Tokyo’s Narita International Airport buzzed with activity as passengers hurried to and from various mid-afternoon flights like moths to flame. Hmm, maybe “flame” isn’t an appropriate word, since those planes go down as often as a White House intern.

Now there’s an analogy!

Despite the cramp-mouthed government employees, the underachieving Celtics, the press hounding him and his X-Force teammates, and even the mutant-hating bigots, Jamie Madrox longed to be on one of those flights back to the States; though he loathed solitude, this wall-to-wall mass of language, culture, diversity, and cheap luggage was ridiculous. He could have sworn he smelled sardines over the steamy aroma of the pre-processed hamburger and grease-drowned fries of the airport’s very own Marvel Burger, where he waited for the guy who had summoned Jamie to this god-awful terminal in the first place.

Guido.

And there, in the distance, towering over the herd of commuting cattle, was the hulking mass of mutant who called himself Strong Guy (because no one else would). As he gradually, and ever with a grin, approached Jamie, he went unnoticed. Guy was almost seven feet tall, bald head, bright shades, arms big enough to lift a car and a chest you could show a screening of the Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee tape on--y’know, if you’re into that sort of thing. And he goes unnoticed? Hey, these people had flying bombs to catch and pork fat and peanuts to eat!

“Guido, over here!” Jamie called out.

Spotting his comparitively diminutive friend a dozen feet away, Guido started toward Jamie’s direction, inadvertently sweeping hasty travelers to both sides of his wide girth.

“Jamie, m’man!” Guido greeted with a toothy smile. Yikes. “Still sportin’ the trenchcoat look, huh?”

Passively, Jamie replied, “Hey, it worked for Colombo.”

“Isn’t he missing an eye?”

“Good point.” Anxious to escape the constant commotion around them, Jamie led Guido toward the exit, wherever that was.

“What happened to that old lock of hair of yours?” Jamie asked as they walked.

Guido rubbed the bare spot on his glistening dome where he once sported a thick strand of silver hair. “When Sigourney Weaver got rid of all her hair, so did I!”

“Huh? She did that for “Alien 3”! A few years ago!”

“Excuse me if I missed it in theaters!”

Pointless as it was, Jamie was about to respond, but was interrupted by a meek but enthusiastic cry--

“GUIDO!!!”

Suddenly, a beaming Asian girl scurried out of the nearby restroom and toward the outstretched arms of the awaiting man-mountain, and landed gleefully in his dangerously tight bear hug. As Jamie observed the girl, repeatedly kissing Guido on the cheek, he realized that she was at least two feet shorter than Guido, and who knew how much lighter. No doubt, Guido had crapped chunks of turd larger than this chick!

Of course, she HAD come from the pot....

As the now-sickening display of admiration continued, Jamied quietly, and politely as possible, asked, “Why is she doing...that?”

“Cuz I’m a star, baby! A teevee star!”

Another kiss, this one better than the others. Tongue and all.

“Wow,” Jamie mused, “celebrity has its benefits.”

Finally, Guido set the young tongue machine down on her feet and said, “Actually, this is my girlfriend. Jamie, meet Sean. Sean doesn’t speak much english.”

Taking Guido’s cue, Sean gave a warm smile, bowed, and said something in Japanese that Jamie couldn’t understand.

He returned an apprehensive bow and replied, “Er, howdy to you, too!”

Guido took his two buds under separate arms and started toward the far-off exit once again. “I really am a teevee star here in Japan, though!” he explained with pride.

“No kidding?” Jamie said.

“Yeah, I’m famous! Like the David Hasselhoff of Japan!”

“Hasselhoff’s not that famous.”

“No, man, in Germany. Hasselhoff’s HUGE in Germany! He’s like the Fernando Delgadillo of Germany.”

“Who?”

“I’ve got a nickname here, too! They call me ‘Big Hero One’.”

“Ooookay,” Jamie rolled his eyes.

“You don’t get it, do you? Like Big Hero Seven, only it’s Big Hero One.”

“No, I get it alright. It’s just stupid is all.”

Guido chuckled. “Stupid? This from a guy whose codename choices are either ‘Madrox’ or ‘Multiple Man’.”

“Okay, you got me there. But you didn’t fly me halfway around the world to bash my name, didja?”

“I thought I told you over the phone: I need some help with my Japanese.”

“What?! I’M supposed to teach you?”

“Guess I DIDN’T tell ya.”

“You live in Japan and you don’t even speak the language?!”

“I figured if so many folks could get away with it in Manhattan.... Besides, I know a little. For instance, at the club, when a gal gets off my lap, it’s ‘Conichiwa!’”

Jamie scratched his head. “Oh boy.... If you’re such a big star here, how do you say your lines?”

“Well...they don’t really give me any lines...YET! The show’s like the Japanese ‘A-Team’, and I’m like the show’s Mister--”

“Please! Enough with the strange comparisons!” Jamie tried to cool down. Exit had to be around here somewhere. “Look, sorry to disappoint you, man, but I don’t speak Japanese. You should know that.”

“But I thought when you were on Muir Island with Moira, she taught you--”

“She taught me Punjabi. And not even that much. But a heck of a lot more than any Japanese!”

Guido sighed. “Aw...shoot! We’ll, you’re here now. What say we lay low at my place before you catch your plane back home tomorrow?”

“Lay low? Heck no! How often am I in Japan? Let’s paint this country red!”

“No!” Guido shook his head furiously. “That is NOT a good idea.”

“You? Reluctant to party down? Shake your groove thang?”

“It’s just that when I go out, I get hounded--by the ladies.”

“Oh, yeah. Big problem.”

“Come on. We’ll head back to my place. I’ve got something I want to show you, anyway!”

Jamie gave an inaudible moan. Guido must have gotten a new Maxim....

BEWARE!!! TYPICAL VILLAIN-PLOTS-AGAINST-THE-HERO SCENE AHEAD!!! IF YOU LIKE YOUR CLICHES LIKE YOU LIKE YOUR OWN TOE JAM IN YOUR MOUTH (as in, you don’t) STEER CLEAR OF THE FOLLOWING SCENE!!!

In the penthouse suite of a Tokyo high-rise stood a man blanketed in shadow dark as his own heart. He fumed before the large window and looked over the vast city glowing under the moon.

His words (which were in Japanese, a language most MV1ers don’t know, so I’ll be kind enough to translate for ya!) were both mellow and authoritative at the same time.

“Our ratings plummet. ‘S-Force’ now holds the number one ranking in its time slot, thanks to its mighty, new star. Even last week’s guest appearance of Richard Simmons garnered them ratings! The honor of our network is at stake. This cannot be allowed. Big Hero One must be eliminated.”

“Right away, sir,” came the meek voice of his assistant deep in the shadows.

HARD PART’S OVER, FOLKS. BACK TO THE ORIGINAL--AND QUITE FRANKLY, BRILLIANT--PROSE OF THE ONE, THE ONLY...

“Welcome to the Love Shack.”

A month ago, Guido Carosella had agreed to lay down fifty-three thousand yen a month for his Tokyo pad, sight unseen!

Turns out, that’s about five-hundred dollars a month in the Land of the Rising Cost. Who knew?

So the spacious abode of his dreams had become a pint-sized, overpriced shack, complete with paper walls and roll out bedding.

No big deal. In typical Guido fashion, he’d managed to turn this fifth floor, one bathroom, no bedroom hut into a palace worthy of His Strongness. Along the thin, translucent walls were empty silhouettes in varying thickness of black outline--mostly of the female form, as well as the unmistakable, robust framework of Guido himself. Aroma candles serenely melting upright in brass holders littered the low-lying tables and chests of the single room, as scents of insence that sent sensations through the senoritas (at least that’s what Guido claimed) greeted with a hazy fog. Beside a computer hutch, an elaborate entertainment center sat in the far corner of the apartment, as its surround-sound stereo lyrically caressed visitors with Barry White’s vibrating vocals, twenty-four seven, you foxy thing, you.

And mirrors on the ceiling.

Chakachas’ “Jungle Fever” meets Marvin Gaye.

So let’s get it on.

“It’s...nice,” Jamie feigned admiration upon stepping through the tiny doorway. No use hurting the big guy’s feelings just because his math skills weren’t too sharp.

He was followed by Sean, who had been dragging her feet behind Jamie. He had felt her eyes massage his backside a few times as all three made their way up the steps to Guido’s apartment. Couldn’t blame her--his cheeks blew Guido’s away.

“Thanks. Hardest part’s the stairway up here.”

“Five flights can’t be good for your heart,” Jamie noted, remembering the recent, comatose state his friend had been in only months prior, the result of a heart attack which resulted from Guido’s kinetic energy-storing mutant power.

“Oh, Jamie, I didn’t know you cared!” Guido mocked. “Am I blushing?”

“Keep talkin’ smack and you’ll be gushing in a second--blood, that is.”

“Huh uh, cuz I’m off to do some flushing right now--nature’s lemonade, that is.” With that, Guido started for the sliding restroom door across the room. “Have Sean show you around,” he said as he closed and locked the door behind him. “Conichiwa.”

Jamie tried to ignore the sound of rushing water on the other side of the paper-thin wall by browsing through the various, framed photos sitting on the desk on which the computer center sat. While most were press photos of Guido himself, and the occasional shot of he and Sean in loving embrace in exotic locales, Jamie was most amused by the picture of he and Guido fighting over the remote in Guido’s old room at X-Factor’s Fall’s Edge headquarters.

Oh, then there was the poster-sized enlargement of his teammate in last month’s Suave magazine. “Tabitha Smith: X-posed!”.

“Mmmmmm.”

Wait, that wasn’t Jamie’s moan.

Not a moment later, he felt two hands clamp around his buttocks and squeeze. Relax. Then squeeze again.

--“Jungle Fever”--

He turned into the big, waiting, longing eyes of Guido’s gal as she surrendered his tingling tush and gave a devilish smile.

“Uh...um...” Jamie stammered.

She gently pulled a pink sheet of paper from the printer on the shelf behind him, and waved it before his bedazzled eyes.

“Uh...”

Still with that grin, she began to skillfully fold the paper into elaborate strips. All the while, her eyes remained locked onto his.

“Um...”

The pink, paper construct began to take shape as she twisted the last remaining corner around, forming a self-sustaining shell. Like a taco.

“Mmmmm.” she moaned once again.

“Origami,” Jamie realized aloud.

Sean held the taco to her mouth and let her tongue creep out from behind her cherry red lips. To Jamie’s surprise, her tongue began to play inside of the paper shell, alternately poking deep into it, and licking around its edges rather erotically.

And the moaning began again--from Jamie’s lips, this time.

When would Guido be out of the bathroom? And when could Jamie steal a few naughty moments in there by himself?

***

This wasn’t good.

Guido shut and locked the bathroom door and twisted the gold-plated handle on the faucet, hiding his dirty deeds from Jamie with the rush of warm water.

It had happened nearly a year and a half ago. Guido had been hindered by the same mutant power that gave him his incredible strength when he had stored a vast amount of kinetic energy, but had been unable to release it before his heart weakened, and he had fallen into a heart attack-induced coma. Months later, he had come to, and old X-Factor teammate and all-around genius, Forge, had begun to fix his heart before sending him to a surgeon, who had helped even more. At first.

Guido took his toothbrush out of the clear cup he kept it in and filled the glass with water.

Guy’s name was Sledge. Ugly little troll, but smart. Smart enough to make Guido’s misshapen heart beat almost perfectly again. And for what Sledge couldn’t repair, he had given Guido three-hundred tablets of some ungodly concotion that Guido couldn’t begin to pronounce--said they’d finish the job in a few weeks’ time, and the rest were for emergencies. Side effect--if you could call it that--they made him feel...normal. Oblivious to his mutant power, if only for a few hours.

He took a bottle of pills out of the drawer, popped the top, and shook two tablets out of the bottle and into his hand.

Guido had taken two tablets, two times a day, every day since he had left Sledge’s Detroit hideout two months ago. And he still took them.

He popped the blue pills into his mouth and threw back the water.

Thing was, he hadn’t had any problems with his heart for weeks....

This wasn’t good.

***

Finally--FINALLY!--Guido stepped out of the bathroom. Upon seeing her lover, Sean promptly crumpled the moist paper shell of love in her hand and stepped away from Jamie--much to his delight.

“Wood--er, what took you so long?” he asked Guido.

“What do ya want, man? I’ve got a bladder the size of Galactus!”

Jamie felt a trickle of sweat sneek down his brow, and quickly wiped it away. “I need in there.”

“Not so fast, Pee-Pee Le Pew. I wanna show you something.” Guido stepped to the computer hutch and activated his PC. “Come on over,” he prompted as his stubby digits fumbled across the keyboard.

Jamie stood behind Guido’s chair and viewed the monitor over his shoulder. “What’s this? Strong Guy2K?”

“Something like that. Just to prove any moron can create a webpage, I made one! Check this out!”

“So, what do you think, Jaime?” Guido turned, expecting an answer from his friend. But there was no one behind him. Just a half-opened front door.

His heart almost stopped at the sight. But if it had, then we’d just be re-writing an old story, and that NEVER happens in comics...right?

So, instead, he jumped out of his seat and rushed out the door.

OH...MY...GOD...!!!

It was dark, and the figures in the room were covered in shadows, natch.

“Madrox is on the loose, Mr. Gyrich.”

“And Carosella?”

“Chasing after, as our files indicated he would.”

“Then give ‘Big Hero One’ a reason to save his friend, and ready the chopper.”

“Right away, sir.”

***

Why Jamie Madrox would ever even think about thrusting himself into the night from atop a fifty-meter crane and into a breathless crowd below, made immune to a cement marriage only by a trumped up rubberband and an ankle harness, he would never know. As Multiple Man, Jamie had pulled stunts more dangerous than this more times than he cared to remember. But that was for freedom, liberty, lofty causes like that. Bungee jumping at the Tokyo Carnival? Wasn’t for chicks--he wasn’t really looking these days. Sean had managed to find an old friend to hang with, and they were down there in the crowd somewhere, but he certainly wasn’t trying to impress them. Sean was Guido’s gal, after all. Wasn’t for money either--the crew on the crane couldn’t pay him enough to do this.

Jamie shiverred at what it WAS. He was one of those mindless thrill-seekers. The ones you see on television that make you throw down your Pokemon cards and yell, “HOW STUPID ARE YOU?!?!?!” at the top of your lungs.

But the people on teevee can’t here you, you schmuck. It’s all pre-recorded.

And Pokemon sucks.

Yeah, Jamie was that guy. That stupid guy on the boob tube. It was the only answer. Why else would he fight for The Dream? Why else would he have joined the young outlaws in X-Force? And why else would he be up here?

The crew on the crane didn’t speak english, and as was earlier made painfully clear to Guido, Jamie didn’t speak Japanese, so, through eye contact, he told the middle-aged, overweight worker strapping the ankle harness around his legs that he was ready. No words.

So why, just as Jamie was about to take the plunge, were there rather inflamed Japanese words being spit from behind him? Jamie turned to see that same crew worker charging at him, screaming like a banshee, a glistening dagger in hand.

“What the--?!”

How stupid are you, Jamie?

The man tackled Jamie, and they both rolled off of the platform, free falling at gravity’s speed, wrestling all the way down. Jamie couldn’t let the guy fall, but he couldn’t let him stab him, either. He held the man by his forearms, immobilizing them, and protecting him from the dagger. He couldn’t tell if they were falling upside down until he saw the crane speed through his ever moving eyes. And a familiar form under the looming moon, on the crane’s platform.

Guido.

Jamie tried to keep his attacker at bay. Tried to keep Guido in his awkward field of vision. Tried to figure out how Guido had found him. Tried to see why Guido was up there.

Then there were more questions.

He tried to figure out why Guido was tying the end of the the bungee cord to one of the rails on the platform. Cord must have broken. Or must have been cut. Tried to figure out why.

More questions.

He tried to figure out why there were a dozen white guys climbing the fifty-meter ladder up to the platform. Not a rescue crew. Tried to place the badges. FBI. Why? And why had they drawn their pistols? Aiming them at the jerry-rigged cord. Why were THEY trying to decorate the pavement with Jamie’s guts, too?

Too many questions.

He saw Guido stave the men off with his massive forearm as he pulled the cord, Jamie, and his struggling attacker up with the other arm. Guido made good time, too. Jamie wouldn’t have thought he’d make it back up to the platform. Wasn’t sure he wanted to, what with all the G-men (no, that’s not a mutant spin-off) on the platform. Better than dangling over his grave, he supposed. He never wanted to do THAT again.

When Guido had pulled them up far enough, he hastily shoved the dagger-weilding maniac up onto the platform, them pulled himself up, and banged his fist.

A dupe.

Another.

Another.

Enough to fight off the FBI agents AND the Japanese guy.

See, Jamie’s dupes are the manifestation of his mutant powers. Stomp his foot, bang his fist, slap his butt (when he’s feeling kinky), and he makes a copy of himself. It’s just that easy. It’s why they call him Multiple Man.

And you thought it was just a stupid code name.

He had a hard time trading blows with the Feds, what with his ankles strapped together. But his dupes managed. And Guido barely broke a sweat.

“Badges to badges, they all fall down!”

Guido even managed a clever saying through it all! How about that!

“Conichiwa!”

And down the bad guys went, some into the safety of retreat down the ladder--most into unconsciousness.

Except that Japanese crewman/assassin. He remained a threat, dagger and all.

Jamie had called back his dupes, so it was just Guido and him.

“What’s this all about?” Guido wondered aloud.

“Figures we’d bring fists to a knife fight,” Jamie chuckled.

“I like my fists’ chances against this pip-squeak,” Guido replied, ready to charge the assassin.

Surprisingly, the villain spoke in english, “As do I, Big Hero One, which is why I brought this.” He threw the dagger over the side of the platform, lifted his shirt (down, ladies!) and pulled a gun.

“Okay, but you can only shoot one of us, while the other beats you to a pulp,” Guido replied cockily.

“No,” Jamie corrected, “that’s an uzi he’s got. He could actually kill us both.”

“Oh. That sucks.”

“Yes,” the assassin grinned. “And now so do I....”

Our merry mutants immediately clutched their privates, to the assassin’s confusion.

“No, not like that,” he explained.

“Then what do you mean?” Jamie asked.

“I don’t know. It sounded good at the time.”

“Okay, so we know he’s not after my girlfriend...” Guido noted.

“I’ve got to pick up my poodle from the vet in fifteen minutes,” the assassin said, “so let’s just get this over with.” He aimed the gun at his prey.

“How cute,” Guido smiled before he took Jamie into a bear hug and leapt from the platform moments before the assassin got off his shots. Guido and Jamie plummeted toward the ground, secure in the fact that Jamie was strapped to the bungi cord.

So, of course, the cord snapped.

Wait! Before you send nasty letters to the cord’s home address, keep in mind that Guido was a big guy. The cord just couldn’t hold that much weight. But if it’s any consolation, the cord feels VERY bad about what happened, just so y’all know.

Besides, things didn’t turn out that bad. BECAUSE Guido was such a big guy, the impact with the cement wasn’t too bad. Sure, he and Jamie busted through the ground, but it could have been worse.

They finally splashed in the streaming water of the city’s underground sewage system. Gross, huh? But at least they had each other. (Awwww....)

“Guido!” Jamie called out over the rush of the water as they were washed down the dark sewer. “If we die, I just want you to know that I wasn’t gonna do anything with Sean.”

“Duh! I know you better than that, man!”

“Good. In that case, if we DON’T die, could she and I...?”

“Yeah. Right after Professor Xavier appoints me leader of the X-Men.”

“I’ve never wanted Cyclops dead more than I do right now.”

“I hear ya.”

Some uneasy silence as they floated further.

Then, Jamie continued, “Thanks for saving me back there.”

“No problem. I’m used to it.”

“Keep it up, and you’ll be gushing in a second--blood, that is.”

“Maybe. I just hope no one’s flushing right now--their own fecal matter, that is.”

Jamie may or may not have puked at that. YOU feel free to, though, if you have to.

“You see that up ahead?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah. Looks like this thing splits into two streams up.”

The split approached faster.

“Don’t think we’re gonna be able to stick together,” Jamie said.

Faster.

“Me neither.”

Faster.

“It’s been fun!”

Faster.

“Conichiwa!” Guido exclaimed as he floated into one tunnel while Jamie rushed into another.

And that was that.

***

A good five minutes later, the stream came to a stop, and Jamie found himself in a pit full of stinking human waste.

Thrill seeker?

THIS never happened on teevee.

***

FBI’s Tokyo Bureau (not that there necessarily IS such a thing), two hours later.

“Why don’t you come over here and warm me up, Gyrich?” Guido said through chattering teeth, wrapped in a blanket as a female operative handed him a warm cup of lemon tea.

“Not bloody likely, Carosella,” the cocky beauracrat replied from across the sterile room in which he, Guido, the female agent, and two male operatives were.

“Where’s Jamie?”

“Our agents found him crawling out of a sewer hole almost an hour ago,” Gyrich replied. “He’s on his way back to the States right now. If he mentions the incident, we’ll deny it. If he doesn’t...even better.”

Guido breathed easier. His friend was safe. “So why couldn’t we have this little reunion at Fall’s Edge, as long as we’re gonna do it?”

“Polaris...blew it up,” Gyrich answered, teeth clenched.

“Ah, Lorna,” Guido sighed with a mischievous smile. “So, I guess you win, huh? I mean, you proved what?--that I’d risk my life for Jamie?”

Gyrich unfolded his arms and spoke. “We proved that you care about him. That you see him as more than just a work partner.”

“So...now what? He and I are contestants on ‘The Dating Game’?”

“Don’t joke. You know the arrangement. Madrox is now our hostage, essentially. If you prove cooperative in the government’s new mutant-hunting unit, he lives. You screw up, we kill him. It works the same with the other members of this unit.”

“A new X-Factor....”

“Officially, no. But for all intents and purposes, yes.”

Guido shook his head in disbelief. The government had been behind a lot of anti-mutant activities. But this was just...wrong. “Jamie’s with X-Force now, far as I know,” he continued. “So even if he couldn’t defend himself, he’d have help.”

“Are you willing to bet his life on that assumption? Because we’ll hunt him down like Al Capone if you make the wrong choice, my friend. But forget Alcatraz. Forget the Vault, for that matter. We’ve got a mass grave ready for him AND his multiples if you put up a fight.”

“Wrong choice? I don’t really have any choice at all, do I?”

Gyrich didn’t say a word. He stepped out of the room. He’d threatened Jamie’s life. He’d forced Guido into a mutant-hunting cadre of government agents. Then he just walked out.

And Guido was left. No choices. He hunted mutants for the government, or Jamie died.

You thought this story sucked BEFORE....