Chapter 1
The Knight From The Future
2042, New York
As she dodged another of the golem's attacks, the black haired woman glanced at the rest of her team. Dwayne was fighting a creature with green skin, muscular physique and giant claws on his fingers, and losing, terribly. Sarah was fighting a humanoid creature that is completely made of yellow energy. They appear to be on the standstill. Kane is thrashing around with another golem, not unlike the one she is fighting. And the oh so great team leader, Rick, is completely owned by a tiny girl, seriously, she looks like a twelve year old girl. She simply had to smirk at how her team was losing, she hates these people.
That smirk disappeared when the golem she was fighting kicked her on the jaw. "That's not how you treat a lady, you know?" It attacked her again but she did a backflip to make some distance between them. "Although, you're disgusting enough that it wouldn't matter even if you treat her like a queen." She finished with a smirk.
Her smirk disappeared again when she heard that familiar self-righteous voice. "Stop playing and destroy that thing!" She turned to see Rick glaring at her. She despises all of the fools from her team but she can't stand Rick. He's a judgemental, self-righteous and color-blind asshole. A true X-men poster boy. "Golems are magical creatures, right? So it should be easy to destroy them with your all-powerful magic."
The black haired woman growled. She hated whenever that asshole dissed her magic. And that happens a lot. Her adopted mother taught her the darkest magic known to man and demon, yet, she knows that golems are practically immune to magic, so her knowledge of the arts is pretty useless against them. She's not going to say that out loud though.
"Why don't you watch your own business? And by 'business' I mean don't get killed by a twelve year old look-alike." She replied in a snarky tone. Rick glared at her and moved to attack the girl once again. The black haired woman looked around once again. They're getting owned, terribly. Well, the others can die here if they want, no way am I going to let the same happen to me. She thought as she started saying some kind of incantation. The dark blue aura started surrounding her.
Sarah happened to glance at her from her own fight and her eyes widened. "Cassandra, what are you doing?" Her question went unanswered as Cassandra continued to cast a spell and her aura became darker and darker until it was completely black. "Cassandra!" Sarah yelling as she ran towards her. Cassandra's concentration was broken because of that and that resulted in the explosion that destroyed her teammates and enemies alike. Thankfully, the area was vacated of the civilians when the fighting started.
When the smoke calmed down, Cassandra disappeared, and all her teammates and enemies are lying on the ground. But not all of them are destroyed. Kane lies on the ground, bloody, and he is crawling towards the rest of his teammates. "Sarah… wake up." He said as he crawled over to her and started shaking her. "Sarah… wake up!" He said again, desperation clear in his voice. When she didn't wake up, he started crying and yelling desperately. "Rick! Dwayne! Ri…" He was stopped by his incoming sobs. He cried like that for about two minutes before his eyes hardened. "Cassandra… It's all her fault."
2015, New York
As Logan watched Jean teach kids about proper use of telekinesis he felt a change in the air, and judging by the way Jean whipped her head to the side, she felt it too. "Kids, get inside!" She ordered in the calmest voice she could. This feeling is incredibly similar to the one she got when she was attacked by Selene. After all kids went inside the mansion, she ran to Logan. "Did you feel it too?" She asked frantically.
"Yeah." He said as they started running towards the mansion's front gates, where they felt this change. When they arrived, they saw Emma already on the scene, standing in front of a black hole that materialized out of thin air. "What the hell is this, blondie?" He asked in a gruff tone.
Emma glanced at him but didn't react otherwise. They continued to watch the hole until a woman with long, straight, black hair and blue eyes wearing a black corset top, black leather jeans, leather high heel boots, also black, and long, black, leather gloves. She was looking around, completely ignoring them. Finally, she turned to them, her eyes narrowed. "Where am I?" She asked with a cold voice that can rival the White Queen's.
Logan narrowed her eyes at her, and let his claws come out. "Listen, bub, you're the one who came just came in here with that… whatever it is of yours. We should be the one asking questions here. Now, who the hell are you?"
She turned, and looked straight at him with an unimpressed gaze. She finally let a smirk on her face and spoke in an amused tone, like she isn't in any danger. "That seems fair. My name is Cassandra." Her eyes flashed red and Logan's claws retracted themselves without him doing it. He turned his surprised gaze to his hands, and then back to Cassandra who gave him a superior smirk. She then turned to the redhead who was studying her carefully and started talking directly to her. "Now that you know my name and we're all friends, answer my question." She finished with a cold but still amused voice.
Before Jean could answer her, Emma cut in the conversation. "What are you doing here?" She asked the intruder with a glare.
The woman looked her up and down and then looked at her eyes with a smirk. "Well, I would wish to do you, but for now I don't even know where I am." Her smirk turned into a grin when that comment earned her another glare. Then, she turned to Jean. "Care to remedy that? To tell me where I am, that is."
Jean looked at her warily for a couple seconds and then she answered her. "You are at the Xavier's Institute of Higher Learning. In New York." The woman frowned at that and Jean couldn't understand why. She tried to enter her mind, but found that she can't even locate her mind, like she isn't even there, her eyes widened. Emma. She sent to the blonde telepath. I tried to enter her mind, but it's like she isn't even there.
Emma glanced at Jean, and then tried to enter the woman's mind herself. When she didn't find anything her eyes widened. You're right. How is that even possible? She sent back to Jean.
The woman glared at two of them. "I can hear you, you know?" She told them. The two telepaths looked at her with widened eyes and the hairy guy looked confused. "Xavier's school you say?" She directed the question at Jean. When she got a nod, her expression became thoughtful. "But that's impossible. Xavier's institute was destroyed thirty years ago." She turned her back to three X-men, so she didn't see their surprised faces. "And the X-morons created a new school in Cali. So this is, as I said before impossible." By now she talked more to herself than to anyone else. "Unless…"
Logan cleared his throat to get Cassandra's attention. "Sorry to interrupt your monologue, but what the hell are you talking about!?" She turned to look at Logan and raised an amused eyebrow. "What the hell is all this bullshit about Chuck's school being destroyed and California!?"
Cassandra chuckled and gave him an amused smirk. "You must be Logan." When he narrowed his eyes she raised her hands in sign of surrender, but she didn't look the least bit intimidated. "No need to glare. Let me explain how I think I arrived here, alright?" When they didn't say anything, she took it as a sign to continue. "Alright, first thing first, I am Cassandra Gallio." When she heard her name, the blonde widened her eyes. She wanted to ask, or rather probe her mind for a reason of such a reaction, but she decided to let it go. For now. So she continued talking. "I'm a mutant, sorceress and an only member of the POWER with a brain."
Jean waved her hand for her to stop talking, so she remained silent and waited for whatever question she's about to pose. "What is POWER, exactly?" She asked with a confused look on her face.
"POWER, right. Well, the POWER is a team of super-powered humans created by military, who was too bored to think of a real name for it, to fight against super-powered baddies. There were five of us, me, Dwayne, a former Avenger, Sarah, a former mercenary, and Kane and Rick, both of them former X-men." While she talked two more people came out and asked for explanation, which she isn't going to repeat. "Hey, you two, shut up and listen! Your buddies are going to fill you in on what you've missed." She ordered to these new-comers. The one with shades seemed to glare at her, but she didn't do anything about it for the sake of peace and not having to kick their asses. "So, where was I? Oh, right. So, me and the rest of the POWER fought against some powerful creatures, we were losing, because they are incompetent asses. So, since we were about to lose and die, I've done what every sane sorcerer would do, I started casting a spell that would teleport me back to safety." She was interrupted by a guy in the shades shouting a 'What!?'
Cassandra crossed her arms as she waited for a guy in shades to explain the interruption he caused. Cassandra looked at him more closely and decided that this must be Scott Summers. She didn't meet any of the older X-men but her adopted mother told her a lot about them. From what she heard, she didn't have high expectations of him saying anything intelligent. She was right. "You simply ran away and left your teammates to die!?" He yelled while seemingly glaring at her.
Cassandra rolled her eyes at him. Well I wasn't about to die with them. She thought with more than a little bit of venom. She and her teammates never got along well because of her past in the Hellfire Club. They also weren't the greatest fans of her bringing girls home every now and then. Rick even went as far as to call her a slut. There were very few people Cassandra would die for, and her teammates sure as hell weren't among them.
Even though she thought his question is completely stupid, she answered him. "Yes I simply ran away and left my teammates to die. Can we move on now?" She looked around to make sure no one had anything to add, but they seemed too stunned to even think. Nevertheless she continued. "Anyway, as I was casting a spell, I got distracted. So instead of sending me to Hawaii, where I wanted to go, I was sent here. A couple of decades back." She finished and waited for a barrage of questions.
It was Emma who asked a rather predictive question. "Wait, 'a couple of decades back'?" She asked in a way that made it obvious she didn't believe her. When Cassandra simply nodded she narrowed her eyes. "Right. Why, pray tell, should we believe you?"
Cassandra rolled her eyes. "I don't know. Why don't you try to explain how I know all these things I'm about to tell you?" She had to smirk when she said that. She might ruin some lives when she finishes, and her sadistic self will greatly enjoy it. "Right now, you assholes are having trouble with a drug made for mutants that is so eloquently named 'Kick'. You could simply investigate with your telepathy, and find out who is using and selling that drug, but your professor won't allow it." She glanced around to see some surprised faces. So I was right, huh? "I can tell you right away who is using that drug. His name is Quentin Quire, and he is using the 'Kick' and he will later on start a riot that will end in the death of one of so-called Stepford Cuckoos." She glance at the faces of the X-men to see that most of the are surprised, but the blondie seems horrified. "And your teacher, Kuan-Yin Xorn is also using. He's actually going to be so fucked up that he will think he is Magneto and kill our favorite flaming bird." She chanced a glance at the said flaming bird and saw a face masked with horror. "Believe me now?"
Jean shook herself out of her horror and spoke. "We will need to check this. Logan, could you take her to the conference room, we will be up shortly, along with the professor." Cassandra smirked when she heard this, but her smirk turned into a pout when she remembered something. But I didn't get a chance to tell Mrs. Summers about her husband's affair. Ah, there'll be time for that later. She thought with a big amount of glee.
Jean, Emma and Scott are sitting in front of the Professor X, most of them with solemn looks on their faces, but Emma is glaring at Xavier. Xavier moved to scratch his bald head and sighed. "I can't believe this." He looked at all of them. "Jean, I have to apologize. If this continued, you would be dead, like that woman said."
Scott was the one who hurried to answer. "Professor, this wasn't your…" But he was cut off by Emma.
"Like hell it isn't." She said while glaring at Charles. Scott turned to glare at her. "Don't glare at me so, Scott dear. If this Cassandra woman hadn't appeared, not only would your Jean die, but also one of my girls. And all because your dear professor didn't want to invade some privacy."
Scott's glare intensified ten-fold, if that's even possible. Can't that woman remain silent? "This isn't professor's fault. He couldn't have known that somebody would die. And, plus, we don't even know if it would happen. I still don't trust that woman."
Emma rolled her eyes at how loyal Scott is to Charles but remained silent. In the end, Xavier was the one to break a silence. "Be that as it may, she was right about Quentin and Xorn. We still don't know whether she is really from the future, as she says she is, or if she came to this information by other means." He then turned to Jean. "Jean, you said that you can't read her, right?"
Jean nodded at him. "That's right professor. Neither Emma nor I could read her, we actually couldn't even locate her. It was like she wasn't even there." She said and then remembered something. "But when Emma and I were communicating telepathically, she had no problem 'hearing' our thoughts. Actually, it appeared that she wasn't even trying. So, she is probably a powerful telepath. Dare I say it, she may be more powerful than even you." When she finished, she saw Scott and professor with their eyes widened almost comically. If she were the type, she would definitely laugh at their expressions.
Emma nodded her agreement and turned to professor to speak. "Although, she did say she is a sorceress. She might have greater telepathy and god knows what else because of her magic." She debated whether to say something about Cassandra's possible connection to Selene, but decided against it. That information may prove to be valuable and she wasn't ready to share it just yet.
Professor's thoughtfully nodded his bald head. "It is possible. I don't know a lot about magic but I will investigate it." He looked down at his desk for a moment, seemingly deep in thought, and then he turned to them. "Well, we should probably go and introduce ourselves to our new guest." And with that they all turned to the door and walked out the door. Well, all of them but the professor, he wheeled himself out.
Cassandra waited in the so-called conference room for two hours, but she found a way to amuse herself. That amusement was Logan. She was sending him erotic fantasies about a certain flaming bird telepathically, and the best part is that he thinks those are his own fantasies. She even sent him one especially erotic fantasy of the flaming bird and blondie naked on the bed kissing passionately, although, that may have been an accident. Since, at the time, she was thinking about how hot that would be.
When people who have been at the courtyard when she arrived entered the room she stopped with the teasing. She wouldn't want one of the telepaths to pick up on that. But she smirked when she saw that Logan couldn't make eye contact with Jean and Emma. When a bald, white cripple entered the room her smirk became even bigger. So, this is Charles Xavier. He seems like a villain from one of those movies made in the 80's. That thought almost made her laugh.
When he saw Cassandra, Professor Xavier gave her a friendly smile that she returned with a smirk that would make you think she knows all your secrets. "Hello, miss… Gallio, right?" Saying that name, made it sound familiar, but he couldn't for the life of him remember where from. When she nodded, he gave her another smile. "My name is Charles Xavier, and these are, as you may know, my X-men." He paused to glance at the other people in the room. "Now, can you explain to us how you came to be here?"
She looked at him blankly. "I explained that to your… X-men ,already." When he opened his mouth to respond, Cassandra raised her hand as the universal sign for 'shut the fuck up, I'm talking'. "Are you trying to tell me that the flaming bird over there didn't fill you in? Because I find that hard to believe." She finished in a cold, commanding voice. She hates repeating herself.
Emma cleared her throat to get everyone's attention. When she got it, she started speaking directly to the black haired woman. "Anyway, the information you gave us was accurate, so we are willing to think about the possibility of you being from the future. However, what we want to know is who were you before your alleged time-traveling experience." She finished with the same cold and commanding voice the other woman used.
While Emma spoke, Cassandra was studying the way she stood, the way she talked and her appearance. When she figured out who this woman is, she couldn't help but smirk. Suddenly, the fantasy she sent to Logan gained about her and the firefly gained a new, amusing quality. "When did you leave the Hellfire Club?" She decided to ask. When the blonde raised an eyebrow, like to say 'right back at you', she chuckled. "Fair enough. Before I traveled through time, I was a member of the military team that consisted of super-powered humans. We were tasked to bring very powerful baddies down. And if any hero goes rogue, we were supposed to take them out."
It was then that Logan decided to speak up. "Take them out?" He asked in a curious rather than accusing tone.
Cassandra turned to him and thought about how to answer. This question wasn't as simple as they may think. She decided to tell them how she sees it. "Well, that's not really a simple question. We didn't always kill them, but it actually depends on the person and situation." She took a long breath as she thought about her next words. "They told us that we're killing only the most dangerous ones. But the way I see it, the only people we killed were mutants, those that got their power by genetics. Those that got their powers later in life, through an accident or by experiments done to them, or aliens and other unknown creatures were brought in prison, where they will probably dissect them."
"And you simply let this happen!?" Scott yelled from where he was sitting. Emma told him to remain silent during their talk because she had an idea of who this woman might be, and his idealism might unnerve her, and, considering that they don't know how powerful she is, unnerving her would be a bad idea, but she couldn't stay silent anymore. What kind of a monster would allow someone to treat other people like that.
Cassandra turned to look at him with a glare. Great, he's starting to annoy me, already. "I didn't have a choice." She shrugged. "Before I… 'joined' the POWER…" She said the word 'joined' in such a way that made it clear she didn't actually join. "… I was the Black Knight of the Hellfire Club. I left when I was twenty two, but three years later, they found enough evidence to put more than half of the Inner Circle under the needle, me being one of those 'more than a half'. They gave me a… 'choice' though, either to die with the rest of them, or to join a military unit with a stupid name."
Everyone was silent after she finished her story, all of them lost in their own thoughts. All of them, except for Cassandra, that is. She was lost in everyone else's thoughts, except, she wasn't really lost, she knew exactly where she is. Jean is actually sympathetic towards her. Pfft, I don't need sympathy. These are probably one of the nicer thoughts, though. Logan is thinking about his time with Weapon X, and how similar these two groups are. Oh, Wolverine, you have no idea. Scott still thinks she could have done something to stop them. Idealistic fool. Emma is slowly connecting the dots about her relationship with Selene. Keep thinking Emma, you might even get it. The brown haired guy who she doesn't know is thinking about how hot she is. Typical. And the professor is curious about what her powers might be, and planning how to get her to join the X-men. Surprise, surprise.
Finally, the professor, cleared his throat, ending the silence. "So… you said that you are a mutant, right?" When she nodded, he continued. "So, if I might ask, what are your powers?"
Cassandra barely managed not to laugh at his question. He is already thinking of how to recruit her to his stupid cause. From what she heard, the X-men had members who were former mercenaries, former terrorists, thieves and even the former White Queen, but Xavier is shiftier than all of them, hell, he might even be shiftier than Selene. She decided to answer him though. "Well, my original powers were telepathy and telekinesis, but during the years, with the help of magic, I got other powers."
It was Logan who asked the next question. "Such as?"
Cassandra turned to him while answering the question. "Such as, increased strength, increased speed, increased constitution, increased agility, faster reflexes, night-vision, I can also see better than a normal human, which makes me a perfect shooter. I also have a partial immunity to fire and cold, and I can turn invisible." She finished, and when she turned to look at them, they all looked at her like she just told them Hitler was a warm and loving guy.
Silence ruled the entire room for about a minute, before Jean broke it. "That's… impressive. And you gained all those powers with the help of magic?"
Cassandra looked directly at her when she answered. "All those, and more. I lost most of my powers when I stopped worshiping demons." After that, the meeting was mostly over, so they told the brown haired guy, who she now knows is named Robert, to show her to her room.
After Cassandra and Bobby left, the room was dominated by silence, as no one knew what to say. At the end, Scott was the one who broke the silence. "She is a demon worshipper." They all turned to see him glaring at the door Cassandra just went through. "And she just left her team to die. I know what you are thinking professor, but we can't trust her."
Xavier closed his eyes and sighed. "I know, Scott, but she seems to be a powerful mutant, and an able sorceress." He then turned to Emma. "Do you know anything about her? Or who her parents might be?"
Emma debated whether to tell him what she knows, but decided against it. After all, this information might come in handy. "No, I don't."