"Where's the intruder?" asked Jean Grey to her husband Cyclops who had ran up to the nearest sistems monitor as soon as the alarm sounded. *Right in our living room* came his thought. Neither of them so much as blinked, even though that should have been impossible. They were two of the teams veterans, to them impossible was ordinary.

In the living room: Sam and Tabitha had been sitting together on the couch watching TV and feeling good just being next to each other. The fact that he was an X-Man and she was a member of the more pro-active X-Force didn't give them much time to be together. His arm was around her shoulders, and she toyed playfully with his fingers. At times she forgot all about her tough girl act. Those moments were the ones Sam treasured most, the ones he could never forget. Not that this particular moment would have been forgettable anyway. In a sudden flash a girl materialized right on top of the coffee table, and the intruder alert went off. Cannonball and Meltdown were immediently on their feet, and ready for a fight. Tabitha had several of her brilliant orange bombs formed and floating near her fists. The intruder was wearing black boots, which made her about 5'8 in height, tight green pants, and a black studded jacket over a yellow tank top. Her black hair was about chin length and her blue eyes scanned the room as if she was trying to orient herself. Her eyes locked on Cannonball's and she smiled.

"You better not be thinking of tryin' anything or we'll be finding out if your clothes are fire proof," threatened Meltdown. "You'd think I could manage one slip without lading on a powder keg," the girl sighed as she adjusted the spiked pads at her elbows and stepped off the table. She was calmly adjusting the matching knee pads when Gambit, Rogue, Wolverine, and the rest of the X-Men showed up. When they saw that she made no threatening moves they halted, but remained battle ready. Gambit fanned himself with a hand of cards, Rogue adjusted her gloves, Wolverine sheathed and unsheathed his claws, and Cyclops crossed his arms. "Who are you girlie and what do you want?" growled Wolverine before Cyclpos could say anything. "You want my name? It wouldn't mean anything to you anyway old man, you've never heard of me before," she said mischevously. "Ah would recomend ya identify yoahself, miss," said Cannonball. "As you command," she said giving him a small smile and a bow. "My name is Timeslip. You are the X-Men, whom I've been sent to find." "Who sent you?" asked Cyclops. His voice rang with athority. "Well there may be a little problem with that. Y'see I do what my name implies, slip through time." "Yer sayin we don't know the guy. An yeh can't prove anything you tell us with that convinient little excuse," said Wolverine. "If this don't smell like a set up, my nose can't smell bull when I step in it." She grinned.

"I don't detect any ill intentions from her, Wolverine. We can at least listen to why she was sent to find us," said Jean Grey. "So spill it already, petite," said Gambit. "Well maybe if you put the cards away and tell little miss bomb happy blondie to put her toys away I'll feel more up to talking." Gambit smiled and slipped the cards back into his coat, but Meltdown glowered. Sam put a restraining hand on her shoulder which she shrugged off. She did make her bombs vanish though. "Jus so ya know, I can make 'em reapear whenever I need them." "Yeah, fine whatever," said Timeslip as she sat on the table. "Get on with it girl," growled Wolverine. No one was looking to patient. "When he talks about the 'ol days' he never mentioned what an inhospitable bunch you were," she grumbled. "Anyways," she said more loudly. "The High Lord, someone you guys actually sort of know, sent me back in time to fetch Cannonball here and you X-People to my time. See we have a real problem. The evil powers of the Clustic Corporation and their Chief managed to get their hands on some time travel technology and some mutant whose powers are to see events long past as clearly as they were yesterday and they've decided to travel back in time and take over your period in history. The High Lord comes from this time, so he kinda wants it to stay as it was, not to mention keeping his self from being killed in the past, so he sends me off on this stupid little time slip to fetch you all back to stop this catastrophe."

"Can't you solve yer own problems in the future?" asked Wolverine. "Well actually the High Lords army is away fighting off some nuclear threat in the Empire of Australia and can't come to fix this unexpected development. Oh, and the High Lord figured since this problem is somewhat your fault anyway you can help him fix it." "How is it our fault, child?" asked Storm. "Well, time travel technology had actually been completely erradicated from our time period, except for my mutant powers anyway, until some bonehead from this period started playing around with the timestream. I think the High Lord told me his name was Cable, and he's related to two or three of you. Time slipping is kind of disorienting, so I'm not exactly sure." "De whole Summers family be kinda disorienting, cherie," laughed Gambit. Scott glared at him. "Yeah, but the point is that after a bit of traveling and bringing his own time devices to this period Cable starts trying to destroy the time travel devices so the villans can't wreak havoc through time. The only problem with this is that when he tries to destroy the one in Dooms mansion after the dude disappears, the machine is sent forward in time in an explosion. It comes through damaged, but some tinkering and Clustic Corp. is almost done repairing it. The High Lord manages to put this all together by what he learned of time travel and his spy network. Also by sending me on a few other time slips, but hey he knows it now. He also knows he can't deal with it without putting our whole future at great risk so after much thinking and debate he dicides it's up to the X-Men to save the day."

She let out a breath. "Well that's the history lesson, any questions?" "Yeah, sugah. You still haven't told us who this High Lor' we know is," said Rogue. Timeslip looked startled. "What you mean you great heroes didn't figure it out?" "Cut the crap kid," growled Wolverine. "Actually, ah know who she's talkin' about," said Cannonball. "Well please enlighten us my young friend," said Beast. Meltdown was looking intently at Sam's face. "She's talkin' about me..." There was a shocked silence. "He is an External," sighed Meltdown. "It makes sense," said Jean. Cyclops agreed. "How many of us can timeslip with you?" he asked. "Hold on a flamin' minute!" said Wolverine. "This could still be a trap." "Tell us something that only we would know to prove that Sammy actually sent you," said Iceman. "Well I know the High Lord better than any of the rest of you, or Cannonball as he calls himself now. You'll have to trust him to verify what I say." They all nodded. *This really isn't necessary* came Jean's voice in Scott's head. *I've been scanning her thoughts the whole time. I can't get far into her mind, but I'd be able to tell if she's lying* *Yes, but how can you know what kind of mental defenses people can build in the future. You can't tell for sure if this is a half truth and she's what the Clustic Corporation sent to the past to destroy us* *You are a wise man, Scott Summers* Her thought was like a mental caress. *That's one of the many things I love about you*

"You always loved to talk about this time period Guthrie. About how proud you were to be an X-Man and about how everytime you put on that uniform you thought you could feel you da's proud eyes watching you. You talked about your childhood and all the happy moments. You're brother Josh would tease you about your ears, your ma would whisper to you at night that your hair was like cornsilk as she read you your favorite bedtime story: "Goodnight moon". You loved your family so much..." She trailed off sadly. "As for how many I can take with me, I can only take people who are touching me when I timeslip. That allows like six or so depending. You don't want to take everyone anyway in case we fail to destroy the time machine and something comes to this time period. But Guthrie has to come. If anything gets through he will be the primary target and without him the future dies, and one heck of a paradox effect will sweep the world." "I'm goin," said Wolverine as soon as she finished talking. "If she pulls anything I want ta be there." She grinned. "Your on old man. That's two." "I'm going too," said Meltdown. "Nuh uh. No way blondie." "You think you can stop me?" asked Tabitha angry. "Keep cool Meltdown," said Cyclops. "Why can't she go?" he asked.

Timeslip sighed. "Look, the High Lord doesn't want her there. He ordered me that she was not to come." "If yoah takin me tah the future yah gotta take Tabitha too." "That's three," she said sounding defeated. "Gambit, Rogue, Jean, and I will go if you can handle seven," said Cyclops. Timeslip nodded. "Storm you will keep Psylocke, Angel, Beast, and Iceman here to deal with any threat to arise." Storm nodded. "Do not worry about us," she said regally. "We can summon X-Force and Cable should we need any assistance."

"Let's go, 'time is money' as I believe they say here." Timeslip took Meltdown and Jean's hands. "Just watch what your touching," she said. Cannonball put a hand on her shoulder. Cyclops put his hand on her other shoulder and held on to Jean's free hand. Gambit put and arm around her waist. Rogue grabbed her elbow, carefull of the spiked pad, and glared at Remy. Wolverine grabbed the other elbow. "Here we go!" announced Timeslip. A small flash, that if you watched carefully looked like they slipped into a fast current, and they were gone. "Good luck my friends," said Storm. "Indeed, success is required. Fooling with time is a very dangerous thing to do, and this unsavory sounding Clustic Corporation could inveritably cause a great catastrophy to themselves as well as to our point in the infessimal universe." "Do you ever go more than a few minutes speaking plain english, Hank?" said Bobby as they slowly left the living room.