Lorna Dane was starting over, with nothing but herself.

As material possessions went, she’d lost almost everything. It had all started that fateful day two weeks ago, when she had been rudely received at Fall’s Edge by government lackey Henry Peter Gyrich, and she’d responded appropriately: Lorna blew the place to Kingdom Come. From that point, she’d been made a fugitive, and it hadn’t taken long for Gyrich’s goons to confiscate her possessions from her old Manhattan apartment. She could just imagine a cadre of armed, government goons kicking in the door of her empty suite, poking flashlights into her fridge and drawers, pocketing everything they didn’t destroy, from pots and pans to panties. She’d later be kicked out of that apartment; couldn’t blame the landlord--she’d been exposed as a mutant, and mutants made for nervous tenants, and nervous tenants made for fewer rent checks. In the end, Gyrich’s men had left Lorna with little more than the clothes she’d worn that day.

But that was then, and now she was starting to get used to her new lifestyle. New wardrobe, courtesy of her former Defenders teammate, Janet Van Dyne; a new, shoulder-length hair style and hair color, as chestnut brown replaced her natural green most hours of the day, in order to protect her identity as ‘Polaris’ from any living soul; a new, modest apartment, and furniture to adorn it, paid for from twenty-seven years’ worth of life savings (she refused to depend on Jan--or anyone else--for too much); and a new roommate, who today, as they moved in, Lorna was just getting acquainted with. All things considered--save for her new, government job, that is--things were looking up.

“I think it looks okay,” her roomie, Abigail Maggart, remarked as she sat herself on the light-toned couch located in the center of the large living room area, bunching her long, brown hair in a bun, as if to rest after she and Lorna had finally finished arranging the furniture in the living room. The waif-like girl hardly stressed the couch cushion on which she sat.

Lorna glanced around the newly-decorated living room and frowned. “What if we moved your chaise lounge further away from the piano, and closer to the center of the room? And that couch isn’t really even with the coffee table.”

Abigail shook her head. “I write all my songs on that old chaise, so I need it closer to the piano. And I don’t mean to be disagreeable, but the coffee table looks even to me.” Even in a slightly argumentative tone, only Abigail’s wide, sky-blue eyes showed emotion, as her lips remained ever pouty, her round face tragically serene. Lorna had been blessed with magnetic physical features to match her mutant ability, but she had also known the trouble that formed a face such as Abigail’s. The girl was four years younger than Lorna, but it was clear she’d lived perhaps as tormented a life. Yet, in gazing into her engaging eyes, it was clear she had found a way to cope. Like Lorna.

“Well...okay,” Lorna agreed. No use in arguing this early into their relationship, and especially over something as irrelevant as interior design. She wanted to make this domestic alliance work, not because she sought a friend as well as a roommate in Abigail--friends were a commodity Lorna didn’t care to possess anymore--but because it would make life a little easier. At the same time, she had recently discovered a fountain of control within herself, and was determined to get her way. So, as Abigail sat on the crooked couch and admired the room, Lorna used her mutant power to take a distant, unseen hold of the metal, inner workings of the couch to meticulously draw it even with the coffee table. Underhanded, yes, but Abigail wouldn’t notice, and Lorna would get her way.

Deflecting her unscrupulous activity with small talk, she toured the room further, effortlessly straightening picture frames on walls, pushing and pulling desks and bookshelves toward and away from corners, and lamenting that the area rug atop which almost all the furniture sat possessed a tangible, metal component, for she had the urge to pull it further back from the front door and to her liking.

“You don’t think my PC is taking up too much space in here, do you?” Lorna asked, adjusting the monitor on the hutch in the back of the living room, neighboring the kitchen.

“Not at all,” Abigail replied.

“Good. By the way, feel free to use it any time you like. It’s new, so I’m not hiding any porn or anything on it...yet.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Let me guess, you’re computer illiterate,” Lorna quipped. “Aren’t you sick of hearing people say that whenever technology is mentioned? It’s like they’re bragging.”

“Oh, I’m literate,” Abigail replied, turning on the couch to face Lorna at the back of the room. “But once I sign on to one of those cursed things, I can’t get off. And I like my literacy between bookends, and my addictions green, and in little sacks,” she smiled.

Lorna lifted her eyebrows in feigned amusement. Great. Her roommate: a moody, elfin pot head with a poet’s heart.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Abigail asked bluntly.

“Er...no.”

Hastily, Abigail apologized, “You know what, that was really rude of me to ask.”

“Don’t worry about it. How about you?” Lorna replied.

“Not right now. But it seems like I always manage to fall for some dipshit.”

“Makes for good songwriting,” Lorna chuckled. Oh, the songs SHE could write.

blurt-blurt!

“Your pager,” Abigail alerted.

Lorna retrieved the small, neon green device from the unembellished kitchen counter and noted the single number on the display.

1

Sigh.

“I need to use the phone--where’s the jack so I can plug it in?”

“Is that pager gonna go off a lot?” Abigail asked, annoyed.

“I hope not,” Lorna replied, her firm voice ripe with regret and reverie.

First mission was a junkyard in Detroit, Michigan in the middle of a starless night. A relentless rainstorm beat down on the wasteland, as dirt walkways turned to mud rivers, and forty-feet high mounds of refuse provided makeshift waterfalls. Even without the unpleasantness of the storm, this place took the term “junkyard” to the extreme. Cars and vans so totaled they couldn’t be salvaged. Washing machines, dryers, stoves, refridgerators, microwaves, so dingy they’d probably been worthless when they’d been bought new. Empty shipping crates impersonated totem poles. And that was just the stuff that could be seen--if recognized at all--among the countless shrines to waste.

This place was ugly, and it was about to get uglier.

They had arrived.

A nameless bunch of misfits, they were. Yes, individually they had names, but as a group, they didn’t exist. Just five mutants and one homo-sapien, hunting other genetic outcasts as dictated by the United States government, separate in every sense, save for the fact that they were united in their helplessness. And they all had loved ones to think about--loved ones who would be killed if one or all of them failed in their assignments. So they would fight, because they had no choice.

“Five seconds to run for an exit!” Domino warned their quarry with a shout that echoed within the waste walls of the junkyard. Her weathered voice was filled with frustration and anxiety, as it had been for the past week, her family would report.

The five mercenaries currently gathered had taken cover separately at the bases of five of the junk heaps, their collective eyes on the deceptively humble structure at the center of the wasteland, where their target and his mutant wards had assumedly taken their posts since the mercernaries’ arrival.

“They’re not gonna bite,” Mystique spoke into her headset microphone, brandishing her metalic laser rifle.

“Then we know the plan,” Polaris replied from her equally isolated location.

“Don’t let the four guards past our perimeter,” Domino reminded. “If they DO get away, we’re supposed to let Creed have them. But that’s the last resort--these people don’t deserve...him.”

“We KNOW the plan,” Black Marvel growled. The enigmatic, square-jawed, new superhero had seemed agitated ever since the mercs had first assembled earlier in the evening--then again, everyone was on edge, because no one wanted to be there. “I’d like to get this over with,” he continued.

“I know you’ve got some witty comment to make, right, Guido?” Polaris chided.

“I’d just like to say, in honor of every action blockbuster ever made: I’m too old for this--”

“Let’s roll,” Domino said.

With that, Strong Guy’s fist leveled the mound that had sheltered him, and Polaris collapsed hers with a burst of magnetic force, as the remaining mercs charged into the rushing waste landslide and toward the center structure. Once they had shown themselves, the guards fled the structure and met their charge in the center of the junkyard.

Risque.

Mimic.

The Blob.

Pyro.

“We’ve come for Sledge, but we’ll take you four down if we have to,” Mystique cautioned the rushing, superpowered defenders.

“Then you’l have to take us down, hun, cuz you’re not going to touch Sledge!” Risque, the shapely, young, raven-haired female mutant replied as her inborn ability to implode inorganic matter produced an ear-shattering explosion from one of the standing piles of debris. Refuse rained down on the superpowered combatants as they scattered.

“Do the mice still want to play?” she grinned.

The hispanic rogue never saw it coming: Domino fired a blast from her pellet rifle, pummeling Risque with a volley of tennis ball-sized rubber bullets, and sending her stumbling into the mud.

The Mimic’s large, feathery wings brought him down to Mystique as he said, “A bright idea, blocking our escape by bringing down the junk piles and littering the ground with a rampart of trash. Unfortunately for you, we know this junkyard better than anyone but Sledge himself, and we have other ways of escaping. But not before we destroy YOU!”

As his was the power of all of the original X-Men, Mimic had been granted the lethal eye beams of Cyclops, Jean Grey’s telepathy, the Angel’s flight and heightened vision, Iceman’s control over the air’s moisture, and, in this instance, the bounding Beast’s strength, as he pelted Mystique with a powerful punch.

Mystique doubled back, then shook her head at his insolence, cocked her laser rifle, and through her shape-changing ability, grew wings of her own, meeting Mimic in mid-air for an aerial throw-down.

“We’ve got virtually the same powers, Mimic,” she admonished, “but I’ve got a big gun, so let’s see how long this fight lasts.”

Elsewhere in the waste pit, Strong Guy attempted to engage the Blob in battle, but even his massive fist was futile against the corpulent mutant’s immobile obesity. The Blob laughed and replied with a blubbery fist to Strong Guy’s jaw.

“You really should consider a low-fat diet, Dukes,” Strong Guy said, holding his aching chin. “Or maybe Tae-Bo.”

“Nah,” Blob replied as he struck Strong Guy with another fist, flattening him into the mud. “That Billy Blanks guy kinda creeps me out.”

“You’re one to talk.” Strong Guy recovered from the muddy imprint he’d made in the ground and hastily swept the muck from his costume. “Jeez! I just bought this outfit, and I’ve already got to get it to the dry cleaners!”

“Yeah, you’re goin’ for a real Kal-El look, ain’t’cha, what with the bright colors and the big ‘S’ on the chest? All yer missin’ is the cape,” Blob remarked as he took another swing.

“Kal-Who?” Strong Guy ducked under the Blob’s fist, then countered with a forceful thrust that staggered both mutants.

Meanwhile, Pyro bombarded Polaris with streams of flame, while she responded with waves of magnetic energy that kept him hidden behind a stack of wooden crates.

“You seem to have regained control over your powers, Pyro,” she said, launching another blast to no avail. “I thought that Legacy Virus had gotten the best of you. Find a cure?”

“No cure, luv,” replied the Australian flame-controller. “Sledge has just managed to contain the virus’s influence over my powers. The virus is still eatin’ me alive, an’ one day I’ll just up an’ die, but in the meantime, I’m gonna give you hell.”

“Can’t imagine why the government would want to capture this Sledge character--he sounds like a real generous guy,” Polaris replied, sarcastically.

“You’ve got no idea, luv.”

Polaris dodged Pyro’s flame as he ducked back behind the crates. If only she could find a way around those crates and take control of the metal fuel pack on Pyro’s back. And then, as she saw Black Marvel approach their fiery ring of battle, she got an idea. And, like the reaching fingers of flame around her, she disappeared.

“Where ya at, luv?” Pyro asked, peeking around the crate, and finding his opponent was nowhere to be seen. “Dane?” he called again, leaving the shelter of the crates for curiosity’s sake.

It cost the mutant dearly.

KLANG!!!

Once Pyro had left himself without cover, Black Marvel had crept around the crates and, with his titanium asp, walloped him upside the head and into unconsciousness.

Polaris re-phased her own magnetic field into synchronization with the rest of the planet, and appeared as suddenly as she had earlier vanished.*

(*as described, almost verbatim, by Gary “G-God” Dreslinski in DEFENDERS #188--Sam)

“Neat trick, huh?” she winked at Black Marvel. “That’s what I call teamwork.”

“It’d be teamwork if we were a team,” he replied imprudently, “but we’re not.” With that, the black-costumed human darted away into the darkness, and left Polaris perplexed.

Mystique and Mimic’s airborne dogfight was both furious and fervent, as the blue-skinned female met the bearded superhuman’s eye beams with laser beams from her rifle. Somehow, despite the space Mimic had to work with and the ease with which he could have evaded her , Mystique had thus far been able to contain him inside the boundary of the junkyard.

“An interesting scrimmage, right, Mystique?” Mimic chided.

“Definitely. But it can’t go on forever. One of us has to err eventually.”

“If we stayed in the air like this, it would be you, for I’m much more adept at flying,” he replied. “So why don’t we make it a fair fight and head to ground level?”

“I like the way you think, but are you sure you can trust me down there?” Mystique smiled.

“Why not? Sledge has said some good things about you,” Mimic replied as he descended toward the earth.

Upon his landing, Mystique powered up her rifle and remained in the air. “Did he, now?” From her insulated, hovering position, she methodically picked off the surprised, ground-bound Mimic with her rifle, knocking him senseless with her laser rounds. “He was wrong.”

Strong Guy and the Blob continued to spar, though neither could gain the upperhand with their fists.

“I thought your kinetic energy gathering strength would have kicked in by now,” the Blob admitted as the two continued to trade blows. “Maybe it has, and you’re still too much of a weakling to beat me.”

“Could be,” Strong Guy shrugged indifferently, though concern for his lack of power crept up on him. Even HE was at a loss to explain his inability to increase his own strength with each of Dukes’ punches.

As he positioned himself at the base of one of the waste piles and lowered his fists, he’d have to improvise.

“Y’know, Dukes, I’m thinking of changing my name.”

“You don’t say!” The Blob charged the momentarily defenseless Strong Guy, but Guido sidestepped him, and Dukes dashed into the mountain of junk, held captive under the tons of trash.

“I guess Fast Guy would sound too corny,” Guido finished.

“How’s James doin’?” Risque casually asked Domino as she attempted to elude the pale-faced mutant in the maze of junk mounds, forcing Domino to dodge the implosions that Risque coerced in the heaps.

“Proudstar?” Domino replied over the constant din of the eruptions and the rainstorm. “Last I heard, he was with the New Warriors.”

“Si! I’ve been meaning to pay Los Guerreros a visit!”

Domino leapt out of the way of another blast. Fed up, she took aim at the fleeing Risque and, in the split-second she had her in her sights, she pulled her trigger--but another implosion riddled her concentration, and her aim fell off, allowing Risque to escape toward the government mercs’ perimeter.

“Creed’ll tear her apart,” Domino gasped. “Can’t let him....” She sprinted after the victor-turned-victim.

Risque negotiated the thick sludge at her feet and the debris obstacles around as she ran toward the junkyard’s exit. Escape was a reality--only five yards away. Yet, a moment later, escape was impossible, as she felt a clenched fist slide out of the darkness and collide with her cheek. She fell to the ground, and turned to the horror of the grimy, yellow grin of Victor Creed--Sabretooth.

“Fresh meat,” he gnarled, his cat-like eyes running up and down her lithe form, his moist tongue running across his lips. “I’m startin’ to change my mind about this job already.” He inhaled to savor the saccharine scent of a living meal--then he pounced.

Risque struggled to break free of his skin-piercing grip before his teeth could tear into her throat or his claws could slice into her insides, but, just as escape had been in sight, so now was the end.

Almost.

“Get off her, Creed,” Domino moaned as she arrived to Risque’s rescue.

Creed’s wonderous eyes remained on his prey, and he hardly acknowledged Domino’s order. “No can do, sweet thing,” came his feral reply.

“Corrupt as the government is, they only want us to capture our targets, not kill them,” Domino urged.

“Huh-uh,” he said, increasingly eager to end the argument and grub. “You failed, doll. You let my little Spanish fly here past the exit--that was the perimeter, so she’s mine now. Go play war games somewhere else and let me have my fun.”

Shivering, Risque glanced to her side, and tentatively said, “Y’know, I’d love to join you for dinner, gato, but, well, I never did get past the exit.” Both Domino and Creed noticed the same, to her delight, and his disappointment.

“A few feet off, actually!” Domino gloated.

Sabretooth shook his shaved head, then grinned that same mischiveous grin that had earlier so frightened Risque. “What’d you say? I couldn’t hear you over the storm. Oh well.” He prepared to bite into her jugular again.

“I bet you can hear this, Creed!” Domino urgently cried out. “If you kill her, and the Agents Cooper find out about it, there will be consequences. Same for all of us. In fact, I’m betting that the only difference between you and everyone else in this group is, if anyone else defies the government’s orders, one of our loved ones dies--but if you disobey them, you’re the one who gets offed, since I can’t imagine you caring about anyone else enough for them to be used as a bargaining chip against you. Kill innocent people on your own time, Creed. But as long as your with this merry little band of of mutants, I won’t stand for it.”

Finally, Creed took his eyes off of his prey and scowled at Domino while Risque trembled beneath his bulk. “You’re not the leader of this team, toots,” he growled. “There IS no leader, because there IS no TEAM. So bark out orders on your own time. But as long as you’re with this merry little band of wankers, I won’t stand for it,” he mocked. “’Sides, what do you care if I kill Risque or anyone else? Whoever’s handing the Coopers their orders--which they hand down to us--will probably just gas our captures anyway. Or worse.”

Domino rolled her eyes. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe they will. What the heck, go ahead and kill her. Then, when some government hitman kills you for your insolence, maybe they’ll let me keep your head so I can decorate my dining room wall with it. Sound good?”

Sabretooth snorted, and started to stand from Risque’s soaking, muddy, quaking body. “You sure know how to ruin a peaceful meal,” he said. Then, his eyes widened with his toothy mouth. “Then again, Risque does a body good!” Again, he pounced the half-expecting mutant, and his teeth began to tear into her throat.

Then, suddenly--a hiss, a bright, crimson flash, and his head rocked back.

Mystique glided down and let her wings morph out of sight as she lowered her smoking laser rifle and warily approached Sabretooth’s now-unconscious form. Already, his mutant healing factor had activated, and his smoldering head began to heal.

“He’s going to be trouble,” Mystique groaned.

“This whole damned thing is trouble,” Domino pouted as she walked past the exit and lost herself in the fury of the storm. Mystique’s golden-eyed glare followed her into the night.

As Risque stood and counted her blessings, Strong Guy and Polaris approached and mused at Sabretooth’s current, humbled state.

“Don’t get too giddy, boys and girls,” Mystique scolded. “The more angry Sabretooth gets, the more dangerous he is.”

Strong Guy paid no mind to her warning and chuckled, “Well, somewhere in Dreamland, I’m sure he’s pretty upset right now.” Polaris joined him in laughter.

A moment later, Black Marvel brooded from the remains of the fuming junkyard warzone and said, “This Sledge guy ain’t around. I checked the place up and down. Lot of weird stuff in that building back there, but no Sledge.”

“Weird stuff?” Polaris asked. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Looks like incubating tubes or something in there. Nothing I’ve ever seen in any junkyard. Check it out for yourself if you want.” With that, the gruff Marvel followed in Domino’s errant wake.

Polaris made a call on her cell phone, and black helicopters smothered the night’s storm.

Washington, D.C.

Agents Valerie and Shawn Cooper sat across from each other in the FBI headquaters’ cafeteria. The room was filled with conservatively dressed, feasting agents, and bustling with lunchtime activity. The countless work-related conversations provided enough clamor to hide the Coopers’ discussion--the contents of which were meant only to be known to a certain few people in the government’s ranks.

The dialouge was a dreary one, its topic disturbing to both agents, but it was ever veiled in their therapeutically playful tone--a tone that could only be shared by siblings, which the two Coopers were. Val was the older of the two by six years, but, as FBI agents, both possessed enough experiences to fill a dozen lives--and they would both claim to treasure each tale they told--

--except the one about their new positions as liaisons to the government’s mutant strike team.

“Have you ever actually questioned a mutant before, Shawn?” Val asked before she filled her mouth with a tasteless, American public-paid-for, forkful of peas and cooked carrots.

“I’m sure I have, but I wouldn’t know it at the time,” the younger Cooper replied in his ever-boyish tone. “Mutants are everywhere, it seems like.”

While Val had always been mature beyond her years, Shawn was less so. Val was the nameless girl in high school who would sneak a smoke in the girl’s bathroom during class, and who despised the childishness of her “peers”, while Shawn was the quarterback of the football team, and the varsity baseball squad’s star pitcher. In college, Val was breezing through her studies with an all-around wisdom she didn’t deserve, while Shawn was coercing girls into his dorm room to help him...study (he wasn’t as dumb as he acted). And during their FBI training courses, Val had shown great skill in the detective work arena, and considerable proficiency in the field, while Shawn failed to challenge his big sis in either area. Even their physical appearances were dissimilar; it seemed Val outgrew her baby face even before she was a baby, and boasted a long, blonde mane that attracted too many males’ attention, and soft-but-firm features from head to toe that kept their attention; in the field, Shawn reluctantly wore a trim, brown top, though he would have preferred to let it grow out more than the government would have. His was a once-rigid physique slightly ravaged by too many nights out bar-hopping and shooting pool, though his square jaw and six-feet frame were appealing at more than a fundamental level. They were siblings bonded by their differences, and these days, bound by something else.

“Maybe you should borrow a contamination suit from the hazardous waste containment unit down the hall,” Val poked. “Wouldn’t want one of them freaks to infect you with mutie-cooties.”

Shawn gave a resigned smile and pointed a harmless finger. “Why do you say things like that, sis? Why? You know I don’t think like that about mutants.”

“That’s not exactly your view, but you’re definitely...tentative about them.”

“Not all of ‘em. Just the dangerous ones,” Shawn corrected through a mouthful of turkey and gravy.

“But aren’t all those big bad muties dangerous?” Val responded, mockingly.

“Naw, just the ones who give themselves codenames and prove their points by leveling buildings and killing innocent people. Basically, the ones you’ve associated with the past few years.”

“You know what I think?” Val started.

“You’ve said this before....” Shawn futiley informed as he braced for the familiar, undeserved scolding.

“I think,” she continued, as if she was Sherlock Holmes cleverly uncovering a well-hidden character flaw, “I think that it’s more than you say. There’s another layer. I think that Mom and Dad, and even I’ve spoiled you and sheltered you, and you’re afraid that one day you’ll get close to someone, and they’ll turn out to be a mutant, and SMACK! your whole cooshy existence is shattered just like that. Maybe if one good thing can come from our new jobs holding mutants hostage for the government’s unknown agenda--maybe it’s that you’ll see that mutants are people too.”

Shawn shook his head at her absurdity. “Corny. You’ve been seeing that Samson quack again, haven’t you?”

Val cocked an eyebrow. “I’m just saying...”

He gasped, and his brow lifted in faux discovery. “Hey, maybe there’s another layer under that! And another one under THAT one, Doctor Cooper!”

“Maybe. Things are like that.” She checked her watch, then picked up her hardly-touched tray and stood from the table. “Come on. We’ve got some teeth to pull. Representative Primrose,” she shuddered at the mention of the politician clandestinedly responsible for the blackmailed strike force, “wants our report on the first mission by this afternoon.”

Shawn finished off his tea, and said, “I’m new to D.C. headquarters, sis--do you folks NORMALLY hold your interrogations in the aquatic examination lab?”

Risque’s frown had been turned upside down, but it wasn’t deliberate.

She was virtually alone in the humid lab, and hung perilously, helplessly, by her ankles, twenty-five feet above an indoor pool, its water made restless by the unseen creature that she had been told glided anxiously below the surface, ready for her descent. She could have escaped the rope that bound her ankles above her quite easily, as hers was the mutant ability to implode inorganic matter, but did she want to? The guards who had placed her in this prone position via a pulley system--normally used for investigative purposes--had informed her of the unnamed, underwater menace, but she wasn’t sure if they could be believed, or if they were just toying with their new, mutant play thing--surely the FBI wouldn’t subject a prisoner to such an inhuman torment, would they?

She questioned her troubling inquiry upon glaring into the hypnotic eyes of the blue-skinned mercenary who stood at the edge of the stirring pool, gloating; if the same government that directed the FBI could hire Mystique to heartlessly hunt her fellow mutants, Risque thought, then perhaps it was capable of any savagery.

“You’re loving this, aren’t you, chica?” Risque seethed.

Mystique cocked her head to better meet Risque’s inverted distress. “I’m just wondering if all they say about a person’s blood rushing to their head--the blackouts, the horrid, life-like nightmares that result from an overabundance of oxygen to the brain, the hemmorrhaging, the swelling, the gradual and permanent collapse of a person’s vision, and finally, a convulsive death--I’m just wondering if any or all of it is true.”

Risque had abandoned her natural fear of death long ago, when she became entrenched in her mercenary affairs, but still, even she felt her stomach twist at Mystique’s supposition, and it angered her that Mystique, by whatever strange, unjust fate, had been granted that power over her. “Just you wait until I get down from here. Just you wait!”

“I’m working for the government now, hun!” Mystique replied smugly. “You can’t touch me.”

Risque was speechless--partly because she was about to pass out, but mostly because she was concentrating. A few wordless moments later, Mystique furrowed her brow--she had hoped their squabble would continue.

POP!

Mystique winced.

POP!

POP!

Instinctively, she gasped, jumped in place, and waggled her hands away from her. The mysteriously painful cracking continued a few seconds more, as did her seemingly senseless gyrations. And when it all stopped, Mystique looked in horror at her fingers, scorched brown, and sans her luxuriously long and blazingly bright red fingernails.

“I had a feeling they were fake,” Risque giggled, savoring the sliver of dignity she had stolen from Mystique to replace her own.

The blue mutant was momentarily red as she wrung her stinging fingers in the air. But before she could verbally erupt, the doors behind her mechanically hissed agape, and the Agents Cooper joined the two feuding mutants in the otherwise empty lab.

“Mystique, what are you doing in here?” Val Cooper asked. “This is highly irregular.”

Mystique slipped on an unassuming tone as effortlessly as she could another person’s form. “My apologies, Val, but...well, in all honesty, I’m trying to kiss up to you and Mr. Cooper.”

“For what reason?” Val asked.

“To earn your good graces. I don’t have the best reputation, I admit, but I want you two to know that you can trust me.”

Both Coopers were not convinced. In fact, they were visibly baffled. “We’ll keep that in mind,” Val said in a failed attempt to hide her confusion. “I guess it can’t hurt for you to stick around.” She noted her brother’s disappointed expression at her decision, but, with her eyes, told him that she knew these people better than he did.

“Dios mio! You’re going to trust this wench?” Risque called down from high above the government party. “She’s playing you both.”

“There’s a fiesty one,” Shawn Cooper grinned at the prone mutant.

Val shook her head at Risque’s predicament. “Ms. Munoz, I apologize for the drastic measures taken to ensure your captivity. This decision was made over my head, but you can understand our precautions.”

“Si. I’m a dangerous girl. Oh, and it’s ‘Mrs.’ Munoz these days.”

“Really? You’re married? Our records don’t show that.”

Risque replied with a mischievously enigmatic smile. “They will.”

“Alright, folks, enough chit-chat,” Shawn declared. “Let’s get down to business, huh? Where’d this Sledge character run off to after our raid last night?”

“I know as much as you do,” Risque replied dutifully.

“Well, we don’t know much of anything,” Shawn continued. “All we know is that he’s running more than a junkyard out in Detroit. If we hadn’t been given orders to keep the place in tact, we’d have spent years trying to catalogue all the equipment he had stashed, and even longer trying to figure out just what half of the stuff even was. This Sledge is a brainy guy. How did a twisted sister like you get involved with him?”

“Sledge works in favors,” Risque said. “He did me a favor, so I’ve been re-paying him by doing some of his dirty work.”

“Is it the same for the other three at the site? ‘The Blob’, ‘The Mimic’, and ‘Pyro’?” Shawn struggled to keep a straight face as he recited the names from his file.

“Si. He’s kept Pyro’s virus in check, and when he found Mimic without direction, he gave him one. Dukes hasn’t called in his favor, yet.”

“You’re a lot more cooperative than we had anticipated,” Val noted. “Why?”

“Because it doesn’t matter what I tell you. It doesn’t matter what you know. Sledge is smarter than everyone in this facility combined, and he doesn’t make mistakes. Whatever you know about him, he knows that you know it, and he’s taking advantage of that fact as we speak. I’d suggest you tell your bosses to forget about Sledge--he’s not hurting anybody, but he’s too dangerous for you.”

“Not hurting anyone?” Shawn replied with cynicism. “How do you explain all those strange devices in his hideout?”

“He’s trying to help us,” Risque said defiantly. “He’s trying to help everybody.”

“You’re going to NEED help, girl,” Shawn said, “because we’ve got a record on you as long as that rope you’re dangling from, and they’ve got a bunk at the Vault with your name on it.”

Blushing, Val tried to counter her brother’s insensitivity. “We’ll have you down from there shortly, Ms.--Mrs. Munoz. By the way, can I ask who the lucky man is?”

Risque laughed at her own private joke. “Good girls never tell.”

Val and Shawn Cooper left the room. Mystique followed--a few steps behind.

He was the star of “S-Force”, Japan’s highest rated television action program, and he didn’t even have to memorize any lines. His Tokyo apartment was small, but it felt like home. He had been genetically gifted with a physique that bodybuilders worked years to attain. And, frankly, he was the best looking man in two hemispheres.

But, these days, Guido Carosella didn’t have much to smile about.

That sucked, but there was more.

He had always managed to smile past any pain, but it was getting harder to do that each day.

Of course, there was Sean. His girlfriend. The gal he looked forward to seeing this day, as he returned to his apartment from Narita International Airport after his first mission for the government in the States. Granted, he didn’t know her real name. She was born Japanese, spoke Japanese, and no doubt had a Japanese name that he wouldn’t have been able to pronounce had he known it. So he called her “Sean” as a tribute to the foxiest actress in the galaxy, Sean Young. Nonetheless, Guido and Sean worked. They had clicked from the first time she had been an extra on his show, and had worked up the nerve to talk to him (she was as bright-eyed and innocent then as she was now). The language barrier hadn’t mattered--they had gone out to eat that night, back to his place after a movie, spent the night together, and she had never left.

Theirs wasn’t a bedroom relationship, however. It was based on other activities. Like him, she liked to party. In fact, he thought, that was the thing about the relationship she must have enjoyed most, as his stardom saw him to a lot of ritzy events, and she always joined him. Sean was friendly as anyone, too. At each gala, she would conquer the overwhelming attention that came with being Guido’s date, and while he’d be snared in an explosion of flashbulbs, she would make a number of friends--mostly female, which Guido didn’t mind.

Yeah, Sean was a good girl. In the ever-darkening prison that was his life, she was the ray of sunshine that split the bars.

Or something like that.

He opened the front door of his apartment and announced, “Honey, I’m...ho--?”

There she was, on the roll-out bedding on the floor. Sean...and another girl. Hardly dressed. In each other’s arms, staring up at him indifferently. Sean shrugged, and Guido’s mouth fell open.

He could have blown up right then. He could have brought the entire apartment complex down with one fist, if not a single, angry cry. He could have passed out and never woken up.

He could have done a lot of things, but he only envisioned a t-shirt:

In less than a minute, Black Marvel would storm into the next subway car and, with his pitiless asp, pummel the creep holding the train hostage. The creep would be the villainous Nitro. He would never see it coming. His bones would break. He would bleed. A lot. And Black Marvel would be applauded by the relieved subway passengers. He would acknowledge and appreciate the acclaim, but only barely, and his grim countenance would remain as unchanged as the mood he was in at this moment.

He stood alone in the jittery subway train, one car removed from the explosive terrorist. He had discreetly donned his black and gold outfit. His plan of attack had been devised. He should have acted by now, but his heavy thoughts grounded him.

He was a street-patriot, dammit! Not a government goon. He’d given up working for Uncle Sam after the Gulf War, when his son had been born and Jeannie, his wife, needed him working in the States.

His son...

In the past few months, he had begun patrolling the streets like a shadowy, nighttime sentinel. He’d intimidate dealers on the corner, and when they didn’t scare, he’d thump them with his asp and leave them for the police. All the while, he wasn’t afraid--he was too determined for fear.

At first, it was two hours a night. Then four. Then six, and he would nap at the construction site. Then he would stay out all night, sleep past his alarm. Then he got fired. Boss finally called one night and said, “Troy, we’ve gotta let ya go.” Good. This was his new job. People are born for specific reasons, he believed. More than anything else, this was what he was meant to do.

As it did with every other sacred thing, the government played with fate. Played with it, and played with him and his wife. A few days ago, he’d received a neatly typed letter that offered words that, when he first read them, were an incomprehensible jumble. Slowly, as he met with the Agents Cooper a day later, things became clear, and he became angry. Based on his rescue of a kidnapped boy at a FoodWay supermarket, the Feds had taken an interest in him. Without his consent, they forced him onto the government’s mutant-hunting cadre as its only human member. And if he didn’t perform, they’d told him, Jeannie would be killed.

He understood that the Coopers were only taking orders from some higher-ups in Washington, and they were no more happy about delivering the troubling and infuriating news as he was to receive it. Nonetheless, he was incensed enough that, if he ever got the chance, Black Marvel would make them hurt.

He wouldn’t kill them, though--heroes don’t kill.

In less than a minute, Nitro would wish that they did.

“Bills. All these damned bills.”

Patricia Alcaraz was a thirty-seven year old widow and a mother of two. She had been married to her husband for six years, up until his death in the Gulf War--all that friendly fire and whatnot--and, with her children, had recently moved into a sprawling estate in Pleasantville, New York. She was a decent enough looking woman; her short, black hair, and brown eyes on top of her other WASP-y features weren’t likely to attract the attention of many men, not that Pleasantville’s preponderance of happily married men would look anyway. She was normal almost to the point of parody.

But Patricia Alcaraz wasn’t used to paying bills, because Patricia Alcaraz was the infamous mutant mercenary known as Domino. Or, at least she used to be. She’d given up the trials automatically associated with a mutant who fought for Professor Charles Xavier’s grand dream of human/mutant equality, because these days, she had more pressing concerns.

Several months ago, she had encountered a seventeen year old girl, Angela Campbell, traumatized by the destruction of her deceptive “family”--the Triune Understanding--and Domino had decided to take the her in, for Angela had no where else to go.* Insane, Domino had thought at the time. She was a mercenary--she hadn’t a motherly bone in her body. But at least Angela was fairly independent, she’d remind herself--it wasn’t like she’d taken in a two year old.

Eventually, she decided that her two new companions took priority over her responsibilities as a mutant--responsibilities she had always spurned anyway, especially after the loss of her mutant powers months prior--and she gave in to her increasing maternal obligations and gave up on The Dream. She’d moved to the quiet community of Pleasantville, invented an identity and history for Patricia Alcaraz, and began her new, normal life.

It didn’t last long, though, once the government sought her services in hunting mutants, and threatened Angela and Chris as a means to ensure her cooperation. It was then that she had realized that a normal life was something she would never know, and she reluctantly resigned herself to her new role in the ever-turbulent mutant community. Still, she would attempt to retain her newfound lifestyle as much as possible--the kids deserved as normal a life.

Domino had to work for an oppressive government. Domino had to torment mutants whose crimes she did not know existed. But Domino couldn’t let any of it bother her, because Patricia Alcaraz had to be a mom.

She heard four steady knocks at the front door and, from the living room, called upstairs, “Angela, you want to get the door?” No response. The girl wasn’t coming. “Angela! Please?” Patricia’s lip creased not in anger, but out of solace. “You can’t hide out in your room forever, girl!” she playfully scolded, though the situation was more dire than her tone indicated, as Angela was still devasted by the betrayal of the Triune. Patricia feared the girl needed professional help--a therapist would jeopardize the “Alcaraz” family secret.

Patricia set the bills scattered along her lap on the couch and walked down the hall, to the front door. She peered through the peephole once, and then again. She looked past the man’s thinning, brown hair, glistening and slicked back, and she didn’t notice his well-groomed mustache or his beady, knowing eyes, or his unimposing frame. All she saw was his badge.

Cautiously, she opened the door.

“Hi,” she smiled.

“Hi. Is this the Alcaraz residence?” His voice was firm, but welcoming.

“Yes, it is. Is there something wrong...officer?”

“I’m the sheriff, actually. Sheriff Ned Barrett.” He smiled charmingly at her goof.

He didn’t know, though, that the goof was intentional--Domino had seen a thousand sheriff’s badges in her time. But Patricia Alcaraz had not.

“Oh! Is there a problem, sheriff?”

“I suppose I’m the one with the problem, really,” he said. “I’m having a problem figuring out how a sweet little lady like you could have bunched up the FBI’s panties the other night.”

“Ah, that,” she blushed. She recalled with the least bit of scorn the night when several dozen FBI agents had entered her new home with their guns blazing, and had left with their families praying. Valerie Cooper had called it a recruitment drive. The night they’d captured Domino.*

“No,” Patricia feigned concern.

“None!” he shouted, half laughing. “We’re a peaceful community. We’ve had more UFO sightings than arrests in the last ten years. Half the people here have never seen a helicopter, much less have one land on their doorstep! Mrs. Evans across the street about had another stroke the other night. And now, my phone’s ringing off the hook with folks either wanting the latest bit of gossip, or contributing more rumors about ‘that Alcaraz gal.’ Latest is that you’re associated with the WWF, by the way. The Feds wouldn’t tell me anything that night, and they haven’t returned my phone calls in the week since. I just want an explanation. That’s all. Help me out.”

Patricia smiled and recalled the story she had prepared as early as the night she was captured. “That was just a misunderstanding. A huge misunderstanding, really. As it turns out, they were looking for another Patricia Alcaraz. I think they said she was a notorious drug-dealer’s wife or sister. Somewhere along the way, their lines must have gotten crossed, and their information must have gotten mixed up, and they ended up here.”

“I can sympathize,” the sheriff smiled. “I’ve always got people calling my house, thinking it’s the library.”

“See...”

“I just play along, though. ‘Moby Dick? No, I’m sorry, we don’t carry that. But we do have Guide to Saltwater Fly Fishing.”

Patricia laughed. “I could have used you the other night to break the mood.”

The Sheriff fell into comfort against the porch’s stucco wall. “Well, now that I know you’re not a fugitive or a canibal or a serial killer--”

“You don’t know that,” she jested.

“Well, nevertheless, you ARE single, right? You’re about the only single woman under forty in this whole town, I think. And, well,” now it was his turn to blush, “the church is organizing a picnic this Saturday at the park on Bedford Road. Most of the time when I go, the people think I’m there as SHERIFF Ned, to perform my law enforcement duties. Aren’t a whole lot of hold-ups at church picnics, y’know? So it makes me look uptight. Even when I’m out of uniform. Make’s folks stay away from me. I figure this year, I want to have some fun. So, I guess what I’m saying is if you were to come with me, well--”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t,” she said. “I don’t have anyone to look after my kids and...”...and she wasn’t ready to face the public, especially the discerning, church-going public--not after the fiasco with the FBI.

“Bring them along! It’s a church thing, not a weekend at a nudist colony! My son’s going, and he hates church. Well, he hates everything, really. You know how teenagers rebel. And he’s the sheriff’s kid, so he’s got to rebel that much more, and--”

“Oh, you have a son. But you’re not...”

“Married? Widower. What’s YOUR excuse?” he poked.

Again, Domino was the one blushing. “Good point.”

“Just come to the picnic with me. We’ll share sob stories! It’ll be fun! Bring the tissues!”

Patricia Alcaraz wanted to tell him, “I’m sorry, but I can’t. Good night.” But this man was charming. A breath of fresh air. And Domino couldn’t refuse.

“Okay, I’ll go with you,” she said.

“Great! It’s a date! Well, not that kind of a date, but...well...you know.”

“Yeah,” she giggled. “Goodnight, Sheriff Ned Barrett.”

“G’night, Mrs. Alcaraz. Seeya Saturday.”

As soon as she shut the door, little Christopher cried out in a toddler’s tantrum from his upstairs playpen, and Angela still brooded in her locked bedroom, and Domino let out a sigh of joy--maybe normal and abnormal could work together after all.

Sabretooth:

“I don’t suppose I should be tellin’ you any of this, but I’m goin’ to. It ain’t cuz I trust you, cuz I don’t. It’s just...well...what can I say? I’m a naughty boy. Anyway, Mickey P. Primrose--the D.C. congressman who’s really in charge of this X-Factor farce--he’s got this saying: ‘I like breathin’.’ I think I’m gonna steal that, cuz I like breathin’ too. That’s why I called you. Before I got thrown into this absurd, new mutant-huntin’ gig, I was takin’ jobs killin’ for dough. Times were hard before, an’ I didn’t wanna worry about money no more. I had one job left workin’ for this one guy--if I told you who he is, he’d be mighty upset--anyway, I had one job left workin’ for him. All I had to do was off this artist in the Village. Name was Paul Paige. Guy was mental, or so I hear. Painted some sick stuff. I’d probably like it. Well, just as I’m about to gut him, I get trapped by the government. End of that story. If they think I’m usin’ my powers when I shouldn’t be, they zap me with this device they stuck in my head. Hurts like hell. Enough of it’ll kill me, they say. I doubt it, but I don’t wanna chance it--not this close to pay dirt. So, I took one more job from my outside benefactor. Million dollars to do it. But, old buddy, yer gonna finish both these jobs for me, an’ we split the cash. Don’t worry, I’m not askin’ you to do anything you ain’t done before. Just a little, harmless murder. Two jobs, a million bucks. An’ you get closer to my good side after that...squabble...at St. Chateau. So, what do you say, pal?”

“Two things. One: you don’t have a good side. And two: I’ll do it,” Maverick replied.

The end...for now, anyway.

Notes, Explanations, and Thanks You’s: