X-Men Evolution: In The Beginning- The Professor
by IronRaven, beta reading/editing by BabyBeaver, alpha reading by LycheeLoving and SteinWulf (to confirm it made sense to normal people)

Things were not as they are now, they never are. They change, time becomes critical at a point in space, changing the future of a person. Changing the future of the world.

-itb

The night had seemed normal enough. But everyone was edgy.

Scott had asked for volunteers after dinner to go over the Blackbirds, and to put them on standby status. He'd even triple checked that the blast diverter between the hanger's first and second bays was functional, and that the roof was working, meaning they could launch one Blackbird, then Velocity while the catapult was recharging and the second Blackbird moved into position, putting all three aircraft in the air in only a few minutes.

The vibe he was emitting must have spooked others. Doc Blake, Kurt, Hank and Dani had all gone down to the infirmary to tear down and repack the medical bags. Laura had a third of X-Factor inspecting parachutes and the survival kits, while Alex had another third doing the same thing to the scuba gear and the Zodiacs. Betsy and RJ had the rest of that team checking climbing gear and inspecting ropes. Logan, Rogue and Remy had been out in the garage until almost eleven, checking every single one of their vehicles. Magnus and the New Mutants had asked if they could use the Danger Room, working on team building exercises, refining tactics to maximize the combination of their abilities. .

Maybe it was this air of unease that had caused Charles to leave his mind so open.

-itb

Or maybe it was because they knew that something was coming. Charles didn't have the dream very often, maybe once a year. He'd had a corrupted version of it this spring, when something had been trying to feed off their psychic energy.

It was something most of the Institute didn't know about. As a young man, he'd had a bad case of trying to prove himself. His stepfather and brother's taunts and mocking, his grandfather's not too thinly veiled threat of being written out of the will if he didn't serve, it had driven Charles Xavier to make what many considered a rash decision. The day after he completed his residency at Oxford, he'd walked into the Air Force attache's office at the London Embassy. He'd spent an hour and finally "put the whammy" as he called it then on the sergeant behind the desk. He wasn't going to be an officer, and he wasn't going to be a uniformed scientist. Little Charlie with his test tubes and his books and his slide rule. Little Charlie who was scared of girls and bullies and wouldn't know what to do with reality if it snarled in his face. Little Charlie wanted to snarl back.

Two days after his eighteenth birthday, Charles Francis Xavier, PhD, formerly of Harvard and Oxford Universities, signed on the dotted line. He'd requested a medical posting, preferably to try out for something he'd read about. He was going to prove his courage to the world, but he was going to do it without killing if possible. He knew he could make people think he wasn't there. That talent could be put to good use doing search and rescue, especially in a place where the idea of "enemy lines" didn't exist. He became part of something that only semi-officially existed. He knew the odds were long that he'd be able pass the qualification course, but it would mean that he'd be one of the best, beyond any question.

That afternoon, he'd shaved his head. He'd been doing it ever since. It was one of the four things he'd kept as reminders. One of the others was a pair of green footprints on his left glute, tattooed while he leaned over the bar of combination tattoo parlor, saloon and brothel. They were wreathed with the words So Others May Live.

The other thing were scars. Not just the mental ones. The night he, his partner and another PJ team had been tasked to recover the crew of a B-52 that had limped away from a bombing mission over North Vietnam but hadn't been able to make it back to Thailand. By the time the crew realized it was too late, the aircraft was too far gone to divert to any other locations. There were a few CIA strips, but they were all too short and too classified, and . The large jet had taken out a swath of trees as it tried to land, tearing a hole in the jungle

By the time the Jolly Green Giants, the massive helicopters the combat search and rescue teams used, and their nearly antique, turboprop driven support aircraft were on the scene, the crash site had turned into a trap. The BUFF's crew didn't know they were bait as they called in the rescue. Their voices came through on the rescue frequency, they could see the smoke. The flight of Sandys dropped low into the valley, nearly skimming the trees, before giving the clear signal to the helicopters to approach the strobe-lit column of yellow smoke marking the location of the crew.

Then heavy machine guns and light cannons opened up from under the jungle canopy. Thumb sized slugs tore through aluminum. There was a scream as Jolly-85's engines both failed. -64, the other helicopter had already crashed. From where he was crouching next to -85's door gunner, Airman Xavier watched as an RPG's rocket slammed into the already burning bird, then two more, turning the massive aircraft into a swarm of shrapnel flying around a fiery blossom. He could hear the co-pilot screaming in his mike "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Jolly-Eight-Five is hit. I say again, Mayday, Jolly-Eight-Five is going down. We are nine-zero-zero meters, bearing two-eight-five degrees from crash site Golf-One and taking heavy fire."

That was the only time Charles had actually fired his weapon in anger. He had tried to confuse the minds below him, but they resisted. They had someone with them, someone like him. He was too scared to be angry. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to kill anyone, but he really, really didn't want to die.

The ten ton Sikorsky slammed into the ground with all the grace of a brick twice it's weight. Having seen Six-Four's death, he crawled through the grass, trying to get clear. He could hear one of the door gunners screaming, the pop of one of the flight crew's revolvers. Charles grunted a curse- he could sense the aircrew following him. And someone with a coldly logical mind, focusing in their direction. He raised up one knee, his weapon firing as his eyes spoke to his hands, his mind finding the most dangerous ones, trying to shatter their will. He could normally just mask himself, or send a group into flight, but these were angry with the Americans. He found one mind, it pushed back at him. Charles blink and shoved with his will. He was only partially aware of a mind, a hunter's mind, looking, finding him, loathing him personally. There was a stab of emotion, calling itself to Charles' attention for a second, then he felt as much as heard one bang from the middle of the ambush.

Xavier screamed, clutching himself as he fell back. He looked down, his hands crimson. He was surprised by how quickly the pain faded, allowing his training to take over. He was thirsty- he hadn't been before, and with an abdominal wound it was not allowed. He emptied his canteen over his abdomen- he didn't remember opening his shirt. Maybe it had been blown off. His hands were slipping on the plastic covered bandaging he had in the claymore bag he had quickly packed extra medical equipment when the call had gone out. He held the dressing in one hand, tearing it open with his teeth, as he searched for the entrance wound. Wounds. Probably a grenade.

He almost laughed- he was trying to plug holes in a dike like a little dutch boy. At least he wasn't falling out in the front- he wasn't going to try to imagine what the shrapnel had done on it's way through, or out. He could move his feet, that was good.

He wadded up a rolled dressing, putting one his stomach for the moment, then took the other one from his bag. He was more worried about keeping blood in than dirt out. As he did so, he was only partially aware of the whump that signaled the drop of a napalm cannister from one of the Sandys followed by a flash of heat. His mind ran through the list of antibiotics he'd be getting- he wasn't going to like this one bit. The plan was to lift himself up and if he didn't spill out, slide the unrolled one under his back, put the wadded up one on that, then lower and pull it tight. Should work. Charles started to lift himself, so he could wrap and felt a scream start. Then blackness.

When he came to, there were uniforms. Short men, skin darkened by grease paint, with colored scarves tucked into their tiger striped fatigues. The scarves looked like parachute silk, probably from cargo chutes with the colors. One of them was holding a bottle of plasma. Meos... Strikers. Allies.

"So, you're awake." The voice had a Brooklyn accent. It took a minute for Charles's eyes to focus through the shock. "You're damn lucky my recon team was close, but you'll be fine. You'll be back in the world in a few months, if you can keep from dieing. Think you can do that, Airman?"

There was no rank, no name on the American's uniform. Well, that was ok, there were times Xavier's uniform was sterile to. He nodded. He tried to say the words, but he could only mouth yes sir to the man. Two strikers picked up his stretcher, the one with the plasma bottle walking towards a clearing, as the sound of helicopters grew louder.

-itb

Charles' eyes flashed open shortly after one in the morning. Everyone, wake up- the Brotherhood is in danger. I want all aircraft airborne in ten minutes, with medical support. X-men on One, I'll fly Two with X-Factor. Magnus, you and the New Mutants take Velocity and Doctor Blake. This is rescue mission, they have already taken casualties. Scott, Bobby, Logan and I will develop the tactical plan en route.

He'd seen the five members of the Brotherhood and Pyro crouched down behind a wall, the crackle of energy weapons and the wheet of bullets all around them. Pietro was wrapping a tourniquet around Wanda's arm as she lay unconscious; the others were shooting back. He'd seen it from Lance's eyes- Avalanche had glanced at his radio, and found it shattered. From Lance's memories, he knew there was a something dangerous inside the building, too dangerous to drop it with a tremblor.

Charles didn't need to see the jungle fatigues hanging in his closet to find them. They were the same style as what he'd worn those many years ago, only without insignia. These ones were better made, stronger, crafted of the same kind of material as his students' uniforms; they'd been made by a man once called 'Stitch', a long, lanky, New York born pilot who flew support for rescue missions so long ago. Charles had been surprised to encounter the familiar mind out of the blue one day. His boots were below them. "I can dress on the flight."

He pulled the cardigan from the seat of his wheelchair, shrugging it on as he sat up. He pulled the chair over and swung himself into it. He paused long enough to grab a second pair of wool socks from the dresser and stuff them into his boots, before he put them and the combat utilities into his lap. He could hear the familiar growl of Logan's voice as he pushed his way into the hall.

"You heard me- your kids are dying, dumbass... Charles heard them, you should get a few telepaths of your own... We're going." Logan's boot laces were tucked into place rather than being tied yet. He waved the cellphone in his hand. "Fury says to stay here."

"That's nice, Logan." Each push of his hands sent the Professor's wheel chair sailing towards the elevator.

"Fury says it's a national security measure."

"Tell him to arrest me." The Brotherhood were something that Charles Xavier had failed at. There were few true regrets he had.

"He says 'stand down Airman'."

Charles pushed the button for the basement, the door closing as he held out his hand. He lifted the cellphone to his ear. "Colonel, I told Lance that if he called, we'd come."

"The damn kid said the same thing about you guys. Didn't think he was that serious about it..." Fury paused. "You're closer than anything we have... Damnit. Go! Give me to Logan, I'll give him the location."

Author's notes:
I've mentioned the canon backstory of Charles in Korea- well, the Army really doesn't have a CSAR unit. The Air Force, on the other hand, has a particular meaning for the term "combat search and rescue", and only Air Force Pararescuemen train near exclusively to conduct search and rescue missions any time, any place. Their training is sometimes called "superman school", for a damn good reason. So the ONLY way Charles Xavier could be part of a combat search and rescue unit that operated behind the lines, as has been described for the past forty years, would for him to be a PJ, probably 40th ARRS out of (at that time) Nakom Phanom. Yes, that means Charles was in Vietnam- well, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, but most people think of the Southeast Asian theater of conflict as just "Vietnam"- as, well, he's clearly not old enough to have been in Korea.

If you want a good account of one of their real Vietnam-era missions, go to historynet dot com, and search for "Pararescue Jumpers' Daring Rescue of Downed Fighter Pilot Deep Inside North Vietnam".

And this is why, should some moron politician or newsie accuse the Xavier Institute of being a "commando school", The Prof and Magnus are going to look at eachother and laugh.