A Tooth for a Tooth

Summary

  Young mutants hunt for Creed through an apocalyptic cityscape. They say he betrayed them, and they'll make him pay. Just as they corner him, the Exiles teleport between them. Clarice immediately recognizes where they are; the mutants attack, so Calvin uses his eye-blast to push them all back. The Exiles join in the fray, and the young mutants flee.

  Calvin realizes this is the Creed who raised Clarice, once part of Weapon X, but who stayed on this world to raise David Richards and prevent him from becoming a mutant dictator (iss. 13). Clarice had been sent there alone (iss. 43) but has refused to tell Calvin anything about it. She doesn't now, either.

  Namora is the only one to notice that Heather didn't complete the jump with them; they wonder if she's stuck somewhere, or if she's off the team since she lost her Sasquatch powers, or if Creed is their new team member. Creed tells Clarice to ask the Tallus; it refuses to say anything about Heather but tells her the mission; she's outraged and blinks away.

  Calvin grabs Creed and demands answers, but he warns him to let go before he rips his face off. The Exiles warn him they can take him, but he says Clarice wouldn't want them fighting. He refuses to tell them anything she doesn't want them to know and says time has moved differently: he's been there 20 years, the Sentinel threat is over, and the young mutants chasing him are the ones he raised. He agrees to help Calvin track Clarice, and he directs him to a wood where she hid after "the thing with David." They nearly come to blows and decide to split up to find her. Calvin finds her sitting in a cave, sobbing, and asks her not to blink away. He convinces her to explain; she asks him to promise not to hate her.

  Creed rescued her from Sinister and brought her up as an X-Man, so he was a good choice to raise the mutants here. He kept them safe from the Sentinels, and when their powers manifested he trained them to fight. He worried that the Timebroker was right, and David would become ruthless, but he had to do what every parent does: trust he did his best and step back. David orchestrated the demolition of the Sentinel factories worldwide; at the last one they were surprised to see Clarice pop in. David forced his way into her mind to check she wasn't a spy. She knew something was wrong with him, but she was impressed when he psi-linked the team during the battle and destroyed 84 Sentinels himself. He was like Xavier, Magneto, and the Phoenix rolled into one.

  He announced one more job, grabbed Clarice, and telepathically forced her to blink away with him. He refused to listen even to Creed, and Clarice was unable to stop him from manipulating her power. He discovered the humans who controlled the Sentinels, in Strategic Sentinel Command in a bunker in West Virginia; he forced Clarice to teleport them in pieces, and into walls, and into each other, killing them horribly. She blames Creed for not dealing with him when he could.

  Creed arrives; he says David used Clarice to kill for days. Creed used an inhibitor collar to mask his approach and gutted the child he raised for 20 years. Nothing can make up for what Clarice went through.

  Calvin says they should just do their mission and leave; Clarice refuses and repeatedly blinks the Tallus away until it stays away. Creed has guessed the mission is, "Kill Mimic"; Calvin dares him to take his best shot. The Timebroker appears and agrees, warning this world will end otherwise. Creed cares more about Clarice than this world and refuses; the Timebroker calls him a sickening pansy; Clarice quits, saying the Exiles are done; the Timebroker agrees, snaps his fingers, and teleports them away.