"Alright, what's up for tomorrow again?"

"Ten o'clock, phone conference with Americans for Humanity; then at two o' clock, weekly radio address; and finally at six o' clock, a—"

"Meeting with the Governor, yes," Mayor Kelly responded, smirking slightly as he stopped outside the door to his home, fingering his keychain as he searched around in the darkness for the key to the front door. "Don't think I'll forget that one, Jansen. If there's one thing that I've learned from being Mayor of this city, it's that you can't get anything meaningful done at this level of power—at least, not anything that needs to get done. Since we're from the same party and the good Governor is retiring at the end of the term, I'm hoping he'll be able to endorse me. Time to keep moving on up."

"You need me to go in with you, sir?" said a large, muscular man in a suit to Kelly's left—his bodyguard, hired a few months ago after all the Acolyte terrorist attacks.

"I think I'm fine for tonight, thanks," Kelly said. "Those Mutants like to make a spectacle out of everything—if they wanted to attack me, it'd be in broad daylight or at a function, just to show that they can. I'll see you and Jensen tomorrow."

Kelly's personal assistant and bodyguard both waved good-bye to their boss as he unlocked his front door and entered his house, turning the entryway lights on.

Whistling the tune to "Movin' On Up" as he shut the door, Edward Kelly loosened his tie and took his suit coat off, hanging it up neatly on his coat rack.

Walking over to his living room and flipping on the light switch, he looked around for the remote for his television—and that's when he saw them.

"I hope you don't mind," said the oldest one. "We let ourselves in, Mayor."

Edward Kelly immediately turned around and began running for the door—but all he got out was a "HEL—" before a strong hand clamped over his mouth and dragged him back into his living room.

"Okay, mom. Yup. See you in a few days," Paige said, before turning off her cell phone and falling back onto her bed, sighing.

"Somethin' wrong?" asked Rahne from over on her own bed—she had been Paige's roommate ever since the latter had moved into the Institute.

"Nothing," said Paige, covering her face with her hands. "It's… nothing."

"Yer a terrible liar," Rahne chuckled. "C'mon. Tell me."

"It's really nothing big, Rahne… I'm just not looking forward to seeing my folks again for Thanksgiving."

"…Really? But I thought you got along with yer family. Why?"

"Well, I get along with them okay," Paige mumbled, "And I still do, I mean. But things… I don't know. I'm with YOU all enough where it doesn't matter, we've essentially… moved past this, but with my family, well… whenever I see them, things are still pretty awkward. Quiet."

"What, since… since Sam's… death?"

"Yeah. I mean, they still definitely approve of my being with you guys, but I don't know. They don't say anything, but their eyes, well… sometimes their eyes are second-guessing me. Like I second-guess myself sometimes. They never say anything, though, and I know they never will."

"Second-guess yerself about…?"

"Y'know… saving Sam," Paige said. "If there wasn't something, somewhere, I could have done differently… even if it was just some idea I had, that I could've passed on to others. Anything to keep Sam from making that stupid, pointless sacrifice…"

"But you and Cessily, what you did to Nimrod—"

"I KNOW, I know," Paige interrupted impatiently. "Look, Rahne, I appreciate it, I really do, but—really, I've run through that day a million times in my head by now. Nothing that you or anyone else says at this point is going to do anything. It's not like we can re-do the past..."

"Well, Kurt tried, and look how that turned out—maybe it's better if ye didn't!" Rahne said, grinning—but her expression drooped when she saw that Paige wasn't smiling along with her. "It was just a joke, Paige… I'm not actually suggesting—"

"You don't need to apologize," Paige said. "And I'm not dumb enough to actually go over and ask Forge to try to recreate that, don't worry. There's certainly far worse outcomes that could've easily occurred. It's just… it's something that's always bugged me since that day. Probably always will. The sheer… just the sheer pointlessness of the way Sam died."

"…Well," Rahne said after a moment of awkward silence. "I know it's a bit of an over-used response, but sometimes God works in mysterious—"

"Don't," Paige snorted. "Just… don't."

"…Okay," Rahne said meekly.

She continued to glance at Paige now and then—who had simply turned her back to Rahne, curled up on her own bed—but after a few minutes it was clear that the conversation was over.

"Well… I guess I'm gonna get some shuteye, then," Rahne said quietly. "G'night, Paige."

"Good night, Rahne," Paige mumbled, pulling up the covers around her and turning off the lamp in between both of their beds.

Edward Kelly had ceased trying to get the soldier's iron grip off of his mouth. It was obviously no use. But that didn't stop the Mayor of Bayville from glaring daggers at the gray-haired military colonel that was sitting on the couch across from him in the living room.

"I'm very sorry for the surprise notice, Mayor Kelly," said the colonel, his tone at least appearing to be sincere. "However, once I fill you in on why me and some of my boys are here, you'll understand why this has to be a… quiet visit."

Kelly just continued to glare at the colonel.

"Alright, so here's how things are going to go," the colonel continued after a moment more of silence. "I'm going to order my subordinate here to let you go, so that we can sit here and talk. But if you try to raise a ruckus again, well—then back on the mouth clamp goes. Don't get me wrong, Mayor Kelly—we WILL take no for an answer, if that's what it comes to—but we need to make sure our presence here isn't known, for obvious reasons."

Kelly's eyes darted around, eyeing the four other soldiers in the room before he finally sighed and nodded. The soldier that he been holding him slowly let go, and Mayor Kelly kept silent, though he still continued to stare at the colonel, wanting him to get on with it.

"Okay, well," the colonel said, steepling his fingers, "Normally now's the point where we'd shake hands and I'd formally introduce myself, but obviously you're not in the mood for handshakes. So. My name is Colonel William Stryker."

"I've never heard of you," Kelly stated simply, an eyebrow raised.

"I don't expect you'd have heard of me," Colonel Stryker said, smiling slightly as he shook his head. "Nor are you ever likely to, at least publically. My boys and I—we were a black ops team."

"Funny—unless my eyes are deceiving me, you're all wearing regular army uniforms."

"That's because we're not trying to hide from YOU, dear Mayor. If we were, you wouldn't see us, I assure you."

"So then let's quit beating around the bush. What are you asking of me?"

"Well, see, now, that's a bit of a complicated question. That's why I need you to sit and hear me out."

"…Alright then. I don't see myself having much choice in the matter, so go on."

"Well, as I understand it, you're got a Mutant problem here in Bayville. A serious Mutant problem—this city has the densest population of Mutants in the world by far, ever since Genosha went under."

"Yes, I do. And you're, what? Volunteering to do a little 'black ops' business, take out some Mutants 'discreetly'?"

"See, now I knew that you were a smart guy," Colonel Stryker grinned. "You're already way ahead of me in this conversation."

"You should've been more familiar with my history before breaking into my house, then," Mayor Kelly said angrily. "I want the Mutants driven out of this city—this COUNTRY—but I'm going to do it lawfully. Not by doing any under-the-table business like this. I'm a politician, not a criminal."

Colonel Stryker chuckled a little bit as Kelly finished that last statement. "And where's that gotten you, Mayor? Oh, you may have let a few things 'slide' like not ordering the local police force to engage all those Sentinels when they invaded your town that one night last spring, but for all your speeches and drive and effort, the X-Men are still here. The Morlocks are still here. A few others that are on their own—such as the one known as 'Gambit'—are here. The Brotherhood of Bayville has dropped off the map recently, but if I were a betting man I'd imagine they'll be showing up again eventually. So for all your hard work, you've gotten exactly nowhere, while the X-Men were the ones who did away with Magneto and his Acolytes. If anything, public opinion of your efforts has slid backwards since then."

"I don't believe the X-Men were responsible for defeating the Acolytes for one second," Kelly huffed. "There were too many Acolytes compared to the X-Men. The whole thing smells like a set-up to me. I've tried to tell the public that none of these Mutants can be trusted—that having that much power at your fingertips can corrupt anyone—and backed up my assertions with solid facts. I'm sure you're familiar of the story I broke earlier in the year, that the 'faulty fireworks incident' that occurred shortly after I became principal of Bayville High was actually the result of mass mental manipulation by the X-Men's leader, Charles Xavier. The whole thing was actually a Mutant fight."

"And for a time, public opinion was swaying back to your side, Mayor," Colonel Stryker responded. "But as soon as all this Acolytes business blew up, and the X-Men became the saviors of the day again, your poll numbers across the state of New York began dropping once more. And it's no secret that you're eyeing the Governor's seat when he vacates it next year."

"Well, then I'm just going to have to work harder then, aren't I? As I said to my campaign advisor once, I'm not changing my platform. We've got to change the public's thinking instead."

"I agree, I absolutely agree. But see, here's where you're missing the point, Mr. Mayor, and this is why I find your 'I'm a politician, not a criminal' comment so very funny. You see, you're new to the realm of politics—you were elected to your position barely over a year ago, after all. But I'll let you in on a little secret—do you wonder WHY so many politicians DO cross over into the realm of criminals? It's because they realize what you haven't yet, Mayor Kelly, what you're on the cusp of realizing, but haven't yet."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"That this governmental system that we have—checks and balances, three branches, and all that—it's good for many things, but it prohibits you from really getting done what you need to do. So they realize that, in order to make the world a better place, they actually do need to get their hands dirty, or risk seeing the dreams that caused them to run for office in the first place crushed."

"For someone in the military, you seem to have a pretty grim view of the government you're working for."

"I said I WAS in the military, Mr. Mayor, WAS. My and my boys here went AWOL a few years back."

"Then why aren't you locked up?"

"Because we're black ops, Mr. Mayor," Colonel Stryker chuckled. "You see, if we get caught, the government will disavow any knowledge of our existence. That's part of the job description. But what happens if we go 'rogue'? Well, they can't put forward an official investigation into the matter to try to find us because that would be an admittance that we exist. And we can't have that. One hand CAN'T see what the other's doing—that's the whole idea."

"So I'd be hiring a bunch of deserters who are now simply killers for hire?" Kelly spat. "I'm even more opposed to accepting your offer now than I was before."

"We're not mercenaries," Colonel Stryker said sternly. "No, me and the men who deserted with me—we do jobs for free. No money will be exchanged between you and I, Mayor Kelly—no paper trail, nothing the journalists could ever get their hands on that would tarnish your public image. Not even a contract."

"So then why would you help me? What would you get out of it?" Kelly asked cautiously.

"What we would 'get' out of it are fewer Mutants existing—fewer Mutants that could threaten the natural balance of power. You see, Mayor, that's the reason we went AWOL—we are all sick and tired of the government's current paralyzed attitude towards Mutants. Something needs to be done about them, and we can't wait around for the right President and Congress to get sworn in who finally have the guts to do it. Now, we can't declare outright war on them, but we can do things a bit more discreetly, here."

"I… I don't know," Mayor Kelly said, furrowing his eyebrows. "This all… this still doesn't smell right. You just show up, in my house, and offer all this. You'll pardon if I'm still suspicious."

"Oh, I understand. I understand completely. You don't get to be colonel of a black ops team by trusting what everyone says, Mr. Mayor," Colonel Stryker said, slowly standing up from the couch. "That said, you just need to realize that you and us, well, we have the same goals. Our methods might differ a bit, but essentially you and I, we're of the same mindset, here."

"I…. I'll think about it," Mayor Kelly said.

"Well then, here… you… go," Colonel Stryker continued, taking out a small card from his pocket, writing a series of numbers on it, and handing it to Kelly. "This is the phone number where you can reach me for the next twenty-four hours—twenty-four hours exactly, that is. After that, the cell phone that can be reached via this number is destroyed, and we move on to try to help other important people in positions to do something about this whole Mutant situation. So… you have until 11: 34 P.M. tomorrow night to make your decision. Let's go, boys."

As Colonel Stryker motioned for his subordinates to leave and they began to exit out the back door, he turned as if about to leave but then turned back towards Mayor Kelly again, throwing a twenty-dollar bill on the table.

"I almost forgot—here, this'll pay for the lock on your back door that we broke," Colonel Stryker said. "And, uh—Mr. Mayor, we risked a lot by coming here. I assume we can trust that, no matter your decision here, you'll erm… keep quiet about all this, right?"

"Part of me is concerned that there's an AWOL unit like you out there, but… yes, I'll keep quiet."

"Good," Colonel Stryker smiled as he slowly made his way out the back door. "I wouldn't want to have to kill a champion of the people such as yourself."

Edward Kelly went to look out the rear door and make sure Colonel Stryker and his team were indeed exiting his yard—but in the amount of time it had taken him to walk across the room, they had already vanished from sight.

"So they're off to another day at boring school, huh? Glad you're over THAT, at least," Rogue said in M's voice, hovering far above the Mansion as she watched the various school-aged X-Kids get in their cars and drive off to another day at Bayville High.

Can I have control of my body back now?

"Only if you want to plummet to your death," M chuckled morbidly.

You know I can FORCE the switch if I want to, now.

"Yes, I know, you only remind me about every other hour," M sighed. "But the point was, you like your 'alone time'—well, as alone as you're going to get—up here in the mornings. And you need MY powers in order to do it. I go along with it, because I like to stretch my—well, your—muscles now and then as well."

Just… land. Please.

"A 'please'?" M laughed. "Okay, you just gave away what you're inwardly moping about. Scott and Jean, amirite?"

…

"You still can't get over the fact that they're married and happy and they got married while you were in a coma, can you?" M grinned.

You keep this up and I'm gonna tell the Professor. Get you out of my head for good, Destiny's vague "prophecy" be darned.

"You really aren't any fun at all, are you?" M sighed exaggeratedly. "Fine, fine… I'm going down already."

Mayor Edward Kelly hung up his speaker phone and slid back against his desk, sighing.

The phone conference with Americans for Humanity had been… unproductive, to say the least. The organization was large and growing, so its influence was making itself known in politics lately, but he had just been informed that he—HE—was only getting an 80% rating from them on the scorecards they mailed out to everyone on election time. Apparently it was because he hadn't "done enough" to stop the Mutants, and was "just talking" about things.

Done enough? He had come up with the Mutant Registration Act, for goodness' sake!

But no, that wasn't enough any more. He hadn't "followed up" on it, never mind that most Mutants had registered only about two months ago. No, now he was supposed to—singlehandedly—order those with the records to start quarantining the Mutants that were the most powerful, and require all Mutants to notify anyone within a block's radius of where they lived.

Not that he couldn't understand the group's concerns, though. Mutant activity had calmed down a bit recently, but he knew it was only a matter of time before another huge Mutant disaster—or near-disaster—was unleashed upon the world.

But a democratic republic didn't work that way, Kelly reminded himself. It takes time—years, perhaps even decades—for something like that to come to full fruition.

Colonel Stryker's offer from last night still hung in the back of his mind, poking at him. He had tried to ignore it, but particularly after this last call it had gotten louder.

No… no, that's not you, Kelly told himself.

But did it need to be? After all, in the time it could take for the public to come around to his way of thinking, hundreds, thousands—god forbid, perhaps even millions—could die from Mutant attacks, whether intentional or unintentional. Could he stand to have that on his conscious—that if only he had acted, here, now, it could have saved human lives?

Mayor Kelly started to drum one of his hands rapidly on the desk in front of him, his other fingering the card with Stryker's phone number in his pocket.

After a few moments, Kelly abruptly got up and opened up his office door, peering outside. As expected, his secretary was gone. Out to lunch.

Closing the door, Kelly sat back down behind his desk, sweat dripping down his forehead as he pulled out the phone number card and took out his cell phone to dial.

Almost soon as he started dialing, however, Edward Kelly closed his cell phone back up. No, he couldn't call them directly from his own phone… too traceable. What if they got caught…? If it was traced back to him, it could set back all the progress he had made in this area.

They're black ops, Edward. You saw them last night. Best of the best. If they get caught, we really are going to lose this anyways.

Swallowing to keep down the lump in his throat, Mayor Kelly dialed the number into his cell phone again.

It had barely rung once before a voice on the other end answered.

*Ah, Mayor Kelly. And still with almost twelve hours to spare. It must be even worse than you thought.*

"Just get it done, you hear me?" Kelly whispered, despite there being no one physically nearby that could hear him. "I assume after contacting me that you already have a Mutant target picked out."

*Indeed I do.*

"How are you going to deal with him or her without having to deal with a Mutant backlash?"

*I have everything worked out. I wouldn't have come to you if I didn't. Don't worry, Mr. Mayor, you get to keep your hands completely dirt-free. In fact, I'm destroying this phone right now.*

"Wait—" Kelly began, but stopped as he heard static on the other end.

Mayor Kelly shut off his own cell phone, drummed his fingers on the table again, and then turned on the news radio.

It was going to be a long day.

"Hello?" Spyke said, picking up the ringing cell phone in his pocket—that one that had been given to him by the X-Men after the whole Apocalypse ordeal, in case they had needed him again when time was of the essence.

*Spyke. You there?*

"Paige… what's going on?"

*Something's going down at school right now. Something bad. I think you need to come up top, to the front of Bayville High, right now. We need help.*

"Uh… right, on my way," Spyke said, starting to jog through the sewers in the direction he knew the school was in and unlatching the special skateboard Ororo had given him from his back. "What's-?"

The call had already been cut off, and only the sound of a dial tone greeted Spyke's ear.

One of Stryker's subordinates—a Hispanic male, his temples just starting to turn gray—cut off the call and retracted the alien-looking light blue-and-gray device from one side of his mouth, which was in the general shape of a "hands free" mouthpiece.

"Did it work?" Stryker asked, looking across the rooftop of the building they were standing on, towards Bayville High.

"Sounds like it did; he sure seemed to believe I was Husk," the subordinate said, taking off the voice modulator and placing it aside. "Our cell phone hacker puts the call beneath Ashland Street. Assuming he's running, we've got about two-and-a-half minutes before he arrives here."

"Up the sewer grate right in front of the central walkway out of the building?" Stryker asked.

"Can't imagine he'd come up any other way—he does that, he'll be exposed earlier."

"Alright, keep your eye on the target," Stryker commanded another of his subordinates on the rooftop, who was currently looking down the scope of what looked like a sniper rifle with an oversized barrel. "Do NOT fire until you see that sewer lid pop open, you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Alright, now as you'll see here, we'll need to use a t-test to solve for this…"

Paige couldn't help but drift off the statistic teacher's lecture and stare out the window. She had never been good at math; not necessarily because she didn't have the mental capacity to do so, but she simply found it incredibly boring and didn't feel like putting much effort into it.

Heh. The opposite of Sam. He'd try and try all night to understand something, only to fall asleep trying to solve problems like this…

She absentmindedly looked back at Cessily, who was completely focused on the instructor's lecture. Certainly a much-needed development for the mercury Mutant—over the past few months, she had finally gotten a hold of keeping herself solid when she needed to without concentration. When Paige had first arrived at the Institute, she had NEVER guessed that Cess would be anything other than a stuttering dripping blob of silver with anxiety issues. But now… now, it looked like a combination of Xavier's training and necessity had, over the past year, turned her into a rather emotionally stable individual—even though she still did slip into stuttering every now and then.

Indeed, all of the other relatively recent recruits to the Institute seemed to be getting better, slowly. Moonstar, even with her triad of powers now, didn't seem to have any problems. Even though Bobby's powers had essentially permanently encased him in ice, he still had control over them. Maverick and X-23 were starting to socialize with the others—slowly (particularly in Laura's case), but surely. Even Hisako was steadily gaining control over her powers, and had learned enough English by now that Xavier felt she could start attending Bayville High after New Years'.

So then why did she still feel empty… why hadn't she really improved at all beyond the first couple of weeks' worth of training? She had a reasonable amount of control over her powers, sure, but she hadn't met the expectations Xavier had had. Of course, the Prof had said that it was alright—different people develop their powers at different paces—but Paige knew it was something more than that.

A part of her had been ripped away when Sam died, and she still hadn't gotten it back. She was beginning to doubt if she ever would have, after seeing the pointless—

A loud crash interrupted Paige's train of thought. It took her—along with the rest of the class—a moment to figure out what, exactly, had happened.

One of the classroom's windows had suddenly shattered, and now a bone spike was sticking out of the side of their teacher's head.

Some of the classmates started screaming as their instructor collapsed to the floor, blood quickly pooling out from his head. A few quickly dropped to the ground, taking cover under their desks.

"What the-?!" Cessily cried.

Paige immediately turned to look out the window—and saw Spyke standing there in the middle of the road outside, bones protruding everywhere, as if ready for a fight—but looking at the suddenly broken window, confused.

"It's Spyke!" Paige yelled, as both of them took cover underneath their own desks, struggling to be heard over the hysterical classmates.

"Spyke?!" Cessily hollered back. "But why--?"

"I don't know! But I'm going after him!" Paige yelled, her skin rapidly beginning to shed, revealing a steely substance underneath. "Get outta here, get the word out to those in charge and the other X-Men—and make sure that the principal understands this building needs to be locked down until we figure out what's going on!"

"Uh… r-right!" Cessily cried, crawling on her hands and knees towards the classroom door as Paige stood back up, her iron skin now in full view as she ran over and leapt out of the open window. A moment later Paige landed on the sidewalk a story below with a crunch as the concrete gave way slightly under her increased weight.

"P—Husk!" Spyke called out as Paige ran towards him. "What did you—"

Spyke was interrupted as Paige tackled him to the ground, the skateboard slipping from Spyke's grip as Paige used her increased strength to pull Spyke's hands behind his back. Spyke cried out in pain as Paige's hard skin snapped off some of his thicker bone spikes.

"AAAH! What's…. what's going on?!" Spyke cried. "Why are you—"

"That's what I want to ask YOU!" Paige growled, her voice now having a slight metallic echo to it. "I know you don't agree with staying in school with the rest of us, Spyke, but KILLING a TEACHER?! Have you LOST it?!"

"Woah—what? Killing a- why would you think I would do that?! YOU called ME here—said there was trouble!"

"No I didn't! Why would you-"

"I HEARD you, Paige. You said- aw… no…"

"What?!"

Spyke's expression turned from one of confused surprise to rage. "Someone set me up."

"What are you talking about?"

"Paige…Husk—get off me. I need to get out of here."

"Spyke, under the circumstances, there's no way—"

Spyke turned his head as far back as he could, barely meeting Paige's gaze. "Husk—look, you gotta trust me on this. I spend the time trying to explain this to you, whoever set me up is gonna get away. They've got to be nearby, now."

"TRUST you? After—just… wait a little. I'm sure Jean or Professor Xavier will be here in a bit. Just hold off until then., and if they clear you, then I'll—"

"Husk, there is NO TIME," Spyke said angrily, speeding up the rate at which he was talking as emergency sirens started to sound in the distance. "I know I left the X-Men before you joined up, but we've still seen a fair amount of action together. We wait much longer, the authorities are gonna get here and I'm not going to be able to leave, and we're not going to be able to track down who REALLY did this."

Paige bit her lip—or at least tried to, until she remembered it was currently composed of metal—and sighed, releasing Spyke from her grip. "Where do you think the person went?"

"Straight line of sight to that window, passing over the sewer cover I walked of…" Spyke said, pointing at the corner of Bayville High that Paige had jumped out of with a finger and tracing it across the street to the top of a two-story apartment building. "Bet they did it from around there. They couldn't have been at much of an angle or it wouldn't have looked like the attack came from me."

Husk glanced up. "Spyke, I don't see anyone there. If they were there, they've already—wait, what?!"

Husk glanced back to see Spyke kicking up the sewer cover, taking his spike-tipped skateboard with him. "Spyke, where are you going?!"

"Husk, I can't stay out in the open—not now," Spyke said as he started to step down into the sewer entrance. "A lot of the cops in this city have been looking for an excuse to put a bullet in my head for months now—they won't hesitate this time. I have to get back to the Morlocks, warn them to evacuate where we've currently been setting up camp—this is just the excuse everybody needs to go after us, this time with the power of the police behind them. I'll catch up with you soon."

"So what am I supposed to tell the others?!" Husk said, glancing back as a police car turned onto the street a few blocks away, followed quickly by several other emergency vehicles.

"Nothing," Spyke yelled as he splashed down into the sewers below. "Go up to the roof of that apartment, look around. Bullets can't hurt you right now. Look, Paige—I'm sorry. I know you're in a tough spot. But this is the only way the dude who framed me will get what's coming to him. I'll see you soon. I PROMISE."

Husk looked back as several school officials ran out of Bayville High's main entrance, clearly seeking answers and/or justice. She wanted to stay here, WANTED to tell them what happened—but she knew she didn't have time.

Husk let out a cry of frustration and ran towards the apartment building Spyke had pointed out to her, away from the school officials—and some of her fellow X-Men—who were shouting various questions at her.

Reaching the apartment building, Husk punched through the closed door and ran up the flights of stairs. No one intercepted her—it was the middle of a weekday, after all, so most likely the occupants were either at work or hiding after all of the commotion.

The door to the roof was open—not a good sign. Husk ran outside to find a middle-aged overweight woman bent over the side of the building. Upon seeing Husk, the woman cursed and practically leapt to the opposite corner of the roof, considerably more spryly than Husk would have guessed she were able to.

"Don't hurt me!" the woman cried, putting her arms in front of her face. "I don't know what you Muties are up to, but I ain't gonna let you get me! You come one step forward, I… I jump!"

"I'm not going to hurt you!" Husk said. "…And it's a two story drop, you're hardly gonna kill yourself if you jump."

"…That… that's true…" the cowering woman admitted. "Then what—what do you—"

"Why are you up here?!" Husk asked. She had almost been ready to shed her metal skin to help calm the woman down, but she reminded herself that the killer could still be around here somewhere—assuming the woman wasn't the killer and just putting on some act. "A shot came from here—"

"—And it wasn't you Mutants!?" the woman asked, skeptical. "I was in the top corner room— I'm not feeling so good, you see, got a cold—"

"Get to the POINT." Husk said through clenched teeth.

"I heard a noise above. Sounded like—like something being pumped through a chute. Then I heard screams and Bayville High—put two an' two together, came out here—but nothing. Only saw—"

"You saw someone out of the corner of your eye, down that way?" Husk asked, pointing in the direction the woman had been looking in when she had busted out onto the roof.

The woman nodded. "Disappeared about as soon as I saw 'im, though."

"Which way did he go?"

"He went, uh, lessee… south," the woman said, pointing in the direction that eventually led to the outskirts of Bayville.

Finally, a lead, Husk thought to herself.

"Rahne—Rahne, you there?" Husk spoke into her watch/wrist communicator.

*I am, I am… what's goin' on, Paige?! Why did you let Spyke go?*

"I don't have time to go into details, but it's a set-up, Rahne. I need you out of there, quickly. You've got to sniff these guys out before the trail goes cold. Start south on the corner of Kirkland and Johnson."

*I'll….* Husk heard a sigh on the other end. *I'll see if I can leave.*

"Any 'a you hear that?" Rahne asked her fellow X-Men.

By now, the football field behind the school was incredibly crowded and loud, with the police struggling to maintain order. The entire school had now been evacuated out of the back, with only a few law enforcement officials and emergency personnel allowed inside and out in front of the school to investigate the crime scene. At first there had been mass confusion and panic, but word was starting to spread throughout the crowd that a former X-Man had been responsible for killing one of the teachers—and that another X-Man had let him get away.

A few policemen had surrounded the assembled X-Men that had been at school—Alex, Bobby, Roberto, Rahne, Jubilee, Danielle, Jamie, and Amara—in an effort to wall off the X-Men from a crowd increasingly angry at them. However, it wasn't helping much, as not all of the policemen were joining in—indeed, it seemed to have split the force in half, with half assuming the X-Men were, as info came circulating in, guilty until proven innocent. The only one who wasn't present was Cessily, who was currently being pressed by the officials in the school about details regarding how, exactly, her teacher had been killed.

"Hear what?" Roberto yelled over the noise of the crowd.

"Paige is up on the rooftop—says it was a setup!" Rahne yelled back. "She's trying to track down who really did it now, but she needs my help."

"Uh, I don't think we're getting outta here anytime soon," Alex said nervously. "The rest of these dudes are on edge as is."

"But if what Paige says is true, and we don't track them down soon, we'll probably lose 'em!" Jubilee interjected.

"I can get them out of the way, if we really need to," Danielle said, "But only via my nightmares—and I don't think we need them even more worked up now."

"Bobby?" Rahne asked, turning to who seemed to be the de facto leader among them during times like this.

Bobby seemed to be weighing his options, his iced-over eyes darting to and fro between the crowd and them. "…Alright, let's get Rahne out of here… but we've got to do it with as little force as necessary. Jamie?"

"Yeah… yeah, I can create a barrier," Jamie said, and rapidly began multiplying. Within seconds he had completely surrounded the other X-Men and began gently pushing the others—both the police and the student body—out of the way, creating a quick, but narrow, path for Rahne.

Rahne transformed into her wolf form, barked appreciatively, and then set off, running in the direction Paige had told her to start with.

Bobby caught one of the policemen aiming his pistol over at Rahne after yelling for to stop, and quickly sent an ice beam at the offending officer, freezing his gun solid.

"What the—HEY!" the policeman yelled, turning back towards Bobby. "You can't just do that!"
"And YOU can't just shoot someone like that! Or should I call the ASPCA?"

"Oh, you're hil-arious," the policeman sneered, pushing his way through a few students—and a few reluctant Jamies—until he was face-to-face with Bobby. "I am getting SICK and TIRED of you Muties—"

"Hey, hold up, Reyes," said another policeman, stepping in between the two. "Let's, uh—let's see what the investigation reveals, eh?"

"So you're just gonna the Muties escape? We've got orders to keep 'em HERE, Frank."

"I heard their conversation—and if what they say is true—"

"It isn't—"

"IF it IS—then the one werewolf-girl had a justifiable cause to leave. Until the commissioner radios us one way or the other, we shouldn't escalate things here by arresting the Mutants."

They both stared at each other for a minute before Reyes backed down a little. "…Alright. But these X-Men have got some things to answer for, and if it turns out they've been tricking us this whole time…"

"..Then we'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Frank said back. Turning back to Bobby, the stern look still on his face, he continued, "But she's it, you hear me? None of the rest of you are leaving until we get some answers."

"Uh… deal," Bobby agreed reluctantly, and motioned for Jamie to reabsorb his duplicates back into himself.

Wolfsbane finished running up to the corner where Husk had told her to start, but was surprised to find not only Husk waiting for her, but Rogue as well.

"The Prof sent me," Rogue said in response to Rahne's questioning look, Rogue's voice hers and not M's at the moment. "He just learned about the whole incident back at the Mansion, had a quick telepathic conversation with Husk about it, and sent me over. He's getting together Kurt and a few others to go to Bayville High, but beyond Blue Boy I'm the fastest, so I was sent here."

"Wolfsbane?" Husk said, motioning for Rahne to start sniffing in a southerly direction from the sidewalk on which they were standing.

Wolfsbane put her snout to the ground and began taking in long, deep whiffs, lifted her head up for a second, and then did so again, her ears perking up this time.

Morphing into her human form, Wolfsbane stated, "It's a bit difficult here, there's so many scents… but I got a whiff of gunpowder, some explosives like C4—heading south down Kirkland, like Husk thought it might."

Rogue and Husk both jumped a little in surprise as a loud knock came from the underside of a nearby sewer cover, and a few seconds later Spyke popped out of it, skateboard in hand.

"Hey," Spyke said, looking around to make sure no police were in the vicinity before fully climbing out onto the street. "Alright, the Morlocks are on the move. How's it going, Husk?"

"We've got a lead, albeit a small one," Husk said. "Rahne's tracking down the smell of explosives- though it could be something unrelated, we don't know for sure at this point."

"Better that than nothing," Spyke said. "Hey look, I'll follow you guys—just back down in the sewers, where I can't be seen."

"Then this'll help you keep in touch," Husk said, taking the X-comlink band off her wrist and tossing it over to Spyke. "Let us know if you see anything unusual below us."

"Got it," Spyke said, as he climbed back down into the sewers. "Let's catch this lowlife."

Rahne transformed into her wolf form again and ran off to the south, her nose almost to the ground the entire time as the other three X-Men followed her—both above and below ground.

"Were you followed?"

"Yes," Stryker's Hispanic subordinate reported to him, taking the small light blue-and-gray voice modulator he had been carrying and handing it to Stryker, though he kept the abnormally large-barreled rifle.

"But just barely—you made them think they had outsmarted you and are right now on your tail?" Stryker smirked.

"Yes," the same subordinate said, his voice rather monotone.

Stryker and his men were currently in the back of a military jeep, parked in an abandoned lot on the outskirts of the town, a short distance from a small highway. All of them looked back towards the town as a sonic boom sounded from its general direction, a figure in the sky rushing toward them.

Stryker cursed. "They have Rogue with them—figured they'd keep her at the school, absorb information from the witnesses. Suppose they figured her too unstable, still. We haven't got long, then. All of you know what to do—I've got to bolt."

The soldiers nodded and pointed their weapons at the rapidly incoming Mutant as Stryker climbed into the drivers' seat of the jeep.

Once it had been clear that Wolfsbane was heading in a rather linear direction towards one of the major roads out of town, Rogue had allowed M to take over and flew up into the sky. Following the line of the road down a ways, she saw a figure catching up with a military jeep parked off in a field.

"I've got them," M said into her X-Communicator. "I'm going to engage."

*Wait a minute—hold on,* came Spyke's voice over the comlink. *Just keep an eye on them for now. We need to find out why—*

"Oh please, they're just a couple of guys with guns," M said. "They aren't going to hurt me. If I wait for all of you to catch up, they might try to take one of you who AREN'T bulletproof hostage. Don't worry, I'll be sure to keep at least one alive."

No! Listen to Spyke! Rogue thought.

*That's not the point, this is MY REP on the line, M!* Spyke shot back.

"Sorry, you're breaking up," M said a little too sweetly, rapidly accelerating to supersonic speed as she zoomed towards the town outskirts, ignoring Rogue's protests and curses.

Just as M started to slow down, a pink flash of light from the front of jeep caught her attention—and distracted her just long enough for a rocket fired from a bazooka to impact her on the side.

M was blown back from the explosion and sailed towards the highway below, creating a small crater as she impacted the concrete. A truck had to screech to a halt, but luckily no one else had been near the impact area.

Getting up from the steaming crater, M growled and leapt back into the air again before the trucker could even open his side door. Flying forward and upward at subsonic speed, as soon as she had a straight sight of the jeep and the men targeting her she accelerated and flew straight at them.

To her complete surprise, however, the jeep detonated less than a second before M was due to impact it—she instead flew right though the fiery explosion, a couple of flaming bits of metal harmlessly impacting her before she zoomed out the other side of the cloud of fire, making a long furrow in the dirt as she impacted the ground again, tumbling over and over until she finally came to a stop several hundred yards away.

Jean slowly turned the teacher's corpse over in mid-air with her telekinesis, allowing the crime investigators to slowly investigate the entire body without touching it.

"…and I'm telling you, it was a set-up," Xavier was saying sternly to Principal Richardson and a few other law enforcement officials who had varying expressions of skepticism on their faces. "I know Evan, and though he can certainly be one to… be stubborn at times, he would never do something like this to someone without significant provocation."

"A-and it just doesn't a-add up," Cessily said, her stuttering becoming a bit more obvious given her anxious state. "I was here, in this classroom, when i-it all went down, remember. From what they told us, Sp-Spyke wasn't even aware what had been going on—he said he h-had gotten a call from Paige that something was up here, and had sh-shown up just as the teacher was killed."

"You're asking us to take a lot of this on faith," the police commissioner said. "Nearly everything that you say points to this being a set-up—it's all from word of mouth from you Mutants."

"That's because this 'Spyke' person did it!" Principal Richardson blurted out, his anxious tone fitting well with the sweat profusely dripping off his round face. "I understand that the X-Men may at times be Good Samaritans, but they simply can't except that one of their own willingly went rogue! This especially makes sense given the general attitude of the Morlocks."

"Richardson, rest assured we've got teams combing the sewers for the Morlocks now," the commissioner said. "If we find anything incriminating wherever they've been holing up in the sewers, we'll be sure to take it into consideration. In the meantime, I want you and some of my officers here to get out there and send the students home. We're not going to get this solved today, and things are getting tense out there."

Principal Richardson looked about to protest, but thought better of it and merely opened up the classroom door, ushering the other police officers in the room out and muttering to himself as he closed the door behind him.

"Professor, do you see anything… off… about the spike?" Kurt said, squeamishly motioning to the bone spike protruding out of the dead teacher's head that he had been reluctantly examining.

"What do you mean?" Xavier asked, wheeling as close to the levitating corpse as the crime investigators seemed comfortable with.

"I can't put my finger on it, but Kurt's right," Jean said. "It's just… wait. Wait a minute, I've got it! Professor, the color!."

"What's this now?" the commissioner asked, coming over to examine the corpse with the rest of them.

"Of course!" Xavier said, his expression looking as if a light bulb had just turned on over his head. "Commissioner, look at the bone spike. It's a very pale white."

"Yeah. So?"

"Look up any picture on file you have of Evan with his spikes protruded. You'll notice they're a distinctly more yellowed shade of white—and they DO look like that, when they're connected to Evan or shortly after he ejects them. But after a while, they calcify."

"And you're saying this one is calcified?" the commissioner said, looking the bone over closer. "That these framers just picked up one of Spyke's old bones that he had left somewhere, sometime in the past…I'm not sure. I suppose I could buy it, but… you Mutants, your powers change over time. I'm gonna need more than this to clear Evan."

"Then consider this, Commissioner," Xavier continued. "One of the documented changes Evan went through sometime in the middle of last year was that his bone spikes would heat up substantially once he shot them out, do you recall? But—"

"—but there's no burn marks around the wound—just a straight puncture." The commissioner said in realization. "Hrrrm. We'll need to examine it further, but I think I just might be buying your explanation right now, Professor."

Xavier was out to reply when his comlink suddenly came on.

*Professor? This is Husk. You and the others are going to need to get out to the overgrown field to the immediate west off of I-13, quick. We tracked down the people responsible for framing Evan, and, well- you've got to see this.*

Although it apparently took a few minutes to convince the commissioner that it was safe, Husk, Rogue, and Wolfsbane looked up from their positions next to the military jeep wreckage as Kurt teleported Jean, Mercury, Xavier, and the commissioner where they were wanted.

"Holy-!" the commissioner began as he looked at the flaming vehicle bits and dead bodies around him. "What happened?!"

"We already called 911," Husk said as a way of apologizing. "They should be here pretty soon—some of them are already tied up at the school, natch."

"That doesn't answer my question!" the commissioner demanded.

"When I was in the air—with M havin' control of me—" Rogue began, already realizing how her story sounded to the commissioner, "—she saw where Wolfsbane was heading, and where the real shooters were campin' out. I couldn't stop her seeing as how we were in mid-air, and she went after 'em despite Spyke telling us not too—she got hit by them, went down on the highway over there, then got up again and streaked toward the jeep—but it exploded right BEFORE we got there. We tumbled to a stop on the other side—you can see the big plow mark we made—and I had had enough. Once I was sure we weren't hurt, I made sure to re-take control my body again, and I ain't letting her out for a LONG time now, no matter how much protestin' she makes."

"It just… happened to explode right before you hit it?" the commissioner asked, raising an eyebrow. "What caused it, then?"

"I smelled the residuals of explosive scoring all over the place when I got here—C-4 and th' like—back when I was in my wolf form," Wolfsbane explained gingerly. "I think either the group here detonated it, or someone betrayed 'em and set if off early."

"So not only were the purported framers setting up this 'Spyke' fellow, they were also suicidal?!" the commissioner spat, his face turning a little red before he caught himself and pinched his sinuses, forcing himself to calm down.

"….I'm looking through their thoughts now…" Jean said. "For what it's worth, they're all telling the truth."

"I'm sorry, but that doesn't mean much coming from another X-Man," the commissioner said. "I have tried VERY hard to remain neutral on this, but you have to know how hard it is for me to believe this."

"I understand," Xavier replied, "But I have the utmost faith in my students. You must remember as well, commissioner, when Jamie was framed? How much effort was put into that?"

"Yes… although to be honest, it's still difficult for me to believe that in spite of all the facts," the commissioner admitted. "Rogue… you said Spyke was here, correct? Where is he now?"

"He, um… he left," Rogue said, scratching the back of her head.

"He what?"

"He wasn't taking no for an answer," Husk explained, "And given what I've already seen today, I wasn't about to fight him. He said he knew he'd be locked up for a long time with the perpetrators dead, went down into the sewers, and left."

"Did he at least say where he was going?" the commissioner asked, the frustration rising in his voice again.

"New York City… well the sewers of NYC, at least," Husk said. "He said with how massive and maze-like all the underground tunnels are there, it'd be harder for anyone to find him and the Morlocks… apparently he had sent the rest of them in that direction earlier, thinking something like this would've gone down eventually. We tried to get him to stay, but he wouldn't have any of it."

"Evan, man…" Kurt muttered mournfully to himself, "…We could've cleared you, if you'd given us enough time…"

"Well, it looks like I'm going to have to call in MORE investigators," the commissioner said, getting out his communicator. "Look, if all of you really ARE innocent, this is what you're going to do. You're going to go back to the school and stay there, despite the rest of the student body being called home. I'm going to have investigators comb this scene, see if I can confirm the wolf-girl's report that there are explosive residues here. If it checks out... we'll let you go. If not, every last one of you are being arrested, you hear me? Any resistance will be taken as an admission of guilt, here."

Husk looked about ready to protest, but after a quick glance at Xavier reluctantly nodded, just as the rest of the present X-Men did.

"And regardless of your cooperation, I WILL alert NYPD to be on the lookout for Spyke, and to have him arrested if found. It doesn't matter whether he was framed or not, running away is NOT an option. We need to make sure he and the other Morlocks understand that."

"That certainly sounds fair… Evan never was one to follow orders closely," Xavier said, a bit frustrated himself. "And Rogue… M and I are going to have a very serious talk when this is through."

"Okay," the commissioner said, giving a long glance at each of the gathered X-Men before turning back to Nightcrawler. "…Kurt, is it? Teleport me back to Bayville High. I've got officers to talk to and reports to file."

Mayor Kelly had spent the last few hours slumped in the chair in front of the small television in his office, stunned as he had watched the whole ordeal unfold on the news. Despite the media pressing him for a response, he had uncharacteristically turned down every request.

He felt sick to his stomach.

When he had given the order to Stryker to do what needed to be done, he had expected a Mutant to be killed, at the most—certainly not an innocent bystander, and a human bystander, at that.

Now a Bayville High school teacher was dead … because of him.

No… do NOT think like that, another side of him thought. Yes, you made a mistake here. A big one. But Stryker—or one of his men—was the one that pulled the trigger. They were the ones that deceived you—your only sin here was taking what they said at face value. This wasn't your fault.

But, if you let it get out that you were somehow attached to this, the public won't see things your way. The entire cause will be turned on its head, and they'll side with the Mutants for a good long while, no matter what atrocities they commit, since the assumption will always be that the X-Men were framed now. You lived through that mind wipe Xavier did to almost the entire school a few years ago—you KNOW the X-Men are NOT innocent, despite what they claim. Who knows what else they've gotten away with? So you keep it to yourself, and continue on as normal. You've got to succeed in climbing your way up the political ladder, to get more legislation enacted so that these kinds of disasters can't happen again. The alternative is too dire to consider.

That side of Kelly's mind was getting louder and louder, while the part that protested he continued to push deep down, until he could think of the protests no longer. All that lingered was a tight feeling in his gut.

Mayor Edward Kelly looked at his watch. It was almost five—nearly time for his meeting with the current—retiring—governor of the state. He straightened his tie, ran a comb through his hair a few times, and strode out of the room, growing more confident in himself with each step.

Yes, he WAS going to do everything he could to take the current governor's place come Election Day next year. Then, after a few terms, perhaps campaign as a House Representative or Senator, and then—who knows? The past was past—what mattered was what he did in the future.

Eventually the tight feeling in Kelly's stomach went away completely.

Stryker slowly opened his eyes, finding himself seated in a hard metal chair. The chair was the only thing lit in the room—whatever lay beyond that circle that the bulb above him lit up, he was unable to discern. He tried to get up, but found himself unable, somehow—there were no restraints around his arms or legs, no pain, but for some reason they wouldn't respond to his brain's commands to move.

"Wh—where am I?" Stryker said softly, his mind recoiling in horror as it remembered the last thing that had happened before it had all gone black. "Wh—where are my men?"

In answer, three figures stepped into the light in front of him. A blonde girl, an albino man with black hair, and…

And…

"Apocalypse," Stryker mumbled. He tried to stay strong, but angry tears threatened to stream down his eyes as he glared up at the powerful Mutant. "What happened to my men?"

"Esme, unlock his memories," Apocalypse commanded—and suddenly, everything Stryker had done in the past day came flooding back.

"Oh my god…" Stryker said. "You… how could you?"

"After I nearly succeeded in killing most of the population of this world, you ask me that question?" Apocalypse said, a slight smirk appearing on his partially technorganic face. "You and your team were the ones who stumbled upon our base, human. We could not let you get your information out to the others. Originally I was simply going to kill you, but Sinister persuaded me that you could be of some use. And—for once—he was right."

"So you had your mind-controller over there and her sisters use all of us as puppets to manipulate Bayville's own mayor into tying the X-Men's hands and spreading confusion, while getting rid of us at the same time," Stryker muttered as Sinister scowled briefly at Apocalypse's response. "Then had the purple-skinned one teleport me back here so you could gloat. All this so they would be less prepared to deal with you… whenever you decide to show yourself. But… why go through Kelly? Why not just have us do your dirty work directly?"

"You should be thanking us," Esme responded, ignoring Stryker's query. "Your men are all dead now, and soon you yourself will be joining them. Trust me—although I do not the specifics, my sisters and I know the broad strokes of Apocalypse's plan. You would wish for death had you survived to that point."

"Which is nearly upon us," Sinister continued. "Thanks to your… help, the largest remaining free group of Mutants has now relocated to New York City—which will make Apocalypse's plans there easier to carry out. You have my eternal thanks for stumbling upon our base while looking for H.Y.D.R.A. leads with your little 'black ops' team, General Stryker—particularly since we 'used' you to call back to your superiors in Washington D.C., as well, assuring them that all was clear here and that you were moving on. By the time the Pentagon realizes something is indeed up, it'll be too late. Such an unfortunate circumstance, that."

Stryker spat in response, though his glob of phlegm fell short of hitting anyone's foot. "You bunch of homicidal maniacs will get your reckoning sooner or later, I'll see to that—"

"Enough," Apocalypse said, motioning with a hand to Esme, who glared at Stryker—and suddenly, Stryker found himself no longer able to speak.

"We will do better to you than you would have done to us were our roles reversed, Stryker—better than you deserve," Apocalypse said. "I will let Esme kill you quickly—force a complete neural shutdown. It will be relatively painless. This is our thanks to you."

Stryker struggled against his bonds as Apocalypse nodded to Esme, then turned as he and Sinister left the circle of illumination around Stryker's chair.

A few seconds later, Stryker heard the loud clang of an iron door closing shut. Esme turned to him, and suddenly everything went black for Colonel William Stryker—forever.

The End
 

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