As part of my mission to spread tolerance and understanding between man and mutant I spend a lot of my time doing speaking engagements. Usually these are done before august bodies of influence people. Last week I got suckered into speaking at an all-girl's Catholic school. This was a favor for one of Maggie's Cardinal friends. When asked if I would do a little something for him, I made the classic mistake of saying yes before what was actually involved. Obviously I have no problem with children, I mean I do run a school, but there is just something about a building full of pre-teen girls that makes me want to self-inflict blunt force trauma.

Despite my anxieties, we did make it back in one piece. When I returned to the mansion, Gaia was waiting for me with some rather disturbing news. As a representative of the Xavier Institute, she had attended a conference with some very important world leaders. The topic was mutants and the guest speaker, Dr. Kavito Rao, was presenting a rather startling development in her research.

"She said that she had developed a "cure" for the mutant gene," Gaia told me.

"If that's true, this is rather disturbing news."

"Actually, it's worse. Mystique was there."

I thought about the logical consequences of that fact and then my face went pallid. "Magneto!"

"I already checked the Internet. Joe Fixit and Bishop had launched an assault on Magneto's base a couple of weeks ago and he's still in the Vault."

"Really? I suppose Mystique and he may still be on the outs. Let me just . . "

I reached out with my mind, letting my consciousness drift several hundred miles to the meta-human prison. Even at that incredible distance, I was able to reach the minds of the guards.

"He's gone," I told Gaia. "Mystique disguised herself as Nick Fury and walked right out with Magneto."

"What's does this mean?" she asked.

"It's mean Dr. Rao is in imminent danger. We have to get to her lab immediately. Assemble the X-Men!"

"I think that's the Avengers line, Professor."

"Um, right. Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't recall the X-Men ever having a battle cry. Do you know of one?"

"How about X-Men X-tricate? Or maybe, X-Men X-foliate?"

"Yeah, we'll have to work on that."