Focus: All.
Notes: It'll come as no surprise to anyone that 'The Middle' was doodled whilst watching Lord of the Rings (Fellowship). Jess-muse looked at it and considered it and toyed with it for oh, about five days, then decided I should write a story to go with it. So I made the mistake of enquiring what the back-story was, how they'd gotten to 'The Middle'. That was ten days ago. He told me and I wrote it down and that is what's labeled as 'The Beginning'. Then I sat down to write the story itself, and that's the part that's labeled as the 'The End.' And that's why it's presented in the order that it is.
Please note that 'The End' will be posted in a couple of weeks as it is written but is currently undergoing tweaking and beta-ing.
Many thanks to Jen, Claire and Wyn for saying nice things and being generally encouraging and Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooojjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj HUGS and thanks to JillyW for putting up with much cursing and doing a sterling beta job. All remaining mistakes are all mine.
Warnings: I don't know anything about anything, and techno babble is just techno babble. AU inasmuch as it's outside canon. In the future, actually.
*****
Ringing the ChangesBy Chya
The MiddleFive rings there were, five rings of those with power, those that led all others.
They lay alone, untouched by the living since their bearers lay them to rest deep within a mountain as the world waged a war of human and mutant. A short war, but vicious and decimating, no side able to take the mantle of black or white, all battling in shades of gray.
The mutant rebellion had been quashed. The ferals killed or caged, the moleculars enslaved in mines and quarries whose automated robotics had been destroyed. Elementals kept tethered in power stations and factories, providing the energy for humans to function, live and rebuild while psionics and those with other powers too dangerous, or which simply didn't have any practical application, were killed out of hand in the global freak farms.
For once, humankind was united in a hatred that would last as long as the planetary desolation, and a thirst for destruction that would last as long as there were mutants to exploit and destroy.
For those very few renegades and outlaws of both human and mutant kind who still believed in the right to live, a legend was growing; the story of a small, elusive group who even before the war, as well as during, helped mutants to escape horrific fates and integrate into civilized society with humans who accepted who and what they were. A group who fought tenaciously for the right of mutants to live in peace alongside humans. Legend said that only the plain silver ring they wore could identify a member of that group.
But the rings had been carefully abandoned as their bearers chose to go different ways, take different paths, each believing they were fighting for peace and equality, yet never quite able to reconcile and unite through their own differences.
Now, the war was over and exactly a year had passed since the rings had been buried here beneath the ruins of Sanctuary. And one person took it upon himself to find each ring bearer and return the band of silver to them.
He was a man of no side at all, a man who, in the far distant past, had been scarred and beaten yet survived to rule his own ruthless empire. A man who was not quite human, yet not quite mutant.
A man who, before the war, had been known as Mason Eckhart but, now that it was over, no longer had a name to call his own.
*****
The Beginning
=13 Months
At the beginning of 2004, mutants started coming out of the woodwork.
It started with a feral named Lucy, plain speaking and articulate, feline enough that her mutancy was clear, yet not displeasing to the human eye. Her reception was indifferent on the surface, and she encouraged others. Peoples' opinions became mixed, leaning towards the negative, but since this was better than Lucy, or any mutant who looked at the bigger picture over their own security, could have hoped for, optimism grew. Information concerning Genomex and its government links were leaked gently to the press, helping to promote sympathy for the mutant cause. Most leaks were quashed, but enough were printed that conspiracy theorists had some idea that these freaks of nature were created by human hand.
Around this time a powerful industrialist, William Morrisen gained a senate seat on a platform of anti-mutant propaganda, easily done since he represented a state known for its often violent intolerance of the different.
Riots started breaking out, small ones here and there in major cities, rapidly escalating over the weeks, months, until it all culminated in the Halloween Riot. What started out as a peaceful mutant demonstration turned into a full-fledged car-burning riot, something not unusual at that time. Humans and mutants alike fought tooth and nail, almost all believing they were right. There were a few unfortunate fatalities and many injuries on all sides, but it became infamous for the deaths of three individuals in particular.
The first was Lucy, who had the misfortune to be struck in the head by a large rock which shattered her skull, thrown from what could have been anywhere in the confusion. And the others were two children, a young brother and sister, playing innocently in the park through which the demonstration passed. The media ignored the fact that the children were cremated before autopsies could be performed, focusing almost wholly on the fact that they had been eviscerated. They could have died by knife but, because the media dictated otherwise, it was generally accepted that they were murdered by claw.
The fact that this most shocking of events occurred on the day of the Witching Hour did nothing to help the mutant cause, and The Halloween Riot became infamous for sparking off the Mutant War.
*****
In the garden there was almost silence only disturbed by the water trickling
merrily and oblivious into the pond.
The five people that stood in a loose circle were all too aware of the muted pounding at the walls, the vents and the pipes, searching out all the weak spots that Sanctuary might possess. The Mutageddon Virus had wiped the computers clean, destroying information highways and stores, gobbling anything and everything in its path, including security systems.
They weren't under attack by any super-mutant or immoral business conglomerate, weren't under threat of experimentation or someone after their information, their mutant database.
They were under attack by a lynch mob of proportions big enough to quash the National Guard. To fight was to commit suicide and that was something that none were prepared to consider in these climes. They could serve better by keeping alive and doing as much as they could out there in the world.
Reluctant as they were to admit it, it was time the group split up to follow their own destinies. In order to preserve its visions and goals, Mutant X had to die. The underground, although busier than ever, could continue without them; there were enough good people willing and able to ensure mutants got out of violent sectors and into relatively safe environments.
They each swore that they would be back to collect their ring when the opportunity came, that they wouldn't forget their time here, and that they would stay in contact one way or another. That they would always remain friends, no matter what happened. Emma even went so far as to suggest they meet up in exactly a year's time, like they did in that old movie. They all smiled, and while a pact to do so was obviously not forthcoming, the idea being just too corny, neither did anyone deny the thought.
Adam closed the box and, turning the waterfall off, put it in the small safe below the mouth from where the water fell. The same safe held another lever that opened a door in the floor that Adam tripped before locking the safe and switching the waterfall back on again.
The five hugged and said goodbye to each other, not knowing if the chance would arise again, and made their way through the trapdoor and tunnel that would bring them out deep in the woods.
In Sanctuary's own sanctuary, the trapdoor sealed closed behind them and the rings began the long wait for their return.
*****