Match rubbed his eyes and yawned, sitting up in his fireproof bed. He took a moment to let his eyes get used to the darkness; though his own body provided some sort of light, there were still no windows and he was pretty sure they were underground anyway. They had been blindfolded “for their own good” the entire time they were brought to the base, so none of them knew where they were or if they were even still in the United States. He got to his feet and stumbled around for the light switch, almost tripping over his suitcase (which he had thrown on the floor the night before). He flipped the switch, turning on the lamp on his bedside table. He glanced down at his watch and groaned; it was twelve thirty in the afternoon. He was never much of a late sleeper, so he was surprised at this. He wondered if anyone else was still asleep at this point. He threw on his green, black and red outfit (which he had previously worn in his group, the Paragons, at the institute; which subsequently made him wonder if Professor Membrain would be assigning them a team uniform of some kind) and walked outside into the lit hallway. He made his way into the front lobby and saw his teacher fussing with a device of some sort.

“Ah, look who’s finally up,” Membrain said without even bothering to turn around, “You should go have breakfast. Or maybe it would be more like lunch at this point? Well anyway, you’ll find the kitchen through that door to the right.”

Ben entered through the door and found himself in a room that looked more like a laboratory than a kitchen. Steel tables lined much of the room, and machines labeled with different kinds of food and drink ran along the opposing wall. The fiery-headed male grabbed a tray (which didn’t melt in his hands, so he assumed everything in the headquarters was fireproof and heatproof for his own sake; though this only lent more suspicion to how random the creation of this team really was) and walked up to the machine labeled “chicken.” He pressed the button and heard a whirring type of sound, like the kind you’d hear from a commercial microwave. A flap in the machine opened and a roasted chicken leg slid out onto his tray. He loaded his tray with other food, which all looked surprisingly good. He grabbed a cup of soda and turned around, immediately almost dropping everything he had in his hands. Alexis was sitting by herself at one of the tables and staring at him with her goose-bump-inducing red eyes.

“Uh…hey,” he said, putting his tray and cup down at the nearest table.

Port waved and smiled briefly, but that was all. She didn’t even have a tray in front of her, so Ben could only assume that she had just been sitting there and doing nothing.

“Where’s everyone else?” he asked, trying to draw his eyes away from her intoxicating stare.

She gestured towards another door, which muffled sounds seeped through from. He realized that this was a bit of a stupid question, so he decided to sit down and eat his food without another word. He was nearly finished when he couldn’t stand her staring and the awkward silence anymore.

"So, do you like the food here?”

The girl shrugged and brushed some hair out of her face. Match found himself getting very annoyed at her responses.

“Do you talk? Y’know, words?” he asked perhaps a little too rudely.

“If you’re done eating you can go,” she spat, blushing furiously and staring down at her table.

Ben rolled his eyes, though he did feel a little bad for her. (Not bad enough that he wasn’t glad she was no longer staring at him, of course.) He looked around for a garbage bin but couldn’t spot one, so he left his tray on the table and walked through the door to join the others. What he found in the next room shocked him. Comfortable-looking chairs and couches sat before the largest plasma-screen television he had ever seen in his life. Hellion, Surge, Loa, and Indra sat watching Family Guy (though the last individual looked as if he was confused at the show’s sense of humor). Dust sat at a table in the back of the room with headphones in, listening to what Ben assumed was music from her home country. Dryad was tending to some plants she had apparently sprouted in one of the corners. Network sat at a computer not too far away and whispered softly, causing things to happen on the screen without her even having to so much as touch the mouse. It looked as if she was on the site "Neopets" or something of that sort. Wherever they were, Match knew that they must be pretty close to civilization if they were able to receive an internet signal. He walked over to one of the seats and subsequently crossed in front of the TV. Julian waved at the fiery-headed male and gestured for him to sit down.

“Hey, Human Torch Jr.! Down in front!” he said, then took a much lighter tone, “I’m tellin’ ya, man…I could really get used to this place. It’s not as much of a dump as I thought it was. The food’s not half bad and this TV is absolutely sick; I mean...it looks big enough to squash an elephant!”

Match took a seat in a (thankfully) fireproof chair and looked around, still in awe at the sudden change from the cold steel halls of the headquarters. He had thought that this Membrain guy knew absolutely nothing about comfort and entertainment, but apparently he was wrong. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all. Just as this thought crossed his mind, their professor’s voice rang out over the P.A. system.

“Attention all students, I would like you to gather in the front lobby. It’s time for your first mission,” he said.

Network was the first of them to leave, nearly jumping up from the computer chair and speed-walking out the door. The rest of them pondered what Membrain had meant by “mission” as they made their way back to the lobby. Ben noticed that Alexis had already left the kitchen at this point, though he wasn’t sure if she had left earlier, or when she heard the announcement just now. He was also surprised to see that his tray he had left there earlier was gone.

“You all have a very important task ahead of you,” he said as the last of them entered the lobby, “I trust I don’t need to inform you that Xavier took young mutants into his institute to teach and protect them. After all, each of you experienced that firsthand. Now you will have the chance to do the same for even more budding mutants.”

“Wait…I thought this was supposed to be a private team, right?” asked Surge, “I mean…What’s the point of making another institute?”

Membrain held up his hand to silence her and shook his head.

“No, no, don’t get me wrong. We’ll only be taking them in temporarily until they’re ready to be sent to the institute, and we will only have a few at a time. You see, we have certain…privileges that Xavier and his school don’t. We don’t have a public image to upkeep, and we act of our own agenda.”

“That…sounds a little frightening, professor,” Alani said softly.

“I assure you, it only means that we can help more mutants your age that can’t control their powers. We won’t be doing anything wrong or illegal,” the older male said.

Membrain crossed the room to a large machine which Network sat in the center of. A helmet with wires connected to the machine at various points sat on her head.

“Now, we’ll be using this to locate these young mutants. Sarah here will communicate with the machine, which will locate new strong signals of mutant energy and relay that information to her. Using that information, we will be able to determine the threat level of the individual’s budding powers. If it is sufficiently high enough, we will then move to this,” he said, walking over to a large open machine with two smaller compartments on each side, “Network and Port will combine their powers to use this machine to teleport the rest of you anywhere in the world. So through the use of this, you will warp to the location of the mutant, convince them to join our cause, or if necessary detain them for their own good, and will be teleported back. I haven’t yet figured out a way to send Port and Network with you while still allowing you to return through teleportation, so I’m afraid they will have to stay behind.”

The brown-haired male walked over to the other seven students and handed them each what appeared to be an earpiece.

“You will use these to communicate with each other, as well as us. If you find yourselves in trouble, are ready to return, or need to contact us for any other reason, just press the button on the side and speak,” he explained.

He turned to the raven-haired girl, who nodded and closed her eyes. The machine she sat in began to whir as various lights along it lit up.

“Sarah is now trying to locate a suitable candidate to rescue or recruit. If we’re lucky, this should only take a few moments. You wouldn’t believe how many young people develop mutant powers every day,” Membrain said.

There were a few moments of eerie silence except for the noises emitting from the machine. Many of the students worried about how safe this was, and how safe what they might be doing soon is.

“Got it!” the black-haired female suddenly shouted as the machine stopped its whirring and flashing, “Albuquerque, New Mexico! There was a strong mutant signal there, which was identified as not being there before.”

“Excellent, Sarah! It seems we might have our first young mutant in distress! Quickly, everyone into the teleportation device!” Membrain exclaimed excitedly.

He hurried the seven students into the central chamber as Alexis and Sarah entered the two side ones.

“And don’t worry, each of your earpieces have a tiny camera installed in them; I’ll be able to see everything that happens,” he said to reassure them.

With a smile and a friendly wave, he pulled a lever on the front of the machine. The two side chambers began to glow brightly, followed by the central chamber, until…

Albuquerque, New Mexico;

United States of America

With a bright flash of light, seven teenagers appeared out of thin air. This would have been very shocking for someone to have seen, had anyone been in the area at that moment. However, this part of the town was deserted, and for good reason. What appeared to be a black, goopy substance covered what was left of buildings, streets, trees, and anything else that had once stood in that area. Thankfully the young mutants had appeared in the one clean spot in a half a mile radius for whatever reason.

“Yikes, what the heck happened here?” Surge asked.

“What is this stuff?” her pink-skinned teammate added, “Ink? Tar? Maybe oil?”

Indra touched a button on his earpiece and spoke aloud.

“Professor, can you analyze this substance? I am afraid to touch it,” the purple-hued male said.

“Well, duh, none of us are gonna actually touch it,” Hellion muttered, lifting some up into the air telekinetically.

“Just give me a moment,” Membrain’s voice rang in each of their earpieces, “Hmm…I see. Well, the first thing you should know is that whatever this is, it didn’t exist before now. It’s also extremely corrosive, so I would recommend keeping your distance from it.”

Hellion immediately released his control over the glob of black goop, which had been floating only a few feet away from his face.

“My guess would be that this was a result of our new mutant friend,” the older male continued, “Which means that the sooner we find them and get their powers under control, the better.”

“Professor, are you sure that tracking down this mutant is the best idea? I mean, what if they were to attack us? It’s doubtful we could survive an encounter like that,” Dust said in a worried tone.

“Don’t worry. If that happens, I will have Port teleport you back here before any of you get hurt,” Membrain reassured his young students, “Besides, if you don’t stop them here and they go on a cross-country rampage, just think of the destruction they could cause. We have a better chance of controlling their power than most likely anyone else does.”

“And you promise you won’t let any of us get hurt?” Dryad asked.

“Yes, I promise.”

“Okay, well…Let’s give it a shot, guys,” Match said, “The professor is right, after all. If we don’t stop them, who will?”

The other six students nodded in agreement.

“Alright, the first thing we should do is find out which way this guy went,” Hellion suggested, lifting himself into the air with his powers, “Anyone who won’t be hurt by this stuff should spread out and search for any sort of trail. We’ll meet back here once someone finds something.”

Dust immediately turned into her dust form and flew off to the east. Match propelled himself into the air with powerful flames and took off to the west. Loa took a deep breath and activated her powers, safely stepping through the goop in a southern direction.

“Stay here and wait for us, okay?” Julian said to the other three before floating off to the north.

Indra, Dryad and Surge stood and waited in nerve-wracking silence. Though the black goop had destroyed much of everything in the area, there was still enough left that they could no longer see their friends in the distance. With each passing moment they feared more and more that something horrible had happened to the other students. They nearly jumped out of their skins when Dust’s accented voice suddenly rang through their earpieces.

“I have found something!”

In a moment the seven students were reunited and found themselves being lifted into the air by Hellion’s telekinetic abilities, with the exception of Dust, who was leading the way. In a couple of minutes they came to a spot where the mass of black goop stopped, and only a lone trail leading further into town existed. The group touched down here, being able to safely follow the trail from there on. They were shocked when they turned a corner and suddenly found themselves in a very crowded street. It seemed like at least a hundred people were gathered around one point, but for what reason none of them could decipher. Hellion levitated up above the heads of the crowd to get a better look at what all of the fuss was about. The first thing he noticed was a human-shaped pile of the black substance in question. It moved every so often, so he could only assume that this was the person they were looking for. The next thing he noticed was a man in a black outfit with cerulean colored boots, gloves, and a ski mask. He was shouting something and waving an odd-looking gun around. Hellion touched back down and gestured for the others to follow him through the crowd. They pushed their way towards the front (and people generally made way for them when they saw the likes of Match, Indra and Dryad) and as they drew closer, they were able to hear what the man was yelling.

“-uase of this…this thing that much of our beautiful town is destroyed, and countless lives have been lost! This mutant is a danger to everyone and everything around it! We must act now and destroy this threat before we all become victims of these genetic mistakes! These…these fools who think they are better than us and can get away with not accepting the consequences of their actions! And we shall start with this abomination!”

With that, the man turned and aimed the strange gun at the young mutant’s chest.

“Please, I didn’t mean to! It was an accident!” the mutant pleaded.

“Stop!” a cry rang out amongst the crowd.

A group of oddly-dressed teenagers had pushed their way through the crowd and now stood only a few yards away from the scene. They were mutants, clearly; one even appeared to be on fire.

“You see? This thing has called more of its kind here to help it! They will destroy our homes and slaughter us like swine to the butcher’s!” the man exclaimed, pointing with his free hand at the seven strangers.

All around them, the crowd backed away in fear. This person obviously had the frightened townspeople under his thumb, and the last thing the young mutants needed now was to face a riot.

“Please, we mean you no harm!” the pink-skinned girl named Callie cried out, “We just want to help!”

“Yeah, help us into our graves!” someone in the crowd shouted.

“Shit, this isn’t good…We can’t fight these people! They’re just innocent bystanders!” Noriko thought to herself, raising her gauntleted hands in readiness.

Suddenly, the man in the black and blue outfit squeezed the trigger and a white beam shot from the barrel of the odd gun, striking the goop-covered mutant in the chest. The black substance disappeared, revealing a young teenage girl. However, that girl soon disappeared as well, leaving only a pile of ashes behind. The crowd turned their attention from the group of mutants to this new sight and there was a dead silence. One person screamed, followed by the rest of them as the entire crowd ran in terror. The only people who didn’t run were the members of Division M, who were horrified and furious at what had just happened. Loa and Dryad sobbed and held each other in fear. Surge gritted her teeth as her gauntlets surged with electricity. Match’s body glowed with intense heat. Indra and Dust simply stood in silence, shocked down to the core.

“You bastard!” Hellion screamed.

The man turned and pointed the gun at the raven-haired male, a devious smile flashing across his face.

“You’re next,” he said coolly.

Hellion’s left hand glowed and the gun was yanked out of the man’s hand. His right hand glowed and the man found himself lifted several feet into the air. The gun turned around in midair and pointed itself at the man who had fired it only moments ago. To Julian’s surprise, a smile showed beneath the man’s ski mask again.

“Go on; do it. Pull the trigger and kill me.”

Hellion’s face contorted with rage as he clenched his fists so hard that his nails dug into his palms. However, he couldn’t bring himself to fire the weapon.

“What are you waiting for…you fool?!”

Hellion’s features suddenly relaxed and his ears perked up as he heard something strange in the distance. The seven mutants turned to see several black helicopters quickly approaching their location. As they got closer, a round icon could be seen on the sides of them. The icon showed a silhouette of a bird of prey with what appeared to be a variation of the American flag in the center. The words “Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate” adorned the outer rim of the icon.

“That’s…SHIELD…” Ben whispered.

For whatever reason, Hellion pulled the floating weapon to him and hid it in the pants leg of his uniform. The helicopters came to a stop above them and ropes dropped down as men in black uniforms slid down to the ground. They quickly surrounded the suspended man.

“You think this is over? As long as there are fools in the world, there will always be a Foolkiller!” the man shouted.

One of the SHIELD soldiers shocked the Foolkiller with a taser, knocking him unconscious. Hellion released his mental grip on him and the soldiers dragged him off by his arms. A man in a similar black uniform adorned with a pendant that showed his high rank walked over to the seven teenage mutants.

“Thank you for detaining the man known as the Foolkiller. Your help is much appreciated, citizens. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, we’d like you to come with us for questioning,” the man said to them.

Professor Membrain’s voice suddenly rang out in their earpieces.

“No, we can’t let them take you in. They might tie all of you to this whole incident somehow. Believe me, SHIELD is not the kind of organization I would like to trust. I know for a fact that there are some higher-ups in there that are avid mutant haters. They’d have your heads if they could! Just sit tight; the machine is warming up and Port will have you out of there in no time.”

“Well? What do you have to say?” the man in black asked, clearly annoyed at their silence.

“Um…Questioning about what, sir?” Indra asked in response.

“About the corrosive black substance and the Foolkiller, of course. What did you think?” the man replied, “Now, come along. I promise it won’t take long.”

The seven students looked at each other, none wanting to move so much as one step.

“Port is getting a lock on you…just a moment…” Membrain’s voice said in their ears.

“I said come on. If you don’t comply, we’ll be forced to make you.”

Each of them pictured the Foolkiller getting “tased” and began to worry. They took slow steps forward, hoping that any second they would be warped to safety. As they passed by the man, he suddenly held out a hand.

“Hold on a second…What’s that in your pant leg?” he asked, staring fiercely at Hellion.

“It’s…nothing,” the raven-haired boy replied.

“That looks an awful lot like-…Men! Detain these kids!” the man shouted, advancing on Hellion and pulling a handgun from his side holster.

A dozen uniformed men came running towards them, guns at the ready. The seven mutants were just about to send their powers a-blazing, when…

Unknown Location;

Division M Headquarters

The mutants in question appeared in the central chamber of the machine, sweaty and pale with fear and anticipation. Their muscles quickly relaxed as their blood pressures returned to normal.

“Talk about getting us out of there at the last second. We almost got ourselves in a huge fight with the U.S. government’s biggest military organization,” Loa said with a sigh, wiping some sweat off her brow.

“Yes, you should have teleported us back sooner,” Dust said while turning towards Port, who was in the side chamber to the left.

“The machine takes some time to warm up…and it’s not easy for her to teleport you guys perfectly when you’re so far away,” Network said, coming to her defense.

“The most important thing is that you’re all okay,” Membrain said, making his presence known to his students for the first time.

“Professor! Professor! We couldn’t…save her…” Callie said, bringing her hands up to hold the sides of her arms as tears streamed down her pink-hued cheeks.

“I know, I saw. It’s a shame, but you did all you could. Besides, we must learn from our mistakes so that we may prevent them from happening in the future,” the older man replied.

“Is that what that was? A mistake?!” Surge shouted, clenching her gauntlets in rage as tears formed in her brown eyes.

“No, no! I’m just saying-”

Hellion suddenly walked from the machine and pushed past his teacher, storming off down the hall towards their rooms. The brown-haired male sighed and rubbed his temples.

“Okay, look…Yes, she died. But you mustn’t beat yourselves up. Thanks to you, the man who killed her is in custody and he can no longer harm anyone else. You did the absolute best you could, and I’m proud of you,” he said to the other students.

The eight other students followed after Hellion, heading to their respective rooms. Membrain slid his hands into his pockets and sighed.

“Boy, this is awkward…I should have foreseen something like this,” he said, walking down the same traveled hallway. He arrived at the door labeled “Hellion” and knocked on it. There was no response so he knocked again, but was met with more silence.

“Julian, are you alright?” he asked.

He heard nothing still and slowly opened the door after a moment. Hellion sat on his bed with the disintegrating gun cradled in his hands, staring at it.

“Professor…I wasn’t good enough. I should have stopped that guy…the Foolkiller…”

Membrain sat down on the bed next to his young pupil and took the gun from him, looking it over.

“This is the gun he used, yes? I see you decided to keep it,” he said.

“I should have just pulled the trigger. That bastard deserved to die for what he did,” the raven-haired male spat.

“But you didn’t, did you?” Membrain replied, “And in my opinion, you made the right choice. You could have killed him, but you didn’t because you’re a good person. You don’t need to lower yourself to his level. Besides, you protected your friends from him, didn’t you?”

Hellion seemed to calm down a bit, but his teacher could tell he still had strong doubts.

“What happened to that girl…It was terrible. I’m sure all of your teammates feel that they are responsible for what happened too. But like I said before, you all did the best you could. Just think of it this way: Even if you hadn’t shown up, that girl still would have died. But even worse, that madman might still be out there since you weren’t there to restrain him. So though you might not have saved that girl, you saved countless other lives through your actions,” Membrain explained.

The boy’s mentor gave him a pat on the back and stood up, walking to the door.

“Now, why don’t you get some rest? You deserve it,” he said before leaving the room.

Julian let his body fall backwards onto his bed and sighed, putting his hands over his face. What Professor Membrain had said was true, but he still couldn’t help feeling guilty. That girl…she had her own friends, her own family, and her own life. Now she was gone because of some man who thought mutants were a threat to society. The image of Sofia, the Wind Dancer, appeared in his mind. She too had been killed by a mutant-hating person for being a ‘menace.’ It was enough to make one wonder…Who was the real menace in all of this?

Next Issue

A trip to the Big Apple, but it ain’t for sight-seeing! Find out what happens in the next action-packed issue of New Mutants: Division M!