So...here we are again. I still think that this particular creative well ran dry years ago but I keep being asked to continue it so here's another one to add to this saga. Once again, this follows on from the original trilogy and ignores everything else.


CHAPTER ONE

Professor Charles Xavier had only the vaguest idea of where he was. An industrial area, or what remained of one. The area had evidently been devastated by an explosion at some point in the past and then abandoned. Buildings were in pieces, the ground torn to shreds.

But the most curious thing was Professor Xavier himself. He was human and he was walking, not in the crippled robotic body that he had had for some years now but in his original body, healed.

Another man walked towards him, a man whose existence was the most impossible thing of all. A man who had been his friend and his enemy and had died while Xavier's own mind was still trapped in limbo, unable to assist. Magneto.

"It's been a long time, Charles,"he remarked.

"It has,"Xavier confirmed. But logic meant he couldn't continue the deceit. "You realise this is quite impossible."

"Because I'm dead? Perhaps. But then so were you once. And if anyone was going to haunt you after death, it would be me, wouldn't it?"

"I always hoped you were at peace."

"Peace?" Magneto almost spat the word. "Do you think either of us could ever know peace? We are linked, two sides of the same coin. And as long as that link remains neither of us will know peace."

Xavier shook his head. "No. No, you're wrong. The world is improving. Mutants are accepted. The holocaust that you foresaw…you, Apocalypse, Sinister, all those who believed mutants must rule or serve…you were wrong."

"Or perhaps not. Perhaps you will be the one who brings it about. Perhaps you're doing it now."

"A cryptic remark. What do you think I'm doing?"

"Doing. Not doing. It's all the same. You are thinking, Charles. Just as I am. I think, therefore I am. You think, therefore I am. Therefore everything is."

Xavier felt like he was on the verge of understanding. "Everything?"

"Professor, are you all right?"a female voice cut in.

And Xavier found himself in bed. He'd been told he didn't need one, that his robotic body didn't need rest, even after the damage to it by the Brotherhood member Avalanche that had left him once more requiring a wheelchair to move around. But his mind remained human and it required rest.

He looked at the dark-skinned, white-haired woman who was looking down at him with concern. "Storm."

Ororo Monroe, Storm, nodded. "You seemed in some distress."

"I was dreaming."

Storm tilted her head slightly, curious. "I didn't think you could dream."

"Neither did I. Perhaps it's a new phenomenon." Xavier managed a smile, even though his mind was struggling to process what he'd experienced. "It's all right, Storm. Go back to bed."


Storm headed back to the room she shared with Logan. Despite Xavier's reassuring words, she felt uneasy. She suspected he wasn't being entirely honest.

Wolverine was sat on the bed. He cocked an eyebrow as she entered. "Everything all right with the Prof?"

Storm shrugged. "He says so."

Wolverine considered the equivocal answer. "You want me to speak to him?"

It was Storm's turn to raise an eyebrow. "You think you'd have more success?"

"I can be persuasive."

"I don't think that's the kind of persuasion we need."

Wolverine seemed to conceed the point. "So, what do we do?"

Storm shrugged as she got back into bed. "I guess we wait until he tells us what's going on."

Logan stood up but paused a moment before joining her in the bed. "So long as he doesn't leave it until it's too late."

Storm rolled over and looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"Just that he doesn't have the best track record when it comes to knowing when to keep us in the loop."


In one of the mansion's other rooms, Bobby and Rogue were also in bed. Their slumber was disturbed when the door opened and a shaft of light flashed over their bed. Rogue nudged Bobby awake as she sat up. Their daughter Harmony was standing there, looking grumpy. "I can't sleep,"she complained.

"Did you have a nightmare?"Rogue asked.

Harmony shook her head. "Not a nightmare. I wasn't asleep."

The two statements struck Rogue as strange. "What do you mean?"

Harmony struggled to find the words. "Like a nightmare. But I was awake. There was a scary monster. All metal."

"In the room with you?"Rogue asked.

"No. Somewhere else. I could see it somewhere else. I didn't want to be alone with it."

Bobby was awake now as well and sitting up. "Do you want to get into bed with us?"

Harmony nodded eagerly. She clambered up and settled in between them. A moment later, she was asleep. Rogue stroked her daughter's hair softly, looking worried. "What's wrong?"Bobby asked her.

"We always thought she'd be a mutant,"Rogue pointed out.

"Yeah, but she's still young! We didn't get our powers until we were teens!"

"Some people get theirs younger. Look at some of the students here. Some are born like it."

"And you think she's…what? Having visions?"

"I don't know. I just think maybe we should get the Professor to look at her."

Bobby nodded. "Okay. We'll talk to him in the morning."


In a devastated area, similar to that in Xavier's dream, something was happening.

The area had been untouched for many years. Wreckage was strewn across the ground, much of it metal. Then the metal began to move, red metal glinting in the moonlight. It began to twist and pull together until gradually, it began to take on the shape of a person…