August 19, 1992

"I lost contact," David said.

"What?" Rogue cried.

"I lost contact," David repeated.

He sat down, his eyes wide. He'd seen the monster that had stepped beside Sinister. He breathed in, thinking about everything that he knew about Sinister. He'd been behind bars since David was a child, but one of the acts that had put him there had been the attempted murder of David's mother. He was an insane boogeyman, something that both the X-men and the Brotherhood despised. He was an entity by himself, someone working only for his own means.

Now there was someone that he respected, listened to, took orders from. The idea was a horrible one. On his orders he'd managed to take two X-men, people who had been fighting the good fight for years, people that David had respected, and turned them into his slaves.

David stared at the ground in front of him, his hands digging into his arms. The idea that they were in a 'bad situation' seemed inadequate some how.

"What are we going to do?" Max said.

"Did you see Kurt?" Amanda said.

David continued to stare at the ground.

So now the boogeyman kills your family. What fun!

"David!" Max said.

David looked up.

"I'm thinking," David said.

"You're thinking, great," Max said, "We're all thinking! That thing has my sister!"

David rolled his eyes. Amanda was still looking desperately at him, hoping for some sliver of news. It was making his head pound.

"Did you hear me?" Max asked.

"Yes, he has your sister. And, unfortunately, the rest of your family too," David said.

His words came out harsher than he'd intended. Max took a step back, his face crumbling.

"And my family," David said, "And, not to put too fine a point on it, everyone's family. And no, I didn't see my brother!"

David saw Amanda take a step back, biting her lip. He looked at everyone else. Clarice was barely propped up. Calvin had braced her ribs and put a splint on Boom-Boom's arm. Rogue seemed almost shattered. Terry, who hadn't been able to get there fast enough to aid them, was looking curiously at David. Deadpool stood behind her, waiting.

Sharon was there too, with her hand on Rahne's shoulder. Rahne was supposed to have gone after the group that would have taken Max and Luna to safety. Instead she'd come into the area in time to see the destruction that Apocalypse had left.

He wanted to say something to Sharon. He knew that she was worried about him, and he wanted to go back to a few hours back when he'd been asleep with his arms around her, oblivious to the future.

There was no way to go back in time now. They all wanted him to do something. He had no clue why. He wasn't even an X-man. Terry, she had been an X-man. Calvin and Clarice had been X-men. Why did the responsibility fall to him?

Were they looking at him because who he was? He wasn't his father's son. It hadn't taken him long to figure that out. David wasn't quick to forget or forgive. He had hated his father for years because of a mistake that was no one's fault. David had put his energies into becoming a lawyer, someone who fought with words in safe rooms. He wasn't some general. He didn't know what to do.

He felt an irrational anger. Why did the burden of his family's legacy have to fall on his shoulders? His father had never wanted him to take up his mantle, had never wanted him to live his life embroiled in his war. Why did he have to do it now?

You're just too unstable for it.

David gritted his teeth, trying to take deep breaths. The voices seemed like they were getting louder. For almost two weeks he had enjoyed some respite from them. It had been enough to convince him that he was getting better, that he was doing things for a good reason and a good cause.

He looked at his hands. Although they were empty, it felt as though they were full. For some reason or another, the burden had fallen on him. He had no idea why, but it was his now. He had to do something with it. His whole family was in danger.

Hadn't he just been telling Jean that he wanted to come in and help? Of course, he'd been under the assumption that the X-men would lead him into battle. He didn't really know what he was doing if he was supposed to lead by himself.

He looked at everyone again, trying to be a bit more critical. Clarice was injured. There was no way she would be able to go into battle and, from the stories, she wasn't a tactician. He remembered watching old videos of Danger Room simulations. She was the agile one, the one that slipped through doors and disarmed things. Now she wouldn't be able to perform that function. Apocalypse had broken too many of her ribs.

Calvin was a good man, but he wasn't a tactician either. He had never led the X-men. If the stories about him were true, he'd looked up to Scott with something akin to hero worship. He was good at fighting fights, at being a good man, but he wasn't much of a thinker.

The rest of them were new to this. Sharon hadn't been trained and Rahne was just staying close to her friend. Max was trained but brash. A few hours ago Amanda hadn't even known that her lover had a family full of freedom fighters.

Which brought him to Terry and Deadpool. Deadpool was obviously waiting for someone, probably anyone, to do anything. He wasn't a member of the X-men, and he knew that he wasn't very bright. He also heard voices and was something of a sociopath.

Why was Terry standing there though, looking at him and waiting? She was trained. She'd gone on missions for a long time with her father and the rest. He knew she was bossy, that she had the leadership skills necessary to take charge.

Was it because of her voice? Was she too scared of having to give orders without a voice? David looked at her, trying to figure it out. Could it be her voice? Could it really be holding her back like that?

Terry met his eyes. It wasn't her voice. One look into her eyes told him that. Why then? Why was she passing this burden onto him? He hadn't asked for it, didn't deserve it, wouldn't even be able to carry it.

Yet, she was looking at him. After a moment he realized she was looking at him because she believed he could do it. For whatever reason, she was ceding to him because she thought that he would be better as the leader.

He could almost hear her voice in his head.

You've been scarred, but so have many of us. Maybe it's time you started to think of yourself as the person you could be, rather than the one you see yourself as.

David looked at her, feeling a little scared. What did she see in him that was capable of leadership?

Try to see yourself through the eyes of the people who love you: it's a much better sight than you think.

"Okay," he heard himself say, "Clarice and Calvin, you guys stay back here and make sure that the rest of the students make it to safety. Tell Hank what's going on. I'm not sure what good it will do, but tell him. Boom-Boom, make sure that they have cover."

"Where are you going?" Calvin asked.

"I'm going after Sinister," David said, "And anyone who wants to come is welcome. We should probably invite Piotr too: he seemed to do pretty well in the fight back there. The rest should help guard the students."

Max's face lit up. Rogue looked down at her hands, her expression determined. David saw that Rahne looked apprehensive, but Sharon was giving him a look of admiration. Terry nodded her head slightly.

Calvin shook his head though.

"David, you need people who are trained with you," he said, "Scott had all of the X-men with him, and he still didn't make it. How could you do it with a bunch of kids? You need to at least let us come with you."

"You're injured," David said.

There was a strange clarity in his voice when he spoke. He understood what he needed to do.

"He's not thinking about the students right now, which is why we need to get them out," he said, "But he's going to think about them sooner or later. Likewise, he's not thinking about us. He has the X-men. We're not even the beta team. We'll surprise him."

"It's risky," Clarice said.

"Best type of plan," Deadpool said.

"It's all we've got," David said.

"This is ridiculous," Calvin said, "Most of you are still in your pajamas for goodness sake!"

David shrugged.

"I have some ideas about that," he said, "But I need to know whether or not you're onboard."

Calvin opened his mouth, but Clarice held up a hand. She gave David a long look.

"Do you think that you can pull this off?" she asked.

He had to be honest.

"I don't know," he said, "Maybe."

Clarice put her hand down.

"David, my best friends are trapped in there, people who took me in when no one else would," she said, "They were some of the best soldiers I've ever seen. But they were captured and now you're proposing to lead a team of untrained children in to rescue them. The youngest among you is fifteen, and the oldest is in their mid-twenties."

"I'm older than that lady," Deadpool said.

"I don't count you. You're crazy," Clarice said.

She kept her eyes on David.

"You need to understand that if you go in there and get captured, then it's likely that everyone is going to die," she said, "Calvin and I will try to come after you. We'll even get Hank involved, but that mission would be even more suicidal than this one. Yet you're very confident. Is there something that I should know?"

David fell silent. He could see that Clarice wanted an answer, and it would have to be a good one.

"Right now I'm starting to get the idea that Apocalypse is powerful enough to take down an army," he said, "The only weapons you can have against something like that is surprise. That's all we have, and if we don't act fast, we're going to lose it. Beyond that, we're all a surprise."

He gestured to the rest of the group.

"None of us have fought in a real battle before, so that means that there isn't any real data on us," David said, "They don't know what we're capable of. That's all we have Clarice. It's the only chance we have to rescue our families, because he has all of them."

David breathed in.

"My father always taught us to make our stand," he said, "I have a feeling that Magneto felt the same thing, but they chose to stand at different places. My father stood his ground to protect people. My mother, a human, gave her life to a cause that wasn't her own out of love and compassion. Max's father and his mother, and Sharon's father, and Terry's, they all decided what they wanted the world to be and fought for it. They made a choice to protect the world for as long as they could."

He met her eyes.

"But they can't protect it right now," he said, "And that means that the burden, for good or ill, falls to us. It's time for the next generation to follow up on our legacy."

Clarice continued to look at him, but he saw something different in her eyes. David saw respect there, and he swallowed. It was easy to talk like that, but he knew that it was going to be more difficult to follow through.

"What do you intend to do about the pajamas?" she said at last.

David laughed.

"The Blackbird still carries extra uniforms, doesn't it?" he asked.