The silver-haired man in red-and-purple armor descends like the Olympians of old. However, unlike those cliqueish, sanctimonious figures of myth, his demeanor is not one of arrogance or blind self-importance, but confidence and satisfaction, more Odysseus than Zeus.

As well it should be...he is a man coming home from a long voyage, a journey of atonement in which he reflected and grew as a man.

I have made my fair share of mistakes...in my outrage at those who would do me or my kind harm, I turned my back on those people who, in truth, deserved the benefit of the doubt.

He doesn't exactly have a wealth of experience with human kindness to draw upon. For practically his entire life, he was condemned...as the son of a Jew and a gypsy, never truly belonging to either family...and then, when both lines finally became equal in death, he was reviled as the son too stubborn to die. And that was before his powers came to life, that soul-scarring night in a small Soviet village...

Stop. What is past is past. I am myself, at long last...I will not jeopardize that by dwelling on my misfortunes.

Reaching the front gate of the Xavier Institute...his new home...he tabs in his access code.

"ERROR: UNAUTHORIZED USER. PLEASE RE-ENTER PASS CODE."

"What is this?!"

For a second, old instincts take hold, and his body crackles with tiny threads of electricity, small lightning bolts running across his armored physique.

Remain calm, Erik. No good will come of you smashing your way through, as you did in less civilized days. Then he takes a breath, and tabs the intercom.

"Charles? Doctor McCoy? Forge? If anyone can hear me, we have a technical problem at the front gate."

~Continued from Baird's entry thread~

The elevator stops, and opens upon a whole different world from the old-world poshness of the headmaster's study. Blue-white flourescent light gleams from hidden sources down white hallways and steel floors, with massive, circular doors lining the corridors, each one embossed in the school logo of an encircled 'X.' Roundness seems to be the order of the day as well...there's not a single sharp edge or corner in sight. This softening of the angles lends a touch of comfort to what would otherwise be a cold, sterile environment.

Scott walks down the hallways with Baird in tow as he heads for the tech lab, which he hopes the engineer will like enough to want to stay on-board. He doesn't know if this 'dimensional nexus' even has a Forge or a Beast yet, or where they'd be from if they were here.

For all I know, we could get a Hank with roughly the intellectual capacity of the Hulk. It's happened before. Still, at least now we might have a backup.

"I've never much liked these corridors...a little too stark, even for me. I keep telling the Professor we should have inspirational posters or something up, but they won't stay on the walls."

He smirks slightly as he puts a hand on the rounded, curved structure of the corridor, next to one of the sealed doors. A palmpad appears under his outstretched digits, and scans it.

"AUTHORIZED USER: CYCLOPS. ACCESS GRANTED."

The doors slide open with a ponderous hiss of air, revealing the technological R&D lab. A shop major's wet dream, the room contains the tools and resources to build virtually anything...complete with a vast row of scrap boxes as tall as a man and twice as wide, and next to that, something that looks like a 31st-century smithy.

"Well, here we are. Luckily, the place looks like its basic design came from my Institute."

Though Xavier's office looked completely different...I wonder if this mansion amalgamates the various parts of the schools across the Multiverse, or if it just changes depending on who's down here?

"This room was installed when a mutant named Forge joined the team. Up until then, the whole sub-basement had been designed and built by Professor Xavier and Magneto, the founders of the Institute. The Professor maintained it himself after Magneto quit, until he could train a few of us in its basic maintenance...Hank is the best at keeping things running, but none of us are slouches. After it got destroyed and put back together a few dozen times, Forge came onboard as a technical consultant. He remodeled the entire place, applying Xavier's basic operating system to a truckload of new features...the cloaked DNA scanner was his idea."

He looks away for a moment, the light behind his visor dimming slightly.

"If he shows up here, you might get a chance to meet him. In the meantime, everything he had access to is at your disposal."

He lay on his back beneath the vehichle. The smell of motor oil, sweat, blood and gunpowder overpowered his nostrils.

"Well this is just fuckin' great. No, don't drive the thing sanely. Lets joyride through a fuckin' minefield and make Damon work harder. Who gives a flying fuck about the smart guy! And if he doesn't do a good job we'll drag him out in front of a motherfuckin' firing squad!"

No one else was in the garage. Probably for the better given the COG's attitude towards defiance.

He put down the tool in his hand and looked around for another one. Then he looked back up.

The machinery had changed.

He looked out to the side. The walls were different. He smelled the air; the stenches of blood and gunpowder had almost vanished... they were replaced with a smell he couldn't place.. some kind of plants?

"Oh great. Just fuckin' wonderful."

He slid out from beneath the vehicle. He realized then it was a bright red vehicle, paint shiny and new. This is getting weird. Maybe they're putting mind control drugs in the water and I'm tripping on them...

He only had the lower half of his armor on. The top half lay there at the side of the garage. His torso was clad only in a sweat-stained, grime-coated thin white shirt that was nearly a rag.

"Where the fuck is this place..." he muttered under his breath as he picked up his Snub Pistol and cocked it.