WARNING: This story contains some adult orientated material towards the end, basically it's to do with sex, nothing is shown too much, and shouldn't be rated above R 14, since I wrote it ;) But basically it's just naming some parts of the body, no actual acts are described.

VC presents X-Men in:

A shadow slowly crept in to a room. It swirled in pain at the sight of light. It's body began to shrink in size and it's mouth let out a silent scream of pain. It's black hand reached out across the enlightened area, reaching for it's mother, for darkness. It managed to grab some shadow, and with the determination of a drowning man it began pulling itself into the darkness. In what seemed like hours, it finally made it. Taking deep breaths it sat down on the floor and breathed deeply. Never before had it been so closely to death, never before had it been in this world. This has turned out to be a deadly trip, and it was far from over. But it knew it had to pass this test. If not, it wouldn't be capable of being a warrior. After regaining some strength it looked around the room, where it was at the moment. It saw a man sitting on a chair, with a other man behind him, speaking to him. The men in the chair got up nervously, looked in the mirror, then walked out of the room. It followed.

Senator Kelly closed the door, brushing his hair back with his hand. ^These hair stylist know nothing about making you look good. Heh, be serious with yourself Robert, no one can make your hair look good anymore, there's hardly any left.^ He didn't notice the shadow behind him, which seemed to move, he had more important things on his mind. He met with a security guard at the entrance. The tall man nodded for him to follow him and he began walking up the stairs. Senator followed him up the stairs and onto the stage. Flashes began flashing as he took his place at the stand.

With one move of his hand he silenced the crowd of reporters. When dead silence filled the room, he cleared his throat and began speaking. "Ladies, and gentlemen, I am here, talking on the behalf of the President of Untied States of America to officially announce Operation Zero Tolerance as closed. The operation turned out to be a failure, and unfortunately did more harm than good. This is not to be understood wrong, the government will still be involved with mutants that work against the law, and are dangerous to the public. But also. We, the citizens of U.S.A. the people we need to be more tolerant for these mutants. They are human, just like us. They were born with a special gen. in their D.N.A. and it wasn't their choice. Therefore we can't haunt them and kill them, just because they were born different. That would be faciszm, that would be like saying every black man, every indian has to be haunted, just because their skin isn't white. We fear these mutants, because we don't understand them. Most of us don't even know how mutants got their powers, how it is possible. We think of them as the things with tails and green skin. How wrong are we, mutants are all around us. Their powers don't always have to be necessary flashy. They can sometimes be able to do maths calculations in mere seconds, or have a extra toe. The person sitting next to you on the bus, your co-worker, your friend, they could all be mutants. These people, are like us, and they live in endless fear of being discriminated, and hated. That is wrong. They are just human as any other citizen of this country, this planet. We haven't been noticing this lately, but we're turning into the next Nazis. All is because we fear. And we fear because we don't understand. And that's what our job is now. It will take time to get started, but the government plans to host lectures in the major universities around the country, about mutants, and racism. Anyone interested will be invited to come along. Such groups as Friends of Humanity will be disbanded. The F.O.H. is a racist group, which should have not existed in the first place. Enough people have paid the price already.  The government is here to protect it's people, both humans and mutants." Senator Kelly took a deep breath looking straight into the camera in front of him.

"But of course, just like with humans there are mutants that are not wanting to be cooperative and good citizens. We do not need to mention any names. These people because of their power, can be a danger to the whole country, even the whole world sometimes. I just want to ensure you, the people of USA and the outlaws, we will not tolerate any threats made to our country and people." Senator Kelly raised his voice, slamming his hand on the stand. "We will be prepared to take you in by any means necessary, if it's the last thing we do. No more playing games. We will be ready to take on any attack any mutant, or human terrorist gives us. And just because the Avengers and Fantastic Four, god bless them are dead doesn't mean there are no heroes left in this world. Thank you." With these words he walked out of the stage as the reporters began to roam, throwing questions at him. He walked backstage, without answering one. Along the way to his dress room, he met few of his people who congratulated him on his amazing speech. He smiled wearily and didn't say anything.

When he entered his dress room he sighed. He sat down on his chair, looking at the mirror in front of him. He began to rub his eyes. "I thought you'd come." he said.

A tall figure steeped out of the shadow, a smile appearing on his face. "Nice speech Senator Kelly."

"Thank you Cyclops, that's a lot coming from you."

The shadow creped into the room again. It had followed this strange man to the stage where he talked to a group of another humans. Everything was still new to it, it didn't know the language of the humans enough. They all learned it as they grew up, but sometimes it was more like remembering than learning. From what it knew it could understand the basics of the conversation between these two men. As always keeping to the mother shadow it began listening carefully, out of curiosity.

"Yes we are planning on starting a campaign around the major colleges and universities in the country. Our main aim is to teach, to teach about mutants, help people understand, and maybe overcome the fear. And we know these things worked. Prof. Charles Xavier, I'm sure you know of him he was a great help to bringing people and mutants closer, and he did it these ways, by teaching. But now he seems gone, we think that he is dead, which would be possible, since we don't even know how many Prime Sentinels are roaming out there, waiting to be awakened by one false move. We spent a lot of time and thinking on this, there are people already training in this direction, but we hope to start something by fall."

"Senator, that's amazing, I never thought we would get as much support from you, or even the government..."

"Now listen to me, Cyclops !" Kelly looked at him sharply. "I'm doing this for the sake of the country, and it's people. And I expect you and your X-Men to help us. This is something we have to work on together, if we really want to make a change. And I don't want to hear about any terrorist acts, or threats against any right willed man in this country or this planet. It was hard enough to get the president to trust you at all. You're here to fight bad mutants, do so. Be heroes for once, not outcasts. This world needs heroes now, Cyclops, not outlaws. And if we're going to make any difference at all then we have to start working together on this."

Cyclops took a while to answer, he had never seen Senator Kelly so devoted to a cause with such passion, unless it was fighting mutants. Could he finally see his wrong doings ? "I understand Senator, and I agree with you, that we need to work together. I've been wanting to do that for a long time, but most of the time the government was more interested in killing us than helping us."

"Yes you are right about that Cyclops, but now this is going to change. Or at least I hope it will."

"Also, what you said about being ready to take on any terrorist, what is on your mind ? Surely the government doesn't have a team of heroes of it's own, just how are you going to be able to hold off lets say Magneto ?"

"Yes you're right about that, X-Factor are believed dead." Senator Kelly stopped looking Cyclops in the eyes, trying to see a reaction. He didn't see one.

"Yes, so I have heard." Cyclops said with no expression on his face.

"It's still in talks, and nothing is official yet, but we're planning on getting Freedom Force back together." Cyclops's face showed surprise for a moment, but then he regained control of it. "Of course not in it's old line up, few members have passed away, but we are hoping on getting most of them back. And I await X-Men's support on that."

"That is a very good idea senator, but you must remember that Freedom Force and X-Men have hardly been on good terms in the past, at all in fact."

"Well Cyclops, you're going to have to make sure that they do this time, this is your big chance."

It grew uninterested of the talk of the two men quickly, as it only understood parts of it. It was still inexperienced in such things as listening and spying. It watched as the tall man with red glasses began to move away from his space, and towards the door, for some reason, out of curiosity maybe it began following and soon was behind the man, keeping to the shadow.

Somewhere, sometime

The tall man known as Matuso, crossed his arms over his chest as he impatiently looked over the people standing in front of him. He saw their faces, black, just like the rest of their body without any expressions, he couldn't even work out if they had faces. He smiled at the thought, and began speaking.

"You know why you're here warriors of the shadow. You know who is your target. Go and make your dark master and me proud. And remember she is not to be harmed. Now go and attack !"

Matuso smiled as the warriors began to disappear. "They seem to listen to you really well." said a voice behind him.

"That's the beauty of them, they are devoted to their cause like no one else, you tell them to go and jump off a bridge and they will, they're your possession."

"I hope you will be as sincere as they are, I don't want to be chasing you over the world, you have to pay for the deed I did for you."

Matuso looked at him, his body half visible in the shadow, only the red diamond on his forehead alighting the space around him. "You can trust me, Matuso never breaks his word."

"I really hope so Matuso, because otherwise I would have to kill you. Now remember, I'm leaving you for now, I have better things to take care of, but I want you to know one day I'll come back to receive my payment and you better be ready. Otherwise you'll pay with your life."

"Understood. And may I say it was nice doing business with you."

"Good bye Matuso." and then he disappeared. Matuso turned around and not for the first time this day, he smiled.

Wenchester Country

"A bit more to the left, yes that's it, hold it, hold it ! There !" With a bang the steel bars dropped on the ground.

"It's the last one." the driver said, looking out of the window and smiling.

"Thanks a lot Jack."

"Hey no worries sir, I'm just doin my job. You're a bunch of nice folks, hope this building on of new classrooms goes well, and remember if you have any problems we're always available."

"Thanks Jack, well keep that in mind."

"See ya then." Jack waved his hand and started the engine, slowly disappearing along the road. When he passed the gate, Jean walked out from around the corner.

"Any problems ?" Forge asked, still looking at the road where the truck disappeared.

"None at all. It was a peace of cake creating a illusion in his head so he would think that the school is actually there, and that we want enough material to build two schools just for few new classrooms."

"If you put it that way then, I prefer not drawing attention to ourselves."

"We all have names for it Forge, but it's still the same thing. Good luck with the job, I'm going to check on Professor and Logan."

^Someone dropped a big rock on her toe, all right." Forge thought as he scribbled down few notes about the materials on his pad. He turned around to see various X-Men appear from the hatch, preparing for work. With a smile, he placed the pen in his pocket and began advising them on what to do. "First of all I need you Joseph and Rogue to move all this materials to the back. Most of them have been left there already, this is just the leftovers." Forge spoke. As Rogue and Joseph began moving the  materials Forge was joined by Beast and Cable. They laid out their plans on a table and looked at them. "We need to start by digging the foundations, so for now I suppose all we do is start digging." said Forge pointing at drawings on the piece of paper.

"Agreed, my fearsome friend." Beast said sipping on a cup of coffee. "The best person to do thins would be Scott, but our fearless leader deiced to take today off and go spying on Senator Kelly."

"Not only that, I think Jean isn't doing her best either. Connection ?" said Forge raising an eyebrow.

"Almost everyone here is having problems with their lives now." Hank said. He was about to say something else, but was interrupted by a scream. They all looked in the direction of the sound and saw Joseph lying on the ground on a patch of ice, metal poles all around him. Iceman was standing few steps away laughing his heart out. "Eh, okay then maybe some of us are still ourselves." Hank said smiling.

"Tell me just how are we going to get them to work together ?"

Somewhere in the mansion

"So you guys see, I think it was a mistake to come here in the first place. I don't belong in the X-Men." Sam confessed in front of his longtime friends. They all looked at him, their faces showing obvious worry. They were all proud of Sam, that he made it into X-Men, and now he was telling them that it might have been a mistake. "I mean I'm treated like a rookie here, like I don't know anything, especially by Storm. I don't want to be rude or anything, but after all I do have some experience in leadership I mean Ah lead X-Force for so long. They could at least consider listening to what Ah say."

"Sam are you sure about this ?"

 "To be honest Bobby ? I don't know. It's just that, that I don't think this is the way it should be anymore. If Ah'm gonna be a member of the X-Men then something has to change."

"But Sam, honey, do you want to be in the X-Men ?"

"I do, but.... I begin to think X-Force is my home."

"Don't worry Sam, whatever you chose to do we'll be on your side." Tabitha said hugging Sam. He smiled.

Later

It held on with all it's strength as it traveled on a human transport device they called a car. For some reason, it didn't know why it was following the man with the glasses, call it intuition. It had the feeling it was going to learn one of it's life lessons. One lesson that would bring it closer to understanding the pride of a warrior, one lesson that would bring it closer to being a warrior. When it was out of strength, the human device stopped and the man got out. It dropped from the car, and took deep breaths. Now that it was dark, it didn't have to hide from the sun, mother darkness gave it strength now. It began following the man, pass the giant gate and along the driveway. After few minutes of walking it stood at some construction site. There were metal poles sticking out of the ground, and a hatch in the ground. It saw faint light coming from under the hatch, and now learning from it's pass experiences, quickly prepared to hide in the shadow, as the man opened the hatch.

Scott arrived home late, it was pass eleven and only Bobby, and some of X-Force were in front of the tv watching a movie. He said a brief hi to them and then headed for his "room". He didn't notice a strange shadowy creature following him. He opened the door and found the bedroom empty. He was hoping Jean would be there, but she wasn't. Their psi link seemed to be dead too. ^She must be really angry then.^ Scott realized. Sitting on the bed and began to take of his shoes. After a shower he lay down in bed and began thinking. It had been a long day, with Senator Kelly, and Jean seemed to be hiding from him.

It hid in the corner of the room, where no light from the lamp reached. It wasn't sure what to do now, it was still learning the techniques of spying and learning from it's enemies. It began to grow inpatient. Just what was it supposed to do here ? Then, when it was in doubt another person entered the room and things began to get interesting again.

Jean closed to door behind her and glanced casually towards Scott sitting in the bed. "Hi." she mumbled as she headed for the bathroom. She took a quick shower and spent half an hour in the bathroom afterwards brushing her hair. When she walked out she was wearing barely panties and a bra. Scott's gaze followed her as she moved around the room, but not a word was spoken. The silence in the air was almost deadly. Finally Scott couldn't stand it any longer and began talking.

"Jean what is wrong ? Will you tell me or are we going to ignore each other all the time ?"

Jean spun around, with furry. "You want to know what's wrong ? I'll tell you what's wrong. I've had enough. Enough of being nice to everyone, enough of caring for everyone, enough of always helping out everyone, but no one ever helping me. I've had enough of not being able to use all my powers because someone's afraid of it."

"Jean what do you mean by that ?" Scott asked honestly surprised.

"What do I mean ??!! I told you few days ago Scott. If you'd listened you would have known. I've had enough of life like this."

"Like what ?!" Scott was getting angry too. "What the hell is wrong with you Jean, I don't understand you."

Jean paced around the room, nervous. When Scott finished speaking she grabbed her head in furry. "You never understood me Scott. You just wanted me to be there for you, lift up your spirits, help you with the X-Men, and have sex once in a while."

"That is such a lie."

"It is ? I don't think so. Think about it Scott. Ever since we came here, ever since the fight with Shadow King. You took the leadership of the Blue Team, I was on the Gold Team, we only met when the world wasn't in danger. And still then you were always thinking about your job, always having doubts about some members, whether it was Warren, or Betsy, or Gambit. You never had time for me."

"But Jean, my responsibilities as the leader..."

"What about your responsibilities to me ?! I was alone Scott, you always had time for everyone else but me. I was supposed to be the heart of the team, and hold everyone together, make sure everyone was well. But what about me ??!!"

"Why didn't you ever say that ?" Scott asked.

Jean ignored his question and kept talking. "And of course my dear husband, I had to cut down on my powers, because everyone was telling me that I couldn't overuse them. That it was dangerous. I did it, for the sake of it, but I don't want to live like that. I was gifted with powers and I don't want to hide them. I'm not a little girl anymore."

"Jean you know what dangers your powers can cause when they're not controlled."

"I don't care about dangers !! There won't be any damn it ! I've lived with these powers for years." Jean took a deep breath and looked him straight in the face. "And if you'd let me mind wipe Graydon Creed, Bobby's father would have not been disabled today."

"Don't you dare to include Bobby's dad in this !" Cyclops shouted on top of his lungs, angry.

It grew more and more interested in the conversation. It remembered learning that humans argued often, and that those arguments could be very interesting and educational, they could learn much about human behavior from arguments because then the person's real nature was shown. Just then they could begin to fully understand how humans would react to certain behavior. And it remembered that when the argument reached the point when one person began to raise their voice the argument would really bring effective results. It began to observe even more carefully, trying to recall every moment for later study.

"Why not Scott ? Because you know you made a mistake ? Because you know that if you let me mind wipe Creed, or at least read his mind then we would have saved Bobby's dad, and saved lives of god knows how many people ?" Jean said with a wicked smile.

"Jean this is not about me, or my mistakes. It's about you and your powers. The Professor used his powers to full extent and look what happened."

"With all respect to him Scott, he couldn't control his power and it took control over him. I'm stronger."

Scott looked down at the ground and said nothing, he was lost.

"You're thinking about her aren't you ?" Jean said walking up to the bed. She sat down beside Scott who still stared at the sheets under him. "Scott I am not Dark Phoenix, I never was. I know you thought I was her, but I wasn't. She was just a copy of me and a very bad one. I won't make those mistakes, as she did because I'm the original."

Scott looked up and looked her straight in the eyes. "I know that Jean, but I'm afraid. Afraid that I'll loose the woman I love the most."

"I know you are Scott, you were always worrying about me, but you have to understand me, I'm not going to become the next Onslaught. And I want to be myself again. Ever since we joined the X-Men again I've been living like everyone else told me. I want to live like I want to now. And that means that it's okay to get angry sometime, and that no one comes to me with their problems. I'm not the heart, or the mother of the team. I've got my own problems and my husband to worry about. And I want more attention from you. I don't want to be just your help in leading X-Men. I want you to be my husband for once. Is that too much to ask ?"

"No... no it's not."

"Then please Scott understand me, and help me. I don't want to argue with you, I don't want to have to close our psi link just because we got into a stupid argument. But if you listened to me in the first place, and if you would want to be there for me, there would be no argument."

"Yeah I know. It's just that...."

"Sssshhh, don't say anymore." she said placing a finger on his lips. She kissed him and pushed him down on to the bed. "I want sex. Now." she said smiling, unbuttoning his night shirt. "And I know you love me, then show it to me." she said with a wicked grin. She began kissing him passionately , biting the inside of his lip. She paused for a while, while he took off her bra. His hands began to massage her breasts, as her hands began pulling off his shorts. Suddenly Jean paused. "Wait." she said. "Let's do this my way."

Scott looked up surprised at her as she got up from the bed. He felt being lifted by her powers and he landed on the floor. He never remembered having sex on the floor, not with Jean anyway. She stood over him, without a top, still with her panties. She pulled apart his naked legs and lowered herself onto the ground. She smiled and began her act to Scott's astonishment.

It almost lost it's breath when it saw the woman throwing the man on to the floor. It didn't learn much about the thing humans called sex, but it knew that it was basically w period of pleasure, which lasted sometimes long, sometimes short, and during which the humans could reproduce, but did not have to. It was still very confusing to it, but now that it was basically in the middle of it, it decided to watch carefully and learn, for further reference. It moved up closer, as far as the darkness let it, and watched carefully, as the woman performed some sort of suck on the man, and listened as the man moaned in pain. It did not understand why the humans did it if it brought pain, but it guessed that there had to be a reward to it. It remembered to ask this question later, but for now it watched carefully. It was happy, that it followed the man to his house, it had made so many important observations it would be well ahead of other learners. Just as it watched the man dispense some strange fluid it heard a whisper in it's head. It was a voice, of one of it's brothers, that was near calling it. It apparently said that there was a battle to be fought nearby, and that it should come and join. It was shocked at the offer, for the get such an offer one either had to be very skilled or it had to be a very important battle. Nether less, it decided to go off and join the fight, for if it fought in it then it would be considered a warrior and given the power of dawn. It wouldn't have to experience every painful process of learning, it would just become a warrior. And with the information it gained today it was sure to be very well off in the life of a warrior. It began leaving the room slowly still looking at the couple, as they performed some weird pose, and it left thinking that maybe it still had lots to learn. It found out that the fight was to be really near, in fact in the same house that it was in now. It traveled few rooms across the corridor and entered a door. It found it's brothers waiting around for it to show up. They were surrounding a bed and there was a human lying in it. One of it's companions quickly transferred the needed information into it's head and it understood why exactly it was called the join this fight.

Betsy woke up, hearing a sound around her bed. She didn't move, just opened her eyes and looked around. Everything seemed pretty normal, but somehow she felt that it wasn't. Then she felt it again, there was something around her bed. With one swift move she sprung upwards and took a defensive position.

From around her bed, sprung and army of.... shadows. Betsy was surprised and didn't know what to do, when something grabbed her by the throat. It took few seconds for her to regain a clear mind. She pushed the shadow creature off her chest and swung her hand punching one in the face. She threw herself, headfirst into them. They all moved to the sides and she landed, on the floor, grabbing a katana from under her bed. One shadow threw itself at her and she pierced it's body with the sword. She got up to her feet and took a defensive position. She was surrounded by a half circle of shadowy men, if they were human in the first place. They were all black, and only thing that made them human was a somehow, human shape of their bodies.

"What is this ? Who are you ?" Betsy asked rising her sword keeping the shadows at a distance.

One of them, who appeared to be the leader answered in a harsh inhuman voice. "We are Undercloaks, human."

"Undercloaks ?" Betsy mumbled, as she remembered that they had something to do with the Crimson Dawn.

"And we have come here to regain what is righteously ours."

"What do you mean ?" Betsy screamed starting to get nervous.

"We have come to take back what Crimson Dawn gave you." with these words they all threw themselves at Betsy. She began swinging her sword all around, killing some of them, but there seemed to be more than she thought. She activated her psychic knife and stabbed one of the approaching shadows which appeared to be smaller.

It felt electrifying pain as something pink pierced it's chest. It's thoughts swirled in a brain storm, as it fell to the ground, barely alive.  It had never experienced such pain before, it had never felt so close to dying.  It began crawling across the room with the rest of it's strength, away from the fight. It was no use to it anyway.

Betsy turned around and pierced a shadowy head with her katana. She was nervous, anything that was to do with Crimson Dawn, gave her chills, and now she was being attacked by a army of Undercloaks which wanted to take her in. She hit one of the shadows in the head with her psychic knife and turned around for another one was coming up behind her. This seemed to be a easy fight, but yet something was wrong. Suddenly the one that talked to her shouted few words in a harsh voice and the Undercloaks disappeared. She looked before her, wide-eyed, not understanding this one bit. One minute she was fighting an army of Undercloaks who were all about to kill her, and now they all disappear. Or did they ? ^Maybe they're still here, maybe this is just some trick.^ she looked around the room suspiciously. She didn't see anything abnormal but again she didn't either when she first woke up. Keeping and eye on the walls, she sat on her bed and covered her legs with a cover. She held her katana in her hand as she looked around the room, prepared for anything to happen again.

It was crawling across the floor of the corridor, with the last of it's strength. It was hurt badly, and it knew this was the end of it's short life. The rest had left the fight, leaving it to die alone. At least it became a warrior, it fought it's first and last battle, with honor, at least it died like a warrior. Yet, it couldn't forget, all those things it learned about humans today. All the knowledge would go to a waste. Yet that life, of those humans seemed so familiar to it, it was like it had lived something like that before. Still, it didn't matter. It was dying. It slowly crawled through the corridor, trying to reach for the mother darkness, so it could at least die in peace. It clenched it's teeth as it pumped the last of it's strength to reach the shadow. It was no use. It was about to die. With some strange liquid in it's eyes, that it couldn't recognize but yet it seemed to familiar, it looked up at the earth for the last time. It felt terrible pain rip apart it's chest, it lost feeling in it's hands. It totally collapsed on the ground and began the shrink in size slowly. It couldn't even see anymore, as it's eyes lost vision. It stopped fighting, as it's breath stilled in it's mouth. With a final silent shriek it was ripped apart into pieces and disappeared forever.

End

NEXT ISSUE:
"Desperate Decisions."
Warren takes care of his new life as the president of Woringhton Enterprises again, while in the Morlock Tunnels Sarah seems to be loosing Calisto. What sacrifice is she thinking of to save her mentor ? Storm visits the Professor and makes some life changing decisions. Meanwhile Jean explains more of her worries to Scott. And of course Betsy tires to deal with her night encounter with the Undercloaks. Who from her past is linked to this ? And what does he want ? And what is Betsy going to do about it ? It's all here, plus stuff like rebuilding of the mansion. And an introduction of a brand new character, but that's a secret ;) Be there, soon.