Had it been days, months? Scott wasn't certain. All he could remember was an endless routine of rough combat with sticks and renewed bruises, plus those dubious slopped meals. Exhaustion had mingled with every heartbeat, he no longer spoke to the other mutants at night. The hard mattress had swallowed him at first contact for the last few eternities. But today, as the terrible cry of the bell jarred him into consciousness, he sensed something different in the air. An . . . apprehension.

Jean eased out of the bunk over him, her legs impacting almost soundlessly with the floor. Her greeness was mocking. "Come on, get up. What? You can't take the hours already? You've only been here a week."

Scott groaned as he awkwardly rolled off the mattress, "You have got to be kidding. My body is one endless hurt and you say this has only been a week?"

"Oh why, oh why can't you be more like Kurt? Never complains, always up before dawn. What a wonderful man he is . . . or thing, whatever."

Scott straightened and allowed Jean to lead him out into the morning practice area, trailed by Rogue's strongly measured footsteps. Kurt had vanished, but he was an early riser after all and often wandered off alone. Considering he could be halfway across the Keep in an instant, it was generally pretty useless to attempt finding him anyway . . .

The first thing Jean noticed (and thus described to Scott) was the complete absence of practice equipment (hurrah!). The close second was the line of Empire elite stretched across the field in glittering formation. Jean stiffened next to him as she spoke and Rogue let out a low grunt, almost satisfied, but edged with something like fear.

Jean continued to narrate what was going on. Apparently, the man in the center of the Empire line was removing his helmet, only to reveal a distinctly bland face with spectacles, no less. A modest circlet of silver was the only object adorning his head, but, as Jean had been a noble, she was quickly able to surmise that this flaccid looking man was somehow of very high rank. She quietened as that flaccid man began to speak.

"Brave soldiers," he cried, and it was almost impressive, despite the reediness of his voice. "I am Emperor Kelly." Cheers rose from every side, although surely the majority of these people had never seen the man before. Scott certainly hadn't. In a backwash settlement like his, the emperor and his Empire were somewhat substantial and important as the clouds overhead, unless they felt like drafting him. Drat them.

"You have trained hard," the emperor continued, "And the Empire honors you for it, brave soldiers." More cheers. Scott was not impressed. This was fluff. Scott suspected that an identical speech had been given to the enemy troops by their commanders, replacing nations of course. He found himself devising a better one, laced with information that would help soldiers know enough about what they were fighting for to allow for efficient individual decisions . . .

"And now, brave soldiers, you are called forth to battle. Your destinies are within reach." Now he's being poetic. And lightly skipping over the fact that most of these destinies are fatal. However, even as the cynical voice within Scott berated the very shallowness of the words, another part of him rose with andrenaline. It was not so much as he felt suddenly patriotic, but rather that he kept oddly putting himself in Kelly's place and there was the crowd out before him, listening, and . . .

"We fight a foul barbarian race, called the Mutants. They burn as they go. Many southern farms have fallen under their flame. They will pay for those farms with their blood. We will beat them back over their mountains!" The andrenaline chilled . . . reality returned. He was blind and a mutant at that and although he was in the ranks, he had no real place here. Why couldn't the enemies have been the Unicorn Lovers or something else completely unconnected to him? This was just producing annoying internal conflict in his psyche . . . Jean nudged him hard.

"Someone's coming out behind Kelly. I'll bet you anything it's the Mutant."

"My people! There are indeed mutants among us, few, but they do exist. As you have heard, I have chosen one for my advisor--he knows how the enemy thinks and has pledged to help us. This is our Mutant--this is the Spike!"

"Can you belive that? Spike? Who would be pretentious and juvenile enough to give themselves a code name--uh, no offense, Rogue."

Scott paid little attention. The chill was growing worse and he couldn't even amuse himself with the Unicorn Lovers any more.

"We march today! We march now!" The cheers were deafening as the mass of people boiled into ranks and columns, but Scott felt sick and cold. This was, in a sense, no better than what Magneto was doing. Magneto might have killed, yes, but Kelly spoke as if he had neutered the remaining mutants. No longer evil, but rather unintellegent, will-less pets--and still undesirable as a general rule. Like a tame porcupine.

There was Duncan's claim that they was set to be in the front line . . . apparently neutered mutants were not quite safe enough.

Then again . . . Magneto did have to be stopped. If that massive bonfire a week ago had been him . . . then it was probably wise to drive him out before more innocent lives were lost, mutant or human. Yes. That would be Scott's reason to march out there and die . . . not a ridiculous slavering loyalty to Kelly. (That and the fact the draft was compulsory and he didn't have a choice.)

A tap on his shoulder set him whirling fiercely in surprise . . . but it was just the yellow, just Kurt. "Exhilerating speech, wasn't it? All a lead up to getting into formation . . . take one guess as to where we're going to be prodded."

As if Kurt was narrating the story instead of merely bamfing in now and then, something did, in fact, shove Scott forward and forward until the air on his face was cleaner and not tinged with sweat. Front line.

"Crap." he muttered under his breath, as Jean took his arm on one side and Rogue on the other and they began to walk.

--------

They marched until the sun was high and sullen. Clouds slowly roiled over the sky, sending flashes of shadow and light over Scott's body, as the entire horde halted for a morsel of dry bread and tough meat. Scott shuddered at the thought of rain, but sat down on the ground stubbornly, defying the emperor's command not to. One had to exercise one's will one way or another. The other mutants sat next to him--making an odd little lunch group.

"How sweet. The cripple, the troll, the whore . . . heh heh, and the demon monkey."

Yellow hurtled over Scott's head, toward Duncan's voice, and driven as much by mad curiousity as shock, Scott scooted around on his rear, trying to follow Kurt's path through the air and not having much luck. By the time he found the yellow again, Kurt had toppled Duncan with a combination of speed-born momentum and surprise and was now crouched over him, swearing in more slang dialects than Scott cared to know. "Don't you call me that! I'll kill you, you stupid . . . "

Duncan's paralysis had worn off and he was now screaming at the figure on top of him, trying to dislodge the berserking mutant. Jean and Rogue moved in tandem to restrain Kurt (or help him trash Duncan, they weren't decided yet) but at that instant, (so Rogue later told Scott) Kurt leapt off the larger boy, fangs bared and tail (tail?) swishing in a pure expression of animal threat. Actually frightened (and probably not thrilled about facing Rogue again), Duncan had shot one vengeful glace at his "demon monkey," then turned and walked as fast as was dignified in the opposite direction.

Kurt teleported loudly somewhere else, leaving his usual strong reek of brimstone. Rogue returned to sit next to Scott, clicking her tongue ironically. "He's a little sensitive about his appearance. Can't you tell?"

Scott nodded mutely, suddenly eager to march again, for the sake of having something else to think about.

A bugle call answered his desire, but the noise itself broke Scott's thoughts into troubled shards, rather than comforting him at all.

And as the hasty noon camp broke, so did the looming clouds. The burst of moisture was sudden and intense, soaking Scott through his weak layers of cloth, skin, and muscle in a matter of seconds. Sodden hair trickled a steady stream of water underneath his binding cloth and irritated his eyelids. He flipped his bangs in agitation. Jean was moving easily beside him, leading Scott to suspect her feet were not sinking into the muck, which only made his misery worse.

Scott gritted his teeth and yanked his foot out of a particularly troublesome sinkhole, trying not to notice that enviously comfortable Jean. The wind was icy and malicious--Scott had to grit his teeth harder to keep them from chattering. The calvary in front barked an order to slow down, a far-ahead scuffling sound making Scott wonder what exactly was the necessity of this slowing down and hoping very hard they hadn't run into an advance force or something. The wind picked up (although it certainly didn't need to), his trembling became worse, and both Rogue and Jean simultaneously began to make concerned noises. He turned away. Sympathy was the last thing he wanted.

With his next step, Scott descended rapidly into a chest-deep gorge, writhing to the brim with mud. It immediately congealed around the bottom of his rib cage, sucking at his clothing. Oh. So this was why he was supposed to slow down. He groaned with the sheer unfairness of it all, but as standing and philosophizing in the filth wasn't going to get him any where, he began to slog forward. He swerved his head back and forth to catch a glimpse of green or grey or yellow to help him find his direction. Then his footing slipped.

His entire body plunged into the reeking liquid mid-breath, the rankness filling his mouth and nostrils. He thrashed uselessly for a moment before he regained enough of himself to flail for a foot or branch or air bubble or anything--he brushed the hard ground beneath the torren. With panicked strength, he pushed himself upward, and managed to clear the surface, spewing dirt and water from his mouth . . .

And then his body lost its momentum and sunk into the mud again. Even as Scott began to tense for another desperate thrust (one that would hopefully get him on his feet this time), something grabbed at the back of his tunic and yanked him bodily onto solid ground. Scott's head whirled in a fugue too dense to understand what had happened and when enough oxygen seeped into his brain to allow him to think, Jean and Rogue were standing over him.

Wheezing and exhausted, Scott was only able to sputter out a brief thanks before pulling himself slowly upright. The pouring rain seemed to be doing a little to cleanse him--he could feel it in streams down his face, down his back, and into his clothing, his blindfold clinging to his cheekbones with muddy tenacity. And suddenly, he remembered that Kurt's yellow was not among them. This was not unusual, as the mutant was always wandering up and down the ranks, but there was the possibility . . .

There was a loud implosion of air to his right and smoke wafted strongly into his face.

"Oh dear. You're all awfully dirty . . ."

"Kurt, you, you . . . you teleported over?"

"Well, ye-eah."

If Scott had known Kurt's exact position as well as Rogue and Jean, he probably would have joined in the mud-slinging as well. It's cathartic, you know.