'When did a man have to stay away from the woman he loves?"

Words to win a woman by. Rogue finally looked at hima"momentary, lovelya"and deep warmth spread through Remy's heart, sweet as her green shy eyes.

Kurt moved closer. His yellow eyes glinted with a cold light and Remy, though he smiled, felt the dagger in his heart, his own cold readiness to fight and win should Kurt, this new stranger in a friend's body, provoke him.

But he did not. All he said was, "Rogue, do you want to go for a walk?" and Rogue hesitated. Kurt held out his hand and after a moment she took it and allowed herself to be drawn from her room past Remy into the hall. Kurt smiled, as if to say, She listens to me, not to you, and how does that make you feel?

Like going for a walk.

"That sounds like a lovely idea, mon frere." Remy gathered up Rogue's other arm and tucked it against his body. He felt her quiver, but she did not pull away. Kurt looked disappointed, and Remy wondered if someone had forgotten to inform the blue teleporter that Rogue was his sister and therefore certain behaviors toward her might very well be inappropriate.

The three of them walked down the hall in silence, descending to the stairs to the main entry hall. Remy said, "I haven't been smelling much sulphur lately. You cuttin' back?"

For a moment Kurt looked confused, and then he said, "I've just felt like using my legs more, that's all." His accent was barely discernable and his voice was rough, a noted contrast to his usual soft-spoken nature. Remy wanted to laugh. Kurt, liking to use his legs? Even when the man was not teleporting, he somersaulted through the air, traversed halls in a series of cartwheels, flew through the house like it was nothing but a circus tent and he was the main attraction. Kurt might seem una.s.suming, but that was more of an act than the act.

Past the lobby down another hall. Remy would have guided Rogue out into the fresh air, but it was clear that Kurt had another destination in mind, and he was content to follow and observe. Anything he learned here might be usefula"and soon. He could not see the status quo continuing much longer.

As they drew near the gym a strange sensation overcame him. Premonition, maybe. He felt nauseated. Sweat p.r.i.c.kled against his back and a cold hard band tightened around his heart.

He heard something, then. Thick, like fists on flesh.

Remy let go of Rogue's arm and ran down the hall. He reached into his pockets for cards, for his retractable staff, for all those things he fought with because that horrible feeling was strong now, high in his throat, and when he rounded that corner into the gym it was worse than he could imagine because it was something he had never thought to see, something he could not bring himself to believe.

Wolverine was beating Jubilee to death. She was trying to fight, still struggling, but his fists were strong and fast anda"

Remy did not stop running. Cards cut his fingers and he fanned them bright and hot, hot and willing and furious, and as Wolverine looked up with that sick mad look in his eyes and blood flecking his chin, Remy barreled into him and shoved those cards into his mouth.

He flung himself backward, still moving, still flying, and grabbed Jubilee without a pause in step, holding her tight against his body. She breathed, "Wolvie," and then the cards went off and Remy fell to his knees as the shock wave pushed him down. He glanced over his shoulder. He could not see Wolverine's face, but his hands still moved.

So did Remy. He climbed to his feet. Kurt and Rogue blocked the gym's entrance. Rogue's expression was horrified, but he did not know if it was for Wolverine's benefit or Jubilee's. Kurt showed nothing at all.

Hoisting Jubilee higher in his arms, Remy reached into his pocket for more cards. Held them up for Kurt and Rogue to see and in his head he said, If you try to stop me I will kill you I will blow your heads off I will set you on fire and it will feel so good, and he felt those thoughts enter his gaze, his walk, the line of his mouth.

He thought they would let him pa.s.s, but Kurt grabbed his arm and Remy spun with cards burning between his fingers and he threw them at Kurta"through Kurt, because he teleported in a cloud of smokea"and the gym shook again with an explosion that sent Rogue huddling to the ground with her hands over her head, shaking. Remy ran into the hall, cradling Jubilee tight against him. He heard air pop, felt a rush of something cool against his neck, and he turned in time to see Kurt bounce off the wall at his head.

Remy ducked, barely avoiding a set of sharp fingernails that raked the air near his cheek. Kurt said, "Come on now and play," and the voice was different, higher, without any hint of a German accent. Jubilee stirred in Remy's arms and a moment later Kurt screamed. Remy glanced over his shoulder, still running, and saw a glittering cloud of plasma eating through Kurt's clothing, burning his skin.

Remy reached the infirmary and he slapped the intercom, yelling for Ororo to come find him in the medlab.

He lay Jubilee down on the bed and her red eyes were open, conscious, utterly horrified. Bruises marred her swollen face, while her lips looked like one large cut. He thought her nose might be broken.

"He's not there," Jubilee breathed, and the heartbreak in her eyes made him want to go back and kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.d for good. "Remy, he's not in there."

"Ma pet.i.te" he began, but she shook her head.

"No. He would have stopped himself if he had been in there. Wolvie would have stopped. He would never hurt me. Never." Tears trickled from her eyes and Remy smoothed them away with a light touch.

"Jamais ," he soothed. "You are right. Wolverine would never hurt you, ma pet.i.te. Never."

"You sure about that?" said a new voice. Scott. Remy snarled, whirling on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, moving away from Jubilee as fast as he could because Scott had his hand on his visor and red light shot from his eyes, punching a hole through the wall where Remy had stood only seconds before.

Cards sparked hot between his fingers and he flung them hard at Scott, who dodged back into the hall while explosions rocked the walls and floor. Remy stumbled, catching himself, and then raced toward the doorway, grabbing a sheet from the end of a bed and bundling it tight against his chest, burying his hands in cotton and feeling it burn with power. He fought to hold it in, to keep the energy contained, and he tasted blood in his mouth as he bit his lip. He entered the hall and saw Scott sprawled on the ground, trying to stand. Remy smiled and ran right over Scott, draping that sheet on his body as he pa.s.sed, and he knew the moment it should explode, knew it like the beating of his own heart, but when he heard the final roar, the thunder, the sound was m.u.f.fled and the air did not shake. He turned and saw Jean at the end of the hall, her hands outstretched, face screwed up in concentration. Scott was still in one piecea"unconscious, maybea"but charred bits of ash, the remains of the sheet, fluttered on top of him like dark snow.

"Merde," Remy said, and Jean's face relaxed into a smile. He felt himself picked up by a handa"her hand, flexinga"and he hit the wall hard. Slammed again and again, and he heard Jubilee's faint voice call his name. Jean laughed and he looked at her through the haze of pain, looked and saw her hair begin to rise. Remy felt electricity gather in the air.

Thank you, he thought, just as a bolt of lightning seared the ground near Jean's feet. Remy dropped to the ground. So did Jean, staggering to her knees. He saw Ororo appear from behind her. She held a piece of the torn-up floor, and she brought it down hard over Jean's head.

"Perfect timing," Remy said to her, stepping over Scott's still body.

"I thought so," she said, and ran into the infirmary.

Everywhere Ororo saw a war zone, but nothing was worse than the first moment she saw Jubilee.

"G.o.ddess," she murmured, looking at the girl's ruined face. "Remy, who did this?"

"Wolverine," he said, grim.

"No," Jubilee whispered.

"His impostor," Remy corrected himself. "The impostor did this."

"I'll be fine," Jubilee said weakly. "Really. This just looks bad." She hesitated. "Does it look bad?"

"Badges of war," Remy said gendy.

"Oh," she breathed. "That bad."

"I am surprised you are still conscious," Ororo said, fighting for control. Thunder shook the room, accompanied by a cold wind that made her shiver in antic.i.p.ation. The power tickled her skin; she knew what her eyes would look like if she had a mirror. She was readya"more than readya"and she wanted a fight. One look in Gambit's eyes told her that he felt the same.

First, though, she had to remember Jubilee. She had to focus on what was most important. Everything else was merely icing on the cake. Ororo hurried to the counter where Hank kept his most advanced medical devices, some of which had been borrowed from the Shi'ar. Alien technology could not be beaten in terms of efficiency.

"I'm still conscious because I'm tough," Jubilee said, though Ororo noticed a slight slurring to her words. She thought Jubilee might have a concussion.

"Yes, you are quite tough," Ororo said, in a voice more gende than she felt. "It is one of your many remarkable talents." Ororo gave her several shots of medicine that Hank always used for those X-Men who had had bad run- ins with tougher and larger adversaries than themselves. She touched Jubilee's hand and said, "Rest. By tomorrow you will feel much better."

"What about the others?" she asked. "What about him?"

She could not say his name. Remy swallowed hard. Ororo said, "They are done here, Jubilee. They are done and gone, as of now. I promise you. I will not let this stand, no matter whose bodies they wear."

"Rough," said a familiar voice. Ororo and Remy turned. Scott leaned against the doorway. Remy held up an array of cards.

"Don' move" he said. "Games over, Scott. Or whoever you are."

"You don't know who I am? I thought the face made it obvious." Scott smiled, cold. He glanced down at Jubilee. "How bad is it?"

"Go to h.e.l.l," Jubilee said, before either one of them could answer. Her jaw was stiffening up; in another ten minutes she would not be able to talk at all.

"What she said," Remy added.

Scott continued to smile and it was eerie how his expression did not change. Unnatural, as though it had been pasted on his face for him and he could not move his mouth until given permission. His eyes certainly did not reflect that tight smile. His eyes were dark with fury, with rage, and Ororo realized that the hard edge of anger was something she had seen for quite some time now, in all their faces. Subtle, though. Reined in.

She heard movement in the hall behind Scott, and Jean appeared: cold, face sharp. Blood trickled down the side of her temple. Ororo's hair stirred and she knew it was not her own power, but Jean, teasing her, playing without humor. Kurt arrived, followed by Rogue, and finally, as she knew would happen and dreaded, Logan entered the infirmary. Most of his face was missing, but the parts that remained were knitting together before her eyes. His skull glimmered beneath a light sheen of blood.

He did not look at Jubilee, which Ororo found odd. She could not take that as a sign of guilty feelings; rather, almost, as punishment.

Jubilee tried to sit up straight when Logan entered the room, but Remy put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. She did not relax. Her eyes, what little Ororo could see of them in her swelling face, were haunted.

"What is this?" Ororo asked, preparing herself for battle. She stood straight, tall, summoning the G.o.ddess within her as shield and weapon. She gazed into the faces of those who should have been her friends and said, "Why have you become strangers? Why enemies? Who are you?"

"I don't understand those questions," Scott said. "Why are you asking us these things?"

"Because you are not who you say you are," she whispered, and the quiet in her voice was merely the lull, the prelude to something bigger, devastating. Remy knew her well; he inched closer to Jubilee.

"Maybe we don't know who we are," Jean said. "Maybe we're just as confused."

"And maybe I am also tired of games," Ororo said, and let go of her control, tearing down those hard-fought walls she kept around her emotions, those deadly emotions that were the wellspring of her gift, that gave it power. To feel too much was a killing thinga"like now, like her ragea"and there was no buildup, no slow kiss of wind, but a hurricane ram that knocked the men and women in front of her off their feet, slamming them hard against the wall. Hail cut their faces deep, drawing blood.

She expected them to fight back, looked forward to it with visceral desire, but they did nothing. They lay against the wall like dolls and allowed Ororo to punish them. It made no sense.

" 'Ro," Remy said. "Ease up. Something not right here."

She did not want to ease up. "They should be punished, Remy. For Jubilee, if nothing else."

"Storm," said the girl, but she was cut off by a new voice, a deep voice, one that rang clear as a bell even over the howling of her winds.

"Yes," said that voice. "Yes, that was my thought, as well, given their lackl.u.s.ter performance."

Storm cut the winds. The impostors slumped to the ground as though their wires had been cut. Between them, stepping over them, a man entered through the open doorway. He was tall and elegant, with sharp brown eyes and strong hands. He might have been handsome had it not been for the sickly cast of his skin, the gaunt- ness of his cheeks. He looked tired, but beyond that, deeper, she saw iron resolve.

"Who are you?" Ororo demanded. "How did you enter this school without the alarms going off?"

He smiled. "My name, Ms. Monroe, is Jonas Maguire. I was able to enter this place because I was invited."

"By them," Remy said, gesturing at the group still resting limp on the floor.

"Yes," he said. "I suppose you mind that a great deal."

"Oui," Remy snapped.

"And if I told you I was a mutant? Would that make a difference?"

"Not particularly," Ororo said. "What have you done with our friends? Our real friends?"

"They're still alive, though no doubt uncomfortable if they haven't managed to escape the place I put them. Another special school for gifted youngsters." He smiled. "I was a teacher there myself, though that was not my job description. After observing what you people do here, part of me hopes your friends do escape. I think it would be nice for those five to come back and see the home they can never be a part of again."

"So they're alive," she breathed. "You stole them from their bodies, didn't you? Why? What is the point of such deception, especially one so poorly done?" She wanted to attack him, to slam lightning in his eyes, but she suddenly could not move and her powers refused to respond. So much for the psychic dampener.

"Poorly done?" He looked amused. "And I tried so hard. Oh, well. I won't care much about the execution, as long as I get the job done. And I think I will. I actually think I will be able to do this thing." He held up the newspaper and Ororo saw the front page's news, a discussion of the mutant-rights march. "I had hoped the X-Men would be attending this. It wouldn't have mattered, either way, but this is official. This means the press and the public will be playing close attention to all of you."

Jonas smiled. "Maybe I shouldn't have revealed myself like this. I thought I could wait. I had been waiting for so long already. I did think, however, that the charade would last a little longer. I thought that, despite your suspicions, you would play dumb to see what could be wrong with your teammates, your friends. I thought I could do all these things, to learn more about you, but I did not antic.i.p.ate my Wolverine's reaction to the girl.

"If it comforts you," he said to Jubilee, "I did my best to rein her in, but she was too far gone. Her temper is quite fierce. I apologize for that."

"Wha?" Jubilee asked, frowning.

"I need to go," he said. "I'm going to make you all sleep now. I would do morea"there are some lovely people the three of you would be perfect in, but my resources are limited. This is the finest balancing act I have ever committed myself to, a great feat of puppetry."

La.s.situde swept over Ororo's mind, her body, and she struggled to move anything, including her mind, those heavy thoughts. Those psychic dampeners were worth nothing at all. Jubilee already looked unconscious, while Remy had fallen to one knee. His eyes were half-lidded and Ororo found that she, too, could not keep her eyes open. She saw enough, though. She saw the five fallen X-Men finally stir, rising to their feet and rubbing their heads and eyes as though they had been in a deep sleep. Jonas did not look at them. He stared only at Ororo, and his gaze was wild and dark.

"I am sorry about your roses," he said, "but my boy, your Jean, had to practice certain skills."

"What do you want from us?" Ororo asked, her words slurred.

She heard him say "Nothing. I want nothing from you at all," and then he patted her cheek and told her to sleep. Her eyes drifted shut.

They arrived home after a night of near relentless driving, cramped in a car they stole in Minneapolis, which was a junker on the outside, but had a beauty of an engine that made Logan consider keeping the old sweet Bess when they got back to the Mansion. Not right, of course, but life threw him so many curveb.a.l.l.s he thought his karma must really suck. Might as well tack another onto the chopping block of his life.

The closer they got to New York State, the quieter they became. Nerves, fear of the unknown, a lack of certainty about their reception. h.e.l.l, they might not be able to get through the front gate and wasn't that going to suck. If that happened, Logan planned on chaining himself to the bars and waiting for the Professor to come home, or for someone to call another telepath. One good mental sweep should do the trick. Wasn't like anyone could mistake his mind for someone else's.

That was the positive side of his thoughts, the ones that led to the good outcome. The other side, the darker side, worried that the Mansion as they knew it would be gone, that all their friends would be hurt or dead, and that the X-Men as a team, a symbol, would never live again. All that work, all those dreams, flushed down the toilet for a reason none of them could yet suss out.

Again, he thought about having to spend the rest of his life as a woman. The prospect still did not appeal. Walking in other people's shoes was an overrated exercise, especially if the only purpose was to build a well-rounded character. He had plenty of character, thank you very much. He did not need any more.

And then, on the fifth morning of their pseudo- captivity, Scott drove up to the gate of their home. It was open, which was slightly unusual, but they pulled in and followed the winding driveway to the house. Everything was very quiet.

"Where are the children?" Jean asked, and they all had the same terrible thought, that one of them, all of them, perhaps, with their bodies, had wreaked some terrible harm upon the young people.

The school still stood, though, and Logan did not see any discernable signs of a firefight. Except for the dead rosesa"which, if he remembered correctly, had all been very much alive on the day of his departurea"nothing seemed out of ordinary. The front door, however, was unlocked.

"I am worried," Kurt said.

"Yes," Scott said, and they entered the house. The security system was off and Scott punched in the code, reinstating the alarms. A warning, if nothing else, to give them time to prepare. Although, in Logan's professional opinion, if they were forced to go up against themselvesa"which seemed likely, at some pointa"preparation would not help them in the slightest. Only luck, only resolve. Those were the kinds of things that kept a man living through hard times, and even though they were home, Logan did not think their lives were about to become any easier.