Chapter III: What fools these mortals be
Bishop had decided to try and eliminate Xavier before the conference if possible- it had the same effect but with a greater chance of his own escape; Bishop had no illusions about his reputation and eventual fate should the killing be pinned on him. He now had a mission, but still lacked a location. The location of the Xavier Institute was practically a shrine in the future; however in the future one blasted waste-ground of rubble and cratered, cracked streets looked very much like another and bore very little resemblance to landscape of the past, and he was finding hard to get his bearings. Finding himself in what even he recognised as a particularly seedy and unsavoury part of the city, he decided he should seek information, with which aim he headed to the nearest bar. He strode inside and found himself in the odd position of feeling slightly at home; there was an atmosphere of prospective violence in the air that reminded him of his home. He made his way to the bar and grabbed the attention of the barman, not hard to do for someone of his proportions.
"Excuse me, I hope you can help- I'm looking for the Xavier institute," were the words he was sure he uttered, but from the reaction of the other loiterers in the bar he may very well have announced an intention to rape their wives and eat their children. Five particularly brutish looking men stood up and squared up to him.
"That freak show? You ain't some mutie lover are ya?" one demanded. Another, even bigger and in his own strange way more astute, made a further leap of logic on very flimsy evidence.
"You ARE a mutant, ain'tcha? That's why you've got that M scar on your face."
"Please, no fighting!" pleaded the barman piteously, but he was wasting his breath. One of the thugs whirled on him menacingly.
"Shut up, mutie-lover. You're hardly better than they are, letting freaks like that into this place." It was extremely unfair even in the face of the most rudimentary logic but Bishop supposed rational thought processes were not a defining attribute of bigotry. The thug's fellows were still facing off against Bishop despite even the tallest of them only reaching his chin.
"Listen to the man, there's no need for violence here," Bishop assured them, holding up his hands in a placatory manner. The tall thug sneered.
"Oh, I think there is..."
Bishop did not bother arguing the case further, instead one raised hand balled into a meaty fist and was launched into a business-like but brutal uppercut that slammed into the man's jaw like a jackhammer. The man reeled backwards, blood bubbling from his mouth.
"Your friend's got a broken jaw and with that amount of blood he might have bitten his tongue as well. You should probably help him get that looked at," suggested Bishop, but the advice was ignored as the thugs instead went on the attack. One swung an elaborate haymaker of a punch at Bishop. The arm was caught, twisted, and with a judicious blow from Bishop's free hand, fractured neatly and painfully. Instead of realising how overmatched they were, the thugs instead circled Bishop, confident their superior numbers would ensure their target's defeat. Bishop would probably have laughed in less serious circumstances.
"You're gonna regret that, you freak," snarled the thug in front of Bishop. It seemed to be a rather elaborate war-cry as it signalled all three thugs to close in. The one on the left was sent staggering away, glassy-eyed and bloodied by the elbow jabbed right into the bridge of his nose but the distraction allowed the front-most thug to land a much better blow than Bishop had expected. Not that the massive mutant allowed his surprise to show, instead planting a boot right in the thug's groin. The man collapsed with a high-pitched squeal of pain, but Bishop ignored him and without breaking his motion swivelled and grabbed with contemptuous ease the fist that had been intended for his left temple. He spent a few seconds watching the man flopping like a gaffed fish in a pathetic attempt to free his arm before starting to squeeze the wrist with inexorable force.
"I suggest you start talking before I start to lose my temper," Bishop advised the suddenly very pale-faced would-be assailant, who managed a defiant sneer before the sensation of bones in his hand starting to give way ruined the last of his resistance.
"I s-suggest you l-leave before I get the police inv-volved," the barman managed to stammer, awestruck by the sudden violence that had flared up and been brutally suppressed in barely five minutes. Bishop was not intimidate by the prospect of this time-zone's police; in his own, law enforcement generally came in the form of ten feet of heavily armoured cyborg, but any such encounter would use up precious time he could not afford to spare.
"I'll be on my way as soon as this pond-scum gives me some answers."
The pond-scum was only too keen to oblige.