Scott Summers' Journal

From the files of Scott Summers
They joke that Heaven has a revolving door for X-Men. Sometimes I keep that in mind when things get dangerous.

Like now.

Backwoods Appalachia, population 200-odd humans and one mutant teenager. Cerebro picked up his signature when it flared so brightly it caused Prof. X to blink. CNN wasn't much further behind -- the wildfire had claimed a dozen ramshackle houses. Up like matches, turned to ash just as fast. I had the X-Men out to investigate in minutes, but sometimes that's a couple minutes too late.

Like now.

I found him first. The boy's strung up like a pinata, and they've already taken their turns at bat. One of them is holding a pistol to the boy's chin, calling him all sorts of epitaphs, telling him to confess his sins. He uses the the word "unclean" at least once, and my optic blasts reduce a tree to cinder -- what's a few more ashes, anyway? Storm will have the blaze under cotnrol in a moment.

The gun's not pointed at the boy any more, and that's good. I can handle danger.

"Weapons down, everybody," I says, voice cool as a creekbed. "The child is coming with me."

I hear a gun cock to my right, bounce an optic beam off the a car's sideview mirror and it explodes in his hand. He cries like a girl.

"What kind of thing are you?" says the beer-bellied buffoon who seems to to be in charge. I don't answer straight away.

"Weapons. Ground. Now."

It's silent, save for the sounds of weapons hitting dirt and the boy muttering, "I'm not unclean I'm not a mutie. I'm not unclean I'm not a mutie. I'm not..."

"Untie him," I say, and when they hesitate, I blast the ground at their feet, just enough to remind them why their scared. Half the men here stink of urine, now. They cut him down, and the boy falls wailing and crying to the ground.

"I'm not unclean I'm not a mutie. I'm not unclean I'm not a mutie. I'm not..."

"Come with me, son. No one's going to..."

With alarming speed, the child lunges for the pistol on the ground near him. Instinctively, I blast at it to fry it, but he repels my optic blast with a wave of energy of his own.

"No one needs to get hurt here, son. I can take you someplace..."

"I'm not unclean," he says, as the barrel enters his mouth. I can hear him mumble the rest before he pulls the trigger.

I scream, and blast the men back as I leap for the boy, but it's too late. The once-vicious men recoil, revolted by what their actions have wrought. People are funny. They make me sick, but they're funny.

One by one, the men recede into the woods, not saying a word. I pick the boy's remains up in my arm.

There may be a revolving door in Heaven for X-Men, but there isn't for the rest of them. Their lives are precious, all of them, and if we can't stop the hate that's consuming them, there'll be no future left to protect.