Disclaimer: The X-Men characters, and all other recognizable characters are copyright to Marvel Entertainment Group. No copying, distributing or editing of this material is permitted without the express permission of the creator, K-Nice. Thanks to Smoot for betaing and giving me the courage to post this.
Premise: Each of the X-Men react to Bastion’s violation of the mansion
© K-Nice 1999

Stolen Identities
by K-Nice

Phoenix

I would be lying if I claimed not to feel it. The pain and loss that echoes through this house. He left nothing unmarred, especially not the Professor's office.

This is where he shut the voices off in my head, this is where he taught me back when I was his first and only student.

This office came to embody control, restraint in the face of great power. I picture it in my mind every time I reach out to use my powers. Now all I have to look to is this emptiness.

Iceman

It's gone. It's all gone. There's nothing left.

I've lived in this house since I was 14, and I've been a super-hero for just as long. Now there is nothing to show for it. Just four empty walls and a hollow echo.

It's like I was never even here.

Psylocke

The Danger Room was the place I went to remember.

I survived the Siege Perilous, Kwannon, the Crimson Dawn, by being able to remember that once upon a time things were different. He took all the programs, though I doubt he can run them.

No one will ever know that I spent hours playing dress up like I was really Elizabeth Braddock, poor little rich model, all over again. All the mirrors showed my true face.

When the darkness crept up, when I wanted to surrender to the night, I would just look into my old fact, my own face and light came back. What can I do now?

Wolverine

Pictures of Mariko.

My clothes.

My books.

The things that made me a man instead of an untamable berzerker.

I ain't gonna go feral just 'cause I ain't got them no more.

But it will be harder to keep the beast at bay.

Storm

My plants. I was a goddess to them, at least. I brought them life, gave them sun and rain and shade. They were my kingdom, and by the Bright Lady, I shall miss my benevolent reign over them.

They are dead, like the desert, like the Morlocks. Like this house.

Angel

The loser stole the silverware. This was where the curio stood, and there was the china cabinet. the oak sideboard stood here. the dining table was solid cherry. All the chairs are gone too.

No more linen table cloth, no more silver napkin rings. No more family dinners.

My parents rarely ate with me, preferring to use the time in business meetings or at the theater. This room is where I first experienced a family dinner, with the Professor saying grace and us kids bickering over who ate the last roll. Those meals held me together, held us together as a team.

Now, will we go our separate ways?

Rogue

He took everything. All mah stuffed animals, even the large panda bear with the hold in his side. The hole were Ah used to hide mah diary.

Ah need my diary. Ah wrote down my self in there. Mah favorites, mah first times, mah worsts. How can Ah tell who Ah am without it? How can Ah know whether it's me that likes Kiwi-Lime Surprise or one the fragments floating around in mah mind?

Cannonball

My old uniforms were in a box in the closet. Pictures of mah family were on the desk, and mah favorite of me and my dad at my first little league game was on the wall. I don't really need the uniforms, although they were nice for remembering were I've been. I can always get more pictures of the family, and there are tons of pictures of mah dad and me in mah mom's album back home.

What I want back is mah wallet, where I kept pictures of Doug and Illyana, tickets from a Lila Cheney concert, the program from mah Daddy's funeral, the paycheck stub from the first time a worked the mines. What would Bastion want with stuff like that? Why couldn't he have left just those things, things that don't matter to anyone but me?

Joseph

Empty like my memories. Bastion has given this house amnesia. Where are the answers I was here searching for? They're not here anymore.

And I'm beginning to doubt that they ever were.

Beast

Speechless. No words express this. Empty, wasted years learning all those words and now they are useless.

I didn't mind spending my time cut off from the world in my lab because I always knew that, in the end, it would be worth it. I'm a blue-furred beast, due to my own misguided arrogance, and that is the only thing I have to show for my entire scientific career. My Nobel Prize is in a safe-deposit box in town. Of course, the keys are gone now.

Everything's gone now.

Cyclops

I'm nervous, walking around through the rooms. Deathly quiet, my footsteps don't even echo. I clutch my side a move along with my hand on the wall. The boat house is bare. floor to ceiling, pillar to post. All the hopes, all the dreams, all the plans, ripped out like rotten carpet. I look in the bathroom, just in case he left it.

Of course not.

We always take off our rings we when go on missions. She puts hers on a chain around her neck and I leave mine in the medicine cabinet where I won't forget to put it back on.

So, how do I tell Jean that I took off my wedding ring so my gloves would fit and it was stolen by a megalomaniac bent on genetic cleansing?

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