Avalon
Genosha

{{Bloody ‘ell do these bandages fucking itch}}

Jon Starsmore, the English mutant known as Chamber, winced as he pulled his black leather coat across his back. As he stood from the examination table, he fidgeted at the black straps of gauze wrapped around his chest and lower jaw. Obviously, the gauze had been white before application, but it seemed to be a new addition to his mutant repertoire that turned the fabric black upon application.

“If you pick at it, Jon,” the motherly voice of Jean Grey-Summers said with a smile from the nearest computer terminal, “it will never heal.”

Starsmore rolled his eyes. {{So what’s the story, morning glory? Before me untimely demise, I was able to ‘eal me skin after a discharge. It’s been days now and I’m still looking like a fuckin’ hollow man over ‘ere.}}

Jean sighed softly as she tapped on the keyboard in front of her. After a quick read of the results from the battery of tests performed upon him, she wheeled around in her chair. “I’m not much of a scientist, not like Hank or Moira anyway, but what you’re going through appears simple enough.”

{{I fuckin’ died, gel}} Chamber interrupted. {{I doubt anything can be simpler than that}}

“Jon, now that Charles Xavier is…gone,” Jean replied, “I’m the foremost authority on telepathic and psionic abilities on the planet. It’s been established that your body is a shell for your psychic energy, and that said shell can be easily cracked and broken. How did you learn to heal the shell in the first place?”

{{I met a bloke named Sinister}} Starsmore answered. {{Gifts of ‘orses’ mouths and all that jazz, I suppose}}

Jean narrowed her eyes at the mention of Sinister’s name. Nothing good had ever come from the hand of that madman, but at least he was dead and gone now. “Layman terms, Jon,” she continued, “you’ve overextended yourself. The things you endured with your ‘death’ and internment at Iron Hell proved too much for your system. When you blew out your chest again, your body simply didn’t have the strength to mend itself.”

{{So I’m back to bein’ John Merrick again, eh?}}

“It’ll heal in time, Jon,” Jean said, placing a sympathetic hand on the young man’s shoulder, “you just need rest.”

{{Bollocks}} was his only answer as he forcefully shrugged his shoulder free from the woman’s hand.

“Jon…”

{{Give it a rest, doc}} Chamber said as he pushed his way through the examination room’s door. {{I don’t think me ‘eart could ‘andle any more good news…}}

MAD DOGS AND CLERGYMEN

By Chris Munn

His mind swirling with a cacophony of thoughts and musings, Jon Starsmore stepped into the wind-swept heart of Avalon, the mercilessly unkind center of Magneto’s island fortress. He’d renamed it Magda Square, after some bird he’d diddled back in the day, and set about making his utopia for freaks. Magneto, savior for those too damned unlucky to save themselves.

The winter air hit with a chill against his body, the only thing covering him up under the coat being his bandages. He laughed at the thought of being inconvenienced by being cold when by all rights he should be six foot under. Why were things so bloody confusing for him right now? He remembered Wonderland clear as a bell, all the way up to him and the girls hitching a ride on Blink’s skirt-tail while Everett blew the shit up real nice.

Everett. Shit.

He stopped in the middle of Magda Square and looked up at the massive monument built to honor Magneto. Why does he get a monument when the good ones, like Everett and the rest don’t even get a bloody Potter’s Field? Jon hated Genosha, even though this was the first time he’d stepped foot on its soil.

“You think it’s bad now,” a girl’s voice said from behind him, “you should have been here a few years ago, when the Magistrates and Genegineer ruled things.”

Jon cocked his head back just enough to catch an eyeful of the speaker. Rachel Summers smiled when she caught his eye. They’d rescued each other from the pits of Iron Hell, and all she’d talked about since was some sort of psychic bond the two of them supposedly had now. Rubbish, Jon had decided, is all that was.

{{I take it Missus Cyclops tailed you on me? Make sure I don’t go slit me wrists or something?}}

“Not at all,” Rachel said as she brushed her red hair, swirling in the wind of Magda Square, from her eyes. “Alex and I are going on a bit of a field trip, and I suggested we ask you to come with us.”

{{What, and leave this glorious place behind?}} Jon quipped while pointing at the statue in front of him. {{I’m not done groveling at Magneto’s feet yet}}

”A change of pace will do you good,” Rachel replied, taking his arm with hers, “especially considering where we’re going.”

If he could’ve sighed, he would have. Begrudgingly, he allowed himself to be pulled down the street by the young Phoenix. {{You gonna tell me where we’re ‘eadin’, or am I supposed to ‘psychic’ it outta yer?}}

Rachel tossed him a wink of her eye. “We’re going to London.”

{{Oh, that’s just dandy…}}

“Jon, glad to see Rachel was able to drag you along with us.”

Starsmore nodded silently at the greeting of Alex Summers, the current leader of the X-Men team based out of Genosha. Summers was the younger brother of Cyclops, so lord knows how far his apple fell from that tree. Seemed like that damn family was everywhere…Alex, Jean, Rachel, Cyclops, some rumors about the big guy, Cable, being related somehow. It all made Jon’s head hurt just a little more when thinking about it.

Alex, at least, was a bit more approachable than his older brother (who took the term “stoic” to its literal extremes), but Jon attributed that to what was probably the same reason that caused the younger Summers brother to choose the code-name “Havok” when he was a teenager. He knew he owed Alex his life for saving him from Iron Hell, even if it was unintentional, but Jon just couldn’t cough up the thanks quite yet.

Regardless, there Alex sat on the landing gear of a clunky, dusty old C-47 that squatted like a dead whale on the landing strip of the Genoshan airfield, his hand outstretched in complete acceptance. Jon had met most of the X-Men when he was a student at Xavier’s, and he honestly hadn’t cared for the majority of them. Alex, at least, seemed to have a head on his shoulders.

{{So what brought about the joyride in the steel coffin ‘ere? Might be safer to just jump off the tallest building without a parachute}}

“Unlike the other X-Men,” Alex explained, “we don’t have an SR-71 at our beck and call to cart us around the planet. We’d hoped that Gateway would be the answer to our transportation problem, but he was gone to who knows where after we returned from Cambodia.”

“So,” Rachel spoke up, “we’re going calling on an old friend who might be able to help with our problem.”

{{An’ this ol’ friend just happens to be in London, right?}}

“According to her publicist,” Alex said with a wry smile, “that’s absolutely right. But I just finished doing the checks on the boat here if you’re both ready to take flight.”

{{Who’s flyin’ this beast, anywho?}}

Alex stood and smiled even wider. “That’d be me. My brother was a pilot for awhile, and my dad’s an interstellar space pirate. I picked up a few lessons along the way.”

{{Gordon Bennett}} Jon “mumbled”.

Interlude – The First
The State Home for Foundlings
Sage, Nebraska

“Is it ready? It has to be ready sooner rather than later. I would much prefer it to be ready now, though I would also accept “sooner”. Tell me “later” under threat of death. Do you understand? Do you?”

The creature stalked to and fro across the metal floor, his cloven hooves clacking with each frantic step. The hooves, of course, were a new addition – one of a few new diabolical side effects of his current endeavor. At first they were an inconvenience, but the adjustment period had passed. Now, he thought he carried them off rather well.

Doctor Whitt rubbed her temples, eyes shut and held tight to try and regain focus and composure. She disliked it very much when her partner would get into one of his moods…he could be a generous man, but his impatient nature was quickly driving her insane.

“It will be ready,” she answered slowly, “when it’s bloody well ready.”

The creature stopped his pacing movement, his deformed head creaking as it slowly turned toward the doctor. She chanced a glance and saw his left eye twitching under the grotesque breathing apparatus strapped to his face. “Do you have a problem with our arrangement, Doctor?” he asked after a quick stalking in her direction, his putrid breath causing the skin on her cheek to bruise slightly.

“Of course not,” Whitt answered, pushing herself away from the monster, “but keep in mind that it is my research that is making all of this possible.”

“But it was I,” the creature rebutted, his arms raised above his head while his words degenerated into cackles, “who discovered this wonderful playground in which we now reside! And it is I who demands that it be ready as soon as possible, woman!”

Doctor Whitt sighed. “Fine,” she acquiesced, “take the one out of crèche 17. I think we’ve advanced it as far as its going to go without exploding on us.”

“Wunderbar!” the grotesquerie shouted before it danced over to the wall of life-pods that littered the basement level of the orphanage. With a hiss of breaking seals, the creature ripped the object of its desire free from its life-sustaining cradle.

High in the air the infant girl was raised, clutched by the pawing razors that were the monster’s fingers. “It is time, indeed,” the mutant monstrosity said to the child, “for a little midnight snack…”

London, England

It was late evening when they arrived, and the first thing Starsmore did was take his leave from the Summers clique. The flight over had been long, longer than he thought it would be, and he’d had quite enough of Alex trying to con him into becoming one of his “X-Men”. That was the last thing he wanted, to be another stormtrooper boot-stepping to the march of mutant freedom.

After all he’d been through, all Jon Starsmore wanted was to be left alone.

In all honesty, Jon mulled over as he walked through the downright frigid London streets, the first thing he should probably do is check in on the girls. Clarice, Monet, and Paige had all teleported out of Wonderland at the same time as him, but something odd happened afterward. He was alone, and his memories were all jumbled. There was a desert, and an old man…why the hell couldn’t he remember that as clearly as all the other stuff since his “death”?

Of course, he’d given the big “me memory’s buggered” speech when the X-Men pressed him about how he was still alive. He’d get around to telling them everything, about Adam and Wonderland, about Sinister and Everett and that creepy little Rasputin girl – but he’d do it when he was damn well good and ready to talk about it. Thankfully, the fact that he’d spent the last few weeks in a Cambodian concentration camp was a good enough excuse to keep Summers and Grey from pushing him too hard.

The noise coming from the church was what snapped him out of his doldrums. He turned to his left, the beginnings of a storm sending rain drops down to sting his eyes as he listened to the sounds of breaking glass and religious idolatry coming from behind the imposing wooden doors of the Christ Box. Religion, he sniffed, who needed it?

It surprised even him when he pushed his way into the run-down church, shaking the water off his jacket as he entered. The church was old school Catholic by the looks of it, one that hadn’t been attended to in the proper way for quite some time. The huddled group of men at the altar froze when they saw him coming through the pews, and only one of them – the largest, naturally – started walking to meet him halfway.

“Can I help you?” the man, his accent American, probably Boston, asked, making sure to stand in Jon’s way and block his view of whatever was happening behind him.

Jon came up close to the stranger and pointed at his bandages. He followed that up with a series of hand gestures, mimicking sign language with as much bullshit as he could muster. “Burn victim, or something?” the large man asked after Jon finished signing his fake language. Jon nodded, thanking silently that this group obviously didn’t know many deaf people.

“Is he here to see the Reverend?” one of the men in the back shouted.

“Shut up, Eamon!” the man in front of Jon shouted in reply. “My name’s Cody, we’re with the Ministry setting up in these parts. You hear about us?”

Jon nodded, enthusiastically.

“Looks like we got us another lost soul looking to convert, boys!” Cody shouted to the men behind him, their curiosity causing them to cautiously approach. “You lucked out, friend,” Cody said to Jon, finally stepping aside to let him see what was happening. Jon’s eyes widened when he saw the man, beaten bloody into unconsciousness, and the wooden crucifix being prepared, nails and all.

“We’re just about to kill us a mutie…”

The pub was named The Roar, though on this calm Thursday evening Alex Summers thought that perhaps the owner had named his establishment in haste. It was nearly empty, with only a few tables seating a couple or two near the stage. Two men at the dart board, obviously inebriated, and a male/female couple fornicating near the door to the restroom, also obviously inebriated.

Alex looked to the stage, at the young woman singing passionately into the microphone while strumming her guitar, and a swell of pity near overwhelmed him. If this was where her career was going, maybe picking her up for the X-Men would be a blessing in disguise. Better to burn out than to fade away, the saying went.

“Was it really that long ago,” Rachel said from beside Alex, “that she was selling out arenas across the world?”

“So went the demise of cock-rock and hair metal, Rache,” Havok quipped before he began to move through the tables toward the stage. He hung back in the corner while Phoenix stayed at the door…Alex wasn’t sure just what had happened between the singer and the X-Men in the past, and he certainly didn’t want to send her running for the hills just yet. So he just stood back and listened…

While it was far from a secret that she had fallen on hard times with her career, it didn’t matter a bit to Lila Cheney. Sure, there were the numerous worries about money and the spotlight, but when she was on stage – the magic was still there, whether she was singing to 5 people or 50,000. Her voice was a bit huskier than a few years before, a product of too much whiskey and too many menthol cigarettes. But if anything, it only made her voice better; a Courtney Love with talent, she had once been told by a drunken admirer after a gig in Seattle.

As Lila finished her set, ending with a cover of “I Will Remember You” that honestly put the original to shame, Alex straightened himself and prepared his pitch. He could see just what had attracted Sam Guthrie to her all those years ago, and he had to remind himself that it wasn’t her talent or her beauty that had brought him all the way to London.

No, Lila was far more important for another reason. She, like him and Rachel, was a mutant, but her power was that of instantaneous interstellar teleportation. She could zip across the galaxy (and did such on a fairly regular basis, he had heard) in the time it took normal people to cross an empty street. With Gateway departed for destinations unknown, Lila would hopefully fill in the gap his team so sorely needed.

“Hello, Lila,” Alex greeted as he approached the starlet, “been a long time.”

“As I live and breathe,” Cheney answered sans smile, “if it isn’t one of the notorious Summers brothers. Am I going to get cloned and sent to the future after you leave, or is that just with your older sibling?”

“No,” Alex quipped, “my girls just get killed. You got a minute to talk shop?”

“For the mighty X-Men,” Lila answered with a newly-emerged grin, “you get five minutes.”

Interlude – The Second
The School for Gifted Youngsters
Westchester, New York

“This isn’t really a good time,” Scott Summers said into the large communication screen, his palms resting on the control panel as he craned his neck up to see the woman staring back at him. “I have a class to attend to.”

“I may no longer reside at the school, Cyclops,” Ororo Monroe said to her former teammate, “but I am still an X-Man. I demand to know just what your brother is doing in our name and what you’ve planned to stop him.”

Cyclops scowled and folded his arms across his chest. “To be frank, Storm, it’s really none of your business, is it? You’re happy sitting up in your ivory X-Corporation tower playing diplomat, let us grunts handle the dirty work.”

“By the Bright Lady,” Ororo replied, her tone growing harsher with every word, “you are being insufferable as of late. I am aware that our methods of leadership have always differed greatly, but we have always remained friends. Has that changed, Scott?”

Summers sighed, taking the opportunity to remove his visor in favor of his ruby quartz glasses. “Of course not, Ororo…but you have to understand that Alex is my little brother. Regardless of what he may be doing, I need to handle this my own way.”

“And while you do so,” Storm complained, “he is doing more harm to mutantkind and the X-Men in particular. Are you honestly going to condone a terrorist group taking our name just because you think Alex may be in mourning?”

“He lost not only the woman he loved,” Scott replied, “but a son in another reality. Trust me, you don’t just bounce back from that, especially not if you’re Alex. He was never able to hold it together like I was.”

“Regardless of his situation,” Storm dismissed, “I will not allow him to continue down this path; and, Goddess willing, there are other X-Men outside of your influence who will assist me.”

“Storm, wait…” Cyclops began in vain.

“Farewell, Scott,” Ororo said before turning off the transmitter, “I will apprise you of our progress.”

And with that, she was gone, leaving Cyclops alone to ponder the path he and his brother had chosen to take. How could it all be unraveling so quickly? How could he save Alex without dragging down the school that depended on him?

While Cyclops agonized with the choices he had made for his family, he was unaware of a secret observer standing outside the door to the communication chamber. Piotr Rasputin, the X-Man named Colossus, had unintentionally overheard the argument between the two greatest leaders of the X-Men…and he could not help but agree with what Storm had expressed.

Starsmore stepped lightly toward the group of men at the head of the church, his anger rising with each footfall of his boots. Cody smiled at Jon’s side, following with a slap on the Englishman’s back. “Look at that facial expression, fellas,” the bigot bellowed, “looks like we got us a fellow mutie-hater here.”

Jon’s eyes widened as he neared closer to the mutant that was barely clinging to consciousness on the floor. {{Shite, I know this bugger…}}

Each of the men froze where they stood, Jon’s telepathic “voice” echoing around in their empty little brains. Realizing that the façade was over, Jon turned back toward his host, Cody, and nodded his head. {{Don’t you feel right stupid, eh?}}

Cody wasted no time, throwing his fist in a collision course with Chamber’s face. The man’s fist hit the point of Jon’s jaw, its shape retained by the bandages covering his wound. To Cody’s surprise, his fist sunk deep into the X-Man’s body, collapsing into the hole torn through Jon’s body and face. Immediately after, Chamber released his psionic power, obliterating Cody’s hand before he was blown back to the far side of the church.

Jon spun on his heels, psychic fire billowing from the hole in his body, torn bandages dangling from his ripped torso. {{Who else wants some?}}

The three remaining men surged forward as one, epitaphs shouting from their lips. If he were able, Starsmore would have smiled. He failed to notice the faint sparks coming from the front of the church…coming from the fallen Cody.

“I’m just going to throw it out there, Lila,” Alex stated as he crossed his leg and leaned back in the rickety wooden chair, the table and two drinks sitting between them, “I want you to join the X-Men. Officially this time, no more of that hanger-on stuff like when you were palling around with Cannonball and the New Mutants.”

Lila laughed as she struck a match, lighting the cigarette dangling from her lips. “Am I supposed to feel flattered by that invitation, Summers? Being an X-Man is like having a big target painted on your back…surely you’ve been to enough funerals in the past few years to agree with that.”

,p>“You’re thinking about how we used to do things, Lila,” Alex replied, “things have changed. Let Scott and the other pacifists sit in their school and preach things they don’t have the conviction to fight for anymore. I’m taking this global; taking it to the streets and into people’s homes where they have no choice but to think about our cause.”

“The thing in Asia, and at CNN,” Cheney asked cautiously, “that was you, wasn’t it?”

“You’re one of the last pieces of the force I’m trying to build, Lila,” Havok admitted, “and you can’t pretend that you’re safe by burying your head in the sand. Not anymore. I can’t promise you anything other than you’d be fighting for something tangible this time, not a vaguely-defined ‘dream’.”

“But that’s the nice thing about dreams,” she rebutted, “their vagueness is exactly what’s so alluring about them.”

“The dream is dead, Ms. Cheney,” Alex answered as he stood from the table, “it’s time to face reality.”

Rachel Summers stood at the pub’s entrance, arms folded across her breasts as she leaned against the nearest wall. She knew Lila, of course, from just after she escaped to this time period, when the singer was an item with Cannonball. But she also accepted the fact that she would merely cramp Alex’s style, stifle his flair, if she were there interjecting into his sales pitch. Lila was hardcore, though, and she wondered if even Havok had what it took to sway her convictions.

Rachel changed her posture and allowed her eyes to drift out past the nearest window, looking in on the gloomy, rain-soaked London city. Without warning, images began to flood her mind – cries of pain and terror that threatened to send her falling to her knees. She screamed without realizing it, causing both Alex and Lila to look in her direction.

“Alex,” Rachel said through clinched teeth, “it’s Jon! He’s in danger!”

{{Give me a soddin’ break, boys}} Jon goaded as he easily side-stepped the first bigot’s attack. As the muscle-bound man flew past, John turned and threw a punch of his own, striking his enemy at the base of his neck while he fell. Starsmore wasn’t the greatest physical fighter, but he’d learned enough during his time at the school to get by, especially when dealing with no-necks like this.

The remaining two men fell into a heap after Jon clocked their heads together, sending them into the painful oblivion of unconsciousness. {{You blokes need to learn a few self-defense moves}} he quipped as he stepped over them, making his way to the mutant that had nearly been executed only a few moments before.

Starsmore slapped the young man on the cheek, snapping the humans’ victim back to reality. He sat up in surprise, green energy crackling around him as the memory of his abduction and torture flooded back into his mind. It took him a moment to recognize the fellow mutant who had rescued him, but when the realization finally hit him…

“Jon Starsmore?” Alex Roberts asked in complete shock and surprise. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

{{I got better, mate}} Chamber responded as he helped his old friend to his feet. Alexander Roberts had briefly been a student at Xavier’s school alongside the other teens of Generation X, a mutant who was a living fusion reactor trapped in human flesh. They’d named him “Nuclear”, which Jon always felt to be just a bit on the nose; but Alex had been missing for months before the Gen X kids’ “death”, having run away after learning he was dying of a virus called Legacy. {{Obviously, so did you}} Jon commented.

“I woke up one day,” Roberts answered, “and I wasn’t sick anymore. I don’t know how or why, but I wasn’t going to complain. Thanks for the rescue, by the way.”

Starsmore just nodded for an answer and the two young men, one helped at the arm of the other, made their way toward the church’s exit. As they reached the door, an unexpected hand grasped onto Jon’s shoulder. The X-Man swiveled, nearly dropping his friend when he saw the sputtering and sparking cybernetics of the man named Cody illuminating the dark church like a flickering neon light.

{{Sod off, mate}} Jon said as he prepared to blast the apparently more-than-human racist away for a second time.

But Cody was faster, and the palm of his right hand pulsed with a blast of pure concussive force, blowing both mutants through the doors of the holy building and out onto the street. While Alex tumbled down the church’s stairs, Jon was sent flying into an oncoming car, crashing violently against its hood and windshield before ricocheting off onto the street.

“Prepare to be purified, genejokes!” the cyborg Cody shouted as he descended the concrete steps of the church. He readied another repulsor blast, pointed directly at the barely-moving Jon Starsmore, and grinned teeth of razors.

Suddenly, a flash of light appeared at the cybernetic human’s left side, a portal that allowed three newcomers onto the scene. Guided by Phoenix’s telepathy, Lila had teleported herself, Rachel, and Havok to Chamber’s side – but what they were greeted with surprised all three. Without saying a word, Havok released a blast of plasma energy from his palms, striking the already damaged Cody directly in the center of his body mass.

“Do you see, Lila?” Summers asked the woman as he saw Cody drop to one knee, damaged but not destroyed. “No matter where you are, there will always be people like this waiting for you!”

“Forgive me, God,” Cody said as his cybernetic enhancements sparked and malfunctioned, the damage too severe for his operating system to compensate, “I have failed you.”

Cody raised his arms to the heavens one final time before falling over, dead.

Lila and Alex exchanged glances, but only Summers was able to hold his stare. Cheney looked down and rubbed her bare arms together, chilled in the London cold and rain. “Alright,” she admitted, “I’ll try it your way for awhile.”

“Fantastic,” Havok replied, then he immediately moved on to the two wounded mutants already being cared for by Rachel. Jon was back on his feet, he and Phoenix making their way over to the coughing Alex Roberts.

“Do you know him?” Phoenix asked as Havok helped Roberts to stand.

{{Aye}} Jon answered. {{He’s me mate…}}

Interlude – Final
Location Unknown

“Sir, we’ve lost contact with Reaver 011,” the woman in the horn-rimmed glasses stated, the monitor in front of her displaying a flat-lined life-support sensor. “Last report was that he was in contact with several dangerous mutants.”

The grey-haired man that sat in the command chair of the immense war room stiffened in his seat. Wrinkled fingers raised to the black and white collar around his neck. “Play back his last visual communiqué,” he ordered. The woman sitting below him snapped to attention and began to tap on her keyboard. Each of the monitors surrounding the war room’s command hub began to display images, digital stills of five mutants standing in a rain-soaked London street.

“At least three of them have been identified as former students of Xavier,” the woman informed, “and information on the others should be downloading almost immediately.”

“Excellent,” the Reverend whispered. He stood from his seat and his voice changed from a whisper to a shout. “Purifiers,” he said, arms outstretched to the heavens, “we have had first contact with the enemy!”

The room grew silent around him as his people took in the images transmitted from the deceased cybernetic soldier. Their leader took the silence as awe of his presence…and that made William Stryker very happy indeed.

Next Issue: The next arc begins with Lila Cheney and Alex Roberts adapting to life as new members of the X-Men, while an old friend comes to Havok with information on the next wave of genetic terror. Don’t miss the first chapter of “Tastes Like Children”!