X-23 lifted her head up out of the stream, her dark brown hair soaking wet as she pushed it back behind her shoulders, red mixing with the water as it trailed down her face and uniform and down into the rushing water.

Waiting until the blood was finished washing off of her and trickling further downstream, she leaned her face forward into the water again and took several long, quick gulps of water. There was no sign of civilization for miles around out here in the Manitoban wilderness, so she didn't have to worry about any possible impurities being in the water.

Trudging back onto land, X-23 quietly sat down and put her boots on before taking a small backpack of things she had taken from the X-Mansion—a couple of bottles of water in case of an emergency, a blanket—something most people would consider only the absolute barest of essentials.

She, on the other hand, actually considered them needlessly extravagant. Yet even as the X-Men forcibly kicked her out of their Mansion—metaphorically speaking, of course, as she had put up no resistance—they had insisted she take these belongings. Very odd behavior—and, in her mind, just another example of the X-Men putting emotion over logic.

To say X-23 knew that this was coming had been an understatement. For weeks now, she had been all but certain that this was how things would end up. The X-Men were still far too much of a "family" for her liking as opposed to a military organization—something that she had hoped would have changed after the Nimrod incident, but apparently it hadn't. If anything, it had pulled them all closer together—though cracks were starting to appear with Shadowcat and Berzerker leaving.

X-23 was certain they would find the error of their ways soon enough, though—and the hard way, at that. H.Y.D.R.A. was planning something, and something big. With S.H.I.E.L.D. in hiding because of the Sentinel breakout, H.Y.D.R.A. knew that this was their chance to get rid of the world's major superpower and establish their own tyrannical rule in its place. X-23 was very well-versed in H.Y.D.R.A.'s creed, having been raised there, and knew their ultimate goals—first the U.S. would fall, and then once that hurdle was cleared and S.H.I.E.L.D. had no real power, the rest of the world would slowly but surely fall into line behind them, too frightened of the organization to offer up any real resistance.

Tough times were imminent. And for the sake of the world, the X-Men had to be ready to do what was necessary, no matter what it took.

X-23 had hoped that at least some of them besides Amara would come to see the light, but that had sadly not been the case. And so after her expulsion from the Xavier Institute, she had decided to at least attempt what the X-Men had refused to do, and had gone after H.Y.D.R.A.

She had taken an overnight flight to Winnipeg, but after that had quickly fled into the wilderness, not willing to make her presence known to any segment of the public up here—H.Y.D.R.A.'s eyes and ears were all over Canada, and all it took was one agent to spot her and the jig could quite possibly be up before it even started.

And so here she was, not even a day after she had been driven from the X-Mansion. She had made surprisingly good time, given the endurance level that had been beaten into her since birth, and was now just a bit west of the massive Lake Winnipeg.

Still, she had a few more provinces to cross before she knew she would be getting close to H.Y.D.R.A.'s remaining headquarters. With Madame Hydra dead, their power structure was certainly a bit unstable at the moment, despite their plans—and thus now it would be far easier to finally fatally wound the organization once and for all, before another leader took her place.

It was now or never.

Taking one final bite of the rough meat, X-23 headed onwards to her journey, her hurried pace quickly breaking into a run that was extraordinarily fast, given that superhuman speed wasn't one of her Mutant powers.

The only evidence that she had ever been at the stream was a caribou carcass just above the waterline, its head snapped and its body gutted. Soon enough even that would be gone as the forest scavengers moved in to pick at the remains.

"You're sure?" Moonstar asked.

"Yes, Moonstah," Kitty replied, sighing, her tone a bit lower and less enunciated than normal due to her swollen lip. A large square bandage covered most of her cheek where the light bulb had smashed against it, and Xavier had urged her to talk as little as possible due to her bruised jaw. Putting a hand up to silence Kurt before he could speak, she continued, "And yes, Kurt, I'm sure I'm sure. I'm gonna get a job at somewhere in Chicahgo and enter a Jewish university nearby come fall."

"Y'know, Kitty…" Amara said, pausing for a moment as she struggled to find the right words, "I know Laura can be a pain—literally—but I've talked with her now and again in the last month. She's really a lot wiser than she at first appears."

"Mahbe to a certain train of thought—but I'm sorreh, it's not a train of thought I subscwibe to," Kitty mumbled.

It was hard to believe—for anyone present—that the time had finally come. It was afternoon again, approximately a day after the graduation ceremony, and Kitty and Ray were saying their final goodbyes as everyone had gathered on the Institute's steps. Kitty's parents had been kind enough to give Ray a ride to the nearest airport, where he would depart on his own path and take a plane down to Texas A&M University.

"So you PROMISE you'll e-mail?" Jubilee asked Ray, laying her head on Bobby's shoulder. "As if me an' Bobby needed ANOTHER of our friends to go away."

"Hey, c'mon Jubes, it's not like that," Ray said, putting his hands up in defense. "I'll still e-mail, I'll still come and visit now and then, you guys know that. But I've got control of my powers, I've got no problems there. And I was with the Morlocks because I wasn't comfortable being around normal people, what with my Mutant abilities and all—after I joined the X-Men, you all helped me to overcome that. I'm fine now, and I just—I wanna get a job, that's all. And though I'm getting some financial aid and stuff like that, I need to get working down there ASAP so I'll be able to afford the fall semester. C'mon, you guys have known about this for a long time now."

"I guess," Rahne sighed. "We just hate t' see you leave, is all. I hated it when I had to leave, after all—though 'a course, that was involuntarily on m' part."

"Hey, we've been through a lot together, Rahne," Ray said. "I'm not gonna forget you guys, I promise. And, uh… be sure to keep me updated on the Jamie sitch."

"Will do," Hank said, giving a quick salute to Ray.

"Well, honey, are you ready?" Mrs. Pryde asked, laying a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "We need to get going if we're to drop Ray off at the airport and then make it down past New York City before the day ends. You know how the traffic gets."

"Yeah… yeah, I guess so," Kitty said. Giving all of the X-Men one final embrace, Kitty and Ray both said goodbye repeatedly to everyone as they piled into the Pryde's minivan.

All of the remaining X-Men watched and waved, several of their eyes moist, as the minivan started up and the doors closed, Kitty and Ray still waving from inside.

They watched and waved as the minivan pulled away and down the driveway.

They watched and waved as the gates opened and the minivan pulled off, turning onto the main road.

Some even continued to wave as the gates closed, even though the vehicle by that point was out of sight.

"Well," Xavier said after a few moments of silence. "I suppose we should get inside. We all need to pitch in and finish repairing the kitchen, after all."

Slowly, regretfully, Beast opened the door for the Professor and they both entered, followed by a few of the students. A few more followed shortly later, and a few more a short while later, and then a few more.

Several minutes later though, Bobby, Jubilee, Danielle, Piotr, and Kurt still stood out there, silent, their eyes dripping the occasional tear and fixated on the gate that the Pryde's minivan had exited from.

They all continued to stand there, completely silent, Bobby and Jubilee wrapped in an embrace, Kurt with a hand on Danielle's shoulder, Piotr standing by himself behind them all.

"Y'know," Moonstar said, sniffling, finally breaking the silence, "You keep expecting them to come speeding back through that gate, both of them running out of the doors of the Pryde's vehicle and saying they made a mistake, they want to be back with us, they want to be X-Men again…"

A few moments passed before Piotr came over and patted Danielle's shoulder firmly, saying, "But that is not what is to happen, what is meant to be. Their chapter in our lives—and ours in theirs— is over."

With a couple of slow nods, the remaining four X-Men, slowly but surely, peeled their eyes away from the gate and made their way back inside.

Sinister sighed as he looked at yet another two Jamies restrained and held down on operating tables in front of him—yet another two, where only one had been just moments ago.

This was quickly growing old.

His hypothesis of never being able to clone a personality exactly, never being able to duplicate an individual down to the closest personality quirk, the closest decision, had, up until recently, appeared to be a sure thing.

After all, if he had learned nothing else from the X-23 debacle, it had been that.

Everything had been laid out in advance. All the appropriate genomes had been mapped. After many failures, X-23 would have been the culmination of his life's work—an individual that technically had free will, but simply chose not to exercise it. Due to their genetic predispositions, they would tend to follow rules and restrictions set by their predefined superiors, with a weak personal morality that would minimize, if not outright eliminate, any chance of rebellion.

Those individuals were rather common in real life, of course. They chose to follow a leader's every order. They chose to be slaves, at least figuratively. So H.Y.D.R.A. had tried to isolate the gene that had been behind this condition of certain people to become mindless sheep, and had applied it to X-23's genome—liberally.

But in the end, for some reason, it hadn't worked. X-23 had rebelled just like all the others. Only this time, she was smart enough, powerful enough, to resist their efforts to recapture her, to brainwash her—unlike with some of the project's previous attempts.

This was what he was attempting to fix with all these Jamies.

Making Multiple's powers permanent—that is, creating separate Jamies—would create multiple potentialities. Normally, to see multiple "versions" of a person, one would have to travel between different realities—at least, that was what he and many other top scientists at H.Y.D.R.A. had hypothesized. But Jamie's powers allowed an opportunity to break through that normally impassable barrier.

So, where Sinister and H.Y.D.R.A. had failed with X-23, here he had thought they were guaranteed success. After all, it took billions of dollars and years of training to even find out if an X-numbered clone would be right for the job—and even then they had made a mistake, obviously. Here they had essentially a limitless number of "tries". They had created a harmonic pulse emitter that, combined with a particular chemical they had injected into every Jamie's body, would temporarily force-split Jamie, with the chemical stopping him from reabsorbing the duplicate into himself. Not only that, but the duplicate ceased to be a duplicate, but in fact a full-fledged, other individual—it wasn't so much another Jamie splitting off of the existing Jamie as one Jamie splitting into two others. And has had been seen in the initial two Jamies, they had already seemed to diverge on a couple of personality aspects.

It had only been a matter of time, they had thought, before one Jamie they had created became what they considered the "perfect" Jamie—totally obedient, devoid of any real morality, willing to serve as long as it was assured that he would be taken care of.

So far, the results had been sadly lacking. Some Jamies had been overly rebellious, others whiny and submissive, others simply annoying or even somewhat feral.

"Alright, let's try this again," Sinister hissed, pinching his sinuses as he leaned over the first Jamie, who struggled helplessly against his much-stronger captors. "I'm sure you have the memories of the Jamie you split from, so I'm sure you know how this works. Answer the questions I want to ask."

"I-I'm Jamie M-madrox," Jamie whimpered, tears falling profusely out of his eyes. "I b-believe that Mutants should have the same status in the world as hu-humans… I work… I worked for the X-Men, but oh god please don't kill me PLEASE, I'll do whatever you want, just please PLEASE—"

Wonderful, Sinister frowned, standing back up. Another sniveling weakling.

To some extent, he preferred the Jamies who at least had some sort of spine. They were brainless morons, but at least they were brainless morons who didn't wiggle on every little thing if you so much as looked at them the wrong way. True, this Jamie had just essentially pledged his loyalty to H.Y.D.R.A. in exchange for deliverance from this torture—but it wasn't the right kind of loyalty. It was reluctant loyalty, loyalty that could not be trusted. As soon as that Jamie had a sure way out, he would take it, and that wasn't what he was looking for.

He was looking for a weapon whose power would dwarf any Mutant's—any NATION'S-- on the planet—but still be under H.Y.D.R.A.'s direct control. And a whimpering child wasn't it.

"Guards," Sinister said, motioning to the two H.Y.D.R.A. strongmen who were holding that particular Jamie down, "I've heard enough. Take him back to where the others are kept."

"N-no, no, please!" Jamie begged as the guards hefted up the frantic, panicking teenager and carried him out of the room. "Please, anything you want, anything—P-PLEEEEAASE!"

"Now," Sinister said, yawning, moving over to the other Jamie, "Let's try this again."

As he moved over to the other restrained Jamie, he noticed that unlike most of the others, this one met his eyes directly, and he didn't struggle against the agents holding him down.

Likely another defiant one, Sinister thought to himself. Still, at least his stubbornness should prove entertaining.

"Alright, you," Sinister said, bending over to look at the second Jamie directly, "Answer the questions."
"I am M-56, going by how you catalogue the separation procedures," Jamie replied. Unlike the others, though, this Jamie sounded neither panicked, sarcastic, devious, nor determined. His tone was flat-lined—he was simply stating the answers to the questions that were asked, and nothing more.

Sinister couldn't help but grin. This could be it… this could FINALLY be it…

"I used to serve the X-Men. However, it has been months now. They have not come for me, and the chances are looking increasingly small that they ever will. You, however, clearly want me for a purpose, and will do anything and everything to me to get it. I cannot… help… but respect that, in a weird sort of way. So, now I serve H.Y.D.R.A., and whatever its goals are."

Yes. YES, THIS WAS IT! Sinister laughed. They had finally broken Jamie, but unlike the others, they hadn't broken him into a whimpering puddle of goo, a pathetic individual willing to do anything for a moment of respite, or turned him into a desperate but conniving little brat who was obviously going to backstab him at the first moment possible. Although he would need to make sure via further… tests, this Jamie's loyalty appeared to be unquestioning, complete—and yet his loyalty was of his own choice, more or less.

It was EXACTLY what he was looking for, the culmination of what this project was intended to create.

"Guards, let this one up," Sinister said, smiling.

The two large masked H.Y.D.R.A. guards looked at each other—presumably in confusion—but relented. Jamie still laid on the table after he was let free.

"M-56, get up," Sinister ordered, and the Jamie clone readily obeyed. "You are correct in all respects except one—you are not M-56, at least not any longer. No, your new designation is double-M—my Master Multiple, as it were. Why Master, you ask? Because, my dear boy, YOU will be the reason for H.Y.D.R.A.'s rise to power—and the subsequent fall of the world order in mere weeks.

"Now come," Sinister said, turning his back towards MM and gesturing for them both to walk out a different door than the one the whimpering Jamie and the other two guards had exited through just moments earlier. "I need to run some… tests… first, but if you pass these, then together, my boy, we will truly make history."

"So now what?" Rahne said, blowing lightly on the glass surface of the coffee table and then rubbing her finger across the condensation in boredom.

"What do you mean, 'now what'?" Rogue asked, looking across the meeting room's table at Rahne. "We continue on, as we always have. I'll miss Kitty and Ray too, but it's not like they held the team together or anything like that."

"Rogue's right," Scott said. "I'm sure we'll all miss them both, but at least they left alive and well. We'll still see them now and then, anyways."

"Yeah, but you know how long-distance friendships get," Amara replied. "At first, it's great—you e-mail each other every little thing and send tons of pictures, but then, y'know… life happens, and then more life happens. The e-mails get fewer and fewer, the phone calls less and less common. And then, one day—whether that's measured in months or years—the communications will just stop coming."

"Yeah, I mean let's be honest, Kitty in particular was leaving because she WANTED to forget about her experiences here," Paige interjected. "Not that I blame her. I'm not really expecting to keep in touch with her for very long, either."

"As much as I'd hate to see that happen," Scott replied, "It's still Kitty's right. This isn't a prison we're running, after all."

"I suppose," Rahne sighed. "I just really… really thought that she cared about us."

"Hey, now," Jean interjected. "Of course Kitty cares about us. It's not like she hasn't saved some of our lives on more than one occasion. She's just stressed out about the situation the Institute has been in lately and wanted out—and honestly, who hasn't been stressing to some degree?"

"Ah, Xavier told me he sensed you all in here," Ororo said, interrupting the conversation as she and Xavier entered the meeting room. "We've been looking for you."

"Well, I think Kurt and Danielle are upstairs in their rooms, but otherwise yeah, we're all here," Jean said. "What's up?"

"Well, as you all know, summer vacation is now upon us—" Storm was interrupted by a loud "YEAH!" from Bobby near the back of the room before she sighed and continued—"which means that normally in about a week we'd let all of the students who have parents go home to be with their families over the vacation."

Bobby was about to respond with another "YEAH!", but Jubilee suddenly caught his arm before he pumped it in the air and asked Ororo, "What do you mean, 'normally'?"

"Well, er… that's what we wanted to talk to you all about," Xavier said, clearly looking uncomfortable now. "With the situation the way it is now—"

"Oh, you've gotta be KIDDING me!" Jubilee protested, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. "Don't get me wrong, I like being here, but now I can't even go home to see my family?"

"Please, Jubilee, let me finish," Xavier said. "Yes, all of you that can will be able to go home to see your families this summer. We won't deny you that. However, with tensions as high as they are—Jamie and Tabitha missing, Magneto having been quiet for far too long, sentiment against Mutants on the rise again as Mayor Kelly's Registration Act comes to a vote soon—we don't think things will be particularly quiet this summer. That's why instead we're thinking of staggering your vacations, so that at least three-fourths of you are here at any time during the summer."

"What!" Rahne exclaimed.

"Oh, c'mon!" Bobby protested.

Jubilee cursed under her breath.

"Just wonderful," Paige said, throwing her hands into the air.

"Sounds fair to me, I don't really like my folks anyways," Amara mumbled.

"I don't kn-know if I like that…" Cessily said softly.

Roberto merely grimaced.

"I'd agree with them if I had a family to go back to," Rogue said.

"C'mon guys, I know how you feel—" began Scott.

"Says the guy with no parents…" Jubilee whispered under her breath. Bobby snickered.

"Hey, I heard that!" Scott said, turning to Jubilee angrily. "You wanna trade places, Lee?"

"Scott, please," Jean said, putting a hand on her boyfriend's shoulder, "We don't need to make this situation worse than it already is."

"Look, here is the plan as it stands now," Ororo said. "We'll start in alphabetical order by last name, which means that Amara, you'll take your two-week break first, starting in two days—"

"Two weeks?" Jubilee exclaimed. "That's it?"

"C'mon, no one ever said being an X-Man would be easy…" Jean said.

"Well, y'know what then?" Jubilee said. "Maybe I don't want to BE an X-Man, if this is what it means!"

"Look, let's be rational here," Amara said, standing up, "And not make any decisions we'll regret. This isn't just a normal sit--"

"Funny, my decision to come back here is a decision I'm starting to regret right now," Jubilee interrupted, crossing her arms.

"I th-think I agree with Jubilee, h-here," Cessily said, standing up meekly. "At least in p-principle. I came here with the un-understanding that I'd still be able to s-see my p-parents for a couple months out of the year. I mean, I l-love my parents-- I get along with them pretty well."

"So do I!" Rahne said. "I'd like to see them fer more than just two weeks!"

"And don't forget that that's two weeks, total," Paige said. "Given the travel times to and from where we live, it'll actually be less than two weeks—for some of us, substantially so."

"So let me get this straight," Scott said. "We've been through attacks from the Brotherhood, Magneto's Acolytes, Apocalypse, Nimrod, Mutant-haters, H.Y.D.R.A.… we've had two of our own killed… and you're threatening to leave over shorter summer breaks?"

"I agree with Scott—" Jean began.

"Of course you do, you ALWAYS agree with Scott!" Paige interrupted.

"Look, I agree with Scott, too," Amara said. "The situation here is… kinda unstable, really. I think we need to remember that this isn't all about us—"

"Amara, what's happened to you?" Jubilee said. "You used to be such a cool person, but ever since that little scuffle with Tabitha, you're almost reminding me of X-23 in some ways. It's creepy, and it's one other reason why I'm starting to hate this place."

As Amara fumbled for an answer to that unexpected accusation, Rahne continued, "Look, I don't know if we should be getting all rude 'n such over this, but I see where Jubilee's comin' from. Look, it's not just th' fact that our breaks away from th' Mansion are bein' shortened, it's th' reasoning behind it. You say that it's because things are unstable—well, look at our history, for goodness' sake! Other than a short period after I got here, when have things not been unstable? They're always unstable, which means that we'll always end up with shorter and shorter breaks. I just see it bein' a slippery slope."

"Rahne, you know us better than that," Jean replied. "C'mon, we wouldn't do that to—"

"You've already done it," Jubilee said. "Line already crossed, Miss Grey!"

Amara watched sadly as the argument continued to go back-and-forth, escalating with almost every remark. The instructors and her were on one side; Bobby, Jubilee, Rahne, Cessily, and Paige on the other. Rogue probably would have sided with Jubilee, if she had anywhere to go. As it was, she kept silent. As did Roberto, who hadn't given out a clue as to which side he was on, though a sinking feeling was apparent in his expression as well. Ororo and Professor Xavier stood off to the sidelines, looking at each other with concerned faces but unwilling to actually stop the argument. After all, the unhappiness here at the Institute had been bubbling underneath for quite some time, and with everything that had happened recently it seemed to have finally boiled over. Apparently they felt that as long as things didn't get physical, it was best to let them argue it out.

It was then that a thought popped up in Amara's head.

Laura was right.

For all of the clone's overly violent tendencies, for all her social dysfunctions—she was right. With all the pressures and obstacles that the X-Men faced—and would no doubt continue to face-- being a school simply wasn't enough anymore. A school was too lax, with the focus being on helping Mutants learn and adapt to their powers—to blend into normal society. They could come or go as they pleased, and say almost anything they wanted to anyone. No, the world situation was forcing the Institute to either move beyond that or perish in the process. Although Mercury and Husk, the two newest members, still had the occasional problem, for the most part everyone here had already learned how to use their powers. They weren't going to blend into normal society anytime soon, they were far too well-known—particularly around here—and too many of them had overt physical differences that made them stand out in a crowd.

The focus of the school had to change, and it had to change soon, or it would all fall apart, as it was right in front of her. Not quite into an out-and-out army, but a more military-like organization was needed, with the focus on attacking, incapacitating, and in some cases even killing the enemy. They needed to forget about learning how to control their powers and instead focus on how to use them to injure or destroy their enemies while protecting innocents. They needed to lessen the focus on school and give their activities here primary importance. It wasn't pleasant, but it was becoming increasingly obvious to her that life at the Institute wasn't supposed to be pleasant.

But it was still necessary, to protect not just Mutantkind, but humanity as well.

Perhaps if they had focused more on rescuing Jamie and killing—rather than just incapacitating or chasing away—invaders, Multiple might still be here.

As the argument continued, Amara quietly got up and made her way over to Professor Xavier.

"…Professor Xavier, I really think we need to talk about something…"

Xavier looked up at Amara, concerned. "Normally I'd oblige you, Amara, but this isn't really the time."

"Please," Amara said, her tone wavering. "This is really important."

Xavier looked up at Storm, who shrugged. Xavier sighed and turned around in his wheelchair. "Alright, Amara. Follow me."

X-23 deftly leapt from tree branch to tree branch, the greenery of the pine forest rushing by her.

She could smell them. All around her, in fact.

Or rather, she could smell him.

Jamie Madrox.

She wasn't sure how Jamie had found her, or why exactly he was trying to hunt her down, but one thing was for certain—she wasn't going to let him get a hold of her.

At least, that was what she had thought when the chase had began.

But as the pursuit through the wilderness of Canada had continued, his smell had grown stronger and stronger, even though a direct line-of-sight view of Jamie had been rare. She had been avoiding him by her advanced smell and hearing alone.

That could mean only one thing—Jamie had been using his powers to multiply.

But it wasn't his traditional multiplying—what had been confusing her was that multiple Jamies had been closing in on her location from multiple locations, according to her senses. And they were ALL multiplying. Very rapidly. That didn't fit with what she knew of Multiple's powers—over this long of a distance, he shouldn't have been able to keep control of his temporary duplicates. And soon X-23 would have a veritable army on her tale.

Wait a minute…. An army.

She had to get a hold of the X-Men as soon as possible. The situation was d-

X-23 heard a blast from a machine gun come from right behind her, which she dodged at an awkward angle. Odd, the Jamies shouldn't have been at this position so soo—

She lost her footing, kicking herself inwardly for being caught so unaware as she tumbled to the ground, though she managed to recover in mid-air and land on her feet.

In front of her, several yards away, was a Jamie duplicate, emotionless, his machine gun smoking.

"Got you," was all he said, readying his gun again.

"Not yet," X-23 growled, leaping towards Jamie—but in the time she had leapt toward Jamie, he had quickly multiplied. Twice, three times, four times, five times, again and again and again. Soon she was surrounded by Jamies, all of them wielding machine guns. She sliced through the original Jamie in front of her, expecting it to disappear in thin air like with any of Jamie's duplicates—but instead she cut through him like she would any normal being, blood and viscera splattering onto her surprised face. Around her, she saw seven Jamie duplicates disappear into thin air like she had expected… but the rest were still here. So if she hadn't killed one of the two Jamies, then….

X-23 cursed inwardly. If H.Y.D.R.A. had found a way to create more permanent Jamie duplicates, than that meant the situation was a thousand times more dire than she had thought even moments ago. That meant H.Y.D.R.A. could achieve world domination in a matter of weeks… days, even.

And she was helpless to stop it.

The Jamie she had sunk her claws into died instantaneously, sinking to the ground, but the other Jamies that hadn't disappeared multiplied further, more than replacing the one X-23 had downed and the seven that had disappeared as a result.

With at least a hundred guns trained on her, X-23 reluctantly held her hands up, sheathing her claws as she detected another smell—not Jamie's—nearby.

As if on cue, a H.Y.D.R.A. helicopter landed just outside the large ring of Jamies surrounding her, and moments later a tall white-skinned man with red eyes and a smirk on his face walked out in front of the army of Jamies, clapping slowly.

"Oh, bravo," the man said. "You managed to down eight of them. Oh my, if nothing else this shows how obsolete you really are now, X."

"Who are you!" X-23 demanded angrily. "You wear the symbols of a leader of H.Y.D.R.A., yet I've never seen your record in the decrypted files. What about Madame Hydra?"

"Oh, please," the man said. "I didn't get where I am by simply spilling the beans to any potential interrogator. Besides, you're hardly in a position to be demanding answers."

X-23 merely glared daggers at the man in response as he slowly walked closer to her until they were mere feet apart.

"But I suppose I'm in a good enough mood today to tell you two things. Firstly, Madame Hydra is a figurehead, and in reality a fictional character. I have about six 'Madame Hydras' working for me in various parts of the world."

X-23's face fell momentarily, then she quickly put up her emotional wall again, regaining her furious expression.

"Ah, see? And that was why I told you, to see the look on your traitorous face. Yes, even your big crusade against us made us lose very little. H.Y.D.R.A. is quite expansive, X. And, like our 'mascot' of sorts, if you cut one head off, two more will grow in its place.

"But secondly, yes, I have perfected your friend Jamie, here. Or, should I say, your former friend—"

X-23 interrupted the albino's monologue with a cry of fury, in the blink of an eye rushing forward, unsheathing her claws, and stabbing two of them right into the man's heart.

The man merely stood there for a moment, shocked… and then laughed in response.

X-23 looked at him in a mixture of confusion and horror as the albino took her roughly by the hand, and yanked the claws out of his chest, the flesh regenerating instantly.

"You're not the only one with regeneration powers, X," the albino chuckled. "But because of your little outburst there, you don't even get to have me finish telling you your second little tidbit of information.

"Double-M," the albino continued, his expression now deadly serious, "Make her feel pain that she's only dreamed about."

Powerless to escape the Mutant's grasp, which was so strong it was surely one of his Mutant powers, X-23 heard the sound of the army of Jamies reloading their weapons—and then the sound of a hundred machine guns all unloading their rounds into her.

Again, and again, and again. Even her healing powers couldn't keep up with this rain of bullets.

She coughed up blood helplessly as she fell to the ground, feeling her body being shredded to pieces as the mysterious albino man merely watched and laughed.

Professor Xavier just sat there, digesting what Amara had told her.

"….Well?"

"Amara, I appreciate your insight, and in some ways I perhaps agree with you. Perhaps it is time to lessen the focus on controlling your powers, since almost all of you have no problems in that area anymore. But… leaving school? Becoming a quasi-military organization? Teaching students to outright kill our enemies? It seems somehow… wrong… to me."

"And this doesn't?" Amara said, her eyes clouding up with tears as she motioned towards the room next to her, where the argument was still going on. "We're falling apart, Professor. You know it, and I know it. Something needs to change, and fast."

"I… agree with you, at least as far as that goes," Xavier replied. "But… I've never been one to force change. It's… simply not who I am. Especially when I'm not sure if that change is good in the first place. I don't even know if cutting back my students' summer vacations is the right decision."

Looking back up, Amara could see that tears were starting to fall down Xavier's cheeks, as well. "Amara, I… I never intended for this place to become some sort of military Mutant training center. I just… wanted Mutants who felt alone, afraid, and helpless a place to stay and regain control of their lives."

"And you've done that," Amara said, leaning over and hugging her mentor. "But unfortunately, I think you have to take this next step."

Xavier looked down for a moment, then looked back up at Amara, who had stood back up again.

"I'll be honest, Amara. I know you always look to me as the decision-maker, the last word, but… I just don't know what do here. Either way, in one way or another… I see us losing."

"Dale, quick! Get the photo to your house, it'll be safe there!"

"Gi--- SQUIRREL TACTIC!"

Deadpool laughed as he leaned back in his wooden chair, tears starting to stream from the eyeholes in his black-and-red mask as he watched the animated character on the television screen in front of him scramble over a tree and then a fence to keep a photograph away from some thugs.

"Oh, man… ah, Dale Gribble, you crack me up…. And yet your conspiracy theories intrigue me at the same time. Maybe Mike Judge was onto something when he created you…."

"We'll be right back after these messages…."

"WHAT!" Deadpool roared, suddenly taking out his gun in anger and shooting a hole through the TV, which fizzled and then smoked.

Whoa. Where'd THAT come from?

"I HATE commercials," Deadpool responded to his inner voice, taking the television set and chucking it into a corner of the room that held another ten televisions in near-identical condition. "Well, except for any that happen to advertise my various wonderful monthly ongoing series, that is."

Right. TV commercials advertising comics, least of all OUR comics. And they say I'm crazy.

"Who's they? YOU NEVER SPECIFY WHO THEY—"

Deadpool suddenly stopped midsentence, a distant rumbling catching his attention.

"What the--?"

Deadpool forgot all about his ruined television set as he ran to the nearest window facing the direction the rumble was coming from.

What he saw shocked him so much he was literally speechless for a few moments.

Outside the window of his run-down, mostly wooden shack out in the northwestern United States wilderness, an army was slowly marching down into the valley in his line of site, coming in off of the horizon.

And as Deadpool watched, the army got bigger and bigger and bigger. In just the ten seconds he stood there gawking, he estimated that it became at least five-to-ten percent larger than it had been earlier. And the troops already filled the horizon.

And, from what he could see from this distance, the soldiers were all identical.

"OMG!" Deadpool screamed, fully in panic mode.

…Did you really actually just say 'oh-em-gee'?

"Shut up!" Deadpool hissed to himself, quickly rummaging around his shack and grabbing every sort of weapon he could find—knives, guns, swords, grenades—and stuffing them all into the various sheaths and pockets he had on his uniform. "Massive, ever-growing army… coming down from the direction of Canada, the southern border of which is only five miles north of here… isn't it obvious! The Canadians have finally lost it and are invading America!"

…But they aren't wearing mountie hats. Don't all Canadians wear mountie hats? And aren't we Canadian?

"If I was, I'D BE WEARING A MOUNTIE HAT!" Deadpool explained. "….Though I am actually Canadian. Which calls into question our logic, admittedly."

If it's the Canadians, then why do they all look the same? And why are they multip—ah, forget it. I give up.

"Smart man," Deadpool replied, frantically putting the last of his myriad weapons into a backpack and slinging it on his back.

Slamming open the door, Deadpool ran past the large sign on top of his shack that read "DEADPOOL—MERCENARY (WITH A MOUTH) FOR HIRE" and towards his two means of transportation, which were both beside the dirt road between his shack and another shack a bit further away, and in the opposite direction of the advancing (and ever-growing) army.

Deadpool's gaze drifted back and forth between them anxiously, trying to choose which one to use.

"Lessee, spotless mint-condition Ford Mustang with flames or my old white horse… spotless mint-condition Ford Mustang with flames or my old white horse… C'mon, Deadpool, CHOOSE!"

Domino had never seen anything so bizarre in her entire life—and she had had a pretty unique life.

She had been suspicious of the growing rumble, but what really got her running out of the front door of her own shack was the faint hollering of Deadpool, calling her name frantically.

And now, out in front of her own home, she could scarcely believe what she was seeing.

A massive army that stretched across the entire horizon was slowly but surely marching towards her and Deadpool's homes, and even more oddly, it seemed to grow before her very eyes.

But that was nothing compared to what was running towards her.

It was Deadpool alright, but he was riding a rather decrepit white horse—one she had never seen before, in fact.

Where did he get a horse?

"DOMINO!" Deadpool yelled, relieved to see his mercenary partner now out of her home. As he continued to ride his horse agonizingly slowly towards her, he yelled out in panic, "DOM! THE CANADIANS ARE COMING! THE CANADIANS ARE COMING!"
 

X-MEN: EVOLUTION SEASON 6

FIN
 

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