Inside David’s mindscape, he explains that, when your dad is the foremost psychic “mindbotherer” on the planet, you get used to things being weird. For instance, there’s a place his most secret thoughts are broadcast like a ballgame announcement.
Inside the mental prison in his mind, the personalities he had locked up in cells now run free, hunting the David Haller personality. His thoughts are being broadcast through loudspeakers that are placed throughout the prison compound.
His thoughts continue and say that there’s a conceptual realm inside his broken brain where every appearance of a crappy b-movie sci-fi prison. His mind is infested by a couple of hundred insane egos with their own killcrazy super-power. He and his father spent years trying to keep them at bay. Years of too many accidents and too much tragedy. Years, which he thought paid off when this place was conceived. A jail is as good as any place to control the unruly.
David introduces himself and says that, in the real world, people in daft costumes call him Legion. He wishes they wouldn’t. His father is dead and he isn’t entirely ready to think about that except the shockwave of it appears to have buggered everything up. So this whole prison for a brain idea… he’s a bit concerned it’s not working out.
The personalities inside his mind are fighting between themselves as the David personality lies on the floor in shock. David explains that time is basically borked here. Say there is a great cosmic ogre with the power of protonic cascade (whatever that is). Let’s say he grabs him and bites him, who knows how long that moment truly passes out there in the real world.
In David’s mindscape, a great red ogre grabs hold of him and bites his arm, drawing blood. In the real world, David is taken over by the ogre. He flies over a group of mountaineers whilst shouting that he is Kirbax the Kraklar and he girdles at their pitiful planet.
Back in his mindscape, David says it rarely lasts. His mind created all these beasties but it doesn’t mean they have any respect for each other. With that, a man dressed like a cowboy blasts Kirbax off David with his energy guns and grabs him for himself.
In the real world, David is outside a border station with soldiers around him. He is crazily firing two energy guns into the air as the people flee for cover. He wonders to himself how long it’s been since the jail cells opened. Days? Weeks? He hopes no one has been hurt. He supposes he should be touched with all this affection, he’s never felt so wanted in his life.
Back in his mindscape, a metal clad person pushes David and the cowboy apart whilst proclaiming that David is his. In the end David is just lucky. He has a second (or an hour... who knows?) of opportunity. A moments reprieve, a chance to recuperate. Before anyone else can grab him, David scrambles away and into an air duct.
In the real world, he comes to his senses again and takes a moment to find some peace. He sits down in the snow and looks across the landscape. Before he can relax too much, gunfire suddenly rains down on him causing him to jump. He turns to see a group of armed soldiers advancing on him. As he starts to run, a voice comes from somewhere and tells him they are normalizers. The People’s Liberation Equality Ops with a bit of mitochondrial enhancement and some macrotech.
David is confused as he can’t see who’s talking to him. He suddenly realizes that, if it’s the People’s Liberation army, then that means he is in China. A small light swirls around him and the voice comes from it. The voice continues and says that the reds are a bit tetchy about unregistered superhero types, especially the ones who shoot up border stations for fun. David suddenly runs across a mountain goat which seems just as surprised to see David. Before the goat can run, it is accidentally shot by the soldiers as they try and shoot at David.
David shouts to the voice for it to show itself. But the voice ignores him and says the he can’t really blame the soldiers. Imagine a bunch of godforsaken genefreaks running around willy-nilly… somebody’s got to keep an eye on them. Suddenly, a pair of eyeballs floats in front of David, much to his alarm. The dead goat suddenly rips apart and starts reorganizing itself into the shape of a humanoid. The voice, coming from the reforming being, says that the rice gobbling bastards ain’t got it all right. It hears that they are only allowed a single kid per couple here, nations packed with spoilt, whining, self-entitled brats like David. Horrific. The being now stands before David as a skinless humanoid man with patches of fur partially covering its exposed muscles.
David and the creature are now stood next to a snowy cliff as the soldiers continue to shoot at David. The creature gets David to steady him as he starts to climb down the side of the cliff. It laughs at the look on David’s face and says he thought he was supposed to be dangerous. Not some stammering little punk with *%&$ hair and a haggis-humper accent. David lets go of the creature’s hand and says that he is evidently talking to a xenophobic, tiny-minded numpty made up of eyeballs whilst being shot at by real-life bullets. So he’ll have to forgive him if he’s being a tad dramatic. He then demands to know who the creature is.
The creature asks if he means a name. He had one of them once. He excuses himself for a second so he can flick one of the icicles hanging down next to him. He suddenly notices the soldiers are coming again and asks if David can fight. Before he can answer, the creature speaks up and says that lucky for him he didn’t come all this way to see him pink-misted by a bunch of wannabe-guyver panda-lovers. He tells David he has a job to do and he intends to see him do it. He then points down the cliff-face and tells David they go down.
Elsewhere, a squad of X-Men arrives at the remains of the psychic commune David destroyed. Around them vultures pick the flesh of the corpses of the dead. Chamber asks what the flamin’ &*%*$ happened there, to which Storm chastises him for his language. Frenzy mutters to herself that there are lunatic *%&$*-talking youngsters present. Beast speaks up and asks Ruth, aka Blindfold, if there are any insights. Blindfold apologizes and says it’s still muddled and that everything is changing. She says all the paths are broken and shifting like red-lace scars on time. The future doesn’t know what it wants to be yet and he’s so scared. Beast picks up on the word “he” and enquires about it.
Mimicking a lawyer, Chamber says that the prosecution returns to exhibits A and B. With that, he takes out a digital tablet and starts reading from it. He says that some French mountaineers halfway up Everest get buzzed by a tosser with spiky hair like a troll toy. Then a border camp in Tibet gets knocked over by a semi-naked Eraserhead lookalike screaming about Injuns. Chamber says that no one has to spell it out. With that, Wolverine appears and says it’s Legion. Chamber says he stands corrected, to which Wolverine says he recognizes the scent.
Wolverine says they have a major problem, to which Beast agrees. He says that the poor lad doesn’t mean to be a reality-quaking liability but that doesn’t prevent him being one. He says that David has made no attempt to contact the school, so they must assume he knows about Charles’s death. Frenzy asks Blindfold if she has any thought on finding him, but Blindfold apologizes and grabs her head as if she is in pain. She says he is so frightened and the future wants to grasp him but alls he wants to do is hide.
Inside David’s mindscape, he is huddled up in one of the air-vents. He thinks to himself that a moments peace isn’t so much to ask for is it? Not in the safety of his own brain. In here, what passes for his subconscious, it’s all about control. If one of them catches him then his flesh is theirs. If he drains one of them, then he can use their abilities. Outside the air-vent, the numerous personalities are trying to get inside to gain control of him.
The question worth asking is does he need super-powers? Why face those monsters out there at all when it’s just for the chance to spit fire or fart acid? David starts to crawl through the air-vents, unaware that the new yellow rat-like creature is in there with him. He thinks that, as long as they can’t get to him, then he can live a normal life on the outside. His father wouldn’t approve though. He would say things like “denying your mutant heritage,” “refusing to realize your potential” and “standing by when you could be helping the world.” But he’s gone now and David is safe in here and he doesn’t ever have to feel judged again. He comes to a stop again as the weight of Xavier’s death hits him. He starts to shiver and admits that he misses his dad.
A voice suddenly rings out and gains his attention. Tyrannix the Abominoid is also crawling through the air-vents. He asks David if he really thought he was the only one small enough to crawl through there, into the conduits of his confidence. He is Tyrannix and his is the gift of telepathy, he can hear his thoughts. David clutches his head in disbelief. He yells at Tyrannix that he’s a sideshow figment created by his sick psyche. He can hear his thoughts because they are being piped through this &%*$*%* like a running commentary. David yells for him to leave him alone. But Tyrannix ignores him and continues working his way through the vents. He says he will find David and squeeze him, he will taste his soul and then he will become him.
In the real world, David and the creature are in a cave. David asks why it is helping him. The creature says that it isn’t him it’s helping. He’s doing it for what David will be one day and what he will do. The creature decides to give him an example. He says that David is like an icicle in the snow, he is stuck in one place, useless. But say someone tapped you just right and made you fall at a certain time. Say that a rat is scared-up when you hit the snow and the little sucker bolts out into the open. Say he’s seen by an eagle, which just happens to be passing and he flaps off to his favorite branch to chow down. But the branch snaps off at the extra weight.
David asks the creature what his point is, to which the creature replies that his point is that he sees the routes that things might take and he tweaks them to get the ones he wants. That’s his power and he earned it himself. As they leave the cave and head into a rocky ravine, they are suddenly spotted by one of the Chinese soldiers. The soldier points a gun at them and David raises his hands. He asks the creature if he can see a way out of this and the creature just says that he is disappointed. Above them a branch falls down and an eagle flies away with a rat in its claws. The branch hits a jutting out piece of rock, which in turn starts to break. The rock tumbles down and lands squarely on the soldier.
David backs away in shock but the creature just stands there and tells him he wasn’t paying attention at all. The creature grabs David by the arm and heads off. He says he shouldn’t be surprised he turned out such a letdown. He must have inherited his father’s useless genes along with the x-gene. He then asks David if he would kill if he had to. David tells him that he would never…well not deliberately anyway.
The two come face to face with the rest of the soldiers and the creature turns to David and says that they are going to make mincemeat of him. As the soldiers yells at him in Chinese, David tells the creature that he doesn’t know that, they might just arrest him. The creature says that he doesn’t mean these guys; he knows who he is talking about.
Inside David’s mindscape, he is scrambling through the vents with Tyrannix closing in on him.
Outside, the creature tells David that sooner or later his pa’s little bondage gear army is going to catch up with him. David realizes who he means but the creature says that he had better pray he is stronger than he is now. The X-Men are molded in his image and his father was cruel, inelegant and stupid. David tells him to leave off his father and the X-Men are good people. But the creature tells him that the X-Men are idealistic morons who prattle on about equality and tolerance and similar stuff they don’t understand but they do *%&$* all to achieve it. He says Xavier was a fool, to which David meekly tells him to stop. The creature ignores him and continues saying that he was a mediocre excuse for a figurehead and a coward to boot. David asks him to stop saying that again.
Inside his mind, Tyrannix crawls closer to him whilst repeating that he’s going to eat David. David is crouched down, holding his head and constantly repeating for him to stop saying that.
In the real world, the creature asks David if the world is a better for their species than when his father started out. Before he can answer, the creature says that the Chinese soldiers are going to blow him away in twelve point two seconds. If David won’t kill them, then he will. The creature disintegrates as the Chinese soldiers shout at David. The creature’s eyeballs shoot forward into one of the soldiers and blast a hole straight through his head, much to David’s alarm.
Inside his mindscape, Tyrannix is a matter of feet away from a scared David.
Outside, David yells for the creature to stop as it kills another solider. The remaining soldiers start firing at the floating eyeballs. Becoming angry, David yells for him to stop.
Inside his mind, David punches Tyrannix and slams his face into the wall of the vent. A dazed Tyrannix says that he is meant to be scared of himself. But David just uses his gloved hand with needles on and stabs Tyrannix, draining his power from him. David’s is now the power of telepathy.
Outside, David clicks his fingers and all the remaining soldiers fall unconscious. The floating eyeballs ask what happened and David tells him that he overloaded their pleasure centers. They will be out for about an hour and when they wake they’ll probably be in love with him. The eyeballs start to leave but David uses his powers to grab hold of them. David touches the mind of the creature and gets a flash of images. He sees a newspaper of his father admitting he is a mutant, Cyclops, Magneto, Emma Frost, Mirage, a man with a chainsaw, Dr. Kavita Rao and the squad of X-Men looking for him. The creature has no conventional brain to taste and he’s off like a greased up weasel before he can delve deeper. No name, no identity, just a swirl of fractals and a boundless hate for him, his father and mutants. The only thing he can prize from the storm that makes any sense is a pair of mutant twins in Tokyo being kept in fear and pain.
David wonders what they are doing in the mind of a redneck monster. Then he is gone and all that’s left behind is death, frost and the memory of the kids. And because of what the bastard said, winding him up like that, and because he won’t have him proved right… the question worth asking has changed. As David takes a jacket out of one of the unconscious soldier’s bags he wonders what his dad would do.
Inside his mind, he thinks they all know the answer to that… he will help those children. David, carrying a weak Tyrannix, scrambles through the vents until he manages to find a way out. He throws Tyrannix back in his cell and tells him that his is the gift of telepathy and he will take it from him whenever he wants. With that, he activates the energy bars on the door, sealing the personality back in again. He turns around to see dozens of his other personalities still clawing at the vent he originally escaped into. He cracks his knuckles as he muses that that’s one power sorted out, just a couple hundred more to go. What he doesn’t see is the yellow rat-like creature hidden in the shadows above him, watching him. The creature mutters to itself that David means a couple of hundred and one.
