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.”)

Uanaume was not accustomed to brooding, for any length of time. He'd never had time for it before. Life happened as it always did and he'd never really questioned why it happened. He hadn't questioned his parent's death, he'd not questioned his years on the streets of Cairo, the incident in the truck had been odd but he'd not questioned it nor really even his reaction to it. When his powers had manifested There was the question of what and how, but why had never factored into the equation. He'd never held much fancy for anyone, true there were several women he had lain with in his past. Largely faceless, he had admired their beauty and like gifts they had given themselves to him freely. (A perk of being considered a God he assumed.) However he had always ended the liaison early, usually having satisfied his partner but never himself. He had assumed it was because he was a God and they were not, it was how it had been meant to be from the start and went back to his business as usual.

I mean the encounters were fun and sort of pleasurable... but they never felt real, surreal at best. I could tell they were always disappointed they would not have the possibility to bear my child. But I always figured I would spill seed when the right woman came along.

Looking up at the sky from the roof above his attic bedroom where he sat, he remembered the sensation of Creed's breath on his face, the heat of his body close to him, barring him from leaving the room. Heat and blood rushed both to his face and his groin at the memory. He pulls his knees up against his chest and sighs in frustrated confusion. As he buries his face against his knees the skies mirror his brooding heart, turning dark and grey, clouds thick and pregnant with the tears Uanaume was to proud and ashamed to shed.

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.

Uanaume disliked his codename. "Storm" just didn't feel right to him. Nevermind his telepathic crash-course in English, the word did not fall easily off his tongue and it sounded too feminine for his tastes. He was also very unsure if this "team" of mutants was really what the Bright Lady wanted him to do with his life. Mutant. There was that word again. What the professor had explained to him made sense but he had to admit it challenged his way of thinking. He had been worshiped as a godling for years now and had just begun to believe it himself when Xavier had come along to "enlighten" him and then nearly beg for his help. It did not feel wrong to help the old man, but he was not sure if he'd stay after he helped to save his old students. The tempers of this new team seemed like they threatened to tear it apart before they even got to their destination. Every five minutes Thunderbird had something to prove to Cyclops, or anyone really. He had challenged Uanaume himself when he had tried to calm the flaring tempers and had retreated when Storm's own temper flare resulted in a lightning bolt that turned the night sky around the mansion into day. Uanaume himself had retreated at that point, he hadn't meant to lose his temper like that and he feared Cyclops and some of the other new X-Men feared his lack of control.

"Not a good start is it?" The gentle voice wrapped in the deep Ukrainian accent broke his reverie. Snorting softly in disgust he keeps walking.

"No little brother... I think not. Cyclops is trying too hard to ride roughshod over us and Thunderbird, Sunfire and Wolverine are resisting too much. I fear it may cost these old students of the professor if we cannot work together." That is all he has time to say as he quickly twists his body to avoid the shining organic steel form of his partner Colossus. He feels the familiar song of power as it rushes through him, his blue eyes disappearing into white light. Strong winds rush under him, thrusting him up into the air. Unfortunately, this is a move that the living vines of this island had anticipated, a thick vine landing a heavy blow in his stomach, knocking the breath from his lungs and quite literally the wind from beneath his wings. Falling a long way down he hits his head upon the stone of the chasm he and Colossus had be walking. He hears the young Russian call his name before he loses consciousness.

He awakens in a dark room. Unable to see, he tries his best to generate a little lightning so he can see, however as he attempts this, his head bursts in pain. Great. It may be a concussion. All he can manage is a few sharp sparks of electricity that give him brief flickering instants of light. Looking about the room in the strobe-lighting of his creation, he is aghast at the vision before him. Twelve bodies lay tangled in a web of living vines, each of them connected to the vines. He instantly regrets the clear vision he got of the veins throbbing and pulsing from Wolverine's neck around the vine attached to it. This place is the culprit, the island is alive and it wants to feed... on us! He begins to struggle, the tight constricting vines beginning to wear at his resolve.

"No... Let me go..." he begins to crumble, his resolve giving way to panic as he realizes the room is dark because it is underground. "Set me free... let me go!" he screams into the darkness, his eyes glowing brighter than before, his head hurting still, but mattering less. His screams do nothing but attract the attention of the vines not yet attached to a warm body. The sharp green vines wind around the room like living things, writhing with the intent to distract before they strike. Like vipers, they all strike at him in unison. Gasping in shock, surprise and to his imminent embarrassment more than a fear, he watches the vines grow closer and closer. To his credit, he doesn't look away and greets his demise with open eyes. A moment before impact however Uanaume is besieged by a rending disorientation. Looking down in confusion, he sees his body has begin to shimmer, sparkle and then glow. He has never done this before and all he can manage to work out before his very senses are torn apart is that whatever is happening, it is coming from him... He feels himself falling, losing consciousness again. "Am I dying... finally?" he wonders as he fades again into blackness.

In another place and another time, the skies darken unexpectedly, lightning crashing and splitting the darkness with spears of light. The air inside a single room churns and fills with the reek of ozone as it begins to split open with white light that crackles with energy. The thin split widens slowly into an ovular pool of light that suddenly births a body into the room before even more suddenly vanishing. Unconscious still, Uanaume falls limply into a quite foreign bedroom, thankfully on the bed. Basically in his nude with only slight remnants of his costume and his own long white hair to provide any modesty at all (not that he'd particularly care were he awake as the concept of modesty where one's physical form was concerned is still one of those thing the Professor was trying to teach him that he still struggled with.) Bouncing on the bed as he lands, on his back, his head rolls to the side,, strands of his hair clinging to sweat and trace fluids from the Krakkoan vines he's just escaped. His arm falls open, his hand barely missing the remains of an alarm clock on the night-stand, it usefulness terminated by a sharp bone claw that appear broken off in its face.