Chapter Sixteen

Ororo came to herself with a stomach-lurching mental jolt only to find she was back in Cerebro, sitting next to Xavier. An insistent blue light was flashing on the control panel, but her brain was too fuzzy for its meaning to register.

"What am I doing here?" she asked blearily, her disorientation lifting like morning fog as the appalling events of the past few minutes rushed back to the forefront of her consciousness. She spun on the old man then, frantic, her crystal eyes wide beneath her sleek, silver helmet.

"No, I can't be here!" she exclaimed. "You have to help me go back! Kurt has teleported through your divider and now—"

"I know, Ororo," Xavier interrupted, removing his helmet with pointed deliberation. "I was monitoring you both, if you remember. But powerful as my gifts may be, I can still only deal with one crisis at a time. And right now we are receiving an emergency signal from the medbay." He flicked the silver switch beside the warning light, which Ororo now saw was a silent alarm originating from Hank's lab. Hank's urgent voice burst from the speakers barely a moment later.

"Charles, we have a situation down here," he said, his voice low and wary as though he feared someone else might hear. "Kurt's father has appeared along with one of his minions. They demanded to see Kurt-I couldn't stop them. Scott is keeping watch, but I have to say I do not trust their motives."

"Bright Goddess," Ororo breathed, bringing a hand to her chest.

"And Jean?" the Professor asked, his tone clipped with urgency and worry.

"She's unconscious, but stable," Hank assured them. "However, I'm afraid she had to pull out of the fight. The psychic strain of holding off that demon nearly drained her. Another minute and I doubt she would have made it back."

Ororo swallowed, but even her worry for Jean was pushed aside when she realized, "But that means Kurt is alone with Belasco! Charles, you have to help me go back-"

"Don't think I don't share your concern, Ororo," Hank's low voice interrupted, "but in my opinion, it's Kurt's body we should be worried about now. The demons' claim is that they wish to help restore Kurt to his natural form, but I'm not about to take them at their word. There's a dark scheme at work here, and I refuse to let them carry it out. Not on my patient and not in my medbay! Thus, I require reinforcements."

Ororo worked her jaw, her expression conflicted. "But if we leave here, what is to stop Belasco from striking out at Kurt? He certainly can't defend himself the way he is now!"

"Actually, Ororo," Xavier said thoughtfully, "his current mental state might be his best defense. As long as his thought patterns continue to mirror his earlier memory, the Belasco 'program' should be unable to locate him and attempt another wipe of his personality."

"Yes, that makes sense." Hank's nod was almost audible. "So he should be safe, at least for now."

"Try to keep the demons distracted, Hank," Xavier advised. "Ororo and I will be down momentarily."

He closed the channel and turned his electric wheelchair away from the control panel with an air of finality, as if that was the end of the matter. Ororo stood, her mocha brow furrowed.

"You can't mean we're just going to abandon him to face those horrors alone," she frowned.

"Did I say that?" Xavier snapped, his eyes hardening with a rare flash of temper. "Kurt is in no danger, Ororo—at least not mentally. Whatever horrors he is experiencing in his mind have already happened. At this moment, I'm afraid there's nothing more we can do for him here. Hank is right. It's his body we should be most concerned about now."

"Yes," Ororo muttered under her breath, her blue eyes cold. "You just keep telling yourself that."

If Xavier heard her, he gave no sign. Without another word, Ororo followed the old man into the elevator; aloof, regal, and completely expressionless. Even so, deep inside it felt as though a freezing vice was being tightened around her heart.

Ororo had promised Kurt she would help him, be there for him. He had trusted her enough to open his mind to her, yet now that he needed her most she was being forced to walk away. It felt like betrayal. But most bitter thought of all was the knowledge that without Xavier's support, the former weather goddess was helpless to do anything about it.

A shadow brushed by him on clacking shoes, a tattered briefcase in one hand. "Hilfe..." he cried, holding out his bloodied hand as though that could stop the man from walking away. "Bitte!"

But he was already gone, swallowed up by the encroaching night. Kurt sagged against the wall of a run-down shop, shivering with pain and a horrible coldness that seemed to leach all the strength from his body. He knew he had lost a lot of blood, that he was probably going into shock. His legs felt boneless; a cold sweat had broken out on his face.

But he had to keep going. He had to keep walking—find a payphone, a church...anything. If he allowed himself to pass out here, he would never wake up. Even a short rest, a brief stop, could be deadly. If he even...closed his eyes...

A jingle of bells, a flood of light-

"Hey you!"

A gruff voice snapped Kurt back to painful consciousness. Shivering hard, he fought to lift his head...

"Freakin' junkies... Can't you read the sign? No loiterin' and no solicitin'. That means you, buddy. Do your beggin' someplace else! I run a respectable business here and I don't need you freakin' hopheads scaring off the customers, got it?"

It took a moment for Kurt's drifting mind to process the loud English words spoken in such a harsh tone. He blinked blearily up at the broad shopkeeper, and as he did he realized for the first time how terrifying the dark could be without the benefit of night-vision. Rather than providing relief, the light streaming from the shop's doorway only intensified the enveloping darkness, washing all the color from the crumbling street and turning the previously defined buildings and scraggly trees into monstrous shapes and looming shadows. The shopkeeper himself was a faceless form, his thick fists clenched and his dark eyes glinting beneath the shadow of his brow. Kurt felt a thrill of fear creep up his spine.

"You deaf or somethin'?" the looming man shouted. "I said get lost!"

Kurt tried to stand, but his wobbling legs gave out, his bare heels scraping against the rough sidewalk and the back of his head slamming into the brick wall as he crumpled to the ground. He swallowed the pain, the sudden jar causing his stomach to lurch and his throbbing head to whirl.

"Get up!" the shopkeeper snapped, kicking Kurt sharply in the thigh. "Get up! You can sleep it off someplace else!"

"Please..." Kurt tried, "...I'm not—"

But the moment he opened his mouth he knew he'd made a mistake. His head was spinning so badly...he barely managed three words before, suddenly, everything was coming up. Thick vomit splattered over the shopkeeper's shoes, the sidewalk, Kurt's blood-stained hand. A fit of violent coughing wracked his weakened frame, cutting off his horrified apologies before they had a chance to form.

If the shopkeeper was irate before, he was infuriated now. His broad face reddened and his dark eyes began to glow a livid green as he opened his wide mouth in a truly horrible roar. Kurt cringed at the sound, curling himself up as small as possible against the graffiti-marred brick wall.

"What are you doin' out there, Rod?" a new voice called out, followed closely by a gigantic pair of old, weather-stained leather shoes. Kurt closed his eyes tightly, trying again and again to activate whatever it was in his brain that allowed him to teleport.

"Phew! Lordy what a stench! Looks like he nailed you good, man."

"It ain't funny, Frank," Rod growled through clenched teeth. "I've a right mind to make an example out of this one."

"Yikes," Frank commented, crouching down to look Kurt over. "Looks to me like somebody already did. There's blood all over his clothes, cuts on his head... You sure this guy's a junkie?"

"Well, you tell me," Rod glowered. "He's filthy, dressed in stinkin' rags, he reeks of garbage, and I found him passed out in front of my shop. What else do you need?"

Frank shook his head. "I don't know. He looks like he's been beat up pretty bad, but I can't hardly see anythin' in this light." He stood with a grunt of effort. "Let's bring him inside."

"Heck no!" Rod exclaimed, outraged at the very thought. "I ain't bringin' no stinkin' junkie into my shop, especially if he's bleedin'! Lord knows what diseases these people might be carryin', shootin' up all day with those filthy needles of theirs! Bad enough he threw up on me! I'm not about to let him bleed on me too!"

"Well, we can't just leave him here," Frank proclaimed. Stepping back into the shop, he called, "Liz! Hey, Liz! Bring me that flashlight, will you? You know, the one Rod keeps behind the counter. Yeah, that's the one."

Kurt opened his eyes again just in time to see a girl with mottled gray skin, perfectly round, fish-like eyes, and wetly flapping gills come rushing to the doorway, a flashlight in her scaly hand. She handed it to an enormous, middle-aged man with dark green skin and hair, all the while staring openly at Kurt. The giant smiled down at the girl, then crouched by Kurt's side, turning on the flashlight and pointing it straight at his face.

"Ach!" he exclaimed, flinching away from the sudden brightness.

"Sorry," the green man apologized, and Kurt immediately recognized his voice as Frank's. At that moment, something clicked in his swimming brain, something that made his heart begin to swell with hope. Somehow, he had landed in a community of mutants. If he could just gather his strength...focus his thoughts...surely they would understand what had happened once he explained who he was. He could be back home at the mansion by morning!

"Please," he panted, swallowing hard to stave off another bout of vomiting. He spoke slowly, enunciating each word with careful precision. "Please sir, you have to help me. I am not a drug addict. My name is Kurt Wagner...Nightcrawler, from the X-Men."

Rod snorted from the shadows above. "You ain't neither. Nightcrawler's blue, ain't he? If you're him, then how come you ain't got no blue fur?"

"Wait!" Liz exclaimed, "I read in the newspaper that sometimes he wears a sort of hologram-maker thinggummy when he's out on missions. Ask him if he's wearin' a watch, Frank!"

"You mean my image inducer," Kurt gasped, his eyes widening as he realized he could make this work to his advantage. "It used to be a watch, but now it is a cylinder that straps to my belt." He gestured to the array of palm-sized instruments strapped to his utility belt, shifting his position against the brick wall. He had barely gotten settled, however, when his ears were met by a piercing scream, causing his heart to nearly leap through his ribcage.

"Oh, God, oh GOD!" Liz shrieked, both hands clamped over her wide mouth. "He ain't got no arm, Frank! Oh, God, he ain't got no arm! All that blood-"

"Get back, girl," Rod said gruffly. "He could still be dangerous. One thing's for sure, though. Whoever he is, he can't be no X-Man. They don't leave their own, especially when they're this bad off."

"They didn't leave me!" Kurt retorted sharply, his voice cracking with renewed pain as his muscles clenched. I was the one who left them, he berated himself, his heart heavy with guilt at the shameless way he had abandoned his team. But he didn't say that out loud. Instead, he hedged. "There was an accident. I...I teleported blindly. Right now, they don't know where I am. You...you have to call them. You have to let them know I'm here."

"He sounds sincere, Roddy," Frank observed with a thoughtful frown. "And he's definitely got one of them European accents. Isn't Nightcrawler supposed to be Dutch or Russian or somethin'?"

Kurt stiffened. "Deutsche!" he corrected firmly. "Ich bin-I mean, I am a German, mein Herr. I was brought up in Baden-Württemberg and in Bayern, near München--Munich." He sagged back against the coarse wall, exhausted and out of breath. "Now please," he pleaded weakly, his energy draining fast, his thoughts beginning to loose coherence. "Please, you must the X-Men call." He shook his head, recognizing something wasn't quite right with that sentence. "I mean, call the X-Men. The number ist hier..."

He reached into one of the hidden pockets in his tattered uniform and pulled out a crumpled business card, the kind he usually handed out to the parents of his students just in case they needed to contact him directly instead of going through the front office. He had used the back of this one to jot down the time for some meeting or other and had never gotten around to throwing it away--something he was deeply grateful for now. On the front was printed his name and the name of the school, the number of his office phone, his fax number, his e-mail address, and the address and phone number of the school. It was to this last section that he pointed as he handed the small card to Frank.

"There," he said with a weak smile. "My credentials. The number you need is right there."

Frank read the card, then passed it up to Rod. "Seems legit to me," he said. Rod just grunted. Frank shook his head.

"Don't you worry, Mr. Wagner," the green-skinned giant said, rising to his feet with a reassuring smile. "I'll go make the call right now. You just sit tight and your friends'll be here before you know it."

"Danke," Kurt breathed, then he gasped as he began to shiver even more violently than before. The shop door slammed with a muffled jingle of bells as he slowly slumped to the sidewalk, too exhausted even to lift his head.

He hadn't been lying there long, however, before a new sound forced him to open his eyes. Three young men and two scantily-clad girls--all of them obviously mutants--were making their way down the opposite sidewalk. From their too-bright laughter and stumbling gaits it was clear they'd just come from a night of drinking. They passed under a streetlamp, the yellowed light bringing their features into focus.

Kurt blinked hard, his breath quickening as he forced himself to sit up. One of the girls...she had lavender skin and black hair just like--

"Melinda!" he gasped, his hoarse cry oddly resonant in the nighttime air. The drunken party came to an awkward, giggly stop, peering through the shadows for the source of the call. Half delirious with joy and pain, Kurt staggered to his feet and began to shuffle his way across the street, warm tears streaming from his eyes. "Melinda, Gott sei Dank! You're alive!"

The lavender-skinned girl shrieked in alarm at the sight of the ragged, bloody specter lurching towards her. One of the boys leapt in front of her, pushing his glasses up his salmon-colored nose as he pointed his straight horns at the approaching stranger. But Kurt was too overcome to appreciate the danger he was walking into, his words of relief tumbling over his guilt-stricken apologies as he reached out to her...

"Keep back!" the horned boy warned. "Don't you come any closer!"

But Kurt kept moving forward, oblivious and disoriented. A dark haired boy in a worn leather jacket dashed into a nearby alley, his legs blurring with incredible speed. Barely an instant later, he returned with an armful of empty beer bottles and broken bricks.

"Get away from us!" he exclaimed, lobbing a bottle at the nightmarish figure with all his might. It hit Kurt on the head and he crumpled to the ground, hurt and bewildered. Sharing wary looks, the five drunken teenagers approached him cautiously, sticking close together behind the boy with the bricks.

"Listen to him talk," the horned boy said, frowning at Kurt's delirious babbling. "Did you ever hear an accent like that before?"

"He ain't from around here, that's for sure," the armed boy replied.

"Whoever he is, he's hurt real bad," the lavender-skinned girl observed with a look of deep revulsion. "Look at all that blood! You don't get that much blood from a regular street fight. This guy looks like he's been in a war!"

"Hey! You think he could be a terrorist or somethin'?" the third boy--a reptilian-looking teen with wings like a pterodactyl--spoke up from the back of the huddle. "Maybe he's, like, on the run from the FBI! Maybe there's a reward if we bring him in!"

"This loser ain't no terrorist," the boy with the bricks scorned. "Just look at him. I bet he ain't even a mutant. Just some stinkin' human that got caught on the wrong side of town. Probably deserves every wound he's got." Striding forward, he kicked Kurt sharply in the thigh.

"Hey you!" he shouted. "Flat-scan! What'd you do--run into a propeller or somethin'?"

Kurt stared up at the small gang from the street, his blue eyes glassy and his breathing harsh and ragged as he fought to focus his thoughts into coherent speech. "Didn't mean to," he gasped brokenly, "...to teleport... Would have turned me to stone... Gargoyle...had to stop... Mutants...help..." He trailed off, falling back onto the pavement, his fingers numb and trembling.

"Had to stop mutants?" the second girl repeated with a frown, brushing her short-cropped pink hair from her eyes. "Did you hear that? This guy's been beatin' up on mutants!"

Just then, the door to the shop opened with a jingle of bells and Frank, Rod, and Liz came filing out.

"Mr. Wagner, we called the school but only got the machine," Frank was saying, but he cut himself off when he caught sight of the scene in the street.

"Hey, what's goin' on here!" he demanded, running over to the teenagers. "Don't you know who this man is?"

"Yeah. He's one of them Friends of Humanity nuts," the dark haired boy declared. "We just heard him sayin' how he wanted us to help stop the mutants!"

"What are you talkin' about, boy," Frank glared. "This here's Nightcrawler from the X-Men! He even had a card!"

The horned boy snorted. "Card, my ass," he scorned bluntly. "No way this filthy flat-scan is Nightcrawler! He ain't got no tail or nothin'!"

"That's because he's wearin' a hologram, moron," Liz retorted, crouching down to snatch the instruments from Kurt's belt. "When I find the right one, the hologram will blink out and then you'll see..." She stood up and backed away, bewildered when nothing happened.

"See what?" the dark-haired boy smirked. Liz frowned, increasingly angry as she scowled at the instruments in her hand, then down at the unchanged human at her feet.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. "I think he lied to us, Frank! He ain't Nightcrawler after all!"

"I knew it!" Rod proclaimed. "He probably stole that card off the real Nightcrawler. I'd even go so far as to bet it was the X-Men that did all this to him! Makes sense if he's one of the FoH! Heck, he might even be their leader for all we know!"

"Then I say we finish what they started," Frank said coldly, his green face drawn with fury at how easily he'd been fooled. "These freakin' FoH bigots have been keepin' us down long enough. It's about time we got some of our own back!"

A sizable crowd of mutants had gathered by this time, pouring out from the apartments above the run-down shops to see what the commotion in the street was all about. As Frank shouted, they took up the cry, advancing on Kurt with anything they could find.

Kurt watched them come, blankly uncomprehending until Frank lobbed a brick straight at his head. Only his years of Danger Room training saved his life as he rolled away just in time and climbed to his unsteady feet, his head whirling and his heart pounding. It was only then that the full reality of his situation sank in.

The fact that he was standing seemed to enrage the crowd, their threatening shouts growing in intensity. Kurt experienced a sickening sense of deja-vu, his mind flashing back to that horrible night in Winzeldorf. Then, he'd been scapegoated because he was a mutant. Now he was human, he was seeing that same murderous hatred burning in the eyes of the mutants all around him. Only this time, Professor Xavier wasn't there to save him from their fury.

A sudden rush of terror surged a desperate strength into his shaky limbs as he ran for his life, the raging mob pounding close at his heels. Glass shattered all around him, the shards cutting his bare feet, bricks left painful welts on his back and legs, yet still he ran. He ran mindlessly, his thoughts as incoherent as those of a hunted deer until, suddenly, he found himself pressed up against a brick wall.

Acting purely on instinct, he tried to climb it, unable to comprehend why his palm and feet refused to stick to the rough surface. He tried again and again, scraping the skin from his hand and knees and toes, yet nothing happened. Turning around, he faced the on-coming mob, his blue eyes wide and wild as he crouched down, throwing his arm over his head in a futile attempt to protect himself from the rocks and bricks and bottles pelting down on him, battering him until he fell helplessly to the sidewalk, no longer able to move.

This was it. This was the end. As painful as it was, Kurt could almost laugh at the irony. His mother had been right. Everything he'd ever worked for, the cause he'd fought so hard to defend, was nothing more than an idealist's fantasy. Mutant or human, all cultures and communities were the same--fearing any person, thing, or idea that was different from the accepted norm. Xavier's Dream was a failure, and Kurt's death would be the final proof.

"Let that be my last thought," he whispered ruefully through cracked lips as he closed his eyes and gave himself over to--

"Stop that! Get away from him, all of you! Have you all gone mad!"

A new voice was rising above the mob's shouts, drawing him back from the darkness enveloping his mind. Slowly, Kurt raised his leaden eyelids, watching in blank befuddlement as the blurry shadows dispersed, leaving only two shiny black shoes standing before him.

Kurt tilted his head back, wincing as even that small movement stabbed his broken body with shooting pain. A flood of light met his tearing eyes, filling his heart with a strange wonder. From out of this light, a kindly face came into focus, the softly wrinkled face of a priest...

"Can this pitiful figure I see before me truly be Kurt Wagner?" the old man asked, his dark eyes filled with sadness as he stood over his prone form. "Where are your friends? Surely the X-Men would not abandon one of their own to a fate such as this."

Kurt closed his eyes, a searing guilt slicing through him as he thought of Benny and Sage, of how they must have faced their deaths alone and without hope of rescue. He had abandoned them. Why should he deserve any better?

Taking in a shaky breath, he managed a hoarse whisper. "Who...who are you?"

"Here, I am known as Mr. Church," the old man said, his gleaming eyes appearing almost gold in the dim light of the alley. "But you, my brother," he smiled, his white teeth lengthening into alarming fangs even as his hair and skin deepened in color to a dark, ominous red, "may call me Mephisto."(1)

(1) The preceding mob scene and Mephisto's appearance were taken from events in Universe X, Volume 2.

"Supper for the rest of the staff and the students has been taken care of, although I did have to be rather creative in finding ways to stave off their questions about what's going on down here. On that subject, by the way, just how are we going to approach this situation? I doubt it would be prudent to simply walk right in without any strategy at all..." He raised a somewhat challenging eyebrow.

Xavier's thin lips twitched into a small smile. Speaking out loud, he said, "On the contrary, my friend, that is exactly what I was planning to do. You see, he already knows we're out here."

Ororo shot the two men an annoyed look, realizing some kind of silent exchange had just taken place. Before she could ask for clarification, though, Xavier had already maneuvered his electric wheelchair through the sliding door to the main medical bay. Swallowing her frustration, Ororo followed the old man inside with Erik close behind.

For an emergency situation, the scene that met their eyes as they filed into the cavernous room was surprisingly calm. At the far corner, Scott was sitting beside Jean's bed, gently stroking her vibrant hair as she slept. The monitors that flanked her showed normal rhythms and steady pulses--evidence that she would make a full recovery after her harrowing psychic experiences. It wasn't the two Summers that caught their attention, however.

"Ah!" Azazel smiled, striding forward with his hand outstretched. "Professor Charles Xavier, I presume! So good to meet you at last."

Xavier raised an eyebrow. "Indeed," he said, giving the demon's proffered hand the most perfunctory of shakes before gesturing to the others. "And these are my colleagues, Erik Lehnsherr and"

"No, don't tell me," Azazel interrupted, his golden eyes fixed on Ororo's face as he took her hand and raised it to his lips. Ororo felt a deep chill run through her at his unwelcome touch. She knew she had seen those eyes before...

"This can only be the lovely Ororo Munroe," the demon went on, oblivious to her reaction, "the woman who has held my son's affections for so long, yet has only now begun to show any signs of true reciprocation. Tell me, my dear, do you treat all your admirers so wantonly or only those whose looks don't quite match the so-called ideal?"

Ororo's blue eyes flashed a brilliant white, her long hair rising around her shoulders as she tore her hand from his grasp. Mephisto took a threatening step towards her, leaving Hank alone by Kurt's bedside, but Azazel waved him back with a low laugh.

"So," he smirked, his eyes roving over her figure in a way that made her feel uncomfortably exposed and increasingly angry, "the Storm Goddess's armor is not as thick as she would like us to believe." He leaned in close, causing her to shudder as the bristles of his black beard brushed against her ear. "If you keep wearing your heart on your sleeve, my dear, it is likely to tarnish."

She glared at him, moving back several paces. Azazel let her go, but kept his eyes fixed on her face as he continued, clearly goading her. "I offered that advice to my son upon our first meeting, but he proved unable to heed it. You can see the consequences." He cast a pointed glance at the unconscious Kurt.

"Azazel," Xavier interrupted firmly before Ororo's swelling outrage could erupt into violent fury, "why have you come here?"

The demon let his gaze linger on Ororo just a bit longer before he turned a rather disappointed expression on Xavier. "Really, Professor, with powers as vaunted as yours you shouldn't have to ask such obvious questions. I have come because my son is in need of my help. It's that simple."

"Is that so," Erik retorted, crossing his arms in front of his chest with a scowl. "Then why is it only now that you've decided to show up? Why didn't offer Wagner your help a year ago, or even a week ago? Why did you wait until he was this bad before doing something?"

Azazel shook his head. "Another slew of obvious questions! Clearly I didn't come earlier because it is only now that any help I could offer would be of use to him. To tell you the truth, before Miss Munroe's impromptu rooftop visitation I wasn't even sure if he could be helped. I don't know what you said to draw him out, my dear, but ever since then that tangled, schizoid swamp he calls a mind has been slowly crawling its way back to sanity, making it possible for me to finally offer him some meaningful assistance."

Ororo's whitening eyes were as hard as diamonds. "And why should we trust you?" she snarled, her snowy hair crackling with barely contained electricity as she advanced on the bearded demon. "You're the one who did this to him in the first place! If it wasn't for you"

"If it wasn't for me, he'd be dead!" Azazel snapped, his eyes flashing a dangerous gold. "Murdered by the ungrateful populace you X-Men had him convinced he had a duty to protect. I gave him a second chance at life, taught him how misguided he had been"

"And when he resisted, you wiped his personality and implanted Belasco's instead!" Ororo cried. "Replace a troublesome son with a loyal one, is that it? You probably thought Kurt was gone for good! But he proved too strong, didn't he, Azazel. And now that he's begun to recover his identity, you've come to finish what you started!" She curled her lip, her posture radiating menace. "You've come to help your son all right," she said, "but not Kurt. You've come for Belasco!"

Three slow claps echoed dully in the metallic room, overlapped by Mephisto's derisive snickering.

"Lovely speech," Azazel remarked. "And delivered with such fiery passion! I must say I'm impressed. You're quite wrong, of course, but I can understand how you could have come to that erroneous conclusion."

Mephisto snorted from across the room, speaking up without taking his eyes from the trilling instrument in his hand. "Belasco is nothing," he said bluntly. "He was a failure--an untalented, self-centered fool who longed for a prestige he never deserved. Kurt was the one with the potential. He just needed a little...prodding...before he would allow himself to put his skills to use."

"Prodding!" Ororo exclaimed. "You brainwashed him! You stole his identity, altered his body, distorted his brain paths!"

"We had hoped that wouldn't be necessary," Mephisto frowned. "Kurt Wagner could have been second only to my father in power if he had just opened his eyes and embraced our cause. But he proved too stubborn, and the psychic treatments my sister performed on him didn't hold. He soon became unstable...irrational. My father placed him in Limbo before he could deteriorate too far, but ultimately he left us no choice but to perform a complete wipe of his personality and memories." He shook his head, raising his golden eyes from his instrument to cast an openly disgusted glance at Kurt. "Such a waste," he commented.

Erik furrowed his brow. "Then, it seems to me that you have no more use for him--at least not as he is now," he commented. "Why, then, have you chosen to help him?"

Azazel smiled behind his trim goatee. "My dear Magneto, I may be a demon but I am not a monster. For all his misguided shortcomings, Kurt Wagner is still my son. And you can trust I wouldn't be here now if I didn't believe he had earned the chance of a full recovery."

Ororo looked suspicious. "Earned how?" she demanded.

"By continuing to exist!" Azazel explained grandly. "Wiping Kurt's personality was the hardest decision I have ever had to make, and I can tell you Belasco made a poor replacement. I mourned my son, Miss Munroe. I mourned him bitterly. For all his obstinate defiance, he had always proved worthy of my respect. You cannot imagine my wonder when I learned he had survived the procedure!"

"A recovery like this should be impossible," Mephisto added, speaking clinically over his instrument. "Such spontaneous personality regeneration has no precedent, especially after a new personality has been implanted. We have been tracking his progress since we sent him out as Belasco over fifty years ago, and his resilience has proven truly remarkable."

Azazel beamed proudly. "And that is why I have decided to grant him the opportunity to return to his former life. Such an indomitable will should be rewarded. I want his remaining years on my Earth to be rich and happy, spent among the people he loves so dearly." He turned once again to face Ororo. "Surely you can't fault a father for wanting that for his child."

Scott rose from his seat across the room, his brow furrowed over his glasses. "So let me see if I understand you," he said, taking a few strides forward. "In order to reward Kurt for miraculously surviving your attempt to blot him out of existence, you're making this magnanimous offer to untangle the mess you've made of his genes and his mind so he can live happily ever after here with us. And then...what? What do you get out of this?"

For the briefest moment, Azazel stiffened, a dangerous gleam in his eye. Then, just as abruptly, his shoulders loosened and he began to laugh. But it was a chilling sound.

"There is a very old proverb, Mister Summers," he said darkly, his long tail writhing like a snake behind him, "that I think you might appreciate. It goes: Never look a gift horse in the mouth. This is a family affair, little man. My motives are my own."

"Fair enough," Xavier spoke up from his chair. "Far be it for me to argue with you. If anything, I would like to thank you for what you are doing for Kurt. I realize he is your son by blood, but ever since he came here at the age of nineteen we have all regarded him as an important member of our family. You can't blame us for being protective now that he's returned to us."

Azazel cocked an eyebrow at the elderly Professor; their sharp eyes boring into each other as though a silent power play was taking place. After a long moment, Azazel blinked. Xavier nodded.

"You will have our full cooperation for as long as is needed to rid Kurt of Belasco," he proclaimed, the firmness of his tone taking the gathered X-Men somewhat aback. "These facilities are at your disposal. How can we assist you?"

The demon's thin lips crept into a superior smirk. "Mainly by keeping out of our way," he said with a pointed glare at Scott and Erik. "McCoy can stay, however. His knowledge is limited in this area, but his skills might prove useful nonetheless. As for you," he peered down at the Professor, "I'll need you and Miss Munroe to continue your work in Cerebro. Yes, I know all about it, Charles, don't look so shocked. In fact, I was counting on it."

"Then I was correct to attempt containment," Xavier said, forcing himself to speak civilly, even if it was through clenched teeth. The demon nodded.

"You will have to get Kurt to attack with everything he has," he said. "He must force Belasco to give ground if we're to stand a chance of extracting the implant without causing further damage to Kurt's mind." He held up a clawed finger to forestall Xavier's next question, looking him up and down as though sizing him up.

"As you can guess, the operation is extremely delicate. So delicate, I would only entrust it to the most powerful telepath who has ever lived."

Xavier could feel a flush rising on his face, but before he could respond Azazel continued, his deep voice laced with more than a little smugness. "I will summon her directly once everything is ready. You just concern yourself with making sure Kurt is strong enough to fight Belasco. You may go."

And with a dismissive flick of his spaded tail, Azazel strode back to Kurt's bedside, where Mephisto and Hank were too preoccupied with their scans to take much notice of Xavier's bristling ire.