AVX: Consequences #1

A blackbird flies towards Wakandan airspace, piloted by Wolverine, who warns his students that this is going to be rough. These people are in pain. This has to be respectful. They are here to help. Whatever the people need, they give. Understand?

Quentin Quire rolls his eyes. The great mutant equivalent of cleaning up someone else’s graffiti! he scoffs. When she grows up, she’s going to teach guilt at the school, Idie Okonkwo decides. Some people need to understand guilt more. And shame. And if they don’t understand, just shut up for a while, Wolverine recommends. They are walking into an open grave here. An open grave a mutant dug.

They reach their goal, Wakandan airspace. The proud African nation, seven days after Namor’s Phoenix-empowered attack.

Suddenly, Storm appears in front of the jet and warns them to turn back. Moments later, a missile is fired at them. Storm provides cover with her weather powers as the jet turns back.

Storm enters the Blackbird. Do they look like Namor all of a sudden? Logan asks. Namor is only part of the problem, Storm explains. While they lack the capability to do it, Wakanda is now officially at war with Atlantis. But Namor was a mutant under a mutant flag, and that has somewhat soured the relations

Frustrated, Logan recalls that no one had open arms like the Wakandans. Hell, this place was… A utopia, Storm finishes his sentence. And he is right to use the past tense.

Scott Summers, Logan mutters, his claws extending. He withdraws them and announces the trip is cancelled. Back to school!

Storm suggests they move swiftly before the Wakandans pursue. They’d hunt down a bunch of kids? Logan asks. No, they’d hunt down her. She was also under the mutant flag. She came to see if she could make peace, but no. They are merely not welcome. She is a criminal.

On the ground, the Black Panther stares after the leaving Blackbird.

At an undisclosed jail, the latest prisoner, Scott Summers (outfitted with a helmet which suppresses his mutant powers), is welcomed by the warden who warns him he is a long way from the X-Men. He will remain here until they decide whatever they are going to do with him.

Scott asks if this is the Raft or some kind of SHIELD base. The warden scoffs his ideas of his own importance are grossly exaggerated. He is in a privately owned prison. Some politicians believe he should have been disappeared but his employers argued that was overreaction. And by leveraging their considerable influence, they are able to prove their case correct. He is just another criminal… and with the reemergence of mutants, the first of many… and they have to show they can deal with that. Specialized super prisons are too expensive to house the number of a resurgent mutant population. And that’s assuming that mutant criminality is at a similar level to other demographics – and historically that’s never been true.

Scott protests angrily that defending oneself against hate-mobs gets you arr—

One guard hits him in the stomach.

Undeterred, the warden continues his speech that the thinkers realized there would be a sudden need for an inexpensive solution to the mutant prisoner problem. He points at Scott’s collar. This is it. By studying mutant brain wave patterns, they identified the conscious neural patterns for power activation. When the system detects it, it interrupts with a localized electrical pulse, inducing a short epileptic fit. This will allow the majority of mutants to be stored in the general population of a prison, inexpensively and safely.

He demonstrates how it works manually by pressing a red button, causing Cyclops to seizure. He continues that in his case for his unconscious basal power release a ruby-quartz visor has been worked into the head piece.

The question whether mutants are friends or not is a distraction. What matters is what happens if they are not. And they show mutants they can be controlled. And people will feel safe. Cyclops understands, he is sure. He was a superhero. Making people feel safe was what he was all about. Until he became a murderer, of course.

So he is the test case, Scott summarizes. And they are towing him into a prison block. Well, no, the warden replies. They have emptied a wing of the prison to serve as a mutant block. He will not even be their first guest. A new mutant emerged shortly after… Summers’ activities. Think of that. He is not even prisoner one. He really is just another criminal.

Avengers Tower:
Sitting on the ledge of the roof, Hope Summers reads a note, then burns it. Captain America and the Scarlet Witch join her. Bad news? Cap asks. Not really, Hope replies, just doing what Cable taught her. She’s got the note memorized. Nate was recovering in Utopia’s hospital. Sometime during all the chaos, he just got better and left. That was the note he left her. “It’s not your job to watch out for me. Don’t come looking.” Hope recites.

It sounds like he wants the best for Hope, Wanda points out. She really can do anything. If she wants to be on an Avengers team, that could be arranged. She is trained like few other people on the planet. Cap continues that Logan would be happy to have Hope at the Jean Grey School. Or she’s old enough to enter training at SHIELD. What next?

Hope considers his words. She never dared think about “what’s next,” she finally admits. It was all about her destiny and all that. She just wanted to save everyone. That was her. And now she’s just… normal. She guesses she wants to try and be normal. She doesn’t know anything about that.

The great thing about “normal” is that almost any school can teach it, Wanda smiles. Cap assures Hope that, after all she’s done, she’s earned all the normal she wants.

Mexico, 40,000 feet up where Iron Man meets Captain Marvel aka Carol Danvers. He apologizes for the adjustments he demanded. It’s not her new uniform, which he likes. Annoyed, she tells him she knows. And the earrings? he asks. Not even studs? She’s not an idiot! Carol snaps. She knows what “no metal” means! Is he wearing the non-ferrous suit? And if he’s that twitchy a spare pair of underwear wouldn’t be a bad idea! He concedes the point. He is nervous. He beat Magneto once. That doesn’t mean you beat him every time. Let’s just do this!

They fly downward and hit a bungalow hard, ordering Magneto to stand down. But no one’s home. Frustrated, they report that they missed him again.

Captain America visits Wolverine at the Jean Grey School. Cap needs his help. He summarizes that Namor is Namor. Atlantis denies he is currently in residence. They think they are lying but it doesn’t matter. It would take an act of war to get hold of him. But that so many of the Extinction Team are free – that’s a problem they need to deal with.

That they’ve got Emma is the one good thing. There are warrants for Magik and Colossus, but all their leads are going nowhere. Danger and Magneto with their questionable pasts are different. After all that’s gone down, they can’t allow them to go off on their own without a conversation. And they can’t even find them.

He wants things to be better. He wants humans and mutants to stand shoulder to shoulder. He is going to do everything in his power to do that. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. With new mutants popping up everywhere, people are scared. Having those agents of chaos out there is a panic in the making. They will follow Cyclops. They’ll listen to him and, even if they won’t, he may be able to point them in the right direction.

He won’t see it like that, Logan replies. Cap reminds him that Cyclops did it to save mutants. This will save mutants. It’s got to be worth a try. Logan refuses. Cap demands a reason he can understand.

He stood at Chuck’s funeral, Logan begins, doing his best impersonation. Love, fraternity, grow past the horrors, the whole hugs for everyone routine. That’s up here, he points at his head. That’s what he’s learned from him, what he’s trying to teach the kids. He knows what he should do. But what he feels? What he wants? He points at his heart and unsheathes his claws. When Cap and he went in, it was bad enough, but a conversation? Chances are it’s going to be Cyclops’ last. Don’t tempt him.

Cap understands and thanks him for being open. This will be problematic but he will do what he can to cover for the school. Why is this on them? Logan asks. There have been too many close escapes, Cap explains, too many leads gone bad. Analysts think someone is covering up for the Extinction Team or feeding information and--

”Mutants with sympathies” Logan spells out. Exactly, Cap agrees. Someone on their side isn’t. Until they find the Extinction Team, the less progressive elements in government are going to be making noises. And there’s always some idiot who thinks more Sentinels are the answer.

Prison:
From a neighboring cell, a red-haired young man calls to Cyclops, asking what he is in for. However, at that moment, Scott is told he has a visitor. He is handcuffed and brought to the visiting room where Logan, already on his third beer, is waiting. “Hello, Slim. Killed anyone lately?” he asks by way of ‘hello’.