GO WEST

Chapter 21: "Running to Stand Still"

Thought For The Day: This has got to end. Quickly.

She's dying. I'm fully convinced of it, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Check that - I could call the Academy and beg Miss Frost to send Sean or anyone out here to get us, but Jenny wouldn't go willingly, and even in her current physical state, if she resists, she's riding on enough good luck to get away regardless.

Quit rationalizing, Gilbert. There's more, isn't there? My God, what am I trying to prove, seeing this through to what's increasingly looking like it'll be a Bitter End? Who the Hell am I trying to impress? Jenny? Paul and Cassie? Miss Frost? Myself? Sure, Jenny, I'm with you. I'll stay by your side and make sure I'm there to pull the trigger for you SINCE YOU'LL BE WASTED AWAY TO A LIFELESS HUSK BY THE TIME WE GET THERE!!!

I've never been this frightened in my life. And with my track record, being the fabulous furry Bunnyman that I am, that's saying something.

Oh, we got a chance to see the bun in action today, though, plus a chance to be grateful we got the fake license plates and ID's. Oh, it was great. There I am, driving Jenny's very nerve-wracking sports car out near the west Texas town of El Paso (as the song goes), Jenny slumped in the passenger's seat keeping that DAMN GOOD-LUCK DISC going, when we suddenly get sirens in the rear-view, and when I looked at the instruments - hey, surprise! - I was going over 80!  I was about ready to pull over, but Jenny suddenly sat up, more awake and urgent than she'd been in days, and said to floor it. Something about not being able to afford this delay. I told her the delay wouldn't be too much- they'd just be writing a ticket, and it'd be on one of my fake ID's anyway. The fact that we got caught in the first place must have been some kind of burp in the universe, since her luck had kept us from getting caught thus far.

Then the really scary thing happened. Jenny sat back in the seat, her eyes glazed, and a trickle of blood started coming out of each nostril. She said that they'd take us in, she was sure of it: they'd find something wrong with the ID and take us in, and then we'd be screwed. She didn't even seem to notice that she was bleeding.

Then she said something I'll never forget: "Buns, you've been running away from shit all your life; that's what rabbits do. So shut the fuck up and get us outta here!"

As scary as the idea of a chase was, Jenny scared me more. I floored it. And thus began the longest, most breathless roller-coaster of a ride I've ever taken, much less driven. The chase felt like it went for hours, and I never had the needle down under 120 MPH. I was weaving in and out of traffic like a madman, but Jenny's luck held it together for us, and eventually, somewhere in New Mexico, we ditched 'em. Once I got my breath back, I checked us into the nearest out-of-the-way motel I could find and slapped a new set of plates onto the car (California plates, since we're closer to there than to Massachusetts by a longshot now).

Jenny says that we're close: that she can feel it. She says that Brainwash and Camouflage are separated now, and that we're closing in on Camouflage first. She says we'll probably find him by tomorrow.

My question: how does she know?!?

My next question: Will she make it that far?

I miss the Academy. I miss Paul and Cassie and Akiko and Dan and Etienne and Marsha. I miss Angie. I miss Sharon. I even miss Miss Frost. Hell, right now I'd go so far as to say I miss Kyle. (Bravely put, Gil.)

Say your pwayers, wabbit. Tomorrow is the turning point, one way or the other. If we don't find who we're looking for, I'm calling in backup. I don't want to do this to you, Jennifer, and I hope you understand if it comes to that, even though I don't think you will. But you're the only friend I've got out here at the moment, and I'm not going to let you die.

God, if you're out there, I'd appreciate any help you have to offer...

Massachusetts Academy, Snow Valley MA
Friday, 21 January 1994 12:09 pm EST

Contrary to any good sense or good advice, Emma Frost was drunk by noon. For the second day in a row. Fact was, she hadn't been completely sober in several days, in spite of some remarkable facades she'd put up for the students, the board at FTI, or her assistants here at the Academy.

The office door was firmly locked this time, with orders to Tessa and Security forbidding any ("and I do mean any") visits. She had no appointments and no engagements for the afternoon, and she wanted to be left the hell alone to exercise her liver in peace.

Over the years, only the alcohol had ever damped her telepathic senses to the point that she didn't have to work so hard to keep the voices out. Only the drink had helped her to forget a past best left forgotten.

Because of this dampening effect, however, she was never aware of what hit her until it was too late. Somewhere on the edge of sense, a familiar, insidious presence, and before she could even place the psychic "scent," it had reached into her mind and completely usurped control. In one deft flick of the mental wrist, she was completely ensnared.

Naturally, this brought her thoughts to rapid clarity, and she tried to fight back, but in her current state, it proved impossible. Her attacker was skilled and powerful, and she was weakened. The struggle was brief and one-sided, as her mind was all but wrestled to the floor and pinned. Thought was still hers, but she had lost the ability to act outside herself, either to move her own body or to call for help.

Senses still brought in their data, though, so as she sat slumped back in her chair behind her desk, she saw an indistinct figure unlocking the door from inside the office, and then opening it.

And then in stepped none other than Devin "Brainwash" Johnson.

Johnson was smiling widely, but even with this, Frost could see that the man looked terrible. His face was pale and drawn, his eyes were shot with red, his chin unshaven, and his hair greasy and tangled. His motions were slow and deliberate as he closed and re-locked the door behind him: it was taking a phenomenal amount of effort on his part to keep his mental hold over Frost, and this kept his motions distant and distracted.

Slowly, savoring each step, Johnson crossed the room and stood in front of Frost's desk. He looked around at the bottles, his face taking on a look of comic concern. "Scotch, bourbon, vodka... all at the same time? Oh, tsk tsk, Emma, haven't you ever heard of A.A.?"

He'd left her enough control to use her own voice, but her words came out low and constricted. "What are you doing here?"

"Watching you undo your many years of work, of course," he smiled, happily.

Frost's eyes widened slowly. "It's you, isn't it? You've been the one doing this to me, haven't you?"

Johnson placed his palms flat on the desktop and leaned forward, just smiling at her. "I'm afraid not, dearie. I've had too much to deal with on my own lately. Though I can't..." He broke off into a fit of coughing, which lasted a good thirty seconds. "As I was saying," he then managed, "I can't argue with the results. As much as I wish I could take credit for bringing you down this far, I can't. That glory's all yours. But I'll be more than happy to finish the job."

"How did you get in here?" she asked him. If she could keep him talking, maybe she could figure some way out of this...

"Oh, nice try," he grinned still wider, apparently noticing her intent. "It won't work, though. But in answer to your question, I had a little help from my fairy god-mutie." He then addressed the air in a singsong voice. "Come on ou-out! Time for all good little fairies to come to the aid of their party!"

As Emma watched, horrified, the indistinct shape she'd noticed earlier appeared at Johnson's side. The smoky substance of it swirled about, then slowly coalesced into a human shape, taking solid form. Frost recognized the cropped black hair and softened Filipino features right away, and she felt her blood freeze in her veins as she looked into the vacant, empty eyes of former Hellion Kyle "Wraith" Burns.

"Kyle..." she whispered, then turned her furious eyes on Johnson. "What have you done to him, you bastard?"

"Oh, just borrowed him," Johnson shrugged. "His mind's fairly easy to control, just like most of your other brats. You don't know, Emma, how much it chagrins me to have to rely on the help of a faggot, seeing as it was their stinking kind that invented this fucking disease, but... any port in a storm, eh?"

"What... what are you talking about?" Frost looked at his haggard face again, and realization began to dawn.

Johnson smiled sweetly. "I'm not long for this world, Emma dear. But before I go, I'm taking you and that other little bitch down with me. Now, why don't you do me a favor and put out the call to summon the senior team to the Combat Room, would you please?"

She tried to resist, but he took control of her actions, moving her hand up to the console on her desk and keying in a command to put out a summons to the alpha-team.

"There, now wasn't that easy?" Johnson giggled. "Now, why don't you do me another favor and open the door to your private elevator? I've got a date in the Underground."

Again, completely against her will, she stood, stepped over to one of the many bookcases that lined the back wall, and pulled out four books in sequence. As she pulled out the fourth, one of the cases swung out on silent hinges, revealing Frost's private elevator to the Underground complex.

"Very good. You've been ever so helpful, Emma. Well, I'd best be off now."

"It won't work," she growled, forcing a smile to her lips. "It's taking everything you have to hold onto me and Kyle. You won't be able to take all of them on without releasing me first. And I don't think they're feeling very forgiving after all you've done."

Johnson's face took on a look of slow, dawning horror. "Oh, shit..." he whispered. "You know, I didn't think of that. Gosh, I'd better get out of here."

After a pause, the grin returned, and he giggled again. "Actually, I did think of that. Just kidding." And with that, he reached into his coat, pulled out a gun, and shot her.

And then there was only the pain of a high-caliber bullet ripping through her midsection and out the other side, splattering the wall behind her with blood. No sound -- he'd used a silencer -- only the pain. With a sudden, inexplicable clarity, she realized that he'd released her mind sufficiently to allow her full contact with this agony. She was barely aware of falling forward, collapsing to the floor, feeling her lifeblood pouring out of her. Then, Johnson's voice came once more into her mind as he knelt beside her and placed the barrel of the gun to her head.

*You know, I could end this now, but a gut-shot should be plenty fatal, seeing as there's no one left in the building within earshot. I saw to that. And you know, I think it's fitting that you have a nice, painful, lingering death like mine. Don't you?*

He replaced the gun in his coat and stood up. "Goodnight, sweet Emma. It's been a real bitch knowing you. Come on, Tinkerbell, let's get down there and finish the job."

This said, he stepped into the open elevator, followed by Wraith.

Winchester Hall, MassAc, Room 207
Friday, 21 January 1994 12:11 pm EST

Dr. A.C. Kokiadis turned from the blackboard and gave the students of his Chaucer/Milton/Shakespeare class a smile to soften the blow of the reading assignment he'd just posted. "Before you all start groaning with barely suppressed disappointment and ask yourselves who this madman thinks he is, let me just say that this should be a fairly quick read. This is, in fact, one of the easy assignments, seeing as this is the first week and what not. The COMEDY OF ERRORS is generally accepted to be Shakespeare's first major work, and it'll make for an interesting comparison point when we close the Shakespeare unit with his last, THE TEMPEST. I'd like you all to pay especially close attention to the description of the shipwreck, and keep in mind that we'll be coming back to this in weeks to come."

On cue, as A.C. paused to take a breath, a high-pitched beeping in stereophonic filled the gap of silence. His next sentence died, unsaid, as he and most of the students took a look around to find the source.

Buford McGwynn, seated near the rear of the class to prevent his very considerable mass from blocking anyone's view, removed the pager clipped to his pants, shut off the noise, and checked the display. At the same time, two rows over, Jean-Pierre Delacroix did the same.

What the hell, thought A.C., was Emma doing paging the Hellions in the middle of the day? An emergency? He glanced briefly at Paul Spangler, the third of the actual Hellion students in his class, but Paul had apparently not been paged, and he was looking from Jean-Pierre to Buford, confused.

"Um, I'm real sorry, sir," Buford explained, lamely, "but... Security thing, y'know?"

"Yeah, I know," A.C. nodded with a sigh. The running cover-story for the Hellions' sometimes erratic attendance was that they were attending the school through the graces of an ROTC-like program with campus Security. "You can go. You've both got the assignment?"

"Yes, Professor," Jean-Pierre affirmed, while Buford just nodded. Both students got their things together and beat a hasty retreat from the room.

As they were going, A.C. tried to project his thoughts outward to contact the Headmistress. ::Emma? Why are you interrupting my class?:: He put a slightly peevish tone into the sending, to remind Frost that she'd promised him these interruptions would be minimal.

There was no response.

A.C. found this very odd. Emma was at the school today; he was sure of it. And when she was at the school, she was always in "earshot" of a directed thought.

Maybe it was an emergency after all. But then why hadn't Paul been called out? Was this an affair involving the A-team only?

A raised hand brought him back to reality- he was still in the middle of class. "Oh. Sorry about that. Yes, Gwen?"

"So... you want COMEDY OF ERRORS read over the weekend? All of it?"

"Yes, the whole shebang. I certainly don't expect all-encompassing comprehension or memorization on Monday; that's what we'll have class discussion for. My hope is that after talking it over on Monday, you'll go back and re-read any parts you might have found confusing. I won't assign that, per se, but I do strongly suggest you do so on your own."

Even in the midst of an explanation, though, his mind remained on the little call-to-arms, and he tried contacting Emma again. Again, no reply.

Only then did it occur to him that in the event of an emergency, he would have been paged as well. What the hell was going on here?

He took a look at the clock to see that class was all but over anyway, so caution won out. "Well, if there are no further questions, you've got the assignment. Enjoy the weekend!"

Almost before he could even finish the first sentence, there was the collective noise of notebooks being shut, backpacks being zipped up, and desks scooting across the floor as the small class vacated. A couple of the students approached him to ask questions (including Gwen), but before they could, he gave them an apologetic look. "Um, look, I'm really sorry, but I've got a meeting I need to get to right away, so I can't stick around for questions. If it's pressing, though, my home number is on the syllabus, so you can call me anytime this weekend.

"Anytime?" Gwen asked, arching her eyebrows and giving him a slightly mischievous grin.

"Oh, absolutely. But if you call at, say, three in the morning, I won't be much good for answering questions. So choose wisely." He said this last in the voice of the old knight from the third Indiana Jones film.

As Gwen and the other student (Dylan Blaisdell, if A.C. remembered the face correctly) left, A.C. quickly went to pack everything up in his briefcase. A third attempt to contact Emma was proving futile, and he was beginning to grow genuinely worried.

Looking up, he saw (as expected) that Paul had hung back while the rest of the class took off. "What d'you think's up?" he asked.

"I don't know," A.C. replied, shaking his head. "I'm going down to find out, though. You coming?"

"Sure. My next class isn't for an hour anyway."

"Then let's vamoose. I'll just need to make a brief detour to my office to drop this off..."

A residential district in Flagstaff, AZ
Friday, 21 January 1994 10:29 am MST

"Park over there, across the street," Jenny instructed.

Gilbert made a careful three-point turn and pulled the MR-2 up to a nondescript curb in a nondescript neighborhood. He looked out of the windows nervously, taking in the surroundings. It looked like any old suburbia neighborhood: hardly what he'd expected to be the home of a super-villain of any sort.

"You're sure?" he asked.

"Absolutely," Jenny nodded. "It's the beige-ish one with the stucco walls, right over there."

He took a look at the house in question, and once again, he found it difficult to believe that any homicidally insane mutant could possibly live in what looked like such a nice middle-class neighborhood. But Jenny's luck hadn't failed them yet.

"So what do we do?" he asked, nervously.

"He's not home," Jennifer replied. "We wait. Then we hit him."

Gilbert turned a look of surprise on her. "Wait a second, can't we scope out the place first? Get the lay of the land? See if..." He stopped himself before he could say "...if Sharon or Marie-Ange are being held somewhere inside?" As much as he hoped for that, he knew Jennifer would never believe it.

"No," she said, adamantly. "He could be back anytime. We wait right here until he shows up, and then we take him."

"Whoa, time out," Gilbert objected, putting his hands together to make a T-shape. "You can't be serious. We can't just go out and shoot someone in broad daylight!"

"Buns, I plan on taking him in whatever lighting I can get," she said in a dangerously low voice. "You got that?"

"But... not in the middle of the street. My God, we can't just gun someone down in the street. We..."

"You're chickening out," she breathed, looking at him with widened eyes. "I knew it. You're gonna rabbit on me at the last minute, aren't you?"

"No!" he insisted. "I just think we... need to use a little strategy here. We can at least take him on in the house, so no one'll see." He hated the words as he said them, but it was a language she'd understand, and maybe, just maybe, it'd give him a chance to sniff out their lost teammates before she made the kill.

After a long, tense pause, she nodded. "Fine. We wait until he's in the house. Then we go in and nail him. You with me?"

"Yes, yes, of course I am."

She deflated back into her seat, all the menace suddenly gone, leaving her looking more exhausted than ever. "Good," she said, simply. She then relaxed herself further, and the white luck-disc hovering near her hand, after days of constant use, vanished.

"Jenny?!" Gilbert asked, thinking that something was wrong.

"Oh, that's better," she whispered in reply. She turned her head to look his way and smiled softly. "Won't be needing that anymore," she sighed.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine. A lot better, in fact. Keeping that thing up this long was a real bitch."

"Then... how come you never stopped it before?"

She shook her head slowly. "I've only been able to keep it going out of momentum. After the first day, I'd thrown the balance so far out of whack that if I'd let it go, I wouldn't have been able to do any more of the good luck until I'd balanced things out with the bad. And with this kind of major imbalance, that would have been... dangerous."

Gilbert blinked a couple of times, trying to sort this out. "Um... how much out of balance are you?"

"Ohhh, let's just say that before I can use the good stuff again, I'll need to dish out more bad luck than all the casinos in Vegas can do in a month."

"Is, ah, that going to affect us here?"

"No, not unless I let it. See, the balance always tries to restore itself, but part of what I can do is hold it back. Kind of like a dam, Emma used to say."

"Are you sure?" He tried to picture this seething mass of pitch-black luck being held back by this exhausted woman, and he didn't find the image comforting.

"I'll be fine," she assured him. "Holding it in's a lot easier than keeping it going for days on end."

She yawned hugely, then titled the seat as far back as it would go (which wasn't too far). "I'm going to take a little snooze, Buns. I need you to keep your eyes glued to that house, okay? And whatever you do, don't leave the car, got it?"

"Got it."

"Good." She then actually managed the first grin he'd seen in days. "I need the attack rabbit to guard me while I sleep," she said, patting him absently on the hand.

"I'm on the job."

In moments, she was asleep. With a small sigh, Gilbert turned his attention back to the nondescript house in the middle of the nondescript neighborhood, and wondered how this could possibly be the right place.

Massachusetts Academy, 12:27 pm EST

Down in the Combat Room, Mick MacPherson was just finishing up his latest session with C-teamers Kristina Yarborough (Embers) and Soon-Li Park (Chance), and he found himself thoroughly impressed, not only by the progress Kristina was making in her pyrogenetic abilities, but in this debut performance of the new Hellion team uniforms.

The design was pretty much the same, using the Academy colors of violet and black, but there had been three important changes: the boots had been adjusted to get rid of the side "wings," ditto on the gloves, and the neckline had finally been raised to the neck. The lattermost of these changes had been a point of contention for months now, with most of the objections being launched by the female Hellions. Cassie had pretty much summed it up for everyone when she'd said, in her own inimitable fashion, "This is a uniform, not a prom dress! We can do without the cleavage, okay?"

Etienne, of course, had disagreed, but that was Etienne.

One small triumph in the new uniform was that Chance had even elected to go without her everpresent leather jacket this once, though she kept her arms crossed before her through most of the session.

Mick checked his watch. "We're almost out of time, loves, so let's give it one more shot before we're through. Now, Kris, you can feel the difference in the power flow with and without Chance's help, right?"

"Right," Embers nodded.

"I want you to try one more time. Try to ignite the air around you again, this time without the boost. Just try to feel the power flowing the way it does when she helps you."

"I'll try..."

"Wonderful. Start concentrating, and wait for my word." He then turned to Chance. "Let's back up, love, and give the lady some room."

"Yeah, good idea," Chance snorted. As they retreated some ways back, she asked Mick a question sotto voce. "So, d'you think she'll do it?"

"Let's find out," he replied. From a pouch on his belt, he removed his remote control panel (a device which enabled him to run the Combat Room computers from the floor rather than the control booth), and punched in a command to bring up a transparent wall between the two of them and Embers. He then raised his voice to give Kris the word. "Now!"

Kristina concentrated, and with a sudden flash, the air around her lit up in a blaze. For all of a second, she was surrounded by this aura of flame, and then it just as quickly snuffed itself out, and Kristina stood there, eyes wide in amazement.

"Very good!" Mick grinned. He brought the wall back down and hurried across the room to congratulate her with a hearty pat on the shoulder. "There, y'see? You can do it!"

"I... I had it!" Kris stammered. "I... felt it, like you said! But it startled me so much, I couldn't... I just couldn't keep it going!"

"Yeh, but look at it this way. You've done it on your own. You'll get better at it as we go."

Before Kristina could reply, there was the sound of one of the main doors opening, and Mick looked over to see, with some surprise, that they were being joined on the floor by Haroun Al-Rashid, Akiko Tanaka, and Tom Grindle. In uniform.

"Um, hold on just a moment, loves," Mick said to the two ladies, then drifted over to meet the new arrivals.

"Good afternoon, Michael," Haroun nodded.

"G'day, Haroun, 'Kiko, Tom. Not that it isn't charming as always to see you lot, but... what're you doin' here?"

"Dude, we were, like, hopin' you could tell us," Tom shrugged.

"You did not summon us, then?" Haroun asked.

"Nah, wasn't me," said Mick, shaking his head. "I've got a workout session scheduled here with Chance and Kilowatt for the next half-hour."

"Nonetheless, the entire alpha-team was given a class-two summons," Haroun explained. "The others are in the locker room -- they should be here shortly."

"Class two?" Mick repeated, more puzzled than ever. Class two wasn't much open to interpretation: it meant, quite simply, to get into uniform and get your tail to the Combat Room without delay. "Well, I didn't call it. An' I don't think Tessa or A.C. called it." He cast a glance up at the control room windows, but no one was in there who could have given the summons. "I guess it must'a been Emma, but I ain't seen her."

By this time, the remaining members of the alpha-team had joined them: Etienne, Jean-Pierre, and Buford. "So what's the story?" Buford asked.

"Dunno," Mick shrugged. "But I'll get to the bottom of it." He once again brought up his control panel, this time to give Security a buzz, but before he could...

WHAM!

There was no other way to describe the sensation that simultaneously struck all nine of the Hellions present: it was quite simply the mental equivalent of a heavy boot slamming into the head. To his shock and horror, Mick found that in that one blow, someone had penetrated his own psychic defenses (such as they were, granted) and grabbed hold of him, quite thoroughly trapping him inside his own skull. He froze, unable to move, to act, or even to try a desperate thought-broadcast to Emma.

The pain faded, but the control remained over him, and he found his own body moving against his will, dropping the panel on the floor and standing him up straight. The others were in the same boat, apparently, as they all moved to stand in a straight line, as though at attention. He managed to catch Buford's eye, and found the big man's face filled with struggle and fear.

Then, once they were all standing in a neat row, the door opened one more time, and another man stepped inside. Mick's heart leaped into his throat as he recognized him -- the swagger, the smug little grin...

Devin Johnson.

Brainwash.

The bastard who'd taken Angie and Sharon.

Haroun found his voice first, and said the word that was on everyone's mind. "Brainwash!"

"In poyson," Devin smiled, sketching a small bow. He then came up to the line of frozen mutants and greeted them one by one, starting with Akiko. "Ah, my dear, delectable little dragon... And the Delacroix boys! Who could forget ze fighting Franchmen, eh? And Haroun! Nice to see you still have that stick lodged ever so firmly up your ass. Oh, and bless my soul, it's the Brawny boys! Tom, Buford, you look larger than ever. Good lads."

Next was Mick himself, and Devin pulled up short, as though surprised. "MacPherson!" he smiled, hugely. "Well, g'day, mate! How's the shrimp on the barbie, eh? Guess you were too scared even to run away, weren't you?"

"Get stuffed," Mick growled through clenched teeth.

"And as friendly as ever, I see." He then moved on. "Krissie! How nice to see you." He reached to run his fingers through her long hair, singing as he did. "Oh, blaaack is the color of my true love's haaair..."

"Leave her alone!" Chance spat from her place at the end of the line.

Devin turned his attention away from Kristina, then, and moved over to take a very close look at Chance, bringing his face within an inch of hers. "I don't know you," he said, slowly. "But believe me, little girl, I will."

"You stay the hell away from both of 'em, Johnson," Mick warned him, still struggling against the grip on his mind.

With a chuckle, Devin strolled right up to Mick. "My name," he smiled, "is Devin. But you can call me Dee, and you can call me Jay, and you can call me DeeJay, and you can call me Dee Jay Johnson Junior... but you doesn't have to call me Johnson."

"You let me go and I'll call you roadkill!" Beef grunted, seemingly flexing every muscle in his body in his attempts to break free.

"Oh, but introductions aren't finished!" Devin went on, standing before the assembled nine and giving a flourish. "How about a warm welcome for our hostess, Vanna White! Oh, Vanna?"

Again completely against their will, the nine began applauding. Rather than Vanna White, though, a wisp of smoke appeared by Devin's side, and eventually formed itself into...

"Wraith!" Mick gasped.

"You betrayed us?!" Haroun hissed.

"Now, now, let's not be too hard on the fruit cup, huh?" Devin protested. He waved one hand in front of Kyle's glazed eyes, eliciting no reaction whatsoever. "As you can see, he's not really himself right now."

"What 'ave you done to 'im?" asked Etienne in a pained voice.

"Oh, nothing half so bad as I plan to do to..."

He paused, then made a show of counting heads. His face then took on a look of exaggerated dismay. "Oh, dearie me. It looks like everyone's not here yet. Oh, well. She never was one for punctuality. We'll wait for her."

There was a long pause, then Mick, at last, broke the silence. "Who?"

"Why, the little pussycat, of course!" Devin smiled, brightly. "She's the one I came here for, after all. The rest of you are small potatoes. I can have fun with you. But Catseye... I'm going to kill her just as dead as I killed sweet Emma, and all of you are going to be here to watch!"

There was an even longer silence, punctuated only by a series of gasping cries from Akiko. "You... killed the Headmistress?"

"Oh, don't worry about her," Devin waved. "I just finished the job for her: she was doing a pretty good job of suicide already... Why are you all looking at me like that?"

"You want Catseye?" Mick asked, astounded.

"Oh, absolutely. I think she'll make a splendid rug for my fireplace back home."

"She ain't here!" Buford snarled.

Devin gave Buford an impatient glare. "Well, then where is she?"

"We could ask you the same question, you sumbitch!"

With an exaggerated sigh, Devin started pacing before them. All of a sudden, the door opened one more time, and in stepped Paul and A.C.

"What the he--?" was as far as Paul got before Devin snared him as well.

"Pauliewog!" Brainwash called, brightly. "If it ain't Gemini's worse half! And..." He focused on A.C., and his face filled with confusion. "Who the hell are you?"

A.C. looked as though he were about to reply, but then his face first froze, then took on a look of complete and utter terror.

"Never mind," Johnson shrugged, snapping his fingers. "You're taking a seat." At the snap, A.C. fell slowly forward in a boneless flop.

"You bastard!" Buford all but screamed, his face turning bright red in his struggle.

"Oh, don't be such a baby!" Devin shouted at him. "He wasn't worth the effort of killing. Now Paul, be a good boy and get in line next to Akiko. There. All together. Now, then... I believe one of you was about to tell me where Catseye is, right?"

"We don't know where she is," Haroun said thickly. "We... urk!"

"Oh, that was the wrong answer, Haroun," Devin sighed, cutting the cyborg's voice off mid-sentence. "Okay, we can always do this the hard way."

With that, he crossed over to Kristina, then stood before her, arms clasped behind him, rocking back and forth on his heels. "Hello, Kris. You know, I never really got the chance to know you too well before my tenure here was so rudely canceled, but you always seemed like such a nice girl." He reached to put his hands on her shoulders. "Now, be a nice girl and tell me where Catseye is, would you please?"

She shook her head in utter confusion. "Honestly, I don't know! We thought tha--"

Mid-syllable, she stopped breathing. Only her panicked face gave any indication of her struggle. Johnson shook his head. "Tsk, tsk, sweet thing, I would have thought you'd have more sense than that."

"Let her go!" Buford snarled.

Devin looked over at the sound of his voice, releasing Kristina sufficiently to let her gasp for breath as he did. "Oh, yes, of course, the gallant hero comes to his lady's rescue." His smile became deeper and more insanely mischievous as he approached Beef. "I'm so glad that worked out as well as I'd intended."

"What the hell you talkin' about?" Beef demanded, his voice low and tense.

"Oh, you don't think she'd really fall in love with a dumb country hick like you, do you?" Devin hooted. "Sorry to say it, Beeford, but I'm the one that put the thought in her head. Just a little brainwashing to point her in the direction of a dumbfuck from the sticks who'd fall all over himself trying to be nice to her. Nice way to keep her loyal to the team, don'cha think?"

"You're lyin'," Buford whispered, shaking his head slowly. "Don't you fuckin' lie to me..."

"Why so surprised, Beef?" Devin grinned, putting his face as close to Buford's as he could. "After all, Emma's the one who told me to do it."

"You're lyin'..." Buford repeated, but there were tears in his eyes.

"You ask me, I think I did a good job," Johnson shrugged, backing off a few feet. "A real good job..."

Then Kristina stepped forward. She moved stiffly, each motion seeming foreign, like a marionette under the puppeteer's control. As she stepped clear of the line, she suddenly ignited with the aura of fire that she'd only been able to accomplish for the one second earlier.

"In fact, I think she's seriously got the hots for you," Johnson went on, giggling.

Still surrounded in her sheath of flame, Kristina stood before Buford, looking up into his eyes and giving him a slow, sexy smile. She ran her hands seductively over her body, taking a few shuddering breaths as she did. "Sweet Buford," she sighed. "I'm burning up for you, baby. I'm all hot and bothered..."

She then placed one flaming hand to Buford's chest, smoldering his uniform. "Are you burning for me too, baby?"

Buford turned his head away, teeth gritted against the pain as she ran both hands over his chest, then lazily put her arms around him and lay her head against him. Even then, he did not scream, and even when the smell of burning fabric became the smell of burning skin, he would not make a sound.

"Where's Catseye, Buford?" Devin asked, conversationally.

"Ah don't know!!"

"Oh, piss," Devin sighed. "Okay, sweetie, that's enough."

He snapped his fingers, and Kristina's fire went out abruptly. She stepped away from Buford, horrified. "Oh my God..."

"Get back in line, Krissie," Devin said in an annoyed tone, waving her back to stand between Mick and Chance. "G'wan, shoo." Still moving under his control, she did so. Beef took a series of deep, pained breaths, his skin still smoking in places.

"You know, Beef," Johnson went on, strolling back and forth between Beef and Hardbody, "I respect you. I don't like you, mind, 'cause I still think you're a stupid inbred hick, but you've got serious cojones, man. Big, strong, dumb and stubborn as the proverbial ox." Here, Devin smiled warmly at Hardbody. "Not like Tommy, here. Poor guy. Fried his brain on so many drugs he ain't got an ounce of will left. But we still like you, Tommy, that's okay. Now why don't you tell me where Catseye is, and we can all walk away friends, hm?"

"Dude," Tom said, slowly and meaningfully, "I thought that you had her."

"Now don't be dense, Tommy. If I had her, I wouldn't be here looking for her, now would I? Come on, duuuude. Like, tell me what I wanna know, and we'll like, down some brews and go scopin' for babes out by the waves, dig?"

"She's not here, dude, and that's the truth."

"You know," Devin said, stepping back, "I've always wanted to try out that experiment of irresistible force versus immovable object."

"Johnson," Mick struggled to interrupt.

"Shut your yap, MacPherson!! When I want your opinion, I'll rip it out of your skull, kapish?! Now, as I was saying, Tom, you make a pretty convincing immovable object."

This said, Tom instantly transformed into his rock-form, his muscular body taking on the chiseled look and consistency of solid stone. Even his hair became a thick layer of rock.

"And y'know, I think Beef's fists are pretty close to an irresistible force, don't you?"

Devin snapped his fingers, and then Beef turned on Tom and started punching him, his motions jerky and sloppy. But the punches got harder and harder, and Tom, braced against them as best he could, was beginning to wear down. Finally, with one final colossal blow, there came a massive CRACK sound, as part of Tom's stony surface began to form hairline fissures from the impact.

"Tommy, can you hear me?" Devin giggled. "Where's the cat, Tommy?"

"For God's sake, Johnson, we don't know!" Mick shouted before Hardbody could answer.

"I thought I told you to shut up, MacPherson!" Devin shouted, his face filling once more with rage. He then stomped over to Akiko, and pulled up short before her, his face instantly transforming into a pleasant smile.

"Hel-lo, Akiko," he said in a singsong voice, which then became a conspiratorial whisper. "You know... I've noticed that when you go into your dragon form, your emotions just go wild. You get such a tremendous... rage about you, don't you? After all, you're not really human. You're a dragon, and dragons have cravings..."

Akiko's face began to bead with sweat as he stepped still closer. "I know what you're feeling, my reptilian dear. You deny it in your little Jap schoolgirl mind, but your dragon can't deny it. You crave blood, don't you? You crave flesh. Raw flesh. Human flesh. You've wanted it for a long time, haven't you? Hot and steaming, the juices running down your cute little dragon chin? Forget the repressed little Jap schoolgirl! Be the dragon!"

He then put one arm across her shoulders and turned him to face Etienne. "Now, I'm going to help you get what you want, and you're going to help me get what I want." He smiled sweetly at Etienne. "Now hear this, zappy. Tell me what I want to know, or I'll have sweet 'Kiko eat you alive, one extremity at a time."

"No you won't," Akiko whispered.

He turned an amazed look on her. "Excuse me?"

"You will not dare," she spat, forcing a smile. "You fear the dragon, for you cannot control me when I am the dragon. You would not dare allow me to change."

"I believe ze lovely lady 'as called your bluff, m'sieu," Etienne added, almost laughing.

"Smart girl," Johnson nodded, patting her on the shoulder. "Very bright." He then doubled her over with a heavy punch to the stomach. "I guess no one ever told you that nobody likes a smart-ass, eh?"

Hearing Akiko's cry of pain and subsequent gasping for breath, Mick closed his eyes, marshalled his strength, and brought a shout to his lips. "Johnson, you son of a bitch, listen t'me!!"

"What was that?" Devin stage-whispered, leaving Akiko doubled over behind him as he drifted back toward Mick. "Did I hear you say something again, MacPherson, after I told you not to?"

"Listen to me," Mick growled. "We. Don't. Know. Where. Catseye. Is. You ain't gonna be able to torture it out of us, 'cause we don't bloody know!"

"Oh, tsk, MacPherson, you people are too fucking loyal for your own good, you know that?"

"Y'can read minds, can't you?"

"Better than you can possibly imagine."

"Read mine, then. We don't know where she is."

For a long while, Devin stared into Mick's eyes, searching for something. His face started to take on a look of fury mixed with something like fear. "You people are really beginning to piss me off," he grated. "And when I get pissed off, people start dying. Someone here's gotta know where the little bitch is, and I'm going to find out, if I have to take each and every one of you apart to do it. And you can quote me on that."

Most any normal person would have died of shock and blood loss by now, she realized numbly and distantly. Thankfully, she was not most any normal person. One of the most important disciplines she'd ever learned in her years of telepathic self-practice was that of mind over body. She was good at this, having years of practical experience behind her, but then again, she'd never been injured this severely in her life. Not in body, anyway.

He'd shot her! What kind of thing was that to do in a war between telepaths? She felt cheated, as though Johnson had breached some unspoken etiquette between warring minds. Guns should never enter the picture. She held onto this irritation, as it gave her something to concentrate on, and she had a dreadful sense that to lose concentration at this stage would be the end, turn out the lights, party's over for Emma Frost.

She knew that she couldn't keep it up indefinitely, of course. Pretty soon there wouldn't be any blood left in her at all, and then her mind would simply starve, willpower or no willpower. She had minutes at best, and then she would die. Involuntarily, she remembered having nearly died lying in a pool of her own vomit earlier that week. Now she was going to die in a pool of her own blood.

But then who would take care of the children?

The children! Bloody hell, who was taking care of them now? Johnson would have the alpha-team at his mercy by now!

This thought was enough to bring her out of the walled fortress she'd erected around herself to keep the pain away. Oddly, though, she didn't feel very much once awareness of body returned. Only a distant haze of residual agony. She had the grim feeling she'd passed through pain and out the other side, into the calm state beyond.

She gradually focused, then turned to look around the room from her place on the floor. Brainwash and Wraith were gone, but the bookcase-door through which they'd left was still open. Apparently Johnson hadn't figured out which button to push to close it behind him.

Very slowly and laboriously, Emma began inching her way toward the open door. The going was painstakingly slow, as she had to concentrate on each movement to get any response. It occurred to her that her body might already be dead, merely animated by her persistent presence, but she put that thought aside.

The elevator had, by this time, returned to the office, and was waiting obediently with doors open wide. She pushed her way inside, then moved herself into a seated position, her back supported against the side wall, her hands covering the gaping hole in her abdomen.

"Voice systems activate," she croaked.

"Voice recognition system online," came a computerized voice.

"Good. Down."

"Going down."

The doors slid closed, and the elevator began its slow descent into the underground levels. Emma looked across the small car to the opposite wall; both side walls were mirrors, and as she looked, she saw an incredibly large number of Emmas looking back at her.

None of them looked too happy with their lot either.

Her body was becoming more responsive to her commands now, so she braced her feet against the floor and began slowly pushing herself up along the smooth wall. The exit wound in her back left a long bloody smear on the mirror surface, but that couldn't be helped. As the elevator slowed to its inevitable stop, she pushed herself from the wall, fighting for balance. She kept one hand jammed into the wound in front, the other covering the wound in back, and tried not to think about what exactly she was feeling beneath her hands, and preventing from spilling out of her.

If she was going to die, she was going to die on her feet.

Protecting her children.

Giancarlo Annichiarico was late again.

This wasn't usually a problem with him, but then again, he didn't usually have to meet appointments with pain. Today was to be the first of his sessions with Chance (the little bitch who'd nearly killed him once by blanking his powers), to test the full effects of his "power loss" in the event that it happened again under less... friendly circumstances.

Which meant, basically, that he would have half an hour worth of excruciating agony in the name of learning. Small wonder he was showing up tardy.

By the time he arrived at the Combat Room, he saw that it was in use (the big light near the main doors was red, indicating that there was some kind of activity inside). For a moment, he considered entering, but then elected to go up to the control room to watch whatever was going on from there. Maybe that would stall the inevitable just a little longer.

The room was deserted when he arrived, so he took the "big chair" at the control panels and checked out the scene below.

First glance showed him nearly a dozen Hellions, all standing in a straight line, barely even twitching. The whole A-group was down there, along with Mick, Chance, Krissie, and Paul. Another man was pacing up and down in front of them, making dramatic gestures to go with his words. One other guy was standing, just as still as the others, but opposite the line.

Giancarlo recognized the pacing man as the guy who'd recruited him. Brainfart, as most of the Hellions now called him.

Then he noticed that Doc Ace was laying on the floor, not moving, and this triggered a flood of memories from his first talk with his roommate Sean-o. Johnson was bad news, and he and some other guy had attacked the school once before, killing one of the former Hellions, kidnapping two of the senior team, and raping one of those two beforehand.

He found the control to give him audio and switched on the sound, to hear what was going on below. It was at that moment that Krissie suddenly burst into flames, then went and... tried to light Beeford on fire?

"Where's Catseye, Buford?" he heard Devin ask.

Catseye? But Catseye wasn't even here! Even Giancarlo knew that, and he'd been here less than a month. Catseye was one of the ones...

...that Johnson had taken...

Still at a complete loss, he watched as Johnson demanded the same of Tomjon, and Tomjon said that he didn't know where Catseye was either. This earned Tom the joy of having Beef try to shatter his rock-form with a series of huge punches. This asshole wasn't going to take 'I don't know' for an answer, no matter how true it was, and with Catseye not here, there was nothing they could do to stop him.

Giancarlo suddenly had a flash of inspiration, remembering the story of how Johnson had taken control of the Hellions and tried to assassinate Frost, but had been taken down by Catseye, who was fully immune to mental powers. Giancarlo himself was mostly immune, though he guessed that anyone who had the power to control ten of the Hellions all at once would probably be able to do something against him... But he hadn't been noticed yet.

And Johnson wanted Catseye.

Maybe it was time for history to repeat itself.

Kilowatt fired up the main computers, quickly searching through the directories for anything helpful: Hellion power profiles, digitized records of old training sessions, anything.

Soon he found what he needed.

Then Johnson slammed 'Kiko in the stomach. Giancarlo realized he'd have to work fast, before this guy got any madder than he already was.

He took a deep breath (his energy-form didn't need to breathe, of course, but it helped him get his thoughts together) and began to change.

I swear, he thought to himself, if I get out of this one, I'll never bitch when Doc Ace tells me to work on impersonating people better...

"I don't think any of you realize the gravity of this situation," Johnson said to his assembled captives. His jovially sadistic side was gone now, leaving him deadly serious. "Do you have any idea what I could do to all of you if I wanted to?" He pointed to the remains of Buford's uniform, and the cracks on Tom's chest. "This is little shit! I can do plenty worse! I could kill you all, do you realize that?"

"Then get on with it already," Haroun said, very softly.

Johnson turned wide eyes on him. "Excuse me?"

"You'll kill us if we can't give you what you want. We can't give you what you want -- the truth doesn't seem to be enough. So stop showing off your vaunted might and get on with it."

"Ah, so you can die the honorable death, eh? Sorry, Harry, but that won't do. Why settle for just killing you when I can humiliate you? It's so much more fun! You know..." He laughed, then, as though thoroughly amused by his own thoughts. "How would you and Kyle back here," he waved in Wraith's direction, "like to have wild, passionate, unbridled sex right here on the floor of the Combat Room? Sound nice? Ever been butt-fucked, Ahab the Arab? I doubt it; probably grounds for ritual suicide where you come from. But I think you'd enjoy it. I could make sure you did."

"Why are you doing zis?!" Etienne gasped, his voice risen to a nearly hysterical pitch. "What kind of man are you?"

"I'm doing this," Johnson explained patiently, "because I'm the kind of guy who gets off on it. And because I'm not willing to accept Crocodile Dummy's word for it. He may be clueless, but one of you knows, and you're gonna tell me. And so long as you hold out, I'm going to have fun fun fun with you till daddy takes the T-bird away, you got me?"

He walked along the length of the line, considering each of them in turn. "So what next? I could have your big, buff boyfriend pound you into a little puddle, Krissie. I could make all your worst nightmares come out and play, MacPherson. I could have Wraith go smoke-form, Beef, then go into your lungs and suffocate you. Better yet, I could have him reform there. That'd be pretty spectacular, don't you think, Tommy? As for you, Jean-Pierre, I could just kill you -- you're not worth anything creative. And though I couldn't get 'Kiko to eat you after all, Etienne, I'll bet I could get you to do it to her. It'd be a lot messier, I bet. And Paul..."

When he reached Paul, at the end of the line, he stopped and smiled. "Paul. How's Cassie, Paul?"

"Don't know," Paul replied. "Haven't seen her lately."

"Ha ha and ha." Johnson's smile widened, and he looked Paul over speculatively. "You know, we kicked around a lot of theories about what makes you and your sister tick. Woman trapped in a man's body, man trapped in a woman's body, mostly wondering where the one of you goes when the other's in control. But you know what my biggest question always was?"

"No, but I'll bet you're about to tell me."

"Indeed. I always wondered what would happen if one of you were to die."

There was a pause, no more than four seconds, and then Paul collapsed to the floor. He did not cry out, nor did he struggle: he simply fell like a marionette with its strings slashed.

"Paul!" Mick choked. He closed his eyes against the sudden tears, unable to watch.

Johnson looked down at Paul's fallen body, unimpressed. "Well, I guess you just die. How anti-climactic."

"You will pay for that," Akiko said in a tiny voice.

"That so? And who's gonna charge me?"

As if in response, the main door opened once again. Mick struggled to turn his gaze that way, and what he saw about made his eyes fall out of his head in utter surprise.

It was Catseye.

She advanced slowly into the room, the door sliding shut behind her. She was in her humanoid form, wearing her Hellions uniform, and her tail hung limply behind her. Her face wore a look of quiet fury.

Johnson froze, and simply stared at her for a moment. He then let a single laugh escape. "So you were here all along, you little bitch? And I had to sit here and kill one of your teammates to get you to come out? Not very nice of you to let that happen to poor Paul, now, was it?"

Catseye did not say a word; she merely crept a couple of steps closer, growling deeply and dangerously.

"I've been waiting a long time for this, pussycat," Devin went on, his voice quavering. He, too, was quite suddenly on the edge of hysteria. "It's time you got what's coming to you." He reached into his coat pocket, then, and brought out a high-caliber revolver.

"Catseye, look out!" Haroun shouted.

But Catseye only stood there and waited for Johnson to pull the trigger. The first shot jolted her back a couple of steps, the second spun her in a wild, flailing twist, and the third sent her crashing hard on the floor. Devin went on firing, though, until the gun was empty.

And for a while, there was only silence.

"But that was too easy!" Devin whined. "Jesus H., I expected at least some kind of resistance, you stupid cat!" He stepped up to her fallen form, gun still in hand, and looked down at her. "What a waste of all this dramatic build-up. What do you have to say for yourself, missy?"

"Meow, mother-fucker!!"

With that, Catseye's leg suddenly extended upward, and her foot morphed into a block with the approximate consistency of stone, which slammed Devin in the face. Even before Johnson could fall, the shape of Catseye had already shifted back into Giancarlo, his malleable body completely unaffected by the bullets.

With a shock, Mick suddenly realized that he was free: the blow had broken Johnson's hold. Looking around, he saw the others moving as well, so he quickly barked out an order his two charges. "Chance! Embers! Get outta here, quick!"

Even as Mick gave his order, Haroun added one of his own. "Dragon! Bevatron! Hit him!!"

Akiko responded by shifting into her dragon-self and letting out a roar. Etienne started gathering power around himself, preparing to send a bolt of lightning at their tormentor.

"Not so fucking fast!" Brainwash yelled in mid-tumble, rolling to his feet and lashing out again with his power. Kyle, Kristina, Haroun and Tom all went rigid as he re-instated his hold over them.

"Chance, blank him!!" Mick barked.

"I- I can't!" Chance cried, backpedaling away from Kristina, who had once again ignited the air around her, and was now swinging wildly at the smaller girl.

This didn't stop the others, however, as Bevatron lanced an electrical burst at Johnson. Even with all his practice, though, Etienne's aim was inaccurate at best, and the shot went wild. Dragon cut loose with a gout of flame, which went right into the stony mass of Tom, who quickly moved to position himself between Devin and Akiko.

Mick suddenly found himself face to face with Kyle, who advanced on him, swinging blindly, much as Kristina was doing. Johnson could control their motions, it seemed, but couldn't get much finesse out of them. Mick ducked away from the first punch, then grabbed the smaller mutant, giving him a silent apology as he wrestled him to the floor. This didn't help matters, though, as Kyle simply turned to smoke, wafted a few feet away, then re-formed and attacked again.

Haroun, meanwhile, turned on Buford and began slamming his fists into the larger man's burned chest. Buford screamed against the pain this gave, then reached out to try and subdue his leader, but before he could, Haroun grabbed hold of him by the remains of his uniform and began to lift.

With his cybernetic implants, Haroun was unnaturally strong, but as he lifted the considerable mass of Buford all the way off the floor, the sound of grinding mechanisms was quite audible, even over the noise of the battle. With one final groan of protesting metal, Haroun bodily heaved Beef across the Combat Room, slamming him into one of the walls.

Giancarlo, meanwhile, extended a pair of tendrils to Hardbody, wrapped them around his feet, and yanked them out from under him, sending the stone mutant toppling to the floor. Dragon clambered over him and pounced on Devin, swiping at him with her claws and snapping with her huge jaws. By the look on her snarling, reptilian face, she seemed more than willing to do as he had suggested and give the taste of human flesh a whirl. Before she could sink her teeth into him, though, Tom reached out from the floor, grabbed her by the tail, and heaved her back at Kilowatt, slamming one shapeshifter into the other.

Chance, still backing away from Embers, finally did what she should have done the moment Kristina had advanced: blanked her powers. Once the fire was gone, Chance was able to trip her up and knock the wind out of her. She then rushed up to help Mick, blanking Wraith's powers and allowing Mick to grab hold of him and apologetically slam him into Haroun.

After conferring amongst themselves, Jean-Pierre and Etienne slapped one another five, then the elder brother dashed straight for Brainwash as Etienne got down on one knee to steady his aim.

Brainwash seemed so surprised by the frontal assault from Lightningrod (of all people) that he was unable to react until the young Frenchman had tackled him, then wrestled him into a full nelson, yanking him to his feet. Bevatron brought the lightning back to his hands, preparing to launch another bolt. His brother's energy-attracting powers would once again act as "sights," drawing the attack right to the target.

But Devin had other ideas. "Eat this, Frenchie!" he snarled, and then his eyes flashed visibly as he unleashed his power on Jean-Pierre.

When Johnson had attacked Paul this way, Gemini had merely fallen to the floor without a sound. Jean-Pierre, though, was jolted back a step, hands to his temples, emitting a shriek of purest agony before he, too, crumpled to the floor.

"Non!!" Etienne screamed. "Cochon! Je vous tuerai!!"

Chance appeared at Etienne's side, using her power to boost his own. "Shoot the sonuvabitch, Stevie!"

As Bevatron cut loose at his brother's killer, a veritable wall of electricity erupted from his outstretched fists, lanced across the room toward where Jean-Pierre had fallen, and hit Johnson square in the chest.

Several things happened at once.

Embers and Wraith began to convulse, screaming in unison with Devin, then collapsed.

Jetstream and Hardbody, his other mental captives, also screamed in fury and pain, but they kept their feet, thanks to their years of training in psychic defense and altered form, respectively.

But most spectacularly of all, Devin Johnson stood in the middle of a network of lightning flashes, arcing from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, but all passing through him and momentarily lighting him up like the proverbial Christmas tree. The remaining conscious Hellions had to dive for cover to avoid the streamers of energy given off as he flailed and convulsed in the midst of his own personal electrical storm. The room's lighting shorted and went out, leaving only the harsh white glow of the lightning itself.

And then, at length, it faded out. By the time emergency lights came up, Devin's smoking body had fallen to the Combat Room floor beside Jean-Pierre, still sparking and twitching spastically.

Mick pushed himself to his hands and knees, and found that he was right next to an unmoving Kyle. Casting a quick look around, he got a very unsettling head-count. Buford was up, but pained. Dragon and Kilowatt looked okay once they disentangled themselves, and Hardbody was leaning up against the nearest wall for support. Kokiadis was still down, but was groaning faintly and beginning to stir. Chance and Bevatron were up, though Etienne was staring wide-eyed at his own hands, as though he'd never seen them before. This left Kristina, Jean-Pierre, Kyle and Paul down, and as Mick checked for a pulse on Kyle, he found none.

Then Haroun knelt down opposite Kyle's still form. "How is he?"

"No pulse," Mick replied, simply.

"I'm on it," Haroun nodded. "You check on Paul." He then scanned the room for mutants on their feet. "Dragon, Kilowatt, see to Lightningrod! Beef, Hardbody, help Embers! Quickly, now, we've no time to lose!"

Without hesitating a moment longer, Haroun quickly began to administer CPR and emergency breathing on Wraith, even as Mick hurried to where Paul had fallen.

"I don't know CPR, 'Kiko," Giancarlo said nervously as he knelt down between Jean-Pierre and Johnson.

Dragon came down into her human form and dropped to her knees beside him. "You may help me, then. Hold him like this."

"She ain't breathin'!" came Beef's terrified voice next, shouting for all to hear. "There's no pulse!"

"Then help her!" Haroun shot back. "You know the procedures!"

"But... Jesus God, I might crush her!" He held his huge hands over her chest, but could not bring himself to press down.

"I'm on it, Boof," Hardbody said, gently nudging him out of the way. "Lifeguard training, y'know?" He, too, shifted into his human form to administer the life-saving techniques, but as he did, his face became one huge, pained grimace.

"You okay, Tommy?" Buford asked him.

"Yeah. Couple'a cracked ribs. No big."

Mick heard each of these rescues as one huge babble as he crouched down beside Paul. Dreading what he might see, he turned his prone body over onto its back.

And found Cassie's sightless eyes staring up at him.

For a shocked moment, he could only stare in numb horror. Devin's attack had had an effect after all -- it had forced a shift between the two twins.

And Cassie wasn't breathing. There was a thready pulse when he checked for it, but no respiration. Acting on practice alone, he tilted her head back, covered her mouth with his, and gave her a series of short puffs of air.

For a long, tense time, this was the only activity, as four lives struggled to save four others. Cassie was the first to start breathing on her own, though her first few were reflex gasping, and afterwards, she closed her eyes tightly and began to shudder violently. Mick held her steady as best he could.

Looking up for a moment, he saw that A.C. had dragged himself over to the two of them. For his own part, Kokiadis looked as poorly as Mick felt. "You okay, Mick?" A.C. asked.

"Not really, mate," Mick whispered. He then raised his voice to the others. "What's the status, people?!"

"She's pullin' out of it!" Tom yelled out in a taut but triumphant voice. "She's breathin' on her own now!"

"I have a pulse!" Akiko called. "Hold him, Giancarlo!"

"I got him. Keep tryin'."

"Haroun?" Mick called.

There was a pause, then Haroun sat back away from Kyle, taking a deep breath. "I think he's stable."

Mick breathed a sigh of relief. Four out of four... except... what about Paul?

"Cass, can you hear me?" he whispered to Cassie. "C'mon, love, wake up. It's Mick. You're... safe."

Cassie's shuddering breaths had turned into sobs by now, and Mick had to hold her steady with both arms. "Paul..." she gasped, miserably.

"What is it, Cass, what's happened to Paul?"

"He... he's gone. He's gone, I... I..."

"Easy, love, easy... Sssh. We don't know that."

"You... you don't understand, he's... he's gone!" This said, her voice dissolved into weeping, and she curled up into the fetal position, still shaking violently.

"Oh, shit," A.C. whispered, helplessly.

"<Where am I? Who- who are you people?!>"

The voice was Jean-Pierre's. He'd been the first of the other three to regain consciousness, apparently, and as soon as he had, he'd immediately become hysterical, screaming at Akiko and Giancarlo in French.

"Geez, Johnny, take it easy, it's us!" said Kilowatt. "No parlay fran-case, sorry."

Akiko, however, answered him in his native tongue. "<It's alright, Jean-Pierre. You're safe.>"

"<Safe where?!>"

The sound of his brother's voice finally got Etienne to move from where he'd fired the shot at Devin, and he hurried over to Jean-Pierre's side, shouting his name.

"<Etienne! Thank God! Where are we? What's going on?>"

"<Everything's alright,>" Etienne replied, kneeling to put his arms around his brother. "<Don't worry, brother, everything's fine.>"

Mick looked from Etienne to A.C., then began scanning the floor for his control panel. "We'd best get Security down here quick."

Before he could find the elusive panel, though, the main door slid open yet again. Standing (or rather teetering) on the other side was Frost. She looked about ready to fall over, and had both hands to her midsection, one before and one behind.

"Emma!" he shouted, caught between relief and concern at the sight of her.

"Headmistress, you're alive!" Akiko cried. Leaving Jean-Pierre to his brother's care, she hurried to her teacher's side to steady her. Haroun, too, hurried over to meet her, ordering a shell-shocked Chance to keep an eye on Wraith's breathing.

"You're injured!" Haroun gasped, noticing the ring of red staining her white blouse around her hand.

"I'm fine," she said thickly, but allowed Akiko to support her. She took a slow look around the room, her face impassive. "Casualties?" she asked, distantly.

"Embers and Wraith are stable," Haroun reported. "They haven't regained consciousness, so we don't know to what extent their... minds may be damaged."

"I believe something has happened to Jean-Pierre, though," Akiko went on. "He looked at me as though he did not recognize me."

Frost nodded, then carefully stepped up to where Mick and A.C. were still kneeling beside Cassie. "And Gemini?" she asked.

"He... attacked Paul," Mick explained. "I don't know what he did, or what happened to Paul, but it forced a shift."

Again, Frost simply nodded. She then looked across the room to where Johnson was lying. "Brainwash?" she asked, though she was addressing the question to Giancarlo.

Kilowatt made a disgusted face, but nonetheless turned the scorched body over and checked for a pulse. "He's dead. No doubt." He then looked over at Etienne. "That was a hell of a shot, Bev."

"Oh, Christ," A.C. whispered, looking a mix of terrified and disgusted by this.

"It was the only way," Emma whispered. "Well done, Hellions. I'm... glad to see you're safe."

"The only way?" A.C. repeated, rising to his feet to stare at Emma. "Well done? Jesus Christ, Emma, they just killed a man, and you're acting like they just scored well in a fucking exercise! What the hell kind of talk is this?!"

"In this case? Yes, it was the only way." There was an edge in her voice now: a hard, cold edge. "He'd have killed them otherwise."

"Bull. Shit. You can't expect me to accept murder as the only alternative!"

A gradual change came over Emma's stony face as she stared Kokiadis down. "Doctor Kokiadis," she then snapped, her voice rising in pitch and fury, "I'm very sorry the outcome of this attack does not meet the standards of your precious little sense of morality, but don't worry, you won't have to worry about it ever happening again! You are fired!"

For a moment, Kokiadis stared at her, thunderstruck, and then, quite suddenly, Emma's eyes rolled back in her head, and she toppled to the floor before Dragon could catch her. As she landed, her hand fell away from her abdomen, and they all got an unparalleled look at the gaping gunshot wound revealed there.

"Headmistress!" Akiko screamed.

Mick tore his eyes from his dying teacher and dashed to the control panel near the main door. "Security!" he bellowed, slamming on the intercom button. "This is MacPherson! We've got a medical emergency in the Combat Room! Repeat! Medical emergency in the Combat Room!"

After over seven fruitless hours of this stakeout, Gilbert was beginning to get a little stir-crazy. He'd had no company but his own thoughts as he'd kept watch from the car (Jenny was still dead-to-the-world asleep in the seat beside him), and those thoughts had not been kind.

He'd also nodded off more than once, but he wasn't about to tell Jenny that. Each time, when he'd checked the house again, there had been no new cars parked in the driveway or out front, so he assumed everything was cool.

Then there were the false starts, as he began to suspect that every car coming down the road or every pedestrian would be Camouflage returning, but each passed right on by the target house.

More to the point, he had to go to the bathroom.

At last, though, as night was falling, a black Camaro came creeping down the street, and parked out in front of the place. Gilbert quickly reached over and shook Jenny awake. "Jen! Car!"

She woke up fairly quickly, blinking her eyes furiously to focus. Together, they watched as two young men got out of the car. Both were black, and in the dim light of early evening, he couldn't see any facial features. He considered going to his rabbit form, which had better night vision, but Jenny's voice brought him short. "That's him."

"Which one?"

"The shorter one, from the passenger's side." Her voice had a strange quality to it, and Gilbert, so used to being in the position of prey, was forcibly reminded of a predator ready to pounce.

"So what do we do?" he asked.

She paused before replying. "We wait. About twenty minutes or so. Then we go in." She looked at Gilbert and raised her eyebrows. "Ought to give you plenty of time to check your gun."

"Right," he nodded. As Jenny retrieved her pistol from the side-holster strapped beneath her jacket, Gilbert reached back behind his seat and pulled out his pack. As he unzipped it and looked inside, he saw his journal there. Briefly, he wondered if he'd ever write in it again, but only briefly. For some reason, all along this mad quest, with Jenny's failing health and single-minded vengeful streak, he'd never really considered himself at any risk whatsoever. Somehow, perhaps for the first time ever, he was going headlong into danger, and yet was not afraid for his own life.

He pulled the gun out from underneath his journal, along with two clips of ammunition and a silencer. He gave the weapon itself a cursory inspection, then slid one of the clips into the handle and attached the silencer to the muzzle.

Jennifer took her time, though, making doubly sure that everything was in order. Gilbert watched the dashboard clock, as he had for much of the day. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Twenty.

"You ready, Buns?"

"As I'll ever be," he whispered.

"Good. Let's be nonchalant about this, okay?"

"Right."

Gilbert popped open the door and stepped out, reached back in to retrieve his jacket, and then slipped it on. Taking care that no one was looking, he picked his gun up off the seat and placed it under the jacket, holding it between his arm and his ribs. Jenny, too, got out of the car and started getting herself together. She was moving with more drive and focus than she had in days, and Gilbert wasn't sure to be heartened that she had rested so well, or worried that maybe she was only feeling the anticipation of being so close to the end of the hunt.

They stepped across the street, then just strolled by the front of the house, casting a few looks at it as they went. The blinds were pulled behind the front windows, but there was light inside.

"So do we knock?" Gilbert asked under his breath.

"We go out back," she replied. "Too exposed out here." This said, she led the way through the narrow space between the target house and the one next door. There was a tall wooden fence here, which kept them out of sight of the neighbors, and when they got around to the back, they saw that this fence in fact enclosed the entire backyard. After taking a good look around, Jenny brought out her gun, and motioned for Gilbert to do the same. She then led them up to the back porch.

Much to his growing disquiet, Gilbert was beginning to notice little details that just didn't jibe with the killer mutant they were going after. There was a small BMX bike parked out here: one that was at best sized for an eight-year-old. A small skateboard lay on its back nearby.

Jenny had removed a set of lockpicks from her back pocket, and was already at work on the back door lock. In less than a minute, she had it unlocked.

"We're goin' in," she whispered. "You keep the other guy covered while I go after Camouflage, got it?"

Gilbert nodded wordlessly. She nodded in reply, held her gun ready at her side, then slowly pulled the door open.

The two crept inside, and found that the back door led into a darkened kitchen. A half-full pot of fresh spaghetti was sitting by the stove, and there were the signs of the meal's preparation on the counters. An open door to their right led into a hallway, probably where the bedrooms were, and a half-open sliding wooden door led into a dining room, which was also unoccupied. The sounds of a television set came from beyond the dining room, and after listening for a moment, Gilbert placed the show: a rerun of CHEERS... the first one featuring Frasier's future wife Lilith.

Jenny motioned him to move on toward the dining room, but he held up one hand to stop her, then handed her his gun. She widened her eyes in protest, but he raised both hands to her, trying to emote "trust me" with his gestures. Then, with customary silence, he made the change from young man to rabbit, clothes and everything changing with him.

Looking up at Jenny, he saw that she was glaring at him furiously, but that was just too bad. Taking care that his claws didn't tick against the linoleum, he crept over to the sliding door and took a listen and a smell. A guffaw punctuated one of the funnier scenes from the show, and there was some brief conversation, the content of which was lost to Gilbert, who was concentrating solely on the voices themselves. With his nose, he caught four distinct scents, all of them male.

Before changing back, though, he scuttled over to the hall door on the other side of the kitchen and poked in, praying for some kind of sign. He would know Catseye's scent if it were here -- he'd smelled it more than often enough to recognize it by now.

But there was no other scent to be found save the four he had already noted. Sharon and Marie-Ange weren't being held here at all. Everything about this was wrong: this was a family's home, not the headquarters of a mutant supervillain.

He changed back, then crept up to Jenny and accepted his gun. He held up four fingers, then three fingers followed by a hand held to his own height, and one finger followed by a hand held at about four feet. He mouthed the words "Four people, three adults, one child."

Jenny seemed surprised, especially at the child, but it only lasted a moment before she motioned him to follow her into the dining room.

The dining table looked unused, which seemed right, somehow. The great American family tradition nowadays was dinner in front of the T.V.

There was no door, as such, between the dining room and the living room beyond, from which the sound of the television came: there was instead a large squared-off archway. Jenny stood ready at the edge of the arch, gun held in both hands, tensed to spring into the room. She looked back at Gilbert, met his eyes, and nodded. "One," she mouthed, "two... three."

On three, she all but vaulted into the room, brandishing her gun and shouting "Okay, nobody move!!" Gilbert followed right behind her, keeping his weapon drawn, ready to cover anyone she couldn't handle.

He needn't have worried. Of the four people in the room, she had them all cowed by the time he followed her in. She'd positioned herself right in front of the television, where all of them could see her, and kept her sights sweeping across the room over the four occupants. Gilbert noted an old, grizzled, white-haired black man sitting in an easy chair, and three others sitting on a couch: two older boys and the eight-ish looking lad who no doubt owned the bike out back. All of them had plates of unfinished spaghetti on TV trays before them. At this range, and in this light, Gilbert did indeed recognize the middle boy from his Multivac file: it was Camouflage, no doubt about it.

The little boy started screaming when he saw the guns being waved around, and the old man's eyes bugged. "Don't shoot!" he gasped, holding up his hands. "You -- you can take anything you want, just... just don't shoot, please!"

"Shut up, gramps," she growled at him. "That goes double for you, kid!" She then narrowed her eyes, and lowered her sights, at William. "Stand up," she said in a low voice.

Eyes wide, William slowly got to his feet, hands held up. The other young man started to rise with him, but Jenny switched her sights over to him. "Not you! Sit down! Rabbit, if any of the others move, blow 'em away!"

Gilbert did not reply, and briefly wondered if she meant the kid as well.

William, by this time, was practically hyperventilating. "You... you're one of the people from the school," he said in a tremulous voice.

"Oh, he remembers!" Jenny smiled sarcastically. "Get over here, or I swear to God I'll shoot you right here in front of everybody!"

Hands still raised, William began to edge his way out between the dinner trays, but then his nerve broke, and he dashed for the front door.

Jenny fired. The bullet caught William mid-stride in the arm, and he fell to the floor, his cry of pain lost amid the screams from the boy, the horrified "Dear God!" from the older man, and the shout of "Willie!!" from the second young man, who sprang to his feet, sending spaghetti plates flying.

Quicker than he could move, though, Jenny brought her sights back on him. "Get back, asshole! This doesn't concern you!"

"You come in here and try to kill my brother and that don't concern me?!" he shot back. He began to circle around her to where William had fallen without ever getting any closer to her.

"You don't know what he is! You don't know what he did!"

"No, I know what he is," the older brother glared at her. "I know 'xactly what he is. He's a mutant. But he's my brother, and I accept him bein' a mutant. And I'm not gonna sit here and watch some self-righteous bigot kill him for bein' what he is. You wanna kill him, you gotta go through me first, bitch."

"Dane," the old man gasped.

"It's cool, Grandpa," Dane assured him.

By this time, Gilbert had seen and heard about enough. He moved to stand behind Jenny, set his gun down at her feet, and once again dropped into rabbit-form, to take in this scene with his nose as well as his eyes.

It seemed that Jenny was the only one in the room that didn't notice his change, as her attention was focused exclusively on William and Dane.

"This ain't about him being a mutant, it's about what he did!" she snarled, her aim never wavering.

("Grandpa, that guy turned into a bunny rabbit!")

William, by now, had pushed himself to sit against the wall, and was holding his injured arm with his other hand. His color was beginning to fade as his mutant power blended him to his surroundings. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't know what I was doing, I'm so sorry..."

"You're sorry?!" Jennifer laughed, her voice taking a dangerously hysterical edge. "You come into my school, my home, you rape and murder my best friends, and you're sorry?!"

"What the hell you talkin' about?" Dane snapped.

William shook his head furiously. "I didn't! I swear to God I didn't hurt no one! I... I know I said shit to some of the people there, and... and I know I threatened that one redhead girl, even though she just wanted to help, but... I was outta my mind! I didn't know what I was sayin'! I didn't mean to threaten her, I was just scared, but I didn't hurt no one or kill no one, I promise!"

"Miss, please don't kill my boy," the old man begged. "I know he had some hard times with his... bein' a mutant, and bein' at your school, but he came home, and we took care of him until the bad times passed, and now he's got a job with his brother and a real life again. We been workin' so hard just to get by, and he'd never hurt no one, I know it! Please, Miss, these boys are the only family I got left. Don't hurt my boys, please don't..."

Jennifer shook her head. "You're lying to me," she grated.

"I ain't lyin', I swear to God!" William insisted. "After I took off, I never went back to your school. I didn't kill or rape no one, I've been here at home tryin' t'get my shit together! I swear, I swear, I didn't do it!"

Before Jenny could say any more, Gilbert shifted back, this time in front of her, and put his hand over her gun. "They're telling the truth. He didn't do it."

She stared at him numb with shock. "What?!"

"He didn't do it," Gilbert repeated. "I don't know who, but it sure as hell wasn't him. They've told nothing but the truth."

"How can you know that?"

"Because I can smell it," he replied, evenly. "Catseye taught me how, remember? You have to trust me, Roulette, he's innocent!"

Jenny stared at him for a long time while the Buchwald family held its collective breath and Dane checked his brother's wound. Then, she began to shake her head slowly. "You... You little shit... You've been planning this all along, haven't you? This whole time, you've just been waiting for the chance to stop me, haven't you?"

"Stop you from what? Murdering an innocent man?"

"I trusted you!!"

"Then trust me now! He didn't do it!"

Jennifer's face filled with such a mixture of fury and hopelessness that Gilbert's concern for her redoubled yet again. It was for this reason that it took him a while to notice that she was now pointing her gun right at him as she backed slowly away.

"I trusted you," she repeated in a low, choked voice. "You betrayed me. I could kill you, you know..."

Even with the barrel pointed right at him, Gilbert found that he was still more afraid for her than himself. "If that's what you have to do, then do it."

Her aim wavered slightly as her eyes began to fill with tears.

She fired.

The shot went wide, well above and to the right of Gilbert, and hit the hanging light fixture in the dining room, shattering it.

With an inarticulate cry of rage and frustration, Jennifer raced for the front door, flung it open, and dashed out into the night.

Gilbert stood very still, then slowly reached to the floor to pick his own gun up. He made a show of taking the clip out and putting it in his pocket, then tucked the pistol itself into his pants. "Um, don't go anywhere, okay?" he said to the four, and edged for the open door.

As he peeked out, half expecting that she'd take another shot at him, he saw that she'd retreated to the car and started it up. With the screech of rubber against asphalt, she slammed the MR-2 into gear and took off down the road as quickly as she could accelerate. Gilbert watched her go for a moment, then looked back at the four.

"I guess I owe you folks an explanation," he said, giving them what he hoped was a sympathetic smile.

"Damn right you do," Dane nodded.

"And I will. But first... Mr. Buchwald, may I use your phone?"

The old man blinked, then pointed wordlessly to a telephone on the endtable beside the couch.

"Thanks," Gilbert nodded. He then went and got the phone, picked up the receiver, and dialed the number for the Academy. Once he got through on the main line, he punched in the extension for Security.

It picked up after less than one ring. "Security. Corsi here. What is it?"

Gilbert was somewhat taken aback by the tense tone of Lieutenant Corsi's voice, and he stammered slightly in his reply. "Ah -- um, Tom? Um, Tom, this is Gilbert Dane."

"Gilbert?!" Corsi nearly choked. "Where have you been? No, better yet, where are you now?"

"I'm in Flagstaff. It's... a long story. Listen, I'm here with Camouflage."

"What?!"

"Roulette and I tracked him to here."

"Roulette? Is she there with you?"

"Not anymore. Look, I'll explain later. Could you just get someone the hell out here to bring me home?"

McAudry House, La Jolla CA
Saturday, 22 January 1994 1:13 am PST

...lovehimhatehimloathehimwanthimmondieuhe'sdeadhe'sdeadHE'SDEAD!!!

Marie-Ange screamed. She screamed as she had screamed the night of her rape, and as she had for every one of the nights since in which she'd remembered it in her dreams. Each time the terror was fresh and new, as though she were experiencing it again for the first time. She could still hear the sound of his voice, she still smelled him, felt his crushing weight on her...

"Angie, what is it, what is it?"

And then the here and now returned. She was not in her dorm suite at the Academy, she was in her new home with Douglas. And it was Douglas sitting up beside her in the bed, and the face she saw when she focused was Douglas, not... him.

I'm safe, she thought, taking a deep breath. I'm safe. Douglas and Sharon are with me. It was just a dream.

Catseye, who'd been curled up at the end of the bed Marie-Ange and Douglas now shared (as she was most nights), quickly shifted into her human form and sat beside her friend, opposite Douglas. "Bad dreams, pretty redhair? Catseye chase them away, yes?"

"Are you okay, sweetie?" Douglas asked, his face filled with concern.

She nodded slowly. "Oui."

"The same dream?" he asked, gently.

Again, she nodded. "I'll be alright."

"I wish there were something I could do," he whispered.

"You already have," she smiled softly, reaching up to lay one hand upon his face. "This will pass, cher."

They settled back to sleep, Catseye once more turning into her cat-self to guard the end of the bed, and as she gradually drifted back to sleep, Marie-Ange hoped that the fates would allow her the rest of the night with no more dreams...
 
 

Doug found that he couldn't get back to sleep right away, so instead, he lay quietly beside Marie-Ange and watched her drift off.

Almost immediately, the twitching began. She was dreaming, or perhaps remembering, which she did with equal frequency while she slept. Bad enough that she'd had to live through that experience once -- did she really have to be subjected to it again night after night?

Unbidden, an image came to him: the image of the man who had done this to her. As he had so many other nights, Doug sent a thought out to him, in whatever Hell he might now be burning in.

"Bastard. Even dead, you still torment her, don't you? I swear by all that's holy, if you were still alive, I'd kill you myself."

But that wouldn't make the dreams go away. Lying there awake beside her as she twitched in her sleep, Doug found himself wondering if anything ever would.

Next: "Hold Her Down"

Go West #21: "Running to Stand Still"
by Jeremy Bottroff, 5 February 1995

This story (c) 1995, 1999 Jeremy Bottroff

"Running to Stand Still" performed by U2, words and music by U2 (Clayton, Hewson, Evans, Mullen), (c) 1987, 1999 Chappell Music/U2 (ASCAP), from the album THE JOSHUA TREE

"Cut to the Chase" performed by Rush, lyrics by Neil Peart, music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, (c) 1993, 1999 CORE Music Publishing (SOCAN), from the album COUNTERPARTS

"Naked Eye" performed by The Who, words and music by Peter Townshend, (c) 1999 Towser Tunes (BMI), from the album ODDS & SODS

Haroun Al-Rashid (Jetstream), Beef, Bevatron, Chance, Marie-Ange Colbert (Tarot), Tom Corsi, Emma Frost (White Queen), Douglas Ramsey (Cypher), Sharon Smith (Catseye), Jennifer Stavros (Roulette), Tessa, Hellions, Massachusetts Academy (c) 1999 Marvel Entertainment Group

Dylan Blaisdell, William Buchwald (Camouflage) and the Buchwald family (Dane, Henry and "Grandpa"), Kyle Burns (Wraith), Gilbert Dane (Rabbit), Jean-Pierre Delacroix (Lightningrod), Tom Grindle (Hardbody), Michael MacPherson (Dreamwalker), Gwen Moehn, Cassie and Paul Spangler (Gemini), Akiko Tanaka (Dragon), Daniel Weller (Dough-Boy), Marsha Wilson (Farsight), Kristina Yarborough (Embers) created by Jeremy Bottroff, (c) 1999 Jeremy Bottroff

Devin Johnson (Brainwash), Sean McDermott (Pathfinder) created by Michael Jones, (c) 1999 Michael Jones/Everbard

Giancarlo Annichiarico (Kilowatt), A.C. Kokiadis, Winchester Hall created by Keith R.A. DeCandido, (c) 1999 Keith R.A. DeCandido/Albe-Shiloh

The details of what happened after Emma passed out on the Combat Room floor may be found in HUMAN TOUCH Chapter 9 ("Quite Ugly One Morning") by Keith R.A. DeCandido

CHEERS, Frasier and Lilith Crane (c) 1999 Charles Burroughs Charles