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Issue #20 January 2006	"Unchecked Power" Part One: Absolute Written By Tom Moses

            The sun sets into the horizon as evening takes its hold on the closing day.  Xavier's mansion is mostly quiet, nestled into its setting apart from any other building for miles.  A calm, almost serene picture on the outside of the modernized seventeenth century building; the same could not be said for a particular room on the second floor.

            Door after door passes by him in a haze, perhaps the youngest man living within the walls of this mansion pays them no mind as he speed walks to a particular door.  His breath is quick, but his lungs are not desperate for the air, rather his scowling eyes and the tense muscle about his jaw line shows a little known side of Bobby Drake.  Anger and frustration are not the words to use; quite possibly he isn't sure what he himself would call his state of mind. 

            Bobby doesn't bother stopping at the door, without a second thought or a rational decision, he throws it open and catches the occupant completely off guard.  Aghast to see the rumor Cecilia had told him to be true; Drake's stomach feels as though it jumps into his throat. 

"You have got to be kidding me!"  The all too familiar disturbance with his New England accent courses through the otherwise empty halls.  "You're just going to up and leave?"

            Henry McCoy drops his head, clearly annoyed with his closest friend, "I protest.  You make it sound as though I aim to abandon you all."  The scientist covered in blue fur discontinues his efforts to pack and walks close to his friend.  "Bobby, you cannot seriously think that I would just leave without reason behind my actions?"

            "That's not what I said," Bobby Drake's voice lowers, "but yeah, it works."

            "Robert, please, listen to reason."  Henry pleads, hoping to calm his friend.  "The Avengers are in an extremely bad way since Hank Pym's death.  Their membership is exhausted; it's on the verge of collapse.  Believe me, it is unexpected, but it isn't often that Captain America asks for help."

            Leaning against the door frame, Bobby's crossed-arm stance does little to change the expression the large blue-furred mutant wears on his face.  Returning to his baggage he continues to speak but Bobby isn't listening.  Though he hears the rambling, his friend going on and on about the history of the Avengers and his place among them, Drake's mind is obviously elsewhere.

            "Can you understand the situation Bobby?"  Hank McCoy says without looking up from his overstuffed clothing bag, "I have other friends outside the X-Men."

            "Hank, look man, the X-Men are falling apart too, but you don't see me running off to restart the Champions."  Bobby interrupts the speech, for one of the fewest times the bouncing beast is left with words in his mouth.  "Scott and Jean are probably never coming back, you're on your way out and Warren is already talking about making a break for his company.   Without you and me here, where's the dream going?" 

            "Robert," McCoy finally stops his feverous packing and places his oversized hand, more likely a paw, on Bobby's shoulder.  "There will never be a group more dedicated to the ideas Charles first introduced than the five of us.  But, don't discount the others who have followed our beginning."

            "I know that Hank, but how long will the X-Men last without Xavier around?"

            McCoy steps back slowly, a large grin stretched across his face, "isn't that remarkably close to the same question you inquired with we formed X-Factor all those years ago?"

            "You're asking me to remember that?"  Drake raises his hands to cover his ears, "Can't we just forget it all?"

            Henry snaps shut the last of his suitcases.  Three bags overfilled and the strong McCoy even strains to close them.  "I'm sorry to disappoint you; but, frankly Bobby the Avengers need me, the X-Men will always find their way, I'm just not certain of my place here any longer."

            "You're not the only one pal," Bobby admits.  His strong stance giving way as his arms drop to his sides, his eyes not long to follow.  "Not since Sinister's goons, I don't know if I can take the real thought of Zelda getting hurt."

            The sheet-less bed strains under the sudden weight, the springs complaining loud and the often hyper acting Beast bounces with the inertia from his fall.  "We've all got to find our place Bobby, but maybe you should be having this conversation with your lady." 

            "Just can't find the words Hank," his back leaned into the door frame Bobby's voice is not without labor, "Things just aren't simple anymore."

            The doorbell echoes throughout the near empty halls of the Xavier mansion and the mutant known as the Beast bounds to his feet from the bed.  "Talk to Zelda, and don't ponder this too much.  I shall call soon to check on you all."

            His bags in hand, Henry McCoy walks past his friend with a heavy heart.  No goodbyes are shared between the good friends, as it always has been when they both go their separate ways, each knows it will be a matter of time before they see each other again. 

His battered and readily bruising frame crumbles violently against an empty bookshelf.  Pride and the refusal to give into the fear of his enemy are both stronger than the pain of his three broken ribs and the dislocated shoulder.  Yet, despite the pain, Scott Summers stands amidst the broken furniture and shattered glass staring down his opponent.

            Sharp pain shoots through his leg as his twisted knee protests his stand against his assaulter.  His vision blurred by the ruby lenses that cover half his face, though no hindrance could keep his eyes off the flames that flicker and dance across her gorgeous body.  A sickening smile stretches across her face, an unnatural look of joy and excitement, as his assaulter ravels in the pain so obvious on Scott's face. 

            "You are a glutton for pain," Jean Grey-Summers speaks in a haunted voice not her own, "and deep down she knows it."

            Scotts' eyes flash crimson as her words sting worse than any physical pain.  His teeth grind and blood ebbs from the fresh gash deep through his cheek.  "I've told you already," tired as he is his stance refuses to let down.  The stalwart X-Man stands straight, staring down the woman that should be his wife.  "Leave."

            Her.It's.laughter is cold and soulless, "No, no Mister Summers, it is you who is leaving; I am perfectly comfortable knowing Jean has called out to me in her grief."

            No amount of pain could stifle the anger that now wells in Scott's mind.  Numb to the world, he tears the glasses away from his face and fills the room with an illumination that flows along with his hatred for the voice that fills his wife's body.

            The light impacts Jean's body, cracking ribs and sending the beautiful woman into the wall.  Crumbling drywall falls around her body as the body shows no effort snaking up the damaged wall. 

            "This is pointless," the haunting voice of the Phoenix poisons the air.

            All the pain his anger tried to mask returned with a simple gesture of her hand.  The sleek yellow fingered glove that reached out to him renders his body motionless with a now closed fist.  His body locked in a tight telekinetic grasp, the entity possessing his wife pulls him within inches of the sweet face he's slept next to since his seventeenth year.  "So very pointless."

            She shrugs off the pain so prominent on his face, and with an effortless flip of her wrist Scott is sent flying.  His body reduced to a rag doll, hurdling through the air until the snap of a bone signals his journeys' end.  Lying limp and unconscious atop a hardly sturdy entertainment cabinet, Scott Summers the proud X-Man is left beaten and bloodied.  Battered by the wife he vowed to honor in sickness and health.

            "These humans," Its voice echoing throughout the living room, "so frail."  The entity said to be linked to the very concept of life nods Jean's head in disapproval.  Her feet hang inches above the floor as she moves toward the gaping hole that had once been the weight baring wall.  The snow on the ground wastes no time turning to steam the moment she leaves the confines of the broken home. 

            White, pupil-less eyes look back inside for a sign of a worthy contender, instead glaring at the easily defeated Summers.  "Too frail."

            "Too frail."

            The sound echoes within his mind as Scott stares to the ceiling unsure if he is a live or dead.  His world spins slowly yet constantly and leaving him numb and sick to his stomach at the same time.

            Each breath is shallower than the next.  His pain returns the first movement he makes every last vertebrae in his neck grind and pop as the weight of his head becomes too much to support.  Just as everything had been over the past hour, even the loose turning of his head is slow motion; but, a sudden sight gives him meaning to risk moving.

            Scott Summers' jaw tightens as every nerve screams out in agony.  His dislocated shoulder finds it hard to support his body and his nose soon crumbles at the impact with the floor.  Anger, pain and sadness radiate from his face as easily as his blood from the wounds.  Despite his body's protest, Scott claws his way and drags his not responding lower torso across the floor, grasping the cellular phone from under the living room sofa.

            The speed dials an instinctive number he hoped to avoid the use.  An automated operator soon announces its number of different options, yet the sequence of numbers he punches in is not any of the choices advertised by the mechanical voice.

            "Xavier's School for the Gifted," he easily recognizes the woman's voice and immediately wonders why she would be answering Charles' private line.

            "Ororo," he struggles to say before clearing his throat, "Ororo, I need help."

            "Scott?"  Her voice is a mix of surprise and worry even through the poor reception of the cell phone, but he can barely make out a word she says.

            He can feel the blood as it continues to seep from the gash in his forehead, "it's Jean," he says without giving much care to the plethora of questions which garble through the receiver.  "She's not in control," his broken ribs force him to pause, "please.  Send help."

            The hinges snap and the phone scatters in pieces across the floor.  From the seated position he exerted to reach, Scott slides from the conscious world as every muscle he could control relaxed abruptly.  His face is unable to feel anymore pain as he crashes to the floor.

The obnoxious dial tone fades quickly from her attention.  A sudden succession of quick pace tones soon erupts from the fallen receiver.  For all the noises in the background of Xavier's former office Ororo Monroe doesn't hear a single one.

She stares at the door, breathless and sick to her stomach.  Her shaking hands the only movement, without thought she stands.  Moving across the room as though she were a ghost.  A blank expression hides the violent storm of emotion building within her stomach walls.

A cool breeze pushes against her face after she steps outside the Headmaster's office.  Her white hair reacts to the change, following the suggestion of the wind; Ororo continues her slow steps forward.

Thousands of thoughts pour into her mind the instant her left foot makes contact with the elevator floor.  Knowing full well what must be done, she thinks back over the years.  Back to the discussions of another telepath succumbing to stress, remembering the last time Charles broke under his strain.  It was only a small miracle that Charles was stopped, when Jean last went over the edge, was a day she hoped to one day forget.

The sub-basement is silent, besides the low hum of the electricity moving through the halogen lights.  Her path bypasses the 'war-room', as she already knows Alex and Kurt had been there since the early morning.  Instead her destination is a mere hundred yards further down the hall.

The door she stops at is the thicker, heavier than the rest.  Many prisoners have been locked inside throughout the years, but this time thoughts of the past aren't what slow her already sluggish movements.  She follows the six digit code with a thumb print reading, meager security observations, and she steps into the room with no feeling of affection called the Brig.

With a sound which reminds her of a clap of thunder, the massive door closes behind Ororo.  The roaring noise angers her eardrums and they ring in protest, but her eyes stare into the only other pair of eyes in the room.  "How long have you been left alone Kitten?"

Tears run down both her cheeks, her tanned skin wears no make-up to smear.  "I don't know," Kitty Pryde's voice is shaking, her throat is tight.  "There aren't any clocks."

Ororo steps cautiously to the glass that separates Kitty from the rest of the room.  The barrier would be a moot point if not for the contraption affixed to the girls' heard, "I need to ask you a serious question."  Ororo states and places her hand on a cold plated beside the glass barrier.

In unison, twenty or so deadbolts pull away and the room erupt with the echo.  Kitty lifts her bloodshot eyes, as more tears roll from their former confines and Ororo places her hands on either side of the young woman's head.  "Is there a reason why I should trust you right now?"

Her jaw quivers and Kitty stops breathing at the sound of the words.  Salt water flows in a steady stream from both eyes, but she doesn't make a sound.  Blurred vision doesn't keep hidden the stern disappointment Ororo wears on her face, "Alex...he showed me," her voice cracks between her sobs.  "Showed me the tapes from last night.  But I shouldn't be here...and I am."

"Kitten, please, you must answer me."

"But I don't know," her words are a whisper, "how can I even trust myself?"

Three locks release at the end of Kitty's statement, three pieces of dull grey aluminum fall to the floor.  She looks up to Ororo, her head suddenly many pounds lighter, "But.?"

"Now is not the time for lengthy explanations."  The handcuffs fall to join McCoy's contraption, "If you make me regret this, do not expect to walk away."

Kitty stands, she knows better than to say a word.  Both avoid eye contact with the other; regardless the younger woman can feel the stare of her former mentor as she leads the way to the heavy door locking the pain inside.  The familiar sequence of numbers fill the stale air with their individual tones and the obtrusive noise invades their ears as more dead bolts are pulled away from the vault door.  "Alex and the others will have a problem with this, but I do not want you to say a word.  Keep quiet and ensure you do not bait anyone into an argument, we have much larger problems."

Half Way around the world...

Sharp, rocky cliffs are beaten and battered by the violent sea time and time again, the same as it has been for all time.  A woman stands alone at the base of a cliff, leaving Charles Xavier to consult his maps.  The red-haired, middle aged woman takes in the Maltese scenery.  Her eyes are closed as her other senses absorb everything the sea has to give.  The salty air is somewhat soothing to her state of mind.

A moment alone the only thing she desired.  The two weeks of constant planning and theories began to take their toll some time ago, as even the peaceful scenery of this out of the way island to the modern world found it difficult to offer her solace.  Amelia Vought sits, her feet dangling off the cliffs edge, mist hitting her face and the exposed skin her shorts and tank top does not cover.  Her back leaning against a rocky mound, she tries to clear her mind but finds herself unable.

"Amelia," the monotone voice she's listened to day in and day out for the last several days invades her mind.  Her head falls back as she lets her vision soak in the cloudless sky, hoping her annoyance would subside.  "We mustn't delay; we do not have such a luxury to relax now."

His voice continues to coax her and she stands with her eyes still looking into the horizon, with her hands at the small of her back she stands and waits for him to stop speaking.  Amelia Vought breathes slow, keeping her emotions calm and her mind clear of thought, "You have your soldiers then?"

"I understand your doubt, but I also know that you are aware Genosha must change their ways."  She scowls knowing he's peered almost too deep into her mind, regardless of his make-believe ethics over such a thing.  "With Quicksilver's regime, that change will never come, our soldiers are regrettably necessary to incite the change the entire world will feel as a breath of air."

Amelia turns and starts to walk slowly back to their rented villa, and she speaks as though Charles Xavier is within earshot.  "Charles, it isn't the change I doubt, but is this method of yours going to work?  You know I disagree with this, and the mutant community doesn't exactly see your x-men as such a freedom fighting group any longer."  He doesn't have a reply to her words, though she knows they hurt him, "And you know we will have to face down Exodus and his Acolytes, but why should the humans see us any different that Quicksilver's government or heaven help up, Magneto's?"

Her short walk back to the small two-bedroom cottage finishes in silence, a hesitation of words is immediately apparent as the door swings open.  She stands in the door way knowing his cold blue eyes are staring directly into her.  "If you have something to say, go ahead and say it."  Her voice drops into a forceful tone, "if not than I suggest we continue our treason and be done with it."

"You still see this as treason?"

"Am I supposed to see it somehow different?"  Her disbelief stings his usual confidant glare; it is the first time since they have arrived in Malta she has seen his confidence waver.  "I'm not one of your crusaders Charles, you believe this will unify Genosha and bring a peace to our people...that I can stand behind.  Do not let me discover this is all about personal gain."

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