Sinister Manipulations

This is the third story of the 'Of Mutants And Immortals' arc. The first two, 'Welcome To The X-Men Kavik, Hope You
Survive The Experience' and 'An End To Ignorance' are archived at Lori's page at . You could probably get away with reading this one if you haven't read the first two, but I doubt if it would make much sense.

Disclaimer: The X-Men and associated teams belong to Marvel. The concepts and characters of Highlander belong to
Rysher: Panzer/Davis. Kavik MacLeod is mine, as are David Mitchell and Michael Halliwell.

For the continuity fans among you, I'm kinda making up the universe as I go along. It means that some events aren't the
same as they were in the comic. Magneto tried to extract Wolverine's adamantium but Charles wiped his mind before he
could. This means that Logan's still got his adamantium but Joseph's around. Onslaught didn't happen, isn't happening and
ain't gonna be happening, and neither is Zero Tolerance (although a friend thinks I should put Bastion into the arc
somehow - I guess we'll see how it goes.) Gen X are in this one, and Monet is still one person.� As far as Highlander continuity, all events up to and including 'Comes a Horseman' and 'Revelation 6:8' happened. I'm kind of rewriting certain events. This means that, as 'Forgive Us Our Trespasses' hasn't happened, Methos and Duncan haven't reached an uneasy peace about what happened during CaH and R6:8. For those that know what I'm talking about, 'Archangel' hasn't happened. I may work the events of that episode into the arc later on, but up until now, nothing that happened after R6:8 has occurred. Basically, I'm counting all episodes up to R6:8 as canon and anything after as fair game!

Quote of the day: "If I'm gonna die, you're gonna pay me for it!" - Methos ('Till Death': Season 4, Highlander)

Kudos and thanks go to Suzy and Kon, the two wonderful (but strange) individuals who beta read this! Even worse -
Suzy's my best friend, she didn't have a choice, but Kon asked! Thanks guys.

BTW, the song used in the Biosphere is 'Inside' by Stiltskin.

p.s. I apologise for Sean Cassidy's bloody awful accent!

p.p.s. I'm not really sure which of the Marauaders are dead and which are alive, so if anyone's here when they should be
six feet under - sorry.� I'm going now before this gets longer than the actual story!
�

** ** denotes telepathic conversation.
< > denotes thought
* * denotes emphasis

This is set approximately 1 month after the events in 'An End To Ignorance'.