Hank McCoy was already paranoid. He had good reason. The last time X-Force trusted him, he’d turned the team into a black-ops suicide squad. Now he worked in a separate wing of the Arbor Magna, designing botanical counter-intelligence.
He held up a data-slate. On it: resurrection logs. John Proudheart had been reborn ninety-seven times in the last six hours. Each copy had a different mission. Kill a diplomat. Sabotage a gate. Whisper a phrase into the ear of a sleeping child. xforce 2021
That night, Quentin dreamed of a quiet greenhouse, where a man with sad eyes taught him how to make flowers grow. Hank McCoy was already paranoid
Quentin stepped forward. “Every time you resurrect, you’re not healing. You’re just moving your trauma into a new body. And the Cuckoo-ghosts? They’re using your pain to feel alive.” Now he worked in a separate wing of
And plugged into it, via neural-feedback leashes, were five Cuckoos. Not the Five—the Stepford Cuckoos’ discarded backup personalities. The “ugly” sisters. The ones Emma Frost had pruned for empathy.
“Tell the Cuckoos… I’m sorry I couldn’t be their friend. Only their wound.”
Now, something had let him out.