Issue+36+-+'Put+Out+The+Fire'


 * Issue 36 - 'Put out the Fire' **




 * Plot**

Lucius, infected with the Techno-Organic Virus, has teleported away with Academy X’s Headmaster, Dane Lightfoot. Meanwhile, many of the staff are upstairs with no idea of what has transpired. The group discusses what to do about Hiro. The Japanese student was caught spying on the school and reporting to Hellfire Club: Tokyo. David wants to use Hiro in a plan to locate the hidden Hellfire Club cell. His intention is to have Robin mimic Hiro’s voice and call Hiro’s father. Sam would connect to Joni to share the Japanese language with Robin. Robin would pretend he was Hiro and that he was fleeing to the Four Seasons in San Francisco. Then the eXalts would arrive and confront the Hellfire Club: Tokyo agents. Sam could use her telepathy to discover the group’s hidden headquarters. Dane could use his teleportation nullifier to prevent any of the enemies from escaping.

By then Bastienne has realized that Dane hasn’t returned. He also doesn’t reply to his communicator. Bastienne goes downstairs to see what’s going on. She checks in the Danger Room and sees that Hiro is imprisoned there alone. Both Dane and Lucius are nowhere to be found in the workshop. Bastienne then joins Cameron in the security office and checks the tapes. They see Lucius in the lab as he collapses. Dane then enters. Lucius’ cybernetic arm and eye are revealed when he grabs Dane and teleports away with him. Bastienne quickly calls the entire staff down to the room.

After watching the security video, David realizes that Lucius has become infected with the Techno-Organic Virus. He explains what the virus is and its capacity for causing a worldwide pandemic. He calls S.H.I.E.L.D. and asks for Maria Hill. He gets Captain Henderson. Upon hearing the nature of the emergency, Henderson transfers David to S.W.O.R.D. (Sentient World Observation and Response Department). David speaks to the commander of S.W.O.R.D., Special Agent Abigail Brand, who is crass and unhappy at being awoken. Once she realizes the magnitude of the threat, however, she becomes more professional. David shares the group’s theory that Simon Trask may be the source of the infection, as Lindsay’s reports indicated that he had a higher than normal metal content in his blood. This could be evidence of the Techno-Organic Virus. Special Agent Brand says she’ll handle it.

Once off the phone, the group decides they need to find Simon Trask themselves. They know he was injured in the Mutant Revolutionary Force’s bombing in San Francisco. He’s probably at the city’s best burn center. Bastienne calls the school’s former student, Tanya Worthington (“Jade”). She knows which hospital has the best burn center. Billy and Samantha hurry to the hospital. Samantha flies them both while Billy slows down time so they can get there faster. In Trask’s hospital room are Special Agent Brand, a human with glowing eyes, an alien with facial tentacles, and a three foot tall anthropomorphic cockroach with a scanning device. The tentacled alien mentally blasts Sam, but she’s able to withstand the assault. Brand draws a futuristic-looking weapon. Billy and Sam quickly retreat into the hallway, but Brand blasts Sam with energy that causes her to be frozen in place. Billy surrenders. The alien mentalist realizes that the two mutants are members of the eXalts. Brand uses a device to make the nearby humans forget what they’ve seen, then brings them into Trask’s room. She says that Trask is not infected with the T-O Virus, but instead nanites. Sam says they have samples of the virus back at Academy X. Brand leads the group to a spaceship. Inside is Lockheed. The ship cloaks and flies them back to the school.

Back at Academy X, the staff called Xavier’s school. The staff hopes that one of the psychics at the east coast school can use Cerebro to find Dane or Lucius. Meanwhile, Cameron searches the workshop. He finds a number of Lucius’ projects, including evidence that he’s learned how to hide mutants from G-Reader scans. Cameron also finds some of Dane’s work. Dane completed the plans to construct a teleportation nullifier. Cameron decides to finish the project. Before he leaves, he realizes that Sarah’s hand is gone. When Sam returns she mentally scans the school and realizes that the hand is gone. Special Agent Brand and her team look over the samples and confirm that the Techno-Organic Virus was involved. It was the same one from Necrosha. It normally wouldn’t infect mutants, but Lucius must have accidentally infected himself. Brand decides to return to S.W.O.R.D.’s headquarters (the orbital space station known as “The Peak”) to conduct scans to find Dane and Lucius. After swearing he can behave, Mac travels with the S.W.O.R.D. team into space. He sees many varieties of aliens, surveillance of remote star systems, and satellite imagery of aliens living on Earth.

Soon Emma contacts the school. She agrees to use Cerebro to help, but not before making many sarcastic comments about the failures of the staff of Academy X. Unfortunately, Cerebro is unable to locate Dane or Lucius. They must be using some kind of shielding to hide from the sophisticated device. Meanwhile, S.W.O.R.D. is having the same difficulty on The Peak. Even their genetic scans are unable to locate the missing mutants. Mac is returned to the school. Though worried about their missing friends, the rest of the staff has little else to do but get some sleep.

The school goes about its business on Friday as if all is normal. Dane’s classes are covered by a student. Bastienne covers his security shifts. The kids are abuzz about the disappearance of Hiro. They wonder if he’s in trouble for sneaking into the basement many times. Cameron also has his classes covered so he can work on the teleportation nullifier. Sam speaks to Leong and Nga Coy Manh. The psychic twins look exhausted. They’ve been blocking Maya’s psychic incursions almost every hour for the past few days. They say she’s getting stronger. Jess later suggests that they have the honor of choosing code names. Also on Friday there is a great deal of news coverage of the X-Corporation members who are accused of attacking the governor’s motorcade. Their trial has begun. The story proves to be very popular, both in the mutant community and among humans. That night the sophomore spies had scheduled a rendezvous to share information with the east coast school, but they do not meet. Perhaps their spying is done?

On Saturday Bastienne receives a phone call from the school’s private investigator, Lindsay McCabe. She did her best to investigate the Yakuza’s operations in San Francisco. She tapped several sources to obtain information and followed a few suspected members. One of her sources told her that a suspicious looking Asian man had been doing something to her car. Lindsay decided she was done with investigating the Yakuza, and Bastienne agreed. Lindsay is able to share that the Yakuza has been extremely busy selling firearms to humans and mutants concerned about the recent clashes between the two groups (especially the MRF and Church of Humanity). They’ve also been selling a lot of MGH (the older type, not Robitaille’s tainted version) to humans. Lastly, the Yakuza recently stole a military helicopter and moved some extensive and sophisticated explosives. When Bastienne shares this news, the group realizes that Hellfire Club: Tokyo is playing the MRF against the Church of Humanity to drive business.

Several staff spend time together on Sunday. Mac takes Jubilee out on a date. Due to the uncertainty about a possible Techno-Organic pandemic, he wants to spend time with her. Cameron cooks a meal for Agape. Considering the danger, she asks him if she should give her power to Bobby (“Iceman”) after all. She doesn’t want to be responsible for another person’s death, like Kurt. Cameron tells her not to blame herself and to keep her powers. Sam visits Hiro in the Danger Room cell. Hiro wants to know when he’ll be freed and if he’ll be allowed a phone call to his father. Sam says he’s guilty of spying on them and he’ll have to wait for now. Meanwhile, David comes up with the idea of having Amanda scan the workshop for magic, since the strain of Techno-Organic Virus Lucius was studying was modified by Selene’s magic. Amanda conducts her scan and does find remnants of that magic, especially in Sarah’s aquarium. Amanda then scans everyone at the school at lunch, but no one seems to be afflicted. The cat is seen.

Late Monday, Bastienne receives a phone call from Kavita Rao. Dr. Rao was collaborating with Lucius on finding a cure for Hope. When he didn’t contact her, she became concerned. Eventually Bastienne shares the news of Lucius’ infection and disappearance. Dr. Rao says she’ll see if she can find a way to cure someone of the incurable Techno-Organic Virus. Later she shares a theory: the one substance that is known to return someone to a baseline human is Hope. Perhaps that would work? The staff debates whether Lucius would want to be cured in order to survive. They surmise that he’d rather lose his mutant abilities and live, but they think Dane would not want to live as a human. Joni interrupts the conversation with news that there is a car at the gate. Bastienne gets a call from the visitor: it’s her friend, the former Purifier named Janelle. Janelle says that she overhead Asian men staging a robbery at her shelter and planning to kill her. They fired at her as she tried to escape. She stole the shelter director’s car and fled to Academy X, unsure of where to go. Sam mentally verifies that her story is real. After some internal debate and advice from David, Bastienne allows her inside.

David calls a staff meeting on Monday. Bastienne misses the meeting to stay with Janelle. Sam and David decide they need to find Maya and the Cerebra unit. Sam asks Dagan if she can scan her mind to track Maya’s mental attack, but Dagan has promised not to share her knowledge of the future. Sam scans Agape but can’t trace the attack. The only possible option is scanning Cameron, but he once again refuses to open his mind. Following his treatment at the hands of Weapon X and Magik’s mental cleansing, he doesn’t want his mind psychically affected. Jess suggests that Sam scan Hiro for information. They learn that he was passing information on to his father, but he doesn’t know any other Hellfire Club members. Shockingly, they see that he swapped the group’s Hope vaccines for some other substance – possibly Hope! The staff quickly disposes the mysterious substance.

Cameron completes the teleportation nullifier. He tests the device by asking Melissa to teleport away, but she finds she can’t. It’s a success! After the test, Cameron finally agrees to undergo Sam’s mental scan. A cursory scan is unable to reveal the source of the mental attack, but there are some traces that could lead to Cerebra. Sam then begins a more extensive scan that will take hours and hopefully lead to Maya’s location. Then, close to dawn, the scan is interrupted by a powerful psychic blast that explodes throughout the whole school. Sam’s psychic connection to Cameron is broken. Cordelia, sleeping next to David, awakes screaming. Liam is likewise yelling in agony. Even baby Alex, who normally makes no noise at all, begins crying as she senses the psychic onslaught. The barrage is a mixture of pain, anger, and fear. Bastienne’s keen hearing alerts her to the screams of those upstairs at the school. She notices that both Janelle and Jessica are missing. She follows Janelle’s scent upstairs. Everyone upstairs hears the screaming and hurries to the cause – the student hallway. David remains with Cordelia and tries to help her in facing the psychic barrage.

In the hallway is a scene of chaos. Nga is in the doorway of the room she shares with Leong. She is cradling her brother’s body. His throat has been cut and he is bleeding profusely. At their feet is a bleeding and unconscious Jessica. Standing before them is Janelle. She is holding a bloody cleaver from the kitchen. Bast reacts even before Blur. She teleports nearby, then tackles Janelle to the ground. Blur speeds over and tries to disarm Janelle, but fails. Vortex flies through Leong and Nga’s window. Phantasma senses the murderous presence of Maya and realizes that Janelle is possessed. Medic hurries to the scene and sees that Jess’ knife wound is actually quite minor, especially considering the size of the knife. Bast realizes that she must have been protected by Gabriel. Blur hurries to Gabriel’s room and brings the badly injured boy over to Medic. Medic takes energy from both Phantasma and Blur and manages to heal Leong and Gabriel. Maya forces Janelle to stab herself in one of her Reaver implants, causing her nervous system to shut down instantly. She falls to the ground, dead. Phantasma knows that Maya’s attack will soon begin. At that moment, Vortex’s S.H.I.E.L.D. helmet with the psionic blocker explodes. He flies to the garden, debating whether he should leave to protect his friends. Mustang leaves Cordelia’s room to follow him. Medic shares energy with the exhausted Manh twins and they are joined by Liam. Liam, Nga, Leong, and Sam pool their psychic powers to block Maya. At first it appears that Maya will be victorious, but with one final push the murderous presence is banished. For the moment, those at the school are safe. But for how long?...

**Next:** Issue 37 - 'Walk Through the Fire' **Previous:** Issue 35 - 'Play With Fire'