The man couldn't sneak, so he didn't try.

The 6 foot, 1 inches tall, well muscled frame of Damon Baird made its way down the halls with a smirk on his face. Indeed, the smirk had a slight element of a leer. The light of the low moon glinted off the blue lenses of the goggles perched atop his head. The light gray tracksuit was, as usual, a little tight, but Baird didn't pay attention.

He glanced at the clock. Alright! Ten past midnight... think I'm gonna have a snack! Man, they have more chocolate here then I've had in my life!!!

Ahh yes, Chocolate. The precious joy where the COG keeps increasing the rations from thirty to twenty grams. Those memories threatened to wipe the scowl off his face.

He pushed them out of his head as he remembered the tastes... even what was considered mundane food here drove him wild.

He sauntered into the kitchen with a large leer. His battle-roughened finger moved along the wall until it found and flipped the light switch.

Leonardo knew he should probably miss his time a lot more than he did. However, when the face of a friend or any other tidbit that tugged at his heartstrings would come to his mind, something new and perplexing would already have caught his attention before he could really grief. I fear it might catch up with me eventually, but for now this is still an exciting dream... exciting in a lot of ways, Leonardo remembered, a faint blush creeping to his face as pictures of the kind polymath Hank McCoy naked in his arms came back to him, occupying his mind for a moment.

His attention quickly shifted back to what he had done before - inspecting the washing rooms of the X-Mansion. After asking his blue friend where he could get some clothing that wouldn't make him stick out like a sore thumb - though, he had noticed, many people here were dressed somewhat colorful -, Hank had told him to go to these quarters in the basement level. To the right, he had found the shelves Hank described, with simple clothing that people were free to put on, trousers of an enduring material and blueish color and plain shirts and pullovers. But it was the quiet hum of machines that had the man from the renaissance more interested, and so he soon wandered off through the back door to have a look at the small mechanical laundry.

Of course, what he had planned to be only a quick glance - I don't know if I should even be here - quickly grew into a much longer visit as he tried to guess how the machines working in unison could possibly be tied together, and what force was keeping them working with no human operating them in sight. If I want to live up to what Hank apparently expects of me, that I am such a brilliant man, there is much I have to learn. And no, I don't want to be just a cherished relic of the past... science and art, I will bet they moved far beyond anything I can understand, but by God I will try. And the challenge immediately put a smile on his face as he opened the door to the front room again, where folded and dried clothes were stored.

Kurt put the pan with the scrambled eggs back on the stove and the fried sausages on a plate which he left on the kitchen counter. The healing speed in the zero gravity cell had left him hungry even after the big meal provided by Logan, as his metabolism wanted to make up for the excess calories burned.

It was a habit to prepare too much food when he was cooking (which, to be honest, didn’t happen too often), even if no one had asked him to. With so many X-Men around, he could be sure nothing would go to waste. Kurt carried his plate to the table and regarded his food – a small heap of eggs and bratwust. Enough to terrify any diet guru.

He folded his six fingers, leaning his chin on his knuckles. I hope Creed didn’t cause trouble, but I would have heard about it - or noticed the hole in the wall that Logan smashed him through. I wonder if Scott already discussed a strategy regarding Weapon X with him...
The teleporter lifted his head slightly and shook it, hoping to find peace for a moment in during this exciting day.

Saying grace all by himself might have seemed silly to other people, but Kurt found a certain calming quality in the well-known words, a children’s prayer he had known by heart for longer than he could remember and that he now said under his breath.

„Vater aller Gaben, alles, was wir haben, alle Frucht im weiten Land, ist Geschöpf in deiner Hand. Hilf, das nicht der Mund verzehret, ohne dass das Herz dich ehret, was uns deine Hand beschert. Amen.“*

(*“Father of all, everything we have, everything in the wide world, is in your hands. Help, that not the mouth eats without the heart praising you and what your hand gives us. Amen.”)

Leave it to the wayward and curious students of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters to treat Victor Creed like a monster from a movie.

It started as an accident: A young boy, with powers reminiscent of Shadow Cat made the error of phasing through the door to Creed’s quarters during a game of hide and seek with his peers. He thought it was vacant, and screamed to the heavens when he found out otherwise. Rookie telepaths confirmed his presence in the dwelling, and just like The Beast from that whimsical fairy tale, the students kept their distance from the west wing of the dorms, fearful that the big bad feral would eat them if he were disturbed,

Sabretooth spent much of his time sprawled out atop the king sized bed, still naked and waiting on his dirty clothing to be tended to. He let his mind wander; his thoughts ranged from being completely relevant, to utterly random: LAMBDA. Harassing Toad. Throwing Logan off of a cliff. Killing a Morlock. Blink - his angel. The inhibitor collar around his neck.

As that thought crossed his mind, Victor lengthened the talons on his right hand. It hasn’t been that long, Vic’. Keep playin’ th’ game just a little longer. If nothin’ happens by th’ next day’s sundown, then raise the issue, an’ a little bit o’ Hell for takin’ their sweet ass time…

Morph had guessed it would take him longer to fall asleep after all that had happened. Dying, hours of torture and vivisection, coming back to life, stumbling upon the friends who left him for dead in a different world - this had been an interesting day to say the least. Yet, as soon as his cheek touched the pillow, his eyes closed, and he slipped into an uneasy dream.

He climbed into an uninhabited room of Xavier's through the window. His - her, technically - blonde hair hung in his face. He had shifted form to that of a teenage girl. Why? To play a prank, of course, and escape punishment. The answer came easy, instinctively, almost, in the way it often happened in dreams, no matter how senseless the situation.

The teenage girl Morph opened the door of the room, her room, as anyone watching the security tapes would hopefully deduct, and straightened her skirt. Quite convenient no one knows who's going to appear and live in this interdimensional bedlam. Morph had invented this little mutant girl, but who could prove it? Somewhere in the universes, she probably is alive. Wasn't there a theory how everything you imagine appears in some universe... ?

These and other unrelated thoughts crossed his mind. He was happy as always when he got to cause some trouble, but not worried enough to keep his thoughts completely together. In fact, he hadn't felt that calm in a long while - almost tranquilized. Freeing Creed seemed like a good idea. Exciting was the wildest word he could find for it. Just a little prank to keep everyone on their toes.
Morph descended the stairs to the basement. He knew the way well, and he and he also knew that it was easy to get into the basement through the ventilation shaft, especially for a skinny little thing like himself right now.

Inside the dark stuffy room, he went straight for the fuse box. He put all switches to off and put on the flashlight he had brought to disable the emergency light in case it decided to kick in, or was already supporting the more important processes, such as the zero-gravity cell.

That was all. Morph had no reason to destroy anything permanently, since the preferable result of this little prank - a free Sabertooth - would occur after just a few seconds of outage. He - a student on a stupid dare who didn't know what she was doing, in case anyone noticed her on any security tapes - climbed back out of the room and walked into a toilet. There, he changed into Storm. The security cameras were dead now, but he took no chances. In the library, he changed into Morph, then returned to his room.
Morph laid down on his bed.

And immediately opened his eyes again, waking up as a gust of wind blew rain into his face through the open window. Disgruntled, Morph got to his feet and slammed the window shut. Why had he even opened it in the first place, and when? While dreaming? He remembered he had been scaling the wall, turned off electricity for some inane non-reason... whatever. Alzheimer's setting in pretty early, dear Morph, he thought to himself, yawning. Or somnambulism. Ugh, my body feels like it's shifted into lead. If I'd really scrambled about any walls in my sleep, I'd have fallen and cracked my head.

When he went back to the bed, he almost slipped on something round on the ground, but couldn't be bothered to check. He felt more tired than before going to sleep. Eyes shut again, he failed to notice that the object he had stumbled over and kicked under the bed as revenge was a flashlight.

The mutant floated in permanent suspension inside of the null-gravity containment field. Every hideous wound, burn, and bruise on his body was cured from the healing properties of the alien technology that powered it. Symptoms of Victor’s concussion subsided, and consciousness rushed back to him, anxious to welcome the feral back into the world. Unbeknownst to Victor, he had been trapped in this space aged cage for almost two days.

Creed lifted his head and opened his eyes. He assessed his surroundings with a low, rumbling grunt. Excluding the dim, ambient, topaz colored hue emitted from the containment field, the entire brig was shrouded in total darkness. He sniffed the air instinctively, and gathered no other scent except his own musk and the filthy blend of blood types and dirt still latched onto his skin and long hair.

Victor recalled each of the events that led him into this dreadful circumstance. A clawed finger touched the strong steel still coiled around his neck, and he sighed with disappointment. With nothing else to do, he looked around the room a second time, hoping he missed a clue that would be the key to his escape. Futile desires of freedom led him to try and pull his collar off, and even search the empty pockets of his jeans for something – anything – that could aid him.

In a foolhardy gesture, Creed made the motion to run forward. Unfortunately, that thrust lifted his burly, but weightless form even higher off of the ground. The blonde toppled head over heels like a circus acrobat nearly twice before the force behind that momentum weakened. Again he grunted, and repositioned himself until he “stood” upright.

Despair poisoned Victor’s resolve. Dirty blonde locks draped over half of his face as he hung his head. He cursed himself in his mind for allowing the X-Men to capture him, especially after displaying a rare moment – to them - of genuine faithfulness to the cause of mutant life, liberty and prosperity.

For now, he regretted coming to the mansion in his darkest hour. And he passed the time plotting revenge on each one of the X-Men who put him in this predicament.

Of all the places in the world, Victor Creed never dared to seek refuge in Professor Xavier's Mansion. And yet, here he was, sneaking into an unoccupied dormitory room through the large bay windows. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, alone and in the darkness. The light of the full moon was his only company, and it shined over his muscular, highly defined form. Dried blood and gory lacerations he sustained in battle highlighted his face, shirtless upper body, tattered jeans and muddy boots. Victor had once forgotten that his healing factor had limitations. After what he experienced, he wouldn't forget again...

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Just a week prior, the blonde feral allied himself with a mercenary gang of mutants. They were tasked to infiltrate a small underground compound located on the outskirts of the city near the forests' edge. Weapons that belonged to the Black Market were located there, according to the briefings they received. But in reality, this facility was manned and maintained by the United States government. At taxpayer's expense, coupled with illegal international funding, they planned to re-launch the Weapon X program, as well as engineer the construction of the horrible mechanical abominations, known as "Sentinels".

Creed and his team were shocked to learn of the Weapon X experimentations and upgrades to the Sentinels being built, and they attacked. However, the facility was much more fortified than they were led to believe. What was worse, was that their "mission" was a hoax! They were set up by mutant defectors siding with the prejudicial humans. They were lambs, sent directly to the slaughterhouse...

...and Victor was the only one on his team to survive the assault.

Guided by rage and hate towards the humans' audacity, he stayed inside the compound and butchered them for two days. Once more government reinforcements arrived, he emerged from the steel corridors of the underground complex, and brought the fight with him outside into the wilderness. Victor's motivation to rip the entire program to shreds - along with every human there - pushed his healing factor to the breaking point. For the remainder of the week, the feral lived off the land; he feasted on the animal wildlife that surrounded the compound, and never slept. Each time he saw a moment of vulnerability in the enemy's defenses, he struck, and struck hard!

Near the final days of his one man assault, extreme fatigue took its toll on Victor's body. The feral mutant's tactics became sloppy, and once the government soldiers and agents noticed this, they unleashed a unit of Sentinel droids to eliminate him. For every one that he destroyed, three more took it's place. While many of them were incomplete shells, the sheer number of these human sized droids became too much for Victor to withstand in his current state. No longer able to maintain the fight, the feral was left with no other choice: he fled for his life.

Fearing that the lecherous traitor - who sent him and his fellow mutants off to die - compromised the locations of the other mercenary safe-houses and strongholds, Victor did the unthinkable, and snuck into the great Xavier Mansion to seek shelter. No one would ever think to look for him "here". At least not the humans...

--------------------

Bloodshot amber eyes routinely glanced towards the locked dormitory door and the bed nearby. As much as he wanted to rest, Victor knew he could not stay here, much less get comfortable. Logan was somewhere within the mansion - he could smell his scent the moment he snuck past the first security camera outside - and Creed was certain that the short Canadian would be able to detect his own - or the stench of human blood looming in the air. It was only a matter of time...