Skin-tight black ninja outfit?

Check.

Infra-red spy glasses?

Check.

Titanium nun-chucks?

Check.

Heh. Frosty doesn’t know I have that last one. That’s something I brought from my personal weapons arsenal, just to have a little fun. Though what I’m about to do hardly classifies as ‘fun’ – my friends’ lives are in my hands. One wrong move, and their chances of getting out alive go bye-bye. Of course there’s still Emma, but apparently this whole complex in equipped with dampeners that negate her telepathy, so there’s really nothing she can do.

So it’s up to me. I’ve been sneaking in and out of places since I was twelve years old, and all the training from Wolverine and the other X-Men didn’t hurt either. I can do this. I know I can. Get in, find my friends, lay the smack down on those Psionex freaks, and get the hell out. Simple enough, right?

You can do it, Jubilation Lee. Just take a deep breath, and go for it…

SCIENCE & PSIONEX

Part II: Rescue Mission

By Chris Munn

 Monet St. Croix has known much pain in her young life, but she can’t remember anything as physically excruciating as the torture she’s being subjected to at the moment. ‘Doctor’ Rosen is running tests on all of the captive members of Generation X in an effort to test the furthest limits of their mutant abilities. Monet is up first, and right now the doctor is trying to see how invulnerable her skin is by drilling directly into it.

Monet cringes in pain as the drill bit finally penetrates her epidermis and hits the bone in her left arm, drawing blood. How she wishes she could get out of this contraption and beat the crap out of Rosen, but she’s strapped to a cold, steel table by large shackles that not even her enhanced strength can break through.

“Ah, here we go, Monet,” Doctor Rosen says, observing the drill as it tears through her flesh. “It’s about time. You’re not easily hurt at all, the previous two drill bits actually broke against your skin!”

Monet wants to cuss him out, but even if she could stop grating her teeth long enough to talk, she’s hardly the kind of person to use that kind of language. She’s aggrivated and ticked off beyond belief, though, and she fully intends to break free and tear this whole place down with her bare hands. Perhaps what bothers her the most, though, is thinking what’s being done to the rest of her teammates…

Meanwhile, in a testing room adjacent to the one occupied by Monet, a female doctor is running similarly painful tests on another of the students of the Massachusetts Academy, namely Jonothon Starsmore. He too is strapped to a dissection table, his head covered with a large helmet to prevent him from using his telepathic abilities. That doesn’t turn off the fiery psionic furnace inside his body, though, and that’s what this crazy woman is most interested in.

“This will only hurt a little, son,” the woman says as a saw comes down at Jono’s torso. A couple of tears escape out of the corners of his eyes as the blade penetrates his abdomen, then his chest, and the pain he experienced so long ago when his powers first manifested returns, only ten times worse. To the doctor’s surprise, no blood spills forth; at first, it seems there’s nothing inside of his body at all, that it’s completely hollow. She’s about to discover differently.

“Oh my!” she exclaims as psionic flame bursts forth from the incision in the young man’s body, the light reflecting off her beady little eyes. “Spectacular.”

She goes to a console to activate a couple more blades around the table, and says in a frightful, monotone voice, “Well, it’s time to get rid of that body and let the real you out…”

Paige Guthrie can’t help but cry. She’s tried being more of a tough girl, more of a hard-ass in recent times, but in a situation like this, she can’t help but show her true feelings, put her vulnerability on display for the world to see. Well, not really the world, just the one, scrawny little man in the room who’s responsible for the torture she’s experiencing.

“Miss Guthrie,” the weasle of a doctor says in a nasal voice, “I am most excited to see what the results of my little test here will be. You have such a fascinating mutation!”

Paige sobs silently as the sharp-edged mechanical claws tear into her flesh, shedding layer after layer of skin. The machine’s been at it for a while now, and the floor in the small, sterile room is covered in a varierty of different husks. Paige’s cheeks don’t stay wet with tears for long at all, as the claws rip her face off every couple minutes, revealing a brand new form underneath.

The doctor sighs discontently after several minutes, seeing that he’s really not getting anywhere so far. “Well, let’s keep digging, and see how many licks it takes to get to the center of the Tootsie Pop…”

Ugh… this whole crawling through the ventilation shaft thing is so not fun… I’m not claustrophobic or anything, but this is a bit too much of a tight fit for me. It’s all for a good cause, though, I just have to keep telling myself. My friends are depending on me to get them out of here, and I’m going to do just that, no matter what. I won’t let them down.

My infra-red specs are showing me that I’m about at the end of this air shaft, and an entrance into one of the complex’s hallways is just ahead. Can’t wait to get back on my feet, I hate crawling like a baby.

I’m not even going to bother using the mini-blowtorch Frosty gave me to cut through the vent gate. I activate my mutant power and blast the damn thing off instead. I mean, who gives a fig if they’re alerted to my presence? Whether I take ’em by surprise or not, I’m still gonna kick all their punk asses.

Good thing the vent is at ground level, or I’d have had more trouble getting out of it. I finish crawling out and immediately get to my feet, lifting up my specs and taking a good look at my surroundings. Bright, sterile hallways all around. Doesn’t look too high-tech, at least not like the mansion in Westchester. I’m sure the alarms will sound any minute, though, so I better get my ass in gear and find the team.

“We were wondering when you were gonna show up!” Oh shit. They found me already! Not that I’m afraid or anything, but I was at least hoping to get a head start on finding my friends before those losers showed up.

I spin around on my heels and sure enough, there’s the whole Psionex gang, ready to throw down. First things first – blast away at Asylum. Emma said she’s made of dark force matter, and she said my atomic detonation abilities will disrupt her and take her out like that. So I don’t waste anytime and I barrage the mofo with a light show that also serves to blind the rest of her buddies. Good thing my eyes have special shielding to protect me from the brightness, or I’d be in big trouble.

So the light subsides and sure enough, Asylum seems to have dissipated, while the other four are trying to shake off the light. Gotta take out Coronary and Impulse next, those two are the only real threats left; Mathemaniac and Pretty Persuasions, or Mega Ho as I’ll call her, their powers are psionic in nature, and whaddaya know, I’m immune to telepathic attacks. Unless it’s someone way powerful like Professor Xavier, but it’s not, so no worries.

I grab the nunchucks from my belt and charge towards the bad guys, and I immediately down Impulse with a nice, hard whack to the head. Funny, I though he reacted to things really fast – not fast enough, apparently. Next I turn my attention to Coronary, who’s actually regained his composure, but that don’t matter. He goes down for the count with a good ol’ patented Jubilation Lee roundhouse kick.

Man, this is too easy.

A quick snap of my fingers, and Mathemaniac and Mega Ho are temporarily blinded again, and instead of staying to finish ’em off, I take off in the opposite direction. It’s time to stop messing around, I gotta find my friends. For all I know, time could be running out, real fast…

Clarice Ferguson trembles nervously against the cold steel wall she’s shackled to, looking over at her teammate Everett Thomas, who’s shackled a dozen or so feet down from her. He’s not moving, she can’t even tell if he’s breathing… when they brought him back from the experiment room, he was totally out of it. All the others are being tested right now, and Clarice knows they’ll come for her any moment now.

And she’s scared shitless.

She doesn’t even want to think about what the other members of Generation X are going through. She’s at least glad that Jubilee apparently wasn’t kidnapped… she doesn’t know what she’d do if they hurt her. Clarice cares for her more than even she realized at first, but perhaps getting the feeling that you’re going to die does that to you.

Suddenly, the door leading into the holding room slides open, and Clarice swallows back a lump in her throat, knowing her it’s her turn. Or is it?

“CLARICE! EV!” comes a young female voice. Clarice’s eyes shoot open and her heart beats with a newfound hope as she sees Jubilee rushing towards her.

“J-Jubilee,” the pink-skinned girl says between sobs, “y-you came… you came.” Clarice’s emotions continue to run rampant as her crush blasts through the restraints, setting her free.

“You bet yer ass,” Jubilee says, giving her teammate a reassuring hug. “Can you walk?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, come on, let’s get Ev down!”

The two girls walk swiftly to Everett and Jubilee blasts through his shackles. The young man does not respond, and his two female teammates catch him so as to stop his limp body from crashing face-first into the cold, steel floor.

“Ev,” Jubilee says as she and Clarice set their friend down gently on the ground. “Ev, can you hear me?”

“He looked real bad when they brought him back from the testing,” Clarice says, swallowing back more tears. “That’s where everyone else is now.”

Jubilee herself comes close to tears, but no, she can’t cry. She has to be strong. It’s all up to her. She leans down and puts her ear to Everett’s mouth and discovers he’s still breathing. It’s shallow but steady. His pulse isn’t too bad either. “He’s alive. We need to get him outta here… but we can’t leave without the others…”

“Jubilee,” Clarice says intently, grabbing the other girl’s hand. “I… I have to tell you something… just in case we don’t make it out of here.”

“What is it?” Jubilee asks, puzzled. “Come on, don’t talk like that…”

“Jubilee.” Clarice’s tone becomes sterner, and her heart pounds faster as the words roll off her tongue. “Jubilee, I think I’m in love with you.”

Jubilee’s eyes widen in shock at the announcement, and for a moment, all she can do is stare at her teammate in awe. Never in a million years would she have guessed that Clarice had feelings for her. Hell, she didn’t even know the girl was gay! As much as it weirds her out, though, she can’t help but be flattered.

“Clarice…” Jubilee squeezes her friend’s hand tightly as tears begin to stream from both their eyes. “You… you should have told me sooner! I…”

Clarice cuts Jubilee off by leaning forward and kissing her square on the lips. The kiss lasts for several seconds, longer than Clarice had expected; she thought Jubilee might pull away, completely grossed out. She returned the kiss, though, and if the heroine called Blink is going to die today, she’ll die happy.

“Sorry… I didn’t mean to do that…” Yes she did, but that’s just what you’re supposed to say after kissing someone without their consent.

“Don’t be sorry,” Jubilee says with a weak smile. “We’ll… we’ll talk about this later… come on, we gotta…”

“THERE YOU ARE!”

The angry voice of Mathemaniac startles Clarice and Jubilee, and the two girls immediately jump to their feet, ready for a showdown. Standing next to him is the one dubbed Mega Ho by Jubilee; two on two, they’ll go down easy. Or maybe not, as Coronary and Impulse suddenly appear in the doorway as well.

“Shit!” Jubilee yells as she lets loose with a barrage of atomic energy blasts. To her dismay, the blasts have no effect, and are instead reflected off the crystal body of Coronary, who’s more than prepared for Jubilee’s light show this time around. The two members of Generation X leap out of the way just in time to miss being hit by the deflected energy, and both fall to the floor about ten feet away from each other.

Clarice knows there’s less of a chance of her and the others getting out of here without Jubilee, but she has no choice. She’s got to be selfish in this matter; she can’t let Jubilee get hurt. Giving the Asian girl a final look of loving desperation, Clarice blinks her eyes as they begin to glow with energy, and in an instant, Jubilee disappears in a bright flash of pink light. Tears of joy stream from Clarice’s eyes as it hits her that Jubilee is safe.

“Goodbye,” Clarice mutters softly as the members of Psionex surround her give her the last beating she’s ever going to take.

OW!

Damn portal was twelve feet in the air… my leg hurts…

Holy shit. Portal. Clarice. What the hell was she thinking?!

Gotta get back in… but I might be too late. She can’t take on those guys by herself. God dammit, Emma, where are you?

I stand up and turn a bit to my left to face the large complex, but nothing has me prepared for what happens next. An explosion. A big explosion. In a split second, the entire place goes up in flames and starts burning to the ground. There’s no way anyone could survive that…

“EMMA!” I scream into the air, knowing she can’t hear me. I drop to my knees, all my strength gone. I’m gonna be here, sobbing like a baby, for who knows how long.

{You failed, Jubilee. You failed miserably. Everett, Monet, Clarice, Jonothon, Paige… they’re gone. They’re all dead. And it’s all your fault.}

END OF VOLUME ONE