Chicago:
A College library:
The young X-Men are battling the Ghosts of Cyclops. Wakey wakey,eggs and bakey! Iceman sings as he shakes Cyclops awake. Some silly thing his mother used to say before she yanked the cover off him. Don’t get his hopes up, though. He doesn’t have any actual eggs and bacon. Neither had his mother, he mutters.
Confused, Scott asks what happened and where are they. Believe it or not, they are at the library. About to throw down with those misguided cosplayers of his. The Ghosts of Cyclops, Scott sighs, Long story. Can’t wait to hear it, Bobby replies sarcastically. Cyclops tells him this isn’t their problem. They shouldn’t even be here.
Is Thirst ready? the monstrous Ghost asks the water-spouting one. He’s all over it, comes the reply. Thirst spouts a water wave at the X-Men, which Iceman easily freezes, mocking that his name starts with ice. What did Thirst think would happen?
Angel flies up with Wolverine, who announces this is a diversion. The Ghosts are running. The Ghosts break through wall outside. The tall one cries for Thirst to come. He’s right behind them! Thirst shouts. Cyclops tackles him and announces, he is staying put! Angel and Wolverine fly after the others.
Scott begins to hit Thirst, even grabbing a baseball bat, but Beast shouts at him to stop. Scott replies he isn’t interested in his smart kid sage advice. This is between them. Again Hank orders him to stop. Why? Scott demands. Because the police are here, Hank points out.
One Cop orders Scott to drop the weapon. He complies. While Scott is being handcuffed, Beast tries to explain that their friend was jumped by a gang of six people. They beat him unconscious. A gang of six mutants? the cop asks. Hank continues that Scott went a bit overboard with the violence but do they intend to arrest a man for helping to apprehend his attackers?
Scott orders him to leave it alone. He assaulted Thirst. She’s doing her job. It’s none of his business anyway. Hank asks the cop to be reasonable. Angrily, she points out his buddy blasted a big hole into the roof. The way things are going, she could haul every mutant in here to the station. There’s not a judge who would bat an eye. Hank sighs. Calmer, she explains that, when there is a fight, they take both parties in to cool off. If his buddy is as innocent as he says, that’s all it will be. Either way, they’ll be able to pick him up in the morning. They leave.
What now? Iceman asks. Short of a jailbreak, there isn’t much they can do about Scott, Hank decides, not until tomorrow.
Hank decides they’ll take Pickles, who is currently yawning for some Pizza. How is that a priority? Evan asks. Hank reminds him teleportation takes fuel. After that cross-country jump, the little guy is running on empty. And judging by the frantic thumb typing going on – Hank refers to the students and their cell phones – he’s guessing the internet has heard all about teenage Cyclops. By tomorrow morning, when Scott gets out of jail, the place will be a zoo. They need this Bamf fed, rested and ready to roll.
He likes any plan that starts with deep dish, Bobby decides. Idie asks what about the nerd wagon that stands in the middle of the library. Hank orders Idie and Evan to take care of that. They’ll save them a few slices, Bobby promises. Cool? Not cool! Idie and Evan chorus.
Chicago Police department station #7:
Currently behind bars are Scott and Austin Deprez aka Thirst. Thirst rants about the cops’ stupidity. There is no special anti-mutant tech here. He could probably take down these walls with one big mouth wave. ‘Course, there’d be nowhere for the water to drain and they’d probably both drown. Him, though, with those big bad eye cannons, he could blast them out of here in a hurry. Not gonna happen though, huh? What’s his deal anyway? Is he Cyclops’ kid? Some kind of baby-faced clone…?
Scott doesn’t reply. None of his business then… cool. It doesn’t make much sense him coming after the Ghosts. This isn’t about disrespecting his dad. The total opposite. They’re all about Cyclops. Dude stood up and told it like it is. Mutants have been beaten down and screwed over long enough. This Cyclops mask—
Makes him look like a self-righteous mass-murdering psychopath? Scott finally shouts. He hates to break it to him, but his hero was a &%$# super villain!
It ain’t like that, Thirst replies. It’s exactly like that! Scott insists. He and his friends aren’t cool freedom fighting outlaws. They’re a gang of stupid kids who dress up like a monster to scare people and steal toys. Nobody’s impressed.
Where does he get off judging them? Thirst demands. Did famous Cyclops daddy not hug him enough, so now—
Scott calls him an idiot. Cyclops wasn’t his dad. He is Cyclops!
Elsewhere, Hank has bought some clothes for Bobby, who assures him he could have paid himself. Hank asks him to show him some dollars, a debit card, anything. Prove to him he has American currency on his person. He has money, Bobby repeats. He just forgot to put some in his costume, same as always.
They enter a pizza place and Hank sighs who cares. What are they doing? This is ridiculous. He keeps trying to have a real conversation with his motormouth best friend who usually tells him everything. Instead, he gets nonsense jokes. That’s what they do, Bobby replies not understanding. That’s how they talk.
Hank would like to know what’s going on with him. Bobby assures him he’s fine. Pickles sits in Hank’s backpack and spies the pizza slice on a man’s plate nearby.
Hank continues he’d love to hear how it’s going with the whole— Bobby orders him to stop it. Can they please order some friggin’ pizza already! He’s just trying to— Hank begins. Yeah, and he’s trying not to, Bobby shoots back. Should be obvious to the genius. That moment, Pickles teleports out of the back pack, teleports to the table and stuffs his face with pizza.
A car park:
Angel and Wolverine are outside eavesdropping on the other Ghosts of Cyclops, who talk about Thirst getting himself arrested. They don’t have to take this from a bunch of human cops, one of them rants.
No wonder Scott went after these guys, Angel whispers.
The black girl orders the speaker to relax and reminds him that the X-Men were also involved. The others believe those were just X-students. One of them adds there was a Cyclops among them. The others insist Cyclops is dead. The African-American girl points out that according to X-fan theories teenage doppelgangers of the original X-Men have been running around since last year. The bald girl asks for pics and the blond guys asks if she Snopes it. Jeremy tells them screw them. He intends to get his hands dirty.
Laura attacks, despite Angel’s protests, sure of herself. She unsheathes her claws and rips apart their car. Jeremy hulks into his superstrong form and threatens to kill her. No he won’t, Angel replies and joins the fight.
Planning to use these firebugs? an amused Wolverine asks the big guy with the glowing hand, or does that just happen when he gets real nervous? He fires at her and she just laughs it off, much to the Ghosts’ distress. He still looks nervous to her!
Angel drags the burning Laura out and douses her in a river. What the hell?! she snaps. He points out she was on fire. She smells like meat right now! Flaming Wolverine is even scarier than normal Wolverine! she shoots back. She had that fight won. She didn’t need help. She doesn’t ever need help!
In the meantime, the Ghosts get away in a car.
Outside the library, Idie announces she doesn’t see the problem. Hank wanted the nerd wagon out of the library, and now it is. Looking after the truck towing away the nerd wagon, Evan is not so sure. Idie remarks, if Hank McCoy wanted that crap job done differently, maybe he should have done it himself. A notion he’s sure Hank will ponder while trying to get his car from the impound, Evan sighs. She guesses, Idie grins.
They join the others at the pizza place and see Pickles stuffing himself with pizza and downing a mug of beer. Hank tries to grab him but he teleports out of his reach. In hindsight, perhaps they should have brought the pizza to Pickles…
In jail, Scott tells Thirst his story. He and his teammates were yanked through time to this godawful nightmare future, hoping they could convince his older self to turn things around. But there was no convincing that guy of anything. He grows up to be a real close-minded piece of work. A teeth-grinding control freak obsessive. Nobody understands his plan but him. Nobody can fix the world but him. He’s got it all figured out and will burn Xavier’s dream to the ground to prove it. So, instead of saving future, Cyclops they watched him ruin everything. His obsession grew and grew while things just kept getting worse. Then the Terrigen cloud happened and Cyclops just completely lost his mind.
And now here he is, trapped in this sad broken world. Knowing full well that he’s the one who broke it. Even though he’s not that guy… yet. And what can he do? What can he change about any of it? Nothing! Can he change his future? What future? His future already happened here! Cyclops already grew up and went crazy. He already broke everything they tried to build. This world hates mutants more than ever. Because of Cyclops. Because of him! Every time he users his powers people see him, so he doesn’t use them. When his friends look at him they see him. So he stays away. He’s doing everything he can think of to be somebody else. Anybody else. But no matter what he does he gets to be him when he grows up. Even if he can dodge the psycho bullet and change his destiny, he’s still stuck with that creep’s legacy. Because, unlike Thirst and his dumbass friends, his Cyclops mask doesn’t come off!
The cell wall is blasted and the other Ghosts of Cyclops enter. Cyclops might be dead and gone, but his Ghosts linger on!
