Manikin sat down, his hands on his head. "This is too much for me. I can't take this. I'm losing my mind."
 "What's wrong with the kid?" Box asked. Roger had phased back into the Box armor.
 "Box," Wyre began. "Roger… by all means, you should be dead…"
 "Dead?" Box chuckled. "I don't feel dead."
 "Box… everything you recalled… as recent events… those are old… Box…" He was looking for the right way to say things. Then shrugging, and realizing, being subtle was never his style, he finally said, "Look. You died. We buried you. Madison took on the form of Box. Alpha Flight went through a mess of things. Disbanded. Recently regrouped again, and, well, Snowbird's back as well."
 "Snowbird?" Box exclaimed. "But she's dead!"
 Perhaps it was the irony, but there was a cold silence…

 The plane landed safely, and the members of Alpha Flight left the plane. They tried to shake from their mind the horrid images they had seen the last time they were at an airport and their DC-10 exploded.
 "I still can't change back to my Sasquatch form," Walter complained, straining again to change.
 "When we get to the base, I will run some tests on you, Walter," Shaman spoke, as he approached Walter. "Perhaps with the combined efforts of Talisman and myself, we may find a way to fix you."
 "And you can count on me," Snowbird said, cradling her son. Her mind drifted again to the idea of her beloved husband. With all the fighting, she had little time to think of anything. Now, with a moment of peace, she could do nothing else but think of him.
 Vindicator looked back at everyone who was with them. There was himself, Guardian, Shaman, Talisman, Puck, Snowbird (and her child), Northstar and his twin sister, Aurora, as well as Sasquatch and St. Elmo.

 The base seemed so cold.
 Vindicator removed his helmet and took in a fresh breath of air.
 "The Great Beasts still remain… but we have delivered them a devastating blow," Snowbird whispered. "They know we are a force to be reckoned with."
 Vindicator hardly heard her words. Mac was already thinking about the team that would become Alpha Flight. "Either Heather or I would be the team leaders," he was thinking to himself. "There'd be no need for both of us wearing these suits. It would be good to have either Shaman or Talisman… I am almost suspecting Talisman because she is younger… although a lot more rebellious than her father…" His thoughts went deeper. "Puck is a must. Snowbird, I'd love to have - but with her child with her, I am not certain what path she would want to take. But I'd love her on the team. Northstar and Aurora would also be great, but I doubt if they will both remain. Northstar was never really the team type - and Aurora seems to have too many problems to ever stay put. For a power house, and raw strength, I'd love to have Walt back as Sasquatch, but if we can't find out what happened to his powers, that idea can go out the window… and I am not sure what Saint Elmo will do … if he's going to stay or go… he's always been to himself… and distant… more the loner sort…"
 Over and over Mac Hudson tried to come up with the perfect team, almost from the time he walked in the door… and those thoughts never stopped… never realizing just what else was going on around him…

 His name is Donavon Walker. He's seen a lot of things in his life, but little prepares him for the sight before his eyes…
 "There's your Anne McKenzie, Mr. Walker," the captain said.
       Walker gasped. "But that's... that's..."
         "Snowbird. Of Alpha Flight."
         "But how? Snowbird died..."
         "And from reports coming in just recently, it would appear that she has resurfaced to fight along her team-mates."
         "Yes... so who...?"
         "Who is this?" the captain finished for him.    
         Donovan cast her a glance, then nodded. For the first time in his life, he was dumbfounded.
         The captain smiled. "Do you believe in genetic engineering, Mr. Walker? Or more importantly, do you believe in the reality of human cloning?"
 "That's insanity!" Walker finally exploded. "You've got a full grown woman with super natural powers cloned in that glass sphere!"
 "Precisely," the man replied.
 "Do you realize what that could mean?" Walker asked.
 "Of course. No nuclear weapons. Just cloned heroes to do battle.
If they die, you release another clone. Rather fabulous, don't you think?"
 "That's inhumane!" Walker protested.
 "None the less, it is government funded as well," the scientist smirked.
 "Who showed you this kind of technology?" Walker asked, looking at the equipment. The entire complex in this room seemed to be something from a bizarre futuristic movie.
 "A man by the name of Essex," the scientist remarked. "He's quite intelligent. He's the one that told Department H about one named Adam Peters. Better known as a part of Next Flight's members. The one - you may recall - Caterwaul?"
 "The psycho member?" Walker shouted. "Jesus man! Isn't that any indication of what you might be doing here?"
 "Whatever do you mean?"
 "What if these clones go crazy? I mean what if this Caterwaul is a clone of some kind. Or some kind of genetic mix match," Walker screamed. "And as a result they go mad?"
 "That was another thing Essex showed us," the scientist went on to say, dismissing Walker's insane ideas. "He showed us genetic engineering. As I said," the scientist said, as he turned and left the room. Walker followed behind him, and the door shut automatically. "A brilliant man indeed…"
 
 

James MacDonald Hudson - Vindicator - studied the template of Alpha Flight members, past and present. So much had changed since he first donned the red and white battlesuit lo those many years ago. He had survived two 'deaths', returned to find his wife in charge of the superhuman task force he had created; in many ways, Heather had been a better leader than he, one who could temper her responsibilities of leadership with a very human compassion. Plus, in the times of his absences, she had garnered much field experience, confronting the likes of Scramble, Deadly Ernest, Pestilence, Llan the Sorceror, the Dreamqueen, the Wrecking Crew, the Hardliners... the list grew on.

Hudson sighed. Perhaps, old man, he thought to himself, it's time for you to hang up the old union suit and admit that you're too much past your prime to be playing super-hero. Still, he could not shake off the feeling that he needed to remain with the Flight; indeed, he needed to continue leading the Flight. It was not a petty sense of insecurity that fuelled this desire. Something deep within him told him it was right that he take on the mantle of team leader.

Heather's reaction had not been pleasant when he first suggested it to her. In fact, she had had accused him of a petty obsession with playing leader.

"You want to play boss-boy, Mac? Fine!" She retorted before storming out of their room. "But don't expect me to play the obedient wife/team member just because you say so. After all we've been through, I'd have thought that you'd know that Alpha is a team, a family. Sure, we need a leader, but more than anything else, we're a tight unit. That's how we've survived this far. Mutual respect. Mutual admiration." She shook her head exasperatedly.

His eyes lifted to scan the myriad of mug-shots on the template. A few new surprises: the return of Roger Bochs, the galvanisation of Beta Flight by none other than Northstar's boy-frend, a dispatch from Department H requesting audience with the reformed Flight...

There was much to do. And so little time. The Beastlings, far from defeated, were stirring, and Alpha needed to act before all Canada, all the world, fell under their dark grip.
 
 

Roger Bochs - safely melded with the massive metal housing of the robot Box - strode down the halls of Department H. For a man confined to a wheelchair in his physical body, he could never get over the joy and freedom something so simple as walking granted. Light from the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling gleamed off the red chrome of his robot-body. If his robot face could smile, he would grin.

"Box?" The bald man in the military suit greeted him succintly.

"General Clarke?" Box said. He had never met the man face to face, but knew of him through rumour and by reputation.

"Welcome back. Both to H and to your life," Clarke said.

"Thanks," Bochs rasped in his deep, robotic voice. Clarke seemed a pleasant enough individual, perhaps a trifle too militaristic, but that was to be expected.

"This way. The others are waiting for you."

Bochs followed Clarke into the wide conference room ont he eighth floor of the towering H complex. Morning sunlight filtered in through the large screens overlooking a copse of woods and a bright blue lake surrounded by the woods.

Bochs paused in his stride.

"Wow!" he gasped in his robotic voice, his scanners taking in the collection of brightly dressed individuals gathered within.

James Hudson - Vindicator. Heather Hudson - Guardian. Beside her, Eugene Judd - Puck. Walter Langkowski. Michael Twoyoungmen - Shaman. Elizabeth Twoyoungmen - Talisman. Jean-Paul Beaubier - Northstar; his twin sister Jeanne-Marie - Auroa. Persuasion. Pathway. Goblyn. Alex. Whitmann Knapp. Alex. Snowbird, a small boy crouched next to her. Wyre. Next to the scarred veteran stood an even bigger man, easily towering head and shoulders above the rest. Bochs did not recognise him: he was broad, red-bearded and clad in an odd combination of tartan, armour and leather, looking somewhat like a massive Scot clansman.

"Rogair?" Aurora whispered, as though unable to believe her eyes. "Is that you?"

"Yup," Bochs said happily.

Within moments, he was caught in a tumble of embraces and companionable back clapping. Even the red-bearded giant ambled over to grasp his robot hand.

"Zounds! A warrior of metal," the big man boomed. "Finally, someone to match the mettle of Saint Elmo - Keeper of the Northern Lights."

So, this was Saint Elmo, Bochs mused. He'd heard of the man -- one of the first members of the prototype Flight, and its first casualty. How could Elmo be dead and still be here? Bochs grinned in his mind: he wasn't going to worry over such illogic: after all he, without even knowing how or why, was here when, as far as the others were concerned, he should be dead. "Lobotomised by Scramble," Kara Kilgrave - Persuasion - had so bluntly informed him.

So, he shook their hands and returned to their fold without hesitation.

Soon, they settled in their seats, or stances. Here was gathered the might of Canada's superhuman forces. He could feel the power and energy brimming from the crowd gathered before him. He cleared his throat.

"You all know what this meeting is about," he began. "We're here to relaunch Alpha Flight. Officially..."
 
 

John McCauley couldn't believe his eyes. He stared at his own reflection in the wall mirror. He was hideous! Covered in long orange fur that reached down his elbows, loins and shins, he looked like some throwback to a primitive ape-man, more ape than man certainly by the set of his head and the simian slope of his forehead.

"How?" he growled.

"We don't know," the RCMP officer said. "But you're Sasquatch, of Alpha Flight."

"I ain't no Sasquatch," he rumbled. I'm Traction, he almost added, but now he wasn't so sure. His memories of the past weeks seemed vague, like the images of a dream half-remembered upon waking. He'd remembered his name, though that was all he remembered. Perhaps more would come in time.

"Can you change back?" the woman scientist asked, surveying the monstrous orange form that loomed before her.

"How?" McCauley asked, shrugging.

"I don't know. Just... _will_ yourself to change."

McCauley's heavy brows dipped in a frown. "Al- Alright." He concentrated, trying to recall his real appearance, his real shape, the way it felt in his real body. He felt an electric tingle run down his back.

Moira Harrison, science officer at the Regina RCMP Headquarters gasped in surprise as the massive orange-furred behemoth changed, losing mass, bulk and orange hair. Within a minute, a man stood before her, fully naked. He was about forty, broad and hefty in built, a square-faced man with a short-cropped army-style haircut. He gave a yelp of surprise and futilely tried to cover his nakedness.

"Get Mr. Langkowski some clothes," she informed an officer.

"Langkowski? Who's Langkowski?" he asked, eyes wide with alarm and confusion.

"You are," Harrison said.

"No. Name's McCauley," McCauley said.

Harrison lifted a brow curiously. "If so, Mr. McCauley, how did you come to possess the form of Sasquatch?"

McCauley could give her no answer.
 
 

Heather Hudson looked at her new suit with undisguised distaste.

"It's not too bad, eh?" Judd said, looking at the circuitry within the new battlesuit. "A lot prettier than the old one."

Heather made an unpleasant sound. "If he'd not been so damn childish as to insist on a different design for my battlesuit..."

"Ah, Heather," Judd consoled. "Maybe he's got a reason, eh?"

She shook her head adamantly. "He's just obsessed with playing team-leader. Doesn't want me impinging on his territory."

She leaned back against the side of the window. Outside, blue skies and a fair wisp of cloud on the horizon announced fine weather. A wonderful day. So why was she feeling so awful and uptight inside?

Judd clambered up and plopped himself down on the window sill. The team conference had been over for two hours and he had exchanged his red and white Alpha costume for his customary singlet and jeans.

"So, you thinking of leaving?" he asked bluntly.

Heather sighed. "I don't want to. Alpha's been my family for as long as I care to remember. Even before there was an Alpha, you've all been family: Michael was a close family friend; I knew Elizabeth when she was a kid; met Narya on my honeymoon with Mac..."

"And we're still family, eh?"

She nodded. "Leaving Alpha would be like leaving home."

"I'm glad you said that, Heather." He paused, choosing his words carefully before he continued. "If you'd left, I would've packed up too."

She looked at him, though without surprise. She'd always been close to him, always knew that he bore something special for her inside him. Yet, their relationship had always remained on the point of firm-friends, confidants.

"Judd-"

Judd took her hand in his, squeezed it. "That's all I wanted to say, eh?" He lifted her fingers and kissed them tenderly. His beard scratched her skin, but it was not an unpleasant sensation.

Someone cleared his throat in the doorway. Heather jerked back, turning, suddenly awash with an irrational feeling of being caught doing something very, very wrong.

"Heather?" Michael Twoyoungmen said. "They've completed the final roster. Care to come?"

"Be there in a minute," she said, exchanging glances with Judd.

"You ready?" Judd said.

"As I'll always be," she replied.

They walked together to the conference room where the other Alphas too had collected. Clarke waited until they were seated before beginning.

"Alright. James Hudson and myself have sorted through the details and we're ready to announce the official Alpha Flight roster for the relaunched team. Now, we're not necessarily saying that those of you not selected are no longer part of the Flight. We envisage a primary or core team of hard-hitters who can deal with threats to province and planet, threats such as the return of the Beasts that Hudson and Snowbird have spoke about. The rest of you will be required as a support network, subsidiary teams, so to speak, that may be deployed on certain missions if and when the core team is unable, or if such missions require your... special... skills. Subsidiary teams will be formed based on the requirements of the mission at hand. Now, if you've got no questions, let's proceed."

He waited a breath, then read out from a list in his hand.

"The core team will consist of: Vindicator, Guardian, Shaman, Northstar, Snowbird, Saint Elmo, Box, Puck and Wyre. Vindicator will resume his position as team leader, with Guardian and Puck serving as field tacticians." He nodded at Heather and Judd's direction.

"The rest of you will belong to subsidiary teams as I have outlined. We hope that this new Flight will be able to deal with the threat the Beasts pose..."
 
 

"Jean-Paul?" Alex said. "Something's worrying you."

It was later that day and the both of them had retired to the Department H common room to talk. The young man in the black and silver bodysuit turned to his partner. "Have you ever felt as if something is gravely wrong, yet been unable to put your finger on it is exactly?"

"Of course," Alex laughed. "Every day of my life."

Northstar felt the faint stirrings of a smile lift the ends of his lips. "Seriously though, Alex. I can't shrug off this feeling that... I'm not even sure how to say it... that there is this wrongness about all of this."

"What? This place? Department H?"

"Yes. In a sense." Northstar sighed. "Perhaps I'm just getting paranoid."

"Hey, Jean-Paul, you wrote the book on paranoid as far as I'm concerned," Alex grinned. He grasped Northstar's arm. "Come here."

They drew close.

"It's been a long time," Alex said, his fingers reaching up to touch Northstar's face. He pressed his lips slowly against the speedster's.
 
 

"Field tacticians?" Heather laughed as they walked down the corridor. "Is that his idea of a joke?"

"I think it's cute, eh?" Judd said. "At least he's acknowledged our experience. Mine and yours, Heather."

"Alright. I'll give that point to you, Judd," she said, then drew short of the doorway to the common room.

"What?" Judd asked.

Heather held up her hand."It's Alex and Northstar," she whispered.

Judd nodded. "Ah, young love, eh?"

Heather grinned wryly. "Wish I could be that young again," she said, shaking her head ruefully. "And that in love."

Judd looked up at her, his expression serious. "You are, Heather. Young, that is. And someone loves you. Very much." Did he dare say more?

Heather's smile disappeared. "Judd-"

He hesitated, then took her hand and drew her to the side of the door. Gently, he drew her down and towards him. She did not balk. There was no equivocation in her eyes as she knelt down. Calmly, he took her face in his hands and drew her close. Their lips met.