Exiles # 1 - Down the Rabbit Hole

Brief Overview

Six strangers, each an X-Man from a different reality, brought together to insure that life as we now know it doesn't cease to exist! Blink - teleporter; Mimic - powered by his reality's X-Men; Magnus - son of Magneto and Rogue; Thunderbird - super-strength and senses; Nocturne - daughter of Nightcrawler; and Morph - shape-changing funny man. Destined to fix the kinks in the chains of reality.

Spoilers!!

In an inexistent location, in an inexistent time, a portal opens several feet above the sandy wasteland. A distressed, obviously non-human female falls head first from the portal.

Clarice Ferguson crashes to the ground, she is unaware that her life and reality have just experience a drastic change. Native to Earth-295, the reality in which Apocalypse ruled, she did not know that this horrible reality was never meant to exist...so just now it had ceased to.

Alone, she calls out, quickly spinning around to see a strange fellow non-human girl crouched upon the sand wearing naught but her shirt and underwear. The two both exclaim that the other looks like Nightcrawler, the newcomer saying that it makes sense for herself since she is Talia Josephine Wagner, his daughter.

The two are slightly confused at how they both know Nightcrawler, as TJ cannot remember Clarice from the histories and Clarice didn't know he had a daughter. Their conversation is interrupted as another non-human being appears, lying on the sand, dazed.

He is bald and his skin is white as snow, and he wears a caped superhero uniform. Blink joyously exclaims, Morph, as she is so glad he is alive. She jumps on top of him and begins asking question after question about what happened, Morph just throwing in his sarcastic remarks here and there.

But when she asks about their teammates he admits he has no ideas who she's talking about. And even though he enjoys her empathically pressing herself up against him and wishes for her to continue, he has no idea who she is.

In sadness she asks if he really doesn't know who she is, and when he begins hitting on her, she is still in dismay as she knows that something must be wrong. Morph, having lost Blink's love, asks Nocturne if she wants some but she turns him down.

Blink then makes the conversation more serious and asks what they were doing before they arrived. Morph says that he and his fellow X-Men were battling the cursed Stonehenge and Nocturne says she was in bed.

A fourth being, who is human in appearance but massive in size, makes his entrance exclaiming that he two was in bed before he arrived wherever they are. Nocturne says she knows him but questioningly asks if he is James. He says that he is John Proudstar and that his brother James is dead while Nocturne believes it to be vice versa.

The four come to the conclusion that all is not as it seems and that they are not alone, which is proven when another male who is blond-haired, winged and clad in uniform. He asks them if they are all lost as well.

Nocturne recognizes him as being Mimic, an X-Man from the distant past who held that position for a very short time. Finally a sixth confused being shows up, a male with a white streak in his hair wearing a red costume that covers all bare flesh minus his face.

He says that he thinks they should head to the wall-less, roofless kitchen in which a single man has just appeared in. And so the six burst forth from a portal that is just behind the kindly man.

He calmly offers them coffee and a danish but getting right to the point they demand answers. He is hoisted up by his vest by none other than the giant John Proudstar just before he is assaulted with questions based on assumptions.

The man then calms the confused adolescents down by by convincing them to listen to their gut feeling. Their gut was telling them that all is real, it is illusion or trick. Yet despite that fact, it seems they are still in a grave dilemma.

Now that they begin to feel more comfortable they begin to socialize with one another but Mimic calls for order and the mysterious man explains to the them that the reason they don't understand each other's history is because they are all from alternate realities.

And so he proceeds to help them become familiar with each other by showing them the other's history.

Talia Josephine (TJ) Wagner aka Nocturne: in her reality (Earth-2182) she is the daughter of one of the most prominent X-Men. She possesses many of her father's talents as well as some all her own. She was raised diligently by her parents and Charles Xavier's School. It was there that she became an X-Man, fighting alongside her father. Being an X-Man means everything to her, it an honor, as her teammates are all highly-skilled seasoned veterans.

John Proudstar aka Thunderbird (Earth-1100): he was personally picked by Professor X to be a member of the second team of X-Men. His warrior spirit was solely matched by his tremendous strength. Yet these qualities proved to be his downfall when they captured the attention of Apocalypse. Thunderbird was reborn as a mightier version of his formal self, bred to serve Apocalypse. But for John, it was the experience he wishes to erase from his past, for he remembers it as being the day he died. His life of servitude towards Apocalypse ended soon after this transformation, his fierce spirit freeing him from his master's control. He then returned to the X-Men, a changed man, his only goal in life had been to find an inner peace and reason for his own existence yet now it seems that shall never come to pass.

Magnus aka the son of Rogue and Magneto ( Earth-27): his birth was a miracle for the two distraught souls that brought him into the world. Throughout his life, his abilities continued to grow, it soon became evident that he would be more powerful then his father, the master of magnetism. Yet he was doomed to be alone like his mother as when his flesh came in contact with that of another they were transformed into pure steel. So he kept to himself, the fact that he can kill with a single touch would remain forever etched in his mind.

Morph (Earth-1084): the cheerful mutant was constantly met with success, being able to hide his talent as a child, helping him remain free of prejudice. When Charles Xavier drafted Morph into his School for Gifted Youngsters, Morph trained his abilities with his usual enthusiasm. Originally he was a New Mutant, then graduated to become an X-Man eventually even becoming an Avenger. But he decided to return to the X-Men, the team that had become his family.

Mimic (Earth-12): the man who has the mutant power of copying anyone else's power. Calvin Rankin was born into poverty and becoming enraged he decided to use this anger as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. But Professor Charles Xavier saw past this side of Calvin and wished to tap into the boy's full potential. So Charles reached out to Calvin, and being the first to do so caused Mimic to join the School, where he grew in power thanks to the Professor's teachings. Eventually he became one of his reality's greatest and the leader of the X-Men. Thanks to him, his reality's abundance of mutants is better accepted than any other reality.

Blink (Earth-295): as a child in the Age of Apocalypse reality she was kidnapped at a young age and raised in the pens where medical experiments and genetic engineering were routine. But she was saved from this atrocity by Victor Creed, the man otherwise known as Sabretooth. And with his help she became a valuable member of Earth-295's X-Men, fighting the god-like Apocalypse. But this defeat of Apocalypse was not completed without sacrifice so this horrible world came apart and Blink fell through the cracks of reality.

The television screen goes blank and the man resumes the conversation by saying that they are the moment amazingly talented and eclectic group you could get but unfortunately they are unhinged in time.

He rids them of their confusion by revealing himself as Timebroker and tells them that time is like a living, moving, growing being much like a DNA chain.

He then says that there are trillions upon trillions of alternate realities but Mimic is in disbelief at this statement. The Timebroker assures them he is not joking and says that in these realities they are sometimes the opposite sex, apes, protozoa or even merely energy signatures.

But of course time, like DNA, some strands are defective. While these effects are sometimes benign or never work together to become an actual threat there are occasional "hiccups" that create ripples in time.

It is these ripples that displaced the six X-Men because it altered seemingly unimportant events in their past, which changed the entire courses of their life.

Magnus accidentally killed his mother after his thirteenth birthday, by transforming her into steel. His father, Magneto, never recovered and so once again resumed his fight against humanity.

Mimic's first mission with the Brotherhood, to capture Senator Robert Kelly was unsuccessful and instead the Senator and forty-seven bystanders were killed...Mimic is on death row.

Morph was injured battling the Morlocks when he was still a New Mutant so he is now comatose, in a liquid state, kept in a beaker in Hank McCoy's lab.

Nocturne's father was killed by his own mother, Mystique, in a battle with the Hellfire Club.

Thunderbird failed to escape the grip of Apocalypse and still remains his servant.

Blink was never born.

The only way for them to return to the life they left is if they fix the realities that created the ripples that altered their past. However it is possible for them to die or fail, the latter would return them to this new existence.

However, Blink cannot return as she no longer exists, so she must remain a member of the Exiles. The Timebroker then gives her the Tallus, which will guide them as best it can. Despite their wishes he says that he cannot come with them since he is only an idea their minds created to deal with the trauma they are currently going through.

He then departs, promising to keep in touch here and there leaving the six young men and women alone. They then find themselves to be airborne, some panicking, others coming the rest since they are only twenty feet off the ground.

They land and soon realize they are thirty-three miles outside of Phoenix. The Tallus tells Blink that they must find "the one who would lead (them)." Though confused, Nocturne and T-Bird decide they need to go shopping while the others discover what is wrong with this reality they've been sent to.

Later the Tallus sends Blink another message, in this reality it was decided Homo Superior and other super beings would NOT be tolerated, so instead they were imprisoned, executed or aborted. This has continued for fifty years and as such no one is left.

Just then Nocturne and Thunderbird butt in after buying clothes at the leather shop and sporting goods store, respectively. Nocturne and Morph then begin talking in private and Morph mentions that each of them were wearing more clothing before they went shopping.

Nocturne then reveals that Thunderbird bought his clothes at a big gals store and she pretended to care that he saw her naked so that he would think that she'd keep his secret.

Blink then once again calls the team to order by bringing up that they must still find "the one who would (them)", they must find "(their) greatest teacher". And so in unison, Mimic, Magnus and Nocturne say, "Charles Xavier", the man who was missing from Blink's reality.

She remains a little doubtful but Calvin assures her that it is the Professor. Nocturne then brings up that they still need to find him, if he is even alive. So Magnus decides to build a Cerebro with Mimic and Nocturne each manning it thanks to their limited telepathy.

Magnus attempts to overcome this lack of ability with Phoenix's electricity but tells them they will have to exert themselves. The three then push themselves to their limits but are caught in an explosion caused by the energy output. A dazed Mimic, now lying on the floor, says that the Professor is alive, in the Nevada Desert where he is held at a holding facility.

Because this world had been without Reed Richards, Tony Stark or Bruce Banner they were far behind other realities in technology. So the team found it easy to hack into a Maximum Security facility's mainframe and learned that their electricity siphoning had blacked out half of Phoenix.

So their confidence remained even when breaking into the facility they tripped every sensor, even those that weren't turned on, but remained positive throughout. They gave up on the "stealth approach" and rather begin a fight, Mimic admitting that they had seriously underestimated what they were up against.

But truthfully the intruders were simply distractions to keep all eyes off those fulfilling the team's objective. It was pretty hard to ignore perhaps the strongest being these men had never seen, especially if they were hostile.

Yet in an empty hallway Blink uses a portal to bring Magnus with her. Magnus complains about their techniques but Blink remains impatient in completing their mission. Blink tells Magnus that the Professor is in Cell 9 and they head off.

Magnus questions how these people imprisoned the most powerful psychic of his generation. When he learns the answer he is horrified to see his teacher encased in a metal device that keeps him immobile, incapable of using his powers and barely conciouss.

Nocturne continues to struggle in her fight with the guards of the facility, trying to communicate with her teammates using the micro-transmitters that Magnus created. She turns her back and cowers, knowing she will be hit by the blasts the guards are firing at her.

But an angelic wing shields her body and Mimic takes the hit, telling her to head for higher ground and prepare for evacuation. As Nocturne and Mimic continue to battle alongside each other, Nocturne comments that even with only half the strength of Colossus he can do some serious damage.

Calvin returns the compliment by telling her she is no slouch herself, to which she says that she already knew that. Morph, in the form of a Tarzan-like man speaks like he was raised in the jungle saying that he wants to go home because he is getting shot at and he misses the cheetah and his monkey.

As he fights Thunderbird says he doesn't see why Morph is given a communicator and then proceeds to say he will head to the upper levels, but he'll have to hurt a lot of guards on the way.

Seconds later Blink has used her portals to individually rescue Thunderbird, Nocturne, Morph and Mimc, bringing them into the desert where Magnus has succeeded in detaching Xavier from all the wiring that was attached to his head.

The others think Xavier should be brought to a hospital, unfortunately that would not be safe. Mimic decides they should find shelter where the Professor could recuperate, Nocturne pipes in that he probably isn't a Professor in this universe, just one of the most powerful mutants ever born finishes Morph. Mimic brushes aside the comments and puts his hand on Charles' shoulder telling the barely-awake man that he is still his teacher nonetheless.

They are about to split up when Charles awakes, mumbling, "I'm free...?" Mimic tries to convince him to rest but Charles does not listen and rather gets to his feet. Nocturne then says they will explain everything to him and he mockers her, telling her that he is in their heads and already knows everything.

Then, thanks to his psychic attack on the team, they all suffer nosebleeds as they are thrown backward from the force of the attack. As the six lay on the ground with their eyes closed he continues to ridicule them, especially their beliefs on who he is. He says that as Homo Superior, the next evolutionary step, they need to take humanity's place... by exterminating the entire species.