An enraged Kodiak was choking the life out of me. I could feel the breath slipping from my lungs. I wasn't worried though as I had managed to put out the telepathic call to my X-Men. They have never let me down before, and they did not disappoint this time.

Colossus came bursting through my office door. As soon as he saw the situation, he lunged towards Kodiak. There was a naked fury in his eyes that I had only seen one other time - when Kitty Pryde's life was threatened by Pyro. It looked like he wanted to rip Kodiak in two.

Once Peter had pulled him off me, I shouted out to him. "Colossus! Wait! *gasp* There is some outside influence in Kodiak's mind! He's not - "

Before I could finish though, Colossus had smashed the bear right in his face sending him crashing through my office wall and out onto the school grounds. The rest of the team rushed to the window.

Through the eyes of Colossus, I could see that Kodiak had been knocked into our garage. A loud rending sounds split the still afternoon air. Then a crumpled up car engine went sailing at incredible speed directly towards Colossus. With a huge clunking sound, he managed to catch it.

A crumpled up red metal ball followed.

"Uh, Scott?" started Angel. "Isn't that your car?"

"NO!!!!!!"

As I hung there, pinned against the wall by a bezerk homocidal Kodiak, I found myself thinking of my ex-wife, Moira MacTaggert. I realize there has been some confusion as to whether we were actually married or not, given all the various retellings of the X-Men story over the years, but I can assure you, inconsistant fictionalized accounts aside, Moira and I were in fact married for three glorious months and four years of shear hell.

Our courtship was wonderful. Full of romance and youthful passion. We shared a dream of human and mutant unity. We also achieved it in the form of our own relationship. Moira is merely a human, you see.

I don't mean "mere" in any kind of condescending way. She always thought I did. She was also constantly whining that I never listend to her or valued her. Even on those rare occasions when she wasn't saying it, she was thinking it and of course I, as a telepath, could always hear her.

Why did she pop into my mind now, as I was facing death? Because when I think of her, I'm not afraid in the least little bit of death.

Ah, a nice tall glass of afternoon cognac. Is there anything so satisfying after a long day, or at least morning, of shaping young minds? Unfortunately, my tranquility was not to last long.

An ear curdling, high pitched scream echoed throughout the entire school compund. I didn't have to have to use my telepathic powers to identify it though, as I recognized Cyclops's womanly cry. I was about to reach out to him when my office door came flying into the room, shattered into pieces. There, in the now open doorway, stood Kodiak.

"What is the meaning of this?" I demanded. Knowing his mutant ability to block any mutant power that has been used against him before, I did not use my psionic abilities.

His only response was to lunge at me. He grabbed me by the throat, lifted me out of my chair and slammed me against the wall. "You had me to believe that you rallied for the unity of man and mutant," he bellowed in a gutteral roar. "And yet you are the murderer of that cause, killing millions who didn't conform to your Hitler ways!!"

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I wasn't going to wait around to figure it out. I telepathically summoned all of my X-Men to me.

"Thats right! I know who you are Xavier! Or rather . . ONSLAUGHT!!!"

Now how does he know of my connection to Onslaught? I had no choice but to risk a subtle mind probe. I quickly saw that there was some foreign presence in his psyche. Before I could determine its origin, Scott appeared at my door.

Without hesitation he blasted Kodiak full on in the back with his optic beam.

"What did you do to my car?!" he screamed.

As I was in the middle of my Famous Mutants in History class this afternoon, one lone green hand rose up from the back row. I stopped my dissertation on Richard Nixon and his amazing powers of paranoia and called on the student. He was a new boy so I had to check the seating chart to get his name.

"Yes, Scrub, what is it?" I asked.

"Yeah . . that stuff on Nixon is like, real interesting and all, but I was wondering if mutants ever do anything cool."

"Cool? What do you mean?"

"You know, like cartoons and stuff."

"Well actually, I myself made an animated short once. I did it in with a good human friend of mine, Tana Lee Alves. Would you like to see it?"

"Yeah dude!"

"Okay then, here you go . . "

I was about to destroy Nightcrawler's inappropriate video tapes when I heard a faint rapping on my door. Putting the tapes into my safe, I pressed the button under my desk that swung the door open. Standing there with a rather hesitant look on his face was Fade.

"I is certainly sorry ta be disturbin' ye, Professor," he said in his broad brogue.

"Not at all Fade. What can I do for you?"

I motioned him in and he walked slowly to my desk.

"I donna mean to pry inta the workin's ah yor team, I mean I have nothin' but respect for yor X-Men, but . ."

"It's all right. There is nothing that couldn't benefit from some improvement. You have an observation?"

"Well . . it's Cyclops."

"Oh my. You haven't caught him going through your underwear drawer or anything, I hope."

"Oh nae. Nothin' like that. It's jus' that Carol, that be Warbird, she done told me that Cyclops has some . . er . . issues. She was thinkin' that with my empathy powers, I jus' might be able to help him, um, find his inner man, if you know what I mean."

"I certainly do. I gave Scott the mantel of leadership with the hope that the responsibility would toughen him up. So far he has not risen to the challenge. I would certainly appreciate anything you could do."

Fade brightened up quite a bit at that. "Aye, Professor. T'will be my pleasure to try."

I was in my office this afternoon, preparing to fire off a rather stern letter to the people who run the Quiz Farm site about their glaring ommission of me from the Which X-Man Are You quiz, when a very irritating banging intruded upon my personal space.

It was coming from my ceiling. I realized that Nightcrawler's bedroom was directly above me. I telepathically scanned the room to try and find the source of the noise. To my horror, I quickly found it.

"Kurt!" I yelled mentally.

"Eeppp!!" he screeched in his room.

"Come here to me right now!" Re-thinking that, I added, "but put some pants on first."

In a few moments a large cloud of dark smoke filled my room and with a loud BAMF, Nightcrawler appeared in the middle of it. His head hung low and he wore a very sheepish look on his face. I just shook my head.

Finally, I said, "I can't believe you are up to your old tricks."

"But mein Professor . ."

"You put a hidden camera in Storm's room!"

"But mein Professor . ."

"You videotaped her and Pantha!"

"But mein Professor . . "

"How could you?!"

"But zey are over 18, Professor."

"What? How does . . well . . I suppose that is some small improvement, but it's still very very wrong Kurt. I am very disappointed in you. Now I want you to go and remove the camera and bring all the videotapes here to me."

"But vhat vill you do vith zhem, mein Professor?"

"Why, I'll destroy them, of course."

The students have all been taking this online quiz Longshot found. Here's the site in case you're interested - http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=37497. Normally I avoid these things but I thought it best to stay atop of whatever activities they obsess with.

Anyway, I took the quiz.


This is what I got -

You scored as Jean Grey. Jean Grey is likely the most powerful X-Man. She loves Cyclops very much but she has a soft spot for Wolverine. She's psychic so she can sense how others are feeling and tries to help them. She also has to control her amazing powers or the malevolent Phoenix entity could take control of her and wreak havok. Powers: Telekinetic, Telepathic Cyclops 80% Jean Grey 80% Beast 75% Colossus 60% Iceman 45% Storm 40% Nightcrawler 40% Gambit 40% Rogue 40% Emma Frost 35% Wolverine 30% Most Comprehensive X-Men Personality Quiz 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

Jean Grey! Can you believe that? If she wasn't the most powerful X-Man, I might just feel insulted. The only real problem I have with this quiz and the others like it is that I am never one of the possbile outcomes. I founded the team and the school! I must say, I find it rather insulting.

My, my . . giving those Psi-Wedgies was certainly a lot of fun. Darth Nepharia pointed out that this behavior of mine is a bit juvenile, but I do find it quite satisfying. I wonder if there's someone else I can try it out on. Perhaps my ex-wife. Or maybe Maggie.

Becca raised a good point. Can you give a wedgie to a girl wearing a thong? Maggie has been wearing that mesh bikini lately that leaves very little to the imagination. Still, an Atomic Psi-Wedgie is going to be noticed no matter how skimpy the undies.

I was about to give it a try, for experimentational purposes, you understand, when my office door opened.

"What's up, Chuck?" I heard. But it wasn't Wolverine. It was his clone "daughter", Laura Kinney, the so-called X-23. The shell casing doesn't fall far from the rifle, as they say.

"Hello Laura. Who's your friend?"

"This is Fade," she replied.

The young man stepped forward and waved. "Actually, Professor, me name be Angus. Tis an honor to make yur acquaintance."

"Glad to have you here, young man. How are you feeling?"

"Jus' a wee bit under the weather, thank ye. Your man Hank didna' waste a moment healin' me up."

"Glad to hear it. Hank is quiet the capable physician. Please know that you are welcome here at the school for as long as you like. I'd be honored if you stop by my ethics class this afternoon. I hope you enjoy the rest of your tour."

"Thank ye, Professor. Maybe I'll take ye up on that."

As they left,, I turned back to my plans. Who shall I Psi-Wedgie next?

I must say, my Psi-Wedgie was so successful against Wolverine yesterday that I couldn't help but think who else I might try my newly mastered power on. Purely for experimentational purposes you understand.

Almost as soon as I asked myself that question, the obvious target popped into my head. Henchman. I never really did pay him back for taking advantage of Maggie during a period in which she was vulnerable. Oh sure, Onslaught had ripped off his bionic limbs, but that wasn't really me. While I do mostly blame Maggie for cheating on me, I can't help but feel some resentment towards Henchman. Onslaught took most of my anger over that incident with him, and yet I still couldn't help but feel that I did owe him at least a little payback.

I reached out mentally, scanning the greater New York area for Henchman. I found him about to engage in battle with what I can only assume is a Sayian. This would be perfect.

As the two faced of, I focused on the back wasteband of his underwear (surprisingly they were boxers with little Paddington Bears on them) and concentrated on them shooting upwards. The wastband flew out of his pants over his head, the fabric of his shorts diggin deep into his nether regions. I pulled the waistband over his large helmet and Henchman fell to his knees howling.

Heh heh heh.

Blink touched my arm and we zapped out of existence. The next instance we re-appeared in my office back at the school. I have to admit, I felt a bit of relief. I wasn't quite sure if she was going to take me here or turn me into the Shi'ar for the bounty. The idea had occurred to her. Believe me.

She said her good-byes and headed to the dining hall to meet with the rest of her team. She passed Wolverine on the way in. Turning back, he paused to watch her walk away. When she was finally out of sight, he faced me.



"The great thing about Blink is, like Emma, she don't wear underwear."

"Very nice, Logan," I replied.

"Oh, like you ain't noticed."

"Please Logan. I am the headmaster here and I try to maintain an air of professionalism."

"Yeah, right. Your last two girlfriends wore their underwear on the outside too. Magdalena and Vampirella."

"Are sure you want to continue with this Logan? Are you really so anxious to see Onslaught again?"

His face went white at that. Zing!

"I thought he was gone for good," Wolverine said.

"I believe so . . but I don't want to test it. Now what did you want?"

"Well I wanted to give you a head's up about this super-human registration thing. Some of the team are takin' sides."

"It really isn't a concern of ours. Just tell everyone to stay out of it."

"It ain't that easy, Chuck. This thing is gettin' serious an' tearin' people apart. I don't think we can just sit on the sidelines anymore."

"Logan, I appreciate you for your talents, but planning and strategy isn't one of them. Leave the thinking to me, alright?"

I could see him bristle in anger. "You're wrong about this!" he spat as he turned and stormed out. He's so sensitive.

The more I sat there thinking about, the madder I was getting at Wolverine for suggesting I was wrong. That's really not his place. I thought about calling him back to my office and dressing him down, but then another idea occurred to me.

A wise man I know from a galaxy far away showed me an amazing trick he learned. He called it a Force Wedgie. Master Yoda suggested I might be able to duplicate his trick with my psionic powers.

Now my abilities are primarily telepathic. A long distance wedgie would be more telekenetic, but I have experimented in the past doing this trick with some success. I reached out with my mind and found Wolverine in the dining hall. He had dropped a quarter on the floor and was bending over to pick it up. He was using the opportunity to looked under the table the Exiles were sitting at to look up Blink's skirt. Pathetic.

I reached down and took hold of the back of his tidy whities. Then I pulled up with all the mental force I could muster. The elastic band ripped off as the cotton fabric got lodged deep in his crack.

I think I'll call it the Psi-Wedgie.

"You know, Professor, I do have other things to do than ferry you around the galaxy," Blink said, her voice tinged with an unmistakable sprig of irritation.

"Oh really? Like making goo-goo eyes at that Sabertooth from the Age of Apocalypse planet?"

I could see her recoil. "W-what?"

Perhaps I went too far. "Sorry. I didn't mean that. I suppose I'm still on edge from all the excitement of the last few weeks."

"You're date didn't go well, huh?" she asked in an almost gloating way.

"Actually I had a wonderful time with Erifia. At least when crazed homicidal bounty hunters weren't shooting missiles at us."

"You mean there's a price on your head?" Now I saw dollar signs lighting up in her eyes.

The thing about Blink is, she's not from our world. She's a mutant from a parallel Earth. Her counterpart here on our planet died awhile ago. While she does seem to be an ally, there is also something rather . . practical about her. I could feel the wheels turning her mind.

"You aren't thinking of collecting, are you?" I asked, half joking.

"You're the telepath. You tell me."

We both smiled at each other in that plasticky way that people who don't quite trust each other do. If I told her who had put the bounty there is definitely a chance, say 10%, that she would have teleported us right there, instead of back to the school. 20%.

As it is, we arrived safe and sound back in Westchester. The rest of her Exiles team was down in the dining hall enjoying a hot meal. I must say, everything seemed very peaceful and quiet. Just the way I like it.

As I leaned in for a kiss, Erifia quickly turned her head to offer me her cheek. I gave her a quick peck.

"Despite how it turned out, I enjoyed our first date, Charles," she said with a smile.

Message received.

Erifia and I left the shattered remains of the restaurant and headed out into beautiful downtown Poconos City. The breeze off the Moon Sea was quite delightful so we took a leisurely stroll towards the space port where her ship was docked.

She told me about the interesting developments on the Jedi council and I told her about my recent experience with Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator making first contact with the giant space dwelling leviathan. Our conversation flowed much more easily now that the tension of the 'first date' had been lifted.

As we made our way down the prominade, we came across a rather interesting street performer.

There was an upturned white helmet next to the dance mat that had some coins in it. A sign next to it said simply, "Save AOC." What could that mean?

Eventually we reached Erifia's ship.

"What about you?" she asked. "How are you getting home?"

"Oh, I'll be alright. I have an unbelievable taxi service."

"Well our date certainly wasn't boring," she said.

"Indeed. I had a wonderful time. Just the thing I needed to take my mind off things. Thank you very much Erifia, not least for saving my life. I hope we can get together again."

"Me too," she replied.

Then she leaned down and gave me a kiss on my cheek. With a smile and a wave she headed onto her ship. As I watched her take off, I signaled Blink to come and fetch me.

“What the frell is the Shi’ar Empire?" Erifia shouted to Jango Fett. "And I bet I can pay you more to go away.”

"Sorry, love," he called back. "What kind of rep would I have if I just let a pigeon go because someone offered me more money?"

With that he launched another barrage of mini-missiles, this time into the ceiling over our heads. His previous lazer blasts into the roof had destroyed the protective blast proof coating so his missiles hit straight into the base structure sending some sort of heavy concrete chunks raining down on our heads.

I backed up quickly and Erifia easily rolled out of the way. Unfortunately both of us were now out of our cover. Rather than shoot at me, Fett decided to take out Erifia first.

He aimed both his guns at her and started blazing away. I watched in fascination as the blur of her lightsaber sent the bursts careening safely into oblivion. Erifia continued to flawlessly deflect all of his shots as she closed in on the bounty hunter.





When she was just about on top of him, Fett fired some sort of jet back and flew across the large dining hall. Erifia leapt high into the air after him, doing an amazing triple summersault, her feet landing squarely into his armored chest. He smashed hard into the back wall.

"How could you possible have found him?" she asked as she spun around, her lightsaber just missing his head as he ducked.

"The idiot actually made reservations here!" Fett laughed. "He used their telepathic logging service. As soon as his name hit their system-" Fett launched into the air again, zipping to the far side of the restaurant "-my tracking board flashed and I light-sped my way here."

He landed and twirled, firing two more missiles straight at Erifia. She jumped into the air and twisted her body like a fish between them. They missed her and exploded, sort of harmlessly into the already ruined bar.

In a flash her saber whizzed in front of Fett and the barrels of his smoking pistols fell to the floor. He raised his arm to fire a point blank missile at her but Erifia did a round-house kick knocking his arm back into a pillar, destroying his launcher.

I could see he was about to take to the air again but with a swipe of her saber the jet pack was lying on the floor in two pieces. After a flurry of punches and kicks, Fett lay on the floor groaning in pain.

"You're picking up the tab for the damages her," Erifia informed him authoritatively.

As the local security rushed in to take away Fett, Erifia came over to me, a big smile on her face.

"My hero," I said with a smile of my own.

"Still hungry?" she asked with a sly tone in her voice.

"You were incredible out there. I've never seen such grace and beauty."

Erifia's face brightened even more. She ducked her chin down and said, "Really? You liked what you saw?"

"Oh yes," I said, and seeing my opportunity, leaned in for a kiss.

"Jango Fett? Jango Fett!" My voice was a little more nervous than I would have liked. I certainly didn't want my date, Erifia, to think that I got all girly in a crisis. "Who on Earth is Jango Fett?"

"No one on Earth," she answered as she smoothly rolled behind the over turned table. Somehow a glowing energy sword materialized in her hand. "He's one of the toughest bounty hunters this side of Tatooine."

Another explosion rocked the restaurant as patrons scattered hysterically. Fett launched another mini-missile from his wrist and the nearby bar disintegrated in a fireball.

"This is Jedi Master Apoc!" Erifia shouted out in a surprisingly commanding voice. "You will stand down immediately Jango Fett!"

"Not until I get my pigeon!" he shouted back. He fired a spread of energy blasts into the ceiling, sending a shower of electric sparks down over the restaurant.

"You are creating a public safety emergency, bounty hunter! Who is your target?"

"Baldy," he replied coldly.

I glanced around the hall and didn't see anyone else present who would fit that description. I felt a lump develop in the pit of my stomach. I reached out psionically to him, but something in his helmet blocked my powers. That is happening all too frequently these days.

"Professor Xavier?" she replied incredulously. "But who placed the bounty?"

"The Shi'ar Empire."