Ancient History

Onesmartcookie78

A/N: The Salem witch trials (as well as the others that occurred in England, Wales, Scotland and wherever else) were wrong and I do not condone them in any way. My character, Victoria Bishop, is based off a woman hanged for witchcraft with the same last name. The part where she says that she does not know what a witch is and the judge responds that if she does not know, how does she know that she is not one? actually happened in real life.

Please note that I am trying to be as historically accurate as possible in this story; the historical events mentioned have been extensively researched.

Also; Erik's last name, "Lensherr" is mistakenly spelt that way in the movie. I will be spelling it properly, "Lehnsherr", with an h.

Summary: Victoria Bishop was born in the 1600s, so how is she still running around in the twenty-first century? With a deadly power, it's no wonder Xavier and Magneto want her for a weapon. Set during X-Men. Logan/OC.

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men (although I really wish I owned at least Wolverine), only Victoria and any other OCs mentioned.

{~}

"You're a liar! I'm no more a witch than you are a wizard! If you take my life away, God will give you blood to drink!"

-Sarah Good

{~}

It's hard to ignore a woman with an ankh on the inside of her left wrist and a scythe on her right. Especially when both are in thick black ink.

I know because I try to every time I look in the mirror.

Her hair is a long, boring reddish-brown like mine; her eyes are a dull amber, just like mine; she possess the same high cheekbones, ski-slope nose and generous lips as me. Because she is me.

Is it bad that my lips are my favourite feature?

Getting off track- why is it so weird that this person in the mirror is me? I'll tell you why: she kills people.

December 31, 1692

It's accidental, I swear. I first discovered my "talent" (if it can even be called that) when I was eight years old. I was desperately sick for an entire year, enough that my parents had to call on a doctor. Nothing the doctor did helped. I recovered by myself at the end of the year, without any signs of my return to well-being. It was like I was sick, and then overnight, I was just... better. My parents were so relieved that they hugged me straightaway.

I made the mistake of touching my mother with only my right hand. My dad received my left and was all right, but mum dropped to the ground. She didn't even have a heart attack, or go into cardiac arrest or anything; she just fell over, dead. My father stood, shocked, having already listened for a heartbeat and proclaiming her dead. I had to know for myself, and so I knelt down, checking for a pulse with my left hand.

Being sick for so long had taught me a thing or two about medicine, I suppose.

Anyway, the barest touch and she was alive again. Her heart just picked up its rhythm and started beating again.

I burst into tears, after that, whilst my dad started shouting that I was a witch. Ah, the Salem witch trials- great time in history, huh?

They took me to the courthouse to hold a "trial" (more like scream that I was guilty). My mum didn't know what was happening, and just shouted my name over and over, sobbing. I remember my father, grim-faced, casually dragging her from the courthouse, telling her to go home. He himself had stayed and testified on behalf of my "witchcraft".

The whole time, I cried that I was innocent, that I strictly followed the Word of God, that I was pious and holy and whatever other religious phrases could beat their way to the forefront of my mind, underneath the "What is going on?!" reverberating through my skull.

I was ignored, to the point where I began to wonder if I really was a witch.

When they asked how I pleaded, I shouted that I was innocent. It went on for hours like that, them insisting that I admit to my sins or be forsaken by God.

Finally, I snapped, saying that I didn't know what a witch even was, to which my fair and righteous judge asked how I knew I was not a witch if I didn't know what a witch was? My father jumped in, saying that I had cured myself of my illness in a single night when the doctor could not in a year.

Then, our resident coffin-maker took the stand and proclaimed that a few men had turned up dead the day before, and their murders were immediately pinned on me.

Some of the girls who lived in the houses around me (and who disliked me) informed the court that I was obviously a witch. Whenever I would look one of them in the eyes in disbelief, they would fall out of their chairs in "pain". They said I had caused them "great and terrible pain of the most horribly severe variety", that it must be my "witchcraft".

At the age of eight and still a naïve child, I sincerely wondered if they were joking. If this whole trial was all a joke. I had, after all, killed my mother and brought her back to life just that morning. How could they believe that it was witchcraft and not a simple miracle? Wasn't it enough that mum was up and walking?

The day after, the townspeople decided to conduct a physical examination of me, at which point they stripped me naked and found the markings on my wrists. I was labelled further a witch, a child of the devil, though I swore I knew not how they had gotten there.

That afternoon, a warrant was drawn up for my death and I was hanged and buried...

Except I came back to life.

January 1, 1693

Are you afraid of small spaces? If so, being buried alive is not for you. If not, it's enough to make you claustrophobic.

Imagine waking up with a pain in your neck, splinters in your back, and dirt in your face in small, dark, enclosed space with little to no oxygen. It's a good thing the grave was shallow, as there were plenty of other "witches" that needed executing.

Now imagine being an eight year old child who just killed her mother (which would, undoubtedly, lead to years of therapy when they invented psychologists) and brought her back to life.

Throw in the fact that I truly believed myself a witch and you're set.

Anyway, I managed to bust myself out of the coffin, only to find that it was the dead of night. I rose from my grave, wondering how I was awake and living when my throat burned as though I'd been hanged... whereupon I quickly remembered that I had been.

Further proof that I was a witch, which meant I shouldn't be alive. As a devout follower of God, I immediately determined that I needed to kill myself. The Lord had clearly been disappointed at my previous death and brought me back to life to reenact a better one. I needed to burn myself to fully purify myself of my sins.

Or, at least, that's what I thought back then. I was only a brainwashed child in a town where some now believe there was something in the water. Likely a high quantity of arsenic, since it was well water. Now, I so was much more jaded; pessimistic, an optimist would call me, but a realist, in practice.

Anyway, I stalked to the judge's house straightaway and told him that it was God's will that I be burned to absolve me from my sins. His compliance was quick and I found myself tied to a cross, screaming as fire lapped at my skin while the crowd cheered barbarically in the background.

February 16, 1693

The next time I woke up was weeks later. Since my body had been but an urn of ashes, it was no surprise that it took longer for all the pieces to congregate in a suitable place to reconstruct my body. The process was agonising; it took long enough that I woke up early during various points of the reconstruction howling at the unbearableness of it.

I laid low after that second death, cold and afraid of my own body. It turned out that I'd landed in Wales, and I was quick to find my way to the nearest home. The owners were kind enough to let me stay with them until I turned eighteen and was raised a right and proper young woman.

The seventeenth century had passed, the year now 1703. I was on my way home from the market one evening when I was robbed and murdered. Except that I could never really remain dead. I woke up the morning after to find myself in an open field with blood staining my dress.

Figuring I'd probably already been declared dead by the local papers, I decided it was time for me to leave Wales. I'd been there long enough.

From then on, I dressed like a male to avoid suspicion whilst I travelled as I pleased. I went everywhere and anywhere. I died a few more times and found out that I was doomed to remain with the visage of a woman in between her twenties and thirties forever. It wasn't a terrible existence. I fought in wars that I believed in and some I didn't and fell in love. I did everything I could.

The idea of being a witch still heavily weighed on me, but as technology developed, science progressed, and cultures changed, I was given new theories to entertain. Concepts that would have been forbidden to me before (reading anything but the Bible) were opened up to me. I still disguised myself as a male for good measure, but I was happy to see women moving forward in the world.

As time passed, I, too, changed. I became withdrawn from the world with my discovery of books and learning, and found myself reading and writing alone in my very own laboratory. I experimented on the properties of my blood, examining it under the microscope and concluding that it was a gene mutation which had caused my "witchcraft".

I brought things back to life with my blood as a stable form of vitality. It was a wondrously dark time for me. In that period of my life, I was the closest to the devil I'd ever been; I didn't experiment solely upon animals (and feel very much like Victor Frankenstein in doing so). I also experimented on myself.

I would cut myself to see how much blood one needed to lose in order to die of blood loss (I estimated it was roughly one to two litres) so that I knew my limitations. It was from my secluded cottage -which lurked on the edge of a small town- that I discovered something far stranger.

The day that I died of blood loss, a thirty year old woman died of blood loss after slitting her wrists as I did. It was the sort of town where everyone knows everyone, and none could fathom her sudden suicide. On a whim, I investigated farther; I killed myself most strangely and awaited results.

A day after waking up from my death (I had decided to bury myself alive, which was both difficult and excruciatingly unpleasant- it was no wonder I became afraid of elevators after my first ride in one) I found that a townswoman of similar age to me had died in the same manner.

It was a life for a life, then; I died, and in my place, a woman of similar age (at least, in terms of my appearance) would take my place.

May 5, 1962

Anyway, I bet your bored of hearing about my past, so let's move on to how I met the wonderful Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr. It was simple, really. Charles used Cerebro to find me and ask me to join his team, which I delightfully declined.

It was my first interaction with any other mutants.

I had been sitting in Central Park when they approached me, playing chess as I so often did on weekend mornings. My opponent had to leave the match before we could finish though, and I was just about to sweep all the pieces into a box when a black knight jumped to a space of its own accord.

"Check." Charles Xavier sat down across from me, Erik Lehnsherr standing with his hands in his pockets to Charles's right. "Victoria Bishop, I presume," he offered me his hand, which I ignored. "I'm Charles and this is Erik."

"That's an old name." I commented, thinking of my dad suddenly, unpleasantly, and trying my hardest to appear unsurprised, as well as to ignore the tingling in my head. It felt very much like someone was walking around in my head. "A very, very old name. It belongs to a long deceased relative of mine." I moved my rook decisively, capturing the offending knight in a move that put his king in check. "Mate in six moves," I offered. "You have until then to explain your mutations."

Charles and Erik bristled at that. "How do you know they're mutations, not something else?"

"I have studied my own anatomy extensively," I answered. Mutants. If it felt like someone was creeping around inside my head near the two of them, one of them probably was. And based on the slightly guilty expression lining Charles's forehead, it was him. "But you should already know that. Find what you're looking for in my head, Charles? It's rude to borrow information without asking."

Charles moved his king back a space to avoid capture, looking sheepish. "Ah, sorry. We're used to dealing with teenagers," he said by way of excuse. And as far as excuses went, it was a terrible one.

"Teenagers ignorant to their own DNA coding," I muttered, trying not to smirk at his defensive position on the board. "As well as your mental snooping." I moved my queen to a position that nearly put him in check again. "How did you move the piece?"

"I didn't, that was Erik," Charles replied, moving a pawn closer to my side of the board, where he would obviously exchange the weak piece for his own long dead queen.

"I can control metal," Erik supplied shortly, looking bored.

"I'm guessing tall, dark and brooding scared off a mutant once, so now you do the talking, because you feel you are more charming?" I questioned Charles, intercepting his pawn with my bishop slyly. His move was predictable, since the pawn had been close to my side of the board and was one of his few remaining pieces. Unfortunately my move sent his king back to a corner.

"You're very perceptive," Charles complimented me. "What I really wanted to ask, however, is if you'd be interested in joining our... how should I put it... school for mutants? With your experience, you could be a valuable teacher, for the kids and for Erik and I."

My eyebrows shot up as I moved my other rook, only leaving Charles two spots to move between each turn with his king. His pawns could have the board for all I cared, because his king was mine in three turns. "I'm almost two hundred eighty years old. I have seen wars waged and lost over religion, resources and land. I have learned everything I can, but I am hardly willing to live anymore."

As I spoke, he moved a pawn forward. I moved my own pawn towards his king, continuing: "I wish to remain impartial to whatever war is brewing on the horizons."

"How do you know that-?" Charles allowed the inquiry to trail off, moving the same pawn.

"You learn the signs, and the pissing contest America is having with the USSR in terms of building up the nuclear arsenal is a dead giveaway," I rolled my eyes, moving my queen deliberately. "We have been on the edge of war for some time now. It is only natural that it come to a head."

"That head will be caused by the mutants," Charles countered, distracted by my queen. Meanwhile, my bishop went unnoticed... he moved his pawn again, one move from my side of the board. "A man named Sebastian Shaw is instigating a confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviets in Cuba. He convinced the U.S. to put missiles in Turkey and the Soviets to put missiles in Cuba."

"He wants them to use the nuclear weapons we've built," I realised, moving my bishop that single, final stroke and declaring: "Mate."

Charles stared at the board in confusion. "How-? Oh the bishop. Clever. I'm going to pretend you didn't boost your ego using that specific piece," he said cheekily.

I shook my head at him in amusement, clearing the board. "Regardless, I'm going to have to decline, boys," I put the lid on the box, drawing myself up to my full height, which was admittedly only five foot six. Not exactly short, but not really tall, either. "I find myself in a period of retirement, right now. It comes in cycles," I shrugged. "It's selfish of me, but with near immortality, I don't really need to worry about the end result of this war either way. I'm just tired of the repetition," I confided. "I only just got of WWII, so don't drag me into three just yet."

"WWII ended seventeen years ago," Erik informed me tightly, his hands clenching in his pockets.

"Passed in a blink of an eye for me," I remarked. "Come see me in about," I looked at each of them, trying to think of a decent period of time by estimating their ages. It wouldn't do to give them a number they wouldn't live to see. But I still wanted to make it a damn long time... "I think you two can survive another half-century, at least, so find me then. Any sooner?" I wriggled my gloved fingers at them in warning. They must know about my mutation. Why else would they come to find me, specifically?

As I stalked away, I could hear Erik mutter: "Piece of work, like that guy in the bar."

I pretended not to hear.