with that exquisite brain of hers, he suggests.
Can they please just teleport blindly into deadly battle already? an annoyed Laurie asks. Pixie casts the teleportation spell and, a moment later, they arrive in Pakistan near the Chinese border.
Laurie protests when she hears this. They could have dropped on land mines and the Pakistani government has a zero tolerance policy on mutant activity. She asks Megan to take them back but Hope forbids it. It’s not ideal, she agrees, but no worse than the bad situations they had to pull any of them out of. There’s someone probably transforming here and if it’s anything like what they went through, they are scared, alone and have no clue what is happening. This might as well be Kenji or Idie or the kid they lost in Sheffield. Whoever it is, they are going to save them.
Kenji informs Martha that, yes, Hope is always like this. She tells them they will be fine as long as they keep a low profile. She asks No-Girl to connect them telepathically when they split up.
When she tries to team up Zero and Transonic, Kenji refuses, insisting he stay with Martha. Hope agrees; Transonic and Primal are with her and Velocidad gets some more alone-time with Pixie. Pixie begins to bitch, but Gabriel beats her to it and asks if they can reschedule that guilt trip for when they are out of hostile territoryCall if they find trouble or a mutant, Hope suggests. Those usually go hand in hand, he points out. How does she want to do this? he asks Pixie. Fast, is the reply.
Hope’s group walks into a small settlement. Laurie apologizes for freaking out before but still, if Hope had told them where they would go they could have grabbed clothes to help blend in. Or Hope could have borrowed someone’s invisibility powers. Hope points out no one on Utopia has this power, but she will keep it in mind for next time.
She looks down the settlement through binoculars. Laurie continues she is surprised that Hope paired Gabriel and Megan… Hope interrupts that he was never her boyfriend. She should never have kissed him. After all, nothing good can come from letting hormones affect their missions. Which is why she hopes Laurie will get over whatever she’s feeling for Kenji. She’s not judging, but she doesn’t want to see her get hurt.
Not far away, Pixie is waiting on a building’s roof when Gabriel returns. Nothing odd, he announces, except for the goats indoors thing. She tells him to keep looking and not flirt with her. He sighs he can’t win with her. Maybe he could have if he didn’t put the moves on her while dating Hope, she snaps back. First off, who says “put the moves” on someone? he retorts. Second, they weren’t dating. They went out like once. And third, he’s a teenage boy. This is exactly when he is supposed to be an idiot. And it’s slipping away from him so fast! This probably isn’t the best time to go into this. He’s right, she begins. He’s just making it worse, isn’t he? Gabriel exclaims.
No, the three men behind him with high tech rifles announce. They make this worse. There is no room for brightly colored super heroes here. Except buried in the dirt! Gabriel tells Pixie to flee as he attacks them at superspeed.
Kenji strolls through another part of the settlement carrying Martha. It’s truly remarkable that she can make all the people “unsee” them. She does so easily what he struggles to do as an artist. To manipulate the perception and understanding of others.  Subtly guide their view of the world… as he’d like them to see it. He would love to understand her better…
What, him? he suddenly exclaims. Martha has pointed him to a single man. He asks her to call the others. And she alerts them. Gabriel arrives first, followed by Laurie.  All three run towards the man, who asks in American English what they are doing there. Militia are coming too. The man apologizes. They weren’t supposed to be here. He only meant to do it to them. He opens his coat and shows the explosives strapped to his body. Hope comes running but, just before she reaches the others, the explosives go off.


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Gilgit, Pakistan. 1000 hours local time:
Hope just witnessed a man blowing himself and his surroundings and possibly her friends up. She runs to the ruins, trying to find a sign of her teammates, and finds a moaning mass of flesh, Kenji who has protected the others with his body. Are they okay? she asks. Nothing about this is “okay,” he replies with some of his tentacles connected to Gabriel’s face. He explains that he linked with him, so he could accelerate Kenji’s subjective experience of time. At least enough for him to build a barrier before the blast hit.
Hope notes that Pixie is missing, while Kenji bitches about Hope expressing no concern about his body being ripped with shrapnel and fire. Oh God – Martha! Transonic exclaims. The living telepathic brain of Martha Johanson lies on the ground, its protective suit ripped.
Agitated, Kenji runs towards her and gently lifts up the brain. He insists they return to Utopia at once. Hope reminds him that, without the teleporter Pixie, that isn’t an option. They’ll find her but their number one priority is being elsewhere. They can’t have people think mutants were behind this.
Suddenly, they find the suicide bomber, very much alive, groaning in the center of the explosion. It seems they have found their mutant, Kenji spells out.
Eight minutes later, with them gone, a group of stylish young Chinese people with exotic weapons arrive. Detonation was aces, their leader announces. Grab their spectacular Mr. White Man and cancel any witnesses! Can they take profile pics? another young man asks while playing with his smart phone. Friends access only, his leader agrees.
They find that “Mr. White Man” is no longer around. Maybe the superfast kid took him, one of them suggests. Good thing his pink fly girl is their new groupie then, the leader decides, referring to Pixie who is trapped in a forcefield.
Utopia, 19:28 hours local time:
Scott Summers tells his lover Emma Frost to remember this day. He is calling it now: Hope Summers will be the death of him! Emma reveals they have a pool running if he is willing to wager on that. Logan started it but, since he left, she took over administrative duties. Most bet on “crushed by a Sentinel,” though “hypertension” has been surprisingly popular of late. They lost forty dollars when he made it back from the Negative Zone, one of the Stepford Cuckoos announces.
He asks them if they and Cerebra can tell him where Hope has disappeared to. Celeste reveals Hope left for Pakistan just west of the Chinese border. Cerebra detected a mutant and she took her team to meet him.
A new mutant… Cyclops wonders. Emma telepathically orders the Cuckoos not to answer. She tells him he has bigger things to worry about. Leave that to her. And Hope will undoubtedly insist on “debriefing” them upon her return, no matter the excruciating irrelevance of the events. That’s true, Cyclops replies. If anyone needs him, he’ll be getting insulted by Namor over something or other. He asks them to put him down in the death pool for $20 on Hope, $5 to Atlantean “fishmonster.”
Did she make him leave? Irma Cuckoo asks Emma who denies this. She and Scott share a relationship based on mutual respect. But she’s asked them to keep the mutant signal a secret from him, Irma points out. They don’t have secrets, Emma clarifies. They merely have things-she-yet-has to-tell-him, one of them being about her vile, manipulative bastard of an ex, Sebastian Shaw. She had faked his death twice to keep him from King Namor’s murderous rage… Listen to her prattle on! Suffice it to say, she thinks her boy trouble has become Hope’s problem. So for all their sakes, let’s hope these kids never find him.
Hope’s group and their mysterious stranger have gathered in a building. Hope informs him that they came to her to help him. But he just killed a dozen men and almost killed her team, so she is much more inclined to see him hurt. If he wants to change her mind, talk fast!
The stranger assures her he never meant to hurt her friends. Only those other men, the butchers. Hope trains her rifle on him, reminding him that’s not how it went down. He can still get back in her good graces if he tells her right now where Pixie is, the girl with the wings. He swears he never saw anyone like that. Hope tells him he has three minutes to convince them not to throw him to the wolves. Who is he? Raising his hands, he promises he doesn’t know.
Kenji tells Martha he sees no chance to get her home. Without her casing, she has no life support system. But, if it is not too forward, he has a solution. His tentacles hook up with her brain.
The man assures Hope he has no memories of his life earlier than a few weeks ago. Because those butchers out here did this to him, took his life, his past, his name. And they experimented on him. He is not even human anymore. He wanted to die but as a result of what they did, he can’t!
Hope announces this doesn’t make any sense; he isn’t like the others. The other new mutants were younger and half-formed. There’s something he isn’t telling them.
Then maybe she can help, a new voice states. They turn around and see Martha housed in a new body that is created from Kenji’s flesh and connected to him. Martha tries to connect telepathically with the stranger, only to be thrown back by his psychic defenses.
Hope has had it. The stranger assures her he isn’t trying to hide anything. Besides, he survived that bomb. Does she really think her rifle would make a dent? Talk! she orders.
The stranger’s story:
He was born a few weeks ago. He doesn’t know how else to describe it. He came into being as a complete blank. No idea who he was, where he was, how he got here. Unlike being born, he awoke, knowing words and meaning. Just not the language of everyone else around him. He was unwelcome. Desperate and fairly certain he must be mad… Until his fortunes changed.
He was run over by a jeep. That initial accident turned out to be a blessing. The men he met that day spoke his language. He finally learned where he was: the Xinjang province in Western China. The man who found him – Jin Billion – took him in. He has incredible technology and tries to help him. Together they discovered that he survived the crash because he is no longer human. Because of whatever experiment the butchers here did to him. Jin showed him evidence they had gathered. Horrible images of dissected men, women and children. Apparently, he was one in a long line of victims. It was clear to all of them that he had the opportunity and the ability to put an end to these horrors. His new friends armed him and dropped him across the border into those monsters nest. And he used the only thing he knew about himself to do what’s right. Using himself as a bomb again and again.
Present:
Laurie announces this is deeply messed up, while Velocidad is sure he is lying. The stranger becomes angry at the accusation but Hope orders both to can it. She informs the man that his powers didn’t come from any experiments. He is a mutant like them. That’s how they were able to find him in the first place.
The stranger doesn’t know the term. “Baby, we were born this way” Laurie quotes. Everybody look at her astonished. What, she asks defensively. They assume just because she reads that she listens to classical or some crap? And is she the only one who gets that song’s about mutants?
That moment, the wall caves in, thanks to the very big guns of Jin Billion and his people who want the stranger back. The stranger asks them to lower their weapons. The children just came to talk.
Gabriel shouts that those are the psychos that attacked him and Pixie. Surmising he means the cutie little pink-girl, Jin announces they may keep her. She would make an epic go-go dancer for his Thailand night clubs.
Velocidad tries to attack him but can’t. Jin informs him he has super-weapons of all sorts; stolen, alien, experimental. Sometimes, he dumpster-dives Stark International and just wires junk together for surprises.
The stranger gets between the two groups and tries to appeal to Jin that the kids aren’t part of this. They aren’t Pakistani military. They are mutants and think he is a mutant, too. Maybe he wasn’t experimented on, after all. Angered at hearing this, Jin takes him in a headlock and fires his weapon at the kids. They just broke his new toy!
The kids attack. Martha gets into one man’s head to find Pixie. She learns they’ve kept her nearby and sends Velocidad the memories of where she is. Be back in no time, he announces, to them anyway.
The others keep on fighting. Hope tells Jin to let the stranger go but Jin isn’t interested. His only goal was to create a little havoc so this dance party serves him as well as Mr. White Man. Both cases, locals get scared, he sells more weapons. And everybody named Jin Billion wins.
The stranger gets agitated when he hears that. Jin mocks him. His victims were bloody war men nonetheless. But the stories they fed him were fan fic and the pics were all from Jin’s personal collection.
Angrily, the stranger frees himself and uses the weapon on Jin. With him dead, the fight is over and Velocidad has also managed to free Pixie. “Flight,” Primal suggests and Velocidad agrees. He sped past the Pakistani security forces heading here.
Hope asks the stranger if he is okay. Not the least bit, he replies. He is back at zero. The only thing he thought he learned about himself were lies. No, he knows one thing: He is a murderer!
Hope asks him to come with them. He was manipulated. He can’t hang this on himself.  Besides, he is why they came here. To offer him refuge.
Kenji asks Martha how she is enduring without her casing. She tells him she feels wonderful, thanks to him. And, after years without any real sensation, she is happy to even feel pain.
Transonic urges them to get out and so does Gabriel. Hope pleads with the man to accompany them. And he agrees. As the security forces arrive, Pixie teleports the team out.
Moments later, they arrive on Utopia to be expected by Emma and Scott, who goes ballistic when he recognizes the stranger as Sebastian Shaw, shouting what the $&%# is he doing here?!


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One of the most dangerous villains to the X-Men has always been Sebastian Shaw. He manipulated, bribed and murdered his way to a position of power within the Hellfire Club, a secret society of the world’s most powerful. Despite being a mutant himself, he helped fund the creation of mutant hunting Sentinels for the government. Profit and self preservation were more than enough motivation to turn on his own kind. His Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club began manipulating powerful mutants into their service, including distorting a young Jean Grey, ultimately unleashing the destructive Dark Phoenix force within her.
For these and literally countless other crimes, Emma Frost, once his companion, stripped Shaw’s mind and abandoned him on the other side of the globe. So, knowing all that, it would be perfectly reasonable to ask – as Scott Summers is doing now - What the %&$&/ is he doing here?
He’s with them, Hope explains. The amnesiac Shaw reaches out his hand in greeting. Scott blasts him and calls for security! What the hell is wrong with him? Hope protests as Psylocke and Danger arrive. Psylocke orders Danger to contain him, which she does and Psylocke takes him out with her telepathic blade.
Cyclops orders them to escort their guest down to the medlab. Since when do they lynch other mutants? Hope protests. Cyclops tells Psylocke he wants Dr. Nemesis to invasively check Shaw for signaling devices, weaponized diseases, Micro-Sentinels – the works. He needs to talk with Emma and Hope. They accompany him inside, leaving the Lights.
Kenji asks Martha if she would like medical attention as well. Why be tethered to him when they can build her a new habitat? Is he kidding? she laughs. She spent the last few years as a brain in a jar. She’s been sense-deprived, not able to taste or speak or feel. She’s dying to do some tasting, talking and feeling, so he better be ready…
Laurie suggests to the others they head to medical too. She’s not sure she trusts the X-Men to “look after” someone they attacked unprovoked. She can be on human rights watch, Gabriel replies. He needs to eat. He really doesn’t give a damn about other people, she scoffs. “Excuse me?” he snarls. He gets she had a crappy day but she remembers how his power works, right? He accelerates himself through time! So while she hated the last four hours, he just burned off three days of his life to save an old dude! Three days without eating or sleeping. Just fighting! And after seeing Cyclops freak out at the sight of him, he seriously questions if it was worth it in the first place. He’s questioning if any of this is. So excuse him if he doesn’t give a damn about what’s-his-name! See them on the battle field. He leaves.
Pixie admits he has a point. They don’t even know his name.
“Hey, X-brats!” somebody interrupts them. It’s several of the less savory citizens of Utopia, among them Dragoness, Bliss, Random and Erg. Now that their little mutant messiah walked off, they should have a talk, Dragoness announces.
Meanwhile, Emma and Scott are doing the same thing in a gazebo on the astral plane. Cyclops asks why Sebastian Shaw is free. Emma stalls, announcing he is incapable of appreciating the little things. She thoughtfully crafts this setting for their little mind chats and he never so much as bats an eye. The lavender scent is a nice touch, he admits. It doesn’t count when she prompts him, Emma sulks.
He tells her to answer the question. It wasn’t safe to keep him locked up, Emma explains, so she took him to the other side of the world, partly to have time to decide… Decide what? Scott ask. Whether or not he deserved to die. But she couldn’t do it. So she erased his mind. Scrubbed it viciously. And then left him, hoping that would be the end of it.
Scott assures her he doesn’t need to micromanage her decisions. He trusts her. But it would have been helpful to know before now.
In the real world, Hope angrily announces she is trying to trust Scott, but right now she mostly wants to punch him in the mouth. Does she have any idea who that man is? he asks. No, but neither does he, she retorts. Scott doesn’t believe that. That is Sebastian Shaw. Among other horrific acts, he helped create the Sentinels and as such he’s got more mutant blood on his hands than anyone! And she just brought him into their home!
She hasn’t met Sebastian Shaw, Hope retorts. She met the man he just hauled away. And she trusts him.
Emma telepathically contacts Doctor Nemesis in the medlab. Did he find anything noteworthy yet? Not in the two damned minutes since she threw the patient at him, he replies. Is this really necessary? the tied-up Shaw asks, only to be ordered to shut up by Warpath.
Emma asks Nemesis to have the Cuckoos perform a psychic exam. Exasperated, Nemesis suggests she do it herself. Telepathy and clothes horse are the only things on her resume, after all. Emma admits she is trying to keep her distance. He mocks she actually sounds scared. Emma explains the choice comes down between examining the man or burying him. Currently, they are trying to appease their petulant messiah. But his patient’s options from here heavily depend on his finds.
Scott points out that she is shockingly silent. She assures him endless moralistic speeches are his specialty. She suffered for years under Sebastian Shaw, in every sense and assures him no good can grow from his poison seed.
Hope angrily points out he’s a mutant like them, one whose entire life has been stripped away. He’s terrified and alone! A child. But unlike every other mutant, they won’t offer him sanctuary because he slept with Scott’s girlfriend. Scott tells her to stop right there. Hope scoffs that if they turn their backs on everyone she’s had sex with, there won’t be a man left on earth for them to save. Emma calls her a wretched little mongrel and slaps Hope.
Scott gets between the two of them. He tells Hope she is right. He has a lot of reasons to hate Shaw, but his personal animosity for the man doesn’t make his crimes any less real. Hope points out the man he is talking about has already been punished. He was executed. Whoever Sebastian Shaw was, he has been wiped out of existence. That man they dragged off at knife point is someone else entirely. Someone new growing in Shaw’s place. And this man is innocent! She won’t let them punish him in effigy! In fact, she wants him on her team.
Outside, the other mutants have surrounded the Lights. Dragoness demands to know how come they get such special treatment? Random adds that they head they all just got their powers. But they stopped making mutants, right? Litterbug adds. He thinks they are aliens. Dragoness orders him to shut up. Still, she want to knows why they get the red carpet treatment.
Laurie denies that. Random points out they get weapons, transport off this rock. They even spruced up their digs on the company cards, don’t give him that bull! Pixie, calling him Johnny 90´s, orders him to back off.
Dragoness explains they didn’t come to fight. They came to get a piece. Zero retorts they have nothing to give. They should speak with the Cyclops regime. That’s the ridiculousness of it all! Erg shouts. Do they know how many mutants there are on this island that couldn’t get a minute of facetime? Why do they think everybody split? The X-Men have no problem putting them in the line of fire when this rock gets attacked, but every other day they are just like wallpaper. Kenji orders him not to poke him. He would hate to find out Erg is causing pain to his skinmate.
Dragoness orders Laurie to tell her red-headed master that, since all those X-Men took off, they want their place at the table. They were fighting for mutantkind since before the kids were born. They earned this.
Laurie has had enough. Maybe they are left out because they can’t be trusted, she suggests. Dragoness was part of the M.L.F. right? She’s been reading up. She’s saying Dragoness is a MILF? Pixie asks confused. Mutant Liberation Front! Dragoness shouts, and she doubts Transonic knows much of anything!
Laurie retorts she knows they used terrorist acts and by choosing violence their short-sightedness only made things worse for mutants. So, judging by their second class citizen status and their school yard bully approach here, she’d say they are wallowing at exactly the fit level of obscurity. Now leave them alone, so they can actually make something of themselves!
Dragoness hits her. She wants to try non-violence against someone who hates her? she asks Laurie. Here’s her chance! Fight! Teon decides. And the battle is on. Everybody picks their targets. Martha tries to telepathically take out Bliss who bites her, affecting both Martha and Kenji who are joined.
Emma senses the battle, informing Scott and Hope.
The kids find themselves surrounded.
Scott shouts at Hope that this is exactly his point. She won’t be able to manage Shaw on her own. She can’t even control these kids! Yes, she can! Hope snarls.
She takes over Kenji’s power to capture all their foes with his malleable body. She can control them completely! Hope announces. Want to see what else she can do? Keep pushing her! Her point made, Hope drops all the combatants and orders them to walk away.
Later, Cyclops shows Hope Shaw’s file, suggesting she read it and see what kind of man he is or was. Then tell him if she still wants to take responsibility for him.
And elsewhere, in his room with Martha asleep, Kenji vows that the end for Hope begins tomorrow…