Chapter Thirteen

The Ice Queen

Florence, Italy

The work they did was important. No one else was as capable a time-traveler as she, if there were even any others out there at all. The sentinels were quite exceptional at what they did, leaving only her and her brother as the loyal mutants to the human race, while wiping out the rest. They could do this, see this through and finish it. This was everything they'd been trained and prepared for since her very first memory. This was the mission. She knew now what needed to be done. Why was she stalling then?

"What is the point in all this?"

She examined her brother for a moment, his expression twisted in distaste for the portrait hanging directly before him on the wall. She'd brought them to this place to be far from events playing out in a very different part of the globe. They were waiting, letting things play out on their own for now. There was another reason she avoided traveling from her own present much of the time. There was a reason she kept herself in her own timeline and avoided the past.

"It's called art, Brian. People like to look at it, think on it, imagine whole other universes and stories with it."

His look of distaste grew into one of disgust and befuddlement. "Toward what purpose?"

"They think it's aesthetic. It tells them their history, possible present, future. It's a way to hope or dream sometimes."

"How do you know that?"

"I've been here before."

"Oh." He glanced her way. "What for?"

She rolled her eyes, unable to help the infantile act. "Wait here, brother. I'll be back before you know it."

"Bre-"

Gone was the museum and Brian. Gone was the heat and general sense of serenity that was a beautiful and cultured city. She appeared inside four tight walls and a very real darkness. There she waited until the one with glasses and a mostly awkward disposition walked out of the room with a tall broad-shouldered and blue-eyed man who could put her brother to shame with his obviously good physique. They were wearing fine-fitted dark suits and ties, near identical to the one she had waited on to get alone.

When she stepped out of the closet, she cracked a false smile. "Nice suit. Somebody die?"

Charles did not look at her, opting instead to walk over to the large window of his bedroom to stare out. It was no surprise to him that she was here. As a mind-reader, he'd probably known the second she popped into his closet space. Why he chose to say nothing or alert no one to her presence was the real query she thought longest on.

"His name was Sean Cassidy."

There was a definite tightness in his throat. He was holding in his grief and his anger, keeping it in check. She knew all about keeping her emotions in check. It wasn't every mutant who could destroy the world if they lost control. In her case, it could tear to pieces if she let it.

"He died in the future anyway," she reasoned, moving to stand next to Charles Xavier at the window. "Where I come from, people dying every day is commonplace."

"And where you come from, you would have all of us live there one day. A place referred to as hell on earth."

"No. I'll have all of you die there."

Charles shifted his standing position slightly, the only indication of being affected by her words. He cleared his throat and his pitch kept steady when he spoke.

"A bleak outset. You, come to murder me to enable this future."

"I know I won't let you into my mind, but really Charles, you can do better." She turned to face him and smiled widely. "Come on, you're an indisputable genius. Read me yourself, without the power."

He didn't say what she expected from him, but she wasn't disappointed.

"Where do you go when you're not meddling in my affairs?"

If possible, her smile widened. He was expressing interest in her personally. She felt fuzzy and nice inside about that. Charles Xavier, mutant wonder of the world, and her object of interest.

She snagged hold of the hand beside her and slammed her eyes shut. When she opened them, she now stood beside Charles on a rooftop in Florence. Bree released his hand to gesture at the view over the crowded street far below.

"Palazzo Vecchio. One of my favorite buildings in the whole world."

Brilliant blue eyes regarded her thoughtfully.

"Time-travel must be a terribly disorienting and painful process for someone not used to putting such an unfamiliar strain on their body, and mind. I think it's part of what screwed up Shaw's ability to be completely present and who he once knew himself to be. That and the extra effort you went through to show him what would come of the world should he have gotten his way. I'm guessing you don't usually care to protect people."

"No, I don't. Except when I'm traveling with my brother and-" she stopped herself short, realizing what she'd done without having realized she'd been doing it until just now.

Interpersonal relationships were not her forte. She typically communicated with violence because it was the manner in which her world worked. It was easier than talking, except lately she'd liked the talking while around a certain mutant. A mutant she'd already begun to work her special talent on after her first attempt had failed. She broke things, and Charles Xavier was to be her masterpiece to ensure their future.

She looked at Charles, who was staring hard-core at her, and quickly diverted her gaze back to the city beyond. Bree did everything she could not to feel his attention, taking in the sights and sounds around her. She breathed in the air and felt the rays of the sun upon her face and neck. Still it did not keep his voice from carrying over to her.

"You're an anomaly."

"No, no. That's my brother."

"Right. They call you, Apocalypse." He spoke it thoughtfully, like he was measuring the sound of her name as he said it. "For someone so set on destroying this world, you sure do seem to enjoy looking at it."

Bree peeled her eyes away from enjoying the calm nature of the area surrounding her. She began to feel a storm brewing in her stomach, rising to her chest, and she knew it meant bad things if it wasn't contained. She struggled to stuff any and all feelings deep down as she confronted him with the truth.

"I was born destroying things, Charles. It's what I am. Destruction."

She felt the invisible tendrils of his telepathy poking at her head and so she was surprised when Charles spoke to reveal. She hadn't actually felt him get in at all yet he'd managed to come away with a particle of information. He truly was an amazingly powerful telepath.

"You use Shield to hurt me, but you don't want him to kill me." His arms moved to cross behind his back as he shifted partially to face her. "May I ask why?"

Apocalypse could tell him this much. It was why she'd come to him when he was alone.

"You are a fixed point, Charles. You exist and matter in every universe. It's why I sought you out in the first place."

"You tried to turn me into a hating monster responsible for killing everyone I hold dear."

"I was appointed a task. I admit it was a mistake to try changing you. Clearly, it was not meant to be. You are you, incredibly strong and good. My apologies for thinking I could turn you hateful and wrong."

"You won't stop trying to change the present to bring about your beloved future though, will you?"

"As I said, I was appointed a task. I have no choice."

He frowned slightly. "There is always a choice."

"Not always."

"Then I suppose this makes us enemies."

Apocalypse smiled at him, amusement playing out across her lips. "Charles, I will succeed in preserving the future that happens. There's little point in making enemies of each other. I won't be around long enough for that. As soon as I course correct the present to lead to my future, I will be gone."

"I won't let that future happen," he declared. "I will figure a way to make sure that future never comes to pass."

She genuinely felt curious about this. "What would you do?"

His reply came readily. "Everything I can."

"Afraid I'll stop you if you're more specific with me?" she asked teasingly. She wasn't worried.

"I'll be the one to show both humans and mutants can and will live in harmony. There will be peace. Acceptance of such a new world will certainly take time, but there will be peace."

She took pity on him. He wanted something so badly and it would never happen. Her world was coming further into the light the longer she stood beside him. He merely couldn't see yet, what she would have to show him. There was no point in hoping. Pieces were already clicking into place.

"Oh, Charles, it's that kind of thinking that lost you the world. Some people just shouldn't live, least of all, freely."

At that precise moment he winced, a hand flying to the side of his head. He stroked at the flesh there, as if to ease unseen tension, worry creasing across his forehead. She understood he felt pain, but it was the pain of another. From this distance, it had to be someone he'd recently linked himself with. The blue mutant he'd apparently grown up with was a strong possibility.

"You want to return," she stated it. No sense in pretending she couldn't see what was right in front of her.

"Yes. Take me back now, please."

So polite. Apocalypse took his hand into hers and instead of immediately taking them back to the mansion, she paused to look at him.

"Where are they?"

She watched him draw in a sharp breath, and felt a twinge of something in her gut. It was unrecognizable to her, the feeling inside. Bree held on to his voice and as soon as he identified where he needed to be, she took him there. After watching Charles shaking off the peculiar feel of traveling through time, she took in their surroundings and the green field they were standing in.

"Taking over a small college like this? Hardly sporting. Still, across the ocean in less than a week. That's impressive. Sorry to say, I think your friends fell for a trap and it snapped them right up."

When he stared at the smirk starting to appear on her face, she wiped it clean off. Giving him a little wave, she left him to do whatever he deemed necessary. She had more art to admire and speculate on.

The art was where she'd left it, as was her brother, except he was looking more dour than last she'd laid eyes upon him. His arms were folded across his chest and he was leaning against a support beam. He spotted her immediately when she appeared, and glared at two young women. Two who'd borne witness to a girl appearing out of nowhere, dressed as oddly as the man she'd shown up near. He maintained his steely glare until they scurried away.

"What is it with this guy?"

The question came as soon as she made a show of brushing off imaginary dust from her armored outfit. Brian had determined she was settled well enough in this time to pester. She wasn't going to answer such an inane inquiry, not entirely. She was feeling rather tired right now.

"There's no hot chocolate in our future. There aren't a lot of things in our future."

/

Claremont, New Hampshire

Charles could feel the pain of a guard's back breaking when he was flung into a wall. Flung by a man who could manipulate the metal on his person to do it. He felt the screams and fear deep in his own bones when a red and black blur of a figure swept through a room and tore metal into legs of security officers who had the misfortune of being on the job. He put himself into the first mind he sensed strongest and peered through a young woman's eyes as she cowered behind a desk in a large lecture hall. She stifled a scream when she watched a blonde woman in a tight outfit walk into the room, stare two men in black suits down, and walk out after they shot each other in the arms their guns were clutched in.

They attacked non-lethally as he'd asked, but it didn't make him feel any better. They were terrorizing instead of acting solely with tact, a focus on an objective. Charles zeroed in on the mind of another man that caught his attention. The police had been called by a security officer before he was put down by a bullet to the brain. Before his sight had been lost when the mind he'd been inside died, he'd seen the shooter. Shield. He was nearly precisely at the center of the school building. He was waiting there.

"This was a trap," he murmured to himself.

Shouts came from above. He felt Riptide's mind, a touch of Raven's that had informed him of this in the first place, and he took off running toward the building. He shoved through the front doors and immediately located the staircase leading to the rooftop. Dashing onward, he used his mind to collapse two men in black suits and guns unconscious when they tried to block the staircase. Charles thought curiously that they might be worth a peek inside later. They were dressed like agents. CIA perhaps? FBI? Why were they here? Valid questions for a later opportunity.

He ran out onto the wide roof to see chaos all about him. Raven and Angel were working together to try and get a handle on the woman who kept appearing and disappearing around them. He remembered her as Blink from when Marcus Shield had seen fit to introduce his people to his audience. While the pair of women were working under the illusion the green eyed woman could teleport or move especially fast, Charles could see her ability. She was disappearing, and not always moving, because what she could do was make herself invisible.

Charles tore his gaze to Riptide when the man faltered in his fight with an enormous dark furred wolf, his wind dying down temporarily. He'd been pounced on by the wolf when a man had thrown his mind into chaos. A young man Charles had not seen before. Far as the telepath could tell, his ability appeared to be to project images into someone's head.

"Move!"

Shaw's voice. Caught off guard, his mind was still able to take in the sudden attack as her mind conjured up the idea before physically acting it out. He threw himself down. The woman made of ice, smiled in his direction and then spin kicked Shaw in the chest, felling the man for now. She turned back to him in the next instant. He tried to get inside her mind, to control her, but she was adept at blocking his psychic attack. Someone had definitely trained her well.

"Hello there. Er, don't suppose I could convince you we can work this out by discussing matters?"

She tilted her head at him, as if wondering what ever he could mean by his words. He knew she was Russian-born, but he was also pretty sure she understood English perfectly. This could be done so fast right now if everybody didn't seem to be trained to keep his most abrupt and urgent attacks out, or if they didn't have those vests on. Nobody would be fighting or getting hurt. Where had they gotten such vests anyway? How many were there? How could they be made? If he could study them maybe he could find a way to get through them with his mind.

Her palm was raised above her head, an icicle molding into being in her very hand. It was astonishing. She was able to generate an element out of nothing but her power. Charles wondered how well he was going to be able to avoid the very sharp looking piece. That would hurt. Once again he felt a wave of anger towards Erik for going ahead to the location he'd found for them without him. Sure he'd made them wait a few days before he used Cerebro, but this was stupidity at its finest. What had the metal manipulator been thinking?

"Kings fall."

Charles spun around to face the voice he recognized. Shield had come up the staircase after him sometime in the last minute or so. His ability being so effectively blocked by nearly every one of his enemies of late, he was beginning to feel pretty useless. Still, words he could manage.

"Shield, stop this. What is your aim here?"

"What is yours, Xavier? You're wealthy, and arrogant, and both make you think you can go around telling others what to do. This is not the makings of a leader that will better the world."

Those were rather unkind words. He was guilty of trying to tell people what to do sometimes, most of all with Raven, but it was because he worried and cared the most for her. He comprehended the full gravity of the choices people could make and how those choices affected people around them.

"I-I don't mean to tell people what to do. I mean to help them know how to make smart decisions, for themselves."

"Ah, that's right. You were a teacher, a professor. Am I to expect the professor is going to hurt me? Be a threat?"

The fighting caught his attention briefly as Riptide sent several wind funnels towards the wolf while Shaw slammed the mind assailant of some sort to the ground with a burst of stored energy. He was relieved to see Raven seemed to have picked up on Blink's talent because she communicated to Angel and a couple seconds later his sister was able to swipe her enemy's legs out from under her. The green eyes stopped glowing as her regular green eyes blinked in a bit of a daze from the floor she was now strewn upon.

Shield drew him back in. "You're a rather unimpressive specimen. Though I did read your thesis. You're a bit too clever for your own good. One day, one day someone like you might just get lucky and unsettle my efforts. I can't have that. Kings fall. This is where you fall."

"Not today."

Charles looked along with Shield to find Erik standing in the doorway from the staircase, Emma at his elbow. The unfriendly mutant moved away from the other two as they came further onto the roof, long cape ruffling in the wind. The Reapers having all adopted red and black appearances as their signature, it seemed to him to be a bit too close to the purple armor, cape, and helmet Erik chose to put on as Magneto.

Then again, leaders wanted similar things, didn't they? To be feared. Similarities were inevitable when you were going insane. No. He wouldn't think such things of Erik, no matter what he was possibly becoming.

Shiva's prior bland gaze shifted, part of her mouth stretching upward into a smirk. His attention was solely for her as he watched the single blade of ice atop her palm, grow and contort into a bulky rock shape. She swept herself into a circle with practiced ease, icy dust particles sweeping up into the air around her. Her hands clapped together, the twirl coming to an abrupt halt, ice chunk shaking rapidly. The block of ice shattered into innumerable pieces of sharp, dreadful ice daggers, and flew at them.

Shield, Charles, Erik, and Emma were suddenly in direct and immediate danger. Well, not Shield, who had a body that acted as a shield and had little need to be concerned. Charles yelled for Erik and Emma to get down. It allotted him barely enough time to heed his own warning, dropping down to one knee. He felt cold ice breeze by his hair, and felt like time itself was slowing when he saw he hadn't ducked low enough. Another two pieces were going to pierce him straight through his heart.

In the next moment of awareness, when everything had become normal time just as fast as it had seemed to slow, he was picking himself up off the ground from six yards away. The smell of sulfur wafted in the air about him he noted, as he spotted Azazel pop up again, appearing behind the woman of ice this time. He stabbed her straight through with his blade. When the sword ripped from her side, she crumpled, icy blue form becoming pale flesh, shining blue eyes of frost now dulled and anguished. And naturally all of this happened with her staring directly at him, having been turned in that direction when she was stabbed.

Pain and suffering. Pain and suffering. Charles made sure to keep his mind closed from hers. He'd seen enough of both over the past week. Instead he focused and sought out the statuses of the others, seeking Raven foremost.

He was relieved to find her and Angel unhurt, merely tired from the stalled fight in which she'd been engaged. The man he didn't recognize ran for Shiva, while the wolf looked Smith's way before leaping from the roof. Riptide hurried to the edge to see where Fenrir had gone, but turned back without an idea. Why would one of Smith's people flee? Sensing defeat? It didn't seem probable.

Charles thought he heard the sound of helicopter blades and considered investigating further, but then he saw Shaw. The man was holding a vest of padded armor. His gaze swept across to the side of the roof near the door as well as Shiva, taking in the man he didn't recognize was without a black vest now. Charles took advantage, diving into the mind for first, information, and then control.

A glimpse into the unguarded mind with his defenses lowered informed Charles of a few things. Focus and strength was for his horribly wounded ally, trying to raise her upright. And his name was Jeremy Tallick, a computer programmer and menial life kind of guy until a blonde girl in black armor came to him with the potentiality for something better. Apocalypse was ruining lives, didn't she see? Perhaps that was the point, her aim. Except her frequent meddling of late to prevent him from changing the future had the unfortunate result of repeatedly putting him in the line of fire. Something she claimed not to want. She might seem to know much, but she was still young, and did not understand the magnitude of her choices in this present time.

Charles tried to assume control of the distracted mind, but just as he grasped it, he was cut off. Shield was to blame. He'd moved close to shield his ally with his own power, knowing he was vulnerable to not one, but two telepaths. He continued to be protected until the leader handed over his own vest to the man. Then Shield stared directly at Charles and smiled. His smile was like that of a shark, everything predatory about it. There didn't have to be any mind reading for him to know Marcus knew he had Charles's presence to thank for the lack of fighting in this moment.

A long moment of tense inaction passed, and then Azazel did try to attack. He didn't teleport. Shield shook him off, pushed him back, and pulled a gun to keep him away. Charles felt like all of a sudden every last one of his senses had gone away. The feeling only lasted a couple of heartbeats, and that was long enough for him to feel his power absent. Azazel must have acted out of retaliation for the same thing. The Reaper leader could extend his power outward, and he had, affecting everyone on the rooftop.

Erik was not accepting of this change. His anger was intensifying at an alarming rate. Charles would have to have words with him later about how blind rage could make someone. Like the urge for revenge that had driven him and his top Brotherhood members into this obvious trap. Erik always was determined to handle whatever was thrown at him.

Charles cast a wary eye on Shield, who was closing the distance between them. The gun stayed on Erik, Emma, and Azazel's general vicinity, and so they moved out of the path of Shiva clutching her gaping wound as she was helped by her fellow mutant ally to leave through the door. Before leaving completely, Shiva looked back at Shield, her eyes seeking direct eye contact.

"Give no mercy."

Shield simply nodded, expression unreadable. "It will be as you wish."

The two left, door swinging shut behind them. That left Shield alone with eight enemies. This was a failing trap.

Assuming the invisible woman had actually left the roof, Shield had left himself totally alone. Yes, he'd wiped their powers from them for as long as they were in this close a proximity to him most likely, but pretty shortly this stand-still could turn into a physical brawl. No one liked to feel loss or wounded, and that was what this absence of his telepathy felt like. It was a part of him and to have it feel like it was missing, gone, was simply painful. The odds were greatly stacked against the Reapers' leader, despite the gun in his hand, so why didn't it feel like they'd won this predicament?

"The king is the end game." Shield said, keeping his back to the edge of the roof to better monitor all of them. "Taking the king is the whole point of the game. But in any game, sometimes other pieces must be taken out to ensure victory against the king. I can't lure you from your knights, the higher tier players? That's fine."

Shield flashed him another shark-like smile, leaving Charles deeply disturbed. Nothing compared to how he felt in the next moment.

"The pawns usually go first anyway."