Writer’s Note: The events of this issue take place in the aftermath of the Black Magik arc in Astonishing X-Men.

Then
Aberystwyth, Wales

Megan Gwynn smiled at the sight of the sweeping valleys that lay before her, high above the town that had always been her closest step towards civilization. In the misty moors lay the small farmlands that had belonged to her family for almost six generations. There was a dreamer in her that wished for shining lights and large cities but Megan would never forget the place that had raised her almost as much as her parents had. It would always be her home. It had been seven days since her bright red locks had transformed into their current pale shade of pink and her eyes sunk into darkness against her alabaster skin. She had taken on the form of the sprites she had once chased around her fields alongside her cousins. They had searched under every bush and fen in search of the mysterious Fenodyree or the faeries of Welsh legend. Now, she stood as a beacon and a reminder to her childhood.

Silently, she remembered the solemn expression that had crossed her mother’s face all those days ago. It was a physical mutation that couldn’t have been hidden if she had tried. Large wings, colourful and attractive, had sprouted from just beneath her shoulder blades and further emphasised her spritely appearance. She tucked a stray piece of cotton candy hair behind her elfin ear and she wrapped her arms around her legs. It was cold but memories kept her from her home. Bronwyn Gwynn’s love was unconditional, her only child knew that, but the pain now present in her eyes was too much for the youth to fully comprehend without feeling isolated and hurt. The Gwynn’s were like all families in the small region, close-knit and loving. It was through their combined strength that their farm had been so prosperous.

She tried not to cry. Megan was a firm believer that crying solved nothing. She hid her pain beneath the cheerful exterior she presented to most and when she could contain herself no more, she took the cold hills to sit with her thoughts. She was afraid to be leaving it all around. The Xavier Institute had extended an invitation for her to join the ranks of the school to be trained in an environment of relative safety but she could think of nowhere she would rather be than the misty valleys she had always known. It was barely 5am and early autumn which had always been her favourite of the four seasons. Leaves were stained with the hues of death but there was a sense of renewal all around her. Winter would claim them and she found the poetry appealing. It was the same with her current predicament. Her life was about to change irrevocably.

“Now, child,” hummed the gentle whisper of her father. He rested his rugged hand on her shoulder as his faced beamed with pride. His own fiery mane flung widely to wind and his think beard shielding the smile he bore. “Cryin’ has never solved anythin’ of much consequence. Not when eager ears are ready to listen to your woes.”*

*Speech is translated from Welsh

Megan sighed. “Some woes aren’t the listenin’.”

Rab Gwynn shuffled his large body. He was a heavyset man who had spent all of his life preparing to take over the farm that he now owned wholly. His body was everything that would have been expected of such a man. Rab’s face held a weary quality that the harsh seasons had left him. His daughter was the only family he had procreated and she meant the world to him in ways she would never understand. He knew the same would be said of his wife. “Yours are always worth listenin’, my cherub.”

“It’s so far away, papa.”

Rab’s face became slightly grimmer as he recalled what his child spoke of. He would be losing her to the wild world as he had always feared that he would. Megan was destined for a life beyond the boundaries of sleepy Aberystwyth and no matter how much that disdained and worried the man. He would never stand in her way. He knew it was one of the subjects that rested heavily on her mind but it was not what worried him most. She was the first of the Gwynn’s in three generations to leave Aberystwyth. Her mother was what he wanted to deal with. Bronwyn was just a woman set in her old ways. “Distance can’t break a family.”

“Some things clearly can.”

She rolled down the sleeves of her top against the rising cold front. It still amazed her how her father’s expression had remained so unchanged. He loved her no less than he had before, and he looked at her through the same rose-tinted glasses. Her mouth formed a slight smile and her wings fluttered, creating a small breeze that bristled his lengthy beard. Megan was in awe of the man who had never changed since her childhood. He smiled back at her. It was no surprise that he knew what she was thinking. There was no one in the world that knew her better, and she doubted anyone ever would. His face looked down on her even when seated yet the behemoth of a man could never be considered intimidating.

He understood her fears. “Nothin’ can break a family, sweetheart.”

“I already feel so alone.”

Rab held her into his chest. “Megan Peigi Gwynn, one thing you’ll never be is alone. Not as long as I’m around.”

A MHAIGHDEAN BHAN UASAL

By Gavin McMahon

Now
Xavier Institute, New York

Idie Okonkwo’s watchful eyes fell across the porcelain face of the young Welsh woman. Her heavy African features etched with an endless sense of pride and superiority. In many ways, Megan viewed her as a kindred spirit. Both had come from cultures vastly different to the one they now resided in but neither could be said to share much in common. There was no reason for them to even know one another, other than the fact Idie was a main member of the Mutant Christian Union and its chief representative, even behind their actual student councillor Dallas Gibson. Megan was loosely tied to the group at best, having joined them in prayer only once before now. Her faith was somewhat lapsed but it still played a part in her everyday life even if her worship had ceased. Megan was reminded of her mother as she sat in the pews of the multi-faith worship hall. Her pink hair was pulled back from a face by thin green hairband and drawn across her shoulder.

There was a smirk on the African’s full lips as she took a seat beside the Welsh youth. “If it isn’t the bringer of demons. Megan, I hadn’t expected to find you in such a hallowed place. Doesn’t this burn your sort?”

She didn’t appreciate the malice in the other student’s tone but it wasn’t unexpected. Idie was a woman who felt she had the autonomy on worship. It failed to reach her that she wasn’t able to judge the sins of others. “It wasn’t somethin’ I had planned on doin’.” Megan was snappier than she had wanted.

“How it came about isn’t really the issue, is it?” Idie’s accent remained thick even after spending more than three years outside of her native Nigeria. She held many of the ideals of her people but she carried the same anger she had once witnessed as well.

Megan glared. “You’re support is astounding.”

“You should be asking God for support, not me.”

She stifled a scoff as she slid out of the pew and adjusted the tartan skirt she wore to a respectable length. It was indignation that she looked down on her fellow student. Whatever trauma she may have faced, she hadn’t earned to right to judge Megan for the childish mistake she had made with the cairn. N’Garai would have attacked the school regardless of the young sprite’s actions down by the Lake. She just had the misfortune to be present and plagued by the nightmarish visions that Limbo had scarred her with. Idie was so secretive a student that Megan barely knew her story and she felt she couldn’t sympathise for someone who she deemed to be needlessly nasty. Piety had to be earned through loss and sacrifice. Idie was just cruel.

“It’s a wonder people didn’t die. They normally do.”

Megan huffed. “That’s not very Christian of you.”

Idie adjusted her braids as she looked towards the pulpit; barely paying attention to the mutant she had grown bored off. “It’s not me who has sins to atone for.”

“There are some people who don’t deserve a place in Heaven.”

Idie smiled. “Those people rarely travel alone. Never forget, we are but monsters posing as children.”

Irked, Megan turned and marched down the freshly carpeted aisle. Mahogany doors burst open as she entered the bustling foyer of the mansion. She paused to take a breath. Cryin’ solves nothin’, she forcibly reminded herself. It was an immediate worry that Idie would come through the doors with her smug satisfied smile. Megan would hate to have to knock the girl onto her ass but she had a quick temper at the best of times. Limbo had done little to improve her temperament. She prepared to walk off when a gloved hand rested on her shoulder and she hurriedly turned to face him.

“What–”

Kevin smiled.  “Megan,” he greeted her. “Are you okay?”

“You just caught me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone,” she quickly rubbed at her darkened eyes to make sure she hadn’t cried in her anger. She saw him take note but he was kind enough not to mention it. “What are you up to?” It was a simple distraction and she couldn’t say she much cared for an answer but she had nothing better to say at the time. She waited with false eagerness.

“I was with Garrison. I think talking to him really helps me.”

Since the ordeal, Kevin had turned to the school’s guidance counsellor. Megan had been to one session but found it unhelpful. Limbo had afflicted both of them with sleepless nights and strengthened their bond as friends. She smiled at him affectionately knowing that he had suffered much more than she had, even long before their abduction. His abilities had taken away his ability to touch organic subjects and therefore rendered him a pariah in his youth. Kevin longed to be included but most of their peers were afraid of him. Megan assumed she would have been the same had she not felt like the fish out of water that she had. Being so far from Wales, she had desperately clung to those who allowed her and despite his mopey attitude, Kevin had proven to have a magnetic personality. He was endearing.

Megan felt darkness rising inside her but speaking with her friend about it would mean she was admitting its existence. Her powers remained as whimsically aesthetic as they had beforehand but she saw the world in a different, darker, light. Stories of the Dark Phoenix left her concerned for her own wellbeing but nothing quite so dramatic had ever happened in her life. Still, who would have imagined that a farm girl from the sleepy village of Aberystwyth would be living amongst the X-Men or trapped in a demonic realm? Whatever this darkness was, Megan was sure she could gain control of it. She had already seen her life changed once and survived the experience.

“I wish I could say the same.”

Kevin frowned. “Have you spoken to your parents yet? I heard Sam talking to you yesterday and…” He paused so as to convince himself he wasn’t interfering. “They seem like their worried, Meg.”

“I’ll talk to them in my own time,” she informed him curtly. “I’m not sure what’s happening to me right now, and I don’t wanna talk to them until I’m sure that I’m the same girl that left them behind.” Megan adjusted her hairband as she stepped away from him. Throwing him a glance from across her shoulder, she spoke. “I’m goin’ for a walk.”

X-Brig

“Those were acts of terrorism.”

Paige fumed as she looked in the pallid face of the man she had once considered herself to love. He barely noticed her anger. His attention was drawn instead to the gentle crease across her forehead as she furrowed her brows, the soft way her blonde locks caressed her cheek and rested across the ruby coloured coat that made up her new uniform and the fragile femininity exposed in the way she placed her hands across her hips. Jonothan Starsmore had been a man of renown since graduating the ranks of Generation X and he had found himself caught in the escapades of the X-Men, but it was a branch that would come to be considered terrorists. He preferred to think of them as proactive peacekeepers attempting to do what was necessary to protect their own kind from further harm. Yet, he knew Paige well enough to know that she wasn’t so easily talked off of her pedestal. Or, at least he had once.

She would always be his angel. Nothing she could have done would have altered this perspective. At least, he presumed so. Chamber had made a few mistakes in his time as an X-Man but he couldn’t see how that undid all of the great things him and his team, under the tireless leadership of Havok, had accomplished. They had saved the world four times over from regimes and systems that otherwise could have gotten out of hand. Jonothan knew some of their methods had been distasteful and disagreed with the teachings of Xavier, but he wouldn’t apologise for the good they had done. The X-Men were vetting him after freeing him from Limbo and he understood the necessity, so he willingly set in his cell. He just wished he’d been placed in isolation.

“None of this is excusable.”

Her estranged friend interjected. “Paige–“

“No, Angelo. I can’t just brush this under the carpet.”

Angelo was by far the most forgiving of his former teammates, despite being the most embittered. He remembered that Jono had been one of them and he understood that desperate times called for desperate measures. He was perhaps the most jovial of them left. Paige was almost as cold and desolate as Monet had always been, and Jono was equally as damaged from the experiences he had faced. Angelo had spent a lot of his time finding himself but he was a man of loyalty and had answered Monet’s call for help in Paris just as the others had. He had been away from his friends for far too long, they all had, and he wondered if they could even call each other friends. He was the eldest at twenty two but they had the hardened vision and life experiences of military men and women much older than themselves.  Angelo had accepted a position at the school so that he could reconnect with the life he had left behind.

This is war, sweetheart, his distinct English tones whispered into her head. It was the only method of communication he had had since his mutation had destroyed the lower half of his face. Paige would have been indignant at his intrusion had it been any other telepath but Jono’s presence felt so familiar that she couldn’t help but quietened down for a moment or two. It was a time before the stress of war had mounted on top of her, and the last time she remembered being happy. She just didn’t have it in her heart to forget what he had done as one of those rogue X-Men.

Paige nodded. “Even in war there are boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed. You risked innocent lives in your vendetta.” She turned to leave but paused at the door. “Your lecturing the wrong person about war, Jono. You aren’t the only soldier here.” With a sigh, the Kentuckian beauty exited through the sliding metallic door.

As passionate as ever, eh? Jono mused.

Angelo looked on. “Yeah. I doubt that chica will ever be any less high strung that she was back in Massachusetts but her brother is missing. She needs someone to take out her anger on and, given your past, you’re an easy target.” He ran his elongated fingers through his tussled hair. “Things have changed, Jono. People have changed–”

I wasn’t gone fer that long, he interjected.

Angelo frowned. “We were all gone for long enough.” He left Jono in silence.

Breakstone Lake

“Ah heard y’ seemed a little distressed.”

Sam looked down on his student, one of his specialist students training to be the next members of the X-Men. He sometimes looked at them with a sense of horror knowing that he was playing a part in turning children into soldiers but the same had been done to him all those years ago by the mutant Cable. It was better that they were prepared for the horrors the world could throw at them. His guilt normally only lasted briefly before he reminded himself that he was doing them a justice. Rogue had reminded him when she had taken on the burden alongside him as another of their battle training mentors, although she had less time to spend with the students given her active role as a current member of the X-Men. His kind tone barely matched the stern expression that was etched across his face. He knew these students and he expected them to attain highly, even amidst the traumas they were facing. X-Men had to recover quickly and they had to survive the endless stream of villains that attacked them on a regular basis.

“Miss Rourke told me that you missed her languages lecture,” he said. “Do y’ have anythin’ to say for yourself or are y’ just goin’ to stare into the lake until ah go away?”

Megan shrugged. “I wasn’t feelin’ it.”

“Y’ don’t get to pick and choose yer lessons, Megan. Y’ do as yer told when yer told to do it,” he chastised her. It was the third time the Kentuckian had been sent to find her for truancy in a week. “Y’ know that ah expect an excellent academic record if yer to continue trainin’ as a member of the New X-Men squad. Otherwise, ah’ll be forced to give yer position to another student and ah don’t want to do that. Ah think yer capable of so much more than yer showin’ us.”

Megan tugged at the hem of her skirt awkwardly. She wasn’t afraid of being scolded by her mentored, she’d quite gotten used to it in the last week, but she hated knowing that she had disappointed anyone. It was never something she had had to deal with before. Hesitantly, she turned to look into the disappointed face of her mentor. He was the teacher she found herself most capable of communicating with. Well, she had before Limbo. He was like her. Sam was a small-town farm boy who was a long way from home, and he had survived the experiences the X-Men had thrown at him. It was with a solemn thought that she realised not all of his friends had. Megan had been lucky. None of her friends had been murdered in the recent events that seemed to have plagued the school but Kevin was more fragile than ever before and Hope might have lost the use of her legs. Death mightn’t have been the worst thing these kids would have to face and that was what really scared her.

“Ah know things have been hard–“

Megan sighed. “It’s not really the same thing.”

“Isn’t it?” His sorrow caught her attention. “Less than a few months ago, the Marauders kidnapped mah kid brother and we haven’t found him yet. It was only last week that I found out that my sister had been abducted by the same demons that had taken you because of an age old grudge against one of her former teammates. Megan, ah’ve been through just as much as y’ have and there’s only way to survive this experience.”

“And what’s that?”

Sam exhaled. “Man up, and get on with yer life.”