"Uh… ugh…. Good thing I'm the Blob…"

"You seriously say your codename way too much when you're not in uniform," Pietro said as Blob stood up, the bricks and debris on his back sliding off.

"Yeah, and you… you mouth off too much to someone who probably just saved your life," Fred retorted after a brief pause, as Lance, Pietro, and Todd all crawled out from the debris "safe zone" Fred had created under him.

"I could've run away in time," Pietro said, waving it off.

"But you didn't," Lance said.

"Shut up, shut up!" Todd yelped, panicking as he looked around him. "Where's Wanda?!"

"I'm fine, Toad," they heard a muffled voice say from a little in front of them, right before a large pink figure emerged from the debris, Hisako having protected Wanda and Noriko the same way Fred had saved the other male Brotherhood members.

"Oh, thank god, sweetums, I thought you were—oof!" Todd grunted, trying to hug Wanda and promptly getting shoved back to the ground for his trouble.

[Are you okay?] Hisako asked, the pink psychic projection around her giving her voice an odd warbling sound.

[I'm… don't talk to me,] Noriko grumbled, walking back over to the other Brotherhood members.

"So… what happened?" Fred asked, a few other people crawling out of the debris, while a few muffled cries for help came from closer to the building, under the steeper piles of collapsed building material that remained all around the crumbling husk of the structural frame.

"What do you think happened?" Pietro asked. "There was some kinda bomb in the building. We didn't do it, and we KNOW the X-Men didn't do it, which leaves the Acolytes."

"Wait, couldn't 've some crafty human done it?" Todd asked.

"I don't think so," Wanda replied. "This place has been under really tight security for the past week or so, I've seen so on the news… a Mutant's the only one who could've gotten past all that undetected."

"Will you all shut up already and help me and Hisako out?" Lance yelled, having walked about a dozen yards further towards the building where one of the increasing number of muffled cries could be heard. Both of them were helping to clear away some of the rubble on the top, but even with Hisako's bolstered strength it was obviously tough for both of them to get one of the larger pieces of debris up.

"Lance, let's get out of here!" Noriko hissed, quickly walking over to her fellow Brotherhood member, the others following behind her. "You hear the sirens! The police will be here any minute. And you know they're going to blame us."

"Who cares?" Lance shot back. "There's peop—Mutants under here. We've gotta help 'em out."

Noriko looked at Fred, who shrugged and helped out Lance and Hisako. Within a few seconds, all three of them managed to lift up the massive piece of debris and place it aside.

"He's gotta point," Pietro said. "We're all already being carted off to jail after this whole thing is over with anyways… what are we gonna do? At least seeing us help people might lessen our sentence… whereas if we run away, even the X-Men might think we were in cahoots with Magneto in doing this."

Noriko saw the rest of the Brotherhood begin to help clear the debris, sighed, and reluctantly joined in.

It had taken a few moments for Cyclops to get over the shock of what Jamie had just told him, but then he finally managed to speak back into the comlink.

"Okay, look, everyone. We'll get back at them for this later— but first things first. Wherever any of you are—help the others out. Once we've uncovered everyone and helped out the injured, we can figure out what to do then, and hopefully all get back to the Mansion safely. Keep on the lookout for anything or anyone suspicious, though. Let me know if you need anything personally, otherwise contact Professor X. Cyclops out."

There was continuing chatter over the comlink as other X-Men began to talk to each other, relate where they were, what was happening—but one thing at a time, he told himself. Turning the comlink dial so he only received calls directed at him, he let out a final cough as the dust finally settled enough for him to make out the rest of the square around the townhall—and found the Brotherhood up and about, most of them surrounding Hisako.

Cyclops cursed, putting his hand to the dial on his visor reflexively—but stopped when he realized the Brotherhood members weren't attacking Hisako. Rather, they were all helping her and Lance clear away the debris on top of people.

Huh. Will wonders never cease?

Cyclops heard a loud, pained cry for help suddenly erupt about a dozen feet to his right— well "inside" the building, where the ceiling of the first floor had collapsed downwards.

Carefully, he reached out to the still-standing fragments of the wall, hoisted himself over them, and yelled down as loud as he could, "This is Cyclops! One of the X-Men! I can hear you—how far down do you think you are? Is anyone else down there with you? I can clear a quick pathway down, but I need to make sure I don't hit anybody else or cause more debris to cave in!"

A muffled grunt came from deep within the mound of debris, followed by a voice.

"Cyc—Scott? Listen, yeah, I'm in REAL bad pain here—can't feel my… can't feel my legs. Can't see anything…. else, but I'd imagine the whole floor's on top of me. I'm right next to another lady—the person who was handing me the Registration… application. She's… unconscious."

Cyclops' concern grew more and more as it became clear who that muffled voice belonged to.

"Forge?!"

"Yeah… first one in to register… lucky me… I think you may be… .about seven feet above me? I'm guessing…"

"Alright, just keep cool," Cyclops said, stepping back and fingering the side of his visor. "I'm gonna let out short blasts at the rocks above you—let me know immediately if you start to feel the weight of the debris increase, or if you see my blasts. Just… just stay awake."

"I… okay. Got it."

Almost as soon as Cyclops started to blast away at the chunks of debris near where he was standing, a thought so 'loud' he thought it was a shout filled his mind.

Scott! SCOTT! Are you okay?!

Startled, Cyclops nearly blasted the tips of his feet off, but quickly managed to get back to work as he "thought" back.

Professor! Yeah, I'm here. A few scratches, but I'm okay. But there's a lot of people here that need help. And I heard from the others on the comlink-

I know, Scott. I… saw the news reports beginning to come in. The news agencies are in complete chaos right now, they're—they're getting so many reports of…. simultaneous…. terrorist attacks at the various Registration stations.

Has anywhere else been targeted?

Not that I can tell, though the ones in Alaska and Hawaii had yet to open, so those have been… preemptively closed for the… day. I'm on Cerebro, communicating with the rest of X-Men, so I- apologize if I'm a bit… distracted.

What about the others? Is anyone hurt or… or worse?

…I'm not getting anything from the Jamie duplicates that were stationed… in Georgia, Kentucky, Arizona, or Minnesota. I imagine they…. they were knocked out long enough that they dissipated. Surprisingly, although most are hurt the… the rest of the X-Men are… are still alive and conscious. Still… I'm still getting the details from some of them….

That's… wow, we REALLY got lucky there.

It's… not mere luck, Scott.

…What? What do you mean?

All the reports… what I'm seeing on the news... all of the attacks were pulled off in an identical manner.

Cyclops paused a bit, both to allow the Professor to communicate mentally with some of the others for a bit and to carefully remove a particularly stubborn piece of debris that was wedged in between him and his target pretty tightly.

"Scott, I can see…. light…."

Cyclops peered down through a crack in the bottom the debris. "I… I still can't make you out, Forge, but thanks for the assist. I'll be extra-careful with the eye-beams."

Continuing the careful process, Cyclops decided to re-connect with the Professor.

Professor… I'm pretty sure all of these attacks were done by the same people. I mean, they all went off at once…

…No, no, it's… more than that. The attacks… aimed at doing the most damage right in and around the buildings, not spreading out damage. In fact, it seems… it seems that structurally, pains were taken… to keep the damage as contained as possible while… while still bringing the buildings down.

But why would they want to do that?

I'm… wait, hold on, Scott… give me a second…

Will do, Scott thought, refocusing on Forge, who he now saw clearly through the debris near his feet.

Firing a few brief blasts at peripheral bricks and wood, Scott went down on his hands and knees and leaned into the hole, staring down at Forge who was just a few feet below him.

"How are you doing?

"Ugh… how do I look?" Forge said weakly before erupting into a fit of coughing.

To Cyclops' alarm, he saw some blood coming out of Forge's mouth as he wheezed. And although one of Forge's arms looked well enough with only some scratches, one each of his arms and legs was pinned under large piles of the debris—they were both surely broken. The other leg was….was…

Cyclops had to choke back the vomit.

Don't tell him… he's got enough on his mind right now just dealing with the pain…

Outside, Cyclops heard the sirens finally coming to a stop as he heard doors opening and a lot of people talking to each other.

"Help's on the way, Forge," Cyclops said, forcing himself to smile. "Let me go and get their attention."

"No, that's okay… I think I'll take the bed to… to myself…" Forge said, his eyes wavering.

Now he's not even making sense anymore… don't have much time…

Cyclops climbed back out of the hole through the debris and into broad daylight as quickly as he dared. To his relief, he saw some emergency medical personnel looking around the collapsed building near his position.

"Hey, over here!" Cyclops yelled, waving his hands in the air. "We've got a critically injured here!"

Immediately the medics noticed him and quickly began to make their way around the wreckage.

"In the hole?" one of them yelled back.

"Yes, right down here- I've managed to uncover him, but he's… he's pinned down there," Cyclops said, slowly lowering his voice as the team of three got close to him. "I'm not… not skilled enough to know how you can extricate him from… from that."

One of the medics looked down in the hole and grimaced before looking back at Cyclops. "We'll do our best, son."

"Hurry, he's already getting delusional," Cyclops said as the emergency personnel began to slowly descend into the hole, taking their equipment with him. "There's also supposed to be another woman buried fairly close to him…"

"We'll keep an eye out," the same medic said back over his shoulder. "Get to helping out the others."

No sooner had Scott nodded than he heard some shouting coming from where the Brotherhood had been.

Fearing the worst, he ran and almost leapt over the stacks of debris onto the parking lot below—itself covered in bricks and bits of building materials, but not so deep that you couldn't walk through it fairly easily.

It hadn't erupted into violence—not yet. But the police that had arrived at the devastation seemed to have almost immediately pointed their guns at the Brotherhood members and some of the other Mutants they had helped out of the debris. They were currently yelling at the Brotherhood to back away from the others- which they weren't doing, though their hands were raised warily.

"We're just trying to help, you idiots!" Lance yelled back.

"We know who you all are—and for all we know, you're behind this attack!" the police chief yelled back, his finger hovering next to his pistol's trigger.

"That's completely ridiculous," Wanda raged back, pink hex energy radiating from around her. "Why would we be helping them if we had—"

"TOLD you this was going to happen!" Noriko yelled at Lance, sparks starting to fly around her gauntlets.

"Hey, y'all, is this really the time to—" Todd began, beginning to take a step forward, his hands raised in the air—though all that did was train all the officers' guns on him.

"Hey—hey, STOP!" Cyclops said, running to put himself in between the policemen and the Brotherhood members, in the process causing the policemen to retrain their weapons on him. "They're not kidding, they ARE helping!"

"Yeah, just like you 'helped' out here, X-Man," one of the police officers shot back. "By blowing up the place."

"Will you just think for minute?!" Hisako yelled, taking a step forward, still in her psychic pink "armor". "Yes, the Brotherhood is… bad people… right now they are of great help! They have not run… please do not turn this into… into more hurting!"

"Look, I know you guys had to respond here as soon as you got the call," Cyclops said, his hands still up, "But turn on the news. This is happening everywhere. And we aren't—can't—be behind it. Plus, the rest of the X-Men are scattered all over the U.S., so right now we need every person who's able to pitch in. Just let us help out and we'll get through this. Please."

After a few tense moments, the police chief slowly lowered his gun, motioning for the other officers to do the same. "Adams, call in. See what's going on."

Turning back to Cyclops as he holstered his weapon, the police chief continued, "Alright, you Mutants can continue. But if any of us see anything suspicious coming from you all—"

"You won't," Cyclops said, craning his head back towards the Brotherhood and giving them a glance that somehow managed to look both stern and pleading at the same time.

"Alright, then," the police chief said. "Let's get to work. Tell us where you've heard buried people."

Scott had expected an exhausting day when he had gotten up that morning, but this… this definitely had to have been one of the longest days of his life.

The tension between the Brotherhood members and the police officers slowly ebbed over the next hour, and for the rest of the day everyone had worked side-by-side, helping to uncover all of the victims. Some were dead—most of them humans, but one of the Morlocks had died as well. And Forge was in critical condition—Scott had seen the emergency personnel wheel him into an ambulance a while earlier, one of his arms and both of his leg amputated, the ends of those appendages having been crushed unrecognizably under the weight of the debris. He had lost a lot of blood, being pinned under that debris for so long. Scott wasn't sure if Forge would make it or not, but he'd certainly be a permanently changed man if he did survive.

The Professor had gotten in touch with him via Cerebro for brief periods throughout the day, updating him on what he and the other X-Men were uncovering, as well as relaying any of Scott's information to the others.

What they had first learned was that Magneto and his Acolytes were behind the attacks—no surprise there. About half an hour after the simultaneous attacks all across the nation, the broadcast channels had been commandeered—somehow—and played a looping speech of Magneto's—Xavier said they would get to see it themselves soon enough, but the gist of it was that he took responsibility for the attack and announced to the world the existence of Genosha—ensuring that any attempt to retaliate would result in the aggressor being annihilated. After about thirty minutes of the looping speech, the television channels were all returned to normal. Xavier said what he had been able to squeeze out of the government officials at the Mansion was that it was suspected mass-satellite hacking, though that was as much as they'd tell him. How Magneto had that capability—much less how he had been able to detonate so many buildings simultaneously—was anyone's guess at this point. Cyclops doubted that the fledgling Mutant nation of Genosha really had the capacity to withstand the full force of the U.S. armed forces and the X-Men, but he had been surprised by how well the Acolytes had pulled this off—given that the Mutant undercover team had never regained contact with them, perhaps Genosha actually was as untouchable as Magneto apparently made it out to be.

In which case, World War III could break out if they weren't careful.

What made Scott actually seriously consider that option was not only had the Acolytes pulled off this many simultaneous terrorist attacks with no one else apparently being the wiser, but as the investigations went on and the reports and video continued to come in, the Professor had told him that the very nature of the explosions seemed to have been very meticulously controlled and planned. The Acolytes had somehow known where the human guards and employees would be at each Registration Center, and where the Mutant lines would be. At each location, without exception, the explosion went off so as to cause the maximum amount of damage to the areas where the humans would be, and the minimum amount of damage to where the Mutant lines would be—some spattering of hot debris, but little else. Nothing most Mutants couldn't live through, to be sure.

It was all very, very unnerving, and looking at the exhausted members of the Brotherhood—along with Hisako—who sat next to him at the street curb in front of the decimated Bayville townhall building—he could tell they felt the same way.

Scott's introspective musings were cut short as he saw a similarly exhausted Spyke walk up to them, covered in dust. Spyke had been lightly buried like most of the other Mutants, but his bone armor had kept him well-protected. He had been able to free himself without much assistance soon after the cleanup effort had begun.

"Evan?" Cyclops said, standing up. "What's up?"

"I, uh… I think we're just about done here," Spyke replied, his expression a mixture of depression and anger. "Dorian and his mom are fine now, they're both going home… The rest of the Morlocks have gone back into the sewer tunnels—I think I'm going to join them."

"Are you sure?" Cyclops said, putting a hand—carefully—on Spyke's sharp shoulder plates. "The Professor's going to be here in just a little bit, and the rest of the X-Men are flying back to Bayville as we speak. I'm not sure what we're going to do, but I'm sure we could use your help."

"Scott," Spyke said, shrugging off Cyclops' hand. "I'm not an X-Man anymore. I mean, I've helped you all in the past now and then, definitely… but there's going to be a lot of anger directed towards us by the locals. I have to protect the other Morlocks. And… and I have to bury another friend of mine. I mean… she was just a little girl…"

"I… I get it," Cyclops said sadly. "Just… let me know if you change your mind. Or if you need anything at all."

"Yeah… yeah, I will," Spyke said, slowly walking a couple dozen feet over to where Torpid's body bag lay and gingerly picking it up before flipping open a nearby sewer cover and descending down below the street.

After a few minutes of awkward silence between the various Mutants sitting on the curb side, the X-Van finally pulled up, the doors automatically opening. Beast was in the drivers' seat, Xavier in the passengers'.

"Wait, THIS is what we were waiting here for?" Noriko asked, standing up, her arms crossed over her chest. "I thought we were just getting some answers, not going to the X-Mansion."

"Yeah, just because we helped out some Mutants today doesn't mean we're suddenly siding with you," Wanda chimed in.

"We're making no such assumptions," Xavier said as Scott and Hisako got into the vehicle. "But regardless, we think you- all of you—need to see some of the information Hank and I have gathered today, and get some rest. Considering that the rest of the X-Men are currently away, we certainly have some rooms to spare."

The members of the Brotherhood exchanged glances before Lance finally sighed and got in.

"Fine," he spat. "But only because we need some shut-eye and our base is too far away from here to walk. If you guys try to keep us from leaving as soon as we want to… just remember, right now, WE outnumber YOU."

"Understood," Xavier said as the rest of the Brotherhood reluctantly piled into the van.

"In here, please," Xavier said, turning on the lights to the briefing room in the Mansion's basement levels and gesturing for the others to take their seats around the table situated in the center.

"Man, how come all the seats down here are all hard metal 'n stuff?" Todd frowned as he saw the room's setup. "Upstairs you guys got nice comfy chairs 'n all that."

"Can't we just go to bed?" Noriko said, her arms still crossed over her chest and she reluctantly made her way to a chair and plopped down.

"I believe this is more… important," Hisako said softly, taking her own seat.

"Hisako is right," Xavier said as the rest of the Brotherhood members—as well as Scott—took their seats. "Although our building is mostly empty now save us and a few FBI agents keeping a watch over the premises, within a few hours the first couple of X-Men will be back from their stations in other states- with the rest arriving throughout the day tomorrow."

"So, what, you're tryin' to scare us?" Lance replied, a brief, low rumble going through the ground to accentuate his point. "Please. They aren't here NOW."

"No," Xavier said, putting up his hands to try to calm the Brotherhood down, "But we just want you all to be informed. To… know if you're willing to join us or not."

"We already said, we're not joining the X-Men," Wanda reiterated.

"That's—well, I suppose that was poor wording. That's not quite what I meant. Hank?"

Hank nodded back at Xavier and activated the room's projector. Initially soundless, the screen at one end of the room began to show news reports of the attacks earlier that day—apparently from shortly after the attacks took place, as the clock in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen said "AUGUST 20 9:29 A.M. EST".

"Oh," Pietro said, leaning back in his chair as the sound for the video finally kicked in. "I think I see where this is going."

"—still getting reports," came a voiceover from some male newscaster as the footage onscreen flipped back-and-forth between the footage of the various demolished Mutant Registration stations. "It's now been confirmed that in all forty-eight of the contiguous United States, the centers have been—"

The broadcast was suddenly stopped in mid-sentence, and after about a second of static interference, the image was replaced with one of Magneto, standing on the shore of a tropical island. Behind him were dozens of Mutants—well over a hundred, it was obvious from a cursory glance—and behind them, just visible at the top of the screen, several oddly-shaped skyscrapers.

"Attention, citizens of the United States of America," Magneto said, taking off his helmet and handing it to a purple-skinned woman who stood next to him. "I am Magneto, a Mutant—no doubt you are familiar with my name. It would appear that we have become quite famous over the past few years, as our existence at long last made its way into the general public's awareness."

Xavier could tell most of the members on the room were already tense—even though they had known about Magneto's pirate broadcast, it was something else to see it in person. Pietro and Wanda, in particular, looked absolutely livid.

"It should come as no surprise to those of you who are following these attacks that Mutants are behind them. Many Mutants, in fact—us. My Acolytes were instrumental in carrying out them. As you can see, despite your government's best attempts, we were able to carry off these strikes without a hitch. No one was the wiser—even the Mutants who pretend they are humans—namely, the so-called X-Men.

"No doubt there are many questions running through your minds right now. Who are all of us? Why did we attack you? How did we do so without anyone else catching wind of our aims? Why would we attack those places where Mutants were most likely to be? How are we commandeering your communications broadcasts? And, finally, what is the message we want to send?

"To prove that I am merely the figurehead of a movement among Mutants and not a 'cult leader', 'brainwashing' my 'victims'- I will let my Acolytes themselves answer most of these questions."

Magneto gestured to the purple-skinned woman next to him, which the camera promptly zoomed in and focused on.

"Who are we?" the purple-skinned Mutant began. "We are Mutants. We are the Acolytes. And most importantly, we are your superiors. Right under the world's collective noses, we gathered together from all over the globe our kind and brought them here, to this island—Genosha. And, working together, we have constructed a small city in a matter of weeks. But today, we are formally announcing to the world our existence as an independent nation—the Mutants' Republic of Genosha—with all the rights and privileges thereof."

Immediately the camera shifted to another Mutant—the one everyone in the briefing room recognized as Rockslide, who began talking in his grating voice. "Why did we attack you? Because you deserved it. You have thumbed your noses at us for too long, and we Mutants have had enough. Requiring us to register with a human government on human terms is unbecoming, and we will not stand for it. Let this be a warning both to the United States and all the other countries of the world—if you attempt this again, the same thing will happen. Only on an even larger scale."

The camera panned down to an ivory-skinned teenage female Mutant standing next to Rockslide, one with odd brown lines zigzagging all across her skin. "How did we do so without anyone else catching wind of our aims? There are nearly two hundred of us on Genosha, with all kinds of powers. Individually, we may be able to do amazing things, but we admittedly all have weaknesses. Together, the whole has become greater than the sum of its parts—our strengths both help each other out and cancel out our weaknesses."

To demonstrate, the camera briefly zoomed out as the oddly-tattooed Mutant appeared to phase her hand through Rockslide's arm, which caused the part she had phased through the crumble into dust, the rest of the arm falling lifelessly to the ground. Rockslide quickly plunged his stump of an appendage into the ground in front of him, though, and within seconds withdrew a full rock-arm again, albeit one that was a slightly different color than the rock that made up most of the rest of his body.

As the camera refocused on the female Mutant, she continued, "Because our powers are so diverse and can play off each other in myriad ways, we don't have to do things the conventional ways. We can easily find and exploit any weaknesses in your government that we can find—and we have found many weaknesses."

The camera then panned to a short black teenager with orange-tinted shades on, who continued, "Why would we attack those places where Mutants were most likely to be? If you will notice, at every Mutant Registration Station the destruction was done to minimize the chances of Mutant casualties while maximizing the potential destruction of both the property and the United States government lackeys who were guarding those stations. Our attack was both aimed at delivering a powerful message and making sure as few Mutants were harmed as possible. We have absolutely no problem with unaligned Mutants, who, sadly, are likely to be emotionally lost, alone, and scared."

This time the camera panned to five teenage blonde-haired quintuplets with glowing eyes, who all spoke in unison. "How are we commandeering your communications broadcasts? The answer is twofold. First, we have our own satellite in orbit—yes, with our various powers we have even managed to launch a satellite without the world knowing about it. It has many hacking capabilities, but rest assured that this is the only time we will use them unless we are provoked again. You can also be assured to that any attempt to shut down or destroy our satellite will be met with swift and brutal retaliation.

"Secondly, you must remember that among our other powers, many Mutants have the ability to control others' minds. Many of those in your government have helped us in our efforts—even if few of them have any idea they are doing so. This is yet another demonstration of our power, should you push us further."

Finally, the camera went back to its initial shot, with the large group of Acolytes centered in the frame, Magneto at the forefront as he began to talk once more.

"What is the message we want to send? Some of the points have already been touched upon, but the main thrust of our message is this—we Mutants are finally numerous enough, finally organized enough, to not need humans anymore to live our lives. We are powerful, and will not submit to any nation on Earth. Our attacks today were a demonstration of this.

"However, our message is also one of hope for the future. We strongly urge the representatives of the United Nations to officially recognize us as an independent nation. If you do so—and you leave us alone, to live our lives as we see fit, and perhaps, in the future, open up trade between our nations—then this will be the last attack you see from us. But if you refuse our demands and continue to attempt to oppress not just us, but Mutants around the world—we will take decisive, brutal action, and there is nothing any human—or X-Man- can do to stop it."

To emphasize the last point, a couple of Acolytes dragged on screen Jean Grey in manacles, who had been beaten and bruised all over. The Acolytes had to hold her head up, as she looked like she was just barely conscious.

"Jean!" Scott cried out, almost on instinct.

"The X-Men attempted to find out what we were doing," Magneto said, smirking slightly. "They failed miserably, as you can see. So we do not merely make threats—we carry them out.

"As for the Mutants watching this—we extend the hand of friendship and camaraderie to our kind. If you agree that we are better than those who try to oppress us and would like to join our quickly-growing nation, make your intention clear—whether on the Internet, signs, or whatever you can think of. We are monitoring more than you know, and we WILL be able to bring you to your new home, and quickly. To those Mutants who are still unsure and remain unaligned—we understand and will leave you in peace, so long as you take no overt action towards us. Still, we advise you to look around you, and see just how much the nation you live in hates you, despises you. We hope we can eventually sway you to join us.

"And finally, for those Mutants who prefer to bury their heads in the sand and fight us, or join organizations like the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Bayville which should be declared criminal—you fate will end up the same as Miss Grey's here, or worse. Though we do so with a heavy heart…"

The transmission fizzled for a moment, and Hank turned off the projector with a remote.

"That's it," he said. "The transmission ends there, and then loops for roughly half-an-hour before the regular television news shows come back on."

"That sounded kinda scripted," Fred said.

"Gee, you think?" Lance replied sarcastically.

"I wanted to kill him before," Wanda snarled, "But now I want to cripple him, make his death as slow as possible, then have someone resurrect him just so I can do it all over again."

"Uh…" Pietro said after a moment of awkward silence, "Yeah, same thoughts here. Only just… y'know, killing him."

"Wait a minute," Scott said. "Not to look a gift horse in the mouth here, but I thought you all more or less agree with what Magneto said."

"Well, yeah," Noriko replied as Hisako visibly struggled to figure out what Scott's figure of speech meant. "But Magneto betrayed Mystique, and he betrayed the Brotherhood, from what I've heard. Plus, he might have killed John… maybe- maybe even Mystique herself. Oh, and he very nearly killed all of us, if it weren't for Freddy and Hisako. I'm sure there's several other dead Mutants out there today because of what Magneto did, even if he 'did it with a heavy heart'."

"So your motives are basically revenge," Scott said, eyebrow raised.

"'S what makes the world go 'round," Todd said matter-of-factly.

Scott looked like he was about to respond, but closed his mouth again for a moment before simply replying, "Alright. Just making sure."

"Oh c'mon, quit playing the 'high and mighty' act," Lance said. "You can honestly sit there and tell me that revenge isn't at least a factor into why you want to go after Magneto? Kurt, Rogue, Jean—none of this is about what's happened to them?"

"…I'm not going to deny that," Scott replied hesitantly. "But they're not the main reason I'm going. Magneto stands against everything that the X-Men stand for."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Lance said, waving away the explanation dismissively.

"So, when do we leave?" Pietro asked.

"We're planning on leaving the day after tomorrow," Xavier replied. "Over the next day the rest of the X-Men will be returning, and they're going to need to be taken care of and well-rested before we go off on mission this demanding."

"What's the matter? 'S not like we're gonna live through this encounter, anyways," Todd said. After a few others glared at him, he put his hands up in the air, continuing, "Oh, what? You know it's true."

"Then why are YOU going?" Lance asked.

"Well, because…." Todd began, before sighing. "…Because it's not like I got anything else to look forward to. A couple decades in jail, dying in a few days… yeah, guess which one 'a those I'd pick. At least this way we get a chance—though a pretty dang slim one—of taking out Magneto before WE get taken out."

"I realize the odds… well, to put it bluntly, the odds have never been stacked more against us," Xavier acknowledged reluctantly. "But the President has yet to announce anything beyond expressing sympathy for the victims, despite it being the better part of twenty-four hours since the attack, now. I'm no longer certain they're going to take any direct action against this. And we simply can't let Magneto corrupt any more young Mutants' minds. If this is allowed to stand—the future of this world looks quite grim indeed. If there is even the tiniest chance of success in this mission—and I believe, with the ideas Hank and I are brainstorming, there is—it's worth taking."

Kurt didn't even look up as he heard his heavy cell door slide open.

"So, figure out how we did it yet?"

Kurt just laid there in the center of his cell, a deep sadness evident on his face, but there was no other movement. Seeing the nightmare unfold this morning on the television Tabitha had left him had completely depleted him of any fight he had left. For the rest of the afternoon and the evening (well, by his schedule—the local time, he reckoned, was mid-morning), he had just lain there. His "dinner"—if one could call it that—lay untouched on the floor beside him.

"Oh, quit being so grumpy and at least try," Tabitha said, closing the jail door behind her. "C'mon, but that blue brain 'a yours to good use, it's not like you don't have a lot of time to think in here! How'd we do it? How'd we blow up so many buildings at the same time?"

"…Tabitha," Kurt finally managed to croak out, "I'm not playing your games anymore. Go away."

"Well, geez, aren't you sour," Tabitha said, hands on her hips. "Look on the bright side! You weren't there! You're here- and yeah it might not be the best living conditions on the island, but you're alive!"

After a few more moments of silence, Tabitha finally crossed her arms over her chest, an exaggerated pouting expression on her face. "Well, fine, I was trying to make things a little fun and get a 'twenty questions' thing going, if you're gonna be such a spoilsport, I guess I'll just tell you. Y'see, there's enough Mutants around here who specialize in exploding stuff—like, me, for instance!—that we all just picked a couple of Registration stations to bomb. Prodigy and a few of the smarties around here were able to get Blink to place our explosives at the exact structural point where it'd cost the most damage to humans, but the least to Mutants. She placed them all last night, not even triggering one alarm—pretty impressive, huh? And then the morning came, and BOOM! I helped take out the ones in… lessee, New Jersey, Oregon, Idaho, Wisconsin, aaaaand… oh, geez, I forget the last one…"

"And you take pride in that," Kurt chuckled dryly. "I don't know what I ever saw in you, Tabitha. But whatever I did see…well, I guess it's long gone now."

Tabitha's eyebrows narrowed, before she finally kicked Kurt in the sides. "Fine, then. Be that way, you little blue… rat. But watch what happens in the next few days—"

"-The X-Men are going to come for us."

"Of COURSE they're going to come for you! Even though it's completely stupid of them to DO so, but hey, that's never stopped them… But anyways, we're ready for them, Kurt. You're still going to be one of the lucky ones, compared to how most of them are gonna go out."

Moving towards the cell door and sliding it back open with a grunt, Tabitha started out before turning back around again. "Y'know, I think I'll keep the TV on, Blue. You think you know people, but watch how they'll react to this. What we did to them, well—they're gonna try to do ten times worse to use. TRY being the main word, there. And then you'll finally see—see how right Magneto is. How right all of us are."

And with a loud CLANG, Kurt was immersed in darkness and silence again.

"Mr. President? We need a decision."

The President of the United States sighed and looked down at the document in front of him before glancing at the various cabinet members and military generals seated around the table.

Even for the President, it had been a long, stressful day—being evacuated out of the White House in the middle of a meeting, being flown to a secret bunker and then being given intelligence briefings for the rest of the day.

All of which added up to nothing, of course. Magneto's broadcasted message alone contained considerably more information in it than the entire intelligence-gathering community had managed to gather in the months leading up to this attack.

The FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the CIA simply couldn't deal with the myriad new possibilities opened up by a new "nation" of Mutant enemies—and that, perhaps, was the scariest thing of all about all this.

Finally, the President said something that shocked everyone in the room.

"…Why do we have to 'do' anything?"

As he expected, all of the advisors and generals there immediately tripped over each other trying to respond to him.

"Mr. President, you can't be serious, after everything that's just happened—"

"This was an attack on America and its very ideals and it can't go un-answered—"

"Your approval numbers are already low, if you do nothing—"

"You've already been too lenient with these Mutants, and now you're—"

"This 'Magneto' fellow is bluffing, there's no way he can't have more planned—"

"It's already been made public that Congress has drafted up this Declaration of War, if you don't sign it—"

"The X-Men are certainly going to attack if you don't first—"

The President found an opening and held up a hand, immediately cutting off all the responses. "The X-Men already are going to attack, Simon. Quite frankly you're a fool if you believe they aren't going to, regardless of what we do."

"But… but they'll fail. I mean, simple statistics will tell you that, the number of Mutants they have, versus the number of Mutants Magneto has—"

"I understand that, General. But the X-Men are nothing if not brave—perhaps… even foolhardy. They'll still fight."

"So then… then you'll just do nothing and let them fall and that'll be it?!" the same general sputtered.

"We can't get the military involved again, at least officially," the President said, steepling his fingers. "You know very well the number of casualties our servicemen and women took a few months ago, during the Madrox incident. Although recruitment numbers are up, sending our finest into the den of an enemy we have little real info about… it wouldn't play well with the public. People—many of them don't have the stomach for war anymore, at least war with a high cost. There;s certainly initial support of the idea—but as casualty reports come in… well, my administration—and my party—will probably take the blame. The end result might not just be a rout at the ballot box, but a strengthening of Magneto's position both here in America and abroad. No, I can't let that happen. And I have a feeling trying to long-range nuke them would go down just as badly, if not worse. But I agree that we can't sit on our laurels and do nothing, either. It's just… I'm not sure what looks like a good course of action right now."

"Then, Mr. President?" said a colonel from near the back of the room, who had been silent until now. He slid some documents down the large table towards the President before he continued, "I know you've had some misgivings about funding this program again the past few months, given what happened, but I believe it's time to reconsider it, sir."

Jubilee sat there in her chair in the middle of the meeting room, her eyes downcast, most of her face covered by her long black hair.

It had been nearly a full day since everyone had gotten back—and by now, everyone had cleaned themselves up, those with minor injuries had had them treated, a few had gotten stitches… but thankfully, no one had gotten seriously hurt (though apparently that had been by design). So Xavier had called this meeting of just the X-Men and showed them all the same footage he had showed Cyclops, Hisako, and the Brotherhood yesterday night—and then asked them all the same question.

Everyone had answered in the affirmative so far—except her.

"Well?" Bobby asked. "Jubes, are you going to come with us or not?"

Jubilee finally looked back up, her eyes glaring daggers at the rest of the X-Men sitting there, looking at her, waiting for an answer.

As if they didn't already KNOW.

"We're leaving on a… a suicide mission tomorrow and you want to know if I want to come with you?"

"Jubilee," Ororo said, "I understand you're tired. We all are, especially after all we went through yesterday. But—"

"No, you know what?" Jubilee interrupted, standing up. "Save it. I've HAD this conversation before. We all have. And against my better judgment I stayed after the last big battle against H.Y.D.R.A. because I didn't know if I could go away after everything we've been through. But at some point—after things have continued to get worse and worse, and not ANY better- enough is enough. There's a certain point at which our situation is so laughably bad, you just have to say 'screw it' and give up. You hear that? This is me GIVING UP. I am DONE."

"So… so you're leaving the X-Men?" Amara asked. "Now?"

"Well," Jubilee sniffed, tears starting to drip down her cheeks, "I can't really get my parents here before tomorrow morning, can I? So no, not now. But I'm not going with you guys. I don't want to die five seconds in to some battle against an enemy that outnumbers us ten-to-one. But yes, for all intents and purposes, I am done. If anyone comes BACK, I'll call my parents up and we can file all the paperwork then. But I'm not counting on it."

"Jubilee, c'mon-" Bobby said as Jubilee stood up and started to run towards the nearest door, sobbing as she did so. "We can work this—"

"Do NOT follow me, Bobby," Jubilee cried as she opened the door with one hand while pointing in Bobby's direction with the other, "Or I'll… I'll…. Oh, forget it. I'm never going to see you all again after tomorrow morning anyways."

There was an awkward silence in the meeting room for few seconds, the only sound being Jubilee's steadily softening sobs as she ran down the adjoining hallway, no doubt heading towards her room.

"…Speaking of former X-Men," Paige brought up softly, "Whatever happened to Ray? Or Kitty? They should've been at the Registration stations nearest their homes."

"One of my duplicates was at one of the stations in Texas, where Ray was," Jamie said, slumped down in his chair, a dejected, tired look on his face like most of the rest of them. "He was there, though near the back of the line—he was coughing a lot because of all the dust, but other than that he was fine. Helped 'me' out quite a bit with the cleanup, too."

"I was at the one in Illinois," Danielle said sadly. "I never saw Kitty—not before the explosion, or after. Professor, are you sure she's…."

"I did a quick scan for her via Cerebro, shortly after the attacks," Xavier interjected. "She was near Chicago, where we expected her to be, but not near your position. I assume she just meant to go register later in the day—busy with work and getting ready for college, I imagine."

"Well, at least that's a relief," Paige said, sighing. "At least she's okay. It seems like the further people stay away from us, the better off they are…"

"Don't tell me we're losing you, too," Amara replied, disappointment seeping into her voice.

"No," Paige said, "Though I certainly can sympathize with Jubilee… but Sam loved this place. I'm not going to abandon it."

Everyone turned as Piotr entered in through a door, taking Jubilee's former seat.

"Sorry I am late for the meeting… I was on the phone with my family, and… yes, Professor, they can keep watch over the Mansion while we are gone."

"Wait, what?" Bobby asked. "Why do they need to 'watch over' the Mansion? The defenses we've got around this place… I'm pretty sure it's safe, even with those FBI guys around. The Brotherhood IS coming with us, right?"

"I know sometimes we may seem a bit naive," Hank said, "But give us a little credit, Bobby. Even though they're currently staying in a couple of spare rooms at one end of the Mansion, we're not teaming up with them just to leave them here."

"Then why-?" Bobby began.

"The Blackbird and Velocity need some refueling, and someone needs to be here to sign off on it when the gas suppliers come—which unfortunately happens to be the day after tomorrow," Xavier explained, a smirk starting to edge itself onto his face.

"That still doesn't make any s-sense," Cessily said. "We're taking the Blackbird and Velocity with us, right?"

"Although we were hoping we were wrong, I'm sure you all realized we expected trouble on Registration Day," Xavier said, the smirk still on his face for no apparent reason. "Not to the extent that it happened, of course, but we were expecting some minor unrest. However… construction was just finished a few days ago on a second Blackbird and Velocity."

Confused glances remained on the faces of the students.

"Uh… hate to be a broken record again, but... why?" Bobby asked. "I mean we have enough room in the first two for both us and the Brotherhood… Unless you're expecting them to blow up again, in which case that doesn't really seem like it'd turn out well for us…"

"Well, the two we just finished have a few… special features added," Xavier said, "One of which is—"

A phone ring coming from Scott's pocket interrupted him.

"Hold on," Scott said, taking the cell phone out of his pocket, "I thought I set this to emergency calls o—oh, it's… Alex. Uh, you guys continue, I'll just pop out to see what he wants and be back."

Going out into the hallway and closing the door behind him, Scott answered his ringing cell phone.

"Alex? What's going on?"

*Hey, Scott… I imagine you guys are going to try to take out Magneto soon, am I right?*

"Uh… yeah. Tomorrow, actually, and the Brotherhood and Angel have agreed to come along, too. Listen, Alex, in case we don't make it back, I just wanted you to know that—"

*No, no, you got it all wrong, bro, I'm not calling to say a tearful goodbye or anything lame like that.*

"Then, uh… what do you want?"

*I've been thinking about it for a while now, and all these attacks today by these Acolyte freaks pushed me towards finally making the decision. On the way to Genosha tomorrow, you guys have enough time to make a quick stop in Hawaii? It won't help even the odds much, but I'm sure you'll need every available hand on deck for this one. 'Sides, if Magneto launches a full-fledged attack against the U.S. from his Pacific island, which state do you think he'll attack first?*

Scott stood there speechless for a moment before responding. "Alex, are you… are you actually saying you want to join the X-Men?!"

*I know, long overdue, bro. But even if it's only for a day—if we're gonna make a last stand, better to make a last stand together, am I right?*

Kurt stirred awake as he felt a loud rumble through the ground.

At first he thought it was an earthquake, but it was far too regular… and within a few seconds it was over.

"What was…?" Kurt began to ask himself, but was interrupted as the door to his cell slid open again, and a familiar face peeked through.

"Tabitha, go. Away," Kurt said through clenched teeth, trying to get into a sleeping position on the floor again—a pretty difficult proposition. His manacles weren't exactly placing his limbs in a comfortable position, and it was patently obvious that was on purpose. "I have nothing more to say to you."

Sliding the door closed behind her, Tabitha walked over to Kurt casually and leaned close to him, whispering, "But I'm sure you have plenty to say to me, don't you?"

Kurt immediately got to his feet at the sound of that voice—a voice that was definitely NOT Tabitha's.

"Mystique!" Kurt whispered. "I thought you'd—"

"Oh, please," "Tabitha" replied back lowly, waving Kurt's concerns away as she casually pulled a lockpick out from where it had been hidden in her hair. "If you thought I was been captured, you don't know me as well as you think you do, Kurt."

"We're surrounded by Magneto's Acolytes," Kurt said as Mystique/Tabitha began to slowly work on one of his manacles, freeing one of his legs first. "How exactly are you going to get us out of here? And I'm not leaving without the others, too."

"I can't get all of you out," Mystique replied back, as she finished undoing the manacle on his other leg. "So it's either you or no one. Take your pick."

"You know the X-Men are going to come for us, especially after what happened today," Kurt whispered back. "I can last for a few more—"

"No, you can't," Mystique whispered back, "And can you at least ACT like you still have your manacles on? There's cameras in here, you know."

"What do you mean, 'I can't'?"

"That noise you just heard a few moments ago? That was the tower generators finally firing themselves up. They're surrounding this entire island in a force field."

"To defend themselves?"

"Partially," Mystique said as the first of Kurt's arms came free. "It's also going to use the energy from Magneto's gem of Cyt-"

Mystique paused as the lockpick she was using actually starting resisting her. It only took her a second to overcome her confusion and look over at the door.

Kurt gulped.

"So. You're playing as 'Boom Boom' now, are you?" Magneto said from the entryway.

Mystique knew better than to try and deny the obvious. Instead she threw aside the lockpick, morphing back into her normal form as she ran towards the door, jumping and aiming a flying kick at Magneto.

"Oh, please," Magneto said, and with a derisive wave of his hand the television in the corner of the room smashed into Mystique's body full force, sending both her and the pieces of the television set smashing into the far wall of the cell, Mystique crying out in pain at the impact.

"You always were resourceful," Magneto said, motioning with his hands to crush and meld the metal in the television. "But not resourceful enough to outsmart all of us. We found the dead Arab boy four days ago. Although your mind cannot be read by the Five-in-One, we've managed to follow the trail of clues you left behind, as you switched from identity to identity, your presence masquerading as others leaving a faint but detectable anomaly of activity through the detailed daily logs we've kept—precisely to flush out spies such as yourself."

By now, to Kurt's horror, the metal in the television's frame had melded into five different structures—restraints to hold each of Mystique's four limbs against the wall—and a sharp spike hovering in the air, right in front of her heart.

"The final nail in the coffin, as it were," Magneto continued slowly walking up to Mystique, "was a notice that Tabitha Smith had requested to see Kurt again—despite the fact that she had also reported for duty to fire up one of the tower reactors at the exact same time."

Mystique simply spat in Magneto's face. "Quit pontificating already and get it over with, you dog."

"No, wait—" Kurt said, panicking. He tried to run over to his mother and Magneto, but the manacles were still around his tail and one of his arms. "We can work something out—"

"Let the records show, Kurt, that I granted your mother's final wish," Magneto smirked.

Kurt turned his head away, unable to watch as Magneto slammed the metal spike into Mystique's chest.

X-MEN: EVOLUTION SEASON 7

FIN
 

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