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Behind the Curtain
This is their greatest fear. Those who know Nate Grey at all know that he is a stranger to this world, still, one of the few surviving refugees of a an Earth where mutants ruled supreme. Where power corrupted. Absolutely. And the power of this young mutant’s mind, the sizzling psychoactive energies at this lone boy’s command… are nothing less than limitless. And then some.
‘You’re toast, sucker!’ Nate roars as he flies through the air towards a bunker surrounded by volcanoes spewing purple smoke on an island he knows not where. Energy flickers around the young mutant hero. The air burns around him now, too. Oxygen molecules pop and crackle in protest, sparked by his rage. But the spits and hisses are swallowed by his roars - and his roars are left behind, lost to the speed of sound.
‘Still not sure where I am, really - or how I got here, exactly - and I can’t even imagine what you were hoping to gain from this whole “Greyville” illusion…’Nate shouts. And cashing through the side of the bunker at full fury, Nate shouts ‘But it’s over!’ and then declares that he knew it - he knew there was a reason this bunker was the only building left standing after the town fizzled out. ‘And I knew it was you, Killgrave! You’ve done this to me twice now, Purple Man - pumped me up, just to tear me down!’
Nate’ slams into the Purple Man who has a new appearance, and turns and looks up at him. ‘But your mutant pheromones are useless once I’m on to you, puppeteer, I proved that last dance…and payback’s a b-’ Nate adds, before the resulting collision causes a small explosion.
Nate’s thoughts drift back to “Greyville” and he tells the Purple Man that he loved the casting this time around, though - friends that really worked in their roles, at least for him - characters he could find a real connection to - Spider-Man, Madelyne and Threnody. Foes that made more sense than usual, believe it or not - Ecco and Violet. And family - Jean, Cable and Forge. Nate declares that there were little things along the way, though, weird inconsistencies that he was beginning to pick up on - right before the Purple Man did it again, taking it all away, destroying another life that Nate was just learning to love, killing Cable, Jean and Forge.
‘Just like New York…’ Nate declares as he gets to his feet when the smoke from his furious collision with the Purple Man starts to dissipate. Nate tells the Purple Man that he almost made him believe it was his fault again, too, until he finally started putting it all together a few minutes ago - the island of purple smoke, the woman called Violet, even “Sinister’s” strange colors.
Suddenly, ‘You don’t have a clue, Grey. As usual’ the Purple Man calls out as he grabs Nate from behind, wrapping his arms around Nate’s neck. ‘How? If I can’t trust me own senses in your presence again, Killgrave…if I still can’t be sure exactly where you really are…I’ll bring down the whole place!’ Nate threatens, using his power ot start to break apart the bunker. The Purple Man looks up, concerned, but too late, as the rubble slams down on top of him and Nate.
Nate bursts forth from the rubble seconds later, protected by his telekinetic force field, holding the motionless body of the Purple Man in his arms. ‘Dead. He gave me no choice in the end… there was no other way, really. Telekinetic shields protected me from the fallout, but Killgrave’s -’ Nate’s thoughts trail off, as he looks down at the body in his arms and realizes that it is not Killgrave. ‘The Purple’s just paint of some sort, and the face - now that I…’ Nate frowns and realizes that he killed a total stranger - a completely powerless man, as far as he can tell. Blood is splattered around the faux Purple Man’s face, as the haunting realization that this might have been an innocent man dawns on Nate.
The lights fade for a moment, revealing an even darker truth - a new reality. Hundreds of hovering holo-mirrors, projecting and reflecting a complex network of false images - a literal web of lies - within a huge glass dome somewhere on the ocean floor. ‘Actors!’ a voice booms out from nowhere and everywhere all at once. The effect is immediate, the performance commanding, while Nate gazes around at the holo-mirrors and lights shining over him.
‘You can’t live with them, Grey -’ a voice exclaims as Nate stands over the body of the faux Purple Man, while the actors from “Greyville” appear. ‘No…’ the woman playing Jean calls out. ‘Please, kid…’ the man who plays Cable declares. ‘Please don’t hurt us…’ the man playing Forge shouts. ‘And neither can I’ the voice that resonates around the room announces as a purple mist fills the air. But the player himself avoids the spotlight for the moment, from the wings of the stage, behind all this smoke and mirrors - Mysterio works his magic alone.
Once, he was merely Quentin Beck, stuntman and special effects expert. Now, shrouded in his own shadows, newly possessed of ancient secrets and arcane tricks known to very few alive today…the maniacal Master of Illusion is finally what he was always meant to be. Not what he appears. He raises his gold-glove covered hands into the air. His purple cape flows into the smoke. His green costume topped by the strange dome over his face. ‘I decide when the curtain comes down here, Grey! This is my show - mine - it’s been mine from the very beginning! From the second I first saw you…at a circus down South last week, you were clearly distracted, boy…lost in pleasant memories, if the stupid grin on your face was any indication’ Mysterio, still unknown to Nate, calls out from behind the smoke.
Flashback images, narrated by Mysterio:
‘I recognized you right away, of course - from your public rise and fall back in the Big Apple a few months ago - and I knew I could use your power. More accurately, I knew I could use you… to use your power for me’. He boasts that for one with his subtle skills, it was simple enough to delude Nate into aiming at imaginary monsters and murderers in “Greyville”, while actually hitting bank vaults and safes across the country.
Present:
Mysterio, still unrevealed to Nate, announces that “Greyville” was a fool’s paradise, literally. ‘My equipment built the sets, mutant, but you designed them. Your own hopes and dreams shaped the story, streamlined the script… as I directed’. He declares that it was a good run, true, covering far more than the production expenses just on opening night alone - but Nate couldn’t come though, he never really managed to give Mysterio want he was really trying to find - somewhere deep down inside of him, where everyone keeps what counts - Spider-Man’s so-called secret identity. ‘I want the name of the man beneath that mask. And none of them have pulled it off, so to speak, so far. Not a one of the Web-Slinger’s supposed friends have proven able to provide a single clue - what - what’s going on out there now?’ Mysterio calls out.
The actors from “Greyville” stare at Nate, who is crouched beside the body of the faux Purple Man. ‘Doesn’t matter… doesn’t make any difference what I thought…  why I thought it… I killed a harmless human being - murdered a man - by mistake!?’ Nate exclaims, flopping forward, anguish and fear explode from the broken boy in a torrent of psionic energies. The horror is unbearably real. And instantly, uncontrollably realized. The holo-mirrors toss and tumble in the psi-storm of emotions - and the world around Nate suffers. Greyville comes and goes again, like the fleeting dream that it was. The Age of Apocalypse lingers longer, a haunting memory of his dead birth world. Nate screams. Then, there is the Alaskan home of Scott Summers and Jean Grey Summers, teasing Nate with the promise of so much more. But all is lost to the pain - the only constant that remains. ‘I murdered a defenseless man! Maybe even an innocent man!’ Nate cries, clutching his head, his powers run wild throughout the room.
‘He’s falling apart!’ one of the actors calls out, as they look around at the energies destroying the room. ‘Totally!’ one of them agrees. ‘And taking the rest of the place with him!’ the actor playing “Spider-Man” shouts as the holo-mirrors start to catch fire, and fall towards the actors, who run.
‘I lost control… just like they all said I would, sooner or later…’ Nate utters, hanging his head while the holo-mirrors and lights crash around him. Mysterio’s laughter resonates around the room, ‘Not funny, boss!’ the actor playing “Forge” calls out, while the “Spider-Man” actor embraces “Violet”. ‘C’mon, big guy! Show’s over already! Let us out of this fishbowl - fast - before -’ the actor pleads.
Suddenly, Nate goes berserk: ‘Who -? Who’s behind all this? Who’s messing with my mind?’ he shouts. The dome above everyone starts to crack, and they all look up. ‘Uh-’ one of the actors utters, before the crack becomes a gaping hole as a torrent of water pours through, sweeping the actors about. ‘MY MIND!’ Nate shouts as he flies over and pulls the “Threnody” actress from the water, while the others bob about in the waves. ‘My mind!’ Nate calls out again. With just that, and nothing more, the world around them comes to a sudden, screeching halt.
He hovers over the water, carrying the “Threnody” actress. ‘My weapon’ Nate utters, frowning. And finally, it crumbles completely - everything and everyone instantly vanishes into the impossibly dark void - everyone except the woman in his arms. ‘Please, don’t - don’t let me go, Natey - not again’ the woman utters, touching Nate’s face. ‘You… you’re not…’ Nate begins, looking at the woman. ‘- Threnody -’ he concludes, when suddenly, she vanishes. ‘Unreal. Even the actors are all imaginary’ Nate declares. Surrounded by darkness now, he looks up and declares that he didn’t kill anyone here - not yet, at least.
Suddenly, purple smoke fills the area, and Mysterio appears - larger than life, holding Nate in his hand. ‘Bravo, Grey!’ he booms. ‘Your grasp on reality is far firmer than I gave you credit for, boy. And it made for a poignantly powerful last scene, to be sure…but the grand finale always falls to the one-and-only Mysterio!’ the villain announces.
‘Right’ Nate mutters as Mysterio wraps his hand around the young hero. Nate releases a surge of psychic energy and declares that he has been played too many times before, by too many mind-muckers to think it is going to be that easy - for either of them. The illusion of the large Mysterio vanishes, and Nate finds himself in a plain steel room, with gas seeping from some vents in the wall. He supposes that it must be a drug of some sort, screwing with his perceptions, opening him up to suggestion and the hardware does the rest, bringing the illusion to life. Nate admits that it confused him there for a while, no doubt about it, threw him totally off balance, actually. ‘But I’m used to that, believe me…I’ve learned to work around it!’ Nate exclaims as he bursts through the wall, to find himself surrounded by many Mysterios, the purple smoke dancing around their feet. ‘Your whole house of cards is coming down now, Mysterio. I’ll make sure of it. No lights - no cameras - no more action. Just you and me now, sucker, the real you…and the really, really mad me!’ Nate exclaims as he creates an explosion, which causes the other Mysterios to vanish, leaving the real one before Nate.
The real Mysterio grabs his long purple cape by its end and declares that if his powers were still tied solely to his paraphernalia, to the simple stage theatrics that were once his signature style, then such bravado might indeed be justified. The smoke rises around Mysterio who reveals that the last few months have made a new man of him, quite literally - a better man, if you will, He announces that he has mastered personal mind control and hypnosis techniques long thought lost to the ages, buried away from the rabble now for millennia. ‘In other words, amateur, I’m afraid it’s just - the beginning -’
But as Mysterio tries to cast another illusion, it doesn’t work. ‘YOU!’ Mysterio shouts as he finds Nate standing over him. ‘Like I said, Mystie. Been there - done - that’ Nate gasps, as he suddenly finds Mysterio has disappeared. ‘Gone. All gone, just like that. Nobody left! Nothing - no Earth - no oxygen’ Nate realizes as he starts floating through empty black space. But Mysterio laughs as he materializes before Nate, a giant in appearance, as Nate screams ‘NOOOOO!’ and is sucked into Mysterio’s dome.
‘As I was saying, youngster. What you see, in my case - is never, ever what you get…’ Mysterio utters, as Nate looks around, he sees blood, and supposes that he is supposed to be drowning in Mysterio’s own bloodstream. But he isn’t, he is not drowning - it is all faked - just a battle of wills between Mysterio and Nate. ‘I’m not even…’ Nate thinks to himself, closing his eyes, he re-opens them, and discovers himself in some sort of strange labyrinth with upside down stairs leading in all different directions. ‘Where?’ Nate asks, as Mysterio hovers nearby, laughing, he exclaims ‘Backstage, apparently, for the curtain call’. Perhaps this is my world as seen through your eyes? Or your world seen through mine? Either way, Grey, our dueling illusions of reality - are completely incompatible…’ Mysterio suggests.
‘Whatever. Come to psi-scapes, M…I’ve seen worse’ Nate calls out as he pushes through a wall and grabs the surprised Mysterio. ‘I’ve done worse’ Nate adds as he holds Mysterio by his cloak and faces the dome covering his head. ‘FOOL!’ Mysterio shouts, pointing out that this close in sustained eye-to-eye, so to speak, Nate will not be able to resist him. Nate tries to psionically pierce the dome, but finds himself unable to. ‘You cannot resist the forces at my command - you are mine!’ Mysterio booms as Nate collapses to the floor.
Mysterio appears to rise, taller than the building they are in, he smashes through the roof. ‘Your power is mine!’ Mysterio roars. ‘All the world is my stage now!’ he shouts, appear to hold the planet Earth between his hands. But, inside a warehouse, ‘Mine alone!’ Mysterio shouts, his regular size, smoking floating around his feet, he doesn’t realize he has been tricked. ‘Heroes will bow at my feet, begging for mercy! Men will build monuments in my name, women will worship me - by law - and the cursed Spider-Man’s face will hang on the wall of my throne room…’ he exclaims.
Nate holds himself up against a wall, blood trickling from his mouth. ‘Enjoy it while you can, lunatic… 'cause it’s all in your head’ Nate thinks to himself. ‘That direct channel you opened into my mind back there worked to well for your own good. It went both ways, sucker…and I instinctively turned out own trick around on you, without even thinking about it’ Nate tells himself, smiling. He knows that means two things - Mysterio is no threat to anyone anymore - he is effectively trapped here, in his own warehouse, living out an imaginary scenario that Nate scripted, because somehow, somewhere along the way - he recovered his telepathy.
Nate staggers from the warehouse, ‘With a vengeance…’ he utters, before more blood flows from his nose and mouth. He touches his face and sees his blood-covered glove. Nate then falls to the sidewalk. Shadows loom over him, ‘Finally…you and I got lots t’ catch up on, lover…’ a pregnant Threnody declares as she and a horde of zombies stand over Nate Grey….


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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
The Heart of Darkness
‘Nate…?’ a voice utters from the darkness. ‘Wake-wake, Nate. It’s been a week already, maybe longer. ‘C’mon, lover - come t’mama…’ the woman called Threnody utters, while, all around her, zombies chant her name. ‘Hurry, baby - please -’ Threnody utters, as the zombies reach out for her, calling to her more urgently. There is darkness, then the zombies can be seen swarming over her. ‘Please -’ a heavily pregnant Threnody calls out but the zombies completely engulf her.
‘Thren…? THRENODY!’ Nate Grey utters as he sits up. He is wearing his new blue and yellow costume and he sees the zombies clambering over Threnody. Nate thought that the whole thing was a fever dream of some sort, his own mind playing tricks on him while he struggled back to consciousness. But as he walks over to Threnody, he sees that the corpses are real enough and Threnody is buried in them. He has no idea where he is or how he got here, as usual. He starts pulling the zombies away from Threnody, and recalls the last thing he remembers is taking down some creep called Mysterio, and jump-starting his telepathy in the bargain, before passing out in the alleyway, again.
As Nate tosses another zombie aside, he realizes that he is not running at one hundred percent yet, but decides he can’t expect to find Threnody telepathically, as he never could thanks to the psi-bafflers that Sinister made her wear. Nate also isn’t sure that Threnody wants him to find her. ‘Last time I saw Threnody she was - UGGH!’ Nate exclaims as he breaks an arm off one of the corpses, before remembering Threnody was walking out the door all on her own and she never even stopped to look back.
Suddenly, he sees her, ‘Nate…’ Threnody utters, only now, she doesn’t appear like she was ever pregnant at all. ‘Help me, Nate…please…’ Threnody asks. Nate pulls her towards him while the zombies continue to call out to her. ‘I’ve got you now…I’ve got you…but if that really was you I saw earlier…I don’t understand, you seemed so…bloated, almost as if you were -’ Nate begins as the zombies appear agitated and try to reach for Threnody once more.
Threnody looks scared, so Nate takes flight. Holding on to her, he asks ‘What’s going on here, lady?’ and as two zombies latch on to Threnody’s legs, she tells Nate that it is she they want, and that she can’t make them stop. One of the zombies falls off, as Nate flies under a pier. ‘I can’t make ‘em stop…’ Threnody utters, as Nate slams the remaining zombie into the pier wall. Nate knows that Threnody is a mutant, a victim of a random genetic twist that feeds off the energies of the dying - and the dead. Zombies rise up from the water under the pier, they continue to call out to her and follow her and Nate. No one chooses this life. It is an accident of birth.
Nate looks horrified as a hand bursts through the pier above, while Nate tells Threnody that he can’t get a grip on their minds, that there is nothing there at all. He adds that he is slowing down already, losing his initial momentum, and explains to Threnody that he needs to catch his breath, get some good, and fast. But looking ahead all he sees is more poles standing up in the water holding the pier overhead. ‘So how do we get out of this place, girl? Where are we, anyway?’ Nate enquires. Threnody explains that they are under the Seattle Piers, not far from where she found him last week. Nate is a mutant as well, born to an earth that failed to survive its own hatred and bigotry, now serving as host to a seemingly limitless cauldron of psionic energies - he is a telekinetic and telepath without peer. But still, he’s only human.
More zombies burst forth from the water, they continue to call out to Threnody, but up ahead, Nate sees their way out. ’We. Are. Outta here!’ Nate exclaims as he knocks against the side of several posts, causing the pier to collapse, preventing the zombies from following him and Threnody as they make it into open air above the water.
Soon, Nate and Threnody take refuge in a church as the night sky blankets Seattle. The moonlight shines through a stained glass window, creating a glow across Nate as he holds Threnody close to him. Threnody tells Nate that those zombies are gone, but that there is another one burn every minute, as long as people keep dying. ‘I’ll never be safe in the dark again’ she utters. Nate tells Threnody to shush, and assures her that he won’t let anything hurt her, ever, and that he will never abandon her now that he has found her again. ‘I swear’. As Threnody rests against Nate’s chest, he asks her why she abandoned him, why she just took off on him in New York when they had made all those plans. ‘Never happened, lover’ Threnody replies. She tells Nate that she didn’t just “take off”, that she must have known that, and she hadn’t been swept back up into Sinister’s fold, either.
‘Although I’m sure that’s what you suspected’ Threnody continues, revealing that she was cut out of the picture completely when Nate’s gal-pal Madelyne Pryor murdered her. ‘Maddie - my Maddie - killed you?’ Nate gasps in horror. He tells Thenody that he is sorry, and holds her tight, repeating over and over how sorry he is.
Sometime later, ‘Where…? Thren -?’ Nate asks as he wakes and looks around, but doesn’t see Threnody. She is standing by the stained glass window, and bids him afternoon, adding that there is no sense wasting another week in dreamland. ‘Must’ve caught up on all your shuteye by now…and I haven’t felt this relaxed in a long, long time, personally’ Threnody explains, adding ‘Death becomes me, don’t y’think?’ Her eyes are glazed over, completely white as Threnody tells Nate that his little witch’s ambush set her back a bit. ‘She killed me pretty good, no doubt about that - I actually remember feasting on my own death-scream for one bitter, brief moment - but it didn’t take’.
Flashback images
With all the lingering death-energies in that morgue, who could stay horizontal? But something was different, though, Threnody knew that right away - she felt it in her bones, she had a taste for the dying, obviously, but now the dead have developed a taste for her. At first they were harmless, strange as that sounds, and Threnody missed Nate so much, she was so afraid of being alone again, but she was more afraid of Nate’s precious Maddie, so she and the zombies who followed her took shelter in an old Morlock tunnel under Manhattan, near where she and Nate first spent time together.
But the Dark Beast was working the area by then, and the hidden lab they found was the very least of that monster’s nasty, nasty secrets, so Threnody relocated herself and the zombies to the vacant loft in Soho where she and Nate lived together at the end. But by that point, the zombies lost their charm, even for Threnody, and the loft seemed even emptier than those tunnels somehow - until Nate suddenly popped back in, completely out of left field, with Threnody’s murderer hanging on his tail. So when thy came to the loft, Threnody could not say a word, she couldn’t reach out to him.
Present
‘But I had your scent…’ Threnody declares. Nate reaches up to Threnody, who takes his hand, and he pulls her down to him, suggesting she come down from the windowsill. Threnody informs Nate hat she caught up to him in Alaska, at the Summers house in Anchorage, and followed him south to here, waiting to make just the right connection. ‘Whoa…maybe I’m not recovering from that tussle with Mysterio as quickly as I thought’ Nate replies, before telling Threnody that he really is sorry, sorry he wasn’t there and didn’t find her when she needed him. ‘I… I need you now, Nate’ Threnody responds, and they kiss.
There is a scratching at the window, and Threnody tells Nate that there is something he needs to know about her, about death. Threnody pulls away from Nate and explains that it is not just an absence of life, not a passive condition - in fact, it is a very, very active one. ‘Death is a force unto itself, believe me’.
Threnody tells Nate that just the same as there is life-energy, there is death-energy, constantly creating, constantly destroying. ‘I feed off that darker energy, physically… I crave it. My body needs more. My body needs more now’ Threnody explains, adding that if she can’t get it from the recently dead, she will get it from the dying again. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ Nate asks. Threnody replies that she can use her mutant powers to incite anyone ever-present death-energies to a boil, she doesn’t know if he knew that, and that is exactly what she did on the night she walked out, she sucked the Empire State Hospital terminal ward dry. ‘I’m pretty sure you didn’t know that’ Threnody remarks.
Nate tells Threnody that she is scaring him, really, really scaring him. He pulls her close and tells her that he didn’t realize, that he had no idea what kind of shape she was in, how much she was hurting, but that he can see it all there in her eyes now, he can feel her shivering and sweating, ‘You’re sick, girl. We’ll deal with the consequences of your actions sooner or later, no way to avoid that, but first we’ll deal with your addiction. That’s what it is, Thren… no sense denying it any longer - taking around it instead of talk about it - you’re addicted to DEATH!’ Nate declares. Threnody replies that she has been addicted forever - ‘And the living dead - are addicted t’me!’ she exclaims as zombies burst through the stained glass window, chanting out her name. ‘Behind me, Thren - now - and stay close no matter what happens!’ Nate exclaims as the zombies continue to chant Threnody’s name.
The zombies reach out, ‘God, no - no - there’s more of them than ever’ Threnody utters, while Nate points out that there are more of them coming. He punches one of them and declares that he can slow them down, but he can’t stop them. Nate tears the head off one zombie, and he shouts ‘They don’t feel any pain at all - ‘cause they’re all dead…already!’ Nate exclaims as the zombies swam over him, their chants increasing. Nate then grabs Threnody and takes flight, ‘Enough of this! I’m losing steam again - fast - so it’s time to put my foot down, once and for all… and let gravity do the rest!’ Nate exclaims as he hovers over the zombies after firing a charge of energy at them.
But the zombies are relentless, and Nate is running on empty. ‘But I won’t let them have you…’ Nate utters as he starts to fall, but at the last minute he flies out of the smashed stained glass window. ‘I promise’ Nate tells Threnody.
The cadavers are nowhere in sight now, lost of the shadows of the church below. But as the two terrified teens cling to each other, limping off into the night…something watches them from the shadows. And waits.
The days pass slowly, days spent hiding below the decks of Seattle’s finer pleasure boats, scavenging from their well-stocked galleys. Nights spent drenched in sweat and spittle and so much worse. ‘You always did take me to the best places, Grey…’ Threnody utters as she sits slumped against a wall. ‘And this is the best place for us now, Thren’ Nate replies. He admits that it is no rainbow room, but that neither of them are in any condition to go another round with her zombie fans yet, and the water might prevent them from tracking her here. ‘It won’t…and I can’t do this, Nate, I’m not strong enough…I need to feed. I can’t take this…’ Threnody utters, getting to her feet in preparation to leave, but Nate gets up and puts a hand on Threnody’s shoulder, ‘You have to’ he tells her. ‘You’re over the hump already, showing more color in your skin every hour now, and cold-turkey’s the only way you - we - can do this. And we will do this, Thren’.
Nate tells Threnody that he won’t let her give up on them, but Threnody starts to climb the ladder up out onto the deck, and tells him that he can’t help her anymore. ‘Hang on, lady!’ Nate exclaims, grabbing Threnody by her arm. ‘You’re not going anywhere without me now. I may not be up to taking on a dozen hordes of hungry zombies… but you’re not going anywhere at all for a while’ Nate declares. But Threnody spins around and lashes out at Nate: ‘No…you don’t understand! I am over the worst of my withdrawal, true, but it’s not total! Not even close! I’ve been feeding off you all along, Grey! I’m still feeding off you… I’ve always fed off you!’ Threnody reveals. Nate looks shocked as Threnody announces that he was the best she has ever had, real special, different - like nothing she has ever tasted.
‘No other buzz I know. I couldn’t stop myself if I wanted to - any more than I could stop breathing - that’s why you’ve been getting weaker every minute with me. And you’ll keep weakening quicker, as long as we’re together’ Threnody explains, turning away from Nate, revealing that Nate’s death energies are all tied up with his life energies somehow, that living energy really is killing him - and she loves it. She turns back towards the ladder and reveals that lately, it is even better, as there is less blood in Nate’s heart than he might imagine, but far more on his hands than he could ever dream of. ‘You helped wean me from the zombies, Nate, broke me out of that vicious circle. I couldn’t have done that without you…and I can’t do this with you. It’s no good for either of us. It is time for cold-turkey’.
Threnody hangs her head, and Nate tells her that he loves her. ‘And I’ll help you even if it kills me’ Nate announces. Tears fall from Threnody’s eyes, but she doesn’t turn to him. ‘You…you just don’t get it, do you, Grey?’ she snaps. ‘I said I love what I got from you, what I could get from you. And that’s all I ever wanted from you in the end - all I ever saw in you from the start…’ with that, Threnody climbs the ladder without so much as a parting glance. Nate stands with his head hung, and suddenly, zombies burst through the hull of the boat. They swarm around him, but move past him as water fills the cabin and they climb up the ladder as if to follow Threnody. Nate steps out of the broken cabin as the water pours in, unaware that someone is watching and waiting. The figure hidden by shadows is confident in the knowledge that it cannot be seen or heard by mortal men, and it has a very unhappy Nate in its target.
Elsewhere:
‘I’m here babe… home sweet home’ Threnody calls out as she returns to the Seattle piers. Skeletons are scattered around her feet as she approaches a green cloth. ‘Needed some time t’shake a few monkeys off my back. Just like I promised when you first came along. But everything’s gonna be okay now, sweetie - c’mon, baby…come to Mama’ Threnody smiles as she picks the bundle up, ‘We have to go now… before we lose the last of the dark’ Threnody utters to her baby, who makes a strange RRRRR sound in reply….


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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
The Ties That Bind
New York City, New York : The West Side Piers, home to the headquarters of the Fantastic Four. Nate Grey is exhibiting his battle skills with the legendary team. Reed Richards warns him that his psi powers won’t work against them. He has placed some psi bafflers in their ears, which makes them immune to his psi power. Nate takes the Thing into the air with him. A few flying robots and some ion cannons on the ground take some pot shots at him. They manage to hit Nate so he uses his TK shield to deflect the rest of the blasts. From behind, the Torch zeroes in on Nate and closes in for the attack. Nate quickly boxes Grimm’s ears, which results in him letting go of Nate. Ben falls several hundred feet to the ground.
Johnny Storm comes upon Nate and throws some fire at him while performing some fancy aerial maneuvers. Falling towards the ground below, Grimm yells for Reed to help the Torch out. Mr. Fantastic stretches into a trampoline and sends the Thing back in the air to knock Nate out.
Up above, Nate is dodging everything that the Torch is throwing at him. Johnny wants to know why he won’t fight back. The answer comes quickly as Ben Grimm clobbers the Torch. He lands on the ground and catches what he thinks to be the body of Nate Grey. Instead, he discovers that it was Johnny that he knocked out of the sky. He realizes that Nate must have played a mind trick on him.
The Thing is really angry now. He looks over and sees Nate standing close by. He storms over and wallops him with a powerful left hook. It turns out that it was really Mr. Fantastic that Grimm hit, another trick by Nate. The Thing wonders aloud how Nate could be messing with him like that. Nate flies down nearby and tells him that he took out his bafflers when he boxed his ears earlier. Grimm charges after him once again. This time Nate takes control over both the Thing’s and the Torch’s mind. He makes them attack Reed.
Mr. Fantastic tries to escape his fellow teammates. He assumes that Nate has somehow snagged Johnny’s bafflers as well. He becomes tired of the fight and calls for his wife, Susan, to end it. The Invisible Woman appears behind Nate and puts him into a hold with her energy power. He releases his mind control over the other two members.
Nate tells Mr. Fantastic that he’s proved his point. Reed wants to know what he means by that; after all it was Nate who came to them for help in finding the other survivors from the AOA universe. Nate assures them that they’re all bad mutants and he needs to start taking care of them before this Earth is destroyed as well. In Reed’s lab, he explains to Nate that he needed to test his abilities in a fight. Then he could find some sort of alien pattern in his physical structure and use it to search for other AOA energy signatures. Nate wonders to himself if Reed will also search for a way to keep his body from being consumed by his own energies. As Reed starts getting technical, Nate slips away for a shower. Nearby, a brown oblong figure pokes its head out from a computer screen and then disappears.
Nate walks into the shower room just as Ben Grimm finishes. As the Thing is walking away, Johnny towel whips him in the butt. Nate takes the shower next to Johnny. The Torch apologizes for Grimm’s attitude and tells him that he’s happy that he’s around. They continue their conversation, talking about things like Spider-Man and Nate’s girlfriend Threnody. The freshly dressed Grimm walks into the shower room for some revenge. He tells the computer to set the shower temperature to 20 degrees. Nate and Johnny yell in shock as the freezing cold water hits them.
At that same time, the brown oblong figure from before emerges from a different monitor. It walks over to a computer with X-Man’s DNA sequence and body structure on the screen.
In the FF’s kitchen, Nate and Franklin Richards are enjoying some lunch. Franklin wants some dessert, but Susan says no. Nate asks her how they can be superheroes and yet enjoy normal lives. She tells him it’s because they’re a family. Then she leaves the kitchen.
Beneath the sands of Egypt, the brown oblong figure is at the computer again. This time the shadowed figure of Apocalypse is behind it. He is extremely pleased with Nate’s genetic structure. He says he needs X-Man and sends one of his horsemen to retrieve him.
Back in the FF’s kitchen, Nate and Franklin are bonding over some dessert. They talk about their battle with Onslaught and about other super heroes like Iron Man and the rest of the Avengers. Mr. and Mrs. Richards are watching them both from a computer monitor. They’re both pleased that they’ve become friends. Suddenly, Nate looks straight at them and tells them he needs them on the rooftop A.S.A.P.
On the rooftop, Nate tells the family that he has to leave. Franklin gets upset and starts to cry. Nate assures the little tyke that he’ll be back. Reed tells him that he’ll always be welcome. Nate thanks them for their help and flies away. Susan asks Reed if he could have done anything for Nate. He says nothing that he couldn’t have done himself. As Nate flies over the city he wonders to himself why he left. He’s not sure what urged him to leave. He’s thinking about possibly hooking up with the X-Men, specifically Scott and Jean, and trying to form some sort of family bond with them.
Suddenly, a teleportation disk opens from behind. Out emerges Caliban who claims he has been made more powerful and turned into the horseman Pestilence. Nate’s all confused. He wants to know where X-Force is. As Caliban scrapes his chest, he tells him that he’s free of X-Force. He is no longer held back, especially with his new power. Then he teleports away with Nate.


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[Assistant]
Out Of The Loop
Nate Grey slowly lands on the streets of New York City. There is a greenish gas enveloping the area. He looks down and notices a newspaper article on the ground with the headline,” Missing: Joseph and Galen Bailey”. He remembers that he rescued those kids from Bastion’s Prime Sentinels during Operation ZeroTolerance. He wonders what’s happened to the city and that’s when he realizes the greenish gas is Coldsnap-9. He uses his telekinetic powers to push the gas away from him.
Nate notices that he's surrounded by wrecked cars and dead bodies. He doesn’t know what has happened. He looks around him and sees the bodies of Daredevil, the Thing, Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman and Captain America lying dead in the rubble. He recalls to himself that CS-9 is a toxic gas that kills instantly and disperses quickly. He once stopped the Dark Beast from using it.
Nate takes to the air and flies by the Latverian Embassy. He notices that Stryfe’s mask is incorporated into the royal crest. Nate becomes confused because he remembers when Cable and him prevented Stryfe from taking over Latveria. He thinks to himself that it’s as if everything he’s done since coming to this Earth hasn’t actually happened, as if he never existed.
He flies by a window and notices his reflection. He now has the facial structure of Caliban. He suddenly remembers what happened to him, how he was working with the Fantastic Four and later attacked by Caliban when he left them. He reasons to himself that Caliban must have poisoned him when he slashed him across the chest.
He turns around and sees his new friend Spider-Man hanging out, on top of a nearby building. He tells Peter that he’s happy to see him. Spidey replies with a “Skreeee!” and leaps towards him. He’s been turned into a vampire and has a bunch of his vampire friends with him. He sees Morbius in the background and remembers defeating him with Spider-Man not long before. Nate decides to outrun them, knowing full well that they can’t keep up. Yet somehow they do. He flies through a building and out the other end to try and escape the bloodsuckers. He finally loses them and decides he needs to find a way to help Spider-Man. That’s when he walks right into a battle between the X-Men and Dark Beast’s Gene Nation.
He zooms in, ready for the fight. He’s angry with them for what they’ve done to the city. He goes right for Hemmingway, who has Rogue in his grasp. He ends up flying right through him, which gives Fever Pitch enough time to fry her. He goes after Fever Pitch and flies right through him too. It’s as if he’s some sort of ghost. He keeps trying to hit people, but nothing works. Vessel kills Bishop so Storm fries him in retaliation. Now distracted, she is attacked by Integer. He takes over her body and suffocates Colossus with a mini-tornado. Shadowcat phases through Storm and knocks Integer out, onto the ground. After everything he’s seen, Nate realizes that he does matter.
The remaining X-Men are now huddled together on the ground. Fever Pitch takes advantage of the situation and ends up vaporizing them all except for Kitty. The remaining Gene Nation members all converge on Shadowcat, the only X-Man left standing. Nate is amazed as she stands her ground against the overwhelming odds. He suddenly realizes that his telekinesis is the only thing that’s been working for him. He lashes out fiercely and takes out the whole team. Kitty is now the only one left.
Nate comes to the realization that if he never existed then Caliban would have been taken by Sinister and would not be alive today. This snaps Nate out of his dreamlike state. He finds himself in a room, unable to move. Caliban stands in front of him. Caliban tells Nate that they’re in Egypt. He keeps referring to his master and Nate wants to know whom he’s talking about. Then he hears the voice of the master and realizes that it’s none other than Apocalypse.
Apocalypse enters the room. He tells Nate that he’ll take his power for his own. Nate tells him that he’s deranged and says he won’t allow another Apocalypse to destroy the world he’s in. Apocalypse reveals more of his plan as he tells Nate that the unlimited forces at his command play the most crucial role in his final design.


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[Assistant]
Falling Forward
Who is he? the young man asks himself. What is he doing here? What is this place? How long has he been here - how did he get here - where is here? He appears to be in some sort of cavernous mine, along with many others, all wearing the same plain black costume as he, with a metal chest plate that extends around their waists and down their arms, and a strange pink and silver helmet that covers their entire face. It is not right, that much he knows, that much seems obvious. But despite his uncomfortable familiarity with such harsh surroundings, the answers to these questions escape him at the moment - escape - escape is the wrong word, a bad word. Work is a good word. The right word. This is his work time and these are his work clothes, same as theirs - same as everyone’s for as far as the eye can see in this dark, dank, sprawling hole - everyone works.
A large man lifts some rock and calls out to a woman who is sitting on a heap of rocks, playing with some sort of energy. He addresses her as Urch, and exclaims in his native tongue ‘Enough goofing off with the little spark-on-a-leash - there’s mining to be done here today!’ ‘And tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that - same as yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that…’ the woman replies in her native language, adding that Fuzz may be just another self-evolved fuzzy-logic program to most of them, but he is her inspiration, a bright, shining example of something that made a life for itself, literally, down here. ‘Actually, even made something better of itself’ she points out.
‘Good for both of you, girl! But it just means we have to pick up your slack… as usual!’ the larger man exclaims.
The young man knows that their language is not his, but he understands them, and the words strike his ears as meaningless babble, but the thoughts behind them are crystal-clear in his mind.
Suddenly, the larger man shouts ‘YOU - 19X - make yourself useful! Start breaking these pieces down to size, starting with that one there… give us something we can transport’ he orders the young man. The young man goes over to the large boulder and knows that once he could have lifted it, any boulder from where he stood with just a thought - he is sure of it. ‘Where’s your shovel-ax, boy?’ the larger man asks. But the young man squats down and picks the boulder up in his arms. ‘All newbies are supplied with their own tool and take sole responsibility for it’s -’ he begins, before he takes a step back, surprised that the young man could lift the boulder on his own. ‘Super strength?’ he asks.
‘Telekinesis, really, but -’ the young man begins to reply, telepathically, as the larger man interrupts: ‘And telepathy, too, from the sound of your voice in my head’. He then tells the younger man that he is wasted in here, and they need him working the quarry foundation over with the other special-powered prisoners. “Prisoners?” the young man thinks to himself, and wonders if he is meant to be a prisoner here, who are his captors, and what is his crime? He remembers a city known as New York - and damage done. A country called Latveria - and more damage. Ireland - and again, damage. He knows that others here carry no such guilt, however. Yet even a quick surface-scan of those present reveals that their minds are as fogged as his own - affected by a low-frequency buzz of some sort, they are able to function on a simple, primal level, but they remain hazy on the details.
‘URCH!’ the larger male shouts, while another prisoner addresses the large male as Grun and suggests he give them a break, ‘Maybe they’re working up to another buzz color!’ he exclaims. ‘Quiet, idiot! Their foolish graffiti-games have cost us too many sleep-creds already’ Grun responds. The young man watches them, and he has never felt such a concentration of misery and despair. Not since his days on Earth - his Earth. There is some even sense that all their labor is in vain, that there is nothing of real value to be mined here - others suspect an even uglier truth - that they are doing little more than digging more space to hold more prisoners for more pointless digging.
Suddenly, the young man starts to remove his helmet. ‘19X - stop - stop!’ Grun calls out when he sees this. ‘You can’t do that!’ Grun exclaims. ‘Wrong. Hurt like nothing I’ve ever felt before, admittedly, but I can do pretty much anything… once I put my mind to it’ 19X responds.
The young man stands with his helmet removed, revealing his shaved hair - brown with a white patch at the front. He is of course Nate Grey, ‘Enough with the 19X already, people’ he telepathically calls out. Introducing himself, he reveals that things are starting to clear up again, without the buzzing in his hears from that screwy helmet. ‘I gotta recommend you all try -’ he begins, but Grun shouts ‘No! No! You don’t understand!’ and tells 19X that the gases will be released any moment.
Suddenly, several beings in strange brown armor rush into the cavern, wielding red axe-like weapons, one of them shouts ‘And the Underseers are already here!’ ‘These suckers? They’ve got armor, sure - okay, the weapons, too - but you’ve got me now, G…what’s left to worry about?’ Nate calls out to Grun as he dodges the Underseer who attempts to strike him, and sends him flying back with a punch.
‘Plenty’ Nate decides as more of the Underseers lunge towards him, but after knocking some of their weapons out of their hands, he picks tow of them up, and gives one of them to Grun. ‘His ‘em low, Grun… and hit ‘em hard!’ Nate shouts. ‘My pleasure, X! Just don’t expect the rest of the crew to pitch in on this…’  Grun responds as he starts attacking the Underseers. Grun explains that the others have a lot more to lose than an old-timer like he. ‘NO! Please, don’t…’  Urch calls out as one of the Underseers approaches her. ‘URCH?’ Naste shouts, and as the Underseer smacks Urch with his weapon, Nate picks up another Undseerer and throws it at the one who struck Urch with their weapon. ‘Murderers! She was a just a child! Harmless - defenseless - all of these people were defenseless - until now!’ Nate declares.
Nate and Grun move so that they are between the Underseers and Urch. ‘Stay away from her, if Urch is dead, if you’ve harmed her at all…I swear I’ll -’ Grun begins, when suddenly, someone materializes behind them. ‘You will do nothing, prisoner, and energy bursts suddenly bind Nate and Urch’s hands. ‘Except what you are told’ the new arrival calls out, before vanishing. ‘An Overlord?’ Grun exclaims, before telling Nate that they are finished, as the Lords have total control of their magni-cuffs. ‘And I’m afraid we’re way past surrender!’ Nate turns to Urch, ‘Look - look - Urch’s body is…’ he calls out to Grun, before there is a series of thudding noises, and then darkness.
Nate dreams of yesterdays on the Earth of his birth - short days spent in hiding and long nights wasted against the tyranny of its butcher-king, Apocalypse. He dreams of tomorrows on his new Earth, immeasurable pain of his own making, as his all-too-human body is inevitably consumed from within by his own mutant power. But he wakes, to the real nightmare.
Shirtless, Nate is strapped to a chair-like contraption, bright spotlights glaring over him. It is an automated laboratory of some sort, unlike anything he has ever seen before, unlike anything he has ever even imagined, and there is no sign of the Overseers - whoever ,whatever they are - in this cold, dark place. But he senses others like himself nearby, hundreds, thousands, too many to count - all in pain.
Looking to his right, Nate sees a pregnant woman trapped to a similar contraption that he is stuck in, only hers has a panel covering her body. He telepathically calls out to her?: ‘What have they done to you? What are they doing?’ The woman replies in her native tongue, telling Nate that it hurts so much, she begs for his help, then screams as a mechanical device looms over her face, with very sharp pincer-like tips. Nate looks up and sees a different device over him. He telepathically tells the woman to hand on just a little longer. ‘Soon as I get my hands free… I’ll be able to telekinetically bust us both out of - uh-oh. Spoke too soon…’ Nate declares as the strange clothing he is wearing weaves itself up, covering his chest and arms, the device overhead pulls him up like a crane lifting cargo, his arms are shackled, he supposes that his captors are finished with him here and now he is being shifted down the assembly line. ‘Next stop, helmet welding’ he thinks to himself, supposing that this time they have something a little more reinforced in mind for him.
Nate looks over others who are being transported like he is, and realizes that it is only a matter of seconds now until he is half brain-dead again, same as everyone else. It is then that Nate discovers the others are all different kinds of aliens. Nate supposes that his initial telepathic scans didn’t pick up on this because no one actually thinks of themselves as aliens - and most of them are relatively humanoid from the looks of things. He decides that he should have realized it from the pregnant woman’s skin color, if nothing else. ‘Missing the obvious is the least of my problems right now, though…if I don’t find some way to make physical contact with this mechanical claw fast, some way to touch if before -’ Nate thinks to himself, ‘Hang on!’ he shouts, before realizing that he doesn’t need his hands to touch it, as the claw is already touching him - all over - so he sends a psychic charge through the strange contraption, causing it to drop Nate, who land on the ground below. ‘Duh’ Nate tells himself, realizing that missing the obvious thing is a bigger problem that he realized.
‘YESSSS!’ someone screams, and Nate decides that it sounds like the baby is making its entrance right now. ‘I am y be too - late?’ he thinks to himself as he walks through the strange room and makes his way back to the pregnant woman. However, he finds Urch pulling the mechanical contraptions away from the pregnant woman. Nate joins in and slides to Urch’s side, kicking a contraption away, he telepathically tells Urch that he knew she wasn’t dead, a least when her body went AWOL back at the work-site, but that she is the last person he expected to see here. ‘Thought you’d deserted the pack for a while there, girl’ Nate remarks. Urch reveals to nAte that she followed him, used his reconditioning-capture to find this place - to find them. ‘My baby…don’t let them take my baby…’ the pregnant woman utters. Nate notices the floor beneath the pregnant woman starting to open up, and as Urch moves forward, he tells her to pull back, while he uses his telekinesis to try and slow down the collapsing floor.
The pregnant woman screams, and some time later, Urch holds up a girl. ‘The baby! It’s a girl, Marchalla!’ Urch exclaims, while her electronic energy creature hovers beside her. The baby cries, while the woman, Marchalla, screams ‘NOOOO!’ as she is lowered down, as Nate is unable to stop the floor from sinking down. ‘A beautiful, healthy girl…’ Urch declares.  ‘I’ve lost the mother!’ Nate exclaims, frustrated, he doesn’t know how to apply these new limitations of his powers, yet. Urch tries to calm the baby, while telling “X” that he better be a quick study, then, because he, she, Fuzz and the kid, are all they have now. The strange creature, Fuzz, darts around them, and Urch tells Nate that according to Fuzz, there is company coming, and fast, from all sides.
Indeed, an army of Underseers rush into the room, and as Nate stands by Urch and the baby, he exclaims that they are surrounded - there is no way out. ‘Less maybe you can fly…’ Urch replies. ‘Nope’ Nate replies, adding that with his powers restricted to physical contact, levitating is out - ‘But with a little telekinetic launch - I can leap like nobody’s business!’ Nate boasts as he picks Urch and the baby up in his arms and leaps over the entire army of Underseers, while Fuzz flies behind them. ‘Great!’ Urch exclaims, but as Nate runs, the Underseers follow from many directions. ‘Out of the smelting sieve…and into the furnace!’ Urch remarks.
Nate tells Urch not to panic and explains that he can use the same trick to boost his running speed. ‘Long as we’re ahead of ‘em…we can stay ahead of ‘em!’ Nate assures her as he runs along the corridor, still carrying Urch, who holds the baby. Urch points out that they are lost, and that if they keep running in circles like this, sooner or later they are bound to hit - ‘Trouble!’ she exclaims as Nate skids to a half when an Underseer steps out from around a corner. Urch alerts Nate to the fact that they are right behind them, closing in fast. ‘Good!’ Nate declares as he leaps into the air in front of the Underseer, and kicks the Underseer in the chest so hard that he falls back through the wall, which opens it up into a dark space behind it. ‘We can use ‘em to do our dirty work! One down… twenty or thirty dozen to go’ Nate declares.
He turns to see the other Underseers running towards him and decides that he is done here. He picks up the spade-ax weapon and charges it telekinetically, telling Urch that he is sick of fighting against he doesn’t know what to escape from he doesn’t know where, with he doesn’t know who. ‘This ends right now!’ Nate shouts as he tears the spade-ax across the ground in front of them, causing it to crack. One of the Underseers calls out in an alien language, and Nate looks concerned. He knows that the seers are psi-screened so he can’t read their minds, but the language seems familiar, like he recognizes it from somewhere. ‘What is this place? How long has he been here? How did he get here? How the heck are they going to get out of here?’ Nate wonders, as the ground around him breaks up and he, Urch and the baby fall back into the darkness behind them.


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The Dark Side of the Sun
‘We’re falling, Nate Grey! Do something, fast, before -’ the alien called Urch calls out as she and Nate Grey plummet through the wall of the corridor above them, along with debris, into blackness. ‘Just hang onto the kid, Urch - and don’t panic!’ Nate calls back telepathically. Both Nate and the alien female are wearing black costumes which all prisoners in this mining facility wear. A strange energy creature hovers next to Urch. ‘I’ve got you!’ Nate telepathically tells Urch as he grabs her and surrounds them all in a telekinetic force field. Nate is armed with one of the shovel-like weapons that are used in the mines, and as debris collapses overhead, Urch points out that they are trapped, and the Overseers will be right behind them. As Nate and Urch land on solid ground, Nate tells her to relax, ‘I know what I’m doing!’ he exclaims as he slices away at some of the rock formations in the cavern, causing rubble to fall down around them, blocking them off from the Overseers.
Nate’s telepathy allows him to read Urch’s mind, understanding every word of her alien language. His contact-telekinesis gives him the ability to manipulate matter with nothing more than a touch. His entire life experience has taught the fugitive young mutant how best to use these powers. ‘They’re gone!’ one of the armored Overseers’ calls out as a group of them arrive in the cavern, smoke billowing from the large pile of rocks in front of them, blocking their access to Nate. One of the Overseers’ instructs another to contact the Overlords and tell them to secure all access routes immediately. ‘We’re still a good eight miles underground the prisoners can’t get far’ he states, while, nearby, a cloaked figure watches.
Elsewhere, in an exotic chamber, a floating device hovers over the large round bed and speaks: ‘My apologies, your ladyship, but you asked to be kept abreast of the situation below… and there is an attempted escape in progress!’ the device declares. ‘From the reformines?’ the women in the bed asks, sitting up. A picture of a Shi’ar is resonated on the device, as the Shi’ar announces ‘A newborn and two others, including X-19, are already -’ to which the woman in the bed shouts ‘GREY?’ and gets up, ‘Nate Grey is on the loose, here in my kingdom?’ she asks, announcing that this is grim news indeed. ‘Despite the… modifications made to the fledgling mutant’s psionic upon arrival - I knew it was a mistake to bring him here!’
In the cavern, Urch asks ‘What next, hero? We’ve got a cold and hungry baby to worry about, and all you’ve done is dig us in deeper - literally’ she points out. Nate points out that it will take a while for the Overseers to catch up to them now. ‘And by the time they do - we won’t be at the mercy of their magne-slicers anymore -’ Nate begins, before he screams in pain and clutches his wrist. Nate pulls away, and realizes that the magne-cuffs on his wrists are psi-sheened against his own telekinetics. Urch tells Nate that he won’t force them off, before remarking that there are other ways of doing things. Her cuffs then drop to the ground, and as she reaches for the helmet covering her face, Urch explains that the Overseers’ slicers cut through anything and everything as the both of them know, so during their initial attack on their work-contingent, she positioned herself very carefully and took a few well-placed blows to the wrists - and neck. ‘You have no idea how long I waited for this’ Urch announces, her helmet removed, revealing her humanoid appearance, although she has blue skin and large elf-like ears.
Urch sits beside the blue alien baby and reveals that this is the very first time she has seen the world without the restrictions of that cursed helmet. ‘And I won’t allow my sister to suffer the same’ Urch ads. ‘Your sister?’ Nate asks, confused. Urch informs Nate that it was her mother who was the woman that died on the birthing table - a thief, by law, who was sent to this penal colony over twenty years ago, where she met her father, another petty thief, in the reformines, shortly after that. ‘My only crime was being born, a few years later… into a system that prevents anyone from every leaving. The energy creature that follows Urch makes a noise, while Nate smiles and tells Urch to guess again, for although he still doesn’t have a clue as to who put him here, or why, he can think of plenty of possibilities - but that no innocent deserves punishment for the sins of another.
Nate sits down next to Urch, who holds the baby, and he asks her to tell him more about their captors, about where they are, while they warm up together with the babty. ‘Urchaala. My full name is Urchalla’ the alien reveals. Nate tells her that is a pretty name, and he leans in towards her, ‘No, no, I meant -’ Urch begins, as Nate tells her that he knows, before asking what is with her pet, as all of a sudden he is acting strange. The creature buzzes about above them, as Urch informs Nate that Fuzz is more partner than pet, a self-actualized fuzzy-logic program she recently befriended, which sometimes gets too frisky for its own good. ‘You know how that can be, I’m sure’ Urch adds. ‘Looking forward to pursuing that line of thought, Urch - vigorously - soon as we hit the surface’ Nate remarks as Urch holds her sister in her arms. ‘About that my friend… there are some things you need to know - to understand - to accept’ Urch tells him.
‘Such as?’ Nate asks. Urch informs Nate that his psionic rewiring s internal, and with the single exception of an open relay to and from his neural language-clusters, he is limited to direct-contact telepathy and telekinesis only. ‘Yeah, well, we’ll see about -’ Nate begins when suddenly, they both go wide-eyed, ‘From those shadows… a Darkle!’ Urch gasps, as the cloaked figure from earlier has entered their blocked-off part of the cavern. ‘A darkle?’ Nate asks, staring at the strange-looking being, who has grabbed Fuzz. Urch reveals that the Darkle is the survivor of an early bio-lap explosion, according to legend, and rumor has it that the subjects sabotaged their own medical procedures in order to escape the pain once and for all - but they didn’t die. The Darkle releases Fuzz, while Urch continues: ‘Not technically at least’, while Nate lunges forward, and falls through the Darkle. Urch presses her head up against the rock, ‘They’re trying to tell us something, Nate Grey! Something about this wall! Something…big!’ Urch declares, and an instant later, a large drill bursts its way through the blocked off area of the cavern. ‘Gone again…how?’ one of the Underseers’ asks as they find no trace of Nate and the others. ‘How do they do that?’ they wonder.
‘Excellent call back there, Urch! If you hadn’t heard that thing coming…’ Nate’s voice trails off as he leads Urch down a tunnel. ‘For whatever reason, the Darkle warned us just in time…’ Urch points out. They make their way into a chamber of pods, where other prisoners are sleeping. Urch tells Nate that they are here, so they need to keep it down now, as workers are only given three hours for their primary sleep-cycle, so they can’t afford to wake anyone. ‘But my father’ Urch remarks. ‘Grun?’ Nate asks, surprised. Grun wakes, and is surprised to see his daughter alive. ‘And beautiful - but your helmet, child - your head -’ he begins, but Urch tells him that he can wait. Grun wraps his arms around Urch, who introduces him to his new daughter. ‘Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Just like her sister’ Grun declares, while Urch informs her father that mother saw her, and she knows she saved the baby, at least. Grun decides that Urch’s mother is at peace now, and tells her that wherever her mother is now, she is surely in a better place than here. ‘And we’ll honor the last gift of hers with all that’s left to us - her name ‘Marchalla’ Urch remarks.
Nate observes the family reunion, and decides that it is his turn to exit, quickly and quietly, while he still can. But Fuzz starts making a strange noise, and Urch looks over to Nate, and grabs him by the wrist, ‘Not so fast, Nate Grey! Now that ‘Ella’s safe and sound with our father, you’re not going anywhere…without me!’ Urch calls out, but Nate tells her that it is too dangerous, and that it will be easier and faster to fight his way out of this hellhole alone - but swears that he will come back for her and bring help. ‘You’ll be lost in moments…’ Urch declares as Fuzz follows them down the corridor. ‘Up and out, girl. How hard can that be?’ Nate asks. ‘Actually…we crossed into the highly-restricted outer-perimeters a good ten minutes ago, hero’ Urch reveals, adding that if she hadn’t steered him left instead of right back there - twice, then he would have sauntered right into the smelting-slag pools - instead of marching straight up to the gates of hive’s-edge!
They stand at the edge of another cavern, this one is tiled, and Urch explains that it is the origin-point for all the north-western supply-chutes, into and out of the reformines. ‘The loading docks -?’ Nate asks, telling Urch that he couldn’t be happier, really, as she has delivered them straight into the most heavily-manned and secured site that he has seen yet. Urch tells Nate to give her some credit, as she is the daughter of thieves. She adds that she heard all about this recently-patched incoming supply-chute from the workers who repaired it. She suggests to Nate that with a few tricks of his telekinesis, she figures they should be able to slip in and force their way out against - but before Urch continues, the Darkle phases through the wall. ‘Hold that thought. Your new buddy’s back, Urch - out of nowhere again - but something’s different this time… wrong’ Nate decides.
The Darkle stares at Nate, when suddenly, he raises his arms and gets the attention of the Underseers’. ‘Totally blowing our cover!’ Nate shouts. ’The runners - here - ’ one of the Underseers declares as they turn and face Nate and Urch. ’Destroy them both!’ one of the Underseers’ shouts, and they fly towards Nate and Urch. ‘The Darkle is no friend of mine, Nate Grey… he’s been following you!’ Urch exclaims ‘Says who?’ Nate asks as he tosses the weapon he has been carrying at the Underseers. It is charged with his telekinetic energy, which explodes against the Underseers, knocking them back. ‘Forget it! We’re surrounded, outnumbered - losing ground by the second - do you trust me?’ Urch calls out to Nate as they run down another corridor. ‘Any other choices…?’ Nate replies. ‘Nope’ Urch tells him. ‘Then I’m right behind you’ Nate declares as he and Urch leap into a open panel against the wall.
They fall through a tube, ‘But where the…?’ Nate begins as they land in some water. ‘Waste-disposal chute. I’m afraid’ Urch announces, adding that it is the only way out, as the two are sucked downstream. Nate puts a telekinetic bubble around their heads, while up above, the Underseers’ start firing down the chute. ‘If they’d attempted to flee through the supply-channels, the runners would have been sliced to ribbons by the new bio-containment laser-grid!’ one of them declares, adding that the sewage system requires no such dense-measures. ‘They’ll drown in toxic-sludge… long before reaching the next access-valve’.
At that moment, Nate is clinging to a ledge, while Urch hangs on to him, and Fuzz hovers next to her as the waste water passes beneath them. ‘Incredible, Nate Grey. Without those last-minute telekinetic bubbles of yours, trapping extra oxygen for us…’ Urch remarks, while Nate explains that it was really just the smell, he reacted instinctively. ‘Of course. And Fuzz is doing the same even now - instinctively static-cleaning us both to get rid of that smell. It has nothing at all to do with how we work together’ Urch remarks as they climb back out through the panel and Fuzz darts about over them. ‘Right. But we did it, Urch. Made it all the way here, up - and out…’ Nate begins as they look up at exotic, spiralling buildings before them, while the Darkle peers out at them from the shadows. ‘The Shi’ar Imperial Throne world - more magnificent than I ever imagined!’
‘Shi’ar? The race most likely to have sent Modt and Jahf to take me down for “crimes against the M’Krann Crystal“, according to the X-Men…that’s why I’ve been dragged here to another world! Another world…not just another Earth… another variation on my birth world…but a different planet altogether, hundreds of thousands of light-years from -’ Nate begins, when suddenly, ‘FREEZE!’ one of the Underseers’ shouts, as a large number of them swarm around Nate, Urch and Fuzz. Then, a hologram of Lilandra appears. ‘It is over, runners. End this here, now, without further need of violence - and no repercussions shall follow. So speaks Lilandra Neramani…’ Urch suddenly drops to her knees, ‘Majestrix of all-that-is-Shi’ar - our forgiveness, please, she-who-brings-peace-and-progress…’ Urch declares. ‘What?’ Nate asks, while Urch tells Lilandra that never would they raise a hand against the monarch who has done so many wondrous things for all that the worlds of her domain. ‘For the world of my people - my parents -’ Urch begins.
Lilandra tells the young Krillian to understand that they have not accomplished their miracles without sacrifice. ‘The gardens required weeding, the bad seeds require constant culling, to allow such flourishing’. Lilandra then instructs her soldiers to return them to the reformines without delay. ‘WHAT?’ Nate shouts. He shakes his fist at the projection of Lilandra and tells her that she can’t mean that. ‘You’ve got no idea what’s going on down there - what’s being done to your “loyal subjects” - you can’t even imagine the extent of the horrors committed in your name…against innocents!’ Nate roars. Lilandra turns away, ‘There is no such thing, X-19’ she responds, hanging her head. Nate is furious: ‘People are being punished for what they might do, “Majestrix” not what they’ve done! Punished in cold, callous, Inhumans ways - because you’re afraid to face the truth!’ Nate uses his telekinetic power to push the Overseers away.
‘Oh, really?’ Lilandra asks. She looks angry and turns to Nate: ‘And just what do you think you can tell me that you haven’t already, boy? What will I hear that I haven’t heard before, thousands of times - from many criminals far less destructive and dangerous than yourself!’ Nate grabs Urch and flies over to the floating platform where the illusion of Lilandra is projected. ‘Nothing, I guess…so I’ll show you’ he tells her, touching Lilandra’s face, he announces that he will psi-link her directly into every dirty little detail of the miserable life Urch lived, from birth, due to crimes committed by her mother and - ‘A hologram!’ Nate gasps, as his hand just passes through Lilandra’s face. Nate supposes that it is some sort of two-way photo-electrical transmission from the real Lilandra’s actual location, no doubt.
Nate realizes that it is electrical, just like Fuzz, and hopes that Fuzz might be all they finally need to connect. Nate touches Fuzz, and the connection goes right through into Lilandra’s mind. She hears the constant cries of the damned, growing ever louder. And, with just one touch, nothing more, the mighty Majestrix of an empire that encompasses galaxies upon galaxies, truly sees the reality beneath her feet for the first time ever. She can’t escape the echo of their friends and families, shrieking and screaming and wailing with grief and loss - the stench of their sweat and tears everywhere, the taste of blood in the very air around her. She feels it - all of it - knows it now, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Nate ends the connection, and Lilandra cries. She can never, ever again deny it.
Change begins slowly. Almost four days later, an indescribably powerful boy starts off on a new journey, a long-overdue return to his home, and whatever else awaits. As Nate lies in the capsule that is shunted out into space, the Darkle watches him. The world he leaves behind however pays him no heed, it seems, except one girl, one singularly determined and courageous young woman has been granted a voice in the wake of his visit. ‘Goodbye, Nate Grey’ he calls out as she watches from an observation window. Her family, her world at least, will never be the same again. She will make sure of that. Urch stands with Grun and Lilandra on a platform, Fuzz hovers nearby. This is just a beginning, and Lilandra looks skyward, ‘Farewell’ she utters to Nate.


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No Direction Home – part one
A parallel Earth. It was done. The Ornithopter, fed by sunlight left no exhaust in the air as cruised towards his destiny. Despite the wars, the intrigues, all the delays, he had triumphed. He wasn’t a vain man. But he knew this day would be commemorated henceforth, until the end of time. And all the world would remember his name.
The ornithopter lands on the top of a tower and Mr. Forge exits, to be greeted by one Mr. Scratch. Scratch remarks that he was expecting an older man and welcomes him to New York.
Forge asks him for one moment before he will accompany him to the engines. He promised himself something. He looks down on New York. To come there is the summation of his life, he tells the other man. He promised himself a few minutes with New York City.
As they ride down an elevator, Scratch remarks that the way they speak about Forge in court he should be 200. The inventions alone that they ascribe to him… How old was he when he completed the interscope? 22, Forge replies. He invented the time lens on his 27th birthday, the spiral cannon before he was 30. And then… the war. He stares at his mechanical right arm.
How did he lose his hand? Scratch ventures. Alsatia, Forge replies. They force-bred genetic sports with cannibalistic traits and set them loose as wardogs. They held him down and made him watch as a French girl with red eyes ate his hand. And Scratch? He refers to the scar in his face. This must be a war wound, for a man of the court to wear so openly in these days of elaborate cosmetic procedures. Not, quite a war wound, Scratch replies. He intercepted a Canadian heretic’s assassination attempt on the Queen. He plunged knives into Scratch’s brain. Men such as they sacrifice much for Queen and Country, he remarks with a smirk as they finally arrive in the bowels of the Earth.
He adds that the injury left him changed, but no less effective in his constant defense of the Queen, nor in the performance of the special tasks she assigns him.
He leads Forge toward an odd train. Forge enthuses that they did it. They made it real! His final machine! His masterpiece. Hs father told him: “Be immortal, be a maker, the greatest of the Queen’s makers. If you cannot be an eagle, you have no place in the sky.” He will never die, so long as he is remembered. This will see him remembered forever!
Will it? Scratch asks slyly. There’s a tradition the Queen is fond of. The architects of the great pyramids were killed and interred with their pharaohs, that they would not communicate their secrets. He begins to brutally hit Forge as he states that this is the nature of his wound. He has brain damage. He exists in an unrelenting state of murderous rage. His strength is that of a homicidal mania. As he tears out Forge’s heart, he adds rather unnecessarily that he no longer understands pity.
Earth 616,  Manhattan, six months after:
Idiots! Nate Grey states derisively, levitating a few inches above the ground. His look has changed rather dramatically. Sorting close-cropped hair and a black X-tattoo on the right side of his bare chest, he now only wears a pair of Jeans and a black trench-coat.
Elsewhere, a skyscraper, the office of Beckham technologies. This isn’t working, Beckham exclaims. One of his assistants, a man named Lau, points out that the geothermal deal with Reykjavik has been signed. Not that, Beckham replies angrily. He orders him to get Pope on the phone. To tell him Cox is gone and they need a Sun King’s Circle. He is to tell him exactly that. “Sir?” Lau asks. Wrong answer, he is fired, Beckham replies. He tells him to leave and calls his other assistant, Helen, a pretty African-American woman. Wryly, he congratulates her on being promoted. He gives her the same order.
As they enter the elevator, she inquires what happened to Cox. Hard to say, Beckham muses. Some of them are at his apartment, hunting evidence. He explains that they need to concentrate on getting undercover. The entire group is under attack. They can’t take chances. Why would anyone attack the group? Helen wonders. Beckham warns her to not make him fire her too. She presses the button to take them to the garage.
Beckham begins to cough and asks if she has any vitamin C. His cough quickly grows worse. Finally, he is unable to breathe. Suddenly, another’s voice comes from his throat. What did they expect? it asks. Beckham’s body convulses and rises into the air. That you could walk into our territory, and walk away free? Just like that? You watch us in our prison country and expect us to tolerate your ignorance?
Beckham’s face contorts as another monstrous face begins to push out of his skull. He’s sorry, Beckham exclaims frantically. Sorry? The other voice asks. That makes all the difference in the world, it adds sarcastically. No way out. No escape. No direction home. Beckham’s body literally explodes and a hysterical Helen is alone in he elevator.
Elsewhere, Nate Grey begins to float towards a skyscraper.
A still screaming Helen has arrived at the hospital where the bored staff just sedates with something to calm her. It doesn’t work. Her scream doesn’t stop, until Nate enters, telling her it’s okay. He touches her forehead and she begins to feel better.
Nate explains that he telekinetically moved around some of the chemicals in her brain and shut down a few secretors. She may feel sick, but it beats another injection. He tells her not to talk and introduces himself. He saw the power flow from whatever killed her friend at the elevator. If she could see things the way he does, to him it lit up half of Manhattan.
He wipes away one of her tears as he states that she is part of an organization that is connected to all of this. He knows that, if he doesn’t help them, if she doesn’t take him to them now, they won’t live to see Christmas. He doesn’t know them. What is it to him if they live or die, Helen asks. Six months ago he would have said “zip,” Nate admits. These days it’s kind of his job. With a smile he informs her that he is a shaman. Like it or not, they are his tribe. See?
Not even remotely, Helen admits. Good start, he replies. To be a shaman you need to be comfortable in a world you can’t explain, he explains. You need to trust yourself. Does she trust herself? Will she trust him?
A little later, a cab arrives outside an impressive building. Nate apologizes and tells Helen that she will have to cover the fare. He really doesn’t use money anymore. How does he eat? she demands. He doesn’t, Nate replies simply and asks if they are in there. Helen hesitatingly ventures that they are protecting themselves. It’s a procedure Mr. Beckham ordered… before he died.
Why did they even use the cab she wonders while Nate stares at the building. Did he need that ride? No, Nate explains, but it makes people more comfortable, when he does human things. Why didn’t she question it before? Helen wonders. Because he is dampening the curiosity-ideation-chains tattling around in her forebrain. He’ll be doing things like that now and then. She has taken in a lot in a short time. He doesn’t want her overloading. Helen agrees hesitatingly as they walk up the step and Nate informs her that it would be better for all of them if she didn’t start screaming again.
Inside the building, Nate observes that it’s a tesseract. Bigger on the inside than the outside. Neat trick. An aggressive white-haired man forbids them from entering. Helen ventures that he is Mr. Glass, temple security. She informs Glass that they need to see the group.
He forbids her from entering. She survived a manifestation and might be contaminated or turned. She isn’t, Nate states simply. He appreciates the other man’s position, but… Glass interrupts him, explaining his position. Helen he has known five years and she’s not getting in. Nate he has never seen before. He doesn’t even leave here alive. No shoes, no shirt, no service. Die! He points at Nate and telekinetic energy bursts forth.
The young man isn’t even fazed and admits that he should have scanned Glass. Glass brings him to his knee as he threatens to break every bone in Nate’s body. Is that why they assigned Glass to security? Nate asks. He’s killed 67 people in the last ten years using only his mind. “68!” Glass shouts, as he telekinetically strikes at Nate again. He’d enjoy that, Nate observes. He enjoyed them all. What is he doing? Glass screams as he begins to bleed from his nose and eyes. He is shutting him down, Nate replies. The idea that he shares a species with Glass, makes him want to puke. It’s people like Glass that make him glad he doesn’t have any friends. Bye now.
Nate takes him out and buries him under the rubble. With a gesture, he telekinetically creates an entrance to the room where the rest of the group are standing in a circle using their powers in an odd ritual. Nate demands they listen. He knows they are mutants. He knows they have stirred something up that wants them all dead. His name is Nate Grey and he is there to tell them just how wrong it has all gone.


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No Direction Home – part two – Nowhere to Hide
The detonated men died without warning, flooding Manhattan with jellied corpses and witnesses gone mad. Something was out of its cage and had to be put back.
His name is Nate Grey, the son of parents that never existed. Mutant. Telepath. Shaman. Intermediary between power. The guardian at reality’s door. The trail of blood led to the ones who set the monster loose. And he has no choice but to help them.
He knows who they are, Nate says by way of an introduction. He admits that their telepathic blocks are excellent, but they’ve never met anyone like him before. They call themselves the Gauntlet. They’ve had other names over the years. They met a university, at the right parties, in elite resorts, exclusive boardrooms. They knew each other instinctively. They’re all mutants. He informs them that he has dropped his blocks and invites them to read his mind, though he warns them to try anything else.
An Asian woman admits that the power he radiates is incredible. He’s bio-engineered and vat-grown, but he is Homo superior like them. He isn’t from around here.
He is from down-spiral, Nate explains. A parallel Earth that is no longer there. But they have been farther down that that, haven’t they? he states with a smile. And they disturbed something. Didn’t they? They must have really ticked it off. It crawled up to this reality just to kill them all.
How much did he read from them? the Asian woman asks. Not much, Nate admits. If he pushed their blocks any harder, he’d turn them into vegetables. He doesn’t want to do that. He’s hoping they’ll trust each other now and they’ll just tell him.
Still suspicious, the Gauntlet members ask why Nate is making this his business. Being an outsider doesn’t mean he can’t care what happens on the inside, Nate replies. From his perspective, there is no outside. Speaking of which: he asks Helen to come inside and join them and she complies.
Nate asks everyone to be quiet for a moment, as he has to concentrate. After all, they don’t want the devil to come to them when they speak of him. He creates an improved telekinetic shield around them, adding that it’ll hold d long as he’s happy. The downside is it’s probably agitating their enemy something fierce. So, they should keep him happy and talk.
Elsewhere, the enemy climbs a steep cliff at a lifeless wasteland. Having reached up, he looks into space where he sees a spiral of seemingly identical parallel Earths. The Spiral. Magnificent. Nowhere to hide, little bugs.
The members of the Gauntlet have sat around Nate, as he states that they are explorers, a little careless. The Asian woman who seems to have some leading position demands he not speak as if they were children. They are intelligent beings with an awareness of their place in the world. Their concerns are simply more… diverse… than the usual push and pull surrounding their species.
She means mutant politics, Nate clarifies. Xavier’s integrationism, Magneto’s domination theory. Largely, yes, she agrees. Between them, they postulate existence as an either/or proposition and that’s supposed to be the scope of their lives. Both miss the point entirely. Others chime in. A middle-aged man with spectacles explains that getting tangled up in mutant politics obscures the bigger picture – they don’t need to integrate. They don’t need to dominate. Both viewpoints are irrelevant.
Why not just be different and use that difference? a pretty blonde adds. The world may be the house they were born into, but the day has come to grow up and leave the nest. They have an entire multiverse at their disposal. They have power, a middle-aged African-American man states. In theory if they pool their powers, they can do anything. Eventually they had to ask themselves: Why don’t they ever do anything? Helen sums up that now they do anything they can think of.
The Asian woman explains that they explore. Together they can drive themselves into the multiverse, into the future and the past. And reality north and reality south, Nate states ominously. Don’t they? They stare at him numbly. They’ve been up-universe into the sublimed planes, he continues. He can smell it on them. This isn’t the time for silence. As they don’t react, he shrugs it off. He has seen them, the higher universes, where civilizations go when they’ve been everywhere else. Where they go to rest and become something else. Those places are like the face of Heaven. But they’ve also been down, haven’t they?
Some men look away, not meeting his eye. They’ve been south of reality in the broken universes, he continues. It’s not something they can scrape off their psyches or hide. And they’ve disturbed something. As if on cue the walls of the room begin to shake.
Elsewhere, the purple being reaches out with a giant clawed hand and grasps one of the Earths, plucking it like a small pearl. This one.
Back on Earth, Helen panics. Nate’s shield is breaking, isn’t it? No, Nate clarifies. What’s coming doesn’t even register the shield as being there. It’s moving through it like they move through fog. The ground trembles as several hands come up reaching for them. Helen protests that Nate promised they’d be safe. He was wrong, he remarks. Some things are new to him too.
Suddenly, the monster hands are gone and the trembling stops. This can’t be a good sign, Nate observes.
It retreated, Helen states. Nate doesn’t buy it and sharply orders them to get out. Now! What about him? Helen asks. He’ll find them, he states. He’s not going to face it? Helen asks. Someone has to, Nate replies. He has… advantages. Now get going.
They leave quickly while the creature appears to Nate in an explosion of smoke. Seeing the huge hulking purple creature, Nate asks what he is. He telepathically scans him, learning that it is from a broken universe where humans aren’t designed to live on Earth. The creature snarls and attacks Nate with a mental blast. He is like nothing of this world, he announces. His left eye glowing, Nate concentrates. That’s all right. Neither is he.
He telekinetically attacks. He continues his scan. On the creature’s world, Homo sapiens evolved only to fit conditions in tropical Kenya where they were born. This is what they had to do to themselves to live in any other spot. And what millions of years of his kind literally having to force themselves to live each day led to.
The creature attacks again. Levitating, Nate asks what the Gauntlet did to the being when they touched its world. What could make it draw itself up-reality to a place where it could barely survive without a suit of back-up internal organs? What could they have done that it had to crawl hand over hand through universes just to come and kill them?
The being refuses to tell. Nate tries reason. He is this world’s shaman. Does it understand? He exists outside the world of humans now. He is their defense when something from outside threatens the perimeter of the village. It can leave, it can die, but it will not harm another of them.
The creature clarifies that it will murder them and Nate and everything else it feels like. Does he understand? Yes, Nate replies as his eye begins to glow. Die.. He buries the being under a telekinetic barrage as he brings down the building.
A little later, Nate only finds its arm. He figures that it has shed it like a snake its skin. Like a rodent in a trap  gnawing its left foot off to get free. He’s still alive. Loose. Which means Nate has to go after him.


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No Direction Home – part three – Lost Worlds
Only a smoking crater is left of the headquarters of the Gauntlet. Surveying it, Nate Grey muses that it didn’t go as planned. It – referring to the creature he fought moments before – pulled itself up the Spiral by sheer force of hate. Studying the arm it has lost, Nate remarks that it didn’t flinch at extremities.
He should have guessed it wouldn’t be of a mind to die. He deduces that it retreated down realities, but to come this far unaided… Its power must be on a par with Nate’s… He closes his eyes and focuses. He decides that it will be back if he lets it and it will be ready for Nate next time.
Other people have gathered around him, one man announcing that Nate must be a terrorist. He blew up that building. He doesn’t have time for this, Nate announces impatiently as he uses his telepathy on the people. He wasn’t here. He must be mad…
Firemen arrive and quickly find out from the damage that the building imploded. No bomb could have done that. They question witnesses but, after Nate’s little stunt, they don’t remember a thing.
Flying above the city, Nate fears that this is getting out of hand. He doesn’t want to kill anything or twist minds. Until he has a clear picture of the situation, things will only get worse. Only the Gauntlet has the information he needs. They are scattered now, but it won’t hide them from that creature… or from Nate. He knows their minds. He reaches out telepathically and scans the city. Nate smiles as he contacts the woman who has acted in a leading capacity before.
Ms Yoshida, he greets the woman who is sitting in the back of a car. Angry, she demands he get out of her mind. Blood trickling from his nose, Nate remarks that after the fight he just had it’s a strain picking out the minds of the Gauntlet from the ten million others in the city. He allows the other members to listen in and orders them to maintain the link for him. If he overloads, it could kill them all. They comply and Nate demands they tell him what happened the day they left the universe.
So he guessed, Ms. Yoshida states matter-of-factly. She supposes he will just rip the rest out of them, if they don’t tell him. She reminds him that they are all successful business people and used their advantage to build nice lives. When their nice lives got boring, they used their money to buy time to really explore their mutant abilities. Then they used their abilities to really explore.
Getting space suits was the most difficult part. Moving out of the universe demanded all their power and concentration. Diverting power for life support would have been fatally draining. They needed suits. Fortunately you can buy anything from the Russians these days. They’d already visited parallel Earths. One of their corporations derives considerable revenues from one of them. But this. This was Rutherford dreaming the shape of the atom. Just them and the pure unknown.
Flashback:
Sharing power in a circle they moved though space and time and ended up seeing a spiral of Earths surrounded by skeleton birds. They realized reality was three-dimensional. Not only are they parallel to alternate universes, but there are planes of existence above and below. It took a joint movement of minds in perfect concert to play them out of the universe. Down into the dark places. The broken universes. Where creation’s failures – or God’s, or whatever you call it – are stacked. Lifeless universes. Universes without time. Some with music instead of heat. Others where light moves at twenty-two miles per hour. Where flesh burns, or great alien dynasties pass intense lifetimes in minutes. The wrong places.
present
Nate continues that there they did something so heinous one of the natives dragged himself inch by inch across reality to come and get them. No reaction. Not even a denial? Nate snarls. They sicken him. They are supposed to be better than that. Why? asks Ms Yoshida. Because they are mutants? “Homo superior?” They don’t exist to satisfy Nate’s hypocritical morality. He invades their minds with barely a thought. Are they evil for doing the same to the Spiral? Why should they show creation more courtesy than Nate shows them? He knew they were idiots, Nate remarks. He’ll be back for them all. First, he has to fix this. He has to leave the universe.
Nate focuses… and he is gone… to rematerialize on the broken Earth. He blasts a hole in the ground with his TK and addresses the creature, annoucing that he knows what they did. He orders the creature to let it go and leave them to Nate. He promises he’ll make it right. Make it right? the creature asks, as it begins to climb upwards with only one arm. Nate is a liar, it decides. He wants to help, Nate assures him. Mockingly, the creature points out that the people from the good world only ever want to help. He tells Nate to look at him, at this place. What does he think he can do? What more can Nate rip out of him?
He drops to the ground, his arm stump still bleeding. Make it right? Nate knows what they did and he thinks it can be made right? He smears his blood on a rock and throws it at Nate, the stone mutating and growing spikes in mid-throw. They trapped us here! They stole our children!, Nate stares at him in horror.