Issue+64+-+'Depression'


 * Issue 64 - 'Depression' **




 * Plot**

Early on Saturday morning Bastienne calls a staff meeting. Ethan and Mercy listen in on their stolen comms. When most of the staff is there, Bastienne announces that Robin will be covering her classes until spring break in a week. She says Evan, Mercy, and Seth need to be given the chance to choose codenames. She says she’s contacted Honoka for assistance with a counselor. She also says that if Liam uses his telepathy to spread the news before the staff can tell students that he should be stripped of prefect status. Billy tries to ask her what she’s talking about, but she ignores him. Samantha uses telepathy to read her mind and she discovers that Jessica lost control of her mutant ability and crumbled into dust last night. When Bastienne still won’t talk about it, Samantha breaks the news to everyone. As each staff member reacts, Bastienne walks out. David, Billy and Cameron soon leave as well. Quentin bursts into the meeting late and is surprised to find that most of the staff is already gone. A quick mental scan reveals the news about Jessica, and Quentin says it’s too bad because she was a good person. He then launches a verbal attack on Samantha. He was possessed by her daughter Alex the previous evening. She used him to mentally draw Cassandra Nova to Utopia (as well as her own telekinesis to make her host body, Rafé, “fly”). He’s tired of being possessed or mentally attacked by Cassandra Nova and he can’t understand why they allow her to live on the island. Samantha says Alex isn’t Cassandra and Mac agrees, but Quentin says Alex is a fragment of Cassandra’s consciousness and she’s guilty of having killed millions of mutants on Genosha. Samantha defends her daughter, though she does acknowledge that she shouldn’t have possessed him and that her mental control of hundreds of San Francisco mutants is a problem. Lucius agrees that their loss of free will is wrong. Dane agrees Alex is a problem. Quentin pushes Mac to get rid of Alex, but Mac says he’ll have to think about it. When Lucius says they can’t just lock Alex up, Quentin suddenly agrees and then walks out. Outside, Billy runs after Bastienne and finds her with Jessica’s younger brother Gabriel at Academy X’s docks. He offers to go with her to Jessica’s mother’s house. Bastienne just wants to be left alone. Billy says she could use a friend right now, but Bastienne once again says she doesn’t want him along. Billy reluctantly leaves. Meanwhile, Dane knocks on Ethan’s door. Ethan notices that Gabriel is gone. He answers the door and is surprised to find the former headmaster there. Dane asks Ethan if he and his sister Mercy will meet with him later. Ethan agrees. Back in the staff meeting, David returns. He has a slight blue hue around him and is obviously a bit agitated. He says to Mac that they need to figure out what’s going on with Ethan and Mercy and why they keep appearing in the middle of combat. He says they’re from Hellfire Club: Tokyo and the Academy X staff is not paranoid enough about them – which is saying something for them. Before the Saturday cleaning project, Cameron takes Ethan and Mercy outside the school to talk. He says he doesn’t know why they’re appearing in the middle of battles and says the eXalts would stop it if they could. He gives them the morning off. Meanwhile, Samantha tells David and Mac that they need to tell students about Jessica’s death. She has Davan on her back, and he grabs her comm and begins playing with it. Lucius comes over the comm and says he needs to turn off Sam’s comm because the noise from Davan turning it off and on is annoying. Samantha agrees and tries to take the device from Davan. When he loses his new toy, the little boy has a tantrum. Suddenly David and Mac feel extremely anxious and upset. When Sam gives Davan the comm again and the he calms down, David and Mac feel better – even relieved. They realize Davan is manipulating their emotions. Does he somehow have Cordelia’s mutant power? She died a week ago, so it seems unlikely. When the students gather for the cleaning project, Mac realizes Ethan, Mercy, and Seth are missing. When he inquires where they are over his comm, Cameron replies that he gave them the morning off. Mac is annoyed, but goes forward with informing the kids about Professor Lisowski’s death. He says some nice words about Jess. He says they’ll have counselors and that he and other staff members are always available if students need to talk. Most students, especially the Excelsiors (Jessica’s team) are visibly upset. She was a popular teacher at the school and many are in tears. Mac announces they’ll have a memorial service for Cordelia on Sunday afternoon and Jessica on Wednesday night. The cleaning project is abandoned. Later that day, Dane finds Ethan and Mercy and offers them eXalts uniforms and comms. They do not reveal they already have uniforms and comms from the Blackbird. Mercy manages to ask why they’ve been teleported into combat situations. Dane admits he doesn’t know and says they’d prevent it if they could. The twins clearly aren’t happy with his response. On Sunday Mac receives a phone call from Christian Frost, Cordelia’s brother. He heard from Emma about Cordelia’s memorial service and he’d like to attend. Mac grants him permission. Samantha meets Christian at the docks. He’s a tall, handsome blonde man in a stylish, expensive suit. He has rented a small yacht through a local company to get to Utopia. Samantha introduces herself as his niece. He greets her formally but politely. The memorial service is attended by Academy X staff and former Academy M students. David and Mac both speak about Cordelia. Lucius provides beautiful decorations with illusions. Flowers are left on her grave. Christian thanks the headmasters for the ceremony and leaves immediately afterward. Later on Sunday Mac approaches Ethan and Mercy. He says they have been granted permission to choose code names. He also mentions that the ceremony involves announcing their code names to the students, but they can modify the ceremony considering Mercy’s reluctance to speak. Mercy wants to know why they’re being given codenames. Mac says it’s tradition due to their participation in combat. He doesn’t know why they’re appearing in battle and he’d stop it if he could, but since they survived two combats they should have the honor of a codename. The twins reluctantly agree to codenames – Mercy will be Sublime and Ethan will be Subsume. Ethan asks if Lucius can use his illusion power to make their codenames appear above their heads during the ceremony so Mercy doesn’t have to speak, and Mac says he’ll ask Lucius. Mac then goes to Seth to let him know about choosing a codename for helping them bind Cassandra Nova. He arrives to find a do not disturb sign on the door. He hears odd chanting coming from within. When Seth doesn’t respond to his knocking, Mac warns he’ll have to use his master key to open the door. Suddenly Mac remembers he already had a conversation with Seth and forgets everything about the do not disturb sign and the chanting. He walks away. Meanwhile, at dinner, Alex’s body suddenly slumps in her chair. Samantha goes into a panic. She mentally blasts the Academy X staff with a message – find Quentin! When David figures out what’s going on, he contacts Quentin on his comm and tells him to go to the headmaster’s office. Quentin calmly agrees. David and Mac meet Quentin there. Quentin (wearing a “Free Dracula” t-shirt) casually agrees to talk about what’s going on. Mac asks him if he’s done something to Alex, but Quentin says he didn’t do anything. He continues being evasive with his answers, but eventually admits that he had Seth bind Alex. David blasts Quentin. Quentin complains to Mac that he has been possessed and attacked several times now on Utopia. Mac tells him to cooperate. Quentin says he doesn’t remember the last day. He must have erased his own memory. Then the door bursts open and Matt comes in. He pushes a pistol to Quentin’s forehead and demands he returns Alex to her body. Quentin says he doesn’t remember anything. Matt begins beating Quentin until Mac intervenes. Matt gives Mac the night to get answers, otherwise he’ll have his way with Quentin. When Quentin can’t provide any more information, Mac ends up firing Quentin – if only for his own safety. Meanwhile, Lucius wakes up at a computer console and realizes he blacked out for several minutes. All he can tell is that he deleted some security camera footage. Ethan and Mercy follow the conversation on their comms. They leave dinner to look for Seth. They find the freshman returning from the woods south of the school. He’s confused as he woke up outside and doesn’t remember the last several hours. When David goes on the comms asking for the “wonder twins”, Ethan replies. David is confused because he didn’t know the siblings had comms – but he was looking for Leong and Nga, not Ethan and Mercy. He also wants to see Seth. Seth heads inside while Ethan and Mercy investigate his trail. Bastienne has been taking Ethan and Mercy on morning runs across Utopia and Mercy has an eidetic memory. She looks for any signs of changes along Seth’s trail, such as freshly turned dirt, but she doesn’t see anything and she loses his trail. Lucius meets with Seth and takes his shoes. He’s hoping they’ll give some sign of where he’s been and where he buried the object containing Alex’s consciousness. David brings several students outside to assist in the hunt. Amanda can’t sense any magical auras. Carlos tracks Seth’s scent in his jaguar form but loses it when he enters the water at a rocky beach. Wicked’s ability to summon psychic residue is no help, and Gunther is unable to turn up any additional clues in his ghost form. David then brings out the student staff team (Amanda, Gunther, Julian, Tierra, Liam, and Ginny) outside to look. Amanda admits that she opened a portal for Quentin to return to San Francisco. David and his team run into Ethan and Mercy, who are returning from their own search. David tells the twins that he won’t fight the universe anymore – obviously they are destined to be eXalts. He doesn’t know why they keep appearing in combat situations, and he’s looking into how to stop it. Mercy says they’ve heard that speech four times now. David says they’re welcome to join the eXalts if they want to. The twins agree – they might as well be eXalts if they’re going to be fighting on the team anyway. David says they used to let students join the team but that stopped once one of them died. If they’re going to be eXalts they’ll have to train harder than ever before. Then he orders the student team to attack the twins. Ethan and Mercy are caught flat-footed. Mercy is hit by rocks thrown by Julian’s telekinesis. She’s cracked solidly on the head. To her surprise, she is able to absorb the damage! On top of that, she feels stronger. She somehow has her brother Ethan’s abilities! And in that moment when she used his powers, she had flashes of his memories. Even with the absorption powers, however, she is knocked out by the combined efforts of the rest of the student team. Meanwhile, Ginny has snared Ethan in her electric whip. Ethan strains against the bonds to try to cover his downed sister. In his frustration, he turns the energy whip into water and is free! He somehow was able to use Mercy’s powers – and had a flashback to memories from her childhood! He is momentarily disoriented and is taken out by the student team. Samantha contacts Dane and asks him to insert the missing piece of Cerebra so she can use it to find Quentin or Alex. Dane agrees, but first he deletes lines from Cerebra’s code so it can’t be used. Matt talks to Sam about using Cerebra; he’s worried about her delicate pregnancy and what happened the last time Cerebra was used (Michael became a vegetable after his mind was fried). Sam understands his concerns and agrees not to use Cerebra – at least until after she gives birth. Lucius is concerned that everything involving Alex may be a feint from an enemy to distract everyone. When he hears Samantha is considering using Cerebra, he’s worried someone may have booby trapped the device. He and Dane go over the machine. Lucius finds that it’s mechanically safe, but someone has deleted lines of code preventing its usage. Mercy and Ethan wake in the medical lab when Mac heals them. Mac is in the middle of telling David that he should have been told first that he was planning to attack the twins and that it was reckless. David says he hadn’t planned it – it was a spur of the moment decision. Mercy gets out of her bed and punches David. With the energy she still has stored from being attacked, she’s able to punch right through his force field. She leaves him momentarily stunned. In the ensuing chaos, a voice emerges from the back of the medical lab – it’s Rafé! He had been unresponsive after being possessed by Cassandra Nova for nearly a month. Once he finds out what happened in the month he’s missing, he asks Mac if he’ll teleport him to San Francisco General Hospital to be by his fiancé Georgie’s side. After Rafe agrees not to cause problems at the hospital, Mac creates a portal for him. Just as the situation in the medical lab has calmed down, Cameron bursts in and hits David with a powerful air blast. David is left staggered by the attack. Cameron warns him not to attack any of his students again. Mac calms the situation down and says no one is allowed to attack a fellow teacher again or they’ll be suspended without pay. Though they were unable to find Alex, finally everyone goes to bed. On Monday classes resume. Dagan is brought in to act as Samantha’s substitute. She also borrows Aliyah’s powers (a student that can borrow and share skills) in order to learn medical knowledge so she can act as the school nurse. Construction has also begun on New Genosha and there is a lot of press attention. On Tuesday Adhra returns from the dimension she was sucked into months ago. She’s shaken by the experience. Since Cameron si teaching her classes now, she’d like to resign and leave Utopia. Mac understands and allows her to leave. Wednesday evening is Jessica’s memorial service. As opposed to Cordelia’s small ceremony, Jessica’s service is well attended. The entire student body as well as many former students (such as Pixie, Glob Herman, and Jay Guthrie) attend. Thomas, a former student that was working in the Los Angeles’ mayor’s office, attends on behalf of Governor Sangrey of California. He’s now working for the governor. Bastienne returns with the Lisowski family. Honoka attends to represent Hellfire Club: Tokyo and the Board of Trustees. Heather Cameron represents X-Corporation: Los Angeles. She sits next to Mac and squeezes his hand during the ceremony. Agape attends, though she sits in the back and doesn’t talk to anyone (including her ex-boyfriend, Cameron). Unfortunately, no X-Men are able to attend due to the quarantine at the school. Several staff members speak, including David, Mac, Samantha, and Billy. Lucius creates beautiful decorations. It’s a moving, but sad ceremony. Everyone has a chance to say goodbye. On Thursday, Dane contacts S.H.I.E.L.D. and tells them they can perform their inspection in the following week. Now that the Atlantean vampire problem in Asteroid M beneath the school has been taken care of, he’s more comfortable allowing them to come onto Utopia. Dane then heads into Asteroid M to look around. It’s still full of sea water, but he doesn’t have to breathe. He explores the passageways just under Academy X. They’re living quarters with beds, dressers, and simple furniture that’s bolted to the floor. Anything else in the rooms seems to be destroyed due to the sea water filling the area. Suddenly Dane starts feeling ill. He heads back to Academy X and begins vomiting metal. He contacts Mac for help. Mac isn’t sure what to do for him and he doesn’t know what chemical Hellfire Club: Tokyo put in the water. Dane calls Honoka to find out what they did. Honoka says the chemical shouldn’t have harmed him, but she’ll look into it. Dane is getting worse – he’s losing the ability to keep humanoid form. His features seem to be melting. Dagan begins running medical tests. Mac tells Dagan to help Dane and leaves. Dagan heals him using Mac’s mutant power. Dane feels better – but only for a while. Bastienne goes onto the comm to suggest looking for selenium. She’s right – both the water in Asteroid M and Dane’s body have elevated levels of selenium. He was poisoned by tainted MGH long ago that made him sensitive to selenium. If he’s not treated, he’ll die! Lucius talks to his older self for help on how to treat Dane, as older Lucius had done so before. Lucius finds that his older self has hacked into Interpol’s database and he’s examining DNA profiles. Older Lucius has discovered that the Sami people in northern Europe have never had a mutant as part of their population. While most of them have dormant X-genes, there may be a few people among the Sami who don’t even have that – maybe the last people in the world without a dormant X-gene. Lucius finds the research interesting, but he needs help with Dane. Older Lucius pulls out his notes and younger Lucius is able to remove the excess selenium from Dane. On Friday, news breaks that Wonder Man has raided another Church of Humanity facility that was harboring Purifiers. Sangrey continues to get bad publicity for targeting a church, but others applaud him for tackling the hate group. And, as always, there are news reports about people disappearing into other dimensions or people appearing from other realities. Most alarming are news reports about monsters coming from alien dimensions that cause havoc for a time before disappearing back to their dimensions. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Saturday is the start of spring break for students. Over a third of Academy X students are wards of the school. Normally they would head to Xavier’s for spring break, but since that school is under quarantine, they’ll have to remain at Academy X. The rest of the students board the ferry to San Francisco to reunite with family or get onto transportation to go home. David pilots the craft and Lucius accompanies him on the trip. It’s the first warm weekend day of the year and Pier 39 is packed. The popular shopping and tourist destination is crowded with people at the stories, restaurants, and tourist attractions. David and Lucius are surprised to see the newest offering at the store selling Academy X and eXalt merchandise: masks of current and former eXalts. As crowds gather near the Academy X ferry looking to take pictures of superheroes or students, David is alarmed to see many fans in masks that look like Mustang, Phantasma, Blur, Glimmer, Bast, and more. Then several people in the crowd wearing eXalts masks and robes throw off their garments to reveal red, bat-like wings and swords. They fly onto the ferry with weapons drawn. The students are under attack.
 * Next:** Issue 65 - 'Acceptance'
 * Previous:** Issue 63 - 'Bargaining'