Issue+53+-+'Six'


 * Issue 53 - 'Six' **




 * Plot**

(Takes place at the same time as Age of X: Homefront, Part 2 of 4) In the Age of X, the exalts Gold Team has returned from foiling X-Force’s assassination attempt on the Mutant Republic’s Exarch, Dagan Lightfoot. They are discussing their plan: they must either make allies of the Avengers and the human resistance in order to stand a chance against Magneto’s New United States if the current conflict becomes war, or they must destroy the resistance due to their efforts of sabotaging the food supply. In the middle of the discussion there is a flash of white light. Suddenly everyone but Mystique forgets the past ten years – the last thing they remember is going to sleep the night of the convention center attack! Bastienne, Billy, Dane, David, Honoka, Mac, and Sam are in shock. Sam realizes she has her head on Mystique’s shoulder. She uses her telekinesis to slam her against the wall. With super speed, Billy runs behind Raven and pins her hands behind her. Meanwhile, the rest of the group realize they all look older. Mac notices that Bastienne’s physical mutations (her ears and tail) have returned. Dane realizes his arm has returned. Several eXalts notice they have wedding rings (Billy, Dane, David, Mac) – or their rings are missing or different (Bastienne, Sam). Honoka realizes the technology in the room is more advanced. Raven thinks everyone has gone crazy. She asks what’s going on and wonders if the white light has done something. When Raven says it’s 2020, David orders Mac to use his mutant ability to drain Raven and knock her out. While Mac argues against it, Billy knocks her out from behind. David can’t figure out how his futuristic comm works, but Dane figures his out and calls the security room. Mac is confused when Jubilee answers. They ask Jubilee what the date is. She says it’s 2020. David tells Jubilee to put the school at red alert. Meanwhile, Sam has been mentally scanning the school. She realizes several people are missing, including Matt, the twins, Davan, Jess, and all the students she knew. When Sam says she can’t sense Jessica, Bastienne goes upstairs. Mac follows. Mac is able to get the elevator to work. Upstairs they notice kids running for shelter due to the alert David set. They don’t recognize any of the kids. Mac goes into the headmasters’ office and sees the calendar is set to 2020. He tries to figure out his futuristic tablet/phone and when he does so, it also says it’s 2020. Bastienne goes to the security room and talks to Jubilee. She’s surprised she’s human and not a vampire. Jubilee is worried something is wrong with Bastienne and calls down to the War Room. The rest of the team heads upstairs. Mac joins the rest of the team in the security room. Sam reads Jubilee’s mind and relates some of the information about the future. She tearfully breaks the news to Bastienne that Jessica is dead. Bastienne faints. David tells Mac to wake Raven. Mac does so and the group questions her. She tells them that it seems they’ve all forgotten the last ten years. David cancels the red alert and the group returns to the War Room to figure out what’s going on. Raven fills them in on the history of the Age of X. She also fills in the personal details. When Dane hears that Meghan is alive and with the students upstairs, he runs off to be with her. At this point, Havok calls David and says he’s worried about Dagan. She seems to have lost her memory. When David is confused about Havok calling him, Havok realizes David has lost his memories as well and hangs up. Mac and Jubilee take Bastienne to the medical lab. Jubilee explains how he cured her vampirism, but how she can never regain her mutant abilities. They reaffirm their love for one another and Jubilee says that Mac is always her hero. Mac leaves to rejoin the others. Bastienne wakes up. Jubilee is comparing her medical readings to her last physical a week ago. Nothing seems to have changed. Bastienne notices from her medical record that she’s pregnant. She asks what’s going on, and Jubilee said she remarried Billy two years ago and they’re having their first baby. Back in the War Room, the group is hashing out the rest of the details they’ve forgotten: which mutants are dead and which have come back to life, who’s married and who has kids, and who is in charge of what (Gold Team, Red Team, Dagan is Exarch of the Mutant Republic). David calls Magneto, but he’s forced to leave a message. Bastienne returns and admits she’s pregnant. She then asks about Jessica’s grave. When she hears it’s in the Academy X memorial garden, she leaves. Billy follows her to see if she’s okay. It’s an awkward conversation. Bastienne admits she’d had a crush on him, and Billy says it was reciprocated – but neither of them wanted this. He asks about the baby and she says she’s okay. The group wonders if someone wiped their memory of the last ten years or if they moved through time. Who would have done this – or could have done this – and why? Xavier might be powerful enough, or Emma could have used Cerebro to perform such a powerful feat. But why would they do so? Could one of them been pressured by Magneto to help the President of the New United States? If the west coast’s most powerful superhero team was disoriented, it could help Magneto defeat the Mutant Republic. And now that they’d forgotten their training over the past ten years, they’re definitely weaker. Or could they have learned their plan to confront the Avengers and they’re trying to stop them? The group decides they need more information. They call Lucius, who is remotely able to scan for chronometric radiation. He says he can only sense trace amounts on Billy. They haven’t moved through time. David calls Julian, who is the S.H.I.E.L.D. Commander for the Mutant Republic. He grudgingly puts David in contact with Academy X graduate Liam. Liam is in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Psi Division. Liam says he’ll come by in a few hours to help. At this point Head Boy Peter (Piotr, or Colossus’, son) breaks in and says they have a call from Agape. Agape has lost her memory, too! They send a car to bring the panicked girl to Academy X. There is some discussion about why some mutants were affected and not others. They can’t figure out a pattern. Liam and Agape arrive at the same time. Liam learns from Agape what’s happened. They join the others in the War Room. Liam scans everyone and learns their memories of the last ten years have been completely wiped out. He can’t reconstruct them. He learns from David that Dagan has also lost her memories. He reports the information to Julian mentally. He offers to perform a deeper scan, and Honoka volunteers. They return later, but the deeper scan has revealed nothing new. Their memories are simply gone. When Honoka returns, she is crying. The group is surprised as she never seems to show emotion. With nothing else they can do, they retire for the evening. David meets his two daughters and spends time with his wife, Cordelia. The others similarly reacquaint themselves with family. Bastienne talks to their Head Girl, Franny Lisowski, and learns she’s dating James Hudson, Wolverine’s son. Mac watches his son, Aiden, who is dating Cameron’s son, Lex. On Sunday morning Sam talks to Raven about her relationship with Matt and what happened. She then calls her kids at the east coast school. They’re doing well. Other than Wolverine being missing, nothing strange is going on. Sunday also brings the group’s meeting with X-Corporation: San Francisco. David decides they have to keep their normal routine so no one knows they’ve lost their memories. Everyone in the staff except for Jubilee and Dane go to the meeting, which includes Bastienne, Billy, David, Honoka, Mac, Raven, and Sam. On the way to the meeting, the group witnesses a greatly changed San Francisco. Whole city blocks have been destroyed or are abandoned. It looks like Fin Fang Foom has gone through entire neighborhoods. They see S.H.I.E.L.D. responding to a crime scene. They pass several city blocks that have been cleared. A shantytown has been erected. At a stop light, a few humans clean their windshield and beg for money, but none of them are carrying physical currency. After passing a long bread line, the group enters the pristine central section of downtown San Francisco. They finally reach X-Corporation: San Francisco’s headquarters. When entering the building, the group notices their DNA is scanned. Samantha is listed as Samantha Darkholme. Mystique’s DNA is unreadable. They are then ushered upstairs where Heather “Lifeguard” Cameron meets with them. Her partner Thornn, or Lucia Callasantos, is at her side. Heather argues that the group needs to do more to help humans AND mutants. Thousands of humans are homeless or displaced. Shantytowns have been erected in every west coast city. Disease and violence are up. Before they can help mutants, they must help humans or the resulting political instability by growing riots and uprisings will ruin everything. To her surprise, the group agrees. She apparently was used to them paying lip service to charities helping humans or token efforts of Dagan’s administration. Raven is the only one uninterested in doing more than basic food and housing for humans. Mac seizes the topic, as it’s close to his heart. Apparently his future self has organized a Unity Campaign for better human/mutant relations. He endorses Heather’s action plan to help humans. David agrees to lobby Dagan to do more for humans. The group then discusses mutant problems: increased violence, large numbers of mutant gangs, a surge in the Morlock population, increased teen pregnancy, etc. The eXalts agree to work with X-Corp, and the meeting ends. Sam telepathically contacts David. She wonders if Xavier really was behind their memory wipe and did so because he thought they’d be more likely to have sympathy for humans. On the way back, David gets a phone call from Dane back at Academy X. He says he just finished talking to Havok, and his Red Team is needed for a mission. They will infiltrate the Avengers’ secret headquarters just outside the Grand Canyon. They will place teleportation nullifiers and block the rest of the human resistance so the eXalts Gold Team can meet face to face with the Avengers. Hopefully they can recruit them as allies, but if not they must be put down… The Red Team leaves immediately for the mission, which could take several weeks. The first week of school in the Age of X begins. The staff tries to hide their missing memories. They ask their team leaders to teach for them, telling them it’s a test of their substitute teaching role. They help train the kids, amazed at how many are now attending Academy X. They have all different powers, such as electricity, decaying touch, healing, etc. Meanwhile, the eXalts train alone in the Danger Room throughout the week. They hope to regain the powers they lost when they lost their memories (and with them, the abilities they improved over the years). While the newly advanced Danger Room challenges them, they can’t retrain ten years’ worth of abilities in a week). Saturday arrives, bringing Mac’s next Unity Campaign event. He tries to find the notes he made from before he lost his memory, but he accidentally deletes his speech. He gives a speech extemporaneously. He calls for greater cooperation between humans and mutants. He decries policies and politicians that divide the people. Many perceive his comments as criticism of the leadership of the Mutant Republic and/or the New United States. Therefore many mutants criticize the speech, while most humans love it. On Sunday David attempts to contact Dagan to see how she’s doing and to talk to her about X-Corporation: San Francisco’s plans. He still can’t reach her, however. Havok says he has the situation well in hand and he doesn’t want to overwhelm her by telling her too much too quickly. Besides, the Vice-Exarch (Michael “Discord” Schwartz”) has everything taken care of. Sam and David are concerned – is Michael ruling from behind the scenes? The next week at school passes without any problems. At the staff meeting that Friday, the school’s ghostly student Shura reappears. She once again tells them to wake up. This time she adds, “There is no future!” before fading once more. Billy wonders if she’s precognitive and sees the same doom Ruth witnessed a few weeks back. Regardless, there’s nothing they can do as the mutant has disappeared. Suddenly they receive a call from Havok. He says the eXalts Red Team has accomplished their mission: they’re ready to set up the Gold Team’s meeting with the Avengers. Saturday is the mission. When flying over the Grand Canyon in stealth mode, an energy signal sent from the Red Team reveals the hidden entrance to the human resistance’s cave complex. The group heads inside and sees several guards knocked out by the Red Team. Mystique’s G-reader reveals a few are mutants. She spits on the “blood traitors.” The eXalts then enter the main cavern to find the six Avengers of the Age of X in some sort of stasis fields. They see Captain America, Ghost Rider, Invisible Woman, Redback (Spider Woman), Steel Corpse (Iron Man), and the Hulk. They have their chance to talk. David exhorts Captain America to stop their terrorist actions and end the conflict. Their actions are causing strife between the two mutant countries. If the Mutant Republic and the New United States go to war, not just mutants will suffer: everyone will die! Captain American rebuts that many humans have died already. Tony tells Steve not to listen. Meanwhile Bruce Banner turns green and grows larger and larger… Finally Bruce bursts from his stasis field. The fields around the others burst as well. Captain America orders his team to attack. The tunnel collapses behind the eXalts. They have no choice but to fight. The battle is joined! Blur zips up to the Invisible Woman, but he can’t break through her impenetrable force fields. She disappears. Steel Corpse fires a laser at three different eXalts, but he misses two and his beam can’t penetrate Mustang’s force field. Mystique takes a shot at Steel Corpse from behind cover and damages his armor slightly. Medic teleports behind Redback and drains her. She zaps him with her venom blast in return. He’s hurt, and when he tries to heal the damage he finds it’s incurable! Bast tries to talk to Captain America, but he won’t listen. He throws his shield and ricochets it off Mustang into Blur. Mustang is slightly hurt. Ghost Rider whips his chain around, also injuring Mustang. The Hulk charges forward and targets the closest eXalt: Nightwind. She is knocked out in a single punch and crashes into a group of stalactites. Phantasma tries to lift Hulk into the air but she can’t stop him. The Avengers focus fire on the eXalts team leader. Invisible Woman appears behind him and hurts him with her force field blast. Captain America slams his shield into him. Steel Corpse and Redback blast him. Finally Ghost Rider drops him. Meanwhile, the Hulk has found another victim and badly hurts Blur. Medic is nearly knocked unconscious. The battle is looking grim. Bast finally joins the fight and takes out the Invisible Woman in one attack. She then stabilizes the wound so she won’t die. Medic teleports over to Mustang and Nightwind and revives them. Medic then drains Redback, dropping her. Blur bypasses Captain America’s shield and knocks him out. The rest of the Avengers go down in quick succession as the eXalts wear down their opponents. Soon only the Hulk and Ghost Rider are left. Phantasma finally penetrates the Hulk’s mental defenses and changes his memories so that he thinks the eXalts are his allies and the Avengers his foes. He knocks out Ghost Rider. Phantasma then knocks him out mentally. The group recovers from the difficult fight. Mac heals everyone, though he can’t cure the wounds from Redback’s venom blasts. Doctor Banner wakes up. David and Mac plead with him to think of the collateral damage if so many powerful mutants fight. Bruce said the plan was to start the war, and during the fighting the Avengers would take out the most powerful mutants, letting the lesser mutants wipe each other out with reduced collateral damage. David offers the human resistance the right to have the east coast to themselves if they help them take out Magneto and end the war before it starts. Bruce says he’s willing to listen and asks him to wake up the rest of the Avengers. David agrees. David then discusses his terms with Steve Rogers. Steve says he needs to think it over while they’re not at the mercy of the eXalts, but he’s interested. David agrees and gives Steve his contact information. The eXalts then leave the caves and head back to Academy X. The eXalts Red Team also leaves. On the way back, however, they learn that Red Team member Thornn lost control during the fighting and killed a few guards. Two of the killed were former Academy X allies Rafé and Matt… **Next (Issue):** Age of X: Homefront, Part 2 of 4 **Next (Storyline):** __Issue 54 - 'Tinderbox'__ **Previous (Storyline):** Issue 52 - 'Exiled'
 * Previous (Issue): **Age of X: Homefront, Part 1 of 4